Oh It Has A Name.

Style sobbing, Kant telling him it's going to be okay...

With the sequence of Fadel and Bison going through processing...

I can't!!!

I am not okay.

Sandray and why they are the The good thing at the wrong time, or the right person at the wrong time.

So i have read a lot of amazing meta on this series, especially the ephemarilty squad and it has made the viewer experience so much better. A big thank you to those people.

This post is technically not a meta nor am I claiming this is something groundbreaking. I just wanted to get my thoughts out.

Only friends has been an experience and my favourite couple is sandray. I know it will only give me pain but i am a masochist.

After episode five, I have seen a lot of people start to put blame on either sand or ray or Boston ( who is at 80% fault). But in this series we can't just easily put them in a blame box. It's way to complicated for that, as emotions are.

Ep 5 is from the perspective of sand while ep 4 was from ray, from these two eps we realise how different they are, how different their experiences are.

Ray is not exactly a mature person or even a put together person like sand. And we know why, he has self esteem issues, depression and is an alcoholic due to childhood circumstances. And he does not have a supportive network. And we can't blame the friends group because they are twenty something college kids who have no idea of the seriousness. Case in point, how they wave off rays talks of being a burden and continues to enable his bad habits. He is an incredibly messy character, with clear trauma and we have given enough points, explicitly told through the narrative. We are supposed to feel sympathy for him, we are supposed to feel empathy for him. We should root for him to become better.

Compare that with Boston. Boston has been given implied issues, acted out brilliantly by neo. Now whether they are some deep rooted issues from his childhood or parents or others, we dont know. Cause we are not explicitly told. We are supposed to be see him as the antagonist.

In the case of ray, we have given reason to believe that mew is not a great friend to ray as he claims to be. So we are not supposed to root for them so then who should we root for.

Enter sand, who's practically perfect, put together, mature and hot. But the problem is sand is not a put together person, at all.

Sand juggles between jobs, he takes care of the debt of his mother and is a good son. But he's in need of money and he has told that he will do anything to get more money. Aka his illegal plum business.

Ep 5 gives us mote depth of his character. And from the outside he looks cool, calm and collected, inwardly sand is an emotional person, who's driven by his emotions. Now from the first eps we were led to believe that ray is the emotional drunkard looking for trouble. He's not. Ray is driven by his trauma, his addiction, his thoughts, not his emotions.

Sand on the other hand is quick to anger, sarcastic to the point that someone has probably tried to punch him and has a rigid moral sense. And he wants to take care of stuff. And he falls fast. But he doesn't know how to deal with them.

Sand has gotten hurt before by way of top. And he keeps his emotional walls up. Ray is lonely, he wants to connect. And a lot of people have said that he doesn't know to connect but he does. Everything he does with sand is that, he's forging a connection.

Ray was the one who initiated every one of their interactions, even if it was done in an annoying manner. And sand doesn't give a rigid boundary he immediately gives into ray.

And this connection has already been formed, entirely initiated by ray and its strong. To the point that sand has fallen hard and has already given a designated time for ray.

But they are not in the same page. Sand has told ray that he wants to just be FWB and ray has agreed to that. And while we have seen clear signs from both of then that they like each other, I don't thing they are getting it. There understanding level is clearly marred with their issues, sand with being a second choice and ray with everything.

But they have shown that they can communicate. So why are they not communicating now. Because sand has put up the boundary of FWB. No amount of mooning and looking sad is going to tell ray that he wants to be boyfriends. He has to be explicitly told and sand has to do that.

Ray should also be clear with want he wants. Verbally. But both of them are not in a place of mind to do that. And that is surprising, because we could have expected that from the put together one. Expect sand is dealing with his issues and is unwilling to try , because of the threat of heartbreak and is letting his emotions get the better of him.

On the contrary, in rp 5 , ray seems more calm. He is actually trying, he's connecting with sand with doing the things that he loves. He's falling for sand and I think he does know.

Even after being drunk and high he has the werewithal to open up a conversation, he gave the chance to sand to try. But sand rejected it. That was a big chance and if sand had taken that chance, they could have talked about their current situation. That's what's so heartbreaking about it, because the possibility was there. I mean look at him here.

He clearly wanted him to talk to him.

Expect sand didn't take it, his problems prevented him from doing it, his emotions which were going overbroad prevented him from thinking rationally.

And ray took that rejection, personally. We can easily infer what went through his mind from what we already know ," I am a burden, I am a jinx". "I have tried my best but it's not working, So why should I try more", aka the devastating happy birthday.

Ray was rational at that moment, and dare I say mature, especially considering the scene that happened just before that. Ray was able to think above his emotions and give a rational way out of that predicament. But sand rejection triggered his trauma and he went back to square one.

There was a beautiful post about different types of understanding in this series. That's what is happening here, different types of understanding. But I can't find that post.

At that point both needed to understand the other but there individual issues left them unable to do it. And it's not anyone's fault. It's not a blame game. It's the reality of trauma situations.

How trauma and mental health issues can create problems, can make situations seem bigger then they actually are. How it made two people who are compatible with each other be reluctant to go further.

They can be the perfect couple the audience want them to be. But at this point of time , they are the right person at the wrong time archetype.

And they will remain if they don't communicate. Let's hope by the end of the messiness they both have some clarity on how to go further. And give the audience an emotionally charged story.

I think one of the funniest tgcf fanfic tropes is the different reunion type where Hua Cheng painstakingly searches every corner of the earth for hundreds of years, exhausting every resource imaginable, following every fraction of lead, but always inevitably comes up empty, only for Xie Lian to randomly walk right through the front door of paradise manor or fall from the sky or smth on a casual Sunday afternoon.

Then Hua Cheng turns or looks up, ready to disperse whoever just had the audacity, and comes face to face with the love of his life who was just dragged there by a magical bracelet or a gifted to him by cowardly gods or used as collateral in the gambling den or whatever other wild thing that would only happen to Xie Lian.

And the best part is when Xie Lian is getting ready to explain himself to the All Powerful Infamous Ghost King, but has to pause and wait as he notes the full-system malfunction that is clearly going on inside Hua Cheng’s head at the moment, judging by the look of pure shock/disbelief on his face lmao

Reki Kyan and Langa Hasegawa matching icons from the new OVA :D

True, though it takes courage to stick around.

Isn't it wonderful how you're always finding new songs and new books and new shows and new hobbies and new places and new people to fall in love with? There will always be things to love, as long as you stick around to find them.

he waited for this moment his whole fucking life. nobody get it… He’s literally on cloud nine, he is SO geeked he is SO in heaven right now that he’s malfunctioning.

I 'll miss my messy people. I love this show so much. A toast to the end of 12 weeks of agony people, 🍷.