History Main / NeedleInAStackOfNeedles

* ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'': When Twilight goes into Trixie's mind to heal her of her Discording, she finds herself in a vision of a town populated entirely by Trixies--young Trixies, old Trixies, male Trixies, and female Trixies--while trying to find the real Trixie. It is a representation of Trixie always feeling like she has never been anything special and has never been able to stand out from her many identical siblings.

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* ''FanFic/OffTheLine'': Cloud uses an enchanted necklace that turns him into a woman to hide from bounty hunters and visit a city in peace. It works because the Viera are mostly female and Cloud stands out for being the only male Viera in Gaia Online. While this works for a while, it backfires after Cloud gets caught because bounty hunters start killing Viera women because one of them could be Cloud in disguise.
* ''Fanfic/TheSecretReturnOfAlexMack'': [[spoiler: The Collective]] attempts to determine Terawatt's identity by stealing blood samples and hospital records from medical offices in Paradise Valley. However, it turns out that a good 8% of Paradise valley inhabitants had noticeable amounts of GC-161 exposure, not to mention people too poor to visit, those passing through (the origin story of at least three superheroes in the series at large), or those who -- like Alex -- avoided the doctor due to their exposure.

* I n ''Murder in the Place of Anubis'', an ancient Egyptian period mystery, a murder victim is concealed in a salt vat where bodies are mummified.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries''

* In ''[[{{LightNovel/Slayers}} Slayers TRY]]'' (ep. 11 to be precise), a revenge-crazed [[TheGunslinger Jillas]] devises a plan to steal the [[LaserBlade Sword of Light]] from [[IdiotHero Gourry]] by getting him to fall on a huge pile of weapons with the same design, most of them useless (memorably, a bright red hammer). [[spoiler: ''It works''. Gourry is [[HeroicBSOD devastated]] by the loss, and carries the aforementioned hammer as a temporary replacement.]]

* In an early ''ComicBook/NickFury'' story, ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} outwitted agents of HYDRA who targeted Fury by sending out a number of Life Model Decoy android replicas of Fury.

* Neil Gaiman did a more gruesome version of this trope in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' comic. Joanna Constantine is tasked with rescuing the head of Orpheus during the time of the French Revolution. To confound revolutionaries seeking the head, she hides it in a pile of other heads belonging to guillotine victims.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': Subverted in ''Superman (Volume 2)'' #9. ComicBook/TheJoker kidnapped Lois Lane, Perry White, and Jimmy Olsen, then sent a message to Superman that his friends were trapped in lead-lined coffins in three different locations in the city, where they would suffocate if Superman didn't act fast. Joker actually had Superman's friends with him on a train heading out of Metropolis; he reasoned that the lead-lined coffins would make finding the coffins difficult for Superman since his x-ray vision wouldn't work on them, but instead the opposite proved to be true; the lead-lined coffins stuck out like sore thumbs. He was able to find Joker and his hostages with ease from there.

* This very phrase is uttered by Lust in the dub of ''Anime/FullMetalAlchemist'' when she and Gluttony are looking for Dr. Marcoh's notes on how to create a Philosopher's Stone. His notes are in the form of an unidentified book. And the book is written in code so you can't tell just by reading it that it's about the Philosopher's Stone. And it's in the largest library in the entire country. Unfortunately, [[spoiler: they soon get into a battle with Scar that results in the entire library being burned down, preventing either of them from accessing the information they need. What they don't know, however, is that Sheska recreates the very book from her own [[PhotographicMemory memory]]. In fact, she recreates the entire burned section of the library!]]

* In the Creator/LaurelAndHardy film ''Pack Up Your Troubles'', Stan and Ollie set themselves the task of uniting the young daughter of their fallen war buddy Eddie with her grandparents. Unfortunately, Eddie had been estranged from them and less than forthcoming with their address, so the boys have to locate them on their own. Their sole clue? Eddie's surname: Smith.

