re. Sues with powerful abilities

Subject: re. Sues with powerful abilities
Author: Calista
Posted on: 2010-07-13 04:03:00 UTC

Just been thinking about this myself with my current mission.

The basic strategy seems to be never to play to their strengths. Don't try to fight a Warrior!Sue, or cast spells at a Witch!Sue--get sneaky, distract them, use the technology, get the canon to help you. The canon, as you know, hates 'Sues; and if she's stronger than your agent, but weaker than some canonical danger, then just charge her (while running away if necessary), then open a portal right under her feet to the location in question and let the canon squish her for you. Beautiful irony.

'Nother thing. Sues are horribly written, by definition. That gives the advantage to your well-written agents, because your agents can be flexible, think on their feet (heck, think, period), and the Sue is little better than a pre-programmed cardboard character. Creativity is always better than power. Get irony and comedy on your side, and all but the most powerful God-mode Sues should be easy pickings.

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Permission Re-post by Elemarth on 2010-07-12 21:06:00 UTC Reply

I don't know whether I got permission by lack of further complaints or if everyone just forgot about me, so I'll try again with a few changes. I'm still not going to actually write for a while, but I'd like permission.

My agents are in Improbable AU, Star Wars Division. I'm going to claim RC 808 for them.

Name: Kath

Species: Half elf, half human

Home continuum: Star Wars

Bio: Kath was a Mary Sue (based on one of my old characters, though you won’t find the story written down anywhere) in a story by an eleven-year-old (semi-fic blip). She somehow got from Earth to the midst of Episodes V/VI and messed a bit with canon, mostly by rescuing Luke, though there was no actual romance involved. She was recruited and had some basic retraining.

Powers/abilities/weapons: Weak Force power, some pyrotechnic abilities, very good fighter for no reason (her author said she taught herself), moderately good lightsaber user (despite having had no training, but to be fair, Luke had a ridiculously small amount), still has her lightsaber from her story.

Personality/preferences/quirks: Is annoyingly cheerful, will laugh at anything, is permanently energetic despite being an insomniac, is very extroverted, hates spiders, is claustrophobic, has a terror of being a Mary Sue, is a slight pyromaniac. Is fairly ignorant about the Real World because knowledge of it was not written into her fic and retraining didn’t cover it.

Name: Elena

Species: Human

Home continuum: Real World

Bio: Elena wrote relatively good Star Wars and Young Wizards fanfiction for a while, then wrote a Star Wars-Young Wizards crossover and got sent to the Star Wars Fanfiction Academy. She somehow managed to survive long enough to graduate and receive a mini-Rancor named Anikin. She went into PPCing Improbable AUs for Young Wizards. Most of her job was getting rid of AU romance stories and original fiction and other miscellanea that was labeled as Young Wizards fanfiction by ignorant authors. (The latter more or less had to be entirely destroyed to keep them from trying to push their way into the YW continuum.) She finished her work of getting rid of the backlog of fics needing PPCing, so she was reassigned to Star Wars, though if another YW fic comes in, she might be required to do it.

Powers/abilities/weapons: Can speak the Speech of Wizards to a small extent, though I haven't figured out whether this can or should be used in Star Wars; probably not. Uses a blaster and various explosives.

Personality/preferences/quirks: Talks a lot, regularly drops TV tropes into everyday conversation, enjoys blowing stuff up. Loathes movie adaptions of books.

My writing sample:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3209952/1/TheLastLaugh
Though anything I posted there will do besides the Wizard's Manual, which you wouldn't like. (I'm considering PPCing it for being a wild and crazy crossover.)

As for badfic, if this gets updated, I will use it:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6033861/1/Whispers
Mustafar. Sith. Power. The voice is whispering to him things that no one should know. How can one resist the temtation?
(Yes, it does look like it's going to be AU. Among other things, Anakin's midi-chlorian count doubles in the first chapter.)
This is fine the way it is (among the worst stories I've read yet):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6032717/1/thebookofthejedi mace windu finds a book containing ultimate power unheard of by the jedi

Thanks!

Cameo appearance by Miah on 2010-07-13 06:40:00 UTC Reply

Would you like to have your agents make an appearance in a zombie apocalypse Sherlock Holmes 2009 slash badfic?

This one is a rather Implausible AU, with lots of bioinfected fast zombies out for blood.

I know your characters are specializing in Star Wars, but I thought they might like to kill some AU zombies in their spare time.

Oh, speaking of Star Wars! There is this series of stories that is downright terrible. The last one in the series sends these same characters to the Sherlock Holmes continuum. Would you be interested (sometime in the future, like after this month) in teaming up to take these all out at the same time? I don't know enough about Clone Wars era Star Wars to handle the first three in the series.

This is the first in the series.
World Guardians the warrior

Yes, but... by Elemarth on 2010-07-13 19:29:00 UTC Reply

I'd really like to, but only on the condition that you don't give me a time that I have to do it by. There's a lot for me to deal with at the moment and I'm not sure when I'll have had enough time to write a few missions. This can't be my first or even second because my agents have to get used to each other and I have to get used to writing it.
If you don't mind waiting 2-3 months, then that's great.

That's cool. by Miah on 2010-07-14 06:19:00 UTC Reply

The zombie mission will probably be out next week, though. Maybe next time.

Yay! by Elemarth on 2010-07-13 03:51:00 UTC Reply

I figure that someone has to be good at doing something besides making things explode if they might be dealing with unfriendly OOC and Author-Posessed canons who have lightsabers and the Force. Anyway, it could be worse. She could be one of those Sues with huge Force powers. I'm pretty sure that would have been taken away.

