pearlescent

LINETV Taiwan aired a different cut from everyone else. Nobody knows why but they're the only market that got the slightly different cut.

Aey is trying to make Gene jealous. That's the purpose behind his fake crush on Nubsib. This isn't me theorizing, it's a spoiler from the novel.

Aey does not like Nubsib, he has a big crush on Gene. Nubsib knows from the beginning, and that's why he dislikes Aey so much.

NC = No Children

It's Asia's version of NSFW (Not Safe For Work).

I'm sorry, but are you "Not all TharnType fans"-ing me? Did I write "every single TharnType fan on the planet was being prudish about the NC scenes on Twitter"?

I was specifically referring to Thai fans and used TharnType's fandom as an example, because Earth is receiving the same treatment from the Thai fans of ATOTS. That's all.

ATOTS is a 13+ series with minimal skinship up until this point, and Thai fans can be oddly prudish. I remember TharnType fans telling each other not to post the NC scenes out of context on Twitter to "save the actors" and I saw the same comments about Earth and his naked scene ("Save P'Earth!"). They seem overly concerned with the image of the actors, even though they consented to being in the sexual scene.

Tian has dangerously low self-worth and seems to really hate himself so I'm worried about how he's going to handle the villagers and Phupha turning on him. I don't want him to passively harm himself in a sad attempt to redeem himself to the villagers. Examples including: Tian running into a burning school, hiking post-heart transplant, and skipping his medication.

He's not actively trying to k*ll himself but he clearly doesn't care very much if he lives or dies because he thinks so little of himself.

I hope they acknowledge how much Tian hates himself by the end of the show, and someone tells him that he is worth something, and not less than Torfun. Phupha did comfort Tian when he said, "I don't deserve to be anything," but I needed more, especially when he later told Tian that he sometimes thinks him and Torfun are the same person.

People have already explained with links but this is NOT a Thai BL problem.

Real LGBTQ Thai people use Phua-Mia to refer to their partners which is why it's used in BL dramas and no one has a problem with it except International fans. Instead of internally cringing, try to understand Thai cultural differences OR consume LGBTQ+ media that doesn't include cultural differences that you find "cringey".

If you think the show is trash, then that's your opinion. But I don't agree at all. Especially when TharnType SS2 managed to seriously rank #1-5 on LINETV Thailand for weeks on end during it's runtime. And because I've seen Gen Y and Oxygen and...well.

I hope you continue enjoying your trash.

"Trash"? The BL genre has a lot of "trash" in it and Lovely Writer hardly qualifies. There are popular BL dramas where the camera glitches, we can hear the microphones rubbing on the inside of shirts, the audio is too quiet, and r*pe occurs between the main couple.

And ironically, I did recently recommend this to a friend who isn't into BL and she thought it was hilarious because of the satirical commentary on shipping.

The best scene in the episode was Nubsib taking care of Gene during his nightmare. It was the first time we saw Nubsib without Gene or anyone else looking at him and all you could see was how much intense love he has for Gene. The runner-up for the best scene would be Nubsib getting possessive over Gene in the car with Aey. It was nice seeing his mask come off again. Nubsib without people watching, without manipulation on the mind, and without his fake-perfect-boyfriend smile—is the best Nubsib. I can't wait till we get to see the "real" Nubsib all the time.

It's also interesting how you can see the villains being made in the characters that mirror Gene and Nubsib.

1. Hin - Gene
Hin wants fame and money from writing BL so he can send money to his mother, but Bua won't read his manuscript and Gene is reluctant to help him. Gene is also a successful writer and has a TV show coming out but he's ungrateful around Hin constantly. These two things working together? I can see Hin betraying Gene down the line out of jealousy, or sabotaging Gene's relationship with Nubsib to get in Bua's good graces.

2. Nubsib - Aey
Aey doesn't seem to be genuinely interested in Nubsib romantically. He wants to get close to him so they can be a good "ship" and Aey's career can improve, but Nubsib is rude to him because he only cares about getting Gene. Nubsib's callousness towards Aey is eventually going to be his undoing when Aey takes it out on Gene, or maybe even turns on Nubsib.

The funniest meta moments in his episode would have to be Gene's nightmare about P'Bua forcing him to write NC scenes, Hin getting inspiration for his novel from Nubsib and Gene, and the hilarious SOTUS parody with Nubsib and Aey. It's kind of sad that the meta parody BL drama they made within a BL drama, looks better than a lot of REAL BL dramas.