** This was later referred to in a ''[[Literature/TheMcGurkOrganization McGurk Organization]]'' mystery novel involving ceramic dogs, with the restriction that [=McGurk=] as a Meddling Kid, can't go around smashing the statues, so he has to deduce which one holds the stolen object without breaking it. [[spoiler:Knowing that the item was hidden recently, he looked for the statue which still had wet clay on its bottom]].

** This was later referred to in a ''[=McGurk=]'' mystery novel involving ceramic dogs, with the restriction that [=McGurk=] as a Meddling Kid, can't go around smashing the statues, so he has to deduce which one holds the stolen object without breaking it. [[spoiler:Knowing that the item was hidden recently, he looked for the statue which still had wet clay on its bottom]].

* At the climax of ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove'', Yzma tries to keep Kuzco and Pacha from finding the right BalefulPolymorph potion by knocking over an entire shelf of them, forcing them to try out every potion they can in order to get it right (time wasn't on their side since Yzma had called the guards on them).

* And in ''Anime/CodeGeass R2'', Zero [[spoiler: bargains with the Britannians to be exiled instead of executed along with the rest of the Black Knights. Cue every member of the Black Knights and every other Japanese citizen at the assembly dressing up in Zero's trademark outfit.]] This left the Brittanians stuck between [[spoiler:letting them all go, which they ultimately choose, or killing them, which would spark riots and violence all over Japan. Zero was relying upon the fact that he knew the person behind the agreement would do everything in his power to avoid senseless bloodshed - which is good because a lower-ranking member of the Britannian government was fully prepared to start shooting first and identifying corpses later.]]

-->"Have you heard of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Islands Thousand Islands]]? Count them next time. One Thousand and one!"

-->"Have you heard of the Thousand Islands? Count them next time. One Thousand and one!"

* This nearly gets one of ''Literature/TheThreeInvestigators killed''. One of the Investigators finds himself locked in the trunk of a car driven by a group of criminals but managed to mark the floor of the garage the car will eventually return to with a large chalk "X", and even informs the other investigators of this via a walkie-talkie. Unfortunately, a JerkJock was listening in and had his gang ''mark every garage they could get into just to be an ass.'' TimeForPlanB!
* In one of the ''Literature/TommyAndTuppence'' stories, when Tommy and a confederate find the villains' hideout, he marks the door with a cross, referencing ''Literature/TheTinderbox''. [[spoiler: The confederate is actually one of the gang, and marks the other doors as in the story. {{Subverted}} because Tommy already suspected that, and referenced the story to distract him while he dropped a bottle of valarian essence. Tuppence and the police just have to find the door surrounded by cats.]]

** A similar incident took place with the 2016 Great Britain Olympic team after the country had the [[DidNotThinkThisThrough bright idea]] to issue their athletes -- all ''900'' of them -- matching luggage as a further display of unity. It got sorted out eventually, but not before kicking up a storm of [[https://www.sbnation.com/2016/8/24/12622284/great-britain-olympic-team-baggage-claim-london-heathrow-red-bag pretty hilarious tweets]].

** A similar incident took place with the 2016 Great Britain Olympic team after the country had the [[DidNotThinkThisThrough bright idea]] to issue them matching luggage as a further display of unity. It got sorted out eventually, but not before kicking up a storm of [[https://www.sbnation.com/2016/8/24/12622284/great-britain-olympic-team-baggage-claim-london-heathrow-red-bag pretty hilarious tweets]].

* [[https://notalwaysright.com/a-hole-in-one/77903/ In one story]] from Website/NotAlwaysRight, a man living in a residential area adjacent to a golf course finally gets fed up with the customers treating his property callously, as if it were somehow owned by the course, and dumps out an entire bucket-full of golf balls to prevent a trespassing golfer from finding a ball that had been hit into his yard.

** In "Sore Eyes", the gang tries to help a multi-eyed friend named Ivan find his creator, whom he gives a [[SuspectIsHatless vague description]] of until he remembers that he was wearing a pointy hat when he last saw him. Unfortunately, it was at a birthday party.