Fritz Sorgebrunnen

Fritz Sorgebrunnen is an agent in the Department of Floaters.

Backstory
Fritz is an English major (with a minor in History) from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His parents originally lived in East Germany (though his mother was Swedish), and fled over the Wall and eventually to America towards the middle of the Cold War. He started out as a member of the civilian reporting force, disgusted as he was with the terrible quality of most online fanfiction. Following the Macrovirus Epidemic, someone made the decision to recruit him as a full-time agent, likely to help boost the ranks that had been depleted by the epidemic. Fritz had just barely put his affairs in order and been brought to HQ, however, when the Mary-Sue Invasion began. Unused to combat, he nearly lost a hand in the subsequent fracas.

Following a stint in Medical and his official Agent training, Fritz began work in the Department of Floaters, where he stayed due to never taking a preference for any one canon realm. Bad luck seemed to follow him, however, causing him to go through no fewer than three partners in the course of roughly a year's worth of work. His last partner, Agent Cab, was driven insane by a particularly bad case of circular logic, and had to be subdued when she attempted to commit fanwriter homicide.

Appearance
Fritz is of average build, if perhaps a bit overweight, with dark blond hair worn short and blue eyes (belying his German-Scandinavian heritage). He is quite physically capable, and has been known to put on great turns of speed when necessary (though he gets winded easily, and prefers to walk). Even before coming to the PPC, 90% of his wardrobe was black, mostly for simplicity's sake rather than any other reason. His eyesight is slowly failing; it's not especially bad yet, but he has come to need glasses for reading, which he uses as aids for reading the Words when on the job.

Personality
Fritz is a worrier at heart, and something of a perfectionist; he has, however, managed to relax somewhat recently, developing a much more snarky side to his personality which tends to manifest on the job. He is also an extremely hardline Grammar Nazi, taking violent and vicious offense to Sues who belabor his beloved English language-- especially with capitalization errors, which he considers the easiest to get right and thus the worst offense when gotten wrong.

Though Fritz is a second-generation German-American, his grasp of the language is sketchy at best and only tends to come out when he's irritated or panicked (as most of his vocabulary consists of curses and obscenities). The Universal Translators tend not to process these epithets, being aware as they are of comedic value. Fritz was raised Protestant Christian and is loosely religious, but has a tendency to take the Lord's name in vain.

That said, Fritz does enjoy his job enough to prefer it over leaving and the required neuralyzation, and is willing to make friends with people fairly fast if they're willing to reciprocate the gesture. His work may not be the best choice for him-- when on the job, he becomes significantly more aggressive, and prone to using varying doses of violence to solve problems. He may also be slightly psychotic-- according to his previous partners, he takes perhaps a little too much delight from his job of executing Sues, which clashes somewhat with his preferred fandoms and which may partially explain why he stays.

Fritz gets along fairly well with Silas, and has since the two were first paired together, although every now and then some serious friction occurs between them. In retrospect, it may not have been a good idea to pair them together; though they are usually decent opposites as far as personality is concerned, both of them have a tendency to take risks when on the job.

Other
Fritz's favorite weapon is an aluminium baseball bat, into which he has burned the signatures of multiple canon creators to allow it to be used as an exorcism tool as well as an effective bludgeoning instrument. These include most notably Gabe Newell, Michael DiMartino, Satoshi Tajiri, and (strangely, because almost nothing is known about him) Akiyoshi Hongo. His skill with this bat is considerable, and has led to him developing an almost worrying knowledge of pressure points and fracture lines in a number of different anatomies.

Agent History
April 15th, 2008: Officially recruited to the PPC.

April 17th, 2008: Takes part in the defense against the Mary-Sue Invasion. Nearly loses a hand; is assigned his first partner (Name unrecorded in official files), and begins work in the Department of Mary-Sues.

June 20th, 2008: Fritz's first partner is officially Decommissioned, under mysterious circumstances. Fritz is assigned Agent Rath Peterson as his new partner, changing departments from Mary-Sues to Floaters and shifting his focus from combat video games like Half-Life to more animated continua such as Pokemon. It is shortly after this point that he first comes into contact with Gauri Narain.

Christmas Eve, 2008: Rath Peterson is killed in action. Fritz requests and is granted a week off to visit his family.

New Year's Day, 2009: Fritz returns to the PPC, and is partnered with Agent "Cab" Copperhead due to reshuffling in the DF. According to the few who know him, begins developing a very close relationship with Cab.

April 5th, 2009: Cab is driven insane in the line of duty and attempts to commit fanwriter homicide; Fritz is forced to physically subdue her, turning her over to the care of Fictional Psychology.

April 8th, 2009: Fritz is officially given his fourth partner, Silas. Over the course of their first day together they tackle two missions and meet Technician Narcolepsy.

July 15th, 2009: Fritz and Silas meet Technican James Fairchild and recruit the Descriptive!Stu who will eventually become Rococo Kolosov.

Christmas Eve, 2009: The Christmas Incident. After an incident with a box of gingersnaps Fritz nearly kills his own partner and comes within inches of going completely insane; he is remanded to the care of Fictional Psychology and put into an intensive recovery program.

October 2010: After nearly a year of slow, laborious treatment, Fritz begins to show signs of recovery.

February 2011: Exposure to a Legendary Badfic puts Fritz into remission for nearly a week, delaying his ultimate recovery.

August 2011: Fritz is finally deemed fully recovered; repartnered with Silas, he is reinstated to the active rolls of the DF on August 30th.

August 31st, 2011: Fritz and Silas tackle the Legendary Badfic, Cupcakes, and demolish it with flying colors. Temporal instability leads to a possible reappearance of Fritz's vanished first partner as well as the recruitment of Snapshot.

Mission Reports
Home Page

Partnered With Silas

 * Hot Button, Cold Country Part 1, Part 2 (Kirby)
 * Fritz's first mission with Silas, in which the grammar and punctuation are worse opponents than the Sue.
 * An Interlude, with Narcolepsy
 * Shed No Tears (Digimon), with Narcolepsy
 * In which tempers flare and prose is purple, and our heroes tackle a Digiverse angst/romance songfic.
 * A Royal Pain Part 1, Part 2 (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
 * In which advice is given, canons are killed, and the target goes on and on and on...
 * No Apologies Accepted (One Piece), with Narcolepsy
 * Issue Four- In which time flies, ships shrink, and the story boldly goes nowhere.
 * Wrong (Narnia)
 * In which reality knots itself up, the Agents break some things down, and the canons (mercifully) don't quite get it on.
 * Gingersnaps
 * In which Christmas is ruined for pretty much everyone, in pretty much the most thorough way.
 * Snapback (My Little Pony), with Narcolepsy, James Fairchild, and Zerenze.
 * In which canons are tortured, the Agents are tortured to watch the torture, and the tortuous torture shows just what a fresh Word-World does when you push it.
 * Wait and See (One Piece), with Rococo Kolosov and Sakimori.
 * In which old friends make new appearances, and things turn out to be not so bad after all.