Other People's Meta - Tumblr Posts

Please talk to me about love mechanics.. I like it better than the original of course but it still feels so rushed to me. I’ve been rewatching the directors cut at 2x speed cause I’m not huge on rewatching but it helps a little but I’m so confused by Vee :/ like he refused to break up with his gf after he cheated, then she cheated, then she asked for a break and then he told his brother he’s waiting to say ily cause he wants a 100% clarity. That boy gives me a headache, it’s like he wants his cake and eat it too. When he was still with Ploy he kept asking if Mark was his and followed him around like a lost puppy. I fucking adore Mark btw, he’s so sassy and self destructive. I low key wanted him to give Nuea a chance just to show Vee he’s a dumbass

Vee wants to make everyone happy and he wants to be sure he's not the direct cause of unhappiness but doing that for everyone everywhere all at once is what causes all his issues.

Vee wants Ploy to be happy and he thinks he makes her happy so he can't change that and he can't risk changing that because if he does, he risks hurting her worse than she'll hurt him.

Also, he doesn't think about himself. He might be in pain but he'd rather be in pain than anyone else.

He loves Mark so much but he just can't break his other ties to the sake of their love because he's much more concerned with everyone's happiness over his own.

The problem is that Vee is the cake and he wants to let everyone have him and eat him and it doesn't matter what happens to him... but by placing himself in that situation, he's hurting everyone around him as well as himself.

Vee wants to be everything to everyone and he simply can't be because that's not how any of this works.

Vee loves Mark like no one else and in a way he never has but he also clings to the memories of Ploy and doesn't want to hurt her and he doesn't want Nuea to touch Mark but he can't bring himself to break up with Ploy.

Vee is a participant in his own life. He's not taking charge. He's huddled in a corner trying desperately to make everyone happy without doing anything because doing anything could mean hurting someone.

Honestly... in a way, I get Vee. He's just caught in this loop of self-sacrifice, trying to make everyone around him happy at his own expense, with his happiness coming in a distant second to everything else everyone else does or wants.

Vee is caught in his own need to make people happy and he doesn't know how to stop.

If there was ever a show I wish would flip the seme/uke dynamic... it's Love Mechanics. I would have loved if the show spent the first half with Vee pursuing Mark, have the misunderstanding about the kiss and the absolute rejection by everyone else and then have Mark find out what really happened and try to approach Vee to at least talk about the misunderstanding only to find out that Vee's still caught in this spiral of depression and then have Mark need to be the one to pull Vee out of himself.

Like, it's not how these shows work (@absolutebl has talked about this at length) but I wish this show had gone ahead and just fucked with us because I really love the idea of Vee breaking completely and Mark having to realize the misunderstanding and go after him to put him back together.

... I always like when misunderstandings get solved by the person who misunderstood rather than the person who was misunderstood.

Asian Honorifics & BL - a quick & dirty guide, with examples

You ready for another one of my long broad brush linguistics in BL posts? (As always check the comments for people better than me correcting or adding content. Also I will be updating this post as long as Tumblr lets me fiddle with it.) 

Codicil: I’m a dilettante who loves the cultural side of linguistics, and loves to help people understand BL better via language. I attempt to explain things using very simplistic terms and an anthropological approach, I am aware that it’s a lot more complicated. But I’m doing my best. 

Codicil 2: This is meant to help BL watchers, not to guide tourists who in intend to travel to these countries. 

Honorifics in General - the concept

Honorifics = a title or word implying or expressing status, politeness, or respect.

Many Asian languages employ honorifics in a filial manner (distinguishing status along generational lines with regards to birth year, professional relationship, and parental state). Basically calling someone who is NOT an actual blood relation “older brother” (e.g. Korean hyung or oppa) or “younger sibling” (e.g. Thai nong), or auntie (see many Indian or Latin American cultures). These can also be a kind of endearment in romantic relationships. 

The closest most westerns can think of this is that the honorific is used as a way to delineate an intimate relationship/friendship across an age gap, but its implications are not always intimacy. (Except when they very much are, see oppa.) 

You may be familiar with a phrases like “we’re so close she’s like my sister” or “he’s like a brother to me.” 

However, because most westerners exist in relationships to peers only under the broad umbrella term friend, we will only use “like my sister” or “basically my brother” when someone is particularly dear to us but not sexually. 

In most Asian languages, honorifics are more codified. So there is a status conferred by age which dictates honorifics be used. They’re mandatory for communication. Intimacy levels between individuals CAN impact this, but are not the primary decider on what honorific is used under most circumstances. Position in society is.

So these terms are often defined (or even translated) with sibling language. See early Thai BLs translate phi as bro, but that’s not strictly correct. 

There are also often honorifics for larger age gaps (so more like auntie or uncle, delineating relationships like adult neighbors or a friend’s parents, or parents’ friends). 

And there are honorifics for people in authority positions (like doctors, teachers, bosses) who are usually older (but not always). These honorifics are employed in the arenas of education, hobby activities (like ceramic classes or martial arts) and the workplace.

For many, informality of older to younger will be characterized by use of casual (or rude) language and lack of honorifics (from the older person to the younger one). So the older character will have one mode of address and way of talking, while the younger character exists in a more formal register when they are speaking back to someone older. 

In other words, an older person can speak informally to a younger one, but not the reverse. (Yaja time excepted…) 

Complexity of Honorifics as Elements of Language 

Honorifics can function as titles:

Honorifics can be translated as/like titles. This is is the kind of thing we are most familiar with: Mister, Mrs, Mz, Miss, Master, Mistress, Sir, Madam, Ma’am are all, technically, honorifics. So are certain forms of address and royal titles, “The honorable” for example. Anything you might put in front of a name to add formality in English probubly qualifies as an honorific.  

Honorifics can function as pronouns:

Or modes of address. For example the title boss, in English can also be used to call or refer to someone directly. “Hi, boss!” or “my boss” or “the boss says.” Honorifics serve the same function. In this way they can become pronouns. You can, in Korean, just call someone “hyung” it acts as the you pronoun for direct address. And often they can also be used in the 3rd person. So my “hyung” did such and such. This is why hyung = brother in a lot of translations. Because English uses brother in much the same way, it can act as both a 2nd or 3rd person pronoun. (Rarely first, but that’s an issue with English, that our first person pronoun is so inflexible.) 

In Thai you can refer to a friend as phi (you pronoun in direct address, or use it as a she/he/they pronoun in third person) or you may refer to yourself as phi (using it as an I pronoun). In other words, phi can entirely replace a person’s name in all linguistic uses. 

He/She/They goes to the store = phi goes to the store (when talking about my older friend to someone else) 

I go to the store = phi go to the store (when talking to a younger person about my own actions), and 

you go to the store = phi go to the sore (when talking to an older friend about something they are going to do - direct address) 

Honorifics are also suffixes:

In Korean and Japanese honorifics are also attached to names in the form of suffixes. See the Japanese section. (Also sometimes prefixes, argh.) 

Honoring is also attached to particles:

In Thai, polite particles confer respect levels as well, which means they also contain within them certain aspects of status and honorifics. See the Thai section. 

The best way to understand honorifics in BL is by example. 

Ready? 

Korean - Honorific titles: Hyung, Noona, Oppa & Beyond  

I’m starting with Korean because it is the most spoken and understood by westerners these days. I can only address this as a layperson who watches too many Kdramas. 

Korean names in brief: 

In Korea names are said family name first (what we call surname or last name) and then given name second (what we would call first name). Usually the family name is single barreled or one syllable, but the given name is double barreled or two syllables. So: Chu Sang Woo = Chu (family name) Sang Woo (given name, always said together). This is why I will usually refer to BL characters by their first name as a combo, e.g. SangWoo. In formal address, however is would be Chu SangWoo-ssi. Usually the entire name is said (see comments). Even when JaeYoung is being rude he usually says “Chu SangWoo.” 

Korean honorifics you’ll hear:

Hyung | hyeong 형 - is said by a younger male when addressing an older male. I will use the term Hyung Romances for BLs that feature a younger seme pursing and older uke because…  

Noona | nuna 누나 - is said by a younger male when addressing an older female and is responsible for the accepted series category “Noona romances” which are dramas that feature a younger boy pursuing an older woman. 

Oppa 오빠 - is said by a younger female when addressing an older male. Also used by girlfriends addressing their boyfriends, or wanna-be boyfriends. Under a romantic context oppa is considered somewhat cringe/cheesy/cutsie.  

Unni | eonni 언니 - is said by a younger female when addressing an older female.  

Sunbae | seonbae 선배 - is said by a younger person to an older person (gender neutral) and is more formal. It can be used in the workplace and it mostly about seniority and less familial.

Hoobae | hubae 후배 - is said to/of a younger person, either across a generational gap, or within a workspace environment, again this one is about seniority and less familial.* 

Although an older person’s filial and social responsibility to a youngster is always in play. 

In Kpop you’ll hear sunbae used a lot by younger (say 4th gen) groups when referring to older groups within the industry. Or when talking about Kpop idols who they don’t personally know (or are so big they’re nervous about any assumption of intimacy). On reality shows like Queendom or Kingdom it’s particularly telling. Some of the funniest moments of Kingdom Legendary Wars is any time Penal (an American from BTOB - an older v established group) tries to convince the youngsters, some of them 10 years his juniors, to use casual language (drop honorifics). The poor things get SO confused. 

BL Deeper Meanings behind Hyung 

Okay so the best show to watch for this one is Semantic Error. 

SangWoo starts out calling JaeYoung sunbae and rarely goes less formal. Technically sunbae is polite, but also slightly insulting in a university narrative of this type. Let me try to explain. Because as they become more intimate, combative or not, friends or frenemies, SangWoo should switch to using hyung, but he pointedly does NOT. 

JaeYoung, on the other hand, always uses extremely informal (to the point of rude) language with SangWoo. (Culturally, he allowed such informality as he is SangWoo’s senior both at university, and in age). But you can watch him get annoyed that SangWoo insists on sticking to sunbae, to the point where he demands SangWoo use hyung. 

Then after that, anytime SangWoo does use hyung JaeYoung totally melts for it, because it was hard fought and won, and it means something powerful and significant is shifting in their intimacy as a result. 

