DE: It wasn't my brightest hour

[bjornwilde]

 I know we all like to think of the best of our pups, but I find myself wondering, what is their capacity for being mean? What are the times that trigger that little bit of cruelty we all have lurking inside?

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Medic is just flat-out an awful person and I have millicanoned that pestering him for assistance on the battlefield too loudly or too often will get you knocked out only to wake up with your legs attached the wrong way around.

Gordon is not much good at meanness or cruelty but that is because his response to people who make him want to engage in either is to stop talking to them. He might still interact with them, but as far as they're concerned he's a silent protagonist. He might deliberately withhold information from people he doesn't like or who honked him off; he saves violence for things and people who would kill him if they got the chance.

Shephard is generally too easygoing and stable to need a coping mechanism like Gordon's option of silence, but if he decides he doesn't like you... oof. His idea of meanness and nastiness has more to do with scaring the hell out of people, especially if they think he's a hick or a stereotype. He'll throw in some physical violence if he feels it would help to get his point across.

Varric has enough contacts in the seamy side of Kirkwall to ruin somebody's life if he really feels like it, and he could probably humiliate them forever and ever by writing them recognizably into a bad role in one of his stories. Probably has, in fact. Plus he'll get violent if that seems like the best way to make somebody miserable.

Edward Kenway's a pirate who's friends with Blackbeard, and currently a completely self-absorbed individual at that. He can be mean just because he thinks someone is too foolish or too lazy to deserve to keep their money or status, although it's possible to find his sense of pity if you're earnest enough (ask Stede Bonnet).

I don't know about Stacker or Santo. I know Ellen is really not very good at all at petty meanness, but if something big and pervasive gets her angry enough... well, she did kinda threaten to destroy an entire city by alien orbital weapons fire. And she did call down that orbital strike that destroyed the last Enclave headquarters on the East Coast. Not out of a desire to make anybody hurt, just because it had to be done, but it probably counts. She did roll out more force than strictly necessary when the Andale cannibal families pissed her off by claiming it was the necessary thing to do to kill and eat travelers for two hundred years and that she was no better than they were, for what that's worth. Mostly of the 'you die now in a heap of ashes and you stay dead' variety.

[damncompass]

Joshua: Anyone attacking Claudia will get his mean streak, and probably anyone attacking the Warehouse. He's one of those people who doesn't get angry easily, but when they do, it's really bad.

Helena's cruelty, especially to the people who killed Christina is very canon. Otherwise, people hurting those she cares about will bring some degree of it out. Also, sometimes just the world being shitheads.

Mark is just petty, not mean per se. (Take a look at how he's making fun of Benny with La Vie Boheme.)

Valentine: Peter or the IF. Girl gets hella vindictive in her writings when she's pissed, and the scary part is that she's very effective.

I'm not sure about Fantine or Peter.

[takingthechance]

Sam: Loses her temper when she's talked down to. This... is a problem, considering when she's grown up - despite some advances with WWI, with her upbringing it was expected that she'd find a nice husband and raise nice kids and keep house. Sam is just fine with that in theory, but she also wants to have opinions and do things and quite often that just isn't what society expects of her. Thankfully usually she gets quietly smart-ass rather than anything else, because there's some situations where she could really get herself hurt.

Katya: Hurt her people. People that she cares about, that she fights alongside - hurt them, and is not bubbly or sweet or cute, she's an absolutely brutal fighter with an intense desire to see you hurt.

Blakeney: I think has the capacity to be cruel to those he helps capture - especially if they were seen as cowardly. But it has been beaten into his head that An Officer Does Not Do This, so proooobably not?

Oswin: Hers is a bit closer to the surface, but it's never had a chance to come out in-bar - when she's lashing back at something or someone, and she gets the upper hand... she doesn't stop at 'leave me alone'. She will just keep on pushing. Some of that is because of what the Daleks did but... some of it isn't.

Annnd I gotta go get ready for work. Others later!

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark has a short fuse. It takes a lot to get it lit, but when it is, he generally goes off in very little time and with a rather decisive amount of force. Somewhere in his background, Nolan told him that, even if he doesn't start a fight, he should finish it, to the point of making sure that whoever started it realized how bad an idea it was in the first place.

That being said, Mark's not really cruel or mean, per se. Violent, yes, but he's more likely to take satisfaction in a job well done (i.e., the bad guy won't be doing again any time soon, if ever) than in causing pain or getting some sort of thrill out of beating someone up.

