Times where somebody is punished for not picking a side in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Code Prime, Suzaku and Dreadwing, in an attempt to circumvent having to choose between defecting to Black Knights and Autobots and staying with Britannia and the Decepticons, decide to swear loyalty to Princess Euphemia. Unfortunately, Megatron has Euphemia kidnapped and replaced with a pretender to turn the Special Admistrivative Zone into a massacre, which forces them to accept that Megatron will accept no compromises, which leads them to defect to the Black Knights and Autobots.
- In Dial, Mahmoud warns King T'Chaka, Prince T'Challa, and Ayo that if Wakanda continues to maintain its neutrality while hiding their power from the rest of the world, they'll eventually face this. As he explains to them, he and BRIDGE are planning to bring the world into the future; if they stay out of the conversation, other countries will eventually become advanced enough to leave Wakanda behind... as well as learn the truth about them, which he predicts will have poor results.
- Fluttershy's hatred of bloodshed and desperation to end the war in Fallout: Equestria not only prolongs it but brings about The End of the World as We Know It. In her bid to end casualties entirely, she creates the Megaspell and demonstrates its usage by healing both sides of a battlefield, leading to the fight continuing and even more ponies dying. Despite this, she keeps trying, going as far as to sending her opponents the schematics to build megaspells, only realizing their capability for destruction were they to be reverse-engineered into nukes when it's too late.
- The Good Hunter: Cyril Sutherland/Klaus Tennstedt distrusts both the Order of the Chief God and the Monster Lord due to both touting a "With Us or Against Us" mentality where they wish to destroy the other faction in the name of "the greater good". This naturally means that both sides see him as a major problem and want to deal with him by any means necessary.
- The Human War
(a X-COM and Mass Effect crossover): During the war between Humanity and the Council, the Volus decide it is best for them to cut their home system from the Mass Relay network. Works out reasonably well... until an Ethereal fleet arrives a few days later. - Infinity Train: Blossomverse: Frequently happens throughout the series; one of the most common causes of characters getting called out or hit with speeches about how much they suck is due to their perceived failure to help. Alas, Poor Communication Kills; another Running Theme of the series is people not recognizing the difference between "intentionally didn't help" versus "had some legitimate reason, like not being fully aware of what was happening".
- The Last Son: Overlapping with Mediation Backfire, thousands of years ago the Kryptonians came across the Kree-Skrull conflict and attempted to mediate with both sides to end the war peacefully. Refusing to yield, both races instead tried to sway the Kryptonians to side with them, but the Kryptonians refused to do so and finally chose to abandon the conflict altogether. It's partially subverted because when both Kree and Skrull fleets tried to attack Krypton in revenge, they were utterly decimated by their Sentrius Battlestation.
- The Maribat AU commonly hits Adrien with this, since he knows that Lila is lying to and deceiving everyone, but refuses to help expose her or offer anything more than lip service to the idea of 'supporting' Marinette.
- moral of the story (Nyame): Felicity considers her decision to stay neutral in the "Laurel debate" as this, as she feels her refusal to chime in and reveal how uncomfortable she was about the way Oliver and John were talking about Laurel helped enable the sequence of events that caused the latter's suicide. She decides to remedy this by telling her former friends exactly how she felt about their discussions about Laurel before leaving the team permanently.
- one day at a time (Nyame): The original Merlyn (from Jason's original timeline) chose to stay neutral in the League of Assassins' Civil War. Mara al Ghul promptly hunted him down and killed him because she didn't want someone with such uncertain loyalties in the League.
- Delenda Est: The Ministry of Magic was hit hard by this in the original timeline. After traveling back in time, Harry helps put things in motion to prevent this from happening again.
- Frequently seen in fanworks inspired by the events of "Chameleon" and subsequent episodes. Especially with Adrien; while Marinette didn't inform him of Lila directly threatening her, he is still able to see firsthand the impact the Manipulative Bitch's Blatant Lies are having on his friends, yet advised Marinette to "take the high road" and not act against her. Interpretations of why he takes this stance vary wildly Depending on the Writer, from naivete stemming from being a Sheltered Aristocrat, tendencies of acting like an Extreme Doormat, or being Secretly Selfish and not wanting to risk the rest of the class turning on him for telling Cassandra Truths and being an Accomplice by Inaction. Regardless of the exact reasoning, however, he's often taken to task for his reluctance to act.
