Laburnum

Laburnum is an assassin in the Department of Mary Sues.

=Appearance= Laburnum is somewhere in her late teens. She claims the day of the “Vengeance Quest” investigation was her sixteenth birthday (thus adding insult to injury when it all went pear-shaped). She lost count of the days after this, and PPC HQ time is a highly subjective thing anyway, but according to her mother during Reconciled, she re-entered the Real World on her next birthday.

She’s on the tall side of average, and quite heavily-built for a teenage girl. A lot of her weight is in fact muscle – though not nearly as much of it as she would like to think. Her hair is brownish and usually extremely messy, with a blonde streak bleached down each side. Her eyes are blue-grey and usually sleepy-looking, and the whites turn red when her Bloodwrath makes an appearance. As always in the PPC, she almost always wears black. After That Series, she also often wears the pelt of "Raketooth the Amazing Three-Armed Fox" (who was apparently capable of "grabbing Pikkle's head between two scarred paws" and cutting the ropes on his ankles at the same time, hence the additional limb).

When in Redwall fandom missions or the Official Fanfiction University of Redwall, she prefers to take the form of a ferret whenever possible. She wields an axe, and rumour has it that she sharpens her teeth.

According to Reconciled, her real name is Agnes. She never uses it anymore.

=Personality=

As noted above, Laburnum suffers from the Bloodwrath, a form of beserker rage usually only found in Redwall’s badgers. Hers developed during her student days at the OFUR possibly because of, as she jokes, “Viking-French-Irish genetics and four months of constant mental needling.”

She’s sarcastic, perverted, and extraordinarily nasty to people she doesn’t like, though said people are almost invariably Sues and Stus. Generally a normal PPCer, then. Even by PPC standards, she can be vicious; she and Foxglove were responsible for both the Redneck Trees execution incident during That Series and giving a Stu to the demonic Drip Rat of the webcomic Jack, both of which resulted in them being Quietly Spoken To by Doctor Freedenberg. They recognise that these instances were tasteless and unusually cruel even for them, but still think they were hilariously funny.

Laburnum is protective of her friends and favourite characters, but can be reckless with her own safety. During the recruitment of Stormsong and Skyfire, she also attempted to save/recruit two otters from under the snouts of the Nighthunt horde by entering the vermin camp alone, her reasoning being that that way only one person was at risk. Of course she got caught. Her tendency towards having a loose tongue didn't help, as she then proceeded to hurl insults at the warlord and the one character who may have persuaded him to let her go. Unsurprisingly, she had to be rescued from a horrible death. This incident has marked her more than she likes to let on, and caused severe damage to her self-esteem. PPC work fortunately leaves her little time to think about it, but it may return with a vengeance as soon as she does have time. Doctor Freedenberg is also treating her because of this incident, partly because of the trauma to herself and partly because of what she and Foxglove did to the fox and ferret who got most enthusiastic about her death. (They plan to “apologise” by leaving Sues for said characters at some point.)

She is actually a well-intentioned and possibly even decent person. She's just incredibly misguided in her methods.

Whatever the Sunflower Official may have accused her of when shaming her into signing up for That Series, she has not "read Celebrian repeatedly". It took her forty-seven attempts to get all the way through, accompanied by lots of throwing up. She did it shortly after the Nighthunt Incident out of bravado, in order to boost her self-esteem, and on the grounds that nightmares about purple elves are better than nightmares about nearly being gang-raped by furry woodland animals. It didn't work very well.

She gets on very well with Foxglove, seeing her as a surrogate sister. She also loves animals (pet ones, though she does often work with furries) and is the proud owner of a Mini-Deepcoiler named Marile and a Hellpuppy named Net. Net and Foxglove's Hellpuppy Crow sadly do not get along as well as their owners do.

At the Official Fanfiction University of Redwall, she was known as "Sanity-Impaired Steelfang" in her student days, though she dropped the surname when she went back to being human. She is now often referred to as the Pervy Vermin Fancier, because she finds vermin adorable for reasons even she is hard-pressed to explain.

Recently she's started to experiment with the TF-Gun - i.e. turning herself into a boy. This may be related to her self-hate issues and her wish to test out new identities, or she may just be curious. Her male alter-ego is named Hemlock.

= External Links =

June 2006
 * The Death and Times of a Sue Named Blaise Zabini (Harry Potter)
 * Sue: Blaise "Elessario" Zabini


 * Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Sue To Live (Harry Potter)

September 2006
 * Rescues and Recruitment (Redwall)


 * Of Lobotomised Otters and Sue-ish Stupidity (Redwall)

Summer 2007
 * Moaning Mary, Simpsons Sue (The Simpsons)


 * Featured in The Good Omens Fanfiction Summer School.

WARNING: Missions in That Series (Redwall) are Not Work Safe, Nor Brain Safe.

That Series Introduction: In which an Alert is sent out to all Mossflower Agents.

The second mission in That Series: In which Laburnum and Foxglove experience role reversal and are driven to drink.

The third mission in That Series: In which the most bizarre, if not quite the most disgusting installment of That Series is dealt with.

The fourth mission in That Series: In which the agents bond, and combat scenes possibly more bizarre than in the previous mission.

The fifth mission in That Series: In which the agents receive a distinct lack of warnings from the Intelligence Department, and combat possibly the largest number of irritating canon breaks yet. Also known as the Redneck Trees mission.

The sixth mission in That Series: In which the agents perform an exorcism with kitchen utensils and end up feeling very ill.

The seventh mission in That Series: In which the Mossflower Division's new foster-children are introduced, and Laburnum and Foxglove are inflicted with unfortunate speech impediments and forced to fight through a gang of angry Monitor Lizards.

The eighth mission in That Series: In which the agents encounter a resurrected 'Sue- the Mariel Dopplegänger Sue from the sixth mission, and ensure that she is re-killed.

Winter 2007-08
 * Jack the Squicker (Over the Hedge) (link NSFW)
 * Stu: Jackson Earl Simon


 * Hand Maidens (Harry Potter), Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
 * Sue: Princess Rikai
 * First appearance of Hemlock, though he's not mentioned by name.


 * It's Amazing What Happens At 3 In The Morning (Harry Potter)
 * Sues: Maddie and Terrah


 * Lullabies, Anal Rape and Dental Hygiene (Gorillaz) (link NSFW, as if that title wasn't enough of a clue)
 * Bad Slash