Gaslighting in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Blood and Ink: Bendy subjects Emma to this, as a way of punishing her for how she abused, mistreated and bullied Taylor for years.
- Captain Avatar and the Avateers: Teo and Haru unintentionally do this to Zhao, as they keep breaking in to install things like new water filtration systems. Zhao is the only one who notices, and can't convince anyone else of what's going on.
- A Dovahkiin Spreads His Wings: Cersei intends to kill or capture all of the non-Lannister nobles within King's Landing, take their children hostage, then pin all of the blame for her crimes upon those she's had killed, gaslighting her captives into believing her version of events. Even Tywin, a Manipulative Bastard in his own right, is taken aback by her plans.
- The second chapter of Dragons, Butterflies, And Who Knows What Else? reveals that Isabela usually waits until it's just her and Mirabel before she starts to bully her. That way, people will think Mirabel is crazy when she tries to tell someone.
- A Girl and Her Bike: Adam Taurus subjects Blake to this, keeping her isolated, preventing her from having any contact with her family, and subjecting her to various Armor Piercing Questions geared around manipulating her into staying loyal.
- Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily: This was how Kisaragi turned poor Tokio into the White Rabbit, convincing him that there was no reason to return to his world and that he was much better off staying in the 400 Rabbits Car. Making this worse is that Tokio believed becoming the White Rabbit would help him atone for his own sins.
- Infinity Train: Melancholy Afterlife: After Professor Sakuragi hangs up on his daughter while she's begging him not to, Specter convinces Chloe that nobody in Vermillion City ever really cared about her, including her father, and that she's better off staying on the Train.
- Various works in the Maribat AU make this Adrien's favorite tactic, as he tries to convince Marinette that everything Lila has done to her is entirely her own fault. Why? Because Lila's myriad deceptions were never hurting anyone... even as she turned the class against Marinette with Malicious Slander. Marinette brought all of that upon herself, you see, by daring to stand up to her and trying to reveal the truth. Everything would have been fine if she just left Lila alone!
- The Matrix Rewinds: While the machines controlling Arcadia Bay regularly engage in this to keep their prisoners compliant, poor Kate gets hit with it hard. It turns out the infamous video of her at the Vortex Club party was faked to not only cover up Nathan and Jefferson drugging and kidnapping her but also drive away any allies she may have had and leave her despondent enough to commit suicide.
- With Pearl and Ruby Glowing:
- While Ford and Bill were dating, Bill would emotionally abuse him and then deny it, leading to him writing things down that Bill said so he wouldn't forget.
- Buster's tutor Ricky molested him while claiming it wasn't happening. Due to his ADD, Buster believes it until his mom walks in while Ricky is on top of him.
- Pacifica complained to her parents about hearing scratching noises in the house. The noises were from Bill's secret torture chamber, which her parents knew about, so they told her it was all in her head.
- In Reality (Shay Sheridan), William conspires to keep Michael from realizing that he or anyone else in the family is a wolf, even sending him to a psychiatrist, secretly giving him wolfsbane, and lying about the nature of his various arguments with Thomas. He does all of this out of a twisted sense of protecting Michael, believing that Michael would despise him if he knew the truth about his lupine heritage.
- Controlling the Idol: Boss frequently subjects Iris to this, such as trying to convince her that the stimulation she feels while she's molesting her means that she's actually enjoying it, despite her unwillingness.
- Confessions: Sasha unintentionally engages in this; whenever Marcy or Anne point out anything she's done that strikes them as weird, Sasha bluntly denies it, claiming that they're just imagining it or seeing things. Anne has learned to recognize this and attempts to call her out on it, though Sasha continues to insist that she's wrong.
- Cat Tales: During Fun and Games, Bruce and Selina casually walk into the Iceberg in full costume, acting as though they're just an ordinary couple on a double date with Joker and Harley. Throughout the whole evening, Bruce acts as though he's an old pal of Joker's, there to celebrate what Harley claims is their anniversary. Joker ultimately decides to hail a cab and check himself into Arkham.
- Dominoes: This is Yuusaku's standard method for dealing with Shinichi, which he shares with the Irregulars and police. While they treat all of his investigations and reports very seriously, they refuse to do so in front of him; instead, they act as though he's delusional and/or incompetent, confiscating any evidence of the events they deny.
