Spoilers from MonsterVerse installments will be unmarked
Adorkable: Viv and San are both squarely in this trope due to their respective capacities for being very sweet and heartbreakingly psychologically vulnerable. On the dork side, there's Vivienne being what could be described as a fossil/nature-enthusiastic geek, and San being inquisitive and also socially inept to human customs.
Was Jonah reprimanding Guard B-04 for cruelly taunting Vivienne a Pet the Dog moment where he deemed the act of cruelty unnecessary, or was it solely him keeping his mercs in line, or a bit of both?
In San's memories of encountering the ancient Bone Singer, when the past San is joining his brothers in insisting there's no hope for the Bone Singer and he's asking questions about the possibility the Bone Singer is wrong, is this the pre-Vivienne San just trying to indulge his sadistic pleasure by being a rhetorical Hope Crusher like his brothers are, or is he genuinely questioning the Bone Singer's statements out of curious inquiry whilst repeating the beliefs that his eons as part of Ghidorah have made him regard as fact? Considering San's pre-Character Development personality, San-2/Youngest Brother's characterization, and the way King of the Monsters originally characterized San; maybe it's a bit of both?
Does Ni/Elder Brother genuinely have a narcissistic lust to rape Monster X and indulge in Vivienne's resulting rage, or is he just taking advantage of torture methods that will psychologically agonize and traumatize humans, which he and his brothers have learned from the Many's Hive Mind? What we do know is Ghidorah intends to use Vivienne as a Baby Factory for monsters, and it wants to break her down until she's just another Ax-Crazy piece of the Golden Demise.
Was Sergeant Travis' suicide a Dying as Yourself, or purely something his advanced Sanity Slippage forced him to without much agency of his own?
Tejada aiding the torch-and-bury operation after being apprehended. How much is she doing it voluntarily out of the goodness of her heart and how much is she pragmatically gaining leverage for a plea deal and/or commuted sentence for her crimes? Likewise with Mariko's cooperation with Monarch.
Note how Madison expressing disgust at how the late Emma did nothing after Jonah threatened to have Madison's throat slit comes directly after Madison chided the fact Emma didn't grieve putting hundreds of civilians in danger when she awakened Rodan. Is it Emma not retaliating over Jonah's threat that Madison is pissed off at, or is it Emma's Moral Myopia in sacrificing hundreds of innocent families for her plan while thinking her own daughter's life mattered more than billions of others that enrages Madison?
Esfir is evidently aware of the Zmeyevich's not-quite-human nature when tending her baby bump, and she bemoans the death of her three "husbands". Is this behaviour due to her child having a kind of Demonic Possession effect on her psychically, or is it indicative that she's fallen into a kind of proxy Stockholm Syndrome?
Did Ichi and Ni mean it when they told a vengeful Thor that he was not worth killing themselves after he failed to stand against Ghidorah with the rest of his kind, or were they just saying that to get under his skin given that they're Ichi and Ni? This is occurring after Ichi and Ni have picked up the concept of lying, which explicitly was formerly alien to Ghidorah's heads. Notably; Ichi, who Word of God notes is happy to use exact words to mislead, never denies that he'll hurt Thor anyway but just rhetorically and mockingly asks why they should bother with him. On the other hand, Ni, who Word of God notes much prefers brutal honesty and has none of Ichi's interest in deception, straight up tells Thor "YOU'RE NOT EVEN WORTH MOUNTING" and "WE'VE NOT THE TIME NOR INTEREST TO PLAY WITH YOU".
As described here; an alternative reading of Ni/Elder Brother needling Ichi/Eldest Brother in this snippet over Ichi's reasons for hating Vivienne so discriminately is that Ni is bitter at Ichi for failing to save the three brothers from the Makers all those eons ago.
Angel/Devil Shipping: One of the milder cases of this trope in that the devil in this equation is an Anti-Hero; but as described under One True Threesome, multiple readers and the author herself have found themselves shipping Monster X (half of whom is Vivienne) with Rodan.
Captain Obvious Reveal: The author made it no secret on her Tumblr that Mandazawa would be a character in this story nor the general nature of his link with Serizawa; even confirming his egg's location before Chapter 12's publication.
Guard B-04's sadistic death by Monster X's hands, though difficult to catch if you're not looking out for his name, is quite satisfying after his previous cowardly cruelty towards Vivienne.
