#tharntype

Here’s the list in an easy copy-paste format:

1. Sringara (शृङ्गारः): Romance, Love, Beauty, Eroticism

2. Hasya (हास्यं): Laughter, Mirth, Comedy

3. Raudram (रौद्रं): Fury, Anger

4. Karuṇā (करुणा): Compassion, Mercy, Spiritual Longing, Sorrow

5. Bībhatsa (बीभत्सं): Disgust, Aversion, Repulsion

6. Bhayanaka (भयानकं): Horror, Terror, Overwhelm

7. Vīram (वीरं): Heroism, Energy, Adventure

8. Adbhutam (अद्भुतं): Awe, Wonder, Amazement

Type feels justified in using homophobic language against the admins because one of them groped him, similar to how in episode one Tharn felt justified in tricking Type into worrying that he might have slept with Tharn while drunk because of how homophobic Type had been towards him. Both of them are willing to justify their own poor behavior because the other person also acted poorly.

In both cases, Type and Tharn did have a justifiable point — “no means no” in Type’s case here and “being gay isn’t inherently wrong” in Tharn’s case. And it’s not a coincidence that the narrative reverses them over each other — Type hates Tharn for being gay, and Tharn ignores Type’s ‘no’ in the previous episodes.

Type mentions that his head is starting to hurt which, given what we learn later in this episode, is also a hint towards this entire situation being another trauma trigger for Type.

After Techno leaves, frustrated with Type stonewalling him, we have a moment to see Type’s regret over driving Techno away, before Tharn arrives back at the dorm to ask Type if he’s doing okay.

This entire conversation is so soft, the softest conversation that we’ve seen them have to this point. Tharn is concerned and patient, and Type is remorseful. Tharn creates a space for Type to share his genuine thoughts and feelings while still standing his ground on not being ashamed of being gay, while Type’s deep-seated issues around queerness are obvious but not directed at Tharn. I’ve been pointing out the ways in which Tharn is fucking up as much as Type is, but this specific conversation between them is incredibly healthy and honest.

At class the next day, Lhong asks Tharn how he can stand to be roommates with an open homophobe like Type. Tharn deflects, like he always does, and implies that he and Type just avoid each other as much as possible, so it hasn’t been an issue. Lhong mentions here that he’s “known from the start” that Type hates gays, and it makes a lot of sense that Lhong investigated Tharn’s cute roommate to see if there was anything he needed to worry about. Must have been a relief when he found out that Type was homophobic.

When Tharn gets back to the dorm room, he’s concerned to realize that Type skipped class today. It’s been a week since the Handsome Guy admin encounter happened, and Type is still doing poorly. When Type snaps at him over expressing concern, Tharn briefly pins him to the bed, and there’s a moment when it looks like the events of ep2 might repeat, but then Tharn collapses against Type and straight-up begs him to eat something.

He makes it as clear as he possibly can that he is a safe space for Type to be honest — it’s okay if Type needs to express hatred towards him or gay people in general, just please talk and tell him what’s going on. Because while Type’s behavior here isn’t quite as extreme as what happened after the ep2 groping, it’s pretty similar. Type isn’t going to class, he’s not eating, he’s complaining of headaches. So Tharn flat-out tells Type that he’s worried and that he just wants to help.

Now, given my personal requirements for shipping fictional couples, the fact that Tharn and Type become healthier over time is not something that I would need to keep shipping them — Damon and Elena on The Vampire Diaries were pretty unhealthy for the entire run of their relationship, but they had a lot of chemistry and were fun to watch together, so I didn’t care (or, for a more current example, look at any of the relationships on Interview with the Vampire) — but I am proud of them for it, even if I still would have kept shipping them if they’d stayed a toxic mess, as long as they were an interesting mess. But this conversation helps set them on a path towards a healthier relationship.

Type confesses to Tharn about what happened to him when he was eleven and uses the shower blowjob as a reference point to get Tharn to understand what the rapist who kidnapped him forced him to do. It’s clear on Tharn’s face how hearing Type bring that up affects him. He is horrified about what happened to Type as a child, but he’s also horrified at himself. And he gains a better understanding about how his behavior back in ep2 triggered Type’s ptsd episode.

Now Tharn knows the origin of Type’s trauma. And when Type says again, “I hate you. I hate people like you,” Tharn tells him that it’s okay to feel that way.

And Tharn treats Type’s moments of reflexive homophobia really delicately after this, because he understands the trauma that’s creating it. He’s seen past all the layers of Type’s armor — he sees the scared little boy again, but instead of being the one who exposed that fear, he’s the one soothing it. This moment also isn’t happening without Type’s permission while he’s asleep. This is Type genuinely opening up and letting Tharn comfort him.

Tharn throws himself on his sword for Type, because he realizes how badly he fucked up. He apologizes to Type and then he confesses to the Handsome Guy admins that he made unwanted advances on Type, his Definitely Not Interested roommate, and so he argues that Tharn is the one to blame for Type's homophobic comments to the admins. He gets them to retract their statements about Type without ever compromising Type's privacy or the vulnerability that Type showed to him with his confession.

But to shift back to Type's PoV... he did enjoy the shower blowjob. We see him afterwards trying to drum up any hatred or disgust for what happened and feeling overwhelmed because he can't.

Intense events can mean radically different things to the people involved in them (something that we'll come back to when we meet P'San in a few episodes).

Type is so prepared to learn that Tharn betrayed his trust by telling the admins about what happened to him when he was a child, and he's overwhelmed again when he instead learns that Tharn kept his secrets and made himself look like the bad guy instead. He trusted Tharn and Tharn proved to be... worthy of that trust? It's clear that Type has never talked about this with anyone in depth, and it's going to mean a lot to him that Tharn keeps his confidence and guards Type’s secrets.

I suspect that Tharn thinks back to that shower BJ and feels ashamed of himself but when Type thinks back to it, there’s a thrill. He enjoyed the experience and while, at the time, he was upset that he wasn’t upset, it didn’t trigger any bad reactions in him, only relatively normal embarrassment over liking it so much. It was his first positive gay experience, and it gave him something to contrast against what was done to him when he was a child. I don’t think Type could have worked himself up to make the offer to have sex with Tharn if he didn’t already have an example to show him that gay sex doesn’t have to be scary and awful.

Tharn sees this interlude as him fucking up so badly that he needs to do whatever he can to make amends; his third and his biggest screw-up — but for Type, Tharn’s actions here are cast in a much more positive light. He enjoyed the blowjob and then everything that happens post-shower BJ is Tharn helping him, making him feel better, protecting from the gossip that triggers his ptsd.

The conversation right after Type’s learned that the admins have backed down is also another example of, while Tharn is extremely accommodating to Type in a lot of ways, he also consistently points out to Type when he’s creating his own problems. And that just because Tharn has gotten to an emotional place with Type where the homophobic slurs don’t affect him because he’s depersonalized them, that doesn’t translate to the rest of the world, so if Type keeps throwing that kind of language around, he’s going to create more negative reactions against himself and it will be his own fault.

There remains a lot of physicality in the way that Tharn and Type interact — Type aggressively grabbing Tharn’s collar to get his attention, Tharn grabbing Type’s wrist to hold him in place (Type does initiate the physical contact).

The body language shift that happens when Tharn tells Type that the reason that the admins backed down was because he told them that he liked Type is great. The aggression instantly leaves Type’s face and his grip on Tharn’s collar softens.

After Tharn tells Type about what he said to the admins in detail (which includes Tharn saying that Type has the right to get angry with anyone who touches him without permission, aka Tharn himself in the previous episodes) and Type is fairly convinced that Tharn didn’t tell his secrets, Type shares another secret with Tharn — the reason why Type avoids the police in situations where someone else might call them: because part of his trauma is wrapped up in the police giving out information to the media that made all his neighbors realize what had happened to him. Type not only dislikes people gossiping about him; it literally re-traumatizes him. It was the media attention and the sympathy/pity from his neighbors that made Type move away from Pha-ngan to live with his aunt in Bangkok, so that he could escape all the suffocating eyes of the people who knew what had happened to him.

After Type’s been so vulnerable and honest with him, Tharn feels like he needs to be honest too, and he tells Type that what he told the admins was true — he really does like him. And Type’s reaction is… not negative. He’s a little startled and confused, but he doesn’t throw any punches or slurs, just takes it in. Tharn also doesn’t try to get any specific reactions out of Type — he tells him about his feelings and then physically backs off, getting onto his own bed and listening to music (though glancing over at Type from time to time).

Techno (who is casual friends with the admins — they even say in their conversation with Tharn that they’d assumed that Type would be okay with them touching him because he’s Techno’s friend and Techno is chill) has found out from the Handsome Guy admins about Tharn’s confession that he likes Type and he confronts Type about it. This also would confirm to Type that Tharn was telling the truth about what he said to the admins.

One of the reasons that Techno stays uncertain about Tharn and Type’s relationship status until they confirm it to him directly is because Type’s aggressive reaction to the idea of him sleeping with Tharn remains pretty stable all the (many many) times that Techno asks him about it. Techno is also throwing around the word ‘love’ a lot here, and pitying Tharn for falling in love with a guy like Type.

(timeline note: Tharn does confirm again that it’s midterms right now)

“If I tell you [what I want], will you give it to me?” This question that Tharn asks, in this semi-flirty conversation with Type the day after he’s confessed that he likes him, is a question that Tharn is going to ask a lot in the show, in a variety of ways. There’s a tension in their relationship of Tharn wanting things Type isn’t ready to give him. Tharn would like to be patient. Tharn wants so so badly to be a perfect patient guy who can wait forever. He tries to be patient, but fails more often than not.

After listening to Type’s words in addition to his physical reactions, Tharn has settled on his new approach to their current situation — be honest with Type about what he wants, but not push anything. So he’ll answer any questions that Type has, even if Type recoils a bit at the answers. He tells Type that he likes him, is interested in him and, yeah, would like to have sex with him, but keeps his physical distance during the conversation.

An undisclosed period of time later, Type has made up his mind.

Tharn is hungover this morning, having gone out with some older students the night before, and he is completely unprepared for the conversation that Type is about to have with him.

Type suggests that they have sex. The reasons that Type gives are: a) it pays Tharn back for all of the help that he’s given Type recently b) it’s something that he knows Tharn wants c) they can do it once and just get it over with and then Type can stop worrying about Tharn trying to get Type to fall in love with him.

Are those thoughts that have crossed his mind?

Sure, yeah, probably. Factors that he doesn’t admit to — he thinks about Tharn when he tries to jerk off; he enjoyed the shower blowjob even though he tried not to; Tharn feels ‘safe’ to him in a way that no gay person ever has before, so if Type is going to try gay sex, Tharn is his best option. He trusted Tharn with his deepest secrets and Tharn didn’t betray him. When he cried in front of Tharn, he was comforted. He has already been more vulnerable with Tharn than he’s ever been with anyone else in his life.

Fun little 'what if' to ponder -- what would Tharn have done if Type had said he'd wanted to be the top? Once Type says that he wants Tharn to top, then Tharn makes his own preferences clear, but we know that Tharn is willing to ignore some of his preferences later on (eating raw food because Type is the one feeding it to him) because he wants to make Type happy so... would he have let Type fuck him? Or would he have said 'that's not my preference; so this isn't going to work out'?

I'm honestly not certain. Tharn is not yet as emotionally invested in Type as he would become later on, but he has a pretty big crush on him.

