History Main / AbuseMistake

!!Innocent mistaken for abuse

* The premises of both ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/48229834/chapters/121627141 My Brother, the Devil]]'' and ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/18476011/chapters/43776895 My Brother's Not Normally a Psychopath, Promise!]]'' is that [[Manga/FairyTail Natsu]] remembers being raised by his loving older brother [[spoiler:Zeref]]. When Marakov took him in, he concluded that the seven-year-old earnestly defending the actions of the darkest wizard in history was raised in a cult, and Natsu's insistence that he was loved was part of the indoctrination.
* In "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10121667/1/The-Bruise The Bruise]]", the Scooby Gang (''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'') become concerned that Anya's in an abusive relationship when they see a bruise on her thigh. However, this is actually because she is now involved with Clark Kent (''Series/{{Smallville}}'') after they fell in love while trapped in a wish-created reality ("[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8360516/1/More-than-a-Memory More than a Memory]]"); the bruise was the result of Clark briefly forgetting that Anya's just human now after he was used to her being a vengeance demon in the other reality, and Anya assures all parties that it wasn't that big a deal.

!!Abuse mistaken for innocent

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Spawn}}'' has two little boys (one of whom would grow up to become the Redeemer) whose abusive father claims to the other churchgoers that they play a lot of tackle football... until Spawn violently murders him, that is.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence'': Gigolo Joe notices bruises on a first-time client and asks if they are from "passion." Her ashamed reaction indicates that they're actually from abuse.
** It is not clear if Joe was genuinely mistaken, or if he was well aware that the cause he'd suggested was unlikely. His following comments can likewise be interpreted either as standard flattery for any client or as continuing a strategy to identify domestic abuse victims and put them at ease.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'':
** Keifer Porter abused his wives, psychologically as well as physically, and managed to convince the eldest wives, who could have divorced him, that it was all in good fun (or, in one case, that the thirteen-year-old he tortured and raped provoked him).
** Possibly, Balin Brindle is a victim of this. He is rumored to have sex with his mothers (actually aunts, who fill the social role of mothers), which is seen as damage to his reputation, but no one does anything about it, like investigate whether he is forced to do it.
* In the ''Literature/{{Hurog}}'' duology, Garranon is introduced as the evil king's courtesan, and an antagonist of the heroes. Later, we learn that he had been sexually abused by the king ever since he was a child and hated the king all this time, but didn't dare fight back because the king would have killed all his friends and relatives if he had.
* In one of the ''Literature/TeenageWorrier'' books, Letty describes her friend Hazel being attacked by a man who dragged her into an alleyway. She was saved when someone else came along, but the man got away and convinced the bystander that he and Hazel were a couple fighting.
* The third book of ''Slave World'' starts out with a female police officer getting raped by a corrupt male policeman. When caught, his violation is mistaken for consensual sex, so they both get in trouble for it.
* ''Literature/TheJoyLuckClub'': In An-Mei's backstory, her mother was disowned by her family for being a whore and running off to be a wealthy man's concubine. [[spoiler:It's revealed that the husband raped her mother after the man's second wife arranged for it (abusing the mother's trust in the process) and that the mother is now in a loveless marriage ''and'' not only was forced to give her birth son to the second mother and pretend that he's her kid, but is not allowed to put any distance between herself and the family she married into and hates because the second wife wants her around for practical and manipulative reasons.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* One episode of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' has the team looking for a missing woman whose boyfriend had put her in the hospital. When they talk to her father, he says he thought those injuries had been caused by a car accident (though his demeanor indicates that he at least suspected the truth, but was in denial and clinging to the excuse she gave him).
* An early episode of ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' has a cop beating his wife until her sister takes matters into her own and holds up the husband at gunpoint. While investigating the situation, SRU officers quickly discover that the cop's partners and friends on the force knew, or at least strongly suspected, that the cop was beating his wife, but looked the other way out of misguided respect, writing it off as something else.
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': This is the central premise of the episode "Doubt", where the woman's ex-boyfriend[=/=]professor uses [[CasualKink it being consensual]] as his defense, with the woman alleging abuse. Notably, this was one of the few episodes where the verdict was never given, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': Jessica's abusive husband killed her, then staged a car accident. The small-town medical examiner dismissed her injuries as the result of the accident. Joss Carter took one look at the report and figured out what really happened to her.
* ''Series/VeronicaMars'' In the season 3 premiere, Veronica and Mac need to get tickets from Mac's dorm room, but Mac's roommate Parker is "in there with some guy". Veronica walks in, hears some "sex noises" from the guy, quietly says "Don't mind me", then leaves with the tickets. After Mac and Veronica return, they are too drunk to drive home so Veronica sleeps on Mac's couch. The last second of the episode is Veronica and Mac waking up to Parker's screams as she had been drugged, then raped, and her hair was completely shaved off her head. This grievous mistake is explored more in the next episode as well.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* A pivotal moment in the play ''A Steady Rain'' involves the two cop characters returning a naked Vietnamese boy to the serial killer from whom the poor kid was trying to escape. This scene was directly inspired by an incident when police returned one of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer Jeffrey Dahmer]]'s victims to him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* This is essentially the premise behind the incredibly dark [[http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/COMIX/Family/PAGE1.html Clarissa's public life.]] It doesn't really help that the only way she shows it is through risqué pictures.
* In ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'', Film Brain overhears what he believes to be Nostalgia Chick and Linkara having sex. In actuality, it was Mechakara impersonating Linkara, who was subjecting the Nostalgia Chick to an UnwillingRoboticization and making her BrainwashedAndCrazy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "[[Recap/FamilyGuy8E7JeromeIsTheNewBlack Jerome is the New Black]]", Brian sees a battered woman leaving Quagmire's house and, in an attempt to bond with Quagmire, compliments him on the rough sex he must have just had. Quagmire coldly informs Brian that the woman is his sister, who's visiting him to get away from her abusive boyfriend.
* Implied (and PlayedForLaughs) in a quick ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch. A man and bruised woman are at a councilor's office and she explains that she "Uh... ran into a door." The councilor happily offers her a catalogue of Nerf doors. The man then menacingly says that she's going to need some Nerf stairs too.
[[/folder]]

