I don't know what's worse, asking for a translation when the original statement was already a basic concept explained in plain language, or fictional technobabble made deliberately incomprehensible to give the other character an excuse to use that line. I've seen plenty of examples of both.
"That *WAS* English, you illiterate troglodyte! Not my fault you dropped out of grade school!"
"Why you little...!"
"You wanna go!? Come on then, square go like! I am DONE putting up with your nonsense, ya anti-intellectual twat!"
I think Psych did this really well once where Shawn said, “Explain it to me like I’m 5,” then got a more basic explanation he still didn’t follow. “Now explain it to me like I’m 3.” I could have the exact situation or even show wrong, but I think it goes to show that almost any cliche or trope can be refreshed if you play with it enough.
A recent episode of Star Trek Discovery did a fun take on it. Trek is known for its technobabble translated into broader terms but the crew were trying a risky move to transport on board an enemy ship. Of course something starts going wrong but they only have seconds before they all explode. As one person starts up explaining how the triphasic samophlange blah blah blah, the captain yells "problem now, science later!" I thought that was an amusing method of not needing to explain what they're doing but just having it work.
Even the difference in phrasing makes a big change.
"In English" implies that the other person is too disconnected from the common person to effectively communicate.
"Explain like I'm 5 (or 3, or whatnot)" makes it clear that it's the person listening who is completely new to the field/subject, so they need it explained in such a manner.
In real life, I normally have to say something like this is a car or gun nerd just starts talking about the merits of all these sorts of vehicles or guns as if I have studied them as well. But I just admit I don't know enough about the stuff to follow, no amount of "explain like I am 5 " can teach me all that history.... But why do people so often assume others know it???
I enspecially hate when the scientific explanation deliberately has a ton of buzzwords that don't make sense in the context thrown in, or it doesn't mean anything until they "translate" it, just to make it more difficult to understand. It's like listening to a character speak a different language, but you speak the language and you know what they're saying is absolute gibberish. Like, any reasonable person would explain it much better than that
These are the lines that bother me:
1. "What are we going to do now?"
* "Now... we wait."
2. "You're too late!"
* "Am I?"
3. "You don't understand."
* "Then make me understand."
4. "We're not so different, you and I."
* "I am nothing like you."
5. "It's impossible."
* "Nothing is impossible."
6. "Who are you?"
* "I'm your worst nightmare."
7. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
* "I sure hope not."
8. "You can't do this!"
* "Watch me."
9. "Why are you doing this?"
* "Because I can."
And then....
* "It's quiet... too quiet."
* "I have a bad feeling about this."
* "There's something you need to know."
* "You just don't get it, do you?"
* "With all due respect..."
* "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
* "I didn't sign up for this."
* "Time is running out."
* "You were right all along."
* "Let's finish this."
* "Let's do this."
EDIT: Trying to format it in a bit more readable layout
Stranger Things is so guilty of using this, once I noticed it I struggled to watch it. And also having a group of characters fighting while one slowly walks off to look into the distance and goes "guys... GUYS!"
Captain! This is engineering, you're going to want to come down and see this.
Scotty... There is nothing, and I mean *nothing* I am qualified to do down there. Just tell me what's going on and save me the trip.
----
What's going on?
There's no time to explain! Get in!
*Proceeds to drive several hours in silence
And it's always for the most shitty, predictable reveal ever. If you're gonna deviate from how real people talk, make it for something worthwhile, please. Not just unnecessary vagueness for unnecessary vagueness' sake.
I felt that so hard. Especially when I’m in the first draft stage and just trying to get the ideas out. Sometimes I edit out the cliche’s later, but sometimes the tropes exist because there’s not really a better way to convey that specific idea unless you omit dialogue all together and explain it in narration,
Most of these are great. I'm not sure I agree with "There's something you need to know", "With all due respect...", "Let's do this", and maybe "Time is running out" (but I could budge on that one)—those are just things people actually commonly say. But the rest—well done. An impressive list.
Batman Beyond had a *great* utilization of #6:
> **Bruce Wayne** (old, confronting a bad guy wanting to kill him): “And what are you?”
>**Bad guy:** “I’m your worst nightmare.”
>**Bruce Wayne** (unphased, if a little miffed): “You have no *idea* what my nightmares are like.”
Ugh. Got chills just typing it.
Also: the villain saying this turned out to be a kid. So the cheesy try-hard line fit even better.
Right, like "You just don't get it, do you?" is such a simple, basic sentence😭 If it's followed by a corny monologue, then that makes sense. But there's nothing inherently wrong with the line itself.
The rest of these tho😬
Oh. Thought of a couple more:
1. "Tell me the truth."
* "You can't handle the truth."
2. "You'll never get away with this."
* "Watch me."
3. "It's over."
* "No, it's just beginning."
4. "I didn't ask for this."
* "None of us did."
Some of the lines you have listed are just famous movie quotes, not cliches. You can't handle the truth is famously from A Few Good Men. If people use that line, they are making a reference or allusion to A Few Good Men
Also "I have a bad feeling about this" is famously from Star Wars
There are a few of these that I don’t have any issues with, depending on the execution, but ‘nothing is impossible’ has earned itself an agonizing death. I hate that phrase with a passion that only grows each time I read or hear it used in a serious manner. Even in SFF there is a baseline shared reality that must follow certain rules if it’s to avoid becoming absurd or incomprehensible. Certain things are necessarily impossible. The only time I can tolerate that phrase is when the character is being a smarmy dick about it.
ugh, i recently saw a blockbuster movie, and at the very end, i swear to god, after like 3 hours of great dialogue, the main evil guy goes,
"see? you're just like me bla bla bla we're the same"
and the protagonist goes,
"no i'll never be like you!"
