Accomplices by Inaction in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Arc Phantoms: While Yaiba and Hokuto are the ones who belittle Yuya for being a coward's son, the narration notes that Masumi is equally as guilty for not doing anything to stop her friends from being such dicks towards an emotionally broken boy.
- In Cursed Blood, Izuku has a powerful regenerative Quirk. Since this granted him an impressive Healing Factor, Katsuki took his Barbaric Bullying much, much further. The staff at Aldera Middle School were fully aware of this, but turned a blind eye, insisting that "no injuries were found on the alleged victim" so they could keep Katsuki's records squeaky clean. This makes them partly responsible for Katsuki completely losing his grip on reality, as he's used to others agreeing with his delusions.
- Deconstructed in Harry and the Shipgirls when Oliver Wood and the Weasley Twins make comments about "That Time of the Month" when the Chasers get angry during a practice session. Because Harry didn't speak up at all in their defense, they took his silence as him agreeing with the other boys on the Quidditch team. They never considered that Harry might have thought that they had it well in hand, as Harry pointed out when they decided to get their revenge.
- Infinity Train: Blossomverse:
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail:
- When Miss April catches Sara sneering about how Chloe doesn't deserve to have anyone searching for her, and that she hopes she's never found or returns home, she's deeply disappointed in her... and in the rest of her class. Not just for letting Sara's words go largely unchallenged, but for how they contributed to driving Chloe away in the first place.
- Miss April herself is seen as one; while she did try to curtail the bullying, the Professor believes that she didn't try hard enough. It doesn't help that she misjudged one of their bullying tactics; in her eyes, Chloe's classmates talking to her about Pokémon was an improvement, as they were actually including her in conversations. She wasn't aware of how much Chloe hated Pokémon, or that the others were teasing her about this.
- Professor Cerise regards his lab assistant Renji as one after learning that he was actually aware that Chloe was having issues, but chose not to say anything about it, mistakenly assuming that things would work themselves out without intervention.
- Trip accuses Ash of being one as well. While he did attempt to invite Chloe to travel with them, he didn't make any effort to learn why she kept refusing, or try to connect with her in any other ways. Trip considers that lack of investment to be incredibly strange on Ash's part, and Ash himself struggles to figure out why he didn't try as hard with her as he has with other companions in the past.
- In the anime, it's noted that Goh's parents were heavily concerned about Goh not having a social life because he spent all his time in front of his computer searching for Mew. This fanfic shows that they did nothing to help their son at all — preferably to get his ass off his chair to go see Chloe — that contributed to him having very little social skills, sympathy, or emotional intelligence.
- Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily: Lillie sees her brother this way after realizing that much of the drama surrounding the Nihilego incident could have been avoided if Gladion had simply told someone what he witnessed that night. Instead, he took off with Type: Null to train, trying to keep her Locked Out of the Loop... effectively abandoning her for years in the process. Dulce would later turn this around for her; she knew all the time she had problems. So why not tell her mom about them?
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail:
- In A Man of Iron, Tyrion tears a new asshole into Cersei when she tries to defend herself by saying she did nothing when it was precisely that - doing nothing to curb Joffrey's cruelty or work towards a peaceful resolution of the War of the Five Kings - that caused it to happen and also Sansa Stark's death.
- Tanjiro & Kagome: A Taishō-Heisei Friendship: Kagome is furious at Inuyasha for standing by and letting Inosuke beat up Zenitsu rather than intervening, giving him a slap and calling him out on it.
- In Temporal Anomaly, One gets called out on this by Four. When confronted with the fact that was going to allow Zero to murder the other Intoners and hiding everything she knew about the Flower, One tries to justify herself by stating that they would have gotten in the way of her plan to save the world from the Flower due to them Jumping Off the Slippery Slope as a whole, becoming unreliable as a result. Four furiously responds with the fact that One did nothing on her end to try and curb their increasingly horrific behavior or actions, leaving them to rule their respective lands as they saw fit no matter how bad they have gotten, while she herself stayed in Cathedral City the entire time without doing anything about it. One recognizes the truth in her words and apologizes.
