#and the innocent ‘thats why no one loves you’ from france literally killed me

[reverse-caretaker-hetalia]

Nightmare Before Christmas

"Toni! It's almost Christmas!" Austria gushed, taking Spain's hand and swinging it with his own. Antonio flushed and quickly turned away.

"It's December First," Spain muttered, snatching his hand back. "Plus, I don't celebrate Christmas."

Roderich gasped, clutching at his heart. "You don't!?" Antonio rolled his eyes.

"No, I celebrate Three Kings Day in January," he said. "I tell you this every year."

"Yeah, and it's always just as shocking to me!" Austria sighed. "You know, just because you don't celebrate doesn't mean you have to be a Grinch."

Antonio could help but smile. "I prefer to think of myself as an Ebenezer Scrooge," he said. "Getting haunted by ghost sounds cooler than stealing Christmas. And who would want to have a bunch of expensive consumerist bull anyway?"

Roderich raised an eyebrow. "'Consumerist bull'? Is that what Christmas reminds you of?"

Spain blinked. "Well, yeah. Feli and Jackass are big on Christmas. Feli's always making too much food and coming to my place uninvited to tell me how much family matters and stuff. Boss is more concerned with making a fancy presepe and getting Epiphany presents cheap."

"But that's not how we celebrate!" Austria said. "In Austria and some other German places we have this thing on the Fifth called Krampus Night where we dress as these evil demon minions of Santa who beat bad kids with crops!"

"Wait, what?"

"You heard me! One year we all went and Lud dressed up and scared the others so bad Lili suplexed him and Vash shot him in the face," Roderich beamed.

Antonio gaped. "That sounds... Awesome!"

"Well, compared to the Christmas you know. I haven't even gotten to Frau Perchta, but that's a story for another day," Roderich grinned. "My favorite part of the Holidays is trying to scare Gilbert. Sadly, it only works, like, twenty percent of the time."

"Well yeah. Gil seems to have some kind of a nerve of steel," Antonio smirked, "but I know who'd be easier and more fun to scare."

Roderich hummed, suddenly excited. That was a dangerous smirk, and Spain's "playful" side was not to be taken lightly. Ever.

"I'm listening."

-----

Francis, too, was excited for Christmas in his own respect. It was just about time to start decorating for the Holidays, and he loved making the clay figures for his crèches. Sometimes he sold some in the Christmas Market, and he could use the extra money to buy Fête des Rois presents. There was just so much to look forward to!

As he went to find his sculpting clay and paints, he could've sworn he heard something fall in the other room. Now France was no coward, but he might've maybe jumped just a bit, and something grazed his arm.

France nearly stumbled out of his closet space and tripped and fell on his back just as quickly. He looked up, and found nothing out of the ordinary. The thing that had brushed against him was just an old outfit he got from Canada, the thing he tripped over was some wood for his crèche, poorly placed by his fault. Francis sighed. He still felt like something was off, but played it off as an overactive imagination.

He picked up the wood and went into the other room to investigate the noise from earlier. Nothing seemed out of place, but a fallen book, but he couldn't shake off that weird feeling. Almost as if on cue, the lights went off with a flick. Feeling panic raise in his throat, Francis quickly went to turn the lights back on, only to be disappointed when the room stayed unlit.

"A cut wire?" He asked no one in particular.

"Or the spirits of the season here to make you repent," came a deep growl in reply.

France couldn't help but scream as he threw the wood he was holding in the direction of the voice. It hit something with a 'thud', and he took that as a sign to scramble out the room. Every light in the house was flickering in no particular order or pattern, but that barely caught Francis' attention.

What really scared him was a suit of armor unhooking itself from the wall. Slowly, it reared its head and Francis saw two red glowing eyes. Francis froze. His heart began racing, but it seems his nerves completely fried and he couldn't move. As the rest of the suit moved towards him, he felt a hand make it's way up his neck. He shivered.

And the lights finally cut out.

-----

Katyusha liked spending time with her siblings around this time of year, even if they didn't celebrate their Christmas this month. Perhaps she thought they could prepare for New Year together, or just appreciate the fact it wasn't quite as cold as it would be in January. Whatever the reason, the fact was she always went to Ivan first, and she always insisted on him helping her knit.