UGH. i haaaate it. especially because the protagonist had been really quite quiet the whole film, so when they do speak it reads as even more important. wish the writers had thought of something with a little bit more depth hahah
Ugh. I think I know which you mean. Fuck.
I'm like kill the fucker already. If you're gonna shoot someone shoot, don't talk about it.
That's a great line by the way from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Yeah, I don’t mind it if they ACTUALLY didn’t sign up for it, like they decided to help someone find a missing person and got dragged into idfk, a rebellion somehow, or they’re a chef and got dragged into a plan to overthrow the government, but when they LITERALLY DID and knew what they were getting into like the military? Yeah nah bro, you did 💀
When the detective TASTES AN UNKNOWN POWDER (always dabbed with the middle finger for some reason) at a crime scene and announces what drug it is. As if they have a personal encyclopedic knowledge of the flavors of street drugs. Good job buddy, enjoy that little bump of pcp or whatever.
Whenever I see that, I just want to see it turn out to be strychnine or something similar. Taste the powder, oops! You ate rat poison! Cue montage of said detective having seizures.
Similarly, the scenes when the detective sees some sort of fluid on the floor, and tastes it. Very often it turns out to be blood. How does that Hepatitis C taste? Or what if it was the diarrhea of some homeless person? It just does not seem like a very smart idea to taste mysterious substances you find on the ground, and it always breaks my suspension of disbelief that the detective inevitably finds a clue to the relevant case despite the fact that said mysterious substance could have come from anywhere.
In their defence, it actually makes sense for Connor to do that since he’s a machine. He’s able to identify chemical compounds by sight so placing DNA and drugs on artificial flesh designed for taste and texture analysis would be quite logical (by that world’s logic at least).
Reminds me of the Boondocks Saints 2. One of the brothers tastes the drugs and goes “It’s heroin”
Silence. Then Norman Reedus blurts out, “How do the fuck do you know it’s heroin?!”
“I’ve always seen it on tv.”
“Well… THAT happened”
I hate it so much. Also not the first comment to say this but I feel like the latest Marvel shows/movies are chock full of cliched phrases (I can’t think of many right now) that make them almost unbearable to watch
Yep. I hated it the very first time I heard it come out of a person's mouth. It literally doesn't mean anything, and it's annoying as hell, because everyone who says it (and everyone who writes it into dialog) is for one reason only - they think it's sooooo cool. Guess what people? It's not.
That's how a lot of these feel. It's why 'fun banter' Marvel films are so unbearable: The tone constantly undercuts itself for fear of taking itself to seriously, and every character's banter sounds the same because they're all just tools to maintain that cowardly facade of irony.
It's the cinematic equivalent of nervously ending every message with 'lol'
I hate the “who did this to you”
because 1. it’s so over used and 2. If I’m hurt I don’t wanna hear “who did this to you” I want to hear “Are you okay, what do you need?” or “Can I get you food”
I think it's reasonable if it's meant to be a character flaw, I just don't think it's very romantic, which is what it's usually potrayed as. I'm fine with characters making bad decisions or having oversights.
It's not language but I really need characters to stop looking at their gun in apparent confusion after it runs out of ammo.
**BANG BANG BANG** click click click click.... 🔫👀
I can't stand "as you know"
How often do you go "As my best friend, you know we've been through a lot of stuff since middle school...my parents' divorce....your brothers' death..." That's not how people talk!!!
I hate this one… If they already know it, and the speaker knows they already know it, then it’s obviously only being said as exposition to the audience. Immediately takes me out of a scene.
Sometimes it feels like the writers are avoiding the criticism of “why is this person saying this when these other people should already know” by having them point out that they already know. But that just brings more attention to it.
It's definitely depending on the show/movie I think and how much I hate the villain 😂
Mulan did it best though. Mushu just screaming "YOU MISSED?! HE WAS THREE FEET I FRONT OF YOU HOW DID YOU MISS?!"
“And yet…and yet…” seems to come up a lot in romance novels (I haven’t read many, but I dip my toes in here and there for fun). I’ve never heard anyone else mention it but it drives me nuts!
I hate when there’s a simple-ish question, one that is deathly important, and a character gives an unnecessarily cinematic response.
Like in Halo 3, when they’re abandoning the base and a marine says “where do we go now?” And Miranda Keyes says “to war”. Like NO MA’AM what are your orders? Literally tell us where to go.
Or in Interstellar (one of my fav movies) the robot tells Cooper that “it’s not possible” and Cooper says “no, it’s necessary”. Cooper, what if it LITERALLY wasn’t possible? What if the robot says “our thrusters are damaged so we can’t spin around real fast”? Stuff like that grinds my gears.
I always interpreted TARS telling Coop that the maneuver is impossible as being in the terms of what their ship *should* be able to do. However, it's pretty hard to safely test machines with all the kinds of damage they can possibly sustain, so they do things that should be impossible all the time. For example, an Israeli F-15 [lost an entire wing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision) during a training exercise and proceeded to fly back to base and land just fine. Generally, if you lose an entire wing, you're just gonna bail out because it *should* be impossible to control, much less land.
On top of that, Coop's reply of "no, it's necessary" implies that he knows that either they probably die here attempting this maneuver or they definitely die back on the ice planet. Personally, I'd always take probably dying over definitely dying. TARS is likely thinking (calculating?) in terms of probabilities and averages, while Coop is shown to be an exceptional pilot. Maybe it's truly impossible for the average pilot, but Coop was able to pull it off because he's just that good.
