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chaehwa-archives · 9 days ago

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friendly rivalry deep dive part 20

It’s never not weird being a fan online, but I’ve beeing feeling extra weird about it lately. If I may be real for a minute, we live in hell. My accursed home country is still gleefully sponsoring genocide, while fully embracing the fascism we fund and arm everywhere else in the world. (Fuck Israel, Fuck ICE, death to America, free Palestine, etc.) Fandom feels like an alternate universe. I know guilt isn’t a helpful emotion in these situations, but it’s hard not to feel some cognitive dissonance when your timeline is half cute HyeBin photos, half children being starved and bombed.

The weirdest part is that there’s never been a better time to be a Friendly Rivalry fan. The Korean edition of the script book was just released. Su-bin had her first-ever fan signing and now has a Bubble account?? Hye-ri is touring Asia, the BluRay release is getting more content, and there’s the possibility of recognition at the Blue Dragon Series Awards coming up. We just keep winning. I wish these things weren’t happening in a world where unimaginable atrocities are also happening every day, but that’s the surreal nightmare world we live in.

I don’t have any answers, or even any questions, really. Just a lot of messy feelings.

For me, what makes the FR fandom an oasis in these bleak times isn’t just the excitement of new updates and new things to spend too much money on (although I won’t lie to you....money has been spent y’all)—it’s the love that everyone who helped create this series has for it. The script book could have been a quick way to make a few million won, but it’s put together with as much care and attention to detail as the series itself. The director and her co-writer are clearly every bit as obsessed with this story as we are. You can feel how intensely *they* feel about Friendly Rivalry whenever they talk about it.

And you can tell the cast loves the show just as much. In light of the revelations about this year’s K-drama darling When Life Gives You Tangerines, the respect and fondness of the FR actors for the series and each other says a lot. I don’t think FR needs a second season, but when Hye-ri is literally dreaming about it...I don’t know! Maybe they could make it work!! I would love to see this director work with these actors again, even if it’s on a different project.

I take a tiny bit of solace in the fact that this team was able to come together in a country where patriarchy and homophobia are deeply entrenched and create an amazing work of art about girls who find salvation in their love for each other. And I’m grateful that their work is reaching and resonating with so many people. It’s not much...but it’s not nothing.

I’m excited to consult the script book down the line to see how well my ideas overlap with the authors’ intentions, but I’ll probably wait until the official English translation comes out, so Google Translate doesn’t lead me astray. For now these are still all my own unverified theories. Which means you can expect me to continue to be wrong about everything!!

Let’s dive back in. (Be thankful I don’t make more bad diving jokes in these posts okay.) After her prologue, we don’t see much of Je-na in Episode 9. But that doesn’t mean we won’t endlessly overanalyze the two or three lines she does have.

First she asks Jae-yi what she’s doing in the, um, what room is this supposed to be? The test...storage room? But before Jae-yi can respond, she jumps to a strange conclusion:

“So you know it, too. That Dad killed Mr. Woo.”

What a bewildering thing to say. Then, after she says it, she notices the phone in Jae-yi’s hand, and realizes it’s Mr. Woo’s phone. Which seems like a more appropriate time to make this leap. If Jae-yi has the phone, then she might have seen the video, or the blackmail texts...although it’s still quite a leap to assume that Tae-joon killed Seul-gi’s dad based on that.

Then there’s also the fact that !!! huge spoiler warning !!! Je-na is lying here. Tae-joon didn’t kill Mr. Woo. Je-na did.

These few words, as puzzling as they are, tell us a lot about Je-na’s mental state. And our tragic heroine...she is not doing well.

It seems clear that she is already drifting into delusional thinking. In her paranoid and guilt-ridden mind, everything is connected to her secret, everything a reminder of her guilt. Which is why she assumes that Jae-yi must know something. The room alone—the place where Je-na started her “relationship” with Do-hyeok—is evidence enough that Jae-yi is onto her.

Je-na is terrified of Jae-yi learning her secret in particular, because she knows Jae-yi is smart enough to put the pieces together—and because she cares what Jae-yi thinks of her.

It’s not just that Je-na killed someone. It’s that she killed someone who (at least in her mind) she was exploiting for grades, all while trying to cheat on the CSAT. The reality of course is that Je-na was exploited by Seul-gi’s father and her own—but her self-sacrificing, self-effacing nature means she can’t see her own victimization for what it is. She places all the blame on herself.

In her prologue, we saw Je-na take on enormous responsibility as a child, doing everything in her power to protect her sister in a cold and abusive home. But Je-na is human, too, and has feelings other than pure sisterly love. Deep down, she’s terrified that Jae-yi really is her superior in every way—not just smarter, but a better person. That fear has utterly eroded her self-esteem.

This is the natural consequence of Tae-joon’s brainwashing. Neither sister will ever be perfect enough to win his approval. Neither can be Abel—and so Jae-yi and Je-na are equally convinced that they must be Cain, the bad sibling. Je-na believes at heart she’s nothing more than a cheater and a murderer.

But she can’t possibly let Jae-yi know that. It would be the greatest shame of her life. Another consequence of Tae-joon’s curse is that, because they’ve been taught to fear each other, neither sister can admit her weakness to the other. Neither can let her guard down.

So Je-na makes up a story to protect herself—to hide her sin. A story in which her dad killed Mr. Woo.

Even this cover story, though, betrays a desire to connect with Jae-yi again. Listen to how she says it: So you know it, too. She wants this lie to be something they can share together. Which is partly why she is so desperate to get the phone back. If Jae-yi learns the truth, that lie is shattered, and she’s exposed for the hopeless, irredeemable sinner she thinks she is.

Okay I should probably move on since this is just one line. Can the writers of Friendly Rivalry please just…stop? Stop writing so good? You’re embarrassing the rest of us.

When the phone falls out the window, Je-na jumps after it, but she’s stopped by a security guard before she can find it—and we have more indication of her mental instability when she hallucinates that the security guard is Mr. Woo. I have less to say about this moment, it’s just some really brilliant foreshadowing. The first time you watch this scene, you think she’s having, you know, just like a normal PTSD flashback, but the second time you realize oh god oh no she is being haunted by the memory of her abuser who she also murdered. I need to stop thinking about Je-na...it’s bad for my heart.

A lot happens very quickly after the stabbing. Like most of its student body, Chaehwa has an image to protect, and the school immediately goes to work on damage control. (Boomers vs zoomers PR battle! Who will prevail, some teachers lying over the phone, or two dozen witnesses livestreaming the event.) Je-na bumps into Byeong-jin while running away from the school, and Vape God Ye-ri overhears the principal interrogating Beom-su about her drug use. Gyeong, realizing the administration will try to cover up the incident, sneakily decides to preserve the knife as evidence.

We don’t see much of Ye-ri or Gyeong this episode, but I like the little scenes we do get. After all her worst qualities were on full display in the last episode, we now see Ye-ri at her lowest point: evicted from her apartment, visibly injured, canceled on social media, and face card...declined?! Just kidding, she pulls off the smeary clown look. For pushing Beom-su over the edge, she probably deserved to get knocked down a peg or two, but still, this is karmic overkill. No high school kid deserves to be homeless. (I mean, in theory no one does, but I’ll make an exception for billionaires and genocidal freaks.)

Gyeong also has some interesting moments. When Jae-yi finds her and asks what happened, she pauses and stutters when explaining that Seul-gi was hurt. Why the hesitation? Is it just that Gyeong still doesn’t trust Jae-yi? In Episode 8, she did suspect that Jae-yi had stolen Do-hyeok’s phone.

But I think there might be another reason. Gyeong wants to believe Jae-yi is a fake friend who never cared about her or anyone else, but...what if she’s wrong? What if Jae-yi is serious about Seul-gi? Gyeong might even wish that she was the one who’d been stabbed, just to see how Jae-yi would react. Would she look this upset? Would Jae-yi chase after her like she’s aiming for the gold medal in Gay Sprinting at the Homosexual Olympics?

Later, Gyeong’s mom confronts her in the car about the knife she took from the scene of the crime. Gyeong wants to hold the school accountable, but her mother, a lawyer, scolds her for being childish. She’s a realist who knows how the law works, and she knows that a student has zero chance of winning a case against an institution like Chaehwa. Gyeong would be throwing her future away for nothing.

This is a side of Gyeong we’ve only seen in glimpses, and I love the dimension it adds to her character. Eighteen years of feeling unfairly persecuted have given her a powerful injustice detector: she knows when something doesn’t feel right. But she’s also sheltered, and not as smart as she thinks she is.

Like in Episode 4, when she tried to protest the class election, we once again see her planning something that probably seemed really badass in her head, only to be immediately undermined. But this time she’s clearly in the right—the school administration *is* corrupt and full of shit. It’s the world that’s wrong.

If she can let her rich-girl sense of entitlement and her personal grievances go, and and direct her outrage at the proper targets, Gyeong has the potential to fulfill her true calling as the most powerful SJW on the internet.

Okay that was a joke but radical activist Gyeong is definitely in my post-series headcanon. She absolutely won’t shut up about Fanon and Ye-ri is always half falling asleep but into it like, “Mmm it’s so hot when you read theory babe tell me more about decolonization.”

