During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
Can you please research things before you post these questions? YES it's one of 'the most infamous darkfics,' yes TWWBB is Sin City meets Smash Brothers. These would be revealed within seconds of the first result on google.
Also I'm against cutting TWBB for the reasons Lighty mentioned. It's taking familiar characters and putting them in a completely different setting where a serial killer would make sense. Honestly, I think it should be added to the Absolutely-A-CM list if anything, since people keep mistaking it for a darkfic.
Lizzid people!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That, or Sweet Apple Massacre. Both fics make already existing characters turn a complete 180 without explanation. Cupcakes has no value whatsoever; it heavily relies on torture to move the plot along, rather than on genuine suspense. Sweet Apple Massacre is even worse; it touches taboo subjects such as cannibalism, torture on minors, pedophilia, and the near ruination of a preexisting character.
For the fan works page, so far I'm thinking that the Checker Monarch could be possibly kept.
edited 10th May '16 11:52:05 AM by AustinDR
@ Lighty: I'm not biased against MLP, I'm biased against what I see as bad taste. I'd vote the exact same way for, say Rugrats dark fic.
edited 10th May '16 11:50:42 AM by HamburgerTime
RIP Toriyama
I say we go through each example one at a time rather than a full-on purging. Just to be objective and thorough.
Absolute "No" to cutting Kirby from TWBB. It is an excellent work of professional design, and could function as a primetime series it's so well-made.
As for fanfic rules, here's my attempted rule for fanfics not being allowed to pass the heinous standard of the original work.
- For a villain from a fanfiction to qualify, said villain must be able to fit into the heinous standard of the original work. Mass murderers or rapists in a fanfiction of mature media is fine, but a mass murderer or rapist in a fanfiction based on more lighthearted or kid-friendly media is not ok.
This is my first try at this, so it's probably not very good. If anyone else wants to give it a go, have at it.
edited 10th May '16 11:53:12 AM by Ravok
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
That's different, IMO. MLP actually has evil sorcerers, gods and villains. Rugrats...the darkest thing that happened is babies getting lost int he woods (And admittedly almost getting eaten by a wolf), but besides that, the only example of villainy is a 3 year old bully and John Lithgow piloting a giant robot attempting to rig a marriage.
Lizzid people!
Looks pretty good.
edited 10th May '16 11:52:52 AM by AustinDR
I'm probably biased toward the ones I've read, but I feel like there's a difference between a horror/shock fic and a story of much larger scope which happens to have a few characters who really cross the line (or maybe I'm biased towards only reading the latter in the first place).
-If the only problem with Titan is the incest, they are technically gods- not saying it's not squicky but it's hardly uncommon in mythology.
-"Stars" a CMC abuse fic? Uh, no, more like Lovecraft Lite in which they are a few of many players.
-Feather Duster- the other one I added (back before I knew of this thread), and that one really grows into his villain out of an innocuous, show-accurate start. IMO.
-Checker Monarch- as was said, shoots for Original Flavour, and really is just a more intense version of a type that has appeared in the show.
-Ruinate and Gralo- I honestly don't care for the former story, but "world-destroying maniac" seems appropriate for the setting.
There is no beginning. There is no end. There is only... Hooty.
Also any, any fanfiction or story that copycats Cupcakes is not worth the attention.
edited 10th May '16 11:54:52 AM by Beast
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
Doesn't even like this username
Brief History doesn't seem too far off from at least the comics' tone, so I'd vote for keeping Talonhoof. Checker Monarch also seems like someone to keep. There are likely some more worthwhile examples in there, too, so no need for a purge. A not insignificant part of it should probably be cut, though (especially the gorny Cupcakes-y ones, why are they even still there?).
(I'll note that I've never read any of these and am simply reading through entries and associated work pages.)
edited 10th May '16 11:56:31 AM by LordXavius
A kid's show set in the real world is a whole lot less likely to have a CM than one set in a fantasy world, especially if it's a straight comedy, and especially if it uses Negative Continuity.
Like Hamburger Time I'm not biased against My Little Pony, but the type of villainy in these fics is way too dissonant with the the kind of show My Little Pony is for me to accept them as believable in this setting.
edited 10th May '16 12:00:13 PM by VeryMelon
@ Lighty: Alright, that's fair. I'll at least say that anything with a really visceral crime (i.e. cannibalism or rape) should immediately go.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
The question about Cupcakes was half-rhetorical dude.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Wild Child
So, how much does have a fanfiction have to follow the canon source to be worth considering. By what degree can it deviate from the canon before it's considered unfit to be listed.
