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Plot contrivances that piss me off in fiction
10 years ago
General
Have you had your daily dose of brick to the face, today?
1. Species with interstellar travel going extinct because one planet of theirs (usually the home planet) is destroyed. There's a reason why bombing Madagascar would cause all of the species on there to go extinct in the wild: THEY HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!
2. Individuals who can't be harmed by each other's powers because they're related in some way, either by blood or as a species. This goes for both X-Men and Doom. I'm sorry, but just because you share the same genes with me, doesn't mean that throwing a fireball at me won't still fucking singe me. That's not how powers work, and that's certainly not how mutation works. Even more ridiculous when you consider melee attacks between the individuals still work, no problem.
3. Macguffins that pop up for one episode or so, and then are completely forgotten about. I'm looking at you, Mega Man, Star Trek, etc. What the fuck do you do with them? Does an angel come down from on high and tell you to bury it after use, like you're fucking Joseph Smith discovering the gold and brass plates of Mormonism?
4. Slingshotting around a specific heavenly body to time travel. Granted, gravity and speed are factors to the theory of time travel, but Superman cannot turn the world back a day by spinning around it to make its rotation reverse, and the Enterprise cannot go back to the 1980's by rocketing around the fucking sun. You need to do a bit more with speed and gravity than that to do shit. MAYBE if it was a black hole you were doing it around, but even then...
5. Healing doodads that repair broken bones and cure scratches and burns and shit within an instant without considering the laws of conservation of matter and energy and considering where that fucking shit is supposed to come from. Goes double for healing factors in superhero stories; your body doesn't make this shit from nowhere, you have to put in energy and food to get the raw material needed to regrow bone and tissue and blood and shit. See http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6997286/ for a more thorough argument about it with Wolverine.
6. Alien physiology that makes no goddamn sense. What is the point of having a species of animal or an entire ecosystem with an acidic circulatory system? Why put tusks or feathers or boobs on a creature that doesn't need them? The problem here is that people don't think about how they work on an evolutionary level, but what makes them look cool and unique. This especially goes for species that survive in a particular environment evolving into a species that cannot, even though that environment hasn't changed or has increased. Yeah, Splatoon is bullshit; squids would not take over the surface world if the earth was flooded, and they certainly would NOT evolve to the point of being UNABLE TO SURVIVE IN WATER, in that case.
7. The abandoning of certain long-standing trends in the future. Okay, so trends change over time. That's given, and certain trends come back as retro. But why in the fuck is there no more rock, pop, or death metal in Starfleet? Why does everything have to be classical music and old timey jazz and shit? On top of that, why are people like Tom Paris and Captain Pulsar so fascinated with cheesy 60's sci-fi trope shows when they TRAVEL THE GALAXY IN A SPACESHIP THAT CAN FLY FASTER THAN LIGHT?! Is it the novelty? The kitsch of thinking that at some point, people actually thought space travel and science would be like this? Then again, why is it so goddamn hard for Soundwave to choose a modern equivalent of his tape deck form?
8. Radiation gives you superpowers. No, that is bullshit, and I don't care what kind of scientific genetic hoo-hah you perform on the subject, they are not getting superpowers. Cancer, maybe, but not superpowers. And by extension, why is it that the scientists that usually give these guys radiation-powers come out with some sort of deformity or shit, but the superhero comes out fine? Seriously, I don't care if it's a tribute to your dad, Ken Penders, turning Knuckles into the Echidna's glow in the dark savior in the same process that caused his father to die of cancer DOES NOT COMPUTE!
9. Time travel as a whole. Why can't anyone come up with a solid set of rules for how this shit is supposed to run down? Can you alter the past or can't you? Can you touch your older/younger self, or can't you? What happens to fucking paradoxes that are formed? When is the Doctor going to become the goddamn Valeyard, already?