One last scene before we move on to the JaeSeulgi show. The school decides to crack down on drugs, and after the festival the students are rounded up and their teacher goes around confiscating anything that looks suspect. Although this teacher is the worst, I admire the stone-cold way she just takes a rip off this kid’s e-cig.

Gyeong is told to open all the lockers at the back of the classroom, and she does, except for three: Jae-yi, Seul-gi, and Beom-su are all missing, and all three of their lockers have locks on them (one black, one white, one gray).

I bring this up because it seems important—even the color-coding seems like it could be symbolic. But I don’t actually understand the significance of this scene. Maybe watching Episode 10 again will remind me, since that one deals with the aftermath of the drug scandal from what I remember.

It’s also just strange that the three students who happen to be missing are the only three kids in the class who bought locks?

I spend a lot of time talking about how well-written Friendly Rivalry is but can I also say it is a damn fine-ass looking show too, as my folder of seven million screenshots can attest. Every episode has moments that stand out to me as visually iconic, and in Episode 9 I particularly love the shot of Jae-yi looking up at her father while holding Seul-gi’s hand as she lays on the operating table. Something about the angle, the intensity of Hye-ri’s eyes, the oppressive dark greenish hue, the way Tae-joon’s sleeve obscures the right side of the frame...I don’t know enough about film theory to explain why it’s great, but I know ⋇✦⋆cinema⋆✦⋇ when I see it.

Not just that shot though—I love everything about this scene. I love Jae-yi taking those stairs *three steps* at a time. I love the way her brain is so obliterated by dread that she just barges right into the operating room without thinking, and the little uh oh moment when she stops to catch her breath. At this point, dear readers, can there really be any doubt that this girl is gay gay homosexual lebsbiasn?

Friendly Rivalry is full of moments where Jae-yi and Seul-gi mirror each other, like in Episode 6, when Seul-gi’s pill addiction reflects Jae-yi’s addiction to Seul-gi the thrill of competition. In this scene, Seul-gi is physically on the operating table, but at the same time, Jae-yi is under the knife psychologically.

This is Tae-joon’s way of dissecting his creation, cutting her open to see what makes her tick. He’s done his best to mold Jae-yi in his image, but at the festival he saw a new side of her, one he doesn’t like. He saw the way she smiled when she took Seul-gi’s arm. He saw her ignore his own advice and listen to Seul-gi instead. And now here she is, bursting into the room, not hiding very well that she ran up ten flights of stairs to get here.

What’s gotten into his perfect daughter? Why is she acting so weird about some lowly orphan girl?

It’s always intense when Tae-joon and Jae-yi square off in a battle of wits, but this time Seul-gi herself is the battleground, and the stakes are that much higher.

Under pressure, Jae-yi responds in a way we’ve come to expect: she plays a role. She pretends to examine Seul-gi’s body with detached fascination, and when her dad asks her to fetch the forceps, she puts on gloves instead, as if she’s eager for the chance to practice on a living specimen. When Tae-joon talks about Seul-gi as if she *is* no more than a specimen, explaining the impact of malnutrition on her skin in clinical detail, Jae-yi shows restraint. She doesn’t stab him in the eye.

But there’s a difference in how this performance is framed. The camera is helping us read between the lines. In the first half of FR, when Seul-gi was not our POV character, the version of Jae-yi we saw was usually meant to make us more suspicious of her. Think of her drugging the rat in the C-Med Room, or staring out the window while Seul-gi waited for her in the rain, or twirling her scarf in the hospital while she watched Seul-gi follow her orders. She’s either been sinister, or a cipher.

This time the camera shows us what she’s hiding from Tae-joon. When she puts on the gloves with her back to him, we can see that she’s far from excited to be stitching up her “friend.” She’s doing it because she has no other choice. It’s the only way she can convince her dad that she’s like him, and still on his side, which is the only way she can keep him away from Seul-gi.

And, of course, we see Jae-yi holding Seul-gi’s hand.

For me, this might be one of the most significant gestures of love in the whole series. It’s powerful because, paradoxically, Seul-gi can’t feel it. In a way it’s pointless. But that also makes it unambiguous in a way that Jae-yi’s actions rarely are. It’s impossible for this to be a trick, or part of an act. No one knows about it but Jae-yi. She might hope that Seul-gi can feel her presence somehow, but really, she’s doing this for herself. And...it’s kind of stupid! If her dad leaned over and noticed, that would be bad news, for her and for Seul-gi.

Jae-yi does it anyway. She does this risky useless irrational thing, in an incredibly tense situation, because she’s just too damn in love to stop herself. Even unconscious and sprawled on an operating table, Seul-gi has the power to make Jae-yi do things she would normally never do. In this case, she’s acting out of love even when she has every reason to be afraid.

Suel-gi’s stepmom comes to the hospital, and she’s pissed. I love the way she stands up to Tae-joon in this scene. Go off, tell that mfer he can go straight to hell. Still makes me sad when she slaps Jae-yi’s hands away from the gurney though. Poor Jae-yi ;_;

We get some Tae-joon beefcake (lol) when he changes shirts in his office, which is not for me, but in principle I believe all villains should be hot, so I hope all the weirdos out there into sociopathic zaddies are satisfied. (That has to be at least 27% of tumblr users I imagine.) Love how he just wads up and tosses his old shirt into the trash. This man is far too busy profaning the right to privacy to care about the environmental impacts of fast fashion.

What are the odds that that oh-so-generous “top 20 students get a free comprehensive JMC checkup!” deal is just another way for Tae-joon to creepily surveil the student body? Infinity percent. He opens up Beom-su’s file from last year, when she was 20th in the class, and comments on her poor health. (I wasn’t able to tell if there’s any noteworthy info in her records.) Then he opens up the records from this year, and sees that Seul-gi is tied with Jae-yi for the top spot.

Like daughter, like father. Tae-joon has seriously underestimated Seul-gi, just like Jae-yi did at first.

Also, why the *hell* is Jae-yi smiling and laughing with this girl? Doesn’t she realize Seul-gi is a threat?

One motif repeated throughout this episode, starting with Je-na’s prologue, is “broken connections.” Gestures of love all go unnoticed, or unappreciated, or end up misinterpreted. It’s as if Je-na’s tragedy radiates outward through every relationship. Jae-yi holds Seul-gi’s hand, but Seul-gi can’t feel it. Seul-gi’s stepmom is too suspicious of the Yoo family to recognize that Jae-yi loves her daughter. And while she’s unconscious, Seul-gi misses all the signs that her stepmom cares about her. One of the most tragic moments comes when the stepmom, who’s been waiting patiently by Seul-gi’s side for her to wake up, leaves the room to take a phone call just moments before Seul-gi finally does.

Once you see this pattern, it’s everywhere. You can even view the scene between Tae-joon and Jae-yi as his twisted attempt to bond with the daughter he senses slipping away from him. If he wasn’t so evil, it could almost be comically awkward. “Oh, so you, uh, like this girl? I like...performing surgery. Hey maybe we could, um, perform surgery on your girlfriend together?”

We also see Jae-yi trying to connect with a sister who isn’t there—a sister she is realizing too late that she never knew. And it’s her fault. She never even tried to get to know her. She goes into Je-na’s room, opens her closet, puts on her favorite CD, looks at her report card. All these years she’s been living with a stranger. How could she not know that her sister was sleeping with a teacher?

The report card suggests Mr. Woo was even more of a scumbag than we saw in the prologue. Based on the uptick in her math scores, his sexual exploitation of Je-na was probably an ongoing thing.

I had somehow completely forgotten this detail, but when Jae-yi opens Je-na’s closet, she takes out a princess dress. Wait. So Jae-yi didn’t just find a matching dress on Mercari? Did she actually use her sister’s dress for that stunt? Big if true. Honestly I need more time to think on this one, but it’s the clearest indication yet that Je-na and Seul-gi are parallel characters—both shaped by neglect and driven by an intense desire to feel seen.

I love how we’re placed directly in Jae-yi’s shoes, trying to solve a puzzle with too many missing pieces. We can guess what kind of person Je-na is based on her room decorations, her taste in music, and the princess dress in her closet. But that person doesn’t bear much resemblance to the girl who just jumped out of a window to steal a phone with disturbing evidence of blackmail on it.

A-ra calls Jae-yi, panicking about the drug crackdown, afraid they’ll be caught. We’ve seen so much of Jae-yi’s softer side lately that it’s a bit shocking when all of a sudden Bad Girl Jae-yi is back, but I’m so here for it. The way she tells A-ra, “Watch your mouth”...girrrrll. I’m sorry I don’t really have any analysis here I just like it when women are a little bit evil.

I do love the way this conversation ends. It seems like Jae-yi has the upper hand as usual, but then A-ra reminds her of an important little detail. Jae-yi sold drugs to Seul-gi in person. Seul-gi could bust them both.

Jae-yi hangs up, checks her tracking device, and sees that Seul-gi is still at the hospital.

This is an interesting way to set up the next scene, because we’ve already had convincing evidence this episode that Jae-yi’s love is real. It’s pretty hard to backtrack after that secret handholding.