During the mutual kissing at the bar scene, Semantic Error drops yaja time on us. Yaja time is a sanctified reversal of honorifics that essentially allows for a younger person to speak their mind informally and without repercussions (or supposedly so). It’s a kind of way to flirt and tease, but also somewhat taboo and titillating as a game to play when tipsy. You get yaja time in bars/clubs sometimes, like happy hour. If you watch the final episode of Kpop reality show I-land you’ll see a real word example of yaja time in action amongst the contestants, it’s adorable and very funny. 

Semantic Error uses yaja time as an opportunity for drunk SangWoo to finally talk about his real feelings, without the pressure of linguistic formality. 

They also use it for JaeYoung to drop the sluttiest most flirtatious hyungs in the history of all hyunging. Seriously, the boy is dripping seduction with that one world. Why? Because HE CAN. He is making the formality itself a kind of kink. 

You can watch these two on the promo circuit attempt yaja time and even though they have an easy brotherly relationship, you can still see how uncomfortable it makes Jae Chan in particular. 

Other honorific play in Semantic Error: 

The girl who is interested in dating SangWoo calls him oppa, and ALSO requests to use a nickname+oppa with him (the nickname means lettuce). That is pretty blatant flirting. But note she specifically asks if she is allowed to do so? 

Later when JaeYoung confronts her and stakes his claim, notice the thing he really wants corrected is her language with SangWoo? He wants her to go all the way beyond sunbae to formality by using the honorific suffix 씨 (ssi). But there’s also more lettuce wordplay here (I think) because he isn’t insisting she use SangWoo’s full name. 

“You should call him Chu-ssi” which is translated into English as “Mr Chu.” 

A word on oppa and queerness. 

Because the implication is that the person saying oppa is female, you will rarely hear boys use this term for their boyfriends (even if they are out gay, unless they are femme and/or cultivating the association for a very specific and culturally subversive of kinky reason). 

Exception: non native speakers who are happy to fart around with us and the Korean social structure. So early on, NCT’s (Kpop monster group) Mark (Canadian) would refer to Yuta (Japanese) as oppa. I’m not gonna unpack their relationship, but trust me when I say, no native Korean idol would have ever done this, not right now in Korea’s current social state. Well… maybe Holland but that’s a whole other discussion. 

To complicate matters Korean also uses honorific suffixes, but I’m not gonna go into them here. (Read more about Korean honorifics.) 

Instead I’m gonna use Japanese to talk honorific suffixes. Ready? 

Japanese - Names & Honorifics: suffixes & titles 

Like Korean, Japanese uses both suffixes and title honorifics. But I find the suffixes much easier to hear in Japanese than Korean, probubly because I’ve more experience with the language. 

Note: As a foreigner in Japan I’ve alway found it best/easiest to refer to someone using surname-san. 

Japanese names in brief:

Names are said family name first and then given name. But actually, given names are rarely, if ever, said AT ALL (after an initial introduction). 

In BL dramas almost all character’s names and everyday use name will be the family name. (Children are different, but not many of those in JBL.) Teachers may refer to their students by given name-kun. 

So in Old Fashion Cupcake Togawa is his family name (not given name). Nozue (also a surname) who is both older and Togawa’s boss, refers to Togawa simply as Togawa, with no honorifics, probubly because they are both adult characters and have been coworkers for so long, Togawa-kun would be… odd. 

Togawa on the other hand, ALWAYS refers to Nozue as Nozue-san. Even in times of EXTREME intimacy the honorific -san is ALWAYS used. 

We have no idea what the given names are for these characters because we never got to that point of intimacy in their relationship. In Japanese romances the given name is usually the ultimate intimacy and is not exchanged until well into a relationship, sometimes after sex or even after marriage. You can watch the delicate maneuvering around this aspect of intimacy in the kinky het drama Sweat & Soap (it’s not BL, but I still love it, on Viki.) 

Japanese Suffixes you hear the most in BL: 

-chan = is intimate and cute for children, or amongst female friends, or female family/intimates (like your grandma) 

-kun = is for respected juniors, younger or junior co-workers, or young boys, and amongst friends 

-san = is formal/polite and for general use, amongst friends, equals, strangers, and acquaintances 

The best BL to watch to hear all three of these in constant use is Minato’s Laundromat. 

Shin always calls Minato, Minato-san and gets very annoyed when anyone doesn’t do this who should (he want’s his man properly respected). Note that he puts Minato-san into his phone as Akira, tho… daring boy.  

Asuka calls Minato: Akira-san, which he shouldn’t as a kid a generation younger than Minato. He gets away with it because he and Minato are from the same neighborhood and have similar open, friendly natures.  

Minato, on the other hand, struggles with what to call Shin. Technically he should use Katsuki-kun or even Katsuki-chan (which is what he uses on Shin’s sister). Which is Shin’s surname + the suffix for a junior. But Minato is a causal person, so he never bothered with a suffix even at first. Now, informal language is fine from an older person to a younger one, if they have the right personality. But under BL circumstances, Minato’s lack of honorifics kind of gave Shin license to flirt. The moment Minato asked if he could use the nickname Shin he was a goner. 

As Shin becomes more aggressive in his pursuit, Minato hops desperately between different suffixes to try to control the situation: 

Shin (informal and friendly), 

Shin-chan (diminutive, under this context = somewhat demeaning, considering what Shin wants from him), Minato is intentionally lowering Shin’s status and emphasizing his youth when he applies -chan, 

Shin-kun (when he thinks Shin is mad at him, or in public, or when he is annoyed and wants to add formality and distance) 

I talk quite a bit about this in my squee watch of this series. 

Putting someone who should be (or is usually) address by one combo of name (first or last) + suffix into another, by changing either the name of the suffix or both, always has narrative significance for character development or plot or both in Japanese romances. Which is why you get more from the story if you train your ear to listen for these. 

In the picture above, Takara is using -san for sarcasm and to gently chide Amagi. Usually he just uses Amagi with no honorific (they are the same age, and he is a curt characters) or Amagi-kun in public of for call/response address. He has moved to a higher level of formality for emphasis and to make a point in this scene. Communicating properly and avoiding conflict is a hallmark of his character, also (as the seme) he wants to control Amagi. This is all wrapped up in that personality and attitude. He is being teasing and sarcastic, but he is also stressing that this dialogue is important to him. 

Read more on Japanese honorific suffixes here.

Japanese honorific titles you hear the most in BL:

Senpai (先輩、せんぱい) - senior colleague or classmate, roughly equivalent to the Korean sunbae or Thai phi 

Sensei (先生、せんせい) - refers to teachers as well as people who are experts in their respective fields, like doctors, artists, professors, martial arts instructors, or lawyers 

The best BL to watch for use of honorific titles in Japanese is… bet you thought I wasn’t gonna manage to shoehorn it in…. Seven Days!

*insert wild cheering* 

Sereyo (younger) seems to relish and very much enjoy and flirt by using the honorific senpai with Yuzuru. It’s hard to explain, but the way Sereyo says “senpai” whenever they meet is very very… cute. 

You can hear these characters use sensei when in archery practice. And you can hear use of some family suffixes and honorifics since we follow both characters back to their respective homes. 

Sereyo calls Yuzuru, Yuzuru-san, which is Yuzuru’s GIVEN NAME + the honorific. This is unexpected because Yuzuru is his senior. He should call him by his surname + honorific: Shino-san. 

But Sereyo has an issue, which is that Yuzuru has the same last name as his ex-girlfriend, who was also older. So in his previous relationship, Sereyo called his lover: Shino-san, and he doesn’t want to use the same exact name with his new lover, Yuzuru. So despite Yuzuru being his senior, he asks to use Yuzuru’s first name as a mode of address. Yuzuru being the kind of casual blunt personality he is, doesn’t mind the inherent informality and permits this right away. 

More on Japanese honorifics here. 

Mandarin Chinese Honorifics 

Ho boy am I not going to climb into this one. But I will point out that to confuse matters many Chinese honorifics are actually also blood relation titles - 哥 ge (older brother) 弟 di (younger brother) - (like phi/nong, par/ar, hia/jay in Thai). In other words, the honorific actually is both brother (honorable title) and brother (actual word) AND will be applied to cousins. As in: the word for cousin is ALSO the same word as brother. 

In Thai to clear up this relationship a character will often have to state it blatantly: "my real actual older bother, by blood, and not an older male friend” (since phi means both) and not a lover. See this grappled with as a jealously plot point in Star in My Mind. 

But in some Chinese BLs they will also have to explain and distinguish actual blood relationships as different between cousins and siblings. You can watch Addicted deal with these nuances. 

It should be noted for the BL crowd that Mainland Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin are ALSO different. So there are language nuances to Taiwanese BL that do not exist in Mainland BL (when it was around) and vice versa. And because Taiwan recognizes equal rights, there is also a whole adapted Chinese linguistic set around queerness. 

I’m mentioning Chinese in this post mainly because it will come into play with Thai honorifics: hia & jie/jay 姐. Personally I struggle to even distinguish names let alone honorifics, I find Mandarin a particularly difficult language. 

Thai - Honorifics, Pronouns, Particles & beyond phi/nong 

I have quite a bit on Thai honorifics and their complexity plus how it relates to BL.

Thai Honorifics Between Ages in BL and real life 

More on Thai Linguistic Registers - Particles & Honorifics 

Thai Pronouns & Honorifics when Seme/Uke is Flipped 

Sarcastic use of honorifics & polite particles in Thai

Linguistic Fun In Thai BL - couples 

The Nu Diminutive in Thai 

Touch & Daisy in Secret Crush On You - Queer Coded Language and 3rd Gender Identity 

The most important thing to know, and how it’s different from Korean, is that phi & nong are gender neutral. 

Also honorifics and politeness in Thai plays into both pronoun use and polite particles. Thailand does not have honorific suffixes like Japan or Korea, instead particles (which are kind of like spoken punctuation) come into play. 

It’s complicated, in that there are a lots of ways to indicate relationships in Thai. But less complicated in that, at heart, gender doesn’t impact it as much as in Korean or Vietnamese. Instead, like Japanese’s -san, you can default to formal register by remembering to use khun (+ polite particles). 

Loosely? 

Phi = hyung, noona, unni, oppa, sunbae, or senpai, and its gender neutral. 

Nong = hoobae or -kun or -chan, but is rarely used in direct address. Instead, informality in Thai is characterized by use of casual (or rude) language and lack of honorifics (from the older person to the younger one) + rude or  informal particles. Nong is also gender neutral and can be used as you pronoun (rarely as I), or as a third person pronoun to refer to pets, or as a diminutive attached to a name, it’s… complicated. 

