Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?

Nightmare Knight, you're in a whole mess of trouble. That is the true face of evil. You're dead, man.

"Only an immortal can kill another immortal. Here's your prize! Take this curse away from me, you big pussy!"

— Mysterion (to Cthulhu), South Park

Insulting a being who is much more powerful than you.

May be used comedically to deflate an otherwise-impressive villain. Hard to be menacing when the Team Pet beans you in the head with a rock.

This rarely ever causes the target any real harm. At most this can distract or annoy the Big Bad momentarily, giving the other characters time to escape, prepare, or attack. Can provide The Load with an opportunity to redeem themself.

See also Blasphemous Boast, Rage Against the Heavens, Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter, Heroic Sacrifice, Defiant Stone Throw, and Defiant to the End. If the person providing the distraction tries to make it last as long as possible to help his teammates, it's Holding the Floor. Sometimes literally involves Flipping the Bird.

Contrast Wowing Cthulhu, where the character doesn't piss the godly being off but rather amazes them — that said, Flipping off Cthulhu may also Wow Cthulhu when said godly being actually likes their attitude.

Compare:

• Bullying a Dragon: Messing with a powerful entity that you know can destroy you.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: If they immediately stomp you into a pancake.
• Mugging the Monster: If you thought you were the badass and they were an easy victim.
• Let's Mock the Monsters: When somebody decides to make fun of a monster that they think is not present or too silly to be dangerous. Usually doesn't end well.

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Example subpages

• Fan Works
• Literature
• Video Games

Other examples:

Anime & Manga

• In a verbal manner for Assassination Classroom. In Chapter 3 / Season 1 Episode 2, in an attempt to look cool to his students, Koro-sensei pulls up the class tulips to replace their anti-sensei weapons with. However, it backfires, and as punishment, he was forced to replant the flower bed at regular speed, and later be the subject of an assassination rally with him dangling from a tree branch like a piñata while the students take shots at him.
• Ganta does this at the end of his second bout in the Carnival Corpse — Deadman Wonderland's version of the Thunderdome. He basically flipped off the blood-thirsty anonymous audience, the other watching Deadmen, and the Carnival's Promoter, Tamaki. An incident so awesome, and so unlike him (for most of the series, up to this point, Ganta has been rather passive, fighting only to defend himself, and rarely even raising his voice, except to scream Oh, Crap! about the current situation), he actually questions whether or not he just broke character.
• In Death Note, this is how L is introduced. He basically goes on television and tells Kira through his stand-in Lind L. Tailor where he can put his justice. Kira, of course, kills Tailor immediately, thinking that it's L. Then, L keeps on taunting him anyway!
• Taichi from Digimon Adventure did this with a different purpose: since he had the Courage crest, he thought he could force Greymon to evolve one level more by pulling this — problem is, his plan backfired because it wasn't real courage, and the resulting SkullGreymon was a mindless berserker. Later on, he unintentionally pulled this off successfully against a powered-up Etemon, resulting in his Crest of Courage activating properly and causing Greymon to become his proper Perfect form, MetalGreymon.
• Happens lots in Dragon Ball Z. During the Saiyan invasion, everyone did their best to defeat Nappa but never managed to do any appreciable damage until Goku arrived. During the Cell Games, everyone blasted Cell in the back while he was in a Beam-O-War with Gohan. This did nothing, but when Vegeta joined in, it was enough to distract Cell, which gave Gohan the opening to overpower and destroy Cell.
  • Chibi Trunks even does it literally in the movies where Broly is the Big Bad, when he wasn't mooning or pissing on him.
  • Recoome literally flips off Goku, which is probably the most remembered moment in the uncut dubbed version. Kids seeing a grown man flipping off their hero on an anime that mostly kids watch. Amazing. Might also qualify as Bullying a Dragon, as Recoome didn't know he was flipping off a guy three times more powerful than him (and ended up taking him out in one hit).
  • Krillin practically lives on this trope. Cutting off part of Frieza's tail with his Destructo Disk and then sticking his tongue out and spanking his butt at him is probably the ultimate example.
  • Yajirobe even gets in on it against Vegeta by slicing the latter's tail with his sword while in Great Ape form, while the latter is busy pummeling Goku and Gohan to a pulp, thereby immediately and permanently nuking Vegeta's ability to transform and forcing him to revert back to his usual form.
  • Heck, there's even a chapter title page where the characters literally flip off Cell.
    • And again in the series, where a reporter who was with Hercule flipped off Perfect Cell during the Cell Games.
  • Chichi even gets in on this. She walks right up to Majin Buu and slaps him in the face. It doesn't end well.
  • One especially humorous instance in a Non-Serial Movie had Icarus, a small non-fire breathing dragon Gohan had befriended, deciding to attack Shenron. Fortunately for Icarus, Shenron just kind of sits there looking rather awkward rather than taking offense at this little thing buzzing around his head.
  • A minor example in Dragon Ball Super, in that Goku wasn't really trying to be insulting, but upon being introduced to Beerus, God of Destruction, he has the audacity to ask for a quick sparring match with him. Everyone around him is horrified, as Beerus is pretty well known for his quick temper and a hatred of being disrespected, but...
    Beerus: You wish to see a demonstration of my power? Do you know, I have lived for a very long time, and not once has a mortal dared to issue such a challenge... Very well. A quick round won't hurt.
  • Played straight later when Bulma, angered that Beerus was causing a rampage in her birthday party, goes up to him and slaps him in the face while demanding him to leave immediately. Yes, Bulma slapped the God of Destruction in the face. Of course, he slaps her right back... which causes Vegeta to lose it and attack him, managing to land the first actual hits on Beerus we see in the series.
    • In later episodes in Super, Bulma has a habit of antagonizing Beerus and getting away with it.
    • In her defense, she's the one who supplies him with all the delcious earth foods, and he knows it.
• In the manga version of El-Hazard: The Magnificent World. Main character Makoto Mizuhara has set off an ancient missile defense system against super android Ab-Zahal. He finds deflecting these missiles funny (and Makoto knew it meant nothing to Ab-Zahal... until Ifurita appears behind him and blows his head off.
• Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children:
  • Marlene actually attempts this by chucking a materia at Loz's head. It works a little too well. (Incidentally, Marlene is six and Loz just beat the crap out of Marlene's Made of Iron surrogate mother.)
  • Another example is Denzel's response to Bahamhut Sin: "YOU SON OF A BIIIITCH!". Denzel is also about six. Bahamut is a giant dragon that is only defeated when the entire party from VII gets back together.
• In Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, Nyx calls out the godly spirits of the past Lucian kings on their inaction towards the destruction of Insomnia, something that earns their ire until they realize that Nyx is as selfless as he makes himself to be.
  Nyx: To hell with your power. I'm not here for it. I only came to tell you: you are no kings.
• In the fifth The Garden of Sinners movie, Enjou Tomoe, despite being Muggle Weight, tells off the Big Bad. Shiki herself passive-aggressively says that because he did, she's going kill said Big Bad now.
• Medaka Box: Zenkichi, despite being nearly subdued by Oudo's Compelling Voice (and seeing him do the same to Medaka), manages to resist enough to attack him due to seeing him trying to kiss her.
• In Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Kobayashi taunts Tohru's father with the fact that he can't kill her when she tries to stop him from taking Tohru home. It nearly turns into a case of Do Not Taunt Cthulhu, but Tohru gives her father the mother of all Death Glares when he tries to attack. Kobayashi would later do this again when she meets Kanna's father, cursing him out for his horrible parenting.
• In Naruto, when Hinata Hyuuga fights Pain to save Naruto in Chapter 437, declaring "I won't let you lay another finger on Naruto-kun!" And then...STAB. She survives.
  • Ebisu tries this against Pain's Jigokudo body, in order to buy time for Konohamaru to escape. Konohamaru, however, goes back to help him, and defeats that body with a Rasengan.
  • Also, Naruto himself likes to greet the Kyuubi by demanding it surrender its chakra to him and calling it a "damn fox." Which is probably a little irritating to a superpowered being who can flatten a mountain by swinging one of its nine tails. However, this being is sealed inside Naruto and would have to die with him.
• In One Piece:
  • After Rob Lucci has Luffy exhausted and badly wounded on the ground, Usopp, the weakest member of the Straw Hats, reveals himself to Luffy and challenges Lucci, despite having easily lost to a CP9 member who was half as powerful. Lucci walks over to kill Usopp, but Luffy, his Heroic Resolve restored by Usopp's speech to him, gets up and finally manages to defeat Lucci.
  • Earlier on, Aokiji wonders if Luffy (who is by no means weak but doesn't yet compare to an Admiral's strength) decided to fight him alone because he thought he could win or because he wanted to prevent him from going after the rest of the crew.
  • Subverted when Arlong ignores Usopp's rubber band attack, but played straight when he scares Hatchan in place.
  • In the Skypiea Arc, Sanji kicks Usopp out of the way and takes a lightning attack from Eneru. After which, he thanks him for the light for his cigarette, and before fainting, tells him to "get ready to cry." Then Enel's ship begins to malfunction because of Sanji's sabotage.
  • Luffy briefly holds off the assault of Hawkeye Mihawk, the world's greatest swordsman, by throwing Buggy, whose powers render him invulnerable to bladed weapons, at him.
  • Later, Coby temporarily distracts everyone at Marineford to try to stop any more casualties by begging for everyone to cease fighting. This includes standing up to many incredibly powerful Marines, especially Akainu, the man who killed Ace and burned off half of Whitebeard's face. Fortunately, this distraction was long enough for Shanks to appear and successfully end the war.
  • One of the most iconic moments of the series is when the entire crew (discounting Robin), declared war on the world. However, this did not serve as a distraction, merely a message to Robin. That message was that they would never betray her over her "burden." Rather, they chose to make her burden their burden.
  • Luffy also argues with Whitebeard, the World's Strongest Man and one of the Four Emperors, that he's going to be King of the Pirates instead of him, to the utter shock of everyone around them. Except for Whitebeard himself, who's mostly just amused that the kid has that kind of balls.
  • Not quite flipping off, but one of Luffy's more noticeable character traits is his complete disregard in conversations for the other person's title or power. It doesn't matter if he's talking to a king, one of the Seven Warlords, or the Four Emperors, he'll talk to them just as casually as if they were just some average Joe.
  • Apparently, a few years before the current storyline, Caesar Clown swindled funds away from Big Mom, one of the Four Emperors, for his research. This later comes back to bite him in the butt big time, when a ship of hers comes to collect. Since he's now under the custody of the Straw Hats, he's out of Kaido's protection through his relationship with Doflamingo, meaning that he's screwed.
  • Law is notorious for this. Memorably, when he and Kid first met, Kid said he had bad manners in earshot and Law's reaction was to give him the finger (Kid had the highest Supernova bounty at the time). Even near death and about to be shot, Law doesn't hesitate to do the same to his former boss Doflamingo (a Warlord of the Sea), but not before mocking him as much as possible.
  • Brook asking Big Mom to see her panties in order to confuse her long enough for him to move past her and cut Zeus, who she was riding on top of.
  • While thankfully not to his face. Ulti once had the gall to call Kaido stupid.
• In Saiyuki, the Team Pet distracts Kami-sama long enough for Gojyo to grab everyone and make a retreat.
• Manta in one of the last episodes of the 2001 anime of Shaman King. Piko-Piko hammer and all!
• The anime adaptation of Soul Eater has Black*Star pulling a one-man stand against Kishin Asura, madness incarnate, who at the time is easily the size of a house. He's obviously outclassed but doesn't let that slow him down as he proceeds to beat the crap out of the giant to keep him distracted while Death the Kid prepares a massive Wave-Motion Gun attack.
  • Maka does this to just about all her opponents. Just about everyone she fights is stronger than her, and she and Soul use their wits, teamwork, courage, and occasionally pure luck to succeed.

