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It's just bizarre, nonsensical, and the author has no idea how to use a thesaurus. ("Lithe, opaque nose," anyone? I guess it's better than a transparent nose.)

Also, it's almost entirely composed of Narm and Ham.

I was just looking at Architeuthis' first mission, and I noticed something that jumped out at me (not literally. This is the PPC, after all--you never know).

"...concerns of the PPC include Transdimensional Hopping (wherein the fanfic writer sends herself and/or other people into another dimension..."

I've never seen any missions regarding this, so it confuses me. Would this mean that the author herself is in the canon, rather than a Suvian stand-in as in the case of OC-fics? In that case, would the Agents have to return the (neuralyzed) author to World One without killing her? I don't know what our policy is about World One inhabitants invading and mucking with canon, but it seems to me that the Flowers would frown upon the killing of real people as opposed to parasitic mockeries.

A:tLA fan here! I apply the same mindset to this as I do to my fanning (hurray for coining new meanings for existing words?) of Supernatural: I trust the creators. They did well the first time, they have always done remarkably well. I trust their ability to make this cool. Therefore, it deserves every bit of benefit of the doubt I can give it.

Actually, I'm pretty happy to hear that they're doing a sequel, and that they're doing something entirely new with it! I'd be far more worried if they were trying to follow around the children of the first gang. I can't think of any good example of that. Can you guys?

Then it's like... My Immortal meets Eye of Argon meets... no plot. I dunno. Almost as entertaining as reading the fic itself is reading the reviews.

I just finished Obsidian Butterfly, which was the book my friend was nagging me about finishing. (She's an Edward fangirl.) I'm not sure if my sense of horrified amusement will keep me going through the next books or not.

I have a history of getting bored with stories that involve large amounts of intricate maneuvering, so maybe I'll skip it.

...except that My Immortal is more organized than this. Tara actually has somewhat of a plot (Although an incomprehensible one) going on, while this person just wrote randomly.

As far as general definition goes: The PPC is an MST-inspired parody done within the context of a much larger frame story. That's the simplest way to put it.

More than that, the PPC is a shared story-universe, because the frame story tends to overwhelm the MST aspect of it. This isn't a bad thing. The frame story--the plot protectors themselves, headquarters, etc.--is so very fun to play with. The ability to treat stories, and their constituent words, as the makeup of a physical world? Fun! Characters with the ability to move from one story world to another? Fun! Characters who, due to various comedic circumstances, complain like hell about these fantastic things? Fun! And funny.

And finally, the PPC is a community. We all have different reasons for being here, from respect for art to love of snark to simple love of the community itself, but this is a strong community. Futhermore, it's a common-interest community, so we get along well and have a lot to share with each other.

However... Because everyone has a different reason for being here and doing what we do, I think a general statement of intent can be difficult to formulate. If you say we are here to kill Sues, then you leave out the bad-slashers. If you say we are here to fix badfic, then you leave out the people who are just here for the comedy or the neat frame story. If you say we're here to write PPC stories then you leave out the people who just hang out in the community--and so on. The PPC was not originally intended to be what it is, which is something permanent and to a certain extent serious. Once the PPC turned into a community, rather than just Jay and Acacia's fun project, it was put into a state of flux. At the moment, the PPC is simply what its community uses it for. Perhaps that is how it should be, perhaps not. But for the moment? We are what we do, and our purpose here is to do it. That's all.


P.S. Sorry if that seems unhelpful? If writing a general "this is what the PPC is, and this is why we're here!" statement were easy, we would already have one, and it would work for everyone. But it isn't easy, and so I'm just trying for clarification, really. I understand why you guys don't feel comfortable here, I think. I have felt the same way, at times. But it speaks well for the community that you can bring these things up, and have them taken so seriously.

I don't know who this author is, but I like him! This is like My Immortal if Tara Gillesbie actually knew how to write!

The bit about the awesome!book was by far the best.

Am I the only one who was reminded of this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KevzcHUUKAY

Further short response to a further longish post: that's a useful way of looking at it; I'll keep that in mind.

Thanks,
Lleu Llaw Gyffes

Aha. Short response to a long post: that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Regards,
Lleu

Search the wiki under "reformed Sues". There are several Mary Sues working for the PPC, all of which had to gain a personality and lose a lot of their speshulness before they could be recruited.

And no, Sues aren't people--they aren't written well enough to be people in any sense of the word. In some cases, they don't even have enough of a survival instinct to resist assassination, and even a cockroach can do that. (DMSE&R have also looked through the Sue genome, which is extremely short--much less complex than any known living organism's genome--and consists mostly of urple prose and imperatives to destroy canon.)

When they recruit a Sue, the PPC isn't so much rescuing a person as they are rescuing something that could have been a person if it had been written properly. That's where we come in. Recruited badfic characters, whether they're near-completely undescribed bits or just horribly-written Sues, need a good writer to become "real". They have to have a purpose, a personality, direction.

