Subject: Good thing we try, as a group, not to do that, then!
Author:
Posted on: 2010-05-23 14:46:00 UTC
Because I know that if someone asked a question, however dramatically or angsty, no PPCer would sneer and scoff at their worries about not belonging, and certainly not sarcastically on a public forum!
Because that would just be rude, and not at all in our usual welcoming spirit. Right?
I only have one more question now. It's about time I asked this one, because it's been bugging me ever since I first joined this. Before anyone asks, I'm not trying to offend anyone with this, I'm just stating how I understand things.
Why are there all these rather dark, sinister things and implications concealed behind a mask of silly and funny if I'm not allowed to explore them? Are you all willingly ignoring it, or am I the one at fault here, letting it drag me down and cloud how I see the PPC?
Take, for instance, the missions themselves. Every single day, perhaps less, agents are forced to commit horrible acts, mercilessly killing just to stay alive. The exorcists fare better on the morality scale due to not killing nearly as much, but there's still the fact that both are only treating the symptoms and not the problem itself (I'll let you interpret that line yourselves).
And that's not even getting on an individual level. Think, just for a moment, how utterly terrifying it would be to actually be an agent. First of all, you yourself would probably have little combat experience, be not exactly the most fit physically, and would rather be off doing something else. Training is basically being handed a weapon, and being told to try not to die. Your partner or partners, if they aren't as scared as you are, will probably be highly erratic, completely incapable of cheering you up due to lack of sympathy, and insane to boot.
So, let's say you get that far without breaking down into a gibbering wreck of what was once a perfectly normal person, and you're about to go on your first mission with (Insert partner's name here). If you're potentially lucky enough to get someone who has former experience in the work, you'll probably get instructed on how to use the technology, but if not, too bad for you, it'll be a goddarned miracle for you to even get halfway through the mission, yet alone complete it. Don't even think about free time afterwords, either, because the Ironic Over-Power is sure to smite you!
Now. Let's say you've completed several missions, have got the hang of it and made friends with your partner. If you've made it this far, congratulations! You're now completely out of your mind, if not dead already! If you somehow manage to reach retirement, nobody's going to accept you back home, or anywhere for that matter, they'll think you're absolutely nuts. At this point, you might as well be the PPC's property, a tool for them to use and nothing more. For all they care, you're just going to keep doing your job in the name of a faceless goal that doesn't even seem to go anywhere. For all you know, it's just to amuse the higher-ups in some kind of sadistic show for them.
Oh, and before you say that I'm taking things too seriously, I haven't laughed once at anything PPC related. If it's so funny, where's the jokes? where's the hilarity and silliness that is so integral to the PPC's spirit? Am I blind to it? Do I sympathize with fictional characters far too much to see it?
Because all I see is this descent into madness and subsequent death/locking up, and there's nothing funny about that... I feel like I'm missing out on something...
This is a point by-point-reply, albiet looking something like an MST! There is a difference!
Take, for instance, the missions themselves. Every single day, perhaps less,
EBW: I thought HQ was timeless….
agents are forced to commit horrible acts, mercilessly killing just to stay alive.
EBW: I thought we were doing it because the ‘Sue’s are warping the canon, not because they’re trying to kill us…
The exorcists fare better on the morality scale due to not killing nearly as much,
EBW: And the crossover people. And the agents in whatever department the UC runs. And just about everyone who isn’t DMS or Floaters…
but there's still the fact that both are only treating the symptoms and not the problem itself (I'll let you interpret that line yourselves).
EBW: Please don’t. It’s actually needlessly vague. And if the ‘Sue’s are a disease in this analogy, why is it morally wrong to go in and slice them to bits?
And that's not even getting on an individual level. Think, just for a moment, how utterly terrifying it would be to actually be an agent.
EBW: Alright, you’ve got a point here…
First of all, you yourself would probably have little combat experience, be not exactly the most fit physically, and would rather be off doing something else.
EBW: The first one isn’t always true, but you’ve got a point here too...
Training is basically being handed a weapon, and being told to try not to die.
