I love a snack that’s also a little bit of an activity. peeling a clementine, stringing a cheese, roasting marshmallows, stuff like that. eating a pomegranate is like a game of sudoku to me.
I feel like I stepped outside to clear my head and now I'm back in the soup thinking about jerejean again
I've jotted down a bunch of loose ideas for fics but I'm currently stuck on the tension that's been building between them. Like going from mutual attraction, to the realization that they're both into men, to a bunch of moments that bring them face to face with that attraction becoming pressing, to the scene with Jab in Jean's lap and Renee's "every three out of five texts has been about him"
Jean is still getting used to being allowed to want things. Jeremy wants to prioritize Jean's agency (and thinks he taints everything he touches, his attraction or his lust is a poisnonous thing). idk I love the idea of them just having to kind of deal with things coming to a head
like what if they're in the trojan's locker room and they think they're alone. practice has long since ended and they're getting their things together, taking their time with it. jean doesn't realize that jeremy's standing so close to him. he turns around and jeremy is right there and everything just kind of hangs between them.
time slows to molasses and jean catalogues each moment -- greedily hoards them away to examine later, when he's alone. the way jeremy's mouth hangs open, halfway through a word. jeremy's attention flicking rapidly between jean's eyes and his mouth. how jeremy sways toward him, so easily that it feels more like a magnetic pull than a conscious decision.
the sound of the door banging open around the corner. xavier and emma's voices distorting this quiet, isolated moment between them until it becomes something claustrophobic.
jeremy and jean gather their bags, walk out to the car, and have to deal with the weight of this thing between them being out in the open now, well before either of them was ready for it
Trojans again! They all fell asleep after the fourth match Jean insisted on putting or smth like that.
I'm putting the decor version as well, cause I did it entirely and wouldn't want that carpet to be left unseen (I had to do the bg fully cause i couldn't figure out the perspective with their gigantic bodies - then i got carried away). This and the papasan chair, obviously.
Had a lot of fun on this one.
Edit : I had not read tgr chapter 20 before drawing this. Now that I have, I believe those of you who also have can imagine my mental state.
I 1.) find it hilarious that he thinks Laila hasn’t noticed his attraction to Jean . And 2.) find it insane that the thinks he genuinely didn’t mean anything by “she’s pretty, right?” After pausing the video he was watching to study Renee more closely and spending a good paragraph pretty much telling us he could never compare to her because she was a.) very pretty and b.) strong/dangerous enough to get Jean out of EAU and c.) (unspoken) a girl. Oh Jeremy Knox you and your refusal to acknowledge your feelings will be the death of us all
the oscillating third person limited narration in TSC and TGR is so interesting
Like there are so many scenes where the parallels with other moments really provided more context than I initially realized
Exhibit #1:
The moment where Jean is staring at Annalise and Jeremy automatically interprets it as attraction/interest.
BUT the last time Jean scrutinized one of Jeremy's siblings like that, it was from Jean's POV. And we got to see that he was mapping out the features he shared with Jeremy. Like huh he has Jeremy's beautiful caramel brown hair and lovely cheekbones anyway.
Exhibit #2:
The scene where Jeremy opens up about his past drug use and Jean's "Look at me [...] You are my partner. My success is your success; your failure is my failure. Do not ever backslide, Jeremy. I will not forgive you." Which Jeremy interprets at condemnation.
BUT in that moment he says that Jean's expression is inscrutable. From Jean's POV, there are a few parallels to draw on.
Jean has specifically wanted Jeremy to look at him during conversations when Jeremy is disparaging himself or not taking care of himself. It's a point of connection, and a way for Jean to communicate the magnitude of his words.
He has also used the Raven partner mantra as a way to communicate how much he cares about Jeremy. It's really his only reference point for that kind of emotional intensity because he never really had friends. Jeremy has, ironically, used it in a similar way because he's recognized that it helps Jean understand his concern.
It's ironic because in those moments, Jean has been like ah, when I say that it's because I care about you, but when you say that it's because you're my captain and you know I could ruin your reputation. And now Jeremy is like ah, when I say that it's because I care about you, but when you say that it's because you know I'm a fuck up and you'd be fair to abandon me.
So it really feels like Jean listens to Jeremy talk about coke not really helping anything feel better, and being a part of a series of tragedies in his life. And then he says, "you are my partner, do not backslide, I will not forgive you." And he means, "I care about you, I don't want to watch you go through that again, promise me you won't."
might just be the worms in my brain whispering conspiracies to me but I'm feeling nervous about some of the foreshadowing in TSC and TGR
Specifically:
Bryson threatening to plant drugs in Jeremy's room
Jeremy's life getting increasingly busy -- like he's been exhausted and he knows how much energy coke used to give him
Whatever the fuck this is: "'It's my last year.' Jeremy wouldn't think if he meant as a Trojan or ever." Could be about never playing Exy again, but I'd be shocked if he wasn't experiencing even a little bit of suicidal ideation.
