#Protocols Unknown

[tidesofsilence]

Countdown Update: 8 Weeks (56 days) Until Take Off!

My passport is in it's holder, my hotel’s locked, and the plane countdown? On like Donkey Kong.

Fic Status Update: Protocols Unknown

Chapter 29: ✅ Posted

Chapter 30: ✅ Posted

Chapters 31 - 33: In progress

Current Goal: Post Chapter 34 before takeoff.

A Moon for the Misbegotten… Opens TOMORROW. 

AKA: Ruth Wilson at the Almeida!

Next Step:

Clean the house like I leave next week

Prep for clients (edit* I have 120 posts to prep for 10 clients... IT'S FINE!)

Write like I’m on deadline (because I am)

Coffee. All the coffee. And snacks! 

[happybunnykat]

Jon is DESPERATELY trying get these people to read his emails.

[mantictiger]

I'm fascinated by Gwendolyn Bouchard for a multitude of reasons (love me a girlfailure) but what I'm the most curious about is why she's so hellbent on having Lena's position at the OIAR. It's been established that the Bouchards are a very well-off family (I can't remember if thats tmagp-specific lore or if that was mentioned in tma as well) so it's not like Gwen needs the job, especially a job that doesn't seem very glamorous. She seems incredibly dedicated to it though (her being so insistent with specific filing of cases in episode 1 I believe? is what piqued my interest) and is so insistent on climbing a corporate ladder that only seems to lead to Lena's position for no real reason. I get the OIAR is a part of the UK government and that could look good if she's trying to get higher-up positions, but the OIAR is certainly far from a respected or well-known organization (as far as I am aware) so I'm not really sure what her goal is here, and I really hope we find out

[bam-monsterhospital]

what do you mean, dead by daylight, the game about an otherworldly spider-themed manipulative "ENTITY" setting up a dimension where people are constantly stalked by killers, one of which is an unknowable uncanny-valley not-human abomination that actively defies all categorization of itself, all in the service of playing with fearrrrrrr, you're telling me this game has A FUCKING ARCHIVIST 'observer' who is responsible for collecting all the gaddamn information in the entire game, keeps it/is trapped in a gaddamn archive, and due to mysterious circumstances has just gone missing.

AND TVTROPES IS SAYING NOTHING ABOUT ANY OF THIS?!?

[mysteriouspersonrambles]

Just listened to the new Magnus Protocol episode um… what the fuck

What the fuck just happened.

I mean the Magnus Institute, Grand Rituals, Dirt Clones??? And then Alice straight up talking to the computer and asking who’s in there???

AND then the end WTF was that?! Gwen going into statement mode I think the creature from the Magnus Institute showed up like ????

[radioactive-yuri]

at every single gwen/lena interaction thus far all i'm thinking is "one of you has daddy issues and the other has mommy issues and every second it's getting clearer and clearer who's who"

[lamuella]

[aspenlovesmedia]

I was going to start The Magnus Protocol today, and technically I did but I lost focus and missed a bunch of stuff so I’m just going to restart the episode, so I’ll probably start that tomorrow.

I can finally get into the fandom properly too and I have been looking at so much pretty fanart and I am very happy rn.

Anyway, for the people who have started following me because of my TMA episode reactions, thank you! Like, I can’t believe people actually enjoyed my thoughts on these episodes! If you’re interested, I’m a writer and one of the stories I’m working on is something called The Unknown, which is basically a combination of TMA and SCP. Here’s the link for my breif explanation of it, and if you look at the tag The Unknown here on this account/on this post then you’ll be able to see the posts I made going over some basic lore and the main cast of the story. The Unknown is no where near done planning wise, but I really love to talk about it lol. My ask box is also open if anyone has any questions or if you want me to make a post explaining a certain lore thing or something. I just want an excuse to talk about it lol.

[badswimmingmermaid]

Colin was in Glasgow on his mental health leave.

Who do you think the unknown was?

[wisequotesblog]

Being happy

Never goes

Out of style.

[tidesofsilence]

Hey friends!

Just a quick heads-up that Chapter 30 of Protocols Unknown: A Decision of the Stars might be a couple days late. I am still aiming for this Sunday but... we shall see!

Personal life, work life, and extracurricular madness have all merged into one very full desk with two PCs, 3 monitors, and no breathing room (thank goodness for L-shaped desks).

I’m still writing, just a little slower than usual while I juggle everything. Thanks so much for your patience and for sticking with the story. It means the world 💛

Happy Reading!