EBW: It seems to be working, though.
Your partner or partners, if they aren't as scared as you are, will probably be highly erratic, completely incapable of cheering you up due to lack of sympathy,
EBW: Where has that been in any way part of policy?
and insane to boot.
EBW: Alright, I’ll give you that one…
So, let's say you get that far without breaking down into a gibbering wreck of what was once a perfectly normal person, and you're about to go on your first mission with (Insert partner's name here).
EBW: Not an MST, not an MST, don’t comment on the grammar, don’t comment on the grammar…
If you're potentially lucky enough to get someone who has former experience in the work, you'll probably get instructed on how to use the technology, but if not, too bad for you, it'll be a goddarned miracle for you to even get halfway through the mission, yet alone complete it.
EBW: Don’t forget that we (the authors) are probably going to throw them a curveball just to give the mission dynamic.
Don't even think about free time afterwords, either, because the Ironic Over-Power is sure to smite you!
EBW: SMITÈD! Oh, and you misspelled ‘afterwards’.
Now. Let's say you've completed several missions, have got the hang of it and made friends with your partner. If you've made it this far, congratulations! You're now completely out of your mind, if not dead already!
EBW: We actually don’t die as much as you’d think.
If you somehow manage to reach retirement,
EBW: Since when has that been an option? Remember, we’re all basically wage slaves here.
nobody's going to accept you back home, or anywhere for that matter, they'll think you're absolutely nuts.
EBW: Provided your home is Earth, you aren’t an ex-Sue, and you haven’t heard of that PPC city thingy in…France, is it?
At this point, you might as well be the PPC's property, a tool for them to use and nothing more. For all they care, you're just going to keep doing your job in the name of a faceless goal that doesn't even seem to go anywhere. For all you know, it's just to amuse the higher-ups in some kind of sadistic show for them.
EBW: I didn’t want to drop this anvil, but…SUES ARE DESTROYING THE MULTIVERSE. WE ARE STOPPING THEM. Unless by ‘higher-ups’ you mean us, the writers and readers, the last point is off completely.
Oh, and before you say that I'm taking things too seriously, I haven't laughed once at anything PPC related.
EBW: Well…did you enjoy it, at least? I mean, was it interesting?
If it's so funny, where's the jokes? where's the hilarity and silliness that is so integral to the PPC's spirit?
EBW: Actually, I prefer MSTs. Missions are fun as hells to write, but if I want a laugh I look for an MST.
Am I blind to it? Do I sympathize with fictional characters far too much to see it?
EBW:...Yes?
Because all I see is this descent into madness and subsequent death/locking up, and there's nothing funny about that... I feel like I'm missing out on something...
EBW: *sigh* Well, maybe you haven’t considered all the bases. You could go into Bad Slash if you think they’re more morally right, or Crossovers. Hells, you could go into FicPsych, or write MST’s. You could become a lurker, or leave entirely, although I don’t suggest either. Or, and here’s an idea I’ve actually been toying with, you could change things up a little. Make missions dramatic, rather than funny. It could be really good to be original. I mean, we pride ourselves on our originality; it would be hypocritical to smother yours. I dunno. Maybe this whole reply was a bad idea. Maybe it all was a bad idea. I just don’t know…
The PPC is a pardoy; it always has been. Parodies never take things this too seriously. We waver a bit here and there, sometimes giving our missions as different tang, but the essence of the morality issue is - as has been said - that the Sues and other such characters (bits, wraiths, et cetera) are not people and never have been. They're characters, and if it were ethically wrong to kill a character, then there would be no such thing as entertainment drama.
As for why we make light of 'dark and sinister' issues in the frist place - it'ss probably the same reason that people make jokes about serial killers and dead animals, or why many fanfic writers get a kick out of writing about their favourite characters being tortured - or both. There seems to be some fascination with taking something serious and making light of it; black humour. The story of Sweeney Todd is about an insane serial killer, but you don't see the critics condemning it as morally correupt, do you?
