#like the play from bmc and so on | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

woah-uhuh-uhuh-uhuh · 1 year ago

Text

(ALMOST) EVERYTHING I NOTICED FROM BAC BMC

NOTE: spot check me!

It was the Two Rivers script, but I still haven't read the whole Two Rivers script so if I mention something I noticed that’s actually just… in the script… lmk!

Also: if you also saw the BAC production (or if you are the BAC people???) and I missed something, let me know!!! Literally anything at all I will put it here I’d love to approach comprehensiveness!!

ALSO: Spoilers! If you plan on going to Jake’s Halloween Party maybe wait? Or don’t!!

CHARACTERS

Madeline

Putting Madeline here because the first thing I noticed in the whole show is she’s ACTUALLY A FRANCOPHILE and it’s so funny ldksjfjsfksdlf. She wears a beret, and people put on a stereotypical French accent whenever they quote her djslkfjsfkfds And during the play backstage someone (I think Chloe?) runs up to her, smacks her beret off and yells “You’re not French!”

Jeremy

OH oh oh oh oh. Bac Jeremy my beloved…. I swear like 30% of Christine’s autism was generously donated to Jeremy for this production jlkdsfjdls

He has this habit where he’ll put his hands in his cardigan pockets and push his them around in front of him or on his body to feel the tension of the jacket stretching. Patrick said this quirk was based on a neurodivergent kid he knows. I don’t have photo evidence and IDK how to describe it perfectly but i did draw it here (x). It wasn't exactly like that though OTL

He does it whenever he’s nervous (so almost CONSTANTLY) up until BMC P.1 when the SQUIP tells him to take his hands out of his pockets. During that song you can see him trying to put his hands back safe in his pockets but afterwards he never does it again, even after The Play. He also doesn’t do it when he’s with Michael, even at the beginning, so I take it to mean it goes away when he’s comfortable.

I think he flinches and cowers a lot (compared to other Jeremys, that is). Whenever Rich surprises him, Jeremy jumps and protectively throws his arms over his face. I think he reacts similarly to other people a few times - I don’t remember when exactly though… There’s also several times where he’ll stand totally petrified out of fear, like when Rich is writing “boyf” or when Chloe’s coming onto him. By all of this I basically mean it’s really obvious he’s been physically abused (presumably by Rich).

Just in general, his freakouts are very physical, he’ll kinda do these stiff arm movements or cover his face in his elbow etc. Off the top of my head this happens during Upgrade and also at the end of The Play when Christine’s singing to him.

All this to say he has a very very visible physicality to his awkwardness and I love it. I don’t just mean that on a character acting level, I also mean like if you’re sitting behind him in class your attention will actively be caught by his awkwardness.

He also has a deeper register which he uses mostly in a joke context? He used it in normal conversation a few times too, I think more towards the end.

I noticed him standing just a little pigeon-toed near the beginning. I don’t know if this carried through the whole thing though.

Clothes: his cardigan is blackish with a blue outline, and he wears it over a green shirt with a question mark (I perceived it as a Gravity Falls shirt but might be wrong). The eminem shirt is black and I dont remember what he wears it with…. At the party he has a cyborg shirt and a visor, and after the party he has a white shirt with a flannel and khakis (or maybe light corduroys). In VIMH he has another fandom shirt on but I don’t remember what it was sorry it was 11pm ljfsdlkfjdslkfs

Its so obvious I’m a Jeremy stan this entry is the largest one sorry 🧍

Mr. Heere

He seemed less depressed and more just out of touch in this one? During Two Player Game, he seems decently chipper, if annoyed, though of course he’s still unable to dress himself and unwilling to put genuine effort in with his son.

When he says “Good talk” he gives Jeremy a friendly shoulder punch. Right before Pants Song, as usual, he says “I could ground you!” Jeremy says “I don’t think you could,” and gives his dad the same shoulder punch while saying “Good talk.” AAAAAAH.

Michael

He seemed less frenetic and anxious than the Troy!Michael I’m used to (sorry that’s my only reference for Michael lol).

He was generally loud and exuberant. A very excitable but down-to-earth Michael.

MITB was amazing. I was nervous because it’s obviously (obviously) the best song so there’s a lot of pressure but no it was done perfectly. Sad as fuck. Perhaps moreso because this Michael was especially normal until now. (Also because pre-MITB Jeremy was extra mean in this production)

For some reason, I found it easier to picture this Michael being a childhood & school friend? Maybe just because this production seriously pulled my psyche straight back to highschool in a way the others haven’t been able to lol.

I maybe got the sense that he’s really trying to act like he doesn’t care as much about Jeremy as he does.

BTW I’m obsessed with the fact that his idea of a creeper costume is a mask and a shirt that just says creeps on it. I know that’s kinda textual at this point but taken together with the mask its lkesdjfsdjflksdf

Christine

Amazing ballet (?) choreography going on during her intro. I think that might be standard Christine choreo but still! Stunning.

I could actually picture her as an averagely popular girl in this one? Not sure why. Maybe more nervous in her relationships but more confident in other contexts, but I could be pulling that out of my ass.

I could also be thinking this because she has cool hair (space buns!) and likes Taylor Swift in this one.

Some of her songs had these really melancholy notes where I didn’t expect them - particularly in GTIKBI Reprise (/pos! I was like oh shit!!! every time)

Rich

He has painted nails! They’re black.

He had fruity energy the whole time but it got progressively more intense. No I can’t elaborate actually I don’t know why I perceived it like this but I did sldjkfsf

After he comes out it gets more explicit; he starts wearing a pink headband in VIMH (he also gains glasses I think? Unless they’re still Michael’s) and during bows he flashed a paper fan that had the gay flag inside.

