When Bob puts himself through emotional torture over a wrong he's done to Alice — usually a crime he'll have to confess to her — only for her to react as if it were no big deal. Typically she simply doesn't consider it as important as he did, but other times Bob is Easily Forgiven or Alice lets it go because she has bigger problems on her plate.
The key to this trope is the sheer amount of build-up, hand-wringing, and maybe even snowball lying on Bob's part before he finally fesses up, making Alice's Shrug Take a humorous Anti-Climax.
Compare The Reveal Prompts Romance where Alice falls in love with Bob because of what he did. In cases where Bob wronged Alice because his moral code wouldn't let him do otherwise, this may be a case of Saved by the Awesome.
Sister Trope of Storm in a Teacup.
The name is a riff on the Sorkin Relationship Moment (a phrase coined by Eric Burns-White) and Randy Milholland of Something*Positive, who does this quite frequently. Not to be confused with the lesbian relationship in Mulholland Dr..
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ayakashi Triangle: Matsuri became friends with Yayo and Lu after becoming a girl, and they didn't know he used to be male. Once Yayo becomes able to see the supernatural, and thus understand what happened to Matsuri, Matsuri hides it from her out fear they'd hate him for it, and wonders if he'd be better off staying a girl just for that. Once Suzu convinces him otherwise and Matsuri admits the truth, Yayo is very sympathetic and even brushes off the time they bathed together. (Lu, still unable to see the supernatural, doesn't believe him.)
- Near the end of Code Geass, C. C. asks Lelouch if he hates her for the secrets she kept from him. He doesn't.
- Manabu Yukimitsu spends a good portion of Eyeshield 21 hiding his participation in the football team from his Education Mama. When she finally does find out, he discovers that Hiruma managed to convince her that being on the team would look good on his college application, so she's fully in favor of it.
- Early in Girl Friends (2006), Mari kisses Akko while she's asleep. This freaks her right the hell out and she proceeds to spend several hours trying to figure out a way to tell her. Then when she finally does... Akko is beyond relieved that that's it - Mari looked so nervous that she was seriously getting worried there! But to Akko, girls kiss all the time - it's just a way of showing affection. This actually ends up biting her in the arse later, though, when she kisses Mari and intends for it to come across like a love confession, but Mari just thinks she's being a friend.
- High School Dx D: Rizevim forces Issei to drink dragon's blood, mutating him into his dragonoid form in front of his parents, then gloating that this was the devil impersonating their son. To Rizevim's shock, Issei's parents recognize his sobbing apologies, and when his mother tentatively hugs him, she recognizes the way the 8-foot-tall armored hulk hugs her back.
- Around the second half of Kaitou Saint Tail, Meimi has a nightmare about Asuka Jr. finding out about her identity as the Phantom Thief he'd been chasing the entire time and snapping at her angrily on the spot before cutting her off, leading to her convincing herself that this will happen if he actually does find out. At exactly the same time, it becomes obvious to the reader that Asuka Jr. is far too worried about Meimi's well-being to do something like that without at least wanting an explanation, and as the series progresses, Meimi becomes increasingly paranoid about the consequences of him finding out her identity while Asuka Jr. eventually considers her being Saint Tail to be more of a potential threat to herself than he's angry about anything. By the time Meimi decides to reveal her identity to him in a bid to rescue him from kidnappers, he responds by holding her tightly and expressing relief for her safety and happiness about everything she'd done for him (among other things).
- Subverted in Minami-ke, when Kana and Chiaki accidentally break Haruka's treasured souvenir and try their best to hide it from her, while frantically trying to repair it. They have all the reasons to fear Haruka's wrath, she is a legendary delinquent, after all, but it turns out Haruka didn't really care for the broken glass bird... but she is NOT happy about her little sisters lying to her.
- A filler arc of Naruto has Naruto and Ino hired to stand in for a princess during her wedding, as the stress of has caused the bride to eat until she gained a ton of weight. Her fiance being rather snobby, she's positive that he'll call the wedding off when he sees how big she's gotten. When the duo predictably fail to make the ruse work, they discover that the groom-to-be actually prefers women on the heavy side. Ino, who diets obsessively to keep her skinny figure, is rather non-plussed by this.
- In chapter 36 of Ojojojo, Haru kisses Tsurezure while he's asleep and spends most of the chapter feeling incredibly guilty about it. Then it turns out that he was actually awake the entire time and wasn't bothered by it.
- In Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki lives in constant fear that his Muggle Best Friend Hide will learn that he has become a Ghoul. After many months apart, the childhood friends are reunited during the final arc. Hide casually reveals he knew almost the entire time, and never cared about it. The side novels even reveal that Hide had long been taking steps to protect Kaneki from suspicion, and became an Intern at CCG solely to find him again.
- Towards the end of Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, Real!Syaoran admits it's possible that his messing with time to save Sakura could have caused Fay to be born a twin, which is the root cause of his ridiculously tragic life. He clearly feels incredibly guilty, but after a moment, Fay simply forgives him.
- In one of the Urusei Yatsura manga stories, Ran remembers how in their youth, Benten had ruined Lum's Cosmos Box and told her not to tell. She promptly starts trying to use this old memory to try and hurt Lum by disrupting her friendship with Benten. Instead, when it's finally revealed, Lum is relieved because as it turned out, she had accidentally wrecked Benten's Cosmos box at the same time. And then the two of them start confessing and forgiving all sorts of past wrongdoings while Ran accepts that both of them are simply too forgiving for her to ever understand.
- In The Vision of Escaflowne, Millerna asks Hitomi to do a tarot card reading on which man she should marry - her love Allen or her betrothed Dryden. When Hitomi obliges, she sees that Millerna's marriage to Dryden will go badly while her marriage to Allen will make her happy. Because Hitomi loves Allen too, she uses her power to switch a card (thereby altering fate) and tells Millerna Dryden would be the better choice for her. As a direct consequence of altering fate, the wedding is attacked by Guymelefs and nearly gets the couple killed. And what happens when Hitomi admits to Millerna that she basically screwed Millerna over so she wouldn't marry the man she loved? Millerna apologises to Hitomi for putting her in such a hard position in the first place, since she (somehow) had no idea that Hitomi had feelings for Allen as well.
