In-Universe Examples Only:
Fan Works taking Refuge in Audacity.
- In Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me
, when Naruto is doing the first task and just like in canon doesn't know how to pass, his solution? Steal the paper from one of the hidden chunin in plain sight from everyone. Then sweet talk your way out of punishment with shameless Loophole Abuse. When Ibiki is discussing this with the Jonin and Hokage, their reactions range from annoyed to impressed. - In Avenger of Steel, based on Matt Murdock’s reaction to learning that ‘Superman’ once needed his mother to pick him up from school because he had trouble with his enhanced senses, the general public all assume that Superman is just Superman all the time, which Clark is actually uncomfortable with as it creates high expectations of him that he isn’t sure he can fulfill.
- Avengers: Infinite Wars:
- While most of the Avengers are displaced to the Star Wars galaxy, back on Earth, Wakandan soldiers Okoye and Ayo take a walk through New York in variants of their usual clothing without attracting much attention, mainly due to New York having seen so much over the years.
- Later, while assisting Daredevil in interrogating Turk Barrett, Spider-Man takes advantage of this idea when he claims that he can talk to spiders; Barrett decides to confess rather than take the chance that the man who can climb walls, has superhuman strength and produce his own webbing can't actually summon a mass of spiders to eat him.
- The Bridge (MLP): Xenilla's plan to kill the resurrected King Sombra includes improvising letting himself get locked in the dungeon under the castle. He figured his best chance was to be around what he knew King Sombra would go after, the royal family. With the jail directly under the castle, he could sense his approach and Sombra would believe he was held captive. Sombra couldn't expect he could easily break out and Princess Cadance never thought he'd use her as bait to draw in a returned Sombra she didn't even know was there.
- In Can I Keep Him?, Camilo's plans always seem "too silly", but they usually work themselves out in execution. One example is that they convince Dolores that Mirabel is teaching a parrot how to talk (instead of a Wild Child and a dragon) by actually teaching an actual parrot to talk in order to sell the lie, using an already domesticated bird from a local old man.Camilo: Honestly, if people just listened to me more, the world would be a better place!
- Child of the Storm has Harry's plans more or less run on these, with the basic premise that they're too crazy for anyone to predict. However, this doesn't always work out, as the Forever Red arc in the sequel brutally demonstrates - though after he starts building redundancies into said plans, they start working better. Perhaps the single greatest example so far is in Book III when he decides to distract the Grandmaster from their plans by entering the Contest of Champions... as Obi-Wan Kenobi. The impersonation is flawless. Hal Jordan nearly dies laughing, before proclaiming that they are definitely going to be sued.
- In Christian Potter Chandler, Barb refuses to believe Bob when Chris jogs into a strip club... and moonsaults into a stripper's tits.
- Invoked in The Confectionary Chronicles when Hermione talks with Ollivander- the first adult in the wizarding world she’s met who is as aware of the gods as she is- and asks why more people don’t know about the gods. As the adult observes, most of the time witches and wizards assume that reports of a giant serpent in the sea or a display of uncanny powers are just a more ‘standard’ sea serpent or someone displaying wandless magic rather than realise the involvement of the divine.
- Contact at Kobol:
- As part of the Cylons’ attempts to learn more about Earth, three Sixes join the research program (one of them the would-be Caprica-Six and another Cain’s would-have-been lover Gina), with the three claiming to be triplets who don’t get along that well to justify how they never told any of their human contacts that they had sisters.
- A neat summation of the way the Tau’ri gain an advantage in the war from the beginning, exploiting the fact that so many of their technologies, such as cloaking and teleportation, are believed to be impossible by the Colonials.
- In the Demented Verse, Dean and Sam manage to pass themselves off as wizards without ever doing a single spell, and only Harry's closest friends knowing the truth, starting with Harry claiming he met them while he was hunting for horcruxes, relying on Harry’s reputation to deter too many intimate questions and just give enough generic details to satisfy casual inquiries.
- An Entry with a Bang! has a part where an infantryman forces the surrender of a 'Mech pilot by strapping MREs to himself and pretending they're explosives. Then asks the pilot out on a date.
- Suggested in Faith Wayne when Selina Kyle visits Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and then confronts Batman to ask him about Bruce Wayne’s newly-revealed daughter; Selina asks if Faith could be some kind of plant, but Batman assures Catwoman that there are details about Faith’s history that are so complex it would make such an impersonation unlikely, not to mention counter-productive.
- Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness: During what is technically a high stakes fight between MEGAS and Yuuka Kazami, Yukari catches Yuyuko eating a Philly cheesesteak and asks what she was snacking on. Yuyuko's response? To scarf down the rest of the cheesesteak on the spot and flat out deny that she ever had one.
- In First Knight, a Slayer was in the middle of a debate while running for sheriff when she realizes her opponent is a demon that feeds off negative emotions. After cutting off its head in front of the crowd, causing lightning to shoot out due to built-up energy, she plays it off by saying, "There can be only one."
- Five Score, Divided by Four: The Feds and the cops are on high alert after a seeming terrorist bombing in Seattle. How do five technicolor mythical equines manage to get out of Seattle and halfway across the US? Charter a private plane and a limo, of course.
- In Harry Potter and the Mystic Force, the Rangers manage to hide Harry in Hogwarts using a quick disguise charm and an alias that would be obvious as such to most muggles- specifically 'James Bourne'- because Xander reasons that nobody would expect Harry to be hiding in such a manner, and even Snape agrees that their ‘logic’ is sound.
- Harry and the Shipgirls:
- Revina, a Re-class battleship, accompanied her boss, Wanko, to Yokosuka to check on Hoppou. While Wanko had a ring with powerful enchantments meant to make her unnoticeable, Revina donned a hat and glasses (plus a wig and Groucho Marx glasses for her tail) as a disguise. It almost worked...
