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We could reduce the large number of categories on the list if we had headings like this--

DMS Divisions (Fantasy)
Agents Joe and John (Mossflower) (3)
Agents Alice and Bob (Narnia) (2)
Agents Zoe and Wilbur (Wheel of Time) (1)

So the DMS would be divided into divisions as usual (no changes there), and then on the complete list everything would be actually listed by genre, with the specific continuum in parentheses after the agents' names and just before their mission number.

I'm not very active on here, mostly I just lurk, but the reason I wanted to be apart of this community was for the humor. I loved TOS, because they were funny, not particularly because they killed Sues.

And what this leads me to is saying that I think the missions you two have been writing have followed more in the tradition of TOS than most I've read. Baring TOS the Trojie and Pads missions are my favorites, no contest. It would make me very very sad if you stopped releasing missions.

And about changing the Constitution, I think it's probably about time, seeing as the PPC has grown so much. As you say, there's more to it than just Sue slaying.

Other than that I don't have much to say, although it would be a very great pity if you stopped releasing missions.

The PPC is a place that makes good stories out of bad ones. Anyone can make an acerbic review, but the PPC makes entertaining, funny stories out of honest critique. Yes, there is a large focus on Sue killing. But there is a much larger focus on making fun characters who bounce off each other well.

Also, I would like to take the opportunity to thank both of you for your plethora of amusing and entertaining missions. It was because of you two that I first got interested in the PPC.

I only wish I'd read this properly when it first came up. No generalisations, please. It starts fights.

And no, therapy... nah, never. I have no faith in its usefulness in the real world, let along in Fic Psych where their only concern is whether an agent can still walk and read out charges. Agent Sedri's not that bad, but I don't enjoy writing her the way she's been edging towards recently.

I'm starting this again up here, because the bottom is getting way over on the right of the page.

Things that seem to be agreed on so far, as I understand them.

1. We should label the divisions of the All Purpose Department.

2. We should change the label somewhat for the missions that deal with a now quarantined continuum, but there doesn't seem to be a general consensus on the exact form of this renaming.

3. None of these changes will affect the in-canon structure of the PPC.

4. We do want to consolidate the wiki list somewhat.
4a. There is no general consensus on the form this consolidation should take.

I've been kind of lethargic lately in terms of missions. I have one that I'm working on that I've stopped working on and haven't continued working on for about a half a year now. Lately I've been spending my efforts on MSTs, which for some reason are more fun than actual missions. Really, the Sue-killing part has faded into the background, and right now I'm mostly having a bunch of fun fleshing out the two agent pairs I have now, as well as polishing up a third pair to introduce eventually, when I have a few more missions up for the ones that I've already made known.

The PPC, at least to me, is no longer about just finding bad fanfictions and poking fun at what's wrong with them, though this still is a large part. Really, I see the PPC as a place where I can cement my knowledge of the do's and don'ts of writing, and I can have a lot of fun while doing so. Personally, I love the creativity that goes into the PPC canon itself, and writing my characters in such a wacky setting is loads of fun.

So... yeah. The PPC, to me, is pretty much about having fun and learning how to write better. I was always under the impression that this was the point of the PPC to begin with.

Hope this helps.

Whether expressed by overly painful/elaborate deaths or just by spending most of your time writing about the actual assassination, shifting focus onto killing is generally a bad thing.

Have you considered therapy? For your agent, that is, not yourself. :P If, for example, your overly-homicidal agent were to kill a Sue before charging her, she might get sentenced to FicPsych.

You're absolutely right; some agents do go overboard. Part of the reason I haven't written missions in a while is because Agent Sedri has become increasingly bloodthirsty, and I'm not comfortable with that. Her first mission, it was personally offensive, but after that there was no need, and I freely admit to getting carried away. That has to stop, so right now I'm idling and creating a new partner who will rein her in a little.

Anyway, what I meant to was how the missions can sometimes shift focus so that a larger percentage of 'time' is spent on the kill than on the laughing and charge-gathering... which, on second thought, may be what you were talking about anyway?

I initially came across the idea of killing 'Sues (well, more of the plot bunnies that create them) via Bitemetechie's wonderful BunnyBusters series, found here and here. The PPC reminds me so strongly of that- the general snarkiness of the characters, the main point of the stories, and much more- but honestly, what mainly attracted me to the PPC was the sense of community here. I'm not sure what you mean by the whole bullying thing, as I'm relatively sure I joined after all that went down, but I can see how it might affect people. For instance (and isn't it funny how life works), one of the people I did drama with last quarter had a story of hers that had a mission written about it, and told me about it a few weeks after I joined the PPC. She wasn't particularly happy about it, but I could see why the fic needed to be taken care of.

