Not a Robot

Thanks for letting me know! I thought it was him, but it was dark and haven't watched it since that episode.

Does anyone know of a list of shooting locations for this series? Even if in Thai (as long as they aren't screenshots) because I can use Google Translate. The location scout(s) deserve an award for their work. Thanks.

He was the guy in the jail when Tan was getting beaten wasn't he? I thought that's when he was unmasked, so I wasn't surprised when he shot Sarawat M. I would have to go back and watch that scene to be sure though.

I think that seeing children trafficked was a brave scene in this episode. It doesn't make sense that Pued needed Jane to sleep with those guys to move up. They live in the northern provinces so Pued could have just moved to Chiang Mai to get experience, if he wanted to focus on his career prior to getting married. This shows that what he was after is power, not upward mobility in his career. Maybe it was "big fish little pond" mentality. It seems like Jane really loved him and would literally do anything for him, while the only thing he loved was power. I haven't and still do not trust Rung. Maybe she is the mastermind.

I think that I know what you are trying to say. Unlike the children who were kidnapped, raped, abused and are being trafficked to the next destination, to continued being raped, Jane was allowed to go free and live her life, unlike the children, due to privilege. However, I think we should avoid, "my trauma trumps your trauma" because in the end they are all victims. Jane was allowed to "choose" to do this although she was manipulated to do it, traumatized and humiliated by the experience. We won't know until the last episode, but she may have felt pressure from her sister as well as Pued. I think that Jane probably thought that she would just straight up have sex with somebody, not be drugged and in an orgy. I also think the abortion did something to her psychologically, let's face it, she could have aborted Pued's baby for all she knows. I think that both Jane and the children were victims, but yes, Jane did not have to endure being trafficked and raped over and over again by multiple men, unlike the girls who are still children. Yet Jane was going to expose everyone and proclaimed this publicly, turning from victim to victor. Imagine how alone she must have felt in that moment.

I keep thinking they are trying to pay homage to Jon Waters' early work???

Aside from the acting and the storytelling, the locations are some of the best I've seen in a series. Whoever keeps finding those fairytale style houses for Tan, is the one of the best location scouts ever.

You have a point about the writing. I went back and re-read the 10 chapters that were translated because I couldn't remember if I was making it up or not, because I read it before the series started.

The blames lies with GMMTV. In the first 10 chapters, Ton is not homophobic toward Ni and Ai and isn't punching everyone out. Yes, he says asks Chon about things, but Chon of the first 10 chapters always acts like he likes girls because he doesn't want to lose Ton as a brother. Ton is possessive, but in Chon's mind, he likes it and in fact Chon is possessive of Ton and sexually attracted to him. When Nueng tried to "claim" Chon, it was Chon who told Nueng to stop and that he didn't like the way Nueng spoke to him. In the book, Chon likes pink and My Melody which viewers might have complained about, but I don't see anything wrong with a guy liking pink.

Since Ton knows about Ni and Ai, there is no Miriam in the novel. Thai readers said that Miriam is not in the novel. GMMTV inserted her there.

Example 1 - Nueng was not punished because his victim was a male and male sexual assault victims are not treated equally. Men who are sexually assaulted usually just try to push past it and when they are assaulted by women, it's even worse. Last year a guy was raped at knife point by his ex-girlfriend. The DJs on the station who reported this stated, "you must be really ugly if you have to use a knife."
- As for Amp, that is indicative of the cancel culture we are living in. I suspect that she did not apologize or try to make amends, so she remained canceled. Youth are pretty vicious in the social media age. I believe that people deserve a second chance if they make changes.

Example 2 - The virgin thing didn't bother me as much because I thought she just said it to make the sexist man shut up after she let it slip that she was a call girl. I took it as an "I didn't inhale" moment, but I can see how it can be viewed another way. What was also terrible is that GMMTV made her a total gold-digger to the end. Sex workers have the reputation for being money hungry, and in some cases they are, but GMM could have avoided all of this if they just didn't add Miriam to the story, or just ended it with Chon and Ton getting the approval from the families
-I noticed that Asian parents are portrayed this way pretty often. Mai Ding's grandmother had to be hospitalized over it. Korn's dad was portrayed like that in TWM2. What's sad is that I know people in real life who do not tell things to their parents and grandparents over health concerns. Most of the time they leave it as the elephant in the room.

