Obviously Not Fine

And we all know what "F.I.N.E." stands for...

Elie: Tio?! The sun makes it hard to see, but your face... It's so pale!
Tio: I told you, I am fine. I just feel a bit unwell, is all.
Randy: Uh, no... Feeling unwell means you're NOT fine.

— The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero

This trope is when a character lies that they're "fine", "okay", etc., and yet there's absolutely no way anyone with a functioning brain could believe them.

Maybe they're bawling their eyes out, maybe they're visibly injured (see I Can Still Fight! and Major Injury Underreaction) or sick (see Definitely Just a Cold), drunk, or whatever, but it's clear they're not fine.

There are several reasons why they might be lying—they might not want to be excluded from something that they would be if someone knew they were sick/injured/drunk/whatever, or they might not want other people to worry, or maybe they're a Stepford Smiler who's terrible at hiding their real emotions, or the reason they're not OK has to be kept secret. They could also be trying to convince themselves that they're fine as well as the person they're speaking to.

In the cases of crying, they might blame it on Sand In My Eyes or try to pretend it's Tears of Joy when it clearly isn't. Claiming that they're "just tired" is a common excuse for any out-of-whack behaviour, but if they really are tired, and it's obvious, expect them to deny that. They might also claim they're just hungry or thirsty, even though their symptoms are not those of hunger or thirst. If the lie has "Do I look X to you?" as its format, someone might respond in the affirmative, perhaps with a Blunt "Yes". Depending on the way they respond, it could lead to I Resemble That Remark!.

Sub-trope of Blatant Lies. Compare and contrast I'm Okay!, for when they really are okay but if not for the Rule of Funny, they definitely wouldn't be. If someone is obviously not fine based on what we know, but it's plausible deniability to the other characters, that's Dramatic Irony. If they act as though they are truly fine, see Dissonant Serenity. If they got shot, and really are fine but shouldn't be because the writer got a fact wrong, that's Only a Flesh Wound. If they truly think they're fine, only to instantly become obviously not fine, that's a variation on Instantly Proven Wrong. If it's the narrator who claims the character is fine when they're obviously not, that's an Unreliable Narrator. See also Lying to Protect Your Feelings, Major Injury Underreaction, and Implausible Deniability.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Kaiju Girl Caramelise: During a field trip, Kuroe and Rairi run into Yuu Okada, the boy Rairi once liked and who knew her before she started disguising her gorilla face. Rairi runs off when it's clear Okada doesn't recognize her now, and she is seen frantically eating, loudly expressing relief over Okada being in the dark, and swinging from a tree branch while making monkey noises. Kuroe can see Rairi is doing poorly even when the latter insists she's fine.
• My Hero Academia: This is part of Izuku "Deku" Midoriya's Chronic Hero Syndrome, and it only pops up more and more often in the story. It then comes to a head during the Dark Hero Arc, where becoming a hero-vigilante and doubling down on this mindset worsens Midoriya's already-weakening physical and emotional health. It takes all the efforts of his friends from Class 1-A (led by The Rival) to get him to realize he doesn't have to fight alone, but it remains to be seen whether this remains an ongoing flaw in Midoriya's heroism.
• In The Summer You Were There, as Shizuku is on her way to apologize to Ruri, the girl Shizuku bullied in elementary school, Shizuku is so overwhelmed with stress that she's practically ill. When Kaori notices and becomes concerned, Shizuku says she's fine, but Kaori says, "You're not okay!" and insists that Shizuku rest for a while. Kaori considers cancelling the meeting, but Shizuku insists on going.

