NationStates Jolt Archive

RPGs:
When the world is in danger, usually, a somewhat weak person will save it from a force that no military can stop.

kingdoms=good; empires=bad

When the main character is a young teen with a single parent, that parent is usually the opposite gender.

sci-fi:
Somehow, most species that have a somplex language speak the same language as the humans.

Even though almost everyone speaks a single language(I guess we must have forgot every other language), every object's name is in another, more alien language.

What are your favorite cliches?

RPGs:
When the world is in danger, usually, a somewhat weak person will save it from a force that no military can stop.

kingdoms=good; empires=bad

When the main character is a young teen with a single parent, that parent is usually the opposite gender.

sci-fi:
Somehow, most species that have a somplex language speak the same language as the humans.

Even though almost everyone speaks a single language(I guess we must have forgot every other language), every object's name is in another, more alien language.

What are your favorite cliches?

When non-english speakers think nobody is looking, they actually just speak english with an accent.

Falling in love seems very cliched. Hackneyed, even.

blame richard curtis for that

sci-fi: all guys with english accents are E-V-I-L

and all people wearing red on a starship will die :P

my favorite soon to be cliche


____ on a plane

sci-fi: all guys with english accents are E-V-I-L

and all people wearing red on a starship will die :P

but british men play better villians. its just the way it is. :p :D

At the end of the day, I hate cliches and think they should be avoided like the plague.

RPGs:
When the world is in danger, usually, a somewhat weak person will save it from a force that no military can stop.
In a similare vein: The one person who is asked to save the world has no fighting/spell-casting experience/knowledge whatsoever, yet is entrusted with the hopes of the entire world to defeat the evil horde threatening to overwhelm it.
Like they couldn't find one person - not one! - who has some idea as to which end of a sword to hold or spell to cast.
Even though the king/mage-supreme/good fairy-gods blahblabblah fervently beleive that said unco can win, they're not prepared to shell out even a few measely gold pieces to have him/her outfitted in decent bloody armour at the start of the quest. That he has to scavenge off of corpses.

At the end of the day, I hate cliches and think they should be avoided like the plague.

Damn straight. :D

If you ever need to tell the evil twin from the good twin, look for a goatee.

The chances of a soldier in a war movie getting killed by a sniper increase in direct relation to the amount of reminiscing he does about how he'll be getting back home in just a week and how happy he'll be to see his family/wife/girlfriend.

The chances of a soldier in a war movie getting killed by a sniper increase in direct relation to the amount of reminiscing he does about how he'll be getting back home in just a week and how happy he'll be to see his family/wife/girlfriend.
Also a policeman's probability to be killed is inversely proportionately related to how many days left they have to retire.

sci-fi: all guys with english accents are E-V-I-L

http://picard.ytmnd.com/
http://obiwanracist.ytmnd.com/

Also a policeman's probability to be killed is inversely proportionately related to how many days left they have to retire.

And of course there's the Kirk-Bond effect: The first female the main character sleeps with will die an unlikely yet story appropriate death shortly thereafter.

The black dude dies first :p

If you show anyone a picture of your girlfriend, your days are numbered.

Any western guy with a western sword will ALWAYS be beaten by an Eastern/Western guy with an Eastern sword, no matter the training experience because any dude with a samurai sword will always win :mad:

If the hero runs, he will be faster then the villain's sport-car, while at least 30 police' cars are smashed and destroyed behind.

What I have learnt from watching movies (http://www.area51newmexico.com/page5.php)

If you show anyone a picture of your girlfriend, your days are numbered.
So true.

More cliches:
In horror movies, the non-murderous people, especially if they are white, get this weird urge to "investigate". They rarely, if ever,have enough intelligence to bring ANYTHING as a weapon. No knives. No pointy pencils. Not even a pillow they can use to suffocate the killer. Nope. Just a bunch of unarmed idiots against a homocidal maniac with a weapon.

Unimportant people die quick, nonpainful deaths. Important characters either die slow, agonizing deaths that are just long enough for said dying character to say something important plotwise or that person dies a flashy death.

The chances of coming face to face with a killer depends on how small and remote the town is. The smaller and more remote the town is, the more likely it is that said town has a serial killer.

Area 51 ALWAYS has aliens. No experimental air craft or anything logical like that. Nope. Just ET's house.

"Superman syndrome"
The more super powers a super hero has, the less likely said hero will remember any of them. I can't tell you how many times superman forgot about his heat vision, his super strength, or the fact that he can fly.

