#fictional child death

[spriteofmushrooms]

Don't think I'm over Qin Su. Female character with like five lines and two scenes? Obsessed. What do you call a mother whose child is dead. If the love of your life flinches from your touch, but he's kind to you, does he love you? If he protects you from every harm but the one that destroys you, did he protect you?

He says he killed you, but you died of grief. Was it his fault for loving you back? For finally succumbing to the match you insisted on? Was it his fault for touching you when you wanted to be touched? Was it his fault for honoring you, even after he learned the truth? Was it his fault for keeping his horror to himself? (Was it the secret that killed your marriage, or was it the truth?)

He says he killed you, but you killed you. He says he killed your son, but he lies, he blames himself, he claims your actions for himself. Was a-Song with a stranger, at the end? Was it his father, with his soft, gentle hands? Which is better, if anything's better? Who held your son last? Did they love him?

[curetapwater]

Madoka Magica is a very dark show but I think it often gets kinda blown outta proportion, as if it's some bloodbath just because it has onscreen deaths and dark subject matter. I'd say the violence itself is rather on par with darker episodes of Sailor Moon. Deaths happen, but it's far from a gore fest. Mami's death in episode 3, one of the most gruesome scenes in the show, is carefully framed to show no blood, no gore. The image of her body going limp and detransforming, the ribbons she'd tied up Homura with dissolving, the wide shot so far from her body that you can hardly make it out as it falls to the ground for Charlotte to finish. The focus is not "ouuuuuuu teenage girl death SCARY SCARY" but on the weight of the events unfolding. And her death is not there just for shock value, but to drop a sudden, crushing weight upon the characters she is survived by. The scene where Madoka visits Mami's apartment one last time in particular is so effective. A sink filled with dishes that will never be washed. A half-full teacup that will never be emptied. Her absence is a gaping hole in the characters' lives as much as it is a reminder of the stakes of the situation.

And other onscreen deaths are as clean as possible. The Soul Gem thing is existentially terrifying but it also lends itself to something about how PMMM handles its darkest scenes with a certain tastefullness. We don't need to watch a 14-year-old girl get ripped apart in order to understand how fucked things are. We just need to see her soul itself shatter, the light leave her eyes, her body go limp. The lack of traditionally graphic imagery allows weight to be shifted from what we are seeing to what the events unfolding mean.

One of the most visceral scenes for me is the one where Kyubey just dumps his reasoning for the magical girl system on her. On its surface, it's just a girl sitting in bed, being spoken to by an alien creature. But it's the shit he says to her. The way he talks about commodifying, using, tormenting teenage girls across human history as if it's a perfectly reasonable, pleasant conversation. The way he compares humans to livestock. The way his cheerful tone never falters as Madoka's emotional state deteriorates further and further. And GOD, the shot where she slowly grabs her head, curls in on herself before bending backwards. Just trying to process the weight of a system that extends far beyond her, across the whole world, across human history. The helplessness of it all. The way it all culminates, as the audience and Madoka herself finally understand Kyubey to be a microcosm of the way the world is stacked against young girls. That single shot rocks me to my core.

I think people who label this show "torture porn" severely miss the point. We aren't supposed to root for all the bad things happening to these characters. We aren't supposed to point and go "Haha! Foolish girls and their frivolous dreams!!" nor are we supposed to wallow in misery and cry out "Woe! The dreams of young girls are all for naught!! Hope is lost!!!" We're supposed to sympathize and connect with them. And hell if I do. I'm so glad I first watched this show when I was the same age as the characters, because this show just really speaks to me. There is a great catharsis, to me, in things like Mami's veneer of being the cool perfect girl that she desperately doesn't want to fall to reveal the vulnerable girl beneath, the way Sayaka desperately wants to save the world but jumps into things without thinking and pours from an empty cup, the way Kyoko has seemingly given up entirely on being a good person but deep down still believes that something good must exist out there, Homura's determination to try again. And again. And again. Until her love consumes her and everyone around her. And Madoka's crushing sense of helplessness, of guilt, of wanting to make the world a better place, of wanting everyone to just!!!! Get along!!!!! Please!!!!!!! And the way she overcomes this sense of helplessness with the main theme that the magical girl genre was built upon to begin with: hope.

