TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Your pet peeve tropes

Go To

Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#276: Jan 21st 2024 at 3:22:38 AM

I'm tired of people calling superhero costumes "uniforms".

Do you even know what the word "uniform" actually means??

~*bleh*~
MorningStar1337 The Encounter that ended the Dogma from 🤔 Since: Nov, 2012
The Encounter that ended the Dogma
#277: Jan 21st 2024 at 7:55:43 AM

There are subgenres of superheroes where uniforms are a thing, namely Sentai (and some but not all magical girl shows)

However those are Japanese and are prolly not what you were talking about when you made the post.

I do have a different peeve when it come to avoiding use of the term "costume". As I am annoyed by people referring them as "skins" in gaming contexts where they are for non mechanical entities.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#278: Jan 26th 2024 at 4:31:22 PM

I find Flying Brick type powers to be the most boring ever. I find way more enjoyment out of seeing how characters with "weird" powers use them in creative ways, but most superhero protagonists seem to just be the standard "fly, punch, shoot lasers" type of heroes and I find that to be really unoriginal. Let your protags have the silly powers sometimes, because then they can show off their intelligence and creativity.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
MorningStar1337 The Encounter that ended the Dogma from 🤔 Since: Nov, 2012
The Encounter that ended the Dogma
#279: Jan 26th 2024 at 6:27:50 PM

You're gonna love One Piece thentongue

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#280: Jan 26th 2024 at 6:54:10 PM

Some of the humor isn't my thing, but I'll admit that Luffy's powers are insanely creative and I think that's cool.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
BeautifulEevee Since: Jan, 2023 Relationship Status: A heart full of love
#281: Jan 27th 2024 at 6:22:12 AM

Among my Pet Peeves, there are a lot, such as:

Black morality against either a white or grey one.

Villains suffering an And I Must Scream fate. If they're iredeemable, I prefer them dead or in prison. And even then, I prefer the villain to be sent to prison over them being dead. What I meant is that, to me, an And I Must Scream fate would be too cruel for them.

The modern take on Obviously Evil characters. Sometimes, writers claim they want to revisit classics, but to me, I sense a difference between 90s villains and 2020s Obviously Evil characters. There is also the modern take of Complete Monster that I absolutely despise.

Any gender essentialist trope, such as Females Are More Innocent or Women Are Wiser. Sometimes, female villains even need a Freudian Excuse for their behavior, while male ones don't need any.

I also hate the Take That, Audience! if it's to insult viewers about stuff. In the same vein, there is the “The Reason You Suck” Speech when it's told to the audience (does it have a precise name?).

Rape and Switch if it's to imply that people getting raped by the opposite gender will "become" attracted to their own gender.

Protagonist-Centered Morality, as I consider that a Jerkass is a jerkass, and if necessary, I'll be Rooting for the Empire even if the villains are a darker morality from the progagonist's.

Strawman Ball and its reverse (a character normally prejudiced towards a group of people suddenly becomes friendly towards them for no In-Universe reason at all).

Persecution Flip: sometimes they look like a revenge-fueled Author Tract. Furthermore, prejudiced people will still be prejudiced, even with such stories.

TV Shows or Episodes basing their premises on In the Style of [please insert period] sort of plot, especially if I consider it shallow. Series and movies were much more than the zany elements shallowly depicted. Sometimes they get the zany elements wrong. I hate the excuse of "this scene is bad because scenes like that during the time period were bad too".

I have other pet peeves in fiction, but they're not tropes.

Edited by BeautifulEevee on Jan 27th 2024 at 3:22:32 PM

Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#282: Jan 27th 2024 at 7:10:49 AM

Villains suffering an And I Must Scream fate. If they're iredeemable, I prefer them dead or in prison. And even then, I prefer the villain to be sent to prison over them being dead. What I meant is that, to me, an And I Must Scream fate would be too cruel for them.

Especially if it's because the hero is too much of a coward or a moralizer to kill the villain (which is also a trope i hate a lot), as if that's somehow morally better.

~*bleh*~
Trainbarrel The Story Supporter from The Star Ocean Since: Jun, 2023 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
The Story Supporter
#283: Jan 27th 2024 at 7:54:51 AM

I personally do not mind the And I Must Scream trope if the person suffering it brought it down upon themselves and no one else did it to them.

