It's because they're not canonical.

Subject: It's because they're not canonical.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2014-04-15 09:10:00 UTC

If you remember waaaay back in Rambling Band, J&A made specific efforts to be absolutely canonical. Acacia's bow in that mission is an orc bow, because she's in an Uruk disguise. Indeed, as Chosen makes clear, it's not enough to be canonical - they had to be something that could canonically attack the Mary-Sue ("Not much choice, is there?" said Acacia. "These Mary Sues are very rarely attacked by the evil Men, have you noticed that?"). That's made even clearer in Lady of the Fellowship, where they're invisible (and so could hardly 'contaminate' anything by their appearance), but still make the effort to blend in as Nazgul.

In fact, the first (only?) time they go in as elves is Why am I Here?, where the Sue has an Orc as a boyfriend. And... yep, there it is: '[Acacia] had spent the five minutes pilfering a rather more elvish bow, and filling her quiver with more appropriate arrows.'

Why agents are (or were) supposed to stay so rigorously canonical is a question I don't think has ever been answered - we all slipped gently away from it fairly early on. If I had to make up a reason, I'd say that in those days, canon wasn't as damaged - there was far less badfic in total - so a pair of uncanonical agents could have a significant effect. Nowadays, everything's so messed up that we could send folk into Lorien disguised as mecha-tigers and nothing would result.

What this all comes back to, I guess, is that crossbows are one of the great overlooked weapons of fantasy in general. There aren't a whole lot of stories at the right tech level - you're either still at longbows, or you've gotten as far as gunpowder. Discworld has crossbows, and Dafydd bought Selene one. But I can't think of anywhere else off the top of my head.

(Also: crossbows are 'easy to maintain'? That honestly surprises me. A bow has no moving parts - unstring it, keep it dry, and I didn't know it needed much other care. Crossbows are mechanical - that means machine oil, which will need both adding and removing when it gets icky. So why are they easier to maintain? I'm not arguing, just surprised)

hS

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*gulps* Permission, by KittyEden on 2014-04-07 12:00:00 UTC Reply

My Permission request!
After being at the PPC for about a year, I feel it's a good time to ask for permission.
So, I wrote my Agents, and here are the descriptions!

Kitty Eden
A seventeen year old girl with anger management issues. She’s a bit smaller than average height, and has shoulder length brown hair, which she keeps tied back in a ponytail. She’s most knowledgeable about the Harry Potter fandom, but keeps a bit of trivia about Doctor Who, Artemis Fowl and Percy Jackson stored inside her head.
Her main lust-object is (strangely) Colin Creevey, putting her apart from the rest of the Agents at the PPC. Her anger management issues come up when she, her mother, her cat, her brother, someone who she passed in the hallway earlier that morning, is insulted.
Oh yeah. She’s slightly insane.

Kitty works in the Department of Mary Sues, Harry Potter division.

Kay Eden
Kay is Kitty’s brother, and has sandy blonde hair. He’s 14, and is a head below Kitty, and she teases him mercilessly for it.
He’s slightly calmer than Kitty, but gets very hyperactive when on Gummy Worms. Thankfully, the candy is always hidden when he comes by. He likes big guns, but can’t use them, since he works in the HARRY POTTER Division. This makes him a little homicidal when the topic comes up.
He likes Luna Lovegood, but she’s not his lust-object, mainly because he ‘doesn’t consider it good for him to fixate on dreams’.
He is often in vivid debates with Kitty about various mechanics of the HP world, and they both consider the study of magic in different universe fascinating.

Kay works with Kitty in the Department of Mary Sues, Harry Potter division.

I wrote a story called 'In the Twisting of Fate', which is slightly dark, but has some humourous moments. The link is... https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n7gdSpbnKplWgxkQypeHcuFmw45Dh65X-LphleVro/edit?usp=sharing/
Thank you to my wonderful aunt for editing.

And my sporking story...!
It's called 'rise of darkness'. I moved it to the Claimed Badfic area of the Wiki. The link is right here. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7175647/1/riseofdarkness/

I tried to find at least a T-rated one, but, honestly, it was really hard. We need to start finding more lower-rated badfic.
Extremely nervous here.
Thanks a lot! And, as a partial bribe, here's the complete Divergent Series for and Permission Givers dropping by.
*laughs nervously*
No, it's not an actual bribe. Really.

