#Humanoid Abomination (trope)

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The Panopticon was created to hold ‘the greatest threat to untold worlds, covered in the blood of countless beings, the destroyer of galaxies, something that could turn up any given day and bring your planet to an end’.

That being? The Inspector, of course!

[thschei]

I saw someone mention the sh tv tropes page and realized I haven't looked at it since before nein and I'm crying 😭 she's god she's a diamond she's locked in an attic with 2 tubes of paint she used blood as paint she runs an antique store she killed at least 13 kids she's a vampire she causes time loops she put a catboy in a coma she was buried alive she wants those twinks obliterated she loves misfortune what's not clicking!!

[maxtothemax]

i'm thinking about the trope in mad science plots where the human/humanoid experiments ALWAYS die at the end. the people with powers, the unnatural hybrids—they always turn to violence, self destruct, or are otherwise killed. the story ends up being a cautionary tale about the hubris of man, and the takeaway is that these creatures/abominations/people don't deserve to live. there's not a place for them in this world, even the ones who aren't evil.

and my question is always: what if they did live? what if we rejected the common tendency to end the story with a return to the status quo, and instead explored what it would mean for these beings to exist in the world? or, not even explore it, but just accept that they're just as deserving of life as the fully human characters? i'm here for the clones, the creatures, the mutants, the monsters. i think they deserve a chance, too.

[kellterntempest]

Hunter/Necromancer Dr Robotnik for my Stobotnik Werewolf AU

TW blood, TW body horror

hes doing evil fucked up demon-human hybrid reanimation

He's listening to "Necromancin Dancin" by Bear Ghost while he does his evil fucked up reanimation.

Instead of badniks/robots, Robotnik creates zombie-like human husks as his followers. He's still regarded as a "mad scientist", more of a necromancer, taking human corpses and making them his servants and using them as soldiers / meat shields.

Robotnik is feared as one of the absolute best hunters in the business. He keeps trophies of all types from monsters and demons he's killed, infusing them in his husks in a horrifying amalgamation of power and disdain for humanity.

Humanoid husks with monster parts, carefully crafted to assist Robotnik in killing demons and monsters. They become a terrifying symbol, and his legend grows. Who is more a monster, the husks or Robotnik himself? (a la Dr. Frankenstein vs Frankenstein's monster of course)

Maybe they get called amalgams for short but usually just called husks. (Sticking true to the whole "They're NOT ZOMBIES YOU CAN'T SAY ThE Z word!!!" Trope 😂) 

Some worship Robotnik as some kind of satanic god among hunters, others hate him – outraged and repulsed by the evil of Robotnik's abominations. Some religious groups claim he's the antichrist and call for his execution.

But no one can deny the countless monsters he's slain, keeping the demons and beasts ravaging the world at bay.

[archive-of-artprompts]

Send in a trope and I'll draw or write an OC/Character with that prompt - Horror edition

tropes from tvtropes

Abnormal Dental Growth: Growing another set of pearly whites to replace the lost ones.

Absurdly Sharp Claws - Claws that are unrealistically sharp.

Afterlife Express - A train/vehicle that takes souls to the afterlife.

The Ageless - Characters who can't die from old age but can still be killed through other means.

Anomalous Art: Works of art that possess strange, paranormal powers.

Anthropomorphic Personification - Living, roughly hominoid embodiments of abstract concepts.

Bad Black Barf - Black vomit is a sign of oncoming Body Horror or Bloody Horror.

Barred from the Afterlife - A dead character cannot enter any form of an afterlife.

Beast Man - A humanoid character with animal traits.

Becoming the Costume - A magic spell that transforms people into whomever they're dressed up as. When this happens on Halloween, expect the victims of this curse to be turned into all kinds of monsters, fictional characters, or famous persons.

Becoming the Mask - A façade permanently warps a personality.

Bedsheet Ghost - A white sheet with eyeholes to look like a ghost.

Belly Mouth - When your stomach not only growls, it bites.

Blood Bath - Bathing in a significant volume of blood.

Bloody Hallucinations of Guilt - Guilt over another's death has a character seeing blood where there isn't any.

Broken Ace - Being The Ace (someone who is ridiculously good at what they do) came at a terrible price.

Bloody Handprint - A handprint made of blood.

Came Back Wrong - Please make sure your necromancers are highly trained professionals.

Creepy Asymmetry - Something about this character's body is uneven and unnerving.

Creepy Ballet - A ballet — or the events backstage — are spooky.

Creepy Doll - A doll which is malevolent or just spooky.

Dead All Along - A character is revealed to have been dead the whole time.

Deadly Game - A game in which losers are killed.

Despair Event Horizon - All hope is lost.

Death Is Gray - Fading to gray upon death.

Dying Candle - Death indicated by a candle going out.

Eldritch Abomination - A being that just makes no sense.

Extra Eyes - A being with more than the standard number of eyes.

Eyes Do Not Belong There - Or there. Or there. And definitely not there.

Flaming Skulls - Skulls on fire.

Flower Mouth - Flower shapes look less pretty when lined with teeth.

