Examples of Not Me This Time in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- When Terumi compliments Relius for turning Roy into his new form in Chapter 58 of BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant, Relius clarifies that, while he modified Roy's form and experimented on him in an effort to reverse engineer the process that mutated him, he actually had nothing to do with the initial transformation. Roy somehow became what he is on his own.
- The Chaotic Masters:
- Despite his and his brothers-in-arms' Historical Rap Sheet, the Collector denies having had anything to do with World War II, pinning all the blame on Hitler and Vandal Savage.
- When Roulette asks what Circe did to Lumalee to make him the way he is, Circe responds that he was like that when she got him.
- Meta example in Child of the Storm's sequel Ghosts of the Past: in the chapter where Harry Dresden raises an undead T-rex to fight the necromancers threatening Chicago, the author (who is noted to be quite Crazy Is Cool and has a penchant for making up ideas that seem absurd but then work out magnificently) had to point out that, for once, this was not his idea.
- Additionally, Doctor Strange later states this when Thor wonders quite pointedly if he had anything to do with Van, the Sword of the First King and last weapon against Surtur, getting lodged in the tree that was the focus for the newborn Yggdrasil, and only being capable of being drawn by said future First King - Frey. Unusually, he was just as puzzled as everyone else.
- In the A Date With Destiny section of the Code Mars Trilogy, Mars seeks to rescue the hostages from the JLF during the hotel jacking. She finds Zero and accuses him being behind it. Unaware of Zero's sudden entrance, he clearly tells her he wasn't behind it, showing the real mastermind's dead body.
- In the Fallout: Equestria metaverse, StableTec is well known for performing all manner of bizarre social experiments within its Stables that over time slowly warp into hideous cruelties that wind up killing the Stable Dwellers. However, in Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons, Blackjack is horrified to learn that StableTec did not setup the recycling dead ponies for protein supplements laws and reducing the stallion population to an oppression minority of short-lived breeding chattel that gets killed off when they turn 21 in her home of Stable 99. Whilst Stable 99 was used for an experiment, their assigned experiment was testing the long-term viability of a small, tightly-controlled population and an all-recycled food diet. It was one of Stable 99's past Overmares who established these laws. In fact, Applebotnote is shocked and disgusted to learn about the current social norms of Stable 99.
- Fates Collide: Salem tells Cinder Fall about how Sakura Matou's death benefited her because it left Shirou Emiya in despair and anguish. Salem was able to feed on the negative emotions to strengthen herself and create Grimm. After telling this story, Salem sees the look on Cinder's face and quickly clarifies that she had nothing to do with Sakura's death, she just took advantage of it.
- Freedom Fighters (Sonic x Freedom Planet): When Amy, Eggman, an unconscious Sonic, and Tails get surrounded by the robotic remnants of Brevon's army (one of which personally shot down Sonic and Tails with a missile), Amy asks Eggman do these robots happen to be his. But right before she even finishes the question, terrified Eggman clarifies he never saw robots like these in his whole life.
- In How the Light Gets In
: Laurel is suddenly resurrected. When Oliver sees her he immediately assumes Dean, her husband, is responsible, only for Dean to deny it. Sara also assumes it Dean, who denies it again, and Sara in turn says it wasn't her either. When her parents learn of it, they also think it was Dean, leading to this:Dean: [exasperated] Why does everyone keep asking me that? note
[Beat as the entire Lance family stare at him incredulously]
Dean: [rolls his eyes] All right, I can see why people keep asking me that. - During Danny's date with Kim Possible in The Many Dates of Danny Fenton, an explosion catches their attention. He figured one of his usual villains was causing trouble, only to see two people he doesn't recognize, Doctor Drakken and Shego. He quickly learns they're Kim's villains.
- Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower: Rafael mentions a vacation home where his Wicked Stepmother used to take him until it burned down. Considering that Rafael took a lot of pleasure in seeing everything that woman loved destroyed, his friends ask him if he's the one who burned it down. He says no, it was flame butterflies. Everyone just shrugs and admits that's a thing that happens.
- My Ideal Academia: When The Beast starts his murder spree, Stain the Hero Killer quickly sends the police and Heroes a letter saying he's not the one doing this.