10. Riker's magic poker hand. This goes for that bullshit "heart of the cards" thing in Yugioh, as well. If you can get that lucky in cards every single time and pull a miracle out of your ass that cleanly that many times, YOU ARE FUCKING CHEATING!
2. Individuals who can't be harmed by each other's powers because they're related in some way, either by blood or as a species. This goes for both X-Men and Doom. I'm sorry, but just because you share the same genes with me, doesn't mean that throwing a fireball at me won't still fucking singe me. That's not how powers work, and that's certainly not how mutation works. Even more ridiculous when you consider melee attacks between the individuals still work, no problem.
3. Macguffins that pop up for one episode or so, and then are completely forgotten about. I'm looking at you, Mega Man, Star Trek, etc. What the fuck do you do with them? Does an angel come down from on high and tell you to bury it after use, like you're fucking Joseph Smith discovering the gold and brass plates of Mormonism?
4. Slingshotting around a specific heavenly body to time travel. Granted, gravity and speed are factors to the theory of time travel, but Superman cannot turn the world back a day by spinning around it to make its rotation reverse, and the Enterprise cannot go back to the 1980's by rocketing around the fucking sun. You need to do a bit more with speed and gravity than that to do shit. MAYBE if it was a black hole you were doing it around, but even then...
5. Healing doodads that repair broken bones and cure scratches and burns and shit within an instant without considering the laws of conservation of matter and energy and considering where that fucking shit is supposed to come from. Goes double for healing factors in superhero stories; your body doesn't make this shit from nowhere, you have to put in energy and food to get the raw material needed to regrow bone and tissue and blood and shit. See http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6997286/ for a more thorough argument about it with Wolverine.
6. Alien physiology that makes no goddamn sense. What is the point of having a species of animal or an entire ecosystem with an acidic circulatory system? Why put tusks or feathers or boobs on a creature that doesn't need them? The problem here is that people don't think about how they work on an evolutionary level, but what makes them look cool and unique. This especially goes for species that survive in a particular environment evolving into a species that cannot, even though that environment hasn't changed or has increased. Yeah, Splatoon is bullshit; squids would not take over the surface world if the earth was flooded, and they certainly would NOT evolve to the point of being UNABLE TO SURVIVE IN WATER, in that case.
7. The abandoning of certain long-standing trends in the future. Okay, so trends change over time. That's given, and certain trends come back as retro. But why in the fuck is there no more rock, pop, or death metal in Starfleet? Why does everything have to be classical music and old timey jazz and shit? On top of that, why are people like Tom Paris and Captain Pulsar so fascinated with cheesy 60's sci-fi trope shows when they TRAVEL THE GALAXY IN A SPACESHIP THAT CAN FLY FASTER THAN LIGHT?! Is it the novelty? The kitsch of thinking that at some point, people actually thought space travel and science would be like this? Then again, why is it so goddamn hard for Soundwave to choose a modern equivalent of his tape deck form?
8. Radiation gives you superpowers. No, that is bullshit, and I don't care what kind of scientific genetic hoo-hah you perform on the subject, they are not getting superpowers. Cancer, maybe, but not superpowers. And by extension, why is it that the scientists that usually give these guys radiation-powers come out with some sort of deformity or shit, but the superhero comes out fine? Seriously, I don't care if it's a tribute to your dad, Ken Penders, turning Knuckles into the Echidna's glow in the dark savior in the same process that caused his father to die of cancer DOES NOT COMPUTE!
9. Time travel as a whole. Why can't anyone come up with a solid set of rules for how this shit is supposed to run down? Can you alter the past or can't you? Can you touch your older/younger self, or can't you? What happens to fucking paradoxes that are formed? When is the Doctor going to become the goddamn Valeyard, already?
10. Riker's magic poker hand. This goes for that bullshit "heart of the cards" thing in Yugioh, as well. If you can get that lucky in cards every single time and pull a miracle out of your ass that cleanly that many times, YOU ARE FUCKING CHEATING!
kefka989
~kefka989
Hehehehe, nice list.