There's also the point that the PPC was born of frustration with badly written stories we can do nothing about. How often, in daily life, do you head people say "Oh, I'm going to kill you", or "This is killing me"? They don't mean it literally, byt Jay and Acacia connected the notions into a silly idea and ran with it. Then we picked it up and ran with it again, and again. For fun.
Also, from an in-world perspective, the agents aren't exactly real people; they don't react quite the same way as we in the real world do. That's just the nature of the stories, because it wouldn't be a parody if our protagonists took things seriously.
Does that answer your question?
heheheh... You know things have went full circle once people start taking obvious parodies seriously with little reason to!
Kind of stupid to even bring the question up. It's all just words, nothing alive about them, no thoughts, no feelings, no life... Just things people made up to seem like they do.
Then why do I feel like this? Why do I feel so darn terrible when I try to write things sometimes? Is my moral compass so broken that I've begun to lose track of what has feelings and what doesn't despite how accurate and life-like they can seem?
I don't know. All that I do know is that this definitely isn't the first time I've felt like this, and it probably won't be the last, either. But I'll just keep going, despite all my mixed thoughts on, well, everything, because if there's one thing that I am sure about, it's that I need to keep trying my hardest. Even if my mind is screaming at me to stop. If I have to suffer in the name of my own art, fine, I'll share the pain that my characters will inevitably experience. Nothing's going to stop me from writing, as I enjoy doing it (most of the time, anyways), even when it just seems wrong for me to continue.
I'd say more right now, but I'm staving off sleep to an unnatural extreme. Better get to bed.
It's one thing not to share our sense of humor, but if you're really as torn up about all this as you make it sound, I suggest in all seriousness and with all respect that you seek professional help--not because you're different from us, not because we don't agree, but because, to my mind, it is just not healthy to feel so bad about things that aren't real. It especially worries me that you think you have to stay here and do what we do even though you keep saying how uncomfortable it makes you feel. There is no good reason for that. I feel like there has to be something else going on in your life, and as much as we'd like to make you feel better, we really can't help as long as your troubles are deeper than simply not getting the jokes.
Please consider it.
~Neshomeh
Not to say it isn't possible, but from everything I've seen of Max through his posts, I don't think it's all that serious. To be frank - and I hope you don't take offence at this, Max - I'm more strongly reminded of myself ten years ago, when I felt I had to do things I wasn't comfortable with just because other people seemed to have no problem with - in my case, playing sports and wearing makeup. I don't think 'realness' is the issue; I think it's more that Max is forcing himself to do something that he just doesn't enjoy, because he thinks he 'should' enjoy it.
I could, of course, be completely wrong. I don't know anything more about Max as a person or his life except what I see on this board. The only reason I'm writing this post is because I read yours and my first thought was, "oh, please don't let that make him panic", because if I'm right, that would only make things worse.
No offense, Neshomeh. Just - as you would say - my two cents.
On the other hand, I don't think trying to fit in at the expense of one's happiness is healthy, either.
My take on this is based on my experience seeing what happens when a person tries to make someone or something else responsible for his or her well-being, and it's not pretty. I don't want any of us, including Max, to be in that situation. Like I said, we can only do so much to be supportive and helpful if there is a serious issue. At some point, the right thing to do for everyone is to step back, say "no, taking care of you is not my job," and point to a qualified therapist.
I really hope you're right that it isn't that bad, but as long as Max makes it sound that way in his posts, that will be my response.
~Neshomeh
It's never healthy; I'm extremely glad to have grown out of that teenager-y phase, and to honestly be able to say I'm happy with myself. In any case, you're right; we cannot be responsible for the life of someone we've never met in person, so it's just going to have to be up to Max. Here's hoping all's well and ends well.
First off, as others have said, if it is bothering you that much to write Missions... don't write Missions! It's okay! We will think no less of you if you never produce a single assassination, Max. (At least, I hope not, 'cause if so, I am officially the PPC's Hated OutcastTM.)
You feel like this, if "this" is pained and worried and really like you're a bad person for hurting written characters as we do, because, as people have said, you're taking it too seriously. But that's not the only reason. When we write characters, we put a bit of ourselves into their creation. I'm sure you've noticed that you've got little ghosts of your characters in your head by now, here and there. We understand them, they become real to us. And we don't want to hurt them, most of the time.
