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
I was asked to drop in for a mod comment on the matter. (I was also the one who explicitly stated EP'ing your own work was not acceptable a few years ago, when that was under contention, just as an FYI.)
YMMV is YMMV. Complete Monster has its own posting culture, but that does not make it exempt from the same policy that authors cannot add YMMV items for their own works. Using a particular clean-up thread to propose these candidates from an author's summary does not provide enough of a separation to bypass this rule.
If someone reads your work and thinks there's an EP, sure. The author can even PM someone and ask if they'd be willing to read and propose (of their own volition), but unless someone else has read this work and wants to re-propose the candidate under their observations as a third-party, then those examples up at this time should not be left up.
(To be honest, if there's a number of entries up whose only source of information was the author, and we're undertaking a significant purge, then it's rather off-putting that this was never discussed in detail before. This is a clean-up thread, so...time to clean up.)
ETA: Removed a line because it probably detracted from the rest of the argument.
Edited by nombretomado on Apr 20th 2020 at 12:07:03 PM
Okay so...we used to allow examples based on slightly detailed summaries instead of Full E Ps before our rules grew on context and the like, should we cut a good deal of those because they didn't provide context for the work?
That's usually for when the Candidate has something wrong with them, like them not actually being Heinous enough with our raised standards or something like that. Not how they were proposed.
Edited by Kylotrope on Apr 20th 2020 at 9:08:49 AM
Things are really about to get Fun around hereAlright, I'm repeating myself now so this is going to be my final post: in my opinion an author-done EP is going to be analyzed in the light in which the writer thinks they made things apparent. I'll concede no one is perfectly objective but it's a far worse starting point than a third party doing the analysis. I should also add that an effort post isn't technically a requirement, just the standard adopted procedure.
I was thinking like this (also, RAPE in an MLP fic???):
- Ask a Pony:
- Ask Genie Twilight
: Vicegerent Zathir, from the "Return to Saddle Arabia" arc, believes Genies should be bound to their master's will and captures Twilight with a black lamp to leave her aware but unable to defy his commands. Planning to use her to conquer her own homelands, Zathir's tool leaves her in a constant state of feeling electric shock and if she isn't freed from his control in three days, will be tortured by the pain for eternity. Persuading his superior to allow his plans to go uninterrupted by allowing him to rape Twilight, Zathir later tries to have her murder her friends and loved ones.
- Ask Jappleack: Appelox, the former Titan of Honesty, one of the ancient Titans who created Equestria, later betrayed his siblings and ate all of them, and became a reality-eating monster. In the present, he had been devouring entire planes of existence, all of which were populated, to build up enough power to break a barrier his sister Twilus had placed around Equestria Prime—the version of Equestria seen in the show—and complete his consumption of the Multiverse. While talking to Jappleack, he reveals that he was also the one who had sent his two sons, Discord and Wolflor, to destroy everything and everyone in her version of Equestria, and is the reason that her sister is dead.
- Ask Genie Twilight
Edited by ACW on Apr 20th 2020 at 3:15:01 PM
@ ACW, These are points I made before but we decided the related stories were in-depth enough that they constituted just using the setting while inventing their own world with it. I... have my own opinion there but no new point to go against where we landed.
Edited by 43110 on Apr 20th 2020 at 3:17:29 PM
If it's website policy, yeah, might as well cut them. That being said, I can re-evaluate Annis since I've read the fanfic, if necessary.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
Speaking of characters listed before the EP process... I have a character I want to reevaluate, Bernkastel. Now, she was discussed before the EP days, and I can see the arguments in her favor, but I want to make sure of everything, since there are a couple issues.
What's the work?
Umineko: When They Cry is the sequel VN to Higurashi: When They Cry. It stars Battler Ushiromiya, a member of the Ushiromiya family, as he goes to visit his family who all live in the Rokkenjima manor. Unfortunately, a storm traps them all in, and soon everyone starts being killed, supposedly by the Golden Witch, Beatrice. Battler does not believe in witches, and when Beatrice shows herself, Battler must prove she is a human who is using tricks to appear witch-like, which will make her powers disappear in a Puff of Logic (the series is weird, just stick with me).
So, here we go.
Who is Frederica Bernkastel? What does she do?
Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles, initially appears to be an Aloof Ally to Battler and his sister Ange, but turns out to be in a Big Bad Duumvirate with Lambdadelta, the Witch of Certainty. The two of them are the real masterminds behind Beatrice, having given her witch powers and used her to set up a Deadly Game where the manor is trapped inside a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Beatrice, and later Evatrice, kill the Ushiromiya family over and over again, in gorey ways, and love their suffering. For the first four arcs, this is what happens. Bern aids Battler and Ange in fighting Beatrice, but only so Bern can beat Lambda in their competition, and at one point Battler loses and is forced to become a naked slave for Beatrice who gets eaten painfully by goat-men, something Bern has no issue with.
