Follow TV Tropes

Following

Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hoodies.png
"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—
At all the wrong times."
— "Monsters I've Met", A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

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, but instead of whatever you were dreading it has just invited you to have a nice cup of tea and a bun. 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 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. 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. Contrast with Enemies with Death, where the menacing cosmic figure is hostile. Related to No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine and Villain Over for Dinner, 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, or overlap with Don't Fear the Reaper. 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? Monster Roommate is similar, but more permanent. An Adorable Abomination or Benevolent Abomination is more likely to overlap with this trope.

Compare with Wowing Cthulhu where the greater being is amazed by a lesser character. A Wowing Cthulhu moment can lead into this trope and vice versa. See also Otherworldly Communication Failure in which the supernatural entity is trying to communicate a benign or helpful message to a human, but the human often runs away in terror mistaking it for malevolent.

Sometimes happens in Lovecraft Lite. For an example of this, see Santabomination.

If this happens too often in pop culture, it can lead to The Taming of the Grue.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • 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.
  • In Death Note, upon seeing the neurotic Shinigami Sidoh, Mello offers him some chocolate. Sidoh gladly accepts it.
  • This would lead to a 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.
    • In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, Bulma's birthday party gets a couple of unexpected guests: the God of Destruction Beerus and his assistant Whis. Nobody except Vegeta is actually aware that they're gods, but they're still very friendly and polite and mingle well with the other guests...until Mr. Buu pisses off Beerus by rudely scarfing all the pudding. At that point he decides to destroy the Earth, curb-stomping the Z-Fighters and even slapping Bulma (though in his defense, she slapped him first). After things are resolved by a fight with Goku, Beerus apologizes to Bulma for his rude behavior, says that he had a good time at the party, and hopes that she'll be gracious enough to invite them to her next party. She agrees, and promises that next time she'll make sure there's more than enough pudding for everyone.
    • In Dragon Ball Super, everyone is shocked when Goku actually manages to get decent conversation and a smile out of Hit, the most powerful and imposing assassin from the 6th Universe...except for the Kaioshin, who remark that befriending people is practically Goku's superpower. Later on, he manages to befriend Zen'o, the King of Everything, the most powerful being in the entire multiverse, who once wiped six entire universes out of existence when he was in a bad mood. Of course, Goku is also the only character so far who actually tries to have tea with Cthulhu instead of approaching him with cowering respect born from absolute pants-shitting terror, which is something Zen'o is clearly sick and tired of.
  • The sukiyaki party with the Friday Fellows in The Eccentric Family has shades of this but really every and any tense conversation with Benten feels like this trope.
  • The Elder Sister-like One has this as its basic premise, considering that it's a Slice of Life where Shub-Niggurath is acting as the older sister for an orphan. "Chiyo" plays the part of the kindest and most gentle horror this side of insanity.
  • In Fairy Tail, Makarov journeyed to the Albareth Empire to open negotiations with them about Lumen Histoire hoping to forestall an invasion of Ishgar. He went there fully expecting to be treated as a prisoner or even tortured. Much to his own surprise, Emperor Spriggan arranged for him to be treated hospitably for a year while he was away from court on personal business. This and hearing about the Emperor's Reasonable Authority Figure nature convinces Makarov that maybe matters can be settled peacefully after all. These hopes are dashed when he finally sees the Emperor in person and realizes that 'Emperor Spriggan' is Zeref.
  • 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 Backstory 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.
  • 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.
  • Kirby: Right Back at Ya! outright confirms that the heroic, lovable Kirby was actually one of many monsters created by the evil Nightmare, but rebelled against his master and left to protect the universe from him. This backstory is not quite canon to the games, but the game version of Kirby is implied to have a similar background with Dark Matter as the source instead.
  • Downplayed in Laughing Salesman. Moguro is more of a Humanoid Abomination than an Eldritch Abomination, but this trope is still in effect since he's genuinely friendly (despite his intentions) and he'll often treat clients to a meal or some drinks before offering them his services. Just don't make the mistake of treating him to drinks. Chances are, he'll drink you under the table and then leave you with the bill.
  • 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.
  • In Naruto, Killer B and the Hachibi (whose real name is Gyuki) have this kind of relationship and they are Vitriolic Best Buds. Well, the Hachibi lives inside of Killer B, but they often argue about trivial things. So as Naruto and Kurama the Kyubi in later chapters.
  • Negi Springfield of Negima! Magister Negi Magi actually nurses the super evil 6 million dollar bounty vampire-mage that wants to suck him bone-dry 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. 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"?
  • 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.
  • Pet Shop 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.
  • In Shaman King, 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 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.
  • Soul Eater:
    • Shinigami, the God of Death. 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.
    • Excalibur. Everyone who meets him is too annoyed by his antics to be intimidated by the fact that they are talking to one of the most powerful creatures in existence.
  • Angol Moa, the wielder of the planet-busting Lucifer Spear in Sgt. Frog and the one prophesied to destroy the world, is far too kindhearted to actually do so.
  • In 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.
  • A somewhat eerie scene in Spirited Away in which Chihiro has a very pleasant tea and cake with the Yubaba's less evil but identical sister Zeniba, as well as a No-face, which had previously been a horrible gooey monster that was eating people whole and alive at the bathhouse.
  • Manjiro "Mikey" Sano in Tokyo Revengers is the strongest character in the series, and a sadistic Creepy Child who manages to start a massive gang of Japanese Delinquents encompassing multiple schools despite being in his early teens. He takes an interest in the meek Reluctant Warrior Takemichi, declaring him to be his "friend" and pulling him out of class to hang out (despite being from another school entirely) while beating up multiple third-year students along the way.
  • Umineko: When They Cry 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 episode 3), and her demon pals show up and make the small tea room quite lively at times.
  • In YuYu Hakusho, Yomi is a strategic mastermind in command of his own country and poised to start a war to subjugate the entire Demon World. Yusuke literally has tea with him and prevents the whole thing by proposing a tournament instead (with powerful friends backing him up, of course).

    Audio Plays 

    Comic Books 
  • In one issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, 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. It was shown that after Season 7 but before 8 Xander was brainwashed by him again and they became best friends (they kept each other company and Xander 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".
  • 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. Except the food was poisoned.
  • New Gods: Darkseid does this a lot. He's happily been mugged and took notes on it, just for the novelty. And he's always unfailing polite and cordial. Just... if he actually has plans for you, don't assume they're nice.
    • In Justice League International, 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.
    • Darkseid crashes on Mr. Miracle's armchair in front of the TV and helps himself to a glass of wine before inviting Scott to watch porn of his wife. Another time he has a nice pleasant conversation with Mary Marvel on her couch and convinces her to agreeably turn evil.
    • The first issue of Sovereign Seven has Darkseid drop by to recover something that was stolen from him, but ends up having coffee, much to the shock and awe of the main characters.
  • 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. Neither are really evil or villainous, it's just that, well, they're the incarnations of death.
  • Mia of Death Vigil is a True Primordial, an Eldritch Abomination from beyond reality that devours other Primordials. She's also has a boyfriend, plays video games, and otherwise acts like a normal girl when not in Primordial form.
  • 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.
  • Blossom enlists Mojo Jojo's help in defeating the Micro-Puffs in "Micro-Managing" (Issue #68 of The Powerpuff Girls, DC run). The two shake hands in the last panel.
  • Malphast's mother from PS238 has this effect on people. She's a high-ranking member of the Legions of 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.
  • In The Sandman (1989), the eponymous character is equally skilled at being a good host and delivering (usually undeserved) fates worse than death. Death, Sandman's sister, is 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.
  • Spider-Man once met The One Above All. They had a chat over lunch, with The One Above All offering Peter some encouragement.
  • In The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Doreen's battle with Galactus ends with her befriending him and finding him an uninhabited planet to devour, then hanging out on the moon. This friendship lasted long enough that he came back in the comic's last issue to Power Cosmic away the army of villains after Doreen's head, before they hung out on the moon one last time.
  • Depending on how friendly he's feeling at the moment, encounters with Mr. Mxyzptlk can feel like this. Even when he picks on Superman (which is most of the time), it's normally done in a spirit of fun, and it's usually clear that there's no real malice involved from either party. By contrast, fellow Fifth Dimensioner Bite-Mite is always overtly friendly. Unfortunately, he's also The Ditz, so his overtures of friendship are nearly always more trouble than they're worth.
  • The local Prime Mover in Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire may be a being of seemingly godlike power who you never, ever want to make mad at you, but he's affable enough as long as you're polite to him.
  • Black Panther: Everett Ross spends a good chunk of time of the story arc, "The Client", sitting in his living room on his couch next to Mephisto on a flaming throne of skulls.

