OOC Is Serious Business / Fan Works

aka: Fanfic

Times where characters act differently in order to signal something is seriously wrong in Fan Works.

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Crossovers

• All For Luz:
  • In chapter 6, Luz realises that All For One might not be lying about the Addictive Magic her Power Parasite Quirk causes, when she talks usually cold to Julia and becomes irritable.
  • In chapter 10, Luz coldly notes they could just leave Cody to die in the forest via running into a wild animal. Blinking, she does a Verbal Backspace to just tying him up instead after taking his Quirk. Its heavily implied to be due to the vestige All For One's influence.
  • In chapter 23, during her conversation with the Golden Guard, Luz notices how much colder voice has become since the supermarket fight, like it belonged to a sociopath's.It seems All For One has changed her not just physically but mentally, too. She wants to question this more but has more pressing concerns.
  Had she been talking like that the whole time? She hadn’t noticed, and it had actually shocked her when she heard her voice. It sounded… distant, detached, and downright sociopathic.
• Alpha and Omega:
  • Joker becomes extremely worried when EDI starts drinking, using contractions, and violating regulations frequently. This turns out to be caused by EDEN's hacking of EDI having scrambled their programming together.
  • In the sequel, Misato surrenders much easier than most of the Wunder crew expected. That's because she's been replaced by EDEN.
• Kasumi Tendo shows genuine anger in Anything Goes Game Changer when Dr. Tofu acts like his goofy self around her after she called him over to look at Akane's broken arm. After she learns he has the hots for her, Kasumi is not only horrified, having memories of him as her childhood doctor, she downs half a bottle of sake in one gulp.
• In Biology Say What every member of the board of the New Watchers Council has the right to issue a formal request/order for a change of policy that can only be overturned by a unanimous vote by the remaining board members. Giles is shocked when Xander utilizes his right for the first time ever after meeting a slayer who was noted as being a real problem child. Xander calls for a female social worker, preferably one with nurse training, to handle all intakes from now on and all intakes of the previous year to be reviewed, after learning the problem child slayer had been sexually abused.
• In Black Sky, a pissed off Xanxus will throw his subordinates out of the window, burn the furniture and snarl. A truly irate Xanxus will go silent and later explodes in a spectacular fashion, Cradle Affair-style.
  • In Chapter 3 of the spin-off, Parenting is not a Varia Quality, Tyr knows that his partner Mainomai doesn't like jewelry at all. When he sees the guy outright admire an heirloom necklace, he immediately understands something's fishy and prevents Mainomai from putting said necklace on. Good thing he did, because it held a nasty Curse.
• BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant: Rachel Alucard is normally calm, snarky, and self-assured in all situations. If she ever loses these traits, it's a sure sign of how bad things are. The two most significant times she loses them are when the Black Beast awakens, where she's reduced to panicked terror.
• Boldores and Boomsticks:
  • Weiss and Ruby are stunned by how coldly and bitterly Lillie talks about Lusamine despite otherwise being very polite and shy. It's compared to Pyrrha cussing somebody out.
  • In a flashback, Lillie is concerned by how nervous the normally calm and professional Wicke is when she talks about the newest creatures to stay at Aether Paradise (Grimm).
• Enforced in Butterflied when Xander tells his padawan Obi-wan that they're on Obi-wan's quest and Xander will only step in to save his life, thus making every decision Obi-wan's. So when Xander prevents Obi-wan from entering a cave, the young padawan is notably alarmed.
• Child of the Storm:
  • Tony Stark getting serious and dropping all snark and immaturity is a sign that a) everything has gone sideways, b) he is mad.
  • Doctor Strange very rarely gives straight answers, and only does so when he needs to. He almost never shows any sign of discomfort or, in fact, not being totally in control of the situation - both because he usually is and he carefully cultivates a reputation as an omniscient nightmare. When the heroes find records of him being caught very much off-guard and see him palpably slipping (both in problem-solving and sanity) in Forever Red, the first arc of the sequel, it makes clear just how badly everything is about to fall apart.
  • In the sequel, Harry getting mad when provoked is a given - he's Hot-Blooded, so the usual expectation is results like "Carrie meets Michael Bay", a lot of Casual Danger Dialogue/Flirting Under Fire, and perhaps a few dramatics. If he's calm, soft-spoken, and totally serious, it's usually because something awful has happened, even by his jaded standards, and a sign of imminent death - as the vampirised Dudley found out.
  • Jean-Paul usually projects the image of a carefree flirt, harmless to all and sundry. Given that he's described as the Spear Counterpart to the Black Widow and a Flash-level speedster, this is far from the full story. As a result, if he drops the harmless mask, there's generally a very good reason for it - and unless you're his friend, it is usually the last thing you'll ever see.
  • Deadpool is usually, well, Deadpool - sarcastic, crazy, fourth-wall breaking Cloudcuckoolander, and all things told, surprisingly cheerful and friendly for a Professional Killer. The moment he drops the weird, you know that things have got serious. The moment he gets visibly mad? Then things are bad.
• Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron:
  • Everyone feels this way in regards to Kallen being so much more assertive and lacking in her sickly demeanor. Of course, readers know that this is simply how she normally acts.
  • In a more serious case, C.C. is downright terrified of Haggar, noting that she only felt this afraid before was when she first meet V.V.
  • Suzaku is understandably worried when he sees Lelouch react with pure terror when he learns that Charles has found Nunnally.
  • Schneizel visibly lost his temper when the SAZ turned into a bloodbath. This is the man who took it in stride earlier when Lelouch and Voltron outright defeated him, so it says a lot that something was actually able to merit that sort of reaction.
• Code Prime:
  • Lloyd is completely speechless when he sees Bumblebee transform from his car form into robot mode.
  • Suzaku is generally against killing to an absurd degree, fully believing that Thou Shall Not Kill. It speaks volumes about how much he hates Airachnid that he is significantly less willing to follow said rule. The final battle of R1 really emphasizes this by not only killing several Britannian soldiers in a rage after they badmouth him and Euphemia, but by outright trying to kill Megatron while calling the latter's existence a mistake, showing just how angry Suzaku is over Megatron ruining Euphie's SAZ so that it would kickstart the Black Rebellion just to distract the world from Megatron's conquest of Britannia. And in the second chapter of R2, Suzaku flat out says that he would enjoy nothing more than to snuff out Airachnid's spark for everything she did to him, Dreadwing, and Euphie, much to the surprise of his fellow Autobots and Black Knights.
• In the Denarian Renegade series, Harry Potter is pretty much always crass and irreverent, even to the likes of Dumbledore and Lash. As a result, any time he shows proper respect to anyone, it's because he's completely terrified of pissing them off, usually members of either the Winter or Summer Courts. Given that Harry laughs at the idea of facing a full-grown dragon, this does wonders to establish just how powerful they are.
• A Dovahkiin Spreads His Wings: When trying to convince his father to take his family and leave the city prior to Cersei's coup, Samwell Tarly eventually resorts to punching him in the face to get his point across, which manages to convince his father the direness of the situation considering how normally docile Sam is.
• Izuku in Ere We Go, Pluz Ultra! drops his typical heavy cockney accent when he calls out Todoroki for being more interested in spiting his father than actually being a hero. It's the only time in the story (so far) that Izuku doesn't have his accent barring the time Aizawa erased his Quirk.
• In Eroninja, Tier Harribel the Gobi deeply values her subordinates and is generally a fairly peaceful person, so it shows how deeply she cares for Naruto that when Apacci threatens him (thinking he'd somehow subverted Harribel into sleeping with him), Harribel warns all three that if they do anything to harm Naruto, her retribution will be swift and terrible.
• Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness:
  • Yukari Yakumo may be one of the most powerful youkai in Gensokyo, but she's also incredibly lazy and prefers to manipulate others into solving incidents in her stead. However, when she learns from Yuyuko that Coop and Megas are back in Gensokyo, she pales and immediately sets out to investigate for herself.
  • During Megas's fight with Yuuka in the midst of a discussion about the mech's special ability, Ran suggests that an all-out attack on Megas would be preferable to compromising Gensokyo's integrity. Yukari counters by saying that the opposite would in fact be true; during this exchange, Ran is so stunned by the haunted look her master is sporting that she drops the subject immediately.
• Growth through Chaos: Sanji, after deducing Naruto's status as a victim of abuse due to his own abusive childhood under his father and brothers, grabs Kakashi by the neck and raises fists against him, demanding to know how much trauma Naruto endured when the young ninja suffers a mental breakdown. This is something he'd normally never do, as he trained in Black Leg style specifically to keep his hands safe (losing one would be devastating to his dreams as a chef), so it's a major sign of just how much he's seething.
• Halloween Unspectacular:
  • In previous collections, Vlad Masters would normally be the one villain to calculate the risks of doing something, and would always balk at the idea of doing a Deal with the Devil. In "The Infernal Machine" from The Final Push, however, he ends up making a deal with Bill Cipher for power; this is the end result of Sanity Slippage due to his constant defeats at Danny's hands.
  • As an indicator of how bad things have gotten in Blue Alert, J. Jonah Jameson, during a speech that calls out PURITY and how they're controlling the government, publicly apologizes to Spider-Man.
• In Harry and the Shipgirls, Harry Potter normally channels Captain Haddock if he ever feels the need to vent his spleen. So when he drops a Precision F-Strike or two while telling the people close to him that MACUSA has decapitated itself, and in doing so accelerated the collapse of the Statute of Secrecy to a matter of weeks, that is a massive clue of just how bad things really are.
• Dumbledore is generally a polite and friendly old man who will generally just sternly warn someone when they go too far. So it says just how tired he is of Snape's prejudice against Harry in Heir to Zod when he essentially tells Snape to shut up before Dumbledore makes him shut up.
• Hater Good Side Story Swayed Decisions, a Breadwinners and Pickle and Peanut crossover: Pickle points out SwaySway usually acts tough and confident, Sway admits it's because he takes it hard that his childhood friend is tormenting him.
• As big of a Determinator as he is, Ranma finally reaches his breaking point in Hell Is a Martial Artist after the failed wedding when he realizes Akane still doesn't trust him and so long as he's cursed, will always consider him a pervert. On top of that, his mother all but states she won't truly accept him as her son unless his curse is cured. Hild later finds him in her office crying his eyes out.
• Heroes of the New World; Several Beast Pirates find it odd that Yamato has stopped trying to kill her father for two weeks and instead has been seen coming and going from her room with large quantities of food and supplies. Most say It's Probably Nothing, but in actuality she's nursing Izuku Midoriya back to health and the two are plotting to escape Onigashima (which, due to the dismissal of the pirates, goes off with only a few hiccups and the two are long gone by the time King discovers they've escaped).
• Harry Potter dropping his Immortal Immaturity and becoming serious in I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, things have become serious. After rescuing a group of slaves, he drops all his innuendo towards Aayla Secura and wearily tells her to get the hell of his ship. Several chapters later, Harry and company head towards an unknown blockaded system that might have Sirius Black on it. Once Harry gets a good feel of the place, he stops joking and outright scowls as he tells the others that someone has been blurring the line between life and death there.
• More than once in The Hater Good
  • Glargg is usually happy around his beloved pet BliBli like in the show, but he's so sad about being imprisoned she can't cheer him up anymore.
  • The normally aloof and arrogant Gus and Banana both tear up over Glargg's story of losing his favorite cadets.
• Infinity Crisis:
  • The Legends can tell that Gideon's latest report is serious when it makes Mick put down his beer.
  • Ray notes that when Oliver Queen starts advising caution, it's a good idea to take his advice.
  • In a flashback, it's shown that when the "Snap Wave" hit the Justice League Earth, Captain Boomerang was the only member of the Injustice Gang left. Rather than take advantage to run as he normally would, Boomerang can only stand overwhelmed at what's happened.
  • Clint and Natasha are both pleasantly shocked when the Hulk returns in a state where he can carry on a clear conversation with them.
  • In Powers and Marvels, when the Dusting hits Earth-1993, Lord Zedd is too shocked at seeing everyone else in the Moon Palace turn to dust to even think about taking advantage of the fact that half of the Power Rangers are among the half of Earth that got dusted.
  • In Counterpart Conferences, Lucifer tells Chloe that the one honest thing about Mephisto is that "he's always lying." That Lucifer believes Mephisto is telling the truth about the Blackest Night and other threats makes Lucifer realizes how scary this is. He's also concerned about how none of the souls of the vanished people have turned up either in Heaven or Hell.
  • In Sins, Sirens and Strife, Batman realizes that Bane was under some hypnotic influence as he literally just tried to punch Superman, recognizing that Bane is not stupid enough to confront Superman without even a piece of kryptonite.
    • In the same fic, Tony points out to Thor that if even he is suggesting Thor needs more than just himself, Sif, Valkyrie and Jane to deal with a problem, Thor definitely needs more help.
  • Invoked in Salvation Run as Oliver complains he should have seen the signs of "Felicity" acting odd in her attitude over the years. Diggle points out he missed the exact same signs and that he's been prone to out of character moments as neither man could possibly have guessed Feliciy was a Skrull.
  • In Of Mice and Men, Dr. Two-Brains seems honestly shocked when Wordgirl slaps him. Bubbles also agrees to kill Pinky and the Brain so Mojo will undo Blossom's transformation.
  • In Tomorrow's Guardians, Constantine ends up encouraging Doctor Claire Finn to give Isaac another chance as he genuinely seems to regret what he did, observing that if he's suggesting forgiving someone this easily that person genuinely deserves forgiveness.
  • In Holy Cranberries, Batman!, the late Batman of Earth-66 is said to have been so disgusted by the child molesting villain Sweet Tooth that he actually angrily swore while calling him a pervert, scaring the children enough to have them run away from Sweet Tooth.
  • In Celestial Navigation, Thor observes that Hercules and Ares working together willingly is a clear sign that the situation is serious, given the animosity that usually exists between the two.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Normally, the only time Goh texts Chloe or responds to any of her attempts to text him is to apologize for being late. After she runs away following an argument, she notes that he's sent her at least twenty messages. However, she deletes the lot of them, along with all the other texts she'd received from him in the past.
  • In the prequel, Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily: Specter is the Only Sane Man of White Gestalt, the cold, logical one who rather not be getting into the wackiness on the Train. During the Fog Car (aka Silent Hill), London finds him tied up, beaten and a Nervous Wreck, babbling on how he is guilty for his sins and making the wrestler terrified. After all, if the Only Sane Man is not making sense in Silent Hill, that is not a good sign.
• J-WITCH Series: Played for Laughs in "The Knights of Vengeance", when everyone is shocked by how cheerful and happy Uncle is to see Halinor again for the first time in years, with the Guardians questioning if he's been replaced by an imposter.
• Kazuma V Tanya has one for each protagonist early on, to showcase the Darker and Edgier nature of the world.
  • Tanya's is subtle, but after she burns gold and sees three past selves from her past lives, even her internal monologue doesn't object to being sent to bed "like a child". Moreover, after staunchly behaving and obeying all the rules, she breaks curfew and sneaks out to steal booze in hopes of drinking to forget the whole thing.
  • Kazuma's is overt: he pissed off a noble, and the guards killed a kid who looked like him in the street when he got away. When he sees that no one is caring for the body beyond looting it, he covers her with his own shirt, carries her to the river, and prays sincerely to Eris and Aqua that the girl be reborn with a happy and well-off family who loves her, despite being usually unimpressed by those two deities.
• Ladybug in a Half Shell: When he finds out that Shredder has involved himself with Miraculouses, Splinter states that stealth is a secondary concern to protecting the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses. This is important because he has always made it a point to say that stealth is a ninja's first priority above all else.