Frankenstein's Monster - A monster made from being sewn together from dismembered corpses

Freak Lab Accident - While running experiments, you become the experiment.

Ghost Amnesia - A ghost who has forgotten details or the entirety of their former life.

Ghostly Animals - The spirits of dead animals.

Haunting the Guilty - A character is haunted by the visions of those they've murdered

Headless Horseman - A headless rider who haunts certain areas.

The Kingslayer - Someone who kills a king or other person in position of leadership.

Kiss of Death - A kiss that causes death.

Klingon Promotion - Someone gains a position or title by killing the last person who possessed it.

Living Doll Collector - Mere toys are not enough for this person.

Mad Artist - Death is as good a medium to work in as any…

The Mad Hatter - Crazy and loving every second of it.

Mad Scientist - A scientist who doesn't let little things like ethics or practicality get in the way of their work.

Madness Mantra - A (usually threatening) line being shown repeatedly all over the screen, or a voice saying it over and over again.

Man in the Machine - You are locked in a metal coffin, but at least you have internet access.

Mask of Sanity - Doing a very good job of concealing the madness within.

Monster Clown - Clowns that are disturbing in various ways.

Odd Organ Up Top - When a different body part or organ is serving as a head.

Ominous Obsidian Ooze - Black goo can only mean disaster.

The Ophelia - A fragile, delicate young woman whose madness inspires more pity than fear.

Organ Theft - Someone stealing your blood or one of your organs while you're helpless to stop it.

Pumpkin Person - Monsters with jack-o-lanterns for heads.

Pyromaniac - Loves fire to an unhealthy degree.

Reluctant Monster - An Always Chaotic Evil species is oblivious/reluctant to their deeds.

Room Full of Crazy - The decor of a room reflects someone's mental state.

Scream Discretion Shot - You hear the scream, but you don't see what they're screaming about

The Secret of Long Pork Pies - The secret of a popular food item is human flesh.

Seven Deadly Sins - Seven vices that are believed to be very sinful

Shapeshifter Mashup - Become all of the things!… at the same time.

Stepford Smiler - Employing a cheerful façade to mask how you really feel about your problems.

Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl - The ghost of a girl with long hair that curtains her face.

Symbolic Mutilation - And sometimes it's done to represent something.

Tainted Veins - Very much not the color blood is supposed to be.

Uncanny Valley Girl - Girl seems wholesome, but there's something about her that screams suspicious.

The Walls Have Eyes - You're being watched…

White Shirt of Death - A character dies in white clothing that visually contrasts with their bloody demise

Wight in a Wedding Dress - A female ghost dressed in a wedding dress

Windmill Crusader - Being obsessed with attacking an enemy that doesn't exist.

Wolf Man - Wolf-like humanoid.

[dmsden]

Taking the Low Road - Tips for a low-magic campaign

Hullo, all. This week’s Question from a Denizen comes to us from yet another Anonymous source. They ask, “ So, I have this idea I have had on the back burner for a while that I now want to try and commit to putting it into practice. What are some tips you would provide to someone wanting to run a lower magic setting, specifically one with a horror-survival elements?”

Well, my Anonymous friend, I actually just did an article on survival horror fairly recently. Here’s a link to it so you don’t have to search backwards: https://dmsden.tumblr.com/post/697733766358171648/survive-the-night-using-survival-horror-tropes

So, having addressed those types of elements, I thought I’d look instead at the low-magic aspect, with an eye towards how that would work in concert with a survival horror campaign.

D&D is not a game that immediately lends itself to low magic. Many of the classes, sub-classes, races, and so on trend in the direction of a high magic setting. As a result, the DM of a prospective low-magic/survival horror campaign (let’s just say LMSHC from now on) has a bit of an uphill battle. The first thing I would do if I wanted to run such a campaign would be to (say it with me folks) Talk to My Players. I swear, if I ever have a shirt made for the blog, it’ll say that on it.

If I ran a LMSHC, I would explain to my players what I had in mind. I would make sure that they were all cool with the idea before I got far in development. After all, if I say “I want a campaign of all humans,” and my players have their hearts set on being an aarakocra, a rabbitfolk, and a firbolg, then this might not be the best campaign for them. In a situation like this, I might offer this campaign to other players, or I might plan a different sort of campaign.

You don’t have to play all humans to be a low-magic campaign, but it helps. Human, half-elf, half-orc, halfling, and dwarf all lend themselves easily to such a setting. Wood elves could work, but high elves tend to be a bit too magical, as are dragonborn, gnomes, and tieflings. Some other races, like orc, kobold, goblin, hobgoblin, could fit as well. Other races, especially ones with inherent spellcasting, flight, waterbreathing, and other, similar effects, are likely inappropriate for such a setting. If you really want it to be all humans, you might even work with your players to have them play a character who is cosmetically human but who has the racial traits of another race, such as a dwarf. In a situation like this, they might just be a very hardy human who’s very knowledgeable about stonecraft and smithing.

