#canonical main character death

[crabussy]

the psychological horror created by Hasbro’s desire to sell more toys rather than honour the desires of the original creator resulting in an immortal alicorn princess of friendship doomed to watch her friends grow old and die without her is so interesting to me. by trying to cater to children more you have accidentally created a reality in which death of the main characters friends as she lives on for centuries is not just implied but confirmed. idk it’s fascinating to think about

[utilitycaster]

This is coming up with Orym, and it came up with Yasha and to an extent Keyleth too (as well as many other characters; see tags). Anyway: there is never going to be a moment when those characters are not grieving. If you wait for them to stop grieving, you will wait until they themselves die - and to be clear I do not mean this in the sense of “the grieving spouse clearly seeks death so that they may be reunited”; I mean “that loss will always exist in their lives, and they will grow around it and find other joy and love, but there is no moment when the hole that person left closes and is gone.” You can interpret where those characters are in their grieving process, which is a complex and nonlinear one, and you may perhaps feel they’re not ready, but if you do, it’s worth asking yourself what “ready” would look like because it will not look like an absence of grief. More specifically to Orym, if you are rethinking this because there was a scene at Will’s grave, that’s a big part of the nonlinear aspect - how someone will speak about the death graveside, or how they may speak about it in specific places, or on anniversaries, is very different to their day-to-day experience with grief.

Which isn’t to say you can’t interpret Orym as still in, for lack of a better term, the full mourning period; I’m noting it both because it is a pattern in the fandom for characters who have lost spouses, and because within that pattern, the discussion seems to treat life after the death of a partner as a dichotomy of “grieving” and “not grieving”, in which romantic love is only possible when one is in the "not grieving" state, which is fundamentally untrue to life.

[oopsbirdficced]

Traitor's Waltz (Overture the the Fall of Gondolin

Art by @jaz-the-bard / JazTheBard (AO3)

Story by @oopsbirdficced / ingenious_spark (AO3)

Fic rating: Mature

Warnings: Torture, canon-typical violence, canonical character death

Relationships: Idril/Tuor, Idril/Maeglin, Idril/Tuor/Maeglin

Characters: Idril, Tuor, Maeglin, the Lords of Gondolin, Námo, Irmo, minor cameos by Aredhel, Turgon, and Celegorm

Tags: Music, opera, dreams and nightmares, haunting, ghosts, trans characters, drama, romance, angst with a happy ending, temporary character death, embedded audio

Word Count: 12,817

Summary: Tuor and Idril find themselves haunted by the music of an old love gone by. The only reprieve is to follow the music to its crescendo.

-

A collaboration created for the 2023 Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang, @tolkienrsb! It’s been wonderful working on this with Jaz!

Collection/link will go live on September 6th!

[reidishh]

I just started reading Crimson Rivers. Very nervous, wish me luck 😅

[eliks-edge]

I love the idea of a death wizard who parallels Malistaire pre-Sylvia’s death working together with Cyrus so much. Cyrus sees his brother in this child and it hurts because he misses his brother so much but it also worries him deeply. The wizard and Malistaire are so similar he can only hope that the trauma the wizard will have to live with after dragonspyre (and even more so after future worlds) will not make them into the man Malistaire is now. And really and truly, Malistaire is just a man overrun with grief over a loved one, which could so easily happen to the wizard. I think it would so interesting to see a villain arc very similar to Malistaires with the wizard

[tangirlisfangirl]

the movie was good but like. cmon guys.

[walkinginland]

when my time comes around

five times Jamie Fraser nearly dies, and one time he does canon-compliant 5+1 for Outlander part of my hozier song fics series; this one's based around "Work Song" aka the most JamieClaire song ever written.

one

Boys workin' on empty

Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat?

Jamie Fraser is almost twenty years old the first time he truly comes near to death. Now, there had been no shortage of foolish boyhood accidents, and the illness that took his brother from him had not left him unscathed. But he is almost twenty years old, barely more than a child, the first time that he stares into that darkness, and feels it staring back.

The last few days have been a blur interspersed with sharp moments of startling, scarring clarity. Anger and shame and hurt and fear. He can’t comprehend how he had gone from pitching hay in Lallybroch’s fields to laying in a prison cell with his back flayed open and a burning infection creeping up his spine and into his limbs.

