Behind the Scenes
The Evolution of the Near-Punch in Between Us
One of my favorite things about any production is when I find out that there's been a collaborative effort in the storytelling and character-building. Between Us, directed by New Siwaj Sawatmaneekul, has a fantastic example of this: the evolution of the post-drowning scene in episode six.
So! Overall, there have been three iterations of the scene: the original in the novel, the pilot teaser released in February of 2022, and episode six of the main series.
Let's see how we got from A to Bee to Sea. (I'm not sorry.)
“Entering the pool without permission from an authorized person is breaking the rules. You can be kicked out of the club.”
His fierce eyes were looking at the junior who was now very pale.
“And if I had not noticed the light from the pool, which made me come to check, what would have happened?!”
Win felt a chill in his heart. He had just walked past the club and had seen the lights. He thought he had forgotten to turn them off, so he came to check. But instead, he saw someone drowning in the middle of the pool. If he hadn’t come in time...
“Answer me, Team! Why are you doing this?!”
Win grabbed the boy's shoulder and forced him to make eye contact.
“I wanted to practice.”
“What?!”
“I just wanted to practice so that I could get a good time tomorrow!!”
“What fucking practice!!" Win shouted, his eyes redder than the person who almost drowned. "You almost drowned, you bastard!! you almost died in front of me, do you understand!”
“I…”
smack
The senior punched him hard in the face with a force that caused him to sway. Team cried out and felt the taste of blood in his mouth. He wanted to make excuses, but when he saw the pain in the senior's eyes, he couldn't speak.
“Hia, I...”
“If I came one minute later. No, even if only thirty seconds later, you might have already drowned at the bottom of the pool, do you understand?”
“I…”
The boy hugged himself tightly. It was true. A few more moments and he would have...
Team was shocked when his body was suddenly pulled and hugged, his face buried in Win’s chest. Win's whole body was trembling like a frightened animal. Team’s guilt was so overwhelming that he couldn't say anything, but he raised his hands and hugged him back. He gently stroked Win's wet back to comfort him.
“Don't do this again...”
“Mmm…”
“My heart will break…”
“Mmm…”
Team hugged the senior more tightly as warm tears fell from his eyes.
It was not only him who was hurt. Hia was, too.
- Hemp Rope (Eng Translation)
To summarize, Team is nervous about the upcoming qualifying meet. He only got two hours of fitful, nightmare-ravaged sleep on his own the night before, so he decides swimming will help him sleep. He sneaks into the pool, doesn't stretch, and swims until his leg cramps up. He nearly drowns, Win saves him, berates him, punches him, hugs him, takes him home, etc.
In many ways, it's very similar to the scene we got in the main series. But it's different enough that I wanted to talk about it.
I've talked about my personal perspective on the novel scene before. Basically, I've drawn a line in my head between Novel WinTeam and Main Series WinTeam. Novel WinTeam are LazySheep's creation, so what they do and say and think and feel are primarily decided by LazySheep and her editor. Main Series WinTeam, however, were created through the close collaboration of Sheep acting as a scriptwriter adapting her work for the screen, New, and WinTeam's actors Boun and Prem. (And opinions and reactions from fans and professionals affiliated with the series have also likely shaped their development along the way.)
[Sheep drew and posted this adorable comic of WinTeam and BounPrem together the day Between Us was first announced on July 5th, 2020.]
Boun's Win has always had a casual, insouciant kind of charisma that feels inherently nonthreatening, whereas Novel Win sometimes feels more like a Dude. A Good Dude, but a Dude nonetheless. Then we have Prem's Team who is, simply put, sassy and adorable, whereas Novel Team is also, y'know, kind of a Dude.
Take the hookup scene as an example. In the novel, there's no conversation about consent, no careful check that Team's sober and aware of what's going on. It's just what you'd expect from two horny guys down to bone: some light banter and then Win gives Team a handjob while they're still outside. And that's fine! It's realistic! It's probably happening somewhere right now. <3
“What do you want me to help you with?” Win crossed his arms across his chest and looked at the junior who was clearly uncomfortable and looked like he was ready to slap his face. “If you leave it like this, it's torture, don’t you know? It'll be very uncomfortable. Just helping each other as friends, right?” He raised his eyebrows, challenging the junior.
Team turned around and peered at the darkness around him.
Only the sound of the waves from the beach hitting the shore and the laughing sounds of the other young men who were still at the barbecue could be heard.
“What are you looking at?” Team gulped and asked tentatively.