• Lost in Camelot;
  • When Bo and Merlin first have sex after she is struck with an arrow and sustains an almost fatal wound, Bo taps into her darker side, revelling in the feeling of power over Merlin, her subconscious acknowledging him as a 'worthy' mate.
  • When Morgana tells Gwen and Kenzi that Morgause is her sister, she swiftly realises they're not themselves as the other women are both too tired to properly respond to that revelation.
• Lovehammer Inc has the Primarch Angron as a large ham who has no indoor voice, a broad violent streak and poor impulse control. Planets have surrendered at just the suggestion he might be sent to invade them, so brutal is his reputation. The one time he actually lowers his voice, his equerry Kharn (who has worked for him for centuries) notes that even he's NEVER heard Angron sound so bloodthirsty.
• Leviathan in Manehattan's Lone Guardian is noted to be leery of her patron Drama Heart, to the point that the pony threatening her with a friendly hug is enough to make her do things she doesn't necessarily want to do. When she does pull Drama into a hug of her own initiative, the puppeteer is quick to figure out that something is seriously wrong.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: Seeing how heartbroken and remorseful Katie Kaboom is after Danny called her out for hurting her brother, the Warners aren't laughing.
• In Mass Effect: Human Revolution chapter 36, Hannibal is very concerned when Johann loses his normal calculating Manipulative Bastard behaviour on Noveria and becomes an even more bloodthirsty than usual Leeroy Jenkins.
• In Master of Death and What it Means, the Avengers realize just how terrible immortality is when Loki (Who's Death's father) apologizes to Harry for him having to be the Master of Death.
• Played for Laughs in Monsters In Paradise. Marisa, the setting's local Kleptomaniac Hero who never returns the things she "borrows", admits to returning a book and entering the Mansion through the front door. In response, Patchouli and Sakuya both decide who will inherit their belongings in the event of their deaths, while Koakuma tearfully denounces her prank-loving lifestyle. Since the situation wasn't all that serious, their comments annoy Marisa and nothing more.
• Downplayed in The Mountain and the Wolf: As far as the Westerosi have known him, the Wolf is a crude, overly-loud, insufferably jovial Boisterous Bruiser whose only interest is warfare and insults. So when he makes a request of Daenerys shortly before the siege of King's Landing and she's ready to tell him that he will assuredly not be participating, the Wolf surprises everyone by saying that was his request: he wants to go out to sea in case Euron returns. Daenerys, relieved at the prospect of getting him out of her hair, makes no objection. He actually needs an excuse to watch over the battle from the air to ensure Daenerys is distracted before he goes to the Red Keep to abduct Cersei and Qyburn.
• In chapter 19 of My Hero Academia: Unchained Predator, Hawks is stunned at Miruko (who's always eager for a good fight) telling him good luck in trying to stop the Slayer, as she would never express hesitation in fighting someone. This is because she saw his armor quite literally shrug off Volcano's nanomachines and lava, combined with the fact he practically single-handedly annihilated the Steel Sabers, meant that trying to fight him head-on would be the equivalent of a suicide charge.
  • Recovery Girl notes that Ragdoll isn't religious, so to hear her talk about Demons, Angels, Devils among humanity, God smiting the wicked, worlds on fire and Armageddon unnerves her. Given she had just carved the Doom Slayer standing upon a hill of skulls and the message The Only Thing They Fear Is Him, everything after she read the Slayer's mind is OOC before Jeremiah erased those memories.
• My Huntsman Academia:
  • Team MNVW quickly learns that Nora has a nearly endless well of energy and is almost always talkative and peppy. They're all put on edge when she stops sounding like she's on a sugar high.
  • Izuku is unnerved when Weiss cheerfully and politely invites him to tea, given her usual acrid snark and tendency to scold him for his recklessness. His suspicions prove to be correct, as she immediately begins interrogating and haranguing him for using his new Go Beyond technique.
  • Ozpin is The Chessmaster with a vast intelligence network designed to keep him one step ahead of all threats to Remnant. So when he admits that he was blindsided by the Monochrome League's attack on Mountain Glenn, it comes as a huge shock to both Izuku and the readers.
• My Little Avengers: You know Rainbow Dash has become a Thor fangirl when she's so excited about attending a party in his honor that she forgets the Wonderbolts are going to be there too. Pinkie and Big Mac are left rather stunned.
• The Necromancer;
  • When Gold and a group of Storeybrooke residents travel back to Gondor, once Gold meets Gandalf, Gold tempers his usual attitude to show actual respect to the old man, emphasising how Gandalf wields such power and is so far beyond his own magic that he deserves all the respect Gold can offer.
  • At the conclusion, Gandalf consoles Regina with the observation that the fact that Sauron went to so much trouble to win her affection shows that Regina did make an impression on the Dark Lord, speculating that she made him want something other than world domination for the first time in a very long while.
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku! throws the reader a curveball when Izuku declares that he doesn't want to become a Hero to his entire middle school class, which is something his canon counterpart would never say.
• In The Nighthawk Chronicles, Xander realizes the Slade he's fighting isn't the real one because his fighting style is too flashy and relies too much on raw power.
• In Chapter 29 of Origin Story, Tony Stark, Alex Harris, and Natasha Romanov have what is effectively a strategy session while the two women are sitting topless, sunbathing next to the Black Panther's swimming pool. The fact that Tony Stark isn't ogling the hell out of the naked women is a sign that he's taking the situation much more seriously than he normally takes any situation.
• In Origins, Thalia Tediore, known to be an Upper-Class Twit who is so incompetent that in her thirties, her parents created an entire company to appoint her head of so she would be happy, suddenly becomes threatening and principled. It's because she's under the control of the Flood, acting as a priestess in a Corrupt Church.
• Poke Countries. Oh, so very much.
  • The very first chapter has moments of this occurring with Germany, who is established as a gluttonous and hyperactive All-Loving Hero with a tendency for Befriending the Enemy and Actual Pacifist views. In the first chapter, after Germany has been struck down by nightmares about Nazi Germany, he gets what basically amounts to PTSD for Pokémon. The day after the nightmares, Germany is extremely morose, and even goes so far as to turn down his breakfast and say he's not hungry. This immediately starts alarm bells in America's head, given that Germany is normally an Extreme Omnivore and Big Eater. It's lampshaded in the narrative.
  • Also, a way to tell if something has gone very wrong is if Germany resorts to any form of violence. This is most evident in the climax of Chapter 47, in which North Korea attacks and nearly kills America #2. This angers Germany so much, he completely loses all of his usual Befriending the Enemy tendencies towards North Korea, turns to him with a Death Glare on his face, and utters the three words you would least expect to hear from him. This is so shocking to the other delegates In-Universe that none of them can believe what they just heard. And much Lampshade Hanging ensues as Turkey and China attempt to contemplate the fact that Germany- sweet, hyper, friendly Germany- just threatened death to North Korea:
    Turkey: Did he just... did he just threaten to kill North Korea?!
    China: He did.
    Turkey: But... but this is Germany! This is sweet, friendly, fun-loving Germany! This isn't who he is at all! He'd never hurt anyone!
    China: Much less kill them. Something's going on here.
    Turkey: Yeah. I've never seen Germany hurt a soul. The fact that he would threaten death to North Korea is so unnerving to me. I can't believe I just heard that.
    Germany: ...I can't believe I just said zat. But zat doesn't matter. I can't forgive you for zis, Nors Korea!
    China: Yep. He's feverish.
    • And, of course, Germany only lets loose one String Shot before realizing he doesn't have it in him.
  • Speaking of Turkey, he is known for being a Literal-Minded Cloudcuckoolander who affectionately refers to his best friend Sri Lanka as "Sri-sri." However, during a moment when Sri Lanka is arguing with Turkey on whether or not he should fight the terroristic Charizard Isis, and the former is vehemently against it, Turkey immediately goes into Suddenly Shouting, stopping Sri Lanka. He promptly lets loose with the cold, hard truth that you can't redeem everyone, and that sometimes the only thing to do is fight them down. Sri Lanka is shocked, and lampshades how unlike Turkey it is for him to be a realistic Only Sane Man when he's usually so off-the-wall. It doubles as You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious, since Turkey refers to Sri Lanka by name, rather than Sri-sri.
• This happens multiple times in Pokemon Opal And Garnet. In Chapter 7, "Esmeralda Takes Flight," Kaylie's Pokemon are genuinely concerned when their Trainer, a Genki Girl, falls into a depression. The reason? The next day will be the tenth anniversary of her father's death from cancer.
  • In Chapter 4, "An Evolutionary Justice," Kaylie is stunned when Quasimodo, who is just as shy as the Disney version of his namesake hunchback, decides to battle an opponent. Usually, he would run away.
  • In "A Very Rocky Start: Part One," when the normally bold and dedicated Rocky is suddenly seen quivering in fear at the sight of his abusive father, you know just how much abuse his father has been giving him. As it turns out, he's been doing illegal things- including burning Rocky with a Flame Wheel move- to his own son!
• In "Remember Me This Way", Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) reflects that most people would see his friend Al not making a flirtatious comment about a beautiful woman as this when Al says nothing about Sara O'Neill, the wife of Sam's current host Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG-1). However, Sam muses that he knows Al well enough to realise that Al would never make light of the tragedy the O'Neills have suffered.
• The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Even more than the curling up into a ball and sobbing, what really tells Alex's family that she's not okay after Shar's Heroic Sacrifice is that she doesn't feel like eating. It's doubly a concern because her GC-161 metabolism means that she needs to eat a lot.
• Shadows over Meridian: Phobos is surprisingly polite and kind when meeting with Jade/Kage for the first time. And later, he makes a point of publicly apologizing to Raythor for throwing him in the Abyss before promoting him to second in command, which takes all the onlookers (except for Jade, who demanded it as part of their deal) by surprise with his kindness; Frost even wonders if he's seeing dreams.
• In The Slayer Prophecy, to stop the resurrected Jason potentially killing himself because he can't cope with being back on Earth, Batman has to take off his cowl essentially in public (albeit on a deserted road with no sign that anyone else will show up) and make an appeal that he doesn't want to lose his son again.
• In Skullgirls Watch Death Battle (A self-explanatory reaction fic of most of the cast of Skullgirls reacting to DEATH BATTLE!), after seeing the Ambiguous Ending of Raven Vs Twilight Sparkle, Eliza snidely vocalised her disappointment at being denied the opportunity of seeing a grisly death for Twilight in front of Special Guest Pinkie Pie only for the usually friendly Genki Girl to venomously make it clear that most of the cast would desire something similar to happen to her, shocking Eliza and the rest of the cast into silence over the uncharacteristic response (including fellow Hate Sink Double and other Special Guest Deadpool). Pinkie did realise what she just said out loud and attempted to save face.
• In Thousand Shinji, when Touji and Kensuke see usually stoic and emotionless Rei Ayanami smiling and acting giddy, they get scared and wonder what Shinji has done to her.
  "Toji... are my glasses busted or is Rei running towards us? And smiling?" Kensuke asks rather worriedly.
  "She is," Toji answers fearfully.
  "I'm... I'm scared. Hold me Toji," Kensuke asks.
  "Only if you hold me back," Toji demands and the two of them grip the other in abject terror.
• Much like in in his home series, Izuku in Timeless Academia Cannot Talk to Women and is easily flustered when one gets close to him. The fact that he doesn't concerns Marie Antoinette when she tried to comfort him after he was forced to killed other humans and the amount of guilt he has over committing it.
• As A Triangle in the Stars continues, Bill can't seem to understand Steven, and he understands everyone.
  • Bill also begins to exhibit signs of depression, and also kindness.
    • He also experiences Tranquil Fury towards Gabriel, for cracking Steven's gem in Chapter Twenty-Nine. And he usually blows up when angry.
  • Steven himself gets unnaturally quiet at some points. He also begins mistreating both Bill and Gabriel in Chapter Forty-Two and overall acting mean. Turns out the Void was causing this.
  • Connie showed signs of giving up on researching Gravity Falls in Chapter Twenty-Three to find out what she lost.
  • Wendy in Chapter Thirty-One is unnaturally quiet, not saying a single word. The narrative actually lampshades this.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Stargate-verse story Trick Or Treat, O'Neill realizes something very very bad happened when Xander calmly asks, "Who is Kinsey?" when, upon being asked if he knew the man a day prior, Xander showed no recognition at all. The reason: Kinsey ordered a raid on Xander's place and got one of his Slayers killed.
• Turnabout Storm:
  • While he's generally a goofball, Cruise Control turns dead serious for a few seconds to tell Apple Bloom that older siblings always care for their younger siblings. It's later revealed that that side of him is his real personality, his doofus side being an act.
  • Trixie drops her Third-Person Person act a few times, perplexing Twilight. When she finally gets around calling Trixie out on it, she discovers black psyche-locks on her; in other words, she's hiding a great secret and sorrow, and she's not even consciously aware of it.
• In Undocumented Features, Azalynn, who's been shown to be extremely forgiving, finds herself holding a grudge against Liza for calling the Psi Corps on Devlin, even when everyone else has forgiven her. She is extremely shocked when she realizes how spiritually off-balance she is.
• In Wagging Tail Ashikabi, Sirius Black spends twelve years as Padfoot and drunk off his ass. But when he spots Wormtail in the paper, he becomes Sirius for a short time and books a flight for him and his Sekirei Kazehana to England. On the way, she concludes something is seriously off when she realizes Padfoot is sober for the first time in the roughly twelve years she's known him.
• In spite of a glamour preventing people from guessing anything relating to Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities in What the Cat Dragged In, Natasha manages to peg them as teenagers after remembering Tony Stark didn't even try to flirt with Ladybug, since he subconsciously knew she was underage by American standards. It's especially significant because, during their first meeting, he didn't hesitate to drop an innuendo to distract the adult villainess they were fighting.
• With Pearl and Ruby Glowing: Doug manages to get away with replacing Rigby and maintains the ruse for several months, but his luck runs out when he can't finish a giant burrito and throws up because Mordecai knows that Rigby is a Big Eater.
• Wonderful (Mazinja): When Taylor says to Sophia's face that they shouldn't put up with her crappy attitude and Sophia shrugs her off, their teammates wonder if she's been brainwashed or mind-controlled.
  "Can you speak louder Red? I barely heard that!"
  "I said to NOT PUT UP WITH ANY OF YOUR SHIT!" Taylor yelled back as Vista's eyes widened.
  Her eyes widened further as Sophia called back. "Got it!"
  "...OK, that's a bit freaky." Kid Win spoke up, looking between her and the room where Sophia was in. "I feel like I should be calling Master/Stranger protocols just about now."
• When Major Jennifer Hailey openly freaks out at seeing the corpse of Harmony Kendall in Xander and Yet ANOTHER Demon, Carter figures out something is seriously wrong and correctly guesses the girl has some unconfirmed intel she didn't share. Hailey figured out that vampires exist and recognized that if Harmony is in that good a condition after seven years, she must be one.
• In Xen Effect, upon learning Whisper-11 (AKA The Young Wolf) is MIA and the portal that took her is gone, Cayde-6, normally the jokey, laid-back Hunter Vanguard, snaps: First by looking like he was about to shoot the unfortunate fireteam leader that reported it in just for being the bearer of bad news, and then grabbing The Exo Stranger by the throat and slamming her into a wall when he goes to confront her about what she knows. Needless to say, this drastic shift in behavior alarms everyone around him. Turns it, his sudden shift in behavior is down to a tendril of darkness from Xen that's taken ahold of him.
• In Xendra, when the titular character puts on her Xena gear, it quickly becomes apparent that Dracula's mind control wasn't neutralized like the Scoobies thought. Instead of her sports bra and flat sole shoes, she grabs her best push-up bra and four-inch heels and neglects to don the heavy panty that goes with her outfit. Sure enough, she and Buffy are still mind controlled and head straight to Dracula after getting ready.
• Given that Kirche always refers to Ranma as "Darling" in Zero Interface, Louise realizes something seriously wrong and/or bizarre must have happened when Kirche responds to her questions with a simple, "We're going to find Ranma."