- Blackbird (Arrow): Played with in regards to Sara Lance. The premise of the story is that Laurel and Sara's mother Dinah traded Laurel to the League of Assassins in exchange for Sara's freedom. To help absolve herself of the guilt, Dinah coerced a traumatized Sara into letting it happen. Sara came to regret it after the trade was completed and eventually went back on it by telling Oliver the truth when he came home so he could rescue Laurel in her place. The story explores the complexity of the situation; while Dinah is the one mostly at fault, for taking advantage of Sara's shocked state of mind in order to bully her younger daughter into agreeing with the decision, that doesn't change the fact that Sara did, ultimately, choose to let her sister be traded to the League and did nothing to stop their mother. Thus, she's wracked with guilt for the entire story, and both Oliver and Laurel are understandably angry with her, even though they acknowledge it wasn't entirely her fault.
- Foxfire: Jet considers the Gaang to be just as responsible for Li's condition as Azula was, believing that they didn't even bother looking for him.
- In Towards the Sun, Zuko bluntly informs Captain Izumi that he sees her as purely Loyal to the Position, not to him. While Izumi is initially offended, she later realizes that he was right when she doesn't do anything to stop the Agni Kai, even when she realizes that Zuko is having a heart attack right in the middle of the fight.
- Dominoes: The Irregulars repeatedly fail to do anything about Yuusaku's flagrant abuse of his son Shinichi, even after all plausible deniability about them "having no idea" just how bad it is gets utterly destroyed by him subjecting Shinichi to an utterly brutal Breaking Speech right in front of them. This spurs Shinichi to conclude that all of them agree with Yuusaku, including his supposed girlfriend Ran, whom he accuses of sharing his father's views while breaking up with her.
- In Harry's New Home, Snape and Harry start distrusting and in the latter case, outright fearing Dumbledore when they realize it was Dumbledore's fault that no one checked up on Harry and why Sirius never got a trial.
- This is also the treatment of Dumbledore in A Little Light Reading.
- In chapter 54 of Ambience: A Fleet Symphony, Damon executes a mook who, although not a direct perpetrator of a certain evil, did nothing to stop it from happening and can't offer a good reason why.
- For His Own Sake:
- Keitaro calls out Shinobu and Mutsumi for this while confronting all of the Hinata Girls over how they treated him. While neither one ever attacked him themselves, they never spoke out or defended him against any of the other girls' Unprovoked Pervert Paybacks. Even when they knew said accusations were completely unfounded.
- This is used to set the pair up as Foils, as well as foreshadowing their respective narrative arcs: Shinobu recognizes her own culpability and gets upset with herself for being such an Extreme Doormat, while Mutsumi weakly insists that "that's just how Naru and Motoko are" and that Keitaro should stop "dwelling on the past". Shinobu subsequently goes on to grow a spine and learn how to stand up for herself, while Mutsumi doubles down and becomes obsessed with getting Keitaro and Naru back together, ignoring how neither one of them wants that.
- When Shinobu calls her out on her selfish, It's All About Me attitude, Naru prepares to subject her to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown while Motoko stands back, coldly watching. Fortunately, Haruka intervenes, but it still drives home how both of her self-appointed defenders were just Fair-Weather Friends.
- Ultimately, Shinobu grows out of being an accomplice by inaction, confronting her bad behavior, and deciding to correct it. She decides to move out of the Hinata House to live with her aunt and call out the girls for their treatment of Keitaro and for them to expect her to just side with them and use them as an excuse to abuse Keitaro. Shinobu eventually genuinely apologizes to Keitaro for never standing up for him and promises to stand up for him from now on. Because Shinobu genuinely apologizes and shows that she's willing to stand up for Keitaro, she earns back Keitaro's trust and friendship, and she ultimately ends up in a better place than she was back in the Hinata House, where she was surrounded by fake friends who used her as an excuse to abuse her genuine friend Keitaro and grew into a strong young woman willing to stand up for her loved ones.
- Keitaro calls out Shinobu and Mutsumi for this while confronting all of the Hinata Girls over how they treated him. While neither one ever attacked him themselves, they never spoke out or defended him against any of the other girls' Unprovoked Pervert Paybacks. Even when they knew said accusations were completely unfounded.
