#be my favorite meta

[heretherebedork]

Oh, the pain of this scene and the reality behind it, the difference between boyfriend and husband, between sharing a life together and being able to legally bind yourselves together. The agony of knowing that you are literally everything he has and that it is not enough to let you help him.

This is why we need legalized marriage for everyone, this is why the legalities matter, this is why we fight for what we can because it matters in the end, it matters so, so much.

Piseang can do nothing because there is nothing legally tying them together and there is nothing to do. He cannot fight this. He cannot love Kawi enough to overcome this.

Love is not enough. Love does not give him the rights he does not have, does not cut through red tape, does not open doors. Love may light his life and love may be beautiful and love may move mountains but love cannot make the choices he needs to make.

Love cannot make a medical decision or give him permission to stay with Kawi. Love cannot open the doors or let him sign the paperwork. Love cannot do anything. Love is not enough. The freedom to love is not enough.

[shouldiusemyname]

Some thoughts about Kawi, Sexuality, and Sex

When it comes to Kawi, ep 10 of Be My Favorite is really about his relationship with sex. Some people see him as being ace (or ace coded) but I'm not 100% sure it's the issue here.

As I read it, Kawi is an observer and not a participant, and I will try to explain what I mean.

When the show starts, we are told that Kawi has no friends. His experience is that no one wants to be his friend because he is a sad loser. However, we soon find out that the reason he doesn't have any meaningful relationships is that he himself refuses to take part in them. People around him don't see him as a sad loser, but he does. The reason that he is successful being Pear's secret buddy in that game (can't remember what they called in the show), is that he spends his time on the outside looking in. He observes the people he wants to be around as a replacement for actually engaging with them in a relationship.

He knows he did good with the game because he knows Pear and he knows he made her happy with his gifts, but he doesn't get the payoff because he is late and at that point he has to watch someone else (Pisaeng) be that image of coolness that he can't achieve. All this while being physically outside of the room looking in, observing what his life could be like.

This causes him to further retreat, understand that that's his place in society. Even his choice of profession in the original timeline - a subtitler! The ultimate observer and the safest way to engage with life - he knows what's going on, but he doesn't have to take part in it.

OK, so how does this have anything to do with sex?

Well, here is what we know so far:

At the beginning of the story, Kawi is a 30 y.o virgin.

Every moment of intimacy he has with Pisaeng up to ep 9 happens while Kawi is drunk. I say ep 9 because I'm not talking about the kissing, I'm talking about intimacy in general. Like the only times he is able to let go of his barriers and allow himself to be real with Pisaeng are when he's drunk.

In the most recent version of the future-present that we get, Kawi is no longer a 30 y.o virgin. He has spent a considerable amount of time being in a relationship with Pear and sex doesn't seem to be an issue in that relationship.

In the current present-past, Kawi is terrified at the idea of having sex (or any kind of physical intimacy) with Pisaeng. He doesn't have a problem using the word love when he talks to pisaeng's mother however. And we know that he is pursuing a romantic relationship with Pisaeng.

What I see when I look at this is that drunk Kawi has no issues with intimacy. Drunk Kawi was the one in a relationship with Pear. Drunk Kawi has no problem initiating physical intimacy with Pisaeng. Drunk Kawi has no problem actively looking for intimacy with pisaeng.

However, sober Kawi does not engage. Sober Kawi keeps a safe distance at all times from everything. Sober Kawi doesn't enjoy physical touch in general. He does feel more comfortable with Pisaeng, but up to a certain point. He will not let sober pisaeng touch him, but he does allow drunk pisaeng to be more touchy. That's because he still has control of the situation when he is the sober one.

If I'm reading this correctly, Kawi is so afraid of intimacy that he becomes intimacy starved. He spends years actively avoiding and actively staying at his observer position, that when the time comes to actually participate, he is at war with his instincts. I think he wants to stay at "holding hands in bed" because it's safe. This way he gets to engage without actually taking part. Even the park date - it's enough to just be there. He doesn't need to take part and go on the rides. He is there to watch everyone else do what they're supposed to do at an amusement park. He is in his observer position. He is safe.

Another issue with people who are intimacy and touch starved, is that they become afraid that once they have it it's going to be too much for them to take and they won't be able to contain it. They are also afraid the other person is not going to be able to contain and provide what they need because it's too much. As a result, they take an additional step back just to be on the safe side, creating even more distance between them and the person they want to be intimate with.

I get why Max's advice feels off for many, but for me there are two points he makes that make sense in this:

he says to Kawi that holding hands is fine as long as both him and Pisaeng are fine with it. And I think that what he's trying to tell Kawi is that he is not alone anymore looking from the sidelines. He is inside, in this relationship, and he has no choice but to be an active participant.

He tells Kawi that having sex will help him know himself better. This is terrifying for Kawi and it shows in his face. One of the main things observers are proud of, is the fact that they are always prepared because they never go in blind. They take the time to observe the people that they want to engage with, they learn how they react and adjust themselves to the situation. If they don't know how to adjust, they keep away. Having sex means going into uncharted territory, losing control, and having someone else to experience that with you. Kawi has no way of observing that specific situation (of himself having sex with Pisaeng) beforehand to help him prepare and find a way to make it safe for himself to engage and take part. Meaning making sure he's not too much for Pisaeng and that he can be there for Pisaeng (much like he could be there for Pear during the secret buddy game). He HAS to go in blind and it's going to require a huge leap of faith on his side.

If you've gotten this far, I appreciate it and I hope this makes sense to you. Feel free to let me know what you think.

[bengiyo]

Be My Favorite: The Evils of Queer Surveillance

I’ve had a chance to calm down a bit, but I need to get this off my soul immediately. Kawi’s mom is engaged in a set of extremely vile and evil acts that we unfortunately have a long history with. In revealing Pisaeng’s relationship with his mother today, this show forces us to reconsider what we know of Pisaeng’s history, and forces us to question the presumptions of safety in our own communities.

Before we get into this, I will be describing her actions as evil. I do not want to contribute to a limited view of the character as inherently evil. I believe this woman is doing what she thinks is best for herself and her son. It’s important that we not fall into fundamentalist reads based in predeterministic assumptions about people’s behaviors. She is engaged in acts that are reprehensible. She likely believes she’s doing them for good reasons, and may have accepted the balance of harm and good on her own.

Normally I would take screenshots and borrow gifs to break up a post like this to make it more digestible, but I’m too upset to take all of that time. I’ll leave the writing about Pisaeng’s personal journey and the romance writing to others this week.

