One thing I don't like about OFDO is the romanticization of using the crowd to manipulate someone into getting a yes. (Arnold's grand apology, and Raffy's bf-proposal). I mean, I know this sin has been committed by many Thai BLs since time immemorial, buuut. They went out of their way to show that these characters have some moral integrity at the end of all their arcs, yk?
It's the major thing holding Dean's character arc together. As for Raffy, they made sure to redeem him in Dean's eyes. Hell, they even did it for Boston.
So I feel like that was the angle the writers chose when they approached this work—that these people aren't perfect, but they grow into people that feel morally... resolved. For lack of a better term. (Upright sure as hell ain't it.)
And so in a work that chose that angle, I can't help but point out the glaring contradiction in including these... public-proposal scenes, and framing them as something that isn't coercive or manipulative. Two cents.
I think intimate and private would have been a better fit with their messaging, and also a better fit for the tone of the Only Friends franchise altogether.