But now we’re seeing that love tested: first by her father, and now by the possibility that her drug empire could come tumbling down. At this point Jae-yi can’t deny that her love is a liability. It’s making her act dumb. She shouldn’t have sold drugs to Seul-gi in person, and she probably shouldn’t have been holding Seul-gi’s hand right in front of her dad either!

Interestingly, as soon as Old Jae-yi makes her comeback, she’s also given what could be another ulterior motive. Even if she doesn’t care about her own future prospects, if she cares at all about protecting A-ra from the fallout, it’s important that Seul-gi doesn’t snitch.

So we have reason to be suspicious of Jae-yi’s intentions again. She could easily lapse back into her old ways. But will she?

I think we’re meant to be asking that question, because this scene at the hospital is constantly inviting comparisons between Old Jae-yi and New. It starts with Jae-yi suddenly hugging Seul-gi from behind the way she did in Episode 2, when she was too deep in her devious scheming to give Seul-gi’s feelings any thought. We even see them both in a reflective surface again (then it was the bathroom mirror, now it’s the hospital window). Je-yun, who helped her carry out her most twisted bit of manipulation in Episode 4, is back. And Jae-yi is giving gifts again: this time she brought coffee.

This scene has all the hallmarks of a classic Jae-yi chess maneuver. And yet...it’s different.

When Jae-yi embraces Seul-gi, she’s not playing. The look in her eyes is dead serious. When she inspects the wound, she mentions that the suturing was done well, but she takes no credit for it. She passes up the opportunity to make Seul-gi feel indebted to her, or like she was at Jae-yi’s mercy, under her control. And Je-yun hasn’t been trained to perform any emotionally manipulative tricks this time. Jae-yi only brings the dog hoping to cheer Seul-gi up.

This scene is clearly meant to mirror the scene in the prologue when Jae-yi comes to visit Je-na at the hospital—and it’s clear Jae-yi has been thinking about her sister, and regrets pulling away from her in the past.

But I think it’s a mistake to view this scene as a do-over with Je-na, with Seul-gi as a stand-in. What this really is, imo, is a do-over with Seul-gi. Jae-yi is trying to right the wrongs of the past, but it’s the ways she’s betrayed Seul-gi that she wants to undo. Or, rather, she wants to do everything again, from the beginning, but minus the deceit. For real this time.

Consider how often Jae-yi has imitated her sister when showing Seul-gi affection: dressing her, the ear-covering move, etc. In this scene, though, she isn’t trying to replicate something Je-na taught her. She’s trying to be herself—and she’s not necessarily very good at it. Lord knows she hasn’t had much practice.

That bumbling sincerity comes through in Jae-yi’s most vulnerable confession yet, and one of my favorite lines in Friendly Rivalry.

Friendly Rivalry writers. I am begging you again to stop. Please stop writing such poignant, beautiful, thoughtful, characterful, creative, smart, stunning, lovely, pulchritudinous, cute, handsome, pretty, gorgeous, exquisite, ethereal, meaningful dialogue. It’s not fair.

I could talk about this quote for days, weeks, months, years... but I’ll try to be brief. First of all, Jae-yi gains nothing from this admission. It doesn’t give her leverage, it doesn’t make her seem cool. It’s a weird, kind of off-putting, embarrassing thing to say. Just telling someone I can’t stop thinking about you is already awkward when you don’t know if that person likes you or not. And Jae-yi doesn’t know.

But she takes it one step further: I can’t stop thinking about the worst possible thing happening to you. Not because I want you to die, but because I’m a coward. I’m afraid of losing you, and this is how I process fear.

Jae-yi’s confession isn’t *just* a confession of love—although it 1000% absolutely is one. It’s also an admission of weakness: I love you, but I don’t really know how to deal with that, and it scares me. I haven’t felt this way about another person before. The only living thing I have ever cared about this much is my dog!

All of this is new to her, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing. But she takes the risk of making a fool of herself, because it’s important to her that Seul-gi knows.

That’s the one and only reason that Jae-yi could possibly have for admitting such a thing: She wants Seul-gi to know how she feels.

It’s possible to consider this line from other angles. What does this reveal about Jae-yi’s suicide plan? At this point, has she given up on it, or is talking about Seul-gi’s death a veiled way of talking about her own? If Jae-yi dies, Je-yun and Seul-gi disappear, too. Planning her own death is also planning for theirs, in a way.

But, when she confesses, I don’t think Jae-yi is thinking about the future. I think for a moment she has no plans at all. She doesn’t know what comes next. This love has set her adrift. Everything used to be so certain before, and now nothing is.

In this scene, we watch Jae-yi symbolically remove her last piece of armor. She bares her innermost thoughts to Seul-gi voluntarily. And, the moment the breastplate comes off, she takes an arrow straight to the heart.

“Pardon me but,,,, what the fuck?”

What makes this scene such a gut-punch is that Seul-gi, bless her dumb gay little heart, doesn’t really get it. This is new for both of them: Jae-yi’s never confessed to anyone before, and Seul-gi has never been confessed to. She doesn’t realize until much later what Jae-yi is actually trying to say.

Jae-yi puts her whole ass on the line, but it’s not enough. Of the many “broken connections” in this episode, this one is the most heartbreaking because they come so close.

But they still aren’t on the same wavelength. There’s still some doubt at the back of Seul-gi’s mind, for one. She brings up her dad’s phone and asks if Jae-yi’s seen it, probably because of Gyeong’s suspicion that Jae-yi had stolen it. Seul-gi hasn’t ruled out that possibility. And her lack of trust is valid. Jae-yi not only *does* have the phone, she even lies about it.

Jae-yi has lied to Seul-gi plenty, but this lie is different. The reason she’s reluctant to tell the truth is that she doesn’t want Seul-gi to be traumatized by the video of her dad. Note her reaction when Seul-gi says she hasn’t figured out the PIN yet—the same sad guilty puppy dog eyes from Episode 7, and her ears practically jump off her head. Seul-gi has no idea how much she meant to her father, and also has no idea that her dad suuucked. Learning both of those things at the same time would be horrifying for anyone.

Even the way Jae-yi tries to protect Seul-gi is different. She doesn’t shield Seul-gi from reality the way Je-na tried to shield her. She does the exact opposite. She rubs Seul-gi’s face in the ugliness. She tells Seul-gi her dad “slept with his students,” plural, elaborating on the little bit she knows to paint an even nastier picture of him. If Seul-gi expects the absolute worst, maybe it will soften the blow when she learns the truth, if only a little bit.

She’s trying to protect Seul-gi the way she knows best—the way she protects herself.

And...it backfires. Jae-yi’s love confession was confusing to Seul-gi, but this remark about her dad is even more so. Why would she poke and prod at such a sensitive spot? What kind of manipulation is this supposed to be? Is Jae-yi trying to make Seul-gi feel bad about her father to feel better about her own dad being such an asshole? One way or another, it hurts—and it hurts even worse coming after the most romantic night of Seul-gi’s life.

Jae-yi is hurt by Seul-gi’s reaction, too, but doesn’t chase after her when she leaves. A part of her is resigned. She knows this is just a taste of the way she treated Je-na for so long. Maybe it’s what she deserves.

We don’t know how Jae-yi will respond to Seul-gi’s rejection yet, but if there’s been one consistent pattern in her behavior this episode, it’s that Jae-yi keeps choosing Seul-gi—even under pressure, even when it’s not the smart thing to do. In the face of fear, Jae-yi isn’t backing off or running away from love. She’s doubling down.

This isn’t the end of Episode 9—after Seul-gi leaves, there’s a spooky little scene and a cliffhanger. But one thing we know now thanks to the script book is that Friendly Rivalry was planned as an 8-part series, but all the episodes were split in half, meaning 9 and 10 were originally written as one episode, anyway. So I think I’ll just cover the ending in my next entry, together with Episode 10.

Sorry for the wait and thank you for your patience! This one took so much longer than I was expecting, and I’m not even sure I did it proper justice. Hopefully I won’t have much to say about the next episode...is what a loser would say, not me, I’ll never tire of talking about this masterpiece lmao. On my deathbed my family will be pleading with me to stop talking about it. Not this Woo Seul-gi lady again and that darn “friend” of hers...I don’t see why they don’t just kiss already, if they like each other so much!

#friendly rivalry #friendly rivalry meta #girls love #gl drama #gl series #korean gl #deep dive #jaeyi x seulgi

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chaehwa-archives · 16 days ago

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More RGU/FR parallels while I’m fixated on this connection (and while I’m working on the next deep dive entryy sorry it’s coming I promise, just been very busy lately):

(11) Manga/manhwa is less gay than the anime/drama. Actually I still haven’t read the FR webtoon but from what I’ve heard, and based on the author’s own comments about Jae-yi and Seul-gi, I’m not really interested.

(12) Both accused of queerbaiting by people allergic to subtext and context. (sorry did not mean to make this a call-out post)

(13) Everyone is traumatized and had a nightmarish childhood. Ye-ri and Gyeong would fit right in at Ohtori Academy.

