#ninew pinya

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Fight Night

ALRIGHT! Life is wilder and crazier than normal and I have finally had a singular moment to breathe so it is time to do my first scene breakdown of Only Friends. Jojo and co have been feeding me so well, a literal feast of good sex choreo, hand placements, and puppy dog eyes that it has been impossible for me to figure out where I want to start.  But the end of episode five was just so expertly executed I couldn’t not talk about it, the build up, the explosion, the cool down?! Zero people in this production came to play, they showed up on set day one, gave some of their best performances, and just went about their goddamn day. [insert thirty more minutes of showered praise here]. 

So let’s get in to it: 

The Calm Before the Storm

We’re going to start with Sand and Ray before shit goes downhill, at a moment of genuine connection. This is not the first time we have seen them connect. The first of their peaceful, friendlier interactions are paid for by Ray but Sand quickly moves towards free hang outs with Ray after he gets to know Ray a bit better. I think we can all agree that 95% of the time that Sand and Ray are spending with each other, Ray is asking to be serviced (either seeking out sex, or being fed, clothed, or protected by Sand) [and I do think it is pretty telling that Ray’s idea of friendship is being taken care of in every way, and that Sand fully calls that out as being the role of a father]. But the 5% they do have of these moments of getting to know each other, primarily center around their own family dynamics, but in Episode 5, Ray does start dipping his toes in to getting to know more about Sand’s own hopes and dreams.

Where before Ray wasn’t really interested in Sand’s backstory as much as Sand was interested in Ray’s, now on the balcony of Sand’s dingy apartment, Ray finally starts to ask Sand about himself. And Ray is locked in, just absolutely attentive to Sand as he is talking, rarely looking away, asking follow up questions, and making statements based off of what Sand is saying. Things seem to be flowing smoothly, Ray seems slightly sad that Sand doesn’t know his father, he has an actual smile on his face with he tells Sand that he thinks his mother is really cool, and that he respects her. And of course he would respect the relationship that Sand and his mother have, the obvious love they have for one another, because he never got that from his own family. 

Sand has asked about Ray’s family before now (they talked about Ray’s mother in Ep. 2) but when they were first starting to get to know eachother, Ray brushed off any further conversation around his mother’s death. But that willingness to be honest with Sand is beginning to shift. Ray sits there listening to a birth story that runs parallel to his own, a mother with an unexpected pregnancy after a hookup, a father that wasn’t really intending on having a child, and Ray is faced with what his life could have possibly looked like if his mother was a different person. 

And they’ve been hanging out all day, Ray has seen much more of Sand’s personal life, his family life, it’s Sand’s birthday, they are cross faded, and Sand asks Ray once again what happened to his mother, and Ray takes the opportunity to be honest. He watches Sand refill his glass, and he says “she drank herself to death”. 

Now, personally, this is a very important moment to me in terms of both understanding Ray better as a character, and getting Sand and Ray to connect to each other more. A really important thing to remember about substance use disorders is that they are aware of the health consequences of long term substance use. Ray knows his mother drank herself to death, Ray knows that alcohol in the quantities that he is consuming are dangerous, and he cannot stop drinking. Ray does not have any good coping mechanisms for when his life gets hard, (and we will see a much stronger example of that near the end of this scene), but in the build up to the blow out, we are taking some time to re-establish that Ray has a drinking problem. And we are gaining a bit of further insight in to the genetic history of Ray’s own mental health problems. 

I’d have to go back and rewatch all the episodes to be completely certain, but I think so far the only person we haven’t see call Ray a burden is Mew, Mew who knows that Ray tried to kill himself two years ago, Mew who remembers that Ray said if he was gone he wouldn’t be a burden anymore on his goodbye phone call. I mention his mostly because, if that is true, then that is an indication to me that Ray’s other friends don’t really know that much about him. They don’t know how deeply the idea that he is a burden to everyone around him is rooted in to his psyche. They probably don’t know anything about Ray’s relationship to his mother, after all, she died when he was still in high school. 

We know from the end of Episode 4, that Ray has shifted his interests from Mew to Sand. That is not to say that he is not still in love with Mew, or that he wouldn’t drop Sand as soon as possible if presented the opportunity to date Mew, at least from my perception. But what it does indicate to me, is that Ray is beginning to at least consider Sand someone that care about him, that will listen to him, that will be an emergency contact, and as such Ray is more willing to be upfront and honest about who he is as a person. How his mind works, what his place in his own family is, what his own connection to family is. 

Ray senses he is bringing the mood down, and makes a comment to change the subject, shutting down any potential deeper conversation or exposure to pity that he could have with Sand. We know Sand has been down bad for Ray since like…Dick Down 1, but he is really just embarrassingly obvious with his interest in Ray. The way his face goes slack jawed when he looks at Ray’s face for a second too long? Your cool guy persona is in the fucking gutter. ANYWAY, the point of this is that Sand and Ray are vibing, having a good time, connecting, Ray is opening up more, and Sand is falling deeper in to this infatuation at the first sign of Sad Boi Hours when we cut to Nick and Boston. 

Boston, who has had a genuinely peaceful day thus far. He got some work done for school, he and Nick clarified their relationship to one another, he made out in the pool, and he’s looking to reward Nick for changing by asking if he can stay over. We know that Boston has been blackmailed by someone, we know that as a result of that Boston has decided to “settle down” a bit as it were, spend more time with people who he can talk with afterwards. (If you ask me, this isn’t really what Boston wants, it’s just how he is trying to justify laying low with Nick, someone he thinks he has control over and someone I don’t think Boston suspects is capable of blackmail). 

It is Boston who suggests staying over (I am not going to dig too much further in to his choice to ask Nick, but I will just look respectfully towards the thought that he doesn’t want to be found). 

Anyway, Boston asks if he can stay over, and Nick smiles like he’s won something, and leads Boston inside, where they both promptly interrupt Sand and Ray. Boston’s face lights up when he sees Ray there, but not in any way that indicates that Boston is actually excited to see his friend. More so, that he has gotten +1 Information in his notes on Ray’s comings and goings. 

Boston sees Sand and Ray, and he is scheming already. The very first fact we learn about Boston in Only Friends is that he is The Hunter, and while we have primarily seen this in the way that he hunts-for-that-d, Boston is a hunter through and through, he doesn’t just aim and fire, he plays with his prey. He toys with Top and Nick’s emotions to try to manipulate them in to what he wants, and he sees Ray and Sand together here, and the douchebag gears begin to turn. 

But, Boston needs to know what these two are to each other first, so he can figure out his best approach to fucking with the two of them, so he asks:

“What’s with you and Sand?” 

“What? We’re just friends,” Ray says with a smile and a small laugh, like he is trying to brush off any attempt for Boston to think of Sand and him as anything more. Sand is of course, devastated (and it is at this point I would like to make a tangential remark about the brilliance of the cinematography in this entire scene because it frequently moves between blurry and clear, like the camera is having as difficult of a time focusing on any of the characters as the characters themselves are, since they are under the influence). 

Nick, having already interrupted the SandRay foreplay once today, tries to pull Boston along quickly, to give everyone in the apartment some motherfucking privacy, but no no, when it comes to every other person in the world besides himself, Boston does not do privacy. So he cockblocks himself and SandRay and suggests they all party instead. 

The Build Up

There is this moment of awkward tension, that Nick tries to break by saying that Boston is bothering Sand and Ray, but Sand, having just been reminded that Ray does not think of him as anything more than friends, agrees to all hang out together, thus shifting the mood between himself and Ray from sexual to casual. 

And Boston? 

Oh Boston has already won. 

Now, before I get further in to breaking down this episode, I just need to take a minute and just give a huge MASSIVE shout out to Neo motherfucking Trai. He has absolutely been destroying this role, he is clearly having such a good fucking time. But I don’t care about that part (I do but it’s not the relevant aspect here), I care about how much of Boston’s character, Boston’s internal monologue Neo reveals through Boston’s eyes. 

Boston has been watching how Ray and Sand interact with one another, he saw them make out, he saw Ray grab a cookie from Sand’s mouth with his own, and now, he is sitting here, with Nick pressed up against his chest watching Ray flirt with and cling to Sand. That boy has mischief in his eyes, that boy is a hunter and he smells fresh meat. Boston is The Drama, and while he’s in the middle of his own blackmail saga, he’s found new toys to pass the time until the dust settles. 

This is the face of a man who will cause problems on purpose. This is the face of a man who does not give two shits about upsetting the people in front of him. Boston is a miserable, manipulative piece of shit, and he will drag everyone down to his level. 

