Mandy Mortis

Mandy Maxwell Mortis, also called Secretary Mortis, Mandy, and Mandy Mortis, is the impartial, emotionless (except for apathy, anger, hate, and spite), and highly productive secretary of Director Benny. Mandy and her position were created as a direct response to Benny's abuse of death, killing characters for his own gain.

BOF creation
Over the years, Director Benny racked up major evil and corruption points by abusing his power for his gain, his agenda, and his family. Scores of charges have been lined up, but nothing can unseat him.

Director Benny's abuse of death in particular caused an uproar among the Bureau of Fiction community. In a unanimous decision of all employees present, the authority to kill a character was to be partially stripped from Benny, as was his authority to allow or deny a ghost from returning to the mortal world. A new position, a secretary to Benny, would be instated to approve or reject all methods of death, and to grant or deny all creatures their right to return as ghosts, zombies, and other items (like computers), after they were pronounced dead.

The Customs Officer Postmortum, as the position was officially called, oversaw the re-immigration of the deceased to the mortal realm, and approved or rejected proposals and tales that killed living characters.

The position now established, the Bureau set off to find a penguin that could fit this job. Unfortunately, as they realized, no one would be neutral enough to simply approve or reject something as morbid as death on the simple grounds of "a lawful kill" or "illegally using death as a plot device". No one could have the conscience to approve something as important as a creature- a living, breathing creature -dying as if they were a disposable resource. (Ironically, that is how stories work anyway.)

Seeing this, the Masters met in secret to discuss the creation of a brand new character from scratch. They were to retcon her- they chose the character to be female so Benny wouldn't hit her -to be a fairly young penguin without much emotion and no guilt, hatching back in the 1990s. She was to be rather short and as menacing as Benny, so that Benny couldn't overcome her and use her as a pawn. This intimidation was to be expanded and exaggerated as much as needed, so thick eyebrows and an eternal scowl were immediantly considered and implemented.

This character, they decided, would have a flat, sort of deep voice (as far as females go), that always means business and can never be messed around. She would come from a gloomy background and raised by an equally gloomy family. She would not, though, have the characteristics of a Gothguin. Glowing yellow eyes and half of the penguin's face would be a little too overboard.

Having her background set, they chose her full name to be Mandy Maxwell Mortis. Mandy, named after her parodee, Maxwell, the creator of her parodee, and Mortis, drawn from "mortician" and "morbid".

The text that follows is what they came up with.

In-universe background
Mandy hatched in 1996 on a bone-chilling, windswept night in Periwinkle Town. Like her father and mother, she was small and apathetic. Mandy was also gifted with the ability to break the Fourth Wall, a power that she would use for the rest of her life.

The daughter of farmers, Mandy became very good with her flippers, able to reap and sow crops as good as any male penguin and as good as any human. Outside of farm chores, Mandy remained in total isolation for years, until she set out on her own. She took nothing but a supply of food, the clothes on her back, and, interestingly, the scythe from the family farm.

The first creature she met on the route out of Periwinkle town was an abolute moron. Mandy had never seen a penguin, or anything, with intelligence that low, and she hoped that she never would have to again. She had to waddle through thick forests to escape his idiocy and his obbsessive pursuit, which, much to her advantage, was made easier by the scythe. She used it to cut through the dense foilage and outmanuver the moron before he could even get her name... if he could remember it, that is.

Mandy then settled down in other jobs, and in occupations by rather bold characters who were undaunted by her attitude and the fact that she actually carried a rather dangerous farming implement around with her. Those who employed her were blessed with prosperity. In cubicles, Mandy's apathetic, near-emotionless attitude kept her productive and quiet, sitting the computer and doing her job exactly as she was told to do it. Se left the scythe in the corner, though, and refused to remove it.

As long as no one crossed her, Mandy was a model employee. Those who dared anger or mock her, though, usually ended up losing their clothes in the middle of the office. Mandy was very skilled with the scythe she used. Much like a Candy Sword, the angry little penguin slashed the scythe all over her enemy, without so much as ruffling his feathers. By the time she was finished, his clothes- both those he was wearing and those in his inventory -were all shredded to bits. Mandy didn't see the point in hurting someone when humiliation could do the same, and more.

Mandy was also a rambler, in the old definition meaning "wonderer". She always travelled, never holding down a job for more than a year and six months. She became skilled at deskwork and bureaucracy.

At last, after nearly thirteen years, Mandy was ready to be picked up by the BOF as the new death secretary. This plot was to begin when she was walking in an open field on some route in Antarctica.

They were to lure her into the nearest Entrance by "aciddent". However, Mandy's Fourth Wall breaking skills were so powerful that she detected their plot and shouted, to nothing in particular, to be brought to wherever they needed her to be.

