#ofts ray

oh man.

so i actually started writing an entire essay about this waaaaay back when ofts was still airing, but never got around to finishing/posting.

basically - it's not up to others to decide what someone deserves. it's a slippery fucking slope to stand on when you start making statements about how someone "doesn't deserve" certain people or things in their lives.

ray is a character who is sick, and his sickness affects other people in his life, but it affects him the most. as a character, we see that he has no real support, no real boundaries, and no real reason to try and get help because of those two things.

ray is sick, and he's hurting, and he lashes out and hurts other people because of his pain. is that okay to do? no. do i understand why he does it? yes.

and based on the show - so does sand.

sand can see the hurt and grief in ray's actions - but he also doesn't let it slide. he's the ONE person who holds ray accountable and encourages boundaries (even if he sometimes slips and lets ray trample over them...that's sand's issue, not ray's).

if it's a matter of "deserving" then honestly? they deserve each other. sand is no saint (helloooooo episode 6), but he does try to be a decent person, and he makes ray want to be a better person too. on the flip side, ray's volatile personality forces sand to build boundaries where at one point, he had none (hellooooo boeing).

For a bit of context: it's about soulmates. Sand's character would be a long-time fan of Ray's (who is famous in some way I haven't decided yet b/c the original one doesn't fit him), and his best friend, Nick, basically arranges their meeting and they slowly fall in love from there.

yeah it's kind of odd phrasing isnt it?

like if he'd said "if you still want me in your life, stop trying to get with me" it would make more sense and i'd understand a bit more? i kind of hate how it's worded mostly b/c you just can't control how people think about or perceive you fjdkf

but also, could be the way it's translated. i'm not sure

what are y'alls thoughts on how ray views his own addiction and also his mothers addiction??

I've always gotten the sense that he can't admit to his mother being an alcoholic because 1. he then has to confront his own relationship to alcohol and 2. his self-hatred tries to frame it as what she was willing to do get get away from him. i think he is aware of the similarity between him and his mom but i think he sees it as wanting to die the same way he killed her.

So……… after part 4 I was pretty sad. I said to myself what if we have a fun short story where BostonRay meet younger SandNick and go to sea-life camp something I went to a lot as a kid who grew up on the Gulf of Mexico 😭😭 now I have a multi chapter fic. I think I have half of it done but I’m trying to split it up. Doing a song per chapter as the title.

Anyways I might need to change the tags to Poly because things are getting fucking messy it’s only friends. Nick has feelings for Boston. Boston is in love with Ray. Ray is confused and gay. Sand would kill for Nick. Top and Boston lost their virginities to each other. Top bullies Nick. Top may or may not have a crush on Nick. (What do you mean no one wants TopNick) (why are you asking for mew? He’s a university ‘friend’)