Small things that really annoy you in media

[PrettySneakyCis]

Also that one scene in the first TMNT movie where Michelangelo and that one foot soldier showed off their Nunchaku moves, Michelangelo's final is to just.... twirl one end around, and that somehow impresses the guy enough to run. Like, I could do that. Why is that hard or impressive? What did I miss?

Wasn't he spinning the chucks around horizontally using the tip of his finger as a central pivot point? Just checked. Yup.

Keep practicing.

 

[skykiii]

Wasn't he spinning the chucks around horizontally using the tip of his finger as a central pivot point? Just checked. Yup.
View attachment 7595712
Keep practicing.

Ahh, yeah, for some reason I mistook his finger for just him holding one end. My bad eyesight.

 

[Colon capital V]

When a character is speaking through a screen on their watch or something and you can visibly see their whole body on the other side of the caller.
It's such an autistic little nitpick, but one that I can't not notice once I see it.

 

[Shakira Flabbergasted]

When a writer can't decide if their high fantasy universe is an enlightened progressive utopia with equal rights or a misogynist hellscape. If you're going to make 75% of the guards, soldiers, mercenaries, rulers, politicians, etc. in your series female, but then tell us that women in this universe can't inherit property and it's legal for their husbands to beat them, I'm losing my ability to suspend my disbelief.

 

[Jhonson the Two]

Characters talking to themselves out loud (to explain us stuff because fuck the 4th wall).

 

[Grub]

On TV, it's a matter of the show being filmed in one place while being set in another, and it's just some small feature, like the shape of the street signs or public transit that's the wrong color. Maybe not as insulting as a lack of research, but the locals get their willing suspension of disbelief yanked out from under them

This used to happen constantly to me because a fuck load of things used to be filmed in Vancouver but would be set in San Francisco or some other American city but it would always be very obvious to me that it was filmed in Vancouver. I still remember one scene from that old TV show Sliders that shows the Golden Gate Bridge but it's very obviously a badly edited shot of the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver. You could see Stanley Park and North Van pretty clearly on either side. They just digitally altered the colour of the bridge and added another set of pylons onto it.

That and the movie Freddie Got Fingered stood out. At one point he's running from someone and runs into what is actually Lougheed Mall in Burnaby and then runs out where the old bus stop was supposed to be but instead of there being a bus stop he comes out to some farm fields that look like they're somewhere in Coquitlam or Chilliwack. I don't remember anything about that movie at all but I still remember that scene because it was so surreal seeing those places but edited to look like it was in a totally different location. I think it was my first time ever really noticing something that blatant with location editing.

 

[Paper Machete]

All the characters in a period show having to have the same checklist of modern day progressive ideals so that the audience doesn't feel too icky relating to or enjoying them as characters. This is especially blatant in anything made in the last 10 or so years, obviously.

 

[Cherry Milk]

Nit picky but, in historical dramas they often use the wrong horse tack for that period, or have a horse that's clearly lame. Or they use an actor that's never sat on a horse before, playing some medieval king.

 

[Neodanthril]

The example that made me start the thread is whenever there is a currency in a work, but you never get a straight answer about its value

Jew moment.

Thread tax: bad audio mixing, especially when there is loud music/sound effects and whisper quiet dialogue

 

[Cave Fisher]

It bothers me when in animated media, a character, often a main one, has a voice that doesn't even remotely fit their appearance or personality, and it turns out the reason why is because their voice actor is some expensive big name I've never heard of who's just talking in their natural voice. It's especially annoying when I actually DO recognize their voice, and a show like Invincible will have a character with a whole episode focused on them who delivers his every fucking line with the exact same "HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS" cadence of Jesse Pinkman, making being immersed impossible.

 

[FiveStarAce]

When it's a fantasy setting and everybody is talking in that fake as fuck british accent, you know the one.

Oh, and when characters compliment each other after they did something cool. We went almost 100 years of movie history without this shit and then came the millenial writers. Also, millenial writing.

 

[The greater a'tuin]

When TV shows or movies include an unnecessary, androgynous character.

