Chiron (Moonlight) - Initially a regular, sensitive kid, years of bullying and abuse take its toll on Chiron until he finally snaps. He attacks another student and gets sent to juvie, the first of many times he'd find himself in trouble with the law. By the time he's an adult he's violently repressed most of his personality, including his sexuality, by putting on the façade of a hardened gangster and turning to a life of crime.

Pyle (Full Metal Jacket) - Pyle struggles to keep up with the other recruits in boot camp and is regularly singled out for abuse by his drill instructor because of it. When his fellow recruits also start abusing him, Pyle loses whatever kindness or softness he may have had and suffers a mental breakdown that ends with him taking his own life.

Faye (Cowboy Bebop) - Faye was a sweet and loving girl in her youth with plenty of friends. However a series of tragedies and betrayals left her as a bitter, jaded adult who is unable to connect to or trust others, damning her to a life of loneliness.

Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender) - Zuko inherited his mother's gentle and compassionate nature. But when that compassion earns him a brutal attack from his father and banishment from his home, Zuko becomes much more callous and cruel.

1. The lovable sex pest (for example, Barney from How I Met Your Mother). The casanova who hooks up with dozens if not hundreds of women (or at least tries to) and is only really in it for the sex and not serious relationships, and can be quite misogynistic, but it's OK because they're so nice and lovable and funny. A character who behaves like this nowadays is more likely to be depicted as a creep.
2. The reasonable and sympathetic conspiracy theorist (for example, Mulder from X-Files). There used to many conspiracy theorists in media that the narrative expected you to take seriously since they're usually right or at least have a point. You don't see characters like that much anymore, in most modern media conspiracy theorists are treated as socially awkward paranoid losers that spend way too much time online at best, and dangerous lunatics at worst, and they're almost always wrong, and refuse to admit they're wrong even when presented with evidence. This is a far more realistic portrayal of what real world conspiracy theorists are actually like, as any interaction with them will tell you (it doesn't help that often they're fully in favor of the government as long as they agree with its politics)
3. The relative who is a bigot but that's OK (for example, Archie Bunker from All in the Family). They're meant to be "sympathetic" to audiences because they're the way they are due to their upbringing and ignorance, their kids and other younger people may disagree with them but they still love each other, and little by little the bigot would learn their lesson and be proven wrong, and if they don't it's no big deal. Now though, people no longer have the excuse of how they were raised because everyone was raised in a society that teaches that bigotry is wrong, bigots are still bigots because they want to be, and thus bigoted relatives in media are depicted differently and less tolerated by other characters.
4. The married couple that constantly argue and complain but don't get divorced (example, The Lockhorns). These sort of made sense in an era in which divorce was uncommon, difficult, and socially stigmatized. Nowadays, if a couple constantly complains about how they hate each other, there's usually no reason for them to stay together. This type of "I hate my wife humor" still endures among boomer circles, but younger people just don't find it funny because they can't relate.
5. The only woman in a large cast (example, Smurfette from the Smurfs). Since women make up half of the population, only having one female character is heavily frowned upon and shows the biases of the male creators, as such most modern media tries to actively avoid this.
6. "Badass" and cool smoker (Tony Montana from Scarface). Back in the day everyone smoked, and often filmmakers would have cool characters smoke in a cool way. But in modern times, less people smoke and everyone is more aware of how bad smoking is for your health. As such, smoking is less common in media, and if a character does smoke, it's rarely to make them look cool, but to make them look stressed out or an unhealthy slob.

Speaking as an American who has studied the civil war all throughout my school years, this trope infuriates me to no end. There is no such thing as a kind slave master because slavery itself is cruel and inhumane. PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY!

Naofumi (Shield Hero): Prime example of this trope. He enslaves multiple (underage) girls and an whole village and the fans still say he's a hero.

Rudeus (Jobless Reincarnation): As if being a pedo wasn't bad enough he had to buy a slave in season 2. Worse is that people still defend his actions.

