#leave the alpha man aesthetics for the bats

[seleneprince]

That's exactly how I envision him.

I always see him resembling Locke, with the cat eyes, red hair and a similar personality, without the assholery of canon Locke

Me trying to convince everyone that Eris isn't this masculine, Colleen Hoover li looking guy, and that he actually looks like Cardan but with red hair and whiskey eyes:

[instasiswetrust]

"Holy shit the school bad boy's courting you." Dustin whispered in disbelief as he stared at both the pin and the worn bloodied bat Steve had settled between them on the table.

"Wait, he's what?" Steve frowned, fingers picking up the pin adorned with a creepy smiling face. "No way."

"No, I'm serious Steve. This is like straight-up Jason Todd style courting. He totally kicked the whole baseball team's ass for you."

“That’s ridiculous man, Frank wo-” He ended up stopping mid-sentence because actually, Frank would. He definitely would. Everyone had heard the beating he had given Billy for smacking Hak-Quinn’s ass the other day, it made sense he would go against the baseball team as his way of proving he could provide for him.

Realization crossed Steve's face, lips forming a small surprised ‘oh’ while Dustin just shook his head as if he couldn't believe it had taken Steve this long to realize he was being courted.

"So what are you gonna do?" The younger boy asked, stealing a couple fries from Steve's plate before the other could react.

"What do you mean what I'm gonna do?" He said weakly, slapping Dustin's hand away when he tried to reach for more fries.

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" And it was clear in his tone he knew Steve was acting like this on purpose. "Are you gonna accept his courting, or tell him no?"

The Omega blushes, immediately flustered by the question. Having thought he would be a Beta or an Alpha for most of his life, he had known the whole courting thing would've eventually fallen on him to do it. Now with the roles reversed, he couldn't help but feel flattered by the gestures.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I will talk to him about it or something." Dustin seemed to catch the finality in his words because he finally changed topics, asking Steve instead about how Demo was faring.

Still, he had already made up his mind on this topic.

By the end of classes the next day, he hunted down the self-proclaimed leader of Legion. Steve might've been an Omega sure, but he was also taller and had the body of an athlete. Even so, he believed it wouldn't have been so easy for him to cage Frank against the wall had the Alpha not allowed him to.

"Are you... Are you courting me?" He cut right to the chase, wanting to make sure it wasn't all in his head.

"Been trying my best, yeah." Frank had a jackal grin on his face, looking up at Steve. Not intimidated in the slightest, with a flicker of something in his eye that stirred something up in Steve's gut. Something strange and new and not at all bad. "You like?"

Steve didn't answer with words. Doubts he even could. Instead leaned down and kissed Frank hard. Kissed him until they were both out of breath, Steve's cheeks flushed a pale red. A wide grin stretched his lips when he finally pulled away.

"Friday, 7 pm. I'll pay for the movie tickets if you smuggle in the food. Deal?"

"I got a key to the theater's back door. No need to spend money on me, doll." Frank's grinning again, all sharp cheekbones and even sharper fangs.

"You kick the whole baseball team's ass for me, and I don't get to spend a couple bucks on you? Unfair." And yeah maybe he was pouting, but really it didn't sit well with him not to repay Frank in some way after the way he left the baseball team.

"If you insist, ain't gonna put up a fight. Just thought I'd tell ya if you wanted to trade emptying your wallet for a little thrill." Frank shrugged, grin still solid on his face. Reaches out to cup Steve's face. "Comes with the bad boy package, y'know?"

Steve couldn't help leaning into the touch, eyes never straying from those stormy grey irises. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, dripping with honesty. "I think I would like to find out."

Frank laughed and Steve found himself liking the sound way more than he expected. It was rough and relaxed and shameless.

"Be happy to show ya, doll."

And Steve had to admit the excitement of knowing he had an actual date was enough to keep his mind off the bullying and taunts for the remaining days of the week.