- The weapons of Astolfo, upon being asked to meet with Harry, decided that before doing so, they should bake a cake. But not being satisfied with mundane ingredients, they decided to visit the realm of The Fair Folk for some truly good ingredients, which culminated in them raiding the kitchen of the Summer Court. They then decided it would be a good idea to use said kitchen to bake the cake. Only they didn't want to get their clothes covered in flour, so they both baked the cake in a Naked Apron.
- Revina, a Re-class battleship, accompanied her boss, Wanko, to Yokosuka to check on Hoppou. While Wanko had a ring with powerful enchantments meant to make her unnoticeable, Revina donned a hat and glasses (plus a wig and Groucho Marx glasses for her tail) as a disguise. It almost worked...
- A Hero: Dalek Sec's plans tend to fall into this trope. Considering his horrible luck at everything... this means that his failures tend to go into Epic Fail, because of this trope.
- Incarnation of Legends
- Kojiro attempts to gain entry to the Sanjouno household by fast-talking his way in, but he and Bell are thrown out on their rears. He also lampshades it when an exasperated Bell complains.Kojiro: That went well.
Bell: Why did I believe you when you said we could just walk in?
Kojiro: Audacity is a plan on its own. [shrugs] It just didn’t work this time. - Kojiro does this again with much more success when confronting the slaver hired to get Haruhime out of the country, claiming that he has proof of the arrangement and panicking the slaver enough to start a ruckus that draws the guards' attention.
- Kojiro attempts to gain entry to the Sanjouno household by fast-talking his way in, but he and Bell are thrown out on their rears. He also lampshades it when an exasperated Bell complains.
- The Infinite Loops: Loopers frequently resort to this out of sheer boredom, and listing all of them would take a very long time, but points go to a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Loop where several Loopers make their way into the Royal Canterlot Archives, singing "With Catlike Tread" as they go.
- Infinity Crisis:
- In In Hand and Foot, Matt basically does this when he honestly tells Foggy that he's busy that evening because he's "helping Luke, Danny and Jessica in stopping a war between ninja clans aided by a quartet of mutated turtles trained in martial arts by a talking rat from another reality", as Foggy assumes that Matt just doesn't want to tell him the truth.
- In Justice Like Lightning, this is how Osborn convinces the Thunderbolts that he's Ross offering for them to work for the government. After the fall of SHIELD, it's more likely the public could believe a general/Secretary of State would get a pack of ex-cons and a former pop star to be a government-sponsored super-team rather than think it's something else.
Osborn: People who believe in government conspiracies make two key mistakes. First, they think the government is competent. Second, they think the government can keep a secret.- In Women of Wonder, Zatanna reveals that she uses real magic in her act; people just assume she’s a standard stage magician using trickery to pull it off.
- In Itachi, Is That a Baby?, Sasuke has been captured and brought back to Konoha and is to be interrogated. However, the Military Police chief insists the interrogation falls under his jurisdiction and orders everyone out before interrogating Sasuke. Afterwards, he refuses to allow Sasuke to be interrogated again, citing unnecessary cruelty. Thing is, Sasuke is the Military Police chief. Even when others complain, Tsunade admits he's technically right.
- In Jokers Wild, Naruto orders several Shadow Clones to delay Kakashi. They do so by turning into squirrels and attacking him with nunchucks. While incapable of harming or even really inconveniencing the man, it's weird enough to make him stop for a few minutes.
- While the Matrix was meant to be a perfect prison, which made its flaws and inconsistencies more noticeable to potential red-pills, one of the more insidious aspects of Arcadia Bay in The Matrix Rewinds is that it has nothing but flaws by design. Humans unfortunate enough to be there are surrounded by logical inconsistencies (a limited age demographic, timetables that make no sense, gaps in their memories) so that when something genuinely unusual happens, they're less likely to notice.
- In Muppets' Harry Potter, Muppet Security manages to delay some Death Eaters by throwing fish at them.
- In The New Man: An Adam Smasher SI, the titular character is immediately recognized by Rogue despite his new body and confronts him with weapons drawn. Adam is certain he's able to kill her and her backup with ease but doesn't want to ruin the kids' celebration, so he has Uriel diffuse the situation by insulting the Queen of the Afterlife's fashion sense. Not only does it work, she gives him an open invitation to return to the bar.
- In Origin Story, Alex Harris's response to the Runaways showing up to interrogate her is to pick up Bruiser and carry her to the buffet she and Louise were already heading to. Alex and Louise ignore any attempt to talk until they're both sitting at a table, plates full of breakfast foods in front of them.
- In Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover, Admiral Nimitz's only safe spot is here. She claims that the Trans-Galactic Republic does not condone torture (directly or by proxy), but then hands a prisoner to a group that's known for its love of unaccountable secret agents whose actions can be washed awaynote . When called on this, she cites the treaty that theoretically set this all up, resulting in a pile of Loophole Abuse/Half-Truth/False Reassurance all in one!
- Xander combines audacity with Mistaken for Badass in Preconceptions when he trips and stakes a vampire pimp to help two demon girls he just met. Xander promptly talks to the guard the others are looking at and implies the girls belong to him but he doesn't want any trouble with the vampires while handing the vampire his boss's cane, jewelry, and hat. Believing Xander to be a ridiculously badass hunter, the new boss promptly agrees and that they didn't see the two girls arrive at the bus stop and will give the whole thing up as a bad loan to a client who disappeared.
- In A Special Kind of Magic, not only does Naofumi use a portal to pull a Screw This, I'm Outta Here on Fitoria, he steals some of her feathers while doing so!
- Sheogorath in A Thank You Gift From Madness Himself wishes to repay House Stark for kindly sheltering him by reuniting them with the long lost Jon Snow (who's been trapped in the land of Skyrim since he was a child). You'd think he'd be fine with just teleporting Jon back to Winterfell, but no, Sheogorath had to go the extra mile and teleport Jon and and his entire fucking house, too.
