• "Dear Alice": At the lunch, the woman fondly pats the head of a young boy sitting at the table.

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: Kishika Torotoro grew up having to take care of her four younger siblings so her parents could work. Because of this Kishika craves being the one who's spoiled and cared for, enters a state of Emotional Regression when she gets pampered (much to her embarrassment after the fact), and specifically associates the affectionate gesture to the head with it. When introduced, she Hates Being Touched because any contact with her head will make her want more, if it doesn't just instantly put her into "baby mode". Meanwhile a bonus chapter shows that this association started with Kishika was in grade school, and a glove fell on top of her head.
• Children of the Whales: Rasha used to give Shuan headpats, and Shuan later picks up the habit with Chakuro.
• The Dangers in My Heart:
  • Yamada does a simulation of this to give Ichikawa a good night's sleep over the phone, by having him stroke his own head four times. Unbeknownst to Ichikawa, she's stroking the head of one of her stuffed animals at the same time.
  • Much later she pats him on directly in Chapter 133. Which is justified since they're couple by then.
    Ichikawa: Don't touch.
    Yamada: Do touch.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: In the final chapters, Sanemi runs into Nezuko who has finally returned to being human. She greets him amicably, having held no ill will towards him for his mistreatment of her in the past. Regretful over his actions and being reminded of his now-deceased brother Genya by her cheerfulness, the formerly brash Wind Hashira pats Nezuko on the head and bids her farewell. This action leaves Nezuko flustered and causes Zenitsu to become jealous over her.
• In Dog Days, this is a trademark of Princess Millhiore. Everyone she pets comments on how soft and gentle her hands are. Cinque also does it to her and a few other girls. By the second season, it seems the favorite peacetime activity for all three rulers is getting petted by their respective Heroes.
• Dragon Ball:
  • This is how Goku shows affection towards his sons and later his granddaughter in Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super, patting them on their heads.
  • Young Gohan is patted on the head quite frequently; even by Vegeta. One particular moment that stands out was during a flashback when Piccolo does this to a sleeping Gohan and promises that he won't let anything happen to him, cementing his Heel–Face Turn and Papa Wolf status towards Gohan.
• In Elfen Lied when Kurama sends Nana to capture Lucy and bring her back to the lab this is all she asks for in return, because this was how he showed affection to her.
• In Free! Rin Matsuoka, from season 2 onwards generally comforts, compliments and shows affection towards his younger teammates and friends (namely Nagisa, Nitori and Momo) this way.
• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End:
  • Heiter had a habit of showing Frieren affection by patting her head, a gesture she claimed to dislike. In Chapter 29, a flashback shows Frieren patting an elderly Heiter on the head after they talk about who will praise him for acting like a proper adult in this world. In the present, she does the same gesture to others whenever she praises them.
  • Methode also likes doing this to people she finds cute. After she becomes a first-class mage, Genau has to set a hard limit of 10 minutes headpatting Serie (the elf leader of the Continental Magic Association) per day, because otherwise, that's all she'd be doing.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist Ed often pats Al and Winry's heads to reassure them.
• GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class:
  • Kisaragi gets patted from Noda and Tomokane after telling the story of how she came to buy a "god's pencil", then again from them plus Miyabi and Namiko after she explains that it "worked" (though it's pretty clear that practice was really what worked).
  • In a chapter image, Namiko seems to be giving Tomokane and Kisaragi one of these as the younger four of the five seem to be engaged in a group hug.
• Ghost Reaper Girl: Adorable Abomination Shoggoth frequently demands head-pats from both her creator Dr. West and later from protagonist Chloé Love.
• Grave in Gungrave often pats Mika's head. It's all he needs to do to show that he cares for his little protege.
• Gunslinger Girl. Given that the eponymous cyborgs are Badass Adorable this happens several times, and their response is often telling.
  • In "Bambola", Triela has to go on a mission while undergoing period pains. Her handler Hilshire, who up to now has been distant towards her, realises she looks ill and tries to put a hand on her forehead, only for Triela to push his hand away, showing her conflicted feelings toward him.
  • In "Gelato", Enzo tousles Henrietta's hair, and she looks discomforted as he's not her handler Jose. Enzo in turn is surprised to smell perfume on his hand afterwards and discusses with Jose the expensive gifts he showers on her.
  • When Pietro is introduced to Rico in "Amare", the Section One agent strokes her hair and Rico looks up at him with Puppy-Dog Eyes, not used to any affectionate gestures from her handler Jean. Jean's response is to curtly brush Pietro's hand away, reestablishing control over his cyborg.
  • A more lighthearted example happens just before the Venice belltower assault when Triela encounters a couple of special forces soldiers she trained with the year before, who immediately start rubbing her Twin Tails for luck. Cue Luminescent Blush from the Agency's toughest cyborg.
  • In "Battlefield of the Vanquished" when Triela survives the belltower assault unharmed, Hilshire strokes her forehead. She removes his hand but instead of brushing it aside like before she holds his hand in her own, showing their how their relationship has changed.
  • In "Clever Serpents, Innocent Doves" it's noted that Jose doesn't actually touch Henrietta for all his supposed affection. In truth Jose has become tired of her neediness but is advised by Dr. Bianchi to just pretend to be kind for Henrietta's sake. Jose ends up pinching Henrietta's cheek, which is something he used to do with his (deceased) little sister.
  • In "Survivors", Jean wakes up in a hospital bed and finds his cyborg Rico there, having brought him to safety, so he reaches up and strokes her hair.
• Heaven's Lost Property:
  • Ikaros pats others a lot, usually to soothe someone who is upset. One time, she even randomly did it to a Yakuza boss. The man's bodyguards are shocked by this violation of personal space and move to attack her, but the boss stops them and enjoys it.
  • Astrea ends up patting Chaos' head.
• In Volume 8 of Hellsing, following his final release and transformation into his original form of Dracula, Alucard pats Seras Victoria after she awkwardly points out that he seems to have grown a mustache. It's the first affectionate thing he ever does towards her.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • In one episode, France affectionately ruffles America's hair during the latter's hundredth birthday.
  • A darker example is Russia and Latvia; Russia is seemingly very fond of the much smaller Latvia, and likes to give him affectionate — and very crushing, due to their huge difference in strength — headpats. Latvia claims that the reason he's so small is because of them.
• Hidamari Sketch:
  • Yuno is patted by her mother because she was worried about her father being at home alone.
  • Yuno gets one from Sae and Miyako at her explanation of Hiro's setting aside an onigiri.
  • Yuno gets one from Nori after telling her and Nazuna why she brought them to the bathhouse.
  • Nazuna gets one from her father after her mother thanks her friends for helping her, and tells her she has it good.
• Hitomi-chan Is Shy with Strangers: When Hitomi gets "intoxicated" from an energy drink, she gives Yuu an affectionate pat on the head at one point, which is a far cry from how she usually interacts with him.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Golden Wind: To praise Secco for doing a good job, Cioccolata rubs his head and exclaims, "Good, good, good, good, good, good!"
  • JoJolion: Hato gives Joshu a pat on the head to comfort him after he received a Cranial Eruption.
• In K: Return of Kings, when Shiro is working hard on his research to find a solution to the issue of the second season, Neko tells him she believes in him, and he gives her a pat on the head (because she's a cat). Then, Kuroh, the "Black Dog" and Shiro's other teammate, tells Shiro the same thing and leans in for a split second as if he wants a head-pat, too.
• K-On!:
  • Azusa is frequently patted against her will, even though it's what Yui used to calm her down when she blew up. But she does take it better when it's employed while they're reminding her that they haven't forgotten the club. (The others had been too involved in the play to practice for the concert.)
  • One time, when Nodoka jokingly asks the Hirasawa sisters if they didn't come out in the wrong order (Yui needs help with a math problem that Ui knows how to solve after glancing at it while setting tea she made down, Yui and Ui briefly interact as though they were the other way around; this gesture is part of it.
  • Nodoka pats Ui in the very next strip after being randomly hugged by her.
  • In K-On! High School, Azusa tries to reach kouhai Sumire's head, saying "Rub... head..." as she stretches for it. Sumire takes this as a request and confusedly rubs Azusa's head.
  Azusa: No, not me!
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016): Midna does this a couple of times with Link.
  • During the journey to Hyrule Castle Town, Link sees a vision of Midna's true form. Midna laughs it off, but takes the opportunity to get close and begin stroking Link's cheek.
    Midna: There's no woman here. You're imagining things. Or...were you fantasizing? Heh...heh heh heh...
  • When asking Link to come with her to the Twilight Realm, Midna cups his face with both hands.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Signum pats Fate on head in A's when they change from being Worthy Opponents to Friendly Rivals.
  • The movie adaptation of A's has this as part of the "Lindy adopting Fate" subplot by having scenes where both Lindy and a dream copy of Precia attempt to comfort Fate by caressing her cheek. She enjoys the former but outright recoils in fear of the latter (since the real Preica was incredibly abusive). The scene with Precia also takes place in the series, but Lindy merely holds her hand instead.
  • In something of a role-reversal, six-year-old Vivio gives her mother Nanoha a pat on the head to cheer her up during a flashback in StrikerS. And it's adorable.
  • Nanoha also pats Subaru on the head at the end of the first episode of StrikerS, causing her to start shedding Tears of Joy.
  • Subaru does this to Ixpellia in StrikerS Sound Stage X right before Ixpellia falls into a sleep that could last for thousands of years.
• Usui often affectionately pats Misaki's head in Maid-Sama!.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid:
  • Kobayashi normally shows affection to Tohru, Kanna, and Ilulu by petting them on the head. It's pretty much the only way that she knows how to express affection since she has admitted to having trouble dealing with interpersonal relationships.
  • Taketo pats Ilulu's head after hearing why she's so adamant on finding the owner of an abandoned doll, and then again when she comes into work after having been out sick (she had actually gone into heat, but he didn't know that). The second time causes her to get a warm feeling in her chest, though she doesn't recognize the significance.
• Musashi-kun to Murayama-san wa Tsukiatte Mita. has an entire three-chapter arc devoted to Murayama trying to get Musashi to pat her head.
• Futaba from My Senpai Is Annoying is on the receiving end of head pats and hair ruffling from her larger coworker who she has feelings for. Her grandfather also has a tendency to pat her head and he takes issue with Takeda doing the same thing to her, mostly because he suspects Takeda is her boyfriend.
• My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren't Wicked : Of the various members of the Konokura Family, Arisa is the most physically affectionate with their new stepsister, Miya, as Marika seems to prefer acts of service. Arisa can often be seen gently patting Miya's head whenever Marika is being loud and boisterous.
• Naruto:
  • Itachi's brotherly gesture, the forehead poke, was affectionate by definition. Very dramatic, emotionally-eliciting gesture.
  • Sasuke continues the tradition by patting Sakura before he left for his journey of atonement at the end of the manga. Sakura later notes that she prefers it over kissing Sasuke.
  • Sasuke patted his own daughter, Sarada, at the end of Naruto Gaiden, despite being absent from her life for long periods of time. His wife Sakura had previously been shown to have given their daughter, Sarada, the forehead poke when she was younger.
  • Kakashi has a habit of patting his students on the head.
• Evangeline of Negima! Magister Negi Magi appreciates having her head patted, but only by men she likes. UQ Holder! establishes that the first man she loved Touta Konoe would do this to her and it comforted her during some rather rough periods in her long lifespan.
• In one chapter of No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!, Tomoko tries to get an affectionate headpat after seeing it in an anime. She does various things to prompt guys at school to give her one to no avail, going so far as to trying to engineer an accidental one by sitting under the railing of a stairway. About the only headpat she ends up getting is from a cat she stops to feed at a park bench. In Chapter 115, Tomoko gets a real headpat from a cute graduating upperclassman after she successfully pins a corsage on his uniform.
• Episode 5 of Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God has Ra giving every single one of his children headpats after returning home from his journey.
• Tsurezure of Ojojojo gave his girlfriend's sister a pat on the head after finding out that she's a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who's trying to break them up and take her sister's place as heiress (showing that he cares about her as Haru's sister despite all that).
• In Peace Maker Kurogane, this is one of the very few ways that Hijikata shows outward affection to Tetsu.
• In Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, Lusamine tousles her daughter Lillie's hair when they reunite. According to Lillie, she last saw her mother when she was a baby and is not thrilled with neither the gesture or her mother acting like she never left, and smoothes her hair down in a Funny Background Event.
• In Saiyuki, this is one of Sanzo's few outwardly affectionate gestures towards Goku.
• Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it: In the main characters' ongoing quest to define love with the scientific method, testing the effects of this is the main experiment of Episode 2, with Yukimura petting Himuro's head. It sets off Himuro's Expressive Hair, prompting Yukimura to wonder what principle is allowing her hair to move independently. Due to Ibarada's suggesting that they need a control for the experiment, Yukimura pats hers and Kanade's heads and compare Yukimura's heart rates in each case.
• In Sengoku Basara, when Shingen seems about to give a standard Megaton Punch to Yukimura but switches to patting and tousling his hair at the last second, telling him he's done well.
• Taishi of Servant × Service occasionally pats younger women on their head out of unconscious habit, due to his sister.
• Skip Beat! has Kyoko and Ren play the roles of the Heel siblings Setsuka and Cain, respectively. Cain tends to affectionately pat his little sister on the head or gently ruffle her hair, even using this as a form to communicate a compliment. Kyoko also receives one of the comforting variety from a director over someone having snapped at her, and she notes how different the two gestures felt.
• In Stray Cat and Wolf, Rou catches Tamaki studying him while he was sleeping. He at first freaks out... but when he notices how his freakout had scared Tamaki, Rou immediately calms down and pats her head to let her know he is not angry.
• In Tiger & Bunny, Kotetsu often pats younger characters on the head as a sort of fatherly gesture.
• In Wasteful Days of High School Girls, Saku's grandmother gives her granddaughter headpets every night before going to bed.