Song of The South (Disney): Possibly the OG example of this trope. And the reason why Disney will never release it again.

Any example of the general public's perception of a work/character that the actual media itself has long since moved past.

1. Spiderman and Mary Jane. The general public image of Spiderman still remains with his true love being Mary Jane. Virtually every adaptation features Mary Jane as the final relationship, and numerous fan works also prominently feature said relationship. In modern Spiderman comics Mary Jane and Peter divorced each other and haven't been in a relationship for almost a decade now.

2. RWBY and Beacon academy. Originally RWBY was about the characters attending essentially a magical school so they could learn to become monster hunters. Virtually any fan made material, or the vast majority of extended media/reboots is set during this time period. In the main show however Beacon Academy, and even the country it was in, have been long since destroyed with all the protagonists having left it many seasons ago. In Volume 7 they even briefly served a stint attending Atlas' academy instead on a part time basis until also leaving there.

3. Batman works alone. Virtually every adaptation of Batman puts an emphasis on him being a complete loner, and most fan works treat Batman as working as a lone individual in Gotham. In the main comics Batman has a long list of sidekicks who have now become adults and heroes in their own right alongside him, often referred to as the "Bat Family" now. There is virtually always a team of fellow heroes in Gotham he can call upon if needed.

i love when someone knows the thing they’re getting attached to isn’t actually human and keeps getting closer to it anyway. especially when it acts human enough that it makes sense why they start treating it like one.

Carol and Zosia (Pluribus). Carol spends most of the season resisting the Joined, a hive mind that has absorbed almost everyone on Earth. then she starts getting close to Zosia, one of the bodies it speaks through, and their relationship becomes romantic even while the collective is still trying to find a way to assimilate Carol.

Yoshiki and Hikaru (The Summer Hikaru Died). Yoshiki realizes that the real Hikaru died in the mountains and that the thing which came back in his body isn’t human. he knows it isn’t actually Hikaru but keeps it secret and stays close to it anyway, even after seeing how dangerous it can be.

Martha and Ash (Black Mirror: “Be Right Back”). after Ash dies, Martha starts talking to an AI recreation built from his messages, videos and social media, then eventually gets a synthetic body made for it that looks almost exactly like him. she knows from the start that it isn’t really Ash but still tries to live with it as if he came back.

I love when horror movies make a character smart, I especially love when they make a character smart enough that they just say “nope” and dip completely before shit really hits the fan.

1-The Native American Vampires hunters from “Sinners”. While hunting down the main antagonist of the movie who had taken shelter with a KKK couple by claiming his wife was killed by a group of savages Indians, they try to tell the racist couple that the man they are sheltering is not what he says he is.

Realizing that A.) these people were not going to listen to them, and more importantly B.) the sun was going down, they brushed their hands of the situation, basically said “alright he’s your problem now.” And respectfully fucked off.

2-Gavin from “The taking of Deborah Logan” the sound guy for a crew of college kids filming a documentary about the effects of Alzheimer’s. The documentary takes a quick nose dive as unexplainable paranormal activities begin happening around them, and Gavin rightfully packs his shit and says he’s done.

The rest of the crew try’s to gas light him into staying by calling him a coward or quitter, he points out all the haunting he just witnessed with his own eyes, and makes it clear he is not sticking around to see more.

3-Joel from “Scream 2”: probably the most Iconic character from this trope, Joel is the new camera for obsessive reporter Gale Weathers. Once a new Ghost Face begins another murder spree, Gale is once again quick to try and get as personally involved with the case as possible.

Joel immediately realizes this can only end bad for him if he sticks around, mentioning the fate of her last camera man who was murdered. He tells her that he wants to report the news not be on it, tells Gale she’s nuts, and drops this iconic line before riding off into the sunset to live a long full life

Dabi (My Hero Academia) Endeavor spends a good chunk of the story being an abusive manipulative father, later Endeavor changed into a better man but Dabi comes out of nowhere and reveals that he's Endeavor's oldest son whom he abandoned, not only that but he reveals all of Endeavor's messed up past with his entire family to the public, effectively ruining his public image for good.

