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Because if they're not bad, then they're not Mary Sues.

However, a character can be a beautiful, powerful character who falls in love with a canon and still not be a Mary Sue.

The most basic traits of a Mary Sue are distorting the canon and having a flat or cliched personality. Both of those traits need to be present for a character to be a Mary Sue. If the OC is beautiful, powerful, and falls in love with a canon, but does it while being a realistic person who honors the canon, then she's not a Mary Sue.

There are cases where a Sue is not horribly grating, of course; but most of them are in original fiction, not fanfiction. These are characters like Drizzt Do'Urden and Superman--characters who, while they have a lot of Suvian traits, don't have a canon to distort and are usually written realistically enough that people still read their stories despite the way the story revolves around them. If they were in a fanfic story, they would be ridiculous Sues and targeted by the nearest PPC agent in about two seconds flat.

Have you been reading recent missions? It's evident that most people agree with you.

Recent agents don't have TARDISes; nor do they use Mass Neuralyzers; and it doesn't make sense that they should. Nobody else liked being overpowered, either.

Why? Simple: Glitter levels. An overly powerful PPC agent ends up Sued, and then their own partner (or the DIO, which doesn't exist) has to take them out. It's not fun, and while it's "never happened", we don't want it to ever happen. It's not necessarily even the way that most agents would want it; very few agents are actually sociopathic enough to want to go killing at random without checking first to see that their target is a personality-free, canon-destroying Sue. And that means they'd prefer that other agents not go on killing sprees, either.

The agents need to keep their distance from the canons, sure; but the SEP fields and the constant presence of a partner are usually enough to ensure that. Equally dangerous would be keeping too much distance from the canons--too much distance to care about the characters, understand the continuum, or notice the small details that can be crucial on a mission.

On the writer's side, we don't want our agents to be overly powerful, either, because it's no longer fun to write for them. It's like having Superman as your main character; only he lives in a world where the worst crimes are purse-snatchings and shoplifting and nobody ever thought of becoming a supervillain. In a word: Boring.

Bringing in the big guns isn't necessary unless it's absolutely warranted. That's one of the reasons why I think the PPC should continue to maintain, and train pilots for, Sun Crushers. There will always be sci-fi continua in which the fangirls will write extracanonical solar systems; and there has to be a way to deal with them. But Sun Crushers are no good for any other purpose. With a few hundred agents (give or take a few thousand) who are all dedicated to protecting their favorite continua, there's absolutely no way the PPC will go back to just blowing up any planet with a Sue on it. Would you like it if they blew up Middle-earth because it was such a Sue magnet? Do I hear the phrase "over my dead body"? Thought so.

The Mass Neuralyzer, however, seems to be something that probably isn't a good idea. Yes, it's efficient; but it's impersonal, and you're likely enough to accidentally neuralyze someone hiding outside the radius of your vision. Consider the scenario: You're in Rivendell and you've just neuralyzed the entire Fellowship with a Mass Neuralyzer. Your neuralyzer flash was seen through the window by five Random Elves and Bilbo Baggins. They now all think they are part of the Fellowship. Is this good for canon? Nope.

What I do disagree with, though, is the idea that we shouldn't be writing stories that flesh out our agents' personalities, or writing stories that have a plot beyond just "See badfic, see Sue, kill Sue". Plot and characterization are both good. The PPC is not MSTing; if you want to just spork badfic, plot-free, you should be writing an MST. Your characters should be realistic people, and the reader should care what happens to them. That doesn't mean you have to pile on the melodrama. When I say "plot", I'm talking about things like someone getting hurt, or the Sufficiently Advanced Technology frizting out, or the Warrior!Sue turning out to be a little too Warrior-y for the agents' taste. Things should happen other than just sporking the plot of the badfic. Large-scale emergencies? No. But bringing in another agent pair for backup, or having a food fight in the Cafeteria, or RPing a romance with another agent? Not Emergency material.

Welcome to the Board. I hereby give you a Frying Pan of DOOM^tm and a freshly baked batch of brownies, courtesy of Agents Keaton and Nahinu of RC 6237.

Feed it only Generic Meat.

I love Duck Hunt! It's one of the most entertaining games of that time.

