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ohmthipakorn · 1 year

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my school president meta: gun and sound parallels + learning through love

in short: this post will discuss gun and sound's character development parallels through their relationships with their respective romantic partners, and how these similarities inform the closeness of their friendship!

under the cut because i have much to say <3

in the episode that sound is first introduced (ep 4), he and gun are set up as opposing forces. they’re competing for the leadership role of the band, and they have contrasting character flaws. what the other lacks, the other has an abundance of:

gun has no self-confidence but is earnest, kind, understanding, and friendly. even if the general public (aka classmates, teachers) look down on him for being a poor student, he has close friends who genuinely love him and believe in him.

sound is a successful actor and musician at a young age and therefore has an inflated ego. though he is talented and confident in himself and his skills, he lacks the social skills to build any meaningful relationships in his life, despite the love and attention he receives from fans and the public.

however, gun and sound's personal journeys to overcoming these flaws parallel each other closely, developing in large part through their respective relationships with tinn and win.

tinn and win are the perfect partners to help gun and sound confront their flaws.

tinn is kind, attentive, and likes gun unconditionally. he recognizes all of the good qualities that gun misses about himself, his compliments are always natural and unpracticed—he just genuinely believes in gun’s talent and goodness. he is communicative but knows what he wants, which is good for gun whose uncertainty leads to him hurting himself more often than not.

meanwhile win is combative and honest. sound’s celebrity status doesn’t affect win’s initial dislike of him or his loyalty to gun as their band leader. sound can’t be pretentious or falsely charming with him because win sees right through it. when sound tries to act superior, win pulls him back down to earth. win challenges sound to confront the unpolished qualities of himself that he hides from the public.

through these relationships, both gun and sound learn to be open and vulnerable.

in ep 5, gun hides his disappointment in himself from his mom in fear of burdening her. he wants to keep up a strong appearance around her because she’s already stressed about her physical health. so, tinn intervenes and takes of care of gun in his emotionally vulnerable state, ultimately allowing gun to be honest with his mom. throughout the show, gun continuously opens up to tinn about his insecurities as a musician and the struggles he has been through with his family. as he shares more of those feelings with tinn, we also see gun seek and accept physical comfort from him as well.

similarly in ep 8, sound hides his injury from his friends by secretly attending physical therapy and taking off his wrist brace whenever he’s around them. he knows the competition is stressing them out and he doesn’t want to add any additional burden, just like gun did for his mom. therefore, win offers to be his hand, supporting sound in his physically vulnerable state. in doing this, win also lessens the mental frustration and worry that sound tries to harbor all by himself. in the next episode, win continues to care for sound’s emotional state when he recognizes that sound is upset and checks in on him.

these are obviously not the only times that tinn and win have offered physical and emotional support for their boys. it’s no coincidence that for both tinn and win, the love language they use to express their love is acts of service, which is perfect for two boys who aren’t used to asking for help or showing their weaknesses to others. tinn and win know they can’t wait for gun and sound to ask for help, because they never will. instead, they offer their help in any way they can while still respecting gun and sound’s boundaries, allowing them the space to open up little by little.

gun and sound also learn to value their personal relationships on the same level as their focus on music. in ep 7, we see how love changes both of their perspectives.

for gun, rather than seeing it as a distraction, he realizes that love can be something that inspires his music and motivates him to do better in the competition.

for sound, he votes in favor of love, probably out of solidarity with yo due to his own budding feelings for win but also because he has come to genuinely care about his friends and sees how supporting each other contributes to their morale as a band.

in both instances, gun and sound stop seeing love/friendship and music as isolated parts of their lives, and realize it’s okay to prioritize their own desires.

i believe these similarities in their character arcs are the reason gun and sound are shown to be close friends. they innately recognize their similarities with each other and gravitate together because they know there will always be a level of understanding between them. we can see this when sound tries to protect gun from the “plots” of the student council, when gun allows sound to miss practice for physical therapy and keeps his secret from the band, when sound gravitates towards gun when he’s avoiding win, and when gun reveals his own relationship to sound to offer support and advice to him.

in conclusion, gun and sound began the show in a position that could have made them rivals with an antagonistic relationship that would only deepen each of their flaws. instead, their stories are unfolding in beautiful parallels, allowing them to grow closer as friends and bandmates.

*end of post, as of ep 9/12*

#my school president #my school president the series #my school president meta #msp #sound saran #gun guntaphon #tinngun #soundwin #winsound #geminifourth #satangwinny #winnysatang #thai drama #thai bl #thai bl meta #i've been thinking about making this post since like ep 7 and i don't know if i fully included all the points i wanted to #but ahh i'm excited to get it out there #this is my first long meta post and of course it's for my boys <3 #*

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grapejuicegay · 1 year

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Okay, friend

#OH NO I HAVE TOO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS #first of all the obvious red and blue boys #the one who's ready to jump all in at the slightest hint of reciprocation #and the one who gets too into his own head and tries to chicken out of talking about his feelings #but also thinking about all the meta (and specifically jemmo's post) about the ep 10 fist bump #and how they were on the same level through it all and how their relationship is level and reciprocal at every point #and how we're seeing the exact opposite take place here in msp #tinn has just been rejected #and done so in a way where he has no idea that gun likes him too #gun trying to reach out in a situation that IS difficult for them both #but he has a step up on tinn here where he knows that his feelings are reciprocated even if they can't be together right now #and so of course tinn is the one to step back when he tries to make a move under the cover of the mv #because he has just been rejected where gun... just hasn't #and most importantly both episodes ending with immaculate food based flirting 10/10 #anyway here's some boys fist bumping about their feelings in ep 6 #(and talking about said feelings next to a body of water)#tune in next week for boys not really dating and also performing a tragic romance in ep 7!#my school president #my school president series #bad buddy #bad buddy series #bad buddy brain rot #this isn't about bad buddy but when is anything not about bad buddy anymore #< i love this tag but you best believe i am going to make anything and everything about bad buddy #kk.gifs #oh this is my first gifset of 2023!!!

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circuscl0wn · 1 year

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Gun lowkey went THROUGH IT in MSP

I don't know if someone has clocked or listed the amount of sad things that happened to Gun but I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Despite Gun being consistently confident (editing to add: at least around his band mates), assertive, and chipper he actually went through a lot of downers that at least for me would've stopped me in my tracks.

1. Gun's (music loving) dad dying while Gun was doing a singing class test. He got the top score and while he's celebrating his mom calls him to say his dad got hit by a car and passed. He didn't even get the chance to call his dad to tell him the good news.

2. Sound comes in and Gun kicks himself out the group thinking he's a bad leader whose stopping the bands growth. This may seem small but since music is the only thing he kinda has, it has a big impact on him and his identity.

3. Getting rejected by that music scouter in episode 5. Dude was already going through it because he and some of his bandmates did not know what the future held for them especially since that counseling session ruined their spirits.

4. The doctors finding a tumor in his mom and her having to have surgery. He was legit in the hospital begging his mom to promise that she wont leave him behind *SOBS*

5. Guns mom undergoing surgery while he's performing at hot wave. The anxiety he had while performing was noticeable.

6. His band lost hot wave

7. His friend group kinda falls apart and he gets blamed for them losing hot wave (not gonna lie, some of what they said to each other was WILD)

8. His relationship with Tinn was outed

9. The dusty ass teacher/counselor being homophobic after finding out Gun's relationship with Tinn

He had such a bright/determined spirit and he didn’t let things drain his joy completely.

#ANY HAND RAISED AGAINST HIM SHALL PERISH #He creid about 4 times which is one too many HAND ME THE KNIFE #my school president #My school president the series #my school president meta #msp #tinngun #guntinn #fourth nattawat #gemini norawit #gmmtv #thai bl #bl series #geminifourth #fourthgemini #tinn x gun #gun x tinn #tinn tinnaphob

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khaothanawat · 1 year

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My School President wants to subvert your expectations

(or: if you're not watching this show, you're missing out on something wonderful)

...so. I am supposed to work today, but I don't wanna and also i rewatched all four episodes of My School President last night and if I don't let out as many feelings as possible about it I might explode because I am unhinged.

so I wrote a 4,700+ word essay i'm so sorry oh my god I spent hours writing this good lord

episode 1 / the introduction

episode 1 plays out mostly as a traditional high school series might. we have gun, who is not the greatest student, but who loves music and, even more than that, loves music club - which revolves around his friends and the band they’re in. it is, as we’ll learn a few episodes down the line, his “safe zone”, and the one place in school where he’s found love and acceptance.

we also have tinn, who is the son of the incredibly strict principal and who himself is a fantastic student, good looking, admired by all the other students. he gets voted in as school president, and thus has complete control over the fate of all the school clubs - including, of course, the principal’s least favourite club (on account of how its members keep failing their classes and almost burning down the school), the music club.

the dynamic between tinn and gun is familiar to us - it’s a rivalry, with one side being very charming if a little ridiculous and the other being a traditional tsundere-type character - stern and not particularly forthcoming or unforgiving at first glance. we see little hints though, very early on, that tinn, despite his exterior, gets drawn into gunn’s music.

the end of episode 1 is our first real insight that not everything is going to go quite as expected - thanks so a slow reveal that tinn has doodled a little picture of gun singing, and written next to it the words “you’re cute. so damn cute. cuter than anyone in the world.”

it’s a well-used trope in BL romances to have the handsome, tsundere character be secretly a MASSIVE SIMP for his love interest. we’ve seen this in previous GMMTV shows, with a mid-series reveal that the tsundere has been wildly in love and putting up a ridiculous front the entire time. What MSP is turning on its head is not the fact that Tinn has feelings, but the decision to reveal it in episode 1. the traditional mid-series reveal allows romantic tension to develop in the story, the will-they-won’t-they of each moment existing because we don’t know for certain that the tsundere character has feelings. the reveal is usually used after the first kiss, when the tension is no longer needed by the narrative.

