A Lighter Shade Of Black / Fan Works

• In The Butcher Bird, the Wild Hunt pirate alliance serves as this compared to most other pirates. While they're mercenary in nature, entirely uncaring of what their contract actually entails, and more than willing to conquer kingdoms or create bloody revolutions, the captains that form the Hunt can be trusted to keep their word, protect land that supplies them and supports them, and generally not participate in the Rape, Pillage, and Burn typical of most pirates.
• The entity possessing Naruto (revealed to not be the Kyuubi) in Conquering Eostia wants to rule Eostia, but more so wants to claims the seven Princess-Knights along with Dark Elf Queen Olga and her guard Chloe. On the other hand, he's also fighting against Volt and his Kuroinu Mercenaries, who want to turn Eostia into a living hell where all women are considered sex slaves and public property. In the end, the main differences are the unnamed entity takes care of his slaves, has no interest in anyone but the nine mentioned, and actually has a few morals.
• Throughout The Heart Trilogy, Smaug is acknowledged to be a murderous, greedy and self-serving dragon. However, Gandalf trusts that his love towards Kathryn will keep him from becoming a threat as serious as Sauron and Fankil who'd use the Seer and the dragon for their own desires (taking over Middle-Earth and freeing Morgoth, respectively). Smaug eventually sides with the Free Peoples in the War of the Ring, even if only for revenge and personal gain.
• No one in Murderer's Row can be considered 'good', given that most of the cast are convicted murderers. However, none of them have anything on O'Malley, a serial killer who spends his days sadistically torturing and raping whoever catches his eye, which inevitably puts him into conflict with comparatively more moral inmates like Church and Caboose.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, the Bloodline Prince is portrayed as this contrasting with his father, the Bloodline King. Both of them intend to Take Over the World by enslaving those they perceive as inferior, but while the King's goal is to rule over Pokémon and normal humans alike and have Bloodliners on top, the Prince extends this only to normal humans and not to Pokémon, and even shows some regret because he acknowledges that humanity has achieved some things he's come to appreciate (such as movies).
• Naruto and Xanna in The (Questionable) Burdens of Leadership of a Troll Emperor are sociopathic dictators out to conquer the universe, but their enemies are the Goa'uld Hegemony and the Wraith. Furthermore, their own pride demands that their empire be as successful as possible, such that even first world countries on Earth see a significant improvement in their quality of life.
• The Tale Of A Cat Most Curious (link): The Curious Cat is portrayed by the author as the least despicable and most sympathetic main character from RWBY Volume 9, short of Little, and they're in opposition to RWBY/J and Neopolitan in this "vent fic." Despite the Cat's bitter feelings toward humans and ruthlessness in pursuit of their goals, they have a much lower body-count than Neo or RWBY/J do after the Fall of Atlas, and the Cat's tragic backstory and lack of agency over their madness and desperation are pointed out and played for pathos, as is the fact they aren't actively threatening the Ever After or Remnant at large. Neopolitan pointedly has more moral agency over her evil actions and a much less compelling excuse than the Cat, yet she's more needlessly vicious and callous than them when endangering Atlas-Mantle and the Ever After and when torturing Ruby. RWBY/J are characterised as delusional, hypocritical, self-absorbed and petty knights templar who accelerated James Ironwood's sanity slippage at the worst possible time for Atlas-Mantle, created an even worse situation at the end of the Atlas arc than if they'd done nothing, have caused far more harm than they've prevented in the war against Salem on Remnant, and are liable to keep doing the same things to the rest of Remnant if they ever make it back out of the Ever After because most of them are more or less incapable of acknowledging that they were ever in the wrong and internalising anything from their mistakes.
• In Princess of the Blacks, Jen Black is a Black Witch who runs a child brothel but she's not a terrorist like Voldemort and his followers nor does she keep a stable of potential sacrifices around in case she needs them like fellow Black Wizards Menagerie and Priest. Even the brothel is from her days as one of it's employees and she acts as a cool big sis for the children working there.
