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telomeke-bbs · 1 year ago

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BAD BUDDY'S BASEBALL MOM – ROOFTOP RUGBY WITH LUCY IN THE SKY… OR ON A BASEBALL DIAMOND?

One of the most mystifying aspects of Bad Buddy was the decision to have Pat wear the now-iconic Baseball Mom tee for the Epic Rooftop Kiss at the end of Episode 5.

It's so utterly incongruous with the drama onscreen. The scene was a pivotal moment for the narrative, with Pat's big coming out to Pran followed by the very steamy demonstration of mutual emotions, after episodes of unending turbulence around where they stood with each other. And The Kiss they delivered was so stupendous, it rocked the Internet to its very foundations.

And for that hugely important moment, Director Aof decided Pat should wear – a big woman's t-shirt more associated with loud, overzealous American moms cheering on their kids at Little League baseball? 👀

At first I thought production simply wanted something open and sporty for Pat, to contrast with Pran being all covered up (mirroring their states of mind – Pat actively seeking to confess his feelings on the rooftop, Pran all closed-off and repressed). That line of thinking was definitely behind a lot of Pat and Pran's outfits, and I assumed they just used a random tee and cut off its sleeves for this.

But in retrospect this seems altogether too blasé an approach, especially since we can see how purposeful the wardrobe decisions were throughout the rest of the series. (The Soon Vijarn Recap video for BBS Ep.5 also makes it very clear Director Aof was closely involved in wardrobe selection, choosing all the outfits for their appropriateness to the narrative – see this link here, at timestamp 23.24.)

(above) The Soon Vijarn Recap video for BBS Ep.5 timestamp 23.49

The examples of the wardrobe reflecting the characters' inner states are copious. Pran's emotional journey in the first half of BBS – learning to open up, getting his feelings returned, and falling into a relationship – was mirrored by his sartorial journey, and he went from all colorless and buttoned-up to a wardrobe filled with more relaxed, expressive and colorful outfits when out in public:

(above) Pran all buttoned-up in his early whites (Ep.2 [1I4] 1.56, Ep.3 [1I4] 12.40 and Ep.5 [1I4] 6.03)

(above) A selection of Pran's more relaxed and colorful sweaters that he wore outside later in the series (Ep.7 [3I4] 2.52, Ep.10 [3I4] 0.26, Ep.12 [3I4] 6.36 and Ep.12 [4/4] 10.14)

Loud extrovert Pat on the other hand was decked out almost from the beginning in bright prints and wacky t-shirts (with some rivaling Baseball Mom in wackiness), all the better to broadcast his outgoing character and personality:

(above) A selection of Pat's bright and wacky tops (Ep.2 [2/4] 5.03, Ep.6 [3I4] 4.37, Ep.8 [2/4] 8.30 and Ep.10 [1I4] 4.52)

The mystery deepened further when the fandom tracked down the maker of Baseball Mom – it looks like a small, possibly home-based business in the US, and the t-shirt is part of a line, one of several related tops (see this link here). It simply wasn't a random tee from some small Bangkok shop (unless the vendor had gotten it secondhand off some American tourist, and was re-selling it locally). This looks like a t-shirt that was specifically procured for the show (possibly even sourced from overseas), rendered sleeveless with low-cut armholes to echo the openness of Pat's personality, and then put on Ohm with absolute intent.

But why?

I'm convinced that there is an element of subversion about this (not the least because the t-shirt undercuts the heavy drama of the scene so drastically). @ranchthoughts has already pointed out in this write-up linked here that the feminine Mom is an allusion to the subversion of gender roles embodied by Pat's character, and I very much agree. It's also possible that this particular tee was chosen because the baseball standing in for (and thus somewhat obscuring) the letter 'O' in the word Mom kind of makes the word call out to M🤍M or MLM. (And here's an afterthought that occured to me watching Only Friends and the promo trailer for My Golden Blood – the baseball bat is also visual shorthand for the emotional violence that Pat and Pran wreak upon their relationship when each figuratively beats up on the other – and on himself too – while acting out their strange, rambunctious relationship as enemies who are secret friends and later lovers.)

But I also do think that there's still more to Baseball Mom than the above, and this particular train of thought was triggered by an Ask from @pandasmagorica about Ep.5's rooftop scene (linked here).

I now think we can piece together a reason for Baseball Mom on the rooftop, but it's only fair to signal that this wackiest of wardrobe choices is getting possibly the wackiest of explanations (and it's a doozy).

Now what @pandasmagorica's Ask triggered for me was the realization that Pat's directness on the rooftop was actually almost the complete opposite of something that he'd been doing very often, right up until Episode 5 – and that was his propensity to torment Pran with the bait-and-switch.

Time and again, Pat would reach out with the offer of something precious to Pran – a smile, a kind word, a tender moment, a suggestion of intimacy – but then quite suddenly he would subvert the situation and switch out the proffered affection with something wholly discomfiting, crushing hopeful Pran's expectations.

