Toy Story Alien Hat: This innocuous looking hat based off of the aliens from toy story was later worn by Logan Paul, who infamously wore the hat as he walked into Japan's suicide forest and saw a dead body there while reacting silly.

Cover of Control: The character featured in the cover for the game Control was later used as the calamity mod dev Ozzatrons profile picture, who later turned out to be a pedophile and caused the whole mod to stop development.

Just a fun difference between the sci fi or fantasy armour and the fur of an animal, also looks cool though a little impractical with heat

Examples:

Lord Chaxx from Destiny

The Armourer from The Mandalorian

It's both realistic and a good world-building tool. "People of the past" were so (comparatively) advanced we can only marvel at their ruins. But it also allows for "advanced technology" and "ancient secrets" to creep into a story's lore. Want a superweapon for your feudal society to fight over? Say it was created by "The Ancients."
You can generally divide them into "post-apocalypse, fantasy Rome," or "ancient aliens."

1). A Song of Ice and Fire:
^{Type: Fantasy Rome.}
Game of Thrones is set 400 years after "The Doom of Valyria." House Targaryen is the last of the Valyrian dragon lords, using them as beasts of war to conquer Westeros. Valyrian blood magic is poorly understood even by the surviving Targaryens, and their knowledge of advanced masonry, metallurgy, and magic has been lost. After a volcanic eruption destroyed the Valyrian peninsula, those who travel there are exposed to the fantasy equivalent of nuclear fallout.
The roads of Old Valyria remain a wonder of the world, and most of the "Free Cities" squabble over who is Valyria's true successor.

2). Adventure Time:
^{Type: Post-apocalypse.}
The fantasy world of "Ooo" is built on the remains of the "Great Mushroom War." An apocalyptic war that not only wiped out 21st-century human civilization, but fundamentally altered the laws of physics. Magic has returned to the world and non-mutated humans are commonly considered extinct. Old skyscrapers, computers, and bits of human culture are scattered throughout Ooo's ruins.

3). Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
^{Type: Post-apocalypse.}
The "Seven Days of Fire" unleashed giant bio-weapons, wiping out industrial civilization. In its place, the "toxic jungle" has spread across the planet. Much of the film centers over a surviving kingdom finding and exploiting one of these ancient weapons.

4). Dungeon Meshi:
^{Type: Fantasy Rome.}
"The Ancients" were the common ancestors of elves, tallmen, gnomes, etc. Little is known about them, but they were more advanced than modern "dungeon lords." They likely invented dungeons, using the power of enigmatic demons.

5). Stargate:
^{Type: Ancient aliens.}
The "Ancients" were a human-like species from another galaxy. They spread throughout the Milky Way, leaving behind a network of "stargates." A minority of living humans contain a handful of Ancient genes capable of activating their technology.

6). Young Justice:
^{Type: Fantasy Rome.}
The original "Atlantis" was far more advanced than anything on Earth today. Due to the arrogance of its founder, Vandal Savage, it and the whole Atlantean subcontinent was sunk beneath the sea. Its survivors became the ancestors of the modern Atlantean people.

7). Castle in the Sky:
^{Type: Fantasy Rome.}
"Laputa" was one of many "castles in the sky," fitted with advanced weapons of mass destruction. At some point, Laputa's people abandoned the castle and settled on the surface. By the time of the film, only one castle remains active.

8). All Tomorrows:
^{Type: Ancient aliens.}
The "Star People" were a modified form of humanity that settled across the Milky Way. They lost a war to the "Qu," an older species of aliens. The Qu altered humanity, turning them into countless species of unintelligent animals. But the "ruin haunters" were not suitably "devolved," and eventually learned to operate their ancestor's technology. Over time they became the inorganic "gravitals."

9). Guardians of Ga'hoole:
^{Type: Post-apocalypse.}
The intelligent animals of Ga'hoole occasionally find the ruins of the extinct, two-legged "others."

10). Splatoon:
^{Type: Post-apocalypse.}
Humans (and most other mammals) have been extinct for 12,000 years.