Many of the classes are likely going to be off-limits. If you’re trying to keep things to low-magic, then you pretty much need to eliminate bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard. You’ll probably need to think about classes like paladin and ranger, too, although the powers these classes have could work, depending on how the players role-plays them. Some of the sub-classes like eldritch knight, soulknife, arcane trickster, arcane archer, and the like are probably out, too. On the other hand, Artificers might shine in a campaign like this, especially the artillerist.

Now all of this is not to say there can’t be any magic or spells. Usually in a low-magic setting, however, magic is mostly in the hands of the enemies. Wizards aren’t trusted by many, and for good reason, as they’d tend to be more like warlocks, trucking with dark powers for the magic they possess. This will make the magic they wield feel special and scary, since the players won’t have access to the same abilities.

Monsters in the classic sense should be rare, with most combat encounters happening with other humans or humanoids, animals, giants, giant animals, strange beasts, and the like. Even something as “mundane” as an owlbear or an ankheg could be a sign of a sorcerer going rogue, or maybe they spring from ancient evils. A monster like a chimera is an absolute abomination, while summoned devils or demons are blasphemous entities that must be sent back to their home planes. And a full-on dragon should be an encounter that the players will never forget.

For magic-items, things like a wand of wonder or an apparatus of Kwalish isn’t something very low-magic feeling. Appropriate items would include basic magic weapons and armor, enhancing items like an elven cloak, amulet of health, or gauntlets of ogre power, some potions, and similar items. Ultimately, you’re the right judge of power levels and what feels right for your LMSHC. To get any magic-items, however, especially powerful ones, there should be a big adventure. Such items were obviously made by the gods, by magical beings, or by ancient empires using long-forgotten techniques...perhaps the vanished dwarves and elves.

The nice thing about a LMSHC is that it makes running the Survival Horror elements much easier. Undead are WAY scarier when there’s no hope of a cleric to turn them or to use radiant magics to combat them. If there’s no character with the ability to create food and water, then you don’t have to worry about supplies not being an issue (a staple of survival stories and often a powerful motivation).

I hope these suggestions are useful, Anonymous, and you have a good time with your LMSHC. Until next time, may the dice fall ever in your favor.

[dani-dimitrescu]

RULES.  repost, don’t reblog. tag ten.

TAGGED.  Stole it.

TAGGING. Just do the thing if you want to.

BASICS.

FULL NAME.  Daniela Dimitrescu (former:  Valeria Lois Lupei)

NICKNAME.   Dani, Fruitfly, Firefly

AGE.  90+

BIRTHDAY.  April 1931/January 1950

ETHNIC GROUP. Romanian 

NATIONALITY.   Romanian

LANGUAGE.  Romanian, Italian, English, German, French

SEXUAL ORIENTATION.   Lesbian

RELATIONSHIP STATUS.   Single (except in one verse)

CLASS.  Upper class

HOME TOWN / AREA.  Unnamed Village in Romania

CURRENT HOME.  Castle Dimitrescu

PROFESSION.  Spoiled youngest daughter (xD)

PHYSICAL.

HAIR.  Red

EYES.   Gold, with hints of Green in her right eye (former blue and green)

COMPLEXION.   Pale

BLEMISHES.   Heterochromia

SCARS.   Long scar on the left side of her heads

TATTOOS.   Rose on her forehead

HEIGHT.   5′5″ (human)  7'2" (Current)

WEIGHT.   confidential

ALLERGIES.   None

USUAL HAIR STYLE.   Straight/Sidecut

USUAL CLOTHING.  Dresses,  High Heels

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR.  Death, losing control,  abandonment

ASPIRATION.   Marry a beautiful girl to share her indefinite love with. (hopeless romantic)

POSITIVE TRAITS.  Humorous, Loyal, Imaginative, Adventurous, Romantic

NEGATIVE TRAITS.    Possessive, Nosy, Jealous, Rebellious, Reckless, Scatterbrained

MBTI.    ENFP:The Enthusiasts

ZODIAC.   Aries

TEMPERAMENT.    Your temperament is sanguine. The sanguine temperament is fundamentally spontaneous and pleasure-seeking; sanguine people are sociable and charismatic. They tend to enjoy social gatherings, making new friends and tend to be boisterous. They are usually quite creative and often daydream. However, some alone time is crucial for those of this temperament. Sanguine can also mean sensitive, compassionate and thoughtful. Sanguine personalities generally struggle with following tasks all the way through, are chronically late, and tend to be forgetful and sometimes a little sarcastic. Often, when they pursue a new hobby, they lose interest as soon as it ceases to be engaging or fun. They are very much people persons. They are talkative and not shy. Sanguines generally have an almost shameless nature, certain that what they are doing is right. They have no lack of confidence.

GHOSTS?  Yes

AFTERLIFE?   Yes

REINCARNATION?   No

ALIENS?   No

FAMILY.

FATHER.  (former:  Alexandru Lupei)

MOTHER.   Alcina Dimitrescu / (former: Dakaria Lupei)

SIBLINGS.  Bela and Cassandra / (former: Fabiu Lupei)

EXTENDED  FAMILY.  Mother Miranda, Donna Beneviento, Angie, Karl Heisenberg, Salvatore Moreau

NAME MEANING.    God is my judge

FAVOURITES.

