History Main / FetusTerrible

* All fetuses, if the concept of original sin (with no sufficient concession to a hypothetical age of reason) is combined with that of ensoulment occurring before birth (hence limbo as a receptacle not just for unbaptised infants but also for fetuses aborted or naturally miscarried).

* Ye olde ever relevant ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' calls these little nasties "Unholy Scions" in the supplement "Heroes of Horror", giving the fetus a +6 intelligence bonus while still in the womb (the rough equivalence of taking an animal and making it a slightly stupid person, or of taking an average person, and making them a genius). Comes with a no-save allowed charm effect on the mother.

* For his creator-owned series ''Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers'', Creator/JackKirby created a one-shot character called [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs Paranex the Fighting Fetus]]. [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/85865900@N00/90612917/ No, really.]]

* Half of all comic-book pregnancies. Most notably, that of [[Comicbook/WonderGirl Donna Troy]]. Donna's friend and fellow [[Comicbook/TeenTitans Titan]] Comicbook/{{Raven}} ''is'' one of these, which is why her mom was spirited away to Azarath and allowed limited at best contact with her daughter. How well Raven can resist her "daddy's girl" tendencies determines which side of the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor she's stuck on for a story arc.

** The same thing happened to ComicBook/PowerGirl during '' ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime''; just replace "rape" with "incest", as the father was revealed to be [[spoiler: her grandfather, Arion (in Comicbook/PostCrisis continuity)]]. The baby grew up to become Equinox, who promptly defeated Scarabus, disappeared, and was never seen nor mentioned again.
* One BigBad of ''Comicbook/XFactor'' was [[spoiler: Haven, who sought to bring about the foretold apocalypse today instead of waiting for it to happen on its own after still more centuries of human suffering. She was led to do it by visions sent to her by "him," but never elaborates upon just who "he" is, though you figure she's talking about God. She's not: she's pregnant, and "he" is her unborn child and the true source of her power.]]
* One of the main characters in ''Comicbook/{{Lucifer}}'' was impregnated by a pack of cards. With twins. One of which she managed to kill while it was technically unborn, the other took her hostage until she negotiated with it.
* Cassandra Nova, the parasitic twin sister of [[Comicbook/XMen Professor Xavier]] was one of these. In fact, Professor X's very first act of superheroism with his PsychicPowers was to fight her while they were both in the womb. [[spoiler: It turns out she was an astral parasite (known as a Mummudrai) who was Xavier's opposite: Every bit evil as Xavier would be good. She's since become one of the X-Men's top villains.]]
* Creator/JackKirby created a one-shot character called [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs Paranex the Fighting Fetus.]] [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/85865900@N00/90612917/ No, really.]]
* One of the most horrible stories in ''ComicBook/HackSlash'' had the slasher turn out to be a stunted murderous fetus who emerged from his obese adult twin brother's belly through a slit camouflaged between two rolls of fat. A very short story in the same series had a fetus carve its way out of its laboring mother ''with a knife'', kill the attending doctor, and attempt to crawl ''into'' Cassie Hack while she was waiting for a gynecological exam. Hack promptly squashes it, but still... ''where did it get the knife???''
* In ''Comicbook/{{Fables}}'', Snow White gets pregnant by the Big Bad Wolf and gives birth to six babies. [[spoiler: What she doesn't know at first is that she actually had seven babies. The seventh child was a invisible being made of wind and wound up killing some people to feed itself.]] Things got better after that, though.
* The end of ''Webcomic/BioApocalypse'' involves an epic showdown between [[spoiler: a 50 mile high fetus and a space fleet armed with nuclear weapons]]. Really.
* Pre-ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}, [[ComicBook/{{Batgirl}} Barbara Gordon]] was impregnated with one of these by [[spoiler: Brainiac]]. It made her a {{Technopath}} for a while, until she had to abort it for her own survival.
* Zigzagged with Rahne "Wolfsbane" Sinclair of the ''ComicBook/NewMutants'' and her son Tier. At first, it seems to be played straight; [[ExpressDelivery he develops at a freakish speed]] and kicks so hard that she needs an [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands Emergency Power Up]] of SuperToughness to cope with it, and eventually she gives birth to him by ''vomiting him out of her mouth''. Averted in that not only can all of this be explained reasonably (Rahne's a mutant, dad's an [[PhysicalGod Asgardian]] [[UpliftedAnimal wolf-spirit]]), Tier himself isn't evil.

