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peace-coast-island · 7 months ago

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Diary of a Junebug

Exploring the shops of Skybelle Mall and taking a class in dyeing yarn

It’s happening - once I went down the rabbit hole of knitting garments I was exposed to the world of yarn. They really weren’t kidding when they say that getting into fiber arts can get dangerous! To be honest though, I don’t think it’s something I’ll be doing often because of how much work goes into it, not to mention how expensive the supplies are - still, it was a lot of fun and now I have a sweater quantity of lovely hand dyed yarn!

The Skybelle Mall is the center of Skybelle City, literally and figuratively. Even though it’s a mall, it feels more like a classy resort. There’s a lot of shops and restaurants obviously, but the general vibes of all these places feel homey. While visitors come here to shop, the locals come here to unwind and socialize. It’s almost like a little town within the city.

Along with checking out the shops and classes they have to offer, Arabella invited us over to check out the community college that’s right next to it. The location happens to be convenient as a lot of the students at Fortuna Community College also work at the shops around here either part-time or under an internship or apprenticeship. Most of the shop keepers and instructors are actually graduates from Fortuna, and for a lot of them, the lives they’re living right now was considered impossible or improbable had they not come here.

What makes Fortuna unique is that over half their students come here for a new start. Their circumstances vary from growing up in a place where education was inaccessible, refugees, former criminals, abuse victims - all sorts of situations that require a clean break. Since a lot of these people likely have little to no support, the purpose of Fortuna’s Special Circumstances Program is to help them out every step of the way.

The program’s been around for almost 30 years and has a high success rate. Of course, it’s not perfect, though most who fail or drop out are more likely those who don’t put the effort in and expect an easy way out, which is not how the program works. Along with providing a good education and giving out GEDs, they also offer various services like counseling, healthcare, help with employment, programs to support those with families, housing - it’s really comprehensive.

One of Arabella’s friends from college, Kara, is now part of the English department over there. She teaches a traditional undergrad course as well as a basic literacy course in the Fortuna program. Getting a position as a faculty member in the Fortuna program isn’t an easy process because while a job like that would be fulfilling for those who truly have a passion to teach, it is by far an easy one. Because a lot of the students come from special circumstances that often require a lot of one-on-one interactions, that kind of thing obviously isn’t for everyone, especially when dealing with students who are dealing with so much that in most places, they’d simply be written off as “problematic” or “uncooperative.”

In other words, if you aren’t equipped to deal with difficult people because you don’t have the patience or it takes too much out of you, then this kind of position wouldn’t be a good fit. There’s a reason why the staffing over there is so selective because it’s understandable why some people, despite having very good qualifications, won’t last long here. And as Kara said, that’s not entirely a bad thing, but it’s one of those places where you really have to consider, “Am I willing to put in the time and effort to work with people like them?” Part of the reason why Fortuna has been successful is because they really take the time to make sure the faculty is on top of things so that they can follow through on their promises. For those at a huge disadvantage, having a strong support system really makes a difference.

Kara first heard of the Fortuna during high school through a friend whose distant cousin got their GED through there and later went on to become a physician. The cousin was from a branch of the family that was estranged, and so her whereabouts went unknown for years until by chance, a relative found her and took her in. Basically, she was kidnapped by her father when she was young, a fact that she was unaware of until he abandoned her when she was around her mid-teens, forcing her to live out on the streets for a time before her aunt was able to confirm her identity.

While exploring Skybelle, we got to meet a couple students from the Fortuna program. Aina and Saku are in Kara’s basic literacy class, both studying to get their GEDs. They’re a young married couple who left their homeland when a civil war broke out. They kinda played an indirect role in that because of their connection to the main village and the former chief’s family. The way Saku put it, there was already a lot of political instability that had been brewing for decades, so it didn’t take long for rebels like them to topple it.

They pretty much lucked out because Saku is affiliated with a former general and her comrades, who are all under protection from an outside faction that serves to help refugees like themselves. What that basically means is that they’ve pretty much severed their ties to their homeland, which in turn prevents them from being targets of retaliation by enemies who intend to bring them back by force without severe consequences. In other words, they came from an isolated nation where it was designed to keep foreigners from entering, as well as prevent those born there from leaving.

Before the war, Saku and Aina attempted to leave and were nearly executed. In fact, it was that incident that led Saku to get a pardon that involved a mission that was supposed to be impossible to complete as the officials assumed that he wouldn’t survive. Well, they were wrong. The trial proved to be difficult, even for a trained assassin like Saku, and considering what little options he had, as well as the fact that it wasn’t just his life that was on the line, he did whatever he could to complete the objective. However, he never expected to kick off a civil war in the end, even if it was inevitable.

As for the connection they have with the main village, it turns out that Aina was the illegitimate daughter of the chief. She was labeled as a punishment who should be hidden away, and she credits that to how she became different from the rest of the family as their neglect left her to her own devices. The scar on her face that blinded her right eye is a mark she wears proudly as it was the chief’s failed attempt to shut her down after she spoke back to him one too many times.

The more he tried to shackle her, the sneakier she became - that’s how it usually works in these kinds of situations. Apparently, he thought by wedding her to Saku, his most loyal weapon at the time - yikes - he assumed that Saku would be able to tie her down. Instead, the opposite happened - Aina influenced Saku to break out of that mentality of seeing himself as a mere weapon whose sole purpose was to bring destruction to maintain order, which ended up saving his life.

The arrangement started out awkward at first since they were strangers despite being raised by the same family, but over time it evolved into genuine love and devotion that made them even more determined to leave their homeland. Aina managed to get glimpses of the outside world through things like social media, which was heavily censored over there. Since she struggled with reading due to a learning disability that went undiagnosed until recently, a lot of her knowledge of the outside came from vlogs and video essays. Knowledge really can be a weapon.

Eventually, her influence began to rub off on Saku, who came to realize that there is life outside of accepting orders and taking the lives of those who don’t follow the rules. The nation basically trained children to become assassins, objects that authority figures used for their own convenience and benefit. These figures thrive on ignorance and blind obedience, so these assassins are raised to think they are nothing but killing machines.

Not surprisingly, they’re desensitized to violence and death, which contributes to how the public sees them as inhuman. To think that Saku was well on his way to becoming just another disposable tool - it’s a good thing that Aina managed to get through to him. It’s hard to break out of a mindset that’s been ingrained into you since you were born, but that doesn’t mean that people can’t change.

Of course, in order to make any meaningful change, it’s up to the other person to decide. In Saku’s case, he made the conscious decision to question the way he was raised after getting a glimpse of the outside world through Aina. He said he was also intrigued by Aina’s insistence for normality with little things like expressing gratitude, living in the moment - things that have nothing to do with bloodshed and violence. It wasn’t long before he began questioning every aspect of his life, which naturally made him an enemy as he was no longer a convenient tool for them. Again, they’re the kind of people who prey on ignorance, so anyone who questions their word is automatically considered an enemy.

Along with Aina, Saku also credits Kaori, the former general who accompanied him on his mission, for saving his life by ensuring his survival. Like him, she had long grown disillusioned with the higher authority, and so when she realized that he could be a potential ally, she encouraged him to defy fate by accomplishing the mission. Neither one ever thought something like that would set off a domino effect kind of thing, which they admit they still don’t fully understand themselves. Sometimes things just work out like that.

Basically, because of Kaori’s rank and status, she was able to use her authority to protect as many civilians as she could from the impending storm. She wishes she could do a lot more, but what little she was able to manage made a huge difference, something Saku and Aina emphasized. It was her connections that allowed a lot of people such as themselves to leave the nation safely and seek refuge in other lands.

Saku and Aina spent a couple years in a refugee camp working odd jobs so they can settle down somewhere, ultimately choosing Skybelle City because of its location as well as the Fortuna program. Kaori spent about a year in the same camp before going off traveling with her partner, a former shinobi who also accompanied Saku on his mission. The two are on the road a lot, though since Saku and Aina have a place of their own now, they stop by the city often when they’re nearby.

While she plans to keep on traveling, Kaori’s looking for a place in the city so she can be closer to the couple now that she’s gonna be a godmother to their kids. It’s still a surprise to them that in the summer they’ll be having twins, so they’re excited and kinda nervous. Aina’s glad that they’ll be summer babies as it won’t disrupt her schooling too much since they’ll be on break by the time they come. Now that she’ll be a mother, she’s more determined than ever to get her GED to set a good example to her kids. Saku felt the same - he admitted to being a bit indifferent about getting a degree until he realized what it really meant for his future.

After hearing about what Aina, Saku, and Kaori have been through, I’m glad that their lives have taken a turn for the better. Even though it’s been a couple years since they moved here, Aina says it still feels like an impossible dream that she never wants to wake up from. To think that living a mundane and ordinary life seems like a luxury to some people…

Another one of Kara’s students in the Fortuna program, Barbara, also joined us. Her story isn’t as harrowing like most of her peers as she had a cushy upbringing, something she admits to having mixed feelings about. She came from a well-off family, so she considers herself as sort of spoiled and sheltered - not in a bad way, more like that’s kinda the norm where she’s from. The best way she can explain her hometown is that life is pretty relaxed over there, which is not a totally bad thing, but it can feel kinda shallow and stifling.

Like Aina, Saku, and Kaori, Barbara’s homeland is kinda isolated and cut off from most of the world, though in her case, it’s more because of the location than politics. Back home, she was a party girl - and she still kinda is, though obviously her studies come first. Her main priorities at the time was having fun and keeping up with fashion trends, so a very materialistic type of lifestyle. That’s just how the people are over there - not exactly superficial, just really sheltered and cushioned.

Then stuff happened and Barbara got a glimpse of the outside world. Seeing how complicated and confusing the world really was, she ended up going through multiple existential crises. I imagine that it would be such a shock to her, stepping into a world where everything’s so different. Even though it scared her, she became intrigued by the complexities of life, especially after meeting some people who were patient enough to deal with her naivety, which often got her into a lot of trouble at first.

She eventually went back home, but found it stifling and unfulfilling. Her friends tried to help her, except they didn’t know how because she herself didn’t understand why she felt so restless. Then that led to another existential crisis where she tries something, putting in a lot of time and investment in it, only to get bored and jump on to the next new thing that attracted her attention. That whole act got old soon and Barbara decided that she really needed to take action by do something drastic. So she contacted her friends from Sunnyville to explore the possibility of her moving there.

For now, Barbara’s living with Rita, who she calls her hero as she was the one who helped her out so much that she’s indecisive on how to repay her. Since Rita’s birthday is coming up, she signed up for the yarn dyeing class so she can crochet something for her. Right now she’s busy adjusting to life over here as well as keeping up with classes, but when the semester ends, Barbara hopes to get a part-time job or internship at Skybelle. Once she’s saved up enough money, she plans to move into her own place, already having a neighborhood in mind that’s not too far from Rita’s. And in a couple years when she graduates from Fortuna, she plans to continue to her bachelor’s, and maybe master’s too. Sounds like she’s got a good idea of what she wants for her future - good for her!

The yarn dyeing class was a lot of fun, though potentially dangerous if I decide to pick this up more. Barbara plans to use her pink pastel yarn to crochet a throw blanket for Rita. Aina wants to knit more baby stuff, so she managed to convince Saku and Kaori to join the class too since that means she’ll get more yarn to work with. Arabella and Kara dyed a bunch of mini skeins so they can make small accessories to give as gifts. Daisy Jane went for a sweater quantity like me for a future project.

I went for a warm orangey reddish brown because I want a sweater in that color after seeing someone’s else hand knitted sweater they nicknamed the pumpkin spice sweater. Also, I don’t really have that many reds and oranges in my wardrobe, especially with my me-made knitwear. I know for sure that this will be perfect for the fall and I already have a pattern in mind that’s perfect for this yarn.

Read on AO3

#animal crossing pocket camp #animal crossing #headcanon ramble #diary of a junebug

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nightinghouls · 1 year ago

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❝ I'VE GOT MY FEARS, I'VE GOT THEM DRESSED UP ❞

brigette lundy-paine. nonbinary. they / them. ⸻ i saw juno pasternak around colony house, you know? the twenty—eight year old that was driving from toronto, canada when they saw the tree on the road. juno has been here for six months and I think they were a bike mechanic before they got stuck in the town. with the way things are now, they are now struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy and seek a way out without losing themselves or dying. lets hope you at least survive the night.

GENERAL information. ⸻

full name juno elliott pasternak

nickname(s) june, junebug, jay

age twenty — eight

gender identity nonbinary

orientation bisexual, strong preference for women

place of birth guelph, ontario, canada

date of birth november 1 1995

former occupation bike mechanic

3 positive traits creative, altruistic, strong—willed

3 negative traits reclusive, moody, gullible

moral alignment neutral good

faceclaim brigette lundy—paine

TOWN information. ⸻

current residency colony house

current occupation bike + small electronics mechanic, handyman

INSP characters and media. ⸻

frances halladay from frances ha / enid coleslaw from ghost world / james leer from wonder boys / eve from god help the girl / my solo exchange diary 1 + 2 by nagata kabi / lelaina pierce from reality bites

BIOGRAPHY your character's background. ⸻

juno’s parents separated when they were just a baby, and juno ended up with their dad. though born in guelph, fairly soon after their parents broke up them and their dad moved back to toronto, where their paternal grandparents lived. juno spent their childhood between their dad’s house and their grandparents’ house, with the occasional holiday spent at their mom’s, until eventually those dried up too.

they were a strong but frustrating student throughout public and high school, which is to say that they read a ton and could write an excellent essay, but struggled chronically with deadlines, skipped and were late to a lot of class, and nearly failed math almost every year. that juno graduated as an ‘ontario scholar’ is a testament to understanding teachers willing to take months-late work and give make up assignments.

right out of high school they entered college for illustration, sure they wanted art to be their career. college was a disaster; without the constant external prodding of well-meaning teachers, left to their own devices and living away from home, deadlines became completely overwhelming and they dropped out within their first semester. they couldn’t handle the pressure, the self-direction, and most of all, taking care of themselves. they’d always thought of themselves as self-sufficient but once they actually had to do everything for themselves as well as attend classes, they simply couldn’t keep up.

they spent two weeks in hospital after they dropped out due to mental health issues, a stay that refocused their attention: stay healthy enough to stay out of the hospital.

once they were back home and had settled back in, they got a job at the bike shop a few blocks away, starting as a junior mechanic to fill the days and get them out of the house. it was around this time that they started seriously considering and exploring their gender identity. perhaps it was that they were the only ‘female’ mechanic, and that this contrast was brought up to them in a way that it hadn’t been ever before, or maybe it was having a kind of independence without the stressors of school, but whatever the cause the result was the same; many deep, internal questions about their sense of self.

after a year and a bit of working at the bike store, juno decided they’d give university a try. maybe it was college that had been the problem. all the programs in college were so specific, university was more general, you could explore and figure yourself out. so they enrolled in an english literature program.

university went slightly better than college had, but once again as soon as the external stress of school was on them they stopped being able to take care of themself. it was just too much. and so, after six months, they dropped out again. back to the bike shop.

one year turned into two, and then three, and then they’d spent four years living in their bedroom at their dad’s house, even after their little brother had moved out, working the same job. juno liked their job, but still — there had to be more out there. so they started saving up, bought a junker car ( a 1990s volkswagen rabbit ) and decided they would road trip across the united states. they’d never been to the states before, but it seemed like a place full of wide-open possibilities. so, they set off.

they drove through new york and into pennsylvania, and then they saw the tree. the story from there is fairly well-known to everyone. the circling, the attempts to get out. at first they had just pulled over, sure they’d gotten too high before setting out for the day’s drive, resolved to sleep it off. and then there was someone banging on the window and telling them to get out before sunset, to get inside.

they were luckier than most; when they came, they came with most of their stuff. clothing, cds, books, nice but not so useful. their toolkit, now that had value here. they’d attempted to get away from their job, but it seemed that was the best thing they had to offer. bikes are more like clocks than like cars, so juno wasn’t any good at engine repair, but small electronics, the bikes that had made it into the town, and any general handyman-type jobs, those they could handle.

TRIVIA extra character information.

because their parents were teenagers when they were born, they are named after their parents' favourite music ( juno for juno, their mom's favourite band, and elliott for elliott smith, their dad's favourite artist )

juno was diagnosed with adhd in college, and was medicated for it until they entered the town.

similarly, they had been undergoing low-dose hrt, which they ran out of after a time in the town.

some of the books in juno's car at the time they entered the town are: the wind up bird chronicle, franny and zooey, tell me i'm worthless, paul takes the form of a mortal girl, high fidelity, and please don't kill the freshmen.

#from.intro #❪ about ･ juno ❫

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fearotica · 2 years ago

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Of all my ocs, Junebug has the highest kill count

They would hear and answer the prayers of mortals. They would come during times of great distress, often when a mortal was dying or grieving. Their very presence could calm anxiety, fear, sorrow, and anger. To be held in their arms felt safe and familiar, almost as though the mortal was a child being held by their parent. That was their job. They were to comfort and protect the vulnerable.

They manifested in an adult body, capable of speaking several languages and having full understanding of their power and purpose. But they were still young once. Some lessons had to be learned solely through experience. Some lessons are learned the hard way. They loved an archangel once. A kind of love full of blind trust, obsessive devotion, and free of jealousy or possession. They worshiped their superior. Idolized their every action and trusted their every word. Angels are made of goodness. They could never lead someone astray from the path of good. Sin is for mortals.

But mortals sin a lot, don't they? They all do. Everyone makes mistakes. Every mortal fails eventually. One day the archangel proclaimed that sin must be extinguished at its source: mortals. The perpetrators of sin. The perpetrators of evils. Even those who have yet to sin are still capable of doing so later, unlike angels. So Junebug finally earned their chance to prove their devotion! They were to free the world from sin for good. One by one. Once the flawed crop of mortals was to be extinguished, divinity would be free to create a new, more perfected breed of mortal. Someone more like angels.

They were merciless, indiscriminate, and efficient. Cutting through each obstacle like butter. Hundreds were gone within the first day. They were so soaked in mortal blood that one could mistake their wings for red. The other angels heard the cries of the mortals in their last moments, and refused to let this injustice go unpunished. The archangel was executed along with several followers, the few angels that remained were permanently disgraced and exiled.

Junebug wanders the worlds between alone. Constantly craving to have that divine connection they once had before their fall from glory. They long to feel the warm glow of divinity again. They lost everything. Their name once served as a way for mortals to call for help. Now it serves as a curse for its owner. They must still heed the call of their name, but they're no longer bound to their original purpose. They can be called for any reason, but what kind of mortal would want to call such a monster? Without a divine purpose, they make pacts with mortals to kill eternity. These pacts may go well, or they may sour depending on Junebug's mood.

They sincerely regret the actions that lead to their fall from grace, and their opinion of mortals and angels has changed significantly since the fall. Angels are not made of goodness. They are made of free will like all creatures. Their belief in their moral superiority will be their downfall. Mortals all sin, but mistakes can be forgiven. They actually find mortals kind of cute now, in a dumb-but-innocent-animal kind of way. They can never understand life from divine perspective, and they live such fleeting and insignificant lives. Still, mortals are cute in their own little way. They certainly can be entertaining.

