"No matter
how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring
up in the middle of nowhere."
~~Sheryl Crow
Hi all,
I hope you're enjoying some nice weather! Spring
has... hopefully... settled in where I am but last
Thursday's burst of snow does make me wonder!
This newsletter is a bit of a mix-matched piece because I've
actually been devoting most of my "JABB time" to organizing
Dyeland info. So, for the first time ever, the JABB
Calendar is actually pretty complete and the current
character database is getting there! My hope is
these efforts will guard against continuity errors but we'll
see! Those of you who read stories may notice a bit of
tweaking on older ones. I'm not doing anything to
change the overall tone of a story but the thing with flash
forwards is, when I wrote them, I didn't really know how the
characters/stories would evolve. I do note these
alterations at the bottom of impacted stories.
I think that's it. On with the newsletter!
God bless,
Jenni
Top
Ten Signs I Need to Get Back to Watching TBAA
So, as many of you
know, the surge in writing/organizing activity has prevented
me from doing my weekly TBAA episode reviews
which means I never finished going through Season 9.
And, actually, I haven't watched TBAA at all in
months. Not because I don't want to! It's just
every time I think I have parceled out some time for it,
something happens or inspiration strikes and I end up
writing instead. But certain things have made me
realize I *really* need to get back to it like...
10. My memory is growing very fuzzy on what's TBAA
canon and what's JABB "fanon." For example, I can't
remember if Andrew getting twangy when emotional is
something I decided to go with or if John Dye's accent
really did sneak out more during emotional scenes.
9. I did just see Monica and Tess on a TV show last
night... but it was iZombie and they were call
girls. So... not "our" Monica and Tess! And,
weirdly, there was even a red convertible that may have been
a Cadillac. (I'm car stupid so have no idea.)
But when you're watching a show about zombies and get kinda
sappy about a couple one-shot characters and a car... maybe
time to watch some TBAA.
8. I would really like to, at some point, do a short
story about how Joshua helped Kelly recover after Jesse's
death. That period is briefly described in "The
Carpenter" but it would be nice to explore it in more detail
and that's a lil hard to do when my memories of "As It Is in
Heaven" are several years old.
7. I still get irritated whenever I see a TBAA
screenshot with one of those awful Hallmark Channel logos on
it... I've got to rid the Photo Gallery of those!
6. Andrew's
facial hair. Need to see it!
5. I really do consider the Dyeland stories to be a
continuation of the story we saw on Touched.
So it's fun to go back and watch the show and, even during
really sad parts, think "I know what's coming for you... and
it's awesome!" I miss that! It just makes
watching the show so much more fun and also reminds me of
things I forgot but can integrate into the characters'
current stories. Honestly, it's healthier for me to do
that then just leave the characters as that dubious finale
did.
4. Along those lines, I miss watching a show where I
know where the characters are going. I have shows I
watch now but it's hard to connect to characters since, for
all I know, they'll morph into evil, despicable
people. I may have had my issues with Monica, in
particular, but I know she'll never turn evil!
3. Ya'll sometimes allude to stuff in emails that I
have no memory of and I know I've seen every episode!
Clearly I need a refresher!
2. I miss the music... I miss the
idealism... Okay, so I'm in all-out nostalgic mode.
1. Adam with long hair!!! Yes, I will forever be
an Andrew fan chiefly. But that hair...
Ask a
JABB Co-Founder
Every so often I
get asked questions about JABB and Dyeland so I thought
I'd address a few of those for everyone to read as
opposed to just via personal email. Here goes!
Question: When you create new characters, do you imagine
them as particular actors?
Answer: For the most part, no. Or sometimes I'll
initially think of them as a certain actor but as the
character evolves, they cease looking like that.
However, sometimes the actor/character match sticks. A
few examples:
Eli- From the beginning, I imagined him as resembling Jesse
L. Martin and that association remains. I loved Mr.
Martin in RENT and since Eli can sing... why not
have him share that awesome voice, too?
