#jeromejinn

What the hell are you doing?

“I'm sorry. I'm done thinking it through. Are you? I was done the moment you walked out my door.”

The world that isn't, that wasn't, that cannot be... but is also true and real and teaching Jerome all about himself...

And the reality they're in right now.

Ik it feels random to obsess over this scene (but at this point, it's a part of my personality to obsess over random scenes), but it screams to me how much Jinn still cares about Jerome's perception of him. It matters to him more than he lets on, because when J asks why, this is his reply:

It's... well, it's a wonderful cocktail of misogyny and internalised homophobia (kinda) that I cannot ignore. He obviously enjoys strawberry ice cream, as we found out in J's visions and ep 3's trailer. But at this point, he would never admit it to Jerome because, for all Jinn knows, this could be another reason J starts teasing him.

For all he knows, this could be another episode of when they were 7 and J holds it on his head forever. So he says what he thinks J would want to hear. Maybe to protect himself. Maybe in hopes that Jinn accepts him in ways that he has rejected before. Maybe in hopes that what happened when they were 7 wasn't about him being gay (since J seems okay with dating guys after all) but about how he said what he said.

Ironically, though, J's response to Jinn's dismissal is this:

Ha! Like, okay. He's obviously right. I'm glad for the callout. But he seems defensive of dream-Jinn (vision-Jinn?) almost, and ends up scolding this sweetie.

And he looks like a kicked puppy!

Like he tried doing something J would approve of, only to be told off again!

He probably knows that Jerome is not the same guy they were when they were 7, but the emotionally hurt child in him doesn't. He wants approval. He wants to know he's normal. And he wants that from J (unfortunately).

Despite all these years of their "rivalry", Jinn's eyes have always been on J. He's always been looking at J. And ep 3's promo only makes that more evident.

He's one of the first ones to notice something is off with Jinn

And then Mai says something along the lines of "Maybe he's always been like that. You just didn't care to notice before."

Let me just share a few screenshots here of the boy who apparently does not care to notice-

Doesn't Care👀.zip

If anything, he cares too much. He cares about how J feels, he cares about how J is, and he certainly cares about what J thinks of him. And that's why he hates Jerome