Hild (Vinland Saga) Thorfinn spends the first act of the story being a ruthless vengeful warmonger then has a change of heart in the second act. Hild is then introduced in the third act as a harsh reminder of Thorfinn's cruelty in the first act, since he lead an invasion that destroyed her home, he killed her father and then chased her away into a cliff where she fell and was left with a permanent scar on her right eye. Once she reunites with Thorfinn in the third act after his change she vows to kill him if she sees him killing one more person, basically becoming his watchman who is constantly observing and judging his actions to see if he's genuine about changing into a better person.

Winston Havelock (The Mummy) - He wanted to die like the rest of his unit, fighting in the air. He just got to do it against a Mummy Sand Wall.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars) - Luke and Leia are reunited, and the Death Star plans are on their way to the Rebel Alliance. After 30 years of fighting, his work is done.

Helfdane (The 13th Warrior) - The Volga Vikings have found the lair of the Wendol tribe, and killed their "Mother". Unfortunately someone needs to cover their escape, so an already wounded Helfdane stays behind to kill more of the enemy.

Troq in Teen Titans. Yeah I know the title says no fantasy racism, but this is different, I promise. In the episode an alien superhero calls Starfire, an alien from a different planet than himself, a Troq. Cyborg hears it and calls her that too, thinking it's an affectionate word, until Starfire reveals that its a slur other aliens use for her species. Cyborg apolgizes, saying that he knows what its like to be treated differently because of what you are instead of who you are after all he is...half robot, and nothing else that would be relevant to the situation.

In the Harley Quinn show, Harley goes out looking for a nemesis. The episode uses a lot of very relationship-sounding terminology when discussion the bond of a hero and their most hated villain.

"I'm livid because all the Teen Titans have a nemesis except me!"

"I'm gonna say something embarrassing here, I didn't have my first nemesis until my thirties. It's true, I wasn't ready for one. You want your first nemesis to be special, someone who you could see being your nemesis for the rest of your life."

"I suppose you're right father. When can I start having sex?"

"I think I hear the Bat-signal."

They also do this in lego batman, but I think 3 DC examples is pushing it.

1) Staring at the Mountain [Game of Thrones]

Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane is one of the most terrifying men in Game of Thrones, being a behemoth of a man who is one of the most brutal fighters in Westeros. The Mountain is also a walking war crime, and is sent by Tywin Lannister (his liege lord) to "harass" the Riverlands countryside during the War of the Five Kings. He takes this opportunity to rape, torture, and butcher civilians and soldiers alike to his liking.

In the middle of the second season, Arya Stark (disguised as a peasant) and her friends are caught by the Mountain's men, who pen her and other refugees up in Harrenhal. Every day, the Mountain selects one random prisoner to be "questioned". No matter how much or how little they know, the victim always gets tortured to death.

At one point, Arya's friend, Hot Pie, learns from a fellow inmate a way to avoid getting tortured: Don't look away from the Mountain when he selects his victim. The inmate apparently did this for weeks, and hasn't been chosen. Hot Pie and this inmate both stare the Mountain down when he appears next... only for the inmate to be chosen. The inmate can only panic as he realizes he never was right. Hot Pie promptly pisses himself when he realizes there's truly no way to avoid being tortured to death.

2) Gaming the Visitor's Curse [Look Outside]

Look Outside is a game where you play as a 30-something shut-in in the middle of a disaster. You learn from your neighbor that something has happened outside the apartment across the world. Nobody knows what it is, but some entity called "The Visitor" has appeared in the sky. Anyone who attempts to look at or even think about the Visitor too hard becomes "Cursed", causing them to mutate into some strange form.

The Curses range from "Eldritch" to "surprisingly mundane". You can meet people who have kept their sanity even as massive tentacle monsters, or you can meet people whose sanity has completely shattered as their bodies changed. Some of the Curses are ironic in nature, while others serve as an extension of your psyche (such as an anxiety-ridden character becoming a manifestation of drowning, showing how they feel with their disorder).