#oc junebug

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my-weird-news · 1 year ago

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Fired! Cop Targets 10-Year-Old in Shocking Urination Bust 😱

#PeeGate Chronicles: Mississippi's Littlest Outlaw Strikes Gold and Gets the Boot! 💦👮‍♂️ Well, well, well, gather 'round folks, because the saga of the century has unfolded in the sleepy town of Senatobia, Mississippi! 🌆 It seems that even in the land of sweet tea and southern charm, trouble can brew faster than you can say "biscuits and gravy." Picture this: a 10-year-old child, just your average pint-sized daredevil, decides to relieve themselves in a parking lot. Now, normally, this would earn them a scolding and a one-way ticket to Embarrassmentville, but not in this story, dear readers! 🚫🚻 Enter our fearless officers, or as I like to call them, the Pee Police! 🚓💦 With the agility of a cat chasing a laser pointer, they swoop in and apprehend the tiny maverick. The audacity of the situation almost makes you wonder if they used a net. But hold onto your magnolia blossoms, because the tale doesn't end there! 🌸 Oh no, the young whiz kid is not only taken for a ride in the back of a squad car, but also treated to a luxurious tour of the local police station. Talk about an education money can't buy! 📚🚔 Now, I know what you're thinking – did they handcuff this tiny rebel? Did they read them their rights, with a special emphasis on the right to remain adorable? 🚫🔗 Well, fear not, for our law enforcement heroes had a change of heart. No cuffs, no charges, just a stern citation for being a "child in need of services." I don't know about you, but I imagine services would include a juice box and a nap. But wait, there's a twist! 🌀 The city's top cop, Chief Richard Chandler, is here to save the day! He rides in on his virtual horse (okay, maybe not, but let's pretend) to announce that the Pee Police are getting their due. One officer is out of a job faster than you can say "splash zone," and the rest are in for a good ol' fashioned southern scolding. 🤠🔫 And in a true display of modern communication, Chief Chandler takes to Facebook to share the news. Because when you're disciplining officers over a peeing pre-teen, you have to keep up with the times! 💻📢 In a heartfelt post, the chief gives a shoutout to the public for their patience – because let's face it, handling a case of public urination requires the patience of a saint. He also admits that the officers might have flunked their "How to Deal with Kids" training. But hey, it's not like there's a chapter titled "When Mini Rebels Attack" in the manual, right? 📖🚼 Now, you might be wondering about the fate of that golden ticket, I mean, citation. Has it been rescinded? Who knows? The drama unfolds faster than a cat video going viral. 🐱🎥 So there you have it, dear readers, the tale of a 10-year-old outlaw who tinkled in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Pee Police who sprang into action. Senatobia, you've just given us a story for the ages – a tale of rebellion, justice, and the undeniable call of nature. And as for that officer who got the boot? Well, they're off to new adventures, like stopping jaywalking squirrels or interrogating junebugs for loitering. 🐿️🔍🦗 Until next time, keep it weird, Senatobia! 🌈🤪## #PeeGate Chronicles: Mississippi's Littlest Outlaw Strikes Gold and Gets the Boot! 💦👮‍♂️ Well, well, well, gather 'round folks, because the saga of the century has unfolded in the sleepy town of Senatobia, Mississippi! 🌆 It seems that even in the land of sweet tea and southern charm, trouble can brew faster than you can say "biscuits and gravy." Picture this: a 10-year-old child, just your average pint-sized daredevil, decides to relieve themselves in a parking lot. Now, normally, this would earn them a scolding and a one-way ticket to Embarrassmentville, but not in this story, dear readers! 🚫🚻 Enter our fearless officers, or as I like to call them, the Pee Police! 🚓💦 With the agility of a cat chasing a laser pointer, they swoop in and apprehend the tiny maverick. The audacity of the situation almost makes you wonder if they used a net. But hold onto your magnolia blossoms, because the tale doesn't end there! 🌸 Oh no, the young whiz kid is not only taken for a ride in the back of a squad car, but also treated to a luxurious tour of the local police station. Talk about an education money can't buy! 📚🚔 Now, I know what you're thinking – did they handcuff this tiny rebel? Did they read them their rights, with a special emphasis on the right to remain adorable? 🚫🔗 Well, fear not, for our law enforcement heroes had a change of heart. No cuffs, no charges, just a stern citation for being a "child in need of services." I don't know about you, but I imagine services would include a juice box and a nap. But wait, there's a twist! 🌀 The city's top cop, Chief Richard Chandler, is here to save the day! He rides in on his virtual horse (okay, maybe not, but let's pretend) to announce that the Pee Police are getting their due. One officer is out of a job faster than you can say "splash zone," and the rest are in for a good ol' fashioned southern scolding. 🤠🔫 And in a true display of modern communication, Chief Chandler takes to Facebook to share the news. Because when you're disciplining officers over a peeing pre-teen, you have to keep up with the times! 💻📢 In a heartfelt post, the chief gives a shoutout to the public for their patience – because let's face it, handling a case of public urination requires the patience of a saint. He also admits that the officers might have flunked their "How to Deal with Kids" training. But hey, it's not like there's a chapter titled "When Mini Rebels Attack" in the manual, right? 📖🚼 Now, you might be wondering about the fate of that golden ticket, I mean, citation. Has it been rescinded? Who knows? The drama unfolds faster than a cat video going viral. 🐱🎥 So there you have it, dear readers, the tale of a 10-year-old outlaw who tinkled in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Pee Police who sprang into action. Senatobia, you've just given us a story for the ages – a tale of rebellion, justice, and the undeniable call of nature. And as for that officer who got the boot? Well, they're off to new adventures, like stopping jaywalking squirrels or interrogating junebugs for loitering. 🐿️🔍🦗 Until next time, keep it weird, Senatobia! 🌈🤪 Read the full article

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juniwilson · 2 years ago

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Sleep & Sympathy | Para

Featuring: Juniper, Sky & Cliff Wilson. Mentions of: Chris Grimaldi & some of the other Wilson offspring When: Mon. Sept. 5, 2022, late morning Notes: Juni’s parents are back in town to meet their youngest grandchild! Meanwhile, Juni has a meaningful conversation with their parents. Triggers: Mentions of SIDS & PPA

Juniper was happy to have their parents in town. The two had originally booked their tickets for this date, with plans to stay for over a week, anticipating that their grandchild would arrive some time this week and they would be there to help out. But when Atlas made his debut almost two weeks earlier, Sky and Cliff accepted phone calls and Facebook video calls to get by until they touched down at SFO. Their check-in at the hostel was swift before they took an Uber to Chris’s mansion.

Now seated side-by-side on one of the couches, the two grandparents appeared to be in heaven with Atlas drifting back to sleep in Cliff’s arms and Sky positively gushing over every single yawn, every curl of his fingers into fists, and every pucker of his lips as though he was nursing the air. Juni was seated in a nearby arm chair, watching her son and her parents. She’d taken some photos with her cellphone and already sent them to both of their phones, and she’d shown them both what the nursery looked like upstairs, now that everything from the shower had found a place in the mansion.

When asked by their mom how they were doing, Juni gave their answer some serious thought before answering. “I’m okay, I think. Well... I know I’m very...” They tried to find a better word than ‘paranoid’ but really couldn’t think of one in the moment. “I still tend to worry a lot about Atlas when he’s sleeping, if no one is holding him or he’s not near me. I know it’s not entirely rational and I’m being paranoid, but I can’t help it.”

“Because of Reed,” Cliff guessed, holding no judgement in his voice.

Juni nodded, not meeting either of their parents’ eyes and instead fixing their gaze on Atlas.

Sky and Cliff exchanged a glance and then Sky spoke up. “Oh, honey, it’s not an entirely irrational thought, and believe me when I say that you’re not alone in it. Holly, River, and Autumn all worried about SIDS too when their children were born. Even Glenn worried somewhat when Felicity was a baby, and he and Robin don’t really remember Reed. It’s natural to worry, especially after having gone through such loss and grief. Even if you hadn’t, you’re a parent now. Parents--the good ones anyway--spend their lives worrying about their children.”

“It comes with the job description of loving them,” Cliff added with a gentle smile. “You’re always going to want what’s best for your child and with that comes with the wonder and worry for them--if they’re happy, healthy and always know that they’re loved. Even when the first two might sometimes be out of your control, you’re never going to stop loving them, or stop trying to do what you can to provide or add to their happiness and good health. And you, Junebug, are without a doubt one of the most loving people I have ever known.”

Her hormones still hadn’t leveled out, so Juni found herself tearing up easily before her father had finished speaking. She wiped them away and nodded again as her mom asked, “Have you talked with Chris about your worries, Juniper? You don’t want to carry something like this on your mind without your partner knowing.”

“I have,” Juniper assured. “He’s been understanding and comforting, and we’re taking the precautions that we can--monitors mostly, and he’s been sleeping in our room since we came home from the hospital.”

“And what about your midwife, or your doctor? Have you talked to them?”

Tucking their bottom lip in, Juni nodded again. “Atlas’s pediatrician, actually. At his first check-up. She had me fill out a questionnaire and recommended I make an appointment with my midwife to talk about..um.. Postpartum Anxiety?” At this point, they were frowning, their eyes back on a slumbering Atlas. “I hadn’t heard of it before, but she thinks I should talk to my midwife about it.”

Sky gave her husband’s forearm a squeeze and then she stood to pull Juniper to their feet and into a hug. Juni hugged their mom back and quietly cried, wishing that they could feel more at ease and worry less--a normal amount of worry, whatever that looked and felt like. They were happy, but they couldn’t shut off or lessen the worry that stayed with them, day in and day out since Atlas was born. They’d hardly slept because of it, even when Chris encouraged them go nap. And they were rarely out of Atlas’s sight for long. They checked the sock monitor on Atlas’s foot frequently and always double, sometimes triple-checked it before lying him down. When nursing him, Juni was keenly focused on the infant’s breathing pattern, and whenever they pumped or folded laundry, or ate a snack, they would do so while keeping an eye on a sleeping Atlas.

“Are you feeling sad or depressed too?” Sky asked, her voice quiet against Juniper’s shoulder.

At that, Juni shook their head. It took a few tries before they were able to verbally respond. “N-no. Not really. Just... worried. Anxious. The arrest situation had me stressed and a little depressed. I worried that how I’d been feeling then played a part in me going into labor ahead of my due date. But I’ve talked a lot of that out, which really helped. But the worried feeling hasn’t gone away. I’ve been really happy too though... happy that Atlas is here and that Chris and I have both been able to spend so much time with him.” They drew back from their mom enough to wipe their eyes again and then spoke on, “He hasn’t been without either or both of us since he’s been born. And I’m happy that he has all four of his grandparents in his life, and so many aunts, uncles and cousins, and pseudo-aunts and uncles in mine and Chris’s friends. And it’s not just Atlas’s arrival that’s made me happy lately. Chris has too.”

Juni was thankful that it was just them and their parents present at the moment. Talking with them alone made it much easier to have a steady conversation compared to conversations with two or more of their siblings around too. Juni loved them, of course, but just thinking back to trying to tell them about their relationship with Chris, back on the island, and that they were pregnant was evidence enough that it was easy to get lost in the shuffle.

They didn’t have the ring to show it yet, but it didn’t stop Juni from telling them, “He proposed to me, and I accepted. We’re going to get married.”

Her mom stilled in front of her, except for her eyes growing wide like saucers. Her dad lifted his gaze from his grandson to his child and he smiled--the corners of his eyes crinkling. At the same time that Sky’s arms flew around their shoulders, Cliff said, “Wow, kiddo. Congratulations!” in a gentle but sincere tone.

“Oh, Juniper, dear, that’s wonderful!” Sky cried, squeezing Juniper as tightly as hr slender arms would allow. “When did this happen? How did he propose? Did he tell you we gave him our blessing already?”

Juni smiled as their freckled face started to redden, thinking about the proposal--and what all took place prior to. But aloud, they said, “Well, he proposed the night before the baby shower. We were in bed, talking. I’d commented on how he gives me forehead kisses a lot, and he said that he noticed that they make me smile, and he wants to make me smile every day for forever.” Sky was punctuating the end of each sentence with a squealing noise, hands pressed to her cheeks while her child went on, “And then, he showed me a picture on his phone of the ring he’s designed for me. It isn’t ready yet, and he told me I didn’t have to answer then, but he asked if I’d want to marry him.”

“Did you?” Cliff asked, genuinely curious.

“Of course she did!” Sky replied, giving her husband a reprimanding flap of her hand while keeping her eyes on Juniper. “You did, right?”

Juniper chuckled at her parents, “Yes, I did. I had no reason to wait to give him an answer. We love each other, we make each other happy, and we both want the same thing--to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“And you’ve both got Atlas,” Cliff pointed out. “Getting married will be another beautiful layer to add to your existing family.”

Nodding and wiping one more tear away, Juni said, “Yes. Family is something we’ve been on the same page about since we first talked about me being pregnant.”

“And I’m sure Atlas won’t be an only child, right?” Sky asked, eyes still wide and full of hope.

Cliff chuckled, “Sky, they just had their first. Let them enjoy their time with him before pestering them for more grandchildren--not to mention now they’ll have a wedding to plan.”

Juniper’s face was heating up again but they were smiling again as they said, “Atlas won’t be an only child forever, Mom. Chris and I have talked about that before. But Dad’s right, about the wedding planning.” She smiled a fraction more, “I think between that, tending to Atlas, and Chris’s film projects, we’re going to have our hands full for a while.”

Sky grinned, “Of course, dear, of course! But you know, there’s nothing that says you two couldn’t end up with Irish twins, like Holly and River!” She winked and Cliff coughed a small laugh.

Juni just turned more red, mentally considering that Atlas wasn’t planned and yes, that was a possibility, but one that they couldn’t spend too much time thinking on for right now. “Well. We’ll see. I definitely have some healing to do before we put much focus on a sibling for Atlas.”

Sky’s grin softened greatly into a look of more understanding than before. “That’s good, dear. Truly. Your body needs time to physically heal, but allow your mind that same sort of grace too, okay? Not only is labor taxing on the body and mind, but everything you have told us would absolutely warrant you giving yourself time to heal in every way possible. Just know that while we may live two states away, we’re here for you, okay?”

Juniper nodded, “Okay. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad,” and with a light smile, hugged her mother, and then moved towards her father to give him a one-armed hug across his shoulders. Atlas was still peacefully sleeping; it was a sight she couldn’t get enough of, even when she was very, very tired.

Cliff looked from his grandson to his child, noticing the weary expression and dark circles forming under her bright blue eyes. “Have you got anything you need to take care of right now, Junebug?”

Juni thought about this for a moment and then shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ll have to pump again later, but right now, there’s nothing I can think of. I wanted to make sure Atlas and I had time to spend with you.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Cliff spoke, rising from the couch with his grandson still secured in his arms. “You know your mom and I are old pros at this, and you’re close by. Would you want to try and take a little nap?” He saw the panic flit across Juni’s face and then calmly assured her, “Just here on the couch. You’ll be close. Your Mom and I will be right here with him and if anything happens, we’ll wake you right up, okay?”

Juniper frowned, trying to think of a retort other than, ‘It’s okay, I don’t mind’ in regard to staying awake, but their Mom had knelt in front of the couch next to Juni and gently insisted, “You need your rest, Juniper. Even if all you sleep for is an hour--half an hour, you’ll be an even better parent than you already are if you get some sleep. And it’s like your Dad said: We’ll be right here and stay in this room with Atlas while you rest.” Sky rested a hand on Juniper’s kne while gazing up at her with calm but hopeful eyes.

The idea of a nap sounded inviting and alarming at the same time. But Juni knew that they were extremely sleep-deprived and not just because of the nightly feedings. After a handful of pensive passing seconds, Juni nodded, “Okay... just... just for a little while. Please wake me up though if--”

“We will,” her mother promised, giving her child’s knee a squeeze. “Now go ahead and lie down, here, dear.” And as Juni did so, Sky reached for the afghan draped along the back of the couch and pulled it down to cover most of Juniper’s body.

It look Juni several, long minutes to quiet their mind enough to close their eyes but once they did, it was only another minute after that before Juni’s breathing evened out and they’d willingly given in to some sleep.

#Sleep and Sympathy para #sids tw #ppa tw #postpartum tw

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vintage-tech · 3 years ago

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Meet the blogger!

I never quite got around to introducing myself here, so allow me to tell you a bit about my family and upbringing.

So this is me in my sophomore year of high school, and truly it was a confusing time for me. I was trying to find myself, and eventually I wandered into a thriftshop and there I was. I was probably donated while I was at camp two summers earlier and had just been sitting here, so locating me at last was life-changing. I still hang out there to reminisce. Here’s an earlier picture of me with my sister and brother:

Billy was the cute one of us; he now sells used cars in Wapato, WA. Teddy was the smart one; he now does voiceovers on radio and televison, so you’ve probably heard him if you’ve ever been in east-central Oregon. I had just had my eyes dilated at the optometrist on the way to the photo studio so the bright lights and flashes during shoot were really doing a number on my brain.

I’ve always hated drama but loved drama class. Mr. Riley in my sophomore year saw my potential as a set designer and wardrobe advisor, two jobs where I didn’t have to get onstage but without me everything would have looked like Our Town on orange fiberglas ladders. Here’s how things looked when I worked on Alex Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, The Musical in my junior year.

My mother came from a family heritage of circus performers. She personally never was in the ring but here are her four sisters and one aunt (Junebug, middle) between shows; they were the Contorted Hammarschlaggers for 27 years. Here’s a picture of my mother’s kin:

Top row, far right, standing over Aunt Junebug is my mom. Other than my grandmother and that aunt, I couldn’t tell you any of their names because I never met them; most died or were maimed in various contortion accidents before I was born.

Since she didn’t travel with the circus like her sibs, Mom was able to pursue a career as a fifth-grade teacher. I didn’t say she was good at it, but she did it until she stepped out to raise a family then returned after us kids were out of the nest. She retired about five years ago, changed her name, and now sells animal-shaped chocolates as a pin-money hobby.

My uncle Jim, Mom’s father’s brother who would come to visit our neighbor down the street all the time because they were both fishermen, but never continued up the block to visit us (other than to drop off Christmas cards like the one this photo came in). She was his only neice and she adored him.

Now we go over to my dad’s side of the tree. He’s the one crying in his sister’s arm, and my father told me that this was because his brother was shooting spitwads at him. He still doesn’t talk to his brother to this day over this.

Another picture of my dad and his sister, with my grandmother (who refused to allow us to use the word “grandmother” about her). Their brother isn’t shown because he’d already moved out of the house at 13 to work on the railroad, or that’s how the family speaks of him that isn’t in hushed tones. The family home was a mortuary, my grandfather was an undertaker -- a job which paid quite well -- and I never really understood the jokes my mom’s family told about The Addams Family at holiday parties when my dad would be outside grilling steaks until I was in junior high. My grandmother died a millionare from investing the family fortune in stocks, and to this day not one of us has seen a penny of it.

