#including befriending her Adler >:[

[lynxfrost13]

Listen to my FKLR Essig’s playlist and man she’s such a sopping wet Falke KDJXVSB I’m so sorry babygirl I brought you into this world only to ruin u

[lillaydee]

The Unlucky One Part 16

Joel Miller (No Outbreak AU) / F Reader

When it comes to love, Lady Luck seems to have lost your address. After being left at the altar without so much of an explanation, you decided love is no longer something you are interested in. Not even meeting an unlucky-in-love-himself Mr. Grump could change your mind.

Right?

Let me know if you want to be tagged, or if you want to be removed from the tag list.

WARNINGS: Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Good Parent Joel (The Last of Us), Soft Joel (The Last of Us), Joel is Bad at Feelings (The Last of Us), Joel Needs a Hug (The Last of Us), Hurt Joel (The Last of Us), Grumpy Joel (The Last of Us), Jealousy, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Idiots in Love, unlucky in love, Child Abandonment, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Alternate Universe - No Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us)

@peelieblue, @vickie5446, @harriedandharassed, @lovefreylove @martuxduckling @kikookii @liciafonseca @wowitsafemale @noisynightmarepoetry

SERIES MASTER LIST

Part 15

---

Joel didn’t know how to look you in the eye. He didn’t know how to look any of you in the eyes. Not you, not your dads, not Kyle or Ethan, and certainly not Eric.

He sat across from all of you at your dads’, telling you what he had just learnt. He came straight over as soon as he found out.  

Everything that’s been going on in your life these few months – Lucy started it. Because of him.

As soon as Lucy left, Joel called the detective who was in charge of Nell’s case from before. When the cops got to her place, she was in the process of packing to leave. She denied any involvement with the break in, having no clue that the boys she hired were cooperating, that they had identified her clothing. They found the phone she had been using to contact everyone, including a PI. That phone alone revealed a lot. The PI followed you around, did some digging on you, and sent her a written report. She contacted your mother and Andrew, telling them where to find you. She was hoping Joel would be put off by all your drama and choose her. When that failed, she hired some high school kids to break into your house to threaten you.

Over the next couple of weeks, more and more information trickled out.

She had had a crush on Joel since before Jen left him, the younger sister of one of Jen’s friend. When Jen left Joel, she started following Joel around, befriending Tommy’s then girlfriend to have an ‘in’ with Joel without involving her sister. But Joel was not interested, he was still married. It was difficult to run into Joel anywhere then, Sarah still a baby and his life was all about her. He didn’t even want to go out back then, saddened by Jen leaving and choosing to focus all his attention on Sarah.

When Sarah started school, Lucy tried to use Sarah as a link to her father. She was a teaching assistant back then, helping Mrs Adler with her class. Sarah liked her at first, apparently, but she got too insistent, starting to give Sarah messages to give to Joel. The little girl, far too young then, forgot, and Tess cleared her bags of any errant pieces of papers and the likes every evening, so no one got the message. One day, she asked Sarah why she was being so uncooperative? Wouldn’t it be nice if Miss Lucy becomes your Mommy?

And Sarah quickly said no. She didn’t like Miss Lucy.

Lucy started hounding Sarah, chastising her for not passing her messages to Joel, discreetly withholding snacks from her, telling her she would get them when she cooperated. She kept Sarah in the classroom, questioning her of Joel’s daily activities, not letting her play during play time.

When you came into the picture, she had been given a class of her own. No longer having such easy access to Sarah, she doubled her efforts, asking Sarah for everything she knew about you. Her grasps and holds on Sarah got firmer, but never firm enough to leave a mark. But it was enough to make Sarah walk the other way whenever Lucy was in the vicinity.

Sarah never told anyone, worried that Lucy was going to punish her again. But she did tell Mrs Adler she didn’t like Lucy, she was mean, and the older lady kept an especially close eye on their interactions since, keeping Sarah away from her. The school never caught Lucy mistreating Sarah in any way, so she was never in trouble for it.

But after so many failed attempts to sway Sarah her way, she tried to get Ellie. Only, rather than pressing her for information, she did her best to convince the little girl that she was not wanted. That you and everyone else were just pretending, that no one wanted her around. She had hoped that Ellie would get upset enough to want to persuade you to leave town, since you went ahead with putting Ellie in school after the break in. Ellie got upset that first day, staying in her classroom during playtime, believing Lucy, but then Sarah came in with her friends and convinced her otherwise. Sarah told her Miss Lucy was mean. Don’t listen to Miss Lucy. Mrs Adler made sure the other teachers were extra nice to Ellie, even going so far as coming over to her classroom to check on Ellie during snack time to make sure Lucy gave Ellie her share. It seemed Lucy knew she was being watched, and didn’t dare treat Ellie any different outwardly.

But that Friday, before she was caught, she told Ellie that she was the daughter of a murderer, the granddaughter of a pimp, hoping to push her further down. Ellie came home asking you what a pimp was but refused to tell you where she had heard the word.

It took the whole two weeks of Lucy being out of school and a confirmation that she was not coming back for her to open up to you, and finally ask you if her mother was really a murderer. You had to assure her that whatever happened was not her fault, and that you would explain one day when she was bigger, and that you and everyone else loved her so much and she never had to worry about anything ever again. She was wanted, needed, cherished, loved.

Upon hearing what Lucy said to Ellie, what she did to Sarah, all in the name of getting Joel all for herself, you were thankful Lucy was in custody. You wanted to tear that stupid smile off her face so much it made your hands tingle. But… you were glad that she was caught. At the very least, your questions about your mother and Andrew’s knowledge of your whereabouts were answered. You had started having trust issues, worried that someone close to you was a double agent, and the knowledge that they all had your back was such a relief.

Before leaving for the evening after the revelation, Joel asked Eric permission to talk to you alone, earning him a weirded out look from the man, who nodded and made himself scarce, nonetheless.

“I’m sorry, Aria.”

“For what?”

“Everything that happened… you kept apologizing to me for involving me in your drama, when everything happened because I rejected Lucy in the first place. You didn’t deserve this. I’m sorry.”

He felt bad. He felt as if none of this would have happened if only he had not been lost in the fog that Jen left him in, said yes to a drink with Lucy and gently let her down from the start. Instead, he chose to simply ignore her. Never did he ever think that one decision would lead to her taking such drastic actions, putting you, putting Ellie in danger.

“Come on, Joel, the things with my mother and sister, with Andrew, they would have happened either way. They would have found me sooner or later. I ghosted them, I didn’t exactly hide. Lucy just… sped up the process,” you coaxed him, seeing how guilty he looked.

“You wouldn’t have been in danger. And I ignored your calls. If Ellie didn’t do what she did… I don’t even want to think…”

“But she did do what she did, and you came. I’m okay, Joel. Ellie’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

“But... we’re not…” he said softly, eyes on the floor. When he raised them back up to look at you, there was yearning in them. You might have even imagined a light glistening of tears. “Are you happy, Aria?”

You were just about to ask what he meant by that when Sarah came into the room with her school bag, ready to go home.

“We’ll talk tomorrow?” you asked, “And don’t forget, bring her swimsuit and some clothes to leave here,” you reminded him.

He nodded, taking Sarah’s schoolbag from her, taking one more look at you before closing the door behind him.

**********

Your dads were too happy to be here. This was the retirement they never knew they wanted. They had always told you that they were going to move to the beach house, ultimately, once they got bored with condo-living, and travel the world, just the two of them. And now, suddenly, retirement meant moving to a new city, buying a house a couple streets away from you, and having two granddaughters to spoil. They had already started asking you and Joel to get the girls passports, even having a huge calendar marking school holidays.

And with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming, they had started subtly but not so subtly asking Anita her plans, slowly trying to get her to agree to let them host everyone for the festivities.  

Okay, Frank did that. Not your dads, only Frank. But you didn’t hear your Dad complain. That’s for sure.

Since Tess, Joel and Tommy worked, they offered their place to be the layover between school and home for Sarah and Ellie, both then, and when you decided to go back home. You did remind them that when you did, you would be available at home for Sarah to stop by, but was met with a list of disadvantages, both to your personal and professional lives as to why that would be a bad idea.

The girls were in the pool, heated for their benefit, Kyle, Ethan and Eric teaching them to swim. Joel, Tommy and your dads manned the grills, keeping the meat supply flowing, while you and the ladies sat in a corner eating and chatting.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Maria took a sip of her drink and turned her chair to face you. “What’s going on with you and Joel? Are you guys not together anymore?”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen you two together in a while. Did you guys have a fight?” Tess asked.

“I don’t know,” you told them, Anita stopping her crocheting to focus on you. “He just… pulled away. I don’t know why. He wasn’t mean about it, though. At first I thought he was simply giving me space, after Nell and my mother, you know? But then he never stopped giving me space, so… I don’t know. Maybe he just doesn’t want my drama. I can’t blame him. I get it. I wouldn’t want to date me either. I went from a fling in Bali to neighbour to potential girlfriend to someone who has an instant child and a disgruntled ex-fiancé snooping around and a murderer sister who killed my pro-pedo mother who turned out to be a psycho who pimped her child out. Why on earth would he want to be with me?”

The three of them didn’t say anything, looks of pity and sadness on them, Maria stroking your arm. It was only then you realized how wobbly your voice had gotten, how teary your eyes had been.

You shook your head, wiping your tears away. “Just my lot in life. Unlucky in love. Always has been.”

The three of them chorused very empathetic ‘nos’ and ‘that’s not trues’ and ‘you’ll find someones’, hands offered for you to take, more strokes on your arms and legs, all trying to get you to feel better.

“No, don’t worry guys, I’m okay. I’m lucky in lots of other ways. I have my dads, you guys, Ellie, Sarah, Ethan, Kyle, Eric… plus, it takes a special kind of man to be okay with me being so amicable with my exes. Maybe it’s just too much for him. It’s okay. He has every right to choose not to be with me,” you told them.

There was silence for a beat. No one knew what to say.

“You, though, who are you and what have you done with my good friend Maria?” you smacked her in the arm. “What happened to the my ‘fling’ guru? She went ahead and got all loved up and left me in the dust!”

Maria waved her hand at you, as if trying to make light of her situation with Tommy, all the while grinning wider than the Cheshire cat itself. “We’re… us… we’re doing okay,” she said, hands playing with her glass, “Taking it slow…”

“Slow?” Tess mocked, swatting Maria with her napkin on the knee, “You’re telling me your clothes are not filling half of his closet?” earning her a face full of napkin from Maria.

“You’re one to speak,” Anita said, slyly looking at her niece. “You’re the one now always on the phone and coming home late after your shifts. Anything we should know about?”

Tess covered her face with her hands, “Leave me alone! Sheesh! Nosy, nosy, nosy!”

The three of you laughed so heartily you almost fell off your chair.

