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Dark Fic / Western Animation

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Dark Fic in Western Animation.

Please sort the examples in alphabetical order by the medium of origin

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Authors and websites

Individual works:

  • The Adventures of Blinky Bill fanfic Scars Are Forever features a villain who plans on committing genocide on dingoes, a brutal torture scene inflicted by the villain on Shifty Dingo just because of his species, Danny Dingo being infected with HIV so that the villain can keep him from giving his brother a medical transfusion, and Blinky's sister Nutsy taking brutal revenge on him after he tries to torture and kill her as well.

  • Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers was already pretty vicious for a mid-eighties cartoon, but when the fanfic writers get a hold of it, they have zero problem playing up the stuff the writers only got to hint at, like the brutality of Wolf Den, the corruption in Earth's government, etc. One of the show's writers, Chris "Kaymo" Rowley, made the mistake of joking about the villainess's sexual tastes to the fanfic writers. You can probably guess what happened next. Taking the crown is Ann Kathrin Kniggendorf. Very well-written and exceptionally brutal. The scariest one is "Raumjager," (a timeline where Nazi Germany not only won, but has gone on to conquer the galaxy, and the normally persecuted Shane is now considered a paragon of the ubermenchen ideal...scarier when you remember that the writer is German herself). The nastiest is "The Lie" - massive Squick, Rape as Drama, and a very unsettling ending on top of it.

  • Adventure Time:
    • Spindle, Spire takes the series' Cosy Catastrophe and turns it into an After the End setting that would make Fallout crap its pants. If you don't get bitten by a zombie, eaten by diredogs, or have raiders do... things to you, you'll eventually rot from the inside out anyway, the only semblance of civilisation is under threat from a previously unknown brainwashing monstrosity, and the main characters are inflicted with every manner of Body Horror. This eventually culminates in an ending that might be called bittersweet if you tilt your head and squint a lot.
    • Purpose by nrbuer deals with a confused Finn who eventually joins the isolated human survivors as he is no longer needed as the hero in Ooo. Following this event, Finn eventually leaves Ooo forever and decides to live with the humans for three years. Until the entrance of the AT characters directly caused a spiralling turn against Finn's life, from the loss of his human lover to the war between humans and mutated creatures as a result of perceived racism and the Big Bad Lucien's desire to restore humans to its rightful place. There is also Flame Princess's Brutal Honesty policy took to its logical extreme which caused the Fire Kingdom citizens to dethrone and loathe her because of it, massive distrust between many people, even having an internal war such as the Fire and Candy Kingdom and deaths for many named characters like Cinnamon Bun and Moe.
    • Be My Escape by Ransomrigged is an AU of sorts where Finn never got adopted by Jake's parents. Instead, he lived in a Circus of Fear where he was viciously abused by a vile ringmaster ( who is revealed to be Princess Bubblegum). Eventually, he escapes with the help of Jake and Marceline but is mentally struggling to adapt to a new free life. None of this is even going into the rest of the characters, who are just as messed up, and how the Land of Ooo has been reduced to a Wretched Hive devoid of any stable morality.

  • Among the increasing amount of The Amazing World of Gumball dark fics, there's Rise Of Darkness and The Orb Of Corruption both of which are very dark, but especially the latter.note 

  • The Amphibia fanfic A Moth to a Flame features Marcy going through a brutal corruption arc and descending into madness due to the core's influence. She becomes a willing accomplice to Andrias and sells out her entire planet in order to stay with her friends.

