Mission link: http://alania-ppc.livejournal.com/1251.html

This is a ST:TOS Mary Sue mission.

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Overall, I liked this mission. The Curse Of The Redshirt was handled well; Infinity is justified in interpreting the events as ordinary clumsiness and/or ill fortune, and Lócë is justified in interpreting the events as Redshirt Effect.

It seemed a bit odd that Lócë tried to change his disguise through the RA, instead of using a DORKS, but this is a mission from 2006. I don't see a date for the DORKS' invention on the wiki, but it's certainly possible that when the mission was written going through the RA (and the console) was the only way to alter a disguise.

However, I have to wonder what Infinity is doing in the Department of Mary Sues. Vulcans may be generally non-violent, but they are capable of killing and practice a canon martial art with at least one deadly maneuver. Infinity's extreme pacifism, in and of itself, isn't bad. But it makes me wonder why she signed on to be an Assassin in the first place. It seems a bit late for her to be objecting to the job requirements.

I'm not sure who wrote these. I didn't see the author listed on the mission heading, or anywhere on the wiki, so I don't believe I have read this author before. I know I have never read these agents before. This is more negative than I would normally like to be, but I have tried to include the things that I liked and thought were well done.


Notes in parenthesis, while generally entertaining became distracting and brought me out of the story when they were happening in multiple, successive paragraphs. There were a total of twenty of these in this mission. I have a personal bad habit of wanting to make this kinds of statements when I talk or chat. I usually manage to cut them down in chat, you're just out of luck if you talk to me directly, anyway I know the temptation to use these, but they really make the writing look amateurish. If it was perhaps one or maybe even two in the mission, it would probably be tolerable, but twenty is way too many.

I'm not sure how Dee could think that Milask is a pet if he is the same kind of cat as Cat on Red Dwarf was. Cat was very clearly more humanoid than feline.

Dee is really not making a very good impression on me. I think she is trying to be funny, but she is really coming across as unneccesarily mean. It started with continuing on the pet thread after being told several times that Milask is not a pet, asking if he needed a litter box, and just generally not listening to him, and then the comment below, was almost funny. It made me think of the Cat and his wardrobe, but the 'I don't wanna!' whining followed by her stating that being nice is no fun, ruined the funny for me. I like reading about nice people most of the time. At least when it is people that are not nice, I like them to be up front about it. Nume is not particularly nice, but he tells you about it. Orken tries very hard to not be nice, and he also is up front about it. I guess I don't want to empathize very much with characters that are sneakily not nice.

"Great, not only was her partner not of the same species, but he was vain also. The list just went on and on... 'Be nice,' her inner voice admonished. 'But I don't wanna!' she whined. Being nice, or attempting to be nice, was no fun.


"I get the picture," said Milask, putting up his hand in annoyance.

And now we have Milask being short when Dee wasn't being particularly annoying.

Milask went down on all fours and chased after Harry,

Admittedly, I haven't seen the seventh and eighth series of Red Dwarf, but I can't imagine Cat ever getting down on all fours to chase anything. Whinging about how could anyone expect him to chase anything in a suit like this, would be something I would expect. 'What and mess up this hair?' I can imagine him saying. One of my favorite scenes with the Cat is early on, he has a little spray bottle and he's walking down the halls spritzing everything. "This is mine. And this is mine. And this is mine. And this is mine, too. Oh look, this is MINE." He certainly wasn't pulling down his drawers and using bodily fluids. And that was the thing that made him so funny for me. He was acting like such a cat, while at the same time showing that his species had evolved into something so much more.

COMPLETE CHARACTER RUPTURE IMMINENT!!!!! DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER!!!]

Dee raised her eyebrows: Makes-Things had obviously been watching too much Lost in Space.

I liked this one. It made me smile, and there were no odd agent reactions pulling me back from smiling about it.

"You're not a feline! At least... not right ...now," she said, looking him up and down. Damn tall person (who used to be a cat). Actually... he didn't look too bad as a human...

What is this? The Cat on Red Dwarf was just a catboy, not a shapeshifter. This is really becoming my complete focus in reading this mission. It has distracted me totally away from the badfic and the sporking.

