A fatal exception OE has occurred at BRAIN. The system has been shut down to protect your mind. Use Ctrl Alt Delete to reset your train of thought. Any unsaved information will be lost...
Because non-canon Heroic BSODs are the best kind!Ah! My Goddess
- Lind in Ah! Archfall! has one of these, believing that Jago was killed during an avalanche.
- The Plantar Family Pet: Marcy, in canon, didn't start to see Amphibia for the dangerous place it is (or the consequences of her actions) until the events of "True Colors". Here, after a few months into the story, she's faced with an intense Trauma Conga Line. After finally escaping the clutches of Andrias and the soldiers he sent to capture her, she falls from her bird into the forest outside Wartwood. She finds the music box and Anne's backpack, believing Anne to be dead. She finally breaks down crying, realizing how badly she messed up and blaming herself for the possible death of her friend. She learns a few chapters later that Anne's still alive, but she still feels immense guilt over Anne's severed vocal chords.
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if the Auximorphs joined the team right away?", Jake quits the Animorphs for three months while he mourns Cassie's death.
- Imprisoned (This Time for Real): Katara goes through this when she's first brought into the Waterbender Prison. She then goes through a second one after both her arms are broken by the guards. And she presumably goes through multiple ones each time her limbs are broken. Then she goes through another one, coupled with Despair Event Horizon, upon hearing that the Fire Lord is visiting the prison. Even when she's finally freed, Katara experiences a few more phases of this due to her crippling injuries and seeing the sorry state of the Southern Water Tribe's waterbending culture.
- Hope for the Heartless: Avalina enters this mode several times, but the major one is caused by the Horned King seething at her for ruining his revenge on Taran. For the following weeks, she avoids the Horned King out of fear, crying constantly, and barely eating or sleeping. Only after the Horned King saves her from drowning and apologizes for his treatment of her does she get over this.
- The Bolt Chronicles: Bolt stares in shock when he sees his former friend Duke dead in the road in "The Blood Brother." He is rendered unable to move or speak at the sight before eventually going off to vomit wrenchingly.
- Ben 10: Unlimited: After being exposed to Black Mercy and being forced to watch the people he loves most die (again), Ben is left a sobbing wreck. Diana and Kara stay with him a few days to help him recover.
- Basically the best description of Stoick's breakdown after Hiccup leaves Berk in The Dragon and the Butterfly, as he can't properly comprehend how his son could abandon the village while ignoring his own role in it.
- Bill, while not exactly a hero at that point, goes through a brief one in Chapter Twenty-Nine of A Triangle in the Stars, after Gabriel cracked Steven's gem.
- Steven suffers this in Chapter Thirty-Four that lasts for a while, when he learns that he was actually telling his problem to Bill, who had disguised himself as Sapphire to activate the Warp Pad and was unwilling to change back and that it wasn't a dream like the demon had led him to believe. It's one of many, and one for which Bill especially feels guilty.
- Ace Combat: Equestria Chronicles: The Equestrian War:
- This happens to Flutershy and Rainbow Dash, the former thinking she killed a sentient being and the latter due to her encounter with an ex-friend Gone Horribly Wrong.
- Though the one experienced by Derpy in chapter 15 pumps the whole drama up to eleven.
- In the sequel, Ace Combat: Wings of Unity, Spitfire is shown to be greatly affected by Firebolt's Heroic Sacrifice and her agonizing death.
- In the Undocumented Features Story Aegis Florea 2 Sumire Kanzaki is revealed to have spent three decades in a state of self imposed emotional catatonia shortly after the Hanagumi defeated the threat of the Invaders once and for all due largely due to her belief that with The Imperial Floral Defense Force no longer being needed and The love of her life Gryphon being gone and most likely never coming back that she no longer had anything to look forward to not even old age and death. She remains in this state until Kei reboots her with a What the Hell, Hero?/ "The Reason You Suck" Speech that is scathing and insulting that her own pride demands that she finally snap out of it and get angry.
- Jack has one of these in the first half of Cave Story Versus I M Meen when he mistakenly thinks that Sue and Toroko literally raped each other to death right in front of his eyes...and boy, does he put on a hell of a show for himself...
- In Child of the Storm, Harry enters this mode at the end of chapter 74 after Thor's been put in a coma and most of the rest of the Avengers are captured or presumed dead, shifting into an unnerving degree of Tranquil Fury. The same thing happens in the sequel at points after the events of Forever Red, wherein he's got a horrific case of PTSD.
- Children of an Elder God:
- Asuka had a breakdown in chapter 18 after she got raped and in chapter 21 after killing several human terrorists.
- Shinji also had a breakdown after killing a terrorist army that invaded NERV's German base.
- And in chapter 23, Asuka breaks down again during a dream.
- Children of Time:
- It's almost a regular occurrence, thanks to massive, multiple Trauma Conga Lines, Troubled Fetal Position included.
- Beth Lestrade in Children of Time, having gone through a massive Trauma Conga Line, being emotionally abused by the man she loves, nearly raped, brutally killed... Now, Back from the Dead, she's reached Broken Bird status and is going through Heroic BSoD, curled up on the floor near Holmes's chair.
- The Ranma ½ / Robo Tech story, Dragon Lady of Macross
has Ranma undergoing an extended one when she loses two of her squadmates and is rejected by almost all the rest after revealing her curse. This ends up culminating in a crash landing and her own near death when she passes out in the flight deck, and the flight crew finds her with her oxygen tanks empty. She’s taken off flight status and treated for depression, but only comes out of it when Claudia tells her that Lisa has gone on a suicide mission, and she’s the only one who can rescue her. Lisa, herself, is undergoing one caused by Ranma’s rejection and her not getting over the loss of her previous lover. - Done somewhat literally in The Echo Ranger. All Might brings an attractive girl (Melissa Shield) to meet Izuku, who immediately has a crush on her. Then All Might introduces her, and Izuku realizes she is an online friend he is incredibly attracted to. Then Melissa's scanners detect the Grid Energy around Izuku and she blurts out his secret, that he is a Power Ranger. At which point, according to the narration "Izuku_EXE suffered a memory leak and system fault, and needed to restart."
- Equestrylvania: Twilight's been on the edge of one ever since Shining was bitten.
- Sweetie Belle's been in one since the attack on Ponyville.
- Big Macintosh has one when he sees his father among the zombies.
- Applejack has a worse one when she finds out about this.
- Rarity completely breaks down when Sweetie Belle is poisoned.
- In Fallout Equestria: Pink Eyes, Puppysmiles gets a couple. First when she accidentally Kill Sats the Steel Ranger fortress that she thought her mom was in. The second when she finds her mom's grave.
- In Fractured, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands crossover and its sequel, Origins Samantha Shepard gets hit with this hard, twice. First, she blames herself for failing to save Liara, Miranda's sister Oriana. The general state of the galaxy—space-racists, politics, and well-intentioned if slightly-clueless outsiders knocks her into severe depression. She undergoes a Face–Heel Turn before being mashed into the ground (very literally) by another hero in response to her actions (which include blasting civilians and becoming a Death Seeker Blood Knight). Then, if that wasn't enough, the Flood invade through a Negative Space Wedgie and defeat/destroy her entire galaxy despite efforts to save it. Again, Samantha blames herself (taking the canonical loss of Thessia up to eleven), sinking into depression for a second time.
