Here take some Christine Angst™ in which I project onto Christine and then decide I love her and she deserves to be happy so I send Jeremy to help her
Christine is, of course, included in the group after The Incident, which is what they opt to call it
She’s really close to Michael
That’s kind of a given since she’s dating Jeremy, Michael would of course want to be her friend
Not to mention they have a lot in common personality-wise
And since Jeremy likes theatre, Michael has, at the very least, an appreciation for it
But she often can’t shake the feeling that she’s not supposed to be there
That maybe they’re her friends, but she’s not their friend
It seems like she barely has anything in common with any of them and she doesn’t really think she possesses any qualities or anything that would make them want to be her friends
Aside from Michael, who she bonds with over both personality and interests
But even Michael isn’t safe from this sudden emotional disconnect on her side
Even Jeremy isn’t, and they’re really close
They all notice it and try to reach out to her but the feeling plagues her too much, so she just kindly rejects it and promises them she’s okay when she’s really, truly not okay.
Instead of talking to someone or actually coping she just kinda sits around and listens to Billie Eilish
One day she’s at Michael’s house and he introduces her to a new game he thinks she’d like: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
When they start up the game she realizes that she actually has it at her house, she’s seen one of her dads play it from time to time
They play for a while and Christine gets really into it
When she gets home that night she digs out her copy of Wind Waker HD and asks her dad if she can hook up the Wii U in her room because she wants to play it
He’s a bit confused since she’s never expressed an interest in video games, but he just agrees because who is he to judge her if she’s found something new she enjoys?
She ends up getting super invested in it and playing it all the time
It leads to her starting to play a lot of different games, starting with other Zelda games and expanding from there
Wind Waker remains her favorite video game, but she likes a lot of them
Her favorites are the ones where she can get really immersed in the game and the story, since they make for the best distraction and make it especially uplifting and rewarding to work past difficult parts
For this reason she almost never looks up guides
She starts loving video games almost as much as she loves theater
Video games are her new coping mechanism, when she starts feeling outcasted she starts drawing characters or scenes or literally just thinking about them to distract herself
In fact, it’s only getting worse
She starts periodically skipping out on lunch and other times they hang out, not even bothering to come up with excuses for leaving unless asked
Michael tends to be a bit oblivious to this and doesn’t realize the underlying issue
But Jeremy does, because he’s been there so many times
One day they plan to hang out at a restaurant for lunch
Despite saying she’d be there, Christine doesn’t come
Everyone is worried but they decide to carry on like normal
Jeremy is furious because why can’t they see this is the problem?
He leaves, saying he’s going to check on Christine
He gets to her house, her dads are both gone which makes him feel a bit uneasy
But he doesn’t want to stop, he needs to know she’s okay
He goes to her room and finds her curled up on the floor, crying in frustration
She has Phantom Hourglass playing on the TV and it’s just at the pause menu
In front of her is a Wii Remote that has the batteries knocked out of it
Immediately he rushes to comfort her but she keeps insisting it’s nothing, it’s stupid, it’s not anything he should worry about, she’s just being dramatic, she’s just oversensitive, it’s fine, she’s fine, everything is fine
Christine never cries so if she is crying something is clearly very wrong
She tells him that she’s having trouble with the temple in her game and she doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong.
“Well, could you look up a walkthrou-” “NO!”
Christine panics for a second because she knows how much it scares and upsets Jeremy to get yelled at especially if he doesn’t know what he did wrong
But he doesn’t seem even slightly alarmed
He just asks “is it ok if I hug you?”
She says yes because having Jeremy with her always comforts her
He talks her through why this frustrated her so much because he knows video games are not the issue here
She tells him how she’s been playing video games so much because in games she doesn’t feel so worthless and it doesn’t seem so impossible and scary to move forward and she doesn’t want to look for guides or anything because then it feels like she can’t even do that right
Jeremy asks her why it feels so impossible and scary to move forward and why she feels worthless in real life and she explains her whole issue with not feeling like anyone actually wants to be her friend and whatnot
He promises her they do want her around and asks her to give him a sign if she ever feels left out or outcasted because they all do care about her and don’t want her to feel alone when she’s with them
Christine agrees and thanks him for coming to check on her
Neither of them is quite sure what to do next so Jeremy picks up the Wii remote and puts the batteries back into it
“Do you wanna see if I can help you with this temple?”
2087
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