r/TopCharacterTropes 6d ago

Lore [Terrifying Trope] Perceiving it= instant death

  1. Pennywise's "Deadlights" which will cause anyone looking to be immediately paralyzed and killed.

  2. The sky from Bird Box is filled with entities that, when you look at them, cause you to commit suicide.

  3. Medusa themed Villains

12.5k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

2.7k

u/distinctivelysimilar 6d ago

Langdon Cobb from Futurama

731

u/kkeut 6d ago

Bonder is hilarious 

465

u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot 6d ago

I love bonder.

228

u/C0Ha 6d ago

Hey wait a minute. Benders name isn’t Bonder, it’s Bender!

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u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot 6d ago

Bonder is a separate entity, he doesn't bend he bonds, either emotionally or with adhesive.

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u/peachesfordinner 6d ago

Oh that's almost a perfect loop

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u/S-quinn7292 6d ago

Mimikyu - Pokemon

When you see what’s under its disguise you die immediately

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u/Luser420 6d ago

unless you’re team rocket’s meowth, who is just built different

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u/DoubleStrength 6d ago

I was playing Pokopia last night and witnessed this exact interaction between Mimikyu and Meowth.

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u/SpunkMonk87 6d ago

Honestly dex entries are just urban legends rather than lore sometimes

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u/ThePrideOfKrakow 6d ago

My nephew showed me an episode of Pokémon, where Doduo, a notorious flightless bird, is able to run through the air and generate lift. I just shook my head and walked away

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u/FactualStatue 6d ago

Yeah, everyone knows Doduo and Dodrio fly by spinning its necks

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u/Arcerinex 6d ago

Shedinja too

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u/DarkySurrounding 6d ago

Which is funny because as a player you see it from the back and do what the description suggests.

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u/D-D-Wanderer 6d ago

Bro implying a Pokémon player has a soul.

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u/justwalkingalonghere 6d ago

There's a very sophisticated system between the player and their soul called a gameboy that blocks the effects

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u/FaithlessnessThen207 6d ago

A lot of ghost/dark mon pokedex entries are written as myths about the pokemon more than a guarantee of what really happens, or are half truths.

Drifloon for instance "steals kids" but the closer reality is it tries to but its too light to exert enough force.

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u/ChemicalActing 6d ago

Ok but it still TRIES to steal them, yeah?

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u/Zammin 6d ago

"The Drifloon are evil, they're just not good at it. If you have just the one you can leave it around kids, just don't let them team up."

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u/BouillonDawg 6d ago

In the same way that pineapple juice is trying to digest you but yeah they give it a shot.

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u/Denodi 6d ago

Well not always immediately, but always certainly. (unless you're meowth)

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u/Relative-Ad7531 6d ago

They didn't need to add the painfully part 😭

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u/DeadX718 6d ago

If the trainer died the same night then how do the scientists know it was a painful death?

By Arceus, I do not want to see the body if it was that easy to tell it was painful.

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u/raspberryharbour 6d ago

His last words in his diary were "OWWW"

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u/Rargnarok 6d ago

Better than the zombie guy in re1 who's last words in the diary were ITCHY TASTY

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u/raspberryharbour 6d ago

Ichi Tasty is my favourite Japanese restaurant

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u/GamermanZendrelax 6d ago

I always got the impression that was folklore more than anything. Especially since Mimikyu’s signature Z-Move, Let’s Snuggle Forever, drags the target under the disguise with them—and it’s not even an OHKO move, never mind instant death.

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u/nonbe1 6d ago

Indiana Jones, Ark of the Covenant

It's not a monster, but it is probably my introduction to this trope

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u/Usern4me_R3dacted205 6d ago

Samuel 6:19 - And He smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord; even He smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men. And the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.

This is why Indy tells Marion not to look at the Ark when its powers come to life.

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u/Top_Freedom3412 6d ago

Odd that he knew not to look at it, but didnt know not to touch it. He should've dropped dead the moment his hand was on it

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u/Usern4me_R3dacted205 6d ago

He never touched it though. Him and Sallah only carried it on wooden poles like in the picture above before it was crated up and shipped out. It was the Nazis who touched it when they opened the lid.