Lotsa love,
~Kitty

HIJACK!-sorta by Seychelles on 2014-04-09 23:15:00 UTC Reply

I have been wanting to introduce my agents, but didn't want to post a new thread. So with out farther ado

Seyche-a former Hetalia bit character,(From a fictional badfic) who managed to be pardoned from execution. She was instead brought to the PPC academy to be rehabilitated. She managed to get treated, and is now working for The Department of Research of Mary Sues. She has short hair-which she dyes blond-and hazel eyes, which are usually covered with sunglasses. She cannot remember her time as a bit character, but feels remorse for it anyway. She has a short temper and is quick with her fists, but is not very strong in a physical sense, so she can't really hurt anybody. She has a paralyzing fear of ducks

Murder-a survivor of a zombie apocalypses (which one is unknown) and is more then a little stir crazy. He got kicked out of The Department of Mary Sues for an unknown incident involving Rainbow Dash and a frying pan. He cannot speak, but communicates in odd gestures that only Seyche can understand. He is trigger happy and will attack anything that doesn't look human with whatever he has on hand. He has pink hair, tanned skin, and bright blue eyes. He always wears a pair of broken glasses.

If any part of these characters sounds to Sueish let me know. I have gotten a lot of school work done, so I should start working on a sample as soon as I figure out where to send it
HIJACK!-sorta by Seychelles on 2014-04-09 23:15:00 UTC Reply

I have been wanting to introduce my agents, but didn't want to post a new thread. So with out farther ado

Seyche-a former Hetalia bit character,(From a fictional badfic) who managed to be pardoned from execution. She was instead brought to the PPC academy to be rehabilitated. She managed to get treated, and is now working for The Department of Research of Mary Sues. She has short hair-which she dyes blond-and hazel eyes, which are usually covered with sunglasses. She cannot remember her time as a bit character, but feels remorse for it anyway. She has a short temper and is quick with her fists, but is not very strong in a physical sense, so she can't really hurt anybody. She has a paralyzing fear of ducks

Murder-a survivor of a zombie apocalypses (which one is unknown) and is more then a little stir crazy. He got kicked out of The Department of Mary Sues for an unknown incident involving Rainbow Dash and a frying pan. He cannot speak, but communicates in odd gestures that only Seyche can understand. He is trigger happy and will attack anything that doesn't look human with whatever he has on hand. He has pink hair, tanned skin, and bright blue eyes. He always wears a pair of broken glasses.

If any part of these characters sounds to Sueish let me know. I have gotten a lot of school work done, so I should start working on a sample as soon as I figure out where to send it

I didn't know the PPC had an academy. by Lily Winterwood on 2014-04-11 00:48:00 UTC Reply

Usually bit characters are spared, unless they are uncanonical (like, they couldn't fit into the Canon as background extras) and directly involved in aiding and abetting the Sue. Those with a bit of a personality are recruited; others are let back into the Canon with their memories wiped.

Also, it's the Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research. It would be helpful if you got the Department that your Agents work for right.

I assumed they had to learn their skills somewhere by Seychelles on 2014-04-11 04:19:00 UTC Reply

Sorry about getting it wrong. I remembered seeing a research department from the wiki. Obviously I should study it some more.

Skills, what skills? by Lily Winterwood on 2014-04-11 04:42:00 UTC Reply

Training at the PPC usually runs the gamut of 'tossing the agent at a warrior!Sue to see who survives', 'tagging along with more experienced agents' (that's the internship programme in its more practical appearances), 'a quick seminar on weapons and then we're off to slay the Sue', and 'impromptu military bootcamp in the middle of the hallway'. It really depends on the Agent being subjected to the training, as the PPC is played for laughs and it's funnier to toss complete incompetents into situations that get them way in over their heads.

So no, there's never really any standardised form of training; it's just what seems funniest.

Training? Whatchoo talkin' 'bout? by Iximaz on 2014-04-11 11:53:00 UTC Reply

And then there are those agents who are aimply thrown into their first mission right after recruitment.

It's always funny to watch the new agents flounder around. Fun to write, too. ^_^
Well I can't argue with that logic by Seychelles on 2014-04-11 05:38:00 UTC Reply

Well the important thing to remember is that Seyche is hopefully, a more fleashed out charcter.

'fleashed out' [sic] doesn't tell me anything. by Lily Winterwood on 2014-04-11 06:09:00 UTC Reply

The question lies more in xir ability to handle a combat situation.

Is Seyche:
-Unable to withstand the pull of a longbow?
-Horrible at hand-eye coordination?
-Not strong enough to wield a broadsword?
-Lumbering and thus unable to wield a rapier (think swashbuckling)
-Scared of loud noises like gunfire?
-Just plain damn scared of weapons?
-Non-confrontational?
-Squeamish about blood and guts and Glitter?

Of course, xie doesn't have to be all of those things, but maybe some of those things will give you a good indicator of what to do with xir.

