Allow me to be a dissenting voice.

Subject: Allow me to be a dissenting voice.
Author: Ekyl
Posted on: 2014-09-03 21:32:00 UTC

What hS says is, of course, factually correct on all counts. There is no fixed agent age limit (though I doubt any Flower is going to let a ten-year-old be an Action agent again; they're jerks sometimes, but I really don't see them as being willing to throw a young child into the meat grinder) and theoretically (?) no upper limit on RCs; the only actual rule is you can't have just a letter, out of respect to Jay and Acacia (I believe this is the reason at least - like retiring a jersey number in sport). Though of course as he points out, you're subsequently implying/establishing there are at least five billion RCs in HQ, which turns the PPC into a mind bogglingly huge organisation that really shouldn't have any badfic left to kill with those kinds of numbers at their disposal (more on the maths of PPC agents in a future thread!). I am obviously no authority but maybe consider whether or not you can't go with a smaller number as a reference? But then I've never been the fondest of crazy RC numbers so maybe this is me being too serious.

(Seriously, five billion RCs, almost as many people in HQ as on the entire planet Earth!)

Secondly, I must ask - why such young agents? They're barely into their teens and should by all rights still be in the Nursery learning the trade, if they were born in HQ (if they weren't, that's a whole 'nother bag of apples), and would be at all sorts of psychological and physiological disadvantages in the field compared to an adult agent, some of which wouldn't be offset by disguises. You have to remember that a child's brain and psychology aren't actually finished developing - maturity isn't some arbitrary line in the sand, it's an actual stage of development. There's a reason people under a certain age are judged as not capable of giving informed consent or making informed decisions. If someone grew up in HQ this is a slightly different story, as they've likely been brought up being prepared for agent work should they choose to go into it, but if these are kids right off the street they really aren't prepared for the kinds of things Action work would have them do. While a PPC agent's job isn't all combat, the posts this link might be a useful start for you to look at some of the problems involved: http://howtofightwrite.tumblr.com/tagged/children-and-combat

I'm, again, not a figure of authority, and I'm not going "grar, how dare you think about this; to the salt mines with ye!" Maybe part of this is just being uncomfortable with the idea of throwing children into daily mortal peril that tends to leave even functional adults severely psychologically strained, and I'm not sure I see Flowers being super happy about the idea of deploying what are basically (willing, but still) child soldiers, but I think you should consider the question of why these agents need to be children. How does it help the narrative? Is there some kind of purpose behind it? What does it do for your story that would not be served in any other way? Are you confident in your ability to write it in such a way that it is entertaining without doing a huge disservice to the children in the world actually forced into situations where they'll be risking their lives every day (I know the PPC is generally humorous, but I'm of the opinion there are certain things that just shouldn't be treated as a joke)? Why is it they're willing to throw themselves into such dangerous work - work that in fact often results in loss of life, limb or sanity even for adults who made the informed decision to put themselves on the line? This isn't a demand for you to justify yourself, it's just a reminder to put some thought into your characters and figure out why they need to be the way they are - and if you can't find an answer you're happy with, maybe it would do to try a different concept.

This isn't meant aggressively or to browbeat you, and I hope it hasn't come off that way; if it has, I sincerely apologise. All I'm doing in the end is asking you to think over what you're hoping to accomplish with and for your agents, and what the concept implies for them as people. If you've thought out all the implications and pitfalls and where an agent fits in with what you're going for, your spinoff will be much stronger with it, but this specific concept is one that has a lot more pitfalls than benefits, so in the end I'm more suggesting caution than anything; and making sure your characters are thought out is a universal thing when writing, so it's advice that couldn't hurt regardless of your concept. "Why?" is probably one of the most important questions a writer can ask themselves.

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Questions... by KittyEden on 2014-09-03 11:27:00 UTC Reply

Okay, I'm really truly sorry if this appears on the Wiki or somewhere else obvious, but I've looked and looked and can't find anything. Sorry.

I'm wondering what the age requirement for an Agent (specifically, an Assassin for the DMS) is. My two Agents-in-Progress are 13 and 12, and I'm really liking their dynamic so far. I've seen things about 'the youngest Agent made'(think her name was Ella?) and don't mean to take over that record. Info?

