Subject: Interesting question!
Author:
Posted on: 2013-03-23 17:21:00 UTC

Sadly, answering it the way I think you're hoping for would put me in breach of confidentiality, so you're out of luck there. Sorry!

Anyway, the truth is that Dr. Freedenberg or folks with more seniority than me, like Nathonea, get all the really unusual cases—definitely all the ones outsiders have heard of, including Agent Bulldog's. That was actually a bit before my time, I think, or if I was there I was still so shiny-new (and yeah, a little glittery) that they wouldn't have trusted me with anything beyond paperwork and intern work—delivering food, changing bedsheets, kicking the Four-S, that sort of thing. If I met him, I don't recall.

I can talk about some things generally. It's actually fairly unusual for us to see a canon character, since all the field agents carry neuralyzers these days, and when we do get them it's almost always a double-whammy of injuries requiring a trip to Medical plus severe emotional trauma. Post-Traumatic Bad Slash Syndrome makes up about eight of ten canon admissions, I'd say. There's also the odd character who can't be neuralyzed the normal way, but that doesn't even make up a whole percentage point.

If you want to know the bulk of what we do, it's taking care of new recruits. We keep saying we're going to make a PSA about this, because it's actually a bit of a problem. The field agents get so keen to earn a vacation that they don't think about what they're doing, so we get these poor lost bit characters who really would have been better off assimilating with their home canon. A lot of times, we'd like to just send them back as soon as we get them, but Upstairs does insist on grist for the mill, so we're not allowed, and it sucks. The blank slates, the ones that got little to no characterization from their authors, are as helpless as newborn kittens here, they usually have no support structure beyond us, and we can't take care of them forever. Eventually we have to cut them loose, and while some of them make it and get more or less stable, lots of them don't. So, if any agents are reading this, think twice before recruiting. If you don't want to kill them, that's awesome, but that doesn't mean you should abandon them on our doorstep.

... That has nothing to do with your questions at all. I'll get off the soapbox now. Sorry.

Hey, the metafictional grapevine tells me we're due for a Romulan who thinks she's a Tribble at some point down the ol' timeline. That sounds pretty odd!

~Jenni R.

P.S. The real truth is that my author hasn't written any weird cases for me. She doesn't like to put me forward, what with my history. Also, when other people write about FicPsych, "Freedenberg" tends to be the name they use. You have no idea how frustrating it is for the rest of us to be referred to as "the nurse" all the time. We hardly know who's done what ourselves, because nobody bothers to tell us!

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