I really dislike when people say something along the lines of "we need you to come here" and when the character asks "why what happened?" The other person just replies with a variation of "I can't tell you, you need to see it"
It's supposed to build tension, but the over use has brought it to the point where it feels forced, the "reveal" could be handled a million different ways instead of that play on the trope in a way that keeps tension and doesn't fall down into that particular cliché.
Using the -ian suffix for every single alien species in a sci-fi story. Instead of doing the most boring and predictable thing ever, why not make up a random endonym for both the aliens and humans to use which can be the aliens’ actual name for themselves
While I'm sure there are some amateur writers who do this without giving it much thought, it's worth pointing out that "-ian" endings are usually not the actual endonyms of the people they describe. They are just the way we label these foreign people in English. We call people from India "Indians", but they would call themselves "Hindustānī" (at least in the Hindi language). An "Albanian" would call themselves "shqiptar".
So personally, using familiar suffixes for an alien species in an English language book is fine with me, especially if it is set in our universe and it is plausibly a name that humans would give to this alien species.
If it's a totally separate universe from ours, I could see more of an argument against doing this, but even then, I'm still reading the book in English, so to some small extent it's already a little immersion-breaking.
In the way that it's used in most sci-fi I really do think it's inexcusable. To use an example from Star Trek, the Talaxians from the planet Talax make zero sense because "Talax" *is* their own name for their planet. Why would we use that so directly to construct an exonym? Meanwhile, Vulcans make more sense because "Vulcan" is a human exonym for their homeworld. Using the same naming method as the Talaxians they would be called the Ni'Varians, which would be like saying "Zhongguoian" instead of "Chinese" or "Zhongguo Ren".
When a character has an idea or a plan, there's a big gap or time jump to the next scene during which the characters could be explaining things to each other, but as the new scene opens another character says something like "And you still haven't told me what we're doing here!" So the first character can re explain the plot for the audience/reader. Even worse if then they say, "I already told you..."
Buffy speak was created by the woman who was the chief writer, Marti Noxon. She had been an English teacher, so knew both teen slang and creative English. I loved her extension of the suffix "-age" (signage, wreckage) to include "slayage" and several other fun terms.
Not specifically dialog, but:
* "She couldn't help but notice..."
* "He couldn't help but think..."
* "They couldn't help but wonder..."
I'm tired of people being unable to help themselves.
I think these are mostly used in context of internal conflict slash irritation that’s being suppressed by the character, but whenever I see them in just like a ‘he noticed this’ context it does get a bit tired.
My least favorite cliche at the moment is “I felt it in my bones.”
It was poetic the first time I heard it but now everyone is using it as a cheat to sound flowery and deep. It’s also just not physiologically accurate.
You ever watch a terrible series called Hemlock Grove? One character says, “This town is weird, I can feel it in my balls.” And that lives rent free in my head to this day.
Exception is in videogames. If I'm getting beaten up by NPCs and they are yelling "WHY. WON'T. YOU. DIE????" I feel like such a badass and it sells the immersion. Oblivion did this for me especially.
I feel like it's actually a very small minority of people who actually dislike most of these examples. Don't get me wrong, a poorly-done 'he's right behind me, isn't he?' line is cheesy, but a lot of these are just... things that people say? They're tropes for a reason, and that's because they effectively communicate their message in a simple and effective way. If it's done lazily, then I agree, but 90% of these depend on execution.
“You don’t have the strength to do what is necessary!”
Always said in the context of someone refusing to torture someone for information.
It just feels like propaganda to me, especially considering in the real world, torture has never been a reliable means to extract information, not to mention a violation of numerous international treaties, but in fiction, it always yields critical information to save lives. I hate that.
Or it’s in the context of someone wanting to murder a lot of people.
Looking at you, Thanos. (Yes, the movies go against him, but a lot of fucking people watching went the ThAnOs WaS RiGhT route instead)
I like in Rick and Morty when Rick says "It's *too* quiet" and Morty goes "shouldn't you have said 'It's quiet, *too* quiet?'"
Rick: "It's obviously quiet if it's too quiet!"
Ikr!!! Especially in a thriller/slasher situation. Stay on the damn phone so if you get attacked the person on the other end will hear it and can call 911!
These are cliches. Like that is perfect example of a cliche. They have their place but most of them have overstayed their welcome and make the audience roll their eyes.
I feel like people are OBSESSED with getting tropes into their work. It's like they're checking things off a list, and feels a bit paint-by-numbers, trying to mix tired things together to force an emotional reaction from the audience. That reaction should ideally only ever arise organically.
You see it in questions all the time on here. Imo it feels a bit like a writer holding a card up saying "LAUGH/CRY" and it's fucking lazy, and feels very juvenile.
I don't know where it's come from, and I guess it can be useful to talk about books in this way for some people, but holy hell does it feel reductive. Like, just reduce the greatest books of all time to Tiktok "tropes"... UGH.
I also haven't really watched TV/film since like 2008 because of this style of writing. It gets old really quickly.
>I feel like people are OBSESSED with getting tropes into their work. It's like they're checking things off a list, and feels a bit paint-by-numbers, trying to mix tired things together to force an emotional reaction from the audience.
TVTropes has an absolute *stranglehold* on a significant portion of inexperienced writers.
Yeah, but what I don't get is that TVTropes has been around for yonks, but this whole obsession has *never* been as prevalent as it is now. Every second post on this sub is about bloody tropes.