I don't know why anime is infested with this bullshit.

 

[The Last Stand]

Instrumental stings included in scenes, especially from the Golden Age of Hollywood movies. They’re supposed to set the tone, but they’re pace breaking IMHO.

 

[Haffhart]

When it's a fantasy setting and everybody is talking in that fake as fuck british accent, you know the one.

Ironically, an Irish accent sprinkled with archaisms would fit a fantasy setting better, because that's what Middle and Early Modern English sounded like. The British accent is only like 150 years old (though it was NOT invented, it arose naturally but recently compared to American and Irish).

So yeah as a linguistics geek seeing Tudor era figures speaking in BBC English as "le fancy old accent" breaks my immersion.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Gamification in anime is pretty bad, though it might go above minor. Everything is Dragon Quest, including terminology and mindset, it absolutely butchers world building.

 

[The Last Stand]

Reboots where they name them exactly the same as the original/first installment. That can get confusing.

 

[souschef]

When someone brandishes a gun and it makes all sort of noises like there's a bunch of loose parts inside

 

[skykiii]

Gamification in anime is pretty bad, though it might go above minor. Everything is Dragon Quest, including terminology and mindset, it absolutely butchers world building.

Yeah I've noticed this, like in fantasy anime they literally act like people "level up" like in a video game.

This kind of stuff is acceptable in something like Slayers (which is meant to be a comedy) or also maybe in .hack//SIGN (which is literally about people playing an MMO with the twist that one of the characters is actually in the game physically)... but when I read a title like "Power Levelling in Another World" but absolutely nothing in the description indicates the story is either a comedy or set in a literal game world, its just dumb to have it play by game rules.

...... While we're talking about this shit though, in fantasy settings I hate how basically every character is magical now. You see it in Dungeons & Dragons ever since 3rd Edition, where even a standard fighter has some sort of "Fighter powers" that are basically magic but we'll pretend it isn't. I know the Diablo games do something similar where fighters get some extra powerful attack they can do on command, though at least it kinda makes sense for a literal computer game.

...... Another one specific to anime: nobody ever sneak attacks. Whenever they see an opportunity, they will openly shout "AN OPENING!" then attack, and of course get blocked. This can make sense in martial arts anime where you might assume some sort of honor code is in play, but in most cases its stupid.

When someone brandishes a gun and it makes all sort of noises like there's a bunch of loose parts inside

On that note, do movies still do the "holding the gun sideways" thing?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

.... While we're talking about this shit though, in fantasy settings I hate how basically every character is magical now. You see it in Dungeons & Dragons ever since 3rd Edition, where even a standard fighter has some sort of "Fighter powers" that are basically magic but we'll pretend it isn't. I know the Diablo games do something similar where fighters get some extra powerful attack they can do on command, though at least it kinda makes sense for a literal computer game.

Tbf, the alternative is to have some classes be limited in actions like previous editions. It's worse that there are too many magical races nowadays, and they are a magnet for the worse kind of people.

 

[skykiii]

Tbf, the alternative is to have some classes be limited in actions like previous editions. It's worse that there are too many magical races nowadays, and they are a magnet for the worse kind of people.

Admittedly I can't speak much for the tabletop experience, I just know it seems to have seeped into general fantasy storytelling where everyone is magic and now every battle comes down to "everyone spams their beamz."

Like, say what you will about that D&D cartoon from the 1980s.... they at least had to use some actual tactical teamwork and not just run in screaming and shooting wildly.

...............

Unrelated: a Japan-specific thing I've been noticing. I've seen a lot of anime, games, etc. where at some point, the characters are on a bridge or in an airplane or whatever, and it gets taken out, or for whatever reason they start falling....

.... And the women in the group, while falling, their first instinct will be to hold their skirts down.

Like... bitch you're falling, presumably to your death, and seriously the first thing on your mind is "oh no people might see my undies!"?

It's not even a censorship thing because I've seen it happen in OVAs that are shameless, so I don't even know what the fuck this compulsion is. Just saying, I can't imagine being so fucked up that you care more about modesty than you do about imminent death.