Creepypasta Cleanup

There's at least a handful of Creepypasta that are confusingly troped.

A lot of creepypasta characters have their own fanbases and fanons. Which means it's confusing what is allowed on a creepypasta's work page.

Some Examples to illustrate my point (not an extensive list, I have not checked every page in the index yet and I may of missed things on the pages I list):

Suicide Mouse has the original story in the description, which makes sense. Then it also lists a Vocaloid song and 7 different videos (4 animations, one of which is removed, and 3 hour long compilations of animations). Of the 13 tropes on the main page, 6 of them mention being about the recreational animations. Some of these tropes are also vague like 'some of the recreations mess up the russian text' or 'some websites had disturbing mickey mouse images despite that not being related to the story.'

Zalgo apparently originated as two short comic strips, so it's no surprise the entire page of tropes associated with him is vague. Many of the tropes listed just go 'eh that happens a lot.' Apocalyptic Log, Spikes of Villainy, Eye Scream, basically everything are all just 'yeah that can happen.' Slenderman may be involved, who knows?

Sonic.exe originated as an online story, so why it's under the Video Game namespace is a mystery I can't answer. It tropes the original story, a rom hack based off the story, a spin off, and a fanfiction. Also a list of everyone who MST'd it but that's fine probably.

The Slender Man Mythos has all the problems of Zalgo's page but larger. Which isn't surprising because it's origin is spooky pictures. I'm not even going to try to count how many different stories are mentioned here or how many examples are vague and general because I feel overwhelmed glancing at this page. But I'll say it tropes the fact that there's porn of Zalgo and Cthulhu, and provides a link along with links to erotic novels of Slender Man (which definitely can't be allowed. Please tell me it breaks some sort of rule.)

Finally, the one that led me down this rabbit hole in particular was Jeff The Killer, which has tropes from around 6 different stories (all written by different authors) on the main page alone. It even had it's own page for video games about the character (which I have since moved and cutlisted). Should Jane The Killer and Homicidal Liu be listed on this page despite not appearing in the original story? Who knows, but I don't think so.

I'm not saying all of these are problems, I'm genuinely unsure. But I'd like to bring the Creepypasta index as a whole to attention.

Creepypasta itself has been considered as a TRS candidate in the past, and here's how it's listed on Tropes Needing TRS:

• Creepypasta: As briefly discussed here, the page is very oddly used - it's simultaneously trying to be a genre page and a works page, complete with subpages. Some pages for subgenres list tropes associated with the genre, but troping individual, unrelated works, as Creepypasta is currently doing, seems out of line. The genre description could also use reassessment to make sure it lines up with how the word "creepypasta" is used outside the wiki these days.

But I figured this thread would work on addressing specific creepypastas that have issues, similar to the preschool shows cleanup or the /Roleplay cleanup. Besides confusing writing, what are other common problems creepypasta pages tend to have?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jan 19th 2022 at 8:40:58 AM

I really think the most prevalent issue is troping anything that involves the character and there being no line to draw. What's the difference between troping the original story a character comes from and a fanfiction someone wrote that happens to have the character in it? Because many of the pages I listed don't have a distinction.

I wonder if we need something of a "stock Creepypasta characters" page with the characters listed and their derivative works indexed.

What if we treat creepypasta characters as Public Domain Characters?

I think Creepypasta is similar to fanfiction in that the most known ones attract bashing, while the more obscure ones are filled with ZCEs and examples that feel shoehorned.

I probably won't be much use because I'm a little bitch when it comes to horror, but I'll try to help out as much as I can, especially because I considered starting a cleanup myself before that ATT came up.

Edited by RainbowPumpqueen on Jan 20th 2022 at 2:13:02 AM

I went through a creepypasta phase when I was younger, but I didn't really care for Sonic.exe or Cupcakes or Jeff or any of the super popular ones. I read things like 1999, Candle Cove, and, for some reason, Happy Appy. (I maintain that Candle Cove is the best creepypasta ever written and it inspired one of my own pastas later on.)

The one I know the most about are the Slender Man webseries, but I'm not actually sure those qualify as creepypasta.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 19th 2022 at 10:47:06 AM

I think the term Creepypasta has undergone some Trope Decay. Originally it referred to horror stories on the internet that were supposed to have really happened, like the story of the evil Stitch doll. Then people just started general horror stories, without caring about plausibility/believability. This is when you get characters like Jeff the Killer and Slenderman. I've noticed that recently there's a whole genre of Youtube videos where people with read "True Horror Stories" taken from sites like Reddit. These are very similar to the original creepypastas.

I think Sonic.exe is at Video Game/ either because the page was originally troping the rom hack and was expanded later on (don't quote me on that, haven't checked the history), or the fact that the original creepypasta was about a haunted video game (though other creepypasta like Ben Drowned or Pokémon Lost Silver are in the correct namespaces, so).

I thought about the weird namespacing for it a while back and was intending on doing a page cleanup and moving it to Fanfic/, but forgot.

Yeah, Sonic.Exe should either be split between the story and romhack, or just moved to Fanfic/.