I am Barid, but you may call me Barid. It is a pleasure to meet you.

I give you an original NES, complete with Duck Hunt and the Zapper Lightgun. Enjoy.

I actually read Da Rules before I found out what all this was about, although pretty much all the other links are quite useful.

Welcome, newbie! Here, have some chocolate, and enjoy your stay!

..but I have one issue. The point in question is the "Pokemorphs" example.

I understand what you are saying there, not all pokemorphs are bad. I agree with you on that. However, it is not under Mary Sue types because it is always bad, it is under there because, as you said, "90 percent of them are canon defiling, biology defying wrecks that deserve to die..." The Sue types list is pointing out the character types that most often exhibit Sue-ish qualities in the Pokemon continuum, not saying that every character of those types is a Mary Sue.

I would further state that not all Mary Sues are bad. A 'Sue may be well written, well thought out and used in a manner that is enjoyable to read. However, the overwhelming majority of them are poorly written, totally flat and used in a manner that most of us find to be truly annoying.

To sum it up, I agree with you, just because something is usually bad doesn't mean that it can't be done well. But just because something can be done well does not mean we should ignore the fact that it is done poorly 90 percent of the time.

I'll read some more PPC spin-offs before I start reading Universities, but thank's for the link!

I honestly don't know how many variations of the same title I'll have to use for the replies...
Thanks for the unspecific person/place/thing... Keep the bomb for someone who urgently needs to kill a Sue/Stu (unless he/she/it has some sort of explosion resistance).

Well, Doctor Who, for instance, and Tom Baker was one of my favourite ones... I also like Harry Potter, Star Trek, and even though I never read the books - shame on me, LoTR.

Fair winds!

*pokes*

Welcome! I see you've found the most important thing, which is the Original Series, but allow me to draw your attention to some other pages of secondary-but-still-important importance:

1. Da Rules, a.k.a. the Board Constitution, which we all must follow if we hope to get along and not succumb to the nastiness which consumes other message boards. (The fact that we're still here probably says something about its efficacy.)

2. The PPC Board FAQ, which will help you work with this unusual message board.

3. The Permission article on the wiki, in case you're interested in writing your own PPC spin-off.

4. There is no number four.

5. The Guide to the PPC, the FAQ: For Newbies, and the Mission Writing Guide, for many of the same reasons as listed above.

And that should about do for a start. However, if you're interested in reading more spin-offs, the Complete List of PPC Fiction and the Killed Badfic pages are good places to start.

Enjoy!

~Neshomeh

Here, have a lead-filled baseball. It can be used as a paperweight or a weapon.
Now, since you're new here...hang on a sec *pops into a hole, pops back up with an enourmous bag* Here they are! *mumbles* Keep forgetting where I put these--LINKS!
You've already found the PPC wiki, so no need for that one. Then: The Orignal Series (which you've already read, but eh..). These are the stories of the original PPC agents, who were here from the beginning. Here are the missions of Trojie and Pads--they have one of the longest mission lists in the PPC, besides IndeMaat who recently hit 50. And finally, my favorite: The OFUM, and others . They're some wonderful stories by people who are pissed off at other writers who've been dicking around without all the cards in different fandoms. Some of them are funny, some of them are memorable, and some... well... Eh.
Anyways, enough links (although I do suggest you read the PPC Constitution and the Rules [found at the top of the page when you enter this site] every so often. I had a little problem a while back, 'cause I took someone else's posts a little to seriously...hehe.)
Anywho, enjoy your stay here, and abandon your sanity. Have a bucket or three for whatever sanity you wish to deposit for your stay with us (I guarentee you won't need it; I never had any to begin with!)

-Honu_Wahine

Here, take this bomb that's just about to go off-

JUST KIDDING! Here, have this unspecific person/place/thing instead! I don't give these out often because of what people use them for, but here!

I can see your points, and they're quite valid...

... And I kind of agree with you on them. Some of the things we're putting into our PPC stories aren't funny and/or interesting, they're downright stupid, lazy and cheap. It's almost like we've started defiling our own writing, our own canon, our own characters just to protect the things we love. It's disgusting in my opinion, and this is coming from the guy who can't write humor for his life!