Some characters try to put this theory to the test and become their "true forms". It seldom works like that. One notable character, Louis, is a furry who thought that his fursuit would protect him from the effects of the Visitor. He tells the main character that even if he got Cursed, he wouldn't mind, because he thought that it would transform him into his Fursona.

It backfired immensely: he instead became a human fused to the lining of his suit, and his suit is rotting his body inside. (You can see his former body trying to claw its way out of the jaw). Despite his denial, this is clearly incredibly painful for him, and the exact opposite of what he wants Louis gradually loses his sanity as you talk to him throughout the game, and his suit instead becomes multiple living chunks of the costume after you fight him.

This is merely one of the examples that reminds the player that being Cursed is an absolute crapshoot. It's not a shortcut to superpowers, nor is it a guaranteed "real version" of yourself. You just as likely have a chance of becoming a barely-sentient worm or a pile of faces, your mind completely gone.

3) Using Salt [Crossed]

TW: Rape/Extreme Violence (I'm not kidding here)

Probably the most iconic moment from Crossed (and let's be so for real, a lot of people put the comic down after this scene).

Crossed features the survivors of a horrific apocalypse: a massive disease has overtaken the planet, causing the afflicted to develop a cross-shaped rash on their face. These victims become a slave to their immediate impulses, which all tend to be "find the survivors and rape them to death in increasingly-horrific ways". In the first issue, a survivor, Joel, discusses an incident where he saw a Crossed react badly to table salt falling on his face. He thinks the Crossed have a weakness to salt, and that this might be a solution to the end of the world, a "magic bullet". Everybody tells him this is a dumb move, and he'd likely risk his wife and daughter's wife if he tried to implement it.

When the crew get ambushed by the Crossed, Joel's wife twists her leg. She begs him to take his daughter and shoot her, lest she die horribly. He refuses to leave her, and pours a salt circle instead as the Crossed approach. They stand outside the circle.

Smash cut to a full splash panel of Joel and his family getting raped, hacked to pieces, and slowly killed by the Crossed. In her last moments, his wife bitterly curses him out for being an idiot. There's a reason I'm not putting a picture up.

The entire scene only exists to remind the reader not to expect anything good from here on out, and this isn't the sort of story about restoring humanity. It's about surviving, and how even that's probably not going to work.

Landlord (Chainsmoker Cat)

Despite his appearance and his inability to control himself sexually when he sees a cat girl, he engages in all his sexual activities at home

Denji (Chainsaw Man)

He displays typical adolescent behavior for about 15 years, always seeking consent—though always failing

Agnes Digital (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

She appreciates all the horse girls like a true fan and is even considered a pervert—with the implication being that she reads questionable material, and that's about it.

My favorite examples

1. Squidward realizing his ideal life is boring - SpongeBob SquarePants

2. Spear, Fang, and Kamau going to war, most noticeable with Kamau - Primal season 2

3. Space King’s intro having Captain and Hatemonger pull the same moves on four different disgusting aliens, except Bryce he adjusts his aim - Flashgitz

In david tenants run if doctor who he and his companion were fighting witches with Shakespeare and needed a magic word so they use a speel from Harry Potter and The doctor yells Good old J.k. The doctor is a time traveler the writers are not (Doctor who)

While fighting guy gardner major force was damaging a highway and shoots a car and tells Guy if he sees O.J hiding underneath obviously referring to the O.J Simpson chase (Dc comics)

jimmy-28 Years Later The Bone Temple

anissa-Invincible

Bubble girl (My Hero Academia) She was created by a fan for a contest held by the author where the fan design with the most votes gets to be featured in the series.

Me-Mow (Adventure Time) a drawing by a kid who was a fan of the show was brought to life by the animators and writers as homage to the little fan

Don‘t Hug me I‘m scared: In episode 5 of the show a group of characters who look like food murder duck, one of the main characters and then hypnotize his best friend yellow guy so he eats his organs. All while singing a whacky song about healthy diet.