Example! I used to play a Tortall-based roleplay called Steelsings, with a young, amateurish rogue named Lirond, who one day made a terrible mistake and got into trouble with the Rogue, who decided to cast him out and, in the process, slit his tongue down the middle. I was lucky in that it wasn't me writing the damage, 'twas someone else's character. But for all that? It hurt. I nearly cried. Because once they root themselves into your head, they don't want to go away.
But as far back as fiction goes, writers write bad things happening to their characters-- to create a story worth reading, for drama, and for development. I won't go into the philosophical tangent of pain being necessary for development. As mentioned in chat, you should read Brave New World, among others.
Mark Twain said, in his Rules of Writing:
...okay, so the exact quote isn't on there. Something about you have to hurt your characters to make them worth it. To make them grow, to show that they are good, worthwhile, strong characters, you have to put them through a wringer-- and they'll come out the other side looking like good, strong, worthwhile characters.
If you're feeling guilty about hurting other people's characters, well. I honestly don't understand how we can freak out about the moral dissonance of killing 'Sues while at the same time brushing off the idea of hurting Suethors' feelings. Again, if you never write a PPC Mission, that's okay. No one's forcing you to write parody, and if you hate it that much, don't worry about it. But I do highly recommend that you start trying to -read- parody (and others!) as often and as much as you can, and that might help you understand this community, both writing-wise and community-wise. (Again, if you can't find ANY books at your library or school, start looking through Project Gutenberg.)
Good luck, Max.
That's why. If the reader doesn't care about any of the characters, either it's bad writing or the reader's currently being forced to do a book report on the work.
So you can't just say "it's all words", even if it's just a parody. You have to make your characters sympathetic. It doesn't take angst; just little things. Maybe one of your agents is allergic to Middle Earth pollen. Maybe the exhaustion of overwork is starting to tell and somebody made a stupid mistake. Maybe the technology is starting to go wonky (okay, that's not a "maybe"; it's just a "when").
RL ethics are different from the ethics of the characters. It wouldn't be wrong if I created a totally sociopathic serial killer who liked to kick puppies and eat babies. It would, however, be totally wrong in-world. So, while I won't feel bad about killing off a sue, my agent might, because to him/her it might be too close to killing off a sentient being. (As we've already discussed, the lack of characterization means a sue actually isn't sentient; she's closer to a chatbot than a human.)
The interesting thing I've noticed with agents is that they take themselves and each other relatively seriously; but the authors don't take them seriously. That makes sense; it's a parody. But it doesn't stop the agents from considering themselves real. If they didn't, we probably wouldn't care what happened to them.
The only difference between agents and "real people" is that the rules of their worlds work differently. In their world, they're real people; but in their world, real people can be created simply by writing about them.
Your moral compass isn't broken - far from it. There's nothing wrong with you; you're just in a crowd of people who happen to not be like you. For all we know, we could be the minority. Simply put, Max, if you don't feel comfortable writing PPC parodies, then don't write them. Why torture yourself? There are many, many things you could write other than PPC missions, and life is too short to 'suffer through' anything if you don't have to. Trust me; in the end, your subconscious knows best.
If Max felt like he didn't belong here, he wouldn't constantly question his being here whenever possible or try and make it feel like we were excluding him on purpose whenever he had more questions to bring up while at the same time bringing up how different he felt.
After all, that'd just be silly and attention-seeking, wouldn't it?
Because I know that if someone asked a question, however dramatically or angsty, no PPCer would sneer and scoff at their worries about not belonging, and certainly not sarcastically on a public forum!
Because that would just be rude, and not at all in our usual welcoming spirit. Right?
I know, right?
But at the same time, I would hate if someone decided to be passive aggressive to evoke pity and attention whil-
Okay, I'm getting tired of this.
Max.
Stop whining about being out of place and not belonging.
