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Zara: Are... Are we all...
Scotty: Gay as hell?

Openness is a dramedy machinima series created using The Sims 2. First uploaded on October 9th, 2015 by SnapshotOfASoul, the series follows a group of Canadian high school students across the LGBTQ+ spectrum and their surrounding community. Each episode is around 45-60 minutes long, and while there's no set schedule, they're usually released once a month. The first episode can be seen here. The series has a heavy focus on varying experiences with religion, sexuality, and intercommunity politics.

The series has seen praise within the sims machinima community for its entertaining representation of multiple sexualities and genders. Openness has characters identifying as the following; straight, gay, pansexual, asexual, aromantic, bisexual, transgender, cis, and non-binary.


Openness contains examples of:

  • Abusive Parents: A couple of examples:
    • Fiona's father is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive.
    • Berrie's mother is verbally abusive.
    • Zara's mother is implied to have been abusive, or at least neglectful towards her eldest daughter.
    • Though not his direct parent, Joseph can be construed as abusive to Erick.
  • Adoption Diss: Nikki to Emma, and Emma right back at Nikki. They're both adopted.
  • Adults Are Useless: The school's temporary guidance counsellor tells Jas they should try to act like everyone else and avoid expressing themself to fit in and avoid getting harassed.
  • Alone Among the Couples: Jas is this in the group, but seeing as they're aro-ace, they don't mind the role.
  • Apologises a Lot: Zara often internalises that she's fucked up and has to apologise.
  • Arranged Marriage: Fiona's family is forcing him to be with Erick, and is told the only way he can see his friends is if he formally accepts Erick's proposal.
  • Artistic License – Traditional Christianity: The main religious group is called the Traditionalists, and takes heavily from the director's own upbringing.
  • As the Good Book Says...: Joseph often quotes the Bible to support his own views.
  • The Atoner: Cal sees himself as this, having turned his attitude around after his parents almost died in a car accident that left his mother disabled physically.
  • Bath Suicide: Fiona attempts one of these at the end of episode seven.
  • Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Virgil is a novelist who writes stories about Bigfoot on a very old computer.
  • Be Yourself:
    • This can be construed as the main message of the series.
    • Jas tries to embody this message, even when other people tell them to do the exact opposite.
    • Virgil towards Zara, because Zara doesn't think she's cool enough for her new-found friends.
  • Beneath the Mask:
    • Zara. She has depression and anxiety, yet always tries to put on a happy face around her friends out of fear they'll hate her if she doesn't.
    • Fiona. Often very quiet about his struggles to the point nobody knew he was trans except for Jas for months.
    • Berrie often puts up an air of perfection when really she's constantly tired, verbally abused at home, and has her identity denied by her parents.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Berrie's mother has one of these when Berrie doesn't let her get her way.
    • Joseph, when his religious beliefs are challenged in any way, shape, or form.
    • Cal whenever Erick is even mentioned.
    • Fiona, when being told that Erick wants her to have his children.
    • Scotty, around Erick.
    • Everybody pretty much just hates Erick.
  • Blood Is Squicker in Water: At the end of episode seven, Fiona is shown to be attempting suicide in the bath. The bathwater slowly turns red...
  • Canada Eh: The entire series is almost aggressively Canadian, due to the creator being sick of people thinking his series were set in America.
  • Canadian Equals Hockey Fan:
    • Hockey jerseys, ice rinks, and All-Star Games in the background of scenes are often little easter eggs that most non-Canadians miss. The creator put this in despite hating hockey himself.
  • Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Jas constantly gets in trouble over anything and everything.
  • Child Hater
    • Erick, but only towards his half-sister, because she's mixed.
    • Fiona isn't too fond of children due to inexperience and fear, but would never harm one.
  • Chocolate Baby
    • Scotty looks nothing like his paternal grandmother.
    • Adam's younger half-sister is black.
    • Emma presumes she was abandoned because of this trope.
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The main characters' names are coloured in using the flags of their respective identities in the opening.
    • Pansexual flag for Zara and Emma.
    • Asexual flag for Jas.
    • Straight flag for Cal.
    • Gay flag for Berrie.
    • Gay and bisexual flag for Scotty.
    • Transgender flag for Fiona.
  • Coming-Out Story: Most of the characters are open about their identities. Fiona, however, waits months to tell more than one person about being trans.
  • Crisis of Faith
    • Adam has one of these due to being both Catholic and gay.
    • Cal was raised Christian but lost his faith due to his parents being in a car accident.
    • Emma wonders aloud if the universe is out to get her.
  • Culture Clash
    • The Traditionalists lead life to a completely different set of morals and views than the rest of the town.
    • Zara grew up on a socially isolated goat farm and is completely baffled by half the things that people do.