Ace Combat

• In Three Strikes, When she meets the Rosa, Trigger loses her shit. When Rosa pleads for her help to end the war, Trigger thinks it just some political move to save her own ass and doesn’t want herself or her friends to become pawns for someone to save-face. When Rosa acknowledges that she was the face of her country's war effort, she points out that Trigger’s identity revolves around all the soldiers she has killed. Trigger just snaps further and she points out to the princess that all the civilians that have been getting killed by Erusean soliders and that their blood is on Rosa’s hands. Everyone in the hallway that had been watching the argument are in shock over how Trigger just completely exploded.

Animorphs

• All Assorted Animorphs AUs: To emphasise how much the structure of the Yeerk Empire has changed, "What if Tom was infested by a member of the Yeerk Peace Movement?" ends with Jake asking everyone to join The Sharing. It's even lampshaded by Marco, who says this is the insanest thing they've ever done.

Archie Comics

• Maybe the Last Archie Story: Kind, considerate Archie shocks everybody by snapping at Cheryl Blossom before pushing her away. His reasons? Cheryl was being clingier than usual right when Betty is passing by, and she would not let him go and talk to Betty.
  "Cheryl, let go. I've got to get up."
  "Not until you give me an answer!"
  "Blast it, let GO!" The blonde head was no longer visible. Archie hated being rude. But he flatly shoved Cheryl out of the booth. Pop Tate, for his part, gaped. So did Jughead. Pop came almost on the run.

Arrow

• Not Set in Stone: Oliver is horrified when he realizes that Laurel is afraid of him, and worries what she has learned about him for her to doubt him so much. He's WAY off as to what's bothering her, but is right that something is affecting her.
  "He couldn’t stand the idea. Lord knew Laurel had every right to doubt the efforts he was trying to make to better himself for his city and for his loved ones. But she had always put aside her own hurts to encourage him; at her best, she had always believed in him before. Was this just one hurt too far?"

Batman

• True to the Bat-series, Stephanie Brown/Spoiler is one of the most upbeat, goodhearted characters in Angel of the Bat... With two notable exceptions. During her rematch (from her time as Robin) with Scarab, when the villainess openly taunts her for her failures as Robin and Black Mask sexually assaulting her, she flies into an Extreme Mêlée Revenge and it takes Batgirl's pleading for her to not kill Scarab with her bare hands. Later, when Cassie is capture by the resident Church Of Evil, she confronts Jason Todd/Red Hood, the only person who knows her location. Steph is almost unnervingly quiet throughout their fight, and, recalling the experience to Cassie, is pretty sure Jason pissed himself towards the end.
• In TheCATverse, Captain, Al, and Techie are generally cheerful Genki Girls whose antics as the Scarecrow's henchgirls are usually played for (sometimes dark) laughs, and they're generally relatively fearless around him and deliberately tease him with the Embarrassing Nickname "Squishykins". When the Scarecrow tortures his younger sister in Small World, they cry and are genuinely frightened and upset by his behavior.
• In Second Generation, Bruce and Tim cannot help but feel alarmed when they see Dick refusing to cuddle his newborn daughters, refusing to claim at every corner he's now a daddy and refusing to talk about the mother. This helps them to understand he never consented to conceive them — actually never consented to have sex with their mother.

BattleTech

• Along Came a Spider begins a mere two years after The Federated Commonwealth absorbed numerous planets from the Capellan Confederation and Draconis Combine. So when they suddenly give planets that were formerly their own territory and not spoils of war to the recently founded Free Rasalhague Republic and St Ives Compact, the only theory that ComStar can even conceive of is the reaction of Janos Marik to the news: "Clearly Liao has pictures of Davion molesting goats."

Beetlejuice

• Lydia gradually cottons on to the fact that something's really not right with BJ when he tells her to go home and never come back in Cinderjuice. It does take her a little while to understand this since his hostility triggers a brief Heroic BSoD for her, but it's so unusual for him to not want her around that their friends are also very confused.

BioShock

• In Rapture Falls, Sinclair knows Brigid Tenenbaum as a consistent advocate for the moral path even in Rapture, which is why he's taken completely aback by her reaction when Delta brings Atlas to the train.It's because she was present for the events of BioShock and the reveal that Atlas was really Frank Fontaine in disguise.
  Tenenbaum: Herr Delta, kill that man.

Bleach

• In A Different Path, Soi Fon (normally Lawful Neutral at best and a Knight Templar at worst) starts contemplating disobeying orders, and indirectly helps Ichigo's friends by informing Yoruichi, when Yamamoto declares Ichigo's Arrancar allies are to be killed and Ichigo brought in for questioning. If Ichigo resists, he's to be killed as well. Even Soi Fon admits Soul Society owes Ichigo too much to go through with such madness.
• Getting it Right has several, though the main one is when Ichigo goes from a Cheerful Teenager and Momma's Boy to a Perpetual Frowner badass, seemingly out of nowhere. Later, Orihime gets worried when Ichigo switches back to smiling, as she's the only one to suspect he's gone Stepford Smiler on them. Other incidents include Chad talking more than usual, Chizuru saying that a guy is hot, and Isshin acting serious (twice).
• Heirverse Gin's getting drunk and coming on to Aizen in Just As You Are shows exactly how scared he is. Aizen is fully aware of it.
  • When Aizen gets wasted at work in Ch. 27 of Game it's an indicator of exactly how bad things are getting for him.
  • Likewise Aizen's vulnerability in Cold Feet is the first time Gin sees that they're in the same boat as far as needing each other.
• Ichigo realizes something is up in The Snow Has Stopped The Rain when, after mentioning Urahara is involved with the invading Ryoka, Kyoraku's perpetual good mood immediately turns sour.
• In White the other Sternritter warn Yuzu to be cautious around Giselle whenever she stops acting cutesy and starts acting more lucid and paranoid as that's when she's the most dangerous. Turns out her cutesy behavior is just an act and her paranoia is because she wants out of the Sternritter but doesn't know who to trust.

Blue Exorcist

• The Rin Okumura from Veränderung does Exorcist work in freelance and knows his demonic lore pretty well, and he finds outright creepy Astaroth's reaction to his blue flames. Because demons are supposed to be swearing and trying to rip your face off, not calling you their young lord and show you reverence.

Bolt

• The Bolt Chronicles: In these stories, Bolt is almost always portrayed as a Nice Guy and Lovable Jock type who is very loyal to those he loves, at worst being clueless or mischievous. Exceptions are rare:
  • In "The Blood Brother," Bolt blows up at Mittens over something trivial and is later described by Rhino as treating the cat in a mean and snappish manner during the course of the story. It's a clear sign he has backslid into his old canon Fantastic Racism regarding felines under the toxic influence of his bigoted new cocker spaniel friend Duke. Fortunately, he realizes what is happening before things get too out of hand and tearfully apologizes to Mittens.
  • Subverted in "The Murder Mystery." Penny leads an on-set Closed Circle investigation to find out who killed The Director, and it's eventually revealed that all the animals from the show conspired to murder him and collect a big Insurance Fraud payout. Bolt is the mastermind behind the act, and in this fic he's depicted as a cold blooded assassin with a Sideshow Bob-style evil laugh who later vaporizes all the humans on set with heat-laser eye beams — including his beloved master Penny — to cover his tracks. Turns out it's All Just a Dream Penny has, an Acid Reflux Nightmare resulting from eating meat lovers pizza with anchovies and jalapenos before bedtime.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• In any Buffy the Vampire Slayer story, if Drusilla starts acting lucid (such as in Gamer-X when she warns Spike to kill Ford or "Kitten will burn the world"), people pay attention.
• In Marching Orders, Xander makes a nurse and doctor understand just how serious the situation is when he explains that as Sunnydale residents, they have an idea of what goes on at night. He and his friends dealt with it every day for years and they're leaving Sunnydale immediately.
• The Scoobies understand just how serious the coming (unstoppable) apocalypse is in Priorities when Xander doesn't remotely object to Angel being saved with the rest of them.

Calvin and Hobbes

• The Calvinverse:
  • This quote from Calvin and Hobbes: The Movie:
    Hobbes stared at Calvin. Never in his entire life had he saw Calvin break down sobbing.
  • Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: As in the comics, Calvin's dad is all about making him do things he doesn't want to do because he thinks it'll build character. However, in "Chaos to my Ears", he objects to signing Calvin up for band practice against his will, much to his wife's surprise. Apparently he's still scarred from all the bullying he received when he was in the school band.

Code Geass

• The Black Emperor: Euphemia gets a Twitchy Eye when explaining to Cornelia how Clovis got routed in the battle of Shinjuku, Cornelia belatedly wonders if she was better off not knowing.
• Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion:
  • Euphemia, normally the friendliest and least confrontational character in the story, rips Cornelia a new one for both her attempts at recreating the Shinjuku Massacre and for hiding it from her. Euphy coldly tells her that Cornelia's refusal to perform her own duties as Viceroy and not informing the Sub-Viceroy (Euphy) of military operations within her jurisdiction are both serious crimes, even for an Imperial Princess. Likewise, Euphemia is sick of Cornelia monitoring her finances, reading her mail, and having her Knights follow Euphemia everywhere.
  • Milly's Love Confession to Lelouch was as far away from her normally confident self as it can get. She was nervous like never before, had trouble finding her words, remained uncertain of his reaction despite C.C. already telling her that he liked her back, and looked outright scared when it took Lelouch a second too long to answer due to how out-of-character she was acting.
  • C.C. hates the way that V.V. is so callous with the people that he makes contracts with, having once told Marianne that she'd rather swim through acid than do so, preferring to make one Contract at a time. Thus, Marianne tells Charles the fact that she's given two other people Geass while Lelouch is still alive a sign that she is extremely pissed off at them.
• Despite almost everyone reviling Lelouch as the Demon Emperor in Entropy, when Chiba tries to insist Lelouch didn't even care who killed his mother, everyone present backs up Nunnally when she coldly demands Chiba apologize.

Death Note

• In A Cure for Love, Matt realizes things are serious when he hears that Mello gave L his chocolate.
• In Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami, this is what Dark Yagami makes Queen Elizabeth do to prove that he is mind controlling her:
  Suddenly the queen got up and punched the dude IN THE FACE! Which is something the Queen wouldn't normally do but she did and that's why its shocking.

Dragon Age

• In All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird, it sends a shockwave of surprise through the entire court at Skyhold when Victoria not only sentences Erimond to death, but wants to carry out the execution herself. Mahanon has to intervene because he realizes just how much this will damage her if she goes through with it. It's all related to her Crisis of Faith.

Dragon Ball

• Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
  • In Episode 60 we got Gohan berating Vegeta for suddenly starting to care about Trunks after Cell murders him. Vegeta's response is a pained and very sincere "I'm... sorry..." Gohan is shocked and realizes that, at that point, they really were fucked.
  • Played for Laughs in the Broly special, where despite Goku thinking he'd have to coax Vegeta into letting him borrow his energy (which is what happened in the official movie), Vegeta quickly and willingly gives it up. Because Broly is that annoying.
    Goku: Now, Vegeta... I know you're probably not going to—
    Vegeta: F*ck it. You have it. Just go.

Encanto

• Rather than let Alma continue to bad-mouth Mirabel for leaving the day her sister gets engaged in Distance Wakes The Heart Up, Julieta stands up to her, going on about how she doesn't want a repeat of Bruno disappearing. Dolores and Antonio merely gawk, having never seen anyone stand up to their Abuela before.
• When the entire third generation of Madrigals from Extended Family is Still Family come to a mutual agreement on how tired of their duties they are, their Abuela immediately notice just how aloof all of them are, each grandkid either avoiding Alma or openly defying her. Unfortunately, she immediately presumes that Mirabel is somehow the cause of all of it and gives her the riot act, leading to the rest of the family to defend her.

The Fairly Oddparents

• In the story Tales as Old as Time, sequel to Never Had a Friend Like Me, Crocker has such a moment when he sees Poof. When he does not shout and flail at the words "fairy godparents," there is something important going on.

The Familiar of Zero

• Given that Tabitha only rarely shows emotion and never raises her voice, it shows just how furious she is in Soldier of Zero that she's driven to murderous rage at the revelation that her mother has been poisoned regularly for the past few years (Tabitha thought she'd been poisoned once saving her life). Saito has to tackle her to the ground to keep her from killing her staff until she finds the traitor.

Final Fantasy VII

• The Fifth Act: Angeal cherishes his honour and takes pride that he will do the right thing. That goes out the window when he slowly starts to die of degeneration. Then he deliberately tricks Cloud and sells him out to Hollander in search of a cure.

Fire Emblem

• A Brighter Dark. Pretty much any time BrighterDark!Corrin is shown taking anything seriously or reacting to events outside of her usual loud, violent nature, you know something serious is going on with her. Most notably is when she's trying to convince her father to spare an enemy. Despite being fully willing to kill them herself, upon realizing that they were family of one of her closest friends, she becomes so increasingly desperate to sway her father that she actually gets down on her knees and begs.
• Lucina Reacts: Maribelle spots Tharja crying. This is revealed to be due to Tharja being heartbroken to have permanently lost Robin to someone else.

Frozen

• Elsa in The Queen of Hearts always wears her crown in public. The day she forgets her crown and opts to have breakfast with Hans' brothers without her crown, it doesn't go unnoticed. Elsa was too exhausted to get dressed up properly.
• In Sick Queen, Elsa sleeps in despite usually being the first one up, and she shivers despite usually being immune to the cold, which are signs that she's unwell.

Fullmetal Alchemist

• Mustang is struck speechless in Shadow Of A Doubt when he sees Edward is crying in front of him.
  Edward: I'm not falling apart! I'm not...not a child, damn it! So don't go treating me like one!
  Mustang: I know that. It's just...I don't think I've ever seen you cry.
  Edward: Yeah well, I kind of get this way when I think someone I know may have died! Forgive me for having a fucking heart!
• After getting lost in a blizzard and almost freezing to death in Whiteout, Edward realizes he must have seriously scared everyone when, after trying to bait him into one of their usual arguments expecting sarcasm, Mustang responds by getting furious and completely losing his temper.

