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I think that when reviewing a work, you could point out one problems and offer to point out anything else that could be corrected. It's better than going straight to mocking someone's Sue.

I think that there would be an overlap between people who take it personally and think that you're losers. Do you want people to see you as losers in the first place?

There is a difference between criticism and mocking.

I found the mission to be fun to read and I like Ruxanda's character.

Choice quote:

"Do we charge for runaway body parts?:

"We do now."

Guess I'll just have to imagine.

Pff, "tempt." I'm not sure it counts as temptation if one falls at a single glance. {= D

I have a dumb noob question! Is crafting a thing I can just do, or is it all about exchanging gathered items for better stuff at the various trading post stops? There are mentions of crafting, but I can't seem to locate a place to just mess around and see what I can make with, like, a scrap of cloth and a sparrow skull or whatever.

~Neshomeh

I left out a lot of terrible stuff from the mission, mostly because the fic kept repeating itself, but I did my best to show why I found it such a bad story. And I'm glad you enjoyed the small moments, especially Melissa running away screaming - I loved writing that bit.
Thanks for reading!

This was a truly horrendous fic, but writing the mission for it was very fun, especially with Ruxanda now on board - I couldn't wait to introduce her.
If I recall correctly, Trojie said the thing about something not being at the end of a stalk during the sporking of Littlefoot x Cera, but I can't remember the exact chapter. I do plan on rereading the mission, though, so I'll tell you if I find it.
Thanks for bringing my attention to the mistakes that got past me, and thanks for reading! I'm really glad you enjoyed the mission.

I didn't know about that glitch, I apologize for any inconvenience.

I am totally here for Council infighting, especially when all three of them have basically the same opinion, just in different words.

And it's Eleven! This is the third time he's run into Morgan since she joined the PPC (actually the fourth, but I haven't finished Critical Thinking Puzzle yet; and I'm not counting the closed timeline); I assume the fact that he already knew her from Gallifrey is how he keeps remembering the Council whenever he runs into her? Or are we assuming that at this point he's aware of the PPC when convenient to the plot?

The phrase 'the Mirror Causality' gives me absolute chills; perfect naming. :)

Thanks for catching those typos - they've been fixed.

A lot of folks seem to like the character interactions, so I'm and it's nice to hear that I managed to get something funny out of the fic (I know I snarked at it a bunch).

Thanks for the encouragement and the feedback!

I think you did a good job handling the fic, and thas was an interesting ending.

I like the line about not using the words "Freddy" and "stuffed" in the same sentence for a while, because that makes a lot of sense.I also like the "running out of the RC" bit from the beginning - seems like the right reaction to this fic.

Looking forward to seeing more stuff.

One typo I saw: "vampiric strength; then, she took his" has an extra comma.

(Full disclosure, I don't know the canon much, but I can still sense why this fic is bad)

Nice mission! I liked the character development of Taq here. I found a few typos here and there (Taq and Peregrin disguising themselves as "Hogwart" students, Ginny being Zilla's "best friend new," and Peregrin casting "Perfectus Totalis"), but the substance of the mission was full of all the funny gags we know and love. Well done!

I don't know how much or what flavor of critique any given Internet writer can handle. Sometimes, if they actually say they're interested in improving and welcome feedback, I'll leave a review. More often, though, it's just the usual "plz R&R!!1! I must have 5 reviews before I post the next chapter!" Given the choice between spending my energy on A) a long, long list of corrections that may or may not be welcome, or B) on writing my own characters, in their own story, viscerally experiencing the problems so they're shown rather than told? I choose the latter. It's more interesting for me and my intended readers, and, I believe, less likely to hurt someone than you think.

I don't know the numbers, but I'm pretty sure there are a lot more authors who don't have a story sporked than those that do, so statistically, the chance that YOUR story will be sporked is low. And, again, we don't broadcast what we do for good reason. Nobody here intends for any particular author to see a mission about their particular story.

Given that, supposing someone does come across a mission to their work anyway, I think self-determination on the author's part comes into play.

First, they have to make the choice to read the mission. We don't want them to, and no one's forcing them to. To quote many a fanfic: don't like, don't read!