Comic Books

• Superman:
  • All-Star Superman: When Superman visits Lex Luthor in jail and offers him a chance at redemption, Lex chooses to spit in his face and give Supes a Death Glare.
  • In Supergirl storyline Death & the Family , Inspector Henderson calls the spirits of McDougal Clan "Irish demons" who should "go back to whatever Hell [they] crawled out of", before breaking one of their heirlooms.
  • Superman: Grounded has the woman who, after Superman returns to Earth after dealing with the New Krypton event, slaps him and yells at him about how her husband died of a brain tumor and Superman should have been on Earth to perform heat vision brain surgery (which, incidentally, Superman has never demonstrated) instead of preventing interstellar war. Fortunately, the public doesn't buy her Wangst-fest. Unfortunately, Superman does.
  • In one Superman miniseries, a gang of criminals is watching Superman fight Exo-Max, a bank robber in a suit of Powered Armor, and recording data from the fight (exactly how long it takes, what specific moves Supes uses, etc). When they start talking about their plan, Superman appears in front of the leader and starts passive-aggressively trying to talk them out of it. The leader pays him lip service, then takes a long drag from his cigarette and exhales smoke directly onto the big guy's kisser. Superman leaves without another word, but the crooks are dumbstruck. "Boss... did you just blow smoke in Superman's face?" Of course, this wasn't a distraction, but still.
• Batman:
  • Batman will do this on occasion — usually when he's part of an ensemble, usually for a good reason.
  • The Joker has mocked numerous beings who could easily kill him, like Superman, Darkseid, and demons.
• In The Boys, Superman Substitute Homelander is a Super Supremacist who hates having his life dictated to him by the ordinary people running the Evil, Inc. that created him and tries on more than a few occasions to give his handler, Corrupt Corporate Executive James Stillwell, a piece of his mind (preferably in the most violent way possible). Stillwell on the other hand, is an emotionless freak who prioritizes profit over his own life and as such he has no qualms about calling out Homelander for the petulant Psychopathic Manchild he is. As a result, Homelander's incapable of killing him because his narcissism won't let him do it without getting some kind of reaction to stroke his ego.
• Defenders: Beyond: Face to face (more or less) with The One Above All, the most powerful being in the entire Marvel cosmology, Adam Brashear just asks "but are you?" They set a horde of monsters on the non-team, much to America Chavez's exasperation (mainly because she figured she would've been the one to do the flipping). However, it's quickly noted that if The One was truly offended it could've done far worse. Adam figures they want to be questioned and defied.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe story The Quest for Kalevala: While in Tuonela, Donald laughs at the face of The Grim Reaper (or rather the Finnish equivalesupernt, Tuoni), just for the hell of it. In the epilogue, after Tuoni annoys Scrooge, Donald kicks him out of his uncle's office.
• In the superhero comic Empowered, the eponymous heroine in her Blessed with Suck Supersuit distracts a far more powerful villain, allowing the villain's previous opponent enough time to recover and animate the landscape^note  said hero is named Syndablokk, has a, well, cinder block for a head, and a little-known power which he describes as being like Aquaman... but with buildings..
• Fantastic Four:
  • When the Fantastic Four are "fighting" the Dreaming Celestial, a massive Eldritch Abomination which has control over Galactus's energy-consuming abilities and is about to destroy the entire universe and all of temporal continuity 30 years into the future with a black hole the size of a galaxy, Reed Richards hangs out of the side of his time sled and starts calling it names. Then lures it smack-dab into a Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? when he gets its attention. There's a reason entire alien races run screaming at the sound of Reed's name.
  • Valeria Richards shows another example to MacGargan◊ when he was Venom.
• Hellblazer — the protagonist John Constantine actually did literally, both to Satan and God.
• Judge Dredd: Judge Anderson's flippant nature means she'll even mock an undead super-fiend like Judge Death to his face.
• Lucifer: Hosteen Sam Begain informs Lucifer that he's trespassing: "Atse'hashke, this is my house, and you were not invited here."
• Spider-Man:
  • This is Spider-Man's coping mechanism for the numerous cosmic-level threats he faces as a member of two Avengers teams and the Future Foundation. In fact, this is his general trademark for dealing with life-threatening situations, not only blowing off steam for himself but using snarky comments to annoy opponents and keep them off-balance.
  • Inverted with the advent of the Superior Spider Man — the behavior of Doctor Octopus inhabiting Peter Parker's body was so off-kilter from what super-villains and street criminals had come to expect from Spider-Man that their perception of Spidey started to resemble the reputation Batman has in Gotham City's underworld.
• The Sandman (1989): Several demons and damned souls do this to Death, Despair, and Delirium in Death: At Death's Door.
  [a demon shoves Delirium to the ground]
  Despair: Do not touch her. Leave our sister's home.
  Demon: What are you going to do? Sit on us, Fatty?
• Star Wars (Marvel 2015): Darth Vader catches wind of Emperor Palpatine training a possible replacement and kills said replacement-in-training. Instead of trying to shift the blame, he lays the guy's corpse at the feet of the Emperor and admits to killing him.
  Palpatine: Are those lightsaber wounds, Vader?
  Darth Vader: You wish me to prove myself, Master. Give me a fight worthy of my time.
• The Transformers (Marvel) series had Grimlock defying Unicron... by smacking him in the face with the Ark. His fellow Autobots didn't think it a wise move, but Grimlock simply sent them out to join the battle. This was preceded by Galvatron — Unicron's own creation from another reality, brought into this timeframe to sow discord and confusion among the Transformers — shooting his boss in the face. Galvatron got smacked away for his troubles but survived to fight another day.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • Ultimatum: What can Nick Fury, a mere man, do against the nigh all-powerful Magneto, who had just rocked the planet with his powers? Share his knowledge about Mutants' true origin with a mental link from Jean Grey. This caused him to have a Villainous BSoD
  • Ultimate Galactus Trilogy: Xavier's telepathic contact and Reed's doomsday device were not enough to cause Gah Lak Tus any real harm, but he was scared by the unexpected resistance and left.

