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moonchildridden · 2 years

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GusBew, army of two pawns in a warzone: rose tinted privacy, bridges burned, treason and rainbow front (Episode 8)

The title sounds weird, right? I know. And the title is not going to be the only weird thing you guys are going to see here today.

So, before I start the post, I would like to say a few things that will serve as some sort of explanation as to why the post is going to be the way is going to be (or just an explanation as to why I don’t sound as enthusiastic as I did in earlier posts) and, even if it takes a few minutes of your reading time, I would like for you guys to read it anyways.

Ever since I started doing analysis posts, I always had in mind that I was doing it primarily because I tend to overthink when I watch things and taking it all out from my brain helps diminishing the overdrive that takes hold of me when that happens. I never expected so many people to read and engage with the things that I write (I didn’t even know how Tumblr communities worked when I posted my first PuthKaeng post back in 2021) and also never expected to enjoy writing the things that I think when I watch certain shows, the act of rewatching and discovering new things that I didn’t see before, exchanging opinions with other people, etc. Running this blog, the way I do makes me genuinely happy, and I like the idea of enjoying writing the things that I do, because even if I have this weird sense of urgency, I only talk this extensively about the things that I like.

This is where War Of Managers, and particularly this episode, the one being the subject in question, comes in. I was not expecting WOM to have the same pace and storytelling of NS, because even if it talks about the acting industry and managers, it does so in different optics, with different characters and different backgrounds. What I was expecting, however, was to have, at least, the same level of carefulness and temporary transition that NS was so good in bringing us; it was not exactly perfect, there are a few things that could’ve been made better in the first story arc, but it was coherent and understandable. War Of Managers is not being treated with the same care and I’m kinda sad about that.

Sad because WOM has a good plot, immense potential, fairly good actors being involved and is compelling enough to grab your attention and make you wonder what will happen next. However, there is this weird…I don’t know…presentation like the production team didn’t want to make NS and WOM very similar (because, again, it talks about actors and managers) but in that quest to make that distinction clear, ended up getting lost in how to do it and instead of give themselves time to see it the story actually makes sense the way it was designed, just threw it there and prayed for a good result. I’m not saying that WOM is bad, because it’s not, but episode left me with this nagging feeling that the story is not quite there yet; and that took all the will I had into writing this post.

This post is only being written, mainly because I hate leaving things unfinished and because I feel like I owe it to all of you. Episode 8 is NOT something that I think I’m capable of talking about the way it should be talked about, because it was a bigger mess that I thought episode 7 was and that’s saying a lot coming from me. I legit don’t know if this feeling is on me because of the lack of subtitles in very important moments of the episode (I thought we had gone past that. AisPlay, please, pull your shit together) of because of the overall messiness of the timeline of the episode but right now I’m not very excited about this story arc (my feelings can change, it has happened before, so I have faith that it will happen again).

Anyways, sad writer rant aside, let me get back to my normal programming and properly begin this post with the basics here, of me being a responsible adult and laying down the usual disclaimers: everything that you guys will be reading in this post is the result of my observations into very specific parts of the episode, frame by frame repetitive viewing and me getting to the most plausible conclusion after taking all in, meaning that most of the things will be on the speculative territory, others in (maybe) theory territory and some can (or so I think) be proven by in-dialogues and scenes arrangements, so take things with a grain of salt, ok?

Contrary to the older posts, I will not divide this one is theme segments but rather in two parts, the first half and the second half of the episode respectively, because even if I know some of the subjects the episode touched and pretended to talk about, the execution was not exactly something that I see as appropriate (?) or something like that. Also, this post will bore of a “talk” from my side to what went through my head while I was watching the episode and I hope that it becomes an interesting way of me to expose things to you all.

Without further ado, let’s dive into it.