- In Water Under the Bridge, the Blue Gloves send an agent with no infiltration skills to infiltrate Serenity just as a reminder that they have their eye on the crew. They agent they send is so obviously an infiltrator (including telling them she's going out of her way to become indispensable and wearing her Blue Glove uniform) that the crew never suspects she's a Blue Glove.
- Weiss Reacts: Blake is the best example, among other things taking a universe-shattering mecha for a joyride, but Cinder pulls this off by accidentally blowing up several cars that double-parked in front of her while she was attempting to buy burritos, and then proceeding to run across the roofs of Vale in a domino mask while clutching said burritos and being pursued by a veritable army of robot soldiers.
- PARIAH in Wolf in Sheep's Clothing lives and breathes this trope. One good example is when he stole an Atlesian Paladin from the military for the sole purpose of killing Zwei (who, as it should be reminded, IS A DOG).
- The Cutting Edge:
- When Laurel (who has experienced Mental Time Travel from the moment of her death to a year before Oliver returned) starts training with Ted Grant and Isaac (before Isaac had his breakdown), Ted recognises her fighting style as his own even though he knows he's never trained with her before. Since Laurel isn't ready to tell him about her experience with time travel, she claims that she is just a fan who's seen some of his matches.
- Later on, Laurel relies on a variation of this when explaining how she found out about Malcolm's plans to Oliver; without revealing the time-travel angle, she just claims that she overheard Malcolm threatening Moira during a party, trusting that Oliver will be more shocked at the idea of Malcolm being the villain to question how Laurel came by that information in the first place.
- Cheating at Pai Sho has Aang claiming that he's not the Avatar after Zuko takes him prisoner, and Zuko believing him. Aang decides to stick with him afterwards, his reasoning being...Aang took in a breath and let it out slow, which is what Gyatso always told him to do. He touched the necklace, for luck. Okay. Try two. "He's looking for the Avatar. I'm the Avatar. But he doesn't think I'm the Avatar."
Katara nodded encouragingly, and with a complete lack of comprehension.
"So he's going to be traveling the world, probably meeting all sorts of benders. Who I need to meet, because I'm the Avatar, and I have to learn somehow."
Katara's face was doing a thing that the monks' sometimes did, when they really hoped Aang's story wasn't going where they thought it was going.
"So I could either fly around on Appa being super obvious about finding teachers. Or."
Sokka's face clicked from total incomprehension to world-shattering excitement. "Or you could hitch a ride with the prince of the Fire Nation, learning behind his back, making him a complete sucker!"
"This... isn't a good idea," Katara said.
"It's brilliant!" her brother said. "Completely suicidal, but brilliant!"
- Davion & Davion (Deceased) has John Davion financially cripple Amaris' supporters by taking out massive (and dubiously secured) loans from banks supporting the Usurper right before the Amaris Coup and then seizing their assets, i.e. the money he'd just borrowed from them. No one expected the notoriously honest First Prince to engage in financial shenanigans, much less on such a grandiose scale.
- In The One With The Angelic Face, although Giles discovers reference to Angelus in his books, and the gang soon establish that their ally of ensoulled vampire Angela was sired by Darla and sired Drusilla herself, it simply never occurs to any of the Scoobies that Angela and Angelus are the same person due to the obvious gender difference (Angelus having been transformed into a woman by the same curse that gave him/her a soul).
- In Codes And Geass: Embracing Your Inner Megalomania, Euphemia, despite knowing that Lelouch (who is fused with an SI) will not go along with the idea, starts the SAZ, just as in canon. So what does Zero do? Go there in the Gawain while broadcasting and singing along with CC to "O Fortuna, Carmina Burana." And then proceeds to destroy the SAZ as an idea with a single speech. And to his great surprise, inspires Euphie to publicly repudiate the Empire and defect to his side.
- Due to being a Peggy Sue in Nil Desperandum Luluka manages to plan for every event in canon and every non-canon one as well. However, a long chain of events that starts with her and Suzaku missing their rendezvous with Genbu Kurugi, she's outed to the world at large as she tears through the JLF for killing Milly. How does Charles handle his apparently back from the dead daughter being a terrorist leader? Why, he declares it was part of a wager between them to prove her worth as a potential successor. Everyone in Area 11 gets full citizenship, the Black Knights become part of the army, and Naoto becomes the new Viceroy. Luluka is completely thrown by the Emperor's decision and bitterly admits she lost.
- In another Peggy Sue fanfic, Rise of a New Moon, Clovis dies some ways into it and renders Luna's plans to use him as a Puppet Viceroy is rendered useless, she makes one last gamble to take Japan without having open war (brought on by the fact that, where Britannia is concerned, three royals have died there). She does this by having the JLF deploy all their forces to critical logistical locations (backed by the authority of the area government through Jeremiah and Euphie) and march with her into Tokyo where she declares herself Viceroy before Cornelia arrives. This stuns everyone into going along with it.
- In Zero of the Black Crusade, Marianne has been planning Lelouch and Kallen's wedding for months. But just as the ceremony begins, Nunnally promptly announces that it'll be a triple wedding with Suzaku and Euphemia and Rivalz and Milly, with no way of undoing it. Marianne ended up being impressed and proud of her daughter's hijacking.
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars
- Tiberium Wars has this happen multiple times. In fact, half of Havoc's plans involve them being so ridiculous no one sees them coming, and in Chapter Fifteen, the ruined remains of Lieutenant Wallace's Zone Trooper squad attacks hundreds of Nod soldiers, tanks, beam cannons, and Avatars.
- In DC Nation, this is the standard operating procedure of Travis Grey (an Original Character Green Lantern). A street kid and pickpocket, he steals Hal Jordan's wallet and spare ring. After donning the ring, he proceeds to go on a one-man cleanup spree through his rough New York neighborhood. He tops it by making a Sarcastic Confession to Guy Gardner and Hal about his activities, chiding Hal to keep better track of his stuff, and all but daring the two veteran Lanterns to steal the ring back. Hal's ticked, but Guy's about to double over laughing.