Films — Animation

• The Book of Life:
  • Manolo is so determined to do whatever it takes to get back to Maria, that he flat out tells off Xibalba. When the death god gets in his face about it, he does not back down.
  • In a later scene when Manolo comes back to life and kisses Maria in front of Chakal. Chakal steps forward like he's about to attack but Manolo just sticks out his finger in a "give me a moment" gesture. Surprisingly it actually makes Chakal stop and let them finish.
• In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup orders Ruff and Tuff to do this the final battle against the Red Death, a monstrous dragon the size of Godzilla.
• Megamind has the titular character do this in an attempt to have the villain punch him into a stone wall where he could get behind the invisible car and retrieve the depowering gun.
  Titan: This is the last time you make a fool out of me!
  Megamind: I made you a hero! You did the "fool" thing all by yourself!
• Near the end of Rise of the Guardians, just when a fear-empowered Pitch Black has Jamie and the Guardians cornered, Jack Frost pelts him with a snowball, interrupting his Evil Gloating and giving Jack and his friends time to escape.
• In The Simpsons Movie, Cletus is enlisted to distract the giant, Big Brother-esque head of the EPA, so the rest of the town can climb to safety. Unfortunately, Homer foils this plan in his usual way.
• In Superman Unbound, a miniaturized Lois Lane gives Brainiac a double-middle-finger while he's monologuing about how much humans suck.
• In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Bowser is interrogating a captured Luigi about the identity of Mario, whom he perceives as a rival suitor for Peach's affections. Luigi essentially insults him by saying princesses who "have good taste" would adore Mario. It turns out Luigi was right. After the final battle, Bowser pathetically begs Peach for another chance. She reacts with a disgusted "Ew. No."
• In The Transformers: The Movie, the Dinobots flip off Unicron in various ways, with Grimlock literally kicking him in the ass. While ineffective, they survive to brag about it.
  Grimlock: Me Grimlock kick butt!
• Turning Red:
  • Compared to Mei's red panda form, her mom, Ming, is revealed to be of a terrifying, kaiju-sized variety. So, a daughter talking back to her rampaging mother (as well as Shaking the Rump in front of her) at the 4*Town concert counts as this.
  • In the junior novelization and The Real R.P.G., Tyler calls Panda Ming "Momzilla" and a "psycho bathmat." Panda Ming is too busy destroying the concert to notice.

Films — Live-Action

• Aliens: "Get away from her, you bitch!" Followed by a Crowning Moment of Awesome as she successfully wins the fight.
• Constantine (2005): John Constantine literally flips Satan off. Keanu Reeves has always been good at acting with his middle finger.
• In The Dark Crystal, Aughra cusses out (in her language) the Skeksis for sending their mooks to burn down her observatory rather than just asking her for the location of the Gelfling.
• During the climax of Deadpool, after slaying all of Ajax's goons, Deadpool responds to Ajax's question of what's my name in the most Deadpool way he possibly could by taking the dead bodies and arranging them to spell out FRANCIS just to piss Ajax off. He even uses a severed head as the dot for the I and he even pulls down the pants on one of the dead bodies.
• Happens in Deep Rising. Finnegan destroys one of the monster's eyes with his shotgun, allowing him and Trillian time to escape.
  Finnegan: What are you looking at? <BAM!>
• "We need a diversion. Something fast... and loud." In Dog Soldiers, Private 'Spoon' Witherspoon is without a doubt the loudest character in the film. Spoon's also probably the only character crazy enough to stand around in the woods shouting and waving a flare when the area is crawling with werewolves.
  "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!"
  • Worth pointing out this is the guy who not only flips off Cthulhu but beats the ever-loving shit out of it. He takes on a werewolf in a fist-fight and wins. Or at least, he was winning until another one came into the room and double-teamed him.
• Irwin M. Fletcher does this several times in Fletch and its sequel. His Deadpan Snarker routine is immutable, no matter who he's dealing with and no matter how close he is to being shot. He does it with the cops that just nailed him in the solar plexus while they were beating up Gummy, the two big cops who arrest him later, Chief Karlin, his editor Frank Walker, and Alan Stanwyk. In Fletch Lives, he snarks the sheriff, "Ben Dover," and Hamilton Johnson.
• Kia in Freddy vs. Jason, who distracted Freddy from the protagonists by taunting him openly. Unfortunately, it didn't work on Jason.
• The Ghostbusters consider this and arming the proton packs, a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner. An especially notable incident occurs in the second film. Vigo paralyzes the Ghostbusters with a blast of energy, then steps past them to take Oscar. Lacking any other options, Venkman crawls toward Vigo and starts mocking and insulting him.
  Venkman: Not so fast, Vigo! Hey, Vigo, yeah you, the bimbo with the baby. Didn't you know the big shoulder look is out? You know, I have met some dumb blondes in my life, but you take the taco, pal. Only a Carpathian would come back to life now and choose New York. Tasty pick, bonehead! If you had Brain-One in that huge melon on top of your neck, you'd be living the sweet life out in southern California's beautiful San Fernando Valley.
  • Ray gets some props too, for escalating from sounding like he's dryly issuing a citation to a ghost god to telling one to go commit bestiality.
  Ray: You want a baby? Go knock up some willing hellhound! Otherwise I'm giving you until the count of three to get back in the painting!
  • The new Ghostbusters from the 2016 film try a similar tactic to bait the villain into showing himself.
  Abby: Rowan! Come get your virginity out of the lost and found!
  • Downplayed in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Phoebe doesn't flip the bird to Gozer, but she does distract the entity by telling it lame jokes and confusing it long enough to set a trap. And does issue a taunt just as the trap is sprung.
• In Gladiator, Maximus regularly does this to Commodus throughout the film. What stops Commodus from simply ordering him executed is that he's so egotistical, he knows that the crowd will never embrace him if he kills their favourite gladiator.
• Halloween: Resurrection has a scene where Freddie, wearing a Michael Myers mask, ends up in front of the killer himself. But Freddie thinks he's just his cameraman (who Michael impaled with a tripod), and complains about how he got the nerve to copy his costume, even tapping Michael in the head. And Michael somehow stands there, and even accepts Freddie's request to leave.
• In The Hobbit, Thorin uses insults to divert Smaug's attention and also make use of Smaug's fire breath in an Indy Ploy.
• 15 years earlier, another Jeff Goldblum character did something similar in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), running and yelling to attract the attention of a group of pod people so that the main characters could escape.
• Parodied (but of course!) in Kung Fu Hustle — after Sing mans up for the first time in his life and attacks the Beast with a stick to the head, he gets beaten into the ground for it. And he's just able to pick up a smaller stick and weakly bonk him on the head. It does get played straight after this, as the Landlord and Landlady immediately rescue him and flee the scene.
• Merry and Pippin do it at the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring to allow Frodo to escape from the Uruk-hai. And then Aragorn does the same thing in Return of the King when he cuts off the Mouth of Sauron's head. You only see this in the extended edition, but as soon as that happens Sauron shifts his attention from a weakened Frodo bearing the Ring to the Black Gate and his dead servant.
• Man of Steel:
  • Colonel Hardy refuses to back down when negotiations with the Kryptonians move in a threatening direction.
  Faora: Should I tell the General you are unwilling to comply?
  Hardy: I don't care what you tell him.
  • Martha Kent also does this with General Zod, telling him to go to hell.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • The Avengers:
    • This essentially what a dying Agent Coulson does to demigod Loki in one pivotal and awesome scene.
    • And earlier, done by an old man in Stuttgart after Loki did his Kneel Before Zod thing.
    Loki: ...In the end, you (people) will always kneel.
    Old Man: (stand up) Not to men like you.
    Loki: There are no men like me.
    Old Man: There are always men like you.
    • Tony Stark threatening Loki in the climax of the film can be considered this. Tony explains to him that he has made himself a huge target. With all Avengers rallied against him, no matter the outcome, he will be defeated, and if they cannot save the world, they will at least avenge it. Loki's response? Trying to stab Iron Man with his mind control staff — which his Arc Reactor absorbs the energy of - before throwing him out the window.
    • There's also an example of the supposed Cthulhu above trying to taunt a direct and bigger threat. As Hulk approaches, Loki tells him he's a god, he will not take crap from him. A bold statement when you are up against someone who took down not one, but two Chitauri leviathans. Hulk proceeds to flail Loki into submission, and encapsulates the whole beautifully with a dismissive "Puny god" as the Asgardian whimpers in pain while lying in one of the craters Hulk bashed into the floor with him.
  • Avengers: Infinity War has Star-Lord insulting Thanos to hell and back, calling him Grimace and telling that he's going to blow his "nutsack of a chin" off his face. Later in the film, he actually flips the bird in the middle of a battle with the Mad Titan.
  • Avengers: Endgame has two cases involving Thor: when a Fortnite player insults his friend Korg, Thor grabs the headset and does an over-the-top threat that sends the guy running for his father; and when showing the aftermath of The Avengers, Alexander Pierce demands Loki to be handed over to him, telling Thor that Odin can have the rest.
  • In Iron Man 2, Ivan couches his attack on Tony at Monaco in this manner. Making God bleed and all that.
• Men in Black:
  • Kay and Jay both do it at the end of to the giant cockroach alien in order to keep him on Earth. Kay taunts him ("Do you know how many of your kind I've swatted with a newspaper? You are nothing but a smear on the sports page to me, you slimy, gut-sucking intestinal parasite! Eat me. EAT ME!") to get him to swallow him; then Jay steps on several normal cockroaches to distract him from getting on the spaceship until Kay can shoot him from the inside.
  • Earlier than that, the tow truck driver who's taking "Edgar"'s stolen truck doesn't get intimidated by him at all. When "Edgar" takes out his shotgun, the driver responds by flashing his own pistol with a very dismissive "Please...". Unfortunately for him, he still gets shot and killed.
• In Pacific Rim, after Striker Eureka is disabled, the Hansens weigh up their options, then continue the engagement with flare-guns. They do manage to torch one of Leatherback's eyes... even though that doesn't do much but piss him off. Even they know it was something really stupid.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Davy Jones offers a mortally wounded James Norrington a chance to join his undead crew. James responds by stabbing him in the chest. Jones is unharmed, but it's still pretty satisfying. See it for yourselves. Even Davy Jones seems mildly impressed.
  Davy Jones: James Norrington. Do ya fear death?
  (Norrington stabs him and expires)
  Davy Jones: ...I'll take that as a "no." Nice sword.
• The Badass Bystanders in Spider-Man who pelt the Green Goblin with objects mid-scheme, excoriating Goblin for trying to kill a guy who's trying to save a group of children, while expressing some heartwarming post-9/11 solidarity.
  New Yorker: You mess wit' one of us, you mess wit' ALL of us!
• In the Tales from the Crypt movie Demon Knight, the Collector offers Irene her severed arm back (on a platter) in exchange for her soul. Her response manages to be both a Crowning Moment of Awesome and a Crowning Moment of Funny:
  (Irene lifts her stump)
  The Collector: Is that a yes?
  Irene: No. That's me giving you the finger, asshole!
• In John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), R.J. MacReady replies "Well fuck you too!" after the titular Thing shrieks at him. Right before blowing it to hell with a thrown stick of dynamite.
• Wrath of the Titans: When Ares tries to kill Perseus, the latter's son, Helius, briefly challenges Ares, buying his father time.
• X-Men: Apocalypse:
  • Xavier twists En Sabah Nur's worldwide message to tell the strong to protect the weak if they can. Apocalypse's "bitch, please" expression at the sheer audacity is priceless.
    Apocalypse: Those with the greatest power, this Earth will be yours.
    Charles: Those with the greatest power... protect those without. That's my message to the world!
  • Shortly beforehand, Professor X dismisses Apocalypse's grand vision as nothing more than manipulation, and he continues his conversation with Erik as if his captor was just a nuisance who rudely interrupted them.
    Apocalypse: I've shown him a better way, a better world.
    Charles: (irritated) No, you've just tapped into his rage and pain, that's all you've done.

