Hi! I saw on one of your reblogs that the art reminds you of the UPP’s early friendship and I want to know if you have some head cannons on how the group came to be?
We know in cannon that Will and Lui are mostly childhood friends but I wonder how they got Norah and Issac to join especially since to me I feel like the group for a long time was probably scared of Issac being a mean jock kid.
i don't have a, like, detailed timeline or anything, but i do have some thoughts!
-like you said, we know will and lui are childhood friends. i like to think lui was the weird occult-obsessed kid first, and will hung out with him because he was a weird awkward young boy even if he wasn't a goth, but around 8 or 9 he realized those weren't weird big fireflies in the forest and became even closer with lui as he finally went full-tilt into investigations
-for norah, i like to think she and the boys were generally aware of each other (mostly as the last picks for sports teams in p.e.) but didn't really interact much - norah was definitely a loner kid (in my continuing trend of projecting my specific school experiences on her, it's that she was scared to/thought she wasn't allowed to be friends with boys, so she got involved in a pretty toxic all-girl friend group instead for a while; the real tragedy being, of course, that she kind of naturally clicks with (certain) boys better than girls.) ANYWAYS in my mind there's an investigation will and lui are doing on the actual school campus and it somehow leads to them having to hide in the band room, which is where Norah eats lunch, and while will successfully hides in a tuba case lui ends up being spotted by the possessed janitor or w/e idk what exactly. but norah ends up helping cover for him, and after that it's not like lui and will can say no when she asks if she can help and what's happening.
-isaac... as always isaac i have the most thoughts on. i think she was also a loner before joining upp; however, norah (as the resident Good Student) was tasked with showing her around school and helping her get to her classes for the first couple days, so while everyone else was gossiping about the kid who just got out of juvie and was putting half the track team to shame, norah got a bit of insight into the actual isaac: kind, anxious, deeply out of her depth and horribly upset about everything that had happened to her. unfortunately will and lui were still kinda spooked by her (scary new kid who, by virtue of being a jock, hung out regularly with their old/current bullies; also isaac definitely got in fights) and norah's inability to speak up for herself really hampered any chance of convincing them to give isaac a chance.
it was probably six to eight months after she moved to deadwood that isaac finally got her in with the rest of upp. there's two versions in my mind: one where she gets in a fight with lui's bullies before they can beat up lui, and one where she crosses paths with them while they're investigating a ghost in an abandoned building or something and just immediately puts herself between the ghost and one of the upplings (probably norah.) for the latter situation she clearly has no idea what's going on, but she can actually see the truth of deadwood, and she used that to try and help, and the adrenaline rush of all of that lets norah finally say her piece and they let her join. will is especially excited about it i think - he's excited to make friends with this other kinda edgy kid who Really Gets It - while lui is more ambivalent (read: insecure) but ultimately follows will and norah's lead.
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