Frank meets him at the theater entrance, right on time. Steve, who had walked the whole way here so as to not have to explain to his parents where he was going, is thankful that he will be able to catch a ride once the movie is done.

As promised Steve pays for two tickets then Frank drags him into another movie after the first movie ends, and another one after that. Steve doesn't feel like complaining, even if the movie genres are all over the place. He's having fun and this is the most he's broken the rules after the whole omega thing.

And really, if they makeout halfway through the second movie and end up missing half the bullshit plot, Steve only has Frank to blame. He kept heckling the cheesy bits under his breath making Steve laugh until he was hiding snorts behind his hand.

It's around midnight when they finally leave the theater, and as soon as they step outside Steve's phone starts ringing. His parents on the other end of the phone, angry because Steve's being careless.

"You should be more careful! What if something happened to you? And shouldn't you be worried about studying? You already lost that baseball scholarship-"

He must've made a face or something because Frank snatches the phone from his hand. Quick reflexes and firm grip. It takes Steve by surprise.

"Hello, Mister .. Missus Harrington -" He starts, and he's determined to take the weight off Steve as best he can and he's no Fairfield and he's certainly not Hak-Quinn, but he can play a part good enough for a phone call. "The movie ran a bit later than expected, but I'll see your son home safe and sound!"

And before his parents have any chance to respond, Frank hangs up.

Steve is stunned for a whole five seconds, blinking at Frank, before what happened sets in and he groans. "Ah shit, now they are gonna want to meet you!"

"I got makeup in my car," Frank says, clicking his tongue as he hands back the phone. "Nothing I can do about the hair."

And Steve looks at Frank dumbly for a second. Confused because, why would Frank need makeup?

"Tattoo. For hiding the tattoo." Frank waves a dismissive hand as he slings his other around Steve's waist. Comfortable. Warm. Close. "Hak-Quinn taught me how."

Steve is dumbfounded. "You would... For me? Wha-"

"... Well duh?" He kinda looks at Steve, confused himself. "I'm not exactly the kind of person people are proud to bring home but it stresses you out so I can play pretend." He raises an eyebrow, grins again, like a feral dog. "Unless you'd rather I show up as is? Full punk?"

"Oh. Oh Frank no, I'm not ashamed of being seen with you." Steve shakes his head, rolling his eyes. "I just know my parents and they will try to prevent me from seeing you. I don't want that to happen, that's all."

Frank looks at Steve. And he's quiet for a moment. And then a softer smile steals across his face.

"You have no idea how you smell right now, do you?"

Steve flinches a little, looks away, but he knows Frank's question is honest, not a jab. "I'm scent blind actually. Doc said it would get better with time but I can't recognize my own scent at all."

"You smell miserable, doll. Not too keen on handing you back to the cause of it, y'know?"

And then Frank scents him. It's light. Polite, even. But Steve knows the action even if he can't smell what it does.

Skin on skin contact and the soft rumbling purr of an alpha.

It kinda hits him then that he's not alone anymore. Frank cares. Cares enough to willingly offer to hide parts of himself just so Steve wouldn't get too hard a time with his parents. It's easily the most thoughtful thing someone that is not Dustin or Nancy, has done for him. Can't help it if he tears up a little.

"Waitin' on your answer, doll," Frank murmurs, probably aware of how Steve is feeling thanks to his scent. "Makeup will take a hot minute and we're gonna have to get you home .. eventually."

Steve ends up shaking his head, surreptitiously wiping a tear or two off his cheeks. "I'm not gonna hide you like you're something to be ashamed of. I'll just deal with them if they get too pushy."

"Cute." Frank's grin returns and he steals himself a kiss before pushing Steve towards his car.

They drive too fast and blast the music too loud. Steve doesn't know any of the lyrics, the music too far off from his usual tastes, but when he tries to somewhat sing along and Frank rewards him with a heart-stopping grin? Worth it.

As expected, Steve's parents are at the door when they arrive. Disappointed face, even more, disappointed scents. Steve's mom is glaring at Frank, his dad is just looking at Steve like he's a lost cause.