Ghostbusters

• Fanfic writers have a tendency to do this with Egon, since he's usually one of the most reliable members of the Ghostbusters, so seeing him act out-of-character is serious:
  • In this fanfic, it's a bad sign when Egon, who's normally the most attentive Ghostbuster, can't focus on his work, and then when he stops working altogether despite usually greatly enjoying his job. He's eventually found having fallen asleep due to what appears to be a cold or the flu.
  • Similarly, in Fever, one sign that something is wrong with Egon is when he's so oblivious he doesn't even realise his soldering iron isn't on.
  • In Under the Weather, Egon's friends can tell he's out of sorts when he's the first one to go to bed despite usually being The Night Owl, snores despite usually not doing so, and becomes very clumsy despite usually not being clumsy.
• Illogical Reaction plays this with Peter, Egon, and Janine — Peter doesn't make a butt joke when someone says, "Did I hear a 'but' coming?", Janine is uncharacteristically rude to everyone, and Egon throws his equipment despite usually being The Stoic and drinks despite usually being The Teetotaler. The reason is because Janine got a boyfriend, Egon is jealous, Janine is offended that Egon was rude to her, and Peter is frustrated with the whole ordeal.

Glitch Techs

• Glitched Miko AU: Miko playing with her hair is a pretty bad sign for her parents since the normally incredibly confident girl does that when she's worried about something.

Godzilla

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
  • Vivienne Graham wasn't easily angered when she was human, and when she was it was terrifying, but after everything she's been through since Ghidorah ate her and she's been resurrected as half of the two-headed Monster X, she's changed likely forever while being no less fierce.
  • When San (Monster X's other head) calls Vivienne by her name instead of just calling her "sister", it's a sign it must be serious.
  • Vivienne notes Ghidorah's three heads' voices are uncharacteristically calm after she and San rip one of the Many's constructs apart.
  • Vivienne realizes something is wrong by MaNi/Elder Brother's behavior around her, which is in stark contrast to how Ghidorah's right head is known generally for his simplistic enjoyment of the acts of killing and fighting for their own sakes.
  • Implied when Martinez swears on Jesus upon seeing Keizer Ghidorah. He's the Token Religious Teammate of the G-Team, something that got highlighted only a short while earlier.
  • Dr. Chen of all people is reduced to furiously screaming at Ghidorah in a venomous fit when the Argo crew realize what it's done to Monster X.

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

• In Best of My Love, Wei Wuxian is very worried about Lan Xichen when Xichen checks his phone at brunch, then leaves midway through that brunch, both things that the unfailingly polite Xichen never does. Xichen has just gotten a message from Meng Yao that he’s horny, something that happens so rarely that he doesn't want to pass up the opportunity.
• In Gold Poisons, Lan Xichen, normally unflappable, showing pain is enough to show how bad the Qi-deviation really is.
• In If You Only Knew Then (The Things I Only Know Now), Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng start to genuinely worry about the upcoming conflict with the Wens when they realize Yu Ziyuan — Action Girl extraordinaire — is afraid.
• In The Lost Cause, Lan Xichen is furious when he hears that Jin Guangyao has been used as a poison tester for his own father in the Jin Clan. It ups the tension significantly in the final confrontation.
• In Where There's A Will, There's A Road, Lan Xichen loses his temper near the end of the fic when he sees his sworn brothers fighting. Again. He even swears at them, stunning them out of their fight.

Harry Potter

• Lampshaded in Breath of the Inferno when Dumbledore's and McGonagall's search for Harry brings them to an abandoned Goblin Gold Cave. Given that goblins will literally wage war over a single stolen piece of goblin property, both are terrified of the thought of something that would make them abandon one of their underground palaces filled with mountains of gold, silver, and precious gems. Said something turns out to be a dragon of Smaug like proportions and power.
• Brought up in Daphne Greengrass and the Boy Who Lived when Daphne advocates the use of the Imperius Curse to break into Gringott's as part of their plan to acquire the horcruxes. Daphne has previously stated a storong distaste for the Curse in particular and the very idea of mind control, but she recognises that the stakes are so high they have to resort to any means in order to win.
• In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, when Dumbledore asks Harry what Quirrell could be plotting that requires him to bring a Dementor into the castle, Harry argues that this is completely in-character for him, and naturally, in-character is business as usual. But he realizes that something is wrong anyway, because even coming out of his own mouth it's a Suspiciously Specific Denial.
• In Like Grains of Sand in the Hourglass Hermione saves Harry and a time-traveling Tonks from one of Bellatrix's curses.
  Hermione: Well, what are we waiting for? We've followed her this far, let's stop the evil bloody bitch before she can get away!
  Harry: Hermione... You never curse...
  Hermione: That woman just murdered my best professor and then tried to slaughter the two people I care about most in this world outside of my parents! I can call her whatever I damn well like thank you very much! Now are we going to stop the Death Eater or are we going to sit here arguing about my manners?
• You can tell that Hermione in The Rigel Black Chronicles is obsessed with studying and curing the Fade when she stops doing extra credit homework assignments.
• In one chapter of the Weasley Girl trilogy, Neville Longbottom stuns the entire house of Gryffindor into a shocked silence when he loses his temper with them and delivers a furious "The Reason You Suck" Speech. As the narrative points out: "This was Neville Longbottom. Neville Longbottom did not get angry and start yelling at people. It was like a natural law had just been broken or something."
• Peeves is universally unhelpful and antagonizing (befitting a poltergeist), but he's still willing to help in The Werewolf Conspiracy; he opens a locked door which had been preventing several students from helping a group being attacked by werewolves and asking Harry to once more defend Hogwarts.
  • Blaise Zabini realizes the attack was planned after Malfoy's sole reaction is to say it's a shame Daphne had to die since she was quite the looker. Ordinarily, he'd have been ranting about filthy half-breeds daring to lay a hand on a pureblood.
• In When Harry Missed the Trick Step, after Harry ends up helping Snape capture and expose Barty Crouch Junior's impersonation of Moody, after Snape returns to work, he spends the next few days actually awarding Gryffindors points in class and being relatively neutral towards the students rather than his usual blatant favouritism.
• In Who Dares Wins Justin offers to fetch refreshments at Susan and Harry's joint birthday party and Ron, who's engaged in a chess match with Hannah, says he isn't hungry.
  Justin, who had already began to walk to the sunroom, froze. Turning, he made eye contact with Ginny, whose eyes were as wide as his own.
  Ron Weasley had just refused food. Now they knew that he was playing for keeps.
• In With Fires and Pillows after a distraught Hermione sees Ron and Lavender making out Harry takes her to the Room of Requirement and offers her Firewhiskey.
  The first sign that things were not alright was that instead of rebuffing the drink on grounds of their being underage; the bushy-headed brunette instead downed the burning alcohol in one gulp. The second was her holding the glass out for another.
• In You Poked A Dragon Slughorn's poisoned mead is more toxic than in canon and Ron dies before aid can be administered.
  Luna was being very ... normal, which for Luna was very odd. [Neville] wasn't used to a Luna who wasn't saying off the wall things about imaginary creatures. If he was being honest with himself, he was quite unnerved.
• In Technomad's Fiat Justitia, when Xenophilius Lovegood is put on trial after the final victory for having aided the Death Eaters, Luna bursts into the court and screams that anybody trying to hurt her daddy will have to do so over her dead body. Shacklebolt's reaction is that Luna, in this frame of mind, could have taken down Bellatrix Lestrange all by herself.

Hellsing

• Hellsing Ultimate Abridged gives two examples in episode 8.
  • Anderson is normally irritated with Alucard for his myriad pedopriest jokes and miscellaneous anti-Catholic antics, but you know he's about to cross the Godzilla Threshold when he utters the words "I forgive you." in all seriousness.
  • Alucard normally pops a super-hard boner at the prospect of fighting Anderson, but Anderson daring to cross the Godzilla Threshold makes him angrily growl at Anderson as a note to his sudden erectile dysfunction.

Hetalia: Axis Powers

• The doujinshi From the New World with love includes America and England meeting for the first time after The Revolutionary War, during The War of 1812. It includes England outright shooting at America, missing him very narrowly and only reacting with "Who'd have thunk, I missed" (paraphrased). This shocks America because of their famous confrontation during The Revolutionary War when England said there is no way he could ever shoot America. When he points this out, the reply he gets is that he is not facing the England he knew from before, as that person is gone now - This is the British Empire.
• Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Italy is normally bright, cheerful, and energetic. When he isn't...
• At one point in HetaOni, Italy starts acting seriously OoC, and then he locks everyone up in a cell so they won't 'get in his way'.
• Exaggerated in I Cannot Tell a Lie when England is unable to properly insult France at a meeting (it was because of a spell). Almost all the characters reacted to this by passing out, going catatonic, or panicking and screaming (their theories for this OoC moment include the apocalypse and an alien invasion). Oddly, the only person to remain calm is America, who just thinks England's sick.

Homestuck

• When Nepeta drops her cat puns and other typing quirks in Herding Cats, that means she's really upset.
• Hivefled: Equius had been rapidly losing his respect for Gamzee as Gamzee slipped further into his rages, to the point that he was willing to insult him to his face and strife without letting him win. When their conflict indirectly leads to Nepeta dumping Equius and he screams at Gamzee that he intends to "wring your scrawny neck", he's over the edge.

How to Train Your Dragon

• Becoming Lífþrasir: When Goethi talks to Stoick about accepting the future as it happens it really gets his attention, especially since he has rarely ever heard her speak.
• Dark Valkyrie: When Astrid corners some hunters for information on Viggo so she can find the cure for Hiccup they refuse to cooperate. She promptly kills one of them, sending a clear message to the remaining hunters that they are not dealing with a rider who avoids killing. One decides to be talkative when Astrid gets in his face.

Invader Zim

• Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends:
  • The minion trio are shocked when Zim calls off the attack on Tak's base, having been distracted from his vendetta against her by the bigger threat posed by Lex.
  • Gaz noticeably avoids playing her Game Slave after nearly being killed by Aldrich's VR gaming system draining her Childergy.
  • At the end of Chapter 15, Zim is so grateful to the Minion Trio for protecting Minimoose that he actually thanks them, something he's literally never done for anything.
• Mad World (Invader Zim): Throughout the story, Dib is shocked to notice that Zim is acting much more sane and rational than usual. It turns out to be because Dib is an emergent Wastelock, and being around him drains Zim's insanity.
• The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Played for laughs in Season 2, Episode 2, where the others students' reactions to Gaz actually acting friendly towards someone (namely Nyx, whom she's discovered a shared love of video games with) is to treat it like a sign of the apocalypse.

Jackie Chan Adventures

• Jackie Chan Adventures: Olympian Journey:
  • Jade is a little lacking in her normal energy after seeing Ares's host die horribly.
  • After absorbing Ares's essence, Eris, much to her own disgust, develops more of a head for tactics.
  • Uncle is so shocked by his Phobos-induced fear vision that he actually actively joins the search for Aphrodite's essence pearl instead of just making Jackie do the hard work, and is much more on edge than usual.
  • Eris points out to Kasahara when he suggests that letting the Monkey King claim Poseidon's essence would result in glorious chaos that there's no way that giving a being that can already bend reality (besides her of course) an extra dose of divine power would be a good idea. Vanessa lampshades to herself that the fact that Eris is making sense is scaring her.
• Queen of Shadows: The Generals are so shocked by Jade/the Queen "birthing" Hishu that among other things, Sanshobo drops his Large Ham tendencies and starts talking and acting like a normal person. The others find it disconcerting.
• The Stronger Evil:
  • When Drago breaks into Section 13 in the tenth chapter, the heroes assume he's once again trying to claim the demon chis of his uncles and aunts. He fights his way to the Vault, only to walk right past the chi containment unit because he wants to talk with his petrified father about Tarakudo whom he released in that same chapter. The heroes are utterly bewildered to the point of actually taking part in the two villains' conversation.
  • Valerie's insistence to ally with Shendu and Drago to rescue Jade from Tarakudo makes Jackie uncharacteristically hostile towards her to the point that he turns his back on her.
  • When Shendu reveals that Tiamat is his mother, Valerie is unsettled by how talking about his Missing Mom makes him seem vulnerable.
  • The heroes as well as Drago are extremely surprised when Jade asks to be allowed to go home when she's known to follow her uncle into danger anyway. Though they don't know it at the time, she's feeling extremely unwell from whatever Hsi Wu did to her while she was the Queen of the Shadowkhan.

Katawa Shoujo

• In From Shizune's Perspective, midway through the fic, Shizune notes that Misha is chewing her lip like she does during tests she expects to fail, and is not snarking at her like she usually does. Misha claims that it's out of sensitivity toward Shizune, who is upset over Emi not responding to her text messages, but the truth is that Misha and Hisao have a Secret Relationship, and are worried about how Shizune will react.

Kerbal Space Program

• Combined with Precision F-Strike in The Next Frontier. Bill Kerman is a stoic, level-headed and serious sort of guy who rarely uses strong language. When he abruptly breaks off in the middle of a sentence with a startled yell of "Holy shit!", Jeb -who's not an easily startled guy himself- nearly performs a microgravity Face Fault, and immediately concludes that something major is going down. He's absolutely right.

Kill la Kill

• This occurs a few times in Cellar Secrets.
  • Chapter fourteen notes that Ryuuko doesn't usually pull hair and, when she does, the act grabs Satsuki's attention
  • In Ch. 16, Nui recalls that Rei was beaten for something, however, while the idea was commonplace and happened often, she makes it clear that her mother was exceptionally cruel in that instance, hitting her with something metal vs the usual (i.e a belt, shoe, or a rope) and actually providing something of a reason as to why.
  • In one chapter, Ryuuko generally communicates and asks for things nonverbally, however, she, as only she could, asks for a hug, the fact that she does tells Satsuki that she's upset.
  • As noted before, sudden noises tend to frighten her (which will make her scream) but, in chapter 25, when Ryuuko hears Shiro's heart monitor flatlining, she cries, as she realizes, in her way, that he's not coming back.
• Throughout Concerning a Drifter Satsuki doesn't usually call Ryuuko by her name (probably to symbolize how Ryuuko forgot it) and, instead, calls her "Kanna" but in chapter 24, Satsuki breaks this when she tells her goodnight, her sister's name being italicized. Likewise, in the same chapter, Ryuuko, generally silent, breaks her silence when she's given her scarf and says "Sis"
• In Kill la Kill AU, whenever Rei, aptly called "the Drunk Secretary", doesn't drink - or rather, stops drinking (as is the case in Room 002108), it is a sign of something very wrong. Likewise, it is considered odd when she's actually coherent and talks as such.
• Maim de Maim:
  • Ryuuko and various other minor characters first notice Ragyou's odd behavior. After the events in chapter fourteen, it also a tad strange if Ragyou shows any tinge of genuine emotion after.
  • Satsuki doesn't upset pretty easily and is rather one of the nicest people one could meet, however, she does show a burst of anger and venom in Chapter 20, which surprises everyone. Her being depressed is likely to have this effect, as she's mostly upbeat.
• Ryuuko in The Outside notes that Satsuki is strict about the doors to the house being locked and so she never leaves them unlocked but she does a couple of times. The first time is when Ryuuko and Aikuro fake the former being sick and the second time is when she's very sick and has to be taken from her house. Likewise, she's agoraphobic and isn't keen on doing things that wouldn't involve staying inside but, when she's sick, she doesn't fight being taken to the hospital.
  • In the last chapter, Ryuuko takes Satsuki outside and makes a note of how different the latter is acting, instead of being afraid, she's calm and fascinated. Likewise, she doesn't fight it when Ryuuko takes outside either. We find out later in the chapter that she has a shortened life expectancy.
• In Through Thick and Thin, chapter 4, when Ryuuko ties a red ribbon instead of the usual blue one, Satsuki immediately thinks that the former's illness (subtly implied to be cancer) has begun to hit terminal.
  • In the sequel, Piano Notes, what gets Ryuuko to visit a critically ill Satsuki in the hospital is that she heard the latter's voice call her "Ryuuko", instead of "Imouto", like she normally would. Earlier in the fic, Ryuuko comes home to find her not at the piano for their lessons but, instead, resting in bed, as she's tired and weaker than before
  • In Odds and Probabilities, a prequel to the aforementioned Through Thick and Thin, Mako mentions that Ryuuko normally wouldn't admit she was scared and would say "Hell no!" or "No way!" and laugh it off, so when the latter doesn't do that, it tells her how sick Ryuuko is.

