- Hobbes does this in the Calvin & Hobbes: The Series episode "Night of the Living Television", against Electro."You couldn't catch a flea on a grandpa's knee! And ha, ha, ha! And ho, ho, ho! And I'll bet your mother wears overshoes!"
Crossover
- Blue Moon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Twilight): A good description of Xander in the final battle, where Xander is the only pure human on the potential battlefield, with Xander's side consisting of the Cullens, the Denalis, the Quilettes, Willow, Dawn (who has portal-generating abilities as the Key) and around a dozen Slayers, facing the Volturi and a veritable army of demons. Even knowing that basically everyone on either side could kill him easily, Xander has no problem pointing out the various flaws in the Volturi's justification for coming to Forks even when Caius is yelling at him face-to-face.
- The Many Worlds Interpretation (The Big Bang Theory & Discworld): Leonard Hofstadter arrives on the Discworld and realises that, here, he'd be a Wizard rather than an experimental physicist.note . as a novice magic user, Leonard is inevitably assailed by Things from the Dungeon Dimensions. Reading his mind, one manifests in the form of Cthulhu to exploit an image of evil which Leonard is conditioned to feel terrified by. But Leonard has read TV Tropes and specifically, this page. Leonard rejects the offer to surrender his mind to them. "Cthulhu" then adopts the form of something utterly terrifying to Leonard Hoftadter. His mother.
- Nero Redgrave and the Olympians
(Devil May Cry & Percy Jackson and the Olympians): Nero makes a habit of insulting the Olypmian Gods (but mostly Zeus). He knows they exist. He knows they can hear him. He doesn't care. - Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights (Massive Multiplayer Crossover / Crisis Crossover): Joker does this to Chaos, the source of all evil, as he is being absorbed back into the nothingness from which he was born... and Chaos is impressed enough to not only spare him but form an alliance...
- The Weaver Option (Warhammer 40,000 & Worm):
- Asbrudael Vect is facing almost certain death when confronted by Morathi Uldanesh, High Priestess of Slaanesh. Rather than declaring his defiance, he tells Morathi that Lelith Hesperax is much more beautiful than her.
- When the Daemon Prince Fulgrim arrives to challenge Weaver's forces, Ancient Pierre says his haircut looks stupid.
- Taylor and Lelith are facing off against Daemon Prince Malekith Uldanesh. On learning he was the last Aeldari Emperor, Taylor notes the standards must have been pretty low if he got the job. Malekith is furious; Lelith is delighted.
- Lelith comes face to face with Slaanesh, Doom of the Aeldari... and yawns in her face, saying she seems kind of weak.
- Dragon faces off against a shard of the Void Dragon and mocks it throughout the fight, declaring that rather than a "dragon" it is simply a "worm".
- Devil Trigger (Worm & Devil May Cry & Bayonetta) sees Father Rodin call the Endbringers "a bunch of Godzilla knockoffs with sticks up their asses." Simurgh seemed to take offense, as he looked up and said, "No, I am not taking it back, ya punk-ass bitch!"
- Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku! (DC Comics & My Hero Academia): Bakugou repeatedly mouths off to Death of the Endless, a being powerful enough to make fifth-dimensional beings wet themselves. Luckily for him, she finds it more amusing than anything.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): San and his two brothers (Ghidorah's middle and right heads) have been on the receiving end a couple times. The ancient Bone Singer who communicated with the frozen Ghidorah pretty much won an argument with it and threw in a few witty jibes to boot, in Chapter 5. Madison doesn't think twice about angrily yelling at San when she first communicates with him and thinks he's the same left head who tried to kill her at Boston, which is entirely in-line with her movie characterization; in Chapter 8.
- Ginny spends the last few chapters of The Very Secret Diary talking back to Tom Riddle, knowing full well that he intends to use her to open the Chamber of Secrets and kill Muggle-borns. Increasingly impossible defiance and snide comments are all Ginny has to defend herself with by the end.
