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Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?
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I met a ghost, but he didn't want my head,
He only wanted to know the way to Denver.
I met a devil, but he didn't want my soul,
He only wanted to borrow my bike awhile.
I met a vampire, but he didn't want my blood,
He only wanted two nickels for a dime.
I keep meeting all the right people—
It's big. It's scary. It's horrible. It is so much more powerful than you that it could kill you without thinking, or maybe just by thinking. And it has just invited you to have a nice cup of tea and a bun. Or a nice chat. For whatever reason, be it sinister and self serving or just misunderstood, the big horrible scary thingy treats you in a friendly manner.
This can lead to some troubling questions of etiquette. While traditionally one uses the fork on the far left for salad, it's frequently unclear to the mortal in this situation how this rule is modified by Alien Geometries. And what does a mind warped beyond human understanding consider tasteful dinner conversation? These problems are, of course, magnified by the fact that among Eldritch Abominations it is almost universally considered an appropriate response to breaches of etiquette to reach across the table (hypocritical as that may seem) and eat one's dining companion.
But to make things easier: they usually prefer two cubes of sugar, and a drop of virgin blood for creamer.
Similar to Pals With Jesus, but here we have the added weirdness that the creature seems scary. Compared to Enemies With Death, where the menacing cosmic figure is hostile, this is a welcome (if weird) reprieve. Related to No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine and Did Mom Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?, but here the other party seems genuinely friendly. Often used to show the Villain is Affably Evil or an Anti-Villain. May be part of an Enemy Mine. If things go beyond this, you may be in Did You Just Romance Cthulhu? territory. A distant relative of Go Karting with Bowser. If you didn't know it was that bad until after you had tea, it's ... a twisted subversion of God Was My Copilot?
However, an Eldritch Abomination is not necessarily evil. There's every chance that the creature is misunderstood and actually friendly. Even if it doesn't follow any known laws of reality, it's not a certainty that it's evil.
Sometimes happens in Lovecraft Lite.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- A somewhat eerie scene in Spirited Away in which Chihiro has a very pleasant tea and cake with the Yubaba's less evil but completley identical sister Zenibaba, as well as a No-face, which had previously been a horrible gooey monster that was eating people whole and alive at the bathhouse.
- In Shakugan no Shana, Shana's god-like master; Alastor the Flame of Heaven; contacts Yuji's mother via phone. She has no idea who he is besides Shana's "legal guardian" and a deep voice on the other line. They have a rather relaxed discussion on child-rearing techniques together; as Shana and Yuji goggle at what's going on.
- While she was created for the express purpose of bypassing the Mind Screw parts of this trope, Nagato Yuki's teatime with Kyon in The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi still qualifies.
- Shinigami, the God of Death from Soul Eater. He was never a villain, but he used to have a frightening voice and appearance. Since, he has switched to a comical one with a stylized skull mask and giant cartoon hands to avoid scaring the children at the school he started.
- This becomes slightly more appropriate, and funny, considering he really is an Eldritch Abomination personifying the 'madness of the rule of law' yet currently hangs out in his very pleasant-looking (or weird, it's like the sky..indoors, with windows) office holding the odd tea party with his Equippable Ally for company.
- In Slayers Next, Lina sits down and eats with the Big Bad as he makes an offer to her.
- And almost became good friends with the bigger one. As his kind goes, Xellos is benevolent in his own way — volunteers information when it's not against his orders (or his lulz) and even saved humans when didn't need to. He is only one notch below Dark Lords themselves in raw power, and the worst the humans get when he messes with them just for fun? A little frustration and indirect property damage. While in an encounter with lowliest Monster humans are lucky if they don't have their heads bitten off... slowly.
- In their first meeting with Father, the Big Bad of Fullmetal Alchemist, he is friendly to Ed and his friends and heals their injuries. This isn't because he's a nice guy; it's because he is so powerful that there's nothing they could do to stop him and because (as he tells them) he sees them as useful pawns for carrying out his evil plan.
- Ironically, at the exact same time, Mustang is actually having tea with Wrath, while the homunculus explains some Back Story and outlines a little of the Evil Plan. Same as Father, Wrath has no interest in killing Mustang since he is a valuable human sacrifice, and pretty much just wants to lay things out on the table so Mustang will get enough answers to placate him for the time being and will also understand just how screwed he is and presumably back off. Which of course doesn't really work.
- Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima! actually nurses (the super evil 6 million dollar bounty vampire-mage that wants to suck him bone-dry (and rule the universe or something like that) A.K.A.) Evangeline A.K. McDowell back to health after she gets the flu. In her cute little cottage full of stuffed animals while her robot maid serves tea. This is immediately after she faints while attempting to attack him. It's somewhat subverted in that she's easily powerful enough to kick his ass, but a combination of Power Limiter and the aforementioned flu keep her from actually doing it. In fact after she gets better she tells him he can go but changes her mind and decides to attack him anyway.
- She changes her mind because Negi was spying on her dreams of Negi's father, the Thousand Master, on whom Eva has a crush. Needless to say, the fact that the 10-year-old son of her crush was invading her mental privacy was NOT amusing to her.
- Negi lampshades the absurdity of the situation, saying that he came expecting to fight her and ended up caring for her instead.
- He also had tea with Fate. And then got into a fight with him over their beverages of choice. Negi, being British, prefers tea, while Fate, who according to what is likely a cover story comes from Istanbul, sticks with coffee.
- Fate is remarkably fond of this, really. During his fight with Rakan, he ended it by warping reality so that they were at a tea party. Rakan tries to punch, bam, he's suddenly holding a cuppa and wearing a formal suit. It isn't "did I just have tea with Cthulhu'', but "did Cthulhu just stop fighting and force me into a tea party"?
- This would lead to a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Hercule/Mr.Satan in Dragon Ball, when he hangs out with the world-destroying Buu long enough to convince him that being nice to people is more fun than killing them.
- Sadly, it doesn't last very long.
- Not immediately, anyway. Their friendship ends up providing enough of a distraction in the final battle for the good guys to win.
- Ronnie Sukiart from Baccano! is a nigh-omnipotent alchemist-cum-Eldritch Abomination with a true form that has freaked out even the most jaded of men. Isaac and Miria introduce him to dominoes. Serious Business ensues.
- In an episode of Gintama, an alien moves in next door that is huge, green-skinned, red-eyed, horned, fanged, and generally scary. He also sells flowers, which the gang refuses to believe. They then spend the episode trying to figure out his dastardly plan, while he tries to be neighborly. And he does literally invite them in for tea.
- Gungrave when Blood War (seriously, that's his name) has a smoke with Brandon Heat and offers him the chance to join him on 'his battlefield,' having been impressed earlier by Brandon's skills. The whole scene, with Brandon's protégé hitman being held at gunpoint by necrolised humans, (basically nigh-on invincible zombies) while Blood War attempts to be all chummy, is quite surreal.
- In the manga version of Spiral, Eyes Rutherford, at this point of the 'good guys', and Kanone, who's just spent several volumes attempting to kill almost everyone else, single-handedly sent the whole main cast to hospital in the process, twice in Eyes' case, and got out of it all without a scratch... have a merry tea party. Then again they're both Blade Children and both seem to think it's a perfectly normal thing to do.
- Angol Moa, the wielder of the planet-busting Lucifer Spear in Keroro Gunsou and the one prophesied to destroy the world, is far too kindhearted (or dippy depending on how you look at it) to actually do so.
- Notably, she is only too dippy to go ahead with it because upon landing she hit her head, giving her what is referred to in-story as Kakkarot Syndrome.
- That and she missed the deadline for the Earth smashing thanks to said landing. It helps her childhood friend Keroro also asked her not to destroy it anyway.
- Umineko No Naku Koro Ni has this happening as the story unfolds. The villains and the hero are passing time in a small tea room...while watching the brutal events surrounding the island murders unfold. This is especially the case with Beatrice, as she starts to develop friendship with Battler (most apparent in EP 3), and her demon pals show up and make the small tea room quite lively at times.
- According to Nanoha A's', the only thing that can stop a world-destroying Book of Darkness is a good ol' hug applied directly to its Anthropomorphic Personification and a new name. Though several tons of ass-kicking applied to its Enemy Without helped too.
- Hild's debut in Ah! My Goddess. She's the ruler of all demons, her appearance in the anime is given ominous music to odd to her ominous entrance, and then she goes and hugs her daughter Urd. Skuld is terrified of her while Belldandy explains to Keichi how strong Hild is, and then Hild hugs Belldandy and Skuld, and then she flirts with Keichi. Oh, she also turns out to be Hot As Hell, but that's expected. Given the true nature and appearances of beings like gods and demons, the entire series has been running with this trope from the very first chapter.