- In Hotspring Souls!, a Soulsborne (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II and Bloodborne) AU fic, the Hunter suffers through one when he thinks that Soulsborneon has been defeated by Manushandradorah and he and his friends are going to die in space.
- In The Institute Saga, Nick Fury has two when it's revealed that Wolverine can't beat Superman in a spar and that Superman holds back.
- Subverted in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, when it looks like Haruhi is about to go into one of these, they intiate a Memory Gambit which prevents that from happening.
- Magical Pony Lyrical Twilight:
- Celestia induces Fate's canonical BSOD by forcing her to realize that her mother isn't the kindly woman she hopes for. Luna calls out Celestia on this, but Celestia points out that she had the opportunity and took it. That, and it was Luna's fault she did so - she intended on taking it slowly, but Luna got tired of Celestia's subtle moments and swooped in to save Fate when she was in danger.
- Twilight gets one in the A's arc when her Linker Core is stolen, causing her Cutie Mark to disappear. The love of her family ends up restoring her lost magic and Mark.
- Fairy Leviathan in Manehattan's Lone Guardian experiences this within her first hour or so after arriving in Equestria. After having a flyswatter thrown at her by a frightened filly, she asks the pony's mother about the aura she'd seen around the item. Being from a world of science and logic, Leviathan tries and fails to process the completely serious reply of "it was just magic". This causes her system to crash, and she faints on the spot.
- New Stars: For most of the fic, despite the Orville crew quickly realizing that the Republic's use of clones is basically slavery, Maxx continues to deny it and gets angry when faced with evidence. However, Dr. Finn and Isaac eventually reveal to him that he'd been implanted with an inhibitor chip (which Claire had removed earlier in the story due to believing it was a tumor), and that said chip could control his behavior. Maxx breaks down, realizing that the Orville crew had been right all along and grieving the fact that he and his brothers were never valued by the Republic they swore to serve.
- Many characters go through this in The Night Unfurls.
- It is implied that Kyril suffered from this more than once during his time in Yharnam. Not only did he experience the violence and horrors that would drive a lesser person insane, but he also had to witness all the sane people he met die one by one until only himself remains. He eventually stops caring and conditions himself to accept horror.
- The last third of Chapter 5 features Celestine and Olga taking a peek at Kyril's journal, which, unbeknownst to them, is actually an Artifact of Doom. Breakdowns ensue, with Celestine eventually crying Broken Tears and Olga ends up Laughing Mad. Though the latter quickly pulls herself together, slams the journal shut, and bolts out of the room with Celestine.
- In Chapter 7, the Prison Rape scene in the dungeons causes Harriet to drop her sword in terror, later struggling to regain her focus.
- As Lily is recovering in a tent after Feoh has been reclaimed, she breaks down sobbing and pulls her hair as she relives the time where she and her fellow sisters are raped in the dungeons. It is also where she starts having a Crisis of Faith.
- Celestine is rather prone to this than any other character in the story.
- She falls ill and her room is a mess due to being plagued by maddening whispers and hallucinations after reading Kyril's journal, a side effect of absorbing Insightnote . Luckily, she gets better after unwittingly stumbling upon the Hunter's Dream and meeting the Doll.
- Celestine has a mild one after setting off to a healer's tent of a refugee camp and attempting to use Healing Hands to save a patient, to no avail. She decides to take a break outside when the atmosphere of the tent is getting to her, reflecting on how the war against the Black Dogs, as well as the current rebellion in the capital, is taking its toll on her and the others.
- Celestine does not take it well upon witnessing Kyril getting shot in front of her, then rising Back from the Dead seconds later. She is so shocked that the only thing she can do is to hyperventilate while sinking to her knees. This has persisted for 2 chapters, in spite of her apparent recovery after the incident, to the point where she presses herself onto his chest after he is summoned. Still owing answers to Celestine (and Olga, who is also present), he reluctantly pulls out his journal for the Internal Reveal the readers have been waiting for... and things get worse for the two.
- In Chapter 30 of the original, Olga falls into a disheveled state, staring blindly ahead while swirling her fifth wineglass. The reason is that her loyal servant and Living Emotional Crutch Chloe is currently in an unresponsive state, and it is unknown whether she would make it or not.
- Remastered version:
- Alicia has one after her Heroic Safe Mode is triggered by an orc ambush in Chapter 2. Filled with shock, grief and hate, she becomes unfocused, her voice hollow, and pauses more often in her speech. She is still a bit shaken even after regaining function as her remaining crew arrive to Ken.
- Alicia goes through another one at the end of Chapter 12. During Kyril's Trial by Combat, she finds herself tossed aside as she witnesses Maia being sent flying. She tries to get back up, only to freeze at the sight of Kyril standing in front of her, his thick cleaver on top of her head like a guillotine. The only things that matters to Alicia is the serrated blade, as well as the Hunter's glare.Her eyes widened as she faced the cleaver, looking dully into the serrated blade. She couldn't hear Claudia shouting for the match to cease, or for Celestine pleading for him to stop. Was this how it ended? She was going to die? How?
- Maia and Alicia respectively are clearly not in a good shape after their defeat in the hands of Kyril, the latter clearly not gotten over her BSoD as described above. Maia's BSoD swings between lashing out towards anyone in her vicinity, and shedding Broken Tears in her quarters. Her state is worsened by the double blows of Vault, the man she is in love with, being revealed as a traitor and being dead. As for Alicia, Celestine's POV observes that she is "a little better" due to how collected she is than her more fiery counterpart. False. Alicia's BSoD continues due to having her pride shattered by being unharmed during the fight (as if Kyril doesn't even bother her presence). She also really, really doesn't take as well after being called a "weakling". Enraged, she takes it out on Soren, leaving him unconscious.
- Pokémon: Harmony and Chaos: Flash Sentry has one after the Hoofington Battle Tournament, when he once again suffers a humiliating defeat against his rival Lightning Blitz, feeling he let everyone down, failed to keep his promise to Grand Hoof, and begins to question if his training methods are even right at all. This is then made worse almost immediately afterwards when he needs to leave his friend Hopper in the Dragon Kingdom, so Hopper can take his place as the next King of the Dragons. He ends up sinking into a deep depression, and when an opprtunity to get stronger suddenly presents itself, he throws himself and his team into training like never before, working for several days straight with little eat or sleep, and eventually lashes out at his friends and pushes them away when they try to intervene and get him to slow down. Twilight is finally able to work through his issues though, when he vents all his anger and frustrations to Twilight, and she reminds him of everything he has accomplished and everyone he has helped so far, and that no matter how many times he loses to Lightning, all of his friends already see he is worthy of being the next Champion of Equestria, and he shouldn't let himself become like Lightning just to beat him.
- Puella Arcana Somniator Madoka has Madoka receiving a minor one when she was unable to summon any of her Personae. The reason why this is minor is because she gets better when she realizes that they can only be summoned in the Witch Barriers, as well as the new world the team explores in, and that it is not permanent, but her small freak-out when she couldn't summon still qualifies.
- In the megacrossover self insert fanfic Sleeping with the Girls this happens to the main character when Mokoto tells him that she thought she'd killed him.A fatal exception OE has occurred at BRAIN. The system has been shut down to protect your mind. Use Ctrl Alt Delete to reset your train of thought. Any unsaved information will be lost...
- The Spectacular Spider-Man: Lost in Gotham: Shortly after arriving in Gotham, Peter Parker has a moment of this when he realizes that, because he's Trapped in Another World with no way to contact his home dimension, he'll never see Aunt May or any of his friends again.