After Alan Jonah's Karma Houdini at the end of King of the Monsters for all the crimes he committed during the movie, and after the suffering he puts Viv and San through in this story's first act; seeing him undergoing a slow Sanity Slippage in Chapter 6 and also seeing Viv and San get one over on him verbally can be rather gratifying.
A purely psychological/verbal rather than physical example; but for those who hated Mark in his movie appearances and/or who thought his sympathetic qualities did not justify his jerkassery, it can feel like a breath of fresh air to watch Mariko shut down Mark's tirade with an absolutely scathing but accurate "Reason You Suck" Speech. It can also on the same line be satisfying to see that Mark is now paying for his past behavior due to Once Done, Never Forgotten among Monarch.
On the same line as the above, it's very satisfying for everyone who despised Emma Russell in King of the Monsters and who were unimpressed by the filmmakers' attempts to make her sympathetic or noble despite everything she's done; when her own daughter and ex-husband give her posthumous Take That, Scrappy! treatment in Chapter 12 and acknowledge her as anything but a role model.
After what MaNi/Elder Brother did to Monster X in Chapter 16, Monster X delivering a slow and merciless beatdown and possible Rasputinian Death on him is immensely satisfying. But watching MaNi'sbig ego shatter and his formerly nigh-impenetrable mania collapsing into panic and despair when Monster X is doing to MaNi just what MaNi tried to do to San is by far the crux of the catharsis.
After everything that San's Hate Sink brothers did with zero remorse and the utmost sadistic glee, their especially long Rasputinian Death over the Final Battle and Ichi's little Villainous Breakdown at the very end feel good; with one reader even posting a crab dance gif to celebrate the catharsis.
See here for Abraxas: The Clash of Silver examples.
The author intended San to have shades of this. It's up to readers whether he comes off as creepy, cute, or a bit of both.
Ghidorah, with its decidedly Lovecraftian psychic influence, also makes this trope.
Creepy Cute: San was already this in the movie, and it continues as this story expands more on his character. Reviewers have variously responded, finding him creepy (particularly before his Heel Realization) and/or adorable. He's quite Adorkable, especially with Vivienne, but if you push his Berserk Button too far, then he'll show you that he used to be one of the Devil's heads.
Cry for the Devil: Pun intended, with Ghidorah being a Satanic Archetype and the implied source of humans' lore about Satan. Ghidorah is already presented by the story as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds by Backstory as of Chapter 10, but the further details that the author revealed here about Ghidorah's origin which were only vaguely relayed to characters in the story, are definitely enough to induce this effect. San's two brothers are unquestionably an utterly evil monster of nigh-bottomless malevolence, but what's that that the Tragic Villain trope page says about the villain being as sympathetic as their victims?
Ensemble Dark Horse: Mandazawa was popular before he was even introduced In-Universe. Probably had something to do with his tie to Serizawa.
One fan-given nickname for Monster X, which the author herself used in the Chapter 9 author notes, is Grahamdorah. Another popular nickname, analogously based on one of Ghidorah's Red Barons, is the Two Who Are One.
Though it isn't used In-Universe, San's alternate movie-canon name Kevin is used by the author and some reviewers at times.
Speaking of San, the Alternate Selfwho's been regenerated alongside Ichi and Ni as Ghidorah re-forms From a Single Cell has earned the nickname San-2 since reviewer SyfyGuy2 first used it, to distinguish him from Vivienne's brother.
The infant Manda has earned the nickname Baby Noodle.
Genius Bonus: The more intricate the reader's knowledge of the MonsterVerse's comics, novelizations and other supplementary materials, the more Easter Eggs they're likely to find peppered through the story.
The fic does this for Serizawa's Heroic Sacrifice in the movie and lampshades it. It's suggested in Chapter 11 that he was motivated not just by the necessity of reviving Godzilla, but also partly by the hope he'd be with Vivienne again in death. But she was actually being slowly brought back to life the entire time, so his death by self-sacrifice instead cut off their chances of ever seeing each-other again in the same life.
After Chapter 13 revealed more about how Monster X's Healing Factor works, a reader jokingly suggested on the author's Tumblr that Viv and San can detach their heads at will and use them for games. A month afterwards, Chapter 16 came out and suddenly that idea doesn't seem so funny anymore...
Hell, the MonsterVerse's entire Running Gag of San losing his head is a lot less funny in light of what happens to Monster X in Chapter 16.
This fic portrayed a pair of human-Titan Platonic Life-Partners being in a life-threatening situation at the climax, where the Titan almost dies in front of the human (transhuman in Vivienne's case), who can only watch; about a year before the MonsterVerse canon did so with Kong and Jia, then Annie and Dog.