- Petshop Of Horrors takes this trope and runs with it. The protagonists: an ancient Chinese being and his menagerie of monsters and mythical beasts, and an LA cop who wants to arrest him for gruesome murders. They drink tea, eat strawberry cake, and provide Ho Yay.
- Shinji takes a bath with and has a sleepover with Cthulhu in Neon Genesis Evangelion episode 24: Knockin' On Heaven's Door. It leads to a lot of Ho Yay.
- Averted in the manga, where Shinji finds Cthulhu a little too creepy to do anything but keep at arm's length.
- Possible example in Shaman King, where Big Bad Hao has coffee with his younger brother, the main protagonist, Yoh. Although Yoh himself takes this lightly, the people around him are shocked that he can act so casually with him.
- In High School D×D, Odin decides to pay a visit to Ise's house while drinking tea and leering at Rias' and Akeno's breasts. Then later on, Opfus, known as the Infinite One also hangs out at Ise's home.
- The Banquet of Kings in Fate/zero. The war have already began, but Saber, Rider and Archer decide to drink wine together while discussing their definitions of what is a true king.
Audio Play
Comic Books
- Frequent in the works of Neil Gaiman, but especially The Sandman. The eponymous character is equally skilled at being a good host and delivering (usually undeserved) fates worse than death.
- And speaking of Death, she's the Sandman's sister in Gaiman's work, and one of the nicest, most likable people you will ever meet, even if it's not for a while.
- In The Books of Magic Death and Tim Hunter have a day at the beach talking about life in general, being friends. This while in the process of collecting one of Tim's friends whose life really had ended. Death's very nice, but she does have a job to do, after all.
- During the Justice League International period of Justice League of America, this happened to Oberon when he inadvertently ended up barging in Darkseid's inner chambers, and finding himself alone with the Dark God of Apokolips... who promptly suggested he join him for a cup and talk about good old times while he got a new change of clothes.
- In one issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, during the "Wolves At The Gate" arc, Xander and Renee go to seek Dracula's help, and have afternoon tea with him. Indeed, by this point it is hinted that almost all of Xander's relationship with Dracula is based on this.
- Heck, it was even shown that after Season 7 but before 8 Xander was brainwashed by him again and they basically were best friends (they kept each other company and Xander even taught him how to ride a motorcycle). When Buffy and two of the now activated Slayers showed up to rescue him Dracula at first wouldn't let him go but decided he belonged with his friends and they had an, to quote the wiki, "emotional farewell". After Xander left he basically acted like Spike after he lost Dru, but even more pathetic, losing his special powers and becoming a drunken loser not even wanting to kill anymore.
- In the comic Ontot Kukkulat ("Hollow Hills") by Finnish graphic novelist Petri Hiltunen (sadly untranslated to English) the climax is set when the protagonists seek to conquer back an ancient troll-fort from an Eldritch Abomination Gorai that took it over centuries ago. At the last minute they decide to try negotiating before the attack. Just then Gorai appears in all its Gigerian glory, and remarks how that pretty thought saved their lives, gives an encouraging, if bizarre monologue, and leaves the planet Earth for good.
- The Death Jr series also features Death Sr., who looks upon his work in a purely impersonal way and is happily married and with a son in his personal life.
- It should be noticed that neither Death Sr. nor D.J. are really evil or villainous, it's just that, well, they're the incarnations of death.
- Cable & Deadpool: Deadpool, Cannonball and Siryn (after some dimension hopping adventures looking for Cable) wind up on a farm in the House of M temp reality. There, evil geneticist Mr Sinister invites them to have a home-cooked roast dinner with him and his genetically engineered baby (baby Cable) at his farmhouse.
- Something of a subversion, in that the food was poisoned.
- The first issue of Sovereign Seven has Darkseid drop by for coffee, much to the shock and awe of the main characters.
- Technically, he dropped by to recover something that was stolen from him (and, possibly, the X-Men); it just ended up with him having tea.
Fan Works
- The entire premise of the Death Note fic I Won't Say. Near is mystified when pondering the fact that Kira just ruffled his hair. As is Mello when Kira makes them cocoa... Also later on in the story L invites Beyond Birthday to come join them for Christmas dinner.
- In Destiny is a Hazy Thing, Naruto has a picnic with not one but TWO EldritchAbominations. He notes that the female one is a Cuddle Bug.