There are several examples:

During their childhood, Pat returned Pran's watch after Pran saved Pa from drowning (Ep.1 [4/4] 9.46), signaling the start of his friendship with the lonely little boy next door – only to impose the caveat "But…don’t talk to me in front of people. They might think we're buddies."

That (almost shirtless) bedside conversation at the end of Ep.4 (beginning at Ep.4 [4/4] 10.43), when Pat kept bombarding poor Pran with personal, leading questions, half-begged to be allowed to share his bed and cuddle, before shattering his neighbor's heart by declaring that it was Ink whom he liked romantically.

Tending to Pran’s injured shoulder at Ep.4 [3I4] 7.07, before suggesting he only wanted Pran to recover so that they could compete in rugby again;

Returning Pran’s long-lost guitar to him, then ruining the tenderness of the moment with “I just like to see your face… when you lose” (Ep.3 [4/4] 10.30).

And with Pran deep in his feelings for Pat, the constant intimations of closeness and deeper feelings, shell-gamed away at the last minute, must have been soul-crushing for our poor yearning boy. (This is also what the lyrics of Pran's theme – Just Friend? – are all about, e.g., "I can’t make sense of what you’ve done"/"Are we just friends or are we more?"/"If you don’t mean it, don’t act that way".)

No wonder Pran was trying so hard to keep a distance from the cheerful boy next door, who was always invading his personal space (after having taken over his heart). So much so that Pran on the rooftop was expecting more of the same, which explains his blunt statement "Pat, you've got to stop doing this to me. We are not a thing" in response to Pat telling him that it hurt to see the song they co-wrote in high school played with someone else.

Pran saw this as more of Pat's teasing games, but irony of ironies Pat was being totally serious this time. And yet, even on the rooftop in Ep.5, Pat did a version of the bait-and-switch one more time, but with the polarity reversed for once – he listed all the ways Pran's exile should have brought him joy, only to end with "It was so depressingly lonely for me." 😢

I think Pat learnt early on that this is what you do to your loved ones – because there's actually an example of Ming doing something similar to his son at Ep.8 [2/4] 16.12. Helping to wash Pat's car, he quietly allowed his son to natter on about his day with fibs about rugby practice, before landing a sledgehammer blow saying "When did I teach you to lie?" at Ep.8 [2/4] 16.41. This was an ambush, intended to take Pat by surprise and inflict the maximum amount of damage – and judging by Pat's despondent moping after, Ming certainly succeeded.

But it's not only Pat doing this to Pran, or Ming doing this to Pat, that we see in BBS. Director Aof and his writers actually littered the narrative with other examples of the set-up and switch-out as well, doing it to us the viewers:

Pat may have started out Ep.1 a ruffian, but then we saw that he was really a cheery big kid who needed his popsicles and cuddles from Nong Nao for comfort (Ep.1 [4/4] 8.37 and Ep.2 [1I4] 1.36).

Ink was introduced as a demure girl from the north (remembering that northern Thailand is seen as close to the birthplace of Thai culture) in Ep.4 [1I4] 7.41; then she tripped and let out a curse word at Ep.4 [1I4] 8.01.

Pa's glow-up at Ep.7 [1I4] 2.39 and subsequent story arc subverted her initial (albeit not very successful) portrayal as the frumpy kid sister with no life and no agency as a character.

BBS placed the emotional burden of Episodes 1 to 4 solely on Pran's pining shoulders, and then suddenly whipped it away in Ep.5 and dumped it squarely on Pat (kudos to Ohm, who gamely played Pat as a shining object of affection for the first third of BBS, before showing us that Junior Jindapat was so much more than a lovable, empty vessel himbo, and was instead someone who actually did possess an inner life that he could access).

And perhaps the biggest BBS bait-and-switch of all – Pran's unrequited love for inaccessible Pat turns out to be requited after all, but then without warning it's Pran who spins out of reach on the rooftop.

Looking at BL as a genre, the bait-and-switch is sometimes employed as a storytelling device to provide an unexpected dramatic twist (though whether or not it satisfies is debatable). For example there is the trap set for Lhong in TharnType, the aloof ice prince Sarawat turning out to have been carrying a torch for Tine in 2gether, and Nubsib's reveal in Lovely Writer as someone who also shared a past with Gene.

And if you think about it, all of Bad Buddy itself was kind of one big bait-and-switch as well. They set it up so that – at the start – it looked like the series would be shaping up into a run-of-the-mill, formulaic romance. The roadmap was laid out quite clearly – enemies to lovers, Romeo and Juliet or Kwan and Riam but the BL version thank you very much, star-crossed and kept apart by their warring families.

So we were expecting BBS to follow the usual romcom beats and rhythms, delivering the standard tropes, with the main storyline about how the enemies would fall in love against the odds, then find a way to beat the odds and stay together, or fall victim to it and be forever driven apart.