Also, can the Control Prompt combine two or more of the categories? Like, a combination of ‘the agents move into their RC/one agent moves into another’s RC’ and ‘the agents first meet’.

Finally, would the RC number '5.5/apple/26' work well? It's a Doctor Who reference, if anyone gets it.

Thanks for all your help, in advance. You guys are awesome. Really.

25Â¢ (Oh no, inflation.) by JulyFlame on 2014-09-04 03:37:00 UTC Reply

To ring in:

I think it's totally and perfectly fine to have agents that young.

How serious you want to make that be is up to you- they can still have a good time in HQ without encountering harder problems if you want, and you could always make it for a running joke or something about them being thought of as being too young for it or shouldn't they be in the Nursery or whathaveyou instead of doing missions.

But seriously? Go with it if it works for you.

Oh, brilliant! by KittyEden on 2014-09-04 10:13:00 UTC Reply

Yeah, that would actually be a fantastic running joke. I might try to get that in. Did I mention, you're all as brilliant as Donna around here?

Allow me to be a dissenting voice. by Ekyl on 2014-09-03 21:32:00 UTC Reply

What hS says is, of course, factually correct on all counts. There is no fixed agent age limit (though I doubt any Flower is going to let a ten-year-old be an Action agent again; they're jerks sometimes, but I really don't see them as being willing to throw a young child into the meat grinder) and theoretically (?) no upper limit on RCs; the only actual rule is you can't have just a letter, out of respect to Jay and Acacia (I believe this is the reason at least - like retiring a jersey number in sport). Though of course as he points out, you're subsequently implying/establishing there are at least five billion RCs in HQ, which turns the PPC into a mind bogglingly huge organisation that really shouldn't have any badfic left to kill with those kinds of numbers at their disposal (more on the maths of PPC agents in a future thread!). I am obviously no authority but maybe consider whether or not you can't go with a smaller number as a reference? But then I've never been the fondest of crazy RC numbers so maybe this is me being too serious.

(Seriously, five billion RCs, almost as many people in HQ as on the entire planet Earth!)

Secondly, I must ask - why such young agents? They're barely into their teens and should by all rights still be in the Nursery learning the trade, if they were born in HQ (if they weren't, that's a whole 'nother bag of apples), and would be at all sorts of psychological and physiological disadvantages in the field compared to an adult agent, some of which wouldn't be offset by disguises. You have to remember that a child's brain and psychology aren't actually finished developing - maturity isn't some arbitrary line in the sand, it's an actual stage of development. There's a reason people under a certain age are judged as not capable of giving informed consent or making informed decisions. If someone grew up in HQ this is a slightly different story, as they've likely been brought up being prepared for agent work should they choose to go into it, but if these are kids right off the street they really aren't prepared for the kinds of things Action work would have them do. While a PPC agent's job isn't all combat, the posts this link might be a useful start for you to look at some of the problems involved: http://howtofightwrite.tumblr.com/tagged/children-and-combat

I'm, again, not a figure of authority, and I'm not going "grar, how dare you think about this; to the salt mines with ye!" Maybe part of this is just being uncomfortable with the idea of throwing children into daily mortal peril that tends to leave even functional adults severely psychologically strained, and I'm not sure I see Flowers being super happy about the idea of deploying what are basically (willing, but still) child soldiers, but I think you should consider the question of why these agents need to be children. How does it help the narrative? Is there some kind of purpose behind it? What does it do for your story that would not be served in any other way? Are you confident in your ability to write it in such a way that it is entertaining without doing a huge disservice to the children in the world actually forced into situations where they'll be risking their lives every day (I know the PPC is generally humorous, but I'm of the opinion there are certain things that just shouldn't be treated as a joke)? Why is it they're willing to throw themselves into such dangerous work - work that in fact often results in loss of life, limb or sanity even for adults who made the informed decision to put themselves on the line? This isn't a demand for you to justify yourself, it's just a reminder to put some thought into your characters and figure out why they need to be the way they are - and if you can't find an answer you're happy with, maybe it would do to try a different concept.