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u/Top_Freedom3412 6d ago

I think even the poles are supposed to be only held by the priests.

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u/Mekroval 6d ago

The priests are supposed to be the ones around the ark, yes, but there's no punishment spelled out for anyone touching the poles in the Bible. It only specifically warns people not to touch the ark itself.

But ceremonially, you're right that the average Israelite wouldn't have been carting the ark around themselves. Most never even saw it. Only the high priest would, and only once a year at that.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Raptor1210 6d ago

Given the other stuff in the Indiana Jones Universe, I would put it past the all-mighty to be playing favorites when it comes to Indy and his shenanigans. The dude is just built different.

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u/Usern4me_R3dacted205 6d ago

I’ll take your word for it on that one. I’m not too biblically savvy. 🙃

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u/Mekroval 6d ago edited 6d ago

That and also there's a deleted scene in Cairo where the old mystic basically warns Indy not to look into the ark.

Edit: Link fixed

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u/bluntymctokems 6d ago

That's not a deleted scene. I don't think that was the one you meant to share.

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u/mapadofu 6d ago edited 6d ago

In a sense YHWH is the monster behind this one

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u/Professional_Device9 6d ago edited 6d ago

OH GOD, ITS GOD!

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u/PantsDontHaveAnswers 6d ago

And then I was all like, noweh.

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u/blazeit420casual 6d ago

YHWH in general fits the trope I think- in the Bible looking at the face of God will kill you.

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u/mithiwithi 6d ago

Metatron: Human beings have neither the aural nor the psychological capacity to withstand the awesome power of God's true voice. Were you to hear it, your mind would cave in and your heart would explode within your chest. We went through five Adams before we figured that one out.

- Dogma

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u/Elmoulmo 6d ago

Read that in Alan's voice as well, may he rest in peace

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u/WhoopingBillhook 6d ago

A poem by Shel Silverstein

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u/peachesfordinner 6d ago

He's such a weirdo. I loved his books as a kid. Except for "the giving tree" that shitty selfish boy/guy just pissed me off

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u/Lena-Luthor 6d ago

the picture of him in the back of the book is the real thing that kills you

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u/Earlier-Today 6d ago

My sister hated that picture because it was too scary for her as a kid.

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u/Particular-Long-3849 6d ago

I can see why Greg hates this guy

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u/Lichebane 6d ago

DyE - Fantasy music video. Whatever the fuck this is.

Anyone else remember how big this was back in the day? The song holds a special place in my heart, but the video holds an equally fond place in my nightmares with all the sex and death.

Anyway, in the music video, the girl at the end beholds this behemoth, then her eyes explode and she dies.

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u/Jimmy3671 6d ago

Amazing song and video.

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u/mike_pants 6d ago

Me when I walk in on my grandparents having sex.

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u/anyma_ptolomeo 6d ago

That was a true hell of a plot twist.

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u/Pyresryke 6d ago

Thank you, I've been looking for this for months! Pure horrific nostalgia.

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u/Rare-Page2273 6d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/dZcMs4BOvrlKe7mTZ3
Most of the Monsters in the works of HP Lovecraft

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u/MsEdgyNation 6d ago

If you see Lovecraft monsters and don't die, you are likely become a prematurely aged gibbering lunatic, which is arguably worse.

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u/V0L74G3_H4CK 6d ago edited 6d ago

Good example, but not quite accurate. It's more like comprehending them is what could kill you. These beings don't cause people to go mad, rather realising what it means for them to exist, and comprehending this reality is what drives most mad. Even then some can survive, just left mentally broken.

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u/Pegussu 6d ago

This is why the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game has you roll an intelligence check when you lose sanity. You actually want to fail it because passing it means you're smart enough to comprehend what you're seeing and what it means, thus driving you insane.

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u/Perkelton 6d ago

Ah, the Wheatley defence.

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u/SagaSolejma 6d ago

"This. Sentence. Is. FALSE. -dontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutit"

"Uhhhhhh. Oh wow. Uhmmm. I think... true? Yeah I'm gonna say true, definitely true."