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • The Night Unfurls: More like "Cthulhu Chats With People", which happens frequently. Kyril hides his nature as a great one under a man's skin, allowing him to interact with people with no issue. As for Kyril himself, he's more "Good Is Not Nice" than "benevolent".
    • Taken to its Logical Extreme, Kyril would eventually have tea with Celestine and Olga, who have a loose connection with the Hunter's Dream after peeking into his journal.
    • The Plain Doll makes tea for her Good Hunter as a gesture of affection, something he appreciates greatly amongst other things.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
    • The Slender Man. Yes, that one. Still eats children and screws with characters' heads, but he seems to be more of The Gadfly than anything else.
    • Zorc is considered one in this series too. Despite the fact he loves to destroy the world, he's a pretty nice guy.
  • My Little Pony: The Mentally Advanced Series:
    • In the negative version of episode 15, King in Yellow Hastar, a mysterious deity working with Thrackerzod/Sweetie Belle, helps Fluttershy host the CMC's slumber party and surprisingly, manages to get along with Fluttershy very well, with Greg even giving a little Ship Tease after the end credits.
    • The CMC also routinely hang out with Sweetie Belle/Thrackorzod, a mysterious shadow creature from the dream world, that routinely plots to have Twilight killed as part of a secret war in the dream world, has taken the form-if not is-of this series Sweetie Belle.
  • In A Different Medius, Specters are reality-warping abominations that drain the world's life-force to exist, and are generally insane beyond hope. Then there's Bebo, the only friendly Specter Buwaro and co. have met so far, who literally invites them over for tea. Of course, Bebo is Buwaro's dead biological father, so of course he'd be nice to him.
  • 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 Eldritch Abominations. He notes that the female one is a Cuddle Bug.
  • Child of the Storm:
    • The finale of the first book has Lily Potter, the White Phoenix of the Crown (the primary aspect of the Phoenix Force a.k.a. Destruction of the Endless) appear, help defeat the Big Bad... then have a perfectly pleasant chat and swing by the post battle party to catch up with her friends and spend time with her son. This makes it easy to forget that she now embodies both Destruction and Creation across the universe, is just as comfortable manifesting as a giant firebird, and a corrupted host of one small fragment of Her power managed to destroy an entire galaxy before being stopped. In the sequel, she actually has a psychic cup of tea with Hermione, one of her son's friends, who's technically her goddaughter. The latter is distinctly unnerved, because while she knows that Lily is perfectly friendly, she also knows that she could vaporise her with a stray thought.
    • On another occasion, Darcy was accidentally teleported to a weird place by Jane's malfunctioning Bifrost technology. In that place, she did shots with a "hot Goth girl named Didi." Neither Thor nor Loki has apparently bothered to tell her that said "hot Goth girl" is actually Death of the Endless, elder and more powerful sister of the above.
    • In the sequel, Maddie, Jono Starsmore, Harry Dresden, and Sir Fix (the Summer Knight), end up having a pleasant chat with the Phoenix, Dream, Death, and Delirium - about something quite serious, admittedly, but the conversation itself is perfectly pleasant (even if Dresden, who knows rather more than the others about the kind of entities they're dealing with, is decidedly nervous).
  • Thingpone is a fan character crossover between the My Little Pony universe and The Thing. This character is a Sufficiently Advanced Alien from A Galaxy Far, Far Away specializing in Organic Technology to assimilate, process, and use newly found genes to improve themselves. They have become Sufficiently Advanced to dominate and harvest the worlds of their galaxy for new biotech in a hundred million year cycle of traveling around the galaxy. After billions of years, Thing's home galaxy collided with another galaxy where a second galactic apex predator resided. The resulting war forced Thing's ancestors to send desperate seeds to other galaxies to continue in case they perished. The millions of years it took to travel to another galaxy and finally crash land in Equestria damaged Thingpone's mind and the Thing was forced to assimilate and adopt the mind of a pony that it assimilated/absorbed, becoming a kind but incredibly dangerous eldritch abomination with the ability to transform into any of the organic designs her ancestors gave her and the ones she assimilates. With an organized hivemind she has the ability to multiply and absorb all organic material on the planet from a small seed like her ancestors did. However, the pony she assimilated is the mind she adopted, causing her character to become a kindhearted, cute eldritch abomination, and refrains from ending the world with her self replicating, viral infection. However, her old predatory nature does linger, making her aggressive and intimidating with her ability to shapeshift into seemingly any organic form.
  • A Growing Affection: 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 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. And this seems to be a semi-regular occurrence.
    • In the one-shot "Setting The Record Straight", Discord's father, Havoc, visits Twilight, Luna, and Celestia in their dreams... and very politely clears up all their misconceptions about him and his family, making it clear that Discord himself is the only one who's actually outright evil. He also reveals to Celestia and Luna that their family wasn't wiped out in the war, and even takes the time to explain to Twilight where all those soapboxes keep coming from (revealing that it's not a curse, but something to be proud of). And then they play the trope to the letter, spending the rest of the dream having a tea party. Afterwards, Twilight comments on the oddity of it all.
  • Imperfect Metamorphosis has Yuuka invite/kidnap Team 9 to her house to have tea, biscuits, and a sleepover. Except for Cirno they're predictably terrified, but play along because they know being impolite is one of Yuuka's Berserk Buttons.
  • In Zero vs Kira Cecile has this reaction upon realizing that the guy In the Hood she just got a glimpse of was Kira and that he is offering his protection in exchange for her and Lloyd's obedience.
  • Stardust: To those in the XCOM Universe, Twilight Sparkle is one of these with her amazing pool of magic spells that violate every known law of physics plus having enough magical strength to destroy their base if she chose to. Despite this, Twilight is quite blatantly benign and friendly towards the humans she's found herself amongst. She happily talks to them about all things they ask her, loves children's fiction, at one point needs to be coaxed into bed like a naughty little girl, and spends one chapter playing cards with some humans — and losing quite badly, because she's a terrible liar.
  • In crossover fic The Master of Death, Harry Potter is a Humanoid Abomination whose very presence damages reality around him when he enters the Dresdenverse — while it should be noted that both of these things have to do with his circumstances rather than Harry himself (he's dead, and had to borrow an essentially unused body while passing between the dead space between universes, on an unintended and unwilling sidetrip on his way to the afterlife), no one aside from him actually knows that. He's also a nice old man, who wants to drink tea and chat about how well Harry Dresden has grown up. The inconsistent, writhing shadow, the casual use of terrifying magic that is often borderline impossible by Dresdenverse standards, and the fact that Dresden's memory of their childhood encounter consisting solely of horrific pain (which Potter actually rescued him from, but Dresden was too far out of it to really remember), and Potter chatting cheerfully ensure that Dresden and Murphy humour him.
  • The Lord of the Rings fic The Bridge Over Osgiliath has an example of this, when Aragorn is talking politely with Sauron, and while he's aware that the man he's speaking to is on the other side of the war, he only finds out at the end of their conversation exactly who he was dealing with.
    Aragorn: Excuse me. I don't mean to give offense, but how did you get mixed up in Sauron's organization?
    Sauron: I'm Sauron.