For example, my agents, Christianne and Eledhwen, are decent with projectile weapons. Their weapons of choice in most fandoms, though, are swords and knives. Christianne has a sword (though she first learnt with the katana, and may sometimes get her grip a bit funny because the katana is designed and balanced differently), whereas Eledhwen has double knives. The two of them might not have the muscle tone to handle archery, or the patience to get the aim right (archery's a precise sorta thing where even the slightest variation in the wind can change the trajectory of the arrow). So the funniest thing in a training scenario would be for them to try and shoot arrows, and end up with a montage similar to the archery training montage in The Princess Diaries 2. That's to say, there'll probably be some Agents with bits of hair missing from their heads, a couple crying kids who had their balloons popped, and many, many other Agents with their hands raised in the air as if begging my Agents not to shoot them.

And of course, the terrified blindfolded Sue with the wilver apple on her head.

I don't feel like I should stick them in combat by Seychelles on 2014-04-11 18:48:00 UTC Reply

Partly because I don't feel comfortable writing action scenes, partly because I can't stomach most badfic,

I will say that Seyche isn't non-confrontational or squeamish. She is just not very good at combat. At all
I don't feel like I should stick them in combat by Seychelles on 2014-04-11 18:48:00 UTC Reply

Partly because I don't feel comfortable writing action scenes, partly because I can't stomach most badfic,

I will say that Seyche isn't non-confrontational or squeamish. She is just not very good at combat. At all

I think I see now what you meant with the "academy". by Outhra on 2014-04-12 01:07:00 UTC Reply

It would make sense that your agent would need to learn new skills if she was going into the DMSEAR, instead of going into an Action Department. Any field agent should learn to at least use some sort of weapon or other offensive tool, but a DMSEAR Agent would need to study up on known Suvian properties and develop methods to scientifically utilize whatever comes their way. Field agents can be reckless without negative consequences, since they're supposed to be killing and destroying in their missions, but specific samples of certain Sue types can be rare, and the PPC's scientists would need to use what they have as efficiently as possible.

I think the reason why there's disparity in agent training, in-universe, is that some agents are recruited already possessing abilities that would let them perform well in missions, like magic or weapon proficiency or unusual powers, while other new recruits would need to have further instruction by the Agent Trainers in the Department of Personnel so that the newbies could to develop their skills, or to tag along as interns with experienced agents to find the ropes, or some third option for their specific case. (We know Agent Trainers exist, since Agent Training has been mentioned on occasion, they were the focus of one short-lived spin-off, and a few agents, such as Ilraen, have been said to become Agent Trainers in the future, but they haven't gotten a lot of attention, probably because they wouldn't provide more than a handful of story opportunities).

If you want to write DMSEAR stories, I personally would love to read them. We don't see a lot about the Infrastructure Departments, and that's a shame, because there are a lot of stories that could be told from their side. I don't know what purpose Murder would fulfill there, though, since his violent nature wouldn't exactly be conducive to scientific endeavors. Well, unless he worked in security, because then he could beat down Sues that escape from stasis or creatures that try to get into the lab, and guard the experiments to keep them from doing anything untoward. The DMSEAR might just contract a few DIA Officers to do that, but it's always good to have someone in-house alongside the external help to know what's going on and prioritize accordingly. Murder can't talk, so it would be a little difficult, but it wouldn't be PPC if it was easy.

One thing, though: is Murder his last name, or his first name? We already have a lot of agents with "action" names, like Suicide, Death, Heal, and Echo, so even if he doesn't have two names now, it would make him more distinct if he had two by the end. I think it would look better as a last name, but that's personal opinion, since I think "Murder Jones" or "Murder Simmons" or something like that would be just too silly.

About that name by Seychelles on 2014-04-12 04:46:00 UTC Reply

I really love all the ideas you gave me. Thank you so much as for Murder's name, well... To make a long story short I've decided to call him Micheal Murder.

On archery... by SeaTurtle on 2014-04-11 08:55:00 UTC Reply

...I never quite understood why there is such an insistence on agents using bows. I always imagined rookie agents toting stirrup crossbows into medieval/fantasy 'verses. Sure they're technically not canonical in, say, the Lord of the Rings, but they fire pretty much the same thing, right?

Plus, crossbows have the advantage of being easy to maintain, easier to fire than a bow, and can actually pose a significant threat to armoured opponents. What's not to like?