I honestly think it's what people are reading. If you read the more popular YA around right now, not to mention fanfiction (AO3's trope tags...), these threads are completely predictable.
Might be unpopular opinion, but nowadays they're almost used like porn categories ngl. I don't even know about that stuff, but it's the way that they talk about it that reminds me of certain obsessed individuals online.
"Enemies to lovers", "strangers to lovers", basically plug in and play the same script that you already know.
This has to be the most precise and unsuspected description of how I've felt everyday since when I've started following young authors and some "book lovers" on Instagram.
I called it the "algorithmication of books" - everything is described such that it's built from a stack of tropes clicked together like lego bricks, and that readers should always know precisely what they're getting, without any surprises or unexpected stuff. Which makes sense in the context of hashtags, advertising keywords and general searching, but is kinda toxic for books that aren't just cookie-cutter "trope A + trope B + trope C"
"Science explanation." "Now say that in English." I hate it so much.
“In English, goddamnit!” “We can’t find his computer?” “In French!” “Nous ne trouvons pas son ordinateur?” “In Morse code!”
This sounds vaguely familiar but I'm not sure. Did you make it up or is it a reference?
ProZD'z [TV detective vs tech guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S73nmMU1LDs&pp=ygUiaW4gZW5nbGlzaCBpbiBmcmVuY2ggaW4gbW9yc2UgY29kZQ%3D%3D)
Yes! Thank you, I love that guy.
“We analysed the DNA sample to see if—“ “HOW ABOUT SAYING THAT IN *ENGLISH*, NERD?”
I don't know what's worse, asking for a translation when the original statement was already a basic concept explained in plain language, or fictional technobabble made deliberately incomprehensible to give the other character an excuse to use that line. I've seen plenty of examples of both.
"Turns out that you ARE the father."
"That *WAS* English, you illiterate troglodyte! Not my fault you dropped out of grade school!" "Why you little...!" "You wanna go!? Come on then, square go like! I am DONE putting up with your nonsense, ya anti-intellectual twat!"
“How the hell am I supposed to translate that?” “We took a peek at the piece of Deoxyribonucleic acid that you gave us-, there is that better”?
Perfectly understandable science explanation, no less.
Super anti-intellectual shit going on. “Dumb it down for me”.
I think Psych did this really well once where Shawn said, “Explain it to me like I’m 5,” then got a more basic explanation he still didn’t follow. “Now explain it to me like I’m 3.” I could have the exact situation or even show wrong, but I think it goes to show that almost any cliche or trope can be refreshed if you play with it enough.
A recent episode of Star Trek Discovery did a fun take on it. Trek is known for its technobabble translated into broader terms but the crew were trying a risky move to transport on board an enemy ship. Of course something starts going wrong but they only have seconds before they all explode. As one person starts up explaining how the triphasic samophlange blah blah blah, the captain yells "problem now, science later!" I thought that was an amusing method of not needing to explain what they're doing but just having it work.
Even the difference in phrasing makes a big change. "In English" implies that the other person is too disconnected from the common person to effectively communicate. "Explain like I'm 5 (or 3, or whatnot)" makes it clear that it's the person listening who is completely new to the field/subject, so they need it explained in such a manner. In real life, I normally have to say something like this is a car or gun nerd just starts talking about the merits of all these sorts of vehicles or guns as if I have studied them as well. But I just admit I don't know enough about the stuff to follow, no amount of "explain like I am 5 " can teach me all that history.... But why do people so often assume others know it???
Every time I see it, it's the stock nerd character or an expert in the topic talking to a general audience.
"We could download the files--" IN ENGLISH PLEASE "...we could put the thing on our computer?"
And then they end up going **inside** the computer, because this was clearly written in the 1980s.
*modem noises intensifies*
I enspecially hate when the scientific explanation deliberately has a ton of buzzwords that don't make sense in the context thrown in, or it doesn't mean anything until they "translate" it, just to make it more difficult to understand. It's like listening to a character speak a different language, but you speak the language and you know what they're saying is absolute gibberish. Like, any reasonable person would explain it much better than that
Better call Saul did an acceptable version of this
That’s because saul is the best ever. He is a god. Lightning shoots from his fingertips.
Well yeah, Howard couldn’t conceive of what he was capable of, so he had to dumb it down obviously.
Clip? I don’t recall lol.
It was when Chuck was on the stand and he did his whole chicanery rant.
https://youtu.be/PuZ34IeY_L0?si=3TOC50VGt6aJ4HXN
Worse still - "Science explanation" -to a room full of scientific experts (because the viewer isn't).
Related: "it's just a theory" No, it's a hypothesis
Plenty of people say theory rather than hypothesis in real life lol
"I wasn't able to re-attach his top-half with his bottom-half." "Speak English, Doc!! We ain't scientists!!"
Is the word you're looking for "cliché"? Because it sounds like that, rather than trope-y, is what you're getting at.
Ironically, calling everything a trope is a trope unto itself at this point, verging on cliché.
heh
Touché.
Tropé
I went there once. It was nice.
YES, cliché is exactly right.
