Continuing on the topic of how people use the wiki to find missions, I've been thinking for a long time that I'd like to dispense with the current organization of "Missions in This Continuum" in three sub-headings of "Agents Specialized in This Continuum," "Agents Not Yet Specialized in This Continuum," and "Crossovers." For example, see the current Harry Potter page.

I don't care for this because it creates redundancy: missions to crossover fics and missions that are crossovers between spin-offs end up listed twice, and a spin-off crossover mission to a crossover fic is listed three times. It's kinda bonkers.

I'd rather put missions in HQ Standard Timeline order, as I've done with "Missions Featuring This Character" sections—e.g., on the Harry Potter (character) page.

Even before this thread, I figured if people wanted to read missions featuring a particular agent, they could look up that agent to find all their stuff, and as of this thread it doesn't seem like that's a major way people find missions, anyway.

As for missions to crossovers, there's a page of the Killed Badfic list for that. If there's an interest in seeing this organized by continuum in some fashion, we might be able to work out a good way to do that, but I think that's a separate conversation?

What do you think? Please let me know!

~Neshomeh

P.S. "This" is a pronoun, right? It should be capitalized in titles, right? I keep second-guessing it.

That's how I've always done it. Hence finding all your stories through your website.

since I've gone diving through the archives of PPC stories. I generally remember wandering through the wiki when I did, often finding authors via things like missions by continuum or even agents by continuum (my persistent like of stories from non-human perspectives was a thing even then), but I can't describe in too much detail what I did. I did often have the situation of wanting to read all/more of the stories with Agent So-and-So in them because I read one and wanted more of the same.

Sometimes, as someone mentioned below, I'll stumble into a story while looking up some PPC thing, but my pace of PPC writing is sporadic at best so ... yeah.

These days I mostly keep up with what's posted on the Board - the rate of publications is slow enough.

• Tomash, who is down somewhat different rabbit holes than he was a decade ago

I wanted to read more of his missions because he was hilarious with his silly German accent and large brass instruments. I looked at his Wiki page, and I saw that he only had one other mission, which I read and liked. I think it would be great if whoever wrote him would write more stories about him.

I just read and review whatever new stuff gets posted to the Board, really. (Unless it spoils a novel I haven't read yet, in which case I skip.)

When I am reading through an older spin-off, then I do prefer to use the Wiki as my main reference; I see the Wiki as the primary catalogue of our published canon. (That's why, back when I had more free time, I made a project of going through things like Kippur's many LiveJournal accounts to sniff out all the PPC works that were published there, but not linked from the Wiki. It's best to have a master list for each spin-off, and the Wiki is well-equipped to serve as such a hub.)

I also like to read both spin-offs and published literature in in-universe chronological order, as I've mentioned before, because that feels most organic to me. (Again, a big part of my Kippur project was trying to slot everything into chronological order; I hope no other spin-off requires so much work in that regard!) So I absolutely go straight down the list in the Mission Reports sections. (Again, skipping spoiler fandoms.) That's partly why I don't separate Missions, Appearances and Cameos on my own pages; it throws off the chronology . . . though I'll be the first to admit, my character appearances sections be looking kinda disorganized. : )

I think that answers your question; is there anything else I missed?

—doctorlit sometimes reads for pleasure, but mostly he reads because reading is What He Does

Which means posts here, mostly, sometimes the lounge, and I've found one or two on the tropes page. Sometimes I'll read one I came across while tabbing through the wiki.

Like a little toy train pushed by a bored child.

When I want good PPC stories to read, I look for a recent mission and then go through the back catalogue, then go on through connected stories. I follow link rabbit holes a lot. It's nice to have something to read while my brain ticks over. It helps me gestate ideas for how my own spinoff should look and feel, and especially how it should sound. I read agent dialogue aloud a lot to help understand how cadence and word choice works for other writers in the community.

Mostly, though, I just... lurk. And provide commentary that tries to be amusing. =]

IMO, one of the chief purposes of the wiki is to make PPC stories as accessible as possible so people are encouraged and enabled to read them. This is why one of my projects lately has been adding mission links to canon character pages, with the notion that folks might be interested in seeing what horrors have befallen their favorites. It seemed like a good idea at the time. {= )

There IS general guidance on how to structure an agent page. It suggests more or less what you have in mind: a Timeline section for cataloguing all things (important dates, missions, interludes, RP appearances, cameos, journal entries, whatever) in chronological order and a Mission Logs/Mission Reports section for cataloguing, well, those, and anything else you count as part of the agent's main storyline.

I would encourage following the page structure that's already established, so the same type of information is in the same place on each page of that type. Personally, I keep timelines as much for my own reference as anything else, and anyone who isn't interested in the side-stories can simply navigate straight to the missions in the final section of the page.

That said, if we find out this structure isn't that useful... Well, I'm not changing it all by myself. But we can figure something out.

~Neshomeh

It was via OFUR, so then I went on to read all of Laburnum’s stuff and then read all of Ix’s, and then all of Neshomeh’s, then all of yours, and so on and so forth. However, after I went through my quarantine-induced attempt to read everything on the wiki, I just went to Killed Badfic and found one that looked interesting. The rest I read from off the Board.

I don't read the whole agents' collection of missions, typically. Exceptions exist (the TOS, one of Voyd's agents, I think I read a lot of Orangefox's stuff), but I choose the missions that catch my eye.

And it seems to be solely missions (with the occasional interlude), which explains why my interludes suck but my missions less so. I guess I find missions more interesting?

My reading of missions tend to go in a certain order:

1. New, interesting missions

2. Wander Killed Badfic and reading the interesting-sounding ones.

3. Read an Ix mission (preferably with Ix, but Zeb missions are also fun).

4. Read a Nesh mission (preferably with Nume, but I'm also okay with Derick).

5. Reread one of Voyd's missions.

6. Read an hS mission (preferably one I've read before).

And that's mostly it. I can deviate (I read all of Orangefox's missions in one go, as well as one of Voyd's agents' missions.) but not often.

-kA, who is half-asleep (apologies if this barely makes any sense)