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7[[quoteright:350:[[Film/{{Looper}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/looper_mark.jpg]]]]
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9Want another way to help show what a {{Yandere}}, StalkerWithACrush, or how distressed/depressed a character is? Don't just have them hurt themselves or another person. Instead of having them create a random wound, make it a recognizable pattern. This could take the form of a word, letters, or a symbol. The mark chosen usually has some sort of symbolism, like the name of a crush, as way to show just how obsessive the person is. It may or may not leave a scar. Done to another person, then it is torture. If it is done to themselves, then it would be a SubTrope of SelfHarm, carrying a lot of the same ideas with added symbolism. Or they CouldntFindAPen.
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12!!Examples:
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15[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
16* ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'': Not the skin exactly, but [[PsychoForHire The Rail Tracer]] threatens [[KidsAreCruel Czeslaw]] [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Mayer]] with torture involving "stripping away each individual arm muscle and doing intricate carvings on the exposed bone."
17* In ''Manga/DragonHalf'', Mink's father's signature technique carved an "R" on his enemies. Dick Saucer's carved an "S" (Which one opponent thought was a "5").
18* This is done by Noriaki Kakyoin in ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders]]'' where he carved the words "Baby stand" on his arm in Death 13's dream so he could remind himself in the reality about Mannish Boy's [[FightingSpirit Death 13 stand]] when he wakes up from the nightmare.
19* In ''Manga/WolfGuyWolfenCrest'' the BigBad Haguro Dou becomes completely and crazily obsessed with protagonist (and werewolf) Inugami. He initially doesn't care about or even think twice about Inugami... until he pushes Inugami too far. Which results in Inugami showing him his true form and scaring Haguro. Haguro goes insane from it, and obsesses and stalks Inugami after that, even cutting himself all over his arm and carving the word "Inu" onto his hand.
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22[[folder:Comic Books]]
23* In ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', Franchise/{{Batman}} uses the sharp edge of a batarang to carve a Zorro-style Z on ComicBook/LexLuthor's face.
24* During Bendis' ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'' run, Daredevil (who's been in a bit of a bad place lately) fights his old enemy Bullseye for the first time since Bullseye killed his girlfriend Karen Page. Daredevil mocks Bullseye, saying that he found out about his past and tells him how pathetic he really is. After beating him down, Daredevil notices that Bullsyee now has a tattoo of a bullseye on his forehead. Taunting him about trying to have a "symbol", Daredevil grabs a nearby sharp object and carves an actual bullseye into his head.
25* A RunningGag in ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'' involves the player characters waking up somewhere after their latest ZanyScheme has gone awry to discover that pixie fairy runes of shame have been carved into their buttocks.
26* ''Comicbook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'': When the League first encounters Fu Manchu he is writing on someone's back with acid or other corrosive chemical. It establishes that he's not a nice guy.
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29[[folder:Fan Works]]
30* ''Blog/AskTheMainFour'': Cartman was given a scar on his back this way as a revenge.
31* In the ''Manga/DeathNote'' DarkFic ''Fanfic/TheFacelessDisguiseOfCarnivorism'', L carves his own name into his flesh while being held prisoner at Kira's POWCamp [[SanitySlippage in an attempt to remember who he is.]]
32* In the infamous ''The Girl Who Lived'' series, [[GenderFlip Rose Potter]] magically inscribes the words "Potter stinks" into Ron's forehead just because he questioned her relationship with Hermione. (Furthermore, the only reason he is asking is because he is being LockedOutOfTheLoop.) This was considered a MoralEventHorizon crossing in the eyes of critics, and considered to be proof that Rose is just as horrible as [[BigBad Voldemort]].
33* ''{{Fanfic/Hivefled}}'': The Makara and Peixes symbols were carved into the back of Gamzee's neck in the style of the now-obsolete traditional slave marks (troll slavery was banned when enough other species were conquered to be used instead), along with words translated from the Con Lang Alternian as "slut", "pet", "rape toy", "pail", and "worthless". The final brand, "namoha", translates as "one who is owned by a higher", and binds him forever to the Highblood. [[DarkFic Yeah, it's that kind of fanfic]].
34* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' fanfic [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/555850 "I Called You"]], Simon carves "I am Simon; I am not king!" into his arm in an effort to keep from losing himself to [[ArtifactOfDoom the crown's]] [[SanitySlippage influence]].
35* In the ''Series/{{Emergency}}'' fic ''[[http://audreys-efanfic.freeservers.com/lostandfound.html "Lost and Found"]]'', Gage has three parallel lines carved into his abdomen with a knife by his captor. The man's earlier victims had them as well. He tells John it marks him as his.