  • Animaniacs:
    • The Burbank Confession, where toons experience prejudice from humans to the point that one who is as much as seen is shot with a turpentine bullet. Dot flips off a cop, bloody battles ensue, Bugs Bunny dies, and many other equally unpleasant things happen.
    • Bonds, in which the Warners, years after the end of Animaniacs, along with the rest of the cast of the show and a few characters from Tiny Toon Adventures and Looney Tunes, confront a mystery regarding the death of Slappy and the disappearance of toons in North America. It also features a very unique view of the world in which not only Animaniacs, but all cartoons co-exist.
      • Becomes Hilarious in Hindsight in light of the 2020 revival, where 1. the characters from the WB shows coexist alongside Hanna-Barbera characters and the Loonatics, and 2. when Slappy Squirrel and the others went missing, they're revealed to be just fine - and out to get revenge their kidnapper, Chicken Boo!
    • Soliloquy of Regret, a particularly dark story taking place after the run of the original show. Yakko tries to cope with developing problems concerning his health and mental stability as Animaniacs draws to a close for the studio. The angry rift that starts to form between him and Wakko helps none as the studio has more than just the threat of career deaths looming over it this time. It gets VERY violent. In a tweet, Tom Ruegger had this to say about the story:
  • The Arthur fandom is full of fanfics that are intentionally 'mature' and offensive however some are unironic but handle issues above the target audience's level. How to Break a Family involves D.W. being kidnapped. It gets worse from there. Thora dies of a heart attack after hearing the news, Mrs. Read and Mr. Read divorce after the kidnapping, Arthur and Kate grow up dysfunctional, and there is a lot of violence. Other fics emulate the series and deal with rough but still age-appropriate topics, such as Prunella the Bodyguard, which has a man taking advantage of Marina's blindness to harass her at the library, and Strong Enough, which goes into Mrs. Read's mindset during "Grandpa Dave's Memory Album".

  • For Every Action, a rather disturbing take on Atomic Betty. The plot involves the eponymous hero getting sucked into an alternate universe, where she is the dictator. Various death and carnage ensue.

  • Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom breeds darkfic almost as much as it does shipping. While vastly varied, it can generally be divided into three main groups: a) From before the series begins, speculating on what a century-long war would do to the world, b) During the series, exploring the minds of what are essentially Child Soldiers and the implications of a lot of the on-screen nastiness (such as the main characters' impressive body count), as well as the depredations of the Fire Nation, or c) Set after the series, deconstructing the Happily Ever After ending on the entirely reasonable basis that a lot of the Fire Nationals aren't just going to accept peace, and the rest of the world isn't going the let them go unpunished. Alternate Universe Fic, for example, the Fire Nation winning the war, is also popular.
    • Anything serious by marvel26 can give chills. Especially when the Fridge Logic behind it all makes sense. His story Manifest Destiny is a chilling depiction of the Dark Side of Aang's love for Katara to its extreme. And by the same author is His Father's Son, a story that explores Zuko as Fire Lord Post-Series.
    • The ATLA Wiki's fanon portal features a large number of Darker and Edgier sequel fics, AU fics, and prequel fics. A:TLAR gets some attention purely for being recognized as being one of the closest to an unacceptable (by ATLA wiki rules) R rating, without being out-and-out graphic. My Own Savior is particularly dark.
    • When All Your Dreams Come True is easily one of the darkest out there. Zuko succeeds in capturing Team Avatar early in their journey. The result? Sokka is quickly Killed Off for Real; Katara has her tongue cut out and is made into a training exercise for Firebenders to practice fighting a Waterbender, eventually ending up like a proto-Hama; Aang is blinded and condemned to spend the rest of his life as a prisoner; Toph, who doesn't even appear in Book One, ends up dying as well; Finally, Zuko is driven insane by his guilt and drinks himself into oblivion. He ends up creating an elaborate delusion where he joins Aang and teaches him firebending, falls in love with Katara, and they go on to overthrow Ozai and end the war.
    • For some reason the author gave it a T rating, but Lady Noir is creepy, especially given that in The Legend of Korra, Aang is dead and Katara is alive.

  • Vindictive Hand of Vengeance is a Ben 10: Ultimate Alien fanfic in which Gwen Tennyson is framed for murder and thrown into the Null Void for 16 years. She escapes and sets out on an elaborate Roaring Rampage of Revenge while trying to piece her life back together.

  • Believing in Magic deconstructs the topic of the Blue's Clues and deals with Joe growing up. It's a subtle, realistic take on the series and it delves into the fact most of the characters in the series aren't real, or don't appear to be to most. It's one of the few serious fics for the series.