You fit in when you're not saying that stuff. Because you know what? Everyone has a place here even when they are being amazingly thick or being frustrating or occasionally rude or snarky or so nice you wonder how they're able to pull it off. There is more than enough room for dissenting opinion on how the PPC works fundamentally on a mental and emotional level.
The only times you don't fit in are when you go 'oh woe is me, I do not fit in, alas, alas, oh poor me, I should leave forever more' is because you are making yourself feel that way by mentally stressing your differences from the community as a whole to yourself. Exrpessing your worries about this occasionally is one thing. Expressing it every single time you post is, for most forum communities, not kosher. Because it makes others feel like they're at fault. Even when it just might have to do with the philosophy of the group as a whole and not people deciding "We shall shun Max today because he is not One Of Us. SHUUUUUUUUUUN SHUUUUUUUUUUN."
You're a decent kid. Usually. Sometimes you make me want to grab you and shake you upside down to see if any rocks come out of your ears.
Additionally I'm sure you've noticed that I banned you from the chat. Further.
This is because ban evasion is not good and is generally not a good idea and an even worse habit to get into.
If you want permission to come into the chat again? Ask to be unbanned, on here, to a PG. Don't sneak in.
I second July, save for the bit about the chat, because I haven't touched a chat room in years. But she's right; the only times you don't feel like 'one of us' is when you're angsting about that very issue. The solution is extremely simple: stop. You'll find that everything gets easier. It's not as though anyone here doesn't like you.
As someone with my own share of issues, I say this: You're not really a bad Boarder, at least in my opinon. There are fics other than PPC ones we could disscuss, and not all of them have to be humorous.
Sorry if it came across that way.
Your Mileage May Vary on this answer, but I feel that while yes, there are some rather dark elements lurking in the shadows, as it were, of the stories, there's also the fact that without those elements there wouldn't be any engaging stories. Take any of Terry Pratchett's works, for example. They are widely known for their humor and satirical natures, but there's also an underlying current of darkness there as well. In Witches Abroad, for example, there're the ever-familiar elements of fairy tales (Cinderella, The Frog Prince, etc) written into the story, but there's also the underlying theme of how ultimate and unlimited power corrupts people, as well as the danger of twisting stories to suit one's needs.
That, as a matter of fact, is ultimately what the PPC is here to prevent: the twisting of beloved stories and/or fictional universes so beyond the norm that they're unrecognizable. Imagine if someone with the power to change everything you hold dear into an unrecognizable and warped reflection of itself came to your world (town, city, whatever), and began changing things. How would you react, especially if you knew you had the power to stop this soulless being from ever doing it again? Yes, you would have to resort to assassination, but if you're doing it for the greater good of your world, wouldn't that be at least some justification for the act itself?
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that while yes, there are some things about the PPC that aren't pretty out in the light of day, it's essentially just a way to enjoy oneself and have fun gently poking fun at the bad stories in this world. I for one get a kick out of it, but I suppose it's because I'm just weird like that.
Oh, and if you want to see an organization like the PPC- they kill Mary Sues and plot bunnies (the evil ones, mind you)- go check out Bitemetechie's Anti-Plot Bunny Association stories. Here's a link to the first in the series; they're funny as hell, though the series is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment.
Enjoy, and I hope that helps some.
Pretzel
1) Sues are not people. That's really integral to what makes it funny. Sues and their companions the bit-characters are not sentient, thinking beings in any way that we understand them. To drag in theology, they don't have souls. That's the key thing, really.
2) Agents are not conscripts. Most agents, especially agents from World One, chose this. And like it.
3) In terms of everything against you - very true. But on the other hand, the Word World is protecting you on a mission. That does a lot.
4) Despite all the "no retirement EVER" jokes... retirement is totally possible. And you can go home again. Look at Boarder!Laburnum's characters. I could be misinterpreting but it seems to me that Foxglove stays in contact with her family all the time; Agent!Laburnum was re-establishing contact with her family. And if you don't want to go home, you have ever piece of fiction ever created to escape to. Look at Acacia from the original series, isn't she off happy in some Roman continuum? If a really desperate agent wanted, they could go settle in the Hundred Acre Wood or Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Horrendous fate!