- In the Crack Fic Kingdom Come, Light explains away Ryuk as simply being his husband and his owning a Death Note as a perk of being ambassador to the Shinigami Realm who was chosen to help them catch Kira.
- In The New Guild, Sandra Battye picks up a hitherto lost and unclaimed title for her Trade Guild. She cannot use the appropriate title because another, larger and more powerful, Guild has pre-empted her. Against Mrs. Rosie Palm's vigorous objection, Lord Vetinari grants Sandra title to the name...note
- In Famous Last Words, when captured by Nicodemus and asked if he has any last words, Harry quotes Monty Python's dead parrot skit. It's so outrageous that Nicodemus decides to let Harry and his friends go out of amusement.
- In the Alternate Tail Series, Kagura distracts a group of Edolas soldiers by pretending she's a lost girl looking for her big brother, while her teammates commander the aircraft. Along the way, she describes her big brother as "really tall, has black hair and red eyes, and lots of piercing on his face." By the time they entered the ship, the other soldiers have been taken down by Gajeel, Levy, Lily, and Carla. And to top it all off, Kagura knocks out two of her escorts while calling Gajeel her missing big brother. It leaves the last two soldiers befudled enough to be knocked out quickly.
- This is essentially the hat of The Sage's Disciple. Crow deliberately uses this trope to invoke Mistaken for Badass in his bid to actually survive the war. The more outrageous the plans, the longer he believes he will live. As a result, most of the participants think that he's a combination of Magnificent Bastard and The Wonka.
- The Elsanna/Disney Princess Crack Fic college AU Biology Homework is built on this. When college roommate Snow White catches Elsa with her sister Anna, they insist they're doing biology homework. When Snow expresses doubt, Elsa (who still visibly has her fingers inside Anna ) is indignant at the suggestion that she would have sex with her sister.
- And the Giant Awoke:
- The Frey archers in the southern castle are left dumbfounded when Tyrion's men use a penis-shaped ram to bring down the doors, leaving them unable to react in time when the doors break down.
- Cleon the Butcher is going to attack Meereen. Daenerys has the numbers to defeat them but knows it would turn into a Pyrrhic Victory, and her dragons are not trained enough to be useful in warfare. So, Jorah and others make dragon-like kites to trick Cleon's forces and distract them from the real attack coming from their backs.
- Part of Dellyne's backstory. Against his father's wishes, he wanted to be a bard, not a warrior. Then, he slept with both of his father's mistresses. At the same time. And then he wrote a song about it.
- Tyrion's Battle Cry to his forces right before the showdown with the White Walkers.
- Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past:
- The core premise of this fic is that a thirty-year-old Harry has sent his memory back in time to his eleven-year-old self to try and stop Voldemort coming to power in the first place. When Harry starts taking 'risks' by using some of his future knowledge, such as Sirius's innocence or Rita's Animagus status, he basically relies on this trope; for any situation where he has to make such knowledge public, most of the time people are too concerned with trying to stop Harry going too far (by their standards) to question how he learned that information in the first place.
- After Harry shares his secret with his friends, Hermione convinces Harry that this applies when he starts worrying about others learning about his status as a time-traveller, such as when his lesson with Lupin on boggarts starts with a boggart appearing to him as the corpse of the future Ginny; Lupin is distracted and misses seeing the other future corpses the boggart turns into, only witnessing Harry be confronted by an image of Voldemort at full strength and the initial "corpse". While Harry is concerned Lupin might realise the truth, Hermione argues that the idea of time travel is only "obvious" to Harry because of his own experiences, but Lupin will make the more logical assumption that the first briefly-glimpsed corpse of a red-haired young woman was the corpse of Harry's mother rather than Ginny.
- How Friendship Accidentally Saved Magical Britain: Harry accidentally outs himself as a Parselmouth and gets accused and bullied by the entire student body of being the next Dark Lord in the making? Heartbreaking, especially for an abused kid who never had a choice in the event that gave him said Parseltongue. Fred and George donning black hooded cloaks lined with portable smokescreens so they look like they're gliding like Dementors, proclaiming Dark Lord Harry's presence through the corridors, and pretending to be Harry's new Dark followers? Pretty funny. Summoning storm clouds to follow Harry around and crackle scarily? Even better. Convincing Lee Jordan, Ron, and the three Gryffindor Chasers to get in on the prank, adding a pair of glowing red lights to the shadowed face area of Angelina's hood, and Angelina demonstrating a talent for a truly sinister Evil Laugh? Priceless, and so worth the detentions.
- In Magical Relations, one of the myriad "Harry Sorted into Slytherin" fanfics, Parseltongue is a teachable language. Naturally, Snape offers to tutor Harry in nonverbal magic, dueling, Occlumency, etc. for as long as it takes Harry to teach him to speak snake. Eventually, Harry is learning Leglimency to improve his Occlumency (highly illegal without Ministry permission, not that they care), but now Umbridge is around to poke her nose in. Snape first tries to cover up the lessons by giving Harry detention, but when Umbridge shows up to watch the private, Headmaster-approved lesson anyway, they treat it like business as usual, and Snape starts quizzing Harry on his Occlumency reading in Parseltongue. When Umbridge demands to know what language that is, Snape tells her that it's naturally the Ancient Mayan Wizards' language of Uspantek, because Harry is aiming for a job as a cursebreaker, and the only way to learn a language is through practice (naturally, Umbridge will be less than familiar with either language that has only a handful of living practitioners). When Umbridge eventually demands that they speak in English, Snape starts quizzing Harry on his advanced Arithmancy (for curse-breaking, which he has never taken), and subtly prompts his student to Legilimens the answers from his head. (Which is, again, highly illegal).Snape: (in Parseltongue) Excellent. I will take your essay after this saggy, cloying excuse for a dictator leaves us.