First half – GusBew living their rockstars phase, but not really

The episode started bringing back something that I talked about in the previous posts, one being in the very first episode of GusBew story arc and the other in the previous episode. The first one is related with the fact that there was no contract between Bew and Toon and how that fact alone was a very disaster heavy recipe, because it opened doors to things going wrong and things always goes wrong, is how life works and to quote what I said in this post, “seeing how Bew thinks that just because there is a seemingly trustworthy connection between them, that she adores and takes care of him and he loves her, a contract is unnecessary is a commentary on how is easy to use emotional connection to abuse people professionally and even get away in situations where the law would usually get involved. The way Toon, the older one between them, is just letting that professional relationship continue without a contract rubs me the wrong way and gives a manipulative personality to her”. While BewToon are talking in his room, each one laying down in the opposite sides of one another but with their heads close (this could be a commentary to how they are now operating in different sides of things but still close to each other. Or it could be nothing, who knows), Toon begs for Bew to say something, as she is worried about him and Bew asks her if she “wants him to go to her and cry, forgive her for everything, go back to being the same and act as if nothing happened”, making Toon deny that those were her intentions and say that she didn’t mean to do what she did and that Bew could scold her all he wanted.

Bew then says that she “was not wrong” (not gonna lie, when he said that I literally screamed “yes, she is, don’t enable her, you were doing great”) and that he was the one in the wrong “for not being smart and make a contract with her like the law says” because “the contract from the heart that they have is why she can do anything to him, hurt him” (a commentary on how is easy to use emotional connection to abuse people – exactly what I talked about here) but Toon denies again and says that “she didn’t mean to hurt him”, something that is hard to believe because she was very aware of the consequences of her choices, knew very well she was playing with Bew’s feelings, knew that he would feel betrayed, that the trust between them would be broken but decided to do it anyway (Gus also did the same but we are talking about different people with very different roles of importance in Bew’s life. I swear I’m not trying to defend another man online) and now was trying to coax Bew back into see her the way he used to see her before all of that mess was unraveled in front of him but Bew, however, is already catching on to her manipulative behavior and tells Toon to “go, before the anger turns into hatred”.

After this, we have Bew looking at the account that decided to copycat GossipXoxo, and the account is very determined in ruining not only Gus’ image (still propagating the “alcoholic” agenda) but also Bew’s image, by calling him “two-faced bitch” and saying that those two “traits” make GusBew a perfect match. But what I wanna talk about this part is the tweet where the owner account says that “a dirty whore should be locked in a brother” and how that, at least to me, seems like an unintentional commentary to the ”purity obsession” that many people seem to have around celebrities. And I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about specific themes here but this also ties up with the theme of expectations vs reality, in terms of how people prefer the fantasy but scowls at the reality of things; little rant warning.

So this person, the one trying to “expose” GusBew, calls Bew a two-faced bitch and after that a dirty whore, alluding to the video of GusBew having sex (that’s a can of worms I won’t open right now) and also to the image that Bew specifically “projects” to the external world (after all, his fans are called “parents”, this to say that people feel entitled to his personality and behavior, just like some parents do with their children), almost like saying that Bew’s image is completely dissonant with his real personality and that he should be shamed for that. The way this person, using a very private moment of GusBew, talks about Bew having sex as something shameful strikes me as weird but also something that kinda makes sense in the context of how people demand high morals from famous people, because they are public figures and “should set examples and standards” and then shame and hate them for showing everyday actions (like dating, for example) because it goes against the image the public want them to have, because is the famous people job to be what they are not (pure, saints and immaculate people), as famous people are very much compared to gods in some people minds and those people tend to take that to the very extreme.

This also makes me think in how, in actors case, people are “fine” with them doing those things deemed “immoral” (drinking, partying, having sex) on TV because they know is not real, is not the real person doing those things but a character, are also “fine” with the idea of their shipped couple engaging in sexual activities and being lewd in public but as soon as those same actors are shown actually doing those things (or hint at doing those things) it becomes a problem because it creates a conflict between the godlike image some people put into them and what they actually do in their private lives, in an environment where people feel entitled to the actors entire life, not only professional but personal also. An actor dating someone that is not their shipped partner? Forbidden. A member of a famous music group getting married and having kids? How dare they have sex? Pictures of an actor drinking and having fun? Being a bad example for those who follow him.