(Please send help... I need friends)

*Edit*

It's raining and thundering!

Time to write!

[indie-queer-movie-tournament]

OK I think if any polls don't get any votes then I'll make a post to see which of the movies people have seen and I'll rearrange the bracket to try and accommodate things so at least one person can vote. If no one responds having seen one of them then it'll just be eliminated.

[accidental-apocalypse]

OP you're not invited to my Magnus-themed birthday party >:[

I loved the ambiguous ending of the Magnus Archives, but I think if they were going to take that ambiguity, this was the BEST way to do it.

We aren’t simply getting Jon and Martin back — no.

This is a situation where we don’t just get them back, alive and well, rather we are forced to watch — because we can only ever watch — as characters we’ve come to understand so deeply, are stripped away of any semblance are form, in a state between death and life, and an agonising state at that. The buildup in this case to the pure existential dread of these semi-aware people, assuming the case was about the JMJ trio, has genuinely made it one of my favourite cases.

They’re still ambiguous, just not in the same way, and it’s so chilling.

And Jon has certainly not lost the tragedy of dying a mystery, because that’s what he is now: a mystery to be investigated by our new cast. If anything it’s worse that he’s being investigated now, because that’s the exact thing he wanted to avoid in episode 39 of TMA.

[ms-demeanor]

I've been reading so much about rabies and cats and there are so few cat owners who keep their cats up to date on rabies vaccinations and buds please keep your kitty's jabs up-to-date and please please please keep your cats inside and please treat any cat with an unknown vaccination history as a wild animal and don't try to touch it or pet it or catch it.

The most recent survivor of the Milwaukee protocol is an 8 year old girl who contacted rabies through scratches from feral cats that lived in a colony at her school.

Don't touch strange cats even if they're friendly, and teach your kids not to touch strange cats either. (For that matter teach your kids not to touch strange dogs either, but decades of stray eradication and mandatory vaccines means that the US is one of the few places in the world where cats are more likely to be rabid than dogs)

Also did you know that there's one case of transplant-acquired rabies recorded in the US? The recipient got a kidney from a donor who died in an accident and nobody was aware the donor had rabies. The recipient died of rabies, which is a bit of an extreme flavor of graft failure if you ask me. Terrifying!

Anyway. If you, too, want to have nightmares about rabies you can search my website (www.ms-demeanor.com) for "keep your fucking cat indoors" and scroll to the section on rabies and read some nightmare fuel (like the case report on the family that moved across 3 states with their 13 barn cats, unaware that one was incubating rabies).

Did you know that in 1994, 665 people in New Hampshire had to be given post exposure prophylaxis for rabies because of one infected kitten that had contact with a racoon before being brought to a pet store?

The only way animals are tested for rabies is to examine their brain tissue. The animal is killed in order to do this. If your pet is exposed to rabies they stand a much, much, much better chance of being quarantined instead of being euthanized for testing if you have kept their vaccinations current.

Please keep your pets' vaccinations up to date, and please keep your cat indoors. There's a risk of exposure even for indoor cats, so make sure they've got their shots.

[fairsweetlonging]

svsss horror game au where shen yuan is first in line to buy the pidw-inspired rpg where you play as a wandering cultivator with amnesia, and are taken in by the cang qiong sect during the head disciple days of the last peak lord generation.

because pidw knows its audience, a large part of the marketing was focused on the romance and action aspect of the game, with additional lore from deleted novel scenes—how could shen yuan not buy this game? maybe the peak lords will finally be more than props in the background! the romance aspect seems to be at least somewhat tastefully done, if he can trust the leaks, with more emotional depth than fetish fulfillment (shen yuan swears that if there is even one unskippable cutscene of some peak lord's feet he's going to chuck his computer out the window).

shen yuan customizes his character, going all out on the clichés because why not, giving him white hair and peerless beauty and all the characteristics of an A+ wife (beauty is power in pidw), actually excited to play the game. the first part is standard, you wake up in a barn with amnesia, only a sword and some items to your name, and have to do some tutorial quests to get used to the game mechanics. it's simple enough. eventually, you end up in a village that shen yuan is certain is possessed, because all the NPC's act very unnatural and strange, and it's pretty unsettling. here, the player is supposed to meet the cang qiong head disciples on their own quest, who naturally think the player is the most interesting person they've ever seen, a super special cultivator, and will take him in because the player is the most coveted character in the universe (apart from luo binghe, that is).