Comic Books

• In a My Little Pony: Friends Forever comic, Spike tells Zecora that she is infected with the apparent disease that's been going around, and she replies that she's "healthy as a wolf", even though she has gotten spots and hypno-eyes.
• The Legion of Super-Heroes!: Superboy undergoes a trial to join the titular team, but he is defeated and humiliated three times. Even though the Legionnaires' laughs and taunts are hurting him, Superboy decides to try to smile and pretend he is not at all hurt...but he sheds tears as soon as he turns away.
• In Teen Titans: Earth One, Cyborg keeps insisting that he's fine, even as it's clear that he's in pain from the cybernetic implants taking over his body. Later, he says he actually is fine... because the implants have taken over so much of his body that he now longer has any pain receptors.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Pretending you're okay when you are absolutely, positively not okay is practically the #1 sport on the Lost Light. Whether it's Cyclonus insisting that he's dealing well the downs in his relationship with Tailgate, Chromedome coping (read: not coping) with the temporary loss of Rewind, or the entirety of Team Rodimus doping themselves up with mood suppressors to avoid processing Skids's death, you can likely grab an issue at random and someone will be trying to fake it 'til they make it with mental health, and generally failing.
• The Ultimates (2015): One issue has America flashing back to a conversation with her girlfriend, insisting she's fine. Her girlfriend realises this is obvious crap and tries getting her to admit it. She does succeed, but America admits having been adventuring since she was six, she has a hard time asking others for help.
• Understanding Comics: In Making Comics, in the chapter on expressions, the author mentions in one panel that readers will notice small changes of expression in comic characters. He shows a hypothetical scene where a girl snidely asks another girl if she's okay. The other girl, who clearly looks exhausted or depressed, and isn't making eye contact with the first girl, says "Yeah, I'm fine."
• When the Wind Blows (and its animated adaptation) is about an elderly British couple who are convinced that dealing with WWIII will be just like their romanticized memories of the Blitz during WWII. After they survive a nuclear bomb drop, the husband continues to offer increasingly strained reassurances and rationalizations of the difficulties they are facing, even as their situation deteriorates, and they slowly die of radiation poisoning. It reaches the point where, after his wife points out that her hair is coming out in clumps, he tells her that that can't be happening, because women can't go bald.

Fan Works

• The Animorphs fanfic Akira is about Jake being too stubborn to admit that he needs help. He insists that he's fine while sneezing and morphing uncontrollably.
• In the Gravity Falls fanfic All The World's a Toybox the Outer God Nyarlathotep is informed that he helped Dipper and Mabel defeat Bill Cipher for nothing: back in his home dimension, Azathoth is going to wake up and destroy his universe, destroying all of Nyarlathotep's hard work. After completely losing his temper, Nyarlathotep abruptly calms down and turns Graceful Loser, claiming to be perfectly fine with how things turned out. However, the Twitchy Eye indicates that he's anything but happy. The epilogue confirms it.
• In Forgive an Old Man Harry is lethargic and depressed after Sirius' death.
  Harry: I'm fine!
  Dumbledore: Dear boy, forgive me for seeming unwavering, but if I were to find you with six broken bones, multiple lacerations, and on fire I would still be met with the same response.
• The Pokémon fanfic LindenCafe opens with protagonist Naota claiming to be fine to work their shift at the cafe today, despite obviously being so nervous they can barely see straight.
  In this world, some people are so gullible, you could tell them "Hey, I just saw a Mew hiding underneath a truck out by the docks," and they'd run off to go look; they wouldn't even stop for a second to consider you might be lying. Not even these people would be fooled by Naota's lie right now.
• No stars in sight: At the end of Chapter 9, Indilic and his Psions bring a clearly wounded Ikharos to Formora and ask for her help in healing him. Ikharos weakly insists that he's fine despite the visible hole in his chest.
• In The Loud House fanfiction Nolan's Birthday, Leni lies that she isn't nervous despite her obviously nervous behaviour, plus she specifically denies not knowing what to give her boyfriend for his birthday.
• Vow of Nudity: When Rhataq gets infected with rot after a mummy ambush, she refuses to abandon the mission and seek medical help despite Ni-bast's warnings, plus the wound stubbornly refusing to heal.

Films — Animation

• In Beauty and the Beast, Chip claims not to be sleepy to try to get a later bedtime, despite having trouble keeping his eyes open.
• Encanto: Even as Casita is visibly cracking, Pepa has caused a rainstorm inside the house, the family pours out the door in a chaotic mess, and Mariano dashes through the crowd with a broken nose, Alma stands at the door and fervently insists to the concerned townspeople that "The magic is strong! Everything is fine!"
• Frozen Fever: Zigzagged. Elsa has a cold and claims she's actually fine, and while she is sneezing, it's still plausible deniability because it seems to be around springtime. However, later she becomes more obviously sick... but by then, she seems kind of "not all there", so she may actually believe she's fine.
• In Frozen II, Anna again sees that Elsa is distressed and not "just tired" as she claims when she heads to bed after their charades game.
• Hades in Hercules has a by-now memetic example, where he's literally Burning with Anger, only to abruptly stop and claim he's fine while smoothing his fire-hair down.
• NIMONA (2023): Ambrosius Goldenloin does not cope well with having to hunt down his comrade and former lover Ballister Boldheart. As such, when the Director asks him what's on his mind, Ambrosius responds with an increasingly hysterical rant over his conflicting loyalty to Ballister and the Institute, to the point of having a screaming meltdown over chopping off Ballister's arm... only for the camera to suddenly cut to Ambrosius staring despondently out the window as he was at the start of the rant, revealing that the entire monologue was in his imagination. Instead, Ambrosius quietly remarks, "I'm fine, Director," while looking anything but.
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: When Gwen's band-members in the MJs try asking her about her bad mood (brought on by the stress of her secret identity), she says she's fine. They retort that people who are actually fine generally tend to say it in a more upbeat way.
• One of Wallace's catchphrases in Wallace & Gromit is "Everything's under control," which is almost always said when nothing is under control.
• Zootopia has this as a Running Gag with Judy Hopps, who keeps saying that she is fine, even though her mom can tell that she isn't because her ears are down.

