I bring you... answers to questions!
-Alas, Trojie left a long time ago.
-The character limit, as someone else said, is absolutely massive. I once posted this entire story in a single post - so nope, you weren't anywhere near it. ;)
-Permission... ah, Permission.
You're right, Jay and Acacia were a lot more lenient about it. But when Rome fell, like a writhen oak Jay left the Board, she appointed Miss Cam, GreyLadyBast, and Thalia Weaver as Official Permission Givers (all right, Cam technically already had it). From that point on, Permission has been a requirement, not just a suggestion. The way we give it has evolved: I got Permission by basically saying 'I've got a great idea!' and having Cam & Bast approve.
The thing is, Back In The Day(TM) the PPC was just a bunch of stories with a vague theme. Architeuthis could write about the Security Dandelions who patrol the walls of HQ without anyone worrying, because no-one else had gone anywhere near that part of HQ.
Since then - and largely (he said modestly) as a result of my work - we've turned the PPC into a true shared universe. You can't (say) decide to found a Department of Multiple Offences, like Nenya and Rosie did - because that job is already filled by the Floaters. The only ways to maintain a working shared universe with so many writers are either to vet each new story regarding canonicity... or to require Permission to write for the PPC at all.
With that said, getting Permission isn't all that hard. Once the revision goes through, the process will be as follows:
-Stick around until we know who you are. That's not hard, and if you want anyone to know your story exists, you'd kind of have to do it anyway.
-Read enough that you know what the PPC is, how it works, etc. It's kind of common sense to do this for something you want to write about, right? The 'Permission Self-Check' or whatever I called it is just that - an optional check for you to see for yourself how much you know. It doesn't even take your name.
-Come up with some agent characters. You'd have to do that anyway, since without characters you can't, y'know, write anything. (Though I'd be intrigued to see someone ask Permission in order to write solely about Free-to-Use characters...)
-Write a couple of short - 200-300 words - stories with your agents. Since you want to write PPC stories, saying you have to write some PPC stories before you can do so - apart from being oxymoronic - isn't terribly strenuous.
-Post the stories & a summary of your agents and ask for Permission. That takes... about a minute?
-Wait for one of the hard-working Permission Givers to put in the time to read your stories and form an opinion.
That's a lot of words, but it's honestly not a big deal. It comes down to 'stick around, get to know us, and show us you can write'. The basic goal is to stop you spending weeks on your first mission, and then having someone point out that your agent is a Mary-Sue. Because no-one wants that.
Lots of words? Lots of words. Permission isn't hard if you know what a decent character is and know how to spell-and-punctuate. +++End of message.+++
hS