To me, Madoka Magica is a show about how much it can absolutely suck to be a teenage girl, but in a respectful way, y'know? It's about how the world is stacked against young girls, how it uses and objectifies them and kicks them into the dirt, and how because they're still young, they often don't respond to the hand dealt to them in perfect ways. But that doesn't mean their feelings, their hopes and dreams and very souls, do not matter. If anything, I'd say Madoka Magica is about how the world isn't going to go easy on you, and your feelings about that fact are real, even if you don't respond to them perfectly. But despite it all, you have to keep going.

So yeah PMMM is a dark show but I feel like its discussion is often like "this show KILLED the magical girl genre by being DARK and VIOLENT" like. Siigh. Especially frustrating because I see this sentiment both from magical girl fans who resent the show and non-magical girl fans who laud the show because they think it's "better" than its predecessors. Maybe it had an impact on the genre in the same way that Shrek was an excellent movie whose success unfortunately gave way to trends in animated films that didn't quite get what made Shrek work. But I find it unfair to say PMMM "ruined" or even "killed" the magical girl genre. I'm unsure if I'd even call it a deconstruction, it's just its own neat thing to me. I can go back and watch Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure without feeling they've been tainted or taken down a peg. If anything, I think PMMM complements more traditional magical girl shows very nicely. I think Madoka and Usagi would love each other. I don't think a magical girl show where very bad things happen is that big a deal. What is a big deal, to me, is how excellent it is in its execution.

[datastate]

asu-agents body refs :P

ft. kai’s unfinished & faded tattoo! still on the fence whether or not i’ll keep it, but i think it’s a fascinating idea...

i know for certain that mr. chidouin & the hiyoris have tattoos (though midori’s is now permanently unfinished after alice ‘killed’ him); gashu may have one, but he isn’t asunaro-born in my interpretations ? though, this could simply be a case of having one to further that proof of allegiance.

i have specific ideas in mind for what each of them got tattoos of - but i’m going to wait on going in-depth abt that until i can finish drawing out the base templates of what their tattoos look like :P it’s really fun to figure out though!!

[tiredpaladins]

Ghost whisperer Dabi who hates the fact that he has to deal with this (make the dead come to terms with how they died) meets Spirit Keigo who was murdered as a kid by his father and that's finally what does it for Dabi. He doesn't make Keigo move on- he can't. It's not fair. Keigo was just a kid who never even made it out of his house. So instead they track down his dad and kill him together. And in return, Keigo follows him around and protects him from dangerous spirits until Dabi eventually dies and they go together. The end.

[lepicera]

midnight, shadow, and cloudy

[fancy-feast-official]

bored so i'm gonna make a master list of all my ocs with descriptions lol. see the readmore for uh... more! (and please read the tags as there are some triggering implications in some oc descriptions)

bellatrice lane

this story was created by @flareboi! you can see more stuff about it on our shared toyhouse here

elias the witch age: (physical) 25, (actual) 255 pronouns: he/him (trans) born in colonial new england, and moved to what would later become new mexico during the revolution. does not know what the united states are.

adachi haru age: (physical) 34, (actual) 148 pronouns: he/him (cis) trained samurai, born in korea but lived in mexico city after his mother died. moved to new mexico shortly before his death.

zeyna la cour age: (physical) 42, (actual) 133 pronouns: she/her (cis) one of the three fortune tellers, took care of pumpkin while she was living in the circus

sybil clutterbuck age: (physical) 27, (actual) 127 pronouns: she/her (cis) an acrobat with terrible body dysmorphia. her ghost form manifests with many wings that she uses to cover her face and body (@mosseatermyla recently drew a wonderful drawing of her, which is the third image in this post!!)

jeanie birdwhistle age: (physical) 35, (actual) 124 pronouns: she/her (cis) mother of 5 (iirc), including the former contortionist of the circus. she was also a fortune teller at one point, after zeyna and pumpkin

felix levine age: (physical) 30, (actual) 109 pronouns: he/him (in a 100% genderqueer way) animal tamer and catboy, friends with sybil and didi/maxime as well as @fetts-macaroni-art's oc casper.