I am showering praise in Neo’s general direction, anyway, Boston is studying Ray and Sand’s interactions, the way they talk with one another, all the little things that point towards there being some genuine feelings. 

“The cookie’s getting to me”

“I told you to hold back”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not driving” 

“Can I stay over?”

“More often than this I’m going to start making you pay rent”

“Go ahead”

They aren’t talking like this is a one time thing, they aren’t talking like they are just fuck buddies. The way that Ray and Sand are slightly bickering/scolding each other, the way that Ray just so absentmindedly reaches to put his arm around Sand, it reads a very particular way. Especially when you add on the fact that Nick interrupted them in the kitchen that morning. 

Now, something happens here that could have been good. If Boston was a good person, if Boston actually cared about his friends, if Boston wasn’t such a fucking Masshole. Because Sand has been very obviously dopey and doe eyed for Ray for ages and the lines between lust and love have been blurring heavily for him. But when they started fucking, Ray and Sand both discussed and established the nature of their relationship. Only friends. No love, only sex. Friendship can come from sex. Sand wouldn’t take someone like Ray as his boyfriend (liar). But things have changed since their first hook up, at least for Sand. Sand is catching feelings and Sand has not talked with Ray about how his feelings are shifting. 

And Nick actually opens up the potential for Sand and Ray to have that conversation when he asks “Are you and Ray going out?” 

See, Nick is definitely nasty4nasty when it comes to his desire to be with Boston, and Nick is by no means whatsoever a pure person, the man bugged Boston’s car and kept the recording for fuck’s sake, but he is also not an asshole the way that Boston is an asshole. Nick isn’t asking Sand if he and Ray are going out because he wants to fuck with them, he’s asking because he is genuinely curious, because this ain’t the first time that he’s walked in on them.

But don’t pay attention to Mark Pakin’s body language here, because Nick is obviously drunk, relaxed, content, and curious. Look at Neo. Look at Boston. Look at the way Boston is looking at Nick when Nick asks if they are going out:

And look at the way Boston turns his gaze upon Sand and Ray the second Nick finishes asking the question. Boston is picking apart every action, every expression, every movement between Sand and Ray. Boston is calculating. This is not a dude that is just turning to look at the next speaker in a conversation. He’s staring deep into their souls to figure out how they actually feel about each other so he can decide if one or both of them cares enough about each other to be hurt by him.

So naturally, the next shot we get is Ray drunkenly cozying up to Sand, resting his head on Sand’s shoulder, in a way that feels very couple-y, in a way that feels different to the casual arm Boston throws over Nick like he’s got his prize on a leash. 

“You two talk all lovey-dovey like you are a thing, you know?”

Consider the fact that the second that Nick starts saying “you two talk all lovey-dovey, you know?” Ray peels himself off Sand’s shoulder and stares at Nick. And he’s smiling casually, like he finds the question funny, though he doesn’t fully break physical contact with Sand, still resting his arm across Sand’s shoulders. 

Sand is taken aback for a second, like he’s been caught, but he knows that he is not supposed to be falling for Ray. He knows he isn’t supposed to be wanting a relationship with Ray. He knows that this is not the time or space for a “what are we?” conversation, so he puts on a smile and squeezes Ray’s cheeks and says: 

“Look at his face. Look how squishy he looks. He looks just like a dog my mother has.” (Which we can interpret as Sand saying look at him, we cuddle cause he’s cute, I think of him like a pet). Associating Ray with his mother’s dog for me, feels like a way for Sand to try to get Boston off his back, to put his feelings in alignment with how Boston typically views his hook ups, as pets, as toys, as prey. But Sand’s face betrays him more than Boston’s ever could the very second that Ray says “I’m not a dog and I’m not his boyfriend” 

Sand has a moment of quiet devastation hearing that, even though he SHOULD KNOW BETTER. He should not be so upset about an objectively true statement. Sand may think of Ray as special, and may want to date Ray, and may want Ray to be his boyfriend, but they have never revisited their initial conversation about the nature of their relationship. As far as Ray knows, Sand would never take someone like him to be his boyfriend. Sand is just getting caught up in his feelings and this brief reprieve from the hard and labrous and exhausting life he leads is clouding his judgment.   

And Boston goes in for the kill 

“Ray, I bet Sand likes you. I can tell.”

And here is the question of the hour, a question I personally do not believe we have the full answer to, why the fuck is Boston targeting Sand? (beyond the fact he finds it fun). Boston and Sand clearly know each other, Boston knows Sand well enough to know that the weed he is smoking is not his typical supply. Boston came in to Sand’s home, smoked Sand’s weed, and then went straight for Sand’s throat. 

And Sand is a little mad and more than a little anxious. The way First plays the emotions in this moment is brilliant, you can see all these little moments of Sand feeling put on the spot, the way his mouth moves like he is trying (and failing) to maintain his composure. Like he is looking for an escape route, but can’t find one. Especially because Boston will not let him escape, explicitly calling Sand in to the conversation:

The Blow Up

“So what is it, Sand? Do you like him? My buddy here has both the looks and the dough. His type is hard to come by, you know?”

Sand tries to dodge, by putting on his logical person hat for the first time in what is most likely weeks. “Now that you said that” he starts with Ray literally moving his hand to brush it gently against Sand’s shoulders. “My answer has to be yes now, doesn’t it? But if you really want to know the answer, ask me again when I am sober” 

Sand is willing to let Boston win this, to concede here, to admit to liking Ray as if forced to agree expressly because Boston is poking at him about it. But he will not engage in an important conversation like the one Boston is setting up for him and Ray about what they are to each other when they are under the influence and when they are in public. 

Nick is like “alright”, but that is not enough for Boston. (SERIOUSLY LOOK AT NEO, LOOK AT HOW MUCH FUCKING DISATISFACTION IS BEHIND THOSE GODDAMN EYES! Jojo and Ninew fucking thank you for giving me Neo in this role, he’s been craving complex roles since his time on The Eclipse and I’m glad he’s getting to have some). 

Boston is watching, waiting, wanting to see how Ray reacts to Boston speaking for Sand. Unfortunately for everyone, but Boston especially, Ray does not have the reaction I think Boston is expecting. Instead of Ray getting uncomfortable, instead of Ray pushing himself away from Sand, instead of Ray doubling down on him and Sand not being boyfriends, instead of Ray reacting negatively to the idea that this “not his type” poor boy might actually like him he leans in close, he smiles wide, he teases Sand a little in a way that does not feel cruel. 

So Boston has to escalate. Boston has been stalking his prey in the grass for as long as he has been in this apartment, and now it is time to strike. 

“Even if you really do like Ray, I doubt it will work out between the two of you. Ray’s whole ass is owned by Mew” 

BOOM. Instant kill. Boston just made this entire encounter go from 0 to 100. Especially because (as far as we know), he has no goddamn idea about the dent in Ray’s relationship to Mew, and his realization about how Ray and Mew’s feelings are never going to align. 

Ray did not spend all that time sitting in the bathtub staring at a keychain and a Poor Boy shirt for nothing. Personally, I am uncertain where Ray stands with Sand, I think Ray is probably chasing the endorphins of a good and easy lay. I think he is drawn to Sand’s inherent need to act as a caretaker. But as I’ve said before, Ray uses Sand far more as a service provider than he does a person he wants to make genuine connections with, only recently has he started to open up more and seem more interested in Sand as a person.

But Boston is poking at an extremely sore spot. A spot I don’t think Boston considers as a nuclear option, because I don’t know that Boston is aware that Ray tried to kill himself. I don’t think Boston knows that Mew came and saved his life. I don’t think Boston is truly aware of just how deeply important to Ray Mew is because he seems to be one of the first people to make Ray feel less alone. 

Immediate anger. Boston has struck a nerve, gotten a bullseye. If he actually cared at all for his “friends” and their feelings he could have stopped there. Boston is a voyeur, a photographer, all he does all the time is watch, record, manipulate bodies. He can read people well, but he is cocky and overconfident about his own understanding of the situations that have occurred between people in his social circle. If Boston cared, he would see that Ray just turned on a dime, that the loose, casual, fuzzy, flirty person that was just wrapped around Sand has turned in to a tense, focused ball of rage. ““What the hell are you saying, Ton?” 

“What? Sand doesn’t know you’ve been in love with your best friend for years? But Mew is with Top now. Someone beat you to it, man.” 