"And ruin my robes? I don't think so. Look, a crease!" Milask grabbed a mini iron from his backpack (who knows what he was doing with it on a PPC mission) and ironed the crease out of the robe.

Now THAT is the kind of reaction I was looking for!

"Chocolate?" asked Dee. "Nothing in this story makes sense and it's better to not analyze it too much." Chocolate is the answer to all your problems. When in pain, have some chocolate.

I almost feel like she has forgotten to be nasty here.Like she might accidentally be being nice without feeling like it is a terrible thing.

This had absolutely the shortest exorcism I've ever read. One whack with a book, and one order, and it's completely over with. I know they tend to be more drawn out now, sometimes too much so, but this seemed anti-climatic...right up until there was another more elaborate exorcism, with the expected author wraith. Which confuses me. Why did they go back to being in-character with one smack, and then have to have the phantom exorcised after that?

The ending scene with the General Store was nice. I was immediately interested in Leto. He's taking pride in the simple state of having things neat and tidy. I can imagine him standing at the counter looking over things in a proprietary manner. Then he goes on with the blurb about the minis not getting along, and the problems it would cause, followed by the feeling of responsibility he feels toward keeping the PPC on its feet by supplying sanity supporting vices to the agents. I've seen the General Store mentioned many times, mostly on the wiki, but I've never read actual characterization of it in a mission, and this was very nice. My agents might visit it now that I've watched this scene as I read it.

Overall impressions: The issues with Milask at the beginning of the mission really, really bothered me. By the end of the mission, these had improved drastically. It almost felt like perhaps, the author was working from a distant memory in the first half of the mission, and then re-watched some episodes of Red Dwarf and began basing Milask's characterization on that. The improvement between what I expected from Milask being a Red Dwarf cat and how he actually behaved was drastic to the point of that it actually made me stop and stare at the story when he did something that would have been in-character for the Cat.

Dee didn't make a good impression on me at first either, and I am not sure that I can easily forget that first impression. With Milask, the issues were more technical, like his species shouldn't look like that, that reaction isn't right, etc. It wasn't a problem with Milask as a character so much as a problem of cognitive dissonance between Milask as written and the statement that he was a Red Dwarf Cat. With Dee, the problem was very much one of her characterization. I found several intances, which I pointed out, where I just didn't like her as a person. When she later behaved without the nasty comments, I was left wondering where they went.

Come to think about it, her nastiness was replaced with nearly unbridled lustiness at about the same time that Milask started acting more like a Red Dwarf Cat. I am now thinking that this mission was almost certainly written in two sessions, probably separated by a good chunk of time. The second session was much improved over the first. To be honest, I never would have finished reading this mission, if I hadn't told myself that I was going to do this concrit piece on it. And if I had stopped, I never would have read that excellent General Store section at the end.

The second half of the mission had me thinking that this agent pair might be worth reading again, and the General Store section clenched it. I will give them another shot.

((Terri's work again - I'm just the brain behind her))

From the Personal Files of Terri Ryan, Department of Personnel

Well, I've been issued an informal warning by the R&R Division. Apparently my justification for breaking the structure of my last review was insufficient, and I failed to mention sufficient items. I'll try to do better this time. I'm going to be using a primarily chronological structure, with one alteration to fit the recommended Good-Bad-Good pattern.

Mission: PPC Crusade/The Crusader King
Agents: Arthur Briggs and Lynn Gillies, DMS

Straight off the mark, this mission was highly immersive. Just after the agents receive their mission, we see the following exchange:

Youre the only one in this RC with canon knowledge, which makes you primary agent for this mission.

Me? Gillies squeaked. She cleared her throat and tried again. But Im not a full agent yet.

That doesnt matter. The Duty is whats important, and in this case youre best suited to perform it."

This simple dialogue gives me a perfect feel for the agents. I could immediately contrast Gillies, squeaking and uncertain, with Briggs, saying 'the Duty is what's important'. The former is still settling into the PPC, while the latter, with his military background, is right at home. I immediately felt I knew the pair of them - and that I cared about what happened to them. All from a few lines of dialogue that let character flow through.