  • Comes up in Greenfire: After Greenfire returns her lost gemstones to her and remaining cordial when she intrudes upon his lair, Rarity "thanks" him by inviting herself in and forcing him into a tea party. In this case, it's Greenfire, the powerful dragon who's feared by the populace and can kill a pony like Rarity in one swipe, as the companion who remarks how odd Rarity's lack of concern is. Eventually, it starts to grow into something more.
  • In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Power Girl story Origin Story, Alex and Louise Harris have what is effectively a business meeting with Magneto over breakfast at a Bob Evans. There are several other supervillains present, but they are very polite because Alex scares the living daylights out of them.
  • In The Parselmouth of Gryffindor, there are several low-key examples, with Hermione and Co. befriending a fifty-foot killing-gazed centuries-old Basilisk, and later a Boggart (a magical shapeshifter who takes the form of whatever its victim fears the most).
  • Played straight several times, in Life Ore Death, as well as subverted by accident once, and then quickly double subverted:
    • Ferris comes off as this to the people who can detect her aura of death and destruction, such as Doctor Fate, demi-gods like Wonder Woman, and New Gods like the Forever People. Fate includes in a rant at one point the fact that "a child, so wreathed about in destruction and death, I might have mistaken her for the Witch Boy's own servant," has treated him with more dignity and respect than most of the Justice League combined. After the assassination attempt stops and the New Gods are convinced Ferris is not secretly an Apokolips agent, they repeatedly comment how weird it is for someone so tainted with Anti-Life to be as serene, well-mannered, and kind as Ferris appears.
    • Ferris also feels this way about Dr. Fate, a 20,000-year-old Lord of Order and powerful magical spirit who has devoted himself to fighting for justice and the defense of the innocent.
    • While her body is comatose at the start of season 2, Ferris sits down with a Shard of Adonasium who educates her more on magic theory.
    • The accidental aversion comes shortly after Halloween, in-universe. Ferris performs her first Earth-style magic by holding a seance to speak with a restless ghost. Death of the Endless is in the background, and she starts up a short, friendly discussion with Ferris without having introduced herself as an Anthropomorphic Personification of a cosmic force. During this discussion, Death accidentally says something wrong, and her power is implied to briefly drive Ferris insane until she quickly fixes it and apologizes.
  • White Sheep (RWBY): Salem, immortal Queen of the Grimm and eternal enemy of humanity, kidnaps Pyrrha Nikos because she heard Pyrrha was in love with Salem's son Jaune. Pyrrha spends most of the time absolutely terrified, but Salem just wants to show her baby pictures.
  • Deliberately invoked in Daily Equestria Life with Monster Girl. Part of the palace's efforts to get ponies used to Cerea's presence is through setting up meet-and-greet sessions in a highly controlled environments — in other words, asking them to come and have tea with what they see as a monster, and doing so in a position of safety.
  • The tsukumogami of Masamune-no-Kotegiri, the Armor Cutter of the Pure Smith, paid a visit to the Magical Civil Service in 1945 in Harry and the Shipgirls with the purpose of executing those who wouldn't accept Japan's surrender. In the present day, Shigeru Miyata, who was a junior paper-pusher during her first visit and is now one of the people working on a soft landing when the Statute of Secrecy collapses, saw her visit again after reading about the state of the Yokai reserves...when she visited him, they simply had an absolutely pleasant chat about what he and his daughter have been doing.
  • The Villain Wrangler builds off of this premise. The titular protagonist is a driven but ordinary man who works for the Make-a-Wish Foundation...or rather, the equivalent thereof in the DC Animated Universe. And when some of the kids he looks after want to meet supervillains for mundane reasons, the protagonist makes it happen through polite and mundane negotiation, and all of the villains (except the Joker) prove utterly affable.
  • The Nightmare Before Hogwarts: This trope and the denizens of Jack Skellington's Halloween Town go hand-in-hand: they’re scary, but not mean. Compared to the Dursleys, they provide a young Harry Potter a very healthy environment and community to grow up in.
  • In Hunters of Justice, Team RWBYJNPR find themselves in the House of Mystery to train themselves against magic-based enemies. During their trial, Pyrrha ends up having a casual conversation with Death of the Endless. She's utterly shocked and confused by the whole experience.
  • In A Thank You Gift From Madness Himself, House Stark manages to unknowingly play host to Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness.
  • Alek in Affably Evil (not to be mistaken with the trope Affably Evil) frequently encounters a strange man named Revan, who is predictably the Darth Revan, although he (not quite) denies that he's that Revan by pointing out how many other people share his name. Revan and Alek have pleasant chats, and Revan helps Alek jump through certain hoops.
  • Omakes for A Game of Cat and Cat show Vincent Brooks and Teddie as drinking buddies with Lucifer. They're arguably Cthulhus themselves, as Teddie is a sentient Shadow and this Vincent is from the ending where he becomes a demon after taking over the Netherworld, but they think that Lucifer is a normal human at first.
  • In We All Need A Hero Ryuk is a shinigami that can kill anyone by just knowing their name and is the primary cause of the conflict within Death Note. He also likes to play Mario party with Sayu when no one is home.
  • In When Reason Fails, Shoto is dumbfounded when Izuku feeds a Physical God called the Outsider of Existence his bento.
  • The Mandela Magazine: "Gabriel", N, two Intruders and Cesar's Alternate all have a party with Mark inside of his house.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Legend of the Titanic features the vaguely awesome idea of a giant octopus single-handedly (multi-tentacledly?) preventing one of the most massive ships ever designed from sinking.
  • The short animated film of the children's book Lost and Found features a boy and a penguin rowing to the South Pole. Near their goal, they are shipwrecked in a storm — or at least their boat is inverted, they are unconscious on top of it, and their luggage is floating next to them in the water. Cue horrific octopus that rises from the depths and plucks them up on its tentacles... then shakes out the boat and deposits all neatly within before pushing it on its way and waving goodbye. Given that R'lyeh is allegedly near the South Pole, this seems an appropriate fit, especially since we never see the entire octopus...
  • Pixar:
    • According to Monsters, Inc., the Abominable Snowman is actually a very welcoming host, who often wonders why he wasn't known as the 'Adorable Snowman', or the 'Agreeable Snowman'. He also happens to be very good at making (ostensibly) lemon snowcones.
    • In Finding Nemo, Bruce the "vegetarian" shark and his friends try to live by the motto "Fish are friends, not food." They invite their fishy friends to meetings dedicated to changing the negative shark image, and actually become good friends of Dory and Marlin after a while. They just have to take care that none of them smells blood …
  • In The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Humans Are Cthulhu. This in no way prevents David Hasselhoff from Adam Westing to help out SpongeBob and Patrick.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Aquaman (2018), the Karathen is a legendary giant monster whom even King Atlan himself feared. It turns out that not only is the Karathen real, but it was actually Atlan's friend rather than his enemy. Atlan used his power to speak to sea creatures to understand her — the same power Arthur possesses. Arthur befriends the Karethen in the same way, and she proves to be a valuable ally in the movie's final battle.
  • In Hercules in the Underworld, instead of killing the gigantic hellhound Cerberus, Hercules reaches out to pet him, and asks him kindly to let him pass.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • In Return to Oz, Dorothy and her companions eventually confront the Nome King, a shapeshifting earth elemental that all but doubles as the mountain that contains his Supervillain Lair. As it happens, he's also a polite and warmhearted host who provides Dorothy with a meal of limestone pie and hot molten silver — up until the conditions of his game are revealed.

