1A There There by Melody Villalobos

Tony Loneman pg. 26

melodystutzman — 2025-09-29 15:44:46 UTC

"I went out into the living room and stood in front of the TV... I tightened my chin strap. I looked at my face. The Drome. I didn't see it there. I saw an Indian. I saw a dancer." (Group 10)

Tony Loneman pg. 15-16

melodystutzman — 2025-09-29 15:45:39 UTC

"All I heard her say was Drome, and then I was back in front of the turned off TV, staring at it. My face stretched across the screen. The Drome. I tried but couldn't make the face that I found there my own again." (Group 10)

Tony Loneman pg. 16

melodystutzman — 2025-09-29 16:54:21 UTC

The Drome is my mom and why she drank, it's the way history lands on a face, and all the ways I made it so far despite how it has fuck with me since the day I found it there on the TV..." (Group 10)

Tony Loneman pg. 16

melodystutzman — 2025-09-29 16:55:08 UTC

"I listened to him talk about his grandma, about how she saved his life after his family was gone... "I'd give away my own heart's blood for her," Octavio said, his own heart's blood. That the way I felt for Maxine." (Group 10)

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 118

s605321 — 2025-10-03 13:57:32 UTC

"He moved in front of the mirror and his feathers shake. He catches the hesitation, the worry in his eyes, there in the mirror. " This was significant because it talks about him seeing himself in the mirror and realizing that he can see he struggle within himself. (Group 6)

jacquie page pg.100

2025-10-03 13:59:37 UTC

"the webs she had on the tops..." group five

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 118

s605321 — 2025-10-03 13:59:50 UTC

"Ever since they were in her care, Opal had been openly against any of them doing anything Indian. She treated it like it was something they could decide for themselves when they are old enough." This quote is significant because it talks about how Opal is hands-off and wants them to discover their own identity. (Group 6)

jacquie pg.101

2025-10-03 14:00:39 UTC

pg.101 " orvile found spider legs in his leg..." group 5

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 121

s630381 — 2025-10-03 14:01:15 UTC

"Orvil manages to get the regalia on and steps in front of the full-length mirror on Opal's closet door. Mirrors have always been a problem for him. The word stupid often sounds in his head when he looks at himself in the mirror. He doesn't know why, but it seems important. And true." (Group 6)

Jacquie Red Feather pg. 100

2025-10-03 14:02:08 UTC

"She put it on in front of the mirror. Scars and tattoos spanned and bent around her neck, stomach, arms, and ankles." (Group 5)

jacquie pg 103

2025-10-03 14:02:21 UTC

pg.103 "he had an unrecognizable tatoo..." group 5

Calvin Johnson Pg. 93

s81118 — 2025-10-03 14:03:05 UTC

"Right on cue, Octavio walked into the kitchen. His eyes turned to bullets- he shot them around the room." (Group 4)

jacquie pg 106

2025-10-03 14:03:05 UTC

pg.106 "the trickster spider veho..." group5

jacquie pg.116

2025-10-03 14:04:01 UTC

pg.116" idea of feeling good and comfortable..." group 5

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 119

2025-10-03 14:04:30 UTC

"You're Indian because you're Indian because you're Indian" (Group 6)

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield pg. 46

s62994 — 2025-10-03 14:05:16 UTC

"`Why do we got name like we do.` I said

`They come from old indian names. We had our own way of naming before white people came over and spread all those dad names around to keep the power with the dads.`...

it was all pretty hard to explain in school, how i was a bear shield, and that wasen't even the worst part. The worst part was my first name, which was two: Opal Viola..." (Group 2)

Edwin Black Pg. 63

2025-10-03 14:06:03 UTC

"I once dreamed I'd become a writer"-Group 3

Jacquie pg.98

2025-10-03 14:06:11 UTC

pg.98 "she guessed they meant self harm..." group 5

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 120

2025-10-03 14:07:34 UTC

"The three of them had begun life in withdrawal. Heroin babies... Orvil only had a handful of memories of his mom..." (Group 6)

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 119

s630381 — 2025-10-03 14:07:37 UTC

"...it makes me happy you want to know, but learning about your heritage is a privilege. A privilege we don't have. And anyway, anything you hear from me about your heritage does not make you more or less Indian. More or less a real Indian. Don't ever let anyone tell you what being Indian means. Too many of us died to get just a little bit of us here, right now, right in this kitchen. You, me. Every part of our people that made it is precious. You're Indian because you're Indian because you're Indian." (Group 6)

Edwin Black Pg. 71

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:08:07 UTC

"Dissecting tribal histories, looking for signs, something that might resemble me, something that felt familiar." (Group 3)

