Subject: I meant re: fixed forms. Big wraiths seem to have 'em.
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Posted on: 2014-07-30 23:21:00 UTC
Fair point on the possessors stuff, though - I just thought it worth noting that the PPC's encountered a few that seemed to actually have some kind of form outside their victims instead of being shapeless mist things.
I'm currently working on updating my agents' bios and I want to claim the badfic for their inaugural mission, so I have two ideas in mind that could make things more interesting for them.
Firstly, while out walking today I came up with a plot point that could make him more interesting (without having to be openly lascivious). Since Falchion is an author insert, I had the idea that the character who would become Falchion was an author wraith himself, or some variant thereof, but one that doesn't possess canons. Instead, he would create personas for himself, wandering through various stories that he wrote in the past and interacting with canons like a normal OC, and each time he moved on to a new project he simply reincarnated into a new persona, letting the old one branch off into its own character. This leads up to him incarnating as a Skarmory at some point, and then once he notices that some things don't add up, he realizes who he really is and discovers the PPC as a result.
Still needs a bit of refinement, but it should be helpful. Though I don't know if author-wraiths can create personas for themselves instead of possessing canons.
The second idea I had is that in one of Rosetta and Falchion's missions, a Sue-wraith possesses a canon and turns him or her into a ferocious monster. Upon being exorcised, instead of whining the wraith actually gains a physical form retaining all the monster's abilities, and then attempts to kill the agents AND the canon it was possessing, forcing the three to work together. Looking up Sue-wraiths on the wiki, the only type I know of that comes even close to attacking the agents would be the Ficubus and even then it can still be killed by conventional weaponry. The wraith I suggested is intended to be a sort of "final boss" of the mission, since wraiths in general tend to be easy to kill and I needed a change of pace somewhere.
Anyway, those are my two ideas. Feedback is appreciated as usual :)
I'm not quite convinced about Falchion being an author-wraith. As the PPC canon goes, wraiths are not creatures with a fixed form. They infect canon characters, but not to the point that they are completely unidentifiable as who they were. If wraiths created entirely new characters, then they would be Sues and Stus (or, if they're good, they'd just be new characters).
The monster/"final boss" concept is what bothers me the most. In a straight-up fight between Sues and agents, the agents would lose nine times out of ten (especially if they are fighting the wraith "on its own terms," as you said in your response to zdimensia). Even the most experienced of warriors would have difficulty facing off against a creature that can shape the Word World to its will. At the very least the agents are not going away without some nasty (and possibly permanent) wounds. There is a reason most Mary Sues are dealt with using non-standard methods such as ambushes, traps, or slow-acting poisons.
That's not to say it can't be done. There's evidence that states quite the opposite, in fact. But it's not something that should be taken lightly, and definitely not right away. If you are dead set on having a big fight, it should be something that occurs once you've gotten a few missions under your belt. A story that ends with a boss battle should have at least SOME consequences for your agents.
You also need a reason beyond "I want a big fight to cap off a mission." The wraith shouldn't be able to turn itself or a canon into a monster just because.
I've already responded to the author-wraith concerns in my reply to zdimensia - I've ditched that concept, and instead Falchion retains memories of experiencing the particular fic I'm sporking from the Gary Stu's POV. He would later research the author and realize that he is the current persona of that author.
The canon turning into a monster actually happens in the fic I'm sporking (again, see my reply to zdimensia), because the antagonistic character replacement wants to use her as a weapon and mutates her accordingly. It... doesn't end well for him, I'll give you that much. And while I do plan for the possessed canon to transform before Falchion can exorcise her, he'll remember a couple of small details that will allow him to bring her back down to size without too much trouble. He's rather observant like that. Though he may end up having to rope one of the stronger OC Stand Ins to help him out... new recruits, anyone?
Agents cannot deal with Sues and Stus head on "without too much trouble," especially fresh recruits. If they could, then what would make them different from the Sues themselves? Like I said in my last post: big boss battles should be rare and impactful, and they definitely should not be in your first mission. You should get a handle on your characters and how they fit in the PPC before jumping into that particular scenario.
I'm not totally sold on this meta-concept you've got with Falchion (I don't know that the character needs it), but I suppose it could work. I'd want to see it in a story to really get a grasp on it.
Also, a note: why wouldn't your agents deal with the antagonist character replacement before the monster mutation bit? Surely they would look at the Words, see it coming, and take steps to avoid having a potentially lethal battle in the first place. Especially since you say that Falchion is "rather observant."
I think the main point against the agents' immediate action would probably be indecision - the agents have no idea whether the canon got possessed by an author wraith or was replaced entirely until near the tail end of the monster form's glorious rampage. They initially plan for getting the author wraith out of the canon but can't decide how to do so, so Falchion decides to look at the Words for clues. Ultimately, though, he realizes that she's a character replacement after all when she brutally murders the antagonist replacement near the end of the fic, and Falchion decides 'screw it' and swoops in to dispose of her.