Why does Tharn make Type wait all day before fucking him?

We know that the time does pass, because Type complains about Tharn stalling. My opinion is that Tharn was giving Type the chance to back out. Tharn is completely shocked by Type suggesting this in the first place. Tharn does not believe that Type owes him anything, especially not his body. So, yeah, Tharn gave him all day to think about it, to see if that would make Type change his mind.

In the earlier episodes, Tharn was careless with Type’s body. In this episode, he is careful and collaborative. Characters that grow and change are much more interesting to me than static characters, so I really like and appreciate how much growth both Tharn and Type have had in the last four episodes. They have each let themselves be curious about the other person, and have grown as a result.

Sidebar about Tharn — from what we learn later on in the show, it kinda sounds like he’s used to people throwing themselves at him. He’s attractive and he’s a talented musician and he’s from a rich and privileged family. We know that both P’San and Tar were the ones to pursue him. He has tons of people (women) buying him drinks whenever he goes to play at P’Jeed’s bar. That he starts out with a loose idea of appropriate boundaries is not actually that shocking when his background is taken into consideration. But he lets himself learn from Type, just as much as he teaches Type to be less bigoted.

Type’s description of what ‘normal sex’ is for him is fairly depressing - “just get straight to it and finish”. I’m going to reference the popular show that inspired my rewatch here — for Shane in Heated Rivalry, having sex with Ilya was the first time that he really enjoyed sex. I think that Type is in the same situation in TharnType. I’m not sure he ever really enjoyed sex before he slept with Tharn. He jerked off watching women in porn (until he couldn’t anymore, because he could only think about Tharn), but he thinks that the ‘job’ of the person receiving is just to lie there quietly, and there’s no foreplay involved, just sticking it in and orgasming as quickly as possible. I think that Type has had some amount of bad and maybe even mediocre sex, but he’s never had good sex.

Is it because he’s gay? Is it because of Tharn, specifically, making him slow down and not just try to rush to the end?

The show never makes it explicitly clear — once Type fully commits himself to Tharn, he’s in it 100% and not looking at anyone else — but my own personal vibe of Type is that he’s probably gay and not bisexual. It’s just that men weren’t something that he considered an option, because only women felt safe to be around in that context and didn’t trigger his ptsd. Tharn is the first openly gay man that Type’s ever felt safe enough around to even consider having sex with.

After they have sex, Type is feeling sore and also has put on the tanktop that Tharn was wearing before they had sex. This is far from the last time that Type will steal Tharn’s clothes to wear after sex. He makes quite a habit of it.

Tharn checks in with Type afterwards to make sure he’s okay, and they talk a bit about Tharn’s sexual history. When Type’s homophobia gets directed at the other guys Tharn has slept with instead of Tharn himself, Tharn scolds him for it and Type doesn’t apologize but he doesn’t say anything else insulting either.

Truth for truth, vulnerability for vulnerability — Tharn tells Type about his first time. He was fourteen (and him having been fourteen at the time gets even worse when we find out more details), attending an all-boys school, and an older student invited him somewhere alone and asked him to have sex. Tharn didn’t enjoy the experience (it’s the one and only time that he’s bottomed, so there’s potentially an element of trauma in always insisting on topping afterwards). But the year after that, once he was in high school, he tried anal sex again, with himself on top this time, and enjoyed it a lot more, and he’s stuck with topping ever since.

This conversation is also the first time something pops up that Type will struggle with a lot, which is accusing Tharn of “treating him like a girl” basically anytime Tharn tries to be a good or considerate boyfriend (or sex partner, in the case of this scene). Type starts out with really strongly ingrained beliefs about the differences between men and women, and about the different ways that they can/should be treated. One of them is shown here — men are the ones who ‘take care’ of women and men are supposed to be more stoic and less emotional, so Tharn being openly considerate of Type’s emotions and checking in on him post-sex is him ‘treating Type like a girl’. Another big one that we’re going to run into in the near future is Type’s willingness to use violence against men in a way that he would never against women (because a man can ‘take a punch’, as he puts it later), even if he’s dating the man in question. Type does, eventually, learn how to “take out the gender” when it comes to these things, but it sticks around for a lot of the first series.

Techno and Champ talk to Type about missing too many classes, which is when we learn that Type is the kind of student who can essentially breeze through exams easily, extremely smart without needing to put a lot of effort or focus into studying. We never see Type worry about classes or exams, and it seems like there’s good reason for that — he’s an effortlessly good student (in addition to being attractive and sporty).

After Champ leaves, Techno essentially badgers Type into buying dinner for Tharn and himself, because Techno argues that Type owes Tharn for all the help that Tharn’s given him recently and Type is not willing to admit that he already ‘thanked’ Tharn for his help. As it were.

The dinner scene with Techno, Tharn, and Type is a funny example of people having entirely different conversations from each other. Techno thinks that Tharn and Type are still at odds and potentially at risk of fighting — his current understanding is “poor Tharn has a crush on Type, who is a jerk to him”. Meanwhile, Tharn is attempting to stealth his way into being Type’s boyfriend, while Type is trying to navigate the different conversations that he’s having with Techno and Tharn.

We cut to an immediately post-sex scene between Tharn and Type that makes it clear that sex has now become a regular thing for them. And Tharn continues to push for boyfriend behavior, not sex friend behavior — he wants Type to go shopping with him. We also see them cuddling after sex for the first time, Tharn wrapping himself around Type and kissing his back and shoulders.

Both of these scenes are examples of what I said above about how Tharn wants to be patient but actually isn’t. He and Type have had sex a handful of times at most and he’s immediately trying to treat Type like his boyfriend. Type isn’t wrong when he accuses Tharn of this!

Tharn is trying to hurry Type’s emotional journey along. And his reasons are understandable — he’s absolutely infatuated and wants to spend every moment with Type and that’s a lot easier to do if Type is officially his boyfriend. But that doesn’t mean that Type is required to go along with Tharn’s timeline.

Episode Five

Tharn opens this episode pushing too hard. He’s gotten Type to come to the mattress store with him to pick out some new bedsheets, and he’s already thinking of himself as “Type’s boyfriend-to-be”, which is not an assumption that he should be making.

The saleswoman clocked their relationship at the mattress store, and Type is still upset about it at lunch, being sulky and snappy by turns. Tharn gives Type the sheets that he bought and we introduce a new variable between the two of them that will sometimes make things easier and sometimes cause friction — Tharn is from a rich family (and doesn’t blink at buying expensive but high-quality items) and Type is not (and is much more frugal and careful with money).

Tharn lies here when he sees how upset Type is over the price tag on the bedsheets — he says that it’s not that he’s from a rich family, but that he makes money from part-time jobs. Now, he does have a part-time job where he makes money, but he also comes from an extremely rich family. This is not going to be the last time that Tharn lies to ‘keep the peace’ between himself and Type.

But Type asks more about Tharn’s part-time job, since he’s never mentioned it before, and we get more information on it — back when Tharn was in 10th grade (sophomore in high school), an older student asked Tharn to play with him in the bar, and by the time that senior graduated, the owners of the bar liked Tharn enough that they asked him to keep playing there. Now, probably for budget reasons, we only ever see Tharn playing at P’Jeed’s bar in the series, but the show implies that Tharn plays at other bars too.

Type also finds out about one of Tharn’s exes here — when Tharn mentions “issues” with some band members last year that caused the band to break up, Type jokes that Tharn must have slept with his bandmate’s brother, and Tharn sheepishly agrees (though he clarifies that it was a relationship, not just sex).

Tharn convinces Type to do a little more shopping with him, arguing that if they’re sex friends, then they’re friends, and it’s okay for Type to help with the grocery shopping, especially since they’re both using the groceries.

Okay, and here is where we run into an interesting translation thing — what Type says here is translated in the LineTV version as “I hate it when you call me your bitch” and I was listening as carefully as I could to the actual Thai words and it sounds like Type is saying the same word that later gets translated to “wifey/wife”. The word sounds kinda like “me-ah”. So, if the original translation was done by the same people in all of the first series episodes, the implication of the translation changing is that Type’s perspective on the word softens, going from something overtly sexual and potentially degrading to an endearment. Grain of salt here — I cannot speak Thai and can’t be sure if my ear is good enough to be certain that it’s the same word.

Type has a strong sense of ‘appropriate’ gender roles, and so he’s struggling with the fact that his sexual desires don’t match up with what he believes he needs to like as per his gender role. Which is exactly why we’re about to meet Puifai — the perfect girl is about to fall into Type’s lap, the person who will allow him to perform his assigned gender role the way that he believes he’s supposed to, and she’s not going to be what he wants, but he’s gonna have to learn that the hard way and cause everyone a lot of heartache along the way.

Champ — Type’s new university friend — is also at the mall today, planning to see a movie with some high school friends. We meet Mai and Puifai here, and there’s also an unnamed straight couple that joins them. Champ and Type talk briefly, with Type not interacting with Champ’s friends at all before he heads out, but Puifai noticed Type right away, and she and Mai ask Champ whether or not Type has a girlfriend. He says that he’ll find out, and their group heads off to the movies.

In a morning soon after, Type and Tharn are getting dressed, with one of the beds mussed up and the other perfectly made aka they only used one bed last night. Type asks Tharn to join him in the cafeteria for breakfast, and Tharn is incredibly excited that Type is (kinda sorta) asking him on a date, though Type downplays it as a friend thing. They still have very mismatched expectations at this point. Tharn invites Type to have dinner with him as well and Type hesitates a bit before agreeing, and now we get the first of Type’s ‘secretly pleased smiles’, where he’s trying not to show Tharn that he actually enjoyed Tharn being all cute with him.

So, from Tharn’s perspective, things are going really well. Type doesn’t want to call them anything special, wants to say they’re just friends having sex, but he’s also asking Tharn out to meals and going shopping with him and they’re sharing a bed most (every?) night.

For dinner that night, Tharn takes Type out to P’Jeed’s bar, and Type is very unsure about being here with Tharn at first, until Tharn explains that it’s one of the local bars that he plays at, and then Type relaxes (somewhat). I’m guessing Type hesitates for a couple of reasons — this is a lot more upscale than the places that Type was thinking they might eat at and thus more expensive (he was thinking they would grab something at a food cart) and it also has a much stronger ‘date’ vibe.

Tharn introduces Type to P’Jeed and Type is incredibly polite to her. He’s very polite to everyone in Tharn’s life that he gets introduced to, in fact, and they all come away thinking that he’s such a nice young man (except maybe P’Thorn, but that’s an accident). P’Jeed and Tharn’s family all have pretty high opinions of Type in the future, because he always puts his best foot forward with them, for Tharn’s sake, and it starts here — Tharn has explained that she’s basically his boss at this bar, and Type wants to make sure Tharn has no trouble at work, so he’s on his best behavior.

Type might not be familiar with the expression ‘business smile’ but he already knows how to do it. He’s briefly mentioned his family’s resort business, and so Type grew up in and around the service industry (specifically serving a lot of foreign guests who might not speak the local language) and he’s familiar with the idea of needing to be polite around customers.

