I’ll start: Gemma’s mom arranges flowers in a nice glass vase, and performatively tells her daughter “I made it!”
Gemma laughs, knowing her mother. “Did you really?”
“No…but if a took a couple glass-blowing classes, I reckon I could!” Gemma rolls her eyes at her mom’s insecurity-turned-inauthenticity.
Then Alice bursts in and lays the purest fire of loving truth on the whole room while mom awkwardly pretends not to be there. Alice notices her: “That’s a lovely vase, did you make it?”
Mom sighs in resignation in the face of Truth itself. “…no, I just bought it…”
“Well, you have exquisite taste.” leaves abruptly
I used to white-lie about hobbies I wanted to do but hadn’t gotten around to yet, just to make myself look better to others and feel better about myself. It took a lot of growth and self-awareness to stop compensating for my own insecurities and procrastinating on my own interests. It took exposure to people like Alice to iron that out. I felt so seen by that tiny detail.
Gemma’s mom gets almost no screen time, but even she is fleshed out with believable quirks. Well done, writers.