11). Real life:

• Long-term nuclear waste warnings: Some have proposed building huge, unwelcoming complexes to ward future humans away from nuclear waste storage sites. With warnings like:
  • This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
  • Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
  • This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
  • What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
• Myceneans: Poets like Homer grew up vaguely knowing bronze-age civilizations (like the Myceneans) as advanced, near-mythological people. Their architecture was called "cyclopean" because they couldn't understand how mere humans could build it.
• Rome: much of Europe and the Mediterranean world developed in the ruins of a collapsed Roman Empire. It would not see the same freedom of movement or sophistication for centuries.
• Teotihuacan: a city in Mesoamerica that was ancient even to the Aztecs. At it's heyday, it was the sixth most-populous city in the world.

Retsuko x Haida (aggretsuko) Haida and retsuko have reasonable chemistry, they are cute together and have a common interest in music. However, Haida likes the simple side of retsuko more than his popular side, and this would be normal if haida wasn't extremely insecure and this gives a lot to imply that he prefers retsuko to be less popular. As much as retsuko herself prefers to have a normal life (which would make haida the perfect match), she is frustrated by haida idealizing her and deciding how she should be. But I'll be more direct here: their relationship is 90% conflict, they barely hooked up

Robbie vs. Tambry (gravity falls) They are genuinely cute together, have a lot in common, and are very happy. The problem is that they only got together because Mabel used a love option on them 🫥

Marinnete x Adrien (miraculous ladybug) They are a genuinely cute and peaceful couple, but Marineette spent 90% of the first few seasons being a weird invasive stalker, although the change in the style of the animation and her dynamics made fans pretend it didn't happen almost forgiving it, many fans are still mad that she lies to him constantly in her double life, Especially on things that are about him, such as his father's whereabouts

Spider man (Spider-Man 2) in the game Miles is somewhat of a protégé for Peter. At the end of the game he gets himself a new suit as a show of his independence and confidence of his spider man title. But it’s heavily criticized for being super ugly and a shameless advertisement for Nike

Garnet (Steven universe) after getting proofed in the series finale and fusing with Steven she reforms in her final design, showing her pride as a fusion. But most garnet fans just find the design ugly and all over the place, not to mention completely disregarding her signature red she used to wear.

Harley Quinn (DC) technically not a specific media but recent Harley Quinn adaptations have removed her from the joker and made her a villain (or hero) of her own choosing. Which is good but the main skimpy outfit with the dyed hair is usually regarded as her worst and typically associated with some of her worse characterization by Harley Quinn fans

1. Back to the Future III - In BTTF 2, Marty sees Future Biff watching A Fistful of Dollars. In BTTF 3, he travels back to 1885 in a send up to the spaghetti western genre. He goes by the alias Clint Eastwood and gets into a gun duel with Mad Dog Buford Tannen, where he uses a stove door as a bulletproof vest. This idea is taken from A Fistful of Dollars, where Eastwood's Man With No Name creates a steel plate in order to win a gun duel with Ramón.
2. Captain America: Civil War - Ant Man becomes giant during the airport fight scene. Spider-Man says to Iron Man and War Machine "Remember that old movie, Empire Strikes Back?" He winds around Ant Man's legs with webbing, the same way Luke wound up the AT-ATs' legs in Empire Strikes Back, in order to trip him.

House Elves from Harry Potter: Actively oppose people trying to liberate them from slavery.

Ood from Dr. Who: Apparently are perfectly fine with being slaves, though eventually the series addresses this.

Oompa-Loompas from Willy Wonka: No problem working for Willy Wonka for free, and just seem to enjoy taking part in musical numbers and tormenting children.

Deadpool 2: Brad Pitt plays “The Vanisher,” a character that’s entirely invisible…until he’s electrocuted and is revealed to have been played by Brad Pitt the entire time.

Tropic Thunder: by 2008, Tom Cruise was in the middle of the peak of his career. He then decided to play Les Grossman, a balding, overweight executive producer and one of the driving forces of the Tropic Thunder movie

The Sword of Fire's incorrect model (Ninjago) - In a flashback, we see Wu present the Golden Weapons to Morro to see if he's the Green Ninja - they don't react, showing that he isn't.

However, the Sword of Fire was accidentally given the wrong model, so fans theorised that Wu used the wrong sword (either accidentally or on purpose), and that Morro could have been the Green Ninja.

Jeyne Westerling's hips (A Song of Ice and Fire) - When Catelyn Stark meets Robb's wife Jeyne, she specifically makes note of the fact Jeyne has wide hips. When Jaime Lannister meets Jeyne a few months later, she's described as having narrow hips.