MSP deciding to remove that tension entirely completely changes the way they need to build the romance between tinn and gun, as well as subverting our own expectations around what we’re watching. tinn is no longer cool and detached and stern - he’s awkward and adorable and… completely insane, honestly, he’s just absolutely unhinged. he does not know what he’s doing and has somehow boxed himself into pretending to be a tsundere in his secret quest to help gun save the music club.

now, the tension in the story is whether tinn can get gun to stop hating him - and if, how and when gun will develop feelings for tinn.

(yeah yeah yeah yes, we the viewers know that they’ll end up together, but that’s beside the point)

I can't believe this got so out of hand that I need to use a cut - let's kEEP GOING I GUESS

episode 2 / in which we are made aware that all is truly not what it seems

episode 2 introduces us to another trope - the “secret correspondant” trope. only, of course, it’s not a secret here. we see tinn posing as ‘nong lion’ and messaging the music club to try and help them with their problem (and side note - MSP has the same structure as Bad Buddy, wherein episodes are self-contained stories; an obstacle appears and is resolved in the same episode). in fact, the show turns the trope on its head even further by having gun almost immediately suspect tinn, only to get conveniently thrown off the scent by tinn’s bestie for the restie, and the owner of the sole braincell on the show, tiw. and even beyond that, tinn does a terrible job at hiding the fact that he’s ‘nong lion’, but the show just mines this for comedy, because a huge running line in the show is that the members of the music club are, bless them, absolute dummies.

even so, the episode culminates in tinn openly helping gun in-person (on a stage in front of a bunch of other people, no less!!) and then openly vowing to help the music club win the hot wave contest.

which isn’t a super selfless move - tinn is told earlier that evening by an old music club alumni that music club members can’t date unless they win the hot wave contest. of course, one of the very first things we learn about the music club in the show is that it’s former leader lost the hot wave contest because of his girlfriend, so it seems possible that maybe that rule doesn’t actually exist anymore. but that’s for a later time.

episode 3 / remember episode 2? lets do that again but MORE

episode 3 of my school president takes the concept of subverting expectations and turns it into a whole-ass episode (and it’s perfect).

episode 3 opens with tinn going on another adorable little meltdown about how cute gun is, only for gun to be standing right there listening. another trope again, but this time - i have to wonder whether gun realises what has happened. the narrative has told us over and over that he’s sort of a dummy - the remainder of episode 3 revolves heavily around this, in fact. but he did suspect tinn of being nong lion in episode 2, he’s not always completely obtuse, and he explicitly asks tinn who he was talking about, before waving away the conversation entirely because he has more important hot wave-related things to discuss. this is one of the many instances we see of tinn conflating his own fantasies with reality - something that will become infinitely more prevalent this episode.

speaking of: tinn has to tutor gun. we see them sitting at a table and tinn has somehow made calculus sexy by drawing a heart with equations. they move closer, almost kiss and then- it is, of course, just a figment of tinn’s wild imagination. in reality, he’s yelling at gun for being a gay who can’t math. this is the first time the show tells us to be on our guard in this episode, because tinn’s little mind is going wild and not everything we see will be real.

eventually, tiw suggests they (tinn and gun) move in to his sibling’s apartment for a week to study because tiw is a romantic mastermind, and then, when tinn panics because he does not know how to be a normal person around gun, tiw suggests tinn recreate classic BL tropes with gun. like in bad buddy, tiw says. tiw played by mark pakin, who was in bad buddy. tiw who says that his favourite actor in bad buddy is mark pakin. i’ve gotten off track a little. except i HAVEN’T because -

ok, MSP is written by the same writers as Bad Buddy and directed by one of the assistant directors of Bad Buddy (and 1000 Stars), director au. this is au’s first full director role, but he’s obviously been working closely with backbone of GMMTV aof and aof appears a number of times in the MSP special episode to discuss the process of making the show, which would maybe indicate he had a decent hand in the show - or at the very least, has had a hand in helping au develop his own skills (and to be clear, au worked as part of the writing team for years before this, so he’s not new to the business by any means) (not me speculating on aof’s own staff career growth plans loool). i think it’s not a stretch to say that MSP has a very BB feel to it, and i’m so endlessly impressed that it has managed to maintain that so far whilst also forging its own identity as a show. it doesn’t feel like a carbon copy, or a poor imitation - it feels very much like it’s telling it’s own story, but it’s using a something that BB used super successfully to do so, which is the subversion of tropes. MSP goes one step further with that though, and uses it differently (helped by the fact that because BB is set in college and MSP is in high school, the tropes are naturally a lot less… well. horny.)

MY POINT BEING that that Bad Buddy call out was deliberate. they didn’t use the show just bc they had mark pakin saying the line - i think it’s likely that they felt it necessary to add in mark’s line 4th wall breaking line about himself because it was his character making the reference, but they want us to know what they’re doing. they’re referencing Bad Buddy because this show is, in a way, a spiritual successor to BB - it likely wouldn’t exist as it does if BB didn’t already exist (and wasn’t a huge hit). in the very next scene, we get a reference to the band scrubb, which is a huge 2gether reference - and, looping this all back to the creative team, au was a screenwriter for Still 2gether and aof created/directed Still 2gether. tinn’s character is a direct play on sarawat in 2gether - he is, in so many ways, sarawat, but the narrative is using him in a different way.

oh my god i legit wanted to write a one sentence post about this show how did i get here

OK GETTING BACK TO EPISODE 3 oh my god

episode 3 shows us over and over that tinn creates these vivid fantasies about being in classic romantic scenarios with gun that he then tries to turn into reality, pet tiw’s instruction - only for the reality to be a lot less romantic. in his one actual, real-life chance to get close to gun (the ballroom dance) where he’s not just trying to recreate something from a BL series, he gets so overwhelmed and nervous that he can’t dance at all, which we’re told through the loud and quick sound of his heartbeat.

and then, part way through the episode, the show starts bait-and-switching us.

first: tinn sees gun with food on his lip and fantasises about brushing it away with his thumb (an absolute romance series staple). gun licks it away before tinn can do any of that, because of course he does - but then tinn gets food on his lips and gun reaches over to brush it away. finally, tinn has ended up in a romance series moment with gun, only it wasn’t one of his own deliberate creation. it just happened.

second: tinn and gun talk at the swimming pool about themselves - finally. they’ve been living together for a week, but we don’t see them often having conversations about who they are. gun talks about seeing the music club as his ‘safe zone’. tinn explains why he became school president (to support people’s dreams). gun tells him that that’s such a handsome answer, then asks “have you used that line to hit on anyone?” tinn replies: “you.” we expect by now that it’s another fantasy moment, because we’ve been duped by the show with these moments multiple times by now, but once again the show twists things. the moment is real, tinn really says “you” and it hangs between them for a moment before he quickly changes the subject. but it’s the clearest declaration either of them have made. we don’t know what gun is feeling by this stage, however we do know that gun is in fact the one who gave them a Classic Romance Moment of brushing away food. it’s the show telling us that, whether he realises it yet or not, he’s in this too.

the third bait and switch is the Big One, except it’s not at all: we reach the ballroom dance midterm and tinn is trying to get out of dancing altogether - he still isn’t sure he can do it, he still feels overwhelmed when he tries to dance with gun, his heart races too hard and fast. gun refuses to listen to him and makes him get up. he tells tinn to close his eyes and says “let me help you”. tinn closes his eyes and suddenly the sports hall fades away - he and gun are in beautiful suits, they’re in the music club room (gun’s safe zone!), gun’s band chinzilla is playing and he and gun are dancing. throughout the episode we’ve heard tiny portions of the melody of the ballroom dance song, but now finally we hear the whole song, performed by chinzilla. as they dance together, the scene flashes between the fantasy dance, their practice dance by the pool and crucially, the actual dance that’s happening in the sports hall. as the dance comes to an end, we realise that even though we saw it happen in tinn’s fantasy, it was happening in real life too. the way they danced in tinn’s fantasy was how they really danced - staring into one another’s eyes, smiling at each other, looking completely lost in the moment. gun said “let me help you” and entered tinn’s fantasy with him. gun said “let me help you” and he’s telling us, the viewers, that tinn isn’t going to make this romance happen alone (even with the help of tiw). tinn can’t create romance moments when gun isn’t on the same page.