She Manipulated Her Son into the Closet

Pisaeng’s mother uses her positive positioning with her queer employees and lip service to queer issues to appear as an ally. She used that goodwill to convince her son that it would be best for his own reputation to be quiet about his sexuality and to keep her informed about any moves he made in that regard. Pisaeng has already seen through this, but it wasn’t until Kawi confronted him with the reality that he was hiding himself that he felt the need to push himself out more.

This is now the third time Gawin has played a character like this. All of Gawin’s genre characters know who they are and are choosing not to be out because of the inconvenience that others’ perceptions of them bring. It is absolutely heartbreaking to me that Pisaeng was not discovering his queerness in his attraction to Kawi. He was rejecting his closeted programming because of his friendship with Kawi.

It makes me so sad that Pisaeng seems tired and uncomfortable around his mother. He knows the way she operates. She colors right inside of the lines with every action she takes. He gives her a knowing look as she asks seemingly-innocent questions of Kawi. She gives a knowing look when he redirects Kawi into finishing his breakfast. She plays offended when she insinuates that he violated their agreement of being out without informing her.

I hate everything about this, and it only gets worse because she’s weaponized his own community against him.

She is Using Queer People to Spy on Her Son

Some of you may not know about The Lavender Scare or have a strong grasp on the history of law enforcement using members of a community to spy on their own people, but it’s literally how they planned the operation to assassinate Fred Hampton and other leaders. Gay communities were vulnerable to infiltration because when cops threatened enforcement of sodomy laws on white men, they turned on their own communities to avoid losing access to the privileges of whiteness. I say this plainly to show that these tactics are easily transferrable to any marginalized group when its members are isolated.

Pisaeng’s mother reminds Pisaeng that his private life does not belong to him, and that she has already turned his own community against him. She commands extraordinary wealth, which she has leveraged on her queer employees to report when her son is spotted in queer places. She seemed surprised that she was not aware of Kawi, and implies by the comment on his “unique name” that she will absolutely know who he is shortly. Pisaeng feels the threat of all of this, and steers Kawi out of there, but it’s made abundantly clear that he is not safe in queer spaces. Worse, his presence in queer spaces brings the surveillance of the ruling class down upon them immediately. In so many ways she’s made him a threat to his own community.

What’s especially sad about this is that his mother becomes an immediate wedge between Max and Pisaeng. She signals in public in ways that engender support of the queer community. Pisaeng has clearly grown to like Max, and seems to want to build a friendship with him. However, even a queer as apparently-put-together as Max can be fooled by his mom. Pisaeng doesn’t seem mad or disappointed about this; he seems resigned.

Where the Hell Do We Go from Here?

I have no idea. GMMTV went here a little bit with Not Me, and in a different direction with The Eclipse, but I wasn’t expecting them to come for queer-friendly-signaling members of the wealth class. I think they’re walking a careful line by highlighting her political ambitions but not making her a politician already. The insidiousness of the control scheme his mom has deployed against him is legitimately horrifying to me, because she crushed the spirit of her queer son right as he blossomed. I also lived in the closet, but I crushed my own spirit for them.

I know this is a BL, so we’re going to be caught up in the romance and whether or now we like Krist and Gawin together, but please don’t forget about the queerness underpinning these kinds of stories. It is abjectly evil to weaponize members of a community against each other. What is being done to Kawi and the people around him is evil. This cannot stand. She must be stopped.

[thebroccolination]

I need you all to understand how funny it is that the entire second half of Be My Favorite takes on a whole new lens after you hear Pisaeng say he didn't believe Kawi's time travel story until he went back in time himself.

Like, it's been a week and a half tops since Kawi told Pisaeng on that rooftop that he can't return Pisaeng's feelings. And now Kawi—who lost his father and then earnestly told Pisaeng he's a time traveler—is in tears telling Pisaeng he went to a future where he lost Pisaeng and he can't ever let that happen again because it was the biggest mistake of his life and he has to set time itself right by dating Pisaeng.

aND PISAENG IS JUST LIKE, "he's so creative :)"

PISAENG IS KING SIMP.

Can you imagine how many times Kawi casually mentions time travel throughout the next ten years of their relationship??? And every time Pisaeng is just like, "What an imagination my beloved has. I'm so glad I won him that engagement turtle."

One thousand percent everyone who meets them as a couple thinks Pisaeng is normal when he is even more unhinged than Kawi.

[klausbens]

there’s just so much... warmth. and thankfulness. in me right now. i’ve said this before, but i truly wasn’t expecting much of anything from bmf and the fact that it keeps outdoing itself with each passing episode is really... i don’t know, i’m genuinely happy about it. i’m happy because i am queer, and while i am proud of being queer there’s presently very few dramas that are.

be my favorite is a queer show, about queer people, for queer people and on top of all this it is also very clearly proud of being queer.

it is just so heartwarming to see. to witness how much thought went into it, how many themes and issues they were able to touch on and how delicately they did so. to feel the hope for a better, brighter future grow within you because maybe there are people who care, maybe it is all worth it, and anyway fighting for ourselves will never be wrong or wasteful.

i loved everything about this episode, from the obvious jab at heteronormativity that was pisaeng and his mother’s conversation to max’s speech to kawi’s realizations to pisaeng’s deserved lovestruck giddiness. i loved how they touched on straight people being considered the norm, and how they implied that at the end of the day queer people only want the right to get married and have children like heterosexuals–which is not the case, and morever is not the point; what we actually want is not to be considered a quirk, not to be treated as a glitch in the matrix. we are the norm, too, and we should have the right to exist, and be seen, and be heard, and be considered human, no matter where and what. i loved how well the actors conveyed all of this, through speech and especially through expressions–i.e. gawin’s face as soon as pisaeng’s mother said “normal people”. i adore the blatant and crystal fucking clear love and care the entire cast and crew put into this show.

watching be my favorite makes me feel safe. i am glad i gave it a chance, because it gave me a chance.

[chawarin-panich]

Staging Kawi and Pisaeng as Soulmates - Promo Material I think that Be My Favorite becomes a lot more accessible conceptually if we approach Kawi and Pisaeng as a two body problem. This is an excellently editted show [which is not something I thought I'd say about a Thai BL much less GMM???] and I think the show is keeping Pisaeng's character under very close wrap for what I'm assuming is later dramatic reveal. But I don't think they have been particularly subtle about how Kawi and Pisaeng are soulmates. It is quite literally the central premise of the show - Kawi travels back in time to fix the mistakes of his youth that derailed his life or if we are to believe Kawi:

[ID: shot of pisaeng and pear's wedding invitation with Kawi's voiceover saying "All of my dooms are because of this guy"] And Kawi is right! Just not in the way he thinks! Literally two minutes in the trailer later we have this purposefully vague voiceover:

[ID: Two shots of Kawi with his time travelling snowglobe music cylinder with the subtitle "Not having you next to me is the biggest mistake of my life"] Yes, this could be about Pear but the whole series of scenes and dialogue that precedes and comes after this one points to just one logical answer to who this is about: Pisaeng Let's look at the MV for the title song. Pisaeng is literally EVERYWHERE. behind him, leaning on him, surrounding him, off screen but undeniably still influencing Kawi's moods, supporting him, leading him...