Except that Director Aof and his team pulled the rug out from under us time and time again, after setting this all up. The idea that Pat and Pran were enemies got turned on its head (they'd been secret friends since childhood). The process of falling in love didn't follow conventional beats at all – Pran was already in love, while Pat was… possibly already beset by emotions, just getting them all mixed up and projecting them onto Ink.

Instead of showing us the main couple falling for each other over the course of 12 episodes, this was firmly established by the end of Episode 5. Instead of their families being the primary conflict driving them apart, it was Pran's overthinking and emotional walls that drove a wedge between them in Episode 6. When family conflict finally did rear its head to threaten their relationship, well Pat and Pran just sidestepped it and carried on.

And the tropes? One by one they fell by the wayside as well. Ink turned up in Ep.4, looking like a formidable love rival for Pran (and he believed it too). Except that she wasn't the stereotype of the evil girlfriend at all – she turned out to be Pat's supportive bestie, while her eye (and camera) were focused on Pa instead. Any stereotypes overhanging macho Pat and pernickety Pran got subverted too, with Pat ditching sports practice for musical theater and Pran a credible street fighter and also a star player on his rugby team – so much for the seme and uke in this BL. The "gay for you" trope got put down (Ep.9 [2/4] 1.41), as was the "wifey" one (Ep.9 [4/4] 8.48). There are so many examples.

Even the end of Ep.11 was a bait-and-switch as well, when a large portion of the fandom was hoodwinked by Director Aof's Ep.12 preview into thinking that we were headed for a break-up. (Fortunately they switched it out for the happy ending that we got instead, thank goodness.)

There's so much of this going on, it seems as though BBS was actually celebrating the bait-and-switch (and in that way kind of subverting its use in BL as well). The thing is, nothing was ever what it seemed in Bad Buddy, and it was all intended to be so, from Day One, because it's solidly a thematic preoccupation underlying the series.

I now think Baseball Mom really plays into all of this glorification of the bait-and-switch as a storytelling device, and its subversion as well. But in a really wacky way, as perhaps is only fitting for the wackiest of Pat's t‑shirts.

So looking back on decades of popular media, who's been crowned the Big Boss of the Bait-and-Switch, the Grand Poobah of Switcheroos, the Queen of the Short-Con, the House Mother of all Bamboozlers?

It’s this little lady right here: 😍

This is Lucy Van Pelt, from Charles Schulz's comic strip Peanuts. Lucy is many things in the Peanuts universe, but one thing she's iconic for is a bait-and-switch prank, where she holds a football and then goads Charlie Brown on to kick it. He usually takes a bit of convincing, but eventually he goes for it and at the last second, Lucy pulls the ball away and poor Chuck ends up kicking the air, sent flying in the process. It's a running gag in the comic strip, first appearing in 1952 and recurring every year after that:

So what's the link with Baseball Mom though?

Football aside, in Peanuts Lucy is also a member of Charlie Brown's baseball team – and significantly she's absolutely terrible at the game. She misses the easiest of pitches, and even when perfectly positioned she gets hit on the head by the ball instead of catching it in her mitt.

So while she may be totally, confidently in charge of the situation baiting Charlie Brown with the pigskin, when it comes to baseball instead of football – Lucy is completely out of her element.

The parallel with Bad Buddy is that master of the bait-and-switch Pat Napat Jindapat – the BBS manifestation of Lucy – was pulling different versions of the Charlie Brown football prank on hapless Pran over and over again, causing much anguish to the latter's battered heart.

But suddenly on the rooftop, the tables got turned and Pran pulled the big switcheroo on him instead – by confirming their mutual feelings with a kiss so dizzyingly sensational that Pat must have been delirious with happiness… only to send it all crashing down by abandoning him there without a word of explanation.

(above) Bad Buddy Ep.5 [4/4] 12.58 – an abandoned Pat stares uncomprehendingly as Pran walks away from the wreckage of their broken hearts

In that moment Football Lucy morphed into Baseball Lucy, from self-assured manipulator to incompetent klutz, all alone in right field when the ball came zooming in from way out left. And what better way to mark this moment than with a t-shirt loudly proclaiming Pat's newly-minted Baseball Lucy status on its front?

(above) The Baseball Mom graphic – BBS's own version of The Scarlet Letter

Yes, I know this explanation is outlandish; that's how it sounded to me too when it first took shape in my head. So I decided to test it, by looking for supporting information elsewhere in the context of Bad Buddy. And the findings are truly surprising. 👀

No characters from Peanuts actually appear (in canon form) within any of BBS's visuals (not that they could, I suppose, for licensing reasons). But Charlie Brown and his cohort of characters aren't unknown in Thailand – there is a Charlie Brown Café (79/335 แขวงช่องนนทรี เขตยานนาวา, Bangkok, Thailand, 10120) that was previously at MBK Centre and a Charlie Brown's Restaurant (315/303 ซ.นราธิวาส24 แขวง ช่องนนทรี Yan Nawa, Bangkok 10120, Thailand) at Belle Park Plaza/Fortune Condo Town:

(above left) Charlie Brown Café; (above right) Charlie Brown's Restaurant

And even though we don't directly see Charlie Brown, Lucy or any other Peanuts characters in BBS, there are oblique references. One of the more obvious ones alludes to Lucy's younger brother, Linus Van Pelt:

When we see Pran out in the world with his PP hobo bag (written up here) or Pat snuggled in bed with his beloved Nong Nao (written up here), we know by now that the bag and the stuffed doll-pillow are our boys' favorite comfort objects, providing psychological security even as they face their personal fears.