IMO, it was implied that the house fire was a suicide attempt. I say this for purely textual reasons - because he doesn’t mention trying getting the SQUIP out of his head, and because Jeremy’s SQUIP later implies it was a suicide attempt. But his behavior around the fire - looking dazed while rhythmically flicking a lighter - could also indicate squipzophrenia. (Maybe it’s the same amount of implied as usual - To be fair, I’ve never really understood why Rich set a fire in the first place…)

Brooke

Very wholesome and I love her. IDK Broadway Brooke is very campy, and BAC Brooke is more like a normal sweet girl but maybe that’s just me

Compared to Broadway, way more respectful of Jeremy’s space. She doesn’t really try to physically seduce him in upgrade instead they just have a cute lil conversation. Also when she tells Jeremy she got cheated on, she doesn’t initiate contact by petting his hair (like in Broadway) - instead the roles are reversed and they hold hands comfortingly, and Jeremy is the one to escalate that by rubbing her hand in a slightly forward way.

Her French was awful!!! sdjkfldjsfkdsf It was the whole time but Tres Magnifique = "Trays Mag-nuh-Fike" is the one that really killed me

Chloe

Not to be backhanded… but she was really good at being a bitch??? Especially the scene where she’s giving Christine advice

Maybe closetedly wlw based on the delivery of “I like gay people” and the events of The Play??

The Chloe Jenna friendship intrigues me so much… what’s going on there…

Jenna

Sadder than Broadway Jenna…

When Chloe mentions her in play rehearsal she jumps up from across the room and says “I’m here!!” to no reaction.

Later in Smartphone Hour - J: “....because you are my closest friend-” C: “No I’m not” J: “Yeah I know….” Jenna sounds kinda genuinely bummed lol. Either she wasn’t expecting that or she’s *very* aware of it and it’s making her sad. My impression was more the latter.

During VIMH she’s wearing a sweater that’s colored like the lesbian flag??? (EDIT: the actor, Diana, said this was intentional and her Jenna is a lesbian!)

Idk idk actor so good she made me care so much more about Jenna dsfljdf

Jake

Maybe a touch more upfront about the fact that he feels a lot of pressure in his life

He was dumb <3

Mrs. Reyes

She’s a woman in this one!

She has a hippie thing going on i think?? Like a boho mom (affectionate)

Pronounces Reyes with a (several second long) rolled R at the beginning

Doesn’t do the stiff announcer-like angle that the broadway guy does. Her comedy is more crazy cat ladyish

The hot pocket breaks were preceded by an actual alarm sound I think???? bonkers fkljd

Ensemble

BIG ENSEMBLE WAS SO FUN…. They had so many funny bits going on in the background it was soooo good and another reason I wish I could watch it over and over because I couldn’t be paying attention to everything at once OTL

Scene by scene

Organized by song, but scene notes are in there too!

More Than Survive

"Madeline was all like-" *bad french accent* "ohohoho, I'll only sleep with you if you beat me at ze pool~"

“Oh my god he is like totally getting off on that” ← right before this Jeremy starts pointing at them awkwardly from a distance, I think in an attempt to get to his locker??

“I like gay people” - the way Chloe says this is kinda like “idk what the big deal is because *i* think gay people are soooo neat” which got a lot of audience laugh. I think she was talking to Jenna but I don’t remember

“I don’t wanna be a baller” (or whenever the class scene is) - Jeremy’s sitting in the back of class and everyone turns to throw paper balls at him. I was like oh my god he’s being genuinely bullied so hard in this one…. Then again maybe that’s just how he feels?

There’s this awesome chair choreo at the end where everyone’s laying down chairs in front of Jeremy for him to walk on and taking them away from the back to put back in the front as he makes his way downstage.

Scene: Michael's "You don't have to do this!" kind of came across as a shout of protest. (But of course still tempered with, "of course i'll make fun of you forever if you don't)

Play Rehearsal

"This is where you meet for the swim team" --- Instead of looking confused, Jeremy immediately acts like ok byeee - he might be eager to back out of the conversation and/or immediately accepts her answer as literal and wants to leave asap out of embarrassment.

“I also have a touch of ADD” - she trails off and stands there kind of in a daze for a moment, before remembering that she’s in the middle of a song.

“And can I mention that was really one of my best roles, DID YOU SEE THAT?!" She shouts this very proudly. And after her 'do you find that?' bit she doesn’t give Jeremy time to even try to respond, so it’s a little less rude lol.

Jeremy was very anxious, and somewhat in a bad way? As in the exchange was a bit off-putting to him.

Scene: “thank god the popular kids are here” - there are SO MANY kids entering. I’m not sure what to make of it! Popular as in everyone’s popular compared to Jeremy and Christine? Or is this a whole clique? Or is Reyes just talking about the popular kids and the other guys also just show up?

Mrs. Reyes: ~"Our funds will be diverted. To the frisbee golf team. What even is frisbee golf?" Across the room, Jake holds up a frisbee and silently points at it, trying to get Reyes' attention. She doesn't notice.

After scene: Jake’s “pressure to be the best at everything” is said very genuinely, not for laughs at his arrogance which is how I usually read it

Squip Song

Rich actor KILLED it just gotta put that out there

“So it’s like….” Jeremy takes an extended moment to walk to the edge of the stall and look behind to make sure nobody’s there - “...drugs?”

In the end of the song, Rich rubs his dirty hands all over Jeremy's arm.

The Squip Enters

Scene: Payless: “Wolverine” was great djklsfjdsf I’ve never thought about him before. (It was also the actor’s birthday!) When they enter he’s playing the knife-finger game. He threatens Jeremy with the knife at some point (either “400 dollars” or “all sales are final!” I think?). I can’t really describe the character acting but he was very entertainingly unhinged. He's called “Scary Stockboy” in the script & playbill and I thought that was a misnomer until the scene happened lmao. No that was accurate.