Tony Loneman pg. 142-143

2025-10-03 14:10:02 UTC

"The bullets will come from Black Hils, South Dakota...The two boxes of bullets will go in his backpack...He'll feel the weight and hear the jangle of the bullets at every bump and crack...he'll take each of the boxes of bullets out and empty them into a pair of socks. He'll swing and trow the socks one at a time against the wall behind the bushes past the metal dectors...His heart will be in his ears thinking about the bullets in the bushes, the powwow...hiding bullets in bushes." (Group 6)

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 121

s630381 — 2025-10-03 14:10:12 UTC

"The regalia is itchy and faded in color. It's way too small. He doesn't look the way he hoped he would. He doesn't know what he expected to find. Being Indian didn't fit either." (Group 6)

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 121

2025-10-03 14:10:59 UTC

"Orvil knew he wanted to dance the first time he saw a dancer on TV... There on the screen, in full regalia..." (Group 6)

“A little part of me died, seeing my face react to thinking about sick addiction all the time I spent doing almost nothing.” pg 63 (group 3)

2025-10-03 14:11:11 UTC

Calvinn Johnson Pg 89-90

s81118 — 2025-10-03 14:11:45 UTC

"I'd called him a few weeks before to let him know I would get him the money I owed, but I needed more time. Maggie let me stay with her on the condition that I stayed away from our brother, Charles. But he was here." (Group 4)

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield pg. 60

s62994 — 2025-10-03 14:12:13 UTC

"`One of the last things mom said to me when we were over there, she said we shouldn't ever not tell our stories,` I said.

`What the [frick] is that supposed to mean?`

`I mea,n having the baby`

`It's not a story, Opal, this is real`

`It could be both`

`Life doesn't work out the way stories do. Mom's dead, she's not coming back, and we're alone, living with a guy we don't even know, who we're supposed to call uncle. What kind of a [fricked]-up story is this?`

`Yeah, Mom's dead, I know. We're alone, but we're not dead. It's not over. We can't just give up, Jacquie. Right?

Jacquie didn't respond." (Group 2)

Bill Davis pg. 84

s70378 — 2025-10-03 14:12:23 UTC

steadies his unstable, distorted reflection in the dented metal... whose hair is fully grayed and receding, and whose stomach comes out a little more each year, whose feet and knees hurt when he stands or walks too long... he's almost always not making it" (orange 84) -group 4

Edwin Black Pg. 77

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:12:35 UTC

"How impossible my current life would have seemed" (Group 3)

Jacquie Red Feather pg. 154

2025-10-03 14:12:47 UTC

"... because I found spider legs in my leg right before everything happened with Ronald. And I never told you I found those legs, I mean until right now. I need to know if it happened to you. I feel like it has something to do with Mom."(Group 7)

Dene Oxendene Pg. 28

2025-10-03 14:13:03 UTC

"They'll see immediately how unqualified he is. They'll think hes white which is only half true. Dene isnt recognizably white. He is ambiguously non white." (group 1)

Dene Oxendene Pg. 34

2025-10-03 14:13:34 UTC

"Dying of what?"

"He's been drinking too much for too long. His body, his liver's going" ( Group 1 )

Calvin Johnson pg. 144

2025-10-03 14:13:47 UTC

"Calvins on the bigger end of the spectrum himself, but he's tall and wears baggy clothes, so he comes off as big but not necessarily fat." (Group 6)

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 120

s630381 — 2025-10-03 14:13:57 UTC

"'She's how you all got those lousy spellings of your names,' Opal told the boys over dinner one night after Lony told them the kids were calling him Lony the Pony at school... 'She knew how to spell. She just wanted you all to be different. I don't blame her. Our names should look different.'" (Group 6)

Dene Oxendene pg. 32

s71323 — 2025-10-03 14:14:22 UTC

"he told me stories like he knew, they'd be useful later, like they weren't just for entertainment or passing time." (group 1)

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 122

2025-10-03 14:15:06 UTC

"...he stands, weak in the knees, a fake, a copy, a boy playing dress up... which is why he keeps looking, keeps standing in front of the mirror." (Group 6)

Edwin Black Pg. 73

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:15:28 UTC

"Well, what I have going on comes with an easy answer, and even more so when I see my reflection in the mirror on the front of the fridge, which, by the way, I know you put there for my benefit." (Group 3)

Bill Davis pg. 85

s70378 — 2025-10-03 14:16:31 UTC

" It was his knife somehow in the end. He was the one with the history of violence. the crazy AWOL Vietnam vet." (Orange 85) -group 4

Dene Oxendene pg. 40

s60368 — 2025-10-03 14:16:35 UTC

"My uncle died and, sort of, i inherited the work he started. What he did, what i want to do, is to document Indian stories in Oakland."