BOOKS.   Romances

MOVIES.  Has never seen a movie

MUSIC.  Classical and Jazz

DEITY.   Venus

HOLIDAY.   None

MONTH.   June

SEASON.    Summer

PLACE.  Library

WEATHER.   Warm and sunny

SOUND.  The sound a body makes when it falls from great height, Rain

SCENT.   Blood, Lavender, Roses, 

TASTE.   Blood, Fruits, Cake

FEEL.   smooth marble, warm skin

ANIMAL.   Bats

NUMBER.   11

COLOR.   Green

EXTRA.

TALENTS.   Singing

BAD  AT.  Dancing, Hunting, Empathy

TURN  ONS.   Blood, neck kisses, hugs from behind.....

TURN  OFFS.   rude behaviour, being ignored......

HOBBIES.   Reading

TROPES.     Alliterative Name,  Beware the Silly Ones,  Evil Cannot Comprehend Good,  Flirting Under Fire,  Psychopathic Manchild,  Villains Want Mercy,  Actually Not a Vampire,  Ambiguous Situation,  Artificial Family Member, Alphabetical Theme Naming,  Assist Character,  Blonde Brunette Redhead,  Cute Monster Girl,  Dark Action Girl, Daywalking Vampire, Delinquent Hair,  Excessive Evil Eyeshadow, Facial Markings,  Flies Equals Evil, Happily Adopted,  Humanoid Abomination,  Leitmotif,  One to Million to One,  Shout-Out,  Sibling Team, Sinister Scythe,  Statuesque Stunner,  Synchronized Swarming,  Villainous Breakdown,  Was Once a Man,  Weaksauce Weakness,  The Worm That Walks

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/ResidentEvilTheFourHouses

 AESTHETICS.  Vampire, Victorian Goth

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC. Nataliia Kubyshyn 

VOICE  CLAIM.   Nicole Tompkins

[runaeveena]

Your dashboard if you were in a d&d fantasy world still involved in fictional erotica discourse

🦄feywildwildwild Follow

is anyone else tired of humans being the default race to pair up with monstrous races in smut? like no wonder Tinker & Claw didn't get any traction outside of TomePlane

🪶 eagledust4ever Follow

tinker and claw was mid and written by a gnome sexologist and are we still calling non humanoids "monstrous"? in 186PD no less?

🕰️ gnomepologist

so now the eagledust shipper (and fake auran language scholar) is going to preach to us 🙄 some of us dont want to read about humans laying eggs every third month

🪶 eagledust4ever Follow

way to avoid the issue and maintain your humanoidcentric elitism but sure lets argue about kinks on tomeblr

🍆 troll-schlong

all of you shut up humans are sluts and im a motherfucking m-m-m-monster

345 Notes

🌧️ hau-iratxoa-besterik-ez-da-euskaraz Follow

just saw someone on TomePlane argue that a dragonborn and a dragon having sex would be considered incest AND beastiality

🗝️ crypt-princess Follow

💀💀💀 not every dragon was part of the Great Hatching and most dragonborn know who our lineage derives from

and since when are dragons BEASTS!?

☘️ celest-ial Follow

you should see what else people on TomePlane call beastiality

🦨 ancientskeleton

we are not bringing back the druid debate sylvanus help me

11,008 Notes

🩵 faerieee-imagines2 Follow

imagine you've been capture by an evil sorcerer and he puts you in a glass jar that's filled with firemoss which is so comfy but its making you so warm so you have to undress and as you remove each item you realize the sorcerer has been watching you and now you're blushing and its maki g you even warmer and soon youll be completely naked and vulnerable to whatever the sorcerer wants you for

121 Notes

🌠 crownofstars

cant believe i got called a freak for hooking up with a Slaad at the Unicorn's Underhorn

🕯️andersfirelight Follow

they're literally abominations??

🌠 crownofstars

and? ribbit ribbit bitch 🐸 you write Age of Light rpf

75 Notes

🦹mage-ocracy Follow

wow this farmer nobody has become such a handsome paladin with a chiseled chest after i threw his family into a lava pit years ago

🦹mage-ocracy Follow

waaahahaha you have fallen for my trap *casts spell of get horny* *spell hits the mirror which reflects back onto me* *my throbbing boner slices through the ropes holding the paladin* waaaahaa

14,283 Notes

🦚 faeynadaughter Follow

honestly im glad humans are the main target for erotica because elves have been sexualized for far too long

🍯treebarkhookhandwagondoor

part of the halfling sexual liberation movement was to embrace sexualizsation because we were treated as undesirables under the Valief'taur Period that now its weird to see elves suddenly turn face and claim that sexualizing anyone is bad

🪡 scç-writer

ugh honestly and especially now that elves are using Glindeloomstalk's talking points as if theyre here to "uplift" us from eroticism when halflings have known for years how he was a purity kinkster