  • Want a Chalkzone darkfic? Well, Sick Twisted Smile is among the pecking order. Here, Rudy is a bit more cynical and gets his kicks by secretly torturing and murdering Zoners, and as it turns out, Penny and Snap are not only aware of his “activities” but fully supportive of them, with Snap even having a superiority complex over other Zoners due to being drawn by Chalkzone’s “saviour”. Rated Mature for a whole lot of graphic violence and murder.
  • It is pretty much natural for Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers Fan Fiction to be Darker and Edgier than the show itself. Yes, it is about cute and fuzzy little rodents, but these cute and fuzzy little rodents are quite elaborate and multi-dimensional characters in a Daring Rescue and crime-fighting team. Many fans feel that Disney never really fleshed out the potential of the latter. So must CDRR Fan Fiction send the Rangers into way bigger and more dangerous cases than the show and drive them to their limits and beyond. While not taking anyone Out of Character, building upon established character traits instead, it tends a lot more into action-adventure and drama. Most CDRR fics that aren't Darker and Edgier are parodies on something because there are hardly any Slice of Life fics.
    • Under The Bridge is about Gadget's long-lost twin sister who wants to kill Gadget because she thinks their father rejected and tried to drown her because she was born as a one-armed albino and not a cute little blonde like Gadget. After several unpleasant encounters, the latter opts for drastic measures to save herself and her friends. It was eventually given a MSTing co-written by author John Nowak himself.
    • Of Mice and Mayhem is a webcomic (or rather a graphic novel) based on the cartoon that delves into a lot of dark subject matter surrounding a Government Conspiracy.
    • The Rescue Rangers fanfic tradition already started out a great deal Darker and Edgier than the show itself when its very first real Fan Fic ever written, Rhyme and Reason, was released in 1996: A mysterious villain sends Chip on a dangerous quest all over the city to find his teammates whom said villain threatens to kill by sunset — and puts through an individually tailor-made physical and emotional wringer.

  • Danny Phantom:
    • "The Ultimate Enemy" from Dark Danny's POV, or him escaping, or Danny joining Vlad and staying even after a death threat to Jazz is lifted. And generally a lot of exploration of mortality, psychology, and how it might feel to be essentially undead.
    • Despite its generally lighthearted mood, the show has proven itself to be incredibly prolific when it comes to fics regarding torture, experimentation, and dissection. One of the most famous of these is Phantom of Truth by HaiJu. Told from Maddie Fenton's perspective as she observes the infamous Phantom in a government facility, the fic contains several instances of electrocution torture and in one chapter includes an incredibly detailed description of the severing and subsequent studying of Phantom's hand. Its 65 chapter sequel describes the aftermath of the incident, ranging from psychological trauma to physical problems resulting from the experiments to attempts to destroy the information on said experiments which the government still had and prevent it all from ever happening to anyone again. Another one is Lab Rat by AnneriaWings; not for the faint of heart, this 20K+ fic is one of the goriest dissection fics out there and has inspired some Recursive Fanfiction.
    • Another example is You Should Be Dead, in which Dash accidentally shoots Danny dead. And then Danny wakes up perfectly fine the next day, aside from the fact that he's lying in a pool of his own blood. And there's a chemical which essentially melts ghosts, and Technus is Killed Off for Real.
  • Daria fan sites have fanfics written by the "Angst Lords" - a number of Dariafic writers who really turn the screws to the characters in the show. What makes the majority of these fics really dark is that they're also really well-written.

  • Ed, Edd n Eddy:
    • Eddward - Edd has enough of it and decides to murder all his tormentors. Rated M for all right reasons. Its sequel Johnny is even more terrifying, going straight into Cosmic Horror Story territory.
    • Forfeit, which shows what would happen if Ed, Edd, and Eddy still maintained their childhood problems for four years after the show's end. Gets even darker as the chapters progress.
    • While not a fic, there is a popular theory that everyone is Dead All Along. It's not taken seriously enough to be fanon, though it nevertheless has inspired a lot of fan-works with this premise in mind.
    • Ed, Edd, n Eddy: 20 Years Later EP is an adult-aimed version of the characters growing up, so it features some darker elements than the original cartoon. The Ed's have gone their separate ways, Ed and Eddy are wandering aimlessly through life, and Jonny's drug addicted.

  • The Fairly OddParents! has enough of these to create a community for them.

  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:

  • Franklin:
    • The alternate ending to "Franklin is Lost", which basically focuses on what would happen if Franklin and Fox were lost in the woods for days. Have a read of it here.
    • Franklin Lost Episode: Otter's Sickness centres around Franklin going to visit his friend Otter in the city, only to find out that she has a fatal disease that will kill her in a few months.

