AnaTechWr

Thanks again for writing this article, I will keep coming back for the recs from ppl - right now I found another one, Youkai Sharehouse, loving it so far <3

@DoramaGaDaisuki The premise for the first one seems a bit like "Reunited Worlds" and the second has a similar vibe with "Hi, bye mama".
Thank you for the rec, I added them both on my PTW list :)

I relate to everything it's written here to a t (except I do hold grudges, just maybe...not 500 years?). I was obsessed for a while with Ghost Bride and was trying to find a similar show (spoiler alert - there isn't), The School Nurse Files is just deliciously amazing, I loved it, I think there is a lot of symbolism and sure, it's weird, but so....poetic? even...
And Mystic Pop-up Bar was like the second drama I watched, I loved it - Master's Sun....wasn't that great, but I do admit has those specified elements.
Now, as for recommendations....the last time I was discussing this I was recommended a few shows, I just need to dig deep deep in my notifications or try to identify them in my PTW list. There was at least one Japanese and one Korean - the latter was on youtube with less than 10 minute episodes... Will get back with those suggestions - which I want to specify are not mine, I got them and I am passing them along.
Great article, I both enjoyed reading it and also resonated with it on a deep level!

So maybe gather up dramas that present these issues more accurately? Because I would rather watch those and learn, bad examples that get glorified for all the wrong reasons are everywhere...
I'm only suggesting because I like how this was written and I would love to see the positive perspective :)

@FrothyMix While I do have the tendency of being too sarcastic for my own good in some moments, my point remains - it doesn't have to be a copy-paste of the drama into reality for ppl to see similarities in what a pandemic causes to ppl. Because this is the most important aspect, from my p.o.v. at least, when it comes to exploring these scenarios - what would we do and how it affects society. And for that, as I was trying to say in my initial comment, is enough to just look "outside" - 2 years of miss rona have already passed and... I suppose a part 2 of this movie is kinda rendered pointless because we are kinda living in it.
Yes, I do see valid comparisons - if you go a bit outside the exact details, and not taking everything "ad litteram".

@FrothyMix Yup. Almost like one is reality and the other is fiction...oh ...wait

@FrothyMix I haven't heard anything

@FrothyMix It doesn't have to be literal to be a worldwide pandemic...

@FrothyMix I mean.... just watch the news? unfortunately

@River Cloud Indeed....I don't even want to think about which hurt the most =)) 1.5x speed is MY FRIEND. And I did find something I could like in all of these - although for some it was harder to find than for others.

@TalkingWithYou Sure, I can be gregarious online...sometime.
Enjoy your leisure time XD

@TalkingWithYou Weeeeeell... the human ego is fragile (not just men, but they are the most commonly used example coz they are so very visible and in all our faces), so ppl on the internet will inevitably create flame threads for any topic that is perceived as "threatening".
I think the choosing part is still correct, after all, those who can give birth select their partners carefully (or not).
The queuing part reminded me of that world in Futurama where the Amazonians treated the women as queens, captured the men in the team, and their punishment was "death by snu-snu". And all men, except Kif, bless his heart, he was so loyal and pure, had alternate reactions of joyous laughter and dread XDD.
Not sure I mentioned anywhere but this was an interesting article :-) and (again) I remembered something that a substitute physics (or maybe chemistry) teacher we had in school who asked us something along the lines of: "who here thinks they know more (or is smarter) than Newton". We were bewildered like "dude, wtf, the guy is one of the forefathers of science, he formulated the gravity principle, whatever", nobody said nothing of course and then he proceeded to mindf**k us all by saying "literally everybody here knows more and is smarter because you actually KNOW more than him...think of the science and comprehension that time brought"....and it was a simple, but very effective thing, for me at least, on the one hand because I realized how we put authority figures on pedestals ...and keep them there, but also how we should be aware of progress and trust our own minds. It was very memorable - that was a proto-realization (if you will) of the presentism you speak of.