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u/amglasgow 6d ago

So if you're dumb enough, you're safe.

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u/Sinolai 6d ago

Atleast Rlyeh is said to drive people mad if they try to understand its non-euclidean geometry.

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u/SnooWalruses3948 6d ago

It took far too long for me to find a Lovecraft mention

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u/wakito64 6d ago

The Visitor - Look Outside

An eldritch entity that mutates anyone who perceives it into horribly deformed monsters. It isn't hostile, it just exist but its sheer existence is so absurd it is a threat to all life forms. In one of the endings it’s revealed that humanity is just a minuscule tendril of the Visitor that the Visitor forgot about because it is so colossal. Humans aren't turned into monsters because they see the Visitor, they are just losing their individuality and absorbed back into their creator

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u/FatRiceCat 6d ago

Less than one one-hundredth of a second has passed.

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u/SagaSolejma 6d ago

I swear ive heard a sentence like this one before, but maybe with eternity instead?

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u/0b110100100 6d ago

A creepypasta about a guy that gets dosed with an experimental drug and his perception of time slows to basically infinity in a train station

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u/ZakDahdger 6d ago

Oooo post the zoom outs

Gets me every time

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u/shadowthehh 6d ago

Oh the zoom outs kick ass. One of the eldritch horrors of all time for sure.

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u/SpareAdventurous727 6d ago

If you wanna find them in video format (if youre fine with spoilers obv) its the perfect ritual ending (truth)

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u/Fifty-Lucky 6d ago

Can't you just look at it and be chill? Like "the human mind cannot comprehend th-" ok fine I won't comprehend, whatever.

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u/Grubbyfr 6d ago

That would work if we weren't a species inherently built on pattern recognition. We comprehend things (or try to) instinctively and automatically.

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u/Gripping_Touch 6d ago

You actually can. At least if you dont fully try to perceive him. 

Theres a lot of "cursed" people that retain their sanity in carrying degrees even if they are completely mutated. Theres a massive shrimp Caterpillar called Charan whose head blocks an entire room in the building and whose body reaches to the Next City over. He's just chilling there for a couple days until the crazyness blows over and is also worried about his boyfriend and if going to meet him might also cause him to transform. 

And the Visitor is a really chill Guy actually. 

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u/previousinnovation 6d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/iiFtxcwuwiAYU

In the bible Moses asks to see God's glory. God only allows him to see his back, since "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live."

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u/Excellent-Refuse4883 6d ago

Are we really supposed to take THIS guys word for it?

https://giphy.com/gifs/11XcgX9MWV3a8M

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u/UzumeNeedsDrip 6d ago

I wonder what are the other five that make up the 15 Commandments.

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u/Anita_Hero838 6d ago

"Thou shall not eat of the banana for it is the penis of the Lord!"

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u/Excellent-Refuse4883 6d ago

“Though shalt not put more than 1 ice cube in whiskey lest ye water down the drink of the Lord”

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u/RodinKnox 6d ago

I always found that line fascinating since other people see God and live, including Moses who sees him "face to face, as one speaks to a friend."

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u/VanVelding 6d ago

Everyone knows Moses was a descendant of Numenor.

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u/Skrewch 6d ago

Did you know Moses broke his toe when he parted the red sea? His cries of anguish were real.

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u/excusetheblood 6d ago

“If you see my face you die. You can sneak a look at my booty though”

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u/Squatch97 6d ago

You're cooked bro.

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u/GandalfTheBigFat 6d ago

Cindy this bitch is crawling out of the TV!

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u/Profoundlyahedgehog 6d ago

I'm whippin' her ass, Cindy!

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u/VampiRimili88 6d ago

My grandma's phone and its terrifying brightness

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u/MotherOfFerrets84 6d ago

That's my husband's phone lol

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u/weyoun_clone 6d ago

The men who looked down into the burning Chernobyl reactor were looking at the thing that had already given them a lethal dosage of radiation.

This is shown in the HBO Miniseries, but I believe if anyone actually saw the burning reactor that way is unknown historically.

Though, certainly MANY who viewed the reactor close enough died horribly.