** In his short story ''We Three'', two brothers and sister, gifted with immensely far-reaching psionic powers, kill the entire human race. After that they beget a baby via BrotherSisterIncest -- and the baby, still in utero, proves to be stronger that they three combined. [[spoiler:And there's a strong possibility that the baby is a {{hermaphrodite}}, so it won't need the three protagonists after birth...]]

* Fetus of god in ''[[VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}} Vampire Savior]]'', where Jedah tries to drain the energies of captured ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}} to bring forth TheAntichrist.

* The third ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}'' game has one, the Shintai, as a plot element - one of the titular Darkstalkers, Jedah, is hoping to use it to rewrite reality. It's shown in the background of the "Fetus of God" stage, and its [[BodyHorror disgusting, skinless look]] has been known to unsettle players.

** A flashback of Marge's pregnancy in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS20E3DoubleDoubleBoyInTrouble Double, Double, Boy in Trouble]]" reveals that Bart became what he was, and grew his spiky hair, after [[OneDrinkWillKillTheBaby a tiny drop of alcohol falls into Marge's mouth]]. Complete with OminousLatinChanting that sounds an awful like [[{{Catchphrase}} "Aye Caramba!"]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** A flashback of Marge's pregnancy reveals that Bart became what he was, and grew his spiky hair, after [[OneDrinkWillKillTheBaby a tiny drop of alcohol falls into Marge's mouth]]. Complete with OminousLatinChanting that sounds an awful like [[CatchPhrase "Aye Caramba!"]]
** In "I Married Marge", Dr. Hibbert examines the pregnant Marge via ultrasound, and when Bart turns so his butt is facing the screen, Hibbert remarks, "If I didn't know better, I would ''swear'' that he was trying to moon us."
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''
** A particularly gory episode, "Woodland Critter Christmas", had this with a pregnant porcupine, bringing a whole new meaning to GrotesqueCute.
** When Kenny's mother is pregnant in "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", Kenny, who spends the episode trying to get rid of it for [[HarsherInHindsight whatever reason]], has a [[DreamSequence nightmare]] about the child's inevitable birth where it turns out to be a demonic creature of some sort, [[TheyKilledKennyAgain killing him]] and everyone else in the hospital room.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* As a specifically non-human example, many species of sharks that give live birth have this as regular behavior in the womb. The litter of shark pups starts out more numerous, but the pups predate and eat one another until only the survivors end up being born. Usually if a shark has two surviving pups, it's because the shark has two uteri they can be born separately in.
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* In ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikerS'', [[spoiler:all twelve [[{{Cyborg}} Numbers]] bear a clone of [[MadScientist Jail Scaglietti]] in their wombs. If he dies, a clone of him with all of his memories will be reborn and it will grown instantly into an adult. It's also ParentalIncest]].

* The Cover of ''Music/ASP'''s ''Requiembryo'' shows the albums BigBad, the Black Butterfly, as an Embryo. Nothing is said about this on the album.

* Renesmee from ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' bears all signs of being this, seeing as she ''feeds only on human blood'' and ''shatters her mother's ribs, pelvis and spine'' -- but once she's born (by gruesome vampire-tooth [[TraumaticCSection C-section]]), she ends up a shockingly well-adjusted CreepyChild.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' Kelly Kline's Nephilim child, the son of Lucifer, is a being so powerful his birth outright kills his mother, and before his birth both angels and demons consider him a borderline apocalyptic threat. ''Supernatural'' puts a spin on this by having Jack be a rather nice person who doesn't really want to hurt anyone, much to the disappointment of his father.

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' has an episode where Gwen gets her FaceFullOfAlienWingWong at her Hen Do (Bachelorette Party) and she is tracked by the genetic mother of the fetus who wants to rip Gwen apart to get her baby. The trope predominantly comes from Gwen and Rhys's parents thinking she's going to have their grandkid juxtaposed with Torchwood trying to figure out how to kill the fetus.

