Just sitting here thinking about how I don’t understand why Wedding Plan wasn’t more popular. The story was sweet, chemistry was excellent between the couples, it highlighted a real world issue many queer folks have to navigate, the NC scenes were sexy as hell - it was up there with one of the best BLs I’ve watched honestly.
I find it so weird how people shit on Mame so often for being “problematic” and yet they didn’t want to watch a series she put out that was totally unproblematic? The worst thing is Lom misleading Nuea and his mother, but if you listen, you realize he was very carefully *not* lying, and simply skirting the truth because he was in a very difficult situation. (Do they really love the “problematic” content but feel the need to publicly loudly pretend otherwise? Maybe)
Or they wrote it off completely because they didn’t like the kiss between the GL couple? It makes zero sense to me, and I have seen many people say that. There was a whole discussion on one Reddit thread I saw. And yeah, I agree that Katheryn did not do a good job with the kissing - Aya was clearly trying, but wasn’t given much to work with. But they weren’t the main couple, the main couple had excellent kisses, and they were so freaking adorable in all their other scenes. I really want to see Aya in a GL where she’s the lead.
Whenever I tried to engage on Twitter or a bit on here, it was like nobody was talking about it. Aya liked some of my tweets, and I honestly think she saw it just because so few people were tweeting about the episodes!
Or there’s people who wouldn’t watch it bc they thought Mame was using Boss, Noeul, Fort, and Peat for “clout,” when their cameos made perfect sense and were incredibly sweet moments for two of my favorite BL couples! I was so happy to have those sweet moments of closure for their stories.
Anyway, if you didn’t watch Wedding Plan for whatever reason, I highly encourage you to watch it! I’m sad I can’t get the special episode legally in the US, I would have bought it. I suspect she didn’t have it available in as many countries as Love in the Air because it was less popular.
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Man, oh man, idk why I wasn't expecting this to happen yet. Maybe after lom tells him the truth about the marriage, just a thought lol, but nuea is so already infatuated with lom he's already in deep with his feelings that he can't really just back out and cut him off when all he knows he's got a wedding to plan,tho he makes it very clear to lom about how this is not how u should be acting and even asked if it was arranged and he didn't tell him the truth 😔, but that aside their chemistry is 😙👌🏽 and I hope he tells nuea once and for all next week pls lom give that a break lol
So...a lot of this is going to be a bit rant-y, because honestly there's some reactions that have been going on that really aggravate me. But I wanted to talk more about Nuea as a character in the show, and how I think he's being presented. You hear (for reasons unknown) a lot of discussion over how Lom is almost tricking Nuea by withholding the fact that his arrangement and marriage to Yiwa is in name only. I have so many problems with this read on the situation. While it is VERY common for BLs to use naivety as a trope, it's actually surprisingly rare to see from Mame. It's not one of her go-to's and so I was actually really surprised at how many people saw Nuea as 'innocent' (read virginal) or naive. We saw a similar reaction with Sky, this idea that he's an innocent little lamb, and I kind of figured that was because that's what Rain was. Rain was clearly modeled to be this sort of ingénue-style character, young, wide-eyed, innocent to an extent, but also experimental, not constrained by societal boundaries. But what the first encounter with Prapai showed was that he was not only not innocent, but experienced. Now granted many of his experiences were likely awful and traumatic, but Gun likely didn't got straight from 1 to 100, abusers rarely do, but there's also no clarity at all on whether Sky had any other intimate partners of his own choosing, whether a relationship or just another one-night stand. But circling back to my actual point, I think there are many viewers for which LITA was their first experience with Mame, and they believe Rain to be the blueprint for her 'bottoms' when in reality he's an outlier.
How this affects the perception of Nuea, is that since he is shown to be a fairly quiet, sensitive, kind person, some viewers began making assumptions. They assume that he's not physically experienced, that he's submissive, or even shy, and that's not really the case. We don't see much to indicate that at all in the show. He's very vocal for a lot of the show. He expresses his concerns to his boss freely, without concern for reprisal, and this certainly due at least in part to the type of boss she is, but even if she were some angry, obstinate crone, I doubt that would have stopped him. He's very vocal and honest in his conversations with Lom all through the series. He doesn't put up with any of Lom's rich/privileged BS. His kindness and empathy throughout is more a show of strength than anything. He's able to pretty easily get the results he wants without being rude, or mean. Even in his frustration with Lom, he's not vicious, but exasperated, reacting to Lom's childishness more like an exhausted nanny than anything else.