(timeline: during P’Jeed and Type’s conversation, she mentions that it’s been a year since Tharn brought anyone to the bar, which means that it’s been roughly a year since Tharn and Tar broke up, since we know that P’Jeed knew about their relationship, so it seems like Tar broke up with Tharn about a quarter of the way through Tharn’s senior year of high school and Tar’s sophomore year)

Tharn goes off to have a couple of drinks with other friends of his (casual friends, I assume - we never see them again), and P’Jeed is doing some strong wingwoman duties while he’s gone (as she probably guessed Tharn might have wanted when he introduced Type as his ‘just a friend’) — she talks up Tharn’s skills and popularity as a musician and she implies to Type that Tharn must be feeling serious about him, because it’s been a long time since he brought anyone else around to the bar. What P’Jeed says about the girls being all over Tharn when he plays at the bar does twinge some feelings of jealousy in Type, as he brings it up when Tharn comes back, but Type is still a long way off from admitting to feeling jealousy over Tharn.

When Tharn comes back, he’s a little bit tipsy and after urging Type to lean closer to him over the table, he kisses Type (in public) and Type lets it happen. But when Tharn goes for a second kiss, Type pushes him away and they have a quiet fight about their expectations — once again, Tharn is acting like Type is his boyfriend when they have not agreed to that. He’s listening to Type’s physical cues and body language but not his words.

After the aborted kiss, Tharn confesses that he’s been wanting to do this for “a long time”, which Type does not react well to, telling Tharn that he’ll wait outside until Tharn is ready to leave.

So what happens later that night — Tharn refusing to have sex with Type despite Type hinting heavily that he wants it — is partly a product of Tharn feeling hurt over Type’s rejection of him earlier, but Tharn is also trying to withhold sex in order to get Type to respond emotionally to him instead of it just being about sex. Tharn wants a boyfriend, not a sex friend.

Tharn and Type are also having a bit of conflict between Ask vs Guess ways of communicating — Tharn keeps making assumptions and inferring things based on Type’s behavior, and expecting Type to do the same, while Type is operating in much broader and open terms of “we just say the things out loud” (which likely feels too direct to Tharn).

Champ is our extreme example of the “you really have to say what you mean in flat-out terms because he will NOT pick up on subtext or hints” guy (and Klui is also like this) but Type is a lot closer to Champ on that spectrum than Tharn is. Tharn guessed that Type loved spicy foods because he paid attention to what Type ordered; Type only finds out what Tharn’s food aversions are when it’s directly stated to him (but he never forgets after that).

Of course, all of this is complicated by Type still being in pretty heavy denial about what he wants out of his relationship with Tharn, so that makes their conflict even messier. Because when it comes to sex, he kinda does want Tharn to just magically make it happen so that Type doesn’t need to admit how much he likes it, but using that process is making things more painful for both of them.

Type is mulling their fight over the next day, annoyed at Tharn’s behavior, when Techno shows up. Techno would like a commitment from Type (to be on the football team) while Type would like to keep things casual. Oh, wow, it’s the exact same conflict that Type is having with Tharn, only about a different subject. Techno wants commitment but Type doesn’t feel ready for it. He wants to keep things casual. This does stay a very minor, comic subplot, but it pretty much always reflects Type’s personal life, iirc.

Techno mentions that Tharn looked tense that morning when he saw him in passing, and he wonders if they were fighting again. Techno also ‘jokes’ here about being Tharn’s friend instead of Type’s, and that’s kinda a mirror of how the people that Tharn introduces Type to end up leaning on Type’s side when there’s conflict, but Techno, who was Type’s friend first, usually sides with Tharn in any domestic conflict. Techno knows that Type can be an asshole (and stubborn) and Tharn’s family knows that he can be sulky (and stubborn), so they both give the other side the benefit of the doubt.

Speaking of Tharn’s family, that’s where Tharn goes when he’s feeling a little sulky over Type’s rejection of his kiss, and we meet his little sister Thanya and his big brother Thorn (P’Thorn, for Tharn). Thorn is incredibly over-protective of his little sister and while some of that may be due to cultural gender roles, there may also be an aspect of… Thorn failed to protect his little brother when Tharn was fourteen. And even if Tharn doesn’t believe that he needed protecting, that may be a reason to double-down on being protective of his little sister. And whenever Thorn wonders why Thanya prefers Tharn’s company to his, the answer is pretty obvious — because Tharn is a more normal older brother and doesn’t overly coddle Thanya the way that Thorn does.

Thorn talks to Tharn alone and tries to get Tharn to confide in him, but it’s the same story as it always was with Lhong — Tharn says that it’s nothing and he’s fine. But Thorn knows his brother well enough to guess that it’s something to do with his love life.

With Tharn gone off to his family’s, Type is trying to figure out what’s going on and eventually works himself around to realizing that Tharn must be upset about Type rejecting his second kiss the other night. And Type is determined not to apologize but also is clearly upset over the situation.

Type waits up for Tharn while pretending to read a graphic novel. When Tharn gets back, he’s still ignoring Type, who attempts to apologize by giving Tharn a single Sprite, which Tharn refuses. Then Tharn makes it worse by saying that he’s going to go sleep over with a friend (Lhong or someone else? We never find out) and immediately leaves. So Tharn literally just came back to the dorm to vibe-check Type and bounced when he deemed the vibe not good enough. And Type is still more frustrated and annoyed than actually understanding why Tharn is upset (because Tharn has not expressed it to him. In words).

The next day, Type has brought an entire bag of Sprite back with him from class, and he litters them all over Tharn’s bed, so that he can’t avoid them when he gets back. And Type expresses confusion at his own behavior — it shouldn’t matter so much to him that Tharn is upset with him and yet it does matter and he doesn’t know what to do to fix it.

Tharn still refuses to say what’s actually bothering him, only saying that Type should be happy that Tharn is avoiding him and that he’ll be sleeping over at his friend’s again tonight. Type is clearly getting more and more frustrated, blocking Tharn’s path, grabbing his arm, and finally kissing him on the corner of the mouth, because the rejected kiss is his best guess at why Tharn is upset with him.

It works and Tharn melts and kisses him again, and Type is kinda annoyed at that too. And this is actually the first time that “Be Mine” gets played in one of the episodes instead of in the opening credits. Now, “Hold Me Tight” has been playing during moments of genuine emotional connection, so “Be Mine” playing in this episode instead is very interesting to me. Because this is still Tharn and Type at a disconnection.

So the chorus to “Be Mine” plays, specifically playing the part that’s on the possessive side — not letting anyone else have the person that you want. Tharn wraps his arms around Type and tells him, “I really can’t live without you,” and Type can’t help smiling. Because he does want things from Tharn that he can’t quite admit to wanting and it’s nice to hear Tharn express those kind of overly romantic sentiments even if Type doesn’t feel ready to return them.

Tharn is extremely snuggly and cuddly after the kiss, and their conversation here goes a bit into Tharn’s manipulative tendencies, which Type can find frustrating. Tharn gave him the silent treatment and avoided him in order to deliberately goad Type into proving that he cares about Tharn, and Type gets mad about that until Tharn convinces him that, yes, he was genuinely and sincerely hurt when Type pushed him away the other night. And that matters enough to Type that he’s willing to forgive Tharn for the rest of it.

On the subject of Type and manipulators — Type does not enjoy being tricked or manipulated (I mean, who does? But it’s emphasized for Type). Here, he’s willing to forgive Tharn because he believes in the emotional sincerity behind Tharn’s actions — yes, Tharn was being manipulative, but it’s because he really was hurt by Type’s actions and because he genuinely cares about Type as “more than a friend” (as Tharn puts it). So kicking him off the bed is deemed enough of a punishment for the trickery, and Type won’t hold it against him. This is a bit of a minor example of a life philosophy that we will see Type enact in much more serious ways later on in the show, when the manipulations that he faces run deeper and with less pure motives.

Having been reminded that Type prefers direct and clear communication, Tharn straight-up asks what he is to Type (as he just told Type that he thinks of them as more than friends). Type admits that he knows what Tharn wants from him — he knows that Tharn wants them to be boyfriends. But that’s not something that Type is ready to give, so instead he offers “casual lovers”. He admits that he can’t really think of them as “sex friends” anymore, but “boyfriends” is still too much for him.

Tharn agrees to this on the surface, but it’s obvious that he’s disappointed. He still wants more from Type than Type is ready to give. But, again, it’s not that Type doesn’t want it (when Tharn kisses Type’s ankle and says “this casual lover is yours”, Type smiles again); it’s that their relationship is moving too quickly for him. Tharn is being impatient again.

Tharn joins Type and Techno for breakfast at the cafeteria used by the sports medicine students, and Techno is suspicious of how well they’re getting along with each other. When Techno further pokes at whether or not Type still hates ‘gays’, Type says that he does, but he doesn’t hate Tharn.

This is kinda the space where Type is going to live for several episodes. He’s decided that because he likes Tharn (and likes having sex with Tharn), that Tharn gets to be in a special category, and doesn’t get lumped into the general category of unsafe gay men. Tharn’s reaction to Type’s statement is pretty interesting, because he’s almost shyly happy about it. At this point in time, Tharn hasn’t been given any reason to feel like his relationship with Type won’t continue to grow and soften, and so this feels like a stepping stone (and it is, but it gets messier and more painful than I imagine Tharn was thinking that it would at this specific moment in time).

Champ drops by after Tharn leaves, and he invites Techno and Type to eat with him after classes, which they agree to. And then after Type leaves, Techno wonders why Champ is so happy that Type agreed to dinner together, and we find out that Champ is setting up an ‘accidental’ meeting between his friend Puifai and Type, because she’s interested in him.

So while Tharn and Lhong are evaluating a new guitarist for their band, Type is out to dinner with Champ, Techno, Mai, and Puifai. Type is quiet at the table until Puifai asks him a direct question, while Techno does a lot of talking. Puifai and Mai are not really subtle about showing that Puifai is interested in Type, and Type is willing to swap LineIDs with her so that they can chat.

I’m guessing, from how Type settles into the rhythm of doing this with Puifai so easily, that this is probably similar to how his pre-Tharn relationships have gone in general. He doesn’t seem to have much trouble doing some light flirting with girls, though it also seems pretty surface-level. Obviously, Type and Puifai never get past a handful of dates, so there wasn’t that much chance to show vulnerability but it still stands out because of how much Type is clearly trying to prioritize that connection in the next episode and yet he still is skimming the surface.

At their dorm room that night, Tharn has done Type’s laundry. He’s acting like a boyfriend again, not a casual lover. That does drive a lot of Type’s actions in the next episode, I think. Tharn keeps acting like his boyfriend when that’s not what he is, and Type is trying to find some way to keep things casual. Tharn sees the two of them on a road together that leads inevitably to a committed relationship while Type still has so much internalized homophobia swimming around in his brain.

Would things have gone differently with Type and Puifai if Tharn didn’t keep trying to act like Type’s boyfriend when Type is clearly not ready for that yet?

I’m not entirely certain. Frustration towards Tharn’s assumptions does fuel part of Type’s motivations but that internalized homophobia is certainly doing its own fair share of the heavy lifting too.

Puifai is pretty, makes it extremely clear that she’s interested by asking so quickly for Type’s LineID, and she’s someone that Type could actually bring home to his family without him needing to do the complicated emotional work of unpacking his issues. So maybe Type still would have tried dating Puifai even if Tharn had been more patient with him. But I do think Tharn’s impatience had an impact on Type’s actions.

Episode Six

We start this episode with Type and Tharn still in that place of disconnection that they were at in the last episode — Tharn wants to be Type’s boyfriend, and Type is trying to keep things casual and uncommitted. Once he stumbles across Puifai and she makes her interest clear, we see Type trying to emotionally invest in her as a way to pull himself away from Tharn.

When I was reblogging a gifset about Puifai, I compared her to Rose Landry from Heated Rivalry, and she really does fill pretty much exactly the same role as Rose does in the story (until the break-up, when Puifai has a more what I would call ‘realistic’ reaction to her crush breaking things off with her, while Rose has a more idealized reaction to Shane being gay, especially since Rose and Shane’s relationship got a lot more serious and lasted a lot longer than Type and Puifai’s).

Like Rose is for Shane, Puifai is Type’s desperate attempt to force himself into the traditional heterosexuality that society expects of him. He barely knows her but he tells his dad about her, asks for money to woo her, does his best to prioritize her — as a potential girlfriend that he could show off to the world — over Tharn, his secret ‘casual lover’ that he can’t admit to preferring.

It doesn’t work. When he spends time with her, he’s distracted thinking about Tharn. When he’s out to dinner with her at the fancy restaurant being paid for by his dad’s money, all he can think about is that Tharn would like eating there. He goes to her off-campus dorm room with her on her birthday, fully planning to ask her to be his girlfriend… and he can’t do it.

Now that he knows what it’s like to be with Tharn, he can’t fake it with girls anymore (and Type’s behavior with Puifai is so incredibly studied compared to the way he behaves with Tharn — Type’s equivalent of Tharn’s ‘business smile’ when he performs).

But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t try.

Type has a lot of internalized homophobia and he also has avoided placing himself in situations where he interacts with openly gay man. Tharn is not only openly gay, he’s openly unashamed about it. Everything about this situation with Tharn has been a novel experience for Type and that, combined with Tharn making it clear that he wants more out of the relationship than Type feels capable of giving, means that Type is trying to reassert the identity that he’s comfortable and familiar with — a straight man. And Puifai is an entirely innocent party who gets caught up in the middle.

In the last episode, Puifai notices that Type focuses on the curry during the group dinner and guesses that he likes spicy food — in this episode, we learn that Tharn has picked up on that too. He’s paid attention to what Type chooses to eat and so it’s obvious to him what Type likes. But Tharn, again, is so over-enthusiastic when responding to Type asking him what he likes to eat that Type gets a little intimidated by it.

We get the start of a timeline here that is going to define the length of Type & Puifai ‘relationship’ — “this Friday” Tharn is going to play at P’Jeed’s bar, and he’s asking Type to go along and listen to him play. So the rest of the episode all takes place over the course of a single week. While Type and Puifai do a lot of flirty texting, they only actually have three dates (all in the same week) before Type realizes that he can’t do this anymore. So it’s a painful time period for Tharn and Type’s relationship but it’s actually pretty short in terms of actual time that passes.

Type agrees here to go to Tharn’s performance at P’Jeed’s.

On a school day during that week, Techno is delivering a packet to someone in the same area of the university where Tharn takes classes, and they run into each other, and Techno gets to have a sneak peek at Tharn’s skill at drums and then spills the beans about Type ‘hitting on’ on a girl named Puifai. Tharn is startled and hurt to find out that Type is seeing a girl on the side.

I think the actual answer to my upcoming question is “Type was trying not to think about it” but I really do wonder how long he was going to try to balance having with sex with Tharn with attempting to date Puifai. Because he didn’t tell Tharn and there’s no indication that he was planning on telling Tharn. But, yeah, I suspect that he was actively not thinking about it, but Type… Type, honey, this was obviously going to blow up in your face.

So, we’ve been seeing that Type has been distracted texting Puifai during all hours of the day — class, football, back at the dorm room with Tharn. Well, now he’s meeting her for a date and we get to see them interact one-on-one. Type is accommodating and easy-to-please, more reminiscent of how we saw him behave around P’Jeed than anyone else. And not really that much like how Type tends to behave around his friends or Tharn (or his family, when we get to see that interaction). Is this mostly a gender roles things? Aka “this is how you behave around girls”. Could be. Is this more about Type trying to put on his best version of himself in order to impress Puifai? Also possible.

When Type gets back to the dorm room that night, Tharn confronts him about Puifai, and it’s clear that Tharn feels some level of betrayal.

But, again, this is an argument where both parties are in the wrong and in the right, in different ways. Type is right that he and Tharn aren’t dating. They aren’t in a relationship, and Tharn wanting them to be in a relationship doesn’t make it true. But, also, it’s clear that Type does feel some level of confusion/guilt over the situation with Puifai, because he hides it from Tharn. We established in the last episode that Type cares when he upsets Tharn, so he tries to keep this frantic attempt to reinforce his heterosexuality separate from what he’s doing with Tharn, because he doesn’t actually want to hurt Tharn but knows that this is going to hurt him.

Tharn takes things too far by trying to claim some kind of ownership over Type and then, in trying to assert his independence from Tharn, Type punches Tharn in the face (though putting it that way gives a certain level of deliberation to Type’s actions that I’m not certain is present — he gets increasingly agitated over the course of the conversation).

I do think that a lot of this specific stuff that we see from Type is all about the gender roles that he has ingrained in his head — conflict with boys can be solved with punches (Techno tells a story in the first episode about Type beating up a group of boys who were trying to taunt him about potentially being molested). We have a conflict with a boy, and so there’s a punch. This is going to happen, I think, one more time, and then we begin to have some changes in this behavior of Type’s but it is definitely an ugly habit and he needs to learn better anger management techniques (and he does learn them in time).

In some ways, I would see this fight as a mirror to the ‘war’ at the start of the series — in the sense that Tharn starts the Puifai fight and escalates it emotionally but Type is the one who crosses over the biggest line in the course of the fight, by making things physical, which is the reverse of what happened in the first couple of episodes.

At this point, Type is clearly panicked and defensive, and Tharn chooses to try to deescalate rather than make the fight worse. He tries to get Type to empathize with him by pointing out that, by Type’s rules, Tharn could also go sleep with someone else. Type is clearly bothered by that idea but agrees that, yes, it would mean that (and he tries really hard to sound like he wouldn’t care). And Tharn says that he doesn’t want that, even if Type is giving him permission. That Type is the only one that he wants.

During a later point in the series, Type will say that he will only ever ‘break up’ with Tharn three times in his life — I believe that this moment here is the first moment that he’s counting, when he tells Tharn that if Tharn isn’t okay with him seeing a girl in addition to Tharn, then the two of them are through (the other two moments are more obvious, but contextually, I think this is the first ‘break up’ that Type is counting).

But, yeah, this is an incredibly ugly fight. Understanding the internal turmoil that’s causing Type’s anger doesn’t mean that it’s okay that he chooses to express his anger via physical aggression and violence. Once Type gives his ultimatum here to Tharn, he storms off to go sleep in P’Klui and P’Seo’s room, but he lets himself give in to his anger first.

The next day, Tharn is staring out the window as Lhong comes over to sit next to him in class. And, once again, Tharn brushes Lhong off when he tries to figure out what’s going on. But we get to actively see Lhong putting on his ‘best friend’ mask here, seeing him sit next to Tharn before Tharn notices that he’s there, study him a moment, and then surprise him with the friendly hug. This is another thing that can come across as just being a considerate friend during the first watch of the series but takes on another tone after knowing more about Lhong and his obsession with Tharn.

In a further attempt to set specific boundaries with Tharn, Type sends him a list of rules for casual relationships, and scolds him for breaking them by getting jealous. Type was trying to keep everything undefined, but Tharn wouldn’t let him, so now Type is actively trying to define their relationship as something that isn’t a commitment.

But an interesting thing here is that Type is clearly trying to hold on to some kind of relationship with Tharn. He’s trying to set heavy limits on it, but he wants to keep this if he can justify to himself as just something casual (and, of course, he hasn’t said anything about any of this to Puifai, which is extremely unfair to her). But, to Tharn, it feels like another slap in the face. We see this again when Techno confesses to Type about being the reason that Tharn knows about Puifai — though Type outwardly says that it’s nothing to do with him and none of his business if Tharn is upset about Puifai, he’s clearly bothered by it, and by the idea that him seeing Puifai will help Tharn get over him (by seeing that he has no chance).

He and Tharn talk again that night and Tharn agrees to Type’s terms, acting like he doesn’t care and everything is fine. But we know from the conversation later in the episode that Tharn was genuinely struggling with the idea of breaking things off for good with Type during this episode, because it’s now actively painful for him. Tharn is not built for casual relationships; he gets jealous and possessive and is very much monogamous.

The next day, we get Type’s second date with Puifai. In a contrast to how flirty and accommodating he was during their first date, Type starts out completely distracted during this second date, eventually coming up with the lie that his family’s dog died just so that he can justify to Puifai why he’s paying no attention to her. It’s clear how much space the tension with Tharn is taking up in his mind. But once she pulls him back into the conversation, he refocuses on her and slips back into that flirty and accommodating persona, agreeing that of course he can spend this Friday with her to help celebrate her birthday.

When Puifai texts Type that night to check again that he’ll definitely spend her birthday with her, Type doubles-down on his reinforcement of his heterosexuality, making it clear to Tharn that he’s prioritizing having a texting conversation with Puifai over having sex with Tharn, and choosing to break his commitment to watch Tharn play at P’Jeed’s bar in order to spend the night with Puifai instead. Then he twists the knife by directly telling Tharn that he plans to ask Puifai (a girl that he’s gone on two dates with) to be his girlfriend. It’s such a tense and painful moment, because Type deliberately makes eye contact after he says it. Was he expecting Tharn to get jealous and possessive again?

But Tharn is trying his hardest to be ‘reasonable’, since he agreed to Type’s ‘rules’ about casual relationships (but isn’t in the mood for sex anymore and goes back over to his own bed).

Friday night, Tharn stays at the bar after his gig, drinking away his heartbreak. We see here how much Tharn trusts P’Jeed and P’Khong, since he does essentially confess to them that he’s crying over Type.

And Type is on his big date with Puifai on her birthday. Their third date together, where Type plans to ask her to be his girlfriend. From Puifai’s PoV, things have been going really great with Type so far. She saw a cute guy, checked with her friend to make sure that he was single, went on a group outing where she could get an introduction to him, and now this is their third date in a week, after tons of flirty messages through Line.

But he’s thinking about Tharn. He’s flirty and accommodating when Puifai is there with him but when Puifai goes to the restroom, Type notes that Tharn would probably like this restaurant. After the dinner, Type walks Puifai back to her off-campus condo, and she invites him up. We don’t see what happens there and instead catch up with Type as he goes back (alone) to the dorm room that he shares with Tharn.

Episode 6 is the hinge-point not only of the first series but of the show as a whole -- this is when Tharn and Type mutually affirm a commitment to each other, which is then repeatedly tested throughout the rest of the show.

This is when each of them 'lock in' to the relationship and is the last time either of them is seriously considering 'breaking up' as an option when they run into a roadblock*. From this point onward, the focus is on how to navigate their relationship, not on whether or not to have one in the first place. And, honestly, I find it so refreshing how much of the show is set after the ‘get together’ moment, because it feels like we can really go in depth on how they interact as a couple.

