Times where someone demands "What Were You Thinking?" in response to poor planning in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Infinity Train: Melancholy Afterlife: Chloe tries to prove herself by venturing out to catch a Pokémon of her own... on her own, without anyone else or any Pokémon to protect her. After this leads to 'The Spearow Incident', others demand to know why she went off by herself instead of asking for help.
- In Opening Dangerous Gates, upon learning that Lucy has no idea what the Arrancar are, Grimmjow points out the foolishness of summoning something you know nothing about.
- In the Super RWBY Sisters story RWBY Partners in Time, King Dedede asks this question to the heroes upon discovering that Mario and the rest of the group had rebuild the Cobalt Star which released Elder Princess Shroob. Seeing as he and Kirby have experience in accidentally releasing ancient evils it seems justified.
- In the first story of the Facing the Future Series, Danny says this to Sam after he learned she duplicated his accident to get herself ghost powers. However, Sam counters that it was her choice to make.
- Broken Facades: Light demands this of Misa after learning how she traded away half of her lifespan for Shinigami eyes.
- In Frozen Hearts (Sakume), Elsa asks this of Anna after she introduces her to a disguised, albeit repentant, Hans, and gets upset enough to temporarily lose control of her powers.
- Guardian Blue: Mayumi Tora furiously confronts Surikata over his decision to give a tranquiller diffuser to Cherry without letting Judy, Nick and Francine explain why they'd given her a double-heavy dose. As a result of his refusal to listen, half of Precinct 1 gets trounced by a mentally unstable wolf.
- In an untitled
fic, this is Eridan's reaction to finding out that The Little Mermaid is Feferi's favourite movie. note
- In Mega Man Star Network, Chaud asks Lan this when he went to Wilshire Hills to go after Cain without contacting him.
- Crimson and Noire: Gabriel is furious when he learns that Nathalie defied his wishes and went behind his back to akumatize Ezra and send him after Adrien, despite having previously promised that she wouldn't put him in danger. He demands this of her before deciding to revoke the Butterfly Brooch from her.
- Hop to It: During the Sequana attack, Rabbit uses Dogstruction again despite knowing that she isn't able to control it... and that any damage done by the attack can't be fixed by the Miraculous Cure. Ladybug calls her out about this afterwards, demanding to know just what she was thinking when she unleashed it.
- The Karma of Lies: The Agreste family lawyer asks Adrien this after learning how he waived his right to have him present while being interviewed by the police. Adrien wrongly assumed that if he simply told the full truth about Lila, he'd be completely believed. Instead, the police found his testimony highly questionable — in no small part because he blithely claimed to have known that she was a Con Artist the whole time and still let her scam his friends and classmates for months. Something that naturally doesn't paint the best picture of his character, though Adrien fails to see this due to his self-centered belief that he benefits from Protagonist-Centered Morality.
- In Shadows: The Horror Movie Heroes, Recovery Girl asks All Might this after his sketchy behaviour at Dagobah Beach gets him pepper-sprayed by Jirou.
- Think Before You Speak:
- Tensei's mother demands this of her son after he rants to a reporter about how his brother was recently injured during a training accident at U.A., naming Izuku as the one responsible. Izuku was not at fault, but even if he had been, revealing his identity to the media went against everything his parents had taught him and created a PR nightmare for the Iidas.
- Aizawa, the one responsible for lying to Tensei in the first place about what happened, is repeatedly asked just what the hell he was thinking and why he believed his plan to get the innocent Izuku Convicted by Public Opinion and kicked out of U.A. would ever work.
- In Time and Again, Naruto quotes the trope verbatim when, after having it finally spelled out for him that Hinata is in love with him, he realises that in the Bad Future he came back from she'd been in love with him all along as well, but had never told him, even when he would have happily married her himself to save her from the loveless marriage to an abusive asshole that had been arranged for her.
- In a sidestory of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Hoenn Elite Four Drake calls his grandniece Michelle with this line, after she and her friends attempt to fight Hunter J by themselves, and could have gotten killed had he not arrived in time to save them.
- In Villain: Redux, upon learning that Buttercup is the one who committed the prison break after seeing the footage on television and recognizing her as being "the Alien" — she used a Halloween mask gifted to her by Sophia, his ward who Buttercup often babysits, as a disguise — Ace reprimands her for not thinking it through. Since she was seen talking at length to Arturo on the security cams, the police and other Powerpuffs think he helped plan it and are searching the most intensely for him. On top of that, should the authorities learn Ace is harboring the Gangreen Gang, then he'll also be sent to the Villain Ward, meaning Sophia would have to go into foster care. Buttercup assures him and Arturo that such a thing will never happen, and the two resign themselves to Buttercup being too naïve to fully understand the consequences of what she's done, ultimately deciding that the best thing to do would be to sneak out of town when the situation worsens.
- In Bad Idea, Bruce attempts to intimidate one of the bullies threatening his son by paying them a visit as Batman. This gets him called out for not considering the potential consequences — namely, the bully figuring out both his and Robin's secret identities.