"Mister Harrington. Missus." Frank's got a jackal's grin on his face again, and Steve can't smell it, but his scent is twined around the anxious omega like an extra buffer.

It's amazing how Frank doesn't even care about the venom in his parents' eyes, writing him off near immediately with his dyed hair and throat tattoo and grunge aesthetic.

Steve's parents don't even deign to give a response, just march back inside and wait for him to follow after them.

"I had fun, thank you. I will see you tomorrow." Steve murmurs, leaning in to press a kiss to Frank’s cheek before going in and closing the door behind him.

They barely waited until the door was closed before they started demanding answers. Frank probably hadn't even left, but they didn't care and Steve hated it. Hated all of it.

His night had been amazing, maybe even the best night he had had this year, but that call had to ruin it.

Before presenting, when they had still thought he would be a Beta or a late Alpha, his parents wouldn't have bothered calling him for a night out. As long as he was home for breakfast, everything was fine. These days though, they had become protective to the point it was bordering on controlling and it bothered Steve.

Maybe he should be glad that they were trying to show they cared but it was hard to do when their words were “Stop putting yourself in unnecessary danger that will just cause more trouble for us.” and not “We are just worried something will happen to you.”

Ever since the goddamn results came back, it was always about them. How this would be a problem for them. How losing the scholarship meant they would have to invest more money in him. How Steve getting involved with a delinquent would look on them.

They don't bother asking how he is coping with it all. The changes in his body, the bullying at school they know nothing about, how he had to give up the sport he loved because society decided Omegas weren't made to be in sports. For God's sake, he had cried the morning he received the letter notifying him his scholarship had been suspended. But either they didn't know about that, didn't realize, or didn't care.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself, young man?” His dad demanded, disappointment emanating from every pore in his body.

Steve might've been scent blind, but familiarity and time had allowed him to distinguish his parents' scents and the shifts in their emotions. Because of this, he wasn't spared from the full brunt of disappointment, anger, upset coming from both his parents. It was hard not to reflexively make himself appear smaller but he knew that would just make his dad angrier.

"I don't really see what the problem is, dad." He said, running a hand through his hair and sighing in exasperation. "I told you guys I would be out till late, and that I was going out with a friend. You had the location of the movie theater too. So what really is the problem here?"

"When you said you would be going out with a friend, we thought you meant that nice girl Robin, or maybe the Wheeler's kid, Nancy. You guys made such a cute couple, Stevie." His mom interjected, her tone softer but no less upset than his dad's had been.

"Mom, please. Nancy and I broke up a year ago already, will you drop it? Plus Robin is not even my type!"

"Of course because apparently, your type is no-good delinquents, you have made that clear." His dad snapped, glaring down at him.

Steve frowned, glaring back at him. "Frank is a classmate and a friend. He defended me when the baseball team started labeling me as a slut just because I'm an Omega. I think that's more than either of you have done about this!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Steve knew he had made a mistake. His dad's nostrils flared and his mother gasped like maybe they were sensing something he wasn't. At least his dad might've because his mother was as scent blind like him, maybe worse. There was a reason scenting was something he didn't know how to do properly.

"Can't believe you needed the help of someone like that to defend yourself. Didn't we teach you to stand up for yourself, Steve? Or do you think just because you are an Omega now you get to play the weak card?" His dad snarked, eyes narrowed.

"Honey-"

"No." His dad shook his head, ignoring his mother's hand on his shoulder. "You are to stop any contact with that delinquent. Now to your room, Steve."

"Wha- Dad-"

"To your room, I said." He didn't yell but the growl was so clear in his voice that Steve couldn't help but flinch and lower his head.

Fine. He would play to their rules while they were watching, but like hell he would give up on what he and Frank had. Not after he had just gotten it.