the final bait and switch happens in a series of parts: prior to the ballroom dance midterm, on the night after they go swimming, gun makes tinn share the bed (rather than the Bad Buddy reference sleeping arrangement they’ve been doing all week). tinn, because he’s a lunatic, asks if he can stare into gun’s eyes and gun obliges. after a moment, we hear the heartbeats again - but it’s gun that looks away and decides to go to sleep.

the episode ends, after the ballroom dance, with gun and tinn having a small moment together outside the school. gun tries to give tinn back the pencil case he borrowed earlier, because he of course does not own a pencil case. it’s one that says “i think about you” on it that gun has, obviously, doodled all over. specifically, he has drawn a cute little monster and written the name ‘tinn’ with a bunch of arrows pointed at it. you think about who now, gun? anyway, tinn tells gun to keep it, because what high school student doesn’t have a pencil case oh my god gun - and they hold hands over the pencil case for a moment. until the tinn’s mother the principal comes out of her office and tinn very gently drops gun’s hands. that’s not relevant to this, i just think it’s Big Foreshadowing. anyway. tinn leaves with his mother and gun is left standing there, staring after him. and once again, we hear the heartbeats. they’re gun’s, because of course they are. we get a flashback to the night before, to tinn staring into gun’s eyes and looking away, and we know for certain that that was gun’s heartbeat and not tinn’s, and that it’s happening again now. bait and switch - tinn’s heartbeats followed us through the whole episode, only for us to end on gun’s heartbeat, and a confirmation that yes, he’s feeling it all too.

again, the show is revealing things early. no longer do we have the tension of whether gun feels something too - now we have the tension of whether gun is going to do anything about it, or acknowledge it at all.

we're only up to episode 4 by now, and I wouldn't say that episode 4 turned much on its head that hadn't already been set up before, but I do think it serves as a way to start building up a number of new plot points, so I'm going to talk about that a little, just so that I can revisit this later once more episodes have aired.

episode 4 / resetting expectations (...sort of?)

episode 4 of my school president introduces us to a new character: tinn's original rival, sound, who joins the music club (because of course tinn has a rival).

I think it's actually really key to point out a tiny scene that happens at the beginning of episode 4, as the show is starting to lay out the plots for the episode. gun and the band are looking for a solo guitarist (hence the eventual introduction of sound). he puts posters up on a notice board. tinn comes along and, because he's a dweeb, mentions that people need permission from the school council to put up posters. gun sighs and obediently starts to take the posters down, before tinn dives in and says that he'll let gun put them up anyway, he'll make a 'special exception'. real smooth, kid.

anyway, this fascinates me, because it's such a good display of how much their relationship has changed by this point. tinn and gun have had a surprising number of scenes together in front of this notice board - mostly with gun fighting back against tinn trying to enforce the school rules as school council president. here we see gun not fight, but immediately give into tinn instead (even though tinn had no desire to win, he's just got so little game oh my god this boy has NO GAME i'm obsessed with him). gun looks thrilled when tinn lets him put up the posters anyway - he respects tinn's word enough now that he wasn't going to fight, which is so the opposite of the gun we've seen so far. it's just a really interesting story beat to throw in.

they have a little moment again (in real life) (initiated by tinn) and gun's heartbeats from episode 3 appear once more, reminding us that gun is also Feeling Things. gun runs away in a flustered panic.

(tinn, it must be said, genuinely has no idea what's going on in gun's head. because tinn is a dummy.)

from here, the dual plot lines of the episode play out pretty traditionally. story A sees gun quit the music club and tinn take the opportunity to get closer to him now that he's not beholden to the no-dating-before-hot-wave rule that definitely still exists. they do get closer. in fact, they go on an accidental date, flirt heavily over some imaginary cake, and tinn finds a position for gun in the student council that would allow him to sing and play music, story B sees sound take over the music club, who are unfocused and not actually using their practice sessions to practice, only to be a tiny teen tyrant about it. the band beg gun to come back. gun feels as though the band will have a better chance to win hot wave without him. tinn sees this happen and convinces gun to go back to the music club, because that's clearly where his happiness lies. even if gun being in the music club will inevitably put the absolutely real and very much something gun definitely is aware of no-dating-before-hot-wave rule back into play.

gun rejoins the music club, but lets sound stay (sound, to be clear, mostly joined because he thought it would piss off tinn, but we start getting the indication by the end that he could also maybe find friendship and support in the club, just as the others did). they have their traditional bbq pork meal together to celebrate being back together. it's sacred.

so, it's all fairly cut and dry - and we as viewers probably already knew where these plots were heading and that the main issues would be resolved in this episode, thanks to the self-contained episode structure of the show.

until we see gun grab a bunch of the pork and run off, away from the bbq, yelling that he'll be back soon. he goes, of course, to tinn. he, quite crucially, claims that the group have finished eating and that there was some food left over and he just wondered whether tinn might want it - once again, we as viewers know this is a lie, and are left in possession in much more knowledge than the characters in the scene. gun is making up an excuse to bring tinn food, and to hang out with tinn. if the question this episode was 'gun is having feelings for tinn; what will he do with them?', then we saw moments over the course of the entire episode that answered that. gun, unlike tinn, has apparently an abundance of game (if anything he's a little too dangerous, frankly). he jumps both feet forward into flirting with tinn, and manages to conveniently set up scenarios in which he can do that - successfully, unlike tinn in episode 3. where he's a little more in control, we don't get a return of the panicked heartbeats from the beginning of the episode.

maybe tinn had put this flirting all episode down to the fact that gun was no longer in the music club. it's not really made clear. however, now gun is back in the club, and he's abandoned the sacred bbq pork time to have a nivea micellar moment with tinn (once again, gun successfully initiating a BL romantic moment in real life, because gun is the only one here with game). he gets tinn to take a photo of them together, and so they stand pressed shoulder to shoulder, hands touching. they're smiling at each other, and the camera jumps back and forth between the way they're looking at one another and their hands. tinn, probably emboldened by how much gun has put himself out there across the entire episode, starts to move his pinky finger closer. his hand is shaking, but we see them over and over barely looking at the camera because they're too busy smiling sweetly at each other, as tinn's finger twitches closer and closer - the slowest build up in the world, as we wonder whether he'll get the guts to do it. and then finally, finally, tinn loops his pinky around gun's, and gun responds in kind, and we see a shot of them taking the photo, they're fingers out of shot but entwined.

this is almost par for the course by now - how quickly this show has put tinn and gun on a playing field of both having feelings for the other, and both being at least somewhat aware that those feelings could be reciprocated.

episode 5 and beyond / is this show impossible to predict?

it's not really something we get to see too often, the very cautious build into something more. the next episode preview doesn't really tell us anything about how that develops (but rather that gun has a lot of other stuff going on, apparently). i think this becomes it's own question - now that MSP have turned the traditional BL pacing on its head (akin to the way Bad Buddy did it before), what do they do next. with BB, we very quickly saw that the obstacles between the lead characters were almost entirely external - it's the basis of the entire show. they couldn't be together because no one wanted them to be. it made the pacing of the romance make complete sense.

with MSP, we're going in much more blindly. the boys are already on a similar page and there's no obvious obstacles between them outside of the definitely very real no-dating-before-hot-wave rule that no one in the present day music club has even spoken about or mentioned (yet?). what this suggests to me, and why this is so fascinating, is that we therefore don't necessarily know the basic conceit of the plot from here on out.

yes, we want to see how tinn and gun ultimately admit their feelings for one another, but at episode 4 of 12, the show has already done most of the work in getting them there. inevitably, we need to be faced with obstacles and there have been a small number of hints, maybe, at the things that could go wrong for them, but it's fascinating because those hints have been very sparse.

there's the perceived rivalry of the music club and the school council - which tinn has accidentally perpetuated a bunch of times, because he's a dummy. episode 4 reminds us conveniently that this is still seen to exist outside of tinn and gun's gay little bubble, when we see the two random students discussing it in the hall (this is of course also how sound ends up joining the club). it's not a particularly violent rivalry though - we're not at Bad Buddy drop kick into the chest two seconds away from breaking out into a sharks and jets style dance number. i wouldn't say it's rife for conflict, but that's sort of the thing: it's almost impossible to predict at this point what will happen. we know that chinzilla will probably perform at hot wave, and at some point tinn and gun will probably kiss. beyond that? it's anyone's guess.