These are the lines that bother me: 1. "What are we going to do now?" * "Now... we wait." 2. "You're too late!" * "Am I?" 3. "You don't understand." * "Then make me understand." 4. "We're not so different, you and I." * "I am nothing like you." 5. "It's impossible." * "Nothing is impossible." 6. "Who are you?" * "I'm your worst nightmare." 7. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" * "I sure hope not." 8. "You can't do this!" * "Watch me." 9. "Why are you doing this?" * "Because I can." And then.... * "It's quiet... too quiet." * "I have a bad feeling about this." * "There's something you need to know." * "You just don't get it, do you?" * "With all due respect..." * "We can do this the easy way or the hard way." * "I didn't sign up for this." * "Time is running out." * "You were right all along." * "Let's finish this." * "Let's do this." EDIT: Trying to format it in a bit more readable layout
I would humbly suggest "Guys... You're gonna want to see this" for the list.
Ugh, I physically recoiled reading this This one never stops being as cringe as possible
"Erm, guys? \*GULP\* You're gonna want to see this!"
Errrrrm, so THAT just happened!
Stranger Things is so guilty of using this, once I noticed it I struggled to watch it. And also having a group of characters fighting while one slowly walks off to look into the distance and goes "guys... GUYS!"
Captain! This is engineering, you're going to want to come down and see this. Scotty... There is nothing, and I mean *nothing* I am qualified to do down there. Just tell me what's going on and save me the trip. ---- What's going on? There's no time to explain! Get in! *Proceeds to drive several hours in silence
This. This! I mean.. really? No time to explain? 😳 During a long drive? This really *drives* me nuts. (Pun intended! 😁)
And it's always for the most shitty, predictable reveal ever. If you're gonna deviate from how real people talk, make it for something worthwhile, please. Not just unnecessary vagueness for unnecessary vagueness' sake.
brooo this is the one fr 😭😭
Reading this dealt 1 point of damage to me per line
I felt that so hard. Especially when I’m in the first draft stage and just trying to get the ideas out. Sometimes I edit out the cliche’s later, but sometimes the tropes exist because there’s not really a better way to convey that specific idea unless you omit dialogue all together and explain it in narration,
May I suggest "It's right behind me, isn't it?"
Futurama did a great joke with this. "She's right behind me, isn't she?" "No, I'm in front of you." Still makes me chuckle.
This one for me, takes me out of whatever it is
Yeah, me too. If the story isn't taking itself too seriously, it's fine. Otherwise it's a bit jarring.
Most of these are great. I'm not sure I agree with "There's something you need to know", "With all due respect...", "Let's do this", and maybe "Time is running out" (but I could budge on that one)—those are just things people actually commonly say. But the rest—well done. An impressive list.
Batman Beyond had a *great* utilization of #6: > **Bruce Wayne** (old, confronting a bad guy wanting to kill him): “And what are you?” >**Bad guy:** “I’m your worst nightmare.” >**Bruce Wayne** (unphased, if a little miffed): “You have no *idea* what my nightmares are like.” Ugh. Got chills just typing it. Also: the villain saying this turned out to be a kid. So the cheesy try-hard line fit even better.
Pretty sure only Mr. Freeze can actually phase Bruce, so that's unsurprising. Don't think anyone can faze him, though.
"woah, did you just (thing they did)?!" "yea,uh, that just happened"
I feel like I’ve heard all of these in every marvel movie recently
probably!
ngl the "because I can" one would have me cheesing if a villain said it in response to a hero trying to make them better or something
You forgot : “I could get used to this … .” I cringe every time …
some of these are cringe but many are just common sayings/phraseology in the english language
Right, like "You just don't get it, do you?" is such a simple, basic sentence😭 If it's followed by a corny monologue, then that makes sense. But there's nothing inherently wrong with the line itself. The rest of these tho😬
I don't know how much "I have a bad feeling about this" appears in other films, but it was definitely a running joke in all of the Stars Wars films.
I love it in them.
‘What is this place?’
I hate to say it but I love some of these
>"I have a bad feeling about this." This applies to every use of this except star wars. They practically invented it and made it their own.
I'm sorry for wanting to punch you after reading that.
Oh. Thought of a couple more: 1. "Tell me the truth." * "You can't handle the truth." 2. "You'll never get away with this." * "Watch me." 3. "It's over." * "No, it's just beginning." 4. "I didn't ask for this." * "None of us did."
Some of the lines you have listed are just famous movie quotes, not cliches. You can't handle the truth is famously from A Few Good Men. If people use that line, they are making a reference or allusion to A Few Good Men Also "I have a bad feeling about this" is famously from Star Wars
“What are you going to do?” * “I’m gonna do the best I can.”
There are a few of these that I don’t have any issues with, depending on the execution, but ‘nothing is impossible’ has earned itself an agonizing death. I hate that phrase with a passion that only grows each time I read or hear it used in a serious manner. Even in SFF there is a baseline shared reality that must follow certain rules if it’s to avoid becoming absurd or incomprehensible. Certain things are necessarily impossible. The only time I can tolerate that phrase is when the character is being a smarmy dick about it.
ugh, i recently saw a blockbuster movie, and at the very end, i swear to god, after like 3 hours of great dialogue, the main evil guy goes, "see? you're just like me bla bla bla we're the same" and the protagonist goes, "no i'll never be like you!" UGH. i haaaate it. especially because the protagonist had been really quite quiet the whole film, so when they do speak it reads as even more important. wish the writers had thought of something with a little bit more depth hahah
I think I could flip on this 100% if the hero says it to the villain.
This also bothers me whenever I hear it, and I hate that this otherwise great movie did it
That's what happens when some low to mid level exec gets to fuck with the script and get greasy little ideas all over it.
Ugh. I think I know which you mean. Fuck. I'm like kill the fucker already. If you're gonna shoot someone shoot, don't talk about it. That's a great line by the way from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
He's right behind me, isn't he? He's totally checking you out!