That’s my family. Now, a final image... Here’s my prom date my senior year, Stephanie. Not only was she an amazing kisser, she beat my ass at Scrabble 9 out of 10 times. Now you know what I was doing during my senior prom... playing Scrabble in the coat closet while everyone else was out dancing and drinking the spiked punch. I lost touch with ‘Steev’ a week after graduation but I’ve heard she sells real estate in Arizona or New Mexico nowadays.

#family #personal #photographs #vintage #technology

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thelastspeecher · 4 years ago

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Best Revenge AU - Junior

I’m still working on the ficlet in this AU that is Angie-centric and has stuff showing her relationship with Max, her divorce, and when she starts dating Stan. But ever since I decided to create a new kid for this AU, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about said kid. So here, have some origin story for Stanley Junior.

——————————————————————————————

The front door slammed open. Angie stormed into the living room, where Lute and Stan were waiting for her to come back. After finding out Max had cheated on her, she had immediately gone over to trash his place.

“Feelin’ better?” Lute asked gently. Angie looked at him for a moment, then burst into tears. “Angie?” She ran off.

“What just happened?” Stan asked.

“I don’t rightly know,” Lute said. He chewed on his lip. “Maybe it would be fer the best if you went to talk to her. She might not want to talk to her brother.”

“I’m on it.” Stan got up and went down the hall, coming to a stop in front of Angie’s bedroom. He cautiously opened the door. Angie sat on her bed, her head in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Stan took a seat next to her.

“You all right?” he asked.

“N-no.”

“What’s wrong? I woulda thought you’d be happy after trashing your ex’s house.”

“I prob’ly would be,” Angie said, wiping her tears away, “if I wasn’t…” She took a shuddering breath. “If I wasn’t pregnant.”

“You’re- but we haven’t knocked boots!” It was something Stan was a bit disappointed by, but he was fine with waiting until Angie felt comfortable being intimate. “How could you-”

“It’s Max’s,” Angie whispered. Stan stared at her in horror. “Seems- seems like he got what he wanted. I was ‘bout a week or two along when I left.”

“I thought you were on birth control.” Stan’s eyes widened. “Unless he fucked with your pills.”

“He didn’t know about the pills.”

“Then how-”

“Birth control can fail.”

“Are you- are you gonna keep it?” Stan asked quietly. Angie closed her eyes.

“Nothin’ against folks who decide to- to terminate a pregnancy. It ain’t my business what they do. But I- I can’t do that.”

“You’re keeping it.”

“Yes.” Angie put her head in her hands, sobbing again. “I’m- I’m sorry!”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I love ya so- so much, and ya won’t stay with me.”

“Hold on.” Stan held up a hand. “When did I say that?”

“You-” Angie stared at him, her bright blue eyes filled with tears. “Yer not goin’ to leave me?”

“Nope.”

“But I’m pregnant with another man’s baby.”

“So?” Stan said with a shrug. “Angie, this is the best relationship I’ve ever been in. I’m not gonna throw that away. You mean everything to me.” He reached for Angie’s hand and squeezed. “I don’t want you to go through this alone.”

“But-”

“And…” Stan looked down at the ground. “Honestly? I’ve wanted to be a dad since I was a kid. This just means I’ll be a dad sooner than I thought.”

“You won’t regret it?” Angie asked.

“I’d regret it if I left.” Stan kissed the top of her head. “I’m not going anywhere, Ang.” Angie pulled Stan’s face closer to hers and kissed him sweetly.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“Love you, too.”

-----

Stan landed in the backyard of Angie and Lute’s house.

“Mind the flowerbed!” Angie called from inside. Stan quickly shut off his flames. “Thank you!” Stan walked in through the back door. “In the kitchen!” He headed for the kitchen. Angie was nervously stirring a pot of something on the stove. Stan walked over to her and kissed the top of her head. “Are ya excited?”

“To meet your parents or to finally get all the baby stuff outta my apartment?” Stan asked. Angie swatted him playfully. The day after Angie told Stan she was pregnant and keeping it, Stan had gone on a bit of a spree, stealing things from numerous baby supply stores. Angie didn’t mind it, but insisted Stan not steal from small mom and pop stores. However, because she had wanted to wait to tell her family about the pregnancy, the baby supplies were stacked up in Stan’s apartment.

“Thank you fer bein’ so flexible on me not tellin’ my folks ‘til now,” she said softly. Stan shrugged.

“You’re the one who’s pregnant. I’m just following your lead.”

“Well, I’m officially in my second trimester, so now’s the time to tell.”

“Are you showing yet?”

“I literally showed ya yesterday. Do ya really think I’d have started showin’ overnight?”

“Well, you gotta get the bump at some point,” Stan said. Angie chuckled. She lifted her shirt to reveal her stomach. It was a bit bigger than before, but didn’t look evidently pregnant. “Nope. Not yet.”

“I ain’t that surprised,” Angie said, lowering her shirt. “I ‘member my Pa sayin’ that my Ma didn’t look pregnant until her third trimester fer all the kids. Well, all of ‘em ‘cept me ‘n Lute, since we were twins.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty small.”

“Doc says that the lil bean ‘ll prob’ly be small, too.” The doorbell rang.

“I got it!” Lute’s voice shouted from somewhere.

“Still can’t believe you managed to keep it secret from him,” Stan whispered to Angie. “Not only is he your twin, you literally live together.”

“Lute’s been walkin’ on eggshells ever since I left Max,” Angie said. She turned off the stove. “He’s very careful to not pry into my personal business, since Max was so controllin’.” Footsteps sounded. The front door opened.

“Ma, Pa!” Lute said happily. “Angie’s in the kitchen. I ain’t sure if Stan’s got here yet or not.” Lute entered the kitchen, a man and woman close behind him. The man looked like a carbon copy of Lute, while the woman looked exactly like Angie, with one major exception.

Angie clearly got her dad’s nose. Wonder if the kid’ll get it, too.

“Angie!” Angie’s parents promptly pulled her away from the stove and into a hug. “Oh, it’s so good to see ya,” her father cooed. Her mother looked Angie up and down.

“I see ya fin’ly put some meat on yer bones,” her mom said. Angie turned red.

“Ma!”

“No, it’s good,” her dad said firmly. “You needed it.” He smiled at her. “You’ve always been so tiny.”

“Maybe it’s ‘cause she ain’t stressed from livin’ with that turd what pretended to be a husband,” Lute groused, leaning against the counter. Angie kneaded her forehead.

“Lute…”

“I’m allowed to call him that.” A sudden melancholy fell over Lute. “He was my best friend long ‘fore he was yer boyfriend.”

“I know.”

“So, are ya goin’ to introduce us to yer new beau?” Mrs. McGucket cooed. Angie grabbed Stan’s hand. He gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“Ma, Pa, this is my boyfriend, Stanley Pines. He works with Lute, but has a day job sellin’ used cars. Stan, these ‘re my parents, Sally ‘n Mearl McGucket.”

“Pleasure to meet ya, son,” Mr. McGucket said, holding out a hand. Stan shook the offered hand, forcing a smile. The two southerners seemed like a regular farmer and his wife, warm and gentle. But Stan knew that Mrs. McGucket was actually the infamous Sirocco, his own mother’s archnemesis, while Mr. McGucket had regularly interfered with local government as the villain Hemlock. “I got to say, I’m glad my lil girl fin’ly found herself a proper villain to date.”

“Pa,” Angie whined. Mr. McGucket chuckled.

“I’m just teasin’, junebug.”

“We’re so happy yer in a good relationship,” Mrs. McGucket gushed. “Ya had a clean break with Max and can start over.” Angie took a deep breath.

“A-about that…” she started. Stan looked at her, surprised.

“You’re gonna tell them now? I thought you were gonna wait until after dinner.”

“No.” Angie took another breath. “I just- I just want to get it over with.” She looked at her parents. “Ma, Pa, I’m pregnant.” Lute slipped from his casual lean, falling to the floor. Mr. and Mrs. McGucket stared at Angie in shock.

“O-oh,” Mrs. McGucket mumbled. Mr. McGucket swallowed.

“Angie, we try not to pass judgement on you ‘n yer siblin’s lives, but you’ve only been datin’ Stan fer a few months. To become pregnant with his child-”

“It’s not Stan’s,” Angie said quickly. Mrs. McGucket covered her mouth, her eyes wide in horror. “It’s Max’s. I didn’t know it, but I was a couple weeks along when I left.”

“Shit,” Lute swore, getting to his feet. His face contorted with rage. “He- he just had to get the last word, didn’t he?”

“Yer keepin’ it?” Mr. McGucket asked softly. Angie nodded. “I see.” He looked at his wife. “Sally?”

“Yes, dear.” Mrs. McGucket took Angie’s hand. “Come with me, sweetling. I need to ask ya a few questions.”

“Okay.” Angie allowed Mrs. McGucket to lead her away. Stan and Lute looked at Mr. McGucket, confused.

“What’s that about?” Stan asked. Mr. McGucket took off his glasses and polished them.

“We were plannin’ on havin’ Sally ask Angie a few questions in private, due to the sensitive nature of her breakup with Max.”

“You mean-” Stan started. Mr. McGucket nodded and put his glasses back on. Lute frowned.

“What?”

“Your mom is asking Angie if her ex-husband beat her,” Stan said flatly. Lute’s jaw dropped. “He didn’t, by the way. Angie’s told me everything that her dick of an ex did to her. Max treated her like she was made of glass and tried to control her near the end, but he didn’t lay a finger on her.”

Except for when he tried to keep her from leaving and grabbed her hard enough to bruise. But Angie had sworn Stan to secrecy in that regard. She knew her family would go scorched earth if they found out, which she didn’t want.

“Stanley, she might still be uncomfortable tellin’ ya somethin’ that she’d feel more comfortable tellin’ her mother,” Mr. McGucket said gently. He glowered. “Especially…”

“What?” Lute asked.

“With this new information ‘bout Max gettin’ her pregnant, we have to consider the possibility that Angie didn’t…” Mr. McGucket closed his eyes. “We need to make sure Angie consented to the events what caused her to get pregnant and that Max didn’t, ah, counteract any attempts Angie made to prevent a pregnancy.” Lute shook his head.

“No, Pa. Max, he- he turned out to be a real poor excuse of a person, but he wouldn’t have done anything like that to Angie. And if he’d even tried, Angie wouldn’t have tolerated it.”

“Hon, yer sister is very strong, but strong people can find themselves strugglin’ in a sit’ation like Angie was in,” Mr. McGucket said. “I also don’t think that Max would have done that to Angie. But we can’t ignore that possibility.”

“It’s smart,” Stan said after a moment. “Gotta cover all your bases.”

“Yes.” Mr. McGucket looked at Stan carefully. “So, yer fine with raisin’ another man’s child?”

“Yep. Angie and I talked it out ages ago.” Stan grinned, glad for the change in topic. “I’ve already started stocking up on stuff for the kid.”

“Yer the one what burgled all those baby stores?” Lute asked. Stan nodded. “Where have ya been puttin’ the stuff?”

“My apartment. But now that you all know, I can finally start moving it here. Thank god. I can barely see my bed.”

“Y’know, if yer goin’ to be with Angie fer the long haul and help her raise her child,” Mr. McGucket said idly, “maybe ya should just move in with her.” Stan stared at him.

“Pa, Angie’s the one who should offer that, not you,” Lute said, rolling his eyes. Mr. McGucket chuckled.

“Yer right, yer right.” He clapped Stan on the shoulder. “Are ya excited to be a dad?” Stan’s grin broadened.

“Yeah. I am. I know it’s gonna be tough and stressful, but I’m looking forward to holding the kid for the first time.” Mr. McGucket beamed.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

“What a coincidence,” Angie said. Stan turned. Angie and her mother had returned. She smiled at Stan. “That’s what I like to hear, too.”

-----

“It’s a boy!” the doctor said. Stan looked over. The newborn in the doctor’s arms was tiny and covered in body fluids Stan didn’t want to think about. The doctor handed the baby to a nearby nurse.

“Hey, uh, where are you taking him?” Stan asked. Angie chuckled.

“Stanley, relax. They’re just cleanin’ him up,” she said wearily.

“Oh. Right.” Stan grinned at Angie. “Got caught up in the moment.” Angie laughed again.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Uh…” Stan checked his watch. “Two in the morning.”

“Geez.” Angie yawned. “No wonder I’m so tired. I was in labor fer ten hours.” Angie had gone into labor yesterday afternoon, prompting Stan to call out of the bank job he was supposed to help with. “Is yer hand all right?”

“I’ve had worse,” Stan said. He’d been by Angie’s side throughout the labor, providing his hand for her to squeeze when she had a particularly bad contraction. “So, was this a good labor or-”

“It went about as smoothly as it could,” said the nurse, who had come back with the baby. “Honestly, I haven’t seen a labor and birth this free from complications in a while.”

“Good,” Angie said sleepily. “Is my boy ready?”

“Yes, he is. Here you go. He’s perfectly healthy.” The nurse carefully deposited the baby in Angie’s arms. “I’ll give you three some time to get to know each other.”

“Thank you,” Angie said. The nurse left. Angie carefully parted the folds of the blanket, revealing her son. “He’s so beautiful,” she whispered.

“He’s really tiny,” Stan said. “Are babies always that tiny?”

“Newborns are usually pretty small, but this lil feller is definitely smaller ‘n average,” Angie answered. She stroked her son’s cheek. The baby shifted slightly and opened his eyes. Stan smiled.

“He’s got your peepers.”

“He might not.”

“Uh, he’s got blue eyes.”

“Sometimes, babies are born with blue eyes, only fer the eyes to turn brown later on.” Angie smiled. “He’s got the fam’ly nose, though.”

“And he’s bald.”

“Mm-hmm.” Angie’s eyes slowly closed. “He’s perfect.”

“What are you gonna name him?” Stan asked.

“Shh, later,” Angie mumbled. Stan carefully took the baby from her. He kissed her forehead. Angie smiled.

“Get some sleep. You’ve earned it.”

-----

“Stanley?” Stan opened his eyes. He looked at the hospital bed. Angie was awake.

“Hey, babe.” Stan stretched. After Angie had fallen asleep, she’d been taken from the delivery room to her own private room. Stan had set up camp in the chair by her bed and fallen asleep. “How are you doing?”

“Less tired.” Angie looked around. “Where’s the baby?”

“I had him go to the nursery so we could both get some sleep.”

“Ah. Smart.”

“They asked what his name was, but I didn’t know what you were planning on, so they just put him down as Baby McGucket.” Stan grinned. “Which, honestly, isn’t half bad of a name.” Angie laughed.

“It wouldn’t be the weirdest name in my fam’ly. But it ain’t the name I’ve got in mind.”

“What is?”

“You’ll see,” Angie said with a grin. Stan chuckled.

“Making me wait. I see how it is.” He stood up. “Be right back, I’ve gotta go pee.”

-----

When Stan got back to Angie’s hospital room, she was holding the baby. Stan walked over to her bed.

“Yer middle name is Stanford, right?” Angie asked him.

“Uh, yeah. Fuck Pops for doing that to me.”

“Love, there ‘re young ears in hearin’ range,” Angie said gently. “No swearin’ ‘round the baby.”

“…Right.” Stan rubbed the back of his neck. “Why’d you need my middle name? Oh, I was gonna sign the birth certificate.”

“No need. Birth certificate is all done,” Angie said. Stan frowned.

“But who’d you put down as the dad?”

“I left it blank.” Angie looked down at her son in her arms. “I didn’t- I know that yer happy to be raisin’ this lil bean now, but I didn’t want to chain ya to a child what ain’t yours. Just in case.”

“Ang…”

“I don’t want ya to feel trapped,” Angie said quietly. Stan’s eyes widened. He put his arm around her shoulders. “I’ve felt that way. I wouldn’t wish it on someone I love.”

“You’re too good for me,” Stan said. Angie managed a watery chuckle. “If I’m not signing the birth certificate, why’d you need to know my middle name?”

“Well…” Angie smiled. “Hold out yer arms.” Stan did as he was told. Angie carefully handed the baby over. “Meet Stanley Stanford McGucket.”

“Wh-” Stan stared at Angie. “That’s- that’s my name.” Angie nodded. Stan swallowed. “It’s- it’s a good name,” he choked out.

“You’ve been there fer me through all of this. It’s the only name what feels right fer the lil bean.”

“I…” Stan stared down at the baby named after him. “He really is a little bean.” Angie laughed.

“I was thinkin’ we could call him Junior. He ain’t Stan Pines Junior at the moment, but if we get married, he will be. And since yer already named Stan…”

“Yeah, I’d be pretty confused if I heard Lute say he changed Stan’s dirty diaper,” Stan said dryly. Angie laughed again. “You’re in a good mood.”

“I’ve got my two boys with me. How could I not be?” Angie asked. Junior shifted in Stan’s arms. Stan smiled down at him.

“Hey, bud,” he whispered. Junior watched him curiously. “I’m not the one who got your mama pregnant. But I’m the one who’s gonna take care of you. Got it?” Junior giggled. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page.” Stan sat down in the chair he’d slept in, still staring at Junior. “Sweet Moses. I’m- I’m a dad.”

“Only if ya want to be,” Angie said. Stan looked at her.

“I just told Junior that I’m gonna be his dad. He understood. You didn’t?”

“All right, all right,” Angie said, holding her hands up in surrender. “All right. Yer a dad. Yer Junior’s dad.

“Damn straight.”

“Language.”

“Right.” Stan settled back in his chair. “These isn’t the Halloween I had in mind, but-”

“Pardon?”

“Ang, you went into labor yesterday, on October 30th,” Stan said. “Today’s Halloween.” Angie burst into laughter. “What?”

“It’s just- I was born on April Fool’s Day. It feels appropriate fer my son to be born on Halloween.” Stan held up a finger.

“Nuh-uh. Our son was born on Halloween.” He grinned. “I’m gonna throw Junior the best birthday parties.” A comfortable silence fell. “I kinda like how quiet it is right now.”

“Don’t get too used to it,” Angie warned. “My entire fam’ly is headin’ over. It’ll get loud real fast.” The door slammed open.

“Where’s my new nephew?” Lute crowed. Angie looked at Stan.

“See?”

#for reals tho if people are curious about Junior pls send asks #we've come up with a lot of stuff for him already #and I'm eager to share information about him #he is a good boy and precious bean #Best Revenge AU #Stanley Pines #Angie McGucket #Lute McGucket #Pa McGucket #Ma McGucket #McGucket Family #Stangie #Stangie Family #ficlet #my writing #my stuff #speecher speaks

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badartfriend · 3 years ago

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There is a sunny earnestness to Dawn Dorland, an un-self-conscious openness that endears her to some people and that others have found to be a little extra. Her friends call her a “feeler”: openhearted and eager, pressing to make connections with others even as, in many instances, she feels like an outsider. An essayist and aspiring novelist who has taught writing classes in Los Angeles, she is the sort of writer who, in one authorial mission statement, declares her faith in the power of fiction to “share truth,” to heal trauma, to build bridges. (“I’m compelled at funerals to shake hands with the dusty men who dig our graves,” she has written.) She is known for signing off her emails not with “All best” or “Sincerely,” but “Kindly.”

