“Love
yourself first and everything else falls into
line.
You really have to love yourself to get anything
done in this world.”
~~Lucille Ball
Hi all,
So I actually started something else for the newsletter on
Friday. However, my computer has decided to be very
moody this weekend so I opted to save that for another time
when I could work on it with fewer tech hiccups. So...
here's the old standby: tropes.
Because my neck of the woods is seemingly stuck in perpetual
winter, I've been less willing to let Valentine's Day
go. So this is a bit of a carry-over.
Together
in Death- While the assumption is all the characters will
end up with their loved ones in the next life, there are a couple
stand-outs. Cora's and Lor's marriage was cut short when
the latter was killed protecting his birth mother and
brother. "Origins" ends with Cora reuniting with Lor in
Heaven. Chava/Esther and David were separated when he was
killed in a concentration camp. They, too, reunited in
Heaven. While it's not been covered, one imagines that
Maryam had quite the reunion with Yosef and Yeshua following her
death.
You
Are Worth Hell- To varying degrees, I'd say this applies
to Joshua, the angels, and the spirits. Joshua set aside
his divinity to become mortal. Beyond all your "normal"
experiences of human suffering, he died a brutal, hellish
death... all to save humanity and show us that we're
loved. The angels and spirits could, presumably, choose to
spend what time they do with the Friends in Heaven
instead. And while the Friends are loads of fun, being
with them also means confronting trauma, abuse, disease,
exploitation, racism, homophobia, etc., all of which are absent
from Heaven. In the cases of those angels who take on
human forms, they will experience aging and, potentially,
diseases and disorders all in the name of raising their
children, remaining with their anam cara, etc. And then
there's Marco and Sarah who, successfully and unsuccessfully,
chose vampirism in order to not leave their beloved alone on
Earth in such a state.
Amicable
Exes- JenniAnn and Eliot. Considering they were one
step away from being engaged when JenniAnn broke things off,
Eliot has at least some reason to be a little bitter. But
I think he's smart enough to know he dodged a bullet. It
likely helps that he found love with Brittony and, without her,
wouldn't have adopted Galen Jr. or become a father to twins,
Edison and Eleanor. The two exes are on such good terms
that Eliot didn't hesitate to come when JenniAnn called him
after Andrew busted his headboard during a post-Afghanistan
nightmare. That suggests to me that Eliot's pretty cool
with Andrew, too.
Romantic
Two-Girl Friendship- I feel like Ivy and Violeta have
elements of this. Or, at least, they seem to be a lot
closer and more intertwined in each other's lives than I've ever
been with my best girl friends. Part of this is probably
because Ivy was bullied and didn't really have a close friend
prior to Violeta. And Violeta is quite child-like and
dependent on those around her. So they would, naturally,
be clingier than a lot of girls their age. Thankfully, Sy
understands this and has no problem with including Violeta when
he and Ivy go out... as is appropriate. Now that he's in
the same college as they are, he probably spends a lot of time
just smiling and shaking his head when they go off into their
own little world. In a gender-bent example, I suspect
JenniAnn and Owen had aspects of this before they both paired
off with Andrew and Graham, respectively.
Informed
Attractiveness- To listen only to Violeta, Joshua is the
most handsome man to ever live. Joshua and several
characters, including many who absolutely love him, will
disagree. That being said, handsomeness and attractiveness
are not exactly the same thing. If we take attractiveness
to mean "ability to attract people to one's self," then there
sure are an awful lot of people trying to get closer to
Joshua.
Moe-
Currently, Violeta reigns supreme as this. Physically,
she's a cute, petite, young woman (Raven
Hair, Ivory Skin to be exact) with a bubbly
personality. But those who know her realize that she's
only been on Earth for eight years. So, in many ways,
she's a little girl. While it's only alluded to a time or
two, it's my head-canon that there's a conspiracy among the
Friends to shield her from a lot of stuff. You see it when
Fr. Mike calls with bad news and specifically mentions that
someone needs to sit with Violeta. The simple fact that
Joshua sent her to Andrew and JenniAnn for her first assignments
is telling. We know of no other angel who was basically
given parental figures. JenniAnn left Joshua's island to
return to Earth to protect Violeta from demons. So, yeah,
there's a lot of energy going into protecting Violeta and
allowing her to maintain her innocent, sunny disposition.