...and last but not least standing by him - together

[ID: 7 shots of Kawi and Pisaeng interacting in the Redo MV] Pisaeng is an undeniable truth of Kawi's life and we know even before watching a single minute of episode one that by denying himself his relationship with Pisaeng, Kawi has somehow prevented his own life from blossoming

[rocketturtle4]

Be My Favorite - When is the present actually the future?

I’m pretty sure writing this is about to consume my entire Saturday but by the time I wake up tomorrow La Pluie will have been out for 6 hours and my Sunday brain will have other things to think about! (it actually only took about half of it so I'm considering that a win)

I have read through my Tumblr feed for people’s thoughts on the latest Be My Favorite episode and I absolutely have to share because I found that while ideas and themes explored mirrored my own thoughts, the conclusions people were putting forth about where the show might be going were completely different.

(Posts I don't specifically reference in this but that which I definitely read and you should too include @syrena-del-mar and @shouldiusemyname here and @chickenstrangers here )

Also shoutout to @bengiyo because I used your sarge watches to reduce how much I had to go back and watch things.

LETS CLOWN

(am I, am I using it right? I have so many questions about the LINGO and I don’t know who to ask)

My Hypothesis: Kawi is going to be faced with the ultimate choice of remaining in the past or the present when the crystal ball runs out of charge and he will choose to remain in the past where he must face his uncertain future.

Okay, stay with me please

Question 1: When is Kawi actually in the present?

Last week I made a throw away post about the time travel being a metaphor for being unable to skip ahead in life without consequences. In particular this scene (a flashback at the very end of episode 4):

Got my brain thinking about how Kawi and the people around him freeze in their character development whenever he jumps forward, so maybe his present is actually in the past.

EVIDENCE

Timeline 1: OG Future

In this timeline Kawi essentially froze the moment the crystal ball was broken. In the OG Future he is distantly acquainted with classmates, sad for the death of his father (from whom he was distant), distant from Max and has never drunk any alcohol. This is all directly reflective of where he was at the time he broke the crystal ball.

Timeline 2: Future 2 – He’s Pisaengs best man

In this timeline he’s been back in the past, and acted very unlike himself because he assumes he's dreaming. At the end of this timeline he ends up in the very early stages of becoming Piseang’s bestie. We have not yet had serious (feelings) tension between Piseang and Kawi, only a single night of bonding and I would argue that in this particular future timeline, Piseang is not in love with Kawi. He has become a platonic bestie (something that could never happen without the time skip) because these were the emotions Kawi and Piseang had for each other in the past even if these were pretty fledgling emotions when Kawi left. (Also, Kawi now drinks heavily, something he did for the first time in this immediate past when he thought it was a dream).

Timeline 3: Future 3: Piseang is in love with him and abandons his own wedding.

In the past Kawi is more intentional with his actions to change things. We also see his confusion around how he became Piseangs best man because as Kawi continues to grow and learn this option doesn’t make sense (But as a frozen version of the previous past's future…) (I'm losing track of the tense I can feel it)

In this timeline we have only progressed slightly further through the past but all the development was around Kawi and Piseang and Piseang’s growing feelings  (Piseang getting Kawi the plushie happens in this Future’s linked Past). And we come forward to Piseang finally giving into his feelings and kissing Kawi. This scene is very similar to Piseang almost kissing Kawi in the past in the following episode (episode 3) when they fall over because in Piseang’s arc these things happened at a pretty similar point in time, its just that in this future he was frozen at his point of realization until Kawi’s consciousness returned to his body on the morning of Piseang’s wedding. He could only act after Kawi was back to being old!Kawi, because of things being frozen.

Timeline 4: He’s Famous and it’s a mess

In the linked past here, Kawi has JUST debuted as a lead singer, has turned down Piseang kindly but Piseang has made his devotion clear, has decided to date Pear ‘because he’s in love with her’ BUT Pear is feeling uncertain about her place in Kawi’s life (evidence: both the bar scene with Not, and the hospital scene) and is friends with Max again. (Also I'm not sure if I already linked @lurkingshans post with Kawi 'interupting his own growth arc midstream.' it definitely kicked my brain into gear)

In the future he is a famous singer, distant but close to Piseang, and friends with Max (why has Max stuck with him huh?) also Not and Pear and Kwan provide, in my opinion, strong evidence for their frozenness because we’ve just seen in the past that Not has feelings for Pear and Kwan has feelings for Not, and this is the exact feelings scenario we get in the future. There has been no change. They're frozen in their feelings from 12 years ago.

We also have had posts about the idea that Kawi has gotten drunk and kissed Piseang multiple times through this jump. (Which makes perfect sense if you freeze his character at this exact point of uncertain feelings that are being ignored) (@piningintrovert here) (also this post where for some reason my @ won't let me tag dropthedemiurge IM SORRY) (also here) @becomingabeing

Also his alcoholism is spiralling because he has not learnt anything about drinking responsibly in the (mere days/weeks) it’s been since episode 1 started (and alcoholism is definitely more complicated, but in this specific context you have an individual that’s just started drinking heavily because they’ve discovered alcohol and their life is super confusing and these habits aren't checked or changed because his growth is frozen, there are simply the consequences) (not saying this is the case just the case in the context of this theory)

Counterpoint

Kawi’s dad has survived surgery in the past but is still dead in the future.

I don’t necessarily think this is strong evidence against my point but it’s worth mentioning.

Question 2:

How does Kawi’s Memory Work in these Futures?

This is a separate thread but it’s related to my theory because in Timeline’s 2 & 3, Kawi appeared to have no memory of the intervening years. (Inference: He hasn't really lived them)

Timeline 4 was a little different but the memories seemed to need specific triggers (speaking aloud, seeing a person) to come back. We saw in his arguments with Pear and Piseang that he DID seem to gain and settle into his memories more as he thought about the intervening past (intervening past = the time between when he left the past and arrived in Future 4).

We see 2 different flashbacks of the ‘Pear leave’s Kawi’ moments. 1 seemed to be Kawi remembering (trigger is when he sees Pear for the first time). 2 seems to be Piseangs own memories (flashbacks are always so frustrating because who is remembering? Is Kawi remembering this too?.

