Engineered Heroics in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Boldores And Boomsticks: Faba planned to create wormholes to summon Grimm, then use Type: Null to defeat them in front of witnesses and become famous. Gladion rescuing Null and Lillie saving the Pokémon he used to create the wormholes scuppered the plan.
- Heroes of the New World; This is revealed to be the plan of the mastermind of the Doyle arc; Jansen Baker, the disgruntled son of a villainous noble family of the kingdom of Doyle, gained command of the Marine base protecting the kingdom before acting as The Mole and allowing the Finalem Pirates to invade and besiege the kingdom, in the hopes the Finalems would overthrow and kill King Reichen Bach and the other noble families. Once the Marines inevitably arrived to defeat the Finalems, Baker would use his activities "heroically resisting" the pirates and his status as the last of Doyle's nobles to secure a governorship, after which he would exploit Doyle's people and resources to his heart's content.
- Infinity Crisis: Unbeknownst to the Thunderbolts, the "Elements of Doom" were a false threat created by Mysterio in order to help the group establish themselves as heroes. Some of their other adversaries were similarly invented.
- Intergalactic No Fault Collisions: Coil made it appear that he rescued and protected Dinah from the E88.
- In Iron Hero 7, the main villains are secretly working together; however, one betrays the other with the intent of twisting their plan into this, swooping in to "save the day" from their secret partner and play the hero.
- Is it really okay to use Getter Rays in a world of Otome Games?: In an attempt to show up Leon, Zola and her children march a contingent of mercenaries out to his lands, with Rutart and Merce activating some monster-summoning machines in order to stage a 'glorious victory'. By the time Leon arrives, he finds the whole place has been overrun, all of the mercenaries slain by the unexpectedly powerful beasts.
- The New Spider of Tokyo: The Mysterio of this verse sets up scenarios with the intent of restoring the public's faith in Spider-Man.
- The Parliament of Heroes: In this Round Robin, the 15th of the A Summer Job snippets reveals that gunmen attacked Rose's home, resulting in the death of her mother before Slade came in and saved her. Turns out, the entire attack was set up by Slade himself to both leave Rose with no one other than himself and for his daughter to view him as the "savior" she'd feel indebted towards.
- Of Heists And Hustles: After seeing the amount of attention Nick and Judy got for solving the Night Howlers incident, Scar decides to stage the theft and recovery of the Nope Diamond in order to ride the wave of publicity to victory in the mayoral election.
- In Spark, Sophia ensures that some Empire goons learn about Charlotte's Judaism, setting her up to get attacked so that she can rescue her as Shadow Stalker. Taylor unintentionally ruins her plan by getting to Charlotte first.
- In Trade Us for the World, "Chicken Game" revolves in part around such a scheme, as Marcy mistakenly believes that protecting Wartwood from a monster will help them earn the residents' trust.
- In Danganronpa: Memento Mori, this turns out to be the reason why the Killing Game is happening — Naoya Edogawa sets it up so that he can solve the resulting murders, impress his late older sister, and be seen by the world as a hero.
- In the Facing the Future Series, it's mentioned that Aragon's appearance in "Phantom Planet" was part of a deal with Vlad, where Vlad would return his amulet in return for allowing the Masters Blasters' to capture him in order to make his team look good.
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Upon deciding that the world needed him to take over in order to prevent humanity from accidentally or carelessly destroying itself, Tom Riddle planned to defeat a Dark Lord, so he would be offered a leadership position, as Dumbledore did (but unlike Dumbledore, he would accept the position). So he began setting himself up, in disguise, as a terrible villain, in order to then publicly defeat himself. Unfortunately, he enjoyed being Voldemort so much, and found the people on the "good" side so frustrating, that he ultimately decided to just stick with it.
- 3 Slytherin Marauders: This is the real reason Dumbledore left Harry with the Dursleys; his intent is to earn the boy's trust and gratitude by "saving" him from his abusive caretakers.
- The Rigel Black Chronicles: The Diary-construct plans to permanently take over Harry's body and dishonestly take credit for killing the basilisk so as to gain greater political influence.
- Scarlet Lady: Chloé already has a tendency to create akumas with her bullying and gross entitlement. In a world where she became Scarlet Lady after stealing the Ladybug earrings out of Marinette's purse before she had a chance to meet Tikki, she continues to be just as cruel — and while locking Juleka in the bathroom, gloats to herself that she hopes Juleka gets akumatized, purely so that she can 'show off' while humiliating her further. It ends up backfiring on her when Reflekta shows up when she's in the middle of confronting Marinette.