another obvious obstacle that has been (honestly quite lightly) is the principal - we are literally introduced to tinn's pov in episode 2 by the concept of his mother coming in between him and gun, when he dreams about gun turning into her. he's lied to her a number of times in the name of helping gun. her character is generally quite fascinating, because she's a near-constant antagonistic presence, but it's clear she has huge amounts of love and care for her son, and she's trying to do her best by her students. she's also really frugal though - in episode 2 we learn that she and her husband would argue because she felt that music was an unnecessarily expensive hobby. a real subtle moment that i'm sure won't come back in any fashion later down the line...

the other obvious one is of course the no-dating-before-hot-wave rule which, sure, might be real, but might even become an issue in some form or another even if it's not. the reason the music club lost hot wave the year before, as we know, was because the last leader was distracted on stage by his girlfriend. this is how we meet the music club in episode 1, and we see gun vowing to win hot wave next year, because he knows it's what will save the music club.

it seems as though episode 5 is about to introduce new conflicts too, or expand upon things that have really only been very barely hinted at. but, if I know anything it's that promos are unreliable, so only time will tell how that plays ou.

it's important though, in my opinion, that the show really hasn't hit us over the head with anything here yet (except the very real very current day hot wave rule that very much definitely exists - and even then, it has only been mentioned a handful of times at most between tinn and tiw, usually as an occasional reminder to the audience more than a constant driving force for tinn's actions). these are obstacles, but they ultimately haven't been shown to cause too much issue to tinn and gun's story - or at least, tinn and gun have successfully navigated everything with almost no pushback, hence the fact that they're both sailing through their own romantic storyline at a pace faster than an olympic runner.

there's not really an ending to this post yet, because we're only at episode 4. I'm not particularly committed to any theory about where this could go (except the one about the hot wave rule being real YOU CAN'T CONVINCE ME IT'S REAL AU), but from a storytelling perspective alone: this show needs a conflict. the assumption it gave us and then systematically tore apart across the first four episodes was that the conflict would be around tinn and gun realising their own feelings for one another, because that's how these shows go. that's not the central conflict in MSP. the central conflict is... uh... one of these other things. or maybe a secret different thing. i don't know. come back to me in like 6 weeks.

#my school president #tinn x gun #the total word count for this is 4787 words and um. Um.#no more meta this week bc I have written 3 posts in the space of like 5 days and they've all been exponentially more unhinged than the last #actually I blame gmmtv for not giving us a MSP episode this week because I just think. if the promise of episode 5 was around the corner...#then well. this probably wouldn't have happened.#anyway if you do have like... an hour spare and decide to read this...#pls let me know your thoughts ALSO THINGS YOU DISAGREE ON BC I WANNA KNOW THAT TOO!!!#I realise this is the evident work of a lunatic but I swear I love when other people make observations I've missed and can change my mind #show: my school president #msp: meta #ship: msp: tinn x gun

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ablazenqueen · 1 year

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I don’t think we talk enough about the way it took the Music Club literally one (1) episode to domesticate the feral cat that is Sound.

Like he comes into their group, a complete stranger, stirs up shit, tries to boot out and replace their leader, and no one holds any of it against him. There isn’t even a single line of dialogue where anyone mentions kicking Sound out of the club once Gun comes back. He just joins and they immediately take him in as one of theirs, just any other club/band member they’re ride or die for.

And what’s sweeter? The boys not once hesitating to hold onto Sound, despite his early behaviour, or the way Sound’s response to this unwavering acceptance and friendship is to soften up and fully integrate himself into the group? The way Sound listens to Gun, wears the chinchilla costumes, goes along with their ridiculous hijinks?

The Music Club loves and accepts Sound and Sound loves and accepts them and I just love them all so much—

#my friend and I are watching MSP together #and when sound was introduced and started being mean #my friend said they didn’t like him because he’s an asshole #and I was immediately like ‘just wait they can tame him I have faith’#and I was CORRECT #sound is basically the Domesticated Villain archetype and I love him with my whole heart #chinzhilla #my school president #my school president the series #my school president meta

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ranchthoughts · 11 months

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thoughts on genre, tropes, Bad Buddy, and My School President

and here she is! the full text all together, not split into the three parts previously posted here: part 1, part 2, part 3

I also go more in detail about a lot of the terms and concepts I use here (indexes, conventions, genres, intertextuality, etc) in this post here, in case you would like more context

[strap yourselves in, this is loooooong]

The BL “genre” has so many conventions - in narrative, characterization, themes, settings, iconography, filmic techniques, and of course, tropes.

Bad Buddy and MSP do not lack these genre conventions (both are stories about boys in love, both are set in schools which is very common in Thai BLs especially, both explore a budding relationship and other social and emotional problems of youth, both hit familiar plot beats like confessions and narrative/emotional climaxes, both utilize many editing and sound effect techniques seen in other BLs, and both deploy many BL tropes like cheek kisses, head pats, forced proximity, looming, etc.). However! Bad Buddy and MSP are atypical in their deployment of genre conventions, especially with regards to trope usage and pacing - they go against genre and trope expectations to subvert seme/uke roles and dynamics and they space their narrative beats differently than other shows. As a result, the shows feel familiar but also fresh to BL audiences.

Bad Buddy, MSP, and tropes

BL tropes index so much information to audiences familiar with the genre (e.g., the nature of the relationship between characters, the seme/uke dynamics, other social information, etc.). Bad Buddy and MSP take these familiar indexes, with their well established meanings, and mix them up, give them new contexts, and use what they normally tell us about the characters, social context, relationship dynamic, etc. to tell a new story.

There are SO many examples of this so I have decided to focus on two “subcategories” of tropes: the faen fatale and tropes which are strongly associated with seme/uke dynamics.

Faen Fatales

In most BLs, the faen fatale (thanks to AbsoluteBL for the term) is a character (male or female) whose sole purpose is to drive a wedge between the main pair, often serving as a catalyst for their relationship/confession, and who generally does not get much character development or identity of their own.

In Bad Buddy, Ink seems like a classic faen fatale: she is introduced as an old high school friend that Pat was interested in and Pran was jealous of because of that fact, and now in the present day of the show Pat pursues her again and Pran is once again jealous, especially since it seems Pat is succeeding (they get food together, they hang out a lot, Pat wears the bracelet Ink gave him in high school, etc.). Pran believes that Pat likes Ink and that they are well on their way to being together, if they aren’t together already. Pat even tells Pran he likes Ink. However, it becomes clear quite quickly that Ink is not a typical faen fatale. Her interactions with both boys feel platonic, she shows just as much interest in fostering a friendship with Pran, and when Pat uses Pa’s patented “Four Ways to Tell if Someone Likes You,” Ink fails in every category. She does act a a catalyst to Pat and Pran’s romantic relationship in some ways (e.g., Pat using Pa’s patented Four Ways he learned to assess Ink to realize his own feelings for Pran), and she does act as a barrier to their relationship as some of Pran’s hesitation post their ep.5 kiss comes from his understanding that Pat has a crush on Ink (though of course their family and friends present the main barrier). However, Ink has her own personality, interests, and crucially, her own romantic arc. She is a fully fleshed out character who never had anything but platonic feelings for either lead: ergo, a subversion of the faen fatale trope.

In MSP, there are a couple of potential faen fatales, but neither develop that way in the end. Sound is introduced as Tinn’s rival, and romance media logic would suggest he will fulfill a love rival role in the show, competing with Tinn for Gun’s affections (especially as Sound is interested in music like Gun and he joins Chinzilla). Even Tiw suggests Tinn should look out for Sound moving in on Gun. However, Sound never shows interest in Gun and quickly gets acclimated into the band, only briefly presenting a threat to Tinn and Gun’s relationship when Tiw witnesses them having a seemingly intimate moment but that is sorted by the end of the episode. Like Ink, Sound never has anything other than platonic feelings for either lead and ends up with his own romantic arc. The other possible faen fatale in MSP is Nook, though she is present so briefly. I think other shows would have stretched out her plot line more and had her fill more of a faen fatale role. As it stands in MSP: Gun sees her give a gift to Tinn and compliment him, he gets jealous and snaps at Tinn, and then the show/Tinn immediately reveal to us and to Gun that it was a case of mistaken identity (Yo was catfishing with Tinn’s picture). In a matter of minutes, Nook went from being a faen fatale set up to simply someone involved in another character’s arc, part of a problem that Tinn and Gun could work on together.

Neither Bad Buddy nor MSP have faen fatale characters, though there are characters that could, and indeed seem to be set up to, fill that role. Both shows subvert our expectations and BL tropes by having potential faen fatales be uninterested in either lead and possess more character development than most other examples of the trope (including their own, completely separate, romantic arcs). In the case of Ink, this also subverts typical BL handling of female characters, who tend to be few and far between and generally relegated to the under-developed role of faen fatale.