The ending of the episode was really well done. The entire episode they built up Gene slowly doing more "boyfriend activities" with Nubsib subconsciously to lull us into thinking everything would stay all nice and flowery, but they also interwove moments like Gene in bed and Gene talking to Tum so we'd know he was feeling conflicted. He's attracted to Nubsib which we can see (actions) but when he's forced to confront it with words, he gets scared. It makes sense that he'd push Nubsib away to stay in his safe, introverted world without sexuality or relationships.

Luckily, it looks like Gene will be forced to confront that next episode when he's point-blank confronted about his sexuality at his school meetup! I can't wait to see what happens.

It got review bombed a few days back and dropped from an 8.5 to like a 7.2 within an hour...

You're welcome! I'm glad my post brought you some comfort. The comments and the rating on MDL are oddly negative and don't match the general perception of Lovely Writer on other social media sites, so I get how it's jarring.

I'm hyped for today's episode! Only a few more hours to go.

I appreciate the empathy. I am annoyed at the MDL score and I did rate it well, but I promise I'm not shaking and crying over it or desperately trying to control it. I know it's not going to affect the general popularity of the show because this "community" is so tiny and English-specific. That doesn't mean I don't have feelings about the pattern of the review bombing, which is what fueled my initial observation of the comments.

For context, when 1000 Stars was on Episode 2, the fans were in a tizzy because "How can it be so low after only 2 episodes???" when the score was 8.2 (which is still quite high).

This review bombing on a new show is a lot worse. Lovely Writer does not deserve a 7.4 after 2 episodes when nothing has even happened yet and solely because of a mixture of the criticisms I listed above. But that's neither here nor there. I'm sure it'll rise once more episodes have aired.

Aww, hello new friend. Glad to find someone else who loves the sound effects. Our little club now has a grand population of 2 lol.

"I do take slight exception, though, in that you seem to think that all of the others are mistaken or wrong for looking at things the way you do and that the only valid position is to love it as is, with no critique or dissention to be tolerated. You may not say that, direct, but is reads as inferred."

And it will stay inferred by you because I never said that. Disliking the sound effects or acting choices or anything else? Valid. I never said "you're an idiot if you dislike the sound effects," I said, the director has heard the criticism and is taking it into account when editing future episodes so people should share their criticisms on Twitter, which they've asked for.

Toxic BL fans projecting their offense at being called out, and people who wish the show was a completely different show? Yes, I think they're mistaken. After two episodes, it's clear that Lovely Writer is not going to be a serious drama or whatever other genre people were expecting. If you didn't get the genre from the initial trailer and are now blindsided and dislike it, there's nothing wrong with that. But "I wish Lovely Writer was another show" is not a critique.

International fans are allowed to have opinions. No one said they weren't. My point in bringing up the show's popularity with the domestic audience and the majority of BL fans is to point out the arrogance of a handful (And I say a HANDFUL because only 800ish people have rated this on MDL and the comments are full of a rotating door of commenters, many who are repeaters—a literal handful) of International fans expecting the genre of a foreign show to be changed from rom-com to something it is not trying to be. And post-production no less.

This is the equivalent of me watching 1000 Stars and saying "Hmm it's okay, but I wish it was more rom-com" and critiquing solely on that like it isn't a serious drama about finding meaning in life centered around a rich man hiding a heart transplant that he got from a beloved teacher who was struck by car. After two episodes it was pretty clear that 1000 Stars was not going to be a light-hearted rom-com.

"I wish Tian didn't make so many stupid decisions, it's unrealistic" and "I don't like how Tum and Nubsib manipulated Gene" make more sense as criticisms because that's taking the show(s) for what they are.

I didn't come barging into anyone's post and I didn't say that the only comments allowed here were universal praise. Clearly, that's not a problem here. I made my post because this show has been review bombed for no reason and the comments all follow a familiar pattern of:

1. I wish this was a different genre! Where's my BL expose? Ugh, I'm gonna keep watching it until it gets darker.
2. I love TharnType and this hurt my feelings.
3. The sound effects are annoying.

I'm not the only one who has noticed this considering the response to my initial post.

I enjoyed reading your thoughts even if we don't agree. I hope you continue to enjoy Lovely Writer, or pick up another show that better suits your tastes.

You're welcome! And a lot of people misheard that line. Tum actually said, "It HASN'T even been 10 years since we graduated college, stop acting all old." Tum and Gene are not 10 years older than Nubsib.

Gene is 25-26 (Up's age IRL) so the age gap isn't so large that they couldn't know each other as kids.

