I get that but I think it's a little bit backwards thinking. Of course if MC were in a different situation, he could have had a different outcome. The problem is he couldn't reasonably be expected to do that because his situation was already dire on paper from an early age. He explicitly states the closest he had to a friend was the janitor. That's not normal even for the jerkiest of jerks. Clearly the people at school had already began to ostracize him. And at home he had no father to teach him how to stand up for himself. No mother to do anything but blame him for everything that went wrong. No sister to ever act like anything but a prankster nuisance. So the idea that he should have just studied, worked out and stood up alone to all his bullies is a bit of an absurd ask.
I do think you may be, indeed, reading a bit too much into things. The game lays out again and again how regretful the mc is about how things turned out and always puts the blame on him. The thing, I think, we're supposed to take away is that the mc is taking this chance to make things better. If the world was also changed to make it easier it'd kinda undermine a lot of the development he's received, though this could be possible. I'll get back to that later.
And also I find the home situation to be bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Flora and her brother were in the same situation initially, so unless she is a prodigy who does things easier, which I find unlikely as multiple we're shown how diligent she is, the only reason why she has it easier is, unironically, because she actually works harder. This also comes into a play with an amusing line where Flora complains about how hard she has to work to earn her mother's approval while the mc can do the bare minimum and
fuck her gain her love.
If no one interfered and he was given a second chance with absolutely no variables changed, he almost certainly would have wound up in the exact same place.
Knowledge about the future seems like a pretty good variable to change.
For all the shade people throw onto Mer, it may very well end up being her plots that saved his life this time. If she did not manipulate everyone around him, he may not have formed the initial bonds necessary to break the cycle. After all, the two people that really warm up to MC immediately are isabelle and lindsey. And they are exactly the two people she manipulated the most.
This is a very good point and now we return to what I said earlier about things changing. I do agree that the main catalysts for the change are these two. Hell, if memory serves correctly, the only reason Lindsey and mc got close was due to her falling, maybe by Mer's influence. So I don't think mc's social standing got changed outright, but the situations were designed to give him an easier shot.
I am curious though, what flashback are you speaking of? I've seen a lot of dream sequences but I don't really recall any proper flashbacks. Maybe I have overlooked a scene that reframes this conversation.
This one:
At a guess, I think they're referring to the car wash. He's on semi-decent terms with his sister and most of the girls (though Kate was still vile), he at least has the option to comfort his crying mother in a bikini (and it's mentioned he canonically made fun of her, which surely didn't help her feelings for him), and most vitally, Lindsey actually came over to help him with the janitor's closet and was nice/friendly to him on the one occasion he'd actually spoken to her. I don't think it undermines the very real bullying he faced (especially since, again, we never actually see the abuse he doubtless gets from the other guys at the school or what Kate's posse is like separately from Kate), but there were signs that things weren't always completely awful.
Out of all of them, that one? Lol that's literally written as the least realistic dream out of all of them. They obviously never organized a school bikini car wash, that was obviously a reoccurring sexy dream of his. They were all intentionally incredibly out of character in that one for comedic effect. With only a brief reprieve for an emotional moment with his mom which is probably foreshadowing something for later.
Now I think you're discrediting the thing too much. Of course there are things the mc embellishes, he even admits as much, but the event most definitely still happened. This flashback occurs right after Lindsey jumps, it was a memory of the one time they talked. The mom part confirms that a car wash did happen, as why would the mc remember her crying and feeling bad about it if he was fantasizing.
It being just all fake would ruin the scene and take away the from emotional impact of Lindsey jumping.