This isn't meant aggressively or to browbeat you, and I hope it hasn't come off that way; if it has, I sincerely apologise. All I'm doing in the end is asking you to think over what you're hoping to accomplish with and for your agents, and what the concept implies for them as people. If you've thought out all the implications and pitfalls and where an agent fits in with what you're going for, your spinoff will be much stronger with it, but this specific concept is one that has a lot more pitfalls than benefits, so in the end I'm more suggesting caution than anything; and making sure your characters are thought out is a universal thing when writing, so it's advice that couldn't hurt regardless of your concept. "Why?" is probably one of the most important questions a writer can ask themselves.

On youth (and the thing we're all forgetting). by Huinesoron on 2014-09-04 09:18:00 UTC Reply

I was thinking about the issue of children on the front lines, and something occured to me that I don't think we've considered before: the Flowers may well prioritise recruiting the young.

The PPC operates on different rules to the rest of reality; specifically, large portions of it function around the Laws of Narrative Comedy, and equally large portions around belief - 'unless you hadn't noticed'.

The synergy of those two suggests something very interesting: that what happens in missions - how Narrative Comedy plays out or doesn't - is heavily influenced by what the agents believe will happen. As a non-mission example, in Crashing Down, Steve was able to convince the universe to allow him to escape by way of an awful pun - because he believed that was how things work.

Which suggests the very interesting idea that young agents - agents who believe that they can't get hurt and have it still be funny - are unlikely to get hurt, because the Laws of Narrative Comedy, influenced by their belief, won't let them. They don't think the story should go that way, and so... it doesn't.

Compare someone older - say, Dafydd. He's seen a lot in his time; he knows that stories can be full of drama and seriousness, and that sometimes bad things happen to the protagonists. And so he spends his time fighting off the urge to abuse his powers, healing injured colleagues, and ultimately dying, because he believes that's how stories go.

You don't want kids who are too young, because they're likely to not think protagonists are allowed to kill the bad guys - which is a problem for Action agents. But 12-14-year-olds are all about wanton violence against villains - without yet thinking that the heroes will suffer for it.

If you want to tie it into plothole theory - Legal's enforcement of the Laws of Narrative Comedy seems to be along the lines of controlling the plotholes generated by agents' beliefs. Yes, agents are plothole generators just like Mary-Sues - they subconsciously warp the world to fit their idea of how things should be - but Legal restrains the effects of those plotholes to keep them from damaging canon.

Or, from our perspective: Suethors write plotholes and let them run rampant. PPCthors write a good story, and justify the plotholes as Narrative Comedy. We are our agents' subconsciouses - and we're also Legal.

Bottom line: kids don't get hurt or angsty because they don't believe they will. Adults do because they believe they will.

hS

This makes so much sense! by Thantosiet on 2014-09-05 16:18:00 UTC Reply

Plus of course it can tie back into individual characters' mindsets. For instance ex-Sues might have a similar situation; they're used to having everything handed to them so their foes might be less troublesome, or it could go the other way and they have to deal with a lot more difficulties because they want to really earn their victories this time. Or people from more innocent continua like MLP: FiM wouldn't expect much more than comedic bad consequences, while those from "grittier" worlds would be more in danger of life and limb just because that's what they've come to see as normal.
I suddenly got the urge. by KittyEden on 2014-09-05 10:24:00 UTC Reply

I suddenly got the urge to copy-paste this and link it a thousand times on the Wiki- because it's so BRILLIANTLY PERFECT.

!!!

I really love this theory. I've explored with the imaginations of children before in some of my writing, and have come to the scientific conclusion that most adults need a good knock on the head to make them see things properly.
But this- THIS- is taking it to a whole new level. I respect you people so much. So, so much.

~Kitty
I love this theory (nm) by Miah on 2014-09-04 22:06:00 UTC Reply

And to hop in on this... by JulyFlame on 2014-09-04 03:32:00 UTC Reply

While on all accounts you're technically correct, you're also injecting too much realism and real world expectations into this.

I can't answer for KittyEden, but I'm pretty sure the reason for 'such young agents' is because she wants to write agents who are around her age- like the vast majority of us do.

