#also michael presumably coping through like hotboxing his pt cruiser & such

[unproduciblesmackdown]

always fun to mull over parallels / juxtapositions of bmc teens & just writing it out as an [organizing thoughts] thing vs thesis statements here but as a starting point it’s fun how both christine & michael are people who are unpopular but both vibing because they’re focusing on their own particular interests and accepting the roles that they have by going this route, like the idea christine isn’t like specifically bullied like michael is but she knows she Could be & keeps her head down / stays in her established lane about existing out here & avoids that

also how both their Things of like, [theatre / play rehearsal / enjoying a role] and [being jeremy’s friend / all michael’s Retro Uncool Interests] are comforting things when like, even without christine being particularly bullied or anything she’s voicing things in ilpr she knows aren’t ideal for her / she’s unhappy about re: things Outside play rehearsal, but with michael especially we can kind of see how the comforting aspect of things / depending on the Reliability of this as getting them through the next couple of years (which he seems to feel it could easily do) could come at the cost of these aspects of life being stagnant like, for him obviously Being Jeremy’s Friend is important here, but in 2pg he’s not really able to be flexible about the situation when jeremy’s trying to express that the usual “just wait two years / well high school’s the same shit we’ve Been getting through” stuff isn’t convincing him he doesn’t need to try something new (because it Isn’t working for him, and he feels without exaggeration doomed to eternal misery here, and it might be relevant jeremy’s life’s also gone through this extra shakeup recently, but also just that jeremy’s a different person & it does seem like what supposedly defines their friendship is in turn mostly defined by michael (e.g. the “we like [retro stuff] lyrics” like, michael’s the one with the pacman tattoo lol) & jeremy feeling like the player two to michael’s player one) and of course the relationship is disrupted & in the course of reestablishing it they both have to kinda acknowledge things more in depth to themselves & each other where michael wasn’t really unaffected by the social rejection / exclusion / negative treatment from peers & thus it wasn’t Really ideal for him either, plus that of course it wasn’t ideal for him that his friendship was suffering b/c he didn’t really get that it needed to evolve along with how things were changing for jeremy (wherein the squip can argue that michael’s just jeremy’s Old Life / the “or you both drown” thing, and even though michael’s like “yeah epic” abt the squip, jeremy doesn’t really question that michael isn’t like, unchanging, b/c he hasn’t seen that possibility) 

meanwhile with christine, the reliable comfort of Play Rehearsal is disrupted with popular people joining for mystery reasons and weird edits to the material, and then there’s her parallel / juxtaposition moment with jake who offers this perspective she can relate to like, how about ditching what we usually do & trying Something New, which can be compared to what jeremy’s doing too, except hardly quite so desperate lol & more general than like, i need to stop getting bullied & being a miserable nobody & [how he likes christine for being so passionately herself and all the Weirdness of that b/c that’s how he wants to be too, even if it gets boiled down (and the squip boils it down) as Wanting To Date like yeah he has a crush but their Romance is about being this compatibility based on kindred spirits in being pretty weird & wanting to fully express & enjoy themselves regardless]...and then it doesn’t quite work out b/c even if there was growth for trying something New or what have you, the like being Popular, which seems to happen Somewhat naturally for jake, even if there’s also the sad lonely rich boy & the pressure to have to be the best at everything all the time but might not ever be good enough Factors, and of course christine Not really enjoying herself in being sorta popular adjacent via jake / having to navigate that, whereas she does clearly genuinely enjoy theatre, like, none of the roles or activities that were comforting / enjoyable / familiar to people at the start are posited as like “oh this is Just holding them back” or anything

so yeah no thesis statement just putting some thoughts down on the text post. wait i kept kind of choosing the words “what’s comforting to people” but a relevant way to frame it would be like, that of course these elements in people’s lives like Friendships & Interests & other stuff they consciously enjoy / ways they define themselves (positively) aren’t Just coping mechanisms but that that’s Part of what they are b/c you know. there’s these negative parts of people’s lives & they’re not sure what they can do about it so they guess they’ll just do theatre, i.e. stick to what works for them, but even before it gets to that point towards the finale lol it’s like yknow. oh of course if there’s a problem we don’t know how to handle b/c we’re all like sixteen & we’re all human, it makes sense to just turn to what’s established as reliably positive, unless oops it’s not as reliable / that still doesn’t feel like Enough & you Need something else. but yeah “cope” is a word pertinent here

#bmc #also michael presumably coping through like hotboxing his pt cruiser & such