Subject: On Ajax
Author:
Posted on: 2016-01-15 19:43:00 UTC

After reading Iximaz's comments, I got to thinking about him. One thing that I always wonder about the more stoic agents, especially ones from other continua, is what motivates them to do the job. Ajax's description says he does his best to keep the canons and characters safe, but there's nothing to suggest why.

Most agents, or at least the ones from World One, get involved because they've read the books, seen the movies, etc., and are probably involved in fandom and know about badfic, too. They join up for love of canon; they put up with the weird and sometimes awful conditions of the job for love of canon.

But if you're not from World One or an analogue, you can't have grown up with these things and formed that kind of deep love for them, so what makes you care enough to put up with HQ? And if you don't appear to even be the kind of person who cares about anything at all, then what? What makes you keep doing it?

I've answered this question for all of my agents:

- Nume cares because he was a geek when it was way less cool to be a geek. He always wanted Star Trek and LotR to be real, and when he found out they were, of course he was going to stick around. Screw your so-called real life.

- Ilraen didn't have a choice. He was recruited as a bit character with next to no personality, and he was basically told "this is what you're going to be doing from now on, deal with it." At first he was only doing what he was told. Caring came later, when he saw some of the really terrible things badfic can do to other people.

- Derik has always been motivated by a duty to protect others as a dragonrider, and now he has a vendetta. A Mary Sue ruined his life, and he doesn't much care if he lives or dies as long as he gets to kill them in the process. Plus, as a harper, he's a stickler for proper speaking and writing.

- Gall is in it for the adventure. That's pretty much it. ... Okay, she doesn't like Sues, but she doesn't like anybody that inconveniences her. We're just lucky she respects her partner.

So, what about Ajax? Answering this question for him will do a world of good, I think.

~Neshomeh

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