    • What may be normal to the creator (for example, abortion being considered a valid choice or Jas' character as a whole) may confuse viewers from more conservative countries or areas.
  • Deathbringer the Adorable
    • Richie's dog, Danger. In reality he's an elderly 15-year-old pitbull who mostly sleeps and wants to be pet.
  • Deceased Parents Are the Best: Adam about his father, who committed suicide.
    • Erick is implied to have felt this before falling in with Joseph.
  • Domestic Abuse:
    • Joseph towards his wife and daughter.
    • Berrie's mother towards her daughters.
    • Erick towards Fiona and his brother, Adam.
    • Erick often implies he'd neglect his infant half-sister on the grounds of her being mixed.
    • It's implied Zara's mother was fairly emotionally and physically abusive at times, as well as icing her ex-husband out.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • Esther was implied to have attempted suicide before, at the start of episode seven.
    • Fiona tries to kill himself at the end of episode seven.
    • Cal almost ended his life before the series started.
    • Zara, too.
  • Evil Feels Good: Erick wrestles with this.
  • Family Business:
    • Nana Hat runs a bakery and wants Scotty to take the helm one day.
    • Joseph runs a church and wishes for Erick and Fiona to take it over when he gets older.
  • Forbidden Fruit: Fiona's friends are this. They represent everything that his father hates and forbids.
  • Free-Range Children: Because it's a small town, most of the cast is free to roam about without much worry. Lampshaded when Greg spots Scotty getting beaten up in an alley.
  • Freaky Fashion, Mild Mind
    • Zara dresses in wild, out-of-date attire but is actually fairly normal and self-aware.
    • Emma dresses like it's Halloween every day but is very kindhearted.
    • Most of the Traditionalists are the inverse of this. They have extremely conservative, old-fashioned, "family values" clothing, but most of them are pure evil.
  • Friend to All Children
    • Cal, due to having to be the parent to his younger siblings.
    • Jas, also due to an overload of younger siblings.
    • Adam, who takes care of his sister with a reverence unseen in most teenaged boys.
  • Friend to All Living Things
    • Virgil has seven cats.
    • Zara was raised on a goat farm and is implied to be incredibly good with animals.
    • Scotty, to the point of wanting to cat-nap one of Virgil's kitties.
  • Gender-Inverted Trope
    • Scotty and Cal often engage in stereotypically feminine pursuits like painting their nails and having sleepovers.
    • Scotty is a baker.
    • Nana Hat can't cook.
    • Virgil is a single dad, against his will, due to spousal abandonment.
    • Cal is dependent on his girlfriend, Emma, instead of the other way around.
    • Adam is the caretaker of his younger sister and loves her more than anything, ever.
    • Berrie's mother is the overbearing and abusive one, whereas her father just serves as backup to her plans and ambitions.
  • Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Berrie wears a lot of purple and is also very rich.
  • Happily Adopted:
    • Scotty's paternal grandmother adopted him to avoid him ending up in a Malaysian orphanage.
    • Emma and Nikki love their mothers and were both adopted as infants.
  • Harmful to Minors: A few examples:
    • Joseph's abusive behaviour around Ezra exposes him to violence he shouldn't have to see.
    • Cal's little sister Siobhan is being bullied.
    • Cal had to deal with breaking the news to his two sisters that their parents were nearly killed in a car crash.
    • Emma, reminding people she's still pansexual, despite dating a guy.
    • Jas, reminding everyone they're ace.
  • Have I Mentioned I Am Sexually Active Today?:
    • Scotty is constantly teased for his flings on Grindr.
  • I Am What I Am:
  • I Have No Son!:
    • Berrie's mother to Hannah after she had Thomas as a teenager.
    • Implied to have happened between Zara's mother, towards her daughter and ex-husband.
    • Implied this will happen to Fiona if he comes out as transgender.
    • In an inversion of this trope, Erick's mother, brother, and stepfather actually do care about him and refuse to disown him.
  • Inherently Funny Word: Jas towards Broden Lemmings telling them his name.
  • Light Is Not Good: More symbolic than overt. Dark, cluttered, browner places are homey and generally happy to be in, whereas cleaner, lighter places are often toxic environments rife with abuse.
  • Lipstick Lesbian: Berrie and Nikki fall into this.
  • Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal: Inverted. Nana Hat seems well aware of what Scotty and Cal are up to.
  • Mandatory Motherhood
    • Emma feels that the universe is forcing her to have her child in exchange for giving her birth control to Fiona.
    • Esther was implied to have been forced into having Fiona and Ezra.
    • Most of the Traditionalist women are forced into this by their husbands.
  • Missing Mom: Zara's mother abandoned them for a new husband and family, suddenly and without warning.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings: It's not entirely clear how many siblings Jas really has. Just that there's a lot of them.
  • May–December Romance: Joseph is 18 years older than Esther.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong:
    • Erick towards Joseph, with an emphasis on "right."
    • To some extent, Esther towards Joseph, with an emphasis on "wrong."
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Scotty beats Erick into unconsciousness after he implies he will be marrying Fiona.
  • No Social Skills
    • Zara, due to growing up fairly isolated on a goat farm.
