Preds That Look At Prey With A Mixture Of Hunger And Adoration While Fantasising About Devouring Them

Preds that look at prey with a mixture of hunger and adoration while fantasising about devouring them is my favourite thing especially if it’s dangerous but the look in their eyes is still completely smitten. They want to devour you for good but when they look at you like that with such unrestrained hungry warmth some part of you realises you don’t mind as long as it’s them.

Bastion has two modes when it comes to Ida, one is the unabashed lovesick predator mode, where the mask falls off and it’s obvious this is a being who is hunger and very little else. A being that wants nothing more than to devour the one he loves and let his stomach show her how much she is adored. But there’s also that part of him that tries to get the most out of the fact the rules of the Manor restrict how much of him can be shown. The part of him that regrets that he can’t actually be human and is ashamed he can’t be truly good or healthy for the one he loves. They’re the same person, Bastion definitely wants to devour Ida. But he’s still acutely aware that she deserves better. Ida disagrees, not because she has self-esteem issues (though she does) but because as predatory and inhuman as Bastion is, she loves him and feels safe emotionally with him. And for someone who’s never felt any sort of safe, emotional safety feels like it’s enough. I’m not saying she’s right about that. Their relationship is not meant to be objectively healthy, but it is meant to be sincere.

I like to imagine that if someone else other than him tries to endanger Ida. Bastion becomes incandescent with rage. The thing is he’s not normally an angry person, or really that sadistic either, ghoulish and predatory sure, he enjoys hunting and eating. Gets excited at the thought of sinking his fangs into something, enjoys the whole process of devouring people etc and sure people can get really distressed and hurt when he’s hunting them, but it’s not really the goal for him so much as the inevitable consequences of a creepy spider monster being hungry and trying to eat you. He’s not a deliberate tormentor unless torment will get you in his jaws and once you’re his he generally doesn’t try to drag things out unnecessarily. But if someone went after Ida? That would be a different story. He would be very pissed and honestly quite scary. I think he’d have that calm rage that isn’t actually remotely calm but appears that way on the surface. Intellectually he’d probably have some inkling that he was being cruel beyond what was usual for him and that maybe torturing someone who’s already going to be his prey is just pouring salt in the wound, but he’d have such little experience with being angry and scared on someone else’s behalf that I don’t think he’d be able to find the breaks and it would be the person who decided to threaten Ida’s problem.

A big part of getting Bastion’s character right is about juggling sappiness and ghoulishness. Because in addition to being a hungry man-eating monster, Bastion is a hopeless romantic. But he expresses it in the context of a being for whom love is another kind of hunger, an especially complex form of hunger which he doesn’t fully understand and finds difficult. But a form of hunger none the less. Which is why he says predatory things in the same context that others would make heartfelt declarations or flirt. But he’s also sappy so I try to inject a level of earnest polite Victorian era noble man who would make a good male lead in a period drama type vibes. It can be difficulty to write a character who at their heart is very simple, predatory and food motivated but presents themselves as proper and civilised. In a sense despite being a monster Bastion is pretty naive, he loves wholeheartedly and unreservedly because that’s also how he is with hunger and why wouldn’t this be the same? Except he knows it isn’t precisely the same, there are things he would miss about Ida if he caught her, even if he keeps her soul within him. Even if his every instinct screams that this prey in particular should be in his belly. There are things that would change that he doesn’t want to change yet. Bastion doesn’t really know how to handle that, he’s not used to even really comprehending delayed gratification outside of the context of bidding time for the next meal. So the idea that eating someone is a trade off, that he’ll be taking from himself if he takes Ida? It definitely disturbs and confuses his poor little spider heart and brain. It’s not even that he doesn’t want to eat her or wouldn’t eat her in an instant if he caught her. He absolutely would but he’s starting to think that’s part of the problem and he can’t even truly comprehend why or how to change. Luckily for Bastion, Ida doesn’t expect mercy from anyone so him being incapable of it isn’t the obstacle you’ve think it was. Bastion has an inkling this isn’t exactly a health or normal mindset for a human. But he’s also so far from being human that he’s uncertain he should be trying to Faesplain to her or if he even can in a way that makes sense.

I know I treat Bastion like a cute smol bean in some of my posts and tags. I’ll be honest, on one level he kinda genuinely is that. Like he’s very sincerely in love with Ida, even if he wouldn’t be able to resist devouring her, there’s nothing else he’d allow to get in the way of treating her well. If he makes other friends, which once I’ve gotten his and Ida’s story more solidified to the point I can branch out and work on other characters for them to interact with he just might. I can imagine he’d also make a very dependable friend as long as what you’re depending on isn’t him sparing you. But that’s the thing he’s also a predatory monster that doesn’t know how to go against his hunger because at a very fundamental level he IS his hunger. So despite having things about him that are endearing. He’s very much not a safe person to be around. Ida is alive because she’s a good survivalist, with an innate talent for understanding puzzles, excellent reflexes, instincts and a good bit of genre savvy mixed together. Most normal people who enter the Manor do NOT come out without intervention from Ida or the OCE. Ida is alive because she’s scarily good at what she does. Not because Bastion is sparing any effort in trying to claim her. I think it’s important to remember that when they talk they’re usually in “safe” parts of the Manor, the parts of the Spiderweb that aren’t “sticky” so to speak. She is conversing with his human avatar which is under geas to not harm “guests” but Bastion also IS the Manor and the dangers inside it. He’s really not safe. Despite Ida treating him so casually in the snippets I’ve shared.

As a horror fan and therefore someone used to watching violent and scary media without fetish goggles on. It’s weird to me that a lot of people on tumblr seem to equate nonviolent with nonsexual.