Films — Live-Action

• In Apollo 13, Fred Haise, one of the crew, gets sick. The medical team in Houston inform mission control that he's running a 104 degree fever, and he looks increasingly haggard over the course of the film, but whenever his crewmates ask how he's doing, he brushes them off with "I'm fine"... until near the end of the mission, when he starts to say it again, but changes it to "I'm freezing", resulting in a hug to warm him up.
• In Avengers: Infinity War, Thor witnesses Thanos killing half of his people, including his brother and his best friend, on top of the fact in the last week having lost his father, his prized hammer, an eye, and his entire planet. He is so driven by revenge that he later fails to kill Thanos in time, resulting in the death of half of all life in the entire universe. An attempt by the Avengers to reverse the snap at the beginning of Avengers: Endgame is futile. When we see Thor again later, he has become an overweight alcoholic, who spends his days playing video games in his messy house. He also has put on a jolly personality to mask his pain and his feelings of guilt, but when Bruce and Rocket visit him they naturally see right through it.
  Bruce: Buddy, you all right?
  Thor: Yes, I'm fine! Why, don't I look all right?
  Rocket: You look like melted ice cream.
• In Elf, when Buddy is in shock after finding out he's human and not a Christmas Elf, he says that he's fine and only needs a drink of water, while in the process of passing out.
• In Harriet the Spy after her parents confront her about her various ways of torturing her classmates via mean-spirited actions and words, she repeatedly says she's fine until she finally shrieks that she's fine, causing her mother to lampshade how she's not and she throws a pillow at them, misses and is soon sent to a child therapist.
• Saving Private Ryan: Sergeant Horvath claims he's just a bit out of breath when he sits down after being shot multiple times. When the camera pans back to him seconds later he's died.
• In Solo: A Star Wars Story, Rio gets shot in the shoulder during a Train Job. While he claims that it's Only a Flesh Wound, Beckett can tell by how much their AT-hauler is wobbling that he's in very bad shape. Minutes later, Rio dies.
• At Shelby's funeral in Steel Magnolias, M'Lynn has a breakdown in her grief as her friends all try to console her, culminating her screaming out before crying, "I'm FINE!!"
• Discussed in The Italian Job (2003). One of John Bridger's philosophies is that "fine" stands for "Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional".

Literature

• Books of the Raksura: Despite her obviously failing health, Flower insists that she's just "tired" throughout The Serpent Sea. She eventually tells the protagonist that she's dying of old age, that all the other Raksura knew the signs, and that she left him out of the loop because she liked that he was treating her normally. She passes soon after.
• Constance Verity Saves the World: When Connie has to cancel their romantic weekend due to Siege Perilous business, Byron insists that while he's upset, he isn't angry with her. Right after Connie leaves, he gives an intense load-out on Wilcox — a smarmy asshole that likes to hawk his workload onto him — and tells him to do his job before leaving early in a huff.
• The Inheritance Games: After Avery survives an assassination attempt, she retreats to a bathroom for a breakdown. Jameson, who was with her for the shooting, follows her in and asks how she's doing. She says she's fine, to which he replies, "You are a horrible liar." She has no better luck convincing anyone the next day, when Grayson tells her, "You most decidedly are not," and her sister Libby doesn't even dignify her repeated assertions that she's fine with an answer.
• Exploited in the Cosmic Horror short story "Everything's Fine" by Matthew Pridham. An unspecified apocalypse has befallen the Earth and reality seems to be breaking down—but as long as you don't acknowledge the Eldritch Abominations, they'll (probably) ignore you. So even with the moon cracking in the sky, the blood dripping from upstairs windows, and the nameless horrors stalking the streets, the humans who've survived this long are the ones who continue going to their jobs, engaging in banal small talk with their neighbors, and insisting that everything is just fine.
• Marco from Animorphs will almost always tell the group that he's fine even when obviously shaken by traumatic events during the war, including failing to morph in crisis situations due to stress, or plotting an assassination plot on his mother, who is infested by a high-ranking Yeerk. A representative exchange from book 35:
  Marco: Look, I'm fine.
  Cassie: No, you're not. Jake bought it, Rachel bought it, but I didn't. Something went wrong. I heard it in your thought-speak.
• Underground: Robyn is extremely independent and will refuse help of any kind, but especially medical aid, by telling the person trying to help her that she's fine despite usually having more injuries than anyone could count. Both her sister and Andrew call her out on her being obviously not "fine".