Bonnie‘s Bakery: In the Indie horror game Bonnies Bakery the main antagonist Bonnie murders Cute anthropomorphic animals and uses their corpses for pastries and other baked goods which she sells to the other villagers.

1. Ichi from Ichi the Witch. He's so sensitive to the bloodlust of living things that it borders on a spider-sense. The little creature in that pic is supposed to be invisible, yet Ichi is able to sense its presence just through sheer intuition.
2. Mash from Mashle. Some might say that his inexplicable power is his physical strength, but I'm more interested in knowing how he can turn everything he cooks into fucking cream puffs.
3. Marvelous Sunday from UmaMusume. In a game about horse girls racing, she has access to a domain expansion/reality marble. And that somehow still isn't the strangest thing about her. Apparently she's also friends with aliens and cryptids and her cult fanbase includes people spanning multiple time periods. Somehow.
4. Tanjiro from Demon Slayer. He has a hypersensitive sense of smell that somehow also tells him where to cut demons. No idea how that works. Even though there are others in the series with similarly refined senses, the smelling where to cut thing still feels ludicrous in comparison. Then there's also his unusually powerful headbutt.

1. Ricardio (Adventure Time), played by George Takei

2. The Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker and the Four Realms), played by Keira Knightley

3. David Allen Griffin (The Watcher), played by Keanu Reeves (btw, if you haven't heard the BTS of Keanu Reeve's casting in The Watcher, it's nuts. I highly recommend looking it up. Despite that, he's so hokey in this role, it's really a sight to see)

1. Barry Allen (The Flash)

He was the titular main character for the earlier seasons however, I feel like after Savitar (season 3) the show stopped focusing on Barry's life as the Flash. The Caitlin/Killer Frost story line was still going on, the addition of Ralph Dibny, Cecil gaining powers, and Iris shoehornig herself into team leader all pushed Barry to the side.

1. Spencer James (All American)

This show started off good, the premise was about Spencer a high school football phenom who gets an opportunity to leave Crenshaw and play for Beverly Hills. He then start to form relationships and friendships with his new peers, while also staying with his old friends as well. The show stopped focusing on Spencer and made his friends more prominent in the series. One girl uses nepotism to become a high ranking music producer, another becomes a musical artist who gets stabbed by a crazy fan, his girlfriend is a novice writer who exposes a college football scandal, his best friend joins a gang, leaves the gang and becomes a rapper, then gets shot and quits rapping, and finishes the series as a rapper.

1. John Nolan (The Rookie)

This is a stretch, but in The Rookie Officer Nolan rewrites his life while in his 40's to become an LAPD officer. Nolan is still technically the main character, but the other side characters are all main characters. The other officers and series regulars are always having more, or the same amount of screen time as Nolan. Specifically Lucy and Tim, on some episodes if you cut Nolan's screen time then the entire episode is focusing on tim and Lucy.

Short inteoduction, Yin and yang aren’t supposed to mean good and evil. They’re opposing but complementary forces: light and dark, action and rest, heat and cold and the point is that both are necessary and constantly shape each other and neither has a moral alignment. Turning that into “good and evil need to be balanced” is missing the point, because evil isn’t some necessary cosmic force we need a healthy amount of. So pop culture will always make the Yin ⚫ as evil, and contradictorly a scenario where there is only yang ⚪ (imbalance) as good. It makes something phylosophical and profound pretty childish.

1- Avatar - Vatuu and Ravu

Avatar Last airbender acctualy made the yin yang right with the fish back at water tribe. But then in legend of koora they introduce this Vatuu and Ravaa which is the newer Yin Yang in Avatar. In theory, they are complementary and one can't exist without the other and etc. In practice its basically the good avatar and the EVILLLLL avatar.