• The title character of Deadpool does this to his daughter on occasion. At one point, after not seeing one another for over a week, they share a warm embrace, and he rests his hand on her head has she speaks. Another instance, he is in his daughter's room and they play together for a while. But he eventually has to leave for "work." He gives Ellie a kiss on her forehead before he has to go.◊
• During Flashpoint, Traci Thirteen goes searching for allies to help her stop a plan to kill all the belligerents in the war between the Amazons and Atlantis, and ends up freeing Circe, who was locked up by the Amazons. Circe refuses to help Traci because she figures the Amazons deserve to die for locking her up, but gives the girl a kiss on the forehead for her troubles.
• Judge Dredd: In Dark Justice, a thousand of Mega-City One's wealthiest citizens decide to leave the Earth in a Starship Luxurious after the Day of Chaos turned much of the city into a ruin. When a reporter at the launch ceremony asks what the people who can't afford a seat are supposed to do, the spokesperson gives him a condescending pat on the head.
• JLA: The Obsidian Age: Martian Manhunter applies his fingers to Green Lantern's head to try and find out why he's having visions of the League being slaughtered. Lantern jokes that in some of the alien cultures he's visited, this would make them married.
• Justice Society of America (2007):
  • The last issue of Geoff Johns' run features Ted Grant giving his son an affectionate noogie.
    "I'd be your sidekick any day of the week, you pain in the ass."
  • A few issues later, Hourman tousles Stargirl's hair while suggesting that the reason villains seem to be avoiding her lately is because she's so cute. His wife Liberty Bell finds this patronizing.
• New Mutants: While out in Rio, Cannonball tries patting Wolfsbane on the head. Unfortunately, she's in a very bad mood (not least because she's crushing on him, and he's crushing on new girl Magma, who Rahne's angry with for lying to her). Rahne snarls at him not to do so, in one of the vanishingly few times the shy, reserved girl ever cusses.
• Dick Grayson's been affectionately mussing Tim Drake's hair ever since the Tim came to stay with him for his first bit of training as Robin, which was only the third time they met (including their brief meeting the evening Dick's parents died).
• In a certain comic based on The Powerpuff Girls, Buttercup gets annoyed with the Mayor's constant patting her on the head, to the point where she punches his lights out after repeatedly telling him to stop.
• In Runaways, Nico uses an affectionate head touch to administer a spell that forces Klara to sleep after her powers get out of control. Molly, whose parents used to do the same thing to her, is not pleased by this. Later, Molly is seen cradling Klara's head in her lap and running her fingers through her hair.
• Sabretooth has shown this on a few occasions. When it comes to amicable flings or genuine love interests, he has a tendency to gently cup their face during intimate moments.
• During Superman: Brainiac, Supergirl has a breakdown after seeing a Brainiac android. Superman calms her down by hugging her and stroking her head.

• Lampshaded in one strip of Dilbert, the Pointy-Haired Boss is criticizing Dilbert's work (while not being overly specific as to what's wrong). As Dilbert becomes more frustrated, the boss asks Dilbert to "come here so I may pat your head in a condescending manner".
  Dogbert: So you took the pat on the head?
  Dilbert: I didn't want to leave empty handed.
• Peanuts: Though Lucy's go-to is a beep on the nose, she is no stranger to the headpat. To quote one strip:
  Lucy: When you're on your way to school, and you meet a dog, you should always stop and pat him on the head. That always gets your day off to a good start.
  Snoopy: Well, at least I'm contributing something to society!

• Differences Between Us: While sitting/leaning on Anne for warmth during the firefly migration, Sprig jokes about Anne being bony. Anne responds by playfully giving him a noogie.

Attack on Titan

• Not Again: Both of Eren’s parents ruffle his hair. Grisha even does so in his titan form with his finger.

Avatar Legends

• Field of Innocence: Lu Ten ruffles his little cousin Zuko's hair before leaving for the Earth Kingdom.

Back to the Future

• Ich Liebe Dich: Doc absentmindedly strokes Marty's hair while the teen is asleep.

Bluey (2018)

• Bandit's Belt: Bandit pets Judo’s head for saving Socks.

Crossover

• The Kedabory Verse:
  • Seraphina's Tea Quest: When they meet each other, Bear pets a baby Chef Clara's head.
  • hush now, little one: Bruno pets Tae-young's hair to calm him down during a storm.
  • The Season's My Reason: Bruno ruffles Yui's hair to encourage her on her quest.
• Child of the Storm: Harry is usually subjected to this by Wanda, his godmother and mother-substitute, who takes to carding her fingers through his perpetually messy hair.
• I'm Nobody (Kingdom Hearts & Mass Effect): Roxas is at the receiving end of this all the time from Shepard, Ashley, and Axel, especially in the form of noogies. There's a time when he's subjected to three very rough noogies in a row because everyone was worried about him.
• Kyon: Big Damn Hero (Haruhi Suzumiya & TV Tropes): Kyon tousles his little sister's hair whenever he sees her.
• Spider-Ninja: Since Petra's the only sibling with hair (not to mention the youngest), she gets this sometimes:
  • Leo and Raph sometimes put her in a headlock and mess up her hair as a show of affection. How Pet reacts to them doing this depends on her mood at the moment.
  • In a flashback, Splinter brushes Pet's hair out of her eyes to comfort her when she's afraid during a storm.
• Strike a Match: Naruto is fond of giving headpats to the shorter people in his life. The affection-starved Nemu finds them addictive, while Soi Fon gives him a Death Glare when he tries it with her.
• to forget is unforgivable (Jujutsu Kaisen & My Hero Academia): Gojo frequently rubs Izuku's hood, which is always up, to make him feel better. Because Izuku created this with his power instead of actually having it as an article of clothing, the animal ears on it flatten as if they're real whenever this happens.