Scene: when they enter the food court there’s like a photo of a mall food court on the back wall but not from the perspective of the scene at all it was like a background that abstractly tells you where you are?? As someone who loves kitsch I enjoyed this, it happens with a few other scenes too

There’s a couple making out obnoxiously at the mall that someone (I think it was Michael?) had to step over to get to the table. I think they had some great thematically relevant background acting in this scene but I cannot remember it exactly I am so sorry OTL

Michael is buying Ecto-Cooler! It tastes like ghosts.

Jeremy “mourns in his chili fries” by laying his head down on the table. Jake and Christine sit at the table together without noticing him. Then Jeremy pops up and they have the usual exchange (“I didn’t see you!” “Yeah, you’re kind of hard to notice”). I thought that was a really neat staging!! And it makes more sense why he even tries to talk to her in this scene lol

Mild discomfort - The first half Jeremy just stands next to the table and kinda screams in pain. Then the second half he falls to the ground and is thrashing, again mostly just in pain. (Pretty sure that’s how every production goes but I think the intensity of the spasming is pretty variable so I’m describing it here)

When the SQUIP first appears, he offers to appear as Kermit the Frog, Barack Obama, and Gilbert Gottfried, and does a little impression for each one:

The imitations the Squip does are as follows: Kermit the Frog “hi ho Kermit the frog here, we’re gonna fix your life Yayyyyy”, Obama “My fellow Squip, if sync up we can change this loser” and Gilbert Gottfried “So Grandma and the dog are on the table…” - Courtesy of director Chris Guell because I couldn't remember them OTL (thank you!!!)

Also in the middle of this Jeremy says "That's a terrible Obama impression..."

Be more Chill p.1

Brooke and Chloe are shopping on the upstage side of the clothes rack; when Jeremy picks out the girls shirt, Brooke appears through the gap in the clothes and surprises him.

After the song, one of the ensemble steals the clothes rack and the mall cop chases him off stage in a very cartoonishly stiff sprint.

Do you wanna ride?

After the first rejection, Brooke goes to Chloe, who points out the satchel she has belted around her waist. As she starts to sing again she slowly unbuckles it and holds it behind her back.

Jeremy is very into it by the end and the girls have him dancing along with the music. I think you can see that in one of the promo videos too :P

Be More Chill p.2

Scene: When Jeremy’s going to bed after the mall, instead of sleepily singing, he uses a silly deep voice to say something like “yeah be more chill i’m gonna be more chill i’m gonna be so chill that ice is relatively warm”

After Rich talks to Jeremy (“hey, tallass, where’s my money?” and then they sync up) he spots a girl across the stage and yells “Hey, where’s my money?” then chases her down the hall.

Guy that I’d Kinda be Into

Scene: during the rehearsal - JR: "Bring me patient zero!" Then Chloe, sitting on the ground, looks through her script for like 45 seconds until finding her line: "Cough!"

At “I’ve been activating your pheromones” - Jeremy starts and looks at his armpits, then as the song continues he slowly pulls his arms up to rest behind his head, it was very comedic djflkdsf. He also uses one hand to waft from his armpit before returning to that position. Guy...

I think this is also the scene he uses a script to hide his boner??

They were so cute at the end!!! Just sitting next to each other in rehearsal and kinda leaning in towards each other. Very real very high school.

Upgrade

Scene: While Jeremy and SQUIP argue about Eminem, Brooke is (silently) describing the accident. She mimes hitting a hockey puck, then being impaled in the guts repeatedly.

Instead of literal bleachers (at least visually), Brooke and Jeremy go sit on the top of the stairs that lead off of the stage and into the audience. They kinda playfully walk around the railings and stuff, and at the point in the Broadway version where they start aggressively making out, instead they just sit next to each other and talk and it’s very cute :)

Jeremy’s freaking the fuck out in the middle and it’s so obviously sensory overload auauuauuauaugh. He was like contorting to cover his head in his arms. Guy…

Halloween

Brooke’s costume is a sexy dalmatian! She has an eyespot and a black and white skirt + other spotty white clothes. Jeremy’s cyborg costume only extends to the shirt & a visor. I think it matched with the squip’s visor?

THE PROJECTOR…. On the background was the funniest background it could possibly be it was like a graphic of a cartoon skeleton holding a wooden sign that said “Jake’s Halloween Party”. IDK if that’s a poster he got printed or if it’s an extremely camp way of abstractly giving us the setting or what but I WAS LOSING IT SLKDJFKDSJFSD

I WISH I had a picture of it, but in lieu of that I recreated it for you and I swear it was like 95% exactly like this. just projected on the wall behind the stage.

Do you wanna hang?

Right before this scene, there’s a huge group choreo where people dance with partners, and in the last move one partner spins the other one down, who lands on the floor looking up at them. Jeremy ends up on the floor and Chloe walks up and stands over him while inviting him to come with her.

TW - This scene is always sexual assault, but the tone felt especially dark this time – maybe it was just seeing it live, though.

Jeremy’s standing frozen still as the song starts and kind of visibly recoiling as Chloe walks around him. She walks behind him and shoves her hands into his coat pockets, which makes him flinch. Extra upsetting because like I said before I think his coat pockets are kind of a place of safety for him :(((

Pretty sure the SQUIP's Japanese was different from the Broadway. Wasn't sure quite what he said, but it I think it *didnt* include these from the Broadway one: お腹が空いた (I'm hungry) and お疲れ様 ('pleasure doing business with you,' i think?)

Michael in the Bathroom

Scene: Jeremy seems very shaken after DYWH and sits on the bathtub sadly; when Michael reveals himself Jeremy flips out.