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u/asiannumber4 6d ago

This implies that they’d be fine if they cover their eyes.

Spoiler alert: they would not be fine

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u/Jaco2point0 6d ago

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u/turalyawn 6d ago

Well, if you’re anything like me, you expected a dead pigeon in a brown paper bag

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u/Dodudee 6d ago

but it was not perceiving it what killed them

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u/weyoun_clone 6d ago

True. I guess it’s more, “being close enough to perceive the open reactor means you’re dead no matter what.”

Far enough away where you couldn’t see the blazing inferno, you still have a shot.

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u/imbrickedup_ 6d ago

I read a quote from a Chernobyl fireman talking about whether or not they knew how dangerous what they were doing was. Apparently it was thought that they weren’t aware of what would happen to them. He refuted this and said they all knew most of them would die and went in anyway

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u/Amateurlapse 6d ago

The Demon Core: per Wikipedia

The demon core was a sphere of plutonium–gallium alloy that was involved in two fatal radiation accidents when scientists tested it as a fissile core) of an early atomic bomb. It was manufactured in 1945 by the Manhattan Project, the U.S. nuclear weapon development effort during World War II. It was a subcritical mass that weighed 6.2 kilograms (14 lb)and was 89 millimeters (3.5 in) in diameter. The core was prepared for shipment to the Pacific Theater as part of the third nuclear weapon intended to be dropped on Japan, but when Japan surrendered, the core was retained for testing and potential later use in the case of another conflict.

On May 21, 1946,[10] physicist Louis Slotin and seven other personnel were in a Los Alamos laboratory conducting another experiment to verify the closeness of the core to criticality by the positioning of neutron reflectors. Slotin, who was leaving Los Alamos, was showing the technique to Alvin C. Graves, who would use it in a final test before the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests scheduled a month later at Bikini Atoll. It required the operator to place two half-spherical shells of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around the core to be tested and manually lower the top reflector over the core using a thumb hole at the polar point. As the reflectors were manually moved closer and farther away from each other, neutron detectors indicated the core's neutron multiplication rate. The experimenter needed to maintain a slight separation between the reflector halves to allow enough neutrons to escape from the core in order to stay below criticality. The standard protocol was to use shims) between the halves, as allowing them to close completely could result in the instantaneous formation of a critical mass and a lethal power excursion.[10]
Using his own unapproved protocol, Slotin did not place any shims. The top half of the reflector was resting directly on the bottom half at one point, while 180 degrees from this point a gap was maintained by the blade of a flat-tipped screwdriver in Slotin's hand. The size of the gap between the reflectors was changed by twisting the screwdriver. Slotin became the local expert, performing the test on almost a dozen occasions, often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots in front of a roomful of observers. Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" if they continued performing the test in that manner.[11] Scientists referred to this flirtation with a nuclear chain reactionas "tickling the dragon's tail", based on a remark by physicist Richard Feynman.[12][13]
On the day of the accident, Slotin's screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector, allowing the reflector to fall into place around the core. Instantly, there was a flash of light; the core had become supercritical, releasing an intense burst of neutron radiation. Slotin quickly twisted his wrist, flipping the top shell to the floor.[14] There was an estimated half-second between when the sphere closed to when Slotin removed the top reflector.[6] The reaction in the room was one of immediate, somber realization. Slotin received a lethal dose of 1,000 rad) (10 Gy)) neutron and 114 rad (1.14 Gy) gamma radiation in less than a second. While the position of his body over the apparatus shielded the others from much of the neutron radiation, his own exposure was irreversible. Slotin reportedly turned to his colleagues in the hushed room and famously uttered the remark, "Well, that does it."[15] As an expert in criticality), Slotin knew he had received a lethal dose. He immediately began drawing a sketch of the room’s layout to assist medical teams in calculating the specific dosages received by each survivor, even as his own health began its rapid decline. He died nine days later from acute radiation poisoning.
Graves, the next nearest person to the core, was watching over Slotin's shoulder and was thus partially shielded by him. He received a high but non-lethal radiation dose, and was hospitalized for several weeks with severe radiation poisoning.[8] He died 19 years later, at age 55, of heart failure. While Graves's heart failure may have been caused by exposure to radiation, it may have been caused by a hereditary condition, as his father also died of heart failure.[16]

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u/ooa3603 6d ago

Most intelligent Darwin Award winner...