Kawi also just slips into being less jaded and work focused than his (frozen) future self apparently is. (Sudden carfree metaphorical ocean romp definitely relevant here)

ALSO Kawi freaks out about his own memory in episode 7 3/4 10.30 (re Piseang’s new number) (this almost felt like young!Kawi was overlayed with old!Kawi and so we were getting conflicting reasons for the memory lapse (is he sick? did he call Piseangs old number as young!Kawi without thinking?)

Counterpoint

The scene at the very end of episode 7 threw a small but solid spanner in the works of my brain because when does this scene take place? Piseang says eight years, original jump forward was 12 (I think) so therefor this is in the intervening years. Which I kind of thought of as frozen/fairly nonexistent (Except specifically when a character thinks about them) so I am not sure how this scene fits in.

This could be something Kawi will specifically think about before going back in time

(see this post for more clowning @sparklyeyedhimbo)

(side note, his jacket looks super similar to the flashback jacket in this counterpoint scene - it's not the same one though)

How old is Kawi’s brain?

I also made a throw away post about this last week, I have no clearer thoughts on this except that it’s intriguing to ask how old the Kawi traversing between the past and the future actually is? This post is so long I’m just going to link it. It’s not very fleshed out.

Side Point

One thing that floated into my brain while thinking about all this was the recent Step By Step episode and the dissatisfaction everyone felt about the time skips. So often used as a means of progressing a characters life while rarely showing meaningful character growth.

Could this whole show be a commentary on time skips and their conceptual flaws as a means of fast-tracking character growth?

I think it’s a bit of a reach, but I also don’t tend to read into directors/creators intentions as much so I thought I’d put it out there for people to chew over.

Additional hypotheses/questions I’m chewing on:

Q: Will his dad survive if he chooses to stay in the past to take care of him?

Q: How many sets of memories does he have, does he remember any of the intervening past between main past timeline and future 2 and main past timeline and future 3? Are the memories getting overlayed?

Conclusion

 As @lurkingshan pointed out, Kawi interrupts his character growth when he jumps forward in time. We have to go back in time to keep growing. Yet we’ve gone back and forward and back and forward 4 times now and the future is always messy because the characters can’t live on without change for 12 years and still grow together. I could absolutely see the show choosing to go in the direction put forth by @wen-kexing-apologist and @stuffnonsenseandotherthings here also @lurkingshan and @ginnymoonbeam have interesting thoughts about Kawi having to stop trying to change the future and live with his choices to move forward.

It's just that I think he is going to do that in the past giving up his chance to jump forward without growth. Because he has to choose not to know where he is going, to truly live in the present.

Savy?

(please point out all the holes in my theory, I am so invested I need some PERSPECTIVE)

[poetry-protest-pornography]

Max is the most effective Gay Yoda in history.

One conversation with Kawi, and he fixes his whole attitude towards Pisaeng.

One conversation with Pisaeng, and he finds the courage to be honest with himself.

Max is the best boy, and I love him. His no-nonsense-ness and radical acceptance of other people is a kind of magic, and I hope he knows how wonderful he is.

Just look at this:

His little "I guess we're doing this now" face. The smirk that says he saw this coming.

And then right into gently calling Kawi out for his double standard.

That last part... You can see it land. You can see Kawi realizing that he's been especially unfair to Pisaeng, treating him poorly for what a future version of himself did.

"He hasn't even done you any harm yet" is true in that this Pisaeng has been nothing but kind, and hasn't pushed Kawi about his feelings, which is what Max is saying, but it's also literally true. This Pisaeng hasn't shown up drunk at Kawi's apartment, kissed him, and then gotten angry and in his face when he didn't respond. And Kawi processes that and immediately starts to recontextualize his relationship with Pisaeng.

Which brings us here:

A genuine, thoughtful apology and recognition of his own failings.

And then we see that Pisaeng has also been thinking since his own talk with Max (sorry for the face that this screenshot captured, Gawin you're so pretty and I love that your face can still look this goofy, lol).

But Pisaeng has made peace with his attraction to men--to Kawi-- and accepted that he's queer, and found the bravery he needed to tell Kawi how he feels; to be honest about his feelings like Kawi told him he needed to be.

And when he struggles to get the last part out, to actually say "I like you", Kawi sees it, and he pulls out more of that newly realized emotional maturity, and gives Pisaeng reassurance and support (channeling Max perfectly):

And again, reassures Pisaeng that he knows that he's messed up before, but he is trying to be better now. And that gives him the confidence he needs to confess.

This whole episode just illustrates how vital it is to be seen. To be acknowledged and recognized and accepted. Even if it's just one person at first; one person who looks at you, and really sees who you are, and can tell you out loud that you're okay, that who you are is okay.

And Max does that so effortlessly (eyeroll notwithstanding) every time he counsels Kawi and doesn't let him get away with being whiney and self deprecating and distant, but does it with kindness and understanding.

He does it with Pisaeng when he approaches him at the gay bar, and then again when he tells him that he's not so important that he's worth gossip (that his sexuality isn't the end of the world, that being queer isn't on the scale of war and bigotry and natural disaster), and then he apologizes for being harsh, recognizing that Pisaeng is struggling, and scared, and tells him that he can talk to him, that he'll listen, that he sees him. Tells him that the answers about his feelings that he needs are in him, not in any place he needs to go to-- gives him an out to pushing himself into queer spaces if he's not ready, and encourages him to find himself and get comfortable with who he is within himself.

Max's superpower is that he sees people, and that he's willing to meet them where they are while they grow. And it's super effective.

I hope everyone who needs one finds their Max, and that we all take the opportunity to be a Max whenever possible.

[syrena-del-mar]

Kawi's Journey with Self-Worth and Pisaeng's Reassurance

I don't know how to put it into words, but there is something so nice about Pisaeng always sticking to his guns about what interested him about Kawi was simply that he found Kawi to be cute.

Yes, there are millions of cute people in the world, but it was specifically Kawi's cuteness that intrigued Pisaeng. There was no ulterior reason that he found himself into Kawi, there was no deeper meaning. It's not like Kawi needed to do something to prove himself worthy of Pisaeng's love (even if Kawi thought that he had to.) Instead, Pisaeng was, initially, simply attracted to Kawi and that had been enough.

It's a simple reason that I think that Kawi will always have to grapple with for the rest of his life, probably because even though he may have found a sense of peace and serenity in his life after all the time-travelling, he'll likely still have some minor struggles with his self-worth. Love is not a fix-all, and (again) like what I'm positive has become synonymous with @bengiyo's brand here on BL reviews, "There's no magical dick. It doesn't fix." Even if it happens to belong to Pisaeng. When you have low self-esteem and issues with you self-worth, even when you take the most pro-active methods of care to combat these ideas, a part of it will always remain. Some days will be more of a struggle than others. So while his relationship with Pisaeng will not magically fix insecurities, the fact that Pisaeng is there to reassure him is incredibly important. I really doubt that Kawi will ever be able to fully understand why it was simply his cuteness that attracted Pisaeng, but the constant reminders are necessary in his journey to self-acceptance.