(*When Type throws out "maybe we should break up" in an argument in a later episode, he's not genuinely trying to break up, but trying to use it as a trump card to win the argument, and it backfires on him pretty badly)

This scene between them is almost painfully tender. In Ep5, we got a lot of “Be Mine” playing in the soundtrack but now we’re back to “Hold Me Tight” (the love song that Tharn will write for Type). We’ve been getting bits of it all episode, every time that we’ve focused on Tharn’s vulnerability and his feelings for Type. In this scene, it goes from being an instrumental to being the full song, including vocals. Back in Episode 2, we got it as Tharn’s feelings shifted from a crush to something deeper.

Type still doesn’t fully understand what’s going on in his heart or his mind — he admits that to Tharn. But he has realized that he can’t pretend that it doesn’t matter. He admits (and this reframes all previous interactions with Puifai) that he was always thinking of Tharn when he was spending time with her. He says that he doesn’t want to sleep with any women or any other men — he only wants Tharn.

Tharn keeps pushing back against Type in this scene, to test what he’s saying — maybe you were tired, maybe she’s just not your type, maybe you’ll want another guy who isn’t me — and his emotional exhaustion is very obvious and clear. His heart got incredibly bruised this last week. But once he’s able to fully process what Type is telling him, he embraces it. Neither of them use the word ‘love’ here, but they do commit to being exclusive with each other.

After they have sex, they have an important post-sex debriefing where Type goes into detail about how he broke things off with Puifai, including the fact that he told her that he was seeing someone else, and Tharn confesses how close he was to entirely breaking things off with Type (which shocks Type). Type mentions here that Puifai slapped him but “that was nothing compared to what I did to her” (by leading her on, essentially), which I feel like does tie back into Type’s ingrained gender roles thing where it’s okay to hit guys if they do something upsetting — he includes himself in this too. It’s okay for Puifai to hit him, because of how he hurt her emotionally. Not a healthy thing for him to believe but we do see this behavior and belief fade in time along with a lot of Type’s other gender role beliefs (though Type does retain some sexism even into series two — I am not going to pretend that Type ever becomes fully unproblematic, lol).

Tharn also does a check-in with Type about where he’s at with his internalized homophobia — how is he feeling about dating an openly gay guy? And Type still doesn’t feel great about it. The idea of any guy besides Tharn touching him bothers him a lot and upsets him, and even being with Tharn makes him feel like he’s “desperate”, though he apologizes to Tharn about that. Type has managed to claw Tharn out as his ‘exception’ — the one acceptable gay guy in the world — but he still has a lot of homophobia to deal with (and that’s the next arc that we’re go into).

Tharn mentioning his fear of Type breaking up with him here — that is something we’ll return to in future episodes as well. That’s why Tharn was being so accommodating in trying to be willing to have a ‘casual’ relationship with Type even though it was eating him up inside. Because he was afraid that having any boundaries would lead to Type breaking things off with him. This fear is not entirely due to Type, but is also due to Tharn’s experience teaching him that guys don’t want to stay in relationships with him. Since he doesn’t know that the relationships are being poisoned by an outside source, all he can see is that there must be something wrong with him that’s making all these guys break things off with him a couple of months into the relationship.

There’s a lot of physical intimacy in this scene — Type resting his head in Tharn’s lap and Tharn constantly touching him. He runs his fingers through Type’s hair, rubs his shoulder, essentially confirming the reality of Type’s presence here with him. Mew and Gulf really did have some fantastic chemistry with each other. The touches feel so natural and there’s such a great sense of emotional intimacy.

(and then they are implied to spend the whole rest of the night having more make-up sex #GoodForThem)

The next morning, Tharn teases Type and confirms that he remembers everything from last night, including that they’re in a genuine relationship. Type is clearly embarrassed (and a little sore) but agrees. The night before was Friday, so they get to spend this whole Saturday together as they adjust to their new level of commitment. Type gets brave enough to reach out and pull Tharn into a very sweet, romantic kiss (though he has to pretend to need a nap afterwards).

They’re boyfriends now, though they haven’t quite used the word yet.

Type’s dad calls him later that day. Type and Tharn are cuddling in bed together, taking probably a much-needed nap, since it’s been implied that they didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before (#GoodForThem). The big thing here is that Type asks his dad for permission to move off-campus (Tharn wants them to have more privacy together and not deal with such thin walls), and we get to see the way Type behaves with his dad — his dad teases him about his failure to get a girlfriend when Type tells him it didn’t work out, but also dotes on him. But it’s clear here that Type’s dad does expect heterosexuality out of him, mentioning multiple times in the conversation that he wants Type to show interest in girls/having a girlfriend.

Tharn wakes up during the conversation and cuddles Type. While Type protests mildly, he also smiles, because he is still a bundle of contradictory impulses. He wants the affection but has a difficult time admitting to wanting it. But Tharn has gotten a lot better at reading Type, and Type has gotten marginally better at communicating.

Musical Notes

During Type’s confession to Tharn about what happened when he was eleven, we get “Hold Me Tight” playing, with the vocals coming in as Type accepts Tharn’s comforting embrace after they talk.

It plays again as Type tells Tharn about how the media attention was another traumatic factor for him when he was young, in another vulnerable moment between the two of them. As Type is processing Tharn’s confession that he genuinely does like Type, the vocals come in. This song is very tied in to emotional vulnerability, not playing over any of the sexual scenes that we had earlier, but instead over the scenes where there’s an authentic emotional connection.

The piano version of song plays again as Tharn tells Type about how he is going to try to win his affections, underlining his sincerity in this moment.

In the fifth episode, we get a lot of “Be Mine” (mostly instrumental and some vocal) and no notable moments of “Hold Me Tight”. Type and Tharn weren’t genuinely connecting in Ep5 and this is reflected in the music.

We get “Hold Me Tight” again in episode 6 — first, the piano notes as Tharn finds out that Type is seeing a girl on the side. A moment of vulnerability from Tharn, as the romantic hopes that he’s been building up get a strong hit in them. We get it again after the ugly fight between Tharn and Type is over and Type has stormed off, once again focusing on Tharn’s vulnerability and heartbreak as Tharn struggles not to cry.

It comes back again in his bar scene with P’Jeed, as he talks about how Type will never love him and we see how concerned P’Jeed and P’Khong are over his heartbreak.

Then we get a more full version of it (vocals included) after Type has broken things off with Puifai and comes to confess to Tharn, apologize to him, and ask for his forgiveness and an emotional commitment. And the next day, as Tharn and Type reconfirm their new commitment to each other, we get a new bouncy version of the song, which is much more upbeat and light-hearted. And then, when Type tests their new romantic commitment and gives Tharn a sweet kiss, we get an incredibly lovely and more romantic version of the song. The bouncy version of the song plays after Type has his conversation with his dad about moving off-campus.

No matter how many times I hear a variation of “Hold Me Tight”, I always love it. It’s such a gorgeous song and has been playing in my head a lot in the past couple of months as I’ve done my various rewatches.

Side Character Notes

Tum & Tar

Tum is fretting over the glimpse that he got into Tar’s room the previous week — how Tar is painting slashes of black paint over his works. He almost knocks on the door to speak to Tar, but backs off at the last minute as he gets a call and heads out to talk to someone else who is on his campus. The song that plays here sounds like it’s in a minor key, evoking melancholy. Just a short scene but it reminds us that Tar is in a bad place emotionally.

Platform Differences

In the YT version, there’s an additional scene during Ep4 in between the scene where Tharn tells Type that he’d like to sleep with him, and the scene where Type proposes that they have sex:

Type is studying but can’t focus on his schoolwork, and says that he’s made up his mind. Very very short scene that was probably just cut because it felt redundant — though the show is not primary a comedy, it does have comedic pacing at times, and going right from the scene where Type says he’ll never sleep with Tharn to the scene where he proposes that they have sex is a lot funnier without that tiny scene in the middle.

The sex scene is cut down as usual, though in this specific case, I’m not sure why — they cut out the kissing with ice which doesn’t seem like it should cross whatever weird censorship lines that YT has. Like, the scene cuts to the glass with the ice in it but never shows Tharn actually doing anything with it. Odd choice, because it kinda implies kinkier things are going on with that ice than we actually see happening in the uncut version of the scene.

There’s another added scene after Tharn and Type’s post-sex conversation — the next day, Type and Tharn go to get tested for STIs and there’s some tension between them but also an agreement that they’ll be having sex again. Much like the other scene, this scene feels like it was cut to add to the humor of Type saying one thing (“I won’t sleep with you”/”It’s only this once”) and cutting to him doing the opposite.

The only real difference between versions in Ep5 is that “bitch” is used in the LineTV version while “wifey” is used in the YT version, which I talk a bit about earlier in the post. No scenes are cut out or added.

In Ep6, we again have a situation where “bitch” gets used in LineTV but not in YT (it’s translated as “mine”/”yours” instead) — this is during Tharn and Type’s big ugly fight about Puifai. This sounds like it might be a different word than the word that gets translated as “wife(y)” later on, so it might actually be closer to “bitch”. Again, though, massive grain of salt as I do not speak Thai.

Over the course of their first three weeks of being roommates, they were friendly and Type's subconscious attraction to Tharn would have grown during that time due to how nice Tharn was to him (which is the other main point that Type mentions when he introduces Tharn to the audience). We know that Tharn offered Type free rein over the snacks that he brought to the room, and probably offered similar little considerations as well. Tharn is shown to be pretty generous with his money in future episodes.

Tharn is also attracted to Type from the beginning -- he gives Type a look-over when they first meet in the flashback, and clearly likes what he sees. The Type that Tharn meets here shows the shy sweetness that we’ll see again later in the series, after he deals with and moves past large parts of his homophobia and is comfortable being soft around Tharn again. This is the Type that Tharn got to know for three weeks before it all burned down when Type found out that Tharn was gay. A cutie-pie who is free with compliments and seems relatively easy to room with. But this is also Type trying to put his best foot forward with his new roommate, so he’s being friendly and polite, the way we see him behaving with P’Jeed or Tharn’s family later on. The more abrasive parts of Type are just as much ‘really’ Type as the sweeter parts are.

But even though Tharn thinks Type is cute, he is, at this point, not likely looking for a new relationship. It sounds like he hasn't dated anyone since Tar broke up with him the previous year. Tharn has been burned in love several times but… wow, his new roommate sure is cute. And Tharn is very much a romantic who is in love with love. He desperately wants to shower romantic affection on someone, which is part of why his relationships crashing and burning is so hard on him.

The person who sets the entire plot in motion is Type's high-school friend Techno, who tells Type that Tharn is gay. While Techno never tells us his exact motivations for telling Type, I'm guessing that he figured it was better that Type know now rather than get a surprise later on (but we also know that Techno is very bad at keeping secrets and tends to impulsively let them out). He definitely has his moments of regret over telling, once he sees the childish way that Type responds, and we can see him brace himself for Type’s anger even when he first tells him.

What we know from later in the show is that Techno is pretty familiar with the queer community in the university (though Techno seems familiar with a lot of people), and I'm guessing that's how he learned that Tharn was gay (and from out of breath he is when he’s telling Type, it kinda seems like he rushed to inform Type basically as soon as he heard about it). While Tharn doesn't make a point of coming out to everyone he meets, he also isn't really trying to be closeted. It's mostly that he just doesn't have a boyfriend right now and isn't actively looking.

Type is incredibly nervous to ask Tharn about whether or not what Techno told him is true, and we can see the hesitation on Tharn’s face to answer — because the way that Type is asking him isn’t exactly a good sign that his roommate is going to be accepting.