Win shrugged his shoulders, pulled the upper arm of the junior, and walked towards the dark corner of the bungalow and into the dense, quiet bushes.
“Shit! Huh, really? Seriously?” Team, who had never let a friend help him jerk off, was feeling light-headed. The more he saw, the more he knew that hia was serious. Team was startled when he was suddenly turned to face the bungalow wall.
“Shush, don’t make any noise. People in the next room will hear,” Win said while pushing his leg in between Team’s own legs to push them apart. Team squinted and stared at the senior with shock.
So skillful!
“Mmmm…”
The boy could barely hold his breath when he felt the warmth on his back. His elastic pants were pulled down along with his underwear. He almost didn’t want to believe what he was doing right now.
- Hemp Rope (Eng Translation)
This is just standard hookup culture. Team's hot, Win's DTF, Team makes the startling realization that he, too, is DTF, so they go off and F. After the handjob, Win goes to his room, then Team hesitates and follows him. No coercion, just like the series. We don't get the sex scene in detail, but we know from Team's narration that they did in fact have some good ole fashioned penetrative sex that night (with protection!). And then they don't have sex again. We're up to chapter seventeen of Hemp Rope, and so far, chapter one is the only time they've Done the Deed.
I bring this up to emphasize that these are different characters from the ones BounPrem are portraying. So when I read the chapter with the punch, I thought it fit. Because it's who they are in the novel. We don't really see Win's insecurities explored in Hemp Rope, so for me, punching Team came across as evidence of how frantic and primal his fear of losing Team was, and perhaps a bit of his role of club senior crossing wires in his brain with his role as Team's Surrogate Sentient Bolster Pillow.
It's also worth noting that Team sneaking into the club in the novel is framed as a bad thing that he knows he could get in trouble for.
He risked getting caught sneaking in.
The tall, slim body of the intruder was standing on the edge of the pool, staring blankly at his reflection in the water.
Initially, Team was determined to go back to his room, but after he thought it over, he was so nervous that he couldn't sleep. He decided to sneak into the club to practice for a couple of hours. It might help him feel more comfortable and sleep better.
- Hemp Rope (Eng Translation)
He's sneaky about it. He doesn't casually tell Manaow or anyone that he's going. There's no plan to stay with Pharm, no DeanPharm date that stops him. He's just an ornery, sleep-deprived cat in a bad headspace, so he sneaks into the pool knowing it's going to get him in trouble if he's caught. In essence, he isn't framed as Team the Terribly Tragic: he's exhausted, sure, but he's also being irresponsible.
So to me, the punch in the novel felt like a, "You nearly died in front of me because you broke the rules to practice for a qualifying meet you wouldn't even have remembered in five years, you spectacular idiot." And because Win and Team being more Dudes' Dudes in the novel, that gave them an added feeling of Dudes Being Guys Who Punch. (See Also: PeteKao) It's not right or good of Win to do, but for me, the situation made sense for the characters as they are in the novel.
The pilot teaser was our first visual of the scene, released in February of 2022.
According to behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, BounPrem practiced the punch with New on the set multiple times before they started rolling. So it was fully in the cards as something they were going to do.
But then, in the middle of the scene itself, Boun made a different choice.
Thing is, Win does hug Team in the novel. Boun just skipped the punch. When he was asked about it, Boun said he didn't feel like Win would ever hit Team.
And this is where I have a ton of respect for New and Sheep and their production: they listened to him. And then they actually incorporated his choice into the canon.
In the same pilot teaser where Boun literally pulled his punches, Prem cried after singing, even though the script didn't mention anything about Team crying. When Sheep asked him why, Prem said, "I just think Team would cry."
And again, they listened to him. They kept it.
Yesterday, Sheep did a Twitter Space talk with fans where she said Prem has been devotedly asking her if he's portraying Team correctly. She told him warmly that he knows how to play Team, and the version he portrays in the series is Team, but a Team who is fully his.
The thing with great adaptations is that they have to be allowed to become their own creation. Boun and Prem have lived with these characters in their hearts for so long that they have their own readings now of how they feel and breathe. Boun loves Win so much he said he felt empty when they unofficially wrapped up filming last month; Prem loves Team so much he's asked Sheep over and over to confirm and reconfirm that WinTeam get a happy ending (they do). They're not just doing this for a paycheck; this is a passion project. WinTeam gave them their spotlight, and they viscerally treasure these roles.
And to me, the fact that their feelings and thoughts were discussed and put into practice on the fly is really, immensely beautiful to me.
Now for the version we all saw yesterday.
