Work Text:
Jackson Wang was GOT7’s wild and sexy member. This nickname was pretty accurate all things considered. He was a member of the incredibly popular Korean boy band GOT7. One didn’t really survive this industry without being at least moderately attractive, and GOT7 was popular enough that it wasn’t that hard to make the leap of logic that attractive young men dancing provocatively would be sexy. Needless to say, Jackson being one of the more provocative dancers, was sexy.
As for the “wild” part of his nickname, well… have you seen Jackson? The only member who could really compete with his energy at any given moment was Bambam, and that’s just because he was Bambam.
Goddamn it, Bambam.
The point is that Jackson was a very charismatic person. The problem with these people – the charismatic people that just seemed to draw people to them without even trying – was that it was just so hard to see them as anything but that. That being the happy, wild, passionate whirlwind that they parade around as around people. But these forces of nature were human too. They felt emotions just like we do. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true!
We see them being the usual ray of sunshine no one wanted and yeah we can see it. Well almost. We can see how they can feel happy, elated, joyful, just excited to be alive. It’s in every move they make and in every word they say. It’s in their pure precious laughter – even if it’s a little (or a lot) dorky. Yeah, that’s not that hard to wrap your head around.
No, the thing that’s hard for us to see is all of those other emotions. The negative emotions that we all know so well. Jealousy, sadness, hatred, envy, longing, hurt, pain. Don’t even kid yourself, you know. We all have those moments, and that’s okay! Honest! But those are very human – very imperfect emotions. It’s so hard to see any of these things in them because they seem so happy, so amazing, so perfect. We don’t see it because we don’t look.
“The saddest people smile the brightest” and yeah, we’ve all heard that crap before. Probably made an anime meme at one point. But we don’t really connect those words to real life. People are always telling us that the world isn’t like our stories and we believe them. But where do you think those stories came from? We look at these seemingly perfectly happy people and think, how do they do it? Why can’t I be like them? But like that somber quote, sometimes these fantastic people felt these negative, icky, emotions even stronger than we do in compensation for their brightness.
They’ve just gotten better at hiding it when it does happen.
And it’s not like we’re trying to notice the small crack in their armor either. We pretend everything is normal and ignore the signs that we know are there in favour of believing that nothing was different. But it was there, hanging over our heads.
So yeah, Jackson was one of those people. All wild and happy all the time, and no one ever knew about the moments when he wasn’t. He kept them close and never let anyone know. They can’t ever know, or everyone will see him differently. Will look at him like he’s broken. He liked how things were well enough. But lately, it’d been getting harder and harder to pretend that everything was fine.
His smiles were just a touch too fake, his laughs a bit too loud. He didn’t hug as tightly and he stopped doing some of the more wild things. It wasn’t like it was a sudden change – or even that drastic of a change – it was very gradual and had really been a long time coming.
Really it had started with their debut, as most things in his life had. There had been a lot of firsts ever since his debut. His first time performing in front of a lot of people along with the rest of GOT7, his first time being a main in a music video, his first time having people actually think he’s amazing and that he has talent (wonders for the self-esteem, I assure you). But it was also the first time he’d received a hate comment.
It may not seem like much, just a simple comment on how he danced weirdly or how his face was ugly. Something that was to be expected and easily brushed off. They weren’t even that mean! But… it still made him feel weird inside. That icky feeling down in your stomach that sort of just sits there all day and nothing can stop it or make it better and you just have to pretend that everything is fine. Jackson was able to brush it off even if he felt horrible for a while. He was certain it would stop after a while and the good would outweigh the bad.
He was wrong.
No matter how many times he found himself going through all the good comments, the only ones his brain seemed to recognize were the hateful ones. He tried to convince himself they were few and far between, that he was good enough. But that was no easy feat when all that was running through his head were those hurtful words.
He’s scrolled through the comments on their various music videos and various social media whenever he had a moment. He hated himself for feeding his self-hatred. It made him feel like shit, but he did anyway? He did it to himself.
Melisa Ozdemir
Why their all videos have to be this gay?
This was one of the few times he wasn’t glad he knew English fluently. That English made him cringe he had no problems with being called gay – he was secure in his sexuality – but the obvious distaste in this person’s comment was palpable.
MrMordo85
Watching this makes me want to beat you up… hope everyone realizes just how shit your music is! You give kpop a bad name!