It's like the difference between a tumor and a living being. Sure, the tumor's alive; but let it grow any further, and it'll start causing a huge amount of damage. (Some Sues, including Canon Sues and many of the weaker ones we don't go after, are like benign tumors... they don't spread, and can be left alone with a watch-and-see approach.)

Could we recruit every Sue we meet? Yes. But it would be very dangerous. Have even one relapse, and she'll exert influence on her partner; before you know it we'll have two Sues, then four, then eight... Keep the numbers of recruited Sues low, and any relapses can be caught and dealt with before they start spreading.

I think maybe a lot of the reticence about assassinations isn't because Sues "could be people"; it's simply because they look like people. Most PPC agents are human or human-like in their thinking, and that means visual and auditory input channels are huge. Sues mimic actual people very well, at first glance. If they didn't look like human beings (or whatever species they say they're from), I seriously doubt anybody would have qualms about it.

So ask yourself: If that Sue were a computer program or a blob of protoplasm instead of an urple-haired teenage girl, would I still be worried about assassination? Most Sues never even reach the sophistication of the average chatbot or paramecium...

No, not all Sues are killed. Yes, there are ex-Sue agents.

To elaborate, the first thing to realize is that not every Suefic is the target of a mission. We don't go after the mediocre ones; only the ones that really look to be damaging things, either not knowing or, more often, not caring that they're doing anything wrong. So, the moderately-well-written yet uninteresting Sues go free. To put it another way, any badfic, Sue or otherwise, has to be bad enough to make an entertaining mission. If she's got decent SPaG and has a semi-plausible reason for getting into Legolas' pants, there's no point in PPCing her, because there wouldn't be much for the agents to snark about and, moreover, nothing much to put on the charge list. This is why we have charge lists, in fact. A kill has to be justified by canon-warping.

Second, there have been occasions of one of two things happening on a mission. One, in one of Architeuthis' Intelligence reports, the Sue under observation actually began to naturalize as the story went on. In other words, she became less of a Sue on her own, and didn't require intervention. (I'd like to see this happen more, if anyone can find stories like that.) Two, as mentioned, sometimes a borderline Sue is recruited. This doesn't usually happen in "active" missions, though--usually it's a backstory, and the Sue in question is one that a PPCer wrote themselves in their younger years. I'm sure people can give you plenty of examples, but the one coming to my mind right now is Agent Diocletian.

I think the ACMSES disposes of their (invented for the purpose) Sues by dropping them into confinement somewhere. The problem I see with that, though, is how can you possibly contain them all in any kind of humane way? In any case, most of us don't see Sues as humans, or elves, or whatever they're claiming to be. Most often they're seen as a disease--and yes, it is stated that the Sue needs to be killed for the canon to heal, just like a virus. That's why everything snaps back into place after the kill in TOS.

~Neshomeh

And I don't mean to stir up controversy if it has. It's just something that came to me yesterday when I was reading "Ashes to Glory". As I read it, "Ashes to Glory" isn't strictly a criticism of the PPC, but rather of the PPC's generally violent methods.

So, question: do all 'Sues have to be killed? I mean this question in two ways: first, is there something I didn't notice which means that 'Sues have to be killed in order for canon to revert? Second, more philosophically, are there no 'Sues who could be humanely disposed of in other ways? Have 'Sues ever been recruited? I know there are bit character Agents, but are there ex-'Sue Agents I haven't noticed?

I'm thinking particularly in the context of "Ashes to Glory" — couldn't "Asherazel Morningstar", the uncanonical second daughter of Elrond who is apparently quite pretty but seems to be utterly useless otherwise and frankly quite stupid, just be transposed somewhere to, like, a holodeck somewhere that would have lots of holographic CAFs and a boundary around it to suppress the Aura of Smooth (if such a boundary exists — and if it doesn't, we should probably put DoSAT to work inventing it)?

Not that I sympathize with 'Sues extensively, but it does seem to me that at least a few of the ones who aren't warping canon as extensively really have no idea that they're doing anything wrong — wouldn't it be more humane to just put them somewhere out of the way where they can't hurt anyone, themselves included?

There are probably some 'Sues who are warping canon extensively that don't know they're doing anything wrong, but somehow I can't find it in my heart to sympathize with, for example, Tenth (or Eleventh) Walkers.

Again, I'm pretty sure this must have come up before, but I thought I'd ask and see what people thought. If this has already been talked to death, I apologize.

If my vote counts?

Or affiliate? Or just become "hey-look-let's-go-swap-stories" type friends? Or- ?
Personally, I don't really mind. Although some people could point out it is really, really similar to PPC.

Well, the PPC is notorious for insanity, I guess...

I have a lot of reading to do, eh?

There is no other way, in Heaven, Earth or Hell, that anyone could have written that without being under the influence of narcotics...

At least, I suppose, there is an actual grasp of grammar here but... I think I may have preferred it if it hadn't; if had been gibberish I wouldn't have had to understand any of it.

My mind hurts from trying to compute mental images.