Wounded Gazelle Gambits in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Boldores And Boomsticks: Lusamine thought the first Grimm she enountered was agressive because it had been recently hurt by humans. When Salem learned about that, she purposefully sent scarred Grimm to Lusamine and fed her stories about how the people of Remnant hunted the Grimm for sport simply because they looked scary. Morally outraged by this, Lusamine uses the Aether Foundation's resources to amass Grimm and aid Salem's allies in ther scientific goals.
- The Chaotic Masters: When first revealing himself to the Titans, the Collector pretends to be a hero who was sealed in the mirror by Wuya when he defied her attack on his village, hoping to garner their sympathy to free him. Unfortunately for him, Raven sees through his efforts.
- Danganronpa: In Harmony's Wake: The first blackened uses this to try and establish their alibi. During Pinkie's party, they taint the apple cider, then feign sickness in hopes of blending in with the actual victims. They later take some of the leftover ipecac to try and convince the others that they're still ill.
- A Different Kind of Truth: Shadow Kanji attempts this, claiming that he'll leave the party alone if they let him go... while secretly attempting to reach for his weapon. Gyro spots the attempt to rearm himself and knocks his weapon away, leaving Johnny, Chie and Yosuke free to express their displeasure over the trick.
- One Halloween chapter of A Game of Cat and Cat is about the ghost of Mikado Castle; the first half is the traditional telling, and the second half is what actually happened. Specifically, the ghost was Nanashi, and he created a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax as cover for his sabotage operation. The legend persisted because after the war ended, Nanashi was invited to the castle as a hero, and he ordered one of his ghostly demons to stab him in his bed and be caught fleeing the scene.
- In Hybrid Theory, through make-up and tears and being naked in bed, Nabiki convinces Ryouga that he snapped and abused her, because she wants him to be her perfect willing slave.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku gets into an arm wrestle with Kendo Rappa that's so so one-sided that Rappa's arm gets twisted all the way around. Izuku screams and apologizes for what he's done until Rappa reveals his Abnormal Limb Rotation Range and resets his arm while laughing at Izuku's reaction.Izuku: Ahhh! I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-are you okay?!
Rappa: (arm twisted 180 degrees) "Okay"? "Okay"? "Okay"?! You think this is okay?!
Izuku: Ahhhh!
Rappa: You think this is okay, kid?! 'Cause if you do... then you're totally right to do so. [spins his shoulder back into place]
Izuku: Wh-What?
Rappa: Ha! Got you good, kid! Ah, if I had 100 yen every time I got someone to have that look on your face.
Izuku: (under his breath) Yeah, real funny. - In Persona EG, Sunset Shimmer uses this as one of her plans to humiliate Flash and anger Twilight. She breaks into the Applewood dorm one night in February and rapes Flash, then one month later claims that she is pregnant with Flash's child because he forced himself on her. Although she was attempting to get pregnant for real when she raped him it didn't work and she just made up that she was pregnant to humiliate Flash. Though many people in the school believe the rumor at first, the attempt ultimately fails when Flash, Cadance and Celestia call her out on her lie and set up a test to prove it is false. Sunset backs down and admits her lie, but gets out of any official punishment by messaging over Canterbook that she panicked and misread her result. Despite the rumor being proved false, many people are still upset at Flash for having had sex with Sunset, but Sunset herself is just as humiliated as Flash.
- Peter Parker Needs A Hug: A day after the Joker attacked a phone drive (where Spider-Man showed up shortly after Peter Parker disappeared), Peter realizes that he's being stalked on his way to work. He pulls this trope by limping, knowing that looking weaker will draw out the stalker so they can either (depending on their intentions) ask if he's okay or attack him. It works; Red Robin, his stalker, makes an appearance. Apparently Oracle got worried about the kid and sent him check up on Peter.
- The plot of The Pirate's Soldier opens up with Heero Yuy breaking up a space fight between the ships of Ryoko and Princess Ayeka. The former tries to get on Heero's good side trying to pretend that she's an innocent victim while Ayeka is a tyrant trying to kill her. Heero doesn't buy her sob story, but it's enough to provoke Ayeka into attacking them both, which was Ryoko's plan all along.
