#is it mewtop or topmew

[namtan]

ONLY FRIENDS | Ep 1 / Ep 8

[heretherebedork]

I just wanna say how much I deeply appreciate having a character who has not had sex still be allowed to use sex as a way of manipulating people. It's done so rarely and having Mew know that he is sexy and he is wanted and that his body is a powerful tool without fucking Top first to find that out? Love it. Love it for him.

[jacksjoke]

[sunsetandthemoon]

ONLY FRIENDS (2023) + vigilante shit, taylor swift.

[25shadesoffebruary]

I choose you.

[gaym3bo1]

had the thought today how funny it would be if Mew isn't actually a virgin but just uses that as an act to lure in fuckbois and then make them pay for cute little dates, fuck them, drop them; rinse and repeat

[prapaiwife]

I DONT THINK YALL UNDERSTAND MOND MOND!?!?!?!

Like yall this man is the reason I started my blog with not me era I was grams girlfriend!! lmao no but seriously I MISSED SEEING HIM ON MY SCREEN THIS FINE ASS MAN IS THE EX SOMEONE HOLD ME DOWNNMMMM

[distant-screaming]

It's been said before but the fact that out of all the couples topmew feel like the least genuine which is just FASCINATING because they're the only two in an explicit romantic relationship

[circuscl0wn]

THIS HAS ME IN TEARS LMFAOO

POV: you don’t have on headphones

[sandrayofsun]

I may be Team Top??

As promised in my last post, I'm making a diary entry for TopMew!

I'll start by saying that I have not been a fan of this couple throughout the show, but I did like their characters separately. Something that I felt a lot throughout the series was the lack of chemistry and awkwardness surrounding TopMew. Mind you, I've watched "A Boss and a Babe," I KNOW ForceBook has chemistry.

In saying that, episode 8 has officially changed my mind on the TopMew train hehe.

Specifically this scene

Mew's revenge era is honestly what made me like him the most... Unpopular opinion maybe, but I found it really relatable that he is doing things he normally doesn't do and becoming someone different. Top did a really shitty thing to him. Despite him being "perfect," being a virgin, having good grades, and being respectful, Top still cheated on him. It opened his eyes to the fact that no matter how "good" he is, people are still capable of doing shitty things to him.

So why not do all the things you've never done in the name of being hurt. No matter who he is, people can hurt him no matter what, might as well go out with a bang.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bathroom scene was interesting because it's the first "civil" conversation they've had since the whole fight blew out. and Top is now seeing the effects of his affair with Boston reflecting on Mew. Even with Mew rubbing Ray in Top's face, he still is only worried about Mew and what is happening to him.

It's honestly slightly refreshing that Top isn't taking the jealousy approach because he knows that at the moment he's lost that right. He can't blame Mew for running to Ray because Top set him on that path.

Top was presented to us as a selfish character, one who is used to getting what he wants, and not having much to work for (a little bit like Boston). Him going to Cheum and voicing his concerns for Mew, even taking a little bit of heat from Cheum (you go girl), shows character development on Top's part, and honestly gives me a little bit of hope for their end game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I want to touch on Mew for a sec, and his "relationship" with Ray.

I think it is so intentional the way that they have framed this phrase for Mew and Ray. How Ray is someone that Mew "should" love, but obviously doesn't, because Mew loves Top and knows deep down that Ray will never fulfill that role in his life (the same way Mew can't fulfill that role in Ray's). Even hesitating to kiss him when they are alone is evidence enough that Mew is pretending.

Curving Ray's kiss and saying they should go and have fun is ultimate "get me out of here" behavior. Mew doesn't want Ray. Simple as that.

I also need to call out the fact that the next time we see RayMew kiss is because Mew is trying to prove a point to Top. Only then does he use Ray to make him jealous, but isn't actually willing to do it in private.

Top's face during this whole scene made me sad tbh. I really felt for him, he was manipulated by Boston and thrown under the bus by Nick. Overall, he did a shitty thing, but that doesn't mean he didn't love Mew or want to be a better person for him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This scene called to action the fact that Mew is still jealous over Top. Calling him and Boston out for sitting next to each other and telling them they're free to hook up again was funny but also important to TopMew's relationship.

Top still being there for Mew, helping him when he was throwing up and then sitting next to each other on the floor gave me MAJOR SandRay Episode 1 parallels. But also look at Mew :(

He's asking Top why he has to be an asshole because he still loves him. He is in love with an asshole :((((( and I'd like to point out that this scene was the MOST chemistry that I have seen from these two thus far.

Both of them are hurt, and are hurting for the other. I think deep down, Mew wants to make amends, but also he needs to do this for himself. He needs to spiral a little bit to realize where he is headed. he needs to make Top hurt a little (as sad as that may be).

Top on the other hand is hurt because he did this. He caught feelings, and then messed up the person he loves. He doesn't know how to fix what he broke, but also knows that they are meant to be.

This is what really changed my mind on them. Before it felt like both of them had masks, and didn't really see each other, but now they're both at low points, and seeing each other for the first time. But still loving each other from afar despite the turmoil they're going through.

Top taking care of Mew after everything at the end of the night was so heartwarming. A man who probably has never been one to take care of others, spending what little time with Mew he can get.

I'm really looking forward to seeing where these two go, and huge props to ForceBook for the amazing acting job they're doing!

See you guys next week!!

[nongnaopat]

Mew EP 1 vs EP7 of Only Friends

[heretherebedork]

Mew uses his sexuality just as much, if not more, than Boston and Top do. He just uses it differently than they do. While they both use their sexualities as a way to derive pleasure while Mew is using it as a way to manipulate other people into the position he wants them in without actually acting on their wants.

Mew is using sex without having sex and I love that for him, my tiny virgin devil knows exactly what he's doing and he ain't gonna stop for anyone.

[justme-1723]

So like… we all agree that this mysterious ex that Top stole from Sand is going to pop up out of the blue in the next few episodes and completely ruin everything for everyone right?

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 6 ("DECIDING IN YOUR YOUTH / ON THE POLICY OF TRUTH") EDITION

In segment 2/4 of this latest episode of Only Friends, Boston let us know what year the show's mind is on.

Some stuff was percolating around this time, some of it majorly important, and other stuff important maybe only to someone like myself, a baby born in the 1980s and raised in the 1990s who happens to have a thing for 20th-century British electronic rock.

In February 1997, the infamous "The One With The Morning After" episode of Friends came out -- when Rachel discovers that Ross had slept with someone else when, "WE WERE ON A BREAK!"

In September 1997, Linda Tripp begins recording her conversations with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, about Lewinsky's affair with the U.S. president of the time, Bill Clinton.

In January 1998, the first public news of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal comes out.

And in 1998, one of my favorite songs ever, "Policy of Truth," is released by one of the greatest bands of all time, Depeche Mode (ya feel me, Sand?). I thought a lot about this song, about the meaning of truth in the hands of young folks, and I thought a LOT about politics, during this episode.

It's just time to pay the price / For not listening to advice / And deciding in your youth / On the policy of truth

Truth, Bill, Monica, cheating, Friends. It's a lot. To me, this episode dealt with politics, with the nature of what "truth" means, what truth means when it is created and/or revealed at a particular point in time, and how young people begin to learn about the correlation between truth and consequences in safe, unsafe, and enduring ways.

We meet Boston's dad, shown above. We see he's got a flavor about him. He's quite casual with his son ("Ton, you dipshit!"). He's borrowing help from his son's friend for campaign materials (ooookay, lol, where is your campaign manager), while smoochin' on a Scotch.

What are campaign materials? Campaign materials -- posters, mailers, policies, commercials, etc. -- are the selling of an image. A political campaign is not quite about truth. A political campaign is a selling of a story that candidates want voters to buy with their votes. It's reality....-ish. It's a kind of truth that is ultimately selective and marketed to a particular voting audience that will hopefully allow that candidate to win and gain power.

