I'd like to open by thanking Larfen J. Stocke for betaing these prompts for me and checking over my character bios.

And without further ado I'd like to request permission for the following agents to take up residence in RC 423 as members of the Department of Mary Sues, Freelance Division.

Agent Bios

Sophie List

Sophie was born an only child in World One and grew up in Tucson, Arizona with her parents, having a fairly normal childhood. She graduated college at 23 with a BA in English and no real idea of what to do with her life: up until then everything had been decided for her and she had never had to make any major decisions for herself. Her parents wanted her to get a job, so she went out one day to walk down to the local grocery store and ask for a job. On her way there, she accidentally wandered through a plothole into the PPC and asked for a job. The PPC being the PPC, she was hired and immediately assigned to the division most in need of people at that point in time: the DMS.

She’s white, with short black hair, brown eyes, and freckles. She is around 5’6” and tends to dress in baggy clothes. This is because she thinks she is larger than she actually is and keeps buying clothes that are too big. She’s vastly unruffled by most things, which can be a strength or a weakness. It takes a lot to shock her, but at the same time she often lets things slide that she really ought to question, and sometimes it comes across as airheadedness. Sometimes it is airheadedness. She’s peppy and a bit bossy, especially with people she’s supposed to have some sort of relationship with, such as roommates or partners. And even though it takes a long time for her to get riled up, once she does get riled up she explodes and refuses to be calmed down. She also tends to hold grudges.

Thorongir “Theo” Dúnedan

Theo was a Dúnedain Ranger bit character recruited from a Lord of the Rings suefic.¹ He might almost have assimilated back into the canon, except he was a “Ranger of Erebor” and when this discrepancy was pointed out to him he nearly suffered a mental breakdown from attempting to reconcile two conflicting sets of memories; one of growing up and spending most of his life in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain and the other of a more typical Ranger’s life. The agents assigned to the fic brought him back to FicPsych. After his memories were stabilized he asked for a job. One of the agents who rescued him picked the name Theo for him, as Thorongir is only one letter different from a canonical name.

He requested a DMS Lord of the Rings division assignment because he wanted to still visit and protect his home continuum. After a few months he switched to DMS Freelance division, where Sophie List was eventually assigned as his partner.

Theo is a problem solver, good at finding solutions where they aren’t readily apparent and repurposing items to be whatever he needs at the time. He discovered a love for all things mechanical during his first few months as an assassin. Observing and understanding situations is key to solving problems, and Theo is the sort who thinks more than he talks. He’s not good at dealing with failure, however.

He wears his hair in a ponytail most of the time. There is sun damage on his face and arms, because sunscreen doesn’t exist in Middle-earth, and he’s six feet and a quarter inch tall.

Writing Samples

One agent moves into another’s RC

“Is that a car?”

Theo peered around the hood of the vehicle to take in the person standing in the door. The newcomer was looking around with the confused expression typical of someone trying to figure out how the room’s bottom half was bigger than its top half while the walls remained perfectly perpendicular. “How did you fit an entire car into your RC?” she asked.

“It seems you are my new partner,” Theo said. The car did fit into the RC, but just barely, so he had to press his back against the wall and lean forward in order to ease past it so he could approach the newcomer. “My name is Theo. I’m from the Lord of the Rings continuum. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Where are you from?” He held out a hand stained with engine grease for the other agent to shake.

She grabbed it and shook enthusiastically while still looking around at the car-filled RC. “Sophie List,” she said. “Earth, I guess. Do you sleep in the car? I’ve never slept in a car before.” She seemed rather unconcerned that Theo hadn’t answered her first question yet. “Can we move it over? I have a TV I want to put in here. I guess I could set it up on the hood.”

“It doesn’t belong to me,” Theo said. “I do car maintenance sometimes for extra money. It will be gone tomorrow. And no, I do not sleep in the car. There are bunks built into the wall by the bathroom.” Instead of indicating the place in question he leaned over and picked up the bag she’d set down in the doorway, hefted it for a moment, and then tossed it toward the bunks. It landed half on and half off the top, teetered for a second, and then settled.

“Ooh, dibs on top!” Sophie said.

“I’ve been living here for four months already,” Theo said. “I get dibs. Fortunately for you, I chose the bottom. And which Earth?”

“Earth earth,” Sophie said. “I think someone called it World One? Earth earth. So how do you fit an entire car in your RC? It’s the grey, isn’t it? Everything in this place is probably bigger than it looks.”

“I see,” Theo said. “You’re a newbie.”

“Yeah,” said Sophie. “Car. RC. How?”

“It’s a trophy I won from a ‘Sue. Are you familiar with Doctor Who?” The last sentence was punctuated with a peculiar twitch of the brow that Sophie recognized as the longsuffering look of someone who was looking forward with despair at the many things they would have to explain. Some of her worse college professors had worn it nearly perpetually.

She chose to ignore it. “Yeah! Well, the new series, anyway.”