  • Gravity Falls has a ton of them. Given the show's nature, this isn't really surprising. It's a horror-centric children's cartoon dealing with the supernatural. It's pretty much asking for dozens of dark fics:
    • There is a popular AU known as the "Reverse Falls AU" (also called the "Reverse Pines AU"). As the name implies, it is a role-reversal AU where Dipper and Mabel are villains. They go into full-blown Creepy Twins territory, murder people, and have supernatural powers.
    • It Runs In The Family is about Gideon's sadistic cousin, Cashmere Gleeful, getting revenge on the Pines family for getting Gideon arrested and put in jail.
    • The same author wrote another story called The Seven.
    • There's also Behind The Mask.
    • Behold Mabel The Sweater Knitter, the Cupcakes of Gravity Falls.
    • All The World's a Toybox begins with Bill Cipher achieving ultimate victory, inflicting a potentially fatal injury on Grunkle Stan, and forcing our heroes into an I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream-style series of sadistic games.

  • In a Creepypasta lost episode of Hey Arnold! entitled Hey Arnold: The Furnace, Harold and Sid murder Stinky after a stunt goes awry. Whilst hiding in Arnold's basement, Arnold himself is murdered after learning what they did. Sid commits suicide out of guilt, and Harold follows soon afterward after discovering that everything was a huge mistake.

  • While Invader Zim isn't exactly a cheery series to begin with, it usually addresses dark and serious issues (the main character is trying to enslave and/or genocide humanity, after all) with relative sarcasm or surrealism. Fanfiction writers, on the other hand, often take these more seriously, which is relatively easy to write considering the Crapsack World in which the series occurs. Often this includes a.) Zim destroying the world and feeling bad about it afterwards, b.) Dib killing Zim and feeling bad about it afterwards or c.) Zim or Dib simply realizing how horrible their lives are and killing themselves.

  • Jem:
    • Jem fanfics tend to lean on two sides: Deconstruction Fic or normal darkfic. The former often has Jerrica being portrayed as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who toys with her boyfriend's heart and takes being Jem so seriously it tears the band apart. The latter lean towards being Misfits fics that deal with their Dark And Troubled Pasts, Daddy Issues, and in general rougher topics that the cartoon ever did:
    • The first Jem fanfic on FanFiction.Net was a dark fic where Roxy drowns.
    • Lasting Fame is a Dead Fic Deconstruction Fic that takes place 20 years after Jem and the Hologram disbanded. Jerrica's double life as Jem caused more trouble than was worth.
    • Epitaph is a drama fic where Kimber is kidnapped by Zipper. This is a fair Jem game... except that Zipper accidentally hit Kimber's head too hard and killed her. A simple kidnapping quickly turns into a murder.
    • Due to the connection between 80s rock stars and drugs, quite a few stories deal with drug addiction. Mary Phillips Story has, amongst other things, Stormer going to rehab.

  • Jimmy Two-Shoes has a few of these. Being a kids show that takes place in what is basically Hell by another name, it was kind of asking for it.
    • Death Among Misery, an unfinished story where an evil being far older and more powerful than even The Dreaded Lucius I returns to terrorize Miseryville and it apparently has some connection to the backstory of Lucius VII and Heloise. Gets a bit gory at some points, case in point.
    • Jimmy Two-Shoes the Movie: Misery Loves Company is much darker than the comedic and lighthearted series it was based on. Asides from there being more graphic violence and blood, there is also much more serious drama, an apocalyptic crisis at hand for the characters, a few minor religious elements, and an overall more serious tone than the original show.

  • Kim Possible:
    • Darkfics for the series are not uncommon either, usually involving the return of Ron's terrifyingly competent evil side, or Kim herself turning to evil. One featuring Kim holds that the good/evil switching device will make a moderately good person moderately evil, and a very good person very evil. Having been through it, Kim tortures Shego with scalpels and pliers for her amusement. It's well written, but (obviously) really unpleasant.
    • The other main style is turning Harmless Villain Dr. Drakken into someone... not so harmless.
    • A common Fandom-Specific Plot involves what if Shego hadn't been unharmed at the end of "So The Drama". What if she thought Kim had tried to kill her, or even what if Kim did kill her? One example is Better Than Revenge, a Kim/Shego fic where Shego is taken to the hospital after the electric surge causes her heart to stop.
    • Paragon, hence the main page image. It's a horror story that involves Josh Mankey cursing Ron with the ability to see the dead. His ultimate goal is to use Kim as a vessel for his mother's spirit, since she is the paragon of perfection in his eyes. The story ends with Ron's spirit in Josh's body, so Kim can finally be with him without worrying what the rest of the school thinks, but the experience has left them so psychologically damaged that they decide to kill themselves.
    • The Touch of Green Fire has Shego ending up with a life-threatening illness and Kim having to save her while dealing with her own feelings for Shego.
    • Don't Haze Me is a one-shot where an adult Kim becomes an Anti-Villain and teams up with Shego as a Battle Couple.
  • Littlest Pet Shop (2012):