Date A Live

• In Date A Re:Live Shido tends to do these to the various spirits a lot, especially the more childlike ones.

The DCU

• Anglerfish: Jason massages Tim's head to help chase away a headache and get Tim to sleep.
• The Unfantastic Adventures of Bizarro No. 1: Bizarro ruffles his son's hair when Junior says he's glad to be able to rely on his father.

Fairy Tail

• Keeping Secrets: One of Natsu's favourite ways of showing affection to his fiancee Lucy is ruffling her hair. Apparently, he finds her cuter with a bedhead, much to Lucy's embarrassment.

Fire Emblem

• Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Fifth Path: Jeralt attempts to do this to Byleth but both of them agree that it's weird and he should never do it again.

Fusion Fic

• Children of an Elder God (Cthulhu Mythos & Neon Genesis Evangelion): In chapter 4 while they are talking, Kaji ruffles Asuka's hair in a paternal, placating way.
  Kaji laughed and ruffled her hair.
• My Huntsman Academia (My Hero Academia & RWBY): Izuku starts getting these from Yang once they start dating. She runs her fingers through his hair and scratches his scalp when they're close to each other, making him feel comfortable but also enlivening him at the same time.
• Thousand Shinji: Shinji stroked Asuka's hair to reassure her after an argument while they were swimming in a pool.

Godzilla

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): On account of the fact the share a single body below the necks, gestures to the other's head is the main way that Viv and San physically show affection towards each-other. They bump their heads together, twine their elongated necks around each-other in a protective gesture, and in Chapter 11, Vivienne teaches San what a kiss to the forehead is while recalling it's something that her mother did to her.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi / The Untamed

• Twice in Chicken, Fox and Flowers, Lan Xichen kisses Nie Mingjue's forehead.
• For What, For All But Myself has a moment when Nian-Daifu strokes Jiang Cheng's to comfort him. Though he's played a comparatively small role in the fic, he’s known Jiang Cheng since he was a little boy, so Jiang Cheng doesn’t mind.
• A Matter Of Age has Jin Guangyao pat Nie Mingjue's head gently at one point late in the fic. He's delighted at how soft Mingjue's hair is. Amusingly, despite being somewhat younger than Guangyao, Mingjue is taller, so Guangyao has to reach up to pet him.

The Loud House

• First Love:
  • Lincoln ruffles Lana's hair when giving her the green light to talk bad about him behind his back.
  • In the video, Lynn Sr. strokes a baby Lucy's hair.

My Hero Academia

• Izuku's Messy Hair is usually a target of this in fanfics, with his Love Interest(s) of the story noting how fluffy it is.
• Present Mic and Aizawa lend themselves to it as well, especially when they’re a couple. Both have long hair the other will play with to offer comfort.
• Apex Predator (MHA): Aizawa tends to fluff the hair of his "problem children" to comfort them, most prominently Izuku and Hitoshi.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Advice and Trust: In chapter 8 Shinji rubbed the top of Asuka's head while she was resting on his lap.
• The Child of Love: After kissing and confessing during a festival Shinji and Asuka cuddled together. Shinji brushed away stray locks from her face as they snuggled up.
  She rests her head against Shinji's shoulder, and he gently brushes some hair away from his redheaded goddess' face.
• The Great Snowball Battle Trilogy: In the third chapter, Shinji rubs Asuka's head as brushing her hair. Asuka muses that only one year ago she would probably have reacted angrily to him patting her head, but now she is letting herself relax as his fingers run over her scalp.
• EVA Sessions: You Can (Never) Trust: In chapter 69, Rei notices Shinji and Asuka are upset, so she pats them both on the head simultaneously, muttering "There, there". At their shocked stares, Rei explains she saw a technician comforting another technician like that. Shinji admits it kind of worked.
• Ghosts of Evangelion: After having a talk with her teen daughter about the War, Asuka tugs a lock of her hair.
  Asuka shrugged. "Sort of. But don't worry about it. You're a good kid, so you're worth the trouble." She tugged a lock of Ryuko's hair. "Even if you are a delinquent."
• A Glass of Wine: Misato reaches over and ruffles Shinji's hair when she finds out he cannot figure out why Asuka sat down with him and hugged him.
• HERZ: In chapter 2 Asuka wakes up after a terrible nightmare. As he reassures her, Shinji strokes her red bangs.
  "Shuuussh," he said soothingly, smoothly the damn auburn locks on her forehead as he propped her up on the pillows.
• An Insider's Look: As Shinji is stuck inside Asuka's mind, the main Asuka Aspect brings him to her house so he can have a rest. After lying him down on her bed, Asuka affectionately ruffles his hair as Shinji falls asleep.
• Last Child of Krypton: After beating Sachiel Shinji got Rei out of Unit 01 and caressed her head as he asked what happened to her.
• Neko Waffers: After Asuka is turned into a catgirl, everyone feel tempted to rub her head and scratch her ears. It becomes distressing and humiliating for the poor girl, though, since everybody takes advantage that she instantly becomes purring putty to touch her head whether she wants it or not, so that Shinji gives her a ball cap to cover her cat ears.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide:
  • In Chapter 9, Asuka tries to reassure Keiko by rubbing her head.
    The redhead didn't feel like she was moving until she had placed her hand on the other girl's head, leaning over her, and stroked her hair in a gesture of unthinkable compassion just a few minutes ago.
  • In Chapter 15, Misato pats Shinji’s head before a synch test.
    Misato stepped over to her wards, patted Shinji on the head and smiled at Asuka.
• The Second Try: Aki gets this a lot of her loving parents in this story and the sequel as seen here.

Odd Squad

• My Dream Is Yours: Touching foreheads is how dreams are transferred from one Dream-Transfer-itis victim to another. Olympia and Otis attempt to do it in order to get Otis's dream back in his head, and they are initially awkward at it.

Pokémon

• Adventures in Alola: At the end of "The Rainbow Gang, Part Six," Lusamine gives Jermaine a light, affectionate noogie during her and Lillie's Group Hug with him.
• Bitter Cold, Gentle Warmth : When Misty asserts that anything Jessie can handle, she can do just as well, Jessie gives her a playful flick to the forehead, but acknowledges the accuracy of the statement.
• Darkfire1220's Challenger: Ash's Duskull shows affection by tapping people's foreheads and likes to have his mask tapped in return.
• Guys Being Dudes: Both members of the main couple regularly pet or run their fingers through each other's hair.
• PMD: The Rogue Team: When Erin learns how dangerous mystery dungeons are and that she'll need to fight enemy pokemon in them, she immediately responds with unease. Tabor tries to reassure her by giving her head pats.

Power Rangers

• Ms. K's Power Rangers Collection: In "Bully for Kimberly", Finster pets Baboo's head, reassuring him that he doesn't hold a grudge over Baboo letting him get laser beamed in the face.

Pretty Cure

• Glitter Force: Into the Glitterverse: Glitterette pets Jewel (Hime)'s head when she volunteers to find and infect the Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure with the Glitter Force.

RWBY

• An Arc for every season: In Team MILF, receiving a pat on the head from Jaune leads to Weiss becoming obssessed with getting more headpats from him, to the point that she stops objecting to the idea of him becoming her step-father despite him only being a few years older than her (and being younger than Winter). At the end of the final omake, she's fighting over him with her mother because she wants headpats.
• Arcanum: Cinder seems to enjoy petting Ruby's hair or otherwise touching her head despite the latter's pouting when she does so.

The Simpsons

• The Simpsons: Team L.A.S.H.: Principal Skinner often does this to his son Simon, to the point of it being a Character Tic.

A Song of Ice and Fire

• Safe Anchorage: Asha ruffles both Jeyne and Theon's hair or pats their heads to indicate her protectiveness and care towards them. Theon also smooths or strokes Jeyne's hair when he wants to comfort her.

Star Wars

• In A Sword to Pass, on his arrival on Krownest, Tyr Vizsla approaches Sabine and comments how he hasn't seen her since she was a baby and begins to rub her head. This only confuses everyone else, especially Sabine. This is foreshadowing that he is her biological father.

Torchwood

• Season of Mists: Once the team find Ianto being held captive by the Project, Jack cups Ianto's cheeks and taps morse code on them. Whilst there is a practical reason for doing this in the form of snapping him out of his delusion that he's being held prisoner on the Valiant, Jack does it so intimately that Gwen can't help but look away.

Transformers One

• A Bee's Last Sound: Elita-One does this as a way to both comfort and mess with B-127.

Turning Red

• In The Panda Chronicles, the 4*Town boys often ruffle Tae-young's hair, since he is the youngest.

