Jess: This is what she does. This is why she’s scary. Behemoth can turn people to cinders if they’re within two hundred feet of him, Leviathan has sunk or leveled major landmasses. Killed millions in one day. But the Simurgh is the one that scares them all the most. You saw how she fought, the way she dodged and blocked stuff. She sees the future.
Krouse: I kind of guessed that, but-
Krouse: I kind of guessed that, but-
Jess: No. Listen to me! She showed up in this city in Switzerland. First time. Then after a while, she sings. Starts throwing buildings around, puts a nuclear power plant in critical condition, spreads winds contaminated with radioactive dust, kills some heroes, drives people to riot and panic with her song. Like, okay, that’s Endbringer standard, right? Six months later? A promising scientist commits suicide. Another person tries to blow up a TV station to get back at his girlfriend. Superhero assassinates a prime minister and the next guy to be in charge of that country starts a war. They were all there, when the Simurgh showed up. The superhero’s friends said there was no sign, before his encounter with the Simurgh. He just went downhill, after. There was other stuff, stuff I don’t remember. But it’s all bad.
Luke: I don’t get it.
Jess: It keeps happening. Every time she shows up. Every time, people who’ve heard this song that’s in our head? Things go wrong. They snap, they break, their lives fall apart, or they do something, and it makes something else happen, and there’s a major disaster. That guy who was supposedly making a clean energy source that could power whole cities? His wife and kids got killed and he became a supervillain who made it a life goal to murder anyone who tries to better society with their powers. There were others. Over and over, every time she shows up. She never does quite as much damage as Leviathan or Behemoth, not right away, but stuff always happens later.
Krouse: So she… what? Makes people into murderers?
Jess: No. Not exactly. She doesn’t change how you think. Not directly. It’s more subliminal, like… like cause and effect. Every time she shows up, she picks a few people, turns them into guided missiles, so they make something horrible happen weeks, months or years after they ran into her.
—Jess on why Simurgh is the most dangerous Endbringer, Worm.
"Oh, you poor little man. Your papa was mean to you. Do you have ANY idea what you did when you fired that crossbow? You left us open. You laid us bare for the vultures, and the vultures came and tore us apart. You may not have killed Joffrey, but you killed Myrcella. You killed Tommen. No one would have touched them if Father was here, no one would have dared!"
—Cersei Lannister, Game of Thrones
"Dwarf A throws a tantrum, and punches Dwarf B. A recovers happily, but B throws a tantrum and smashes the butcher's workshop to bits. The butcher, C, tantrums and destroys the table of the closest noble, D. D tantrums, starting fights with three other dwarves—A, C, and E. All of them tantrum, and C is taken into custody. E gets busy and smacks B. Meanwhile, C is killed by the hammerdwarf, accidentally or otherwise. C's friends, F, G, H, I, J, and K, all tantrum and do other nasty things. Everybody eventually tantrums and the fortress production grinds to a halt. Everybody starves, throws themselves into a volcano, or otherwise dies."
—The Dwarf Fortress wiki explains
how your fortress is likely to die.
how your fortress is likely to die."Running over to the choking Lucas, Nana smacked him in the back with her hammer, forcing the half-eaten pastry out and across the lunchroom, where it hit Luigi in the face.
"Aah! I'm blind!" he screamed, disoriented.
In a panic, he ran until he bumped into Mario, causing him throw a tray full of Super Mushrooms in the air, where they eventually landed on several Pikmin eating lunch with Olimar. This caused most of them to grow to gigantic proportions and stampede off in fear of what just happened. Seeing this, Fox spit out his hot coffee on Falco, who, in pain, ran in search for some water. As he ran around crazily, he accidentally stepped on Bowser's tail, causing him to set off a volley of fire in anger. Marth, Ike, and Link were discussing the fine art of swordplay when, all of a sudden, Link's tunic caught fire. In horror, he did the craziest dance to try and put it out, but only succeeded in setting Ike ablaze. Marth, not sure what to do, grabbed Squirtle to try and put him out, but missed and hit Donkey Kong, destroying his and Diddy's Super Supreme Banana Splits. Furious at their drenched lunch, the two apes threw banana peels in all directions, most hitting the floor. Samus just happened to be walking by with some cake and slipped on one, falling forward and slamming the dessert into Zelda's face. Fuming, she picked up what was left of it and tried to smash it into the bounty hunter's face, but she also slipped on a banana peel and fell over backwards on a walking cardboard box, sending it flying. While the box landed on Ness' head, Snake emerged and tried to get back under it, but the impact with Zelda set off one of his grenades, causing a huge explosion. Left with only a portion of the singed box, Snake stumbled backwards, hitting a vacant Jigglypuff. Wolf, who was laughing at the whole thing, got smacked in the stomach by her and fell backwards onto a table where Peach, Yoshi, and King Dedede were having pizza. His fall tipped the table and launched the food through the air until it smacked R.O.B. in the face. Short-circuiting, he ran amok, unintentionally attacking Mr. Game & Watch, who retaliated by using Judge. He managed to get a nine, but missed and hit Toon Link, sending him sailing across the room and into Captain Falcon, who lost his balance and shoved a loitering Ganondorf to the ground. Enraged, he tried to punch him for revenge, but Falcon grabbed an unsuspecting Sonic, using him for a shield. The punch connected, and Sonic slid across the floor, knocking over Meta Knight, whose sword was flung into the air. The blade stabbed Pit's wing to a table, causing him to scream bloody murder. His screech happened to be right in Lucario's ear, who punched him as hard as he could to get him to shut up. As he tried to regain his balance from the attack, Pit ran full force into Wario, who'd just finished eating a buffet of onions and garlic...