Second, once they've decided to read it (I'm guessing most people would, honestly; ALL writers have egos), they have to decide how to deal with it beyond the knee-jerk reaction of taking it personally. Sure, it sucks to hear that somebody thinks your work is no good. That's completely normal. But what do you do next?

You've basically got three choices: 1) take it super-seriously and wallow in misery and/or rage ad infinitum; 2) completely dismiss it as the idiotic babble of a basement-dwelling loser, forget it, and move on; or 3) really think about it, take what value you can from it, and leave the rest.

It's not easy to do the third thing, and nobody is born able to do it, but it is incredibly worthwhile to learn how on something relatively trivial like fanfic. That makes it easier when you have to face criticism of much more important parts of your identity, like your performance in school, or in a job, or as a human being. I speak from experience here, and I think most of us could.

To be clear, I'm not saying I think I'm doing anyone a favor by sporking their story—again, my intention is not for them to see it at all. I'm just saying that my personal outlook is that challenges are opportunities for growth, and I highly recommend that outlook to anyone who stumbles across a mission to their fanfic.

~Neshomeh

See, the thing is, I think the actress is a brilliant choice to represent the Doctor's ongoing character arc. She's found that she can move past that original choice to be purely pragmatic and professional-- which we saw with Twelve, who embraced procedure, form, and professionalism to combat that loss of personal identity, wondering if he could even call himself a "Good Man" anymore-- and embrace the joy that the Doctor has always found in adventuring, without seeing it as a dangerous "addiction" like he did when he was worried it would infect Clara. (Say what you will about that season, that was the most compelling conflict in it)

Jodie is a perfect choice to represent the Doctor's pure enthusiasm and energy, and she's an amazing casting choice for it.

I think the openings to the episodes are strong almost across the board-- they're almost all intriguing, and set up interesting conflicts.

The only problem I do have is that almost all of the plot resolutions were... disappointing? I mean, your point about her being directly responsible for the death of the Kerblam antagonist is spot on, and Arachnids in the UK could have used a rescue arc. Some of the characters have odd moments-- like Ryan in It Takes You Away assuming that the girl's father has just run off, after having been adventuring with the Doctor for several episodes now, wherein aliens have been responsible for exactly the type of scenario they find themselves in. Not to mention, the ending scene with Solitract was. Erm. Not stupendous.

Generally, I think they have potential-- I think we all found the return from overcomplicated plot arcs that were more about Moffat pretending he was clever than story, back to genuine emotional adventures, to be a refreshing change-- but I do think that they need to tighten up their writing as they move forward, given the sheer number of holes we got in the plotlines this series.

--Aegis

The Doctor mashed a fuzzy green poet's hat over his curly hair and turned around, peering up the street. "The thing is, I did promise we'd go to this lovely resort planet for tea," he said. "And now it seems we've gotten separated. She's a bright girl, Sarah Jane, but I'm still worried."

"We'll help you find her," the Aviator immediately declared, which drew an ireful glower from the Notary.

"White," Morgan cautioned, putting a hand on her arm. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Yes," the Notary said. "Please shake these silly notions of bravado from her head, and then we can find Yellow and go home."

Morgan threw a glare over her shoulder before leading the Aviator a few steps away, lowering her voice. "Whatever's going on, the Doctor will fix. This isn't our fight to get involved in. We're just here to get the Reader and get out. Let the canons handle... canon problems."

The Aviator sighed and glanced back at the Doctor before reluctantly nodding. "Fine," she said. "But if doing that puts Xan—puts Yellow in any danger, I don't care if I get kicked off the council. I'm saving her."

"Don't be so dramatic," Morgan said, shaking her head in exasperation. "We'll save her without needing to do anything crazy. Come on." She clapped the Aviator on the arm and moved forward to speak to the Doctor. "We haven't seen Sarah Jane, but she's able to look out for herself. We're actually here to find a friend of ours—"

She was cut off by a sudden wind that whipped litter around their legs, followed by the sound of TARDIS engines. A blue police box materialized, and a man with floppy brown hair and a bow tie stuck his head out.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I'm looking for a nest," he said. "Well, I say a nest, but it's more like a lair, a sort of—Morgan?"