[omercifulheaves]

Favorite Monsters - The Trioxin Zombies

From: The Return of the Living Dead, written and directed by Dan O'Bannon. You know what's wrong with zombies today? No personality! None of the social commentary of Romero's pitiful revenants. None of the wonderful grottiness of the Italian knock-offs. Nada. Just swarms of snarling, gray monsters that blur together and serve as little more than cannon fodder for our manly man heroes to mow down while they muse "maybe man is, like, the real monster, dude." I try not to be all "Back in my day..." but one can't help but weep at what has become as the genre upon revisiting something like The Return of the Living Dead. Positing a world where Night of the Living Dead was a fictionalized account of what happened when experimental chemical  245-Trioxin stirred up trouble in a local morgue, The Return of the Living Dead -- itself originally intended to be a direct sequel to Night based on a novel by Night’s co-writer John Russo until Alien screen writer Dan O'Bannon came on the project and threw out everything except the title so as not to step on George Romero's toes -- continues with that screwy meta-approach through out, especially when it comes to how it handles the film's undead hordes. 

Think removing the head or destroying the brain will put them down for good? Not hardly, seems like nothing short of burning them ashes will put down these revenants for good and that itself comes with its own host of problems. (A throughline in Return’s dark humor is built around how any attempt to fix things just makes the situation several magnitudes worse.) Used to seeing zombies being these slow, unintelligent shamblers? Not these ghouls. They speak, they're fast, they're agile, they're aggressive and they're smart enough to set ambushes and will even use police and ambulance radios to order some zombie take out. Early on a character in the film asks "YOU MEAN THE MOVIE LIED!?" when burying a pick axe into a zombie's brain just leaves you with a squirming cadaver stuck to the floor and that phrase seems to be the entire ethos the film operates under. And yet, as much as Return's zombies deviate from the Romero model, like all good send ups and deconstructions, there's an greater understanding of the material they're thumbing their nose at than you'll find in a million straight faced knock-offs. Like Night, Return is a movie about how Alpha Male posturing means jack and spit (and as the man said, Jack just left town), having good intentions and being young pretty and in love won't save you from a horrifying fate, and boy oh boy, are the Proper Authorities Not Your Friends. This extends to the zombies themselves. Something that I feel has been lost in a lot of zombie fiction today, as it's been slowly taken over by meat headed survivalist fantasies is there was always an underlying amount of pity to how Romero's work viewed the zombies. They're dangerous yes but there's clearly something sadly pathetic about them. The human machine has broken down and fallen apart. You can see a similar thing here. While more feral, Return's zombies are just as pitiable as a captured one reveals that they're little more than amped up junkies, needing to feed on the brains of the living to temporarily stave off the pain of their existence. These things didn't ask to be returned to some mockery of life by some idiots who tried to cover up a mistake rather than own up to what happened and now everybody's going to suffer for it. But none of this would work as well as it does if the zombie make up and effects weren't up to snuff. Designed by comic artist William Stout, we've got an undead horde that looks like it could have walked out of the pages of an EC horror comic. (Honestly, Return's aesthetic is more true to EC Comic's than some official EC comic adaptations. See also: Romero's Creepshow.) There's civil war soldier zombies, half-an-old-lady zombies, midget zombies, punk Linnea Quigley zombies, zombies that look like they walked out of a bog, walking skeletons, and of course, the piece de resistance, the Tar Man, a pile of walking sludge and bones that leaves you wondering what holds that thing together. There's a bit late in the movie where somebody knocks its head clean off with the baseball bat and it lets out a confused roar *even though it doesn't have a head* as it flails about. It's pretty funny. There were a bunch of sequels to Return of the Living Dead. Other than Return of the Living Dead 3, which was really more of a rejiggered Re-Animator sequel, they're all pretty bad. Watch this one.