The PPC is also as psychologically straining as we decide it is on a spin-off by spin-off basis, especially since it's largely humor based. While some of them touch on the deeper matters and the fact that you have to be crazy for this job to be in this job, it's all dependent on how you play it or choose to view it. After all, it's literal words- perception is key.

(I'm also going to have to disagree on your claim of not being a figure of authority- while your point of view might not always mesh with mine, and you've always taken a serious/realist perspective on the PPC and prefer a heavier tone, you've also been around plenty long enough for your words to have weight behind them because you actually can support your argument.)

-July, who seems to've found an anvil somewhere

I'm basically saying "I'm not a mod/PG". by Ekyl on 2014-09-04 04:36:00 UTC Reply

To save time I'll reply to you and Outhra in the same post. As I said, I'm not putting Kitty on trial here or anything, my labouring the "why" point is really just an encouragement to make sure this is something that's thought out; some of my points on why it might not be the best idea are perhaps taking it more seriously than many here would, but I think are worth noting as things to consider re: why it might not be a great idea. That said, it's really more about suggesting she make sure she has a solid idea of who these people are, where they're coming from, why they're doing this, etc; in good writing, whether comedic or serious, things happen for a reason. This could be establishing a character arc or just building up to a joke (good comedy needs a setup and a punchline after all) but when an author has put actual thought into what pieces fall where and why, they'll always turn out a superior project than one who has a bunch of things happening at random just because.

I also take a bit of exception to the implicit idea "realism" is some kind of four letter word that should be verboten, I mean yes, Sedri says it's exactly that in the mission writing guide on the wiki, and she says the same for logic; I suspect she didn't mean that literally and it was more of a response to the influx of grimdark and constant Emergencies at the time, though, and if she did I'd argue with her too. ;) No, obviously not everything should be super serious all the time and conform 100% to how things work in World One - that is an absurd idea and I've argued before I believe that grimdark melodrama doesn't have a place here, but the other side of that coin is the fact everything being constant off-the-wall silliness with no internal consistency, reasons for happening or actual consequences is just as boring. Of course not every agent is going to react just like a typical World One person would - many aren't from World One at all, many others aren't even human, and none are what we'd call typical people I'd think - but I think going the road of "oh, it's just comedy and the agents are just humourboxes, what's the point asking questions and developing things" is a really bad call. It's perfectly possible, and I think more interesting, to have humour and more grounded things in the same setting and potentially even the same work, and to treat them as mutually exclusive (and one of them as not even belonging in the setting at all) is really unnecessarily limiting, plus kind of dismissive towards anyone who actually does want to actually explore and flesh some stuff out - is Night Watch terrible and something that doesn't belong with the rest of the series because it's probably the Discworld book where Sir Terry Pratchett told the fewest jokes?

Obviously I'm not trying to scare Kitty off or force her to write things my way, bully her away from subjects I don't like, making any personal judgements of her based off an agent idea, or suggesting she spend years agonising over every sentence she writes, just giving my take from my own experiences. Admittedly I've developed a critical streak a mile wide in recent times but concrit never killed anybody. I will admit my mind reeled a bit at the prospect of an RC #500,000,000 though, so the very thought made me react with brief alarm. :P In fairness though, I'll note a couple of my personal biases are in play: I'm personally uncomfortable with the idea of children actively fighting reality-warping abominations in the Word Worlds, and I prefer more reasonable RC numbers along with my above-stated preference for keeping things a little closer to Earth so to speak; the really ludicrous ones feel to me like the old trend where CADs would blow up practically every time they were so much as looked at.

Of course, all this is a little tangential to the actual point, that obviously Kitty can write whatever the heck she wants barring a PG veto, but it would be a good idea for her to make sure she knows what she's going for and why, including on the character front - there's all sorts of interesting ways something like this could go, Outhra even pointed out one, and if she knows what makes her agents tick and how and why they react to the things they'll run into in HQ, it'll be a lot better than just winging it.

Five billion, not five hundred billion. (nm) by Ekyl on 2014-09-04 06:16:00 UTC Reply

*gulps* Uh... by KittyEden on 2014-09-04 10:18:00 UTC Reply

...just saying, it's highly unlikely that I'm going to be getting Permission anyway. This is me, a 13-year-old, trying to write as well as you guys, who are muchmuchmuch older than me. The odds? Not that good. You might not want to go into a big argument about it. Just sayin'.

