#be my favourite

[onstoryladders]

it's just so special to me when like a character is a massive loser and yet they get someone who falls head over heels for them. like yeah boy pull some bitches with your weak-ass game and cringefail demeanor

[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.

[waitmyturtles]

[dribs-and-drabbles]

I am sensing...a pattern (pun intended)

Is this the new gay dress code?

Not you too, Trin? (thanks for the heads up @respectthepetty!)

I mean, did the Thai tv series industry buy these shirts in bulk?

Hey!

And will a fourth colour variation appear next, I wonder?

Edited to add - not another colour variant...but a reappearance of the charcoal stripes

AND the parents are now getting in on the act:

Who will wear it next?

Edit: Look, I didn't think this one would pop up again...but it did. And on Top of all people. Not so Top Tier now are we?

Yes, Top, yes I do...

[jjsanguine]

This is like the first time I've seen someone who knows their phone's battery is crap actually carry a charger around. And for the one on the other end of the dropped call to be like "here we go again smh" instead of jumping to conclusions?? I wasn't expecting such realism from a show where the time machine is a resin art music box

[mooninagust]

puppy in love υ´• ﻌ •`υ

[i-got-the-feels]

Loosing you was the biggest mistake of my life. Why would I go through it again?

- Be My Favorite, 2023

[dimplesandfierceeyes]

Very interesting to see Be My Favourite touch on the concepts of mistakes and negative consequences in a way that suggests unavoidability. Up until now, we've largely seen Kawi running around to fix his mistakes and every failure is framed, at least by Kawi, as not fixing the mistake 'correctly,' which he then returns to the past to do.

The first hint of this was in the previous episode where we saw that despite recieving the life-saving surgery, Kawi's father still passed away. They go further in episode 9 by showing us the fall out of how he and Pisaeng get together.

The significant feature of this, however, is that Kawi tried to do everything the right way. He had scheduled a date to break up with Pearmai and he'd only confessed to Pisaeng after panicking that he was leaving the country. The fact that he hadn't managed to break things off with Pear cleanly first was out of his control.

Sometimes we try to do everything right and it goes wrong anyway. Sometimes we try to do our best for someone but they still get hurt. Sometimes we try to make the right choices but we miscalculate the consequences. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying. Life is messy, nothing is fully under our control, and sometimes all we can do is muddle through in the right direction and have faith that the people around us are muddling right next to us.

Being honest, owning our mistakes, and hoping that others understand that there was no malicious intent, is sometimes all we can do.

[gmmtv-bl-tournament]

GMMTV BL Tournament - Round 2

[syrena-del-mar]

Embracing the Waters of Uncertainty

We've hit the beach episode this week and I can't help but love how they were able to intertwine this trope with a message that is so significant to who Kawi is as a character. Coming from Pisaeng no less. The one that always challenges Kawi to be better, to be truer to himself, to strive for more out of the relationships he's forged with people.

So much of Kawi's life he been held back by his own fear. His fear of not having enough, of not being enough. He's spent ten years yearning for the idea of Pear because she was nice to him during his Freshman year, but he never took the plunge of actually getting to know her in the first timeline. It isn't until he believes that he has an infinite amount of chances (initially) of going back in time that he readily and willingly makes a move to pursue her.

Desires and fears go hand in hand, Kawi needs to take the step back to reassess whether the fears that he has held onto tightly are actual concerns or he's merely constructing barriers because of his own apprehension of getting accustomed to having people in his life. It isn't until Pisaeng throws himself on him to topple him over that he really allows himself to have fun in the water, similarly Pisaeng is the one that has been making Kawi confront his own fears about his insecurities.

