During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Dark Crystal.
EDIT: Holy shit, it’s Man on the Internet!
Edited by PurpleEyedGuma on Jun 29th 2020 at 8:40:01 AM
to Dark Crystal
Yes to Dark Crystal.
to The Dark Crystal.
Might as well get it out of the way.
Showtime!
to Dark Crystal
Hey, since the true identity of Evox from Power Rangers Beast Morphers has been revealed, doesn't that mean he automatically count?
Lizzid people!
Did that just come out?
Showtime!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I don;t follow, is his true identity an already-confirmed CM?
Edited by Libraryseraph on Jun 29th 2020 at 8:55:58 AM
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
"The Juice is Loose."
Wait until two weeks after the episodes are released in America. Right now that has only been revealed overseas. If anyone's curious about what he's talking about. PM me.
Edited by Bullman on Jun 29th 2020 at 7:58:15 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it)
to Dark Crystal
FYI a tropers named Raf Ken 593 has been making edits to William Aftons entry.
Things are really about to get Fun around here
Edited by Eddy1215 on Jun 29th 2020 at 9:05:12 AM
I have an EP in the works, but there are a few things I want to bring up
Firstly, why doesn’t the main Film page have a link to The Crow’s CM page like Dick Tracy and Die Hard do?
Edited by NattesNovgrel on Jun 29th 2020 at 8:03:38 AM
Showtime!
You need to remove the square bracket after spoiler for it to work [[spoiler: like so]]
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
"The Juice is Loose."
Please spoiler that. Those episodes haven't aired in America yet.
Edit: This came off there than I meant it to. So I edited that part out. Sorry Eddy.
Edited by Bullman on Jun 29th 2020 at 8:09:49 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
I couldn't figure out how to do it so I just deleted it.
Eddy, as you've been asked before, don't start spilling details about works that have just aired until at least two weeks after the applicable episode.
"The Juice is Loose."
Eddy, plus those episodes won't air in the US for a couple of months. Which brings me to a question. Should we discuss this in two weeks or wait until the season ends in America in a couple of Months?
Edited by Bullman on Jun 29th 2020 at 8:37:51 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Two weeks after "official release" so I would go by whichever country it's using for that. I would also like to note this is literally the second time I've had to tell people not to jump to talk about this exact character...
The wifi here sucks
Does anyone have the show reserved?
Nattes, I think we only link to a subpage if the medium has 3 or more candidates. Crow only has 2.
Kylotrope. Have you changed the entry back and PMed the troper?
Edited by papyru30 on Jun 29th 2020 at 7:46:28 AM
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
"The Juice is Loose."
I did, but I lost my cable and won't be able to get it back in time.
Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it)
Can't edit
I will however PM them later
Edited by Kylotrope on Jun 29th 2020 at 3:56:01 AM
Things are really about to get Fun around here
to Dark Crystal.
The wifi here sucks
Kylo, don't worry I fixed it and PMed them.
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
So I saw an entry on the Yugioh EQG page for The Omega Zealots and Gaia-Maiden Lady Marble but do not see the entries on the Fan Works page. Are these approved entries or not?
Edited by M1st3rSt3v3 on Jun 29th 2020 at 10:13:40 AM
Saw that Codex Equus has come up before and decided to look into it. Found this entry:
What is Codex Equus?
Codex Equus is a massive world building story/project covering MLP generations one through four, each as a different Age. In this case, it's the Second Age portion, which covers an alternate version of My Little Pony Tales which is basically a Super Fic.
Who is the Queen Dark Crystal and What have they Done?
Queen Dark Crystal is the Grand High Matron of all Witches, and considered the most powerful and evil witch to have ever existed.
Dark Crystal was born during the Second Age's equal of the Bronze Age to a Hydianite Coven (a philosophy of witches imitating G1 Hydia, though far more fleshed out and serious) and raised by her mother to be 'the Ultimate Hydianite'. Despite being offered many chances to leave this life and become good, she willingly rejected them all. Eventually her family decides to perform a spell to create 'the Ultimate Witch' by channeling all their collective magical ability and evil along with all that housed in Mount Gloom into a single witch, which Dark Crystal would be the recipient. The ritual was successful, resulting in Dark Crystal being transformed into one of the most powerful beings on the planet.
Her first act after her transformation was to sadistically slaughter her entire family, devour their souls, and turn their bodies into her spell book, the Book of Darkness. Dark Crystal would proceed to unite the world's witch covens under her and unleash a reign of terror that laid waste to entire kingdoms, tortured and killed countless innocents, and ultimately triggered the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Her reign was so horrible that the Pegasi, Unicorns, Sea Ponies, and Flutterponies fled into hiding just to escape her, fracturing Ponykind.
She took joy in making communities or individuals sacrifice their own to hold off her wrath for a time while she encouraged them to become wretched hives of sin and vice. Even then, Dark Crystal may decide to use these communities as a playground on a whim. Her favorite pass time, however, was to invoke Hope Spots she could then crush to drive them into despair, earning her the Red Baron 'The Queen of Despair.'