I'm sorry if I seemed aggressive or intimidating. by Ekyl on 2014-09-04 21:16:00 UTC Reply

hS is right in that getting Permission is actually not that complicated, I just tend to say a lot when I'm voicing concerns I have with something. Blame the work as a critic (and, y'know, me wanting to be detailed enough that my talking is actually helpful). If you like though I'd be happy to beta anything you happen to put out.
Not so. by Huinesoron on 2014-09-04 14:07:00 UTC Reply

I have three rebuttals to your statement here.

1/ Of the four things we look at in a Permission request, you've already done two of them - be involved in the community, and be able to spell and grammatise. So you're halfway there!

2/ You're not trying to write as well as anyone (or at least you shouldn't be); you're trying to write well. That's an entirely different prospect, and actually a pretty low barrier, if you can believe it.

3/ Ella Darcy was 10 when she started writing for the PPC. Kaitlyn was 13 - and yes, I do mean the authors here. And yeah, their early writing tended a bit more towards the 'excitable squeals' than I'd tend to write, but that's not grounds for denial of Permission (and is a mark of the mood of the era, more than anything). Your age doesn't matter - only what you can do.

So what do you need to do? Know your characters' personalities, and show them through writing. Oh, and try and avoid spotty logic. Those are the biggest pitfalls people face.

hS

... by KittyEden on 2014-09-04 14:29:00 UTC Reply

..wow. Thanks.
There's not much I can say to that.
Except...
*reaches out across the Internet*
*gives hS a hug*
Which would look really weird in RL, considering how tiny I am.

I've lost track of how many times I've said this, but everyone in the PPC is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
And you know what?
I'm not going to finish that quote. Someone else can do it.

~Kitty

*Spontaneously regenerates* (nm) by SeaTurtle on 2014-09-04 20:33:00 UTC Reply

The RC numbers seem to be largely arbitrary, actually. by Outhra on 2014-09-03 23:45:00 UTC Reply

The numbering system probably makes sense in however many dimensions HQ was designed to operate on, but from what we've seen, there've been numbers in the trillions, like in Caddy-shack's RC 481516234277, RCs with a random assortment of numbers and letters, like in Lily Winterwood's agents, and some RCs with placement indicators that wouldn't make sense in most scales, like with Iximaz's fruit-numbered RC. I realize that's just one example for each, but that's just saying that there's precedent for really strange numbers, and they don't need to necessarily be logical.
Basically, it seems that just because an RC exists as a certain number, that doesn't mean that all RCs before that number have been occupied, or possibly even exist at all. Having the potential for untold numbers of RCs doesn't necessarily mean that untold x 2+ numbers of agents occupy them at any given time.

Also, while I agree with you on most of your points, I think you're taking this issue waaay too seriously. Yes, it's important that what happens in a narrative happens for a reason, and any opportunity should be taken to find and develop new stories with a set of characters, remove what doesn't work to make something more feasible and interesting out of the ideas, and the like, but there's a huge difference between taking into account while writing a story that your characters are just barely in their teens and would thus almost certainly be out of their depth when dealing with badfic's dangers(or at least at first), and saying that writing one's PPC agents as children would be doing a disservice to child laborers or that section about their emotional maturity that I couldn't really get a grasp on. (Would that section mean that younger agents would become emotionally stunted? More prone to long-term trauma? Incompetent?) The PPC isn't exactly the same context as all of that, being more focused on comedy and all. Mostly, I see the core issues being whether or not the fact of their youth is properly explored in the story. Maybe they are Nursery kids, raised from their Improbable Incubation to defend the multiverse. That could be fairly interesting, especially since I don't think we have a spin-off that explores that side of the PPC in any more than a few one-off lines. Maybe they were recruits from a poorly-described badfic whose age stabilized unexpectedly low when they were fully realized. Maybe one was from the latter two categories, and the other is one of those many recruits who cross in due to plot holes or interdimensional problems or some regulator deep in the bowels of HQ's null space overspinning, and the Department of Personnel paired them with one of their similar age group due to a poorly-formed idea on how mammalian socialization works. As long as the details of who and what they are are realized, I think there's potential for good stories with almost any agent dynamic. There's no need to get bogged down in over-serious details.
I also meant to say "and physiology". (nm) by Ekyl on 2014-09-03 21:34:00 UTC Reply
*posts in this link (nm) by Ekyl on 2014-09-03 21:33:00 UTC Reply

