#mikecouch

Hi there thanks for the ask I’m happy to answer even if we don’t agree.

I personally never interpreted this line as an order

Technically all we have here is a just a line. Unfortunately we don’t really know the tone he’s using or how he’s saying it because we’re just reading the text without anyone actually speaking. There’s not even any dialogue blips for us to guess what this character sounded like. I’ve never really interpreted this line as an “order” maybe more like a “suggestion” or even a “plea”?

I definitely understand why it wouldn’t sound that way to most people though, after all it kind of stands in contradiction to the way Michael speaks to his father in the end of SL speech but in my personal interpretation of Michael he would’ve drastically changed after the events of 1983 and his way of speaking, especially to William, would have too.

In my view teenage Michael speaks very directly and doesn’t really use words like “please” because he doesn’t want to appear weak. Michael’s whole thing in my interpretation of him is that he feels powerless so he feels like he has to appear strong to fight that feeling of helplessness. I think he picks on CC specifically because he is a reminder of everything Michael doesn’t want to be and all the traits he is angry at in himself that he once had. So bullying his brother, maybe even subconsciously, is kind of his way of helping him out. He needs to toughen up because he’ll never survive the way he is now. But he personally believes that his bullying is just harmless pranks he doesn’t think he’s going too far which is why he’s against what William is doing here. William, especially in this moment, is scary as hell. He’s just come home belligerently drunk after killing a child and breaking numerous traffic laws. Who knows his clothes are probably still covered in Charlie’s blood as he probably hasn’t had time to change or anything and her murder wasn’t as planned as the others. Michael probably thought whatever he was going to do to his brother he was probably going to die that night and as we know from his reaction to CC actually dying Michael is against that so he tries to stop him. But because Michael is probably understandably scared of William he does the only thing he knows how to do when he feels threatened and tries to act more in control than he actually is and the way he does this is by emulating the most “powerful” person he knows, that being William himself. Talking to him as if he were an equal, in my mind, was his way of trying to gain control in a situation where he felt like he had none.

I also don’t think that at this point in his life Michael is really acting subservient to William. I think part of why he acted out as a teenager was to act in a way that William wouldn’t like on purpose to piss him off. William wants him to be “presentable” and “polite” and Michael is doing everything in his power to be Not That. The teenage Michael that exists in my mind really wants to act like he doesn’t care or isn’t scared of William at all. And this kinda goes back to my interpretation that he doesn’t want to seem “weak”. This is why in my timeline CC never learns that Michael helped him out this night. He is constantly trying to outrun the “caring about his family” allegations on account of it making him seem “soft”.