I also found myself drawn in in a different manner. This mission didn't feel like it took place in isolation: it was firmly part of a larger world. Two examples:

In that case, you program the disguises while I visit the Canon Library."

and

[Present Tense Detected. Revert Agents To Past Tense Y/N?]

Briggs sighed as the reset took effect. Much better. Once you make full Agent, see if you can talk DoSAT into adding a tense stabiliser to your CAD.

Now, I'm not just quoting these because of my affection for the subjects of them, although that certainly plays a part. The Canon Librarian is a lot like me, insofar as I know anything about him, so it's good to see him getting some attention. The tense stabiliser first appeared on DOGA-modified CADs - I didn't realise it had gone into mass production. But that's not the point here.

The point is, I really get a feel for how the wider world of HQ impacts on this agent pair. I can now imagine them having friends and enemies, favourite haunts and secret shortcuts - not because of anything I know about them, but because their narrative so casually drops in pieces of their - our - world. This is clearly something they are intimately involved with, not just sitting on the outskirts of.

Oh, and it helps that they mention DOGA later by name. Pyro Department, getting the love.

Unfortunately, not everything is positive. While character-defining moments like my first quote exist, they are swamped by the fact that much of the dialogue can be split into two categories: charges, and infodumps.

Charges are important, we all know that, but there is more to a mission than the charge list. What I want to see is the agents' reactions to what happens, not simply the pigeonhole they slot it into. At its worst, this report descends into merely ticking boxes - literally, in fact, since Briggs is described as 'checking off' Thesaurus Abuse. This does not make for fascinating reading, unfortunately, and it foreshadows another problem: the entire list is quotes at the end, in massive block quotes.

There are two issues here. Firstly, how to deal with charges? I believe they don't all need to be mentioned. It is assumed that there is a list - that's a PPC Agent's job, after all - so it doesn't particularly need mentioning. Certainly the more amusing ones should be brought up - there is a scene where Briggs and Gillies discuss with evident satisfaction a pair of charges raised in a single time-jump, and it is entertaining to say the least - but the majority can pass unmarked.

Then there is the recitation. I know it's fashionable among some agents to create the largest list possible, but really, we don't need to see it. Read it to the 'Sue, by all means, but don't make me sit through it. Rather, edit what actually happened a little. Give me the highlights, the interesting bits, the collated and condensed version, and I'll read it. Give me the whole thing, and I'll skip ahead.

Then there are the infodumps. On the one hand, one agent is unfamiliar with the canon - and since this is the only Belgariad mission report I've ever seen, I imagine many casual readers are too. In that respect, a certain amount of information has to be provided. And, I must admit, Gillies handles it better than some - she breaks her dumps into small sections, allowing me time to recover in between, and theoretically absorb what I'm given. However, there are so many of them. Is all the information necessary? I don't know. Could it be condensed, cut down to the bare essentials and the funny parts? I suspect so.

But overall, I did enjoy this report. Possibly my favourite moment came near the end: in order to research something, Agent Briggs sent a letter to the Medical Department - using one of the lanterns said to be 'filing the room'. Not everyone would even have caught the typo (and as we know, agent observation has a massive effect on badfic canon), but Briggs used it to his advantage. Once again I gained insight into him, and saw his place in the larger world of the PPC - all through a simple piece of utility.

-T. Ryan, Dept. of Personnel, DOGA Archivist

((I hope you don't mind, but I'm handing the actual work of reviewing off to Terri. She's more interesting than me))

From the Personal Files of Terri Ryan, Department of Personnel

Everyone in DOGA (or DoGA, or DGA, or the Pyro Department, or whatever we're calling it this week) keeps telling me I need to get a hobby. Actually they usually tell me I need to get a life, but since I spend every waking hour filing their mission reports, complaints and sundries (a word I have come to detest), a hobby is the best I can do. Actually I shouldn't even be doing this, but I have an excuse. A package of old mission reports from across the PPC was delivered to the Archives this morning for some unknown reason, and I need to read them all to figure out what's going on. Since I'm doing that, I figure I might as well review them too.