Live-Action TV

• In the Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode AC/DC, Jake gets injured but keeps insisting he is fine, until the end when he gets run over by a car, he finally averts this and says he is not fine… until he is hospitalized, where we get this immortal gem:
  Jake Peralta: I wasn't hurt that bad. The doctor said all my bleeding was internal. That's where the blood's supposed to be!
• In The Challenger Disaster, Richard Feynman tries to conceal his terminal kidney cancer from his fellow investigators, at one point dismissing obvious blood in his urine by claiming he'd been eating a lot of beetroot.
• Cheers:
  • At one point during season 2 Norm does some accounting for Diane and brings up some psychiatrist bills. Diane insists they're old bills and she's fine now, really. Between seasons 2 and 3 she checks into a "health spa", entirely of her own free will.
  • After his utterly disastrous first date with Lilith, Frasier says he doesn't mind, he wasn't interested in her anyway. Then asks if he can borrow Sam's office so he can weep in it.
• In the "Voices Carry" episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation, when Joey tries to confront Craig about his recent erratic and frantic behavior, he rapidly tells him "I'm fine", only for it to culminate in him beating up his stepfather until Ashley successfully pries him off. Horrified at what he's done, he is soon diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is hospitalized.
• Doctor Who: The Doctor has a tendency, especially his Tenth incarnation. Example comes from "Forest of the Dead":
  Donna: What about you? Are you all right?
  Doctor: I'm always all right.
  Donna: Is “all right” special Time Lord code for “really not all right at all”?
• The Farscape episode "Beware of Dog" features Crichton becoming increasingly unhinged by the hallucinations of Scorpius haunting him; Aeryn continuously seeks explanations for his odder-than-usual behaviour, but Crichton only assures her that he's fine. At the end of the episode, he opens up and admits his worsening Sanity Slippage — though he tries to downplay it by telling her he'll be okay... but his despairing tone clearly contradicts him.
  Crichton: Aeryn, don't worry. [chuckles] I'm not gonna lose my mind! It's all I've got left...
• Friends: Played for Laughs in "The One Where Ross Is Fine", Ross finds out about Joey and Rachel's relationship. While they are initially afraid of his reaction, he assures them he's fine. Throughout the entire episode, Ross keeps repeating that he's fine when it's pretty obvious that he's drunk and the situation is awkward for everyone.
  Charlie: Gosh, Ross, you know, you seem a little...
  Ross: What? Fine? Because I am! Aren't you? Aren't you? Aren't you? You see? Who else is fine?
• In The Haunting of Hill House (2018) episode "Witness Marks," a flashback reveals a key moment of Olivia Crain's Sanity Slippage was when Steve found her standing alone in the twins' bedroom, talking to herself. When Steve asked her what was wrong, Olivia assured him that she was fine - though the look of terrified uncertainty on her face said the exact opposite. The very next episode reveals that the House was actively messing with her head, showing her a vision of Luke and Nell explaining the future of depression, heroin addiction, and death that awaits them.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: After Bayliss's shooting, he keeps says "I'm okay" even as he was shot in the back and being in excruciating pain.
• House of Anubis: In one episode, after a long time of Fabian and Joy having a complicated relationship, with Joy experiencing Unrequited Love and trying to compete with Nina for his affection, they finally got to talking. Fabian ended up making it clear that he really did still love Nina and, at the same time, managed to convince her to drop an article that was being written for the school's newspaper. A shaken Joy sits crying while he starts to leave; when he turns around to see if she's okay, she gives him a strained smile and says "Of course, I'm Joy."
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "Is My Very Nature That of a Devil", Lestat de Lioncourt proposes an open relationship with his boyfriend Louis de Pointe du Lac. Louis asks if this arrangement works both ways. Lestat — a Crazy Jealous Guy — tries way too hard to convince both himself and Louis that it's fine with him.
  Lestat: From time to time, I like a little variety.
  Louis: So, I can fuck whoever I want?
  Lestat: Of course. (Beat) Of course. (tries to sound upbeat) Of course! As long as you come home to me. Of course.
• In Janda Kembang, Salmah always pretends to be OK whenever her daughter Laila sees her having problems, but it reaches Blatant Lies-level when she says that after and while still crying for minutes in episode 29.
• Power Rangers Dino Fury: When Javi comes into the base in a bad mood after his dad confiscates his new keytar, he insists he's fine. Even Zayto can peg he clearly isn't.
• Red Dwarf: In "Quarantine", Rimmer asks Lister if he sees anything amiss about Rimmer, who admits he's been sitting quietly listening to Lister, Kryten, and the Cat argue for three hours, while in a red and white striped gingham dress and a Creepy Monotone, having caught a hologrammatic virus. Lister, knowing there's no way out of this, tries humouring him.
  Lister: Amiss? God no, what could possibly be amiss?
  Rimmer: You don't think there's anything amiss? I'm sitting here in a red and white gingham dress... and army boots. You don't think there's anything amiss?
  The Cat: No, of course not. It's just that we thought you'd gone nuts. We were trying to humour you.
  Rimmer: I was just doing a little test. A little test to see if you'd gone crazy. DYYYUEEEEGH! ... if there's one thing I can't stand, it's crazy people.
• Schitt's Creek: In the sixth season, Alexis Rose breaks up with her true love Ted because their careers are going in different directions. After an obvious rebound relationship doesn't work out, Alexis stops showering and starts binging her mom's old soap opera. She shows up at the cafe looking disheveled and exhausted but trying to act like her cheerful self. David cringes as he pulls loose hair extension from her hair, as she continues to act like everything is normal.
• WandaVision: Episode 7 has Wanda insisting to the interviewer that she's fine when it's obvious she's having a mental breakdown.
• What I Like About You: After Val breaks up with her long-term boyfriend, she insists that everything is fine and continues to go about her daily life. Holly knows that she's deeply upset about it and spends the episode trying to get Val to admit that everything isn't fine.
• The X-Files: Scully, who is The Stoic most of the time, has "I'm fine, Mulder" as one of her catchphrases. It's discussed in a season 2 episode, and she admits she doesn't want him to feel as though he has to protect her. Usually, the more insistent she is, the less fine she is.
  • Becomes a Brick Joke of sorts in season 7's "En Ami," when Scully goes off with CSM without telling anyone. Mulder storms Skinner's office just as Scully calls, and she doesn't want to speak to him, instead asking Skinner to tell him she's fine. Skinner does, and Mulder insists she's in trouble, much to Skinner's confusion.
• Young Sheldon: In "Ruthless, Toothless, and a Week of Bed Rest", Connie strains herself getting the remote from under the bed and is unable to get back up, but insists that she doesn't need any help.