- Stars Above: Homura slips into one when Desideria applies the full force of simultaneous Mind Rape and physical rape. It takes a reminder from Kagami that she is not alone to snap her out of it.
- Star Wars: The Sith, Zero: Louise has one in Chapter 4 after Renv'amor is killed. Dark Side Rage + Gandalfr Runes = Terrified Pirates. However, she does not come out unscathed, she falls unconscious and is wounded.
- The Stars Will Aid Their Escape:
- Fluttershy has one when she realizes that not only does her ability to communicate with and calm down living things not work with the Dark Young, but that they're not angry or misunderstood — they are actively malicious, and they want to hurt her and the others.
- Spike has one following Twilight being rendered insane.
- Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash all slip into one after the Cutie Mark Crusaders are hospitalized. Dash's case is the worst, since Herald manipulated her into thinking it's her fault.
- Fluttershy has another one when Herald Breaking Lectures her.
- Pinkie slips into one when Nyarlathotep reveals that he's stolen the Cutie Mark Crusaders' souls. Rarity borders on one herself at the same time.
- Thousand Shinji: Shinji goes through two breakdowns in a very short lapse of time: the first happens when Misato dies, but he recovers shortly after, partly due to his desire to pay the Keeper of Secrets back for its deeds. Half hour later, Asuka gets killed, and he falls apart again.Someone hit reboot to clear out the damn blue screen of death.
- Total Drama Equestria: After witnessing the events that took place during Celestia's past, Chris starts to question his own actions as host of Total Drama (while he did indeed do nasty things to the contestants, he never planned on killing them). This, combined with Blanailey's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, leaves Chris heartbroken beyond repair, locking himself up much like Rarity once did.
- In chapter 3 of Turnabout Reunion, Twilight Sparkle suffers an Heroic BSOD once she finds out that Flash Sentry has been murdered, to the point where she decides to find the real killer by any means necessary, even if she has to do it by herself. With fitting music to go with the mood.
- Ultrasonic: After the theft of the Black Cat Miraculous and death of Adrien, Marinette goes into a depression that lasts weeks and results in a few self-destructive behaviors (much to Tikki's concern). While searching the catacombs for potential leads to Shadowmoth's lair, Ladybug breaks down and starts sobbing over the loss of her partner, friend, and long-time crush. The fact that she ends up in Zootopia shortly after with no possible way back does not help her mental state.
- Oh so very common in The Weaving Force. Taylor starts the story in one that lasts for years, Vicky goes through a minor one when she's confronted with actual deaths in a Trandoshian slaver raid, Dennis has a major freakout when he realizes that his memories of Golden Morning are real, which leads to him inciting one in Alexandria by highlighting how pointless all her actions were, and three years later Taylor goes through another brief BSOD during her trial of spirit when she recognizes she still has the potential to become Khepri. The only parahuman who doesn't go through this at any point is Miss Militia.
- In When There Was a Tomorrow, While recovering in the medbay from getting curb-stomped by a Hunter, Grunt realizes how much his arrogance has embarrassed himself and Shepard. He doesn't take it well when Shepard insists his injuries were punishment enough and demands worse. He eventually concedes to Shepard refusing to take him along on missions for the next few days.
- White Devil of the Moon:
- Mamoru has one when he realizes that not only is Nanoha not the Serenity he remembers at all, she's found love in someone else.
- It's implied that Nanoha was in the workings of one after she realizes that she really was the reincarnation of Princess Serenity and that she ended up being the complete opposite of how she was now, leading to the destruction of the Moon Kingdom and her suicide. She's afraid that those memories would end up trying to change who she is and that she does have to follow them. Fate proves otherwise when she kisses her.
- Harry has two in The Wizard in the Shadows. First, after Gandalf dies, when he a) loses it and the accidental magic lash out destroys the East Gate of Moria, then b) zones out until he runs into Haldir, who, after the latter says something ill advised, very nearly kills on the spot. The second comes after Aragorn appears to be dead. Harry gets detached and wants to search for him. Théoden wants his most powerful military asset at Helm's Deep. Harry nearly slaughters them all.
- XCOM: RWBY Within: Ruby suffers from one following the Site Recon Mission, during which Major Vance and Bolts died holding the Chryssalids off so team RWBY could escape, Blake was badly injured and had to be turned into a MEC Trooper to survive, and Yang voluntarily became one to support her. It takes team JNPR being brought to Earth to snap her out of it.
- Hunters of Justice: Teams RWBY and JNPR fight at two-day losing battle against Brainiac's forces. When they board Brainiac's ship to rescue Ruby, who had been abducted shortly before, they then go to confront Brainiac himself. The battle against him goes poorly, and they are Forced to Watch as Brainiac bottles the last remaining city of Vale and subsequently destroys the entire planet. They barely manage to escape with their lives via a Boom Tube from a Motherbox that they stole, and they are then rescued by the Justice League when they arrive on Earth. However, the trauma of the prior events causes them to have a weeklong BSOD that they are slowly brought out of with the help of the Justice League.
- In the Teen Titans story The Measure of a Titan this can be the only reasonable reaction to Robin being shot. The entire Titans team pretty much goes numb inside, and Starfire copes by going out and beating senseless any criminal she can find, all night, every night.
- Played with in The Dark Knight fanfic Question of Honor during the fight between Joker and Batman at the Prewitt Building where Grace realizes that Joker is preparing to break Batman...
- Funeral for a Flash: When Barry Allen's death is confirmed, Wally West spends a long time lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling while silently mourning his uncle and mentor.
- Hellsister Trilogy: In the beginning, Supergirl is on the verge of a break-down, burned out after fourteen years of crime-fighting with no social life to speak about, followed with an extremely close call. Then she's whisked away to fight cosmic-powered villains in the future and other dimensions, at one point dragging herself out of literal Hell. Thus, when the Legion of Super-Heroes grabs her out of her own time to fight Darkseid yet again, Kara explodes.She sighed and crouched, her elbows on her knees and her hands hiding her face. "I. Am. Just. Getting. So. Damned. Tired.
- Kara of Rokyn: Kara plunges into depression after getting trounced by rival wrestler Jasmine. She locks herself in her apartment and shuts everyone out until her parents get through to her.
- At the beginning of A Force of Four, Power Girl is recovering from a breakdown stemming from her cousin's death. She was so determined to prove she was her own person and get out of Superman's shadow that she pushed him away constantly and never told him she loved him; and now it's too late.
- In the fanfic The Waking Nightmare, which follows the events of the show's episode "The Steerminator", little Gosalyn Mallard is traumatized, knowing that Taurus Bulbs has returned and that he would kill her friends and family to get to her.
- L in A Cure for Love after Light has Watari killed. It's later revealed that this reaction is helped along by Light drugging him.
- Keena & The Defendants Of Constan Magic Academy has this with Lily, after Eiko telling her that she can't have a romantic relationship with Michie due to Lily kissing Akuto on the events of the Daimao anime (Reason why was some sort of reward), even leading her to brief Sanity Slippage. She gets better, though, thanks to Michie.
- In the Tamers Forever Series A Particularly nasty version of this happens to Takato once he finally merges with Chaos. Having achieved the full power of God, Takato is overwhelmed by the vastness of Creation and suffers a crippling form of identity crisis. Why should he care about himself, his loved ones or existence at all, when each and everyone of those things can be destroyed and remade on a whim?