Mission: Suebusters/For Gondor and Rohan
Agents: Cara Fielding & Miriam Collins, DMS

I have to say I found this mission a little dull to read about (although I note that one of the agents involved said much the same thing - I suppose boring is better than fatally exciting, right?). The main reason for this is that all the interesting moments appear to be glossed over. For example, during the Council I read that the entire courtyard turn[ed] gold when the 'Sue appeared. From Miriam's next line, I inferred that this was due to a line of bad narrative - but I am given no clue as to what it was. This happens every time Suvian prose is invoked. She gives a Sue-like description of the Lady Galadriel, but again, I don't get to find out what it says.

The main issue I have with this is that pure agent reaction doesn't hold my interest very well. I want to be entertained, and I want to be able to laugh at the badfic myself. There is little worse than seeing someone else in stitches over a joke I haven't heard. I understand the agents' purpose, I think - they want to be the focus, not simply characters in an MST - but I believe they would be more interesting if we knew what they were reacting to, not simply how.

Another issue I noticed is one I shall be passing on to the Department of Redundancy Department: lacking anything from the badfic to describe, the narrative sometimes takes to narrating the agents' dialogue. For example:
While it was understandable given the plagiarism, 0% OOC readings across the board (with the exception of the Sue, of course) were still unusual.

"Huh, everyone's totally in character so far," she noted, raising an eyebrow at the CAD with a small amount of disbelief. "That's strange."

The rule of 'Show, don't tell' seems to have been altered by these agents into 'show and tell'. Wait, was that too harsh? I've not exactly practiced this. I think the actual issue is one of 'Who knows what and how': the CAD informs one agent of an occurance, and that agent tells her partner. The problem is, both events didn't need to be narrated. It broke the flow of the mission for me. Even if this is what actually happened, to quote another rule, sometimes 'Less is more'. The dialogue would suffice, here and in other areas.

There is also an issue with narrative tension - or the lack thereof. Despite the agents' repeated warnings about the 'Sue possibly hearing them, there seems to be no danger of this happening. In one scene, Miriam taunts the Laws of Narrative Comedy - and wins. At a time when most of the Fellowship are on high alert due to approaching crebain, she sneaks into their camp, ignoring a warning from her partner, and steals their food with no consequences. Cara is alarmed, but does nothing, and nothing ever comes of the event.

Cara's warning was perfect foreshadowing, a Chekov's gun that simply didn't fire. Miriam wasn't seen. I understand that this is an accurate representation of events, but it left me feeling distinctly unsatisfied. There are two ways it could have been improved. The whole incident could have been downplayed, rather than building it up for no payoff. Alternately, and preferably, the tension could have been ramped up. If the narrative had followed Miriam rather than staying with Cara, we could have experienced her feelings: did that rock just move? I can't see Aragorn from here! What was that noise?

I hope I can be forgiven for my bad form in describing all the negatives first. I do not do this lightly - the structure of a review is practically a sacred trust - but as any member of the R&R Division of Personnel will tell you, sometimes structure must be sacrificed to dramatic necessity. The positives here are something rarely seen in mission reports, and in my opinion they far outweigh all that has gone before.

At the very beginning of the mission, we are shown Miriam's dislike for the cold. This seems to be a piece of scene-setting, with no lasting consequences - until the agents arrive at Caradhras. Here the cold issue resurfaces, and (without spoiling my second positive) leads to interaction that would not otherwise occur.

I admire the narrative consistancy shown here. A major issue with badfics is a failure to carry things forward: a wrist broken in one scene may be used to loose a bow a dozen chapters later. Here the agents, through careful use of the narrative structure, managed to create a small plot arc within their tale. It allowed me to connect more fully with the agents - to see them as people, not merely vessels for the plot. And then there's Ring Bearer...

