Reviews WebOriginal / Protectors Of The Plot Continuum

Why is this flagged?

Apparently that\'s what happens when PPC fans get their feelings hurt lol

... I\'m gonna be honest, this is pretty much the vibe I\'ve gotten from the whole PPC thing. I\'m not going to write a full review, because I frankly haven\'t consumed enough of it and don\'t have enough context; however, this seems like distinctly an artifact of the Old Internet, when posting content without being good at making content was seen as a genuine offense worthy of violent scorn.

On top of that, there\'s a heaping helping of irony there, as the PPC fics and fanart don\'t actually look much better than the stuff they\'re mocking. The PPC fics are written in coherent English, but as noted, they\'re basically just excuses for random gore scenes, and excuses to be vicious to some random kid who wrote a bad Harry Potter fic or whatever the hell. That\'s not good fic, that\'s just a different kind of badfic.

Hmm. I disagree with that. First of all, I haven’t seen the term “Canon Rape” anywhere. If you can show me where a member of the PPC has used that term to trivialize rape, I’ll gladly accept that you have made this point moot and that that was a bad move by them.

The point of the PPC, as I see it, is to point out the flaws in bad fanfiction so that if anybody reads the story, they’ll understand what not to do when writing. To add to that, the stories tend to be quite humorous. Also, it’s apparently cathartic to PPC members. We all win. If the fanfiction writer ever finds the mission, they learn what they did wrong (assuming they can handle criticism). Other readers may learn something about writing. The PPC members are able to share their stories and lessen the pain caused to them by bad fanfiction.

Yes, it may attract trolls and the like to the fanfiction writers. Not that you should blame anybody but the trolls themselves. The PPC explicitly refrains from insulting the authors, and they don’t even notify these authors about their missions. Heck, sometimes they write about bad fanfiction that they wrote when they weren’t good writers.

It’s like MSTing, except more involved. You get to actually think about and fully realize what happens when criminals end up fine instead of fined, or when a wizard poops out of thin air instead of popping out of thin air.

Oh, and not all PPC stories are the same. Many have the same basic formula (like missions), but there are other stories like interludes that take place when agents aren’t going into bad fanfiction. And even missions can vary a lot.

Almost forgot. The PPC does not do “random gore scenes” and viciousness towards authors. If you want proof of that, look at the interludes. Missions tend to be only as weird as the fic they take place in, and even then, the weirdness is all in the fic. The viciousness on the part of the agents is directed towards the writing itself and not the author. In Universe, they actually have to experience the fanfiction. I’d be surprised if someone didn’t start raging at the writing if they had to do that. And fan art... isn’t really relevant.

I’m not going to try and force you to like the PPC, but that’s just what I think. I’d be happy if anybody would like to debate or disagree with me, because I’ve got more reasons to like the PPC than I needed to point out in my rebuttal.

I never thought I\'d see the day where someone tried to argue that sporking dumb fanfiction was comparable to phrenology, but here we are, I guess.

I fully agree with this review. Sites like the PPC were the very definition of \"No Fun Allowed\" fanfom culture, and the folks involved were usually deluded enough to believe they were actually acomplishing anything by pointing out for the millionth time why writing dumb self-indulgent stuff is Bad, Actually. These sites, and the idea that you can just blast some novice writer who didn\'t even ask for criticism just for the lulz and it will eventually lead to a fandom where badfics don\'t happen were a freaking cancer and deserve to be buried and looked upon only as cautionary tales.

Cringe culture is dead. Go write that self insert power fantasy, who even cares in 2020.

I don\'t care about the site, but I want to point out that once you publish something to the internet, you\'re opening yourself up for that thing to be criticized. No, they didn\'t \"ask\" for criticism, but that doesn\'t make them exempt from it.

I agree with both of you but there is a big difference between criticism and 'I wrote my own story where I murder your OC and also there is a character that is implied to be you and I murdered them too, extremely horribly, that'll teach you to write better fanfiction.'

As a former author of terrible, terrible fanfics when I was a teenager, if I had known that the PPC existed, it wouldn't have made me improve, it would have just scared me into never posting any of them.

Which is entirely fair. Like I said, I don\'t care for the PPC, I just felt like that criticism thing needed to be stated.

Well, the OCs are not implied to be the author. The PPC makes a clear distinction between them. Also, there is criticism, in the form of a “Charge List,” explaining in detail everything that’s wrong with the fic.

But again, it’s your opinion.

Criticizing a badly written fanfic is one thing, but I don\'t see the appeal in doing something like this. Even with all these \"precautions\" it always comes off as needlessly petty towards someone you know nothing about as a person. It\'s just not something I can see anyone dedicating a large amount of time towards without feeling like they need to get a life.