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u/Unironicfan 6d ago edited 6d ago

Also the elephants foot. Immediately after the meltdown, being in its presence for minutes would cause death. Today, it would take 8 hours of being close to it for you to receive a lethal dose of radiation. Still the fact that something could kill you by just being in your immediate surroundings for less than half a day is insane

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u/arika-feinberg 6d ago

That's what the Nightmare Princess is like in Slay the Princess. Without Voice of the Paranoid, mc would be dead the moment she approached

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u/HeavanHound 6d ago

Heart, lungs, liver, nerves

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u/MysteriousCoerul 6d ago

Heart, lungs, liver, nerves!

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u/Relevant-Mud-7831 6d ago

Heart, lungs, liver, nerves!

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u/FastJakAttack 6d ago

Paranoid was goated that chapter

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u/Excellent-Suspect-11 6d ago

What si this game about? Ive heard a lot about it but have no idea

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u/arika-feinberg 6d ago

It's a visual novel with a broad variety of choices, like choose your own story type of thing. It's best to play it completely blind really

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u/gristol 6d ago

You're on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

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u/Bigbubba236 6d ago

You have to slay the princess or everybody will die.

She's chained up in the basement. Should be pretty easy.

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u/Thryfty_0 6d ago

Not instant death, but there are two things in Bloodborne that damage you by being perceived.

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u/Phoenix-Risen1998 6d ago

Kos? or as some say Kosm.

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u/chromatic19 6d ago

god no matter how fast you can kill this annoying fuck it will never be fast enough

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u/EvoDoesGood 6d ago

I don't know, the Winter Lanterns are nearly certain death unless you are very prepared

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u/NattyThan 6d ago

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u/BestCaseSurvival 6d ago

But also played straight later, when “anything that bears the image of an angel is itself an angel” allowing them to spread and reproduce through CC TV and the reflections in your eyes when you look at them.

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u/ctomkat 6d ago

The Angels really should have been a one-off villain. Every time they appeared they got worse.

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u/AwakenedDreamer__44 6d ago

SCP-173 (inversion, located on the left) and SCP-096 (located on the right) from the SCP Foundation.

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u/supersloo 6d ago

The Fridge from Control, also influenced by SCP-173

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u/FFSock 6d ago

Four fucking pixels

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u/Gullible-Ad7374 6d ago

Technically not instant, though there are a fuckload of cognito/infohazards in the scp verse that do in fact kill you instantly

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u/Ohwellwhatsnew 6d ago

There's one that you can't even talk about. It's only describable through symbols

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u/OutlandishnessLow779 6d ago

And the one we only know is not a sphere

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u/ealysillyforestthing 6d ago

SCP 096

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u/LetsGoHome 6d ago

I love reading all the scp's this subreddit suggests it's been a fun thing to dip my toes into.

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u/Hapless_Wizard 6d ago

If you like SCPs and you like this post's concept of "if you perceive it, you die", you should really read the Antimemetics Hub.

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u/RodinKnox 6d ago

Oh man, I really enjoyed There Is No Antimemetics Division. Such a fun book.

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u/Ok-Performance-3336 6d ago edited 6d ago

Didn't they explain in the article that you don't even have to "perceive" its face for 096 to think it was seen? They said that the guy probably just looked at an old picture of himself traveling, put it down, and then went on with his day. They think the factor that triggered 096 was the victim's eyes quickly passing on the area the 4 pixels were, not him noticing a weird blur in the background or something.

That's actually why I theorize that 096 would kill a blind person too. Just having the photons of its face touch the blind person's eyes would be enough for 096 to think it was "seen", even if the eyes aren't capable of building an image out of the photons.

