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
Sarah. IMO, any attempt to make a hero into a CM in fanfiction is downright Flame Bait, Sarah included.
I'm not saying they don't count. I'm saying there's not much to be gained by plumbing the dregs of the internet for stories mostly written by bored teenagers aiming to be shocking and edgy as possible.
Like...making children into corpse-sex dolls? Sexually molesting the hero to get him hard for that? Like...come on. There's a point where you say this stuff to the point it verges into so bad it''s just outright comedic. I'm not denying they count. I'm asking why they even needed to be brought up in the first place.
Did I ever mention Mr. Burnage? He was a necrophilial taxidermist. Thanks to a suggestion from /u/saturday_lunch , I’ve taken the scrapbook to the FBI. I don’t even know the number of crimes and atrocities it contains. I didn’t care to keep looking. I have given my statement to them, and because of the number of people who have been devoted clients of Mr. Burnage, they’ve decided to place my parents and me into witness protection. This will be my last post. I will not be able to comment or respond to your P Ms. I’m sure I will look at the comments at some point when I’m sure I’m completely safe. Until then, thank you for your support and kindness. Oh, and to those of you who have been clients of Mr. Burnage, fuck you.
How does someone write this and sleep at night?
edited 20th Apr '16 6:57:07 AM by Lightysnake
Pwn, did you miss the various conversations we've had where we rather explicitly disfavored this stuff and encouraged people to not propose candidates from these kinds of stories?
No to the Burnages. Adding any more of those examples gives godawful stories like that some publicity and discredits this trope even further.
edited 20th Apr '16 6:59:53 AM by Scraggle
Decent Creepypasta's are certainly rare; especially when the more populars ones become overdone and a case of "Seinfeld" Is Unfunny or that in many creepypasta stories often try to mimic the more popular ones often becoming blatant ripoffs. I think this video
sums it all up.
Not gonna lie, I thought the Creepypasta genre was a promising one since the whole idea was that they are meant to be akin to scary camp fire stories and have a suspicion of disbelief to them. The urr example would probably be the Blair Witch Project.
I consider the genre to be Deader Than Disco because all it became was standard scary stories as opposed to creating new urban legends. It doesn't help that like the Blair Witch Project, the paranoia fuel of it falls flat since now it's common knowledge that these stories are fake and now people aren't even bothering with believablity and some are even making Dark Fics for cartoons like MLP as acceptable Creepypasta. It kind of stole the thunder of what Creepypasta had about five years ago.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."It doesn't help that the slightest application of logic causes the plot to fall apart. Like, the slightest.
I mean, I learned from Creepypastas that a man who is the most distinctive man on the planet can steal your child to sell to a snuff and porn ring in Tijuana but the police won't help you if you can't give the cops his exact name. don't even get me started on the Dating game which made me ashamed to be a human being.
Like...Witness Protection Program? Were these people members of organized crime?
I'm not even gonna acknowledge this Creepypasta proposal. From now on, once I read that a proposal is from a "Creepypasta", I'm not even gonna read it.
Going back a little bit, the reason I mentioned the Marvel Animation Universe thing is because we seem to be at a consensus that Armada!Sideways should be cut, simply because Word of God stated that him and Cybertron!Sideways were the same characters.
If we can cut a Sideways-type character because an alternate version of him that has redeeming qualities is confirmed to be the same version that doesn't, then wouldn't that also mean that if a Sideways-type character didn't have redeeming features in another show they apeared in, we would add his crimes from that series?
Honestly, I think the whole Shared Universe idea is stupid, due to what I've said about designs and personalities, and wouldn't have even brought it up here had it not been for the whole Sideways thing.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:57:47 AM by Ravok
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
I'm not sure how, "You may not nominate a character from your own work," could be any clearer as a rule.
Except...it's NOT a rule, unless something changed.
Also, if you have a moment, please go here
and vote for Cell,.
edited 20th Apr '16 8:07:34 AM by ACW
Has anyone discussed Chaos from The Power of Five? Does he qualify as a Complete Monster or not?
We don't roll that way. You can do your own search, and if you don't find him, make an effortpost.
@ACW: Actually the FAQ does state you can't propose your own character. I will point out, though, that the FAQ appears to have been updated. This very morning.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.By me. So yeah, I'll admit that it wasn't in the rules originally.
Still, it's entirely consistent with our treatment of YMMV articles in the wiki proper. That it wasn't in our rules counts more as an omission than a dramatic change.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I asked more than once when I was proposing one of my own characters if anyone had a problem with it. About three people said they were uncomfortable. Everyone else was either okay with it, didn't care either way, or went ahead and up-voted my guy, so I'm not entirely sure why this is an issue now.
But it is what it is. If the villain from my story (and Clown-Face's other fanfic) has to get cut from the list, then so be it. I won't make much of a hassle about it. Although I do think it would've been better if we had voted on the change in rules before you immediately changed it yourself.
That rule still seems to be in place.
edited 20th Apr '16 9:31:21 AM by Tyk5919
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
It's there; it was in twice so I removed the duplicate.
![]()
I'm not going to demand revotes on old candidates. That's silly.

That being said, I do think they've got a decent chance of counting. They commit pointless, overly violent, and "edgy" acts, and it is pretty much violence for violence's sake. But in the same token, they've both got a better standing than, say, the murderer from Squidward's Suicide. That story's my go-to example for an over-the-top "edgy" creepypasta villain who's literally only in the story to add edgy violence. Unlike him, the Burnages are shown to have actual characterization, including personalities and a motivation. Their crimes are utterly depraved and just downright vile. They've got a body count that includes children that's strongly implied to be extremely high, and they've got no redeeming qualities.
edited 20th Apr '16 6:14:55 AM by Pwnisher248