The second thing that happened in the beginning of the episode was the conversation between GusBew, where Gus was trying to explain his side of things, something that he didn’t get to do before and his first words were “I never did as per plan, everything I did I truly felt it” and, before me going to the point where Bew acted like Gus was still in acting mode (to be honest, if I were in Bew’s place, my reactions would’ve be the same), I wanna point out that I said in my previous post that when Gus was talking about the plan, or starting to talk about the plan, begging for Bew to listen to his explanation, he started his sentence with “everything I did with you” but never managed to finish what he was about to say and I made a comment about that particular scene, saying that, and I quote, “I’ve managed to come this far without saying that Gus liked Bew, after all I haven’t been able to assert his personality and gather information that could help support this hypothesis but I swear – and I don’t know if this thought only appeared in my mind because the words he said reminded me of the confession scene in MonTeam’s second episode in Y Destiny or because it was something logical – that when Gus said that “everything he did with Bew”, I was expecting him to finish that sentence with a “I did it because I wanted to” or something that could serve as an indicator of Gus being in a “relationship” with Bew for over a month because he genuinely wanted to and not because of some plan made by his manager”. This was important for me to talk about because it was one of the few instances of expressed emotion that Gus showed in episode 7 and also served as a gateway for us to peak into Gus intentions and actions, something that had been very difficult to do, because of his ambiguity, and in this episode was also a way to show his investment on his relationship with Bew because after Bew said “that take was very good, now stop acting and tell the truth”, Gus insists that he’s saying the truth, that regardless of what their managers told him to do, at the end his actions were real, even if the situation they were was not supposed to be real.

The conversation goes on and Bew says that Gus supposedly “didn’t agree but didn’t disagree either”, meaning that he was as guilty for the situation as the ones that gave the idea because he did nothing to stop the plan from being carried over, and Gus said that “he couldn’t because he was scared that would be a problem, so he didn’t say anything”. Again, because Bew does not trust Gus or anyone else right now, he accuses Gus of “doing things as planned”, “getting things his way” and that if Gus really loved him, why didn’t he said anything, making Gus answer that “he didn’t know how to”, as he was “scared Bew would get hurt”, prompting a very logical question from Bew, “and don’t you think I’m hurt?”, because let’s face it, people are going around saying that they didn’t mean to hurt Bew but ended up doing something that inevitably hurt him in the end. Gus apologizes, hugs Bew and says that “he won’t hurt Bew again” but Bew tells him that “he was stupid not to see it” and that Gus “didn’t mean that much to him” (did anyone had a flashback to Pun saying something similar to Nott on episode 4 or it was just me?); Gus, seemingly hurt, asks Bew if he “had to say that” and Bew says that Gus “don’t need to console him” and that he didn’t have to be worried because he would still “do their projects the same, like nothing has happened”, as they “were actors” and just “pretending in front of the moms, and FC Gus could do it already”, before putting his glasses and leaving Gus behind.

One thing I want you guys to notice here is the fact that Gus stayed with his glasses on the entire conversation, while Bew only put his glasses (bigger than the ones being used by Gus, probably alluding to the fact that he was the most affected in that situation) when the conversation ended, and he was leaving. This was the first time, since episode 6, that they had a serious conversation with Gus not having direct eye contact with Bew and that could be read in two different prisms: the first one is that Gus was somehow lying about something during that conversation and didn’t want Bew to find out or he was hiding the intensity of his feelings, as a way of protecting himself from something. I commented on my previous post that Gus uses his glasses as a type of “cover” from his reactions and emotions, especially when he didn’t want people to read him so easily, and in this episode they served to hide the emotions coming from his eyes only, because it was easy to read his emotions in his facial expressions (the plead when he told Bew that he was telling the truth, the regret when he apologized and the pain when Bew told him that he didn’t mean much to him and that he would continue to pretend that everything was fine in front of the managers and their fans), a crack in his nonchalant expression that also served as a cover for his emotions; this begs the question: if we saw all of that in his face alone, what were his eyes showing that we did not see?