It's because they're not canonical. by Huinesoron on 2014-04-15 09:10:00 UTC Reply

If you remember waaaay back in Rambling Band, J&A made specific efforts to be absolutely canonical. Acacia's bow in that mission is an orc bow, because she's in an Uruk disguise. Indeed, as Chosen makes clear, it's not enough to be canonical - they had to be something that could canonically attack the Mary-Sue ("Not much choice, is there?" said Acacia. "These Mary Sues are very rarely attacked by the evil Men, have you noticed that?"). That's made even clearer in Lady of the Fellowship, where they're invisible (and so could hardly 'contaminate' anything by their appearance), but still make the effort to blend in as Nazgul.

In fact, the first (only?) time they go in as elves is Why am I Here?, where the Sue has an Orc as a boyfriend. And... yep, there it is: '[Acacia] had spent the five minutes pilfering a rather more elvish bow, and filling her quiver with more appropriate arrows.'

Why agents are (or were) supposed to stay so rigorously canonical is a question I don't think has ever been answered - we all slipped gently away from it fairly early on. If I had to make up a reason, I'd say that in those days, canon wasn't as damaged - there was far less badfic in total - so a pair of uncanonical agents could have a significant effect. Nowadays, everything's so messed up that we could send folk into Lorien disguised as mecha-tigers and nothing would result.

What this all comes back to, I guess, is that crossbows are one of the great overlooked weapons of fantasy in general. There aren't a whole lot of stories at the right tech level - you're either still at longbows, or you've gotten as far as gunpowder. Discworld has crossbows, and Dafydd bought Selene one. But I can't think of anywhere else off the top of my head.

(Also: crossbows are 'easy to maintain'? That honestly surprises me. A bow has no moving parts - unstring it, keep it dry, and I didn't know it needed much other care. Crossbows are mechanical - that means machine oil, which will need both adding and removing when it gets icky. So why are they easier to maintain? I'm not arguing, just surprised)

hS

Blaagh. by SeaTurtle on 2014-04-16 03:09:00 UTC Reply

Sorry-- that idea was really poorly phrased. I was trying to say that a crossbow's individual parts can be replaced when they break. That way a repairman can simply pop off the damaged part and stick a new one in its place as opposed to a bow, where either the string breaks or the body breaks and you have to trash the part.

You're entirely right about the mechanical complexity of a crossbow: with ease of use comes increased dependancy on specialized repair crews.

Your point on canon has been duly noted! Maybe we should try to shoot for a more "strictly-canon" approach in our spinoffs for old times' sake...

I'd say we shouldn't. by World-Jumper on 2014-04-16 07:17:00 UTC Reply

I mean, we should stay, you know, a creature in canon, but I see no need to become a creature that would kill a Sue. The disguises are supposed to help agents blend in, right? So as long as they look like part of the world, we're cool.

For me, I'd say it would be harder for canon to hide an orc in Rivendell then an elf killing somebody. There is only so much an SEP field can do, people! The sworn enemy of your people showing up in the Last Homely House is not somebody else's problem, no matter how much ~~the field~~ their mind insists it is! And yes, this is one of my complaints about TOS. A very minor complaint, but one I hold none the less.

It's only a complaint... by Huinesoron on 2014-04-16 08:16:00 UTC Reply

... because you're extrapolating the modern idea of the SEP field back to before it existed. There was no electronic explanation for Jay and Acacia being hidden - they were shielded by the canon itself from being noticed, unless they made a very loud noise or deliberately drew attention to themselves. And the canon (being the canon) can hide an orc just as easily as an elf.

That said, J&A did their level best not to be noticed. Whenever they were in Rivendell in orc disguise, they snuck around, slept out in the woods, etc etc. Nowadays, encounters with canons and OCs are far more common - observe Huinesoron's run-in with 'Luthien' and her mini-friend, where an orc disguise would have really caused problems.

hS

Also, this was before DORKS. by Lily Winterwood on 2014-04-17 17:01:00 UTC Reply

So they could only maintain one disguise, really, and can't change according to the fic's setting (or lack thereof).

Re: On archery... by Antigone68104 on 2014-04-12 14:59:00 UTC Reply

I haven't seen much fantasy fiction that has characters using crossbows. I think the agents default to bows because the authors default to bows.
Bows because Legolas. by darklordaakmal on 2014-04-11 13:17:00 UTC Reply

And crossbows take a long time to reload.

True... by SeaTurtle on 2014-04-11 17:46:00 UTC Reply

...but rate of fire is a non-issue in the PPC's context: agents assassinate Suvians after charging them. If the situation escalates into a shootout, something's gone pretty wrong.

Even then, consider this video: if the guy wasn't messing around with his bolts so much, he'd be able to ready his crossbow in ten-ish seconds, maybe less.

