another reason jere and chris’s relationship is written well (see always: it’s not that hard!! ugh!!! super simple things to do but no we have to have a zillion horribly-handled empty guy/girl relationships!! why not) is just that like…..it doesn’t do that exasperating thing where the girl who is being crushed upon just needs to Notice the guy in the last 10 minutes and it will be like “wow yeah we’re dating now” like the only way to have a positive relationship at all is to be like well i’m your girlfriend now
but like, jeremy and christine actually have A Relationship Development over the entire course of the musical And there are strong suggestions that they have a very parallel experience in terms of how they Like each other, despite jeremy being the one who starts out with a crush while we don’t have reason to think christine has a crush on him at the start of things, but it sure seems like she does start to have this genuine interest in jeremy the whole time even if she isn’t necessarily thinking of it in that way the entire time
like ilpr is a solid and genuine foundation showing that christine can be herself in jeremy’s presence, not even independently of his feedback either, i.e. if he hadn’t responded as positively as he had she probably wouldn’t have been as genuine and open as she was. and we get to see that jeremy experiences this and totally enjoys it, that Reaction when she gets super worked up with the punches and voice all I!! LOVE!! PLAY! REHEARSAL!! is golden thank you william….and like!! they’re kindred spirits!! christine isn’t ~too good~ for him b/c she’s Popular (since she isn’t even officially in the popular group, not even later on when she’s dating jake and considering Jeremy to be popular), it’s that jeremy thinks Absolutely Everyone is too good for him b/c he thinks he’s fundamentally deficient/inferior just As A Person somehow…”like i’m some Normal handsome guy” is really a hell of a verse….anyways the point is that jeremy is in his heart a christine-esque person in terms of the way christine is So Passionate and weird and dramatic and loud!! but jeremy isn’t really aware of this at the time and trying super hard to repress everything abt himself and in being drawn to christine he is recognizing that Quintessential part of himself w/o realizing it
ANYWAYS and at the end of the rehearsal scene jeremy feels put out like once again there’s been a takedown / i just wanna know that christine is aware i’m alive….but she IS aware he’s alive and he HAS made a positive impression on her, he just like, looks at jake as the Epitome Of Popular super appealing guy, (see: jake/jeremy…), and sees himself as the total opposite end of that spectrum, how could anyone like him when jake’s around, and being in such a negative / failure-expecting / self-loathing place that his perspective is skewed and he can’t see that it Wasn’t a total failure in terms of getting christine’s attention
and then! a guy that i’d kinda be into is all like “oh look here’s this love song between christine and jeremy” but then it’s like “syke!! it was christine and jake” but it’s not Really a psykhe because it’s a love song within a love song with the “i guess a part of me etc” section. and jeremy definitely Feels that in the moment but then again gets such whiplash and the whole thing in his mind is eclipsed by once again having it confirmed for him that she’s into jake. but like, of course it’s easy to see why her relationship with jeremy is developing at the same time as she’s interested in jake, b/c there’s no reason for that to be impossible and yknow, once again christine feels like she can be genuine around jeremy and share her real thoughts with him and she Wants and Likes to talk with him.
and yknow it doesnt help that the squip steps in and is like “its hopeless christine will never like you unless you totally remake yourself” and such, but still, it’s actually going along okay, and jeremy hasn’t even needed the squip to do it. yeah the one incident of him kinda cheating by getting the squip’s help is saying him having a whole Thing at the mall was performance art, but then really it’s all just cancelled out when the squip has jeremy say that he has no reason to join the drama club save his thespianism, and christine is evidently a bit put out by that “why ELSE would i be here”
and then yknow seeing christine liking jake, the center of the whole popular group, and with the squip telling him he needs to be more like those Most Socially Successful people, natch jeremy believes he needs to figure out how to cut it as a ~popular guy~ and then goes off and does that for the rest of act 1 while christine and jake do their own thing
but then Oh The Couch Scene……….it’s so beautiful. and the squip is off and jeremy feels like he’s Messed Up when his impulse is silly and weird….but that’s what he’s really like!! and christine vibes with it and it becomes most obvious that that part of him, the actual Genuine Jeremy part of him, is what’s led him to have what’s arguably his most successful connection with her, just based on sitting down and talking for a second and making each other laugh……like, it Sure Is Something that jeremy learns that christine already thinks of him as popular but just seems to think this divides him from her……this subversion in which now christine thinks of jeremy, who’s supposed to be the loser geek whatever with the unattainable crush, as the out-of-reach Popular Guy……and i like that christine thinks jeremy’s been getting it on with everyone but it just turns into them laughing about her pun. b/c whether he had or hadn’t it’s nice to know christine would not take real issue with that lmao……it’s a great time for someone to express some respect for jeremy’s autonomy. and well anyways!! they have their heartmelting reprise and like. it’s not that christine tells jeremy she doesn’t actually like him and at that point i’m fairly sure that she’s more Aware of possibly maybe liking him. but like!! similar to him she’s been trying out a slightly different version of herself, and it’s just now hitting this roadblock b/c jake in his element here hosting a party w/ all the other popular kids has to be more like his ~Usual~ self than his “i’m also trying new things” self that led to him dating christine…..and, yknow, it’s a lot at once when she’s conflicted abt her and jake and her own sense of identity in general and like, regardless of how she feels about him, right in that moment still at the party of course she’s not gonna feel confident that yes let’s immediately jump into this new relationship. but that doesn’t mean she Doesn’t like him on her own b/c. yknow, their relationship is slowly developing in the background for her even as she focuses on these other things. b/c that’s how it goes sometimes!!