Seme/uke Tropes

Most BL shows can be read through a lens of seme/uke dynamics, which originated in yaoi. The seme is the “pursuer” character and the uke is the “pursued”. There are certain physical (height, skin colour, etc.), social (age, wealth, social capital, etc.), and personality (active vs. passive, extroverted vs. introverted, flirtier vs. shyer) markers which are typically associated with either the seme or the uke. For example, semes tend to be taller, wealthier, older, flirtier, tanner, more active, and have a higher social status, while ukes tend to be shorter, poorer, younger, shyer, paler, and have a lower social status. “Seme” and “uke” roles are also sometimes conflated with masculinity and femininity (semes are “masculine” and ukes are “feminine”) and sexual preferences (semes are dominant and tops and ukes are submissive and bottoms). There are also tropes associated with either the seme or the uke, like ukes typically give cheek kisses and semes forehead kisses.

Thus, things like height, age, wealth, personality, presumed sexual preference, and the role they take in tropes can index the character’s status as a seme or a uke, and in turn the character’s identity as a seme or uke in the narrative (pursuer vs. pursued) indexes a character’s personality, sexual preferences, etc., however unrealistic and simplistic that is in real life. In a BL, we would expect the seme (pursuer) and uke (pursued) characters to exhibit most, if not all, of the associated seme or uke traits and roles in tropes, though this is not always true (and some BLs have little to no seme/uke dynamics at all).

In terms of physical, social, and personality markers in Bad Buddy, Pat exhibits slightly more “seme” traits than Pran, like his larger size and more “rugged” and “typical” masculinity compared to Pran’s neatness. However, both Pat and Pran take the seme or uke role in tropes about the same amount of time, with Pran having several significant moments where he embodies the seme role (looming over Pat, licking his fingers, drying his hair, etc., not to mention the post-sex scene in ep.11) and Pat many significant moments where he embodies a uke or even “feminine” role (casting himself as the girlfriend at the bus stop, being clingy, pretending to be sick so Pran will give him a sponge bath, etc.). In fact, tropes often happen twice, with Pat and Pran taking turns in the seme and uke role (e.g., both take turns cleaning the other’s face, both cook for the other, both kiss the other’s cheek, etc.). Furthermore, and I’ve spoken about this before here: both Pran and Pat deliberately take on the seme role during their ep.7 Flirt-Off bet (”whoever falls in love first loses”). To win the bet, they have to be the pursuer (i.e., seme), and thus spend the episode taking it in turns to exhibit the seme role in tropes (Pat takes off his shirt multiple times, Pran looms over Pat, they wash each other’s faces, they take the seme roles with Ink and Wai at the noodle shop to make the other jealous, etc.), thus also spending the episode taking it in turns to fulfill the uke role in tropes. The fact that the seme and uke roles in Bad Buddy are so interchangeable and balanced (they sometimes ever play the narrative roles of pursuer and pursued at the same time) demonstrates the show’s upending of traditional seme/uke dichotomies.

In MSP, Tinn and Gun are pretty much the perfect seme and uke in terms of physical and social markers: Tinn is taller, wealthier, has a higher social status, and even has a female “faen fatale” (more typical for seme characters), while Gun is shorter, poorer, from a marginalized club at school, and has a male “faen fatale” (more typical for uke characters). Some one on Tumblr (and I cannot for the life of me find this post again) mentioned that Tinn is a little “feminine” coded when it comes to romance (he is the dreamer, the romantic, always imagining romantic situations), while Gun is more what we’d think of as “masculine” when it comes to romance (more brusque, less sappy), though I am not sure how applicable these types of divisions are to BL. In term of preference markers, there isn’t much sexual content to go off of, but MSP does mention the TinnGun vs GunTinn divide in ep.12, never coming down on either side, and one of the things the homophobic teacher says is that he thought Gun was more “masculine” so he is surprised to see him dating a boy. Overall, the show deliberately eschews and criticizes the association of top/bottom or masculine/feminine with the pair. Furthermore, Tin talks a lot about wanting to be Gun’s boyfriend, to belong to Gun - and as @cinna-bin points out here, for a genre that equates seme with dominance, the one who shows and has ownership of the other, it is pretty subversive to have the seme character in the narrative express a desire to be “owned”. Like Pat and Pran, Tinn and Gun are fairly egalitarian when it comes to which role they take in tropes (Tinn catches Gun when he falls, Gun touches Tinn’s chin constantly, they both kiss the other’s cheek). I’ve talked about this here too, but often Tinn will imagine a moment with himself in the seme role (e.g., wiping Gun’s face) that won’t come to fruition, but when it does happen in real life, the trope is reversed and Gun takes the seme role (e.g., when it happens in real life, Gun wipes Tinn’s mouth). In MSP, the deployment of tropes is more about natural moment and real life, and less adhering to strict role divisions. This back and forth feels more accurate, more high school - they both take it in turns to boldly initiate and then to be shy (all the aborted kiss chances, etc.).

Finally, I’d like to add that there are many moments in both Bad Buddy and MSP where the characters are aware of the romantic tropes and intentionally utilize them to further a romantic agenda. We aren’t exactly subverting tropes here, but we are playing with them deliberately and consciously in a way you don’t get in a lot of BLs so I thought it worth mentioning here. Most of these instances come in the Bad Buddy ep.7 Flirt-Off or from Tinn’s day dreams and include:

Pat employing the “drinking from a water bottle/pouring water on yourself” and “shirt off” tropes to try and get Pran hot and bothered in ep.7

Pran looming over Pat during the bet

Pat and Pran trying to make each other jealous by employing various classic tropes with Ink and Wai respectively while eating noodles (opening their water bottle, feeding them, wiping their mouth, etc.)

Pran symbolically losing the bet by wiping Pat’s mouth

Tinn imagining himself wiping Gun’s mouth

Tinn imagining a Ghost moment while cooking with Gun

Tinn making a joke about a “hot underwater kiss”

Pacing

Both MSP and Bad Buddy are also slightly unconventional when it comes to pacing. Both shows hit the standard BL narrative beats (falling for one another, confessions, first kiss, confirmation of relationship, conflict, beach eps, etc) but at unconventional timings, they utilize a lot of time skips, and they also condense plot lines which in other shows might have been much longer.

The Placement of Narrative Beats

I will focus on two of the main places where both Bad Buddy and MSP diverge from the usual BL placement of narrative beats. Firstly, the first kiss on both shows: while there is a lot of variety in the timing of first kisses for BL shows, Pat and Pran’s rooftop kiss at the beginning of ep.5 is perhaps a little earlier than usually, especially since the two do not truly confess or get together until the end of ep.7; and in MSP, their first kiss comes quite late, especially given the numerous near-kisses that happen throughout the latter half of the show. The first kiss for MSP coming in ep.12 is not unheard of for a low-heat BL and really makes sense given the tone and setting of the show (lighthearted, high school), but combined with the early confession of feelings (hinted at as early as ep.3, and fairly confirmed in ep.6) as well as those fake-out kisses makes it feel unusual.

Secondly, both shows eschew the typical ep.11 of doom structure of a BL, where ep.11 sees peak emotional angst and the narrative/plot climax, in favour of a ep.10 (and even ep.9 in Bad Buddy) of doom, an ep.11 denouement, and an ep.12 conclusion. Eps.9 and 10 in Bad Buddy are when Pat and Pran’s friends and parents, the two biggest barriers to their relationship, find out about them. Pat is shot, they learn the real story behind their parents feud, there are a lot of emotions, etc. In ep.10 of MSP, there is the finale of Hot Wave and Gun’s mother’s illness (culminating in her receiving surgery at the end of the episode). Neither show has the main couple break up in their eps. of doom, like is common in other BLs’ ep.11 of doom, though they do have their relationships tested. Ep.11 in both Bad Buddy and MSP are instead the denouement, a quieter, more introspective look at the emotions and plot event of the previous episode(s). Pat and Pran run away from their families for their “honeymoon” on the beach and come to terms with everything they’ve learned, and MSP focuses more on the aftermath of Hot Wave and the tensions and emotions among Chinzilla, though there is of course parts about Tinn and Gun’s relationship in the face of disappointment. The final ep. for both show is thus given a bit more breathing room than in other BLs - they don’t have to wrap up the emotions and plot lines of an ep.11 of doom AND conclude the series, and can instead focus on wrapping up the series and even introducing new ideas and a look into the future (there are timeskips in both ep.12s, Bad Buddy does their PatPran breakup fake out, and MSP explores homophobia).