3,119 Notes

🌠 crownofstars

this is now a slaad fucker blog

20 Notes

⚔️ rangerdick

oooo "humans are too sexualized" ooo "elf pussy is boring now" once again everyone forgets about orcs being treated like the walking cock with hands in books and irl

⚓riilée Follow

isnt orcish religion about fucking and sucking to take over the world

⚔️ rangerdick

you wish you could suck me off

🧜🏼‍♀️ tritonitistitties Follow

ranger dick don't you post daily dick pics

⚔️ rangerdick

i also post hole but no one seems to notice those wonder why that is

🐓the-walking-cock-with-hands Follow

i noticed

⚔️ rangerdick

hold me and fuck me would you

21,447 Notes

🦁king-killa Follow

Everyone you have to read this new book! It's total trope subversion where the dwarf is pansexual and the orc is asexual!

🍺 i-fuck-hags

wow someone should write a play about this

[soulsbetrayed]

tropes associated with my muse Hosokawa Gracia (seihai ranbu verse)

100% Adoration Rating- So beloved was she in life that her death caused an outrage bad enough to make members of the Western Army defect to Tokugawa’s side during the lead up to the Battle of Sekigahara.  Many of those individuals angered at her death were Japanese Christians like herself.

Berserk Button- Never mention Ishida Mitsunari to her face unless you don’t mind your limbs being decayed to stumps by her cutting them off using the Sancta Mortem, a scythe as tall as she is. Another is talking ill about her husband in front of her

Don’t Fear the Reaper- Has the trappings of a Western Psychopomp garbed in black from head to toe with a dreary almost depressing air about her but she is ultimately the beloved Sage of Kumamoto that brings life to inanimate objects to protect human history.

Happily Married: To Hosokawa Tadaoki.  It’s to the point she can immediately rein him in with her mere presence alone if they’re in the same room.

Disappointed in You-  Invokes this if one mentions her fourth born son, Hosokawa Tatsutaka’s, involvement in the Shimabara Massacre. Also acts rather miffed at her father’s more negative behavior.

I Have Many Names- Hosokawa Gracia, Akechi Tama, the Sage of Kumamoto or the Caster of Kumamoto.  One cannot tell which of her two given names is her True Name. She is also very cagey with her identity as well and only gives her titles out of fear of a negative reaction to either being the wife of a lunatic such as Tadaoki or being the daughter of the traitorous Akechi Mitsuhide.

A Mother to Her Men-  Leads the Kumamoto Citadel with care and compassion that belies her dreary outwards persona.  She looks after each of her Touken Danshi as if they were family.  This leads to the vast majority of them calling her Lady Gracia or Aneue as with the case of the uchigatana Jizou Yukihira instead of aruji Bonus: 

Humanoid Abomination- Is this as the Time Eating Aberration of the Keichou Kumamoto timeline. Driven by her grudges and desire to live she is not much better than an Avenger class Servant as a Historical Revisionist. Her very presence jeopardizes the proper course of history and thus she cannot be allowed to exist any longer. She shows the same negative traits her father exhibits but goes as far as to lash out at anyone who dares uproot her hold on the Kumamoto Domain 

[oreramar]

Blood and Iron

A collaboration challenge with @jayalaw

The patrol found her nearly six miles from the village of Stoneford, or perhaps she found them. She was barefoot, dressed in a simple shift, with her long hair unbound and a knife clasped in one hand. Blood had half-dried in tacky streaks across her skin, and her clothes were all but dyed in it. She glided across the ground like a Queen, cloaked in an air of serene grace, and beneath the blood she was impossibly beautiful.

 The patrol didn’t stop her. She stopped them.

 “Nobody else in that village survived,” she said. “You must take me to the King at once.”

 The knight who led the patrol sent four soldiers on to the village to see for themselves, then gave the woman his horse, to spare her feet the rocks and stones of the road. She took the high seat like a throne, though the animal, normally well-trained, sidled beneath her like it sensed a storm, a skirmish, a snake in its path. The knight assumed it was the scent of blood and apologized for his mount’s behavior.

 She ran a finger down the horse’s neck and smiled gently as its skin twitched.

 “Don’t worry,” she said. “Even the most willful beast can be tamed.”

 Then she sat, and waited, and hummed something that shivered in the air, and the horse calmed until it stood glassy-eyed and motionless beneath her.

 The soldiers returned to report that it was as the woman said - every villager of Stoneford lay dead, and blood coated the ground. Some showed signs of a fight, but there were no armed or liveried bodies to suggest who their attackers had been, and the men had not been able to find any obvious tracks into or out of the village by any significant force.

 “Then we return and make our report,” said their leader, holding the reigns of his horse. “You were most fortunate to have survived,” he told the woman.

 “Yes,” she said, combing the horse’s mane, her fingers leaving elf-knots in their wake. She still held the dagger in her other hand. “Most fortunate indeed.”

 -

 It was, the court later agreed, terribly romantic - like something out of a story or a tale of old. The woman came to the castle and was given a wash and a change of clothes (though no one could quite decide how a simple bowl of water and a cloth became a full tub and scented oils, or how the intent to lend her a maid’s dress changed to the gift of a beautiful gown). She was brought to the King and the court to tell her tale.

