One letter, two angels and the countless little problems that comes with itnote
The Letter is a web-animated OSC short film and known to be the last short in the first-ever 48 Hour OSC Film Festival.Ah, young love. Our timid protagonist, Soda Bottle (Andy Duthie), is prepared to give a love letter to his crush, Battery (Daniel Rapitis). However, anxiety floods his head and in a panic, backs out and locked himself in a storage closet. While he tries to calm down, he is greeted by Holy Water (Jacob Fairclough) and Forbidden Fruit (QuicksandQueen14) who help, or the latter's case hinder, him in making a small life-changing decision.
The short can be viewed on Andy Duthie
's channel here and it shouldn't be confused with the visual novel or the film.
The short contains the following tropes:
- A Dog Named "Dog": As much as the short isn't a standard Object Show, the tradition of the trope is kept alive as the characters are named after their species, objects.
- Alliterative Name: Forbidden Fruit
- Animate Inanimate Object: It's a Coming-Out Story set in High School but with anthropomorphic objects.
- Anthropomorphic Food: You're quite tempted to eat Forbidden Fruit though it's not a wise decision.
- Chromatic Arrangement: Of the three main characters' colour schemes, Holy Water is blue, Forbidden Fruit is red and Soda Bottle is green.
- Coming-Out Story: Soda Bottle wants to express his feelings to his crush. The only problem is that Battery is a guy which distresses him enough to lock himself in the storage closet. There he encounters his two angels who complicate the matters with their own opinions. Forbidden Fruit amplifies his doubts, saying it's fruitless and he'll be a laughing stock while Holy Water counters that no one would care and it'll cause way more heartbreak if he doesn't try. Fortunately, Soda Bottle took the latter's advice, steps out of the closet and without turning back, gives the letter to Battery.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Soda Bottle, after much Gayngst, finally got the courage to give the letter to Battery. As the angels look from afar in the closet, Battery reciprocates Soda Bottle's feelings and the two happily laugh together.
- Fun with Subtitles: After Forbidden playfully says "Boop!", the subtitles added the caption "(The Boopening)" to it.
- Gayngst: What drives the whole plot is Soda Bottle's wishy-washiness on giving the letter to his crush, a guy.
- Gay Aesop: As Holy Water puts it:Holy Water: "You need to stop worrying about what could happen and just go for it. You could be so happy together but you never know until you take that first step."
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Holy Water and Forbidden Fruit respectively complete with Holy Halo and Horns of Villainy. They are the personifications of Soda Bottle's anxiety and morality when faced with the dilemma of giving the love letter to Battery.
- High School: Where the setting of the short takes place.
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Forbidden Fruit antagonises Soda Bottle and tells him to give up delivering his love letter under the assumption Battery will never love him back. However, this is subtly framed in her preventing Soda Bottle from becoming heartbroken and ostracized if it turns out to be a worst-case scenario and admitted she would have wanted him to be happy and accepted too after Holy Water comforted her.
- Literal Metaphor: Soda locks himself inside a storage closet, symbolizing his overwhelming fear of his crush rejecting him. He leaves once he makes up his mind and mustered the courage to give the letter (The subtitles even lampshades this).Subtitle: [The Gay comes out of the closet...funny.]
- Minimalist Cast: There's only four people present in the short, the protagonist Soda Bottle, his angels Forbidden Fruit and Holy Water and his crush Battery.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Forbidden Fruit actively dissuades Soda Bottle from giving the letter saying Battery will never reciprocate him and he'll be ostracized as a result. Later on, Holy Water confronts her about how she's making things uneccessarily difficult and would have wanted Soda Bottle to get the guy as much as him to which she actually agrees with.Holy Water: You need to stop making him worry about everything and give him a chance to express himself. Not only would he be happy, but you would be too.[Beat]Forbidden Fruit: Heh...Maybe, you're right.
- Silent Protagonist: Soda Bottle uttered one "hey" and a few audible noises but other than that, he's relatively quiet and lets his angels do most of the talking.
- Will They or Won't They?: We don't hear Battery's response to Soda Bottle's confession but it's implied he accepted it as the two were seen happily smiling and laughing together at the end.