- Burning Bridges, Building Confidence:
- Adrien is well aware that Lila is a Consummate Liar, but decides to stand by and let her turn the rest of the class against Marinette through Malicious Slander. Even worse, he attempts to convince Marinette that it's her fault for standing up for herself rather than "taking the high road" like him. When Cole and the rest of her new Girl Posse find out, they're understandably furious and accuse him of this.
- Adelaide's thoughts in The Night After make clear that she sees Principal Damocles as one. While he does act after Alya assaulted her daughter and punishes Ms. Bustier for her attempt to victim-blame Cole for the attack, he's only doing so for fear of facing legal recourse (which ultimately doesn't work since Adelaide still ends up suing the school), since he allowed the ableist bullying against Cole to go on completely unaddressed until circumstances ensured he couldn't ignore it anymore.
- I See What You Do Behind Closed Doors features Lila thanking Adrien profusely for enabling her to deceive the whole class for so long.Lila: For someone who knew all about me, he was the best accomplice I'd ever had.
Rose: What!? IS THIS TRUE?!?!
Adrien: Huh? No, of course not! Why would I—
Lila: Oh, Adrien, don't be ridiculous! You're the one who told Marinette to stop trying to expose me in order to keep the peace! Surely you remember the spiel, 'hurting the villain never made them a better person'! Inspirational, truly. - This is why Marinette considers Adrien to be completely unforgivable in i'll come back like a boomerang
. Unlike the rest of their class, he knew that Lila was lying and manipulating everyone, but despite claiming that he'd support Marinette, he proceeded to stand by and let her get bullied for trying to warn everyone. Making matters worse, when the truth finally comes out, he arrogantly declares that there's nothing to forgive in his case: since he knew all along, she can't POSSIBLY be mad at him for being fooled, right? - The Karma of Lies:
- Adrien is fully aware of Lila's true nature; however, he doesn't want to deal with the potential drama of being the one exposing her to everyone. So he sits back and lets her do as she pleases, manipulating his classmates and increasingly isolating Marinette. This causes the karmic backlash Lila's accumulating to splash onto him as well, considering him to be just as responsible for the harm she's caused.
- Lila also exploits this, knowing that contrary to what Adrien believes, the others won't easily forgive her for what she's done... and if they learn he knew all along and never warned them, they'll hold him responsible as well.
- Leave for Mendeleiev uses this to compare and contrast Kim and Nino. Both failed to help Marinette out against her long-time bully Chloé; Kim was nursing a crush on the Rich Bitch while Nino feared personal retaliation. While Kim comes to realize his mistake and tries to make amends, Nino blames Marinette for not standing up for herself, straining their relationship further until she questions whether Nino was anything more than a Fair-Weather Friend.
- Marinette's Week Off: While Adrien never directly participated in any of the social isolation or outright bullying Marinette and her friends faced, he also never intervened on their behalf. Even though one of the victims of this campaign was his Childhood Friend Chloé. As she puts it in the sequel:Chloé: He wanted to take the high road and side with the liar, it's time he learned where that road took him.
- One step backwards and Three forwards: Felix Agreste combines this with I Hate Past Me, as he's a Literal Split Personality-slash-Decomposite Character who became the new Adrien's older brother while retaining all of the original Adrien's memories from the previous reality. He holds himself personally responsible for Hawkmoth's victory, as not only did he tend towards passivity and inaction, he chose not to warn Ladybug about some critical information he'd discovered.
- The One to Make It Stay: Nino didn't help Alya film Chat's Love Confession. Nor did he agree with her plan to edit the footage to make it look like Ladybug reciprocated and post the results on her blog. In fact, he was made rather uncomfortable by the whole thing. But rather than sharing his concerns, he stayed silent, standing aside and letting her do it. As a result, when Ladybug sidelines Rena Rouge for the summer, she decides to bench Carapace as well. Notably, Nino takes the news better than Alya; while not happy about it, he recognizes the point Ladybug's making.