- In Phantom of Beika Street (a Case Closed/Danny Phantom crossover), a bright explosion somehow causes a large amount of green goo to splatter everywhere. Yamamoto accused Kaito since he was right next to it when it happened and he's known for such stunts, but Kaito nearly quotes this trope. His answer actually satisfies everyone since they're aware that if he was responsible, he would be taking credit for it.
- In Say It Thrice, Betelgeuse claims that he is (mostly) not to blame for Lydia's injuries when Adam and Barbara automatically assume the worst. That honor belongs to Sanduleak.
- In snipers solve 99% of all problems Edward Elric decides to do some minor alchemic cleaning and repairs to Number 12 Grimmauld Place in order to make the house more hospitable and livable for when Alphonse comes over the following day, including raising the ceilings by six centimeters and installing nine more windows. After the younger Elric brother arrives, Alphonse assumes that all of the grim décor inside of the house including the black wallpaper was the result of his brothers' transmutation.Edward: Aha! See, this time, not me, not even a little bit! I changed absolutely no colors and all the creepass shit - the wallpaper, those freaky hooks, that fuckin’, leg thing, whatever that is - that was all there when I got here.
- In Turnabout Communcation, Simon Blackquill, who has a reputation as a Manipulative Bastard who can trick people into solving part of his cases for him, is accused twice to be responsible for manipulating Hitohito Tadano into confessing twice (once to the police and once while on trial) that he attacked and nearly murdered his classmate Ren Yamai, much to Simon's frustration as he wants to win his cases by indistinguishable truth rather in lies. Tadano's false confessions are actually the results of trauma and later vicious threats from Yamai.
- In Universe Falls, when Gideon Gleeful paints the Temple pink in "Revenge Trip", the Gems initially assume that Amethyst did it.
- Zig-zagged in My Child, when Levi and Mikasa's child is about to die, Levi asks Xaphan, the demon who's trying to take his soul, if he knows anything, but Xaphan responds, "Oh, because I'm a demon, everything's my fault? I see how it is. Well, it doesn't matter." and says that if Levi doesn't give him his soul, his child will die. Once Levi signs the contract, Xaphan admits that he was lying all along, so it is possible that he was responsible.
- Katara often teases Zuko in The Avatar Makes Three for all of his old antagonistic behavior, which he takes good-humoredly. However, he does loudly object to her claims that he had a hand in the invasion of the Northern Water tribe, saying he knows better than to go around messing with the great spirits and he certainly wasn’t going to team up with Admiral Zhao, who he’s always hated and had just tried to kill him.
- A heroic example in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Calvin is framed for a water balloon attack he didn't do, and thus ends up having to clear his name.
- My Mirror, Sword and Shield: Cornelia and Kallen believe Euphemia was murdered on Lelouch's orders. Lelouch had nothing to do with it as she was murdered by her jealous lover Sir Raleigh who believed she was cheating on him with Suzaku. Schneizel especially doesn't believe it because Lelouch had before taken hostages of his enemies’ loved ones and executed them if they stepped out of line. Which he did to Schneizel when Lelouch took Schneizel's lover Kanon hostage. It was a year before Schneizel found out that Kanon had been executed.
- Danganronpa: Komm Susser Tod: Sparkling Justice is accused of another Vigilante Execution in Chapter 1, but turns out to have been framed by the true killer. Which makes things more awkward when in Chapter 4, Sparkling Justice genuinely kills someone...
- Danganronpa: Paradise Lost has another batch of 16 students thrown into a Killing Game, and naturally Monaca Towa (who was complicit in one prior incident and participated via proxy in another) falls under suspicion, but she turns out to have absolutely no involvement in orchestrating it. She has undergone an amnesia-prompted Heel–Face Turn, and in fact, she happens to be who the Killing Game is targeted at, as the true masterminds happen to be two prior victims unwilling to forgive her.
- Killing Game Deluxe: Junko cheerfully confirms that she has nothing to do with this Killing Game and has no clue what is going on either.
- In Batman story Dance with the Demons, Catwoman gets shot with a poisoned dart. Since the poison is a mixture of toxins used in the Middle and Far East, Batman suspects Ra's Al Ghul is behind the assassination attempt. Nonetheless, Ra's Al Ghul shoots his theory down by pointing out he gains nothing from it.Ra's Al Ghul: Why in the name of heaven above and hell below would I have attempted to murder your wife, Detective? Tell me.
