Blackmail Backfires in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Bridges
opens with Colonel Jack O'Neill learning that he is the biological father of Xander Harris. Eventually, Jack's old nemesis Robert Kinsey (now the Vice-President) attempts to force Jack to retire by abducting Xander, but since Kinsey was unaware of the existence of Slayers, when agents come to the SGC suggesting that Jack should take early retirement and can reach his son on a particular number, the indicated number goes direct to voicemail while Jack finds that he missed a message from Xander informing him that there are eight NID agents in the basement. - Equestria Girls: A Fairly Odd Friendship: The Dazzlings threaten to expose Timmy's fairies, causing him to lose them forever, if he doesn't grant their every wish. Timmy eventually calls their bluff, pointing out that if he loses Cosmo and Wanda, all the wishes they've already granted will be undone, including the one that gave the Dazzlings their own magic back. Of course, this just results in the Dazzlings resorting to Cold-Blooded Torture to get what they want.
- In The House of Elendil, Tywin has Isildur taken hostage in order to prevent Elendil and Gondor from intervening as he ravages the Riverlands. But then Isildur manages to escape, killing Gregor Clegane in the process of doing so — and Joffrey was foolish enough to execute Aratan, removing any potential leverage they could have gained from that hostage.
- Early in Season 1 of the J-WITCH Series, Valmont tries to force the Guardians as well as Jackie and Tohru to work for him by showing them the photos he has taken of the girls' human and Guardian forms. Yan Lin helps him realize that he's in no position to threaten a group of Magical Girl Warriors and Badass Normals, so he gives up the photos to them and flees.
- Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: In chapter 8's omake, Touji tells Asuka he knows she is Power Girl and he will tell everyone unless she puts a skimpy bikini on and models while Kensuke takes pictures. Touji thought the next step would be profit, but the only step was him getting beaten.
- A Supe of a Man: Annie attempts to get A-Train to stop harassing her by threatening to leak evidence of how he murdered his girlfriend to the press. He responds by threatening to kill her first. Thankfully, Clark chases him away.
- With Pearl and Ruby Glowing: When Harmony Squirrelson is threatened with a video showing how he was gang-raped during his time as a political prisoner, he tells the would-be blackmailers to go ahead and release it, pointing out that it only proved the point of his human rights protests.
- Towards the Sun: A logistics officer working at one of the Fire Nation's colonies discovered that their governor was part of a conspiracy to embezzle military funds. Rather than blowing the whistle, she tried blackmailing him. He then framed her for the whole thing, getting her tossed into the Boiling Rock prison with a life sentence.
- In Kara of Rokyn, rival wrestler Jara's attempt to blackmail the titular character into having sex with her backfires when Kara reminds her that such threats may destroy her career.Jara: I warn you, Kara—
Kara: Warn me? One word of this to the commission and they'll yank your license!
- Take a Stand: One of Buttercup's favorite tactics is using blackmail to influence the underworld of Zootopia. This includes blackmailing both of the candidates for mayor; however, this backfires when Trevor Moon holds a press conference to confess, which gets interrupted by an assassination attempt.
- In snippet 7 of Harry Potter and the Burning of Bridges, Rita calmly explains why Hermione's attempt to blackmail her won't work. Even ignoring Rita's own contingencies, the fact Draco talked to her while she was in her animagus form means very powerful people already know about it and she's made a point of being useful to such people. Any one of them could easily get her off such a minor charge. All in all, Rita basically says Hermione's blackmail was a rather cute attempt and she won't turn Hermione in for her own reasons.
- Princess of the Blacks: Hermione gets a double dosage when she tries to blackmail Jen over her suspicion the girl murdered the Dursleys (which, to be fair, she did). Jen is quick to sum up everything wrong with her plan. 1) If there was any evidence, Hermione would have already gone to the authorities. 2) The Wizengamot would never listen to Hermione as she's a muggleborn accusing a rich pureblood noble of killing some muggles. 3) If Hermione is right and Jen did murder them, what would stop her from murdering Hermione to keep her quiet? Likewise, Jen has evidence that Hermione previously blackmailed Rita Skeeter, which would land her in prison.
- The Rigel Black Chronicles:
- When Tom Riddle is putting increasing pressure on "Rigel Black" (actually Rigel's cousin Harry undercover) to participate in the Triwizard Tournament as a pureblood poster boy, he tries threatening to reveal that Sirius is an animagus. Harry laughs at him and points out that Sirius worked as an Auror for a time, which meant a full check-up. Sirius' animagus form isn't public knowledge, but it's registered and aboveboard.