- Amalgamate: Tsumugi engages in this for their own amusement, messing with the survivors' senses and tweaking their memories in various small ways in order to make them question their own sanity. At one point, Kokichi abruptly realizes that he can't even recall whether his favorite color is purple or red; he doesn't take it well.
- In We All Need A Hero: A fanfic where Sayu Yagami receives the Death Note instead of light. In Chapter 9 Sayu of all people does this to Light convincing him that he always knew she was Kira deep down, pointing out that he’s been unintentionally helping her, which makes him complicit, having just as much blood on his hands as she does, convincing him that he helped her because he always knew that Kira is right and he should join her.
- Anyway, I've Been There: One of the ways that the Northwests have become even more abusive towards their daughter Pacifica is by attempting to convince her that Weirdmaggedon never happened. They only acknowledge it in order to blame her specifically for the horrors that unfolded, before reverting back to denying everything.
- Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived
starts out with Hermione having just successfully concluded a campaign against a man who raped and murdered one of her friends (and a string of previous girls). The network of concealed speakers, pretending that he was being haunted by the ghosts of his victims, was supposed to drive him to publicly confess, rather than to hang himself, but she doesn't feel particularly remorseful about the result. - Like A Redheaded Stepchild features a more benign example: during Harry's first year, the Weasley boys all write home and talk about him as though he really was their brother, to the point where a harried Mrs. Weasley soon forgets that he isn't (Ron even reminds her to make him a Christmas jumper, since she "forgot" last year).
- In Perfectly Abnormal, pre-Hogwarts Harry takes great pleasure in messing with the Dursleys' minds, to the point that at least one is scheduled for a visit to a psychiatrist.
- In The Very Secret Diary, one of Tom's preferred tactics of abusing and manipulating Ginny is to tell her she "must be imagining things", deny she wrote to him when she did, outright lie about where she was at certain points, and passive-aggressively convince her that she is the Heir of Slytherin, and then turn around and make her feel like she's crazy when she begins to believe it, saying of course she can't be the Heir.
- Brainbent: Karkat suspects that Sollux is screwing with him in this fashion by secretly moving the FUSB around while insisting that he hasn't been doing so. It's unclear whether or not somebody is actually engaging in this, or if the FUSB is truly capable of independent movement.
- Asylum of Doom: After falling down some stairs and hitting her head on the floor while helping Dib investigate the abandoned Burke Lunatic Asylum, Gaz wakes up in 1945 as a patient of the asylum, with the orderlies, nurses, Doctor Burke and even the other patients telling her that she grew up an orphan and was institutionalized for repeatedly insisting that she was from the future. Burke in particular reinforces this by showing her a picture of her in the orphanage and playing recordings of previous conversations between the two of them that she has no recollection of, with him saying that her contradictory memories are delusions. After many days of all this, Gaz actually starts to question whether they're all right but ultimately wakes back up in her own time.
- Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends: The Announcer uses holograms and narration to stroke Zim's ego, putting the idea in his head that having the Announcer as his Number Two will help Zim become as great and successful as he's ever wanted. An incredulous Bob outright refers to it as gaslighting when it works.
- One Night features this happening to Gaz. In the middle of the night, she witnesses a mysterious creature kill Dib and then drag his body out of the house. She calls the police, but by the time they show up, the blood has all disappeared, as has Dib's room, and every picture of him in the house. The police then reassure her that she just had a nightmare and leave, leaving Gaz to start questioning her sanity. Then the creature attacks her, only for her to suddenly wake up in her room, with a very much alive Dib also telling her she was having a nightmare...except not really, as it turns out he and Zim faked the whole thing to mess with Gaz as a cruel prank.
- In Your servant, Mistress, Stefan is mentioned to be doing this to his wife as a part of his abuse. It helps him get sole custody of their daughter once his wife sues for divorce.
- Burning Bridges, Building Confidence: Adrien engages in this by telling Marinette that everything Lila has done to her is entirely her fault. Insisting that Lila wasn't harming anyone with her constant lying, despite how she has used those very same lies to turn most of their classmates against her with Malicious Slander. According to him, that's Marinette's fault for standing up to her and trying to expose her. Can't she see that her lies were harmless? After she and the rest of the Girl Posse find out about this, Cole calls this out directly as gaslighting.
- The Karma of Lies:
- Adrien repeatedly tells Marinette that Lila's lies and manipulations aren't hurting anyone. When Marinette tells him outright that she's being hurt, he just smiles and declares that strong enough to handle it, dismissing all evidence to the contrary as her being "mistaken".