The fort physician has been kind, at least. Had let him cry, had set his hand gently on his shoulder, and done what little he could for Jamie’s shredded back. He had offered water and a bit of bread, said that it was important for him to keep his strength up. Jamie had taken some water, shook his head at the bread. He can’t imagine holding anything in his stomach when his whole body feels so hollow, carved out as cleanly as a hunted animal.

The physician’s best hadn’t been enough to prevent infection or erase the memory of the last time he saw his sister’s face, but it was something. He had handed him a worn out book, a worn-thin Bible with the smudged ink of fear-dampened hands.

“Here you are, lad. This belonged to another prisoner, but I reckon he knows the truth of it now better than any of us here do. Mayhap it’ll bring you some comfort.”

Jamie lays on his stomach on a creaking cot in a prison cell, trying to calm his spinning mind any way he can. He blinks at the tiny print of the Bible from an awkward angle, head tilted to the side and book resting on the edge of the cot, and tries to turn a page without pulling the muscles in his back. He had had no idea that the tips of his fingers were connected to the back of his shoulder in such an intimate way, but he is learning it now with every twitch in his hand.

He's not sure he is actually reading any of the words in front of him, couldn’t tell you which book or passage he has open before him. He could do without the chastisement of Saint Paul. Perhaps one of the Prophets, calling out doom and hope in the same breath. It feels fitting, somehow.

He steers far away from the whipping of Christ. Some things feel far different from a prison cell than they do in the pews in kirk of a Sunday.

His fingertips feel numb and the words in front of him blur, from tears or exhaustion or just the poor typeset and smeared lettering, he can’t tell.

The fingerprints and tear tracks that lived on these pages long before he opened them won’t judge him for the drops that find their way out of the corners of his eyes.

keep reading on ao3

[experimentaldragonfire]

so. floating the idea (...pun not initially intended but i'll take it) of a dead boy detectives au set on the titanic. not specifically based on the movie (because i haven't seen it, shockingly) but based on what i know about the actual event

so we've got this situation where edwin is in first class and charles in third. (again, not because of the movie, but presumably in 1912 you're going to have that very obvious class discrepancy and also did i mention yet that in order to make sense chronology-wise they're getting their dates of birth backdated to like 1894 or something?). they meet because of some sort of situation where edwin’s trying to find somewhere to escape his family and social pressures and ends up down in the third class sitting room or tucked away somewhere in a corridor he's not really supposed to be in, and charles just decides to befriend him because Hey New Person Who’s This? and then they have a good time avoiding edwin’s family and exploring the ship and maybe they hang out with charles’ mother a bit because she's on board as they're traveling to america together to attempt to start a new life away from his dad and then oops! iceberg! and first of all they’re not the priority for lifeboats (because "women and children first" and they're neither--but they make sure to drag charles' mum out on deck and get her into a boat and reassure her with false smiles that they'll be just a few boats behind) but even when edwin’s family try and cajole him onto one he asks if charles can come and the expressions on their faces give him all the answer he needs, so he flees back into the ship and there’s desperate confessions and they kiss with the water rising around them and then they’re holding hands on-deck as the ship sinks below the waves

and if i’m being really really mean about this, charles gets pulled from the freezing water into a lifeboat and he keeps pleading with his rescuers to take edwin too, but they can tell he’s already dead and can’t waste room on a body. and neither of them had intended to let themselves get rescued without the other one right by their side but that's how it ends up, and none of charles' rescuers are going to throw him back in the water when they have a chance to save his life, so he's forced to survive and go on and y'know, for someone who didn't intend for this to be the plot of the movie, I've sure accidentally stumbled upon some similar plot beats, haven't i

anyway in conclusion i don't need more story ideas but also i apparently can't stop myself from coming up with them

[justamesswasnotavailable]

The 911 fandom trying to make sense of the quotes Oliver keeps uploading on his insta story:

[aithusarosekiller]

Mainly aimed towards marauders fans bc I see a lot of people being really aggressive about it there but:

💫 Not liking fanon characterisation doesn't make you better than the people who do 💫

Someone changing a character to fit how they enjoy seeing them isn't a crime bc it's a fictional character

Making a character queer in canon content isn't ruining them and it doesn't make the writing cheap or stupid

You can address harmful stereotypes without being a bitch and shutting down entire perceptions of the character because it isn't usually the older writers and artists creating flawed presentations and it's certainly not all of them, you're just being dramatic and trying to demonise an exploration of a character that you don't agree with.