[honeygoms]

Furry Squad: a Study by Purse

@chanyeollipop​ ( Isabelle; “Iz”, “Jizzabelle” )

the one that started this bullshit and dragged us all to hell

87% of the time, only active when sophia is

has a stash of pcy foot and ear pictures

aesthetic instagram goals

is actually cool tho like w o w

chill af and down for anything

the type to wear a collar and leash to bed

chokers

The Inner Squad #1

alpha hoe

@stunningsoo​ ( Damari / Melody; “Mel”, “Medlody”, “Moldy” )

threatens to block people but won’t actually

so many heart emojis

“soft stan”

not a soft stan

secretly a furry

triggered by ka*soo

loves everyone even tho some of us ship ka*soo instead of cha*soo

all talk with no bite

protect this little peanut

could’ve met purse at exo’luxion dallas wtf

eye emoji in human form

baby alpha

@kim-kaaa​ ( Ren; “Mom” )

says she didn’t want to be added to the squad but secretly loves it

an actual soft stan

barely knows what smut is

reliable and trustworthy

gentle and nice

somehow not the oldest????

changes kkt name constantly

pretended to be purse once and no one noticed

a flipflop but loves jongin a lot

“not a pcy stan”

tumblr famous

so tol

has a foot fetish but only for jongin

catfish

suho meme

beta but wanna be alpha

@whatiskanye​ ( Sam )

look up the word bro and sam will be the definition

made everyone take a “what type of furry are you” test

literally amazing

doesn’t leave purse on read :/// (most of the time)

always making boards

kris biased and that’s all

no one knows which one of her blogs to use when tagging her

has a kanye fetish

shocked every time someone sends something nsfw to our chat that is nsfw

created an abo board and categorized everyone

youngest

ultimate omega

@baek-a-licious​ ( Jasmine; “Jazz” )

always laughing at something

lurker

rarely active in chat when is she coming back from the war

full of love and understanding

carries sunshine with her presence

is soft but not at the same time

somehow not the oldest??? pt. 2

soft alpha

@flawlessohsehun​ ( Natalie; “Nat” )

rarely uses emojis and when she does, it’s beautiful

always calm

is literally yixing

doesn’t kink shame

beautiful human being that deserves everything good in this world

gentle but always ready to fight

trusts few and is loyal af

loved by everyone

alpha

@strongastitanium​ ( Batoul; “Bats” )

kinky 👀 

adorable af

only comes for the nsfw posts and shade who are we kidding

full of support

the best hype man

Eyebrows™

comes off as soft and but is nOT

somehow the actual oldest??

follows all of purse’s nsfw blogs and is appreciated

soft but kinky alpha

@blowchanyeolsflute​ ( Arooj / Juns; “Alpha”, “Daddy” )

owns everyone but who owns her? no one knows

introduces herself as “your daddy” every time she meets anyone

is The™ alpha and everyone knows it

supports people’s kinks

cool n chill

never yells and somehow gives the same effect with lowercase

she’ll drag u for free

pack daddy alpha

@sehunnified​ ( Bhavya )

so nice??

how is she so nice

sehun

Quality Content ™

chat explodes w love at her mere arrival

full of love and willing to share it

followed by purse’s sister

claims to only have 5 followers and is definitely lying

soft omega

@lordbyun​ ( Sophia )

a cool hipster

88% of the time, only active in chat when isabelle is

pcy’s feet anti

ear fetish

would send pcy n00ds

The Inner Squad #2

intimating yet soft and lovely

seksual always

funny af

baekhyun? baekhyun.

purse has followed her for??? years

beta

@smhsehun​ ( Anyi; “Anyikes” )

tsundere af

comes to chat every blue moon as if she wasn’t gone for 84 years

“your lucky i tolerate you” is how she shows affection

basically a chihuahua

tiny being full of hate

always yelling

always offended

The Inner Squad #3

literally beautiful and pretty af

sassy beta

[mastcomm]

‘High Maintenance’ and the New TV Fantasy of New York

“We actually pledged Alpha Delta in college,” he says. “That cannery thing, though? It’s pretty good. I put it in my novel.” This is not a joke: In that scene, he’s behind the counter, typing on his laptop.

