Observe and Terminate

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The target hasn't been eliminated yet, which leads me to believe it may very well be indestructible, but the fact remains that good people are dying. A single option is slowly becoming clear. If this creature exists solely because of human belief, then maybe removing that little factor will remove the creature.
—Nightcrawler

The Paranormal Termination Consortium - a secret organization that suppresses and protects against paranormal threats on all levels around the world. Observe and Terminate focuses on the Slender Man division of the organization and its efforts to research and destroy the creature. Notable amongst the Slender Man Mythos for being not so much a horror story as an action film, at least at first. The PTC has been mentioned and featured in numerous other works in the mythos and has grown into one of the better known blogs.

The blog starts here.

Tropes used in Observe and Terminate include:
  • Anti-Hero: Nightcrawler is one of the biggest in the Slenderverse.
  • Ax Crazy: Nightcrawler, more recently anyway.
  • Badass: Nightcrawler. And Basroil 2, who made a point of dispatching an entire squad sent after him.
  • Blood Knight: Nightcrawler.
  • Captain Ersatz: To the SCP Foundation.
    • Lampshaded in this post.
      • "Just kidding, they're not real. If they were real, we'd all be fucked."
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Tons.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: The PTC central command allegedly acts like this.
  • Crossover: Frequent as part of the nature of the blog. The PTC often acts as a source of weapons/funding/protection for other characters.
    • Uses elements left over from the Wyoming Incident ARG in it's plot, making multiple mentions of the incident and Father Paranoia. See the Mind Screw entry.
    • A "new" Wyoming TV Hijacking video assembled from the old ones was created and sent to Dr. Cairo in a crossover for compileTRUTH. The video can be seen here.
    • Scott from the blog Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum [dead link] became the PTC's "Irregular Liaison", meant to collect intelligence on Runners and Fighters, and keep the PTC's intelligence network in the loop regarding the rest of the community. He was with the PTC and getting paid for it for a while too.
    • A character named Tom from the blog Paranormal Log was a "conduit" with the power to teleport and assisted the PTC with experiments in teleportation, discovering a possible scientific explanation for how the Slender Man gets around.
    • A case of Let's You and Him Fight between Nightcrawler and Mr. Spender. It ends with [dead link] them drinking scotch [dead link] on a boat.
    • Since its appearance, Specter seems really eager to get his hands on The Reintegration Tablet, which he has.
  • Decoy Protagonist: When was the last time Nightcrawler posted anything on the blog himself?
  • Face Heel Revolving Door: Look, Nightcrawler, just decide whether or not you're going to hunt down runners and stick with your decision.
  • For Science!: Part of the overall goals of the PTC. Not only do they try and figure out new scientific principals for use in their line of work, but anything with useful real world applications makes a nice extra return on investment for the corporations that secretly back it.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: They have these, and portable too. The "Laser Carbines" actually proved effective against the Slender Man the first time. Maybe a little too sci-fi for the mythos, but Rule of Cool is in effect.
  • Friendly Sniper: B2 is a great sniper. And he'll crack jokes and post about now much he's enjoying Fallout: New Vegas.
  • Genre Shift: It's the action movie of the Slender Man Mythos, something not everyone likes.
  • Heroic Sociopath: Nightcrawler started out as one and went downhill.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Nightcrawler appears to be slowly losing it.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Nightcrawler believes that the Slender Man is a "tulpa", an entity made manifest by people's collective fear. So his plan? Kill every single person that knows about The Slender Man, thus destroying it when no one is left to believe in it. Mind you, that's not only every character in every blog, but if the subscription size of Marble Hornets means anything, that's over 50,000 people.
  • One of Us: Specter has made several links to TV Tropes and even name dropped a few particularly tropes.
  • Only Sane Man: Between the grenade funerals and renegade commandos, Specter stands out as this.
  • Love It or Hate It: Observe and Terminate is generally considered a well-written blog by many for bringing something new to the Mythos, and is absolutely hated by others for the change in writing style that makes it so different from other stories in the Mythos.
  • The Multiverse: Since about Thanksgiving, there's been lots of shenanigans with the multiverse in what's been termed "Dimensional Bleeding".
    • Everything seems to have split into two parallel worlds, one where Basroil Squad went rogue around December of 2010 and one where Basroil Squad was fragmented and killed off. Blogs posts and occasional characters from one world will bleed into the other in some unusual cases, particularly since Parallel!B2 posted in April when Main!Nightcrawler killed Main!B2 back in March.
      • It's suspected that Parallel!Basroil Squad was behind Main!Nightcrawler's escape from "The Box", which might also imply Main!Nightcrawler and Parallel!Nightcrawler being together now.
      • It's actually a bit of Fridge Brilliance that could potentially explain Observe and Terminate's frequent crossing over with other stories in the Mythos. If the PTC has been getting tossed about through time and space, then it's entirely possible they could exist in any given continuity, but only as long as the dimensional bleeding dictates that they need to be there, specifically. This allows Observe and Terminate to maintain its own storyline, cross over with others, and allow other stories to maintain their own plots with minimal trouble, all while maintaining consistency (or the necessary lack thereof) across the entire Mythos.
  • Mind Screw: Once The Multiverse stuff starts flying, it gets pretty heavy on this.
    • The connections to Father Paranoia and the Wyoming Incident come out of left field and their true purpose is still pretty unclear.
  • Perpetual Poverty: Specter and B2 have regularly commented on the blog complaining about how little in the way of resources their division of the PTC has to fight the Slender Man.
    • It Got Worse. The entire PTC is at risk of collapsing financially because of their division. [1]
  • Private Military Contractors: The PTC is this. They're funded by several of the world's largest corporations, on the premise that keeping the world safe from the paranormal is good for business.
  • Psycho for Hire: Nightcrawler
  • Send in the Clones: In trying to capture the rough Main!B2, the task force engaged with multiple copies of him at the same time in different places. How many exactly is unclear, but there is probably more than just Main!B2 and Parallel!B2 running around...
  • Shout-Out: Specter's orders for Nightcrawler to stop killing runners is accompanied by a line about him being a "Teamkilling Fucktard."
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Specter
  • Resignations Not Accepted: Played straight at first when Nightcrawler is locked up for killing B2 before they could get information out of him.
    • Inverted when Nightcrawler breaks out of "The Box" and blackmails the PTC with releasing classified info. Specter decides trying to capture or silence him is just not worth the effort.
  • Rogue Agent: Multiple cases. B2 and then Nightcrawler. And all of Parallel!Basroil Squad.
  • Rule of Cool: Breaks a lot of the unwritten "rules" of the Slender Man Mythos, but it's so great you just don't care.
  • Word of God: McDonald's provides a large portion of the funds for the PTC.
    • The repeated use of names from the X-Men was completely unintentional.
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