@TalkingWithYou Speaking in a half joking way, I find weirdly comforting the thought that among the very early forms of organization for humans, in the very beginning of basically anything homo faber/sapiens, those kinds, the power structures/"sociaties" if we can call them that (tribes?) were matriarchies... and the first statues and objects of worship (maybe) were female torsos, because MOTHERS... but the whole fight for survival, resources, hunters, gatherers started and then the men took the power almost for good.
And history is mostly written by men, in other words there are/were huge gender biases in place over knowledge, education and how we acknowledge everything.

@vegan-kaktus From what you say, at least 1 and 2 you don't seem to get the chemistry or "why" some characters fall for each other. For me, apart from the age difference between ML and FL, the story was very slow burn and I think they actually made it work quite beautifully.
So I would really like to help or provide some answer or clarification, but it seems like 1 and 2 are you not really "buying it" that those ppl have those feelings...and 3 I guess applies for basically all dramas, because we are all spoon fed details and we only get the full 100% picture after we watch it all...sometimes even after the end there are puzzle pieces that are missing and we can sort of "write our own version of things".
And Dong Mae's feelings towards Ae Shin are very complicated - that scene made me think if he didn't get a bit more information about what she was smuggling from that brush and paints store, but I think it was supposed to show how conflicted he was...as in he had the authority/force to stop her or interfere with what she was doing...but she was out of reach, from multiple perspectives. That entire drama is full of tragic characters and very dark, but very well made, I love it a lot.

@Merp You reminded me of Alayna Joy's videos, she had this self discovery journey where she identified as bi, was in a happy relationship to a guy, engaged to be married....then she realized that she was gay. I love her videos, she's always very open, humorous and I enjoy her content. I'm not saying you're not bi (I hate the idea that ppl know better and they try to cancel bisexuality by saying it's a stop on the way to GayTown), just the part where you suppressed stuff about yourself when you were younger kinda sounded similar.
With all these new terms and definitions and the whole spectrum of identities, I was actually researching a while ago what is the difference between a pansexual and a bisexual because they seemed to be overlapping. But I think I am one of those cis normies that is part of the "perceived" majority (because of the whole Compulsory heterosexuality or comphet how the kids call it these days....) so I am constantly trying to educate myself on the ever changing terms and new words that we define and that define us.
And as a side note, I was always impressed with how ...relaxed? should I say or very fluid definitions of love, sex, gender, what little did I know about Japanese culture appeared to show. For me, apart from some very scary traditional ghost stories from Japan, the first exposure to a more significant chunk of it was the novel Shogun, by James Clavell (Sailor Moon did not impact me to such an extent). I was so drawn to the culture that I even tried copying all the words and wanted to learn the language - I gave up pretty soon, various reasons :) but yeah, one of the aspects I noted was how different the attitude towards sexuality and sex was in the West compared to Japan (at least in the book) and how the protagonist realized that there is a very definite distinction between real intimacy and say naked bodies... he was describing how he had no "flutter" when he was bathing along with some women (I think they were on a ship as well, not just in like onsen situations) but recognized that he shared a deep connection with someone (his love interest, obviously) when fully clothed and he felt closer to her than ever...

TL;DR: I always though that the Japanese culture (or the little that I know of it) is much more open minded when it comes to definitions of love and gender, just like you said. And I admired that aspect about it.

@Chia6 And there is a reason for this - apart from gender expression and identity - women dress as men in order to have access to positions, places, education, opportunities that the men have almost exclusively rights to. So at least in most dramas, women do it out of need, to compensate for the imbalance of power in society.
But Shiro mentioned men in disguise as well... in the meantime it would be a whole other conversation in C-dramas :)) your statement surely applies for that show biz world, although not sure now with all the Chinese boycott of "sissy men" in the entertainment...

@Shiro I think maybe the point is something along the lines of... ideally we strive to accept a different lifestyle than ours (be it cultural, or pertaining to race, gender and so on) but if we are confronted with extremes (for example, in a conservative country the only gay ppl that are "seen" are very "in your face, flamboyant and somewhat visually aggressive" ...like neon colours) then tolerance, not to mention acceptance are not near because ppl are afraid of what they perceive as out of norm, the unknown, and so on.