The actual, transactional quasi friendships that New Yorkers have with their bodega guys are plenty interesting. Like a priest, a bodega guy gets to know the shameful weaknesses of his regulars, who must assume on some level that he’s not secretly writing their stories in his own head. His perspective would be an interesting one to get to know, but in “Russian Doll,” what’s curious about this relationship is rendered null with a couple of lines of dialogue. In trying to counteract harmful stereotypes, the show has succeeded in doing something altogether stranger: erasing diversity through the act of depicting it. By making Farran an aspirant to the same sort of success the show’s writers value, by making him a guy who thinks working at a cannery is inherently absurd, something you’d put in a novel, “Russian Doll” suggests that everyone in this city, at the end of the day, is ultimately the same, sharing identical aesthetic and professional aspirations, and we’d know that if we only paid closer attention.

That attitude fits with the moral of the show, which is that strangers hold the key to our salvation. The fact that they possess interiority, and that we generally don’t care, winds up being the cause of the time warp — and the way out of it. Alan and Nadia team up, eventually determining that they’re in some sort of purgatorial punishment and must right the karmic wrong that occurred in the bodega: Nadia must save Alan from his suicide. By the season finale, they are back at Farran’s store, but separated in alternate dimensions, strangers to each other once again. They must convince the other that they know them deeply in order to save them from their self-­destruction, and only then are they freed. In the ecstatic closing sequence, they take part in some impromptu crust­punk Mummers parade, led by a homeless man named Horse (who, just like Farran, has been revealed to be a member of the professional class in disguise).

Watching this, I couldn’t help being reminded of the first episode of the second season of “High Maintenance,” which contains a similarly exuberant scene. This episode tells the stories of New Yorkers reacting to some world-­changing event; the show plays coy, but it’s widely interpreted to be the 2016 presidential election. One of these New Yorkers is a bar­back forced to stay late because the bar is so busy, which in turn makes him late to pick up his young son from a relative’s apartment. He takes him home on the subway and presents him with a balloon. It’s a sweet story, and a clever one — a perfect rejoinder to any privileged New Yorker who has wondered, coming home from the bars late at night, what sort of parent would keep their kid out at this hour. The boy starts batting his balloon around, causing a scene, but rather than being annoyed, the nighthawks of New York — a nurse in scrubs, workers in safety vests — join in, smiles breaking across their faces as they come together, even in such uncertain times, for one sublime and spontaneous moment of laughter and joy. This is the New York City my generation dreams of, an A.S.M.R. role-play of cosmopolitan harmony, a city of weak bonds that generate nothing but warmth, a place within the flow of history and outside it all at once.

The fact that The Guy works in the delivery business makes “High Maintenance” unusually attuned to the city’s shifting anxieties and mores. Of course, as the eccentric local historian Timothy (Speed) Levitch explains in one episode, New York has always been a delivery town, ever since Collect Pond went sour with pollution and the city had to start importing water. But in recent years, it has become even more so. Nearly every subway car is plastered with ads for stuff you can have delivered right to your door (mattresses, bedding, electronic-­toothbrush heads, meal kits, perfumes, generic Viagra) pitched in some approximation of online Millennial argot. Seamless, the dominant force in food delivery here, runs ads that make its value proposition grimly explicit: “Over 8 million people in New York City, and we help you avoid them all”; “Nothing ruins a good meal like other New Yorkers.” Some even lament the difficulty of calling restaurants where the staff might not understand you. Another says: “Food delivered faster than this neighborhood is gentrifying.”