So…my Dad has this habit of saying shitty things, and over the years we have made safewords with him to tell him when he is approaching saying something out of pocket and he should change the subject (“pothole”), and for when he has said something out of pocket and should probably stop talking immediately (“sinkhole”). My father consistently blows right through “sinkhole” and continues to dig his hole deeper. Boston reminds me of my father. 

Pothole: “Ray’s whole ass is owned by Mew” 

Pothole: “Mew is with Top now. Someone beat you to it, man”  

I honestly don’t feel like I need to use too much space here on Sand’s reaction, because I read a really good post by @bird-inacage about how this revelation hits Sand hard because he may feel stripped of his dignity and see himself as a fool. 

“What a shame for my pal” 

Shout out to Jojo and co for this shot of Nick. Nick who looks horrified. Nick, who I don’t think has seen this behavior of Boston’s up close. I mean, he knows that Boston has something on Ray and Mew, he didn’t really seem to care at that point. But Nick doesn’t really know Mew, Nick only cares about Top insofar as he is competition for Boston’s attention, he’s not really friends with Ray. But he is friends with Sand. And the implications from the beginning of the episode that Ray has stayed over and hung out with Sand all day multiple times, feels like Nick is at least starting to develop some modicum of care/friendship with Ray. And Nick is sitting there, watching Boston be cruel. Cruel to people that Nick actually cares about. Cruel to people that Nick doesn’t think deserve it, and the wheels are turning, so there isn’t much more he can do about it. 

“Oh wait. My bad. I remember you and Mew making out. Did you take his virginity?” (Sinkhole. Boston should probably shut his goddamn little whore mouth at this point)

“Ton, what the shit are you going on about?” Ray asks, shooting up from the ground and in to a standing position [and lord almighty is Khaotung just a powerhouse actor between the way he is able to physically embody Ray’s anger, and just look and act drunk all the time). This has turned in to a fight, Boston has riled Ray up, Boston has already punished both Ray and Sand at this point. But he has to make everyone around him as miserable as humanly possible in as little time as he can, so: 

“Oh? I saw everything. I took some photos, actually.” (SINKHOLE. No seriously dude you need to shut the fuck up right now). 

“What the hell did you do that for, bastard?” Ray is shifting his weight, Khaotung’s breathing has changed. You can fucking tell Ray’s heart is racing, that a blind rage is seeping in to his bones. Ray is livid.

“What? I just want to keep track of my best friends’ romantic moments. Was I wrong?”

 

(Spoiler alert to those reading this post for the body language breakdown: Boston does not actually give a single flying fuck if he is wrong)

“Keep track?” 

And finally someone punches Boston straight in the mouth! And even still! EVEN STILL Boston cannot shut the fuck up. Boston is righteous in the worst possible way. Boston is hurting everyone around him for the sake of “honesty”, “clarity”, “visibility” in a way that Boston himself in his own life actively avoids. With Nick he keeps their relationship status unclear, with Nick he refuses to get photographed, with Nick he hides the fact that he hooked up with Top. But Boston will air everyone else’s dirty laundry, Boston will record and photograph everyone else’s private moments, Boston will give facts as best as he knows them when literally anyone else is involved:

“Sand has every right to know. Ray is in love with Mew. They even screwed! But good thing you came along, Sand. He needs to get over Mew”  

“What does it have to do with you?” Ray is still fucking pissed, and this is a really important and relevant question to ask. Boston has no place in Ray and Mew’s private business. Boston has no right to record them without their permission. Boston has no right to have this conversation about Ray’s feelings with Sand. And Boston does not answer this question. He will not answer this question, because for Boston everyone else’s business is his, and his business is no one’s. 

Now, do I think Boston is lying about Ray and Mew having sex? No. I think there are actually a number of layers to that statement. I think we are either a) setting up to have a killer conversation about people’s perceptions of sex/people’s perceptions of what counts as sex or b) that Boston fully thinks he saw Ray and Mew do something sexual when they actually didn’t [think Ray throwing up while doubling over Mew so it looks like he’s giving head]. And it is worth noting that Ray doesn’t deny the statement, although this doesn’t necessarily mean anything because there are lots of words and fists and vitriol being thrown around at this point, confirming or denying any sexual relationship with Mew is not really going to do anything to calm this situation. 

“If you’re not in love with him anymore, then why did you get so mad?” Boston asks, and I love that this is phrased as a gotcha! moment. Boston thinks asking why someone got mad enough to punch him in the face after he said he was keeping track of his friends' romantic lives by holding on to pictures he had taken of them in secret is definitive proof that he is correct. Ray got real mad about Boston’s doucheness, and that must mean that Ray is love with Mew. 

And he isn’t totally wrong. We know that Ray is in love with Mew, we know part of why Ray is in love with Mew. We know that Sand is now filling a similar role in Ray’s life as the only person who is willing to take care of him. But this question for me highlights a huge aspect of Boston’s character that I do not think we appreciate enough. 

Boston does not know everything, and he acts like he does. 

Ray is getting so mad at Boston because what Boston is saying is true AND Ray is getting so mad at Boston because Ray almost compromised his relationship with Mew by kissing him when he was sleeping. Ray is in a weird place right now in relation to how he sees Mew and how Mew sees him. At the moment, Mew is patient, kind, and forgiving, and willing to maintain their friendship and accept Ray’s apology as long as Ray can get it through his head that Mew is never going to see him as a potential romantic partner. If Ray cannot do that, Ray loses a very important person in his life. (And we see Mew punch Ray in the promo for next week, my hunch is that Nick tells Ray about Boston and Top and Ray tries to warn Mew about Top and Mew takes that as Ray lying to break them up, but that’s beside the point). 

Boston may be correct that Ray is in love with Mew, but Boston has no idea what the fuck he is talking about when it comes to Ray’s current relationship to Mew. Boston does not know that Mew and Ray are in a rocky relationship right now because of Ray’s feelings. Boston thinks that he is right that Ray is in love with Mew because Ray gets so mad so quick, because he does not understand that a huge part of what is riling Ray up is that Boston is poking at a deep injury he thinks is just a flesh wound. 

And still after Boston has gotten a fist to his face, and swung back; even after he has shoved Nick out of the way so hard Nick fell on to the couch; even after they had blown off some steam and were de-escalating to the point of screaming at each other rather than beating eachother up. Boston 

Still 

Can 

NOT 

Quit

“Oh, are you going to be two-timing?”

Boston is literally just…going in to a house that is not his and lobbing grenades all over the place cause he’s fucking bored. Cause he sets Ray off again, leaving Sand, screaming at Boston and Ray to stop fighting (IN HIS OWN FUCKING HOUSE, AFTER SHARING HIS OWN FUCKING WEED). 

Boston listens to Sand, Boston walks away, Boston goes to Nick’s room. But the look in his eye? 

He is not done with this. Boston is not surprised that Ray got mad, Boston was reveling in Ray’s reaction, but I think Ray’s rage went beyond what Boston had anticipated, and this feels to me like an act of war. 

The Cool Down

Boston and Nick remove themselves from the scene and Ray and all his infinitely perfected coping skills rushes to chug as much alcohol as he can. 

Again, thank you to Jojo and co for spending this amount of time highlighting Ray’s addiction, reminding us that Ray is not just a party boy, but is an alcoholic. Ray’s using alcohol to calm his nerves, possibly to forget what happened, and definitely because he has no idea what else to do but run to the most comforting item he can. 

We cut to the silence of Sand’s bedroom. Sand and Ray laying awkwardly side by side. Ray, to his credit, does try to comfort Sand 

“Hey, don’t listen to what Boston said. If there’s something you want to know, ask me” 

The problem is, while Boston does not have the full context for the depth at which he has just hurt Ray, he is still right. Ray loves Mew, and if Ray didn’t, he would not have gotten mad the way he did. Ray can say whatever he wants here, Ray can ask to be trusted by Sand to tell him what he wants to know. But Sand has seen enough of Ray’s behavior, been jerked around enough by Boston, heard too many times in too short a period that Ray does not consider them anything more than friends, and so Sand is back to boundaries and barriers. 

Sand lost sight of himself, and he fell too quickly for a deeply broken boy that he cannot fix, and who is not emotionally available enough to be a good fit for him right now. 

And God, for as much as Sand exists to be jerked around by the narrative and shit on and used by the wealthier characters, I see why First was picked to play this role (besides the fact that there is no one else but Khao that I think could have done Ray, and it’s hard to kick the GMMTV pair-ups.) We have not even gotten to the height of First Crying Over Problems That Are Partially His Character’s Fault in this show yet, but First is a master at microexpressions, and despite the fact that his face is pretty neutral, that Sand has put on this mask, there is just such a palpable disappointment radiating off of Sand. The shine in his eyes is dulled, I saw someone on tumblr say this really looks like the first time that Sand has seen Ray, looked at him without the rose-colored glasses. 