Now we get to the meat of the episode, the clip of GusBew having sex, that was leaked by the NatalieRomanov account. GusBew were doing a live, talking about their rehearsals for the upcoming concert, doing a little fanservice (here, I use this word in the literal sense because that’s exactly what they were doing, pleasing the fans to make the rumors of them having problems die down) and also making the rumors that their managers were having problems die down when someone in chat told Bew to not go on twitter, making their managers obviously go to twitter and show Bew the clip people were mentioning in the chat. Seconds later, we are presented with an article (that was not translated, and I had to watch two different Portuguese translations to catch what the articles were saying – kinda funny that I watch an episode with English subtitles while my primary language is Portuguese and then had to resort to Portuguese translations so I could give you guys English translations. I hate AisPlay, seriously – where, basically, they were saying that a very bold (?) video had been posted and that he looked very much with a BL actor and that the hashtag #BewNotSmall was trending on twitter and wondering what Bew would say about that.

Following that, there was a press conference where Bew confirmed that it was in fact him in the video, saying that at the time the video was recorded, he “was young” so he “didn’t think about it carefully”, before a reporter say that “someone noticed that his hairstyle at the video was the same as now” (because people cannot repeat hairstyles in the world, right?), prompting Toon to step in and say that “the picture was distorted, and it was a long time ago, whatever he’s saying, believe him”. Seconds later, we see Gus and Pla going to where Bew and Toon were, and this is where the can of worms I refused to open at the beginning can be opened: Gus says that “taking clips like that is a privacy matter” – a very true statement, regardless of what you may think about the subject of recording sex tapes, it is a decision that, when taken in accordance between the parties involved, is matters only to them and no one has the right to make them feel ashamed for that – that “the person that’s wrong is the person who released the clip and invaded privacy without the owners consent” – another true statement, because if the people involved in the clip did not released the clip themselves or did not gave permission for the clip to be released, whoever does that, for whatever reason that it is, is a very bad person and should not be entertained – and that “Bew is the victim here, he shouldn’t be blamed” and “we should blame the person who did this”, finishing with a “I want the society and the FCs to understand Bew”; the message is was pretty much crystal clear: we should avoid victim blaming (when it’s clear that sexual contents were released without the content of the owner) and just ignore when the people themselves release sexual contents like this, as it all boils down to one key word here, consent.

Press conference ends and we cut to Bew punching Gus and asking “how could Gus do that to him” while Gus tries to calm him down (another déjà vu with NottPun, when Nott told Pun to calm down when the whole viral clip debacle happened in episode 4) and that “he didn’t do it”, while on the managers side of things, Pla was doing the same with Toon, telling her that they were not responsible for that. Toon, not believing in that, said that Pla “was angry about Gus and did that to her child”, and Bew asked Gus “if not you, then who” because Gus “was the one that took the clip” (remember Gus’ chat with Pla, where he ”acted” outraged when Pla asked if he had taken a clip? Fake fucking bitch), said that “loved him and all but hurt him in the end”; at the same time Bew is accusing Gus of doing it, Toon is doing the same with Pla and then the reverse happens, with Pla accusing Toon of releasing the clip, stating that “the clip came from the ‘detective girl’” and the same account “took the clip from her IG to spread that Gus was addicted to alcohol”, something that could only mean that Toon was the one responsible for that leaking incident (Gus was on the other side making the same questions to Bew, wondering if Toon was not the one responsible for that) and the reason both of them gave for that suspicion was the top spenders campaign for Pure Skin that Bew was currently doing; then Bew threw back the accusation to Gus, saying that it could’ve very much be a plan of his, for the exact same reason he was accusing Toon, Gus seemed hurt while asking if Bew could only think about that, said that he didn’t know what to say, Bew then told him that he didn’t need to say anything and that he should go. The managers were doing pretty much the same thing, with Pla suggesting that they postponed or even cancel the event that GusBew had and then announced their artists separation, but Toon denied because that action was just Pla running away from problems, but Pla said that the person running away from problems and pushing everything to him was her and that if Toon wanted to accuse him, to get evidence and then went to talk to him.

Like I said, this episode was being a bigger mess than episode 7 and things were only getting started.

