Defusing The Tykebomb in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Child of the Storm has Gambit, of all people, eventually perform the majority of this on Maddie Pryor in the sequel. Initially, since he was under Sinister's thumb and she was Sinister's enforcer, he intended to seduce her into giving him the means to escape (she was aware, but went along with it because no one had even pretended to care for her before that). However, once he saw the confused, manipulated, and psychologically broken young woman she really was, his intentions changed and he steadily deprogrammed her, encouraging her to assert her individuality. The final push is provided by Harry, who saw much the same thing, and both helped her recover and gain some measure of normality after her Heel–Face Turn. Ultimately, though, she's the one who makes the choice, deciding that I Am Not a Gun.
- Children of an Elder God: After losing her parents and becoming a NERV's puppet, Asuka met a decent foster mother who defused her and helped her to become a better person. Several years later she helped Shinji to find a better reason to keep living. At the same time, Rei's friends tried to defuse her, but they weren't quite successful.
- Last Child of Krypton: Shinji showed Asuka that she didn't need to be an Eva pilot to be special, valued or loved. By the time she's unable to synch with her Eva, she doesn't care for it anymore because Shinji loves her and she has super-powers.
- Two examples in Thousand Shinji:
- Shinji realized early on that Gendo had raised Rei to be his puppet because she played a crucial role in his father's plans, so he worked hard to break her out of that mindset and earn her loyalty.
- After meeting Asuka, he did the same thing to her.
- Fell Horizon: Queen Lumera did this to Alear after adopting her. Her kindness and motherly love end up earning her Alear's loyalty, and she's one of the few people she still acts pleasant to after waking from her Deep Sleep.
- In Chasing the Shadow, Naruto uses this on Gaara in an attempt to undo the damage from Shukaku's influence. To his credit, it works.
- Advice and Trust:
- When Shinji and Asuka realize that Gendo has raised Rei as his obedient puppet, they decide to befriend her and cut her strings because they really hate Gendo and they really care about Rei.
- Shinji and Asuka to each other. After realizing that they are traumatized orphans and child soldiers during their mutual love confession, they start to lean on each other, improving their mental instability.
- In Doing It Right This Time, Asuka, upon arriving in the past, makes it a point to include doing this to Rei in her plans for the do-over. However, Rei has already managed to defuse herself by this point, due to also having traveled back in time.
- In Ghosts of Evangelion Misato finally sees that Shinji and Asuka get counsel and therapy after returning from Instrumentality.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide: Asuka was trained by NERV since she was four to be a mecha pilot, ignoring that she was considered an easily replaceable pawn until she was discarded and abandoned. Shinji spent a long time trying to fix the damage done to her mind and convincing her that he cared about her and would not leave her.
- In Once More With Feeling (Crazy-88), one of the main goals of Shinji is undoing the damaged inflicted upon Rei and Asuka's psyches by NERV, so he spends a long while showing Rei that she's an individual unique and proving Asuka that piloting Eva isn't everything that she has.
- In The Second Try, Shinji and Asuka defused each other after Third Impact, helping mutually with their psychological issues. When they went back to the past, defusing Rei was one of their main goals. Thanks to them -and mainly Aki- Rei managed to reclaim her lost humanity.
- Relic Of The Future: After traveling 10 years back in time from a Bad Future, a twenty-something Jaune almost gets pickpocketed by a much younger version of Emerald Sustrai, who at this point in the timeline is still a malnourished street urchin struggling to survive on her own instead of Cinder Fall's terrorist enforcer. Recognizing her, Jaune seriously considers killing Emerald to prevent Cinder from ever using her to cause the Fall of Beacon and other atrocities in the future, then upon realizing that he's thinking of murdering a child who hasn't committed any of those crimes yet, he instead takes Emerald in in an impulsive gambit to prevent Cinder from ever recruiting her, leading to him becoming her adoptive father. It pays off, as Emerald latches onto Jaune as her singular pillar of support in the same way she did to Cinder in canon, and Jaune gradually grows comfortable with calling Emerald his daughter; treating her like his child and reciprocating her devotion to him, where Cinder in canon only saw Emerald as an instrument. That being said, Emerald still exhibits a lot of Troubling Unchildlike Behavior and some emotional development issues on account of her awful start to life before being adopted, even with Summer Rose and her family adding more positive influences to Emerald's upbringing.
- Bird features this trope heavily in Taylor's efforts to make friends in Alchemilla asylum. She starts with Burnscar and works from there. It helps that her powers allow her to perceive the true natures of characters that might seem too violent or dangerous to be worth the effort otherwise.