- In The Lancre Caper, Assassin and stealth archaeologist Miss Alice Band is inflicted with one of these when trying to dig in Lancre. At the interesting prehistoric stone circle called The Dancers. The Queen of the Elves reads her memories and hits her hard with emotional scenes from her past, such as her fractured relationship with her father over Alice's gender preferences. Alice drags herself out of thoughts concerning her own worthlessness to slay two Elves note and force the Queen to retreat.
- Fail to the King! opens with Almaz in one of these, curled up catatonic in the fetal position from the events of Disgaea 3's Almaz Ending. One Bright Slap that pounds his head into a crater later (what, you expected sympathy? It's the Netherworld!) and he's more or less good to go, though he has to take great pains to remain the Determinator and not slip back into despair when things, inevitably, get worse.
- Basically the entire plot of Prisoner of the Magic Kingdom... or is it?
- When Did I Become a Parent?: While playing, a young Simba accidentally injures Timon. He feels horrible, especially because the injury leaves Timon in pain for a few days. He crawls up a tree and cries, contemplating running away (which is what he did after Mufasa's death). Luckily, Timon sees him and consoles him, telling him he knows it was an accident and that Simba beating himself up over it won't help anyone.
- Elissa spends almost the entire first half of the Dragon Age: Origins fic Shadow and Rose focusing all her attention on battling the darkspawn, ensuring the comfort of her companions, and preparing to rebuild the ranks of Ferelden's Grey Wardens. Circumstances being what they are (the fic is a retelling of the game), she really has no opportunity to grieve for the multiple losses she has experienced along the way, so she buries her pain. The trope arrives when she purchases a gift for her nephew, and doesn't remember until after she does it that the child was murdered months earlier. The realization shuts her down so completely that Leliana runs to find Alistair (the point of view character) because Elissa can't function at all.
- In the Dragon Age: Inquisition AU Walking in Circles, Solas has one when he discovers what exactly a Tranquil is. This shows him that he has not only condemned his own people, but also other races too.
- He has an even bigger one after Evelyn is made Tranquil. It shocks him to the point that he even confesses his love for her out loud, an act from which he had repeatedly refrained, in the hope that it could do something.
- It happens again to him in the bad future, where losing Evelyn and having to fight a hopeless war against Corypheus causes Solas to almost cease to exist altogether, leaving only the Dread Wolf.
- Evelyn has one when she hears about Anselm’s death. She suffers another one when she learns that one of her students, Orla, has been made Tranquil, and Malorel, another young student, killed herself out of fear of not being able to pass her Harrowing.
- This happens to Varric in the Dragon Age: Inquisition AU fic Beyond Heroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium, during the events of the Trespasser DLC. The Inquisitor - his wife, Bethany Hawke - has left him a farewell letter and gone to what she expects will be her final fight, as she is dying. He shuts down so completely, Bull compares it to the effects of the Qunari mind-numbing agent qamek.
- In Goku's Wish: The Return of Broly, Goku ended up suffering from the frozen in fear portion of this trope after a wounded Vegeta (Long story short, Vegeta, angered that Goku resurrected Broly, regardless of whether Goku gave him a clean slate and removed his hatred, due to feeling sore about Broly wounding his pride from their first encounter, got into a fight with Broly and ended up being completely beaten to a pulp, although not without Broly getting exhausted as well) turned into a Super Saiyan 3 before passing out. Gohan, after attempting to call out to his dad and shake him didn't work, tried to punch Goku in the cheek to get him to snap out of it. It doesn't work, despite hitting his dad hard enough to leave him with a large bruise on his cheek.
- In The Warrior's Daughter, Gohan falls into depression after being forced to kill Bulla to destroy Cell. It is so severe that both Chi-Chi and Goku -who hardly ever gets bothered by anything- become worried.
- In Trunks' New Look, Vegeta gets one after he has mistakenly given his son a passionate tongue kiss, with a couple of blood vessels bursting in the process.
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
- Vegeta has one after realizing that Future Trunks is his son."What, are you trying to imply that this wannabe Super Saiyan from the future is my soooooooooooo-"
- In their version of "Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan", Vegeta's Heroic BSoD isn't due to how powerful he is, but how stupid his backstory is.
- Vegeta has one after realizing that Future Trunks is his son.
- In The Butterfly Effect (Elfen Lied) chapter 15, after the murder of her mother Mikomi, Kaede succumbs to depression, not bothering to attend school and taking her sorrow and anger out on any gangs and delinquents she can find. Helping Aiko reunite with her mother the next chapter helps her snap out of it.
- Mike Stoker has one after narrowly escaping being gang-raped and killed along with Johnny by a group of devil-worshipping firemen in "An Arc In The Fog". The first time he walks away, he shows up at Statiin 51 in a daze. The crew takes care of him and he later agrees to go back to his current assignment to get evidence to take the cult down. After they nearly kill him and Gage and are held off by a Heel–Face Turn of one group member, Mike wanders away from the scene, emotionally shuts down. He just sits on the rear running boards of the engine, blank eyed and saying “I’m ok” without emotion. Cap has to gently stop him walking off and hug him to pull him back to reality.
- In "When the Hunters Become The Hunted", Mike has a girlfriend who suffers one. She was raped once as a teen and an attempted rape when she's kidnapped during a camping trip is too much for her. She holds on long enough to tell the rescue party that John's girlfriend is still being held by the kidnappers, then shuts down. And though she starts to respond to Mike later, it's only to him and it takes quite a while to bring her fully back. The other wives/girlfriends are mentally exhausted too, but she and Johnny’s girlfriend shut down the most.
- John Gage has a few of these in this fic series, though it's justified due to this author giving him mild autism. His condition has caused him to go into these mental retreats to cope with trauma since being abused in childhood. The best example is "Missing Family'', when Roy and his family are believed dead in a plane crash. John has to be drawn out it by Cap with an old therapy called "rage reduction", which Roy uses once in another story in the series as well. Holding him and letting him struggle lets him expend the anger and despair he's feeling, then brings him to a point where calmly speaking to him and calling his name brings him back to awareness. It nearly hit Despair Event Horizon, but John had dreams and feelings that they were still alive, leading him to go find them after Cap brought him back. The other on, where Roy brings him back, is in "Revenge" when John is abducted and tortured.
- In Prison Break prisoners kidnap Roy after a bus crash frees them. Roy keeps it together during the ordeal, but is exhausted and injured and narrowly avoids a rape. The cavalry arrives just then and Roy ends up laying on the floor zoned out, shaking and holding onto Stoker’s hand while John sees to the prisoner who got beat senseless defending Roy. In the hospital, he still wakes up screaming a few times, but being safe and with his wife and friends helps.
- In Memento Vivere, a Final Fantasy X fanfiction, Jecht reacts this way after having a revealing discussion about the nature of his existence with Rikku and Lenne.
- Adelle suffers one after Sir Loin's death in The Tainted Grimoire.
- A Flower's Touch has an absolutely massive one. Aerith is sent back in time by the planet to prevent its destruction. However, it becomes apparent she still has all the emotional baggage that comes from literally two lives' worth of trauma to the point she's sent to meet with a therapist, who means well, but her probing of Aerith's past brings up memories so painful she curls up into a ball blubbering apologies. It takes them bringing Elmyra in to finally calm her down enough to bring her out of it.