On June 24, 2015, a year after completing her M.F.A. in creative writing, Dorland did perhaps the kindest, most consequential thing she might ever do in her life. She donated one of her kidneys, and elected to do it in a slightly unusual and particularly altruistic way. As a so-called nondirected donation, her kidney was not meant for anyone in particular but instead was part of a donation chain, coordinated by surgeons to provide a kidney to a recipient who may otherwise have no other living donor. There was some risk with the procedure, of course, and a recovery to think about, and a one-kidney life to lead from that point forward. But in truth, Dorland, in her 30s at the time, had been wanting to do it for years. “As soon as I learned I could,” she told me recently, on the phone from her home in Los Angeles, where she and her husband were caring for their toddler son and elderly pit bull (and, in their spare time, volunteering at dog shelters and searching for adoptive families for feral cat litters). “It’s kind of like not overthinking love, you know?”

Several weeks before the surgery, Dorland decided to share her truth with others. She started a private Facebook group, inviting family and friends, including some fellow writers from GrubStreet, the Boston writing center where Dorland had spent many years learning her craft. After her surgery, she posted something to her group: a heartfelt letter she’d written to the final recipient of the surgical chain, whoever they may be.

Personally, my childhood was marked by trauma and abuse; I didn’t have the opportunity to form secure attachments with my family of origin. A positive outcome of my early life is empathy, that it opened a well of possibility between me and strangers. While perhaps many more people would be motivated to donate an organ to a friend or family member in need, to me, the suffering of strangers is just as real. … Throughout my preparation for becoming a donor … I focused a majority of my mental energy on imagining and celebrating you.

The procedure went well. By a stroke of luck, Dorland would even get to meet the recipient, an Orthodox Jewish man, and take photos with him and his family. In time, Dorland would start posting outside the private group to all of Facebook, celebrating her one-year “kidneyversary” and appearing as a UCLA Health Laker for a Day at the Staples Center to support live-organ donation. But just after the surgery, when she checked Facebook, Dorland noticed some people she’d invited into the group hadn’t seemed to react to any of her posts. On July 20, she wrote an email to one of them: a writer named Sonya Larson.

Larson and Dorland had met eight years earlier in Boston. They were just a few years apart in age, and for several years they ran in the same circles, hitting the same events, readings and workshops at the GrubStreet writing center. But in the years since Dorland left town, Larson had leveled up. Her short fiction was published, in Best American Short Stories and elsewhere; she took charge of GrubStreet’s annual Muse and the Marketplace literary conference, and as a mixed-race Asian American, she marshaled the group’s diversity efforts. She also joined a group of published writers that calls itself the Chunky Monkeys (a whimsical name, referring to breaking off little chunks of big projects to share with the other members). One of those writing-group members, Celeste Ng, who wrote “Little Fires Everywhere,” told me that she admires Larson’s ability to create “characters who have these big blind spots.” While they think they’re presenting themselves one way, they actually come across as something else entirely.

When it comes to literary success, the stakes can be pretty low — a fellowship or residency here, a short story published there. But it seemed as if Larson was having the sort of writing life that Dorland once dreamed of having. After many years, Dorland, still teaching, had yet to be published. But to an extent that she once had a writing community, GrubStreet was it. And Larson was, she believed, a close friend.

Over email, on July 21, 2015, Larson answered Dorland’s message with a chirpy reply — “How have you been, my dear?” Dorland replied with a rundown of her next writing residencies and workshops, and as casually as possible, asked: “I think you’re aware that I donated my kidney this summer. Right?”

Only then did Larson gush: “Ah, yes — I did see on Facebook that you donated your kidney. What a tremendous thing!”

Afterward, Dorland would wonder: If she really thought it was that great, why did she need reminding that it happened?

They wouldn’t cross paths again until the following spring — a brief hello at A.W.P., the annual writing conference, where the subject of Dorland’s kidney went unmentioned. A month later, at the GrubStreet Muse conference in Boston, Dorland sensed something had shifted — not just with Larson but with various GrubStreet eminences, old friends and mentors of hers who also happened to be members of Larson’s writing group, the Chunky Monkeys. Barely anyone brought up what she’d done, even though everyone must have known she’d done it. “It was a little bit like, if you’ve been at a funeral and nobody wanted to talk about it — it just was strange to me,” she said. “I left that conference with this question: Do writers not care about my kidney donation? Which kind of confused me, because I thought I was in a community of service-oriented people.”

It didn’t take long for a clue to surface. On June 24, 2016, a Facebook friend of Dorland’s named Tom Meek commented on one of Dorland’s posts.

Sonya read a cool story about giving out a kidney. You came to my mind and I wondered if you were the source of inspiration?

Still impressed you did this.

Dorland was confused. A year earlier, Larson could hardly be bothered to talk about it. Now, at Trident bookstore in Boston, she’d apparently read from a new short story about that very subject. Meek had tagged Larson in his comment, so Dorland thought that Larson must have seen it. She waited for Larson to chime in — to say, “Oh, yes, I’d meant to tell you, Dawn!” or something like that — but there was nothing. Why would Sonya write about it, she wondered, and not tell her?

Six days later, she decided to ask her. Much as she had a year earlier, she sent Larson a friendly email, including one pointed request: “Hey, I heard you wrote a kidney-donation story. Cool! Can I read it?”

‘I hope it doesn’t feel too weird for your gift to have inspired works of art.’

Ten days later, Larson wrote back saying that yes, she was working on a story “about a woman who receives a kidney, partially inspired by how my imagination took off after learning of your own tremendous donation.” In her writing, she spun out a scenario based not on Dorland, she said, but on something else — themes that have always fascinated her. “I hope it doesn’t feel too weird for your gift to have inspired works of art,” Larson wrote.

Dorland wrote back within hours. She admitted to being “a little surprised,” especially “since we’re friends and you hadn’t mentioned it.” The next day, Larson replied, her tone a bit removed, stressing that her story was “not about you or your particular gift, but about narrative possibilities I began thinking about.”

But Dorland pressed on. “It’s the interpersonal layer that feels off to me, Sonya. … You seemed not to be aware of my donation until I pointed it out. But if you had already kicked off your fictional project at this time, well, I think your behavior is a little deceptive. At least, weird.”

Larson’s answer this time was even cooler. “Before this email exchange,” she wrote, “I hadn’t considered that my individual vocal support (or absence of it) was of much significance.”

Which, though it was shrouded in politesse, was a different point altogether. Who, Larson seemed to be saying, said we were such good friends?

For many years now, Dorland has been working on a sprawling novel, “Econoline,” which interweaves a knowing, present-day perspective with vivid, sometimes brutal but often romantic remembrances of an itinerant rural childhood. The van in the title is, she writes in a recent draft, “blue as a Ty-D-Bowl tablet. Bumbling on the highway, bulky and off-kilter, a junebug in the wind.” The family in the narrative survives on “government flour, canned juice and beans” and “ruler-long bricks of lard” that the father calls “commodities.”

Dorland is not shy about explaining how her past has afforded her a degree of moral clarity that others might not come by so easily. She was raised in near poverty in rural Iowa. Her parents moved around a lot, she told me, and the whole family lived under a stigma. One small consolation was the way her mother modeled a certain perverse self-reliance, rejecting the judgments of others. Another is how her turbulent youth has served as a wellspring for much of her writing. She made her way out of Iowa with a scholarship to Scripps College in California, followed by divinity school at Harvard. Unsure of what to do next, she worked day jobs in advertising in Boston while dabbling in workshops at the GrubStreet writing center. When she noticed classmates cooing over Marilynne Robinson’s novel “Housekeeping,” she picked up a copy. After inhaling its story of an eccentric small-town upbringing told with sensitive, all-seeing narration, she knew she wanted to become a writer.

At GrubStreet, Dorland eventually became one of several “teaching scholars” at the Muse conference, leading workshops on such topics as “Truth and Taboo: Writing Past Shame.” Dorland credits two members of the Chunky Monkeys group, Adam Stumacher and Chris Castellani, with advising her. But in hindsight, much of her GrubStreet experience is tied up with her memories of Sonya Larson. She thinks they first met at a one-off writing workshop Larson taught, though Larson, for her part, says she doesn’t remember this. Everybody at GrubStreet knew Larson — she was one of the popular, ever-present people who worked there. On nights out with other Grubbies, Dorland remembers Larson getting personal, confiding about an engagement, the death of someone she knew and plans to apply to M.F.A. programs — though Larson now says she shared such things widely. When a job at GrubStreet opened up, Larson encouraged her to apply. Even when she didn’t get it, everyone was so gracious about it, including Larson, that she felt included all the same.

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Now, as she read these strained emails from Larson — about this story of a kidney donation; her kidney donation? — Dorland wondered if everyone at GrubStreet had been playing a different game, with rules she’d failed to grasp. On July 15, 2016, Dorland’s tone turned brittle, even wounded: “Here was a friend entrusting something to you, making herself vulnerable to you. At least, the conclusion I can draw from your responses is that I was mistaken to consider us the friends that I did.”

Larson didn’t answer right away. Three days later, Dorland took her frustrations to Facebook, in a blind item: “I discovered that a writer friend has based a short story on something momentous I did in my own life, without telling me or ever intending to tell me (another writer tipped me off).” Still nothing from Larson.

Dorland waited another day and then sent her another message both in a text and in an email: “I am still surprised that you didn’t care about my personal feelings. … I wish you’d given me the benefit of the doubt that I wouldn’t interfere.” Yet again, no response.

The next day, on July 20, she wrote again: “Am I correct that you do not want to make peace? Not hearing from you sends that message.”

Larson answered this time. “I see that you’re merely expressing real hurt, and for that I am truly sorry,” she wrote on July 21. But she also changed gears a little. “I myself have seen references to my own life in others’ fiction, and it certainly felt weird at first. But I maintain that they have a right to write about what they want — as do I, and as do you.”

Hurt feelings or not, Larson was articulating an ideal — a principle she felt she and all writers ought to live up to. “For me, honoring another’s artistic freedom is a gesture of friendship,” Larson wrote, “and of trust.”

Image

Sonya Larson in Massachussetts.Credit...Kholood Eid for The New York Times

Like Dawn Dorland, Sonya Larson understands life as an outsider. The daughter of a Chinese American mother and white father, she was brought up in a predominantly white, middle-class enclave in Minnesota, where being mixed-race sometimes confused her. “It took me a while to realize the things I was teased about were intertwined with my race,” she told me over the phone from Somerville, where she lived with her husband and baby daughter. Her dark hair, her slight build: In a short story called “Gabe Dove,” which was picked for the 2017 edition of Best American Short Stories, Larson’s protagonist is a second-generation Asian American woman named Chuntao, who is used to men putting their fingers around her wrist and remarking on how narrow it is, almost as if she were a toy, a doll, a plaything.

Larson’s path toward writing was more conventional than Dorland’s. She started earlier, after her first creative-writing class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When she graduated, in 2005, she moved to Boston and walked into GrubStreet to volunteer the next day. Right away, she became one of a handful of people who kept the place running. In her fiction, Larson began exploring the sensitive subject matter that had always fascinated her: racial dynamics, and people caught between cultures. In time, she moved beyond mere political commentary to revel in her characters’ flaws — like a more socially responsible Philip Roth, though every bit as happy to be profane and fun and provocative. Even as she allows readers to be one step ahead of her characters, to see how they’re going astray, her writing luxuriates in the seductive power that comes from living an unmoored life. “He described thick winding streams and lush mountain gorges,” the rudderless Chuntao narrates in “Gabe Dove,” “obviously thinking I’d enjoy this window into my ancestral country, but in truth, I wanted to slap him.”

Chuntao, or a character with that name, turns up in many of Larson’s stories, as a sort of a motif — a little different each time Larson deploys her. She appears again in “The Kindest,” the story that Larson had been reading from at the Trident bookstore in 2016. Here, Chuntao is married, with an alcohol problem. A car crash precipitates the need for a new organ, and her whole family is hoping the donation will serve as a wake-up call, a chance for Chuntao to redeem herself. That’s when the donor materializes. White, wealthy and entitled, the woman who gave Chuntao her kidney is not exactly an uncomplicated altruist: She is a stranger to her own impulses, unaware of how what she considers a selfless act also contains elements of intense, unbridled narcissism.

In early drafts of the story, the donor character’s name was Dawn. In later drafts, Larson ended up changing the name to Rose. While Dorland no doubt was an inspiration, Larson argues that in its finished form, her story moved far beyond anything Dorland herself had ever said or done. But in every iteration of “The Kindest,” the donor says she wants to meet Chuntao to celebrate, to commune — only she really wants something more, something ineffable, like acknowledgment, or gratitude, or recognition, or love.

Still, they’re not so different, Rose and Chuntao. “I think they both confuse love with worship,” Larson told me. “And they both see love as something they have to go get; it doesn’t already exist inside of them.” All through “The Kindest,” love or validation operates almost like a commodity — a precious elixir that heals all pain. “The thing about the dying,” Chuntao narrates toward the end, “is they command the deepest respect, respect like an underground river resonant with primordial sounds, the kind of respect that people steal from one another.”

They aren’t entirely equal, however. While Chuntao is the story’s flawed hero, Rose is more a subject of scrutiny — a specimen to be analyzed. The study of the hidden motives of privileged white people comes naturally to Larson. “When you’re mixed-race, as I am, people have a way of ‘confiding’ in you,” she once told an interviewer. What they say, often about race, can be at odds with how they really feel. In “The Kindest,” Chuntao sees through Rose from the start. She knows what Rose wants — to be a white savior — and she won’t give it to her. (“So she’s the kindest bitch on the planet?” she says to her husband.) By the end, we may no longer feel a need to change Chuntao. As one critic in the literary journal Ploughshares wrote when the story was published in 2017: “Something has got to be admired about someone who returns from the brink of death unchanged, steadfast in their imperfections.”

For some readers, “The Kindest” is a rope-a-dope. If you thought this story was about Chuntao’s redemption, you’re as complicit as Rose. This, of course, was entirely intentional. Just before she wrote “The Kindest,” Larson helped run a session on race in her graduate program that became strangely contentious. “Many of the writers who identified as white were quite literally seeing the racial dynamics of what we were discussing very differently from the people of color in the room,” she said. “It was as if we were just simply talking past one another, and it was scary.” At the time, she’d been fascinated by “the dress” — that internet meme with a photo some see as black and blue and others as white and gold. Nothing interests Larson more than a thing that can be seen differently by two people, and she saw now how no subject demonstrates that better than race. She wanted to write a story that was like a Rorschach test, one that might betray the reader’s own hidden biases.

When reflecting on Chuntao, Larson often comes back to the character’s autonomy, her nerve. “She resisted,” she told me. Chuntao refused to become subsumed by Rose’s narrative. “And I admire that. And I think that small acts of refusal like that are things that people of color — and writers of color — in this country have to bravely do all the time.”

Larson and Dorland have each taken and taught enough writing workshops to know that artists, almost by definition, borrow from life. They transform real people and events into something invented, because what is the great subject of art — the only subject, really — if not life itself? This was part of why Larson seemed so unmoved by Dorland’s complaints. Anyone can be inspired by anything. And if you don’t like it, why not write about it yourself?

But to Dorland, this was more than just material. She’d become a public voice in the campaign for live-organ donation, and she felt some responsibility for representing the subject in just the right way. The potential for saving lives, after all, matters more than any story. And yes, this was also her own life — the crystallization of the most important aspects of her personality, from the traumas of her childhood to the transcending of those traumas today. Her proudest moment, she told me, hadn’t been the surgery itself, but making it past the psychological and other clearances required to qualify as a donor. “I didn’t do it in order to heal. I did it because I had healed — I thought.”

The writing world seemed more suspicious to her now. At around the time of her kidney donation, there was another writer, a published novelist, who announced a new book with a protagonist who, in its description, sounded to her an awful lot like the one in “Econoline” — not long after she shared sections of her work in progress with him. That author’s book hasn’t been published, and so Dorland has no way of knowing if she’d really been wronged, but this only added to her sense that the guard rails had fallen off the profession. Beyond unhindered free expression, Dorland thought, shouldn’t there be some ethics? “What do you think we owe one another as writers in community?” she would wonder in an email, several months later, to The Times’s “Dear Sugars” advice podcast. (The show never responded.) “How does a writer like me, not suited to jadedness, learn to trust again after artistic betrayal?”

‘I’m thinking, When did I record my letter with a voice actor? Because this voice actor was reading me the paragraph about my childhood trauma.’

By summer’s end, she and Sonya had forged a fragile truce. “I value our relationship and I regret my part in these miscommunications and misunderstandings,” Larson wrote on Aug. 16, 2016. Not long after, Dorland Googled “kidney” and “Sonya Larson” and a link turned up.

The story was available on Audible — an audio version, put out by a small company called Plympton. Dorland’s dread returned. In July, Larson told her, “I’m still working on the story.” Now here it was, ready for purchase.

She went back and forth about it, but finally decided not to listen to “The Kindest.” When I asked her about it, she took her time parsing that decision. “What if I had listened,” she said, “and just got a bad feeling, and just felt exploited. What was I going to do with that? What was I going to do with those emotions? There was nothing I thought I could do.”

So she didn’t click. “I did what I thought was artistically and emotionally healthy,” she said. “And also, it’s kind of what she had asked me to do.”

Dorland could keep ‘‘The Kindest” out of her life for only so long. In August 2017, the print magazine American Short Fiction published the short story. She didn’t buy a copy. Then in June 2018, she saw that the magazine dropped its paywall for the story. The promo and opening essay on American Short Fiction’s home page had startled her: a photograph of Larson, side-by-side with a shot of the short-fiction titan Raymond Carver. The comparison does make a certain sense: In Carver’s story “Cathedral,” a blind man proves to have better powers of perception than a sighted one; in “The Kindest,” the white-savior kidney donor turns out to need as much salvation as the Asian American woman she helped. Still, seeing Larson anointed this way was, to say the least, destabilizing.

Then she started to read the story. She didn’t get far before stopping short. Early on, Rose, the donor, writes a letter to Chuntao, asking to meet her.

I myself know something of suffering, but from those experiences I’ve acquired both courage and perseverance. I’ve also learned to appreciate the hardship that others are going through, no matter how foreign. Whatever you’ve endured, remember that you are never alone. … As I prepared to make this donation, I drew strength from knowing that my recipient would get a second chance at life. I withstood the pain by imagining and rejoicing in YOU.

Here, to Dorland’s eye, was an echo of the letter she’d written to her own recipient — and posted on her private Facebook group — rejiggered and reworded, yet still, she believed, intrinsically hers. Dorland was amazed. It had been three years since she donated her kidney. Larson had all that time to launder the letter — to rewrite it drastically or remove it — and she hadn’t bothered.

