Old Complete Monster cleanup thread
Welcome to the Complete Monster proposal thread! This is the thread where new Complete Monster examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here
Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.
Here is how the process works:
- If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential redeeming qualities will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.
- After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".
- Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the CM subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!
Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:
- To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!
- No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
- Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
- Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
- Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.
- If a work is already reserved by another user, please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!
- Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite CM" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest for that.
- Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.
- If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
- If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
- Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
- Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.
If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:
What is the work?
This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, the crimes they commit, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some villains, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.
Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?
This is where any potential redeeming characteristics or tragic backstory should be discussed. Do they have a tragic past? Do they show that Even Evil Has Standards or Even Evil Has Loved Ones? Maybe a Pet the Dog moment or two? This is where these should be discussed in full. Not every potential redeeming moment is a clear-cut disqualifier, but we should hear of any potential issues to ensure the character is discussed in full.
Are they bad enough?
A Complete Monster has to be particularly vile by the standard of the work they appear in. Therefore, you should look at what the character does compared to similar characters in the same work. This takes into account things like:
- Their resource level (a human Serial Killer can't stand up to an alien Omnicidal Maniac, but they can be bad by the standard of other human serial killers)
- The amount of time they have to work with (such as a one-shot character versus long-running antagonists)
- The quantity vs. quality of their crimes compared to others (someone with a lower victim count but far more visceral and personal crimes could be considered as equally bad overall as someone with a higher body count but less horror involved)
Essentially, this section is an analysis of the kinds of villainy shown in the work and an explanation of why this particular character's villainy stands out within it.
Final verdict?
This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This thread tackles very serious and dark matters on a daily basis. We will be discussing things like murder, rape, torture, human trafficking, crimes against children, and in particularly dark cases, several of these issues at the same time. We keep a lighthearted air, but all candidates carry the general assumption that these are awful individuals committing disgusting crimes. We ask that if you participate, you do so with the requisite seriousness such dark topics require; exclamations of how gross something is, whether serious or sarcastic, are disrespectful to the topics at hand, and if you cannot handle such topics, please do not participate.
And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!
Edited by Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:42:49 AM
The wifi here sucks
Yes to the President and Mother
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
Goku Black
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
president
Not the Eye
president, Mother and second parkour quote
Barb / Temporary Kylo
to the president
Here is what I got for the Mimic.
- JT Music: SPRINGTAP SONG-REFLECTION-The Mimic is a narcissistic, mechanical Serial Killer who took up the mantle of 'Springtrap'. Having been designed to be a robotic assistant, it studied and became obsessed with violence; particularly the crimes of William Afton. The Mimic went on a brutal killing spree, replicating some of William's murders, and brutally killing several more people. It boasts of having a body-count so high, that the list is 'almost bottomless'. The Mimic would use its digital avatar to infect the animatronics at the Pizzaplex, corrupting and robbing them of their autonomy. It would use the pizzaplex animatronics to continue killing, with 3 of its victims' souls being trapped within the Pizzaplex' wet floor signs. After being sealed away, the Mimic would infect a girl named Cassie and manipulated her into freeing it.
Unwrapped
- Music/JTMusic: [[https://youtu.be/pGBgkPo5moE?si=AnWY4G7ljFoX7lpN SPRINGTAP SONG-REFLECTION]]-The Mimic is a narcissistic, mechanical SerialKiller who [[JackTheRipoff took up the mantle of 'Springtrap']]. Having been designed to be a robotic assistant, it studied and became obsessed with violence; particularly the crimes of William Afton. The Mimic went on a brutal killing spree, replicating some of William's murders, and brutally killing several more people. It boasts of having a body-count so high, that the list is 'almost bottomless'. The Mimic would use its digital avatar to infect the animatronics at the Pizzaplex, corrupting and robbing them of their autonomy. It would use the pizzaplex animatronics to continue killing, with 3 of its victims' souls being trapped within the Pizzaplex's wet floor signs. After being sealed away, the Mimic would infect a girl named Cassie and manipulated her into freeing it.
Edited by Snoketrope on Apr 25th 2024 at 12:25:45 PM
The First man
RIP Toriyama
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Looks good!
Myself and Starkrafty have a duo to discuss now, coming from Red Dead Redemption II. I'll start things off with a re-evaluation:
Who is Edmund Lowry? What has he done?
