Nick & Finn

Notes

Opening Note on the Notes

I would like to emphasize from the very beginning that this is a work of fiction—while many of the characters and situations in this story are based on real people and events, the main relationship featured in this story is completely made up, did not happen in real life. The notes that follow are intended to provide context for those unfamiliar with the BYU single male undergraduate college experience, as well as full disclosure of what things I have stolen from my life experience to flesh out the story. They are intended to be read at the end of each scene, and try not to introduce any spoilers; however, they update to include new information revealed in previous scenes without comment.

Prolog

The city of Provo empties of college students in the summer. Because BYU students are obligated to live in "contracted housing" within a two-mile radius of campus, and because many student apartments are far too shabby to appeal to renters who are not obligated to live there, many complexes don't fill from May to August. Hence the lower rents, and Protagonist's unwillingness to assume the additional stress of trying to sell his contract at the last minute.

Blue Arms is heavily based on the last apartment complex I lived in as a single student. This complex was old and gently falling apart, but it was lovingly maintained by a conscientious owner and an extremely enthusiastic property manager (who had a catchphrase similar in religiosity to "Hallelujah!"); I never saw it advertised in the BYU housing guide, but it never had empty beds and had a long waiting list during the school year.

I had a roommate my last year of my undergraduate education with whom I clashed spectacularly (and vocally). Protagonist's feelings toward his roommate accurately mirror mine, though I readily admit that his side of the story might be somewhat different. He didn't yell at me for over an hour straight the day I moved out, but being his roommate did eventually make me so sick to my stomach that I could feel the food no longer digesting inside me—it was at that point that I knew I had to move.

Protagonist asserts that he doesn't care that his old roommate might still be yelling at him. He cares deeply. It took me quite a while to forgive my old roommate; both the bad experience itself and the fact that I couldn't get over it weighed me down for many months. I never actually cried in front of the property manager, though. Any blubbering I did over the situation happened in private.

I was in a relationship that same summer that ended very definitively, if not acrimoniously. She did inherit our entire group of ward friends (for those of you not of the Mormon persuasion, a "ward" is a local church congregation. Wards are defined by geographic boundaries which vary enormously in size depending on the concentration of active members of the Church. At BYU, students are so densely packed in that moving from one apartment complex to another usually means attending a completely different ward); between new roommates, a new group of friends, and new classes (to prepare for grad school) I felt pretty lost, which contributes to Protagonist's "here [goes] nothing" attitude.

Scene 1

I actually moved from one apartment to another within the same above-mentioned complex. I called the property manager a few days before the new semester started to see if I could trade apartments with anyone; fortunately he was able to arrange a trade. Existing tenants moved on Fridays and new tenants on Saturdays. My roommates at the second apartment were not expecting me to move in until Saturday morning, and responded similarly to the roommates in the story. It was necessary to change the story so that Protagonist could move in early and surprise his roommates, but not know any of them beforehand. BYU has over 20,000 single undergraduate students, so it is plausible that Protagonist would never have met any of his new roommates before.