- A Brighter Dark: Sakura goes through this after coming across the aftermath of an attack on a village that was subjected to Rape, Pillage, and Burn. Corrin also gets a dose after the events of the Ice Tribe arc.
- You'll Get No Answers from the Blue Sea Star: Jo and Kid shut down after Jeralt's death - Jo sits inside and tries to pretend the world doesn't exist, Kid returns to her Emotionless Girl roots. It takes a few days for them to break out of it, and even several years later, when Jo is writing their story, she simply refuses to write anything about Jeralt's death and Seteth has to take over.
- In Forward, River goes through a couple of these, but the most intense is at the end of the "Hunt" story, after she accidentally shoots Simon, then butchers a Hand of Blue who shoots him shortly afterward. The look of shock on Simon's face afterward, with her covered in blood after having stabbed the Hand's face to the point that it completely unrecognizable as human, sends her into a complete Freak Out and causes her to run away in horror.
- Mal shuts down completely in A Safe Place In the Minddue to being tortured. He’s catatonic and River tells the crew Inara can reach him. They take Mal to her, and reaching him takes weeks, with the initial signs of progress being small and gradual. Mal gets more comfortable with Inara touching him, massaging him and just holding him, and he later starts doing a few things on his own, like using the bathroom, and letting Inara feed him. Only then does he finally have a breakthrough and begin speaking and waking up again as Inara reassures him it’s not a dream and he won’t be hurt again.
- Mal again here Broken. He’s been forced to relive painful memories. River helps him close the mental wounds.
- Jayne has one in Salvage Mission. Mal rescues him after several years lost in slavery, but between being used as a Breeding Slave, tortured by the Alliance and generally being a slave in general, Jayne is mentally broken and expects Mal to put him to work as a slave. Mal reminds Jayne he doesn’t like slavery and that despite the fact that he did buy Jayne, he’s free now. Jayne still tries to get Mal to just shoot him and end his misery, but Mal won’t. He reassures Jayne that no one thinks he’s a sellout and that the crew will help him to get better. In the sequel, he has a panic attack and shuts down in terror on seeing Alliance soldiers, and Mal has to get someone to herd him back into the ship so he’ll snap out of it.
- Glee Reprise: Beth basically shuts down after being rejected from Vocal Adrenaline.
- In The Minkiad Minkus has one in high school after he runs away to live with his grandfather. Ginsburg doesn’t recognize him from the Alzheimer's, and Minkus is robbed of all the money he saved for a year. He sits down on a sidewalk curb and sobs. Farkle has a few as well. After his mother yells at him and says that she would be better off without him, he walks slowly to his room. He cries picturing his future as unwanted and unloved leading to a very unpleasant conclusion. Also after his mother’s intervention, she slaps Farkle across the face, and tells Minkus that he “can keep the brat for now.” Farkle sinks down in despair and tears sobbing, “She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t love me. Why doesn’t she want me?” to be comforted by his father. Minkus has another one in the final chapters when after his father’s funeral and his mother accuses him of not knowing how to love and that he deserved the abuse Jennifer gave him, Minkus returns to work upgrading the technologies resulting in his mental breakdown.
- In Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
- Vivienne is thrown into a gut-wrenchingly severe one after she discovers Serizawa is dead, coming pretty damn close to the Despair Event Horizon. She only comes out of it right when San hits his own...
- When San views Vivienne's memories, he hits the Heroic BSOD with a kick-in-the-teeth realization about why Vivienne's been so wary of him and how much Ghidorah's actions — including San's specifically — have tarnished her. It's short-lived as Vivienne brings him out of it. In this instance, it overlaps with Villainous BSoD.
- In A Better Man Hermione sends Ron into one with her flirting as he's trying to ask her to the Yule Ball.
- In Harry Potter and the Four Heirs Harry has one after being informed that using the recombined Deathly Hallows to drain the magic from Voldemort's spirit indirectly resulted in the death of every marked Death Eater except Snape.
- In Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin Harry has one when he realizes that Quirrell is possessed by Voldemort.
- In Ninja Wizard Book 1 Oliver has one when he believes a rumor that Mr. Weasley's Muggle Protection Act is going to outlaw Quidditch.
- In Six, Revisited the belief that Hermione was killed by a Death Eater causes Harry to mentally regress into a six-year-old.
- In The Split Harry has one when Alastor Moody is killed in battle.
- Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Japan suffered a temporary one after seeing how happy Italy was after being reunited with Holy Rome who was Germany all along. He only got out of it because Italy confessed to him too.
- In Human Curiosity, England experiences one when the HCS forces him to look at Portugal's frozen solid "corpse". Hungary later gets one when she regains her memories, all at once remembering everything the HCS did to her, along with all the traumatizing experiences she lived through as a Nation. And pretty much every Nation has one when they learn just how many of their friends and family members the HCS "killed".
- The fanfic Ice Cream is basically about England trying to help America, who is suffering from a Heroic BSOD after 9/11.
- In Some Semblance of Meaning, Vale has a Heroic BSOD after her ally Kit's death. And after she dies, Obsidian has one. (It's debatable whether or not he ever fully snaps out of it, although he does die before too much more time passes.)
- The Violet Demon: Zim having the truth of his "mission" spelled out for him by the Tallest left him in such a state of shock that he went virtually catatonic for days, until the Computer replaying the Tallest's message for Dib caused him to snap out of it and vent his anger, before deciding on a new course in life.
- Queen of All Oni: The entire J-Team has one when Jade first turns back into the Queen, and a more serious one after she transforms Viper into Hebi. Jackie gets hit particularly hard by the latter, with it nearly crippling him during a fight with the mask-empowered Hak Foo, until he has an Epiphany Comeback.
- The Ultimate Evil:
- Following Jade's What the Hell, Hero? moment towards her in the 24th chapter, Valerie is shown in this mode in the next chapter.
- Valerie is also downcast in the last chapter due to everything that happened between her and Shendu before and during the reality rewrite, leading her to leave the Chans until the sequel to sort things out.
- The one-shot "Eric" opens with the revelation that Kim's boyfriend Eric was actually real; Drakken just replaced him with a synthodrone to demoralise Kim at a key moment. Faced with this apparent evidence that Kim's chosen someone else over him, Ron lets her go to prom with Eric while he departs to break down and cry at their old pre-school, emotionally shattered at the idea that his friendship with Kim is over... until Kim tracks him down and affirms that she wants to be with him rather than Eric.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- In the first volume of The Private Diary of Elizabeth Quatermain, the pacifistic title character has one of these when circumstances require her to kill someone.
- Zelda's Honor:
- Link has one towards the middle of Act 2 after having witnessed the death of Kafei and most of his posse along with a good majority of Yolland's citizens.
- Link has yet another in Act 3 after having his wings violently ripped from his back and being brought back from the brink of death by Ganondorf. He seriously doesn't want to live anymore and wants the pain to stop.
- "The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time": Malon suffers from one after witnessing a Gerudo being hung from an elastically powered ceiling fan with a whip. All she can do is repeat "Mr. Fairy Boy" and cry as Link hugs her.
- Ace Savvy: A New Hope: Lincoln has one when his first attempt to stop Tetherby ends badly and he nearly considers giving up. He eventually snaps out of it and defeats Tetherby.
- Out of the Way features Lori having a major one at the start, and only getting worse from there.
