I don't think the PPC is similar to the USA in any way

Plug! Impromptu ficlet. by Neshomeh on 2016-06-10 01:33:00 UTC Reply

What's in a Name?

Agent Neshomeh was busily typing away at her computer in the Archives when a knock came at her office door. She jumped, startled, and took a moment to take a deep breath, save her work, and adjust her glasses before getting up to answer it.

"Yes?"

The agent on the other side of the door wasn't much taller than she was, if at all, but had a commanding presence in his stiff black uniform. He had dark brown hair, green eyes, and no visible flash patch. "Agent Hazelhead, Internal Affairs," he said. "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Okaaay." Neshomeh raised an eyebrow. She wasn't very good at it, but she did her best. She did not move from the doorway.

If Hazelhead was bothered, he didn't show it except to clear his throat and adopt a more comfortable stance. "Can you please tell me your whereabouts yesterday between seven a.m. and three p.m., HST?"

Neshomeh blinked. "Um. Here? Where I always am? Though I was asleep for part of that. Maybe most of that." She was not habitually a morning person, and the lack of sunlight didn't help.

Hazelhead nodded. "Can anyone confirm that?"

She looked around conspicuously. The Archives were empty, like they always were. Even her mini-Budong, Chrichton, and the tiny "Austrailien" Aeryn Sun were nowhere in sight. "Mm, no."

"I see." The officer frowned. "Have you ever been to the X-Men universe? Displayed any fire-based powers? Lusted after John Allerdyce, alias Pyro?"

"Definitely not."

"Have you ever used the pen name 'LilQTAnglGrl'?"

"Hell no!" Neshomeh crossed her arms. "What the heck is this about?"

Hazelhead wordlessly opened a folder handed her a single printed piece of paper.

She only had to glance at the title to understand. Her eyes went wide. "What the—? Hold on! I don't even go by that name here!"

"I already talked to Agent Laison—as a known former Sue, she was our first concern, of course, despite the different spelling. Agent Gilmor is inactive, and the only other we know of doesn't technically exist yet."

"And those aren't my initials anymore, and they're in the wrong order, anyway," Neshomeh went on, ignoring him in favor reading the very short fic in her hand. "This is really stupid."

"Yes, we thought so, too."

"And probably a troll. It's got all the hallmarks. Why'd they have to use my name?"

Hazelhead shrugged. "Who can say?" He took the fic back from her and put it away. "Well, I believe you weren't involved, but we had to check. I'll be going now. Have a good day."

"Yeah, sure. You, too." She shut the door and stood quietly a moment, thinking. "Now, where did I leave that remote activator...?"

---

So, I watch MasakoX's Bad Fanfiction Theatre sometimes. This episode, which is a reading of this trollfic, is responsible for inspiring this post.

This story is probably not canon. I borrowed hS's Agent Hazelhead without permission, for one thing, and the trollfic was published in 2003, for another. I hope it's amusing, though. {= ) Shockingly, it's actually longer than the trollfic by a few dozen words.

~Neshomeh

:D by Huinesoron on 2016-06-10 10:08:00 UTC Reply

That's fantastic. That's the sort of ridiculous thing that ought to happen in HQ.

I have no problem with you using Hazelhead (I've always treated the older DIA agents as semi-free-to-use), and the idea that it took them 13 years to notice amuses me immensely. (Also, Agent Elanor namedrop woo hoo!)

So... if the four El(e)anors in HQ are all named in the Wiki, what does this tell us about the size of the PPC? What percentage of a group do you have to sample to find everyone of a single name? And does it matter that, assuming the PPC's name-distribution is the same as America's, 0.076% of the US population is named Eleanor or Elanor?

(In the latter case, extrapolating gives us a HQ size of around 5000; that fits with my previous discussion of the topic from a fic-load POV, though I can't find the post in question.)

hS

Thanks! by Neshomeh on 2016-06-13 15:59:00 UTC Reply

I tried to work in Neshomeh pointing out that the thing was from 2003, but it would've rather invalidated the question of "where where you yesterday during US school hours?", which I didn't want to ~~think hard enough to~~ change, and I couldn't think of where to take the dialogue from there.

I reckon HQ has a higher than average concentration of Elanors due to the influence of Tolkien. Whatever the demographics, the culture is certainly nerdier than the average population of any other World One society. Geek culture might be more mainstream these days, but in HQ, it is the mainstream.

(There are more kids named Eleanor these days than when I was in school, though. Seems the older names have come back around again.)

~Neshomeh
I don't think the PPC is similar to the USA in any way by Cat-on-the-Keyboard on 2016-06-13 00:15:00 UTC Reply

Certainly not in terms of name distribution. What percentage of America is named Chakkik? Doktor Trollenfisch? Zeb? Supernumerary? Suicide?

The demographics are just different. As just one example, I think we can safely say that America's elf population is nonexistent, or at least negligible. The PPC's is not, meaning that the culture of the PPC is subject to influence from elf cultures and ideas which America is untouched by. This is just one reason why American statistics are pretty useless to apply to the PPC.

I think the only thing we can say definitively about the size of the PPC is that there are far fewer agents than there are badfics. 5,000 agents would leave the PPC barely understaffed if they only sporked fic from the Harry Potter continuum found on the Pit (assuming 3/4 of the fic listed are goodfic). Given the reality of the PPC's mission, that's an excellent number if you want to picture the PPC as a small, desperate army waging an impossible war -- which is kind of the image I get, so maybe your number is right.

--Key

But some portion of it is. by Huinesoron on 2016-06-13 10:24:00 UTC Reply

What percentage of HQ is non-American? We can figure that out - we have a large enough sample size on the Wiki to tell us.

The maths says that the American segment should be ~5000 people. If half of all agents are Filthy Yankees, then HQ scales to 10000.

Or so goes our second approximation. The third approximation points out that Elanor Laison is French anyway, so shouldn't be counted in the Americans; that means there's around 4000 Americans in there. If that's around half (this is a guess), then HQ is 8000...

Basically, there's between 3K and 10K agents. That'll do for an order-of-magnitude estimate. There aren't 500, there aren't 100,000. "small, desperate army waging an impossible war" it is.

hS