Kim Possible

• In The Touch of Green Fire, the first sign of Shego's illness is that she's acting off-character. Drakken notices that Shego is acting snappier than usual and is in a particularly bad mood, which is odd because her irritation always has an actual reason behind it. Kim notices that Shego is less energetic than usual and doesn't deride her with nicknames like she normally does. Unsurprisingly, Shego ends up dangerously ill within a few hours.

Kingdom Hearts

• In Castle Cleanup, the second story in The Reluctant Father Universe, Saix starts being nice to Xion. This is a divergence point that Axel confronts him on and which affects his entire character for the rest of the series.

The Loud House

• Anger Management: Lynn becomes afraid of Lincoln after he beats her up.
• Zigzagged in Cleansing, where Luan is oddly sad and lethargic despite usually being one of the bubbliest Loud siblings, but it's a little up in the air as to whether this is depression, hormones, or just an ordinary bad mood. She seems happier after a good cry, but she did write a story about a suicidal girl who resembles herself...
• In Irrational Fear, Lincoln can tell that something's the matter with Lisa when she stammers and can't give an exact time of availability.
• Subverted in Lincoln's Twin Brother, where Lio is concerned upon seeing his normally-cheerful sister Luan sobbing, but it turns out she just needed a pep talk.
• In Chapter 2 of Luan's Problem, Luan Loud's silence and morose behavior is immediately worrying to her mother and Rita doesn't believe her daughter when she claims she's fine.
• Lucy's Secret: Lucy decides to use the bathroom last, since she's wearing a diaper due to her bedwetting and is worried her siblings will hear it crinkling. This shocks Lynn, since usually Lucy is one of the first ones to use the bathroom before bed. Later, Lynn is confused that Lucy is taking a nap, since it's unusual for most of the family members to be taking naps, especially on Saturdays.
• In Chapter 2 of Missing Linc, the normally calm and stoic Lisa has a panic attack when her tracking device fails to detect Lincoln.
• Mystery of the Self-Loathing Loud: Seeing as the premise is that Lincoln found a suicide letter, any uncharacteristic behaviour is taken very seriously:
  • Lori, who usually isn't interested in the macabre at all, starts spending time with Lucy writing morbid poems. Eventually, it turns out that Lori is indeed the note-writer.
  • Leni slaps Lori and kicks Luna despite usually being one of the least violent of the siblings, cries a lot, acts worried, and sometimes appears to be in shock even though she usually has a positive attitude, and doesn't wear her makeup despite usually wearing it. This turns out to be because she knows who the note-writer is.
  • Luna and Luan, both usually very chipper, act glum and they also act kind of cranky and give away her ventriloquist's dummy respectively. Thankfully, Luna was just coping with being dumped, and Luan was just being bothered at school.
• Nightmares features Lincoln being so out of character (namely being extremely quiet and submissive towards his sisters) it scares Ronnie and all of his sisters.
• The Nightmare House:
  • Lori's first sign that things aren't right is when her siblings don't grasp that she's in charge.
  • The first sign the sisters are impostors in Lincoln's nightmare is when they all pamper him for no reason, and "Lucy" is smiling.
• What You Wish For:
  • Lincoln is shocked to the point of tears when Lori swears at him. While she does occasionally swear, it's never at someone.
  • The first sign that Lori is in an alternate reality is when Leni and Luna act puzzled at the idea of her apologising to Lincoln, who doesn't reply.
  • Lori is unnerved by Lola frowning, as opposed to smiling or glaring.

Love Hina

• Whenever Keitaro becomes serious in Ancestor, he's talking about something very important/serious, even more so when he raises his voice. Such topics include having to disown Kanako if she stops training before she's mastered their style and massacring an entire village for what they did to his daughter.

Luca

• The Story of Apollo, Daphne and Luca: An Italian Tragedy: Caterina gets quite worried when her usually spunky and optimisic daughter, Giulia, uncharacteristically starts to act sour and depressed.

Lucifer (2016)

• Tragic Life Changes opens with Chloe and Dan apparently dying in a plane crash, with Chloe's friends and family unaware for six months that she was literally saved by God. When Chloe returns to investigate the attempt on her life six months later, Maze is the first of the group to learn that Chloe is alive, and her first reaction is to give Chloe an emotional hug, although she swiftly warns Chloe to never mention that to anyone else.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• In xLilyStarkx's Avengers fanfiction Chained, Tony manages to make Loki cry. Everyone who sees Loki in this state reacts with this trope.
• In The Many Doors of Níu Heimar Steve draws a caricature that Loki finds so funny he bursts out laughing. Everyone else, particularly Thor, stares at him in concern.
• Hope Van Dyne learns that something serious must have happened in Nobody's Heroes when her father, who hates all Starks with a passion, sends her a text telling her to tell Tony he's sorry. Turns out, the Winter Soldier's murder of Howard and Maria Stark was leaked online by Zemo, along with a video of Captain America and Iron-man's fight in Siberia.
• Steve realizes that he's done something bizarre or wrong after breaking some robots in The Joke when even Agent Coulson is gaping at him.

Megamind

• In Rain on the Just, Megamind has been working hard to say "hello" in a way that's at least closer to being correct. So when he comes to rescue Roxanne from the Beetle-Bomber/Fire Bug/Owen and says "Ollo," she knows that her boyfriend is seriously ticked off.

Miraculous Ladybug

• The One to Make It Stay:
  • Plagg normally enjoys slacking off and Trolling his holder. So it really says something when he gets frustrated enough with Adrien's entitled behavior as Chat Noir that he 'pulls a Tikki' and calls him out. Sadly, Adrien dismisses this by complaining that Plagg 'used to be fun'.
  • Plagg provides another good example after Adrien accidentally overhears Alya and Marinette arguing. While he normally scorns anything to do with romance, he helps Adrien finally grasp the fact that Marinette was crushing on him, even copping to the fact that he knew beforehand and strongly suggesting that he have a heart-to-heart with her. All without his usual exaggerated shuddering.
• In Unexpected Surprise, Gabriel's treatment of Emma. He allows her to be present in his company building, to visit his office, he showers her with presents, more than he ever did with Adrien. Turns out that as soon as he saw her, he realized that she must be Adrien's daughter.
• What Goes Around Comes Around: In Truth & Journalism, the whole class is shocked by Ms. Bustier casually brushing past the matter of how Chloé, Lila and Adrien won't be returning, as typically, she would have more to say about the events. The reason why she's acting so differently becomes clear once Mr. Burner is introduced; he's been assigned to monitor her class and ensure she doesn't slip into her usual tactics.

My Hero Academia

• Crimson and Emerald: Izuku's uncharacteristic message to the class group chat is what leads to Tokoyami and Hawks to check out his coordinates.
• Type-2 Hero:
  • The UA staff know Nezu has four levels of anger and when he is angry, he usually begins from the first level. When Aizawa and Vlad see that Nezu is at level 2 with Bakugou, they know the boy is completely screwed.
  • The only reason Inko doesn't hang up on Mitsuki after she accidently calls her is because the woman calls and apologizes... something Mitsuki has never done.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• In Bad Future Crusaders, Apple Bloom being terrified for her first time in the entire story is your first clue that Captain Rumble is a deadly threat. Your second clue, of course, is when he pounds the ever-loving crap out of her with no effort on his part.
• A Diplomatic Visit: In chapter 21, after a dream conversation with Princess Luna, Twilight is left utterly furious by her words, and is still so angry the next morning that Swift-Pad, who's seeing her rarely-used temper for the first time, is left highly concerned about her after he himself takes a minute to calm down and study the situation.
• Discord's New Business:
  • The fact that Discord has a permit for his business is what worries Twilight the most.
    Twilight: A permit. As in he's doing this completely legally. As in he somehow managed the patience to actually sit through doing all the necessary paperwork.
  • Discussed in the Cutie Mark Crusaders' chapter — the fact that Maud Pie got traumatized by Granite Wasps should have been a red flag, girls...
    Rainbow Dash: It was so weird, seeing her actually emote.
• In The God Squad, if Shining Armor's first response is violence, then you know you've screwed up.
  • When Tydal tells Chrysalis and Sunset to run rather than help him fight Tirek, Sunset instantly realizes something is VERY wrong. Tydal knows he can't win and knows he is going to die. He told them to run so they'd at least survive.
• Loved and Lost, an extended retelling of the second season finale, has several examples.
  • When it's been a week since Prince Jewelius has banished all the other heroes but Twilight Sparkle from Equestria for inadvertently allowing the Changeling Invasion to happen, he sends Rarity her bridesmaid dress to rub salt in the wound. Disgusted with herself as she remembers how she abandoned Twilight at the wedding rehearsal, Rarity destroys the dress she was once proud to have made, much to the other exiles' surprise.
    Rarity: I traded my best friend for THIS?! [throws the dress into the fire] I am the Element of Generosity, but I failed to represent that during the wedding. That is a mistake I fully intend to rectify!
  • After the exiles sneak into the castle and Cadance becomes injured, Twilight, believing her brother, friends and Celestia caused it by bringing her to Canterlot before Jewelius could reinstate her, gives them all an angry and bitter "The Reason You Suck" Speech about bringing unnecessary trouble to Cadance as well as of their treatment of her during the wedding preparations. She then disowns them all and coldly leaves them at the guards' mercy to check on Cadance while using the same parting words Shining Armor, Applejack and Celestia used while leaving her to check on Chrysalis. It's later revealed that this dark change of character has been caused by Jewelius using Twilight's heartache from everything that has happened to destroy her trust in her brother, friends, and mentor.
    Applejack: Twilight, please don't do this!
    Fluttershy: We're your friends!
    Twilight: No you're not! You only hang out with me because my connections could help you. You never cared about me or anypony else! I can't believe I fell for it for so long.
    Shining Armor: Twily-
    Twilight: And you can forget about me calling you my BBBFF anymore! In fact, I don't even have a brother. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go check on the princess.
    Celestia: Twilight, I-
    Twilight: You have a lot to think about.
  • As much of an Adaptational Wimp as she is in this fic due to Jewilius being even more villainous than she is (up to and including orchestrating the entire Changeling invasion with the her and her swarm as his pawns), Chrysalis is still as conniving and manipulative as in canon, and remains such a serious threat even after her initial defeat by Twilight and Jewilius that the citizens of Canterlot eventually worry more about a second invasion led by her than the exiled heroes. So it's telling when after Jewilius orchestrates her downfall when he decides he can get more out of befriending Twilight, she not only suspends her campaign against the heroes to focus on getting revenge, but sends one of her Changelings to actively help Twilight escape Canterlot after she comes to her senses regarding Jewilius' true colors. Furthermore, the heroes' warnings about Jewilius being evil earlier went unheeded by Twilight and the citizens of Canterlot partly because Chrysalis, the only other witness to his depraved actions, is such a deceptive liar that she can't be trusted to testify, but when she and her swarm escape Canterlot not long afterward, she gives Twilight a warning about Jewilius similar to the ones the exiles tried to tell her. While Twilight thinks she's lying at first (and not without reason), she eventually discovers the hard way that Chrysalis WAS, in fact, telling the truth about him. All in all, if someone can make such a deceitful and vindictive Changeling Queen choose to help the heroes take him down with nothing in it for herself except revenge on that someone, they surely must've done something to her despicable enough for her to take it very, very personally.
    Chrysalis: What are you going to do, Twilight? Stop the evil changelings or save your old foalsitter? What if I'm not lying this time? You could be truly responsible for something horrible to happen to Cadance this time?
  • When Jewelius eventually decides to wipe out all of Ponyville's inhabitants along with the heroes, Lieutenant Shackle is horrified (as is easy to expect) while his devoted and impersonal assistant Vivian uncharacteristically gives her master uneasy looks. However, even the sadistic and brutal Commander Hildread, who has never before shown to have had any trouble with carrying out her master's plans, is disturbed. You know the villain is going too far when even his most brutal minion thinks so.
• Even more than the forming lynch mob, Apple Bloom shows how dire the situation is in The Man With Two Names when Lucky frames Jeremiah for attempted murder. When her friends exclaim that she's earned her Cutie Mark, she urgently yells that it doesn't matter right now.
• Oversaturated World: After the pony Mane Six defeat Starlight Glimmer, Discord pops in and cuts off his own banter to get them back to Twilight's castle as quickly as possible. Even he is worried.
• The Palaververse:
  • In The Tempest, when faced with Discord's return, Burro Delver only realizes how serious the matter is when he realizes that the normally calm and unflappable Celestia is worried.
    Celestia was worried.
    They were all going to die.
    Probably while screaming and on fire.
  • Later in the same story, Celestia snaps and angrily chews out the other world leaders for never putting aside their pettiness and power hunger, even when in a Discord-made magic cage hundreds of feet in the sky and powerless in every way that matters, stating that she seriously considered taking over the world on past occasions when it seemed like the only way to get everyone to act civilly to each other. Everyone else is rightly freaked out.
  • In Wedding March, Burro is very worried when he realizes that the Capricious Crown has become visibly nervous about their capture by the changelings, since it normally goes to great efforts to never reveal its emotions or show weakness and the fact that it's doing so now is a very worrying sign.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell:
  • Rex normally speaks in a polite, scholarly manner. When he starts dropping F-bombs and talking in a typical gruff diamond dog voice, Wind Breaker knows the situation is serious.
  • When Page starts flipping out at the reveal that their enemy is responsible for the disaster a thousand years ago and her hive was framed, the others know something is majorly wrong.
• In What Have You Done, Twilight Velvet, Twilight's mother goes to talk to Twilight, who was kicked out of her brother's wedding. She gets very worried when she can't find Twilight in any of the libraries or bookstores in town, which is where Twilight goes when she is upset. When Velvet learns about her fight with the Mane 6, and the fact that they don't know where she is, she starts panicking.