- AGrowingAffection: Affably Evil demon Doraku has a polite dinner with a captured Hinata, Naruto, Sakura and Lee where he explains his powers (involves blood-sucking but he assures them his demon clan was the inspiration for vampires and there is no such thing) and asks them to tell him what's going on in the world.
- Hard Reset: Twilight Sparkle, stuck in a time loop, spends one iteration having tea and scones with Queen Chrysalis and swapping embarrassing stories about Shining Armor. Chrysalis almost convinces Twilight that she might not be so bad after all, at least until she decides to kill her by laying eggs in her brain.
- The Pony POV Series invokes this with Discord's cousin Ponythulhu, who, despite being an Eldritch Abomination is actually really polite and yet to do anything remotely evil. Dark World!Mane Cast seem pretty fond of him, or at the very least thing take pains to be polite to him, even after their Heel Face Turn.
- Shining Armor recounts he once attended a diplomatic meeting between Princess Celestia and Queen Tiamat, the five headed Kaiju-sized Mother Goddess and Queen of All Dragons, who Curbstomped the entire Hooviet Army by herself. According to Shining, the meeting consisted of the two rulers having polite conversation over tea, with Queen Tiamat's cups being bigger than some houses.
Film
Literature
- Discworld examples:
- In The Light Fantastic, Rincewind goes to the house of Death to rescue Twoflower, only to find him teaching the Horsemen of the Apocalypse how to play bridge.
- This is Death in general. His house even has a kitchen and dining room, so the rare living guests can have a nice meal, if they don't mind the weird dimensions, the monochrome-ness of the place, and Albert's cooking.
- Also used in Guards! Guards!!, when the dragon King invites the Guild leaders to a banquet to discuss policies of the new regime. Subverted in that, while the dragon doesn't harm anyone at the time, all of the food provided to the guests is extremely fattening.
- In Soul Music, Susan is playing the role of Death (to the extent that the Rite of Ashk'Ente summoned her instead of him). The wizards don't take her seriously, so she attempts a Deathly glare. Ridcully invites her to breakfast.
- Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with A Million Young
 . It does not mean to harm its victims, it just shows them pictures of its children until their brains implode or they commit suicide, whichever happens first.
- A slightly odd (read TOTALLY FREAKING WEIRD) version of this is the dinner scene at the end of the book version of Hannibal.
- A similar scene opened Red Dragon; Hannibal is having a dinner party, possibly feeding his guests people. Later his friend Will Graham shows up to ask for advice and when Hannibal steps out, he looks at a book and realizes Hannibal's the killer he's been looking for.
- In Lucius Shepard's vampire detective novel The Golden, the protagonist meets the Patriarch, father of all the vampires. He's a charming, whimsical, Byronic character, except when his disguise slips.
- In The Sword Of Truth Kahlan goes to a certain meddling witch with an intention to kill her if she so much as looks at her the wrong way. Of course, the witch offers her tea. Later she also remarks that Kahlan didn't even consider the possibility of poison in the tea.
- In The Dresden Files:
- In Summer Knight, Harry goes to meet Mother Winter and Mother Summer, entities of such power that they could destroy him with a stray thought. They act like archetypal concerned grandmas and Harry has a pleasant chat with them.
- Then there's the time Harry goes to a party run by a vampire who's just trying to find an excuse to kill him and has peaceful encounters with a lot of powerful baddies — one of which is Ferrovax, a dragon wearing legionnaire armor he's kept around from his time in Rome and who makes Harry feel like his head is gonna explode by saying just a part of his true name.
- Harry literally has tea with Odin in Changes.
- In Small Favor, Harry has a pleasant conversation with Eldest Gruff, one of Summer's enforcers, who has killed three members of the Senior Council by himself and took down a Denarian with one shot.
- Cold Days is basically this trope, the book. Harry chats with every single Queen of Faerie by the end, plus the Erlking, Odin, and Santa Claus, although it turns out Odin is Santa.
- They're not exactly having tea but circumstances in The Gathering Storm conspire to have Rand al'Thor and Ishamael have a fairly friendly chat. You know, in comparison to their other chats.
- Happens in a Lovecraft story: Randolph Carter, hero of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath", gets to have a chat with Nyarlathotep in person. Of course it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that, even though the Crawling Chaos is outwardly friendly, he hardly has Carter's best interests in mind.