- In Superman and Man, Christopher briefly wonders if Lex Luthor is the one who body-swapped his body with Superman's... but Luthor's bafflement makes clear he has nothing to do with it."I thought it would be so much harder than this. I've fought you before. Many times. You know that. In any of our other fights, by this time, we'd have knocked each other all the way to Metro Airport. What's wrong with you? Did somebody else get to you before I did?"
Focusing, the actor said, "So. It wasn't really you who. Did this to me?"
"Did what to you?"
- In this 'comic, after hearing that Matsuda's grandfather died of a heart attack, Light complains that everyone blames Kira for every fatal heart attack, accidentally outing himself as Kira in front of L.
- In the post-movie Encanto story Fractures, Julieta, upon seeing her daughters claiming one of them got into a fistfight, assumes that it was Luisa, only to be told that it was actually Isabela.
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
- In Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan, Goku initially assumes Cell destroyed the South Galaxy after King Kai tells him about what happened. But as it turns out, Cell didn't know the South Galaxy even existed (Goku quickly tries to get him to forget that he heard it). He then goes to interrogate every other villain or former villain he knew of, including Pilaf - but not Yamcha.
- Also from the Broly Abridged movie, when Paragus is explaining his motivations, he says "That bastard, Vegeta, left us to die." Vegeta replies that it sounds like something he'd do, but he doesn't remember doing it. Paragus clarifies he meant Vegeta's father, who was also named "Vegeta".
- In Never Had a Friend Like Me, there's a rare hero-to-hero version of this trope. Jorgen thinks Timmy caused the magical chaos that led to the disappearance of the anti-fairies and pixies.
- Corrin Reacts: Niles, Corrin, and Kana all deny spiking the wine at the party in Castle Krakenburg. It turns out to be Orochi, who was attempting to prove herself a superior potionmaster to Hayato.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi
- In Gold Poisons, while Jin Guangyao has killed a lot of people during his time working for the Wens and then as the Jins, he has nothing to do with Lan Xichen’s poisoning. Too bad he’s being set up as the fall guy.
- Hellsing Ultimate Abridged:
- Alucard is a Jerkass/Sociopathic Hero/Blood Knight who is basically the logical result of what would happen if you gave the biggest Troll on the Internet unstoppable superpowers. So when he's involved in an incident with the police in Brazil, Integra's first assumption is that it's his fault and she calls bullshit when Alucard protests that he was just minding his own business until the police turned up and started shooting. Alucard is being entirely honest — he hadn't done a thing (yet) to get his door kicked in by SWAT. They were actually bribed by the villains into attacking him. It probably didn't help that he greeted them with Your Mom, though.Integra: What did you do?
Alucard: All right... but you can't be mad at me.
Integra: What... did you do?
Alucard: Okay... first, I was minding my own business--
Integra: [furiously slams her hand on the desk] BULLSHIT!
Alucard: [whiny tone of voice] I waaaaas!
Integra: And exactly what happened whilst you were "minding your own business"?!
Alucard: So I was just chillaxin' in my room like a baller, and then all of a sudden these schmucks kicked in my door, one of them yelled out "Get on your knees!" And I responded with 'I'm not your Momma last night!' [Beat] And they took exception to that.
SWAT team: [Scream as they open fire at full auto until Alucard looks like Swiss cheese]Alucard: But you know how that song and dance goes... [revives and proceeds to eviscerate the offending SWAT personnel in the room] aaand I killed all but one of them.Integra: What happened to the last one?(cut to the last SWAT officer whimpering in fear, raising his pistol to his own head, and shooting himself while Alucard smiles with glee)Alucard: Pussed out like a bitch! Silver Lining: I can cancel my Room Service! - As a Brick Joke, when Integra is listing the long number of complaints the Hellsing Organization is facing, Alucard is dismissive of all of them except the sexual harassment ones which he flatly refuses to apologize for. Several episodes later it's revealed he wouldn't apologize because it turns out Integra was the worst offender as far as sexual harassment goes, as per Seras.
- Alucard is a Jerkass/Sociopathic Hero/Blood Knight who is basically the logical result of what would happen if you gave the biggest Troll on the Internet unstoppable superpowers. So when he's involved in an incident with the police in Brazil, Integra's first assumption is that it's his fault and she calls bullshit when Alucard protests that he was just minding his own business until the police turned up and started shooting. Alucard is being entirely honest — he hadn't done a thing (yet) to get his door kicked in by SWAT. They were actually bribed by the villains into attacking him. It probably didn't help that he greeted them with Your Mom, though.