Overlapping with Heartwarming in Hindsight, Vivienne Graham's personal story in this fic ended up baring similarities to that of Keiko Miura-Randa in the 2023 MonsterVerse TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: she's declared dead for a significant length of time after seemingly being killed by a hostile Titan, and she survives due to science-fiction circumstances that were more fantastical than anything anyone In-Universe expected but she's cut off from civilization for months. Like how Vivienne only discovers months after it happened that the most important man in her life has died during her absence, so Keiko discovers that one of the two most important men in her life has died during her absence, and the other one dies within hours of her reuniting with him.
The widespread headcanon on the author's Tumblr blog that Tiamat in AbraxasVerse was the mate of Godzilla's missing brother who never completely got over losing him to Gigan, though not officially canonized in the AbraxasVerse as of yet, became more morbid after Godzilla in canon killed Tiamat in brutal fashion in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The author has since confirmed in an ask that the AbraxasVerse Tiamat is Spared by the Adaptation.
Though it's not (just yet) been officially canonized in the AbraxasVerse, the widespread fan-take on AbraxasVerse Spacegodzilla and his situation on the author's Tumblr blog ended up being quite a dead ringer for Shimo's own situation in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire a few years later: a powerful and once-noble Titan who's been tragically captured, enslaved and tortured by a malevolent intelligence since ancient times, and is still being Forced into Evil in the present day despite their inherently benevolent personality.
In the main fic, a Big Bad tries to force a mellower and wholly-sentient Titan to bear their Child by Rape deep inside the Hollow Earth. Three years later, the Skar King in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has succeeded where the Abraxas character failed, based on the harem of terrified female Great Apes that surround his throne, tending to baby Apes with reddish-orange colors much like the Skar King's own.
The fic's portrayal of Ren Serizawa having a distant and strained relationship with his father due to Ishirō being deeply in love with and more committed to his Monarch- and Godzilla-related work, ended up being right on the money to Ren's portrayal in Godzilla vs. Kong and its novelization when they released, although it still isn't half as bad in this fic as the canon version.
In a slightly twisted way, San's reaction to watching Ghidorah's middle head eat Vivienne in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)note San's head is leaning in close and chirping softly while Ichi eats her. In the film, it looks like San is merely being Obsessed with Food and futilely asking for scraps from his brother, before he turns his attention to making pickings out of the other humans; but in this fic's context, it seems on a rewatch of the film as if the pre-Character Development San is pleased that his favorite human is now with him and his chirps are him murmuring soothingly to her.
A bittersweet case, but Vivienne Graham's Monarch Sciences bio states she always wanted a life of adventure since the museum incident in her childhood. Losing her humanity by being transformed into part of a chimera Titan, she certainly has that now.
This fic portrayed a human (well, transhuman here) and a Titan character having a direct, explicit, emotional and lifelong bond to each-other over a year before the MonsterVerse first started portraying this phenomenon from Godzilla vs. Kong onward, with Kong and Jia and then with Annie and Dog (Kong's more distant protection of the Iwis and temporary protectiveness of Weaver in Kong: Skull Island (2017) notwithstanding).
Overlapping with Harsher in Hindsight, Vivienne Graham's personal story in this fic ended up baring similarities to that of Keiko Muira-Randa in the 2023 MonsterVerse TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: she's declared dead for a significant length of time after seemingly being killed by a hostile Titan, but she survives due to science-fiction circumstances that were more fantastical than anything anyone In-Universe expected, albeit cut off from the civilized world before she makes it back to their attention; leading to a Big Damn Reunion with her loved ones.
Ho Yay: Anyone who ships Ghidorah and Rodan based on King of the Monsters will likely enjoy reading San and Rodan's mutual displays of animosity towards each-other in this fic which can be easily interpreted as having the potential to veer into Belligerent Sexual Tension.
Jerkass Woobie: Pre-Heel Realization San in the early chapters is nearly this, but the real winner who earns this form of Woobie is San-2/Youngest Brother. He remains aligned with his brothers' evil deeds and exhibits no remorse over them, he isn't above cruelly teasing Monster X (although he individually never takes it half as far as his brothers do), and his affection for Vivienne is described as being more like that for a favorite toy than for a fellow living creature. That being said, he is literally San as the latter was before his Character Development, down to San's pre-fusion Woobie points (see below), San's genuine I Just Want to Be Loved, and the potential for a Heel–Face Turn if he became separated from Ghidorah and experienced the right moulding — and what's worse, because Vivienne already has San-2's doppelganger as her brother, San-2 can never experience the same emotional belonging with her that the main San has. It becomes all the more tragic when San-2 pulls a Redemption Equals Death during the climax by helping the heroes kill Ghidorah.