- More Family, More Happiness, Right?: Alberto has one after Giulia's Armor-Piercing Question about his neglectful biological father.
- The Devil's in the details: When Nick Fury allows Matt within the presence of an Infinity Stone, it overwhelms Matt's senses to the point where he nearly has a breakdown, comparing the object to a star or an angel.Matt: Fury, you have to get rid of it, and anything like it. It's fucking calling them. It might not be a sound we can feel or see or hear but it's there. It's calling, and it will keep bringing things to us.
Nick Fury: You don't understand, these stones are...
Matt: Is a throne of rubble worth your precious fucking stones?
- Carol Danvers goes through several breakdowns during the course of A Prize for Three Empires: when she finds out her friend the original Captain Marvel got sick and died, when she has to own up to her alcoholism, and when she finds out she killed Raza's brother.
- CatalystEXE in which the protagonist have a Blue Screen in either way.
- A notable example is the story Exitus, in which its Commander Shepard suffers from an intense Heroic B So D just before they reach the Collector base.
- An example shows up in the Self Insert Mass Vexations. Author Avatar Art falls into one after Shepard tells him to radio Joker in the Virmire mission. The only thing he remembers after radioing Joker? Blurs, falling geth, and someone pulling him away from the scene.
- Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race:
- Mega was in the throes of one since about episode 6, and it's only gotten worse over time—especially with the fallout from episode 10.
- ProtoMan was in one too as of the episode 10 epilogue.
- Happens twice in Volpimania. First to Carapace when he realizes that he was tricked into killing Rena Rouge and then to Ladybug when she sees Adrien hanging from a rafter in Volpina's hideout.
- Cheshire (Miraculous Ladybug): Marinette suffers one when she receives an ominous and vague message from Alya, who is being blackmailed into joining Chloe's clique and leave Marinette fearing that she will abandon her like the rest of the class.
- Juxtapose:
- Izuku and Kensei suffers this after Tsuchigumo's Break Them by Talking speech. The Villain taunts Kensei over his villainous past and snidely tells Izuku that his Quirk would be suited for a mass murderer.
- Neito Monoma is dumbstruck when he learns that Izuku's Quirk, which disabled a giant robot with a touch, is nothing but the ability to banish 10 g of matter to another reality. He's so stunned that he falls right off the Sky Garden.
- Sir Nighteye is catatonic after witnessing a future where Toshinori dies in Izuku's arms and has to be resuscitated with especially powerful smelling salts. After this, he's so desperate to save Toshinori's life that he's willing to leave Izuku to die at the hands of the League of Villains and is only dissuaded by All Might's own insistence. Nighteye loses all hope again while watching Toshinori fight four Noumus explicitly designed to kill him.
- Tsukauchi goes through one in Mastermind: Strategist for Hire, breaking down crying in his bathroom after attending All Might's funeral.
- Present Mic pretty much does this in Pulse and Void after being brutally tortured and repeatedly raped. By the second time he’s raped, he’s conscious but described as just sort of staring off at nothing with unfocused eyes.
- In Kitsugi Midoriya is catatonic when he’s rescued after extended capture and torture. It takes weeks for him to begin to recover.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- In Between the Lines, it was shown that Granny Smith was "near-catatonic" after her daughter-in-law died giving birth to Apple Bloom and her grief-stricken son killed himself because of it.Granny Smith: Think o' the worst pain ya ever felt, mental or physical, put 'em together, multiply by a hundred. That's what I felt.
- In Chrysalis Visits The Hague, the lawyer Estermann suffers a small one when he realises that the terrifying (and frankly unbelievable) tales about his client Chrysalis may all be true. Lyra Heartstrings ultimately tells him to Get A Hold Of Yourself Man.
- A Dance on the Mats: Rainbow Dash goes through a bit of this after being beaten by Anon during one of their spars. She isolates herself in her house out of shame that he doesn't respect her.
- The Death of Princess Luna: Celestia suffers a massive breakdown when she hears that her sister had been killed (though it's not true). What she looked like and felt◊ after seeing her body is not pretty.
It goes From Bad to Worse when the news of Luna's death spread to Twilight and her friends. Fluttershy bursts into a torrent of tears, Pinkie Pie's mane and tail deflate again, and Twilight stares forward, with tears streaming from her eyes. This lasts up all the way to the funeral. - Earth and Sky: Pipsqueak slips into one through a combination of nearly being killed by the LaFish brothers, his self-perceived cowardice during the attack, and the guilt of all the things he's failed at in his life particularly his breakup with Apple Bloom catching up with him. Soarin' manages to talk him out of it and encourages him to get back together with Apple Bloom.
- A Future of Friendship, a History of Hate:
- Twilight has one when Ruinate abducts her friends at the beginning of Episode 2, on top of having defeated the Princesses in Episode 1. She's only pulled out of it when Ditzy Doo delivers a letter from Celestia (somehow), which reinspires her.
- The rest of the Mane Six as well later on in the same chapter; upon Ruinate destroying Twilight's soul, they all nearly give up hope, before Amity steps in and helps them restore Twilight.
- In Episode 3, when Fluttershy fears that Rainbow Dash will get herself killed in her rematch with Fury Cross, she breaks her promise not to tell the others about it. This makes Rainbow Dash explode on her and say that she hates her, causing Fluttershy to sink into depression. They make up later.
- Rarity slips into one in Episode 4 when she realizes that she's been completely ignoring her friends to spend time with Regal Rule. And it only gets worse when Regal turns out to actually be Megalos Tyrant. Her friends showing up and saving her obviously helps.
- Scootaloo has one in Episode 5 when her wish to be an adult blows up in her face. Which is exactly what Miserain wanted.
- Inner Demons:
- All of the Mane Six, to varying degrees, when Twilight Sparkle is consumed by her Queen of Darkness persona and becomes the new Big Bad. And when she crosses the Moral Event Horizon, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie take it up to eleven and actually cross the Despair Event Horizon (they get better later on).
- Fluttershy has another one when she thinks Trixie killed Rarity.
- Applejack breaks down completely when she realizes that turning her back on Twilight when she was scared of falling to darkness contributed to it happening.
- Apple Bloom has one as a result of the double whammy of accidentally killing Trixie and finding out that she's the Master of Harmony.
- The Light in the Darkness: Happens to Pinkie Pie due to having a horrific nightmare where she killed her friends, causing her to believe a part of her is going to act it out. She's pretty much in a state of terrified shock when Rainbow Dash finds her, and reduced to a sobbing wreck after she's broken out of that. Turns out it was just a simple nightmare and nothing to worry about, and after some comfort and consoling from her friends, she's able to recover.
- Loved and Lost:
- Celestia suffers this when she loses her authority and prestige due to her nephew Jewelius using her failures against her. During the sentencing scene in the sixth chapter, Luna and the other discredited heroes try to speak for themselves while Celestia remains silent, paralyzed by the shock of her life unravelling in one day.
- Twilight suffers this when she finds out how evil Jewelius truly is and that she helped another monster seize the throne, destroy her friends, teacher and brother's public image and turn her against them.
- In Mutant, Twilight Sparkle has one after her mother equivalent Kittery Abigail dies.
- Twilight Sparkle goes into one at exactly the wrong moment. Once she snaps out of it, it's too late...
- Pony POV Series: Twilight gets one during the battle against Nightmare Whisper, because she cannot bear to see how much Fluttershy is suffering. She breaks out of it by the end, though.