Been a while, but I just thought I'd pop in to say that this is one of my favourite reviews on this site. I remember seeing PPC advertised everywhere on this site in days gone by, but it always just seemed utterly bizarre and cringeworthy to me, and it probably deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history. I'm fairly sure there was another negative review on TV Tropes where one of the commenters made a thinly veiled threat against whoever posted it. That basically vindicated my perception of the PPC community: a group who make it their mission to degrade and humiliate harmless fanfiction authors' work, but can't take criticism themselves. Yeah, that was a huge generalisation, it might help to view it as more of a criticism of the "fandom-police" culture PPC promoted online rather than a jab at every single individual member. I'm sure there is some lighthearted fun to be had in writing PPC stuff as a hobby, but when many organised people are writing degrading slam pieces against random strangers en masse, I can imagine it quickly becomes intimidating and cruel.

The PPC is not going after the authors, they are going after the bad writing. Once you post something on the internet, it’s there for others to judge. (Also, some PP Cer’s leave concrit on fanfics, and only spork them if they are given no response or a hostile one). Most PP Cer’s have at least one piece of bad fanfiction in their past, and some of them (myself included) have sporked them with extreme prejudice. (Also, Thompson, who left a threat in a comment? Can you link it please?)

The PPC kind of reminds me of Retsupurae, in that the intention is to have some good-natured fun ribbing on some pretty bad works of media - Let's Plays instead of fanfiction - and although some harsh words may be spoken, they don't mean any harm and it's all in good fun. Say, whatever happened to Retsupurae?

Oh yeah, the people behind it stopped doing it because they were horrified to find out that the people they were jokingly criticizing were actually getting seriously harassed even years later for the crime of posting bad LPs on the internet. Nowadays most of their old videos have been deleted and they haven't uploaded anything new in three years.

@Boredwriter, I\'m referencing another review that was on TV Tropes that\'s since been flagged and deleted. \"Threatened\" may be a bit much but it was definitely a passive-aggressive sounding \"don\'t keep up this grudge if you know what\'s good for you\". Obviously the reviewer had a past with the PPC so I don\'t know the ins-and-outs of the whole situation, but it gave me a bad impression nonetheless.

I have seen some PPC literature and, to be honest, most of what I\'ve seen isn\'t much better than the badfics being criticised. There\'s still uber-competent Mandalorian OCs, impenetrable jargon, etc. As OP says, the only thing distinguishing them is slightly better grammar and vocabulary.

But I think that the overall point is, what\'s the motivation in \"sporking\" bad fanfiction? I don\'t see any real altruism in this. It doesn\'t seem like the most sensible or efficient way to teach people how to be better writers. Also, where does one draw the line when it comes to attacking the writer or their writing? As Elmo said, even if 90% of PPC-ers are fair and level-headed, the rest of the internet isn\'t exactly known for being academically gifted enough to distinguish art from an artist.

Like... I don\'t normally buy the whole \"punching up vs. punching down\" thing, but the latter is the kind of vibe I usually get from PPC culture.

To be fair, the jargon isn’t incomprehensible if you’ve read the wiki pages on it (which is what is asked of you before you join). And the agents are monitored carefully via concrit to make sure they don’t become Sues and Stus.

The PPC tries to never attack the author. Also, I know several authors of PPC fiction only sporked something after they offered concrit and the author either didn’t respond or responded along the lines of “ur a flamer”.

@Boredwriter even with your charitable description in mind, it really just sounds like they\'re having fun at someone else\'s expense.

like, if the goal of the PPC is to \"exterminate\" badfic and they only step in to do so after the writer hasn\'t responded to their concrit, there\'s no defensible interpretation of their mission beyond wanting to bully badfic writers off of the internet. they\'re not trying to help these writers to improve, they\'re just making fun of them. they might claim they want the writers to improve, but, if so, they\'re going about it in the most unproductive way possible.

like, i\'ve read a lot of bad, oftentimes personally offensive fics, and i\'ve never felt compelled to write a response fic wherein my OCs kill the author\'s OCs or otherwise deconstruct their work. writing missions is a fundamentally petty, mean-spirited practice. i just don\'t see how writing bad fanfiction warrants this kind of targeted, hostile response.

(also if they devote multiple wiki pages to explaining their jargon and require that new readers familiarize themselves with it beforehand, that suggests that the jargon has become impenetrable within the text itself.)

Fanfic is free and done for fun. It\'s a hobby. Trying to \"protect\" people from \"bad\" writing in that circumstance is like people who complain when children color characters the wrong colors.

Unflagged this review as I can\'t tell what the issue is.