Music

• The conceit of the Filk Song "I'M FINE", by Whitney Avalon. The song is from the perspective of beleaguered mother Beth from Rick and Morty and shows her drinking while making various clearly false assertions about how great her life is going.
  I'm fine
  Therapy's working
  I've never had sociopathic tendencies
  I'm fine
  I don't see you smirking...
  My life isn't dull, and my family fulfills me
• Jealous rant song "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers begins in this fashion. Judging by the rest of the lyrics, it's not terribly convincing.
  Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine
• Good Kid: "Tell Me You Know", a parodic Break Up Song, opens with the singer leaving social media and getting rid of his phone because his ex tried to contact him. He continues, "I'll be fine, yeah, I guess that I'll get by." The rest of the song makes it clear that he's not fine and he still lives in fear of seeing his ex again, even with him admitting that he's "falling every day".
• Jack Stauber's "Dinner Is Not Over" has one of the two main singers, during the bridge, express his paranoia of everyone wanting to "bring him down" because of his dissatisfaction with life and desire to take his own. He insists twice that he's feeling fine, despite this being the most emotionally charged section of the song.
• Qbomb: In "Everything Is Fine", the protagonist has anger outbursts and habits of overthinking everything he does, and can't get any real help for his problems. He repeatedly assures himself that "everything is fine" to try to feel better, but he hates and overthinks this, too.
  Put on a face like everything's great
  I can't erase that I really hate
  The way they try to say that
  I should live my life with naivety

Puppet Shows

• In Sesame Street, when Dr. Nobel Price is sad about his "invention" (socks) turning out to have already been invented, he claims that he's fine despite sobbing.

Theatre

• In Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, Angelo sees Roberto stumbling along, and asks if he's alright. He says it's nothing, just a little fever, and he's going to get medicine, and tells Angelo to leave him alone. Angelo, being the helpful sweet angel that he is, won't just ignore him, but when Roberto collapses, Angelo sees the giant injury on his hand that proves that he's the traitor (he was injured the night of his crime).