"I want to make Sestra a scarf," she said.

Ivan raised an eyebrow. "More than a month before Christmas?" Ukraine nodded.

"It gets cold just around January," she smiled, "and I don't want to give it to her after the cold season starts."

So Russia agreed, deciding to ignore—for Ukraine's sake—the fact that it was always cold and that Belarus was weird enough to Cossack in a blizzard wearing practically nothing. Once inside, Ukraine headed towards the living room and Russia excused himself to answer his ringing phone.

"Allo?"

"Do you believe in fate?" Came a low voice from the other end.

Ivan blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Do you believe in fate?"

Ivan was confused. The number was unknown and the voice unfamiliar. He might have to do some hacking later. "Who is this?"

"Non-believers shall pay. Sinners shall repent. Fake prophets such as yourself pay with their lives." And suddenly the call ended.

Ivan barely had time to process that before a gunshot sounded from outside and a scream was heard from the living room. Hesitating only a moment, he put his phone down and went to check on his sister.

Ukraine had heard the gunshot, but that hadn't been why she screamed. No, she screamed because she'd quickly had a sack thrown over her head and was picked up like she weighed nothing.

"Ivan!" She cried, but she was muffled slightly by the sack. She felt herself being carried down some stairs and she knew she must've been taken to the basement. She was laid on the floor, where—after hearing the door close—she quickly took off the sack and ran towards the door.

It had been jammed. She jiggled the knob but it wouldn't budge. Desperate, she banged the door.

"Ivan!"

Russia had to ignore the blood streaming down the basement stairs when he heard Katyusha call him. "Katyusha?" He called back, trying not to sound panicky. He was the older one, after all.

"Brat, I want out!" Katyusha cried. Ivan sighed, a bit relieved. He would've been more worried if she wasn't crying.

"Alright, hang on. Just get away from the door a moment." He went to unlock the door, but it still wouldn't open. He reached under the door to find wood blocks crammed under the door. He removed them and immediately the blood(or was that wine?) starting spilling into the basement.

Ivan when went in calmly, assuring Katyusha that everything was already, the door closed again. Russia heard it. The click of a lock.

"Shit."

"Do you know how to pick it?" Ukraine asked, panicky. "You can do anything, surely you could do this!"

"I'm a tech guy," he replied. "Not a criminal and not a miracle worker."

As Ivan started helping Ukraine wipe away her tears, lights flickered on. Confused, Russia looked up to see speakers in each corner. Then it started playing.

-----

Prussia didn't like coming home during the holiday season. Someone was bound to try and scare him at some point. In increasingly annoying ways, he might add.

When his lights didn't switch on upon him coming in, he knew today would be the day. He sighed, put his groceries on the counter, and prepared for the worst. Or worst attempts, seeing as he was used to it all by now.

He didn't flinch when the hand danged up against the window. He closed the curtains. He scream at the blood that flowed from his tap. He grabbed a bottle instead. He didn't jump at his reflection making scary faces at him in the mirror. He make faces back.

Finally, he was finished. "I know you're saving some shit. So hurry up and get on with it."

Almost as if on cue, the window reopened and three bats flew directly towards him. He dodged two and swatted the other one off of his face. Carefully placed red lights began to light the room, and scratch marks began to appear on the walls.

Bell sounds rang out, a couple flaming hands bursted from random places on the floor, and the lights began to flicker. But Gilbert stood his ground. Finally, with a couple flares, he appeared, covered in fur from head to toe. He cackled, holding a whip, ready to strike. He aimed it directly at Gil.

Prussia caught it, the leather cracking against his hand. "Merry Christmas, Austria."

And with that, Roderich lost it. "God dammit! Do you not a single fear in this world!"

Gilbert allowed himself to smirk a bit. "None that you've found."

Austria grumbled, throwing off his mask. "See! I told you he's hard to scare!"

Antonio emerged from the closet, holding a laptop and looking nothing but befuddled. "Damn. I used all my best stuff for this, too."

"Oh, I should've known," Prussia groaned. "Antonio does the backstage stuff in your stupid plays. You couldn't have pulled off something so elaborate on your own."