- Later, after she calls him and the rest of her Fair-Weather Friends out on exploiting her generosity by being All Take and No Give, he attempts to convince her that her complaints are completely unfounded and that she's just "confused" and "upset over nothing". When he fails to win her over, he then turns to Chloé (who's undergone considerable Character Development by this point), trying to convince her that Marinette is "being ridiculous" and that he needs her help to get her to "see reason".
- Accidental Successor: Being a complete Control Freak, Sir Nighteye regularly discounts and discards Toshinori's own opinions in favor of his own; whenever he's challenged on this, he tries to flip the narrative and get All Might to second-guess himself by painting him as a dysfunctional mess who needs him to take charge. This culminates in him delivering a blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech to his 'friend' after All Might discovers his efforts to force Izuku to give up One for All:Sir Nighteye: You can't see it, you're too close to it, but you've always struggled when it comes to anything outside of heroics. The stress of being All Might, of never truly having a life outside of that identity, it wears on you. Your social skills are almost nonexistent. You have little common sense, almost no domestic skills, and an inability to do any basic paperwork. Basically anything outside of fighting villains, you have no real-world expertise. You need me to take care of those things for you.
- Butterfly: While the titular villain is, in fact, using their powers to make Izuku doubt his own sanity, the staff at U.A. intentionally make matters worse throughout the first half of the fic.
- Ennea Series: After Hawks manages to overcome his abusive handler Kaetsu in For Their Sakes, the Commission removes any signs of Kaetsu's presence from his room, trying to convince him that the man never existed. Eventually, Hawks starts to believe them.
- In Fear No Evil, the police attempt to gaslight Aizawa into believing that he wasn't nearly kidnapped and that there was no boy kidnapped in front of him. Then immediately contradict themselves by saving said boy ran away from home. Aizawa is not having it and immediately teams up with All Might to find the boy (Izuku Midoriya).
- King:
- Fujimori subjects Katsuki to this, exploiting the fact that Katsuki is in severe shock from a traumatic event in order to manipulate his memories, having him repeat a carefully tailored and revised version of events in order to ensure he testifies 'correctly'. By the time Katsuki realizes what's happened, he realizes that he can no longer trust his own memories of the incident, as they've been heavily colored by the version he was forced to memorize.
- Fujimori also subjected Shouto to this when they were much younger. By the time he was through with them, their testimony helped ensure that his mother was completely blamed for the incident that caused his scar, getting her institutionalized while Endeavor gained full custody.
- My False Love Academia: All for One never admits mistakes. Whenever he does, he pretends that somebody else is at fault, claiming that he did share valuable information with them, or that he didn't voice a specific opinion, and that they must be misremembering things.
- Prince Of Heroes: During the work study period, Izuku and the PLF employ this against Endeavor. While he's at home, they keep him up at night by making strange noises in and around the house, luring him into getting up and looking for the cause... and getting him to bump into the various pieces of furniture they've moved just enough to trick his muscle memory. They also subtly rearrange his kitchen appliances and the contents of his bedroom drawers, all to throw him off balance enough that he's even less prepared for the Humiliation Conga they've got planned for him to face at work.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Breathers For Applejack: In Chapter Six, Fluttershy attempts to convince Applejack that the events of the previous chapter were All Just a Dream fueled by her illness and anxiety. Applejack isn't convinced, and things only get worse when she discovers that she's been chained to the bed.
- Not The Hero: Discord employs this against the Mane Six, knowing that openly attacking them would draw too much attention.
- Pony Psychology Series: In Secrets and Lies, Twilight suspects that somebody is subjecting her to this after the death of Topsy Turvy. She's right, but it still ends up working against her.
- Defied in the sequel to Project Sunflower. Erin Olsen/Sunflower spends the night at Ditzy Doo's house with her daughter Dinky, unaware that Marigold is also spending the night there. Meadowlark, Marigold's mother, who still hasn't forgiven Erin for lying to her and her daughter in the previous fic, accuses Erin of not listening to her to stay away from her and her daughter. When Meadowlark threatens to forbid Marigold from seeing Dinky if she doesn't move out of Ponyville, Erin calls her out on it and tells her that she's not going to let her blame her for Marigold's own actions.Erin/Sunflower: If you want our friendship to be over, that's fine! Just tell me so I stop hanging on and hoping you'll forgive me one day. But I won't let you blame me for your decisions!