Both Type and Tharn come out of their first confrontation feeling betrayed -- Tharn feels betrayed because his cute and sweet roommate is viciously homophobic, while Type feels betrayed because this guy that he trusted and liked belongs to the category of people that he's walled off in his mind as predators.

In series 2, Type will tell Tharn's cousin (Phugun) that he's similar to Tharn in that he makes people feel comfortable around him, and makes people want to confide in him. This very quality of Tharn's is part of why Type feels so betrayed when he learns that Tharn is gay, because he genuinely felt comfortable and safe around Tharn, but now Tharn is among the group of people that makes Type feel fundamentally unsafe. There's a horrific amount of cognitive dissonance in Type's head during the first few episodes due to this contradiction, feeling safe and unsafe at the same time, all while being forced to face the attraction to Tharn that had been deeply suppressed during their first three weeks of knowing each other.

Type does try to resolve things in a way that doesn’t involve being petty towards Tharn (at first) by going to the student housing and trying to get a room change, and then enlisting Techno to try to help him convince someone to swap rooms with him (Techno can’t help Type himself because he still lives at his family home in Bangkok) but once he realizes that he’s stuck, he tries to make things so miserable for Tharn that Tharn will choose to leave (presumably to an off-campus dorm, an option that Type has told us that his father won’t allow).

One interesting note here is that Type is unwilling to tell anyone else that Tharn is gay. He almost tells the student housing person but stops himself. He almost impulsively mentions it to his friends but stops himself again (and Tharn clocks this happening and uses it against Type during their next argument). Tharn thinks that it might be that Type is worried about looking gay himself but I’m not sure. I think that he may have an awareness that other people might not see it as valid reasoning the way that he does. We see Techno trying to talk Type down from his petty behavior towards Tharn and trying to talk him out of some of his worst homophobic behavior, and it’s implied that he’s been friends with Type since the start of high school.

So I think that Type may be concerned here that he would tell the housing woman “my roommate is gay” as his reason for wanting a room change and she would tell him to just deal with the situation, as long as his roommate isn’t actually doing anything concerning (which is basically what Techno tells him in a later scene — Tharn isn’t trying to hit on you, so him being gay shouldn’t be an issue).

Type has a dream that is half nightmare and half fantasy. He rips Tharn’s headphones off, throws them at him, and Tharn pushes him up against the wall and says that if Type thinks he’s such a slut, maybe he should just have sex with Type. In this dream, Type is incredibly passive once Tharn presses him against the wall, feeling up his chest and not trying to get away from him until dream!Tharn acts as if he’s going for a kiss. Type can’t forget that Tharn is gay, like Techno suggests, because he can’t stop thinking about it.

The war begins between them, constantly escalated by Type.

For a character who can be incredibly prickly, Type has several friends that we meet -- he knows Techno, Team, and Aom from his high school, and he and Champ will become friendly relatively quickly once they’re introduced to each other.

For a character who comes across as more warm, Tharn only seems to have one good friend, Lhong (from the retrospective PoV, I wonder if Lhong poisoned other potential friendships that Tharn might have had, in addition to poisoning his romantic relationships).

But Type and Tharn are more alike than they seem at first glance, because neither of them is inclined to deeply confide in their friends (Type confides in Techno somewhat reluctantly, because Techno already knows about Tharn being gay, and he doesn't fill Techno in on any of the details of what happens between him and Tharn in the future; Techno just kinda figures things out as he goes along). Both of them tend to tell people that they're fine and not really go any deeper.

During Lhong’s introduction in one of Tharn’s music classes, even though Tharn is going through a pretty rough patch with his roommate and dealing with someone being actively homophobic at him, he doesn’t share any of this with Lhong when Lhong asks him how he’s doing, deflecting instead and saying that nothing is bothering him.

After being reminded of his most recent ex-boyfriend and with Lhong talking about how they need more people for their band, Tharn turns around and we are (non-verbally) introduced to Tum, who used to be in their band and is the (step)brother of Tharn’s most recent ex, Tar. Tum gives him a dirty look and that’s all for right now. But given how badly his last relationship imploded multiple parts of his life (and how Tharn is still baffled at how he got all the blame for it when Tar is the one who broke up with him), it’s understandable that he might be hesitant about getting into a new relationship right now.

So even while Tharn is still dealing with the fallout of his last relationship, things get ugly between Tharn and Type.

Genuinely ugly, on both of their parts. Type escalates and Tharn reacts, and both of them behave worse and worse as Type continues to push harder and harder.

Type shoves Tharn -> Tharn shoves him back.

Type destroys Tharn’s half of the room and calls him a slur -> Tharn ruins Type’s half of the room and calls him a bigot.

Type brings his friends over to be a nuisance -> Tharn is welcoming but firm in his boundaries (telling one of them to get off his bed), which means that Type is the only one who looks bad (and Tharn also clocks at this time that Techno is a lot more nervous around him than Type’s other two friends are, and correctly guesses that means that Techno knows that Tharn is gay)

Type threatens to out Tharn to Type’s friends -> Tharn reverses that on Type, telling him that means he’ll be revealing that he’s been rooming with a gay man for three weeks.

Tharn is unwilling to stand down in this fight with Type because he feels like it would mean admitting that being gay is wrong, which he refuses to do, but as Type continues to escalate, Tharn leans into the kind of behavior that gets the biggest negative reaction from Type -- which is when Tharn acts the most like the predatory gay stereotypes that Type has in his head. This mixes uncomfortably with Tharn's genuine attraction to Type, leading to Tharn crossing boundaries with Type as Tharn struggles with his own cognitive dissonance of being attracted to Type, some part of him recognizing and seeing Type's attraction to him, and Type's outspoken homophobia.

The fight outside the dorm is the first time we see Tharn be the one to escalate the situation — when Type tells him that he’ll never be gay like Tharn, Tharn kisses him on the cheek and taunts him that if he stays close to Tharn, he’ll get infected and become gay too. Type says at a certain point later (to his dad, if I recall correctly) that Tharn’s temper is pretty awful if you manage to actually make him angry, and we see elements of that here.

But something that is also present and that I doubt Tharn knew about himself before this moment of being pushed past his limits… he’s enjoying himself. It’s fun to wind Type up and see what he’ll do (this is something that we actually see P’San mention too in a later episode — that enjoyment of winding Type up to see his reaction). That’s essentially the high that Tharn rides for the rest of the episode — he winds Type up in a situation where Type can’t let himself explode (in front of his friends) to see what he’ll do. And part of that, I think, comes from him seeing that some of Type’s attitude is bark and not bite — Type didn’t actually out Tharn to his friends. Instead he stormed out of the room with an excuse.

We get the first (but far from the last) time that Type grabs Tharn by the shirt collar, but any further aggression is interrupted by the lady in charge of student housing.

So Type goes back to the room and tries to set up another scenario that he thinks will annoy Tharn — he starts watching some straight porn with Techno, Aom, and Team, specifically on Tharn’s computer. The guys are into it at first, but once Tharn shows up, they start expressing a lot of discomfort because Type is being kinda dismissive and rude about Tharn.

Tharn, otoh, is still enjoying himself. He’s figured out how to keep Type wound up without being annoyed or frustrated personally, and since all of this is Type’s 'fault' anyway for being a homophobic jerk, he doesn’t even need to feel guilty about it. In the early part of the ‘war’, it was Type who was going too far and acting childish. But after their argument outside, it’s Tharn who is able to pull power away from Type in the conflict, and now he’s the one who goes too far. It’s obvious at this point that Type isn’t going to out Tharn to his friends, so Tharn can push the line to see how much he can make Type squirm.

Team and Aom leave and Type has gotten drunk, planted himself in Tharn’s bed, and now refuses to let Techno move him.

Why does Type put himself in Tharn’s bed? To circle back up to what we started with — it’s because he’s attracted to Tharn. He mentions in series 2 that he likes Tharn’s smell, and Tharn’s bed is a good place to find it.

Techno, who has been trying to talk Type down from his homophobic behavior all episode, now takes some time to talk with Tharn. He gives Tharn what backstory he knows about Type’s homophobia, which isn’t much. Just that Type has hated gay people for as long as Techno has known him, and that he once beat some people up for saying that he must have been molested.

He asks Tharn why he won’t move out and then asks him not to be too harsh with Type when Tharn says that he’s going to teach Type a lesson. And Techno does essentially say, “I hope you don’t rape my friend while he’s helpless and drunk in your bed”.

Sexual assault — the possibility and the reality of sexual assault — is incredibly present in the first series of TharnType. That’s Type’s trauma that he’s been carrying with him since childhood and it haunts him still. In TT, Type is intimately aware that sexual assault exists as a possibility, and so is the show.

Tharn says that he doesn’t sleep with people who are drunk. And then we see his ‘lesson’ to Type, which is to set up a situation where Type might worry that sex happened the night before. And this is where, though Tharn doesn’t rape Type in terms of penetration, he does push into sexual assault — he kisses Type while he’s asleep, unbuttons his shirt, and leaves light hickeys on his chest. His attraction to Type mixed with his anger with Type creates a dangerous situation, where Tharn crosses a line that I doubt he ever dreamed that he would cross before this ‘war’ between him and Type.

Before Type started his homophobic campaign against Tharn, there was no indication that Tharn was going to act on any attraction that he might feel for Type — he’s still recovering from his last break-up and the aftermath. It’s Type’s outsized reaction to anything sexual that made Tharn lean into it more, ultimately forcing both of them to face the attraction that they have for each other. In extremely unhealthy ways, to start.

Of course, Type being attracted to Tharn doesn’t make what Tharn does here okay and… and it’s gonna get worse before it starts getting better.

Episode Two

Type may have started the ‘war’ between himself and Tharn, but it is out of his control now. Tharn has seized the balance of power in the relationship, and Type is the one reacting now, flat-footed and scrambling for a sense of control.

In the first episode, it’s Type’s anger that is at the forefront of his reactions to Tharn. Now, we dig past the anger and we find out what’s underneath — complete and total terror. There have been hints of it before — hesitations in how Type reacts to Tharn, the way he backs up when Tharn gets too close. But now it takes over the show and Type’s anger is shown for the protective armor that it always was.

Tharn was expecting the spitting-anger that he’d seen from Type in the last few days. What he gets that next morning instead is a scared little boy who can barely string a sentence together. At first, Tharn reacts with the same amusement he felt the previous day — he’s gotten under Type’s skin. He’s winning the war that Type decided they were going to be fighting. But the more he sees of Type’s reaction, the more his amusement visibly drains away. Type was supposed to be the angry brat that he was being yesterday. He wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It’s not going the way that Tharn thought it would. It’s not funny, seeing Type’s reaction to any of this. It actually… is kinda making Tharn feel awful.

It’s not until Tharn’s left the room that Type manages to pull his protective armor of anger safely back around himself.

Armor securely on, Type still doesn’t aim it at Tharn, instead going for a safer target — he gets incredibly angry at Techno for leaving him alone with Tharn the night before. Techno confirms to Type that Tharn wasn’t lying when he said that Type is the one who got into Tharn’s bed and refused to leave. And Techno also shares about the conversation that he had with Tharn, about how he said that he doesn’t have sex with drunk people.

Type is such a mess in this conversation with Techno, and I don’t blame him for it.

The other big part of this conversation is the introduction of Champ (<3) and his offer to switch rooms with Type… which Type refuses. There is a lot of cognitive dissonance going on in Type’s head, specifically around whether or not he’s safe around Tharn. His conversation with Techno just moved Tharn ever so slightly towards ‘safety’ on that alarm board that’s in Type’s brain.

And there’s something else that Type doesn’t want to admit to yet (besides the attraction) — curiosity. Tharn did scare him this morning, but he didn’t do what Type had been most scared that he would do, and Type wants to figure out what’s going on. He doesn’t understand Tharn and, in this moment, he actually starts to want to understand. Tharn doesn’t quite fit into the stereotype that Type has in his head, and Type’s anger and fear has cleared enough — at least for the moment — for him to want to poke at that some more.

(Techno is so utterly baffled by Type’s about-face on wanting to room with Tharn — only last night, he was still desperate to get away from him, and now he wants to stick around?)

Tharn is distracted and melancholy when he’s having lunch with Lhong the next day, staring off into the distance and not eating, but he deflects again when Lhong tries to figure out if something is wrong. Once again, Lhong tries to feel out if any of Tharn’s exes are trying to get him back.

And now Tharn makes his attempt at amends (in a way that Type will accept) — he leaves out a bag of snacks with a note on it explicitly telling Type that he’s not allowed to eat any of it, fully expecting and wanting Type to take some. And when Type leaves a defiant note in response and messes up Tharn’s bed with discarded snacks, it’s clear how relieved Tharn is that Type is acting like his old bratty self again, and not like a scared kid.

So Tharn relaxes — maybe things can get back to normal after all. Or at least to an uneasy truce of some kind.

And then he walks in on Type jerking off. The editing in this scene is extremely well-done, I feel like I need to note, Tharn shaking up his drink intermixed with Type jerking off, and Type’s orgasm happening when Tharn pierces his drink with his straw. It’s a side note, but I had to mention it. It’s so memorable.

Tharn walks in just after Type has finished jerking off, and he’s in a teasing mood (thinking that things have maybe calmed down between them). Type retreats back into his homophobia, which Tharn only reacts to mildly.

And then Type says that maybe Tharn is gay because his dad doesn’t love him, and Tharn has an instant reaction.

I did say at the end of the last episode that it was going to get worse. Here we are — intensely angry, Tharn pins Type against the bed, caging his wrist against the headboard as he tells him not to insult his dad.

If the end of episode one was a preview of “Tharn does regrettable things if you make him angry enough”, this is the main feature. This is where his mixture of anger towards Type and attraction to Type turn into their most toxic form. Tharn has all the power here — Type’s protests are weak begging, not forceful and angry. When Type asks Tharn not to hurt him, Tharn’s anger softens, but his desire remains. And he tries to ‘calm’ Type down by touching him, by trying to give him physical pleasure.

Luckily, not for very long. Tharn sees relatively quickly that he’s only making things worse and he asks Type if he’s okay, which gives Type enough leverage (emotionally and physically) to push Tharn away.

Tharn can tell that he’s fucking up here, but he has absolutely no clue how to handle the level of trauma that Type is operating at.

Type self-soothing once he’s alone in this scene is always painfully intense for me.

Even though Type’s parents love him, Type is used to soothing his own fears rather than going to someone else for help. Type had to leave his family’s home when he was in junior high school, a few months after what happened to him, because of the way it was publicized in the media and how that kept re-traumatizing him. He was living with his aunt but we don’t get any indications that they’re particularly close, so I doubt that he went to her for comfort when he was having nightmares. He lost the potential comfort of his parents at a time when he needed comforting, and so he had to do it himself. Type has been alone with his fears for a long time.

That’s why he needed such a thick coat of armor as protection.

After this, Type plunges straight into a ptsd episode — flashbacks and nightmares, inability to have peaceful sleep, and then a depression that leaves him unable to leave his bed and go to either class or practice, the lack of desire to eat anything.

And Tharn knows that it’s his fault. Type may have started this ‘war’ but Tharn has now twice reduced Type to a terrified little boy and while he doesn’t really understand the reasons why his actions affected Type so viscerally, he knows that he let his anger get the better of him and he screwed up.

Narratively, Tharn being the person who triggers Type is so important for the story, because that’s the entire struggle that Type is dealing with — that the person that he’s attracted to is also the person who reminds him of his trauma. The early series contradiction of feeling both safe and unsafe around Tharn is really summed up with what happens between Tharn and Type in these scenes.

Tharn goes to meet up with Lhong to eat, but he’s distracted the entire time. Lhong once again asks how Tharn is, and Tharn says that he’s fine. But all he can think about is how scared Type was. And he has to go back to check on Type, leaving Lhong to eat dinner by himself.

He walks back into their dorm room to find Type in the middle of a nightmare. Tharn doesn’t find out what it’s about yet, but it’s made pretty clear to the viewer as we catch glimpses of a young boy being lured away by an older man. Tharn tries to wake Type up as Type calls out for help in his sleep. Including asking for Tharn to help him, which ties back into the internal struggle Type is going through, where a part of him feels like Tharn is terrifying (because he’s gay) but another part of him is saying ‘there’s safety here’. The part of him that liked Tharn the first day that they met, the part of him that finds Tharn’s scent comforting. The part of him that felt so betrayed when he learned that Tharn was gay, because he thought this was a safe person, he thought their dorm room was a safe place.

While Type is still asleep, he welcomes and longs for and asks for Tharn’s comfort. When he wakes up, he recoils, reflexively hits Tharn, and tells Tharn that he doesn’t want or need his help. And it’s during this moment of comfort after Type’s nightmare that we first hear the chords of “Hold Me Tight”, Tharn and Type’s love song. Tharn has been attracted to Type before this moment, but now- now he wants to take care of Type, even though he still has no clue of the depth of Type’s trauma or how to handle it.

And even as Type spits out angry words at him, Tharn is now deeply aware that some part of Type wants to be taken care of, specifically by Tharn.

That is, honestly, a lot for a freshman college student to handle. The whole “your brain isn’t developed until you’re twenty-five” thing is a myth, but the majority of college-age students are still relatively inexperienced with the world, and I suspect most of them would be just as clueless as Tharn when it comes to handling this level of trauma in someone else.

Tharn doesn’t know how to handle the complicated mess that just dropped into his lap. Type is so many things, all at once — he’s angry and scared and defiant and clingy, and Tharn can’t even begin to figure out what he’s supposed to do. But he wants to do something to help.

The next morning, Type refuses to get out of bed, and his body also rebels against him, giving him all the symptoms of being sick (“my head is killing me” Type says here, which is the same thing he says when he’s feeling sick in series 2 as well — the headache might be from crying all night and the nightmares and might also simply partly be stress).

Tharn tries to get Type to wake up to go to class, but Type snaps at him and refuses to get up. Techno calls to see if Type wants to get lunch, and Type says he’s skipping because his head hurts. Techno asks if Type wants him to check in on him, but Type says that he’s fine (both Type and Tharn have pretty big issues with asking for help, as we see pretty consistently, they Just Don’t Ever Ask).

At this point, Tharn’s actual anger at Type seems like it’s faded away, but he is still frustrated and doesn’t know what to do.

Techno spots Tharn on campus, asks after Type, saying how sick he sounded with his hoarse voice (which Tharn knows is probably from crying. Because of Tharn), and now he isn’t answering his phone at all. Tharn volunteers to go back and check on him, so that Techno can get to class. When he gets there, he can see that Type is just as bad as the night before, sweaty and trapped in his nightmares.

Tharn knows that this is his fault, so it also feels like his responsibility. But Type only wants him there when he’s not consciously aware of it — when he’s half-asleep, he clings to Tharn and begs him not to go, but when he’s fully awake, he’s defensive and angry. So Tharn tries to soothe Type while also staying within certain bounds of ‘taking care of a sick person’. Unlike the previous day, it doesn’t become sexual at any point; it stays in the realm of care-taking (though this is still pretty intimate).

Champ and Techno are already fairly friendly, and since Champ lives in this building too, Champ was the one who let Techno inside, past the dorm security. Techno compliments Tharn for helping Type while he’s sick, even though they’ve been fighting so much, and Tharn deflects (I’m sure he feels like he doesn’t deserve any compliments about this, since it’s his fault in the first place that Type is feeling so poorly) and he asks Techno not to tell Type that Tharn was the one taking care of him.

When Type wakes up, his first assumption is that Tharn was the one helping him (and he’s suspicious of potential ulterior motives) but then Techno shows up and lets Type assume that he was the one helping out.

Once Type is feeling better and hanging out at Techno’s house playing video games, Techno lets the truth slip, and Type immediately feels a sense of obligation to Tharn, even though he doesn’t want to. Type doesn’t like owing people things (I suspect that’s part of the reason he always insists that he’s fine, because he doesn’t want to owe anyone a debt for helping him out), and now he feels obligated to pay Tharn back in some way.

And he feels guilty for hating Tharn for being gay (so both Tharn and Type are now feeling guilty for their actions in the ‘war’ between the two of them), with the show using Champ’s confusion over why Type wanted to switch rooms to let the audience in on how Type’s feelings have changed.

We get some light hints of “Hold Me Tight” in the background of this scene, as Type’s fear and anger has faded enough that the underlying things that he felt about Tharn before he found out that he was gay are now coming back through again — he genuinely liked Tharn during their first three weeks of being roommates, and he’s remembering why now.

Episode Three

So Type and Tharn begin an uneasy truce.

Type feels like he needs to start making things up to Tharn, because he’s the one who pushed Tharn into this war, but then he gets irritated that Tharn is so chill about everything now.

After he witnesses Type’s nightmare in episode 2, I don’t think we ever see Tharn get angry at Type for his reflexive homophobia, though he will still be protective of others and chide Type if he starts attacking other people — he says in episode four that he can take Type’s insults but not everyone else can. Even before the nightmare, Tharn wanted to believe that Type’s homophobia had an explainable origin (“I don’t know what you’ve been through.”) and once he begins to get hints at that origin, Type’s insults don’t really bother Tharn personally anymore because he knows they aren’t about him but about the trauma that Type went through. He successfully depersonalizes Type’s homophobia, and it doesn’t affect him emotionally anymore. He’s able to be curious and open about why Type is behaving this way instead.

The current problem that exists in their relationship is that Type feels like he owes Tharn for helping him when he was sick, but Tharn doesn’t feel that way (because he blames himself for Type being poorly in the first place). Which is already a much less prickly problem than their previous disagreement.

Tharn now officially has a crush on Type and while both Tharn and Type’s problematic behavior towards each other has softened in this episode and lost much of its anger, it still exists. Even if Type is slowly making an exception for Tharn, he’s still extremely homophobic in general. And while Tharn has pulled back from crossing any sexual boundaries, he’s fallen into a caretaking habit of soothing Type while he’s asleep if he looks troubled, stroking his hair back from his face and smoothing out the tension between his eyebrows. And this behavior is being unintentionally reinforced by Type — it works, making Type’s sleep go from being troubled to being peaceful. Tharn getting positive feedback from his actions is what leads to him pushing the line again later in this episode.

Tharn is aware on some level that what he’s doing might still upset Type, even if it’s not sexual — he doesn’t admit to it when Type asks if Tharn is doing “something” when he’s asleep — but he’s not ready to confront any of that.