What makes “High Maintenance” so intelligent is that it also documents the widespread isolation and alienation that make the fantasy so seductive. The Guy’s work brings him into the ­spaces where this loneliness is felt most acutely, and his easygoing charm allows his clients to open up to him, and to us. In the new season, you meet a young artist who hires a sex worker for a “boyfriend experience” and finds him somewhat needy; there’s an asexual (but not aromantic) amateur magician, a recurring character, who must overcome his aversion to physical touch when he starts dating an intimacy coordinator. One of the show’s best episodes is shot from the perspective of a dog, left at home all day in his Queens apartment by his depressive, workaholic (and, it is implied, Trump-­voting) owner. The dog falls madly in love with the woman who comes to walk him. She’s attractive by human standards, but you get the sense the dog would love anyone who let him out for that cherished hour. In one poignant scene, the dog goes out with his owner on the weekend and encounters his dog friends from his weekday walks. He barks to greet them and is scolded by the man; neither owner knows a thing about the expansive inner lives of their pets, having been forced by city living to out­source their care.

Isolation perfumes the show, and this is the thing about “High Maintenance,” with its obsessive verisimilitude, that actually feels the most accurate. It’s a truism that living around so many others can make you feel paradoxically lonely, yet there are entirely novel ways of being alone, together. There are new ones invented every day.

To this generation of newcomers, moving to New York is quite different than it was in the past. As you arrive in the outer ­reaches of Brooklyn gentrification, you and everyone you know find yourselves spread thin geographically, specks of dust in distant orbit around Lower Manhattan, pressing up against communities that feel threatened by your presence. New York is as safe as it has ever been; if anyone’s the bad guy, it’s probably you. Of course, you hope that you aren’t, that you’re the kind of person who appreciates the city for its polyphony of voices, unlike some other newcomers, but in the end it won’t matter. And besides, after a long subway commute home, it’s easier than ever to not leave your apartment again: to order Seamless even though you told yourself you wouldn’t and pop on some streaming television, because there’s always something new to catch up on. And there, on the screen, is the New York you’d dreamed of, the one that challenges your perspective, the one that forces you to become a better version of yourself, the one where strangers come together and connect — even if it’s only for an instant.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/high-maintenance-and-the-new-tv-fantasy-of-new-york/

[mastcomm]

‘High Maintenance’ and the New TV Fantasy of New York

“We actually pledged Alpha Delta in college,” he says. “That cannery thing, though? It’s pretty good. I put it in my novel.” This is not a joke: In that scene, he’s behind the counter, typing on his laptop.

The actual, transactional quasi friendships that New Yorkers have with their bodega guys are plenty interesting. Like a priest, a bodega guy gets to know the shameful weaknesses of his regulars, who must assume on some level that he’s not secretly writing their stories in his own head. His perspective would be an interesting one to get to know, but in “Russian Doll,” what’s curious about this relationship is rendered null with a couple of lines of dialogue. In trying to counteract harmful stereotypes, the show has succeeded in doing something altogether stranger: erasing diversity through the act of depicting it. By making Farran an aspirant to the same sort of success the show’s writers value, by making him a guy who thinks working at a cannery is inherently absurd, something you’d put in a novel, “Russian Doll” suggests that everyone in this city, at the end of the day, is ultimately the same, sharing identical aesthetic and professional aspirations, and we’d know that if we only paid closer attention.

That attitude fits with the moral of the show, which is that strangers hold the key to our salvation. The fact that they possess interiority, and that we generally don’t care, winds up being the cause of the time warp — and the way out of it. Alan and Nadia team up, eventually determining that they’re in some sort of purgatorial punishment and must right the karmic wrong that occurred in the bodega: Nadia must save Alan from his suicide. By the season finale, they are back at Farran’s store, but separated in alternate dimensions, strangers to each other once again. They must convince the other that they know them deeply in order to save them from their self-­destruction, and only then are they freed. In the ecstatic closing sequence, they take part in some impromptu crust­punk Mummers parade, led by a homeless man named Horse (who, just like Farran, has been revealed to be a member of the professional class in disguise).

