profile for the miller's daughter
Name: Townsend Pierce
Age/Birthdate: 39 / October 30, 1968.
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Occupation: Though he's the type of person who makes you wonder "what the heck DOES this guy do anyway? where does his money COME FROM?!", he's actually a graphic novel artist publishing under a pseudonym.
Fairytale: The Miller's Daughter from Rumpelstiltskin.
Ability, if any: None
History: From childhood, even, people had two things to say about Townsend: one was that he could be an incredible artist if he just spent some time practicing. And the second thing was that he'd find something to bet on every day, whether it be cards or sports or the lottery or the races. Townsend amused himself through childhood by sketching caricatures of his friends, family, and teachers and by betting on damn near anything that crossed his path, whether it be kickball at recess or who'd get detention after Bio that day. Townsend's luck always seemed to follow a particular pattern: first, it held out long enough for him to get really, really into the game. And then it always, always always gives out at the last minute, when he's got everything riding on it.
If Townsend knew when to give up, when to cash in his chips (so to speak), everything would be great. He'd probably be disgustingly rich. But Townsend doesn't know when he should stop - and that doesn't just apply to gambling. In college (Townsend was attending for a Business degree, which he obtained and stuck in a box someplace in his mothers' attic, where it remains) he met Paula. Paula was definitely The One, as far as Townsend was concerned. They got married by the time Townsend graduated, and he went to work what he calls "the call center bullshit job" to pay the bills and support them. By the time Townsend turned 26, they had a baby. Jill was the only thing that Townsend ever felt like he did right, deep down. She was a beautiful, healthy baby girl; one day, when she was seven months old, she died suddenly. The cause of death was determined to have been SIDS, and it tore Townsend and Paula apart. They were legally separated by the time Townsend turned 30, and after that they fell out of contact. Even though they're technically still married, he hasn't seen her in nine years now.
The loss of a child hit Townsend especially hard - it was around this time, when he was experiencing these intense feelings of loss and grieving, that he had his Tale realization. The parallels between losing his daughter and the fear he remembered from almost losing his baby to Rumpelstiltskin made him believe in it, beyond any doubt.
After losing his family, Townsend turned back to the things he'd loved when he was growing up - art and gambling. He lost everything in a few bad bets and games and wound up on the streets for almost a year, doing street art and the occasional graffiti. Mostly during this time, he started his graphic novel series. It was published soon after under a pseudonym, and has become a success in both the United States and abroad. Straw Into Gold, as the graphic novel is called, might strike some in the Tale community as familiar - though he doesn't divulge any secrets that would harm anyone, the premise does involve modern superheroes who go by Fairy Tale secret identities, and he does base some of these characters (both in appearance and in mannerisms) on some of his fellow Tale reincarnations. As of yet, he hasn't gotten into any trouble for this, but he knows it's only a matter of time before someone starts putting pieces together. He is a gambling man, though, so he's willing to risk it for the hefty paycheck.
Personality: He never, ever knows when to stop, first of all. There's a line that often shouldn't be crossed, and he generally makes sure to at least stick a toe over it for good measure. Thank god for him, he's somewhat of a charmer and so can sometimes weasel his way out of hard situations. One thing that Townsend does take seriously is the learning and keeping of secrets - if he's told, point-blank, that something is a secret and shouldn't be shared, he'll take that seriously. He manages to keep very good track of information - who knows what about him, and what he's kept from mostly everyone. He thinks very carefully before he speaks, leading some to think that he's slow or unintelligent - he isn't, there's just a lot that he considers before telling people information. He has a knack for sneaking around and learning secrets, though he rarely uses them for "bad" per say - more just for innocent personal gain.
Even though he's somewhat of a flirt, none of those hints or innuendos ever come to fruition - he holds people at arms' length, after the loss of his daughter and his wife. Flirting is about as far as he'll go with anyone or anything - and his standoffishness is not limited just to romantic relationships. He tries not to have too many close friends, either, though those are far harder to push away. Friendships seem to creep up on him sometimes.
Townsend struggles to be more proactive - he knows that his Tale didn't take much action or responsibility until the very end of her Tale. Before that, it was simply dealing with the problems that were set on her shoulders. Townsend tends to let things happen to him, rather than taking control.
He's particularly wary of boasting, especially other people boasting on his behalf. After what happen with The Miller in the story, who can blame Townsend for being extra modest?
Straw Into Gold: The main premise of his graphic novel is that there are people in a big, unnamed metropolitan city who have powers - a band of superheroes, if you will. The difference between it and, say, Justice League or X-Men, is that these superheroes go by Fairy Tale names, and there's a deeper plot running through involving Fate and Reincarnation and issues like that. Maybe these heroes were really the Fairy Tales, maybe they weren't - that's one of the mysteries in the series.
So far, there has been three books released, with several more promised and one on the way from publication. These are all published under a pseudonym - Paul Jillian. The pseudonym is somewhat based on his wife and daughters' names.
The characters in the novels are: (up for grabs. if you want your Tale to be a comic book character, let me know in a comment or something)
Relationship to Tale: Townsend's had a couple of past reincarnations, though he hasn't remembered much about any of them yet. He's somewhat of a late-bloomer, as far as Tale-realizations go, and didn't have his until a bit after his 30th birthday. He gambles and risks things that should never be risked - of course, he would argue that, in the Tale, it was the damn father's fault for lying about what his daughter could and couldn't do, and it wasn't the daughter's fault that she'd had to promise the kid to the dwarf- and after all, she'd saved the day in the end, right? The problem is that this "fairy tale ending" has made Townsend (and perhaps has always made him, in his past reincarnations) sure that, in the end, no matter how big the gamble he makes, it'll work out all right in the end. So the Tale has been, in many ways, a blessing and an excuse to be occasionally irresponsible.
Played-By: John Barrowman