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Complete Monster Proposal Thread

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Old Complete Monster cleanup thread

Welcome to the Complete Monster proposal thread! This is the thread where new Complete Monster examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here

Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.

Here is how the process works:

    Process 

  1. If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential redeeming qualities will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.

  2. After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".

  3. Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the CM subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!

Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:

    Ground Rules 

  1. To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!

  2. No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
    1. Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
    2. Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
    3. Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.

  3. Don't delete an EP unless you intend to swiftly repost it. We know that there are reasons why you might want to delete an EP, especially if it's being downvoted - rejection is hard, even in a low-stakes environment like this. However, deleting it renders the current discussion null and void, makes it impossible to reference the discussion in the future and can confuse tropers who didn't read it before the deletion. If the issue is temporary (such as formatting problems or a post getting overlooked as the thread moves on), then deleting and quickly reposting the EP is a valid option, but to fully retract an EP, please use the [[strike:]] markup instead.

  4. Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").

  5. If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.

  6. 'If a work is already reserved by another user , please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!

  7. Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite CM" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest for that.

  8. Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.

  9. If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
    1. For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
    2. If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.

  10. Please keep all discussions "in-house".
    1. What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
    2. Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
    3. Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.

If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:

    Effortpost Template 

What is the work?

This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.

Who is the candidate and what have they done?

This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, the crimes they commit, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some villains, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.

Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?

This is where any potential redeeming characteristics or tragic backstory should be discussed. Do they have a tragic past? Do they show that Even Evil Has Standards or Even Evil Has Loved Ones? Maybe a Pet the Dog moment or two? This is where these should be discussed in full. Not every potential redeeming moment is a clear-cut disqualifier, but we should hear of any potential issues to ensure the character is discussed in full.

Are they bad enough?

A Complete Monster has to be particularly vile by the standard of the work they appear in. Therefore, you should look at what the character does compared to similar characters in the same work. This takes into account things like:

  • Their resource level (a human Serial Killer can't stand up to an alien Omnicidal Maniac, but they can be bad by the standard of other human serial killers)
  • The amount of time they have to work with (such as a one-shot character versus long-running antagonists)
  • The quantity vs. quality of their crimes compared to others (someone with a lower victim count but far more visceral and personal crimes could be considered as equally bad overall as someone with a higher body count but less horror involved)

Essentially, this section is an analysis of the kinds of villainy shown in the work and an explanation of why this particular character's villainy stands out within it.

Final verdict?

This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.


IMPORTANT NOTICE: This thread tackles very serious and dark matters on a daily basis. We will be discussing things like murder, rape, torture, human trafficking, crimes against children, and in particularly dark cases, several of these issues at the same time. We keep a lighthearted air, but all candidates carry the general assumption that these are awful individuals committing disgusting crimes. We ask that if you participate, you do so with the requisite seriousness such dark topics require; exclamations of how gross something is, whether serious or sarcastic, are disrespectful to the topics at hand, and if you cannot handle such topics, please do not participate.

And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!


Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 12th 2024 at 3:13:36 PM

Agentofchaos A God Am I from Somewhere in the Universe Since: Dec, 2021
#39251: Mar 14th 2024 at 7:41:33 AM

[tup] to the Baron

I'm not touching anything Rowling related with a 10 foot pole, so abstain on that guy

"We'll meet again" | 🏳️‍⚧️
therealjackieboy from Austin, TX Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#39252: Mar 14th 2024 at 7:51:01 AM

Abstain on Creed

It's Spooky Month!
EmperorGeode from A Galaxy far, far away Since: Oct, 2022 Relationship Status: On the prowl
coolmaneditor Since: Nov, 2019 Relationship Status: In love with love
Etrebamort Lord from Purgatory. Since: Mar, 2024 Relationship Status: At the center of everything that happens to me
Lord
#39255: Mar 14th 2024 at 8:04:18 AM

Why? He's utterly irredeemable. I'm amazed he hasn't been suggested here before.

Lord Etrabamort
LoreDeluxe Since: May, 2013
#39256: Mar 14th 2024 at 8:09:37 AM

Yes to Baron Harkonnen.

Provided the novel goes out of its way to invalidate his Freudian Excuse, I'll lean [tup] to Dennis Creed.

Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Libraryseraph uu~ from Canada (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: Raising My Lily Rank With You
uu~
#39257: Mar 14th 2024 at 8:11:35 AM

Most of us are people who don't particularly want to talk about a character written entirely to embody JKR's transmisogynist obsession with the evils of trans women

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA
Shadao Dorzma Forever! Artwork by Kris Dobbins. (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
Dorzma Forever! Artwork by Kris Dobbins.
#39258: Mar 14th 2024 at 8:13:58 AM

[tup] to Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Etrebamort Lord from Purgatory. Since: Mar, 2024 Relationship Status: At the center of everything that happens to me
Lord
#39259: Mar 14th 2024 at 8:16:04 AM

Lore Deluxe, it definitely does! The last thing Strike says to him is "If anyone asks, I'll say you're a fucking nutter and you should stay here til you rot", which is depicted as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome in the narrative.