Sand’s mother loves him, I think he is special to her, but it is hard to feel special to someone you have to take care of. In the montage at the beginning of the episode, Sand is shown working, working, working, working and we don’t really see him interacting with other people who he isn’t providing a service to. He sings at the bar, he seems to enjoy that, he seems to have a good time with Yo and Atom, but he is only that close to them because they pay him to play there. He is providing them a service. The only classmates he is shown interacting with are clients he is selling plum wine to. It’s really possible that Sand’s only friend is Nick, and we don’t see them hanging out that much. 

And, I know there is always some contention about how any and all of these characters feel, how much or how little they are telling the truth, etc. But for me personally, I think about when Ray said that he does care about Sand’s feelings, and I at the time he said it, I don’t think he did, but I think by Episode 5 he is starting to genuinely care. 

Ray is getting better at reading Sand, Ray is trying to have a serious conversation, or at least to open the floor to one, and Sand is sad and so he isn’t saying anything, and Ray is able to tell that something is wrong. Ray wants Sand to talk to him, Ray says Sand’s name multiple times, trying to get him to answer verbally. 

And Sand can’t do it, not if he is looking at Ray, not if he has to actually face the reality of how much of a fool he has been, to fall this deep, to fall this fast, to get it in his head that he and Ray were becoming something more than friends. To actually believe for even a second that someone could think he was special. 

So he closes his eyes, and he takes a deep breath, and he says: 

“Forget it. I’m tired. One more thing…This has nothing to do with me.” 

Who is he talking to here, Ray or himself? 

Sand’s inhale in this moment is deep, it’s weary, unsteady, and sad. Sand is gathering the strength to let go of what he thought he had. He is rebuilding his walls, and placing Ray on the other side of them. He cuts Ray out completely the second he turns his back. And you can just see the guilt all over Ray’s face, you can see all these little bursts of realization moment after moment where Ray realizes that he’s losing Sand now too. Even though Sand is likely more of a consolation prize to him, an easy victim of his puppy dog eyes. 

Alone o’clock is not just for Sand, it’s for Ray too. Boston has won yet again because Boston is a miserable sack of shit lashing out because Mew and Top finally fucked and he has to make it everyone’s problem

Tagging the ephemerality squad: @lurkingshan, @waitmyturtles, @chickenstrangers, @ranchthoughts, @twig-tea, @clara-maybe-ontheroad, @distant-screaming

and my blessed mess crew: @so-much-yet-to-learn, @ginnymoonbeam, @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @neuroticbookworm, @emotionallychargedtowel because I want attention :)

#only friends the series #only friends #ofts #sandray #bostonnick #firstkhao #neomark #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #neo trai #mark pakin #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #wka long post #only friends analysis #only friends meta #ofts meta

[blmpff]

We are ready!

05.08.23

#only friends the series #ofts #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #firstkhao #neo trai #mark pakin #neomark #force jiratchapong #book kasidet #forcebook #lookjun bhasidi #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #mjtag #blmpff

[manogirl]

Yeah, learning that Ninew Pinya, the co-director of Only Friends, led the workshops for Bad Buddy, My School President, Love in the Air and The Wedding Plan EXPLAINS A LOT.

The man is CLEARLY a genius at pulling great performances and insane intimacy out of inexperienced actors. (I mean we obvs don't count Ohm and Nanon in that former category, but it sure worked in the latter.)

All hail Ninew Pinya! In P'Jojo we trust!

#only friend the series #bad buddy series #my school president #love in the air #wedding plan #ninew pinya #jojo tichakorn #in p'jojo we trust #all hail ninew pinya

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 10 EDITION -- WHEN THE HOES CAN'T CATCH A BREAK

I wrote about the hoes yesterday in response to my reaction to the Atom/Boston scandal. But really, my thoughts on hoes not being able to catch breaks in Only Friends, I think, extends to.... maybe to this entire show itself.

I thought yesterday's episode was fantastic. The acting was SPARKLING. I finally felt like I appreciated having both First and Khaotung acting together. Good LORD, Khaotung. The scene in Sand's apartment, the wailing meditation in the rehab triage. Khaotung out-Gaipa'ed himself. Utterly amazing, and First rose to the occasion as well. I also thought Book carried himself more strongly than I had seen in previous episodes -- him and Force carried their tension well in this episode.

But I wrote to @lurkingshan yesterday -- maybe typifying myself as an international fan -- that I feel a little unsettled about the direction of where this show is either going, and/or where I thought this show was going to go.

In my ask to Shan, I indicated that through ALL of the preliminary material we had available to us about OF, from the initial promos, to Jojo and team interacting on social media, the actors and the entire artistic team dropping hints -- that I had a relatively strong sense of where this show was going.

I will be honest and selfish! I was particularly excited about a potential vision from Jojo et al that having lots of sex on the part of an individual would be a decision that would possibly NOT be judged by others. I was damn excited about potentially seeing a meditation on that. It was certainly a vibe that had been easily reached in Jojo's early work in Gay OK Bangkok.

Shan wrote in her answer to me (thank you, dear friend!) that so much has shaped and likely changed the trajectory of Only Friends from its original gestation to the current editing process. This includes observations made by Jojo et al about how the fandoms have spoken about the show on social media.

Our amazing mutual, @bengiyo Sensei, went even further in separate conversation with Shan, noting even more of the various factors that have likely impacted the original vision of this show as had been proposed to us in the fandom last fall. Ben notes that the process of a show changing trajectory within its airing time is common practice. Both Shan and Ben did not hesitate to note that the presence of the shipped pairs of FirstKhao and ForceBook -- and the influence of the large fandoms surrounding these two pairs -- has very likely impacted the Only Friends storylines, to the extent of possibly demanding that the show have more linear, monogamous, and romantic stories and conclusions than were originally expected (at least, as expected from fans like myself, who were already familiar with the boundaries that Jojo usually likes to push).

While MewTop and SandRay continue to flirt with, to toe the line of more traditionally romantic conclusions (okay, maybe not MewTop as much, I'll get there in a bit) -- I feel like I've been caught by a bit of surprise that BostonNick have also been bitten by this current romance bug.

While I really did love this episode (and I'll explain why down below in a bit, besides Khao's stellar acting), I'm just feeling.... a little saddened and bogged down that Boston's ass was handed to him like that. So, Atom lies. Cheum stands up for Atom. I cannot expect Cheum to do less in that moment as a big sis, although I have very much questioned her judgment in the past (like inviting Mew's ex to their hostel Halloween party, what the fuck).

I'm sighing with a bit of regret, because in this episode, the framing of a resolution for Boston is that Nick comes back to Boston. Boston admits to Nick he's acted like an asshole, as I screenshot above, and we know that -- filming RayMew, sleeping with Top.

But I don't know, in the summation of his saying that he's done "awful things," if he's also lumping his life of engaging in casual sex, as he unwinds to Nick. I just -- I don't want Boston judging himself for having casual sex. (To @respectthepetty's point! Let the sluts slut. Why judge?)

Don't do shitty things to your friends, for sure, but if I were your mom, Boston? Have the sex. If someone's gonna judge you, it ain't me.

Are we getting an indirect judgement against Boston’s casual sex with a resolution that Nick will come back to Boston’s life? Is the show telling us that, vis à vis Nick's return, that Boston will be redeemed by.... monogamy? Is that what Cheum's and Mew's presence at the confrontation telling us? Is Boston’s ultimate resolution that he’ll have either a relationship or an LDR with Nick?

If that’s what works for the narrative device of Boston, then — okay. I will have to trust Jojo and team with that. I do NOT want to question Boston’s reaching a point of queer joy by finding love in a relationship with Nick. If Jojo and team are telling us a story that people-judged-as-sluts can find love in a relationship, then... I wasn't expecting Only Friends to go in that somewhat puritanical direction, but I'll go with it, because I trust Jojo.

But I think I am feeling a little bummed about how we may have gotten there. Because, goddamn: for once, give me a world in which casual sex is NOT judged. For heavens' sake, Cheum and Mew. Khai and I’ll sit in the corner with tears in our eyes.