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Alan Jonah is a calm Smug Snake who basically orchestrates experiments that would probably make Josef Mengele look forward to seeing him in Hell, and he previously caused millions of deaths around the world with his actions before the fic's start; Ghidorah is 2/3 a SociopathicOmnicidal Maniac which has literally wiped entire worlds clean of life before coming to Earth to do the same to us, nevermind its plans to break down and torture Vivienne horrendously; and MaNi/Elder Brother is a part-Ghidorah, part-Many monster whose lack of wits and gleeful propensity for inflicting only the most heinous forms of Cold-Blooded Torture on Viv and San arguably makes him the single biggest Hate Sink in the entire story. But all three of these antagonists, even MaNi; even if they all have a bit of Hate Sink to them, their personalities and MaNi's design at least make them memorable, unlike... Who was he again? Oh yeah, Guard B-04, who is accurately described by Vivienne as nothing more than a juvenile thug — compared to the above three monsters, his only onscreen crimes amount to viciously and crudely heckling Vivienne for his own amusement whilst she's in no position to fight back, and mocking a little girl's grief at her Honorary Aunt's death. Basically, he's that dickless prick who everyone in Real Life probably encountered at some point in high school. As such, it's difficult to feel much sympathy for B-04 when San finally puts a permanent end to the former's cruel antics.
Love to Hate: San's two brothers (especially Ichi/Eldest Brother, the middle head) remain just as sociopathic and monstrously cruel here as the Golden Demise has ever been, but this fic also delves more into the three heads' independent personalities and abusive codependent relationships with each-other, and it provides a Freudian Excuse expansion of Ghidorah's backstory, giving Ghidorah a lot of new character depth. It probably also makes Ichi and Ni interesting and rewatchable (re-readable) villains that they display distinct personalities and speech patterns with their Animal Talk translated, including in Ichi's case a sophisticated sense of Faux Affably Evil. This is in addition to Ghidorah exhibiting Eldritch Abomination levels of Evil Is Cool throughout the story, including a Brown Note effect, Master of Your Domain and the creation of the Many. At the same time, reading Ichi and Ni relentlessly and horrifically pull out any stops to try and push Vivienne down a Start of Darkness, even if that means murdering their own Youngest Brother's 'shed skin' without remorse, and also reading their plot to torment as many of their foes as possible with the deaths or worse of their loved ones before putting said foes in the ground, makes us root against Ichi and Ni and look forward to their downfall.
If Jonah doesn't cross it by using Viv and San as guinea pigs for testing ammunition due to their Healing Factor, then he definitely crosses it when it's revealed in Chapter 6 that he's been using the mercenaries' refugee labor as unwilling test-subjects for experiments with Ghidorah's DNA which have essentially turned them into zombies. In-Universe, Vivienne certainly feels that the latter is Jonah's absolute MEH.
With San's brothers Ichi and Ni, it's definitely not a case of if but when they cross it. It's revealed in Chapter 8 that Ghidorah destroyed numerous inhabited alien worlds before arriving on Earth (this could be considered an MEH for Ichi/Eldest Brother as the trio's leader). It's later revealed that not only are San's regenerating brothers aware of the Many but they're actively exploiting the walking, spreading Fate Worse than Death for their own purposes. Probably the latest possible crossing is when Ghidorah gleefully allows MaNi to inflict Cold-Blooded Torture on Viv and San.
The absolute latest possible MEH crossing for MaNi/Elder Brother is just one chapter after he was introduced as an autonomous creature; when he mercilessly and ferociously tortures Vivienne while using Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil psychology, and he attempts to murder San in front of her in the same way that Ichi originally killed her.
Ghidorah pre-mortem and post-resurrection has a ton of subtext in this category towards Vivienne, as described under Does This Remind You of Anything? on the main page. What really makes it worse is when Ghidorah intends to forcibly use Monster X as a monster-spawning Baby Factory just to make Vivienne scream. That Ghidorah's heads all consider the transformed Vivienne their sister and their daughter while doing this, and that a "shed skin" version of Ichi and Ni's born and raised brother San is the other half of Monster X's body, only adds to the horror.