Actually episode 10 of Love Mechanics plays with this. Vee whispers in Mark’s ear the equivalent to “Phi’Vee loves cute nong Masa.” Masa is Mark’s given name and it is Japanese because Mark is half Japanese. 

But then, to tease him, Vee lowers his voice (Japanese men speak from low in the chest) and says: Masa-kun. Kind of the Japanese rephrase of the above. 

Hia = hyung/oppa (it may be used by a younger male or female but is only use on an older male) and specifically ties to Chinese heritage. 

Jie/jay = noona/unni (it may be used by a younger male or female but is only use on an older female) and specifically ties Chinese heritage. It has also been coopted by the queer community and may be translated as “sis” under those circumstances. More about hia here. 

Khun = -ssi or -san, and is a gender neutral formal address. It can be a title Khun + Name (first or last), an I/you pronoun, and also a proper name (ya, know, just for s&gs). Also in families that are more formal it is a mode of polite address for parents, Khun Maa for mother, Khun Paa for father. 

Vietnamese Honorifics

Vietnamese honorifics and modes of address are not my bailiwick but the amazing @squeakygeeky​ has been blogging a series around VBL linguistics and it’s queer struggles with pronouns because of bifurcation around gender. 

Oh boy was this a lot. And I am sorry to @timelesstoothfairy who originally asked this question, I don’t think they realized what a can of worms it opened up. 

Language, how is it SO MUCH FUN? 

(source) 

today on everything i love and that is perfect about utsukushii kare (bc i just binged rewatched both seasons), i find it so fantastic and perfect how they, not even advertently, show how hira and kiyoi grow out of their high school personas, bc that is so a thing that happens and is something i find hardly any media really navigates as well as i see it here. high school is very much a rigid place, and in it you play your part; the popular kid, the class clown, the nerd and so on, but outside of high school, after high school, when you grow up and enter the wider role, there aren’t those roles to fulfil. you have to be you, and to do that, you have to figure out who that ‘you’ is, whether thats something you’ve always known or had inside and just kept buried or hidden, or thats something you’ve yet to discover and have to find, and then go on to actually be that, and shed all of that behaviour you learned or picked up or hid behind in high school. 

idk if this is a universal thing, but it is something that especially speaks to me, being more of the hira, the loner, unpopular, shy kid. that role offers a lot of safety in high school, which is weird to say bc its not a place you aspire to be nor is it particularly enjoyable, but in a way it spares you of further ridicule. if you just fill that role and don’t do anything that acts outside of it, you can get by just fine, then high school is done and you move on. thats what utsukushii kare shows so well. the way hira is treated in high school is never really that outright bullying you stereotypically think of, which i love bc thats not really what high school is actually like. really, it is more of what you see in the show. this lower level stuff that you kind of just go along with even if it is objectively mean. the name calling is not loud insults, its those pet nicknames that follow you and remind you of the things you dont like about yourself, the things you’re embarrassed about. its the established hierarchy that you are at the bottom of that signals to you everyday that you are less important than everyone else. and hira goes along with it partly bc of kiyoi but also bc its safe and, dare i say, comfortable, bc hira has not just not known different, but doesnt wish to either, which is how he settles into his dynamic with kiyoi. 

on the other hand, kiyoi’s place as the popular kid is something he is more visibly uncomfortable with, at least to me, and you see it even before you learn about what his real dreams and interests are. the way he acts with the people that surround him, he is never exactly like that. his treatment of hira especially is kinder while still hiding behind that film of treating him as the group’s lacky, but when people treat hira unkindly, he steps in, and i like to think this is from a place of him just being a good person and not just a defensiveness of hira bc of however he feels. its weird bc he does want to be admired so his place shouldn’t feel so wrong, but i think its from a place of wanting to be admired for his merit, for who he is, not out of any control or fear. he wants to be level with people when it comes to reality, and praised for the things he can do well, his abilities, not just some abject superiority others think he possesses. and i cant tell you how much i love this character for this whole ‘cool guy who’s expected to be so cool and not care about anything but actually really wants to do well at stuff and has a passion for acting and dancing and performance and just wants to be loved’. like that is one of my favourite character tropes ever and utsukushii kare does it with kiyoi to absolute damn perfection, which is only added to when you think about the queerness underlying it, kiyoi acting as this stereotypical straight popular high school boy who’s too cool for everyone but really not only is he not straight and have these complicated feelings for a boy, but he also loves performance and theatre and i love that those two things aren’t separate and it makes so much sense. there is just this young queer boy who wants to be liked hiding behind this veneer of coolness and popularity and its fabulous. 

so when they do get out of high school, we get to see kiyoi embrace that side of him that he always kept hidden, not just doing what he loves, but actively pursuing it, trying hard, putting in the effort and dedication and i adore that. it lends itself so well to the mantra of ‘trying your best is the coolest thing you can do’ which i wholeheartedly believe. not caring isn’t cool. caring is cool. trying your best is cool. and not only does it make kiyoi more admirable as a character, but it feels like kiyoi is a lot more comfortable and welcoming of the admiration he gets, bc now it feels deserved, and its funny that that manifests through him being humble and playing himself down bc thats the very human thing to do when you’re praised, but it also parallels the way hira downplays and degrades himself which is actually, in a twisted way, him thinking highly of himself, which we see discussed in the last ep of season 2. 

bc when hira leaves high school, he still clings to that role, even though there’s no one around him maintaining it. for him to be lowly, there has to be someone around him thats above him, but there isn’t now, which is why he clings to the dynamic he has with kiyoi above him bc it carries over and maintains his safe space. and what we see in season 2 is kiyoi removing that, asking hira to not raise him up just so he can put himself down, he wants to be level. and with kiyoi trying to take away that safety, that leaves hira having to figure out what his place actually is in the world, a world he’s always removed himself from. that’s why his discussion with noguchi is so important, bc kiyoi has struggled to be direct and put it into words with hira, either bc he struggles to say those things or doesn’t want to be so harsh with hira, but noguchi has no issue with holding back, nor feels any need to be gentle. he tells hira flat out you are selfish and ignorant to a fault and think so highly of yourself that you think you are the only person in this world. and thats what hira needs, a real challenge, someone who sees his mindset and twists it to show all the negatives of it. its never what hira intended, but its the message he sends to others; by belittling yourself, you give other people’s words and thoughts no weight or importance, thinking you know better. by removing people from your photos, by hiding behind the camera, you are not escaping the world, you are saying the world is only for you. there is only one plane to exist on, and by trying to be there alone, you deny everyone else of their existence. the option is not to not participate, its to participate alone. and what i’d hope continues in the story (idk what the movie is about at all) is a journey for hira to find how he can be involved at the same level as everyone else, to step out of the safety of self inflicted isolation and join in, feel comfortable finally taking up space and find who he is outside of high school. 

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.

I just keep thinking about how much force Piseang uses both times he's expressed any of his desire for Kawi whether on purpose or on accident. He's been drunk and both times he's forced Kawi's hands, he's pulled his arms, he's wrestled with him and nearly or actually overpowered him.

Kawi is genuinely scared in the future instance and might also be genuinely scared the second time as well. Piseang is taller than him, stronger than him, richer than him... he is a real threat to Kawi on a physical level, on an emotional level and on a societal level.

Piseang not just challenges everything Kawi knows and assumes about himself but also frightens him in a way he's never experienced before.

He is thirty years old and a virgin, likely never kissed, who has spent twelve years pining after the girl he fell in love with in his first week at university. A deadend job, lost friends, loneliness that nothing touched, a heart filled with someone who honestly barely knew him...

And now Kawi has not only be given a second chance at all of that, he's doing that second chance while someone has, twice now, grabbed him, pinned his hands, and either kissed him or tried to kiss him.

(All of this while Kawi is slowly realizing that all the assumptions he made about his position and role in life aren't true and that all the issues he blamed on people around him and his own failure aren't their fault and aren't just a failure.)

But something has to change. Piseang can't keep scaring Kawi. Yes, he stopped this time. And I am grateful for it. That was very well done, especially his choice to find somewhere else to sleep and to finally be clear with Pear on something they both understood but still needed to be said.

Kawi needs to realize that chasing the dream he had of fitting perfectly into some imagined box isn't a dream or even a fantasy but a desperate coping mechanism. He still doesn't know Knot and the other seniors set him up, spied on him, and recorded him with Pear. He has no idea.

I want to love this show but I still have so many fears.

Be My Favorite ep 3 thoughts

So,  I wrote up a whole thing in a chat message, and then decided to post it here because apparently I have thoughts on this show (which, well, I already knew)

I liked so, so many things about yesterday’s BMF, but most especially that Kawi is starting to show moments of awareness of the others around him. He’s been so focused on himself, what he wants, in the first two eps, that he has appeared almost completely oblivious to those around him, even Pear, beyond what he wants from them. He’s also been, in many ways, oblivious to his own reactions to the things around him, or if he is/becomes aware of them, he brushes them off if they don’t match what he expects.

While I can understand and empathize with his disappointment that Pear calls a friend (or… more than 1?) to their dinner, you can see that it does become more than just disappointment. He does recognize that friendship is likely going to be all that he gets, and he doesn’t push it by taking Pear up on her polite offer of a ride home. Is he disappointed? Yes. But, when he and Pear end up having lunch together, again he doesn’t really push for anything more, which sets him up neatly as a contrast to incel-in-training Not.

And while he was visibly unhappy about Not showing up wanting to talk to Pisaeng, and he may have misinterpreted what Pisaeng would have prefered, I don’t disagree with him removing himself from a third-wheel situation. He may not know their full history, but he does know that there is something there that isn’t for him, and as a fellow introvert, I would likely also remove myself from their interaction, though probably not as pissy as Kawi does it. And later, when Pear tells him about how Pisaeng is lonely, and that there had been some sort of fight between Pisaeng and Not and maybe the others as well, even though she doesn’t know (or at least, share) the details, Kawi does see an opportunity to maybe help. Is it selfish, because getting Pisaeng his friends back would make Kawi’s life easier by allowing himself more space after the kiss? Sure. But, Kawi also knows loneliness. And even as he is trying to reduce his own loneliness, he does take the opportunity to try to do the same for Pisaeng. He just completely lacked the context for WHY they were no longer friends, and so this effort backfired spectacularly. 