"Yes I could've, you dumb albino whore! And my plays are not stupid," Austria huffed. "At least not as stupid as your dumb knight stories."

"You take that back!"

"Make me!"

With Roderich and Gilbert arguing(yet again), Antonio had nothing to do but complain about all the props he wasted. He slowly shut off all his traps and turned the lights back on. All that and they didn't even get blackmail of Prussia. What a wasted night.

"If you guys are done, would you please get out of my house. When the mob comes after you two, I want them anywhere but here."

"Whatever," Austria sighed, reaching to pick up his whip. A roach crawl out from under it before he could, though. "Ew, that's-"

And before he could finish, a high pitched screeched pierced through the air.

-----

"I cannot believe you two did something like this!" Lili chastised. "You used all my expensive wine!"

"That's what you bring up first?" Italy questioned.

"I'll tell you what you dumbasses did wrong," Lovino stepped in. "You scared Francis half to death, Katyusha keeps crying about the horrors of vaporwave/disco, Ivan is so stressed from trying to blow up your speakers—which are still somehow playing your satanic Rasputin—that Vash gave him a box of his stress Cheez-Its, and Gilbert is a sobbing mess in Ludwig's arms!"

"I think my siblings are fine," Belarus pointed out. "They're quite used to being scarred, after all."

"I know, I'm just trying to make a point that what they did was bad."

"I don't know, I thought it was impressive," Germany said, awkwardly rocking Prussia.

"Dear God, please don't encourage them," Feliciano half-pleaded.

"I don't know why you guys are making such a big deal about it!" Austria blurted. "It's such a me thing to do."

"More like a little shit thing to do," Ludwig said, "but you are a little shit, so..."

"What are you trying to do?" Lovino snapped.

"Bih, it's winter break. I'm not trying to do anything."

"Our point is, we're very disappointed in you two," Liechtenstein finished.

Walking home Vash grumbled, "You owe me a box of Cheez-Its."

"I swear," Gilbert whispered to Germany, "I am going to bleach all of his dry clean only dresses."

"Oh shit." Something told Ludwig there was gonna be a lot of fighting in his future.

"Uh, Francis," Spain started, "I'm sorry I scared you that much. I didn't think you'd react like that. I tried to go easy on you."

France smiled. "That's alright, Toño! Just know, this is why no one loves you!"

"Francis!" Romano yelled.

"Huh? What'd I say?"

"Oh, wait!" Austria suddenly stopped and ran back towards the latins. "Toni, I forgot to give you something!"

Antonio blinked. "You did? What?"

Roderich smirked, leaned in, and pecked Antonio on the cheek. "My gift! Merry Christmas, sexy." And with that, he was skipping back towards his family.

Lovino hummed. "Correction, one person loves him."

"Hello? Spain?" Veneziano said, waving his face in front of his face. "Earth to Antonio?"

"Oh, I am so taking a picture."

"Lovino!"

[tumblunni]

Another patented Bunni Brand Random Game Idea I Will Probably Never Actually Make(tm) Guess what, its another pet raising game! Why am i so obsessed with these! Maybe because there AREN’T ENOUGH GOOD ONES and I DESPERATELY NEED THEM, YO

Anyway, the theme of this one is kinda S.C.P-esque? Not actually set in that series since I haven’t read much of it and I’m a huge wimp for psychological horror anyway. But I mean its set in a vaguely similar “organization for paranormal creatures” type of setting. The idea I had was “an artificially created god”. The facility only has one monster in it, and it’s like a homunculus they created themselves and are struggling to control. Flew too close to the sun! The aim of making this creature was to try and make an angel, or a channeler, or just something that can bridge the gap between life and death and answer our questions about what the afterlife really is. But they failed to think about the mental strain on the creature, they basically took a child and poured all of infinity into its head! Plus it doesn’t even know how to interpret any of this stuff, or explain it to humans. It has no perspective on any life other than this, so like... “what? I didn’t mention that cos I thought everyone already knew!” Or when its asked to predict the future it doesn’t know what any of these things mean since it’s never seen the outside world- “people will fall” could mean a mass death from disease, a literal death from an earthquake, one person tripping in france, or even just “my dolls fell off the shelf”. This small room is this creature’s entire world, how is it meant to know that you don’t consider the dolls equally important?

