I remember a post I saw back when the digital ticket came out (or I think it was back then?) which talked about how lautski in abstinence camp and in nerdy prudes were so different because of the fact that they met in completely different situations. In abstinence camp, they were both the odd ones out. it seemed like they were the only ones sent there for reform, while everyone else was just? there for the fun of it? they were the only ones who could understand each other, and were on equal ground. Steph wasn't "The Mayors Daughter" she was just a horny teenage girl. and Pete wasn't "Micro Peter" he was just a horny teenage boy.
Meanwhile, in Nerdy Prudes, its...a bit more complicated than that. Steph is popular. Pete is a loser. Steph is the mayor's daughter, she has power, and pete...doesn't. Neither of them are as free to be themselves as they were in abstinence camp, Stephanie has a reputation to uphold, and Pete needs to worry about being bullied. Different situation, different dynamic. (This is also brought up in If I Loved You. Steph says she would never go for a 'geek', she accuses him of using her to move up and gain status. Pete calls her a 'mean girl', which is the trope Steph represents [kind of. for the sake of this post we're going to pretend its that simple])
This is also something ive noticed in a lot of Michie fics? in canon, at least specifically in npmd, it would be pretty fucked up. pretty much anyone can admit that. Though something that I've seen happen a lot is the shifting of their dynamic. Max is no longer "The Bully" and Richie is no longer "The Victim". They are both put in a situation where they are on somewhat equal ground, and their dynamic changes because of that. I guess thats part of what interests me about both of them, not even as a ship but as indivisual characters.
What else is there to Max other than being the bully, the villain. He isnt alive long enough for any sort of depth to be given to him, and seeing what happens whenever any characters (not including miss holloway) dies and comes back to life, there is a sold chance that his ghost is a 'corrupted' version of him. His ghost fully plays into the role he was given, The Jock, The Bad Guy. One of his lines in npmd (the song) is "The jock you demonized" and thats what happened to him. After he dies, he isn't a person anymore, he is a caricature. What all of the characters are forced to become, The Mean Girl, The Nerd, The Horny Teen, The Victim, The Evangelical. And after his death. he fully embraces it. We dont get to see whatever depth he might have had to him, as we got to see with all the other characters as they became more fleshed out.
And Richie, bless his soul, never got to be more than the victim. He existed solely to die. The first scene in the musical, the first thing that we saw of him was his death. He was doomed from the beginning to always be the first out. He was never meant to live past the first act. His purpose in npmd was to die, so he never got to be more. But what would he be in another story? One where things were nicer, one where he wasnt forced into a role, one where he could just be himself?
What would any of them be?