    Literature 
  • The Adventures of Samurai Cat has Great K'Chu, a fish-like equivalent to Cthulhu. To the feline protagonists, the half-fish inhabitants of Outsmouth and K'Chu are less horrifying and more... tasty.
  • American Gods. Pretty much happens throughout the whole novel.
  • Ronnie Schiatto 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 the first novel of The Black Company by Glen Cook, Croaker and several of his fellows are running a covert operation to catch an important enemy wizard. Just after Croaker puts the kettle on in their hideout, they're interrupted by the Limper, a powerful (undead?) sorcerer and rival to their own patron, Soulcatcher. Croaker automatically places a cup of tea in front of the Limper, and the Limper is taken aback enough to just drink it. This is roughly equivalent to a common Gondorian soldier sharing a drink with a Nazgul. They've even shared a few meals with Soulcatcher!
  • In A Choir Of Lies, Ylfing describes a vivid lucid dream where he stands on a boat in the middle of a dark sea with a hooded boatman accompanied by a cormorant, whom he meets multiple nights in a row for a week. Mistress Chant is absolutely alarmed by this, because the figure in question perfectly matches the description of Shuggwa, a primeval god of misfortune the Chants were meant to keep people safe from.
  • Very minor example in A Clockwork Orange where the burgeoning sociopath Alex has a short and relatively friendly conversation with his corrections officer Mr. Deltoid (yes?), one of the few times in the book where he treats somebody decently, and he actually offers tea. This probably has something do with Alex's Wicked Cultured nature.
  • Discworld:
  • Two of the central themes of Dante's Paradiso are that God is both endlessly unknowable and infinitely loving. Dante learns the even most powerful of the seraphim physically cannot understand all of the Divine Mind, but Dante grows to know that everyone in Heaven, from the oath-breakers to the Virgin Mother, all find happiness beyond expression in accepting the selfless love presented by God.
  • Towards the end of City of Stairs, the first book of The Divine Cities, Shara meets and has a nice personal talk with Olvos, one of the six original Divinities.
  • 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.
  • Sethra Lavode from Steven Brust's Dragaera books has power that rivals or perhaps exceeds the gods (and reportedly turned down an offer to become one), 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.
  • 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.
    • In Skin Game, Harry takes a time out to have a glass of wine and a chat about work, family and dog ownership with Hades. Also, Hades mentions having a standing brunch date with Socrates.
  • The Banquet of Kings in Fate/Zero. The war has already begun, but Saber, Rider and Archer decide to drink wine together while discussing their definitions of what is a true king.
  • 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.
  • 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 the film (NOT the book) 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 Harry Potter Dumbledore has a nice tea and talk with Voldemort. Granted Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard in history and Voldemort right now isn't at his prime.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya is built on this, with Kyon befriending a Reality Warper who is at serious risk of re-writing the universe.
  • In High School D×D, Odin decides to pay a visit to Issei's house while drinking tea and leering at Rias' and Akeno's breasts. Then later on, Ophis, known as the Infinite One also hangs out at Issei's home. Even earlier in the series, the night before and the night after the classroom visits at the Kuoh Academy, Sirzechs Lucifer himself has dinner with Issei's parents, and stays at their house overnight.
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy:
    • 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.
  • 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.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien's poem The Lonely Troll is this. The title character, rather than being a fierce predator and marauder 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.
  • Happens in a Lovecraft story:
    • Randolph Carter, hero of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, gets to have a chat with Nyarlathotep in person. 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.
    • In "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", it's Yog-Sothoth. Who reveals that Carter has been one of his avatars the whole time.
  • 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 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 series has the Krelp, enormous sea cucumber-like things the size of planes, which are actually pretty beneficial to the heroes.
  • As quoted above, the Shel Silverstein poem "Monsters I've Met."
  • Toby's friendship with the Luidaeg in the October Daye novels.
  • In Paradise Lost, The Son of God spends the first part of the poem loving his Father, sacrificing himself for humanity's happiness, and all around being incredibly kind. That is, until the Father charges Him with ending the War in Heaven. The Son then turns into an unwatchable terror "Gloomie as Night" and gives a glare with the strength of ten thousand lightning bolt that strikes plagues into the soul of every rebellious angel. With this one second, he ravaged the demonic army more than all the angels in Heaven did in two whole days. The Devil's army is so horrified that they throw themselves into Hell rather than wait for Christ to be done with them.
    "Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd
    His Thunder in mid Volie, for he meant
    Not to destroy, but root them out of Heav'n."
  • 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.
  • Diane Duane's So You Want To Be A Wizard series, the Lone Power (who's known in western society as Satan) is known for having lovely chats with wizards, who are the antithesis of all he represents. Granted, he tends to do this through avatars, as mortal minds simply aren't able to comprehend the actual nature of the Powers That Be.
    • The same series also gives us Chao, the Transcendent Pig. Despite looking like a cute, rotund pig, he's the wisest creature in all the multiverse, and no one knows anything about him, to the point where even the Powers That Be, who created said multiverse, aren't sure who he is or where he came from. Like the Lovecraftian being Yog-Sothoth, Chao is literally everywhere and everywhen at once, and he jokes that hearing the question "You're here?" has become a common refrain for him. But despite his vast, terrifying knowledge, Chao is a friendly guy (er, pig) who prefers pleasant conversations and riddle games to cosmic destruction.
  • In Space Marine Battles, Space Marine Lysander and insanely powerful Daemon Prince Shalhadar spend most of their time together having civilized conversations, plotting together and rehearsing for a play. When they meet again, however, they go in for the kill at an instant.
  • In The Spirit Thief, when Eli breaks into the temple of the Master of the Dead Mountain — his world's Satan, basically, with the power to control and manipulate demonseeds all around the world and the ability to eat spirits — he finds the Master oddly accommodating and full of advice. Treacherous advice, as it turns out, but friendly nonetheless.
  • 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.
  • In 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.
  • Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World: In "And Who Is Joah?" Magdelene is close friends with Death herself, as Zayd learns after going into the Netherworld with her. They embrace heartily, with War, Famine and Pestilence looking on. Zayd just comments that Magdelene's got some weird friends.
  • In The Traitor Son Cycle, the heroes sometimes have a cup of tea or a pint of beer with the Wyrm of Erch, a giant, Physical God-levels powerful dragon with the ability to see the future. Thankfully, the Wyrm can assume A Form You Are Comfortable With.
  • The White Queen of The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign is an Eldritch Abomination of incomprehensible power... who is also Yandere for the main character Kyousuke. This leads to many instances of this trope: lining up to ride a Ferris wheel, having breakfast together, and going on a deliberately-stereotypical date. All the while, Kyousuke racks his brain trying to figure out how to kill her.
  • Unique has this at the end. Each of the guests there considers the others to be the Cthulhu in question. Did you just share barbecued meat with a werewolf? Did you just reminisce about old times with a vampire? Did you get some sage advice from a Magi? Are you really pulling out the old scrap book of old friends to show to the hunters to compare notes and figure out who killed who!?
  • Wax and Wayne: Deconstructed. At the end of Alloy of Law, Marasi has a nice chat with Ironeyes, who gives her a book to help her investigations. While he comes in peace, he's so terrifying that he has to deaden all her emotions to stop her from panicking, and she is intellectually aware that she shouldn't be calm when talking to Death Himself. Once he leaves, she has to take a moment to breathe note .
  • 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.
  • 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.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In Babylon 5, Kosh's mere presence on the station as a simple diplomatic representative of a legendary race of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens has this vibe to it.
  • Practically ALL of the powerful beings in Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel. Illyria doesn't seem to have mastered human etiquette (or have any desire to), but you can have a chat with her, and there was the time she played video games with Drogyn. All of Wolfram and Hart abides by politeness, but make no mistakes about their ambitions. Glorificus has quite a few non-hurty conversations with Buffy, though largely because until the end nothing Buffy did could scratch her. Even the First Evil and the evil preacher Caleb popped in just to chat in a friendly way under truce. They always let you know that the next time they came there would be blood, though.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Kronos at the end of the serial "Time Monster".
    • The encounter with the White Guardian at the opening of "The Ribos Operation". After dragging the TARDIS out of the Vortex (which, mind you, should be just about impossible), the White Guardian sits casually in a wicker chair sipping tea, while ordering the Doctor to find the different pieces of the Key to Time. Especially this trope because of the conversation that occurs after the Doctor realizes that the Guardian wants him to volunteer to do it.
      Doctor: And if I don't?
      White Guardian: Nothing.
      Doctor: Nothing? You mean nothing will happen to me?
      White Guardian: [while calmly sipping his tea] Nothing at all. Ever.
    • At the end of "Deep Breath", the 12th Doctor offers to have a drink with the Half-Faced Man in a posh restaurant suspended from a balloon made of human skin. It's actually not really clear which of the two is "Cthulhu" in this case — the Half-Faced Man is a millions-of-years-old clockwork robot that's been cannibalizing humans for spare parts, and the Doctor is the last Time Lord and making the offer because "I have the horrible feeling that I’m going to have to kill you. I thought you might appreciate a drink first. I know I would."
    • Thirteen has a nice little chat with a sentient universe who took the form of a frog. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • In the fourth season of Farscape, Crichton is introduced to Einstein, a representative of the mysterious Ancients. It's demonstrated that Einstein is capable of controlling time, manipulating wormholes, and creating strange and eldritch pocket dimensions for use as meeting grounds; as such, after being warned that Einstein may have to kill him, Crichton is a little bit surprised when Einstein uses all his godlike powers to provide a lecture on wormhole physics.
  • A fairly common occurrence in Grimm. Most wesen, when meeting Nick, immediately have an Oh, Crap! moment to which Nick usually just brushes off and continues with his day/investigation. The having tea bit comes in when Nick helps the very creatures a traditional grimm would typically murder without a second thought. Most of his wesen friends were terrified/wary of him when they first met. One example involves Juliette's college roommate Alicia fleeing her abusive husband and staying at Juliette and Nick's place. Nick is happy to help, even when he discovers that she is a Fuchsbau (a fairly benign fox-like Wesen). He reveals this to Juliette, and she tries to confront her friend with it, only for the friend to deny that she has any idea what a "Wesen" is. Finally, Juliette blurts out that Nick is a Grimm, causing her friend to immediately freak out and try to run away (imaging finding out that your college roommate's nice guy boyfriend is a boogeyman for your kind with a penchant for decapitation). On the other hand, once Juliette proves that the Wesen don't scare her, after Alicia's abusive husband, a cat-like Klaustreich, woges in front of her, and Nick scares him away (the guy wasn't afraid of Nick the Cop, but Nick the Grimm...), Alicia realizes that Nick is not your typical Grimm.
  • Lost nearly does this, back when there was enough mystery surrounding Henry Gale to make Kate's beach-side breakfast with him scary enough to be an example of this. And in the sixth season, you have to assume that our heroes have had at least one casual meal with the Smoke Monster during their journey with him. In fact, even if they haven't had tea with the guy, they seem to forget what exactly he could turn into at any given moment and still strike up normal conversations with him as if he actually is John Locke.
  • In Reaper the Devil tends to pop in and out to Sam whenever there's an escaped soul, or want to talk to Sam. Presumably, this is because Sam is his favorite child.
  • Stargate SG-1: Does it count as this if an ascended being is taking your lunch order?
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • Really the crew could ask themselves this after half of their adventures with Q. Eventually, Picard is more annoyed than stressed when he invariably runs into Q again.
    • In "I Borg", the crew of the Enterprise begin to grow attached to a wounded Borg they've brought aboard to heal, even calling him 'Hugh'. Guinan is not amused: "You named the Borg?"
  • The Star Trek: Voyager episode "In the Flesh" features Chakotay infiltrating a copy of Earth's Starfleet which turns out to be Species 8472 planning an invasion. Not only do they turn out to be reasonably friendly once convinced that the Federation doesn't threaten them, but Chakotay actually goes on a date with one of them.
  • Supernatural:
    • Death has a knack for doing this (mostly with Dean), since he has a love for fast food. (Because that stuff will kill you, one assumes.) However it is NOT a comedy bit, as Death is friendly (or rather, not actively malevolent) primarily because he's so far beyond anything else in the series that he genuinely doesn't worry about anything. He's not even more than mildly perturbed regarding the death-defying shenanigans of the protagonists, assuring them cheerfully that eventually they won't come back.
    • The lighter version is pretty common in the series as well. Crowley at one point literally has dinner with a group of mortals in the course of bargaining away all of their souls, and the Alpha vampire and head Leviathan are both fond of a bit of a friendly chat with opponents occasionally. Generally more on the played-for-laughs end of the spectrum.
  • Ultraseven: The invader, Alien Metron, during his debut episode, actually invites Dan Moroboshi (Ultraseven's human form) to have a cup of coffee with him when Dan managed to track down Metron's lair. Both of them — an alien and an ultra in human form — actually have a rather lengthy conversation between them, before their chit-chat quickly leads to their penultimate battle.

