MaybeBaby

Thank you! Like every measure is not good. The editing of the scenes is confusing or choppy, the translation is way off (the doctor gave 1 guy medicine to treat his cervix), the ADR and foley work is not good… that’s not even counting the story which seems like it was written by an 8 year old who just saw Scarface for the first time.

The second couple are the only problem I have with this series. They’re boring, the most chaste “slutty couple” ever in a BL, and the fashion kid’s HMU team did him dirty. He looks like a special effect from a Lord of the Rings movie with that bad styling… and his Tinglish is bad, but probably the only thing I pay attention to. Although I think the knitting hobby was a nice touch.

I like this except the way they dressed the weird second couple fashion kid like a space alien in every episode. I don’t know what they did to him but I am sideways on the couch and I cannot get a focal point. What did they do to his poor face?! I’ve seen his IG, he does not really look like that. Seriously, every time he’s on screen I just get dizzy and start crying.

Rewatching out of boredom and I forgot:

They really dressed poor Salin like he was going to a gay funeral in New Orleans in every episode.

Sun’s butt looks good covered in blue paint.

Sam is jacked!

Still terrible writing but more enjoyable after not expecting it to be good.

Ohhhhh this was written by the writers of Gen Y and Gen Y 2… this explains everything.

It sounds like you don’t know what therapy is. Not all therapy is talk therapy, and some types do involve experiential activities. But without a trained practitioner to guide the patient through the process, there is not much progress made and can actually inflict further harm or reinforce traumatic stimuli.

My wild, left-field theory is that Mawin’s father is actually Pond… because that is the only way this show makes sense in my head. And I don’t know why every tv show character named Akin has to be a total d-bag…

I got all the way to the end and realized I did finish this series but blocked it from my mind. After having been in Thailand for several years now, I know that all that shipping nonsense really does go on here. I’ve had discipline problems in classes because couples were being harassed by outsiders or other students. That didn’t upset me as much as it does now because Thailand doesn’t have privacy laws like the United States. It’s very sad how real this series actually is.

I think I hate it even more now.

I’m doing a rewatch because I love their other series and it’s not going well. I’m on the episode I dropped it at and I forgot how much I absolutely hated this show. It’s only episode 4, but I remember the outrage at the Indian outfits and the shippers at the time it aired. I’ve always been told it gets better and I dropped it too soon, but Pond is insufferable as this character. And Neo is acting like he’s in a Farrelly Bros movie. I am determined to finish this, and it’s not nearly as indefensible as My Stand-In, but I’m really having a miserable time watching this.

I know what you mean. It made no sense to me.

Also, I wouldn’t go so far as to paint them as homophobes or misogynists. Culturally, it is night and day from the United States. LGBTQ people are truly integrated into society here (for trans folk there’s a need to pass, but even that bar is much lower here than in the US). Thai LGBTQ people don’t even really watch much of these series unless a huge pop star is in them. They like beauty pageants and Chinese/ Korean series. It’s more helpful to view these series in a framing like Disney, and BL shows are their equivalent to Zach & Cody or Hannah Montana. Sure, Disney makes content for older groups but Disney Channel shows are not that.

The GMMTV executive talked about how portraying marriage equality as a fantasy that eventually became a reality is a good thing, and that might be true. But that’s like saying America went to space because we watched Star Trek, it’s not a convincing argument.

Whether or not these shows reflect reality is not their purpose, it’s to buy ad space, sell merchandise and tickets at concert halls. Story is completely secondary and an ancillary goal.

No, very few of the series that get made have any sort of real representation. It’s fantasy like a Disney movie… and I’ll tell you, their primary market is Thailand. They don’t care about international metrics because none of that translates into tangible cash for them. The malls here every week have a billboard of BL or GL star’s face saying “happy birthday” and those billboards cost ridiculous amounts of money… but all those fans have done is bought another billboard for a person who has their face on billboards all over the city. They care about fans crazy enough to throw their money away on someone they’ll never meet. The closest I’ve seen in depiction would probably be Gel Boys, but even that has a big asterisk next to it because it’s very specific to a certain age group who live in a certain part of town. BL as a genre was not created to reflect reality, and people who try to put those framings on society create dangerous situations for real people.

I went to an event during Bangkok Pride last June that hosted the former Prime Minister, representatives from Thai Parliament’s Gender Equity Caucus, and, puzzlingly, the head of BL/GL series development at GMMTV. The politicians were great, but the GMMTV rep was one of the slimiest people I’ve heard in a Pride panel. He didn’t talk about equality or rights at all, just about their profit growth and how them making buckets of cash is somehow benefiting poor LGBTQ+ people in Thailand (and Brazil, that was a big leap in logic). The fan backlash had to have been strong because they are all about their bottom line. They don’t even seem to understand LGBTQ+ issues at all at a development level, but they understand financial losses and tarnishing popular actors they view as cash machines.

And since every character seems to have their own rules and restrictions regarding having their mind read, maybe Ashin’s mind can only be read if his legs are bent 90 degrees or more…

I know, but this show takes many leaps of logic that make little sense.

Of course he didn’t say “Skibidi” and said the Thai word that means skibidi. He also never says the word “chair”, he only says the Thai word for chair. Hope that doesn’t confuse you, too! Moron.

It just hit me that I hated this so much that I’m not sure I finished it. I don’t remember half the things people said happened at the end.

People are still discovering this? Ugh

I’m on episode 5, and I was soooo happy when that annoying little girl ran away! Ugh why did they have to track her down?!

And Mon’s mom is really something… you’re a school counselor, which requires a degree in child development, and can’t understand why your position as school faculty would affect your son’s identity amongst his peers? And then she calls him a bad person for not returning a text?! Better an absent parent like Shane’s than one that gaslights you like Mon’s.

To be clear on what I meant, I’m done with BL in Thailand. This kind of broke me. I’m in a gay bar in Silom right now and I wish someone would make a show about these real people. They’re so amazing. Thai people are so cool and diverse and hip in their attitudes, with great humor and community.

I think Gel Boys is the closest we’ve gotten since Not Me (and that twin thing was a stretch).

This was just a Disney princess movie with the word “vampire” shoved in there and it was marketed as something better than it ended up being.

Even Bella Swan is looking at Tong saying, “Really?! Again?!?!”