One of the things that really jumped out at me in their confrontation at the end was how quickly Kawi responded with “and unsafe” when Pisaeng asked him if he made Kawi uncomfortable. I feel like that was probably the most absolutely honest moment on Kawi’s part, and also the most likely response to be misinterpreted. It’s been all of what, a day? for Kawi since Pisaeng out of nowhere kissed him. We don’t know anything really about Kawi’s history before uni, or what has happened between uni and the wedding, but from what we’ve seen… he’s likely never even thought about being gay, or bi, or anything. He’s been so focused on Pear, for better or worse for like a decade, and his complete lack of social skills and social life probably means that if anyone else was ever possibly interested in him……. he didn’t notice? Or never interacted with the person in any way where it might eventually become obvious, just like we see that Pisaeng already saw him and liked him before they ever really interacted, but it is clear that Kawi had less than no idea before the kiss. So, Kawi has just been kissed, and he reacts badly and runs away, and then decides that that is too much for him to think about and he needs to withdraw himself from Pisaeng’s presence instead of (but also, accidentally, giving himself time to) dealing with it in the immediate (to him) aftermath. And he sees a chance to do that with Pisaeng and Not. If he can help patch things up with the two of them, *he* can get the space he desperately needs. Misguided, yes. Selfish, yes. Necessary, yes.

Misinterpreted?  Abso-fucking-lutely.  Pisaeng takes it the way anyone not in Kawi’s brain would take it - Pisaeng is a queer man who has spent the last few days deliberately inserting himself in Kawi’s life because he sees their interactions through his own, infatuated, rose-colored glasses when Kawi starts responding to him.  He has interpreted all of their interactions up to the moment at the lunch table as some form of flirting, not realizing until Kawi flat out tells him that Pisaeng’s “messing with you” isn’t funny, isn’t nice, is hurtful.  That I think is really the moment he starts to second guess himself, but even then, especially at the moment Kawi invites him for drinks, he doesn’t let himself see it as anything more than awkward flirting.  Kawi has gone from this quiet, loner person Pisaeng liked from afar to someone who has inserted himself into Pisaeng’s life, how else is he supposed to interpret it?  But… then Kawi says that he feels unsafe around Pisaeng.  And, well…  it’s not like there are a lot of positive outcomes for the gay community when the straights feel “unsafe” around them.  Maybe that isn’t what goes through Pisaeng’s mind, but that is DEFINITELY something that hit me hard.  Pisaeng doesn’t know that Kawi doesn’t really mean that he feels physically unsafe around him (and, well, maybe Kawi doesn’t quite realize this either?  Who knows), and is really more referring to emotional and mental safety.

And we do see Kawi… maybe not backtrack, exactly, but he doesn’t understand at all why Pisaeng reacted to his response the way he did.  This is what made me interpret the “and unsafe” as NOT meaning that Kawi felt physically unsafe around Pisaeng, but instead being more of the “he just doesn’t know how to deal with all the emotions and thoughts and reactions he had to kiss and it’s all so far outside his wheelhouse that he doesn’t even know where to BEGIN to process it so the best thing he can do is just… distance himself mentally AND physically from Pisaeng”.  He doesn’t understand what a supposedly completely heterosexual man telling a gay man that he feels unsafe around him could lead to in other circumstances.  I don’t see any of Kawi’s reactions in this episode (yes, even the pushing Pisaeng away hard enough that he hits his head) as homophobic or unreasonable.  He was just kissed against his will by a drunk man he has only ever interacted with over the course of… two days?  The drunk man isn’t really responding to him, and he’s so overwhelmed by it all and the time travel and everything that, like…  he just needs to get away.  

These two communicate in very different ways, and there have been a lot of assumptions on both sides, and a large lack of awareness on Kawi’s part.  But he is starting to realize that the others around him, Pear, Pisaeng, Max, Not, his father, are not NPCs in a video game that just do what he wants them to because he has a goal in mind.  He has spent so much time not realizing that he does, in fact, have an effect on the world and the people around him, that of course he isn’t going to be great at it when he finally starts to look away from himself.  He’s socially awkward, very aware of his standing among his peers, and overwhelmed.  He’s not a perfect, completely empathetic lead.  He’s an asshole, in a lot of ways, but an asshole who has potential to be better, if he can start paying more attention to the impact he has on the world and the people around him.  We see flashes of it, already, in ep 3, that we did not see in eps 1 and 2.    

I really like this show, a lot.  

Episode 2 of Be My Favorite not only lays out the time travel mechanic, but brings Kawi's character into sharper view. Fundamentally I think what we're seeing is someone who desperately wants to be taken care of. He wants someone to pet him and spoil him and lovingly buffet him out of his moodiness: the problem is he's A Guy, and guys aren't supposed to want that. He knows he's supposed to want a girlfriend and he DOES want to be loved, so he fixates on Pearmai because she's kind to him. He obsesses about his gift to her because he's supposed to be a provider. Every interaction he has with or about Pearmai is about the role he's supposed to be filling, and his gnawing awareness that he can't measure up to it. (He doesn't want to, but "can't" is easier to accept.)

Meanwhile here's Pisaeng, tall and handsome and extremely ready to take care of Kawi if Kawi will just pull the blanket off his head and let him. And Kawi's responding to it. For a guy with an inferiority complex about money, he's awfully quick to start demanding Pisaeng spoil him. If the competition for Pearmai's affection were at all real in his heart, buying her a gift with Pisaeng's money would be the last thing he'd do. Instead, already, the pretext of trying to win Pearmai is a means to let himself get closer to Pisaeng and let Pisaeng look after him.

I hope the show continues to lean on this dynamic because it's delicious to me.

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.

The nature of the first idealized love and a more solid honest love.

Kawi is a teenager. He's 30, but he never got past his teen years. The thing about first love is that people try to become the ideal for the other person. What do they like, what do they expect from me, how can I make this person like me?

Kawi is in the process of being more honest with himself, but he's still very much stuck on the thing and the way he has to be to attract Pear.

We always try to play the best version of ourselves when meeting someone we like, but as we get older, we compromise less of what we present to the world. Additionally, we are more aware of what we need from other people.

His relationship with Pisaeng is ridiculously honest (to a point... Kawi, say hello to your represed queer feelings). Pisaeng knows what a mess Kawi is, how insecure and absolutely bonkers he is. Pisaeng is in love, but he's not blind to whom he fell in love with. He wants that mess of a manboy to be his. He wants to encourage him, to be the one to support him, to give him confidence, to be there for him with his heart (and wallet).

Kawi... he truly likes Pear, and Pear likes him too. It's just that in the long run, trying to be what Pear needs (or what he expects Pear needs) won't be sustainable.

The thing is, Kawi will fight this and hurt Pisaeng a lot in the process. Pear is his ideal, and he won't quite let go of it. But he will lean more and more on Pisaeng and fall more and more for someone who is much closer to what he needs. And that's someone he can be fully himself with.

V in His After Ending

I like to ignore what happens to V's character in Saeran's AE and think of V in his own AE as the real V instead. He's wiser and calmer, gentler without falling into the people-pleasing territory. His niceties used to feel anxious and unstable due to his debilitating need to save everyone, now his kindness feels steady and reliable.

Did you ever imagine V could say "Being weak is not bad." and "You don't hate yourself. You hate being blamed and hated." and believe in those words? See below:

Not to forget this interaction:

"I feel like I'm nothing but a burden to you." "You are welcome to be my burden, Saeran."

This though. Man's funny without even trying.

The reason I find Shang Qinghua so fascinating is because his life is terrible and familiar

What little facts we learn about his pre transmigration life is:

1. He was estranged from both his parents as they were much more invested in their new families

2. Because of that it's implied he was neglected. We only know for sure that while his dad paid his tution and living expenses he often "forgot"

3. He ended up writing proclivity based on what the comments liked or disliked because he was pandoring as it was his main source of income and because of that

4. He deliberately farmed hate comments because that was still engagement

But what we can infer about his life from the other characters is so much more

Luo Binghe: Luo Binghe is constantly hurt as a child by adults and people in authority who should be taking care of him. So he has attachment issues, trust issues, and in the original novel ends up in a lot of meaningless heterosexual sexual encounters that are devoid of emotional depth but let him play caretaker and accept affection as shallow as it can be. He also spends a good portion of his existence in dreams

Luo Binghe is obviously a self insert power fantasy. Through him Shang Qinghua was able to get revenge on those who hurt him and be powerful. But because Shang Qinghua (who may or may not have known he was gay) was filling his novel, that he has once dreamed of being art, with sex to please a bunch of straight men...no wonder the sex was devoid of emotion and left Luo Binghe as fundamentally hollow inside unable to fill the void in his soul. Because while PIDW paid the bills it was emotionally unsatisfying to Shang Qinghua

Luo Binghe is also written to be manipulative and I think that's a dark version of Shang Qinghua's need to fill a role and be what people need of him

Which brings us to:

Yue Qingyuan: Yue Qingyuan always has a smile on his face and strives to be pleasant and to fix problems between other people even when he's rejected for it and he constantly is failing to reach those he really needs to. Too afraid to speak his truth even as he has a sword of Damocles hanging over his head

This is the the other side of Shang Qinghua's people pleasing. This is a child who feels he has to fix his parents divorce and feeling like it's his fault. This is Shang Qinghua never feeling good enough

Original Shen Qingqiu: Shen Qingqiu is able to be the petty spiteful bitch Shang Qinghua always wanted to be. Shang Qinghua in canon often mutters spiteful hate filled comments towards those who treat him bad but he doesn't often say it to anyone directly until the ascension. Because Shang Qinghua doesn't feel he can get away with it

Shen Qingqiu is also a conduit for the rage I'm sure Shang Qinghua has towards his half siblings. Those are ugly feelings that he can't express to the people in question. If you've been hurt and deprived and you see someone getting what you needed but never had, well it fills you with anger at the innocent party.

It's possible to swallow that rage down and recognise it's not the fault of the person recieving what you needed. But it's an ugly emotion that has to go somewhere. And I think all of Shang Qinghua's ugly feelings like that pre transmigration went to Shen Qingqiu

Shen Qingqiu can be spiteful and two faced and elegant and nasty in a way Shang Qinghua couldn't be. Which is why he had a complicated backstory

Mobei Jun: we know he's Shang Qinghua's ideal man. Both in what he's attracted to (whether he realises it or not when he wrote him) and what he wants to be

So what does that tell us?

