Derik

Derik is an agent in the Department of Mary Sues. He is written by Neshomeh.

Appearance
Like most dragonriders, Derik is tall and well-muscled, particularly in the chest and shoulders. He has a dark complexion and a square jaw. Almost the entire right side of his face is covered in Threadscar. His eyes are mismatched due to the fact that the right one is damaged and blinded, which gives it a milky blue appearance. His normal eye is hazel. Other people have remarked that he resembles Gerard Butler, but Derik disagrees.

Though he is no longer a dragonrider, Derik still wears his fur-trimmed wherhide flight jacket most of the time. The shoulder knots are simply bronze for his deceased dragon and gray for his never-specified Weyr, which happens to suit HQ perfectly.

Personality
Having lost his dragon means that Derik lives on the edge of sanity. He clings to his sense of duty to keep himself balanced. During missions, he goes by the book and tries to maintain a cautious, focused approach, and he keeps meticulous charge lists, even if circumstances conspire to prevent him from ever reading them in full. However, he is easily pushed into rage or grief when Suvian antics hit a little too close to home, and he has a personal vendetta against Mary Sues that gives him a special zeal for executions.

Between missions, without some specific purpose or expectation to fulfill, he tends to be depressed and hostile. He keeps himself busy with canon research, Indoor-Rules Quiddich and other physical exercise, and, if all else fails, getting drunk with his partner and teammates.

He identifies strongly as a Pernese man. His rebooted past includes Harper training, and he has demonstrated that Pern's musical heritage holds value for him. He has a trained singing voice (a clear, high-ranging baritone, nothing like that Butler fellow, thankyouverymuch), but he is reluctant to put it to much use, perhaps due in part to his strange status as a Phantom of the Opera photocopy. Having once met a mostly in-character Leroux!Erik in FicPsych, he is not at all comfortable with the parts of himself that recall Erik. However, if not for his dragon's death, terrible music and doggerel verse would be his top berserk buttons.

Origin and Recruitment
Derik was recruited by Jennifer Robinson from the crossover "Harry Potter and the Dragonriders of Pern" on March 11, 2008. He had been cast as the Weyrleader, rider of bronze Skepnadth, and went by the name of E'rik at the time. Essentially, he was a Phantom of the Opera look-alike dragged in by the Weyrwoman Sue to make her look good. He didn't have very much to do, and Jenni talked him into helping the PPC agents assigned to the fic. During the process of taking down the three Mary Sues in the story, the Weyrwoman's Sued golden queen attacked Skepnadth and killed him.

He slipped into a catatonic state and spent the next couple of months in FicPsych, where the 2008 Macrovirus Epidemic passed him by. He was shaken back to reality by an encounter with the original Leroux!Erik and later wandered into a Reality Room, where his appearance and background got rebooted into their present canon-respecting state. Meanwhile, the 2008 Mary Sue Invasion had begun, and he came out swinging and fought his way back to FicPsych. Of course, having been immobile for weeks, he then passed out on their doorstep. When the department itself was attacked, though, he roused to help defend it.

Jenni initially nicknamed him dragonrider!Erik to distinguish him from Leroux!Erik, Gerard Butler!Erik, etc. Following the convention of shortening the aforementioned to Lerik and Gerik, dragonrider!Erik became Derik.

PPC Career
Derik's career so far is a bit short due to time slippage. Living with a kender can be very distracting, and he went on only two recorded missions with Earwig in the time they were partnered. In 2011, he was assigned with Gall Knutson to conduct her evaluation, but it seems the time in their mission has an odd relation to time in the rest of the multiverse, because although it began in March 2011, it seems to have ended in the middle of 2012. Upon their return, they were officially partnered together.

The Narrative Laws of Drama seem to think Derik should be tortured with badfic involving dragons&mdash;as Gall once pointed out, he is an expert. For better or worse, he's proven incapable of harming anything draconic, whether it resembles Pernese dragons or not.

Timeline

 * 2008-2010
 * Recruited by Jenni Robinson from "Harry Potter and the Dragonriders of Pern" on March 11, 2008.
 * In a catatonic state in FicPsych throughout the Macrovirus Epidemic, but instrumental in defending the department from an invading army of Mary Sues, as recorded in "Gestalt Therapy."
 * Partnered with Earwig Slugthrower.
 * First recorded mission with Earwig.
 * Spotted at Rudi's in DIA: "Introductions" (cameo appearance).
 * Second recorded mission with Earwig. They recruit Gall Knutson.
 * Interlude: "One Tech's Nightmare."
 * 2011
 * Sometime in January, Earwig wanders off and winds up on a "training exchange program" with Agent Brightbeard. He does not inform Derik, who is left to stew and struggle with his grip on sanity.
 * Attends Henry Robinson's second birthday party on February 5.
 * Partnered with Gall for her evaluation.
 * First recorded mission with Gall. Also the first third some anniversary of Derik's recruitment.
 * 2012
 * Officially partnered with Gall.
 * Joins the All-HQ Australian Indoor-Rules Quiddich League in "Recruitment: Team Blast Hardcheese," mostly to prevent Gall from being in charge by herself.
 * Interlude: "Morning After"
 * Second recorded mission with Gall.
 * Squares off against old friends from FicPsych in the first AHAIRQL match of the season, "Physical Therapy vs. Blast Hardcheese."

Mission Logs
Home: Response Center 1110

Recruitment

 * "Harry Potter and the Dragonriders of Pern" (Harry Potter x Dragonriders of Pern), Agents Ilraen and Supernumerary (DIC) with Nurse Jennifer Robinson (FicPsych) and a few volunteers
 * In which nothing goes as planned.


 * "Gestalt Therapy" (FicPsych)
 * In which the events of March and April, 2008, make the Department of Fictional Psychology a difficult place to recover from badfic.

Partnered with Earwig

 * Mission 1: "The Smasher" (Super Smash Bros.)
 * In which a kender is the brains of the operation and the team gets some unexpected help.
 * Stu: Spidey3000
 * Mission 2: "The Girl and Her Dragon" (How to Train Your Dragon)
 * In which only the agents can prevent forest fires.
 * Sue: Kana Horrendous the Third
 * Interlude 1: "One Tech's Nightmare," with Agent Techno-Dann and Gall Knutson
 * In which it is seen that a dragon is far too big for HQ.

Partnered with Gall

 * Mission 3: "The Adventure Begins With One Step" (The Lord of the Rings)
 * In which Gall returns to make Derik's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day even worse.
 * Interlude 2: "Morning After"
 * In which everything looks different than it did the night before.
 * Mission 4: "Never Let Go" (The Phantom of the Opera)
 * In which the agents face the Music of the Night.