Kawi struggles with the apprehension of facing his perceived failure, of returning to the life of being a translator, where he spent close to ten years alone with no human attachments. He knows what it means to be completely isolated after the death of his father, so he doesn't want to risk stepping into the realm of uncertainty that comes with pursuing what he actually truly wants. He's doing everything that he perceives will make him satisfied in the future, so he refuses to rock the boat. This time around he learned, that no matter how much he tries to fulfill the status quo of wooing Pear, of getting his father the emergency surgery, of keeping Pisaeng as a friend, of making amends with Max, he still ends up alone and distant from those he cares about in the future. His battle of fully playing in the water and getting in the water highlights Kawi's internal battle of desire of having people in his life and the fear of making a false move that would make them leave him.

It's paradoxical, Kawi wants to be happy, and honestly we see him to be at his most happy with Pisaeng, but he's the one that creates the most obstacles for himself in achieving that happiness. One might think it's irrational that he wants that happiness, he just might have that happiness and he's unwilling to accept the inevitable consequences of accepting it, but this man is only starting to grow from the shame that he has clung onto. Like @lurkingshan said, in this episode we see Kawi interrupting his own growth arc, he still has to put in the work. In episode 6 we saw Kawi finally starting to self-reflect, hanging his head just like the Wisteria flowers, and realize that his unchecked emotions of shame and anger cause him to push others away when they're only attempting to help him. He was starting to learn that allowing people to help you and depend on them doesn't drive people away, but how you react to that help might. Yet, by moving to the future, he put a pause to the much needed self-awareness and growth. He made his own obstacles that caused him to be alone in the future, again.

Getting wet for Kawi is an illustration of his perception of risks that he runs in attempting to fix his future. Just as getting wet can be inconvenient, he's still facing drawbacks. He gets everything done on his checklist, but he goes back to a future where he's an alcoholic. This Kawi has driven everyone away from him. I don't think that we'll ever fully receive an explanation for that Kawi, but I wouldn't surprised if his drinking stemmed from the loss of his dad, like he said about in the first timeline, his world stopped with the loss of his dad. But as @chickenstrangers said, it's important for Kawi to see the imperfect future, because it's motivation for him to see that sometimes no matter if you complete the checklist, it might not give him the future that he wants, because life isn't that predictable.

Kawi has to take the first step to confront and overcome his fears. Like @stuffnonsenseandotherthings said, there's going to be a moment where Kawi has to realize that he might not ever be able to completely fix the past so he gets the present that he wished for. Growth and progress isn't linear, but one still has to be willing to confront and overcome their fears to achieve the path of fulfilling their desires. This means willing to face potential setbacks, or in Kawi's case, learning to be okay with the fact that he won't ever able to completely fix the past. When you live so much in the past, you forget to appreciate the present, and with Kawi living in between timelines, it's so easy for him to develop a fear of failure, but if he examines and self-reflects on what he truly desires, then he might just learn that the future is nothing to fear and accept that change can still happen in his present with the choices he makes.

[maebkil]

Haven’t been able to stop thinking about the scene between Pear, Kawi, and Pisaeng in EP.7 because I'm starting to believe that Kawi was having an affair with Pisaeng…. not sure how else the writers expect me to interpret it. You’re telling me that right when Pear and Kawi break up, Pisaeng suddenly decides to disappear from everyone’s life… and that’s not meant to mean anything??

Am I meant to ignore how awkward it gets the second Pisaeng walks in? How the smile on Pisaeng’s face drops the second he notices Pear’s suitcase?

How sullen Pisaeng looks as Pear walks out? And how GUILTY Kawi looks back at Pisaeng??

This scene demands us to overanalyse.

Maybe it was more emotional than physical, but I think Kawi started to drink more to have the excuse of “I only did it because I was drunk, they aren’t my true actions”… an excuse Pisaeng would easily accept if it meant they could continue what they're doing because it's an excuse he's used himself. Kawi was the one who wanted to talk about their kiss in EP.6. Pisaeng was avoid it because, I believe, he was worried Kawi would ask him to "not be so close to him" (again). So, in the future, as they continue to develop their "relationship", all while Kawi dates Pear, it's not hard to imagine that Pisaeng quietly endured a lot of pain in order to just stay by Kawi's side and keep loving him (as stated in the OST 'Unable', which Pisaeng sings to Kawi).

