How to Make a Character Page


 * This is a guide to making wiki articles for your PPC character(s). For general editing help, please see Neshomeh's Editing Tutorial.

So, you want to make a character page. That's awesome! We're glad you want to contribute to the general milieu. First, though, we'd like to ask that certain criteria are fulfilled:


 * 1) Get Official Permission. If you don't have Permission to write a PPC spin-off, what do you need with PPC characters?
 * 2) Write something with your character in it. If your character hasn't done anything yet, it's not really likely that anyone else will need to look them up.
 * 3) Add your character to the Glossary of PPC Characters, following the format detailed there.

If you've done all that, then it's probably cool to make a page for your character. There aren't many hard and fast rules about this, but there is some variation depending on the type of character, so we've divided the tutorial into sections for agent pages, staff pages, and other types of character pages. Since most PPC characters are agents, we'll start with that.

Agent Pages
Agents are here defined as PPC characters who go on missions. Barring a few exceptions, such as Intelligence agents and Security agents, they are members of Action Departments.


 * 1) Open up a blank page.
 * 2) Decide what to call your page, which should be pretty easy, since it's your agent's name. If you don't know their name . . . uh . . . we don't think this tutorial can help you. Anyway, the name of the page should be the agent's full name, whether it's one word, two, three, or whatever, though if it gets TOO long you might just want to go with first and last, for simplicity. It should not contain the word "agent" (except for Agent Justin Agent, but he already has a page anyway).
 * 3) Grab the PPC Agents infobox code and paste it into your page. Fill it out. If you can't fill something in right away, that's okay, just leave it alone.
 * 4) Under the infobox, type a sentence or two in the lead section giving some basic information about your agent, usually something like this:
 * Alice is an agent in the Department of Mary Sues. She is written by Bob.
 * 1) Under a header called "Agent Profile", start your agent's profile. This usually includes sections under sub-headers for "Appearance" and "Personality". If your agent's backstory and/or PPC career don't warrant a whole section, that can go under a sub-header here, too.
 * 2) If your agent has a lot of backstory and PPC history, start a new section header called "Agent History". You may wish to use sub-headers for "Recruitment" and "PPC Career".
 * 3) Under a new header called "Mission Logs", start a section for your agent's mission logs.
 * 4) Give a link to your spin-off's hub site.
 * 5) Under a sub-header called "Partnered with [Partner's Name]", provide a bulleted list of the agent's missions, including a link to the mission and the continuum or continua in which it takes place.
 * 6) Don't forget to place your article in the proper categories, usually "PPC Agents" and their department (and division, if applicable), but sometimes also "Badfic Character", "Reformed Sue", etc. If your agent goes insane or dies, there are categories for those, too.

Note that not all pages have to be done exactly the same way; if you browse around a bit, you'll find lots of variations. However, whatever you do, you must include a credit to the writer and the Mission Logs section. Unless you don't actually want people to read your missions, of course, but in that case, why did you write them?

At some point, you may also wish to include a timeline to keep track of what all your agent gets up to aside from missions. When you do, put it in a sub-header under Agent History.

Staff Pages
PPC staff are here defined as PPC characters who don't go on missions, but rather have jobs around Headquarters. Without exception, they are members of Infrastructure Departments. Creating staff pages is basically the same as creating agent pages, but with a few differences, as you'll see.


 * 1) Open up a blank page.
 * 2) Decide what to call your page. Again, this is the character's full name, unless it's ridiculously long, and does not contain their title (if any).
 * 3) Grab the PPC Staff infobox code and paste it into your page. Fill it out. If you can't fill something in right away, that's okay, just leave it alone.
 * 4) Under the infobox, type a sentence or two in the lead section giving some basic information about your character, usually something like this:
 * Alice is an nurse in the Department of Fictional Psychology. She is written by Bob.
 * 1) Under a header called "Character Profile", start your character's profile. This usually includes sections under sub-headers for "Appearance" and "Personality". If your character's backstory and/or PPC career don't warrant a whole section, that can go under a sub-header here, too.
 * 2) If your agent has a lot of backstory and PPC history, start a new section header called "Character History". You may wish to use sub-headers for "Recruitment" and "PPC Career".
 * 3) Under a new header called "Appearances", start a section for the stories in which your character appears.
 * 4) If your character has a spin-off to themselves, give a link to its hub site.
 * 5) Provide a bulleted list of the stories in which your agent appears.
 * 6) Again, don't forget to add categories, this time "PPC Staff" and their department (and division, if applicable), plus whatever other status applies.

