Needs Help: Mailer Daemon

"Over the course of an episode, he'll woo the heroine, getting her absorbed in online chatting and games, and convincing her that this godsend of true love, who curiously refuses to send his picture, is her Love at First Sight... well, read. She'll trust him completely with all sorts of secrets, personal and dangerous. Her friends might try to urge her to be cautious, but she'll think "You're Just Jealous" and grow distant from them; this is usually a thought the Daemon plants and fosters to alienate her and make her easier to seduce and lure. He'll eventually persuade her to come meet him in the Haunted Castle or Mad Scientist Laboratory, only to reveal himself in his true form."

• Dating Service Disaster: (description) An inhuman monster, especially one who'll literally eat your heart out.
• G.I.R.L.: (description) If you think this is bad, though, be grateful you're not dealing with a Mailer Daemon.
• Speed Dating: (description) Need a service that can help you find your true love without dealing with the Mailer Daemons and other inconveniences of online dating?
• Creator.Chuck Tingle: When Chuck was to finally meet his podcasting friend Mackenzie Goodwin, he expressed worries that she would turn out to be a "catfish stabman", but was relieved to learn she had no gills, and therefore, could not be catfishing him.
• HarsherInHindsight.Literature: Erik's deceptive communication with Christine in The Phantom of the Opera must have been creepy enough in 1910, but its resemblance to the m.o. of modern Internet predators makes it even creepier a century later.
• Literature.The Phantom Of The Opera: The Phantom's M.O. for seducing Christine (speaking to her merely as a voice and not showing his face until the time comes to abduct her) is particularly Hilarious in Hindsight, considering it pre-dates the Internet by almost a century!
• TabletopGame.The Book Of Unremitting Horror: Literal Maneater: Sisterites, a particularly unpleasant breed of digital-age succubi who seduce their prey over the internet, lure them to their lairs, and then devour them.