- In All That Happens Here Lauren has been captured and horribly tortured by the Dark. After learning rescue is not coming, she snaps and stands up to stare down her tormenter. It responds by breaking her leg and walks off laughing. She then stands back up on her broken leg and stares it down again. This, unfortunately, earns her an even more savage beating; but the creature isn't laughing anymore.
- The Story of Apollo, Daphne and Luca: An Italian Tragedy: In the third chapter, Alberto doesn't hesitate to return the Death Glare that Vincenzo (the school's resident Big Jerk on Campus) gave him.
- letmetellyouaboutmyfeels' MCU Rewrites: In this rewrite of Avengers: Age of Ultron, during Ultron's attack on Sokovia, after he claims that he will take away people's hope, a little girl shows she's not having it by throwing a rock at one of his drones. Shortly after, Captain America gets one by claiming he will never be able to take hope away from people.Ultron: We will take everything from you, starting with hope.
Iron Man: How do you propose to do that?
Ultron: [shoots a car, causing to explode and sending civilians panicking] Simply through my actions.
Little Girl: [throws a small rock at the back of Ultron's head, causing him to turn around; she simply glares at him defiantly]
Ultron: [tries to take a shot at her, but Captain America jumps in the way and deflects the shot with his shield]
Captain America: I don't think you understand, Program.
Ultron: [Death Glare]
Captain America: Yeah, Program, because that's what you are. You aren't capable of taking hope from people. And the more you try, the more you will fail.
- In the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power fanfic Bird Song, when Catra returns from convincing Adora to help save Scorpia from a Horde suicide mission, Entrapa admits that now she needs help to not get murdered; while Catra was gone, Hordak confronted Entrapta to make her reveal the Magicat's plans, to which Entrapta responded by telling him to fuck off. Luckily for them, Hordak states that while both women are definitely on his shit list and the punishment for their actions will be a Fate Worse than Death, since Catra and Entrapta are his most valuable general and engineer, they're safe until he's completely sure their services are no longer required.Catra: Tell me you're paraphrasing. Tell me you didn't tell Lord Hordak, the man who's literally the only reason you get food and a place to sleep, to fuck off?
Entrapta: I was mad.
- Leave for Mendeleiev: Aurore does this against three targets within moments of each other during On Ice:
- First, she calls out Chat Noir for claiming he can't carry both her and Marinette to safety, citing that she's seen his enhanced strength in action. If he can lift a car, he can manage carrying two girls at once. Note that Chat Noir has the ability to destroy anything he touches with Cataclysm, and believes that none of his actions have any serious consequences since Ladybug's Miraculous Cure doubles as a Reset Button.
- Then, when Frozer interrupts, she snaps at him, and proceeds to lecture the akuma who just froze over a good chunk of Paris about how pathetic his powers are, especially compared to the ones she commanded as Stormy Weather. (Despite being a completely normal human being with no access to those powers or anything akin to them at the moment.)
- She proceeds to give both him and Hawkmoth a blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how poor a job they've been doing at the whole "terrorizing the city" thing. She effectively holds the floor long enough for Ladybug to show up, who lightly chides her about not giving the supervillain any ideas.
- In chapter 11 of Team Miraculous, Shadowmoth invades the Cesaire home with a Sentimonster Bubbler, holding Alya's family and Nino hostage to force her into using her position as the Ladyblogger to lure Ladybug in the trap. Though she couldn't use the Fox Miraculous without revealing her superhero identity, Alya manages to throw a plate of food at him, punch him the nose, and rip the Butterfly Miraculous off of him. She would have done the same with the Peacock Miraculous if Sentibubbler didn't stop her. Even better, Nino, as a means of telling the rest of Team Miraculous, was streaming the events on the Ladyblog. Meaning everyone that followed saw how close that Alya was to bringing Shadowmoth down for good.