My ho heart is pining for what could have been (chaos leading to a summation judgement AGAINST monogamous purity). But, anyway. None of this is ACTUALLY resolved, I need to tell my damn self; we still have two episodes left, and I’ll stop being so mewdy about it.

The other question I have floating about this episode is: what’s Mew’s motivation to get revenge against Top NOW? If he wanted to team up with Boeing to get back at Top — narratively, that may have made more sense two or three episodes ago, no? During the last episode, we saw Mew very much teetering on the edge of what he should do. His moms LOVED Top, and they missed all of Mew’s confused signals. We ended episode 9 with Mew stating to Cheum that he thought he was still in love with Top.

I appreciate a good state of confusion. Mew might still love Top. Mew might still be damn angry at Top, too. As I’ve written before, the wise Daniel Tiger has taught my kids, and so many more, that having two or more feelings is okay.

But I’m wondering about the timing of this arc. Mew plans something out with Boeing seemingly AFTER he's chosen to resolve his issues with Top. What was it about Boeing’s presence that triggered another revenge reaction in Mew? Mew’s….already been there with revenge. With Ray. And that’s done now. I don’t think I’m clear on Mew’s motivation on revenge AGAIN. Unless? Unless... I'm rubbing my hands together....

.....unless it’s to actually just SLEEP with Boeing, because come AWN, let me get to what I actually, really LOVED about this episode.

Shan indicated in her answer to me yesterday that OF was originally supposed to be constructed with GMMTV’s stable of supporting actors — your Neos, your Marks, your Papangs, your Monds.

For me? Man, Papang’s and Mond’s ENERGY was fresh to watch. I totally squealed at the possibility of BookMond. Mond is just so…..THERE, in a “why yes, look at my manly muscular shoulders, why yes, my gym membership comes with towels and high-end shower products” kinda way.

I liked Mond’s THERE-ness. I like that plants are the new Netflix.

I liked the spice of newness and curiosity in this episode. I liked seeing supporting faces, people that we know and love in Papang and Mond, doing something bold and totally different, and I love the ideas that they bring with their characters -- that Daddy Dan is very obviously in "like" with Nick; and that Boeing is truly around to fuck some damn shit up with Top, and maybe Mew.

Am I demanding this show BE ABOUT curiosity and newness? Unfortunately, that's what turned me on in this episode, and I admittedly would loooove to see more of it as this series winds down.

No, I do not have the right to DEMAND where this show goes. Westerners demanding things of queer Asian artists is an absolute NO for me.

But I think, as I look back at the trajectory of the last few episodes, that I had hoped the show would be less about the branded pairs. I honestly didn't think Only Friends was gonna be about the shipping. I thought loose lips were gonna sink the ships, and I was standing on the beach, cheering my ass off. To see SandRay approaching change and commitment in a romantic and positive way -- the acting was PHENOMENAL, but the outcome was a little to-be-expected-for-a-BL-in-a-non-BL-show kind of way.

And as for MewTop -- while I'm confused about the timeline of Mew's vengeful waffling, should I just go ahead and expect them to get together AGAIN? I'd like to ask for contextual clarification. But, at this point, that's how I know Mew to be, so I think my answer is yes -- I will be expecting Mew and Top to get together after all of this.

As I wonder how the ships kinda took over this whole joint, I think the answer is obviously in front of my face. FirstKhao and ForceBook are the first two GMMTV ships to travel out of the continent for fan meets, with FK going to Brazil, and FB going to Italy. If storylines in a fictional drama upset the fantasies of ship fandoms that these couples may not get together in their drama commodities, GMMTV's wallets, and the fanbases, may not like that very much. If FB’s and FK’s characters don’t get together — and that has a demonstrable economic impact? Jojo and team may have no choice but to hand over some happy endings to some shipped dudes for Jojo's future at GMMTV. Jojo's had to toe lines before. We KNEW what he was indicating by putting Joss, Mild, and Tay together in certain ways in 3 Will Be Free. But he couldn't go so far as to actually show a throuple in intimacy. That would have been too much for GMMTV in 2019.

To Shan’s very apt and accurate point at the end of her answer to my ask — my hope for purely uncommodified art from the Only Friends team, art that doesn’t leverage a judgement against sex in its potentially romantic conclusions, may very well be a pipe dream. If Jojo and his team were pushed to keep the ships together -- and to create happy-ish endings for as many characters in this show as possible, AND to be forced to leverage monogamy IN those storylines -- then how can I judge the artists for needing to toe an economic line? I can't. We are damn lucky enough that Jojo makes art as progressive as Only Friends, as 3 Will Be Free, as Gay OK Bangkok. Only Friends is still a great show.

But.... there was a moment where I think more than a few of us thought that we'd see something truly experimental with the ships sinking. There may still be time to see something nuts happen. But in the end, if Jojo and team have to keep the ships sailing, I won't begrudge the artists. But I will hope that GMMTV can keep allowing for more progressively progressive art over time, maybe even for the sake of letting a ship sink every once in a while.

(Ephemerality…my hope that we’d see intrigue beyond the ships was perhaps ephemeral. But we still have two episodes left! Let’s see! @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @chickenstrangers @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad @thatgirl4815 @slayerkitty)

#only friends the series #only friends #only friends meta #forcebook #force jiratchapong #book kasidet #firstkhao #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #neomark #neo trai #mark pakin #mond tanutchai #papang phromphiriya #lookjun bhasidi #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #best kittisak #ninepinta #den panuwat #ephemerality squad

[thescrumptiousstuffs]

“My favourite group of actors” - P’ Jojo

Source: P’Jojo twitter

14/10/2023

#only friends the series #each of them suit the roles so beautifully #I don’t think I will forget this series for a long long time #khaotung thanawat #first kanaphan #book kasidet #force jiratchapong #Neo trai #mark pakin #lookjun bhasidi #firstkhao #firstkhaotung #sandray #TopMew #bostonnick #gmmtv series #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya

[tomatoland]

Photos of ForceBook/TopMew on set ©️ninewpinya

#yes ninew definitely goes back on the list #topmew #forcebook #book kasidet #force jiratchapong #top tanin #mew witsarut #ninew pinya

[bengiyo]

I am curious for your perspective on the way the OF creators are interacting with fans and have even admitted to editing the show based on fan reactions. It strikes me as an unusual level of interaction and capitulation, though of course TV is a live medium that is nearly always responsive to reactions to some extent. My preference is for a lot less of this kind of thing, but I know you have experience with direct interaction with media creators and have found it enhances your experience sometimes. What do you make of how these dynamics are showing up in OF and the effect it’s having on the show?

TV and Critic Background

So, I am actually the worst person to talk to if you think the creators should be quiet about their work, because I really enjoy talking to directors, producers, actors, cinematographers, and especially editors about their work. I often go to film festivals just to talk to the creators about their processes.

I've also been in the TV space a really long time, and I am used to this kind of behavior. I don't think a lot of folks who are in BL are used to being in the process of TV itself, and I think a lot of people have let the Netflix binge model inform the way they view TV. TV is not like movies. When you get a movie, you are seeing the end product of filming, editing, test screenings, re-edits, etc. TV is usually only an episode or two ahead of the viewers.

It's extremely normal for a show to respond to feedback when characters test well. The 100 did this with Jasper. He was supposed to die in the pilot when that spear entered his chest, but he tested well with audiences so they revived him.

Fun Fact: This is why Kiseki: Dear to Me didn't just move their release schedule up when episode 8 was leaked early. They probably weren't finished assembling episode 9.

I followed Sense8 through its entire development process all the way from rumors and then J. Michael Stracynski's posts about it, to the things Lana and Lily said about it, to the commentary from the cast.

I have a special hatred for Rick Behrman over Star Trek.

I absolutely hate Russel T. Davies because of Cucumber.

I bailed on Supernatural because of the way the writers condescended to us at comicon after killing Kevin.

I know some fans are upset about the idea that scenes they wanted to see got cut, but I was there for Noah Galvin opening his fucking mouth to talk shit about other actors at ABC who were playing beloved gay characters and that subsequently getting The Real O'Neals canceled. The show had a very short second season and I feel forever salty about that.

What does this mean for Jojo and Ninew and Den?

I actually think Jojo, Den, and Ninew are fine. I don't think they usually poopoo on valid reads from what I've seen, and mostly they're having fun with the fans, too. I just don't think people are used to the creators being so honest about how feedback affects the editing process.

I think this is the first time we've had a big show in a while where the creator was fairly active on socials about the show. Aof and Au are usually pretty quiet when their shows are airing, and only give small tidbits while they show is airing. Jojo is silly and likes to play with fans. Den is feisty and has a gay agenda to pursue.

