You have no right to set me up with someone else. You have no right to replace Neen with someone else. And you have no right to make her feel less than.
In Love Forever EP2
"What happened here? Huh? Why is there so many frogs?"
"I was trying to make you spicy stir-friend frog. But I dropped the box, so all the frogs got out! What do we do now? Oh no! Mom!"
Because my GL’s are making feel things and because I still think people are being too hard on (the show versions of) Fai and Runch.
Fai first, because I have a lot to say about her, the amount of damage Panee has done to that entire household, and how much I hate people using the term “brat.”
Is Fai spoiled? Absolutely. Her father bought her an island, for pete’s sake. Is she acting hateful and cruel towards someone who doesn’t deserve it. Absolutely x10. Neither of these translates to “brat,” though. She’s high octane with a touch of adrenaline junkie, and she doesn’t want anything to do with the mundanities of an office. She wants to run with Lom or do random stuff at the farm with Din, not attend business meetings. She’s a bit brash and very straightforward and doesn’t conform to “traditionally normal female adult,” but this isn’t the same as “brat.”
She’s a kind soul with a heart as big and open as the sky. She’s a protector. She swears love is nonsense, but is a natural cupid who can spot it at 1000 yards and helps her loser dork (affectionate) cousins catch the loves of their lives. She knows her family’s workers and treats them with respect. She’s Lom’s ride or die. She runs to Din when she wants comfort and swings by to poke-play at Nam because she’s way too serious. And in spite of the Panee-induced outbursts, Little Fai would have actually liked having a caring stepmother and a little sister who followed her around with stars in her eyes. But Panee’s manipulation denied her that because this woman couldn’t, for her own selfish reasons, allow that family to be rebuilt after Fai’s mother died.
Panee pointed Fai like a gun at any person the father tried to bring in. She loaded a small child with toxic whispers of “they’ll take your father away from you” or “you’ll lose everything to them if you let them get close” or “your father loves them more, only I love you unconditionally.” Fai’s hateful behavior is aimed specifically at those her father tried to rebuild their family with, with one notable exception in Rose*. She’s not a brat. She’s an abuse victim who is lashing out and fighting against her own desire for, and instinct to, love because of that manipulative whisper in her ear.
Fai, Kaphrao, and their father are all Panee’s victims. The father was denied a marriage with a ridiculously understanding and patient woman. Kaphrao (who may be the biggest victim in all this) was denied a family and had to grow up almost entirely alone. And that was on top of the sting of rejection from Fai. All of them were denied a solid home and family.
*Fai’s initial rejection of and attitude toward Rose 100% ties back into the manipulation from Panee. The idea that people only come into the family with bad intentions and to take advantage comes entirely from that, and Fai’s first instinct was to protect her sweet, innocent, too-trusting Din. She got over it in 5 minutes because girlfriend recognizes what love is for other people (plus Lom was there to temper it). But her perception of it in her own life is skewed all over the place due to Panee’s toxicity.
And my poor sweet puppy, Runch. She won the toxic-manipulator of a mother lottery. Kingkamol is the Thai GL equivalent of a “boy mom.” She brought a child into the world and proceeded to make that child responsible for all of her emotional needs. Runch’s social awkwardness and lack of social circle speaks pretty heavily to her mother isolating her from her peers for most of her life because she didn’t want to share Runch’s affection. Especially in a way she couldn’t control because she wanted to remain Runch’s number one priority.
Runch is at the opposite end of the personality spectrum from Fai, so instead of being called a brat, people are calling her stupid or blind or a push-over for not seeing through her mother’s tactics. But she’s none of those things, not really. If anything, her biggest issue is fearing conflict or being the cause of a loved one’s distress, and that goes back to the sense of guilt and ungratefulness her mother quietly cultivated in her. Designed to create fealty.
The key with Runch, and I can not stress just how big it really is, is that she thinks it’s all coming from a mother’s honest love. Like Fai, Runch has a big heart, and when she shares it, it is open, honest, and with everything she has to give. She believes the people she trusts with her love are giving the same to her in return.
Runch thinks it’s love every time her mom calls her and says she’s sick. Neen is mostly wrong about Runch not knowing she’s being played. She knows it’s a lie, but thinks it’s just her mom making up excuses to see her. Because her mom loves her and wants to spend time with her. That smile her mom gives her is just her mom’s chagrin at getting caught in a small lie, and look at the dinner she made. Because her mom loves her. Runch knows it’s a ploy to get her to stay instead of immediately going back home to Neen, but nothing about that feels manipulative because that smile, that meal, that sigh, that hurt sound in her voice when Kingkamol plays at waving her off with a “that’s okay, just go on, I’ll be fine by myself” are just her mom’s honest feelings. To Runch, that’s just normal mom, not a woman manipulating her feelings.
When you’ve never known anything else, you aren’t going to translate the “little white lies” into the manipulation outsiders see. At least, not at first. The cracks have already started to form, though. Kingkamol is actually right in this sense. Runch stepping out of the isolation her mother had her in has created cracks in her scheme.
Runch, though, is desperately trying not to have to choose between the most important people in her life. She hasn’t realized yet she has to. But that tether to her mother is fraying. The argument she has with her mom after the gala was the biggest moment of her life, even though it doesn’t’ seem like it yet.
Pffft… she caved in immediately after.
No, she didn’t. That moment was incredibly difficult for her, but she said what she needed to and put everyone on the same page. It was one more crack in the facade her mother built. She doesn’t want to have to choose, but Neen is her family and she will choose her. That was her moment of strength, but escaping this type of manipulative abuse comes in lots of stuttering steps, not a single explosive moment. So, like a proper daughter, she goes and asks (practically begs) her mother to please do this thing for her, out of the love Runch knows she has for her.
So of course Runch is going to believe her mother is willing to try. She knows the whole “your father threw me out” thing is a farce. She can’t say that to her mother’s face because the idea of that conflict probably makes her feel like she’s going to throw up, but she thinks this dumb thing comes from a place of love. She has to believe her mother loves her so much she is willing to try, no matter how dramatic and ridiculous she is in the attempt. Her mother is trying. Out of love.
I expect the next crack is going to be the one that shows Runch her mother does not, in fact, love her like that. It’s going to be devastating for her in a way I don’t think a lot of people can comprehend. Runch does not feel manipulated or abused. She feels loved, cherished, and well cared for. Finally realizing that’s a lie is going to break her soul.