Video Games

• A3:
  • Homare Arisugawa always tries to avoid showing his weakness to others, if he is not going off alone to hide and brood. An instance is in The Luminous Circus, in which he is clearly nervous but insists that it is just his heart beating faster than usual. Not that his nervousness goes unnoticed by everyone else.
  • In the stage version of My Master is Mesmerized by Mystery, Winter Troupe sorts the cardboard boxes sent from his family home. As soon as Azuma finds a box containing a pocket watch, Homare looks more than shocked but proceeds to smile, explain the story behind the pocket watch a bit, and quickly keep it in his pocket. He later cheerfully ushers everyone to carry the boxes away, much to everyone's confusion, but once everyone is gone, he takes out the pocket watch again to look at it, sadly.
• While Kris, the main character of Deltarune, gets no direct dialogue and rarely shows emotion, the flavor text while fighting Spamton can read like a Madness Mantra: "There's nothing wrong. There's NOTHING WRONG. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG." After fighting Spamton Neo, Susie asks Kris if they are okay. If you say "yes", Susie will comment on how insincere it sounds.
• In Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, the Warrior of Light begins suffering intense pain from containing the aether of the Lightwardens within their body. When Y'shtola witnesses this, she demands the Warrior return to their room at the Pendants to get some rest. The Warrior can retort that they're fine and that they can still fight, but Y'shtola admonishes them for their obviously false bravado before once again demanding they go to bed.
• One of the achievements in Into the Breach is to have 5 enemies on fire simultaneously. The achievement is called "This is fine".
• The Last of Us: While escaping from the University of Eastern Colorado, Joel is pushed off a balcony and impaled on a piece of rebar. Ellie pulls him off of it and Joel is reduced to barely walking and only able to use his pistol. After collapsing through a window, Ellie helps pull him back to his feet still bleeding profusely from his stomach wound, all the while Joel says he's okay. Ellie responds that no, he's not okay and then tells him to get a move on.
• During the first couple of days of Chapter 4 of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero, Tio begins to suffer flashbacks to her time as a captive of the D∴G Cult due to SSS work bringing her in contact with multiple PTSD triggers. Despite several people, including Lloyd, KeA, and Sergei, noticing that she looks terrible, at first, she's able to brush it off as fatigue due to an exhausting trip round a fiend-infested Middle Ages chapel-turned-Cult Lodge, and she declines offers to have a day off, but it becomes clear it's something more when she still looks exhausted the following day, especially after Professor Guenter discusses Gnosis with the SSS. As the rest of the SSS notices that she's unusually and alarmingly quiet and Elie realizes the poor girl's turned pale, she continues to insist she's fine — even while her dialogue boxes progress slowly as if to imply an effort to not sound traumatized and she admits she's not 100% well — right until she collapses and Randy is forced to rush back into St Ursula to seek medical attention.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: When Link fights a possessed Yunobo, Yunobo's description above his health bar is "Clearly Not Himself."
• Mass Effect 3: A conversation between Dr. Chakwas and Engineer Adams has her trying to insist she's fine after being abducted by the Collectors in 2. She doesn't last long before breaking down in tears and admitting she definitely isn't.
• Mass Effect: Andromeda: An e-mail by the Tempest's resident doctor has her trying to head this off at the pass, issuing warnings about PTSD to Ryder's team listing some of the typical symptoms and shrug-offs.
• In the Creative Closing Credits of Until Dawn, the surviving characters are interviewed by the police: Sam talks despondently about Josh (who is either dead or missing), and admits that she thought the two of them had a connection before he went off the rails; her interviewer offers to help her get in touch with a counselor, but Sam insists that she's fine... though the Thousand-Yard Stare and the traumatized tone of voice say otherwise.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice's Survival Mantra, "I'm Apollo Justice, and I'm fine!", turns into this when he's stressed, as he tends to shun his friends' offers of help due to believing that Being Personal Isn't Professional. Taken to its extreme in Spirit of Justice, where he's chanting that he's fine over and over while being obviously stressed over everything that's riding on the trial ahead, to the concern of Trucy and Athena.

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue: In the Season 5 episode "You Can't Park Here", Doc has Caboose feed Tucker's baby alien a lot of his blood, which causes Caboose to collapse from loss of blood. Come "Sibling Arrivalries", Church tries to get reinforcements to fight the Reds, with Doc telling him Caboose is now fine as the latter runs outside Blue Base, only for him to collapse yet again.
  Caboose: I'm okay! I'm okay! [collapses to the ground] I'm not okay!]
• Played with in RWBY. Many characters are, at various points in the story, Not Fine, but the level of Obvious can range broadly. Sometimes it's obvious in-universe, sometimes characters can hide it while they're in the presence of other characters, and sometimes it's only clear to audience members who themselves have experienced the situation. In the case of Ruby Rose, it's actually an understated plot point; her Magic Eyes run specifically on the power of positively caring for others, so being Not Fine means she cannot easily get into the mindset needed to use them in combat situations.