Truly, I don't think Jojo and friends are that bad about anything with this show, because they're mostly just laughing and stating things that are obvious to people who pay attention to how the sausage is made.

Shipping

That being said, the biggest struggle OF is having is shipping. The FK girlies are so loud and their heavy breathing has likely influenced the way Jojo and friends decided to write Ray. The FB girlies are so into them that it's made Jojo and them dial back some of their Top content because the audience hates him so much. Only Boston and Nick feel like they've made it through the shipping gamut intact because Neo and Mark aren't bringing a bunch of preexisting shippers to the table.

Coming off of episode 10, you can see this plainly with the nasty4nasty dynamic with Boston and Nick. The emotional core of their dynamic feels true, even down to the way their moments in the store mirror their first interactions again. Boston came in for service about his phone and intentionally showed Nick something on it.

I don't think Jojo has ever had to work with multiple acting pairs that were big branded pairs prior to this, and this is only his second time really dealing with that. With Never Let Me Go, Pond and Phuwin weren't that big yet, and he wasn't threatening their ship with anything complicated. OF is challenging for people who just watch BL as fap material and have to deal with their faves not being easy people to parse.

As usual, we go back to that post that goes around all the time, thought I think the OP deleted it:

"Never ever be normal about fictional characters but please GOD be normal about the people who play them, I am begging you" -tumblr user mantorokk-writes

#answered #only friends the series #only friends meta #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #den panuwat #best kittisak

[neuroticbookworm]

While y'all are freaking out about the lesbian bestfriend in Only Friends I'm over here on the floor HYPERVENTILATING about this chart that has superglued itself on my eyeballs from the moment I laid eyes on it

Blue arrows are platonic and Red arrows are sexual, amirite? Now I would like to draw your attention to First Kanaphan. Homeboy has got FOUR ARROWS. DOUBLE SIDED. Three red ones and one that *squints* looks blue connected to a supporting character (Title?), but still, the only blue arrow with a double side direction. The character that is supposed to be the whore that destroys the friend group has got three total. First has more slut arrows than Force. I'm gonna go throw up all of my remaining braincells that aren't already melted by this bastard show

Shoutout to my Only Friends brainrot bestie @extremelybabygirl who made sure this is the first thing I saw when I woke up today. When I die you will be tagged in the epitaph

.

#are we sure mew is the main character? #because sand is PLAYING playing #he's boning down three main characters #i stan #only friends #only friends series #only friends the series #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #force jiratchapong #book kasidet #mark pakin #neo trai nimtawat #firstkhao #forcebook #neomark #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #gmmtv

[khaopybara]

i find it amazing how so much p'jo and p'ninew let their actors improvise in their scenes for only friends.

knowing that the scene in the music shop when sand and ray hold hands was firstkhaotung's idea is so sweet.

btw, really great interview, i learned a lot.

#ofts #sandray #firstkhao #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #Youtube #th: only friends

[monsamborabutterfly]

Only friends being a queer show that speaks to queer audiences and makes them feel seen and heard and only friends being a queer show that upsets queer audiences because of the narrative and the way some characters were treated can and should coexist.

I'm so tired of the notion that all queers are the same and that all queer media has to speak to us the same way simply because it's queer.

TopMew/SandRay ending up together and Boston being treated so horribly by the show will speak differently to different queers who watched the show.

Some might be happy about these events some might be upset.

Queer creators can only do so much. And they can't possibly represent the whole queer community equally. They don't have to.

I think some of the creators of only friends treated non-monogamy horribly biased and definitely pushed harmful ideas surrounding a certain type of queer that could've & should've been done with so much more care. And some queers may view the story in a totally different way than me. Which is fine.

But just like all of us creators were shaped by their life experiences so that's that.

Yes only friends is a queer show, created by queer people but that doesn't mean queer viewers have to like how queer topics were handled or feel represented by it. And yes only friends is a queer show, created by queer people and may make queer people happy and feel seen.

Both of these things can be true. And both of these things are valid!!!

#only friends the series #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #lgbtqia #thai bl #queer media #queer creatives #queer creator

[scarefox]

Jojo about the development in thai BL

(x)

#bl drama #gl drama #ql drama #jojo tichakorn #Ninew Pinya #lgbtq #queer media #thai bl #bl industry #thai director

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Only Friends, Boston, and Queer Culture

I wanted to talk a little bit about an observation that I made about Boston and how he acquires sex partners (i.e. who he picks up, how he picks them up, where he picks them up, and where he chooses to have sex). Now, again, we are only two episodes in so I will not presume to make a pattern of anything quite yet, and I am looking forward to seeing how my current observations shift in light of any new information coming out of future episodes. But, it was notable to me that the only times Boston has been seen actively pursuing a second sexual encounter with someone is either in public spaces or after he has had sex with them in public.

Because Boston is very sexual, we actually have a lot of data points on him already, (and will likely get many more, seeing as Boston has been in 5 out of 7 of the heavy makeout/sex scenes in the show so far). What we have seen so far is a one night stand with Drake’s character after Boston is picked up at a bar and brought back to unnamed-Drake-character’s apartment; Boston returning for a second and third sexual encounter with Nick after he and Nick fuck for the first time in the cellphone repair shop; and Boston openly flirting with and trying to tempt Top in to sex in exclusively public spaces.

Cruising 

What is Cruising and Why is it Important? 

Photograph by Steven Barker

I realize that there are many people here who may be unfamiliar with the term/concept of ‘cruising’. As a self-defined “baby gay” there are many terms that came out of the past decades’ queer culture that I was and am personally unfamiliar with. As such, I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with the terminology. “Cruising” is a code-word/gay slang that refers to an individual or individuals ‘walking or driving around a locality, called a cruising ground, in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one time variety’ (Wikipedia). 

In her essay Respectable promiscuity: Digital cruising in an era of queer liberalism, Jody Ahlm (then PhD candidate, now Dr.) states the following: “Cruising traditionally occurs in bars, clubs, or public spaces such as parks and public restrooms where men generally signal sexual interest in another man through established non-verbal signals (Be ́rube ́, 1996; Delany, 1999; Humphreys and Rainwater, 1975; Tewksbury, 2002).”

For the sake of simplicity, cruising is a term applied to the action of (usually, but not exclusively) gay men seeking out casual sex in public spaces. 

Cruising is and was an important aspect of queer culture, for a number of different reasons. “Tearooms” or private public spaces that were adapted to accommodate gay sex (public bathrooms, for example). While a benefit of tearooms was instantaneous sex, a much more important and notable aspect of tearooms was who in the queer community was frequenting these cruising locations

Of the bar crowd in gay (homosexual) society, only a small percentage would be found in park restrooms. But this more overt, gay bar clientele constitutes a minor part of those in any American city who follow a predominantly homosexual pattern. The so-called closet queens and other types of covert deviants make up the vast majority of those who engage in homosexual acts- and these are the persons most attracted to tearoom encounters…It may be more surprising for the outside to discover that most of these [tearoom participants] are married. Indeed, 54 percent of my research subjects are married and living with their wives. (Tearoom Trade, Laud Humphreys, 1970)

In short, cruising and cruising locations are important to ensuring that men who have sex with men (MSM) who are closeted, married, or do not frequent bars, have an opportunity to engage in sex with other men. (Tradition of sex cruising at Aquatic Park to end. John Geluardi, 2001)

How Cruising has Changed Over Time 

Overall, cruising is a lot less popular now than it was in the 1960s and 1980s, in part due to the AIDs epidemic and concerns of HIV transmission (Ahlm, 2017). Ahlm’s essay argues that the AIDS epidemic “initiated a trend toward monogamy among gay men” and that apps like Grindr have shifted the landscape of sexual interest and politics towards a “contested cultural space where publicness and privateness co-exist, creating tensions for self-presentation that are structured by contemporary sexual politics.”