!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17088725930.55132800 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.

Failing to see the difference between playfulness (or similar) and abuse can be annoying at best and disastrous at worst.

This can take two forms:

* It looks like abuse but has an innocent cause.
* A sign of abuse only appears to have an innocent cause.

In both cases, someone is likely to suffer.

If PlayedForLaughs, the situation is almost always innocent and quickly corrected. When PlayedForDrama, however, a real victim might be denied help, an innocent person might get his life ruined with unfair accusations of abuse by a WifeBasherBasher, or the designated "victim" gets stalked or outright oppressed by [[UnwantedRescue unwanted "rescuers"]]. These helpers might even go to great lengths [[ManufacturingVictims trying to force her to "realize" that she's a victim of abuse]]. And no, not the actual abuse that ''they'' are subjecting her to.

This is not a matter to take lightly -- but it's worth noting that such mistakes are possible in real life. For instance, people with very pale skin or people with poor coordination can, and often do, get random bruises from going about their daily business and not even notice it.

* ''Series/LawAndOrder'' had an episode in which a victim's husband is suspected of her murder because of her facial injuries at the time of her death. It turns out he wasn't abusing her, and his story that she sustained these injuries in a minor car accident is true.

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''. Used in [[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E01E02BrokenBow the pilot episode]] to show how the human explorers will have to get used to aliens being different from them. When Trip sees an alien boy wearing a gas mask, which his mother keeps putting on and taking off, he thinks she's suffocating him. However, it turns out that their species' children breathe different gas until they're four, so she was just "weaning" him onto oxygen.

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E4SuddenlyHuman Suddenly Human]]" has the ''Enterprise'' rescue some Talarian youngsters from a derelict ship, one of whom is a human raised by the Talarians. Dr. Crusher identifies several old injuries in the human, Jono, as signs of child abuse, but when Jono's adoptive father turns up he says they were normal (for his people, or for humans a few centuries ago for that matter) childhood injuries, e.g. his son fell off a [[CallARabbitASmeerp horse analog]].
* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''. Used in the pilot episode to show how the human explorers will have to get used to aliens being different from them. When Trip sees an alien boy wearing a gas mask, which his mother keeps putting on and taking off, he thinks she's suffocating him. However, it turns out that their species' children breathe different gas until they're four, so she was just "weaning" him onto oxygen.