Naruto

• Black Flames Dance in the Wind: Rise of Naruto
  • Asuma is a very laidback and easygoing man with Ino noting she'd never even seen him angry before. So his utter rage at the fact she was throwing live steel in a training ground really drives home how much she fucked up, especially as a similar incident before the village formed caused a blood feud when a kunoichi's shuriken accidentally slit the throat of another ninja.
  • Hana notes to Tsume that Kiba hugged her and said he loved her that morning, something he hasn't done since he was eight. The end of the chapter reveals Kiba killed himself later that day.
• Gai in Desperation Attracts Vultures shows just how far out of line he thinks Neji is for his behavior when he insists that Naruto report Neji for attacking him twice outside of the exam - which is grounds for immediate disqualification.
• Discussed in Grief Not Silent, when Mikoto Uchiha, after learning about her brother Obito's death, left her fellow jonins to launch several attacks on Iwagakure. Kushina brings up to Fugaku that if Mikoto was in a normal state of mind, she would discuss a practical strategy with her fellow jonin to cause the most effective amount of damage. It emphasizes how much her brother's death has affected her, as she plans to use a Roaring Rampage of Revenge to make sure Iwa won't attack Konoha for the foreseeable future, regardless of the risk to her well-being.
• I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again!: Kiba and Shino are seriously weirded out by Hinata's uncontrollable fit of laughter in Chapter 5, given the rather shy personality they know her for.
• Naru-Hina Chronicles: In one chapter, Kakashi is surprised when Kei (who is known for being an Emotionless Girl) says that she's glad he agrees with her.
• In Naruto: The Gamer Files the normally laid-back Kakashi becomes dead serious when he warns Sasuke that if he uses the Chidori against Naruto or any other Konoha shinobi, Kakashi will kill him.
• In Naruto Asunder, Kakashi notes that Jiraiya becoming serious and angry is something that shouldn't be taken lightly. The reason for Jiraiya's mood towards Kakashi is because not only did he (Kakashi) hardly trained Naruto when he graduated, he only treats Naruto as Minato's son, as opposed to as Naruto Uzumaki.
• After taking him prisoner in Reaching for a Dream, Naruto found it immensely odd that every so often Hidan would say he wanted to die. After Jashin possesses Hidan and Naruto kills him, Hidan calls Naruto an asshole and thanks him as he dies. This causes Naruto to realize that Hidan's requests to die were likely his only lucid moments when he realized something was deeply wrong with his body and soul.
• In Strength Envisioned, Naruto runs out of Ichiraku leaving his bowl of ramen completely untouched, causing Ayame to wonder what in the world could cause a thing. The answer? Naruto just pieced together Madara's next move from Karin's interrogation: killing Konan and stealing Nagato's Rinnegan.
• Regularly in Team 7's Ascension, one of the characters does something off to show how different they and/or the situation is from the norm. After eight weeks in the Forest of Death, Naruto spends several days barely talking at all, having not spoken a word in the forest until he met up with Sakura. While in the capital, Sakura keeps hugging herself to keep her hands near her hidden weapons, regarding everyone not on her team as a potential enemy. Likewise, Sasuke kept his hands in his pockets where he could hold shuriken unobtrusively. Lastly, any time Kakashi goes easy on his team, either he's about to make their training far more brutal or he's got orders from the Hokage that interfere with his plans.
• True Potential:
  • The second chapter begins with Naruto arriving at the academy twenty minutes before class, which is something he never did as he would usually arrive ten minutes late instead. Some of the instructors and students gap at his early presence, while others give him a confused look. The reason Naruto is so early is because he wants to see and talk with Hinata and Shikamaru, who became his new friends in the previous chapter.
  • Whenever Anko calls her students by their real names instead of their nicknames, it's a sign that she's being serious.
    • Hinata nearly gasps before Anko does a rant against the Hyuga Clan for two reasons: 1. Anko called Hinata by her real name instead of her nickname; 2. She asked for permission to say what's on her mind, even though she's the kind of person who wouldn't ask for permission in the first place.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Advice and Trust:
  • In Chapter 4, on their first day of special training, Rei is taken aback by Asuka's horrified reaction to the former's regimen of drugs, including her impassioned plea to stop taking them. This moves Rei to take Asuka seriously, even to the point of disobeying Commander Ikari and Doctor Akagi by proxy.
  • Later in Chapter 4, when Shinji learns his father took Rei in after abandoning him, he is so furious and hurt that it leaves Asuka shocked:
    Asuka blinked in surprise. Shinji was... furious. She'd never seen him this angry. The usual calm expression he gave the world, or the warm and loving one he showed her when they were alone was gone. His face was twisted in a violent combination of anger, pain, and betrayal. She'd seen the Third Child without his clothes a lot in the last two weeks, but she'd never seen Shinji this naked.
  • In chapter 8 Rei is undergoing a memory scan. It is a long, tedious process, but Rei never complains, gets bored or tired. So that when she actually displays resignation and impatience, Ritsuko -who oversees the scan- becomes startled and wonders if the emotion suppressants they fed Rei with are not working.
    Ritsuko flicked another momentary glance at the First Child. That reply had been... no, that couldn't have been resignation. Rei didn't get bored.
  • Rei also experienced Hate at First Sight with Kaworu (even physically assaulting him), which everyone has a hard time believing.
    Nope. I must be wrong. Rei did not drag the new transfer student off somewhere and slap him. Not our Rei. That… can't be it.
• In Aki-chan's Life, the sequel to The Second Try, Touji and Hikari see Rei Ayanami smiling, and they decide they must have somehow landed in an alternate universe (and technically speaking, they were right).
• The Child of Love:
  • After her initial –and very angry and volatile reaction-, after coming to terms with the idea of becoming a mother, Asuka starts displaying a mellower, kinder attitude gradually. It disconcerted Shinji, Misato and even Rei.
    Misato and Shinji are completely amazed by their roommate's bizarrely calm (for her) behavior. As usual, the First Child could think of nothing to say.
  • In chapter 2 Maya is surprised and amused when Ritsuko tells her that Misato is panicking.
  • In chapter 4 Asuka woke up early, tied her hair behind her back, put an apron on and made breakfast. Shinji and Misato were left speechless.
    Shinji: (seeing Asuka cooking) Gulp...
    Asuka: (frowning at him) Hey! I CAN cook sometimes!
    Misato: Huh?.....
    Shinji: W-what...you...
    Asuka: Oh, stop that! I have the right to dress any way I want and to tie my hair so you won't be hurt by its divine beauty!
    Misato: It's just...so unusual...
  • In chapter 4 Asuka tries to be nice to Touji and Kensuke. They can not believe it.
    She then smiles warmly and bows to them. Toji and Kensuke are floored yet again. To see such a display of politeness from the most arrogant girl they've ever known, who couldn't let a day pass without calling them some insulting name or other...they're on the verge of fainting.
  • In chapter 6 Asuka gives Shinji a chocolate box stating it was a Japanese tradition... something she usually does not care about at all. Shinji gets shocked.
    Shinji: (surprised) You...? Obeying something? Let alone a tradition? You must be feverish!
• Children of an Elder God: Rei is usually calm, quiet and soft-spoken. It is hard to get her angry. Then in chapter 4, she saw Asuka wrapping her arm around Shinji's. She was so consumed with jealousy she actually growled and clenched her fists while she glared at Asuka. When Touji and Kensuke saw she was actually mad, they freaked out.
• A Crown of Stars: Shinji manages to surprise Asuka several times:
  • In chapter 24 Asuka wakes up and finds Shinji hugging her. Shinji (believing he is dreaming) calls her beautiful, says that he’ll make her breakfast in bed and wash her back when she is in the shower, kisses her, winks at her and leaves. She remained stunned for several minutes:
    Asuka kept staring at the door he'd left through for a long time. "What the fuck just happened?" she finally asked the empty room.
  • In chapter 49 Asuka is very, very, very angry. Shinji decides to try to placate her (even if he has never managed to calm her down when she is exploding)... and he manages to tell the exact right thing for once.
    Asuka: "Pretty smooth, Baka-Shinji. Who are you and what having you done with the Third Child?"
  • In chapter 54 they have to decide the punishment of a bloody dictator, mass murderer, and rapist that their army has apprehended. Asuka thinks that Shinji will want to be merciful because he hates to kill... and then he declares that he wanted to kill him because he was like the people that hurt Asuka. She got shocked and puzzled:
    Shinji: We... when we were talking about Don Barceló and what to do with him? And you said he was like the ones who hurt you? When you said that, I... I wanted to burn him.
    Asuka: That is... not very like you, Shinji.
• Evangelion 303: In chapter 6 Asuka (who usually is angry and confrontational) praised Rei. Rei was so startled than she blushed.
• Higher Learning: In chapter 34, during a tense confrontation, Kaoru manages to get cool, stone-faced Gendo shocked and confused. Kaji stepped back when he saw that because he did not know what to expect.
  Gendo's eyes widened behind their glass shields. Kaji had never seen such a reaction, and took a step back, not knowing what to expect.
• In chapter 10 of Once More With Feeling (Crazy-88), Asuka admits that she screwed up in front of Rei, Rei apologizes for Asuka, and Shinji goes slack-jawed for a bit wondering why nobody told him that the Earth had started rotating from West to East overnight.
• Orchestrating the Silence: In the second chapter, Asuka's eyes widen when Shinji snaps at her during an argument. She also notes he seems strangely relaxed instead of apologetic, angry or absent-minded.
  "Prune? Seriously? You got a prune-flavored energy bar?"
  "I just grabbed one of everything here", he explains mildly. "Don't blame me. Maybe you should have waited and listened before taking one."
  I feel my eyes widen at this, too surprised to be angry.
• In Role-Playing (Evangelion), Maya, Makoto and Aoba become frightened and alarmed when they overhear the usually stone-faced commanders laughing.
• Scar Tissue: In chapter 8 Toji, Hikari and Kensuke start to berate and insult Asuka in front of Shinji. Shinji is usually a quiet, shy and non-confrontational pushover but after the Third Impact he could not stand when anyone -anyone- insults Asuka. So he exploded and started to shout at them. The three of them stood petrified.
• Shinji the Casanova:
  • Shinji's classmates pass out and scream in fear when they see Shinji and Rei making paper airplanes.
    Even more students began to pass out as they saw Rei continue to do something other than stare out of the window. "ARGH! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!" someone yelled, but was ignored.
  • Hikari raises one eyebrow when one girl flirts with Shinji...and Asuka throws a furious glare at her instead of getting angry with Shinji.

The Octonauts

• Pro-tip for reading Junior Officers: If Deborah is cursing, things have seriously gone south.

Odd Squad

• All Mixed Up!:
  • In Chapter 4, Olive shows up fifteen minutes late to work, something that worries Otto as it's unlike her to be tardy. The first time she does it, it's because she was too caught up in her puzzle book. The second time, it's because she got attacked by Mariana Mag.
  • When Olive and Otto call Lord Rectangle to distinguish a square from a rectangle, Melissa Steinerflute, one of his butlers, tells them that he isn't at home and that he does sometimes take sudden business trips, but usually tells his butlers where he's going. However, he never told them this time around, making them, and the agents, worried.
• Viva La Vida:
  • In Chapter 3, Olive realizes that there's something wrong with her just from looking at her to-do list and seeing that she wrote "do not lose your cool" five times, since she never gets overly worked up about anything and usually has her emotions fully in check. To test her slip in personality, she decides to go on to every social media site in existence and look up the hashtag "oddsquad", only to find it filled with photos of rowdy teenagers having fun. Lo and behold, it's only the start of her Sanity Slippage.
  • Later on in the story, Otto confronts Olive after the pair solve a case involving a number hog. He tells her that she's been acting off all day, which leads into them getting into a nasty argument with each other. She also shoots down his offer for the two of them to get pizza for dinner, despite her realizing that it would be a good opportunity to talk to Otto about her struggles.
  • Otto, known for being a Big Eater with an appetite to match, doesn't feel like getting pizza after he and Olive get into a fight. Instead, he just stands in place for as much time as it takes for the sun to set, which is a clear indicator of how deep the fight with his best friend, someone who's like a sister to him, cut into him.
  • Otto going from being a Nice Guy to him disregarding Olive as a partner and seeing her as a cold-hearted villain instead is a clear wake-up call to anyone that he's definitely not messing around anymore. For the Olive in the Bad Ending, she just sees it as him admitting defeat and being the last straw in him supposedly controlling her. For the Olive in the Good Ending, it's like a hearty slap to the face that makes her have a Heel Realization.

Once Upon a Time

• Mr and Mrs Gold: In Chapter 4, Rose can tell that something is wrong when her husband was running late for dinner, knowing that Mr. Gold is a Creature of Habit.

One Piece

• Each of the future Straw Hats in The Dream act considerably different than normal after being knocked unconscious or in a coma. The reason being that unlike when they sleep, they don't go to the dream world with everyone else, but instead are stuck in a black void where they can't move, hear, sleep, or see. Afterward, Luffy is always clingy, Zoro stays close to everyone, Sanji becomes more obedient, etc. Despite not knowing about the Blackness, Zeff is notably confused how Sanji went from wanting to kill him to being completely obedient after being knocked out.
• This Bites!:
  • In Chapter 22, Mister 4 — who is normally stoic, slow-moving, slow-talking and slow-thinking — Flash Steps across his cell to Neck Lift and Death Glare Cross as, in a normally paced voice, he warns Cross to look after Lassoo or else.
  • In Chapter 25, the normally courageous and manly Boss scouts underwater after Soundbite drives off a giant octopus and promptly jumps back on the ship shouting that they have to leave now! Turns out a giant tortoise (large enough to have an entire city on its back) was surfacing under the Going Merry.
  • Cross manages to cause two in Chapter 26, one without even realizing it.
    • First he breaks Robin's facade as The Stoic by telling her he'd explain his otherworldly knowledge when she tells the crew about the day Ohara died.
    • Second, during his SBS broadcast, Cross speaking out against the inhumanity of slavery and the evil of the Marines for allowing it causes Boa Hancock to declare him and anyone associated with him to be exempt from Amazon Lily's Lady Land law.
  • Terry drops his usual serving of Large Ham when he and Isaiah tell the Shandians exactly what happened to Jaya and Shandora.
  • Played for Laughs in Chapter 31 when Nami is so ecstatic over getting an entire pillar made of gold that she not only agrees to give massive amounts of money away but even lets Cross take some tangerines from her orchard. However, she still won't forgive Zoro's debt.
    • Cross convinces her to set aside most of the gold after he explains the gravity of the Going Merry's situation, namely that Merry simply wasn't built for the Grand Line and is currently dying from the damage that's built up.
  • In Chapter 35, Luffy goes back on his hatred of spoilers and tells Cross he can reveal anything he wants if it'll help them get stronger.
    • From the same chapter, Cross's "The Reason You Suck" Speech makes Aokiji fly into a murderous rage.
  • Aplenty in Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island:
    • How serious is Garp recognizing Baron Omatsuri from his glory days? Serious enough to make Akainu falter.
    • Even though none of the Straw Hats realize it themselves, everyone listening to the events of the SBS as they unfold with Baron Omatsuri can sense something's wrong as the crew's bonds slowly fall apart.
    • The transmitted horror that is Lily Carnation has even stoics like Basil Hawkins in flusters and Jewelry Bonney devoid of her appetite.
    • And the aftermath of Baron Omatsuri's attack has Garp calling and telling Luffy that he's So Proud Of Him, and Sengoku offering Luffy a Warlord position, knowing it'll be refused, and even showing a hint of respect.
  • Every time Cross manages to actually start the SBS, even before interrupting him was a thing.
    • The first time, it's to reveal that Vivi was joined the Straw Hats full time due to being wrongly accused of treason.
    • The second time, while no one noticed at the time the SBS started, it's the broadcast that starred Omatsuri Island.
    • The third time, it's to announce that they're going to rescue Nico Robin^note yes, Cross revealed that the mystery crewmate who joined since Alabasta is her and raze Enies Lobby to the ground.
  • By the time the third incident rolls around, many of their listeners have realized this trope is in effect.
  • Upon learning the Straw Hats have declared war on the World Government, Dragon and Boa Hancock begin laughing their asses off.

