mint

Thank you for saying this! :) I feel the same thing knowing I'm not the only one!

You used me expressing how I think hateful people lack empathy as an excuse to dismiss my entire post offering actual arguments put in a way that your original post (in which you don't give your opinion but just mock a character in a cruel manner) didn't deserve. I guess it's a good thing that you thought the shoe fit, self-awareness is the first step.

Allow me to doubt that you were ever going to thank me and just respond. I know I provided with good answers for those who are open to them, but as they say: "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". Good luck!

Thank you! I agree with everything you said. Truthfully a lot of the negative reviews here lean more towards hatred than actual well argued criticism, I also don't know for what reason. I try to avoid generalising but it does seem like there's a pattern among those people where they seem to struggle a bit with empathy. Despite this, I'm glad that many people made the effort to understand its meaning and enjoyed it, I've had the pleasure to read so many insightful comments in other spaces which makes the whole experience feel even more rewarding!

Wow, that's long. I kinda wanna give my two cents on some of the things you said here, which I'm assuming are things you thought didn't make sense or found silly by the tone of it.

"In that series I'm a grumpy chef with no patience for celebrities or celebrity culture, who ironically ends up having to live with a major movie star and falls in love. The series was one of the great romantic comedies of 2021, with amazing rewatchability."
"For TMS2 I made it known I wanted my toxic antisocial side to be as front and center as possible, despite however much it might clash with the lovable grouch I was in Season One."

A good way to get Jiwoo's character wrong is by simplifying him like this. He was never a grumpy chef, he was a person with trauma. This is implied many times in season 1, despite how short it was. It was rewatchable because they didn't have enough time to dive deeper into the characters, but they were complex from the beginning. Season 2 just follows up and expands on that trauma that didn't just disappear because he fell in love.

"1. Leave my boyfriend on his birthday after he doesn't show up on time for the birthday party I never told him about, and which I can't possibly postpone until the next day because, well, in Season One I'd also walked out on him on his birthday. The viewers who want an early start on talk of how deep this season is will love the parallels."

He didn't leave because Seojun was late, but because for a year the feeling of loneliness added up to that point. Wether it was his bday or not shouldn't prevent you from seeing the actual reason for his actions. It's not deep because of the parallelisms with season 1, but because the way the characters behave simply makes sense with their personalities and past.

"6. Have my obsessed ex-girlfriend show up all the way from the USA with one goal in mind: rekindling the relationship we had as teenagers. In a dramatic contrast to my horrible treatment of my boyfriend, make sure I treat her only with kindness and understanding."
"7. Have my boyfriend show up after a year of desperate searching, begging to understand what has happened and with one goal in mind: bringing our relationship back from the brink. In contrast to my benevolent treatment of my ex and my friend's daughter, have me treat him like a piece of dogshit I thought I'd scraped off my shoe months ago."
"8. Make sure this includes me telling my boyfriend repeatedly how I never actually loved him. I'll gaslight him by implying it must have been his imagination the whole time."

"Obsessed ex girlfriend"... that's... wow. To put it simply, Jiwoo treats Seojun badly because he's trying to make him give up on him by pretending he doesn't love him anymore (the main problem in their relationship revolved around Seojun sacrificing too much for Jiwoo, hence why he felt insecure and guilty, triggered by his past trauma), and treats his ex with kindness because he felt that he had wronged her in the past (he can relate to her now because he's going through a similar thing with Seojun).

"9. But, in a plot twist, have me give him a big sloppy kiss one night and then sleep with him ... only to revert back to the shit treatment the next morning."

This is one of the big events that allow the audience to understand why Jiwoo had to leave the city, not just the place he shared with Seojun. It's meant to show how Jiwoo had to physically and mentally separate himself from him in order to possibly get over him. Having Seojun persistently chasing him eventually broke his walls enough that he expressed he loved Seojun for the first time since he arrived to Jiwoo's hometown by kissing him. Obviously this worked against Jiwoo's initial intentions to push Seojun away by acting like he didn't love him anymore, as it revealed some of his inner feelings to Seojun. I wouldn't call it a plot twist, since we already should be able to see that Jiwoo still had feelings prior to the kiss.

"10. After my boyfriend finally gives up and leaves, have me read about the relapse of his illness, which is almost certainly due to the stress I've put him through."
"11. But then, before viewers can start to blame me, include a scene where I finally turn on the phone I've had switched off since the day I disappeared. Show me ugly-crying while I read the poignant messages from the man I abandoned."

These are actually great plot points that show us Jiwoo opening up as he starts to see how he didn't know how strongly Seojun felt for him. There's a series of events that lead to Jiwoo gradually opening up and coming to a realisation that what he had done was not what he really wanted but just a reaction that stemmed from his past bad experiences. Only when he started overcoming the past he was able to be truthful to himself and Seojun.

"12. Finally reveal the reason why I wanted my boyfriend to feel so much pain: I was lonely. He had a job that kept him busy, and while I certainly could have gone back to working in a restaurant or even opened one of my own, I stayed home and quietly seethed."

Jiwoo was actually still working when they were together. The reason he felt lonely was not because he didn't have anything to keep himself busy, but because his social circle was just Seojun, his life revolved around him. He didn't leave to hurt Seojun, he left because he thought Seojun would be the one to leave him first eventually. If Seojun left, Jiwoo thought he wouldn't survive it, since he was all he had; if Jiwoo was the one to leave, he thought Seojun would get over him quickly, since he actually had a support system and, in Jiwoo's mind, Seojun didn't love him as much as he loved Seojun.

"Tbh, there were moments when I worried we might go too far with all my terrible behavior. Fans of Season One would want to kick my ass over the 180 in my personality and the dark, angry tone of the whole enterprise. That's when the director reassured me that in the last two episodes we'd do another 180. My personality from Season One would miraculously reappear."

There was no 180º change in personality. The Jiwoo from season 1 is insecure and has low self esteem, just like the Jiwoo in season 2. The way he is presented to us in season 1 is enough to understand his actions later on, they all come from those traits that we've already learned about him. They even hinted to his trauma in the first season...

"If anybody complains about the sudden happy ending, or about the whiplash plot points or the inexplicable disconnect between the grumpy but lovable me of Season One and the asshole I am in Season Two, it won't be a question of defending the show on its merits -- fans will just change the subject and say the complainers have no eye for genius. Season Two will be declared an absolute masterpiece no matter what. And if commenters dare to dissent they'll be told that all they want to watch is fluff, and they wouldn't know Great Art if a painting fell on them in The Louvre."

Well, here's me not changing the subject, haha. Hope this was helpful :)