Comic Books
- Two notable examples in ElfQuest. The first occurs when Leetah accidentally yells out Cutter's secret soul name in front of Cutter's best friend, Skywise. It turns out Cutter and Skywise have such a strong mental link, they've known each other's soul names since they were kids... and Cutter's just happy to see Leetah and Skywise again. The second one occurs when Big Bad Winnowill reveals that Leetah knows about Cutter's animal heritage. Cutter and Leetah both decide it doesn't matter.
- In Estranged, Edmund lives in fear of how his family will react if they learn that he's actually a changeling—a concern that is obviously heightened when his human counterpart shows up. Eventually, Alexis learns the truth and, after taking a moment to process the information, comments that she considers them both her brothers. Edmund looks about ready to cry from relief.
- After Kon-El "Superboy" dies in Infinite Crisis, his best friend Tim "Robin" Drake and his girlfriend Cassie "Wonder Girl" Sandsmark begin a relationship that could be interpreted largely as Sex for Solace (except without the sex). They break up, but after Conner comes back to life in Legion of 3 Worlds both are worried about what he'll think of them. He doesn't care; it's not like they knew he was coming back, after all.
- In Transmetropolitan, Yelena ends up ghost-writing one of Spider's columns for him after he is knocked unconscious and unable to write it. Given Spider's jerkass nature, Yelena seems to prepare for the worst when she tells him... Spider kisses her forehead and tells her "thank you".
Fan Works
- Beyond the Outer Gates Lies... A high school library?: Serafall never informed Harry that she uses a Glamour to mask her true beauty, as she feared him falling in lust with her like so many others. After her Love Confession, Harry reveals that he already knew about this and actually agreed with her decision, even asking her not to show her "adult mode" to him until he's ready to say "those three little words" back to her.
- In Cultstuck, Tavros sees Karkat's blood color while he's injured and being treated by the cultists. He immediately realizes that his friend is a mutant and that he doesn't give a damn about that.
- Doctor Ghemor, I Presume? has two occurrences:
- Julian Bashir is ambivalent about clarifying his identity issues as he's terrified of losing the only parental figure who gave him nothing but love and acceptance. When he's finally established as fully human, the Cardassian Tekeny Ghemor feels rather sad as it means his biological son still is missing but gently reassures Julian he nonetheless cares for and wants for the doctor to be part of his life.
- Julian also hides deep insecurity related to his illegal Bio-Augmentation and believed people would automatically reject the "genetic abomination" if the truth came out. When it finally happens, his husband and Parental Substitute are more worried about the Federation locking him up than being related to an augment.
- Everyday Life as a Supporting Character is a Self-Insert story where the protagonist is familiar with the world as a manga series. When he finally reveals this to his friends, along with the fact that he's been deliberately manipulating everyone to try making things better, he expects the worst. Instead, he triggers a Group Hug.
- In Green Tea Rescue, both Shinso and Toga are afraid that Izuku, Ochako and Tenya will turn on them if they learn of their quirks. When Shinso reveals his and gets a positive response, it encourages Toga to the same, but gets a phone call from her legal guardian just as she was about to do it. Unfortunately, after the call ends, she gets cold feet and decides to keep it a secret.
- Heroes by Choice: Ochako's Quirk in this universe makes her a Succubus, whose pheromones make everyone think that she looks like their ideal woman. When she tells Izuku this, he asks what she really looks like, Himiko shows him a photo... and he asks if they're playing a joke on him, as he can't tell the difference.
- Linked in Life and Love:
- When Blake's mother Kali learns about everything that's happened to her daughter since she ran away with Adam, including what they turned the White Fang into and how Blake eventually defected, she makes very clear that she doesn't blame her at all for any of it.
- Downplayed when it comes out that Taiyang is only Yang's biological dad, unrelated to his goddaughter Ruby. When they finally get a chance to discuss this, Ruby hugs Taiyang anyway, making clear that this doesn't change how much she cares for him.
- Scarlet Lady:
- During "Simon Says", Adrien's friends frantically search for him after an akuma attacks his manor, unaware that he's actually Chat Noir and perfectly safe. He's deeply touched by their concern, but also wishes that they weren't putting themselves in danger trying to save him.
- When Marinette accidentally erases a video from Alya's phone in The Mime, she steals the phone and spends a good part of the episode trying to find a way to recover it. When she finally confesses what happened at the end, Alya reveals that she's only a bit upset that it took Marinette this long to admit it - because she saves all of her videos in the cloud, and she would have rather Marinette save herself some anguish.
- The Touhou Project fanseries Suikakasen has Kasen confess after her Heel Realization that she is an Oni who only gave Yoshika hermit training so that she could gather the information needed to get past the gate Rajoumon to retrieve her severed arm (she requested Yoshika buy documents about barriers along with the hermit training books), and adds that she doesn't know if she's a human or an oni anymore after all the changes to her body. Yoshika (after shoving some peaches into Kasen's mouth) smiles and says that no matter what Kasen was thinking, she still appreciates the time they spent together and suggests that she could get over her Loss of Identity by becoming a hermit together with her. After Yoshika confesses that she wants to live together with Kasen with both of them as immortals, Kasen's previously-false desire to become a hermit becomes very real.
Film — Animated
- Turning Red: A rare negative example of this trope: when Ming finally finds out that Mei has been hustling her panda side, it's right after Mei has just lost her temper and physically attacked Tyler after he finally insulted her family one time too many. Ming shows up at Tyler's party, shocked at Mei's behavior, and Mei visibly cringes, preparing to be scolded. But Ming doesn't scold her daughter, she just walks past Mei without a word; she instead scolds Mei's friends, believing that Mei is only "hustling the panda" because her friends manipulated her into doing so. So as per this trope, Mei avoids a scolding after all—except here it isn't a good thing, because hustling the panda actually was Mei's idea, so Mei has effectively thrown her friends under the bus by letting her mother scold them. Mei later apologizes to her friends for this.
Film — Live-Action
- Double-subverted in BoyTown, when Holly tells Benny that she slept with his bandmate Tommy years earlier. Benny has long-since known and forgiven both of them for it, but then Holly spells out to him that Tommy may be the biological father of their daughter Katie. But even this doesn't upset Benny for too long, and he chooses to burn the results of a paternity test without bothering to read it.
- Jojo Rabbit centers around protagonist Jojo, a ten-year old Hitler Youth, finding out that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic and then befriending her. At the climax, he finally works up the courage to tell his best friend Yorki that he's got a Jew living in his house and he likes her. Yorki is nonplussed and tells him they've got bigger things to worry about than Jews. The Allied forces are approaching their town, there's Russians out there who eat babies and have sex with dogs, and their only friends left in the war are the Japanese who "don't look very Aryan" to him.