Especially if they are villains.

That is called "karma".

Funnily enough, the religion it came from, Buddhism, very much fits the And I Must Scream trope in form of its Hells, since a sentence there is so long that the whole universe might have burned out into nothingness all together before you have served that sentence that got you there.

Especially if there's several sentences stacked upon each other.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Jan 27th 2024 at 4:59:42 PM

"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."
Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#284: Jan 27th 2024 at 9:06:59 AM

[up]

I have no objections to the torture, but the fake moral superiority.

~*bleh*~
BeautifulEevee Since: Jan, 2023 Relationship Status: A heart full of love
#285: Jan 27th 2024 at 1:07:55 PM

Actually, while I don’t completely dislike Black and Grey Moralities. I prefer that over a Black and White one whenever there are classical villains.

A classical villain doesn’t bother me as long as the "good side" is morally ambiguous.

Edited by BeautifulEevee on Jan 28th 2024 at 10:21:58 AM

Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#286: Jan 28th 2024 at 5:32:09 AM

I hate the way Three Laws of Robotics are used these days. Asimov invented them for writing reasons, and now other writers are shoehorning them everywhere and treating them like they're the bible or something.

Even sentient robots and AI have them in some fiction. They're forced to obey any human, die for any human, and might be unable to defend themselves against a human. If that doesn't sound unethical, imagine if a human was forced via some kind of brainwashing to follow similiar rules. Not so cool all of a sudden, is it?

I feel it also ties into the general depiction of sentient robots and AI in fiction; they have to be subservient to humans and be willing to die for them (perhaps without being forced) because human lives matter more for some reason, or they're scary and evil.

~*bleh*~
CrownlessMimic N Corp. E.G.O::Contempt, Awe from The City (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
N Corp. E.G.O::Contempt, Awe
#287: Jan 28th 2024 at 3:10:08 PM

[up] Reminds me how this got brought up in VA-11 HALL-A in one conversation. One of the Lilim clientele mentioned how bullshit they were and were glad they got abolished a hundred or so years ago. The main character directly brings up Asimov's three laws and how people took to mindlessly following the distilled versions for the real deal.

Be awed. Or be awestruck. This is the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
BeautifulEevee Since: Jan, 2023 Relationship Status: A heart full of love
#288: Jan 31st 2024 at 2:57:00 AM

I actually just hate the extremely binary Black-and-White Morality. I prefer either Grey And White Morality or Black-and-Grey Morality if there is even a morality extreme.

I also hate Revenge Is Sweet, "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop, Asshole Victim and Humans Are the Real Monsters.

While I'm all for representation, I have a problem with Black Vikings, especially if it's proven that there wasn't any people of a given ethnicity in a given place in a given time. However, I'm perfectly all for proven ethnical diversity in Period Pieces.

Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#289: Jan 31st 2024 at 3:54:01 AM

Everybody believes the historical Europe whiter than it was, thanks to movies in general and Hollywood in particular. This is an entire other pet peeve of mine.

Merchants and especially sailors traveled all over the world (big port cities like London have always been very diverse); vikings, romans, etc. brought slaves home with them (and the vikings went to North America and had peaceful relations with the natives for a while, but idk if they abducted natives); Rome and Greece were right next to Africa and the Middle East; Egypt was in Africa so there were propably other people in there besides the north coasters; and some people probably traveled to bigger, more developed places like Rome in search of fortune. The romans spread pretty far out, and i remember that some years ago people found a black roman soldier's grave around the Hadrian wall. The colonial powers also had their colonies pretty early, and Britain for example has had indian people living there for quite a while. And France has had black people living there for a long time too, including during the revolution. And despite almost all movie cowboys being white, most real cowboys were latino, black, or native. And Weimar Germany had chinese communities (and some black people, too). Not to mention Europe's own minority groups, like the sami, the inuit, and the romani.

I remember a guy on reddit who was completely convinced that European historical fiction can't have POC "front and centre" (ie. as protagonists) for... some reason, even though the guy was admitting they existed. He also applied this to fantasy set in fictional Europe analogues despite them not being about real history. He even claimed that a black person could only ever be in Rome as a slave, and specifically never a soldier or a military leader (despite the aforementioned soldier, and the propably fictionalized story of one saint whose name i forgot).