Response by Neshomeh on 2014-04-08 18:50:00 UTC Reply

As Sjosten pointed out, we are in the process of implementing a new Permission system. I'd like it if you would create a couple new writing samples using the prompts as described here (scroll down past all the orange stuff). The more we see the new system in action, the better. Plus, your character descriptions are on the sketchy side, so it would really help to see the agents in action.

I did read the story you posted, though, so I wanted to give my thoughts on that. The first thing I noticed, of course, is your paragraphing. You MUST use either first-line indents or double-spacing to aid your readers in seeing where one paragraph ends and the next begins. Otherwise, each section looks like one huge block of jagged text, and it's possible for two paragraphs to look like one if the ending line gets close enough to the edge of the screen. Hitting "Enter" twice instead of once for a new paragraph is very easy, so I recommend that.

There were a couple other mechanical things ("the" shouldn't be capitalized in your title, for one), but they were minor and few, and didn't distract me from reading, so that's good.

As for the content, if I'm being honest, I was disappointed. Your setup got me interested in how the three kids were going to get together, and what the mysterious villain organization was all about, and what the heroes were going to do about it, but the endgame came about too quickly and resolved far too easily, with lots of convenient circumstances and dubious escapes for the heroes. Notably, I don't think it's really that easy to jump through a glass window or dislocate your own wrist. Actually, I'm not sure how dislocating your wrist would even help escape from bonds like that. Thumbs, maybe, but wrist? How does that work? And how can he do anything useful with his hands, let alone fire a gun even remotely well, shortly after painfully destabilizing his joints like that? That's not something you can recover from instantly.

The biggest problem, though, is that the villains are terrible at being villains. The Mistress is so cartoonishly out of her mind that I can't believe anyone would follow her; her motivation is unclear ("revenge," but for what, and how does torturing kids satisfy her desire for it?); the Generic Goons kidnapping the heroes do so in the most loud and obvious way I can think of; they put the heroes in a truck full of convenient weapons and don't even bother to take James' penknife off him first; the security is so terrible that they can walk through the compound's prison without being spotted by one of the guards on duty or any cameras; a fourteen-year-old kid raised on a farm by his grandparents can hack their computer systems; and they're called Brimstone and Treacle, the latter being a sweet, thick syrup residents of North America know as molasses. And yet these nimrods somehow managed to kidnap hundreds of kids without being caught by the police? It's all very, very silly.

I did like the kids themselves, though. You got across a pretty good idea of who they are as people, and like I said, in the beginning I was curious to find out what would happen to them. I could wish they were a little more original than the "straight-A student," the "slacker who plays video games," and the "unlikely computer genius," but their backgrounds and interactions with their family members helped with that, and I think given more time in the story and some properly serious obstacles to overcome, they could grow very nicely.

~Neshomeh

I'll get right onto that. Thanks for the ConCrit (nm) by KittyEden on 2014-04-09 00:27:00 UTC Reply

Isn't ConCrit a substance? Something like concrete? (nm) by Legacy on 2014-04-09 20:46:00 UTC Reply

Metaphorically, it is. by Sergio Turbo on 2014-04-09 21:37:00 UTC Reply

As it is one of the "building materials" you need to "construct" a good story.

It is also a literal substance used to build part of HQ.

(And now I wonder, are some parts of HQ made in physical ConCrit because the one who wrote the appareance of that part received concrit for that particular section of their PPC story?)

Cool. (nm) by Legacy on 2014-04-10 20:43:00 UTC Reply

awesome agents by 7.65x54R on 2014-04-08 01:14:00 UTC Reply

your agents are pretty cool

unlike mine,I'm cursed to create mary sues every time i write a character.
Most definitely not a PG by Desdendelle on 2014-04-07 19:46:00 UTC Reply

But I know that really young agents are frowned upon. I certainly won't subject a fourteen-years-old (an eighth-grader) to badfic and I doubt even the Marquis de Sod would do so.

Fair point. by KittyEden on 2014-04-08 08:37:00 UTC Reply

I'm changing Kitty's age to 19 and Kay's to 17, if that's better?

A Note About your Sample by sjosten on 2014-04-07 18:00:00 UTC Reply

Personally, I think the Agents look cool, possibly just a tad more violent than the PGs will look for, but otherwise good. As for the writing sample, I thought they had changed how those work now. Of course, I could be mistaken, but I believe in the thread http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=254639;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board;pagemark=75 (my apologies, I have no idea how to link correctly), they revamped everything.
Good luck! (nm) by Mikelus on 2014-04-07 16:47:00 UTC Reply
Good luck! (nm) by Iximaz on 2014-04-07 15:46:00 UTC Reply