#taipatts

So the connection between Patts and Tai has been going on forever. Even when he wasn't talking him through the rain they were still communicating and Patts was still the one to save him from his own silence and from his own pain and he was one of the reasons Patts felt so much compassion and love for other people even while he was dating Nara.

Soulmates aren't a thing of destiny, soulmates are the people who make in our life that matter. Soulmates are the people we find who change our lives regardless of the connection or how you met or whether you've seen each other's faces or heard each other's voices.

Soulmates are made. Soulmates are the people who love you and who you love in return. Soulmates may not be chosen but they are not destined either. Soulmates are just another expression of love.

Patts climbed a mountain for Tai. Patts carried on a path out of that mountain. Patts waited two years. Patts lived in silence for two years. Patts waited and Patts was patient and Patts let their relationship go slow and he was always there for Tai but they have one fight, one real fight, and Tai just vanishes and he doesn't just vanish, he goes and talks to the reason they fought, he goes and he is sweet and kind and cute to the person who hurt them the most but gives Patts nothing.

Of course Patts leaves heartbroken and turns to his friends but also turns to the one thing that Tai has always done... leaving.

It is Patts' turn to let his silence be heard. It is Patts' turn to be chased and to be found. It is Patts' turn for patience and silence and pain and comfort.

It is Patts turn to be chosen, just as he chose Tai.

Because La Pluie is entirely about the idea that any belief in destiny and fate are what hurt love. The more you believe in fate and destiny, the more you are going to be hurt and reluctant to love.

So how does this relate to Lomfon, who says he doesn't believe in fate or destiny in anyway?

He talks about the keychain's importance and the person, who he doesn't know, being the one who saved his life. And that's a lot like Tai remembering the anonymous notes and gifts that saved him during the turmoil of his parent's divorce

So there's a direct connection between those two concepts. And now there's a direct connection of the soulmates in the rain and the hearing loss. And now we're taking a close look at that idea that all these assumptions about who you're going to love and who you're meant to love keep hurting people.

Lomfon is about to face a crisis next week. He is faced with hearing voices in the rain that should be his soulmates but already have each other and his own feelings towards Tien that he has yet to acknowledge (even to himself, I suspect) while still holding onto his crush on Tai.

And the keychain has to matter somewhere in this. That keychain came to him at a time that he desperately needed it and is connected to his first love. Who is his first love? Just like Tai and Patts, his first love is Tien.

But just like Tai and Patts, neither of them knows it.

They fell in love before they know each other. They gave each other love without knowing who they were loving would forever in their lives.

It's destiny but it's also not destiny because all destiny does is give you the chance, all fate does is give the choices.

You have to make them. Lomfon and Tai both had to, have to, make their choices.

Patts and Tien both fell in love without fate but Tai and Lomfon each have something that matters to them and holds them back. They are the ones that have to choose the love that destiny has offered them, that has to open their hands and their hearts to what fate is giving them.

Tai was so attached to the idea of his soulmate and his fear of losing him that he never even tried to explore love. Lomfon is so detached from the idea of fate and destiny and soulmates but still holds onto this keychain and the first love that saved him alongside his crush on Tai.

But both Patts and Tien simply fall in love. They aren't looking for soulmates or for destiny or for fate. They are simply there for love. Patts had Nara but also fell for Tai not knowing who he was and willing to leave his soulmate for this love he found. Tien might be confused by the entire experience but he isn't trying to resist the feelings.

Soulmates and the ideas of soulmates has only ever gotten in the way of their love stories because destiny and fate aren't just placed in front of you. They're a choice you have.

Love is a choice.

Patts and Tien have been taking care of them, respecting their boundaries, talking to them, giving them advice, working with them, helping them, supporting them. They have been carrying their relationship on their shoulders and in their own pain.

But now it's time for Tai and Lomfon to see the work they're doing and to give them back the same effort.

Tai will find Patts and give him the reassurance, give him the choice that he needs him to make. He will find him and he will let him know that he is loved and that he is not alone in this despite their broken soulmate connection.