"Morgan?" the Fourth Doctor said, turning to stare at her. "My goodness! I thought you seemed familiar! You've grown."

"Doctor," Morgan sighed. "And Doctor."

The Eleventh Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and snapped his fingers, shutting the doors behind him. "Well, if you're here with that silly council of yours, things must be worse than I thought," he said.

Morgan wordlessly pointed at the sky, and the Eleventh Doctor whirled around to follow her finger.

"Oh. Oh dear. Oh dear, dear me."

"Silly council?" the Notary demanded. "I'll have you know that the Continuity Council of Gallifrey-in-would someone stop that blasted noise before I skewer them with an ice pick?!"

The Fourth Doctor looked up from his own sonic screwdriver with a look of utter surprise. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt by being so clever," he said. "But I do believe I understand what this is now."

"And that's why I'm here to stop it," the Eleventh Doctor declared, straightening his bow tie as he glanced at his younger self. "Well—we're here to stop it."

"Stop what, exactly?" Morgan said, folding her arms.

The Doctors looked at each other, then back at the agents. The Fourth Doctor tucked his sonic screwdriver back in his pocket and cleared his throat. "The Mirror Causality."

((And I'll chuck some thoughts into the notes doc. Batter up!))

It might sound like we're splitting hairs, but what mockery there is - and there isn't much these days - is directed at the work itself, not the authors. It is explicit in the Constitution that we do not mock or target the authors of a fic, because that (as you rightly assert) is just plain mean-spirited.

I'm confused as to where you got the idea that we mock things for "not being up to professional standards", because we don't do that either. Take one of our most recent entries into PPC canon: Tomash's sporking of a fic in which Hermione's parents are revealed to be "royal phoenixes". The story requires that Hermione acts grossly out of character and makes Fawkes (who is renamed to Itzal Ombra for reasons that even Fawkes himself is confused by in the fic) her father. Does talking about how this story's plot constitute "mocking authors for not being up to professional standards"? I certainly don't think so, but then, I would say that, wouldn't I. =]

As for the stories we write not being "as good as some fanfiction", er, well spotted? There are some excellent fics out there. Some of them are definitely better than the average PPC mission. However, the fact that we don't have David Foster Wallace writing missions does not render any criticisms we make null and void. I can say that a one-legged donkey that's spent the past three decades wheezing its way up and down Blackpool Pleasure Beach underneath a succession of ever-more corpulent tourists isn't going to win the Grand National, and my saying so isn't invalidated by the fact that I'm not friggin' Seabiscuit. We're not the greatest writers who've ever existed, and nobody's claiming that we are, but since we're generally talking about things that are outright terrible (because those make for the most interesting missions) it's kind of beside the point.

Let me answer your question, though. Why do we do this? I can't speak for everyone, but I do it for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's a really enjoyable exercise in writing character interactions and dialogue. The second is that I like the challenge of responding to something bad or morally reprehensible or just plain weird and making something better come out of it. The main one, though? It's fun. I find it fun to read through awful fanfiction and take the mickey out of it. Again, I do not and will not take the mickey out of the author of a badfic, because everyone starts somewhere and I don't know their circumstances, but responding to silly plots or badly-written sex scenes or inept dialogue is just fun to me.

I really do think there's been a miscommunication here. Sorry to sound like a stuck record, but the PPC does not mock authors. We ain't about that. It is my position that saying a piece of work is bad for whatever reason is not the same as saying the person who created it is a bad person, and it's a position that the PPC as a community is built around.

So yeah, we're for real. I hope this wall of text from a slightly drunk British woman has helped you to understand where we're coming from, regardless of whether or not it affects your opinion. =]

Ruxanda is quite a character, and I enjoyed getting to know her - you differentiate her from both May and Melissa well.

I don't know the source of the Agent Trojie misquote, but now I want to find it.

I did notice one tense shift: "The agents stared at the OC, who delivered this bit of dialogue in a flat monotone, including the moaning - which sounds really disturbing when clearly enunciated." sounds -> sounded

Also (this is a complaint at the fic, not you) Chica is not a duck.

Then (this is for the mission) Melissa is not referred to as regaining consciousness before they portal ahead.

I did like the fan being used for something!