*points to hS' post about Ella* by Iximaz on 2014-09-03 15:45:00 UTC Reply

I think sending kids into the action departments might be unsafe, but since when have the Flowers cared about that? And to be fair, being a PPC agent is probably a lot safer than being a demigod, and Percy was twelve when he went on his first quest.

As for the RC number... well, my agents use RC 3-Apple-14, so welcome to the fruit club! (And isn't that the date Earth ended? In the episode with 9 and Rose and Cassandra the trampoline?)

Flowers aren't a monolithic entity, keep in mind. (nm) by Ekyl on 2014-09-03 21:35:00 UTC Reply

That'd be Ella Darcy. by Huinesoron on 2014-09-03 12:34:00 UTC Reply

She was ten when she became an agent, which is why she was put in Author Correspondence - it was technically Action, but didn't involve going out into the Word Worlds.

Other young agents I'm aware of (due to them being mine) are Elanor Laison - recruited on her 14th birthday, and placed as a Secretary initially due apparently to her age - and Constance Sims, who was 13 and went straight into the DMS.

Basically, agent ages have historically followed Boarder ages, and despite certain people's beliefs to the contrary, there's never been a lower age limit on the PPC Board. There were a lot of 13-14-year-olds around, and a fair few younger than that. So while 12 and 13 is young, it's certainly feasible. The Flowers might make noises about moving the 12-year-old to Infrastructure for a bit, but probably won't force the issue.

Be aware, though, that most agents now are in their late teens and twenties. So your agents will be in an environment where everyone is both taller and older than them, and a workplace where consumption of vast quantities of alcohol and pills are commonplace, not to mention the predilection of some agents for public, uh... 'displays of affection'. And the violence, don't forget the violence. So they may be in for a rough time.

As to your other questions: yes, the control prompts can absolutely be combined, though you do still need to write a random prompt as well. 5.5/apple/26 would (under my theory that all strange RC numbers are just synonyms for integers) simply be a name for RC #5,000,000,000 - which is an exceptionally large number, orders of magnitude above most of them, but is still a number, so yes, it's fine.

hS

To chime in... by JulyFlame on 2014-09-04 03:21:00 UTC Reply

If you're remarking on the seemingly arbitrary age limit on the survey, it's because I'd rather not play chicken with COPPA if I can avoid it.

(It's just easier to steer clear of it altogether than poke at it, from my perspective.)
Ace! by KittyEden on 2014-09-03 12:56:00 UTC Reply

I'm doing a happy little dance over here right now. I hate having to rewrite.
Anyway, my Agents will be fine with being tiny little fish in a big, drug-filled pond. Or not, but I can think of some interesting situations to put 'em in. Kay is violent, and (in RL) does karate, and Kitty exudes a metaphorical aura of insanity. Not to mention her pranking thing. I get the feeling she somehow managed to sneak out into RL and change my prompts to make herself crazier. Maybe I'm paranoid, though.

Yes, I have actually read some of Ella Darcy's stuff, including her last story, which made me cry. (But I'm pretty emotional, so bleh.) I always love those sorts of things.

Did I mention you're awesome?

~Kitty, who has been watching too many 7th Doctor episodes, and has started to talk like Ace. :-P

-Rubs his permastubble- by Desdendelle on 2014-09-03 12:04:00 UTC Reply

From what I remember, there aren't any little children that are agents. The Flowers don't seem to have a problem with teenagers, however.
I don't know about the second question but I assume that, assuming that's not your random prompt, it won't be problematic. You should wait for someone more familiar with the system to give you an answer, though.
The rules for RC numbers are, basically, "It doesn't start with a letter" and "it's a number", so I guess that's kosher. I mean, my agents live in RC log e (0.4342944819)...