* Subverted in that episode in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', in which Deanna Troi becomes mysteriously pregnant, which makes some people very nervous, but it's really just a friendly alien wanting to learn about humans by incarnating as one for a short time.

** The episode "Terms of Endearment" is all about a demon who's trying to father a child that ''isn't'' this. He just wants a normal human baby and marries women and then kills them when they inevitably give birth to demon babies. (He kills the babies, too.) Unfortunately for him, he eventually marries a woman who ''wants'' a Fetus Terrible.
** A likely explanation for the events of "Aubrey" is that detective B.J.'s unborn child is taking after its great-grandfather.

* {{Discussed}} in ''Series/TheWalkingDead''. Lori briefly expresses concern over what would happen if she suffered a miscarriage, and her unborn child ''turned in the womb.''

* ''VideoGame/MeatBoy'': Dr. Fetus, who is pictured above, is probably the most actively evil fetus ever, and he does it all in his mechanical, tuxedo and monocle wearing preservative jar. Can possibly be an EnfantTerrible since he's out of the womb, but he's also still a fetus.

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/MeatBoy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Drfetus_2785.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350: Yeah, that fetus is [[FlippingTheBird flipping you off]].]]

* In ''Manga/{{Jin}}'', the eponymous character is sent to the past by a fetus which is a terrifying mixture of NauseaFuel and UncannyValley in appearance. Before the surgery, it's spent forty years in another man's ''brain'', apparently drove him crazy and now it can telepathically contact (or rather scream at) Jin when he's miles and years away.

** Jack then proves himself to be the ideal replacement for his malevolent grandfather God AKA Chuck Shurley, after he and the Winchesters figured Chuck is a sadistic jerkwad fanfic writer that is torturing everyone in the multiverse for his personal amusement as he only sees them as characters of the story he writes, he loves downer endings at the expense of the people he tortures and he never cared about anyone interpersonally

* Ben Lovatt from Doris Lessing's ''Literature/TheFifthChild''. Hariett Lovatt and her husband have a really great family of six, but Harriets fifth pregnancy is a nightmare -- she feels like the fetus tears her apart from inside and is consumed with pain and exhaustion. Ben, when born, is a most unusual and frightening kid whose presence ruins the family.

* This is how Genestealers from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' differ from [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Facehuggers]], [[VideoGame/HalfLife Headcrabs]] and most other providers of the FaceFullOfAlienWingWong - They corrupt the DNA of the victims, so that the offspring are horribly mutated but hypnotise the parents (or this happens as part of the infection) into looking after it. From the parents point of view, they aren't this at all.

* A movie made in the mid 1990s called ''Aswang'' has this. Basically, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswang Aswang are Philippine vampires whose tongues are abnormally long and are used to suck the innards out of sleeping people]]. The film's version plays on this as the Aswang in this American movie [[EatsBabies feed on unborn children]], but the survivors of an Aswang attack become Aswang themselves. [[spoiler:At the end of the movie, the mother is running away for her life, stumbles and is preparing to be killed by the house help when she feels something tickle downwards past her legs: It's an abnormally long tongue belonging to a baby Aswang.]]
* The direct-to-DVD movie ''Born'' revolves around this trope, where the pregnant protagonist's demon fetus causes her to kill people so that she can give birth. Then when the baby is born (looking just like a human baby even though her ultrasounds show it as a gremlin-like creature), she's told that she has a chance of saving it -- when it's said throughout the movie that its birth would bring hell on Earth.

* Creator/BarbaraEden once starred in a film called ''The Stranger Within'', where she plays a woman who's taken over by the alien fetus she's carrying. In the end, [[spoiler:it turns out that several women were impregnated, and they all get whisked off into space by the babies' father(s)]]. It becomes HarsherInHindsight considering what happened to Barbara Eden's own child.

* A 1991 movie called ''The Unborn'' is all about this. A couple who have had fertility problems for a long time undergo an experimental in-vitro fertilization procedure in order to successfully have a child. At first, they're ecstatic to be pregnant. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:the doctor who performed the procedure was experimenting on the infertile women to produce creepily intelligent, [[DesignerBabies genetically modified]] babies]].