.......
and all people wearing red on a starship will die :P
With the exception of the red Power Rangers.

Pink Power Rangers are always girls.

If you show anyone a picture of your girlfriend, your days are numbered.
If you show everyone a picture of your girlfriend (on the Internet), your relationship's days are numbered.

You know those really old senile prospectors you see in westerns? Awesome.

I really want to know who invented that.

Any group of henchmen sent to destroy the hero(es) will prove to be very poor fighters when fighting the hero, regardless of their efficiency in disposing of expendable redshirts. Any single henchman or main villain sent to dispose of the hero(es) will also be disposed of, but the single evil character will be much harder to dispose of than the group of henchmen was.

In other words, I have a soft spot for the Stormtrooper Effect and the Inverse Ninja Law.

I also have a soft spot for the inevitable and timely arrival of the cavalry (or equivalent) at the exact moment that doom looks certain for the hero(es).

1-second rule:
Everything important happens at the last second. Bombs are diffused at that magical moment. Worlds are also saved at said moment.

"Your dad sucks" law:
If your father failed at doing something, you will succeed at it.

"Big, bad wolf" rule:
The following creatures are usually villians:
wolves
dragons(unless they are those Asian surpent dragons. Then, they are good)
aliens
giant fishes
sharks
giants
trolls

The guys who wear uniforms that are all exactly the same and are mostly a neutral color, (black, white) are usually the bad guy troops.

Big military guys with powerful weapons and expert training will die painfully. Civillians with neither will survive

Any group of henchmen sent to destroy the hero(es) will prove to be very poor fighters when fighting the hero, regardless of their efficiency in disposing of expendable redshirts. Any single henchman or main villain sent to dispose of the hero(es) will also be disposed of, but the single evil character will be much harder to dispose of than the group of henchmen was.

In other words, I have a soft spot for the Stormtrooper Effect and the Inverse Ninja Law.

I also have a soft spot for the inevitable and timely arrival of the cavalry (or equivalent) at the exact moment that doom looks certain for the hero(es).

Heh, I remember this didn't happen in "Rumble in the Bronx", and it sticks out in my mind now (not until the end anyway)

The Good Guys always win. For once, I'd like to see the Good Guy die and the Bad Guy acheive world domination , then destroy themselves on greed and other evil factor. Then again, I guess the good guy wins, but whatever.

The person you thought was your ally who than betrayed you will 95% of the time defect back to your side just in time to save you.

The hero will almost always be related to or attracted to the villain.

Evil villains always place a self destruct on their doomsday machines.

Evil masterminds have a strange fondness for waterdwelling carnivores.

any time there is a Christian on a TV show or a movie, they are either stupid, naive, full of hate, a hypocrite, or all of the above.

In a horror movie, when you desperately grab a telephone and knock the evil person unconscious and down the stairs, run down and IMMEDIATELY beat them to death for sure. Until their head is seperated from their body at least. Otherwise they will come back to get you. Also if you see any Terminator type wiring or tubes inside the evil one it is a robot. Do not try to kill the robot. You cant. Try to run away.

Also FFS listen to the music playing in the background whenever you are in a horror movie. If it suddenly becomes very tense it probably means trouble. It's your best friend unless you ignore it.

Edit: Sequence for horror movie deaths

The black guy dies first. Then the funny guy dies. Then the sexually appealing girl dies. Then the guy everybody hates dies. Then the love interest of the main hero dies. It almost always goes in that order, sometimes with a one or two switches.

In a horror movie, when you desperately grab a telephone and knock the evil person unconscious and down the stairs, run down and IMMEDIATELY beat them to death for sure. Until their head is seperated from their body at least. Otherwise they will come back to get you. Also if you see any Terminator type wiring or tubes inside the evil one it is a robot. Do not try to kill the robot. You cant. Try to run away.

Also FFS listen to the music playing in the background whenever you are in a horror movie. If it suddenly becomes very tense it probably means trouble. It's your best friend unless you ignore it.

In fact, you should go further. After beating them to death with a baseball bat, cut their head off and burn it, chop the body into little pieces and do several things with them. Flush some down the toilet, mail some to China, and finally, feed some to your neighbors dog, shoot the dog, and then throw it off a cliff into the sea.

any time there is a Christian on a TV show or a movie, they are either stupid, naive, full of hate, a hypocrite, or all of the above.

Thats what makes Christian TV so entertaining

http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

This is an excellent source of movie cliches. I especially like #12:

#12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

One of my favourite cliches is that every few months, someone starts up a thread asking us what our favourite cliches are.



