Thursday DE: things are getting a little out of hand

[needsmoreresearch]

What makes your characters really lose their heads? Panic? Anger? Temptations of some kind? What happens?

Comments

[just_cant_lose]

Gene - anger. He's angry a lot. He hits people, sometimes until he has to be dragged off before he kills them.

Javert - Valjean. Mix that with self-loathing and confusion, and he...throws himself off bridges.

Valjean - despair. Self-abasement. Take Cosette away and he loses all hope. Starves himself to death.

Courfeyrac - nothing! He's not given to crushing sadness, and while he can get angry, it fires him up rather than burns him out. He's temperate, and also sensible enough to find company when bad things happen. He can never lose it when his friends are around, he thrives too happily on them.

Bruce Wayne - has spent a long time learning to control the things that used to make him lose his head. Mostly fear.

Bruce Banner - oh God, I don't have enough daylight left to write that list. Potentially: everything. The Hulk happens.

Aubrey - another one who's too temperate for it, in the main.

Jim - doesn't lose his head to the point of throwing caution to the wind, at least not when working. And he's pretty much always working (and this is why, because if he's not occupied then anything could happen). When he's alone, and there are no witnesses or consequences that could blow his organisation open, he tends towards destruction - himself occasionally, more often other people or places. He doesn't need outside stimulus to lose it; sometimes he just disassociates from the world and fades out for a few days, goes and plays in his mind until something physical forces him back. He can't resist a battle of wits though, so the closest to it has to be the fight with Sherlock - there was nothing to make him start that war, barring his own need to best an opponent. The prospect of rivalry gave him the chance to go out in style, so he took it.

Or if you want the flip answer...the gun he shoves in his mouth makes him lose his head. :\

[genarti]

Enjolras pretty much specializes in not losing his head. He'll do dangerous or risky things, of course, but that's calculated. I think as close as it comes would be some kind of major injustice happening right in front of him that he could stop, or at least ameliorate; if stepping in would help someone else, he'd have a really hard time not doing so, even if it's a bad idea to draw attention to himself or something.

Cosette: Fear, for herself or for someone else, sends her into a tizzy more than anything else. She can pull herself out of it if she really needs to, in a corner, but she'd have to do so.

Kazul: Has a canonical tendency to breathe fire recklessly when suddenly annoyed, so I'm gonna go with anger. Or physical pain, which (relatedly) makes her angry.

Thor: LOKI. Uh, I mean. Anger! Also, pride.

[clayforthedevil]

Wait, is Thor's answer implying that anger might...somehow...be BAD?

[mjolnir_retriever]

SURELY

[mjolnir_retriever]

THAT

[mjolnir_retriever]

CAN'T

[mjolnir_retriever]

BE

[mjolnir_retriever]

TRUE

[mjolnir_retriever]

!!!

[mjolnir_retriever]

(whoops i messed up)

[i_am_your_host]

accurate!

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato: Abandonment issues, mostly. He struggles with controlling his anger and fear, too, but he does, at least, usually succeed - or else he'd be exploding at people constantly, because he has a vast wellspring of those emotions. But he has a whole tangle of issues when it comes to making and keeping friends, and those are all mixed together with his issues surrounding self-betterment and being useful to others, and almost all of the times he starts acting irrationally in canon it's because he's terrified that people are going to abandon him.

When he loses his head, he tends to resort to anger as a first stop, and then shortly thereafter to isolating himself from other people. This happens in a big way in 01, and on a smaller scale in the first few episodes of Tri.

Sherral: Sherral doesn't tend to overtly lose his head, but wounded pride will make him act a bit more impulsively than he otherwise would. Generally speaking, when he's angry or scared he controls it, and sometimes channels it to a more useful end, but denting his pride is a good way to make him do something stupid to set things to rights.

Hawke: The two big ones seem to be fear for his family and personal failure. Things like fear over his mother's safety make him act (understandably) erratically and obsessively, while his sense of personal failure over, say, Bethany's death, or failing Kirkwall, is a much - quieter kind of losing his head? Less erratic, more brooding with a side order of 'stray too close to the topic and he might snap.'