It tells us Shang Qinghua wants to be strong and he wants to not feel

He wants to take the trauma of his childhood and close off from the pain he feels

He wants to be ice. He wants to be stoic and unbothered and strong enough that pain doesn't reach him

Now we know that Mobei Jun in SVSSS does have feelings he's just very bad at expressing them. But to Shang Qinghua he's endlessly cool and untouched and untroubled

We learn so little of Shang Qinghua directly but because he's author of the world and from ways he reacts to characters and situations we can infer so much

And he's so hurt and lonely and lacking in self worth

And yet the narrative doesn't get any kinder to him. Post transmigration he is bullied by the system and by his peers and by Mobei Jun and he's always fighting for survival

Because both lives have been about "smile, do what you're told, survive"

But his extras end with his ideal character protecting him, treating him kindly, and agreeing to make him noodles. And Shang Qinghua feels safe enough in that moment to be demanding and ask for what he wants!

And anyone who has been neglected and emotionally abused can tell you that asking for what you want is a big fucking deal

I will have been married 18 years this November and I still cannot tell my husband (who is great) what I would like for dinner half the time because in my head I am not allowed to ask for stuff (I'm working on it)

Shang Qinghua goes through so much shit (and we don't even learn his name from his first life)

But his happy ending is him finally asking for something for himself and getting what he asked for without complaint

And what he's asking for is what killed him

He's so interesting and I can't get over how much is there but hidden in the other characters

Hey Isis! Loved your last analysis post and couldn't help coming back to ask you about a certain thing yet again! From... around days 5-7 in the route I believe, the game takes a turn with V blaming his "ideal" love for Rika become the way she is. She even flippin turns around and calls herself his ruined masterpiece that he threw aside. I was inclined to give it thought because I didn't want to be blinded by my bias, but then I began to question is (1/3?)

.

Because throughout the route, we see that even though V’s love is super unhealthy and harmful, especially to himself, we also see Rika actively feeding into it by asking him to save her from what “God cannot” multiple times. She was basically also pulling him deeper into that thought process by the ankles, and I think that one unnamed side of the mystic messenger fandom is quick to forget that V never treated Rika like “art” or a “trophy” of his own will, because she was the one who (2/3)

-asked that of him in the first place. V is quick to blame himself for literally everything that happens- and even his voice actor addresses this in his Free Talk (Lee Ho San is sooo salty about Rika, I love it). People insist that V’s “ideal love” was what made Rika start Mint Eye, but.. no?? Mint eye was literally started before the RFA, as seen with how Saeran is being drugged at such a young age in SE1. Thoughts? (3/3) 

Wowie Phil, okay, this is a long question and it ended up having a long answer. It also touches a couple controversial issues in the fandom so… haha…

Naturally, I’ll have to mark a SPOILER WARNING FOR ‘ANOTHER STORY’. This is a long post so if you’re on mobile, scroll down fast!

This analysis is divided in three key segments, so you can read these messy thoughts of mine in some kind of order.

V and Rika are unreliable narrators, so we should be careful when we take their opinions in consideration. 

What was the dynamic in Rika and V’s relationship while they were together

The core of your question, V’s love and Rika’s darkness.

1- V and Rika as Unreliable Narrators.

Alright, so, the first point I have to make clear, and I really want to put emphasis on this, is the fact that both V and Rika are unreliable narrators by default. 

The only people that believe V is literally the cause of Rika’s woes are… That’s right, V and Rika themselves. Jumin, the person closest to the two of them and the character the game highlights as the neutral voice of reason, comments at various points how Rika made her own choices, therefore the whole “V created Rika’s demon” is a biased narrative created by these two characters, and it’s clear why. 

V will always find a way to blame himself in the story, always. He has made plenty mistakes that he acknowledges, sure, but he always tends to overestimate his flaws and underestimate others’, so he highlights his role in people’s failures and minimizes his influence in their victories and successes. Likewise, Rika also has a biased view of the world, in that she tends to put the blame of her actions on other people all the time. It’s her parents’ fault, it’s V’s fault, it’s society’s fault, it’s the RFA’S fault, it’s everyone’s fault but her own. Sure, she had a tragic childhood, but she tends to excuse herself at every point by trying to blame others for the road she took, while still liking to have control over everyone else’s lives.

What I want to clarify with this is that we cannot trust 100% what Rika or V tell us about their relationship unless it fits in one of these categories. 

We saw it ourselves in a Story Mode flashback or in Secret 01.

It’s a fact or an event, instead of a point of view.

It’s commented on by an unbiased third person that is neither Rika nor V.

This means that the story itself is not trying to tell us V is to blame for Rika’s descent to darkness, that is only V expressing his (self-deprecating) thoughts. This route is literally about trying to convince this stubborn man that he’s wrong about a lot of things, why should we believe him when he says this is his fault?

2- V and Rika’s dynamics in their relationship. 

When they had their first date after Rika visited V’s gallery, the two of them had a conversation that highlighted how they had very similar views on love and what they wanted in a relationship: Rika wanted a kind of eternal love that will last no matter what bad, awful things she does, and V wanted to provide that kind of love to someone because he wanted to discover the reason he lives for through that action, since he thought his goal in life was to love. He wanted to give that love and be there for her, and she wanted to take it, so they were a match made in Hell, basically.  

So… What happened when they got together and Rika got the love she was looking for? A plethora of things: They felt happy for sure, and they settled down… But she never believed V’s love, and kept trying to test it by attacking him, insulting him and demanding things from him to push him to the edge and see if he’d remain with her or not. She also simultaneously wanted him to always do what she wanted him to do, and at the same time raged because he never “craved something on his own” and did only as she wanted. To summarize: If he didn’t do what she wanted him to do it means that he hated her, and if he didn’t take the initiative to do something towards her then it means that he hated her, too. It was a complex situation where Rika would both encourage him to take individual action, and demand he always did what she wanted him to do.  

As a consequence, V’s actions towards Rika were mild and cautious, and he never expressed much willpower around her, lest he risks upsetting her or going against her desires, because his “love” was all about pleasing her. Subsequently V had two different approaches regarding Rika: He wanted to help her and guide her towards the light (as any reasonable person would) so she could be at peace with herself, but at the same time he didn’t want to force Rika to do something she didn’t want, because that’d make her have a crisis and doubt his love. He encouraged her to take therapy and cheered on her when it all went well… But if Rika started to threaten suicide, or screamed about how she didn’t want it, or just flat out start saying she felt scared of getting ‘close to the light’, he wouldn’t force her to continue, and accepted her wishes. He tried to help her but only for as long as she was okay with it, because he didn’t believe confronting her was the answer, since… Wouldn’t that mean that he didn’t love her as she was? That he didn’t embrace all sides of her?

As I explained in a previous ask, submissive love for him was unconditional love, because he believed he had to love all of her darkness, too.

Rika, likewise, believed that V’s love would dry her tears and would save her, so like you mentioned, she constantly told him as much. She wants the sun to dry all her tears, she wants V to save her since God can’t. V believed that was part of his conception of unconditional love, so he promised to embrace her all even if she were to break him. V’s overwhelming and selfless love made Rika aware of how dark she was and so she decided to embrace that identity. 

3- V’s love and Rika’s darkness. 

The main consequence this behavior had, was that Rika found someone that would always love her no matter what she did, and she felt comfort in that. She felt that she could do whatever “her devil” wanted to do and it’d be fine, because V would always be there for her. 

Rika wanted that love because she never experienced it before, true, but also because it validated her, both in good and bad ways. It made her feel as if she was worth being loved… But it also gave her the excuse to give in to her darkest thoughts: She could do whatever she wanted, commit all the atrocities she desired (in the name of her ideals), and be judged by the world and society without caring… Because someone would always love her, so she would always feel the “warmth” of that unconditional love. She didn’t really care much about trying to reciprocate this love, and, personally, I don’t even think she treasured V as a person, because as I saw it through the route, she just wanted to feel his undying love and loyalty. This is why she mistreated him and enjoyed his pain (physical and psychological), but as soon as he stopped providing the love she needed (By dying in Secret 01, or by moving on and rejecting this kind of love in his route) she loses it. V had no value to her as a person, just as a “sun” that’s there to provide and nurture the daffodil. If a different ‘sun’ appears (like MC) she would flatly ditch him in favor of that someone else. 

This is how V’s love “caused” Rika’s shadow to grow. As you can see, he played a big role in Rika’s descent to darkness by inadvertently helping create the right circumstances for her to decide to act upon her inner desires. However, V didn’t create Rika’s “darkness” since that was with her from the start, he tried to discourage her most outrageous thoughts regarding anyone but himself (as seen in both Secret 01 and his route) and Rika never showed any actual desire to change herself for the better and erase her ‘demon’.

I believe his tolerance allowed the problem to grow, but I also believe blaming V for Rika’s actions is trying to absolve her from her responsibilities, and it’s almost a form of victim blaming. V was wrong, yes, his mistakes definitely let the problem get out of control, and his wrong conception of love validated Rika, but he cannot be blamed for the choices Rika made or what she decided to make out of his love for her.

V’s love provided Rika with the affection and tolerance she always craved, which gave her the motivation to carry on with what she wanted to do, while constantly abusing V so he can keep proving his love to her even more and fuel her. Once that love ceased to exist, Rika crumbled. 

Extra comment: Rika as V’s art.

This is just a small comment I want to make about the art analogies. Rika was V’s artwork in the sense that she replaced his need for pursuing arts in his life, and he filled the void in his heart by loving her. He is an artist, he thinks in artistic terms, so he saw her a as art in his eyes: Because she was beautiful, because he “loved” her, and because he could make a difference in her life. When Rika saw V trying to move on, she assumed it was because he was bored of this ‘old artwork’ (Rika) since it didn’t bring him the results he needed, and so moved onto the ‘next one’ (MC). To me it only seems as the comment of a person hurt by a lover leaving them, so perhaps she perceived that way, but that doesn’t make it reliable.

Also, if V took pictures of Rika and made her his muse and a model for his art, it was because of her own will, since he even told him she wishes he’d never put down the camera in front of her, and it made her feel beautiful. She flat out said she loved it, so… Yeah, I don’t see why people would think V saw Rika as ‘art’ or a ‘prize’. 

alice-707 replied to your photoset: “Seven Never Apologizes” - Sounds Fake, But OK:…

I find it quite ironic that he gets mad at V for saying sorry too much…when he says sorry A LOT in his route…and other people’s routes.