- Ditzy Doo freaked out when she started to recover her memories; that's because the fragmented images of her past made her think that she was a gangland enforcer who killed Dinky's parents for kicks when in fact, she was actually an undercover secret agent trying to warn them that they were targets of organized crime.
- The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Page suffers from one of these when the Nightmare admits to being behind the bad dreams that led to Queen Chrysalis invading Canterlot and, by extension, being responsible for all the hatred her species has suffered in the past thousand years.
- The Twilight Child:
- A Played for Laughs version occurs in a late chapter when the possibility of Pinkie Pie having children one day comes up. Rarity's immediate reaction is to collapse face first onto a table (though she quickly recovers).
- And a Played for Drama one much earlier on, where the events of the last flashback chapter end with the main character arriving in Ponyville, before promptly collapsing and refusing to move for some time, because she believes she's just caused the death of her best friend and her cousin in the space of a day, not to mention been the victim of Demonic Possession.
- In The Witch of the Everfree, when she thought that Sunset Shimmer had died, Celestia had to cancel court for a week because she couldn't keep herself together.
- The protagonist of You Obey undergoes one of these after he is forced to torture a prisoner for information.
- Advice and Trust: Asuka got one in episode 7 when Gendo fired her in the wake of the battle against Bardiel, which in her mind meant that she was useless since she had lost the only thing made her special and worthy of something. She collapsed, and Shinji had to catch her before she hit the ground and carry her out. Later she told him that she was hanging on by a thread, and she was coping only because he was there for her.
- Evangelion 303:
- Shinji went through one in chapters 7 and 8 when Unit-04 crashed as Asuka was piloting it.
- Asuka went through hers after waking up from her coma and hearing that Jessika was dead.
- Ghosts of Evangelion: Asuka falls apart when she thinks she has ruined her relationship with Shinji forever after Touji and Hikari get through to her and make her see Shinji is in love with her.
- HERZ: Several years before the beginning of the story Shinji had one after an argument with Asuka because he thought she hated him for everything that he had done.
- Higher Learning:
- After her Mind Rape, Asuka was broken and subdued for a long while.
- Shinji had several nervous breakdowns throughout the history, the final one happening right before Third Impact.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide:
- Asuka has one after her Unit-02 goes berserker and nearly kills Keiko.
- Shinji has another later on, when Asuka is dying.
- Once More With Feeling (Crazy-88): Shinji nearly has a mental breakdown in chapter 13 when he's recounting his story to Kaji and a JDF intelligence officer; they have to slip him a mild sedative to calm him down.
- In Wake, Asuka's breakdown after being mind-raped by Arael was so severe she does not even remember having trashed her room.
- When She Smiles (Fresh C): Asuka, who became amnesiac after the Third Impact, suffers a breakdown when she tries to visit places and people her past self used to know to try to find herself...and she completely fails. She is unable to remember who she used to be.
- True Potential:
- Shikamaru has one after being given an Hannibal Lecture from the bloodline executioner Karitoriki. It takes several chapters and a pep talk with his team and family for Shikamaru to get over it.
- Fū (the Seven Tails jinchūriki) also has one after she fails to control her Tailed Beast power in a spar against Killer Bee and Yugito.
- Kanji Yamanaka and his brother Fū (the ROOT agent) share one upon reuniting with each other, to the point that Fū allows Kanji to scan his mind so he can know what happened after Fū was inducted into ROOT.
- Pico undergoes a rather concerning one in the oneshot Why Is He So Alone?, having trauma and implied hallucinations of the events of Pico vs Convict. It gets to the point where he doubts Nene loves him after he accidentally shot her in the head instead of Convict in said video. Even Nene herself was unsure and rather frightened at one point of what Pico was thinking of himself while he was telling her how scared he was.Pico: "I'm just a reminder of the results of that battle. How can...how could anyone forgive me for hurting you?."
- All Mixed Up!: Otto goes through a brief one when he finds out that Olive has been attacked by Mariana Mag, but is quickly snapped out of it by Oscar, who invokes Morality Chain Beyond the Grave and tells Otto that Olive would want him to keep going, beat Mariana Mag, and turn everyone back to normal, not break down completely.
- In Patterns of the Past, Olesya suffers from a brief one when she learns that her boss, Old Missie, has been kidnapped. However, she quickly shakes herself out of it and drags Ogden, her partner, back to Headquarters to figure out the next course of action.
- Ships Ahoy!:
- Olive goes through one of these when Polly Graph tells her about Oscar always wanting to be a Lab Director, and she runs back only to find herself witnessing the tail-end of his promotion. She's so distraught that she immediately races for the ball pit, dives in, and refuses to come out for the rest of the day, crying herself to sleep and waking up when everyone has left work for the day. Likewise, Oscar goes through one as well when he sees Olive watching him be promoted, going through his day in a mechanical manner and breaking down completely when he gets home.
- Oprah also has one when O'Donahue simultaneously breaks up with her and quits his job at Odd Squad. She's so broken that she's rendered a brief Empty Shell before turning into into a Tiny Tyrannical Girl suffering from mental illness the very next day.
- Tashigi has one in Blood Man Luffy when she realizes the Straw Hats are good people, causing her to suffer a breakdown as she wonders just how many pirates she's imprisoned were good people too.
- The Self-Insert Fic This Bites! has numerous examples.
- Cross has a brief one in Chapter 19, when he realizes that it was his presence and intervention that resulted in Mr. 3 getting a second chance and killing countless civilians and Marines in Rainbase. It doesn't last long, however, before he refocuses his attention on the one who's more to blame.
- One Played for Laughs: Nami suffers a stroke, heart attack and aneurysm all at once when Zoro manages to pay off his debt.
- Foxy goes catatonic when Whitebeard calls into the SBS during the broadcast of the Davy Back Fight, and Luffy manages to impress him. It takes Cross's foghorn to snap him out of it.
- More than a few people faint, have heart attacks or go catatonic when they hear the events on the Secret Island.
- Kiwi, Mozu and Paulie go temporarily numb when they think about what would've happened had they ended up antagonizing the Straw Hats.
- Tashigi undergoes one after Enies Lobby due to learning the atrocities the Marines commit and that the corruption goes all the way to the top.
- Cross faces the ultimate BSOD during Sabaody, thanks to a combination of the reveal that Doflamingo has been manipulating and watching their actions the whole time so they would confront the Celestial Dragons, the revelation that Ace and his allies have been captured the whole time, and Kuma's statement to confirm that only Luffy alone has the strength to rescue Ace from Marineford, and he'll be returning to scatter the other Straw Hats so they won't get in their captain's way.
- In Pokémon: Storm Clouds, Missy suffers a rather scary one when she returns to her world, only to discover that she's still an Eevee.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines:
- Ash hits a pretty bad one after learning that Dawn, Iris, and Cilan might be dead in the new timeline, until Pikachu snaps him out of it.
- Brock as well. After his parents died, his performance as a Gym Leader suffered a lot. It's not until that he begins training with Pike Queen Lucy that he starts to recover.
- The Portal 2 fic Test Of Humanity has Wheatley break down sobbing and go into a depression after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and becoming overwhelmed with guilt for his actions after seeing he was just as evil and heartless as HAL (and GLaDOS). He spends at least a chapter of the story in a catatonic state barely saying anything and wondering why Chell is being so kind to him after all he's done and why he even feels so guilty in the first place. He finally snaps out of it when he realizes the reason he feels so guilty is that he loves Chell.