(The article mentioning what Gus did in the press conference was also an allusion to the victim blaming that was happening, with the headline “Knight in a shining armor” and “Gus appears to defend Bew during the press conference. Please respect the human dignity. When will Thailand stop blaming the victims?” bellow it. This don’t even need an explanation, is obvious.)

The scene where Pla talks about his investigation, that the IP address from the detective girl account showed that the account had been logged there, meaning that someone from the company was responsible for the tweets, is mainly interesting for the fact that the camera panned on Kitty (the girl that offered brownies to Gus on episode 7) and she looked a bit…guilty when that piece of information was released. Yo even tried to explain that they were in a computer central, meaning that anyone, including Pla that was accusing other people, could’ve used one of the computers just to hide their trace, and Kitty said that because the clip was very personal, no one there could have leaked it because they didn’t have access to it, but my senses were already fixated on her and considering the fact that I thought that it was a woman posting the tweets at the beginning of the episode (because of the jaw shape), my bets were on her.

Before we go to the second meat of the episode, I wanna talk about the scene between PP and GusBew. Even if it was sort of a filler scene (or at least it felt like that for me), a lot of things happened in those less than 5 minutes: people were still very much blaming Bew for the leaked clip, with some saying that they were disappointed with him and others that they couldn’t see Bew as a “baby” anymore (remember what I talked about the obsession with purity), the GossipXoxo owner account decided to be human for once (or maybe because this was a very serious topic and not their attempts at “expose” NottPun) and saying that what people were doing to him was sexual harassment and victim shaming, asking if actors were not allowed to have sex and what people would do if Bew committed suicide because of what happened, Gus showing emotions more freely towards Bew and an appearance from PP.

It was the PP part that caught my attention, because besides him always been where the new actors are and always the ones involved in problems, he always seems to know what to say (probably because he has more time in the industry and, therefore, more experience): he said that he had been through all of that before (the “that” in his sentence was not explained but I doubt e was talking about having a sex tape of his leaked) and that if Bew couldn’t take it he shouldn’t force it (notice that as soon as PP puts his hand on Bew’s shoulder while saying that, Gus immediately gets up from the floor and goes to where PP and Bew are), that everything would be better and no matter what happened nothing was more important than the person beside him (not PP not being subtle saying this after looking at Gus, I see you bestie) and Bew shouldn’t let other people problems ruin his relationship (yep, PP bestie dropping facts here and showing at the same time that he knows that GusBew are more than a ship. I wonder, did he know that NottPun were also more than a ship?).

Bew, obviously surprised with that, asks if PP knew about him and Gus and PP says that “the industry is small, everyone knows everything, even the war we have nothing to with/didn’t start”, before asking for a selfie and then saying that he would tag both of them before leaving GusBew alone in the practice room. Seriously, the look Gus gave to Bew, the longing, the pain, the sadness, the love in those eyes, not gonna lie, I kinda pitied him and wished for Bew to forgive him.

The conversation between Pla and Gus was another interesting thing to pay attention because it was basically a conversation between the industry (being represented by Pla) and the actors (being represented by Gus). In one hand we have the industry telling the actors to not get too involved in what they do, that the things they do is just for the fans and that now that the ship was basically finished, Gus could venture into other projects (I talked about how the industry loved to sell the idea of treating a ship as a unity, stripping them of their individuality and the moment one of them started “drifting apart” (i.e. doing solo work), it would start to sell the idea that the ship was dead), and in the other we have the actors complaining that the industry only wants publicity and do not care about their feelings, remembering it that they were human too and not mere products that they could replicate and sell until the public interest shifted to something else. The “yes, you are, but you are not a normal person, you are a people’s person” is a callback to what I said about the entitlement that the public have towards famous people, that feeling that they deserve to have control of that famous person’s life and anything that goes against what they previously set for them, they would need to be punished for it), complimented with “you are an actor, a product on the shelf” – the dehumanization of the industry in one sentence right here.