People never like criticism, even if it's just gentle satire that's poking fun at a particular idea. That goes beyond the realm of fanfic as we all know, so it's not particularly anything new. I agree that the general purpose of the PPC is more than anything to mock badfic, and I know that I've been guilty of focusing mainly on taking care of Mary Sues. I've a plan to remedy that, but it's probably not going to be until I finish this bit of character arcing I've started for one of my DMS agents.

As for what we should do about it, I rather like the idea of there being a sort of in-universe image revamp. I know I'd have fun seeing battle-weary Agents, regardless of Department, trying drum up recruits at say, a job fair or a convention (SDCC maybe? It's current... *shrugs*) and just wishing that they could be out fighting 'Sues or Slash-Wraiths or whatever. My mind works in odd ways, yes, but then again, who has a normal mind here, anyways?

And that, more than anything, is what I like about the PPC, and I'll say it once again- the community. I know I'm excited about the Seattle Gathering that coming up soon, and I'm already planning to get up Glod-awfully early to get there on time. That's all I'm gonna say; I know I'm rambling.

Pretzel

P.S. Oh, and the vocabulary. I'm lovin' the vocabulary. I already picked up stuff from Firefly, but now I'm using things like "glauranging" and "Glodawful". Thanks. ;)

I'm not actually thinking of anyone specific here; I've seen it pretty much everywhere, more in older spinoffs than newer ones, so I think we're learning.

I mean, I know some agents get worked up and homicidal; and it's pretty much excusable when they're facing tiny-waisted, urple-haired, personality-free creatures who are basically mind-raping the canon characters and endangering entire worlds that the agents love.

But...

It's never been about killing Sues. Even in the beginning, the point was to get the characters back in character, get the continuum back in shape, repair the damage. And however homicidal agents get, it'll always be about the canon.

I do think that sometimes we end up writing agents who step somewhat out of character when they kill their Sues. Some agents do really have the capacity for true cruelty; but most really don't. Most agents want to protect the continuum, do the Duty; so sometimes I think maybe writers go a little overboard with assassinations, having their agents do things that are unnecessarily painful, which said agents don't seem like the type to do.

Many agent pairs I know of are the type who should really prefer quick, clean kills; or else arranging things so that the canon itself gets to kill the Sue (things like locking gazes with the Basilisk in Harry Potter, for example; I think it must help repair the canon to have the Sue die in a canon-appropriate fashion). But some writers seem to feel like they've got to make Sue deaths painful and dramatic, when their agents just really don't seem like the type, even when utterly enraged, to do anything more than just shoot her down like a dog (apologies to dogs everywhere) and make sure the canons are okay.

A little over half of the missions I have written (if I count the one I just finished that isn't published yet) do not deal with Sues. I tend to worry a lot more over the non-Sue missions, because of the "Your kink is not my kink" issue. Maybe that is a good thing. I put a lot of thought into choosing those fics, asking myself if I would read a story along those lines if it was well done. Sometimes I decide, no I wouldn't and pass it up. I honestly don't like mpreg stories (although I can admit to you having shown me at least one humor based one that was good that I did like), so until I can answer that I could be happy reading non-humor based mpreg, I won't be targeting them. There are several other things that I can think of I won't be targeting, and several things I can think of that I wish were done well more often. I think I am probably harder on the things that had the potential to be something I would have liked, but went the badfic route instead of working at it. Then when I pick one like that I worry about whether I am being too harsh, because my expectations were high.

If you (or anyone else) ever see anything I've done that you don't feel was appropriate, tell me. I really don't want to judge it wrong and target one I should have left alone. Anyway, lots of worrying, and all centered around the missions that don't have a pink glittery sign blinking over the whole fic shouting "I am a Sue! Someone kill me please!" Those are a lot simpler in terms of group consensus as to what is good and bad.

Reasons I joined the PPC:
1. It's a lot of fun.
2. It's a pretty nice community that also broadens my horizons a bit, because it such a diverse group.
3. To improve my ability to write humor.
4. To improve my ability to write dialogue.
5. To mock badfic.
6. To have a place where I can receive feedback from reviews, betas, etc. in a relatively safer environment than the publishing industry, from a group of people who adhere to a strict goodfic policy and as a community are willing to help each other become better writers.