Robert Chandler- Ron Perlman sans make-up. I always
envisioned Robert as being kinda gruff but also with a sense
of humor and gentleness. Mr. Perlman has brought those
facets to various roles and, plus, it's just fun for me to
imagine LJA having two father figures both "played" by the
same man.
Zeke Wilson- When I started "The Carpenter," I didn't want
the fellow playing Judas to be African American just because
I know it has bothered some people to have "the traitor" be
black. But... I soon realized that no matter how I
described Zeke in the story, any time he sang I would
envision Carl Anderson who played Judas in the 1973 film
version of Jesus Christ Superstar. So I
decided to just embrace that which ended up being a good
thing because it also opened up other aspects of the Wilson
family's story line, in particular Ivy's and Sy's
relationship, which in turn allowed me to show how far
Doreen Lee has come. Of course, it was bittersweet
since Mr. Anderson has passed away but, in a way, I think
that makes my depiction of Zeke a lil deeper than it might
have been otherwise.
Doug and Toby (Tobias) Harmon- Admittedly, it was going to
be very hard for me to imagine someone other than Ted Neeley
playing Jesus in JCS. However, the entire plot
of "The Carpenter" revolved around Joshua taking on his own
portrayal and he has a very distinctive look of his
own. And then add to it, too, that as much as I adore
the 1973 depiction, I even more loved the more mature
version of Jesus that Mr. Neeley brought to life in later
stage productions. (Keeping in mind that 33 then is
NOT the same as 33 now so a modern fifty or even
sixtysomething person playing Jesus may actually be more
accurate.) So I decided that Doug would actually be
"played" by Ted Neeley. I ended up really loving that
idea because the 1973 version is what started the whole JCS
craze for me so it made sense to imagine the same fellow
playing the Jesus that started the JCS craze at St.
Genesius'. But that's not all! ;-) Since
Toby is supposed to strongly resemble his father, I imagine
him as 1970s era Ted Neeley. So there's another
"double role."
Question: Would it be possible for
someone to stumble on Dyeland accidentally like through
the alley portal?*
Answer: Accidentally for them, yes. ;-) Mick
actually did this but it was because God wanted him in
Dyeland. At this point, I don't think anyone could,
say, brush against the alley wall and end up in
Dyeland. While I didn't really delve too much into it,
my suspicion is Joshua locked down all the Dyeland portals
and made them all accessible only by key once he was able to
dole out the keys. But it still remains possible for
God to send someone to Dyeland as it pleases Him, key or no
key.
Question: I'm assuming it's a closed
system - they're not going to find a lost tribe (Lord of
the Flies!) on one of the islands or hiding out the
amusement park, right? Nothing like Paracelsus' group in
the Tunnels....*
Answer: Yes, the citizens of Roanoke are actually
there. ;-) Just kidding. Actually, at one
point a member did want to go that route and since I didn't
have any story lines in mind at the time (this was possibly
as long as a decade ago), I agreed. There was even a
mystery island on the Dyeland map where this drama was
supposed to start. However, that member left before
the plot really went anywhere and it didn't interest me
enough to pursue on my own so I literally wiped the island
from the map. There is a "lost tribe," so to speak, in
Fr. Mike's family, also known as the Asterians.
However, they're harmless and quite friendly with the
Dyelanders. Their numbers have significantly
diminished with most of their children immigrating to
Earth. Therefore, they were very happy when the
Dyelanders showed up because it was much nicer to think of
people keeping the place up than it all just falling into
disrepair once the last of the Asterians dies off. And
maybe they won't! Fr. Mike has siblings so possibly
some of his nieces and nephews will move back to
Asteri/Dyeland and the two communities will live together in
harmony, likely intermarrying at some point.
*Big thanks to Kim for supplying these
questions!
This newsletter is dedicated to John
Dye for helping to create such a compelling character
that, almost two decades after Andrew arrived on scene,
I'm still in touch with what interested me as a
teenager. Sometimes it's very nice to go back to
simpler times and realize just how great one's teenaged
interests really are.