DE: Midden, meet windmill

[yakalskovich]

 I am in a continuous midden-windmill situation today, so my question is: how does your character bear up under stress, and how do they deal with everything going pear-shaped?

Comments

[crabbycustomer]

Karkat responds to stress with fury and attempting to control and handle everything himself. When things fall apart entirely, his response has historically been... weeping uncontrollably and blaming himself while still trying to do the best he can to take care of everyone and everything else. But it has to go pretty far out of control to reach that point.

[genarti]

Enjolras: Bears up well! Stoically, and with swift leadership and pragmatic decision-making. We have kind of a lot of evidence of how he deals with things going pear-shaped. With general ongoing stress, he just gets super focused.

Cosette: Flutters around trying slightly desperately to cheer everyone else up and be cheerful for everybody and take care of people and bring them small comforts.

Thor: IS THERE A THING I CAN HIT TO FIX THIS. ...IS THERE A THING I CAN HIT TO TRY TO FIX THIS AND SEE IF THAT DOES ANYTHING. Yes, he can rein himself in and be diplomatic and all, up to a point, but his first reaction is always going to be to charge straight at the problem, possibly while roaring inarticulate frustration.

Kazul: Gets cranky, and prone to leaking fire at increasingly slight provocation. But she also gets strategic. The crankiness is kind of self-indulgent; it's genuine, but she can put a lid on it if she (realizes that she) needs to.

[merryeccentricities]

Awww, Cosette. <3

[leeshajoy]

Twilight: see icon.

[bjornwilde]

Rollo either gets violent, turns into a child, or both! \o/

Ahsoka grits her teeth and gets ever more snarky and deadpan about it.

Eliot drinks more and starts taking anything that will dull the edge. It's not pretty.

Sabine is pretty stoic about it, though she's likely playing the SW equivalent of heavy metal in her helmet's internal speakers.

Selina gets jumpy and snarly.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Sherral internalises most of his stress, with occasionally slightly self-destructive results. As far as he's concerned, he's not really allowed to lapse under any circumstances, so even if he's incredibly stressed, he has to outwardly appear calm, in control, and immovable. So he lets on as little as possible that he's stressed, and looks for ways to turn the situation to his favour.

Yamato cycles through lashing out at people to cover his stress with anger, and then isolating himself so that nobody can see he's stressed, and he'll flick back and forth between the two. He's actually pretty good at getting out of pear-shaped situations - it's when he feels powerless to do anything about them that he starts going a bit erratic. Gabumon, meanwhile, is pretty open about when he's stressed, and talks to people about it.

Yugo doubles down on the surfer dude persona, and becomes even more chillaxed than he usually is, while quietly exploding inside. Phoenix, meanwhile, throws tantrums and breaks things and sometimes just breaks people.

Hawke goes into a flurry of action, usually accompanied by a lot of anger. He's basically a ball of rage anyway, and stress just makes it more difficult to hide that part of him.

[i_am_your_host]

Very well thank you glad you asked :|

Emcee handles stress in different ways. Denial and lying about how wonderful things are. Freaking out, breaking down, and running away when faced with reality. Locking himself in his room to get drunk and/or high until someone has to pry the door open. Then there's a period of stability and competence and a 'fuck you I can do this' attitude before he goes back into denial and the cycle continues.

[merryeccentricities]

Bahorel: hahah! "Pear-shaped" , ahah. *bitter, bitter laughter* *and preparation of explosives*

...that's generally his reaction. That, and lots of talking/writing about it. He would love to be just be able to charge in and hit something about problems,like Thor, but alas, in his world that usually means putting a lot of work into getting things to the punchable stage. But as long as there's something to do, he'll do it, albeit with an enormous amount of commentary. He'll sort of enjoy it, too; he's better with the pressure turned up, really.

Joly: is also making a face about "pear shaped". But if he didn't function quite well under pressure, he'd need a different career. His incidence of bad joke-making may go up a bit, but he's good--he'll do what he knows needs doing and take breaks when he can, assess the ongoing disaster and charge back in when it's time. Been there, done that, not afraid of doing it again.


Gringoire: deeply devoted to the belief that yes, you can outrun your problems. He hasn't yet met pressure he can't run away from! Unless he's being physically restrained! Then he just sort of curls up and hopes Pressure stops punching him soon.

[inlovewithwords]

Only feel like answering for two today:

Tavi almost functions best under high stress, as it forces him to get creative. Most stress just sends him straight into 'how do I fix this' mode, and things going pear-shaped is his cue to do what almost no one, if anyone, else can. There are very few types of stress which leave him unable to work, and usually he cries a little--preferably alone--and then goes back to work.

Anakin deals with stress and situations breaking down either terrifyingly well--remaining totally calm and utterly focused and solving the problem through hyper-competence application of lightsaber, flying, shooting, or Force powers--or terrifyingly poorly in truly galactic proportions, although with the same methods as the other. Really, he has very limited coping mechanisms.

[ceitfianna]

Will gets into fights or drinks if he can't fight. He was in a bad place after his hanging and being mopey isn't really how he works, he needs action. His temper is even shorter or its all directed at himself.

Charles, it depends on the type of pear shaped and how alone he is. As a kid, I imagine that he went and hid and listened until he could figure out something to do. The end of XMFC is pretty much the worst mess, he's ever been in and his reaction was to get much more isolated. This is why he needs someone like a Raven or an Erik or a Jean in his life, they're the ones who get him out of his and other people's heads. If something in his science goes wrong, he works through it but for himself, he's far better at dealing with other people's problems than his own.

Quentin frets, watches Toby and tends to get overly formal or quippy. If there's something he can do, he'll do it because while he's good at waiting, he would much rather do something. Also if its someone who's not doing well, he's be near them as much as he can.

William gets angry and tries to do anything he can, also he pushes himself past his limits. If he can, he'll go riding and get away from whatever's going wrong, solitude helps but can also add to his sense of failing.

Moist is at his best when everything's falling apart as he does well thinking while dodging trouble. He thinks up plans that shouldn't work but somehow do and gets out of trouble by the skin of his teeth.

Sameth hides in his workshop and makes things and tries to find solutions. He also at times does very stupid things like running away but he only did that once and regretted it. If its something he can fight than he'll run head first at it with sword drawn and spells blazing.

Jane writes and writes or acts if she can, also frustrated walks and arguments with her mother.

Ivan does whatever he's ordered too, drinks a bit more and usually ends up punching someone for Miles.

Demeter like all of her family overreacts and most of the myths come from times when things are bad. If Kore's not there to steady here, seasons may change, storms arise, people are transformed.

Tumnus hides, that's what he did when the White Witch arrived, it took Lucy to help him find the courage to act. Now he's a little more willing but he'd rather plan and panic.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei does not get stressed very easily, unless someone he cares about is in danger/trouble and he can't help them. Or if he spends too long at loose ends with nothing to do. He copes by throwing himself into some project or other. If that isn't an option, he chants sutras. It helps.

In situations where everything goes pear-shaped, he will do his utmost to slice the pear. And he'll do it with a smile because, to some degree, he gets a thrill out of high-pressure situations.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre does his level best to do anything he can to help the situation, and then proceeds to philosophize about it. At great length.

Jean Prouvaire is...actually devastatingly practical about it, though his practicality also involves strategic venting and letting off steam, often in the form of poetry. He does whatever he can, but in the most melodramatic way possible.

Brienne deals by focusing on her duty. If she has no immediate duty to focus on, she gets very melancholy and depressed.

Fantine looks on the bright side and throws herself persistently and energetically at the problem. She's not necessarily super tactical about it, but she's very, very determined.