Fear makes him a lot more overtly angry than he usually is, a lot more unhinged and unpredictable, and generally just kind of corrodes at the happy jokester persona to reveal the seven-thousand angry seagulls stuffed into a mage's robe underneath. Failure basically makes him brood and avoid the subject and get angry with anyone who brings it up.

There's a reason that the two things Nightmare will taunt him with are '[x loved one] is going to die it'll be super neat' and 'also you failed kirkwall like you'll fail everything else and that is also super neat.'

Yugo: Aheh. Ha. Um. Fire's usually involved.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's irritation is slow-growing, but when she is angry, she is incendiary. Irrational. Wrathful. Her anger burns hot, leaving her exhausted after it fades. And what makes her most angry is amused, self-satisfied cruelty. Someone being cruel or mocking, and enjoying it.

[onceaviking]

Really?

People can be like that?

Nooooo.

Ahahahah, these two.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae shares Eric's surprise and astonishment! Who knew people could be like that? Not them!



These twooooooooo. They should totally talk again, sometime.

[onceaviking]

They should.

Maybe even before Other Things happen in canon. Though they should definitely also talk once he hits season four.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae has a predawn EP up, if you'd be up to it. :D????

[merryeccentricities]

Joly definitely lost it with the first few patients he couldn't save, but like anyone else in his time who stayed in med school, he managed to get equilibrium on that, and not a lot else really gets him in full shutdown mode. But he still really, really doesn't handle active quarrels with his loved ones well. Disagreements and discussions, that's fine and important, but a real personal emotional-claws-out fight, oh, it makes him miserable. He does proper pining.


Gringoire really cannot handle direct plausible threats to his life. As long as he can still do something to get out of it, he'll scheme and spin and do what he can, but just any point-blank inevitable threat, nope, he's done. He'll babble and bolt and possibly cry. He has no saving throw about this.

Bahorel basically stays on-balance by being slightly Mad as much as he can. It makes him feel energetic and happy to be right on the edge of losing control. As long as he can keep himself ramped up, he's fine. Boredom is dangerous and having to actually Not Act, especially when something clearly needs doing will have him exploding in no time. Which is why he spends so much time Out in the deep woods at Milliways; no one is seriously trying to kill him at all and there's not a lot he can do about everything going on back in his world, so there's a certain amount of planned Madness Time happening to avoid unplanned Madness Time.

[bjornwilde]

Hank: I would say panic/fear. Hard to decide which is truly is. The times he's lost it have been (at least in my head) when Raven rejected the serum and when Erik attempted to kill, or at least shoot, Raven. Both times Hank stood to lose things very important to him and his reaction was to attack the thing that seemed to be endangering the thing.

Ahsoka: Looking across the whole of her canon, I'd have to say her pride. Or it could be her enthusiasm. Best case I can think of for when she's lost her head was the battle over Ryloth. Her first command (I think), and in her enthusiasm or idealism, she didn't retreat when she should have, which cost a lot of clone troopers their lives.

Eliot: Future canon so it's spoilers, but love, and it's loss, makes him really lose himself. He doesn't go berserk, but he goes really dark and nihilistic.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee is complicated as I can't pinpoint what would really set him off.

A combination of physical and mental exhaustion (from dealing with the public every single night) is a definite breaking point for him, and he usually locks himself away when that happens so he doesn't verbally lash out at people. And he can be nasty. He gets drunk and/or high to re-center himself, and then does it all over again.

Seeing people in pain is another trigger, especially if he can't help them. He will literally break down and cry. So he'll find a way to avoid that person until they're better because he's awkward at being casually comforting because he ends up giving so much of himself that it scares him. And in turn, this fear of caring too much makes him feel selfish, so he'll just hate himself and...go get drunk and/or high.

[inlovewithwords]

Eriond is not capable of this.

Henry mostly loses it over someone he loves betraying him. He says some hurtful things and rejects people verbally. And then he gets over it.

Evelyn gets set off by cruelty, I guess. And stupid idiot mages who end the world because they are fucking sketchy racist grandpas. Right now she kind of goes to panic, because she is kind of beaten down. She will eventually go instead to exasperation and "I will crack skulls until this problem is solved."

