Those who decide that it's Better to Die than Be Killed in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- In Administrative Mishap, Indigo finds themselves on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle and issued an ultimatum: either surrender and be bound in chains, or be consumed by their opponent. Instead, Indigo opts for suicide.
- In Contact at Kobol, at the conclusion of the war between the Tau'ri and the Twelve Colonies, Helena Cain requests a knife from the Tau’ri soldier who arrested her so that she can commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner.
- In the G.I. Joe/Alien vs. Predator crossover fic Corazones y Cazadores
, the Joe team thinks Beachhead has chosen this when he's attacked by a facehugger and grabs for his handgun. Subverted, as he's actually shooting it off. - The God of Destruction comes to Remnant: After Cobalt Yashi is defeated, he confesses his crimes to the public, then slits his own throat rather than be arrested.
- In the Harry Potter and Death Note crossover Little Black Death Note, Raito is well aware he's playing a dangerous game and considers that in the unlikely event that the wizards figure out what he's up to he might just get one of his Shinigami to write his own name in the notebook rather than hang around and wait for the many nasty Fates Worse Than Death the wizards would inflict on him.
- In The Scarab- a crossover with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1- a System Lord 'rescued' Larry from the explosion on graduation, but brainwashed Larry to be his First Prime and then had him sired by a vampire before putting him in a sarcophagus. So long as Larry goes into a sarcophagus every couple of days, he remains human, but when Xander and Teal'c break his conditioning, Larry chooses to remain behind to set off the bomb to destroy the Goa'uld's underground base, as they cannot retrieve the sarcophagus and he doesn't want to risk waking up as a vampire and killing his family in the future.
- The Weaver Option:
- Sliscus advises Hoth to consider suicide over being captured by the Imperium. Sliscus had previously witnessed an Imperial execution that lasted ten days - and that man hadn't committed a tenth of the crimes Hoth had.
- Sliscus and Vect both choose annihilating their own souls over letting Slaanesh devour them.
- Inverted in What Tomorrow Brings. When Tobias makes it clear to Temrash that he's going to die either way, Temrash chooses to leave Tom and get crushed right away rather than stay in for the next few hours and die of Kandrona starvation.
- Worlds Apart offers a non-fatal example of this; rather than the Council firing Wesley for incompetence, here he willingly resigns from the Council because he can no longer tolerate working for people who would consider himself and Buffy just as much traitors to their calling as Faith when their only 'crime' is not killing Angel.
- In Tiberium Wars, it is a common belief among Nod soldiers and officers that their prisoners of war will be tortured and raped by GDI troops — which leads to a Black Hand officer executing his own immobilized wounded to keep them from falling into enemy hands. GDI, meanwhile, views this as appalling and as a fanatical enemy denying them intelligence sources.
- Attempted in Danganronpa: Memento Mori, where after being exposed as the killer of Chapter 4, Yukiharu Fuyumura prepares to slit his wrists with a pocketknife to prevent Monokuma from executing him. Monokuma manages to drag him away before he can go through with it, however.
- In Ordinary Days, after realizing that Junko's use for them has run out and that she had only ever planned for them to die via her suicide video, the class, led by Kaito and Ryoma, decide that if Junko wants them dead either way, they are going out swinging.
- In the Dragon Age: Origins fanfic Victory at Ostagar, the Empress of Orlais takes poison rather than be dragged to a Fate Worse than Death by the darkspawn invading Val Royeaux.
- Vow of Nudity: When the harpies have the Jackal at their mercy, she taunts them into surrounding her and then detonates a hidden bundle of dynamite to take them with her.
- In Chaos Theory, when Archer starts getting devoured by The Shadow, he kills himself with Rule Breaker, both so he doesn't rise again as a Blackened Servant, and so he can die as Shirou Emiya, not Archer.
- Supposedly Sirius's reason for blowing himself up in The Parselmouth of Gryffindor. Of course, he's actually Faking the Dead.
- In the infamous Gutters, Denmark saves two bullets specifically for this reason.
- World of the Dead: The group comes across a family of three, dead by gunshot; Takashi speculates that they either decided to take the easy way out rather than be devoured by Them, or the father went crazy and killed his wife and kid before turning the gun on himself.
- A Thing of Vikings: Sir Henry incites a massacre of the Jews of Caen, and drags the survivors to a church to forcibly convert them to Christianity.note Several of the Jews kill themselves rather than submit to the Christian baptism.
- In Queen of All Oni, it's eventually shown that this is how Tarakudo's mortal life (before becoming an Oni) ended — surrounded by his enemies in war and deciding they didn't deserve the honor of taking his life, he stabbed himself.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- At the start of ARTICLE 2, Major Shane Doran has just woken up and is confusedly trying to escape Canterlot Castle. When he sees himself totally surrounded by what he presumes are hostiles with no hope of escaping, he puts his pistol to his chin. Luna manages to neutralize him before he can fire.