Harry: (one scene transition later) So then I answer questions about advanced Arithmancy for the rest of the lesson, and when we're done, Snape looks at Umbridge and says, 'Thank you for your time. Your presence tonight has been invaluable.' (looks at his friends with wide, despairing eyes) It was madness.- In the same fic, Harry & Co defeat the Basilisk using Ron's experience handling roosters. They could go to a teacher about the dead giant snake in the girls' loo... or they could hang an "Out of Order" sign on the door and turn the place into a lab for harvesting the thing for extremely valuable potions ingredients. After all, they killed the thing, and have as much a right to it as anyone. By the time they report it to Snape, they've already harvested the blood and are starting on the fangs and skin, and they offer him the extremely invaluable eyes in return for endorsing this stunt and giving them any pointers. This is deemed an... adequate... payment, and when the professor sees their organized, efficient system, he turns the eye extraction into an impromptu potions lesson.Pansy: (after Snape's departure and a quick stunned silence) That went surprisingly well.
- In the same fic, Harry & Co defeat the Basilisk using Ron's experience handling roosters. They could go to a teacher about the dead giant snake in the girls' loo... or they could hang an "Out of Order" sign on the door and turn the place into a lab for harvesting the thing for extremely valuable potions ingredients. After all, they killed the thing, and have as much a right to it as anyone. By the time they report it to Snape, they've already harvested the blood and are starting on the fangs and skin, and they offer him the extremely invaluable eyes in return for endorsing this stunt and giving them any pointers. This is deemed an... adequate... payment, and when the professor sees their organized, efficient system, he turns the eye extraction into an impromptu potions lesson.
- New Blood Artemis Girl: Once Hermione realised that having Muggle parents would subject her to widespread prejudice, she could have spent her life arguing for equal treatment, but she settled on a different tactic. She insists that she has even less magical heritage than a Muggle-born witch, that they would be descended from a forgotten Squib line but that she has no prior connection to Magic at all — and that Magic has chosen her to start a new great house. Her new classmates in Slytherin are naturally quite skeptical of this claim, calling her just a Muggle-born with delusions of grandeur, but since she has the intelligence and skill to support the idea that she's destined for greatness, they hesitate, and that's all she needs.
- In The Parselmouth of Gryffindor, Dumbledore revels in this when dealing with the Durmstrang defenders. "Dear me, jail? That sounds quite boring. I think I'd rather go home."
- In Valkyrie on Fire: Viam Eorum, when Glimmer is injured by a Capitol bio-weapon that Prim can’t treat on her own, Madge has the idea that they get treatment from a hospital in District One as the most likely place outside of the Capitol to have an antidote for the weapon, intending to pass Glimmer off as some unnamed celebrity, Katniss as her girlfriend, Madge as her manager and Gale as her bodyguard to get them through the door.
- In Heroes of the Desk this is half of SPEAR's mode of operation—since they exist to cover up magic (functional supernatural phenomena!) they reason that since people don't believe in magic, they won't believe other crazy things either (like notions of refitting World War II battleships into modern combat craft). Uchuu Senkan Yamato/Star Blazers exists in their universe, so they figure if something sounds like it was straight out of anime, nobody will take tales of it seriously even if someone did try to reveal their secret operations.
- The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Zim justifies using the simple alias "Miz" for the alternate persona he creates for his rebellion against the Tallest with the fact that it's so obvious that no one would think he'd be stupid enough to use it. And he's right, as the only person who sees through it is Tak, whom everyone ignores as they think it's her revenge obsession talking.
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg
- The Crown Atomic: Hermann Göring, the colonial dictator of Mittelafrika and who is already being despised by the German government for tainting Germany's reputation with his cruel treatment to the native African population and living like a Roman emperor in his colonies, declares himself the Viceroy of Mittelafrika, the title which is secondary in precedence only to the German Kaiser himself in the terms of law. The German nobles are shocked but powerless to do anything about it.
- To cover for the fact Tony Stark is (accidentally) setting himself up to take over the world in The War is Far from Over Now, his PR department turned the idea into a Memetic Mutation so no one would take the idea seriously.
- The Cosmos: Lila's ultimate plan to take down The Cosmos is to frame them for burning down her own home. Lila herself recognizes how insane this scheme is; in fact, part of the reason why it fails is because she's Caught on Tape musing aloud about how far she's going.
- Feralnette AU:
- In "Enough Rope", Lila has the unmitigated gall to accuse Marinette of secretly working with Hawkmoth literal moments after Marinette has just fought off akumatization in front of her and Alya. Alya nearly matches Lila's audacity shortly afterwards: when Ladybug and Chat Noir call her out, Alya accuses them of taking things too seriously, claiming that such Malicious Slander is no big deal and revealing that she knows about Lila's supposed 'lying disease'. This backfires.
- During "Birds of a Feather", Lila harasses Marinette in hopes of extracting information about Felix's hobbies and schedule from her, claiming that there's no reason not to share such 'harmless secrets' freely...unless, of course, they're hiding something. Marinette counters by asking Lila to share a 'harmless secret' of her own: when was the last time she had her period? Lila sputters, but the point is made.
- In Fox Rain, Vorpika (Lila Rossi's alias as a superhero and Holder of the Fox Miraculous) decides to convince Gabriel to let Adrien back into school after he had been pulled out for stealing the Miraculous Book from his safe...so she claims she had brainwashed Adrien into doing it for her, hinting that The Pied Piper of Hamelin was a past Fox Miraculous Holder to give herself credibility, and throwing in her suspicions on Gabriel being Papillon (in which she didn't even believe anymore), that she covertly declares having a small dick through an incomplete movie quote that most of those present would be able to recognize (and laugh about), to keep him from thinking about it too much. It works.