So, anyway, the player’s perspective in all this would be as... the janitor! Well, former janitor turned caretaker for a terrifying oracle child. How did this happen to meeeee?! Sort of an accident happened and the creature imprinted on the first person it saw when it was born. And the researchers are WAAAAAY less equipped to control it than they expected! All their containment facilities failed, which led to it getting far enough away from the lab that it bumped into this janitor in the first place. He was just a hapless dude sweeping the fakey harmless business exterior of the place, completely uninitiated into the true purpose of the place. Until someday some baby monster came flying through the wall and somehow it ended in a hug??? Now he’s their only method of (at least temporarily) containing the monster. For some reason it seems to be bound by oaths and words, if its “father” orders it not to do something then it obeys. Sit here in this room and don’t leave, don’t hurt any humans, stop breaking all the locks and bars just to boast that you can, it really demoralizes our staff! But it’s always searching for loopholes to someday escape. That would be exceptionally dangerous- humans are a fun toy to play with, and it doesn’t understand why you can’t fix them when they break...

So yeah, thats why this random ordinary man has now been forcibly initiated into a high position in this organization, and Has No Choice In The Matter. He has a huge amount of power as the only one able to control the beast, but also zero power in the organization as the latest noob and totally unqualified candidate. And they can’t kill him cos they need his power, but they can always torture him until he cooperates... (”We’d really rather NOT do that though, it would be such a waste of resources~”) Also this guy’s personality is just a super shy and anxious Good Dad who wouldn’t have the courage to be able to pull off a daring escape even if he had the opportunity. He’s sorta spent his whole life already just saying “ok” to everyone bullying him, this is no different. I was imagining this story as maybe a place to put the Iggy character I created for that random lets play, cos I’ve grown pretty attatched to him! Or maybe it could just be a similarly adorable shy dad, or another gender even? I was just thinking that a short round huggable parent is what this story needs, so Iggy is the perfect puzzle piece to slot into it~

So you’d spend every day selecting between different options to try and parent up your new monster child, similar to stuff like Princess Maker. The goal of the organization is to make them more obedient and find ways to make use of their powers to profit humanity. But the protagonist’s personal goal is just to show the monster love like a normal child, prove that it can live peacefully with humans someday. You have to balance these goals, otherwise if this whole project is deemed unprofitable the higher ups might just trash this monster and build another... And then in-between all this you’d get scenes of the protag being generally bossed around by the higher-ups, and learn more about this organization and how to operate within it. You can potentially expand your protagonist’s skills too, form relationships with your coworkers, and navigate a complex web of lies to eventually find some way to escape...

Though I think that the “just escape” ending would probably be the bad one, cos without you they have no way to control the oracle child. It’d be the ending of sacrificing everybody to save yourself, and spending forever on the run as you keep hearing of the cities destroyed by this monster trying to track you down. Of course, the ending where the two of you escape together and become a real family would be way more positive, but you’d need to complete your quest to earn the monster’s love and socialize it and etc first. Possible other endings: Go full organization and get sucked into their perspective of seeing this thing as just a thing. Stop caring about the monster child, treat it like shit, and experience success in your new job! Be a mindless yes man! Live happily ever after! :( Alternatively, maybe you can end up synmpathising TOO MUCH with the monster child? Instead of convincing them of the virtues of humanity, the general assholeishness of the organization makes you lose faith in it. But what would even happen if you refuse to cooperate with your orders? Maybe even could end up as just another monster locked up in this facility, and forget you were ever human :(