(above left) Bad Buddy Ep.2 [1I4] 3.01 – Pran and his PP hobo bag, that he deploys like a shield when outside; (above right) Bad Buddy Ep.2 [1I4] 1.37 – Pat cuddling Nong Nao for comfort when he's all alone

But another name for these comfort objects actually has a connection to Peanuts – they can also be called Linus blankets, after the security blanket that Lucy's brother carries around with him all the time. Just a coincidence? I'm not so sure. (I think it's also significant that all three objects have blue as their predominant color.)

There's also a nod at Charlie Brown himself later, on the rooftop in Ep.7 [4/4] – Pat's tee is an unmistakeable visual reference to Charlie Brown's signature yellow top with its zigzag motif:

(above left) Bad Buddy Ep.7 [4/4] 1.48; (above right) Charlie Brown in his own iconic t-shirt

After their roles were reversed on the rooftop at the end of Ep.5 (with Pran pulling the ultimate bait-and-switch move back on Pat by walking away after The Kiss), the mantle of Charlie Brown the football prank victim was thrust onto Pat instead, and that is what we see here in Ep.7.

The brand name emblazoned on Pat's t-shirt also rings some bells – it's Patriots, which immediately calls to mind the NFL team from New England, and is another nod at Lucy's American football. (There is also a Minor League baseball team called the Somerset Patriots based in New Jersey; not as well-known as their counterparts – compatriots? – a few states away, but still… 👀).

(above) Bad Buddy Ep.7 [4/4] 2.13

And looking a bit closer the Ep.7 scene on the rooftop (the last one to be filmed among all of Bad Buddy's queues) really starts to overflow with meaning because it's actually a parallel to Ep.5's rooftop bait-and-switch.

It's far too much to include here, so I've put it into its own separate post (see this write-up linked here) – the short of it is that Pat as Charlie Brown plays the bait-and-switch one last time on Pran in Ep.7, but for the very first time turns the last-second switch-out into a win for his beloved instead, rescuing Pran who was floundering with the musical. And this reversal of the bait-and-switch, a redemption of sorts, is what convinces Pran to end their courtship competition and enter into confirmed couplehood instead. 👍

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Now all that aside, there's still one more element in Bad Buddy that I think is a direct reference to Lucy's bait-and-switch in Peanuts – and that's all the rugby, doing its part as a stand-in for Lucy's American football.

(above) Bad Buddy Ep.4 [4/4] 2.04 – the boys face off on the rugby pitch

It would never have been possible to feature American (gridiron) football authentically in Bad Buddy (it's not a popular sport outside of North America, to be honest, and would have been totally alien in a Thai setting). So they shone the spotlight on rugby instead, most probably because the ball used for play there is ovoid and almost the same as the one used in American football – it seems like the rugby in BBS is pointing at Lucy and the American football she deviously deploys.

(top) Bad Buddy Ep.7 [2/4] 13.01; (bottom) Bad Buddy Ep.7 [2/4] 13.02

This would explain why Director Aof and his team opted to feature rugby instead of soccer –the latter is far more popular in Thailand, and would have been a more obvious choice. In addition, soccer would have been far easier to stage – all the BBS rugby scenes had to be filmed at a completely different campus from the primary uni location (Bangkok University instead of Rangsit University) because the latter doesn't seem to have a rugby pitch, though it does have a soccer one. In case you were wondering as I was, the goalposts are starkly different so they couldn't just pretend to play rugby on the soccer pitch – it would have been a terribly obvious fake-out if they had.

They couldn't substitute another team sport even if it was easier to accommodate, because rugby (or rather the ball) was integral to this aspect of the storyline. It needed to be rugby if the intention was to evoke Lucy's favorite weapon of torment.

Further evidence in support of this can be found when you look at the original (rough-draft promo) Bad Buddy trailer that was released in 2020 (I think) to promote the 2021 lineup, before actual filming of the series itself in mid-2021:

The rugby was present even at that early stage (and Toto was on Pat's team! 😂). But what's mindblowing is that they're actually using an American football (the AF500), not a rugby ball (you can tell from the laces, which modern rugby balls do not have). 👀 So the gridiron football was very much part of Bad Buddy's primordial DNA, way back at its inception, even before actual filming began. Another nod at Lucy in Peanuts here.