But, of course, Kawi STILL feels guilty every time he seeks Pisaeng out so he drank more to suppress this, starting a never-ending cycle that has led to his addiction.

It makes sense why Pisaeng chooses to run away. I'm sure he believes he's the reason Kawi and Pear broke up. And I'm sure he hates that a part of him may not care if Pear resents him because the happiness he felt being with Kawi, no matter how short, outweighed any rational thought.

Gosh, this future sucks. It's all so... wrong. Kawi went from having nothing in the original timeline to "having everything" and still ending up miserable.

[onstoryladders]

@endlessly-ranting-antheia

[heretherebedork]

There are no other channels out there fighting the fight and bringing activism to people the way GMMTV does. No one. Absolutely no one. From the fight itself to the people affected to the ways and the reasons to celebrate and to fight and the people that matter both big and small.

(Also, anyone else think the Thai Blind and Sexual Diversity section could be a nod to Last Twilight? Because I am eagerly anticipating that show if they've really consulted with people who are both blind and queer. That would be amazing.)

Max continues to be my tired queer hero. This boy. @absolutebl he is glorious, tired, fighting, queer and here to stay and he deserves a boyfriend, damnit. Max is the epitome of the phrase 'we're here, we're queer and we're goddamn exhausted of fighting for our right to exist but guess what that ain't gonna stop us.'

The amount that I love the message here and the freedom they offer the world and the reassurance that love is love and love is all that really matters in the end, that love is not right or wrong or to be judged but simply is, and always will be, love.

We get to see not just the story of people accepting their identities and their love and who and what matters to them but the bigger picture of the society around them and how it changes and does not change, how they fit society but also how some of them choose to make sure society makes space for them.

[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!)

[dribs-and-drabbles]

I can't help thinking about how the casting of Be My Favourite, which at first (and second after the recast) felt so odd, could actually be very cleverly intentional.

When the first trailer was presented at GMMTV Live 2022 we all collectively lost our shit at the casting of Krist and Mike. Not only for the backlash Krist (potentially wrongly) received after SOTUS but also for pairing him with Mike. Two actors who had been in bl pairs before but not for a while and who weren't predicted to do any again soon.

But then Mike got replaced (for whatever reason), and by yet another person who no one saw coming, Gawin. Again, an actor not shy of a few bl pairings but who hadn't lead a show yet and who seemed pretty reserved and not the obvious choice to do another bl.

And looking at Krist/Kawi and Gawin/Pisaeng sat together at the end of ep 7, it hit me that they don't seem like an obvious paring.

And they're really not. They've not even worked together on a series before (as far as I could see on mdl) let alone built up a friendship/relationship on the 'promotional circuit' compared to other newer pairings (I'm thinking Ohm/Nanon before Bad Buddy, or Perth/Chimon going into Never Let Me Go and now Dangerous Romance, who it's easy to picture together from the get go.) And also compare this to Krist and Aye, who have worked together in three other series prior to filming Be My Favourite - and recently too.

So it feels like the show wants us to see the Kawi/Pearmai pairing as the obvious one - just as Kawi does.

It wants us to see the Kawi/Pisaeng pairing as a little odd, or unimaginable - just as Kawi did (and is kidding himself that he still does).

And I love that because, as it's taking time for Kawi (and Pisaeng) to get used to the idea of them as a couple, we also get to do the same thing at the same time.

Their pairing is growing for us as it's growing for them.

And in some ways it's making me feel closer to their journey.

(shout out to @grapejuicegay for our dm discussions about the show)

[jjsanguine]

Huge fan of when someone time travelling constantly does/says stuff referencing their original time period, and their love interest is just there like "they're so fucking weird <333"