Unsorted

• In Twice Upon an Age, Mahanon occasionally tugs on the end of Victoria's braid in a big brother type of gesture.
• In the unofficial novel Batman: Angel of Death, Selina likes to ruffle Damian's hair, both because she finds him cute and because she knows he does NOT like it. During the climax, when Selina is sobbing after being talked down from killing the Big Bad Sinister Minister, Damian comforts her by stroking her hair, establishing he has grown to care for her.
• As their tag-team duel against Yuya and Zarc is at its end in Between My Brother and Me: Mors Omnibus, Yusho, who has been at odds with Yvonne due to her snarky remarks at his smart decision to hop for the Fusion Dimension without saying goodbye to Yuya — does this before he tells her, "I'm ready for what happens next". Unfortunately, what should've been a happy moment ends up with Yvonne shedding a Single Tear because it's a huge reminder that she has to kill him at the end of the duel.
• Beyond the Borders: As said in the first chapter:
  The event had shaken Rachel to the point where her friends took her out to grab a bite to eat,
  [...]
  "It really is weird," Kira said as she patted Rachel's brown-haired head like one would pat the head of a cat.
• In the start of the third arc of Supergirl story Hellsister Trilogy, Dev-Em sits down beside Kara and strokes her head in a reassuring way as she's having a break-down.
  Dev crouched beside her and stroked her hair, gently.
• At the start of In Which Guzma Is Frustrated, Lusamine praises a younger Guzma and pats him on the head, which makes him blush.
• Just like in the source novel, Hachiman in My Hero School Adventure is All Wrong, As Expected doles these out fairly regularly to Komachi, just with a bit of a twist. Komachi's automatic Adaptive Ability improves her body without warning her of what changes it makes. This was a constant source of anxiety and frustration for her until Hachiman got a good enough handle on his own Quirk to, through a simple pat on her head, identify the changes his sister had undergone and advise her how to make the most out of them. Patting her head then became a daily ritual for the two of them, one that they both have continued long after Komachi's ability largely stabilized itself.
• Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!: Firestorm affectionately ruffles Izuku's hair before saying his goodbyes and taking off.
• One Girl with Ten Brothers: Linka finds out that Luke is bisexual and is in a romantic relationship with one of his male classmates named Sam because she accidentally overheard a phone call between the two of them about it. After Luke gives her more details about his relationship in private, Linka accepts it. Luke responds by scooping her up into a big hug and giving her a brotherly kiss on her forehead as thanks for her unconditional love.
• There is a Touhou Project doujinshi where a very drunk Sanae asks to be patted on the head and called a "good girl". This has become something of a meme in the Touhou fandom.
• In the Worm fic Headpats, Taylor gets the power to create "Little Sisters" based on other parahumans. These Little Sisters treat her headpats as the greatest reward in the world.

• Aladdin (1992, Disney): After Aladdin tricks Jafar into becoming a genie, which results in him getting trapped in a lamp of his own, Genie playfully ruffles his hair as a way of congratulating him.
• In Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Cassim gives Aladdin the noogie variant shortly after finding out Aladdin is his son.
• At the end of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Milo is saying goodbye to all his friends. When he comes to Mole, who offers a big hug, he hesitates before patting his head instead.
• Beauty and the Beast (1991):
  • The Beast strokes Belle's hair and cheek when they're having romantic moments.
  • After getting stabbed by Gaston (who falls to his doom immediately afterwards), Belle comforts the Beast by gently stroking his face.
  • After the curse is broken, Belle sort of brushes Beast's hair so she can better see his face, before they kiss.
• Big Hero 6: In a couple of moments, Wasabi tousles Hiro's hair in a brotherly fashion.
• In Brother Bear, after they've become friends, it's not uncommon for Kenai to noogie his little brother, Koda.
• Casper the Friendly Ghost: In Casper: A Spirited Beginning, Fatso strokes Casper on the head while lying about them being uncle and nephew. It happens again in Casper Meets Wendy, where Fatso strokes Casper on the head after his uncles and the witches save him and Wendy, and once more in Casper's Haunted Christmas when they, Stretch, Stinkie, Spooky, and Pearl are being banished to "The Dark".
• In The Lion King (1994), after scolding Simba for going to the elephant graveyard and almost getting himself and Nala killed by hyenas, Mufasa gives his son a playful noogie to let him know he's forgiven.
• By the second act of Oliver & Company, a sign that normally aloof Dodger is warming to Oliver is the street dog tousling the kitten's fur.
• The Peanuts Movie: In a mid-credits scene, Lucy gives Charlie Brown a pat on the head after pulling her classic football prank on him, calling him "gullible".
• Rock-A-Doodle: When Edmond (a kitten) accidentally scares Peepers (a mouse), Patou (a dog) approaches and tells Peepers not to worry, because Edmond is a nice kitten, saying this while petting Edmond's head.
• In The Simpsons Movie, a kid in a commercial asks Tom Hanks to tousle his hair. Magic sparkles appear as he does.
• A variant appears in The Super Mario Bros. Movie; characters sometimes show affection to the leads by playfully pulling their hats down over their eyes, Mario doing it to Luigi during their introduction to show their brotherly bond, and Peach doing it to Mario - the both of them having some Ship Tease with each other - much later.
• In Disney's Tangled, Mother Gothel gives these to Rapunzel a lot — she pats Rapunzel "sweetly" on the head as a gesture of "affection" but also to remind her that she's dumb, helpless, naïve, ditzy, etc. Said gesture also lets the audience know it's actually her hair that Gothel cares about, and not Rapunzel herself, because she needs it to stay young. It is a sign that Rapunzel has grown up that she blocks the gesture and grabs Gothel's wrist once Rapunzel realizes who she is.
• In Disney's Tarzan, the infant who will end up as Tarzan gets a genuine ruffle of his hair by his human father during the opening of the movie, for pointing out a great tree to build in.
• In Toy Story 3, Bonnie's mother gently strokes her daughter's hair before she steps up to Andy to accept his toys.
• In Turning Red, Ming affectionately tucks Mei's hair behind her ear and in the climax Mei does the same to Ming.
• Up: Kevin affectionately taps Carl on the head with her beak.

• Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet: Police commissioner Ledvina comforts detective Nick Carter when he was recovering from the attack by The Gardener's chamberlain. Tap on the Head and chloroform? He deserved the affectionate pat, plus Ledvina promised him fresh air and beer drinking, if he would feel up to it.
• At the end of Attenberg, Marina gives Bella an odd affectionate gesture to the head just before Bella goes to have sex with Marina's dying father.
• Bless Their Little Hearts: Charlie's affection for his children is demonstrated by how he tousles his son's hair after he gets home. The whole movie is about his shame at being unemployed and unable to provide for his children.
• In Cries from the Heart, Karen and Terry both ruffle Michael's hair a number of times.
• Plot-relevant in Definitely, Maybe, as recognizing the gesture is how Maya works out which of the women in the story is her mother.
• In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood pats the head of a child in a Hmong household as a gesture of kindness; the family of the child is shocked by this due to their cultural differences.
• In The Innocent (1994), Pamela strokes Gregory's hair and cheek when she visits him in the hospital.
• In The Last Picture Show, Sonny often shows his affection towards Billy by taking his cap off and putting it back on.
• In Lévy and Goliath, Moses (an Orthodox Jew) affectionately touches the top of his secular brother Albert's head when the latter comes to his help at a No-Tell Motel in the Pigalle district of Paris when Big Bad Goliath is out in the streets looking for him. Later, Moses also does the same with his nephews (Albert's children) upon meeting them for the first time in his life.
• Boromir pats Frodo in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring during their attempted trek over Caradhras. After picking up the Ring, he gives it back to Frodo only after an order from Aragorn. He ruffles Frodo's hair to lighten the mood, but the Fellowship stays wary.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Thor: Odin caresses the head of an abandoned Jötunn infant in order for it to stop crying. Eventually, that infant grows up to be Loki.
  • The Fantastic Four: First Steps: Johnny Storm likes to scratch the top of H.E.R.B.I.E.'s head.
• The Name of the Rose:
  • Brother William strokes the hair of his novice Adso as he tosses in his bed from a nightmare. Adso grabs hold of his hand in his sleep, leaving William standing there holding a lamp in one hand that he can't put down, yet reluctant to pull his hand free. He leans awkwardly against the wall instead.
  • Earlier a friar strokes the back of Adso's head in a creepy manner while making some rather homoerotic comments.
• The Quick and the Dead: Lady is curt in response to Katie's adoration, until just before her first gunfight when Katie assures her she will win; the Lady then strokes Katie's hair in thanks. Subverted when she does win.
  Katie: Lady, I think you're great!
  Lady: (pushing past her) Grow up.
• La Reine Margot pets her brothers' hair when they are upset about her wedding night. And again Margot pets Charles when he is crying after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.
• School for Love: Eric pats Elis' head while praising her. She then touches her hair, relishing the gesture.
• The Terminator. Kyle Reece strokes the hair of a sleeping Sarah Connor, only to quickly snatch his hand away when the gesture wakes her up. This is after the flashback scene showing he kept a photograph of her as a treasured possession in the future.
• There Will Be Blood: It's an open question how much Daniel Plainview cares about his adopted son H.W., and how much H.W. is a prop to help Daniel lure gullible rubes into selling the rights to drill oil on their land. The flashback where Daniel affectionately tousles his son's hair indicates that he does have feelings for the boy.
• WarGames. During the movie, Dr. McKittrick had been suspicious of and antagonistic toward David Lightman. At the end, after Lightman had prevented World War III, Dr. McKittrick tousled his hair in a friendly way.
• Watchmen.
  • Dr Manhattan strokes the hair of his girlfriend Laurie (aka Silk Spectre). Desperate for affection from someone who's become increasingly distant, she leans in to his touch, only for Dr Manhattan to turn back to his work (which in fairness does involve saving the world from impending nuclear war).
  • In a flashback the Comedian is shown stroking Laurie's cheek until Sally Jupiter intervenes, outraged that he appears to be flirting with her daughter. Turns out Laurie is the Comedian's daughter as well.
• X-Men: Apocalypse: Charles Xavier tenderly caresses Jean Grey's forehead to calm her down after she becomes agitated by an apocalyptic vision. It's also a visual cue that they have a surrogate father-daughter relationship.

