[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Megan
AGE: 28
JOURNAL:
fairandbrightIM: withoutastar, Plurk: dreaminglikeagirl
E-MAIL: queenlothiriel@gmail.com
RETURNING: N/A
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Kelly Erin Hannon
FANDOM: The Office (US)
CHRONOLOGY: after the season 7 finale
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: The Receptionist
ALTER EGO: Erin Hannon, receptionist for Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch.
BACKGROUND:
Kelly Erin Hannon lives in Scranton, PA and became the new receptionist at Dunder Mifflin in 2009 when Pam Beesley unexpectedly quit to join Michael Scott's paper company. As there was already another employee with the name Kelly, the interim manager, Charles, said he'd address her by her middle name instead, and now she is known to everyone as Erin. She is the sole receptionist for the Scranton branch of the company.
Dunder Mifflin was a mid-level paper company providing paper to businesses in the north-east US until it went bankrupt and was bought by a company called Sabre. Now they sell paper and printers under the supervision of a Coordinating Director from Sabre, Gabe, who came up from Florida.
Right after Erin was hired, two employees -- Dwight Schrute and Andy Bernard -- took a romantic interest in her and competed against one another, trying to woo her. Unaware of their intentions, she was simply nice to both of them and was glad to be accepted so quickly. Eventually Dwight dropped out of the competition to win Erin, citing his new friendship with Andy and after this, Andy pined after Erin, unable to pluck up the courage to ask her out for quite some time.
Erin's history only seems to be revealed in bits and pieces, but what is known of her is that she was born prematurely in 1982, spent several years in the hospital, and currently suffers from a seizure condition. She is also an orphan who grew up in foster care, though it hasn't been revealed how her parents died. Now she lives with her foster brother Reed in their own house in Scranton, and the pair are unusually close.
At the office, Erin quickly became friends with Kelly Kapoor, bonding over their love of fashion and dancing. At times Kelly's forceful personality overshadows Erin's much more meek one and the latter follows the former's plans without much complaint. The pair have made a short film with some officemates called The 3rd Floor and also formed the singing group Subtle Sexuality.
When former manager Michael Scott starts stealing business away from Dunder Mifflin, the corporate higher ups offer to buy his company and rehire him as manager. When he accepts, it is under the stipulation that Pam be made a saleswoman and so Erin stays on as the receptionist. Erin looks up to Michael, seeing him as a father figure. She always goes along with his crazy and ridiculous schemes, finding them fun, whereas Pam would always try to discourage Michael from his extreme behavior. From time to time, Pam offers Erin friendly advice, but Erin always ends up misunderstanding it.
For some time, Erin and Andy were crushing on each other, though neither one would make the first move. Andy tried dropping hints, but Erin can be extremely dense and didn't understand his intent was for her to ask him out first. During an office game where they played different characters, Andy asked Erin out, but the two grew confused as to whether it was their characters agreeing to a date, or themselves, and in the end, both assumed it had been part of the game. When the office organized a Secret Santa, Andy asked to get Erin so he could surprise her with the Twelve Days of Christmas, but this backfired as she was being attacked by all the birds. She was angry with him when she found out he was her Secret Santa, but when he brought her twelve drummers drumming, she was pleased.
After this event, he expected Erin to ask him out, while she expected him to make another grand gesture. Again, they misread each other and it was only when Andy refuted the claim that he loved Kelly when he sent out Valentines to the whole office that Erin picked up on the fact that he liked her instead. Andy finally asked her out by writing the question on a fax he gave to her, and when she finally understood what it meant, she gleefully accepted. Unfortunately on the day of their first date, Erin got a cold and had to leave work early. Not wanting to postpone the date, Andy showed up at her house, unbothered by the fact she was in her jammies. Together they watched tv and Andy met Reed, Erin's foster brother and roommate, who acted as a third wheel and stopped Erin and Andy from getting close.