(group 1)

Dene Oxendene pg. 149

2025-10-03 14:17:04 UTC

"'That's what im trying to get out of this whole thing. All put together, all our stories. Because all we got right now are reservation stories, and shitty versions from outdated history textbooks. A lot of us live in cities now. This is just supposed to be like a way to start telling this other story.'

'I just don't think it's right for me to claim being native if I don't know anything about it.'" (Group 7)

Edwin Black Pg. 72

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:17:13 UTC

“All without knowing my tribe. Always defending myself. Like I’m not Native enough. I’m as Native as Obama is black.” (Group 3)

Calvin Johnson pg. 145

2025-10-03 14:18:00 UTC

"Blue knocks on the table twice and clears her throat...we'll start with the two new people, one of whom isn't here yet, so that means you'll start, Edwin. Go ahead and tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what your role's gonna be here at the center." (Group 6)

Orvil Red Feather pg. 124

2025-10-03 14:19:21 UTC

"It was the first time I heard that we were Indian... He's the reason they called our grandma and why we ended up getting adopted by her..." (Group 6)

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield pg. 159

2025-10-03 14:20:04 UTC

"But even though she hates seeing her face, she's never been able to stop the habit of looking at it when she finds a mirror there in front of her, where she catches one of the only versions of her face she'll ever see--on top of glass." (Group 7)

Dene Oxendene Pg.44

2025-10-03 14:20:46 UTC

"The camera was still running. He lifted it, pistol-gripped, pointed it at her, and looked away." (Group 1)

Opal VVBS pg. 160

2025-10-03 14:22:04 UTC

"'She could have waved first, then you couldnt help but copy. But look at this,' he said, and then he broke out into a wild dance, arms flailing, he jumped and spun. It looked to Opal like he was powwow dancing. But he couldnt have been. He was just trying to act crazy in front of the mirror to prove no one else was in control but him, the Orvil on this side of the mirror."

Edwin Black Pg. 78

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:22:37 UTC

"I get all the way up. But with the exhilaration of completing my first sit-up comes an explosion, a wet smelly lump of relief in the seat of my sweatpants. I'm out of breath, sweating, sitting in my own shit. I lie back down, put both of my arms out flat, palms up. I find myself saying "Thank you" out loud, to no one in par-ticular. I feel something not unlike hope." (Group 3)

Edwin Black Pg.71

2025-10-03 14:23:11 UTC

"For how many years had I been dying to find out what the other half of me was? How many tribes had I made up when asked in the meantime?" (Group 3)

Dene Oxendene pg. 42

s71323 — 2025-10-03 14:24:03 UTC

"My main question is whether or not he'll be able to get people to come and tell their stories and to trust him with them." (group 1)

Edwin Black Pg. 68

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:24:38 UTC

“I touch the reflection of my cheeks with both hands, then suck my cheeks in, bite them to preview what it might look like if I lost thirty pounds.” (Group 3)

Dene Oxendene pg 41

2025-10-03 14:25:41 UTC

"Dene knew it would be the native guy. he probably doesnt even think Dene is native." (group 1)

Dene Oxendene Pg. 37

2025-10-03 14:26:01 UTC

" " I got a camra grip like a gun, " Lucas makes a gun with his hand and points it at Dene. " (Group 1)

?Calvin does choose family (charles) usher "the right choice"?

2025-10-03 14:26:32 UTC

Edwin Black Pg. 77

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:26:43 UTC

“I've always hated when she says "Native American Indian," this weird politically correct catchall you only hear from white people who've never known a real Native person.” (Group 3)

Opal VVBS pg. 163

2025-10-03 14:27:18 UTC

"Opal and Jacquie's mom never let them kill a spider if they found one in the house, or anywhere for that matter. Her mom said spiders carry miles of web in their bodies, miles of story, miles of potential home and trap. She said that's what we are. Home and trap." (Group 7)

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield pg.53

2025-10-03 14:27:45 UTC

"Don't you think it's good we're standing up for something? Trying to make things right for what they done to us all these hundreds of years, since they came?"

(group 2)

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield pg. 164

2025-10-03 14:29:20 UTC

"Lucas and Opal had been in love. Their love was young and desperate. But it was love. Then one day Lucas got on a bus and moved down to Los Angeles. He'd never even talked about it. He just left." (Group 7)

Bill Davis pg. 84-85

s70378 — 2025-10-03 14:29:55 UTC

"Vietnam after going AWOL in 71' dishonorably discharged. He hated the country and the country hated him"(Orange 84-85) -group 4

Dene Oxendene pg 30

s60368 — 2025-10-03 14:30:30 UTC

"someone had taken a picture of him, or the bus, and from out of the flesh, the blue-green-purple-pink afterglow, the name came. he wrote lens on the back of the bus seat with a sharpie just before his stop. As he got off the bus in the back, he saw the bus driver's eyes narrow in that wide mirror at the front." (group 1)

