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. "
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
Honestly, I do agree with Lighty to a certain point. Many of us have made at least one effortpost for works which are not conducive to this item, and we have taken steps not to repeat such gaffes.
I mean, if someone makes an outright troll post? There is no question that whatever decision the mod takes is the right one.
If the poster was acting in what they thought was good faith, I do think it is necessary to explain why what just happened is not acceptable, but if they turn it into a single-issue wonk, it becomes difficult to share your own perspective.
We shouldn't need a goddamn rule for this, we're all fucking adults, we should be able to go "we aren't upvoting a character from an Animaniacs Rape Fanfic" without the proposer going Ain't No Rule about it. The fact that we're seriously having to discuss this is...fucking ridiculous
HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIAI just feel like formalizing it in the rules is sort of validating the Ain't No Rule attitude. Like, we are well within our rights to downvote that for being gross and gauche without anyone getting all finger wagging about how we don't have a rule against it
HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIAYou are still misunderstanding it it was never a Ain't No Rule thing, it is that there was a rule that made this technically acceptable due to it being a crossover with a work that has graphic rape.
Yeah, when it comes to fanfics, whether or not they're dark, I try to write what I think could reasonably happen in that universe. Something like this from what I can tell clearly goes way beyond the bounds and for this, it becomes exploitative.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Nov 18th 2021 at 7:58:14 AM
Yes to Archibald, Treglazov, Not-Them, Tess, Clynn, Jimmy, and George
Let's move on from this unsettling topic, I got another Marvel What if baddie. From what if Iron Man lost the Armor Wars...
Who is Justin Hammer? What has he done?
Justin Hammer is an immoral businessman who managed to steal the specs to Iron Man's tech. Ant-Man (Scott Lang) is hired by Tony Stark to get the specs back, but Hammer discovers him and threatens to murder Scott's young daughter if Scott doesn't reveal who hired him. Lang reveals it was Tony Stark, but Hammer decides to hold Lang and his daughter as hostages.
Hammer manages to take over the Iron Man armor and forces Iron Man to reveal his identity to him. He also forces Iron Man to wear a mind-control collar to get complete control of him. Hammer forces Stark to reveal security information about the Avengers and SHIELD and Hammer sells that information to their enemies, with several terrorist attacks hitting Avengers and SHIELD compounds (Hammer is sad no one important died in the attacks). Hammer decides to completely ruin Tony Stark's life, forcing him to destroy Star Enterprises HQ, when people are still in the building (most seem to make it out alive, but Jim Rhodes is put into a coma) and has Iron Man blow up his own house. Hammer then forces Tony Stark to confess to these crimes. Deciding to end things, Hammer is about to order Tony Stark to kill himself, but then AIM shows up to take this tech for themselves, killing Hammer and accidentally freeing Stark.
Is he heinous by the standards of the story?
He is the worst in the story, we don't know how people died in the terrorist attacks on the Avengers and SHIELD, but Hammer's comment seemed to indicate there were casualties and while it seems like only Rhodes was injured in the attack on Stark HQ, that seems like luck more than anything else. Between that and threatening to murder a little girl in front of her father and ordering Iron Man to kill himself, there is a lot of sadism here too.
AIM and the other armored villains are totally generic. AIM wants to take over the world and wants to attack other armored villains as threats and the armored villains really only want to defend themselves from AIM and later attack Stark because he wants them to surrender their armor to him.
Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming qualities?
I do not think that fits his business style.
Final Verdict?
It's Hammer Time! Keep.
Edited by Overlord on Nov 18th 2021 at 8:51:46 AM
Alright, so a couple weeks ago, I asked where the line was drawn in terms of "taste." I mentioned having an effortpost in the works for a really nasty character who commits a lot of psysical and sexual violence, some of which is directed at children. This candidate is from a rather well-known creepypasta series whom I was surprised to not find brought up here before. The work is called "The Third Parent," and the character I'll be proposing is the antagonist, Tommy Taffy.
Who is Tommy Taffy? What does he do?
Tommy Taffy is a strange human-like entity who shows up to insert himself into families. He resembles a doll, with unnaturally smooth skin, a smooth white strip where his teeth should be, and an inhuman looking smile. He ostensibly comes to help the parents raise their children, declaring himself a "third parent," but all he really does is make life miserable for those around him.
This is a series rather than a one-shot story so this EP will get a bit lengthy. The parts were not all released in chronological order. I will be doing this EP in chronological order, however, to make it easier to follow.
Tommy Taffy first appears in July of 1969
at the home of Spence, a young boy of seven years old. Tommy shows up at the door and tells Spence's parents that he will be staying with them for a while. Spence's father is having none of this, and angrily tells Tommy to leave before he calls the police. Tommy proceeds to savagely attack the father until he complies. Immediately following this, Tommy greets Spence in a friendly way, though there's an obvious hint of menace still in his demeanor.
