Complete Monster

(17) Light Yagami is a CM.

Also, bumping this thread.

IDK if anyone is gonna see this considering this sub-fora's been done for a year, but debate about Fan Works / Complete Monster got swamped up in the main cleanup and we were encouraged to redirect here.

Are we having the ponyfic talk again? I'll keep my piece here short and sweet.

We've had, actually, quite a few talks about what constitutes as a "Dark Fic"; about what goes chop-chop and what we allow to stay. The criteria we established was either lost or became vague as a result of more MLP-fic candidates being put on the list. My argument, and I think something close to the general consensus, was to keep up those fics on a technicality so long as they didn't breach some boundary of "Dark Fic".

I'm not even sure what that boundary is, to be frank, because I haven't paid a whiff of attention to the MLP-fic examples themselves. But I'm reading this entire argument as stipulating MLP-fics as Original Flavor or no-go entirely, and there doesn't seem to be too much reason aside from...people don't like the idea of a Sugar Bowl setting being envisioned in another setting or as another, grittier genre entirely.

Which, I should clarify, I recognize. It's ridiculous. But a lot of these fics—including the one being recently litigated—as continually baffling as it is me and how much controversy erupts out of it, are legitimate pieces of media and do have fanbases interested in troping it. It's why all these obscure fanfics have these mammoth pages on the wiki.

My investment in this argument is next to nil. If the Ponystuff gets a purge, it gets a purge. I'm mostly interested in keeping consistency with the rest of the wiki and there doesn't seem to be much other reason to these fanfic stipulations aside from bias, but I recognize the thread also plays unconventionally to the rest of the wiki at times.

That and this issue has brooked debate so much in the past the viable issue might just be to kill it dead.

Edited by Scraggle on May 30th 2020 at 12:34:58 PM

I do think Fanfic proposals seem to be over represented by one franchise, MLP. I think a bigger variety of fan fiction characters from other franchises would make this less of am issue. Like She-Ra is another kids show aimed at girls, but since it is part of the Masters of the Universe franchise, it is naturally darker than MLP. She-Ra fan fics would be an easier sell at this point.

I think this one franchise seems over represented in fan fiction, when it really is not the best franchise for this trope and other fan fiction that deals with more suitable franchises would cause less controversy.

Edited by Overlord on May 30th 2020 at 11:39:56 AM

Reposting this from the main thread

Regarding setting overhaul stuff people mentioned in the main thread, I haven't read any fanfics so this is not coming from an expert, but I'm fine if it's something like the candidate we just put up where it's the same setting but with darker characters so long as the crimes aren't so far removed from what could be in the original. The murders? That's fine with me as long as it doesn't tread into stuff like torture or killing kids. The taxation, starvation, and exiling? That kind of stuff I could see in a kids show, even if it's a bit darker than what MLP would probably have. These kind of crimes probably wouldn't fly in the show but there not so far removed that a different show aimed at a similar age (probably a bit older) couldn't have them.

I largely agree with you: my personal view on the line to draw FWIW is keeping those which, if they a) lift the settings, characters, themes, etc. just write stores in a manner befitting of the original work or b) if they want to have things too dark for the original setting happening, that the work in question also show signs of just using its own versions of the characters (i.e.: by having them with different personalities, the setting reimagined as different in someway or another). I'll admit I'm not a fan and haven't read any of them so I've no idea how many do/don't fall within what I just described but I am here to support the point you're making and hopefully reach a conclusion for the ruling we can have set in stone so we don't keep coming back to this once a year.

I think my view, at this juncture? If it's a legit piece of media, with effort that tells a genuine narrative and not just a gore fic or Ron the Death Eater, we judge it on its merits.

As the person who first brought up the point, my main argument is that if the rule is Darker and Edgier fanfics can count because they are a change in setting, that doesn't make sense because they are not, in fact, a change in setting. These My Little Pony fanfics with torture and murders and starving villages and etc still take place in the same world as the show with the same protagonists who have most of the same character traits as in the real series, its just that the grimdark and gory stuff and the villain's heinousness are just cranked Up To Eleven. That is not a change in setting, that's just either Ron the Death Eater in case of them using a canon character or just grimdarking it for the sake of grimdark, which is why in the Admintrivia of the rules it stipulates things such as "Mario destroyes the entire Mushroom Kingdom in gory Newgrounds short" doesn't qualify.

An actual change in setting is something like There Will Be Brawl, which completely overhauls the world, the character's backstories/personalities/motivations, and has it take place in a modern era big city crime-noir mafia setting. In a series like that, Kirby being a psychotic serial killer is fine to qualify because its an entirely different universe with new rules and a new heinous standard. But these Original Flavor fics that just crank the villains Up To Eleven? I think they break the rules in spirit and shouldn't all be just automatically put on the trope by getting off on a technicality.

