Subject: What happens if a Sue were to win?
Author:
Posted on: 2015-08-07 18:24:00 UTC
Has it ever been mentioned? I'm actually quite curious.
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What happens if a Sue were to win? by
on 2015-08-07 18:24:00 UTC
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I can't see anything like that being written often. by
on 2015-08-08 03:57:00 UTC
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Stuff like that tends to cause Emergencies.
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Nah, it doesn't have to. by
on 2015-08-08 09:20:00 UTC
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Things can get pretty hairy out in the field, and if the Sue wins, then a backup team would get sent in... that's not going to mess up anybody else's storyline.
One 'Sue winning, in one fic, probably happens a lot. Agents aren't perfect, they make mistakes, and bad luck and the Ironic Overpower catch up with them. Then they have to run for it.
An Emergency would be an army of Sues invading HQ. A pair of agents overcome by a single particularly bad fic is nowhere near that. Even one Sue briefly in HQ isn't an emergency, provided she gets dealt with in short order. (I recommend luring her into a Reality Room. Unfortunately, the cafeteria meatloaf as an assassination technique still counts as torture.)
Emergency is not the same thing as "agents in trouble" or "complicated mission" or "needing backup". It's what happens when a big thing forces everybody to participate whether they like it or not.
If our agents waltz happily through all their missions, never encountering any real obstacles or opposition, then they're not much better than the Sues they kill. There's got to be some challenge to the story, whether that's an argument with your partner, flying commas to dodge, or a desperate race to outthink a Warrior!Sue. Without challenge, it's just an MST. -
Back in the day... by
on 2015-08-07 22:31:00 UTC
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There was at least one story told from the point of view of some Sues going up against the PPC.
Thanks to the internet black magic that is the Wayback Machine, the first two chapters of that story are available here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080828050155/http://www.misssandman.com/PPC/Chapter1.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20080828044627/http://www.misssandman.com/PPC/Chapter2.htm
- Irish -
Maybe not exactly what you mean... by
on 2015-08-07 21:18:00 UTC
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I write a series called Catastrophe Theory in which the Sues have beaten the PPC. Check out the main story HERE.
-Phobos -
That's a good mission. by
on 2015-08-07 20:55:00 UTC
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On occasion, a Sue has managed to capture an agent. Some simply don't have enough brains to do anything but stare dumbly at the agents, but this one was a genius/warrior!Sue with horrible grammar and horribly-OOC Legolas in her back pocket. The Sue melodramatically torturing an agent was the result. (Well, the Sue was melodramatic about it. The agent was just scared and pissed off.)
There are definitely other options, though. Some Sues would simply kill the agent, like Sakhmet tried to do to to Ithalond and Suicide. In other situations, the Sue is too brainless, passive, or non-combatant to do much, and it's her OOC canons, geographical abberations, and even punctuation storms that can kill the agents.
I haven't ever read a story in which the Sue won permanently, probably because if she did, the canon would be forever damaged. When the agents fail and die or go insane, another team goes in and finishes the job.
In my personal headcanon, Legendary Badfics aren't just the ones that are famously bad in World One, but the ones that have ended the careers of several agent pairs that tried to take them down.
Most of us don't really like to write stories where the Sue wins, but it's in the backstories of some characters with dead or insane ex-partners. And of course there are the various memorials.
If you think about it, the PPC has a lot of pretty dark implications. PPC agents are outright heroes who basically know the badfic is going to get them eventually and go for it anyway. On the plus side, there's the fact that many agents spend so much time in badfics and at HQ that by the time they die at, say, age 18, they've subjectively experienced a couple of centuries.
So why don't we focus on the dark stuff... I've thought about that, and here's the facts: If you go dark, if you go melodramatic and wallow in it instead of writing realistic characters in tough situations, then you're getting entirely too pink and glittery. Humor is one of the best ways to fight badfic; agents who can joke about the badfic are the ones who survive. It's kinda like the anthropic principle--If you're reading a mission report, it's because the agents survived to write it; and if they survived to write it, they must've found a way to cope with the crazy. And whether that's humor, friendship, or just pure rage, every agent has a way to deal without going melodramatic. -
Funny that you bring this up... by
on 2015-08-08 15:56:00 UTC
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...because the Suvian beating the agent is more or less exactly what happened to Rayner's old partner, which is something I have plans to explain in a future interlude/"flashback mission". Said Suvian also happened to be one of the most horrifically violent instances on record, but as noted, what happened was another instance showing that if one agent pair fails, another has to either help them out or take their place.
Also, @Calista, I think your post was supposed to be a reply to Des' one, IDK. Said mission also happens to be one of my favorites as well, just so you know. That Sue's dismemberment at the end was well-deserved. -
Look no further... by
on 2015-08-07 18:32:00 UTC
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Than "Sue be Nimble, Sue be Fast, the PPC’s coming to kick your –", which is one of my favourite missions.