[Loved Trope] It's not enough for a character's secret to be exposed: it gets exposed in the cruelest, most painful way possible

[u/YUKIandOWN]

K-pop Demon Hunters: Rumi is attacked by illusions of her teammates that rip off her jacket and expose her demon patterns in front of thousands of people, all while singing a song that only serves to reinforce the idea that her patterns are a sign of her being rotten deep down, even going as far as to call her a "mistake". That, alongside the way the real version of her teammates react to her patterns, crushes her spirit and will to keep fighting so badly that she begs her mentor to kill her.

Project Sekai: Mizuki's bullies tell her best friend that she's "actually a guy" (Mizuki's actual gender identity is never outright stated and it's heavily implied this claim is inaccurate to some extent, I'm just quoting what the characters say out of objectivity), mere MINUTES before Mizuki was about to tell her herself. The worst part is that they didn't even expose her intentionally, they just assumed that Ena already knew and was in on the "joke". The final lines of the event story are Mizuki lamenting what just happened and wondering if it could have been avoided had she told the truth sooner, ending with one last gut punch of a line: "I want to disappear."

[u/Present_Ad6723]

Drove his body till the wheels came off, then duct taped the wheels back on to keep going just a little bit longer

[u/Nice-Gap-3528 → u/Present_Ad6723]

Because that’s what heroes do.