#The One Eyed Black Cat

[artoflured]

Some old ghouls I forgot to post ages ago…

[askthebrokenones-fm]

((Hidden in the Sand’s version of the One Eyed Black Cat

The Cat is a fragment of a wraith, similar to Host in his condition. He remembers nothing about his mortal life but knows that he’s angry. Why? He doesn’t remember. All he knows is that others must feel pain or be destroyed

Currently, the Cat is trapped in the catacombs of the Mansion, entombed in a silver plated, rune marked statue in a lonely dusty room covered in sealing runes

[asktheredheadedfeline]

This cat is VERY evil!

[xieliansbignaturals]

I've made too many (four!!) non-fandom, real-world-problems-related original posts/additions today. 😬 To even things out a little, here are some silly Hualian headcanons:

Hua Cheng collects Xie Lian's toenail clippings. Xie Lian thinks this is normal, reasonable, and actually quite cute, so he makes sure to clip his toenails where the clippings can be easily collected.

Hua Cheng wishes he had to breathe so he could suffocate to death via Xie Lian sitting on his face.

Xie Lian is unhinged about Hua Cheng, too. Aside from the pain thing from the birthday extra, he also knows things like exactly how many eyelashes Hua Cheng has. (The number doesn't change, for ghost reasons.)

Hua Cheng's calligraphy never improves. Xie Lian actually loves Hua Cheng's cursed handwriting, and Hua Cheng knows this, and Xie Lian knows he knows. They keep doing lessons anyway.

Hua Cheng is jealous of Xie Lian's stray cats. Sometimes he shapeshifts into a cat and tries to blend in with them. This is not successful in the sense that he actually manages to blend in, but it is successful in the sense that he gets lots of gege attention and chin scritches.

Slowly, as Xie Lian adjusts to married life, he becomes a blanket hog. Hua Cheng is delighted by this development. It's not like he needs a blanket. And even if he did, His Highness should feel so comfortable, and value his own needs/wants enough, that he demands things even in his sleep!

Xie Lian also relearns his sense for when textures, tastes, etc. are Not Right, and his urge to complain about them until they are Fixed. Hua Cheng loves this, too! A picky Xie Lian is a mentally healthy Xie Lian, and being ordered around by his god is like, the sexiest thing ever.

Both of them get sad if the other closes the bathroom door to pee :(

[elasgottoomuchfreetime]

You know how they put cheetahs with labradors to help them adapt to their environment and help with socialising (or smth).

Well I have a headache, and my fried mind says it‘s them:

[winterspellsfrozenkit]

Twisted Wonderland's Grim is a Grimalkin.

Okay TWST fandom, so today I was chatting away with another friend who plays TWST explaining that it's highly likely that Crowley summoned us due to the opening you get when you first start the game and she asked why he'd do that. And I said this without thinking:

Once I said that, it hit me: GRIM IS NOT NAMED FOR GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES, HE'S A GRIMALKIN.

Let me explain! (This is a long post, you've been forewarned. There is a TLDR at the bottom if you need it.)

So I like reading fairy tale books, retellings, etc., and I learned a long time ago during my high school hyperfixation on reading faery based YA readings about Grimalkins. What are Grimalkins?

Grimalkin (Also spelled Greymalkin) is an archaic term that was often used to describe cats; particularly haggard, female cats. Grimalkin, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, likely comes from compounding the words "Grey" and "Malkin". "Malkin" is a term with several meanings including: a low-class woman, a weakling, an untidy slovenly woman. It's also used to describe cats and hares.

Grimalkins were listed in Scottish legends as a faery cat that dwelt in the highlands, but during the 16th Century witch trials, cats became associated with the devil and witchcraft. Women on trial in Scotland were frequently accused of having a familiar, a ‘demon in disguise’, which was often a Grimalkin. One example of Grimalkins being tied to witchcraft and the devil at the time is William Shakespeare's play MacBeth, which shows the Three Witches who foretell Macbeth's future as having a cat familiar named Grimalkin. They're also in Louis Le Breton's Dictionnaire Infernal, which is a book on demonology.

So how does this relate to Grim?

Grim's design is heavily influenced by common media portrayals of the Devil with a pitchfork tail and fiery pointed ears that can look like horns at times.

One reason that fire is blue like Hades, Idia, and Ortho's hair is because thanks to the Pop Culture understanding of Christianity, people heard Hades and thought to equivocate him to Satan which is why he's the bad guy in the Disney movie, Hercules, when in the original myth, Hera is the one antagonizing Heracles.

