#14a

Warning: This is just what I would personally want somebody that could read my mind to tell me, you might not agree with some things I say and that’s totally fine. Peace.

Okay, self.

So you cope with the Jaggie situation just fine on normal days, that’s a fact right? You absolutely hate it, of course you do. Who ruins Japril for a couple with zero chemistry who popped up out of nowhere? Who turns Maggie into a black version of April simply so she can match Jackson when she was such a strong, brilliant character before? Of course you cannon believe this is actually happening to you favorite couple, the ones who helped you pull through your favorite person’s passing last year, your big exams, your parents’ stupid fights. They were your home, and now they’re getting ruined and you are incredibly mad and sad and devastated over that. But they still remain your OTP, they are still very much alive in your heart and your mind in the fanfiction world, and sometimes that’s just enough for you. Sometimes it’s not, and you wish with all that you have in you that this is just a phase and they will eventually fall back together after they take some time to miss and appreciate each other. But in general, you are copying. You have accepted that Jaggie is happening. You wish it would just happen already and yet you get goosebumps at the single thought of them kissing, but you have learned to live with it.

So why is it that you get depressed every Friday?

You watch the episodes. And the awesome thing is that even though last year you were so boooooooored because there were almost no Japril scenes and the show without them was just MEH, this year you find yourself squealing in excitement at the single sight of the Seattle shots at the beginning. Does that mean you are falling back in love with Grey’s Anatomy as a whole? Probably. It’s taken a 180 degree turn from last year to your eyes, and it’s somehow exciting again. You’re not just watching for Japril anymore, admit it. Because there is not Japril, and still here you are. You laugh out loud with the new interns, you live for those hilarious lines of Bailey’s, you really loved what they did with the Nathan/Megan storyline and you actually teared up at that last scene with the beach and the sunset. You come to like Meredith again -remember those times she was your favorite character back in the early seasons and you only breathed for MerDer? It’s a nostalgic feeling that comes over you when you think about how different your life was back then when you began watching. But back to the point, the show is so interesting to you again and that thrills you to no end. You had to pause the episode for five whole minutes to calm your breathing when Jo’s husband popped up a mere hour ago! You freaking love season 14 girl. Stop denying because you’re probably the only one. And don’t feel guilty for it, for god’s sake.

Then again, you get what everyone has been saying about April not having a stoyline, which is really sad come think of it. And Sarah Drew is such a precious human and such an incredible actress and she is REAL and she deserves better than to play a side-character. Yet she seems pretty happy at all those selfies and it looks like she’s having a blast with Kelly, but for sure that might as well be just for show. You don’t know what’s going on behind the camera’s, only they do. What you know, however, is that she clearly loves acting and feels blessed for being on Grey’s Anatomy, so who are you to decide if she should move on or not? She is a strong woman, more than perfectly capable to make that decision for herself, and you know that she could book herself a hundred movies in a split second with that talent and dedication of hers. If she feels like she is being wasted, wouldn’t she pack her things and go? And yet there she goes in every opportunity given, expressing how grateful she is for being part of something as big as Grey’s, how she loves the show and the people she works with and how she feels so lucky that she is able to provide for her family doing something that she loves. Why would she fake that, Truli? Of all the interview for the 300th, how many actors showed such genuine gratitude? She is happy working on Grey’s. And that secretly gives you such relief it almost hurts, because it means April is here to stay, and you couldn’t be happier about that.

Still, would you want April to have more scenes? DAMN RIGHT YOU WOULD. You miss your girl so much, you miss her being in things, having a story of her own. But then again that’s how you feel every season. No matter how much screen time she gets, it’s obviously never enough cause you only get one episode a week and barely two minutes of April! However, the truth is that the few scenes she has gotten so far this season you have found brilliant. Starting at the only Japril scene of the season, you were amazed by how much she has truly grown, how well she handled the situation with maturity and openness and honesty. You are so proud of your girl. And then she has been interacting with so many people this season, including Owen and Arizona and Alex and Meredith and Maggie and Bailey and Richard and Amelia and the interns and that just makes you so happy because for so long she seemed like she had no people to turn to, while now she has a whole village. And that cafeteria scene at the Amelia/tumor episode was you undoing, just like good old times! Then when she was shot -Holy crap! She had dodged it for eight seasons! :P And when she prayed for Amelia even though they weren’t that close, and then thanked God, with her baby girl in her arms. Ugh, the feels! So April <3 And then that flash-mob mention... how she stammered “that’s not the point” was just plain B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T. Oh, and this last episode you know she got all the good stuff. That “awkwaaaard” line was so well delivered you were laughing for an hour, and the “Stone age” and newspaper parts just killed you. And despite many, you loved how she took a couple of episodes to adjust to the new normal back when she first moved out, to find her way again, to be a bit sad. It was so April. And for fuck’s sake, being emotional doesn’t make you weak. On the contrary, it makes you freaking human. Being able to experience emotions strongly is not a flaw, it’s a gift. It shows mental maturity, and if anything overcoming stuff is making the person go through an entire emotional roller coaster, which in the long run helps them grow and makes them come out stronger and wiser. Let people have emotions.