(above) A screenshot from the original Bad Buddy promo trailer at timestamp 1.48

(above) A screenshot from the original Bad Buddy promo trailer at timestamp 2.15

Now all of this is dandy I suppose, but even with Linus blankets, Pat dressed like Charlie Brown, the oval ball and BBS's insistence on rugby (masquerading as American football) over soccer, for the longest time the hardboiled skeptic in me still wasn't fully convinced that Pat wearing Baseball Mom was actually Lucy in disguise getting her comeuppance, Bad Buddy style.

UNTIL I DECIDED TO LOOK MORE CLOSELY AT THE RUGBY MATCH IN EPISODE 4. And that was the clincher, that cemented the intentionality behind Baseball Mom in my mind, because there actually is a sequence where Pat executes Lucy's signature bait-and-switch move, with the rugby ball standing in for an American football, and with Pran as his fall guy.

The sequence in question starts at Ep.4 [4/4] 3.33, when we see Pat running with the ball, coveted by Pran (in more ways than one).

(above) Bad Buddy Ep.4 [4/4] 3.33

Pran tackles him, but in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Pat flicks the ball away and before any of us (Pran included) can realize what's happened, Korn is off and running with it instead (and I think he scores the rugby version of a touchdown too).

(above) Bad Buddy Ep.4 [4/4] 3.38

Meanwhile, Pat and Pran are still locked in a full-body clinch – and if you look closely, it's Pat who's actually holding on to Pran, not letting him go (with obvious delight, even if he's unaware of exactly why he's relishing the contact so much).

Much of Bad Buddy is really chaste, but there's something about this moment here that makes it seem like a line has been crossed, and that things have turned inexplicably raunchy somehow. There's full-body grappling, legs spread wide, crotch jammed to butt, a whole lot of heaving and panting. Pat is clearly enjoying every second, almost as though it’s the successful climax of his great big plan to waylay Pran with this bait-and-switch. And of course it's the perfect cue for him to deliver that now infamous, golden line: "If you hug me this tight, you might as well take me as your boyfriend." 😂

Actually Pat had been teasing and taunting Pran with hints of romance even before the game (going so far as to acknowledge that his behavior was flirtatious, at Ep.4 [4/4] 0.48) so it's impossible not to see that body tackle on the pitch as anything but a close encounter suffused with sexual tension – and Pran would of course be the first to notice it. (It's possibly also a subversion of the accidental "falling on you" trope, since it's at once contrived yet consensual.)

If you break it down, Pat used the ball to get Pran to tackle him, only to switch it out at the last minute with something else (close, practically intimate body contact) that poor Pran (drowning in his crush) would have found absolutely devastating. This is practically a playbook version of Lucy doing the football bait-and-switch with Charlie Brown.

To be honest though, I'd always found this rugby clinch a little odd and confusing, and had wondered why they even had this scene. It was logistically complicated to set up (two whole teams of players!), and the bait-and-switch portion would have been extremely tricky to choreograph and film. The whole rigmarole was also a lot of work for just a few seconds of screen time. That the ball slips away unseen also makes it seem anti-climactic for the viewer – but not for master gameplayer Pat, who successfully got his planned payload nonetheless.

And because he did it using Lucy Van Pelt's signature move, I now think the reason for this scene is for it to be held up as the paragon of Pat's bait-and-switch traps in Bad Buddy, and a parallel for the Epic Rooftop Kiss when Pran slaps the old switcheroo back on Pat instead.

On the rugby pitch Pat baited Pran by pulling away (with the ball), and then crushed his heart with physical intimacy (hugging him like a lover, but making it seem like he was only play-acting at returning Pran's love). On the rooftop Pran baited Pat with physical intimacy (The Kiss, proof to Pat that his feelings were returned), and then crushed his heart by pulling away (and taking with him all promise of his love).

Atop Chana City Residence at the end of Ep.5, perpetual prankster Pat couldn't stop himself and went in for the bait (Pran offering himself up romantically), only to see it whisked away from him at the very last second.

Suddenly the rules changed and Football Lucy, the House Mother of all bait-and-switch bamboozles, became the victim of the biggest bait-and-switch of them all, and was thrust into a different game instead. Bereft of Pran and denied his moment of victory, Pat became Baseball Mom indeed. 😔

(above) Bad Buddy Ep.5 [4/4] 13.06

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P.S. You can order Baseball Mom (the t-shirt, not Pat 😂) from Amazon at this link here. (If the link doesn't work, you may need to change your "Deliver To" location at the top left of the landing page on Amazon to another country – not useful if you want to buy it when they don't deliver to your location, but useful if you just want to view the page, or get them to deliver to a third party who can then forward it to you. If changing the location doesn't work, try following the other instructions in this post linked here.)

I suspect the fandom has been buying up Baseball Mom like crazy, because it went from limited stock and availability on Amazon (selected locations only), to becoming available for other global locations and on Walmart.com as well – so maybe demand from the BBS fandom has boosted sales so much they started marketing it on more channels? Thai BL soft power trickles down. 🥰👍

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P.P.S. OK, just a little aside – this Peanuts fan theory for Baseball Mom is really wacky, but I think the universe is telling me to put it out there anyway because just as I was finishing the write-up, this random post about the Peanuts football bait-and-switch appeared on my dashboard.