- Advice and Trust: Asuka comes up with a Zany Scheme involving Strip Chess and role-reversal to bewilder Misato so thoroughly that she doesn't have the mental fortitude to make a big deal of the fact her two wards are sleeping together. It ultimately backfires rather badly.
- Evangelion: You Do (Not) Belong: Thanks to his mother's constant verbal and physical abuse, Michael is convinced that he's an incredibly terrible person, and tries to convince others of this "fact".
- In You See Them, Ren's parents have rebuked every claim that he can speak with the dead, telling him that they were hallucinations. When Ren and the other Phantom Thieves confront the Amamiyas' shadows, they learn that they knew that Ren could genuinely see the dead, but tried to silence him to make him a normal kid. Ren and the other thieves are furious about the revelation.
- "(Just Like) Starting Over" reveals that Chloe’s love interest in the third film, Chicago, was subtly abusive towards her, as he spent the whole relationship undermining her confidence and sense of self-worth, planting ideas that convinced Chloe the other Bellas and even her family all hated her and thought of her as worthless, even suggesting that the Bellas turned off Chloe’s mic during their songs. Chloe only realised the truth when she called her parents on her work phone as Chicago had discreetly changed her contact details on her home and personal phones so that she wouldn’t be able to talk to them that way. Even years after leaving Chicago, Chloe is still terrified to do something like set up a social media account in case he finds her location from the photos.
- At The Food Court: Team Rocket repeatedly beat Ash senseless, while James gradually convinced Ash that he was a Pikachu. They then threw him into a Healing Spring to hide the evidence of how they'd abused him.
- Magica Madoka Veneficus Puella: The Incubator TorBey never reveals himself directly to his targets. Instead, he prefers to act like a voice inside his victim's head, gradually wearing them down until they listen and make a wish... which he then fulfills in true Jackass Genie fashion by making them a witch.
- Lost In The Storm: Salem frequently subjects May to this, particularly when it comes to the matter of her potential friendship with Winter and the other Happy Huntresses, twisting things around to make it appear that Winter and the others are manipulating and lying to her.
- War of Remnant: A RWBY Anthology: Jacques Schnee, taking advantage of his wife, Willow's, poor mental state after the death of her father, convinces her she's always been emotionally unstable so she would hand over control of the Schnee Dust Company to him.
- Snapshots: Hypno-goggles and -shades do this by outright altering your perception of reality and fabricating memories, starting in minuscule ways such as how a close friend walks or the way certain environments are supposed to look. Everyone who has ever been subjected to their use, even for a relatively short time, find themselves incapable of recovering from the experience, constantly second-guessing everything they know long after the fact.
- In Last Call, Jasper's abusive ex-girlfriend Lapis tries to gaslight the abuse as being exaggerated. Throughout their relationship, Lapis used to gaslight Jasper.
- Gambit: Gambit jokes that she considered doing this to the Undersiders, secretly moving everything in their lair three degrees to the left. Tattletale, who has Hyper-Awareness, declares that "I would have shot you. Twice. Do you have any idea what that would have done to me this morning?"
- I Am Skitter: Since Taylor triggered with powers that almost precisely match those of a character from some stories she and Emma used to write together, she decides to model her new super-identity after her. She subsequently manages to convince Emma that Skitter is a Split Personality of Emma herself.
- In Queen of the Swarm, Aisha occasionally used her "Forget about me" powers and her trickster disposition during a gang war to do this to enemy gangs' members:"Back during the war, we found out one of the households was hardcore ABB. Not actual gang members, but the kind who would – and did – make attempts to smuggle gangers into the neighborhood, where they figured they'd be safe under E88's radar. Now, these were civilians, so we couldn't just beat the shit out of them. We might've officially been villains, but even back then we didn't hurt people like that. So instead, the evil genius here has an idea." I let the information sink in for a moment while Imp preened, before continuing. "She camps out in their house for a week. Brings a pillow and a sleeping bag, sets up in a closet. Every day, she rearranges their furniture. Sometimes it's just little things, like an ottoman being across the room or a glass on the other side of the table. Other times, she spends the whole day shoving the couch into the dining room. By the end of the week, they're freaking out. Of course, when she starts to write satanic messages on their mirrors, that's when they decide it's the last straw. They left the territory and we moved refugees into the house the same day. Now," I addressed them directly, "imagine her and Regent on patrol together. Street vendors would end up painted like clowns and gangers would have their pants set on fire."