 Nobody could quite remember what her tale had been. She had been too stunning, too tall and ethereal, with a face and form that all found fair, no matter how different their tastes truly were. Her voice was as music, her smile a blessing, and when the King rose from his throne, took her hand, and proposed marriage, no one felt so much as a spark of shock or surprise.

 Within the season, the kingdom had a Queen.

 Within the year, it lacked a King.

 No one in her presence questioned a thing. She was too…beyond them.

 Beyond anything.

 She sat on the great throne, more radiant herself than her gown of silver and her crown of gold, and she set about changing the world.

 -

 There was no more iron. Smiths hammered copper, brass, and bronze, and stone was chipped into useful shapes when these would not do. Sometimes something made of the blood metal was unearthed or stumbled upon, and the finders would bury it deeper and pray that nobody knew they had touched it.

 There were stories, still, of the terrible things that had happened to people just a century ago who had touched, and shaped, and kept things of iron. Other nations could have it; here, in this kingdom, its very existence was a curse.

 High on a hill, the tallest in the land, stood a gateway of grey stone, massive blocks that stretched toward the sky like a grasping hand. The last of them had only been levered into place within the last twenty years. The bloodstains had not yet fully washed away. The weather was strange on that hill, and animals avoided it. So did people; the air prickled across the skin unpleasantly, like the charging of lightning just before it strikes.

 In the castle, miles away, the Queen stood before a window with streaks of blood drying in her hair from her last bath, a smile on her sharply pointed features. She felt the power coalescing in the distance, drawing together in a slow, inexorable tide.

 It could take centuries.

 But then, of course, she had time.

 Humming something that shivered in the air and subtly changed her form into something a human would find ethereally beautiful, she went back to her throne to rule…and to wait.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

So many of the Eldritch horrors that the Inspector tangles with

are presented as humanoid entities, even if they really are beyond human understanding. It’s effectively a budget-saving thing.

[faceless-conspiracy-buff]

2. are there any tropes that pull you in or that you realise are reoccuring in your muses? 13. have you ever not gone through with playing / adding / making a blog for a muse because you’ve feared no one would care about that specific muse? [Love ur blog!]

[ 2. are there any tropes that pull you in or that you realise are reoccuring in your muses?

Yes, definitely, absolutely.

My favourite character archetypes are so clear cut that even my parents can recognize them.

My dad has termed my two favourite archetypes "smart guy" and "creepy girl", but really, those are blanket terms and encompass at least a half dozen sub-tropes. (They're also gender neutral, for what it's worth -- not all "creepy girl" characters are necessarily girls.)

"Smart guys" can be detectives, engineers, academics, scientists (mad or otherwise) or garden variety nerds. It really doesn't matter, so long as they're the smartest members of whatever group they happen to be a part of.

"Creepy girls", meanwhile, are strange yet compelling in some way. Many are often cheerfully unsettling, but that's not a requirement. They can be elves, immortals, humanoid abominations, robots or just plain messed up. (They can also be in the process of becoming one or more of these things, since I've apparently got a thing for corruption arcs.)

Other character traits that I enjoy include:

- Snarky

- Smug and superior (bonus points if they're hiding an inferiority complex)

- Timid or anxious

- Untrustworthy, but in a fun way (think Crazy Redd from Animal Crossing)

- Entertainment motifs? I guess? Whatever you call characters with circus / magician / game show host vibes (bonus points if they're evil)

- And of course, conspiracy theorists (though arguably that's a smart guy sub-species)

13. have you ever not gone through with playing / adding / making a blog for a muse because you've feared no one would care about that specific muse?

Quite often, actually! I can't name a specific example off the top of my head, but yeah, I frequently worry that the characters I like are too obscure for anyone to care about.

Q could have been one of them, come to think of it. Before I bit the bullet and started this blog, I was worried that no one but me cared about him. I'm so glad that you guys proved me wrong. <3 ]

[an-organized-confusion]

This is extremely gawd damn trite. But one of my favorite art tropes I’ve a seen a few instances of already is “Remus being a humanoid glowstick“.

Idk man, it’s such a goofy and absurd image that suits him very well.

Wretched!Remus might approach that - but it’d be more accurate to describe him as a “[abominable] humanoid Tesla coil.“ (Oh gawd... now just picturing him loving the SHIT outta zeusaphones.)

Begotten!Remus’s Horror DEFINITELY is bio-luminescent (a kraken). And it’s great.

(Why do I want to say Gymrat!AU or iZ!AU Remus was in the rave scene. They def woulda earned a call to Poison Control, drinking down more than a few of those things. Alas, their AUs are more grounded in reality than those other two AUs... if you don’t count the zombies part for iZ!AU. :,D )

[tyrantisterror]

To cut TVT some slack, Satan's an angel, and angels had plenty of eldritch traits before they were all white people with wings, right down to being brain-meltingly terrifying in their natural state. If ol' Lucifer also happens to look like a screaming, glowing, burning mess of eyes and wings and other bits, then I'd say he counts.