Nuea is confident, like really confident. He's confident in his abilities and skill at work. He's a confident gay man, he doesn't shy away from sex. His hesitation in regards to sleeping with Lom initially is based only on his knowledge of the likely fall-out (especially emotionally). Once we get to this most recent episode it's very clear that he has no hesitation in being an active and passionate partner.
I'm willing to bet after the absolute boss way that he shut down that shitty orchard customer, that we may see his confidence make an appearance next week in regards to Lom and Yiwa's mothers acting like petulant toddlers.
I think it's also important to remember that while he is younger than Lom (his actor is actually younger than ALL of the LITA boys), he's not actually all that young. While ages and timelines are pretty vague in the Mame-verse, Prapai should be about 30 in the Wedding Plan, and Lom is meant to have been his junior while they were getting their Masters, so he's probably 27-ish. Nuea, having attended university and worked as an event planner for several years is probably 25. He's not a child, and their age difference is practically negligible. Again, I feel this is an assumption based on the idea that LITA is the norm, when it's very much not. All of Mame's other main couples (in shows) have either been the same age, or with in a year or two of each other.
So while Lom may have some power/privilege over Nuea, it's very much situational and based on him being 'employed' by him, which is something that we as the audience know he could change if he really wanted to. We see that P'Im is more than willing to go to bat for her employees, Lom wouldn't be able to pull a Karen and get him fired, or forced to work with him. And while Lom is rich, Nuea's family has a generational business and owns a large amount of property. It's not the same level of rich by any means, Lom essentially has fuck you money, but it's still not like Nuea would be without resources and support if he chose to quit his job or leave Bangkok.
Also, the fact that he gets upset or cries over Lom, doesn't make him 'weak.' I've not heard anyone say that directly, but it's been implied. It's not weak for a man to be able to recognize and express his emotions. That's toxic masculinity bullshit, and we certainly don't want to be putting that pressure on characters that are actively defying it.
I guess in conclusion, my point is that Nuea is a bad-ass, the best kind of bad-ass even, one with a kind heart, and that he's more than capable of standing up for himself both in general and with Lom.
As a final note, what I realized watching episode 3 is that Lom 10000% has a competency kink, and further watching of the show only confirms that. He first encounters Nuea while he works at Pai's wedding and immediately begins lusting. The wedding suit try-ons where he looks at Nuea after learning he took pictures of each choice so that you don't have to try something on over and over again. He gets riled up watching him do the event where Payu proposes. He falls even harder watching Nuea put the creep in his place. Like...he just loves watching his man get shit done, and I respect (and understand) that.
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Well, but the final scene of chapter 6 of "wedding plan" where Lom is asking Nuea to escape so she doesn't have to get married and he says no because he worked hard planning his wedding,So that later they arrive and tell him that the girlfriend escaped, they stole Lom's plan JSJSHSSJ.
In Defense of Wedding Plan....or Lom, more specifically...
So, I actually don't see a lot of discourse on here about Wedding Plan...maybe I just haven't been on here as much. But also, there are a lot of deeper shows on at the moment that are tackling more ethereal ideas and Wedding Plan is more pulp-y romcom than anything else, so it's not necessarily ripe for deep discussion. But on tiktok where I'm fairly active in the BL community I have seen so much hate on this show. And I understand certain levels of frustration about the choice of storyline, but I also get frustrated because I feel like people are purposely disregarding several things.
(Editors note from right before I post this, I was going to add visuals, but I'm too emotionally exhausted now, so you'll just have to settle for the wall of text.)
