✨ ess ✨

“it's misogynistic and patriarchal”

“feminine submissive bottom with a masculine dominant man”

and

“misogyny every three seconds in the show and the main couple being a gay version of tradwife propaganda.”

lord have i seen it all.

Were we watching the same show??

It's a horror show. And the strongest spirits were women.

Yod was comparatively easy to subdue compared to Ramphueng. And despite everything Ramphueng did to weak Kantika's spirit, she found the strength to defend her son against a centuries old spirit time & time again. And I will throw hands if I have to explain Grandma Si's strength.

The entire fucking point of that was that a (grand)mother's love is stronger than death itself.

And Jane's love for her brother is so strong that she fights spirits she can't see the way Jett can. More to the point, she's not just fighting for Jett, she's also fighting for Khem. Cos she loves him, too, & love is the only reason Jane needs to decide to fight a centuries old spirit & a literal death curse.

Speaking of love, Jett, Charn, Khem & Pharan all share a love that lasts across multiple lifetimes. In their previous lives, Jett, Charn & Khem were women. Jin & Da were in fact women who only loved women. No, they didn't get a happy ending but that was very clearly a commentary on the homophobia of the time period & a condemnation of it. Jett & Charn don't get a happy ending this time cos they reincarnated as men, they get a happy ending this time cos progress has been made. The message of their story is that it can get better.

As for Khem, he loved Pharan & only Pharan as both Khemmika & Khemjira. Which is a pretty blatant statement of the fact that Khem loves the soul not the body. And Pharan reinforces this since Pawat was also a man. Whatever form Khem's soul takes, it will always be Khem that Pharan's soul loves.

Which is a major "fuck you" to both the idea of heteronormativity & the idea of gender-essentialism. The message is that gender is irrelevant to the existence of love. Whatever the gender, the love still exists.

Related: once again, Jin, Da & Khemmika weave a narrative about a woman's love being stronger than death.

Pharan doesn't count. He started this reincarnation cycle as a literal god. And he's the only man to have clear memories of his past life without some sort of intervention. Pharan is an anomaly. And the fact that he's the only man shown to love the same soul from one lifetime to the next, who's spirit can stand against death? The man had to start as a literal god to manage what the women did with the strength of love alone.

Yes several female characters die but the narrative makes it clear that death isn't the end of their story, it's only the start of a new chapter. Their stories go on.

And the last we see of Jane, she's taking the piss out of Kachen who's tripping over his own damn feet trying to appease her. Jane is a badass big sister who values love & loyalty above all else & knows exactly how much she's worth.

We don't see Prim but learn that not only is she still teaching but that she's happy to have Khem join her faculty & she moved past whatever she was hung up on about Pharan & did it with complete grace, she took Pharan's "no" as an answer, didn't fall into any of the usual "obsessed dramatic female" tropes bls usually display & walked away with her dignity in tact. It's specifically said that not only has Prim spoken freely of Khem joining her faculty but that he's also invited to her wedding & not as Pharan's plus one. That woman is a class act.

And as for the bullshit of Khem being tradwife coded?? Did you miss the part where he has a job as a professor right out of uni?? And that he's not the only one who chose to settle in Ubon. Charm & Jett did too & Jane clearly spends enough time there to be comfortable in the community.

Khem may have taken Pharan's name when they got married but think about Khem's history with family abandonment & not feeling like be belongs anywhere. Khem's choice was saying that he not only feels like he belongs with Pharan but that he believes Pharan won't abandon him. Khem let go of his family history & the pain he experienced & chose to build a kinder world for his own family.

Also he does absolutely nothing to help Pharan when he realises what their son did to Pharan's food. He just laughs. And Pharan says he's still going to east cos "our son made this for me."