Live-Action TV

• In Angel, this is the guiding force behind many of Angel's actions in the later seasons; as he begins to understand the scope of the main antagonist's power, his main aim changes from punching them out to pissing them off. It all comes to a head in the series finale where it's revealed Wolfram and Hart are too extensive to ever be truly beaten, so he decides to murder a succession of high-level members to tell the entirety of Hell that they can suck it.
• Ash vs. Evil Dead: During the Grand Finale, Ash gets the attention of Kandar the Destroyer by calling out to it and flipping it off. Then he kills it with the help of a tank.
• In Babylon 5, while it didn't accomplish anything but make Vir out to be awesome (and set the stage for a little karmic justice later on), he does give Mr. Morden (and by extension the Shadows) a 50-story-tall middle finger telling him what he wants. For those who've never seen the series...
  Morden: What do you want?
  Vir: I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike, as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this. [Vir does a mocking cutesy wave] Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?
  • The above example is made more awesome later in the series when Londo presents Vir with exactly that near the end of the third season, and Vir does as he promised he would. Londo must have had hidden ears on that conversation.
  • Also how Ivanova managed to convince the Walkers of Sigma 957, who can destroy a spaceship just by passing by, to join the fight against the Shadows. They apparently had issues with the Vorlons.
    Ivanova: The Vorlons said you wouldn't be up for this; in fact the last time the Shadows came, they said they did all the work for you. Come to think of it, we've got the Vorlons. We really don't need much more help, do we? I mean the Vorlons are pretty much perfect, aren't they?
    Walkers: [Angry-sounding talk about the Vorlons]
    Ivanova: We'll let you know when it's over, so you can come out of hiding.
    Walkers: When it is time, come to this place. Call our name. We will be here.
  • Garibaldi deliberately tries to do this in the process of an assassination plot on the Vorlon ambassador.
  • Later, in "Interludes and Examinations", Sheridan is trying to convince Kosh to get the Vorlons (themselves Sufficiently Advanced Aliens) to intervene against the shadows. Kosh doesn't want to get involved, so Sheridan starts flipping him off. Kosh responds by telekinetically pushing him around, but Sheridan persists.
    Sheridan: You said you wanted to teach me to fight legends! Well, you're a legend, too, and I am not going away until you agree!
    Kosh: Incorrect. [shoves Sheridan by TK] Leave. Now.
    Sheridan: No.
    Kosh: Disobedient!
    Sheridan: Up yours! [Kosh slaps him, draws blood] So the real Kosh shows his colors at last, huh? Are you angry now? Angry enough to kill me?
    [Sheridan continues flipping off Kosh. Kosh suspends him against a wall]
    Sheridan: Go ahead. Maybe one more death will help balance out the books. Go on. Get it over with. Save us both the trouble later.
  • Then, in "Into the Fire", Sheridan has drawn the Shadows into an area the Vorlons are about to attack. As soon as they see each other, they ignore the Army of Light also on site, so Sheridan decides to "get their attention" by detonating three nukes in their midst. Lyta Alexander, psychically probing them at the time, reports on their reaction to Sheridan's "wake-up call": "Captain... they're pissed." Which is indeed just to the precursor races' attention for the verbal dressing-down of both of them that follows, ending with:
    Sheridan: Now get the hell out of our galaxy! Both of you!
• Like his comic counterpart James Stillwell, Vought CEO Stan Edgar in The Boys (2019) has no qualms about talking down to Superman Substitute Homelander regardless of the fact that he could tear him limb from limb. Even after Homelander performs a hostile takeover of Vought and Stan's by all accounts outlived his usefulness to him, Stan still has the nerve to call him out for being a Psychopathic Manchild, and as a result Homelander's narcissism won't allow him to kill him before he admits defeat.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Graduation Day Part 2", Buffy taunts the mayor about stabbing Faith to lure him into the library, which is packed with explosives.
  Buffy: Hey! You remember this? I took it from Faith. Stuck it in her gut. Just slid in her like she was butter. You want to get it back from me...Dick?
• Deadliest Catch:
  The Bering Sea: [sends three tons of freezing spray across the deck of one of the ships]
  Deckhand: Is that all you've got?
  Narrator: It's never wise to taunt the Bering Sea.
  The Bering Sea: [waits a few seconds, then sends a larger wave to try to wash the entire deck crew off the ship]
• Defiance: Near the end of season 2, as the Kaziri is preparing to enact its plan — putting all its followers in safety in stasis and then forcibly terraforming the planet — it reaches out to Doc Yewll via a hologram of her deceased wife and offers her a spot aboard the ship. But Yewll, being dedicated towards atoning for her war crimes, has only one thing to say:
  "Tell the Kaziri to shove her offer up her virtual ass."
• Doctor Who:
  • The Doctor can be counted on doing this when faced with any sort of super powerful being, whether Sutekh, Omega, a living sun, the Time Lords, and the list could go on and on.
  • When facing certain death from the Daleks in "The Parting of the Ways", Captain Jack simply retorts "I kind of figured."
  • The Doctor repeatedly mocks Satan in "The Satan Pit", just before sending him to die in a black hole.
  • "The Stolen Earth": Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister yes, we know who you are, has a similar scene, right after using her subwave network to call the Doctor.
    Harriet: (to the Daleks) Oh, you have no idea of any human. And that will be your downfall.
  • "A Good Man Goes to War": Rory Williams tells the Cybermen "Don't give me those blank looks!"
• Game of Thrones:
  • At the end of Season 1, Barristan Selmy's reaction to being forcibly retired is to draw his sword, tell off the king and his court, then storm out like he owns the place.
  • In "Mhysa", Joffrey accuses Tywin of hiding under Casterly Rock during Robert's Rebellion. Tywin responds by dismissing him from the meeting and sedating him.
  • Sansa Stark calls Ramsay Snow a bastard, to his face. The last person who did that was shot at point-blank range with an arrow.
  • The Smalljon holds nothing but contempt to the Boltons and continues to insult both Ramsay and the late Roose even while trying to barter an alliance with him.
  • At Tyrion's wedding to Sansa, Joffrey insults Tyrion when he continues abusing (and threatening to rape) Sansa even though she should now be untouchable due to being under Tyrion's marital protection and being Joffrey's aunt by marriage. Tyrion reacts by loudly and furiously threatening to castrate him in public, despite the king's reputation for insane brutality (and, true to form, Tyrion comes out unscathed, at least physically). In the end, he doesn't get to foreshorten Joffrey, but neither does Joffrey get to have his way with Sansa. Indeed, it's the only time in the series where Joffrey ultimately doesn't get what he wants.
• In the Incredible Hulk episode "Married", David is receiving hypnotherapy under Dr. Carolyn Fields, and he has a nightmare and hulks out. When the Hulk starts to trash the room, raising his fist to crush some medical equipment, Carolyn jumps to her feet and shouts, "No!" The Hulk freezes and turns to look at Carolyn with a You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! look on his face. More impressive, it works. The Creature knocks over a coffee table and crashes through a door, but it feels more like him saying, "Okay, fine! Be that way then!" than actual anger at Carolyn.
• Nico Saiba of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid did this several times, best shown by her attacking Kamen Rider Genm with a mop.
• A Sesame Street special set at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has Big Bird stand up to the god of death, Osiris.
• Pretty much the entire SGC gets off on doing this in the Stargate-verse. Even President Hayes gets in on it at one point in "Lost City". Best summed up by this quote from "Zero Hour":
  Ba'al: You dare mock me?
  Jack O'Neill: Oh, come on, Ba'al. You should know. Of course I dare mock you.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Q-Less", how does Commander Sisko greet the omnipotent, god-like, so-far-beyond-human-ken-one-can't-comprehend Q when they meet for the first time? By knocking him on his ass, to Q's utter astonishment. And it works so well that Q never shows his face in the series ever again!
  Q: You hit me! Picard never hit me!
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • "Skin of Evil" sees the crew out to rescue Troi and a crewman from a crashed shuttle and encountering Armus. He takes the shuttle crew hostage, while repeatedly harassing and threatening the landing party, including killing Tasha Yar just to demonstrate its power. When the crew discovers that they can beam the shuttle crew to safety if Armus is sufficiently distracted, Picard himself beams down to confront him, engaging in a debate and purposefully angering him.
    Picard: You say you are true evil? Shall I tell you what true evil is? It is to submit to you. It is when we surrender our freedom, our dignity, instead of defying you.
    Armus: I will kill you and those in there.
    Picard: But you will still be in this place. Forever! Alone! Immortal!
    Armus: AAAAAAARGH!
    Picard: That's your real fear, never to die; never again to be united with those who left you here!
    Armus: AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!
    Picard: I'm not taking you anywhere. [beams out]
  • The Enterprise crew also treats the omniscient and omnipresent god like being Q as a mere annoyance despite the fact he has the ability to warp reality to his whim and make life an eternal nightmare for anyone who annoys him. One particular example is "Déjà Q", in which Q is turned mortal as punishment for his interference with humanity and is basically told to "die" by Worf.
• Star Trek: Voyager has "Coda", which sees a whole fantasy sequence set up by the alien personification of death, that's designed to lure Captain Janeway into an afterlife, so the alien can feed on her body. This fantasy includes the alien itself taking the appearance of Janeway's father. Fortunately, Janeway is too much of a Determinator for even death itself to stand between her and Voyager, and tells them off in grand fashion:
  Janeway: Go back to Hell, coward.
• Supernatural:
  • Played straight in the Season 5 finale, in which Castiel interrupts what would be the final confrontation between Lucifer and Michael by yelling "Hey! Assbutt!" and throwing a Molotov cocktail filled with holy oil at Michael, causing him to disintegrate. This doesn't kill Michael and is only meant to give Dean some alone time with the Devil to try to get through to his vessel. Dean himself seems to forget the severity of the situation for a moment when the absurdity of Castiel's wording hits him. Unfortunately, Lucifer (the Cthulhu of this incident) does not have such a lighthearted reaction to this, and even almost quotes the name of this trope before blowing Castiel up in a bloody mess. "Castiel...did you just Molotov my brother...with holy fire?" "Uh...no?" Lucifer snaps his fingers; Castiel explodes.
  • Most of the interactions the Winchesters have with gods, demigods, higher-ranked demons, and archangels comes to this, including Dean telling a room of gods "We can either take on the Devil together, or you lame-ass bitches can eat me. Literally." Honestly, if Dean's reaction to some supernatural abomination ISN'T this (ie. Death), the situation is truly dire.
  • One of Dean's Establishing Character Moments in the pilot episode is this — after the ghost of Constance Welch possesses the Impala and nearly runs Sam and Dean down, forcing Dean to dive into a river to avoid it, Dean hauls himself out of the water, checks over the Impala, and then loudly proclaims "That Constance chick, what a bitch!" You know, just in case the ghost is still around to hear what he thinks of her.
  • Castiel had another one of these earlier in the season when he trapped the much-more-powerful Raphael in a ring of holy fire to interrogate him. Afterward, as Cas prepares to leave him there, Raphael threatens to hunt him down and kill him. Cas' response?
    "Maybe one day. But today, you're my little bitch."
  • Likewise, Gabriel gets one of these in "Hammer of the Gods" after Lucifer rips his way through a horde of pagan gods and has him on the ropes (even if it doesn't end well).
    "Lucifer, you are my brother and I love you, but you are a great big bag of dicks."
• Teen Wolf: Stiles has a habit of pissing off insanely powerful creatures and people who already don't like him.
• Trapped: In episode six of series 1, Tom, the first contestant to get trapped, tells The Voice to get lost. In other words, he is insulting an unseen, evil being who has trapped many people just because she can.
• Yellowjackets: Faux reporter/actual detective Jessica has been abducted by Misty and is now being held hostage and interrogated by her.
  Misty: I want you to tell me the truth.
  Jessica: OK. Your haircut is unflattering.

