Be My Favorite is such a good drama, I'm surprised by how underrated it is. I need to go on a bigger rant about it but for now, I wanna talk about how The Third Wheel Girl in this M/M romance is a fully fleshed out character who gets to be upset and have significant plots outside of the main male leads.
"Guy has Comphet Crush on Girl until he sees his One True Love who's another Guy" is a CLASSIC BL trope. Manga, manhwa, manhua, books, stories from across the globe have used this exact plot. The Girl in this scenario is nothing more than a plot device. She shows up at the start and disappears for the remaining 90% of the story. The concept of the character has more relevance than the character themself.
The Third Wheel Girl is often beautiful, nice, forgiving, and a cardboard cutout of what an 'ideal girl' is. The most famous example, as of now, would be Rose Landry from Heated Rivalry.
Rose dates Shane for a substantial amount of time and when she finds out that this man whom she loves is gay and has no chance of liking her back romantically, her reaction is written to be inoffensive. It doesn't take up any space in the Shane/Ilya story. Her emotions and her opinions on this relationship are underwritten by the author to create minimal obstacles for the men's romance.
I've read the book and watched the show, it's very clear she's not given much thought by both mediums' creative teams.
In the same vein, Kawi having a crush on Pearmai should be negligible.
During the time jumps, Kawi and Pearmai do not date in 3 of the timelines, and do date in 1. In the past main timeline, Kawi confesses to her, and Pearmai doesn't like him back. But, these two become good friends to the point where Pearmai does start thinking about giving him a chance. Kawi though, develops feelings for Pisaeng during this time(our One True Love Guy) and they start dating.
In this version of the past, Kawi and Pearmai are still platonic, but Pearmai is genuinely upset that these two start dating before ever informing her because she was under the impression Kawi liked her. And she SHOWS IT. In turn, Kawi is upset that he didn't get the chance to tell her. This causes a fracture in that friendship AND is the first hurdle Pisaeng and Kawi face as a couple.
Both of these guys care a lot about Pearmai, and they give a lot of thought to ensure they can inform her of their relationship in a way that is transparent and doesn't end up in her being hurt. But plot happens and all such plans are foiled.
Despite the hurt, Pearmai's actually supportive of these two getting together. She defends them when their classmates start making fun of these two and spread rumours.
Doesn't mean she stops being upset. She tells it to them too.
Her extremely pleasant and easy-going personality is intentional, not just to make her leave as quietly as possible. There's a reason she's like this. Pearmai wants to be perfect, and create as little trouble as possible. It's heavily implied she's like this because of her parents' divorce. She goes to personality workshops to ensure she comes off as pleasant. But men take this to mean she's flirting with them, and others think it means they can get away with treating her unfairly. She reaches a breaking point because of Kawi and Pisaeng's careless and cries to her dad, asking why she isn't allowed to be angry, why people keep expecting her to just put up with all the hurt.
Her anger seeps through in very tiny ways throughout the show but she manages it to ensure people don't react negatively to her.
She finally decides to show her anger when she's confronted with Not, who's misogynistic and never self reflects on his behaviour. Not takes her pleasantness for granted, thinking she's into him and she makes it clear she's only been polite for his sake and that of her friend(who likes him romantically).
In the one timeline where Kawi and Pearmai dated, their break up was difficult, and it made Kawi and Pisaeng's relationship worse. Pearmai felt neglected, she pointed out Kawi's mistakes, and leaving him didn't make her life Sunshine & Roses either. She took a lot of helpless, bad decisions in that timeline..
Most stories wouldn't have written out the extent to which the Third Wheel Girl's life is impacted by the decision the main leads make.
Pearmai's allowed to be upset, to reject the leads, to have shifting dynamics with them and her own social circles(we see how her dad is, her relationship with her mom, her crush on Pisaeng, her relationship with her college friend Kwan, ambitions, anxieties, etc etc). She's written with care, and the audience ends up caring for her.
M/M romances tend to get misogynistic because people dont self-reflect on how intersectionality plays a role in any form of storytelling. Just because your story is gay, doesn't mean it's free of all other social biases. People also use the M/M stories as an excuse to explain away biases. "It's fine if the women aren't written well because this isn't about them" is a common explanation.
Be My Favorite benefits from giving consideration to gender and class alongside sexuality. Like obviously, not every story needs to cover everything, but there's no downsides to examining biases and incorporating varied characters into stories.