Combine that with the fact that Pisaeng comes from an uber-rich (and political) family, and Kawi spent ten years dealing with very little self-worth, it makes sense that Kawi will never fully accept it, even ten-years down the line into their relationship. Yet, the fact that Pisaeng's answer remains constant and never changes into something deeper than he just found Kawi cute is so critical in allowing Kawi to rebuild his trampled self-esteem.

While I think that compliments like that could potentially come across as either insincere or even shallow, it does more good than harm for Kawi. He spent ten years alone, in his small apartment with no significant social connection and his last true connection (his father) dead. He was detached from human relationships and he placed higher value on what he could bring to the table, doing so he shattered his own self-esteem because he had a sincere belief that he had nothing good to offer.

Pisaeng's consistent and persistent insistence that he adored Kawi due to his cuteness, at a time when Kawi believed that he wasn't worth much, is so important in ensuring Kawi that becomes aware of the fact that human relationships aren't solely transactional. His presence doesn't mean that he has to offer more solely to be loved and particularly a recipient of Pisaeng's love. Pisaeng's answer serves as a reminder of that, even if it's not said or understood outright.

It's a subtle reminder, a reassurance of sorts, to Kawi that he has worth even when he's not aware of it or when he doesn't recognize it in himself. His worth isn't tied to material objects or titles that are expected in fully transactional, interested, relationships. Rather it serves its purpose by becoming a verbal notice to Kawi that for Pisaeng, Kawi will always be enough just by being himself, that he always finds him cute, and that's was enough reason for him to fall in love with him.

Kawi's journey consisted so much of learning how to live in the moment, of learning the importance in actually making decisions, because there's only one thing certain about life: time moves on with or without us. When we live in such a capitalistic society, we often tie our self-worth to our social capital, the achievements that we make, the people we know. In turn, we can end up neglecting and stepping all-over our self-esteem in the moments that we don't reach those "social tiers" and start believing that in turn we have nothing to offer. When you let yourself believe that you're worthless and time moves on, you end up being left behind.

Kawi is worth more than his accolades and job titles, more than any achievements that he may receive. His worthiness derives from his authentic self and who he is as a person. He's loved for being Kawi. It's enough for Pisaeng to find him cute, because Kawi is enough and will always be enough. That constant reassurance is critical in shaping Kawi, allowing him to find his happiness and peace in life. He's now surrounded by the people that he loves and who love him back. He's no longer alone.

[yousaygoodbyeandisay]

I'm in awe of this show. I'm so pleasantly surprised with the direction they are taking. This is not only about Kawi and how he needs to grow and get out of his comfort zone and open himself up to the world.

This is also about Pisaeng and Pear being free of lies and honesty.

I'm still shocked that Kawi called Pisaeng out, saying that Pisaeng lacks understanding of his own feelings and is causing pain to everyone around him. Will cause pain for everyone around him.

We, the audience, know this. 10 years down the line, he was going to marry someone he didn't love, Pear was going to end up married to someone who didn't love her. And yet it didn't quite click with me until Kawi said it.

I also like that Kawi genuinely likes Pear. I think the audience (myself included) somewhat dismissed that as a superficial crush. But why wouldn't he really like her and be attracted to her?

That doesn't mean that he won't fall for Pisaeng (this is a bl after all), but it left me thinking that a lot of us are dismissive of his feelings for Pear. At this point, he knows her just as much as he knows Pisaeng. And I think that's going to be the crux of the show. He will get to know them more and truly fall for the one he can't live without. Stumbling all the way.

[heretherebedork]

Okay, okay, now we have my attention. Are we going to discuss asexuality or other sexualities where sex isn't a focus in the romance? Is this actually going to be about not wanting to have sex but wanting romance regardless?

I am very interested in where this is going. Because, it is true, nothing Kawi has done has shown any interest in sex. The issue here being how normalized and normalized that lack of sexual desire is in this type of BL relationship and how common it is for one character to just never be interested... the fact that this is an actual discussion makes it much more interesting.

And we might not be.

No, looks like we're having a conversation about allowing yourself freedom in expereince sexual desire instead. Which, while interesting and important in these shows, is different than where I thought we might be heading.

Note: this does not have to be true for everyone regardless of your relationships status or lack thereof. I love Max to death but this is very allosexual of him.

Again, I get it, I see where the show is coming from and the messaging the show is giving here but... it doesn't have to be like that.

Okay, so we went back to 'maybe yes we are talking about asexuality and a lack of sexual desire'. Which is fine by me and absolutely enjoyable. @absolutebl This feels like the answer to BMF and SOTUS at the same time.

And back to the need for open and honest communication between, well, everyone. Especially important in the struggle of sexuality and the inherent need to have these discussions with the person you love even when they're hard.

Kawi has gone from convinced he was a straight man to facing down the idea of being gay and ace, of being romantically attracted to Piseang but with no urge to actually have sex and what that means.

He loves Piseang, we know he does, but how does he balance that love with a lack of sexual desire if he's worried about losing Piseang? How does he speak openly about something he never imagined?

When you don't think about sex, sometimes it doesn't occur to you that other people do and when you realize you have to suddenly think about that as well even if you're not interested... it's scary. And it's big. And it's something else that makes you different and something that makes even more different than you were already starting to accept about yourself.

[waitmyturtles]

Alright, omg -- really excited to write this, really excited to build off of some excellent thoughts from the family, particularly @bengiyo and @lurkingshan -- @bengiyo, you verbalized some questions I had about the timeline we were watching in 2/2, so I'll ask them again here. Be My Favorite, the dreaded episode 11, let's do this:

First off, I LOVED THIS EPISODE, despite the many open threads we have going on. What else would I expect from a GMMTV penultimate episode otherwise?

The poem scene -- Pear reading UCHANEE's "Khop Fa Khlip Thong" (we are SO lucky that the show creators cited the poem at the end of the episode), overlaid with Pisaeng and Kawi in their intimacy -- gorgeous. @placetneplacet's post here depicts this overlay beautifully.

I also think we got a lot of hints about the structure (cc @lurkingshan, structure-ish, ha) of this episode from the conversation between Pear's dad and Pisaeng's mom at the start of the episode. Through that conversation, and from the conversation revealed between Loong Crystal Ball and Kawi, we see and hear: that much of life is about leaving life alone to let it process and simmer as time goes on. Loong Crystal Ball gave Kawi the ability to right his wrongs, as he said in his own words -- but also, he chides Kawi to say, listen, a lot of life is about luck. There are things you can't change. Let it go, let it simmer.