Edited by WaryHoglet on May 30th 2020 at 11:55:51 AM

I feel the need to point out that isn't Ron the Death Eater, which is villifying a canon character, not jacking up evil deeds or introducing a new villain

"in case of using a canon character"

This is essentially why I included the addendum "and other, grittier genres entirely." That's one vague point I think is causing a needless amount of confusion. At that point, it becomes less of a difference in the setting being overhauled and the story being overhauled. The rules we currently have for these fics need to be better established, and if that means throwing away some of them I'm okay with that.

I think, at this point, it may very well be better to measure genuine quality with these fics rather than try and pigeonhole them into odd sub-rules "this setting can't fit" and "ponies can't commit murder." If it means it has to be mostly case-by-case, I'm fine with that: in the grand scheme of things, the Ponyfic posts aren't really that common.

Edited by Scraggle on May 30th 2020 at 12:52:35 PM

I agree with you about gory newground shorts, but a genuine narratve that turns it into a fantasy story?

I agree that over-the-top grimdark shouldn't count, but I don't think the EP that started this whole rigamarole is over-the-top grimdark shit

I can live with whatever we do here, though my preference would be to purge some, but my personal feeling is that a lot of these fan works list so much material from the originals that it’s hardly more than the creator writing what should be a story or arc in its parent work yet inserting stuff that wouldn’t happen in it. Revamping MLP so it’s a war setting that deals with war crimes? Sure, I wouldn’t read it but I can understand listing a villain from it if everyone is now remade into a soldier or commander. Equestria with the same characters and same personalities having to stop a necrophiliac serial killer who picks them off one by one? Yeah... not so much. At that point there’s too much taken from the original for me to be willing to separate it.

I mean unless it goes as far as to have outright rape and necrophilia, then I can say that's where the fic's gone too far.

Oh, I see. But what I mean is that is where I would draw the line there.

Edited by AustinDR on May 30th 2020 at 12:19:34 PM

... that was a hypothetical example Austin.

I would like to point out that the comic had a villain kill a sapient being in front of a bunch of children to make them shut them up. While there was a Gory Discretion Shot the scene itself wasn’t played for laughs. It’s also all but outright stated that the villains whipped out a whole town of innocents. Sure it was a town full of Ridiculously Cute Critter, but still…

While the comics have a bit more leeway than the show, it's still officially licensed material. I think this should be taken into account, when talking about what’s to dark for the setting.

My personal viewpoint....I was never quite a fan of the Altered settings rule, and personally prefer to judge something based on if it has a genuine story or effort put into it.

Edited by Kylotrope on May 30th 2020 at 9:55:04 AM

If these fics are somewhat competently written, the MLP fics can stay, but personally I think they are over-represented in terms of fan fiction examples and I wouldn't vote on them personally.

I think trying to turn MLP into a feminine war fantasy story is trying into something it is not, IMO. I would vote on a She-Ra fanfic where she fought Skeletor and Skeletor killed and tortured people on Etheria and I would not vote on an MLP fic where some character named Cozy Glow becomes a war criminal, but that is just my opinion.

Tbh, I agree with Kylo. The altered settings rule has always felt rather... vague

Just my opinion but I think fan fics work best when they feel like a tale that could have been told in the original mythos, just with a some different choices here and there, rather than being completely different.

My stance is still that fanfic characters should only be allowed to count if either they fit into a similar tone as the original series or if they're in an actually different setting/total reimagination of the work (again There Will Be Brawl is a good example). If people disagree with it that's fine but I think at the very least things need to be reworded to make what the rule is clear and stop characters from being loopholed through/passing on a technicality.

Edited by WaryHoglet on May 30th 2020 at 3:03:27 AM

Well, yes, a complete reimagination of the work where it sets the characters into a new world is fine. But things like how I remember how someone suggested a villain from Calvin and Hobbes: The Series where instead of an AU or anything like that, it was an Original Flavor fic. From what it looked, it was more of just a game Calvin was playing rather than it being a legitimate AU.

Personally, I agree with Kylo; I think any non-Torture Porn fanfic should be fair game. That said, I won't lose too much sleep if we keep our "no turning characters evil just because" rule.

As someone who reads and writes both fanfiction and original fiction, I think our difficulty in outlining a set of rules is because fan work CMs are generally one of two types:

1) Original Flavor Fics (ex. Polarity and Rosario + Vampire: Brightest Darkness) that clearly respect but build upon the source material

2) Complete re-imaginings that change the game, tone, and heinousness standard of canon (ex. There Will Be Brawl)

Between the two, they cover a wide spectrum, which is why we get broad kinds of candidates. Some fit either criteria pretty nicely, such as the ones I list as examples, but there are boatload of others that have respective premises like "MLP but Darker and Edgier without being AU" as well as "Sonic but they're all sociopaths trying to survive supermax prison."

So, what am I trying to say? I think the spectrum is too broad, and we should judge literary merits on a case-by-case standard. If we do, I also want to stress one to really read the EP—much like we should be doing already.

(Side note: Why is it always RWBY or MLP causing the biggest fan work issues?)

Edited by erazor0707 on May 30th 2020 at 9:33:39 AM