Also, most of the fandom believes this creature in the pre Prologue scene when you first start the game, is Grim.

Just saying this looks a lot like different representations of devils and demons.

Note the human hands and clawed feet on this statue of Pazuzu.

And the incorporation of animal traits blended with humans

This is some concept art for Bald Mountain in Fantasia and I can see leathery wings like a dragon/bat, one has a snakey tail, and some have those human-like hands, but clawed feet.

As stated earlier, Grimalkins are tied heavily to devils and witchcraft and TWST tends to push this at us. For Halloween, while all the Dorms have different monsters such as mummies, ghost pirates, headless horsemen, but Ramshackle's Halloween outfit is this:

Not only that, but when we wake up, this is what Crowley says to us about Grim, when he finds us in the library after Grim cornered us, trying to get our robes:

Again, the most common familiar that people accused of witchcraft were said to have was a Grimalkin. A demon cat. This also ties into why we and Grim are put in Ramshackle Dorm.

Now, as some know, Ramshackle Dorm is based on the Haunted Mansion. But the Haunted Mansion had a specific haunt that was cut before the ride came out: The One-eyed Black Cat.

Now, if you don't know this cat, it's okay. He was cut before the ride came out. To sum up, X Atencio, the Imagineer who came up with the basic story ideas and the script for the rides of Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, had many drafts of the Haunted Mansion's story. One of these cut drafts had a distinct villain character: The One-Eyed Black Cat.

Now, people might argue the Bride/Constance Hatchaway is the villain of the Haunted Mansion, but the One-Eyed Black Cat was different. In that draft, the Ghost Host would warn guests about the One-Eyed Black Cat and the One-Eyed Black Cat was specifically trying to attack/get the guests on the ride and detested mortals, especially happy ones. Guests would've seen signs of the cat throughout the ride as if he was stalking them (Think something akin to the little glimpses of Catnap as he stalks the player throughout Poppy Playtime Chapter 3). At the end of the ride, they would've faced the cat, who's face would turn into some form of human-esque skull like head.

Now the cat made it pretty far before he was cut, because we do have surviving sound outtakes of Paul Frees, the voice of the Ghost Host, saying "Except for that unnatural and dreadful one-eyed black cat" which implies he's not one of the 999 happy haunts, but something truly evil, like a demon.

Now, One-Eyed Black Cat's not mentioned in the Haunted Mansion ride, and there's an idea that his role was passed over to the Raven, another cut antagonistic character who would haunt the rider specifically, but was less unnatural than the cat, but the more likely reason is both the raven and the cat were cut due to the ride changing from story driven to an atmospheric ride. However, nowadays, you can find the One-Eyed Black Cat on the Composer's Crypt in Walt Disney World and as a statue in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion (Funnily enough, during the Haunted Mansion Holiday, the cat statue gets a black and white pinstripe bow...).

Now, this may be reaching, but Grim chasing the player throughout the school, trying to steal their robes because he wasn't allowed to attend NRC, feels like a reference to this possibly demonic cut cat character. Also, his smirk face does make one of his eyes look smaller than the other, kind of like the image on the Composer Crypt.

Anyways, back to Grimalkins. So besides being tied to the devil and witchcraft, Grimalkins were also known as Scottish faery cats. Why does this matter? May I draw your attention to these moments from Book 6 and Book 7?

(Warning minor spoilers)

Idia discussing what Grim is.

Idia and Ortho describing powerful magic cast on Grim.

And from Book 7 Chapter 106

Soi in Book 6, Idia notes Grim is some magical mix of direbeast and animal. In a lot of faery stories, faery animals like Grimalkins, Cat Sidhe, and Kelpies look very similar to normal animals, but they are distinctly a fae, which makes them much more dangerous to mess around with. Much like how Grim is not fully an animal, he's also part direbeast which, considering what has been mentioned in game about direbeasts, sounds like a distinctly magical species that is far more dangerous that regular animals.

Grim is also noted to fluctuate between full Phantom and absolutely no blot levels, but Idia does note a complex magical spell on him that later Papa Shroud mentions is very similar to Malleus's magical realm, which is a faerie spell... (Again, there's that faerie connection). Likewise, depending on the story context, Grimalkins can either be demonic familiars to witches (more akin to TWST Phantoms) or they can be faery creatures (more like TWST Direbeasts).