- In I Couldn’t Have, I Was Playing Hopscotch with Hawkmoth, Marinette deals with her classmates' accusations of bullying Lila by making up outrageous stuff (such as what the title states) and using that as an excuse, leaving the others dumbfounded and unable to respond.
- In Apotheosis, Midoriya/Apotheosis (a very dangerous and well-known villain) manages to convince several high-ranking politicians (including the Prime Minister) to create the Hero Regulation Department with him (Midoriya) as the Director while also giving him amnesty. Many of the Heroes are shocked at his audacity.
- In It Takes a Child to Teach a Village, Izuku stops Stain from killing a hero by acting like a Stern Teacher giving the man a history lesson. The real sticking point is Izuku pointing out he's not so different from people who killed others over things like racism and homophobia.
- In Mastermind: Strategist for Hire, Izuku/Mastermind (a notorious Villain whose plans are responsible for nearly a dozen dead heroes), following a Hero raid which nearly saw him being captured, takes the top 50 Pro Heroes in Japan hostage by threatening to release plans to kill them if he is captured or killed, to Tsukauchi and Nedzu's shock.
- Yesterday Upon The Stair has Izuku pulling a Scheherezade Gambit during the USJ incident, buying enough time for the teachers to arrive.
- In Chapter 29, he repeats this tactic by asking Shigaraki Tomura what his favourite video game is. This, again, buys him time until Uraraka and Kirishima arrive.
- Duran And Kiyohime's Omake Theater: In Chapter 50, Natsuki suggests that Shizuru would be more than capable of seeking Refuge in Audacity after Shizuru reveals that she missed class due to staying in with Natsuki for a round of intimacy one morning, and thus missing a deadline.Shizuru: Ara, do you think I would tell my professor that I missed his class because I was being held at the sexual mercy of my cute high school girlfriend?
Natsuki: Geez, You make it sound like I'm Shiho's age when you say it like that. And yes, I think you're capable of saying any number of outrageous things when you think you'll get some advantage by it. - Windows of the Soul: Towards the end of the story, Shizuru confesses her sins from the original My-HiME to her family, including the fic taking the darker interpretation of the Ambiguous Situation of the series that Shizuru raped Natsuki. Her father accuses her of Refuge in Audacity when he asks if she has any reason left to live, and Shizuru says that Natsuki would want her to.Shinri Fujino: Isn't that an unforgivable presumption? I've raised you, and yet you embody all things I despise, and your conceit is this, that the one you've most wronged would beg for your life?
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Loved and Lost: Immediately after helping Twilight Sparkle in stopping the Changeling invasion, Prince Jewelius proceeds to confront the other heroes over their roles in the events leading up to the invasion — in front of the wedding guests and royal guards, no less. First, he not only angrily calls out Princess Celestia, Shining Armor, the Mane Five, and Spike on their treatment of Twilight at the wedding rehearsal and being too focused on the wedding preparations to listen to her about the imposter Cadance, but he also blames the real Princess Cadance for allowing the Changeling Queen to impersonate her (even though it was really him who knocked her out). Even Celestia is too shaken by her previously mild-mannered nephew's sudden change of character to adequately defend herself against his aggressive accusations, and he even silences the Mane Five with a Big "SILENCE!" before they can even begin defending themselves. Finally, he delivers a New Era Speech to the citizens of Canterlot wherein he reveals to them the heroes' mistakes (sans Twilight), blames them for the collateral damage/casualties, and promises to make things right. The shaken heroes become so panicked that they unsuccessfully try to escape. This majorly backfires and makes them look as guilty as Jewelius says they are. As a result, the guards imprison the heroes on his orders and everypony in Canterlot turns against them while accepting Jewelius as their new ruler.
- RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse:
- Cheerilee manages to prove herself the Element of Laughter by making innuendoes at Corona about her "command of the tongue". When they next meet, she simply informs Corona "still single, by the way". Corona, being a thousand years out of touch, is horrified that someone would refer to her so crudely. Eventually, after regaining a bit of her sanity, Corona manages to get her own back on Cheer... by hugging her and apologising for the attempted murder.
- Bootheel, who will hit on anyone he meets so long as they're female, tries hitting on Princess Luna at the end of Hero of Oaton. As everyone freaks out about his impending doom, Luna just whispers something to him that turns him cherry-red.
- Dr. Ritter, a sleazy archaeologist, tries to make both Princess Luna and Corona sign non-disclosure agreements about a hidden civilization he "found". It's so they'll think he's dumber than he looks, while he gets up to what he's really there for.
- In the non-canon fic "Nightmares Yet to Come", Trixie asks Midnight what "her deal" is. Midnight calmly replies that she is in fact a fragment of Tirek possessing a pony who has travelled back in time. Trixie gasps in horror at such an appallingly bad lie, and Midnight admits she was trying to joke. But there's a lot of evidence to suggest the Tirek part is true.
- In Cheaters Prosper Naruto walks up to Kabuto, takes his answers, and leaves him his own blank sheet. Then he gets the team to pass the second part of the test by swiping the other necessary scroll before the start of the test, sealing the tied-up Sasuke and Sakura in a scroll, and transforming himself into a needle stuck to Anko's foot, resulting in the examiner carrying the whole team past the test.
- To cover up her new body's miraculous recovery in Eroninja, Kyuubi releases a pulse of healing chakra that fully heals everyone in the village. A single long-term coma patient suddenly recovering would raise several eyebrows, but with hundreds of patients recovering from illnesses, lost limbs, and more, she's not even a blip on the radar.
- When Naruto accidentally kills Gatou in The Escapologist by jumping on the tree Gatou's men were cutting down, he acts like a furious customer to play it off.Naruto: When you tell Naruto Uzumaki you'll have his shit delivered by Friday, it gets delivered by Friday! Let that be a lesson to all of you!