Time Skips

While time skips aren’t unheard of in BLs, especially in the final episode, Bad Buddy and MSP’s usage of them interject a level of realism into the series that isn’t always seen. The time jump of 6 or so months at the beginning of ep.7 in Bad Buddy means the tension build of the Flirt-Off doesn’t happen over a matter of days or weeks but in fact months. Pat and Pran are stubborn, this won’t be resolved quickly, and it give time for the tension to realistically reach a breaking point. MSP features several time skips in ep.9, ep.10, and ep.12, stretching both the Hot Wave competition schedule and Tinn and Gun’s budding relationship over a much more realistic full school year, instead of pretending the competition and build up of tension or feelings could be happening over a span of weeks. Paradoxically, the fact that the shows use time skips instead of showing (either in full, in part, or in a montage) the parts they skip (the Flirt-Off, the weeks of Tinn and Gun coming closer together and Chinzilla practicing) connects to my next point: the shows aren’t afraid to speed things up sometimes. The use of time skips both slows down the narrative and emotional arcs over a longer period of time while also demonstrating that the shows feel confident in their narratives: there is no need to stretch story lines out over episodes and episodes.

Condensing Plot Lines

The most striking thing about Bad Buddy and MSP’s pacing is how fast they move through plot lines, especially compared to other shows. In Bad Buddy, the plot line where Pat and Pran are anonymously and unknowingly flirting with each other through gifts and notes left at each other’s doors could have been the plot line for most of a show, if not a whole show, but it is introduced and resolved within ep.2. Ink is introduced in ep.4 and seems to be a potential faen fatale, but by the end of ep.4 this seems somehow unlikely and by halfway through ep.5 it is confirmed that she won’t be. The Flirt-Off happens in large part off-screen, in the 6 months or so time skip between eps.6 and 7, and is shown to us and resolved in ep.7. Other shows could have spent episodes if not half the show exploring that plot line.

I've talked at length about the pacing of MSP here and a bit here - like Bad Buddy, MSP moves quickly through plot lines that might have spanned episodes or even a whole season in another show. By the end of the first episode, MSP establish that Tinn is soft and pining hard over Gun (instead of keeping up the premise that he is cold and out to get the music club), the finale of Hot Wave comes two episodes before the end, the plot lines around Gun’s mother’s health are resolved in about one episode (the conflict around Tinn keeping Gun’s mother’s illness from him is resolved in a couple of scenes, and she has surgery and is pronounced ok by the end of the episode), any jealousy plot line around Nook is resolved in two scenes, the conflict introduced by Sound joining the band is resolved in one episode, and so on. Pretty much every problem introduced at the beginning of an episode is resolved by the end.

Bad Buddy and MSP feel confident, like they know they have narrative material to spare and don’t need to stretch plot lines out with twists, miscommunication, and jealousy. Thus, they move through plot lines much more quickly than other shows would.

Both shows feel so fresh because of this - they keep things moving, they surprise us by resolving things faster than other shows would, they don’t linger in jealousy and miscommunication like many other shows do, they skip over parts that other shows might have lingered on for the biggest punch, and they break the patterns that us, the audience, have come to expect from BLs (like the ep.11 of doom). Even the progression of the relationships, which we know will be romantic and probably happy in the end (these are BLs after all) and conform vaguely to enemies-to-lovers and will-they-won’t-they conventions, stay fresh: Pat and Pran have kissed and all but confessed their feelings, but they now embark on a months long Flirt-Off bet that delays them actually getting together. We know Tinn has a crush on Gun from the end of the first ep. and we begin to see hints that Gun might like him back from ep.3 onwards, and at first the show seems like it is going to go the typical romcom route wherein Gun doesn’t realize Tinn’s crush is on him (especially with him offering to help Tinn flirt with his crush), but like I talked about in my post here, they don’t and instead have Gun know it is him Tinn has a crush on, he’s just uncertain and a bit scared. Bad Buddy and MSP are both quicker and slower than other shows: they move through plot lines without lingering, but they use time skips to create realistic long term development of the core relationships, allowing the characters to build tension, live in hesitancy, and in the case of Tinn and Gun, be realistically slow in the physical progression of their relationship.

Conclusions

Bad Buddy and MSP subvert audience expectations with regards to tropes and narratives - like their handling of the faen fatale trope (both shows give us characters that could be faen fatales, and probably would be in other shows, that do not fulfill the narrative role of a faen fatale and receive character development and arcs of their own unlike other faen fatales) and how they play with expectations surrounding seme/uke dynamics (those who embody the seme or uke role in tropes aren’t necessarily the ones who exhibit the most seme or uke physical, social or personality markers; tropes iterations are balanced and reciprocal). Both shows change up the usual BL timelines and expected pacing - they hit their peak narrative, emotional, and angst climaxes before the standard ep.11 peak, plot beats come quicker than in other shows, and story arcs that are usually dragged on in other shows are concluded more quickly. On the other hand, both shows are “slower” than other BLs in other ways, like their usage of time skips to create realistic progressions of the core relationships. As a result of these subversions of BL genre conventions, the shows are familiar but also fresh to BL audiences.

But what does this say about Bad Buddy and MSP, and the BL genre in general?

Firstly, these shows remind us again of the importance of intertextuality. Texts (and this includes television shows) are intertextual; they all refer to one another and cannot exist separately from other texts. BLs especially are very intertextual - they have so many shared elements (tropes, characters, locations, etc.) they always (deliberately or unintentionally) draw parallels to other BLs. We would never notice how Bad Buddy and MSP diverge from other BL shows if we did not by necessity/automatically think of all previous BLs while watching them. Furthermore, where and how Bad Buddy and MSP divert from genre conventions and previous examples of the genre demonstrates their relationship to the genre and underlines the messages the shows are trying to send. Bad Buddy and MSP subvert the particular genre expectations they do and in the way they do to make a point - by giving new meanings to familiar conventions and juxtaposing typical meanings of genre conventions with their own (either explicitly, or through the audience’s intertextual analyses) the shows ground themselves in a different world view than other BL shows and give a more nuanced and realistic look at human and queer experience.

For example, the way Bad Buddy and MSP move quickly through plot points (avoiding extended plot lines centering on jealousy or miscommunications) and the reciprocity of their trope usages (deliberately balancing the seme and uke dynamics of their lead pairs) is unusual in the world of BL. It serves to emphasize the reciprocal and egalitarian nature of the lead pairs’ relationships which we also see in their treatment of one another (communicating, understanding each other’s needs and taking turns acquiescing to make the other happy, e.g., ep.11 where Pran agrees to run away and stay on the honeymoon to make Pat happier and then Pat agrees to return home to make Pran happier, or Tinn and Gun being so supportive and understanding of one another’s dreams and physical boundaries, etc.). In this post @miscellar argues the lack of miscommunication as a plot device in Bad Buddy is inherently queer and that the show as a whole does away with heterosexual/heteronormative tropes. In their reciprocity, egalitarianism, and communication, Pat and Pran and Tinn and Gun eschew the standard power dynamics of BLs which come as a result of BL’s encoded seme/uke dynamics, which in turn come from heteronormative and misogynistic ideas in the het romance genre and beyond about men and women. Defying genre conventions in some ways (e.g., subverting tropes) strengthens and underlines how the shows defy genre conventions in other ways (queerer, more realistic stories; fairer treatment for women; less heteronormativity, etc.) - these smaller, more obvious subversions of genre conventions and expectations indicates to us, the audience, that we should be prepared for larger, more subtle and implicit shake ups of genre conventions and expectations, ones that might rewrite the BL genre code for the future.

By reflecting on what Bad Buddy and MSP change, we can understand and identify the standard BL world view and set of assumptions. For example, by weakening and subverting seme/uke dynamics and their associations with things like dominance/submission, masculinity/femininity, and top/bottom, Bad Buddy and MSP reject the heteronormative and misogynistic assumptions that underlie most BLs: that gay couples have a “man” and a “woman;” that the penetrated must be feminine, weaker, sex averse, etc. like women are in heterosexual relationships; that there is always an unbalance of power (social and/or sexual) in relationships. While these are “just” romance tropes, or you might say that it’s odd to be so absorbed by the dynamics between two characters (particularly when it come to analyzing seme vs. uke and top vs. bottom), in a world where these tropes and their execution, and the preferred sexual position of a character and what that says about their personality etc., are so tied to other things and issues like misogyny, homophobia, etc., refusing to engage and deliberately obscuring are pretty radical things that say a lot about the message and view point of the shows.

Bad Buddy and MSP feel more realistic than a lot of other BLs. This is not to say that shows have to be realistic to be good, or even that viewers/that I prefer realistic shows, but it is certainly something that strikes me when I think about Bad Buddy and MSP. The relationship progression is slower, there is less dwelling in miscommunications, they even have not entirely happy but hopeful endings (Pat and Pran are continuing to hide their relationship from their parents, but it seems they are coming around; Tinn and Gun face homophobia from people in their lives, but also receive support from their classmate and parents). And beyond being realistic to the “real world,” they also feel more realistic to the queer experience: queer relationships don’t usually have such strict relationship roles and power dynamics, adhere so strictly to heteronormative ideals, or exist in world without homophobia or disapproval. They are varied, often deliberately contrasting and rejecting hetero norms, and sometimes involve being scared to come out (even to accepting parents), facing homophobia, and living in a “glass closet” limbo.