• Danny Phantom: Stranded:
  • Stella Bevier is this to her second husband, Jean-Luc, and step-daughter Colette Bevier.
    • When Stella first appeared, she acted like a ditzy, materialistic, selfish, and thoughtless woman with no respect for the middle-class and looked down on those she deemed beneath her. She also neglected her daughter, Star, and favored her new family, who are just as selfish as her. She dismissed Danny upon meeting him, believing that he is not good enough for her daughter, and made rude comments about him behind his back with Jean-Luc. Once Star angrily called them out, Stella refused to take her words back, making her storm off. Despite this, Stella actually seemed uneasy during their argument and was saddened when her daughter said she hated her, while Jean-Luc and Colette remained unrepentant.
    • When Star disappeared, Stella was sincerely worried for her, yet refused to take responsibility for her role in what happened, going as far as to say she sacrificed her figure to give birth to Star. However, when Johnathan also calls her out for being a lousy parent to their daughter and angrily tells Stella that he plans to terminate her visitation rights, she finally realizes the seriousness of the situation and that her actions have consequences, beginning to feel ashamed of everything she had done. When Johnathan pointed out how apathetic Jean-Luc and Colette were about Star's disappearance, Stella insisted they were handling it differently, but her response was awkward and implied that she was uncomfortable with their indifference.
    • By the end of her debut story, Stella sincerely apologized to both her daughter and Danny and even moved back to Amity Park to be closer to Star and repair their relationship, showing that she does love her daughter and feels remorse for how she acted. Stella is capable of seeing the error of her ways and becoming a better person, unlike her husband and step-daughter who both refuse to admit their own faults. Future fic segments show her Character Development, as Stella is making a real effort to be a more thoughtful and attentive parent, which soon causes her to clash with Jean-Luc and especially Colette.
  • Jean Luc Bevier is this to his daughter, Colette. Both are arrogant aristocrats who look down on the middle-class, have a habit of dating people already in relationships, and have a strained relationship with Star. The difference is while Jean-Luc doesn't particularly like Star and is uncaring about her safety, he does not go out of his way to antagonize her and is content with staying out of her way, unlike Colette, who constantly bullies and humiliates Star. It's heavily implied that despite Jean-Luc being a shameless womanizer and cheater, he does care for Stella, who, despite his unfaithfulness, is genuinely happy with him, and he loves his children. On the other hand, it is implied that despite getting along with Stella, Colette does not really care about her stepmother; she's also shown to be indifferent at best to her infant half-brother Pierre. Finally, Jean-Luc may be a womanizer but there is no evidence that he is obsessive about the women he chases. On the other hand, Colette has become completely fixated with taking Danny as her boyfriend, no matter the consequences.
    • He's this to Donovan Loadman too as he considers him a disgraced brute that's little better than the commoners after his abysmal treatment of Star in "Visited" and would rather his daughter marry Danny than him.
    • He's also this to Beatrice since he'd never force Colette to marry anyone, especially someone as awful as Donovan Loadman, disinherited or not.
• The Rogue Faction In Fate/Magnus Bellum is this to Manaka's faction. While Shirou's group is composed of Affably Evil well intentioned extremists who want to use the Holy Grail to rid humanity of evil and have moral lines they won't cross, Manaka's group is composed of Brainwashed and Crazy Servants led by an Ax-Crazy yandere whose endgame is to bring forth the Beast of Revelation and the destruction of the current world.
• Tarkin's Fist: The men and women of Tarkin's Fist are drawn to the project by their revulsion at the excessive officer purges enacted on Palpatine's orders and the fanatical persecution of perceived enemies by the Imperial Security Bureau. The new Empire they forge in the Milky Way is less oppressive and possesses more opportunities for the common person to advance, leading to the restoration of the Imperial Senate and a powersharing agreement between the throne and elected politicians. They remain thoroughly Imperial in their outlook however, meaning that they consider themselves the superior civilization, with little concern for the rights or needs of anyone outside of their own society.