(14) No good adults. Okay actually FR has one, Seul-gi’s stepmom. RGU has...ummmmmm...Tokiko...?

(15) Tae-joon and Akio are, like, almost the same guy. Outwardly charming abusive manipulators who like to play god, and the most powerful person in each of their respective domains. Both rotted from within by their cynical worldviews. Both indoctrincate children and pit them against each other in their sicko games.

(16) The relationship between Jae-yi and her dad is eerily similar to Anthy and Akio (minus the sexual abuse thank god). Tae-joon’s only attachment is to his idea of Jae-yi as the perfect daughter, his little Frankenstein creation. Without her, his life has no meaning. Likewise, without Anthy to play his puppet, Akio is an empty shell. Anthy is like Akio in some ways, just as Jae-yi resembles her father, but Anthy and Jae-yi are both made that way by the abuse they’ve suffered—and despite everything they’ve endured, they still have the capacity to love.

(17) Seul-gi doesn’t save Jae-yi, but inspires her to save herself and keep living. Extremely utenanthy coded.

(18) RGU and FR are both completely new experiences on a second watch when you know where the story is going, and you pretty much have to watch them at least twice to pick up on everything. Trying to decode Anthy’s/Jae-yi’s actions and intentions in each scene adds a whole extra layer of mystery.

(19) Wait wait wait. Seul-gi wears a different school uniform from everyone else?? Okay it’s only on like the first day of school but still.

(20) Queer love is the key to escaping abusive systems of power.

There’s a lot of stylistic overlap too, like the way both series use symbolism and formalist techniques to visualize the characters’ emotional states. I doubt anyone who worked on FR was directly inspired by RGU, but nonetheless there is some powerful synergy between these stories.

#friendly rivalry #friendly rivalry meta #girls love #jaeyi x seulgi #utenanthy #shoujo kakumei utena #revolutionary girl utena #rgu

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chaehwa-archives · 18 days ago

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Hello and welcome to my blog <3 Right now this is mainly the place where I rant about Korean GL series Friendly Rivalry, but it might replace my old all-purpose GL blog in the future. I also make fan music videos sometimes.

You can visit my old (currently inactive) blog here.

Unhinged Friendly Rivalry Posting Archive

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 1

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 2

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 3

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 4

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 5

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 6

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 7

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 8

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 9

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 10

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 11

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 12

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 13

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 14

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 15

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 16

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 17

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 18

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 19

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 20

friendly rivalry deep dive pt 21

FMV Archive

rivalry or revolution? [revolutionary girl utena amv]

love & vengeance [friendly rivalry fmv]

yoo jae-yi || escape!! [friendly rivalry fmv]

jae-yi x seul-gi || be sweet [friendly rivalry fmv]

jae-yi x seul-gi || honey water [friendly rivalry fmv]

jae-yi x seul-gi || when our hearts beat at the same pace [friendly rivalry fmv]

#friendly rivalry #girls love #deep dive #friendly rivalry meta #gl drama

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chaehwa-archives · 18 days ago

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rivalry or revolution? [revolutionary girl utena amv]

youtube

That’s right folks, it’s the crossover you’ve all been waiting for. My two great loves in one AMV. The mother of yuri you can spend the rest of your life analyzing and barely scratch the surface meets the GL I’ve written 30,000+ words about and I’m only halfway done.

I’ll have to make a post about the parallels between these series eventually, because there are a lot...

(1) water

(2) prestigious school setting

(3) opening flashback in which the main character is deeply traumatized while dressed like a princess

(4) sinister lesbianism

(5) handholding

(6) romance between cool popular girl and weird bullied girl

(7) one of the girls is a master manipulator who has buried her heart under so many layers of guilt and dissociation and performance that she has forgotten who she is and what it is to feel anything but pain until by chance she meets a girl so utterly unapologetically herself that she feels helplessly drawn out of her state of living death just to be closer to her despite all the risks that this emotional attachment brings and through that attachment the compassionate child she thought long dead inside her is slowly reawakened but that’s also terrifying because it means facing not only her own trauma but also the pain she’s caused the one person she loves more than life itself and okay lol jae-yi is just anthy maybe that’s why I like friendly rivalry so much

(8) delicious homoerotic betrayal

(9) everything is a metaphor

(10) even the endings are kind of the same??

Photosensitivity warning for flashing lights. Also, if you care about spoilers and haven’t seen RGU already, go watch RGU first!! It’s so good, you won’t regret it.

Music is “Dope or Trip” by Chiwon Lee from the Friendly Rivalry OST. Thanks for watching <3

#revolutionary girl utena #friendly rivalry #shoujo kakumei utena #utenanthy #anime amv #amv #utena tenjou #anthy himemiya #rgu #Youtube

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chaehwa-archives · 24 days ago

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friendly rivalry deep dive part 19

I’m now at the halfway point in this Friendly Rivalry rewatch project, and what a journey it’s been. To be honest, at the outset, I wasn’t sure how well FR would hold up, or how much this kind of in-depth analysis would pay off. I should have trusted my gut, though. This series is a gem. It’s rare for any piece of media to be made with this level of intention and complexity, and for a GL drama? Depends on how far you stretch the definition, but you can probably count them on one hand...with a missing finger or two.

I’ve been a little worried, though. I remember loving the first half of FR, and I remember loving Episodes 14-16, when the relationship between Jae-yi and Seul-gi takes center stage again. The episodes in between I mostly remember...being confused. Of course that was partly due to pre-Netflix era bad subtitle translation. We all know FR is complicated enough without having to decode every single line of dialogue.

Still I’m curious how I’ll feel about the second half this second time around. Is it as messy as I originally thought, or will the rewatch help things click into place?

So far I’m optimistic. Episode 9 is a gut punch after the whirlwind romance of Episode 8, but it might be one of my favorite episodes yet. In this post I’ll just cover the prologue concerning Je-na, and in Part 20 I’ll cover the rest.

Hopefully everyone reading this has seen the show and knows what you’re getting into with Je-na’s backstory. Just a heads up that we’ll be discussing a sexual relationship between a teacher and student, among other kinds of abuse, so brace yourself.

We’ve seen four prologues so far, one for each main character. All of them were hard to watch in their own way: Seul-gi faces bullying and addiction; Jae-yi loses the will to live under the weight of her father’s curse; Gyeong is cringe and needs to go to horny jail; Ye-ri is starved and neglected by her mother. But I’m calling it: Je-na’s backstory is the most brutal of them all. This poor girl. I am so upset.

Like the other prologues, Je-na’s is a kind of keyhole we can peek through to glimpse her private inner world. But it’s also a key. Je-na’s story illuminates the lives of the other cast members, and reveals a dark truth at the heart of Friendly Rivalry: as fucked up as Seul-gi, Jae-yi, Gyeong, and Ye-ri are, these girls are actually the lucky ones.

The first scene revisits the violin bow incident we first witnessed in Episode 3, when Tae-joon forced Jae-yi to hit Je-na as punishment for failing to answer a math problem. Later in that episode, he found Jae-yi crying in bed and told his version of the Cain and Abel story, casting Je-na as Cain, the older sibling driven by murderous jealousy.

The very first thing we learn about Je-na in Episode 9 is that she is absolutely nothing like Cain. She doesn’t have a vengeful bone in her body. Je-na cares so little about being surpassed by her sister that she answers a question wrong *on purpose* just to protect her.

Je-na is a refutation of Tae-joon’s parable—her big heart doesn’t fit into his brutal world. But, as we’ll see, that heart isn’t enough to save her. In a loveless family where any sign of vulnerability is exploited, and in a society built by Tae-joons for other Tae-joons, her heart is a liability.

There’s one interesting detail in this scene that’s easy to overlook. Seul-gi tells us in her narration that Je-na erases the correct answer because she chooses to get hit rather than hit her sister. But...wait. Je-na erases her answer *before* Tae-joon explains that one of the sisters will have to hit the other. How does she know?

The way the scene is shot, we can’t see the violin bow at first, but the whole time the girls are answering math problems, it’s sitting on the kitchen counter in front of Tae-joon. Je-na can see the violin bow and probably guesses that some kind of punishment is coming. And she knows her dad punishes failure. So she acts on a hunch, and her intuition is right.

This tiny scene communicates so much. Je-na is just as clever and observant as her father and sister, but her choices follow a different emotional logic. Tae-joon expects his daughters to act out of fear and self-preservation. Je-na acts out of love and self-sacrifice. Although he’s oblivious to it, Je-na understands her father here better than he understands her. She’s one step ahead of him, subverting the rules of his game before he even has a chance to explain them. In her own way, she’s a genius. But emotional intelligence means nothing to Tae-joon, who only senses weakness.

In the next scene, Tae-joon has already given up on Je-na. She isn’t ruthless enough to be molded into his perfect creation. He argues with his wife (they seem on the brink of a divorce, which is probably why we never see the mom around in the present day) and insists that if they split, he’s keeping Jae-yi. She’s the future of the hospital.