@Terrie So... if fanfic is for free, and you should complain about “bad fanfic”...Why are you complaining about fanfic you believe to be bad?

I feel like there is a fundamental difference between a fanfiction that is bad, and a fanfiction that is bad and also written solely for the purpose of mocking a bad fanfiction written by someone else.

A bad fanfic on its own; probably inoffensive, practically mandatory for all writers as a learning experience, the author will probably realise its flaws in their own time, if you really hate it enough then you can always leave polite negative feedback.

A bad fanfic written for the specific reasons of mocking another bad fanfic; Unquestionably mean-spirited, comes from a place of self-appointed superiority, arguably gatekeeping, unnecessary to criticize a bad fanfic to this extent, and even from a purely pragmatic view, it probably just draws more attention to the bad story.

@Elmo 3000

Have you *seen* the TV Tropes My Immortal page? It utterly mocks said bad fanfic. Frankly, it\'s for the same reason people will criticize bad movies or books—watching something poorly constructed be made fun of is just entertaining.

And what specific PPC examples are unequivocally bad fanfic? Are you really saying that you think any and all PPC stories are bad?

Not all, but any, sure. It's not a great comparison to put fanfiction in the same basket as bad movies or books because tearing apart a bad movie means tearing down a multimillion corporation for being legitimately bad at their stated job. Tearing down a bad fanfic is like screaming at a 14 year old girl that the way she writes Sansa Stark is inconsistent with the author's intent, and also you've just made loads of people aware of her work, and that you don't like it. I like my Retsupurae comparison; some Let's Plays are really bad, the RP team made fun of them, and they stopped when they realised that there was no way they could highlight them without drawing a lot of negative attention to the original work that resulted in harassment.

The My Immortal page is a bad example because it's the most infamously-bad fanfic on the entire internet, it has its own Wikipedia page, and there is the considerable possibility that it was a troll fic the whole time.

Linstar, if there is stuff wrong with the My Immortal page, then it needs to be brought up. I personally don\'t see any mocking on the page, whatever that means.

\"who are we kidding? There\'s nothing resembling a plot here.\" is the only thing remotely close to mockery I could find in the description of My Immortal\'s page.

@Elmo 3000 "Not all, but any, sure. It's not a great comparison to put fanfiction in the same basket as bad movies or books because tearing apart a bad movie means tearing down a multimillion corporation for being legitimately bad at their stated job. Tearing down a bad fanfic is like screaming at a 14 year old girl that the way she writes Sansa Stark is inconsistent with the author's intent, and also you've just made loads of people aware of her work, and that you don't like it. I like my Retsupurae comparison; some Let's Plays are really bad, the RP team made fun of them, and they stopped when they realised that there was no way they could highlight them without drawing a lot of negative attention to the original work that resulted in harassment."

Okay, I have no idea who that Let's Play person is.

See, the thing is, in a PPC mission, no one is telling the author about their mission. It's exclusively for PP Cers themselves. Any harassment is most certainly unintended.

Also, not all moviemakers and authors are professional. I think it's still fine to make fun of Derek Savage and Neil Breen, to give examples.

Also, the specific scenario you listed is impossible, as the PPC usually tries to go after works that are 5-years old or more, and never missions ASOIF works, since George R R Martin doesn't like fanfic of his works.

(Uh, was this review flagged again?)

Dude, simply because the OG Author is not there to see how he's being misstreated by the PPC it doesn't make it right to do it.

Also, this goes against what the newest review of the PPC just established: Apparently, following what Pencil Cat said there, the modern members of PPC do admit that this era of PPC was wrong and chaotic; now you are trying to argue that it wasn't? Who do I believe? You? Or him?.

Ignoring other aspects of this group and their activities, like a period of time where they would post criticism on the work itself and only spork the work if the reviewer didn\'t respond to their criticism or answered in a hostile manner - If the PCC \"mission\" is solely for the PPC-ers, then that reads to me like a handful of people who amuse themselves by picking up bad fanfics, writing petty response fanfics where they derail the original author\'s story, pick apart whatever they don\'t like and pose like they\'ve \"corrected\" the story and honoured the original source material like they righted one large, inexcusable wrong.

It still sounds like a group of bullies making fun of people and their work that they see as \"below\" them; \"we\'re writing it to amuse ourselves\" doesn\'t make it much better, especially if it\'s still being posted publically. It\'s still petty and mean.

And it needs to be said - why are subpar fanfic writers still such a sticking point to anyone 20+ years after the heyday of this sort of smug fan posturing? In the 90\'s and 2000\'s when bandwidth costs and lack of centralisation made stories like this stand out and reflect badly on more niche, curated fanfic sources, you could argue that something like this could be relevant - not great, but \"part of the culture\" or \"weeding out bad stories to make room for better ones\" in an era where storage space was scant.