- Rate This (Trust is Hard to Come By): Adrien's refsual to do anything about Lila or about his classmates Cyberbullying Marinette results in him losing her trust... which gets exposed to the whole world when an akuma's power translates this in a numerical rating and warning labels. On a scale of 1 to 100, he comes in at a 14, and is labeled a Dirty Coward who's both spineless and pushy — perfectly willing to lecture victims about how they're in the wrong, but an Extreme Doormat otherwise.
- Scarlet Lady:
- In "Zombizou", Marinette reaches her Rage Breaking Point and calls out Mme. Bustier on her refusal to ever punish Chloé for her bullying, as she prefers to passive-aggressively pressure the victims into forgiving their abusers instead.Marinette: All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. And you did nothing, Mme. Bustier.
- After the titular akuma is dealt with, the rest of the class collectively admits that they're also sick and tired of her passively enabling the Spoiled Brat. Save for Chloé herself, who buys her a late birthday present as a reward for her blatant favoritism.
- Sabrina also notes that Bustier has known for years that Chloé was forcing her to do all her homework for her, but stood by and let it happen.
- In "Zombizou", Marinette reaches her Rage Breaking Point and calls out Mme. Bustier on her refusal to ever punish Chloé for her bullying, as she prefers to passive-aggressively pressure the victims into forgiving their abusers instead.
- While only a handful of Marinette's classmates help Alya and Lila rip apart her sketchbook in to lose someone, the rest of them stood aside and let it happen. Marinette also specifically calls out fellow artist Nathaniel not just for letting them ruin her work, but for never commenting on how none of them ever paid her for her efforts on their behalf.
- The Wolves in the Woods:
- It doesn't escape Ms. Bustier's notice when most of the class turns against Marinette. Yet she intentionally turns a blind eye, ignoring it even when they start tripping Marinette and shoving her around right in front of her. Why? Because she hopes this will encourage her "star student" to become an Extreme Doormat. And when this instead leads to Marinette transferring to another school to escape the torment, she spitefully reveals that it's her last day, fully expecting this to turn her bullies into an angry mob.
- Adrien is just as intent on Blaming the Victim as their teacher. As far as he's concerned, Marinette brought all of this upon herself by trying to expose that Lila was lying to everyone. At one point, he witnesses Kim and Alix subjecting Marinette to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown... and calmly turns his back and walks away.
- Ironically, this is Downplayed by Lila herself. While she hadn't expected the class to turn so viciously upon Marinette, she hesitates about trying to stop it herself, repeatedly asking Ms. Bustier to intervene only to see that their teacher isn't interested in doing so. When Ms. Bustier announces Marinette's transfer, however, Lila takes it upon herself to try and distract the mob, buying time for her to escape, proceeding to go through a Heel Realization and start making efforts to repair some of the damage she's done.
- It's Over, Isn't It (it's only just begun): Kurogiri believes that he's left his criminal past behind him after All For One's demise, running a bar that he treats as a neutral space, only intervening when he notices things he dislikes, such as kicking bar brawlers out or ejecting anyone he catches tampering with drinks. Fiver, however, challenges his supposed neutrality, calling him out for everything he doesn't intervene with, such as Giran's shady dealings.Fiver: What the fuck are you actually doing, Kurogiri? You think you're staying out of it, when you let scum like Giran work your bar? Get bent. You’re not neutral, you just roll over for whoever's already winning.
- Midoriya, Plus Three-Sixty-Five: During their trip to the USJ, several of Izuku's classmates decide to play a cruel prank on him, luring him into an improvised and involuntary bungee diving session. Aizawa is ready to expel the whole class save for him in one fell swoop afterwards since the majority stood by and allowed it to happen.
- see it all in bloom: will i ever be more than i've always been has Bakugou confront his former principal, calling him out on how he allowed him to be a Barbaric Bully, terrorizing Izuku and his other classmates while the teachers and staff at Aldera did nothing to stop them.
- Witness (Good Neighbors) has Mortar and other members of Endeavor's agency who are well aware of how he treats his son, but choose not to intervene. Shouto knows this, and his thoughts make clear that he resents their refusal to act.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Bitter Tears: An Anon-A-Miss Fic:
- Sunset accuses Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna of not doing anything about the Anon-A-Miss situation because they wrongly assumed that she was the culprit, and were letting the students punish her for what happened at the Fall Formal. While this isn't true, both admit to themselves that they severely underestimated how bad cyberbullying could be, since they hadn't had to deal with it while growing up, and that a lot of pain and suffering could have been avoided if they'd intervened sooner.
