#AND I WOULDNT MIND if they CO-EXISTED like.. SURE have people CHOOSE which version of a wbsite they want to use

[icewindandboringhorror]

a few “out of style” (aka not just slim featureless black rectangles) cell phones from ebay that have design elements I still really love

[misterbitches]

i have a lot to say about mr queen but idk how to say it so ill just collect what i did say (ammmz)

wrote this somewhere else in response to someone but:

i think the writers backed themselves into a corner here. your comment got cut off and hopefully you can finish the thought later (if you so choose.) i agree with everything you said!

i see some issues in the way the story is received now that it’s ended.

1. interpreting this as a gay story in the literal sense 2. discarding SO YONG’s self and her womanhood which is integral to the story / discarding anyones womanhood and/or precarious situations (IE being poor, being a gisaeng, etc) 3. gender confusion in the end

my issue in the plainest terms is that, in the original, we get a happy ending in the most clear cut sense. SY goes to the present, BH stays in the past. i say they could have gone further and just made them have souls projected or some shit with SoBong mix in the past, and SY alive as BH in the present (however she sees fit to live this life.) this is interesting because so yong is living as a man in SK. a man who (pre accident and post accident is a hero) had money, was a cis man in 2021 SK, worked at the blue house, and, like all men, didnt have the respecting woman juice bug.

it would be cool to see how SY could have lived in the present as a cis man (on the outside.) how she would choose to live going forward is up to her; would she keep her appearance? would she have ease as BH the way BH did for her? could they still have the ideas of the mind and know themselves in the body? since, essentially, So Bong is that idea. and this is all philosophical too like literally ONTOLOGY! the show delves into philosophers and thinkers so it could have done this from a philsophical standpoint (and hello! they seem to be on a kick these days post-stranger like sisyphus?!??! but you know…lol)

i wont regurgitate what you said beause you’re absolutely correct (IMO~~ not that it matters) bc the show is all about autonomy and ownerhsip and living HAPPILY especially for the people who do not get to determine that life. that is largely to say the women in this story, the women of joseon. sidenote: i do not know as much about korea and its sociopolitical history as i would like but like all movements, the labor movement (what would evovle from the peasant rev) is very very very masculine and not open to genfder and sexual minorities worldwide. isnt it interesting that such a heavy movement (starting from donghak in the show) is so so female centered? the whole show is an estrogen fest in the best way 🙂

so for people to miss that all of that IS so yong is sad. because sobong is so yong. and so yong is so bong just like bonghwan is. they chose each other. them kissing each other is a mark of a transfer of souls or some kindred spirits or something. it’s alarming that people miss the point of how crucial this selfish man going into this desperate woman’s body is. how her suicide was to save her mind but still our interpretation is that a man saved her and took over for her. as if bong hwan wasnt hugely flawed which is why he worked for so yong because she couldnt have the chance to discover that on her own because of her place. gee wouldnt it be interesting if we took away that, maybe, women have a right to exist? that maybe bong hwan was majorly flawed, narcissistic, disrespectful to WOMEN and that his life turns upside down and he learns what its like to have NOTHING for yourself. to be a woman who is told she is nothing because of her existence, because of men, because of money and power. and for BH to truly be shocked at how horrifically she was treated.

this is why i go so far as to say that CJ with all versions of queen cheorin make sense. he didnt give a shit about her frailty and that is the catalyst for her realizing htat she has to rely on herslef. her suicide was her CHOICE. so what if it’s negative, unsavory, cowardly; she got to decide for once.

hwa jin’s end especially (i stopped mid ep 18!) i love. she knew she was gonna go insane and we hated her for it. but she chose HERSELF.

but this is where the writers need to explain the gender and sexuality thing comes at the fault of them and also our society~ (lol) and us as viewers. it is queerbaiting in the sense that gender is confusing or whatever and if you’re GNC or NB you (AFAIK correct me if im wrong someone) are in every sexuality. sure people may have missed that but we’re so stuck on and obsessed with BOY OR GIRL? GAY OR NOT? (i’m not saying you as a user have done this, just ing eneral) that when we fight against just going with the flow which the show does for its whole run until its final explanation hits it bits us in the ass. now the questions are: was h eboy all along? which lol

no doubt SK is conservative (and no doubt they present gender and sexuality differently as well but one thing no matter how progressive or conservative places are—and you know, most are conservative because that’s how capitalism gets us and we’re just going against the current sorry couldnt help myslef—our societal ills stay so MASCULINITY and ideas of sexuality permeate and are constant through the world. fear fo gayness, femninity, no gender, transness, whatever it is) but the questions i am asking are – why did it have to end that way? was this planned? since the source material is different. if the writers think the trajectory makes sense, why? and if not, what would they change? – what was their intention?

from a technical standpoint, i think the ending does not support hwat the show has shown. just in literal set up and execution. that is a minute problem though in the grand scehme of things. in terms of story, what does this mean for BH and SY and CJ? why wouldnt he notice her? but i can pretend all of that doesnt exist and handwave and pretend it is so bong and CJ (which it is, until the end.) what is so hard to have So Bong exist? what doesnt make sense about that in a fantasy? why this ending?

i’d like to know if it was fear or if they couldnt accept that ending. it’s possible and that makes it unacceptable. or did it just not make sense to them? or it owuldnt to the viewers? in which case: jesus christ who cares. the show does a good job of propelling itself but it seems the gender question is just too fucking pressing that it put itself into its own corner. which you know fair enough. it manages to sustain itself even with that blunder but it’s like why and now why does it seem that the point of all that is missing. what could they have done differently to drive this point home? and really what can we all learn from it?

as a cis person this has taught me a lot oabout gender and my thoughts. i am inclined to this type of thought naturally and admittedly i do want to be a pretentious artist dumb bitch social justice warrior 😛 but even with all the things i know, the things i’ve done, when it comes to radical shit i’m still learning SO MUCH. there’s so much history i dont know, so many prejudices i still habor even if i fight against htem an know theyre wrong, privileges i have. this is why media IS important (and why i hate capitalism) bc even me at 29, even me the girl involved in a solidarity union and a resurgence of the black panthers doesnt know shit, hasnt experienced shit, grew up in a shit system too with poor understanding of difference. even as i try and dismantly everything a fucking south korean drama and kurt cobain has me thinking about how absurd gender is and this is SOMETHING I KNEW. there’s so much information to take in and ways we process that information, it’s taken me years to undo the gender industrial complex, and it will continue to take me years. i am a woman and a proud one but as a cis woman i am aware of my own limitations and this world expanded it. and it makes me think harder about my status and what about femininity and womanhood in a cis lens is so important. and that blockade or erosion of that blockade via the show is something i appreciate. the show was saying go with the flow because we dont HAVE TO understand it. we dONT. it’s just gender. it means everyhting and nothing all at once. but it had to be explained so much to its own detriment when it was already saying so much of what needed ot be said. hopefully many a non cis people found it compelling (and if anyone wants to LMK what they thought of the end from any perspective but that one specifically i am interested cos yea!)