But considering the neverending spiral of both the Eternal September and the ongoing degradation of posting standards on all platforms of the internet - and the rise of centralised fanfiction platforms like fanfic.net and AO 3 making it significantly easier to move on from stuff you don\'t like and find better fanfiction to entertain yourself - how is this behaviour at all relevant or defensible?

People post unreadable dogshit on the internet every second of every minute of every hour of every day, either in the form of illegible keysmashes or through the fried brain of a conspiracy theorist who\'s eight levels beyond the frame of reality everyone else exists in. If anything, the \"services\" of the PPC would be much better applied to policing Facebook comments, if that wasn\'t a petty and rude social faux-pas that people don\'t like being subjected to by some smug, holier-than-thou arbiter of quality.

At best, it sounds like the \"Protectors of the Plot Continuum\" are still a bunch of bullies making fun of people who they consider to be below them so they can make each other laugh. At worst, they\'re no better than the image of a self-appointed white knight of the written word that defines earlier iterations of the same group. It can be dressed up in as many flattering terms as possible, but it doesn\'t erase the root of what\'s happening here - strangers finding some story online that they think is bad, offering them an ultimatum of \"take this advice I arbitrarily decided would make your story better to read, or me and my friends will write an unflattering parody of your story and make fun of you for the amusement of others\", and then letting loose when their target isn\'t perfectly amenable to what they\'re saying.

I think if PPC-ers had genuine, constructive intent to help people improve their writing and to help online communities thrive with the best output rising to the top, they would either take the initiative to actually moderate an online community fairly and transparently, or they would take a more passionate approach to the art of writing and consider writing their own tutorials, compiling references to better teaching resources or - in a more modern frame of reference - uploading You Tube videos to spread their knowledge. There are plenty of viable, good-faith ways to offer constructive writing advice that doesn\'t force it on another person and punish them for being ungrateful.

Instead, it seems like this insular community has retreated in on itself, layered themselves in jargon and resorted to passing around the same easy troll-bait to amuse each other. And when other internet users remember this odd, toxic pocket of internet history, apparently they have all the time in the world to retroactively redeem themselves and try to get the review taken down.

OP was a bit facetious with what they were saying, but I\'ve never been able to stomach these defensive replies claiming ignorance or misrepresentation. I remember this side of the internet when I was growing up. It sucked.

@megagutsman

\"Dude, simply because the OG Author is not there to see how he\'s being misstreated by the PPC it doesn\'t make it right to do it.\"

\"Misstreated\"? Aside from the typo, how on *earth* is privately criticizing a piece of poorly written media? How is anyone harmed if in the days of the modern PPC, no authors are contacted, and no one could even be offended? While the metatextual element is unique, the criticism of fan works is not. (See also the Library of the Damned and Das Sporking).

\"Also, this goes against what the newest review of the PPC just established: Apparently, following what Pencil Cat said there, the modern members of PPC do admit that this era of PPC was wrong and chaotic; now you are trying to argue that it wasn\'t? Who do I believe? You? Or him?.\"

Um. I was talking about the modern PPC in this instance, not the early PPC. When I don\'t qualify it otherwise, I mean it as it exists currently. I largely agree with what Pencil Cat has said.

Thing is that that is not what they are doing. Criticism doesn't require a full narrative with characters to work, much less to treat the mistakes of said author as the worst thing they could have done, that is pretty immature. Constructive criticism can (and should) be given in a friendly and caring manner, this does not fit that at all.

How does the author reading it or not matter? Insults and rudeness are still wrong. Would you put yourself in their shoes for once? Would you like if I did this to you?.

Besides, if this will be post in a place where the OG author of the fic the "mission" is about isn't expected to go then this cannot even be called criticism, after all, the goal isn't to help the author at that point but to have cathartic fun in a mean way and I wont agree that that is a right thing to do.

Then there's a major contradiction going on. I mean, following what Pencil Cat said, modern PPC is vastly different from what it was back then and would actually disagree with you here. Following what he said, they aren't as bad as you are making them sound to be like. So again, I don't know who to believe here.

@Mr Mallard

Nice essay, but what is any of this based on? Your opinion from just reading the article? Your regurgitation of what the OP said? You don\'t post any clear citations to PPC works or the wiki itself.