Across the yard, Joel couldn’t take his eyes off you. He missed you so much, but there was nothing he could do about it. He wanted to go back in time so badly, not pull away from you in the first place. He could be in great company with your laughter, and instead, here he was, sulking at the other end of your dads’ backyard, wishing he could go home with you tonight and hold you tight. He needed you, if only to sleep well again. He forgot what being happy felt like. He had a taste of it with you, but he stupidly let it go.

He should’ve fought for you. Gotten you back from the Eric, the super nice guy who had been through so much in life and had managed to climb his way out of that situation and became the annoyingly likeable man he was today. The kind of great guy he would have less of a problem with if Sarah came home one day and introduced him as her boyfriend, not that he wouldn’t punch him in the face still, just for daring to think he would be good enough to date his BabyGirl.

And because Joel was too nice of a guy to take you back from Eric, here he was, stuck with only longingly watching you from afar, while Eric got to do whatever he wanted with you.

Oh God, please don’t be one of those touchy couples and show PDAs in his presence, he didn’t know if his heart could take it. But just in case, Joel had an excuse planned out to leave as soon as he could, should that happen. He practiced and everything.

“You’re staring,” Tommy nudged him, handing over a beer.

Joel took it, hesitantly looking away from you.

“What’s going on with you and Aria anyway? Did you guys have a fight or something? Did you break up?” Tommy’s tone was low, not wanting your bickering dads to hear from the next grill.

“We never really got together in the first place, I don’t think,” Joel said, eyes on the bottle he was holding. “We were taking it slow, so much happened, and then… I fucked up, and now she’s with someone else. End of story.”

“Who?”

Joel didn’t answer, but his eyes couldn’t help but glance at Eric, who was now throwing a squealing Ellie back into the pool.

“No,” Tommy was shocked. “That couldn’t be. I’ve never seen them together like that,” he protested.

“Maybe she was just trying to let me down easy. Maybe they’re not ready to tell people.”

“How do you know, then?”

“Saw them kissing,” Joel took a drink, trying hard to stop his voice from wobbling.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, brother.”

Joel shrugged, taking the final burger off the grill, telling everyone food was ready.

**********

Thank God for Sarah and Ellie. Those two kept him so busy and occupied he didn’t notice you or Eric at all, both eating on his lap, insisting he fed them both. One thing he would concede to, he wasn’t willing to let go of this – this family all of you had become. He saw how happy his Mama and Tess were in your company, how happy Tommy was in the men’s company, how happy Sarah was in everyone’s company. Heck, even he had a hard time sticking to his sourpuss with everyone around.

So he would keep his yearning for you to himself and just enjoy what he could get, good company, good food, and whenever he could, glimpses of you.

He went to his truck once everyone started lazily lying around the pool, drinks in hand. He got Sarah’s bag out and went upstairs, wanting to unpack her clothes into her closet. He walked past the first two bedrooms before getting to the girls’ bedroom at the end of the hall, and his steps stopped abruptly.

Laughter. Cheeky, romantic, comfortable laughter. And squeaking. And sloppy kisses. After sex laughter.

Coming from Eric’s room.

His heart fell to his stomach.

His tears fell involuntarily. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t watch you be with Eric. He could reason with himself all he wanted, but he was never going to be able to survive that, not without wanting to rip Eric’s face off, nice guy or no nice guy. He wanted to run away, leave, never return, but his feet felt like they were made of lead. So he stood there, and listened as the intimate laughter came attacking him from the crack under the bedroom door, giving him so much whiplash his head was spinning.

The spell broke when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He turned, hoping to God whoever it was wouldn’t tease him for his gloom-riddled face.

It was you, your face morphing into concern the moment you clocked his tears.

“Joel? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” you wiped his tears off his face, forgetting that you two were no longer together. He let go of Sarah’s bag, hands up to your face, wonder in his eyes.

“You’re here…” he whispered.

“Uh, yeah, I am, I live here for now, remember? Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”

He laughed, stroking your cheeks. “No, I mean, if you were here, then who’s in there with Eric?”

You didn’t even have the chance to answer. The door swung open, and a very happy looking Eric and Tess walked out.

All four of you looked at each other in silence.

The hinges of your jaws stopped working. Words failed you. Tess looked horrified, while Eric just looked embarrassed.

“Aria,” Tess began, “It’s not what it looks like… I was just…”

“Are you two…” you started, stopping to consider the word you needed to complete that sentence, deciding if you wanted to be crass or discreet.  

“We’re seeing each other,” Eric meekly said, putting his arm around Tess.

“Since when?”

Tess fiddled with the hemline of the shirt she was wearing, “We planned our first date that day Andrew came, but postponed it.”

“Why?”

“We didn’t know how to tell you, we were worried you might have a problem with it,” Eric said, eyes on the floor, looking like a naughty child who just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Why would I have a problem with it?”

All three of them looked at you in shock.

“You don’t?” Tess’s face lit up with relief. Eric released an audible breath.

“Of course not, why would I?”

She raised her hand and rushed over to hug you. You took a hasty step back, your body immediately pressed up against Joel’s, hand out in front of you.

“No, no. No, no. No hugging. No touching. Have you even washed your hands? Ew!”

The two let out a relieved laugh, thanking you for understanding, before going to the bathroom together.

It was only then you realized that you were all pressed up against Joel. You turned around, apologizing for entering his personal space like that. But he wasn’t listening.

“So, you’re not with Eric?”

“No, why would I be?”

He huffed a laugh, “I saw them kissing… I thought it was the two of you.” He looked down, lips quivering, “I thought you chose him, that you went back to him.”

You were stunned. You never thought of that.

“He was just over to see Ellie, I swear. His last name is on her birth certificate. He just wanted to have a relationship with her. That’s all.”

He nodded, his eyes back to brimming with tears, though there was a huge relief written all over his face.

“Is that why you pulled back?” you asked. He nodded, tears now falling down his cheeks again.

You wiped his tears away, as his eyes closed from the sensation of your hands on him, something he had missed all this time.

And then you burst into tears.

Huge, heaving, body-shaking sobs.

Eric and Tess exited the bathroom, Tess started towards you but Joel shook his head. Eric guided her towards the stairs, the two of them leaving you alone.

Joel didn’t even know how to react. Usually, he would just hug you. But he didn’t know if you would be accepting to that right now. Were you angry? Sad? Relieved? What?

You ran into your bedroom, wiping your face with a hand towel, but started crying again. Joel followed you inside, closing the door behind him.

“Aria,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you first. I didn’t know. I thought you still had feelings for him, I thought I saw the two of you kiss, and I couldn’t blame you, you were forced apart. I wanted you to be happy, that’s all I ever wanted for you. I thought you wanted to be with him. I’m sorry baby, please, forgive me.”

You calmed yourself down, wiping your face with the towel again. He waited for you, his heart beating fast, worried what your reaction would be, internally kicking himself for being so dumb. When you finally calmed down, you turned around and faced him, and those few seconds you didn’t speak had to be the longest few seconds of his life.

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

His heart clenched. He took two huge steps towards you, taking your face in his hands and crashed his lips onto yours, sealing all his feelings and regret into it, telling you in not so many words, so you understood that you were everything he had ever desired in this world.

You kissed him right back, eyes clenched shut, hands wrapped around his waist, clutching his shirt. He walked you back until the back of your legs hit your bed, and gently brought you down with him, slotting himself between your legs, moaning into your mouth. His hands began to wander, going to your sides, your ass, your legs, before coming back up to caress your breasts, tongue beginning to pass your lips, licking into your mouth before going down to your jawline, travelling to your ears.

Your bedroom door crashed open.

“Aya! Grandpa said… uh oh…”

Two little girls wrapped in towels stood in your doorway, somehow managing to look both shocked and elated at the same time.

Joel scrambled to get off you, pulling the blanket with him to cover up the situation he had going on between his legs, breathlessly asking Sarah and Ellie about a previous discussion he’d had with them about opening closed doors.

“Sorry, Daddy,” Sarah said, “Sorry Joel,” Ellie parroted, neither looking sorry at all. You were having a hard time keeping yourself from laughing, asking them what Grandpa wanted.

“He said we showered. He asked you to help us change.”

You nodded, getting up as the two girl ran out of your room and into their own. Joel got up with you, the ‘situation’ having run for the hills from the shock of it all. You stood up, but he took your hand in his, making you sit back down.

“Just in case the message didn’t get across,” he said, “I want to be with you. For real. I’m yours, and only yours, if you would have me. I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to be with you. Please.”

You smiled, telling him you had to go help the girls change, standing up. His face fell.

“And then we’ll go home,” you whispered, erasing the disappointed look he had on, kissing him in a way that made sure he understood, that that was what you wanted too.

“For real.”

---

Part 17

[cchickki]

OC Dani infodump

Long time coming for my friends in the Uncharted Discord, sorry it took forever

under the cut because there's a lot lol

"disclaimer" below:

okay first Dani is from my uncharted fanfiction series. originally started in 2016 my first story finished in 2017 where i had planned to make a sequel but didn't start it until this year. the original story and the sequel follow the events of Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy, the AU follows uncharted 4 during the prison in Panama but doesn't follow the same timeline.

go to resources:

the original story from fanfiction.net: (x)

part ii of the original story: (x)

new au: (x)

more about Dani including fanart drawn by other artists: (x)

photograph inspirations I used for Dani: (x)

me and a friend of mine back when uncharted 4 first came out helped me create Dani. note: we were two very mentally ill girlies, so a lot of the themes can get very heavy. a lot of trauma so trigger warning!

okay now onto Dani:

name: Danielle "Dani" Adler (married last name)

age: in the original story she's a couple years younger than Rafe, so in her early 30s. in the AU she is the same age as him, so born in the 1970s. (Rafe is estimated to be 35-38 in during the events of Uncharted 4)

ethnicity: Peruvian (mother's side) / Italian-American (father's side)

birthplace: around/outside of Pisac, Peru

zodiac (sun): Pisces

eye color: brown

hair color: dark brown/black

*Her parents met while her father was in Peru investigating the Inca ruins. Her father is how you'd describe Sully or Nate in the same profession.*

more random facts about Dani:

Dani is a martial artist practitioner of soo bahk do (she's a skilled fighter)

Not a good climber

Spanish is her first language, but she speaks multiple languages

She’s left handed

Missing her left ring and middle finger (original story)

Area of study: Ancient East Asian/Buddhist Art - also Inca Empire

how she got involved with the adlers

Dani's father, while decent at his job of artifact collecting, often had issues with biting off more than he could chew. coupled with gambling problems and double-crossing, he would find himself in hot water more than once. He was recruited by the Adlers for his expertise when Dani was a baby. The Adlers became his main clients, but he would borrow a lot from them, so a debt had to be settled.

My old friend and I are huge fans of Titanic, so picture Cal and Rose for this next part. Took heavy inspiration from their relationship in the movie without even realizing it at first lol.