Back to the real world, one of my favourites is when you've just broken up. Someone is bound to say, "You'll get over it and feel better in the long run."
What makes it even more unbearable is that they're right.


Another much-overused cliche is, "What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger".
Tell that to a Parkinson's sufferer.

Thats what makes Christian TV so entertaining
I am not talking about Christian TV, I am talking about regular shows with "Christians" on them.

My opinions on these cliches vary.

In RPGs,

A lone kid who starts out with a rusty sword, no skill, and no money never has any trouble recruiting an army or large group of friends by the time the game is done, and happening to have enough skills to win, and enough money to equip themselves and everyone in their army who needs it with uber armor and swordage.

The timeline is almost always some time apparently in ancient history. This irritates me, but attempts to make a decent modernized RPG have failed so far AFAIK.

There will always be really goofy stuff for the player to attack at the n00b levels--stuff that either would never attack in RL, or is almost unbearably fake and stupid to behold, like "jellies." It's way overkill to use a sword on any of this stuff, but the player will be stuck doing just that.

The ruler of an Evil Empire is always either a usurper, or a once-good ruler who went mad. An outside invader is almost always ruled by an insane entity of some sort. There are never normal political reasons for war in an RPG.

The player is almost always rebelling against some Evil Empire, which he manages to overthrow despite starting as a lone dude with a rusty sword.
For once, I'd like to be the Empire, putting down an Evil Rebellion which, for no justifiable reason, is out to destroy my or my leige's Good(TM) Government and install a tyranny in its place (a rebellion which has infiltrated everything with a network of skilled saboteurs or something else that's a real threat, not some n00b standing outside yelling for me to come out of my impenetrable castle without my mega army).

"Heal" is always the hardest spell to use, especially when the player is beaten up or is exhausted.

There are almost never any cars or horses in RPGs regardless of the existence of other things common to the time period depicted. Yet, despite the game-peoples' total failures at domesticating the local horse-like beasts, they often manage to master things like teleportation or airships before the game is finished, and benevolently teach your character this skill or allow your character to drive a priceless prototype around without so much as driver's ed. Despite the lack of training, the character will never crash said prototype, or teleport half-through a wall.

On any game, the character will be able to carry lots of stuff without the use of any visible bag, suitcase, or the like.

my favorite soon to be cliche


____ on a plane

snakes on a motherfucking plane! can't wait - comes out on my birthday. it's gunna be hilarious!

snakes on a motherfucking plane! can't wait - comes out on my birthday. it's gunna be hilarious!

The movie most defined by internetters apparentally.

Another much-overused cliche is, "What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger".
Tell that to a Parkinson's sufferer.

No pain no problem!

A penny saved is practically worthless.

A bird in the hand shits more than two in the bush.

Stay with burning your bridges behind you rather changing to im front or you will have cross horses midstream.

Early to rise and late to bed makes a man stealthy wealthy or dead

In any horror film, there are never any Jews. I don't know why, but that's how it usually goes.

Guns never run out unless it's for a closeup or a dramatic moment.

The Good Guy or the Main Bad Guy can always absorb the kind of damage that would liquify the average human being.

The drug lord is always Hispanic, has a moustache and dresses either in black or white.

Good guys don't have chrome-finish weapons.

Secret agents who get the short end of the stick never quit their jobs.

Anyone can pick up any sword and be an instant expert.

RPG: No matter what, a member of your party will be a traitor and then seek redemption.

Shooters: The moment you find a health pack/weapon, you get jumped.

Action games and RPG's: Chicks wear the most minimal clothing they can, including armour.

Gunfire always attracts street cops, never SWAT.

Real World relationships: We can still be friends. Yeah, right.

The girl with glasses turns into a hotty the moment she lets her hair down and gets contacts.

Multi-million dollar compounds can never afford bulletproof glass.

And I bet I can come up with 20 more...

RPGs:
Female warriors, especially those who often go into sword fights, almost always wear skimpy clothing that exposes the maximum amount of skin to the elements, especially iron.

"Simplified goegraphy":
The main character's nation is the only one with more than one city.

If you encounter a wolf or Euro-style dragon, it's always evil. Unless, like in upcoming games like Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Okami, the main character is a wolf, this rule is true. The only other exceptions are games without enemies, like Animal Crossing.

one-hit-death spells Are as reliable as the cia and the UN. they simply never work, even if they are the highest level possible and you are fighting the weakest enemies in the game. They're as effective as solid colanders.