\"It still sounds like a group of bullies making fun of people and their work that they see as \"below\" them; \"we\'re writing it to amuse ourselves\" doesn\'t make it much better, especially if it\'s still being posted publically. It\'s still petty and mean.\"

Well. Have you read bad fanfiction? The PPC at least has clear standards for posting; you need to get [Permission](https://ppc.fandom.com/wiki/Permission) to add anything to the PPC universe. Fanfiction itself is often horribly misspelled and in clear violation of canon. As much as subjectivity is certainly a thing, so are fanfics in which the main character is [turned into a sandwich from bad prose.](https://ppc.fandom.com/wiki/With_a_Side_of_Chips_and_a_Soda)

\"I think if PPC-ers had genuine, constructive intent to help people improve their writing and to help online communities thrive with the best output rising to the top, they would either take the initiative to actually moderate an online community fairly and transparently, or they would take a more passionate approach to the art of writing and consider writing their own tutorials, compiling references to better teaching resources or - in a more modern frame of reference - uploading You Tube videos to spread their knowledge. There are plenty of viable, good-faith ways to offer constructive writing advice that doesn\'t force it on another person and punish them for being ungrateful.\"

I think you vastly overestimate the PPC\'s reach, membership, and goals. The PPC is neither capable of nor is it trying to fix all writing in existence. It exists so that people can come up with fun metatextual stories fixing bad fanfic. In the end; you\'re right, poorly-written fanfiction is hardly the worst thing in existence, but then again, the PPC is just fanfic too. There have been authors the PPC has sporked who later come back to thank them ([take for instance, that time the author of the first fic the PPC ever sporked showed up on the Board](https://www.plotprotectors.org/posts/174267)).

If you somehow don\'t think that criticizing bad media isn\'t fun-well, that\'s your opinion, but I and plenty of others enjoy it immensely. Conflating that with targeted harassment is silly.

\"Instead, it seems like this insular community has retreated in on itself, layered themselves in jargon and resorted to passing around the same easy troll-bait to amuse each other. And when other internet users remember this odd, toxic pocket of internet history, apparently they have all the time in the world to retroactively redeem themselves and try to get the review taken down.\"

I\'m not entirely sure what you\'re referring to as \"trollbait\" here. Are you referring to the bad fanfics written by trolls, who would presumably *want* attention from others?

I\'m not entirely sure what you even mean by \"retroactively redeem\". Are you saying that 2010!PPC is identical to 2002!PPC? And that behaving more responsibly in the future doesn\'t make a review inaccurate?

Frankly, your entire post is a baseless diatribe that doesn\'t have any clear basis beyond your opinion. If you don\'t like the PPC, fine. I don\'t see how that makes them \"bullies\", however.

The PPC at least has clear standards for posting; you need to get [Permission](https://ppc.fandom.com/wiki/Permission) to add anything to the PPC universe.

Finding a fic "bad" is not a good excuse to lambast it and/or the author this much. Again, there are other better venues to criticize said fics.

So it was what I said earlier. Its goal is simply to have mean cathartic fun at the expense of said author's work. Yeah, am starting to dislike the PPC even more.

The diference is that the former isn't being rude and/or mean to anybody in the slightest, they are just trying to give their own spin to an story that they like. The latter? It is mean for no good reason.

There have been authors the PPC has sporked who later come back to thank them ([take for instance, that time the author of the first fic the PPC ever sporked showed up on the Board](https://www.plotprotectors.org/posts/174267)).

This is a nothing-burger. Simply because some authors are thankful doesn't meant that every single author that had the PPC do a "mission" on one of their fics will be as well.

Again, the problem is how said "criticism" is being displayed. There are way better and kinder ways to do such a thing.

Most of my time writing essay-length comments on the internet these days is consumed by arguments about the quality - or lack thereof - of research for certain episodes of Death Battle, so I can't throw my hat entirely into the ring, but regarding the whole "PPC isn't anything close to targeted harassment!" - writing a violent execution of someone else's OC because you find them too annoying, or possibly a stand-in for the author themselves, is... well, while I wouldn't call it targeted harassment - except when it's a stand-in for the author - it's definitely akin to something like bullying. And the fact that it's a bunch of air-quotes 'good' and talented fanfic writers making fun of bad and untalented fanfic writers just comes across as self-important and smugly superior. I've read so many bad fanfictions in my time, and none of them made me think "I must write my own story in response to this!" Just leave a negative review if you must. Especially because bad fanfiction is so common and also so unimportant and... the opposite of far-reaching, that it's just a disproportionate response. A lot of these writers could be children.

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I really think the Retsupurae comparison is great here; some good Let's-Players who had fun criticizing worse Let's-Players in an entirely non-malicious way, who were nonetheless horrified to discover that their actions had actually led to bullying and harassment of their targets, especially since Retsupurae had a much larger audience than nearly all of the people they criticized. Legit, horrified. And they since cancelled the series because they wanted no part in that kind of thing, no matter how bad their targets were at the craft.