To a lesser extent, older Belle is pretty Moe. While she
has more of an independent streak than Violeta, even well into
her twenties she enjoys being babied by her parents. She
even quips that when her younger brother, Avi, beats her to the
altar, it means she can be the baby again. Liam is
exceptionally careful with her even when it goes against his own
interest.
Now
or Never Kiss- The first time Andrew and JenniAnn kiss on
the lips comes right before he enters Sheol to confront Nen and
Tzila. This came after years of Anywhere
but Their Lips and was partly owing to JenniAnn
discovering that Maryam and Yosef still kiss on the lips.
And clearly they can't be doing anything wrong!
Platonic Kissing- Several of the characters kiss Joshua,
usually on the cheeks. It's possible someone's gone for a
hand, hair, or brow. I don't recall. And he
reciprocates. Mostly they do it because he's their
dad/brother but I suspect on an unconscious level, they're
trying to counter Yehuda's kiss. Most of the time, no one
thinks anything about this. However, Arthur panicked when
he saw JenniAnn kiss Joshua on the cheek because he thought
maybe something was going on behind Andrew's back.
Thankfully, soon after he learned that Joshua was a member of
the Trinity so those worries were put to rest.
Beautiful Slave Girl- Undoubtedly, Behnam's dastardly
uncle had something like this in mind when he abducted Isra and
forced her to marry Behnam. Thankfully, this trope runs
counter to everything Behnam believes and the code he chose to
live by. He definitely found Isra beautiful but lived
chastely with her until she made the first move. They're
now happily married with three children. And the uncle is
dead... because karma. More horrifically, this applies to
Salma, Zelda, and all those who were freed during the events of
"Chrysalis."
The
Lost Lenore- Sarah was this to Josef and Jaz was to
Peter. Thankfully, with help from their departed loved
ones, both men were able to rebuild their lives. Josef is
now married to Amber-Marie and raising Daisy with her.
Peter married Emma with whom he runs St. Genesius' and they have
a little boy named Sawyer. To some extent, Zelda was this
to Logan. They had a budding online romance until she
disappeared. Thankfully, they were able to resume their
romance once she was rescued from a trafficking ring.
They're now married.
Best
Friends-in-Law- Happens A LOT among the Friends. But
it even pre-dates them. Yosef's and Maryam's parents were
good friends and then became in-laws when the couple
married. Rose was Andrew's and JenniAnn's friend who later
married their adopted son, Max, thus making them her
parents-in-law. Vincent is both JenniAnn's unrelated
godfather and her cousin-in-law since he and Catherine got
married after he was named her godfather. Vincent and
Catherine will eventually become in-laws to Josef and
Amber-Marie once Daisy and Jacob grow up and get married.
Arthur and Monica and Andrew and JenniAnn will, too, when Liam
and Belle marry. And I'm sure I'm missing some and/or
other ones have yet to be determined.
Marriage
to a God- I think it's fair to characterize Salma's
decision to become a nun as this. After several years of
abuse, I think Joshua was the only man that Salma could fully
trust. But even as her self-esteem and self-worth has
rebounded, I believe she genuinely loves Joshua in a way that
would make any other man potentially feel neglected.
Wedding
Ring Defense- JenniAnn occasionally switched her Claddagh
to the married position to avoid being hit on by creepers.
Nowadays, she permanently wears her Claddagh that way just
because it seems the most honest representation of her life with
Andrew. I would suppose Andrew might, too, especially if
he was in a situation where he was likely to attract unwanted
romantic attention. Just seems like a gentler way to
rebuff people than "Sorry, not interested."
Age-Gap
Romance- There are thousands if not millions of years
separating Andrew's and JenniAnn's birth dates. Monica
is around 6,000 years
older than Arthur. Yikes. This was less of an
issue with Arthur and Monica, probably because he was a grown
man and well-established in his life when they met. I
also, frankly, just didn't feel like rehashing age-related
angst when I'd already done that with Andrew and
JenniAnn. But... I can't entirely rule out the
possibility that I just didn't see it as an issue at
all. When Monica was introduced to us, she didn't seem
any more mature than the average woman in her thirties.
True, later flashback episodes gave her more gravitas.