(Of course, if they do end up splitting—I think it’s implied later that they are living separately?—he keeps both kids. He needs both for his divide-and-conquer tactics to work.) Je-na overhears her parents arguing. Then, when Jae-yi wakes up and follows her into the hallway, Je-na covers her ears and hugs her. Jae-yi’s hand tightens on a table cover, and one of Tae-joon’s many awards—a trophy for surgical excellence—falls and strikes Je-na on the foot. She starts bleeding but doesn’t cry. Instead she helps her sister get ready for kindergarten.

My gawd this scene. Absolutely heartbreaking. And there’s just...so much to unpack.

Like the previous scene, Je-na is again doing her best to protect her little sister. And, once again, she gets hurt for it. This time, not only is she physically injured, but she also has to listen to her father tell her mother that he doesn’t want her. Despite the favoritism Tae-joon is showing Jae-yi, though, Je-na refuses to lash out at her sister. She doesn’t seek revenge for the physical or emotional wounds Jae-yi inflicts, either.

Because the award falling on her foot is clearly a metaphor for a different kind of injury. Je-na’s unending sacrifice for Jae-yi’s sake goes unrewarded. Jae-yi never returns her sister’s care or affection. It’s not malicious—she isn’t trying to hurt Je-na’s feelings. She’s a child and doesn’t know any better. But still...it hurts. It hurts when you hug your sister and she won’t even put her arms around you.

(In society, sacrifice like Je-na’s usually goes unacknowledged, too. We have awards for “excellence,” but there’s no trophy for taking care of your sibling in an abusive household, even though Je-na is more of a hero than her father will ever be.)

The trophy is a symbol for the true source of the wound, the wedge that will continue to drive them apart. It’s not one of Jae-yi’s awards that causes the bleeding—it’s one of Tae-joon’s. And it’s his influence that gets to Jae-yi and pulls her away from Je-na’s love. You can see the first signs of that influence on Jae-yi when she coldly observes, “Your foot is bleeding.” This is the same girl who was devastated by hurting her sister not long ago!

Je-na and Tae-joon represent the two conflicting sides of Jae-yi’s personality. On one hand you have the compassionate and selfless Jae-yi, full of affection for and fiercely protective of the people she loves. We can see all of these traits embodied in Je-na. And on the other hand is the cold, distant manipulator embodied in Tae-joon.

As if this scene weren’t already gut-wrenching enough, go back and listen closely to the parents’ argument in the background. When the trophy falls, yeah, that’s their mom screaming. Tae-joon likes his sick little mind games, but he doesn’t hesitate to use physical violence if he thinks he can get away with it. Under his veneer of respectability, he’s just a bully, no more sophisticated than the girls who terrorized Seul-gi in school.

Speaking of Seul-gi, two things. First, there’s the obvious parallel to the closet scene in Episode 3, when Jae-yi covers Seul-gi’s ears to protect her. Now we know where she learned that from, and now we know that Je-na’s caregiving and protection is probably (apart from her relationship with Je-yun) the only form of unconditional love that Jae-yi has ever received. Whether it’s conscious or subconscious, when Jae-yi protects Seul-gi, there’s something genuine there—at the very least, she’s trying to imitate what she thinks real love looks like.

Consider also the scene where Je-na dresses Jae-yi for school, and how often Jae-yi has expressed affection for Seul-gi by dressing her—whether it’s the gift of the new uniform in Episode 3, or the gift of the scarf in Episode 7...or the gift she’ll give at the end of the series.

We’re also starting to see parallels between Je-na and Seul-gi. Like Seul-gi, Je-na fears abandonment, and is desperate to be loved. As a defense mechanism, she tries to be independent, taking on the adult responsibility of caring for her sister without expecting any help. She sacrifices herself day after day, denying her own needs, in an effort to hold her family together, while Seul-gi denies her humanity, setting herself apart from everyone.

The difference is that Seul-gi is forced by her isolation and by her circumstances to grow a thick skin. She stops expecting anything more than neglect and mistreatment from people, and learns to survive on her own.

Je-na’s self-worth is tied up in her family from the beginning. And because her family is controlled by Tae-joon, that means tragically seeking validation from a system that will only demand sacrifice while continuing to abuse and degrade her.

On some level, Tae-joon must know that Je-na’s love for her sister is a threat to his power over them both, which is why he isolates them. Under his influence, Jae-yi distances herself, and Je-na is left utterly alone. Her sacrifice is not only not repaid—it’s punished.

When Jae-yi and Je-na are leaving for school, there’s a shot of Je-na glancing up at Tae-joon, who’s watching them from the balcony. Like the violin bow scene, this shows us that, whatever Tae-joon thinks of their abilities, Je-na is more advanced than her sister in some ways. While Jae-yi remains emotionally stunted by fear, Je-na is carefully attuned to the power dynamics within their family. But she’s also powerless to change them.

Powerlessness makes her desperate, and in the next scene she prays to be stricken with an illness so that her family will pity her.

Wait. She’s so desperate to be noticed...that she prays for a disease that will make her stand out and be recognized? Does this remind you of anyone?

It’s little Seul-gi with the princess dress!

As her family is leaving church, Je-na suddenly collapses, and she’s diagnosed with narcolepsy. It’s never made clear exactly how “real” her narcolepsy is, but unless you accept divine intervention as an explanation, the odds that she would coincidentally develop a very noticeable neurological disorder moments after wishing to develop such a disorder seem…low. At the same time, even if it’s staged, this isn’t the kind of emotional manipulation that Tae-joon and Jae-yi excel at—it’s no galaxy-brain chess maneuver. It’s an impulsive attempt to meet an emotional need. And like Seul-gi’s impulsive choice to wear the princess dress to the beach, Je-na’s desperate attempt to be seen will have fateful consequences.

At this point, Je-na’s story doesn’t just echo Seul-gi’s—she’s also a counterpoint to Gyeong and Ye-ri. Like Ye-ri, Je-na is neglected by her parents, and seeks attention through a fantasy—in this case, the fantasy of her invented health condition. And, like Gyeong, Je-na grows up in Jae-yi’s shadow, constantly overlooked because of her. The difference is that Je-na never grows bitter, never resents her sister for receiving all the attention, or her father for ignoring her.

Je-na clearly wants to repair her relationship with Jae-yi, and when Jae-yi comes to visit her at the hospital, she allows herself to hope. Maybe this is her chance. In spite of all the pain Jae-yi has caused her, she still takes the risk of reaching out.

Jae-yi meanwhile is torn between her father and her sister again, between opening her heart and guarding it. She clearly does care, or she wouldn’t have come in the first place. But she doesn’t dare show her true feelings. That would be a sign of weakness, something Je-na might be able to exploit. Instead Jae-yi sulks, and when Je-na comes on a little too strong, she runs away, taking Je-yun with her.

Jae-yi is a lot like Seul-gi here, prickly and suspicious of affection. Which is probably why, when Seul-gi gives her the same standoffish treatment, it reopens all of these old wounds. Seul-gi reminds her a little bit of herself, and also reminds her of all the ways she’s hurt her sister over the years. Part of what draws her to Seul-gi in the early episodes might be the simple fact that Seul-gi makes her feel things again, when she’s been numb for so long.

It’s also easy to see why Jae-yi is so attached to Je-yun. Je-yun is safe and uncomplicated to love. She can project all her affection for her sister onto the dog and not have to worry about her guilt or her regrets or the ugliness of human relationships.

Jae-yi’s rejection of Je-na in this scene is heartbreaking enough, but what comes next is worse. For a moment, Je-na’s prayer seems to be answered when Tae-joon comes to her and apologizes for his failures as a father. It...worked? Someone in her family is finally giving her the attention she’s wanted for so long?

But just as Seul-gi in her princess dress ends up abandoned on the beach, Je-na’s plea for attention backfires in a cruelly ironic twist. She’s been neglected by her father for so long, she’s forgotten what his “support” means. It doesn’t mean love—it means more pressure, more surveillance, more expectations and conditions.

Interestingly, in the same way that Tae-joon failed to notice Je-na’s self-sacrifice as a child, he seems oblivious here to what’s actually going on in her brain. I don’t think he suspects that her narcolepsy could be fake, and he doesn’t seem to realize what’s motivating her, either. Je-na couldn’t care less about her grades or class rank. What encourages her to try harder in school is his moment of apparent remorse—his acting like a caring father for once in his goddamn life.

But Tae-joon can’t fathom how anyone could be motivated by love. He only understands fear, power, and control. And his use of these tactics against Je-na, who lacks her sister’s emotional armor, nearly destroys her.

Je-na and Jae-yi have essentially opposite reactions to the pressure of their father’s gaze. Jae-yi buries her emotions deeper and deeper to become the ruthless studying machine he apparently wants. Je-na becomes more impulsive, more reckless, less rational. Eager to earn Tae-joon’s approval, she turns to good luck charms, then to drugs, and finally to cheating.

Which brings us to the most uncomfortable part of an already unpleasant tale: the relationship that develops between Je-na and her math teacher, Woo Do-hyeok. The first time I watched Friendly Rivalry, I wasn’t sure how we were meant to read this relationship, and that uncertainty made me anxious. It seemed possible that we were being encouraged to view Do-hyeok as the victim, and I didn’t enjoy that implication. Now that I’ve had more time to sit with it, though, I actually appreciate the nuanced way FR depicts sexual abuse.