• Black Magic: Raven of the Teen Titans was taught 'dark magic' from her Mailer Dragon, and experienced no negative effects until she lost control of a spell and endangered a child. Then she freed Malchior from his can, and she saw that it was not so good, so for the rest of the show she didn't use nearly as many spells as she did in that episode. Not the blackest kind of Black Magic, as the negative consequenses were mostly a matter of application, and control always was a big issue for Raven, though her being half-demon could have been a factor.
• Blank Book: In "I Robot, You Jane", the book used to seal Moloch was blank until the sealing ritual was performed, at which point it would fill up with words. When Willow scanned it into the library computer, it became blank again, as Moloch was released into the internet.
• Deadly Dodging In "Robot You Jane", Buffy defeats Moloch the Corruptor by tricking him into punching an electrical junction box, frying him.
• Evil Costume Switch: Raven always wears the dark leotard-under-cloak costume in the series, but once she is briefly seen with a red cloak and the four eyes of Trigon - never a good sign. This one shows up again in the comic; a red-skinned Raven is seen when she's under the influence of her demonic father, and a white-cloaked version appears after she's purified of said influence. Inverted when Malchior is teaching Raven dark magic, whereby Raven's robes turn white.
• May–December Romance: Teen Titans has Raven's crush on her teacher Malchior - she's about 15 years and his age is at least three digits. An easily overlooked example because he's a dragon posing as a white haired young-looking guy - a phenomenon often observed in Mayfly December Romances. Also, he's made of pages from the book he's trapped in, which serves to distract. Whether or not that relationship would qualify as a Mayfly–December Romance is uncertain, due to the natures of the characters.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: In the episode "Spellbound", she acted very sweet and girlish towards Malchior; however, by the end Malchior made her regret even having a warmer side. For a while after the episode, she became visibly more withdrawn. Though when Beast Boy tried to comfort her, she did go out and give him a hug as thanks.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Used twice in Cyborg 009's 2001 series. 005 uses it against the Spirit of the Earth (in the form of a gigantic jaguar that has been killing people, including the husband of a friend of 005 himself, and both 003 and 009 do that to Sphynx, a super computer who kidnaps 003 to make her his puppet girlfriend and tries to kill the others, specially 009 and 004.
• Teacher/Student Romance: The Teen Titans don't actually go to school, but Raven meets an exotic, charming, and kind warlock who teaches her all kinds of new magic, and she rapidly falls for him. Given the stuff she and her friends typically deal with, it's not that important to Raven that he's curse-trapped into a book and technically at least a few centuries older than her fifteen-or-so years of age. He also turns out to also be an ancient Dread Dragon. And when Raven releases him from his curse, he tries to roast her. She puts the dragon back in the book, but is left heartbroken by the entire affair.
• Terms of Endangerment: In the episode "Spellbound" Raven fell in love with Malchior who lived in a book. However he turned out to be a Mailer Daemon, who was really just tricking her into releasing him from the book. He kept referring to her as "my sweet Raven".
• The Glomp: Strangely enough, Raven (of all people) does something like this to Beast Boy (of all people) after her heart has been broken by Malchior and Beast Boy comes to console her. However, since this is more a case of being extremely depressed, lonely, and wanting some sort of comfort, rather than being truly happy to see him, it's debatable whether this counts. The jump-on-and-hug-tightly physical actions are played straight.
• What Is Evil?: Used by Raven's Mailer Daemon on Teen Titans:
  Raven: It's dark magic! You've been teaching me dark magic!
  Malchior: Is it dark, or is it simply misunderstood...like you? True — the spells I have taught you are very powerful. There are those who fear power, so they call it "dark". But for people like us...such distinctions do not exist.
• Awesome.Teen Titans 2003: What Malchior did to Raven in Spellbound was absolutely awful, I think we're all agreed on that. Which is what makes Raven's comeback in the climactic battle of that episode even more awesome than it already would have been to begin with. I wonder if Malchior ever realized that in giving her the tool to let him out, he also gave her the power to put him right back where he came from. Cue the Ironic Hell for Malchior.
• Buffy.Season Specific Tropes: "I Robot, You Jane" had another twist on it, when Willow's cyber-boyfriend turned out to be a literal demon on the Internet, Moloch the Corruptor. (The magical book in which it was sealed had been scanned into a computer.) The metaphor was lampshaded when Buffy used it as an argument to persuade Willow to check up on "Malcolm".
• Characters.Cyborg 009: A powerful super-computer with the mind of an emotionally neglected genius, who kidnaps and uploads 003 to his mainframe so she can love him forever.
• Characters.Harry Potter Gryffindor: (description) In the second book, Ginny finally gets to go to Hogwarts... but as she has trouble making friends and feels quite lonely, she's an easy prey for Voldemort's Brainwashing through his diary.
• Characters.Teen Titans 2003 Enemies: Evil dragon trapped in a book. He even provides the page image.
• Literature.Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets: Tom Riddle, though he lacks any Stalker with a Crush tendencies toward Ginny, manipulates Ginny into thinking he's a genuine friend of hers. By the time Ginny realizes the truth, it's too late, and Tom has control over her.
• Manga.Cyborg 009: The 2001 series features the supercomputer, Sphinx, who develops a crush on 003 and kidnaps her with the intent to brainwash and make her his girlfriend. Its programming was actually based on the mind and memories of the deceased Carl Eckermann, who suffered from such huge mommy issues and extreme Parental Neglect at the hands of his own father, who was also his boss, that he latched onto 003, who happened to resemble his long-dead mother.
• Manga.X1999: Beast, Satsuki's computer, which is obsessed with its builder and owner. And territorial to boot.
• Cracked.Tropes I To Z: Parodied by Soren Bowie with his article "The Spambot Who Seduced Me: A True Story of Forbidden Love", in which he responds to actual messages sent to him by a dating site spambot (also mocking how common these spambots are in the comments on Cracked articles), with each reply being more and more lovesick.
• MyGodWhatHaveIDone.Literature: Ginny Weasley's attempt to destroy Riddle's diary in Chamber of Secrets was (probably) a reaction to this trope. In any case, she was in full mode of this trope after being saved by Harry at the end. Poor Ginny. It must be... devastating doesn't even describe it... for an eleven-year-old to realize her actions have very nearly caused the deaths of half her friends and her crush. Maybe that's why she was so sympathetic to Harry after the "Sectumsempra" incident.
• NotGoodWithRejection.Western Animation: Raven falling in love with Malchior, who lived in a book in the episode "Spellbound". However he turned out to be a Mailer Daemon, who then proceeded to trick her into releasing him from the book. While Raven was heartbroken, she did get revenge during a final fight after he said "I got what I wanted and I don't need you anymore" and put him back in the book using the techniques that he taught her.
• OurDragonsAreDifferent.Western Animation: Teen Titans: Malchior is a very traditional Western kind of dragon, although he plays a less than traditional role for a dragon.
• Recap.Buffy The Vampire Slayer S 1 E 8 I Robot You Jane: Moloch uses the internet's chat rooms to bring Willow over to his side.
• TearJerker.Teen Titans 2003: The end of "Spellbound", where Raven gets her heart completely broken by Malchior, the Mailer Daemon from the Great Big Book of Everything is also quite the tearjerker. Specially when Beast Boy says he's sorry for the heartbreak Raven went through, and then she hugs him.
• Webcomic.Sluggy Freelance: K'Z'K slowly tried to convince Gwynn to fully give in to her powers and come over to help him, all through "chatting" on a word processor.

