History Main / FollowTheChaos

* ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'', on how to find Niobe when a car chase is imminent: "Just follow the sirens."

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', Alexis lets Ashley's rat escape. After she apologizes to him for losing his beloved pet and he forgives her, Martha's shriek is heard offscreen. Alexis and Ashley look alarmed, but Castle merely says, "Found him!"

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' fanfic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3833211/1/Prodigal Prodigal]]: After dealing with a bunch of drama with Jayne's semi-estranged family on top of the fallout from the events of [[Film/{{Serenity}} The Big Damn Movie]] (or at least this story's version of them) both Jayne and River are nowhere to be found and Simon is becoming increasingly worried. Kaylee reassures him that if anything had happened to River then the local news would be full of reports of "gunfire an' explosions an' car chases" because there's no way in hell Jayne would let his new girlfriend get kidnapped without raising several kinds of hell. Instead, she's able to pinpoint ''exactly'' what Jayne (and probably River) were up to last night because there was a truly ''massive'' BarBrawl, and Jayne's got an extensive history of starting those whenever he's in a bad mood and needs to blow off some steam. It's a testimony to the amount of character development (or possibly [[SeenItAll desensitisation]]) he's gone through up to this point that Simon accepts this without much comment.

* Variant: In ''Anime/LostUniverse'', the characters know that dinner is done when they hear an explosion coming from the kitchen.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'', following his battle with Dellyn Goblinslayer, Thaco finds the rest of the party thanks to all the random magical carnage unleashed by Complains' Shield of Wonder.

[[folder:Films -— Live-Action]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* A few characters have offhandedly mentioned that this happens to Shephard from time to time. A memorable quote by Joker in the ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' Citadel DLC...

* A (not so joking) suggestion in ''VideoGame/DeepRockGalactic'': are you playing Scout and got separated from the team kiting a Praetorian? No worries! Just follow the trail of bullet holes, blast craters, pickaxe-gouged walls, and spent flares. You will eventually find your team of walking OSHA violations.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Used in ''Machinima/FreemansMind'' with Gordon singing a song to himself.

* Taken UpToEleven in the ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novel ''Literature/ColdDays'', where Murphy immediately realizes Harry has ''[[spoiler:come back to life]]'' and quickly locates him just from hearing about some of the shenanigans he inevitably causes within a few hours of his arrival.

** [[UpToeleven Played straight, lampshaded and invoked]] with Largo. Dom and Ed try to find where he's living by showing around his picture, sure that someone will recoil in horror at the sight. Lately [[spoiler:Erika]] is trying to make him tone down [[LeetSpeak t3h]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction d3struct10n]] a bit however.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'', this is just the natural result of Coop being a DestructiveSavior turned UpToEleven.

* In Marvel Comics' short-lived series ''The Further Adventures of Franchise/IndianaJones'', Marion finds Indy in the middle of a foreign city. When he asks how she found him, she responds "Simple. I just followed the trail of cops and unconscious bodies."

* In the ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'' story "The Crocodile Collector", Donald gets separated from his nephews in Cairo and gets into a fight with a crocodile at a petting zoo. The nephews go out to look, saying, "Where did Unca Donald--* Never mind-- I hear the '''commotion!'''"

** Towards the end of ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'', Sam Vimes is in hot pursuit of Wolfgang, a mad werewolf who is the last remaining against. Vimes keeps on the trail by locating people Wolfgang has attacked during his escape and simply asking the witnesses "which way?"

* ''Film/FheMatrixReloaded'', on how to find Niobe when a car chase is imminent: "Just follow the sirens."

* In ''[[Manga/AnatoliaStory Red River]]'', there comes a time when Yuri runs off to solve a problem herself, leaving Kail behind her and in a political situation that forces him to stay in Hattusa. When he gets leave to follow her, he asks the mayor of the town if there he asks "Where are you in this town having trouble right now?" When citizens burst in on the meeting shouting about how townspeople are breaking into the jail, Kail knows exactly where Yuri is.

* A few characters have offhandedly mentioned that this happens to Shephard from time to time. A memorable quote by Joker in the ''Videogame/MassEffect3'' Citadel DLC...

* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius''

** In ''Shadowlands'', you regularly infiltrate the tower of Torghast in order to locate powerful items as well as powerful allies. In one instance, you're traveling through the tower to rescue Jaina Proudmoore, a master of ice magic who has been struggling against her captors almost non-stop. As you near her location, you start seeing walls of ice scattered around the scenery, demonstrating how much she's been fighting.

** In ''Shadowlands'', you regularly infiltrate the tower of Torghast in order to locate powerful items as well as powerful allies. In one instance, you're traveling through the tower to rescue Jaina Proudmoore, a master of ice magic. As you near her location, you start seeing walls of ice scattered around the scenery.

* A quest chain in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s Western Plaguelands has you helping to train a new druid. When you speak to the quest giver for the second quest in the chain, she mentions that the student's spells were so out of control she not only could see them from where she was, but she was using them as a marker to track your progress.
** To illustrate: said student was so incompetent that in moonkin form, he was spamming Moonfire on ''[[EpicFail himself]]''.

* Tavi, the protagonist of ''Literature/CodexAlera'', has such a tendency for plans that are CrazyEnoughToWork that the question asked in the page quote is enough for two people to simultaneously work out where he's gone less than a second after the question is asked.

* In the climax of ''[[Film/TheMummy1999]]'', Rick O'Connell shoots a flesh-eating scarab. The gunshot alerts the titular mummy, but also Evelyn, who (correctly) surmises that her allies have survived the earlier plane crash and says "O'Connell" with a smile.