Again, not all pages need be identical, but must include links and credit to the writer.

Other Character Pages
There are several other types of PPC character, including children in the nursery and other civilians, and slain Sues. While the latter aren't really PPC characters, strictly speaking, there is a format to follow if you're going to make pages about them, so we're talking about them anyway.

Children

 * 1) Open up a blank page.
 * 2) Decide what to call your page. Again, this is the character's full name, unless it's ridiculously long. Children rescued from badfics tend to be renamed, often taking the surname of either their adopter(s) or the writer of their home continuum.
 * 3) Grab the Nursery Child infobox code and paste it into your page. Fill it out. If you can't fill something in right away, that's okay, just leave it alone.
 * 4) Under the infobox, type a sentence or two in the lead section giving the character's name in bold and his or her writer, and then a couple of paragraphs about what they look like, where they come from, and whatever else there is to know about them.
 * 5) Under a header called "Appearances", give bulleted links to the stories in which they appear, including the mission in which they were rescued if applicable.
 * 6) Add the category "Civilians in HQ". Also add "Badfic Characters" if they were rescued.

Other Civilians
There aren't too many characters around the PPC who don't have jobs to do, but if you've got them, see above, but leave out the infobox.

Slain Sues and Stus
You don't have to make pages for slain Sues and Stus, but if you want to, here's how:


 * 1) Open up a blank page.
 * 2) Decide what to call your page. In this case, it should be the full name no matter how ridiculously long it is.
 * 3) Grab the Mary Sue infobox code and paste it into your page. Fill it out. If you can't fill something in right away, that's okay, just leave it alone.
 * 4) * You may find that your Sue or Stu shares a name with another one, or even with a canon character. In that case, usually just appending "(Sue)" to the page name, complete with parentheses, will take care of it, but if there are multiples, then add "([Continuum] Sue)". Examples include Alanna (Sue) and Emily (Young Wizards Sue).
 * 5) Under the infobox, type a sentence or two in the lead section giving the character's name in bold and his or her continuum of origin, usually something like this:
 * Aerith was a Mary Sue in the Lord of the Rings continuum. She was killed by Agents Alice and Bob.
 * 1) Explain how she ruined the continuum under a header called "Character History".
 * 2) Give the reading of her offenses under a header called "Charges".
 * 3) Tell us how the agents cleverly disposed of her under a header called "Character Death".
 * 4) Finally, give us the links to her fic of origin (if possible) and the mission in which she was killed under a header called "Links".
 * 5) Add the category "Slain Mary Sues". Also add "[Continuum] Sues" if the category exists.

For this one, stick to the format.

Character Images
If at all possible, you should add an image of your character, both because it makes the page look better and because, well, we want to see what they look like. If you can't draw yourself, there are alternatives. The most accepted are:


 * TekTek.org's Dream Avatar, which makes images in the style of Gaia Online's avatars.
 * SubetaHQ's SHQ Wardrobe, which makes images in the style of Subeta. These are slightly larger than the TekTek ones, but have fewer options to choose from and no search function.

We ask that you do not use something like Facemaker for your agent's main image, since it only shows a severely close-cropped image of the face and doesn't really give a good idea of what they look like. If you want to use one for a secondary image, though, that's fine.

Wrapping Up
Once you've gone through the steps to create your page, make sure to hit the "Preview" button before publishing. Check to see that everything is displaying like it ought to. Then click "Publish."

If you weren't paying attention above, add your character to the Glossary of PPC Characters. Also make sure to add links to them from any other relevant pages, such as their continuum of origin and the List of RCs.

That's it, you're done!