"pumpkin" age: (physical) 15, (actual) 106 pronouns: she/her (later switches to they/them) the youngest part of the fortune teller, former runaway who experienced true prophetic visions.

brindille "didi" auclair / maxime auclair age: (physical) 25, (actual) 102 pronouns: originally she/her but eventually he/him jeanie's second youngest child and the former contortionist. their unfinished business is egg-cracking.

théo birdwhistle age: (physical) 37, (actual) 100 pronouns: he/him (cis) jeanie's youngest, died in a car accident with his fiancé, claude, and got trapped in the attic of the house. initially unaware that any of his family members are ghosts.

claude shepherd age: (physical) 35, (actual) 98 pronouns: he/him (cis) théo's fiancé and local garden ghost. he looks like a gnome and always has plants growing on him.

phillip mclellan age: (physical) 19, (actual) 56 pronouns: he/him (genderqueer) former member of a cult in a town next to hapsville, where bellatrice lane takes place. had his own soul exorcised from his body and sent to hell, and he spent almost forty years fighting his way back out, before digging himself out of his own grave. basically possessing his own body, which has been mysteriously frozen in time.

damien lioncourt age: 15 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: vampire he is not aware that he's a vampire. just thinks that he's allergic to garlic and easily sunburnt (this is despite the fact that the rest of his family knows they're all vampires. they just... forgot to tell damien)

f.a.e. (for all eternity)

more information can be seen on the fae website here!

his majesty fechin dune of the dappled forest age: 25 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: seelie fae has a tumblr: @ask-fechin. king of his kingdom, and very very homosexual (married to @reedsaloser's oc knox affean, prince of naranthia)

veronica hippotigris age: 24 pronouns: she/they species: elf courting knox's adopted sibling rowan (who is fechin's half-brother... weird). loves violin.

zemenu/zamir pirags age: 21 pronouns: she/he (genderfluid but doesn't realize till she starts dressing as a man to hide that her partner is gay) species: seelie fae personal bodyguard and best friend of prince oberon fournier of finapor, an island kingdom near naranthia and the dappled forest.

silas waylen age: 18 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: seelie fae son of a disgraced noblewoman from the dappled forest, he's spent his entire life in finapor. twin of siana, and deeply autistic.

siana waylen age: 18 pronouns: she/her (cis) species: seelie fae daughter of a disgraced noblewoman and twin sister of silas. more adhd than autistic, and also missing an arm.

fish cardiff age: 20 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: human technically a witch, but he doesn't like to make that known. son of queen chrysanthemum's (fechin's mother's) first human pet, anton. he lives in the forest between his village and the dappled forest kingdom.

moon woo-yeong age: 19 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: unseelie fae the crown prince of the underdark kingdom of elysium, and one of the two survivors of a terrible carriage accident that killed his father and older sister. he has the power to see auras

myung jong-woo age: 15 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: unseelie fae the younger maternal cousin of the crown prince, and the older son of the head monk of the country's religion. because he didn't inherit the family power of seeing auras, he was passed over for inheriting his father's title in favor of his younger brother, sang-hoon, who he bullies relentlessly.

the house

pavel volkov age: 120 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: witch owns a magickal house with a mind of its own

duncan farwell age: 119 pronouns: he/him (cis) species: specialized human subject of a series of experiements which resulted in him being able to control synthetic magick

lowell cotreau age: 120 pronouns: he/they species: human magick experimenter who accidentally sent himself to the faerie realm, connecting the story of the house to fae. became the last human pet of queen chrysanthemum.

maisy osse age: 20 pronouns: they/them species: half-giant pavel's apprentice and literally the tallest motherfucker you'll ever meet. they have three eyes and my entire heart <3

[specialagentartemis]

I have a different post in the works about Maddie not having children in the "Masters of All Time" timeline - it makes the emotional dilemma about whether Maddie should help Danny repair and reset the timeline straightforward and clean, but the thing is, the premise that "Masters of All Time" gives us is a FASCINATING and potentially really anguishing emotional dilemma if the writers were allowed to acknowledge it.

