#jack as somebody who never thought he'd get to grow up and so delights in everything about getting older

[loving-jack-kelly]

modern au jack and davey have opposite directions of character development in college and its so good for both of them. jack goes from being the edgy depressed loner kid who struggles to stay awake in class and doesn't care about anything to being the embodiment of saw a snail today effervescent completely unironically because suddenly he has space to breathe and room to make mistakes that don't feel like the end of the world and he's able to surround himself with people that genuinely like him and don't seem like they're just tolerating him. he goes from sitting in the back of every classroom and only responding when he can't avoid it to being excited to learn new things and excited to talk about the things he's learned and delighted to find people who care about the same things that he does.

and davey suddenly has the freedom to say no I don't want to do that. i don't want to be the smartest in the room who gives out his notes and does work for other people because it's what's expected of me. he can sit in the back of the class and zone out during a gen ed that doesn't interest him, he can skip class when it's a beautiful day and somebody texts him asking if he wants to go to the park instead of math 101. it doesn't turn him into a slacker but it does make him somebody who is aware of when he's burning out and unlike in high school when he pushed through it take four ap tests that he didn't even care about he says no actually today I am sleeping in and eating soup and not checking my email because if I don't do those things I will scream very loudly and perhaps bite somebody and I don't want to do that. and suddenly he has friends who know his personality beyond just "smart good nice kid" and who laugh when he's sarcastic or encourage him when he complains about how much homework he has or the annoying kid in his class who never does any work but expects their project partners to carry them to an A. he has friends who don't only see him as his academic life and instead make the effort to understand who he is as a person.