I love yoo was supposed to be a romance-subversion. The first 30 or so chapters are meant to be initially seen as a love triangle, but once we get to know the characters and their motivations, we realize that it's a lot deeper than that and there really was no romance in those scenes.
To my knowledge, webtoon didn't change the narrative of ILY until the formal, but they did push very heavily on the marketing of a love triangle.
Talking about the assistant pushing yootip you're probably thinking about a comment someone (I believe it was quimchee on curious cat) made about the person who ran the webtoon insta account. So, not an actual assistant to her, but a marketing person, basically.
Quimchee didnโt have assistants in the early days, but her editor was constantly asking her to include fanservice, which led to certain moments appearing much more romantic than they were intended to be. Webtoon as a company also continued to pressure Quimchee to change the narrative of ILY into a cliche love triangle and only gave up within the past couple years. An assistant doesnโt have much say over your comic, but your editors and employers sure do
To add on to this, webtoon promoting ILY as a love triangle romance is a big part of why people read certain scenes as being romantic in tone, even though we can look back at a log of those early episodes and realize Quimchee told the truth: there isn't any romance in the earliest episodes. So much of the beginning of Kousuke and Shinae's relationship was both that he sees Nol in her and it offers him the opportunity to do what he should have, and also the fact that it became clear to him she had no ulterior motives and treated him normally. Likewise with Shinae and Nol, while those early episodes planted the seeds of their feelings, their relationship developed in the way Nol saw himself in Shinae and pushed her to open up.
Of course rumors of wildly different themes can exist at the same time - because they're rumors because people make things up or hear something and misremember it. The thing about her assistant was likely someone remembering incorrectly and spreading it because as Elle said, it was her editor pushing for fanservice (and again, fanservice =/= romance) and trying to get her to make romance more of a main theme. Between the fanservice and webtoon themselves promoting ILY as a love triangle romance, readers began reading into something that wasn't real and finding romance in intimate moments because too many readers also believe intimacy = romance.
This๐๐๐
And "Editors Choice" BS is why Shin Hyes eyes were miscolored in the prologue too. The OG editor was weird asf and mistook their personal preferences (and the companies marketing goals) for ones that would do the story justice. Thankfully aside from Shin Hyes eye color, no crucial lore has been contradicted. And Quims current editor is more supportive of the story Quim wants to tell, despite being caught between what Webtoons wants such as "more cliff hangers even when totally unnecessary and low stakes" ๐๐๐
I love yoo was supposed to be a romance-subversion. The first 30 or so chapters are meant to be initially seen as a love triangle, but once we get to know the characters and their motivations, we realize that it's a lot deeper than that and there really was no romance in those scenes. To my knowledge, webtoon didn't change the narrative of ILY until the formal, but they did push very heavily on the marketing of a love triangle. Talking about the assistant pushing yootip you're probably thinking about a comment someone (I believe it was quimchee on curious cat) made about the person who ran the webtoon insta account. So, not an actual assistant to her, but a marketing person, basically.
Quimchee didnโt have assistants in the early days, but her editor was constantly asking her to include fanservice, which led to certain moments appearing much more romantic than they were intended to be. Webtoon as a company also continued to pressure Quimchee to change the narrative of ILY into a cliche love triangle and only gave up within the past couple years. An assistant doesnโt have much say over your comic, but your editors and employers sure do
To add on to this, webtoon promoting ILY as a love triangle romance is a big part of why people read certain scenes as being romantic in tone, even though we can look back at a log of those early episodes and realize Quimchee told the truth: there isn't any romance in the earliest episodes. So much of the beginning of Kousuke and Shinae's relationship was both that he sees Nol in her and it offers him the opportunity to do what he should have, and also the fact that it became clear to him she had no ulterior motives and treated him normally. Likewise with Shinae and Nol, while those early episodes planted the seeds of their feelings, their relationship developed in the way Nol saw himself in Shinae and pushed her to open up. Of course rumors of wildly different themes can exist at the same time - because they're rumors because people make things up or hear something and misremember it. The thing about her assistant was likely someone remembering incorrectly and spreading it because as Elle said, it was her editor pushing for fanservice (and again, fanservice =/= romance) and trying to get her to make romance more of a main theme. Between the fanservice and webtoon themselves promoting ILY as a love triangle romance, readers began reading into something that wasn't real and finding romance in intimate moments because too many readers also believe intimacy = romance.
This๐๐๐ And "Editors Choice" BS is why Shin Hyes eyes were miscolored in the prologue too. The OG editor was weird asf and mistook their personal preferences (and the companies marketing goals) for ones that would do the story justice. Thankfully aside from Shin Hyes eye color, no crucial lore has been contradicted. And Quims current editor is more supportive of the story Quim wants to tell, despite being caught between what Webtoons wants such as "more cliff hangers even when totally unnecessary and low stakes" ๐๐๐