Between the conversation with the parents, the conversation with Loong Crystal Ball, and then, then -- Pisaeng being refused medical information at the hospital, and Pisaeng's anger at Kawi's condition -- I take this episode to be partly about acceptance of a present the way it is, the way the present presents itself. That moral, that reality, about accepting things as the way they are, is a huge theme to this story. Pear's dad and Pisaeng's mom have got to accept that the loves that their children have found are the loves that these parents will need to accept. That, mom and dad, is a part of the life of a parent. In the end, you can't control EVERYTHING about the lives of your children.

And of course, the competing theme to an acceptance theme is: how do you change the present? How can you change HOW the present presents? How can you make the present for yourself -- and even for others -- a BETTER present?

It's not just Kawi's condition that serves as a metaphor here. We know Pisaeng will go to the past to begin addressing this in episode 12. We'll find out if Pisaeng can impact Kawi's health.

BUT, ALSO, VERY IMPORTANTLY: we also see commentary about LGBTQ+ rights here -- and how LGBTQ+ rights have MUCH improvement to do, despite Thailand's progressiveness (remember that same-sex marriage is still illegal in Thailand!).

Based on the timeline presented in 2/4, we can assume that we are in 2024 when Kawi is in the hospital. And Pisaeng is being refused by the doctor to receive sensitive health information about Kawi. Pisaeng is not considered to be Kawi's family -- in 2024 Thailand. Clearly, that's something that needs to be changed -- along with Pisaeng's micro-level desire to keep Kawi from getting sick, which we know may be an impossible task, as we learned from Kawi's dad.

As this episode started, I couldn't help but think back to the lessons we learned early in the series about truth and the philosophy of truth, from Nietzsche, from Einstein, from Orwell. I was thinking, we gotta harken back to some of those lessons -- and certainly, I think this episode touched upon this, specifically from the dystopian viewpoint that despite the excellent work in moving LGBTQ+ rights forward by people like Max, that Thailand is still held back by generations of cultural convention against equality. "On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense," indeed.

But to me, this episode also touched upon something far more simplistic, and I think I'm convinced about it by what we saw with all the parents in this episode -- Pear's dad, Pisaeng's mom, Pear's mom, and the glimpse of Kawi's dad. And as well, I'm thinking about the following vis à vis the seven-year timeline we saw with Pisaeng's and Kawi's relationship:

The work of being in a relationship, as Pear's dad said in episode 10, involves compromise and forgiveness. A relationship is like waves to a shore. The water moves forward, goes back, gets high in the tide, gets low in the tide. A relationship is akin to a living, breathing thing. It takes energy to tend to it. Two people need to go back and forth, forward and backwards, to tend to it, to help it grow. We see Pisaeng and Kawi very simply compromising on their sleeping habits by using two comforters in bed, for instance.

They're happy, certainly, but.... as @bengiyo mentioned, in this particular seven-year timeline, there's something going on. Kawi keeps eating, and is sitting at home, seemingly not working, or working as a freelancer -- and we don't know what's up with that, as the most recent alternate timeline had him working as a singer.

I'm gonna posit a clown theory that builds off of @lurkingshan's questions about what exactly is happening here.

I don't trust the trailer of episode 12, but I will go ahead and (probably inaccurately) predict that BOTH Pisaeng and Kawi will be living in back-in-time timelines. And in the confusing process of all of that, what lesson they might learn is -- this may very well be an INEFFICIENT way of managing their relationship. Because -- they could be doing that work of improving their relationship in the damn present, without the damn crystal ball, like the rest of us schmucks in real life who are dealing with hubbies and wifeys and all our partners in-between (it's been a long week with my temperamental toddler, LOL, tired mom here).

In other words: whether you have a crystal ball or not, whether you have the ability to go back and fix your past, your responsibility, when you are partnered with your love in a relationship, is to tend to the relationship. Present, past, future, whatever: you need to care for the relationship as lovingly as you love your partner, because that union will be what takes you through your life, when you find that loving partner.

I believe this was the message that Max was giving Kawi in episode 10 regarding sex, which is why I don't follow the theory of Kawi being ace. I believe what Max was saying was, a relationship needs equal engagement and balance, and compromise, and a curiosity about exploring oneself for the sake of your partner, and vice versa. I believe the end of the intimacy scene in episode 11 indicates that Kawi is not ace, but was hesitant about the unknown regarding sex (cc @grapejuicegay on the unknown, as ever!).

I know the narrative structure was a touch bouncy, and I will give all big ups to my dear friend @lurkingshan, because I agree with you that the structure of what the show is carrying at the moment is delicate at best. It needs some scaffolding. But, for my tastes, the EMPATHY of this show, and particularly of this episode -- the empathy that this show is about to hand to Pisaeng, to start doing the damn work for the relationship that Kawi's been doing for the past few episodes -- is carrying me. I think this show continues to be fabulous. And I'm really moved by the messages of the equity of love, and the importance it's placing on how love is work, love is the truth here, and how all of this is being treated lovingly, equally, and with compassion. I'm all for it.

P.S. I think Krist and Gawin are better than ever in this episode. Gawin is SLAYING. I appreciate Krist's acting work in the intimacy arena. Both of them are killing it.

(CCing the BMF fam for y'alls thoughts, in addition to Ben and Shan: @grapejuicegay, @crowie, @dribs-and-drabbles, @chickenstrangers, @rocketturtle4, @shortpplfedup and apologies to anyone I missed!)

[bengiyo]

Be My Favorite Ep 12 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

Last week, we saw a potential future in which Pisaeng and Kawi stayed together for years after moving into Pisaeng’s condo. They had a beautiful life together. Kawi worked as some kind of music producer, and they had all of their friends. However, Kawi got sick and Pisaeng wasn’t able to talk to doctors. Now Pisaeng is back to the first night they spent the night as boyfriends before going to the amusement park the next day.

We are so fucking back! We’re unpacking Kawi’s decision not to become a famous entertainer in order to avoid the toxic aspects of fame. He says he’s content to be a songwriter and small-time performer with his band. Pisaeng is worried that foreknowledge is keeping Kawi from pursuing his dreams, and wonders if he’s a burden. This is the first scene!!

I like how Gawin can make his character feel like they’re carrying so much with just his eyes and shoulders.

It felt like Kawi sensed the shift in Pisaeng. Now we are facing each other as two people changing their pasts.

I like that Kawi, who’s seen multiple futures, tells Pisaeng to just focus on living as best they can now.

Feels like they’re having way more fun at the park this time, and even coaxed Kawi onto a few rides.