Podcasts

• In The Adventure Zone's Balance Arc, the big bad is a Universe-consuming dark dimension called the Hunger Merle, the party cleric, gained the ability to meet with its human embodiment, John, spent almost sixty years in diplomatic meetings with him, and ultimately told him to piss off.
  Merle: Kiss my ass, you sanctimonious bastard.
• In The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Nightmares the Clown is an expy of the Monster Clown from It and a recurring nemesis of drunken mediums Frank and Sadie Doyle. Sadie, however, finds clowns hilarious and is incapable of taking him seriously. Instead, she constantly makes jokes about his being a clown and gets in the way of his feeding on fear.
  Sadie: He is walking towards me. Do not slip on a banana peel! (whisper) I secretly hope he does slip on a banana peel!
  Frank: Sadie, please, do not taunt the nightmare clown monster.
  Sadie: Or what? He'll get in his small car with all his other friends and drive away! Oh! They can use the high occupancy vehicle lane.
  Nightmares: Really, I'm not that kind of clown...

Radio

• Old Harry's Game:
  • Thomas refuses to be afraid of anyone named "Nigel", even if they're God.
  • The Professor periodically assesses Satan's psyche. Most of what he comes up with is not flattering.
• That Gosh Darn Hippie Show: DJ Hippie gets fed up with Anthony’s constant threats to send her to the cornfield and tells him that she doesn’t think it’s even real.

Roleplay

• Destroy the Godmodder is a prime breeding ground for this trope. It includes people flipping off the Godmodder himself, and anything else down the line. It doesn't always end well, like when Piono called TwinBuilder useless.
  • Literally done during the original and no longer canon epilogue of DTG2 when Erelye flipped off the Narrative and Conflict, the two omnipresent and omnipotent forces of plot in existence.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer: The End Times has perhaps the biggest example of all when it comes to the four Chaos Gods. First, it was Nagash, the most powerful of necromancers offering him a high position in his army of the dead and the chance to be a pillar in his ascent to Godhood. Then it was all four Chaos Gods offering him everything they could ever offer, up to the chance to be a Lesser God with a new golden body and unimaginable power and riches. Neither of them got anything from Settra the Imperishable when they made their offers to him, he spat upon both their offers and promised to murder them all for even daring to imply he'd ever be anyone's subordinate. Because Settra does not serve, Settra rules.

