Maki

Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born can be added to this list. It's an all female cast with several queer relationships between the female characters (canonically in the webtoon and still there in the tv drama, albeit watered down some). Jeongnyeon and her best friend Juran had a story (their feelings for one another heavily influence major plot points in the drama), Okgyeong & Hyerang, and it was heavily implied that YeongSeo had feelings for Juran as well.

The roles she takes on are quite demanding. She's usually preparing for one or two different roles as she's filming another. She does tv and film.

The amount of dedication and energy she has for her craft is astounding.

By ep 11/12 (I'd even argue that after ep 7/8) there's nothing subtext about it.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. To me her reaction in ep 8 was irrational but in character, and had precedent in ep6.

I think almost all dramas have something we have to accept & move on lol. For me in Jeongnyeon it was the way Yeongseo is suddenly saying she needs JN and promisng to be with her forever in ep10. We didn’t even see them go through a new besties phase before reaching those types of declarations 😆

Episode 6 set up JN's weakness of getting lost in her head whenever she becomes emotional. Seeing Juran and Yeongseo work well together made her feel insecure. She chose a small role but when she sees them it makes her feel like she's falling behind and that she has to prove herself. In episode 8, Juran telling her that she doesn’t feel like she can rely on her on stage the way she can on Yeongseo makes Jeongnyeon start feeling insecure. That rejection weakened her confidence which later was amplified by Hyerang rubbing Juran and Yeongseo's chemistry in her face. When JN talks with the director she says "Juran said she can’t rely on me, that's how behind I am from Yeongseo."

Imo, her fear of falling behind is connected to the promise she made to be Juran's prince. We see multiple times that her insecurities seem to be connected with feeling like she's losing Juran. Like she said in ep11, when she was performing in the street she was nervous but the moment she looked at Juran and saw her suppprt she wasn’t nervous anymore.

It definitely was stubbornness because Chorok, the director, and Yeongseo told her she would ruin her voice if she continued but she would not stop.

I think it was very in character. She's stubborn and when she gets something in her head she won't stop.
We saw it happen in the pilot when she wouldn’t listen to her mom, and eventually ran away. And in ep6 when she stole the play. She was told repeatedly to not overdo her performance because her small role wasn’t meant to overshadow the leads but she went rogue when she got jealous over Juran & Yeongseo's scene.
In ep 8, the tipping point was once again getting jealous after seeing Juran with Yeongseo plus Hyerang manipulating her emotionally.

I would love if we could get that.

She had the most depressing ending. Hyerang did a lot of wrong and yet she gets to live on with freedom to do whatever she wants. Meanwhile, Juran is sent off to marry a man to be able to afford her sisters medicine. It's so messed up.

I never wish for kdramas to get 2nd seasons if they weren't planned for more than one but for this one I really want a second season. Just so we can see Juran be able to get out of that marriage (and reunite with JN). I think there's enough potential plots that could fill an interesting short 2nd season.

me too.
I think she might be my favorite support character if not favorite character in general. She has such unconditional and selfless love for her sister and has twice been the reason JeongNyeon has been able to follow her dream. When she said "I don't know what it's like to have a dream" it broke my heart.

this makes sense. I've been confused with the purpose of her question because it feels so random but a loyalty test is an interesting take. YS has just told her that what she craves more than the audience's cheers is Okgyeong's recognition. Okgyeong has been struggling in her relationship with Hyerang because HR only thinks of Okgyeong and has jeopardized Maeran for selfish reasons.

It's been built up through subtext. They won't do it so obvious because of censorship, same for why they aren't as direct about Okgyeong and Hyerang being a couple. Or about the Director and JN's mom having romantic history.

All those little moments between Juran/JN (focuses on looks they give each other, close-ups of them hilding hands, being set up as the next Prince/Princess,etc) are hinting ai it. So many fans have picked up on it. They also wouldn't have chosen to make JN as obviously jealous of Juran being w/ YS as they did in this episode. The jealousy could've come specifically from a performance angle but it didn’t.

I don't think we're meant to support her actions, she's very clearly in the wrong.
But...it does show how talented she is that she can take any role and make it stand out. And not just that but in a single scene steal the show through amazing improve.

And maybe it also leads the director to rework the play (or other plays) in the future to highlight the pov of different characters.

Yes. It's very obvious imo.

They've been hinting at this since episode 2.
And to add more context, Juran seems to be filling the role of BuYoung from the webtoon. BuYoung was JN biggest supporter and her love interest.

This desire to stand out was definitely brought on from jealousy of seeing Juran and Yeongseo (of their closeness. She was already feeling it when she saw them rehearsing). Up until the moment she saw their paired scene she was happy and didn’t seem to have any intentions of doing more than necessary for her scenes. She was trying to prove she can work a smaller role and to correct what she did wrong in the previous performance (in which Yeongseo had to adapt to her performance).

In the final scene I think it was this and then mixed in with her memories of her father. It was a fantastic scene.

This and Blank have been the only Chao Planoy adaptations I've seen. Ar-Nueng did not feel bland, dumb, or useless to me. And Wan is the more dominant character and she is neither of those things either.

I have no complaints about the acting, both are doing great. For me it comes down to how they write Pleng that's just not resonating with me.

I don't need a character to be extroverted or intense in their display of emotions to connect with them. I actually love the characters that are very flawed & sometimes suffer quietly more.

I think your analysis might be right but there's something about Pleng that doesn’t draw me in. I've struggled to connect with her as a character.

I think the thing I like the least about this series is Pleng's character, she's very bland. But the chemistry between the actresses is fantastic. The comfort they show in their intimate scenes is so darn good.

Who is the masked Zhou Zhou?

At first I was convinced that she was Gu Yue out of the game but now I'm wondering if Zhou Zhou is actually the real person from who the main character in the game (the 3rd concubine) is modeled after.

Also, so far it's technically not a GL but I do love seeing the chemistry between Qi Xia Xia and Zhi Yue in the romantic moments. At least visually it's giving GL subtext.