Dani isn't given much choice and has to wed Rafe. Their marriage is more of a "business transaction" how I would describe it. Although they grew up together and do genuinely get along, there isn't exactly romantic feelings there.

In the main/original story they have two children.

Holden Adler (son, deceased)

Vera Adler (daughter)

What drove the final wedge in their marriage was the death of Holden. To put it briefly from one of the chapters in the story: He died tragically in an accident under Rafe's care. Dani fled hiding and becoming estranged. To protect her daughter her cousin Sophie has custody.

Their relationship in the AU will be a bit different.

Dani's personality:

indecisive

emotional

"unreliable narrator"

book smart

Those are the main words that come to mind while describing Dani. Obviously traumatized from different events in her life, she often has issues with regulating her emotions and cries easily. Most of her life has been out of her control so she often listens to others when they tell her to do something (within reason) and can be easily persuaded and can flip-flop.

She keeps peoples at arms length at first, but once she befriends them and builds a relationship she tends to give them the benefit of the doubt. Very empathic, she can feel when the tone and mood shifts without anything being spoken.

Since Dani was pretty much groomed into the thief/artifact seeker lifestyle, she specializes in that, specifically in ancient East Asian arts and history. She would go on "jobs" because she either had to pay off her father's debts or because the Adlers wanted their hands on something.

Her focus can also wane due to her traits of suicidal ideation and fear from scary loan sharks (amongst other things). Because of this she can be both physically and emotionally absent as a parent, especially after the death of Holden it was extremely difficult for her to cope.

In the original story and the sequel, Dani narrates the story from her point of view and leaves a lot about her past, her motives, and even keeps certain things like her children a secret from the reader and the characters in the story. That's why I labeled her as an unreliable narrator.

She’s currently living with her cousin and daughter in the Philippines, making being an active parent her main priority.

Dani's relationship with Sam:

Working on doing a more in-depth analysis of their relationship with the new AU.

Sam and Dani get along well from the start. Both emotional, they sometimes clash, but there's no denying their attraction to each other. Dani loves how he was able to find freedom in his life, and how passionate he is about Henry Avery (for example), and that he actually likes what he's doing, it's not a forced chore or just a job to him. Sam likes to flirt with Dani a lot, and she doesn't know how to really respond to it.

Unsure how to label their relationship, they kind of have a friends with benefits thing going on? Dani's convinced she has real feelings for him, but her lack of experience with actual healthy relationships might have her perspective warped.

in conclusion

Dani is a complex and deeply flawed character who experienced a lot of trauma, and doesn't often regulate her emotions in the healthiest ways. She is going through a lot of growth and is coming back mentally stronger than ever, the first step was finally cutting off her parents and making peace with Rafe (kinda) before his death (in the first story). In my original efforts to keep her as authentic/real as possible, and to prevent her from being a "Mary Sue" (super outdated term now that I don't agree with) I might have went a little too hard on displaying her weaknesses in an attempt to keep her more grounded. I had a lot of feedback from the community at the time that seemed in favor of this, so I kept going. I'm going to be taking a slightly different approach in the AU, but I'm going to keep her mostly the same.

I don't know what to say, I love flawed characters and Dani is my broken baby.

[hiraethhq]

Welcome to HIRAETH, Edgar, Amy, & Lenianna! Make sure to follow the checklist and send the link to your blog to the main within 24 hours.

OOC INFO

NAME: Sierra

AGE: 28

PRONOUNS: she/they

TIMEZONE: CST

MUSE INFO

NAME: Edgar Wayne

AGE: 48

GENDER & PRONOUNS: Male, he/him

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Gay

STATUS: Resident

CLASS: Virtue

HIERARCHY: Queen

ADDITIONAL:

OCCUPATION: English and Literature Professor @ Hiraeth Academy

HOUSING: St. Mary's Palace - Condo 3

FACE CLAIM: Adam Scott

GOOD: Magnanimous, Optimistic, Personable

BAD: Hesitant, Ignorant, Meddlesome

UGLY: [redacted]

BACKGROUND: 

- Edgar comes from a long line of Queens, Kings, and successful Rooks.  He's always been a part of high society and because of that has made him unintentionally ignorant and naive to the class struggles in his city. - Because of his sociable personality, Edgar often befriends the most unlikely of people, willing to look past the edges to the good that he swears is inside everyone.  This included his childhood bully at the Academy, Christian. - At 9 Edgar met a visitor, Archibald, Art, and they became fast friends.  Edgar always waited patiently for the other to come back and visit, to tell him about his adventures in the outside world.  It didn't take long for that friendship to bloom into something more as their childhood years shifted into teenage ones. - Following in his family's footsteps, Edgar joined the ranks of the Virtue elite as an academic, always having a love for literature and the arts. - For a long time Art didn't come back and this worried Edgar, having no clue what had happened to his boyfriend.  He considered leaving to look for the other man, but had no clue where to even begin searching if he did.  When Art finally did return for a visit, it was with a heavy aura and an even heavier ring on his finger.  Heartbroken, Edgar tried to move on with his life, to include dating his childhood friend Christian. - The relationship with Christian lasted 5 years, with the last 2 years being tumultuous with arguments.  Sometimes they would fight about Edgar having to hide his relationship due to Christian's Vice status, sometimes they would fight over Christian's insecurities and fears of Edgar cheating on him.  Eventually the two broke it off though remained in a just as stormy friendship. - With Art returning to Hiraeth for what seems permanently, Edgar has rekindled his love for not only his first love, but also for Christian, with Art acting as a glue to reunite the two.  The fear and anxiety still linger, however, with Edgar having far more to lose than his counterparts in such a volatile class-based society.

OOC INFO

NAME: Natasha

AGE: 31

PRONOUNS: she/her

TIMEZONE: EST

MUSE INFO

NAME: Amy Adler

AGE: 26

GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis female, she/her

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: panromantic demisexual

STATUS: Resident

CLASS: Virtue

HIERARCHY: Pawn

ADDITIONAL: Slightly

OCCUPATION: stock worker at Apples of Eden

HOUSING: Joan of Arc’s Refuge

FACE CLAIM: Emma Mackey

GOOD: observant, sincere, flexible

BAD: reserved, cowardly, anxious

UGLY: [redacted]

BACKGROUND: Amy’s parents were once in Vice, but just before Amy was born, they’d gotten into so much legal trouble that they wound up being rejected. She was born in the Rejected side and grew up to resent her irresponsible parents for winding up there. They were hardly ever there for her and she mostly raised herself. School was something she loved academically, but socially she was constantly ashamed of where she came from. She chose Virtue to try and be her best self, but she still now feels like an outcast, even with Beverly and James there for her, she feels like she has to work twice as hard to deserve the life she has.

OOC INFO

NAME: Katie

AGE: 27

PRONOUNS: she/her

TIMEZONE: est

MUSE INFO

NAME: Lenianna Levni

AGE: 29

GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis woman, she/her

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Demisexual

STATUS: Resident

CLASS: Virtue

HIERARCHY: Pawn

ADDITIONAL: n/a

OCCUPATION: Waitress at Frenchie’s

HOUSING: Joan of Arc’s Refuge

FACE CLAIM: Aslihan Malbora

GOOD: supportive, reliable, hardworking

BAD: overly humble, takes things too personally, too idealistic

UGLY: [redacted]

BACKGROUND: 

Grew up as the daughter of two hardworking Vice citizens. Her mother was a pillar of the community, a well known figure that people felt that they could turn to whenever they needed help. Leni idolized her. Her mother ended up passing away when she was young and after years of caring for her father, he passed as well—those who knew him remarked that he likely died of heartbreak and wanted to be with his wife.  She’s trying desperately to chase the ghost of her mother and become more like her, though in reality she’s not like her mother at all. She’s very quiet and shy and reserved.

[bruce-slutsteen]

FAN FICTION MASTERLIST

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E means rated explicit so minors DO NOT INTERACT ( DNI )

**All my fics are listed on AO3 including fandoms not listed here such as Barry (HBO) and Veep. **

DEFENDING JACOB

Log kya kahenge (Andy Barber/Desi!OFC) - EXPLICIT

Summary: On the worst night of his life, Andy Barber meets Dr. Rashana Rao. A year later they meet again and he asks her out. The odds are against them with her parents' wish for an arranged marriage and his own feelings about his past. (Oneshot) [C] ❤️‍🔥 AO3 || TUMBLR

GIFTED

Don’t Let Me Down (Frank Adler/OFC) - EXPLICIT

Summary: Mary befriends a literature professor at the university who catches Frank's eye, Samantha Harris. She teases him and Frank falls hard when he least expects it. (Oneshot) [C] ❤️‍🔥 AO3 || TUMBLR

GHOSTBUSTERS

All My Pictures of You (Egon Spengler/OFC) - TEEN

Summary: After the destruction of Gozer, Callie Spengler decides to read her parents' journals to understand their doomed romance in their own words. (Oneshot) [C] AO3 || TUMBLR

MARVEL

AVENGERS

but it's golden, like daylight (Steve Rogers/OFC) - EXPLICIT

Summary: After protecting her from the Mandarin’s men, Steve Rogers becomes friends with benefits with Tony's little sister, Nicolette Stark. What was supposed to be a little fun becomes much more than what they originally bargained for. Post 2012 The Avengers through Endgame. (Multi-chapter)+ ❤️‍🔥 🩸 AO3 || TUMBLR

MOON KNIGHT

the eye of the moon (Moon Boys System x Layla x Desi!OFC)

Summary: Ash Rajul serves the goddess Sekhmet as her avatar working to keep the most vulnerable safe. 3 years ago, she had a falling out with Khonshu’s former avatar, Arthur Harrow, and seeks to keep the world safe from his vengeance. Marc Spector doesn’t trust her, Steven Grant is enamored with her, and Layla El-Faouly is her former lover who wants her help. They better figure it out because somebody’s gotta save the world.(Multi-chapter) [C] ❤️‍🔥 🩸 ❤️‍🩹 AO3 || TUMBLR

MULTI-FANDOM PROMPTS

FALL 2022 PROMPTS

STAR WARS

Gold Eyes (Din Djarin/OFC) - EXPLICIT

Summary: Din’s ongoing rivalry with his least favorite bounty hunter becomes something else once the kid enters the picture.(Oneshot) [C] ❤️‍🔥 AO3 || TUMBLR

STRIPES

Rebel Rebel (Russell Ziskey/OFC) - EXPLICIT

Summary: Before he enlists, Russell Ziskey has an amazing one-night stand and wakes up alone. To his surprise, 18 months later, she interviews him and John about their rescue and doesn't seem to remember him at all. (Oneshot) [C] ❤️‍🔥 AO3 || TUMBLR