Sociologists have identified a shifting in cruising culture from public, in-person spaces to private, online spaces. In her research, Ahlm noted that none of her subjects who used Grinder reported engaging in public or semi-public sex or being asked to engage in public or semi-public sex by another person. So we are seeing the landscape of where and how gay men engage in sex shift ever increasingly towards private spaces. We can ask ourselves why that may be: 

Dalton (black/mixed,5 28) says,”People like to maintain a certain image of themselves, and everybody wants to appear chaste but desirable at the same time, and whatever. People will say ‘‘Oh you’re going on there and you’re trying to do that [find sex], I just talk to people and I never do anything.’’ I’m like ‘‘Sure, right’’ [sarcastic tone].” The multiplicity of intentions on Grindr allows for plausible denial of promiscuity, while the app’s reputation requires constant management of the stigma in order for that denial to be plausible. Like the majority of users, Dalton’s profile says he is on the app for ‘‘Friends, Chat, Networking.’’ However, sexual interaction is the goal of his in-person meetings, and he only chats with people he finds attractive and would potentially like to have sex with. This contradiction between stated intentions and actual use is not unique to Dalton’s Grindr use, it is the rule rather than the exception (Ahlm, 2017)

While privacy can be a valued aspect of people’s personal life experiences, shifting cruising culture to major online spaces designed specifically for gay people, and having sex with people who connect across mobile apps, is contributing to respectability politics: 

Shifting cruising to private spaces—both actual sex acts and the practices associated with finding a sexual partner in a public space, furthers the sanitation of gay physical spaces. Users can meet sexual partners without ever leaving home, and public gay spaces become sites for platonic socializing. Gay men go to the bars with their friends to hang out, not to cruise…The performance of cruising is desexualized by the plausible deniability of using a phone app and the plausible deniability of Grindr itself, as discussed earlier. It is not just public sex that is disappearing, so too is the public pursuit of sex. This is not to say that gay bars have been completely desexualized…However, as Orne (2016) shows in his ethnography of Chicago’s Boystown, they are the cultural markers that make the neighborhood a popular place for bachelorette parties ‘‘on safari’’. They are not the same as a visible collective practice of searching for and choosing a sexual partner for the night, regardless of where the sex occurs later. (Ahlm, 2017)

TL;DR: The act of looking for sex partners and engaging in public or semi-public sex as a result (“cruising”) has been steadily phasing out as a practice in gay culture, heading towards more private sexual encounters with sex partners who meet on mobile apps, ultimately resulting in a sanitized image and partial desexualization of gay spaces/bars.

Boston’s Cruising Habits 

When I was reading that Ahlm piece, I could not help but think about our very first introduction to the characters of Only Friends in Episode 1. The show opens at a gay bar, we go around listening to Mew’s descriptions of what archetypes his friends fit in to, at which point we learn that everyone in attendance at the bar that particular evening are wearing wristbands indicating their availability to be hit on. Which is making me feel like Jojo and co. (Ninew, Den, the rest of the writing crew) are placing their characters in a past gay culture, giving them an opportunity to return to roots of public cruising. Not every character will engage in such activities, but we know for a fact that Boston and Top are cruising in some capacity from the outset of the show (Boston trying to talk his way into a threesome with Bar Stranger #1, Boston getting picked up by Bar Stranger #2 [aka unnamed-Drake-character], Top striking up conversation with Mew after Mew bumps into him), and with the direct references Jojo and co. are making to Queer As Folk (UK) (1999) if the goal of Only Friends is to highlight queer culture, I would not be surprised. 

While we are only two episodes in at the time I am writing this, it was intriguing to me that Boston appears to be one of the few characters engaging in more traditional cruising culture. It is clear that most of the main characters frequent Yo’s bar, though it appears the friend group uses the space more as a place to hang out with one another, rather than a space to cruise. All except for “The Hunter”, Boston, who is seen constantly attempting to pick up, or being picked up by other queer men in a bar setting. We know that Top also frequents the bar, and we have not as of yet seen him with any other friends, so we can presume that Top spends his time at Yo’s bar cruising as well (based on the fact that he has slept with Boston and he did hit on Mew at the bar, but we don’t have any definitive evidence of that yet because we don’t know how Top and Boston met, and Top has only actively been pursuing Mew thus far). 

A trend I saw in the first two episodes when it comes to Boston that I find particularly noteworthy (aka, is a trend I want to track as the show progresses to see if that trend continues), is that Boston is only ever repeating sex with people who engaged in public sex with him in the first place. From flashbacks we see Top and Boston making out in a photobooth, an implication there that Top and Boston then fucked in the photobooth since “once was enough” for Top and Boston. The first time that Boston and Nick fuck, they do so in the aisle of the cellphone repair shop. Nick may turn off the lights, but that does not negate the fact that there is a chance that Boston and Nick may be walked in on and caught by an unassuming customer. When Boston hits on Top, it is in a public space: the bathrooms of Yo’s bar, when Boston attempts to initiate a second sexual encounter with Top, it again is in a public space: the locker room/showers at the wakeboarding place.

Public Sex, Photography, and Brewing Thoughts about Boston 

Image by @nongnaopat

While I was reading up on cruising, I came across a couple articles with quotes and observations that immediately made me think of Boston, and a question started brewing in my mind: 

Is Boston a physical manifestation of the queer hookup cultures 60s-80s? 

Boston’s Personality v. Public Sex

Again, we have only seen two episodes of Only Friends so I am not yet secure in my own interpretations of Boston. However, I was thinking about the conversations that occurred the other day about how Boston must exert control over others (@respectthepetty), and how he is ready and willing to meddle in Mew’s life by trying to seduce Top, but that there is noticeable fear and slight panic at the thought that Mew might catch him and Top together in the shower (@stuffnonsenseandotherthings).

There was something that just spoke to me so strongly about Boston’s character archetypes in relation to the conversations brought up in Chapter 6: Tearoom Trade: Tales of Public Sex of the book Marginal People in Deviant Places: Ethnography, Difference, and the Challenge to Scientific Racism by Janice M. Irvine. 

In this chapter, Irvine discusses the essay Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Spaces written by Laud Humphreys. Within this chapter, Irvine states “Humphreys argued that tearoom participants varied in vulnerability to risk of exposure. He noted that married men and men who did not have career autonomy were highly vulnerable to negative consequences if discovered in the tearooms.” (Note: my understanding of “tearooms” from this reading is that they are public restrooms that have been transformed to better support instant sex, i.e. a broken window for a lookout, glory holes, walls removed between stalls, etc.) While an assumption could be made that vulnerable men would not engage in public sex, that assumption does not carry through to reality. Humphreys further claims that highly vulnerable men did still engage in public sex via tearoom visits, but they employed protective strategies to mitigate any suspicion of their queerness, often a hypermoral one. 

I know “hypermoral” is not a term that anyone who has observed Boston for more than twenty seconds would really attribute to his character, but what did speak to me is what Humphreys says about the strategies employed by the highly vulnerable: 

The secret offender may well believe he is more righteous than the next man—hence his shock and outrage, his disbelieving indignation, when he is discovered and discredited…Subjected to harsh social condemnation and legal penalties, the tearoom participant was likely to turn his anger and hatred on himself or others in his group. “Worse yet,” Humphreys argued, “he may justify himself by degrading others, displacing his hostility onto outgroups in the manner of the authoritarian personality.” (Irvine, 2022)

Now which Only Friend character are we thinking of based on the quote above? 

“Hence his shock…when he is discovered…” 

“The tearoom participant was likely to turn his anger and hatred on himself or others in his group” 

“He may justify himself by degrading others”

One thing we do know about Boston is that he currently does not have career autonomy. He wants to be a photographer, but he is studying business because he may have to take over his father’s company (YouTube: Only Friends, Episode 2, Part 2/4, timestamp: 2:27). How much that pressure is really on him and how highly vulnerable Boston may be if caught engaging in gay, public sex remains to be seen, but to me it is worth noting. A research question to be asked: Why does Boston act the way he does? Is he vulnerable in some way and trying to compensate for it, or is just genuinely an asshole? Not sure, but I look forward to finding out. 

An additional similarity that immediately came to mind in my readings and their relation to Boston was a reference to Rechy and his writings about male hustlers: 

Rechy wrote about how male hustlers selling sex navigated the toilets. He cited the norms of the sexual marketplace with sociological precision: “Stand at the urinal long after youre [sic] through pissing. At the slightest indication of interest from someone in one of the cubicles, go up to him quickly before he gets any free ideas and say: ‘I’ll make it with you for twenty.’ (Irvine, 2022)

Boston is not a sex worker, he is not asking to be paid for his time, but the way he approaches Top in the bar bathroom to try to prompt a second sexual encounter does allude to the hustler culture. Top is standing at the urinal when Boston approaches

He strikes up conversation with Top who only really seems to be partially engaged, Top walks away from the urinal to wash his hands, Boston follows, placing his hands around Top’s, trying to proposition sex, appealing to their supposedly similar approaches to sex.

