hey.
y'know I bet you thought you'd never see an update from this again, considering that I'm working on the sequel now, but recently there have been a few things that were commented that just kind of... irked me? (it wasn't just one specific person, it was several, so don't think this is directed at one person)
all of which pertaining jungkook.
(this is literally just a rant so skip it if you want but... idk I'd appreciate it if you stuck around i guess.)
now, i'm not here to tell you what opinion to have because I'd hate it if somebody tried to tell me what to think, i just kind of wanted to address some things.
obviously, jungkook is not the most... loveable of characters in burnt. you either pitied him or you didn't, but fuck some of y'all who didn't were harsh, and i damn well hope that's not how you'd actually talk to somebody with a mental illness. some of the things that were commented towards jungkook could be so damaging to somebody like him in real life and i really hope that you'd think twice before saying that to someone's face.
yes, jungkook deserves a hell of a lot of criticism, because he did make jimin's life a living hell, but i think what a lot of people are forgetting is that jungkook was not mentally okay. When I described self harm as an addiction in the beginning that wasn't just one of those angsty charlie metaphors, once you start it's hard to stop.
considering that jungkook didn't even believe in soulmates when he first started, by the time that he realized it was true he was already too far gone to just quit. try telling a smoker to quit and see what happens, try asking an alcoholic. just because self harm doesn't seem to be the first thing that comes up when you think of an addiction doesn't mean that it's any less of one.
and i know there's the whole "okay but why didn't he get help?" because he was ashamed. he hid it from his parents, and clearly thought of it as something that should have been hidden (look what happened when taehyung caught him and it wasn't hidden anymore) if it was so hard to show one of his best friends, what makes you think he could just get up and ask a doctor for help? people need support to do tough things, and sometimes asking for help is one of the toughest things you can do. when he finally got jimin, he had the support he needed to finally ask for help and get medicated.
i've also seen 'jungkook had no reason to hurt himself' okay, believe what you want, but since i wrote his character i'll tell you that i think he did. you don't need to be bullied, to hate yourself. you don't need to have a shitty life, to hate yourself. obviously those may contribute to why you might, but anyone can have a mental illness, and left untreated they can completely destroy somebody who looks like 'they don't have any reason to act like that'. you can have a perfectly normal life, and still hate every single inch of your being because your brain is forcing you to believe that you're worthless. jungkook hated every inch of himself. he went to art school but always compared himself to others and convinced himself that he just wasn't good enough.
it might not be a good enough reason for some, but when his mind was telling him that he was worthless every single day, and he needed someway to cope - though he may not have picked the best method.
i'm not telling you to pity him. i'm not telling you to agree with what he did. i'm not telling you to think that it was okay for him to hurt jimin, because it wasn't. i'm definitely not telling you to say that he shouldn't be held accountable for his actions because he wasn't mentally stable.
i'm telling you to try and put yourself in his shoes.
and if you still think he's a selfish piece of shit who had no reason whatsoever to hurt himself and didn't deserve jimin's love or affection, then i won't fight you on it. just thought that maybe the author's input might've been needed, since i did write his character, i know him best after all.
and yeah, i know that the story and his character are fiction, but people like Jungkook do actually exist, which is what made me want to address it.
rant over.
(tldr: jungkook isn't exactly the monster that some of you are making him out to be.)
- Charlie :)
