The question then becomes...

So a bunch of us on the discord have been discussing an idea for a new department for a while... by QuantumMelody29 on 2020-06-10 20:43:51 UTC Reply

I know I don't have permission right now, but quite a few of the other people who were discussing this are.

So basically after looking at the ???th gacha life badfic we thought hey imagine if there was a division/department to spork these things. Shortly after that, the idea for the DUM was born. Here's some basic stuff we mostly agreed on.

It would be called the Department of Unusual Media, or the DUM for short. It would be for missioning badfic like comics, gacha life stories and the like. We were thinking there would probably be a GLMM division because of the large amount of gacha life badfic. We also just about came to the consensus that the flower that would head the department would probably be the snapdragon.

Here's a google doc with screenshots of most of the conversations we had related to this idea (sorry some of them have some out of context sporking mixed in with them).

I also have questions. by Huinesoron on 2020-06-11 07:06:23 UTC Reply

My read is that you're talking about missions exclusively into Unusual Media, not into badfics /about/ unusual media (in the latter case, Nesh is right that it would just fall under the VG division etc). In which case I think it's a decent idea!

1/ Is anyone actually planning to write for this? I've recently run into a few old posts about not creating stuff unless you're going to use it, which absolutely applies here. If so, how do you plan to write it? Just text format, or something more involved?

2/ Is this going to absorb the Bad Roleplay Department, and it's Division of Bad Quizzes? We never got to see how the BRD operated, but Bad Quizzes is definitely in the DUM's remit. (And frankly, if BRD is supposed to take on badfic /inspired/ by roleplay, they were always redundant anyway.)

3/ Similarly, is it going to pick up the leftovers of the Wrecked Music Department? They would absolutely fall under this. The justification for shutting the WMD down could be used in explaining the establishment of this new department, too.

If it did absorb both of those departments, you'd have three Flowers already in place as prospective Division Heads (the Daffodil, Bonsai Monkey Puzzle, and Inverted Cactus). I don't think any of the agents are free to use, but I might be okay lending out Althea and Tracer for cameos if they decided to go back.

hS

It is an interesting concept, but how it would fit into the established canon is another matter. by Jean Yeap on 2020-06-11 07:33:06 UTC Reply

I would be interested in sporking comics in text format (like the mission for How I Became Yours). And if I have time and hate a video enough, I might even copy GLMMs frame by frame. But fitting it in established PPC canon is going to be a little tricky.

Now that I've looked up Gacha Life... by Neshomeh on 2020-06-11 01:41:53 UTC Reply
Which, as the title of a game, needs to be both capitalized and set off with italics, btw...

I have the following questions:
1. Why wouldn't these fics be covered by the Video Games Division of the DMS and/or DBS?
  - What about knowledgeable freelancers in the DMS/DBS?
  - What about knowledgeable agents in the Department of Floaters?
  - What about a Gacha Life division of the All-Purpose Department?
2. How would this new department be unique from the DMS, DBS, DF, and APD? Why is a difference in operations necessary? What stops it from being "new" in name only while doing the same things everyone has always done?
3. Is anyone intending to write missions tackling these fics at this time? If so, what are their answers to these questions?
4. If we're actually talking about missions to bad fanvideos/fancomics, how do you plan to overcome the difficulty of writing a mission to a visual rather than text-based medium? Note that this has been done successfully only once in the entire history of the PPC (Ix's mission to the infamous fancomic "How I Became Yours"), because it is more difficult than writing a mission to a fanfic. There has never been a successful PPC mission in comic form, and no one has even attempted an animated mission that I'm aware of.
~Neshomeh

If I understand correctly (someone correct me if I'm wrong!) by doctorlit on 2020-06-12 11:56:18 UTC Reply

Gacha Life may be a specific game, but it seems that people make comics based on the game's style, including fan fiction in other canons. I'm pretty sure I saw someone in the Discord posting pictures of a Gacha-style Harry Potter story the other day, though I'll admit I was trying to avoid looking at the pictures themselves because the art style is so terrible.

