Times where a situation is Not What It Looks Like to others in Literature.
- In chapter 11 of this story
, in a dispute over payment when it came to buying liquor, Neesha had her husband, Soem, threaten Toki into giving it to them for free, which led to him grabbing her and her pulling away, tearing her dress in the process. Of course, when she calls the police and they come, they seem him standing over her, while her dress is torn, and, well, it doesn't take any guesses as to what happens next.Brownie: "Did he try to take advantage of you, Toki?"
Toki: "No, but the police saw otherwise." - Animorphs: In Elfangor's Secret, the Animorphs travel back in time to 1415. Tobias realizes how bad it looks that he's entering a church, in Hork-Bajir morph (7 feet tall with a spiked tail and horns), and carrying a pitchfork. He apologizes to the priest in thought-speak and tells him it's not what it looks like.
- Arc of Fire: Raine protests to Myrren that he didn't leave her for Leah. She doesn't believe him. Eventually they make up, though he and Leah had fallen in love.
- In Clade, Adam walks in to find his teenage grandson, Noah, in bed with Lijuan, to Adam's disappointment. Nothing actually happened - they're just sharing a bed because they wanted to feel less alone. Lijuan thinks about going after Adam to explain, but she doesn't think it would make any difference.
- Happens in one of the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson books where Georgia's love interest (Robbie) and enemy (Lindsay) come across her while she is kissing another boy at a party. She is so startled that she falls over backwards, causing her skirt to ride up - and is aware from their expressions that they've taken it the wrong way.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
- In The Ugly Truth, a group of boys take a photo of one boy's bent elbow for a class game, but the teacher mistakes it for a photo of someone's butt crack, and doesn't believe otherwise until the boys recreate the position of his arm, using a mole on the elbow as proof.
- In Double Down, a chain of events at the fall concert leads to Rowley playing the flute while coloring in Greg's underpants in the band room. Frank interrupts and grounds Greg, accusing him of "goofing off."
- Discworld:
- Inverted in Moving Pictures, when Victor hesitates to stay in Ginger's room for fear of sullying her reputation. Ginger dismisses his concern, saying that her landlady would never suspect he's there to watch over her in case she gets possessed by supernatural forces: "She'll just think we're having sex." Indeed, that's just what she does suspect. And heartily approves.
- Used in Making Money. Moist and Adora arrive back at the bank to find that Gladys is standing over the stove stirring a pot that's boiling over, and Mr. Fusspot is missing. Since Gladys has unrequited love for Moist, this comes off as a reference to the bunny boiling scene in Fatal Attraction (and not just to readers; Moist and Adora become quite Wrong Genre Savvy about it) but Mr. Fusspot is all right, he just got himself locked in another room of the bank and Gladys is just cooking what Adora actually ordered for dinner.
- Dolphin Trilogy: In Dolphin Boy, Della accepts John's marriage proposal and goes to tell Mark Watson about her choice. John sees Della embracing Mark and kissing him goodbye and thinks she's dumped him for Mark. She runs after him to explain, but he flees into the ocean before she can catch up with him.
- In Dragon Bones, Ward has several such moments. After Obfuscating Stupidity, for seven years, the reason for it is gone and he wants to reveal that he's in fact quite intelligent. He gets into a few situations where he involuntarily looks stupid, such as being seen talking to Oreg, the local Friendly Ghost and Genius Loci of castle Hurog. No one except Ward can see Oreg, so that looks as if he's talking to himself.
- Later on, there is a situation where he summons Oreg (who is not only bound to the castle, but also to a ring that Ward wears), and Oreg clings to his leg, sobbing and begging. Ward's brother Tosten is horrified and wants to know what the hell Ward did do to the poor guy. Ward did nothing, and that was the problem; the binding spell ensures that Oreg suffers if separated from his current owner, and leaving him behind was an accident in the first place.
- The Dresden Files:
- Considering everything else that goes wrong for Harry Dresden it's no surprise he falls victim to this a few times. In Proven Guilty, he has the misfortune to have his friend's daughter Molly in the hotel room he is working in showering at exactly the time her overprotective mother finds him. Harry is genuinely just trying to watch out for her (although it's entirely possible that said friend's daughter (who has a crush on Harry) was trying to seduce him). As he points out, if their arrivals had been ten seconds different, as Molly walks out of the shower exactly when her mother walks in, he wouldn't have gotten clobbered. At least the family priest who was present understood.
- Happened to him again in the short story "Day Off" when his girlfriend walks into his apartment. This one was even worse, with smoke bombs going off, flashing lights, both of his pets absolutely losing their minds, two naked werewolves (human at the time) mid-coitus inside a tiny magic circle, his basement on fire, and Harry giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to his topless unconscious apprentice. He invokes the trope by name and his thoroughly amused girlfriend responds with, "I cannot for the life of me imagine what it does appear to be," and insists on knowing how this happened. He does his best to explain and she helps him clean up the various messes.
