Subject: Permission Request
Author:
Posted on: 2009-06-07 19:57:00 UTC

Yay, at least I feel ready to make a request to start PPCing.

Whilst I do have character bios around, they're also quite long, so I might as well summarise them here.

Department of Mary Sues Daniel Anders and Luciana Taylor.
The two are rescued bit-characters from a Sue-fic, recruited by the Assassins sent to kill said Sue. In the story, Taylor was a mercenary and Anders an English Language scholar (the irony is deliberate), but due to a slight... 'glitch' in the parent fic's writing, Anders always looks somewhat vague (having lacked any physical description at all) whilst Taylor has become narcoleptic from staying awake for *four weeks* straight in the story. Yes, narcoleptic. It's not as fun as it sounds.

The two very much have to work together. Whilst Anders (being a linguistic scholar who takes badfic as something akin to a personal affront) is certainly enthusiastic, Taylor is the only one with any real combat experience, but of course has the problem of simply falling asleep at inopportune moments. The combined efforts of Medical and the Department of Fictional Psychology has alleviated this somewhat; she now only falls asleep on the spot when exposed to spectacularly bad writing. This is still quite a problem however, and the full effects of narcolepsy can easily return if she doesn't/can't take her medication in time. As such, their takedowns are always a bit chaotic, and prone to going to horribly wrong at inopportune moments. By and large, Anders takes care of the chargelist (seeing as Taylor will miss most of it due to her condition) whilst Taylor will try and manage the actual kill, assuming she's sufficiently conscious at the time. When she isn't (quite often), things get interesting...

The two have an interesting history in terms of how they came to be: Daniel is basically my inner snarky bastard (I'm an English Language student), whilst Taylor was spawned from a one-shot joke I dreamt up involving a character going catatonic at a spectacular piece of badfic. Fridge Logic popped in to point out that, for an Agent, losing consciousness at badfic would be a serious problem, and thus Taylor was born. As for their names, they're both from a story I wrote ages and ages ago. It was quite bad. Given that they're rescued characters, it seemed appropriate.

The two also have a fair number of quirks (Anders wields an armoured copy Cambridge Encyclopaedia for the English Language in a sling as a sort of flail, Taylor has a variety of neuroses related to her condition and a lot of expertise in the misuse of explosives, and you must never, EVER call her by her first name in full) as well, but I'm trying to keep this fairly short...

To sum up the character dynamic between them:
Anders is a headcase of the funny / awesome variety, Taylor is a headcase of the sympathetic / pitiable variety. Offsetting this, Anders is the least capable of actually taking down targets, whilst Taylor's sole area of expertise is dedicated to this. Taylor is also the saner of the two, likely because she is saved from the horror of badfic by simply nodding off at it, whilst Anders tends to start frothing at the mouth at such points.
They also have serious trouble completing missions without each other; they very much have to work alongside one another to get things done despite their various weaknesses and strengths. Naturally, breaking this dynamic separating them and making things generally go to hell quickly is something I'll be doing a lot. It'll be fun. Plus, trying to portray a genuine psychological problem and do proper justice to it will be a interesting challenge.

The first target is this: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4918474/1/FreedomLoveTillDeathNeverDoUsPart - A Left 4 Dead fanfic featuring a Mary/Marty-Sue couplet of the Twilight variety (he is an amalgamation of all the Special Infected types, with all the strengths, none of the weaknesses, a sodding huge BFS that accidentally defies physics on occasion and also an Author Avatar of massive proportions; she is... very flat and uninteresting, but their love is EPIC! and HEARTRENDING!) chosen for, despite having technically accurate grammar/spelling, being an absolute travesty of a story and an insult to its host Canon (pay special attention to the dates and times mentioned in the 'fic. Draw own conclusions. Laugh, cry or go insane. Pick two)

As for writing samples, I don't have that many. I've written some fanfic (hopefully in the 'goodfic' category) which you can find here: http://www.fanfiction.net/~mrcj, but in terms of being understandable without having to understand the original Canon first, this would probably be your best bet: <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5103813/1/Parallel
Running">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5103813/1/Parallel_Running

Another thing worth noting is that I believe PPCs of actual fanfic should be kept self-contained; that is to say that they should be accessible to anyone, regardless of their familiarity with the PPC or even the Agents involved. As such, I have every intention of using out-of-mission vignettes whenever I want to do something that revolves heavily around the characters rather than their missions. As for the missions, they'll (hopefully) be a mix of snark, righteous Sue-hunting and the characters' various weaknesses and neuroses throwing them for loops to keep things interesting. I blame Evangelion for that; I seem to be incapable of writing characters without at least one major problem now...

Hoping he'll be accepted,
Guessmyname

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