Pharan is so goddamned whipped for his husband & their kids.

my issue with all of this is honestly that most of these people are reducing femininity to something that is inherently degrading. it's like “oh he is a feminine bottom” so he is annoying and can only “take it”, or “he is so passive” so is he useless, “all he does is household chores” so therefore he must be the woman in the relationship, etc etc.

most of these people aren't even seeing that their logic is also inherently misogynistic. it's not even about heteronormativity to be exact. as if doing household chores is heteronormative anyway. the thing is when you yourself assign certain tasks and features to specifically women, you are boxing women into a particular role. in their minds, anyone doing things that have traditionally been only done by women (because ofc the men of ye old were useless and lazy) is degrading, because feminism dictates that women must only do the things now that men have done for centuries, right? because that is the sign of having power, right?

because clearly women or femme presenting people choosing to do things like put on makeup, or cook and clean, or god forbid, be the bottom in a relationship, is degrading. and therefore, all this dumbassery. 😤

“it's misogynistic and patriarchal”

“feminine submissive bottom with a masculine dominant man”

and

“misogyny every three seconds in the show and the main couple being a gay version of tradwife propaganda.”

lord have i seen it all.

Were we watching the same show??

It's a horror show. And the strongest spirits were women.

Yod was comparatively easy to subdue compared to Ramphueng. And despite everything Ramphueng did to weak Kantika's spirit, she found the strength to defend her son against a centuries old spirit time & time again. And I will throw hands if I have to explain Grandma Si's strength.

The entire fucking point of that was that a (grand)mother's love is stronger than death itself.

And Jane's love for her brother is so strong that she fights spirits she can't see the way Jett can. More to the point, she's not just fighting for Jett, she's also fighting for Khem. Cos she loves him, too, & love is the only reason Jane needs to decide to fight a centuries old spirit & a literal death curse.

Speaking of love, Jett, Charn, Khem & Pharan all share a love that lasts across multiple lifetimes. In their previous lives, Jett, Charn & Khem were women. Jin & Da were in fact women who only loved women. No, they didn't get a happy ending but that was very clearly a commentary on the homophobia of the time period & a condemnation of it. Jett & Charn don't get a happy ending this time cos they reincarnated as men, they get a happy ending this time cos progress has been made. The message of their story is that it can get better.

As for Khem, he loved Pharan & only Pharan as both Khemmika & Khemjira. Which is a pretty blatant statement of the fact that Khem loves the soul not the body. And Pharan reinforces this since Pawat was also a man. Whatever form Khem's soul takes, it will always be Khem that Pharan's soul loves.

Which is a major "fuck you" to both the idea of heteronormativity & the idea of gender-essentialism. The message is that gender is irrelevant to the existence of love. Whatever the gender, the love still exists.

Related: once again, Jin, Da & Khemmika weave a narrative about a woman's love being stronger than death.

Pharan doesn't count. He started this reincarnation cycle as a literal god. And he's the only man to have clear memories of his past life without some sort of intervention. Pharan is an anomaly. And the fact that he's the only man shown to love the same soul from one lifetime to the next, who's spirit can stand against death? The man had to start as a literal god to manage what the women did with the strength of love alone.

Yes several female characters die but the narrative makes it clear that death isn't the end of their story, it's only the start of a new chapter. Their stories go on.

And the last we see of Jane, she's taking the piss out of Kachen who's tripping over his own damn feet trying to appease her. Jane is a badass big sister who values love & loyalty above all else & knows exactly how much she's worth.

We don't see Prim but learn that not only is she still teaching but that she's happy to have Khem join her faculty & she moved past whatever she was hung up on about Pharan & did it with complete grace, she took Pharan's "no" as an answer, didn't fall into any of the usual "obsessed dramatic female" tropes bls usually display & walked away with her dignity in tact. It's specifically said that not only has Prim spoken freely of Khem joining her faculty but that he's also invited to her wedding & not as Pharan's plus one. That woman is a class act.

And as for the bullshit of Khem being tradwife coded?? Did you miss the part where he has a job as a professor right out of uni?? And that he's not the only one who chose to settle in Ubon. Charm & Jett did too & Jane clearly spends enough time there to be comfortable in the community.

Khem may have taken Pharan's name when they got married but think about Khem's history with family abandonment & not feeling like be belongs anywhere. Khem's choice was saying that he not only feels like he belongs with Pharan but that he believes Pharan won't abandon him. Khem let go of his family history & the pain he experienced & chose to build a kinder world for his own family.

Also he does absolutely nothing to help Pharan when he realises what their son did to Pharan's food. He just laughs. And Pharan says he's still going to east cos "our son made this for me."

Pharan is so goddamned whipped for his husband & their kids.