Reminder that a lot of fandom creators especially in the marauders and ofmd fandoms are minors. Young teenagers writing in their school break don't need to be screamed at and called homophobes or racists for making accidentally including a stereotype into the character, they may appreciate being warned about the misconceptions so they can correct them...but berating creators and saying they're all fucking everything up and destroying everything is not helpful; it's mean and they aren't going to take your advice, they're just never going to write again. If you don't like the characterisation just fucking ignore it like the rest of us.

You're a dick 🥰

[freytful]

Kojima rly threw in some canon doomed Mads Mikkelsen soldier yaoi riiight into the end of death stranding like he was throwing a bone to the wolves, only for the fandom to entirely ignore said canon doomed Mads Mikkelsen soldier yaoi in favor of [???] because the other guy was black

[8cfc00]

augh who up feeling like they should be humanely euthanised for liking media the wrong way... sorry for fandomising certain characters but not fandomising others enough in the right way.

[bonefall]

longtime dc fan and i think a lot of people are angry because alex is obviously one of the most culturally relevant instances of misogyny in media. that being said being more culturally relevant doesn’t mean it’s the worst instance of misogyny and i think bumble definitely experiences more profound misogyny in the way the actual content is presented, if that makes sense

I get you, and that's a charitable way of looking at it.

I think what's rustling my jimmies is that like, there was a couple of WC fans being mildly dismissive of Alex in that note minefield, after dozens of comments of "fuck you how could you let the fridge woman lose" and "Bumble didn't deserve to win ANY rounds" and "how could A CAT experience misogyny." But then WE get blamed for the toxicity because THEY were butthurt that the Funny Cat People have the 'audacity' to win something they feel entitled to.

Like, we've gotta be endlessly charitable as we get openly insulted because they're upset about Alex losing, a very well-known and culturally relevant character with a legacy so massive we have a whole term named after her. But condemnations of "She's just a cat, letting WC into this poll was a mistake, Bumble can't even be a victim of misogyny" only started coming around once I started talking about it.

as if it's OUR fault people got passive-aggressive or even OPENLY aggressive towards us, and that we're "just as bad" for retaliating

But like you said, it's not a "Most Culturally Relevant Misogyny" tournament, it's a "Canon Misogyny Victims" tournament. And you're not even supposed to give a shit that Bumble died. The fat, woman abuse victim is beaten to death by a dictator, and your takeaway is meant to be, "It's so sad that Clear Sky is being blamed for murdering her, now they're all preparing for self-defense against a homicidal maniac, oh nooo :("

And I think that DOES make her deserve the win here! Alex is a MARTYR. Everyone with a brain agrees what happens to her is bad. It happened in her canon because it was bad. We talk about her and keep her memory alive. Bumble gets dismissed entirely out of hand because she's "just a cat in a kid's book" as if that doesn't make it worse, and as if the kid's book didn't treat a domestic abuse survivor like a moron for even asking for help.

Anyway, just to reiterate, I love DC fans. It's not all of you guys. Alex was done dirty and deserves justice-- and it's even kind of a shame that all she became is "The Fridge Woman." I haven't even heard people talk about how she was a wary, responsible person who was still ready to rock with Kyle's new weird glowstick powers, or that she was a journalist, or that she just got brought back in another edition as a Green Lantern only to be revealed as an illusion and re-absorbed back into Kyle's mind. Nope. Even her fans just remember her as The Fridge Woman.

[californianedgeworth]

I can not believe that Yakuza 3 ended with Mine realizing the error in how he'd lived, being told that he could get another chance to do better, and heroically sacrificing himself to take out Andre Richardson saying "maybe in a next life" and then Andre Richardson is the one who turns out be alive in Infinite Wealth. like lmao?

[nocentis]

Black Arum ┆ Siegrain

Content warning: main character death, cannibalism, gore, toxic/unreliable narrator, highly canon divergent character portrayal. Read at your own risk. You will probably take psychic damage from this.