Saeyoung expresses that frustration with V in Another Story / V’s Route, right?

I wouldn’t say it’s ironic so much as it is hypocritical, but even then, it’s more like accidental hypocrisy because Saeyoung wouldn’t see the situations as even remotely comparable. When Saeyoung expresses frustration with V for apologizing over and over again in Another Story, he does so because:

V apologizes without actually explaining what is going on with Rika, Mint Eye, et cetera. This makes V’s apologies useless after a time, because even if he’s saying he’s sorry about what’s happening, he’s deliberately withholding information that could help Saeyoung best “the hacker” or potentially sort out the mess in other ways.

V apologizes for things that, in Saeyoung’s eyes, aren’t actually his fault. Rika’s choices are her own, and Saeyoung recognizes this. So when V apologizes for what Rika is doing, or suggests sacrificing himself to Rika, Saeyoung gets upset because V doing that won’t actually solve anything.

By contrast, Saeyoung shares what information he can with MC / the rest of the RFA, ultimately reveals everything, and apologizes for things that he genuinely feels he is responsible for. Whether he actually is responsible for those things from an objective standpoint is another discussion; the point is, Saeyoung has a guilt / shame complex that makes him feel as though he is, hence the chronic apologizing. With that said, though, he’s not the only one who has this: V has a guilt / shame complex as well, and in fact, Saeyoung’s chronic apologizing is likely something he subconsciously learned from V.

First and foremost, to get this out of the way: Guilt / shame complexes are often found in abuse survivors, which both Saeyoung and V are. Such complexes are a symptom of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), a type of post-traumatic stress disorder that develops in survivors of long-term abuse, and which Saeyoung and V (and Saeran as well) exhibit symptoms of. I have a post on that here (covering just Original Story, not Another Story) if you’re interested. So to that end, the chronic apologizing likely stems from this, although the fact that Saeyoung apologizes over, and over, and over again could still be something that picked up from V, given that V does it as well.

Because the thing is, Saeyoung picked up a lot of traits from V. It’s mentioned at several different points throughout Saeyoung’s route that V was a role model to Saeyoung; V is the one who introduced the concept of being Saeyoung’s surrogate father, and this was something that Saeyoung agreed to quite readily. Saeyoung says that he saw V as his father “for more than ten years,” and goes on to say that he used to follow everything V said blindly, without question, trusting implicitly that it was the right thing. While Saeyoung was talking about the instructions that V gave him with regards to the RFA’s confidential information and other security issues, I think it’s safe to say that Saeyoung saw V as a role model in other respects as well, and subconsciously picked up on a lot of habits, behaviors, and beliefs based on what he saw V saying and doing.

As a few examples:

Double-texting: This one is a simple one, but (and it’s especially apparent with V in Another Story) both of them double-text. They’ll often break up single sentences over multiple different messages, which the rest of the RFA often complains is “spamming.” Given how much Saeyoung looks up to V, it’s reasonable to assume that he learned this messaging style from V, and that he picked it up whether he realized he was doing it or not.

Chronic Apologizing: Already discussed, but both of them apologize over, and over, and over again, sometimes multiple times in the same thought. While this ties back to the guilt / shame complex, at the same time it’s not unreasonable to believe that this is a behavior that (again, subconsciously) Saeyoung modeled after V’s own behavior.

Secret Keeping: This one isn’t arguable. Saeyoung explicitly says that the reason why he kept secrets from the rest of the RFA (at least about the RFA’s business) is because V instructed him to, because it would keep everyone safe. With that said, Saeyoung also keeps his personal life separate and secret from the RFA, and while some of this is no doubt because of his agency upbringing (agents aren’t allowed to have personal lives), it still can’t be denied that V kept pretty much everything secret from the rest of the RFA, Saeyoung included, to protect them—and Saeyoung, following that example, kept his private life separate from the RFA and tried to push all of them (MC included and perhaps especially) away for their own good, just like how V tries to do the same thing in several routes. V tries to make the RFA hate him so that they’ll be far away and safe, and Saeyoung tries pulling the same stunt in his route. It feels to me like a modeled behavior.

Responsibility Complex: Tying in with the above, both V and Saeyoung try to take every single responsibility and burden on their own shoulders, for everything. Even when it comes to Saeran, although of course Saeyoung blames Rika and V for what they did as well, he also greatly blames himself and feels immensely responsible for how Saeran turned out. More to the point, though, is that Saeyoung takes on every single task that is passed onto his shoulders, no matter how stressed or exhausted he becomes. He doesn’t want anyone else to take or share his burden, save perhaps Vanderwood (which shows how close he and Vanderwood actually are—vitriolic best buds indeed), because he feels that it’s his responsibility and his job to do it all. V is very much the same; when it comes to everything surrounding Rika and Mint Eye, V takes (or tries to take) the responsibility solely on his own shoulders, regardless of how he self-destructs in the process. Neither of them expects or even wants praise or accolades for this; they’re doing what they sincerely believe is correct. Again, this feels to me like something Saeyoung could very well have learned from V.

Lack of Angry Emojis: This one isn’t so much a learned behavior as it is just an interesting note. While they both have emoji sets, neither of them has an explicitly angry emoji. The most they get is annoyed with ellipses, but otherwise, they don’t have emojis that express true anger. Every other member of the RFA has one, even the normally reserved Jumin. But neither V nor Saeyoung do. Given that Saeyoung designed the messenger, it stands to reason that he made the emojis; this would mean that he deliberately avoided making angry emojis for both himself and V. It’s possible that V said he didn’t want / need an angry one, and that Saeyoung (both to keep with his 707 persona and to follow V’s example) didn’t make one for himself, either.

And so on and so forth. A more detailed look at the game could probably come up with more examples, but the point here is that Saeyoung learned a lot of things from V, and subconsciously seems to have adopted various behaviors and viewpoints from him. This makes sense when you remember that he looked to V as a father-figure in his formative years, and saw him as someone who could do no wrong. So yes, Saeyoung does have some of the very same habits that he grows frustrated with V over, though it should be noted that his reason for growing frustrated with V is likely one that he wouldn’t feel applies to himself in his route. (Then again, “I sincerely believe this is my fault” is something that’s true for V as well. Situations always look different to the person in them, versus the people outside.)

spending a normal about of time thinking about ena inviting mafuyu into the shinonome household while it was raining (on a day where shinei was out for work so it was only shinonome mama, ena and akito) -> giving mafuyu temporary freedom away from his mother and showing him what a more normal family is like (which is why shinei being out for work is important because that family dinner would NOT have gone well. lmao)

compare this to kanade who confronts asahinamama about her treatment of mafuyu and swears to never leave mafuyu's side and continue doing music with him because kanade (who has few memories of her parents, with the few she DOES have being loving and warm) believed that asahinamama had mafuyu's best interests at heart until she noticed how cold she was. its more permenant than what ena can offer

and mizuki handing mafuyu an umbrella in the rain, letting themselves get drenched in the escape trained cards. mizuki helping mafuyu by bringing him to have fun and not think too much about the stress in his life (escapism which is also how mizuki has dealt with their own issues) the umbrella symbolism is important here because mizuki wants mafuyu to only temporarily escape and not run from the Problems cowardly like mizuki. mafuyu, who is finding salvation in niigo slowly (and i hope this comes up in the next event) and opening up vs mizuki who still refuses to tell niigo that theyre struggling

niigo's writing team has been on a roll since maigo/wish where they really found their footing and i hope the next niigo event (likely an arc ender before theyre aged up for 3rd anni) will do mafuyu and niigo justice 🥹🥹🥹

Be My Favorite and the Perils of Getting What You Think You Want

This show continues to astound me with how smart it is; it truly does get better and better every week. In this episode, Kawi finished fixing everything on his list - saving his dad, growing closer to Pear, repairing friendships with Max and Pisaeng - and headed back to the future to reap the rewards. And once we got there, we realized very quickly that getting what he thought he wanted did not in fact fix his life.

This new Future Kawi is a successful recording artist, he is still friends with Max and Pisaeng, and he got to be in a long-term relationship with Pear. But his dad still died, his relationship with Pear fell apart, and he is now struggling with alcoholism. He is deeply unhappy, and the things he thought he wanted did not actually result in the kind of life he hoped he would have. Connecting with Pisaeng again only seems to reinforce that he’s been looking in the wrong place for what he seeks, and he is not done with the work to get there.

This is a genius turn of events. I am impressed that the show decided to pursue the thread of Kawi’s alcoholism, which they have been seeding the entire time. We have seen him turn to substances to manage his emotions, we have seen him blow well past his own limits, and we have seen him struggle to maintain control. All of these characteristics left unaddressed can easily result in a substance abuse problem, especially in someone who is not doing the necessary work to address their behavior problems and get to the root of what’s causing their issues.

In this episode, Kawi interrupted his own growth arc midstream to go back to the future, thinking that what he had achieved was enough to guarantee a good outcome. But he was not finished doing the necessary work to deal with his underlying issues and become the kind of person who could be a good partner to anyone, and he was denying an important part of himself. He looked away from his growing feelings for Pisaeng and their implications and instead stayed focused on his original goal of being with Pear, even as he wasn’t entirely certain why he wanted it anymore. He stopped thinking about how to be a better person to the people in his life. He stopped putting in the effort to change. And so in this new timeline he made Pear miserable in their relationship and ultimately still ended up alone. 

Another thing this episode showed us is how very much everyone else in this story is affected by Kawi’s choices. Pear spends years in a bad relationship with Kawi and then gets stuck with a cheating asshole of a husband. Kwan ends up used and discarded. Max is still playing the role of frustrated caretaker to Kawi’s emotional mess. Pisaeng alone seems to have found some peace, and it’s interesting that in this timeline, it was getting away from Kawi and moving on from his feelings for him that did it. Despite that kiss at the end, it’s clear that this version of Kawi is not the one who can be the partner Pisaeng deserves. 

Kawi is not done doing the work to accept his true desires and become his best self, and this narrative is not going to let him take shortcuts. Insert jack shepherd.gif here because WE HAVE TO GO BACK.