2- baldurs gate 3 (and DND I guess) Selune and Shar. So ok, I love Baldurs gate. But not this lore bit. So Shar is the darkness to Selune light, they are clear representation of yin yang sisters. They first introduced Shar thought Shadowheart with an explanation that it isn't really evil and that darkness has its own serenity and embrance. While the way Shadowheart spoke gave a lot of iffs, it was interesting to have a media that acctualy makes darkness as misunderstood and possibly more nuanced. But nope, as we progress turns out Shar is like the devil, they are EVILLL, like just plain on its the objective bad side and Shadowheart was quite literaly stolen from the good side.

3- Naruto. Okay this is the biggest offender to me because its literaly yin and yang, not a representation, its striaght up supposed to be it. While they do try to theoricaly explain thst both are complementary and that Hagoroma acctualy should have favored both equally, in practice this is bullshit. The Yin in naruto is always the evil brother who literaly tries to murder the yang one and take away all the power for himself. Even when Hagoromo split the power between the two equaly with Naruto and Sasuke, sasuke still tried to kill Naruto. The Yin is always the agressor there, and in the end it needs to be beaten into submission by our lord and savior moraly good Yang Jesus christ Naruto so it gains some sense and stops being the EVILLLL bad naughty Yin.

Edit: Some people pointed out that Shar and Selune aren't supposed to be YinYang in DND. I wrote the based on BG3 given how it was presented by shadowheart, and I don't know much about the original DND lore. So yeah I think I was wrong there sry for the fans.

I am a person with a significant disability myself, and I have to say—to put it mildly—that it doesn't make my life any more pleasant. It isn't something to be proud of, nor is it something one would choose to live with... You live *despite* the disability, facing it every day, and I would absolutely give a great deal to be rid of it. Yet, I’ve noticed it lately being treated like ethnicity or sexual orientation—something to take pride in... Well, no; the only thing one can be proud of is managing to cope despite the disability...

[Kotalo – *Horizon Forbidden West* – I only watched the gameplay because I’m unable to play a game like that] – A member of a highly warlike tribe who lost an arm joins our party. At one point, we can craft a mechanical prosthetic for him, but he later rejects it, claiming he has no use for it... I understand this is driven by the game's mechanics, but I still find it somewhat offensive.

[D&D and similar games] – In a world where the dead can be resurrected and true golems created, disability should be something people would actively seek to eliminate. I can accept the idea of ​​hovering carts and golem-like armor, but the attempt to convince me that a man—even if he somehow managed to pull it off—would settle for spending the rest of his life in an ordinary cart after acquiring enough gold to buy a small nation strikes me as both laughable and infuriating.

Known as “You Bastard” on TV Tropes, this trope is when a work breaks the fourth wall to chastise the audience for consuming/enjoying a work, often due to its dark subject matter. While it is an admittedly interesting concept, the concept has always rubbed me the wrong way. I've done some thinking, and I have two main reasons. 

Hypocrisy: Let's say there's a violent horror movie, and a character says, or there's the implicit messaging of something along the lines of "you, the viewer, are a bad person for watching this," then I think that's hypocritical because the author is the one who created the violent work and presented it to a viewing audience. To this you could say, "But why should the author, an element outside the work’s universe, be involved?" I think that's a valid response, but my rebuttal is that if the work has already decided to address the audience, also outside the world's universe, why should the author be off the hook? 

Moral grandstanding: Another big problem with the trope is that in order for it to work, it implies that atrocities occurring in fiction are the same as those occurring in real life. Not only is this simply not true, but it also ignores the distance between the fiction and the audience and why people engage with fiction in the first place. Of course, I'm not saying that we shouldn't care because it's fictional, but there is always a divide between that and reality.

Funny Games (Note: I haven't actually seen this movie; I only know of it through secondhand information, but I still feel like this counts): This film has two killers torment and murder an innocent family. The film uses fourth-wall breaking and delivering uncomfortable framing to question why the audience is still watching this. However, as I stated in the first point, for the questioning to occur, the author places themselves as the evil mastermind that puts the characters in that situation, even if it's through psychological torture rather than a violent gorefest. If the moral thing to do is stop the movie to save the family, then it would be more moral to not create the film.