SUCCESSION

Can’t Make You Happier Now (Kendall Roy/Desi!OFC) - EXPLICIT

Summary: Nearly twenty years ago, Kendall Roy made Nisha Asuri a promise to rule the world with her. The son of a media mogul and the sister of two tech wunderkinds. The most formidable power couple New York has ever seen. That was the deal. So, she did her part. Built her reputation as a ruthless corporate lawyer. Had his children. Stayed with him through the highest highs and lowest lows. She deserves to win not realizing that nothing goes as planned when your partner is Kendall Roy. (Multi-chapter) [C] ❤️‍🔥  ❤️‍🩹 AO3 || TUMBLR

TED LASSO

under the mistletoe  (Ted Lasso/OFC) - MATURE

Summary: Ted develops a crush on one of Rebecca's famous friends, so Rebecca invites her to a Christmas party. (Oneshot) [C] AO3 || TUMBLR

mirrorball  (Ted Lasso/Desi!OFC) - EXPLICIT

Summary: Ted develops a budding friendship with a single mom who happens to be a popular romance author, Priyala Kumari.  Her eldest barely knows who he is while her youngest is a Richmond super fan and the most aggressive player on Phoebe's team.  Priyala knows even less than he does about football, loves tea (chai), and has the sweetest laugh he's ever heard. She likes Ted just as much but wants to support him as his friend. Until they get matched on bantr. (Multi-chapter) [C] ❤️‍🔥 AO3 || TUMBLR

[opera-ghosts]

  Despite Mary Garden's Scottish birth and return to roots in 1939, Paris and Chicago were the centers of her career as a diva with a difference. In Ronald L. Davis' words, she was "gracious and charming, but above all things, brainy," as much an actress as a singer, "the Sarah Bernhardt of the operatic stage." Her range was formidable. She informed one interviewer that "I have 34 roles in three languages which I have learned completely. Sixteen were written for me." Those 16 did not include Debussy's Mélisande, but the composer chose and coached her for the first (and at that time only) performance of Pelléas on April 20, 1902, at Paris' Opéra-Comique. Debussy wrote in her score,"You alone will remain the woman and artist I had hardly dared hope for." He also coached and cherished Maggie Teyte later on, but Garden was the original. She introduced Mélisande to New York in 1908 (at Oscar Hammerstein's Met-competitor, the Manhattan Opera House), and to Chicago at a matinee on  November 3, 1910, two days after their new Grand Opera Company debuted in Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Theater. Garden, noted for her "stillness" as Mélisande, continued to sing the role until 1931, her last year in Chicago, where she reigned for 21 seasons, one of them as "directa" (her coinage) of the notoriously costly season of 1921-1922: a $1.1 million deficit.  In 1934, Garden sang her final opera, Alfano's Resurrection, fittingly, at the Opéra-Comique. She had debuted there as Charpentier's Louise on April 13, 1900, two months after the premiere, replacing Marthe Rotion, who fell ill after the second act. This, too, became a Garden specialty for the next 30 years. Instantly famous, she created Pierné's La fille de Tabarin even before Mélisande. In 1905 Massenet wrote Cendrillon for her; Erlanger added Aphrodite in 1906. She also performed Gounod's Marguerite and Juliet, Verdi's La traviata, Puccini's Tosca, Montemezzi's Fiora, and Honegger's Judith (in 1927). It was Strauss' Salome, however, that made her a sensation stateside when she sang it on January 27, 1909, for Hammerstein, in Oscar Wilde's original French. She spent two years learning the role, tried it out in Paris, but didn't become notorious until New York, then Chicago, in November 1910 (where her audience was so scandalized that a third performance was canceled, but played without incident on tour in Milwaukee). She revived Salome in 1921, during her "directa" season, but again a third Chicago performance was canceled, although Milwaukee and 12 other cities welcomed it without incident. By then 47, Garden retired the role, although it remained one she "enjoyed the most" along with Mélisande, Louise, Carmen, Février's Monna Vanna, and two by Massenet -- Thaïs and Le Jongleur de Notre Dame. Massenet was in fact the composer she performed most, also singing Manon, Cléopâtre, Werther's Charlotte, Don Quichotte's Dulcinée, La Navarraise, and finally Sappho. Jongleur was her final Chicago performance, although she returned in 1935 to give master classes, and a lecture tour in 1947. Before retiring to Scotland, she worked in Hollywood as a "technical advisor" on operatic sequences. Garden was brought to the U.S. as a child -- Bridgeport, CT, first, then Chicago where she studied singing until, in 1896, a patron sponsored two years in Paris. When Garden ran out of money, Sybil Sanderson (Massenet's original Thaïs) befriended her. But from 1900 on, Mary Garden became the Maria Callas of her era: none less than James Gibbons Huneker (1860-1921) devoted four chapters of Bedouins to her in 1920, despite his detestation of Debussy's Pelléas!                

[multiverseforger]

Born in Milbury House in Victorian London, Nathaniel Essex was the son of Admiral Erasmus Essex and his wife Mary Essex. Earning a full scholarship to the University of Oxford, Essex becomes a biologist in 1859 and married his wife Rebecca. A contemporary of Charles Darwin, Essex becomes highly interested in theories and research regarding evolution and "survival of the fittest." He concludes that humanity is undergoing increasing mutation, due to what he calls "Essex Factors" in the human genome. After the loss of his four-year-old son Adam due to birth defects, Essex becomes more obsessed with his work. While he dreams of evolving the human race to a greater state of being, he is also frustrated that his peers do not agree with his methods due to moral constraints, arguing that science is beyond morality. His research methods and ideas lead to mockery and finally ousting from the Royal Society and the scientific community. Angry and bitter, Essex decides he will accept becoming a "monster" in the eyes of others if that is what is necessary to achieve success in his work.[2]

Essex later hires the criminal Cootie Tremble and his gang, the Marauders. The Marauders kidnap homeless and neglected people off the streets of London as test subjects for Essex's experiments, including a man named Daniel Summers (an ancestor of the X-Man Scott Summers AKA Cyclops). Two years after Adam's death, the Marauders awaken the immortal Egyptian called En Sabah Nur ("The First One," known in later years as Apocalypse), whom Essex believes is the first of a new race of mutant humans. Holding similar beliefs regarding "survival of the fittest", the mutant villain Nur offers an alliance in order to aid Essex's research.[2]

Cyclops and Phoenix, heroes from the future, arrive via time travel to stop Nur from conquering 19th century England, though they also hope to find a way to prevent Dr. Essex's future transformation into Mr. Sinister. Nur defeats Cyclops and Phoenix, leaving them for Essex to experiment on. Phoenix explains to Essex that continuing his work with Nur will lead to worldwide destruction. Sensing truth in her words, Essex decides to leave behind his research and dedicate his life to family instead, as his wife Rebecca is pregnant once again. Unknown to him, Rebecca Essex investigates his lab and is shocked to discover imprisoned human test subjects and the remains of their son being experimented on. Freeing the prisoners and reburying her son, the strain and stress evidently cause Rebecca to go into premature labor. When Nathaniel arrives to explain he is leaving behind his unorthodox research, he finds that the unborn child has died in stillbirth and Rebecca is now dying as well. Nathaniel asks for forgiveness, but Rebecca refuses, saying with her dying breath, "To me, you are... utterly… and contemptibly… sinister!" Following Rebecca's death, Essex allies with En Sabah Nur, becoming the villain's first "prelate." Using alien technology at his disposal, Apocalypse subjects Essex to a painful genetic transformation, turning him into an ageless being with chalk-white skin and gifting him with a form of telekinesis. When En Sabah Nur tells the transformed scientist to shed his past identity and choose another, Essex decides he will now be "Sinister."[2] While claiming his humanity has now been carved out of him, Essex continues to carry Rebecca's photo until 1882.[2]

Another encounter with Cyclops convinces Sinister that the hero knows him from the future. Cyclops and Jean Grey then leave before Sinister can get further answers. When Apocalypse demands Sinister create a deadly plague that they can unleash on Earth, the scientist refuses, arguing that cruelty without purpose is ignorance, thus the enemy of science. Appreciating that Sinister has shown strength through defiance, Apocalypse returns to his hibernation state but promises that when he returns Essex will be his servant and they will reshape the world.[2] Following the death of Charles Darwin, Sinister travels to America and assumes the identity of obstetrician "Nathan Milbury" (taking the name of his ancestral home), head of the Essex Clinic in New York in the 1890s. There he continues secret experiments on people in order to learn more about genetic manipulation and improve his own biology. He comes to understand more and more that certain people are born with an "X-factor gene" or "X-gene", making them mutants whose powers and abilities often manifest during puberty or trauma. One early test subject is a mutant with a long lifespan named Amanda Mueller. To see how her children will be affected by her genes, Sinister has Amanda marry his former test subject Daniel Summers (who recently became the first of his family to immigrate to America). With each birth, Amanda feigns a miscarriage and secretly brings the baby to Sinister, who compensates her. Seeing great potential in the Summers family line, Sinister monitors the family for over a century to come.

Around this same time, Sinister encounters Courier and Gambit, two mutants from the future. Sinister takes a cell sample from the shape-shifting Courier and is able to implant its genetic traits into his own body, gaining complete control of his form's appearance and allowing himself to regenerate from damage. Before Courier and Gambit leave, Sinister sees evidence that he has (or will) perform surgery on Gambit at some point in the future.[10]

In 1899, Apocalypse emerges from hibernation again and is pleased with Sinister's work, including the development of a deadly techno-organic virus. Sinister then injects the virus into Apocalypse, but it only weakens the villain. As Apocalypse returns to hibernation to heal, he promises to kill Sinister when next they meet. Sinister decides his genetic research must now include the possible creation of a mutant who can kill Apocalypse.[11]

20th CenturyEdit

In 1907, Sinister works at the Ravencroft Institute and employs the mutant killer Sabretooth as an agent. Sabretooth brings him the mutant called Logan. Sinister experiments on Logan but the man is then freed by coworker Dr. Claudia Russell (ancestor of the werewolf Jack Russell). Sinister then leaves Ravencroft and Logan's powerful mutant recovery abilities eventually heal the damage he suffered.[12] In 1912, Sinister encounters Grigory Rasputin and encourages him to father many children, promising they will have superhuman potential. These descendants later include the mutant warrior siblings Colossus, Magik, and Mikhail Rasputin.[13] A few years later, Sinister grants shape-shifting abilities to Jacob Shaw (father of the X-Men villain Sebastian Shaw).[14] It has been implied that during the 1920s, Sinister gave Dr. Herbert Edgar Wyndham information regarding how to map and break a human genetic code, thus leading to his career as the master geneticist called the High Evolutionary.[15]

During the 1920s, Sinister lives in Los Angeles as "Nathan Essex" and befriends radio comedian Faye Livingstone. Realizing Faye's genetic potential to have mutant children, he keeps her prisoner and experiments on her for some time, then one day releases her. Faye never has children and develops cancer. When both her mind and body break down, she become a patient at a hospital in San Diego for the rest of her life, her treatment apparently provided for by Sinister himself, who visits her once a year in his human guise of Essex.[16]

