Charge

Charges, in this sense meaning formal accusations, are what agents of the PPC use to justify "taking care of" a badfic. During the course of a mission, the agents compile a list of charges against the fic or, in cases of a Mary Sue, the Sue. When they have enough of a certain magnitude, they are then authorized to do the Duty. (The most common Duty is assassinating a Mary Sue, but it can also involve exorcising an Author-Wraith, or whatever else must be done to repair the damage a badfic does to the corresponding canon.)

Please note that not all charges apply in all circumstances. For instance, while wearing a Daft Punk t-shirt in Middle-earth is certainly a charge, wearing one in a Doctor Who fic may not be&mdash;no matter how you feel about Daft Punk. Also, charges may not always hold the same magnitude from fic to fic. Charges are supposed to be read out before the Mary Sue is taken care of, the author-wraith disappears, and the mission is finished. It's Da Rules.

Charge lists for various fandoms can be found in Section D of the PPC Handbook.

Types of Charges
Charges run from the completely legitimate, such as throwing canons out of character, to the ever-popular subjective charge of annoying the agents. Most charges fall into five general categories: canon violations, space-time distortions, technical improbabilities, language abuse, and subjective charges.

Canon Violations
Depending on their severity and number, instances of canon violation can be the most detrimental to the world and its characters. Charges in this category include, but are not limited to:


 * Character Disruptions
 * Throwing a canon character OOC
 * Character rupture
 * Character replacement
 * Causing canon characters to be Designated Misogynistic Bastards, Token Homophobic Jerks, Token Lecherous Jerks, Unrealistically Tolerant Pillocks, and/or woobies when they otherwise aren't.
 * Being a non-canonical sibling of a canon character.
 * Social Disruptions
 * Changing the physiology of a canon race
 * May include MPreg
 * Changing the social conventions and structures of a canonical society, including:
 * Naming conventions
 * The expression of sexuality, courting, and marriage
 * Mode of dress, shelter, transport, or communication
 * Creating non-canonical races
 * Environmental Disruptions
 * Bad geography
 * Altering the locations of key plot events
 * Altering history or a canon character's known backstory

Space-Time Distortions
Space-time distortions may overlap with other charges. These include, but are not limited to:


 * Time compression or expansion. Causes/results include:
 * Bad geography and bad physics
 * Unnecessary tense or person shifts
 * Unintentional teleportation
 * Anachronistic cultural contamination
 * Altering the canonical timeline

Technical Improbabilities
In lots of badfic, the author didn't quite think things through. Charges of technical improbability have to do with the likelihood that a given action could not occur as described due to factual details unknown to or ignored by the author. Charges of this type may include, but are not limited to:


 * Bad Biology
 * Dubious lube
 * Not There
 * The Mechanics
 * Bad Physics
 * Bad Psychology
 * Angst
 * Healing sex
 * Hurt/comfort
 * Stockholm syndrome
 * Trivialised rape
 * Bad Plot Devices
 * Creating plotholes
 * Kidnapping
 * Logic Loopholes
 * Trans-dimentional hopping and snatching

Language Abuse
Charges of language abuse are not usually sufficient to warrant an assassination/exorcism by themselves, but they certainly are annoying. Language abuse charges include, but are not limited to:


 * Mangling the English Language
 * Bad Grammar
 * Chatspeak
 * Ing Disease
 * Malapropism
 * Pronoun Problem
 * Thesaurus abuse
 * Spelling Errors
 * Creating minis
 * Malapropisms
 * Typos
 * Punctuation Errors
 * Missing punctuation
 * Punctuation abuse
 * Olde English
 * Mangling Historical or Canonical Languages
 * Employing Grelvish, Coney-Grelvish, Fan'ni, etc., in the place of real canonical languages
 * Employing Fangirl Japanese, especially in continua wherein Japan does not exist
 * Ignoring the naming conventions of a canonical society
 * General Mangling
 * Beige or urple prose
 * Scrawling pitiful doggerel and calling it poetry
 * Songfic
 * Melodramatics, bathos, and EXCESSIVE EMPHASIS!

Subjective Charges
Subjective charges may not be used to justify an assassination/exorcism, but may be added to make the agents feel better. The most famous of these is annoying the agents, but others examples are:


 * Displaying extreme stupidity or causing canon characters to act stupidly
 * Committing fashion crimes
 * Employing melodramatics, especially melodramatic death speeches (may need to be given post-humously)
 * Hitting on PPC agents’ lust objects
 * Claiming than the fanfic is "not a Mary Sue" when it has all the recognized characteristics of one
 * Pretending to dislike or be angry at a lust object when it is PAINFULLY OBVIOUS that the original character only exists to enact the author's own wish-fulfillment fantasies as the lover/partner of her crush.

Source
The PPC Basic Charge List: LotR