"Delicious, with hints of fear and undertones of despair."
"Yes! Yesss! Oh, let me taste your tears, Scott! Mm, your tears are so yummy and sweet..."
— Eric Cartman, South Park, "Scott Tenorman Must Die"
A character who has an incredibly odd palate for tears, such as talking about how they wouldn't mind drinking them or tasting them like a sweet delicacy. Often, they may be seen licking the tears off someone's face or just catching one to taste off their fingers.
Usually, a form of Horror Hunger and almost always Squicky, and, depending on how they get the tears, may involve Eye Scream. Very often a sign of a depraved Sadist or Ax-Crazy character, but not always. You still would be (probably) safer if you stay as far away from them as possible.
In real life, people who have tasted tears while crying have remarked them having a distinctly salty flavor due to tears mostly being made from the water inside of the human body that contains salt ions/electrolytes. Interestingly enough, the level of saltiness and taste of one's tears is dependent on a person's emotional state. Emotional tears have various ingredients which cause them to taste slightly different depending on one's emotions at the time. Sad tears taste a bit sour because their acidity is higher, happy tears or Tears of Joy taste slightly sweeter, and angry tears or Berserker Tears taste the saltiest.
Examples:
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Anime
- In one episode of The Legend of Snow White, as Snow White and Prince Richard travel through a mysterious forest, Snow White's tears awake two goofy fairy-like beings named Giza and Melba. A young girl's tears are their favorite food, so they try various tricks to make Snow White cry again, but all humorously fail.
Comic Books
- In X-Force (2019), Phoebe from the Stepford Cuckoos playfully tastes one of tears of Quentin Quire after putting him through a mental therapy session to hash out his issues.
Film — Animated
- In Inside Out, Bing Bong cries out tears made of candy instead of water. After Bing Bong has been locked in a cage made of balloons, he mentions that Jangles just wanted candy and there are a lot of wrappers on the floor, indicating that Jangles ate Bing Bong's candy tears.
Film — Live Action
- Descendants: The Rise of Red: This trope is mentioned during the Queen of Hearts' Villain Song, "Love Ain't It", as she's gushing over the idea of her and Red conquering Auradon to rule it together.
Swimmin' in their tears, won't they taste so sweet?
- Dune: Part Two: When Jessica sheds a silent tear at the sight of the well of reclaimed water, Stilgar casually steps over and tastes one of her tears, admonishing her for "giving water to the dead."
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: As Furiosa cries at the sight of her mother being tortured to death, Dementus wipes the tears from her eyes and tastes them.
Dementos: (holding her eyes open) Don't look away. You mustn't look away. History Man; a Word Burger, please? "Tears."The History Man: Human tears: the secretions of the lacrimal gland containing oils, salts, proteins, and stress hormones. The tears of joy and those of sorrow have different chemical compositions.Dementos: Yes. Sorrow is more…piquant, zesty.
- Hellraiser: Judgement: The Assessor uses a bottle of children's tears to soften up a sinner's list of transgressions before he eats them. If they're especially heinous, he becomes gravely ill and vomits it into the sink.
Literature
- First averted, then played straight in The Fairy Rebel. When Tiki sees Jan crying, she asks to taste one of her tears because she's heard that they taste funny. Jan complies, and Tiki, who as a fairy is used to an entirely sweet diet, is revolted by the salty taste. When Tiki later cries her own first tears, they have a sweet flavor instead, as Jan and Charlie discover when Tiki kisses them and her tears touch their lips.
- In Hannibal, there is the extremely depraved Mason Verger, an affluent child-molesting sadist who brutally raped his own sister. After the mutilation mishap via Hannibal Lecter, the crippled Verger resorted to verbally and emotionally abusing children and afterwards drinking martinis made with their tears.
- Sunshine has a rare positive example: when Rae is trapped with a (relatively) Friendly Neighborhood Vampire who's trying to Resist the Beast, he asks for permission to drink her Tears of Fear, since they provide a bit of nourishment when they're willingly offered.
- That's Good! That's Bad! concerns a boy who gets lost in a zoo and has encounters with many animals. After he runs into a dark jungle, he becomes frightened and cries a puddle of tears. The puddle then attracts a stork that drinks from it before the bird takes the boy back to his parents.
Live-Action TV
- In Grimm, there is the Jinnamuru Xunte, one of the most terrifying creatures on the show. It drinks the tears of its victims, which have a pleasurable opiate-like effect on the creature, leaves behind parasitic worms that will destroy entire eye of its victims, and often returns to places it has fed before in order to do the same to the weeping families of said victims. It's also horrifying-looking, with the head of a giant fly when woged.
- In Hannibal (2013), a pre-crippled Mason Verger's sadism is demonstrated when, after breaking his sister Margot's arm, he drinks her tears to highlight his sadism. He says that tears of pain and fear taste best.
