Time where somebody decides that Honesty Is the Best Policy and that telling the truth won't ruin their plans in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- In The Baleful Bureau, Jesse recognizes that the Baudelaires are highly resourceful and inquisitive children, so she explicitly warns them that some of the things she handles are classified and can't be shared.
- Dawn Comes on the Sunset Sea: Upon learning that several CAN councilors intend to blackmail Eddard regarding the matter of Jon's parentage, Aurora immediately marches right up to Eddard and informs him of the scheme. He's naturally outraged, but makes clear that said outrage isn't misplaced, thanking her for her honesty.
- Mythos Effect: Averted by the Turians. A far-right group presents a proposal to ramp up the pressure on their client states to draconian levels; the proposal is tossed out, but the group launches an Extranet campaign painting themselves as much more reasonable. One of the Turian negotiators then confesses everything to the Volus ambassador, hoping to invoke this trope... only for this incident to serve as The Last Straw for the ambassador, who throws his support towards a cabal working to sever the relationship between their races.
- Deconstructed in Rick and The Loud House. Following their visit to Dr. Lopez, the Louds decide to start being more honest with each other. But in "Toxicity in the Family", Lincoln goes overboard with this, revealing various secrets that his sisters have been keeping from each other, leading to a massive blow-out fight.
- In Foxfire, Li makes a point of being as honest and upfront with his feelings as possible, to the point that he's outright incapable of lying. This works in his favor when he admits to Jet that he's an amnesiac firebender, as Jet already knows by that point that Li is excessively honest and has no reason to lie to him.
- Throughout Kaien's Fate, Aizen's Experiment and Ichigo's Sister, Kirika repeatedly advocates that Ichigo should be informed of what's going on rather than being kept Locked Out of the Loop. Unfortunately, she's repeatedly outvoted.
- The protagonist of Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns can somehow pull this off even when he's setting up plan after plan plus a Zero-Approval Gambit on the side. He also manages to make people believe whatever he wants, like Trian being dead when he isn't yet still avoids lying by phrasing his words as questions and hypotheses. That said, every one of his direct statements can qualify as Brutal Honesty.
- In Franklin Lost Episode: Otter's Sickness, Franklin's parents decide to be entirely honest with their son about what's going on with Otter. Unfortunately, Otter didn't feel the same way, having tried to keep the Awful Truth from him for fear of upsetting him. He doesn't take the revelation well.
- Three Can Keep a Secret explores this in various ways:
- Many of the residents of Gravity Falls have struggled to deal with the impact of Weirdmageddon, since they're both unable and unwilling to talk about everything that happened. This lack of support from those outside the town has left them even more screwed up as a result.
- By contrast, Dipper and his friends are much more open with each other, relying upon the acceptance and forgiveness of their peers, enabling them to cope far better than most of the town's residents.
- Mabel defies this; she doesn't understand why anyone would want to confide their problems in others, convinced that doing so would only make things hurt more. Worse yet, she's sincerely convinced that being honest would just make others hate her more. This makes her the least mentally stable and most self-destructive member of the Pines, though she's in denial about just how bad things are.
- Also Played With in that the Pines are a family of Combat Pragmatists and Con Artists who regularly employ deception against their enemies. The problem is that both Stan and Mabel fell into the trap of treating everyone as marks they needed to deceive and manipulate in order to come out on top, including their friends and family. Stan learned the hard way that this only leaves you isolated in the long run, while Mabel is in the painful process of finding that out for herself.
- Dangerverse: Luna manages to pull this off despite her reputation for being a Cloudcuckoolander.
- In Hiccup the Useless, when the Hooligan Tribe's idea of pretending that Snotlout was the hero of Berk goes horribly wrong, Hiccup comes up with the idea of being honest with Chief Mogadon instead. He cites the consequences of him keeping Toothless a secret from Stoick and them collectively keeping their dragons a secret from Dagur as proof that keeping secrets will only make things worse. Not only that, but by showing that everyone knows how to tame dragons on Berk, it would lower Hiccup's "value" and thus make it less likely that Mogadon will "collect" him. He was right.
- Played With in The Karma of Lies: After Lila steals from him, Adrien assumes that all he needs to do is be perfectly honest and tell the police everything. That will fix everything, right? Problem is, however, that up to this point, Adrien has been anything but honest - he knew Lila was a Con Artist the whole time, but chose not to say or do anything about it before that point because HE hadn't been personally affected yet. And he blithely admits this to the police without a single thought as to how they might interpret that. So his previous dishonesty undercuts the effectiveness of his decision to finally tell the truth, making it look entirely self-serving. (Which it is, but not in the way the police believe.)