    Mythology & Religion 
  • The Bible:
    • 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.
    • Angels are said to look terrifying: flaming, brightly glowing humanoid creatures sometimes with four heads, hooved feet, six wings or even stranger features (the classic "angel" picture is mostly accurate but only applies to some angels with a lot of them being weirder). They're OK chaps that spend the first few minutes trying to calm down the mortal they appear to (they often introduce themselves with something on the lines of "Fear not").
  • Classical Mythology: When Thetis finds Poseidon relaxing in The Achilleid, a school of sea monsters are by his side saluting him and peacefully swimming along a bunch of dolphins and a choir of tritons. Thetis doesn't so much as bat an eye at this and the horrible monsters of the deep cause her no trouble as she politely chats with Poseidon.
  • In "Godfather Death", a poor man meets Death and gains him as a godfather for his child. Death attends the baptism and later teaches his godson everything he needs to know to become a great physician. Only when the godson double-crosses Death repeatedly and against Death's earnest warnings to do so, Death becomes angry and takes his godson's life.
  • Ananta Shesha (sometimes called Aadi Shesha), lord of all nagas, according to the Hindu Mythology's 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.
  • 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!")
  • In some versions, the Grim Reaper, aka Death, fits this trope as Death does its job and is not exactly evil.

    Music 
  • The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing: The obstinate vacationers in "Margate Fhtagn" initially respond to R'lyeh surfacing off the coast of Margate with a Stiff Upper Lip, but eventually decide it's for the best:
    The next time I see that deity I'll shake him by the tentacle!
    I'll call him my friend, I'll thank him again, and buy the old bugger a pint!
  • Thomas Rhett's song "Beer With Jesus" is about this.
  • As is "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek" by the Go-Go's (no, not those ones).

    Podcasts 
  • In The Adventure Zone: Balance, John plays chess with Merle several times throughout The Stolen Century. Their conversations can get heavy and serious, and John often kills Merle by the end of a parlay session, but for a lot of their time together they just chat and pick one another's brains.
  • In episode 20 of Malevolent, John and Arthur encounter and entity who calls himself Kayne, who previously massacred an entire city of people and played with their corpses. Despite his blood stained hands and feet, their meeting is fairly pleasant, with Kayne even saying that he likes them and watching their story unfold. It is implied that Kayne is an entity even more powerful and dangerous than the King in Yellow.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Call of Cthulhu, despite screaming insanity or death being the most common result and the signature of the game, it is possible for this to happen. Not all of the mythos entities are actively hostile, especially The Old Gods. Some are mostly neutral (e.g., Bast) or even helpful towards humanity (e.g. Nodens).
  • 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. 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.
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • In the climax of the Eldritch Moon story in Magic: The Gathering, Emrakul invades Jace's mind and traps him in a nightmarish hallucination while Jace tries to protect his comrades. He is forced to navigate a maze of memories while watching his allies become physically corrupted and reduced to gibbering husks of their former selves. Then Emrakul appears to him directly in the form of the god/angel Emeria. She politely asks to play a nice game of chess. Jace muses on whether to offer her tea.
  • 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.
  • This occurs at the resolution in the tale of Old Man Henderson, the only person to win Call of Cthulhu. While both Henderson and Elder God Hastur lie dying as result of the former's brilliant plan to kill the latter, Henderson lights up a blunt and offers it to Hastur. Hastur accepts. The two spend the last minute of their lives having a friendly conversation reflecting on the bittersweet ironies that led to their deaths.
  • The Immortal God-Emperor of Mankind in Warhammer 40,000 got up to this a lot back before he was stuck on life support. He still occasionally grants an audience to a select few individuals who have shown compassion and strength in adversity.
    • The most powerful Archon of the Dark Eldar, Asdrubael Vect, an ancient Eldar who has lived many thousands of lives, once ordered a newly caught human slave up into his private chambers for tea. Confused as to why he kingpin of one of the most ancient races in the galaxy would want to have tea with a simple human, Vect explained that he wanted to tell the story of the Fall of the Eldar Empire, and everyone else had already heard the story. After getting close to the end, he send the slave away, so that he wouldn't know how the story ends, but not before informing the slave that the tea causes grave stomach pains in humans, and that he might want to stay close to a toilet for the next five hours.