Just... don't threaten his family and friends, okay? Canonically, several people end up quite dead, or near dead, over that.

[bjornwilde]

Quinlan: Threaten his family and you will see how close he came to falling to the Dark Side. He doesn't set out to be mean but will react ruthlessly if he feels his family's safety is threatened.

Hank: Two things will bring out his mean streak, threatening his dream of being normal (my head canon for why he said such cruel things to Raven) or hurt Raven; Erik/Magneto has learned this second one twice now.

Brimstone: I honestly don't know if he can be purposefully cruel or mean. No, wait, there was one time but I can't think of how to explain it without giving away spoilers. If you've read the book, it was how he saved his first apprentice when she was being executed. Aside from that, he is unintentionally mean with Karou by keeping her at arms length emotionally. He has his reasons, and they seem kind, but the result isn't as kind as he'd wish.

Sam: All I can think is him not being nice and letting the villain adequately monologue. ("Man, just shut the hell up.")

I'm drawing blanks on Jessica Drew, Isabella/Lady Trent, Mulan, and Andrea. Maybe more later.

[sunbaked_baker]

If someone hurts Sunshine emotionally, she has to bite down fiercely on the desire to return that hurt. And she isn't always successful at keeping herself from doing so, if the inciting hurt is bad enough. It's a large part of what has resulted in her mother and her not talking unless they can't avoid it. They're too much alike. That said, her capacity for actual cruelty isn't very high at all, and under normal circumstances consciously avoids it.

Yrael is quite capable of casual cruelty, and often goes out of his way to be minorly mean, if it will entertain him. It doesn't take much.

[ceitfianna]

Will isn't cruel but he has a nasty temper that he's better at handling than when he was younger and is a well trained fighter. If you mess with those he cares about, insults someone he cares for then there's a good chance that person is going to end up bloody.

Charles can be petty and arrogant but cruelty isn't something that comes easily to him. He's more likely to ignore someone or jibe at them than do anything physical or mental either. Fighting isn't something he's good at and his mental powers are powerful enough that he doesn't like rage to come into it. When he gets annoyed, he'll pull something from someone's head to show what he can do, but I think he's only ever punched someone once in canon. And he's never gotten near that level of frustration in Bar.

Moist isn't a nice person, he's a conman and a thief who's selfish and he loves messing with people's ideas of him and if someone annoys him, he'll steal from, spread rumors, lots of petty ways though it can be larger.

Ivan is pretty even-keeled and doesn't towards mean. He's another who gets annoyed and frustrated and grumbles but rarely does anything as usually what's bothering him is something he can't fix.

Sameth, it takes a lot to annoy him enough to act and even when he does get annoyed, he doesn't do much. He grumbles, he tries to get out of things but he doesn't go out of his way to hurt someone, maybe inconvenience them.

Jane can be petty and vindictive as shown by her writing, she will happily tell someone what she thinks of them and use ever weapon in her polite and mannered arsenal to insult and snub someone.

William has a short temper and can be mean as he tends to lash out. He gets in fights, he yells, but I wouldn't say he's cruel except by accident.

Demeter is a Greek goddess who created Winter because she was angry. She's not as cruel as she could be but Demeter doesn't have a good sense of proportion, none of the gods do.

Tumnus rarely gets annoyed enough to do something, he might grumble but he's like Ivan. He's used to not being able to shift too much something that bothers him so he adapts.

The Pirate King is overly dramatic and clever when he's annoyed by something, there is an element of cruelty but its tricky. He'd much rather get something over on someone than just hurt them.

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut is a killer of various things (some of which need killing, but only some) so yeah, she's cruel that way. But in her way of thinking she is being merciful. She tries to deliver quick deaths but she's a not!cat. She has to fight the urge to play with her food if she wants to be "merciful". Her idea of cruel is not eating your soul or otherwise not letting you pass into the grim underworld. She's only done it a couple times to people who have thwarted her plans more than a few times or to people who are much more useful as angry vengeful ghosts than as food.

Fairy Fixit has a long fuse and will avoid getting that angry by refusing to talk to the person making her angry. But that can also indicate when her mean streak comes out, usually when people insist on ignoring her advice. She'll just clam up and let "accidents" happen.

Evil Chicken's is seeing someone perform a monotonous task. He doesn't need much motivation.

[lazy_but_loyal]

I haven't sent in the app for Pam yet (SOON), but just so everyone knows ahead of time, she has 100% capacity for being mean and cruel.