I agree that it's not good, or right, or acceptable for Lom to have lied to Nuea. But there's been behavior that acts as though Lom is cheating...he's not in a romantic relationship with Yiwa!! He can't cheat on her. And yes, it does lead Nuea to believe he's at least attempting to cheat, but that's not the same. I recognize that Nuea would not feel great about his feelings towards Lom, both because of their professional relationship and what he is assuming about Lom and Yiwa's private relationship. But that's also a nuanced discussion in and of itself because Nuea knows there's something fishy going on with Lom's engagement. He doesn't know what, but he definitely suspects, I think from as early as episode 2. They go out of their way to set up in episode one his sort of sixth sense about couples with that McDonald's scene. Their intention is for us to see how observant Nuea is.
And watching this most recent episode (episode 6) as soon as Lom revealed that he fell for Nuea at Pai's wedding and said that he watched him, I knew that the comments were going to be out of pocket. It is not weird or stalker-ish to see a person that you find attractive out in the wild and look at them or watch them. That's straight up normal. I have done that. Now do I truly believe it was love at first sight? No, because I don't think you can love a person without knowing them, but this is also romantic fiction and love at first sight is literally the most common trope there is. It's also not weird or gross or stalker-ish for him to get Nuea's company contact info from Pai. If you like someone and you know that your friend has their contact info...asking them is not weird. I'd maybe be a bit iffy on a direct phone number, but a insta or snapchat name, a Line ID, that's not sus...like at all. He didn't hand over Nuea's personal address or something. And let's also remember that Prapai KNOWS Lom. They are friends. He knows that Lom is not a dangerous person, he doesn't pose harm to Nuea.
I'd also like to discuss episode 4/5...the first NC scene. I keep seeing comments about dubious consent or lack of consent altogether, and while I can agree with dubious...it's on Lom's part. When you watch the end of episode 4, Nuea isn't drunk. Like we're not given a clear shot of the table, but you see Lom with 3 empty beer glasses and drinking a 4th when Nuea shows up. Nuea you only see drink one, out of a short, mixed drink style glass, one you'd have like a Rum & Coke in, and the beverage is clear with a lemon wedge, so it's not even clear if it's alcoholic. But even if it was there are 3 total glasses like it on the table, so assuming Nuea drank all three, he'd have had to take them all back to back to back in order to be wasted after that. But beyond the context clues, his behavior does not indicate inebriation at all. He's steady on his feet, he's not slurring, there are no acting choices made that would lead one to believe he's drunk.
The fallout that comes for Nuea after that night isn't because of concerns about consent issues. It's about reconciling a destructive decision. People make bad choices all the time. They'll get caught up in an emotion, an idea, a person, and they'll do something without truly thinking about the consequences. And eventually it's morning and you have to accept the choice you made. Is it heartbreaking to watch that with Nuea? Absolutely. I cried at that scene. Pak did such an amazing job. And Nuea isn't the only one who suffers from that emotional fallout. We see the fear and distress on Lom's face when he wakes up and Nuea is gone. You can see his distress when talking to Nuea's boss. He tries to pull the rich guy privilege BS (which I will absolutely admit I hated), but she's not falling for it. After the boss learns everything, she gives Lom the contact info for Nuea's family, which again pissed a lot of people off. But again, it's not direct contact or access to him. She also knows that Nuea is in a place where he is safe and has a support system around him. Also Lom, while not a super clear thinking dude in that moment, is not a freaking serial killer and Nuea's boss is not an imbecile. She didn't just cave to Lom's puppydog eyes, and it feels kind of dismissive to me for people to act like she did.
So many people were upset that he followed Nuea to Chiang Mai...like...it's the same argument we heard about Pai for several episodes. If those things don't happen, there's no fucking show. If Lom stays in Bangkok and Nuea stays in Chiang Mai until the wedding has happened then the story just ends. And if you feel like there's no redemption for Lom after withholding the full truth from Nuea... why are you even still watching the show? Legitimately why? Because what is your expectation when you don't truly believe there's a way for Lom to be redeemed at all?
And I'll be honest, seeing the pretty dismissive reactions to Lom telling the whole story about him and Yiwa coming to the realization that their parents wouldn't be able to accept their sexuality, it really kind of hurts. I know in a lot of ways it feels easy to believe that the reason they hid it is because they didn't want to lose their inheritance, but have you considered that maybe they do love their parents? At least a little? I know that especially for many people in western audiences it seems easy and simple to say "just leave then" in response to queer people who stay closeted because of their families, but there are always going to be so many layers to that. Especially when you look at through a cultural context lens. It's really just is not that simple. Money creates a lot of privilege, that's very true. But we can also look at real life people for whom that money isn't clearing the way for them to live their life fully openly. You can literally look at PP Kritt and see that despite his privilege, fame, and familial wealth, he is still dealing with consistent societal discrimination.