    Theatre 
  • Identity V's Hastur — while this may or may not apply in the source material (in which a character disappears leaving a room soaked in blood, and the King in Yellow may or may not be the culprit), in the stage plays, he's benevolent, somewhere between a mentor and All-Powerful Bystander, listening to the feature characters' concerns and giving them advice, but not getting in the way of their character development. Sometimes, he'll even sing songs to help everyone relax.

    Video Games 
  • Baldur's Gate III has Withers, an immensely powerful undead necromancer who acts as a Mysterious Protector to the party after they unearth him from an ancient tomb, tagging along with them on their adventure and resurrecting them if they die. It's very heavily implied that he's secretly the previous God of the Dead Jergal, seeking to punish the Dead Three for misusing the powers he gave them.
  • Bloodborne: The lore hints at a rather terrifying deconstruction: many people from Byrgenwerth, the Healing Church and The School of Mensis have attempted communication with the Great Ones. Most of these attempts were successful and even amicable; said humans requested either to ascend to Their status themselves or at least to gain Insight into the cosmos. The Great Ones obliged, with unfortunate results. Not that that this was enough to make their still-mobile-and-lucid supplicants consider stopping...
  • Halfway through Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Kain meets Vorador, a vampire many thousands of years old and credited with being the very first of the "human" vampires, creating the Soul Reaver, killing his way through most of the Circle of Nine and kicking Malek the Paladin's ass. He promptly invites Kain to dinner, and over goblets of freshly-drained blood, tells one of his many war stories; he even gives Kain a magic ring to summon him should the need arise.
  • Any of the Capcom based Marvel crossover fighters where Shuma-Gorath can be played, act as a teammate or NPC helper automatically becomes a mix of this and Go-Karting with Bowser. Especially in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, where you can have his enemy, Doctor Strange, on the same team.
  • In Control:
  • Destiny 2: The Unveiling lore book introduced in the Shadowkeep expansion is a series of missives to the Guardian from the Darkness, a Sentient Cosmic Force that seeks to bring about a universe where things like 'compassion' and 'peace' have been stamped out and all life wars against all other life for the privilege to continue living, and which nearly rendered humanity extinct in the not too distant past. It's talking because it wants the Guardian to join it, and does so using simple rhetoric, parables, and thought experiments, all communicated in a disarmingly frank and casual tone wholly at odds with an Ancient Evil that revels in the destruction of cultures and extermination of species. Notably, this isn't new — back in Destiny it had a similarly amiable chat with its servant Oryx, in which it encouraged him to relax, reaffirmed his belief in their mission, and then attempted to kill him (in a friendly sort of way).
  • Played for laughs in Dragon Age II — "Mark of the Assassin". Isabela claims to see Flemeth, the immortal shapeshifter with almost godlike powers, at the Hanged Man. Apparently, she threatens to turn people into toads and eat their babies if they beat her at cards.
    Aveline: You're...joking.
    Isabela: Perhaps.
  • Your Dwarf Fortress sometimes receives visiting diplomats or leaders from neighboring human lands. In some cases, the human lands are ruled by a demon posing as the avatar of the humans' deity, who is nonetheless precisely as amiable as any other human diplomat would be. Unless it gets upset by something and starts spitting poison or fire. On the down side, such diplomats often have the "building destroyer" tag, which means they will casually and automatically smash furniture and doors when they get near them. Can make it difficult for them to visit the mayor in their office as it needs to be constantly reconstructed.
  • In The Elder Scrolls, this occurs anytime a mortal interacts with one of the Daedric Princes. Amusingly, this becomes a literal example in Sheogorath's Daedric Quest for Skyrim, where he actually is encountered sitting around a table having tea with Pelagius The Mad. Also the Skyrim quest with Sanguine the Daedric Prince of dark indulgences It starts off with you both having a drink. Then the two of you have an (Offscreen) night on the town doing drunken pranks, during which he promised to take you to a place where "Wine flows like water".
  • In Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, Laguna fights the Cloud of Darkness, and the cutscene after the battle has her suddenly back off when Laguna takes a moment to admire her "appearance". What follows is a civil and normal conversation where Laguna explains his reasons for fighting for Cosmos, and the Cloud of Darkness tells him where the Manikins are coming from because she's interested in how someone with his attitude towards the war will handle the information. She's an Eldritch Abomination Omnicidal Maniac, but she and Laguna actually get along fine once they take a minute to stop fighting.
  • Emet-Selch in Final Fantasy XIV is the Big Bad of the Shadowbringers expansion, being part of the cult of powerful, immortal dark sorcerers known as the Ascians. In spite of this, he's rather Affably Evil and takes an interest in the protagonists, hanging around them and offering friendly advice despite their direct opposition to him since they're not really in a position to stop him.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The Heartless are bloodthirsty creatures of id that want to consume the hearts of everything...and the White Mushrooms just want to play charades.
    • How willing members of the villainous Organization XIII are to chat with the protagonist, clever banter and light-hearted taunting included! Well, at least until Sora hits their Berserk Button.
  • The auto-name of the Squamous Gibberer familiar from Kingdom of Loathing always starts with Cth-, the familiar specific equipment are lozenges that increase the mucus in your throat in order to help with evil muttering, and it makes chat messages show up that basically say it is an evil elder god of some sort, but that doesn't stop it from healing you, protecting you from enemy attacks, and giving you extra adventures after using it (chances to do stuff basically).
  • Kirby:
    • The titular adorable, heroic pink puffball Kirby is implied to be much more powerful than he lets on. He's the only one who can stand up to many of the evil abominations that threaten Dream Land. Kirby: Squeak Squad shows that the inside of his body is a Stomach of Holding where he converts the things he swallows into bubbles to be used later. Kirby Star Allies implies that Kirby is just a good incarnation of Void Termina, the God of Destruction who is also implied to be the Monster Progenitor of the evil Dark Matter.
    • Gooey is a piece of the evil, monstrous Dark Matter who formed his own sentience and chose to help Kirby and friends fight the rest of Dark Matter.
  • The Thing Below from Loot Rascals is described as a "Tentacled Pandimensional Godbeast" who wants to conquer our dimension using the Liquid Anything inside the "Big Barry" terraformer to create an army; however, when you die, it takes you to its dimension via opening a tiny portal in your nostril and using its tentacles to pull you in and brings you back to life since you fighting the planets monsters helps protect the Big Barry. All the while it seems to be spending its time chatting with Barry's Cranial Processing Unit.
  • Mass Effect has anytime Shepard has a conversation with one of the Reapers, which also leads to Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?.
    • The entire plot of Leviathan revolves around this. Further complicated by Cthulhu in this case going through great lengths to avoid having tea with anyone and making them appear both impressed and infuriated by Shepard's dogged persistence in tracking them down.
    • Shepard's interaction with the Rachni Queen also qualifies.
    • If Shepard manages to recruit both the Rachni and the Geth in the third game, the personnel working on the Crucible send a few emails detailing their initial freakout when they showed up, asking for maybe a little heads up the next time Shepard decides to recruit Cthulhu?!