* ''Film/FiveNightsAtFreddys2023'': At the beginning of the film, Mike sees what looks like a man abducting a small child in public, and [[spoiler: due to having PTSD over his little brother being kidnapped years ago,]] immediately chases after the man through the mall before knocking him into the fountain and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating him senseless]] while everyone looks on in shock. Turns out the man was the little boy's father. Not only did Mike lose his security job, but he traumatized the boy by beating up his father right in front of him.

* ''Manga/LoveHina''. The girls of the house will think that Keitaro, being [[AccidentalPervert extremely unlucky and clumsy]], is trying to molest/abuse them, and respond with [[UnprovokedPervertPayback vicious revenge]].
* At one point in ''Manga/SchoolRumble'', Mikoto and Eri are chatting and then Harima shows up. Eri runs, as she wants to avoid Harima, which leads to the very athletic Mikoto to chase after Eri, getting her outfit slightly torn in the process (while leaping over fences, tripping, etc). When she meets up with her childhood friend Hanai, she brushes it off as nothing. Harima shows up to Hanai to return Mikoto's bag she left behind when she and Eri ran off. Naturally, Hanai thinks Harima hurt Mikoto and gets angry with him.

* A scene in ''Manga/AsobiAsobase'' features Kasumi and Olivia practicing using make-up (which their school forbids) on Hanako. Since neither of them have much experience doing make-up, they fail disastrously and a teacher walks in to see the girls standing over Hanako with a black eye (eyeshadow) and a bruised cheek (rougue).

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/30117411/chapters/74184552 Black Canary: Rebirth]]'', Laurel gains numerous injuries as the Black Canary, and has to keep thinking of [[CutHimselfShaving various lies to explain them]]. Tommy and Billy Malone see them all for the lies they are, and eventually conclude that she's being abused by her father (which would handily explain why she's lying). In a twist, she actually ''is'' being abused by Quentin, it's "just" that said abuse is emotional not physical. [[spoiler:At first.]]

* ''Fanfic/TheFlashSentryChronicles'': In the Season 6 chapter "Spike's Heartbreak", Spike arrives at Carousel Boutique hoping to spend his day off with Rarity. He quickly realizes something isn't right when the door is unlocked, Rarity doesn't seem to be around, and a lot of furniture seems to have been knocked over and lazily put back. He hears a noise coming from Rarity's bedroom and what he thinks is Rarity screaming in what he assumes to be pain and quickly rushes to "save" her. He bursts into her bedroom and finds her laying on her bed with [[spoiler:Lightning Blitz]] on top of her, kissing her neck, with both of them shocked by his sudden appearance. Spike tackles [[spoiler:Lightning]] off of Rarity in anger, thinking that he was trying to rape her, and attacks him. Rarity quickly pulls Spike off him though and explains he wasn't doing anything she didn't want him to do, and that the two of them are a couple.

* A somewhat PlayedForLaughs example in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10154133/1/Give-em-Something-to-Talk-About Give'em Something to Talk About]]'', where after Zero wins Suzaku in his chess match against Schneizel, the Black Knights fear Zero is keeping Suzaku as a sex slave. Doesn't help that Zero says that Suzaku belongs him and is keeping him at his side in chains or having him chained to his bed, with his shirt lifted up and his lips covered in red. It's enough that the Black Knights decide to drug Suzaku and drop him back on Brittanian soil. However, it turns out that Lelouch was merely keeping him as company, while the chains were meant to stop him from rolling off of the bed. Once Kallen (who knows his identity) tells him that he and Suzaku can start a romantic relationship after the war instead of Lelouch controlling him, he yells in pure shock.

** In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/5989717/chapters/13763533#workskin Aftercare]]'', Marinette discovers an aching bruise on Adrien's stomach, and doesn't believe him when he says [[CutHimselfShaving it was an accident]]. Adrien suspect this trope is in effect and quickly assures her his father wouldn't hit him. [[AvertedTrope In actually]], Marinette ''knows'' where the wound came from, because she saw him get it from an Akuma while he was Chat Noir.