- Becoming a True Invader: The Tallest immediately assume that Zim is responsible for the Employer's devastation of their empire.
- For the Glory of Irk:
- When Dib finds out that a strange figure claiming to be his friend showed up and talked his parents into handing over Tak's ship, the description makes him think it was CB acting through his physical avatar, something he indignantly refutes. After checking with Gaz, Dib realizes that it was actually Q in his humanoid form.
- After Zim believes that GIR has been killed, everyone eventually comes to the conclusion that Q is responsible. Q acknowledges that they're right to suspect him of anything shady, but states that he's not at fault this time. And he's not, as it turns out that GIR wandered off to hang out with Carrius.
- Happens again with Q when he's caught trying to crash Dib and Lor's wedding right after the wedding party has realized that the rings have vanished. Q admits that if the idea had occurred to him, he would have taken the rings to cause chaos, but that he's just trying to attend the wedding. It turns out that actually, Xia took the rings to spite everyone, Therron took them from her for safekeeping, and finally GIR ate them.
- Ruby Pair: Upon learning that the Megadoomer she should have gotten ended up with Zim while she got the insane SIR units that ruined her mission, Tenn accuses Zim of stealing it from her. Zim has to explain that he had nothing to do with the mixup (it was a disgruntled postal slave).
- Near the end of chapter 8 of Miraculous City, Nathalie confronts Gabriel about the streaks of failure since the Miracle Bang that granted every person in Paris a Miraculous power, including how his latest akuma, the Robber, didn't even get Ladybug and Chat Noir and was defeated by Lady Beetle and her new allies. Gabriel states that he doesn't know what she's talking about as he never sent out an akuma, revealing that a new villain has access to the powers of the Butterfly Miraculous.
- In the Unconventional Scenarios series by Remasa, Hawk Moth must do some public work at a convention after revealing himself to the heroes and trying to repent. Suddenly, the building starts collapsing, and he is forced to akumatize a bystander to help evacuate. Once everyone comes out, the Mayor naturally starts blaming Hawk Moth for the incident...until the akumatized guy detransforms and starts ripping him a new one for ignoring his advice about safety regulations.
- Nutricula: When several of Yaomomo's classmates are helping her brainstorm a new costume, the question comes up of who suggested the inclusion of a Cleavage Window. Denki gets blamed, before Ibara fesses up.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- From Ask Fluffle Puff, when Queen Chrysalis and Fluffle Puff find out that the Library Tree was destroyed (by Tirek in the Season 4 finale of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) while they were on vacation, Chrysalis is prompt to tell Twilight Sparkle that it wasn't her, this time.
- In Friendship Is Magical Girls, Trixie is questioned about a museum robbery. She points out that if she had done it, she wouldn't have had to kill any of the guards.
- The Great Alicorn Hunt: When Malfunziona escapes his can, a peeved Applejack assumes that he's another one of Celestia's "time released" prisoners that she didn't tell anyone about. In fact, Celestia's never even heard of Malfunziona; he was actually sealed by an expy of Leonardo Da Vinci (who actually did inform Celestia, but she assumed he was simply being poetic due to the way he worded his letter).
- In The Vinyl Scratch Tapes, when Vinyl confronts Prince Blueblood over him "stealing" an interview with Princess Luna from her, he has no idea what she's talking about. Luna had actually cancelled her interview on her own initiative to be with Blueblood due to her concern over him, because jackass he may be, he was still family, and she had been in too similar a situation for her to ignore him.
- True Potential: When Kakuzu shows up to the Akatsuki meeting alone, everybody assumes he just killed his partner again. While Kakuzu was planning on killing him anyway, he quickly points out that his partner was actually killed by a feral Naruto.
- This Bites!: Played with. Water 7 being on fire is mostly Cross's fault, but part of it was actually Franky's doing from a few years back.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: On seeing a procession of oddly-behaving Poison-Type Pokémon in Crimson City Park, Ash thinks it's a Team Rocket scheme. But the Terrible Trio bursts out of their hiding place, protesting their innocence. As it turns out, they were actually being mind-controlled by a Bloodliner named Belladonna as part of a scheme to kill her girlfriend's estranged father.
