#rayboston

[khaotunq]

Neo Trai as Boston and Khaotung Thanawat as Ray (Only Friends, 2023)

[taeminie]

so i think ray and boston being revealed as ex fuck buddies who later became friends is gonna be the gag of the show

a) how did ray recognize boston’s moans?

b) ray’s reaction when sand asked him if he kissed mew and boston like he kisses him was very sus. then we saw mew and ray have kissed.

c) “some friendships can start from having sex” and… you reached that conclusion how????

d) the way ray warns nick twice (ep 5: the likes of him only care about himself & ep6: did you do it in his dark room?) ray seems to know a lot…

hear me out (but also ignore me) but HEAR ME OUT

[namtan]

ONLY FRIENDS | Ep 7

[prapaiwife]

Pretty sure Ray and Boston are childhood friends (rich families and powerful dads in politics), so they probably have fucked or at least messed around when they were younger. I think Mew came along later, and that makes Boston's dislike/jealousy of Mew more understandable. First he took Ray, then he took Top.

That's what I'm learning towards as well!! Im so curious as to what their history is and how they both became so hostile to each other, cause in the chart they are labeled as beloved fronds so they definitely had a closer relationship than what we see now obviously. Also Since we've seen most of the clips from the trailer I think we might be surprised with more stuff going on with this group.

[tswizzlesfan]

mew is a brat but i just know that ray and sand would go to new york and see that countdown with boston and thats all that matters

[jenyifer]

Humm let’s talk about BostonRay for a moment here. I do think Boston came to visit Ray because he was worried about him. He saw on Cheum’s story that Ray had been hurt. Why would he go there to be cursed out by Mew? I think he didn’t expect Mew to be there after the party. Mew punched Ray in the face. That’s the last time Boston saw them anyways. So when Boston gets there he’s disappointed not surprised to see Mew there.

Boston also knows about Sand and that yeah Ray is two timing just like Boston accused him of ep5. But Ray is going to sit there and be all high and mighty. Possibly because of his own feelings for Ray he feels extremely bitter seeing Ray holding hands with Mew. Everything has worked out for Ray while Boston’s relationship with Nick is over. The fantasy has been shattered there. He wants Ray to admit that he’s that nasty too.

That’s why during the debate and the pool scene Boston keeps looking at Ray. He has feelings for Ray or wants something from him? I don’t know why else he’d be looking at Ray like this.

In Bostons mind some how Ray got the audio from Nick and used it to get Mew. And yet Ray still won’t choose Boston. I do think the BostonRay having a past thing is still in play and would still make the story more interesting twisty. Because what if Ray was already chosen by Boston first. And that’s why the shots of Boston looking at Ray look so intense.

[jgyapologism]

so......i made a bostonray playlist because im really Unwell about them right now so if anyone else is as unwell as me. here u go.

(made with the assumption/theory that they were previous fuck buddies in mind btw)

ofts keeps giving me mental illness how are we doing friends

[prapaiwife]

It's GIVING!!! cause there's just no way you have this absolute smoke for someone unless it's because u felt personally victimized. He says to Ray that he has no problem with mew but clearly he's not being truthful, because the way he talks about mew is as if he's sick and tired of people picking mew over him. When he believes he's a better option again like we all know is this superiority complex that top even pointed out to him. And also that comment that he may about Ray two timings on a very much like he had experienced that . Did he feel like because of how Ray and him had this unexplainable relationship that how Ray moved on and got closer to me he felt like he was playing him at the same time and I was something that they have never even really spoke about they just kind of left things ended but didn't really end because clearly . Boston has grown this resentment towards Ray and seeing him do the same thing with sand in his eyes, feels like well you don't deserve to have anyone and you don't deserve to be happy cuz you took that from me.

please excuse my hater moment but i hate when people see two characters that have the most insane dynamic and they’re like but what if it was wholesome :) okay well what if they fucked nasty style and tried to kill each other all the time also

[khaotunq]

there's an end to my horizon by khaotunq

Some nights, Boston stared at a name in his contacts list until his eyes burned. Some nights, aching with desperate loneliness, he'd try to call and find the line disconnected. Some nights, drowning himself in booze and sex with strangers would never even come close to scratching the discontented itch in his very bones.

Post-canon Boston introspection

[taeminie]

say it LOUDER

[forcebookish]

idk about u guys but i'm still mourning nicksand

[distant-screaming]

Does Mew know about Ray's crush on him? I doubt it, and I don't think Chueam does either - but Boston does seem to know, which means one of two things - either Ray is very subtle and Boston just happened to figure it out (unlikely), or Something Happened there. Either way I'm Looking

[kit-teung]

au where boston isn't a little bitch (i know, unlikely, but hear me out) and they play spin the bottle instead

[jenyifer]

Now you might say what’s the point in getting this BostonRay photo and I’ll let you in on a little secret. I have an outline of 4 fics pre only friends starting up that are all Boston Ray centric. One meeting as kids at swimming lessons. One where Boston confesses he likes boys and Ray asking well how would Boston know and they do a little kiss. One after Ray’s mom passing away. Maybe the last one Boston Ray… get a little too close but Ray likes mew so… I thought about doing one during the only friends timeline but don’t have details ready yet. And I think some people will like them so… thought I’d throw this out there so I don’t backtrack.

[heretherebedork]

Come on, just give us ONE HATEFUCK in the show, damnit. We deserve it.

[yourpintilts]

Only Friends and Genre Theory

Well - I guess I'll start this blog off with post about everyone's (my) favorite series (it literally has not aired yet) of 2023: Only Friends.

Recently, the nominees for the ContentAsia awards were released, and my friends and I were celebrating the nomination of The Eclipse for Best LGBTQ+ Show (yay!) when a really interesting topic arose. Someone pointed out that Jojo Tichakorn's Never Let Me Go was chosen over The Warp Effect, which they felt was his better work in 2022. Regardless of your opinion on that (though, I agree), we wondered if The Warp Effect is even eligible at all. Of course, the category is LGBTQ+ Shows, but every single nominee is a BL.

I've noticed, in my perusing of BL Twitter and Tumblr that most fans seem to differentiate between BL, lakorns/dramas, and the LGBTQ+ genre, but nobody seems to define them. They are designating the genre by, for lack of a better word (although I consider it pretty accurate), the vibes.

I've seen the off-handed "I wonder what genre it will be" or "It seems like Jojo is leaning away from BL with this series" comment more than once about Only Friends. And really, it's hard to say at all when all we have is a trailer and cryptic social media posts from the cast and crew, but, uh, I'm gonna try. Sort of.

So, let's get into it: Is Only Friends going to be a BL, drama, an LGBTQ+ show, or something else entirely?

Alright, before we get into trying to put a label on the series, let's talk about the labels themselves: it's Genre Theory time!

So, what is genre? Well, most of us would consider it to be the category that we put a type of media or art into: country music, romance novels, etc. Genres help us differentiate amongst the huge sea of art, find patterns and create links between work, and, most practically, help us decide if we will likely enjoy something or not.

Normally, it's not much more complicated than that. Sci-fi, drama, noir, biography - each of these gives you a basic idea of what you're getting into, what tropes you might expect, or how you might feel while consuming it. But film theorists will be film theorists, and it's not actually that simple.

Let's take the horror genre as an example. At its face, we define films as horror because they follow certain tropes and patterns: things like jump scares, the final girl, dark and saturated style, slashers and paranormal, etc. But what about movies like Parasite or Get Out? These films rely less on jump scares and physical horror - it's their concepts themselves that are so scary. And so this is where sub-genres come in, in which Parasite and Get Out are labeled as psychological horror to further define them. And then there are films that just... don't seem to be anything at all. Something like (because I recently watched it) In Bruges, which mixes crime, drama, and comedy, but also never fully leans in to any of them. It sort of defies genre altogether.

So, that's the gist of genre theory. Basically, the point is that sometimes you can put a film or other piece of art in a category, and sometimes you can't.

But, let's be honest. We don't care about other movies. Let's talk about sexy, spectacular, groundbreaking masterpiece that will be Only Friends, and how we can apply genre theory in order to try to figure out what label best fits.

There are several different indicators of a BL, and Only Friends does fit some of them:

Most straightforwardly: the primary story in a BL is a relationship between two male characters. Of course, in this case there are six male leads (and who knows how many different pairings... TopSan, NickSan, RayBoston, and more have their advocates, some even seem likely), but the point is that the series is focused on their relationships together. Along with this, two of the three primary couples - ForceBook and FirstKhaotung - featured in the show are official pairings at GMMTV. BLs nearly always feature couples who have worked or will work together in multiple shows.

The series is also being produced by GMMTV, a company well-known for its stake in the BL genre, and it follows the logistical style of a 12-episode limited series.

But in several other ways, the show is in direct opposition to many of the components of BL. Some may not be intentional, or hard and fast "rules," but they occur so often that they are undeniably associated with BL as a genre.