- Riddle then warns "Rigel" that he can ruin Harry's reputation and career. Harry flatly tells him that they won't be used against each other and that he can do his worst. Riddle is seething afterward, but also quite confused.Rigel: Do whatever you want to us. We won't be leveraged against one another. I know you don't understand. You can't imagine a bond so strong that two people would be willing to do anything for one another. Suffice to say, all your threats are meaningless. Harry would never allow herself to be used against me. She'd die first.
- The Victors Project: When Evelyn finds out that Gloss is "The Midtown Mincer" (a mysterious figure who drugs and tortures people, mostly within the Capitol, to sate his bloodlust) she starts blackmailing every concession she can out of him. When Cashmere finds out, she calls in every favor she has in connection to District 9 and hands Evelyn a list of 50 people she can have murdered or executed if she doesn't leave Gloss alone. Furthermore, when all three of them are reaped for the 3rd Quarter Quell Gloss lets out an Evil Laugh at the idea of getting a shot to go after Evelyn and avenge his blackmail even further.
- The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Early in Season 2, Zim tries to coerce Gaz into becoming his minion by threatening to expose how she betrayed Dib near the end of Season 1 by giving Zim the location of Project Domination. Completely unimpressed, Gaz lays out all the flaws in Zim's threat — to begin with, she doesn't care what Dib thinks about her. Secondly, even if she did, she knows Dib would never believe anything Zim has to say anyway. And finally, she makes it clear she'll respond to any further threats against her with force, briefly beating Zim up, with a promise of worse to come if he pulls this stunt again.
- In The Seven Misfortunes of Lady Fortune, the plot kicks off when Marinette learns Hawk Moth's identity and blackmails him out of his Miraculous. However, she plays the part so well that Gabriel, afraid of her blackmailing him again, hires a hitman to silence her.
- Cain: While Katsuki initially manages to force his way into Izuku's training sessions by threatening to expose Toshinori's secret if he doesn't let him join, this has the natural side effect of putting the already wary Toshinori further on guard. He later tells Katsuki that the only reason he let him join at all is because Izuku vouched for him; once Katsuki has proved his poor character through his sabotage attempts, he promptly boots him out. Katsuki promptly repeats his threats, only for Toshinori to declare nobody will ever believe him. The story ends with the possibility that Bakugou will tell the secret to the League of Villains, who may believe him…
- In Chapter 9 of The Quirk Doctor, upon Bakugou finding out All Might will not give One for All to him, he threatens All Might with revealing his secret injury to the public. All Might counters by telling him if he does that, he'll ensure that Bakugou is not only expelled from UA, but blacklisted from ever getting into Heroics. And since All Might is the Number One Hero and the Symbol of Peace, his words hold merit amongst the masses. However, Bakugou tries to brush it off, despite the fact that it was both a warning and a promise.
- The Reason why the Second Meta-Liberation War is going to be Weird: After discovering that Mirko was having an affair with Stain, the HPSC tried blackmailing her by sending her a videotape of one of their encounters. Mirko bluntly tells them that their camerawork was so bad that she couldn't even get off to it, and wonders what they thought to gain from this — do they want her to quit and join her lover? Or would they rather she stay a hero? The HPSC quietly backs down.
- Witness has this as one of the driving forces of its plot: a villain learns about somebody who happens to have a Quirk he's very interested in, and attempts to blackmail them into working for him. The victim responds by seeking out the help of the 'Good Neighbors', a Leverage-like group. Suffice to say, this doesn't end well for the would-be blackmailer.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Equestria Divided: Twilight manipulated Pinkie into taking part in her alicorn experiment. The procedure wound up killing Pinkie, causing her to come back as the Laughing Mare.
- Long Road to Friendship: When Trixie finds out that Sunset is living in an abandoned warehouse, she tries to blackmail her into doing her bidding. Sunset, who at this point is 100% out of fucks to give, calls Trixie's bluff, adding that if she goes through with this, she'll be no better than Sunset was. Sure enough, when the moment of truth comes, Trixie backs down.