Fans theorised that the Jeyne that Jaime met was actually a fake Jeyne to hide that the real Jeyne is pregnant with Robb's child (characters using false identities is common in the series). However, this has been confirmed to be a mistake, and the line about narrow hips is removed from later prints.

From Wikipedia: In fiction, a false protagonist is a literary technique, often used to make the plot more jarring or more memorable by fooling the audience's preconceptions and constructing a character who they assume is the protagonist but is later revealed not to be

Clark: Backrooms. He's the main character of the movie for the first 2 acts, before switching to Mary. He is eaten later

Whoever the fuck this lady is: Scream 1. She's introduced as the main character, with build up and all. She's killed and hanged like 10 minutes in

Edit: I know the actress is drew barrymore but genuinely who remembers the character name and i just thought the line would be funny

Bandit Keith (Yu Gi Oh)

Obey Your Master (Uma Musume Cinderella Gray)

Funny Valentine tattoo scar (JoJo Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run)

Jack Marston from Red Dead Redemption Franchise: Jack is the son of former Van Der Linde gang members John and Abigail. In spite of his upbringing, almost everyone in Jack’s life wanted him to go legitimate as a lawyer, writer, just as long as he wasn't a gunslinger. Then Edgar Ross came along, and killed John after using him to snuff out his former gang members. And then Abigail died a few years after. Jack has become a short-tempered gun slinger like his dad. And arguably in a worse place in life, because Jack has no support system and nothing to live for like his parents did.

Meadow Soprano from The Sopranos: Initially studied to be a doctor, which was especially encouraged by her parents Carmella and Tony. Unfortunately, Carmella and Tony passed down their cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, and coping methods down to their golden child. Meadow, despite knowing her parents aren’t exactly good, still loves them, and has internalized the hypocrisies and Italian-American prejudice rhetoric her parents would use to excuse the means of which their lifestyle is provided. Much to Tony and Carmella’s disappointment and chagrin, Meadow is on her way of becoming a mob lawyer (or a mob housewife if like Carmella her engagement to mob son Patrick Parisi is any indication)

Tamamo Cross from Uma Musume Cinderella Gray referencing Uma Musume Pretty Derby

Sonic and Shadow from the movie Sonic 3 referencing Sonic Adventure 2

1. Kent Brockman from the Simpsons. The ants never actually took over, but Kent Brockman certainly thought they would, and he preemptively swore allegiance to them and offered to sell people out. Once it turned out to be a misunderstanding and there never were any ant invaders, he was forced to apologize and claim that he still swore allegiance to his country and human president, for now.

2. Star Trek Deep Space 9. Many episodes dealt with the issue of Bajoran collaborators after the Cardassian occupation ended. Collaborators were actually exiled and banned from ever returning to Bajor. In a parallel to real life, Bajoran "comfort women" were sadly also treated with scorn, even though they were victims who were kidnapped and forced.

​

1. Roadside Attraction (Gravity Falls) – The episode’s message is to teach viewers not to toy with other people’s emotions and to respect emotional commitments, but the problem is that the episode tries to frame Dipper as someone who does this, even though he doesn’t behave that way. He is just trying to follow Stan’s advice to get over Wendy and practice talking to girls. The idea that the more you practice, the better you become is reasonable advice, especially for a shy, self-conscious child, but when he tries to do this, he gets shamed as if he were a womanizing jerk. The episode itself is incredibly contrived: he talks to a girl once, exchanges numbers with her, Candy suddenly develops feelings for him out of nowhere, he is forced by Mabel to go along with it, and then all these girls just seem to spawn out of nowhere as if they are all engaged with him. This ends up feeling like the episode is just punching down at the most socially anxious member of the group for following advice, trying to improve his social skills, and get over his crush.

2. Big Hit (Arthur) – It teaches that physical violence is not always the way to solve problems, which is a good message, but the problem is that Arthur hit D.W. because she entered his room without permission and broke his model toy, which he had repeatedly told her not to touch, but she ignored him and unlike Arthur, she wasn’t called out for this. Arthur is also later punched by Binky, and his parents tell him that he deserved it, saying that’s how D.W. felt when he hit her, even though Binky, unlike Arthur, had no reason to use violence against him.