One of the things that's frustrating about bmf in the best kind of way is how it alludes to the future without giving us the full story

Like when pisaeng comes to kawi's house after running away from his wedding and he's got an injured cheek you wonder who did it. Was is pear? Was it pears dad? We'll never know

And then in the recent episode 8 where pisaeng pulls away from the kiss and tells kawi he needs to stop doing this we have to wonder how many times it happened? How many times did pisaeng give kawi and easy out like he did the first time?

All these allusions make these futures feel like real, like they are fully fledged existences that kawi (and us the audience) have been dropped. These futures are given weight to them, given complexities. the writers have taken the time to really flesh them out, even the parts we don't see, even the parts we'll never get to know, even if the future stops existing once kawi returns to the past

Kawi is the worst, honestly

TLWR: Kawi sucks and episode seven told us exactly why.

We all know I love Be My Favorite, but the one point I love the most is how awful the show allows Kawi to be.

And before we try to defend our poor little meow meow, let's remember that Kawi knows he is the worst.

In fact, he repeats it all the time.

But episode seven honed in on why Kawi is the absolute worst.

Because Kawi IS the worst, so much so that he is even worse than Not, but it's not due to Kawi's low self-esteem.

The first reason Kawi is an asshole is because he only thinks about his future.

Others have mentioned how Kawi phrases wanting his dad alive because without him, Kawi isn't motivated to excel. It's not to simply have his dad alive, but because Kawi needs his dad to be alive. It's semantics, but Pear throws this in Kawi's face during the argument; Kawi has only thought about his future and not how his changes affect others. Even when Pear was left at the altar, Kawi went back to be the one to marry her. Kawi isn't present in the moment, which is the lesson he needs to learn, because he is always thinking about HIS future and how others will help him achieve that future.

The second reason Kawi is a jerk is because he doesn't think about anyone else's future.

This is different than the first reason because what happens when Kawi gets the future he wants? To Kawi, getting Pear, being a musician, and his dad being alive are all goals for him. He didn't think beyond that. One day, his dad will still die. Pear and him will break up. His career might not satisfy him. But Kawi never thought beyond that. Kawi never thought beyond this future moment for himself, and he certainly didn't think about it for others. Pear still wants a future beyond this moment, but Kawi has his ideal future and stopped moving. Pear wanted a present WITH HIM, but Kawi refused to keep evolving because he had everything he wanted.

The third reason Kawi sucks is because he isn't honest with himself.

This show harps on honesty, especially honesty with oneself. Kawi is oddly forthcoming about everything except his emotions. He offered up a lot of information to Pisaeng's mom, and when singing in the bar for the first time, he told the entire audience why he was going by Kawi instead of his full name. When Pisaeng tried to kiss Kawi, Kawi told him to be honest with himself about his feelings. When Pisaeng went to the gay bar to find answers, Max told him the answers were within himself. We see Pisaeng give the same advice back to Kawi in this episode in a full-circle moment. We've now seen Kawi, who blurts out everything, bury his emotions four times (the first night at the club, the beach club where he declared he was a virgin, outside the pink cafe where he told Pisaeng sorry, and now in front of the RV). Pisaeng has been there for each spell and had to take care of Kawi, so the common demeanor of Kawi's lack of honesty stems from Pisaeng and the feelings he has regarding him. The answer to Kawi's issues have always been within him. He likes Pisaeng.

But the biggest reason Kawi is the worst (even worse than Not) is because he isn't honest with others.

Pear knew Not was seeing both her and Kwan, but Kwan said Not wouldn't even admit they were together. Even if Not didn't tell Pear, she had years of practice in seeing the obvious.

Kwan has always liked Not. When he gave her the book then gave Pear one, she was sad. Not has always liked Pear, which is why he gave her the book and wanted to embarrass Kawi. The crumbs were always there.

Pear commented to Kawi back in university that he and Pisaeng seemed like they had been friends for a long time. Not questioned Pear about Kawi's sexuality. Pisaeng told Pear about Kawi's dad needing surgery and texted Pear about his emergency surgery instead of Kawi himself. Pear didn't need Not to admit to being with Kwan because she never needed Kawi to admit his feelings for Pisaeng. Mostly when it's so obvious to everyone else what is happening since the crumbs have always been there.

But Kawi continues to bury the confession. He tells Pisaeng how much he needs him and how much Pisaeng brings to his life, but he won't admit what matters.

When Kawi showed up to the beach and broke down in front of Pisaeng, Pisaeng asked him if he was still not over Pear. Kawi, who immediately reached out to Pisaeng when he needed comfort, who had been spiraling not being able to talk to Pisaeng, who demanded Max tell him where Pisaeng was, who if he was being honest with himself would have known this wasn't about Pear but about not having Pisaeng next to him, has even Pisaeng convinced that the feelings aren't really there.

Which is why Pisaeng lied.

Pisaeng saw those messages. Pisaeng knew Kawi needed him, but Pisaeng, a rich boy who is living on the beach out of an RV which implies he has distanced himself from his mother and her control, is tired of not being honest and has already had to take care of Kawi in all his moments of drunkenness which all included some raw confessions from Kawi. But how can Pisaeng trust a person who only says he's sorry when he is drunk? How can Pisaeng believe a guy who only kisses him when he has been drinking? Not to bring The Eighth Sense into this, but as Ernest Hemingway said, "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

Kawi wants to get in the water, but doesn't want to get wet. He wants to do everything with Pisaeng, but doesn't want to admit they are in a relationship. He wants to kiss Pisaeng, but he wants Pisaeng to give him an out each time. He wants Pisaeng to know how much he loves him, but doesn't want to tell him. He wants Pisaeng to always be by his side without committing to him, so it's ironic that he yells this at Not.

Because the simple truth of all of this and what really hurts everyone is Kawi could change.

Kawi could be better.

We saw Kawi's future in the form of a good dad but a terrible person. Pear's dad admitted to drinking a bottle of wine a day. Pisaeng's mom immediately offered Pisaeng a drink to pacify him, but he refused because Pisaeng, who now lives in an RV on the beach, wants to live an honest life unlike the others who know they aren't well, yet can't seem to change for the better.

Kawi could change his present for the better, but he only cares about his future. Kawi is so focused in a future that he already lived that he continues to miss the point about being present. Instead of waiting in the past to see how events unfolded, Kawi jumped to the future. Instead of Kawi being honest about his emotions and how they are evolving, he focuses on what he he used to feel. Kawi is so focused on how the past affected his future, that he doesn't realize the only place he needs to be is the present.

Kawi shouldn't have jumped back to the future. Kawi shouldn't have shown up to that wedding. And Kawi shouldn't have gone to Pisaeng.

Because Kawi is the absolute worse when he tries to make the world fit into his predetermined idea of what his perfect future looks like and how his past influenced it instead of just allowing himself honesty in that moment.

Kawi can't change the past with the idea of changing his future in mind. He needs to change his present for the sake of changing himself regardless if that is the past or future. He needs to focus on the moment regardless of where the moment is.

Pisaeng's drunk kiss on his wedding day exposed this vicious cycle between them of holding onto an idea for years until it destroys them, but, hopefully, Kawi will see that hiding their real current feelings behind plausible future excuses only hurts them.

Moving Forward

Every week, I make some wild ass theory about this show, and every week it goes in the opposite direction since this show has been unpredictable.

Because this show is telling us we need to exist in that moment, not the future.

The show will end how it ends regardless of how I want it to end.

Much like Kawi is learning, we have to be present, and we have to be patient.

Because good things come to those who wait.

Sidenote: There is only one this week because this is the only one we need.

Be My Favorite: I’m All Caught Up!

So two nights ago, I kind of lost it, HAPPILY, in a binge of Be My Favorite – I’m here to report that I’m all caught up, I’m VERY SEATED for the ongoing episodes, and hopefully I can get it together to do episodic meta from here on out. 

First off, I’d like to say, publicly, that I had written multiple times in previous posts that I would NOT be watching BMF after having watched SOTUS, SOTUS S, and Our Skyy x SOTUS for my Old GMMTV Challenge. I thought Krist Perawat’s acting in SOTUS, etc., was awful, especially compared to what Singto Prachaya was delivering. While Our Skyy x SOTUS was markedly better than the two full series, Krist wiping his mouth after the airport kiss still gave cringe, and I was like, peace out, cub scout, hope you never do another BL again.

I RECANT. Clearly, much has improved by way of Krist’s acting skill – and, likely, by way of how GMMTV workshops their actors and scripts before filming a BL. (And I REALLY want to thank @rocketturtle4​ here for going very hard in the paint for Arthit and tagging me in your post, because your SOTUS meta absolutely had me thinking about Krist’s acting again. That piece was part of the inspiration and urge that led me to pick up BMF. Thank you! Good things happen when you clown, friend!)

(As well, I want to note that while Krist’s reputation regarding homophobia has not, by way of general public judgment, been fully redeemed, that I think recent discourse surrounding the early days of the pressures of shipper culture and how his comments were received is very interesting to peruse – especially for me, as I develop a MUCH sharper eye towards the toxic, negative impacts of shipper culture. This amazing dialogue between @absolutebl​ and @thelblproject​ has been EXTREMELY helpful to me in setting that history and context for me.)

So, with all that said:

Be My Favorite is a FABULOUS SHOW. The writing is SHARP, the acting is GREAT, and the chemistry between Krist and Gawin Caskey is SUPERB. 

Catching up to episode 7, I want to review what I’m seeing as the major themes of the series, ones that I’m seriously enjoying:

1) As I noted in my Monday night liveblogs, this show is structured in part around the inspiration of a few old yt dudes philosophers and physicists regarding time, space, truth, and relative existence. We gots Nietzsche, Einstein, Orwell, and – gah, the Thai writer of the book that Max was reading early in the series about Thai social hierarchy, and I cannot find the post that explains that book (if someone has the link for that post, please send, and I’ll edit it in here). (EDITED TO ADD: thank you to @grapejuicegay​ for sending me the link! The book Max was reading was The Face of Thai Feudalism, and here’s a wiki link for the book). Otherwise, receipts!

Just to recap what I wrote in underslept franticness on Monday night: the first of the old dudes to enter the ring of this series is Einstein, regarding time travel. I mentioned that I am a huge fan of Jack Finney’s Time and Again – I loved that book in high school. It’s a fantasy about how the American government uses Einstein’s work on weight and light to understand the dimensional aspects of time, the present, the past, and the future, and how multiple existences may be present – if you can create a pathway into them. 