Michael talks about “his clever disguise” and makes monster growls (meant as creeper hisses?) - I think with the tone that he’s trying to get Jeremy to respond to the joke, or point out the reference or something. When that fails, he starts getting serious.

“Get out of my way, loser” is delivered very confidently.

After Michael says he’s on his period, Jenna opens the door a crack to hand him a tampon dsjfkldsjflkdsjf. He throws it in the bathtub later at “I’m a creeper in a bathroom….”

Also of course, he’s in a creeper mask lol

Song: WONDERFULLY done. Honestly don’t have much to say it was just great. I get desensitized to that song after hearing it so much, but seeing it live definitely brought a spark to it.

“And I look in the mirror and the present is clearer…” section is like the *key* part of this song to me and Connor Introna did it really well. His voice started breaking at mirror, and of course he did the little sob and everything it was just chefs kiss

Guy that I’d Kinda be Into Reprise

When Jeremy asks why Rich didn’t give him a warning and Rich starts saying “warning” over and over, he says it at a steady rhythm until he gets off stage. Then Jeremy tries to rouse a drunken partier to say “So that was weird…” and Rich’s “Warning” randomly interrupts Jeremy like 3 times to comedic effect before he can get the words out

"Popular people are messed up" - less in response to Rich & more in response to the guy Rich is talking to passing out drunk (iirc)

This is just a 2R things but it hit me so just pointing out she just says “I’m not Juliet” in this one (rather than we’re not romeo and juliet) and auuauguughghg poor Christine :(

Weird noises: it’s kinda like a dinosaur impression in this one? They both go like RAAHH and make claw hands in the air. Then Jeremy stands up and pretends to be driving a car (I think???? lol) and Christine copies him

Christine starts standing up while Jeremy’s still asking her out. As soon as he finishes the question she immediately rejects him. That is to say, she saw where this was going and already knew her answer.

After the scene, Rich walks back across the room, flicking a lighter on and off in a daze.

ALSO: Ensemble were very entertaining in the whole party! During this scene there were 3 of them playing spin the bottle downstage left and it had like a whole arc to it sdnjkfdfdsf Also guys passed out on the floor and on the couch

Smartphone Hour

Starts w/ Jenna sitting on the edge of the stage, dangling her legs over the pit.

Brooke is sadly eating Rich’s loaf of bread. (After she forgives Chloe she passes it to some other actor offstage which I probably wasn’t supposed to see but it was funny lol. communal machete bread)

THE PROJECTOR….. Everyone was holding phones and in the background was footage from their front-facing cameras (prerecorded, but it synced pretty well with the live actors). Then you could see the GUI of them typing some of the lyrics (“rich fled to bombay!!”) into imessage and twitter

AND THEN you see footage of the house burning down on an insta reel…. An unremarkable suburban house where you can see flames consuming the roof. This same footage plays on a few people’s reels, then there’s also footage of firemen coming and putting the fire out and its SO REALISTIC i was losing it

Around “Changed my profile pic to you” it shows a bunch of (presumably) instagram photos of Rich like in his house and at school or wherever and i wont lie it made me feel for him a lot more. They were like actual full staged photos :( like thats a real guy in there…

Pitiful children

Scene: When Jenna asks if the SQUIP is a drug, she does the same extended thing of checking to see that nobody’s watching that Jeremy did in The Squip Song

The Pants Song

Scene: see my notes on Mr. Heere aaaaaauguh

Michael’s sitting on his front steps while smoking weed from a tiny green bong. You can tell it’s his front steps because there’s a mailbox next to him labeled MELL BOX in big letters dslkfjdskfjs

Michael’s wearing pants - I think that’s just textually accurate but reporting it anyway

When Mr. Heere comes over (“do you love him?”), he puts one leg on the top step and Michael is eye-level with his crotch. Michael has trouble tearing his eyes away. This happens a few times. In my opinion, it made him come off as a lot more high than he usually does lol

If I remember correctly, they get very intense and like shoulder-grabby at one point. Could’ve been a different scene though I dont remember OTL OTL

The Play

Michael comes out of the audience!!! It was cool it was meta lol

PINKBERRY CANON SDLKFJDKLFJKFJLSF. Brooke and Chloe have the Two Rivers dialogue (He didn’t sleep with you? He didn’t sleep with me!) then after Sisters forever! they do these actions to the rhythm of three staccato beats: “Jinx!” *high five(?)* *KISS ON THE LIPS* and instantly pull away. They're extremely normal about it and are just standing there afterwards without moving or acknowledging it.

Despite being in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, Jeremy is dumbstruck and stares at them for a few beats before moving on to the next line. It was amazing. No notes.

Jeremy is horrified when Christine starts singing to him. She walks robotically over to him and speaks kind of like she’s reading off a script (hehehe). Jeremy is backing up against a wall and freaking out almost like he’s trying to get away from her. No implication at all that he’s tempted.

When everyone starts screaming in pain, Michael is screaming in triumph. (Or at least he looked very triumphant, I don’t remember if he screamed lol)

Voices in My Head

Rich is in a wheelchair. Also he doesn't have a lisp.

Rich is wearing Michael’s glasses. When he starts asking about Michael, Michael shows up and takes his glasses back. I think Rich steals them back at some point too?

Michael acts a lil flirty with Rich - approximately "I'm sure you'll find something very special," then in a tiny high voice: “but not with meeeee…!” and he pushes Rich’s wheelchair so he rolls offstage jdsfkldsfkfd

At “Tell her that she excites you sexually” Rich does a little wheelie to (presumably) represent a pelvic thrust (all of these Rich moments were excellent I loved this Rich sm)

Christine’s squip was Taylor Swift this time!

At “I know the last thing I deserve is another shot, but…” He trails off and there’s a pause before “Just say what’s on your mind, Jeremy.” I know they get together obviously, but it felt like it could go either way! Maybe because it was live.