  • Somewhat "closer" to the original Looney Tunes is Rules of Survival, in which the author speculates on the origins of the Funny Animals in the least over-the-top way possible (at least at first). It's mercifully short, but an alternate title may as well be "How to turn 'What's up, Doc?' and 'You're dethpicable' into Tear Jerkers."

  • Making Fiends is a dark cartoon so naturally this occurs:
    • Paint It Green, Blue, Black is a horror fic that gives us a backstory about Charlotte: her parents were murdered in front of her and she repressed the memories. Charlotte undergoes a Sanity Slippage after remembering this and murders her grandmother. Vendetta is presented as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk who doesn't have any issue with murder and it contains some romance between the two.
    • Lies is a fanfic where Charlotte learns that her parents aren't astronauts away on a mission. Her grandmother lied to her to hide the fact they died in a plane crash three years ago.
  • The Miraculous Ladybug fanfic Miraculous: The Phoenix Rises takes the original, G-rated cartoon, then proceeds to drag it through virtually every Capepunk trope you can imagine. Afterwards, the end result is mixed in with the jackpot of Humans Are Bastards, Crapsack World, Humans Are Morons, and especially Adults Are Useless.
    • Liers[sic] demise is a series of one-shots that revolve around resident Hate Sink Lila dying in various brutal ways. The first one sees her and Alya fall into a giant food processor, the second one has her become a victim of the Purple Guy, and in the last one she and Alya get brutalized by a Loony Fan of Ladybug (who gets off scot-free despite broadcasting it because she's a minor).

  • Dark Phineas and Ferb fics are surprisingly common given the generally upbeat nature of the series.

  • Puppy in My Pocket: Adventures in Pocketville surprisingly has a few:
    • Pocketville Lost Diamonds is a fan continuation of the show and contains some fanmade lore. However, it includes several scenes of characters in distress and fighting each other, and even swearing (however, it eventually got a Bowdlerization by removing some curse words from the seventh chapter of Volume II).
    • Nihonverse Pocketville is a fanfiction series loosely based on this show, except that many of the characters and the setting have been altered to fit more of a traditional Japanese theme. Not to mention that PG-13 themes such as action, violence, and scenes with characters in peril and distress are added, which is what the canon TV series would never show, and it's apparently inspired by Fatal Frame.
      • Pocketville Twilight, which is part of Nihonverse, is a crossover of both this show and the author’s original work Britsune Garden. There was even a flashback scene where Eva gets an exorcism in order to rid her of an onryo who possessed her.

  • The Powerpuff Girls has many especially when you have villains like HIM running around:
    • One of the most notable that stands out is Parsec's Immortality Trilogy, consisting of the stories Immortality Syndrome, Immortality Relapse, and Solitary Vigil. The series starts with Blossom dying in a battle when Mojo Jojo manages to pull a Not-So-Harmless Villain and is resurrected, but Came Back Wrong after seeing The Nothing After Death, decides that all life is meaningless and goes on a murderous rampage. And it just goes From Bad to Worse from there, culminating in Relapse having a mixture of a Downer Ending with a "Ray of Hope" Ending in which the Rowdyruff Boys, similarly shaken by their deaths and resurrections and coming to the same conclusion as Blossom did, create a doomsday device from Mojo's discarded blueprints that kills all life on Earth, with Bubbles and a single flower being the only survivors. The final story in the series, Solitary Vigil, is comparatively Lighter and Softer, even though it largely takes place After the End with Bubbles learning to survive on her own and take care of the flower that survived with her with the ultimate aim of trying to Set Right What Once Went Wrong (with her succeeding, albeit at the cost of her own life).
    • There is also Villain which shows what would happen if one of the Girls would do a Face–Heel Turn. A lot of people die.
    • The Utonium Trials portrays the Girls as immortal and ageless beings who are precocious to Creepy Child levels. The government catches wind of them and takes them from their father because they're artificial humans deemed a danger to society.
    • The Ladder series is about the Girls each dying but being brought back to life repeatedly. It delves into the psychological aspects of both that and dealing with the sudden loss of family.
    • The Webcomic The Powerpuff Girls Reimagined is a rather dark retelling of the story, where instead of being Artificial Humans, the Girls were the unborn daughters of The Professor and his wife, who were murdered along with their mother prior to the events of the series and brought back by The Professor, who at the time was on the verge of blowing his brains out before they were revived.