- Triptych Continuum: Coordinator gets his hooves on Rainbow Dash's memoirs of the Mane Six's adventures and tries to use the listed near-disasters that never made it to the public as blackmail against Twilight Sparkle. However, Twilight has found out that, to her growing horror, ponies are starting to look up to her as divinity, asking her to bless, and would welcome the chance to be humanized, er, ponified and perhaps brought down to earth in the public eye. When Coordinator adds what this information being made public will do to her friends, Twilight quite violently, cathartically, reminds him that as one of the most powerful unicorns, now an alicorn, in Equestria, what exactly she can do to him if he goes near her friends.
- One fanfic has a pair of nobles attempt to extort Tsunade for sex, saying that if she refuses, they'll stop supporting Konoha. Being not only one of the greatest ninja ever, but the leader of an entire army of ninja, Tsunade puts both of them in the ICU and makes the counter offer that either they pretend to have fallen down some stairs or she'll have them killed and replaced by a pair of ninja who will fake their deaths a few months later and leave all of the nobles' money to Konoha in their new wills.
- Marigolds: Thanks to Akechi's involvement, Futaba has already joined the Phantom Thieves by the time Makoto attempts to blackmail the other members. She promptly hacks into Makoto's phone and gets rid of the evidence.
- In Steal the Truth, Reach Out For Your Heart, Nanako turns Makoto's attempt to confront and interrogate the Phantom Thieves back around upon her. Firstly, she dismisses her recording of Ryuji yelling about "shitty adults" as typical teenage venting about society. When Makoto claims that it's quite the coincidence that Nanako happens to be friends with people who were victims of Kamoshida and Madarame, Nanako counters that she's twisting things to suit her conclusions, asking just how they're supposed to be "changing other people's hearts" when they're just Ordinary High School Students. Makoto admits that she doesn't know, then threatens to get the police involved, only for Nanako to point out that she's also the daughter of a detective, and all of Makoto's circumstantial "evidence" will just be dismissed by the police as the efforts of a nosy girl pretending to "just like her father". Makoto is reduced to tears, and only Ren's decision to intervene enables her to cooperate with the Phantom Thieves... much to Nanako's dismay.
- The True Duet: In an attempt to hide the existence of the Phantom Thieves, Kobayakawa blackmails the Yoshizawas into pretending that Kasumi convinced Kamoshida to confess his crimes and turn himself in. Kasumi points out to him that he Didn't Think This Through: if the Thieves ever act again, then everyone will realize that she lied... and she's not going to make any effort to cover Kobayakawa's backside at her own expense, especially when he forced her into it in the first place.
- In Mending The Knots, Cardin Winchester tries to blackmail Pyrrha with a video of her and Jaune, taken from an angle that looks like they're kissing, and threatening to release it unless she becomes his "Best Friend", thinking she would accept in order to save her reputation. Pyrrha, being a celebrity, has been through this kind of thing before and outright dares him to do it, planning to go to Ozpin and get him expelled if he does. note
- In A New World on her Shoulders, Ruby tries to convince Weiss to use whatever blackmail material she has on Winter to get the Specialist to let them pass through. Winter hears them and retorts that she has far more blackmail material on Weiss, so any threats they can make regarding that are null and void.
- A Game of Kings and SIs: Varys threatens to reveal Ser Lyn Corbray's homosexuality in order to force him to betray his liege. However, Corbray had already informed Robert about this, and the King didn't care.
- In The Shadow, Boba Fett tries to blackmail Luke (who's become Vader's apprentice) for an unspecified amount of money after Han Solo escapes. If Luke doesn't secure him the money, Fett will inform Vader that Luke is Anakin Skywalker's son. Unfortunately for him, Vader is Anakin Skywalker and knows full well Luke is his son. Just before killing him, Luke lets Fett in on this little detail.
- Subverted in New Beginnings (Smallville). Linda Lake discovers Clark Kent's secret and decides to blackmail him to earn fame and notoriety. Clark refuses to give in, so he goes to Lois Lane and asks her to tell his story to the world. Resentful, Linda Lake sets out to destroy his reputation, and Clark becomes a hunted man.Clark Kent: Okay, so a little less than eight years from now I was being blackmailed. Someone was going to use my secret to make themselves more important, to make themselves famous. I refused to be blackmailed by her so I went to a close friend and asked her to tell my story to the world. For about five minutes it was great. I was embraced by everyone. Then the nightmare started. The blackmailer took a different route and managed to make me into public enemy number one such that I was now being hunted by the government and several private parties. I'd made a huge mistake.
