Cthu and Luna.
In the Cthulhu Mythos, Cthulhu is the God of Evil, a cunning master manipulator, and will eat your soul. Except, that's the opposite.
Cthulu is just a simple Mind Reaver who wants to enjoy a peaceful life. However, adventurers would attack him in his dungeon, but he'd rather not fight them and opts to help them out. Then a turn of events lead to him meeting a little girl named Luna, who is a prodigy in magic, whom he adopts as his daughter. Along the way, the pair would meet new people and making friends along the way, whether they are humans, monsters, or other eldritch beings.
How to be a Mind Reaver is a web comic by Taiwanese artist Wei
(also known as Edd Lai). There exists both Chinese and English versions as well as physical copies of the Chinese version. Read it here, on webtoons, if you'd like.
Tropes
- Action Dress Rip: A healer namd Tia comes to Cthu's dungeon, and the latter uses mind control to rip her dress in order to avoid a Spikes of Doom pit she accidentally set off. His reasons for saving her is that he wants to get rid of the spikes himself and he doesn't want to be haunted by her ghost. And he actually means it. The reason he moved out of his tower was because the fork-tailed cats kept giving him corpses of robbers near the cat village, and the cats gave him so much corpses that he decided to move out. His old tower is now haunted by those ghosts.
- Adaptational Heroism: The Mind Reaver Cthu isn't evil. He would rather help adventurers who get lost in his dungeon than try to kill them, and adopt a little girl who ran from her home village due to her proficiency in magic.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Played with. Tia and Mina both have a crush on Cthu, the great and powerful Mind Reaver. They like him because he's actually really sweet despite his looks, abilities and reputation, but neither is willing to tell anyone else because of how scary he is.
- Bad Powers, Good People:
- Cthu is a Mind Reaver. But he only uses his powers for benign purposes. Such as giving Hank the Paladin a change of heart and forcing him to realize that the Corrupt Church's execution of innocent girls with magic potential is evil and wrong.
- Nico is a Necromancer, albeit not by choice. Despite being the son of a duke, he once went out of his way to help dying refugees no-one else would go near (due to an intimidating but non-contagious "Darkfoot Disease"), who were so touched that they tapped into his latent magic to reanimate themselves a year later to protect and look after him.
- Bait-and-Switch: Occurs nearly Once per Episode, often overlapping with I Take Offense to That Last One. Examples include:
- Cthu captures a female adventurer Mina and chains her in his dungeon, Force-feeding her a drink that makes her feel really hot… which turns out to just be ginger tea. The reason is because she was wearing Chainmail Bikini, she nearly froze to death since it was really cold.
- When Cthu is introduced to Ulthar's pupil, Nico the necromancer, he chastises the cat for teaching Nico the "forbidden skill." Said skill is not necromancy, but Playing Possum.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Just because Cthu will not hurt a fly doesn't mean he won't, as he experiences pure rage for the first time in his life.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Some translations from Chinese to English makes it clear English is not the author's fluent language, and thus there are some wording oddities. One example is when Cthu gives a female adventurer ginger tea to warm her up. The translated version calls it hot chocolate despite not looking like it.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Downplayed. Aside from using his mind control abilities for self-defence or to amuse himself, Cthu tends to use them to help others. For example by forcing Hank the Paladin to stop blindly following the Corrupt Church and listen to his conscience, or forcing two warriors to throw away their iron weapons to avoid being struck by lightning.
- Brick Joke: In the second chapter, Cthu prevents Tia from getting herself killed by mind controlling her, and avoiding a Spikes of Doom pit because he wanted to remove them, and he did not want to be haunted by her ghost. 41 reveals that he moved out of his tower because forked tailed cats kept giving him corpses of dead robbers, which not only haunted his tower, but that he moved out as a result.
- Cats Are Mean: Ulthar's preferred form is a large split-tailed cat. He's also an evil god who is apparently not above killing people he has grown bored with.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Despite its light-hearted premise, the series can get surprisingly dark at times. Hank and Diana turn against the Corrupt Church for burning innocent girls because of their magic potential, Little Troll loses both of his parents to monster hunters, leaving him all alone, Nico visits a refugee camp and despite his best efforts, they die to the Blackfoot disease; and Nico's uncle tries to outright murder him before he turns the tables on him, and his zombie friends kill him. Then we're introduced to Hex, a mercenary and a weapons master who has a little sister named Monica who's in suspended animation due to injuries, and he wants to find a way to save her.
- Child Prodigy: Luna has a high magic potential. This is why her home village instigates a Witch Hunt on her.
- Children Are Innocent: Luna stumbles on a book that she wasn't supposed to read and Cthu makes up an elaborate lie that a man who pursued too much knowledge was turned into a monster by an Old God. Turns out the book he was preventing her from reading was titled "1000 Ways To Seduce Humans".
- Connected All Along: Tia and Mina, the women who showed up in the first two pages are the little sisters of Diana, the Huntress.
- The Corrupter: Hastur, The King in Yellow, tries to be this for Luna (to the disapproval of Cthu)... Unfortunately for him, he’s a corrupter character in a heartwarming comedy webcomic.