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon X and Y have a feature that lets you pet your Pokémon, feed them treats, and play games with them. One of these Pokemon is Yveltal, the Pokémon personification of death. It likes it when you scratch its neck ruff. Others include: Giratina (the setting's Satanic Archetype), Darkrai (a Pokémon that traps anything that comes close to it within endless nightmares), Arceus (the Pokémon stand-in for God) not to mention there are several Pokémon that steal souls or drag people to hell.
    • It only got worse with each passing generation. In Sun and Moon, you could play with very normal things such as an unclearly-sentient glass parasite (Nihilego), a pile of sentient cables taking humanoid poses (Xurkitree), a germaphobe roach that is too afraid to touch anything in your world (Pheromosa), and a thing belonging to the same group as the aforementioned aliens that's in constant pain (Necrozma). In Sword and Shield, you can't play with a specific team member, but all of them at once, which may include an ancient evil from space that's responsible for the Dynamax phenomenon. With what? A Poké Toy. Which, may we remind you, is literally just a feather attached to a stick like a cat toy. One must think something like this happens every time you set up camp:
      Eternatus: PUNY MORTAL! RELEASE ME AT ONCE! I MUST REGAIN MY DYNAMA-
      Trainer: [holds out toy]
  • The hero becomes bizarre friends with the Baba Yaga in Quest for Glory IV. Provided he brings her taste of food (bones, monster goo, etc) each visit; she'll tolerate him in her hut and even chat. Even her talking skull guard on her gate is weirded out. He has to BRING FOOD; though, or she'll eat him. The skull, in this case, is totally justified in being weirded out, because to say Baba Yaga is not a nice person severely underestimates her capacity for ill will. In some versions of the traditional fable "Vasilisa the Brave", every last one of Baba Yaga's minions lets Vasilisa go free during her escape attempt, because she showed each one a gesture of kindness as she left, which was baffling and refreshing to beings that had previously only known Baba Yaga's cruelty.
    • The Quest for Glory example is even more bizarre by the fact that she was the Big Bad in the first game, and you utterly defeated her, humiliated her, broke her curse on the land, with her swearing revenge on you.
    • This portrayal of Baba Yaga is older than you might think, though: there's a fair share of folk tales where she's an ally to the hero, especially when Koshei the Deathless — who, unlike Baba, is never portrayed with any redeeming qualities — is the Big Bad.
  • In Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse Episode 4, Doctor Norrington turns out to be a highly depowered aspect of Yog-Soggoth. He's a little snippy towards the main characters, but is mostly a mellow, amiable creature who just wants to return to his home dimension.
  • The Secret World, which often features the player unexpectedly blundering into eldritch and disturbing entities that turn out to be friendly questgivers.
    • London's Darkside Market is filled with unearthly beings peacefully doing business with humans, including Blajini, Fauns, and Vampires. There's even a ghoul running a taco stand!
    • Visiting Egypt gives players a chance to meet with Säid, an ancient Egyptian mummy now operating as a modern businessman. Not only is he the only mummy in the game that isn't out to kill you, but in the intro to his first mission, he allows you a minute to get a good look under his hat and take in his horribly desiccated appearance... before taking a picture of you with his phone!
    • In the Transylvanian village of Harbaburesti, players can find the stag-headed and decidedly eldritch Forest God getting drunk at the local tavern and writing romantic poetry about the barmaid.
    • Not too far away, the ancient vampire Hasdatean has sought sanctuary at the local church, and spends his days exchanging witticisms with the priest. For added fun, said priest also has to occasionally admonish him for putting his feet on the pews.
    • Dragon-allied players are told throughout the game that they are not to speak to the Child, and are to receive their orders only through intermediaries. However, in the aftermath of "Mainframe," players suddenly find themselves unexpectedly alone in the temple with the Child, who beckons the players over and shakes their hand. Small wonder that the temple staff end up bowing to players as they depart.
    • The mission to Tokyo brings players face to face with Inbeda, a monstrous Oni mercenary with a reputation for killing everyone from mob bosses to emperors as far back as the Edo period. For good measure, he was banished from Hell. And when you meet him... he's lounging around a bathhouse, dressed in a tiger-print bathrobe and fluffy slippers. On top of casually mentioning his love of Reality TV and CSI: Miami at various points throughout his mission intros, he also spends his first meeting trying to sweet-talk players into getting naked and going for a swim.
    • After their many encounters with the Filth throughout the game, players are very surprised when it suddenly develops a voice in Tokyo and starts trying to chat with them. It calls itself John. It's... weirdly friendly. It's later revealed that he's actually a cultist suicide-bomber who managed to transcend physical existence through exposure to the Filth-bomb, and is now serving as the voice of the Dreamers. Also, he appears to be having regular online chats with Harumi.
  • Shin Megami Tensei:
  • Orz from Star Control II. Funny, friendly note , chatty, rather warlike and a bit creepy note  Eldritch Abomination note . You are help Orz with *parties* .
    Orz: Perhaps after the biggest *party* you will understanding the Orz and I can showing you other *levels*.
    • Note that the Orz, if their Berserk Button isn't pushed, are the easiest allies to recruit.
  • Amongst Touhou Project fans, "tea parties" are a euphemism for Defeat Means Friendship, as the actual Gods and millennium-old monsters of unstoppable power (who just happen to be cute girls) all eventually wind up joining the party at Reimu's shrine that occurs in at least one ending of any given game. Said "tea at the shrine" endings have been confirmed as the canonical outcome to every game save Touhou Suimusou ~ Immaterial and Missing Power, and even then, the resident Cutethulhu decides to settle down and move in with the heroine. And even THEN, the game's story was about preventing said parties (which now included 80% of the EOSD and PCB cast (!)) from getting out of hand.
  • Undertale is built around the concept of befriending things you'd normally destroy in a standard RPG, so this naturally crops up.
    • King Asgore even mentions that he'd like to offer you tea before your climactic battle. Especially notable when you face Asriel Dreemurr with 6 Human Souls and every Monster's soul. He is so immensely powerful that even your Determination becomes unreliable in his presence. He is, for all intents and purposes, a God (of Hyperdeath, to be more precise). And then you hug him. Inverted with Sans the Skeleton.
    • Also inverted because Undertale is a world where Humans Are Cthulhu, meaning that You, the player and the Player Character Frisk are the actual "Eldritch Abomination" the monsters are having tea with, as long as you are nice to them and help with their problems. It's only if you go ahead and kill absolutely everyone that the "Cthulhu" part becomes evident...
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: Wait a minute, did you just get in a cab with motherfucking Caine? Yes. Yes, you did. The dialogue if you're playing a Malkavian confirms it.
  • Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening: The Outer Evocations, in contrast to their Inner counterparts, are more inclined to have friendly conversations with human characters. The four of them introduce themselves to the four human party members, implore them to not be afraid of their appearances, and psychically bond with them so they can help fight the murderous Inners. Zlonyth, a Middle Evocation who is an acquaintance, also watches over the heroes and explains the history of the Evocations that led to the current situation. However, these are still powerful eldritch beings who see themselves as far above humans- the ending heavily implying that all except Farudon and Zlonyth were using the humans for their own hidden agenda.