- During one fight in The Immortal Game, Rainbow Dash kicks Titan's avatar in the face. It doesn't hurt him much, but it does distract him long enough for Luna to run him through with her blade.
- My Little Mages: The Nightmare's Return: When Nightmare Moon announces herself as the new Queen, someone in the crowd cuts her off by throwing a muffin at her (it was probably Derpy).
- The Pony POV Series has several examples:
- Shining Armor is hopelessly outmatched against General-Admiral Makarov in their first fight. Even after Thunderchild saves his flank, things still don't look good. The two of them discover Makarov does not take "Equestrian wit" well and proceed to spend several moments snarking the heck out of him to get him furious. Becomes a better example of this trope later on when we discover Makarov's true nature.
Shining Armor: What? I'd finally found a weak spot in the jerk's armor, why not hit away at it?- Dark World!Grogar's last act when he was banished back to his prison after his war with Discord was to laugh in Discord's face.
- Apple Pie tries doing this to Rancor. Rancor isn't affected by her Logic Bomb powers and gives her a nasty wound that takes her out of the fight for a while.
- Minty Pie's presence in Dark World's Final Battle is pretty much one long one to Nightmare Paradox. She's able to handle herself but isn't powerful enough to do any lasting damage to her. However, she does make a good distraction and her refusal to die begins driving Paradox into a Villainous Breakdown.
- The Rise of Darth Vulcan: Darth Vulcan doesn't hesitate to tell Celestia and Luna exactly what he thinks of them, even when he's imprisoned and at their mercy.
- He also does this literally to Sombra at one point.
- Asuka does this as part of an If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... speech to Kaworu in Advice and Trust, threatening to feed him to Unit-02 if he breaks Rei's heart.
- Hours 'Verse:
- Minato takes Philemon to task for sitting on his ass and leaving the heroes in the lurch whenever things went bad when he crashes Minato and Ryoji's wedding in As The Bells Toll. Later, Minato and Ryoji punch him as Messiah when Philemon tries to congratulate the Wild Cards on beating Nyarlathotep.
- Every single one of Tatsuya and Philemon's conversations eventually ends up this way, with insults and drinks frequently flung across Alaya Shrine.The can harmlessly bounced off the door before spraying its contents all over the ground.
Philemon: It's good to see you, too.
Tatsuya: One day I’ll get you.
- In the side story Dude Gaiden of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, the titular Dude encounters MissingNo, who at this point has established itself as a Faux Affably Evil Eldritch Abomination who can just do anything it wants to anyone. Yet when it goes to try and troll the Dude just for kicks, not only the Dude turns it back on it, but basically tells the glitch to bug off.
- The Progenitor Chronicles: The MC (who has pretty much no real combat ability, mind) tries to get a Tyrant's attention away from Rebecca:The MC: “Hey! Mr. Fashion Disaster! Over here!”
- Zeno Blaze in Clash of the Elements does this quite literally to Joe Dark after he becomes a soul residing inside of Alex's body.
- Vulkan Ascendant: In the final chapter, Vulkan gives the Emperor himself a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech, before declaring his intent to have Nocturne and the Salamanders legion secede from the Imperium. He gets away with it, partly because the Emperor was busy directing the vast majority of his power to keeping the Webway gate shut, and couldn't actually focus the majority of it on destroying Vulkan. Vulkan, to his credit, has the good sense to leave quickly before that stops being the case.
Unsorted
- In the Bait and Switch side story An Anomalous Nightmare, Captain Kanril Eleya is very much not cowed when Q (as in John de Lancie) turns up. She starts by yelling at him to "get the phekk off my desk!" and continues from there.
- In Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns, the Wise Prince dwarven noble Guile Hero protagonist goes through a near-death experience and, thinking he's going to die, tells the Archdemon (who'd chosen that time to psychically assault him) to go screw itself. Needless to say, many chapters after he doesn't die, bad things happen.
