#only friends nick | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

everythingiloveblog · 6 months

Text

Is Only Friends Slut-Shaming Boston?

"Sometimes bad people don't need a back story, they're just born sluts" Jojo Tichakorn

"I can’t (have sex with someone without knowing them), I’m not like Boston" Mew to Top in episode 1

"Whoever has you as their boyfriend is so unlucky. You’re slutty" Cheum to Boston in episode 4

"Serves you right for being slutty" Nick to Boston after learning about Gap’s revenge porn in episode 5

"Even a heartless slut like Boston has a lover" Cheum in episode 6

"Your slutty ass just sleeps with anyone" Ray to Boston in episode 6

"This asshole sleeps with everything that breathes" Mew about Boston in episode 10

"You sleep around too much and things get messy. Don’t you learn" Nick to Boston in episode 11

The whole Atom plot in detail with @chaos0pikachu

This post from @spicyvampire and this answer from @lurkingshan

And this is just what I remember from the show so I would answer...yes? I don't know how much of it is intentional, but it definitely feels like it, yeah.

...I actually have so many things to say I don’t even know where to start. Is anyone gonna read all that? I doubt it, but I still need to let it out.

Warnings: english is not my native language so have mercy & I’m writing this mostly by memory so I will definitely forget things or get things wrong

I really logged back into an old tumblr account just for this because I still can’t believe how people can’t see it. I know people are allowed to have their own opinions and see things differently but...really?

Many people have already written about this on Tumblr & Twitter so I will also add links and quotes from people smarter and more eloquant than me (I hope I’m allowed to do this. If not I will delete it)

First of all, this is not only about the last episode, it’s about what happened in OF since episode 1 + some interviews of Jojo and Ninew. So rewatching the finale only will not give you the full picture.

"Is the narrative is punishing Boston? Is the narrative punishing Boston because he is a slut? And not because he slept with his friend's boyfriend.

First of all, what is a slut? Sorry for the Wikipedia definition but :

‘Slut (archaic: slattern) is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman or girl, who is sexually promiscuous or considered to have loose sexual morals.’

Who is said to have a lot of different sexual partners or sexual relationships? Boston, Top & Sand (kinda).

Who is shown having a lot of different sexual partners or sexual relationships? Only Boston. We see him with Gap, Nick, Top, Atom & Boeing. And you know what? Let’s add all the pictures of the guys we see in his dark room while knowing that they were taken after sexual intercourse. That’s a lot!

Also big difference, Top and Sand are actively shown to want a committed, monogamous relationship. Sand just sleep with different people to avoid getting attached and getting hurt. Top is a newly reformed slut who "exists only to be Mew's True Love" (see chaos0pikachu’s take on Top, very interesting and sad tbh, he could have been so much more).

However, Boston is currently enjoying the slut life, he enjoys the freedom of being promiscuous. I just think this is interesting to note.

Boston may deserve to be 'punished' for sleeping with Top. Yeah, sure. But don’t you think it’s weird that he is the only one getting punished by the narative like this? And does he deserve this amount of punishment ?

Yes, the difference between Top & Boston is that Top feels remorse right away and Boston doesn’t. So while Top spends the 2nd half of the show pathetically trying to get Mew back (coughboringcough, sorry), Boston gets (and I hope I don’t forget anything):

- his car wiretapped by his jealous friend with benefits, which leads to an audio recording of Top and Boston having sex (also, Nick used the information to blackmail Top into staying away from Boston...weirdo)

- that same recording getting shared by Sand (after he stole the recording by lying and manipulating Nick). So now, 4 people (Nick, Sand, Ray, Mew) have been in contact and passing around an illegal, unconsented recording of ‘the sluts’, with little repercussion tbh

- punched by Ray in episode 6

- punched, almost drowned and told he should have never been born by Mew in episode 7

- Boston is also out of the friend group, but is still ‘allowed’ to be involved in the group project (fair enough)

- Nick telling a revenge thirsty Mew that Gap has illegal, unconsented video recordings of Boston having sex to blackmail him for money, aka Revenge Porn material (for what reasons??? Nick just cried to Boston that he would never hurt him on purpose...I’m still lost)

- Mew doing all that seducing Gap thing to get the revenge porn and threaten to show it to Boston’s weirdass, probably homophobic dad

- Nick trying to talk to Boston during the Halloween party in episode 8, without any apology for what he did, and still defending himself with "yeah but you slept with your friend’s boyfriend" deserves a mention imo (just in case we forgot i guess...)

- The whole Atom plot (really vile, I have no words). From Atom being the one insisting on having sex with Boston and Boston reluctantly agreeing, to the accusations, to Mew & Ray’s gross smiles during Cheum & Boston’s confrontation (sirs, Atom has been allegedly assaulted, what is so funny? Unless you don’t actually care about the truth, you just love to see Boston in that situation, actual monsters.) to Nick and Cheum empathy & compassion going towards Atom rather than Boston. Just, gross.

And it also leads him to be 100% out of the group and jeopardizes his graduation

- Not sure if I should add Nick basically saying "deserved" to Boston after he tells him that his friends left him for good, because I have no idea if Nick is saying because of the Atom thing or not

- And finally, the last episode (especially all the groveling, very uncomfortable)

Overkill much?

Especially compared to the other characters and their ‘punishments’ for their actions, we can clearly see a difference, no?

Here is a good post from @thewayuarent comparing Boston’s offenses to the other characters.

Boston (the only active slut) is the only character who ends up with a bad/sad ending

And what makes it a bad ending? It's not BostonNick not being endgame. It's not Boston ending single. It's the framing. The way the information is being presented.

Boston's last appearance in the show is him being rejected, alone, teary eyed on the floor on the side of the road while the other 4 monogamous couples end up with their unrealistic happy ending. It is super weird. It just feels mean, out of place, moralistic (and kinda boring). As if Boston was what was keeping them from being happilly coupled. And after an uncomfortable round of one-sided apologies to his ‘friends’ on top of that. Just, ew.

I recommand reading these posts :

- Look at this happy ending gifset of Boston by @technicallyverycowboy. He’s thriving, no?

- This post from @neuroticbookworm

- This post from @hellolimitless

- This post from @nozunhinged

- This post from @chalkrevelations

- This answer from @lurkingshan

- This good point from @odd-one-advocate and that good point from @no1petesimp (read the tags)

- This interesting point from @porschesbabydaddy, completed by this alternate universe where Boston’s spirit isn’t broken by @keepthetension, 10/10

This is Boston's bad ending, because it's not what he wanted

The ending Boston wanted was to be Nick’s boyfriend (romantic and sexual) for the 3-4 months he had left in Thailand, while being able to also get intimate (only sexual) with other guys. That is what he wants, and definitely not what he gets.

At least, Nick gets to have the last word, because ending the relationship is his decision, backed by Sand.

Non-monogamy could have been considered

It wouldn’t have hurt to see the characters involved have a conversation about non-monogamy, before the whole Boeing thing. Without framing it negatively, of course. But we didn’t get it.

About Nick and what he wants from Boston

He might have wanted a monogamous relationship from Boston from the start. Even though to me, it seemed more like, while jealous, he especially wanted to be loved by Boston and not only being seen as a sex doll.

Something I don’t really like about Nick’s characterization. He’s so wishy-washy.

"I love him, I don’t care about not being his favorite/number 1, I just don’t want him to hate me" to "the word boyfriend should only apply to me"

"I know what I’m dealing with, Boston is nasty but I’m nasty too" to "why are we (Nick and Sand) attracted to bad people" to "you’re not a bad person Boston" and then back to "I’m nasty too, so we suit each other"

"I love you for who you are, you don’t need to change" to basically "actually yeah be who you are, but without me, let’s go our separate ways" like????

I mean yeah, people are allowed to change their mind, but damn.

About Sand having Nick's back (and Cheum having Top's back)

I don’t know if we can count this as slut-shaming as I’m not sure he’s shaming Boston for being a slut. But Sand is definitely shaming Boston (the only slut).

Sand always has a negative things to say about Boston when he talks to Nick. But especially him saying ‘compared to Boston, you’re a saint’ to Ray (I have to laugh), and the ‘don’t lower the bar’ to Nick? Very icky to me.

And I would have been ok if we saw the same energy from Nick. Sand being like "you love him so much that you don’t love yourself". AND WHAT ABOUT YOU, SIR? Dating a man that calls you a whore every time he gets angry and hasn't apologized for it once? A man who pushes you around so much you end up being bruised? Peak of self love, methinks...

And Cheum being on Top’s side forever and ever from day 1 and she barely knows him.

Boston is just treated very differently. Even Nick, the only person shown to side with him sometimes, is only 50% on his side at most.

Boston had to apologize for what he did but never received a proper apology for any of the horrible things that were done to him

BostonNick post time-skip

Boston and Nick are supposedly main characters, and yet, are nowhere to be seen after the time skip. Boston gets a sentence, Nick vanishes. Their last scene (aka, their ending scene) in the show being the breakup. We don’t know how they feel about that months later. Are they happy now? Did they move on ? Are they single? Are they thriving? Are they miserable? We don’t know anything because we don’t see them. How good of an ending is that for the characters?

The narrative is biased towards all the characters and against Boston.

Now, I’m gonna talk about the directors.

From what I know, Nick’s story is inspired from Ninew’s love experience. And just with that information, I know damn well it’s impossible to get an objective point of view about BostonNick’s relationship. Ninew has no way to know what was going on in irl Boston’s life, his thoughts, etc. Which explains why they didn’t bother with his backstory.

+ Mew was supposed to be a good guy, loved by the audience and Boston, the bad guy. Jojo said "Mew is a guy that everyone is going to be in love with". Meanwhile, to the question about Boston’s lack of backstory he said "sometimes bad people don't need a back story, they're just born sluts" which tells me everything I need to know.

+ they did their best to not ruin the image? likeability? of the other characters:

"We knew we had to cast Khaotung because he is a very empathetic guy so even when Ray is bad, people like him"

"F*ck we didn't realize they would hate Top this much, so we tried to edit things to help reduce the hatred."

During the TopBoston elevator scene, Nick was actually there. But they cut that portion because they thought Nick was being too much of a stalker.

They also mention Mew 's violent dream about Top and Boston that was cut and the Ray blow up scene in YOLO having a more dramatic version which was obviously not aired.

You can’t do all that (and probably more), but still say "At the end of the day, after we're done with our part, the show belongs to the viewers. We love good and bad feedback and know it's [the show] not perfect, but we like that viewers can judge the characters for themselves." It doesn’t add up.

So? The answer?

Boston definitely got disproportionately punished for being a slut because it is heavily implied that his biggest crime was to sleep with Top, and that he did that because he is a slut. And all his other problems were related to having sex, while also being blamed to some extent for them.

While especially Mew, Cheum and Ray (and to some degree Nick and Sand) got off scot free while also being awful people (borderline criminals but not sluts I guess).

"If your writing penalizes the only character who remained promiscuous but absolves everyone who only has sex within their monogamous and tbh heteronormative relationship, that's the messaging you will inevitably give." @paciouspolca

(edit: I guess I have to specify that I don't agree with the heteronormative part of the quote, because I see that it understandably made some people angry but i don't think it's fair to negate the rest of the quote and the whole post because of it)

One last thing: this is the novel BostonNick breakup (written after the series script). From I’ve heard, the novel kinda works like a fix-it version of the series. And while I’m still not a 100% on board with it, this version feels definitely less punishing (and sadder actually, I would’ve cried if it was in the show).

#only friends the series #ofts #only friends #ofts boston #only friends boston #ofts nick #only friends nick #bostonnick

114 notes · View notes