(And then they cccccome on lets go and do bows, in character i think, and it was amazing the end)

I was gonna write a TLDR here but honestly all of it was amazing and if you want the highlights it’s pretty much just the stuff I bolded!

Also end note the actors were all soooo nice and they let me ramble to them about jeremy for several minutes Q____Q it was amazing im so happy about this still I wish I got their signatures sjdlfkjdsfkdsf

I hope everyone gets to watch the show at some point but otherwise I hope this can be useful to someone!!

97 notes · View notes

keshetchai · 1 year ago

Text

As someone who enjoys religion blogging/discussions, I've come to realize that it's a good practice to be aware of the general signs/symptoms of religious-OCD thinking (aka scrupulosity), because if the conversation is taking on all the hallmarks of scrupulosity, it's actually a definitive sign that we cannot meaningfully and compassionately engage in a conversation about religion in a healthy way. I've actually had this play out a significant number of times online, and when I realized what it was, I also began to realize that the intrusive thoughts/obsessive and compulsive thinking are only ever fed by continuing the discussion with that person.

[[ Important edit to clarify why I am saying it's not healthy — made after I went back to look for more concrete facts about OCD or anxiety (I have GAD, not OCD, but many resources overlap since they're both anxiety disorders):

When Reassurance is Harmful — this explains how/why reassurance-seeking specifically about an OCD fear is a compulsive behavior, and engaging with reassurance-seeking interferes with recovery/management/treatment.

This table from the Anxiety Disorders Center lists key differences between Information Seeking and Reassurance Seeking.

This IOCDF page on Scrupulosity info for Faith Leaders identifies "symptom accommodation" as enabling. Two of the examples of doing this by participating in the OCD behavior are: "Engage in excessive conversation focused on if-then scenarios (e.g., "If I did this, then would X or Y happen? And what if Z was involved? How about W?")" And, "Repeatedly answering questions about ‘correct’ religious or faith practices."

That page also goes on to outline more info about reassurance seeking. "Although providing answers to (often simple!) questions may seem harmless, providing reassurance serves to maintain the anxiety disorder cycle." (This BMC psychiatry article cites a lot of related studies establishing this.)

The IOCDF page on What is OCD and Scrupulosity? ]]

Imo, the responsible thing to do is to recognize that (even if the other person hasn't outright stated it/isn't diagnosed)* the conversation is not about religion, it is about needing mental health support from professionals and experts. Talking to me, the layperson who enjoys chatting theology and my religion — is not only not helping, but is actively harmful. I'm not just talking about the person who I replied to today, either. Like I've said, I've seen this happen dozens of times in various online forums.

*[while I am against diagnosing strangers on the internet, it's important to realize A) lots of people don't know what Scrupulosity is, so it's possible they've never considered this is a mental health concern that could be treated, and that B) for the purposes of my concern, it doesn't matter if they actually have diagnosed OCD. The only thing that matters is that their thought-process causes them genuine distress/fear, and every response given to them seems to only incite new/additional distressing questions/thoughts, or further entrenches the original distress.]

Ultimately, any discussion aside from "you might want to speak to a mental health professional about scrupulosity OCD" seemingly puts me in the position of feeling as if I am being used for their self-harm. I hate that feeling. I do not want to be leverage for fear and pain. I have GAD, I despise the idea that I am making things worse.

No matter how much I love religious discussion, the answer in these cases is always "please reach out to an OCD specialist/mental health professional. I am not qualified to discuss this." And then to stop there. I have never once seen anyone stuck in this compulsive thought spiral be reassured or feel any better by hearing from someone else's approach to theology handled with things like empathy, compassion, logic, or even atheism. It doesn't matter what we say, how we say it, or how we relate to our own religion. The urge to engage in this kind of conversation in order to chat about religion is a sign that we are not equipped to help.

You can't have a conversation here, because intentionally or not, ten times out of ten, you are adding fuel to the fire. Just like people can't simply tell me something that would erase/talk me out of my ADHD/depression/anxiety disorder, you also cannot simply argue/reassure/persuade people out of scrupulosity. We should not try. We have a responsibility to consider that it's outright harmful to do so, and to disengage.

#this is a massive pet peeve of mine #im not mad at the people who responded about religion and religious thinking bc it took me time to realize what this was too #like im sure i used to view these kinds of questions in a more...idk flippant light when i was a teenager and maybe even in my 20's #as i became more educated about my own mental health though i started to realize the pattern in these fears #and like many of you i probably originally started replying to people with scrupulosity or similar religious anxieties genuinely #not realizing at first that replying to their fears or questions was inevitable harmful #not realizing that hey actually this is far above my paygrade #ocd/obsessive thinking and anxiety spirals can be crippling life ruining and immensely painful #and unfortunately my love of theological discussions sometimes tripped me RIGHT into what was essentially self-harm #so im not mad at other people for also making that mistake - but i am asking everyone to think about this actively #its too easy to leap in without considering if the discussion is healthy to have for our discussion partner #its definitely too easy to contribute to the pain and fear while only meaning to genuinely help what is misunderstood as a mere “worry”#bc these arent just small fears or worries but thoughts that are causing them immense pain

99 notes · View notes

sasaranurude · 6 months ago

Text

I'm a loser who both spends too much time playing gacha games and loves to hear myself talk, so here's another game review style post, this time covering my first day playing Break My Case. This time I'm not even being a little hater! I'm a lover! I'm cringe! I'm free! I love you Coly! I love you ikemen gacha games!!!!!!!