Phineas and Ferb

• In PnF: Stolen Identity, Ferb begins acting rude and hostile towards Phineas, quickly disturbing the redhead to the point of terror. Phineas realizes fairly quickly that something's wrong; however he assumes that Ferb is just tired and then has lost his mind when actually he's been replaced by an Evil Twin.

Pokémon

• In Common Sense, by the time Gary meets Ash again in person at the Giva Dam construction site, not only does the other Pallet Trainer ignore his taunts and try to brush him off to get to the root of the Diglett issue, he's later furious to find out that Ash held back his stronger Pokémon during their battle and still beat him. When Ash points out that he needed to keep his stronger fighters ready because he knew the large crowd of Trainers was a likely target for Team Rocket and that he wouldn't have cared if he lost since there were higher stakes than a single battle, Gary is shocked. That shock turns to genuine concern when Ash tries to smile and reassure him that he's looking forward to battling him at the League and that their match was like "old times":
  Gary: Love of Mew, Ash. What happened to you? You're talking about last year like it was a lifetime ago.
• In Chapter 18 of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines the normally genial Ash gets really angry after Paul blasts his Primeape away into the sky, which surprises Misty and Iris, who are both out of the loop regarding Ash's time-traveler status. This affects Ash's performance in their ensuing battle, prompting Misty to tell him to focus and calm down so he can win.
• Pokémon × Nimja: Play the Game, based on the files of Dutch hypnotist YouTuber Nimja and partially inspired by sci-fi and fantasy novels, contains a few of these moments:
  • A small moment of this occurs in the first chapter of the series, "Another One Bites the Dust". OGiNiM is a fictional Canadian fan of Nimja's who is so devoted to him that he is learning Dutch (Nimja's native language) and will only refer to Nimja as "Mijnheer", which is Dutch for "Sir". So when he sends Nimja a chat text in which he refers to Nimja as "Sir", the newly-transformed Mew immediately takes notice and sets off for the Rijksmuseum. Turns out OGiNiM has just been turned into a Bulbasaur.
  • Another way to tell if things have gone wrong for OGiNiM is if he switches FrOm HiS UsUaL BiCaMeRaL TeXt TaLk TO EITHER TALKING IN ALL CAPS or talking in all lowercase letters. He does the latter in Chapter 4, "Don't Stop Me Now", to express his sadness and belief that Nimja is annoyed by his continual texting. Nimja is immediately alerted.
  • In the same chapter, how does Nimja initially notice something is wrong with OGiNiM? The normally exciteable Bulbasaur, who usually is hopping around like a frog, is instead slowly trudging along, and generally not giving off any energy at all. Nimja also notes that OGiNiM seems to be avoiding him, when normally he’s so devoted to Nimja that he will cheerfully proclaim "ik gehoorzaam u volledig" ^note  Dutch for "I obey you completely" at the slightest order, and even refers to Nimja as his best friend. He's so startled by this that he tries to cheer OGiNiM up by poking him. Normally, he would burst out in laughter, but here, he doesn’t even react. Nimja is horrified, and lampshades it the minute after it happens.
  • Later in the chapter, the biggest sign that OGiNiM has truly misinterpreted Nimja’s comment to be more aware of when Nimja does or does not have time to hang out is when he does not email or text Nimja for four straight days. Nimja immediately goes to OGiNiM's chat site to express his concern.
  • Speaking of Nimja, if you ever see him shouting at people, it’s time to run. The same thing applies to him suddenly dropping a Precision F-Strike, or insulting people.
  • Another example for Nimja occurs in "I Want It All", the series' third chapter. Upon seeing HyPN0se for the first time in a vision and learning of his plan to take down all those who insist hypnosis is real, the normally calm and unflappable Nimja is terrified. He lampshades it. Eventually, though, his fears vanish when he actually sees HyPN0se for the first time.
  • Slang, a Dunsparce, is panicky as anything. He is extremely fearful of both Nimja and anything that he views as a threat... which is just about anything. The only thing that Slang does not tremble in fear of upon seeing for the first time is the Spanish Inquisition, who he regards with initial confusion. And when he actually finds out what the Inquisition's "torture" methods are, he relaxes completely. Nimja remarks that it's the most cheerful and calm he's ever seen Slang.
• SOSchip has a few moments of this as well, and considering the author is the same one as the one for Play the Game, it's a safe bet to assume that there'll be plenty more to come:
  • In "North Cats vs. South Cats", there's the moment wherein the fans of the North Cats and the fans of the South Cats, who have been at each other's throats for 20 years, finally settle their differences after the cats tie for the first time ever in their 20-year history, with the cats also doing the same thing on the field. The announcers are stunned.
  • Arguably the biggest moment in the entire series occurs in the sixth episode, "Family Matters". The episode revolves around HP's strained relationship with her strict and devoted mother, who berates and punishes her daughter first for getting 5 4's on a report card and then after discovering her friendship with oghond- without even giving her a chance to explain herself. This alarms not just oghond, but also Absent, hypedgirl, LF, and Yuunari, all of whom try to find a way to repair their relationship. In the end, they are completely shocked when HP herself ends up being the one to stand up to her mother- by delivering arguably the most epic Calling the Old Woman Out speech in the whole show. In German, no less. How is this OOC? Mainly because HP has been established in the past five episodes as being one of the most shy, introverted characters in the whole show, rarely ever getting angry at anyone. If she does get angry, she normally does what LF calls "whisper-screaming". Here, she flat-out screams. It's so stunning that for a moment or two, the Mother Sallads actually believes she’s dreaming.
  • During that same speech, a much subtler example occurs. Usually (and following the rules of German convention), if HP ever talks to her mother (which is always in German, as her mother doesn't speak English) she will refer to her as "du," which is the informal version of "you" (equivalent to "tu" in French and "je" in Dutch). So it speaks volumes about how fed up she is with her mother when she, for just a moment, refers to her with the formal pronoun Sie. Although she switches right back to using du immediately afterwards, it’s still shocking to hear, and right after her speech, it’s lampshaded by both HP (who is mortified) and by oghond (who is extremely impressed).
  • "Jeetje!" is filled to the brim with this. After the lingual purists attack, the foreigners' personalities are switched as a result of negative energy flowing through them. While the symptoms at first are subtle (for example, hypedgirl bouncing less), they slowly grow more apparent. Of note is HP, a canon Acrophobic Bird and Shrinking Violet, becoming harsh, crude and prone to flying more often in mid-air. LF, who is known for her Sesquipidilian Loquaciousness, talks more and more often in short sentences, but it's when she starts speaking in German that oghond begins to realize that something's up. It all culminates in hypedgirl becoming a depressive grump who barely even acknowledges oghond's existence and harshly criticizes her for daring to learn Dutch, which is especially jarring as hypedgirl is usually extremely supportive of oghond's Dutch crusade.
  • Absent, however, doesn’t notice anything in particular until he sees every single Vandertramp acting up. The kicker is when he realizes that Allé, normally a Motor Mouth Frogadier who talks so fast he could give John Moschitta, Jr. a run for his money, is moving at a normal pace and is actually able to be understood. His reaction to this is Stunned Silence, and his narration in “Jeetje!” portrays his shock all too perfectly:
    Holy crap!
    I could actually understand him!

Portal

• A ton of these moments happen in Resolution:
  • To start off, in the very first chapter, GLaDOS has one of these when she refers to Chell by name. Keep in mind that prior to this (read: in the games), she never does this, instead referring to Chell in a sarcastic Hey, You! fashion. Naturally, this is combined with You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious, and absolutely stuns Chell.
  • At multiple points in the story, the normally talkative Idiot Ball Wheatley becomes extremely quiet and reserved, and is sometimes even stunned into silence. That's right: Wheatley stops talking.
  • As GLaDOS slowly begins to take multiple levels in kindness, she begins to experience certain emotions, such as shame, for the first time, which surprises even her. In fact, at one point, she even issues a completely sincere apology. She also begins to become much more empathetic (if still extremely snarky).
  • All this culminates in a heartwarming conclusion when, in the final chapter, GLaDOS sincerely asks Wheatley for help in removing the Itch from her back, punctuated even further when she slips in the word "please." And not in her usual sarcastic way, either, but in the way it was intended. This bears repeating: GLaDOS, a character who is pretty much Lack of Empathy incarnate and has called you a monster several times in-game, asks someone for help in a completely sincere tone. This is OOC for two reasons. First, she's saying this to Wheatley, who she normally insults at every occasion, calling him "a moron" multiple times. She's calling him by name here, too, which only helps to add to the shock. And second, and even more importantly, she says "please.". As pointed out in the narrative, GLaDOS has never- never- asked anyone for help in a polite and sincere tone. Nor has she ever said "please" in the way it was intended. It's so shocking that Wheatley is in utter and complete silence.

Psychonauts

• Later, Traitor: When Frazie enters Clem's mind, the first thing she notices are a group of Censors ignoring her completely instead of trying to stamp her out of his mind, a serious sign that Clem has given up caring about his mental health.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

• The Soulmate Timeline:
  • The shock of realizing that The Griefer is still alive and in Mitakihara is enough to make Kyoko to not only drop the snack bar she was eating, but not pick it back up. Her following call to the group has her panicking, and Mami notes that Kyoko never panics, save for the day that everything went wrong with her parents.
  • Homura always has an outer appearance of being coolheaded even when it is her emotional state is something else. So it says something about how seriously she is blaming herself for Hitomi being under the control of The Griefer when she crying, trembling, and outright begging Madoka to not contract in an attempt to guarantee Hitmomi's safety so the others can have a clear shot at killing them without killing Hitomi in the process.

Ragnarok Online

• Warriors of the World:
  • For someone who isn't afraid to swear, Valkron appears to be limited to "hell", "arse(hole)", "damn" and "bloody". This is because he only does a Precision F-Strike when he is seriously angry.
  • Insufferable Genius Samaroh drops his entire pompous smarter-than-thou attitude for a more gentle and softspoken bedside manner when caring for the injured. The biggest Deadpan Snarker of the story is surprised at this.

Ranma ½

• Tabula Rasa: Kasumi slapping Genma serves as a clear sign that Genma really screwed up badly this time.

Raven's Home

• The Search for the Sublime: Raven notices that the usually chipper Chelsea has become snippier and more aloof than usual. It turns out that Christmas time brings to Chelsea's mind memories of her abusive ex-husband and makes her depressed.

Rise of the Guardians

• In Snowflakes, the Easter Bunny realizes Jack's fever is making him delirious when he starts talking about his insecurities (normally, he would have been a stubborn Deadpan Snarker).

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

• Parodied in Farce of the Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao's courtiers know something's wrong when they see him panic and drop a pen. They've seen him panic and overreact countless times — but they've never specifically seen him drop a pen before.

Rosario + Vampire

• Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness: Tsukune is well-known amongst those in his inner circle as a Nice Guy who is always willing to extend forgiveness to those who wrong him... so it's a very bad thing when he puts aside his forgiving capacity. Case in point: during Act IV chapter 31, after all of the atrocities Hokuto has committed, not the least of which includes holding Tsukune's family hostage and threatening to kill them, Tsukune outright says that he will never forgive him before curb-stomping Hokuto and completely pulverizing him to dust with a Megaton Punch.

Rugrats

• The Joys and Sorrows of Young Charles Finster: In "The Appendix", Chas is very concerned when his usually tough-as-nails father becomes scared.
• In Rugrats and the Gray Plague, Kimi becomes nervous when Tommy, who's usually fearless, becomes scared.

Rurouni Kenshin

• Frozen Moonlight has a scene where Misao is struck speechless when she meets Aoshi for the first time.
  Sano: Wow, guys, check it out; the Weasel's gone speechless...
  Megumi: Please don't say that. I think I read somewhere that that's a sign of the impending Apocalypse.
• In Out of Time, when Kenshin is mystified by the burnt soup Kaoru made and says it tastes bad, Yahiko asks him, "Who are you?", stating that Kenshin would never insult her cooking (and is also probably thinking that her legendarily bad cooking shouldn't be news to anyone).

RWBY

• Children of Remnant:
  • Ozpin gets noticeably sad when he starts talking about his daughters, to the point that even Jaune can see it.
  • After Pyrrha and Emerald's fight in the woods, the Valean and Atlas forces have a meeting to discuss it. Qrow and Summer spend the entire meeting feeling nervous about Winter's reaction... and when they realize that she never has a reaction, it tips them off that she's already planning something.
• Glynda in Dazed and Confuzzled opts to hole up in the ballroom with the rest of Beacon's male population rather than face the chaos caused by the female population outside. As the narrative notes, if Beacon's infamous Stern Teacher refuses to go outside and stop the chaos, then you know the situation is bad.
• Played for Laughs in Hands on Education. The first indication Jaune gets that something's wrong is the entirety of Team CRDL fist-bumping him and offering him congratulations. It's not until he and Nora get to class they learn she accidentally emailed their sex tape to the entire school.
• Professor Arc:
  • Neo never talks even in text messages, using emotes instead. When she sends Jaune a text simply saying, "RUN!", Jaune immediately grabs his weapon and hauls ass without bothering to question it. Cinder had just tipped off Atlas to Jaune's (fake) criminal activities.
  • Happens with Qrow, though only his nieces realise this. After the mission in Missenwood, he offers Jaune a drink from his flask. Ruby notes that this is something he simply doesn't do, not even with Taiyang, due to being very protective of his alcohol. Afterwards, Jaune and Qrow become regular drinking buddies.
  • Blake becomes visibly enraged by the heartless remarks Jaune's sisters make about him, enough that Yang points out she is subtly showing her claws.
  • During Pyrrha's fight with Penny, Emerald's illusions make her visibly enraged. Her friends quickly pick up on how aggressive she's becoming, and thanks to Jaune's warnings, realized she is being brainwashed.
  • Recounting the Mountain Glenn incident is so traumatic for Oobleck, that he can't even pour his coffee.
• In Rewriting Mistakes, Glynda realizes that something's wrong with Ozpin when he starts drinking coffee, which he hates. The reader knows that Ozpin just foresaw a Bad Future.

Scooby-Doo

• Scooby Doo and the House of Monsters starts with Velma reading a letter from Shaggy asking for the gang to get back together to help him with something. Velma outright freaks out when he signs it Norville instead of Shaggy.

Sherlock

• Short Version: Not Dead has Sherlock — who cheerfully calls himself a high-level sociopath and treats a triple homicide as an early Christmas gift — actually empathizing with several murder victims, whom he deems "these poor people". John is rather startled until he remembers Sherlock had been poisoned the same way and almost been vivisected because of that, and that would be hard to not feel bad for these people when he barely escaped their fate.