- Edmund Lowry Jr. is a Serial Killer who serves as the villain of the sidequest "American Dreams". Player Character Arthur Morgan can stumble across 3 separate victims of Lowry across the map, each one horrifically butchered and their bodies displayed in grotesque ways, with writing alongside the corpses written by Lowry that brags of his crimes. It's further revealed that Lowry was responsible for the mass grave of the Blackwater Athletic Team, 10 people whose dismembered bodies were left in a heap.
- When Arthur uses maps found on each victim to follow Lowry's taunting "come find me" message, he finds Lowry's lair. Inside is an abattoir of human butchery, with heads, limbs and guts on display. The walls are covered in newspaper articles detailing Lowry's crimes, and there's a freshly-mutilated human corpse hanging by meat hooks, with a camera set up to photograph everything.
- Lowry ambushes Arthur, revealing he had set up a trap, and tries to torture Arthur to death as his other victims. Arthur gets the upper hand and brings Lowry to the local sheriff's office to be imprisoned, and though Lowry feigns compliance at first, he pulls a hidden knife and tries to stab the sheriff to death before being gunned down.
Mitigating features?
He himself has none, he's a sadist who is killing for notoriety and infamy, and has such an ego that you can find a letter he has drafted to send to a newspaper as a "concerned citizen" who requests the newspapers acknowledge what a dangerous, intelligent threat the "serial killer" is.
Now, the thing that got Lowry downvoted last time was a belief that a letter found in his lair reveals a care for his mother...but this is wholly inaccurate. The letter displays nothing but his mother writing him to complain that, while she appreciates him "forgoing marriage to spend more time with her", that she has come to dread their interactions because he is constantly "agitated, tired and distracted", and she is reaching out to urge him to get married and do something with his life. Nothing about the note implies Lowry cares about his mother—the closest you can say is the bit where he chose to not get a wife and instead hung around his mom, but this gets no elaboration and is literally built on the mom upset at how he treats her.
We get no insight into Lowry's thoughts on their relationship, just a note from a "concerned" mother and her viewpoint of events.
The full note, just for context's sake:
- My dear Edmund,
What has gotten into you of late? Our dinners together, which were once such a pleasure to me, have become a terrible strain. You appear at times tired, distracted, febrile, and agitated, and sometimes all those things at once. It was a mistake for you to have ever moved out of home.
While I approved of your decision to forego marriage in order to spend more time with me, I did not envisage it would be this kind of company. Maybe a wife is what you need after all. Your kindly neighbour has informed me of your comings and goings from your rooms at all hour the night.
Does this mean there is a close friendship your mother doesn't know about? I hope your taste in companionship has improved these past years, but I shall keep an open mind. I should like an explanation of all this from you presently.
Your loving and concerned Mother.
P.S. I hope you're eating and sleeping and taking the laudanum Dr. Fickles gave you. That should improve your nerves somewhat.
And just an FYI, laudanum is a painkiller, not a mental medication, so there is no implication that Lowry is too batshit to count; he's completely lucid and giddy in his interactions with the player and the sheriff.
Heinousness?
Lowry easily passes as a one-off sidequest Serial Killer. Easy. He's got dozens upon dozens of victims who were horrifically tortured and butchered before having their remains displayed, and he wiped out the Blackwood Athletic Team, to boot. He's got a bodycount of at least 50+. Even for Red Dead, it's plenty high.
Final Verdict?
Easy keep, with the mother thing explained.
As an aside, it looks like someone took the liberty of creating a Red Dead page without thread consultation, about a week back? Monster.Red Dead Redemption. Without Lowry and Starkrafty's villain, the page is absolutely no-go, but with those additions, maybe it can stay? Idk.
Edited by Ravok on Apr 25th 2024 at 12:30:07 PM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Barb / Temporary Kylo
Happy to Edmund.
Not the Eye
Former Complete Monsters: Video Games page says that Edmund "cannot qualify because he genuinely loved his mom". I'm not sure if it's a substantial mitigating quality or not (or if there even IS genuine love on Edmund's part), so I'd rather abstain.
Edited by Thermal7 on Apr 25th 2024 at 12:44:49 PM
Barb / Temporary Kylo
The letter is all we get on the mom, and I'd say it does not display care in the present at all.
The First man
RIP Toriyama
I explained that in the effortpost and why it wasn't disqualifying, if you read it?
