Basic Trope: A character, after facing a harsh event, succumbs to sorrow while taking a shower.
- Straight: Alice witnesses Bob's Heroic Sacrifice to take down Emperor Evulz, but she doesn't react at all. After it, she arrives home and decides to take a shower to wash away the dirt from the previous battle. And then, while she's under the stream of water, she finally breaks into tears.
- Exaggerated: Alice witnesses Bob's horrible torturing and death at the hands of Emperor Evulz; it's a scene so twisted and violent that she gets unwillingly stained in her friend's blood. After Evulz escapes, a frightened and confused Alice strips herself naked and runs into the nearest shower to wash away Bob's blood. There her emotions explode, going from total despair to blind anger as she trashes the whole room. After this outburst of destruction she just collapses into the floor, curled into fetal position and broken in tears.
- Downplayed: After a traumatic event, Alice takes a shower while a couple tears run down her face.
- Justified: While Alice is deeply affected by Bob's death she, as the True Companions' leader, cannot let her emotions overflow in front of her comrades because that would unsettle them, she has to show emotional strength from them to overcome it. However, the shower it's a private place, water's noise mitigates the sound of her lament, and it can help to mask and/or wash away the tears.
- Inverted: After accepting Bob's marriage proposal, (with an astonishing calm) Alice goes to her home to wash away the sweat generated from her restrained excitement. And then, while she's under the stream of water, she overflows in joy and happiness, even breaking into spontaneous dancing and (bad) singing.
- Subverted: Alice goes home and showers without incident before going to bed.
- Double Subverted: But it's the one she takes the next morning, when she realizes that Bob won't be coming by for his usual morning visit, and yesterday's events finally set it for good, that causes her to break down, big time.
- Parodied:
- Alice sorrow invokes a Personal Raincloud over her head, so she decides use this chance to take a shower.
- Several characters lock themselves in several bathrooms for their own personal Shower of Sorrow; much to the dismay of Steven, that really needs to use a bathroom, and fast!
- Alice takes a Shower Of Angst, why? Because her bath water is dirty.
- Or Alice takes a Shower Of Angst because she spilled milk.
- Zig Zagged: Alice, on the verge of tears, says "I... I just need some alone time..." and heads off to the bathroom. The other characters assume she's going to take a Shower of Angst, but really she just needed to use the bathroom. Then she takes a Shower of Angst. But then really it turned out that she's just very particular about washing her back and the fetal position is the most effective way to get it wet. But then she starts thinking about Bob's death...
- Averted: Alice releases the sorrow generated from Bob's death right in the spot.
- Enforced: Alice is our series' Action Girl, we can't have her reduced to tears at the death of a male teammate, the audience will think we're trying to turn her into a Damsel in Distress.
- Lampshaded:
- "The tears just won't stop... I might as well shut the water and wash myself on this stream of despair... Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
- "I scrubbed until a bit of skin came off..."
- Invoked: Bob bleeds to death on Alice arms, but before she can properly react to it, another character orders her to wash herself to a avoid a possible contamination while they dispose the body.
- Exploited: The villain follows Alice home and murders her in the shower.
- Defied: Alice cries openly at Bob's funeral, not caring what others will think.
- Discussed:Steven: "I've heard Alice crying on the shower... Do you think she'll be all-right?"
Claire: "Let her be, it will help her to ease her emotion after Bob's death. Everyone else is discharging their emotion on their own particular way; it helps the body and spirit"
Steven: "What about you Claire? I haven't seen particularly affected for it."
Claire: "Oh, but I am. In fact, I'm actually enraged beyond the breaking point right now. But just like Alice that restrained her sorrow up until now, I'm just containing my rage to release it on the worthless son-of-a-bitch that killed Bob." - Conversed:Johnny: "I don't mind Fanservice from time to time, but was this scene really necessary? I mean, what could have been a powerful and emotional scene gets overshadowed for the unsettling attention on her nude body"
Charlie: "And you're complaining about it?! Dude, you're weird!"
Johnny: "I'm not weird, if you think that you should focus on her tits during what's supposed to be a dramatic moment, then I think you're the one with a couple of screws loose." - Deconstructed:
- Alice uses Showers Of Angst as a coping mechanism so often that she develops a psychological dependency on them whenever anything she doesn't like happens.
- Following an incident of Rape as Drama, Alice goes through this... Washing away critical evidence that could have helped identify the perp.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice feels better after using Showers Of Angst, in conjunction with more healthy ways of coping.
- Alice has the wherewithal to get to the police and get tested first with a rape kit to preserve the critical DNA evidence, but that adds on top of the mental trauma she's already carrying from the vile act itself. Once all that can be done to get evidence is done, Alice takes a shower to let out her emotions.
- Implied: Alice isn't seen for a while after Bob's Heroic Sacrifice. The next time she is seen, her hair is all wet.
Did you had a bad day? Maybe you need a Shower of Angst wash away the pain.