Web Animation

• The Demon Lords and Archdevils appearing in the Hellaverse get colourfully insulted by lesser demons a lot, partly because some of those characters are Pals with Jesus (well not Jesus) with them, but mostly because so many characters in Hell are irritable and foul-mouthed and barely even respect power unless it's shoved in their faces.
  • As one example, Vaggie and Alastor on their first encounter in Hazbin Hotel:
    Vaggie: I'm not going to let you hurt anyone here, you pompous cheesy talkshow shitlord!^note Or "shithorde" or something? Colourfully insulting, anyway.
    Alastor: Dear, if I wanted to hurt anyone here... [makes reality glitch] I would have done so already.
  • In Helluva Boss's "Mammon's Magnificent Musical Mid-Season Special (ft. Fizzarolli)", Fizzarolli sings a whole musical number in front of a big audience about how Mammon (the Sin of Greed) has been exploiting him and how he's going to quit his service, with the phrase "fuck you" repeated so often you might think it's the song's name.^note The Actual name is "2 Minutes Notice". Mind you, until Fizz calls Mammon out by name at the end, he just claps and laughs through the whole thing. Admittedly, on this occasion, Fizz probably would have got squished afterwards if he didn't have the protection of Asmodeus, the Sin of Lust. Then, when Mammon becomes outraged at Fizz quitting, the latter seals the deal by mocking his Australian accent and literally flipping him off. With both hands.
• How It Should Have Ended's take on The Lord of the Rings has several of the characters doing this to the Eye of Sauron while Frodo air-drops the ring into the fire, instead of trekking a long way and having several more people die than necessary. The plan works (Gollum dies, too), and the characters ride away into the sunset laughing.
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: While the Captain-General/Kitten usually snarks at the Emperor already due to being a Servile Snarker, he particularly falls under this in specials 1 and 4, after winning Yu-Gi-Oh! duels against both Tzeentch and the Emperor, giving them plenty of sass immediately afterward. The Emperor psychically punches him out for his trouble after some cracks at his game skill, but Tzeentch just runs away, too embarrassed at his loss to retaliate, after being called a nerd.
• In the YouTube Poop Skellington's Revenge, Soldier attacks the Black Hiver while shouting "Take your voodoo-rabbit ass back to Canada!" It doesn't end well for him.
• Phoenix Wright does this to Manfred von Karma quite literally in Paula Peroff's animated skit "Flipping the Parrot".
  Phoenix: It was your idea to cross-examine the parrot, Von Karma! But hey, if you don't like this bird, I got a few more for ya.
  Edgeworth: I'm going to jail.
• Overly Sarcastic Productions: When Narcissus meets Nemesis (the goddess of revenge and a terrifying figure who no one, not even the gods, wants to mess with), he assumes she's another suitor and tells her that the "disappointed albatross" look isn't his type.

Webcomics

• In Blood is Mine Macland does this quite literally to Nil.
• Bob and George, starting with this strip.
• In the ending of Crash & Bass, Frank (a Harmless Villain) distracts X with a carrot juice buster, allowing Bass to turn the fight around.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • Nanase uses her Doppelgänger Spin ability to distract the Omega Goo so she can talk to Ellen starting here.
  • This interaction between Sarah and Pandora:
    Pandora: An ancient being of tremendous power appears floating in your room, and you chastise her for turning on the lights too fast?
    Sarah: I react to paranormal stuff in one of two ways: curiosity, or sass. You hurt my eyes. You get sass.
• As shown in the page image, Peridot from Cucumber Quest does this a lot especially towards the Nightmare Knight; the first time she scolds him for saying her name wrong (the T is silent) and then later she randomly sticks her tongue out at him.
• In Drowtales Erelice, possibly paralyzed and/or dying from the wounds inflicted on her in retaliation for stabbing the Big Bad Snadhya'rune In the Back as revenge for what Snadhya did to her squad earlier, deliberately taunts Khaless, a demonic Face Stealer, to redirect her from her frozen-with-fear clanmate, who manages to escape.
  • Chapter 47 has Kiel'ndia literally flipping off a Demon God and Staring Down Cthulhu simultaneously, with Word of God implying that Kiel's unique demonic taint makes it see her as another demon and, impressed by the sheer force of her personality, causes it to leave back to its own dimension.
• Gunnerkrigg Court:
  • Kat punches Muut (a personification of death) when she learns that Muut forced Annie to escort her own mother to the afterlife. It's this rather than Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? because it had as much effect as punching a brick wall, but Annie is still impressed, as is The Rant.
  Do you have a friend who would do the same for you?
  • A straighter example is the SPANKIES!! Basically, Annie spanked the trickster god Coyote for looking up her skirt. Coyote actually thought it was pretty hilarious, Ysengrin...not so much. Later, she flicked his nose for pulling her out of class just so she could tell him stories (about himself). He acted amused, but then he set up a Batman Gambit so Annie would unwittingly press Ysengrin's other Berserk Button.
  • Depending on what the actual reality context of the afterlife bureaucracy is, Kat's insanely logical perceptive either saw past all the smoke and mirrors that Annie and Mort were forced to see, saw an illusion of the afterlife bureaucracy that took seconds to master, or just flipped off AN AVATAR OF DEATH'S BOSS. To the point that he leaves in both versions.
• Homestuck: Spades Slick, now short an arm and an eye, finally reaches the home of The Felt's second-in-command, a Nigh Invulnerable Reality Warper who's as old as the planet he lives on... and whacks him over the head with a horse-hitcher. Repeatedly.
  • Later on, Aradia's ancestor, the Handmaid, literally flips off Doc Scratch. On both hands. After whacking him with a chair.
• In the "Island And the Idol" arc of The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Galatea has used alien tech to produce a Mechanical Abomination which, much to her frustration, won't do what she tells it to do. She keeps loudly arguing with it even while it is threatening to detonate the sun, until Voluptua frantically covers Galatea's mouth, shouting "Don't antagonize it, you imbecile!" The creature then grabs up Voluptua for attacking its "mother."
• In Kill Six Billion Demons,
  • Book 2: Allison initially acts pretty terrified in presence of Mottom, ruler of a seventh of the multiverse, but it doesn't keep her from swearing at her, and, as they get more comfortable, even angrily calling her out as a coward. And then some more... she takes a whole level of badass during that conversation. A couple of her allies also call Mottom names when staging an escape afterwards. It culminates with Allison calling her a "self-pitying turbobitch."
  • Book 4: 82 White Chain openly mouths off towards God-Emperor Solomon David, referring to him as "tyrant" and later mocking him over the Epiphanic Prison he's put himself into through his position by claiming he can't even see his own cage. After a third round of this, Solomon responds by halfway blowing White Chain's head off with a finger-flick.
• In the now-defunct webcomic Life of Riley, Dan manages to shoot Jezebel (yes, THAT Jezebel) with a paintball gun, then challenges her to a paintbrawl for the fate of the world.
• Sinfest:
  • Monique and Slick flip off The Devil as a CMoA in this heartwarming Hope Spot in their relationship. The Devil is left speechless.
  • Heartwarmingly subverted with Lil'E's first "POMF". Tangerine and Lil'E dance around, taunting the watching drones and "Dad" in particular. How does The Devil respond? He goes off to his secure vault and uploads a video titled, "first_bomf".
  • Possibly a downplayed "Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?": God appears with a finger puppet mocking Aunt Kate. Aunt Kate magics the puppet to fly off and repeatedly swat God's hand with its broom. Something even The Devil didn't dare try when mocked by God.
• Tower of God
  • Near the beginning, Yuri Jahad gets angry at Headon and calls him "you damn rabbit". Now, as a High Ranker and Princess of Jahad, Yuri is powerful enough to practically count as a Physical God herself — but that's nothing next to a Floor Administrator of the Tower, like Headon, who are basically omnipotent on their own floor.
  • In Episode 8 of Season 3, Bam calmly tells Baylord Yama (High Ranker and one of the Slayers of FUG) that he's acting more like a thug than a god. He's just giving constructive criticism, though.
  Yama: Did you come here to die?
  Bam: Of course not. I came here to persuade you.
  Yama: ...Good. I can't stand it when people cower in front of me.
• Every time that Vexxarr finds himself confronted by an 'Enlightened Race' or similarly highly-developed, nigh-omnipotent alien species, his first reaction isn't fear but a kind of generalized disgust. When one offers its protection, he swiftly declines, because he knows the other shoe will drop in short order. Even Sploorfix eventually follows suit.
• Viral Hit: after learning that Seongjun was a yakuza enforcer who regularly killed people and hid their bodies, Hobin still goes through with his plan to publicly call him out for his wrongdoings and, if they meet again, fight him. Seongjun, having nothing left to lose, turns up with intent to kill Hobin and his friends.

Web Original

• In Farce of the Three Kingdoms, the characters (Cao Cao in particular) will often get quite mouthy with the narrator. The narrator is himself a minor character who shows up every so often to deliver exposition, explain morals, interrupt the most exciting bits, and occasionally sing.
• In the The Fear Mythos blog Old Is Good, the author Laura-Beth tries to post her favorite song, only to find out that Slender Man has messed with it, turning it into this [1] Laura-Beth's response? She calls Slender Man an immature, obnoxious little brat and a twerp, and tells him that she remembers when people barely knew who he was.
• In Shadowrun Storytime, Dervish acquires the artifact his team was hired to retrieve during the Final Run and calls their Johnson to arrange pickup. While waiting for the call to connect, he refuses to hand it over to Drake Prime, the right-hand of the Great Dragon Lofwyr. And if that wasn't ballsy enough, he then snubs the Great Dragon Hestaby to her face.
  Hestaby: I am Hestaby.
  Dervish: [miming "I'm on the phone"] I am Amerika-san.
• Whateley Universe example: Phase, fighting a demon from a hell dimension, has lost. She's beaten to a bloody pulp, dying, and about to suffer a literal Fate Worse than Death. She stalls by being a Deadpan Snarker and gets the thing monologuing long enough for the cavalry to show up. And the cavalry only shows up with the right stuff because Phase already figured out what she was facing before she called for help.
• Worm has Taylor stabbing a Nigh Invulnerable force of nature with a fallen hero's Absurdly Sharp Blade. In the rear. She does at least save the civilians. During the raid on the Cauldron base, Taylor arranges to drop Zion's dead partner Eden's body on Zion to make him get angry and try to provoke bad decisions.

