Hollyoaks/YMMV

• Arc Fatigue: The Jacqui and Gilly rape drama. It started out as an interesting storyline due to the fact that the rape drama was showed from both points of view, and that Hollyoaks fans were offered the chance to work behind the scenes to decide if Gilly would be found guilty or not. He wasn't, and the aftermath was dealt with in an impressively realistic manner. Then it went on. And on. And on. Episodes consisted of Jaqcui bleating E' RAPED MEH' in the streets, and Gilly being tormented by most of his peers despite the fact he had been found innocent. While impressive drama, most viewers agreed that it went on for far too long.
  • Unfortunately above storyline has made a recent return, on Gilly coming back to the village. Although it's Rhys, Jaqcui's other half, who is going around screaming that he raped her.
  • For some, Silas's reign of terror which has stretched out to almost a year now.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: A lot of Jacqui's behaviour, mood-swings and why her preferred mood of talking involves screaming at people, actually makes a lot more sense if you interpret her as having an undiagnosed case of severe manic-depression or borderline personality disorder.
• Ass Pull: The conclusion to the Jacqui and Gilly rape storyline. Flashbacks were retconned so that Jacqui actually said 'no', while earlier she had testified in court that she hadn't actually said no. So a clever storyline that started out as both Gilly and Jacqui being right turned into a Gilly bashing session that saw him leave the village. Needless to say, even the viewers who disliked Gilly aren't happy.
• Complete Monster: The show has at least two.
  • Finn O'Connor is possibly the most evil teenager in the history of Soap Operas. He rapes John Paul out of homophobia, hospitalizes Blessing partly because he'd just found out she's transgender and partly to act out the sick stuff he'd been watching on his computer, tries to rape Nancy, blackmails a witness into keeping quiet by threatening to do the same to him, and at his trial he claims John Paul was the one that sexually abused him.
  • Pete Buchanan is a sick pedophile who sexually assaulted Porsche McQueen when she was 15 years old and subjected her younger sisters, Celine and Cleo to varying levels of abuse, and now he's successfully blackmailed his way back into Cleo's life and he's trying to make sure she has no life or friends outside of him.
  • Patrick Blake at least a borderline case, depending on how genuine you think his care for his daughter Minnie is.
• Critical Research Failure: The streetlighting on the set - which does not, as far as we know, appear in Cheshire.
• Dude, Not Funny: The Jasmine/Jason storyline. Goes very much into this territory. On occasions, the storyline has been accused of turning the show into a Sadist Show.
  • Gilly is not only shown to be innocent when Jacqui accused him of rape, but the implication is that she slept with him to get back at Rhys. Gilly is chased out of the village, despite being innocent, but Jacqui is allowed to repeatedly call herself the Woobie as a result. And she doesn't care.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Several. Kris, Elliot and Dennis to name a few.
  • Silas, considered to be one of the most popular and interesting characters that ever appeared on the show. Oh and he's a 65-year-old serial killer.
• Fan Myopia
• Fan Nickname: among those watching the show as a Guilty Pleasure worthy of mocking, anyway. Popular in forums, as some cast members are easily defined by one unique feature/personality trait; among them: "Speak n Spell" (Sasha), "Potato Head" (Zak), "Skoda" (Mercedes), "Bitchtits" (Justin), "Dull & Duller" (Tina and Dom), "Spock" (Ste), "Easter Island"/"Angry Pederast" (Warren), and "Rubbish Tranny" (Kris).
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Callum/George has its fans.
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Sarah Barnes dies when she goes parachuting & both parachutes fail. As she plummets to the ground, the camera stays with her for several minutes as she realises she's going to die & helplessly screams for help. The camera only cuts away several seconds before impact.
  • The above scene is made even worse when the camera pulls back, and if you've got a sharp eye, you can see blood staining the stalks of corn in the field where she fell. Covering quite a wide area.
  • Rae is strangled by Silas just feet away from where her friend Theresa and crush Will are kissing. She tries to call out for help, but can't.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Sinead once openly mocked Jaqcui McQueen's fashion sense to the point of almost breaking up with Jacqui's cousin Bart over it. Few months down the line and Sinead's sense of style is the exact same as hers, tacky leather trousers, animal print tops, scraped back hair and all.
• Ho Yay: The early days had a lot of this. Kurt Benson (Jeremy Edwards) and Jambo Bolton (Will Mellor) spent rather a lot of time together topless and standing close to another.
• Magnificent Bastard: Silas. He manages to get away with murdering his wife and three young girls while coming across as a lovely old man, and makes it look as if Lindsay is going mad for trying to rightfully out him as being a murderer. He set up cameras in her home to watch her every move, and was Genre Savvy enough to remove them before the police searched the place. When Lindsay knocks Silas unconscious in the woods, he even manages to make out that he's been in France all morning. He then gets Brendan arrested for the murders, because he was starting to suspect him, and had warned Silas to stay away from Lindsay.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Jacqui's actress coined one for the relationship between her character and Rhys Ashworth; Ja-Rhys
  • In universe, Lee comes up with 'Lamy' for him and Amy.
  • Also in universe, Esther comes up with 'Rono' for Ruby and Jono.
  • There's 'Stendan' for Ste/Brendan, and 'Stug' has become the name for Ste/Doug.
• Purity Sue: Amy Barnes is becoming one of these.
• Rescued From the Scrappy Heap: For many, Ruby was redeemed for her past behaviour due to how badly she was treated by Maddie for no good reason. Some even want her bitchy behaviour to return, just so she can get even.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: The current (2011/2012) sixth formers have a tendancy of taking the spotlight away from emotional scenes - the memorial for Silas's victims playing second fiddle to the Bart/Sinead relationship; and Darren & Nancy 's wedding getting upstaged by the Johno/Ruby relationship are the two biggest offenders.
  • The McQueen family, you can guarantee that at least one of their members will be in a current storyline.
• Tear Jerker: Several, it is Hollyoaks after all.
  • During a fire at The Dog in The Pond, Joe Spencer saved both Zoe and and Kris, before going back to help Olivia. Zoe rings his mobile to check that he's okay, and they hear it ring. Kris remarks that 'People like Joe are just born lucky' right before they realise the ringing is coming from a bodybag.
  • Hannah's friend Melissa dying in hospital from anorexia. Melissa wasn't the nicest of people, but it's heart wrenching watching Hannah put on her make up for her, because she's just too weak to.
  • Tina dying in Dom's arms after the church explosion, her last words begging him for forgiveness after cheating on him and breaking his heart.
    • Mercedes, John Paul, and Carmel volunteering their lives in said incident to both protect Tina, a mother, and Michaela, the youngest.
  • Max dies on his wedding day by running out into the road to protect his little brother Tom.
  • Mike Barnes being told of eldest daughter Sarah's death, in The Stinger of the episode. No dialogue, just the silent shot of Mike breaking down as he realises what happened.
  • The Costellos reactions to finding out their mum had died.
  • Nancy losing her baby is one hell of a Tear Jerker storyline.
• The Scrappy: A recent poll from Inside Soap asked readers who they would prefer to survive Silas's reign of terror, and who they they wanted to die. Leanne and Ruby Button were the most voted to be his next victim.
  • Phoebe, the ungrateful brat from the streets who hasn't had an ounce of character development in all the time she's been on the soap. Yes, Hollyoaks writers, we get that she has a dark and tragic past that's made her the complete cow she is today, but the same old act gets old. Someone is nice to Phoebe > she's ungrateful > she steals something/screws them over. Repeat. For many it came to a head when she sneered and made fun of the fact that Ash, a perfectly nice girl she had never met, might have died overnight.