36* In another ''Manga/DeathNote'' DarkFic ''[[FanFic/MonsterADeathNoteAU Monster]]'', when [[{{Yandere}} Light]] "recovers" L, he carves an "L" into his hip. L muses it's a "two percent chance that the L was for Lawliet, and a ninety-eight percent chance it was [[SlashFic for "Light's".]]"
37* ''Fanfic/OwlsHellThatEndsWell'':
38** Octavia has a intricate one on the back of her neck. Said carving it revealed to be part of an enchanted spell, that keeps her from being detected by Stolas, and other spell casters, or even other hellhounds. [[spoiler:It's later revealed to possess some of Metatron's own power, something that should be impossible.]]
39** Baron has a horrifying one on his chest, which he reveals to a young Octavia, saying: [[spoiler: Property of Baroness Eathelin, with the Baroness Eathelin striked out and replaced with: NOBODY.]]
40* In the ''Series/LostGirl'' fic, ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8759563/1/Scars Scars,]]'' Bo has become lost to the darkness inside her. After she and Lauren get into a fight, Bo rapes her (''all night long''), and claims Lauren as her property by carving a "B" into her shoulder. Lauren is, quite understandably, left emotionally and mentally broken by the ordeal.
41* In the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' fanfic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226165/chapters/14265052 "Tale of the Pines"]]'', various words were carved into Stanley's back, most of which were illegible - the only one to remain readable was the Spanish word "puta" (meaning "whore"). Ford is naturally horrified when he sees the scars, but is also confused as to the term's significance due to not knowing any Spanish.
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44[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
45* In ''WesternAnimation/ShrekTheThird'', during the final confrontation between Shrek and company vs. Charming and his minions, Donkey, [[FreakyFridayFlip who's inhabiting Puss' body and vice versa]], uses the sword to carve a "D" for Donkey onto Pinocchio's butt.
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48[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
49* ''Film/{{Anazapta}}'' is the [[TitleDrop word]] carved onto the back of the various corpses that start cropping up after Jacques de Saint Amant arrives in town. Jacques himself has a scar [[EveryScarHasAStory from the cross that was carved on his chest when he was a baby.]]
50* In ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'', Batman brands his symbol into the skin of a criminal he takes down. A news report later notes that this significantly shortens the life expectancy of the criminals he does this to, as other criminals tend to single out these people in jail for violent treatment. [[spoiler:Batman nearly does this to Lex Luthor at the end, but he changes his mind and instead decides to punch a bat-shaped hole in the wall behind Luthor.]]
51* In ''Film/Daredevil2003'', PsychoForHire Bullseye has a set of crosshairs carved into his forehead between his eyes.
52* In ''Film/Fear1996'' David carves the name Nicole (the girl he's {{Yandere}} for) into his chest.
53* In ''Film/HaroldAndKumarEscapeFromGuantanamoBay'', Neil Patrick Harris brands his initials on prostitutes.
54* In ''Film/HarryPotter'', Bellatrix carves the FantasticSlur "Mudblood" into Hermione's arm.
55* The swastikas carved by the ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' in the foreheads of their surviving victims.
56* ''Film/JuliaX'': The SerialKiller known as 'the Brand Killer' brands the buttocks of his victims with a letter of the alphabet before he murders them. He brands an 'X' on Julia's butt, but she escapes before he can kill her.
57* ''Film/KongSkullIsland'': Although their body paint makes it hard to see at a distance, many of the [[Characters/MonsterVerseHumans Iwi]] also have numerous tribal symbols and hieroglyphs carved into their very skin.
58* In ''Film/{{Looper}}'', when a future looper comes back to the present and starts causing trouble, a way of communicating with them is to grab their younger self, and carve words into their arm. The scars appear on the future self at the same time (the film does not follow the idea of the StableTimeLoop), and they get ordered to be at a certain place or their younger self dies rather horribly. When one future looper is late for his ordered execution, his nose and limbs start disappearing as his younger self is dismembered. At one point, Young Joe contacts Old Joe by carving "Beatrix" into his own arm, Beatrix being the waitress at a diner Joe frequently visits. Played for laughs when Old Joe points out that a woman named Jen also works there. "Fewer letters."
59* ''Film/TheLovedOnes'': Lola's CallingCard is the hearts she carves into her victims' chests as part of their torture.
60* Blackbeard carves a trident-shaped sort of mark into Jack Sparrow's chest (with [[HollywoodVoodoo voodoo]], no less) in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides''. The P for "Pirate" on Jack's right arm also counts, though it's branded, not carved; Cutler Beckett personally branded him and describes it as "his mark".
61* The main character in ''Film/PreyForRockNRoll'' tattoos the word RAPIST on the forehead of her bandmate's attacker.