- The same girlfriend also found Harry in the center of what was, to all appearances, a Destructo-Nookie orgy (it was actually the end result of a succubus biting off more than they could chew). Harry tried to drop the trope name, she just sighs, rolls her eyes and says she did worse when she was younger.
- Even after Molly's apprenticeship ends, their friendship still has a strong air of this. She's an attractive younger woman who's got Undying Loyalty to Harry, often works with him, and shares his apartment. All of that has an explanation, but on the outside it looks rather suspicious, as other characters point out to Harry. Harry has no interest in taking advantage of their relationship, but Molly is in (unreciprocated) love with him, so it's at least a little intentional on her side.
- It's gotten to the point where even Molly's father (Harry's friend) Michael suspects that their relationship isn't wholly platonic. As a testament to his faith in Harry, Michael isn't too upset by the possibility.
- In another variant of this, most people who see Harry interact with Thomas Raith assume that Harry is Thomas's lover (and if they are in the know, believe him to be Thomas's thrall). In reality, Thomas is Harry's half-brother, but that fact becoming public knowledge would cause immense trouble for both of them.
- In Harold Wright's The Eyes Of The World, the protagonist is working out a moral crisis in the woods when a girl walks by and greets him. He chides her for talking to a stranger, saying that for all she knows he could be a "bad man". The girl asks "Are you a bad man?" and he sighs that he doesn't know... Then he realizes how that must've sounded and hastens to reassure her that at least, he is not a very bad man.
- Family Skeleton Mysteries: In book 2, Georgia's friend Charles Peyton suddenly starts avoiding her. Spurred by Sid's own suspicions, she starts to wonder if he's the killer she's been hunting for, since the victim was someone he disliked. When she finally confronts him, he admits that their nosy co-worker Sara Weiss had been making disparaging comments about his "girlfriend", and he thought she meant Georgia, so he was trying to keep some professional distance between them. Georgia politely explains that Sara was referring to the recently deceased Patty Craft, having become convinced Charles and Patty had had a thing for one another. Charles is rather righteously offended by the notion, and with the misunderstanding dealt with, he and Georgia make up.
- In The Gatekeeper, George Green has to explain to his boss what happened with Lynn in the Men's restroom:Dr. Sign: Okay George, let's hear it.
George: Lynn and I went to the cafeteria to eat. I told her to wait a minute, I had to use the bathroom. I went in and used the urinal as someone else came into the bathroom. When I turned around I discovered that she was the someone else. She proceeded to make various cooing sounds and I attempted to tell her this was inappropriate. She unzipped my fly, removed my penis from my pants and got on her knees. I put my hands on her shoulders in an attempt to push her away. At that moment the [campus police] officer came into the bathroom." I smiled a little. "I'm sorry, Dr. Sign, I shouldn't be smiling about this. I know this is serious, but I got a mental picture in my head of what he saw and trying to explain to him it wasn't what he thought it was. I looked at what was happening. I said to the officer that I wasn't going to say a word to him, if I was him and I told him what I know, I wouldn't have believed it either. - Goblins in the Castle: In Goblins on the Prowl, when Fauna and her traveling companions first meet the goblin sorceress Flegmire, they find her with a group of small goblins, each held within a cage-like box (four rows of three), pulling on their tails to make them squeal or shriek or scream. It looks like she's torturing them — in actuality, the frame is a musical instrument, the goblin harmonium, and they're practicing for a concert.
- In the book version of Dave Gorman's Googlewhack, Dave is in the IT suite of a hotel in the early hours of the morning and researching the website of a woman he will shortly be meeting, who happens to be a Slash Fic writer. A meber of the hotel staff walks in on him and Dave holds a conversation with them standing in the doorway, before turning around and seeing to his horror that throughout the entire conversation, the website was displaying a "THIS WEBSITE CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF HOMOEROTIC ACTS" warning in big, red font. Realising how it must have looked to the staff member, Dave tries to track them down so he can explain himself, but instead ends up Digging Himself Deeper.
- In Gone with the Wind, Ashley is hugging Scarlett to comfort her as she cries, when they are caught by his sister India (who despises Scarlett). Ironically, despite Scarlett's love for Ashley and the numerous times she has thrown herself at him, the one time that they are caught, their embrace is completely innocent.
- Subverted in Gorky Park. Chief Investigator Arkady Renko is hiding Irina in his apartment, as she's a witness that someone wants dead. A drunken friend turns up and draws the wrong conclusion. After Renko ushers him out, he realises that his friend is right — he's not really interested in solving the murder, he just wants to jump Irina's bones. They have sex.