During World War II, Sinister works with the Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele. Others who see Sinister nickname him "Nosferatu." A young Max Eisenhardt (who will grow to be Magneto) encounters him at this time and realizes that Sinister is experimenting on children, then killing those he deems failures or no longer needed. During this time, Sinister sometimes plays a favorite piece by Franz Shubert, and decades later Magneto still associates him with the music.[17] During his work with the Nazis, Sinister creates a clone of the Atlantean warrior Namor, the Sub-Mariner. The clone, N2, is defeated by Captain America and Sinister soon concludes that it's time for him to leave the Nazis behind, as they will soon lose the war. Sinister's research during World War II is later recovered and used by the scientists behind the Weapon X project.[18]

Following World War II, Sinister adopts the name "Dr. Nathan Milbury" again and works on Project: Black Womb with Dr. Kurt Marko (the father of Juggernaut) and Dr. Alexander Ryking (who, like Marko, is a friend and colleague of Brian Xavier, father of Charles Xavier), as well as the precognitive mutant Irene Adler. They conduct research on many mutant children and take note of several families that may produce mutant children later, allowing Sinister to monitor them for decades.[19] In 1968, during the Vietnam War, Scalphunter brings soldiers and civilians to Sinister's new lab in Saigon for experimentation. Sabretooh, working as a mercenary, is hired to find the truth about the "White Devil" and his connection to reports of missing people, as well as the rumors of "monster men" appearing. Scalphunter tells Sabretooth to leave him and Sinister alone, offering money and teasing that he will let the authorities know the mercenary has been killing prostitutes during his investigation. Sabretooth agrees to leave with the money and Scalphunt indicates that he and Sinister will recruit him in the future.[20] Some years later, Sinister returns to England as Dr. Milbury, becoming a professor at the University of Oxford. His students include Moira MacTaggert and the mutant telepath Charles Xavier, who realizes he cannot sense Dr. Milbury's mind or read his thoughts.[21]

Years after Sinister's time back at Oxford, and during the time that Charles Xavier is first befriending Magneto while both are living in Isreal, a version of the heroic mutant Hank McCoy from an alternate timeline (known as the "Age of Apocalypse") enters the mainstream Marvel reality. Known as the Dark Beast, this version of McCoy is an amoral geneticist who worked for years under the mentorship of his reality's version of Sinister. Dark Beast eventually makes his way to New York City and experiments on many mutants, using techniques Sinister taught him. Several of his surviving test subjects become deformed or disabled by their own abilities as a result, choosing to hide underground and join a sewer-dwelling mutant community known as the "Morlocks" (taking the name from the subterranean race of the novel The Time Machine). Years later, Dark Beast's experiments indirectly lead to Sinister ordering the "Mutant Massacre."

[keptin-indy]

Dresden Files: Salem

I’ll try to post these on Mondays or Tuesday, since that’s when I do the previous weekend’s writeups.  Feel free to ask questions if anything not clear or you just want to know something!

Background info

If you know the Dresden Files books, this game starts during the events of Changes, but with some small changes.  If you don’t know the books, the relevant info is that wizards and “Red Court” vampires have been at war for some years now and the main character, Harry Dresden, just managed to set off a really powerful curse that killed all of them.  For some reason, during the fight leading up to that, the Wardens - wizard cops - were unable to help him because “they were sick”.  The big change in this campaign is that the illness was a deadly plague set off by the vampire ambassador who had just been by and it killed a swath of the powerful people who had gathered to meet her.

I’ll try to link Dresden-specific terms to wiki pages for people unfamiliar with the universe.  There may also be some easter eggs in the links sometimes...

Setting (in the GM’s words)

If anyone in America were asked to compile a list of the locations important to the occult history of the country, it would surely include Salem.  The town is nearly universally associated with the witch trials of the 1690s.  Everyone, clued-in or not, associates Salem with witches, and, in this world of the occult, associations can have power.  In this case it has lead to Salem having probably the largest supernatural community on the east coast of North America.  That area includes (for the supernatural community at least) Boston as well.  

And community it is, much more so than many other cities around the globe.  Salem is a geographically small town, yet rich in history, emotions, and magic all attracting a different crowd from the spooky side, if they didn’t have some structure and order there would be constant conflict (well, more-constant conflict).  The city has evolved a particular brand of stability, with regular gatherings of all the major power-players in the city.  This isn’t a court or anything so formal as that, but usually neutral parties will side with the aggrieved party in conflicts, preserving the status quo.  Until recently these gatherings were informally lead by [Warden regional commander] Michael Rowland, one of the more powerful denizens of Salem, how they will shake out going forward remains to be seen…

Characters, or at least what was known about them at the start of game.  The Dreseden Files RPG is set up so that most of the PCs had met each other by the start of game, but we weren’t a coherent party yet.

Murchah O’Dougal has lived in Salem for a long time.  He switches jobs every few decades, but it’s Salem, so people have caught on that the tall, thin, taciturn, middle aged man isn’t your vanilla mortal.  Additionally, he likes taking long walks on the beach...the parts under the water, without the benefit of breathing gear.  He’s not a very social man, but he helps out where he can, especially if it involves ghosts, which he can see and interact with.  He’s the one who convinced Eunice to leave her nursing home.

Eunice Featherham’s son married a witch.  Now, Eunice was an intelligent woman and knew there was no such thing as magic, so it was pretty insulting that her daughter-in-law could use it.  It was even more insulting that she taught it to their daughter Evelyn, but then both her son and the witch had to die in a house fire, leaving Eunice to raise Evelyn the Right Way, eg without magic.  Over the years as Evelyn grew up, Eunice could feel her age catching up with her, and when it was time for her granddaughter to go to college, they sold Eunice’s house for tuition and put her into a nursing home, where she eventually died.  Damned if that was going to stop her, though, not when there were so many people who needed her sage advice, starting with the nurses at the home.  In desperation, the home called the Salem Witches’ Circle (kind of a magical chamber of commerce), who asked Murchah to talk the irate ghost out of terrorizing the staff.  

They also called Dr. Evelyn Featherham, who was now living in Boston as the city’s only therapist dealing with the supernatural.  After a long struggle with Eunice’s parenting, Evelyn had finally reclaimed her magical heritage and was using her experiences to help others through situations they couldn’t explain to anyone else.  One of those people, 10 years ago during her clinicals, was a teenage mage grieving over the loss of his father.  Now, though, she had to deal with being permanently haunted by her grandmother and trying to convince her receptionist not to quit because of the new office ghost telling her how to answer the phone correctly.

Once upon a time, a witch found a tiny black kitten in a dumpster.  She had been looking for a familiar, so it seemed like serendipity and she took him in and named him Sir Adler Toebeans.  She was absolutely not expecting her cat to start talking a couple years later and even less to change his shape into anything he felt like.  It seemed her kitty was in fact some kind of fae or at least a changeling, though he didn’t have any more idea what he was than she did.  Regardless, she switched awkwardly from pet mom to real mom and Adler eventually moved out and got a job at Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, where he worked in the museum itself and made short films as both advertising and subtle education. [A note on pronouns: I’m using “he” because Adler has presented as slightly more masculine than anything else during the game.  He doesn’t seem to have an innate sex or gender, so I may switch back and forth with “they” depending on how game goes/the situation.]

A wizard with a mysterious past came from Syria to America and fell in love with a woman whose high-society family had profited off of the supernatural while disdaining them as people.  The pair ran away together and she was disowned, so they settled in Boston where he took magical odd jobs and she tried to figure out how to be working class.  Eventually Sebastian “Baz” Bassam was born and later his sister Olivia, and their father began to teach them how to control their magical talents.  When Baz was 14, his father was killed in a multi-car pileup, but not before his uncontrolled magical energies shorted out an entire hospital wing, unintentionally taking a lot of people with him.  This large-scale violation of the First Law of Magic brought the attention of the local Warden-Commander, Michael Rowland, and when Baz subsequently brought down a possession victim with his therapist during his grief counselling, Rowland decided to train the boy alongside his daughter Sylvia.  These days he’s a full-fledged Warden who likes to think of his duties as magical community outreach rather than beheading first ans asking questions later.  He also looks like a cheerful Syrian lumberjack.  [Note: Dat’s me!  It’s going to seem like I spent a narcissistic amount of time on my own character in the writeups, but a) the first arc just has a lot of Baz-plot and b) when the GM asks if anyone is doing anything, the others haven’t really answered much and I hate to leave the GM hanging.]

As part of his education in control, Rowland sent Baz to a Tibetan monastery when he was 19 to learn meditation and healing with the monks there, traditional allies of the White Council of Wizards.  While there, Baz befriended a litter of Temple Dogs, newly returned from having been dognapped and taken to Chicago of all places.  One of the puppies was notably rambunctious and ended up outside the monastery walls trying to eat a yeti several orders of magnitude bigger than it.  The puppy ran back to the temple, yeti in hot pursuit, and hid behind the Warden-in training, who fought off the yeti and saved the puppy and monks from the puppy’s own bad decisions.  As a “reward”, he was given the perpetrator so the monks wouldn’t have to deal with it.  Baz named him Samuel Gompers Bassam and took him back to Boston, where he grew into a very large Tibetan Mastiff who can see spirits and whose teeth technically count as a holy weapon, which he mostly uses against Baz’s shoes.  At one point while attempting to eat a ghoul, Sam met Adler as a dog and brought him back home, where he stayed for a few days before abruptly turning into a bird, thanking Baz for his hospitality, and leaving before any questions could be asked. [Note: Yes, Sam is a PC.  One of my friends decided it was an awesome idea to play an actual, only slightly magical, non-talking dog.]