  • Rainbow Brite has quite a few as it's a surprisingly dark Magical Girl cartoon. The Rainbow Connection has Wisp running away after a traumatic event, growing up into an adult, and only returning to Rainbow Land after Stormy goes on a graphic murder spree.

  • Regular Show fan fiction Asleep in a Blizzard pairs Benson with a snow globe named Evelyn, who suffers at the hands of an abusive boyfriend and dies with Benson's child (how does candy dispenser sex work?) and Benson kills said abusive boyfriend.

  • Rugrats:
    • Rugrats (and by extension All Grown Up!) fans have The Rugrats Theory. As the name implies it's a theory however it spawned a lot of fanworks. As the story goes, the entire series is a product of a delusional Angelica and everyone is Dead All Along. Chuckie died with his mother, Tommy was born stillborn, and the twins were aborted. Fans differ but Dil is often depicted as the only living character; Kimi and Susie are ignored. The "theory" was never supposed to be serious and is just an interesting darkfic AU.
    • There's also Rugrats and the Gray Plague. Despite having a happy ending, it still has some pretty dark topics: Tommy has a serious illness and his parents temporarily divorce towards the end.
    • Prerugrats: Downplayed. It is mainly a lighthearted prequel to Rugrats but it does have Tommy have a stillborn older brother Spencer, and it claims Spike was found in a litter of dead puppies.
    • Tommy Pickles: The Terrible Twos: Downplayed because only two chapters are dark: "Tommy's Fear" which has Tommy get amnesia (and it's played completely seriously) and "Visiting Uncle Ben and Aunt Elaine", which has Elaine get a placental eruption and her fetus dies.

  • Scooby-Doo tends to lend itself heavily to this kind of things:

  • South Park seems to practically hemorrhage darkfics. For an example of a Cartman centered dark fic, we have Playing God, in which Cartman matter-of-factly and brutally murders Kenny (unlike most cases, it's taken seriously this time) as an experiment to see if he'd come back after being murdered in cold blood. Everyone being in character makes it worse.