“She had a chameleon circuit that made her TARDIS ‘bigger on the bottom’.”

“Huh,” Sophie said, lowering her eyes as she considered that. “I didn’t think the chameleon circuit --”

“It doesn’t,” Theo said. “‘Sues aren’t known for their knowledge of the canons they inhabit.” He started to edge back around the car. “No need to stand in the door. In fact, close it, if you would. There’s space in the bathroom.”

Sophie closed the door and then sat on the hood of the car and swung her legs over it. “Don’t do that,” Theo said. “You’ll scratch the paint.”

“I won’t scratch the paint,” Sophie said from the entry to the bathroom. “I’m wearing cotton clothes and canvas tennis shoes. How would I even scratch the paint?”

“I see you are new here,” Theo said. “You’ll soon learn not to ask questions like that, unless you would like to hear the answer.”

“Questions like what?” Sophie said. “How to scratch paint?”

“Do things that should be impossible,” Theo replied. He looked at Sophie over the top of the car, brushing wisps of hair that had come loose from his ponytail behind his ear. “Haven’t you talked to a Flower yet?”

“You mean like that big Daisy? Yeah, he gave me the job!”

“And I suppose he expects me to train you. The message notifying me of that should be in any minute now.” As if on cue, the console emitted an earsplitting BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

“Is that the message alert sound?” Sophie yelled, slapping her hands over her ears.

Theo didn’t respond until he had managed to edge over to the console and turn it off. “No,” he said. “That’s step one of your training.”

The Agents Talk about Lust Objects

Sophie leaned over the edge of the top bunk, hair falling floorward as she made eye contact with Theo in the bunk below her. “I’m just saying,” she said. “It’s a good look.”

“I’m sure it’s a very good look, if you are into that,” said Theo, stalwartly continuing to read his PC World issue. “Please stop talking about him.”

“I mean, you can probably pull the look off too,” Sophie said. “But you’re you, and you’re my partner, and no.” She thought Theo wasn’t really reading; he’d already read this issue three times.

“It’s not that,” Theo said. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, not your type,” Sophie said. “But he’s definitely my type. Some people say the whole never-washes-his-hair thing is a turn off but I actually like it. He has a job to do and it’s more important than things like showers. And, y’know, you aside of course, I really like the whole long hair thing and he’s very muscular and just generally yummy.”

“I get it!” Theo said. “Your registered Lord of the Rings lust object is Aragorn! If you keep talking about it I’ll report you and Upstairs will have you watching the No-Drool Videos!”

“It’s okay to have lust objects,” Sophie retorted. “You know what they say; look, don’t glomp. You have LOs too, don’t pretend like you don’t!”

Theo laid his magazine down across his chest and met Sophie’s gaze with the ire of an irritated Ranger. “My lust objects aren’t your cousins,” he said.

Sophie paused for a moment, though Theo wasn’t sure if it was from surprise or all the blood that must be in her head by now, judging by how red her face was. Probably the latter. “What?” she said eloquently.

Of course she was talking again in moments. “Aragorn is your cousin? I didn’t know Arathorn had siblings. Or was it Gilraen?”

“Second cousin,” Theo said. “My great-grandfather was Gilbarad, father of Ivorwen.² Relatives of canons tend to be ‘Sues, and I’m sure you realize the problem with being ‘Sueish in this place. I’m not ashamed of it, but I don’t advertise it. In any event, I’ll thank you to stop telling me how attractive you find my kin.”

Sophie pulled herself back onto the top bunk and was silent for nearly thirty seconds. Theo took advantage of the time and flipped his magazine up again to keep reading the article about the new Ryzen hard drive. He was thinking of buying one, but not quite convinced yet, despite the glowing review. Still, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do with his money, aside from paying for hobbies.

Sophie’s voice interrupted his ruminations. “If I can get Upstairs to clear a visit to OFUM, can you get me an autograph?”

Badfic

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12834406/1/The-Chaos-In-Stars

Let me quote our good friend Larfen on this one:

"tony stark's serial killer sister named artemis with dark black eyes like a goldfish"

I mean, it’s not the worst ‘Sue I’ve ever seen, but there’s so much to riff off of, such as her hamhanded description of her own eyes, which have black irises most of the time; or the fact that her code name is AS09, which sounds just like “asinine” if you say it fast enough. It’ll be an amusing and fairly standard mission, which will be good to introduce my agents and establish their dynamic.

___________

¹ The fanfic in question is a fanfic I wrote when I was a kid. It was pretty terrible, but Theo was a decent, well-rounded character despite his dumb name. He deserved better.

² It’s not inherently bad to have a character related to a canon, so I think this is something FicPsych would have left alone while resetting his memory. I didn’t include it in his bio because I doubt it will ever come up in general missions and suchlike. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to use it for comedy, especially since Sophie’s LotR LO is Aragorn.

Also, it’s not the case that all Rangers are closely related to Aragorn, for the record, though 14-year-old me certainly thought so when she made this character up.