(I really hope that I have actually said what I am trying to say. I'm sorry if I didn't.)

Good question.

It's a place where you can mention how you used to rip the heads off of Barbie dolls when you were a kid, and you get a handful of replies that quickly turn into a discussion on Barbie dolls, branching out into how terribly wrong they are to give impressionable young girls, and on the other branch, on how much fun it is to mutilate them.

It's a place where you can post some strange, weird, quirky news story that looks like someone gacked it from a Neil Gaiman short story, and people react by creating a world around it, or just with interesting conversation.

It's a place where you can tell someone, "You're cool and all, but honestly if you don't start capitalizing your proper nouns, I will turn this flamethrower on you," and you get eight cheers, two eye-rolls, and one wall of text about the dogma of capitalizing the pronoun for yourself, and how postmodernism exposed it. (I'm pretty sure that's never happened, at least not quite like that. But it could!)

It's a place where a bunch of strange, interesting, crazy, and awesome people get together to talk about and write good fanfiction, and help each other and other writers out, to keep sanity by laughing at bad fanfiction (and occasionally bad fiction, full stop), and often/occasionally other things.

It's the place where I learned about Terry Pratchett, which gives it a special meaning right off.

It's a crazy, crazy universe with Flowers That Be, and literal plotholes, and consoles that shouldn't be able to talk but do, and a fountain of Beepka, if you can find it; a place where the only way to get where you're going is to stop trying to get there, a place that's impossibly huge and impossibly small, where there are agents of every conceivable race, whether we've written them yet or not.

It's the place where I met my unrelated older brother, and too many close friends to try counting. The place where I grew up, in many senses of the word.

It's a canon and fandom that you can belong to without having written a mission in years, or without ever having written a mission-- and ye gods am I glad for that.

No, the PPC is not See Sue, Chase Sue, Kill Sue, and I hope it never will be. And thank you, for saying this, because I agree with just about all of what you've said here, and I really hope we don't lose you. You're both an integral part of the craziness; please stay.

I just hate to think that anyone could feel so uncomfortable, especially when I don't; not in the same way.

Allow me to clarify: My "sorry" here is a sympathetic-sorry rather than an apologetic-sorry. I know I didn't do anything myself, but I'm sorry that this whole situation has come up.

Many of us are just plain squicked out by bad slash; or maybe embarrassed; it can be difficult to get past the stomach-turning badly-written smut. It's a lot harder than picking out the plotholes and glitter in a Suefic; there's nothing embarrassing about complaining that the Sue has urple hair, whereas if it's a canon who's mysteriously got an urple penis, then it's a bit more squicky. There's a reason the vast majority of legendary badfics are smutfics.

One of the obstacles I see myself facing is the difficulty of writing about something I don't have any personal experience with--I'm a female asexual, and a virgin, and my knowledge of sex comes from my own research.

But I definitely intend to give Bad Slash a try, just because it's a different concept, and because slashwraiths are fascinating, diabolical little creatures and I'd like to get the chance to observe one firsthand.

... that it was the humour that appealed to you! It was that that got me into it as well when I started (all those many moons ago)

We'll write more - we're just sort of being smacked by Life at the moment so much that there's not a lot of time for writing. But like we said, we have a List of potential targets and plans still going ahead :)

I think we need to also somehow get across to people that we're not indiscriminate fic-haters, which I think some outside people have got the idea that we are.

Proper answer later, but for now: don't fret, love. You haven't made us feel bad.

(And totally OT, I should have photos of The Dude on a computer and ready to send to you in a day or so.)

After all, you didn't start the whole stupid bullying debacle.

I dunno if we need to make it an official challenge to write something out of the ordinary, but I just feel like we need to let the world outside of the PPC know that we're more than Sue-killers, is all.

And we will be back, we promise - we just need to get our heads on straight again :) Now that I'm back from Scary Overseas Places, I'm going to be back fulfilling my PG duties, and we have a Gathering Report mostly finished as well, complete with photos.

Please don't feel bad - this wasn't intended as a personal attack on anyone!

