I’ll go first. Mine is the instant knockout drug. Like Dexter’s intramuscular injection that causes someone to immediately lose consciousness. Or in the movie Split where there’s the aerosol spray in your face that makes you instantly unconscious. Or pretty much any time someone uses chloroform.
When they are kissing right after waking up with that morning breath.
Fridging, it’s just plain lazy.
Die off-screen? Definitely alive and will show up the next act.
Bullshit happy endings.
The bad guy that is omniscient and omnipresent. Everywhere you go, oops! There’s the bad guy and he totally kicks your ass and ruins your plans.
We call it Neganing. He’s the reason I eventually stopped watching the Walking Dead.
Or like Sylar (from Heroes), where the writers find a baddie they just love too much to kill so the whole show becomes about them.
Knights getting stabbed with swords through plate armor.
We’re re-watching GoT and were at the Brienne/Jaime fight on the bridge, and I was just yelling at the screen. He’s in rags and she’s in plate, both wielding swords, he doesn’t have a snowballs’ chance in hell if she protects her head and just tackles him. That’s what the fucking armor is for! Coincidentally that also would be way more likely to achieve her goal to subdue but not hurt him.
In the opening sequence of Final Fantasy XII, two separate characters get stabbed through the “stylish” gaps in their armor… and somehow this doesn’t prompt anyone else to reconsider their armor choices.
IIRC, neither was wearing armor in the book, but it’s been a while so I may be wrong.
And the book at least talks about aiming for the gaps in the armor.
When the protagonist isn’t actually doing anything or making any decisions, but mostly reacting to events that happen.
So it goes.
Movies that need to exposition dump to tell the audience what’s going on. This isn’t radio. If you need to explain everything to me so I can understand what’s going on in the plot, it’s bad story telling. Show, don’t tell.
Writers just toss in some jarringly unrealistic dialogue that people never say IRL to establish characters are siblings.
I heard Outlander is great, but I can’t get past the second episode because the narration pissed me off.
Okay, I get it, it’s based off a novel, but if you’re inserting a monologue to explain what just happened, or foreshadowing what is about to happen, you can just fuck off.
“Little did I know, this blunder would cost me everything” fuck off
Watch Mad Max Fury Road “theatrical” release then watch the original or director’s cut. I watched the original in theaters the day the movie came out and loved it! But I rewatched it on streaming and thought I was going crazy with the Tom Hardy narration they added in the begin and end. I was like, was that added between the time I watched in theater and now? Looked it up and the production company forced them to add the narration a couple weeks into the release. Apparently an executive couldn’t follow the story without Max telling him. Shows that the people in charge don’t always know what’s best.
The what the what now? Never even heard of this and I’ve watched Fury Road a lot.
So there are three versions. Original, directors cut, and theatrical (has the narrations)
“Here, I got you this gift.” Hands wrapped gift to the recipient. Recipient: “What is it?”
Motherfucker I swear every movie character does this. It’s like they’ve never received a gift before what the hell
I do this irl
I think your writers are on strike
When you do this, what do people say? Do they say “Open it!” or do they ever tell you what it is?
What is the point of wrapping the gift if you’re just going to tell the person what’s inside?
I don’t like the expectations around gifts in my culture, I don’t like surprises, i despise consumerism, I am a minimalist, and I don’t like gifts being wrapped. My friends know this.
Usually my response when someone hands me a wrapped gift is to frown and ask what it is and why they got it for me. The feeling is usually “damn it. How many wage slaves suffered for this thing?” And “ugh, now I have something else that I have to lug around and figure out how to find it a new home where it won’t end up in a landfill”
If they want to give me something nice (eg cook me dinner or hand me a flower), its appreciated. But not on some strange cultural expectation or wrapped in a dead tree or uncompostable plastic single use trash.
People getting shot with a shitty handgun and they’re dead as soon as they hit the ground. Even if its a fatal shot, chances are quite high you’re going to die minutes or hours or days later if you make it to a hospital.
People hiding behind cars from bullets. Bullets being shot at the car and somehow not hitting them. Only the engine block could stop most bullets.
Normalization of the protagonist using violence before any attempt of diplomacy, without the narrative condemning this action
Star Trek is awful for this, but this conversation:
Subject Matter Expert: Oh no, the defences are down
Captain: How long do you need to fix them?
SME: Two hours
Captain: You have one
No, motherfucker, the person that you fucking PAY for their expertise on this very subject said it would take two hours!
Management is full of these cunts that think they can just dictate a timeline and have people that actually know their shit dance to their tune.
Hate to be that guy, but the federation exists in a post-money society. No one gets paid, they do what they do for prestige, pride, adventure, and the good of humanity. Maybe the management believe they can inspire their minions to do better, or maybe the SME’s are so used to that shit that they under promise and over deliver.
SME: “oh no, our defences are down” Captain: “How long do you need to fix them?” SME: (hmm, captain will cut the time in half, it takes about 15 minutes…fuck it…) “Two hours” Captain: “You have one” SME: (Like candy from a baby)
Scotty literally talks about under promising intentionally so he comes across as a miracle worker.
Cue Scotty, Mr “miracle worker”, quadrupling his estimates:
And later, Torres explicitely not doing that.
“Okay so the installer says it’s got nine minutes left, so this step should take about three or four minutes”
But also if you know anything about engineering, it’s double your expected timeline just in case Shit Happens™️. I can fairly safely predict delivery in two hours. I might be able to deliver in one. Under-promise and over-deliver, or risk vice versa.
I always 7x. Especially if I’m dependent on others
Honestly this happens a lot. Generally people give estimates reflecting other responsibilities when cutting time is possible
Explosive decompression in space. It seems to always last forever, suck EVERYTHING out, even if it’s a tiny hole through which a giant xenomorph is liquified. The delta P is like one atmosphere, pathetic really.
Then there’s noise in space.
I have two.
When a woman’s child is threatened she goes stupid and hysterical. Like in Lost when she just keeps screaming “my baby!”. Yes parents get highly motivated when their child is in danger but they don’t get stupid and lose agency.
In any setting where rope would be rare and expensive and they just cut the bonds instead of untying them. It’s understandable when time is critical like a prisoner break or the building is on fire. But in a society where someone spent a week making that rope and you just cut it instead of taking 5 min to preserve the rope.
How many shows are you watching which have rope shortening?
Is that not how chloroform works?
According to Quora it takes 5 minutes, with a willing participant.
Anaesthesia that’s injected right before an operation can knock you out in about 30 seconds (and until then you could still struggle, technically speaking), but that’s a thick-ass tube of drugs they’re pumping inside of you. Some vapours from a rag is going to do jack shit.
5 minutes of inhalation