Why so serious?
That's gonna have to fall under the "I know it when I see it" clause.
edited 10th May '16 12:08:58 PM by VeryMelon
The Wanderer
That's why I don't think a hard and fast rule can work, what counts as "keeping the spirit of the series" means different things to different people.
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
@Ravok, I feel like an action show aimed at kids is more likely to have a mass murderer in it then a slice of life show aimed at little girls. Apocalypse and Graydon Creed from X-Men TAS, Shredder from TMNT 2003 and Ozai from Avatar are all genocidal maniacs. I think some kids shows go into darker topics then others.
edited 10th May '16 12:21:24 PM by Overlord
I still support cutting everything that wasn't effort-posted from the Monster.Fan Works and Monster.Web Comics pages, and then taking another look at the ones that were if deemed necessary.
This isn't meant to ban a single work from having fan-fiction examples. It should obvious to anyone remembering it's a kid show what type of villain would actually be in one.
edited 10th May '16 12:21:30 PM by VeryMelon
I've looked through the Pokemon fanworks page and I'll give my opinions on the examples as I go.
- Experimenting Fear's scientist: Easy cut, as the graphic torture he subjects a young boy to is FAR over the line for Pokemon, and that's not getting into the whole threatening to rape him with a pipe thing.
- Deoxys: On the surface, nothing seems too overly wrong. his villainy is pretty intense, but at the same time a valid argument could be made that it could be feasible for the setting he's in. HOWEVER, it's his work of origin that I take issue with. Latias' Journey is INFAMOUS in some circles for being a very, very schlocky piece of garbage. There is a metric ton of overly graphic violence, rape, torture, gratuitous sex, and it's very far into grimdark territory. I'd say burn Deoxys and never look back.
- Jerry Tagger: This could be me overreacting, but I don't feel that burning your eight year old sister alive would fit in with the Pokemon universe. Plus, a look at A Little Night Music's page reveals that it's pretty much a dark and depressing ordeal. Cut him.
- Masque: I dunno. The work isn't super, super grimdark, but the story seems to have quite a bit of graphic violence from what I noticed by looking on Pokemon Storm Cloud's page. I could go either way if someone who's read the fic all the way through could elaborate (I read a bit myself in the past, but dropped it pretty quick. It was... kinda crappily written).
- Count Fernando: I wouldn't have too much of an issue keeping him... if it wasn't for the fact that the entry itself states that he explicitly gets off to the violence he's causing. Eegh, cut and burn please.
- Nathaniel Butler: The rape and sex in his entry make for an easy cut.
- Frollo: Outside of killing someone by driving a spoon through their chest, I wouldn't have too much of an issue keeping him... if it wasn't for the work he was from featuring stuff like rape and sex. Cut, I suppose.
edited 10th May '16 12:36:14 PM by FriedWarthog
I'm Sad Frogerson.
Considering how much effort goes into producing a professional web-series over writing a fanfic (no offense fanfic writers, but you don't have to deal with lighting, location scouting, sound, or editing), I'm inclined to keep TWBB!Kirby. It has actors and an entire film crew behind it. It's not just a one man show that aims to shock merely to shock.
RE: Unicron: We still have a few incarnations to go through. The two main ones are the ones from the Unicron Trilogy and the Marvel comics. The original entry also brought up versions from G.I Joe vs. The Transformers, the 3H comics, and the Cybertron comic. I haven't seen them, so anybody's free to do the effort posts for them.
Ah, these are the Pokemon fanfiction examples Sraggle mentioned to me a few pages ago. The only one that looks like an appropriate keep to me is Jerry Tagger. Cut the rest.
edited 10th May '16 12:29:31 PM by VeryMelon
And since I forgot to say so earlier, ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to keeping Kirby from There Will Be Brawl. What's throwing people off is the whole cannibalistic serial-killer Kirby thing when the work is a crime thriller in the style of (Like what was said before) things like Sin City where a character like the series' interpretation of Kirby would most certainly work.
Cupcakes? Isn't that, like, one of the most infamous MLP DarkFics?
edited 10th May '16 11:45:57 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts