#boston x ray

[jenyifer]

Okay we ready to talk about Boston and Ray? Buckle up. They have fucked eachother. Boston had or has feelings for Ray. Been getting weird vibes between them this whole show but we get a bit of interesting dialogue from exploding sun Ray here.

No we don’t get the exact words but his comment about fucking in the dark room is something very telling. I don’t think getting dicked down by Boston in the darkroom is a normal thing I mean that’s where there are compromising photos of his other favorites. I am going to bet that Boston has slept with Ray in there though. Boston and Ray are at least so close that Boston has been telling Ray about how much fun Nick is in bed. Other reason I think Boston likes Ray is how Boston looked like he wanted to talk to him through the intro scenes after the fight. He didn’t. But Boston doesn’t deny what he did was evil. Boston has a strong commitment to the truth and he believes what he did to Ray was wrong.

Then tell me Boston doesn’t look genuinely upset about Ray confronting him about him and Top. Because? Ton still likes Ray and he was hopeful they could eventually repair things but now… that’s going to slip away. Boston looks like he’s having an out of body experience for the rest of the episode. Out of it completely. Because he’s so upset about the mess he’s in. Side side note I think he knows that the proof comes from Nick. He’s picked up on Nick knowing Boston likes Top. He’s well aware of that shift. Which is why Ton has been working so hard on their relationship. He needs Nick to replace Ray in his life. Boston can’t face that he can’t have Ray. He would rather hurt nick until he leaves because that would be easier than losing ray. So this confrontation buries Boston 6 feet under because his relationship to Ray is the most important thing and he believes it’s over.

[welcometothelairofthebitchking]

Fact: it's impossible to hear a random audio of two people people moaning and IMMEDIATELY come to the conclusion that no, this isn't some porn thing your friend-with-benefit got off the internet but rather the voices of your close friend and rival fucking

Also fact: ray could place both voices in a second

Conclusion: ray has slept with both boston and top enough times to be able to tell it's them by voice alone

[respectthepetty]

I couldn't decide which version is better so you get both

[ppeonppeonhan]

The Sexiest 2023 BL Scenes

I think we can all agree that there is an art to executing a sex scene -- and not everybody's an artist. This year, we (and, by that, I mean you) gif'd a couple of masterpieces that range from romantic to...educational. Here are the ones that live in my head rent free, in order of PG-13 to NC-17:

BEST ROLE-PLAY SEX: Bed Friend

If you had told me last year that incorporating cat ears into foreplay would result in one of the hottest scenes in BL, I would've given you bombastic side-eye. But James, the actor who plays Uea, pulled it off, and is probably responsible for a lot of Amazon orders till this day. (Episode 6)

BEST BEACH-SIDE SEX: The Eighth Sense

This entire sequence was so beautifully lit in golden tones, with soft touches, and romantic moments. It almost made you forget about the depression plot. Almost. (Episode 6)

LONG-AWAITED SEX: Hidden Agenda

Joke yearned for Zo in a way that was borderline comical. From the moment Zo kissed Joke like he was trying to give him CPR and then promptly shoved him out of his apartment, I knew every kiss after that would have to come with a parental warning. I'm surprised Joke didn't move in. (Episode 8)

DO-OVER SEX: Love Class 2

The music for this sex scene was so perfectly matched with the caressing and hand closeups. And the fact that it happened after the initially-ghosted Joo Hyuk got Sung Min to reconsider made it even sweeter. (Episode 9)

BEST WET SEX SCENE: Kiseki: Dear to Me

I may have enjoyed Ai Di and Chen Yi's love story more, but Fan Ze Rui and Bai Zong Yi were helping us all live out our tall boy fantasies. When he mounted him with a soft bounce, I knew the gif Gods would giveth. (Episode 7)

BEST EUPHORIC SEX: Only Friends

Ray looked like he reached nirvana when he made love to Sand in that sardine can of trailer, so of all their sex scenes, this was my fave. (Episode 9)