And then for the oracle child itself, I actually have no clue what kind of design I’d like to give to them? i was initially thinking a very humanoid one, cos it’d be creepy to have a creature that looks human but doesn’t act it, and everybody treats them like a mere object that’s never gonna be capable of real sentient thought. But then I’m also kinda like “ehh maybe people would be dissappointed the design isn’t a more monsterous monster child”. And I’m not sure exactly what sort of humanoid design I want, even? Their powers were meant to be mostly like psychic and such, so maybe a big ol monster eye in the middle of the forehead. I want something that’s at least a little bit spooky but can also be cute once you get to know them. Oh, and all I know about their gender is that I definately don’t want them to actually be a “them”, yknow? Nonbinary characters only ever being non-human is a weird trope in fiction. Its like the only representation we’re allowed to get is stuff that reinforces that we don’t exist in real life, both as an intentional and unintentional message. So yeah if there’s gonna be any Characters That Are Like Me in this story, they’d be one of the human characters. The kid will be a boy or a girl, even though I’m using “they” here until I decide it. Also i don’t know whether they’d be a formerly human child who was experimented upon to give them powers thus “oh no organization is evil cos they did that to an innocent”, or they were just created out of nothing like a homunculus and have always been a monster. That would lose that establishing aspect for the organization, but it would perhaps be an even more powerful metaphor for like.. love and stuff. This kid is worth loving not JUST because “there’s some human in them, deep down”, but because they’re an innocent and they’re a sentient being, and them just not being human isn’t a justification to treat them like an object. Anyway! Their personality! They’re just as innocent and have as much potential for goodness as a normal child, even though they seem scary at first. And they don’t understand humanity very much, and nobody’s ever really shown them kindness before or tried to teach them morality, so why would they know what it is? Its not like they’re intentionally being “evil” though, if they understood the consequences of their actions properly it would destroy them.

I was actually thinking of a particular potential scene where they temporarily escape and cause some chaos. It would initially be like “oh god they really are evil and you were stupid to trust them”, because you see that they killed a guard during their escape. And the guard would be one of the few nice npcs in this evil organization, and someone the child seemed to be developing a friendship with. It would be a REAL punch in the gut! So now you’re not trusting this kid anymore, yet you still have to come to work the next day and pretend like nothing’s wrong. And the kid acts like nothing’s wrong too, they don’t seem to comprehend why you’d be angry or upset, reinforcing the perception that they must be pure evil at heart. And its just a really awkward, messed up day at work, for the first time feeling like you’re being held hostage taking care of some dangerous monster that doesn’t care about you, even though that’s what they told you on the first day of the job... And then.. at the end of the day... they ask you when their friend is coming back. And you realize that they don’t even understand what they’ve done. Nobody bothered to explain death to them. They don’t understand that these “toys” can’t be fixed when they break. Possibly even a super creepy scene at some other point where their arm gets ripped off in an accident and you have to sew it back on, to establish that this homunculus creature is super hard to kill? Also i was thinking that.. well its not like they can’t understand pain, its just that they feel so much pain constantly that the minor additional pain when they take physical damage doesn’t matter enough to notice. You have to try and explain the concept by being like “you know that thing you feel 24/7 when your power is overloading and it burns inside your head? Other people feel that when their arms fall off.” And also maybe they have trouble understanding their own powers? Like, they have to learn to be able to turn the oracle visions on and off at will, initially they just happen at random and the kid can’t choose what they look at. They don’t even know if its from the past or the future, or how far in the future its gonna be, or what it’s about or who its happening to. And sometimes they don’t even realize they’re in a vision, so it’s hard to understand the consequence of your actions when you might have been seeing the events out of order. Also imagine the kid being like “you lied! you said they went somewhere where they weren’t coming back but I just saw them!”, but then they realise that their friend was just repeating stuff that they’d already said, and nobody else saw them there. So they realise that it was just a vision, and it really is true. Maybe they just go catatonic for a few days and try and live forever in the past, only waking up when they’ve finally managed to come to terms with the meaning of death... :( Or maybe they break out of their cell and run to the morgue and summon up every ounce of their power, try EVERYTHING to wake up the guard, and finally break down crying for the first time in their entire life when it doesn’t work. And imagine how SCARED they’d be to see a corpse! They ran down here expecting to see their friend just sleeping, and they see this cold and empty doll that doesn’t even look like them anymore... :(

Also, less depressingly, I was thinking of endearing moments where the kid’s emotionless facade would break in the rare event you’re able to show them true happiness. Like for example, their everyday life is just sitting here in this cagey room with barely anything to distract them from the boredom. They only even have a sparsely occupied bookcase because the organization was like “ugh, if it’ll make the thing more cooperative i guess we HAVE to”. And so the kid has just obsessively devoured those two or three textbooks, and one day comes to you like “So when is the test?” They’ve read the books hundreds of times and memorized everything right down to the punctuation and spelling mistakes. And they don’t even understand the CONCEPT of recreation, because every day is just testing. If these books were here, there must have been a purpose, right? When are you going to test me on them? Hell, they might even get a bit pissed off when you say there’s no test, cos those books weren’t even fun and the only hope they had of some minor enjoyment was the mystery of the test at the end. So then you introduce them to STORY BOOKS and they’re like HOLY SHIT WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS WAS A POSSIBILITY.