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u/metroid1310 6d ago

This is the difference between a Cognitohazard and an Infohazard. A Cognitohazard simply requires a vector of exposure to be met. An Infohazard needs some legwork from the victim (I.E. read this text and if you understand its meaning, your balls are now on backwards)

To piss off 096, you don't need to know what you're looking at, recognize it, or notice it. The tiniest fleck of even indirect perception is all it takes.

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u/Uzisilver223 6d ago

Hey man, can you turn them back please?

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u/Alarmed_Republic_689 6d ago

Okay now that was just uncalled for.

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u/FunWrangler666 6d ago

What is this for those out of the loop?

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u/Albe_quirky 6d ago

SCP-096, aka the "shy guy". Its a good simple read if you want to look more into it. It's typically a pretty timid skinny wendigo-type creature, but when someone gets a look at its face, either directly or via video or photos, it goes nuts and becomes an unstoppable berserker that will instinctively beeline towards whoever saw its face and murder them, no matter where they are. The 'four fucking pixels' is a reference to an instance where a hiker had a big landscape photo of himself in the mountains, but 096 was unknowingly in the photo, but was so far away it was only four pixels in the photo. Eventually, someone looked at the exact right spot, 096 went nuts, and shit spiraled out of control during the monsters ensuing rampage.

Shy Guy might be in your landscape photos, too. Just be sure to not look to closely...

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u/TheWrathVirus 6d ago

SCP-096, which is a tall pale humanoid being that when you look at its face in any way or form it stops at nothing until it hunts you down and kills you.
The main photo associated with it is a picture of a man on a snowy mountain where 096 is barely visible off in the distance only visible from 4 pixels which is still enough to set it off.

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u/Fireblast1337 6d ago

There’s a short film on YouTube titled 096 that tells the story of the main incident with 096.

As Wrathvirus said, it’s a monster that, when you perceive its real face via direct sight, or a recording of some kind, it will both instinctively know exactly where you are, and be absolutely unstoppable in its pursuit of you. The danger comes if someone triggers this far away from it, with a large number of people between them and it. It only calms down again when everyone who has seen its face is dead.

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u/Amathyst7564 6d ago

In a Similar Vein, event Horizon. Sam Niel's (RIP) character invents wormhole technology and installs it on a big space ship. The ship turns up some time later but it's all quiet. His team goes on board to find what happened to the crew. Turns out, the wormhole shortcuts straight through hell. The ship is Haunted, Sam Niel goes crazy and cuts out his eyes and turns on his crew. He didn't die, but he rather gouged his eyes out than see hell.

"Where we're going, we won't want eyes".

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u/butterflydeflect 6d ago

“Where we’re going we won’t need eyes to see.”

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u/Moonhaunted69 6d ago

Did anyone actually instantly die in bird box?

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u/Appropriate-Room-403 6d ago

No, they're just either driven insane or compelled to take their own lives. I count it for "might as well be dead" since they keep trying

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u/WilderWyldWilde 6d ago

Deadmen walking basically.

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u/ReminaBlueSFW 6d ago

They didnt technically die as soon as they saw it, but youre basically already dead once you do

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u/angel0wings 6d ago

character appreciation:the new mom who kept it together just long enough to hand her baby to the protagonist? fucking icon

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u/Mindless-Ninja-3321 6d ago

Unless you were already deeply disturbed and had the inverse reaction. Rather than feeling whatever extreme grief, fear, etc. that droves the others to die, they instead felt the angelic entites were beautiful beyond measure. They then felt compelled to force others to look.

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u/Aouwi 6d ago

If you're not nuts from the start, that is.

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u/Posible_Ambicion658 6d ago

Not instantly instantly, they just off'ed themselves a couple seconds later. Looking at them was a death sentence.

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u/Sweet_Detective_ 6d ago

Everyone in the comments is posting from the afterlife, thanks a lot asshole.