But from here on their relationship started up, slow but steady. While Erin referred to Andy as "the coolest man I've ever met," he referred to her as "the nicest person I've ever met." They decided to keep their relationship a secret from the rest of the office to avoid drama, but when it impacted their hanging out together, Andy announced to everyone that they were dating, and the pair realized that it was keeping the secret that was causing drama. After this, Secretary's Day rolled around and Michael reluctantly took Erin out for lunch. She was animated and interested to know everything about him, while Michael thought she was just a weird person. But when Michael let it slip that Andy used to be engaged to fellow employee Angela, Erin freaked out and treated Andy coldly when they returned to the office. When Andy tried to serenade Erin at an office party, she threw cake in his face and accused him of having slept with all his female coworkers.
The pair broke up, but at the end of the season Erin showed that she still cared for him when the whole office turned against Andy for letting the news leak that Sabre's printers were unsafe, causing sales to go down. She told Andy that what he did was really brave and touched him in a comforting gesture. However, they did not fully reconcile and Sabre's representative at Scranton, Gabe, asked her out a few months after. Erin admitted that she only said yes to a date because he was her boss and she felt she had to.
Eventually she ended up liking Gabe, but there was never any spark with him. She tried to get Michael to like Gabe, and this was when Michael discovered that Erin saw him as a father figure and wanted his approval. It had taken him some time to warm to Erin, as he felt no one could replace Pam, but Erin's willingness to go along with his schemes had helped them bond, and now he began to treat her a bit like the daughter he never had. Erin would later go to Michael to ask for advice concerning Gabe and Andy. She also was very overprotective of Michael when his former flame Holly returned to work in the office, not understanding what he saw in her and even blocking her from speaking to Michael at one point. Once Erin saw how happy Michael and Holly were together, however, she accepted her.
Things with Andy moved along back to a comfortable level, with her considering him a good friend and him still pining after her. When Andy was going to be in a production of Sweeny Todd, he was excited for Erin to come see him, but she ended up baby-sitting for Pam and her husband Jim instead. Andy was disappointed and ended up texting her from backstage, but forgot to turn off his phone and it went off on stage when Erin replied. Really wanting to see the play, Erin showed up with Jim and Pam's daughter, but was discovered when the baby started crying, disrupting the play. After Pam took the baby and the play ended, Erin and Andy hung out backstage and out in the audience, talking. But when Gabe texted her, she had to leave, sounding very regretful.
On Valentine's Day that year, Gabe set up a treasure hunt for Erin, and she asked Andy as a friend to help her out. The pair found a series of romantic clues, which was uncomfortable for Andy, while Erin remained oblivious to what was happening to him. Another day, Erin arrived to find that office administrator Pam had bought a new computer for reception, but when Andy complained about needing a new computer too, Erin switched with him, angering Pam, who forced them to switch back.
As Erin realized her relationship with Gabe wasn't going anywhere, she drew away from him, wanting to be with Andy again. Erin asked for Jim and Pam's advice concerning Gabe and Pam stressed that she couldn't lead Gabe on and should end things. At the end of the episode, Erin did this, but publicly at the Dundie Awards in front of the whole office. After this, Gabe turned desperate, trying to get her back and threatening Andy, thinking he was the reason for their breakup. When Dwight accidentally fired off a gun in the office near Andy and he screamed, Erin ran to his side, thinking he had been shot, but he had just blown an eardrum from the noise.
Erin was frustrated with Gabe, trying to get him to leave her alone and asked Michael for advice about what she should do, because she felt she was in love with Andy. Michael urged her to not think she had to have a guy in her life at that moment, that when the right guy came along she would know it, and he then kissed her on the forehead in a fatherly gesture. But Erin felt she already had met the right guy in Andy, and taking the initiative, she asked Andy out by using a hand puppet. Unfortunately Andy turned her down, still hurt by how she had dumped him the previous year, though he still has feelings for her. As for Gabe, he was recalled back to Sabre's headquarters in Florida because of his erratic behavior trying to win Erin back.
PERSONALITY:
Erin is a bubbly, upbeat, but painfully naive young woman. Either that's just the way her mind is, or perhaps being sickly in early development and growing up in foster care stunted her intellectual growth. When upset, she drags her hair in front of her face and hides behind it, stating that in the foster home her hair was her room, as she had no where else she could escape to where she could be alone. She's unfamiliar with iconic characters, such as Snoppy and Woodstock from Peanuts, as when Andy handed her a Valentine's card featuring them, she pointed out the dog and bird, and when he said who they were, she exclaimed, "You named them!" She also had no idea there was a Shrek 2 made until Andy lent her the DVD. She thinks disposable cameras are supposed to be thrown away after the last picture is taken, and believes the office took an insurance policy out on her so they can kill her and collect the money. She's unable to take broad hints, like when her coworkers were helping her play Scrabble against Gabe, or understand clues, like when Gabe sent her on a Valentine's Day scavenger hunt and she needed Andy's help because she couldn't follow the clues.