I don’t know at all if BMF is talking to Time and Again, per se, but it IS talking to Einstein and relativity, along with Nietzsche and what’s referenced in the slide above – Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (and, yooo: here’s the text! Read it! Everyone: READ MORE NIETZSCHE! Let’s meditate on power together when we have the time, eeee!)

I really want someone with a Ph.D to not allow me to say this, but let me offer a blasé summary of the text to say: what’s essentially being said in the dialogue between Einstein and Nietzsche is that truth is relative to the moment in time in which truth is being sought, and to the individual to whom the truth may have meaning. Truth is relative to the beholder of that person that is seeking truth. 

In other words: what, exactly, is the truth that Kawi is seeking? 

2) @respectthepetty​ (here) and @lurkingshan​ (here) are writing excellent meta on the dislikability of Kawi, and how this search for his “truth” is fucking him the hell up. First: I TOTALLY AGREE. This dude wants to spin that damn ball to find out if his life gets “better.”

And what we’re seeing is that he’s slowly relaxing the parameters of what “better” means. What “better” HAD meant to him, early on, was that he’d be in love with Pear, and that his dad would be alive. In episode 7′s rock star world, we see neither of those things happening; in fact, in none of his presumed worlds do we see that happening. 

Besides Kawi’s dislikability, which I’ll get back to in a second, I just want to say:

Him jumping to world after world is SO important to this story, and I really like that this series isn’t trying to hone in on ONE world being THE RIGHT WORLD, because – Nietzsche, Einstein, and Orwell aren’t necessarily the guys you want on the bench arguing in favor of a ONE RIGHT WORLD perspective. They’re the dudes who are like – bend some light here (Einstein), throw in a linguistical concept there (Nietzsche), and add some questionable politics and power control issues (Orwell), and, well, you got some messy worlds there, my friends.

In other worlds: this show is set, per episode, in the world in which Kawi is existing at that moment. It has relativity to his other worlds – because he’s an anchor in all these worlds – but not one specific present moment is his absolute truth. YOW.

3) Sooooo, where does that get us? It gets us to episode 7, an episode that really moved us…“forward” (??) (ha) in this series. In that, Kawi changed enough in his initial state at the start of the series to create a new future for himself that was vastly different than the ones in which Pisaeng was going to marry Pear.

What I am loving about this series is that by being anchored by the influence of the philosophers, in part, that we get to see a lot more light into Kawi and Pisaeng. Pisaeng, as we now know, was pressured by his mother to stay in the closet at a young age (cc @brazilian-whalien52 and @respectthepetty on the linked post!). 

What is your truth if you’re in the closet for so long?

In episode 7, Pisaeng has disappeared from the lives of his friends and Kawi for months. We don’t exactly know why at this point. But we get a hint at the very end of the episode – that he is ultimately spending his time, possibly in multiple worlds, being patient for Kawi to come around to Pisaeng’s love. 

Early in the series, as well, Kawi notes to Pisaeng that Pisaeng wasn’t being honest to Pear about not having feelings for Pear. I think this extrapolation has already happened in previous posts, but I’m not finding them at the moment, so let me give flowers to everyone who has said: that Pisaeng’s internal reality is also a world, a present, that Kawi doesn’t necessarily share by way of absolute reality – in that, what Kawi demands of Pisaeng early on is relative revelation for the sake of the people around him. And how will Pisaeng’s truth affect others? How will it affect Kawi, how will it affect his mom? How does it affect Pear?

All of that is relative truth that each individual, involved in these circles, must translate AND accept and digest in their own individual, micro-level perceptions. Pisaeng’s own truth BECOMES a kind of truth that is slightly different for each person that’s receiving it. 

4) And the same for Kawi. Except, we’re seeing it develop differently for Kawi. I think we have known, up until the end of episode 7, what “better” meant for Kawi, as I wrote previously – Pear, his dad’s health, etc.

But I think we’re going to see a change in Kawi now (hopefully). We’re seeing that Pisaeng keeps returning to Kawi, in almost all the worlds, as Kawi improves himself and checks himself against his “present.” Surely, what we want to see in a BL is Kawi warming up to Pisaeng’s affections. The fact that time travel is the modality by which Kawi will experience that change – vis à vis some VERY fascinating perspectives on what “truth” really means – is FABULOUS.

It’s unique, because – I think – in the story of Pisaeng, do we see a macro commentary on the reality of being queer in majority cishet societies that may view queerness as dangerous or something to be kept secret, as Pisaeng’s mom indicates. 

To keep one’s queerness in the closet – FOR THE SAKE OF SOMEONE ELSE, damn it – isn’t that a violation of one’s own truth? And one’s own reality?

5) And, final point (for now) (ha) is: a theme that’s been running through my head on this series is how both Kawi and Pisaeng CHALLENGE EACH OTHER TO CHANGE themselves. Maybe even… for “the better.”

Previously to all of this time travel stuff – neither of them experienced external pressure to change their worldviews. Pisaeng was going to marry Pear as a closeted queer individual. Kawi was going to live out his life friendless and companion-less.

Instead, THROUGH the time travel, and through their growth in all of these different worlds – BOTH of them have been forced to change.

I really like this lesson. One can become complacent. As Theory of Love so deftly demonstrated: behavioral change is really hard. But it might be a little less hard if you have a companion, a friend, maybe even a lover, going through similar changes as well.

Kawi is still dislikable, I think, because he’s not aware of either HOW or WHY he’s changing. But he’s changing, alright. He doesn’t have the context, yet, as to why this might be good for him.

Maybe the crystal ball will tell him that?

OR, MAYBE: he’ll come to realize that contentment in the present is ultimately what will give him the most happiness. As Pear said to Kawi during her wedding in episode 7:

“But as we grew older, lived our lives, and continued to make mistakes, we’d have to accept that this was the farthest that we could achieve.”

What Pear is saying here is: you can stop striving sometimes, Kawi. If you can just – BE – and accept that life is not PERFECT – then your future WILL just BE the result of THAT work THAT YOU DO NOW, THAT WILL CONTAIN MISTAKES.

What I hope to see in the future episodes of this series is Kawi recognizing that that work is what will be his revelation, and his ultimate truth for himself – the truth that makes him the most happy and fulfilled.

We’ll see. I haven’t even gotten into all the subtle references to Krist’s past that this script holds, but @lurkingshan​​ is holding that down in her meta (yay, Shan!).

I am in LOVE with this show, and am SUPER EXCITED to join y’all in watching it! I am VERY IMPRESSED with GMMTV taking another chance on Krist in a BL, and Gawin was a perfect choice as an onscreen partner.

(CCing a few friends who were holding me down during my Monday liveblog, here ya go, some meta for ya – THANKS FOR YOUR PREVIOUS FEEDBACK, FRIENDS! @dribs-and-drabbles​​, @grapejuicegay​​, @rocketturtle4​​, @chickenstrangers​​, @lurkingshan​​) 

P.S. I FORGOT TO ADD:

GAWIN. CASKEY. DAMN. CAN THE HOMEY ACT, OR CAN HE ACT? He is SO GOOD IN THIS, MY GAWD! Their CHEMISTRY! MEEP!

I have super little time to write the kind of extensive meta that I want to to CELEBRATE this FABULOUS episode 8 of Be My Favorite, so here’s more of a stream of consciousness edit of the notes I took during the episode, and prayers up that they all make sense as a whole.

This episode to me was about the start of Kawi EMBRACING THE PRESENT. To live with ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. I really loved the recap at the end of 1/1, before Kawi holds the crystal ball. Kawi’s reflecting and getting a BETTER, MORE OBJECTIVE overview of the impact of changing the future, and how much his power can ACTUALLY change things.

He gave the diary to Pisaeng so that Pisaeng could understand if things were changing in Pisaeng’s life without context. In other words: he is beginning to take responsibility for someone else’s feelings.

Kawi is beginning to recognize that his INTENTIONAL decisions in the PRESENT MOMENT will be the determinant to a future that’s… happier? Or at least – a future that will, hopefully, include some, if not all, of the people he loves. 

AND: he’s learning that if you live your present life WITH that intention – then THAT is the main control that a human has to determining one’s happiness.

He learns that he cannot change the future in an ABSOLUTE – his father will still die. It’s an important lesson. He cannot predict every single turn a human can take and guarantee a great outcome. 

I absolutely love the reflection on not running away. Pisaeng tells his mother he doesn’t want to leave Thailand. Pisaeng’s mom wants him to live overseas to live an “easier” life. But we then get the comparative reflection of Kawi and Max at the wonderful LGBTQ+ event, where we hear that running away just – doesn’t work.

Max is the guy – the guy for Kawi and Pisaeng that’s rooted in a very present world. The guy that can really see through both of them, understand their internal shifts and discomforts, and diagnose what Kawi and Pisaeng each have been struggling with. And, so beautifully – Max gives Kawi his flowers for just being a good friend. In the present.

Dudes, I never, ever shy away from a story that focuses on accountability and responsibility. It’s tough human shit, tough behavioral shit. When characters learn how to hold themselves accountable, and we see that process – Kawi, Khai, Frame, Phupha at the end of Our Skyy 2, Nozue, even Fuse (holy shit), etc. – the guys who will GO THROUGH a very TOUGH and HUMAN process of holding themselves PAINFULLY RESPONSIBLE to change on behalf of someone else – it is just GOOD ART when it is DONE WELL.

I am sure I will unwind more as I get through my day, but wanted to note these awesome, predictive easter eggs. This show is telling its story in so many ways – through the philosophical references we saw earlier in the series, and today, through shirts! (Yo, @grapejuicegay, we’re always looking for BBS connections, right? SHIRTS!)

MATCHING COUPLES SHIRTS! THEY’RE A COUPLE, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS IN THE PRESENT OR ALL THE FUTURES.

KAWI WEARING A DUDES SHIRT! HE’S GONNA LIKE GUYS!

LOL. I WANNA WEAR A SHIRT THAT SAYS “DUDES.” Let me get my message across AS LOUDLY AS POSSIBLY – I LIKE DUDES, I’M GONNA LIKE DUDES. 

FUCK THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD! More soon. Our boy Kawi is growing up. Krist and Gawin are EATING. THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD!

(ccing @dribs-and-drabbles​ @lurkingshan @chickenstrangers – I got to watch this earlier than expected, yay!)