Music
- Rammstein's "Mein Herz Brennt" is about a villain who sends out demons to scare children in their sleep and collect their hot Tears of Fear so he can inject them into his cold veins.
Video Games
- Occurs as part of a Power-Up in The Binding of Isaac: the item Lachryphagy lets a player feed tears to Isaac's own tears, increasing their damage and causing them to burst into 8 shots if fed enough.
- Occurs as part of a quest in Fran Bow. While in the Fifth Reality, a realm of monsters and nightmares that feed off other's misery, the titular Fran Bow meets a monster who feels sick, claiming he is lacking enough misery to keep him healthy. Fran seeks help from a friendly monster named Okhula, who gets her to cry and bottles her tears to give to the monster. The monster takes and joyfully drinks the tears, sufficiently giving him enough misery and claiming it "tastes like the most profound and darkest elixir [he's] ever tasted before". He even asks for more.
Web Animation
- In the OverSimplified episode "The French Revolution: Part-1", a tax collector tells a peasant woman she is being taxed for everything, from the number of windows on her house to the amount of salt (used for cooking and preserving food) she had. When her son appears, the collector says the boy has to pay taxes as well, and when he starts crying, the collector eagerly tastes his tears and cruelly states the boy now has to pay a salt tax.
- In Pokémon Gold (Fanmade), when Gold comes back for his first rematch with Whitney, he sees that she's just beaten a bug catcher so badly that the poor kid has been reduced to tears. One of her Trainers gathers the tears in a cup and offers them to Whitney, who drinks them with smug satisfaction.
Webcomics
- Gabe, Killer Game Master extraordinaire from Penny Arcade, has this advice
for dealing with players that try to break the game, implying he's personally done so himself:
Gabe: Lie to them. Rob them. Drive them mad. Concoct impossible scenarios whose only outcome is their death. And then, when their eyes glisten with shame and rage, drink their tears. - One Safely Endangered comic that became a Memetic Mutation had one character saying mean things to another to make them cry, since they steady needed a source of water to consume in the wild.
Web Originals
- joshscorcher does this metaphorically sometimes, drinking from a bottle labelled "Brony Tears".
- The Memetic Mutation of "Your tears are delicious" became viral since 2007 thanks to the South Park episode, usually referring to haters' tears, accompanied by this image◊ or similar ones (Cartman's scene included), or someone drinking from a mug (sometimes with a straw) with a Psychotic Smirk and a "your tears" inscription on the mug.
- SCP Foundation: One of the items produced by SCP-261, a magic vending machine, is a bottle of "Cute Girl's Tears" which has a picture of a crying anime girl on the label. It has a sweet taste with a hint of salt, and those who score the highest on the TSR-88 Cruelty Index enjoy the taste more. The label also encourages the consumer to try "Cute Boy's Tears" and "Sister's Tears".
Web Videos
- Dr. Glaucomflecken: The Neurologist keeps a pitcher of med student tears in his fridge, and considers a tall glass to be an essential part of a good lunch.
- This Japanese short animated film, ''Chiruri'', where a dehydrated adolescent boy finds a despairing young woman in a puddle of her own tears. He gently wipes her face to sample some, then sucks on one of her eyes to quench his thirst, implying that her tears to him have similar properties as fresh water.note
Western Animation
- In the Adventure Time episode "Five Short Graybles", the penguins drink Ice King's "Salty Tears" that he makes after crying while in a deep depression.
- In the Inside Job (2021) episode "Ghost Protocol", Glenn reveals that Ann Coulter made him role-play as a liberal so she could drink his tears.
- In the M.O.D.O.K. (2021) episode "Beware from What Portal Comes!", the Ciegrimites, being depraved party animals, force various members of a party to celebrate until they die, with one live victim crying in despair as one of the Ciegrimites licks the tears off his face.
- In the South Park episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Eric Cartman licks the tears of despair off Scott Tenorman's face as another Kick the Dog moment to add to his Evil Gloating over successfully managing to make the boy eat the ground-up remains of his parents in the form of chili.
- Done as part of a show of machismo in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Blackened Sponge". One of SpongeBob's made-up stories about him fighting Jack M. Crazyfish ends with his defeated foe leaving behind a trail of tears that SpongeBob triumphantly "proceeded to scoop up in [his] victory tankard and enjoy a nice refreshing beverage".
Real Life
- Although not specifically feeding on emotional tears, several species of butterflies in the Amazon rainforest are known to gather water and electrolytes in an unusual way; normally, butterflies obtain water and minerals by drinking it from easily-available water sources, such as rainwater collected on the ground or on plants, but they can also obtain it by landing on turtles, using their legs to irritate the reptile's eyes, then drinking their tears, straight from the source!