Ring Bearer the mini-Balrog is almost a special case of the above, but he is even better used. These days minis are often ignored - they appear in one scene, then vanish, just like that broken wrist. Not Ring Bearer. I'll illustrate this with three paragraphs from widely-separated parts of the report:

Even though she wasn't usually fond of minis, Miriam almost squealed in relief, huddling just close enough to Ring Bearer for the convection to warm her without causing severe burns; warmth was one thing, being incinerated was another.

She looked around in concern for somewhere to put Ring Bearer, as - without meaning to - the mini-Balrog was starting to char the wood. In the end she asked him to wait at the bottom of the tree, where he wouldn't be able to set anything alight. Mournfully, the little Maia did as requested, though he was pacified with a promise of more bacon later.

A few clicks and whirrs and a bright flash of light later, Ring Bearer looked rather puzzled. In place of the Uruk-Hai that had picked him up, two female Elves - still wearing the same clothes - stood adjusting their backpacks. Hey, its okay, Cara grinned at him, throwing him their last piece of bacon to reassure him...

From his first appearence, this mini is not just something that happened: he becomes an integral part of the mission. The problems and advantages of dealing with a demi-angelic ball of flame are addressed: he is used for warmth on Caradhras, and later gently removed from the flet in Lorien - we even see his reactions to this. Later still, I read of his reaction to a change of disguise, and I realised this was what had been missing.

I read a mission for two reasons: to delight at the tale of agents cleaning out a badfic, and to see something new. The entertainment of the former was somewhat muted here, but, for the first time in a long time, something brand new appeared. I have never seen a mini become a character on its first appearance before - and I enjoyed it immensely. It shows how much respect the two agents have for the Word Worlds they enter, and for the creatures they encounter. By reading about their interactions with Ring Bearer, I came to truly believe that the authors were lovers of Canon, not just haters of 'Sues. And that is something I always treasure.

-T. Ryan, Dept. of Personnel, DOGA Archivist

(Don't really care about winning, I'm just happy to be participating.)

A review of our solitary Indiana Jones mission by Chatvert:
http://wizkit.livejournal.com/904.html
which I tried to post there, but LJ wants . . . stuff. Or something. Which might be for the best, because this review feels disgustingly long to me.

"Greetings! Fellow PPCer doctorlit here. When I noticed we had an Indiana Jones mission, I just had to come read it!

Indiana Jones had a lot of fun minor characters (Sallah and Brody, in particular), and they got shafted pretty heavily by this badfic. I'm glad you had Kitty react to that, and gave them a bit of fan-love through her dialogue.

Kitty and Alec work very well as a PPC partnership. I especially like their dialogue. It's been a while since the agent banter in a mission kept me smiling most of the way through my reading. Alec's serious pragmatism conflicts well with Kitty's fannish excitement towards everything. At the same time, I like that both agents can slip out of their usual characterization, like when Alec references the Last Crusade dialogue during the assassination. Another example where this shines through is Kitty's reaction to being shot, immediately calming down so she could take care of herself.

One thing that made this mission a somewhat difficult read was that your writing and the badfic's writing shared the same formatting (except the bolded author's notes). With no obvious visual difference, there were paragraphs that seemed to be part of your narration, but turned out to be from the badfic as I read more. I don't know what formatting livejournal allows, but it would make for a much smoother, clearer read if you bolded or italicized the badfic quotes. This is especially important with a badfic like this one that has mostly decent SPaG.

I thought it was kind of weird for Alec Trevelyan (who our wiki tells me is from James Bond) to be casting magic spells. I went back and read his first mission to find out why he was capable of doing so, but there was no mention of magic at all. In fact, Kitty didn't display any magic there, either. It's pretty random for this magical talent to have just been dropped on the reader in the second installment of your spinoff with no explanation, even apart from the weirdness of a James Bond canon being able to do it at all.

Between this mission and that first one, I also noticed another contradiction. Kitty can barely assassinate the Bourneverse Sue without having an emotional breakdown, and admits she only managed it because she knew Alec was in danger. Then, in the beginning of this mission, Kitty is very nonchalant about picking out a weapon and says she is "getting used to" killing. It's very jarring to go from one mission to the next and have this complete turnaround in attitude. I realize I'm probably meant to assume other missions took place between these two, but it would have been a lot more satisfying to see that change in Kitty happen over time, because as it is, it feels like I've missed out on a huge chunk of Kitty's character development. That change, as well as the magic thing, should to be shown to the reader, rather than briefly mentioned as having occurred during the "commercial break."