╳┆A lure was stuck in the soot between his lungs. Many times he'd felt the tug — enough that the wire fray had worn a rut where his ribs met — and many times he'd found her on the other end, reeling for remnants of him that no longer existed. She would aim to break him open, sift around in the cinders for those specks of him she wanted to confiscate, keep for herself, so that she could finally be rid of him. Once those flecks were washed and panned, the remains would reek like plough mud closure. For that reason he would come to her whole, every whit of ash accounted for.

A cherry little game they'd play. Her with flint and steel, eager to reignite that paltry spark of "good" that flickered freely for a lapse before he remembered himself. Him with tinder and kindling, letting it light only to call on the rain again. Her with just enough hope. Him with just enough time.

That resolve was so very compelling. More than her beauty, her candor, and even that glow he so loved to bask in — that luster he wanted to hold between his teeth and bury under his nails — more than that, her tenacity was a toothsome temptation, and he wasn't keen to deny himself anything.

So when he felt the pull, he caved to the beck and spooled the lisle. That day, the line seemed lighter, thinner, than it ever had. It should've been strong. Tensile. Instead it felt gossamer fine and just as frail, poised to tear at an ill touch, and he wasn’t exactly renowned for his gentle hands. Still, he gathered it with both palms and wrapped it proudly around himself like a ceremonial sash, grin scrawled across his face something devilish.

╳┆He found her lying in the shade beneath a long-lived magnolia, still and silent as she never was, with the color of her namesake spread around her head in halo streaks. Battle-torn, as she so often was, and yet uncannily... passive.

Anything he'd planned to say went out the airlock. Instead, he stood there with an anchor in his stomach, reaping the benefit of doubt.

Not a frown nor a sigh when he darkened her sanctum, only heavenward eyes tearless and unblinking and a resigned breath just short of peaceful. That worn tether waned phantom thin, light as helium, and the tension in his chest went slack.

There was no definite snap. No dramatic severing or ear-popping moment of clarity. Only the vague sense of loss so fresh a wound that denial was a numbing salve.

“Get up,” his voice a command, sandgrit against whetstone, thickened by an unnamed antigen.

The silence felt like mockery. A placid scene void of chittering fauna, clouds' drum, or even the most timid breeze. It wanted him to hear the absence of her breath and the stillness of her chest. It wanted him to hear the hollow. The empty. The nothing. Wanted it to resonate; to find the furthest reaches of his mind and clean them out until all that was left was this icy, clarifying silence.

He knew the end when he saw it. This was something much worse. It was robbery.

Her life wasn’t for the world to take. It was for him to hold in his hands. 

Something wet and pathetic slicked his tongue — some whiny, pleading thing — and it was stubborn as oil. The authority slid to the back of his throat and left him choking, “You are the indomitable Titania. You’ve laced fingers with Death time and again only to rise and slay and conquer, so get up.”

Her warmth was set to a slow drip, spilling from her in tired beads and seeping soundlessly into her chosen ground. Little whispers of her lost to greedy loam, sullied, never to be returned.

A waste of precious love. The sod won’t drink of her as he will. It will take of her and give back what? New “life” so fragile and fleeting? A feeble weed will take root, bloom its days few, and curl itself inside out? Pathetic. An insult to her legacy. An insult to the diamond-split sharp of her bladesoul.

His heart boiled over — popping, sticking, simmering sicksweet saccharine. It colored him cloying, flooded his mouth, and forced him to kneel at her altar.

"Please," he keened, hollow and morose, and his own pleading sickened him, “Say something.”

The sun trickled through the leaves like ichor, lighting up her black-blown eyes and the thin ring of honey surrounding them. Dim, distant, and dead as the moon.

His hand carved a path to her face, fingers featherlight against her fading flush. He brushed her bangs from her eyes and forced an unbroken breath through his quavering mouth. He traced each scar too faint to see and the parts of her skin their star kissed. Memorized the map of her face — each curve and crease, each fine hair, and every eyelash. He would carve out a space in his mind in her shape and fill it with the thousand sweet nothings he kept in his pockets.

He gathered her hand and threaded it with his own. When he opened his mouth, a rickety twine escaped from the deepest point of his chest, so he forced his jaws shut to keep the grief corked. He uncurled her fingers and pressed his cheek into her palm, trapping her there against his own scarred skin. His eyes fell shut as he breathed in this borrowed touch — this moment fated, stolen from him by this world's insatiable avarice.