Smallville

• En Tempus Veritas has Chloe note two significant OOC moments from Kal and Clark;
  • Long before Clark and Lois had a true relationship, Chloe is struck by the fact that Kal is actually tender with Lois when she’s used to red-K-Clark being controlling and aggressive.
  • Chloe’s first clue that something is seriously bothering Clark is when he ignores a possible threat to Lana (after confirming that there isn’t actually any real danger at this time beyond her having been in the presence of a meteor freak) in favour of dealing with something else.

A Song of Ice and Fire

• In no matter how bright a torch may burn, a young Tyrion almost freaks out when his sister Cersei (actually a future Sansa in her body) is nice to him, because Cersei is only nice to someone when she's planning to screw them silly, and not in the good way.
• In On the breeding of Direwolves, Dragons Stags and Lions (rewrite), you can tell how badly learning the Awful Truth of Jon Snow's true parentage affected Catelyn Stark when she, a woman who upholds the importance of marriage, family, and honor above all else, asks for a divorce.
• The Raven's Plan:
  • Melessa Tarly's reaction to learning her husband threatened to kill Sam if he didn't join the Night's Watch is to slap him and scream at him, stunning everyone at the total reversal of her normally submissive personality.
  • When Renly has a dagger to Cersei's throat, Jaime tells him to just kill her and get it over with. Renly and Cersei are both so shocked that not only do neither of them continue to stop him from leaving, but Renly can't bring himself to kill her.
  • Viserys (who doesn't Remember) is so overwhelmed by Daenerys' seizure of power in Pentos, and learning of Jon's existence, that he becomes a much happier and well-adjusted human being. Dany speculates that he was essentially shocked back into sanity.
  • Edmure Tully's personality change post-Remembering comes across as this to Patrek Mallister (who doesn't Remember), especially when he nearly has his archers loose their arrows on Stevron Frey when the latter calls for parley.
  • Mace is so shocked to learn of the conspiracy within the Maesters that he personally kills his own Maester, who was involved. Olenna is shocked to find herself feeling proud of him for this.
  • Also with Olenna, the various revelations about the Long Night and the Starks' newfound power base leaves her visibly worried, which Margaery notes is very unnerving.
  • When Ned hits his Rage Breaking Point, he roars with anger, utterly shocking everyone around him.
  • Ned finally believes Theon went through some form of punishment in the last life when the once proud heir is reduced to tears and blubbering after one slap.
  • When the Lannisters learn about the Maesters allowing Joanna to die, they all react with, for them, uncharacteristic levels of anger (and sorrow, in Genna's case).
  • The normally bombastic Greatjon Umber is left utterly depressed by learning of his son's betrayal of the Starks.
  • The charismatic and chatty Renly has no idea what to say to Stannis after he reveals that Brienne was still loyal to him even after he'd been dead for years.
  • The usually dour Edd is actually visibly happy upon being reunited with Jon at the Wall.
• Robb Returns: Eddard Stark asking about legends? Something must be seriously wrong.
  • A long lull in the fighting against the Vale clans is enough to make the Blackfish worry. When all the clan leaders arrive to the Bloody Gate, he realizes it might be worse than he thought.
  • The reveal that the Brackens and the Blackwoods have actually put an end to their centuries-long feud shocks not a few people.
  • The Company of the Rose, formed by the descendants of those Northmen that chose exile over bending the knee to Aegon the Conqueror, seeking passage to the North? That's a red light for sure.
  • Played for Laughs: When Baelish demands to be tried in front of his peers, Stannis replies that weasels cannot speak and are not allowed in trials. Jon Arryn is quite shocked at the fact that Stannis actually made a joke.
  • Many in the Seven Kingdoms are surprised when they learn that Robert has suddenly started to become more active.

Sponge Bob Squarepants

• Mortal Man: The day after Mermaid Man's death, SpongeBob turns up for work two minutes late. Normally, he opens up the restaurant himself. This is Mr. Krabs's first sign that something's up.

Star Trek: The Original Series

• In Insontis, McCoy not insulting his alien biology indicates to Spock how badly he damaged himself going through a faulty transporter.

Star Trek: Voyager

• A Fire of Devotion: B'Elanna Torres sees one of these moments coming and intervenes to stop Samantha Wildman from getting violent with a member of the race responsible for a Borg killing virus that Seven of Nine has contracted. Samantha Wildman. A character who, in canon, has so much patience that she tolerates Neelix making her work on a broken replicator, even though she's a biologist and about TWELVE MONTHS PREGNANT with a half-alien child. B'Elanna even points out the irony that she's the one having to hold Samantha back.

Star Wars

• Imperium of Vader: When Vader summons Tarkin to tell him about the Emperor's Contingency, Tarkin can tell something's wrong even before the conversation starts, because Vader's body language is visibly tense.

Superman

• Hellsister Trilogy: When the first wave of heroes punch their way into Darkseid's fortress, the Lord of Apokolips smiles. For the first time ever. Which probably means he thinks he has already won. It's so scary all of them rush to attack right away.
• After Clark Kent implies he's a gypsy in Uncharted, one of the other reporters notes they better watch their stuff around Clark. Fredrickson (a card carrying member of the KKK) chews him out for his remark.

Super Mario Bros.

• Mario in Can a Boo Be Friends with a Human?, angered by the way Luigi has been treated,desperately worried for his brother's condition, and frustrated with everything that's gone on yells at everyone including Peach, Toadsworth and his Boo friends and storms off. When Luigi meets up with Mario on the castle roof, Mario then breaks down and cries.

Sword Art Online

• SAO: The Eroge: Everyone looks in shock when they see Argo skiping as she comes down in the morning. She and Kirito had sex the night before.
• Sword Art Online Abridged:
  • Kirito is at best as Smug Super who usually dismisses other players' problems with sarcasm or insults. But when Lizbeth starts telling him about her former guild, it's close enough to Kirito's own traumatic past that he's soon begging her to stop talking.
  • In Episode 8, Kirito freaks out when Asuna invites him over to her place for dinner and greets him with a smile and pleasantries, since he's used to the harsher elements of her personality.
    Kirito: I was half-expecting a suspiciously soundproofed warehouse on the outskirts of town with a shallow grave out back, but somehow, this is more unsettling.
  • Godfree, The Roleplayer of the Knights of the Blood Oath, spends a whole episode speaking in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe, but drops it while pleading for his life.
  • Kirito and Asuna typically respond to threats with mockery and sarcasm, but when Yulier threatens little Yui in their presence, Kirito goes dead silent, and Asuna tersely and coldly promises to kill Yulier's lover in reprisal if she so much as touches Yui. As a double-whammy, the two of them only adopted Yui in the first place as part of an attempt to encourage the other to "blink" first and call off their hasty marriage, so their reaction shows how much they've bonded with her.
  • During the finale of the Aincrad arc, when Kirito gives a subdued speech about being willing to give up his escapist fantasy in SAO in order to protect his friends, Asuna forgoes the usual sarcasm and mockery.
    Kirito: So, I guess This Is the Part Where... you make fun of me and call me a "big gay baby with a floppy vagina" or... something to that effect?
    Asuna: ...No. No, I'm not even going to ruin this. This is a huge step for you.

Teen Titans (2003)

• Jinx in The Measure of a Titan can't even imagine how bad things must be for Starfire to rip through about a foot of solid metal and explicitly threaten the Hive Five with death. Answer: Robin got shot in the chest.

Thomas & Friends

• In Imitation Steamrollers, Beatrice is a calm, kind woman. So when she slaps George the steamroller after he causes both Emily and Gina to derail, you can tell she's mad.

Tintin

• Played for Laughs in this fan comic. Haddock tries to make a joke about the next day being the sixteenth to Tintin, but is concerned when he's met with silence. Smash Cut to a confused Tintin watching Spirou get chased out of Marlinspike Hall.

Tolkien's Legendarium

• The Heart Trilogy:
  • Heart of Fire:
    • When Kathryn is trapped by a lethal vision, Smaug enters it to help her, but she's too terrified to realize he's not a part of the nightmarish vision and refuses to listen to him. With time being of the essence, Smaug swallows his pride and asks her to trust him instead of commanding it. Kathryn grows suspicious and notes that the evil dragon would never ask people to do anything. Smaug agrees that there's a first time for everything.
    • When Smaug is shot by Bard's Black Arrow, Kathryn understands how fatal it is because Smaug is actually displaying fear.
      ...Kathryn was almost brought to tears to see fear in his face. She had never before seen any kind of fear for any reason in him, he had always been strong and determined, mastering such lowly instincts. But now, there was no denying it, and it was tragic to see such a magnificent creature brought to the point of complete terror that she saw in his eyes.
  • In Heart of Ashes, Smaug (in a human body at the time) suddenly offers to help Andraya move a heavy sack. Andraya and Freyja are both bemused (the latter drops a fire poker), for Smaug doesn't offer help for free. The reason's revealed after the sack is moved and Andraya wants Smaug to impregnate Freyja in exchange for their help in finding Kathryn. Smaug refuses, reminding the witch that the original deal included him "helping Andraya with a small task"... which he just did by helping her with the sack. He then strikes a new deal of his choosing with Andraya.

Total Drama

• Total Drama All-Stars Rewrite: In "Singin' in the Pain", everyone on the Heroic Hamsters knows something is wrong with Owen (who has been having dreams about Izzy) when he tells them he isn't feeling hungry and chooses not to finish his breakfast.
• Total Drama Omega: Dawn is normally The Stoic when it comes to dealing with others, so it says something when she's noticeably unnerved and put off by fellow nature lover Ella.
• Unbreakable Red Silken Thread:
  • Zoey, one of the nicest girls you could meet, got annoyed and irritable when she had to take Cody and Heather to Scarlett for a private dance. This is the first time Zoey has been shown to dislike anybody, and is the first clue as to Scarlett’s true nature.
  • Both Izzy and Noah get completely serious and caring, respectively, when Cody tells them of his current problems with Gwen and Heather, and requires some honest, nice advice.

Touhou Project

• Eastern Starlight Romance: Invoked as an option to defuse a situation between Marisa and Alice, when meeting up after the events of Undefined Fantastic Object. Marisa is normally all too eager to get into a fight normally, so seeing her casually tear apart her own spell card upon being goaded into a Danmaku duel is enough to catch Alice off guard, making her listen to reason.
• Gensokyo 20XX:
  • Yukari leaves without telling (20XXIII) and, when she does, it is made note of how worrying that is because it's unlike her to do so, as she would usually be sticking around to suffer with them and/or for them and that if she did leave, she will have told someone and, if she had wandered off, being so mentally unstable, they would have found her. Naturally, their prompt assumption is that she left to die so she would be one less mouth to feed when food is so scarce. In 20XXIV, it is given more weight when she says something coherently instead of rambling.
  • In chapter 93, 20XXV, Marisa did note that Reimu typically didn't talk much and not once swore at Ran and Ren (specifically, she said "ass" to them)and neither did she go against them and hold her ground, instead of submitting, be that reluctantly, as seen in earlier chapters. Eight chapters later, she says something shocking, during which she challenges Baka to kill her. In chapter 115, it was noted that Reimu was rebellious and would against whatever she didn't like (as seen in previous chapters), so when she doesn't fight against being locked in a room for her own safety, Ran knows that she's given up and that her acceptance towards the situation is her understanding there isn't any other way to deal with her worsening mental illness.
  • In Foundling (a branch off), chapter 13, when Reimu becomes sick, Yukari opts to leave the house without her veil, an escort, doing her hair, putting on some makeup, decent clothes or even shoes, which meant the situations was serious, doubly so since Yukari is mentioned to hardly even leave the house.
• Imperfect Metamorphosis: Chapter 44 shows that Elly has noticed the change in Yuuka's behavior since the events of The Storm. The poor reaper has worried herself almost to the point of insanity because she knows something is wrong with her master, but has no idea what she can do to help her.

Transformers

• In Breaking Free, upon learning that Starscream was raped by Megatron, cool and collected Prowl actually loses his temper and swears.
• Things We Don't Tell Humans:
  • Prowl has a loud, public, and surprisingly violent breakdown when he finds out who died in Transformers. And we learn to pay very close attention to out-of-character moments from Megatron (both in the present and in the flashback arcs) and from Mikaela.
  • Two words from Megatron: "Save me."
• Unity (pink_shoes): Cosmos is usually cheerful and fond of practical jokes. When he sends a live feed of the Unidentified Astronomical Object back to Earth, he's noted to sound unusually on edge and states that the transmission depicting Unicron isn't a prank.

The Tudors

• Queen Anne's Legacy: After Ambrose and Edward turn on each other, a brokenhearted Elizabeth expresses relief that her older sister Mary is dead, so she won't have to live through the coming conflict. Considering Elizabeth is the person who was crushed the most by Mary's death, that goes to show how devastated she is about the situation.

Undertale

• The whole idea of Disbelief Papyrus. Papyrus in canon will never try to kill the protagonist, is only rejected from the royal guard for his extreme kindness while he is very competent otherwise, and believes in the player even if the player kills all monsters with no remorse, including him. However, in all versions of Disbelief, the player has destroyed the Underground so many times even Papyrus no longer believes in them and fights them to the death. It's always outright stated it's the player's fault in any version.

Velma

• There Something Wrong With Us: Norville knows Velma is desperate when she shows genuine vulnerability while talking to him.

Worm

• Quicken: When Danny gets angry as he mentions that Taylor was hospitalized after a bullying-related incident, Emma is shocked and a bit frightened because he's the mellowest person she's ever known.
  I was startled to see his face reddening with what looked like intense rage, a fury comparable with what I had displayed before, with all the shit I had dealt with. It passed almost instantly, but it had surprised me all the same. Mr. Hebert was the most mellow, low-key person I had ever known. I hadn’t even thought it was possible for him to be angry, let alone to this extent.

Xenoblade Chronicles

• Where We Don't Belong: When Eunie acts flippant about her upcoming mission, Gael'gar completely drops his usual smug antagonism to warn her about the danger she's going into.
  Gael'gar: Do not underestimate :a Telethia, Eunie. They are dangerous beasts, through and through - a cocksure attitude will only get you and your allies killed. If you take nothing else away from this conversation, do not forget that.

X-Men

• X-Men: The Early Years: In "Chemical Imbalances, Kissing, and Other Sappy Things", Scott "I have neither time nor interest in dating" Summers suddenly declares he has a date. Much jaw-dropping ensues:
  Scott glared at Bobby again and said, "No, I have a date this weekend."
  Bobby almost fell out of the chair he was sitting in and Jean choked on a spoonful of cereal.
  "With a girl?" Bobby blurted.
  "What's her name?" Jean fired back from the other side of the table.
  Scott glared at them annoyed. "Is it so unbelievable that I have a date?"
  Bobby smiled at him sweetly and replied, "Well, we are talking about you, Slim."

×××HOLiC

• In Transitions, when one of the main characters switches universes without realizing it at first, Doumeki wonders if he should get a doctor for Watanuki, because after spending several minutes in his presence he wasn't insulting or yelling at him. He really begins to freak out when Watanuki starts holding his hand. Meanwhile in the neighboring universe, Watanuki gets weirded out when Doumeki is smiling and acting affectionate. In both chapters, the alternate universe versions start panicking when they realize the other is suddenly on a Last-Name Basis.

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