- In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry, Ron, and Hermione exit the boys' dormitory with Harry wearing the Invisibility Cloak and run into Lavender, who Ron is dating. Lavender, only seeing Ron and Hermione leaving his dormitory together, jumps to conclusions about them being together, putting another nail in the coffin of that doomed relationship. This actually helps put Ron and Hermione's relationship back into "they will" territory, not him and Lavender.
- Homer Price: "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)" has the children of the town following after Michael Murphy and his musical mouse trap on the day he uses it to lure the mice out of the town. The adults see this and mistakenly assume he's luring the children away too, when they actually just want to watch and see what it'll look like when he releases all the mice.
- In House of Suns, The scene where Hesperus/Valmik Mind Probe Cadencenote in order to determine why is Cadence and Cascade trying to take their spaceship to a stardam 60000 light years away, can look and sound disturbingly like the former raping the latter, especially given some of the dialogue choices. Even Purslane, who knew better what he's actually doing, has a hard time convincing herself that it isn't a rape due to how disturbing the scene is.
- More "not what it sounds like" in this example: after Catti-Brie loots a Talking Weapon in the Legacy of the Drow Series, the blade takes over her mind and body temporarily to try to convince Drizzt that he should have the sword instead, since this is what the sword wants. This results in a partly hilarious/partly creepy scene where its psychic hold over Catti-Brie causes her to say to Drizzt the words that the sword wants to say to him: "Take me!" (Artist's rendering here.) Since the two of them are only friends at the time, Drizzt is pretty shocked. Fortunately, she follows that up with "Wield me!", making it clear to Drizzt that she isn't talking about sex and is possessed by the sword.
- In Left Behind: Tribulation Force, Buck gives his assistant, Alice, the keys to his condo and asks her to take some of his personal effects to his place on the way to pick her fiancé up from the airport. Chloe sees Alice taking the boxes into Buck's condo, then hears Alice mention her fiancé, and assumes that Buck is cheating and secretly engaged to Alice.
- The Longing of Shiina Ryo: Now, just because Shin-tsu kicked you out when the teacher came over during the night doesn't mean that anything improper was happening! Honest!
- A Memoir by Lady Trent: After young Isabella gets caught dissecting a dead bird For Science!, she has to scramble to explain that she didn't kill the bird, she found it like that.
- Nathaniel from Mindblind wants to date Jessa, but Jessa has told him that her parents won't let her date until she's sixteen. At a Wild Teen Party, Nathaniel sees her with a boy, assumes she lied to him, and freezes her out for several days. He realizes too late that the boy was actually her cousin Sam, whom he didn't recognize because they hadn't seen each other in four years.
- In Les Misérables, Marius Pontmercy starts staying away from home days at a time. The rest of his family assumes that he is having a romantic affair, when in fact he is visiting the grave of his father.
- Happens again with Marius when he is following the criminal Thenardier, in order to find out more about the latest crime planned. Some of his friends see him and assume that he is following a girl that he has a crush on, only to see that it's a man.
- Nancy Drew, of all people, gets caught in this several times. In several instances, when the boyfriend of a friend has given her hug for a completely innocent reason—happiness, gratitude—the girlfriend has walked in and assumed the worst.
- Secret Santa (2007): Simon is caught in the girls' locker room with his cellphone out. Even though he's just answering a call while delivering a Secret Santa present, the girls' gym coach doesn't believe him and gives him detention.
- In the book Smile And Say Murder, Nancy’s boyfriend Ned becomes involved with another girl, yet implausibly insists “It’s not what you think” every time she confronts him about it.
- Only Ashes Remain: Nita and Kovit share a bed while in hiding, but their traumatic pasts of isolation and abuse make sex the furthest thing from their minds. When Kovit's villainous surrogate father Henry finds them, he nonetheless fully believes they've been lovers and taunts them about it.
- Outlander: In Drums of Autumn, Claire has the misfortune to walk in on her husband Jamie and a male friend (previously incredibly surprised to see her) embracing. While said friend has a, ah, less than chaste look on his face. No, it's not what it looks like. (They kissed earlier thank you very much. And yes, John's gay. Jamie's just very understanding.)
- The pranks of Fat Marcus The Moneylender and his frat buddies in The Pale King.
- Prudence Penderhaus:
- In the second book, Cassius feels like he's going to float away, so Prudence lies on top of him on the floor to provide comforting pressure. A few minutes later, Sonny walks in on them. Prudence says, "It's not what it looks like," and Cassius helpfully adds, "I was floating."