Nobody needs to go this far out of their way to tell someone that they're doing a hobby wrong.

@Elmo 3000

\"regarding the whole \"PPC isn\'t anything close to targeted harassment!\" - writing a violent execution of someone else\'s OC because you find them too annoying, or possibly a stand-in for the author themselves, is... well, while I wouldn\'t call it targeted harassment - except when it\'s a stand-in for the author - it\'s definitely akin to something like bullying. \"

I\'m sorry, but that just comes off as ridiculous. If an author writes an awful self-insert, attacking the self-insert is not the same thing as attacking the author. No person is the same as a character they write, and I don\'t know how you can fail to understand that.

\"And the fact that it\'s a bunch of air-quotes \'good\' and talented fanfic writers making fun of bad and untalented fanfic writers just comes across as self-important and smugly superior.\"

Please, do provide *examples* from PPC missions rather than just vague ideas you got from reading the tropes page. You seem to think that PPC authors, are, in fact, not good—perhaps a clear critique?

\"Especially because bad fanfiction is so common and also so unimportant and... the opposite of far-reaching, that it\'s just a disproportionate response.\"

Well, if the PPC is \"bad\", then it\'s unimportant, too, isn\'t it? Unless, of course, the point of a PPC fic is not to force the author of the target into following your ideas, but to humorously point out its flaws while also practicing your own writing skills.

\"A lot of these writers could be children.\"

Given that basically all fanfic websites require their users to be 13, and that most PP Cers try to go for over-five-years-old fic, I would say... not especially likely.

Nice attempt to use a \"think of the children\" argument, though.

\"I don\'t mean to toot my own horn, but I really think the Retsupurae comparison is great here; some good Let\'s-Players who had fun criticizing worse Let\'s-Players in an entirely non-malicious way, who were nonetheless horrified to discover that their actions had actually led to bullying and harassment of their targets, especially since Retsupurae had a much larger audience than nearly all of the people they criticized. Legit, horrified. And they since cancelled the series because they wanted no part in that kind of thing, no matter how bad their targets were at the craft.\"

Yes, you keep bringing up these people. Frankly, I couldn\'t care less about whoever that is, but looking up their You Tube channel, I see they have 120000 subscribers.

120000.

The PPC doesn\'t even have 120 (current) members.

I think the chances of an outsider harassing someone over their bad work are a *liiiiittle* smaller in the PPC\'s case.

Just a little.

Of course, making fun of bad fanfiction is hardly unique to the PPC, see also Library Of The Damned, Das Sporking, and plenty of other MS Ts of fanfiction. A lot of those use original characters to criticize their targets.

I would be interested in seeing what you would have to say on the Board (https://www.plotprotectors.org/posts) about this. That could be an interesting discussion.

Sorry, but I cannot believe you here. As I keep pointing out, there are way better ways to point out flaws fan fics might have that doesn't require said fan fic and/or its author to be disrespected.

What if we are? You haven't manage to build a good case for them being good persons. If anything, the more you speak, the worse I think they are.

Thing is that bad fan fics don't hurt anybody, meanwhile the PPC's main purpose is nothing more but to be rude and disrespectful and nothing else.

As a lot of people have already told you prior, there are better alternatives, being this disrespectful is not necessary at all.

Dude, this doesn't deny what Elmo said, at all.

Okay, so Retsupurae has +12K Subs? So what? This, also, isn't a good counter at all.

I don't care how little the chances are, if it happens even once that is one time too many, especially seeing how, as I keep saying, there a better ways for them to accomplish their goals.

There's a lot of 'agree to disagree' grey areas here, but if I wrote a self-insert story about a guy named Emlo 2000 who was handsome and really good at RollerCoaster Tycoon and had his own VS Battle series that was way better than Death Battle, and someone else wrote a story where Emlo was horribly murdered, then both of these things can be true; the original story was probably a really crap fanfiction, but also... that is absolutely, undoubtedly, 100% an attack on the author. Whether it's justified or not, or all supposed to be fun and in good taste is another thing, but I don't understand how you can acknowledge the existence of self-insert OCs, and then say that writing scenes where you murder someone's self-insert OC is not an attack on the author.

Oh, when I said "air quotes 'good'" then that wasn't like a subtle dig implying that I think they're rubbish, it was more just, assuming for the sake of argument that they are in fact good and talented writers. Although, y'know. If I was a talented writer - which I clearly am not - then I would probably spend more time writing my own original stuff, than making fun of less-talented people. Or rather, people who I deemed to have less talent than myself.

I said my peace in the ridiculously lengthy rant I posted, and while I didn\'t see the need to justify my opinion as the subjective viewpoint that it was - as Linstar themselves pointed out - I do want to talk about one last thing.