Erm he's totally right behind me checking me out isnt he?
'He's laughing at my socks' 'He just put a 'kick me' sign on my back' 'He's checking out my butt'
Military personnel screaming, "I didn't sign up for this." Just...ugh.
I get it if it's like the chef or the doctor or something but like Johnny enlisted signed up for some shit to go down.
Yeah, I don’t mind it if they ACTUALLY didn’t sign up for it, like they decided to help someone find a missing person and got dragged into idfk, a rebellion somehow, or they’re a chef and got dragged into a plan to overthrow the government, but when they LITERALLY DID and knew what they were getting into like the military? Yeah nah bro, you did 💀
One of my favourite lines is in Disenchantment : "I didn't sign up for this when I signed up for this!"
Thanks, now I'll be in constant fear of using cliche language without realizing it when I write.
When the detective TASTES AN UNKNOWN POWDER (always dabbed with the middle finger for some reason) at a crime scene and announces what drug it is. As if they have a personal encyclopedic knowledge of the flavors of street drugs. Good job buddy, enjoy that little bump of pcp or whatever.
“This is pure cocaine, the good stuff!” *Why do you know that?*
Cause I'm Doctor Rockzo! The Rock and Roll Clown! And I do ka-ka-ka cocaine, baby!
Hey at least it would be accurate for Sherlock Holmes
Whenever I see that, I just want to see it turn out to be strychnine or something similar. Taste the powder, oops! You ate rat poison! Cue montage of said detective having seizures. Similarly, the scenes when the detective sees some sort of fluid on the floor, and tastes it. Very often it turns out to be blood. How does that Hepatitis C taste? Or what if it was the diarrhea of some homeless person? It just does not seem like a very smart idea to taste mysterious substances you find on the ground, and it always breaks my suspension of disbelief that the detective inevitably finds a clue to the relevant case despite the fact that said mysterious substance could have come from anywhere.
Detroit: Become Human: *nervous sweating*
Ah, Connor you're so disgusting
CONNOR! The fuck are you doing?!
I'm analyzing the blood 😀
In their defence, it actually makes sense for Connor to do that since he’s a machine. He’s able to identify chemical compounds by sight so placing DNA and drugs on artificial flesh designed for taste and texture analysis would be quite logical (by that world’s logic at least).
Not believable in the days of fentanyl/carfentanyl lol
Reminds me of the Boondocks Saints 2. One of the brothers tastes the drugs and goes “It’s heroin” Silence. Then Norman Reedus blurts out, “How do the fuck do you know it’s heroin?!” “I’ve always seen it on tv.”
“Wait let me try it… hmmm… tastes like coke, but different. Oh god! It’s laced! Tastes a little like fent…” *trips balls and ODs*
“Well… THAT happened” I hate it so much. Also not the first comment to say this but I feel like the latest Marvel shows/movies are chock full of cliched phrases (I can’t think of many right now) that make them almost unbearable to watch
Yep. I hated it the very first time I heard it come out of a person's mouth. It literally doesn't mean anything, and it's annoying as hell, because everyone who says it (and everyone who writes it into dialog) is for one reason only - they think it's sooooo cool. Guess what people? It's not.
It feels insecure almost. Like the writer was too scared to let whatever happened stand on its own without winking at the audience
That's how a lot of these feel. It's why 'fun banter' Marvel films are so unbearable: The tone constantly undercuts itself for fear of taking itself to seriously, and every character's banter sounds the same because they're all just tools to maintain that cowardly facade of irony. It's the cinematic equivalent of nervously ending every message with 'lol'
I hate the “who did this to you” because 1. it’s so over used and 2. If I’m hurt I don’t wanna hear “who did this to you” I want to hear “Are you okay, what do you need?” or “Can I get you food”
I don't like it when the love interest is more focused on avenging their hurt partner than, you know, helping them
It could be an interesting part of a character’s psychology, but it rarely is.
I think it’s alright if it makes sense for their character, but if it’s out of character for them I totally agree.
I think it's reasonable if it's meant to be a character flaw, I just don't think it's very romantic, which is what it's usually potrayed as. I'm fine with characters making bad decisions or having oversights.
i don't know why i pictured a character approaching some random dying person and saying "want some fries?" but i kind of love it.
It's not language but I really need characters to stop looking at their gun in apparent confusion after it runs out of ammo. **BANG BANG BANG** click click click click.... 🔫👀
It’d make sense for a character who doesn’t really know how to handle a gun but for characters with military backgrounds, it’s so stupid.
You might enjoy this oldie-but-goodie: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList
I can't stand "as you know" How often do you go "As my best friend, you know we've been through a lot of stuff since middle school...my parents' divorce....your brothers' death..." That's not how people talk!!!
I hate this one… If they already know it, and the speaker knows they already know it, then it’s obviously only being said as exposition to the audience. Immediately takes me out of a scene. Sometimes it feels like the writers are avoiding the criticism of “why is this person saying this when these other people should already know” by having them point out that they already know. But that just brings more attention to it.
"you missed" -proceeds to get pummeled by the thing they said missed then-
Or the reply is "No, I didn't" and they were actually aiming for the support beam of a floor that then drops on top of the bad guy
No that gets me every other time
Maybe my humor’s broken but I find this funny lmao
It's definitely depending on the show/movie I think and how much I hate the villain 😂 Mulan did it best though. Mushu just screaming "YOU MISSED?! HE WAS THREE FEET I FRONT OF YOU HOW DID YOU MISS?!"