She showed the story’s letter to her husband, Chris, who had until that point given Larson the benefit of the doubt.

“Oh,” he said.

Everything that happened two years earlier, during their email melée, now seemed like gaslighting. Larson had been so insistent that Dorland was being out of line — breaking the rules, playing the game wrong, needing something she shouldn’t even want. “Basically, she’d said, ‘I think you’re being a bad art friend,’” Dorland told me. That argument suddenly seemed flimsy. Sure, Larson had a right to self-expression — but with someone else’s words? Who was the bad art friend now?

Before she could decide what to do, there came another shock. A few days after reading “The Kindest,” Dorland learned that the story was the 2018 selection for One City One Story, a common-reads program sponsored by the Boston Book Festival. That summer, some 30,000 copies of “The Kindest” would be distributed free all around town. An entire major U.S. city would be reading about a kidney donation — with Sonya Larson as the author.

This was when Dawn Dorland decided to push back — first a little, and then a lot. This wasn’t about art anymore; not Larson’s anyway. It was about her art, her letter, her words, her life. She shopped for a legal opinion: Did Larson’s use of that letter violate copyright law? Even getting a lawyer to look into that one little question seemed too expensive. But that didn’t stop her from contacting American Short Fiction and the Boston Book Festival herself with a few choice questions: What was their policy on plagiarism? Did they know they were publishing something that used someone else’s words? She received vague assurances they’d get back to her.

While waiting, she also contacted GrubStreet’s leadership: What did this supposedly supportive, equitable community have to say about plagiarism? She emailed the Bread Loaf writing conference in Vermont, where Larson once had a scholarship: What would they do if one of their scholars was discovered to have plagiarized? On privacy grounds, Bread Loaf refused to say if “The Kindest” was part of Larson’s 2017 application. But Dorland found more groups with a connection to Larson to notify, including the Vermont Studio Center and the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics and Writers.

When the Boston Book Festival told her they would not share the final text of the story, Dorland went a step further. She emailed two editors at The Boston Globe — wouldn’t they like to know if the author of this summer’s citywide common-reads short story was a plagiarist? And she went ahead and hired a lawyer, Jeffrey Cohen, who agreed she had a claim — her words, her letter, someone else’s story. On July 3, 2018, Cohen sent the book festival a cease-and-desist letter, demanding they hold off on distributing “The Kindest” for the One City One Story program, or risk incurring damages of up to $150,000 under the Copyright Act.

From Larson’s point of view, this wasn’t just ludicrous, it was a stickup. Larson had found her own lawyer, James Gregorio, who on July 17 replied that Dorland’s actions constitute “harassment, defamation per se and tortious interference with business and contractual relations.” Despite whatever similarities exist between the letters, Larson’s lawyer believed there could be no claim against her because, among other reasons, these letters that donors write are basically a genre; they follow particular conventions that are impossible to claim as proprietary. In July, Dorland’s lawyer suggested settling with the book festival for $5,000 (plus an attribution at the bottom of the story, or perhaps a referral link to a kidney-donor site). Larson’s camp resisted talks when they learned that Dorland had contacted The Globe.

‘This is not about a white savior narrative. It’s about us and our sponsor and our board not being sued if we distribute the story.'

In reality, Larson was pretty vulnerable: an indemnification letter in her contract with the festival meant that if Dorland did sue, she would incur the costs. What no one had counted on was that Dorland, in late July, would stumble upon a striking new piece of evidence. Searching online for more mentions of “The Kindest,” she saw something available for purchase. At first this seemed to be a snippet of the Audible version of the story, created a year before the American Short Fiction version. But in fact, this was something far weirder: a recording of an even earlier iteration of the story. When Dorland listened to this version, she heard something very different — particularly the letter from the donor.

Dorland’s letter:

Larson’s audio version of the story:

My own childhood was marked by trauma and abuse; I wasn’t given an opportunity to form secure attachments with my family of origin. But in adulthood that experience provided a strong sense of empathy. While others might desire to give to a family member or friend, to me the suffering of strangers is just as real.

“I almost fell off my chair,” Dorland said. “I’m thinking, When did I record my letter with a voice actor? Because this voice actor was reading me the paragraph about my childhood trauma. To me it was just bizarre.” It confirmed, in her eyes, that Larson had known she had a problem: She had altered the letter after Dorland came to her with her objections in 2016.

Dorland’s lawyer increased her demand to $10,000 — an amount Dorland now says was to cover her legal bills, but that the other side clearly perceived as another provocation. She also contacted her old GrubStreet friends — members of the Chunky Monkeys whom she now suspected had known all about what Larson was doing. “Why didn’t either of you check in with me when you knew that Sonya’s kidney story was related to my life?” she emailed the group’s founders, Adam Stumacher and Jennifer De Leon. Stumacher responded, “I have understood from the start this is a work of fiction.” Larson’s friends were lining up behind her.

In mid-August, Dorland learned that Larson had made changes to “The Kindest” for the common-reads program. In this new version, every similar phrase in the donor’s letter was reworded. But there was something new: At the end of the letter, instead of closing with “Warmly,” Larson had switched it to “Kindly.”

With that one word — the signoff she uses in her emails — Dorland felt trolled. “She thought that it would go to press and be read by the city of Boston before I realized that she had jabbed me in the eye,” Dorland said. (Larson, for her part, told me that the change was meant as “a direct reference to the title; it’s really as simple as that.”) Dorland’s lawyer let the festival know she wasn’t satisfied — that she still considered the letter in the story to be a derivative work of her original. If the festival ran the story, she’d sue.

This had become Sonya Larson’s summer of hell. What had started with her reaching heights she’d never dreamed of — an entire major American city as her audience, reading a story she wrote, one with an important message about racial dynamics — was ending with her under siege, her entire career in jeopardy, and all for what she considered no reason at all: turning life into art, the way she thought that any writer does.

Larson had tried working the problem. When, in June, an executive from the book festival first came to her about Dorland, Larson offered to “happily” make changes to “The Kindest.” “I remember that letter, and jotted down phrases that I thought were compelling, though in the end I constructed the fictional letter to suit the character of Rose,” she wrote to the festival. “I admit, however, that I’m not sure what they are — I don’t have a copy of that letter.” There was a moment, toward the end of July, when it felt as if she would weather the storm. The festival seemed fine with the changes she made to the story. The Globe did publish something, but with little impact.

Then Dorland found that old audio version of the story online, and the weather changed completely. Larson tried to argue that this wasn’t evidence of plagiarism, but proof that she’d been trying to avoid plagiarism. Her lawyer told The Globe that Larson had asked the audio publisher to make changes to her story on July 15, 2016 — in the middle of her first tense back-and-forth with Dorland — because the text “includes a couple sentences that I’d excerpted from a real-life letter.” In truth, Larson had been frustrated by the situation. “She seemed to think that she had ownership over the topic of kidney donation,” Larson recalled in an email to the audio publisher in 2018. “It made me realize that she is very obsessive.”

It was then, in August 2018, facing this new onslaught of plagiarism claims, that Larson stopped playing defense. She wrote a statement to The Globe declaring that anyone who sympathized with Dorland’s claims afforded Dorland a certain privilege. “My piece is fiction,” she wrote. “It is not her story, and my letter is not her letter. And she shouldn’t want it to be. She shouldn’t want to be associated with my story’s portrayal and critique of white-savior dynamics. But her recent behavior, ironically, is exhibiting the very blindness I’m writing about, as she demands explicit identification in — and credit for — a writer of color’s work.”

Here was a new argument, for sure. Larson was accusing Dorland of perverting the true meaning of the story — making it all about her, and not race and privilege. Larson’s friend Celeste Ng agrees, at least in part, that the conflict seemed racially coded. “There’s very little emphasis on what this must be like for Sonya,” Ng told me, “and what it is like for writers of color, generally — to write a story and then be told by a white writer, ‘Actually, you owe that to me.’”

‘I feel instead of running the race herself, she’s standing on the sidelines and trying to disqualify everybody else based on minor technicalities.’

But Ng also says this wasn’t just about race; it was about art and friendship. Ng told me that Larson’s entire community believed Dorland needed to be stopped in her tracks — to keep an unreasonable writer from co-opting another writer’s work on account of just a few stray sentences, and destroying that writer’s reputation in the process. “This is not someone that I am particularly fond of,” Ng told me, “because she had been harassing my friend and a fellow writer. So we were quite exercised, I will say.”

Not that it mattered. Dorland would not stand down. And so, on Aug. 13, Deborah Porter, the executive director of the Boston Book Festival, told Larson that One City One Story was canceled for the year. “There is seemingly no end to this,” she wrote, “and we cannot afford to spend any more time or resources.” When the Chunky Monkeys’ co-founder, Jennifer De Leon, made a personal appeal, invoking the white-savior argument, the response from Porter was like the slamming of a door. “That story should never have been submitted to us in the first place,” Porter wrote. “This is not about a white savior narrative. It’s about us and our sponsor and our board not being sued if we distribute the story. You owe us an apology.”

Porter then emailed Larson, too. “It seems to me that we have grounds to sue you,” she wrote to Larson. “Kindly ask your friends not to write to us.”

Here, it would seem, is where the conflict ought to end — Larson in retreat, “The Kindest” canceled. But neither side was satisfied. Larson, her reputation hanging by a thread, needed assurances that Dorland would stop making her accusations. Dorland still wanted Larson to explicitly, publicly admit that her words were in Larson’s story. She couldn’t stop wondering — what if Larson published a short-story collection? Or even a novel that spun out of “The Kindest?” She’d be right back here again.

On Sept. 6, 2018, Dorland’s lawyer raised her demand to $15,000, and added a new demand that Larson promise to pay Dorland $180,000 should she ever violate the settlement terms (which included never publishing “The Kindest” again). Larson saw this as an even greater provocation; her lawyer replied three weeks later with a lengthy litany of allegedly defamatory claims that Dorland had made about Larson. Who, he was asking, was the real aggressor here? How could anyone believe that Dorland was the injured party? “It is a mystery exactly how Dorland was damaged,” Larson’s new lawyer, Andrew Epstein, wrote. “My client’s gross receipts from ‘The Kindest’ amounted to $425.”

To Dorland, all this felt intensely personal. Someone snatches her words, and then accuses her of defamation too? Standing down seemed impossible now: How could she admit to defaming someone, she thought, when she was telling the truth? She’d come too far, spent too much on legal fees to quit. “I was desperate to recoup that money,” Dorland told me. She reached out to an arbitration-and-mediation service in California. When Andrew Epstein didn’t respond to the mediator, she considered suing Larson in small-claims court.

On Dec. 26, Dorland emailed Epstein, asking if he was the right person to accept the papers when she filed a lawsuit. As it happened, Larson beat her to the courthouse. On Jan. 30, 2019, Dorland and her lawyer, Cohen, were both sued in federal court, accused of defamation and tortious interference — that is, spreading lies about Larson and trying to tank her career.

There’s a moment in Larson’s short story “Gabe Dove” — also pulled from real life — where Chuntao notices a white family picnicking on a lawn in a park and is awed to see that they’ve all peacefully fallen asleep. “I remember going to college and seeing people just dead asleep on the lawn or in the library,” Larson told me. “No fear that harm will come to you or that people will be suspicious of you. That’s a real privilege right there.”

Larson’s biggest frustration with Dorland’s accusations was that they stole attention away from everything she’d been trying to accomplish with this story. “You haven’t asked me one question about the source of inspiration in my story that has to do with alcoholism, that has to do with the Chinese American experience. It’s extremely selective and untrue to pin a source of a story on just one thing. And this is what fiction writers know.” To ask if her story is about Dorland is, Larson argues, not only completely beside the point, but ridiculous. “I have no idea what Dawn is thinking. I don’t, and that’s not my job to know. All I can tell you about is how it prompted my imagination.” That also, she said, is what artists do. “We get inspired by language, and we play with that language, and we add to it and we change it and we recontextualize it. And we transform it.”

When Larson discusses “The Kindest” now, the idea that it’s about a kidney donation at all seems almost irrelevant. If that hadn’t formed the story’s pretext, she believes, it would have been something else. “It’s like saying that ‘Moby Dick’ is a book about whales,” she said. As for owing Dorland a heads-up about the use of that donation, Larson becomes more indignant, stating that no artist has any such responsibility. “If I walk past my neighbor and he’s planting petunias in the garden, and I think, Oh, it would be really interesting to include a character in my story who is planting petunias in the garden, do I have to go inform him because he’s my neighbor, especially if I’m still trying to figure out what it is I want to say in the story? I just couldn’t disagree more.”

But this wasn’t a neighbor. This was, ostensibly, a friend.

“There are married writer couples who don’t let each other read each other’s work,” Larson said. “I have no obligation to tell anyone what I’m working on.”

By arguing what she did is standard practice, Larson is asking a more provocative question: If you find her guilty of infringement, who’s next? Is any writer safe? “I read Dawn’s letter and I found it interesting,” she told me. “I never copied the letter. I was interested in these words and phrases because they reminded me of the language used by white-savior figures. And I played with this language in early drafts of my story. Fiction writers do this constantly.”

This is the same point her friends argue when defending her to me. “You take a seed, right?” Adam Stumacher said. “And then that’s the starting point for a story. That’s not what the story is about.” This is where “The Kindest” shares something with “Cat Person,” the celebrated 2017 short story in The New Yorker by Kristen Roupenian that, in a recent essay in Slate, a woman named Alexis Nowicki claimed used elements of her life story. That piece prompted a round of outrage from Writer Twitter (“I have held every human I’ve ever met upside down by the ankles,” the author Lauren Groff vented, “and shaken every last detail that I can steal out of their pockets”).

“The Kindest,” however, contains something that “Cat Person” does not: an actual piece of text that even Larson says was inspired by Dorland’s original letter. At some point, Larson must have realized that was the story’s great legal vulnerability. Did she ever consider just pulling it out entirely?

“Yeah, that absolutely was an option,” Larson said. “We could have easily treated the same moment in that story using a phone call, or some other literary device.” But once she made those changes for One City One Story, she said, the festival had told her the story was fine as is. (That version of “The Kindest” ended up in print elsewhere, as part of an anthology published in 2019 by Ohio University’s Swallow Press.) All that was left, she believes, was a smear campaign. “It’s hard for me to see what the common denominator of all of her demands has been, aside from wanting to punish me in some way.”

Dorland filed a counterclaim against Larson on April 24, 2020, accusing Larson of violating the copyright of her letter and intentional infliction of emotional distress — sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, weight loss “and several incidents of self-harm.” Dorland says she’d had some bouts of slapping herself, which dissipated after therapy. (This wasn’t her first lawsuit claiming emotional distress. A few years earlier, Dorland filed papers in small-claims court against a Los Angeles writing workshop where she’d taught, accusing the workshop of mishandling a sexual-harassment report she had made against a student. After requesting several postponements, she withdrew the complaint.) As for her new complaint against Larson, the judge knocked out the emotional-distress claim this past February, but the question of whether “The Kindest” violates Dorland’s copyrighted letter remains in play.

The litigation crept along quietly until earlier this year, when the discovery phase uncorked something unexpected — a trove of documents that seemed to recast the conflict in an entirely new way. There, in black and white, were pages and pages of printed texts and emails between Larson and her writer friends, gossiping about Dorland and deriding everything about her — not just her claim of being appropriated but the way she talked publicly about her kidney donation.

“I’m now following Dawn Dorland’s kidney posts with creepy fascination,” Whitney Scharer, a GrubStreet co-worker and fellow Chunky Monkey, texted to Larson in October 2015 — the day after Larson sent her first draft of “The Kindest” to the group. Dorland had announced she’d be walking in the Rose Bowl parade, as an ambassador for nondirected organ donations. “I’m thrilled to be part of their public face,” Dorland wrote, throwing in a few hashtags: #domoreforeachother and #livingkidneydonation.

Larson replied: “Oh, my god. Right? The whole thing — though I try to ignore it — persists in making me uncomfortable. … I just can’t help but think that she is feeding off the whole thing. … Of course, I feel evil saying this and can’t really talk with anyone about it.”

“I don’t know,” Scharer wrote. “A hashtag seems to me like a cry for attention.”

“Right??” Larson wrote. “#domoreforeachother. Like, what am I supposed to do? DONATE MY ORGANS?”

Among her friends, Larson clearly explained the influence of Dorland’s letter. In January 2016, she texted two friends: “I think I’m DONE with the kidney story but I feel nervous about sending it out b/c it literally has sentences that I verbatim grabbed from Dawn’s letter on FB. I’ve tried to change it but I can’t seem to — that letter was just too damn good. I’m not sure what to do … feeling morally compromised/like a good artist but a shitty person.”

That summer, when Dorland emailed Larson with her complaints, Larson was updating the Chunky Monkeys regularly, and they were encouraging her to stand her ground. “This is all very excruciating,” Larson wrote on July 18, 2016. “I feel like I am becoming the protagonist in my own story: She wants something from me, something that she can show to lots of people, and I’m not giving it.”

“Maybe she was too busy waving from her floating thing at a Macy’s Day parade,” wrote Jennifer De Leon, “instead of, you know, writing and stuff.”

Others were more nuanced. “It’s totally OK for Dawn to be upset,” Celeste Ng wrote, “but it doesn’t mean that Sonya did anything wrong, or that she is responsible for fixing Dawn’s hurt feelings.”

“I can understand the anxiety,” Larson replied. “I just think she’s trying to control something that she doesn’t have the ability or right to control.”

“The first draft of the story really was a takedown of Dawn, wasn’t it?” Calvin Hennick wrote. “But Sonya didn’t publish that draft. … She created a new, better story that used Dawn’s Facebook messages as initial inspiration, but that was about a lot of big things, instead of being about the small thing of taking down Dawn Dorland.”

On Aug. 15, 2016 — a day before telling Dorland, “I value our relationship” — Larson wrote in a chat with Alison Murphy: “Dude, I could write pages and pages more about Dawn. Or at least about this particular narcissistic dynamic, especially as it relates to race. The woman is a gold mine!”

Later on, Larson was even more emboldened. “If she tries to come after me, I will FIGHT BACK!” she wrote Murphy in 2017. Murphy suggested renaming the story “Kindly, Dawn,” prompting Larson to reply, “HA HA HA.”

Dorland learned about the emails — a few hundred pages of them — from her new lawyer, Suzanne Elovecky, who read them first and warned her that they might be triggering. When she finally went through them, she saw what she meant. The Chunky Monkeys knew the donor in “The Kindest” was Dorland, and they were laughing at her. Everything she’d dreaded and feared about raising her voice — that so many writers she revered secretly dismissed and ostracized her; that absolutely no one except her own lawyers seemed to care that her words were sitting there, trapped inside someone else’s work of art; that a slew of people, supposedly her friends, might actually believe she’d donated an organ just for the likes — now seemed completely confirmed, with no way to sugarcoat it. “It’s like I became some sort of dark-matter mascot to all of them somehow,” she said.

But there also was something clarifying about it. Now more than ever, she believes that “The Kindest” was personal. “I think she wanted me to read her story,” Dorland said, “and for me and possibly no one else to recognize my letter.”