You probably have seen it, but Gaya Sa Pelikula was very well written. Yes, there was a little melodrama, but both the writer and director are gay and some of the cast is openly LGBTQI+. They also did a mini-series sponsored by a gay dating app called, Meet me Outside as well. They are both well written and the soundtracks were great.

I thank you because you responded in a rational manner. I want to stick up for Ton partly because I work with people like Ton, admittedly women, who try to love men because of their family's expectations, end up being with men, having kids when they have always been gay. And yes, most of them did love the man. Most have experienced incarceration, abuse, addiction, anger management, etc. in their pasts and people judge them. On the friend zone board, as problematic as the behaviors are for both men and women, people support the characters and are empathetic, while on this board, it's a hate fest. You and Cookie Monster responded respectfully, while making rational points without being negative. I appreciate that we could have a discussion about it.

I think men in general have more sex partners than women, but the notion of being overly promiscuous has been used as a source of prejudice against the gay male community, but not toward the heterosexual male community. I'm not asking gay men to act "straight" because in my opinion, there is nothing "gay" about having many sexual partners, it's a personal choice. I just wanted to point out that media portrayals often strengthen preconceived ideas about groups of people, that may perpetuate prejudices.

After you and the commenter above explained things, maybe I should finish the series. I think I was most annoyed by the gay promiscuity because I've been around long enough to have seen gay men try to overcome that stereotype. Seeing Stud being so codependent on Earth really pissed me off too. I work in a profession that tries to help people to work on their self-respect, so seeing how Stud seemingly settled for crumbs really bothered me. Thanks for your comment.

I think that some people are homophobic because they think that gay men cannot control their sex drives, so sleeping with everyone in a friend group promotes it, and this make gay men seem untrustworthy around children. I only bring it up because people where calling out this drama as homophobic while squeeing over homophobic portrayals in FZ2.

I liked the lesbian storyline and would have liked to have seen that separately. You have a point about mental health, I loved that the female couple discussed this. I'm hoping somebody will do a cut of just that couple.

The codependence is how the women (I think they are named Music and Boyo) seemed to revolve around one guy and their moods were driven by him.

Yes, I didn't watch until the end, so I may have missed something. I think that I should just fast forward through the MF and MM people and just finish watching Am & Bow.

What I have to respect about FZ2 fans, is that you guys admit it is trashy and messy, and when most of you discuss topics, you make good points to think about.

Since BL was invented in Japan, they have novels that are published in English and many of them are not about school. June Manga sells ecopies of novels online. (not affiliated).

The big issue with GMMTV is that they keep changing things as written in novels and inserting characters who do not exist, just to create "drama."

In my opinion, it was one of the worst shows I watched last year and had to stop in the middle. I'm sick of women being co-dependent on men. The constant whining by all leads was irritating as well. I also didn't care for the gay men sleeping around with each other like changing underwear. The acting was good, but the story and everything else was terrible. It was like an 80's soap opera.

Friend Zone 2 also showed textbook homophobic stereotypes, but nobody minded that. Every guy had sex with every guy on that show, the women were co-dependent. It wasn't unique which is why I stopped watching it.

Your opinion is not as unpopular as you think. I loved this show too, but wish they had made it more like the novel (I first 10 chapters have an authorized translation). Yes it had its problems, but so do other shows. Some of the same people who gave their weekly hate comment about this show were on the FZ2 board swooning over that show with its homophobic stereotypes (unfaithful, promiscuous gay men who cannot control their sex drive) while virtue signalling here. I think that the BL fandom has become more negative in the past 1-2 years since it became more mainstream.

It would help us viewers if they did. They sometimes substitute with names because Bun and Tan always use "Khun" to address each other and they always substitute khun with their names. I'm not sure why they don't do that with the rest of the people. In Thailand even strangers address kids as Nong and the kid knows the adult is addressing them.

I agree even if the medical aspects are not realistic. Working adults are the main characters, not high school or university students, no engineers or campus moons, no evil ex-girlfriends, and it's in a rural setting.

https://writer.dek-d.com/JayBL_/writer/view.php?id=2134953