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draft for Poison, Not Sickness
Laconic:
It's not sickness. Someone's been poisoning them.Description:
Sometimes a characther is sick and no one knows what exactly they are suffering from. The disease has no name, because there's no disease. Someone's been poisoning them all this time.A Delicate and Sickly character is dying of some unknown sickness. Doctors can't identify it. Cures don't help. The character withers away; death seems imminent. Then is a shocking twist it turns out another character has been poisoning
It was Bob who was secretly giving her poison. It's a perfect crime. No one will ever solve it when no one even knows the murder took place. People would think she died of an illness.Now that the reason for Alice's poor health is known she can be treated. Hopefully it's not too late.
Usually we learn the truth after The Reveal. Though sometimes we know the truth all along.
Poison, Not Sickness refers to situations where a character slowly poisons another character, usually by Medication Tampering or Tampering with Food and Drink, in small dosages over long period of time making everybody believe the victim is sick.Reason for it can vary. Often it the Inheritance Murder. Another common motive is Münchausen by Proxy Syndrome were perceived sickness is the main goal of the perpetrator.Misguided attempt to keep them safe.
The betrayal.
Indices:
Relevant tropes
- The Reveal: Is it necessary a reveal? Seems so.
- Delayed Diagnosis: By design. A person is seen as having some sickness and it takes some time for it to be revealed it's due to poison.
- Mistaken for Disease: Read more about this one.
- Water Source Tampering: Not sure, but might be a reason (could be expanded to include it?)
- Universal Poison
- Poison Is Evil: Obviously.
- Poison Ring: Can be involved.
- Master Poisoner: Is actually unlikely to be the perpetrator. They usually use quicker methods.
- Acquired Poison Immunity
- Münchausen by Proxy Syndrome: Possible motive.
- Inheritance Murder: possible motive.
- Medication Tampering: One way to do it.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Another way to do it.
- Playing Sick: People can suspect it if they can't find the reason for the illness.
- Faking Another Person's Illness: in this case it's not faking, but actually causing it.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Could be involved. Especially uncurable, since the poisoning doesn't stop. But read more.
- Definitely Just a Cold: Maybe the reason why the poisoner used the slow approach.
examples
- Characters.Sharp Objects: Ill Girl:In the book Camille comments that Marian was always a sickly child and that it seemed like she was born fated to die at a young age. This turns out to be untrue though as Marian was only sick because Adora was deliberately making her that way.
- TearJerker.Dragon Quest VII: Meanwhile, Kaya married the new rich guy, playing the doting wife while plotting to slowly poison him, letting him think he was dying from some mysterious disease and thinking the poison she mixed into his food was actually medicine.
- Characters.The House In Fata Morgana: She is the one mainly responsible for Michel's trauma. The fiancee of Georges Bollinger who created on him with his brother Didider, Aimee shows disgust towards homosexuality when the female-presenting Michel kisses her. When Michel is locked up, Aimee gleefully tortures him, depriving him of food and water, ritually humiliating him, and taking great pleasure in all of his pain. Later, she slowly poisons Georges to death to gain all his property. When she reappears in the backstage interviews, she smugly gloats about how she went on to live a life of comfort and security and faced no justice for her crimes.
- Characters.The Politician: Hate Sink: She's a elitist, homophobic Rich Bitch who killed her daughter and poisoned her granddaughter into illness.
- Gankutsuou: Ill Girl: Valentine is a very moody, sickly girl who tends to stay indoors and tend to her wheelchair-bound grandfather. It turns out she's being poisoned by her stepmother.
- Shina Dark: Christina. 4 years of being forcefed poison can do that to a person.
- The Daughter of Twenty Faces: Ill Girl Subverted somewhat in that Chiko gets better once Twenty takes her away from her relatives who are poisoning her to death with Aconite and goes on to be the main character.
- Mystery Case Files: Emma, in Ravenhearst, although it turns out she was actually being poisoned.
Rewritten examples
- One Piece: Caesar kidnaps children for his experiments. He tells them they need to stay because they are ill. But it's a lie, and he is poisoning them with the candy. After learning this, one of his victims, Mocha, eats all of the remaining "candies" to prevent her friends from eating the damn things.
- Repo! The Genetic Opera: Shilo Wallace is suffering from a blood disorder she supposedly inherited from her mother. It turns out her father's been poisoning her most of her life to keep her away from the outside world. Her mother didn't die from a blood disease either.
Original examples
- Characters.One Piece New World: Ill Girl: Caesar told her that she needed to stay because she and the other children were ill. It was a lie, and he is poisoning her and the others with the candy. She becomes even more ill after eating all of the remaining "candies" to prevent her friends from eating the damn things.
- Repo! The Genetic Opera: Shilo, continuing the proud tradition of Marni (dead before the story starts) and Blind Mag (cured, at least temporarily.) Or at least, so it seems. Nathan's actually been poisoning Shilo to keep her with him after her mother died.
- Characters.Repo The Genetic Opera: Abusive Parents: Played with; he had the best of intentions, and after his wife's traumatic death he genuinely wanted Shilo safe. That doesn't change the fact that he accomplished this by locking her away from the outside world, stunting her maturity and poisoning her to keep up the illusion that she's an Ill Girl.