- RENT: In a deleted scene, after Benny pays for Angel's funeral, Collins admits that Angel killed Benny's wife's dog by playing drums until she jumped off the 14th floor balcony. Benny says he knew all along but wasn't upset because he hated that dog.
- In the final scene of Some Like It Hot, when Jerry reveals his flaws and biological sex to Osgood, the latter doesn't seem to care.
- In White Frog, Randy is afraid to tell his dad that he's gay and used to be in a relationship with Chaz. When he finally works up the nerve, his dad tells him that he already knows and doesn't care.
- In While You Were Sleeping, Jack wants to start his own business instead of taking over the family furniture store, but is afraid of disappointing his dad. When he finally works up the courage to admit it, his father is only disappointed that Jack had waited so long to tell him. He'd turned down offers to sell the business because he thought Jack wanted to run it.
- In Deadpool, Wade spends much of the film trying to track down Francis in order to fix Wade's horrifically scarred face so that he can be with Vanessa again. Wade believes that Vanessa would reject him for being so ugly and doesn't even let her know he's alive. At the end of the film, when Vanessa learns he's still alive, she's more annoyed that he hid from her than anything else. After a momentary adjustment, she tells Wade that his new face is one she would be happy to sit on.
Literature
- In The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer, the heroine nerves herself to tell her husband that she played cards with his worst enemy and lost a lock of her hair to him, only to find that her husband had anticipated the villain's plan and taken his place halfway through the evening.
- In Dragon Bones, Oreg, who has been Made a Slave hundreds of years ago, expects Ward to punish him when it takes him a long time to free Ward from some chains. Of course, it is not a big deal to Ward, to whom the main thing is that he's free now. Another example has Ward's younger brother Tosten (for whom Ward is the caring father they both never had) confess that he was jealous of Oreg and therefore acted like a jerk. Ward forgives him, explaining that he wouldn't blame a frightened horse for throwing its rider, either. Tosten is a bit insulted at the comparison but relieved that he's forgiven.
- Harry Potter:
- In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry is in Dumbledore's office waiting for him, having been (falsely) accused of attacking others with very dangerous, unknown dark magic. He examines Dumbledore's old, sick looking bird for a moment, thinks about how bad it would look if it died while Harry was alone with it, at which point the bird bursts into flames. Harry freaks out, but when Dumbledore shows up he explains that his bird is a phoenix, so this is all perfectly normal. He follows this up by revealing that he never suspected Harry of attacking his fellow students in the first place.
- Dumbledore is good at these; at the end of Chamber of Secrets, Ginny is terrified that she'll get expelled for her role in the opening of the titular chamber. Instead, Dumbledore lets her off on the (rather sound) logic that she was being manipulated by a master of the art, and orders a cup of hot chocolate for her.
- In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry realizes he has feelings for Ginny and spends months worrying what Ron would say if he tried to date his sister. His reaction when Harry finally tells him basically comes down to a resigned "Ew" and, in the next book, a (relatively mild) warning not to break her heart.
- In the Honor Harrington novel Storm from the Shadows, when Captain Terekhov is summoned to Admiral Khumalo's flagship after the Battle of Monica, he expects Khumalo to be infuriated with him for creating a shooting incident with a Solarian client state and resigns himself to the possibility that he will be cashiered over it. Terekhov can barely restrain his jaw from dropping when Khumalo proceeds to endorse his actions in every particular.
- In the Lord Peter Wimsey novel Clouds of Witness, Mary Wimsey has just confessed to the murder of her fiancee to Charles Parker, just before hearing that Peter has been shot. When they're hovering over him as he recuperates, trying to figure out how to tell him the news, he suddenly comes out with "So what have you been talking about? have you been telling him that you did it, Mary?". Parker is not amused. Turns out Peter's so unconcerned because he knows she's lying.
- What prompts Vin to marry Elend in Mistborn. After she's tricked into attacking an enemy keep, massacring hundreds of soldiers (and ruining the unstable peace), most of her allies worry that she's unstable, but Elend tries to assure them that she must have had a reason. She didn't, and hides out in an abandoned building to recover from killing soldiers who weren't trying to kill her, but once she hears that Elend trusted her, she immediately asks him to marry her.
- In the Myth Adventures novel M.Y.T.H. Inc in Action, Guido and Nunzio are eventually forced to admit to the platoon they've been mentoring that they're actually working to sabotage the army. The platoon takes a moment to digest this, and then begins matter-of-factly discussing the best ways they can help. They're Fire-Forged Friends, while the army as an institution is just an abstract concept, so their loyalty is to the team.
- In The Necklace, the main character, Mathilde, loses her rich friend's diamond necklace and is so worried over her reaction, she puts herself and her husband in serious debt to buy a replacement and hopes the friend doesn't notice the difference. Years later, when Mathilde tells Jeanne the truth, she explains the necklace was costume jewelry, not real diamonds, and had she told her, it would have barely cost anything to replace it.
- Shane from The Other Boy is a trans boy who's been going stealth at school. When he's Forced Out of the Closet by a bully, his best friend Josh defends him by trying to prove he's cis. Shane is worried that if Josh finds out the rumors are true, he'll hate him. When Josh does find out that Shane is trans, at first he's hurt that Shane lied to him, but other than that he doesn't care at all.
- In The Saga of Darren Shan: The heroes end up hunting a madman in Mr. Crepsley's birth city. While there he starts dating a local girl named Debbie, which he and Evra both agree Mr. Crepsley will not approve of. Eventually, they have to 'fess up about Debbie, and it turns out Mr. Crepsley wouldn't have cared in the least, as long as it didn't get in the way of the mission.
- In Super Powereds, Camille spends a long time trying to hide her true power from Vince, who didn't initially realize that she was the same person he had met long ago. When she uses her powers to defeat Chad and Roy, she worries that Vince will be mad but instead he is overjoyed to discover that her power works on super-durable people and admits that he had already figured out who she was.
- Shine Shine Shine:
- Sunny has spent the last four years trying to maintain a perfect image and is afraid her friends will turn on her once they find out she's bald. But when her secret is exposed, she finds to her surprise that her friends like her more because she's more relatable.