He kissed her palm directly in the center; held it against his mouth and felt his own ruined breath echo back to him from the deepest grooves of her skin. Again, he begged, “Please, Erza.”

Of the armors innumerable now haunting this hallowed ground, this one least befit her. 

He revered Death. If there was a god, surely it was Death, he thought, for Death asks for nothing but life. The dead don’t know that they’re dead. They know a split second of euphoria and then a sharp, definite end. Isn’t that the work of a gracious god? One last stroke of color whether in peace or peril, and then eternal rest. Back to the dust you sprouted from.

But now he couldn’t see any of that beauty he often waxed poetic about. All he could see was change yet to come. All he could see was her, and he wanted her back.

He wanted her back, yet he knew better than anyone that there was no such thing as resurrection. While Death might be gracious, it was not generous, and it was not to be reasoned with.

The thought of her buried deep, bathed by the dark and abandoned to rot — it washed his mouth acid sour. It ate straight through his tongue and lingered in the roots of his teeth, burning, raging redhot in his jaws’ marrow.  A grave didn't suit her anymore than a pyre.

Soon she would be cold. Stiff. A feast for flies and their insatiable young. In the days to come, she would bubble and bloat and sallow. Her skin would loosen and slough off. The sun would bleach her bones. The meat of her would melt into oil and fat and bogspit. She would mix in with the soil, the groundwater, and this thankless magnolia would thrive.

It was tall, thick, with branches spread in all directions. The lowest of its limbs showed off the varied deep greens of its large waxy leaves, their undersides a chalky brown. A few white flowers bloomed, palm-shaped petals open in praise like they'd come to witness and worship. There was no question why she'd chosen to crawl here. It must've reminded her of home.

Despite its beauty, it was hardly worthy of her. Nothing in this ravenous world was. Her grave should be carved within his chest. There, he could keep her warm. He could host her in his veins. One day, they would wade the waters of woe together. Until then she could live under his skin.

He wouldn’t allow her to spoil. Wouldn’t place her gently into time’s whittlesome hands only to lose her peel by peel by rotting peel.

This world has taken much from you. Do not allow it to take her too.

A carnal ache etched itself into bone, a depth of passion he hadn't felt since he wrought for a false Heaven.

She is a fruit, ripe as a plum and twice the taste. Peel her open. There is a seed at her core. Plant it in your soot-field chest and watch her bloom anew.

What are these hands for if not this?

Flesh like sheets of silk. Muscle like rope. Blood like honey. Bone like an ivory trove. The splitting, the squelching, the straining, ripping, snapping; it burrowed marrow-deep and lingered there. Her chest peeled apart like jagged teeth, jaws croaking their rusted tune, and inside that redslick maw was the center of the universe.

The heart upon its throne, still as she, shielded by her precious lungs. It slid into his palm like it was always meant to be there. Raw, rich, and so very scarlet. Its sinews strained against his pull — those hollow vines that fed even the furthest parts of her — so he wrenched them free and draped himself in them like matchless finery.

Eat. Eat ‘til you’re sick. There’s a hole the size of her in the pit of your stomach. Eat until you fill it. 

What are these teeth for if not this?

Tough as leather; smooth as rubber. His teeth slid right off the rind and clicked together with nothing but metallic sheen between them. He gnashed at that ink-dripping muscle until he found a spot weak enough to tear apart. It tasted of rare meat and iron; a heady gore thick enough to drown in. He swallowed, gasped, and that first new breath felt like a blade.

The child inside him saw her split-open ribs as his cradle. He wanted to crawl inside, curl up, and die. He wanted to paint himself her color.

He lost his vision to the hot, angry wash. His own sobs were a distant sound, muffled by meat and blood and his own desperate fingers. He was numb in the mouth and in the shake of his hands, but he forced himself to eat, eat despite the choking, the gagging, the wet, weeping remorse.

Don’t you dare throw her up. Be grateful. Swallow and say thank you and finish what you’ve started.

He bit into his own palm, indistinguishable from her core, and he cried out in sour relief. His hands spread raw grief over his face, through his hair, and down his neck.

You’re no better than this starving world.

He curled into himself, hands clutching his own aching chest, and despite the cloudless sky, he called upon the rain.

[enhanced-operatives-division]

One day I'll draw the ieytd cast with all the flower imagery i want