But you also wish your boy had more screen time, with scenes you could actually watch. Because now most of them are with Maggie, who you can’t say you ever really liked but you just can’t stand her now, and you know that’s not fair to the character but it was inevitable. And you try. You try not to hate on her, you try to be nice because that’s what you were taught. To only spread love, not hate, to see the positive side of things. You credit your grandma for that, too. But man, it’s so damn harddd! And you sure as hell love Kelly and you feel so sorry and mad that they did this to her and her character, because she deserves better than to be hated by en entire fandom. Nobody deserves that, nobody. Remember back when April had a crush on Derek and EVERY SINGLE MERDER FAN hated on Sarah with all their might? How does that make you feel? Hm. Infuriated, mostly. With a very strong urge to run up to your girl and hide her in your arms and protect her from this cruel fandom who thinks it’s okay to hate on real, actual people with real, actual feelings just because someone decided the fictional character they get paid to portray should have a little, fictional crush on another fictional character. That is not okay. And it makes you wonder what kind of shallow, superficial and immature people still go on with it.

Jackson is also getting a lot of hate, and you absolutely hate that. Because despite many other’s that are absolutely in love with April like you are, you are just as absolutely in love with Jackson as well. You have two favorite characters. Jackson and April. Those names are linked together, and you can’t imagine one of them without the other. And just like you hated when April got all that hate back in 12a, you hate how Jackson is getting it now. Do you think he’s different? Yes. He’s definitely less warm and emotional than he used to be. And he’s acting a bit recklessly and immaturely lately, spending money, making rushed decisions... Do you think that makes him an asshole? No. No, you don’t. Because you recognize people have flaws, you recognize people have their moments of immaturity and that they sometimes make mistakes. That only makes them h u m a n. And this short of stuff happen in real life. Sometimes we look at someone and can’t recognize them. It sure has happened to me a couple of times, and I have been the unrecognizable one a couple of others. It’s just how life is sometimes. But Jackson, truly, has done nothing wrong. Not being with April doesn’t make him an asshole. Being with April and thinking about someone else does, and not once has he come close to doing that. He made his stance clear from day one, he didn’t stop April from moving out because he felt like they could never work, or because the idea of Maggie was planted to his head, or for whatever other reason. That doesn’t make him an asshole, not to your eyes at least. That simply makes him honest when it comes to his intentions, and it protected April from getting further hurt as well. Hating his grandpa doesn’t make him an asshole to you, the man was unbelievable! He viewed him as a five-year-old child, ignored his authority, disrespected his choices for his own life and career, compared him to his father -which he KNEW was a soft spot for him and his worst ever nightmare- and was overall an absolute asshole. You hated him too, more than words can express, and you cried in joy when he complained himself to death, don’t deny it!

And also, being interested in someone new, as much as you despise it, doesn’t make Jackson an asshole to you. He is single. April is single. April is obviously already back on tinder and “so ready to be dating”, and you don’t see how Jackson is faulted for wanting the same thing. If anything, you wanted him to start something knew, just for the sake of realizing how there was nobody that could make him feel the way April did, that affected him and made him a better person like she used to. On the other hand the last thing you wanted was for him to be in a relationship with someone he looked good with, so the lack of chemistry between Jesse and Kelly is a gift from heaven to your eyes. Do you like the fact that they’re step-siblings? No, you fucking hate it. Do you think it’s a deal breaker. Ugh, that’s another no. First of all because they didn’t grow up as siblings, and have only gotten relatively closer since her mom died a few months ago. You could have seen them as siblings, but that bond was never really explored -whereas even though Owen and April are not related, their relationship was evolved in such a sibling-like way through the years that you practically view him as her older brother. And besides, you’d be a fucking hypocrite if you said that the fact that their parents got married is a deal breaker for you, since you know that that fact didn’t stop you from having as your first ever OTP a pair of 17-year-old step-siblings (who actually lived under the same roof for at least three years) and you almost cheered yourself to death when they got married at the end of the series. Yes, you know I’m talking about the Greek comic series “Ευτυχισμένοι Μαζί” (Eytyxismenoi Mazi/Together Forever) you freaking dumbass, don’t play innocent on me. You loved that show growing up, and you loved Markos and Eva together, step-siblings aside. And you found their parents’ reactions when they found out absolutely hilarious. You will not find Catherine and Richard’s reactions hilarious, however, no matter which they are, since you don’t find the entire storyline okay at all. Still, you are hoping with all that you have in you that the embarrassingly obvious luck of chemistry between the actors, along with the fact that practically every Grey’s Anatomy fan not only doesn’t ship them but hates them together, will result in the eventual dropping of this ridiculous storyline, which would NEVER have happened, by the way, after what happened in Montana. If Montana had never happened you might be better at believing it, but after Montana you just find it plain ridiculous.

