Agent

From Protectors of the Plot Continuum

Agent is a term that can be applied to almost any non-Flower member of the PPC. It is not, however, univerally used. The janitors and cafeteria staff are very rarely referred to as Agents, despite technically, as members of the Department of Operations, being exactly that. However, the word is not just applied to members of the Action Departments -- Agent Imbolc Telyan was in the Department of Finance, while Agent Quen works in the Department of Personnel.

While the word Agent may be used in general, and as affixed to a name (eg 'Agent Jay Thorntree'), most of the individual Departments have specific designations for their Agents. Agents of the Department of Mary Sues are Assassins, while those of the Department of Implausible Crossovers are Untanglers or Disentanglers. However, referring to 'Assassin Acacia Byrd' will only get you confused stares.

[edit] History

In the very beginnings of the PPC, the Agents were, in fact, Flowers. At this time, before the growth of the internet, the Organisation sent them out into the Word Worlds in teams of three. The arrival of the first non-Flowers into Headquarters coincided with an increase in the volume of fanfic, and so the Flowers retreated Upstairs and let the humans take up the slack. Nowadays, Agents go about in pairs, or occasionally individually.