- Feralnette AU:
- Alya attempts to balance her friendship with Marinette with that of Lila, which spurs her to defend the latter from a Ladybug and Chat Noir when they call out the Bitch in Sheep's Clothing on attempting to spread Malicious Slander about Marinette right after she hurts herself while resisting akumatization. Unfortunately for her, she says too much in the process, prompting Ladybug to call her out for taking a "neutral" stance when she knows that Lila has a "compulsive lying disease".
- In Birds of a Feather, Rose learns that Felix is part of a ballet troupe. Marinette, Felix, and Kagami all request that she keep this information away from Lila... but Rose doesn't want to believe that they can't all be friends, despite the clear hostilities. Felix calls her out for attempting to "stay neutral" by ignoring their wishes:Felix: What are you still doing here, and what are you texting, Rose.
Rose: O-oh, I'm... I'm about to, uh...
Felix: You're texting Lila.
Rose: Well I-! I don't want to let her down!
Felix: So it's okay to let down Marinette? Even when she asked you to restrain herself?
- Played With in The Karma of Lies, where Adrien winds up being hit by the karmic backlash that was originally intended for Lila. However, it's made clear that contrary to his beliefs, Adrien wasn't remaining neutral: on top of his Betrayal by Inaction, he actively vouched for Lila on several occasions, ignored all warnings about how much she was hurting Marinette and the rest of the class with her lies, and insisted that everything would be fine because HE wasn't personally impacted. In essence, Adrien worked to shield her from the consequences of her actions and ultimately pays for it when those consequences fall upon him instead.
- Lies We Tell (Ourselves): Alya does her best to try to build common ground between Marinette and Lila by asking them to give each other a chance. This goes absolutely nowhere, because Lila is absolutely dedicated to using Sugary Malice to drive away all of Marinette's friends just like she promised, and as a result, Marinette has retreated into a position where you have to declare for one side or another. Alya's position simply earns her the bitter nickname "Switzerland" in Marinette's book.
- The One to Make It Stay: When Lila steals his phone and uses it to send several hateful messages to Kagami, Adrien tries to 'stay neutral' and defuse the situation by claiming she was 'just joking' and didn't actually intend to hurt anyone. Adrien is the only one present who sees this as neutral; everyone else sees it as taking Lila's side and is completely disgusted, with Kagami breaking up with him on the spot. Even Lila is shocked beyond belief by his decision.
- In this Accusation Fic, Adrien's attempts to "stay neutral" and keep the rest of the class in the dark about Lila hit a snag when Felix asks him point-blank, in front of the whole class, if she's been lying or not. This presents him with a Morton's Fork: telling the truth will upset Lila and turn her against him, but lying would just delay the inevitable backlash once the others eventually learn the truth, as well as prove to Marinette he'd never had any intention of "standing with her" like he'd promised. He attempts to Take a Third Option by claiming he just wanted to "protect" Lila from Marinette without ever clarifying whether or not she was being truthful, only for this to blow up in his face: Marinette despairingly reveals to everyone just what he said to her after the Chameleon incident, and Lila uses Exact Words to convince the others he was lying about her lying, causing Alya and the others to be outraged at how he's manipulated Marinette. So his efforts to avoid taking a side leave everybody angry at him.
- In A Rabbit Among Wolves, Sienna warns Jaune that while he's building up plenty of good PR, it will all be wasted if he doesn't take direct action against somebody in order to appease the more violent faction of the White Fang.
- The Smurfs That Canon Forgot: When the title characters get into a dispute about how to cope with Papa's absence — and no longer being able to rely upon his protection — Flighty finds himself torn between the factions. Wanting to support his friend Scaredy, but also being intimidated by some of the more extreme methods he and his side argue for. His attempts to stay in the middle and meditate aren't appreciated by either side, with several of Scaredy's other supporters cornering him and declaring that if he isn't helping, he might as well not be doing anything at all.
- The Desert Storm: Duke Adonai Kryze, the acting ruler of Mandalore, faces this issue: his moderate stance makes him a target for extremists on both sides of the aisle, as he's dealing with the Evil Reactionary Death Watch on one hand and the Actual Pacifist New Mandalorians, who incorrectly blame him for starting the war.
- Worldwar: War of Equals: Despite the wishes of the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and the Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, the Swiss refused to join the European Coalition purely because doing so would go against their famously neutral position towards all conflicts. They eventually abandon the neutral stance once it becomes clear just how massive a threat the Race's invasion is.