So I think that sort of fan comic is what's being discussed here, rather than missions into the actual Gacha Life canon itself.

—doctorlit wonders, entirely off-topic, if Neshomeh got the email he sent a few days ago?

(Just replied. Sorry!) (nm) by Neshomeh on 2020-06-13 14:01:24 UTC Reply
You are a bit wrong. by Silv on 2020-06-12 13:19:44 UTC Edited Reply

Those were screenshots of videos made using some sort of feature in the game. You can pose characters you make however you like on different backgrounds and add speech bubbles.

But the salient point is the same by Thoth on 2020-06-12 16:48:35 UTC Reply

Namely that Gatcha Life, like comics, is an example of a strange and unusual medium for fanfic.

The question then becomes... by Neshomeh on 2020-06-13 14:05:21 UTC Edited Reply

If the Department of Unusual Media exists to undertake missions to fanworks created in unusual media, is there anyone who actually intends to create missions only to those fanworks, no regular written-word fanfic? (Edit: Or, well, have at least one team of agents who only do this. That person could still have other agents in other departments.)

If so, good luck and godspeed, but allow me my skepticism in the meantime. {= )

~Neshomeh

There's been one. by Huinesoron on 2020-06-11 06:52:50 UTC Reply

Generic Surface: Breathing Space was a full mission, over 30 strips long, into a 'Star Wars' badfic. Granted the badfic was made up for the purpose, but there's been several spinoff that do that.

I mean, you can still call it not successful if you like, but at least it exists. ^_^

hS

Interesting. by GeniusGamer on 2020-06-10 21:17:23 UTC Edited Reply

Well, I like the idea of the DUM and the Dumdums. I vote for this new department!
Turns out communication is good - I was actually going to post about this plus a new division... by Silv on 2020-06-10 20:56:41 UTC Edited Reply
So, awkwardness aside, here's what I was working on.

Somewhat(?) recently, there's been some talk of new Divisions and Departments in the Lounge, so with Quantum's help myriad conversations were gathered into something less chaotic for the general consideration of the Board! But that makes it sound like there's a lot of ideas, when really there's only a couple.
- Division of ABO: While ABO as a genre is possibly most well known for the MPreg elements, not all ABO ends in MPreg, or is even slash. ABO is also much more intense then what DBS agents usually get - even including NC-17 specialized agents. It's like the ESAS of slash, if you will. There was only one suggested flashpatch for this - a wolf howling at a moon.
- Department of Visual Media / Department of Unusual Mediums: There's other kinds of badfic out there, and this was the general idea on how to address that. The DVM/DUM could have divisions for each new medium; comics, videos, etc. It needn't be overly large, as far as Departments go, since the agents could simply be well-versed in their mediums while other agents are sent in for canon knowledge. There were a few ideas for flashpatches, such as cassette tapes and a brand of lollis called Dumdums. And since this is a new Department, department heads were suggested as well: azaleas, garlic and snapdragons.
Under the DVM/DUM could be the Division of Gacha Life Mini Movies: This is the medium that got us talking about this in the first place and - well, I'm not a member of the community, but there's generally a lot of glitter involved, whether it be kidnapping canons and turning them into animal hybrids before tossing them into intimate situations, or general OOC highschool shenanigans. And OC 'Sues. Lots of those.

(preemptively, edited for formatting)

On the ABO division by Huinesoron on 2020-06-11 07:33:38 UTC Reply

Creating a division for this specific sub-genre assumes there is someone who wants to write agents who deal exclusively with ABO badfics.

Is there?

(I say this as one of the people worst about doing this: DOGA has been all over the place. But I'm trying! And I put Kaitlyn and Selene in Floaters specifically to avoid 'why are you in that department/division anyway?')

hS

At the very least, I do. (nm) by Silv on 2020-06-11 15:27:27 UTC Reply

Cool. by Huinesoron on 2020-06-11 15:37:38 UTC Reply

That's what I wanted to hear. :)

hS

New Department by classicfilmfan on 2020-06-10 23:56:39 UTC Reply

ROM Hacks would also be categorized under the Department of Visual Media.