BEST INSECURITY-INDUCED SEX: Only Friends

Say what you will about Boston -- and the fandom has said a lot lol -- but if you had to choose a cast member to get you off, you'd choose him in a heartbeat. And yes, this scene was grimey. He f*cked his friend's potential boyfriend in the backseat of his car after manipulating him into believing he was cheated on, but can you blame him? He was probably tired of always having to give and never receive. Plus, Top did this vibrating move that made me wonder who told Force to do that... (Episode 3)

GIF by wanderlust-in-my-soul

BEST CENSORED SEX: Wedding Plan

I'm still mad that this scene wasn't in the Youtube cut. It paints an entirely different picture of their dynamic and their personalities. But thank God for the gif'ers, otherwise I would've missed how ravenous they were when they weren't...wedding planning. 😳 (Episode 6)

BEST WHIPLASH SEX: Be Mine Superstar

To be clear, WE were the ones getting whiplash. One minute, we were watching a sweet love story between an innocent college kid and his idol crush, and the next minute we were watching a masterclass on how to bang your one-night stand (consensually) until he agrees to date you. It's like...Sir, I'm on the train. Could you give a bitch a heads up? (Episode 8)

***

While I am generally envious of every single one of these experiences, I'm even more envious of everyone's knee strength and flexibility. I could never. Rollerblading has ruined me. If I tried half of these positions, I'd have to get physical therapy. 🙃

[sunsetandthemoon]

"Is there any scientific theory that explains why we're attracted to bad people? Wait. Maybe I am stimulated by some hormones in my body? I don't think it's hormones. We are just masochists."

Only Friends (2023)

[thatgirl4815]

Boston: *sees two people looking happy and in love*

Also Boston: "Not on my watch"

[riggerbison]

Um....probably. It can be the start of some kind of feeling.

[psychdiarys]

only friends x text posts never end part 2

check out << part 1 • part 3 >>

[earthfluuke]

Only Friends Ep. 12 + Kisses

[jacksjoke]

[jenyifer]

Boston deserves to have his “friends” back (mostly about bostonray tho)

Now… I’m not going to pretend that Boston didn’t do anything wrong to his friends but what I want to talk about his how Boston is a good friend who does love his friends Ray, Mew, and Cheum despite the fact that he is leaving for New York possibly (something I don’t think his friends know about)

In the first episode you get the setup that the four friends are always together. Yes they are in this Hostel project but they get lunch together go out in the evenings. Happy together. We even get some photos in the opening montage that Boston has taken of of them at Cheum’s Noodle shop, at School, and at YOLO. Not including the photo that Boston and Mew have a copy of that Boston keeps next to his bed.

Boston also is the one who drives Ray home most of the time. When the series started out I thought maybe BostonRay was a thing because the two of them were so close. Watch their early scenes Boston is joking with Ray looking after him. Not perfectly because Boston is very self absorbed just like Ray. But I think it comes from Boston taking Ray home and probably giving in to Ray’s plea’s of “don’t leave me.” Boston has told Ray about his bedroom stories and probably Vice Versa. They are two lost boys cut from similar cloths. SandNick is the friendship we get to visibly see but I get the feeling BostonRay is the implied bestie duo. Boston has likely heard Ray lamenting about Mew time and time again. I think Boston was shipping RayMew together because he wanted their 4some friendship to last forever the idea of them being able to support eachother when Boston leaves probably was a comforting thought to Boston in a sick way. I think Boston would have been semi okay with SandRay. Boston does even hype ray up to sand before disaster saying “Do you like him? My buddy has the looks and the dough. His type is hard to come by. You know?” I’ve discussed this before but I think Boston is triggered by Sand not admitting that he likes Ray and Mew’s braggy phone call. Boston was trying to save Ray from heart break by throwing cold water on the situation. He does semi agree with Nick next time Boston takes Nick on a date that what he did to Ray was wrong which is a big step. When Ray tells Boston about him knowing about TopBoston Boston is genuinely hurt by this. He knows he is losing his best friends. Bostons consequences are coming home. We know how screwed he feels from his end credit scene

But Boston does go to Ray as soon as he finds out about Ray’s injury. We don’t know if Boston had tried to contact him before this but we do know Boston is disappointed to see Mew there rebounding with Ray. In spite of the audio coming from Ray and ruining Bostons relationship with Nick. Boston looks to Ray multiple times to see if he’s going to say anything but no. All of Bostons friends are really gone forever now.

