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I'm with you and VixenMage, I think. It's fun to think this stuff up, but it doesn't really fit with the PPC's set-up, which is that Sues are the creations of authors who write fanfiction, the Words of which interfere with the Words of canon, thus redefining the canon universe in an undesirable, disruptive way. All the PPC acknowledges that Sues come from bad fanfiction and that those badfics have authors; it doesn't really leave room for Sues as independent organisms with a unique evolution and biology.

Even the essays that Trojie and Crystal wrote don't really work for me for that reason, even though it is interesting to read them.

~Neshomeh

Definitely, I think she gets a break if she's learned from her mistakes. On the other hand, it occurred to me that if she knew it was bad, she might enjoy seeing it mocked. On the third hand, you can't assume she would; on the fourth hand, if you can find a tactful way of asking, it might be worth it. On the fifth hand, I seem to have turned myself into an octopus, so I'll shut up now.

...before boredom kind of set it. The beginning has parody elements in it, but that quickly gives way to just a regular story that would fit right in with the rest of the bad mary sue community.

It's not [i]funny[/i] enough to be a parody.

Adding this level of detail to what sues are in the PPC canon are is just asking to be too difficult to implement to all the various PPCers.

My suggestion is that you make one of your agents have alot of pet theories on what sues are, and just sprinkle these speculations into his dialogue. That way they /may/ be true, but other agents are free to interpret however they like.

As I said before, sues usually have short lives and suethors are like life support systems for their creations and also about reformed sues.

In canon, authors grant life to their creations but suethors create but unable to give the sues good characterization nor a normal life span. These kind of flaws made the sues suffer. Worse, the bond can be broken if the suethor disowned the sue and/or never acknowledged as her creation. The amount of glitter in her body is a hint of how strong the bond is. While this sounds good at first but the drawbacks overweight the benefits. Broken powerful bonds is lethal to the sue, usually death or force her into a comatose state. The bond is double edged sword for sues.

As for reformed sues, the bond is severed from the suethor which should make them really weak. The ones with strong levels of glitter are impossible since they are too much of a hassle to handle. Sues can be reformed into normal beings even without having rely on the bond. They just have receive treatments but there's one problem, glitter is like their blood so trying to remove it could be fatal until medical research provided us a way to cure them of their suedom.

It almost wrote itself what with Sonja's implied dark side in the second game and her synergy with Lash in the third.

Most everyone will get a spotlight as the story progresses, but yeah, Yellow Comet is fun.


This morning I also had an idea for a hilariously bad ero fic with Nell, Rachel, Max and Grit. It'll be a parody of XXX fanfic if I get around to doing it.

...along with a few others. This is just the beginning of a series of essays. I hope research could help me support these theories but if some prove me wrong, oh well.

They may be but I have some thoughts about this. Canon Sues don't have to drain the host because they are "canon". They don't need to cause damage but if the story is bad because the author did that, not her even though some could be her fault.

So yeah, it's like that.

And, that's exactly what they did: took the source material, changed some things around, and injected zombies between the lines. I only looked at the first few chapters, but still. I'm not even a fan of the source material, and I hate it with a passion. {= P

~Neshomeh

1. Can I loan you Agents Omicron and Charlie?
   
   2. Once again, where is the best place for me to give you pertinent information r.e. Korora's native continuum?

All of this talk about Sues as parasites reminds me of this fic I'm currently rereading called "A Sue's Story". Ever hear of it?

It's set in the Harry Potter continuum, but based some around some OCS who work with handing Sues. It's a different way of looking at it, so I don't know how some people will handle it...

So check it out, that is, if you want to.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1811995/1/ASuesStory

It's not a matter of being published; it's a matter of the wide exposure of published fiction.

Stories come from World One minds--not just the Author's, but the readers' minds, too.

Three factors affect the strength of canon:
1. The skill of the Author who creates it.
2. The number of people who read it.
3. The fanfiction written in the continuum.

The stronger the canon, the more it attracts Mary Sues, but the more it can resist Mary Sue parasitism. And the strongest canons are the ones that are published and widely read... though even the strongest can fall to Mary Sues if they aren't protected.

Nice thinking. Now the theory is complete, I think.