I was so excited to see this scene. It's my second favorite in the novel (the first being the homophobia scene that we'll see next week in episode 7), and I was wildly curious about what else they'd added or adapted around Boun's punch-less choice.
First of all, the energy from both Boun and Prem is a lot higher than it was in the pilot teaser, and you can see the calm leave Win's eyes when Team gives his excuse.
The pilot teaser scene was great, and I think it fit the novel well, but the main series has been building up to Win's breakdown, so this scene really had to sell it. The script has been hinting at insecurities that are all yanked out for display in this scene.
I think Boun might have ad-libbed the "damn it" part, too, which made it my favorite line delivery of the scene. Win's voice not only breaks because he's so angry, it's also higher in tone than Win usually speaks, underscoring how out of his mind and beyond rationality he is.
Then we get to the raised fist.
And what I love about these three shots in succession is that we go from: fist, face, combination of both. The action, the emotion, the realization.
Then we see moment he realizes what he was about to do, and what he can't do.
And finally, what he chooses instead.
They took Boun's character choice and built on it beautifully. His raised fist in the pilot teaser is quick and angry and impulsive, but the main series shows him shaking and angry and terrified. He has the impulse, but he's a rational person at his core, and the sight of Team accepting whatever Win is going to do to him, because he believes he deserves it, is what snaps Win out of it.
Win's been portrayed by Boun in three different iterations now: 1) Until We Meet Again, in which he didn't have a lot of material to work with, so he let Win borrow some of his own personality traits. 2) The Between Us special episodes released in autumn of 2021. These aren't canon and were based on Sheep's social media skits that she just posted for fun. The episodes were produced as a symbol of gratitude to fans for waiting so long for the main series. As a result, the characterization in the special episodes is all over the place, and they were extremely aware of it. SWS staff and actors made a lot of jokes on social media about which scenes were BounPrem and which were WinTeam, so they're very much Grain of Salt content. 3) The main series currently airing.
Ever since Boun was cast as Win in spring of 2019, he's spent a little over three and a half years with this character, so it makes sense that the character's depth would become more and more multifaceted through his choices. Sheep started posting chapters of Hemp Rope back in or before 2017 even before the rights to The Red Thread had been sold to New and Wabi Sabi. There was no Boun, no Prem, no UWMA. Just a fun little hookup-to-lovers story with some trauma thrown in.
When Boun was cast, some fans of the novel complained that he was too thin and he looked nothing like the character. Putting aside my own very normal feral yet parasocial feelings of protectiveness for Boun and how much unnecessary pressure fans put on actors to look a certain way, there are indeed some superficial differences between the novel character and the actor. Physically, Win is drawn and described by Sheep as broad and muscular, even more so than Dean.
Team looked at him with a sharp expression. Then he moved his eyes to Win’s abs. Because he was a very attractive person, he did not like to wear shirts. He liked to show off his tattoos regardless of his roommate.
Looking at those abdominal and chest muscles, Team grabbed his own muscles. Mm, pretty good.
- Hemp Rope (Eng Translation)
Sheep was a little hesitant about Boun at first because of this, but New stuck by his casting choice. Once people saw Boun with his hair dyed, it's been said by older fans that the majority of the complaints ended. With this in mind, the Win we have now was always going to be a different version from his novel self purely because New and Sheep chose an actor by his skill and his chemistry with his screen partner rather than by a physical likeness to the character.
After Boun was cast as Win, and after Sheep got to know him and Prem, and after Between Us was green-lit, she continued writing new chapters of Hemp Rope with a slightly newer take on the characters. She's said on Twitter that she's struggled to separate BounPrem from the characters (mostly jokingly), and she was also adapting the script for the series at the same time, so a lot of character building was going on at this time.
In 2021, Sheep wrote a long, long thread on Twitter telling fans how anxious and afraid she was of getting Between Us wrong. Not for herself, but for BounPrem. For New. For the queer community. She's an author who truly understands, to a debilitating degree, the amount of influence her work has. She knew this is BounPrem's first major series as leading actors, and she clearly felt the stress of that responsibility as the scriptwriter.
This whole scene does so much to showcase their strengths and growth as actors. Just like the scene itself, they've evolved over the years and shaped the characters and their story.
Hemp Rope doesn't deeply explore Win's insecurities and flaws, but Between Us needed to because it shines a spotlight on both of them. To make this a full and complete series, they needed to add to the story LazySheep created, and I believe that Boun and Prem's contributions, delivered from a place of love for their characters, will be what elevates Between Us into a truly iconic series.