Do-hyeok isn’t overtly sinister. He’s not obviously villain-coded the way Tae-joon is. His concern for Je-na seems genuine at first, and it probably is. Putting ourselves in her shoes, it’s easy to see how she would view him as a lifeline. He’s…fatherly. And he’s the only adult in her life who seems to notice or care about the stress she’s under.

Which makes the way he takes advantage of her insecurities and emotional distress extra upsetting. This girl needs help. She needs there to be just *one* decent adult in her life. Do-hyeok is so good at playing the part of that figure, he almost convinces us as viewers that he could be an okay guy. He might have even convinced himself that he has Je-na’s best interests at heart.

But his conversation with Je-na, when he catches her trying to steal exam answers at night, is full of subtle manipulation. Hiding behind his mask of fatherly concern, he uses veiled threats and flattery to poke and prod at her vulnerabilities until she is totally at his mercy. When she throws herself at him, he’s surprised, but he doesn’t stop her. He’s had plenty of opportunity to set boundaries before now. He not only let her cross them all, he’s been nudging her across himself.

It’s also emphasized again and again that Je-na is not in a position of power or control. She’s so terrified that at one point she is literally on her knees begging for her life. She’s not a puppet master, and this is no careful scheme—the video that will be used later on to blackmail Do-hyeok isn’t part of a set-up. It only exists because Je-na sets her phone down on a shelf to light the room, and because Do-hyeok happens to brush her smartwatch by accident.

Honestly...this scene is just so upsetting. There’s nothing nice or neat or easy about it. It’s a sad pathetic man betraying a desperate girl so hungry for validation she immediately places all her trust in the first person to say a kind word to her. It’s the one authority figure in Je-na’s life who might be able to help her, who might even want to help her, choosing to exploit her instead. It’s fucked up, but I’m glad Friendly Rivalry resists the urge to give us a simplified or sanitized version. So much abuse in the real world is messy this way.

I still have questions about this prologue: Why does Do-hyeok show up at the school at night, anyway? Why was he keeping an extra Hankuk University keychain in his drawer? Why is Je-na’s pencil purple? Feel free to drop any questions you might have in the comments. I love trying to solve these mysteries together.

But the next entry will definitely loop back around to this prologue, since Episode 9 is full of references to Je-na’s backstory. So I will save other thoughts and ramblings till then. Sorry for the long wait this time, hopefully the next post will come sooner!

#friendly rivalry #friendly rivalry meta #girls love #gl drama #gl series #deep dive #kdrama #korean drama #korean gl #jaeyi x seulgi

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chaehwa-archives · 1 month ago

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friendly rivalry deep dive part 18

Episode 8 is the climax of the first half of Friendly Rivalry, and it feels different from every episode that’s come before. The main characters have been established, and for the first time they’re all gathered in the same place. All the pieces are on the game board.

Our main girls, Jae-yi and Seul-gi, have gone through a whole arc together. After enduring betrayal and heartbreak, they’ve reached a tentative reconciliation. For a few magical hours, Seul-gi sets aside her doubts and reservations, and enjoys the romantic night of her dreams.

At least until she loses her dad’s phone and gets stabbed by a drug addict. Life at Chaehwa sure is a rollercoaster.

I’ve been struggling with how to approach this one. Episode 8 is one of the most iconic in the whole series, and it’s truly a masterpiece of efficiency. How can one episode have more fluff than all the previous episodes combined, and also have the most labyrinthine plot so far? How do they pack so much into thirty minutes? Did the writers sell their souls to Gay Satan?

Well, first, let’s talk about that. I briefly mentioned the queerbaiting debate in my discussion of the Episode 4 dream kiss, and now that we’ve arrived at one of the gayest episodes, I fear it’s time to put on the hazmat suit and wade into the discourse once again.

I’m sympathetic to viewers who go into Friendly Rivalry expecting a GL romance and end up feeling betrayed. It’s true that FR doesn't check every single box if that’s what you’re looking for. There’s no direct verbal confession, no kiss outside of Seul-gi's dream. If you need someone to say “I love you” to consider a relationship canon, you’re going to be disappointed.

But...media literacy y’all. It matters. Friendly Rivalry is a story about hidden motives and buried desires. The characters are emotionally damaged and repressed teenagers. And from the beginning, FR has used symbolism and subtext to express emotional states. This show is begging you to look past the surface and engage on a deeper level.

And yet...when it comes to Jae-yi and Seul-gi’s feelings for each other, Friendly Rivalry does not ask you to work so hard. It’s pretty damn direct! *Crucial plot information* is often conveyed with ten times more subtlety. The only way this episode could be any more romantically coded is, again, if there were a kiss or confession, but that wouldn’t make sense for Jae-yi or Seul-gi at this point.

It’s worth asking: If FR revolved around a het pairing, would there really be any doubt that these characters are in love?

I can still see how someone might view this as bait, though, if the story were about something else. If after this episode Jae-yi and Seul-gi’s relationship were sidelined and never mattered again, I would be upset. And that does threaten to happen for a while, so I can understand some frustration if you’re only here for the gay shit.

But the ending clarifies what FR is about—and the ending also isn’t very subtle about it imo. Friendly Rivalry is about Jae-yi and Seul-gi and their love for each other. Without that, there’s no story.

And that’s ignoring cultural context, because I’m not an expert on the K-drama industry, so I don’t know what restrictions the creators were working within. Personally, whether it’s due to cultural pressures or artistic choice, I kind of like that Jae-yi and Seul-gi don’t just say “I love you.” That would be waaay too basic for these freaks.

Final word on the subject: I know why people want “confirmation” and why they can get turned off by ambiguity in queer stories. They want to know that the creators are actually on their side and not just toying with them for money. But Friendly Rivalry does not scream “cynical cash grab” to me. The director spent years working on the script, it was filmed on a small budget without sponsorships, and at first it only aired on a minor streaming platform. I mean Hye-ri bought her own costumes with her own damn money! No one involved in this project thought it might end up on Netflix one day. Queerbaiting makes art worse because it’s lazy and safe. “Safe” isn’t a word I would ever use to describe Friendly Rivalry.

We don’t expect every straight romance to be a romcom. I don’t want to live in a world where every queer story has to conform to the same standard to be considered “real.” True love is weird. It’s personal. It can be complex and even ambiguous. It’s not always “I love you.” Sometimes it’s “I’ve been imagining your death a lot lately.”

Sorry for the rant. Let’s pick up where we left off.

After her rendezvous with Jae-yi on the rooftop, Seul-gi is sedated for an endoscopy and has a dream. This is the first dream sequence since the kiss in Episode 4. That dream established how Seul-gi was feeling about Jae-yi about the time: ...horny. She was just beginning to process her attraction, fantasizing about Jae-yi coming onto her in a context that was both safe and thrilling.

The tone of this dream is different. On the beach where she was abandoned, Seul-gi’s father is searching for her, passing out flyers. Seul-gi calls to him again and again, but he doesn’t hear her. No one does. The tide rises, and water soaks her feet. Even so, she’s unable to move.

Then Jae-yi appears and offers her hand. Together they walk away from the beach, through the woods, as the princess dress is carried off by the waves.

Not only is this Seul-gi’s first dream since Episode 4, that was also the last time we saw her as a child. In that episode, Seul-gi told the story of her abandonment, and Jae-yi pretended to sympathize. But her false sympathy couldn’t bring true healing.

Conversely, in Episode 2, we saw how Jae-yi’s outstretched hand was able to transcend time, space, and her own scheming. Without realizing it, her gesture extended all the way to that girl abandoned by her bullies on the roof and offered hope: You aren’t alone up here. I see you.

The second time Jae-yi offers her hand on a roof, in Episode 7, it has even greater weight. This time, her sympathy is real, and she doesn’t just feel bad, she does something about it. She gets down off the wall, lifts Seul-gi up, and confesses her feelings and intentions.

When she reaches out the second time, Jae-yi removes her armor first. This gesture says more than I can see you. It says I’m willing to sacrifice for you. I’m willing *to be seen.* And this gesture reaches all the way to the root of Seul-gi’s trauma, to the girl still crying for her father on the beach.

Letting go of trauma is never easy. It becomes a part of you. The princess dress has defined Seul-gi’s life since her abandonment. She’s always been the outcast, the unloved girl people ignore or despise. Without that wound, who is she? If she leaves the beach, where will she go?

The shirt Seul-gi wears in her dream is simple and white. She’s a blank slate. She glances back wistfully at the part of herself she’s leaving behind. But with Jae-yi there, holding her hand, the woods aren’t so scary. Wherever Jae-yi is going, she wants to go, too.

If the first dream was there to confirm Seul-gi’s physical attraction, this dream confirms that Seul-gi is horny for true love. Even in her most private and sensitive memories, Jae-yi is there—and Seul-gi would rather leave everything she knows behind than be separated from her.

Compared to the first half, the second half of Friendly Rivalry is a lot more plot-driven, and that trend starts with Episode 8. This episode has *so* much going on in it. I don’t want these posts to turn into long tedious summaries, so I might have to get more creative in how I approach writing them.