Nubsib and Gene are childhood friends but only Nubsib remembers Gene. Gene is bad with faces which is shown in the pilot on purpose when he doesn't recognize Tum.

Nubsib is keeping this a secret because he doesn't want Gene to see him as a little brother. Up until this point, everything Nubsib has done is to get close to Gene and make Gene fall in love with him so I guess you could say he's a little obsessed. It's why he knows about Gene's jam preference and living habits.

Nubsib's excuse to live with Gene? Yeah, that's a total lie he concocted to get into Gene's condo. He's rich as hell.

When Gene finds out Nubsib was his childhood friend he becomes heartbroken and convinced that Nubsib only made him fall in love with him as a prank or a joke which is why he asks Nubsib, "Was it fun to lie to me?" in the trailer.

Let's look over some of your comments.

"you poor thing. why should you miss out? here you go: bam bang clang clank clap clatter click clink crash crunch ding jingle knock screech slap smash thud thump arf bark bray buzz cheep chirp chortle cluck cock-a-doodle-doo cuckoo hiss honk howl purr ribbit tweet pop bam bang clang clank clap clatter click clink crash crunch ding jingle knock screech slap smash thud thump arf bark bray buzz cheep chirp chortle cluck cock-a-doodle-doo cuckoo hiss honk howl purr ribbit tweet pop"

"not to mention what else will happen a lot of bam bang clang clank clap clatter click clink crash crunch ding jingle knock screech slap smash thud thump arf bark bray buzz cheep chirp chortle cluck cock-a-doodle-doo cuckoo hiss honk howl purr ribbit tweet pop bam bang clang clank clap clatter click clink crash crunch ding jingle knock screech slap smash thud thump arf bark bray buzz cheep chirp chortle cluck cock-a-doodle-doo cuckoo hiss honk howl purr ribbit tweet pop"

Are these relevant comments? They got under my skin because you were trolling people for no reason. You weren't adding to the conversation and you weren't engaging with others in a productive way like, "I disliked this because it really blahblah etc." You can like the show while pointing out the negatives but I don't understand why someone would sit up on a MDL comment section keyboard smashing gibberish for hours if they liked a show. That's not an attempt to police, but a fact.

And again, I disagree that Lovely Writer is unsophisticated just because it's not a serious drama. Being cutesy doesn't make it stupid. I actually think it's very sophisticated which is part of the satire. Everything looks adorable and fits genre convention but we can visibly see that characters like Nubsib and Aey are hiding their true motivations and scheming. In comparison, most BL dramas have very straightforward characters and we as viewers understand all of their motivations by episodes 1-2.

I hope you enjoy the show more and continue to add to the conversation beyond getting annoyed at the show's genre, because I don't think it's going to change anytime soon.

Do you really like this show? Because you've trolled multiple comments with unconstructive beep boop nonsense. I got it. You don't like the sound effects and that's fine, but it's not my experience.

And you misunderstood my comment. My argument isn’t that the general public and BL fans SHOULD only want to see certain stuff. My argument is that the BL genre is popular for certain things and this is the first big BL drama from a mainstream channel. If Dee Hup made this a serious hard hitting drama about the BL industry with lots of angst, little comedy, and next to no moments to make BL fans scream and the show subsequently flopped—Lovely Writer could be the LAST BL drama ever aired on a big channel and it would be their fault. The show isn’t good BECAUSE it’s on a mainstream channel. But it needs to meet genre convention to be popular and they’re banking on that because of the channel it’s on. They were never going to take crazy risks.

The genre convention in question: comedy, romance, and moments that make BL fans squeal. Even if English speaking fans on Twitter and MDL (a very small minority group) want to deny it, those are things that BL fans love. “We want less school plots” but 2gether is the most popular BL of all time. “We don’t need romance/sex/NC” but what gets BL fans excited? Romance, kisses, and NC scenes. No one said the general public is ignorant and I'm confused as why "liking campy satire" and "liking BL genre convention" = ignorance. The show has always been advertised as pink campy satire and has been completely dripping in pink since the first trailer. It's not "going back in time" just because you don't like the aesthetic of the show. An aesthetic that they advertised very clearly.

It's especially funny considering the show is popular in Thailand right now too, which means they achieved their goal of appealing to BL fans and the general public. It's only a handful of International fans HERE that seem to take issue with the GENRE of the show when it was never advertised as a grim gritty drama. People are acting like the trailer was serious and dramatic like 1000 Stars and instead they got Lovely Writer, but Lovely Writer was always advertised as what it is. A pink satirical rom-com.