• Baccano!:
  • General rule with Baccano!: left-handed headpats are affection. Right-handed headpats? Not so much.
  • After thinking that he is going to die, Czeslaw gets a pat on the head from Maiza instead of having his life force sucked from him as he'd expected. This, along with the love that Isaac and Miria had shown him, leads to his breaking free from his past woes.
  • Subverted at the end of the 2002 arc with Fermet's return. His ambush of Czes is bad enough just with the massive creeper overtones he practically oozes all over his "favorite toy". When he makes it clear how utterly helpless Czes is against him... puts his right hand on Czes' forehead... and pets him before walking off to let the mindbreak settle.
• Mrs. Martinez from Bat stands in the hallway and rumples kids' hair. Bat always gives her a wide berth because he doesn't like having his hair rumpled. So far, he's managed to evade her.
• In Cheaper by the Dozen, there is a part when the children's Aunt Anne comes to visit and Billy pushes her over the edge to the point where she yanks his hair. They get on better terms with each other, though, to the point where Aunt Anne gives Billy one of these.
• David Copperfield:
  • When Miss Betsey Trotwood visits David's mother Clara Copperfield, who is very pregnant and very sad over her dead husband, she seems very determined, opinionated, stubborn and almost rude. However, at one moment she gently touched Clara's hair ("she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and that with no ungentle hand"). When Clara had a boy instead of a girl that Miss Betsey had wanted to take care of, she left the little family abruptly. Later in the narrative, David is unsure if Miss Betsey will help him from the evils of child labour and poverty, but he remembers the story (told by his mother and their servant-girl Pegotty) and he keeps thinking particularly about this gesture of kindness, and hopes that Miss Betsey will be kind to him as well.
    My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour which I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it might have been altogether my mother’s fancy, and might have had no foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative.
  • Soon after Mr Murdstone meets little David and his young widowed mother, he pats him on his head, but David dislikes him very much, and dislikes the thought that he is interested in his mother.
• In Date A Live Shido tends to do these to the various spirits a lot, especially the more childlike ones. Kurumi offers Shido this choice in volume 7.
  Kurumi: If you don’t want me to cry, you can either give me one of Shidou-san’s eyeballs, or let me suck your blood, or pet my head.
• In Dragon Bones Ward tries to snap Oreg out of one of his PTSD-induced flashbacks by touching his head, as every other part of his body is horribly injured (Oreg is so powerful a mage that he re-lives the past in a physical sense without being able to control it). He also says Oreg's name ... which makes him look stupid when his uncle sees it, as Oreg is invisible to most people.
• Marco Inaros from The Expanse tends to pat the head of his almost-adult son to humiliate him in company of Marco's co-conspirators, also as a punishment, since punching him would mean to Marco that he actually takes his son seriously.
• La Fuerza Series: Played straight, then inverted in The Inquisitor: No Rest for the Weary, the ninth book in the series. Lily cups Jane’s cheek, then Jane nuzzles Lily’s palm.
• Used contemptuously in Galaxy of Fear. Young Tash takes offense to Second-Face Smoke, but this amuses the smoker, who puts a hand on her head and looms over her, then spins her towards the Bad Guy Bar door and shoves her. He's a serial killer, so she's fortunate he was amused. Later his brain ends up in her skull.
• The Kokonoe twins in Girls Kingdom love to give head pats to girls they like, such as Misaki, then try to follow up with pats to the butt or the chest. Yep, their affectionate gestures to the head are excuses to molest other students and everyone knows it.
• Haruhi Suzumiya: In "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya", after Kyon discovers that Haruhi has been keeping watch over him while he was in the hospital, he reaches over to the sleeping girl, and gently brushes her bangs out of her face, then traces her lips with his forefinger, before gently pinching her cheek to wake her.
• In In Two Worlds, Anthony's speech therapist Cindy ruffles his hair in front of his mother. In fact, she doesn't like him at all, but he's The Speechless and can't tell his mother what their sessions are really like.
• Isaac Asimov:
  • The Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr: After Mercury, Lucky and Bigman are comfortable enough together that Lucky will tousle his sidekick's hair to show affection. In Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn, the affection is mixed with frustration, and Lucky goes as far as to "[seize] Bigman's hair affectionately and [tug] his head back and forth".
  • "Point of View (Isaac Asimov)": Roger's head gets tousled by his father when he gets worried that Multivac will be shut down due to errors. His father is trying to reassure him that everything will be fine.
• Katanagatari: After Togame loses her long hair, Shichika, who had a habit of wrapping himself in it, reassures her by patting her head.
• This is essentially the signature gesture of the Kasahara/Dojo relationship in Library War. The first one occurred when Kasahara was in high school and Dojo was her "prince". The next time he gave her one, it strongly reminded her of her "prince" and kickstarted their Slap-Slap-Kiss relationship. Every important the two of them have is accompanied by one.
• Magic Tree House: At the end of book #4, Pirates Past Noon, Morgan le Fay gently touches Annie and Jack's foreheads in farewell.
• In Mama, Let's Dance, after his younger sisters Mary Belle and Callie bring him lunch at work and eat with him, Ariel gently pats Callie on the head. He also pats Mary Belle on the head after giving her a dollar to buy ice cream (which she initially doesn’t want, due to knowing he only gave it to her out of pity).
• In the October Daye novel One Salt Sea, the scary, unaffectionate Luidaeg gives Quentin's hair an affectionate ruffle.
• In On the Spectrum, Clara's dad ruffles Alastair's hair, even though he Hates Being Touched. Clara wonders why he keeps doing something Alastair doesn't like.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sally pets and ruffles Percy's hair often, especially if they haven't seen each other in a while. It's particularly noticeable in the first book, when she's the only person who he allows physical affection from.
• In The Raven Cycle, Noah likes to do this to Blue, because her spikey, very strange hair absolutely fascinates him. She thinks it's sweet.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: In volume 2 (episode 9 of the anime), Oliver affectionately strokes his younger roommate Pete's hair after treating him for some Painful Transformation symptoms and reassuring him they'll subside over time. Pete accepts it briefly, but then pushes his hand away and complains, "Don't just touch someone's head." This is the first indication that Pete's feelings towards Oliver are a little more than platonic.
• In Shadow of the Conqueror, after sending him on a pointless task to get rid of him for a few minutes, Lyrah does this to Cueseg to mock him. He assumes that it's the Hamahran way of asking for sex.
  Lyrah: "Light, Cueseg! Are all Tuerasians as perverted as you?"
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, Jon shows his affection to Arya by mussing up her hair. Arya later misses having him do this to her.
• World's Greatest Animals: At the end of "All-Natural," Jermaine caresses the top of Crystal's head as he hugs and tries to comfort her when she bursts into tears at the thought of losing him to the armed mugger that accosted them following their dinner date.
• The X-Wing Series has Han Solo once vigorously muss up Wedge Antilles' hair as demonstration of the fact that he can get away with a lot as a General. For the record, they're friends.