- Scarlet Lady:
- "The Mime" has a subplot wherein Marinette works herself into a tizzy after accidentally deleting a video from Alya's cellphone, desperately trying to figure out some way to recover it. When she finally admits what happened, Alya reveals that all of her videos get automatically uploaded to her cloud; she's only upset that her bestie wound up beating herself up over a nonissue.
- When all of the kwami plan to meet up, Tikki and Plagg both decide to sneak away from their partners. Pollen, by contrast, lets Marinette know what's going on. Not only is Marinette totally okay with this, she makes a bunch of gifts for her to take and give the other kwami.
- Crimson and Emerald:
- Hawks strives to be as honest as possible in both his private and personal life, and refuses to steal the credit for others' work even when pressured to do so. He willingly reveals his Dark and Troubled Past to Toshinori and the Midoriyas, and tells Mirko about his new family relations, only hesitating when it comes to the matter of explaining Izuku's Quirk... and even then, he's waiting for the right moment.
- Izuku tells Rumi and his fellow interns the truth about his Quirk and villainous father in order to prevent any cases of Poor Communication Kills.
- For Their Sakes: Hawks believes in this, trying to convince the Voices to tell him about upcoming events so he can pass on warnings to the other heroes. They refuse, afraid that doing so could catch the attention of the wrong people, like All For One or the Hero Commission. After they discover that Hawks can use Orange's Quirk, telling the truth becomes even less appealing, as they realize what kind of conclusions others might draw from that.
- A Leaf of the Tree: After Team 24's first C-Rank mission, Hoheto tells his genin not to leave any details out of their report. This includes admitting that he Failed a Spot Check when they were ambushed due to not having his Byakugan activated.
- In Thanks Kyubey, Kyubey is a much more benevolent Mentor Mascot, and is extremely upfront with the girls about how being a magical girl works. This includes holding an Empty Chair Memorial to remember Charlotte after her witch form is defeated.
- White Sheep:
- When Sienna Khan, leader of a violent Faunus militia group, asks Ren why they should work together, he bluntly admits that they have few common goals, no common motives, and even use entirely different means to accomplish their goals. But the only other option is the Radical faction, who were plenty crazy even before they became a cult worshiping a spiteful asshole. Sienna accepts this, and agrees to work with them.
- Sienna specifically interrogates Ilia, who was recently one of Adam's trusted lieutenants, on why she's planning to side with Sienna rather than Adam's cult. Instead of arguing morality or love or any of her myriad other motivations, Ilia says simply "Adam got eaten by a dragon. I don't want to be eaten by a dragon." Sienna snorts and says she's heard worse reasons.
- Yang talks to the God of Darkness about how the God of Light has been screwing him over for as long as the world has existed, asking him to put in half the work and then letting him get shuffled off into the Grimmlands where no worshipers would ever come visit. The God of Light was worshiped and adored, while the God of Darkness was shunned and feared. The God of Darkness accuses her of trying to make him attack the God of Light—and Yang says yes, that's exactly right. But that doesn't mean she's wrong. In the end, she does convince the God of Darkness to fight the God of Light, and after he wins they dedicate a yearly festival in his honor.
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong
- Reflected in Shadow: Shen Qingqiu decides to tell Bingge the truth about himself, which fascinates the other man.
- Purple Days: In the Final Loop, Sansa decides to go straight to their parents and reveal what they know about the futre. This turns out to be an excellent move, as it helps ensure the Hand becomes well aware of the looming threat and are entirely willing to work with them. Later remarks also imply that several of Joff's confidants, including Tyrion, have become aware of Joff and Sansa's history of looping.
- In Eros Turannos, this attitude highlights Firmus Piett's policy in dealing with his superiors, to the extent that he admits his doubts about his suitability for a promotion even when he was offered the position by Darth Vader in person because he recognises his potential inexperience in this area, even when angering Vader is regarded as a bad idea (Vader, however, appreciates Piett's honesty and promotes him regardless).
- Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns: During her confrontation with Darth Vader, Leia decides to be as honest as possible with him, since he'd be able to sense if she was lying. Subverted, however, when Poor Communication Kills strikes and long-standing resentments bubble to the surface.