5. It is possible to live a happy, if incredibly bizarre, life at HQ. I'm gonna cite Pads's and Trojie's Ten Years Hence here - in that future, at least, they're living in HQ and have a, uhm, nontraditional, but very happy family that they could never have had anywhere else. Life is nice.
6. As to funny... I don't know. There is, in fact, an element of black comedy here. I'm curious as to what you read, and why you kept reading if you didn't think it was funny or enjoyable. I'm curious as to why Things I Am Not Allowed To Do At The PPC, Agent Lux being Lux, and spontaneous water fights aren't funny. I guess this is kind of a matter of perspective, though, and a personal thing.
(My apologies if I misrepresented anyone's work, by the way.)
... though Laburnum has to do it secretly because she's still on the Missing Persons list and there's still a warrant out for her arrest. The PPC is probably a better option for her than anything waiting for her in World One, even if she's the way she is entirely because of her own choices. She chose to get Bloodwrath, though she didn't know it would stick in World One. A hair-triggered berserker really couldn't operate in normal society. In the PPC, she can direct it to a useful function.
Even S&S kind of like the job, even if they did technically get press-ganged. As someone pointed out on the TVTropes page, Stormsong may have ostentatiously attempted suicide, but if he genuinely wanted to die he has enough medical knowledge to have been able to do it.
And thanks for backing me up - I thought that's what the standards were. Ties are not cut!
(I think he really wants to live. If nothing else, Molly and Moses need him. The death thing may just be because nothing else gets the "leave me alone" message across.)
And, as a former writer of angst myself, I can understand where you're coming from. (I say former because I've become lazy in recent times and don't have the mental energy to devote to writing proper, realistic angst.) Angst is fun. At least, I consider it fun. Then again, I am a fairly twisted writer who likes to see her characters suffer, but that's a different story.
On the other hand, I think all the craziness is just a coping method. Yes, being an agent, especially a newbie, would be terrifying. Not only to have to go into a badfic (scary in itself), but to have to dispose of a person (who may not be a 'person,' as such, but dangit, when you're looking at her, I expect she might feel like one, at least a little), and to have to do so with a complete stranger is scary. (And yes, I rate the last as the scariest. I have a... warped value scale. Yay for being antisocial...) There are two ways to cope with that kind of thing: you crack, at which point you're taken to FicPsych and probably sent home, or you take it all as absurd but necessary. It's those who take the second track who stay as agents and actually do all the work.
I say this, of course, even as I'm sitting here wondering if my characters are reacting enough to the horrors of the 'fic in which they are currently stuck. Angst is a hard habit to break. -grins-
So yeah, I understand where you're coming from, and I sympathize with you. I find PPC stuff funny, but I also see the darker side, and I want to work with that. As people said, you need a balance, and all silliness is just as bad as all angst.
--anamia
You see what you want to see in a work of fiction. Much like the stereotypical monster in the closet, what is reasonable and prudent to one person is most definitely not believable to another. I think that at least in the most part, your perspective differs from mine enough that the implications you see and the ones I do are definitely two different things.
Take, for instance, the missions themselves. It has been stated (in TOS) that we can't hurt badfic authors, as they have rights. This implies that their creations do not have rights, and thus are not alive - therefore, ending them isn't as horrible an act as it might seem. They're just words, after all, and we're re-writing them to be something else. (Namely, not continuing to distort the canon.)
A lot of the PPC's humor comes from the workplace - management that seems out of tune with reality itself, to say nothing of the employees, is a classical example.
The Ironic Overpower is another entity borrowed from the workplace, especially customer service positions. I do A/V for money, as I'm sure many of you know. Now, the vast majority of my events run smoothly, professionally, and so on. It's the ones that don't run smoothly that would make it onto my blog if I felt like blogging, and especially the ones where multiple things fail for humorous effect. For example, the event this morning. I was scheduled to start (and did start) an hour and a half before an event to set up a single mic for a presenter. When the presenter arrived, they didn't even notice that the mic existed, stood in front of the stage, and talked to the people unamplified. Meh, big deal. However, the thing that has me shaking my fist at the Ironic Overpower is the fact that I started at 6 AM on a Saturday.