Session 1

The town of Salem had been enjoying an uneventful Fall, supernaturally-speaking.  Even Halloween, always an anxious time for those in the know, had gone by without any major mishaps.  That all changed one night in November, when every practitioner or supernatural being in the world awoke from vivid dreams of the world ending in fire and blood.  Many people recognized the dreams as the psychic backlash from some kind of spell, and those with more magical experience further narrowed it down to some kind of worldwide curse effect even though such things were thought to be impossible.  Around Salem, the Community woke in terror and reached out to one another.  The shapeshifter Adler called his mother in the Witches Circle, who told him that calls had begun to come in from several of their members, including some of the older ones, who were so shocked by the experience that they had been taken to the hospital.  Dr Evelyn Featherham likewise checked in with the Circle and headed to the hospital herself to volunteer for on-call psych services.  Her late grandmother, Eunice Featherham, checked the news on the constantly-on TVs in her nursing home and saw confused reports rolling in of simultaneous coups and assassinations in several South American countries, which she assumed was the work of either the CIA or Communists.  Finding that news less than interesting, she floated out to track down her granddaughter.  Murchah O’Dougal, always watchful of the ocean for reasons known only to himself, walked into the Bay, but saw nothing amiss; whatever he was looking for had not been disturbed by the hideous dreams.  Baz Bassam, Warden of the White Council, immediately checked on his mother but found that her sleep hadn’t been disturbed at all; presumably meaning that regular mortals were unaffected by the spell’s backlash.  He called his sister at college, who most definitely had woken up, but had nothing to offer her besides assurances that they were all okay for the moment.  Knowing Warden-Commander Rowland was in Edinburgh at the moment, he called head witch Mary Harrison, who was coordinating a makeshift command center to coordinate help to those who needed it and a response, should it become necessary.  Before heading over to lend his help there, he checked in with Warden Command at Edinburgh, but found chaos there, too.  The wizard who answered the phone said that they only thing they knew right now was that the Red Court appeared to be no more.  From what they could tell, every single member had been wiped out at once by a spell.  Once they had more information, they’d be sure to get back to Warden Bassam, but in the meantime they had to figure out who was in charge of the Wardens.  This was almost as alarming than the giant curse as far as Baz was concerned, but with no more info coming from Edinburgh, all he could do was head to the witches’ command center and try to keep people calm and safe until more news came out.

After a long, sleepless night, morning came with no more information.  Invitations went out to the members of the Greater Boston supernatural community from Ian Fitzpatrick, the caretaker of the largest neutral territory in the area, Hamilton Hall.  Before the meeting in the evening, one of Edinburgh’s army of clerks called Baz to read off the last wills and testaments of Michael and Sylvia Rowland, naming him as heir to their magical holdings.  Baz was gutted, as Michael Rowland had been his mentor and surrogate father-figure since his father’s death, and he’d grown up and trained alongside Sylvia for nearly ten years.  The clerk couldn’t tell him how they had died or any details about what was happening within the Wardens; only that he would likely get “official” notification of the Rowlands’ deaths at some future date.  That the lawyers were working faster than the Wardens was significant cause for alarm all on its own.

That evening, Fitzpatrick welcomed representatives from all the major power blocs and notable individuals into Hamilton Hall, formally allowing everyone through the threshold.  Baz sought out Mary Harrison before the meeting proper began and warned her about the deaths of the Rowlands and magical killing of the Red Court.  Fitzpatrick brought the meeting to order and announced the Rowlands’ deaths himself, calling for a moment of silence that was observed by most people present, with the notable exception of the representatives of the Winter Court (and Eunice, though due more to her difficulty hearing than any disrespect).  Adler asked how they had died and Fitzpatrick said there had been an attack on the Wardens in Edinburgh, which was the first Baz had heard of it.  Ignoring that for now and trying to give the impression of a calm and level-headed authority figure who wasn’t grieving, Baz announced that he knew where the nightmares had come from and explained the curse that had taken out the entire Red Court.  The gathering was shocked that something that large could have happened and that the threat of the Red Court was suddenly gone (though the Summer Court and Daniyah, a powerful local sorceress, seemed less surprised), and Fitzpatrick adjourned the meeting , saying that he knew full well some people were going to use the situation to jockey for power.  He gave them a week to get it all out of their systems and then he would call another meeting to see where Boston should go from there.  The jockeying and networking began before anyone even made it out the doors.  Baz asked Daniyah what she or her spirits knew about the attacks, but she would only tell him that “things” were awakening that had lain dormant for many years.  Knowing it would do no good, Baz continued to press for details and was informed that the city faced two threats...from within and from without.  Eunice floated from group to group eavesdropping and overheard the Winter Court proposing to murder someone for the sole reason that the scarier warden was dead now, which she dutifully reported to Baz with a stern admonition to stop them.  Without more details, Baz simply went over and stood meaningfully by the faeries.  Meanwhile, Adler took on his dog form and sought out Sam, warning him that his wizard was in danger and offering his help guarding him for the next few days.  Sam, in turn, told him to be aware of Daniyah, who no longer smelled purely human anymore, but instead like some kind of spirit, and also her owl familiar, who was definitely a spirit, though he hadn’t been able to figure out what kind without licking it.  Baz turned around to see a familiar black dog incongruously petting his own dog, and asked if he would stick around and answer some questions this time.  Adler agreed, but answered everything as literally as possible without offering any information was wasn’t specifically spelled out and some that was.  He told Baz that he had enjoyed the name he’d given him last time and to keep using that, and that he would follow and protect Baz along with Sam while the immediate danger hopefully passed.  Seeing that Baz was distracted from his rightful duties, Eunice got into an argument with the Winter Court, but her attempt to spook them into following the straight-and-narrow backfired when they scared her right back, startling her back into a dementia episode.  Baz and his two large dogs circulated amongst the other faction heads, assuring them that he was as dedicated to keeping the peace as his predecessor and generally attempting to politic.  Murchah drew him aside and offered to train him to use the sword he carried and Baz tried to find a polite way to tell him that he had specialized in swordplay for years.  Unconvinced, Murchah asked to see his fighting stance and was pleasantly surprised to find that Baz was not merely boasting.  

Finally, the meeting broke up and Murchah headed back out to his ocean patrol, only this time he noticed strange behavior in the fish.  Not being a spellcaster himself and having no way to track magical energy, he called the Circle, who told him to call the Warden.  Baz had not yet made it home, so Murchah left a cryptic message with Baz’s mother to call him back.  Eventually Baz returned home with one dog more than he left with and reintroduced “Fenrir” to his mother, warning her this time that he was definitely sentient and could talk (though Adler refused to do so on principle now).  He returned Murchah’s call, but with nothing more to go off of than “the fish are weird”, decided to let it wait until morning.  Adler insisted on sleeping in Baz’s room, which required some setting of ground rules, starting with a promise never to harm his mother.  Adler agreed, but was less forthcoming in answering Baz’ questions about his nature or allegiance, saying only that he wanted to protect both Sam’s human and the city balance he represented as a Warden.  He otherwise revealed only that he could take on many forms, though he wouldn’t say if he had a natural or default one, and that he usually worked at Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, where he could use his skills to great effect.  Baz was both fascinated and slightly frustrated at the mysterious creature playing bodyguard for him, but when he found that Adler could use computers, he immediately handed over the password for the email account Olivia had maintained for him and begged his help keeping in contact.

“Fenrir” woke up early the next morning and got the household coffee, which he served to them with creepy mostly-human hands on a dog body.  Betsy (Baz’s mother) was relieved when Baz gathered the dogs and put on some swimwear to meet Murchah at the beach.  After some discussion about everyone’s underwater capabilities, Baz conjured air bubbles around his and Sam’s heads while Adler turned into a Lovecraftian fishman, and the group followed Murchah into the Bay, but Baz was at a loss figuring out what was causing the irregularities Murchah claimed to see.  Sam happily ate one of the affected fish.  Returning to the surface, Baz asked Murchah to call Dr Evelyn Featherham, who was more sensitive to tracing ongoing magical effects than he was, but shortly after her receptionist answered the phone, the poor woman was shoved aside so that Eunice could do her job “better”.  Talking around the old ghost, Baz asked the receptionist to pass the message along when Evelyn had a free moment.  Evelyn eventually had a chance to call back from her ghost-proofed office and promised to come out during her lunch break.  Murchah hired a boat so that Evelyn (followed, of course, by Eunice, who was determined to chaperone her daughter meeting a young man on a beach) wouldn’t have to get her work clothes wet, but she couldn’t see the magical eddies from above the water and ended up having to do into the drink anyway.  Unfortunately for her, only Adler seemed to be adapted enough for underwater hunting of this kind, and he realized that the fish were all swimming in a huge circle tens of miles across.  The group returned to the boat to track down the center of this circle, which was occupied by a “fishing trawler” that didn’t seem to be doing any fishing.  Adler turned into a bird to scope it out and noticed that some of the “fishermen” milling around on deck not fishing were concealing decidedly non-standard tentacle-arms.  When he reported this back to the group, Eunice immediately floated over to the trawler and began haranguing the people on deck about their terrible work ethic.  The “fishermen” were not expecting a sudden ghostly tirade and very sensibly tried to escape her senile wrath.  Taking advantage of this distraction, Adler changed from a bird into a rat, dropping onto the deck and scurrying below.  One of the doors inside was both locked and well-sealed, so he disconcertingly grew hands in order to pick it.  The door swung open, revealing the rat with hands on the one side, and a number of tentacled cultists chanting around a circle on the other side.  Adler scurried out of sight, but the cultists merely locked the door rather than give chase.  Adler tried to direct Eunice’s wrath downstairs, but she found that the room was warded against spirits.  Adler again reported back to the other boat and Murchah drew up alongside the trawler so the mages could board and follow the shapeshifter below.  Adler once again picked the lock and Baz opened the door and demanded to know what was going on with as much gravitas as a man wearing a tank and swim trunks could manage.  The cultists rushed to attack the newcomers while Murchah ran straight for the summoning circle and began disrupting it, hearing unsettlingly familiar and ancient voices whispering in his head while he did so.  As Baz and Sam fought the cultists, Adler transformed into a hideous claw monster and jumped into the fray, startling everyone on both sides.  Eventually the cultists were knocked unconscious and Evelyn could examine the remains of the circle Murchah was still determinedly wrecking, declaring that it had been meant to awaken something deep in the ocean.

[currenthealtheventsblog-blog]

As ‘Broad City’ bids farewell, is an era of peak Jewish TV ending?

New Post has been published on https://currenthealthevents.net/awesome/as-broad-city-bids-farewell-is-an-era-of-peak-jewish-tv-ending/

As ‘Broad City’ bids farewell, is an era of peak Jewish TV ending?

( JTA) — Yas, queen — it’s all coming to an end.

“Broad City, ” the hit Comedy Central series created by and starring Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, will air the time series finale on Thursday after five seasons.

The series was groundbreaking for many reasons: It showcased a very specific comedic sensibility — empowering, female, New Yorker, millennial, stoner-oriented — that hadn’t quite been find before on mainstream television.

But another big part of the “Broad City” women’s identities was their Jewishness — something they continually mined for exceptional comedy. There was an entire episode dedicated to mocking Birthright Israel, and the other to Abbi and Ilana befriending an elderly Holocaust survivor, played by 90 -year-old “Sopranos” veteran Jerry Adler.( See our list of some of its other most Jewish moments here .)

Eight days after “Broad City” signs off for good, the CW will air the series finale of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, ” on April 5.

That series, which stars and was co-created by Rachel Bloom, also has a unique sensibility that’s very female and very Jewish. But it’s very different compared to “Broad City”: It’s a California-based, fish-out-of-water show that’s informed by the traditions of both romantic slapstick and American musical theater. It’s also highly frank about mental health.