And you find a lot of trouble trying to explain the outside world to them, when the idea of “grass” and “sky” just seems so ridiculous. So you go get a carpet swatch for the sake of comparison, and you find out the kid hasn’t even ever experienced THAT! Imagine them going totally nuts, like this thing is goddamn catnip. MY PERCEPTION OF LIFE IS EXPANDED BY THIS CARPET SWATCH! Imagine the protag convincing the scientists to put a carpeted floor on their cell, and the kid just being so impossibly happy that they never stop rolling around on it. “Goddamnit we can’t predict the future if our secret weapon is doing floor cartwheels for two straight weeks” (Relateable note: I literally feel this way as an autistic adult. For some reason carpet swatches work as a low budget stim toy for my stupid brain XD Also jam is like the opposite to carpet. if even the tiniest drop of jam lands on my hand, the grossness freaks me out so much that I can’t concentrate at all until i scrub my hand to death. Even if i wipe it off I can still feel it!!)

Oh, and its also surprisingly endearing to imagine when Creepy Moments intersect with these cute scenes! Like, moments where the kid is being pure and innocent but also reminds you they’re a monster. Getting too excited by a new toy and causing everything to levitate around in a tornado of poltergeist activity! Or, maybe moments where the kid is trying to say something completely normal and cute, but it accidentally gets misunderstood as creepy cos of their social inexperience? “Father I have the SKIN HUNGER.” = “Yknow that feeling when you really want a hug, but I don’t know the word for a hug cos none of these science guys ever show any affection.” The closest thing the kid has as a reference is being picked up and carried to the latest testing room when they refuse to walk there on their own, so sometimes they misbehave on purpose to experience this almost-hug. Tho having a hug with a hazmat suit guy while locked up in handcuffs isn’t really all that enjoyable, the scientists wouldn’t dare touch monster-kid without eighty billion protections. Actually, having a hug could be a really monumental moment, like a milestone for both of you. Kid understands humans enough to be able to vocalize this wish, and trusts you enough to think you’d give a different answer to the scientists who always say no. And you’ve overcome your fear of the big ol scary monster enough to hold them, and you’ve grown to understand them enough that you can figure out what they want when they’re not able to explain it well. And then it could be super sad and heartwarming cos when you have them in your arms you realise how fragile and thin they are, how much pain they must be in from their shaky breathing, maybe you can even see scars you never noticed on their scalp from all the experiments...

And probably there’d be a lot of other scenes like this, where all of their “creepy” actions can be linked to a misunderstanding or a cry for help, and you can always resolve it and help them become more human. It would help make the scene of them accidentally killing someone be even more of a misdirect, like “oh my god, was I wrong this entire time and they really are evil?” But at the same time you’d also have more reason to want to hear them out, even when the situation looks impossible to explain. And it would be even sadder that this time the “and in the end they learn to be more human” part would be learning something horrible, a part of life that’s just going to make them suffer more. :( And speaking of which, the protagonist would also have to develop away from his initial optimism, kinda? Like, the bad result is where the job makes him become more jaded and he eventually becomes an asshole just like everybody else in this organization. But the good result would be becoming jaded in a different way. Becoming less oblivious and naive, aknowledging that evil exists in this world. And addressing his blind cliche optimism, and replacing it with like.. actual real optimism that he came to out of his own free will. Like not just being nice cos you’re too scared to argue with people, but also being brave enough to stand up and say that something is wrong even when you’re scared of arguing! And also reexamining his rather cliche views on good and evil. This job has also been showing him how evil humans can be, as well as how innocent this monster is. Maybe its wrong to look at it as “I’m teaching them to become more human”...?

...anyway i have a lot of ideas for this idea, lol sorry this post is so long