Artha_kazuto
Absolute, utter trash. The fact that this kind of shit is widely loved makes me sick and disappointed. I would say you’re all better than this, but you’re not.
At least these ones had better English. They weren’t directed at him but more at GOT7 and kpop in general. These ones were both easier and harder to deal with. On one hand, they weren’t deliberately attacking him. On the other hand, he felt obligated to get angry on the other members’ behalf.
Then as he dug down further, filtering out his name, he began to find the comments that brought to life some of his more intrusive doubts.
Hollywoodream
If you stank pop and especially the stupid chinks like Jackson Wang, you stan north korea how does it feel to be a communist? Y’all are a bunch of TRAITORS!
nopetrooper394
Jackson is a waste of fucking air
bts_got7_trash19
I have no idea why Jackson was included in GOT7. No talent.
amilangel
Jackson ’s so fucking annoying like kys. Give more screen time to my babs Jinyoung and Youngjae!
senyorito_jbs
Jackson needs to stfu and stop harassing Mark
Now, these were the type of comments that kept him up at night. No matter how many times he told himself to stop reading all of the hate comments, he still found himself doing it. It was not a healthy habit, but he couldn’t help himself. So he continued with his destructive hobby and everyone was none the wiser.
But despite his best efforts, he still found himself feeling rather down most of the time. In an effort to hide that fact, he overcompensated and even beat out the maknaes with his sunny attitude. Now that got the other members’ attention. Now Jackson talked a lot in his regular moments, but his overcompensation made him worthy of the nickname “motor mouth”. He just couldn’t shut up. And one day during the live filming of some variety show – he really couldn’t bring himself to care which one, they were all the same anyway – JB had finally had enough of his mindless and annoying chatter.
“Jackson, yes you’re good at variety. But when you’re at the side can you shut your mouth Do we have to zip it up?” During the filming Jackson had blushed lightly and hidden it with a pout and a simple “Hyung, that’s who I am~”. But inwardly he was panicking. Oh god, they were finally getting annoyed with his behavior; at least enough that they would actually speak up about it. Shit, what was he supposed to do? So he panicked and became even more insufferable for the rest of the show, internally cringing at his own behavior.
But ever since that one event, the other members sort of took JB’s outburst as permission to start voicing their own complaints. “Jackson! Stop stealing my cereal!” “Will you shut up? I’m trying to sleep!” “Jackson… can you stop being so noisy?” All of these complaints just started to pile up, and you can say whatever you want. You on the outside. But eventually, the words started to affect him; words do hurt you know…
It just became really hard to be in the same room as the other members. They didn’t really seem to notice though. They acted like nothing had changed. But something had.
You see, Jackson was a very social creature. He liked to talk, he liked to make people laugh, and he liked to be liked. He was a very adaptable person and he knew how to subtly change. SO he started talking a little bit less, being a little less… extra. When he was off to the side on variety shows he didn’t constantly interject and make it about himself. It took months, but the change was gradual and almost unnoticeable until it was already complete.
Sometimes he’d catch the other giving him odd looks, but he was just grateful that they’d stopped harping at him for being loud. No one wanted to address the elephant in the room when Jackson stopped telling jokes.
“Hey,” Mark had said when they were about to sleep. “Are you doing okay? You’ve been a bit quiet lately.” Before, it would have been Jackson bothering Mark about some funny videos before they went to sleep. But not now. Jackson was silent for a moment. He wanted to scream and yell and throw a fit. What, he couldn’t have an off day? No matter what he did it was never good enough. For anyone.
Instead of doing that, he settled on a simple, “I’m just tired. We haven’t gotten a break in a while.” It was a good enough excuse and though Mark seemed reluctant to drop the subject, he let it go, sensing Jackson wasn’t going to say anything else.
“Well then I’ll turn out the lights now, get as much sleep as you can while you have the chance,” Mark said after a moment of silence. Jackson nodded and shoved his phone onto the table so that it could charge while he slept, the screen still showing what he’d been looking at.
miki Army
Hey, has anyone else noticed how Jackson has been looking tired lately?
mikaeileen26
They all looked so tired ruing this performance! They need a break.
Orange Hair
Thank fuck Jackson stopped being so extra
itsjeanetteee
Jackson used to be so annoying! I’m glad he shut up for once
GOT7 Dab7 Hot7 Visual7 Extra7 Meme7
Am I the only one who’s worried about Jackson? He’s been acting really strange this past year…