\"You seem to think that PPC authors, are, in fact, not good—perhaps a clear critique?\"

It doesn\'t matter whether PPC writers are \"good\" or not. You could be the most technically proficient and effortlessly entertaining popular writer of your time. What I think matters the most here is the context of the writing itself - which, in this context, is flexing supposedly superior writing quality over others who the PPC see as inferior. It feels like smug, self-assured bullying. And it\'s that negative attachment that makes the writing bad.

Everything I\'ve said has been subjective to my own worldview, but I\'ll maintain my own distaste for the historical actions of a group who\'ve kept an eye out for people who are easy to make fun of and bully, foisted targeted criticism onto them with a threat of exposing and harassing them if they don\'t immediately take their advice into consideration, and then either blasted them to a waiting audience of trolls or privately mocked them in intricate fashion to further amuse themselves and their insular community.

That\'s what makes the PPC bad. That\'s what degrades the quality of writing of your average PPC-er. You can be as technically proficient as possible and ask people for objective proof that your writing is Bad, but it\'s the attitude, content and context of a PPC hitjob that makes it bad.

@Elmo 9000 \"There\'s a lot of \'agree to disagree\' grey areas here, but if I wrote a self-insert story about a guy named Emlo 2000 who was handsome and really good at Roller Coaster Tycoon and had his own VS Battle series that was way better than Death Battle, and someone else wrote a story where Emlo was horribly murdered, then both of these things can be true; the original story was probably a really crap fanfiction, but also... that is absolutely, undoubtedly, 100% an attack on the author. Whether it\'s justified or not, or all supposed to be fun and in good taste is another thing, but I don\'t understand how you can acknowledge the existence of self-insert OCs, and then say that writing scenes where you murder someone\'s self-insert OC is not an attack on the author.\"

Elmo. An author is not their OC. He may be badly written, but that doesn\'t make him you. There is such thing as Death Of The Author, and it doesn\'t actually kill anyone. If I write a character called \"Linstar the Ultimate\" who struts around casually killing people and being an awful character, and I treat that as a good thing; then it is in no way an attack on me, the author, to say that this theoretical character is not a good person is not to say anything about me, the author.

This is not a difficult concept.

@megagutsman

\"Sorry, but I cannot believe you here. As I keep pointing out, there are way better ways to point out flaws fan fics might have that doesn\'t require said fan fic and/or its author to be disrespected.\"

I mean, sure, theoretically. What you and everyone else in this thread have utterly failed to grasp is that authors are *not their stories*. Making You Tube videos or whatever it is you think is definitely soooo much better isn\'t mutually exclusive. I\'m not sure why people who post awfully written trash on the internet somehow require everyone to treat that trash with the utmost respect, even in their absence.

\"What if we are? You haven\'t manage to build a good case for them being good persons. If anything, the more you speak, the worse I think they are.\"

I was talking qualitatively, not morally, but insulting people definitely makes your point.

\"Thing is that bad fan fics don\'t hurt anybody, meanwhile the PPC\'s main purpose is nothing more but to be rude and disrespectful and nothing else.\"

No. No, that is very wrong, and you clearly have never read a single PPC fic.

The main point is to be funny. Yes, that is often by pointing out the flaws of poorly written fanfiction. See, something that you most certainly haven\'t heard about because you don\'t read the thing you are trying to criticize is that authors will write stories with their characters not featuring any badfics at all. These are called interludes, and some authors *never* even write missions to badfic, because they like the PPC as a setting. In fact, sometimes PP Cers will write missions to badfics made by AI.

\"Dude, this doesn\'t deny what Elmo said, at all.\"

By pointing out that the PPC tries to avoid writing missions to fics where the author isn\'t a child? Denying the idea that they point out the flaws in fics by children? That\'s... not a rebuttal?

\"Okay, so Retsupurae has +12K Subs? So what? This, also, isn\'t a good counter at all.\"

Ah, yes, because the size of the audience that could theoretically harass people is completely irrelevant. Even though that was the entire point of my reply.

\"I don\'t care how little the chances are, if it happens even once that is one time too many, especially seeing how, as I keep saying, there a better ways for them to accomplish their goals.\"

As I have said, you don\'t seem to understand the PPC\'s goals. However, that is just not a good counterpoint; changing the way a group of people have been writing for 21 years, over *theoretical* harassment that *could* occur? That\'s still not the PPC\'s fault, any more than someone harassing a person they saw in a You Tube documentary video on them is the fault of the You Tuber who made the video. I don\'t think whatever their name was the Let\'s Players are responsible for the harassment that occurred. It certainly wasn\'t a good thing, but they were not the ones who perpetrated the act. The only thing they could possibly be responsible for is causing more people to be aware of the bad piece of media; something the PPC, with its *much* smaller size, is incredibly unlikely to do in any significant amount.