Ultimately, though, I guess you're right - the more I think about it, the less sense a drawn out "boss battle" would make, especially for Falchion's first mission. The way I see it, Falchion would instead likely convince one of the better-written OCs to help him, and rather than a drawn-out boss battle, the other OC holds the Sue at bay while Falchion reads the charges. If the transformation is still allowable, since the replacement has bulletproof armor, Falchion would invoke the "Clipped-Wing Angel" trope by tossing a bomb into the replacement's mouth, letting it blow up and kill her from the inside.
Considering that all the big wraiths so far have been incredibly dangerous mind-manipulating creatures, that seems like a bad idea. But even then, they are still possessors. They take over the bodies of canon characters. Otherwise they'd just be regular Sues.
Fair point on the possessors stuff, though - I just thought it worth noting that the PPC's encountered a few that seemed to actually have some kind of form outside their victims instead of being shapeless mist things.
Falchion is already interesting, or has the opportunity to be interesting with just falling through a plothole. He could be gutter-minded with light innuendos and a "that's what she said" sub-routine. Besides, a Sue that doesn't possess canons, but creates a new body, is a replacement.
For the second one, have the wraith fight back before they get it restrained, or maybe have something happen to the containment circle so that it could possess someone else. Maybe the excitement happens because the agents screwed up.
A lot of the stories that stick to formula and go right have the most interesting parts during the "collecting charges" phase.
May I look at the fic you're planning to spork?
The badfic I plan to tackle for the agents' first mission happens to be of my own creation, unfortunately: "Rise of the Galeforces", a really crazy mega-crossover that primarily takes place in The Incredibles continuum, crossing it over with Portal and later, Jurassic Park. It's in four episodes and available on both Google Drive and DeviantART, but I'm going after the Google Drive version for convenience.
Episode 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J58DHm5dFEndaQq-krzdJJs7iq7AkT7d0zuWAo35Qo
Episode 2: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CfQS2gmVZCgrbMaAsR4k3WWZpGbkToOYojFs37ySsY">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CfQS2gmVZCgrbMaAsR4k3WWZpGbkToOYoj_Fs37ySsY
Episode 3: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sDmdwFggmwpcnZY1DvZZClv7EjkrIY4Y9hCZDINDahg
Episode 4: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mEWIdcvDq3wQo0r5M5ekYy4Z5TrVg1B0DqGLJMte03E
As an alternative to the author wraith suggestion, I may play out Falchion's coming to grips with being a persona as follows: He comes to the PPC with a particular set of memories and interests that he doesn't remember having. Then, as the mission plays out, he starts remembering them from the perspective of the Gary Stu self-insert who first appears in Chapter 5. He later goes off to research the fic and the author and realizes that he is the persona of said author, allowing him to remember all the mistakes he made on a personal level when he wrote the fic, and take down the Sue-wraith who begins possessing Violet near the end of Episode 3. (Rose gets rid of the Gary Stu, since Falchion can't bring himself to kill another persona of his.)
I like to think that Falchion has to take on the killer author wraith himself, because I plan for the agents to step in just after the horrifically gruesome death of the villainous character replacement near the end of the last chapter before the epilogue. Rose will have witnessed said death and would be so shell-shocked by it that Falchion would have to take matters into his own talons. He forgets to set up a containment circle, though (and doesn't get the time to remember), and ends up having to fight the wraith on its own terms. It'll still take on the physical form of the monster it turned Vi into, but yeah, Falchion screwing up could also add more drama as he takes that thing down.
I'm curious to wonder if I, along with the co-author with which I wrote the fic, misspelled anything related to that canon - last time I checked the documents I noticed that the spelling errors experienced a population explosion towards the end. We probably rushed the fic during the later episodes for personal reasons and I pretty much stopped trying to proofread the rest of it in later editing stages.
Didn't read much, I have to work really hard to decipher script format. Here's an article that I think you should read. http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Scriptfic
Falchion's problems remind me of something I'm planning to do as well. One of my characters is in the gray area between self-insert, anti-Sue, bit character, and blank OFU template. She'll have bits of "author bleedthrough" but otherwise doesn't have a backstory.
Sorry to point out how funny this sentence sounds. "He comes to the PPC with a particular set of memories and interests that he doesn't remember having." I think I get what you mean in the sense that he doesn't think the memories are his.
Try writing the first draft with a standard "it was tough getting the possessed character to fall into the trap without getting ourselves killed" story. Or even think about how would you take down the possessed character with minimal danger to your agents and not hurt the canon?
My favorite is the "unnoticed rope" trick. The best I've seen is that an agent set up a slipknot to pull Legolas' arms behind his back, the set-up was while the Sue was distracted with kissing him. All they had to do when they grabbed the Sue was pull on the rope to keep Legolas from interfering.
I apologize if that sentence came out wrong. But yeah, that could work. He'd probably realize that there's something special about the fic, do some research about the author, and begin coming to terms with his being a self-insert/persona by the end of the mission.
I could try to do that - maybe Vi transforms before Falchion can exorcise her and he has to get her to transform back before finishing the job. I may still have the author wraith try to attack him before he destroys it, though.
Scriptfic, eh? Sounds like it'll be very interesting to pull off. Especially the variant in which the characters are explaining what happened from first person. Fun times.
Variety is the department's middle name.