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 Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2025 5:47 pm
Quote: The Wishing Tree (1): A Destiny City Star Festival Tradition to be held every year; In Town Square, there is a beautiful tree with spreading branches. It is tall, but the lowest branches are easily reached. The city has decorated the tree with small, starlike ornaments and glistening lights. Thick leaves and beautiful purple flowers dangle from the branches, along with a myriad of different colored papers with handwritten wishes. Next to the tree is a stack of blank paper with twine attached, and a handwritten sign that explains: Write your wish on a sheet of paper and tie it to the tree. Take one wish off the tree and do your best to grant it. When you have granted the wish, bury the paper in the park. The papers are biodegradable and filled with seeds. There are no rules for wishing, but you are encouraged to wish for something vague enough that it can be interpreted in many ways so that it can be granted; you do not write your name on it, but it is encouraged to write something that doesn't wish for self gain, but rather something that can make the world a better place. Some wishes dangling from the tree already include things like 'I wish there wasn't so much litter in the park,' 'I wish someone would clean the graffiti off the old historic buildings', and 'I wish there were more volunteers at the shelter.' If you choose to use the Wishing Tree, what do you wish for? If your wish is private, you may write it on the paper and choose a spot in the park and bury it yourself instead of hanging it on the tree.
He approached the tree then, snapping photos that may or may not get used. One of his favorite things was going through all the photos he had taken during a shoot and finding one that spoke up more than the rest. It could be because of a single seemingly insignificant detail, but it's that detail that makes the photo pop. It was what he had always loved about photography.
Up close, he could make out the various colored papers dangling from the branches and the sight made him smile. He was proud to live in a city that did things like this and encouraged planting new flowers as well as helping the city and other people. He looked at the stack of papers and snapped a photo, resolving to make a wish of his own and maybe granting one before he left the park today.
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Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2025 7:36 am
Abby finished writing down the history of the festival from one of the volunteers, her notes might have looked a bit jumbled but she wasn’t overly worried since she had also recorded the interview as well. She could always go back and listen to it all again. “So, like, just write your wish on one of these pieces of paper and tie it to the tree.” The girl pointed to the stack of precut paper with string already looped through the hole in one end. “Once you do that you take one off the tree and do your best to grant it and when you have granted the wish, bury the paper in the park. It's got, like, all these seeds in it so when it falls apart it will plant flowers and make the park pretty.” “Interesting,” Abby murmured politely. This is the third time she had been given the same general instruction during her interviewing process. Each volunteer, and even some of the other participants, seemed to think she hadn’t grasped the concept of the tree in the first five seconds she came here. It was rather frustrating but she was doing this for the school website and paper so she just kept her thoughts to herself. As the interview wrapped up the young woman looked over to where her current photographer was snapping away. He was a graduate, her senior as it were, from the same department. He had apparently volunteered to help out as needed with the articles so when they ran out of students to run down the various activities and other city going on’s, they had reached out to the graduates. Jadyn had been assigned with her and while their meeting, in the parking lot of this particular location, had been a bit awkward Abby couldn’t find fault in his professionalism. He had jumped right into the assignment, snapping pictures left and right. “Thank you. If I have any follow up questions I will contact you.” Abby smiled at the volunteer. “I appreciate your time. Now, if you will excuse me,” She moved as if she was about to leave when a hasty ‘wait’ had her turn back only to have two star charms passed to her with the explanation that they were for her and her friend. Abby thanked her and made her way over to Jadyn. “Contemplating your wish?” She asked before passing over one of the charms, keeping the opal colored one for herself, “Or thinking about taking one to do?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2025 1:12 pm
After he'd gotten quite a few pictures taken of the tree and other people who were visiting to make or grant a wish, he turned to look for Abby, realizing that he may have gotten too excited and kind of abandoned her after their parking lot meeting but she had already started getting interviews and writing things down. She looked like a natural reporter and he grinned, snapping a couple pictures of her in action. They probably wouldn't be used for her article, but she might like to have them for herself. As he watched, it seemed that speaking to the various volunteers had the journalism student a bit frustrated, and he wondered why.
She finished her interview with the last volunteer and made to come his way when someone stopped her. The exchange was kind of weird, but Abby didn’t seem put off by the interaction. When she handed him something, he took and examined it. Cool, one of those star charms he’d seen a bunch of people having. The crimson one, close enough to his birthstone. He added it to his keychain as Abby posed a question.
“I was thinking about both, actually,” he said. He liked the whole idea, if he were honest. It was a great thing, encouraging community service in the city. So many people needed help, he was sure. “How about you? Any wish making or wish granting in your future?” He grinned, having a pretty good time so far despite the awkward start to their meeting. "How'd your interviews go?" he asked, wondering if she would mention whatever it was that had made her frustrated.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2025 3:59 am
“Hmmmm,” Abby hedged her bets absently playing with her charm. “Probably both but I think my wish will be something like ‘visit a nursing home’ or something.” She eyed the fluttering paper already hanging from the trees. “I have a feeling a lot of them are ‘clean up park’ or the like so it would be nice to add variety to them. You? Any particular wish you want to put up?” She was willing to put off thoughts on the article she would have to write. Not willing to face the lack of actual information she got but apparently Jadyn was curious, all Abby could do was sigh. “Robotic and repetitive.” With a shake of her head she explained, “Almost everyone I spoke with said nearly the same thing, with very little variation. The most deviation I had was when one person went off on a tangent about the tree itself. Talking about its age and what kind it was.” She shrugged, “That info might be useful but the rest…” The young woman trailed off, knowing that she would have to figure out some way of ‘fluffing’ the rest to get the required word count. After a moment looking at the various wishes she had an idea, one that had her breaking out in a grin. “How about I interview you? After you put up a wish, that is, after all that would make you a participant that way rather than just an observer.” She would of course put up her own wish as well.
