Graveyard: Trish Jones

Character: Trish Jones
Game: Monster of the Week, Urban Shadows
Episodes Played: ~8
Theme Song: Trouble is a Friend by Lenka
Keywords: Kind, giving, compassionate

A couple years ago my one group was between games and we didn't know just what we wanted to do. One person wanted to try gming and the rest of us didn't know what to play. So we picked up a few sessions of a game called Monster of the week. I played the Mundane, a normal human being who's caught up in the world of monster hunter. The Xander.

Trish was full of life, always smiling, and kind to everyone. For Trish, I wanted to play a character that remained a good person despite what was happening around her and one that was always willing to give more of herself, to the point of getting into abusive situations because she always believed the best of people. She was my own altruism and optimism brought to extremes. In a way, she was designed to be the ultimate victim of the supernatural, the one who got bogged down underneath it all but somehow came out ahead.

In Monster of the Week, I was playing a game with four male protagonists and then my character. The group were a traveling youtube show about debunking supernatural occurrences even though they were saving people from what they were debunking. The internet didn't believe them, and definitely thought they were ghost hunters. Trish was the manager. She made the videos appear on youtube, edited the footage, handled all the emails, came up with content and where they were going, booked all the hotels and handled all the money. She was the producer. And she was very good at it.

Before she joined the show, she was a student studying film. When her parents were suddenly killed (by her brother who had become possessed temporarily), Trish shoved him in their car and brought him to someone who fought the supernatural, a spellslinger named Thaddeus. Thad and Trish became a couple and the siblings joined the show. That's where Trish met Cedric the werewolf hunter and Ariel the angel.

After Billy, her brother, was constantly running away and getting into trouble, Thaddeus and Trish broke up when he tried to tell her how to parent. Shortly after, Trish and Ariel hooked up briefly. Their relationship became intense quickly, as Trish was a very giving person who didn't look back and Ariel was over protecting and somewhat possessive. It was a match made to burn out.

Billy was finally completely possessed. Trish ran away, knowing she was the key to making hell come to earth if Billy could get ahold of her. She spent the next couple of years finding a way to stop Billy. Ariel stayed behind, lingered, fighting Billy constantly. He broke up with Trish and then disappeared.

In Urban Shadows, we returned to the story with Trish having settled in Toronto with new friends and running a podcast on supernatural encounters. She was internet famous and went to local conventions talking about her podcast, Accidental Witness. Ariel showed up, homeless and hopeless, and inserted themselves into the world around Trish.

Trish found Billy, called in all her favours, and took the demons out of Billy into herself. Ariel killed Trish, knowing she would never want to be a demon, and thus ended their tale. I mean, there's more to it than that. Ariel was pretty grossly abusive emotionally and pretty sexist, but overall, their tragic story ended when Trish's best friend, a werewolf, devoured Ariel for killing Trish.

Trish stayed positive and hopeful till the end. She was constantly helping and fixing everyone else rather than focusing on how fucked up her own life was. Even then, she was consistently grateful for the good things in her life, and always willing to forgive someone for their downfalls. In a dark game full of awful things, Trish was a breath of fresh air and goodness. People united around her.

I challenged myself with Trish to play someone who was always putting themselves out there and never got angry, just got sad instead. It was hard. I'm usually a pretty easy to anger character because in games like Urban Shadows, people suck. It was hard to play someone who didn't default to angry, but instead, defaulted to sad. I feel like I accomplished this.

She also existed inside a really tragic abusive relationship that was difficult for Ariel's player to play through. It was hard not to be able to answer the tough questions put to her with "you're right, Ariel's bad" but instead say "He didn't mean it." It was hard. As an abuse survivor, it was incredibly difficult to go through that toxic relationship again, but it made the story compelling.

Overall I killed Trish off because she was too much of a uniting force in a game of Urban Shadows. She made people work together. When they needed conflict, she didn't offer it. So for the sake of the game and to finish Trish's story, I worked with the GM to create her end. The players attended her funeral, said some sweet goodbyes, and then she was gone.