#ttts

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.

satya vaswani, also known as symmetra to her teammates and also her enemies, is a character near and dear to my heart! i knew nothing about her until i stumbled upon the fact that she was intentionally written as autistic. this was at a time in my life where i had recently discovered i was too, in a fun (not) series of events, and so i latched on immediately, not to mention when i started playing her, i found a niche and became a rather successful sym (which to me means being helpful, getting kills, STAYING ON THE FUCKING POINT, and not getting in the way). i don't remember what my hours ended up being on her but im pretty sure it was well over 100 and since the servers are gone??? i'll never know? im not downloading ovw 2 to find out. it's probably on my old blog. GAH. im not here to be be salty about blizz.

SATYA.

satya, much like nora, is a side[ish] character that i have taken every scrap of canon lore and extrapolated to the stratosphere. i acknowledge that i have surpassed canon and inserted my own, especially when it comes to her childhood.

that being said

here's canon:

After she was identified as one of the few capable of becoming a light-bending architech, young Satya Vaswani was plucked from extreme poverty and placed in the care of Vishkar's architech academy, never to return home. Isolated and lonely in her new life, Satya immersed herself in her education and training. She quickly grasped the applications of the technology and was one of the top students in her class. Satya approached hard-light manipulation differently than her peers, with their more procedural, mechanical constructions, instead weaving her constructs in the motions of the traditional dance of her homeland.

and then i, to recap practical ghosts to some extent, made it worse. she was singled out for a scholarship by the vishkar academies who intentionally sought out young kids with high compatibility with hard light tech. she has an older brother aditya and a younger brother krishna and her mom karishma. her father died when she was three; she is, at the time of pick up, eight.

she's taken away to the fledgling vishkar town of utopaea where she atends the prestigious vishkar dawn academy boarding school. fairly quickly she takes to HL. it just makes sense to her and she loves it! never mind that she's without her support net for the first time ever. higher up staff order her teachers to excuse her 'problematic' behaviour because they don't wan to damage the prodigy in the making. her mother fights to have satya come home regularly and succeeds in making sure she gets to visit. the higher up staff even court these wishes, hoping that karishma will see the good in vishkar's training and ABA therapy but satya's mom sees her daughter's personality changes and misery and the way she talks about her autism now, the bullying she receives from both adults and students, the way she only seems to focus on architecture. she doesn't like it one bit. and after four years of this back and forth fight between vishkar execs and karishma over the 'budding jewel' of vishkar, karishma finally finds another school closer to home and begins to make moves to take satya out of vishkar academy at the end of the school year.

in response, vishkar ensures that satya has no family left to go home to. they also make sure that not only it looks like an accident but a specific architectural failure that galvanizes satya's single track minded drive to make the world a better place in which no one ever loses their family to a building collapse again. she becomes a ward of vishkar through a series of legal dominos vishkar had in place; she's only twelve. she never finds out that vishkar is the one who killed her family (except for in this little riff i did on twitter that may or may not load). ALSO funny that i named it indomitable, bc i didn't know what rwby was when i wrote that XD. anyways i have all my tweets downloaded but it's not that important.

practical ghosts is a fun narrative because it's told completely outside of satya through documents about her (with the exception of three little chapters at the end, only one of which is from her POV) it's my fave of my satya vent fics. PG is in line with on the run from tomorrow and thursday's daughter's genre of 'no one asked me to go this deep with canon plausible backstory but i did anyway!'

satya NOW though. she comes to the watchpoint, essentially surrendering her vishkar insider info in return for asylum, and proceeds to have the meltdown of a lifetime the second no eyes are on her. she throws herself into discovering how much of her life is a lie (her first comic, where she begins wondering, inspires much of this, as it obvs happens before; while i have read her 2020 comic, i don't use it at all except to smile because it did not contradict my HCs or if it did i ignored it; i was made vaguely aware against my will that she has history with LW but again, i don't care)

she's sassy, she's deadpan, she's devoted, she's practical. she loves dance and cooking and all forms of gymnastics, skating, and ribbon arts. she'll take you to task for doing stupid shit and explain how you should fix it in the same breath. she's ruthless when it comes to making other's take care of themselves. she's harder on herself than anyone else dares to be. she likes birds. she likes making new ways to stim that aren't obvious. she has reclaimed her arm and her relationship with it. she's done an absolutely stellar job of reinventing herself in the wake of everything she's done and been involved with. she's taken all of vishkar's tech and made it better and more accessible. she prefers rebuilding missions more than combat ones. she loves drinking tea with ana. mei was her first human friend outside of vishkar; athena was her first friend at the watchpoint. her and lucio actually get along fine eventually. she is fearlessly devoted to those she loves. she's an early riser and early sleeper. she still cries sometimes when she allows herself to stim unhindered. she is a huge fucking demiace lesbian. she doesn't give a fuck about gender. she wears heels so she can discretely toe-walk and dresses because they're easy to move in. she can and will talk your ear off about her special interests but only if she loves you.

NONE OF THIS IS CANON

last i checked in canon, and based on voicelines, satya hasn't even LEFT vishkar. she's just doubting. she's still there under their thumb and i mean sure yeah that's fine but that was the great of overwatch HUGE sandbox, no plot, WOMEN, and oh my gods an autistic woman of color with the most wonderful voice and voice actor ever (hi ms bhimani i hope you're having a LOVELY day)

i took to sym because i wanted a more hopeful future for myself and i am awaaaaaaaare ive projected on her very hard but i gotta admit the fact that i turn 28 (her age) this year might have actually just made me grin like an idiot because oh my god i could NOT imagine that when i first got into overwatch in early 2017. jesus fuck i was twenty, i could barely see past my own nose. i REMEMBER tho, being like heeheehoohoo one day i'll be satya's age that'll be wild. complete hypothetical. ANYWAYS

i don't think im really answering the question here.

haven't even got to my favorite fuckin head canon. i SCREAAAAAAMED SO LOUD when i realized this. fuckiing rip to my friends bc i was in game and i was playing with a skin i had just unlocked and i noticed something incredible-

satya has a prosthetic left arm. she has two skins though where she looks more like she's wearing a school uniform. i think they're called architech and utopaea? but hey. hey. hey you know what she doesn't have in those skins?

her prosthetic.

SO. my second saddest and most favorite headcanon is that as an 18th birthday gift, when satya technically became an adult and thus could leave vishkar, vishkar offered her a choice. to quote 'nothing here to run from':

Just shy of her Academy graduation ceremony, an offer was made to officially cement her place in the Vishkar Corporation. “We only offer to the best and the brightest, Satya,” Sanjay had said, grasping her left hand in his right. “Wouldn’t you love to be the perfect architech, ready to change the world at a moment’s notice?” By the time she was eighteen, Symmetra only had room for perfection.

BECAUSE YEAH

i heavily headcanon vishkar to be just as bad as talon, since they are heavily intertwined. i would not put it past them.

so yeah, heavy heavy heavy disclaimer that i love satya 'symmetra' vaswani a normal amount but due to the inherent need to extrapolate a million things from a game that initially had three rubber bands and a paper clip worth of lore for her, i humbly recognize that the version of her that i love does only live in my head. and im okay with that!!!! but i love her canon self too, otherwise i would have never gone so feral about her to write over like 100k of her being loved, growing, living and learning!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gods i need to write her again.

also she has the best skins in the fucking gaaaaaaame she's so pretty and i am GAY