Lois gets set off by corruption and cruelty and harming those she loves. She generally goes to anger first.

Tavi... hmm. Certain kinds of cruelty, threatening Kitai, or betraying him on a very personal level. When he was younger, terror could set him off. But generally speaking only threatening Kitai (and eventually children) or that personal betrayal actually can make him get completely out of control. The former usually results in him trying to attack the problem--literally--and the latter can result in anything from anger to grief to deciding to crucify the person in question (although Kitai can and will talk him down).

R2-D2 doesn't exactly lose his head. He kind of flips a little and beeps in distress, but he usually doesn't go far.

Anakin Skywalker, of course, never gets set off by anything.

[ceitfianna]

Will loses his temper at needless cruelty, people in power abusing that power and anyone who thinks they're better just because. He tends to want to fight but he doesn't do that as much, now he goes and spars or works hard.

Quentin is another who is disturbed by a lord or person in power hurting those under their protection. This is a common theme among mine and shared by Sameth, Charles, Ivan and Demeter. Their reactions vary a lot though. Quentin when he's upset tends to get haughty to hide his anger and hurt.

Charles hates seeing others in pain and he rarely loses it. He keeps a tight control on himself because he knows that if he gets too angry, it might spill out and harm others. Lack of empathy always gets him and he will first calmly explain why someone's wrong and then usually leave. If he's really unhappy, he becomes the professor and lectures someone on how they're wrong.

William gets angry around bullies and when he's underestimated and ignored, take him seriously and he'll never tell you off. He doesn't do that easily but he used to get in a lot of fights since he's sensitive about all that he and his family are lacking. Also don't mess with his family.

Sameth is sensitive about duty, the few close fights he's been in that didn't involve necromancers were about someone not taking on their proper responsibility. This is because its something he's done and he knows how wrong that was. When he gets angry, he's careful as he knows that his father's a berserker and he keeps a tight grip on himself. If he can, he'll always choose to leave if a fight won't work. Then he'll go and barricade himself in his workshop and not come out until he's made something. When he was in school, playing sports was a great relief for him as sparring can be, he's someone who needs the physical to turn off his brain at times.

Moist hates being trapped, everything else he can use against someone or mock them, but if he's trapped, he'll get out of there.

Jane doesn't easily lose her temper or anything, she's from a society and time where women don't have the freedom to do that. Instead she becomes witty and there are daggers in her words, then she writes of a world where she controls the outcome.

Demeter creates winter, don't mess with her family or those she considers hers.

Ivan is good at keeping an even keel, part of that as he sees himself as having to balance out Miles and keep him from doing stupid things. He hates people who don't understand duty but even if he disagrees, he tends not to act. Also he hates what he sees as hurting for no reason and not going by the accepted rules.

Tumnus isn't someone who gets angry easily, he tends to get scared and worried.

[harryhotspur]

WHERE TO START. Anger, impatience, boredom, excitement, battle, not-battle, imagining cool things that are going to happen, remembering annoying things that happened a while ago...

[clayforthedevil]

Things happening, things not happening, weather...

[harryhotspur]

WEATHER. Birds. Kings. Cheese. Welsh people. People who are lying. People who are telling the truth but he doesn't want to hear it. People who are smarter than him. People who are dumber than him. Horses.

[clayforthedevil]

To be fair, kings are infuriating.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre is almost constantly close to losing his head over the pain or injustices done to other people; consequently, he never actually loses his head because he's so used to maintaining the effort to keep his head that it's second nature. Paradoxically he's likelier to lose his temper briefly over a minor irritation from a friend, when he's relaxed his self-control more than usual.

Jean Prouvaire is similar--he's hypersensitive to everything and consequently is used to feeling hurt--except instead of maintaining the effort to keep his head, Prouvaire will just go a bit Mad all the time, not unlike Bahorel.

Brienne will very rarely lose her head, but seeing someone with power wantonly hurt someone without may do it.

Fantine also doesn't lose her head often, but she will snap in the face of repeated insults and abuse, and she would also probably do the same if Cosette was harmed.