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 31st 2024 at 2:42:19 PM

~*bleh*~
Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#290: Jan 31st 2024 at 5:26:33 AM

Also how in practically every scifi story, genetically altering already born people affecting them and not their descendants.

And clones always looking like photocopies of their genetic source, while cloning is actually more like having a child with yourself.

Not to mention writers liking to make Opposite Sex Clones but insisting they're both totally cis, despite clones always being the same sex as their source (similiarly, identical twins are always same sex because they're, well, identical). In both clone and twin cases it would be so easy to just say the other one is trans (instead of cloners adding/removing chromosomes for some weird-ass reasons that are never explained).

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 31st 2024 at 3:37:23 PM

~*bleh*~
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#291: Jan 31st 2024 at 6:12:16 AM

To be fair, modifying the genome of an already born person does not automatically extend to its progeny. In fact, in Real Life ethics there is the strong suggestion that you specifically not do that.

That said, many fictional genetic modifications would be grossly impractical, highly risky (specially Healing Factor like things) or flat out unfeasible when carried out on anything more developed than the morula. These changes would definitively get passed on and many fictional settings tend to skip over these problems.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#292: Jan 31st 2024 at 6:32:00 AM

[up]

It's even weirder when the offspring of such a character doesn't inherit anything.

~*bleh*~
Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#293: Jan 31st 2024 at 7:07:00 AM

[up]x5 I'm curious as to why you don't like the "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop In my experience, ignoring anger is generally not good for you, and there are plenty of times when anger is warranted.

Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#294: Jan 31st 2024 at 8:08:50 AM

I, on the other hand, hate works that demonize revenge and justice.

~*bleh*~
MorningStar1337 The Encounter that ended the Dogma from 🤔 Since: Nov, 2012
The Encounter that ended the Dogma
#295: Jan 31st 2024 at 8:23:52 AM

Revenge I kinda get, but there are works that demonize justice? (Besides maybe Ayn Rand's bibliography I guess?)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 31st 2024 at 8:24:01 AM

Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#296: Jan 31st 2024 at 8:27:52 AM

[up]

It's all over the place in works that practice If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him! and other places which are convinced that violence is always wrong.

~*bleh*~
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#297: Jan 31st 2024 at 8:43:31 AM

I agree. I don't hate it as much if it's a quirk of the hero, but if it's portrayed as objectively wrong I feel it's bad sometimes. Obviously it can be wrong but sometimes you just have to think of the greater good. Some villains can't be stopped by other means.

I had a conversation with my boyfriend recently about how, though I get the point of Joker Immunity, I also feel like Batman as a character is stupid for it. Same thing with The Doctor and many of their recurring foes.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 31st 2024 at 11:45:05 AM

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#298: Jan 31st 2024 at 8:49:44 AM

My answer: "No, not all killings are equal" <Kills>

But yeah, I hold to the Violence Really Is the Answer trope in my stories - sometimes, you really need to break into a house and stab someone in the neck. Call it the Lesson from Ukraine, although if memory serves I held this view for years.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Jan 31st 2024 at 5:51:05 PM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
BeautifulEevee Since: Jan, 2023 Relationship Status: A heart full of love
#299: Jan 31st 2024 at 11:38:09 PM

Actually, I don't hate "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop that much. It's just that anger may lead to revenge. I hate the revenge tropes when this plot device is treated positively, because I have a hard time relating to such characters. I myself am grudgeless and without resentment towards anyone. So, for example, I have a hard time relating to Onryo-inspired characters.

CrownlessMimic N Corp. E.G.O::Contempt, Awe from The City (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
N Corp. E.G.O::Contempt, Awe
#300: Feb 1st 2024 at 12:01:48 AM

There's an interesting discussion about how one can tackle themes of revenge in works but as I mentioned in this thread earlier that's all undercut by the binary way in which people take it. Either revenge is the work of the devil incarnate or the magic ticket to solving all your worldly problems. That's the vibe I get anyway.

Be awed. Or be awestruck. This is the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary.

Total posts: 1,757
Top