- And then in "Through The Gates of the Silver Key", it's Yog-Sothoth.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Quite literally in And Another Thing......: Hillman Hunter, director of the planet Nano, when he is holding interviews with many deities to find a new god for everybody to worship. Hilarity Ensues when Hillman Hunter realizes Cthulhu is (sort-of) dead and Cthulhu curses him off when he is forced to leave; he writes on the application "NO CALLBACK".
- In Life, the Universe and Everything, Trillian and Arthur have a nice friendly chat with the pulverized, space-borne remains of Hactar, a supercomputer that wants to destroy the Universe. He even creates an image of a tea table for them, although it's just a trick of the light.
- Sethra Lavode from Steven Brust's Dragaera books has power that rivals or perhaps exceeds the gods, was around when humanity was just beginning to discover this thing called "civilization", and is the most powerful sorcerer in a world of extremely powerful sorcerers. She likes to have her friend Vlad over for a nice dinner from time to time.
- In The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Tehol Beddict's servant is an Elder God in disguise. Making this less "Did you just have tea with Cthulhu?" and more "Were you just served tea by Cthulhu?"
- The Maximum Ride books have the Krelp, enormous sea cucumber-like things the size of planes, which are actually pretty beneficial to the heroes.
- In the Infocom novel Wishbringer, our hero accidentally wanders into the lair of that bloodthirsty scourge of the Zork universe, the grue... where he has a pleasant chat with the grue in question, who even provides some helpful directions. And then later on he brings by his enemies as an afternoon snack. Who says it doesn't pay to be polite to adventurers? This is absolutely not the case in the game itself, where your best options are to provide it with a warm blanket and raid its fridge.
- Dracula. Sure, there was clearly something creepy going on, but it takes a while before Jonathan Harker actually decides he wants to leave, and the Count remains friendly around him right up until he starts attempting escape.
- As quoted above, the Shel Silverstein poem "Monsters I've Met."
- In A Study in Emerald the protagonists have a friendly meeting with Queen Victoria, who speaks perfectly good English with a slight buzzing noise, and is kind enough to heal the narrator's injury.
- In Star Trek: Gemworld, the Eldritch Abomination responsible for the Negative Space Wedgie threatening the planet Gemworld is actually responsive to diplomacy. Deanna Troi is able to negotiate a peace with it, convincing the intelligence to call off its attack.
- The climax of Geoph Essex's Lovely Assistant elicits a Did We Just Have a Chat With Cthulhu? moment that even includes a clean white tablecloth and maybe a waiter (heard but not seen). Though it's all just an abstract psychic language that Jenny and the creature use to communicate, and the creature isn't really Cthulhu at all.
- In Magic Bleeds, book 4 of the Kate Daniels series, the heroine has Erra, the Plaguebringer of Babylonian myth, in her house for tea. The myth is wrong and he is a she. And Kate knows her just a bit too well.
- Toby's friendship with the Luidaeg in the October Daye novels.
Live Action TV
Mythology
- Fairy tales from several different cultures all seem to include one myth in which a horrible baby-eating hag, Death itself, or some similar beast either adopts a foundling or takes a mentor role (such as "Death as Godfather"), and generally proves benevolent to the child.
Mythology
J.R.R. Tolkein's poem The Lonely Troll is this. The title character, rather than being a fierce predator and maurader like most trolls, is lonely and just wants to be friends. When he comes into town, everyone runs away from him, except for Perry-the-Winkle, whom he takes home to tea and then teaches him the secret of baking the best bread.
[[folder:Religion]]
- Ananta Shesha, lord of all nagas, according to the Bhagavata Purana, is a gigantic serpent with a thousand heads. So huge that it can hold all the planets in its hoods. Not only can it spew venom, but it also breathes fire. It's also one of the few beings that will remain after the destruction of the universe. While that sounds like a fearsome Eldritch Abomination, Shesha is a good deity. It prefers to sing and praise the glories of Vishnu, who sleeps on its back, rather than cause destruction with its venom and fire breath.
- Many Hindu gods have forms that look less than comfortable and still are helpful to mortals—at least, ones approaching them properly. Kali once saw a toddler lying on a wasteland she just made... picked up and began to breast-feed him. Yes, right in that form, usually depicted with some blood dripping from the tongue stuck out between fangs.