And then the industry (Pla) paints a scenario: if one day, the product on the shelf cannot be sold (the actor itself or the ship), no matter how much you promote or give it out (fanmeetings, top spender campaigns, photobooks, music singles, etc.) no one will buy (no fans equals no money and no money equals loss of value). In the end, it expires (the idea that actors have expiration date inside the industry, so they need to fight with everyone to cement their name in the industry – my theory of easy replacement (i.e., apparent lack of space within the industry/dispute between BL actors that I talked on my first two posts for NottPun) and then what? It’s just taken away from the shelf and everything that was done from the beginning would go to waste. And no actor wants to go through this worst-case scenario (basically, s scare tactic being put in motion), so they smile and nod to what they are being told to do, because at the end of the day, is their job and the show must go on.

Onto the second meat of the episode, we start it with Gus, drinking and looking miserable (as he had been looking since Bew found out about the plan and decided to give him the cold shoulder)and looking at the unanswered messages he sent to Bew (I don’t know why but Gus sending a message saying that Bew was selfish for not opening the door for him and the next message after that one was him saying “I love you” was kinda funny), we had Toon calling Gus and his first response being “what’s wrong with Bew?” and then turning off the phone in her face when she asked to meet up with him (that was also funny) and lastly an unknown number calling him, that ended up being Yo’s number and someone said to Gus to go get Yo because he was drunk af and Gus, being the good guy he was (don’t let the media fool you, believe in me), decided to go.

When I saw that, my first reaction was “why call Gus, of all people, to go get Yo, when they just reunited and had a fallout at the same time, doesn’t Yo have any other friends to go get him?” and something felt very wrong about that entire situation, like Gus was being lured under false pretenses to be in a place where he shouldn’t be. And that’s exactly what happened.

Second half – I only needed a good and clear timeline of events but here we are

Second half is where things start to get a bit confusing, at least for me, timeline wise because we don’t have a clear indication of time passage to pinpoint exactly when things are happening (except the 48 hours of wait until Gus’ court hearing) and things seemed to have happened too fast and with no justification. So, let’s speedrun this too:

- For some reason, Bew had gone back into having mother-son days with Toon, despite him saying that things wouldn’t go back to normal. One thing was him pretending in front of other people, because he needed to maintain a certain image, other thing completely different was him going back to something that had only started because they still had that “mother-son bond”, but that had been before the all-plan expose. Him still calling Toon “mom” can be explained with force of habit but him slipping into old habits while still maintaining Gus away from him? Weird;

- Gus kept telling Bew very variation of “I love you” in any chance he got, explaining to Bew that the reason he had gotten into the mess he was at that moment was because he missed him and was worried about him (he was not blaming Bew but explaining why he was stressed);

- The hearing court was used by Toon as humiliation tool towards Pla, with her saying to a specific reporter (that probably was hired by her) that all the evidence that were collected to prove Gus’ innocence were found by her and Bew and not by Pla;

- As the news that Gus was “saved” by Toon and not Pla, people started bullying them, going to the point of trending hashtags, with one of them directly telling them to die – this, to me, can be read as a comment to how people feel protected enough on the internet to be extremely evil and toxic to other people, because the “anonymity” their profiles give to them is like a mask covering their faces and, by proxy, their identities, and freedom for them to do what they want. This can also be a commentary into how people find “justifiable” to do certain things to specific people just because they did something they did not agreed on and won’t regret even if something actually happens; the internet allows that detachment from our actions, because all it takes for us to walk scout-free is to exit any social media, turn off the internet and go take a walk outside.

- Toon, being the bitch she is, was having fun watching Pla being cyberbullied and when Bew questioned her about her behavior, she said that “if she allows Pla to always hurt them, then they will always be the prey”, then starting to gaslight Bew into staying on her side by saying that Pla “wanted to separate him and Gus” (not that she never thought about that before, she didn’t even wanted them together in the first place), that she knew Bew still loved Gus and if he didn’t want to stay away from Gus, then Gus had to be on their side. She went even further and used Bew’s dream of building a house to his mother and siblings, saying that having Gus on her side would give Bew a boyfriend, a house, money and happiness, literally everything Bew ever wanted;

(The article that came after that conversation was very interesting, basically saying that NottPun had gone through the same thing before – the managers having problems – and now GusBew were the latest victims, as any war between managers would always overload the artists and break them apart.)

