She's the Man (Literally)

[douqi]

Am currently watching this random k-drama, mainly because I saw some homophobes getting mad about it. But also its studious avoidance of anything actually queer is colliding in weird and occasionally wonderful ways with, well, the central premise, which has female lead Kim Ji-eun waking up one morning and finding out that she now looks like a strange and objectively very attractive guy (this, so far, has been attributed to very handwavey genetic reasons).

Anyway, in the last episode I watched, Ji-eun's best friend, a webnovelist called Yu-ri (who we're supposed to believe is unattractive, presumably because she wears cute round glasses), has been invited to a Mean Girl frenemy's birthday party, where she gloomily anticipates being the target of pointed remarks about her eternal singleness. Ji-eun (still in attractive guy form) decides to turn up, pretend to be Yu-ri's boyfriend, and help Yu-ri get her ultimate revenge on the Mean Girl frenemy. The writer truly missed a trick by not having Ji-eun snatch a glass of something cold out of Yu-ri's hand and declaring, 'She shouldn't be drinking anything cold this time of the month, do you have any ginger tea with brown sugar?'*

The writer missed an even bigger trick by not making this a (stealth) GL, because Ji-eun's relationship with Yu-ri is currently about ten times more compelling than her relationship with her increasingly tiresome boyfriend.

*The ideal beverage to drink when one is on one's period, according to a whole shedload of c-media.

Comments

[qian]

The writer truly missed a trick by not having Ji-eun snatch a glass of something cold out of Yu-ri's hand and declaring, 'She shouldn't be drinking anything cold this time of the month, do you have any ginger tea with brown sugar?'*

lololol. I've never heard of this as a thing during your period, though I know you're meant to have ginger after a baby. Should try it!

[douqi]

I think it's because you... lose blood and therefore heat on your period and need ginger to warm you up? Same principle as childbirth, I guess. I had not heard of this either before the current c-media boom.

[halfcactus]

Ahahaha I live for those Mean Girl "comeuppance via timely arrival of a hot GF/BF" scenes. (They really should take notes from your baihe novels!)

And boo at homophobes being mad about a fairly tame and fresh premise.

[douqi]

I also love these tropes so much!!! Especially when they're well-executed.

Also, in the most recent episode, Ji-eun (still in guy form) very publicly kisses Yu-ri at the latter's very public book signing event?? I don't care that it looks like a f/m kiss, I'm counting it as one of the vanishingly rare f/f kisses in mainstream k-drama.