- Christianity. One good look at God kills you stone dead because no evil, no matter how small, can exist in His presence. One of the basic tenets of the religion is to have a personal, one-on-one relationship with Him, and this is the basis of prayers; it's meant to be this trope exactly. In fact, Jesus was A Form You Are Comfortable With/Heroic Sacrifice so this could happen. It's also generally agreed God's got a great sense of humor.
- Angels are said to look terrifying: vaguely humanoid creatures with four heads, hoofed feet and six wings (the classic "angel" picture was actually inspired by Valkyries). They're OK chaps that spend the first few minutes trying to calm down the mortal they appear to (they invariably introduce themselves with something on the lines of "Be Not Afraid"); when they're sent as messengers rather than guardians.
- Some of the more powerful forms of angels have to actively hide their complete form with a glamor-like ability, because seeing their true, complete form will rip the soul out of any living being and send it directly to heaven.
- Islam has more or less the exact same thing going with angels, which are, if anything, even more Eldritch than the ones described in the Bible. The second sura (chapter) of The Qur'an to be revealed (Al-Muddathir—"The Cloaked One"—Sura 74 in the modern order) starts with the words of God trying to comfort Muhammad (the aforementioned "cloaked one") upon the sight of the angel Gabriel, who was delivering the message on God's behalf. (To be a bit flippant, it basically goes, "Oh, it's just an angel, so stop cowering behind that cloak of yours and spread the Word!")
Tabletop Games
- Much of the action of the Tabletop RPG Nobilis can revolve around this. (The Player Characters, of course, also have god-like powers relative to mortals and other lesser beings.)
- "Having tea with the moon" is Fan-Speak among Nobilisers for campaigns that center on quirky social interaction.
- In GURPS, the Weirdness Magnet drawback means that your character is well... a Weirdness Magnet. This doesn't necessarily put you in danger. The horrible eldritch entities may find you to devour the incredibly rare artifact you didn't know was concealed inside you. Or they may invite you over for tea. Entertainingly, the points you gain from taking the Weirdness Magnet disadvantage is exactly enough to purchase the 'Unfazeable' Advantage, which means that your character isn't fazed by this sort of thing.
- Occasionally happens in Exalted, where many of the greatest threats to creation are bound by various treaties and/or wish to project an image of respectability for at least the time being. Nobody wants to explain why they turned down an invitation to a little soiree hosted by Eye and Seven Despairs at which Ligier will be in attendance.
- And if anyone's likely to experience this, it's the Eclipse Caste. Thanks to old pacts sealed back in the First Age, they can engage in diplomatic negotiations with gods, elementals, ghosts, demons and The Fair Folk, all under a banner of peace. This can lead to things like attending a dance party with five of Malfeas's component souls, joining the Raksha for high tea with a side of maiden's tears, or enjoying a trip to the theater with a bloodthirsty god of serial murder.
- Considering the power level Solar Exalted can bring, who is taking the role of Cthulhu?
- Can happen in Changeling The Lost; The Fair Folk may turn you into a vicious hunting dog, or they may just want you to join them for a tea party that lasts for seven centuries.
- And if you come back with the intention of kicking their teeth in? Their reaction runs the gamut from crushing you to death to welcoming you back with open arms and presents for their star pupil. Occasionally, both.
- Sometimes, they can become human enough to actually have tea with you as a person, which can make interactions with them retroactively tea with Cthulhu.
Video Games
Web Comics
- Happens in Gunnerkrigg Court with Antimony Carver (a twelve-year-old girl) and Coyote (an ancient trickster god of incredible power), who act friendly and seem to more or less treat each other as equals. Word Of God holds that one of the reasons Coyote likes Antimony is because she doesn't hesitate to shrug him off. To her ethereal sight he looks much like someone peering into a fishbowl would — if that fishbowl were our three-dimensional space... and she has no problems riding on his back or playing a prank on her teacher together.
- Prior to Coyote, Antimony was acquainted with a number of psychopomps, whom she'd follow and talk to during their visits to the hospital where she lived (to claim the patients who didn't make it). In particular, the Guide of Insects, Ketrak, is apparently quite friendly, but Kat was freaked out upon introduction (though he's supposedly a comforting sight to his intended audience).
- The Order of the Stick:
- One time instance, Elan meets up with a
Mind Flayer Illithid Psionic danger Squid Thingy and the two end up playing a friendly game of Scrabble. In this case, Elan, being The Ditz didn't have anything of interest to the creature, and so he was in no danger.