But among its over 100 original anthems, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” had some iconic Jewish ones, including the “JAP Battle” rap( which included the lyric” So’ sheket bevaka ,’ shut the hell up ,” and was reprised in an episode last week ), the hora riff” Remember That We Suffered” and Tovah Feldshuh’s Jewish mother opus” Where’s the Bathroom .”

Those Jewy displays aren’t alone: “Transparent, ” at its zenith often called the most Jewish indicate on television, also is readying its fifth and final season following a messy infringe last year with its star Jeffrey Tambor, who was accused of sex misconduct on set.

Taken in combination, it’s becoming difficult not to feel like an age of unusually Jewish television — one practically unheard of in the history of the medium — is coming to an end. But that may not be the case.

Rebecca Bunch( Rebecca Bloom) faces off with her frenemy in a “JAP Rap Battle” on the CW’s musical comedy” Crazy Ex-Girlfriend .”( Screenshot from YouTube)

At an industry event in 2015, FX Network Chairman John Landgraf coined the phrase” Peak TV ,” referring to the unprecedented proliferation of new scripted presents on channels and streaming services( the Jewish film critic Alan Sepinwall helped popularize it ). The notion was that there is way more TV being produced than any one person could ever conceivably watch — and a historic amount of it is of high quality.

Peak TV clearly helped bring about the conditions for some of the great Jewish-oriented indicates of the last decade. The resulting fragmentation of TV audiences — between networks and various streaming platforms — has been a huge part of that as well, and presents without huge ratings like “Crazy-Ex Girlfriend” have lasted much longer than they may have in a different era.

The logical consensus, after hitting the “peak, ” was that the sheer number of displays and the quality was unsustainable, and would begin to deterioration at some phase. However, Landgraf backtracked last year, expressed the view that the industry whizzed past its peak and entered a “gilded age, ” without any signs of slowing down. There were more shows in 2018 than in 2017, and streaming programming increased by a whopping 46 percent, according to Variety.

“[ T] here’s too much story! There’s too much narrative, ” Landgraf said. As day rolls on, it becomes harder to “surprise the audience with something novel, ” he added.

Unsurprisingly, this trend could entail a continued boon for Jewish TV proves( regardless of what it mean for viewers ).

Take “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, ” one of the top prospering series of the past few years. There’s a serious example to be made that the demonstrate, which involves a 1950 s housewife-turned-stand-up comedian, is more Jewish-themed than “Broad City, ” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” or “Transparent.”

Jeffrey Tambor, right, with Judith Light in the second season of “Transparent.”( Courtesy of Amazon Studios)

Then there’s the popular Netflix series “Russian Doll, ” starring and co-created by the Jewish actress Natasha Lyonne, which is full of Jewish references( it takes place in a converted yeshiva, for example ). The depict seemed to tell a self-contained story, although the producers say they are open to further seasons.

“Curb Your Enthusiasm, ” the enduring series by Jewish slapstick god Larry David, will soon enter its 10 th season( even if it’s past its prime ). Acclaimed director Jordan Peele is creating a series about Jewish Nazi hunters for Amazon.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Who Is America” also featured a comic Israeli soldier, Col. Erran Morad — a man able to rope conservative political figures into embarrassing gaffes. That prove was one and done, but Cohen is getting set to play 1960 s snoop Eli Cohen in the upcoming Netflix limited series “The Spy.”

Beyond that, there’s a seemingly endless onslaught of Israeli shows that have captivated audiences upon their arrival on American streaming services. American remakings of Israeli shows have been popular for years( find “Homeland” and “In Treatment” ), but now the original demonstrates from Israel are constructing the jumping. There’s “Fauda, ” “Hostages” (” Bnei Aruba “) and “Shtisel” on Netflix, and “Kfulim” and “Prisoners of War”( the source material for “Homeland”) on Hulu.

At a period of intense disagreement in American discourse about Israel, it appears the one thing everyone can agree on is that they love Israeli TV shows.

So while “Broad City, ” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “Transparent” were milestone depicts, never afraid to be loudly and proudly Jewish, encapsulating the cultural American Jewish experience in new and entertaining styles, Jewish TV lovers shouldn’t dread. They simply paved the style for more. And in the new epoch of television, at least for now, there’s plenty of room for any and everything.

May the Jewish indicates of the future aim for similar groundbreaking boldness.

The post As’ Broad City’ bids farewell, is an era of peak Jewish TV aiming ? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Read more: jta.org

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Prosecutors want testimony of 19 other accusers for Cosby retrial

(Reuters) – Pennsylvania prosecutors on Thursday asked the judge who will preside over the second sexual assault trial of actor Bill Cosby to allow the testimony of 19 other accusers, including 12 women who were not allowed testify in the entertainer’s first trial.

Cosby, 80, is scheduled go to trial on April 2 on charges that he sexually assaulted Andrea Constand at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Cheltenham in January 2004, after drugging her and rendering her incapacitated.

Constand worked with the women’s basketball team at Temple University, where Cosby, a university alumnus, befriended her.

His first trial ended in a mistrial last June when a jury was unable to reach a verdict after deliberating for five days.

In court papers filed on Thursday, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele asked Judge Steven O‘Neill to admit evidence from 19 women regarding Cosby’s “prior bad acts,” even though it is not directly related to the alleged assault on Constand.

The testimony is relevant, prosecutors argued, because it would enable them to establish that Cosby “who over the course of decades, intentionally intoxicated young women in signature fashion and then sexually assaulted them while they were incapacitated, could not have been mistaken about whether or not Ms. Constand was conscious enough to consent to any sexual contact.”

Cosby, who starred in the 1980s TV series “The Cosby Show” and built a long career on family-friendly comedy, has denied assaulting anyone and has portrayed all of the encounters as consensual.

Steele asked O‘Neill to allow 13 of the 19 women to testify in the first trial, but the judge denied the request for all but one, Kelley Johnson, who prosecutors said testified to an “eerily similar” encounter with Cosby.

The other accusers, whom prosecutors did not identify, would testify to similar encounters, prosecutors said.

In general, a defendant’s prior bad acts are not admissible as evidence that he or she committed a particular crime. Prosecutors, however, are allowed on rare occasions to use evidence or witnesses to prove a defendant committed a crime as part of a longstanding pattern of behavior.

Judges typically weigh the value of such evidence against the possibility that it will unfairly prejudice a jury.

Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Leslie Adler

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The post Prosecutors want testimony of 19 other accusers for Cosby retrial appeared first on dailygate.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Beer with a Painter: Suzanne Joelson and Gary Stephan

Suzanne Joelson “Crackrakecrate” (2016) paint, vinyl graphics on wood panel, 50 x50 inches (all images courtesy the artists)

Gary Stephan and Suzanne Joelson live and work together in a building in TriBeCa. Within the building they each maintain individual floors, so my suggestion of a “couple” interview was a bit of a radical experiment. We had to decide how and where to stage our visit. Luckily they were game, ready with Captain’s Daughter IPA, and an array of cheese and snacks.

Their zones are distinct: Stephan doesn’t keep anything extra around — leaving only some minimal, modernist furniture, a vintage rowing machine for exercise, and a fantastic rotating easel. Joelson’s area is full of color, with layered collections of fabrics, textiles, and clippings in full use. Stephan says he’s lucky that he can borrow supplies from Joelson when he needs them; he refuses to buy anything in advance. They use examples from domestic life to illustrate their aesthetics: Joelson apparently doesn’t like closing closet doors — it denotes a system of closed deductions. More than anything, I’m struck by their open, inquisitive nature with each other.

This rigorous but open questioning permeates both of their practices. Joelson asks what happens when two unexpected elements or techniques bump up against one another: collaged, industrial fabrics  and the painterly, handmade gesture. Stephan refers to a formalist vocabulary, but turns any lingering obsession with the “framing edge” upside-down. There’s a curiosity in their work about different permutations of “meeting in the middle,” which is, in fact, echoed by the terms of our three-person conversation.

Stephan was born in Brooklyn in 1942, studied at Pratt Institute, and received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1967. He has had solo shows in New York at Susan Inglett Gallery, Bykert Gallery, Mary Boone Gallery, Hirschl and Adler, and Marlborough Gallery; in Los Angeles at Margo Leavin Gallery and Daniel Weinberg Gallery. He is currently represented by Kienzle Art Foundation in Berlin, where he will be the subject of a solo exhibition in the fall.

Joelson was born in 1952 in Paterson, New Jersey. She received her BA from Bennington College in 1973. She has exhibited at galleries including Nature Morte in New Delhi, Fernando Alcolea in Barcelona, and White Columns in New York. She was the subject of a solo exhibition, Slipping Systems, in the fall of 2016 at Studio 10, Brooklyn, New York.

*   *   *

Jennifer Samet: Suzanne, can you tell me about any childhood memories you have of making art?

Suzanne Joelson: My mother was a painter. When I was twelve I helped her paint scenery for a local theater group and got to keep the paint. When friends came over we painted the walls of my bedroom with stripes and dots in clashing colors right over the patterned wallpaper. My parents were fine with this and I continued to alter the room until I left for college. All these years later I am back to combining paint and print.

Suzanne Joelson  “First Back” (2012) interior of wood panel/hollow core door, 40 x 30 inches

I did not have many toys but I remember breaking, cutting, and reassembling the ones I had. Doll houses got major overhauls. At some point my mother hid the nicer dolls either to protect them or avoid cramping my style.

In high school I had a geometry teacher who did not like me. But I was oddly good at geometry. I just got it and did not need the class so she let me spend the time in the art room.

I went to the Noguchi Museum recently and thought that it was a bit like the art that I grew up seeing. It is beautiful and essentialist, and yet it’s not enough.  There’s always a sense of Noguchi being a little too good.

JS: Gary, where did you grow up? Were you into drawing as a kid?

GS: When I was a kid living in Levittown, on Long Island, like a lot of guys, I loved drawing planes and cars. I remember that in the fifth grade, I was very enamored of this other kid’s drawings. His planes looked so much better than mine, but I couldn’t figure out why. I befriended him and finally said, “Bill, let’s be candid, your planes are much better than mine. Why?” He said, “Rivets. I draw all the rivets.” I realized that was it. He had all these little dots, so it felt like it had been built like a real plane.

We would go to Mass in Levittown Hall, where local artists put their work up on the walls. The work was full of the tropes of late 1940s art: caulk balls dipped in white paint, held together with sticks, on a ground of sandpaper. It was slightly Miró-ish, or like Picabia drawings — quasi-mechanical things. I did not understand what they were but I was attracted to the physicality of them, and the curious form-making. So the plane drawings and my interest in that work run along next to each other.

Gary Stephan “Untitled” (2008) acrylic on canvas, 32 x 32 inches

I had flunked 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. Eventually I got an art teacher who saw me drawing cars all the time and said, “You know, there’s a name for that. It’s called industrial design.” I decided that was it, and that I would go to Pratt for it. But then I fell in with the painters and, before graduating, I went out to the West Coast. I went to the San Francisco Art Institute for my Masters.  Eventually, the two forces came together. A lot of my approach to painting is still with that clear, coherent, “What’s the project?” mindset of a designer.