But here’s the speedrun: Jae-yi wakes up after the endoscopy and spies Ye-ri sneaking away to the lockers with Seul-gi’s locker key. Later that night, while everyone is gathered at the school for the big post-midterms festival, Jae-yi figures out with A-ra’s assistance that Ye-ri, working for Tae-joon, has stolen Woo Do-hyeok’s phone. Jae-yi locates the phone while it’s charging and unlocks it using the date of Seul-gi’s disappearance as the passcode. She finds threatening texts from her father, and a very upsetting video of her sister, Je-na, in a sexual situation with Seul-gi’s dad.

Then she bumps into Je-na herself in the flesh.

Meanwhile Beom-su is having the worst night ever. Being knocked out of the top twenty has done a number on her mental health, and she gets more disoriented after chugging a drug cocktail that A-ra sells her off the books. Ye-ri entices Beom-su into helping her find a charger for Do-hyeok’s phone, promising her a turn in the blind date booth in exchange, but when Beom-su actually does what she asks, Ye-ri (who has lost the phone she wanted to charge thanks to Jae-yi) lashes out in frustration. Beom-su’s resentment builds as her grip on reality weakens. Finally she takes out her rage on Seul-gi by stabbing her in the arm with a kitchen knife.

Gyeong is also here! First she’s trying to study like a big nerd, then she has a run-in with Tae-joon, who’s at the festival to work a food stall, then she goes on an awkward blind date with a drug dealer. The dealer, Byeong-jin, is here to uhhhh sell fentanyl to high schoolers? And harass Seul-gi I guess. (Bro get a life. You look 27 years old.) Gyeong tracks down Seul-gi to talk to her about Tae-joon, and maybe why an adult man passing out transdermal patches to teenagers is looking for her, but they both get sidetracked when Seul-gi realizes her dad’s phone is missing. Gyeong suspects that Jae-yi stole it.

Let’s pause to pay tribute once again to Oh Woo-ri’s phenomenal acting. Her awkward gestures, her facial expressions, the stiff way she walks...she truly embodies Gyeong down to the finest detail.

And of course Je-na is here, too, posing as a visiting student from Hoegyeong High School. This is the first time we’ve seen her outside of flashbacks and photographs. I’m not 100% sure I know what she’s doing at the school tbh—does she think the phone is here? It seems pretty clear now that she’s the one calling it. Or is there something else she might be after in the C-Med room?

I’m skipping lots of details, but those are the broad strokes.

Mostly I want to focus on Jae-yi and Seul-gi in this post, because they are my Roman Empire, but I also want to talk a little about Ye-ri. She’s always been a morally gray figure (okay, to be fair, everyone in this show except Tae-joon aka the devil incarnate is morally gray) but she has a sweet side—she would never be mean to Gyeong, not even for a bazillion won. In Episode 8 though we see her at her worst, being downright vicious to a girl who clearly needs help.

At first I thought it was a little out of character for her to be this cruel to Beom-su. Then I thought about the circumstances. It’s the school festival—everyone is here. Even if Ye-ri weren’t stressed about trying to extort a powerful and dangerous man for money, she would be on edge. Ye-ri depends on her image for security. In social situations, she’s in survival mode. If she were alone with Beom-su, in a different setting, her good heart might prevail, but here, where she could be seen by anyone? Maintaining her image is top priority. And Beom-su is poison to that image. To be caught hanging out with—or worse, being nice to—the paranoid druggie kid is social suicide.

Notice the way Ye-ri transforms around Gyeong. Gyeong is also an awkward loser—but because she has high social status in the class, Ye-ri doesn’t care at all! I mean, she’s also truly madly deeply in love with Gyeong, so she probably just thinks Gyeong’s dorkiness is cute. By the way, note the colors of the big heart behind Ye-ri on the blind dating booth...green, Gyeong’s color...and pink?? Shippers you have been vindicated.

Okay...it is time. My babies...oh my sweet babies.

On my old blog (rip) I started developing a Grand Unified Theory of Fluff—why sometimes I love it, and other times...I do not (*cough* theloyalpin *cough*). Episode 8 is my platonic ideal. It’s not just a textbook example—it is the Sistine Chapel, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Holy Grail of fluff. It is giving us exactly what we want, and it’s almost unbearably cute, but it is always serving the characters and story. Jae-yi and Seul-gi share about six minutes of screentime in this episode altogether, but those six minutes have more impact than the literal hours Pam and Dokrak spend feeding each other in Us. (Okay it’s probably not hours but…)

First of all, it’s just so cathartic. We’ve wanted this for Jae-yi and Seul-gi since the first episode, and you can tell they’ve wanted it for nearly as long. Finally they can relax around each other. Finally they can enjoy each other’s company. Finally they can act like the kids they were never allowed to be growing up.

If these scenes were just about the euphoria of having fun with your crush while recapturing your lost innocence together, that would be enough. I would eat that shit right up. But this wouldn’t be Friendly Rivalry without at least a dozen more layers of emotional complexity on top.

There’s a subtle tension in Jae-yi and Seul-gi’s interactions from the beginning. Look at Jae-yi’s face when she first finds Seul-gi at the festival. She’s not smiling. Her expression is somewhere between concern and determination. She’s worried but driven.

Jae-yi isn’t relaxed at all—she’s on high alert. She knows that Ye-ri is up to something, and that whatever she’s up to has something to do with Seul-gi. The concern in her eyes is for Seul-gi’s safety. But she’s determined to prove (to Seul-gi and to herself) that she wasn’t just messing with Seul-gi’s heart again when she promised to protect her. She wants her girl to have fun tonight. And she’s made it her mission to give this night to Seul-gi as a gift—even if it means keeping her ignorant.

For Seul-gi’s sake, Jae-yi plays another role. She pretends to be silly and carefree so that Seul-gi can be.

But somewhere along the way, the line between performance and reality starts to blur. Jae-yi gets swept up in her own act. She starts to have fun in spite of herself.

In the past we’ve seen how Jae-yi fools herself into thinking she’s in complete control, while in fact it’s Seul-gi pulling her along, making her do things she’d never do otherwise. Most recently we saw this pattern in the Episode 7 rooftop scene. Jae-yi thinks she’s “won” with her sneaky pee scheme—but it’s Seul-gi tugging on her heartstrings, and her love for Seul-gi, that pull her back from the brink of despair.

Now Jae-yi has cast herself in the role of Seul-gi’s protector. She thinks she’s taking control of the situation to ensure that Seul-gi has the time of her life. But little does she know it’s Seul-gi who’s making her forget all her fears, and allowing her, for maybe for the first time in her life, to feel free.

It is so sweet y’all. I’m sobbing rn.

These dynamics are maybe easiest to see in the scene at the food stand, when Tae-joon interrupts their date to mansplain about the health risks of I DONT FUCKING CARE YOU ASSHOLE GO AWAY, LET THEM ENJOY THEIR DATE GODDAMN IT, IF YOU TOUCH A HAIR ON SEUL-GI’S HEAD MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD—

Um. Sorry!

The moment Seul-gi mentions that she wants to eat, Jae-yi glances over at the stand where her father is working. She’s clearly worried and doesn’t want to go. But her woman is hungry. She has no choice. (Notice it’s Seul-gi taking the lead, and Jae-yi following.) Then, when Jae-yi is introducing Seul-gi to Gyeong’s mother, something really interesting happens. Jae-yi takes Seul-gi suddenly by the arm, grinning from ear to ear.

She knows Tae-joon is right there. She knows he’s watching her. He’s always watching her.

Is she deliberately provoking him? Is she telling him stay away, she’s mine? These are things Jae-yi has done before—neither would be out of character for her. But when she steals a glance back at her dad, her expression is strangely distant and reflective.

...I think she just forgot.

For a moment, she was too happy to worry about what her dad would think. She stopped calculating her every movement, and just...did what she wanted to do! Which was touch Seul-gi of couse. (When is that ever not what Jae-yi wants to do.)

It’s interesting that Jae-yi learned fear from her father, a man who is seemingly incapable of fear. Any assault on his power he responds to with a cocky little smirk (an expression we’ve seen Jae-yi wear many times now), as if no threat is worth taking seriously.

But this is a facade just like Jae-yi’s—one he’s spent his whole life perfecting. Behind that smug punchable mask, fear is probably the one emotion that he does feel.

And nothing—nothing in the entire world—makes Tae-joon more terrified than seeing his daughter happy and beyond his control.

This bitch can’t help himself. He has to reassert his dominance. He puts on his authoritative “health expert” persona and starts droning on about phosphates, trying to seize control the way he usually does, by pretending to care about his daughter’s wellbeing. He’s probably done this to Jae-yi a thousand times.

But Seul-gi does not give a fuck. She just ignores his ass! And when he keeps pushing, she pushes back. She says no, you can’t control this situation, or your daughter, or life itself—so fuck off. Your diet advice is not needed. And now that she strongly suspects him of being involved in her father’s death, she even taunts him about it.

Seul-gi, you are a treasure. Jae-yi, never let this girl go.