@Mr Mallard

\"It doesn\'t matter whether PPC writers are \"good\" or not. You could be the most technically proficient and effortlessly entertaining popular writer of your time. What I think matters the most here is the context of the writing itself - which, in this context, is flexing supposedly superior writing quality over others who the PPC see as inferior. It feels like smug, self-assured bullying. And it\'s that negative attachment that makes the writing bad.\"

Have you even read a single PPC mission on which to base this? Have you tried to check out more recent takes to evaluate the modern community on its own merits? Because if not, you certainly come across as smug and self-assuring to me.

\"Everything I\'ve said has been subjective to my own worldview, but I\'ll maintain my own distaste for the historical actions of a group who\'ve kept an eye out for people who are easy to make fun of and bully, foisted targeted criticism onto them with a threat of exposing and harassing them if they don\'t immediately take their advice into consideration, and then either blasted them to a waiting audience of trolls or privately mocked them in intricate fashion to further amuse themselves and their insular community.\"

Um. What are you talking about? You seem to describe a lot of very heinous actions, but they\'re all so vague as to be meaningless. To give an example, I have no idea what \"waiting audience of trolls\" exists. That\'s just not a thing. You again have just given smug, self-assured rhetoric without a single link to prove what you mean, or even a clear example. Without proof of all of this, what you\'ve just said is rather meaningless.

I\'ll also note that none of the three people who have engaged with me here have shown any links to evidence of the PPC (or others on their behalf) harassing anyone.

Eh, whatever. At this point, Linstar, it is obvious that you already made your mind about PPC and, no matter what anybody says, you will always consider them the \"good guys of internet teaching noobs how to properly write fan fiction\".

@megagutsman

"At this point, Linstar, it is obvious that you already made your mind about PPC and, no matter what anybody says, you will always consider them the "good guys of internet teaching noobs how to properly write fan fiction"."

Maybe if anyone here had any points beyond just... not liking them, I would change my mind. But since the only criticism is just baseless accusations and Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch, I don't think my mind is likely to change unless someone comes here with better arguments. You also seem quite unlikely to change yours, I'd guess. =]

Also, to be clear, in case you haven't read everything I already posted, I don't consider the PPC the "good guys of internet teaching noobs how to properly write fan fiction". I consider them a community of writers that write funny metatextual works critiquing others' work without harming or even interacting with them. That's all.

Dude, Linstar, we have countered all your arguments, you just don\'t want to listen. So what else can we do? You already decided that the PPC did nothing wrong and nobody can convince you otherwise.

@megagutsman

\"Dude, Linstar, we have countered all your arguments, you just don\'t want to listen. So what else can we do? You already decided that the PPC did nothing wrong and nobody can convince you otherwise.\"

Yes, that\'s why I replied to you, and your response was just to give up. You absolutely haven\'t countered all my arguments, you\'ve just made weak rebuttals or feigned misunderstanding to my points while failing to provide any evidence of your vague claims.

I think it\'s pretty clear that nothing I can say will convince you that the PPC is not a bunch of eeeevil cyberbullies. If you were to link to an example of PP Cers actively harassing someone, then I would most certainly agree with you on that point. But you can\'t, because they don\'t, and without any sort of proof beyond a vague idea that the PPC is bad, I am just not going to change my mind.

Of course I did! After all, with somebody as closed-minded as you are, there's nothing I or anybody else can do to convince you to change your opinion and/or to see a different point of view.

Yes, yes I have. Me, Mallard and Elmo have countered all your points again and again, you just don't want to listen and keep saying that we are wrong. We cannot (and shouldn't) force you to change your opinion, so there's nothing else we can do.

All we can do is let this review show to other people the kind of person the PPC are. Oh, on that topic, I wanna ask you: Did you flag the review again? Because, as Septimus Heap said above, it has nothing wrong.

Edit: Also Linstar, an ATT was just created telling us to drop this, so, albeit I want this to end already, I am open to continue this through P Ms.

\"Yes, yes I have. Me, Mallard and Elmo have countered all your points again and again, you just don\'t want to listen and keep saying that we are wrong.\"

Except for the three replies I made to each of you, which you just ignored, while saying that you responded. Maybe you missed those, but I don’t think your claim of having responded to me in full is at all accurate. At this point you\'re just talking in circles.

No idea what an ATT is, but if you have anything further to say to me, do PM me. If you don\'t, I might.

So, yeah, let\'s end this thread here.