PPC Manual

As explained in Chapter 1 of Volume 2, the basic functional units of the PPC are Departments and Divisions, each containing Agents specifically trained to operate within given parameters. The crucial difference between the two is this: a Department may contain Divisions, but a Division never contains Departments.

For example, consider the Department of Mary-Sues. Out of all the types of bad fanfiction, and because there is so much, the DMS was created to handle Mary-Sues exclusively. In the beginning, there were no Divisions. However, when the Lord of the Rings movies came out, there was such a dramatic increase in ’Sue stories that the entire Department was swamped. To ensure continued protection for other continua, the Lord of the Rings Division was born. Agents especially well-versed in Tolkien were moved to the new Division and given missions exclusively (barring any emergency) in Rings-verse. The trend continues with large fandoms such as Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

The two crucial differences between Departments and Divisions are these:

• A Department may contain Divisions, but never the other way around;
• Divisions do not have Flower Directors.

The confusion of Division with Department generally occurs when more than one Departments each contain a Division for the same fandom. The Lord of the Rings Division, for example, exists in the Disturbing Acts of Violence Department and the Department of Bad Slash in addition to the DMS. However, there is no Director for a singular LotR Division, only the Heads of each Department. An Agent in DMS:LotR reports to the Sunflower Official while an Agent in DAVD:LotR reports to the Big Thorn. Likewise, an Agent in DBS:LotR reports to the Queen Anne’s Lace. An Agent may work the same Division in more than one Department, but only on the full understanding that she will have to manage more than the usual workload and that her paperwork will be devilishly complicated as a result.

The three crucial things to remember about Departments and Divisions are as follows:

• A Department may contain Divisions, but never vice versa;
• Divisions do not, as a rule, have Flower Directors;
• Except those that do.

There are a few Divisions singular enough to warrant their own Director under the Department Head. These include the Eclectic Subdivision of Advances Species, which is run by the Strangler Fig within the Department of Floaters; the Medical Research Division of the Medical Department, headed by the Echinacea; and the Audio Visual Divisoin of the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology, headed by the Rose of Sharon. Details about them can be found in subsequent chapters of this volume.

Tables are alphabatised by Department name. All Department names link to their extended descriptions. Unless otherwise stated, all emblems are on a black, circular field.

Author Correspondence

[Insert text body here]

Bad Parody

[Insert text body here]

Bad Quizzes

[Insert text body here]

Bad Role-Play

[Insert text body here]

Bad Slash

[Insert text body here]

Cool and Unusual Punishment

The Department of Cool and Unusual Punishment is a relatively young department, presided over by the Bladderwrack, a generally despised and mocked figure even among the Plants. It used to do odd jobs for its superiors, until it drove everyone mad with its incessant insistence that it should be a Head of Department and a disgruntled Flower somewhere created DCUP just to shut it up. The department is therefore rarely taken seriously, and some think that it was purposely named to have a silly acronym.

DCUP’s first Agent was a boy named Scorpia, who has had a few partners over the years. His main skill lies in scaring the heck out of them with horror stories about mad Agents and terrible ’Sues, at least some of which might be true. Currently occupying DCUP are Scorpia, a newbie called Twiggy and a bit-part character called Brittany whom the other two have recruited from a LotR badfic.

DCUP deals with multiple continua and, while it tends to concentrate on Mary-Sues, it has been known to take on other badfics. Due to this, it has recently been realised that DCUP may more properly be a sub-department of the Floaters with ideas above its station.

Despatch

[Insert text body here]

Disturbing Acts of Violence

DAVD may well be the most maligned Action Department in the PPC. Whenever there is nothing else to worry about, a small number of Agents get the inexplicable urge to make up rumours about its members and their habits. As far as can be determined, none of these are true – there are no mutual torture sessions, and Agents vanishing from other Departments are almost certainly not being kidnapped and eaten.

