Thinking about how certain villains don’t express disgust in a normal-person way.
They seldom ever go “ew” or “gross” or even “for god’s sake.”
Instead, most have one very specific, idiosyncratic verbal tic that functions as the thesis statement for their whole shtick. It’s the single-word signifier that telegraphs not only revulsion, but their whole villainous aesthetic.
“Unacceptable,” says the fastidious Lawful Evil villain, for whom the universe is a collection of loose ends that must be tied.
“Tch,” spits the anime-adjacent rogue with a tragic backstory, as if the mere existence of morals is a personal imposition.
"Improper," sneers the aristocratic tyrant, whose entire worldview is built on inherited systems of conduct.
“Inefficient,” clicks the corporate-dystopia baddie, for whom all humanity is a drag on productivity.
Each one is a one-word autobiography. Each one tells you exactly what drives them, and what, to them, is the ultimate sin.
And that’s the secret sauce. A good villain isn’t just evil; they’re a slave to a very specific, often warped, philosophical principle. They have a non-negotiable aesthetic. They aren’t so much breaking rules as they are enforcing their own with terrifying consistency. Their disgust is the compass that points to their obsession.
And you, the hero, aren’t just Stopping Them from doing a Bad Thing. You are, by your very existence, a walking, talking, Unacceptable/Tch/improper/Inefficient affront to everything they believe in.
Mordiger, to me, is spiritually a “Tfu” man.
This owes largely to Raptoraem being a port city that doubles as a multilingual crossroads. It has a history of occupation bureaucracy, immigrant household cadences, gutter slang rubbing shoulders with formal state language, and a spicy dash of old continental contempt.
All of which gives Mordiger a lot to spit at.
“Tfu.”
Short, sharp, clicky. A little expulsion of air, the kind you make when you see an inkblot on fresh parchment.
Mordiger:
Looking at the Synod's latest hypocrisy: “tfu.”
Vira purrs something outrageous and he’s pretending not to enjoy it: “tfu~”
Watching someone misuse an expensive weapon or waste good whiskey: “tfu.”
Seeing a man talk to Stryx like she’s a child: “....tfuuu.”
Mordiger is a creature of intense, almost aesthetic disgust. He hates artifice. He hates wasted effort. He hates incompetence masquerading as ceremony.
He has also seen far too much of all the above to waste grammar on it. Why waste a full sentence on a fraud? A single, wet little particle of multigenerational revulsion will do.
Ironically, he doesn’t even know he does it.
It’s a tell. A crack in the steel of his composure. And it’s the only crack he allows.
(Stryx, meanwhile, has an entire lexicography of his 'tfu's recorded. She knows the micro-grades between a standard tfu, a disappointed tfu, an amused tfu, and the dreaded, drawn-out, prelude-to-violence Tfffffuuuuuu.)
(Also the special Tfu~ he reserves only for her, which basically means ‘I find you preposterous but also I am helplessly fond of you. Against my will’.)
Tfu<3