- Crapsaccharine World: Nigh-inverted example but it loops back on itself at a non-euclidean angle... The world itself is effectively a Dark Fantasy setting with scared and superstitious villagers and cultists trying to burn children who display a gift for magic alive, adventuring parties who kill innocent monsters and leave their children to fend for themselves, necromancers who force the dead to serve them, and good people who end up suffering for no greater reason than the fact that the world isn't fair... But the tone of almost the entire comic is light, comedic and heartwarming with a strong theme towards the exposure to goodness and compassion being something that can ease most suffering and heal most wounds.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Rowan the Ogre tricks Cthu into buying a more expensive wand for Luna by telling him that the cheap wand he wanted to buy for her could end up getting her bullied by other children, which in turn could make Luna depressed and less enthusiastic about exploring her magic potential. When he finds out that she exploited his fears like that, he plans on making Sacred Flame pudding so delicious and fattening that she'll no longer be able to fit in her dress.
- Evil Is Petty: In order to get revenge on Rowan, Cthu decides to get back at her by... using the Sacred Flame and make pudding to make her too fat to wear her favorite dress. Talk about evil.
- Exposed to the Elements: Deconstructed. Chainmail Bikini is not a practical choice to wear, especially in cold weather. Cthu points out Mina wore so little, she almost froze to death, and gives her ginger tea and a fur coat to keep her warm.
- Fluffy Tamer: Luna adopts a Shadow Hound in her room which she names "Dogi".
- Good Parents: Most of the older characters are this.
- Cthu the Mind Reaver is a doting, responsible and loving adoptive father to Luna.
- Hank the Paladin and Diana the Hunter are the caring adoptive parents of Beth.
- Kess is effectively Little Troll's stern but kind surrogate mother.
- Happily Adopted: Most of the younger characters are this.
- Cthu adopts Luna, a little girl with high magic potential, after her village went after her because of said magic potential.
- Paladin Hank and his adventuring partner Diana adopt Beth after saving her from being burned at the stake.
- Little Troll is trying to bring his parents back to life, but in the meantime he is living with Kess, and a recent Mother's Day comic shows that he views her as a mother figure.
- Heel–Face Turn: Hank the Paladin, who had a spell put on him by Chtu that forced him to realize the error of his ways and turn against the Corrupt Church he was part of. Bear in mind, he's not really evil, but misguided. This helps him realize that what the church was doing is wrong, and innocent girls with magic potential should not be killed for it.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Ulthar, in exactly the ways you'd expect from a cat (albeit a giant, magic one).
- Instant Armor: Cthu creates an armor out of his magic to give Kess. She is stunned by his kindness.
- It Amused Me: Why Ulthar decides to keep Nico as a pupil rather than kill him. He sees the young necromancer's ambitions and life goals as "crazy as hell... but in an interesting way."
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Hastur consults Luna for help avoiding Artistic License – Biology with the poisons in his murder mystery novel. He believes this will lead people to commit more murders by poison, but the book instead ends up saving lives, including Nico's, as readers learn to recognize poisons by their symptoms.
- Oblivious to Love: Cthu has at least three romantic admirers in the story so far. While it makes sense that he hasn't realized Tia and Mina have feelings for him, Rowan's feelings are obvious enough that even Luna has picked up on the fact that she cares a great deal about what Cthu thinks about her.
- Cthu was also oblivious to Katrina the Lich's advances years before, assuming that she was joking about marriage or just wanting to use his ugly face to scare off other would-be suitors.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The zombies resurrected by Nico's necromancy can revive themselves from the grave. However, they are also very loyal to him despite his initial annoyance with them.
- Puppy Love: Nico falls for Luna the moment Ulthar introduces them. So far, however, Luna appears oblivious to this.
- Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Nico, see the second example of Bad Powers, Good People above. Furthermore, he considers the refugees' level of gratitude absurd and aims to create a world without the social hierarchy that drove them to give him their souls over such a small act.
- Spit Take: When Cthu gives Luna a test to change a person's mood without a wand just so she can learn to rely on one, she tells him she succeeded. Cue spitting his coffee.
- Take Over the World: Nico plans to do this by creating an empire. This is to remove the social hierarchy that left the blackfoot infectees at death's door, and they were touched by his kindness that they reanimated themselves as zombies. Ulthar is impressed and thinks Nico is crazy as hell.
- Trouble Entendre: Averted for laughs; if Cthu says something ominous like "it's time to end your suffering" then he actually really means it: He'll make sure you're well fed, well dressed, warm, and happy.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Beth can be a bit out there. It's implied after being possessed by ghosts and revealing her secrets, Beth starts to act more aggressively.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The undead hates whoever controls them. This is a huge plot point as the enslaved zombies turn on the enslaver that tried to kill Cthu and his friends.
- Nico however, befriends zombies, which allows them to serve him willingly.
- Uncle Pennybags: Hastur tries to be this to Luna, though results vary due to his Obviously Evil tendencies.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Kess is a girl who can voluntarily transform into a werewolf.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Cthu believes that all problems in the world can be solved by Mind Control, and passes on that philosophy to Luna. Subverted, however, since to him "Mind Control" is not only the magical kind, but also emotional manipulation and even mundane talk that ends up changing someone's mood. Case in point, when lecturing about charming attacks, he says that they can be as simple as saying "I love you".