I'm sorry this comment went on so long, especially on a two-year-old entry. Just wanted to give my thoughts on a mission in an awesome, but sadly neglected, canon.
doctorlit

I am not going to participate in the actual contest portion of this, as I am married to the judge, and that is prize enough for me. I will, however, still be reviewing things and I welcome Neshomeh to judge how many points I would receive, as an example of how the system works.

That said, here is my first review.

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Phobos' review of Architeuthis, Mission 1: The Beginning:

I'm not quite sure how to begin this, so I guess the best thing to do is get out my thoughts on the piece overall. I'm sad to say I didn't really enjoy it. There are several reasons for that.

The first half of this mission was one long info-dump that tries to set out exactly what the PPC is, and how it does its job. While this is useful information, it was not presented in a way that was interesting to read, and I found it difficult to trudge through it. Since it was obviously intended for readers who were not familiar with the PPC, I wouldn't advocate getting rid of it all together. I think it would have been better to put it in a separate piece and liven it up somehow. Perhaps make it more of a more fully developed story about how Architeuthis joined the organization and found these things out, rather than explaining it directly to the audience and quoting sections of the manual.

Another problem I had with this particular mission was the lack of clear delineation between sections. The disclaimer at the top runs directly into the exposition section, which runs directly into the actual narrative. It is jarring, and it only serves to confuse the reader. This is a simple fix, though. A horizontal rule between the sections would clear that up easily.

There are, what appear to be, several in-text author's notes, which I believe are a lazy way to get information to the audience. Two, in particular, caught my eye.

1) (I'm a graduate student of biology; I need money, okay?) This information has no bearing on the story, and, due to agents not getting paid, doesn't make any sense as a reason to join the PPC. If you really wanted to get this into the story, I would recommend writing a more thorough introduction of Architeuthis, which includes her being a graduate student, and what that means for her in her new job.

2) (Of course, I'd picked a fake name before coming....) This one makes a common mistake. You are telling, rather than showing. It would have been more interesting and less intrusive if we had seen the agent pick the name as part of her preparations for going out. Perhaps she could have a number of names on a dartboard, or something. "Show; don't tell" would be good advice for this piece as a whole, come to think of it.

It is quite obvious that you know what you are talking about when it comes to Lord of the Rings canon. Some specific instances are the palantiri and the Black Shadow. I was under the mistaken impression that there were only four palantiri. I learned something today.

I don't feel that it was adequately explained how Architeuthis managed to make it through this without a scratch. She fully admitted to being a spy, and she was in the heart of Minas Morgul. That would have warranted torture, at the very least, to find out how she had made it so far into the fortress undetected. It seems particularly out of character for the Witch King. He seemed to not care a whole lot that this person was in his tower, playing with his palantir. It would have been more interesting if Architeuthis needed to do something more than just tell the truth to get out of the situation.

As a side-note, while we are on the subject of the Witch King, Makes-Things just modified the Neuralyzers to work on undead, and we don't hear about it until the it was being used? That smacks of plot contrivance and lazy storytelling. I'm not saying you shouldn't modify the equipment. What I am saying is that you need to work at setting things like that up, in advance, so that they don't come out of thin air. If Makes-Things, or someone else from DoSAT had given Architeuthis the modified, possibly even experimental, Neuralyzer earlier in the story, it would have been far less jarring.

All in all, I'm sorry to say that this doesn't make me keen to read any further into the adventures of Architeuthis.

-Phobos

How about this:

I'll review two people that I haven't heard of before, and two more people that ask for a review. Plus Neshomeh, because I didn't know that we had had National Reading Month.

I'll link, but don't worry about judging them. I'm not interested in earning points, and I'm pretty aware of what makes a good review because I just spent quiet a few hours on mandatory, graded peer English paper critiques.

Have you thought of a prize? I tried to think of something original. That failed.