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:
- 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.
- 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".
- 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:
- 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!
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- 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.
- 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.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
- 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.
- 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:
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 Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:42:49 AM
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Mr Black.
Black, Griffon
Ultimate Moral Compass
Mr. Black
for Mr. Black.
To the candidates from Red Dead Revolver. That Red Dead Monster page is DEFINITELY looking necessary now.
Mweheheh
I don’t have the time to comprehensively check this thread & the old one, but did Charles Muntz ever come up since he’s all but stated to be responsible for multiple murders & views his dogs as disposable pawns?
Edited by Spinosegnosaurus77 on Apr 28th 2024 at 8:43:49 AM
Peace is the only battle worth waging.
Lizzid people!
Yeah. But it's pretty much shown he cares for his dogs.
I don't think Muntz has come through, but I don't think he counts, he comes across an actually nice guy who's just lost his mind over his obsession, like before he turned on Carl and Russel he seemed genuinely happy to have them around
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Caesar
Yes to Mr. Black!
Ok, talking with Starkrafty about this one, we decided he's worth a shot... he's still got one coming from Redemption II, but I've got another from the game as well. From the sidequest "Iniquities of History".
Who is Jeremiah Compson? What has he done?
- Introduced at the start of the mission as a whining, drunken vagrant who opines about his glory days and how he has lost everything, Jeremiah Compson requests Arthur Morgan go to his old home and bring him 3 trinkets of his past: a watch, a pistol and a ledger.
- Arthur travels to the home where he sees what appears to be a normal family home, but finds evidence that Jeremiah didn't exactly value his family, including a letter from his son demanding he stay away from them because of "who you are"...Arthur journeys into the basement and discovers the horrifying truth: Jeremiah was a gleeful, sadistic slave catcher who so loved his job that he kept a ledger of the dozens and dozens of names of men, women and children as well that he hunted down and returned to their "owners".
- His basement is full of chains, whips and bloodstains where he would torture slaves with lashes. So much joy did Jeremiah take in his "work" that he kept a journal written by a slave who he hunted down and whipped 50 times daily, and Jeremiah would reread the journal and laugh at the contents.
- Arthur brings the 3 items back to Jeremiah and confronts him over his past:
Jeremiah: I was respected once! I had a profession! There's no bringing back what I want. I want my job, my pride! The respect accorded to a gentleman! Don't you understand, those bastards, they changed everything. I was a good worker. I took pride in my work! They took it away! Pissed on my legacy!
Arthur: Old Man, some jobs ain't for saving. And some legacies...they are for pissing on. - Arthur burns Jeremiah's ledger, to which Jeremiah tries to shoot Arthur dead, but his old pistol is long past working, and Jeremiah is left angrily sobbing "That's my history! Damn you! I still exist!" Arthur then has the choice to either kill Jeremiah or leave him to wallow in his useless, harmless self-pity...but either way, the game, in a qunieu instance, awards the player high honor for dealing with a right creep.
Mitigating features?
Jeremiah is a unique case because by the time of the present, he's a weak, downright pathetic drunkard who wallows in memory of his "glory days". He even seems like a "family man" when you first go to his house, as he has a portrait of his family up...only for the back of said portrait to reveal he only kept it because it's someone applauding his "career" and praising his "work". When Jeremiah is bemoaning all he has "lost", he never once mentions his family—he proclaims that he wants his "pride, respect, and job" back, and the sole letter from his family we see is his son demanding Jeremiah stay away from them because of his crimes.
Jeremiah is a very, very pathetic character by the end and arguably even pitiable as he angrily sobs "I still exist! Damn you!" when Arthur burns his ledger, and the player can then either kill or Cruel Mercy spare Jeremiah...but what I think, ultimately, indicates that we're meant to maintain no sympathy for Jeremiah by the end? The game rewards you honor (aka: "good job, here's your morality points") whether you kill Jeremiah or not by the end. The game itself has no pity for Jeremiah and rewards the player equally for killing him or sparing him. While he's a sad, weak little man by the end, it doesn't override the horrors Jeremiah carried out, and to the very end he whines that he misses his job as a slave catcher.
Heinousness?
For a tiny little side villain, even in the high standard of the continuity that has over half a dozen keeps at this point? Jeremiah is definitely over the standard as a unique slave catcher who would chain and torture them in his basement, keep journals of his victims, and has a ledger detailing the dozens of men, women and children he hunted and returned to brutal slavery.
Final Verdict?
While his night-pitiful existence in the present brings some hesitance, I think a variety of factors—namely the game uniquely rewarding you whether you kill or spare him—eliminates any sympathy we might feel, and leaves only disgust at a pathetic monster missing his "good old days."
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
A Child from the Stars
Yeah, I don't see Muntz counting. Been a bit since I last saw the movie, but he does come off as the Affably Evil type at first and I recall him caring about his dogs.
for Black and Jeremiah though.
Edited by TheCosmicCollector on Apr 28th 2024 at 8:56:18 AM
"If we're gonna play Owl House, we're gonna NEED an Owl House!"
Jeremiah. Geez, we got so many keepers from Red Dead Redemption 2 alone.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Jeremiah.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Just a starting content creator
Yes to Jeremiah and Mr. Black. Can we call him Uncle Blacky?
Check out my YouTube channel! I make audiobooks and whatever else I feel like!
The Moron
Alrighty, been another hot minute since I've been here with a proposal, but to celebrate finally having a graduation date (still a year away ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
), here I am with a proposal!
What is the work?