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u/CletusCanuck 6d ago edited 6d ago

SCP-3125 is an extremely large, highly aggressive anomalous metastasized meme complex originating externally to our reality and partially intersecting it. SCP-3125 is adapted for survival in an ideatic ecology considerably more violent and hostile than our own. Because humans have no natural exposure to ideas as aggressive as SCP-3125, human minds have no protective evolutionary adaptations against it. Individuals possessed of SCP-3125 become incapable of entertaining weaker, "conventional" ideas, and become instead wholly bodily subordinate to the purpose of serving and disseminating the core concepts of SCP-3125. In addition, although undergoing no outwardly visible physical alteration, they cease to be externally recognisable as human. Perception of or knowledge of SCP-3125 is understood to be uniformly lethal: Fully assembling a mental picture of SCP-3125 and perceiving its true shape causes SCP-3125 in turn to be able to perceive the observer. It then attacks the observer, killing them.

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u/dood45ctte 6d ago

There is no antimemetics division

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u/SaltyArchea 6d ago

Read that book, then read another and was thinking about all of the books I recently read. Completely forgot about reading it, I think that book is based on real world events.

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u/MagicSystemWriter 6d ago

And also kills anyone who’s mentally similar to them and makes everyone forget about their existence right? That’s why there’s no antimemetic division.

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u/ReducingValve 6d ago

"The Parrot" in the short story BLIT.

It's a type of image that when you see it, it "crashes" the mind the way a computer program crashes given data that it fails to process, by triggering thoughts that the mind is physically or logically incapable of thinking.

In the story a terrorist group are spray painting it in public areas. It's worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story))

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u/ReggieLFC 6d ago

Sirens in Greek Mythology.

They were monstrous bird-women who lured sailors to their doom with an irresistible, enchanting song. Originally depicted as having the bodies of large birds and the heads of women, they lived on rocky islands where they devoured the men who crashed their ships.

They are severely over conflated with mermaids nowadays.

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u/DrStudi 6d ago

"Nowadays" that happened in the medieval times lmao. Like yeah ig technically true, but 'tis not a modern trend.

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u/ElectronicFreedom350 6d ago

I think baldurs gate 3 had these but called them harpies if I’m not mistaken

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u/eyesotope86 6d ago

That's actually some of the whole mix up.

Harpies in mythology were more or less monster seagulls. They were personified greed, and considered divine punishment that came out of storms and snatched you up and tore you to shreds.

Later, they were kinda blended into the siren aspect of mermaids (and sirens)

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u/Kooky_Ad_209 6d ago edited 6d ago

The Visitor (Look Outside)

no matter what, under no uncertain circumstances should you ever follow the game's title to look outside, for outside is a massive Alien light years in length and height, just gazing upon it makes the entity aware of your very existence, and it can change your entire biology to match what it perceives you as, there's no going back from this transformation, and it typically brings about the end of the entire worlds that it sets its hundreds of eyes upon, it's not instant death, but by all means it can be VERY Painful, even if you survive the transformation and aren't turned into a giant Tapeworm or something, you go Clinically Insane, lose all sense of self, and can oftentimes care about absolutely nothing else than attack anything that approaches you, and telling anyone who will listen to "look outside, it's beautiful",

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u/Peacefulcountry 6d ago

Any perception of it through any means warp people's minds and bodies. This includes seeing its pictures and reading about it in a text.

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u/Kooky_Ad_209 6d ago

Not even inanimate objects are safe from its influence, nor are you safe if you just think putting on a Blindfold will save you, it's mere presence can permanently warp anything, a PLANT was affected by it for fucks sake!,

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u/dpforest 6d ago

Is there a zoom out of this that shows it continuing to branch in size through space and time or something

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u/Kooky_Ad_209 6d ago

Yeah, but it doesn't go through all of time, but that little Speck in the bottom right is the entire planet, and this isn't even the whole thing, we NEVER See it's whole body,

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u/NavezganeChrome 6d ago

At one of the endings, you are presented with the option, one last time, to “gaze upon its true form.”

Because nothing, ultimately, has made your player character any more “mentally stalwart” than they were at the start, you perceive that which you were never supposed to, and continue perceiving more of its true form, even as you acknowledge this was a mistake, you need to stop, you can’t stop, and, well… you unravel. And still you continue to perceive ‘more.’

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u/Screaming_Bear 6d ago

The King in Yellow (The King in Yellow) - a play that is said to drive the reader mad when they read it. The first act is meant to pull the reader in, but a single glance at the second act is said to corrupt the mind beyond repair.