• The XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Half-Life 2 crossover fic Twenty Years Late has the Ethereals invading Earth twenty years after the 7 Hour War. Despite the fact they seek to exploit humans in order to find the cure for their own decaying bodies, they are repulsed by what the Combine has done to humanity. The point is driven home when a Sectoid tries a psychic scan of a Combine Elite and starts screaming in sheer horror at what it finds.
• This gets juggled to hell and back between the Holy Britannian Empire and the Decepticons in Code Prime. The Britannian Empire is a group of Politically Incorrect Villains that have subjugated a third of the Earth, but they also have moments where members prove to be honorable, loving, and willing to look past said racism to acknowledge those who have earned their keep. The Decepticons, meanwhile, are alien conquerors who destroyed their homeworld, but are meritocratic and don't try to pretend that they are anything other than alien conquerors. One of the other points the Britannians have in their favor is that they have several Internal Reformists that want to fix said empire, while the Decepticons don't have any objectors to the atrocities they carry out. R1 ends with the Decepticons killing Emperor Charles, sacking Pendragon, and claiming Britannia as their new empire, cementing the Decepticons are the worse villains of the story.
• The Mountain and the Wolf: Zigzagged. On the one hand, the Wolf's morality is considerably worse than the people he kills (what with serving gods who reward killing, torture, treachery, and spreading disease), and he is an unapologetic murderer. But the only people he's seen killing and torturing frankly deserve it, and the fact that he insults his Hate Sink victims all the while makes him more entertaining to watch. However, in the later chapters he returns at the head of a Chaos invasion, and many of the people under him are clearly just as bad, if not worse, as the worst of Westeros, leading to the Red Priests taking action to prevent a world where said gods of killing, torture, backstabbing and disease are worshipped.
• A Quiet Life: Yoshikage Kira and Aya Chapman are this compared to the various criminal organizations in Brockton Bay, through a combination of being Straight Edge Evil types, mostly targeting members of said criminal organizations, occasionally showing benevolence when the situation calls for it, and in Aya's case being protective of children.
• There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton:
  • Played with regarding the Diamonds. Blue Diamond is considered to be the more diplomatic and overtly kind between her and Yellow, but at the same time, she suffers from a severe case of Mood Whiplash and is more shatter happy than Yellow even before Pink Diamond's death messed her up. While Yellow is more overtly stern and ruthless, she's easier to read so one can know where they stand with her. With Blue, she may act nicer, but it's harder to tell what will set her off, and her wrath always entailed death.
  • Vilgax compared to Thanos when the Mad Titan is discussed in Changing of the Guard. No matter how bad Vilgax is, Thanos' genocidal savior delusions make him far worse. Even Ben acknowledges that compared to Thanos, Vilgax is nowhere near as awful.
• Inheritance (Worm): The Teeth are a gang of psychotic murderers and drug dealers, but they're better than the Empire 88 or the ABB who do the same but worse^*The Empire specifically laces drugs that are to be sold to minorities with poison while the ABB kidnaps women and girls to be sold into sexual slavery. They're also, under Weaver, the only group that genuinely enforces the unwritten rules of not exposing a Cape's secret identity, something even actual heroes admit is more of a polite fiction than anything.
• Karma's a Bitch: While the story makes Zoe Lee into a Little Miss Con Artist who robbed her innocent classmates blind without a shed of remorse, she's still this compared to Lila and Gabriel. This is because along with bringing Lila's downfall (albeit to make her her fall man), she also brings some reality checks to the cast and induces positive Character Development for Marinette and Adrien in the process.
• The Conversion Bureau: In stories that show the humans committing atrocities against the ponies, it's often pointed out in the narration and by characters that the humans just kill their enemies instead of forcibly transforming and mind raping them and turning them on their former enemies.

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