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Just a starting content creator
for the President
for the Putrescent Mother, a Call of Cthulhu expy that somehow ended up in a Fallout mod.
for Eddie
Edited by NTG on Apr 25th 2024 at 3:28:49 AM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to the Mother, the President, and Lowry.
After Starkrafty's, can we get a comparison of all the RDR keepers?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
to Palpatine, Chen Youliang, Tak, Devil King, John Whately, The Blood and the Eye, Champion, Ultron, Colonel Barinsky, Eric, Razanak, the President, The Putrescent Mother, and Edmund Lowry Jr.
Edmund Lowry. Just when you think the franchise is dry if keepers, we end up finding a few more.
President Powers
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Lowry
If there is to be a page, we've got this quote from Driscoll
Colm O'Driscoll: (laughs) As well you may. I've been a bad man!
Not the Eye
Like the quote!
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Lowry.
Funny you should mention that because someone already made a page do Red Dead without permission. Though I like the quote.
Edited by Bullman on Apr 25th 2024 at 7:22:06 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Lowry. While I had to abstain on Odin because I don't think his sole vague redeeming quality was entirely disengenous even through I also feel a Dio or Darkseid sort of situation could be argued for Odin, there is far clear case that there wasn't even any vague redeeming quality here at all.
The Blood and the Eye, Parkour Champion, Ultron, Barinsky, Eric, the Putrescent Mother, the President, Edmund.
I've got yet another fanfic incarnation of Voldemort here, which is honestly probably the most brilliantly horrifying depiction of him in fanfic world I've ever come across. It comes from The Very Secret Diary.
The Work
The Very Secret Diary is a canon-compliant (barring a few Outdated by Canon details) fanfic detailing Ginny's conversations with a certain diary that writes back.The Character
Tom Riddle/Voldemort is everything his diary self was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, except here, his manipulation of Ginny is described in meticulous and Realism-Induced Horror-filled detail. It's like watching a disaster footage in slow motion.He begins gaining her trust and exploiting her loneliness and vulnerability from the very start. At first he presents himself as understanding and friendly — well, because his condenscension and sarcasm goes over Ginny's head. (Even so, some reviewers have admitted to have been briefly fooled by his charm despite the Foregone Conclusion!) When he gets powerful enough to possess Ginny's body, he gaslights Ginny when she gets increasingly unsettled: first he tries to blame her friends for rearranging her things during her blackouts or claim she is imagining things, then he tries to convince her Harry is to blame for the attacks. Then, after she realizes he has been lying to her, he openly intimidates her, telling her that she would die is she disobeyed him and that she would only doom her family if she came clean, tormenting her with sleep deprivation, and threatening her friend for helping her. Finally, he reveals that he is Voldemort, causing Ginny to faint, and the next day he forces her to go to the Chamber of Secrets.
When already in the Chamber, Voldemort gloats to Ginny that had she only gone to Dumbledore, the latter would have helped her instead of blaming her, taunts her about how he'll murder Harry and Ron (for a start), and openly enjoys her pain and despair.
In a small one-shot sequel, after her rescue, Ginny is still deeply traumatized and, in particular, now hates the name Virginia that she used to love because that's what Tom called her.
Mitigating qualities?
None.Heinousness Standard?
It's teenage Voldemort planning and almost committing mass murder and grooming and Mind Rape-ing an eleven-year-old — in the still very fluffy world of the second book.Conclusion?
Keeper.Edited by AutumnLeaves on Apr 25th 2024 at 3:41:40 PM
President Swanson and Edmund Lowry Jr. There's no concrete indication that Ed cares for his mother back.
For Old Tom, in the final chapter, there is a dialogue exchange where he seems to promise that he won't hurt Ginny's family:
Ginny: Please… please… please…
Voldemort: Please what? Have you last requests?
Ginny: Don't hurt my… brothers…
Voldemort: They won't feel a thing.
Admittedly, he does say he'll kill Harry and tell him how dumb she was right after.
Edited by HighfalutinQuelea on Apr 25th 2024 at 5:46:37 AM
- Doesn't the Killing Curse kill instantly? I haven't read the fic but that's the implication I'm getting is that Voldie is going to AK them
He's promising to kill them quickly, not to spare them. The fic establishes his fondness for Metaphorically True Exact Words, and in the next phrases, he elaborates that "Harry, on the other hand, will suffer" — not that "he, on the other hand, will die".
Having seen the movie,![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
to the President! Also ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
to Mother.