I haven't been here in this community for long, and I already see that we're losing what our whole point was originally. We've became kind of divided, with some people still in it mostly for fun and laughs, just trying to have a good time more than anything else, but with others taking this more seriously and trying to explain and expand the fictional universe of the PPC because it means something personal to them somehow. (I'm one of the latter, mostly because I've ended up becoming attached to my agents despite not even getting permission yet, but also because I don't really write humor to begin with). There isn't anything wrong with either in moderation, but it seems that there's a lot more of the second group now than the first one than there used to be.

What we need to find is balance. Not too serious, but not too funny either. What we are is lost, incapable of realizing that we're tearing our whole beloved fictional world apart because we're trying to resist change a bit too much to be healthy. We're attempting to enforce both canon and quality, but we've leaked into enforcing what we think is bad a little as well. This is kind of visible on the wiki, as well. A (possibly somewhat bad) example is on the Pokemon page. Look under the "Sue types" section and you'll see that pokemorphs are for some reason grouped up in there despite there actually being some good 'morph characters out there if you look hard enough. Yes, 90 percent of them are canon defiling, biology defying wrecks that deserve to die by (insert hilarious method of execution here), but just because someone writes an idea that's been done horribly over and over and over doesn't mean that the character is immediately a sue. There's using an overused idea poorly, and there's using it right despite everyone else expecting something horrible just because everyone else is using it badly. Kind of getting a little off topic here, though, so I'm gonna stop ranting.

...Or maybe I'm just rambling on again because I see another wall of text, and my brain wants to make another wall. I dunno, it's kind of hard to tell. Hopefully I wrote all this to get a valid point across, because I can't tell any more.

I believe drawing attention to all of that was the point of the article, actually. In my opinion, it's satire at its finest. {= )

But rest easy--we're not moving in that direction as much as you may think. If you look at the bulk of recently-released missions, I think you'll find they're all nicely low-tech and amusing to some degree, and no emergencies. {= )

~Neshomeh

Hello! Have a seventeen foot long, multicolored, wool, knit scarf (curly wig not included), and a bag of jelly babies.

Please use them IRresponsibly.

This is a rather old style Board, there are no categories, and once thing drop off the first page they are rarely heard from again. Posting new replies does not bring them back to the top.

People will be along shortly with bumper stickers, links, strange gifts, and a bucket in which to place your sanity. Fun, fun, fun!

So, what are your fandoms?

Hi, I'm raffitz (not really, but that's the name I go by in the Internet).
The way I ended up here is rather interesting: I was googling "Daleks" and ended up on the PPC wiki article about them. Instead of clicking "back" and never setting foot there again, I checked what it was. This all happened yesterday, but I've already read through the Original Series (except for the missing chapters, and the last one as well. Acacia was my favourite agent and I wouldn't be able to tolerate the two Heavy-Metal-Maniacs even for a single episode). I decided to join the Board.
I suppose this is as good a place as any to put my introduction, as I didn't find any sort of categories (I'm not used to this sort of posting board).

I've just read the wiki page about cycle theory, and in response, I would like to announce that it is BULLOCK! Let me make myself understood implicitly - I am a proponent of Cycle Theory, in that I know it is happening, but I'm opposed to it in that I think it shouldn't be happening. Regression is the worst possible thing that could happen to the PPC, yes, even worse than our total destruction. If we are destroyed, Bad Things will happen due to our absence, but if we regress to the early days of the Organization, we will be the cause of Bad Things, and they will Not be Funny!

First, the issuing of the TARDISes. This changes the entire focus of the Agent of the PPC, from someone who does their job as best they can in the field, who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty or improvise, sponsered and organized lunatics who can get in and out of any amount of trouble just so long as it's funny, to shadowy figures, lurking in their TARDISes and 'fixing' whatever parts of fanfiction they don't like. It's creepy, it's uncomfortably sterile, it's not as funny, (Think about some of the problems Jay and Acacia faced in the OS. Would they have been as funny if their RC was five steps away?) and it wouldn't work. Think about it; If our agents were as psychotic as we make them out to be, and they had to stay in an enclosed space with someone just as disturbed for such prolonged periods of time, where their only chance to get out involves killing things...How long would it take for those police boxes to begin dripping blood?