The BOF obliged and noticed that the character they had created was a little bossy and quite commanding. Still, if it saved lives, they could handle a second anti-hero(ine).

Mandy quickly settled in to her new job and is now a productive and feared member of the Bureau. Bureaucrats both under her authority and in general are advised to "just leave her alone" and "do what she asks".

Involvement
Mandy's job is straightforward.

Whenever Author Billybob writes about a character dying, the thing is sent to Benny, as usual. Benny's console was reprogrammed so that, when approving, everything but the death excerpt was passed into reality. The death bit would be forwarded to Mandy with some "author's notes" and "narrator's notes", along with a quick summary of Benny's opinion. Her director software allowed her to check context, cross-reference the COC and codes, and to approve or reject that characters death.

Also, when a character dies through non-storytelling means (AKA a natural cause) Mandy can choose whether to approve or deny that death and even if the character makes a recovery. It all depends on the story and case. Like Benny, Mandy could absolutely care less about what it effects. However, Mandy does withold from corruption and she hates it passionately.

Mandy's most important job, though, is to allow or deny a deceased character to come back. Before Mandy, all ghosts, zombies and other methods of beating death were approved by Benny. Naturally, some ghosts that had all the requirements of returning to the mortal plane were rejected simply due to personal bias.

Mandy was created to stop this abuse of power. Instated with a cold, distant personality and with little emotion or empathy so not to bias death tales, Mandy was also given a collosal hatred of corruption.

After her creation, few to no problems regarding death have been reported. The BOF regards, as they called it, "Project Grim" to be a success, with several bonuses they didn't even see.

Appearence
Mandy's appearence was created in such a manner as to be intimidating, cold, and yet appropriate for the whimsical setting of the BOF. They decided to gress her in pink- a near-total opposite of her personality -and give her blonde hair and a nice complexion to provide the illusion that she is a well-mannered female.

Taking a page from Director Benny, Mandy was given an unfaltering scowl (that could beat Benny in a scowling contest), a low rate of blinking, and thick, black eyebrows, but neatly manicured and needle-straight to avoid a Rockhopper or Sensei effect of grandfather-like approchability and compassion.

Even her height was intended to bring her down to Benny's level, to intimidate him. He was used to people looking over him, but not those looking at him. Lastly, if need be, Mandy's scythe- added in for fun by McFlapp -was to scare Benny in case he wasn't overwhelmed by her coldness. Mandy could shave him bald, like a resident of Baa shearing a toothless Shoporgshel, if he crossed her. Bald Benny was seen as te ultimate anti-death-abuse deterrent.

Personality
Likewise, Mandy's personality was engineered and sometimes copied from Benny's.

She was designed to be cold, distant, apathetic, uncaring, monotonous, and productive. Mandy does not experience such counterproductive feelings as empathy, sympathy, sorrow, happiness, sadness, loneliness, being tired, and even love. However, to keep her from being like that of a Hawtless, and to give her the ability to interact, they retained some emotions and traits such as frustration, apathy, anger, boldness, common sense, self control, monotony, confusion, shock, suprise, and boredom.

Trivia

 * Mandy can't smile. Literally, she can't. Mandy smiling could damage the universe, so the feeling was removed. A side effect of draining so much emotion out of her, yet giving her such incredible Fourth Wall power, was that they had to tie her into the Fourth Wall itself. The Fourth Wall requires passion, excitement, and a love for one's work to be manipulated. Any BOF employee, even Benny, can experience these feelings- happiness included -so they can easily harness this. Mandy, however, isn't able to do that. They actually had to connect her powers to the Fourth Wall so that she could have them. The side effect of this is that an OOC act in her, like smiling- which normally vibrates doinkometers by a fraction of a fraction of an inch -would directly hit the Fourth Wall with force. The ancient brick structure would be mildly pulled, like ice wedging a rock. It would be insignificant at first, but if it happened enough, it could rip larger and larger holes with little effort. BOF geeks scientists warn that Mandy smiling fifteen times could crack a hole in the Fourth Wall the size of a computer monitor.


 * Benny fears her.


 * She seems to be on good terms with Mayor McFlapp, though that is because he never bothers her.


 * She has shaved Benny bald in the past. She has done so too many times to count, in fact.
 * Any time Benny performs an act of corruption, Mandy will burst into his office, armed with the scythe, and shear him bald.
 * Naturally, this means he is shorn every day.
 * Benny just rollbacks the attack and regains all his fur.


 * Mandy Mortis is a strong parody of Mandy, an equally cold character from a cancelled series bearing her name.


 * Mandy seems to be allergic to flowers.


 * She secretly respects Veranda. The two have met several times.


 * No one has ever figured out how she wears her hair like that.