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We've been watching the kdrama Mr. Queen, the premise of which is "fuckboy chef transmigrates into the body of historical Queen Cheorin", in large part (at least for me) out of a sense of intellectual fascination to see just how the showrunners were going to attempt to contort the premise to make it Technically Arguably Not Queer.

As it turns out ... well, I mean, I can't tell if they actually earnestly tried or if they were winking the whole time, but either way it was extremely funny to watch the show constantly walk the line to assure the producers it was straight whatever they did in a way that actually meant it was gay whatever they did. ( Small spoilers )

It is also a very funny show in general -- I mean you won't be shocked to hear that there is no understanding of the nuances of gender identity which means that it absolutely hits the dysphoria-for-humor beat a few times without in any way being aware of what it's doing, so caveat emptor (& I'm happy to give spoilers in this regard). But the majority of the comedy does primarily derive from the fact that "everyone expects the queen to act like a gently-bred noblewoman in a palace intrigue drama whose main priority is supporting her clan in maintaining the status quo against the revolutionary reforms of the king, and as a result everyone is consistently stymied and bewildered by the fact that the queen absolutely refuses to act like anything other than a fuckboy chef whose main priority is reinventing the perfect ramen from first principles" is simply a very screwball premise!

Also, big kudos to the actress playing Mr. Queen, who does an incredible job capturing the spirit of That Guy. This promo image is actually a big part of the reason I put this drama on the list:



One simply likes to see an actress in gorgeous historical hanbok project "how you doing?" for all she's worth.

( Cut for images )

Given the givens, are you curious about how all this ends? WE WERE TOO. ( Series ending spoilers )