In class with Type and Techno, Type is distracted and doodling on his notebook while Techno talks to him. We get another check-in on Type’s current feelings — he’s not actively trying to chase Tharn out of the room anymore and he doesn’t think that Tharn is a ‘bad guy’ even if he still ‘hates’ him, both bits of information that surprise Techno. Tharn calls Techno to tell him to ask Type to buy dinner for him, to ‘return the favor’ (since Type didn’t consider them square after the last meal that he brought Tharn) and from a retroactive perspective, it’s clear that this is 100% Tharn trying to get Type to feel like he’s paid off what he’s owes, because Tharn claims that Type can buy him anything for dinner and he’s “not picky” about food, which is a blatant lie. It’s not about the food; it’s about trying to get Type to feel like he doesn’t still owe Tharn a debt.

Type, determined to find out what exactly Tharn has been doing at night, keeps himself awake but quiet and still while Tharn strokes his hair, talks about thinking he’s cute, and then kisses his forehead. This is not the last time that Type will pretend to be asleep to learn what’s going on in Tharn’s head. When Type actually is asleep (or drunk), he’s pretty deeply asleep and difficult to wake up, but he’s aware enough of his own sleeping patterns that he can fake it pretty well.

Type tries to jerk off the next day, but is frustrated to realize that thoughts of Tharn keep creeping into his head and he can’t focus on the porn clip that he was trying to watch. He’s distracted later, too, when he’s talking with Techno and Champ about what they’re going to do now that exams are over.

Timeline information - Champ mentions that the semester is almost over, but from what Tharn says next episode, they’re doing midterm exams right now. So I think there may be some slight translation confusion going on. I don’t think the show ever specifies where exactly they go to school (though it may be on a sign that I do not have the ability to read), but Bangkok University’s first semester runs from mid/late August to early December (when they go into the ‘long holiday’ that Type will mention later), roughly 15 weeks. So if we’re at midterms now — and episodes 4-6 are all going to take place before the long holiday starts — it gives us an idea of how long things have been tense between Tharn and Type. They had three good weeks of being roommates and have now had about about a month of things being some variety of uneasy.

Champ and Techno wonder if Type is still fighting with Tharn, and Champ reminds Type that his offer to swap rooms still stands and Type can take advantage of it literally whenever, but Type assures him that it’s fine and he doesn’t need to swap rooms.

Lhong asks if Tharn wants to get dinner, but Tharn wants to rush back to his dorm room (because that’s where his crush is). This entire time period has to be when Lhong had the most hope that he could figure out how to have a relationship with Tharn — if we believe what Lhong says later (and I feel like most of what he tells Type about Tharn’s past is true, just in case Type actually did check in with Tharn about it), Tharn has been in and out of relationships basically since he entered high school. This period of time, post-Tar, is potentially the longest that he’s been single the entire time that Lhong has known him (and yet Lhong never actually confesses his feelings to Tharn; scared of rejection, I would imagine).

Tharn gets back to the dorm room and is vaguely annoying to Type in a distinctly ‘pulling pigtails’ flirty way. This bit of teasing here from Tharn leads directly into the shower blowjob, which is an example of Tharn pushing the same line he was pushing before — he is paying attention to Type’s physical reactions to him but not paying attention to Type’s verbal directives. Because Type is into the blowjob, physically, not having any of the negative reactions that he’s shown previously, but he doesn’t ever actually say ‘yes’.

So the shower BJ is an interesting inflection point for the show -- Tharn thinks that he's figured Type out (and he has partially figured Type out). Type is attracted to him but has some issues around being attracted to guys. So we just have to do something selfless for him that feels really amazing and that'll be a good thing, right? (right?)

It even seems like it went pretty well -- Type is jittery afterwards but it seems like he enjoyed himself.

(let’s put a pin in that for later)

After football practice, Type and Techno are walking on campus when they get stopped by the Handsome Guy page admins, who are already familiar with Techno, and who are both openly queer. Both of the admins are taken with Type’s looks immediately, despite Techno trying to deflect their attention, and want to take his photo for their Facebook page. They also ask him for his contact information. Type goes along somewhat reluctantly, and then one of the admins decides that he needs to take a ‘couple photo’ with Type and puts his hands around Type’s waist and slides his hand across Type’s chest.

Type snaps at them and pushes the admin away, falling back into the homophobic language that we’ve seen him display during the worst of his fights with Tharn.

The admins are deeply offended, and post about Type on their page, in an extremely negative way. It’s quickly shared around the university, leading to people gossiping about Type and to his classmates fighting with each other over whose side they’re on.

Type is clearly miserable about it all, not wanting to say anything either to defend himself or attack the admins.

Musical Notes

There are two main musical themes in the first series of the show -- there's "Hold Me Tight", which canonically ends up being the love song that Tharn writes for Type; and there's "Be Mine", which is implied to be a song that already exists in-world and is fairly popular. Both of them are pretty catchy. They get used in very different ways in the show.

“Be Mine” is the song used in the opening credits of the show, and it’s a song that is ultimately about an unrequited longing for someone. A song that potentially could have been about TharnType in the first handful of episodes, but then as the plot continues, it’s clear that the song is much more about Tharn’s friend Lhong and his unrequited (unspoken) feelings for Tharn. However, the specific parts of the song used in the credits are the chorus, which lean much less on the unspoken/unrequited aspects of the love and much more on the possessive aspects, and that does fit with the relationship that develops between Tharn and Type — they are both possessive and monogamous.

“Hold Me Tight” is a song that develops over the course of the show, as Tharn and Type’s love story develops. The chords are first heard when Tharn comforts Type during his nightmares during episode two. It plays again when Tharn skips his afternoon classes the next day to come back to the dorm and take care of Type while he’s lost in his nightmares.

Side Character Notes

Techno

Most of what I would need to say about Techno is probably going to end up in the main episode notes, but it’s very interesting when he tells Tharn that he has a lot of queer friends, but all of them are ‘transfeminine’ per the LineTV translation (the youtube translation says 'fem' here) and that he’s never has a masc queer friend before Tharn.

Techno is an incredibly loyal friend to Type, though a nosy one. He’s stuck with him through a lot of bullshit (and will stick with him for even more later on). He tells other people that Type is a good person, but privately calls him out on homophobic ways of thinking and tries to get him to be more accepting.

P’Klui and P’Seo

In this part of the series, Tharn and Type room right next to P’Klui and P’Seo, who are upperclassman, though I’m not certain how much older they’re meant to be. Seo is obsessed with the idea of debuting in Korea as a K-pop star and Klui is obsessed with knowing everyone else’s business. Seo has a crush on Klui that Klui never quite figures out exists, despite Seo being pretty obvious about it as time goes on. They’re mostly used in the series as comic relief and as a brief place for Type to escape to when he’s fighting with Tharn (and in the second series, Klui, along with the other side characters, handles some of the weight of the sponsorship segments so that Tharn and Type don’t have to do as many).

Lhong

The show struck a good balance with Lhong. The first time watching the show, he’s not incredibly clockable as what he is — he seems like a genuine friend who is interested in Tharn’s life. Rewatching it, though, reveals how often his questions focus around Tharn’s romantic life.

His first assumption upon noticing that Tharn looks tense is to wonder if Tharn ran into an ex-boyfriend. His second assumption is that Tharn is having interested guys fighting over him, and that’s what’s causing stress. Third question is whether or not someone new has asked Tharn out and he teases Tharn that the problem is that it’s someone who wanted to top him instead of someone who would bottom for him (making it obvious that he knows why Tharn isn’t in a relationship with P’San and thus why Lhong never treats P’San as a threat).

Lhong is constantly on the look-out for whether or not he needs to get involved in and sabotage Tharn’s love life. While Type being closeted/in-denial was a complicated part of their relationship that caused Tharn a lot of emotional stress, it’s also what allowed their relationship to survive long enough to become so solid that when Lhong did learn about them and set about trying to sabotage them, Type was already emotionally invested in Tharn and was willing to do whatever it took to get him free from Lhong’s manipulations. Type’s character flaws ended up being useful when it came to saving Tharn from his manipulative best friend, despite being things that made it more difficult for him and Tharn to form a relationship in the first place.

Champ

I like Champ a lot; he’s such a solid and loyal friend. He decides that he likes Type relatively quickly too — he actually seems to appreciate Type’s bluntness, maybe because when people are too subtle, it goes over his head.

Tum and Tar

Tar is not yet relevant to the main plot, but we establish him in episode two. He’s a student in his junior year of high school. Tar is shy and apologetic and distracted. He’s being picked up from school by his (step)brother Tum, the university freshman student who was glaring at Tharn in his music class in the first episode. We learn that Tar took some time off school ‘last year’. Tar and Tum seem to mostly be living by themselves, with Tum talking to “Mom” on the phone and assuring her that he can take care of Tar. There’s a bit of a tortured artist vibe with Tar, signs that there’s something wrong there, but no details yet. It’ll be a while yet before the show fills the viewer in on what’s going on with Tar.

In episode three, Tum is late picking Tar up after class, and we get a preview of something we’re about to see with Type in that same episode — Tar is glancing around at his fellow students, certain they’re all staring at him. He’s hyper-aware in this moment, and paranoid. Tar isn’t only a Type mirror at the end of the first series, he’s mirroring Type all the way through. His trauma is much more recent than Type’s and he doesn’t have all the heavy armor built up around himself that Type does. Tar is open and vulnerable.

In a certain sense, Tum almost acts the part of Tar’s ‘armor’ — the panicked, protective part that can get angry over the trauma that Tar has suffered (though Tum doesn’t know the details and is blaming the wrong party). For Type, his armor is his anger. For Tar, it’s Tum. And, in both cases, it can sometimes get misdirected and aimed at the wrong person.

Platform Differences

There are two scenes cut down in the first episode — for copyright reasons, they cut out Seo listening to his K-Pop music; and they also really cut down the ending scene of the episode, and turn it into a couple of kisses instead of the much more extended scene from the original episode.

In the second episode, the YT version of Tharn taking care of Type while he’s sick is actually extended. In the LTV version, Tharn wipes Type down with a cool cloth and Type clings to him again and (while still mostly asleep) begs him not to leave and Tharn promises to stay. In the YT version, we start with Tharn giving Type medicine and when he can’t get him to swallow, he drinks water and passes the water to Type via a kiss in order to get him to take the meds before we go to Tharn wiping him down with the washcloth. That’s really a fascinating choice. I wonder if it was simply because YT had the deleted scenes available so it added them back in whenever possible or if there was any kind of actual narrative review process. Because putting the kiss here does maybe compensate a little bit for cutting some of Tharn’s boundary crossing at the end of episode 1, perhaps?

In episode three of the YT version, it entirely cuts out Type masturbating in the shower and stopping in frustration because he keeps thinking of Tharn (they just skip to the next scene).

In the same episode, the youtube version of the shower blowjob makes it much more difficult to tell exactly what Tharn is doing, which is a shame. For the first few episodes, cutting down the intimate scenes also accidentally whitewashes the actions of Tharn’s character.

TharnType is the story of two traumatized guys falling in extremely messy love with each other, but cutting down or ignoring the extent to which Tharn is willing to cross Type’s boundaries in the early episodes makes it look like Type is the only fucked-up one in the relationship, which is definitely not the case. Cutting these scenes was most likely a general censorship thing and not done for the purpose of making Tharn’s character look better (given that they added a deleted scene kiss into episode 2), but it is an unfortunate side effect.