What is true is that DAVD Agents are generally uncommunicative with outsiders. The nature of their job makes this by far the best policy. They deal with missions where the violence content is too high for regular Agents, and thus each DAVDer has a wide range of stories to tell which would certainly disturb most of the PPC. For this reason, they keep mostly to themselves. This policy is so comprehensive that they even have their own Infrastructure Divisions – DAVD Medical (consisting of Physician Fizz R the Bizarre) and DAVD Intelligence (a small dark room somewhere in the lower basements of HQ). Confusingly, all three of these refer to themselves simply as DAVD, and there are no distinctions between their flash patches.

Floaters

Where are you when you’re not anywhere else? We don’t know. But Agents who don’t belong to any other Department go to the Department of Floaters. Fittingly headed by the Floating Hyacinth, the DF contains both teams and single Agents. Single Agents are almost always new recruits waiting to be placed with a permanent partner and Department. Teams tend to be Agents of widely varied interests and abilities who feel they serve the Canon Protection Initiative best by not limiting themselves to a specific type of badfic.

The DF is essentially the PPC’s reserve force. The term “holding tank” has been used, but this is inaccurate. Floaters, far from merely waiting around to be put somewhere else, may be called upon at any time for any mission in any continuum. Furthermore, they are so called frequently and, it is said, with prejudice. The latter is not strictly true, either. However, the status of the Agents in question often makes it difficult to assign missions with regard to their strengths and weaknesses.

The Department of Floaters contains one Division: the Eclectic Subdivision of Advanced Species (ESAS), headed by the Strangler Fig.

Geographical Aberrations

The Department of Geographical Aberrations was founded by a disgraced pyromaniac (who had just been kicked out of the DMS) according to the description of a secretary who was tired of his job. These two were Agent Dafydd Illian and the Bonsai Mallorn (current Head of Department), respectively.

The official mission statement of DOGA is to deal with those badfics containing elements of geographical disruption – usually a ’Sue-spawned country, but sometimes a serious distortion of distances or locations. The unofficial mission statement is to deal with such problems by the liberal application of fire. Thus, the fact that the current six Agents are all pyromaniacs, have between them two mini-Balrogs, and include one vampire with the ability to summon lightning from the clouds, is not too surprising.

Despite its small size, DOGA has become quite a presence in the PPC. Quite why this is so is not known, as none of them have yet run through the corridors with flamethrowers, and there is only one known instance of Agent Selene using lightning on a fellow Agent. Nevertheless, a Department full of pyros with access to flammable equipment is not to be taken lightly, and thus they gain a perhaps undeserved reputation.

Implausible Crossovers

[Insert text body here]

Improbabilities

[Insert text body here]

Improbable AUs

[Insert text body here]

Mary-Sue Experiments

[Insert text body here]

Mary-Sues

[Insert text body here]

Misplaced Flora and Fauna

[Insert text body here]

Out-of-Character Hobbits

[Insert text body here]

Plagiarism

[Insert text body here]

Redundancy Department

[Insert text body here]

Repetitive Department of Repetition

[Insert text body here]

Special Interdepartmental Elven Languages Unit

[Insert text body here]

Technical Errors

[Insert text body here]

WTF

The Department of WTF is constantly accused of being an abbreviation, something its members – the Snowthorn and two Agents, Mortic Wentway and Elanor Laison – firmly deny. WTF, they say, is pronounced “wutuf,” and is a perfectly acceptable word in its own right.

The Department was set up to deal with those stories which are so outrageous that normal Departments cannot deal with them. Thus, their first mission involved a LOTR slash story in which all the dialogue was written in Gaelic. Another featured a Mary-Sue who used her powers on the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. These missions could be handled by the regular Departments, but only at the potential cost of Agent sanity. Mortic and Elanor are either specially trained for such missions, or have been conditioned to them by past events. Or, of course, they could simply be expendable.

Dead Author Electricity Generation

How does an organisation dedicated to the elimination of bad fiction through the use of highly advanced technology manage to power its potentially-infinite Headquarters? While the flood of badfic is still overwhelming the Agents, the answer to this question lies in the Department of Dead Author Electricity Generation. Harnessing the well-known phenomenon of authors spinning in their graves, the DoDAEG uses portals to attach rotors to certain famous creators. At a given time, J.R.R. Tolkien is known to have supplied more than half of HQ’s electrical needs.