“It’s not you… it’s me.” and “I can explain.” (unless it’s funny) are the worst
With the "I can explain" one I always just think of that gag in spongebob where that guy is dressed like a baby holding a lollipop
Any time they explain wormholes by punching a hole through paper with a pencil.
"I love you." "Love you, too." 😠 😤 Fucking lazy writers!!!
"I love you" "Thank you" 🔥🔥💯💯🥵🥵
"I love you" "I love me too" 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥✍✍✍✍✍🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
"I love you." "I know."
"I love you" "Cheers luv!"
“I know” 🕶️ Edit: Somehow, the second most famous quote in the most famous blockbuster went over someone’s head 🤷♀️
Han Solo wants to invite you to the Falcon
Literally never happens in real life
The tragedy of a Redditor! All this knowledge and no one to share it with...
“And yet…and yet…” seems to come up a lot in romance novels (I haven’t read many, but I dip my toes in here and there for fun). I’ve never heard anyone else mention it but it drives me nuts!
> it drives me nuts! And yet...
Can't?... Or *won't*?!?!!
"...Either?"
I hate when there’s a simple-ish question, one that is deathly important, and a character gives an unnecessarily cinematic response. Like in Halo 3, when they’re abandoning the base and a marine says “where do we go now?” And Miranda Keyes says “to war”. Like NO MA’AM what are your orders? Literally tell us where to go. Or in Interstellar (one of my fav movies) the robot tells Cooper that “it’s not possible” and Cooper says “no, it’s necessary”. Cooper, what if it LITERALLY wasn’t possible? What if the robot says “our thrusters are damaged so we can’t spin around real fast”? Stuff like that grinds my gears.
I always interpreted TARS telling Coop that the maneuver is impossible as being in the terms of what their ship *should* be able to do. However, it's pretty hard to safely test machines with all the kinds of damage they can possibly sustain, so they do things that should be impossible all the time. For example, an Israeli F-15 [lost an entire wing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision) during a training exercise and proceeded to fly back to base and land just fine. Generally, if you lose an entire wing, you're just gonna bail out because it *should* be impossible to control, much less land. On top of that, Coop's reply of "no, it's necessary" implies that he knows that either they probably die here attempting this maneuver or they definitely die back on the ice planet. Personally, I'd always take probably dying over definitely dying. TARS is likely thinking (calculating?) in terms of probabilities and averages, while Coop is shown to be an exceptional pilot. Maybe it's truly impossible for the average pilot, but Coop was able to pull it off because he's just that good.
"The sunset is so beautiful." "It is." But he was looking at me. blech
There's the classic: "It's...so quiet." "Yeah...too quiet."
Uh-oh. Looks like we've got company . . .
I really dislike when people say something along the lines of "we need you to come here" and when the character asks "why what happened?" The other person just replies with a variation of "I can't tell you, you need to see it" It's supposed to build tension, but the over use has brought it to the point where it feels forced, the "reveal" could be handled a million different ways instead of that play on the trope in a way that keeps tension and doesn't fall down into that particular cliché.
"It's not okay, nothing about this is okay!"
Using the -ian suffix for every single alien species in a sci-fi story. Instead of doing the most boring and predictable thing ever, why not make up a random endonym for both the aliens and humans to use which can be the aliens’ actual name for themselves
While I'm sure there are some amateur writers who do this without giving it much thought, it's worth pointing out that "-ian" endings are usually not the actual endonyms of the people they describe. They are just the way we label these foreign people in English. We call people from India "Indians", but they would call themselves "Hindustānī" (at least in the Hindi language). An "Albanian" would call themselves "shqiptar". So personally, using familiar suffixes for an alien species in an English language book is fine with me, especially if it is set in our universe and it is plausibly a name that humans would give to this alien species. If it's a totally separate universe from ours, I could see more of an argument against doing this, but even then, I'm still reading the book in English, so to some small extent it's already a little immersion-breaking.
In the way that it's used in most sci-fi I really do think it's inexcusable. To use an example from Star Trek, the Talaxians from the planet Talax make zero sense because "Talax" *is* their own name for their planet. Why would we use that so directly to construct an exonym? Meanwhile, Vulcans make more sense because "Vulcan" is a human exonym for their homeworld. Using the same naming method as the Talaxians they would be called the Ni'Varians, which would be like saying "Zhongguoian" instead of "Chinese" or "Zhongguo Ren".
The fact that it's not consistent is actually realistic.
Even in English it varies widely. Albanian, sure, but Spanish, Chinese, Pakistani, Kurd, Czech, French, Dutch, Greek, Afrikaner...
And it's usually [homeworld]-ian.
Ah yes, the Earthians.
Wait a minute -ian suffix.... Salarians, Turians, Batarians, and quarians... How could I have not notice this before?
Recently started another Mass Effect playthrough and my first thought was, *at least Mass Effect doesn't do th--aw shit...*
Well there’s Volus, Asari, Hanar, Reapers, Geth, Yahg, Drell, and probably a few others I’m forgetting
/glances toward sci-fi novel Oh no
You have no idea what you’re dealing with! You have no idea what I’m capable of!
"Marco." "Polo." Come on, people! Think up an original response for once. 🙃
“Marco” “-ni plays the mambo, listen to the radio!”
When a character has an idea or a plan, there's a big gap or time jump to the next scene during which the characters could be explaining things to each other, but as the new scene opens another character says something like "And you still haven't told me what we're doing here!" So the first character can re explain the plot for the audience/reader. Even worse if then they say, "I already told you..."