- When Sunny was a child, she found Maxon's abusive father trapped in a ravine with his legs broken. Instead of going for help, she left him there until he was found dead three days later. When she finally tells Maxon about it decades later, he tells her that he's known for years and isn't upset.
Live-Action TV
- On 30 Rock, Liz tries hard not to reveal that she was the one who told a news columnist that Jack Donaghy was a "class-A moron." Jack's pain at the insult eventually guilt-trips Liz into confessing, but it turns out Jack already knew and was intentionally guilt-tripping her.
- Arrow:
- Diggle keeps warning Ollie that if he tells Thea he's the Arrow, she'll never forgive him for lying all this time. Ollie reckons Dig's probably right but eventually feels he has to do it anyway. When Thea realises that all the times she thought her brother was flaking out on her, he was actually saving lives, her view of him improves.
- In Season One, both Laurel and Tommy are dreading Oliver finding out about the fact that they've started dating in his absence (Tommy because of The Bro Code violation and Laurel because it's implied she's not entirely over Ollie, despite him cheating on her with Sara), but when Tommy actually tells him, Oliver kindly informs him that he has no right to approve or object to their relationship and that their friendship is the most important thing to him. Granted, Oliver had the advantage of having seen them together as the Hood, so he'd already had time to process the news, unbeknownst to Tommy or Laurel.
- Castle:
- In one episode, an affluent teenager who got caught up in drugs has been found dead, prompting a moment of paranoia on Castle's part about his own daughter, despite the fact that he knows that she's more responsible than he ever was. When he approaches her, Alexis assures him that she's not keeping any secrets, and hasn't been involved with any kind of trouble that he doesn't know of. The next morning, Alexis wakes him up, tearful and guilt-ridden about having lied to him in their earlier heart-to-heart, and painfully forces herself to confess the truth... she once jumped a subway turnstile without paying when she had a desperate need to catch the train. Needless to say, compared with what he could have expected, Castle is both relieved and bemused by this shocking revelation, and Alexis is forced to punish herself with being grounded for a week when the punishment her father gives her — mandatory ice-cream for breakfast — is found somewhat lacking. And then we found out that Alexis also apparently paid for the train the next day. Twice. Without even riding it.
- Alexis again, when she's watching her boyfriend's pet rat while he's out of town and it gets out of its cage. She spends most of the episode trying and failing to locate it. When her boyfriend gets back, she immediately confesses. He's clearly upset, but he forgives her and makes it clear he knows it was an accident and that she did everything in her power to make things right. Then Castle's mom screams from off-screen, implying that she's found the rat.
- In another episode, Castle, Beckett, and Esposito discover a photo of Ryan's fiancee Jenny in the folder of a murdered pick-up artist's 'conquests', having apparently slept with him not long after meeting Ryan. This prompts a bit of tension between them as they debate whether or not to tell Ryan, who is marrying Jenny within a few days, and risk ruining the relationship. When they finally work up the nerve to do so, Ryan astonishes them all by casually asking whether they happened to find Jenny among the pick-up artist's conquests before they can tell him; turns out it happened at a point where Ryan and Jenny were not exclusive with each other, Jenny's already told Ryan and he's cool with it.
- The Dick Van Dyke Show: In "Scratch My Car and Die", Rob gets a fancy new car, which Laura has to borrow. While she's gone for less than five minutes, someone scratches it. After spending most of the episode stressing about the scratch on the car, Laura finally comes clean to Rob so he doesn't embarrass himself by trying to sue the parking garage where he thinks the car was scratched. Rob gently hugs her and tells her that she's a careful driver and these things just happen. Of course, the fact that he caused his own, much worse, damage to the car the last time he took it out might have a little to do with that...
- In the fourth season of Downton Abbey, Lady Cora's new lady's maid Baxter has been previously convicted for thefts (she stole jewelry from her former mistress). Thomas is blackmailing her into doing his bidding, otherwise he would tell Lady Cora about her past. She resolves into telling the truth by herself and surprisingly her mistresses eventually forgive her.
- Drake & Josh
- In the episode "Guitar" Josh accidentally destroys a very valuable guitar of Drake's. When Josh eventually admits to it (after having spent the rest of the episode trying to get a replacement — up to and including getting it autographed — a feat which cost him the only he had), Drake reveals that he'd already found out, forgives Josh immediately, and tells Josh that him spending his life savings on a replacement is "the coolest thing anyone's ever done for me." Drake then pays Josh back all the money he spent, plus enough extra to buy the tanning bed he'd been saving up for.
- Josh later starts dating Mindy, who, in a previous episode, framed Drake for a revenge scheme against their English teacher. Josh dreads Drake learning of the relationship to the point Mindy breaks it off because she doesn't want to be a secret. When Josh admits this to Drake, he comes to help Josh win her back, claiming he "doesn't even like half of the girls he dates," so he doesn't have room to judge Josh.
- One episode of Family Matters had this regarding the new camera Carl got. Little Richie is playing with it, and he drops it, thus breaking it. Being a child, he tries to understandably hide it from Carl (who can have a ridiculously scary temper) and gets so upset about it that he can't sleep. He tells his mother, and Rachel eventually convinces him to apologize to Carl. Carl in turn says he already figured it out based on the video Richie took and was just waiting for the apology.
- On Frasier, Daphne loses her engagement ring and spends the entire episode covering her hands in front of her fiance, Donny. At the end of the episode, she finds the ring and is wearing it in front of him, believing herself to have covered up the whole incident. When he sees her the first thing he says is "Hey, you found your engagement ring!"
- Friends: Played with when Ross briefly dates Chandler's ex-girlfriend Janice, and is really worried that Chandler will be mad. Chandler genuinely doesn't care, but realizes that he himself is secretly dating Ross' sister. As a result, he pretends to be angry at Ross and makes a big show of forgiving him, making very clear that friends forgive each other for that kind of thing! And he points out that he let Ross stay in his apartment rent free! And also giving Ross $27 note , no strings attached.
- "The One Where Phoebe Runs" features this trope again when Chandler moves Monica's things to clean their apartment and can't remember where they all go. After an episode of his agonising over what she will think, she returns home and seems ready to blow up at him, though in the end she just thanks him for trying to be nice and do her a good thing by cleaning up for her.
- In "The One Where Ross Can't Flirt," Rachel borrows and loses an earring that Phoebe had borrowed from Monica. They spend the entire episode agonizing over it until Phoebe decides to take the blame. She fesses up and is instantly forgiven. Seeing this, Rachel admits that it was really her fault, expecting to be forgiven too. She isn't. This is probably because she is said to have already borrowed and lost many of Monica's things.