Lomfon will make a film to show Tien he is loved and he will give him the chance to be seen by the world for who he truly and absolutely is, the caring and compassionate and brash and loving young man that Lomfon has realized he loved.

Love is a choice.

Love is a verb.

And now Tai and Lomfon will show that they understand that love is what you do and what you say and what you choose and not just what happens to you.

Love is not destiny or fate.

There so much there about both Tai and Patts and ended Lomfon and Tien. Tai and Lomfon are just starting to realize that love is a choice and they're both taking their time but also enjoying that knowledge while Tien and Patts have always known that love is a choice and so are the ones suffering while they wait to be chosen.

The show is doing very interesting things with choice and action and love being represented by both and a failing being to love without to those two things, to love without choosing or acting always hurts the one we love.

I was wrong about the keychain.

BUT.

It's because the message is different than I expected.

This one isn't as much as about the choices but about the romance genre was a whole, the idea of that one accidental meeting that leads to love and romance and everything else we see so often in other romances.

Yes, Patts and Tai originally met through the same kind of idea but who does it matter now? They made their promises and then broke them all the same and that bond that was the soulmate bond is no longer anything at all.

Taii and Lomfon had the exact kind of meetcute the so many shows do. They bumped into each other, one person saved the other person and then rushed off before they could exchange names. They left only a token that symbolized love to the other person who never got to thank them for saving their lives.

So romantic!

Only... it's not.

Because Lomfon didn't know who Tai was and while he may have felt like he loved the person who saved him... Tai never thought of him again. All Tai did was push him from the road while he was panicking about his own father and then run off after him, never finding his keychain again.

Life-changing for Lomfon... but nothing for Tai.

And now here they are adults, meeting up, soulmates for about a week, maybe? and nothing more...

Fate and destiny are ideas. They are concepts and you can cling to them so tightly that they can destroy the rest of your love and the chance you need to take to make a choice.

The keychain, just like the soulmates in the rain, shows fate and destiny and clinging to what you think they mean gets in the way of actually loving people, of finding the people you love and having the chance to love them as well.

And we have all aspects of this hurt and the way this belief stops people.

Tai is the most obvious. He avoided his soulmate because of his parent's divorce but he also avoided all other relationships because he knew he had a soulmate. Fate and destiny put him into a corner where nothing was acceptable and so he did nothing in return.

Patts had a girlfriend but was rejected by her, in the end, because she believed in soulmates in a way he didn't. And now that he's faced with Tai having a possible second soulmate, he remembers her jealousy and her fear and wants to be reassured that he is chosen... something that Tai's inherent belief in soulmates doesn't allow for in their relationship.

Lomfon has always believed in fate and destiny for all he claimed not to believe in soulmates. He clung to they keychain and the idea of his first love and when he became soulmates with Tai and heard the story, it was confirmation of everything he believed and even the start of his feelings for Tien nothing could compete.

Tien believes in soulmates but he would be the one most likely to bend, most likely to see other ways to love... but he never had a soulmate. No fate, no destiny, just him and his choices and his feelings and his love and he got no choices at all because all the people around him are tied down by fate and destiny, leaving him isolated and alone.

He wants Patts to hear him in his silence and so silence is all he'll give him until something changes in him, not in others.

Tai and Patts both showed each other kindness and compassion before coming together romantically or as soulmates... but neither one could learn of that kindness and compassion until they had chosen to live each other regardless.

But Lomfon isn't making a choice. He is torn between Tai and Tien and he cannot make up his mind without hurting them. And that is what will happen because choice is the most powerful force in this world, choice and kindness and compassion.

That is why we won't find out about the keychain until after Lomfon makes his choice.

Because you don't get to know everything until you've made up your mind with what you have. You have to choose without knowing everything because you will never know everything until you make a choice, because everything is not there to be known until you make a choice.

There is kindness, love and compassion in Lomfon's past but he cannot learn who gave it to him until he chooses his love in the present because the shape of that love is still undetermined and so the kindness in the past cannot be completed.

Tai and Patts are soulmates but their connection is made powerful because they chose each other regardless, without knowing that, they chose each other with kindness and compassion.