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2025 10:14 pm
He nodded at her ideas for a wish. “I like it. There’s probably plenty of older folks who don’t get visitors much,” he said. Community service wishes and cleaning up the park sounded like they would be common, for sure. “I don’t know. I like yours, and any community service type wish is good for the city.” A personal wish wouldn’t make sense, since no one would know who wrote it. “Maybe something like, helping when you see a need for it. A lot of people just…ignore everyone else, y’know? They see someone drop a bunch of papers or something but instead of stopping to help, most people just pretend they didn’t see and keep walking.” He hated that. He always stopped to see if he could help at all.
When he got a look at her face at his question about her interviews, he almost wished he hadn’t asked. They apparently hadn’t been as fruitful as she would have liked. “Damn, that’s unhelpful. Except for the history of the tree. Might be a good intro to your article.” He let his camera hang from its strap around his neck and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Then she suggested she interview him. That surprised him a little bit; he hadn’t been expecting to become part of her article aside from taking the photographs. After thinking about it for a second, he grinned. “Yeah, sure! That would be cool,” he said.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2025 3:20 pm
“I think that is called the Bystander Effect or something like it. You know, like how a lot of people will watch a fight without interfering until one person steps in then a bunch more will as well? Like that.” Abby postulated, remembering one of her teachers going off on a tangent on the whole thing. Apparently they were steamed because of something and were venting to the class at large over it. She contemplated both the various types of community service type wishes she could write down and wondering what wish she would end up with even as Jadyn agreed that her interviewees were a big bunch of duds. But that changed when he agreed to be interviewed. With a grin Abby pulled out her phone and notebook. “Alright then, no time like the present.” She was not about to let him backtrack so she jumped right into asking questions. The same questions, outside of ‘what brought you here’, she asked everyone else. By the time she got down to the last question she definitely had enough to whip up something for the paper. “Finally, if you could share one wish with the community as a whole what would it be?”
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Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 6:13 pm
Jadyn grinned and answered her questions happily, pleased to have made her day a little bit better and glad he could help with her paper. Remembering things he’d forgotten from his journalism classes, he tried to add in things to his answers that would give her more material to work with later.
With her last question, he smiled and told her the same one he’d thought of earlier: Help when you see a need for it. “We’ve become an insular society, each in our own little worlds with our own little problems. We don’t stop to think that helping someone else could be the one thing someone needs to keep from breaking down.” It had been like that in the first couple years after the accident, when it was just him and his sister. He definitely hadn’t helped matters, and he recalled days where Marni would just go in the pantry and scream.
He shook himself out of the old memories and smiled at Abby. “Ready to make our wishes?” he asked her. He wanted to get a shot of her putting her wish on the tree. The sun was setting and if he could get the right angle at the right time, the sunlight would shine between the leaves of the tree and dapple over her form.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 2:46 am
It was an altruistic wish but wasn’t that the whole point of this event? Of this tree? To do something for someone else, no reward needed. Completely unselfish. Even if it wasn’t something so easy to pull off… And it was one hell of a quote for the paper. “Sure,” Abby easily agreed to finishing up this assignment by making their wishes, it also didn’t escape her notice that Jadyn wasn’t exactly racing for the little papers. He was more interested in his camera. He was likely still thinking of angles and lighting and all the stuff that went into pictures. She didn’t mind either way so with a mental shrug the young woman approached the table and quickly scribbled her wish. It was a simple desire for someone to spend time at a nursing home. The woman reached up and tied her wish to the tree before pulling down a nearby one with a pink string. After only briefly glancing at the wish Abby folded and pocketed the wish paper. It looked like she would be busy the next few weekends. But it was definitely for a good cause. With this done she turned to raise a brow at Jadyn. “Your turn. Would you like me to take a few pictures as well?” It hadn’t escaped her notice, she just chose to ignore it, but it did seem only fair to return the favor if he was up for her using his camera. She was not versed in cameras, not really, but she did know they could be exorbitantly expensive so if the answer to her question was a negative she wouldn’t hold it against him. Handing something so expensive to an untested person definitely took a certain amount of trust, that was for sure.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 8:41 am
Jadyn smiled and took a couple steps back while Abby reached for the papers. He snapped a few pictures from a couple different angles, capturing her tying her wish to the tree as well as reading the one she’d plucked from it. When she was done, she turned to him and offered to take pictures of him doing the same.
It was true the camera in his hands had been expensive, but it had been worth it. The quality of his photos were better, and the options it had for effects were incredible. Still, he slipped the strap from his neck and held it out to Abby, explaining how to work it. “Got it?” he asked with a smile before going to write his wish on a piece of red paper. He made sure his handwriting was clear as he wrote it, then tied it up onto the tree.
He turned back to her and grinned. “I think we did good today,” he said and took his camera back. “I’ll make sure to send you the best pictures in the next couple of days.” It would take him that long to get through all of them, most likely. “Call me if you ever need a photographer again.” He would be happy to help her whenever she needed it.
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