Many people have talked about how Bad Buddy walked so MSP could run - Bad Buddy was more heavy handed and noticeably deliberate with its trope subversions, intentionally trying to correct problems that have existed in the BL genre since the beginning, and this allowed MSP coming later to be more subtle with their changes, working them even more seamlessly into the style and the tone of the show. After MSP, what will be next? Where is GMMTV, and BL as a whole (in Thailand and beyond) heading? I’m excited to find out.

Bibliography

@absolutebl, specifically these posts: 1 (faen fatales), 2 (seme/uke), 3 (seme/uke tropes), 4 (GMMTV correcting for its mistakes), and all their posts about BL tropes

Agha, Asif. 2003. “The social life of cultural value.” Language & Communication 23: 231-273.

Ahearn, Laura. M. 2012. Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1982. “Discourse in the Novel.” In The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin, edited by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, 260- 422. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics for Beginners. http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel//Documents/S4B/semiotic.html

Chandler, Daniel. Genre Theory. http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel//Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html

@cinna-bin: https://cinna-bin.tumblr.com/post/704496825511641088/his-boyfriend-words-matter

Irvine, Judith T. 1996. “Shadow Conversations: The Indeterminacy of Participant Roles.” In Natural Histories of Discourse, edited by Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban, 131-159. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Laineste, Liisi, and Piret Voolaid. 2017. “Laughing Across Borders: Intertextuality of Internet Memes.” European Journal of Humour Research 4, no. 4: 26–49.

@miscellar: https://www.tumblr.com/miscellar/674021449476997120/here-are-a-few-things-off-the-top-of-my-head-1 AND edited to add this post, which is so crucial to understanding how intentional all this is when it comes to Bad Buddy: https://www.tumblr.com/miscellar/710442440997371904/hello-in-a-convo-we-were-having-about-qls-that

Proctor, Devin. 2020. "Intertextuality." In The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society, edited by Debra L. Merskin, 849-50. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

@ranchthoughts (myself): 1 (signs, symbols, icons, indexes, genre and BL), 2 (Bad Buddy and seme/uke tropes), 3 (MSP and imagination vs. reality), 4 (MSP being a good-natured show), 5 (MSP and narrative structure and pacing), 6 (Gun and knowing about Tinn’s crush); and everyone I referenced in those posts as well

Wiggins, Bradley E. 2019. The Discursive Power of Memes in Digital Culture: Ideology, Semiotics, and Intertextuality. London: Routledge.

#bb #bb meta #msp #msp meta #bl meta #ranch thoughts #bad buddy #my school president #this post is a monster... it's a full thesis basically #ppt thoughts

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fangirlmedstudentblog · 1 year

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You know, while watching My School President, it was one of the most pleasant surprises in a long long while. But one thing I truly did NOT expect was to develop such an attachment to Tinn.

I've loved watching these two boys fall in love, pine and help each other through the ups and downs of school, but I don't think I ever expected just HOW MUCH I would relate to Tinn. And this was legit 2 episodes in. (This post was written after ep8 and before ep9, for reference)

So following is a bit of a long-ish post on why Tinn is my favourite character in MSP and a bit on why his behaviour in the latest episode isn't that surprising to me and was, a while in the making, i feel.

At the risk of being overly personal and sappy on main, I would do SO much to just hug those two boys.

Also it's gonna be a bit of a long one, so strap in.

Spoilers till Ep 8 of My School President

Tinn, i was surprised to see had a very similar upbringing to mine. Like him, I am also an only child. Like him, I also have a strict mom, who is ALSO a teacher and a surgeon dad, who, despite not wanting to, was not able to be with me as much when I was younger because of his work, just like Tinn's dad, who is a writer.

Looking at the initial few episodes of MSP, it's pretty clear that both of Tinn's parents, while loving him so much, had to sometimes give up on time with tinn for their work. (It's something that i think is very common when both parents are working, or writing, as with Tinn's dad) And that Tinn loves his parents a lot.

Not to speculate on Tinn's upbringing, but based on my own experiences, and that scene around Tinn's birthday (spectacled nobi tinn is so CUTE, I just wanna punch his cheeks, my baby) it's a bit obvious that it's not the first time he's had to wait alone due to his mom and dad being busy. You have his mom being apologetic due to unexpectedly being called into a work dinner, her asking to celebrate with his dad, who himself is away at a book signing so, not exactly available himself (on his son's birthday too!).

You might call it a reach, but I don't know, it's something I feel isn't wrong.

If he was immature and spoiled, he might have been petulant and whining and complaining about how no one is wanting to celebrate HIS birthday with him. But he doesn't. He just accepts it. He smiles when his mom offers to let him come to work dinner, refusing with a smile so that his mom doesn't worry about him. He says (with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes) that he'll celebrate with his friend. Maybe this scene was to show that Tinn is mature, doesn't worry his parents and independent, maybe it was just a reason for Tinn to be sad before meeting Gun, i don't know man, I'm not the scriptwriter.

And inferring from the phone call with Tiwson, we can see that he IS sad that his parents can't celebrate with him. He KNOWS in his heart that it's ok, they love him, and sometimes life can just get in the way of things you want and you can't celebrate all your birthdays the way you want. But still, he's still a boy, and can't help but feel sad.

Maybe it's that resigned acceptance you see on his face and the call to Tiwson, where he fakes being ok since he doesn't want to inconvenience Tiw to come celebrate his birthday because he's already at home. Even though he's actually feeling a bit sad and lonely. And he knows that if he asked Tiwson, he would've come just because his friend asked him to. Just because he's feeling alone doesn't mean he should inconvenience people, that's what i think Tinn feels.

(I have a feeling the reason I've felt so attached to this scene at Gun's mom's shop is because I've BEEN in this situation way more times than I can count. And way to go when you write a whole ass ramble based on like just 1 minute of a drama)

When you see as you're growing up that your parents are super busy, and / or your parent(s) is very strict, especially with regards to academics (Tinn's mom is a very typical asian mum, in that regard), you grow up with the desire to keep your parents happy by becoming one less source of stress to them.

And being an only child can get lonely at times. Combine that with a strict mother, who is a bit too controlling over their child, and consistently expects the best from their child, you get yourself a kid who tries to show themselves as mature for their age and is a bit more independent than the parents would think. Also a pretty good liar and good at hiding their true emotions as well. Added if you're an introvert, you become a bit socially awkward and have a hard time making real friends.

(Personal experience talking here)

Plus from what I've seen so far about Tinn's parents, it's obvious that out of the two, it's Tinn's dad who is the more emotionally supportive one in the family. During that dinner scene in Ep 2, we can see that it's Tinn's dad who seems more open with his emotions, and Tinn is very cautious when talking about the music club (which his mother doesn't seem to like) to his mother. He mostly goes along with what his mother says, trying to not rock the boat as one does.

When you have that kind of strict parent(s) growing up, especially if you're a single child and have all of the focus of your parents, is that you become a bit reliant on your parent(s) making your decisions for you and you don't push boundaries and just go about life doing what's expected of you.

You become someone who constantly tries to please the strict parent, because you're afraid of them being disappointed in you. Because sometimes you're more scared of disappointing your parents than actually making them angry.

You more often than not, are seen as the 'golden child' who has ideal behaviour at school, and in studies and extra-curriculars. It's what expected of you and it's not like it's difficult to do so, why rock the boat unnecessarily?

And then when you start discovering that your own wishes and desires and priorities are different from your parent's (which more than often happens, because you are not your parents) and it's something that they might not like or even disapprove of.

That realisation makes you scared because you know you can't show what your true feelings and opinions on stuff because it's NOT what is expected of you. Then you double down on showing the perfect you that everyone likes (especially authority figures and teachers) and hide your imperfections.

That's where the people pleasing part of you comes into play. But inside you might be getting more frustrated and angry.

And then you get into your emo phase

Ahem.

Anyways.

Back to where you're wondering that what has this long winded tangent to do with Tinn.

Now, nobi-tinn, aka Tinn in first year, a bit of a resigned to being the perfect kid who never complains, meets Gun when he's all sad about his birthday.

Gun, who's all cute and handsome faced kid with a bright smile who just sets down a treat in front of you without you knowing who he is and why did he just do that.

Then he introduces himself and it's someone from your own class. And he's entranced by his cute little smile. And a bit gobsmacked as well because 'oh my he's cute' is running through that boy's head on loop.

Then his mother comes in and Gun is like oh, I'm just being friendly so that i can mooch off him and his work. That makes Tinn a little bit disappointed, because he thought maybe Gun wanted to be friends with him for real, but he just wants to be friends to 'borrow' stuff from you. Still he's pleased at atleast SOMEONE cares. Plus it helps that the boy IS cute so he's like, eh, whatever.

But then Gun goes up and is like if you're feeling lonely people, here's a song we can share. And you can see that Tinn is surprised, oh he's a singer?

