Welcome to Memorandum of Understanding, the Mary Shannon and Marshall Mann fanlisting. If you’re here, you’re either interested in the prospect of these two engaging characters as a couple, or you want to know what the heck fangirls like myself were thinking in creating such a fanlisting. So let’s begin, shall we?
Mary and Marshall who?
Mary Shannon (who occasionally goes by the alias Mary Shepard) is a U.S. Marshal working out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She works with WITSEC, (Witness Protection Program) to keep those that can testify against criminals in court. Sometimes these people are witnesses, other times criminals. Either way, Mary does her best to keep them from harm.
Mary has an abrasive personality brought about by a tough childhood: her mother, Jinx, was unreliable and alcoholic, while her sister, Brandi, seemed hopelessly dependent on her. One day, Mary’s father simply vanished and never returned home, and Mary has never quite come to terms with it. She doesn’t like to rely on others and finds it hard to really believe in people.
Marshall Mann (He’s Inspector Marshal Marshall Mann!) is Mary’s partner. He’s the yin to Mary’s yang, always staying cool and collected despite facing a huge variety of difficult situations, whether from the witnesses he’s helping to protect or Mary herself! He’s a fountain of seemingly-useless knowledge, but he’s always reliable and his trivia definitely comes in handy in a pinch!
Um, So What’s a Fanlisting?
A fanlisting is a place where fans gather to show their love of a character, a pairing, or anything, really! Since this fanlisting is devoted to Mary and Marshall, if you like them as a couple (whether as co-workers, friends, or romantically), then join! Those with AND without websites are welcome to join; there are all sorts of cool buttons, banners, and text links to choose from. Plus, you can get your cool sites, fanworks, and more featured in our forthcoming Extras section! So come on, join us!
This fanlisting was last updated on May 4, 2023Below, you can see a brand-new feed of Mary x Marshall fics from Archive of Our Own (AO3)! I’m working on figuring out how to format the feed so that author names and other pertinent data can display, but for now, read—and hopefully enjoy—at your own risk!
The Latest Mary x Marshall Fics from Archive of Our Own
Why ‘Memorandum of Understanding’?
When Mary and Marshall help people get into (or sometimes out of!) witness protection (or Witness Security, WITSEC), those people have to sign what’s called a “Memorandum of Understanding.” It’s a massive document full of things that someone has to agree to in order to receive the protection afforded to them by the U.S. Marshall Service that Mary and Marshall work for.
Mary and Marshall themselves operate on an unwritten sort of “Memorandum of Understanding,” where they just get one another without needing to constantly ask the other questions, worry about what they’re thinking or doing… they understand one another. Most of the time, anyway!