** ''Fanfic/CrimsonAndNoire'': When Plagg states that all he wants is cheese instead of a proper meal after their first Akuma battle, Marinette asks if anyone had hurt him in the past if cheese is the only thing he desires. Confuse by the question, Plagg bluntly answers that cheese is all he needs.

* ''Fanfic/TheMostEvilTrainer:'' Max's CombatPragmatist style of Pokemon battling means making use of "mutual-kill" moves like Explode, Curse, and Destiny Bond; this leads to the mistaken belief that he mistreats his Pokemon by forcing them to self-harm to give him victory. In reality, such moves don't work very well if the Pokemon doesn't ''want'' to use them, and the harm isn't any worse than what a Pokemon normally recieves in battle. Veloce, Max's Electrode, is actually ''furious'' when the League tries to ban such moves, vieing it as an insult to his species[[note]]It's explained that Electrodes developed the move Explode after they started being enslaved en-masse to act as living industrial batteries, with Explode being their means of escape, and thus deeply important to their identity[[/note]]. Anyone who sees Max with his Pokemon can see how deeply he cares about them.

* A milder and more realistic example in ''Fanfic/ViridianTheGreenGuide'': when Inko brings Izuku into the hospital with several bruises and a broken arm, both give a different story to the doctor. After his x-ray, Izuku's asked if Inko is abusing him, though the doctor accepts his vehement insistence that she isn't.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/TheNightmareHouse'', Lincoln's NightmareSequence has his sisters replaced by supernatural entities which think his sisters are abusing him, but it's just normal sibling rivalry.
* In ''Series/TheUntamed'' fanfic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999810/chapters/68583954 In Your Hands]]'', Yanli stumbles while getting to bed and Jin Guangyao catches her. As she bruises easily, her wrist has a bruise the next morning. Madame Jin assumes he's hurting her, since she already has a low opinion of him.

* ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany'': When Dodger and the other plan to steal Oliver back from Jenny's house, they see Winston brandishing a rolling pin, thinking he's going to harm Oliver. It turns out he's watching a boxing match on TV.

* ''Film/{{Girlfight}}'': Diana's father, unaware that she's secretly boxing, thinks her boyfriend struck her when she comes home with a black eye, and confronts him over it despite Diana saying it was just from another fight that she got into.
* ''Film/FiveNightsAtFreddys2023'': At the beginning of the film, Mike sees what looks like a man abducting a small child in public, and [[spoiler: due to having PTSD over his little brother being kidnapped years ago,]] immediately chases after the man through the mall before knocking him into the fountain and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating him senseless]] while everyone looks on in shock. Turns out the man was the little boy's father. Not only did Mike lose his security job, but he traumatized the boy due to beating up his father right in front of him.

* Seven-year-old Brandon Stark accidentally stumbles across a man and a woman making love in ''Literature/AGameOfThrones'', and because of the noises the woman is making, he thinks the man is hurting her. Unfortunately, he [[WouldHurtAChild never gets much chance to correct his error]]. Ironic, in that in almost all cases, one would be correct to assume abuse in that setting [[spoiler:(especially as [[BrotherSisterIncest the couple in question are siblings]])]].

* In ''Literature/Spellbinder1996'', Thea tells Eric's little sister Roz the story of Hellewise Hearth-Woman and the witches' origins to cheer her up; although she's forbidden to tell humans the witches' history, she figures that Roz will just think of it as a fairytale. However, when Thea realizes Eric and his mother overheard, she flees from the house in a panic. When Eric persuades her to return, Mrs Ross is deeply concerned, asking if [[RaisedByGrandparents Thea's grandmother]] is saying things to "scare [her]" and says she can stay with them if she has problems at home. Thea is able to handwave it away, but realizes that Mrs Ross likely thinks her grandmother is part of some kind of cult and has more than a few screws loose.

* ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'': In protest to the events from the end of Part 4, Elvira, Rozemyne's public noble birth mother who is also a major Ferdinand FanGirl, writes a story based on the events of Ferdinand's life in which Ferdinand's counterpart is female. After the story is published, people notice that the story reads like a thinly-veiled version of what they know of Rozemyne's life. This notably gets the counterpart to Ferdinand's WickedStepmother mistaken for Rozemyne's noble adoptive mother, which is not helped by the fact that [[spoiler:Rozemyne's adoptive parents are Ferdinand's half-brother and his sister-in-law, resulting in both women having the same title]]. This makes the book ''even more'' readable as a birth mother denouncing the bad treatment her daughter is getting from her adoptive family. Meanwhile, Rozemyne's DelicateAndSickly nature has resulted in her retainers and both her noble families being a little too used to seeing her suddenly faint in the eyes of her acquaintances from other duchies. Among said acquaintances from other duchies, there are men who have a crush on Rozemyne and have their minds very open to any information that will keep them from feeling bad about making her cancel her existing engagement in the process of making her their wife. Partially conflicting purposes cause Rozemyne's input to be summed up as "that character isn't based on me, she's based on someone else I know, whom I won't name." Cue all those facts pooling together to create a rumor that Rozemyne is being abused.

** Played with in one episode. A teen girl has bruises and remembers her boyfriend on top of her and believes he raped her. He claims that the sex was consensual and the bruises came after, when she freaked out and he tried to calm her down. The girl (along with several other residents of town) had been dosed with LSD and, while the boyfriend isn't the one who drugged her, it isn't clear whether his version is accurate or whether he actually did take advantage of her in her compromised state. Since the BAU is only investigating the LSD, they ignore the girl once he's ruled out as their culprit.

* Series/DocMartin had a middle-aged husband who kept coming in for bruises, and started hiding oil burns. When Martin finally tried intervening by bursting into his bedroom, it turned out to simply be a couple trying out BDSM, and the good Doctor was forced to help him get untangled from the harness.

** In the episode "The Goat", Barney sleeps with Robin, Ted's ex, which is against the rules of "The Bro Code", so he hires Marshall as a lawyer to find a loophole in the book to stop him feeling guilty. Barney mentions he needs Marshall because he slept with Robin before he mentions the Bro Code, leading to this exchange:

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', when Martin reflects on raising his sons, he mentions that they were so bad at riding bikes they would be covered with bruises. He eventually gave up teaching them how to ride bikes, thinking that his sons' doctor was suspecting him of child abuse.

** In one episode, Boulet is treating a pre-teen girl and notices a number of old injuries that would indicate a history of being abused by her father. It's revealed that her father never abused her; the two of them enjoy attempting to establish world records in physical challenges (most consecutive jumping-jacks, most consecutive hours skipping rope, etc.) and are even pictured in a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records. Boulet ends up joining them in their attempt to break the record for most consecutive hours jumping on a trampoline.

** In the episode "The Salt in the Wounds", the remains of a young woman bears signs of previous injuries. Booth and Brennan ask the victim's parents about the injuries mainly to rule out the likelihood of abuse. Her injuries are merely the result of her being in the school volleyball team.

* Subverted on ''Series/{{Glee}}'': Coach Beiste walks by with a black eye and a few girls [[WhatTheHellHero make some tasteless jokes]] about how she must have been punched by her husband. She says that in reality, she dropped a weight on herself when she was working out and the issue is dropped. Later in the episode, however, she confesses that it was, in fact, her husband that hit her, starting her domestic abuse arc.

* ''Series/TheMiddle'': In "The Scratch," the Heck family quickly throws their garbage together to get to a passing garbage truck in time, and Frankie accidentally scratches Brick's arm with a beer bottle. At school, Brick innocently informs a hall monitor that his arm is scratched because mother hit him with a beer bottle, and soon Frankie and Mike have to explain themselves to the police. The police send a social worker to the house, and the family desperately tries to look wholesome (and teach Brick not to be so BrutallyHonest).

* ''Series/LieToMe'': In one episode, Cal intentionally invokes this trope, apparently verbally abusing his daughter over the phone in front of a horrified couple. In fact it was a pre-arranged call from one of his colleagues and he behaved this way while his other colleague observed the couple's reactions in order to determine if they treated their own daughter this way - had that been the case, this behavior wouldn't have seemed out of the ordinary to them.