- Happens to Don Paolo in Knights and Knaves. Inspector Chelmey hauls him in for questioning about a series of mysterious clues that have been cropping up across London - simply because he doesn't have any better ideas about who might be responsible. Don Paolo protests his innocence and is in fact telling the truth.
- Much like in canon, Family of the Shield tackles King Aultcrays' treatment of Naofumi Iwatani and Demi-Humans in much the same vein. While attending the party after the first Wave of Catastrophe; Naofumi puts' Raphtalia on the spot for everyone to hear how she's actually a citizen of Luroluna who along with most of the survivors was sold into slavery by a group of Royal Knights sent from Castletown. Aultcray is forced to silence Raphtalia before she divulged further which would have caused some friction between the other Three Heroes. Several chapters later when King Aultcray is put on trial for his mismanagement of the kingdom; Raphtalia asks why would he enslave loyal citizens. Aultcray then says that he didn't give such an order: the "Knights" that enslaved the Loroluna villagers were actually bandits that raided an armory for gear who decided to make a quick buck by attacking the village, and that Aultcray had been trying to track down these brigands before the Heroes had been summoned.
- In Atlas Arc, Qrow is assigned by General Ironwood to be on board a test flight of a prototype airship. However, due to circumstances that don't involve Qrow's Bad Luck Semblance, the ship ends up crashing and exploding. Ironwood naturally doesn't believe Qrow at first until Qrow explains that he checked with the techs who designed the ship and learned that there was a flaw in the power coupling.
- Fairly typical in fanfics in which something happens to Jon Snow. Catelyn Tully is the first suspect.
- In A Dragon's Flight Lyarra Snow (Princess Visenya Targaryen) suddenly disappears from Winterfell, the first suspect is Catelyn Tully, who makes no secret of her irrational hatred of the girl. The trout has nothing to do with it; Lyarra ran away to protect the dragon she hatched accidentally.
- In Bequeathed from Pale Estates while in Winterfel Lyarra's music lessons are suddenly stopped and her teacher dismissed. She immediately thinks that Catelyn threw a fit and Ned accommodated her. In actuality, Ned stopped the lessons out of fear that Lyarra's incredible musical talent would remind people of her father Rhaegar.
- In the fanfic Red Ruins Jon, real name Aemon Targaryen is kidnapped by his older sister Princess Rhaenys, The Kind Napper (who was switched with a Dornish lookalike prior to the Sack along with Aegon). In the aftermath of his vanishing, people start pointing fingers, most of them go toward Catelyn.
- Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi: Palpatine was ousted by the Senate and replaced by Obi-Wan, and when the Jedi is grievously wounded in a bombing Senator Halth tries to have him Palpatine reinstated to replace the "vacacy", in spite of Obi-Wan not being dead, Palpatine having already served his two terms and more and being under investigation for corruption, and them having a Vice Chancellor for precisely the case the Chancellor dies while in office, getting Palpatine under suspicion for the whole thing. Fortunately for the Sith, while he was indeed behind the bombing he had nothing to do with Halth's stunt and could prove he hadn't talked to him in months, and in fact he's privately offended by the idea someone suspects him of being this sloppy.
- In SAO: The Eroge, upon learning about his Embarrassing Nickname of The Ladies' Man Swordsman, Kirito instinctively looks at Argo, who quickly denies starting those rumors.
- In The Great Red Panda Rescue, Mei is kidnapped and her friends are summoned to their school's front office for questioning. Abby is instantly suspected by Mei's other friends to be responsible for them being called up before they learn Mei is missing.
- Better Bones AU: After Ashfur tries to kill Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze, and Firestar is murdered at the same time this is revealed everyone assumes Ashfur did it, as would have motivation to kill Firestar to hurt his daughter, Squirrelflight. However Firestar was actually killed by Breezepelt.
- Throughout Being Dead Ain't Easy, Kaiba is repeatedly attacked by a disgruntled former employee, resulting in Kaiba hospitalized and the assassin dead. Yami Bakura also agrees to help Kaiba over an unrelated matter, where Yami Bakura saves Joey in exchange for Kaiba making Bakura the CEO of KaibaCorp. By the end, Kaiba is forced to honor his deal, dragging himself to HQ with severe injuries and signing the papers right before going to the hospital. Luckily for Kaiba, the CEO being severely injured right before transferring power to an unknown party looks suspiciously like the new CEO twisting his arm, and one hounding by the media later, Bakura returns the company.