Then this cute boy he just met busts out a song that RESONATES so much with him and he's like OH. OH HELL. I LIKE HIM. OH NOOOOOOO

Cut to Tinn's trying to get closer to him. But FAILING. MISERABLY. CONSTANTLY.

Poor guy even decide to clean up, change his look and try to confess at the Hot wave contest but only to be thwarted by a damn fight breaking out, which leads to Gun not hearing what was said.

Then both of them are in their final year of high school and Tinn, to his shock discovers that his mom DISAPPROVES of the music club (understandable, since they caused that huge fight, plus all those near fire and probable noise complaints), the place which Gun is an integral part of and where he thrives. And to his horror, wants to shut it down, which is like the last thing Tinn wants because then there's NO way Gun will even like you as a friend, much less have a crush on him. Poor guy, can't catch a break in his romantic life.

He's now stuck on how to help his crush without letting anyone know that he's helping him (because it's NOT what is expected of you)

Then Tiwson gives the idea that become the school president and prevent the club from shutting down. That way Gun might even be impressed by all that Tinn did to help him. Tinn does that. Becomes the School Council President. You're like ok, now the club is safe.

But then Tinn discovers that not only does your crush NOT remember him, but he actually HATES him.

We all know how it all then follows as we can see in the show. You have Tinn defying the school rules, manipulating folk music competitions, offering help anonymously online, ensuring the band actually has instruments to play on, giving him your own DAD'S PRIZED GUITAR (I have a feeling this might play a role in a future episode), lying to your own parents about what you're doing MULTIPLE TIMES and basically giving Gun as leniency as much as possible to help him save his club and actually win the hot wave so that you can actually confess.

All the while going all Elsa in front of him with conceal, don't feel mode because from what Tinn knows Gun hates him and won't accept his help if he knew. PLUS he's realising his mom's probable disapproval and disappointment in his actions. But Tinn has decided that it's time to stand up for what he wants to do and not what his parents want, for what seems like the first time in his life.

Awww Tinn is entering his rebellious phase, all so as to let Gun's dreams come true and let him be happy. Because don't forget, Tinn actually never ever pressurised Gun into liking him back or ever actually let him know just HOW much Tinn has done for him behind the scenes.

Then Tinn and Gun start becoming closer and closer and then they realise he actually reciprocates Tinn's feelings!!! YAY HALLELUJAH 🎉🎉🎉 But you two still can't date because of a stupid arbitrary rule that was put there because your previous club leader was a jealous man so they decide to shamelessly flirt with each other for now and stay somewhere in between mutual pining to secretly dating.

Meanwhile, adulthood and deciding on career is approaching and Tinn's mom decides that Tinn should be a doctor because it's a stable field. (which, personally, i think is bs. It's just the plain old insistence of wanting your kids to be a doctor, a lawyer ir an engineer that is drilled onto an asian parent's heads)

Tinn himself is very unclear about what to take in the future, understandably because this is something your parents can't decide for you. Plus while being with Gun and helping him, Tinn is gradually coming out of under his mother's thumb and letting himself feel what he wants to feel and have his own opinions. He is becoming a bit more rebellious and liking making decisions for himself.

So while Tinn doesn't necessarily want to become a doctor, he's not exactly protesting against it and is still unsure if he really wants to become one, and WHY. (I personally would love if Tinn did NOT become a doctor, or even if he does, atleast makes that choice with his own free will. Becoming a doctor requires a LOT of personal motivation, and being forced into being one is just damaging to one's mental health. This is speaking as someone who has just become a doctor herself a while back)

Then he realises that he wants to become a doctor to take care of his loved ones (admirable and a lofty goal tinn) after taking care of Gun's mom.

At the beginning of ep 8, we have Tinn talking to his mom to get permission for the club to stay over at nights for a week. Then his mom asks if he's started studying for an exam that is coming up in a month and he says he hasn't (I'm the same Tinn 😮‍💨🤜🏻🤛🏻)

But then we get Tinn standing up to his mom to get permission to stay overnight, with some crafty manipulation on his part to get her to agree. If you look carefully, his mom is confused about why Tinn is being this insistent about helping the music club. His mom has had that look before too, at the beginning of the show when he's asking to go in her place during the folk music festival.

And looking at it from Tinn's mom's perspective, Gun and his club are more of a nuisance than anything. And she probably is wary that they might drag Tinn to the wrong path. We as viewers know that is profoundly incorrect, but his mom doesn't.

And then we have Tinn and Gun hiding from his mom in the pool and then using the lousiest excuse I've EVER heard (Tinn you weren't even trying my boy). Can someone please tell me that does it actually abruptly rain out of nowhere in Thailand and then it stops just as abruptly??

Like the only reason Tinn's mom seemed to buy that excuse is that she hasn't caught him lying to her before. Also why do I have a feeling that she really some bias against the band kids? Because why only offer the towel to Tinn when both Tinn AND GUN are soaked????

Then we find out that Tinn's mom has arranged for him to meet with a doctor from the college Tinn might be applying for later who's having a seminar in his school. This is in order to have Tinn give a favorable impression to the doctor.

Contrary to what many were thinking, it's JUST an introduction, not an actual interview or anything. It's kind of like a mom showing off her kid to another so as to improve Tinn's chances of getting in.

One thing I noticed about Tinn while he was being told this was just how uncomfortable he looked. I'm still not clear myself whether it was because he was gonna miss being able to watch Gun perform openly (something he's been wanting to for YEARS at this point) or that he was benefiting from being the principal's son and getting this advantage over his peers who were as interested as him in that field. I personally like to believe it's a mixture of the two, with the former being a larger reason than the latter.

Moving on to the late night school ground heart to heart, you can see just how affected Tinn was by Gun's confession of gaining strength from performing in front of the people he loves. Especially since he knew that he couldn't actually go and watch him. We as audience and Gun could tell that just how sad he was at not being able to attend.

Then we had the wonderful piece of Gun deciding that it was FINE and both of them deserved to go after their dreams and encouraged Tinn to work hard towards his dreams, like Tinn encouraged Gun to do.

Now what follows is a bit of speculation, but not unnecessarily untrue, i think.

But what Gun doesn't know that the only reason Tinn even WANTS to become a doctor on the first place is in some way to take care of Gun and his own parents and Gun's mom.

It isn't Tinn's dream to be a doctor, it is his mom's. It's just something that he's going along with because he doesn't exactly hate the thought of being a doctor. Tinn's dream, atleast for the moment is to be at Gun's side, help HIM achieve his dream of winning the hot wave and be his boyfriend, in that order.

On that note, if Tinn you ever want to become a doctor, I think being a pediatrician would suit you a lot (as suggested by my lovely friend @sarahandtheninjas and i agree with them)

While, he might have gotten a good reason why to want to pursue medicine, his priority is still Gun and passing his school.

And his priority at that moment is watching Gun perform because he wants to provide Gun that support during such an important time of his life. Tinn has enough confidence in himself that he knows he can get in medical school by himself without any prior introductions from his mother. (I don't know how exactly do you even get in medical school in Thailand so if anyone could provide some information, that would be highly appreciated!!)

Plus i believe that Tinn is beginning to chafe from his mother's constant hovering. It comes from a place of love, but i think it would feel very annoying when you're a teen. Like when they both were rehearsing answers to give to the doctor, (which by the way were super generic and expected answers, exactly the ones they would look for, but still boring) you could see that Tinn could NOT CARE LESS about that *stupid* doctor and just wants to see Gun perform.

So in a fit of extreme bravery (seriously, it takes guts to talk back to your mom, especially if she's as strict with Tinn as I think she might be) he says sorry to mom and runs away to the Hot Wave.

Then that absolutely LOVELY conversation between TinnGun follows where Tinn reveals that that introduction wasn't actually that necessary and what's the use of becoming a doctor of he can't take care of the ones he loves.

Also Tinn, becoming a doctor means accepting that you might not being able to spend a lot of time with your family and loved ones, especially if you go into something like emergency medicine or surgery or ob-gyn or even medicine, especially during your specialisation years. I SHOULD KNOW, I'm not only a child of a surgeon, but a doctor in my own right.

(Also, dropping the love word so early Tinn???? That's pretty gosh darn brave of you my boy, but seriously Tinn, do not decide to become a doctor on a whim)

All of those actually reading till this point I love you all so much 😘😘

And after all of that, what I am personally looking forward to in the future episodes is how exactly does Tinn's late stage rebellion play out, because I have a feeling that his mom might be shaping up to be the final boss.

And thanks a LOT for reading

(I might edit this post later after all the episodes are over to add more thoughts and add some screenshots, maybe)

#my school president #tinn tinnaphob #tinngun #my school president the series #thai bl #my school president meta #tinn msp meta #I can't believe I actually wrote a whole meta post for MSP #when i actually should have been studying for a major exam that's in a month #what even is in this show that makes me love it so much #gemini norawit #tinn x gun #this honestly has been my longest writing pieces on any of my favourite media

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