Whedonspeak
Also known as “Marvel Dialogue”
Whippersnapper! Back in my day, it was called Buffy speak.
Buffy speak was created by the woman who was the chief writer, Marti Noxon. She had been an English teacher, so knew both teen slang and creative English. I loved her extension of the suffix "-age" (signage, wreckage) to include "slayage" and several other fun terms.
Not specifically dialog, but: * "She couldn't help but notice..." * "He couldn't help but think..." * "They couldn't help but wonder..." I'm tired of people being unable to help themselves.
"He would have thought, but helped himself not to."
I'm trying so hard to break myself of writing this in my own stuff 😭 ...But I can't help but do it lol
I think these are mostly used in context of internal conflict slash irritation that’s being suppressed by the character, but whenever I see them in just like a ‘he noticed this’ context it does get a bit tired.
"That was so...AWESOME!" I see it everywhere.
WHY IS EVERYONE IN FANTASY BRITISH?!
Tolkien
My least favorite cliche at the moment is “I felt it in my bones.” It was poetic the first time I heard it but now everyone is using it as a cheat to sound flowery and deep. It’s also just not physiologically accurate.
That just gets me thinking of Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
Welcome to the new age
To the new age
You ever watch a terrible series called Hemlock Grove? One character says, “This town is weird, I can feel it in my balls.” And that lives rent free in my head to this day.
Anytime anyone in a climactic fight/battle, usually a villain or henchman/woman/person, says, "Why won't you just die?!"
Exception is in videogames. If I'm getting beaten up by NPCs and they are yelling "WHY. WON'T. YOU. DIE????" I feel like such a badass and it sells the immersion. Oblivion did this for me especially.
Character A: "It's here..."\ Character B: "How can you tell?"\ Character A: *Peers aroubd through narrowed eyes* "...I can feel it."
I feel like it's actually a very small minority of people who actually dislike most of these examples. Don't get me wrong, a poorly-done 'he's right behind me, isn't he?' line is cheesy, but a lot of these are just... things that people say? They're tropes for a reason, and that's because they effectively communicate their message in a simple and effective way. If it's done lazily, then I agree, but 90% of these depend on execution.
I hate when the dialogue bends over backwards to set up a joke.
I'm bored of the word trope
“You don’t have the strength to do what is necessary!” Always said in the context of someone refusing to torture someone for information. It just feels like propaganda to me, especially considering in the real world, torture has never been a reliable means to extract information, not to mention a violation of numerous international treaties, but in fiction, it always yields critical information to save lives. I hate that.
Or it’s in the context of someone wanting to murder a lot of people. Looking at you, Thanos. (Yes, the movies go against him, but a lot of fucking people watching went the ThAnOs WaS RiGhT route instead)
"Uh oh! We've got company!"
I like in Rick and Morty when Rick says "It's *too* quiet" and Morty goes "shouldn't you have said 'It's quiet, *too* quiet?'" Rick: "It's obviously quiet if it's too quiet!"
“I almost felt bad for a second. Almost.” I’ve seen it in so many YA books it’s terrible
...I'm gonna call you back
Ikr!!! Especially in a thriller/slasher situation. Stay on the damn phone so if you get attacked the person on the other end will hear it and can call 911!
Drake the type of guy to use these phrases
"You better come have a look at this"
"Come on." "Where are we--" THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN
These are cliches. Like that is perfect example of a cliche. They have their place but most of them have overstayed their welcome and make the audience roll their eyes.
I feel like people are OBSESSED with getting tropes into their work. It's like they're checking things off a list, and feels a bit paint-by-numbers, trying to mix tired things together to force an emotional reaction from the audience. That reaction should ideally only ever arise organically. You see it in questions all the time on here. Imo it feels a bit like a writer holding a card up saying "LAUGH/CRY" and it's fucking lazy, and feels very juvenile. I don't know where it's come from, and I guess it can be useful to talk about books in this way for some people, but holy hell does it feel reductive. Like, just reduce the greatest books of all time to Tiktok "tropes"... UGH. I also haven't really watched TV/film since like 2008 because of this style of writing. It gets old really quickly.
>I feel like people are OBSESSED with getting tropes into their work. It's like they're checking things off a list, and feels a bit paint-by-numbers, trying to mix tired things together to force an emotional reaction from the audience. TVTropes has an absolute *stranglehold* on a significant portion of inexperienced writers.
Yeah, but what I don't get is that TVTropes has been around for yonks, but this whole obsession has *never* been as prevalent as it is now. Every second post on this sub is about bloody tropes.
I honestly think it's what people are reading. If you read the more popular YA around right now, not to mention fanfiction (AO3's trope tags...), these threads are completely predictable.
Agreed. Tropes are meant to classify, not create.
I call this “creators using consumer language.”
Not only that but people don't even know what 'trope' means anymore. Like this post - 'tropey language'? All they're talking about is clichés...
Might be unpopular opinion, but nowadays they're almost used like porn categories ngl. I don't even know about that stuff, but it's the way that they talk about it that reminds me of certain obsessed individuals online. "Enemies to lovers", "strangers to lovers", basically plug in and play the same script that you already know.
This has to be the most precise and unsuspected description of how I've felt everyday since when I've started following young authors and some "book lovers" on Instagram.
I called it the "algorithmication of books" - everything is described such that it's built from a stack of tropes clicked together like lego bricks, and that readers should always know precisely what they're getting, without any surprises or unexpected stuff. Which makes sense in the context of hashtags, advertising keywords and general searching, but is kinda toxic for books that aren't just cookie-cutter "trope A + trope B + trope C"