Maddie isn't happy in the MoAT timeline. When Danny shows up in her timeline, frantically trying to explain to her that he's her son with Jack Fenton from a different timeline, she accepts and embraces this explanation pretty quickly. It feels like she wants to believe it - she wants to believe that if things had gone differently, she would have married Jack, had children, had a ghost-hunting career she could be open and proud about. Everything Danny offers to her is something she wants more than what she has - a husband who has been lying to her, who dislikes ghost stuff and disapproves of her ghost research, so she has to do it in secret and hide it from him.

Something that goes totally unaddressed: Danny, her son from a different timeline, is a ghost. He's dead.

Never once does anyone stop to wonder what it means that her teenage son is a ghost.

And I know it's because Hartman & co. refuse to let anyone acknowledge that ghosts are dead people... but imagine they did.

Maddie Masters is... happy enough, she guesses. She married her college friend, and he is her friend, and she's not opposed to this. He doesn't support her work, but, well. She deals. She has her basement ghost research lab, even if she has to keep it secret from Vlad. She lost touch with Jack decades ago, and still regrets that, but that happens, sometimes, and his grievances aren't unfounded. She doesn't have children.

And then a ghost boy claiming to be her son shows up, and tells her that in a different timeline, the timeline that should have happened, she married Jack Fenton, she has two children, she is is out and proud about her ghost research and ghost-hunting and Jack enthusiastically collaborates with her on it. He tells her she's happy.

He doesn't tell her how he died.

And Maddie has a heartbreaking choice to make. Does she help him make this reality happen, restore time to how it's "supposed" to go?She wants to believe him, to believe in this alternate history where things went differently and she got the life she wanted! She has a wacky house full of Ghost Contraptions, a husband who loves her and supports her and collaborates with her, and two children she loves.

... and one of those children is going to die when he's 14. That comes with this choice.

Can she live with that? Consciously make this timeline happen, knowing she's going to have this child and then see him die.

It puts me in mind of one of the major emotional through-lines of "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, the story of a linguist who makes contact with aliens and learns their language that allows her to see all of time at once, where it will go, what the outcomes of events will be. She sees her daughter dying. She knows from the moment she has this child that she will die in a rock-climbing accident in college. She sees it all at once, her whole life, and makes that choice to have a baby anyway.

I think MoAT!Maddie should have to consciously make a similar choice, and have similar feelings about it. Unlike the protagonist of "Story of Your Life," she doesn't know how it will all go. She only knows it as Danny tells her, and she herself won't really experience this, going forward. But she, another version of her, will. And Danny doesn't explain the halfa thing or the portal accident or anything, leaving Maddie to have to make her own hypotheses about what her alternate-life's future holds, about the grief that's going to come with the love, and make that choice to make it happen anyway.

[cloudyvulpine]

hate when i'm info dumping about a *FICTIONAL* villain and someone has the audacity to be like "but they've killed people" or "but they've committed crimes"

i know

but they aren't real

i still want to make out with them

[worst-mother-throwdown]

BRACKET 1

FINAL BATTLE

TW: child abuse, murder, mass murder, physical abuse, torture, waterboarding, electrocution, cult, animal cruelty, animal death

Mrs. Momose propaganda

Titania propaganda

[ogachukwu-the-freak]

QUIET PART OUT LOUD QUIET PART OUT LOUD QUIET PART OUT LOUD

Validating to actually experience this utter shitfuck take with my own two eyes, add it to the list. Someone @ rainystudios or one of their mutuals so if they want they can add this one to the archives cause this is literally exactly what they had been talking about.

[mzminola]

Tim & Bruce both had an unspoken countdown to when Tim turned, not fifteen, not sixteen, but fifteen and nine months.

They don't talk about it. Not with each other, not with anyone else, but they are both very, very aware of when Tim has officially lived longer than Jason ever had the chance to.

[datastate]

survive, even if it must be you alone.

[dukeofriven]

Judging just by Neil Gaiman's inbox, the most amazing thing about the Sandman/Good Omens fandoms is how they seem to be almost exclusively comprised of people who neither watched the shows nor read the books but sure have a lot of observations and critiques.