• Battlestar Galactica (2003): Whether it's the one in Gaius Baltar's head or the genuine article, Caprica Six regularly caresses Baltar's hair and face. Even when Head Baltar appears to Six, she touches him more than he touches her. The cover of one of the DVDs even has her cupping his face with her hand.
• Bones: Angela can be seen stroking Hodgins’ face and brushing dirt away after he and Brennan are rescued in “Aliens in the Spaceship”.
• Subverted in The Boys (2019). At a public event, superhero Homelander brushes aside the hair of his partner and ex-girlfriend Queen Maeve, to the appreciation of the crowd, when he's actually whispering in her ear that he might get really upset if he found out she'd fallen for someone else.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Anya patting Dawn, but as it's a patronizing gesture it only annoys her. Whereas Buffy stroking Dawn's hair is used to show the squabbling siblings actually do have affection for each other.
  • A variation in "Helpless" where Giles cleans an injury on Buffy's forehead, shortly after his surrogate-parent relationship with her is lampshaded.
  • Another surrogate-parent relationship: Mayor Wilkins strokes Faith's hair when she's hospitalized in "Graduation Day, Part 1".
• Community, as is expected of such a troperiffic show, discussed this. Jeff and Annie's relationship is characterized by him being an older brother to her, except that the increasing sexual tension is making that awkward and they can't keep it up, meaning their relationship has to evolve. The discussion ends with "We can't keep doing this kiddo," with a gentle chuck of the chin. "Can't we?" [long pause], "No, it's gross."
• Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa: After rebuffing Akemi's request to be his assistant, Himura lessens the blow by telling her that he was worried about her and gently pats her on the head. It's then revealed that the Shangri-La cult were spying on them, and took the gesture as confirmation that Akemi is a person that Himura cares about — and thus a potential target for them.
• The Crown (2016). Prime Minister Churchill always gives Queen Elizabeth the traditional kiss on the hand. When he retires from public life however, he gives the young queen a fatherly kiss on the forehead instead. In a later episode the Queen visits Churchill at home after he suffers a stroke, and when he falls asleep during their meeting she kisses him on the forehead.
• Doctor Who:
  • The first technical Doctor/companion kiss on the whole show is when the Second Doctor kisses Zoe on the forehead in "The War Games".
  • The Third Doctor toys with Liz's hair when she's helping him round after an attempted assassination via Deadly Gas in "The Ambassadors of Death".
  • The Third Doctor gives Jo Grant a kiss◊ (something he rarely gives a companion, let alone anyone else) on the forehead after finding her safe and sound in "Colony in Space". Both Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning seem to fumble awkwardly in the lead-up to it.
  • In "Pyramids of Mars", there is a fairly extended scene where Sarah Jane very thoroughly massages and cuddles the Doctor's head while he's coming round to consciousness. Judging by his expression, he enjoys it quite a lot.
  • In "Shada", Chris allows the Doctor to wire his brain up to a man left braindead by a particularly brutal Mind Rape. The Doctor hooks him up to the machine, realises that Chris is finding it excruciatingly painful, and kisses him on the forehead out of pity. Then he kisses the Mind Rape victim on his forehead, "for luck".
  • The Eleventh Doctor is very fond of kissing companions and loved ones on the forehead as a reassuring gesture.
  • "The Pandorica Opens": Amy, who had forgotten her fiancé Rory after he'd been retgoned several episodes before, finds herself stroking a returned Rory's cheek without understanding why.
  • "The Big Bang": The Doctor puts his newly-acquired fez on young Amelia when she asks for a drink, which has a very similar effect to the usual form of the trope. And he does get her a drink later.
    Amelia: I'm thirsty. Can I get a drink?
    The Doctor: Oh, it's all mouths today, isn't it! [puts his fez on her, covering most of her head]
  • Towards the end of her time on the series, stroking the Twelfth Doctor's cheek becomes Clara Oswald's default mode of expressing affection for him when a hug won't do. (In their final episode together, the Doctor was originally scripted to finally return the favour, but the scene was shot differently.) This replaced slapping the Doctor which Clara did (or threatened to do) a surprising number of times in their first season together.
  • In "The Doctor Falls", Bill Potts is subject to Unwilling Robotization and thinks that everyone will shun her from now on. The Doctor shows otherwise by brushing the Single Tear from her cheek.
• Played with on the kids game show Double Dare. In one of the physical challenges A contestant would have a slime filed balloon put on her hat, and then sit down receiving a pat on the head from a giant hand. This would break the balloon leaving her Covered in Gunge.
• Zoe cups and caresses Wash’s face while they talk after she frees him from Niska and gets him to the shuttle in Firefly
• At the end of the first episode of Forever (2014), a flashback and Age Cut reveal that Abe was a baby that Henry and Abigail adopted at the end of World War II. This reveal is emphasized by Henry, who still looks 34, kissing Abe on the top of the head in a very fatherly manner.
• Friday Night Lights once had Tim Riggins kiss Becky on the forehead as both an apology and a promise to come back for her.
• Game of Thrones:
  • In the very first episode, "Winter Is Coming", when Robert Baratheon arrives to Winterfell and gets introduced to the Stark children. He says something funny to each, save for the youngest, Rickon, instead ruffling his hair.
  • Subverted in the same episode when Daenerys isn't happy about her Arranged Marriage to some savage horselord, so Prince Viserys strokes his sister's face in reassurance... while telling her he'd let Khal Drogo's entire army (and their horses) fuck her if that's what it took to get his throne back. After their marriage Khal Drogo brushes a tear from the face of his terrified bride... then indulges his Marital Rape License.
  • Davos gives Shireen a kiss on the forehead for prompting his "Eureka!" Moment in "Breaker of Chains".
  • Volantenes believe it's good luck to rub a dwarf's head and aren't shy about doing it without permission. Tyrion is not amused.
• The titular serial killer in Hannibal is creepily fond of stroking and caressing his victims' faces as he kills them.
• There’s at least one Highlander episode, “Revenge is Sweet”, where Duncan strokes Tessa’s face while they talk.
• Towards the end of the first season of Homeland, Tom Walker ties up an old woman and uses her home as a sniping post. After he's finished, he musses her hair before leaving.
• "The Duchess and the Devil" from Horatio Hornblower has this trope all over the place.
  • The Duchess of Wharfedale is a lady who is cheeky, spirited, older yet still sexy as hell. She gently touches Horatio's face when she teases him about not having any razors to shave himself because he's in Spanish jail. That lady knows how to flirt.
  • The Duchess affectionately strokes Archie Kennedy's forehead when he lies in bed, slowly recovering from his suicide attempt by starvation. Lucky Duchess and lucky Archie.
  • Horatio caresses Archie's head and loose hair when he tries to take care of him and nurse him into health. He also hands him a cup of water and tries to make him drink. These are extremely intense hurt/comfort moments between Heterosexual Life-Partners.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • "...After the Phantoms of Your Former Self": After Louis de Pointe du Lac joins Lestat de Lioncourt (who are lovers) in feeding on the blood of the tenor, Lestat tenderly holds Louis' head as a gesture of intimacy.
  • "Like Angels Put in Hell by God": Lestat delicately runs the tips of his fingers along the top of Louis' hair as they nestle together in the latter's coffin. Because Lestat nearly killed Louis in the previous episode, he's attempting to prove to his boyfriend that he can be gentle and caring.
  • "No Pain": In the song "Come to Me Again", the Lestat hallucination's Better Partner Assertion to his ex-partner Louis is "He'll never run his fingers through your hair the way I do."
• It's a Big Big World: In "Not Found Here," Burdette headpats Snook after he compliments her beauty.
• In series one, episode one of Jeeves and Wooster, Bingo Little pats Oliver Glossup (the boy he's tutoring) during dinner, dismissing something the boy just said.
• In an early arc of Kamen Rider Double, the heroes protect a politician whose daughter is convinced that Double is her father (who was assassinated the year before). Philip researches her father and, at the end of the arc, Double says goodbye to her by performing the very specific head-pat he would give her every day before going to work.
• Lucifer: In "God Johnson", Lucifer and God (inhabiting a human body) are Strolling Through the Chaos of a riot in a mental hospital. God gets a feather from a torn pillow stuck in his hair, which Lucifer removes. Despite Lucifer's resentment of God being an ongoing theme, it's clear some part of Lucifer still loves his father and enjoys spending time with Him again.
• The Mandalorian: In "Chapter 8: Redemption", the first season finale, IG-11, Cara Dune and Greef Carga all stroke The Child's big ears as a way of saying goodbye to him.
• Merlin (2008): Given the copious amount of Les Yay between the two, Morgause and Morgana can’t keep their hands off each other whenever they’re together and Morgause loves to play with Morgana’s cheeks and caress her face.
• NCIS: The jury is still out as to whether Gibbs’ dope slaps to DiNozzo are kind gestures or an attempt to stop him being so... erm... so DiNozzo. DiNozzo claims he's sure they're affectionate. In one of Ziva's first episodes, she takes it as both a sign of affection and a badge of honour to receive one from Gibbs, so the reality is that it's a combination of both.
  • It firmly lands on affectionate in DiNozzo's final episode. After he explains why he's leaving, Gibbs gives him a hug and rubs the back of his head.
• Player: Ha-ri treats A-ryeong like a little sister, and when teasing her he ruffles her hair.
• JJ from Skins is forever having his hair ruffled; he's well aware that it's mostly patronizing.
  "Then I'd tell Freddie and Cook to stop fighting over Effy before they hate each other forever, and not make me take sides. And they'd listen to me for once and not fucking ruffle my hair!"

  • And then about two minutes later, Karen [Freddie's sister] does exactly that.
• In Smallville:
  • Chloe tenderly pats Clark, who is unconscious, in "Fever".
  • Clark pats Chloe in "Onyx" when evil (well, eviler) Lex knocked her out cold.
  • Clark gently touches Chloe in "Abyss" along with a forehead kiss before wiping her memories of his secret.
  • Clark and Lois start patting each other's head after they drop the Vitriolic Best Buds facade and start acknowledging their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
• In Stargate SG-1, Jack sometimes gently ruffles or smooths Daniel's hair to show affection or to comfort himself if he's worried about Daniel. He also does it to annoy Daniel sometimes.
• Alex does this to Supergirl in Season 1 episode, "Falling", by caressing her cheek to let her know that she forgives her for saying all the bad things to her under the influence of red kryptonite, even though there are some things she said were right about her.
• In the Supernatural episode "What Is And What Should Never Be" (S02, Ep20), the Mary Winchester in the wishverse strokes Dean's face and kisses him on the forehead.
• In the Robin of Sherwood episode "The Greatest Enemy", Robin of Loxley gently ruffles Much's hair before sending him away.
• Torchwood: Children of Earth: In "Day Four", Jack tenderly strokes Ianto's cheekbones as he lies dying from the 456's virus.
• Uchu Sentai Kyuranger: Stinger sometimes pats Kotaro on the head in comforting manner as big brother to younger brother. It's a gesture that Stinger's older brother used to do when Stinger was a child and it reminds him of the good times he had with his brother before it all went to hell.
• The White Queen: After Queen Anne experiences an acute coughing fit in the middle of a party, she rests in bed while King Richard III caresses the top of her head to soothe her. Although their marriage is in trouble in Episode 10, spending time with his ill wife and performing this gesture demonstrate that there are still some remnants of his romantic affection for her, even if it's nowhere near as strong as it used to be.
• The X-Files: Mulder and Scully would frequently touch each other's forehead, stroke each other's hair, hold each other's head, or cup each other's face. Unresolved Sexual Tension at its best.

• Dana Brooke is fond of patting someone's hair, except it's more patronizing than affectionate — usually to interviewers after a promo. In some cases, she asks the main male interviewer for NXT (who is considerably taller) to squat down so she can reach.
• For a more traditional affectionate example, Rey Mysterio Jr. will come over to child fans wearing copies of his mask to do a luchador-esque forehead bump to them while making his entrance.

• In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, resident Team Mom Ciro is fond of petting his younger siblings on the head. He also does it at one point to fellow student Michal, during a moment when Michal is acting particularly childish, which confuses the younger boy.

• Quite commonplace in professional team sports, and considered a bit less Ho Yay than a pat on the backside.

• In Cross Road, the devil Amduscias is fond of doing this to his contracted human, the violinist Niccolo Paganini.
• Death from the Takarazuka Revue productions of Elisabeth is fond of doing this to Sisi and Rudolf ^note He does it to Sisi in "Saigo no Dansu/Der letzte Tanz" and "Ai no Tema/Der Schleier fällt"; Rudolf in "Mama, dokona no?/Mama, wo bist du?" and at the end of the Mayerling Waltz., often with a look straight down the barrel of the camera. It's usually done in a possessive, gloating manner.
• All the idols in Tsukiuta, to the audience. It is one of the benefits of scoring an aisle seat. They had to pause this during the Covid pandemic, but starting with SQS Episode 8, it's back, and to make up for lost time, they gave a whole four minutes of fanservice time at each series' first show back to doing this. The characters also do this to each other quite frequently, with Kakeru and Shun being particularly eager to get head-pats from Hajime.

