okay but the thing about jgy is every after he clawed his way to the top of social standings, there’s no erasing the past. no matter what, his mother was still his mother, and sometimes our history is what limits us, bc of the way the world views in us response

even nmj and lxc, his sworn brothers, view him as having come from nothing. having been a bastard. it might not affect how they treat him, not anymore, but it’s a trait assigned to him, one he cannot escape. and some ppl would say that’s fine- you should accept who you are

i would argue that those ppl have never been looked down upon for something they truly cannot help, not in a basic schoolyard bullying way but in a systemic way. bc when you have been, it doesn’t matter how much *you* accept what you are

it’s not that you want others to be able to *look past* what you are. it’s that you want it to be a nonentity altogether. you don’t want to be “the former bastard who was recognized and has risen up”. you simply want to *be*, and that’s something you simply are not allowed

ppl say “in spite of” and mean it as a compliment. ppl talk about all you’ve accomplished, about how others treat you versus how *they* treat you, and it all relates to this quantifier put on you. you have long since learned that simply “being” is a privilege you are denied

there is a privilege in non-defined existence that some ppl will never get to know, and it is in that privilege, and the lack thereof, that the trauma of jgy’s existence is written