As mentioned above, two of the lead couples are official pairings, but the other isn't. In fact, Neo and Mark both auditioned for their roles in Only Friends, and Director Jojo Tichakorn has spoken about his intention in casting them: to divert the expectation of clear masculine/feminine and top/bottom roles in queer relationships. The "seme" and "uke" trope, designating who gives and receives sexually (and usually indicating personality and relationship dynamics), has been pervasive in BL. It panders to the homophobic notion that queer relationships must still follow heteronormative standards. With NeoMark - and, as I believe, with all of the relationships in the series - Jojo will subvert that standard.

Also, Only Friends has a not insignificant amount of openly queer people writing, directing, etc. for the show. This certainly isn't the first time this has happened, but since BL began as a genre made by women and for women, Only Friends seems determined to be a series by queer people and for queer people.

And, because we've already established genre is not black and white, there are other aspects of Only Friends that blur the lines of its BL status. Only Friends seems to be much darker, grittier, and realistic the typical dramedy BL. We already know we will see smoking, drug use, sex, cheating, and according to Jojo, this is only scratching the surface. But, of course, the BL genre has evolved as of late, giving us shows like KinnPorsche, which also delve into such topics. So, while BL is largely more comedic and lighthearted, a darker series still can fit the genre.

Of course, there are many other characteristics of BL that Only Friends exhibits and opposes - I could be here forever if I wanted to list every single one, but we have less than a week until episode one, and personally, I want to watch the trailer a thousand more times before Saturday. So hopefully these examples gave you enough of an idea that Only Friends sort of straddles the line of BL (but also that BL itself is incredibly difficult to define, especially as it continues to evolve).

What about the LGBTQ+ genre - can Only Friends better be defined by this? Likely, yes, but my answer is so because the LGBTQ+ genre itself is even vaguer than BL.

(Some even argue that it isn't a genre at all. That's a post for another time.)

Shows labeled as LGBTQ+ are often done so because of a few defining characteristics, usually occurring at the same time: the show features LGBTQ+ characters, depicts LGBTQ+ themes (coming-of-age, acceptance, found family, etc), and is broadly accepted as such by the queer community. Only Friends certainly does the first two, but the third might be a bit trickier than it seems. With the divide between the LGBTQ+ and BL genres, some audiences will argue it fits one over the other.

And perhaps there are some important differences: the LGBTQ+ genre exists on an international scale, with media added to the queer canon from all over the world. Comparatively, I'm not sure I can think of a show outside of Asia that has been labeled as a BL. The LGBTQ+ genre does tend to be more diverse in gender and sexuality than the typical gay male leads in BL, too - BL does stand specifically for Boys' Love while LGBTQ+ encompasses any form of queerness.

But if we're focusing on these standards, I think Only Friends checks these boxes as well. The show seems to clearly be a test for a less conservative international market. And it is more diverse than just gay male leads; Namchueam is sapphic, Jojo has indicated that Ray is bisexual, and Yo is played by Jennie, a trans woman. Sure, there can always be more diversity, but this is absolutely a step forward compared to past, and many current, GMMTV series.

After positioning Only Friends next to the BL genre, then the LGBTQ+ genre, I would love to be able to make a judgment and wrap this all up in a neat little bow.

Actually, that's a lie. I don't want to do that - I am the complicated film theorist I was talking about before. So, it's a good thing I can't, isn't it?

Ultimately, Only Friends is a show that is here to break boundaries, to subvert expectations, to give us something we've never seen before in Thai, or maybe even international, entertainment. It would be an injustice to the series to try to put it in a box, to ignore its little nuances out of convenience.

It doesn't matter whether Only Friends is a BL or LGBTQ+ drama. We should be looking at the show holistically, taking it in as it is rather than through the lens of the things we come to expect from a specific genre. Genre can be useful, yes, but we can't get too held up on applying it where it may not be productive.

And yet (plot twist!), it sort of... does matter? It matters, not in the sense of changing what the show is, but changing the way we perceive and discuss it. The implications that come with a BL series are different than those of an LGBTQ+ series, even though both genres are difficult to define and are ever-changing.

The conversations we have about how innovative Only Friends is, its place in Asian versus international culture, whether it can be considered a success or not, if it's "good" representation and who gets to decide that... all of that is a product of the genre we label a series with. And I'm not really here to argue whether that is a good or a bad thing; like I said, genre can be useful, and fun - there's a reason specific genres remain popular! What I hope this post sparks is external and internal conversation about why we label, and how that might do a service and/or disservice to the media we engage with. Think about the way that you, personally, want to interact with Only Friends and shows like it, accept it, and then challenge it.