User:Hiatus Hernia/The Abstainer

The Abstainer is a superhero who watches over the community of the city of Uncyclopedia. By day, the Abstainer masquerades as <insert name here>, writing articles and partaking in harmless forum discussions. By night, the Abstainer goes on VFH or VFD, and votes abstain, WITHOUT LEAVING A COMMENT.

Superpowers

The Abstainer is a practitioner of various forms of martial arts, including Tae-Kwon-Do and Tai Chi. Therefore, even though the Abstainer does not have super-strength, his dexterity and quickness make him a good match for most superheroes. The Abstainer is extremely indecisive, and has the power to cause undue frustration and confusion to his opponents. The Abstainer is also very stealthy, and has the power to be invisible. His ultimate move is called the “silent abstain”, where, using the powers of invisibility, the Abstainer has abstained without anybody actually knowing it.

Backstory

The Abstainer is a dark and brooding antihero. Years of watching drama unfold, and the countless casualties that resulted from it, has left him jaded and cynical. Yet, the Abstainer still loves his city, and continually watches over it like a guardian angel. Many criticise the Abstainer for using morally questionable methods that may cause an ending as bad as that which he tries to prevent. Nevertheless, to this day, the Abstainer continues his thankless task of letting people know that he doesn’t care.

Relationship with other characters

The Rancid Reviewer

The Rancid Reviewer scrapes dried urine cakes off the sewer walls, and takes them home to decorate his userpage. The Rancid Reviewer has an army of minions that rarely show up, and the Abstainer himself used to be part of the Rancid Reviewer’s inner circle. The Abstainer once believed his opinions mattered, but years of hostile words and reversion told him otherwise. Disillusioned, the Abstainer left, but still maintains occasional contact with the Rancid Reviewer. The Rancid Reviewer has very high standards with regards to articles, and, when disturbed, he will come out of his hole in the sewer and vote against. He has very specific tastes, and takes a hit-and-miss approach to predicting an article’s success on VFH. The Abstainer had always declined allying with the Rancid Reviewer, however, often replying with a very badass: “I work alone.”

The Fantastic Featurer

The Fantastic Featurer hates the Abstainer with a burning passion. It all started when many years ago, the Abstainer chanced upon an article written by the Fantastic Featurer on a subject he wasn’t familiar with. The Fantastic Featurer is a superhero who had saved the city of Uncyclopedia from alien invasions multiple times. He had a reputation for writing articles on indie subject matters, which are nevertheless very well received. However, something about the two words “Charlie Kaufman” disturbed the Abstainer, and naturally he voted Abstain. The Fantastic Featurer was miffed at first, but took no notice, as he was occupied with averting a nuclear war and writing another feature-quality article. He was also commissioned to reskin the mainpage to correspond with another featured article that he wrote. A few weeks later, the Abstainer abstained yet again, on many of the Fantastic Featurer's articles, including “UnBooks:The Stranger” and “Essay in the Jones of Text”. When this resulted in several of his articles not getting featured, the Fantastic Featurer began to take them personally. He challenged the Abstainer to a duel on several occasions. He also believes that the Abstainer killed his sister, who died of leukaemia when an article of his did not get featured due to a vote by the Abstainer. The Fantastic Featurer swore to avenge the death of his sister. The Abstainer often feels guilty over it too, but does not apologise as it conflicts with his dark and brooding persona. Despite their animosity, the Abstainer and the Fantastic Featurer share a common enemy, a very powerful supervillian known as the Burninator.

The Burninator

The Burninator is the arch-nemesis of the Abstainer. The Burninator is a dragon-like humanoid, believed to have existed since the time of Beowulf. He can spit fire, and wipe entire articles (and villages) out of existence. He also has many mysterious superhuman powers that he claims to have divine origins, such as “The Lightning Rollback” and “The Hammer of Ban-user”. The Burninator wants to destroy the world, and replace it with his ideal utopia of peace-loving people who do not write crap articles or engage in flame wars. Unfortunately, that would mean destroying the world, something which the Abstainer swore to protect. The Abstainer first confronted the Burninator during a VFH discussion, when the Burninator banned him for discussing on the nomination page instead of the talk page. After his return, the Abstainer tracked down the Burninator in his volcano private island, but after trapping the Abstainer in a pool of electric eels and giant lasers, the Burninator escaped. A few episodes later, the Burninator kidnapped the girlfriend of the Abstainer, and their cat-and-mouse game resulted in a VFD discussion that took place in an abandoned warehouse, which went something like this:

Burninator: So, Abstainer, we meet again! Vote properly so that I can delete this article, or your girlfriend dies!

Abstainer: Never!

Before the Abstainer can save his girlfriend, the Burninator hit her with a heavy strike of “Infiniban”, resulting in her death. Witnessing this, the Abstainer threw his head up and cried “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” in a very dramatic fashion, while his girlfriend died in his arms. The Burninator escaped through a skylight, leaving a very distraught Abstainer, more dark and brooding than ever. The Abstainer experiences frequent nightmares and flashbacks from this event, and he had since then been unable to involve himself in romantic relationships, seen by some as a poor attempt at character development. The Burninator has already begun gathering minions, and has further plans to take over the world using some giant crystal or other. He is very chatty, and will not hesitate to explain his plans in great detail when confronted by the Abstainer.

Criticism

Like Spiderman, the Abstainer received a lot of criticism from the public of the city of Uncyclopedia for taking the law in his own hands. Many citizens voiced their concerns: Do we really need this masked vigilante? Is he doing more harm than good? Arguments often arise over the activities of the Abstainer, with an equal number of supporters on both sides. His supporters claim that he keeps mediocre articles from getting featured, and his detractors claim that he causes writers a lot of drama and confusion. Nevertheless, the Abstainer continues to prowl the skyscapes and rooftops, never stopping, never resting. Whatever it takes, the Abstainer will continue to abstain.

Future picture captions

• The Abstainer would have voted for, but he just didn’t care.
• The Abstainer has read your article, but has no opinion.
• The Abstainer thinks that your article is funny, but too in-jokey.
• The Abstainer doesn’t understand your article, but thinks that other people might find it funny.