Come the fifth arc, Bern drops her mentor act and shows her true nature. After turning Ange into human hamburger meat, Bern helps Lambda become the new game master and creates Erika, a Parody Sue Great Detctive, to sow further chaos among the Ushiromiya family, helping her screw over Natsuhi by having her declared as the culprit and punished. More people die in horrible ways. When Battler himself becomes the new GM, Bern has Erika against him and evemtually has Battler trapped in a Logic Bomb, then aids Erika in forcibly marrying Battler, with dialogue heavily implying Erika plans to rape Battler. Once Beatrice arrives and, having done a Heel–Face Turn, defeats Erika, Bern disposes of her.
In the seventh arc, Bern slips back into mentor mode to help Willard H. Wright uncover the truth behind Beatrice's past. Afterwards, Bern shows Ange the truth behind the Rokkenjima massacre- that the true culprits were, in fact, Ange and Battler's beloved parents- to drive Ange to despair and get Ange on her side. With that done, Bern challenges Battler to a game where he must uncover the culprits of the Rokkenjima massacre, holding Ange hostage in exchange. It is implied that here she creates Black Battler, a version of Battler that is the culprit and is forced by his nature to kill and rape people (hence why we cut him from the CM list). She throws Ange into the game and sics Black Battler and his culprit parents on her. Once Ange gets the Book of One Truth, which shows the truth of the Rokkenjima massacre, she gives it to Ange, who reads it and kills herself from despair- to Bern's amusement.
After launching a goat-man army to invade the mansion and destroy it, Bern then plans to have Featherine, her boss, read the book and reveal the secrets to the world- doing so would, essentially, destroy all the game boards and doom the souls of the dead Ushiromiya family to either eternal torment or Cessation of Existence (which one is not clear). Lambda is convinced to help the heroes, if only because doing so amuses her, and fights against Bern. When Featherine kills Lambda, Bern, despite "loving" Lambda, is unaffected. Luckily, Ange beats Bern and turns her back into a cat, saving the Ushiromiyas. Lambda is later revived and she, Bern, and Erika run off into another dimension.
Heinousness?
Sets it along with Lambda. The standard is really high, as the witches do a lot of killing and shit, but since Bern masterminds the plot along with Lambda, this means that, with the exception of the "truth of the massacre" loop, all the death and misery is her fault. As for Lambda, she is too Ambiguously Evil to qualify.
Mitigating Qualities?
Well, here we go. This is where things get iffy.
So, it is heavily implied, and I think confirmed by Word of God, that Bernkastel is an Enemy Without of Rika Furude from the previous work, Higurashi. And Rika? Went through some awful things in Higurashi, being trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop and forced to watch as her friends all die to a virus and trying to figure out the mystery of who is responsible for creating the virus, dying herself several times, and such. And Rika, in an extra episode of Higurashi, was forced to kill her own mother to escape an alternate timeline and go back to her own (granted, it was an alternate version of her mother, but still). This could imply that Bern doing all this is revenge on the world for being trapped in a horrific "Groundhog Day" Loop herself, since she is an amalgamation of all the Rikas who died.
However, she is not Made of Evil, but simply an alternate version of Rika, and she was shown in Higurashi already being separate from Rika. She was the first Rika who died, and every-time Rika dies, Bern would toss her back into another loop and make her figure out the truth behind her friends dying. And in the anime, Bern does have a Pet the Dog moment where she goes into a loop and talks to the Big Bad Miyo Takano as a child and saves her parents (which is what drove Miyo to evil). However, it is not clear if the anime is canon to the manga and VN- and it is also not confirmed if this is indeed the same Bernkastel or a different one. On top of that, unlike with, say, the recently cut Ellen, Bern became a witch of her own free will. One could say that the lengths she goes to far outweigh her backstory, especially since normal Rika is shown to have gone through the same things and yet remains level-headed and compassionate.
Another thing is Bern's love for Lambda. The two frequently express love for each ohter, but their displays do tend to be rather twisted (talking about how they will torture each other and such) and they do not leave each other out of their displays of brutality,even fighting each other in the last chapter. And when Featherine kills Lambda, Bern doesn't react distressed or anything. So you could say that their "love" is just two murder-buddies sharing the same twisted fun.
Verdict?
Uh... I will let you all handle this. ~Lightysnake, you did her current entry and argued for her keeping, so please let me know if I left anything out or misinterpreted something.
Edited by MasterN on Apr 20th 2020 at 12:42:07 PM
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.Yes to Manga!Veran and Bernkastel.
I will say, I think fan fiction and privately published stories should be put under a bit more of a microscope than other proposals, something like a Star Trek novel or video game, while not the main canon, would get more vetted and edited than something self-published on the internet, which is why we get a ton of bizarre MLP fan fiction that does not fit the tone of the original work. I do not mind fan fiction or self-published internet works with examples, but we should be afraid to cut stuff from the past that does not meet current standards and someone would always read and propose the works that are currently being cut.
Edited by Overlord on Apr 20th 2020 at 1:04:40 AM
Yes to Bernkastel.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)

As per Mir's request (you owe me a beer for this!)