This is not a direct comparison to be sure, but I just wanted to mention it because it felt similar enough to be a reference. This reminded me too of the nod Jojo and Ninew had to gay male sexual culture in The Warp Effect when Alex has his shoulders massaged by a random patron propositioning sex at Jedi’s bar while he is standing at the urinals. Or to the more direct reference to cruising that Jojo and Aof put in to the character of Arm in Gay OK Bangkok, or Army in The Warp Effect (two pieces which I will continue to say are required viewings before [or at this point in conjunction with] Only Friends). 

Boston’s Interest in Photography v. Public Sex Debates

Another aspect of Boston’s character that feels relevant to previous queer culture is his interest in photography itself, because photography has its own ties to tearooms and public sex. 

In 1964, The Florida Legislative Investigative Committee “published a pamphlet that featured an explicit photograph of a man engaged in a sex act in a public restroom. The report, dubbed “the purple pamphlet,” was intended to shock readers and mobilize antigay repression.” (Irvine, 2022). 

As a warning I am about to cite a pretty big chunk of text, but it is important information: 

Photography became one of several technologies police and moral entrepreneurs used to observe and produce evidence of sexual deviance. Yet photographic surveillance could also be subverted. After the tearoom photograph was published in the 1964 Homosexuality and Citizenship brochure, conservatives attacked it as pornographic. The committee quickly removed it from the report, but the photograph was reprinted and vigorously marketed by Guild Press, a publisher of homoerotic materials. Gay pulp publishing was growing by 1964, and Guild Press, established in 1962, was no doubt gleeful to find and market this photograph. The Guild advertisement pointed out that this was the only “action photo” of a glory hole scene that had ever been in print, and as historian Thomas Waugh noted, “the glory hole photo became famous.”23 The “purple pamphlet” and its widespread dissemination was an early case of how social and religious conservatives played a significant role in making visible the sexual representation that they condemned. (Irvine, 2022)

Thinking about Boston and his interest in photography, we can notice another potential link to queer culture. Going in to Boston’s darkroom, we see a number of photographs on his wall of hot men in various stages of undress. With the preceding scene of Boston taking a photo of Nick after they fuck establishing some context, we can make some quick assumptions about who those men are to Boston and what was occurring prior to the photo being taken. 

Even within two episodes of Only Friends the camera has almost served as an additional character, bringing us in to the private-public spaces we aren’t supposed to witness. In a conversation I was having with @waitmyturtles, she made the absolutely brilliant point: “the camera of the show is messing around with what we perceive as privacy”. 

Sure Boston is making sexual advances on Top in the showers of a public locker room, but no one is supposed to know that, at least no one who could be actually, emotionally impacted by catching Top and Boston together. We see it, but we aren’t supposed to. 

But I want to move beyond the show’s actual camera to briefly touch upon the other cameras we have seen alluded to on screen so far. Kudos to whoever it was on tumblr that took the screen shots of the hook up between Neo and Drake and pointed out the web camera that was sitting at the top of the computer monitor. Now, we have absolutely no idea if that is relevant at all to future plot lines, if the web cam was on, or if any part of that sexual encounter will come back to haunt Boston. But I think it is worth mentioning the very real and easy possibility that the web cam could have been recording the room (whether it actually was or not). In this way, Boston is playing with fire around what aspects of himself and his sexuality are captured on a screen. 

When Boston and Nick hook up for the first time in the cellphone repair shop, Boston stops the make out session long enough to look around. No, not around, up. Up to the ceilings as if he is scanning the room for possible cameras. Again, we don’t know for sure if a) there are cameras there, b) if that is relevant at all to future plot lines or c) if that really was what Boston was doing. But either way, Nick catches on to Boston’s scanning of the room, and turns off the light so that they can’t be seen. 

In both of these cases, whether the cameras exist, are on, recording, or saving any information is not fully the point. The point I am trying to make here is that there are constantly opportunities to have gay sex be captured, and whether or not it is comes down sometimes to shit dumb luck.

Conclusion

gif by @maxescheibechlinichacheli

I am so fascinated by Boston’s character, just thinking about the ways he does and does not fit in to the archetypes of a highly vulnerable tearoom participant: in his interest being in photography, capturing the images of queer men post-coitus, in the way he approaches Top at the urinal trying to entice him in to sex, in the ways he engages with and thinks of other people, and I am very much looking forward to seeing if this trend continues or diverges. For instance, will we see a drastically different side of Boston if we see more of how he interacts with professors in school considering that the one time that he was really quiet and reserved was during the presentation in front of the entire class? Will Boston fall in to the “public saint/private sinner” dynamic that would root him firmly in behaviors of a highly vulnerable queer man engaging in public sex? Or will he drift away from that alignment? 

Disclaimer: I want to acknowledge that I am a Westerner and I am engaging and interpreting this show and the gay culture in this show through my own Western lens as well as the Western Gay Culture lens. However, I feel comfortable using these lenses to discuss, analyze, and identify threads of interest to follow throughout the show because: 

In 1984, the ‘Boston Bar Study’ conducted by Men of All Colors Together Boston (MACTB) cited numerous examples of widespread discrimination at gay bars in Boston against black men. Similar types of discrimination have also been cited in Los Angeles and New York (Wat, 2002). Even more troubling is that this type of behavior seems to be international as well*anywhere that gay white men come into contact with gay men of color (Ridge, Hee & Minichiello, 1999). One can only imagine how many others never make it into the new stories. Rather than isolated events attributable to racist owners of single bars, the attempt to patrol the borders of whiteness in gay-owned business establishments seems to be a systematic practice (They Don’t Want to Cruise Your Type: Gay Men of Color and Racial Politics of Exclusion, Chong-suk Han, 2007). 

In short, cruising, and discriminatory cruising practices are seen worldwide, and therefore I argue that gay culture in Thailand, while likely not identical, is similar enough to Western gay culture to apply similar frameworks, especially considering the aspects of gay culture Jojo and his co-creators have placed in their past works. 

Sources 

Ahlm, Jody (2017) Respectable promiscuity: Digital cruising in an era of queer liberalism, Sexualities, DOI: 10.1177/1363460716665783

Chong-suk Han (2007) They Don't Want To Cruise Your Type: Gay

Men of Color and the Racial Politics of Exclusion, Social Identities, 13:1, 51-67, DOI:

10.1080/13504630601163379

Humphreys, Laud (1970) Tearoom Trade. 

Irvine, Janice M. (2022) Tearoom Trade: Tales of Public Sex, Marginal People in Deviant Places, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11519906.11

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank @bengiyo, @lurkingshan, @neuroticbookworm, @so-much-yet-to-learn, @waitmyturtles for their thought partnership, edits, and suggestions!

#only friends #only friends the series #ofts #neo trai #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #boston #boston x nick #boston x top #neomark #forceneo #wka long post #kicking off the (possible- not guaranteed) WKA Academic Papers on Sex in Only Friends Essay series #only friends meta #only friends analysis #only friends the series meta #only friends the series analysis #ofts meta

[blmpff]

📢 IT'S STARTING

05.06.2023

#only friends the series #firstkhao #forcebook #neomark #ninew pinya #mjtag #blmpff #OFQ

[prapaiwife]

Only Jojo talking about editing Only Friends: That is so fucking lame. The directors should be able to tell the story they want to tell without pressure from fans. Gmmtv wasn’t the right company for this show.

Hi, and yeah I agree that their tatic of changing the scenes on a weekly basis based off ppl reactions to just please the fans in my opinion takes away the authenticity of the show. You can't please everyone and that's just with anything so I wish they would've just done the things they wanted without having to worry so much about those "fans". This show isn't probably for everyone and that's expected, but at the same time for those who do have a connection to this show and its characters it means something. Like just tell the story you intended to cause the response regardless is gonna be mixed and you can say you told the story as true to how wanted.

#ofts #only friends the series #onlyfriends #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya

[waitmyturtles]

The kids at the school where Ray was doing his social services — some of those kids were Ninew Pinya’s nieces and nephews. 😭😭😭😭

#only friends the series #ninew pinya #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #SO CUUUUTTTTE OMMMMGGGGGGG 😭😭😭😭

[thescrumptiousstuffs]

Only Friends BTS

Source: P’ Ninew IG

30/10/2023

#I think we can safely say the directors will miss OF as much as we miss them too #khaotung thanawat #first kanaphan #only friends the series #sandray #ninew Pinya #force jiratchapong #book kasidet #mark pakin #Neo trai #lookjun bhasidi #nonnie pitchaporn #mix sahaphap #jennie panhan #title kirati #tee teeradej