- The paladin O-Chul made friends with the Monster in the Darkness (generally suspected to be a young Eldritch Abomination). He taught it about honor, courage, and logic (via the board game Go), and the Monster traded dinners with him (being a prisoner, O-Chul was fed gruel; the Monster, a valued ally to the villains, was fed beef stew, which he happily shared in exchange for gruel). They even have a tea party together.
- This Drowtales scene. Mel is Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold / Crazy Cat Lady, not the villain, but this qualifies because she is scary and because Ariel was told she was a monstrous rapist. Mostly because she IS monstrous, but Ariel is her daughter, whose kidnapping by Mel's mother caused her to go psycho
- In Sluggy Freelance, Torg is kidnapped by an Arachnaseuse, a spider-like monster from the Dimension of Pain that ... gives him a relaxing massage.
Arachnaseuse: How do you feel now, mortal spec of meat-flesh?
Torg: Terrific! Wow, my neck can, like, turn 45 degrees more than before! That was awesome!
Arachnaseuse: Thank you, mortal spec of meat-flesh!
- There's also a whole dimension (an alternative version of the Dimension of Pain) where the demons capture you and serve you delicious food. Mind you, the weight gained from the demon food never comes off, and you'll be enslaved for eternity if you can't pay.
- Malphast's mother from PS238 has this effect on people. She's a high-ranking member of the Legions Of
Hell Chaos but is perfectly nice and friendly and very keen on helping her son's friends, though sometimes in return for a 'harmless' favour or two.
- Death And The Maiden is about Mercedes, a young woman who has a Will They or Won't They? relationship with Death.
- Hello Cthulhu.
- Death was one of Ship's old teachers in Count Your Sheep, from whose expert tutelage Ship gets much of his prodigious sedative skill. In one flashback, Death pokes fun at Ship because they've run into one another while Ship is on a coffee run.
- User Friendly: Several of the Main Cast, and with Cthulhu himself nonetheless! He still maintains his malevolence.
- The toddler-ized Rose from Torchwood Babiez ends up having a tea party with Satan. Of course, this is partially due to the fact that she doesn't seem to know it's Satan.
- Played with in 8-Bit Theater. Garland - actually a nice guy at heart - has captured the Light Warriors, with help from his supposed victim. He offers the Light Warriors cookies to make their stay in his dungeon more enjoyable, and the misconception that he's so powerful and evil he can afford to be nice scares them more than anything "evil" he could have done.
- The Shadowchild in Digger is, technically, a soul-eating demon. But it's so gosh-darned cute. It wants to be your friend!
- There also the People, cannibalistic bipedal hyenas who consider any non-hyena sentient fair-game when hunting, who turn out to mostly be very nice people once you get to know them, especially Ed, who after all does start off trying to eat Digger, and a few comics latter serves her tea. And the Statue of Ganesh: although infinitely compassionate Digger instinctively feels all gods are dangerous and best not meddled with but is eventually forced to grudgingly admit the Statue of Ganesh is a good guy. Ursula Vernon likes this trope. A lot.
- Digger's unease is probably at least somewhat assuaged by the statue's own insistence that whatever his mystical properties might be, he is not, in fact, the actual god Ganesh, and while Ganesh is probably a very nice guy himself, he can't say for sure because he's just a statue who's never met the guy.
- In Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures , here , we see a very scary creature suddenly turn all friendly, and offer cookies.
- If you've read a few comics before and after, you find out that the "scary" was all actually an act of kindness. Yes, it's that twisted.
- At the end of Disc I of Homestuck, You, the reader, have one of these with Doc Scratch. He offers you candy.
- In addition, one of these was implied to have occurred between doomed-timeline John and Typheus right before the latter killed the former.
- This and Did You Just Romance Cthulhu? are the entire point of Ow My Sanity. On one memorable occasion, Dave GM's a game of Call Of Cthulhu played by actual Lovecraftian entities.
- Most encounters with supernatural beings in Wapsi Square go like this. Monica alone has sat down for tea and cookies with a sphinx, discussed careers with one of the other two gorgons from the Medusa myth (the gorgon turned out to be Monica's biggest fan), and gone clubbing with the entities responsible for the destruction of an ancient, advanced civilization.
