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A small Bad Buddy meta
After much reading and rewatching I just had to say...
We see pat use the four signs on ink and then see pa use it too. What stood out for me was that while they thought they were using it to test the other person's feelings, they were unwittingly using it on themselves. And we see the dichotomy so clearly, because pa confirms her own feelings in the process while pat doesn't respond to those signs himself. I've seen a lot of y'all say how he wasn't too disappointed when ink didn't react but note he didn't react either and he must have realised that. That the feelings he once felt weren't exactly the same and we see him wonder a bit as to what changed.
He's contemplating this when he's at the instrument shop and pran arrives and automatically realises. Here we see him use the signs not on pran but on himself! It just shows how he understood that the signs are better when used on oneself because only you truly know how you feel about someone, whereas the other person may not openly react to your signs. And this is proven by how pran nor ink reacted when the signs were used because they were both repressing and hiding their crushes, obviously they are not going to let on that they have feelings, they were anyway finding it difficult to do so(pran in the hallway when pat gives him his guitar...his face was such a giveaway and ink at the restaurant with pa ..again her face after pa helped her with the dirt in her eye was telling)..so both have their guards up.
So here pat notices how he himself reacts to pran in the context of how their relationship has been going and it sort of falls into place. It explains not just his behaviour but also pran. Because pran could easily cut him off and not associate at all with him, he could have moved out of the form if he actually wanted to..the only reason he is staying then and keeping up their secret association must be because of something pat is just coming to put his finger on. Its here he realises that they shouldn't even be friends with the way their families work and now he questions..what exactly are they? And we see that so beautifully communicated at the end of the episode on the rooftop.
Coming back to pat noticing him response to the four signs...he notices his feelings now and the only reason he hasn't so far was because he probably didn't think it was possible.....for him to like also like boys and for that boy to be pran. But that's why we get the flashbacks and all the things they went through in high school to show that pat always did like pran but he never got a chance to explore those feelings and because he never expected them. What is so amazing and one of the highlights of this show, is that he doesn't for one moment grudge himself his feelings. He doesn't beat himself up or question it, he accepts that sexuality is fluid and understands that he can like whoever he wants. This says so much about his character and it was at this point at which we all fell for pat (cause by then we were all already gone for pran) and it was after this that the "walking green flag" posts started showing. The way in which they portrayed Pat's character arc was so true to a realistic experience of understanding fluid sexuality, I cannot stop applauding.