You're my friends, and I had no idea you felt that uncomfortable, and that unwelcome. I'm sorry. :(

I know I'm more than guilty of being vicious with the killing of Sues in my missions, but from my perspective, that's not what missions are about at all. When I think of the PPC, the first things I think of are the absurd gadgets and the use of plotholes like doorways - the mind-boggling manifestations of bad writing. Yes, I use mission-writing as a way of relieving stress when I'm upset or frustrated with a particularly bad badfic, but what I'm most proud of - and what I remember most about what I've read or written - are things like the Capillary Towel, or the navigation of HQ's corridors; the things that make us so different from characters like Bourne.

Regarding the bullying argument... once it was over, I more or less ignored it. I don't believe that we are bullies or that we ever have been, though I can see why some people may feel attacked. I don't know if it helps you, Trojie, but in your shoes, I would've been happy to see that my department wasn't really involved in the debate - the fact that "PPC" had been essentially equated with "DMS" seemed like less of an issue than the fact that we were mocking fics at all; Sues were just the easy focus. But I see where you're coming from.

Maybe there's a way to remedy this. Maybe we could all, as a community, make a point of toning down the death-focus in our missions, or take the time to write something set in the PPC that isn't a mission. Maybe those of us whose agents are assassins can have them branch out, be more versatile - tackling highly OOC fics and performing exorcisms rather than killing replacements. There are many options.

Any takers? Can we arrange to do more things like FanficLand, perhaps? Can we make a group effort to mock non-Sue badfics? I don't see why we can't. Perhaps we could even create an in-universe explanation - nothing as dramatic as the Emergencies (perish the thought), but perhaps the Flowers will decide that the PPC's public image (*cough, cough*) needs improvement and so make non-Sue missions priority for a while?


As for amending the constitution and such, I'm all for it. Go forth and tweak.

Did I answer your question? I think I did. To me, the PPC is about silliness and poking fun at badfic, with a tactful definition of what is "bad". I generally stick to Suefics because I am very good at telling when an OC is a Sue or not, and avoid bad slash missions because I'm no judge of slash. I always PPC fics that are to the extreme end of "bad", not the middle-ground ones. However, in light of what you're saying, I see no reason why I can't cart my agents off to work on OOC fics for a while - it's not like we can't spot bad characterisation. And that would be more fun (and less destructive), which is, as you say, the point.



...So will you please come back? I'm not kidding when I say I feel awful. I miss you two.

I see people mutilating the books I love, and it's just so wonderful to read fics that show people setting it right. Simple as that. Plus, there's the opportunity to write what I guess is metafiction--something I've always liked, ever since I realized the concept existed--basically, stories about stories.

Killing Sues isn't particularly important to me; it's more of a means to an end. This would be why I've put my agents in Floaters. I want to try them all--exorcisms, geographical aberrations, messed-up crossovers, kidnapped canons, and yes, Mary Sues.

I learned some writing tips from the missions I read. I can only hope that other writers will eventually learn from the ones I write. If I can get past the writer's block on Page Five of mine, that is. :P

Something else I like about the PPC is the concept of the PPC itself. The idea of an organization that polices fan fiction just tickles my fancy. I keep on working out the details of the "rules" of the PPC continuum--which are internally consistent, despite the fact that they're nothing like the way our world works. (My standard approach when I fall in love with a new continuum is to find out everything about it.)

In the PPC, everything depends on irony and humor and Murphy's Law; and they're real "laws of physics", enforced by a Legal Department, no less. Even the inconsistent things have an explanation--HQ is just that weird, and what else would you expect from a place that runs on plot holes and has access to dozens of continua with time machines?

Also: The relief from angst, from "badass" characters, and from general taking-itself-way-too-seriously fiction. It's nice to see characters who face death and insanity every day without wangsting or turning into musclebound Schwarzenegger clones. I love watching underdogs succeed; and that's what PPC agents basically are. Very, very snarky underdogs, in most cases, which makes it even better. Even the "serious" PPC stories avoid the overly-dramatic issue. (Does anybody read the webcomic "Order of the Stick"? It's done a very similar thing, creating serious plotlines while keeping a great level of humor, much like the PPC.)

And of course there's the benefit of talking to other people who also love books. That's always a bonus for me; in real life, I mostly meet people who are into video games or TV shows, and I don't get the opportunity to talk about books all that much.

I don't care whether you think it's good or bad (I myself think it's just bearable), but there's a lot of bad Slash and Het there. I can give you some examples if you like.

The scary thing is that once you set out to write something awful, it's very easy to get worse and worse...