62* Invoked in ''Film/PromisingYoungWoman''. Cassie plans to carve Nina's name into her rapist Al's chest so he can never forget her name. [[spoiler:She ultimately doesn't manage it.]]
63* In ''Film/SnuffMovie'', Teenaged killer X has an 'X' carved into her forehead (which she presumably did to herself). Later, Angie has the word 'WHORE' tattooed on her forehead by Jack as punishment for her infidelity.
64* In the opening scene of ''Film/TheHarderTheyFall2021'', after slaughtering his parents, Buck carves a cross into the young Nate’s forehead. Nate spends his life assuming it was so he would never forget Buck and what he did to him. [[spoiler:It turns out Buck did it for himself, so he would recognize Nate when he came for his revenge.]]
65* ''Film/TheTripper'': When Samantha finds the naked bodies of her fiends in the van, the killer has written 'JUST SAY NO' across the corpses. The words 'JUST SAY' have been carved into two of the bodies while 'NO' has been [[CouldntFindAPen written in blood]] on a third.
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68[[folder:Literature]]
69* In Gary Jennings' ''Literature/{{Aztec}}'', after the Spaniards arrive, many of the indigenous people are taken into slavery. Their captors carve the letter "G" into one cheek, for "guerra," marking them as war captives.
70* ''Literature/TheGanymedeTakeover''. [[TheQuisling Gus Swenesgard]] sends one of his minions to contact the Black Muslim resistance to offer a WeCanRuleTogether deal. They [[ShootTheMessenger dump his naked corpse]] back in Gus's territory with the words WE DON'T NEED YOU, WHITE MAN carved on his back with lasers.
71* Played with in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' when Umbridge has Harry use a special quill to write "I must not tell lies" on a piece of paper, but the quill magically carves the sentence into the back of his hand and writes the words in his blood on the paper.
72* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{It}}'' Henry Bowers carved the first letter of his name into Ben Hanscomb's belly with a knife, and would have put his whole name down there if Ben hadn't fought back and gotten away. Ben still had an H-shaped scar on his stomach nearly 30 years later to show for it.
73* ''Literature/MillenniumSeries'': It's a tattoo rather than a cut, but the principle is the same when Lisbeth Salander tattoos her rapist with the words "I am a sadistic pig, a pervert and a rapist". (Plus, the line is extremely blurred anyway as she is doing it for the first time and it's ''very'' painful looking.)
74* This is the central trope in Creator/FranzKafka's "The Punishment Machine", and might well have inspired the Harry Potter example.
75* In the third arc of the ''Series/RedDwarf'' novel ''Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers'', [[spoiler:Lister discovers his arms suddenly hurt and the areas of pain spell out a message. He soon realizes that it's a warning that he, Rimmer and Cat are trapped in the VR game "Better Than Life" and Kryten had to inflict this in the real world in order to get through to him.]]
76* In ''Literature/SharpObjects'', Camille has a compulsive need to carve words into her own skin. She always wears conservative clothing to hide the scars.
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79[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
80* ''Series/{{Angel}}''. A vampire sired by Angelus adopted his CallingCard of slicing a cross in the cheek of his victims to spite God.
81* In the ''Series/BreakoutKings'' episode "Steaks", VillainOfTheWeek Oliver brands his initials on to two of his victims.
82* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': "I Robot, You Jane" had Malcom, the kid who was running the show for Moloch, the demon in the computer, burning a design on his arm with some type of computer-powered laser.
83* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'':
84** The Cabbie Killer from season 4 carves "L2729" on the back of his victims' necks with a piece of gravestone. The last episode of his arc reveals that it stands for [[spoiler: Leviticus 27:29, which refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them. He fancied himself the Greek god Charon, a.k.a. The Ferryman of Hades, whose duty it was to transport the newly dead down the River Styx.]]
85** The leader of the vampire coven in "Sanguine Love" uses a sharpened ankh to carve the same symbol into the inside of all the members' left wrists.
86* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E8ColdWar "Cold War"]], the Doctor says that the enemies of Ice Warrior war hero Grand Marshal Skaldak would carve his name into their flesh to honour him as they died, which seriously weirds Clara out.
87* In ''Series/GameOfThrones'' members of the [[ChurchMilitant Faith Militant]] carve the symbol of their faith, the Seven Pointed Star, into their foreheads.
88* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': In "[[Recap/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitS12E6Branded Branded]]" Two of the three [[VillainOfTheWeek perps]] have the words "ruiner" and "traitor" carved on their chests by the VictimOfTheWeek with a coat hanger in retaliation for raping her [[spoiler:[[ChildByRape and getting her pregnant]]]] while she was attending summer camp when she was only 13.
89* ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'': Piper gets a swastika burnt into her arm in retribution for creating a white power group and framing Maria for her panty business. She gets Red to burn it into a window to fix it.
