#faking death

[ramen-writes]

Hero, hiding watching the villain's burial and their own funeral.

Villian, hiding also watching both funerals.

Villian sees Hero. Hero sees Villain.

Eyes widen, pointing at each other

Villain, whispers: YOU AREN'T DEAD!

Hero, also whispers: NEITHER ARE YOU!

[fanfic-obsessed]

Fake It

Let's take another AU walk. I do want you to know that, even though I can’t figure how to fit it into the idea proper, it is established Blyla and established CodyWan in the background.

When Order 66 went live, the clones, all of them, decided to fake the death of their Jedi. There could be many reasons for this but I personally like the thought that Clones had been low key prepared for their Jedi to be declared traitors since almost the beginning. 

In this one; the way the contract with the Kaminoans was written, the laws that created the GAR, and the laws that drafted Jedi interacted a little oddly. By technicality, since the Clones are not considered sentient, but instead are considered essential equipment for the GAR, any attempt to get them recognized as sentient, or in fact even treating the Clones like people, could be considered treasonous (the odd part is that this was not deliberate on the part of Palpatine, it was just one of those strange occurrences that he and the Jedi did not realize, but the clones did). 

And the chips do not give a reason for the Jedi being traitors, just that they were. So the clones, who had been preparing for this, took action. 

In addition, since the Jedi were empaths, the Clones and the Jedi had developed emotions as messages that could be used where other communication was not possible. Including a highly specific emotion that meant ‘We need to fake your death NOW’. 

So the Clones do ‘attack’ their Jedi (Obi Wan still got to take his swan dive), while giving the emotional equivalent of ‘PLAY DEAD YOU IDIOT’ being screamed at them. This emotion bleeding off all the clones could, to anyone not familiar with the emotion messages (which is everyone not Clone or Jedi) be mistaken for a darkening of the Force due 10,000 Jedi suddenly being betrayed and killed. 

As the march on the temple started, the 501st blasted this emotion too. Before Anakin can kill anyone this highly specific emotional message stops him just enough that he can come to his senses and realize exactly what he had been about to do (There is something about Anakin stopping dead in his tracks, eyes going wide as he realizes that he was about to commit first degree murder of children- I know that he had already committed child murder with the Tuskens, but there is a reason there is a difference between Second degree ‘I went somewhere an ended up murdering people’ and First Degree ‘I went there to murder people’).  

While the tech people of the Temple and the Clones hack into the security system (it may be the Temples system but it actually is calibrated to keep people from doing exactly what they are trying to do) to fake security footage of the Clones murdering the Jedi an getting in contact with Bail Organa to help get them all (including a smuggled Padme Amidala) off planet, Anakin put himself in a corner, telling them all that he needs to think about what he is about to do. 

Look I just really like the idea of an Anakin who has just realized he was down for First Degree Child Murder,but came to his senses before he actually committed the First Degree Child Murder and decides he needs to ground himself for a while. 

There was an intense debate between all the Jedi and their associated clones. The topic is if the Clones would be putting the Jedi on ships aimed for Wild Space until everything was sorted out, or if the Clones would be going with the Jedi into Wild Space while they figured out what to do next (The clones, particularly with the chips active, thought of themselves as Republic Property and did not want the Jedi to get in trouble for Grand Theft Army).  While most of the Jedi on the debate, there were a handful of battalions that had simply stunned their Jedi as part of the initial death faking and so won by default. Later there would be missions specifically to retrieve those lost battalions. There was a second, even more intense debate about what to do with the majority of the natborn officers, the ones that would not have sided with the clones and Jedi (As most of those Natborns were odious, speciest, and abusive to the clones, the clones would like a little murder. As a treat. Some of the Jedi- Depa Billaba, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Ki Adi Mundi who were particularly close to their battalions- had a harder time arguing against the murder that they thought they would).

In the end it was decided that the Natborns would be given the ships and supplies to get them to the nearest friendly planet, if they were clever about it.  But that long distance communications  would be disabled. Not every ship had someone who was clever enough (as the majority of the assholes were higher level officers who were used to other people doing the actual work while they got the credit). Of the ones that had survivors, it would take at least two tenday to get to somewhere friendly from where they had been abandoned. 

While Palpatine knew something had gone wrong (his shiny new apprentice vanished without a whisper and his army was not where he left them) he thought that the Jedi being killed had gone to plan.  He finds out differently when the natborn officers start reporting in. 

I have no idea where it goes from here, though I imagine there is a significant amount of dechipping and an Empire to dismantle.

[wonderful-prompts]

May I perhaps have a few reasons a character would fake their death? It's for a Creepypasta I'm writing.

It did not occur to me that there were people still writing actual Creepypastas and not just fanfiction. But it looks like you're doing both, so more power to you! I hope you have fun!

Thinking most generally to more specifically, the first reason that comes to mind is: new beginnings.