Edwin Black Pg. 67

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:31:13 UTC

“The internet is like a brain trying to figure out a brain...." (Group 3)

Edwin Black Pg. 64

s51232 — 2025-10-03 14:35:54 UTC

"Now I don't have any dreams, or if I dream, I dream of dark geometric shapes drifting noiselessly across a pink, black, and purple pixelated colorscape. Screen-saver dreams." (Group 3)

Calvin Johnson Pg. 96

s81118 — 2025-10-03 14:37:16 UTC

"Before, I'd never thought about the idea that you could just wake up to some terrible shit, some F'd up shift in what you thought life was" (Group 4)

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield pg. 169

2025-10-03 14:40:50 UTC

"Of all that could have occurred to her, what came up in her mind was a word she'd heard her mom use. A Cheyanne word: Veho. It means spider and trickster and white man." (Group 7)

Jaquie Red Feather pg. 117

2025-10-06 16:46:50 UTC

"That picture of them with Opal, Opal's face, her eyes saying to Jaquie come get them"

(Group 5)

Jaquie Red Feather Pg. 110

2025-10-06 16:50:01 UTC

"We'd been on Alcatraz, me and my family, back during the occupation, in 1970. It all started for me there."

(Group 5)

jacquie pg.116

2025-10-07 13:58:42 UTC

"the idea of feeling good and comfortable, safe, and all the first few, the first six could do, and then the inevitable home strech to twelve, sixteen, because the web stuck to you everywhere you reached once you were trapped, once you started." group 5

jacquie pg 106

2025-10-07 14:08:40 UTC

"the trickster spider, veho, her mom used to tell her and opal about, he was always stealing eyes to see better. veho was the white man who came and made the old world watch with his eyes. look. see here, the way its gonna be is, first your gonna give me all your land, then your attention, until you forget how to give it." group 5

Opal VVBS pg. 165

s60367 — 2025-10-07 14:32:41 UTC

"But there's no time and no good reason most of the time to look back... Opal prefered to keep them there as just that. That's why these damn spider legs have her stuck on the problem. They're making her look back." (Group 7)

Opal VVBS pg. 165

s60367 — 2025-10-07 14:33:05 UTC

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 125

s630381 — 2025-10-08 13:53:12 UTC

"'You remember that lump I got? I felt something poking out of it. So I pulled, like, I just pulled one out, put it on some folded-up toilet paper, then went back in and got another one. Then one more after that. I'm pretty sure they're spider legs,' Orvil says."

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 128

s630381 — 2025-10-08 13:54:46 UTC

"They poke at the legs and move the toilet paper so that the legs bend. Orvil feels a pulse in his stomach, and like something falls out of him. After he hangs up, he takes the legs, folds up the toilet paper, and stuffs it in his pocket."

Orvil Red Feather Pg. 119-120

s630381 — 2025-10-08 13:58:22 UTC

"Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield. A big old name for a big old lady. She's not technically their grandma. Indian way she is. That's what she told them when she explained why she was a Bear Shield and they were Red Feathers. She is actually their great-aunt. Their real grandma, Jacquie Red Feather, lives in New Mexico. Opal is Jacquie's half sister, but they grew up together, with the same mom."

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield pg. 162

cute_cat0826 — 2025-10-15 16:19:16 UTC

"So she bore those years, their weight, and the years bored a hole through the middle of her, where she tried to keep believing there was some reason to keep her love intact. Opal is a solid stone, but there is troubled water that lives in her, that sometimes threatens to flood, to drown her - rise up to her eyes." (Group 7)

Dene Oxendene pg 148

s60367 — 2025-10-15 16:21:53 UTC

Calvin is talking

"I know there's a lot of Natives living in oakland and in the bay area with simmilar stores. But its like we can't talk about it because it's not really a Native story, but then it is at the same time." (Group 7)

Jacquie Red Feather pg. 154

s60367 — 2025-10-15 16:28:44 UTC

Jacquie Red Feather pg. 154

cute_cat0826 — 2025-10-15 16:32:48 UTC

"She wonders about her mom's teeth. She thinks about genetics and blood and why a heart keeps beating." (Group 7)

Opal pg 163

s60367 — 2025-10-15 16:38:05 UTC

"Opal regularly checks their phones while they sleep... None of them have shown signs of especially worrisome depravity yet. But it;s only a matter of time. Opal belives there is a dark curiosity alive in each of us. "

Jacquie Red Feather pg. 99

s73442 — 2025-10-23 03:05:05 UTC

"Home was the three of them anywhere safe for the night..." (group 5)