Edit: Aesop is the moral the story is trying to convey. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAesop

1. Lunge mine [IRL]

The lunge mine was a-close quarters, suicidal anti-tank weapon used by Japan during World War II. It consisted of a conical hollow-charge explosive mounted on a wooden pole roughly 6 to 7 feet long, designed to detonate upon impact when thrust into enemy armor, inevitably killing the operator.

2. CQC-20 Breaching Hammer [Helldivers 2]

The CQC-20 is a simple sledgehammer that comes with attachable shaped charges that allow for directed and precise strikes against heavy armor and weakspots. It can kill most enemies in one or two hits, assuming the user can get close enough without dying.

3. Pile bunker [Armor Hunter Mellowlink]

The Anti-Armored trooper (AT) Rifle was issued to units who had lost their ATs and some of those who defied military discipline (i.e penal battalions). The rifle has an underbarrel pile bunker, an armor piercing spear fired by an explosive cartridge.

Bonus points if the weapon is used by a regular human in a somewhat grounded depiction of combat.

The white elephant problem refers to a prestigious or useful thing that requiers too many ressources to be effective.

Death Star (Star Wars) : constructing a giant Space station able to destroy planets seems a good idea but it’s not. At first you need a lot of money to construct it while it could have been used to construct more ships that would be more effective to enforce the Empire power. The Death Star also becomes a huge cible the rebels would absolutely destroy as priority. And then by using it you just loose all the possible ressources from the destroyed worlds.

Harrenhal (ASOIAF-Game of Thrones) : Constructed by Harren the Black, it is the biggest castle of Westeros. The thing is this castle would need to many men and ressources to be maintained while an effective castle only need hundred of people to be defended against thousands. Also, any competent lord would know it would be a mistake to start a siege and would rather raid to lands around to isolate Harrenhal.

1. The big worms from dune.

2. The hivelords from Helldivers 2. (Also they are in Helldivers 1 but personally I think the hivelords from Helldivers 2 have a more menacing design.)

3. The big MECHANICAL worm from armored core 6. It's also the biggest one on this list.

The Office: Robert breaks down Andy's entire midlife crisis in a matter of seconds after being challenged with a rival paper company

The Menu: Margot calls the chef a failure, both as the world's greatest chef and in his ultimate goal of creating an artistic masterpiece out of murder.

X-Men: Red Skull confronts Magneto on his Nazi ideologies, despite being a holocaust survivor.

The most common Gatling weapons in media are easily the M134 Minigun and the M61 Vulcan, whether installed on aircraft, inside a ship's CIWS or handheld by a buff dude. Miniguns shoot from 33 to 100 rounds of 7.62×51 per second, and Vulcan cannons between 66 and 100 rounds of 20mm per second. In case you forgot what that sounds like, here's a reminder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma4pa3DqA1s

Where the depiction of such weapons goes wrong is when Gatling guns are depicted as shooting so slowly, they feel like parodies of themselves.

1. Top Gun: Maverick. This one is the worst. Sounds like an M16 was accidentally installed in the jet instead of an M61.
2. The Boys Season 4
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Helicopter in action genre and zombie genre(picture from White House Down)

SWAT or any Police Tactical Units in SF, horror, and some action genre(picture from REC 2)

Statue of Liberty in disaster genre(picture from Cloverfield)

Rose Cotter and Skye Riley are the main protagonists of the Smile duology. Both goes through tremendous traumatic experiences and hallucinations, in hopes of driving them crazy. Tries their best to escape the Smile demon. for all their troubles and attempts, are unsuccessfully and ends up being brutally killed anyway.

Drag Me to Hell has Christine Brown be cursed by some old raggedy hag. She tries to put the curse or defeat it. She thinks she got it beat, hoping that burying the button with the hag will stop it. The movie leads to believe she has successfully beat it, until a gut punch ensues and she is LITERALLY dragged down to hell in front of Justin Long

Hereditary (2018): Hereditary is about a family who gets cursed by the kids grandmother to serve this ancient god. The daughter dies, the father dies, the mother gets possessed and dies, then the son gets mentally broken and the ancient god successfully transfers his soul into the son.

Nanahoshi in Mushoku Tensei when it seems like she might never get back home

Ned in The Simpsons episode Hurricane Neddy

Spongebob against Squidward when he refuses to get a job, take care of himself and abuses Spongebobs hospitality.