Overall, you don’t think Jackson is an asshole. He is your boy. He is your baby. you love him more than words can say. And so if he wants to try and buy himself happiness, you are happy to watch him. You’d buy all shorts of useless crap if you had money too, and a yacht... man, hell yes! Although the first thing you’d do is buy a farm, we all know that. And if he wants to explore his options in the romantic department, why the hell not? It kills you inside, of course it fucking does! , but he is not with April, he is trying to move on and be happy, and if your baby finds that again, you will be happy too. All you want them is to be together, but if they can both be happy apart, then you can live with that. You can live with them cherishing their time together and simply being friends raising a baby -if we ever get to see a scene with them again. Grrr!- as long as they are happy. After all, you have your perfect version of Japril all shaped in your head where they got back together after Montana and are living happily ever after, in a house with hardwood floors, a washing machine and one of those milk-frothier things, with their little miracle of a beautiful daughter and a puppy. Because, come on, what’s a family without a dog?

You hate the canon Japril/Jaggie storyline right now. You hate it, yet you have learned to accept it. Or rather, to ignore it’s happening. You watch the episodes and really enjoy them, and then when a Jaggie scene happens you just watch it as an average viewer and roll your eyes and even chuckle at how somebody ever believed they could pass this as something actually ship-able. You laugh. You roll your eyes. You cope.

And then you go online, and you fall apart. You watch all these posts and rambles about how horrible the show is and how everyone is to be hated, and how the actors and us the loyal Japril shippers deserve better (which is the one part you partly agree with), and all these do is depress you and make feel guilty, guilty! , for falling back in love with the show that has been your home even since you were thirteen. And why should you feel like that, Truli? Nobody is asking you to apologize for liking the show. Nobody. But even if they were, why the fuck would you even pay attention to them? You don’t have to apologize for still liking the show, as everyone else doesn’t have to apologize for not liking it, and it’s terribly wrong of you to blame them if reading about it makes you feel bad.

People have the right to have their own opinions. People have the right to express them. If someone hates the show, they are free to say it out loud. And if someone loves it, they are free to express that too. Nobody has to apologize to anyone about the way they see things. But we all have to respect that our opinions might differ. That we are individuals with different characters, different upbringings, different beliefs, we are different people that have different views and nothing in the world will change that or ever should.

So I see two options for you, Truli. One is you can just give up on tumblr. If it’s screwing you up, if it keeps making you depressed, it’s not worth it, girl. You can’t ruin your life and your happiness over some fictional show. It’s not even that important. You know what’s important? Whether you will pass your driving exams this Monday. Whether your parents will make up or get a divorce instead. Whether you will study again to try to get into vet school or become a community doctor instead. Whether you will get your dog fixed or breed her. When you’re going to have another sleepover with you cousins. If you’re going to get that rabbit you want or not. Those are the important things you should be worrying about, not the storyline of a fictional show you can’t control anyway. And since you can recognize all that by simply watching the show but forget all about them the second you visit tumblr, maybe you should just give up on it and only deal with the show once a week when new episodes come out and whenever you feel like writing a fanfic about Japril.

The other option I see for you is that you grow the fuck up and realize the majority of the fandom feels only horrible about what is happening and won’t stop or should stop expressing it. You can accept that and learn how to not let it affect you. It can be easy if you just freaking try instead of complain about how negative everything is to yourself all the time. You can make an effort. You can do it, if only you try.

So, which is it gonna be, self? If you chose to go with the first option, that’s fine. It’s the healthier one, if anything. If you chose to go with the second one, that’s also fine - it requires some extra self-control but I think you can pull it off, and it will make you happier in the long run.

This is a choice you will have to make every time you get put down. Every time you feel like quitting the show and Japril, because you know that this isn’t what you really want. Every time you lose hope. Every time those happen you will come back to this post and read it -the WHOLE THING, no cheating, smartass- and you will be called to make this decision again.