I also don't love this narrative that Yiwa is being selfish. The arrangement was mutually agreed upon, by both of them. To keep each other's secrets and let Yiwa have her love. Does that seem unfair to Lom? Yeah, but he wouldn't have seen it that way prior to meeting Nuea. He wasn't expecting to ever get anything remotely close to a happily ever after, so it wasn't truly a sacrifice to him when he made that agreement.
And this also circles back to his comment about saying that he wanted Nuea even though he was getting married, because he just wanted that one moment of happiness. Is it a selfish idea? Yes, but to be shocked that a rich, privileged man exhibited selfishness is a bit much. But also, I don't think Lom was expecting to fall for Nuea. Like I said, I don't really think it was love at first sight, but lust. I think the more time he spent with Nuea the deeper he fell. I believe his intention was to have something along the lines of a fling, and that when it was over Nuea would move on from him and find his eventual happily ever after and he would settle for memories. That's part of why I think he withheld the truth even after Yiwa told him it was okay to tell Nuea the full truth. This is a man who never expected to find joy or a true partner but was willing to go to extreme's to help the person he sees as a sister have the opportunity to have her own happiness. But yeah, he's just a shitbag.
And the references to love-bombing...I hate how people have brought that term into the discussion of the last two episodes. So if you're not familiar with the term, it's become more common on social media in the discussion around narcissistic and abusive partners. It generally refers to overwhelming physical displays of affection like gifts and such, especially early on in a relationship, essentially with the intention of creating a power imbalance in favor of the narcissistic partner.
The following are the most common signs of love-bombing:
They give you needless gifts
They’re in a rush to lock things down
They’re always available and demanding of your attention
They can’t take ‘no’ for an answer
They like you better when you’re alone
They over-communicate their love for you
You feel overwhelmed, uneasy or off-balance
These are not things that Lom is doing. Buying McDonalds and ice cream for someone so they know you care...that's not love-bombing, that's at best wooing. Especially when intent is part of why it matters. Lom is doing it to show he cares, to show he pays attention to what Nuea likes, not in an attempt to make Nuea feel indebted to him for said gifts (that total up to about $10). Lom isn't trying to lock things down with Nuea, he's not attempting to force Nuea to choose him. He just wants Nuea to make the decision to either choose him or not knowing his love is genuine. He wants Nuea to be making an informed decision. He does not demand Nuea's attention, at most he requests it sometimes. He takes 'no' for an answer pretty regularly. He doesn't purposely or intentionally try to get Nuea alone. 'They over-communicate their love'...this one seems iffy, but it's not about saying "I love you" to a person, it's more related to presenting that love to others to cement a relationship. Essentially trying to make it awkward for a person to say 'oh well we're not quite that serious'. And that last one...Nuea is reflective and considering of the situation as a whole, but he's not uneasy, he's not overwhelmed. You could maybe argue afraid, but not of Lom, he's afraid of potential future heartbreak. Love itself is scary. Feelings of that depth and strength are scary. Because we all know that even if that love lasts the rest of your lives, the length of your lives is never guaranteed, and loss is ALWAYS a potential outcome.
I'm not arguing that the show is without flaws, all of Mame's shows/stories are flawed. But I do feel like there was a level of expectation that seems entirely misplaced. Like, these same people who love Payu and Rain to death, had nothing to say to the reveal that Payu had orchestrated at least one instance of a run-in with Rain, a person with whom there was a far larger power imbalance, but Lom pursuing Nuea, a grown ass adult who is never afraid to speak his mind to Lom, that's too problematic???
I don't know anymore. I like the show. It has faults, and flaws, and so do it's characters, but Lom is not a fucking mustache twirling villain out to trick and capture poor, sweet, stupid Nuea. And that's kind of how it feels like the discussions about the show have been going.