Web Comics

• Gunshow: "On Fire" has the Funny Animal Question Hound calmly drinking coffee as his house burns down around him. He insists "This is fine", even as he catches on fire himself and his face melts off his skull. After that specific comic blew up as an internet meme, the original creator KC Green made a follow-up on The Nib: "This Is Not Fine". This time, Question Hound starts to say everything is fine, but suddenly comes to his senses and screams about letting the fire get so bad while scrambling to put out the flames.
• Lies Within: Zahra rallies quickly after learning about the Masquerade via her brother Lys's Demonic Possession, but takes a bottle of liquor to bed. When Simon worries about her, Lys points out that she still needs time to process things.
  Simon: I know she said she's fine. But she obviously isn't fine.
  Lys: You got a solution for that?
• In The Petri Dish, Thaddeus Euphemism denies that he is drunk, despite staggering, lisping, burping, not bothering to adjust his glasses, and having a bad case of the hiccups. In the very next panel, though, he admits he is drunk, and the reason he got drunk was that he wanted to see if drowning his sorrows were actually possible.
• Questionable Content: When Roko has a dissociative episode so bad that she has a Thousand-Yard Stare and her speech bubbles are askew, she tries to pass it off as low blood sugar. She's a robot.
  Beepatrice: Wait, whose blood?
• Sleepless Domain: In Chapter 4, Undine is shown looking at herself in the mirror and telling herself she's fine following the deaths of three of her teammates.
• In Softies, a case where the question is asked on someone else's behalf. Kay casually mentions to Arizona's family that her home planet was destroyed, but dodges the subject and leaves the room when pressed further. Arizona's sisters ask him how she's holding up, and he assures them that Kay always says she's doing fine. One of the sisters points out the obvious: sometimes people lie.
• In Weak Hero, Stephen tries to keep up his usual chipper attitude even after becoming a target of Oswald's gang. However, between his myriad injuries and forced smile, it's obvious to both his best friend Gray and the readers that the constant bullying is having a devastating effect on him.

Web Original

• Babylon Bee: Parodied. Governor Gavin Newson insists that California is progressing towards utopia while he's a Man on Fire.
• A common joke in comment sections for videos or articles describing something stupid is for people to comment that they're fine and haven't lost brain cells, in bad grammar, the joke being that they have lost brain cells but are in denial. Of course, this is just a joke and you can't actually lose brain cells that way.
• LoadingReadyRun gives us EVERYTHING IS FINE. Everyone's tone of voice makes it clear that something is wrong, even though it isn't obvious what.

Web Videos

• Alantutorial: The normally cheery-but-quirky Alan would sometimes have moments of getting upset about his troubling home life and forced tutorial-making. When this would happen, he'd usually have to post on Twitter about how he was definitely okay and how he loved making his Tutorials, in posts written with uncharacteristically proper grammar, proving that something was wrong. Alan's inability to express his negative emotions came off as obviously forced and was Played for Horror.
• Dad: In "EVERYTHING IS FINE", Mom is frantically looking for Andan after he disappeared. When Daughter approaches her, the first thing she does is snap, "Everything is fine!". When questioned, she frustratedly repeats the line again and insists that Daughter just goes to the mall instead of asking where Dad is.
• Daisy Brown: In one video, Daisy is sitting alone in her room talking to the audience. She's locked herself in there, implicitly hiding from her pet monster Alan. At one point, Alan starts screaming and crying outside, which prompts an immediate "It's fine" from Daisy, despite that she's clearly uncomfortable and upset about what's going on. This remains a theme in other videos as well, where she insists to the audience she's doing well when all evidence points to things being... not fine at all.
• In Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog's final song, "Everything You've Ever" Horrible declares "And I am fine" even though he's obviously scared and alone, since Penny just died.
• In the Game Grumps playthrough of the horror game P.T., Arin keeps repeating that "everything is fine" as they travel down a scary hallway, while a freaked-out Dan insists that everything is actually "the antithesis of fine."
• LoadingReadyRun: "EVERYTHING IS FINE" Jason and Ryan tell Nate that everything is fine, their lives are not in danger, and Lars Gerhard was never here. Also, they need an extra passport for a survey.
• Parodied in New Father Chronicles. Some videos set when Nayely is a baby will have her say she doesn't have a problem, but then fall over, the joke being she's Drunk on Milk and addicted to it, though in reality, she is just a normal baby.
• Solid jj: Despite screaming in agony as he burns alive in "The Not-So-Fantastic Four", Johnny insists he is fine to the others up until he swallows a melted piece of his nose.
• TomSka's video "The Orb" has Tom quietly drinking from a mug while talking about how he loves The Orb and it's ability to warp reality in various ways, such as turning Tom's cat into a mug of cat blood.