For no known reason, the entire staff of the DoDAEG are silver. The Head of Department is the Slaver Sunflower, a species known for using its petals as mirrors to form intense heat-rays. The primary Agent, CAL-9000, is a humanoform android, completely metallic. No justification for this has ever been offered.

External Security

The Department of External Security is almost universally referred to as the Weeds. They are the ones who keep PPC HQ secure from outside incursion (most of the time. There are rumours that their head office has a list of all the times they’ve failed to do so, but these are completely unfounded). Of course, as most Agents rarely if ever leave HQ by the doors (and a large percentage aren’t even aware that the doors exist), they tend to go unnoticed. This, Captain Dandy assures us, is just the way they like it.

Fictional Psychology

The Department of Fictional Psychology runs under the careful observation of the Kudzu Vine. The responsibilities of Director are shared with Dr. Freedenberg, who, among other qualifications, has legs. The Department bears the sign of the Multiple Exclamation Points, for, in the immortal words of Terry Pratchett, “What sort of person sits down and writes a maniacal laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.”

The Department is located in Section 31 and further divided into Units A, B, and C.

Unit A houses both the primary ward for Canon characters and the secondary ward for Agents. This did not used to be the case. Until recently, to ensure the upkeep of the PPC’s minimal interaction policy, Agents were obliged to take all their problems to the Medical Department. Medical finally got sick of the endless and often deranged demands for Bleeprin and washed their hands of the matter. Both the primary and secondary wards are strictly outpatient. There is a small inpatient contingent but, as they are best kept in peaceful solitude, the location of their ward is need-to-know only.

Unit B contains storage and other facilities, including the infamous No-Drool Videos in room B-9. “Storage” does indeed mean Bleeprin and similar products. It is extremely inadvisable to search for them, for they are quite well-guarded.

Unit C holds offices and living space for FicPsych personnel. Rumors that the two are in any way separate are the product of overactive imaginations. Please don’t ask about it. Naturally, C-1 and C-2 are occupied by the Kudzu and Dr. Freedenberg, respectively.

Finance

Portals cost money. Food costs money. Agents even occasionally cost money. The Accountants of the Finance Department are the conduit through which that money reaches the PPC at large. Finance used to be a far larger department, but after the events of the Reorganisation, much of the PPC’s income was cut off. This means that it really isn’t their fault that no one gets paid, but despite this fact, Finance has become the second most often cursed Department (after Legal, see below).

The Evermind logo of the Department represents the original Head of Department, who was tragically murdered many years ago. Her successor, the Bindweed, is not considered worth remembering by the current Head, the Clover. Most of the rest of the PPC agrees with his opinion, with the exceptions not being worth noting. The Board denies that there is any network of DIS/Mysterious Somebody sympathisers in the PPC.

Intelligence

Affectionately known as “Spies” to members of other Departments, those who work in Intelligence are simply those who search out and process bad fanfiction. The job is tedious and unpleasant, but the PPC couldn’t function without these few dedicated individuals. Though anyone can report badfic (and the help is much appreciated), Intelligence Agents are specifically responsible for classifying and flagging stories for appropriate attention. Once a fic comes to the attention of an Intelligence Agent, the process goes something like this:

1. The fic is skimmed for signs of trouble, such as an original character with a special origin/appearance/power/relationship to a Canon; blatant character disruptions; uncanonical flora, fauna, and/or locations; etc.
2. If the fic is found to contain such signs, a report is written containing the title, author and location of the fic; a brief summary or description; notable original characters, OOCness, plotholes, and/or problem passages; and any additional comments the Agent might want to include. The report is forwarded to the appropriate Department. This is the same report that Assassins, Untanglers, and all the rest see when they answer the call of their consoles.
3. If the damage is less obvious, specially-trained Intelligence Agents may enter the fic for reconnaissance only. Their job then is to look for plotholes, Generic Features, cardboard characters, and other such signs of a weak continuum. If enough evidence is found, the fic is reported as described above. If not, it is either flagged for further observation or released as goodfic.