And I also liked the Hope Spot/plot twist before the mission could end smoothly.

Thank you for writing! =D

If you're posting while "logged in", it's making you show up as "Annonymous". This has been a bug for a few months. Could you please log out and post, manually filling in the author field, so we know who you are?

- Tomash

The community, or rather, most members, have had a discussion on this. As previously mentioned, we're implementing measures to make it less rude. I really think some missions are just to plain awful stories, ones that make you shiver at the thought of the people who wrote them. Also, the commmunity's name's abbreviation (PPC) is not one easily connected to this site. You'd have to enter in the full name, which would lead you to the wiki, which means you're actively looking for it, or TV Tropes. I'd like you to know that there's a reason we don't go around flaunting our TV tropes definition around: It's a gross perversion of what we are. We aren't internet cops. We don't try to police others, and we don't try to be rude. Rude, in my opinion is going around saying "LOOK AT THIS PERSON, THEIR WRITING SUCKS, GO HATE ON THEM". We don't do that, and we make a point not to do so. We try to offer concrit, and do missions only if it's really bad. Anyway, I might have gotten some things wrong, but I do hope you have a nice day.

Should all spaces be safe?

The go-to answer to this has been no as long as I can remember. The understanding is that if you post your work on a public archive with a community review function, you are consenting to criticism, both positive and negative.

However, we've never (AFAIK) sporked stories posted in smaller or more restricted communities. LiveJournal, for instance—I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable sporking something from somebody's journal. Maybe if they were vocally demanding critique, but then, I don't go looking there in the first place.

So, if someone doesn't want strong critical feedback, there are places to share that are safe. I believe we respect that.

The big, popular forums like ff.net and AO3, though? I don't personally feel they can or should be considered safe spaces. For myself, I'm not interested in sharing my work somewhere I'm only going to get coddled with bland praise and never challenged. I hate bland praise. I feel that the greatest compliment someone can give me is to respect the work I put into my writing by putting some work into engaging with it and leaving feedback that tells me what I did right or wrong.

That's not to say I don't get annoyed when I get feedback I don't like, incidentally. We're all only human. {= ) But learning to get over that knee-jerk reaction and use the experience as an opportunity for growth is important, especially if, like me, you're one of the many fanfic writers who hope to eventually publish some original work. IMO, if I can't handle being told I suck by some anonymous Internet people, god help me if real readers and critics have anything bad to say.

Tangentially related, I HAVE been considering, at least for myself, something like a statute of limitations on fics I spork. Nothing less than a year old, or something like that. (Unless it's a troll or something, then I don't care.) I figure the chance of seriously damaging somebody's ego goes down exponentially the more time between the original publication date and the sporking.

I also have zero sympathy for something like "Subjugation," a truly objectionable piece of work that was clearly written by an adult who knew exactly what they were doing—or at least, I sure hope so. >.<

~Neshomeh

Some critique is fine. You have to look at how much someone might be able to handle. Doing it with humor is not the way to be helpful unless you know the person can laugh with you instead of feeling laughed at.

What you're doing isn't simple criticism, and I would think that you could take a bit of judging. It's okay to say something is not good and leave it be, but your style is to say that the mistakes were bad enough to hurt the source material. The people who have the cringeworthy stories are probably the ones that could use a gentle nudge.

That aside, we don't mock based on professional standards, we mock things that are a far cry from even passable, things that are so bad it's hilarious. And even if the stories we write aren't as good as some fanfic, so what? It's not an 'us' and 'them' situation, we write fic too. It's a learning process. We're all learning, it's just some people's steps towards learning produce more cringeworthy initial results than others'. It's not like we can't abide the idea of fanfiction at all, which you seem to be implying. We *are* fanfic authors, at least a good percentage of us. Also, if we're not allowed to criticize fanfic, then why are you allowed to say that stories we write aren't as good as some fanfic? It cuts both ways. Who's to say that *anyone* is above critique and not others? It's all a matter of opinion, isn't it?
And we have a strict policy of leaving the author out of critique. Have you read the "Other People" FAQ on our own Wiki? This might clear up some confusion. I'll link it here.
https://ppc.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ:ForOther_People
Might I ask which wiki sent you here?