I've also noticed people point out some kind of connection between Malleus and Grim. There's a blog post by ventique18 does a really good job about pointing out the similarities between the two. Here's the link: https://www.tumblr.com/ventique18/721267245925400576/three-pronged-tail-bringing-back-the-grim-is?source=share

So perhaps one of the reasons for the tie between them is Grim is at least in part based on a Grimalkin, a faery cat, and Malleus is a dragon faery. With all these little things lining up, maybe Grim got his name in part from Grimm's Fairy Tales, but I really and truly do believe Grim is some form of Grimalkin and his name is more a reference to that, but whether he is based on the demonic familiar, faery, or BOTH, we shall see.

TLDR: I'm pretty sure Grim is HEAVILY based on a Scottish fae cat creature/demonic cat that act as a witch's familar called a Grimalkin because there's a lot of references that seem to point to that.

[grimgrinninggoth]

Meow!🐈‍⬛⛓️

[alistorcipher]

My other favorite HM character, this one eye demonic black cat.

they not have name? I not think I call them Pluto since was young as reference to Edgar Allan Poe story.

i make fanart soon.

[uwu4771]

Excuse me but where was the One Eyed Black Cat?

There he is!

mom can i keep him pls...?🥺✨✨✨

[lunarlights-world]

Spicy kitty Pixie playing with shoelaces

[benthesoldiersjeanshorts]

Behold, the beautiful bitey bastard!

[askthebrokenones-fm]

Gabrielle "Belle" Danielle: hey Hosty, about that certain cat, how did you and the others manage to stop him? It's ok if you don't want to answer it if it makes you uncomfortable - since it's forbidden to say, I'll completely understand if you don't want to, I'm only asking cause I'm curious and if something were to happen, I wanna be there to help you and the others, I'm not just a detective and investigator but I'm a slayer as well and an experienced and competent at that

*the autistic mortal detective/investigator and slayer places a gloved hand on their skeletal best friend's clothed shoulder and squeezes it reassuringly, the spectacled mismatched - brown and blue, eyes staring right at the sockets of their best friend*

Gabrielle: again, mi mejor amigo, if you feel uncomfortable on the question, again I'll completely understand if you don't, forget I asked anything, I know you guys don't like saying his name/title unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary, and let's face it *small smile* I've been working and living here for a long time, so it's about the time I know the full story, don't you think? Again *takes their skeletal hands into their gloved ones* only if you want to

Transcript:

"Sigh. Thank you, Mx. Belle. You're too kind."

"And you're right. Perhaps it is time to tell you."

"Give me a moment. I need to get the memoir I need."

"Here. Ah... Don't worry about the lock."

"Now then... Let me open this and we'll start."

"The Black Cat came from one of the Madame's summoning sessions. Back then we weren't aware of the Cat's malevolence."

"Or it's power of suggestion. The Eye."

"It wanted the Mansion to destroy it. That's all. It's a spirit of destruction. A wraith like that... It can never rest..."

"Sinclair knows that restlessness. He saw the Cat's malevolence first. We planned to confront the Cat. Bind it, banish it peacefully."

"But..."

Belle: "Host?"

"Hosty? Are you okay?"

Host: "...I. Yes..."

"... I'm sorry. That's all I remember..."

[aetherdoesthings]

hello people of the earth, it's that time of the year again

do you like one piece?

you do? that's cool! i like one piece too!

i write one piece stuff--headcanons, the occasional smut (read rules), fics, etc.

if you want some stuff you've been thinking for a while written..

💛😁pLEASE SEND ME SOME ONE PIECE REQUESTS 🤩💛 🙏🏻 🙏🏻🙏🏻

i mainly like writing the women of one piece (up to eneis lobby), but i'm open to anything !!! (i've literally run out of ideas to write about pls flood askbox 🙏🏻🙏🏻)

wouldn't it be so cool to have what you're thinking of written? i mean.

AND ALSO

according to my weekly report of 22 hours on genshin impact, i'm starting to be open to writing for some genshin characters!

my list of cutie patooties i'm willing to write:

ganyu

shenhe

xiao

yelan

raiden

yae miko

ningguang

beidou

arlecchino

the list will grow!!!

[hells-favorite]

Halloween Lucipurr and company

[nun-draws]

merry shitscram 🎄

[forbiddensaintessandsinner]

- Akuneko Oneshot -

_________________________________________

Description: A butler may understand their master, but a smile wouldn't hurt to know it more than what it seems right? Master Used: Eislyn Philomel (TWs: Heavy Angst to Too Much Fluffiness to make you scream)

Read it ( - Here - )

Tagging: @kyooshi, @sweetkiitsunez, @yinviyang, @c00kie-cat, @yen-yay, @kurov3sochouse, @chanothy, @fruitymocha, @rosietrace, @sugar-glaze-donut, @achy-boo, @herri-writes