and then yknow the house burns down and everyone’s even more conflicted about everything and jeremy telling christine abt being squipped just freaks her out b/c like, surprise, and b/c yknow, now all these interactions between them which felt very genuine (and were!! the squip doesn’t really direct jeremy at all even if part of the time knowing that it was there gave him this confidence he wouldntve otherwise had, but ilpr / the couch bit was a wholly unsquipt affair) seems like maybe jeremy was just parroting the squips instructions the whole time, and it’s easy to see how that feels like a betrayal, have i said this exact thing before? idk. and then, yknow, her kind of being like “jeremy wtf” is a moment of calibration for him but oh no the squip’s going rogue!! etc. but the fact that it upsets her means her interactions with jeremy held real value to her
and then yknow The Play……first of all? jeremy having the squip for a while means that it’s glitching him up, screwing with his voice and movement, but its still not capable of entirely overriding jeremy’s own commands. thus, presumably, it’s not possible that christine’s 30-second-old squip would be able to force her to do or say something she didn’t want to at all, despite the fact that like, clearly it’s not natural, i really doubt it’s just like the squip mecha-piloting christine’s body and voice. it’s all a bit fuzzy b/c yknow, jeremy’s squip is at the center of the network and everyone’s is being synced to his, and so it seems like jeremy’s squip could tell other ppl’s squip what to do maybe, but it’s hard to say how it truly operates b/c a) chaos and b) jeremy’s squip, a Known Liar, c) is now lying more than ever to try to drag jeremy past the finish line of its plan
but anyways my point is that like. obviously without everyone being squipped, christine at that point would not have just suddenly declared her love for jeremy, and jeremy always Reacts to the weirdness of this and that it doesn’t seem right. but! a)! totally think christine does have her own crush on jeremy at that point. and!! wildly relevantly!! b) the squip just beamed lore from rich’s head (his locker combo) right into jeremy’s via their link, so? if the goal of jeremy’s and christine’s squips was to convince christine asap that Being With Jeremy Would Be Ideal?? why NOT give christine access to jeremy’s real actual feelings for her. she would need convincing anyways, clearly she was just mad at him 3 seconds ago, clearly she was questioning whether any of what she might have thought jeremy felt for her was real!! so it would only work in their favor to let her Know what jeremy’s actual thoughts and feelings are. and then, yknow, if she’s got THAT issue of thinking he wasn’t genuine resolved, and if having her own squip has her like, immediately able to understand why jeremy wanted to have/keep one, and if she’d already had her own Real Feelings for jeremy in the works, and with how she’d probably be questioning her own judgment extra hard anyways thanks to the stress and confusion of the whole Fire problem on top of the vulnerable place she’d already been in re questioning her relationship which she got into while questioning herself…..not super wild to see how she could be convinced vs the squip must totally be forcing her and doing a total system override
but anyways even if, yknow, it IS all of christine’s real feelings at that point like the squip assures him it is in some versions, jeremy recognizes that he doesn’t think it Should be happening this way even if it is supposedly working out in his favor. and then he proves that he’s not gonna let christine stay caught up in his mess and that he prioritizes her like, being allowed to be her own person vs them getting to Be Together, and just icing on the cake that he’s willing to sacrifice himself in a very real way to do that, b/c natch he doesn’t know that the chain reaction thing will happen………and well then anyways vimh very obvious and even though it’s The Next Scene jeremy’s been legit comatose for however long and christine’s had some time to reflect on events w/o even having the pressure of it being possible to interact with jeremy and been able to make up her collective mind……and anyways the point is that in a lesser piece of media it’d be like “wow thanks for helping me out jeremy, i’ve truly never noticed you but now i’m like cool nice let’s kiss”, but instead it’s that the play and the moment of truth between them and the aftermath is all possible b/c of the way their relationships been developing and the way their individual journeys and their feelings for each other have been awfully parallel in many ways and it’s fitting b/c of that kindred spirits thing and what’s the point of this post? idk. it’s me saying imo christine lowkey has a crush on jeremy already and that this is a way better story than doing the “i didn’t even consider us friends but One Thing happens in the last 20 min to make me go ‘jerry??’ and yeah let’s date now”
what’s my conclusion…….uhhh…….they’re Valid
dailybridgerton
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