The Defenders of Remnant is a crossover between the Marvel Universe and RWBY. Basically, it's a reverse Into the Spider-Verse: Kingpin builds his multiversal collider, but instead of people from another universe coming into his, characters from his world end up on Remnant - specifically, Kingpin, Bullseye, Taskmaster, Tinkerer, Prowler, and Electro represent the villains, while Spider-Man, Punisher, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist make up the heroes (the Punisher is there too but he hates everyone equally). They all end up on Remnant and drag RWBY's characters into their mess, particularly with Taskmaster deciding that he actually really likes Remnant and wants to make a name for himself. This fic is actually a set up for what's being called "The Defenderverse", with the sequel beginning to drag in other franchises like Red vs. Blue.
However, who I'm discussing today is someone I'm actually unsure about because he's entirely in the backstory and may not be heinous enough - but I'd rather resolve that uncertainty with discussion rather than wallowing. Let's begin, shall we?
Who is Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin? What does he do?
Norman, as always, was Spider-Man's greatest enemy in his early years, including presumably killing Gwen Stacy (she's said to have died, but it's never said if Norman killed her or not). However, everything changed about a year before the story started when Norman learned Spider-Man's secret identity and went on a rampage specifically designed to break him.
Norman began by blowing up Peter's home with Aunt May inside; by the time Peter got home, she was long dead and Mary Jane Watson, Peter's girlfriend, was missing. With nowhere else to go, Peter went to Harry Osborne, Norman's son, to try to solve the problem - only to find out that Norman had told Harry about Peter as well. As the two of them argued, Norman blew up Harry's apartment as well, killing his own son just to spite Peter that much more.
Three days later, Norman finally contacted Peter and lured him to two empty warehouses with an ultimatum - both were rigged to blow, but MJ was inside one of them, and if he guesses right, then he'll let the two of them go. Peter guessed wrong and the other warehouse exploded, but also, inside the "wrong" warehouse was a child that Norman had kidnapped to ensure that Peter killed somebody that night no matter what. By the time Peter got the kid to safety, Norman was gone, and though Peter managed to claw through the rubble to get to MJ, Norman had planted the explosives so that she wouldn't die right away and Peter would have to watch her die.
With this, Peter snapped; according to Taskmaster, within two days, Peter had tracked Norman down and straight up killed him. The guilt Peter felt for failing to save everyone in his life prompted Peter to give up Spider-Man entirely for the entire year before the fic starts - up until he felt the need to put it on the day he wound up in Remnant.
Any mitigating factors? Freudian Excuse?
It's a Norman Osborne who murdered his own son. This ain't the problem here.
Is he heinous enough?
This is the bigger concern because there are a lot of villains up to heinous stuff. If Norman keeps, it's because of pure quality vs quantity.
- Taskmaster is the fic's Big Bad and is basically responsible for the Breach (luring Grimm into the middle of the Kingdom) on top of some personal stuff like stabbing Jessica, tormenting Ben Reilly, and torturing Peter, while Cinder instigates the Fall of Beacon as per canon (please don't ask about either of them, they care about each other). Taskmaster also tries to kill the Blood Gulch Crew in the sequel fic.
- Bullseye, Prowler, Electro, and the other Remnant villains are basically nonentities here. Kingpin would be heinous in theory if he had any idea what damage his collider was causing, but when he does realize it he stops trying to use it and gets an Alas, Poor Villain death.
- Tinkerer causes several brutal deaths among the White Fang while trying to replicate Curt Connors' research, but they're members of the White Fang. It's the same reason Punisher and Venom don't really contribute to the heinous standard either - all of their victims are criminals (and Venom pulls a Heel–Face Turn).
- The next fic adapts the Blood Gulch Chronicles, which means that Wyoming, Omega, and Tex come close to enslaving the Alien race to stop the Human-Covenant War, but Sarge and Andy put a stop to that before the plan gets into fruition.
Norman, on the other hand, lacks those large-scale acts, but his personal villainy is unmatched, especially considering that by the time the fic starts, he's been dead for an entire year (and Peter still calls him his nemesis). He went out of his way to murder everyone in Peter's life, including his own son Harry, forced Peter to watch the love of his life die, presumably killed Gwen Stacy, and even if he hadn't tricked Peter into blowing up MJ, he would've tricked Peter into blowing up a small child instead. His influence over the fic is huge because of everything he did to Peter (and the fact that Peter basically murdered him in cold blood), so despite not getting into the large-scale supervillainy his comic counterpart does, he's at least worth a talk.
Final verdict?
I ultimately lean yes, but I could see this going either way. What about you?
Steve, Gary, Aziel, Griffon, Blackie, Jeremiah, Osborne
Edited by RobertTYL on Apr 28th 2024 at 9:01:29 PM
Caesar
Yes to Osborn!
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Ultimate Moral Compass
Jeremiah and Osborne
Gentle Laborer
Revolver duo, Jeremiah and Green Goblin
@Michealthehero21 Fallout: New Vegas (with the recent addition of Salt) has nine keepers in a single-player campaign, so I'm not surprised seeing so many candidates coming from an open-world game.
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Apr 28th 2024 at 10:13:29 AM
for Jeremiah Compson and Norman Osborn.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
NINE?! Holy shit! There is clearly ALOT of messed up people in Fallout New Vegas isn't there?
Green Goblin, Jeremiah
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Red Dead Candidates and Osborn
The wifi here sucks
Yes to the Red Dead candidates and Osbourne
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheonYes to Jeremiah and a weak one to Norman too
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her