Tommy has the ability to be in multiple places at once, and as such becomes a resident at many homes in the neighborhood. He forbids people from talking about him, but they all know that he's there, like an open secret of sorts. The entire town is terrified of him, but they can't do anything other than comply as Tommy sits them down every night to lecture them with life lessons, as Tommy keeps them in line by threatening their children.
A month later, the fathers in the neighborhood decide that enough is enough and that it's time to get rid of Tommy. He's bound to a chair in the basement and shot in the head, but completely no-sells the bullet. They then resolve to burn him, telling him to go back to Hell where he belongs. Still smiling and still keeping his jolly demeanor, Tommy merely says "Hell is going to seem like a fantasy when I come back for you."
Two weeks later, Tommy does come back. And he comes back mad. Bursting into Spence's home, Tommy brutalizes Spence's father (also attacking his mother as she tries to stop him), before dragging him outside. Making the man's wife and son watch, Tommy then proceeds to drive a broken broom handle down the man's throat and out through his stomach. A crowd has gathered round to see what's going on, and Tommy tells them he wants them all to remember this incident "the next time you want to have a bonfire." The message is received loud and clear. The neighborhood covers up the murder of Spence's father, and when the man's job calls the police in after noticing his absence, everyone gives a fake story about how he was caught having an affair and left town. They're all too terrified to do anything else, and Tommy appears to have a particular animosity towards police officers (more on that later).
Tommy stays in the town for exactly five years. Following Spence's father's murder, he becomes more aggressive. He begins laying in bed with Spence's mother at night. It's never made clear if he does anything to her or not, though Spence does mention that he would often hear her crying. Sometimes he goes into Spence's room and stares at him, or gets into bed with him and rubs his thigh. It's later implied that Tommy does this because he's playing a mind game with the parents, trying to push them to their limits again. On the fifth anniversary of his arrival, Tommy leaves. Before he goes, though, he delivers some ominous departing words:
''His eyes sparkled, "It took five years..." He suddenly leaned down and cupped his mouth over my ear. His voice was cold glass, his breath like hot fire, "Your little ones will get five years as well, Spence."''
In July of 1987, two police officers respond to a domestic disturbance call
. Remember how I said Tommy seems to have a particular animosity towards cops? Yeah, it turns out that involving them is a really bad idea. The little girl who calls them is punished by having her mouth filled with thumbtacks and taped up. Underneath her skirt...we don't actually know what happened, but we're assured that whatever it was Tommy did to her would take a lot to fix. The father, presumably not wanting to go along with Tommy, has been impaled on a bedpost, and the mother is thrown down the basement steps to her death. The little girl survives the encounter, but only because one officer has the sense to take her and run. Every other cop called to the scene is murdered, and the entire neighborhood is burned to the ground, killing everyone.
Tommy crosses paths with Spence again twenty years later
, in July of 1989. Spence is now married to a woman named Megan (who lived in the same neighborhood as a kid and was also terrorized by Tommy 20 years prior), and they have two young children of their own Matt and Stephanie. The family is sitting down to dinner when there comes a knock at the door. Spence and Megan look as though they've seen a ghost as Tommy greets them like old friends. Spence, having witnessed firsthand what Tommy is capable of, opts to play along with Tommy's "third parent" shtick to ensure his family's safety.
Things continue on as they had before, with Tommy's forced lessons. After about a month, though, Megan snaps and in no uncertain terms tells him that they don't want him there. He drags her down to the basement and following this, she never puts up any resistance towards him again. It's all but stated that he took her down there to rape her. This experience leads her to walk with a permanent limp. Similar to what he did twenty years ago when challenged, this causes Tommy to begin acting in a very sexually aggressive manner. This includes nearly molesting Matt when he catches the boy with an adult magazine, and making Matt and Stephanie bathe together. The worst, though, is when he rapes Stephanie. Spence tries to stop him, but Tommy bloodies his face.
This goes on until they hit the designated five year mark, at which time Tommy simply vanishes. On the night Tommy raped Stephanie, Spence warns Matt to never have children because Tommy follows those with kids. Matt never quite gets over the psychological trauma inflicted by Tommy, and heeds his father's advice. Stephanie, however, doesn't. She grows up and gives birth to twins.
By the present day
, the family is still suffering from the effects of Tommy's visits. Stephanie is doing the best, though. She is happily married and has recently given birth to twins, whom she named Jack and Jill. One night, Matt gets a call. On the other line, a terrified Stephanie says "Matt...he's here." The line goes dead. Matt tries calling her back but gets nothing. He tries again and Tommy picks up, greeting him as he would an old friend much like he'd done to Matt's father years before.