Larson, naturally, finds this outrageous. “Did I feel some criticism toward the way that Dawn was posting about her kidney donation?” she said. “Yes. But am I trying to write a takedown of Dawn? No. I don’t care about Dawn.” All the gossiping about Dorland, now made public, would seem to put Larson into a corner. But many of the writer friends quoted in those texts and emails (those who responded to requests for comment) say they still stand behind her; if they were ridiculing Dorland, it was all in the service of protecting their friend. “I’m very fortunate to have friends in my life who I’ve known for 10, 20, over 30 years,” Larson told me. “I do not, and have never, considered Dawn one of them.”

What about the texts where she says that Dorland is behaving just like her character? Here, Larson chose her words carefully. “Dawn might behave like the character in my story,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that the character in my story is behaving like Dawn. I know she’s trying to work through every angle she can to say that I’ve done something wrong. I have not done anything wrong.”

In writing, plagiarism is a straight-up cardinal sin: If you copy, you’re wrong. But in the courts, copyright infringement is an evolving legal concept. The courts are continuously working out the moment when someone’s words cross over into property that can be protected; as with any intellectual property, the courts have to balance the protections of creators with a desire not to stifle innovation. One major help to Dorland, however, is the rights that the courts have given writers over their own unpublished letters, even after they’re sent to someone else. J.D. Salinger famously prevented personal letters from being quoted by a would-be biographer. They were his property, the courts said, not anyone else’s. Similarly, Dorland could argue that this letter, despite having made its way onto Facebook, qualifies.

Let’s say the courts agree that Dorland’s letter is protected. What then? Larson’s main defense may be that the most recent version of the letter in “The Kindest” — the one significantly reworded for the book festival — simply doesn’t include enough material from Dorland’s original to rise to the level of infringement. This argument is, curiously, helped by how Larson has always, when it has come down to it, acknowledged Dorland’s letter as an influence. The courts like it when you don’t hide what you’ve done, according to Daniel Novack, chairman of the New York State Bar Association’s committee on media law. “You don’t want her to be punished for being clear about where she got it from,” he said. “If anything, that helps people find the original work.”

Larson’s other strategy is to argue that by repurposing snippets of the letter in this story, it qualifies as “transformative use,” and could never be mistaken for the original. Arguing transformative use might require arguing that a phrase of Larson’s like “imagining and rejoicing in YOU” has a different inherent meaning from the phrase in Dorland’s letter “imagining and celebrating you.” While they are similar, Larson’s lawyer, Andrew Epstein, argues that the story overall is different, and makes the letter different. “It didn’t steal from the letter,” he told me, “but it added something new and it was a totally different narrative.”

Larson put it more bluntly to me: “Her letter, it wasn’t art! It was informational. It doesn’t have market value. It’s like language that we glean from menus, from tombstones, from tweets. And Dorland ought to know this. She’s taken writing workshops.”

Transformative use most often turns up in cases of commentary or satire, or with appropriation artists like Andy Warhol. The idea is not to have such strong copyright protections that people can’t innovate. While Larson may have a case, one potential wrinkle is a recent federal ruling, just earlier this year, against the Andy Warhol Foundation. An appeals court determined that Warhol’s use of a photograph by Lynn Goldsmith as the basis for his own work of art was not a distinctive enough transformation. Whether Larson’s letter is derivative, in the end, may be up to a jury to decide. Dorland’s lawyer, meanwhile, can point to that 2016 text message of Larson’s, when she says she tried to reword the letter but just couldn’t. (“That letter was just too damn good.”)

“The whole reason they want it in the first place is because it’s special,” Dorland told me. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother.”

If anything, the letter, for Dorland, has only grown more important over time. While Larson openly wonders why Dorland doesn’t just write about her donation her own way — “I feel instead of running the race herself, she’s standing on the sidelines and trying to disqualify everybody else based on minor technicalities,” Larson told me — Dorland sometimes muses, however improbably, that because vestiges of her letter remain in Larson’s story, Larson might actually take her to court and sue her for copyright infringement if she published any parts of the letter. It’s almost as if Dorland believes that Larson, by getting there first, has grabbed some of the best light, leaving nothing for her.

Last year, as the pandemic set in, Dorland attended three different online events that featured Larson as a panelist. The third one, in August, was a Cambridge Public Library event featuring many of the Chunky Monkeys, gathering online to discuss what makes for a good writing group. “I know virtually all of them,” Dorland said. “It was just like seeing friends.”

Larson, while on camera, learned that Dorland’s name was on the attendees list, and her heart leapt into her throat. Larson’s life had moved on in so many ways. She’d published another story. She and her husband had just had their baby. Now Larson was with her friends, talking about the importance of community. And there was Dorland, the woman who’d branded her a plagiarist, watching her. “It really just freaks me out,” Larson said. “At times I’ve felt kind of stalked.”

Dorland remembers that moment, too, seeing Larson’s face fall, convinced she was the reason. There was, for lack of a better word, a connection. When I asked how she felt in that moment, Dorland was slow to answer. It’s not as if she meant for it to happen, she said. Still, it struck her as telling.

“To me? It seemed like she had dropped the facade for a minute. I’m not saying that — I don’t want her to feel scared, because I’m not threatening. To me, it seemed like she knew she was full of shit, to put it bluntly — like, in terms of our dispute, that she was going to be found out.”

Then Dorland quickly circled back and rejected the premise of the question. There was nothing strange at all, Dorland said, about her watching three different events featuring Larson. She was watching, she said, to conduct due diligence for her ongoing case. And, she added, seeing Larson there seemed to be working for her as a sort of exposure therapy — to defuse the hurt she still feels, by making Larson something more real and less imagined, to diminish the space that she takes up in her mind, in her life.

“I think it saves me from villainizing Sonya,” she wrote me later, after our call. “I proceed in this experience as an artist and not an adversary, learning and absorbing everything, making use of it eventually.”

Robert Kolker is a writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2020, his book “Hidden Valley Road” became a selection of Oprah’s Book Club and a New York Times best seller. His last article for the magazine was about the legacy of Jan Baalsrud, the Norwegian World War II hero.

Correction: Oct. 6, 2021

An earlier version of this article misstated the GrubStreet writing center's action after Dorland's initial questions about potential plagiarism. It did reply; it's not the case that she received no response. The article also misstated Dorland’s thoughts on what could happen if she loses the court case. Dorland said she fears that Larson would be able to sue her for copyright infringement should she publish her letter to the end recipient of the kidney donation chain. It is not the case that she said she fears that Larson might be able to sue her for copyright infringement should she write anything about organ donation.

#emmie this for you

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mcl38 · 4 years ago

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tagged by @kuckooclock hi kuhua!!

rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better

name/nickname: kira:)

gender: girl but that's an odd question

star sign: i'm too annoying to be anything other than a gemini ✨

height: 162 cm so i think that's 5'4

time: like not enough to do my work

birthday: i'm a junebug but that's all ur getting

favourite bands/groups: uh?? tough question bc i'm in the middle of a big switch in my taste in music but like, muse, catfish and the bottlemen, alt j, queen for nostalgia's sake, but mostly i have bands on spotify that i only know like two songs from so i'll give you this - currently obsessed with a song by the band two tonnes

favourite solo artists: grandson, stromae, lady gaga and no i won't accept comments, and you know what shoutout to hilary hahn as well for getting me through the term

song stuck in your head: malt liquor by lewis del mar

last movie: marie antoinette! it's a slow start but it's quite good by the end

last tv show: the queen's gambit- just finished it, it's fucking incredible

when did i create this blog: may 2020

what do i post: f1 shenanigans only because i'm an organised person with designated sideblogs<3

last thing i googled: my actual last search would doxx me SO big time but my second to last was "lance stroll paparazzi" (and "lance stroll fashion") because me and my sister were trying to figure out the fashion style of a bunch of drivers (for the record we were both pleasantly surprised that lance is the least hypebeast out of all the young ones)

other blogs: sunsetlesbo is my main, i have a couple inactive ones, a bunch of url hoarding, and a social experiment that i'm not divulging

do i get asks: nope! never pls send me some

why i chose this url: i'm embracing evil lando

following: about 300 but i'm sure some are inactive

followers: 37 away from my next hundred come on guys

average hours of sleep: it's very up and down but it probably averages out to like 7

lucky number: 12 but i have multiple

instrument: piano✨

what am i wearing: sweats and a hoodie, i'm just at home lmao

dream job: honestly like children's book author and illustrator - i want what shirley barber has

dream trip: i've wanted to visit prague for a while now

favourite food: tough to say but probably thai curry

nationality: 🇹🇩romanian🇹🇩

favourite song: well i guess currently counting down by two tonnes, it's just so cute and it gives me serotonin

last book read: mrs dalloway by my girl virginia

top 3 fictional worlds: idk about three but i want what those people in hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy had

i'm tagging @mclarenp3 @alexalbonsimp @sebchal @verstappen and @pierregasiy <3 have fun guys

#tag game #personal

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peace-coast-island · 1 year ago

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Diary of a Junebug

Harvesting pumpkins in Mushroom Village

Nothing says fall like pumpkins and piles of colorful leaves. Tsuki and Shannon invited us campers to celebrate the beginning of fall harvest season in Mushroom Village. They always kick things off with a festival where there’s food, handicrafts, and competitions.

Shannon and Mariya are participating in the baking competition - Shannon with pies and Mariya with cakes. The contests aren’t really about winning, more like a chance to experiment and show off your baking skills. Although neither one has ever won - Mariya got runner-up once last year - they said it was a lot of fun, which is why they participate every year.

Tsuki, who’s approaching the anniversary of being a farmer for 10 years this week, is running a produce stand as usual. They had a bountiful harvest, so they’re trying to pawn off as much fruits and veggies as they can. I’ve made arrangements with Pete to send a giant shipment of fresh produce to the camp when we return.

Right now, Tsuki has a lot of pumpkins that are ready to be harvested, so we’ve been helping them out with that. It’s a lot of work and pumpkins are heavy! And with Tsuki’s green thumb, I’m not exaggerating when I say that they’re massive!

Nuvie’s here to join in on the fun, as well as Gary, Maisie, and Blossom. Gary’s taking pictures and doing interviews for the Flutterpress. After weighing his options and being made an offer by Flutterpress that he’s be a fool to refuse, Gary decided to attend Safflower. He said it was a bit of a hassle, since he’s enrolled at the other college despite never attending orientation and taking classes over there, but they worked things out. After all, he only intended to spend a year in Mushroom Village because of the burnout and stress he and Maisie faced during their last two years of high school.

Blossom’s staying with Nuvie for a vacation since the Professor’s not available. Family drama’s been keeping her on edge and she really needs to distance herself from that. As much as she doesn’t want to end up being the kind of siblings who end up having no relationships as adults, Fern really isn’t making things easy.

Blossom still hopes that one day her sister will come to her senses. I mean, Fern and her friends already got into a lot of trouble for stealing - embezzling? - as well as mistreating an autistic colleague. Like, she landed her dream job straight out of college and lost it because she decided to screw a lot of people over.

And she still thinks she’s innocent? She somehow thinks it’s natural to take advantage of someone you perceive as lower than you? That “useless” people should be grateful that they’re being exploited? Like, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?!

Blossom and her family are still baffled by this. I really only know Blossom’s grandmother, but the family doesn’t seem like the type to trample others so they can get ahead in life. And they absolutely do not seem like the type to leave you high and dry when you’re in a vulnerable position.

Of course, this hits a little bit too close for Daisy Jane and Almie. I swear, what’s with these bright young people who suddenly decided to turn on others when they start climbing towards the top? Do they think they’re too good for their old friends and family? Do they have a superiority complex or some form of imposter syndrome that makes them feel like they need to compensate by kicking others down. Did they go mad with power and find that they enjoy being bullies? Seriously, what is up with that?

The worst part is that Blossom and Fern’s grandmother is taking all of it really hard. Fern’s lack of remorse for her actions is serious enough that her grandmother and parents are seriously considering taking her out of their wills. I don’t think they’re overreacting, especially since Fern once flat out told Blossom that if something were to happen to her that left her incapacitated, she would take everything from her because she could.

Not that Blossom had a lot to her name, but she said that was the first time she felt hatred for her sister. It was already bad enough that she was at a low point when Fern told her that, probably to make her feel worse. Then Fern went on to say a bunch of other mean things, like how it makes no sense why the Professor wasn’t tired of Blossom already. Sounds like a resentful person just trying to tear someone down.

For now, I think Blossom just needs a lot of space. I get that she doesn’t want to cut her sister off, but if she keeps this up, she might have to for her protection. It sucks that it has to be like that because you have to worry about your sibling fucking you over the second you’re in a position where you’re unable to take care of yourself or make informed decisions.

Hearing that reminded me of Brynn’s story about Athena and how her estranged parents disrespected her identity when she died by misgendering her and insulting her friends when they tried to pay their respects. Or how Harumi’s family made a mockery out of her death and Michi’s grief. I’d hate to imagine that someone like Blossom’s sister could be capable of doing something like that.

Trust issues are complicated, especially when it’s from someone close, like a family member or friend. Some are trying their best, but that doesn’t excuse it, especially if they keep disappointing you. And there’s some who just don’t give a fuck and will keep screwing you over because they can. They’ll play victim and make you feel guilty for something they did to you. It’s not always easy to reason with people who make you constantly second guess everything when you try to stand up for yourself.

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all have our own share of trust issues, some more than others. Shannon’s world was turned upside down when she found out that her father kidnapped her when she was a toddler and that her bio mom had spent over a decade trying to find her. Growing up, she had always been close to her father, who often spoiled her, as well as encourage her to pursue her art.

For years she idolized him, seeing him as a hero who could do no wrong. She described him as carefree, the kind of person who was determined to see things through no matter what. Those were some traits that she later saw in a negative light after meeting her bio mom.

Regardless of his reasons, what he did was wrong, and that’s something Shannon and her bio mom can’t forgive him for. He actually got off lightly as his ex decided not to press charges out of concern for Shannon’s wellbeing. But Shannon says even now, he still harbors grudges towards his ex for reasons she can’t understand and believes that he did the right thing by deceiving her.

These days, Shannon doesn’t have much of a relationship with him as he constantly moves. Her stepmother, the one who raised Shannon as her own, had been deceived by him too. She divorced him when Shannon went off to college and she still has a close relationship with her.

Shannon also keeps in touch with her bio mom, which is what she refers to her as, and she’s still baffled about why her father hates her so much. Looking back, she said she noticed that her father was the kind of person who holds grudges and cuts people off for whatever reason. In other words, he sounds like the kind of person who lies and deceives others to make himself look better.

Tsuki’s has their share of trust issues as well, which was the main reason why they up and left the city to become a farmer in Mushroom Village. Before that, Tsuki lived in a city working a stressful corporate job and being constantly burnt out. It was something their uncle forced them into as punishment.

Tsuki never really spoke much about their family aside from the fact that their parents died when they were young, so they were raised by their uncle. It wasn’t a happy childhood as their uncle resented them for existing, which says quite a bit. Their grandfather was the one who made things bearable, especially as Tsuki got older.

After over 10 years of being a stressed out and overworked office worker, Tsuki finally had an opportunity to leave the city for good when their uncle kicked the bucket. While dealing with his affairs, Tsuki found a lot of official documents he kept hidden, including something related to Tsuki’s grandfather’s will. And that’s how Tsuki inherited a farm.

The farm was in Foxtail Village, a place that Tsuki said they regretted returning to as an adult. Everything had changed about the village to the point it was unrecognizable. As for the farm, it was left unattended for years. Tsuki did their best for the next few years to fix it up, but it later proved to be futile. At least they were able to learn the basics about farming.

And if that wasn’t difficult enough, a lot of the neighbors Tsuki grew up seeing might as well be complete strangers. There were a couple of them Tsuki’s age, and though they rode on the nostalgia train on memory lane for a while, once that was over, they had nothing else to talk about. They said it was a very lonely period in their life, even more so than the city.

In the end, with the upkeep of the farm being too much to handle and being screwed over one too many times with people who called themselves friends, Tsuki felt that it was time to say goodbye to Foxtail Village. They didn’t know what they wanted, though being a farmer was something they were interested in pursuing. It also helped that they sold the farm for a pretty good price, which worked out in their favor later on.

While passing by Mushroom Village, Tsuki met Nuvola. Before they knew it, Tsuki had begun setting roots there. Since then, they’ve lived a quiet life and they wouldn’t have it any other way. After what they’ve been through, Tsuki deserves to live a peaceful and drama free life.

And if anyone knows what it’s like to be constantly kicked around by people who are supposed to care for you, it’s Mariya. Her family’s long dead to her, which she finds kinda ironic since she’s the dead one. Though if she were ever to run into someone from her past - never gonna happen - it’s not like mere humans would stand a chance against a vengeful human spirit turned youkai. Not to mention that the other youkai like Siobhan would never let anyone harm Mariya.

As for Gary and Maisie, they also have their share of trust issues after exposing the steroid abuse with the athletes when teachers and students turned against them. After losing her brother to steroids, Maisie couldn’t just sit there and let the school bury the whole thing, so she and Gary did what they had to do before another athlete drops dead. Even though they anticipated the backlash, they’d never expected it to come from certain people who they thought they could trust.

Well, whatever happens between Blossom and Fern, I hope Blossom will be okay and Fern comes to her senses. At least the harvest is helping Blossom take her mind off of that since there’s really nothing she can do right now. And because this time of year is very busy for the farmers, Tsuki needs all the help they can get. I swear, every time I see Tsuki’s farm, it gets bigger and bigger. They’re like my mom, super green thumbs that turn gardens into jungles!

The festivities, like the general vibe of Mushroom Village in general, is pretty chill. We got to eat a lot of good food and look at a bunch of cool handmade stuff. Like Tsuki said, the festival’s a good way for everyone to show off their crafts.

To their surprise, Mariya and Shannon got second and fourth place respectively. Siobhan threw a party at the cafe to celebrate and we toasted with appleberry wine that Tsuki’s neighbor made. Like I said, we’re up to our necks with fresh produce. It’s nice seeing everyone get creative with what they have in their gardens, which the whole purpose of the festival.

Tonight happened to be a full moon, which made it feel more magical. There’s a chill in the air now and night is approaching more quickly.

Read on AO3

#animal crossing #animal crossing pocket camp #headcanon ramble #diary of a junebug

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soybeeftacos · 4 years ago

Photo

A Long Rant and Mediocre Analysis of the Future of My Beloved Jinteki Faction, by scd.

I have been thinking about Jinteki and the impending rotation of a lot of Jinteki cards...

As many have, I eagerly anticipate the upcoming System Update and System Gateway releases from NISEI. I’ve not been the hugest fan of Ashes, to put it mildly, especially their ID design. As someone on the Green Level Clearance Discord said the other day (I forget who, sorry), it’s almost as if they made every Runner a different kind of Shaper. And the Corps are, by and large, uncompetitive and overly fiddly for my tastes — oh, how I wish Hyoubu Institute was any good! I’m dipping my toes back into Standard after a few years away, and have lately been trying to get my head around what’s coming around the corner, especially since beyond Engram Flush and LaCosta Grid, I don’t see a ton to be excited about in recent Jinteki cards.