- Gilligan's Island: In "Goodbye Island", yet another attempt to get off the island, using a glue that Gilligan and Mary Ann originally made as pancake syrup, goes awry. At the end, the Skipper insists on sitting down with Gilligan for a chat. He tells him that though the failure of their latest plan was disappointing, they might have been out at sea when the Minnow fell apart if not for Gilligan's warning. He finishes by saying that Gilligan always tries his hardest, and that's what counts. Unfortunately, the moment is interrupted when Gilligan finally gets the chance to tell the Skipper what he needed to say — that the Skipper is sitting on a gluey brush.
- In Home Improvement, Brad accidentally kills his girlfriend's goldfish while fish-sitting; he tries to cover it up, all the while agonizing over her reaction. When he finally comes clean with her, she's so impressed that he was worried about her feelings that she forgives him.
- Almost done in How I Met Your Mother. Barney agonizes over telling Ted he slept with Robin since it means he broke The Bro Code, but when he tells him Ted already knows and says he's not mad. Ted was lying; it turns out he's actually furious, and it ruins their friendship for the rest of the season. Although Ted's always known Barney was unethical, he thought breaking his own self-imposed code was a step too far.
- Mad Men Pete Campbell accidentally finds out that his colleague Don Draper is actually a Korean War deserter named Dick who adopted the identity of his deceased commanding officer. When Don refuses to be blackmailed, Pete goes to their boss Bert Cooper and spills everything. Cooper's response: "Who cares?"; Pete's weaselly behavior has revealed more about himself than about Don.
- Jez of Peep Show agrees to take the blame when Mark wrecks Johnson's brand new BMW, but Johnson shrugs it off, as he is "insured out [his] arse."
- Happens in Scrubs a few times, for example when Turk tells everyone that Carla's pregnant, only to find that she wanted to tell everyone herself and he's ruined that opportunity for her. When JD tells her that he'd already found out from Turk, everyone prepares for her to blow up at him, but she's just more excited about having a baby than how everyone finds out.
- In an episode of Power Rangers Zeo, a mysterious masked amazing piano player is revealed to be Skull, who doesn't want to show his face for fear of being made fun of, seeing how he always plays a cool, rebellious persona. He particularly fears the reaction of his friend Bulk, who routinely laughs at the kind of people who'd play classical music, calling them "dweebs". At the end of the episode, he gathers the courage to play a Chopin piece in front of the whole school. Bulk shows up when he's starting and is completely surprised at seeing his friend there. When Skull finishes and sees Bulk coming up to him, he expects mockery, but instead Bulk congratulates him on his performance and claims he was wrong he ever thought only "dweebs" played music.
- Sons of Anarchy: Played for drama when Juice is blackmailed by law enforcement for secretly having a black father when the bylaws of the club forbid membership to black people. Believing that he'll be kicked out at best and murdered at worst if he's discovered, Juice acts as an informer against the club for some time to keep it quiet. However, he later discovers to his horror that the current club members don't actually care about that old and outdated rule. Many have never even met their fathers and could be mixed-race themselves for all they know. But by this point, Juice's treachery is already irrevocable. In later seasons, club president Jax formally lifts the race restrictions on membership and even absorbs an all-black motorcycle club.
Music
- "Mastermind" from Taylor Swift's Midnights ends with one. The narrator has a habit of secretly maneuvering situations and inventing excuses for her to meet and befriend the people she likes, since she doesn't think they'll want anything to do with her if she doesn't. She did this with her current partner, and it worked, as they're now dating, but she feels guilty for the lack of transparency and eventually decides to come clean, even though she's certain they'll leave. But they don't — actually, they knew from the very start what she was doing, and love her for it.
Roleplay
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- Michal asks Ivan if he lost his voice as part of gaining his superpower. When Ivan clarifies that his lack of voice is a genetic defect that he's had since birth, Michal is so horrified at himself, and so afraid of Ivan seeking retribution for him saying something ignorant, that he bursts into flames and starts a minor panic as everyone scampers to put him out. The reality is that Ivan was amused by Michal putting his foot in his mouth, and not offended at all.
Theatre
- Subverted and then played straight in The Drowsy Chaperone: when Janet storms onstage claiming that her fiancee, Robert, has just kissed the very attractive Mimi, his only defense is that "she was just like you! Only French!", which earns him a swift slap. Later, when he is able to articulate why he kissed "Mimi" - namely, that kissing her was like kissing Janet, and that he kissed Mimi because she had reminded him so much of Janet - Janet responds that she's not mad anymore, because she is Mimi, just doing a (very bad) French accent.
- Occurs toward the end of Henry IV, Part 2. The Lord Chief Justice once sent Prince Hal to prison for punching him in the face. As such, he expects retaliation once Hal assumes the throne. However, when Hal (or rather, Henry V) finally confronts the Lord Chief Justice, it turns out he agrees that getting sent to prison was the best thing for him at the time, and congratulates the Lord Chief Justice on a job well done.
- Happens twice in Les Misérables:
- After Jean Valjean steals the Bishop's silver, he's immediately arrested and brought back to the Bishop with the excuse of "they were a gift". Instead of condemning him, the Bishop agrees with Valjean's story and gives him the last bit of silver (the candlesticks) that Valjean hadn't taken with him, surprising all present (most of all Valjean). The event is so moving that it causes Valjean's Heel Realization and is what drives his morals for the rest of the play. Which leads us to the next one:
- In return for helping Les Amis del ABC repel the first attack at the barricades, Valjean asks for a captured Javert in return. Given how he asks for Javert, the audience, Les Amis, and Javert all expect Valjean to enact his revenge, so it's quite surprising that Valjean unties him and orders him to leave. This act of mercy is so unexpected that it causes Javert to begin to re-evaluate his entire worldview.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: Ryan secretly went out his own after receiving an anonymous message telling him where he can find N540, but it ended up being a trap set up by the Big Bad. After being rescued and sent back home, Ryan is expecting Ann to berate him for being so reckless, then she quietly smiles and waits for him to do a Fist Bump with her.
- Subverted in Escape from Monkey Island. The owner of the SCUMM Bar reluctantly goes on a voyage with you, knowing there's a good chance his competitor will buy him out while he's away. Sure enough, the SCUMM Bar is the Lua Bar once you return. When you fearfully approach him to break the bad news, he reacts calmly to the various (false) accounts of disaster you can give him, but as soon as you give up and say "Oh, actually nothing's wrong" he instantly deduces the truth and flies into a rage.