Watching this, I couldn’t help being reminded of the first episode of the second season of “High Maintenance,” which contains a similarly exuberant scene. This episode tells the stories of New Yorkers reacting to some world-­changing event; the show plays coy, but it’s widely interpreted to be the 2016 presidential election. One of these New Yorkers is a bar­back forced to stay late because the bar is so busy, which in turn makes him late to pick up his young son from a relative’s apartment. He takes him home on the subway and presents him with a balloon. It’s a sweet story, and a clever one — a perfect rejoinder to any privileged New Yorker who has wondered, coming home from the bars late at night, what sort of parent would keep their kid out at this hour. The boy starts batting his balloon around, causing a scene, but rather than being annoyed, the nighthawks of New York — a nurse in scrubs, workers in safety vests — join in, smiles breaking across their faces as they come together, even in such uncertain times, for one sublime and spontaneous moment of laughter and joy. This is the New York City my generation dreams of, an A.S.M.R. role-play of cosmopolitan harmony, a city of weak bonds that generate nothing but warmth, a place within the flow of history and outside it all at once.

The fact that The Guy works in the delivery business makes “High Maintenance” unusually attuned to the city’s shifting anxieties and mores. Of course, as the eccentric local historian Timothy (Speed) Levitch explains in one episode, New York has always been a delivery town, ever since Collect Pond went sour with pollution and the city had to start importing water. But in recent years, it has become even more so. Nearly every subway car is plastered with ads for stuff you can have delivered right to your door (mattresses, bedding, electronic-­toothbrush heads, meal kits, perfumes, generic Viagra) pitched in some approximation of online Millennial argot. Seamless, the dominant force in food delivery here, runs ads that make its value proposition grimly explicit: “Over 8 million people in New York City, and we help you avoid them all”; “Nothing ruins a good meal like other New Yorkers.” Some even lament the difficulty of calling restaurants where the staff might not understand you. Another says: “Food delivered faster than this neighborhood is gentrifying.”

What makes “High Maintenance” so intelligent is that it also documents the widespread isolation and alienation that make the fantasy so seductive. The Guy’s work brings him into the ­spaces where this loneliness is felt most acutely, and his easygoing charm allows his clients to open up to him, and to us. In the new season, you meet a young artist who hires a sex worker for a “boyfriend experience” and finds him somewhat needy; there’s an asexual (but not aromantic) amateur magician, a recurring character, who must overcome his aversion to physical touch when he starts dating an intimacy coordinator. One of the show’s best episodes is shot from the perspective of a dog, left at home all day in his Queens apartment by his depressive, workaholic (and, it is implied, Trump-­voting) owner. The dog falls madly in love with the woman who comes to walk him. She’s attractive by human standards, but you get the sense the dog would love anyone who let him out for that cherished hour. In one poignant scene, the dog goes out with his owner on the weekend and encounters his dog friends from his weekday walks. He barks to greet them and is scolded by the man; neither owner knows a thing about the expansive inner lives of their pets, having been forced by city living to out­source their care.

Isolation perfumes the show, and this is the thing about “High Maintenance,” with its obsessive verisimilitude, that actually feels the most accurate. It’s a truism that living around so many others can make you feel paradoxically lonely, yet there are entirely novel ways of being alone, together. There are new ones invented every day.

To this generation of newcomers, moving to New York is quite different than it was in the past. As you arrive in the outer ­reaches of Brooklyn gentrification, you and everyone you know find yourselves spread thin geographically, specks of dust in distant orbit around Lower Manhattan, pressing up against communities that feel threatened by your presence. New York is as safe as it has ever been; if anyone’s the bad guy, it’s probably you. Of course, you hope that you aren’t, that you’re the kind of person who appreciates the city for its polyphony of voices, unlike some other newcomers, but in the end it won’t matter. And besides, after a long subway commute home, it’s easier than ever to not leave your apartment again: to order Seamless even though you told yourself you wouldn’t and pop on some streaming television, because there’s always something new to catch up on. And there, on the screen, is the New York you’d dreamed of, the one that challenges your perspective, the one that forces you to become a better version of yourself, the one where strangers come together and connect — even if it’s only for an instant.

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