Suicide Mouse is still baffling me and I feel like some if not all of the 8 youtube videos should be taken off the description.

One's a vocaloid song about the creepypasta. 4 are animations to recreate the creepypasta, but the third one was taken down. And the last 3 are compilations of animation recreations, that I'm pretty sure also include the 4 individual animations listed?

The issue with taking down the animation links is some tropes refer specifically to a link (like the third one where Mickey kills himself). The Vocaloid song can def go tho, right?

The Blair Witch Project is on the creepypasta index, can someone please explain that one to me.

I want to say it was the viral marketing stuff.

I made Sandbox.Sonic Exe to seperate the video game and fanfic tropes

^^ That is what the index says too, I was just. Confused if that counted.

But it led me down a new rabbit hole of 'is this creepypasta in the right namespace or index!'

• Bad Creepypasta is a youtube channel that makes fun of creepypastas. Should it be in the index? Probably not.

• Butcherface, Borrasca, The Claverhouse Emails all came from Reddit yet are in the Literature namespace and I don't think they exist as physical books? Even if they did, they originate from reddit which I believe means they belong under Web Original.

• Creepypasta Cookoff is a website that hosts creepypasta stories that's also under the literature name space for some reason. It also suffers from a couple general examples of 'a lot of the stories have this trope' which I am unsure if that matters with websites or not.

• The Chronicles of Taras is also under the Literature name space but I don't think it's a book. When I google the name, a book does come up on amazon, but looking at the description I think it's a different book??? The description of the work page says it's uploaded, and there's links in the tropes that lead to a tumblr blog with the story so? I guess Web Original again.

• Candle Cove ending for now on a light one because I'm pretty sure there's a book for this creepypasta, so it's not as bad that it's in the Literature namespace. Should it be there though?

Edited by AppleChild on Jan 21st 2022 at 2:14:47 PM

Yeah, I wouldn't put Bad Creepypasta on the list.

Overanalyzing Creepypasta is also a channel to ridicule creepypasta

Another collection of 'this is possibly in the wrong name space or index'

• Happy Appy is in Literature.

• I was going to make a joke about how that means 2/3 of the stories War mentioned have now been listed but then I checked 1999 and it's also in the Literature name space! Three for three! Can non-books be put in literature? Is this actually the right namespace and I'm compiling a useless list? That's a question for later!

• Awesiaki literature that should be under web original

• How to Survive Camping is another reddit nosleep story that's classified as literature

• The Defiler literature that should be under web original

• The Dionaea House literature that should be under web original

• Don Kenn is a creator page in the creepypasta index, but most of his page is talking about his art so I guess this is fine? I think it is but I'm not sure, hence why I list it.

• Doors literature that should be under web original

• Little Witch and Jack O'Lantern literature that should be under web original

• Otherside Picnic This looks like it's just a horror manga? I don't know what qualifies it as creepypasta

• NES Godzilla Creepypasta literature that should be under web original

• The most obscure Disney film literature that should be under web original

• The Red Maiden: Grace's Story literature that should be under web original

• Saki Sanobashi A supposedly lost anime (that's probably not real) which is under the anime name space. Not sure about this one either, if it's a story summarizing an anime episode which isn't real, is it still under the anime namespace? Or since it's not real is it under Web Original?

• Since the Incident literature that should be under web original

• Tales from Cherryshrub, Mississippi literature that should be under web original

• The Toadman Saga literature that should be under web original

• Tommy Taffy There is a novel on Amazon, but it originated as a story on the nosleep subreddit

• The Strangest Security Tape I've Ever Seen literature that should be under web original

And with that I think I've clicked on every link in the creepypasta index. It's 3:40 AM, I'm going to bed.

I think it was decided somewhere that original works written online still go under Literature? I remember reading that somewhere...

Yes

Well that makes things so much easier. Thank god.

Wouldn't the NES Godzilla Creepypasta go under Fanfic for its namespace? If its under "Literature", that kind of implies it's an official Godzilla property, which it's not.

^ good question. I'm personally unsure but I would assume so.

Alright reworked list

• Overanalyzing Creepypasta and Bad Creepypasta are channels that read creepypasta and shouldn't be in the index. There's a section right under the folder of creepypastas that lists youtubers who do dramatic readings of creepypasta, so should these two be moved down there?

• Creepypasta Cookoff is a website that hosts creepypastas, so it still should probably get moved out of the literature name space and to website? I think?

• Otherside Picnic is just some horror manga, how does this qualify as creepypasta? Why is in that index!

• Saki Sanobashi is an internet urban legend and probably doesn't exist. If it does exist, we have never seen it and can't trope it anyways, so the page is about the urban legend. Should it be under the anime name space?

IDK. Polybius is under "Video Game".

I'm starting to wonder if a "Creepypasta/" namespace would be worth it. "Alternate Reality Game" is a similar concept and that has an ARG/ namespace.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 22nd 2022 at 5:42:52 AM

Oh shoot forgot about Polybius. Well I guess that's how these urban legends are classified.