Western Animation

• [adult swim] commissioned station idents based on ten Gunshow comics. One of them, "This Is Fine," is based on the "On Fire" strip, where Question Hound calmly insists everything is okay while his house burns down around him, and he melts from the heat.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Pony", when Gumball and Darwin are attending Sussie's birthday party because their father bribed them with money, Darwin calls Anais on the phone to explain to her why they're intending to cancel their promise of watching a film they bought for her together. When Darwin, who somehow pokes his eye through the phone, asks her if she's fine, Anais says that she is while visibly crying.
• DuckTales (2017): Donald eventually develops a molting problem due to the stress of his family's adventuring. Even as he sheds more and more feathers, he keeps insisting "Everything's fine." It's not until the end of the episode where he's finally gone bald that he admits that "Everything's not fine" and defeatedly walks out of the room.
• Evil Con Carne: In "Devolver (Part 1)", General Skarr is hit with a Transformation Ray, and Major Doctor Ghastly suggests he get to the infirmary. Skarr refuses, insisting "I've never felt better in my life", right before his transformation really starts to kick in.
• Futurama: In "I Second That Emotion", Amy ditches an already distraught Leela to go have "coffee" with a guy in his car. Leela insists she's fine and that they should go enjoy themselves, while Bender gets the full force of her jealousy.
• LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation: Finn tells Obi-Wan he's clearly fine with the fact his friends don't want to hang out with him on their vacation and he's now hanging out with a Force Ghost. He then immediately admits he's not fine, for all the reasons he just gave.
• The Loud House:
  • In the episode "Head Poet's Anxiety", Luan is jealous of Lucy but tries to suppress it and be happy for her. She does an obviously fake smile and when Lucy asks if she's okay, Luan says yes, even though she's clearly faking.
  • "Hero Today, Gone Tomorrow" gives us another jealousy example— Lynn is trying to hide her jealousy of Margo, and when Lincoln asks if she's okay, she says she is— even though she is shouting and has an angry popping vein.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the episode "Tanks for the Memories", Rainbow Dash says that she's not angry about Tank hibernating, despite wearing a huge scowl.
  • In the episode "A Royal Problem", Princess Luna has a lot of pent-up bitterness towards her sister, which comes out even as she is denying it. Lampshaded by Starlight:
  Starlight Glimmer: You know how some ponies say nothing's wrong, but you can tell something's definitely wrong?
• In the Rocko's Modern Life episode, "Mama's Boy", eventually after moving out of his parent's place, there's a montage of Heffer talking to his mom on the phone and repeatedly telling her that everything is fine while he is shown in ridiculously not fine situations like being in a plane mid-crash, in a medieval torture chamber and in hell.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "I Was a Teenage Gary", Squidward accidentally injects SpongeBob with a dose of snail plasma meant for Gary, and he assures him that nothing's going to happen to him. However, as SpongeBob starts to psychologically, and then physically, transform into a snail, he keeps insisting he's fine until it becomes impossible to ignore.
  SpongeBob: I take it back, Gary! Something's wrong with meeeeeeeeeee-ow!
• Played for Drama throughout Steven Universe: Future. Steven is frustrated, tired, and generally traumatized from all his time dealing with the Gems' world-threatening conflicts, but constantly tells his family that he's okay and not to worry about him. However, as he's been bottling his emotions for so long, his powers begin acting up when his anger builds up; he continuously denies needing help even after unintentionally hurting others because of it, and even when his own body begins uncontrollably changing. Eventually his incredibly concerned family holds an intervention, which gets Steven to admit he's been severely affected by what he's experienced through his desperate attempts to downplay it, and being confronted with all the trauma, resentment, and guilt makes him spiral into believing he's a monster, with his powers following suit.
• In one episode of Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Optimus Prime keeps insisting that he's fine despite obviously limping, much to Windblade's concern. It turns out, he actually was fine and was merely acting hurt to get the Decepticon that was following them to attack him instead of the actually-injured Windblade.
• In the 1948 short Make Mine Freedom, the American citizens try a sample of Dr. Utopia's Ism under John Q. Public's suggestion. What follows is a montage of each citizen having a vision of their social class under oppression and denied freedom by the turquoise arms of an otherwise unseen figure. The politician's vision has him trapped in a state concentration camp, declaring, "We must fight to regain our freedom, for everything is lost! Everything—" The figure then slaps a record player on his head which drones, "Everything is fine... Everything is fine... Everything is fine... Everything is fine..." turning him into a propaganda speaker for the state.

Real Life

• Henri IV, king of France and Navarre, famously declared "It's nothing." after being stabbed by Ravaillac. A few moments later, he died.

---

This is...THIS IS NOT FINE!!!

---