In the distance, one would've heard a faint explosion, accompanied by a mushroom cloud of noxious fumes.
- —"What Goes On, Chapter 5: All Donuts Are Evil"
[on a hellish day travelling to Washington D.C., started by an erroneous booking cancellation] Well, there are two options; a nonstop that gets you in at 5pm, three hours later than scheduled, or you can connect through Philadelphia, 45 minute layover, and get there at 3pm, only an hour later. And I was like, "That's great! Let's do the layover! What could possibly go-" Everyfuckingthing went wrong! Every goddamn fucking thing went wrong in Philadelphia! It. Was. So. Much. Fucking. Shit compounding on top of other shit, you had a pile of shit the size of Mt. fucking Everest at the end of this day.
—Jonathan Paula, Don't Fly @AmericanAir! - My Nightmare Travel Experience
But every little thing's a domino
That falls on different dots
And crashes into everything
That tries to make it stop
That falls on different dots
And crashes into everything
That tries to make it stop
—They Might Be Giants, "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes"
Mom:So how was your trip to the farm?
Meg: Oh it was ok, kinda boring I guess, until the cow started crying.
Mom: Why was the Cow crying?
Meg: Because a hay-bale fell on top of it.
Mom: Why did the hay-bale fall on top of the cow?
Meg: Because the farmer was too busy yelling at the pigs to get off our bus and crashed the tractor into it.
Mom: What were the pigs doing on the bus?
Meg: Eating our lunches.
Mom: Why were they eating your lunches?
Meg: Because we were throwing their corn at each other and they didn't have anything else to eat.
Mom: Why were you throwing the pigs' corn?
Meg: Because we ran out of eggs.
Mom: Out of eggs?! Why were you throwing eggs?
Meg: Because of the boa constrictor.
Meg: Yep, Jimmy's pet boa constrictor.
Narrator: The loss of so many lives* is due to a chain of critical events, that come together that day.* A badly-engineered water pipe, placed too close to a gasoline supply line, caused a reaction called "metal to metal corrosion." Both pipes leaked, and gasoline flooded the soil. The leaking gasoline touched, and then enveloped, the city's main sewer. The gasoline entered the pipe and flooded the sewer.
Resident/survivor: The sewer, the bathroom, the drains, they smelled like gasoline.
Narrator: The gasoline fumes built up, but they were blocked by an uphill section of the sewer redesigned to accommodate a new subway. The fumes had nowhere to go but through manholes and household drains.
2nd Resident/survivor: All the smells that day caused headaches and nausea. It caused vomiting because it was such a strong smell.
Narrator: The high temperatures* created a hothouse for volatile gases. A spark ignited, and the trapped fumes triggered the first blast.
3rd Resident/survivor: It was a muffled sound, and it came from underground. It shook our house, several cracks appeared on our walls, and the street became dark.
Narrator: Then, a series of explosions ripped through the streets, devastating nearly 5 miles* of the city streets.
—One of Seconds from Disaster's many examples, this one covering the Guadalajara explosions.
. "At 1:23:40, Akimov engages AZ-5. The fully withdrawn control rods begin moving back into the reactor. These rods are made of boron which reduces reactivity, but not the tips. The tips are made of graphite, which accelerates reactivity... The first part of the rods that enter the core are the graphite tips and when they do, the reaction in the core, which had been rising, skyrockets. Every last molecule of liquid water instantly converts to steam, which expands and ruptures a series of fuel rod channels. The control rods in those channels can move no further. The graphite tips are fixed in position, endlessly accelerating the reaction. Chernobyl Reactor 4 is now a nuclear bomb.
1:23:42. Perovozchenko looks down on the enormous steel lid of the reactor and sees the impossible. The control rod and fuel channel caps, which each weigh 350 kilograms, are jumping up and down. He runs to warn the control room, but there's nothing he can do to stop what is coming.
1:23 and 44 seconds. The steam blows more fuel channels apart. We do not know how high the power went, we only know the final reading: Reactor 4, designed to operate at 32 hundred megawatts, went beyond 33 thousand. The pressure inside the core can no longer be held back.
At long last, we have arrived - 1:23:45, explosion. In the instant the lid is thrown off the reactor, oxygen rushes in. It combines with hydrogen and superheated graphite. The chain of disaster is now complete."
1:23:42. Perovozchenko looks down on the enormous steel lid of the reactor and sees the impossible. The control rod and fuel channel caps, which each weigh 350 kilograms, are jumping up and down. He runs to warn the control room, but there's nothing he can do to stop what is coming.
1:23 and 44 seconds. The steam blows more fuel channels apart. We do not know how high the power went, we only know the final reading: Reactor 4, designed to operate at 32 hundred megawatts, went beyond 33 thousand. The pressure inside the core can no longer be held back.
At long last, we have arrived - 1:23:45, explosion. In the instant the lid is thrown off the reactor, oxygen rushes in. It combines with hydrogen and superheated graphite. The chain of disaster is now complete."
— Valery Legasov, Chernobyl