    • Adam, due to his ADHD.
  • N-Word Privileges: The cast can say the word "queer" around each other without it being insulting.
  • Only Sane Man: Jas feels like this on occasion.
  • Open-Minded Parent: Virgil, Zara's dad, is supportive of his daughter in every single way.
  • Parental Abandonment:
    • Emma was abandoned at the hospital as an infant just after her birth.
  • Pass Fail
    • The temporary guidance counsellor tries to give tips on how Jas can pass as 'normal' more.
    • Berrie's mother desperately wants people to forget her family is black.
    • Fiona is a trans guy who is being forced into traditional gender roles.
    • Scotty is half-Malaysian. His name doesn't give it away at first.
  • Persecution Flip: Scotty seems to think this, referring to cishet people as "breeders". He may have just been teasing, though.
  • Pet the Dog: Erick used to go fishing with his black stepfather.
  • Pink Means Feminine: Fiona's room was designed with pink as the predominant colour.
  • Played for Laughs
    • Scotty's cake being destroyed by a sudden snow.
    • Zara knowing next to nothing about other cultures. Or, you know, her own.
    • Adam's crush on Scotty can be seen as this.
    • Scotty's phone being stolen and locked out for the weekend.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: Joseph and Erick are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and generally just shitty people.
  • Preacher's Kid: Fiona and his younger brother Ezra.
  • Promotion to Parent: Cal is a surrogate parent to his younger siblings due to his parents being injured in a car crash.
  • Proper Lady: Berrie's mother pressures her daughter into this.
  • Quirky Town: Arbutus Falls is this to some extent, housing everyone from Bigfoot novelists to lesbian police officers.
  • Relationship Reveal: Berrie tries to reveal her relationship with Zara. It doesn't end well.
  • Running Gag
    • Scotty and his Snickers bars. The boy will do anything to get his hands on some chocolate.
    • Grindr is consistently the butt of many jokes - in one case, a literal butt is used. The principal himself is implied as having a public Grindr profile for all to see.
    • Cal being increasingly done by Scotty's gay implications.
    • Virgil often wears cat-themed attire and adopted seven cats due to his wife leaving him.
    • Ms Westcott going to "the copy room" to make out with the principal.
    • Jas eating other people's food without permission.
    • Scotty's large stomach is often the butt of pregnancy jokes.
    • "The Lesbian Cause" is a common joke and phrase used to jokingly spur other characters into action.
    • The fact that they're the most hated group of people in the entire school is a joke in and of itself. Random insults are often flung.
    • Most of the group is not very athletic. Except for Berrie.
    • Jas is allergic to sports, fake jewellery, moss, and the colour taupe.
  • The Reliable One:
    • Scotty. He never sleeps, so he's always there for his friends.
    • Cal tries to be this for his family and loved ones.
  • Screw Destiny:
    • Emma absolutely refused to let Fiona get pregnant and gave Fiona her birth control to prevent this from happening.
    • Zara, to Emma, after Emma describes how she feels railroaded into having Cal's child by destiny.
    • Berrie is pressured into getting a nice, white husband and an entry to a prestigious university but mostly she just wants to be happy.
  • Stay in the Kitchen:
    • Joseph towards his wife.
    • Cal embodies a lighter, less sexist version of this in his desire of a life with Emma.
  • Stepford Smiler:
    • Berrie's family tries desperately to put up the ruse of being a normal, happy family.
  • Stop Being Stereotypical:
    • Broden Lemmings and his friends, to Jas.
    • Jas, to Scotty, despite it being affectionate.
    • Berrie's mother to her two daughters because her first daughter was a teenaged mother and her second refuses to relax her hair.
    • Cal's mother, despite being heavily religious, has a strong distaste for the Traditionalists.
  • Take Care of the Kids: Scotty and Cal after Cal's parents were nearly killed in a car crash.
  • Tangled Family Tree:
    • Zara and Cal are cousins through Zara's dad and Cal's mother. This makes Emma's child Zara's relative as well.
    • Adam and Erick are siblings, and their half-sister is the product of their mother and their father's best friend getting married.
    • Scotty was adopted by his paternal grandmother and has no interest in learning what really happened there.
  • Teen Pregnancy:
    • Scotty, after being criticized for calling straight people "breeders", meaningfully looks down the hallway, where a veritable gaggle of pregnant students are walking by.
    • Emma is pregnant with Cal's baby, due to her giving Fiona her birth control.
  • The Un-Reveal: Jas is given an envelope containing their physical sex. They lose it, and freak out, knowing that the entire school will find out. It was found in a trash can, and nobody saw it.
  • Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: Virgil, with most technology.
  • Urban Legend Love Life: Scotty and his grandmother, respectively.
  • Vetinari Job Security: Whenever Emma or Scotty aren't there, Cal falls apart.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Joseph believes that anyone who isn't white, straight, male, religious, or cis is likely subhuman.
  • With Us or Against Us: Joseph towards his church when proclaiming his hardline beliefs.
  • White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: Joseph and his family.

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