• ANNO: Mutationem: Prior to the final battle, Ann gives Sigrid a headpat, assuring Sigrid that she will protect her while she's gathering the energy needed to use it against C.
• Changed: In sharp contrast to every other creature in the tower, defeating the Hyena Mom will cause it to considerably mellow out towards the player. In fact, she's so comfortable with you now that laying down with her and her family will cause her to pat your head affectionately as if you were one of her own.
• Ensemble Stars!: This comes up on a number of occasions.
  • Tori often demands this as part of his Deliberately Cute Child persona.
  • In Quarrel Fes, Keito pats the head of the producer to thank her for her hard work. Souma immediately cries this is unfair, then catches himself and simply says that she should feel honoured to have her head pat by his beloved senior. Keito sees this and later when Souma does well Keito obligingly pats his head — except that at that point, they were due to be on stage in five minutes, so Kuro needs to step in and straight out Souma's ruffled hair. (Nevertheless, Souma seems quite pleased.)
• Fate/Grand Order: Ushiwakamaru (a young Minamoto no Yoshitune), in one of her interlude conversations, asks her Master (the player) to pat her head. A later event, where she gets to meet her ancestor, Minamoto no Raikou, also has her receive pats to the head from her ancestor.
  • Another Servant, Wu Zetian, will also allow the Player to give her headpats upon reaching a certain bond level with her. Or feed her sweet candy.
• In Final Fantasy X, Lulu often demonstrates fondness for her adopted little sister Yuna by stroking her hair.
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade:
  • Thea upsets Shanna by criticizing her recklessness. She tries to imitate their big sister Juno by patting her on the head — only Thea is an Aloof Big Sister, so Shanna goes from being upset to weirded out. (She does say she appreciates the effort in their next support conversation.)
  • Chad breaks out laughing at Hugh's dramatics about being called "mister". Hugh is surprised that he can laugh, since he's seen so many kids lose the ability to smile because of the war, but concludes that there's hope in the world as long as kids are laughing. He asks Chad to make sure to laugh once in a while before ruffling his hair. Given that Chad ends the support by thinking that there's still hope for the world as long as there are adults like Hugh, he doesn't seem to mind too much.
• Goddess of Victory: NIKKE: Poli, Biscuit and Jackal all show favorable responses to receiving headpats from the Commanders; rather notably, these three Nikke all show characteristic traits of dogs, and have wildly differing backgrounds. Poli is from Elysion and a police officer, Biscuit is from Tetra Line and works as a dog trainer, while Jackal is from Missilis and hails from Outer Rim as a member of Team Exotic.
• In Grandia II, Mareg pats Tio's head every time he tries to teach her about life and thinking for yourself.
• In The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction whenever you pick up a civilian, you can choose to put them down with a gentle pat on the head instead of throwing them into the horizon like the Hulk usually does when he picks someone up.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, the epilogue has Jotaro patting a young Jolyne when they arrive in Morioh.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel games, Sara likes doing this to Fie, who puts up with it but tells Sara how annoying she finds it. Laura's father also does this to her when they see each other again for the first time in months. Laura is more embarrassed that the gesture is seen by her classmates than by the gesture itself. Rean also has a tendency to do it to any girl he's close to (Alisa, Towa, and Elise are all on the receiving end, much to their collective frustration). Rean also does it to Altina in Cold Steel III. She's not amused the first time he does it, asking if he was thinking anything indecent when he did, but by the time of Cold Steel IV she's actually asking him to give her a headpat at the end of their link victory sequence.
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Rusl gives a hair ruffle to his son Colin at the beginning of the game.
• In Love Live! School idol festival, one of the things Nozomi will say on the home screen as your center is, "Once you clear your goals, I'll give you a pat on the head" ("Uchi wa yoshi-yoshi shiteageru yan").
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, Dark Piece Rynith gives one to Levi the Slasher after the two properly introduced themselves. Turns out, The Berserker Blood Knight likes it.
  Levi: Nehehe~, feel free to pat me more~!
• Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: During the game's dream world sections, the player can use the stylus to pat Luigi's head while he's asleep. He reacts with either confusion or a smile and a hum.
• Miitopia: If a teammate gets inflicted with the "anxious" status effect, there's a 50% chance they will stop their teammates from fighting and beg them not to; that teammate responds by happily patting their face to reassure them.
• In Persona 5, this was Futaba's mother's go-to gesture to congratulate Futaba on a job well done and during her Confidant, she requests that Joker "pat pat" on her head to praise her for completing her promise list to her mother. Oblivious to Love as she is, Futaba is confused why the affectionate gesture feels so different when Joker did it compared to her mother.
• The patronizing version can show up if you get wrecked in the 1994 3DO version of Road Rash; your character is knocked onto their belly by another biker, after which a third one drives up from behind, pats the PC's helmet in a "there, there" fashion, and races off.
• Tomodachi Life: The player can use their cursor to pat a Mii's head. While doing so, it first gets a relaxed expression, then a happy one; letting go of the stylus will make it jump up and gain a small chunk of XP.
• Undertale:
  • Toriel gently pets the player on the head when they first enter her house and she shows them their new room.
  • Parodied during the "date" with Alphys. Undyne hugs a depressed Alphys and pats her on the head... then tosses her into a trash can like a basketball before shouting an encouraging speech at her.
  • In an Easter Egg in the True Lab, lying down in one of the beds causes a ghostly creature to appear beside it, and slowly reach out to Frisk...To reach down to tuck them in, and pat them on the head. It would be cute, if it weren't creepy as well.
• Oda Nobunaga pats Genki Girl Xiao Qiao's head in the Sengoku ending of Warriors Orochi.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed: Rex pats Glimmer fondly on the head just before Rex, Shulk, and A enter Origin to stabilize it. Glimmer is confused, but the expression on Rex's face makes it clear he's done this before, in the old world. Glimmer is Rex's daughter, but since she doesn't even know what a daughter is, he never explained their connection.

• In BUSTAFELLOWS, Limbo and Shu, along with her childhood friend Adam, does this to Teuta as a way to convey their fondness for her. In Crow's route, Teuta pats Crow on his head, leaving him rather flustered.
• Cinderella Phenomenon: Delora gently pushes Lucette's hair back from her face while comforting her in Fritz route.
• In Collar × Malice, the protagonist Ichika receives many variations from the love interests. Shiraishi tends to pat her hair. Yanagi taps her head lightly. Sasazuka gently pokes her forehead.
• Court of Darkness: In chapter 4 part 2 of Lynt’s consort path he pats the main character on the head to comfort her. In Rio’s consort path Rio pats the main character on the head. In the story event Scintillating Summer Escape in Fenn’s path he pats the main character on the head. In the Prince’s Path Headmaster Lou pats Christoph on the head. The main character pats her cat familiar on the head.
• Rin's flashback in the prologue of Fate/stay night features a scene where her father pats her on the head. She remarks that because it's the first time he's ever done so, he's using far too much strength and dragging her head around as he does it.
• Harada Sanosuke in Hakuouki distributes these regularly to Chizuru and Ryuunosuke.
• Higurashi: When They Cry:
  • Satoshi Hojo had a habit of doing this, especially to his sister Satoko, before he disappeared. So much that when Keiichi does it to her in Tatarigoroshi-hen, it actually triggers her and causes her to Stress Vomit. He does this a few times to Shion as well. In fact, after she stabs Keiichi, in Meakashi-hen, she actually yells out for Satoshi to do this to her in the visual novel.
  • Rika pats people when they're feeling down. While most people assume that she's comforting them, she's actually mocking them.
  • This used to be done to Miyo as a child by her dad. A noticeably sad example happens after he gets into a severe automobile accident. He's bandaged near completely and his arm has been amputated but he tries to comfort Miyo but can't. He dies moments later.
• Hideyoshi in Ikemen Sengoku frequently pats the female main character's head in his route, in a big brotherly way at first and in a more affectionate way later on. The MC becomes so used this treatment that she instinctively pats his head in one scene while telling him to take care of himself and immediately becomes mortified about it.
• Katawa Shoujo: Towards the end of Lilly's route just before she leaves for Scotland, Lilly is saying her goodbyes to both her best friend Hanako and boyfriend Hisao. Hisao is resigned, but Hanako is reluctant to say goodbye and literally holds onto her. Lilly eventually firmly but gently disengages Hanoko from her arm and gives her a quiet reassuring speech, during which she tells Hanako she loves her very much and gently pushes Hanoko's hair back from her face and kisses her on the forehead. The gesture almost moves Hanoko to tears and temporarily renders her all but speechless.
• My Girlfriend Is the President: Jun often pats Yukino, and it always causes her worries to vanish instantly. Jun even complains that she's too simple-minded. He also does it to Ell in her route, and it works so well that, whenever Jun looks concerned, she starts doing it to him as well. It also works that way, though obviously more because of the cuteness than anything else.

• Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures: Badtz-Maru comes up and pets My Melody's ears, something that actually bothers her. Thankfully, with encouragement from Kuromi, she lets him know, and he understands.