Dark Crystal would eventually grow bored with this and create a spell for the purpose of wiping out most life in the world and corrupting what remained so she could build a new world of sin and wickedness from the ashes.
Dark Crystal's reign would come to an end when a team of heroes using weapons provided by the Genesis Sovereign (the setting's Greater-Scope Paragon who also created the Elements of Harmony) managed to defeat and seal her away, but not before all but one member was killed by Dark Crystal in the battle. That member, Shining Lance, was so broken by Dark Crystal's reign and the deaths of his teammates that he founded an Anti-Magical Faction to wipe out magic to try and prevent another like her from ever appearing.
Even sealed in her own spell book, Dark Crystal would corrupt anyone who found and used it to use the book for mass destruction and ultimately attempt her doomsday spell.
It wouldn't be until the Information Age of the Second Age that Dark Crystal would use Ponykind's sins from the Great Wars era to create her son, King Onyx/Crimson Warlock, who she'd send to work towards her release. Dark Crystal would eventually be set free and almost instantly upon her release level a large portion of a city and kill thousands.
She would then use her power to create a perpetual eclipse that would slowly kill all life on Equus (or Tellus as it was called) via environmental collapse. When the Virtuous Seven (the Tales Seven's superhero team name) defeat this plan, she used it as a distraction while she prepared her doomsday spell and resurrected the Hydianite Covens, resulting in a new age of wicked witches and warlocks to blight sapientkind for the rest of known history.
This would include encouraging and empowering the morally bankrupt to cause chaos on mass, causing mass riots and other destruction. This would all continue until she managed to get the necessities for her doomsday spell and attack Germane, causing massive earthquakes across the country until attacking using a mechanized fortress as she began her spell.
When confronted in her throne room by the Seven, she would proceed to Mind Rape them by subjecting them to feeling the deaths of their predecessors in the final battle where she was sealed away in an attempt to force them to give up. To note, the Seven are still in their early teens here.
In the final battle, she actually succeeds in killing the group and absorbing their souls. We only see two, that being electrocuting Patch and giving Clover a Breaking Lecture before impaling her. She then reveals this to the world to try and crush their spirits. When Starlight manages to break free inside her, Dark Crystal gives her a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, one of the worst in all of Codex. This, however, allows Melody to break free and free the others, leading to Dark Crystal's demise when they resurrect. Even with Dark Crystal dead, however, the Hydianites she revived would cause a lot of pain and suffering for the next tens of thousands of years and force the Seven to get therapy to recover.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Dark Crystal's childhood was abusive and she was raised to be the way she was, but at the same time, she was given numerous chances to redeem herself and willingly denied them. In universe Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse is fully in play and no one sees her background as remotely justifying her actions.
After her transformation, she is Made of Evil, but Codex is kind of a unique setting in that regard: embodying evil as a concept doesn't mean one is evil or justified in being so. There are multiple Gods of Evil who willingly choose to apply their evil for the betterment of the world by limiting themselves solely to challenging good and promoting progress, and keeping lesser evils in check. This is called 'Constructive Evil' and at the moment these deities outnumber the Gods of Evil who are actually monstrously evil.
Also, her son, Onyx, was made from the evils of the Great War Era, but is a loving husband to his wife, acts as a stealth mentor the heroes, sabotages Dark Crystal when he can, and ultimately willingly retires from being a supervillain after she's destroyed to live a peaceful life with his wife.
So in this particular setting, being Made of Evil means a character still has moral agency.
She does attempt to give the Seven a We Can Rule Together, but it's made clear it's an attempt to corrupt them rather than mercy.
She also knowingly plays with the Generic Doomsday Villain trope as a concept, but has a unique personality and motivations that wouldn't disqualify her in that regard.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Dark Crystal is by far one of the most powerful and evil villains in the entire story. She's a sadistic monster who caused destruction and death on a global scale and wanted to wipe out all life on the planet and corrupt everything that remains. Khuligan the Brutal was already accepted, and he is far far weaker than she is and exists tens of thousands of years after her. Dark Crystal is one of the most powerful beings on Equus, Khuligan is just a mortal giant. So I don't think they conflict because comparing them really isn't fair.
The only real competition Dark Crystal has in the Second Age are Void Traveller, Void Killer, and the Void Sovereign, who are all cosmic level Omnicidal Maniacs. However, they're also all capable of freely travelling the universe, and the only thing stopping Dark Crystal from doing something on their level is being stuck on Equus. In addition, the Void Sovereign is the single most powerful villain in the entire setting, being a galactic scale Destroyer Deity powerful enough to destroy a galaxy if not stopped, so comparing him and Dark Crystal isn't really fair.
Villains like Ragnarokrr and Surtr in the Fourth Age rival Dark Crystal, but don't quite exceed her. At worst they're just as bad with a similar body count and atrocities.
Final Verdict?
I think Dark Crystal counts as a![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]")
. She's by far one of the most powerful and monstrous beings in the entire story and has a very, very long list of sins, some of which far outlive her.