  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • Most Wanted (since deleted) includes Mr. Krabs dying (implied), some mysterious knocking, and a wolf kidnapping SpongeBob and throwing him in the back of a truck in chapter 5 (including Mr. Krabs almost being killed in chapter 2), glass getting pushed onto SpongeBob in chapter 6, leading up to when his arm almost gets sliced off. More outrageous, it's rated T.
    • Felony deals with some mysterious disappearances that have been going on in Bikini Bottom in the past few years. SpongeBob is getting worried, but he and Patrick decide to go to Goofy Goober's for some ice cream. They end up getting drunk, just like in The Movie, and get into a barfight. SpongeBob is taken to the emergency room, but is okay. Patrick, however, is nowhere to be found. It turns out Plankton captured Patrick and took him over to the Chum Bucket. Patrick also learns where all the citizens have been disappearing, and what Plankton's been making his chum out of.
    • Mortal Man is darker than what the show handles, however it isn't uncharacteristically dark. It is about how SpongeBob deals with Mermaid Man's death. In the cartoon Mermaid Man has been Put on the Bus as his voice actor, Ernest Borgnine, died.
    • Squidward's Suicide is a fake lost episode about Squidward killing himself. It has such notoriety that the cartoon has referenced it twice.
    • The Bikini Bottom Horror starts off with Patrick going psycho and devouring SpongeBob. It only gets more disturbing when it's revealed why: he was driven mad when he discovered the secret of the Krabby Patty secret formula.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
    • Queens of Mewni can best be described as 'what if Star Vs. was more like Game of Thrones?'. Among the topics that come up is mental illness, the consequences of war, incest (both real and imagined), major character death, and dysfunctional families.
  • Steven Universe:
    • A fanartist by the handle of mimicteixeira drew a series of commissions of the Crystal Gems being shattered by the Homeworld Gems. The first two of Amethyst and Garnet are mostly just Tear Jerkers, but Pearl's is pure Nightmare Fuel, as it looks as though her head is being popped like a grape. What makes this worse is that in the comments for that last one, mimic reveals that they were commissioned to do one of Steven too, and that while they're proud of how it turned out, they refuse to ever upload it online. Apparently, it was just THAT gruesome.
    • Dark Dark Ocean Dark is a humanized reinterpretation of Malachite. In it, Jasper's ex-girlfriend Lapis kidnaps her and keeps her locked in a room for several months.
    • Steven Universe: Gone Wrong explores a scenario wherein Spinel's Rejuvenator actually harms Steven... to the point of cutting straight through him, leading to his brutal demise. However, his gem half reforms as Pink Steven to take her down, and the main story focuses upon the fallout of this chain of events, dealing with everyone's grief over losing Steven along with the added pain of Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet being Rejuvenated.
    • The Darkness Between Stars, while mostly containing canon-typical content, goes quite a bit further into dark subjects than the show ever did; in fact, the author outright states it was born out of dissatisfaction with the way the canon ending flinched from confronting the setting's darker elements at the last second. The story opens with an Alternate Universe version of "A Single Pale Rose" showing that Pink Diamond really was shattered, proceeds to show Connie getting her spine snapped in half and vomiting blood during the fic's alternate version of the "Reunited" battle, and ends with Stevonnie purposefully shattering White Diamond after she paralyzes the Crystal Gems and nearly kills Steven, with him only barely surviving. The Inferred Holocaust against off-color gems is also directly confronted, with Steven being driven to a Heroic BSoD at the sheer scale of it, and Peridot confessing that she personally carried out the execution orders during her time as a Kindergarten technician.
    • Flawed Crystals, by the same author as the above, starts with every one of the Crystal Gems becoming corrupted, and proceeds to have monsters bloodily tear open Connie's leg when she tries to fight them on her own. The plot itself delves even deeper into dark issues than Between Stars, taking a frank look at all of the gems' mental traumas and personality flaws, as well as the horrors they suffered under Homeworld. It is also an extremely dark take on Steven himself, portraying him as a self-centered narcissist who only helps people to fit his fantasy of being a beloved savior. It is possible for the player to give him the Character Development to move away from this, but it's just as possible for the player to give in to Video Game Cruelty Potential and drive him off the deep end, leading to a horrific Non-Standard Game Over where he becomes corrupted himself and must be killed by the gems in self-defense.

  • Street Sharks Redux is what happens when Street Sharks is re-written to include all the Fridge Horror. Events made considerably darker than in the series (such as the experimentation and brainwashing of Slammu), and it delves into a lot of the psychological horror a person would face if they found themselves mutated against their will and forced into hiding while worrying about their loved ones.

  • Challenge of the Super Friends: The End, where the Legion of Doom travel to a horrific Lovecraftian universe and end up like victims in the Event Horizon and Hellraiser films, while the Superfriends themselves become fascistic and attempt to make their world a utopia in the villains' absence.

  • The Tangled: The Series fanfic Darkest Destiny: A Tangled Story, which asks "What If? Cassandra won in Season 3?" Cue oodles of Break the Cutie, Cass getting even more Sanity Slippage than before, and lots of bloody murder. And cursing.

  • There are a number of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Dark Fics. The general public may look upon the Turtles as kid-friendly fare thanks to Adaptation Displacement, but the fics in question hearken back to the days of the original comics, which got pretty damned dark and violent. Yoshi's backstory alone was nowhere near kid-friendly. There is a Fan Fiction Dot Net community devoted to these darkfics, many of which are quite well-constructed.
    • Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden, a fancomic that deals with the four turtles growing up with psychological problems after a horrific incident, wrapped up in a mystery regarding a new turtle (who has his own set of issues)

  • Teen Titans (2003)
    • The brilliant fanfic Joker's Wild shows what happens when you take a mass-murdering psychopath like The Joker and put him into a light-hearted series like the Teen Titans cartoonverse. Its moments of horrific slaughter are matched by twisted humor. Not surprising considering it's about the Joker.
    • The sequels tops it up even further as it explores the negative implications of their actions, brings up sensitive issues like PTSD and rape full front, and has the titans committing a Face–Heel Turn that is apparently portrayed as a good thing.