• At the end of the first part of Bailin and Li Yun, Li Yun has successfully gotten Bailin into his apartment and housed him in his bathtub, and groans when he realizes the whole cavalcade of logistical problems that that opens up. He's gently pulled out of his funk when Bailin places a hand on his head and smiles at him, as a silent thanks for letting him into his life.
• Castoff: When Frankie realizes that he lost all of his maps in the shipwreck and will have to make new ones, Vector gives him a sympathetic pat on the head.
• Champions of Far'aus: Hyperion pats Will on the head after the latter reports that their ice dragon egg is safe in the new tool shed. Hyperion notes he forgot how “funny your head sounds” as he proceeds to tap Will’s head curiously.
• Charby the Vampirate:
  • Bert ruffles Blaine's hair after giving him a near lecture about entering the woods on his own when he learns Blaine did so thinking he heard a child in danger from a werewolf.
  • Charby gives Victor a friendly, if unwanted, noogie when the two reconcile after Victor tells Charby to stay away from him and that their friendship is over when Blaine makes it clear he won't tolerate his hunters befriending "monsters".
• The Devil's Panties: A security guard condescendingly pats Jennie on the head in this comic.
• In Drowtales, Nei'kalsa Tions Sarghress keeps her hand placed on the head of her younger brother Sar'nel as the two are made to watch Ariel beat Mir'kiin to death.
• The Greenhouse: The demon 'Red' is completely thrown for a loop when Mica tussles her hair. She's still not used to being Intangibility capable of physical contact with anyone, and this is also probably only the second affectionate touch she's ever received, so her confusion is understandable.
• In Guardian, as in Final Fantasy X, Lulu often pets Yuna's hair out of affection. Wakka also tousles Chappu's hair in a more big brotherly variant.
• How to be a Werewolf: Connie pats her daughter Aubrey's head and twists her fingers through her hair while berating and threatening her in a dark imitation of a motherly gesture.
• In Namesake, Fred is seen patting someone's head several times. Different than other times this trope is played, the gesture has nothing condescending at all; he genuinely means to encourage someone, offer comfort or show acclaim.
• Out of the Blue: In Chapter 2, Felix ruffles Sunny's hair as they talk about mermaids and having friends.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: The story at some point returns to a time at which an eight-year-old Lalli was the only child in a group otherwise made of elderly adults, and one of the elders is seen greeting Lalli with a pat on the head.
• Til Debt Do Us Part: One of the signs Yejun is developing real feelings for Subin is that he is voluntarily affectionate with her. In Chapter 46 he rubs her hair, and she notices that it's only the second time he's given her genuine physical affection.
• Tripping Over You has Milo, who is constantly caressing or fiddling with his boyfriend Liam's hair.
• Unsounded: Mathis keeps his hand on his son Matty's head after checking a bruise on his forehead, while implying he may yet go kill everyone involved in harming his son.

• Big Hero 6: The Series: Krei does one to Hiro while apathetically trying to warm up to him while he dates Aunt Cass in "Aunt Cass Goes Out". Happens again but with genuine fondness in "Muira-Horror!".
• Casper's Scare School: Mantha and Stretch stroke Casper on the head in "Vote for Casper" and "What Possessed You?" respectively.
• In Codename: Kids Next Door, Numbuh Five will occasionally tousle Numbuh Four's hair, showing the nature of their friendship.
• The Fairly OddParents!: This is the only form of any affection Remy Buxaplenty's parents bother to give him. If he tries to raise his arms for a hug, he is instead given a head pat and his parents run off to another business endeavor.
• A standard gesture of affection among Gargoyles, their cultural equivalent of kissing.
• Gravity Falls: Grunkle Stan will occasionally give some "affectionate noogie-ing" to his great nephew and niece Dipper and Mabel.
• Green Lantern: The Animated Series: Hal does a "tousle the hair" to Amaya — an alien without hair — when showing her a kindness over a family loss.
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas! has the titular Grinch patting Cindy Lou Who on the head before he gives her a drink and sends her back to bed.
• Kaeloo: One episode had Mr. Cat pat Stumpy on the head in a big-brotherly way.
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: The Mega-Monkey usually shows her affection for Kipo by lightly tapping her on the head with her finger (which Kipo will hug). When the Monkey is turned back into Kipo's mother, Song, she tries to do the same thing, only to remember with embarrassment that she's not a giant anymore and can hug Kipo the traditional way.
• In The Lion Guard, Mufasa also does this to Scar according to Scar's backstory song after he finds out what Scar did to take care of the strange lion. It has a sign that Mufasa doesn't take Scar seriously.
• In the Marvel's Spider-Man episode "An Ock and a Hard Place", the new, relaxed version of Otto Octavius says that all the students will have a chance to work on the Neo-Cortex project regardless of their ability. As he says that, he ruffles Peter's hair. Peter is not happy about the implication.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In "Griffon the Brush Off", Pinkie Pie gives one to Fluttershy right before Gilda's party, and actually manages the very rare feat of annoying her.
    Pinkie Pie: Don't worry your pretty little head about mean old Gilda. Your auntie Pinkie Pie's got it all taken care of!
    Fluttershy: I'm a year older than you.
  • In "May the Best Pet Win", Rainbow Dash gives a condescending pat on the head to Twilight Sparkle, when she asks if "coolness", "awesomeness" and "radicalness" aren't all the same thing.
  Rainbow Dash: You would think so. And that is why you would never qualify to be my pet.
  • In "Sisterhooves Social", Rarity's father gives Sweetie Belle a tousle as he praises her cooking. She clearly appreciates it.
  • In "Family Appreciation Day", Apple Bloom is patted by her Uncle Apple Strudel and Granny Smith.
  • In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well", Rainbow Dash gives Scootaloo a tousle/noogie when she thinks that Scootaloo's there to apologize.
  • Twilight Sparkle gets a few of these in "A Canterlot Wedding".
  • Fluttershy gets one of these from Pinkie Pie again in "Maud Pie" when Pinkie tells her that the rocks used to make the rock candy are a secret.
  • Fluttershy again gets these from her younger brother, Zephyr Breeze, in "Flutter Brutter".
• The Owl House: Eda the Owl Lady occasionally does this to Luz when particularly proud of her. The first time was at the end of "I Was A Teenage Abomination" after Luz got herself banned from Hexside School. Eda does it again in "Adventures in the Elements" when Luz demonstrates her new ice spell, prompting Edric to somewhat mockingly do the same to Amity, much to Amity's annoyance.
• Phineas and Ferb: Done by Candace Flynn to Ferb in the final song sequence of "Summer Belongs To You". And considering it's the only time so far that she's shown physical affection to her little stepbrother, it's nothing short of adorable.
• In the Postman Pat episode "Postman Pat's Finding Day", Pat pets Katy's head when he makes it to her house for her and Tom's birthday party.
• In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Face on the Fritz", Dr. Rafferty rubs Sean's head after he figures out a code.
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Due to his status as The Baby of the Bunch and The Heart, Michelangelo gets this from his brothers, Splinter, and April. Keep an eye out, it happens pretty often.
• In the 2018 reboot of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, two characters do this.
  • Shadow Weaver touches the face of someone when she is trying to manipulate them, or has just manipulated them. She has a habit of tucking in a strand of Adora's loose hair. In Season 2, she touches Catra's face when trying to get on Catra's good side. In a flashback, she touches Micah's face after a spell transforms her from Light Spinner into Shadow Weaver. In Season 4, she tucks a rose behind Glimmer's ear and touches her face while telling her that she will be a greater monarch than either of her parents.
  • In "Destiny, Part 2", Horde Prime touches Hordak's face in a manner that appears affectionate, but the touch quickly turns into forceful facial groping as he invades Hordak's mind. After mind-wiping Hordak, Horde Prime touches Glimmer's face in a manner that feels predatory.
• The Simpsons:
  • In an educational film during "Lisa the Vegetarian", Troy McClure pats little Jimmy roughly at the end, causing him to protest.
    Jimmy: You're...hurting...me.
  • Homer Simpson often does this to Bart.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks:
  • In "Second Contact", Ensign Beckett Mariner ruffles Ensign Boimler's hair just after she introduces herself to Ensign Tendi.
  • In "Twovix", Boimler returns the favor after she reveals she's the one who recommended him for promotion.
    Mariner: Ew, did you just pat me on the head?
    Boimler: Yeah, it felt weird to me too, I'm sorry!
• Star Wars:
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: During "Innocents of Ryloth", Waxer pats and rubs Numa's head to comfort her on several occasions.
  • Star Wars Rebels: At the beginning of "Trials of the Darksaber", Sabine pets Chopper when he calls her to the meeting and he purrs like a cat in response.
• Steven Universe: Garnet pats Steven fairly often, enough so that it is seen in the opening. While all the Gems are very affectionate towards Steven, it's especially noticeable due to Garnet's normally stoic demeanor.
• Teen Titans (2003): In "Calling All Titans", Jericho reaches down and pats an exhausted Beast Boy on the head after he climbs all the way to the top of the mountain to give Jericho a communicator.
• A Thousand and One... Americas: In the thirteenth episode, a Chimu girl gently caresses Chris' red hair, as she likes it and never saw someone whose hair had that color before. She even asks him if the color is dyed (he says it isn't).
• Tom and Jerry: "Professor Tom" has Tom teaching mousing to a kitten. When the kitten does a good job, he gets a pat on the head.
• Total Drama:
  • Duncan doesn't care much for the introduction session in "Not So Happy Campers - Part 1" and distracts himself by restraining a deer around the neck and giving it a noogie.
  • In response to Chris's list of Wild West movie clichés in "3:10 to Crazytown", Beth excitedly asks about the pretty dames. Chris shouts back at her that it's none of her beeswax, then laughs and strokes her over the head as he answers that they're usually at the saloon.
  • Chris teasingly gives Heather a noogie in "Celebrity Manhunt's TDA Reunion Show" when he calls her, Alejandro, and the other contestants dupes.
  • Chris initially likes Sierra's compliments in "Broadway, Baby!", but wants no more of it when she brings up embarrassing details from early in his career. To get her to shut up, he smiles gently and pats her on the head, then turns the final pat into a shove away from him.
• Transformers: Rescue Bots: Cody is frequently the recipient of headpats and hair tousles by every human adult on the show.
• Xiaolin Showdown: As the smallest monk, Omi is occasionally on the receiving end from other characters. Most notably, Chase Young gently pats or strokes Omi's head whenever he is trying to convince Omi to join the side of evil, much to Omi's confusion each time. Omi is much more receptive to Chase petting his head after Chase turns Omi into one of his cats. In the alternate timeline, the good version of Chase also has the habit of patting Omi's head, although the gesture feels much more unambiguously affectionate and genuine coming from him.

• The word "cafuné" is Brazillian Portuguese for lovingly patting, stroking, and/or playing with another person's hair.
• Pets, especially cats. Cats also have scent glands on their heads, which is why they headbutt other cats as well as people to mark them. This, combined with the trope, most probably influenced the image of cats as cuddly and affectionate.