But Season 1 Monica doesn't exactly scream millennia old to
me. Andrew, on the other hand, did come off as more
mature to me and like someone who, at odd moments, seemed
truly ancient. So the age-gap between him and JenniAnn
wasn't as easy to shrug off. It didn't help that she was
a young-looking seventeen when they met. Still...
I think, for the most part, they avoid the seedier aspects of
this trope.
For the first two years, Andrew viewed JenniAnn as a cute,
little sister-type. Any romance was purely on her side
with her crushing pretty severely on him. That began to
change when she was nineteen. While there was still very
little in the way of romance, Andrew did start to see her as
something of a peer. This was likely due to them sharing
some life events. Her godmother began showing signs of
Alzheimer's right around the time that Tess was
diagnosed. She began to lose her friends to marriage and
babies right as Andrew was preparing to part from Monica,
Tess, and Gloria. So they bonded over that. While
Andrew simply has to be more intelligent book-wise given all
he's witnessed, I would argue that JenniAnn is the more
emotionally intelligent of the two. (Though not the more
empathetic... Few people out-empathize Andrew.) So
they compliment each other and there have been plenty of times
when JenniAnn has been right about something and Andrew's been
wrong. And she doesn't hesitate to speak up in those
cases. So while, in theory, their relationship would be
hampered by a pretty big power differential, in practice it's
not. JenniAnn is perfectly capable of speaking up to
Andrew when she feels the need without fear of repercussions
or being ignored because she's a human and much younger.
And then along came Joshua... Compared to him, all of
the characters are babies. So he equalizes them in a
way. Plus, he has a memory of some sort of proto-Andrew
and proto-JenniAnn reaching out to each other. So it's
possible that, at their cores, Andrew and JenniAnn are the
same age. Maybe everyone is...
Precocious Crush- Young JenniAnn on Andrew. She
caught one glimpse of him when she was four, dubbed him Cupid
after the god in one of her storybooks, and proceeded to crush
on him for over a decade before they properly met. Less
dramatically, Belle has a crush on Liam and Daisy on
Jacob. The boys are only 3-5 years older but that's a
big difference among kids.
Abandon
Shipping- Not so much something that happens within the
Dyeland stories as it is something I hope I did with a couple
externally shipped pairs. Firstly, a lot of TBAA fanfic
ships Andrew and Monica. I do not get this. For
one, they usually end up married and having kids. Or one
dies tragically. None of which can happen per TBAA's
rules. Secondly, I think they would make an *awful*
couple. Like truly awful. I see very little in
Monica's interactions with Andrew that would lead me to
believe she was capable of a give-and-take relationship with
him. Plus, if she had feelings for Andrew, why would
Satan have had to use Mike/Arthur to tempt her??? It
makes no sense. So, instead, Andrew and Monica get
shipped with JenniAnn and Arthur, respectively. No one
gets married, no one has sex, no one conceives children, and
the angels don't die. Great.
But there's more... The pre-existing Jesus/Mary
Magdalene ship got sunk shortly after Joshua was
introduced. It turns out he had feelings for a girl
named Tzipora who I completely made up. Meanwhile, Mary
was several years younger than him. Granted, it wasn't
uncommon for an older man to be married to a young girl.
But Yeshua wasn't into that. I mean he made blocks for
her to play with as a toddler... which means he was handling
knives when she was still learning how to talk. She was
much more like a little sister to dote on than a potential
romantic partner. There's no indication little Mary even
had so much as a crush on Yeshua. The only person who
seems to consider the pairing at all is a drunk Lazar who is
very unhappy with Mary's choice in a husband and simply sees
his old friend as a safe bet. Even when Mary's marriage
crumbles, there's still no indication she has any designs on
Yeshua. In the end, her true love was a Roman named
Lucius. After his death, she does end up with Yeshua...
but as follower, not a romantic partner. And her
role is epic... the Apostle to the Apostles.
This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for inspiring
JABB which gives me a way to channel my love of
categorizing and organizing even as I wait for Spring to
come so I can begin my many, many planned home
improvements.
(Photo Credits: The
photographs used on this page are
from Touched by an Angel and
owned by CBS Productions, Caroline
Productions, and Moon Water
Productions. They are not
being used to seek profit.)