- Another fight between PlaToon happens, with Pla saying that a couple event was not necessary and that a single event was more important, and Toon asked them if it was really the single event that was more important or the money, making Pla say that he didn’t want anything with Toon but since the press conference she kept creating problems and Toon threatening Pla by saying that she would apologize to the FC but if they find out that the person responsible for breaking the ship was them, it would be her problem. A physical altercation almost happened but GusBew stopped in time and then we discover that Toon had been making plans with Gus behind Pla’s back, and she starts saying that if it wasn’t for her Gus would still be in jail; when Pla tells her that they were still Gus’ manager, Toon (being the bitch she is) tells him to then act like one, asking kind of manager is emotionally unstable, to the point of having their artist console them (this was a very dick move from her, to use a moment of justifiable emotional turmoil, as a weapon to destabilize them. Even if it was within her character, it was still a dick move) and this was enough to make them physically fight, ended up hitting GusBew during the fight accidentally and making them leave the managers to sort their things out;

- In Bew’s room, Gus is cleaning up the scratch on Bew’s cheek and during a few seconds of pause, Bew looks at the wall (that was decorated with their pictures) and says that “that time was very good” (probably referring to the first months of them as a shipped couple), making Gus ask him if “they were just a ship or a real couple” and “how would their future be” but instead of answering his question, Bew asks Gus “if there was no plan, how would he be now” and Gus basically says that things wouldn’t be that different and he would “still be close to Bew the same”, “would slowly love Bew”, “would have know himself slower” and Bew finishes with a “but we would be fighting as much as now” and Gus agrees with him. After that, Bew gets up from the couch and goes to the house model he destroyed at the beginning of the episode and tells Gus that he dream of building a house like that, where he could reunite his family, with a room for Toon (this baby is still putting Toon on his plans, for the love of god, please let her go!) and when Gus asks him “if there is a room for him” (space for him in Bew’s life), Bew says that “it’s damaged” (meaning that what they had built together, the trust and the love, was broken) and Gus says that “if it’s damaged, fix it” (start over and built a new one), he “would help” (give himself truly to Bew);

- While they are remaking the house, they start to talk about the managers and Bew comments with Gus that Toon told him that Y couples that don’t have the same management wouldn’t survive and Gus tells him that Toon told him the same thing and that had already talked to him for him to leave Pla, and when Bew asks him what he said, Gus tells that it could be good, because with both of them under the same management, there wouldn’t be conflict of interest. After Bew remind Gus that Pla would never agree with that, he says that the needed to get away from them (their managers) and find someone else, and Gus is hesitant, saying that PlaToon had taken care of them for so long (baby, Koon also had taken care of Pun for a really long time and look how it ended) and asking if that wouldn’t be disloyal but Bew tells Gus that he always thought that the reason they got so far in the industry was because of themselves and that they didn’t need their managers, the managers needed them and, in a very Chad and reverse uno move, Bew uses the same words Toon used as a justification for her shitty behavior towards Pla and says that “if they allow PlaToon to hurt them, they will always be the prey” and that they can get away from their managers without looking bad;

- Gus then asks Bew if they are fine as before and Bew says that “that will never happen”, before saying that “it will be even better” and pull Gus to a kiss. After that, Pla starts creating problems (as always, when Toon is not doing the same, of course) and Bew decides that it was time for them to stop that madness;

- On the day of the event, Toon decided to expose Pla, saying that they had manipulated the results of the top spender campaign by bribing people and that the money they used was not theirs but from someone else (insinuating that it was Gus’s money), Pla tries to hit Toon but Gus stops them and says that Bew had already been hurt because of their fights and Bew says that they are tired of the constant fights and if things continue the way they are, they couldn’t continue to work together. Satisfied with the scene that she caused, Toon leaves the room, Pla does the same and Bew starts “crying”, being immediately consoled by Gus, who hugs Bew and then whispers that “the moment they were waiting had arrived”.