(I’ll talk about Mew and Boston later I pinky promise swear) but Mew blackmails Boston into joining the group again and Boston just shuts up and takes it. He accepts his new role of a body for his friends to have about and judge. I really really want the 4 of them to have a relationship again. Yes yes what Boston did with Top is awful but what his friends have done to Boston is also pretty terrible. So I’m hoping they can reconcile because that is what Boston wants despite everything that has happened I think Nick is right. Boston misses his friends.

Boston did accept what they were telling him that he’s a bad guy not wanted but that’s not really what he wants. He desperately wants to be loved. To have his chosen family again and I hope he can get it with a lot of making up for his bad decisions

[bird-inacage]

Only Friends Episode 5 | Ray VS Boston (Feral VS Unhinged)

Jesus Christ, this was intense. The fighting was so realistic and messy. The boys were snarling.

I felt so sorry for poor Sand and Nick who were just completely wedged in the middle of this shit sandwich, trying their damn best to stop these two from murdering each other on the spot. Sand looked so shook, he had no time to process what on earth was happening.

I'm not going to lie, I kinda love Boston's disrespectful little eye roll he does when he's NOT. HAPPY. It gives petulant child and psychopath.

[spokenfromtheheartandsoul]

ngl boeing and boston showing up in the preview together for next week's episode had me laughing out loud because it just took me so off guard

like say what you will about the plot cohesion and character arcs etc. etc. and it's all fair! but also objectively i must admit that it is soooo funny to me that boeing was introduced to the show purely to be yeeted around from one couple to the next like he's Only Friends' gay version of a final boss level enemy that each pairing must battle against in order to win their happy relationship endgames

[gunsatthaphan]

*narrator voice* turns out, he did.

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 12 -- WHEN ONLY FRIENDS GOT 2GETHER-ED

TRIGGER WARNING: EVERYONE'S UP FOR CRITICISM HERE, JOJO AND TEAM, FORCEBOOK, FIRSTKHAO, ALL OF THEM. Read at your peril.

Well. Big deep breaths. I spent a lot of time on a show that had been marketed as not-a-BL, that ended as a BL. As a mom with not that much time to spend on watching and writing on dramas that were marketed incorrectly, I am feeling some kinda way (fucking pissed off).

So many people had amazing takes yesterday, on both sides of the aisle, regarding how the show ended (pro-ending here, anti-ending here, here, here, here, here, and here, and my dear friends @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan did heavy lifting on reblogs yesterday, so stroll on over to their blogs for more).

I want to set up a constellation of points to touch upon before I get into the meat of this post.

1) I referred quite a bit to my review of Theory of Love throughout my watch of Only Friends. In that review, I meditate on how the majority of the general global public judges sex, and casual sex, and people who have sex and/or casual sex. Generally speaking -- even in countries that makes as progressive art on sex and sexuality as Thailand and the United States -- that's a rule of thumb that I can rely on. Sex is judged by the majority of the global public.

2) I hate to say it. I cannot believe this happened. But I was right about monogamy being an ultimate theme in Only Friends. Not just a theme, fam. A theme by which people judged others for having open, casual, and consensual sex. Queer sex. Queer sex that is so very often had outside of the constraints of a monogamous relationship.

There was a reason why that holiday party was populated by couples, except for Boston, and Boston had to grovel to them in apology for their friendship. In Only Friends: monogamy wins, and casual queer sex loses.

3) Unfortunately, in part though an analysis of Cheum inside of last week that I accidentally started (ha), I see that points 1 and 2 come together to have created a fabric and framework of judgement that Only Friends ended on.

The last paragraph in this excellent post by @benkaaoi notes that the assumption by a large portion of the OF fandom that the creative choices that were made to end this series were designed to save the sanctity -- economic and otherwise -- of the shipped pairs of ForceBook and FirstKhao. This rings true to me.