- In Dreaming of Sunshine, Shikamaru is not impressed when his younger twin sister Shikako is possessed by a Genius Loci while she lays dying.Gelel: You would fight a god?
Shikamaru: Yes. Give me back my sister. - Equestria's First Human story Connor at the Royal Wedding: Connor vocally expresses his disgust at the implications of Chrysalis impersonating Cadence. The Queen is... not amused.
- In Fate Gamer Night, while raping Shirou, Shuten Douji in Mikado Ryouko's body comments that she has "A much better body than this fat cow". Shirou responds by asking if she's "a washboard".
- In It Takes a Child to Teach a Village, Izuku prevents the attack on the USJ... by chewing out several of the villains present over missing and/or shoddy homework assignments, including Tomura. While most of the villains aren't Izuku's students, they're freaked out by how terrified the others are and are thus cowed by a Quirkless teenager.
- Justice League of Equestria: In Princess of Themyscira, Nightmare Moon engages Hippolyta in battle, but before she can cut the other mare down, Hippolyta's daughter Diana jumps on Nightmare Moon and distracts her long enough for Hippolyta to recover. At the time, Diana is less than one year old.
- Mines of Dragon Mountain: After Tirac / The Beast reveals himself, Spike starts cracking up, leading to this:Spike: Y'know, when I heard that "The Demon God Tirac" was loose I was kinda expecting something more, I dunno, sinister and menacing! I really wasn't expecting some mugging chucklehead crooning clichés like a Saturday morning cartoon villain!
- This is how Cherilee earns her Element in RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse. After she calls Corona out on her Ye Olde Butchered English, we get this exchange.Corona, The Tyrant Sun: My command of the tongue far surpasses thy own mangled—
Cherilee: Command of the tongue... Well, Lyra says I'm out of practice, maybe you could show me some of your command... - Louise in Soldier of Zero taunts a Water Spirit, saying it, not humanity, is the insignificant one. Humans can go where they please and change their direction on a whim, while it is bound to follow the current and any attempts to change that will be slow and clumsy. Furthermore, a pair of young mages harmed it, what would ten do? Twenty? An army? It exists because humanity has not decided to destroy it. Notably, Louise is saying this while inside the Water Spirit's lake and is completely at its mercy.
- The Story of Twilight Glow: Twilight has little problem outright defying Nightmare Moon. She has equally little problem with snarking at Tirek, whom she outright calls out as a "cliche villain".
- In the Code Geass/Warhammer 40,000 crossover, Code Geass: There Is Only War, TAMAKI does this to Khorne. Yeah.Tamaki: Yeah, um, up yours, buddy. If you're the devil, you can kiss my ass and tempt someone else.
Khorne: WHY WOULD I WANT TO KISS THAT AREA OF YOUR BODY? - In This Bites!, after the B.R.O.B. that put Cross in One Piece in the first place gets on Soundbite's line, Luffy has a few choice words for him:Luffy: STAY AWAY FROM MY CREW! [slams the mic down hard enough to crack the floor]
- After attacking a Celestial Dragon's ship and stealing its Transponder Snail, Bartolomeo calls up the highest-ranking member of the World Government it knows to taunt them. Then he learns he just taunted the Five Elder Stars.
- Bart gets another moment in Strong World. Having infiltrated Shiki's forces, during the pre-invasion party being held for all 50 of Shiki's commanders and their crews, he proposes a toast and then proceeds to give a speech singing the praises of the East Blue (knowing that said sea is Shiki's Berserk Button), finishing it by spitefully smashing his sake saucer on the floor. And then he rubs Shiki's face further in things by gloatingly explaining that he was just keeping Shiki distracted until the Straw Hats could storm in.
- Lord Ursarkar Creed, of Warhammer 40,000 fame, has become this on 1d4chan, having once beaten Tzeentch at chess, and taunted Abaddon into losing a Black Crusade, among other absurd feats.