of course, before shen yuan can get very far, he ends up being transmigrated into the game as his own character. it could be way worse: he's a cultivator, peerlessly beautiful, destined to be picked up by the most prestigious sect, and has his own protagonist halo of sorts. he's honestly pretty excited about this

until he finds out that the marketing heavily downplayed the horror elements of the game.

shen yuan is calmly eating a meal in an inn of the village, waiting for the next quest point to start, when suddenly,

[ system notification ]

"you are being observed"

observation level: ???

entity classification: unknown

engagement protocol: do not acknowledge

right after, the windows go dark, not closed or shuttered, dark, as if something large has just leaned against the side of the building. no one else acknowledges this.

shen yuan shakes it off. it's just a game, it's... ambiance, that's all. build up.

he walks through the streets of the town, using his low-level talismans to try and find traces of the entity he's supposed to defeat or uncover to complete the quest. he pauses beside a broken cart, one of its wheels is half-sunk in the mud. the system pings again.

[ system notification ]

"it's behind you."

note: do not turn around.

(option to suppress message: [ ] not recommended)

the street is utterly silent. a prickle begins at the base of his skull. something is there. some deep animalistic part of him is already screaming not to look.

it disappears. he earns 5 survival points. he hopes he won't have to earn any more.

later that night, shen yuan looks for shelter, finding an old shrine visible from the road, just at the side of town. he steps inside and sees old incense sticks, some forgotten offerings. it's simple, but dry. it will do.

he crosses the threshold—

[ mission triggered ]

mission objective: hide

time limit: unknown

condition to complete: remain unnoticed

footsteps crunch in the leaves outside. every nerve in him goes rigid—not human.

too heavy. uneven. it's coming.

shen yuan ducks behind the offering table, body pressed flat against the ground. he slows his breathing, barely daring to blink. a screen in his peripheral vision blinks to life.

[ environmental mechanic activated ]

microphone mode: ON

sound detection level: HIGH

a semi-transparent sound meter appears. with every shaky breath, the bar pulses red. shen yuan clamps his hands over his mouth.

something passes, just beyond the shrine's opening. large. the system does not count down. there is no timer. the floor boards moan faintly beneath a ponderous weight, something drags across the ground.

shen yuan forces his body still, trembling so hard it hurts his teeth.

it leaves. the system congratulates him for surviving. it doesn't tell him what he just survived.

it's a relief when the head disciples of cang qiong show up, and the story delves into romantic cliches and relationship prompts. he gets to see liu qingge shirtless. shen qingqiu is typical tsundere. yue qingyuan is the soft gentle type. shang qinghua acts... off. he isn't what shen yuan thought he would be, less cunningly charming, more, well. nervous. of all the head disciples, he's the only one who actually seems like he doesn't want shen yuan to be here, always looking around.

like he knows shen yuan didn't come alone.

more instances like this occur. one moment, he's farming reputation points and relationship points with the other characters, doing quests and gathering memory fragments that will help unlock the player's backstory, the next, the system seems determined to make the game hell.

it always comes out of nowhere

[ system update ]

"warning: your heartbeat has been logged by another entity."

would you like to mute heartbeat tracking?

[ ] yes

[ ] no

[ ] it's too late.

he can never figure out what's following him, what that creature from the village is, but it's always there. no one else seems to notice, not a single talisman or ward can stop or detect it.

it comes even when he's in bed, still faintly blushing from a wife-plot equivalent where he fell from a ladder and was caught in wei qingwei's arms. he got to pet the pangolins too!

he's just about to fall asleep when the system pings:

[ mission objective: survive until dawn ]

hint: do not scream

somewhere beneath the floorboards under his bed, something begins scraping. like claws trying to memorize the layout of the house from below. shen yuan doesn't dare move. sleep never comes that night.

*

he can farm intelligence points by attending classes, and being the monster and plant nerd he is, qian cao peak is his first choice (it's either that, being beat up by bai zhan disciples that aren't even liu qingge, or running into shen qingqiu).

in the middle of a lesson on demonic poisons, the system pings quietly

[ system message ]

"one of the bodies in the infirmary is not a body"

objective: don't lose sight of it

shen yuan turns his head, slowly, to the curtained recovery beds along the wall. the curtain on the last one is slightly open.

it wasn't before.

mu qingfang continues speaking. shen yuan doesn't dare to look away.

*

one day, the thing starts to catch up

[ mission failure ]

"the sound you made has been registered"

estimated proximity: 00:00:17

do you want to run?

[ ] yes (not recommended)

[ ] no (not recommended)

*

[ emergency notice ]

"you were seen"

objective: hide

time limit: expired

success rate: 2%.

do you want to proceed?