Lord Etrabamort
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#39260: Mar 14th 2024 at 8:44:42 AM

My main concern, personal feelings aside, is how bad are the other possible CMs compared to Creed?

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
Powermaster201 The Emperor of Evil! Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
The Emperor of Evil!
#39262: Mar 14th 2024 at 9:25:49 AM

[tup] to Baron Harkonnen and a slight one to Creed.

Overlord Since: Mar, 2013
#39263: Mar 14th 2024 at 9:28:39 AM

Yes to Baron Harkonnen.

Abstain on Creed.

moctezuma2000 Since: Sep, 2018
#39264: Mar 14th 2024 at 9:33:00 AM

[up][up][up] Looking at the page quickly, it sounds like Creed is explicitly bested in heinousness by the actual big bad in same the book

Revenant30 Since: Sep, 2023
#39265: Mar 14th 2024 at 9:49:06 AM

[tup] Baron Harkonnen. Basically the Palpatine equivalent of Dune.

ForgoLight The Ultimate Lifeform Since: Oct, 2022 Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
TheMadCr0w (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Get out of here, STALKER
Beast from Ontario, Canada Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Browsing the selection
#39268: Mar 14th 2024 at 10:29:38 AM

[tup] The Baron.

"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
Etrebamort Lord from Purgatory. Since: Mar, 2024 Relationship Status: At the center of everything that happens to me
Lord
#39269: Mar 14th 2024 at 10:34:47 AM

Janice Beatty exceeded Creed in competency(not that he’d ever admit that), but not heinousness. Her victims died much more quickly and less painlessly than his and although a despicable person, at least she’s never raped anyone.

Have to say Creed and the Baron would probably get along like a house on fire. Then go and SET one on fire!

Edited by Etrebamort on Mar 14th 2024 at 5:35:30 PM

Lord Etrabamort
emperors Messenger from another dimension. Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Messenger from another dimension.
#39271: Mar 14th 2024 at 11:10:08 AM

Yes to the Baron!

And I will personally upvote Creed but my friendly suggestion is, if most people don't want to talk about it, just respect it and move on.

Welcome to the world of greatest media!
TurlesTheVegan Xykon from The Darkest Pit of the Underworld Since: Dec, 2023 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Xykon
#39272: Mar 14th 2024 at 11:12:26 AM

[tup] for Baron Harkonnen.

Abstain on Creed.

Power, it isn't something that you put on or take off like a jacket. It's just something you are.
CapitanoNox Lord of Space from Italy Since: Oct, 2018 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
Lord of Space
#39273: Mar 14th 2024 at 11:26:10 AM

Abstaining on Creed, and honestly I don't think we should allow characters to be proposed if the purpose of their existence is representing the author's shitty views.

fanman "To watch it all burn." from Earth-Prime/Earth-1218 Since: Feb, 2022 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
"To watch it all burn."
#39274: Mar 14th 2024 at 11:43:57 AM

[tup]Harkonnen, abstain on Creel

What is the work?

ALTER is a YouTube channel dedicated to horror short films. One is a cartoon titled "Buzzkill" (gory) about a blind date between two teens named Rick and Betty whose sexy fun time is interrupted by Becky feeling something in her eye. They think it's an eyelash, but it turns out to be something worse.

Who is Becky, and what has she done?

Becky, who initially seems like a classic horror victim who has flies inside of her, turns out to be someone much worse. While she's trying to get rid of them, Rick finds a key to a safe in her closet. When he unlocks it while she, in her desperation, sprays her nose with bug repellent, he finds something that causes him to faint from terror. We then cut to what seems like Becky caressing Rick's hair, saying they'll be together forever... and we see what was in the safe: five severed heads, and Rick has been decapitated. Becky then proceeds to make out with Rick's head.

Mitigating factors?

One could argue that Becky is insane, seeing as how she talks to Rick's head like it's alive, but throughout the rest of the short, she displayed lucidity, plus talking to a dead person like they're still alive is pretty common among fictional characters.

Are they bad enough?

Sure, Becky's true nature is only made clear at the twist at the end, but once it happens, it changes everything we previously thought. Also she's a teenage girl who lures in boys, which makes me feel like she has a niche.

Verdict?

I think so, but I'll leave it up to you guys.

Sorry guys, I thought I had finished the EP when I initially posted.

Edited by fanman on Mar 14th 2024 at 12:01:15 PM

moctezuma2000 Since: Sep, 2018
#39275: Mar 14th 2024 at 11:45:17 AM

There have been much worse Straw Political villains voted in here to be honest.

[tup] Baron Harkonnen


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