MaNi/Elder Brother is a straight-up Eldritch Abomination, Hate Sink pervo-rapist toward Monster X, and multiple readers found him impaling Monster X with his claw in an extremely rape-reminiscent manner so lifelike that the author actually had to specify MaNi was committing a strictly metaphorical act rather than a literal sexual rape in that instance. MaNi even treats the idea of having Monster X all to himself like a twisted elopement.
One True Threesome: The author herself seems to have this. She's given both Godzilla/Mothra and Godzilla/Vivienne Ship Tease in the story and on her Tumblr in regard to it (it's implied Titans are no stranger to open relationships or polyamory), in addition to the more prominent Rodan/Monster X Ship Tease. Both threesome-pairings respectively are showing quite a bit of traction if the number of AbraxasVerse-related Asks on the author's Tumblr referring to them is any indication.
Unexpected Character: The Skullcrawlers showing up was quite a surprise to a few readers.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Emma Russell briefly in Chapter 12; not in terms of how vile her methodology for trying to save the world was, but in terms of her inaction against Jonah after the latter threatened to have Madison's throat slit, which Madison brings up in the present in Chapter 12. Emma standing by and doing nothing is made out by Madison and Mark to be Emma endangering Madison via inaction, but anyone who's read the scene from the King of the Monsters novelization to which Madison is referring will know that Emma was doing nothing because Jonah made it clear to them that that was the only way she could prevent his men delivering on that threat.
Vivienne of course, with the Trauma Conga Line she endures onward from the point where she gets Eaten Alive by Ghidorah (see her character folder for details). And as a cherry on the cake; before that, she did have some Survivor Guilt over the deaths of people whom she felt responsible for or personally knew that were caused by Titans and Jonah's mercs.
San too. Interestingly, even before his Heel Realization, he fails to quite qualify as a Jerkass Woobie; since he genuinely doesn't understand why his actions make his new sister (who he's genuinely protective and nurturing towards) so upset, and literally everyone he kills inbetween the fic's beginning and his Heel Realization was not only an Asshole Victim but he only attacked them after they provoked him. (Although San-2/Youngest Brother's behavior demonstrates that San very much had the potential to be a Jerkass Woobie if the right circumstances had arisen before his Character Development began.) Anyway, San and his brothers already share a Cry for the Devil origin story, and suffice to say that San didn't get treated well by his sociopathic brothers, especially since he was practically the Token Good Teammate of them; being utterly starved of affection and abused by Ichi and Ni whenever he got curious, for billions of years. Then when San gets separated from his brothers and he fuses with a new, non-cruel sibling in the form of Vivienne, she at first is reluctant to trust let alone be affectionate with him to his dismay, and he shares in most if not all of her Trauma Conga Line over the story. It doesn't stop for San after the fic's ending either: one of the first and closest mother figures he's had in his eons-long life dies just months after he started getting to know her, and the fact that he's unused to feeling grief after having been part of Ghidorah for eons until recently only makes the loss even harder for him.
Susan Graham. The apparent death of Vivienne — her only daughter, and seemingly the only living family she had left after her husband's death over forty years ago — left her with little purpose to what short time she has left to live except to spend most days every day thinking of the daughter she lost and the husband who died before that. And when Monarch attempts to make Susan aware of Vivienne's true fate and that she's alive, suffice to say it goes very wrong. Then, when Susan finally manages to reconcile both what her daughter has become and Vivienne's new brother, Viv and San get kidnapped by MaNi/Elder Brother right in front of Susan, causing a heart attack with hospitalizes her.
Word of God reveals that the Queen MUTO (Barb) is melancholic and depressed, because she's currently the only one of her kind, and she knows she can't ever risk siring MUTO children without endangering the world and drawing Godzilla's wrath – it's to a point where human Titan-observers have noticed the signs of depression in how she behaves in the wild. She also implicitly gets some flack from other Titans for being a member of the MUTO species whom are described as parasites. All this because she had the misfortune of being born into a very dangerous species.
Woobie Species: The Skullcrawlers. Their entire purpose during the story is to run afoul of a monstrosity so bad that it sends even them fleeing in the opposite direction (not that that does them much good), and they spend the rest of the story as victims of said monstrosity's nightmarish Fate Worse than Death enslaved to the Many's will. Not to mention getting round up and used as cannon fodder by Project Talos.
; an alternative reading of Ni/Elder Brother needling Ichi/Eldest Brother in this