[bookworm-2000]

Reasons to hate Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

- Left Harry on the doorstep of a household that a trusted employee and friend had strongly warned against in the cold with a letter explaining what had happened.

Straight up, was he checked for any damage other than the scar? Injuries from fallen debris. Shock from seeing his mother killed, yes babies can experience shock. Hypothermia from literally just the travel from Godrics Hollow to Privet Drive on a f l y i n g m o t o r b i k e.

Next, there’s no protection charm placed on him, at least not one that’s mentioned, meaning he was left out in the cold with a single blanket! Again, possible hypothermia! It’s mid autumn there! In Britain!

Not to mention the unprotected letter that explained what had happened! What if someone else had come along and read the letter? Good going there, Dumbles. The wizarding world is now completely exposed, and there’s a worldwide witch and wizard hunt! Also, a letter?! McGonagall points this out, you want to explain what happened to him in a letter?! The Dursley’s aren’t going to understand how famous he is and then his reasoning for this is, in short, the ‘fame’ would overwhelm him.

As if it didn’t when he got to Hogwarts!

To me, this is him being a coward. He’s not facing Petunia because one, he denied her access into the wizarding world (which wasn’t his fault. She’s a muggle, it’s not possible but still) and two, he would have to be the one to say to her face that Lily is dead and that she’s now being saddled with Lily’s son, who she had already shown distain for when they (the Dursley’s) hadn’t even been aware of what was going on.

Then he went against McGonagall’s advise because ‘my decisions are the best decisions’. This women who had stuck with him through teaching the Marauders and Lily, through the first wizarding war against Voldemort, and through watching almost all their students die together, etc. He ignored her advice.

What I also don’t get is his blasè attitude towards Lily and James’ death. Here’s McGonagall trying to figure out if her worst nightmare has come true and this piece of work is offering her a sherbet lemon. A SHERBET LEMON.

The only side I see here where he did right was Hagrid bringing Harry and this is just speculation, because ofc Dumbledore doesn’t need to explain his reasoning.

I think he may have not wanted to apparate with Harry because he was a baby, worried about the side effects.

However! If this was not the reasoning, this man was too f*cking lazy to go and pick up a newly orphaned baby, who was just stuck beside his dead’s mothers’ body.

And this was literally just the first scene where he’s introduced.

[adragonsfriend]

I keep seeing tiktoks that are like "watch this clip of Anakin getting angry in Clone Wars, it's the first time we really see Vader come out!!!"

am im,,, did you miss,,, that time,,, in AotC,,, when he killed children,,, in revenge for something the adults in their community did?????

Him looking angry while dueling Ventress or whatever is NOT the same. Honestly I think it's a sign that people aren't willing to consider the Sand People/Tuskans actual people because they're way too taken in by Anakin (and Padme) 's perspective, (and probably a refusal to see people that look foreign to them as people in general?). Like he killed kids. This is the whole big thing where the audience is told that he's becoming Vader. Nothing in Clone Wars will ever be as bad as what he does after Shmi dies, or as emotionally impactful. This is his face:

That dead-eyed, zombie stare? That pouty shitty anger? That I should be at the club but im choosing to kill people instead face? he looks like he's choking on something. He looks like he's gonna die. He looks like he's gonna fall over. He looks like a kid who found out their hamster died. I pity him, he's awful, i love him, he's stupid, he's the best, he's the worst.

This is Darth Vader, it's awful to meet him, he'll be back sooner than anyone would like.

Clone Wars is cool and all but it will never measure up to that face.

[deliverance-the-game]

Chapter 5 is out!

Silence settles in the space once again. The phantom image slowly ebbs away into the faded - but not forgotten - darkness.

The aching tremor in your bones after a dream is not unfamiliar.

-

So you have refused to cease survived the cold, guided by a beast but time is not your friend, nor will it ever be

Something else lurks

Do not forget to look up, else you may not see the dangers which may fall upon thee

Return to your journey here.  

Introductions

Content warnings tagged and detailed under the cut.

Chapter 5 contains depictions of death and body horror, and has mentions of child abduction. Please read with care.