There was someone else playing a political game, until his game crumbled. Top was playing a political game.

Before Mew blew Top's shit UP (Mew would have made Linda Tripp proud, goddamn), Top thought his political game was selling. He thought his IMAGE was selling. He thought his secret about his sex with Boston, while him and Top had reset and were not officially boyfriends again ("we were on a break"), was safe.

We saw Top's true nature come out time and time again, to Boston, to Nick, to Sand. We saw his aggressiveness and his confidence, his assuredness about his success as a top-tier man, directed to everyone EXCEPT Mew, with whom Top had to play a different game -- a game of touch-and-go, a game of restraint, a game of change, and certainly a game of withholding and/or manipulating certain truths about himself (Top) in order to continue to win Mew's heart. Before the in-bed blow-up at the end of the episode, Top even planted a guilt trip on Mew -- digging into Mew's continued distrust of Top by asking Mew to PLEASE consider everything that Top had changed for Mew.

Someone else was called out for playing a dishonest political game. Boston calls out Ray for not being honest about his feelings for Mew. Boston says to Ray, as Ray looks on in shock, below:

In this scene, I realized something. The only person NOT playing a game of deception at this point is Boston. Boston -- while an absolute jerk and asshole -- KNOWS he is these things. He doesn't fight off allegations that he is "nasty." He knows what he likes. He is honest about how he acts. He is truthful to his feelings. He is a jerk -- but he doesn't lie. (Or at least, he hasn't lied, yet.) He happens to keep secrets and withhold truths, but he hasn't distorted his image to try to fool anyone -- the way that Top has, the way that Ray has. He is utterly direct about his intentions with Nick, and he leaves it up to Nick to deal with his (Boston's) brutal honesty.

(Before I unwind on Boston to bring together these thoughts on sex, politics, and truth, I want to note that we had two instances of advice from GROWN-UPS -- from the quartet's business professor, and from Sand's mom -- that playing with friendship, work, love, and business, can result in awkward consequences. Finally, we begin to see a creep of the grown-up Greek chorus offering its thoughts on the antics of this group of aloof students who are almost Seinfeld-ian in their disdain of how they may hurt each other, others, and even themselves with their behaviors. This group has decided right now, in its youth, on its policies of truth. And Seinfeld, along with Friends, was the aloof epitome of the 1990s.)

The reason why I interjected that thought on grown-ups and consequences here is that both Boston and Ray had different takes on "truth" in this episode than Top. Like I said: Top has an image that he had been selling to Mew until the very end of the episode.

Boston and Ray, on the other hand, have relationships with truth in which they are unaware of the consequences of their almost thoughtless honesty (and in Ray's case, his simultaneous dishonesty). What do I mean by that?

As I mentioned before: Boston isn't deceitful. He's just brutal. Boston is brutally honest about his feelings and intentions -- and he doesn't realize that people like Nick, or Gap (DRAKE) may interpret sex, and feelings that might come from or after sex, differently than him. And those different feelings, from different people, will almost always have consequences of a kind that Boston is clearly not prepared to deal with. The biological urge that many have to be close or clingy after sex? The implication that if you have sex with someone, that you might automatically be “dating”? The theory that maaaaannny people have that sex is a way INTO a relationship (and not the other way around)? All of these notions need communication. I posit that Boston’s been VERY clear in his communication that he is NOT into ANYTHING related to a relationship—but he’s not aware that others do not think like him, and that WILL have consequences for him.

Ray, in that drunk and high performance of a lifetime at YOLO (cc @liyazaki LOLLLLL), thinks that he's saving his friends with a round of truth-telling. By being so blind to the feelings of others -- and, really, to ignore the rights and privacy of others to deal with their own truths on their own time -- Ray BLASTS past any of consequences that he might face, and that his friends may face, as he reveals their secrets, one by one.