Then it dawned on me, with the upcoming replacement of SC2019, Honor & Profit, and the SanSan Cycle, we are actually losing a lot of Jinteki cards. This hit me most the most at the level of identities. On the potential chopping block are: Jinteki: Personal Evolution, Jinteki: Replication Perfection, Harmony Medtech, Nisei Division, Tennin Institute, Jinteki Biotech, and Chronos Protocol. Add in that Mti Mwekundu and Jinteki: Potential Unleashed are currently banned, this leaves the competitive pool as of System Gateway/System Update: one of the above identities (if the rumors that System Update will have only one Corp ID per faction are true), the new Jinteki ID in System Gateway, then Pālanā Foods, AgInfusion, and Saraswati. No other legal Jinteki IDs. I understand that the first two are solid glacier choices, and I actually quite like Saraswati, but I want more and more variety.

So it’s a bit of a bummer for my favorite faction, which has had goofy FA Tennin decks, Punitive Medtech techs, Complete Image Chronos Protocol kill decks, lots and lots of different PE decks. Will we see the death of the Jinteki I loved? Or will it rise again from the proverbial coffin of rotation? (Yes, this was all an elaborate justification for using the old GIF above that I think Eric Caoili made many years ago).

I’m basically just sick of Jinteki glacier. It’s never been fun for me, nor does it feel like what the faction should be primarily “about.” Jinteki’s current state as a glacier faction primarily has as much to do with what’s been banned as much as what’s been printed (LaCosta, for instance). If there are enough net damage cards in the pool, someone will make yet another new version of the caustic “Potatoes” deck and then NISEI will ban a bunch of the most troublesome cards again. Ignoring currents, there are five Jinteki cards on the current banlist, which is tied with Weyland for the most — followed by four NBN cards, two HB cards, and four neutrals.

If System Update has only one Corp ID per faction, as the recent rumor has stated, then I’ll be bummed out. If it’s true, I fully expect that Personal Evolution will be the one to stick around. It’s always been at least marginally playable, it does something different (a net damage tax), and it’s intelligible for new players. But what other cards stick around? What else should stick around? I thought I’d look and see what cards are actually going to rotate and which ones I was most upset about. What I found was actually a little surprising to me — while I claim I love this faction, I’m, uh, not going to miss many of these! I’ve gone through below and identified from SC2019, Honor & Profit, and the SanSan Cycle all of the cards that I suspect just can’t go and/or I’d be real sad if they did.

From the pool of SC2019 Cards, here’s what I’d hold onto:

Jinteki: Personal Evolution Nisei Mk II Fetal AI Philotic Entanglement Project Junebug Ronin Snare! Neural EMP

All of these are such key cards to me, I just can’t see Jinteki without nearly all of them. Fetal AI, Philotic and Ronin are possibly marginal, but I think NISEI really made the right call bringing Fetal back (t’s a beautiful card on a number of levels); Philotic being limited to 1-per-deck has always made it a fun surprise and/or a welcome 3/2 in the faction; and without Ronin or a suitable combo-kill replacement, I don’t see the faction moving beyond just glacier decks. Can you imagine Netrunner without Snare!? Or NISEI getting rid of Nisei Mk II? Personal Evolution, Neural EMP, Junebug — these have always been faction-defining cards to me, and I don’t see NISEI being foolish enough to mess with that.

So, what would I lose from SC2019?

Jinteki: Replicating Perfection Sundew Hokusai Grid Celebrity Gift Trick of Light Himitsu-Bako Wall of Thorns Lotus Field Yagura Neural Katana Swordsman Tsurugi

A lot of great cards here, but push come to shove, I could lose any of them. I’ll miss all of these if they all go, and I won’t be sad if any are kept (other than maybe RP, as I think there are better options, if NISEI has more than one core Jinteki ID in System Update; see below).

Onward and on to the Honor & Profit Cards:

Psychic Field Mushin No Shin Komainu

This genuinely surprised me! I had expected that there would be many, many more Honor & Profit cards I’d want to keep. As a Jinteki lover, I’ve played with all of the cards in this box (with the possible exception of NeoTokyo Grid), but only Psychic Field, Mushin, and Komainu seemed obvious keepers to me. Now, now, I’m sure there’s some group of people out there who think Mushin is "bad” and I understand that, but without Mushin there needs to be something I want there to be something that has a similar effect — Saraswati is kinda it, but it’s also the ID itself and Mushin as an ID is not the same. I think Mushin needs to be kept to help facilitate the shell game Jinteki that has been a staple since Hinkes’ Cambridge PE. In the online play world of Jinteki.net, many people would love to see mind games and traps leave the game entirely, but I don’t think NISEI does (given that they kept Cerebral Overwriter in Uprising). Psychic Field, I’d keep, partially to facilitate this but also as a necessary, hard 419 counter — a counter on a mechanical vector that is not just about money and math. Komainu is a beautiful piece of ice, and one I’d love to see stay in the game.

So, what are we losing if I ruled NISEI?

Harmony Medtech Nisei Division Tennin Institute House of Knives Medical Breakthrough The Future Perfect Chairman Hiro Mental Health Clinic Shi.Kyū Tenma Line Cerebral Cast Medical Research Fundraiser Inazuma Pup Shiro Susanoo-no-Mikoto NeoTokyo Grid Tori Hanzō

Ouch. There are a lot of almost-keepers here. House of Knives, TFP, Tennin, Pup, and Susanoo, are all cards I’d love to see stick around but frankly, I don’t think they really need to. TFP is a great defensive agenda but we already have some fantastic defensive agendas in the faction (and I’d love to see what NISEI cooks up for other defensive Jinteki 5/3s). House of Knives is a great card and maybe it should stick around, I dunno, but perhaps there’s more interesting space to explore in net-damaging 3/1s (plus, we just got Sting! somewhat recently). These remaining ice don’t get a lot of play, even if they once did (like Pup); I’d be happy to see any of them stick around, but I’d also like to see new ideas. So, they can all go.

What about the SanSan Cycle? I’d keep:

Jinteki Biotech: Life Imagined Crick Cortex Lock Marcus Batty An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Okay, whoa, there’s actually an ID in here! Yeah, I love Biotech, even if I haven’t played it in a long time. I feel like Biotech needed just another couple of cards to make the other non-Brewery flip sides workable. I’d love to see NISEI attempt to fix an ID rather than just rotate it. Crick and Cortex Lock seem like such solid, interesting ice that I wouldn’t want to lose either — Cortex Lock is of course a wonderful facechecking ice, good early game ice that was only really ever a problem during the Mti meta. I’ve always loved the positional ice of that cycle, and Crick is lovely. Batty is too fun to ignore and is versatile for multiple decks, and is not stifling like other defensive upgrades. And An Offer You Can’t Refuse — clearly the weirdest, least-played card of this entire post — I just want to keep it around, for the novelty of forcing a run on the Corp’s turn and its related rules confusions. And for the memes.

What would we lose?

Genetic Resequencing Ancestral Imager Allele Repression Genetics Pavilion Lockdown It’s a Trap! Clairvoyant Monitor Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-Mapping Recruiting Trip Valley Grid

Not a lot here that I really care about, I guess? Genetics Pavilion is probably the one I’d miss the most, not that it’s had much play since Wyldside rotated. And Chronos Protocol — I’m glad it got a brief moment to shine in the sun of Complete Image, but I’m not going to miss it otherwise. Maybe Allele Repression, but frankly, Genotyping, Preemptive Action, etc. have shown that Operation-based card recycling is the best way to go post-Jackson. The rest of these cards were, I think, pretty mediocre design; I’m surprised at how little wheat to chaff there was in SanSan for Jinteki, as my memory is quite different!

And, of course, with the release of System Update, we’ll presumably get some other old cards resurfacing that we haven’t seen in a while. I certainly hope NISEI gets aggressive and interesting with these choices, as I think they did a pretty good job with SC2019 (even if I found Core Experience to be a slog of a format). I’m excited at the options of what from the original core, Genesis, Spin, and Lunar might resurface. If it were up to me, here are the four cards that I would bring back:

Hostile Infrastructure Shock! Edge of World Industrial Genomics

Okay, okay, Hostile Infrastructure won’t be popular, but I love it. It’s expensive to rez and with SanSan gone there won’t be the old Breaker Bay Grid cheese to get it rezzed for free. It’s been back in the meta with Salvaged Memories for a bit now and doesn’t appear to be the scourge of the meta, so why not just keep it? More importantly, I’d love to see Shock! come back — it felt infinitely more fair than Breached Dome with a similar (albeit costlier to trash) effect. Edge of World was a jank-enabler that I would love to see again (perhaps because I’m currently playing Retrunner with these old cards again), and then there’s ... Industrial Genomics.

Okay, okay, okay, I hear you, “IG bad.” It’s a mean, mean, Bad People Play It™ identity that made you cry real bad that one time. It did the same to me once, too! I get that perspective, but if we are going to choose a Jinteki ID that is very functionally different than Personal Evolution to complement it in System Update, I’d like one that facilitates the kinds of play IG does. Biotech fits that bill, but frankly, Biotech unless it gets the card support will just be another Brewery kill ID, and I’m not sure NISEI are thinking that’s worth keeping. I’m being hopelessly optimistic that we’ll be getting three Jinteki IDs when System Gateway and Update drop rather than just two, and if I had to choose between Biotech and IG, I’m going IG every time.

Now, with Kakurenbo in the cardpool, a return of IG just can’t happen; so... ban Kakurenbo! It is a ridiculous card that was, seemingly, mainly designed for IG to play in Eternal. I can’t see any other good use for it, at least. Bring back the old IG from before Bio-Ethics prison. Bring back Shock! Hell, even go ahead and ban Bio-Ethics — gasp, I can’t believe I’m typing such blashemy — and give us something that can open up new kinds of play with this interesting, classic, and overly-maligned ID. Industrial Genomics was a weird thing of beauty, and it deserves another run. Laugh at me all you want, you know I’m right.

One more thing — what about Caprice Nisei? Shouldn’t she be discussed? Nah, she gets no love from me, simply because of the playstyle she empowers. Caprice is of course a great and meta-defining card — for glacier! But haven’t we had enough of glacier by now? Like, two years of mainly glacier Jinteki? And I’m the lord of my own barely-read blog fiefdom; I decree that if you really want a psi game to protect your agenda, you should just go play Hyoubu Precog Manifold.

Anyway, just some thoughts by someone who doesn’t play any Standard but wants to do more. I started writing this thinking it was about the dire state of Jinteki, but I’m now left thinking there’s actually a much smaller set of must-keep Jinteki cards than I initially thought. Granted, most of them are non-ice cards, and that’s a problem here — only a handful of ice here seem really necessary to keep. And maybe that’s what this is about; encouraging more deckbuilding that has little to do with building remotes.

I’m most concerned about IDs. Keeping PE and either Biotech or IG would make me personally happy, and Tennin would be an acceptable “sure, why not.” There’s a lot of potential for Jinteki to move into more forms of play that aren’t so glacier-heavy, and I’m hopeful about that. I do think what they do in System Gateway and System Update will need to address the loss of Jinteki cards, but perhaps not as seriously as I had feared when I started writing this.

Anyway, I’d love to hear any reactions to this. Long Live Chairman Hiro!

#netrunner #jinteki #rant #nisei #systemupdate #systemgateway #iloveyouig

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 5 years ago

Text

Passing Through

Part Two: Western Squall

A/N: You and Ryan finish playing on 16th street, and you show him around the area before the storm blows in, each of you learning a few things about the other.

Warnings: again none. floofy fluff. with a side of momentary sadness.

Word Count: 5,819 (yikes. idk guys, I just can’t seem to cut the details short when it comes to Ryan.)

Songs Referenced: Southbound

The last notes of the song you’d been playing left the piano keys and drifted off the strings of Ryan’s guitar, floating away on the rapidly chilling air. You glanced over at him as the small crowd that had gathered awarded you with a smattering of applause and a few crinkled bills dropped into the open case at Ryan’s feet. You caught him smiling, noting that his smiles came more from his eyes than his lips. The sun was glowing goldenrod behind blue gray clouds, trying furiously to burn them away. But the gleam in his soft nutty irises would have done a better job of banishing the approaching storm. He lifted his gaze from the body of the guitar, and you sucked in a breath as those warm eyes landed on you. He blinked once before one reddened cheek rose as his smile grew. You felt a wave roll though your stomach that had nothing to do with how hungry you were, and everything to do with what it had just felt like to play with Ryan.

You felt an awed expression take up residence on your face, adrenaline and emotion simultaneously causing a tear to materialize, and a giggle to bubble forth. You swiped the frozen tear away with the back of your hand. That felt… It hasn’t felt that good to play in… You’d played with plenty of talented musicians- in studios, on street corners, in bars and basements- but none of them had been quite like Ryan. When he sang, it wasn’t just with his mouth. He sang with his lungs and his eyes and the tilt of his head, with the furrows in his brow. When he played it wasn’t just with his fingers, but with his whole hands, sometimes plucking lightly, other times attacking the strings, with his shoulders raised and his foot stomping as he rocked with the cadence of the song. He didn’t just play. He didn’t just sing. He made music, like a magician conjuring something from thin air. You fell into harmony with him on the songs you sang together, and he adjusted the tempos he was used to to match the slower or faster ones that you played. It felt like you’d rehearsed together for weeks instead of having only met that morning. It was like he understood the things that you felt when you sang, like he could feel them, too, and he was trying to translate them with the help of the glossy maple instrument that was just as much part of him as his long limbs. Playing with Ryan was like reading through your journal and finding passages that you’d forgotten about, and then remembering what you were thinking when you’d written them.

He noticed you wiping at another tear and his eyebrows came together in a quiet question. You shook your head, wrinkling your nose. Another involuntary, breathy laugh slipped out as just as silently you told him that you were fine. More than fine, this is... You felt light, like you could float away just like the song had, on the day of the year that you generally felt yourself heavy with sadness. You know why, Junebug. Serendipity. You could hear your mother’s words as clearly as if she were speaking them directly into your ear. You had to smile thinking about what she would think of Ryan, how she’d be unable to even attempt to hide the fact that she would think he was attractive, how she’d be enthralled with his talent and his passion for music, how she’d unabashedly try to hint that you would make a good couple, and how you would turn the same deep red shade of the piano that you sat before, shrieking “Mother!” while trying to disappear. Absurd. You heard him, he’s passing through. You’re just playing together, it’s just for today, just until the snow comes through. Luckily, a tall, bright faced woman broke you of your thoughts with compliments on your playing. You thanked her warmly as she dropped a $5 bill into the case. Ryan was wrapping up a brief conversation with a man and his son as the small crowd dispersed under the darkening sky. Soon it was just the two of you in the Garden Block; the two of you and the empty flower pots, the bare trees, and the painted piano. You spun on the bench, picking your knees up to your chin so that you could swing your feet up and around to face Ryan. You were about to say something, but he beat you to it.

“That was really sumthin’,” his eyes still twinkled, and you wondered if it could have possibly felt the same to him as it had to you. He laid his guitar across his lap, holding it there with both hands.

“Yeah,” you nodded, that awed expression still rearranging your features. “Yeah, it was. You’re really talented, Ryan.”

He swung his head down and to the side bashfully before facing you fully again. His cheeks looked a touch redder than the tip of his nose, and you knew it was from more than the cold. “Nah, I just-”

You shook your head emphatically, leaning forward to rest your elbows on your knees. “Uh uh.” You narrowed your eyes. “You don’t get to say ‘nah’ like that. Your music is… it’s beautiful, Ryan.”

“Well,” he flushed even more, “well, thank you.” Nodding, he stuck his chin out towards you. “You’re really good, too. You do this for a livin’?” He bent down to start counting and organizing the generous tips the two of you had garnered.

You sighed and sat back up, hugging your arms around yourself against the wind as it blew down the length of the mall. You reached down for your discarded sweater, re-layering. “No,” you said, sliding your arms into the sleeves. “I’m a bartender, who sometimes moonlights...er...daylights...as a musician.” You shrugged, pulling the sweater closed. “I used to play a lot more than I do now.” You sniffed. Change the subject. You’re feeling light, don’t weigh it back down. “We just played for,” you checked the time on your phone, eyebrows flying upwards in shock. “Four hours?! Holy cow!” You looked up at him, and saw that the surprise was mutual. His lips parted and you saw a white flash of teeth as he smiled again. He’s so happy… this makes him so happy. “Are you as hungry as I am?” You reached down for your bag, slinging it over your arm. “I’m starving.”

Ryan finished dividing the cash into two piles, folding one in half and tucking it into the beat up leather wallet he pulled from his back pocket, extending the other pile out to you. You took it with a soft “thank you”. You didn’t unfold and actually count, but from what you could see and the thickness of the stack in your hand, you’d made almost a hundred bucks a piece. That’ll make Max pretty happy, Mom, what do you think? You silently spoke to the wind, smiling inwardly. Ryan scooped up the coins from the case and laid the guitar in the felt lining before answering your question. “Yeah, I could eat.”

You grabbed the two empty coffee cups from hours before and crossed the garden block to toss them in the trashcan while Ryan hoisted the guitar case and an overstuffed backpack that you hadn't noticed earlier onto his shoulders. He stood waiting for you beside the piano, lightly pressing his thumbnail into the thick red paint to gauge just how many layers there were hiding beneath it. You smiled as you saw him do the same, seemingly pleased with the fact that there were at least thirty layers beneath the current one. “So this looks different every time?” He picked his head up to ask the question, completely intrigued by the musical artwork.

“Yeah, it’s pretty neat, huh?” You ran your fingers over the thick, rippled layers of weathered paint. “The city hires a new local artist every few weeks. I just love that it’s here, that people get to play...not everyone has the space or money, even for a little upright like this, you know?”

He nodded thoughtfully, smile faltering ever so slightly, and just as you were starting to worry that you’d said the wrong thing, the smile was back, reaching into his eyes.”I’m glad it’s here, too. People like you get to play it an’ make lots of other people happy.” The air felt heavy with the precipitation that was promising to fall, but standing so close to Ryan, the piano between you...it was like being inside a dome of sunshine and summer; like you couldn’t feel the blustery wind that was making passersby huddle further into their coats.

You laughed and thanked him for the compliment, again thinking to yourself that it had been too long since you’d played. Don’t get into that now. “So,” you cleared your throat. Turning your head slightly to give him a look of mock skepticism you asked, “How do you feel about tacos?”

He tugged on the straps of his case and pack. “Is this a test?” He narrowed his eyes, but you could see the smile twinkling inside of them.