The Ironic Overpower is not a force that keeps Agents busy all the time - it's a semi-anthropomorphization of the odd way that when things go wrong, there tend to be multiple things that go wrong, and all at the best possible time to make things entertaining and amusing. I suppose I could sit down and do the statistics and work out how often it actually happens, but in my work, at least, it seems to happen far more than it should. (Then again, the times it does are the ones people tend to remember.)
And no, I do not believe that it would be terrifying to be an Agent. We're going on adventures in far-off and magical places to save the world - not dramatically, not through magic speshul powers, but by stabbing words in the face. Are big-game hunters terrified by what they hunt?
As far as not being able to go home, see Pads's missions - she goes into that a lot more than I ever have.
As with any storytelling, the PPC stories are exaggerations for comic effect. There was quite a bit more to training here where I work than "here's a sound board, go run the state Supreme Court", but that's what it seems like at times, and if I was telling it for humorous effect, that's exactly how I'd tell it.
No, the PPC isn't a descent into madness. For every potential trauma-inducing moment, there are hours of running around in Middle-Earth, seeing the scenery, laughing at people's stupidity, and so on. No, it's not a safe office job, but the ancient chinese proverb that "may your life be interesting" is a curse is complete and utter bunk. The PPC is an adventure.
Also, from a very machinistic perspective, we don't write Lovecraftian spiral-into-madness fics because we don't want to read them. This is fiction. We tell the stories we want to tell, and that is not where we want the PPC to go. We want to read about a flake with a camera and a slightly bloodthirsty card-game aficionado saving Middle-Earth one badfic at a time. We want to read about hospital drama where the patients could be from any world imaginable. We want fun and adventures and completely ridiculous superheroes saving the multiverse, so that's what we write.
I mean, we all see the PPC slightly differently. You say missions aren't terrifying; I think they often would be--really, why wouldn't you be terrified if your partner just got eaten, or if you had a pack of Warrior!Sues running at you with intent to turn you into a bloody smear on the ground?
Not constantly terrifying, I'll grant you that. Not even usually terrifying. More like, hours of boredom, then thirty seconds of running/fighting/whatever for your life. And yeah, getting to see the world you love probably makes up for it.
Writers bring their own ideas into it, though. If you're the sort of person who would hate to have to kill a rabid dog and have bad dreams about it afterward, then you're the sort of person who'll probably write about an agent learning to deal with the fact that they've got to kill the sue to protect the continuum. If you're the sort of person who's dealt with craziness in your own life, then maybe you'll write about how the agents deal with it. If you just want a fluffy humor piece, then you'll write that.
It's just that if we were to take it entirely seriously and write about nothing but the angsty side of things, it'd get simultaneously boring and ridiculous. I've not written any PPC spinoffs, but I've written other fanfiction, and I've made the mistake of going too far into the "downer" part of things. It simply didn't work. It wasn't realistic. Human beings, or non-human beings written by human authors, simply don't live all day every day wallowing in angst. There are better times, and there are worse times; and if you write nothing but badness, it'll become cheap and boring. Write about characters who realistically have good times and bad times and everything in between, and it can be good.
The kind of person who chooses to work at the PPC is almost always a highly resilient individual. Resilience, basically, is the capacity to deal with the crazy in your own life and sometimes in your own head and go on with your life regardless. In the PPC, you'd have to be that way just to accept the craziness of the fact that the multiverse exists. You'd have to be flexible; you'd have to be able to see the ridiculousness of life and just laugh at it. People who don't have that capacity simply wouldn't stay there past the first plothole.
I second everything Calista said and so am not going to repeat it, but would just like to add in addition . . .
One important thing to remember is that, for the most part (with rare exceptions such as in Suedom) Mary Sues aren't real people. Not even in fiction. I mean, a well-designed 3D character in a story might be construed as "real" within the context of a story, but Mary Sues are one-dimensional (at most) wish fulfilments. They are, in other words, soulless. The is no more evil in killing them than in killing a pencil drawing of a stick figure.