Most of the BL shows that I've watched this year are older shows, through my Old GMMTV Challenge, in which I've been studying the changes over time that GMMTV and other Thai networks, have made towards their editorial choices, attitudes, and risks in producing BLs. I included Only Friends on this syllabus to note the show's impact as a kind of zeitgeist measure of how much heat and literary controversy GMMTV could take in airing increasingly progressive queer media -- even though Only Friends wasn't originally intended to be a BL.

To the theory that Only Friends needed to save the ships... and to another theory that the ships needed to be saved in the most moralistically judgmental way that I could have ever imagined (I was actually blown away by how heavy-handed this messaging was) -- I look to the ending of 2gether.

The majority general reaction to the ending of 2gether from within the existing BL fandom in 2020, was one of guffawed incredulousness. BrightWin/SarawatTine did not kiss in the first season of 2gether. It took Aof Noppharnach to come in to make Still 2gether to indicate that these two young men may have been at least vaguely sexual with each other throughout the course of their fictional relationship.

Yet, 2gether was a massive success. Many theorize it was because 2gether was the first big BL to air during the start of the COVID pandemic, and new BL fans had time to be at home and watch shows. But I posit in my 2gether/Still 2gether review that 2gether was also successful PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LACKED SEX (and by sex here, I mean plain old kissin').

As I stated earlier: sex is judged by the majority of the global public. With BrightWin NOT kissing, new fans who may have been implicitly and/or explicitly turned off by physical depictions of queer love could glom comfortably onto 2gether, and watch a BL without the "threat" of physical depictions of two men expressing their love to each other.

Subsequently, BrightWin gained massive social media followings, 2gether made GMMTV buckets of money, and GMMTV went -- well, hot diggity.

Many of us had impressions of Only Friends as...something else than it ended up being. Early on, Jojo Tichakorn, for instance, cited an early non-GMMTV, non-BL show, Gay OK Bangkok, that he and Aof Noppharnach worked on in 2016 and 2017, as being referential to Only Friends. Gay OK Bangkok centered on a group of queer friends, mostly cisgender men with Jennie Panhan in the mix, as they lived their lives and dated away in Bangkok.

I'll tell ya, GOKB didn't end the way Only Friends did, and I'll get into that more in a bit. I believe @benkaaoi, @lurkingshan, and others are absolutely right that the ultimate moralization on casual sex that this show depicted -- and how Only Friends punished Boston for his casual sex -- was an economic decision designed to reflect on the sanctity of monogamy that shipped couples like ForceBook and FirstKhao can sell back to their fans, fans that may have actually flocked to GMMTV shows from 2gether, and that demand a fantasy of devoted monogamy from both fictional characters and professional actors who are actually only just doing fan service to earn their livings. GMMTV has known for a long time how to make money, and money the network doth has made from Only Friends, and from shipping their ships around the world to service the growing fandom.

Casual sex in fiction, casual sex that breaks up the ships.... fucks that economic shit all up.

GMMTV has taught us our lesson, a lesson that we had already learned from the no-kissing rule of 2gether. Loose lips shall not sink ships at this network. And I think we lost a chance for a big and progressively artistic zeitgeist that GMMTV could have taken risks on, if it had the courage to risk depicting something truly novel.

I want to note quickly another framework that I dug into while I was watching this show. I sent a flare to @lurkingshan before I started watching the episode that I was going to, in part, watch this last episode from my personal Asian lens. I wanted to ask myself, as I was watching this disaster -- is there anything happening here that strikes my heart with fear and doom as an Asian?

Indeed, yes. I didn't expect it, but there was a dialogue on individualism vs. collectivism.

Boston. My dear, sweet Boston. Boston, named after a city so very distant from Bangkok.

Boston was punished by his group of friends because he didn't adhere to the rules of the group. His individualistic actions and preferences -- his preferences to "roll alone," as Nick stated, would not work in the frameworks of either monogamy with Nick and/or the group dynamics of the hostel crew.