• VideoGame.Net Hack: A literal one; it delivers messages from other users on the system. The daemon normally appears and disappears within one turn without giving a chance for the player to interact with it. However, a Crazy-Prepared player can kill it, preventing further messages from being delivered; to do this, the player needs to stone-to-flesh a statue of a mail daemon, which is not something that occurs naturally but needs to be wished for, and to be prepared to kill the resulting daemon in one turn as it otherwise disappears with a cry of "I'm late!".

• Online Stalker with a Crush: redirect
• EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas.Anime And Manga: Also done in the 2001 series. Carl "Sphynx" Eckermann was an Anti-Villain whose mother died when he was a child. He never recovered from the loss, and in fact he became a Mailer Daemon and Stalker with a Crush towards the aforementioned Francoise/003 because she looked a lot like his deceased mother.
• Laconic.Mailer Daemon: Villainous Online Stalker with a Crush.
• Series.Bron Broen: August and the killer, who is pretending to be a (real) female friend of his.

• Francoise Arnoul aka 003 of Cyborg 009, more in the 2001 adaptation than the others. Not only she takes care of baby Ivan/001 as if he was either her child or baby brother and aids Dr. Gilmore when he's gotta take care of the others, but at some point she talks to a disgruntled Jet/002 as if she was lecturing a whiny kid, despite them being the same age (they were both made cyborgs when they were teenagers). Lampshaded in a 2001 episode where she's kidnapped by a Mailer Daemon with huge Mommy Issues, and one of the reasons behind that is speculated to be Francoise's motherly behavior.
• Just For Pun
• Villains
• Anime.Corrector Yui: Grosser's subconscious met Yui and became amazed by (and also obsessed with) her when she was a little girl. This developed into him becoming somewhat of a Stalker with a Crush when he saw her again, although even he didn't know why for a long while.
• Characters.Buffyverse Buffy The Vampire Slayer Demons And Monsters
• Characters.Roommates Building 42: Cannot Talk to Women: Poor guy. According to the Wizard, this is why he played the Mailer Daemon. From his reaction to Mag in the elevator he was probably right.
• HoYay.Dungeons And Dragons 1983: Once Sheila gets the ring, Kareena turns on her Mailer Daemon-style, gloating over how she tricked Sheila into believing they were friends.
  Kareena: You have served your purpose.
  Sheila: What?!
  Kareena: I needed you to break the spell guarding my ring. Now that I have it, I don't need you any longer.
• ImageSource.Western Animation
• Literature.Daemon: (description) Not to be confused with Daemon, Daemons or the Mailer Daemon trope.
• Recap.Teen Titans S 3 E 6 Spellbound: Malchior.
• Series.Ghost Whisperer: The Littlest Cancer Patient who unleashed an E-Mailer Daemon.
• TropersDoIt.With Western Animation: Malchior does it before you realize he's the dragon.
• VisualNovel.Re Prince Of Nigeria: Apara Kachingpopcorn for Horai, Played for Laughs.
• WMG.Teen Titans 2003: In "Spellbound", once she defeats Malchior, her white cloak fades from white to blue again.
• WesternAnimation.Teen Titans 2003: You are dark, and darkness is often misunderstood. —Malchior
• Woobie.Harry Potter: Ginny Weasley has a very, very bad first year.