I like how grown they both feel at the park this time, and I love that it’s Kawi’s turn to be brave for Pisaeng.

Being brave enough to face an uncertain future together is such a lovely theme.

If there’s one thing that’s gonna happen in the future, it’s that Pear is gonna marry some man.

Max looks good as always.

Don’t know who James is, but I hope this worked out for Pear.

Future!Not was invited to the wedding.

I appreciate the pin, but is he really wearing it on his suit at the wedding??

Not is signing books at the wedding??

Magic Uncle saw that the gays made it, nodded once, and instantly dipped. The perfect elder.

I’m so glad I was correct about Kawi maintaining his own time traveling memories.

If Kawi had started playing Push by Matchbox Twenty I would have lost it.

I do like how these two feel now that they’re settled.

Love the tag is these two bickering about the wedding they’re “not” going to have. Beautiful.

Final Verdict: 9, Highly Recommended. I have a few gripes around the way the side characters were used, and the missing conversation of episode 10, but I genuinely liked this show. I think it was one of the kindest and most gentle things I’ve seen from GMMTV in a long time, and it’s allowed me to make peace with any angst or misunderstandings I’ve had about Krist Perawat over the last few years. He can sit with me again. What an absolutely lovely show that asked us to just choose to be kind and live lives we can be proud of. This show is worth the time.

[thebroccolination]

What makes the dynamic between Pisaeng and Kawi so fun for and interesting to me is that for all that Pisaeng is a Sentient Green Flag (TM) who remains unswervingly loyal to Kawi in spite of all the pain he goes through, he's just as much of a brat.

What makes their dynamic and chemistry work so well is that when Kawi's being unreasonable, Pisaeng's more than equal to giving that same energy back.

When Kawi puts him in awkward situations, Pisaeng has no compunctions about taking him down a peg.

And sometimes Pisaeng's just a brat for the sheer joy of brattiness!

Also, like, reflect with me upon the sheer audacity of this man.

Kawi finally asks him out, TEARS IN HIS EYES, ON HIS FACE, COMPLETELY SINCERE AND EARNEST AND LOOKING UP AT PISAENG LIKE A HOPEFUL PUPPY, and Pisaeng's first thought is, "wouldn't it be funny if I said no lmao"

BECAUSE IT IS. IT IS FUNNY.

POOR KAWI BUT IT IS VERY FUNNY.

And the brat parade doesn't stop once they start dating!!!

Pisaeng just gets better at it.

Pretending Kawi's suitcase is a thousand tons,

Unrepentantly hogging the blanket,

Tickling Kawi's face with his tie,

Tickling Kawi to within an inch of his life for lording his video game victory over him,

And my absolute favorite of them all:

Kawi, content with his life and his partner and absolutely at peace with his world, casually asks Pisaeng if he'd use the crystal ball again if he could.

AND THIS BITCH SAYS YES AND GIVES KAWI SEVERAL SECONDS OF PARALYZING ANXIETY AND A DOZEN WAKING NIGHTMARES.

ONLY FOR PISAENG TO SAY THE SWEETEST THING HE CAN THINK OF.

And, y'know, all of that gets a green light, because brattiness is just the way they keep each other on their toes and make their life together more fun.

At the end of the day, they're just two brats in love.

[sobs for eleven years]

[twig-tea]

PHEW, ok, now that I've compiled and read all the meta (everyone is amazing, I love all of you, thanks for the love back!) and slept on it, I feel like I have processed enough to gather some thoughts and make a prediction on ep12 [clown checkpoint at the end of this long post].

Pre-Prediction Groundwork i.e. what the heck are you thinking and why did this take you two days

First, I want to say, I still think the montage over the years was not off. The depiction of a happy couple that annoys one another, accommodates one another, is sometimes just happy to be in one another's presence and sometimes happy because of one another's presence, is a perfect summary of a long-term relationship to me. Some folks mentioned that it seemed like they were unfulfilled but as an introvert and a homebody I can tell you when I look back on time spent in relationships these are the moments I think about. Yes, I've gone and done fun things with significant others, but those moments aren't the ones that necessarily feel like they're about us. It's the moments doing nothing that feel like they really capture a relationship, to me. And @rebel0777 hinted at this in a post: sharing food has been the love language for this couple all along, so for it to have mostly focused on them sharing meals doesn't feel strange at all. Anyway I'm fully ready for the show to have a different message but reading everyone's thoughts didn't change my mind on this.

That being said, the thing that other people have said that has swayed me most is the idea that Pisaeng does have some things he left unsaid, and going back in time gives him a chance to say them (whether or not Kawi is fine in future). As mentioned in the roundup, @bengiyo and @incandescentflower get credit for their thoughts on this theory.

In a conversation with @pandasmagorica the potential for a time loop was raised; I laid out why I don't think the show will go that route here--writing this also helped me frame my thoughts around what the show is trying to say and where I expect it to go as a result.

One thing that I think Pisaeng hasn't really been called out for in this series yet is how dedicated he is to Kawi--maybe that's just romance tropes doing their thing, but this man really has been through it in the various timelines. He fought hard for that plushie, celebrated his confession-aversary for at least 8 years, continued to follow and support Kawi's career even when he removed himself from his presence to save him from gay rumours...Pisaeng may need to learn to not sacrifice for Kawi's sake.

The other thing that I've been thinking a lot about is why Kawi seems to have a sense that the amusement park date has already happened [based on the ep12 trailer], when in the other timelines nobody had that same feeling of deja vu, and the reason I came up with is: in all of the previous timelines, Kawi made significant changes to his behavior that rewrote the timeline so profoundly nothing in it was the same. He spent time with his dad; he befriended Pisaeng; he went on the departmental trip and confessed to Pear; he tried out for student council and joined a band; he convinced his dad to get surgery; he confessed to Pisaeng. Because of these major changes every time he goes back, we don't see Kawi relive any days from his original timeline (or any of the other timelines) except kind of the first one (and even that one has major differences).

However, to my mind Pisaeng must be terrified of doing anything differently, other than maybe put some things into words (as mentioned above) and/or staying away from Kawi entirely [and I highly doubt that could work since Kawi knows Pisaeng's tricks from the other timeline as per @zzh3], so if he tries to relive their date from the latest timeline, the events would be similar enough that there could be multi-verse/timeline bleed-over. [There are other potential explanations, and of course this is fully blown out of the water if I'm wrong and Pisaeng does decide to make major changes to the timeline, but this is the one that my brain kept chewing on].