- Galaxy Angel: Done once in Mint's route in Eternal Lovers, the third game. Mint's telepathy powers have malfunctioned as the result of a head injury, so instead of Mint being able to read other people's minds, everyone else now can hear her thoughts. And she can't control it, so a bunch of insulting thoughts about the other Angels came tumbling out of her head. Due to a combination of this and other factors, Mint tried to isolate herself from everyone else. Even after Tact's managed to lure her out with a heartwarming speech over loudspeaker, Mint is still worried that the Angels will all hate her now. Then the other Angels actually show up, and Mint braces herself for the hatred and scorn, setting up the Milholland Relationship Moment... and instead of getting angry at Mint for her earlier negative thoughts, the rest of the Angels share their own negative thoughts about Mint, all of them minor things Detailed explanation . Well, now they've all told Mint how they feel, does Mint hate them now? Mint says of course not...aha, in reality, sharing their real feelings with each other has made them all closer together! Mint should have a little more faith in them.
- In Knights of the Old Republic, you discover on the Leviathan that you are actually an amnesiac Darth Revan. Of all of your party members, only Carth has serious hang-ups about continuing to follow your lead; Bastila and Jolee already knew, Juhani was rescued from slavery by Revan before they fell to the dark side the first time and is naturally inclined to give them a second chance, Mission and Zaalbar consider that wo/man to be dead, T3-M4 is programmed to be loyal to his current master, HK-47 loses his memory restrictions and realizes that Revan is his one true master, and Canderous jumps at the chance to fight alongside the one who beat the Mandalorians in the previous war.
- Mass Effect 2:
- If Shepard presses Liara, she reveals that she was the one who gave Shepard's body to Cerberus to be resurrected. It's clear that Liara feels terribly guilty, knowing full well Cerberus would use Shepard for their own ends. Shepard can brush it off and reassure Liara she did the right thing. Averted if Shepard chooses to be a heartless asshole and accuse Liara of manipulating him/her.
- Another heart-warming example comes from side characters Charr and Ereba. Charr is a krogan whose species' hats are warmongering and sterility resulting from that warmongering. Ereba is an asari who can mate and produce offspring with any species. Naturally, she is a bit fearful that he only acted lovestruck to get into her pants and use her as a baby factory. However, when she tells him that her species can only give birth to asari regardless of the father, he calmly assures her that he will love their kids regardless.
- Downplayed in Melody after the title character steals food at the karaoke bar, and thus gets Xianne fired. Melody isn’t wracked by grief, but she knows, especially with some prodding by the protagonist, that what she did was wrong. The next time she runs into Xianne, Xianne is working a couple of other jobs, so things didn’t turn out badly for Xianne in the end. She asks the protagonist, who is with her at the time, if she should confess her role in Xianne’s firing, but he advises her against it exactly because Xianne was able to bounce back so quickly.
- In Monster Hunter: World, the Airship Engineer played a large role in the experimental flight that got explorers stranded beyond the Great Ravine. He's been working for years to build an airship that can rescue them, but when contact is finally reestablished, they tell him it's okay; they knew the risks they were taking, and they blame the Legiana that attacked them mid-flight more than any weaknesses the ship might have had.
- Two examples occur in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations:
- Ron DeLite is accused of being infamous Gentleman Thief Mask☆DeMasque. During the case it's revealed that he really is Mask☆DeMasque and he's sure his wife will dump him because of it, since she hates sneaky criminals. His wife doesn't mind said fact, explaining that she hates ''sneaky'' criminals and Mask☆DeMasque always announced his crimes beforehand like a man.
- Near the end Iris reveals to Phoenix that she pulled a twin switch with her twin sister, Dahlia Hawnthorne, and it was Iris, not Dahlia, whom Phoenix dated 5 years earlier. Phoenix's reaction?
Phoenix: You really are the person I always thought you were.
Web Comics
- Archipelago: While he's still learning emotions, Raven makes Blitz cry by yelling at him that he's useless and that they're better off when he's in control of their shared body. He later attempts to apologise, only for Blitz to have no idea what he's talking about. Raven angrily takes this as Blitz being too stupid to remember the incident (despite it just happening this morning), until Credenza tells him that Blitz is simply too pure-hearted to care anyway.
- El Goonish Shive: Sarah berates herself for her insensitivity in, basically, not understanding Elliot and Tedd's gender identities better than they did themselves at the time. Since she won't listen to them saying it's not a big deal, they have to "forgive" her for something they never blamed her for
before she can move on.
- In Go Get a Roomie!, when Roomie feels guilty about having snuck into Lillian's bed after having been specifically told to sleep on the couch, Lillian, who had just had a dream about Roomie being the harbinger of Lillian reconnecting to the outside world, isn't angry at all.
- A plotline of Kevin & Kell had Kevin and Kell, roleplaying in an online game as wolves, dating each other without realizing it and later breaking it off because the roleplaying online makes them more attractive to each other in real life. A later storyline had them both invited, separately, to a Jerry Springer parody. The producers assume that Kell, as a wolf, will devour her husband Kevin (a rabbit) on camera when the truth comes out. While she almost does, when the reality of the affair comes out, they end up loving each other even more and get kicked off the show for being too touchy-feely for the show's audience (oh, and that little thing about Kell devouring the host).
- At the end of the Fun God storyline of Oglaf, Grier delivers a speech describing fun as "a filthy parasite". Navaan, a vampire, remarks that as a filthy parasite herself she probably should be offended.
- Crossed with But for Me, It Was Tuesday and Played for Laughs in Sam & Fuzzy. When Sam ascends to the throne of the Ninja Mafia, one of the random Mafia Ninja who are attending his coronation is freaking out about having assaulted Sam back when the latter was on the run from the Ninja Mafia—but of course Sam was attacked by way too many Faceless Goons during that time to remember one in particular.
- Shortpacked!: Amber spends an entire storyline worrying about how to tell Ethan she's now assistant manager. He reacts like this.
- Amber also knew along that Mike had set her Mom up to have sex with Jacob.