In an RC, you can call for help. In a Tardis, no one can hear you scream.

The Sun Crushers and Mass Neuralyzers are also a problem. They give Agent's more freedom, freedom that they really shouldn't be allowed. It gives more opportunities to take the easy way out. Why slice off a 'Sue's head when you can hit her with an antitank weapon? And who cares if the canons noticed? Turn on the Mass Neuralyzer and it won't matter at all. This isn't funny, and this isn't what the PPC should be. I'm 80% sure that we have rules against this, and if we don't, we should.

Our rules are also being compromised. Yes, we argue about them like a trio of Ashkenazi Rabbis. Yes, our agents barely every follow them even when we do manage to agree. But we have them, there are reasons that we have them, and we are currently making a mockery of them. And it isn't even an amusing mockery.

It seems that we've lost focus. What are we, what is our purpose? Are we enforcing canon or quality? If we're just enforcing canon, does that mean that we kill any fic that doesn't follow the books to the letter? If we're enforcing quality, what's the difference between that and bashing stuff that we don't like?

No. We're not doing either. We're writing these missions to be funny and interesting, because we are the goddamn PPC. That is the goddamn point of the entire organization, and we are missing it completely. In HQ, Rule of Funny is Word of God. Sometimes we need to be serious, but when we do we should beware of blowing this seriousness out of proportion. Angst should be kept to a minumum, and the same goes for plotline. The point of this is to have fun with the plots of badfic, not to create monolithic storylines and backstories for each individual agent. And the Grey Lady knows that we don't need a full-blown Emergency to write a decent fight scene.

This may appear to have nothing to do with regression. But think about it this way; the OS is the foundation on which all of the PPC is built. This means that we're supposed to build on it, progress and improve what they created, not tear it down because we think we can do better.

I'm probably just rambling here. In fact, I'm almost certain that I am. But I, for one, want to know what people think about this, if this is a problem that needs to be fixed, and how we might go about changing this.

Overthinking things as usual, EBW

Or, if we forget to type in our name, then we make a note saying "oops, that was me." I don't see why the wiki should be any different, that's all.

The point is not that I don't like edits--generally speaking, I don't mind edits anywhere, and I'll even tolerate them on my own agents' pages provided nothing fundamental is altered.(*) The point is that one person does not have the right to make changes that may affect the community without bringing it up with the community first. Flowers are community property; thus, any changes to what's established about them needs to be brought up with the community--preferably here, but a note on the Talk page first would have done, as well. The fact that this particular case also concerns me as an individual is merely the reason I'm the one who ultimately brought it up here, because I need an answer.

---

* I happen to think that people's intellectual property should be respected, however, so do please keep it to a minimum. If there's a typo, feel free to fix it, but I draw the line at changing the fundamental content and/or structure of existing sentences, and I reserve the right to re-work anything anyone else does to suit me--as may you all on your agents' pages.

The issue with Rilwen's pages, by the way, was that none of the information on them was altered--only links were added--and she got very nasty with her language, which is never okay. But that's water under the bridge now.

~Neshomeh

...Spend hours and hours trawling the Pit looking for a fic that matches these exact criterion, then be dissapointed when it's actually a mediocre piece of fiction, OR you can write it yourself, save some time, and post it for people who decide to try the first option. Your choice.

as a "if you have such a problem with anonymous edits, why don't you just..." Hey, I like it too when people log in so I can tell who made the edits. It helps with the community feeling. But if other people aren't feeling particularly communal, that's up to them. I don't like this "people must log in so they can answer to me" vibe that seems to me hanging around here.

Had you left a note on the Kudzu's page that you wanted to be notified of edits? Or that you didn't like edits? I believe it was you who suggested to Rilwen to do this when she blew a gasket when someone editted one of her agents' pages. Personally, I'm not completely familiar with who writes about what flower and who should thus be notified when older information conflicts with newer information.

Herculean task: seems impossible but with a little wit and ingenuity doable.

I just found myself thinking "Okay, they've cleared out the ones which only apply to a few characters, that's good ... wait, this one could apply to a lot of them ... and so could this one ..." It's an addiction, I swear :) I'll cut a few out if you want me to.