Break My Case is a new puzzle-music-adventure mobile game from Coly, the developers behind Mahoutsukai no Yakusoku and On Air. More relevant to BMC/BreMai is their game Stand My Heroes, with which it shares a writer, some gameplay elements, and of course a naming convention. Coly has developed a bit of a cult following for their unique status in the Japanese mobile gaming world: they're a company that was founded by women and hires women to make games for women. They put a lot of soul into their games. From the start, BMC is no different!

"Could you have pulled a clean version of this image from the internet so it didn't have all the game junk" no. it's my tumblr and you get my screenshots.

I (with help from friends) overviewed the initial Break My Case announcement back when it dropped. You can read that here! I said in that post that I thought a "dark rhythm game" would be a really cool direction for the game… and that's more or less what we got! GO ME!!!!!

First: the game's presentation is fantastic. Super slick graphical design and just amazing atmosphere. The sound design of this game is incredible. Genuinely. Really, really, good. All the music is amazing—I'm not knowledgeable enough to say anything other than "IT SLAPS!", but it totally does slap. The illustrations for the cards are all wonderfully atmospheric in and of themselves, and are just a delight to look at on the homescreen with its chill background music. Even just navigating menus is a sleek, seamless experience. The live2d is well-done, although it clashes a tad with the art style for a bit of an uncanny look at times.

The atmosphere! The atmospheeeeeeere!!!

Of course, the draw to this game is the characters and story, so let's jump into that. I'll admit right now that I read the story through a machine translation—I have aaaalmost enough Japanese knowledge to fill in the gaps, especially since the story is fully voiced, but I'm definitely not getting the full nuance of the story that someone fluent in Japanese is going to get. THAT SAID, after completing the prologue, I was definitely intrigued enough that I want to continue slogging through the MTL just to read more! There's a great setup, centered around the bar Aporia and its three modes—a daytime cafe, a nighttime members-only bar, and, secretly, a "fixer" service who'll help anyone with any problem. Our main character, a woman who was just forced to quit her job at a corrupt company, gets hired to replace Aporia's eccentric owner while he goes on a who-knows-how-long vacation. The owner also has the role of "tail"—as in, the tail a lizard sheds to avoid being eaten. If anything in the fixer service goes wrong, it's the owner who takes the fall and the blame. This hasn't come to mean much in practice yet in the (quite short) prologue, but it's a fascinating setup. The story promises to touch on themes of the threads that weave our lives together, how small meetings can lead to massive life changes, and whether any human being is truly replaceable, even in our modern corporate world where people are treated like cogs in a machine. According to a staff interview, there are a handful of references to Stand My Heroes in BreMai, but the games' settings aren't otherwise closely linked.

Rough translation in alt text. The Aporia manager Ai may be the most mysterious, intimidating character, but he also beefs with a parrot the first time you meet him, so...

All the characters are staff at Aporia with various unique roles and background. The prologue just gives you a little bit of each of them, but everyone does show up, and they all have interesting dynamics with each other already. Ai, the stern manager, has some history with the MC that he refuses to divulge, and goes so far as to force psychologist Riku to agree to not look into it. The range of relationships among the staff run the gamut from the calm and mature friendship between fortune teller Kiho and art teacher Kyoya, to the unfaltering dedication of Yu to his ex-mafioso savior Tomose, to the ridiculous Takeru and Soyogu who spend their first appearance waking up after having gotten black-out drunk together the night before. My favorite dynamic of all so far is that of Kou and Mao—Kou is a playboy who insists he's not a playboy, and is introduced evading a woman by… asking the icy Mao to pretend to be his boyfriend so that she thinks he's taken and gay and leaves him alone. Which Mao exasperatedly agrees to, telling Kou that he's used up his allotment for this month which ohmygod how often does Kou do this. Kou if you're asking this guy to pretend to be your gay lover so often he gives you a monthly limit I think you might just have to admit you want him to actually be your gay lover, Kou, oh my god—

Rough TL in alt text. Kou is letting the implication do all the heavy lifting here. He technically never said he was dating Mao. Technically.

youtube

On to the gameplay. There's gameplay! Unique gameplay! Good unique gameplay! Oh my god, uncharted joseimuke territory! The main gameplay mode is a match-3 puzzle game with rhythm elements. As in other rhythm games, each song in the game is its own level, more or less. (Each character has two unique songs, and three songs shared with the other members of their unit.) You set up a team with cards you've collected from the gacha, which determine your power level and special skills. The "leader" of the team has to be the character whose level you've selected. The puzzle gameplay is a tile-swapping match 3—think bejeweled or candy crush—but the tiles you've matched are only cleared once a bar sliding across the screen hits them, clearing them in tune with the song. Everything cleared in a single swipe of the bar ups the combo counter. There's also a life system, where if the bar slides across the screen without clearing a single match, you lose a life… But the bar moves pretty slow. You're not likely to game over or even lose a single life any time soon. There are more difficult versions of the levels I've yet to unlock, so I'm sure the life meter becomes relevant then. There's also "auto" and "loop" features if you want to grind a level over and over for exp and items, but, of course, the computer can't score as high as you playing it yourself.

And, really, it's fun to play, so why would you want to!? The sound of matches clearing with the music is so satisfying and really makes you want to combo as high as possible. Once you've matched some tiles, you can't move them again, nor use them in a second match (eg, in a cross shape), so if you want to maximize your combo and make as many matches as possible with what's on the board, you have to think ahead about which matches you're going to make. The bar slowly crossing the screen adds a visual timed element that gives some urgency to putting all the matches together. It definitely feels like a game you can pick up an instinct for over time, which is super fun.

All in all, a really solid, enjoyable little puzzle game. It would be fun to play even without the promise of anime boys. Stand My Heroes is also a match-3, for the record, which is what really cements the two games as being part of the same series.

Admittedly, the anime boy staring at you while you play musical candy crush is a little disconcerting.

