Plothole

&mdash;Mark Twain, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses"
 * 9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

A plothole (also rendered plot hole) is created whenever something in a story doesn't make sense. This can either be through bad characterization, inconsistent plotting, or the existence of something contradicted in canon. Usually a plothole is a metaphorical hole, as in something missing from the narrative; in the PPC, they are rather more literal. They are often found in badfic.

Accidental encounters of agents with plotholes can have a wide range of unpredictable effects. Missing characters will find themselves in a literal hole in the fabric of the world, from which they can be pulled out. A plothole once rendered Jay Thorntree and Acacia Byrd's invisible belongings visible.

Plotholes are related to Logic Loopholes.

Transport
While plothole is a generic term that can be applied to any narrative hole, in the PPC it is often used specifically of time-space distortions - the form that can be used to travel long distances in significantly less time than should be required, or even to pass between dimensions. Agents on a mission can, with practice, deliberately use this form of plotholes to travel quickly across large distances, as Acacia did in TOS.

The PPC's portals are stabilised plotholes. Consequentially, it is possible for the portal generator to malfunction when it hits the plotholes naturally found in badfic. This can cause agents to miss their destinations in space or time and/or become separated from each other. Plotholes occasionally appear in HQ, and can be used to travel.

Plotholes are a naturally occurring phenomenon in some portions of the multiverse, though very rare on World One. The seeds that led to the Flowers were transported by plothole to a world where a world where all kinds of plotholes were abundant; the Flowers eventually harnessed time-space distortions to expand their Headquarters and their Organisation across the multiverse.

The Flowers discovered how to create plotholes by writing them into existence; however, plotholes created by this method could only lead into or out of Word Worlds. One consequence of this limitation was that there were only three plotholes - all natural - between Origin and the rest of Headquarters; during the Civil War, these links were easily cut.

Makes-Things was known for having something of an affinity with plotholes and converting them to use for the PPC; most of HQ is built into a massive network of plotholes that a younger Makes-Things accidentally created in an event known as the Cascade, and a form of stabilized plothole technology is key to the operation of portals and the Remote Activator devices. There are plotholes scattered all over the multiverse, and the Cascade seems to have left a large number leading to World One; a fair number of agents from World One arrive in HQ by falling through a plothole.