The link I linked above is an amazing answer to an inquiry I posed to dear @absolutebl last year about how Asian social collectivist paradigms are depicted in BLs. In that question-and-answer dialogue, I asked ABL Sensei about the motif of queer revelations in BLs, and how seemingly straight characters respond in kind to being approached with a proposition to a queer dalliance and/or relationship. Generally speaking, the Asian collectivist mindset is to at least attempt to respond in kind to those kinds of propositions, as one's behavioral habits are designed to be responsive to others instinctually, as opposed to only servicing oneself. To only service oneself is not only seen as selfish, but also as disturbing to the general flow of public existence among one's societies. To respond in kind means that you will not cause potentially disturbing angst to another individual or group. (Collectivism explains why Asian countries performed much better with mask mandates during the pandemic than we in the States did.)

So -- Boston filming Ray, Boston sleeping with Top, created waves in the friend group. He was so severely punished for it.

And the show iterates, and repeats, Nick's preference that Boston move forward alone in Boston's life, because of Boston's tendencies to make decisions that suit himself. As an Asian-American, I mutter to myself: god forbid.

Nick will not commit to Boston -- and yet, will also condemn Boston for making his own decisions outside of the specter of a monogamy that does not exist between Nick and Boston, and that Boston will still get judged for, as referenced in the Sand/Nick conversation depicted above.

In other words: if Boston makes a decision for himself? That's punishable. Because it might hurt someone else's feelings -- a someone else that actually hasn't committed to Boston, and/or allowed Boston to commit himself to.

This group caught Boston in a moralistic and collectivist catch-22, the likes of which I just would have never expected from Jojo and team, even if the creative team faced the economic pressures of the GMMTV bigwigs. I'm sorry to state that I am beyond disappointed in this condemnation of individualism, sending Boston alone, judged, and friendless, off to New York City to live in, what, the immoral boundaries of Chelsea? Homey, get a fucking SWEET-ASS PAD, and FUCK THESE LOSERS, leave 'em BEHIND in your cloud of airplane gas emissions. See you at the La Quinta rooftop bar on 32nd Street, friendo.

Only Friends could have ended so much better. And I understand that in the Only Friends novel, published AFTER the script was finished, that it did end somewhat better for Boston (cc @jinitak, reporting from Thailand, thank you for this heads-up about the novel!).

So. Any-fucking-way. Do y'all know how Gay OK Bangkok ended?

Of many lovely endings for the various GOKB characters, an older main character, Aof, was dating a much younger character, Big. (CC to @neuroticbookworm for our quick convo on this last night.)

Aof was sex-averse. Big wanted lots of sex. Big slept with a lot of people. He loved Aof. Aof couldn't handle Big having sex with other people, and they broke up. It was a lovingly handled break-up, written just gorgeously by Aof Noppharnach.

After their break-up, I thought Big would disappear from the show. Instead. Instead! Nong Big, the little brother to the core group of queer friends that centered GOKB, was welcomed back with open arms. Arm, Pom, Sathang (played by an effervescent Jennie Panhan), and others toasted to Big, telling him he would always be family, no matter if him and his ex, Aof, had broken up. In the queer circles of friends that I'm a part of, exes are not as commonly excommunicated as they are in straight circles.

Only Friends could have been this. Something, a little something, like this.

Instead, Only Friends punished a friend for acting outside of the rules of their group.

Boston was punished because.... because Only Friends had to end up being a BL. For the sake of the moolah, for the sake of collectivism, for the sake of the shippers who'll buy tickets around the world to see ForceBook and FirstKhao perform fan service on stage.

I just didn't think that the show would be so brutal, on so many levels, in the end, to people who want to have casual sex. I don't think any of us expected this. But, it's over, it's done, and the piece has been said -- GMMTV said, no casual sex today, and here's how we actually feel about it.

I'll see you over on Gagaoolala for Playboyy. Deuces, OF.

(It was an absolute pleasure writing meta with the Ephemerality Squad -- onto the next one! @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @thatgirl4815 @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad)

[heretherebedork]

Ep 3 of Only Friends + Car Make Outs