What are the odds of it crossing my dash at the same time I'm writing about it, when I've not seen it referenced before throughout my history on Tumblr, ever? (There were a few random Peanuts and Charlie Brown posts that appeared at the same time as well.) I'm not superstitious, but I do think the universe has spoken. 😂

#bad buddy #bad buddy baseball mom #bad buddy baseball mom t-shirt #bbs baseball mom #bbs baseball mom t-shirt #bbs lucy van pelt #bbs bait and switch #bad buddy bait and switch #patpran #bbs charlie brown #bbs linus van pelt #bbs linus blanket #bbs peanuts #bbs rugby #bad buddy analysis

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thegeminisage · 2 months ago

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okay. massages temples. it's time for. a star trek update. last night we did voy's "the omega directive" and (grits teeth) ds9's "his way."

the omega directive (voy):

right out of the gate, it's really difficult how many times they said the word "omega" in this episode. i tried very hard to take it seriously but only succeeded for about 60-70% of the time

we had our first real seven/chakotay scene in this episode, outside of him being the one to help sever her from the collective. i still don't totally see janeway/chakotay/seven in my mind palace but i'm working on it.

loved also the chakotay and janeway conversation but "closest friend" lol like we are literally being hetbaited. tuvok is her closest friend. b'elanna is probably chakotay's closest friend. janeway and chakotay are not close friends, they are lovers. not that being lovers means you can't also be friends! but that's not how they made him say it.

i thought this was a really good episode like...touching on seven's idea of religion/spirituality (even if we had to work in some racism re: chakotay's spirituality) without being too heavy-handed or dumb

janeway and seven clashing once again...mwah. ✌👅 or whatever. i admit sometimes this feels a little repetitive, but because both actresses deliver such good performances, i can't be too disappointed.

i am grinding my teeth a little at the logistic details of this episode. while the character stuff was very good and a WELCOME relief after a string of truly horrendous episodes, the plot was like swiss cheese. destroying this particle supersedes the prime directive? what happened to it being, you know, prime? in fact, BECAUSE they destroyed it, an entire civilization will die...not because of the prime directive but because we chose to ignore it. which you can't do! it's the prime directive! how imperialist for the utopic fedderation to impose their laws on civilzations that haven't even reached warp yet! janeway is trying to protect the safety of this quadrant? it's not even her quadrant! what gives her the right! is she just that afraid of losing warp capability and hiding behind federation regulations? let's dig into that! except they dug into none of that. a glaring flaw on an otherwise really good episode.

his way (ds9):

i don't want to talk about it........BUT I'M GONNA

(i actually ran into the character limit for paragraphs talking about it, so i have abandoned the normal bullet list format lol)

man, okay, like...how do i even begin to express my disappointment. not just in a ds9 let me down way but in like your favorite teacher being disapointed in you kind of way. the old janeway lecture in the ready room kind of disappointment. just a bone-deep, didn't-know-anyone-was-capable-of-fucking-up-this-bad, disappointment.

ik i said this already but no WONDER people hate kira/odo as a ship, down to even the actors. i've had some problems with how it's been portrayed lately (6.03 and 6.04 what were we DOING), but i've been willing to ignore them because i'm used to giving ds9 the benefit of the doubt and because i like the ship so much. after reading the summary i knew this episode would be bad and possibly also have kira/odo content and was prepared to try and enjoy whatever i could and write off the rest. but this was just unforgivable start to finish. i couldn't find even a single moment i liked.

let's start with the obvious, most egregious offense: kira does NOT want to be hologrammed. we had an ENTIRE EPISODE about it in which ODO HIMSELF helps her yell at quark about it. making her up as a hologram for odo to practice his kira wooing skills on was a huge violation of her rights, wishes, autonomy, etc. she should have been furious. this episode definitely commits a lot of sins, but i think this is the one that is most blatantly disrespectful, and also ties in to the biggest issue i had (more on that in a second).

the holodeck character was fine, or could have been fine. as far as holodeck episodes go, if any show could make me like them, it'd have been ds9. and the guy himself was FINE, and likable even, until he started breaking the rules of what was possible (contacting odo through the communications system when his hologram should have been deactivated, for example), and what was ethical (setting odo and kira up under false pretenses). now suddenly he is annoying and i hate him (and i feel bad saying this, because i know fandom likes him and his actor recently passed away - this episode was not his fault!!). illogical and unethical holodeck fuckery is the LAST thing i expect from ds9, which always sets out to critique some of the things from other star trek shows that make no sense or ignore potential ramifications of hand wavey world-building, which, again, HAD AN EPISODE ABOUT IT BEING UNETHICAL TO HOLODECK KIRA.