Web Videos

• Happens constantly in BuzzFeed Unsolved.
  • Shane, as the resident skeptic, rarely ever takes the mysteries seriously and delights in trying to antagonize supernatural beings because he knows it freaks out Ryan. The most notable instance is probably when Shane actively challenged the Goat Man of Maryland to kill him, nearly giving Ryan a panic attack in the process.
    "GOAT MAN! I’m dancing on your bridge! It's my bridge now! You're going to have to kill me to get me off of it. You're going to have to throw me off the bridge yourself. Look at the way I dance, I disrespect your bridge, Goat Man!"
  • It should be noted that in an early episode they met with a real exorcist named Father Thomas who explicitly warned them to absolutely never do anything like this. Three seasons in, they have never once followed his advice.
• In one Counter Monkey video, Spoony describes a Planescape game he ran where a player went out of his way to antagonize the Lady of Pain, a being so powerful that she's single-handedly responsible for keeping the gods (ALL of them) out of the city of Sigil. Since the Lady's main method of dealing with annoying mortals is to trap them in a magical maze, the player created a Minotaur character due to their racial ability to never be trapped in mazes, presumably for the bragging rights of pulling a fast one on such a powerful being. Spoony's response was to have the maze be a hundred-million-mile hallway — sure, the Minotaur knew the way out, but he was never going to get there.
• Fjord from Campaign 2 of Critical Role ends up playing a high stakes game of chicken with Uk'otoa when his patron revokes his powers and sends him nightmares for refusing to free him from his prison. It comes to a head in episode 72 when he threatens to, and eventually goes through with, throwing his pact blade into lava, effectively releasing him from his pact. Uk'otoa is less than pleased, and continues to send monsters and assassins after the Mighty Nein when they travel over sea.
• The Dragon Ball Z Abridged "Cell vs." short videos, where the final Big Bad of the the series, Cell, takes on the stars or villains of various different anime, comic book, and video game series, often involves this. Cell is a nearly immortal Physical God who can survive and regenerate from almost any injury, but most of these characters have no idea about the depths of Cell's capabilities, so they come in confident, even arrogant, engaging in Trash Talk, insulting the monster, and confident that he's just another villain they'll take down. A few are allowed to get away with it, usually because they realize that they have absolutely no chance against Cell and back down. Others get beaten into next week, and one (Light Yagami) pushes it until Cell actually kills him.
• Some of the battles in Epic Rap Battles of History pit normal humans against opponents ranging from superpowered entities to outright eldritch abominations; said normal humans usually give at least as good as they get in rap. Examples include the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles vs. the artists they were named after, Vlad the Impaler vs. Dracula, The Joker vs. Pennywise, Wonder Woman vs. Stevie Wonder, and J. Robert Oppenheimer vs. Thanos. Adolf Hitler (fighting Darth Vader) would make this trope, but every battle of his ends with Vader using his advanced technology to incapacitate him.
• In the Hitler Rants universe, Hitler regularly insults characters who are much stronger than him. Even when said characters are about to kill him. Examples include Darth Vader, Sauron, Slenderman and even Satan.
• An unintentional example from the Last Life SMP via InTheLittleWood's "Eyes and Ears" continuity. In the season, the Watchers introduce the Boogeyman curse, where one player would have to kill another player or instantly drop to Red (i.e. their final life) themself. Scott, who has no idea the Watchers even exist, point-blank refuses to play along, waiting out the clock and letting himself drop to Red at the end of the session rather than kill one of his allies. This strategy works, as it ends with him winning the season, but absolutely enrages the Watchers, who see his refusal to participate as mockery.
• In SBI Rust, Pumice taunts Piss Wizard at one point, only for Piss Wizard to fly after him at an absurd speed using his admin powers.
• In Tribe Twelve the protagonist, Noah Maxwell, literally did just this towards Slender Man and his lackey the Observer. The Heel Face Turned Firebrand, another one of Slender Man's lackeys, also flipped Slender Man off personally face to face just as he was about to take Noah away. He was so dumbfounded by this that he just stood there and tilted his head. Fitting, since Firebrand is Noah from the future.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • In "It Came from the Nightosphere", Gunther the penguin slaps Marceline's father when he tries to steal Gunther's soul. Though this gets turned on its head a few seasons later when it's revealed Gunther is secretly a being as bad or worse than Hunson Abadeer.
  • In "May I Come In?", Peppermint Butler mocks the Hierophant when he realizes he's an old-school vamp who can't go inside a house without being invited.
    Peppermint Butler: You're one of those old-fashioned revenants, aren't you? You can't come in unless I invite you in! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! What do you think would even happen if you just walked in here, huh? You're so dumb, you sad old relic!
• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Admiral Zhao goes on a Badass Boast before killing the moon spirit, only to be interrupted when Momo attacks his face.
• In The Boondocks episode "Stinkmeaner Strikes Back", Colonel H. Stinkmeaner, who has been damned in Hell, has no problem with calling Satan himself a "bitch-ass nigga". The Devil is actually impressed that Stinkmeaner had the gall to say that, along with Stinkmeaner's new martial arts skills.
• Castlevania: when Lisa comes to visit Dracula, he immediately acts in an threatening manner towards her. Her response is not one of fear, but of chastisement for his lack of manners. The fact that she did not fear him, but talked with him as though they were equals, quickly became the basis of their friendship and, in time, would blossom into love.
• On Danny Phantom, it'd probably be quicker to list the times when Danny isn't insulting someone who could easily wipe the floor with his backside.
  • From "Maternal Instincts":
    Danny: Bye Vlad! And as a lonely single man in your 40's, might I suggest internet dating? Or a cat!
  • "Secret Weapons":
    Danny: Oh, yeah? You and what toaster!?
  • "Fanning the Flames":
    Danny: Dipstick, ho ho. Funny. Who writes your insults? The same hack who writes your songs?
  • And plenty more from where that came from...
• Freakazoid! uses Cosgrove to distract Cthulhu Expy Vorn the Unspeakable long enough for him to grab a bunch of weights and drop them on Vorn's foot.
• invoked Mabel Pines from Gravity Falls makes a habit of taunting nearly every malevolent magical being she encounters. Notable insults include calling Bill Cipher an "isosceles monster" and a "stink face" when she met him in Stan's mind, and that was after she'd already seen Bill telekinetically rip all the teeth out of a deer and put a basketball-sized hole in her brother's chest, among other things. Heck, during the Final Battle in the Grand Finale, when all hope seems lost and Bill seems like he's about to conquer the universe, she helps Dipper stall for enough time so that Stan and Ford can defeat Bill by spraying a can of paint right in Cipher's eye.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
  • In the pilot "Meet the Reaper", Mandy acknowledges that Grim is "a horrific and powerful figure", and even admits that she respects that about him, and yet she puts her foot down and tells him point blank that she won’t allow him to reap Billy’s pet hamster Mr. Snuggles. And then she actually manages to get Grim eternally bound as her and Billy’s "Best Friend Forever".
  • In "Crushed", Piff, the goth boy Mandy develops a crush on, actually had the balls to spit in Grim’s face.
• In the finale of Justice League, Batman repeatedly distracts Darkseid by tackling him and throwing (explosive) batarangs at him. While utterly harmless, he's distracting enough to give Superman some recovery time.
  • Hawkgirl literally flips off Cthulhu in "The Terror Beyond" (or she would have if Standards and Practices would allow it).
    Ichthulhu: Speak to me, child of Thanagar.
    Hawkgirl: Nothing to say! I have a gesture for you, but my hands are tied.
    • She hates this god so much, it leads to the next step in god defiling tropes. With help from GRUUUUNNNDYYYY. Grundy crush squidface!
  • Luthor does this to Amazo in "The Return", who moments ago he thought was going to destroy him. For a moment, it looked like it was going to turn into a Do Not Taunt Cthulhu situation, but he gets away with it.
  • Earlier, in Superman: The Animated Series, Dan Turpin seems to love taunting Darkseid. He gets an Omega Beam for his trouble. No more Dan Turpin. Superman, champion of Earth, was held before Turpin and the rest of Metropolis bruised, battered, and bleeding at the time. Turpin's attack on Darkseid and the defiance of the crowd constituted the whole human race's Crowning Moment of Awesome in the series.
• Kaeloo: Rules has the power to inflict punishments on people ranging from putting their bodies into various forms of Body Horror to destroying the planet, but that doesn't stop Kaeloo, Stumpy, Quack-Quack, Mr. Cat, and Pretty from mocking her repeatedly to her face in Episode 238 and telling her that they don't care about her threats.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Make New Friends But Keep Discord", Pinkie Pie's stone-faced sister Maud has the nerve to heckle Discord's comedy act.
  Discord: You're supposed to say "who's there"! This is the most basic of jokes!
  Maud: You're the most basic of jokes.
• Over the Garden Wall: Wirt's final word on The Beast's offer? "No. That's dumb."
• Peter Pan & the Pirates has an ice god appear in the hideout and berate Peter for trespassing in his domain. How does Peter respond? "You're trespassing in my house and getting snow everywhere."
• The Powerpuff Girls tend to do this to every monster that qualifies — including their enemy HIM, who may or not be the Devil himself — usually right before they beat the crud out of it. Their creator and father Professor Utonium also gets away with insulting HIM at the end of "Him Diddle Diddle" by complaining about paying for the villain's overpriced pancakes and chooses to leave and have breakfast with the girls elsewhere.
• In The Real Ghostbusters it would be easier to list the number of times the heroes did not do this when confronted by a demon or abomination that qualified. Insulting these creatures seemed to be routine for them, and while most would call it crazy, it worked. (Ironically, in the episode where they fought the actual Cthulhu, they didn't bother trying to talk to it; they just opened fire.)
• Regular Show gives us this gem:
  Rigby (to Death): "Is this before or after your face started looking like grated Parmesan?"
• Done to magnificent levels in the Rick and Morty episode "Something Ricked This Way Comes". Summer starts working in a weird little store run by a strange man who sells objects that grant the owner's deepest desire but at a horrible price (such as a man getting a cologne that makes him irresistible to women but makes him impotent as well). Rick immediately knows this guy, Mr. Needful, is the Devil, and his objects are all cursed. Needful tries giving Rick a microscope, but Rick is savvy enough to have the microscope analyzed and figures out it would've made him dumber (Needful said it would reveal things beyond comprehension). Rick then returns to the store with a device that analyzes Needful's stock and reveals what their ironic twists are before anyone buys them. Then he opens up a store across the street from Needful where he offers to remove the curses from the items without taking away the beneficial aspects (as in a pair of sneakers will make someone an expert runner without making them run forever). Rick trolls the Devil so badly the Devil tries to kill himself. Bonus points to Rick for literally giving Needful the finger. With both hands. While dancing.
• In Season 5 of Samurai Jack, the now elderly and wheelchair-bound Scotsman lays into Aku with vicious insults one after another. Aku kills him shortly thereafter. Then he comes back as a magical ghost.
• As noted in the page quote, in the South Park episode "Coon vs. Coon & Friends" Mysterion a.k.a. Kenny dares the Great Old One himself to fight him. Of course, he'd just heard some prophecy stating that only another immortal can stop Cthulhu and Mysterion's one and only power is "doesn't stay dead."
• Taken to the extreme in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Texas", SpongeBob and Patrick continually insult Texas to lure Sandy to the Krusty Krab:
  SpongeBob: [grins smugly] Oh, so we shouldn't say anything bad about [mockingly] Teeexassss!
  Sandy: I'm warning you, SpongeBob!
  SpongeBob: Hey Patrick, I'm Texas! [grabs his pants and moseys in a circle] Duh, howdy y'all! [repeats]
  Patrick: I'm Texas too! [does the same moseying] Get a dog, little longey. Get a dog little longey... [Sandy's really mad]
  Sandy: Y'all best cut it out! [SpongeBob sings horrible Western while Patrick does armpit noises]
  SpongeBob: The stars at night are dull and dim whenever they have to be over dumb old stupid Texas! [Sandy is really steaming, SpongeBob has converted his body into the shape of Texas] Hey Patrick, what am I now?
  Patrick: Uh, stupid?
  SpongeBob: No, I'm Texas!
  Patrick: What's the difference? [the two laugh, Sandy drops her bags]
  Sandy: Y'all best apologize, or I'll be on you like ugly on an ape!
  SpongeBob: You'll have to catch us first! [the two giggle and run off towards the Krusty Krab] We did it! We got her!
  • ... Sandy then proceeds to lasso Patrick and pull him back, causing him to explode. He survives though, as he comes back for the surprise party.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
  • "Veritas": Q drops in at the very end to challenge the ensigns to a duel. However, they've already went through enough mess for one day and Mariner tells Q to go away and they walk on, leading Q to follow them like a petulent child.
  • "The Spy Humongous" Mariner reveals she has an item the rest of the Lower Deckers missed "Anomaly Consolidation Day". Tendi jokingly suggests using it to taunt Armus, the creature from the TNG episode "Skin of Evil", which they do as the episode closes.
• Steven Universe:
  • In "Message Received", Peridot cements her Heel–Face Turn by calling Yellow Diamond, one of Homeworld's leaders and a very powerful gem, a clod.
  • In the Season 5 finale "Change Your Mind", Steven responds to White Diamond pounding her fists and saying he's acting like a child by saying "I am a child. What's your excuse?", making Connie laugh, which makes White Diamond blush and realize she's not perfect.
• In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) episode "Fathers and Sons", Splinter tells the tale of how the Turtles got their first masks. It involves them Flipping Off a Bone Demon, who had a magic doodad that made it invisible to everyone else. Keep in mind, they're like 6 at the time, and this guy has been terrifying them for the last couple of days. Their throwing rocks at it let Splinter and The Ancient One win the day. Pity they had to get Laser-Guided Amnesia about it, though.
• In The Tick episode "The Tick Vs. Arthur's Bank Account": "My name is Arthur, and this is my diversion: 'The Itsy-Bitsy Spider went up the waterspout...'"
• Transformers: Animated: Bumblebee actually manages to use this as a weapon in itself against the Decepticon Blitzwing, who is five times his height and twenty times his firepower — and also has trouble staying in his jet mode when he gets really annoyed. Even if he's very high up at the time.
• The Wind in the Willows (1983): "Unlikely Allies" ends with the Riverbankers and the Chief Weasel stopping the Wild Wood weasels led by a mysterious stranger - who roused them into overthrowing their chief - from attacking Toad Hall. Before the stranger leaves, he comes across Badger, who tells him off, and the stranger decides to cut his losses instead of fight. With the stranger being hinted throughout the episode to be Satan due to having hypnotic powers of suggestion, Badger may as well have told the Devil to take a hike.
  Badger: Work your evil, I'm sure you will. But not here! Not yet!
• In Young Justice, Mal Duncan, who compared to his teammates has no superpowers whatsoever (minus training from Black Canary, thus qualifying him as a Badass Normal) manages to distract Despero by playing a Fake Ultimate Hero long enough for his super-powered teammates to rally and take Despero down.