@finika Am I somewhat close?

@Shiro It's called the Cult of the CutiePie JHI and I am a part of it.
Yeah, I totally get the "bad from one angle but important"...I was actually thinking of Itaewon Class who had a cis gender woman playing a trans MTF character, but for some reason the whole thing did not seem disrespectful or at least from what image I have from kdramas and SK movies, the main issue would not necessarily be that they didn't get a trans MTF person who played this because maybe SK has more to go on this path compared to Western societies - where the general conversation reached the point of "let's not have all characters played by cis gendered ppl or only whites can play any race"...

So from this point of view, addressing the social issue or making some type of commentary on the situation (like how a dark skinned Korean is treated and discriminated against, of MTF trans person is always embroiled in shame and scandal follows them wherever) is more important than the "perfect" portrayal, or any little step matters. And you can clearly see when a character's preferences or gender identification are made "the punchline" or when this is just another detail about a character that has their own dreams, motivations and their purpose in the story is not mainly that "thing" about them. That being said I think the terms of the conversation are more complex and cross-dressing is more like a symptom that is part of a larger disease or illness that affects the society in general (not just SK) but yeah, now we're talking about kdramas so... in this case it's about a more traditionalistic/conservative society and how the cinematic products evolve. And they do evolve - same gender couples have appeared in several mainstream dramas, there are more and more BL SK titles, and there is somewhat of a lighter shade of the tone of their stories a.k.a. the gays don't always have to die or suffer for their "faults". I keep thinking about how my mind jumped right in the queer issues from cross dressing but I think that it's a niche case from a larger conversation that refers to gender expression, identification and all those nuances that exist rn (I was watching a while ago a clip on YT with 100 queer terms you need to know and that speaks volumes about how intricate and complicated things are within the larger conversation about gender expression, identification and sexual preferences and so on).
/ok, rant over I feel like I'm rambling all over now
TL;DR - all representation matters as it's a step forward towards (hopefully) acceptance.

Most times I do find myself squirming a bit too uncomfortable in regards to how queer issues or cross dressing (so not even more specifically trans or who know what other nuances) are treated in kdramas generally. As a sidenote, I am glad this is K- and not C-drama, coz they do be having some ridiculous appearances called "disguises" when a woman has some weird mustache/goatee plastered on their face and the hair in the "male do" and we're supposed to be convinced.
As for Oh Dol Pyu (Kim Won Hae) in SWDBS, he was a bit too cartoonish or more of a stereotype of the gay flamboyant man, but maybe because of the actor and the subtlety of the pairing with the CEO's secretary it kinda worked - as in the portrayal was supposed to be over the top for comedic purposes.
You mentioned Jung Hae In and besides him being the cutest creature ever, I think he is someone whose beauty goes beyond gender - if he were a unicorn, he would've still been revered. Yoo Yeon Seok would be another one and if I dig deep, I would find actresses that "work" in both their fem and masc-presenting persona. Right now I cannot name any (JHI is stuck to my brain).
All in all, thank you for writing this article - I totally agree that a more educated audience is a far better one and in time maybe it will increase the quality of the dramas that tackle these gender-presenting, queer issues, men vs. women type of approach (or more "it's a man's world and everything that digresses from it is bound to fail or become "the enemy" or end up destroyed in its individuality, a.k.a. conformism" like how women need to become more "masculine" to make it, or ppl need to present themselves into the world according to the comp het norms).
Hmm....my answer is kinda all over the place, maybe because the topic is not a simple one and it has multiple ramifications as it refers to a social construct that affects multiple categories of ppl.

@sycillian_onyx I can totally see how he is "THE voice", it's just awesome :) it reminds me of a fan meeting I watched with Tiffany Hadish and Kevin Hart where they were promoting some movie or a project they were collaborating, and they were at the Q&A where the audience asked questions. And there was this guy who when spoke, Tiffany simulated as if she was sliding down her chair (as in what effect his voice had on her, it was really deep and mesmerizing indeed).