Matt rushes over to Stephanie's house in a panic. He knocks on the door and Tommy answers. He opens the door to reveal Stephanie's husband Lewis slumped unconscious. Matt tried to intervene but Tommy grabs him by the throat and demands that he leave. The door closes and Stephanie is heard screaming.
The next day, Matt returns to the house after getting another call from Stephanie. Much like their mother years before, Stephanie appears to have no superficial damage, but the implications of what happened are clear. Lewis is slumped over in a chair at the table. His face is swollen and bloodied, and his legs are broken and twisted around the chair legs.
Matt asserts that Lewis needs medical attention, but Tommy is as apathetic as ever, insisting that everyone just sit down to eat. As Matt snaps at him, though, he takes baby Jack over to the sink and turns on the garbage disposal. "It would be a tight squeeze, but I think I could get him to fit," he says as he begins lowering the baby down, only relenting when Matt begs and pleads with him, telling him that he'll do whatever he wants.
As Tommy sits down, Lewis threatens to kill him. You should know by now that this won't end well, and Tommy smashes his head against the refrigerator before killing him by repeatedly slamming his head into the oven door.
Later on, after Tommy catches Stephanie trying to use the phone, he drags her into the bedroom, deciding that she needs another "lesson." Matt, desperate to save his sister, reflects on something Tommy had said while threatening to grind the baby in the garbage disposal: "I only need one." With great reluctance, Matt goes into the twins' room and kills them.
As he is breaking down and crying, Tommy rushes in. For the first time, he seems genuinely panicked. Now, it's finally his turn to be on the receiving end of a beatdown. Matt pummels and maims him before finally snapping his neck.
Stephanie is rushed to the hospital. She was unconscious during the fight between Matt and Tommy, so Matt blames Tommy for the twins' deaths. While the gravity of what he did rocks him to his core, he at least takes solace in the fact that his family is finally free of Tommy. It's ultimately left ambiguous whether or not Tommy is truly gone for good, as right before he is killed he vows to come back, as "there are always other families."
Are his actions heinous enough?
Tommy sets the standard, being the only antagonist, and boy what a standard.
Any Freudian Excuse or other disqualifying factors?
No Freudian Excuse to speak of. Despite his claims of trying to help people become better families, Tommy absolutely isn't a Well-Intentioned Extremist. His idea of "helping" seems to amount to little more than giving lectures about being good, and we never even get any direct quotes on this subject matter so it's likely that what he says in these lectures isn't terribly important anyway. Even discounting that, there's absolutely no ambiguity to the situation; Tommy doesn't give a damn about helping anyone, he's just a particularly depraved bully.
Now, there's the issue of "how much is too much?" Tommy is a very dark villain, whose rap sheet includes assault, mass murder, rape, pedophilia, and arson. The story gets a bit disturbing at times, with special mention going to the part where he goes into Matt's room at night, but the more tasteless crimes are usually not described in overly graphic detail. Granted, there's still more than enough evidence to infer what's going on, but it doesn't make you read paragraph after paragraph of describing every gory detail of rape either. The physical violence is described pretty vividly, but the sexual violence is mostly inferred. Most importantly, there is an actual story here, I would say.
Verdict?
As long as he isn't deemed too tasteless I would say he's an easy keep.
Edited by rosewood47 on Nov 18th 2021 at 1:26:01 PM
Karimata, Margaret's Parents, Archibald, Not-Them, Treglazov, Tess, Clynn, Jimmy and George, Justin Hammer, Tommy Taffy.
Jellybean, Andy.
Sure for Tommy, Hammer and a big one to Crow's duo! Great job man!
Ordeaux, I'm largely with Emma here. If we need a rule Lighty's is good but there's gotta come a point where common sense has to be allowed. I don't think the admin page needs to be a novel-length mess one day with paragraphs waxing on about how we discourage authors writing works solely to get a CM up and the like. I think the difference between this and The Lovely Bones is pretty obvious and I don't see why we need to tinker with some rule, format or layout seemingly once a week.
Btw fun(ny) fact about Kaufmann: the character's name was decided to use those of Troma Studios (Hi Toxic Avenger) producers Michael Hertz and Lloyd Kaufmann, something I find remarkably amusing given the kind of character he is.
Edited by 43110 on Nov 18th 2021 at 5:00:50 PM

Yeah I'm with lighty in that it I don't shouldn't be a bannable offense, the rule looks good too.
Edited by Snoketrope on Nov 18th 2021 at 7:16:54 AM
Bow to the Prototype