The reason I said I need that one to be updated is that it hasn't *clearly* messed up the story yet. Sure, it makes no sense, and I can see that it's about to change everything, but I want to make sure I can find enough AU charges.
The second, while it doesn't last long, is concentrated horribleness. Elena would probably consume her whole store of Bleeprin, knowing her.

I expect Elena to use the Speech to talk to objects from HQ or to do what she needs to in YW. I had originally had the idea that it would help her talk to SW aliens, but I don't think that's acceptable. (I could have her try and get in trouble for mixing continua.) I figure it would go over much better in Lord of the Rings, where language is powerful, but she won't be going there. No, she isn't a wizard (though she really wishes she were). She just studied it.

No worries, then. by Sedri on 2010-07-13 05:27:00 UTC Reply

I just wanted to make sure; if they don't update, you may want to look around for another one, but that's up to you. As for the second one, my only concern was that it might be too short for your agents to properly 'stretch their legs', so to speak, but that's entirely up to you.

No worries about the Speech, either. It sounds like you've got a good grasp on what would and wouldn't be allowed.
Universal translators should let you talk to SW aliens. by Calista on 2010-07-13 03:54:00 UTC Reply

And most PPC agents carry one because it's impossible to learn the languages of every continuum you could possibly be sent into--and in some cases, your own partner doesn't speak your language!

Which makes me think I really need to try a mid-mission Universal Translator failure one of these days. It could be hilarious!

re. Sues with powerful abilities by Calista on 2010-07-13 04:03:00 UTC Reply

Just been thinking about this myself with my current mission.

The basic strategy seems to be never to play to their strengths. Don't try to fight a Warrior!Sue, or cast spells at a Witch!Sue--get sneaky, distract them, use the technology, get the canon to help you. The canon, as you know, hates 'Sues; and if she's stronger than your agent, but weaker than some canonical danger, then just charge her (while running away if necessary), then open a portal right under her feet to the location in question and let the canon squish her for you. Beautiful irony.

'Nother thing. Sues are horribly written, by definition. That gives the advantage to your well-written agents, because your agents can be flexible, think on their feet (heck, think, period), and the Sue is little better than a pre-programmed cardboard character. Creativity is always better than power. Get irony and comedy on your side, and all but the most powerful God-mode Sues should be easy pickings.

Permission Granted :) by Sedri on 2010-07-13 01:10:00 UTC Reply

You weren't exactly forgotten - threads get lost, especially when they're pushed to the second page. But generally, if comments and problems are brought up, we wait until a new post is made with all those problems remedied - which is exactly what happened.

Anyway, I'm not entirely comfortable with Kath retaining her author-endowed "very good fighter" traits just because it seems like the sort of thing that Canon and Reality (and the Flowers) would revoke. Similarly, as you say, Elena's 'Speech of Wizards' should probably not be used, at least in Star Wars, but other than that, they look fine. Just be careful with how you write them and there should be no problem.

In your writing sample, I like how you've done Yoda - "Sometimes," Yoda replied, "laugh one must. - that's the kind of silly-without-being-absurd humour I look for. The end made ma laugh Very nice :D

Concerning the badfics, that second one looks too short to be much of a mission, but that's up to you. I'm not sure why you want to wait until the first is updated (I see enough OOCness and punctuation errors despite it also being fairly short), but either one will work.

Go forth and write! :)

Lots of PPC agents are good with one or more weapons by Calista on 2010-07-13 02:14:00 UTC Reply

It's not at all out of the ordinary for a PPC agent to be good at combat, either because they've practiced (veteran agents) or because they were recruited from a continuum where it's normal to be a competent fighter (for example, one of my agents is a LotR dwarf, and a good fighter).

Agents who are good fighters can still face serious challenges because they need to be realistically good fighters, and that means that they will still have to deal with things like being outnumbered or facing Sueperpowers. Plus, a good chunk of PPC work doesn't involve fighting at all. Doesn't matter how well you can swing a sword if your current obstacle involves not throwing up all over your partner because the Suethor just perpetrated eleven tense shifts and a run-on sentence in the space of one paragraph.

The Speech probably doesn't work nearly as well, if it works at all, outside the YW-verse. Continua where other kinds of magic exist might support it slightly; continua where many different kinds of magic exist might support it fully.

There's also the question of whether she just knows the Speech, or whether she can actually use it to tell the continuum what to do. If she's a full-fledged (if weak) wizard, then that means she's got all the obligations that being a YWverse wizard entails, and her loyalties are actually divided between the fight against badfic and the fight against entropy.

On the other hand, if she's not a wizard, then the Speech is probably good for communication and little else--a substitute for the Universal Translator and a way of talking to (usually non-sentient) objects.

Thank you, Calista; I know. by Sedri on 2010-07-13 05:29:00 UTC Reply

I was only referring to the "for no reason" aspect, and the point that if it's too Sueish, it could fall apart due to lack of logic after recruitment. How that's dealt is up to the author's sense of humour, but as long as it's not a SueperPowerExcellentFighter! sort of thing, it's not going to be a problem.

Oops, did I just lecture at somebody who knows way more? by Calista on 2010-07-13 05:36:00 UTC Reply

Yeah... yeah, I think I just did...

*blushes and slinks away*

Well... yes. But I was being a bit snippy myself. by Sedri on 2010-07-13 05:37:00 UTC Reply

Sorry about that. I know you were only trying to help.