- Flash Sentry didn't believe that Sunset was Anon-A-Miss, and didn't participate in any of the punishment others were inflicting upon her. But he didn't go out of his way to help her, either, much to his regret. He attempts to make up for this by encouraging Sunset to stop bottling up her anger, offering himself up as a potential target for her rage. This results in her breaking a mirror instead, injuring herself badly enough while venting that she has to be rushed to the hospital.
- RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: IS THERE A SINGLE HONEST PONY AMONGST YOU?! The answer is "no" as, while not every member of Luna's Night Court engaged in corrupt practices during their tenure, the ones who didn't instead witnessed one of the former acts and did nothing. Excuses be damned — they couldn't prove it, nopony would believe them, they'd be silenced if they tried to come forward — they didn't even try to do the right thing, and to Luna that made them just as culpable.
- Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison: Unlike Iruka, Kakashi doesn't say a word when Sasuke cruelly berates Sakura in front of him, even when Sasuke declares that the civilian-born Sakura will never be anything more than a 'paper chuunin' at best... or outright Cannon Fodder. This convinces her that Kakashi agrees with everything her teammate said, and that he considers her just as disposable. It certainly doesn't help that Kakashi outright encourages Sasuke to be resentful of her by taunting him with her successes rather than praising her, or that he expects her to act calmer and more mature than the boys and keep the pair in line without losing her temper with them.
- New Game Plus: Luffy incorporates this into his Breaking Speech to Garp, pointing out that no matter how well he toed the line, the World Government would eventually turn on him for being Dragon's son. And that could lead to them targeting anyone whom they deemed to have had a hand in Luffy surviving to this point, such as attacking Dadan and Foosha for not lynching a child.
- Null: After learning that Pietro Polendina deliberately kept him in the dark regarding a massive security risk that was involved in Penny's creation, Ironwood furiously accuses him of this, declaring that Pietro is directly responsible for all of the carnage that Penny herself unleashed in Vale, along with all the carnage from Jaune's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- In I'm Here to Help, Pluto sets off the entire plot by standing by and letting Emerald escape to the past.
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong
- SV Wishes: Shen Qingqiu is mistreated and neglected by servants despite serving as Yue Qingyuan's sole spouse for a decade and still high ranking as Second Husband. Does Yue Qingyuan actually intervene on his long-time spouse's behalf? Nope. Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge's opinions of the Lord of the Household sink once they realize this. Luo Binghe justifiably worries about Shen Qingqiu's condition when they are separated because he knows Yue Qingyuan won't think to help him.
- In Suffer, Butch blames Finn for not being able to prevent Hutch's death, despite how Hutch chose to fall himself.
- In With This Ring, Orange Lantern is infuriated that the Justice League lets Nabu possess Zatara without concern for Zatara himself or considering that Zatara's consent was meaningless due to being blackmailed by Nabu holding Zatanna hostage. Especially when Paul and Zatanna had to find out from the news they let Nabu into the Justice League.
- Kingdom From the Ashes, Rise: Reiji holds himself responsible for Yuya developing his Sad Clown demeanor and how the You Show Duel School fell into decline, as he never told Yuya the truth about what happened three years ago.
- A Mother's Touch: Sylvio is mostly to blame for the duel that nearly killed four students (his Action Duel put them on the spire of a tower), but Yoko hastily points out that Reiji watching the duel could've stopped it, or Sylvio's kiss-up squad (who was watching from afar) could have warned Sylvio of the consequences. Yoko is not amused to hear the LDS people whine and complain but not do anything about it.Yoko: (when Mamabe pins the blame of Sylvio too focused on winning) Well, what about you? You egged him on! You told him to keep focusing on Yuya and not care about the consequences! Why didn't any of you ask Sylvio to stop? Did you not hear them screaming for help or how they were seconds away from falling to their dooms? Why didn’t you try to help? Or were the three of you blind to the children of butchers, marine biologists, and engineers? Are all of us poor and middle class people the same in your eyes?