[ ] yes

[ ] yes

*

[ achievement unlocked: it found you anyway ]

*

anyway, can you tell i had fun with the horror prompts? ^_^

i just have sooooo many ideas for the player's backstory, where it seems the character is just a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto, but there is so much more to them than you think. im also having loads of fun with the creature that follows the player around, i love making it as disturbing as possible.

mild spoiler: the creature is real and connected to the player. other characters can't detect or interact with it, but it's slowly growing stronger. shang qinghua is, of course, airplane, and as he was directly involved with the production of this game, he knew that as soon as an OC showed up, that thing wouldn't be far behind.

also, i love the idea of shang qinghua being stuck in a dating simulator as one of the options to romance. now shang qinghua has to play along with his own cringy cliche meetcutes, like showing the player around, flirting with the player, and generally playing the role of suave administrator with a dark secret (he's terrible at it). he had to do the "there's an eyelash on your cheek allow me" move on the player (shen yuan), and almost cringed out of his own skin. though, shang qinghua is the only one who can properly emphasize with the player, because he actually knows what horrid creature is stuck to him and what kind of horror scenarios the player has to go through (accidental cumplane? it's more likely than you think).

it's a bit of a mindfuck too, because shang qinghua can't tell whether the player is also a transmigrator, a puppet controlled by someone from another dimension, or a fleshed out OC of the system. he's also not allowed to ask, so it remains ambiguous. until, of course, they find out they're transmigrators and shen yuan has to deal with the fact he almost romanced airplane.

shen yuan makes a joke about defeating the creature with the power of love. shang qinghua says he wished it was that easy.

[callsignpxnguin]

Price, Soap, and the Missus

Inspired by @goatgoesmbe ‘s idea…

Johnny MacTavish was a straightforward man.

He enjoyed looking at pretty things, plain and simple.

So, naturally, when a sweet, confused little thing in a sundress with a bow in her hair, for God’s sake, approached the base entrance whilst he was on lookout duty — well, you couldn’t blame him for wanting to have some fun. Turn up the charm, if you will.

Maybe he asked you a few more questions than necessary just to hear your soft voice and feed his ego, and maybe he demanded to ‘pat you down’ — just because it was all protocol, of course. He was such a good soldier, and he took that job seriously. As such, he had to ensure that he had patted down every part of you; every bit of your smooth, warm skin got bruised by his rough hands as he prodded and gripped you unapologetically.

And once he was done (which wasn’t for a while), leaving you stammering and flushing but too shy to say anything, he went straight back to charming the pants off of you. Or, at least, that’s what he thought he was going back to.

“So, what business has someone like you got here, hmm?” Johnny purred, accent rolling off of his tongue smoothly, head cocking to the side and he stared down at you with a devious smirk.

“Just… dropping off my husband’s lunch,” you replied quietly, refusing to meet his gaze. Your ears remained bright pink.

Johnny immediately froze.

He hadn’t expected that.

You were married? Dear God. Just his luck. All he could hope was that your husband was in a unit far away from him so that any comments you made about his ‘inspection’ would hopefully go unpunished.

He’d messed up, bad.

“Husband, eh?” He hedged, trying desperately to mask the waver in his voice. “And who would that lucky lad be?”

You hesitated, finally meeting his eye sheepishly, a little more confident as you took in his obvious falter. “Am I allowed to tell you his name?”

Johnny almost melted, staring at your big, blinking eyes — his previous concerns momentarily almost completely wiped out. You were so sweet. So innocent.

Someone was one lucky bastard.

“Well, considering this is our base, you should be fine,” he joked.

“O-okay. I was just checking, because he gets nervous about that kind of stuff, considering… everything.” You inhaled. “He’s… John Price. Do you know him? Or where he might be right now? The lunch is getting cold…”

Steaming bloody Jesus. Johnny felt he was about to pass out. He felt numb. “The… the captain?” He croaked. “He’s your husband?”

“Is that a problem?” You asked nervously.

“I don’t know…” a sudden, familiar voice rumbled. “Is that a problem, MacTavish?”

You turned delightedly to find your husband right there, glaring at the man in front of you but looking deliciously handsome as always, and leapt to give him a hug.

Dear God.

Johnny just about turned on his heel and fled.

He never told the rest of the squad how he got a broken nose that night. Partially out of embarrassment, but also because he felt he deserved it.

And from then on, he never dared to even utter a word to any unknown women coming into base.