Imagine it's your birthday and you're not really a huge fan of parties so you don't really announce it and your friend/sex buddy/not boyfriend wants you to jerk him off which gets interrupted so he then decides to spend the whole day with you so you guys go on a not-date when halfway through it your mom calls you and says there's debt collectors at her door so you rush over with your Guy and find it's just a surprise birthday party at the go go bar you were raised in (but it's not even technically your birthday yet) and you coerce your not-boyfriend-not-friend into serenading you and your mom nudges you and you kind of admit you might like this guy and you go home and get high + drunk with Pretty Boy and get cockblocked Again by your roommate and his definitely-not-crush who happens to be your boy's friend, so all four of you get high together and you find out your not-crush is in fact in love with a friend of several years and is using you as a rebound. And your name is Sand because your mom conceived you on the beach. What would you even do.

Only Friends Episode 11 Preview

Literally everybody at the party that aren't in the main group as 20 different dramas happen in the space of an hour

You know, I just can't get the opening scene of only friends ep 4 out of my head, and not just because it broke my heart.

When the scene opens, Ray is doing a voice over, and the first thing he says is: "Everybody has an emergency contact. Someone to call when we need urgent assistance. That person can be a lover, a sibling, or a family member, but for someone who doesn't have any of those, my emergency contact is Mew."

And it just really makes me wonder how estranged he and his father must be from one another, for Ray to not even consider him a family member, or even consider having his own father as his emergency contact. Instead, he chooses the friend who, immediately upon answering, says: "Are you drunk again? I'm not picking you up this time."

And Ray's response to that? "I just called to tell you that I love you."

That right there should be raising alarm bells in Mew's head. But what does he say? "You're drunk and talking nonsense."

And Ray responds with: "Thank you for being a good friend to me and always taking care of me."

And fuck. It just makes me so, so sad. Because Ray is reaching out. He's fucking SCREAMING for help in this moment, calling the one friend he trusts enough to be his emergency contact, and that friend is responding in the most unsupportive way imaginable.

(Listen: I've been that friend. I've been the one who's been called upon by drunk family members or friends who are ALWAYS drunk. It can be exhausting, but if they said that shit to me? I would be IN MY CAR already on the way. I would have my phone ready to call a fucking ambulance if need be.

And like, yes. Setting boundaries is important. We can't always take care of our self destructive friends/family, but at moments like THIS, when they start using language like THIS, you better fucking pay attention.)

"If I'm gone, I won't be anyone's burden anymore, right? You take care of yourself."

Just ... the way Ray responds to indifference, or to insults, is to internalize it. He always blames himself. He is always viewing himself as the problem. And I just know it fucking stems from his mother and his father - a mother who apparently never hugged him and a father who seems to have abandoned him.

It just makes you think about the fucked up relationship that Ray must have with love, and how people express love towards him, that he has internalized it to the point of thinking he's a burden.

So here we have Ray, on the verge of suicide, calling the one person he thinks will be there for him during a moment of crisis, or perhaps the one person he thinks will offer him a way out - and Mew just, doesn't. Not until he realizes what Ray is about to do.

And I don't know. I just think it's a lesson for us all: If you care about somebody, fucking show it. All the time.

It reminds me of the very first episode, when Ray tells Boston, Mew, and Cheum that he loves them, and Boston's response is to say: "He's saying please don't leave me."

It just really fucking breaks my heart that Ray's response to being ridiculed is to not only internalize it and blame himself, but to still show love to that person, to still show his sincerity. And even then, his sincerity isn't accepted.

Because he's just a drunkard. How could he possibly be sincere?

This right here is the face of someone in love. Boston looks so at peace. So content. Beautiful.

why does top and mew's relationship feel so forced? it's like they're treading through all the steps of being a happy couple (the cute perfect dates, the premature i love yous -yikes-, the posting on instagram) and yet it all seems so superficial.

top goes with it because he needs company at night and mew (believes he) needs to stop being a prude and catch up to his peers. but do they really need each other specifically or is it just about convenience? tbh I'm getting nothing from them chemistry-wise

the HAAAAAAYY~ from Let's Try kicking in at the exact right moment?

CINEMATIC MASTERY

I'M KISSING MY SCREEN

i can’t get over nick. nuts over a singular shirtless selfie on a customer’s phone. proceeds to take his own shirtless pic on said customer’s phone in the most cringefail attempt at rizz ever. and somehow this circles back round by being so pathetic it’s actually sexy. mark pakin served us pure gamerboy loser CUNT

I've been rotating Nick in my head for a hot minute but @ranchthoughts helped me straighten out my thoughts, so here's a little brainworm I had.

I think Nick reads as a voyeuristic character, not just in terms of the character itself but also as a narrative device - he acts as a sort of close proxy to the viewers. Nick goes through Boston's phone the same way we (as viewers) would be able to go through his phone by virtue of peeking over his shoulder, he wiretaps the car and is able to hear Top + Boston the same way we are, he's privy to Sand + Ray's private moment just like the viewers are - and it's almost like Nick seems to have full agency in the story but still doesn't manage to affect the plot in any significant way (thus far, at least!).

It's also very interesting because despite Boston's need for control and Mew's idea of being in charge, the character with the most information and cards up his sleeve, so to speak, is Nick. I wonder how that's going to play out.

Can't you remember anything? When did you black out? Why am I at your place?

Only Friends | Episode 1 [2023]

boeing: i came here to look good and fuck shit up. and im already hot, so,

I don't need the world to see That I've been the best I can be, but I don't think I could stand to be Where you don't see me

Boeing is the ex he stole from Sand isn’t he?

God, I hope it’s Mix