- Naruto makes Kankuro and Temari think they're being detained by Anbu in Naruto: The Gamer Files to make them release Konohamaru. It helps that trying to harm a Kage's family would result in such a reaction.
- I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again! has time travelers Team 7 and Hinata not even bothering to hide their remarkable increase in skill. The Hyuuga Clan simply believe that Hinata finally snapped from all the pressure, while Kakashi rules out his team as potential spies, as any infiltrator capable of replicating Naruto's seal or Sasuke's spinny eye of doom would be outright stupid to show off their strength so blatantly (Sakura is ruled out by association).
- Incident Report: In chapter 5, the Konoha elders declare Naruto isn't fit to become the next Hokage after Kurama attacked the Iron Country's sacred phoenix and fed it to Naruto, though the rest of Konoha isn't keen on anyone but Naruto leading them. Though since the shinobi can't go on strike without being executed for treason, they make their point by acting as crazy as possible while remaining on duty. Examples range from the Hyuuga clan claiming they're blind because they don't have pupils, Kakashi declaring that he'll make all female shinobi wear tiny miniskirts when he's Hokage, and the children at the academy (at Iruka's suggestion) going wild against the teachers. At the end of the chapter, they successfully pressure the council into making Naruto the next Hokage again.
- During the written portion of the Chunin Exams in The Mirage Blade Fox, Naruto audaciously asks Ibiki for the test answers. Ibiki complies without a second thought, considering Naruto to be one of the bravest or craziest Genin he's ever met.
- During the Chunin Exam in Reaching for a Dream, Naruto cheats on his test by punching out one of the Chunin plants and taking his test.
- In later stories, Naruto and Xanna don't bother hiding their horns, claws, or slitted pupils and simply act like there's nothing odd about having them. Of course it helps they're in Japan and most people simply assume they're cosplaying.
- In later stories
- In Son of the Sannin, to solve the Hyuga affair, Jiraiya proposes that he and Tsunade go and confront the Raikage and demand that he acknowledges Hinata's kidnapping and apologizes to them. Since they never officially returned to active duty, Kumo has no way of knowing they're back in Konoha, and they could act as a deterrent in case they might want to go to war. Surprisingly, it works.
- The premise of A Different Father is Buggy learning slightly earlier that Ace is Roger's son. As such, he hijacks all of Marineford's video transponders and claims during the execution that he is Ace's father all while calling out the marines for going after his son just because the boy has a dangerous father. While the higher-ups know the truth, most of the marines and the world at large buy into it, especially since Ace quickly starts playing along, apologizing to his "dad" for being nothing but trouble.
- This Bites!:
- How do Boss, Zoro, and Sanji win their round in the Davy Back Fight? Beat up the opposition before the game even begins under cover of fog. How do they defend themselves when they're spattered with the opposition's blood? Declare that they went hunting under cover of fog. How do they rationalize that? Easy; they're badasses.
- Cross bursting into the Franky House, plopping down on the couch, and drinking Franky's cola is odd enough that Franky doesn't react until the Unluckies burst in.
- Vigilante Tendency has Hibari. It was outright stated that Tsuna was never going to grow up normal thanks to living in the same suburb as Hibari.
- This ends up working against Jaune in Professor Arc. After Cinder has him arrested by Ironwood for treason, he decides to confess to his lies to the General. Unfortunately, Ironwood doesn't believe him. Why? Because the idea of an inexperienced 17-year-old with zero combat experience becoming a respected teacher and coming out on top of several altercations is too ridiculous to for him believe.
- Jaune and Neo in Professor Arc: Student of Vacuo deal with Cinder's obvious suspicion of them and their own of her by simply confronting the woman and admitting what they're up to, with an offer of cooperation to secure the Relic. Cinder is distinctly wrong-footed and has to take a few minutes to think it over. She ends up agreeing with both sides fully aware they'll do their best to figure out the other's plans and backstab them the moment they can.
- White Sheep:
- In the backstory, this is what caused the whole AU. Nicholas Arc, a powerful huntsman, managed to survive the Grimm and ended up captured by Salem, the immortal Queen of the Grimm and eternal enemy of all humanity. After she tortured and interrogated him for a few days, she didn't know what else to do with him, so she decided to kill him but offered him a Last Request. He requested to have sex with her. She was so impressed with his audacity that she decided to grant his request... and keep granting it. Twenty-five years later, they have eight children and are a loving family despite the whole "waging war against the entire world" thing.
- Both Nora and Ren manage to convince members of White Fang that they're Faunus despite having no visible traits. Nora claims to be a cow faunus and implies her breasts are her animal traits and that Ren is a sloth faunus whose pink eye and lazy demeanor are his traits. In Menagerie, Ren is made second in command of Sienna's faction this way, including playing off his lack of visible traits by saying it'd "be one ballsy human to walk up to the leader of the White Fang while pretending to be a faunus".
- In the What If? fanfic A Young Girl's Delinquency Record, Tanya is on the run as the world's first international criminal, when, in disguised as Jennifer Ecks, is in in the U.S. There, in a sequence of events caused by a drunken incident, she ends up starring in a supporting role as herself in a film that centers around her actions during the bombing of Arene, which is considered one of the, if not the, worst action in the Great War. The movie ends up being the most successful film of its time and Tanya overshadows her more top billed co-stars. When evidence is released that Tanya is Jennifer Ecks, everyone who saw the film considers it such a poor pseudonym for her to do such a ridiculous thing that they view her role in the movie as nothing more than an open taunt to her Interpol pursers.
- Mortality: Colonel Moran explaining his disobedience to Professor Moriarty. Deliberately invoked at the end of the scene when Moran summons up the colossal audacity to flash a smile.
- Sonic X: Dark Chaos: Maledict secretly controlling the Metarex using an incredibly poor disguise was basically this, and the only reason it worked was that neither Dark Oak nor Tsali could believe that Maledict would be able to pull it off.