The second gameplay mode is "Snap'n Spin", a… gameplay-lite mode that just puts chibi characters in random strange situations and lets you take pictures of them. The mode is explained to be a video game within the world of BreMai, so it's not even trying to be realistic or relevant to anything else in the game. Once you take your pokemon snaps of the boys, they get a fun little caption. You can save up to 40 pictures in your album. Other than being cute, the main way this mode interfaces with the rest of the game is that it's the primary way to unlock card stories for the cards you pulled in gacha.

This gameplay mode is... cute? I guess? It being so disconnected from the style and aesthetics of the entire rest of the game felt weird. The chibis are adorable, so it has that going for it. And I do like some of the captions you get on the photos afterwards. My favorite were the scenes you catch of a character drinking, and then the caption reveals their current favorite drink. That's a delightful detail for a game set in a bar. Mostly, though, this mode left me wondering "why?" ...And I imagine the answer is something like "because merchandisable chibi characters are a requirement for joseimuke games." This mode could've been anything so long as these cute, starry little dudes were in it.

Urara here hated the drink and the caption revealed that, lately, his favorite thing is sparkling water. He's the youngest character in the cast, so I guess he hasn't grown into booze yet...

One last feature I want to mention is the jukebox. Like many games, BreMai has a music player that lets you listen to tracks from the game… But its music player is, genuinely, a fully-featured music player app with shuffle, repeat, lyric displays, and even background play that works when you're in another app or your phone is off. What! Wild! When I first learned a few days ago that BreMai had a built-in player for its BGM tracks, my first thought was "Well, what's stopping someone from downloading the game just to use the music player and never spending a cent on it? Wouldn't you rather have the songs on spotify so you at least get a pittance of ad revenue, in that case? It's more than nothing."

But having played the game now, I see what they did to prevent that, lol. You don't unlock the songs in the jukebox until you get an SS score on the song's level. Which, I mean, that's normal rhythm game stuff, of course. Can't fault that decision. But, as in other gacha rhythm games, your score in a level depends on the power of your team of cards, and the cards you get from the initial handful of pulls aren't gonna get you anywhere near an SS score without significant investment. So you're either buying in-game currency to buy upgrade items, more gacha pulls, or both. Of course, you can also put a bunch of time into grinding for upgrade items—they drop from levels. Gacha currency is harder to come by. So you're not getting songs in the player without actually playing the game lmfao. The character solo songs in particular (the ones with vocals rather than just instrumentals) also require you to build up rapport with that character—the game calls it "Nice". You build up Nice with them by playing their other songs and using their cards in levels. It takes 1000 Nice on a character to unlock their song. In my first day of playing, I was able to get one character to about 250 Nice, another to 200, and a handful more with a few points, so it builds at an okay pace. There's ways to pay to speed up the grinding for Nice and for upgrade items with things like level skip tickets. So, basically: you're not getting that music player to a useful state without investing either money or time, lmao. Is paying-or-grinding to get cool music you can listen to while not playing the game more "worth it" than the usual freemium game goals of better units, new in-game outfits, or prettier card illustrations? ...Honestly, maybe it is? It's novel, at least.

All gacha rhythm games have the same card select screen, don't they. These were my cards' levels after my first day of play, and you can see they didn't quite reach a suggested score of "A", much less the maximum "SS".

But I do want to stress, the monetization is, for the most part, pretty easy to ignore. Nothing in-your-face. The button to go to the shop screen is a different color, but it's not flashing with an eternal indicator, it's not popping up at every second, it's just sitting there alongside all the other menu buttons. The game isn't shoving timers in your face at all times—there's a stamina meter, which is mildly annoying, but you get ten plays when it's full, and if you're just playing casually you're probably not going to want to play the puzzle game over and over enough to fully deplete that. I know the bar is on the damn floor here but Tokyo Debunker seriously made me realize how bad it can be with mobile game monetization. BreMai is freemium, yeah, but as far as dark patterns go, it's not egregiously bad.

So, the verdict: if you're a joseimuke game fan and aren't afraid to play a game that probably won't get an English port and doesn't even have a fan translation yet (which I realize is already counting out 99.99% of people), definitely give this one a try. See if you like the gameplay—it really is worth trying—and do check out the story if you've got the ability. Or just look at the pretty anime boys.

#suchobabbles #break my case #do you know how self-conscious i feel posting this. its actually so bad #so many feelings like 'did you seriously just write 2k words about a gacha game you played for a single day'#'why are you trying to pretend to be a game reviewer you have no qualifications and nobody cares about your opinions'#'stop roleplaying like youre a columnist blogger in the 2010s youre literally a tumblr nobody'#but im fighting the demons and im posting this anyways

26 notes · View notes

your-local-squip-fanatic · 2 months ago

Text

Ladies, gents, nonbinary pals and everything in between...

The Two SQUIPs AU finally begins production. Well, it has a proper name, at least.

Things I wanna yap about rq:

-THIS IS MY FIRST BMC FIC I'VE WRITTEN, YEAAA!! So uhh... everyone will probably be a bit OOC, I'm trying fellas

-Musical is the manical asshole. Book is the actually responsible one that wants Jeremy to succeed. They're the fatherly one, if you will.

-As one can guess, I'll largely base this off the musical with some book elements

-I'm taking notes from both Two River AND Broadway for Musical, but they appear as the iconic circut board coat wearing Jason Tam version. Sorry, Eric!

-On that note, Book does actually look and sound like Keanu. Musical... sounds the same, because JASON TAM!

-Jeremy will give nicknames to his SQUIPs to talk to them easier.. but I'm making you wait until I release the first part to get their names! HEHEHE

-I will shamelessly be including a cameo by someone veeeery important to my SQUIP OC's lore because I can and it doesn't affect the plot. Keep your eyes peeled for a boy with vitiligo!