...What?

[onceaviking]

"That's my girl."
Fondly.

[lazy_but_loyal]

*insert "daddy's little girl" and "who's your daddy" jokes here*

[ashen_key]

Natasha is a terrible person who has more standards than morals, has an active career as a con-artist and assassin(the FBI, iirc, classifies hitmen as serial killers because if you make your living killing people, there's probably something deeply wrong; she had a couple decades freelance there), and has canonically strung up an elderly (albeit terrible in his own right) man with a chain and left him hanging with a dislocated hip because she was pissed off over her BFF/husband's endangerment (which was entirely unrelated to her situation - she was just venting). The people she isn't prepared to betray can be listed on one hand, with fingers to spare.

So, uh, yeah, she's a got a capacity to being mean. She's likeable! She's just not nice.

[mnt_mike]

Mike, believe it or not, has a pretty sizable mean streak. If you cross him enough times, or if you threaten his family, he won't think twice before throwing you in the Lost and Found box.

Raph is mindlessly cruel at times, in a dude-bro callous sort of way.

Splinter raised his four sons to be implements of revenge. I honestly can think of few things meaner than that.

The Loompas were behind Candy Mountain. They will steal your kidneys for sale on the black market. They were also in cahoots with Slenderman. They can be pretty mean.

Aang is a phenomenal cosmic power in an itty bitty living space. He doesn't want to be mean, or even mean to be mean, but if you do something stupid like...steal his bison, he will wreck you and your stuff. Provoke with caution.

Bumi has great capacity for being mean, but he doesn't use it. Unless you're his little brother, but at least he'll feel bad about it after the fact.

[road_to_calvary]

Gene - is quite capable of being vindictive to criminals, and completely mean. He regularly smacks them around in interviews, simply because they're scum and he can. The trigger comes...well, that depends on his mood. Sometimes because they've committed some awful crime and he's angry about. Sometimes because they've looked at him funny, or breathed in his general direction.

Bruce Banner - he's always been a bit sharp and sarcastic. These days, it's toned down. He's not really mean. He's too chilled for that, by necessity. I guess the times that trigger him are basically the times the Hulk puts in an appearance.

Javert - endlessly cruel and mean without necessarily meaning to be, simply be upholding the oppressive system he is part of. But also sometimes intentionally - see, Fantine - even though he does not see it as meanness or cruelty, but simply doing his job. The one time he actively allowed himself to act out of spite - denouncing Madeleine as Valjean - and was told he was wrong, he demanded Madeleine throw him off the police force in retribution. So...he is mean, and cruel, but rarely spiteful or vindictive.

(This is a simplified version, as essays could be written.)


Valjean - no capacity whatsoever. This is not an exaggeration.

[runningred]

Jay has a thing about people hurting kids. A serious thing. The last guy he ran up against who was hurting children is still in hospital and will probably never heal well enough to get out of hospital. Jay's perfectly capable of killing, out of necessity, or mercy or to get the job done (within reason) but anyone who hurts kids will end up begging for the merciful release of death. And won't get it.

David is capable of very dark things, darker perhaps than Jay. It's something he's very aware of and suppressed deeply. He's protective of his team who are in essence, the only family he has so for their sake, he might let that control slip but never in a way they would ever find out about. The bodies would simply never be found.

Olivier is a kind and fair man who rarely loses his temper but betrayal and dishonesty bring out a righteous side to him.

Minx has a bitchy side to her. Mostly reserved for stupid, thoughtless people.

[hey35andholding]

HAHA

Clem and Dix both have criminal histories. Clem can be self-centered and wicked and catty and will do anything to protect her self-interests and make herself look good. Dixie USED to be that mercurial, but it was all a front for her more sensitive and people-championing inner workings - she's sensitive to the plight of the downtrodden. Both would absolutely kill if necessary.

Juliet considers her niceness to be paramount to who she is. That said, she will kick your ass if she thinks you've crossed her. If you're a criminal, she will whomp your ass. If she trusts you and lets you into her life after all she's been through, guess what? Ass whomping time.

Pinkie: It's canon that you do not break a promise to Pinkie and you do not lie to her. Otherwise she literally goes nuclear. She's otherwise sensitive to the frailties of others and will go out of her way to be nice to you if you seem vulnerable or sad.

Eponine: Has done many things she's not proud of for money, but is only ever driven to self-immolating or structure-destroying violence.