i think also it's really weird and unfair to suggest, through quark, that odo "waited too long" to make a move on kira when they SPECIFICALLY had an entire conversation (that i loved!) about how odo had been thinking about asking her to dinner and then decided not to because of the impending threat of cardassian takeover. they MUTUALLY AGREED ON and were MUTUALLY RELIEVED BY the idea of putting the revelation of odo's feelings to the side to focus on business, and that conversation actually allowed a really unique and lovely dynamic to form in a very organic way - odo loves her, and she knows he loves her, but the burden of having to give him a response to those feelings is totally removed. he's not asking for a response. he isn't asking for anything. she isn't obligated to give him anything. and on the flip side, he is relieved from the burden of having to hide that love. it is simply allowed to exist peacefully between them. this ALSO ties into the biggest issue i had with this writing, which is...

where were kira and odo? cuz they weren't in this episode. we seemed to forget their histories, their desires, their dynamic, and even their god damn personalities in order to replace them with some vaguely uncharming couple from a low-budget hallmark romcom?? hello???

like, think of the popular trek romances, or the couples that fans think of romantically. spock and kirk (and bones if you like) are people defined by loneliness who understand each other on a deep level they can't get elsewhere and soothe that loneliness with each other. both spock and bones and janeway and seven challenge each other's ideas of humanity and how the world works. chakotay finds peace in serving janeway's needs after the turmoil of a hopeless war and she finds a safe place to let go of her captain job with him. dax's flippant personality encourages worf to relax and his strict personality gives her someone to both tease and rely on. sisko and kassidy get to nerd out about baseball together, yet both understand their duty/morals come before their feelings. julian and garak both understands what it is to need forgiveness, and julian's compassion plays well off of the cold-hearted nature of a former obsidian order operative. even in fucking TNG, you had will and deanna who both love trying new things and are down to clown and want to go on adventures together. kira and odo have a dynamic, too, but it was not present in this episode - this, the episode where after FOUR SEASONS OF BAIT they finally make it official??

like, odo is stiff and unyielding, yes - but that means he doesn't find it in himself to loosen up by playing a fake piano for fake people. even DATA, in fucking tng, recognized that when he told bad jokes to a fake crowd and they laughed anyway because they were programmed to do that, that the entire exercise was without meaning. and data is WAY more autistic than odo, all my love to both. odo is not some nice guy incel type who wants to have kira simply for the sake of having her - he didn't fuck anybody in his entire life until like season 5 and that episode was ALSO really fucking bad. odo doesn't need to loosen up in order to pursue kira - IT IS KIRA WHO MAKES HIM LESS UNYIELDING. that is the entire point of them! when they first met, they were both seen as beings without personhood, whose lives had no value. she appealed to his humanity and asked him to see hers so she wouldn't be left to the mercies of the cardassians. it worked because she appealed to the HUMAN inisde him (for lack of a better word) which no one had ever done before. in heart of stone, he even says to the fake kira that she changed the way he felt about his OWN NAME, which was given to him because it was the cardassian word for NOTHING. HE WAS NOTHING. SHE SAW HIM AS MORE THAN THAT. this is, CANONICALLY, the basis of this relationship. this episode was so good BECAUSE he discovered such a pivotal moment was based on a lie. it was IMPORTANT.

and kira in this episode had almost no voice at all. she was someone to be sought after, chased, and then ultimately had after her "perfect moment of clarity" - which then lost meaning because she had two in a row - and which we never got to HEAR about. how does she FEEL? this is the episode where they get to together! but she never gets to tell us. it's an egregious offense considering her voice is usually a loud one, like her emotions - so loud, in fact, that odo is usually kira's rock, her calming presence. from the very first season, she has gone to him in times of emotional turmoil, because he so rarely lets that kind of turmoil rock his boat. he keeps a level demeanor, and he is able to sort through a lot of her anger and fears with a level head. when she is considering betraying an old friend in the THIRD!!! EPISODE!!! odo is the one she turns to. odo always has her coffee and reports ready on time. he will inform her if anyone she knows comes to the station or goes missing or whatever. he respects her wishes even when he doesn't agree with them. the fake kira, a perfect replica by most estimations, even agreed that they were not the type to bullshit each other. odo is safety and predictability in the stormy environment of a post-war bajor. WHAT WAS HER MOMENT OF CLARITY? probably not that, but we'll never know because SHE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO TELL US. she existed only to be pursued. the episode is even called "his way" - yes, a play on "my way" by frank sinatra, but still - it's like odo finally got HIS WAY and was able to have kira like he'd always wanted. "i've waited so long to hold you like this" is there really NOTHING else he wanted from that relationship? one might even argue odo wouldn't know what to do with that kind of love, how to express it in ways like physical affection - that could be part of why he was able to love her silently for so long. we saw hints of this in the season 5 episode, with future odo - there was a distinct lack of that odo telling her what she meant to him and why, which is nuts, considering our own odo was able to do that for lwaxana troi at their FAKE WEDDING when he only loved her platonically - but at least that episode had personality and merit. this had none.