- Basically everything Eric the Hedgehog does or says is this. Discovering that Molly and Leon's refugee group are eating their dead? Ask for dessert. Taking on an entire Demon fleet led by Satan himself? Charge in guns blazing and ram Maledict's flagship while blasting the 1812 Overture over coms. Indeed, it's said in-story that the reason he's so dangerous is because he literally has no concept of fear.
- The entire background setting runs on this - among other things, it features space Muslims with mechanical spiders powered by molested girls, literal Space Jews that are basically Nazis, and enough Black Comedy to rival South Park.
- In a Fourth-Wall Mail Slot for the Sonic Villains fan film, Dr. Eggman reveals how he was briefly able to outrun Sonic on foot in some games despite him being a Fat Bastard and Sonic being… well, Sonic: via jiggling his immense girth back and forth like a turbine, Eggman generated enough kinetic energy for himself to escape the blue blur— thus outrunning Sonic because of his fat rather than in spite of it. Even Dark Oak, an armored alien warrior with a considerably low opinion of any organic life that isn't a plant of some kind, admits to being too impressed with Eggman's gambit to be completely repulsed by how it was achieved, and ponders that he might even be jealous of how Eggman took advantage of his "meat sack" body.
- Strange Times Are Upon Us: Ila'kshath's answer to Brokosh complaining about him talking to a 19th-century American boy. (Ila'kshath, a Gorn, was hunting the same deer as the kid, got seen, and said, "Blink, boy—your eyes are stuck!" The kid fainted.)“Who’d believe it? Seriously, think about it—a giant reptile that talks? He’d be laughed out of the room before he got three words out.”
- In-universe subversion in Sibling Revelry: when Darth Vader marches into his throne room and demands that the frozen Han Solo is given to him, Jabba and his entire court mistake the situation for this, and Jabba actually expresses his respect for whoever thought up such a bluff... Then Darth Vader slaughters him with his lightsaber, feeds his body to the Rancor, leaves with Han, and has the palace destroyed via Orbital Bombardment. The only survivor is Lando, who, having recognized him as the real deal, ran away as soon as he recovered from the sheer surrealness of Vader appearing there and making those demands.
- In Wilhuff Tarkin, Hero of the Rebellion, this is something Tarkin does repeatedly:
- Tarkin's personal Rebel army is named Republic Outland Regions Security Force, that is the military that he controlled before the Clone Wars as governor of the Seswenna sector, and his code name is "Moff Night Hammer", featuring his rank and the nickname of his command during the Clone Wars (the 18th Army AKA Night Hammer Command)... And he's still serving as a Moff (and later Grand Moff). And when Mas Amedda confronts him in presence of the Emperor about the mystery Rebel whose name and army invoke him, he flat-out admits everything, much to Palpatine's hilarity as those Rebels have obviously chosen those names to invoke the period the Seswenna sector cleaned itself up from pirates due the Republic's indolence plus including veterans of the old Outland Regions Security Force such as Maarisa Zsinj.
- Tarkin has raised a Stormtroopers legion and the Death Star Troopers corps using Imperial resources and recruits, openly hand-picking the members so he'll be able to turn them into Rebel units at a later date, something he did fairly early with the Death Troopers of his legion. While he's not too open with the Death Star Troopers, the Legion Executrix, aside from a core of Clone Troopers, is chosen entirely from veterans of the Outland Regions Security Force that collectively worship him as a hero and would quickly follow Tarkin in the Rebellion the moment he'd announce his actual allegiance, and got away with it by dressing it up as maintaning their loyalty by honoring their valor.
- The Clonetroopers of Tarkin's legion, that he also plans to subvert, are the 212th Attack Battalion... That is, Obi-Wan Kenobi's personal unit and didn't really believe Obi-Wan had betrayed (they justified executing Order 66 on him by making sure he wouldn't join the Jedi coup). He explained it away by simply wanting an excellent Clonetrooper unit.
- In What You Already Know: Resolutions, SG-1 basically use this to save Alec Colson's reputation after they convince him of the necessity that the Stargate program remains secret following his public display of a mindless Asgard clone. Using an imaging device, they claim that the Colson who made all his proclamations about the existence of aliens was actually a double of Colson who'd undergone extensive plastic surgery and intended to ruin his company by compromising his reputation. General O'Neill in particular compares the plan to Mission: Impossible, and Colonel Carter reflects that they just need to provide general details of the company behind the conspiracy to properly sell it in order to emphasise how it's a mystery who was behind the scheme in the first place.
- In It's All in the Details, as part of the time-travelling Castiel's plan to basically merge with his past self and infiltrate Heaven, Castiel takes Dean to a club called Hell and ‘retrieves’ him from near the club’s toilets so that he can honestly report that he pulled Dean out of the pits of Hell. Castiel explicitly acknowledges that it’s a ridiculous loophole, but it’s easier for him if he doesn’t have to lie that much.
- Brad frequently does this in FREAKIN GENSOKYO. They get up to such ludicrous hijinks that audacity is often the only thing they can take refuge in. Sailing shirtless on a table, flying on a second table propelled by magic plant hangers, weaving a rope out of women's underwear, flailing in the mud in a gravity-destroying space suit; you name it, Brad's done it. Most of the time, his friends just sigh, shake their heads, and get on with their lives.
- In Before The Dawn, when the Cullens arrange to send a large group of vampires after Joham, Rosalie, Emmett, and Alice acquire a large range of motorcycles and arrange a banner displaying "Muscular Dystrophy Association: Ride for the Cure", providing a plausible reason for large numbers of people to be travelling in the same direction while covered up.
- Lampshaded in Gaying to the Mall when Pidge helps Allura escape from Coran's supervision by creating a Body Double out of trash. Pidge thinks the main reason it worked was because no one would expect someone to use a trash double.Allura: Refuge in audacity, hm?
Pidge: Exactly.