Ok, so, before I begin my response, let me preface that this is not meant to be an attack on you or anyone else, but rather a clarification of my understanding of both Abrahamic mythology AND what the “eldritch abomination” trope was originally defined as before it became reduced to “a monster, but scary.”  I write this because I’ve actually done a fair amount of research on both topics, and the misconceptions I see thrown around as fact SO OFTEN on the internet are just... very irritating to me.

First, the internet’s flanderization of the fearsome elements of Biblical angels is on par with Stephen Moffat’s flanderization of Sherlock Holmes’ rudeness.  Yes, Biblical angels often prefaced their interactions with humans by shouting “fear not,” and yes, one specific variety of Biblical angel was described as having lots of eyes - the Throne/Ophanim, which also is described as looking like “wheels within wheels,” which is admittedly a very trippy visual.  HOWEVER, the other two varieties of angels with explicit description are far less strange - Seraphim are humanoids that may or may not have some reptilian traits and sport six feathery wings.  That’s it, that’s how weird they get.  Cherubim are a bit stranger, being four-winged creatures with four heads - one human, one lion, one eagle, and one ox - and the legs of an eagle.  But both of those are on par with most mythological creatures - if a Seraph is an Eldritch Abomination, so is a minotaur, a harpy, a centaur, and a chimera.  The other named varieties of angels do not have specific descriptions of what they look like (or if they do, they’re highly obscure, since none of the books I have on the subject, including a few different translations of the Bible, The Lesser Key of Solomon, and The Book of Enoch, mention them), so while you could headcanon the idea that they are your Lovecraftian nightmare angels, there’s not really solid evidence for it.

There is the implication in some Biblical stories that the radiance of an angel’s form is more than a person can bear, but the same is also true of the Greek Gods.  It’s never said to be a matter of lack of comprehension, though, but more like sensory overload - the way you can’t look at the sun for too long without going blind.  Is the sun an eldritch abomination?  Fuck, it probably is on TV Tropes, isn’t it?

My biggest contention with the “Satan is an eldritch abomination” trope is that, back when the term “eldritch abomination” meant more than “a monster, but, like, scary,” eldritch abominations were defined as being UNKNOWABLE.  Their motives, nature, origins, all are supposed to be shrouded in mystery and beyond our comprehension.

But the nature, motives, and origin of angels and demons is, in Biblical lore, intensely fucking knowable and comprehensible.

Satan and all the demons have pretty simple motives!  They were jealous of God’s power and his favoritism of mankind, tried to usurp God, and got cast out for it.  Angels have simple motives too!  They were made to serve God’s will and act as his messengers and agents.  Pretty damn simple!

Their origins are simple and the same as everythine else in Abrahamic lore: God made them.  Pretty easy to digest!

Their nature, too, is fairly clear cut.  They are souls, much like the ones that inhabit human bodies, but do not need bodies of flesh and blood to travel from the afterlife to the mortal world (though in some apocrypha demons have to either inhabit corpses or conjur bodies made of smoke to walk among the living).  You could try to interpret that as being more weird and incomprehensible than it is, but that’s exactly what it would be - an interpretation, not canon.

And the real absolute bonkers fucking irony of this is that H.P. Lovecraft specifically set out to create a mythology that was antithetical to Christianity and various European mythologies- that the Eldritch Abominations trope he more or less defined was made in contrast to the world run by a benevolent God of the Bible or the worlds run by incredibly human gods one would find in Norse and Greek mythology.  That, UNLIKE God, angels, demons, the Olympians, the Aesir, etc., the Elder Gods and their agents are NOT as simple as black and white forces of good and evil, are BEYOND petty human concerns, and cannot be reduced to descriptions as SIMPLE as “a humanoid with six wings and some scales here and there.”  Even Cthulhu, one of the most easily visualized creatures in his canon, is explicitly said NOT to be as simple as most illustrations make him out to be - that “a humanoid with a cuttlefish for a head and dragon wings” isn’t ACTUALLY what he looks like, but the closest human words can come to vaguely describing his appearance.

These are different tropes, and that’s why they have different fucking names.  Satan isn’t an Eldritch Abomination, he’s a DEMON.  Cthulhu isn’t a demon, he’s an ELDRITCH ABOMINATION.  They’re different!  They look different, they work differently, they’re different tropes!  It’s like saying Godzilla is a Dracula, it makes no goddamn sense!

[demi-shoggoth]

COVID-19 Reading Log, pt. 16

81. Monstrosities by Matthew J. Finch. This is a bestiary for the Swords and Wizardry game, an 0e D&D retroclone. The book is an elaboration on previous Swords and Wizardry bestiaries—it has both reprinted and original monsters, but every monster gets a piece of art and a sample encounter. The art varies wildly in quality between entries. The sample encounters are pretty samey, to be honest, and not a ton of them fire up my GM imagination. The flavor of the monsters is in the genre of Weird Fantasy: there are extradimensional abominations and meat-filled robots to go with your more typical frogmen and giant vermin. Some of the more unfortunate tropes of old school fantasy rear their head as well. There’s plenty of low-key sexism (with a few places it really ramps up) and lots of Orientalism. You can make Asian themed monsters without relying on either vague mysticism or the “inscrutable foreigner” archetype, guys. Please.