- The Buildingverse: The question should be phrased in Roommates as "Did We Just Go Hunting (and not as prey) With a Trickster Godnote Odin, a Fair Folk Death Avatarnote the Erlking and a Legendary King?" and the answer is thanks to the Monster Roommate sure they did, one of them even won a free wish. Or "Did Some Actual Humanoid Abomination Just Invite James to Poker?" And in its spin-offs: Girls Next Door "Did Sarah just spent Christmas with An Ice Person of Mass Destruction and Satan?", Superintendent "Did We Just Spent Christmas With a Legendary Sorceressnote Morgan?" and Only A Dream "Did Sarah just have tea with the probably most powerful Fairy King and Queennote Oberon and Titania?".
- In one Nodwick story, the party is captured by a cult let by an Eldritch Abomination who belongs to a species that are the power source for crystal balls. The creature then wants to talk to Nodwick specifically, because it feels that, being a henchman, he's the only one who'll understand its plight. (Apparently, this guy is Genre Savvy enough to realize that Nodwick is the Only Sane Man in his group, something that often tends to be true with henchmen in general in this reality.)
Web Original
Western Animation
- The Shadow Hog in Invader Zim is a god for everything porcine. It is large, creepy, and powerful... and it becomes fast friends with Gaz.
- Futurama includes example.
- Bender has a nice, intelligent discussion. With God. Or the remains of a satellite that collided with God, creating a sentient nebula. Either one is possible.
- Morbo and Lrrrr*
(Ruler of the planet Omicron Perseii VIII!) are both prime examples of this, especially Morbo's interaction with his blonde ditz co-host, Linda. "This tea is exquisite... AND I WILL DESTROY IT!!!!!!!!" "(giggle) Oh, you."
- The second movie introduces Yivo: at first this seems to be a universe-wide example of this trope, but it turns out to be Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?
- While not technically a god, on the kids' show Arthur, there was an episode where Francine got a new and terrifying neighbour who was made out to be akin to Satan. By the end of the episode, though, Francine has made friends with the new neighbour, even having a literal tea party.
- The South Park episode "Mysterion Rises" has Eric Cartman/Coon befriending the Dread Lord Cthulhu himself, with a simultaneously awesome and terrifying Totoro-esque journey.
- They also hung out with Satan's son.
- Hell, Satan even threw himself a big Halloween party.
- The Loch Ness Monster. All he wants is "tree fitty" (three dollars and fifty cents).
- In one episode of Aladdin, Al and company try to protect a city from Zemhir the Destroyer, a giant rhino-like being who comes to destroy a city every night. Genie finds Zemhir's lair, goes in... and ends up having a pleasant conversation him over tea, as he's really a nice guy whose "rampages" are caused by magic dancing shoes he's wearing.
- Avatar The Last Airbender features a friendly Lion Turtle.
- The Darkness from the Fairly OddParents "Wishology" special turns out to be a harmless Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold.
- Star Trek The Animated Series episode "Once Upon A Planet". Several characters end up roasting marshmallows with the dragon that was trying to kill them a few minutes earlier.
- In Fish Hooks, the main characters fall in a shark tanks and one of the sharks says, "I'm having you for dinner!" Cut to everyone sitting down to a nice dinner with the sharks.
- In Spongebob Squarepants the Flying Dutchman has to crash in Spongebob's house till his ghost ship gets fixed.
- In Star Wars: The Clone Wars when the Power Trio got stuck on Mortis, the Father, embodiment of the Balace of the Force had Anakin as a guest on a stormy night.
- In one episode of Adventure Time, Finn is trapped in a dream and must open his Fear Vault to escape. One of the things that comes out of the vault is the Lich, and another is his former crush, Princess Bubblegum. Bubblegum literally has coffee with the Lich, and drops hints that she's in a relationship with him.
- In a less evil example, the episode "Jake the Dog" has Jake hanging out in a hot tub with Prismo, an extradimensional entity who grants Jerkass Genie wishes, and the Cosmic Owl, who grants people prophetic dreams of their own death. He becomes good friends with the former.
Other
- Dave Barry once wrote a gag based on this. If women made computer games, instead of killing everything you saw, you could ask the bug-eyed monster where the exit is. Surprised that you don't want to kill it, the monster would take you home, serve you snacks, and start showing you pictures of its larvae.
Oh hello!
I do so love having visitors.
Tea? But of course!
By the way... you have such lovely eyes, could I keep them?
Oh, you say you need them?
All right, you can keep your eyes. I didn't realize you humans can't get them replaced.
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