Written by author pseudonym Cytotoxin and published on
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, the story features the tale of one Alyssa Gilespie who was a modern era post-soviet Russian woman that got her soul transferred into the villain of otome game she just played in another world, but what's her
New Life in Another World Bonus? Why, she's inhabiting the body of an eldritch horror known as a shoggoth, posing as a human woman. The first arc involves trying to avoid the many "bad ends" of the original game her new identity hails from, and it only gets weirder from there. In no small part due to Alyssa being
Genre Savvy and trying to avoid the usual pitfalls of isekai adventures in her usual blunt manner.
Provides examples of:
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Alyssa usually maintains the shape of young human female, though it is prone to slippage whenever she is angry or heavily distracted.
- Angrish: The phrase "Arglbargl" means Alyssa is annoyed enough to eat someone`s head. Or frustrated that she can not resolve the current issue just by eating someone`s head.
- Apocalypse How: Class 0. The main Dwarf population center was erased by a massive volcanic eruption, and since then they have been drifting across the other countries and repopulate.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: What people think and believe greatly affects the conditions of this new world.
- The reason magic requires having flowers is because people believe it does. Alternatives are tentatively known but widely considered to be poor options until Alyssa popularizes flower embroidery as a more flexible stand-in.
- Character assassination, as a concept, is literal. Malicious Slander and identity theft are Serious Business because when rumors about someone circulate, that person could, without their will or knowledge, change to match the rumors. So when an arrogant scam artist starts passing herself off as Alyssa and tricks the merchant guild clerk into altering the records of ownership regarding the newly opened pastry shop, the fact that the real Alyssa decides on indentured service in a brothel as a punishment is treated as exceptionally lenient.
- Commonly Misused Words: Per
Word of God, Alyssa was a psychopath in her first life. Most people tend to construe this as "psychotic" as opposed to "clinically deficient in sympathy". - Deliberate Values Dissonance: The story takes place in a medieval setting, which causes Alyssa quite a bit of confusion, coming from the modern world with vastly different sensibilities, even if she's not an eldritch beast trying to fake being human, and that's just from the countries Champagne and Kraut. When she has to deal with the Arabic Fantasy Counterpart Culture known as the Sultanate, she has to deal with pre-islamic Arabia, and that's full-scale Culture Clash.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Literally. While Alyssa does try to warn people off first, she IS an Eldritch Abomination and will not think twice about ending inconvenient lives if they are not willing to listen to reason.
- God Is Good: The cabal of gods ruling over Alyssa's new world is very hands-on and keeps itself abreast of her innovations, taking them into account and keeping in contact (helping her through her Wizard's Nightmare so she creates Cy and sending a letter confiming she's on the right path, the first such confirmed letter anyone receives from the gods, ever).
- Lampshade Hanging: Alyssa is a troper, and she will name-drop many tropes she comes across.
- One-Man Industrial Revolution: Invoked. The gods of this new world pulled Alyssa's soul from Earth and put it in a shoggoth to kick start as much of a technology uplift as possible.
- Our Dragons Are Different: In-story dragons are evolutionary dead-end - apex predators with alcali-based body chemistry. Fire breath is explained as a cloud of lye particles mixed with tear mist.
- Rape as Backstory: Alyssa has issues with rape. They are connected to an unpleasant experience in first life involving rape attempt resulting in bad scar on the forearm and police being really insistent that "self-defense" should be considered "excessive force" instead.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Alyssa will outright murder any rapists she discovers with extreme prejudice.
- Reference Overdosed: While the locals are completely oblivious, reincarnators like Alyssa pick up on the references the gods have put into the population from local media from Earth. Alyssa is from the Gillespie family, as in the Silent Hill films, her arranged marriage fiancé at the start of the story is Edward Cullen from The Twilight Saga, a story arc involves a delusional nutbar who thinks he's in The Familiar of Zero universe because he comes across a Loise de Versailles, Alyssa's visit to the elven country is full of headaches because of a conflict between the Capulets and Montagues, as in Romeo and Juliet, and when Klaus tries to do scrying on Alyssa to find out why his plans keep backfiring, he keeps getting gadgets from various games Alyssa Prime loved to play, including the cookie from Cookie Clicker, which he innocently eats and that just causes all sorts of problems for him. Alyssa lampshades the issue in several rants in-story, pointing out that often enough the expectations connected to reference do not pan out well. More darkly, the madman who developed the ghoul infection is named as Albrecht Wesker.
- Rich Language, Poor Language: Taken to the illogical extreme - Champagne nobles speak English, while commoners use French.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Sultanate still practices slavery and is universally loathed as a nation, but they are too powerful for anyone to challenge them on it until their crown prince picks a fight with Alyssa, and their sultan makes it worse by trying to force Alyssa into marriage as a face-saving measure. Klaus also gets in on that by trying to slap slavery collars on Alyssa and Bridgit as a way to control them and claim credit for certain technological advancements. It ends in Klaus getting messily decapitated and subsequent delivery of his head and collar remains to Kraut kronprinz Hiram along with a sternly worded warning to keep their spymaster on a tighter leash.
- The Hashshashin: Alamut, Hashishins and Old Man On The Mountain all present. At least until Alyssa gets to them.
- Touched by Vorlons: Whenever the gods place too many blessings on a mortal, or a mortal stumbles upon too much "otherworld" knowledge, or simply gazes into the Void Between the Worlds too much, this is what happens, and is usually referred to as "defilement" by the locals. As long as the mortal in question manages to avoid becoming a catatonic gibbering, self-mutilating wreck and can still function in society, this is usually a good thing, as they tend to be stronger, smarter, and more powerful, but it's normally treated with a lot of caution due to the possibility of PERMANENT INSANITY!
- Walking Spoiler: Helpful hint, readers who don't want spoilers shouldn't read the comments. Cytotoxin uses spoiler tabs, but they answer reader questions with content not published yet.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Barring certain highly specific exclusions, Alyssa`s true form causes immediate and dire sanity damage in witnesses.