And this fuckass line: "I'd rather die than ever be that person again. Believe me."
AND: "Do not ever backslide, Jeremy. I will not forgive you."
I do feel like Nora is setting Jeremy up to get at least close to relapsing in TBC. I don't necessarily think he'll try to off himself about it, but I think that the shame would eat him alive and stop him from getting help if he relapsed/thought he was at risk of relapsing.
It all kind of looks like he's heading toward a self-worth spiral where he can't hold himself together and feels like he'd be better off dead than inflicting himself on the people he cares about. Which could be actual suicidal thoughts, or could be the catalyst for him pulling back and isolating himself even more.
idk i'm spooked guys, what suffering is in store for you Jeremy?
Someone told me today while we were talking about Jeremy Knox that he doesn't self medicate.
So we know there are many different ways to self medicate. This is a true fact. But one way is through sex. Having sex with multiple people, having sex very often, having sex for the sole purpose of filling a gap somewhere. Now we know Jeremy does all this. Jeremy Knox is LITERALLY self medicating through sex.
It's actually canon, like it's not even a headcanon genuinely. He does this is the books.
Why couldn't she wrap her head around this VERY OBVIOUS fact?
I think this is such an important parallel to draw because denial is a really central part of Jeremy's character. Coke and sex function similarly for him but he can't outright acknowledge that because he'd have to admit that he's Not Okay. The reader has to make that key connection without his help.
Self-medicating, at a very baseline level, involves using psychoactive substances (i.e., cocaine, opioids, alcohol, etc.) without the guidance of a medical professional to dissociate from, alleviate, or lower emotional distress. This inherently involves altering your body's physical state through stimulants (i.e., cocaine, caffeine, etc.) or depressants (i.e., alcohol, opioids). Stimulants trigger your sympathetic nervous system -- your fight/flight response.
Self-harm, at a very baseline level, involves using an unsafe or destructive activity or action to dissociate from, alleviate, or lower emotional distress. This often involves altering your body's physical state by triggering your sympathetic nervous system + the release of endorphines/adrenaline (i.e., sex, physical pain, excessive spending, gambling, risky behaviour, physical altercations, etc.).
It's made clear in the text that sex is explicity a replacement for cocaine. During his conversation with Jean, he acknowledges that he reflexively thinks about the bitter taste of cocaine when he's upset/triggered. Which means that every time we've seen him have sex following a distressing situation, he's likely thinking about getting high and then setting up a hook-up since that isn't an option anymore.
In TGR he rejects Faser's advances until he's in so much distress that he can't cope any other way. It isn't something that he actively pursues until he's hurting, and then clearly uses the experience to get out of his head for a bit.
So sure, semantically sex is not technically self-medication (no psycho-active substance). But describing it that way really beautifully highlights how he replaced substance abuse with sex as a way to cope. Which is really common in people recovering from addiction because oftentimes rehab/recovery programs treat the physical dependence, but not the stressors that caused the person to begin using substances to cope.
Which means that Jeremy left rehab having lost his primary distress tolerance strategy (cocaine). And he's still trapped in that fuckass abusive house AND he's riddled with guilt and grief over Noah's death. It's implied that he's always used sex as a coping strategy of sorts (when he mentions he wasn't as careful or discrete as other gay athletes when he was in high school). But I imagine that his reliance on sex (and denial/minimizing/dismissing his pain) ratcheted up after he couldn't use coke anymore. Ergo, it serves the same function as self-medication.
Jeremy's family positioning themselves as a permanent and omnipotent facet of his life is so so insidious. It means he has no way out as long as he's stuck believing that
When he complies with them he has to carve out every unacceptable part of who he is and hope he can patch himself back together after. "You go away when you go home" like yeah Jean that's exactly it.
He's losing himself more and more, and it'll never be enough but maybe next time they'll love him. Maybe if he can go long enough without fucking everything up he'll earn it, he just needs to try harder. ("It's been four years [...] If she doesn't know you enough to trust you now, she never will." "You don't know that."]
AND THEN when he's rebelling against their expectations, he can only get close to what he actually wants if it's hurting him. Jeremy, baby, do we feel like we don't deserve kind and loving relationships? Does it have to hurt because you've never been truly happy without being punished for it?
He loves Exy too much and they refuse to acknowledge that that part of his life exists. He loves a boy too much and they show Jeremy he's only as good as the next shiny object that comes along. He loves his friends too much and they tear them away because he needs a reminder of who's really in control.