- In Shinji and Warhammer40k, when Gendo and SEELE finally realize that neither of them was behind Shinji's messianic rise in popularity and influence, they conclude that a third party is manipulating events. Gendo interrogates Shinji privately, hoping to learn who's behind it. Gendo is careful to avoid leaving any obvious bruises during the interrogation, and when physical pain proves ineffective, he starts threatening Shinji's friends. Shinji responds by savagely punching himself in the face over and over. Due to an old incident where Shinji provoked Gendo into striking him in public, combined with the public persona Shinji had cultivated, Gendo realizes there's nothing he can do to convince people of the truth.
- Vivian pulls this trick on Lyrius during the Final Battle of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Thousand Year Door. When he's understandably upset at having fallen for such an old trick, she says she "had a good teacher". (Implying that she learned it from him.)
- Imagination vs Popularity
has a bully do this to get the kids (specifically Pablo and Tyrone) in trouble. It works.
- Alternative Class Despair: In Ultra Despair Girls, Chihiro becomes a Self-Made Orphan by luring his father into a room with a Beast Monokuma. He does this by playing a recording of his voice inside the room, crying and calling out for help.
- let's go out with a bang!: This is one of Kokichi's favorite ways of nettling Miu: harassing and insulting her until she lashes out, then calling up the Crocodile Tears and treating her frustration as 'proof' that she's completely evil and irredeemable.
- In A Cure for Love, while Light is in the middle of killing one of his former coworkers he makes said coworker shoot him in the arm so that he will look innocent to the investigators.
- In I Won't Say, when L catches Mello and Matt sneaking around his room, Matt turns on the waterworks and tries to blame it all on Light.
- In Monster, a jealously scorned Misa calls the police on Kira's operation in the hopes of eliminating her competition and forcing Light to be "hers" again. When calling the police, Misa gives a great performance, tears and all, and downplays her own involvement claiming she was "so scared" of Kira.
- In Those Who Stand for Nothing Fall for Anything, B locks himself and Light up in L's kitchen and begins beating himself up in an attempt to frame Light. Luckily L knows B and Light well enough to figure out what's going on.
- In Enemies Within, Evil Sayori cuts her cheek to incriminate Yuri of attacking her.
- In Flickering, the Madrigal children hear about a villager named Catalina Arias, who still holds a grudge against Bruno (who is aromantic) for turning her down when they were younger, and decide to start messing with her. After Mirabel's lecture to the village kids about consent finally pushes Catalina too far, she charges up to Bruno and tries to slap him. Isabela intercepts her before she makes contact, but Bruno, pushed to his own limit, decides to pull out the "youngest sibling" gambit: slap himself and go running to Pepa. Catalina quickly exits before Hurricane Pepa, fuelled by Big Sister Instinct, turns her to ash.
- In When Hope Goes Against Vengeance, Avelina acts as if the Madrigal family purposefully cursed her and banished her from the Encanto, when in reality she cursed herself by trying to steal Sierra's gift and used the curse to harm the family.
- In Another Chance (as well as many fanfics like it), Lisanna, by using makeup, manages to fool most of the guild into thinking Lucy injured her, causing them to turn on and beat Lucy up. Only Wendy, Juvia, the Exceeds and Gajeel, of all people refuse to take part in it, but only Makarov sees through Lisanna's deception by smelling her makeup (which the other Dragon Slayers should have been able to do), and after having Juvia use her magic to wash it off, expels Lisanna from the guild.
- A Thing of Vikings: Some pirates are able to lure in Hiccup and Astrid by having one of their ships pretend to be a merchant vessel under attack.
- For His Own Sake: In the Backstory, Chisato stole a book from her teacher's desk so she could use it to cheat on the upcoming tests. When Yoshinari confronted her over the theft, she convinced Keitaro that he was harassing her. She then later sent her thugs after Yoshinari, having them beat him up badly enough to hospitalize him.