One last thing: people adapt. I mean, people adapt all the time, swiftly, and necessarily to new situations. They are changed, but seldom broken. While reading your question-thing, I tried to put myself in the place of my agent, and my reaction was:
At first, it would be difficult, but I'd adapt. And it wouldn't drive me insane. It wouldn't be fun, but it would be necessary. And I could do it, if I had to. To protect worlds and lives, I could do it.
Killing 'Sues isn't a matter of "let's be bloodthirsty because we're sociopathic." (Well, mostly it isn't. Some agents are a bit... okay, a lot... sociopathic.) It's more like the lesser of two evils: If the Sue is allowed to stay in the continuum, she will literally destroy the continuum, along with all the characters living in it. Recruiting a full-blown Sue is also out: Since the PPC itself is a continuum, a Mary Sue in the PPC may not just begin to unravel HQ, but will have access to almost every continuum out there. The implications are obvious--take them out or the multiverse dies.
What happens if Sues get free rein: http://nath-ppc.livejournal.com/544.html
Most Sues employ mind control and brainwashing to control canon characters, so it's not like they're innocent. They're more like the personification of canon distortion than anything else, though they're sometimes portrayed as being a little like a viral infection (think zombies or vampires), as they can occasionally turn non-Sues into Sues by sheer influence.
Some PPC fics have explored the reality of having to kill Sues. Not every agent is a gung-ho 'Sue killer.
Kitty Callahan, for example, only managed to kill the Sue in question because her partner was in danger: http://wizkit.livejournal.com/524.html
And from the perspective of the 'Sues: http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Suedom
Yes. It is terrifying to be a PPC agent. Why do you think they develop such a sarcastic sense of humor? For the most part, though, it's only about as terrifying as being a soldier going to war (which is extremely terrifying, but something that people do every day, so you can't say it's unrealistic)--and done for about the same reason: Love of canon worlds. Hating to see them torn apart.
Almost universally, PPC agents are volunteers. They're hardly paid, so it's not like there's economic pressure to stay; they could probably, if they liked, just stay in the next continuum they were sent to visit. Overwhelmingly, they've made the choice to risk it, take their average life/sanity expectancy of one year, and actually make a difference.
Think about it: If all this were real; if all the books and movies you loved were real worlds; if there were billions and trillions of sentient creatures that needed protecting from the reality-warping powers of what might as well be eldritch abominations in the shape of ridiculously beautiful teenage girls--well, would it really be so highly illogical to set out to risk it and make a year's worth of difference? In general--and as weird as it sounds--PPC agents are probably happy with their jobs, when they aren't shoveling down Bleepka or fighting for their lives.
The Flowers do have an ulterior motive. It's called "stopping the multiverse from turning inside out and becoming utterly uninhabitable". It's a matter of common goals: The Flowers want to have a habitable universe; the PPC agents want to protect their favorite worlds. When you have a common goal, you might as well team up.
Um, and yes. You are taking things way too seriously. The PPC is meant to be humor. It has a dark side; but the dark side, I think, makes the humor all the better. If you've got a near-100% chance of going nuts or dying, it makes quite a lot of sense to say screw it and laugh in the face of everything you encounter. It's just a matter of perspective. Once you know your days are numbered, you set out to enjoy every second--including the crazy hilarity of things like fangirls who accidentally cause Legolas's eyeballs to acquire sentience of their own and fly around the room...
Your idea is that if you're in a bad situation, the only logical response is to go angst and say "Oh, woe is me! All is lost!"... but why? It's just as logical to acknowledge that your bad situation sucks, and either set out to solve the problem, or else make the best possible life you can regardless.
We're all in the same situation, you know. We're all going to die, and some of us will go nuts beforehand, temporarily or for good. Whether it's a matter of one year or seventy, that's the universal human problem. How we deal with it can define our lives... But I'm getting existential. Let's go back to herding Mini-Balrogs and exorcising badslash demons, shall we?