82. Scarfolk Annual 197x by Richard Littler. I’ve been familiar with the Scarfolk project through tumblr for a while. For those who don’t know, it’s a British dystopia perennially stuck in the 1970s, with ominous graphics and catchy slogans like, “Whatever You Do, Don’t”. So I was interested to see what a whole book of Scarfolk would look like. The book posits itself as a reprint of an artifact collected from the isolated town, reprinted on normal paper, since the original was laced with drugs that made people hallucinate and turn murderous. The book has two main modes, which I think clash. One is using the dystopia to present satires on Brexit and other modern right wing British politics. The other is a building horror piece, as the book is intended (in universe) to indoctrinate children into murdering their parents. Both would work separately, I think, but together the tones make for a somewhat jarring reading experience. Note that there’s some pretty nasty depictions of violence throughout—more graphic than I’ve seen from the internet Scarfolk material (so tw: suicide, eye horror, gore, child abuse, animal death).

83. Scientifical Americans by Sharon A. Hill. This book is a study of other people’s studies, namely the culture of amateur paranormal researchers, like ghost hunters, Squatchers and UFO networks. Sharon Hill is a real scientist, and her main thesis of the book is that APRs use science trappings without understanding how science actually works. There’s a lot of discussion in the book about the mixed relationship that Americans have with science—appreciating the results while distrusting the process, and seeing it more about personal authority than community consensus. The book includes chapters about how people interested in ghosts, UFOs and cryptids can make their process more genuinely scientific, but I feel like she’s preaching to the choir a bit here. The book does not go out of its way to make friends among True Believers.

84. The Avatar’s Handbook by Jesse Decker. This book is a D&D 3.0 era book that slipped past my radar way back in the day, but was recommended to me by @thetygre​. It is nominally a book for a new character class, the Avatar, which is a divine sorcerer type that summons angels. That takes up maybe 15 pages of this 80 page book. The rest of it is a bestiary of good-aligned monsters, nominally for the avatar to summon, but mostly so that Green Ronin could expand on its cosmology introduced in Legions of Hell and Hordes of the Abyss. Their takes on celestials are mostly in the vein of magical animals and pretty humanoids. There’s some inspiration drawn from the Book of Enoch and other angelologies, but nothing direct (for example, there’s a seraphyl angel, and an angel that looks somewhat like the seraph of Ezekiel, but they aren’t the same creature). My personal favorite monster in the book is the bene ishim, which looks like a stereotypical devil and does propaganda work—they convince mortals that fiends are untrustworthy while tricking fiendish armies into attacking each other and leaving the mortal world alone.

85. Robbers, Rogues and Ruffians by Howard Bryan. This is a book I picked up literally years ago and has been collecting dust on my shelf until, say, a global pandemic. The book covers true crime stories from Old West New Mexico (how’s that for a word salad?), stretching from the 1860s to the 1910s. The book presents itself as a “demythologizing” of the idea of glorious criminals and loveable scoundrels, presenting most of its subjects as deeply unpleasant people. What struck me on this reading of Old West tales is how little has changed. Entitled white men lashing out when drunk, unrestricted access to firearms, racist violence, extrajudicial killings… the USA of 2020 is not as different as the USA of 1880 as we’d like to think. The book is relatively old by the standards of this project (published 1991) and is based on newspaper columns stretching back into the 1950s. Which means that some material is taken from interviews of people who were actually there (children at ranches, teenage posse members, kids hearing tales from their outlaw relatives firsthand). That’s cool.  

[archive-of-artprompts]

🐙Send in a number+character, and I'll draw them as that Eldritch Abomination 🐙

Tropes from tv tropes 📺

Adorable Abomination - A “typical” eldritch creature, although appearing cute (though maybe deceptively so, or perhaps it's genuinely friendly).

Angelic Abomination - An eldritch creature that has bizarre, yet angelic or godly features.

Animalistic Abomination - An eldritch creature that resembles or behaves like a more monstrous version of an ordinary animal.

Botanical Abomination - An eldritch creature which appears to be an extremely bizarre and unnatural plant.

Digital Abomination - A virtual eldritch creature originating from cyberspace.

Draconic Abomination - An eldritch creature resembling an otherworldly dragon. 

Flesh Abomination - An eldritch being that is made up of merged skin or body parts.

Genetic Abomination - An eldritch creature born from genetic engineering.

Humanoid Abomination - An eldritch creature which superficially resembles or behaves like a human, or is at least vaguely human-shaped.

Inky Abomination - An eldritch creature made from ink and paint. 

Mechanical Abomination - An eldritch creature constructed from strange and powerful machinery. 

Undead Abomination - An eldritch creature which has somehow been brought back from death as an extremely bizarre and terrifying ghost or zombie.