- As noted above, Something*Positive does this a lot. Probably the best example, with the most buildup, is when Monette has cut up valuable (both emotionally and monetarily) comics from Fred's childhood to turn into collages without realising their value, and when she finally tells Fred, he reacts not only calmly, but with pride at how nice her work is. Of course, he has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and seems more focused on what he feels is really important. Also noteworthy:
- The time Aubrey and PeeJee 'killed' Davan's pet cat, Choo-Choo-Bear, by pouring him down the sink's drain. Of course, it helped that it'd happened quite often prior to this.
- The time Kim rapes Davan - mitigated by the fact that Davan would have consented if he'd been conscious, but all the characters involved do acknowledge that it was rape and he goes with Kim to a support group to address how wrong the behavior was.
- Lisa went to elaborate lengths to stay closeted, but it turned out her family had already known for years and didn't mind.
- The time PeeJee insulted Faye to Fred's face without realizing it. Played with: Fred reacts angrily, but just to mess with her.
- The time Jason accidentally ripped Aubrey's choker. While she blows up initially, it's more because of him not listening to her (he forgot that she'd told him how important her choker is, and had tried to buy her a replacement, leading to him ripping it). She forgives him quickly, and the resolution of that arc even has them getting engaged.
- In Twokinds, Flora spends three months agonizing over telling Trace that she's pregnant, even though it should be impossible unless she cheated on him. When she tells him, he describes himself as "kinda freaking out... But it's the normal kind of freaking out, I think" and he believes her when she says that she didn't cheat on him.
Web Original
- A double example in the fourth season of The Guild. Tink is avoiding her family because they think she is studying to be a doctor, while she really switched her major to costume design (and is still using their money to pay for tuition). Cyd decides that Tink needs to just tell them, so despite Tink specifically asking her to keep it a secret and stay out of it, Cyd arranges for them to meet up and nudges Tink into confessing. Her family is thrilled for her and immediately wants her to design her sister's wedding dress. Afterwards, Cyd braces herself for Tink's fury at her meddling, only for Tink to hug her and thank her for her help.
Western Animation
- In the Adventure Time episode "Marceline's Closet," Finn and Jake sneaked into Marceline's house despite a note written in blood telling them not to, and spend the whole day hiding in her closet as she writes personal music, takes a bath, etc. When she finally catches them she doesn't mind at all. After all, she sneaks into their house all the time!
- Amphibia likes this one:
- In "Cane Crazy," Hop Pop goes into Tranquil Fury after Anne admits to breaking his family's ancestral cane, but he also assures her that he never intended to kick her out and he values their relationship more than a material possession.
- In "Contagi-Anne," the Plantars are very forgiving when they learn Anne faked sick to get out of chores. They point out that having her helping them work in the rain probably wouldn't have prevented them from getting sick themselves, and she did everything in her power to cure them of what they all believed to be a fatal disease.
- In "Return to Wartwood," the whole town quickly forgives the Plantars for forgetting to bring the gifts Hop Pop and Polly had promised to get them in Newtopia and for threatening everyone's lives with their crazy scheme trying to cover up that they forgot to bring the gifts.
- In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures the titular heroes once broke a vase and went through great lengths to replace it before Bill's parents (father and stepmother to be precise) found out. They did get a replacement vase but ended up breaking it and Bill's stepmother showed up soon after. She then told the boys the vase was just some free prize they got at some restaurant. (Basically how the boys got the replacement vase in the first place).
- Daria: Sandi has been influencing Quinn for several years by (vaguely) threatening to reveal that Daria is Quinn's sister. Finally, Sandi openly threatens to reveal it, Quinn calmly states it as a fact, and Stacey and Tiffany shrug it off with "We already knew this, we were just being polite about it".
- Doug:
- In an episode, Doug breaks a valuable piece of artwork (or artifact, or... something) and ends up locked into doing chores for his sister Judy, lest she tell Mom. Eventually, he gets sick of doing her chores and tells Mom anyway, who actually had no idea what the broken thing was either and didn't care about it at all. (She grounded him anyway for hiding secrets from her.) In doing so, he also turns the tables on Judy, because she had expected Doug to do her chores, and now she doesn't have time to do them herself if she wants to go to a concert with her friends. Doug ends up doing them for her... for a price.
- In another episode, Doug accidentally breaks Mr. Dink's expensive custom-made grill and he and Skeeter try to earn money to get it replaced. When they fail to make enough money and fess up to Mr. Dink he's so moved that they'd go through all that effort that he's not even angry.
- Used in an episode of Drawn Together, but mixed with Black Comedy. Xander asks his roommates for help coming out to his parents that he's gay. When they first try it, Captain Hero and Toot (playing the part of Xander's mom and dad) mock Xander, citing that it's already incredibly obvious that he's gay. Xander convinces them to try again, this time portraying his parents as raging homophobes. After this roleplay ends with several people dead, a massive cop car pile-up, and a mock version of sex slavery, Xander actually confesses to his real parents... who immediately echo Captain Hero and Toot's initial reaction about the transparency of Xander's gayness.
- Happens in the Fanboy and Chum Chum episode "The Tell-Tale Toy". Fanboy is left alone with Chum Chum's new toy and spends the entire episode trying to resist the urge to play with it. He fails, which results in getting the toy broken and he desperately tries to fix it. When Chum Chum comes home, Fanboy is frightened to confess about the accident. When he finally does so, Chum Chum reassures Fanboy that he only wanted the box.
- The Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Busted" centers on Bloo breaking Mr. Herriman's most prized possession, a bust of Madame Foster. Having already fallen victim to Herriman's occasionally arbitrary rules (earlier, Bloo, in desperate need of some toilet time, is forced to first go through an entire morning routine by the rabbit), he's now done something that even he has to acknowledge is legitimately worth punishing—and he can only imagine what horrors Herriman has in store for him. He goes to such trouble to cover up his mistake that at one point he even enlists the help of Madame Foster herself to impersonate her own bust. When Herriman turns out to have a collection of spares and a completely philosophical attitude towards their breakage, Bloo nearly explodes. Then Frankie, who was knocked out and shoved in the closet the spares were stored in, wakes up and accidentally breaks them all.
- Looney Tunes: The cartoon Bone Sweet Bone had a museum scientist putting a dinosaur skeleton together only to find he is missing the bone of the tail's very end. He accuses his dog Shep of stealing it and orders him to retrieve it from a bulldog which now apparently has it. While Shep is busting a gut trying to get the bone back, the scientist discovers he had the tail bone in his pocket all the time. Shep returns with the other bone, and when the scientist tells him he had the tail bone, Shep goes absolutely mental ("If you think this little incident is going to upset me...you're absolutely right!")