  • Thomas & Friends:
    • Shed 17 is a Mockumentary detailing the truth about Thomas & Friends, specifically that all the talking trains are the result of horrific Nazi science that fuses human biology with machines with very mixed and often bloody results.
    • Pilots of Sodor takes the trains (though with a bit of Anthropomorphic Personification) and puts them in a post-apocalyptic wasteland fighting for their lives in mecha based off their original selves. It also throws in some dark Mythology Gags to the source: You know how Henry gets trapped behind a tunnel wall because he doesn't want to leave? Here, he's trapped in a room because he killed half the staff during a battle.

  • Cats, Gangs and Leaders is a Top Cat fic that starts with Spook's parents being murdered because he owes a debt to someone.

  • Total Drama:
    • Legacy explores a universe where Gwen suffered a violent death at the hands of the serial killer in "Hook, Line and Screamer", and the death itself (or more precisely, the mortal wound) is fairly graphic. All this from a comedic show.
    • The Doctor Will See You Now: If you have any doubts about that, just wait until you reach chapter 3. That’s where the story starts to reveal its true colors, and they are horrifying!
    • The Legend of Total Drama Island, a reimagining of the first season, is one of the fandom's darkest competition stories that doesn't make the contestants fight to the death or simply murder them—and mostly just because it plays for drama incidents that the original played for laughs.
    • Monster Chronicles: This story is predominantly a horror story, with a supernatural serial killer taking the contestants hostages. And there are darker elements at play, such the supernatural parts of the story and several characters having Dark and Troubled Pasts not found in canon.
    • Despair Island reimagines the first season as an illegal Deadly Game in which the original 22 contestants are now executed when they are voted off. None of the canon series' Amusing Injuries are Played for Laughs here, and everyone adapts differently to their horrific circumstances.
    • Total Drama: Pomewin Island: Set after the Ridonculous Race, multiple contestants from across the previous seasons of Total Drama are brought to a new island under the guise that they are yet again competing for a million bucks. However, it turns into another Deadly Game once they bare witness to the horror of the first elimination ceremony, learning that they are fighting for much more than money. and they may not even get ''that'', either.
    • Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: This story is one that can be enjoyed by people who are fans of Total Drama but also want something a little darker without the forced nature of many fics that fit that general description. Despite some pretty dark elements at play, this story doesn’t go for over-the-top drama, an edge-lord mentality, or grimness for grimness’ sake.
    • Haunted: The series deals with the aftermath of Chris raping several of his underaged contestants, revealing just how badly he damaged them. Needless to say, not for the faint of heart.
    • Island of the Slaughtered: The premise starts with Chris coming back to the island after abandoning the original 22 contestants there with a serial killer for a month, only to find 15 of them died. And it only gets worse from there.

  • Transformers-related Dark Fics are not uncommon. Unsurprisingly, they tend towards war stories.
    • For example, fan-comic "War Journal" ends with an outnumbered, outgunned group of Autobots preparing to make their last stand... A Decepticon Army Ending, if you will.

  • There exists a Dark Fic, aptly (ironically?) named "Twilight on London," that manages to turn much of the Disney/Don Bluth Mouseworld on its head and rework it into a Godfather-like tale taking place in 1800s London, replete with sex, beatings, murders, and all-around Canon/character-breakage.

  • World War Etheria - "world war" is a accurate descriptor for this She-Ra and the Princesses of Power fanfic. People die in war, sometimes magic is there to heal them but not always. It's explicit that both sides have actual economic systems with winners and losers and the war doesn’t do much for the bottom tier except the chance to be paid to get shot at. That said the characters themselves are largely unchanged; Adora nearly exhausts herself healing a cholera outbreak for example, Bow is welcoming to Adora and is the glue to holds the group together, Catra is even more effective in instilling loyalty with her troops and her actions shorten the conlflict. The friendships are arguably enhanced by what they go through with the technology uncovered is soon used to benefit everyone on Etheria and beyond. So Downplayed in the end.

  • Yin Yang Yo!:

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