And they aren't. There's not enough characterization to make them sentient; just a bunch of weird Sueperpowers tacked to a cardboard character. Factory sues are pre-programmed; also no sentience there. Very borderline sues who get recruited have to go to FicPsych just to get themselves a personality; and agents who get fully Sued tend to be executed by their partners very much like someone who got bitten in a zombie move. Too far gone, and there's nothing left of the person you used to know (which means risk of getting wangsty and should not be overused, but it has happened in the past...)

If it's "genocide", then it's more like exterminating a species of (reality-destroying) mosquitoes than it is like destroying a species of humanlike aliens. You might have qualms about disturbing the natural ecology of the multiverse (which is actually something I've been toying with lately--environmentalism, PPC style!); but other than their humanoid shape, there's nothing sentient about them.

FicPsych or DMSE&R should do neuropsych testing on Mary Sues...

The Canon Sue is a Sue who has been smart enough to insert herself into a canon while it was still being formed. The canon grew around the Sue and adapted to her presence.

The Sue can't survive without the canon. And the canon can't survive without the Sue, because it was developed with the Sue already in place, and removing the Sue would cause it to collapse. It's like not removing a knife from a stab wound because it's plugging a hole in an artery.

A canon with a Canon Sue in it is weakened, but not destroyed, because it is in careful balance.

The canon is just powerful enough to support the Sue. And the Sue is just smart enough not to go too far and kill her host. The canon is by no means healthy, but there's no way to remove the Sue without destroying it altogether.

I find this idea pretty good, it completely explains non canon sues. However, Canon Sues are not quite the same problem - they ARE actually canon, so they are only resembling a Sue in behaviour, but do not share the same mechanics of energy stealing. In easy words, Canon Sues do not feed on canon energy, because they are in canon.

That they were originally going to have Anakin be the hero of NJO, but George Lucas thought that people would get confused if there were two Anakins.

Good idea within the PPC, but don't forget that a lot of people consider canon Sues to exist. We're just not allowed to PPC canon.

See, I always thought Mary Sues existed because people like to write fanfiction, and some of them are really bad at it. And that we kill them because we don't like seeing stories about our favorite canons that are really bad. And that we made up the whole thing about them Killing The Canon to have an in-universe reason to do so, and because it makes for a good story...

--VM, being the polar opposite of helpful!

Very short, because I should have long since gone to sleep:

If it's making money, definitely. If not, depends on the context. I don't think a school play is much of a violation (unless they charge door fees), but I've heard of people making a fuss over such things. Newspapers, I'm not sure. If they are 'sold', gamble on the side of caution.

There's a wiki article with more on the subject, but I can't find it back now. I did chatter about the topic further down on the thread, if that helps. (If not, go ahead and start a new thread at the top of the board and ask. We'll probably start a fun little debate.)

To be honest, I don't see the 'need'. I mean, why do 'scientific theories' need a reason? You might as well be asking for the motives behind why the Earth was created - which is a religious question, usually.

It would also create an additional ethical complication in that one could argue that the 'Sues are merely struggling to survive, casting agents in the light of genocidal murderers. I don't think that's quite what Jay and Acacia meant when they started this.

Still, if you want to think of it that way, that's up to you. I don't think I'll adopt it as part of my "headcanon", though.

True, we try to focus on the 'fic, not the author, but if an author has taken their work down - particularly if they did so because they know it's bad - it's best to respect that. Besides, from an in-world point-of-view, the fanfic is no longer around to wreck havoc on canon, so there's no need to PPC it anyway ;)

If there are aspects of it so dreadful that you feel you can't let it go, what about having your agents grumble about it in the past tense, as though it were a mission they once did in the non-narrative time before you started writing them? Or have them moan about it being the first such badfic they read and how it traumatised them? In that case they could outright state that the author later took it down, and even complain that they'd have liked to PPC it themselves - remember, the 'lives' of our avatar agents tend to follow 'real life', if in a bizzare, twisted fashion.

But even if not, I wouldn't PPC it. There's nothing stopping you, if you're determined, but since you asked...

Short as it may be, that is the most useful review I've seen. Thank you :) Maybe I'll go to see it myself now.