@lurkingshan noted in one of her meta posts yesterday that Mew punched Ray at the bar in part to control the release of the truth of Top cheating on Mew, to leave that little bit out, so that Mew could have his own "gotcha" moment later at home with Top.

You know what that was? That was politics, baby. That was a HELL of a power move, for Mew to literally PUNCH someone out of his way, so that Mew could clinch a win for himself -- vis à vis a brutal truth that very clearly hurt and impacted him, either through his love for Top, and/or through embarrassment for his own reputation, as Shan notes.

I'm gonna tie this ALL together in just a moment -- but I want to make one very last note about the truth and a character. Sand runs to Ray in the parking lot after Ray's blow-up. Sand admits his feelings to Ray. Ray pushes him away and gets behind the wheel. And Sand hops on his bike and follows Ray.

At this point in the series, I posit that Sand knows exactly what he is getting into. (I'm SMDH about it, but he knows what he's getting into, god fucking damn it, SAND, baka.)

He's NOT deceiving himself. He's being honest with his feelings, like Boston is -- but, unlike Boston, I believe Sand is very fully aware of the consequences that his feelings may lead him to face. Remember that Sand is not a part of the original aloof quartet. He's not one with the liars, like Cheum and Ray. He's not one with Boston, who doesn't think ahead. He's not one with Mew, who is insecure, conniving, and now potentially vengeful. Sand, the goddamn romantic, is caught beneath a landslide on a champagne supernova with his feelings, and will clearly ride them out, with intention. (I want to SHAKE HIS DAMN SHOULDERS, but anyway.) (GMMTV, why do you have to play First like this. I just finished Not Me. You took the anarchy outta my boy. Now he’s blubbering for another problematic dude. Can we just. Let. First. I dunno. Anyway.)

So.... whew. What of all of this?

I take this episode as one that says:

Truth is what you make of truth. Truth -- whether it's the presentable truth, the not-totally-complete truth, the whole and unedited truth, or in the words of Californians, your own truth -- will have consequences when it is revealed. And a huge part of maturity is in one's handling of those revelations when they are made.

When you are young, you don't have the benefit of years and years of time and life to recognize that your actions may have consequences, some that are fleeting, some that will last a lifetime. A huge point of one's young adulthood is how you are shaped by the consequences of your actions and your decisions -- and by seeing how your actions affect other people, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Sex and politics rarely, if ever, mix well. For Boston's dad.... what will be revealed about Boston is not gonna be good for his campaign. And Boston's own life may well be impacted for a good chunk of his lifetime.

But, more than anything else, this theme of politics that I saw in this episode reflected for me -- of course, as always -- a kind of ephemerality in this series. You know why?

Politics, unless it is INCREDIBLY corrupt, always has term limits. Unless you're Putin or Mugabe: power unto a leader, or a group of leaders, will almost always come to an end.

The image will fade. The rhetoric will wither out.

The politics will always change -- because people always change, ideas always change.

HOWEVER. The consequences of one's actions in politics may last a lifetime, or lifetimes. If you REALLY fuck up? You’ll be known for that for your life.

The OF quartet is heading into a dalliance between impermanence and permanence, as well as with consequences that their aloofness has not prepared them for, and it's bound to be devastating. Many of them tried to play games in this episode. Almost all of them are unaware that these games will have long-lasting effects. Some of them (like Nick and Sand) are still playing games. And these games, these risks, are bound to end in many of them ending up as losers.

The following rule is NOT ephemeral — it is a permanent truth: in politics, there will ALWAYS be losers. That is always the case, and will always be the case. There are going to be a lot of losers by the time this show ends.

(EPHEMERALITY SQUAD, HAPPY SUNDAY! Thanks for tagging me in your meta yesterday! @ranchthoughts @chickenstrangers @slayerkitty @twig-tea @clara-maybe-ontheroad @distant-screaming @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm)

[25shadesoffebruary]

Good memories

[iwantoceans]

“The role you made me play of the fool”