This also made me realize that if I'm right and only Pisaeng's consciousness travels to the past, and if Pisaeng does not decide to make any major changes to the timeline, if Pisaeng stays in the past, it will not make Pisaeng and Kawi equal, but will instead give Pisaeng a huge knowledge advantage, because Pisaeng will have lived all of this once before; in the last timeline, in contrast, Kawi did not jump ahead to peek at his future before sticking with the timeline after making significant changes, so he didn't know what was going to happen (he just had the imbalance of knowing what could happen, which he did share with Pisaeng though it's not the same to live it as to hear about it). The only real way in which they would be equals is if Pisaeng jumps back to the future [so they will be equal in their time travel experience and opportunities to make change], or makes a significant enough change in the past that their lives will be completely different [so that both of them will be equal in their uncertainty]. This is not quite counter to, but is a wrinkle to the points made by @bengiyo, @grapejuicegay and @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle about relationship equality being achieved with Pisaeng time travelling, which at first really resonated with me and I think still hold true if they go one of the two routes I mentioned above. [And yes, I do think leaving things as they are would still put them on equal footing because choosing not to make a change is still a choice, and is still exerting power over their future that the other doesn't have.]

Speaking of this, thanks to a great conversation with @pandasmagorica and @thegalwhorants I went back and dug into the timeline of the series here, but TL;DR I think we could in theory have reached a few months before Kawi time travelled in the first timeline. That doesn't massively affect my prediction but I wanted to capture it because I do think it's relevant re: the balance between Kawi and Pisaeng; if Pisaeng goes to the future and I'm correct that this lines up closely to the point at which Kawi first travelled backwards in the original timeline, then in the current timeline both Kawi and Pisaeng will be at a truly equal point where neither has seen anything past where they are.

Shifting focus slightly, @grapejuicegay's thoughts about consciousness and the mechanism of time travel also made me wonder, if Pisaeng jumps back to the future [going to keep saying this because it continues to be funny to me], does the consciousness of the version of him who he took over from in the past go back to being the one in control? Is that why the Kawi of the past always seemed to stagnate whenever he jumped into the future, because the person left in Kawi's body had not had the character growth and life experiences that allowed him to make the changes in his life, so he was his former self living a slightly better life but without the personal growth to really take advantage of it? Essentially what I'm getting at here is, if Pisaeng doesn't make a change and does go back to the future, maybe the version of their relationship captured in the montage isn't lost after all, because they would make the same choices? [shout-out to the mourning of the montage by @ellaspore that got me thinking about whether it could be salvaged]

One last point I want to make: As much as it would be deeply satisfying to see Pisaeng and Kawi fight for their rights like @rocketturtle4 theorized, or going abroad so that they could get married like @marbles290 posited, or even working out a lavender wedding arrangement like @grapejuicegay suggested, I think the show already made points on these possibilities with Max and the changes to his choices, and so it would be repetitive to make it with Pisaeng and Kawi [I would not mind if the show did this, I just think this show has so much to say that it will take the opportunity to make a new point]. I think instead it's going to help Pisaeng learn the same lesson Kawi had to about time travel not being able to solve everything [hat tip @waitmyturtles], and needing to be brave and resilient enough to face the future without knowing what the future will bring, and reinforcing appreciating the time you have by being present in the present and not sacrificing your own happiness.

This show has set up so much that could happen, and this isn't the only ending I would be satisfied with by any stretch, but what I think would be most satisfying (at least for me, as I write this) would be if Pisaeng learns to accept that he can't fix everything and goes back to his future to live in the present, not knowing what the outcome will be. Also can I just say, it is really exciting to have multiple endings that I could be satisifed with?! I feel like that doesn't happen that often, at least for me.

Theory time!

So, all that being laid out, here's my Official Clown Theory about what happens in ep12 (adding lots of details so that there are a lots of opportunities to be wrong):

Pisaeng goes to the past and tries to play it cool; they re-live their first date and when Kawi notices something off, Pisaeng tells Kawi that he time travelled [this is based on the trailer so I'm not numbering it as a guess, though this show has done such a good job recontextualizing what we saw in the preview before so this could still be clowned]

Pisaeng is able to put into words what Kawi means to him

Kawi helps him come to terms with not being able to change everything the way Kawi had to come to terms with it too

[More because I want it than because I think it will happen but I'm writing it to manifest it] Pisaeng also talks to his mom while in the past to say hey, if you care about my future, help change the politics in Thailand rather than sending me abroad--giving his mom a chance to change with her kid like how Pear's dad said she should

Pisaeng jumps back to the future

We get the montage again and it looks almost exactly the same maybe just sped up, also maybe [because I've been good and deserve a treat] added bits about marriage equality moving forward?

Kawi recovers, and Kawi and Pisaeng are the ones married May 2027, at the beach [because almost all BL weddings are beach weddings, I don't make the rules]

Kawi tries to give Pisaeng the same speech Pisaeng gave him about if how he does die in future, Pisaeng should try to move on [credit to @tinycowboybro for thinking about the importance of this speech]

Pisaeng responds by reprising Unable [Gawin's OST which I have become recently obsessed with] or one of them performs a new OST we haven't heard yet? [GMMTV seems determined to milk having two protagonists who can sing]

Kawi and Pisaeng confirm neither knows what will happen from here but they'll face it together in the present [YAY]

Post-credit cut scene is Not being given the chance to go back in time by Time Travel Guy [this is still the funniest possible ending to me and I'm not going to stop speaking it into being until it's proven wrong]

Alright we'll see how many of these 10 guesses I get right on Friday. [You may have noticed I ditched the his-death-was-inevitable theorizing I did initially, even though my timeline deep dive does potentially support it, and it could still work with a lot of the above, but I just decided to go with what would make me happiest. I would still be satisfied if they do go that route or leave it ambiguous, as long as they lead up to it well.]

No matter how this goes, it has been an honour and a privilege digging into this show with all of you!

[That being said I realized I will be travelling on Friday and Saturday so depending on the train wi-fi, I may end up being late to the final episode].

cc. the other folks whose writing I was thinking about and have linked in the round-up post but didn't reference directly here: @telomeke; @benkaaoi; @jjsanguine; @stuffnonsenseandotherthings; @shortpplfedup; @williamrikers; @heretherebedork; @visualtaehyun; @knighthacker; @minorista; @neonsbian; @nemesis-21; @snidgetwrites no pressure to interact I just want to give you all credit becuase reading what everyone wrote has informed my thinking [though of course if you disagree with my conclusions, I am the only one to blame (and also I'd love to hear about it)!]

[rocketturtle4]

The only thing I have to say before scrolling through tumblr is I think it's interesting that we didn't get a meaningful flashback at the end of this episode.

I wonder how that links to Kawi's own shift in focus and what the show is saying about his priorities.

Afterall these flashbacks were glimpses into key moments from the past, a past that was glossed over by Kawi's focus on the future.