- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: At one point in the story, the Deserved One compares Dark to Chosen and wonders which one is truly evil and which one is truly good. Despite the potential for a Gray-and-Gray Morality story, this goes absolutely nowhere and Dark is treated as a one-dimensional monster.
- Complete Monster: The Dark Lord is back and as vile as ever. Having barely survived his defeat thanks to the intervention of the young and friendly Ditzyshine, Dark uses her naive personality to mold her into his surrogate daughter, the two becoming feared criminals who have destroyed entire cities while experimenting on innocents to test out new weapons. Plotting his revenge against those who nearly killed him, Dark recruits numerous villains—from mere pranksters to Omnicidal Maniacs—into a Legion of Doom with the goal of killing the Chosen One and his allies before ruling over whatever remains of the Internet. Dark is a horrible "father" to Ditzy, hitting and starving her when she angers him; torturing her by keeping her in a room which hurts those with ice powers; manipulating her code to force her into following orders or to completely hijack her body; and trying to kill any friends she makes no matter the age, all to make sure she will remain completely obedient to him. A villain so vile not one of his allies remained loyal to him, Dark was the worst the Internet had to offer.
- Easily Forgiven: Everyone except Dark has a quick redemption with no punishment: this is despite the fact Negative killed everyone in his village while Vermillion was an Omnicidal Maniac. Even Chosen gets off easy despite trying to kill Ditzy.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Everything about Victim here - him giving up his vengeful desires against Alan to retire into an Affably Evil Harmless Villain with his best friend Silverfrost - becomes a lot less humurous when Victim actually returns in the canon Animator vs. Animation, and is instead shown as perhaps its most tragic villain yet, with a never-ending hatred for his creator. While he does end up working with Dark just like in Endgame, the circumstances are far different and more serious.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In this fic, we have a character called Metsa that, at one point in the story, meets Victim and has a conversation with him, the two becoming allies. Come Animator vs. Animation 11, we're introduced to a character with a very similar name, Mitsi, that is Victim's first friend and eventual love interest. Becomes Harsher in Hindsight in that unlike Metsa, Mitsi was killed.
- I Knew It!: Endgame managed to accurately predict that the Dark Lord would survive "The Showdown" and team up with Victim.
- Informed Wrongness: The Chosen One is often presented as... far more malicious then he actually is. He's seen as morally wrong by being distrustful of Ditzy despite everyone knowing she was Dark's right hand for months, is called a "jerk" by Plasma when he interrogates Ditzy about her relationship with Dark for completely justified reasons, and Deserved feels like he deserved to have gotten his ass kicked when Ditzy defeats him in the final battle, even if the timing was awful and it should've happened at a different point in time. The fic even puts to doubt if he's really a good person at one point by claiming he "betrayed" Dark during the main series (despite the fact Dark threw the first punch in canon, Chosen trying and failing to resolve the situation peacefully, and Dark's plans meaning Chosen would be fully justified in turning against him). The one time he's inarguably in the wrong is when he tries to kill Ditzy for being a spy for Dark, but besides that he's presented as a bad person for simply being a tad impulsive with his decisions, rightfully turning against a dangerous madman and not immediately befriending Ditzy like everyone else did (which is completely justified given just who Ditzy is).
- Magnificent Bastard: Among the Dark Lord's Legion of Doom, these two stand out as the most brilliant members:
- Negative, the Elemental One's envious older brother, started out as the young and aspiring Positive who trained to be a hero. Becoming bitter and resentful of his sibling once he took the fame and became the hero of the village's prophecy, the last straw was when Elemental got to join the war against the Dark Lord while Positive was forgotten. Destroying his whole village in a fit of rage, Positive renamed himself to Negative and sought out Dark to join his army, deciding that he will be the villain of Elemental's story. While originally eager to take revenge and conquer the world alongside his leader, when he realises how badly Dark has been treating Ditzyshine, Negative is disgusted and starts plotting to betray Dark while getting all the children off the battlefield. Coming up with a way to destroy his boss' plan, Negative teams up with Disaster Guy to purposefully out Ditzy as a spy to the heroes, thus kickstarting the final battle while getting Ditzy to run away from it. Mid-battle, Negative admits to Elemental that he truly regrets destroying his hometown and let his anger cloud his judgement, and upon some encouragement from his brother, would turn back into Positive and help the heroes kill Dark, becoming the hero he always wanted to be.
- The Smiling Lord is an eternally-smiling con artist who robs and tricks people for a living. Introduced scamming a young lady into giving him her belongings, the Smiling Lord accepts the Dark Lord's offer to get revenge on the Chosen One in exchange for gaining power and riches upon conquering the world. However, he would quickly change his mind upon realising Dark is abusing the young Ditzyshine while also planning to send out his soldiers to fight against children, trying to find a good moment to betray his master. During the final battle, the Smiling Lord would fight the far stronger Universal One, lasting long enough to team up with the heroes to finally defeat the Dark Lord. The Smiling Lord would continue to hang out with the heroes long after the final battle, not willing to give up his first ever friends.
- Moral Event Horizon: Everyone and their mother agrees Dark crossed the line by not only recruiting Ditzy into a war, but then horribly abusing her.
- Realism-Induced Horror: Dark's treatment of Ditzy is certainly one of the creepiest parts of the whole fic, given that it's just a simple abusive relationship where Dark forces Ditzy to be afraid yet loyal to him, never doubting his orders and trying to mold her into a little version of him, while also being completely obsessive over her and not letting her leave his sphere of influence.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Victim is treated as just another lackey of Dark despite being one of the Animator's creations, and his relations to the man are mentioned only once in a quick paragraph mentioning he tried and failed to get revenge before the events of Endgame. Despite the massive potential he had for both himself and the Animator, you can more or less replace him with another Canon Foreigner and nothing would change.
- Negative and Vermillion's relationships with Elemental and Lime, respectively, aren't given much attention in the story with both being Easily Forgiven with zero hard feelings.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Deserved doubting if Chosen is actually a good person had material for a good Gray-and-Gray Morality story, perhaps with Deserved even changing sides, but it goes nowhere and is immediately forgotten, with Dark being the evil villain and Chosen being the, admittedly enough, jackass hero.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Ymmv/AVAEndgame
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