Real Life

• During the Battle of Thermopylae, King Leonidas of Sparta and his soldiers were tasked with holding the Thermopylae Pass against a dramatically larger army of Persians. Before the battle began, the Persian Emperor Xerxes demanded the Greeks lay down their weapons and surrender; Leonidas responded, "Come and take them."
• Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was the commander of German troops in East Africa during World War I, and was famously never defeated in battle. When Adolf Hitler offered him an army command, Vorbeck's response was to tell Hitler to fuck off, though some of his associates believe he wasn't even that polite.
• World War II:
  • Most of Churchill's famous 1940s speeches. When your air-force is outnumbered 4:1, your army has had to leave most of its heavy equipment on the other side of the Channel, and the wolf-packs are tightening the noose, broadcasting what is basically "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!" so the whole world can hear certainly qualifies.
  • One of the ships that took part in the pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck was the Polish destroyer Piorun, which had escaped the German invasion in 1939. Piorun attacked the battleship flying a flag signal reading "I AM A POLE", and while they didn't do any appreciable damage, they rode the battleship's ass, evading multiple 15" salvos and vectoring in heavier ships, until they had to turn back due to running out of fuel.
• An overlap with myths and religion - Saint Gregory Nazianzen, a 4th-century Christian bishop and saint, encouraged Christians to do this when confronted by Satan:
  "If he (the Devil) wrestle against you to a fall through avarice, showing you all the Kingdoms at one instant and in the twinkling of an eye, as belonging to himself, and demand your worship, despise him as a beggar. Say to him relying on the Seal, I am myself the Image of God; I have not yet been cast down from the heavenly Glory, as you were through your pride; I have put on Christ; I have been transformed into Christ by Baptism; worship thou me. Well do I know that he will depart, defeated and put to shame by this; as he did from Christ the first Light, so he will from those who are illumined by Christ."

  — Oration 40, X, 381 A.D.
• On February 24, the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, reputedly the best, most advanced warship in the Russian Navy, demanded the 13 man strong garrison of Ukrainian border guards on the Snake Island lighthouse to lower their weapons and surrender. The guards' response was "Russian warship, go fuck yourself.". Since then, the phrase became popular worldwide, being used as a battle cry by the Ukrainian soldiers and even receiving its own commemorative postal stamp.
• Plutarch records a meeting between Alexander the Great and Diogenes. Alexander, a fan of Diogenes' work, found him soaking up rays in the Corinthian marketplace and asked what Diogenes wished of him, and Diogenes' reply was "Yes. I would have you stand from between me and the sun." Alexander took this remarkably well, recognizing that Diogenes would compromise his integrity if he showed him any respect. In fact, when he returned, he told his followers that if he were not Alexander, he would be Diogenes (Diogenes may have overheard from some distance away and shouted that if he were anyone else, he would also elect to be Diogenes.)

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