- Occurs twice in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Sweet and Elite". The first time occurs when Rarity expects Twilight to be upset that the dress she made for her is so simple (since she used the time she should have been working on it to hang out with high-class ponies), but Twilight, thinking this was by design, is thrilled that it's plain and practical like herself. The second time occurs after Rarity is caught sneaking out of Twilight's birthday party to mingle with some socialites outside; she thinks Twilight will be upset, but Twilight not only thinks it's great that she's networking to boost her business but completely understands why Rarity would try to hide it from her.
- An earlier occurrence happens in "Green Isn't Your Color": Rarity is jealous of Fluttershy's newfound modeling fame since it distracts everyone else (including celebrity fashion photographer Photo Finish) from her dresses, but bites it down because she thinks Fluttershy deserves to have some attention and would resent Rarity's jealousy. Fluttershy, meanwhile, is very uncomfortable with all the attention and would like to give it up, but sticks with it because she thinks that Rarity is so proud of her for becoming a model, and doesn't want to disappoint her friend. What's worse, they've both confided their worries to Twilight, who is in an excellent position to defuse the whole situation painlessly, except Pinkie Pie won't allow her to break her two promises of confidentiality.
- In "Lesson Zero," Twilight's high standards kick in when she realizes that she hasn't solved a friendship problem that week, meaning she'll have nothing to report in her weekly letter to Princess Celestia—and she has to write that letter. She spends the whole episode looking for an issue to solve, but since everyone in town is doing just fine, she resolves to make a problem by enchanting an old doll of hers into an Apple of Discord that drives everyone who sees it into a frenzy of desire. The plan works too well and brainwashes nearly all of Ponyville into a destructive mob. Celestia herself then shows up in a genuine rage and, after easily breaking the spell on the doll, sternly tells Twilight to meet her in the Ponyville Library for a serious discussion. Once there, though, Celestia calmly tells Twilight that while she is Disappointed in You, she's only angry at her for being irresponsible with her magic, and didn't really mind the lack of a problem; if she doesn't have something to write about, she shouldn't force herself to do so.
- In "A Bird in the Hoof," Princess Celestia comes to Ponyville for brunch, and brings along her pet bird Philomena, who seems seriously ill. Fluttershy can't resist the urge to care for Philomena and takes her home without asking, only to run into repeated troubles while trying to make her get well. Things only get worse when Twilight realizes what Fluttershy has done and the Royal Guard begins frantically searching for Philomena. Finally, the poor bird bursts into a pile of ash, forcing Fluttershy and Twilight to come clean—at which point Celestia chides not them, but the ashes, and Philomena reconstructs herself: it turns out she's a phoenix who was near the end of her current body cycle. Celestia's only anger is toward her pet for being such a jerk to Fluttershy, although she does point out that the problem would have been solved had Fluttershy simply asked about Philomena in the first place.
- ¡Mucha Lucha!: In one episode, Rikochet steals a valuable trading card from Minotoro and after experiencing a scenario where he didn't come clean, confesses what he had done. Only for Minotoro to explain that he had multiple copies of the same card and told Rikochet he can keep it since he didn't like that one.
- The episode of Rocko's Modern Life where Rocko and Heffer take care of Filburt's bird while he's in hospital and Heffer accidentally squashes it. When Filburt returns and Rocko works up the nerve to deliver the bad news, Filburt correctly guesses that his pet is dead, then reveals that the bird was of a species with a notoriously short lifespan and Filburt was in fact surprised the bird had survived this long. (Minor inversion: Heffer then blurts out that he "sat on it", and we quickly cut before we can see Filburt's reaction to that news...)
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Played with in the episode "Wet Painters", in which SpongeBob and Patrick are asked to paint Mr. Krabs' home with paint that supposedly doesn't come off. While painting, they accidentally get paint on Krabs' first dollar earned and try to hide it from him. When Krabs finds out, they prepare for the worst, but then Krabs simply licks the dollar clean. The "permanent" paint, it turns out comes off with saliva. SpongeBob figures Mr. Krabs just told them the paint wouldn't come off so they would do a good job, but Krabs confesses that he just did it to mess with them.
- In "The Donut of Shame", Patrick wakes up from a party with SpongeBob and finds a donut in his hand and wants to eat it, but upon remembering SpongeBob saying the donut makes him happy, he becomes worried the donut was SpongeBob's and tries to resist eating it and tries to hide it. When SpongeBob comes over and Patrick tells the truth about the donut, SpongeBob is not upset and reveals through a videotape of the party that the donut was meant for Patrick all along, because the party was for Patrick's birthday.
- Taz-Mania also played with the broken vase story.
- Tiny Toon Adventures: When Hamton's parents went on a trip and Hamton stayed at home, Plucky invited everyone to a party there. Hamton thought his parents would punish him for this but it turns out they actually liked that he had friends. However, Hamton wasn't so off the hook about the party having destroyed the house. Fortunately, when Hamton's parents were about to punish him, it was announced he won a new house from the contest he entered when he bought a magazine (Irony considering somebody had previously commented Hamton was the only one who bought that magazine for the magazine itself).
- Similar to Bone Sweet Bone above, Tom and Jerry are museum janitors in their 1975 cartoon and are accused of losing a valuable bone from a dinosaur skeleton. When they are told by the scientist that he had the bone all along while they were battling a bulldog over a separate bone, Tom and Jerry calmly cause the skeleton to come crashing to the floor.
- In The Venture Brothers, Henchman #24 is anxious about what will happen when he reveals to his boss The Monarch that he and the Monarch's wife kissed. As it turns out, the Monarch doesn't care; they have an open marriage.
- Voltron: Legendary Defender: A few episodes in, Pidge has to reveal that he is actually a girl who created a false identity to enroll in the Galaxy Garrison. It turns out that Everybody Knew Already or else isn't fazed...except for Lance, who makes increasingly shocked expressions throughout the whole conversation.
- In the first season of Young Justice, three members of the team (Superboy, M'gann and Artemis) are keeping secrets that they think would get them kicked off if the others knew. In the penultimate episode of the season, they all come clean and find out nobody cares. In fact, Robin already knew Artemis' secret and Superboy knew M'gann's (and he was the one she was most worried about). Word of God says this was an intentional Aesop that secrets can be a bigger deal when you hide them than if you just admit the truth.