** ''Magazine/TheUnspeakableOath'' magazine #18 scenario "Dog Will Hunt." If the investigators investigate the Owl's Brotherhood Lodge, they may happen upon a ceremony which appears to be the HumanSacrifice of a nude woman using a scimitar. It's actually just a harmless ritual the members carry out - the woman isn't actually killed.

* In ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' season 7, Donut goes over to Blue base to give Caboose a message from Tucker, but collapses from dehydration. While Caboose takes care of him until he wakes up, the rest of Red team comes over to the base looking for Donut. Caboose tells them he has Donut and is keeping him comfortable until he tells him some things, but Sarge interprets all this as him holding Donut hostage and torturing him for information.

** It is not clear if Joe was genuinely mistaken, or if he was well aware that the cause he'd suggested was unlikely. His following comments can likewise be interpreted either as standard flattery for any client, or as continuing a strategy to identify domestic abuse victims and put them at ease.

* In of the ''Literature/TeenageWorrier'' books, Letty describes her friend Hazel being attacked by a man who dragged her into an alleyway. She was saved when someone else came along, but the man got away and convinced the bystander that he and Hazel were a couple fighting.

* ''Literature/TheJoyLuckClub'': In An-Mei's backstory, her mother was disowned by her family for being a whore and running off to be a wealthy man's concubine. [[spoiler:It's revealed that the husband raped her mother after the man's second wife arranged for it (abusing the mother's trust in the process) and that the mother is now in a loveless marriage ''and'' not only was forced to give her birth son to the second mother and pretend that he's her kid, but is not allowed to put any distance between herself and the family she married into and hates, because the second wife wants her around for practical and manipulative reasons.]]

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': Jessica's abusive husband killed her, then staged a car accident. The small town medical examiner dismissed her injuries as the result of the accident. Joss Carter took one look at the report and figured out what really happened to her.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "[[Recap/FamilyGuy8E7JeromeIsTheNewBlack Jerome is the New Black]]", Brian sees a battered woman leaving Quagmire's house and, in an attempt to bond with Quagmire, compliments him on the rough sex he must have just had. Quagmire coldly informs Brian that the woman is his sister, who's visiting him to get away from her abusive husband.

** [[https://notalwaysright.com/are-you-puli-ng-my-leg/115732/ This dog owner]] gets this from a veterinary technician. The dog in question was a Puli, a rather rare dog breed whose coats naturally form into long cords, and was a puppy during the process of forming the cords (during which time they look bad even if they're in perfect condition). The vet tech assumed that the dog was a doodle being unwittingly neglected because the puppy farm lied about how the fur works. The tech then started to give the dog a haircut... without consulting the owners. The actual vet is furious and immediately fires the tech once she finds out what happened.

* ''Film/FiveNightsAtFreddys2023'': At the beginning of the film, Mike sees what looks like a man abducting a small child in public, and [[spoiler:, due to having PTSD over his little brother being kidnapped years ago,]] immediately chases after the man through the mall before knocking him into the fountain and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating him senseless]] while everyone looks on in shock. Turns out the man was the little boy's father. Not only did Mike lose his security job, but he traumatized the boy due to beating up his father right in front of him.

** The same story also {{Deconstruction}}s ''Manga/LoveHina'''s reliance on both types. Its title references how Keitaro has wised up and is leaving the Hinata Inn after living there for three years in order to get away from its toxic environment, and explores what happens when the more violent girls' behavior [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome is taken seriously]].

* ''Film/FiveNightsAtFreddys2023'': At the beginning of the film, Mike sees what looks like a man abducting a little girl, and [[spoiler:, due to having PTSD over his little brother being kidnapped years ago,]] immediately chases after the man through the mall before knocking him into the fountain and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating him senseless]]. Turns out the man was the little girl's father. Not only did Mike lose his security job, but he traumatized the girl due to beating up her father right in front of her.

* In the ''Series/TheUntamed'' fanfic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999810/chapters/68583954 In Your Hands]]'', Yanli stumbles while getting to bed and Jin Guangyao catches her. As she bruises easily, her wrist has a bruise the next morning. Madame Jin assumes he's hurting her, since she already has a low opinion of him.