She reveals to Michael that she grew up in foster care, and that her favorite thing about being a receptionist is that she has her own desk, as she never had one in foster care. It's possible, though this is just my headcanon, that she reacted so badly to Andy previously having been engaged to Angela because Erin had felt that Andy was "hers," and then she found out that Angela had had him first. Her experience in foster care might have been one where she felt like she never really had anything that was just hers, and so she holds onto things and is very posessive of them.
She also demonstrated this when Holly returned to the office. Erin had been happy for Michael when he told her his former girlfriend was returning, but once Erin met the woman, she didn't see the appeal. She didn't see any traits in her that fit the ideal woman in her mind whom Michael would choose. She was very judgmental concerning Holly, and posessive of Michael until she spotted the two kissing and saw how in love they were.
Erin desperately wants to be liked and accepted by the office, because she feels they liked Pam as receptionist more than they like her. She hates conflict, and tries to do things to be liked, and when it's rumored that she hates Pam, she decides to clean the outside glass part of a framed picture Pam painted that hangs in the office to show she liked Pam. But Erin accidentally ends up ruining it when the glass cleaner seeps behind, running all the colors together. Erin was distraught, thinking everyone would assume she did it on purpose.
She often goes about things in the wrong way, not realizing why it's wrong, like when she broke up with Gabe at the Dundies, listing his faults into a microphone in front of a whole restaurant of people. Generally a good-natured person, she can be malicious or hurtful, not even realizing what she's doing because she's so dim. You could say this makes her honest to a fault, but she has a hard time softening her words to spare peoples' feelings.
POWER:
Prehensile/animated hair (Ability to animate and lengthen one's hair.)
Force field generation (Ability to project powerful fields of manipulated energy.)
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[audio]
Hey, everybody! How is you day going? Good, I hope! Mine's been going pretty well, except... Well, there was one thing that kind of sucked. I was sitting on the stoop outside my apartment eating a sandwich, and I looked down the street for a minute and the next thing I know, a squirrel is grabbing my sandwich out of my hand and running off with it! I chased him down the street, but he was pretty fast, so I lost him. And my sandwich.
I mean, I guess I can make another one, but it's the principle of the thing. That squirrel doesn't have a job so he can't afford the ingredients for that sandwich. He's just a moocher. Though that does make me wonder what kind of jobs squirrels have. Maybe they have a little acorn gathering union or something.
[There's a long pause and it's probably obvious that she's imagining what a squirrel union looks like right now. Finally, she speaks again.]
Can anyone here speak to animals? I have some questions for that squirrel if he ever comes back again.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Erin plopped down on the barstool, then spun around so she was facing outward, wanting to people watch a bit. There were a surprising number of attractive people in the city, she had to admit. Some made her look downright dowdy by comparison. She pushed her hair back behind her ears, letting her fingers run down the strands before setting her hand in her lap. Maybe she should have curled it.
There was a group off to one side having an animated chat and she smiled along as if she was part of the conversation. Part of her wanted to go over and introduce herself, but she hadn't been invited, and she didn't want anyone to dislike her right off the bat because she had butted into a conversation.
From behind her the bartender cleared his throat and she spun around, smile still in place. She asked him for something with a little umbrella and gasped happily when he returned with a tall glass filled with a frothy pink concoction, pink umbrella perched on top.
"Thanks!" she exclaimed, taking a sip. Ooo, strawberries.
Returning to watch everybody else, she started making up little stories in her head about what type of people they were. There was a blonde that Erin thought might have a poofy little white dog at home, and a guy with a shaved head and tattoos that secretly loved to cook. This kept her entertained as the drink in her glass slowly began to disappear. By the time she was finished, no one had come up to talk to her, but that was all right with her. There was always next time.