You pulled your phone out and typed a quick text, nodding to his question. “It is. It is a test. Please answer honestly.” You were good at talking and joking with people because your job required those skills, but it was still astonishing how easy and genuine it felt to act that way with him after so few words and such little time. With customers, especially the ones you knew were fly by day and wouldn’t become regulars, there was always a level of disconnect, because no matter how funny the jokes were or how silly the stories, you knew that the relationship hinged on the fact that you were supplying them beverages, and they were supplying you with the ability to pay your rent. Between you and Ryan there was only music, and that was free. This is easy… why is he so easy to be around?

“Well, I feel good about tacos,” he chuckled, a puff of white vapor coming from his mouth as his warm breath hit the frigid air.

You feigned extreme relief. “Oh good, so you can be trusted.” You started walking in the direction of your flavorful destination, and Ryan fell into step next to you just as effortlessly as he had after leaving the coffee shop. “I know the best place in the city, just a few blocks down in Larimer Square.”

He was listening to you, you could tell, but you noticed that his eyes were up and flitting from one thing to the next. You passed a few specialty food stalls, smoke wafting out through aluminum vents, filling the air with sweet, meaty, and spicy smells. You saw him notice the handwritten menu signs and the way that pots, pans and other cooking utensils were hung or stored. In one brightly colored stall, a heavily tattooed cook was dicing green chillies, knife flashing as he proudly and confidently brought the blade down over and over against the hard block of the cutting board. Just next to the impromptu and constantly changing food court, a few more stalls were occupied by artisans and crafters selling beaded jewelry, tie-dyed clothing, intricate dream catchers and small wood carvings. You glanced over at Ryan and you could tell that he was just itching to get closer, to watch the crafters work. “You wanna check that out?” You asked, gesturing toward the woodworker’s stand.

He nodded enthusiastically, already taking a step towards the weathered older man with a kind face and scarred up hands who sat whittling objects and trinkets of all sorts. Ryan’s eyes were on the man’s hands, noting how the artist held his tools, and it struck you how present he was, how attentive and detail focused he was. “Lookit the way the wood curls fall,” he pointed to the floor where a pile of thin ribbons of oak shavings grew. “Twistin’ like that… wood’s hard, ya know? Wouldn’t think it could do that… it’s… there’s beauty in that,” He shrugged, eyes twinkling, focused on the discarded bits and not the ornate piece in the crafter’s hands. Most people walk right on by and here he is stopping to notice the scraps. He turned to you, a far off wistful look on his face. “Growin’ up I used to sit on my grandaddy’s porch and he’d carve all sorts of things...whistles, ornaments, little trains and boats for me’n my cousins to play with.” A twangy voice accompanied by a sad guitar and a lonely fiddle came through speakers inside the woodworker’s stall, and you could tell that Ryan knew the song by the way he tapped his thumb against his thigh in time with the music.

“He ever teach you how to make anything?” You imagined carving tools and a fresh block of golden wood held in Ryan’s tattooed fingers, imagined him liberating birds and bears and fish and trees from the cubes of unfinished oak, whistling or humming or tapping his boot against the floorboards of a porch as he did.

Ryan laughed. “Nah,” he winked and you weren’t ready for the way that wink made your insides dance. “He didn’t trust me with anything sharp back then, and I can’t say I blamed him much. My cousins an’ I were troublemakers with a capital T.”

You laughed and he joined in. “Pockets full of frogs? Pulling girls’ pigtails? That sort of thing?” You guessed.

“How’d you know?” He asked, and you watched as a birthmark beneath his eye was nearly lost to the crinkling of his lifted cheeks.

“Wild guess,” you shrugged. You asked him if he wanted to purchase anything from the stall and he hesitantly answered “no”, peeling his eyes away from the rapidly accumulating splinters and curls at the carver’s feet. His gaze lingered on a small freight train figurine on the table for a few extra seconds, and his fingers twitched like he wanted to reach out and touch it, but he didn’t, just turned to face you with those quiet, soft leather eyes. “Alright,” you rose on your toes to look over his shoulder, making sure that the shuttle bus wasn’t about to barrel down the mall. Once you knew you were in the clear, you bumped your elbow to his. “Onward. One more stop before lunch, if that’s okay with you.”

He stepped down off of the curb as you did. “Sure, lead the way. Not often I get the locals tour of a new city.”

“Hardly a tour, Ryan,” you smirked at him. “I haven’t even taken you to any historic sites or taught you any fun facts. You should demand a refund.”

His jovial laugh rang through the cold afternoon, and you noted how empty the street had become- a few stragglers heading towards light rail stops and rushing into buildings to escape the increasing chill. “Do you know any fun facts?”

“Well, no,” you admitted, and he laughed again. “But I could make some up,” you offered, remembering the “tours” your mother used to take you and your brother on when you were visiting new places, the “facts” that she’d conjure- see that building? It was once a clock factory, but the man who worked there discovered the secret to time travel, and he built a clock that took him away to another time, and he was never heard from again. Now it’s a pizzeria, but you can still hear the gears and the chimes from the clocks that used to be built there. You and Eli, in your infinite naivety and desire for magic to be real, would oooh and ahhh at her stories, and even well after you knew that they were fictional, you’d giggle over the stories fondly. You were quickly approaching the next stop on what Ryan had labeled a tour, and you turned to him. “Don’t worry, I won’t actually make you listen to a bunch of phony facts.” You nodded towards the storefront to your left- Max’s Music Shop- big red neon guitar hanging above the door, lit up against the colorless winter scene. “Just have to run in here real quick to drop something off. You wanna come in?”

You saw his eyes land on a beautiful Alder guitar with a Rosewood fretboard and a colorful, hand embroidered strap. They roved over the curves of the instrument hungrily, mouth dropping open and a small “wow” slipping out as he raised his hand to the glass. “Think they’d let me play that one?” He asked, a hopeful lift in his tone.

You smiled warmly, thrilled to be able to give him good news. “Yeah, I think so. Max is a friend.” You didn’t think Max would be okay with it, you knew he would, and you knew that once he heard Ryan play he’d be eager to invite him back any time. You opened the door, a bell jingling pleasantly above you, and again Ryan’s canvas sleeved arm came from right behind you to hold it for you. You thanked him, looking up and over your shoulder to see that he was looking down at you with excitement clear and present all over his face, the wind blowing the feathersoft hair that stuck out from his cap behind his ears, grin visible under the patchy facial hair that ranged down his neck in some places, and you felt your stomach do another flip. It feels so good to be close to him...this is...I need to stop... again you felt like you were enclosed in his sunny aura, simply by sharing proximity. Your breath caught as his hand brushed yours, completely accidentally, as it came down from the door. You recovered quickly as Max’s face lit up from behind the counter, and he came around to give you a hug.

“Hey! Junebug!” His bright blue eyes shone with genuine excitement to see you. “How you been? Who’s your friend?” He stepped back from you, swiping his blonde hair from his eyes with one hand, the tattered sleeve of his sweater pulled down to his fingers.

You stepped aside. “This is Ryan, we met this morning when I spilled coffee on some asshat in Caribou.” Max shook Ryan’s hand, both men smiling, quietly appreciating the other’s clear love for music. You turned back to Max. “He’s the best guitarist I ever heard, Max. Can you grab that beauty in the window so he can treat us both?”

Ryan flushed from his cheeks to the tips of his ears at your compliments as Max excitedly strode to the window to remove the guitar in question. He brought it over to the side of the shop that had two wooden boxes that served as seating, a faded blue Turkish rug spread out on the floor. “Have a seat, Ryan,” Max gestured to the boxes with his free hand, and Ryan did as he was instructed, completely enamored by the shiny lacquer that covered the unique grain of the guitar’s body. You sat on the second box as Max handed the guitar over, and watched it trade hands, a sort of whimsical enchantment filling the shop’s small space as Ryan’s fingers closed around the neck.

“Thank you, sir,” he directed his words to Max, but his gaze was stuck on the instrument in his hands, gleaming just as much as the shiny wood. Max nodded and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall behind him, one leg bouncing in anticipation of hearing Ryan play.

You watched as Ryan adjusted his position on the wooden seat, propping the guitar comfortably in his lap as though he’d been acquainted with the instrument for years, as though they were very old friends and not strangers. He strummed his fingers over the strings, delighting in the sound, forehead creasing in concentration as he introduced himself to the bridge and the sound hole, carefully twisting one of the pegs at the top of the headstock. You watched him with the same enraptured awe that he watched the wood carver with, eyes following his fingers from the headstock back down to the strings, and held your breath as he began to play.

You heard Max let out a surprised sound as Ryan started plucking away with his right hand, the honey sweet, magical music filling the small shop almost instantly. You watched the way the knuckles of his left hand moved, pressing down tightly on the strings over the neck before springing away to free the vibrations. Without realizing it you were tapping your foot and your cheeks were aching at the smile his song induced. He only sang a few lines, lyrics having to do with heading south, following the weather to where it’s warm, and travelling by train, and you felt utterly immersed in the song, in the story that we has telling with his words and the way that his body curved around the guitar, the way that his hands increased and decreased pressure on the instrument to denote different volumes, tones and feelings. You only got to sneak a few glances at him while the two of you played, as you were wrapped up in your own playing, the movement of your own fingers as they flew across the keys, and now, surrounded by banjos and ukes, drums, violins, flutes and other musical equipment, now you got to take in the visual aspect of his performance as much as the audible. He quieted the strings by laying his palm flat against them as the song came to a close, and you and Max launched into applause as that flattered red flush came back to Ryan’s face. He smiled sheepishly at his hands before looking up and thanking you and Max.

“Junebug didn’t lie, man, you are extremely talented...you ever record? I have equipment and a studio at home and I’d love to work with you if you’re interested…” Max was speaking quickly like he did when he was excited, and you were thrilled to see Ryan’s eyes flicker with surprise and interest when Max mentioned recording. They spoke briefly about setting up time to record, and you stood, crossing the room to give them privacy. You lingered near the counter, examining a colorful steel drum that you’d seen Max mess around on before.

“Yeah, I’m only in town for a few days,” you heard Ryan explaining to Max, “But I could be headin’ back this way in the Spring, could I call you then?”

You froze, your fingers finding the divets in the steel drum’s basin, as an inappropriate feeling of disappointment hit you at the idea that Ryan would be gone in a few days, just like the snow that had yet to start falling. Stop it, you told yourself for what felt like the eightieth time that day, you’ve known lots of traveling buskers, shit you were one for a long time, you know how this works. Max’s cheery voice broke through your disappointed thoughts as he agreed that any time would be the right time and that the offer would stand for whenever Ryan found himself back in Denver. They shook on it, both of them grinning, and the warmth that came from Ryan’s smile banished some of the sting of his imminent departure. You resumed tapping the steel drum as they walked over to where you were standing.

“So, Max, I did actually drop in to give you something,” you pulled the folded stack of cash from your bag and handed it over to Max. Ryan’s eyebrows wrinkled in confusion as your tip money changed hands. “For the Lois Walsh Junebug Jam Musical Education Program,” you announced, though you knew that Max knew what the money was for. You’d been donating in your mother’s name since you met Max almost four years ago amd learned that he ran private music lessons for kids who couldn’t afford their own instruments, letting them play either second hand instruments at the shop, or his own older guitars and violins at home. You’d been wanting to do something in your mother’s honor since she passed almost seven years ago, and you’d known that you wanted it to be music related, as everything in your mother’s life had been. Twice a year you’d come into the shop and hand over a wad of cash, and twice a year he’d tell you about the kid whose day you made when he was able to present them with their very own trumpet, bass, or flute. Max beamed and thanked you, professing how proud of you your mother would be despite never having met her. You could tell that Ryan wanted to ask questions or say something, but he refrained from doing so until the two of you were back outside.

Though the mountains were behind you, you didn’t have to see them to feel the cloud shelf advancing. Having already swallowed the peaks it would undoubtedly be hanging low over the foothills now, snow blowing about, riding the Western Squall that was on its way into the city. You sniffed against the cold, and against the little rush of emotion that donating on your mother’s behalf always gave you, and when you turned towards Ryan, you were only slightly surprised to see him already looking at you thoughtfully. “That’s a real nice thing you’re doin’, Junebug,” he was quiet, and though he couldn’t know the details about the fund you’d helped Max set up, it was clear that he could tell there was a very personal connection there, and he wasn’t going to push you to talk about it. Hearing him use that nickname, though, made the air evaporate straight out of your lungs. You recovered as quickly as you could with a smile and a little laugh.

“Oh you’re callin’ me Junebug now, are you?” You wrinkled your nose at him in mock disgust, but the truth was that if he forgot your real name and called you that forever, you’d be just fine with it. “But, thanks. I...Max is great, you know? Teaching music to kids and…” you shrugged. “I’m a shitty teacher, so if I can help him out in this way I’m happy to do it.” That was the truth, sans details that he didn’t need to know right now. “But!” you clapped your gloved hands together softly, “It’s taco time, come on you’ve gotta be ready to eat your fist at this point, I know I am.”

Ryan laughed and you lead him a few blocks further down 16th Street and around the corner to Larimer Square, strung year round with lights and banners, it’s cobbled sidewalks making it seem like a small town Main Street instead of one of the trendiest streets in Lower Downtown. You passed a few high end boutiques and eateries- a dress shop you couldn’t even afford to make a reservation in, a champagne bar you’d visited once on New Year’s Eve- and strolled along until you reached the sign for Tamayo, the lettering above the door enough to make your mouth start watering. Ryan stopped abruptly outside the restaurant’s front door. You were still chatting excitedly about the happy mistake that lead you to the carne asada wonderland you were about to experience, and hadn’t noticed that you’d lost him a few steps back. You spun on your heel to see him, shoulders slumped in front of the menu that was posted outside. He looked disappointed, and you immediately had a suspicion as to why. “Hey,” you called over to him, “You okay?”

He turned to face you, a slightly embarrassed look on his face that made you feel horrible. “Yeah, I just…” he looked down at his clothing; tattered tan cap pulled over his long and unruly hair, canvas coat that covered a maroon sweater, dark jeans stained in several places with a thick pair of gray gloves sticking out from his back pocket, paint and mud caked boots with frayed laces, before looking back up at the pristine building, looking through the windows at the tables with white cloths and small candles. “I don’t think I’m dressed for a place this nice.”

You looked down at your own appearance and back over at him. “Yeah,” you said, “Me either. Follow me.” You waved an arm.

He took a reluctant step towards you and paused again. “I don’t...this place, it’s...I don’t think I can really afford it,” he looked down at the sidewalk, and you wanted to take away any feeling of inadequacy that he ever felt. He was the kindest, most genuine, supremely talented person that you’d ever met, and he didn’t deserve to feel inadequate, ever.

“Ryan,” you reached out and touched his arm before you could stop yourself, the tips of your fingers sticking out from your gloves to feel the rough material of his coat. He looked down at your purple gloved hand, and then up to your eyes and you thought you might choke. You shook your head slightly and removed your hand as you continued. “I can’t really afford it either, Ryan.” You winked. “I know a guy that works in the kitchen- helped him out when his band was in a jam and needed a backup keyboardist for a few gigs- and he owes me...I told him payment in tacos was acceptable, and I hadn’t cashed in on it yet, so… come on, I texted him before we left the piano. I bet he’s got everything packed up already.”

He looked dumbfounded. “You’re usin’ your favor on me?”

“Least I could do after you told that asshole off in the coffee shop, and then…” You let out a breath. “And then you...we played together and I haven’t played like that in…” you sighed as the mild confusion on his face faded. “Yes, Ryan, I’m using my favor on you. Now come on.”

He followed you to a back door where your friend Josh was waiting, red and brown stains covering his white apron. He shivered as he extended the bag to you, and you thanked him, promising to get together to play sometime. He disappeared back inside, and you turned to Ryan brandishing the bag of spicy goodness. “Come on, I know just the spot for a picnic.”

Ryan seemed to have left his feelings of embarrassment and inadequacy back on the cobbled bricks of the sidewalk outside Tamayo’s front door, and you were immensely glad. You led him around another few corners until you were at the Colorado Convention Center, and you turned to catch his reaction to the enormous blue bear sculpture that had been added to the building’s exterior. It was positioned in such a way that made it look like the looming bear was trying to peer into the windows of the iconic building, and normally it would be flooded with tourists and visitors to the city, posing for pictures perched on its paw. The snow had finally started to fall, light but noticeable, so the area around big blue’s feet was completely empty. You climbed up on one of it’s huge paws and patted the flat area next to you, indicating that Ryan should join you. He shook his head, a delighted smile on his face banishing whatever he was feeling before and filling his eyes with wonder. He climbed up next to you and wiped his hands off on his jeans. “Painted pianos, secret little music shops…” he tilted his head back to appreciate the sculpture that he sat upon, “taco picnics and now bear statues… I thought you said this wasn’t a tour?”

“Ha, I guess...I guess it was. A tour of my Denver.” You passed him one of the two containers full of carne asada and chicken tinga tacos, and opened your own. You wasted no time in scooping up one of the soft corn tortillas, still warm from the foil pouch Josh had wrapped them in, and took a big, sloppy bite. One look over at Ryan and he was doing exactly the same, and you laughed, mouth full, as his tongue came out to try to catch some pico de gallo that was falling out of the shell in his hand. He was unsuccessful, instead shoving the whole thing in his mouth before sucking seasoning and sauce from his thumb. He shrugged and you laughed harder having swallowed the food in your mouth. “That’s how tacos work- shove it in and hope for the best.”

His eyebrows flew up under his hat and he froze before bursting with a loud laugh that echoed in the empty street and off the glass windows under the bear’s legs. It felt good, laughing with him, sharing your day… a day that you’d normally spend alone and certainly with less laughter. You leaned back against the behemoth sculpture and Ryan got more comfortable, too, and the two of you ate in a semi-silence punctuated by chewing and slurping noises, neither of you trying to eat gracefully around the other. When you’d finished your meal and Ryan his, you hopped down from the bear’s paw and waited for him to join you back on the ground.

“So, I was thinking-”

“So, can I ask you somethin’-”

You both spoke at once, and your heart hammered. Somehow, though you had no idea how or why, somehow you knew that he was about to ask you about the money you’d handed over in the music shop and what it was for and where the name Junebug came from and what you were doing downtown today and why it had been so long since you’d played music. What was worse than the idea of him asking these things, was the idea that you actually wanted to talk to him about it all… You were about to resign and say, “Sure,” when all of a sudden the wind changed, and the squall that had been threatening all morning dropped snow down on your heads relentlessly and you both focused on it instead of the double questioning that had almost happened.

“Where to, Junebug?” he asked, squinting against the flakes that fell sideways, blowing about on the wind to settle in his hair and on his long lashes. He keeps calling me that and it's going to be a problem, you smirked to yourself as you grabbed his elbow and lead him down an alley between the convention center and the building next to it, towards the light rail station.

“Let’s get out of the city, what do you say?”

@something-tofightfor @my-little-dumpster-fire @suchatinyinfinity @lexxierave @benbarnestongue @banditthewriter @thesumofmychoices

please let me know if you wanna hop on or off this train!

#passing through #ryan brenner #ryan brenner x reader #ryan brenner x you #western squall #jackie and ryan #ryan brenner imagine #5280 #ryan does denver

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