Movies and TV Shows

When the driver of a car is looking more at the passenger they’re talking to than the road. Probably a dead giveaway that the scene is shot with green screen or the car being towed on the back of a truck.

Hearing the exact wrong part of the conversation, and then making a horrific assumption and spinning off into zany misunderstandings instead of, just, "Hey, what did I just hear?"

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.

Whenever the plot entirely revolves on avoidable misunderstandings from character that nothing in the story prevents from having a clarifying chat. It's weak storytelling.

Also whenever the characters don't react to enormous thing A because advancing the story requires them to immediately ask about thing B.

Lastly whenever you end up screaming at the tv "you have enough clues to call for backup" or "enough reason to worry to call 911" yet they proceed alone. Bad writing.

Idiot balling. If your plot hinges on everyone suddenly being incompetent af, having the emotional maturity of a hamster or leaving out key details without reason, you fucking suck at writing

The expert who somehow knows all things science and engineering, like they're all just basically the same. Just once I'd like to hear, "I'm an astrophysicist, not a cybersecurity expert. I don't have the first clue where to begin hacking any computer, let alone an alien one that I've never seen before."

Bonus points if the characters have to look for a different solution due to their lack of on-hand expertise in a particular area.

I despise the “flashback to a thing that literally happened five minutes ago to make sure you connect that with whatever just happened/is about to happen.”

Total fucking turnoff. I’m here watching the show and I’m not an idiot. Flashback to something last season or a number of episodes ago? Fine. Some people need a reminder. Within the same episode? GTFO of here with that shit.

I’m pretty tired of the sanctity of life trope. Especially when the hero kills a thousand henchmen to get to the villain, and then all of the sudden decides it would be wrong to kill a guy who is trying to destroy the world or whatever.

Also the hostage trope where they point a gun at someone and say “drop your gun” and the hero does so. How fucking stupid are you? Just shoot the guy in the face.

Also major injuries that take a year to recover from, but somehow Mr. Average guy is running around and fighting 2 minutes later.

Some romance tropes.

People doing creepy things and it being portrayed as romantic. Like stalking, or not taking no for an answer.

Love triangles. I spend a lot of time with polyamorous people, and would like to see more representation. and not like "a cishet monogamous person's idea". But even if you are monogamous, you can date different people for a bit before going all in on someone.

"The mentor/parent has to die so that the hero can prove they're self-actualized" or whatever. It's okay for your hero to have living parents, even if their parents are also heroes. I promise your story won't be less interesting if your character's mentor figure survives.

Lazy villain characterization. Someone dresses in black or snarls a lot or is albino or has some physical marker that makes them different from others, therefore they are the villain.

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.

Cliffhangers are getting out of control. It used to be that a movie or season would end by wrapping up the story and maybe throw a little teaser in at the end for next season. That's fine. But it seems like now they just try to stretch out a story or plot for as long as humanly possible.

It has gotten to the point where I will not watch a show until I either know it doesn't end in a major cliffhanger or the next season is being filmed. Not confirmed, but actively in production.

A good example is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. I'm still mad about that ending, even more so with the next movie being delayed.

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.

When there's a breakfast table full of food but the protagonist is running late so they only take a bite of toast and then leaves.

The comic relief only character.
No they're not funny, you can't write.

When a story starts to bring in prophecy as part of the writing. As soon as a character does something "because the prophecy speaks of...", I feel that the writers ran out of plausible ideas and use that as a cheap crutch.

Battlestar Galactica was a great show, but they should've skipped that part.

Personally I’m super disinterested in plotlines that suddenly shift and have the main female character desperate to reproduce, or happy about falling pregnant unexpectedly, even, perhaps especially, when it’s wildly out of character for her badass self as she’s written, or makes no sense at all given the circumstances.

So obnoxious and overdone. And so very very lazy, because it’s almost never well-written, it’s just pandering nonsense. I straight up stop watching shows that pull that shit.