- We are then showed a few scenes, in which the most interesting ones are the one where Yo is holding a phone (that I assume it was Gus’ phone), that ties up with the scene of him wearing a hood and sitting at the same chair we saw the person messing with the ‘detective girl’ account was, and the other one was Kitty also messing with the ‘detective girl’ account and tweeting “they are so done. Bew said that he doesn’t want to work with Gus. Abandon the ship! GusBew is no more” – this was basically saying that both of them used the account, not only one person.

- The episode ends with GusBew sleeping together on his bed and Gus getting a phone call from Yo.

Final thoughts – Holy shit, my head hurts

I know I said at the beginning of the post that I walked out of this episode feeling a bit disappointed and sad and didn’t explain exactly why because I needed to talk about the episode first for you to understand my reasons. So, the first reason is how they handled the subject about the leaked video, and I don’t know if it was expectations born out of the preview for this episode but I was expecting to see this take more time on the episode and see exactly how this affected Bew, how he processed the situation he was in, how did stopped thinking that Gus was involved and who became his suspects for the leaking, if he even has one to begin with. Yes, some people are still commenting about it, but it seems like this was put into the story just to create conflict between GusBew, raise some suspicions about PlaToon and nothing else, when I know something like this has lasting effects. Did Bew lose sponsors after the incident, any job prospect? Did he gain new sponsors or something like that? What was Toon doing behind the scenes to mitigate the negative consequences of what happened? Because it seemed like she was more busy dealing with Gus and fighting with Pla, instead of actually taking care of her artists, the one she so proudly call “son”.

The second reason is the inconsistency of the characters behavior during the episode and how some things are never explicitly showed to us, we are forced to infer them by paying extra attention to the things being given to us. Why the hell Yo (if my suspicions are to be believed) leaked the video? Yes, him and Gus had a spat out, but I don’t think it was so bad to the point of him doing something like that? When did Bew decided to “forgive” Toon for the things she had done, to the point of having a “mother-son” day with her, when he explicitly said at the beginning of the episode, that things were not going to be the same? How did she convinced him to act like everything was fine? Why did it take longer for Bew to extend whatever reasoning he used with Toon to Gus? Yes, different people, different situations, but if he could act the same next to Toon, the person he supposedly trusted the most in the world, someone that basically raised him in the industry, why couldn’t he do the same with Gus.

Tied with the second reason, is the lack of a clear timeline, something that could help us have a sense of time and understand better how long each of the characters took to get to the stage we see them at the end of the episode. When you have knowledge of the passage of time, it gets easier for you to place situations into the right time brackets and analyze them accordingly.

This is not to say that the episode was not good or enjoyable, because it was. Seeing Gus shed more of his emotional protective gear just to get Bew back, how the industry is sucking the energy out of them slowly, how he doesn’t know himself well enough because he’d always been in the shadows of his managers, being skillfully manipulated into being someone he was not, stripped for the opportunity to discover himself at his own pace. How Bew, having been hurt by the people closest to him, became more sharp into analyzing the things around him and started seeing exactly how manipulative people could’ve been, and how he needed to be smarter and protect himself better, to avoid further manipulation scenarios was like seeing a Pokémon evolution, that you’ve been waiting for so long. They tried to humanize the managers, more specifically Pla, with the bullying incident and, even if I do not condone anything made towards them in this specific situation, I cannot in good faith feel complete sympathy for the people that act like money is more important than the people they are supposed to guide and protect.

The episode was hard to piece together a few things, hence why it took me a full week to sit down and write it (I literally just finished writing this), also because I was just not in the mood to rewatch the episode and see if I had miss something that was worth talking about. Probably the episode that came out today (that I will only watch tomorrow morning) will explain some of the things that I felt that were misplaced in this episode but, in the possibility that that do not happen, I will still give it my full attention and still continue to write about them, because even if I don’t have the energy to do so, my head wont leave my head alone and I don’t believe it will until I write about it (yes, I quoted a Dave Matthews Band song. Check them out, they are really good) and because I really like to share my thoughts with Tumblr BL.

So, I hope you guys enjoyed this mess of post and see you guys on the next one.

#warofy #war of y #war of y: war of managers #war of y episode 8 #gusbew #gus x bew #bewgus #bew x gus #analysis

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