I am more sorry than I can tell you for not responding to this sooner - my graduate paper has been sticking its metaphorical foot so far up my ass that I have to clean its metaphorical toejam off my teeth every morning. It should be mostly done, though, with some final reviews, so that should give me more time to take care of certain other things.

Anyway, can I squee? Yes? All righty then, SQUEEEEEEEEE! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I was so worried about this agent pair when I started out, especially because Rayner was brought in specifically to flesh out that awful mission that led Rashida to transfer to Floaters, but I am happy to see that he's coming out quite nicely. Ditto with E.V.L., who is actually an OC in one of my original story projects whom I figured would be worth exploring a little more by bringing her in as well. I do think the two of them will come to an understanding eventually, though of course it'll take a little while - especially since they're working towards a common goal.

I'll concede that the enchantment mini-creepers may have been overdoing it just slightly, but then again this is the PPC's first Minecraft mission, so it's natural to set some rules here. I'll keep the whole enchantment deal in mind if I ever revisit this continuum again, though!

I don't actually watch Game Theory (again, my graduate paper is my schedule's worst enemy), but I do go on the Minecraft Wiki every once in a while - and when I read that Notch described the physical texture of creepers as being plant-like, that was the first thing that came to my head. Coincidence, I swear! XD

Funny thing - PPC!Salvo is actually a bit of a composite character, because I had a creeper OC named Salvo back in my DeviantArt days who was coincidentally a lot like Number One, but I never got around to using him before leaving that site. Number One being the leader of an underground society of sentient talking creepers (and wearing a diamond helmet besides) made me think of dA!Salvo almost immediately, and though it was again almost entirely coincidental, I liked the similarity enough to apply dA!Salvo's character to Number One - not that it would have been a very big step.

I think E.V.L.'s logic in recruiting an arly - sorry, army - of badfic characters rather than killing them is a bit like fighting fire with fire. She knows what they're like and she knows that they can do better, so why not have them turn against the badfics that created them? Or the Sues/Stus of those fics, for that matter, due to these characters being created specifically because of their existence? That's actually my way of thinking as well - if there's enough of a personality for this bit character (or even this Sue) to be developed into a more well-rounded individual, then it would be a worthwhile investment to recruit him or her. I'm probably going to have to stop trying to stock up on recruits after the next solo mission I'm posting, though - I recruited no less than four characters from that badfic, more than in all of my previous solo missions put together.

Once again, thank you for the kind words as well as the constructive criticism - they're both really helpful for moving forward with my writing. And with that, I leave you with my celebratory squee of gratitude. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~!

Technically, missions are written to protect "the canon", and that Minecraft doesn't have much canon. So what to do when we find a badfic in Minecraft?

All we know is this:
There's a world with widely spaced, low-tech villages whose inhabitants never leave. Magic exists, but only witches use it and then only to throw potions. Animals and monsters exist. There are ruined temples and mine shafts, implying that the tech level used to be higher than it is now. Two alternate dimensions exist. Except for horses, nothing has a gender. Physics works differently. The third wall is broken when the player kills the ender dragon, revealing that Minecraft is a multiverse with which Real World humans can interact.

And that's it, not much more to it than that. Everything else can be filled in with fan fiction. How did those ruined mineshafts get there if the villagers can't mine? Why are the jungle temples abandoned? Why do creepers blow up? Were the zombies and skeletons once alive? Who invented magic and built the strongholds? Is the blocky world an artifact of our interface, or is that really the way it looks to its inhabitants? Who are those two cosmic beings in the end poem, and what exactly are they smoking?

That's the beauty of a world where there's little canon--you can build your own. But it doesn't make such stories immune to critique. Fan fiction can be critiqued; original fiction can be critiqued. Fan fiction in a world where the canon is small, is halfway in between, and can be critiqued.

Just like any story, a story set in Minecraft needs to be well-written both in terms of mechanics and storytelling, logically consistent, with interesting characters. From the mission, this particular story wasn't actually horrible--but it was cliched, with characters that had very little personality. It's like something I might have written as a beginner; it's coherently written, but without much complexity. Everything happens in such a linear fashion that the entire plot can be predicted from the opening scenario.

When there's not much canon to defend, you can fall back on the universal rules of good writing. Here, they're rules like, "Characters should be distinguishable by personality," and, "Conflict should not be resolved without complications."

(A personal sticking point: "Heroic sacrifices are not a silver bullet and do not solve everything." It's as though writers think that just being desperate enough to make a sacrifice will automatically and always solve whatever problem a character is facing. In reality, these situations are rare. It's much more interesting to write a character who can make a heroic sacrifice if it's needed--but the interesting part comes from writing about a person with that sort of intense, caring, dedicated, or driven personality. The actual sacrifice need never actually occur. For example: Aragorn never actually got himself killed fighting for Middle-Earth, but you knew he wouldn't hesitate if it were asked of him--especially after he decided that being king is a responsibility he was willing to shoulder. Writing about a character out-of-the-blue dying for something is only melodrama. Instead, try writing about a character who is willing to live for something.)

A badfic written in a world with little canon is still not immune to critique. If a story is badly written, it's badly written, and your agents might as well go in and fix it.

Now, keep this in mind: I do not dislike this mission. It's rather good, for what it is. That said, I also have to wonder, why does this exist? Minecraft is a (purposefully) very open continuum. It is the most open sandbox game possible. There is no canon. So, why does it matter to protect it? Mini-creepers are cute, but not enough of a reason for the Flowers to waste resources fighting Sues in a world it does not affect.

Now, if you were to make the argument that allowing Sues to infest this world will allow them to spread en-mass to other worlds, I may be more inclined to accept that.

All of that aside, I do like the mission. Despite thinking it should not exist, I was very entertained. I will come back at a later time to give a more thorough review.