-And finally, the finale with the play will be a liiiiittle different, it'll be good trust :3

#astrid speaks #two squips au #bmc au #be more chill #fan au #alternate universe

19 notes · View notes

sunshine-embry · 4 months ago

Text

Just because I need to yap about my opinions :3

I have the urge to rant about my Be More Chill Two River vs Broadway version, so I am! I might make another post of just things I like in the songs or entire musical itself if I ever feel motivated enough to 🤗

Before I yap a lot, I just need to say I'm a bit biased towards the Broadway version because I have a record of it 😁

Anyway!

More Than Survive: I personally prefer the Broadway version, BUT I HAVE REASONS I PROMISE. Idk why but the two river version feels a bit too fast for me, but that could just be because I'm used to hearing the Broadway version that I think is slowed down a bit. 🤔

Besides from that, the conversation that Brooke and Chloe have I think is better in the two river version because it introduces Madeline, which Jeremy uses as a story in Be More Chill Part 1 (does that sentence make sense?) Meanwhile the conversation in the broadway version is just there 😑

The "Christines" in the Two River version feels especially too fast, like they were trying to cut down the run time, while the Broadway version just lets it go at a slower pace which I really like.

I also prefer the instrumentals in the Broadway version (idk if there's actually any change to them, it's just at a more digestible pace like I said before) but I see people saying that the Broadway instrumentals of the songs are worse? Idk, I just like it better.

I Love Play Rehearsal: I don't have anything much to say about I Love Play Rehearsal, but I still do have a few things. I really don't prefer any version, they're both equal to me.

Also the fact that in the Broadway version, Christine goes on a small rant about how there isn't any good roles for women in theater anymore which is kinda ironic considering that one of the main criticisms of Be More Chill is that the girl characters are all one-note characters :/

In the Broadway version, I really love when Stephanie Hsu emphasizes the "I LOVE play rehearsal" at the end, it makes me laugh every time without fail.

Also, the Broadway version is faster than the two river version and I don't like that. I guess I just like slow songs :/

The Squip Song Something about the Broadway version of this song makes me so happy and idk why.

Anyway, I really like in the Broadway version when Jeremy whispers drugs even though he gets stoned with Michael. It's funny.

I am kinda sad that the Broadway version cut out the one part with Rich after "it helps you rule", 'cause it was really funny to me. This whole song is really funny to me.

I don't have that much to talk about for the Squip Song 'cause I usually listen to the broadway version because it makes me very very happy for no reason (literally, if you see me listening to it, I will actually smile sm)

Two Player Game: I know I'm going to come on strongly rn, but two player game is my least favorite Broadway version of a BMC song. Fight me.

First of all, the instrumentation kinda falls flat. The original gives such a warm feel to it if you know what I mean, but the Broadway one just kinda feels soulless.

I don't know how to explain it, but just know that I prefer the two river version wayyy over the Broadway version.

The Squip Enters: This is not a song, it's nearly a minute of screaming 🤗

Be More Chill Part 1: My main thing I don't like in the Broadway version of this is the Squip's talking voice. Emphasis on talking voice.

I adore how Jason Tam sings the new part added to the song, I love it sm. But I don't like the smoker voice. It gives me the creeps.

Besides that, like I said before, I love the new addition to the song in the Broadway version, it makes me happy for reasons I can't even begin to explain.

In both versions, I really like the part where Jeremy is telling Chloe and Brooke about how he used to date Madeline even though he didn't. Speaking of Madeline, I have a Madeline ask blog called @tres-magnifique (yes, I did only add this here to self-sponser)

Do You Wanna Ride?: I'm pretty sure it's nearly identical in both versions, having similar instrumentals and the same actresses in both. There's nothing much to talk about.

Be More Chill Part 2: Controversial opinion, but Be More Chill pt 1 should just be called Be More Chill and this song should be called Be More Chill Reprise. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. I have nothing else to say about this song.

I can't do MTS reprise or Sync Up because they are two very different songs.

A Guy That I'd Kinda Be Into: Controversial opinion, I don't like this song. I tried to force myself to like it, but something about it I don't like. Like I said for the past two - correct me if I'm wrong - but I'm pretty sure the two versions are basically the same, there's no version I prefer.

Upgrade: Finally something I can yap about! First of all, I prefer the Broadway version. It's just something about it I really like!

I really like how Brooke tries to speak French knowing that Jeremy used to date Madeline. I just think that it's a nice touch.

Anyway, I really like that Brooke and The Squip don't share a part at the beginning, because the two river version where they do makes me really uncomfortable. Plus, I really like Brooke's part in the Broadway version.

I don't understand why they changed "damn" to "now" in the Broadway version. I'm not complaining, but it's just weird to me.

I don't really mind the fact that in the Broadway version, they take out Jake's part about getting sporty and playing cricket. I know that some people compare it to the part in Voices In My Head, in which Jake asks Christine out using something that he likes, but Jeremy does it using something she likes, but Idrc.

What I am kinda mad that they took out in the Broadway version though, is that they took out the part where Jake talks about his parents being in a money laundering scheme. Idk, it just makes me kinda sad.

I'm so glad that in the Broadway version they made Loser Geek Whatever it's own song. IT'S SO GOOD JUST FOR A SMAL PART?!?! LIKE WHAT?!?! I might be a little biased considering it's my favorite BMC song, but still though I'm so happy 😁

I also like how they added the whole "I'm tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am" part, because it really shows that everyone (minus Michael) isn't happy with something and it just adds another layer to their characters. The overlapping also just makes me happy. I think that's it for upgrade.

I'm too lazy to rant anymore, tell me if u want me to do this with the second act. Also thank you for listening to me yap for a solid 10 minutes.

#bmc musical #be more chill #bmc #/nbh #i yap a lot

13 notes · View notes