nothing to see here

taking off a mask to reveal what lies beneath as a romantic gesture is overdone, and besides i want to see the romantic or even platonic potential of protecting someone's identity beneath the mask, without any expectation of ever being allowed to see what's under it. picking it up and holding it gently to their face when it's knocked off and they're in danger of being exposed, without trying to catch a glimpse of what they "really" look like under there. throwing yourself in front of them to hide them from view while they put themselves back together without taking advantage or looking back to see what you're protecting. learning to read them by body language, tone of voice, and behaviour so well that you never need to see their face to feel like you know and understand them.

and needless to say. the mask stays on during sex.

hey I totally fucked up and forgot the 3rd type, which is “Is Not Anymore And Maybe Never Was” monsters “The thing which was no longer a deer and maybe never was” implies a creature that, at first glance, completely appears to be a deer, but over time degrades very slowly until you realize (probably too late) that it is not a deer anymore, and had you seen it in this state first, you wouldn’t have recognized it as a deer at all, and there’s a decent chance that it was never actually a deer to begin with but only a very good mimic, and what makes this one scary is the slow change from everything being right to everything being wrong, happening slowly enough that you don’t even notice it until its too late, as well as the fact that something now so clearly not a deer could have fooled you to begin with.

And the fourth type, which is, “I dunno, but it sure ain’t a deer.” Which implies complete confusion about what the creature could be, to the point that even a person as comfortable in this world as someone who would use the word ain’t unironically is uncertain, which should horrify you to the deepest depths of your soul.

one that i particularly enjoyed was the ‘nonesuch’, a beast which when you see it your brain convinces you ‘nope, no way that shit is real’. on some level it becomes less real after having been seen by someone who disbelieves its existence as well

@systlin

May I propose the additional type of “that’s definitely a deer but deer are much more fucked up than previous realized”, because turning the corner on a trail and having half a dozen deer suddenly turn and look up from eating Thier companion’s remains is a special kind of spooky.

4. the character's fetish and i'm committed to portraying them with absolute accuracy

I really can’t believe we all grew up together on this goddamn bitch of a website