Can anyone post a link to that site containing rpg cliches? Please?

any time there is a Christian on a TV show or a movie, they are either stupid, naive, full of hate, a hypocrite, or all of the above.

...especially on Law & Order. :p

And forget about Priests.. by the end of the episode, they've either molested someone, killed someone or covered up some kind of crime.. that goes for most of network T.V.

"King of extreme"
Kings are either perfect saints or minions of evil. No average kings anywhere. No bad kings with a heart. No good kings with flaws. Just moral absolutes.

If one side is human and the other is not, the human side is almost always righteous.

standard rpg party members:
standard hero: These are usually poor, young males who wield swords.

hot healers: These are usually females with huge breasts. They are often in either white robes or stripper outfits. Who knew Cheetah girls knew cpr?

rebellious heroes: These are members of the hero's party that:
a. are rebelling. They want to do their own thing and feel as though they are forced to stay in the party.
b. will join the dark side eventually. I think one became Darth Vader.
c. switched to the light side.

skilled idiots: These are morons who are either impossibly strong or have some other vital skill, like the ability to speak Spanish or build a super space cruiser out of a straw and a paper clip.

Good is always paired off againist Evil. No politics involved, no conmen taking advantage of this simple system.

Good don't fight Good, even if their aims are different.

White always represent Good. Black means evil, or cool.

Asian monks always know kung-fu, never hesitant about killing a fellow human, even though they eat vegetables to avoid killing.

The main character starts off with the potential to be the most skilled person at whatever he is doing.

A non-muscle bound youth still can lift a sword twice his size and weight. They can also possess amazing agility and strength.

Any battle with melee weapons or martial arts involve lots of swordplay/backflips. Expert swordsmen aim for the opponent's blade/shield, not their flesh.

Stories never explore the history and family ties of the unnamed henchmen killed in a split second by the heroes.

In any space-related game, there are always humans. And a organic insect/parasite with collective consciousness.

Aliens think similar to humans, are either bipedal or quadrapedal, do the same things humans do but with a slight alien twist.

Artifical intelligence will eventually rise againist their controllers and do what they want.

Dogs can understand English.

The first minutes/chapter after the introduction of the character involves every single situation where he/she can reveal his hidden talents and personality.

Anyone going againist the main characters are either portrayed in a negative light, or challenge them with regret.

The hero's sidekick fights the hero in the finals of most tournements.

Health packs cure all wounds, except cinematic ones.

Explosions in narrow corridors are easy to outrun provided you don't hold hands with a partner.

In sci-fi, almost everything has a weird name. Even your everyday computer and vending machine sounds like a toothpaste brand from Japan, untranslated of course.

Also, in the future, all jail cell bars will be made out of energy, meaning that each and every power failure is a jail break.

There will almost always be a projectile-firing weapon that has infinite ammo, like a gun or bow and arrow.

Outside of Fire Emblem, swords last forever. No rust. No wear and tear caused by constant usage. Nope.

sleep is for losers. Main characters never sleep.

...especially on Law & Order. :p

And forget about Priests.. by the end of the episode, they've either molested someone, killed someone or covered up some kind of crime.. that goes for most of network T.V.
I really hate that show, only SVU annoys me more.

Sci-fi:
all Evil Scientists are German

all alien races are biologically compatable with Humans

travelling through space is never boring

Mac Laptops can connect to alien computer systems without any problems.


Anime:
the most sophisticated, state-of-the-art Mecha can and will be piloted by a newbie with the manual on his lap. and he will be unstoppable.

the cute ones are the dangerous ones

the longer the name of the attack, the more powerful it is.

Generic:
No villian has ever read the 1001+ things I would do when I'm an evil Overlord.

...especially on Law & Order. :p

And forget about Priests.. by the end of the episode, they've either molested someone, killed someone or covered up some kind of crime.. that goes for most of network T.V.

I remember one mystery show where a Priest was put in an akward posistion. the Murderer confessed to the priest. thus the priest was bound by his oath not to speak.

the cops found a very unique way around that.... with the priest present, they went down the suspect list, confronting each person with their motives... and the priest would calmly say "I can tell you, he is innocent..." and they would move on to the next person.

Last Nights Law and Order was also interesting.... the ex-con who was just released actually helped clear the name of the cop who arrested him.

Artsy Italian fillums

Never expect plot or meaning in the actual movie. These will be supplied later by boring academic artsy types wih goatees at cocktail parties and regurgitated in pretentious magazines and TV shows. You can tell which smarmy goatees will provide meaning and plot by their affected speech and often by an aroma of wee brie and sprouts.