- Later, Prudence's mom walks in to find Cassius in bed with Prudence. Prudence truthfully says that nothing happened, but her mom doesn't believe her and bans Cassius from the house.
- In The Republic of Thieves, it is what it sounds like, but Locke and Sabetha, being who they are, manage to convince Boulidazi otherwise.
- In one Reuhurinteen ala-aste story, Vippe and Ötö are making a wooden stool as a gift for Aapeli Käki. Kaiku hears them and thinks they're smoking and fighting with knives.
- In Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, the heroine, Elinor, talks to a man, and is watched from the opposite side of the room. Both look very emotional, and finally the man kisses Elinor's hand. The witness immediately assumes that she saw a marriage proposal, but that is not the case, the relationship between the two is just platonic friendship, and she misunderstood some sentences.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Not played for laughs in A Game of Thrones when Eddard Stark recalled seeing Jaime Lannister sitting the Iron Throne after killing the Mad King. It convinces him that it's a Lannister power play. It's not until A Storm of Swords that we learn the rest of the story.
- In "Sorcerer Conjurer Wizard Witch", Edwin and Catriona go to meet a man who may know about a dangerous conspiracy, and find him lying on the floor, bleeding profusely from his neck, with a vampire kneeling over him with his blood on her hands and mouth. "You probably think this looks suspicious," she says. (She's actually trying to save his life after someone slit his throat. The blood on her mouth is because she was trying to apply the technique she's used in the past to stop the bleeding on people whose throat she did bite.)
- One of the The Ultra Violets' biggest plot points is The Kiss That Changed Everything, when Opaline caught Cheri kissing Albert Feinstein—though the latter was actually the one who initiated it.
- The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign:
- Volume 2 begins with Aika walking into her apartment to find Kyousuke and Lu Niang Lan lying together on the sofa, panting heavily. When she demands to know what happened, they both point at the other and blame them, which only makes her more suspicious. It turns out they'd just been running from a battle at the airport.
- Similarly, in Volume 7, Renge spots Kyousuke and Biondetta approaching her family shrine. Both of them smell of the same kind of soap, and Biondetta is also red-faced and panting with exhaustion. Unlike the previous example, the reader is already aware of the innocent explanation (they'd stopped at a hotel to bathe, having gotten sweaty in a fierce battle).
- In the Robin Cook novel Vital Signs, a woman walks in on her husband and his secretary. He of course insists, "This is not what you are thinking!", but she storms out.
- In The Wheel of Time, several scenes before Perrin and Faile get together she is trying to restrain him from going out and overexerting himself after not having sufficiently recovered from his wounds, and ends up having him pinned on the kitchen floor... right when Mistress al'Vere walks in.
- Wings of Fire: Clay was told from a young age that he was some sort of Enfant Terrible because he attacked his friends when they were still in their eggs. This confused him because he's anything but violent. As it turns out, this is a cross-cultural misunderstanding. Firstborn MudWing dragons have a natural Big Brother Instinct and help hatch their siblings. Clay, being the first to hatch, was trying to help his surrogate siblings out of their eggs. The adults, not understanding how MudWings behave, thought he was trying to kill them.
- In The Wonderful Adventures of Karik and Valya by Yan Larri, two children disappear. Then their shoes and underwear are discovered in the apartment of a professor who lives nearby, and the professor starts acting very hostile after the discovery, leading people to rather disturbing conclusions. In fact: the professor is a Cool Old Guy who simply wanted to show the children some chemical experiments. Unfortunately, said experiments involved a serum that makes one several thousand times smaller, and the children drank it while waiting for the professor, so they shrank and the clothing didn’t. The reason for his strange behavior is that he realizes they have drunk the serum and he might step on them at any moment.
- In The Year of the Rat, one of the heroes (a notorious Chivalrous Pervert) is spotted through a window of a brothel, pinning a half-naked woman to her bed, his hands on her breasts. The heroine immediately jumps to the conclusion that is obviously right. Only it isn't: the guy was in the process of questioning a hired assassin, and moreover, her masquerade as a prostitute hadn't fooled him for a single moment.
- In "The Yellow Dwarf", Princess Toutebelle sees her fiancé, the King of the Gold Mines, accompanying a beautiful woman to a castle from her prison. She assumes that the King is taking advantage of her captivity to be unfaithful to her. In reality, the beautiful woman is one of her enemies, the Fairy of the Desert, under a glamour, and the King tricked her into taking him to her castle in the hopes that he would be in a better position to free her.
- Young Wizards by Diane Duane: In Deep Wizardry, Nita's mother is understandably concerned when her 13-year-old daughter claims to be doing "adult stuff" with her male best friend Kit. Nita means "adult stuff" like saving the world.