A character may want to start over in such a way that their old self can never be recovered. The death could be used as a symbolic death of who they used to be. They may not want to be the person they were anymore for some reason or another, potentially even because they saw an aspect of themself they may want to "kill."

In another case, a character may be running from something or someone. The character's previous identity would be known to this entity, which could be a problem for them for a variety of reasons including:

Safety

Consequences of previous actions

A new sense of self that does not match with the entity's preconceived notions of your character's existence (this can be a trans allegory, an "I'm not like you, Dad!" story, or a being hunted down by a scary science facility of ill repute and unknown origin story)

Very low bullshit tolerance (“You are NOT getting me into that shit again if you can't find me!”)

Faking one's death just to get away from someone scheming can be played for comedy depending on what aspects you lean into. Is this some idiot with ten thousand get rich quick schemes up their sleeves or someone more than willing to throw someone else under the bus for their own safety/gains?

Third option is they need to be dead. Your character should be dead for some reason but they aren't done living yet. This also has a variety of flavors that can be mixed and matched with previous examples!

There is something they cannot do while "alive"

Something will be stopped with their "death"

Someone very badly wanted them dead, but can be temporarily sated with this "death" so long as your character is careful

And there is also the copout answer of: they never meant to fake their death, they almost died/were nearly killed but got better and now must deal with living as legally dead.

Good luck on your Creepypasta!

[the-three-whumpeteers]

The whumpee wasn’t supposed to be alive- after all the whumper had killed them in front of everyone. The team had already grieved and moved on, it had been years after all, but all of a sudden the whumpee is found deep within the whumper’s lair, completely disheveled and injured beyond what’s humanly possible, but somehow alive. A majority of the team doesn’t even believe it- surely this must be some kind of trap, right?

[irondadmadlads]

Irondad Prompt #102:

Tony does the “fake heart attack” prank to Peter. He does it in good fun. He does it because he thought Peter would freak out, then they’d have a good laugh, and that would be it.

But Peter absolutely breaks.

His third father figure in a row is (supposedly) gone and Tony didn’t even get to how much Peter saw him as his dad.

[truly-morgan]

[What if WWX never died and JC hides him]

ChengXian | Mo Dao Zu Shi 05-08-2022

[#chengxian brainworn]

What if wwx never actually died at the siege? What if he faked his death? What if the person who confirmed his death was his precious Shidi? And no questioned it, sure that if the Yilling Laozu hadn't died the Jiang sect leader would have finished him And no one ever saw the Yilling Laozu afterward either, so he was indeed dead, right?

Right?

And then things settled in the cultivation world, wwx slowly becoming a character of warning tales, crazy stories whispered between people.

And no one noticed how seemingly unaffected Jiang Cheng was, despite being the one to end his one Shixiong. He was busy rebuilding a sect after all.

As They were rebuilding Lotus Pier, no one asked nor really noticed the small house that was being built farther in the dept of Lotus Pier, only accessible if passing by the Sect Leader's living quarters or by waterways (which had protection and traps).

Everyone simply assumed it was a more secluded house for their sect leader.

For when the man needed quiet and peace. No one was allowed there, forbidden from even simply walking the path to said house. No maid, no disciple, no even the sect leader's trusted spider could come with him.

Only jiang cheng.

If there was an urgency, they were to use a talisman that would alert him, but otherwise, no one really dared bother him when he would seclude himself in his small little house by the lake.

Little did anyone know that this wasn't really the sect leaders' secluded house.

Little did anyone know that someone else was living inside this little house on the lake.

But maybe if they knew, it would explain the quiet rumours going around the disciple of Lotus Pier.

Sightings of a silhouette draped in purple robes walking their sect leader's quarter late at night, disappearing as quickly as he would appear to people.

Some dared bring it up to their sect leader, who look more amused than anything at the young disciple who came to him, brushing off the matter. "No ghost is wandering my quarters at night" he simply assured.

after all, a friend and lover wasn't a ghost.

====

(I want to write more around this setting tbh)

Original

[grandmoments]

Best buds? No... Best buds forever!

Dragons: Race To The Edge 05x11

[kinogane]

When characters fake their own death in fiction, it’s not uncommon for them to attend their own funeral.  When done in a dramatic “their former self is now dead to the world and they will have to live the rest of their life knowing they have inflicted tremendous grief on their loved ones” sense, a lot of the weight is in 1. the “dead” character reckoning with their decision to fake their death as they see, before their very own eyes, the aforementioned tremendous grief of their loved ones, and 2. the dramatic irony of you, the viewer, being the only other narrative presence in the scene sharing the burden of the knowledge that the character’s not dead, because, you know, it’s not like anyone else attending the funeral is like, telepathic or anything.

Now, I’m not saying this could or should happen, but I’m just saying, you know, purely as a hypothetical, if, as his exit plan, Loid—