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* All fetuses, if the concept of original sin (with no sufficient concession to a hypothetical age of reason) is combined with that of ensoulment occurring before birth (hence limbo as a receptacle not just for umbaptised infants but also for fetuses aborted or naturally miscarried).

* All fetuses, if the concept of original sin (with no aufficient concession to a hypothetical age of reason) is combined with that of ensoulment occurring before birth (hence limbo as a receptacle not just for umbaptised infants but also for fetuses aborted or naturally miscarried).

* Mordred Deschain in ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' -- while in the womb he forces his mother to eat frogs. He also has ''four'' parents, two of whom are human (and two of the main heroes). The other two are the BigBad and the gender-bending incorporeal [[HornyDevils sex demon]] who raped the aforementioned humans at various points in the story.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': In this ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' fanfiction, the unborn children of the [[Characters/AbraxasHrodvitnonHumans three Russian women]] who were non-consensually inseminated appear to be this. Whilst the human cast are unfortunately late to the realization, it's clear enough to the reader that the babies are related to Ghidorah and that Ghidorah itself has long-term plans for them.
* ''Fanfic/TheMountainAndTheWolf'': Subverted, to the Wolf's clear disappointment: despite multiple Chaos-infused warriors having sex with Cersei several times a day for several months, her baby is born completely free of any Chaos corruption or mutation.

* Popularized by '' Film/RosemarysBaby'', the entire plot of which is "an unsuspecting woman is impregnated with a half-demon to serve as TheAntichrist".

The only thing creepier and more dangerous than the EnfantTerrible. The Fetus Terrible hasn't even been born yet, but will become TheAntichrist or a demon prophesied to bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt or just reek havoc once it escapes from its womb. The woman carrying this (often literally) hell-born spawn is usually an innocent, unwittingly impregnated by the Devil himself, and the other characters have to race to prevent the birth or stop the child from becoming the ultimate EnfantTerrible. Occasionally this can result of a perfectly normal pregnancy GoneHorriblyWrong pre or post conception, where the issue can be a {{mutant|s}}, HybridMonster, UndeadChild or some other abomination. This trope can also overlap with WombHorror, especially if the mother knows what's growing inside her.

** [[spoiler: killing [[DiscOneFinalBoss Mom's Heart]] 10 times will replace it with a boss called It Lives!. It Lives! is a giant fetus that's seemingly attached to Mom's Heart as a result of pregnancy GoneHorriblyWrong. The battle is no different from Mom's Heart aside from the fact that It Lives! summons bosses like Chub and Teratoma during the battle.]]
** [[VideoGame/MeatBoy Dr. Fetus]] makes a cameo appearance as an unlockable item- the Fetus In A Jar, which replaces your tears with bombs, along with the Epic Fetus item, which drops [[GameBreaker absurdly powerful]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill ''missiles'' onto your enemies]]. The unlock image even has the Epic Fetus FlippingTheBird at you as missiles rain from the sky!
** The item "Cambion Conception" makes your character visibly pregnant. When you recieve enough damage (game describes it as "feed them with hate"), it spawns a random demonic familiar to follow you from then on. The character Lilith starts with this item.
** ''Repentance'' introduces [[spoiler: Tainted Lilith]] whose only method of attach is to release her demonic fetus, named Gello, out of her womb so it becomes controllable and he can attack the enemies. While Gello is out, [[spoiler: Tainted Lilith]] is immovile and vulnerable to damage and Gello's movement is limited by the length of the umbilical cord (but Gello himself is invulnerable). Returning Gello to the womb makes [[spoiler: Tainted Lilith]] controlable again. Beating a certian boss with this character, unlocks a Gello item that can be used by the other characters to summon him as a familiar every 2 rooms.

* [[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/viewer.php?id=542658&key=AhXfXlXzBtOzlxbStiM2Y1MjQxNGYyQjA3NjIrN19xN2IxMzE7QjczQlYxOzJWNDNiNTIzZjArVnFfOTUxbTk5MDUxNjYxOQ%3D%3D&sandboxid=4dadfab17c2bb Covetous]] [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible seems to have this going on]], but in a case of Fetus in Fetu rather than actual pregnancy. (Warning: This "game" can cause headaches, possibly seizures)