Be My Favorite Is Digging Into Concepts Of Masculinity To A Degree I Haven't Seen In Thai BL Before.

Be My Favorite is digging into concepts of masculinity to a degree I haven't seen in Thai BL before. Since episode 2 we've been seeing the contrast between the kind of man Kawi is and the kind he thinks he should be, and 3 and 4 have drawn a big highlighted circle around what, for simplicity, I'm going to call bro culture: the whole complex of male social behavior that includes competition, ritual humiliation, stark othering of women (both "chivalrous" and not), and a rugged, deflective response to pain.

I'm saying bro culture rather than toxic masculinity because only some elements of it are toxic, although they're so intermingled that it's hard to sift the toxic from the non. You have to work to create a bro culture without misogyny and homophobia - although a lot of BLs (Bad Buddy, for example) do exactly this. Be My Favorite isn't interested in doing that though: it is presenting bro culture unsanitized, and looking at how our two leads interact with it.

On the one hand we have Kawi, who has very clearly always failed to meet bro culture standards, and who still sees success in that sphere as something to aim for. And it's not that the bros reject him outright. Someone like Kawi is great to have around, because for everyone else it means never being at the bottom of the pack. It's not that Not and his group dislike Kawi or want to hurt him. If you asked them, they'd say in all sincerity that they're just trying to help him out. What they're actually doing is using him to affirm their own superior bro-ness: whether they're helping him or mocking him, he lets them feel that they're succeeding where he fails.

Pisaeng sees this much more clearly than Kawi does, hence his facepalm when Kawi tells the other guys he's a virgin. Pisaeng could succeed in bro culture: he could be top dog in that group if he wanted to. It's because he could succeed that he's able to see so clearly that he doesn't want to. When a prize looks hopelessly out of your reach, it's hard to see that it might be worthless.

Pisaeng is frustrated because he's seeing Kawi try so hard to achieve something Pisaeng has already rejected. Kawi is confused because he sees how easily Pisaeng succeeds by bro standards, and yet he's still lonely and discontent. He's always been attracted to Pisaeng (just look at how Pisaeng's introduction, in Kawi's pov, is framed) but he has chosen to interpret that through the bro lens of admiration and envy.

I think we're going to have to see Kawi make a conscious rejection of bro culture. Whether that comes about through his deepening friendships with Max and Pear, or through realizing his feelings for Pisaeng, at some point he's going to have to decide that that prize is not worth winning. I hope we see this, because it's rare for BLs to deal so directly with conflicting views of masculinity, and what being gay or bi means for a young man's sense of self.

PLEASE VOTE KIYOI did you see his pout when hira didn't feed him? did you see him in hira's hoodie? sleeping with the laundry so he can be in hira's scent after he had stormed out just the night before? HE ALSO CAN'T COOK don't make a foolish mistake

Round 4: Akk (The Eclipse) vs Kiyoi Sou (Utsukushii Kare)

[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]

Akk: "Firstly, he’s played by First Kanaphan. A man with enough babygirl energy to defeat an entire nation. Have you seen his little pout? The way he looks so beautiful when he cries makes you want to hug him until you can’t anymore, and oh boy does he cry often. He has too much pressure on him and as a babygirl being forced to make difficult decisions and having to deal with manipulation should be a violation of the Geneva convention. He’s a cutie patootie sweetie pie pathetic meow meow princess babygirl. Him and his big boba ball brown cow babygirl eyes filled with tears against the world. He sits on tables and kicks his feet, him and his bestfriend have gossip sessions where they complain about their bfs. He giggles and teases and pretends to sleep when he’s shy and is just the very definition of a babygirl"

Kiyoi Sou: "Pouting that the other won’t confess when you don’t even have the courage to confess yourself? Waiting for your bf to come back because you’re lonely after he’s been gone for 5 seconds? Unable to cook? Seems pretty babygirl to me."

cooking crush first pics 🥰💚

I'm just gonna take a moment and rewrite how I wish Love Mechanics had gone starting at episode 7 because, well, that's where I'm at watching it for free and thus where I'm at..

And now let us embark on... What If?

Imagine if Vee had approached Mark with his apology, Mark rejected him, Vee gets into the motorcycle crash... but he's actually hurt. He says the same thing about wanting to die, he's taken in the ambulance and...

Then we cut to Mark. And we follow him around. We see him meeting up with his friends, see the other engineering folks around but never Vee.

Mark asks about Vee and no one knows because everyone left him after he 'cheated' on Mark. Literally no one knows. Not a single person can tell him anything about Vee except that they haven't seen him and don't want to...

Except Ploy.

And Mark, reluctantly, angrily, asks her about Vee because he hasn't seen them together either and Ploy, confused and shocked, tells him exactly what happened that night and admits she hasn't seen Vee either.

Now, Mark is suddenly scared. He just found out that the reason he rejected and broke both his own heart and Vee's heart was because of a misunderstanding and Vee is just straight up missing in action.

He ends up in the office asking about Vee from a professor which is where he finds out that Vee had to request time off after a motorcycle accident and Mark just... cannot handle that.

He rushes to tell Yeewha and Bar and Nuea what happened and they find out the truth about the Ploy kiss from him and they all rush, together, to find Vee at home and they find a mess.

Vee's drunk, he's an absolute mess and depression and hopeless with a broken leg and a broken heart and he blocks them all out. He locks the door, refuses to answer the phone, they only get in because of his very worried family.

And the rest of the show is Mark and friends and even Ploy working together to pull Vee out of this and prove that he's still worthy of love and that, yes, he's done wrong before and he was trying to do better and that he deserves a chance to do better.

Mark becomes the pursuer, Mark becomes the healer, Vee becomes the one to be loved, Vee becomes the one who needs Mark to find him and help him put himself back together.

Honestly, the idea of Vee forcefully pursuing Mark without explaining what happened and just turning this into him smiling and grinning through all of it while Mark struggles more is... less interesting to me than Vee's pain.

This isn't about Mark (or Nuea).

This is about Ploy. This is about Ploy being with Ton. This about Ploy getting a new cell phone from Ton. This is about Ploy riding around in Ton's car. This about Ploy going to restaurants with Ton. This is about Ploy getting everything she wants from Ton. This is about Ploy picking rich Ton over poor Vee. This is about Ploy tapping into Vee's biggest insecurity.

Because no matter what Vee does, he can only afford one single rose, not a bouquet.

Didn't you go with Nuea? Why do I have to go with him? Anyone would want that. Being in the air-conditioned car, with a kind driver, and he's also caring. He's definitely your type.

Even its condition is not as good as Nuea's.

And Mark knows that. He knows this isn't about him. He knows that this is all about Ploy, but he thinks it's because Vee still loves Ploy.

That's why he doesn't immediately rise to meet Vee's anger. He thinks this is his punishment for loving someone who is already taken.

That's why Nuea's speech bothered them

This is about Ploy.