90* ''Series/{{Oz}}'':
91** Schillinger offers to be Beecher's new cellmate. Beecher accepts the offer from the seemingly helpful Schillinger, but on their first night in the cell together Schillinger rapes Beecher and "brands" him by burning a swastika design into his right buttock.
92** Keller later tries to cheer Beecher up about it by showing him different patterns the swastika can changed into, but Beecher declines pointing out those involve his ass being branded even more.
93* In the show ''Series/SharpObjects'', the lead character Camille has numerous words written in scars all of over body done as acts of self-harm.
94* ''Series/{{Utopia}}'':
95** In series 1, Milner tells the tale of a man who had a carving of the Chinese character for "rabbit" on his stomach. Later in the series, it is revealed that The Assistant bears that carving after getting killed. But in the finale [[spoiler: it is revealed that [[RedHerring it was all a lie]] and that the real Mr. Rabbit was [[TheManBehindTheMan Milner all along.]]]]
96** In the finale of series 2, [[spoiler: Wilson Wilson carves the character onto his stomach as the heroes are kidnapped.]]
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99[[folder:Music]]
100* In the Music/{{Pink}} music video "Fucking Perfect" there's a girl who carves the word "Perfect" into her arm in the bathtub.
101* The Music/WeirdAlYankovic sung-by-a-stalker song "Do I Creep You Out?" (sung to the tune of "Do I Make You Proud?") has the lyric:
102-->Call you every night and hang up / Gonna carve your name in my leg / In my leg, oh, oh!
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105[[folder:Podcasts]]
106* ''Podcast/QuestInShow'': In [[SeasonFinale “Hard to Die”]], the last rune Pratt needs to destroy turns out to be carved into [[BigBad Droog’s]] wrist, instead of written on paper like the others.
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109[[folder:Video Games]]
110* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'', Astarion bears an infernal scar on his back, resembling a kind of ritual circle, which was given to him by his former master Cazador. [[spoiler:The scar is actually part of a dark ritual to sacrifice him along with his fellow vampire spawn for Cazador to become a DaywalkingVampire.]]
111* In ''The Phantom'', one of the first chapters of ''VideoGame/MurderInTheAlps'', the bodies of [[spoiler:Claudia Perret]] and [[spoiler:Helmut Grass]] have strange Hindu markings carved on their arms, making it appear as if this is a case of ritual killings. [[spoiler:The killer acted on the orders of the Nazi Party to [[YouHaveFailedMe kill their agents Claudia and Helmut for their failure]] to capture Charles Clark, the renowned professor of archaeology, in the previous chapter. The symbols were carved in order to frame Professor Clark, but the killer neglected to take into account the fact that Clark is an expert of the Vedic branch of Indian religions, so he used Shaivist symbols instead.]]
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114[[folder:Webcomics]]
115* In the webcomic ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'', the Goblin Slayer carved the word "MONSTER" into Fumbles' forehead. Some other prisoners have had words carved into their foreheads as well, such as "COWARD".
116* In ''Webcomic/{{Lackadaisy}}'', Serafine invites Mordecai to join the Maitre Carrefour cult. When he refuses, she forcibly carves a Voodoo glyph in the shape of a wheel with eight spokes into his chest.
117* ''Webcomic/MyImpossibleSoulmate'': All demons have their name carved somewhere on their body, as carving said name into someone is part of the process by which they were turned into one.
118* One ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' strip had a guy meet his date who carved his name into her face. He was more upset because he thought she was the type to make him handle the bill.
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121[[folder:Web Animation]]
122* In ''WebAnimation/SuperShowdownBowl'', Zorro himself actually tries to scratch a "Z" over the Oscar being's buttocks, but to no avail. He retaliates by carving an "O" into the hero's chest, yet another IronicDeath.
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125[[folder:Web Original]]
126* [[http://www.twloha.com/vision/story/ To Write Love On Her Arms]] - Renee cuts "FUCK UP" on her arm.
127* Adam Dodd of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' carved the word "rapist" into the chest of Cody Jenson, who had raped Madelaine Shirohara before killing her, during the conclusion of their final battle.
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130[[folder:Western Animation]]
131* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Creator/AdamWest [[IntimateMarks branded]] his initials on [[PainToTheAss Meg's ass.]] They were once in a relationship.
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134[[folder:Real Life]]
135* [[Music/ManicStreetPreachers Richey Edwards]] and his infamous 4REAL incident.
136* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Todd_mugging_hoax Ashley Todd]] became internet famous when she said she was attacked by a ScaryBlackMan who carved the letter "B" for UsefulNotes/BarackObama into her face. Turns out she was faking, and part of how it was proved was that the "B" was backward because she did it in a mirror.
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