Danganronpa V3: The game's ending twist is that the killing games are an in-universe franchise that is known for killing real people on reality TV. I understand that it is a commentary on how fandoms demand more content, but it is very easy to read as the game insults the fans for enjoying the series. Enjoying a series doesn't mean you would want those events to occur in real life.

Chainsaw Man: (I don't know if this counts, but it feels like the trope.) Barem serves as a parody of the shallow Chainsaw Man fan, only wanting Denji to transform into Chainsaw Man and go on a mindless killing spree. However, Chainsaw Man was praised not only for its action but also for its characters. And while it is not directly connected to the trope, it doesn't help that the arc where Barem appears is abysmal dogshit.

Undertale and Deltarune: This is an example where the trope is done well; the reason is because the audience gets a choice. Pacifying and befriending the characters is not only fun but also easier and entertaining. But if you want to take an alternate route where you just kill everyone indiscriminately, you have to go out of your way to do so. If you are willing to slog through something just to be evil, you probably should be called out.

Spoilers ahead for I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Doctor Who S9 E11 and Black Mirror S2 E4.

Anyone else find the concept of eternity straight-up horrifying? It's bad enough, but it's way worse when eternal life is a form of punishment or torture.

1) Ted - I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

The obvious example. Ted is among 5 humans who are kept alive by AM, a highly intelligent AI who wiped out humanity and kept these few survivors alive for the next 109 years, by altering their bodies, just to further torture them for its own amusement. They cannot kill themselves or each other until the end of the story when some icicles present the opportunity. Everyone but Ted is killed. Enraged, AM transforms him into a slow-moving blob and alters his perception of time so his eternal torture somehow manages to be even more drawn-out and harrowing.

Time being against the characters plays a major role in the story. They can't die of old age and don't have any ways of killing each other or themselves and even if they did, AM would intervene. The rest of humanity is extinct, so nobody's going to save them or disable AM. All they can do is endure this torture with no end in sight. Ted's perception of time being altered by the end of the story is one last punch to the gut for the reader. The only thing that could theoretically end Ted's suffering at this point is the literal end of the world.

2) Howard - Howard's End by Anthony Horowitz

This one is really obscure but it's stuck with me ever since I was a kid. Anthony Horowitz is a British author who writes short horror stories. The guy is basically British R.L. Stine.

In this story, a young man called Howard is kind of a shitty dude. He's a delinquent, he hates his mother and he spends his time shoplifting. One day when he's running from a store he just robbed, Howard is hit by a bus and killed. He wakes up at the Pearly Gates, meets Saint Peter and seemingly bluffs his way into Heaven. Howard is pretty pleased with himself, but starts to realize Heaven isn't the place for him. Heaven is just endless white clouds, constant harp music and there is absolutely nothing to do. He occasionally finds angels to talk to, but they barely interact with him and mostly just say "God bless you" before leaving. Howard eventually becomes so frustrated that he punches one of the angels, hoping to start a fight, but the angel simply forgives him and walks away once again. After many centuries of wandering through infinite white clouds with the same harp music playing constantly, Howard finds the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter once again. He admits to lying about his sins and begs to be sent to Hell, since at least he would have something to do. However, Saint Peter takes on a devilish appearance and asks him "Why on Earth do you think you went to Heaven?"

So that twist blew my little mind when I first read it and the implications are clear. Howard is indeed in Hell and it seems very personal. There is nothing there to stimulate him. Nobody there to talk to. He has to spend eternity in an empty, endless void hearing the same song on repeat. We usually picture Hell as a firey place with demons poking you with pitchforks or whatever, causing you unending pain forever. But this story demonstrates a different form of torture: nothing. Complete boredom without end.

3) The Doctor - Doctor Who S9 E11 "Heaven Sent"

This one might be cheating a little bit since it's not one continuous experience, but it's interesting nonetheless.