The Intelligence Department is headed by the Sub Rosa and bears the sign of a Purple Sage plant. This is a reference, not to a former Department Head, but to the Purple Sage, an imaginary philosopher credited with saying the following:

“The Earth quakes and the Heavens rattle; the beasts of nature flock together and the nations of men flock apart; volcanoes usher up heat while elsewhere water becomes ice and melts; and then on other days it just rains.”

—The Illuminati! Trilogy

Internal Affairs

[Insert text body here]

Internal Operations

This description has been classified.

Legal

The Legal Department is one of the more enigmatic facets of the PPC’s infrastructure, and with good reason. Being the entity responsible for upholding the Laws of Narrative Comedy, Irony, etc. (along with the Laws of Physics, to name but one), it is perhaps the most often cursed. Secrecy keeps it relatively safe from Agents with pyromaniac inclinations. Legal is directed by the Fern. Its location is classified. As its entrance corridor is wallpapered with wilver paisley patterns on urple (with blello sconces), this is probably a good thing.

Legal’s emblem, the Chao (pronounced “cow”), is derived from the Sacred Chao of the Discordian movement. Although it resembles a yin-yang, it is not. The Chao illustrates the balance between order and disorder, symbolized respectively by the five-frond fern on one side and the anti-gravity apple on the other. The significance of the anti-gravity apple is unknown - it is rumoured to represent the Head of the Physics Division, a former Head of Department, or something else entirely.

Medical

In the course of a mission (or every-day life in HQ), people sometimes get hurt. With the resources of unnumbered worlds to draw on, the PPC Medical Department is without a doubt the best health care facility in the Multiverse. No matter one’s injury or species, chances are that the devoted Medical staff can handle it. For Canon characters, this extends even to full resurrection. (Dead Agents will remain dead.) The Department is headed by Dr. Fitzgerald. Their emblem is a simple green armband, which may also function as a blindfold, bandage, or restraint in an emergency.

Operations

Every so often, an Agent goes completely, violently insane. It’s a sad fact of life that this usually leaves scorch marks and occasionally body parts throughout HQ. Even when the workforce is not running around with flamethrowers, the halls (and especially the cafeteria) get dirty. The Department of Operations is given the thankless task of cleaning up the mess, and then giving everyone a nice meal afterwards. Theirs are the janitors (uniquely in the PPC, these are actually well paid and deliberately hired from Outside), the canteen staff, and the construction workers. They are responsible for HQ as a building, a fact which causes much distress whenever they think too deeply about it. HQ is like that.

Personnel

The Department of Personnel, headed by the Marquis de Sod, is one of the few Administration Departments (alongside Operations and the DIA), and their role is to keep the records in order. They deal with incoming and outgoing Agents, Department shifts, occasionally recruitment (when people are found by means other than Agents recruiting – usually people who send in stories to be dealt with, etc.) Not all DoP Agents work in the Department itself – many are attached to other Flowers. Thus the Bonsai Mallorn was a Personnel Agent and secretary to the SO, and Terri Ryan is a Personnel Agent and archivist for DOGA.

So what do they do? They keep things running. It’s a boring job, but someone has to do it.

Postal

[Insert text body here]

Sufficiently Advanced Technology

The Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology, headed by Hornbeam the Ironwood, is the Department in charge of maintaining the technology and pseudo-technology in HQ. Under the guidance of their often-absent leafy leader (he takes long walks in thought, and usually ends up getting lost), the (very overworked) Agents repair consoles, CADs, lightsabers, and the occasional piece of Canonical technology from the more science-fiction oriented Canons.

Most of the work at the DoSAT is done by Makes-Things, a small Asian man of indeterminate age and origins. He’s been around since the days of the Reorganisation, at least, and persistant rumours say that he was the first none-Flower in the PPC. He, his assistant Dann, and their secretary, Tess, make up the entire Department proper. Access to the main lab is entirely through Tess’s office. Watch out: she keeps a loaded Uzi in her desk drawer.

The AV Division is an offshoot of the DoSAT, but nobody really knows what it does. It is directed by the Rose of Sharon and bears the emblem of the letters “AV” superimposed over DoSAT’s smoking swivel chair.

[Insert text body here]