- In Twisted Sister: An Extended Ending The three girls go through this after the death of Bunny, Blossom takes it the hardest, she stays in bed until the Professor comes to talk to her.
- Paul in With Strings Attached goes through one of these for a night after he nearly loses control and attacks the Hunter for killing a bunch of wolves. The others talk him down. And in the morning, the Hunter unexpectedly apologizes, which helps.
- Two examples in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World:
- When Ringo, under empathic mind control, throws John over the side of the mesa while still wearing his cloak. Luckily for both of them John manages to get it off and spread his wings and fly before crashing. At this horrendous act, Ringo snaps out of his mind control and breaks down sobbing. John forgives him, though he's left permanently nervous about Ringo, and Ringo has several very bad moments over the next few days. The incident does prompt them to get serious about protection from mind control, at least.
- When Paul is being held by the much stronger Keemerleen and the others are in bad trouble, Paul snaps and goes to high strength, breaking Keem's hold on him (and his arms) and throwing him through several trees into the forest, seemingly killing him. (John overhears a few minutes later that Keem is still alive.) Almost immediately realizing what he's done, Actual Pacifist Paul freezes hard, forcing John to pick him up and carry him as the four flee the scene. (“Christ, it's like carryin' a fuckin' steel girder!”) Later, with the four safely hidden in Gothmarik Citadel, Paul spends hours staring into a corner and listening to the others. Finally he speaks about the incident, it being his worst nightmare come true, and then gets confessional about how the constant nightmares and inability to bring himself to touch his family after he got home (without the strength) almost tore his marriage apart. He also mentions how insanely jealous he had gotten of the other three because they didn't have his level of Blessed with Suck.
- In the Sherlock fanfic Baker School Blitz, Jim's attempt to seduce John goes fairly awkwardly until Jim suddenly has a violent outburst and implies that he'll just assault John anyways. John's reaction is to completely black out. Warrior Therapist Dr. Donovan is able to get him mildly functional afterwards, where John reveals that he's had multiple HeroicBSODs because of his Social Anxiety Disorder.
- In the Deliver Us from Evil Series, three different characters suffer this at different times:
- When Sherlock Holmes is injected with Culverton Smith's disease, the actual moment of the injection is depicted only by Holmes thinking Dear God, basically reeling from shock.
- Watson suffers an epic BSOD when he sees a ravaged corpse in the mortuary and believes it to be Holmes - Manly Tears and blanking out pretty much until he gets home are only part of it.
- When Patterson declares Holmes to be dead, Lestrade and Gregson don't believe him, at first. When the "truth" hammers home, though, Lestrade is very literally reeling physically, mentally, and emotionally - so much so that he can't re-enter the conversation until Patterson says something entirely insensitive and Lestrade delivers a very angry What the Hell, Hero?.
-
HomerOmarn of Bart the General suffers a Heroic BSoD for most of the series as a result of seeing Marge having sex with his new neighbor Toadfish.Omarn: Maaarrrgee... yer breakin' my heart... Maaaaaaarrrgee....
- In Slayers Trilogy, Naga has one of these in Rebirth after her hometown Sailoon is leveled.
- In Empath: The Luckiest Smurf, Papa Smurf upon losing his only begotten son Empath to the Psyche Master, assuming that he was killed, suffered about 50 years of this before The Plague took away his friends and put him in the role of Papa Smurf.
- Robb Returns: Theon has one when Robb tells him what he did in the original future (or, at least, what Robb knew of the future).
- Daenerys short-circuits when she learns the truth about Robert's Rebellion.
- In Purple Days, after the horrific events of the Dawn Army's Last Stand and the end of the Yi-Ti Loop, Joff ends up so traumatized he can't even bear to hold cutlery. The presence and understanding of his sister Myrcella somewhat help alleviate the worst, but he suffers a horrific flashback during a friendly archery competition at Winterfell.
- Several episodes in Sonic X: Dark Chaos feature them, especially near the end thanks to the numerous Trauma Conga Lines coming together.
- Episode 74 is an entire chapter of these as the heroes and Tsali discover the conspiracy behind the Metarex war and the tragedy that shook the galaxy.
- Sonic in Episode 75 when he discovers he was created by Maledict.
- During the final battle, Cosmo in Episode 77 completely breaks down when she realizes she has to kill Tails to defeat Dark Tails.
- In the Star Trek (2009) fanfiction "Atlas" Kirk has one after Alpha nearly kills Spock just to devastate Kirk, a case of in universe fridge stuffing.
- While the game itself does not include this, Knights of the Old Republic fanfic almost always pulls this if the writer is exploring the aftermath of The Reveal with a light-sided character.
- Fractures (SpaceDimentio): After being forced to watch all of her fellow Crystal Gems be shattered one after the other to teach her a lesson, Pink Diamond is left in a near-catatonic state, stuck in her room to contemplate the depths of how much she had screwed up for over five-thousand years.
- In "Smash Generation," Mario appears to have one of these after finding out that Dr. Mario dies in a year, since they're being visited by their future children. Yeah, it kind of slipped out. It didn't help that they were about to fight the zombie of said doctor. Bonus points to the writer who even referenced the site for the idea.
- In Enlightenments, Wander suffers two, and Dormin slowly dragging him out of the first and more severe one drives a good chunk of the second half of the fic. The second bluescreen is mostly only less severe because outside forces resolve the issues causing it in a relatively short span of time.
- In Legacy (Total Drama), the contestants react to seeing one of their own violently struck down by just standing there, seemingly with no idea of what to do. In the aftermath, one player is completely unable to cope with having seen his campmate murdered, leading to his withdrawal from the game.
- In the doujin Though the Wind Cries, Suwako suffers from a brutal case of this. And since she is the local god who normally protects the area and makes sure that the rain falls, the people that worship her end up feeling the effects of it as well.
- Reisen in Touhou Ibunshu, mere moments after making landfall after escaping the downfall of the Moon's military academy with the last living Lunarian she could find (an infant), is confronted by a vicious youkai. She has the child taken away, and by the time Eirin finds and saves her, she's seriously considering suicide, which she attempts near the end of Remorse in Secession's Nobility. While she manages to overcome her self-loathing, she gets punted back into the abyss in the buildup for Reenactable Night's climax, when the child, now grown and unaware of her history (Sakuya Izayoi) confronts her for an unrelated reason.
- Hatsuzakura in Tales of the Undiscovered Swords after Ōkurikara gives him a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech once he's had enough of his stalking him.
- Becoming the Mask (Trollhunters): Being aware of AAARRRGGHH!!!'s history and having secretly been trained in The Spartan Way, Jim is quick to defend himself against the rampaging troll when he pretends to go mad for his surprise birthday party. He manages to incapacitate AAARRRGGHH!!! with a Pressure Point and then nearly has an emotional breakdown at the thought of nearly stabbing him through the neck under a false assumption.
- Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda:
- Mei falls into one in the second chapter after she finds out she lost her panda spirit.
- Xia has one later on in the story after she realises how much she ruined Mei's life.
- In Not As Simple As A Happy Ending when Sans sees Integrity die (for the final time).
- In A Skittering Heart when Taylor sees Sabah attacked by Lung and incinerated right in front of her, she stops fighting and breaks down screaming. It's later directly stated by Tattletale that Taylor was having a psychotic break at witnessing the death of her best friend.
