Outdated Administrivia Pages

First, from the "Individuality" folder:

"Note that the consensus has occasionally permitted examples where a group of two or three distinct individuals is written up together because they function as a team."

That restriction was altered fairly recently to focus less on the raw numbers and more on the characters involved being distinctly characterized and playing a role in the heinous crimes so as to avoid an arbitrary cutoff point. With that in mind, perhaps this is closer:

"Note that consensus has occasionally permitted examples of small groups, as long as each character is distinctly characterized and plays a role in their most heinous crimes. However, these exceptions are fairly rare."

The "Irredeemability" folder. Im gonna be honest, I don't see anything in this folder that's worth saving compared to our current standards. The ideas that it's trying to convey are covered just as fine by other folders, but as it is, the folder not only doesn't cover new ground but seems to imply a narrative standard that we haven't had for years. In particular, the line about how "even if the character repented and sought forgiveness, other characters in the work would not grant it" is nonsense (Johan Liebert even had to be put on the Resolved Items list because this standard kept being brought up, even though it had nothing to do with his character) and it conflicts with the later point that "It doesn't matter if the character can or would be forgiven". Frankly, I suggest just cutting the folder and the related bullet point from the top of the list.

In the "Agency" folder, there's this:

• Someone who is clinically insane might not be held criminally responsible for their actions, and the same standard applies to this trope. If they would be judged "not guilty by reason of insanity", then they can't be a Complete Monster.

The idea is 100% correct, but one of the things we've tried to drift away from is dragging real life mental illness and legal shenanigans into our judgments there (for instance, we've fazed out the usage of the word "psychotic" to describe CMs, as that actually is the kind of illness that impacts someone's ability to determine right from wrong and actually would disqualify characters in practice), so just to ere on the safe side, I'd like to change it to something like this:

• Someone with a mental illness that impacts their ability to discern right from wrong cannot be held liable for their actions. A villain who only commits their crimes because of an illness they can't control isn't truly a "monster". On the other hand, if they're faking it, that's fair game.

Alright, in "No Sympathetic Backstory", there's this sentence:

"Admittedly, this is one of the more subjective aspects of a Complete Monster: what is sympathetic to one person may be insufficient to another, and that's one reason we vote on candidates instead of checking them off on a list. It's possible for a character's behavior in the present to be grossly disproportionate to whatever they suffered in their backstory, and/or their actions so heinous, so unforgiveable, that no amount of tragedy can possibly justify them."

This paragraph has caused a lot of problems for the threads, as people have taken that to mean "oh, so if they're really bad, then none of their Freudian Excuse actually matters". I know the idea that it's going for, but it causes a lot more problems than it solves and frankly, I don't know if there's any reason to keep it. I personally say we replace it with this:

"Of course, the key factor is how the narrative plays it. Sometimes, a character expresses a sad backstory that is called out by characters or the narrative as not justifying their actions. Other times, they live in a Crapsack World where everyone goes through that kind of trauma and they're the only one who became a monster from it. In those kinds of cases where the narrative opens the possibility that their backstory is not responsible for their monstrosity, they are likely worth a discussion."

It was noted that there's no mention about how the villains can't have any kind of selfless motive for their actions, so it was suggested that we add this bullet point and folder. My suggestion would be to put both the bullet point and folder between the bullet point/folders about "Played Seriously" and "No Remorse or Regret".

• They must have no altruistic motives for their actions.

A true Complete Monster has no possible altruistic motives for their actions; the only thing that motivates them is their own selfish desires, whether that be for power, money, fame, or anything else. Notably, this disqualifies any Well-Intentioned Extremist right off the bat, as no matter how bad of an "Extremist" they are, it cannot combat the fact that they are "Well-Intentioned". Now, if a character's supposed altruistic motives are later shown to ultimately be a facade for their own desires, then they're still fair game, but if there is any indication that they are working for anything more than a purely selfish reason, they cannot be a Compete Monster.

Okay, the "Defined Motives" folder. Don't get me wrong, character definition is still a thing, but as the years have gone on, the focus has gone less to the character's motives and more just to their character in general. Basically, rather than "oh, he has no motive, so the fact that he killed a bunch of people means nothing", it's more "oh, he is literally a blank slate with no characterization, even something like sadism". It also includes the darkfic stuff that we (unfortunately, in my opinion) no longer use as a standard. I vote to change the folder's title to "Defined Character" and the folder's contents entirely to this:

"What separates the Complete Monster from the Generic Doomsday Villain? Both do awful things, and both are terrible threats in their respective stories, but in the case of the Generic Doomsday Villain, we have no real idea who they are. They're a blank slate with no personality to speak of. They have no backstory, no motive, no characterization, not even dialogue; you could substitute them for an inanimate object and they'd have the same impact. What sets apart a Complete Monster from an average villain is that, even if the characterization is minimal, they do have characterization, giving the audience a reason to hate them in particular among the horde of villains."

It was suggested to add this sentence to the end of the Resources folder as a new paragraph:

"To be clear, resources are not any kind of "get out of jail free card"; i.e., just because someone doesn't have a lot of resources doesn't mean that they don't have to meet the heinous standard of the work. If a work's standard is high enough, a lower-tier villain will still need a particularly cruel niche to stand out from the crowd regardless of how few their resources are.

Okay, now we get to the procedure stuff. This isn't a major change, just a minor fix-up.

"The character is then discussed in terms of their merits and flaws and how they relate to the trope. After review, the various participants give their vote. A clear majority will cause a particular action to take place. Roughly tied votes will generally result in no action taken until a majority develops"

We have since codified how votes should be counted, so, using MB's page as a template, I suggest changing it to this:

"The character is then discussed in terms of their merits and flaws and how they relate to the trope. After discussion, participants may give their vote. If, after discussion settles, a candidate has reached a majority of five more "yays" than "nays," they are approved.