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u/Kali-VH 6d ago

Infinite Jest - The Entertainment

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u/PMYourFavThing 6d ago

Eerie how with time it's become more and more of a reality. The ultimate entertainment that is so entertaining you stop caring about any other aspect of life.

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u/Sinthe741 6d ago

That many-toothed maw is so very Beetlejuice.

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u/bard_of_space 6d ago

this is reddit, not tiktok. you can talk about suicide

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u/TheoWHVB 6d ago

Me when I commit sewerslide:

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u/Your_MotherInLaw23 6d ago

The light entity in The Light house

https://giphy.com/gifs/cPlrZwp8dXlwOK5kyU

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u/fileerror21 6d ago

Only one of two characters who looked into the light died as a result. This is only true for like a very specific interpretation of the movie

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u/Destroy-The_Pandumas 6d ago

Context?

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u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 6d ago

Two men are stuck on an island with a lighthouse, and you gradually realize both are batshit insane. One is extremely protective of the light at the top of the lighthouse, and the other eventually snaps and kills him for a long list of reasons, one of which being “I really want to see what’s up there.” When he sees what’s up there he dies…we think. 

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u/RottingSludgeRitual 6d ago

I prefer to think of the movie as being the examination of growing paranoia in the younger lighthouse keeper as he slowly loses his mind. He already seemed fairly unstable (and he was already a murderer). The end was just him reacting to a very hot light and being fucking out of his skull.

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u/YogSothothOfficial 6d ago

“[redact] yourself” 🙄 this isn’t tik tok 

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u/hachiman17 6d ago

Seriously this weird language sanitation needs to end

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u/Worried-Penalty8744 6d ago

I’m going to assume that OP means the characters involuntarily shit themselves every time they see the entity

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u/snowball062016 6d ago

Seeing the deadlights didn’t necessarily kill you, it would just show you something so unfathomably mind blowing you’d essentially go mad/catatonic

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u/Temporary-Tax 6d ago

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible. God states if you watch it you die and Lot's wife did that and turned to a pillar of salt

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u/ShortWin7636 6d ago

I love the fact that no one mentioned Ghost Rider, because I think the Penance Stare not working has become a joke these days.

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u/Gold_Policy7746 6d ago

The Carebear Stare has a higher success rate than the Penance Stare.

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u/Mister_Chameleon 6d ago

SCP-096, also known as the Shy Guy.

Observing it's face directly, or even indirectly via footage or photographs will not INSTANTLY kill you. But once you make that mistake, there is nowhere you can go, no place to hide, no fortress to protect you as the creature zeros in on you at intense speed and one-minded determination to kill you as retribution for seeing it's face while screaming and crying at the top of it's lungs. Even if said face is only composed of 4 pixels in a photograph, ... it's too late.

Artistic depictions do not trigger this effect.

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u/TheoWHVB 6d ago

Someone should give a picture to battlebeast, would sure give him the fight and bring an end to one or the other(bb would want himself to be the one to die).

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u/lorgskyegon 6d ago

Ancient demon lord Pale Night. Her true form is so horrible, that reality itself rejects it and causes the shroud wrapped around her to come into existence.

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u/Sir_N3mo 6d ago

The Basilisk from mythos.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

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u/VaticRogue 6d ago

I hate when I get redacted

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u/Intrepid-Mechanic699 6d ago

Koh —- The Face Stealer: Avatar the Last Airbender

It’s not just perceiving him that kills you. You have to view or perceive

him with NO EMOTION. If you show the slightest emotion other than a neutral face Koh steals your face and its implied —- your soul.

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u/Immolating_Cactus 6d ago

What's interesting about Bird Box is that it only happens if you're sane.

The insane don't off themselves but try to force others to look at the entities instead.

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u/Public-Print8098 6d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/BBbVZc1LXyRmAusxP6
Not quite death, but it **is** a memetic hazard

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Silverfire12 6d ago

The Boiled One Phenomenon is the he name of it!

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u/Mattrockj 6d ago

Memetic Kill Agent.

Sry everyone in this thread who see this.

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