thinking about Peter and Jet and names and how differently they handle them and it is so tasty. even if Nureyev is “more” nameless than Jet is and the target his name would put on his back might be bigger, for both of them that information is extremely personal and shouldn’t leave the circle of a few trusted people. but Jet approaches that situation in such a strikingly different way. he doesn’t pick an alias, not even a nickname. he doesn’t hide behind any other word, he simply holds out on his name till it is time and is completely open about it, letting others know it is something they are to learn when he can trust them. people can call him what they want but they should always know it’s not really him, and they aren’t allowed an illusion of being close to him or knowing him.
but at the same time they can be assured of his complete honesty. whenever they’re talking to the big guy, they know he’s not playing a role. he’s just him, they just don’t know who “he” is yet. and that is just so amazingly mature of him. “we’re not there yet” and nothing else, no matter how much he is pestered. he won’t sacrifice his boundaries and safety, but he won’t take the seemingly easy way and let others fool themselves thinking they’re closer than they truly are, and that he is who they think he is. there is complete clarity in his relationship with others and the amount of trust between them
while Peter “Con Artist” Nureyev changes names and faces quicker than you can keep track of, always offering others a new flashy thing to call him, a name that he has admitted to have the purpose of dictating how others see him. he chooses “power names” to assert his control over the situation and tells people exactly who they should see him as. a king. a duke. etc. he treats his names as identities - not just in the alias sense, but the quite literal names themselves, the combination of letters that happens to have some meaning embeded into it. he takes that meaning and becomes it, and keeps his true self hidden.
he tells others who he is for the day, and makes them believe the mask and think they know him since they know what to call him, where to find him. and truly, there are probably very few things that are more isolating than staying completely hidden and unseen in the presence of people who believe that they already know you.
that makes me wonder how he handles being around people who will see him again, tomorrow, and the day after that. his identities can’t hold up for too long can they. what name does he give to someone who he knows will stay in his life, at least for a while?
with Juno it was just his full real name, a huge gift, a huge step towards vulnerability. but then there’s the crime family, which he might have thought he didn’t really want to be a part of, but knew somewhere deep inside that spending all that time with them pretending to be someone else would probably be too much even for him. and wouldn’t cut it. how long could he keep up the act if it came to it? how believable would it be?
maybe taking one part of his real name - Peter - and hiding it in the shadow of a made-up one, the one that people would use for him most often, was him finding a compromise, leaving himself a small window to breathe, an access to his real self when the act is close to falling apart. and that is so important with someone so lost behind the countless short-lived masks, so not used to being seen.
anyway i can’t wait to lose it when he shares his real name with the whole crew
dailybridgerton
izzy806
origamiaround
stormborns
baratheonpilled
dededos
yousharknotpass