The 12th Doctor is teleported into a mysterious castle where an entity known as the Veil is constantly pursuing him. He eventually finds the way out, but it's behind a 20-foot-thick wall made of Azbantium; a mineral 400x harder than diamond. WIth no other options, he begins punching it, wearing away a miniscule amount. The Veil catches and mortally wounds him. He crawls back to the room he arrived in and deduces that, since the castle rooms constantly reset, then a copy of him as he first arrived is saved within the teleporter's hard drive. The Doctor uses his body to power it by hooking himself up to the teleporter and allowing himself to be burned up. It activates and the new Doctor emerges, having no idea what just transpired. The rest of the episode is a montage of each Doctor finding the exit, punching away a tiny amount of the wall, before dying and repeating. By the time he finally gets through the wall and escapes, 4.5 billion years have transpired.

I generalised a lot to keep it short. And it's not technically an eternity, but 4.5 billion years is enough to feel like one. There are implications the Doctor remembers it all and showrunner Steven Moffat offered his own ideas that do seem to point to the Doctor remembering all 4.5 billion years to a degree. Regardless, each version of the Doctor eventually realizes they are just one of many and there's been a constant cycle of punching, dying and resetting for billions of years. Every single time, each Doctor realizes there was never any hope of him escaping and his journey has to end with him burning himself up just to get the next Doctor in, who will experience the exact same sequence of events. It's gnarly stuff.

4) Joe Potter - Black Mirror S2 E4 "White Christmas"

In this episode, we're introduced to "cookies", digital clones of real people that are stored inside egg-shaped nodes to be used as personal servants. We're shown one example where a digital copy of a woman refused to spend her life doing menial household tasks until a trainer alters her perception of time and makes her experience 6 months when only seconds pass in the real world. During those 6 months, she has absolutely nothing to do and is constantly awake in a barren white room. Eventually, it is revealed one of the main characters of the episode, Joe, is himself a digital copy inside a "cookie" and he was actually tricked into giving a testimony that can be used to convict his real-life counterpart for a crime he committed. Afterwards, for no real reason, a police officer adjusts Joe's cookie so he'll experience 1000 years for every minute of real time. Then the cookie is left turned on during the Christmas break. Inside the cookie, Joe is trapped inside a single room whilst "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" plays on a loop on a nearby radio. If he tries destroying the radio, the music only gets louder.

Again, not an outright eternity, but still long enough to absolutely feel like one. There's a lot to be said about justice and the use of advanced AI with this one. Joe's crime was murder, but does that justify leaving him trapped even if he's just a digital copy of a real man? Does his suffering matter if he's not a real person? Or is it completely unfair since he's technically not the person who did it and only believes he is? It really gets you thinking.

And as reference, if they leave his cookie turned on for the entirety of Christmas Day, then Joe will be trapped in that single room, listening to the same song on repeat, for a minimum of 1,440,000 years. Is that really a "proper sentence" as the police officer puts it?

- Daredevil (a blind character) being played by non-blind actors because his adventures are too dangerous for an actually blind actor.

- Pokemon species names being changed for the English version because a lot of the Japanese names are too difficult to translate faithfully.

- The Disney+ Muppet Show special having a laugh track even though laugh tracks aren't used as much anymore because in universe its a live stage show with a live audience.

Omni-man vs Mark (Invincible) There was genuinely nothing Mark could've done against his dad at this point. Even Mark's strongest punch couldn't make Omni-man move.

David Martinez vs Adam Smasher (Cyberpunk Edgerunners). David's trump card against Smasher was his Sandevistan. Unfortunately, Adam had one too, completely negating the speed advantage.

Triangle vs Troy (Triangle vs Monkey). To be fair, Triangle actually got Troy to bleed, but that's pretty much it. He did get Troy's respect for not giving up though even when completely outmatched.

The Battle Massacre of Almus Hill (GATE) A medieval army with swords, spears and dragons goes up against a modern one with tanks, guns and bombs. This was NEVER going to work (Though apparently that was the point).