JS: Gary, I wanted to ask you about your Catholic background, because you have said Catholic imagery, like the cruciform shape, has infiltrated your painting.

Gary Stephan: Although I’m now an atheist, I still have some of the Catholic furniture. Every once in awhile, its forms appear, or ideas about above and below: the spiritual plane and the bodily plane. I don’t resist it, but I don’t embrace it. I just let it roll into the mix and then it rolls out again.

When I was in first grade at Catholic school, I read a story called “The Prince’s Dessert,” which was the beginning of my fascination with paradox. The prince asks for a dessert that’s hot and cold at the same time. The punch line was that it was a hot fudge sundae.

I was disappointed with the outcome of the story — because a sundae is alternately hot and cold. It isn’t simultaneously hot and cold. As a boy I felt tricked by the answer. Anyway, these kinds of polarities have interested me since childhood.

As a Catholic, I never thought of the concept of shades of gray in ethical, moral, or emotional questions. That idea did not occur to me until I was well into my second year of college. It was uncomfortable for me, because it didn’t come to me naturally. I was constructed by my parents and by my church to be fundamentally binary. I know the world is not like that. It is fascinating how disappointing that is.

JS: Did the two of you meet originally through art? Suzanne, you were working for Robert Rauschenberg, right?

SJ: I worked for Merce Cunningham as the liaison between Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, and Merce. I was hanging out in that period with Ross Bleckner, Julian Schnabel, and David Salle. Gary had an opening at Mary Boone, and I went to the opening with Julian. Gary and I talked for about an hour. I was completely smitten and thought I’d made a big impression. But I wasn’t even invited to the after party.

Then, two weeks later, Gary came to a Cunningham event at the Joyce Theater.  I was with Ross, and after we took him to Studio 54, I took Gary home. He didn’t even remember me.

GS: It took a while for it to click, but once it clicked it was crazy great. We’ve been together for an amazing amount of time — 38 years. I’m incredibly lucky.

JS: Suzanne, do you think your use of recycled fabrics and materials from the street is related to the experience of doing costume and set design?

Suzanne Joelson “Broken Cocoa” (2016) paint,vinyl graphics on wood panel, 24 x 54 inches

SJ: I hadn’t thought about it but one of my favorite tasks working for Cunningham was recreating Rauschenberg’s set for “Winterbranch” (1964). At some point in the nocturnal piece Rauschenberg would drag what we called “the monster” across stage. It was usually a rolling ladder with an array of battery-operated lights and things he would find on the street. I loved doing it, even though I wasn’t as good at it as Rauschenberg was. He always had a more unlikely thought.

There is something about working with preexisting materials, adapting things outside one’s control. After Hurricane Sandy, I carried my wet paintings up six flights of stairs in the dark, with two assistants. The paintings were on hollow-core doors and water was sloshing around in them. When I ripped off the backs, a roughly applied cardboard substructure was revealed. Its diamond pattern was almost like African Kuba cloth but by different means. We arranged the paintings around the loft to dry with all the backs ripped off, and took photographs of the arrangements.

The effect of that experience was an idea of being very transitory about the work: being less caught up in the craft of it, less concerned about permanence. For a long time, I was a “pure” painter. At some point I started bringing the world back into the paintings. I don’t believe in zero-degree formalism.

JS: I am curious what you think about this, Gary: the idea of pure painting and formalism.

Gary Stephan “The Future Of Reading 5” (2016) acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

GS: My elevator pitch for my work is that I am using the tools of formalism to build the house of surrealism. I see formalism as a set of appearances designed to create something that’s visually dependable. The contribution of Surrealism is that it problematizes the reading of the world. If you take the appearance of formalism, but bang the cues into each other in such a way that the picture space wobbles or flickers, or doesn’t work properly — you are making a surreal proposition about formalism.

When I came to New York, the big division was between the sharp guys who made serious, formal objects, and the crazy aunt in the attic — of surrealism. Richard Serra would say, “The problem with Donald Judd’s work is that it is surreal.” He was referring to the concealed surfaces – things you can never know. Anytime you conceal, you’re essentially making a surreal object. That’s why Serra’s sculptures are solid steel. Anything that existed outside our vision would become secretive, mysterious, and romantic. The work has to be in plain sight and experiential.

But I could not just blow off de Chirico and Magritte. The contribution of de Chirico is that, for almost the first time in history, aside from Caspar David Friedrich, concealment is content. It is subject matter.

In my work, I try to have enough dependable information that there is a way to compare it to the missing part. The purpose is to re-engage viewers so that instead of them passively taking in the work at the level of style, you offer them the opportunity to engage the problematics of the picture space. In engaging them, they become co-constructors.

SJ: There’s also a lesson in that: that nothing is reliable. Your paintings seem like an inoculation for our collective anxiety about the contradictions of the world. You practice not being able to depend on a predictable space.

GS: Absolutely. It gets to the Russian idea of defamiliarization and the Brechtian idea of alienation. What they want to do is get the viewer into the pain of responsibility in a difficult world at the level of play. You are making art, so it should be fun, but it is also dealing with essentially difficult questions.

It has to do with the citizen’s relationship to the world. For example, I think one of the reasons Trump is appealing to people is that he is saying, “Only I can solve this problem.” It is essentially a paternalistic model. The academic model of painting was essentially paternalistic. It says, “We’ve got all the cards; we know what art looks like; we’re in charge; you’re in good hands.” It’s very Trumpian. What happens with the Impressionists is they say, “Who knows how this works? Get involved, maybe you don’t like it, maybe you don’t trust it. You can co-construct this if you’re so inclined.”

JS: Suzanne, can you tell me about how you deconstruct order and sequences? I know you utilize the Fibonacci cycle in constructing your paintings and multi-panel pieces.

SJ: I tend to start with an order, which I resist. But sometimes it is the other way around and I tug the visual cacophony toward a system. I utilize the Fibonacci cycle, but contaminate it with a degree of lived life.

Suzanne Joelson “Massaging Kale” (2016) paint, vinyl graphics on wood panel, 48 x 84 inches

My cousin who lives in Paris visited recently and we had a sort of French night out in Soho. On our way from Lucky Strike to dessert at Balthazar, we passed the biggest mass of rats I have ever seen in New York. On a shop-filled block we crossed the street to get out of their way. In the context of that evening it was the most exciting part.

GS: Wow. There’s a unique take — “Dessert was great, but the rats were even better.”

SJ: I’ve had lots of great desserts but how often have I seen that many persistent rats? They were undeterred by gentrification. I think about the fact that now, psychologically, so much is colored by what is happening with the Trump presidency. I constantly contend with the question of how much news and information I can digest.

GS: I’ve thought for a long time that if I paid really close attention to politics and then didn’t say to myself, “How can I consciously translate this into a work of art,” but let it leach into the groundwater of my brain, it would show up on some level. I think it does. The conversation I’ve been having with friends is basically, “What can be the relationship of abstraction to politics?”

Gary Stephan “Untitled” (2009) acrylic on muslin, 60 x 42 inches

JS: So this has to do with an idea about incorporating experience and contaminating “pure painting” with daily experience?

SJ: The interest in the Fibonacci sequence and spiraling goes back to the way I have thought about experience, which is as a coil. You go on a route and arrive at a shard of light, and recognize where you are. Then you keep going, and get back to that part again. But you are not going in circles, you are constantly staging a step up…or down.

In Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, the narrator describes traveling from Balbec in a stagecoach. The coach is going up the hill and away. As it turns along the switchback, he can see back toward the town he has just left. He keeps looking back toward it, but from a little farther, as he is heading toward the future. Then, on the switchback, yet again, he looks back on where he just was, but now he is turned even more. That becomes a metaphor for how memory works.

Thomas Nozkowski came to my studio once when I was working on something that was overly coordinated and he said, “Jump cut.” That was all he needed to say. Now it is my mantra.

GS: It is related to the mosque you loved so much in Turkey, I’ve also always thought that a lot of Suzanne’s work had to do with translation.

SJ: Yes, the interior of the Rüstem Pasha Mosque in Istanbul is beautiful and perfect. There are four doors outside, and the door farthest from the entrance is completely broken up. The original tiles were found and put back on, but not in the original order. I love that kind of patching. It is similar to the Winchester Cathedral in England, where one rose window on the north transom was broken into smithereens and reassembled out of broken bits.

I consider different materials and methods of application in terms of translation. The model is conversation. For example, this format of today’s conversation is unusual for all of us. We can’t anticipate each other’s questions or responses, or the gap between what is said and what is felt or experienced, and how it will read on the page or screen. These change in the context of the situation. I am interested in how the familiar becomes strange, and the structure becomes fallible. A new thought emerges or an old thought can be re-imagined.

JS: Gary, you have described having “two masters”: the object and the painting. Can you explain what that means?

GS: That phrase, “serving two masters,” came from a chapter heading in an old fundamentalist Christian primer that I found. In terms of painting, at one end of the spectrum, you have the master of the concrete object — someone like Robert Ryman. At the other end of the spectrum, you have somebody like Frederick Church — the illusion of a space that can be entered. With Church, you want to experience Niagara Falls uncontaminated by the resistance of the object. With Ryman, you want the clarity of the object without any of the froufrou of the picture space.

Everybody conducts his or her practice along that continuum. That is what is meant by the serving two masters. Anytime you show fealty to one, you’ve weakened your fealty to the other. I was once given a hard time in print for “being compromised”: for the work vacillating between its allegiance to objects, and its allegiance to picture space. That vacillation was seen as a failure of nerve. I think times have changed enough that now it is considered a good way to look at things.

JS: You work on paintings from all directions and sides, and use a rotating easel to turn them around. Is that related to these ideas of concealment and moving between the object and the image?

Gary Stephan “Untitled” (2017), acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 30 inches

GS: The circular easel allows me to mess with expectations about gravity and the punch line. Sometimes I give way to the more obvious expectation, because I don’t see any reason to be obscure. Sometimes, it is too easy, so I turn them backwards, so to speak. Then they are slower. When you finally get to the punch line, it is more of a surprise.

JS: You think of the paintings as having punch lines?  What does that mean?

GS: I definitely do. It is a term I got from Tom Nozkowski years ago. He would say, “Well, the gag of this painting is…” Some people see them right away, and some people never see them. I’ve had any number of people think they’re simply delightful, flat designs, and I think, “Okay.” I’ve gotten over the artist as educator part of my life.

SJ: Whereas Rothko hoped that people would fall to their knees and start to cry in front of his paintings, you want to hear people chuckling.

GS: Yes. I want them mildly chortling under their breath.

The post Beer with a Painter: Suzanne Joelson and Gary Stephan appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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