- Weight Off Your Shoulder: When Chloé first became Queen Bee, she attempted to stage such a scenario by assaulting a train driver, nearly causing a massive accident that Ladybug and Chat Noir narrowly averted. The new Ladybug reveals this to the public, along with the fact that she'd recently betrayed the heroes and willingly worked with Hawkmoth.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon) Recursive Fanfiction Abraxas: The Clash of Silver
: Like in Godzilla vs. Kong, Walter Simmons and Apex Cybernetics plot to use corporate subterfuge to drive Godzilla to attack cities, so as to turn public opinion against the benevolent Titans so Apex will look like heroes when they use Mechagodzilla to kill Godzilla and usurp his domination over the other Titans. Unlike in the movie, Apex also drive the other now-pacified Titans from Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) into attacking dozens of cities, and it's depicted as 100% premeditated from the start instead of beginning as a happy side-effect of Apex's experiments which they subsequently decided to take advantage of.
- In Dekugate, the members of the titular community all believe that Izuku's various victories were secretly arranged by the Hero Commission in order to make the young son of All Might and Parakeet look good.
- Ennea Series: In For Our Sakes, an agent of the Meta Liberation Army poses as a Badass Bystander civilian who uses her Quirk to stop some hired thugs from robbing a shop. This move winds up backfiring spectacularly when two actual civilians try to stop an actual robbery and one gets killed in the process.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- How I Lost My Mother: Discord's attempt to do this in the canonical Series Finale backfires even harder upon him in The Ending of the End Part III, as Cozy Glow seals him back into stone.
- Space to Breathe: Tazuna's village is besieged by bandits who seem to be exploiting the power vacuum left behind by Gato's defeat; thankfully, some shinobi are passing through the area and intervene, minimizing casualties. But what Tazuna and the other civilians don't realize is that said shinobi actually placed the bandit's leader under a genjutsu to make them attack the Land of Waves, as part of a plan to make the villagers endebted to the ninja. Why? Because Sakura is founding a new hidden village, and they need skilled laborers to help with the construction.
- Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness:
- Played straight in Act IV. Early on, Kyouko is beaten up and nearly raped by human thugs in her neighborhood and rescued by Falla, winning some degree of good favor with Tsukune and the others. As revealed in chapter 11, Falla deliberately lured said thugs toward Kyouko so she could rescue her and make herself look good, thus setting the foundation for Luna to eventually be duped into restoring her chrono magic.
- Discussed in Acts V and VI; Jenner Rythmore, the openly anti-monster head of the HDA founded in the wake of The Unmasqued World, is firmly convinced that Tsukune and his friends deliberately set Alucard loose on the world just so they could kill him and make themselves look like heroes, which couldn't be any farther from the truth.
- Porsha Crystal: Love And Pain, Pride And Shame: After Derek abruptly cancels his appearance as Ash's reunion, Lance insists on calling him to demand that he honor his commitment. However, Ash later accuses Lance of secretly telling Derek to cancel in the first place so that he could intervene and "save the day".
- Chasing Dragons: At one point, Donys Ratheon arranges for a slave revolt in Volantis, and for all the city's native groups that could put it down to be neutralized. This therefore allows Viserys to lead the Exile Company in ending the revolt and saving the city, which makes him beloved of the general populace and grants him enough leverage to force his way into the city's political leadership.
- Misaligned Gemini combines this with a False Flag Operation when Megatron stages an Assassination Attempt against Pyra Magna. One of their number is actually a Deep Cover Agent; upon discovering this, they wound and attempt to leave him behind as a Fall Guy. Meanwhile, Starscream "saves" the target.
- Earning Her Stripes: After Sophia gets her hands on a trio of Cauldron vials, she gives two to Emma and Madison, and the three scheme to force-feed the last one to their favorite victim, Taylor, intending to pass her off as a villain and make themselves look good at her expense.
- In Devil's Diary, Magneto earns Wanda and Pietro's reluctant loyalty by saving them from a riot secretly instigated by him."She and Pietro owe me their lives. I made sure of that. They will never know that I paid the instigator of the riot against them. They will certainly not learn that from the party himself I sent a pitchfork through his body at the site."