- CONSEQUENCES:
- In THREATENING A TSURUGI, Kagami manages to resist and reject Hawkmoth's influence because she knows that Lila would just play the victim, claiming that Kagami was irrationally blaming her for her mother's 'accident'.
- WORLD BEYOND has the French government pretend that they're caving under the pressure of Hawkmoth's latest scheme, giving in to his demands and arresting Ladybug and Chat Noir. The whole thing is actually a pretext to lure the terrorist out of hiding; when he comes to claim his prize, they launch their trap.
- Henri LeRoi, the new villain character in Jerk in Sheep's Clothing, pulls the same stunts Lila usually does in Salt Fics, only the targets are reversed so that he's faking it to get Marinette's sympathy and make the class seem like the bullies instead of the other way around, all to get her to cut ties with them and become dependent on him.
- When Ivan confronts him on his behavior, in a very gentle and unthreatening manner, Henri puts his hands on himself and throws himself down the stairs just as Marinette is coming over, making it look like Ivan pushed him down. When Ivan tries to defend himself, Henri fakes an ankle injury to steal back her pity.
- Kim tries to catch Henri in the act of faking by throwing a paper football at his face, prompting him to get up on his ankle and catch it. When Kim points this out, Henri claims he risked his injury to save Marinette from a paper cut on her face, earning her admiration and getting her to believe her friends are bullying him.
- Long Con: Marinette directly name-drops the concept, recalling "an old anime she saw years ago" wherein two of the characters discussed it. Sure enough, Lila employs this against Alya when she accuses her of lying, declaring that Alya is harassing her because she'd decided it would "make a good story". She also reminds everyone of how Alya had deliberately lied about what happened with Oblivio, intentionally omitting how Ladybug and Chat Noir were Kissing Under the Influence so that she could pretend her ship was sailing.
- Marinette Dupain-Cheng's Spite Playlist: When Marinette's old class runs into her at the Lourve, Lila fakes a tumble down a flight of stairs in order to further defame her character. While Adrien witnesses the whole thing, Lila has already discredited him enough by this point that Alya and several others reject his testimony, though not everyone is fooled.
- Missing: In order to get Alya in trouble, Lila slaps herself across the face hard enough to leave a mark, then bursts into Crocodile Tears, making it seem as though the other girl attacked her.
- Nymph and the Corrupted Miraculous: Adrien/Chat Noir fakes a breakdown at one point, crying into Xue Ying's arms in order to steal their Miraculous.
- Sins of the Past opens with Lila cornering Marinette, then grabbing her journal and smacking herself in the face with it. Their classmates believe that Marinette was the one who struck her, save for Adrien... but he still blames her for what happened.
- In Telling Lies? No, Mama, Chloé explains that Lila uses this as a tool to get everyone on her side, even when what she says doesn’t add up. At the start of the story, Lila tries to claim that Marinette attacked her, and everyone jumps to her defense, except for Alya, Nino, Adrien and Chloé. When Chloé presses the class if they really believe Marinette did it, they admit that they didn't really believe Lila and only defended her because she seemed so vulnerable and sad and they didn’t want to seem like jerks.
- Two Letters: While investigating the new Ladybug, Alya showed up to an akuma battle disguised as Chat Noir. The new Ladybug wound up shielding her from an attack, seemingly getting seriously injured in the process. After the battle, she pleaded with the public to remember that her Secret Identity was considered a matter of national security, and that they shouldn't get involved with akuma "just to get clips for social media". Parisians naturally assumed that the Ladyblogger was trying to expose Ladybug's identity for the sake of an exclusive scoop, and turned against her.
- In Underestimation, Lila tries to claim that Marinette pushed her on the way to school in order to get the rest of the class to turn on her. While they do believe she was assaulted, they end up questioning the identity of her "attacker", since Marinette is an All-Loving Hero who would never bully someone like that; Lila is ultimately forced to concede that she may have mistaken her "attacker" for Marinette.