- In Ask Pinkamina Diane Pie, Scootaloo's abusive father hanged himself rather than let Pinkamina torture him.
- Some stories in The Conversion Bureau subgenre have this with the humans who refuse to be converted. The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum, being a Deconstruction Fic bordering on Deconstructor Fleet, has several instances of this. The hero, Marcus, tries to slash his throat when he thinks he's about to be ponified only for Canon!Twilight to successfully stop him. It's also revealed that the Japanese Prime Minister and Queen Elizabeth II chose to kill themselves than be converted (in the latter's case, pull a Taking You with Me by blowing herself up in Balmoral Castle with her assailants inside). The Europe and Asia side stories also have the main characters promising each other that they would shoot the other if they got hit with the ponification potion so they can die as themselves.
- InEarth and Sky, Proud Warrior Race Griffon Baron Redtail is trapped in a burning prison, and tries to convince his lackey Gunther to kill him rather than wait for the fire to kill them. Fortunately, he's rescued by the other prisoners.
- In the end of I Did Not Want To Die, the main character is already mortally wounded, but he has one last grenade.
- Early on in Misunderstandings, Peter finds himself in a magic-addled sense of fight-or-flight, running from ponies in Canterlot. At a point, he ends up in a back alley, with Princess Celestia standing in his way. He figures he's screwed anyway, so he might as well have the final defiance of choosing how he wants to die, so he puts his handgun to his temple and fires... except the gun jams. Later on, this episode leads ponies to have hushed conversations about his mental stability and humans' behavior, and Peter gets so disturbed at how easily he could go suicidal, he hands the pistol over to Sveti, the only living being he trusts and is able to use it* by that point.
- A Growing Affection:
- Faced with the prospect of being forced to submit to Madara's control again, the Kyuubi instead opts to die, allowing the last remnants of their essence to merge with Naruto.
- Gouki opts to commit Suicide by Cop rather than facing a trial and execution.
- After witnessing how Sakura killed Tayuya and Jirobo with Sol and Luné's help, Kidomaru decides to step into the fiery barrier surrounding them both, immolating themselves.
- Always Visible: In Pharqraut's student story, Dorian Gray kills himself because he does not want to be killed at the hands of the workers who are rebelling in London.
- In A History of Magic, Cleopatra chose to crush her own Soul Gem rather than wait for Augustus's troops to kill her or for her to become a witch. Many years later, Sarah attempted to do this, but the Jewish laws saying suicides don't get to heaven kept her from going through with it. Anne Frank had to Mercy Kill her.
- Chasing Dragons: During the Sack of Tyrosh, a noblewoman sets herself and her household on fire to avoid being killed or raped. As a side effect, the resulting inferno burns down most of the inner city enclave.
- A Dragon's Roar: After Rhaella imprisons her following The Coup against the remnant of Rhaegar's faction, Queen Laela hangs herself rather than face execution.
- In Summer Crowns, Felian Gaelyr, the leader of the Ashen Men, burns down her hiding place and slits her wrists rather than be taken prisoner by the Second Sons.
- Used non-lethally in Her Fractured Spirit. During a Turf War, rvMatt1 jumps off the tower instead of letting herself be splatted by an opponent.
- In The Wrong Reflection, Dal Kanril Eleya of the Mirror Universe Cardassian Guard keeps a Suicide Pill in a false back molar for use in the event of capture by Terran Empire forces."Despite my brave face to Damar, I know what the Terrans do to female prisoners."
- In the "Brotherhood of Shadow" Knights of the Old Republic Mod, a Czerka mining chief does this when his crew suddenly go animalistic and berserk due to an insane Jedi trying to lure your new party member out of hiding.
- Vanilla Sabotage Bad End has Corpsemaker poison his own coffee rather than be tortured to death by Darkrose and Alastair.
- In There Will Be Brawl, Bowser chose to blow himself up with a Bob-Omb and take out as many Game and Watches as possible rather than be killed and mutilated like the rest of the victims.
- Pagan Vengeance: Without an army left to defend itself, the citizens of Palanga commit mass suicide before the army at their gates. Juvage and his troops are so baffled at this they start treating the survivors and leave the city untouched with a big pile of plunder contributed from each man. This is also the point where Juvage starts questioning himself, since they didn't even need to take out the city.
- In Stirred (the sequel to Ripples), Caleb makes it clear in his internal narration that he'd take this route if facing the possibility of being captured by either of Phobos' Hands, due to their various reputations among the rebels.
