Your writing pet peeves

[Suicune's Fire]

Pretty much everything people have said so far, but there aren't too many I can think of. I haven't read in a while, so I was trying to think about games or other media but I haven't seen or played anything lately that I didn't enjoy. Had to really think about things that hadn't been mentioned.

Personalityless/incompetent female - I think this used to be a lot worse in the past and has gotten better, but the inclusion of pathetic female characters who need to be carried by a man. I've seen this time and again to the point where I just turn anything off when it fails to show me an actually competent female character. By that I don't mean just one with a "dainty" characteristic--I just mean a poorly written, stereotype-ridden female character whose existence is solely to make the male look brave or strong. It's almost more annoying when there's a single female character who seems to be used as a box-ticker like "oh yeah seven males but one whole female, perfect" like no.

Nonsensical drama, especially over miscommunication - I've seen so many movies where drama is initiated over the stupidest things. It frustrates me because good drama is fine - like real, substantial problems that drive a wedge between characters or complicate circumstances - but poorly written drama shoved in there just for some flimsy semblance of conflict is just overbearingly frustrating and annoying. The number of times I have seen this is astounding. When it's miscommunication, it's even more annoying, because it's like oh my god just talk to one another and then there'd be no drama. Seriously. Sometimes miscommunication can be done well, but not like 'Girl A sees Guy A kissing Girl B and storms off, assuming he initiated it' when it was shown to the audience that the Girl B kissed him against his will but then fails to explain it to Girl A/Girl A refuses to believe it. So. Annoying.

Insta-romance also annoooyyyysss meeee so much. Like I get instant attraction, but not instant romance. It just. That's not how it works. And it's so artificial.

[Arrow-Jolteon]

Personalityless/incompetent female - I think this used to be a lot worse in the past and has gotten better, but the inclusion of pathetic female characters who need to be carried by a man. I've seen this time and again to the point where I just turn anything off when it fails to show me an actually competent female character. By that I don't mean just one with a "dainty" characteristic--I just mean a poorly written, stereotype-ridden female character whose existence is solely to make the male look brave or strong. It's almost more annoying when there's a single female character who seems to be used as a box-ticker like "oh yeah seven males but one whole female, perfect" like no.[/FONT]

I want to make an addendum to this if you don't mind, because I feel what I'm about to say is an extension of what you wrote: Anytime a female character is introduced as a super tough, no-nonsense badass, only for her to have absurdly poor showing in practice; getting constantly beaten in combat or getting herself into danger that she somehow can't get out of on her own and needing to be constantly bailed out by her male companions (who by contrast, live up to their hype). At best, this type of female character will only ever defeat minor faceless villains onscreen and be stated to have victories against major villains offscreen, but when it comes to fighting major threats onscreen, she constantly gets her butt kicked. Even more jarring when a male character who is supposed to be more inexperienced and/or incompetent ends up having a much better performance.