- It's Over, Isn't It (it's only just begun): Two of Tenko's classmates, Asari and Chujo, regularly use these to bully others. Asari stabs himself with thumbtacks in order to frame a fanged girl for supposedly biting him, while Chujo uses his Quirk to give himself nosebleeds and blame others for them.
- Naive Melody: Inko garners sympathy from some bus passengers by pretending to be an abuse victim who's being targeted by a rogue cop. It helps her case that she looks like a total mess when she finds them.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Checker Monarch from Getting Back on Your Hooves has Manipulation as her Special Talent, and thus has this as part of her arsenal, and threatens to do so if anyone reveals her crimes. Ironically, Trixie uses this trope herself to lure Checker into an Engineered Public Confession.
- The Immortal Game: After Terra is stripped of her power and imprisoned by the Mane Cast, she eventually pretends to have an emotional breakdown in order to lure Fluttershy close enough to her cage that she can try and strangle her through the bars.
- Shadowfax tries this to escape interrogation in You Obey.
- After Mikoto Uchiha kills off most of her clan in A Dark Obsession, she deliberately injures herself and tells Naruto that the Hokage was responsible in order to convince Naruto to leave Konoha with her.
- Déjà vu no Jutsu: Natsumi deploys this during an ANBU mission; while disguised as a civilian farmgirl, she feigns injury in order to lure her target off guard long enough for her to kill him.
- sunflower: During Gai's first ANBU mission as Nezumi, he sees a woman and her baby trapped inside a burning house. When he attempts to rescue them, however, the woman turns out to be a disguised shinobi. Kakashi later berates him for falling for it.
- RWBY: Dark: P.E.N.N.Y., disguised as a girl, fakes a broken leg and having lost her parents in order to gain sympathy from the Resistance and use it to infiltrate their base. Fortunately, Mercury sees right through it.
- White Sheep:
- Cinder mentions that Salem's daughters quickly realized that Salem was completely incapable of denying them anything while they were crying; it makes any attempts to punish them doomed to failure. While this did also apply to Salem's son Jaune, he never took advantage of it.
- In the story proper, Jaune invokes this on Cinder's behalf. He attacks her while in his Grimm form to keep her cover safe when Ironwood attacks their meeting with Adam in chapter 40. Adam, for his part, catches on quickly, and talks about having "lost the hostage" in earshot of Ironwood's men.
- Sailor Moon: Between the Lines features a rare positive example in Episode 10. After recovering the buses from the dimension Jadeite's youma trapped them in, Ami calls the police while pretending to be one of the victims. She also takes the opportunity to tell the police that the Hikawa Shrine wasn't responsible for the mass disappearances.
- In The Ghost Map, Holmes shoots himself in the shoulder to frame a Serial Killer/Deadly Doctor and get him convicted in court.
- In Heart Of Ashes, Andraya uses this trick to frame Smaug (or "Cail Agonn" as he's known in his human form) for King Wilhelm's murder in order to get back at him for breaking off their expired deal. She enters the king's bedchamber in a maid's attire, kills him, leaves the door of the servant passage open, slices her own forehead, sinks the dagger in the king's chest, and screams for help. Pretending to be a hysteric maid, she tearfully tells the guards that "Cail Agonn" murdered the king and escaped through the servant passage, leading the guards to search for him and (unsuccessfully) attempt to arrest/kill him. It helps that "Cail Agonn" is a wanted man who recently spoke disrespectfully to the king.
- In Shadowchasers: Ascension, Shock Jock Sarah Blaze uses a variation of this similar to Palpatine's in Star Wars: Clone Wars, arranging for her own kidnapping and pretending to be a Damsel in Distress so she won't be considered a suspect later when things get more serious. Unfortunately for her, Karen picks up on a few interactions between her and the kidnapper that seem contradictory. When she interviews the kidnapper on her show, she acts like the two have never met; however, when she's actually kidnapped, she addresses him as if she's known him a long time. This eventually gets her found out, and ruins a big part of the villains' plans.