    Web Animation 
  • Half Full: Occurs in the first episode, after the Grim Reaper visits Susan. Billy casually invites him in to play Twister.
  • An example from Homestar Runner: The Horrible Painting "likes to entertain."
  • Leo and Satan where Satan, a house-sized red horned dragon occasionally drops by from hell to hang out with Leo, a preteen boy with a trapdoor to hell in his bedroom.
  • Retarded Animal Babies features Satan as a recurring character. In his first appearance, Donkey brought him to Show and Tell along with three potaters and a bucket full of pelicans. Satan brought a snowglobe.
  • In Shrapnel, all things considered, Juka, the resident Eldritch Abomination of Serafima, seems genuinely nice if people aren’t threatening her or her friends. Characters who aren’t familiar with her that end up having (relatively) pleasant interactions are often at a bit of a loss for words, clearly relieved they are alive, but also wondering what the hell just happened. When Conan thanks her for giving him a book on flowers after asking if she has any, he sounds more confused than anything.
  • Spooky Month: In the second episode "The Stars", Skid and Pump come across a gigantic Eldritch Abomination underneath a spooky house, who calls itself "The Eyes of the Universe". They proceed to show it the joys of Spooky Month (including their signature Spooky Dance), befriending it almost immediately.

    Webcomics 
  • The Buildingverse: The question should be phrased in Roommates as "Did We Just Go Hunting (and not as prey) With a Trickster Godnote , a Fair Folk Death Avatarnote  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 ?" and Only A Dream "Did Sarah just have tea with the probably most powerful Fairy King and Queennote ?".
  • 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.
  • All of the Old Gods were changed when they invaded our reality in Cthulhu Slippers, but Cthulhu in particular seems kind of... nice.
  • In Cucumber Quest, Nightmare Knight's and Princess Parfait's interactions are friendlier than Nightmare Knight would like, even with Princess Parfait declaring him her friend. These interactions extend to Peridot (in a Vitriolic Best Buds kind of way).
  • Death and the Maiden is about Mercedes, a young woman who has a Will They or Won't They? relationship with Death.
  • The Shadowchild in Digger is, technically, a soul-eating demon. But it's so gosh-darned cute. It wants to be your friend!
    • 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. 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.
      • Which is an interesting way to phrase it, since the statue has been known to channel Ganesh from time to time. Including one instance where he tries to bless Murai and Digger's journey, and Digger cuts him off because she doesn't have time for the formalities. Murai's reaction is priceless.
  • Drowtales:
  • In the Felarya manga (warning: virtually every page contains nudity), Crisis, the giant man-eating naga (top half woman, bottom half snake), will occasionally befriend a human. Veeeeerrrrrry occasionally, though. 99.9% of the time, she'll just eat you.
  • In El Goonish Shive Edward Verres is in contact with a strange turtle-like being, after it cheerfully announced they were going to be friends, who has useful but not always specific knowledge of the future, and who refuses to give its name, because then it could be summoned. When he mentions all this to two actual gryphons, they completely freak out that he casually chats to a godlike being from their mythology.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court:
    • Antimony Carver (a twelve-year-old girl) and Coyote (an ancient trickster god of incredible power), 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).
    • Ayilu invokes this by amping up her Master of Illusion powers to trap Jeanne, the ancient undead god-killing Humanoid Abomination driven by centuries of The Power of Hate, inside a Lotus-Eater Machine illusion of a pleasant walk in the park.
  • Hello Cthulhu. For those who don't read the comic, the premise is about cute Eldritch Abomination force Cthulhu having a tea party.
  • After Terezi accidentally scratches Disk 2 of Homestuck, you, the reader, take it to Doc Scratch for repairs. He offers you candy, and narrates the comic for a while. He's a very good host, you see.
    • Doc Scratch asks Rose to think of him fondly, like visiting a beloved uncle who offers her candy. She's... kind of disturbed, actually, which is impressive given it's Rose.
    • One of these was implied to have occurred between doomed-timeline John and Typheus right before the latter killed the former.
      • Jade and Davesprite confirm that Denizens will speak with players who sequence-break to them. This is how Jade bargained for Echidna's quills (and advice on breeding frogs), and how Davesprite got Caeldfwlch from Hephaestus (twice; he had to take it back to Hephaestus for repairs).
    • The Noble Circle of Horrorterrors appear to be this, as they communicate with Derse dreamers to offer advice and guidance on the game, and they don't appear to bother anyone travelling through the Furthest Ring, where they reside. Though the jury is still out on whether they're truly as benign as they've been presenting themselves. Some have theorized they're only being helpful because Lord English is killing them, giving them and the heroes a common foe.
  • Housepets!: The divine dragon Bahamut, who is the closest thing the comic has to God, is shown teaching a cooking class in one comic.
  • Played with in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!'s "The Island And the Idol" story arc. It turns out that Coney the Island was trying to be friendly, in his way. He was mostly just so many millenia out of practice that he really didn't know how.
  • 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 realizes that Nodwick is the Only Sane Man in his group, something that often tends to be true with henchmen in general in this reality.)
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • One time instance, Elan meets up with a 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. Unfortunately, when his friends come to rescue him, the monster has no hesitation in trying to eat them...
    • 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.
    • Retrospectively, Durkon having tea with Minister Malack comes across as this thanks to the later reveal that Malack is a vampire. The reveal makes what originally seemed to be a friendly meeting come across on second read as a Dracula Shout-Out. For extra points, the "bloodwart" tea that Malack served was not a tea made from the (misspelled) plant bloodwort (probably a good thing, all things considered, since real bloodwort is poisonous). Rather, it was a tea made from blood and warts.
  • This and Did You Just Romance Cthulhu? are the entire point of Ow, my sanity. On one memorable occasion, Dave GMs a game of Call of Cthulhu played by actual Lovecraftian entities.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • User Friendly: Several of the Main Cast, and with Cthulhu himself nonetheless! He still maintains his malevolence.
  • 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.

    Web Original 

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • Adventure Time:
  • In one episode of Aladdin: The Series, 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 with 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:
  • This is basically the premise of the animated version of Beetlejuice. The title character is a prank-loving poltergeist who has been dead for hundreds of years. He has weird powers which let him drive everyone around him absolutely crazy, and could probably unleash hell if he so chose. His best friend? A living Perky Goth teenage girl with a fondness for the bizarre.
  • The Cuphead Show!: In "Sweater Luck Next Time", while Mugman runs off to find the sweater, Cuphead has a friendly chat with the Devil while waiting in line resulting in the two of them becoming chummy. Of course, this all goes out the window once the Devil realizes Cuphead isn't wearing the sweater.
  • The Darkness from The Fairly OddParents! "Wishology" special turns out to be a harmless Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold.
  • 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.
  • Futurama:
    • 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. My good chum.
    • 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?.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy follows a similar theme to ''Beetlejuice," except that Grim's friendship with Billy and Mandy was not his idea to start with.
  • 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.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Discord is a phenomenally powerful God of Chaos and one of the worst threats the characters have ever faced. In the Season Three episode "Keep Calm And Flutter On", Discord is released to be reformed and befriended by Fluttershy, living in her house and having a dinner party with the ponies who imprisoned him. However, Fluttershy is only doing it because Princess Celestia herself requested it, and Discord is only playing along until he can find a way out. until the reformation works. In the Season 4 Finale it is revealed that he and Fluttershy continue to have tea visits and picnics on a weekly basis. By the end of season 6, endangering Fluttershy is his Berserk Button.
    • One episode in Season Five ends in Pinkie Pie dancing with a magic-resistant Blob Monster.
  • The Powerpuff Girls usually fight the giant monsters that try to wreck Townsville, but as seen in the episode "Major Competition," they're friends with at least one of them.
  • A Robot Chicken Star Wars sketch showed a deal that Lando made with the Empire: dinner with Darth Vader and Boba Fett.
  • H.P. Lovecraft himself has coffee with Cthulhu in The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XXIV" couch sequence.
  • South Park:
    • The episode "Mysterion Rises" has Eric Cartman/Coon befriending the Dread Lord Cthulhu himself, with a simultaneously awesome and terrifying Totoro-esque journey.
    • The boys have hung out with Satan's son, while Satan himself threw a big Halloween party.
  • In SpongeBob SquarePants the Flying Dutchman has to crash in SpongeBob's house till his ghost ship gets fixed.
  • In the 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 Star Wars: The Clone Wars when the Power Trio got stuck on Mortis, the Father, embodiment of the Balance of the Force had Anakin as a guest on a stormy night.
  • Teen Titans Go!: The archdemon Trigon that shows up on a lot of Teen Titans entries in the Cthulhu tropes? Shows up for Thanksgiving dinner.
  • The Year Without a Santa Claus: After being denied help by the cackling anthropomorphic Embodiment of Cold, and threatened by the furious and vengeful Embodiment of Heat, our heroes are left with no options but to beg an audience of the Mightiest of Them All, the Personification of the Natural Forces of the Very Universe, Mother Nature. And She gives them all a nice little snack.

    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.
  • As for etiquette, an old proverb says 'When you sup with the Devil, use a long spoon.'—-he is no respector of persons, but evidently has a soft spot for table manners.
  • WWII: George Lane gets captured during a recon raid. He expects to be executed, following Hitler's orders to kill all captured commandos. He instead has tea with Field Marshal Rommel and gets sent to prison. (From which he later escapes to go drink a lot of good French wine.)
  • There's a story circulating around that was spawned by the writing prompt "While putting your favorite condiment on a sandwich, you accidentally make a magical occult symbol and summon a demon." The hapless summoner simply makes the demon a sandwich too, and he gets a desired promotion the next day. Demons still pop in for lunch every so often after that.
  • Another prompt starts with "An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him." The fill quickly got out of control. Bring a handkerchief for the ending. There's also an extended ending.


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.

Oh, and don't stare at the teacups for too long.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Alternative Title(s): Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu

Top

A race with Gamera

While taking a mini-submarine out for a ride, two boy scouts come across the kaiju-sized Gamera, who challenges them to a playful race.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (12 votes)

Example of:

Main / FriendToAllChildren

Media sources:

Report