and for all the trappings - the candlelit dinners, the music, the fancy dresses - this episode was DEVOID of true romance. the only moment where they had any chemistry at all was the kiss, and it was entirely out of character. a bicker-bicker-kiss scenario is GREAT and it's one of my favorites, but it doesn't fit THESE CHARACTERS. the kiss they shared in season 5, with future odo, had more personality than the one from this episode. in that, you could feel his longing, the release of his pain, and her uncertainty, along with her compassion in wanting to give that to him. in this, they got mad, and it happened so fast...but they aren't a bickership. i love kiraodo, and i love bickerships, the two things are just NOT the same. kira and odo argue only very rarely and when they do it's about very serious shit, like, kira's fucking worldview in "you take down the cardassians with me or i will fight you too" kinda shit. "our first meeting was based on a lie" kind of shit. they COULD have had a knockdown dragout fight about odo's use of a holo-kira (which wasn't even his idea, to be fair, but given his normal respect of her autonomy was EXTREMELY out of character for him to agree to use), but she wasn't allowed to have opinions or a personality in this episode, so they instead argued over absolutely nothing to shoehorn in a romcom scene that did an injustice to both the characters and their relationship.

furthermore: ableism. walk with me here. again, odo and kira MUTUALLY AGREED to put the question of a romantic relationship on hold for the time being. if both or one of them were ready to pursue that question again, both of them are capable of bringing that up like the adults that they are because part of this dynamic that they have is that they don't BULLSHIT each other. that's why the Big Lie was such a big deal! that's why kira feels so safe unloading on odo! that's part of why odo admires her! the idea that kira has gone to bajor to hook up with shakaar either because she was genuinely tired of waiting for odo to make a move (WHEN THEY HAD AN ENTIRE CONVERSATION ABOUT WHY HE WAS NOT YET AKING A MOVE AND SHE WAS RELIEVED WITH HIS DECISION) or because she was trying to HINT that it was time for him to make a move is ridiculous. kira nerys does not HINT at people. if she wanted something from odo, she knows good and damn well all she has to do is ask. in fact, unwilling though it was, he has already laid his feelings on the table - the ball is technically in HER court. (even in the 90s, this idea that the guy always has to do the pursuing is old and tired and sexist.)

but i am getting off topic. how does this come back around to ableism? it's the idea that, in the defiance of this canon, odo does not have to simply bring up to kira how he feels, or what he wants to do, but that he has to "loosen up." the idea that he's too weird, too socially inept, and that his natural personality and preferences and way of doing things and his past experiences are obstacles to be erased and overcome rather than THE UNIQUE REASONS KIRA LIKES HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE is insulting at best and yeah at its worst ableist. what did he even do at the dinner with kira that was so different from what he normally does? he stammered a lot and paid her a couple of compliments. he reminded her that he likes her. it was technically a date - one he didn't even ask her out on. are we saying odo, in-character, could not have done a better job than that without tired, outdated, "get the girl" lessons from (sorry, doc) a fucking hologram? even BARCLAY got better treatment than this. in tng! tng, which isn't even good! barclay, who is not even a good character! the things that ACTUALLY made him weird and undatable were things people venerated as "representation" while odo's less palatable personality traits need to be trained away during a self-playing piano musical number in order to make him fit to date kira. like it's un FUCKING believable.

finally, and this is a petty little nickpick, but i think i'm entitled at this point: the kiss being in public. kira and odo are both STUPIDLY private people. they are both REALLY uncertain about how their relationship will change by adding romance. they don't like people poking their noses into their business. kira only told ONE person about odo's feelings for her and only one person knew about odo's feelings for kira (if you don't count mommy changeling, which i don't). at one point it was one of odo's most closely guarded secrets, to the point of him hiding it from garak UNDER TORTURE and giving him the other big truth instead (that he wanted to go home) because of how vulnerable it makes him. and you want me to believe these two people just lost their heads in front of everyone on the promenade? you could have sold it to me if the rest of the episode was good and i might have loved it, but this episode was GARBAGE.

i have no idea what will happen with odo and kira from here out...i really hope it will be good, because i absolutely love the ship, but more and more i worry that they're just reducing them to "nice guy who finally got the girl" and "girl" and if that is the case i want no part of it. i find it MINDBLOWING that ds9 - ds9! - could screw up this monumentally, but it has, and now i just have to. deal with that, aaaaaugh.

anyway. TONIGHT: voy's "unforgettable" and ds9's "the reckoning." sheesh.

#personal #star trek blogging #voy lb #ds9 lb #i wrote this instead of working on my fanfic smh #if not for that fic i'd already be halfway thru some kind of fixit because that was ridiculous. unforgivable.#i feel so bad for the 90s girlies who liked this ship and waited 4 real life years for this. i cannot imagine the suffering #i read on memory alpha the guy who wrote this episode actually called fans who didn't like it names #he was like they just haven't had their tiny minds opened to the idea of a cheerful episodes but those are actually harder to write #if they're that hard to write my guy then don't write them. or let someone else do it #and definitely don't pull out the insults bc people didn't like your work. talk about tiny minds.

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