Nonsensical or thoroughly debunked technobabble. The most annoying for me is faster than light communication via quantum entangled particles. Yes entangled particles will change each other's state faster than light but this effect CANNOT be used to send information of any kind. At all. Ever. This has been known since engagement was first discovered but Hollywood is always like "I'm just going to ignore that second part." I don't even have anything against ftl comms or any other physics breaking things, just use an explanation that isn't literally impossible and well known why it's impossible for God's sake.

Picking a lock with just one pick. That's not how it works, you need one to apply a rotating force and another one to lift the individual pins. Sometimes shows even get it right in one season and then totally blow it in the next one.

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.

When there is a computer problem and they call some guy who presses like two keys and fixes it. Or when they type really fast and click a lot of things and then it fixes it.

Because of Hollywood way too many people believe that’s how you actually fix a computer or technology, and then when your boss sees you not clicking or typing that fast, your boss thinks you’re an idiot and don’t know what you’re doing. Thank you, Hollywood for brainwashing people.

I despise it when a character has had a long arch proving their worthy of what they do, and then it turns out late in the game they're a chosen one or some shit. If you've been successfully fighting monsters for 15 books, going from a moderate combatant to a super mega awesome fucking wizard who wipes out an entire fucking species to save someone then you have proved your badass monster fighting chops, and you don't need to be the chosen one. What made you awesome is that you were a (mostly) normal dude who became amazing through hard work and sacrifice. Now you're just someone the gods chose or whatever and it completely ruins the entire concept of what the character was.

Two of my absolute favorite series of all time just recently did this, and I am devastated.

Chefs and cooks scattering as a fight is taking place in the kitchen.

Good people listen: this is a small containment of probably tired, most likely angry, and definitely hungover professionals (armed with a variety of sharp, stabby instruments) that are working their ass off on deadlines... YOU DID NOT JUST KNOCK OVER MY TRAY OF 700 PETIT FOURS FOR TONIGHTS RECEPTION!!!

MOTHER! FUCKER! Would most likely be followed by a royal (icing) ass kicking.

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

I think monster should have rules. Zombies aren't fast, there's just so many they over take you. Dracula dies from a stake through the heart, and the Wolfman dies from a silver bullet

How every injury requires blood to be spit up.

"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

Coffee/drink cups that have nothing in them. At least put water in them so they don't look obviously empty. Lol

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.

When the protagonist isn't actually doing anything or making any decisions, but mostly reacting to events that happen.

Guns. Fuck me.

Guns don't blow the user backwards, unless it's a truly monster rifle fired from a standing position, and they certainly don't blow the bullet recipient backwards. The first cowboy movies showed people dropping straight down when shot and audiences thought that unrealistic. Yes, that's realistic and, I think, far more horrifying seeing someone's strings cut. There's a finality that showcases how deadly guns can be.

Rattly guns. Jesus. Guns don't rattle you Nimrods. They might make tiny sounds here and there, but Hollywood guns sound like they left out some screws or pins after assembly. I have a Colt .45, a somewhat loosey-goosey design, can't hardly get a sound even shaking the shit out of it. You can punt about any modern gun and not hear metal on metal.

Constantly cocking, racking, charging. Look! Here's our super badass who's been in danger the last 20-minutes, and he's just now chambering a round?! Or, Mr. Badass has to charge his weapon, kicking out a perfectly good round, to show he means business! And if it didn't eject an unspent round? Action hero was running around with an unloaded weapon. What's funny is that a real badass would fire all but the last round and then swap magazines. No charging required! Yes, that's way harder than it sounds.

I'm sure it been said already but:

The villain who wanted to change society for the better but took it too far (which invariably involves just doing something randomly evil with the implication that their criticisms are now invalidated)

Rightful heirs and similar shit. I hate this monarchist propaganda with a passion.

Not quite a pet peeve, but close. The whole "We're not in a (movie/show/game/whatever)!" type of dialogue.

That, or cliffhangers that will never be resolved due to the show/movie either being cancelled, discontinued, whatever. Looking at you, Sliders season 5 ending!