As Jae-yi opens up more and more, we’re watching her relationship with Seul-gi transform into something more and more reciprocal. Back in Episode 3, Seul-gi confessed to being envious of Jae-yi, who seemed to have everything in the world. But Jae-yi has as much reason or more to be envious of Seul-gi. Seul-gi grew up alone and forged her identity in isolation. She learned early not to care what other people think. Because of that, she has no pretensions. She isn’t trying to seem cool or earn anyone’s favor. Everything she does, she does for herself.

Jae-yi has never been able to live like that. She’s always been at the center of attention, performing for a crowd. And she’s had to define herself in opposition to the people around her—in opposition to her sister first, and then to anyone else who could be a threat. Jae-yi is all pretense. She’s been acting for so long, she’s forgotten how to just be.

In Seul-gi’s dream at the start of this episode, we saw Jae-yi give her the courage to start moving on from her past. Now their roles have reversed. Because Seul-gi is there, Jae-yi has the courage to ignore her father’s gaze, even when he’s standing right there in front of her. Seul-gi gives her the strength to act for herself, without worrying about what other people will think of her.

They are so perfect for each other. I know they’re still in high school but just let them get married already. Please.

I keep thinking to myself, “oh that’s just a cute lil fluff scene, I can’t have that much to say about it,” and then I end up having so much to say about it. Take the ball pit scene. At first, my reaction was simply no thoughts head empty just let them kisisskss already omg. But even this fluffiest of fluff scenes has hidden depths.

We’ve seen a few callbacks to Episode 4 already. The ball pit scene made me think not only of Seul-gi’s dream in Episode 4, but also of Jae-yi’s scuba diving trip story. Remember when Jae-yi tells Seul-gi she felt relaxed under the water, and Seul-gi says, “Like being in your mom’s belly before you were born?”

The ball pit is our symbolic body of water. You could replace it with a pool and this would just be the romantic gaze-into-each-other’s eyes pool scene from dozens of movies. But ball pits are also something we associate with childhood. Playing in a ball pit isn’t something you usually do as an adult, or as a teenager. If you’re self-conscious, it could even be a little embarrassing.

Jae-yi and Seul-gi were both forced to grow up too fast, and for both of them, the past represents comfort, a time before trauma altered their lives. If only Seul-gi could go back to when her parents were still alive, before she was abandoned...If only Jae-yi could go back to a time before she distanced herself from her sister, or even further, back to before she was cursed with consciousness.

The ball pit isn’t real water. It’s one of the most unreal-looking sets in FR—an ice-cream-colored soft pastel dream world. It’s the stage for a fantasy. Jae-yi and Seul-gi can’t really go back in time, but in this alternate reality, they can pretend for a little while.

In some ways this ball pit scene is like the bathtub fantasy come to life. Jae-yi is taking the lead, putting moves on Seul-gi, giving our poor girl a gay panic attack. (I love how you can just *see* her entire interior monologue in her eyes like oh shit oh god is this happening can this really be happening i think it’s happening oh fuck she’s so cute what the fuck i can’t breathe i think i’m dying help?) But the irl version is different from the dream. In her dream Seul-gi had Jae-yi play the role of the confident, dominant, mature one. That Jae-yi wasn’t vulnerable at all, because she wasn’t real.

When this Jae-yi takes the lead, she puts herself in the vulnerable position first. She jumps into the ball pit and beckons Seul-gi: Come on, let’s be stupid and act like little kids! Without Seul-gi’s influence, there’s no way Jae-yi could be this unselfconscious. It’s a two-way fantasy now, one they’re creating together. And for a moment the world fades away and it’s just the two of them. They can’t turn back the clock, but they can almost make time stand still.

Unfortunately they are in a very public place, in a very conservative country, and they are just now starting to feel comfortable enough around each other to start exploring these feelings. It’s not the right time or place for an actual kiss. But you know they both want it.

This scene is also important for GL scholars investigating the most urgent questions of our day, like: When Jae-yi and Seul-gi meet up again post-Episode 16, who’s going to make the first move? (I think Jae-yi will be the first to go in for the kiss, but she’ll panic and start second-guessing if Seul-gi wants it or not, and Seul-gi will have to lean in the rest of the way.)

Okay I swear to god I am almost finished. (This post got sooo much longer than I intended it to be.) The scene after the ball pit is another of my favorites, mostly because SEUL-GI HOW TF ARE YOU SO CUUTE, YOUR SMILE WILL BE THE END OF ME. But no, once again, there’s actually a lot going on here! Look at the way they sit side by side on the bench, Seul-gi sprawled out like she’s hammered out of her mind, missing one sock, while Jae-yi sits prim and proper. Jae-yi takes off her cat ears, too, because the cat ears were her costume, something she wore to help get into the spirit of the role.

She’s thinking, Mission accomplished, my work here is done. Seul-gi had fun! She did it!!

Jae-yi offers to buy Seul-gi new socks, because of course she does. She is slipping out of one role and back into a more familiar one, the Jae-yi who showers the object of her affection with gifts. (Seul-gi is still wearing that scarf btw. She’d probably have ended up wearing it for like a month straight if not for the whole getting stabbed thing.) But before she can go, Seul-gi reaches out and grabs her wrist...

And Jae-yi stops.

The last time this happened, in Episode 6, Jae-yi slipped out of Seul-gi’s grasp, wearing one of those Tae-joon-certified smirks. This time she doesn’t even try to wriggle away. She’s letting someone touch her—and look at her face. She’s stunned.

Is she stunned just because Seul-gi touched her?

Or is it because......she likes it?!

A realization has been dawning slowly on Jae-yi all night long. I don’t know if she’s quite figured it out yet, but that’ll come soon.

As for Seul-gi, she’s just had the greatest night of her entire life, and she wants to return the favor. But she has nothing to give—nothing that Jae-yi doesn’t already have—except honesty. If Jae-yi is finally being sincere, Seul-gi wants to pay her back with sincerity.

So she admits how she feels. She doesn’t trust Jae-yi—the damage can’t be undone in a single day—but despite that, Jae-yi is special to her. She wasn’t upset about tying for first place. She was also over the moon.

This...this isn’t a story about rivalry at all! And those gazes sure don’t seem very friendly!!

One last thing, about the gazes. Throughout the evening, we’ve seen Jae-yi sneak little glances at Seul-gi whenever Seul-gi isn’t looking. She’s monitoring her mission progress, making sure Operation Best Date Night Ever goes off without a hitch. At least, that’s probably what she tells herself she’s doing.

Then comes the fireworks scene, the last moment Jae-yi and Seul-gi share in this episode before being separated. The world is cruel. In a very short time, Jae-yi is going to discover a terrible secret about her sister, and Seul-gi is going to get shanked.

Jae-yi looks over at Seul-gi as she’s watching fireworks for the first time in her life. And something clicks. Not just “this girl is the most beautiful precious loveliest thing I have ever laid eyes on” although yes probably that too. But ever since midterms, when she first saw the test results, Jae-yi has been working toward a discovery.

Seul-gi makes her happy.

Not buzzed or electrified. This feeling is different from the chemical rush of competition. It has nothing to do with winning. Seul-gi could beat her, and she still wouldn’t care.

Jae-yi doesn’t need the game, doesn’t need victory, doesn’t need to be the best. These things might have made her forget her despair for a little while, but they only made her hate herself more in the end.

*This* is all she needs.

Through Seul-gi, Jae-yi is starting to realize that there is more to life than her father’s curse. There is more to life than his kill-or-be-killed nightmare. It’s possible to find joy in little things. It’s possible to find joy in someone else’s success. It’s possible to find joy in someone else’s joy.

Jae-yi has never been enchanted by anything more than by Seul-gi’s enchantment. And being a witness to Seul-gi’s happiest night is the happiest she’s ever been.

Love didn’t free Jae-yi from fear. But by actively choosing love, and letting love guide her, she’s starting to see the possibility of another way. Maybe, if she follows these instincts, she can find the key to her liberation.

#friendly rivalry #girls love #gl drama #gl series #deep dive #friendly rivalry meta #jaeyi x seulgi #kdrama #korean drama #korean gl #friendly rivalry ep 8

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chaehwa-archives · 1 month ago

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i might be the only person in the world this is for but here’s jae-yi channeling her inner harry dubois.

#friendly rivalry #yoo jaeyi #friendly rivalry ep 14 #disco elysium #hyeri your facial expressions :((((#they are ruining me #those eyes are *haunted*#this girl is not okay

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chaehwa-archives · 1 month ago

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friendly rivalry deep dive part 1

**Reblogging to let folks know that if you are interested in reading these deep dives, you should follow this new blog, as I won’t be updating the old one. You can find links to all my deep dive posts here.**

Korean GL Friendly Rivalry is my latest hyperfixation, if you can’t tell. It’s my favorite kind of love story—a little bit twisted, but sweet and sincere deep down—and it’s a treasure trove of tropes that scratch a primordial itch in my brain. It’s also ~*dense*~ for a GL series, and practically begging for deeper analysis. There is so much going on plot-wise, character-wise, and otherwise that it’s almost impossible to catch everything the first time you watch it. Probably a little too much going on tbh but I’m not complaining! GL fans don’t often get media this juicy to sink our teeth into. So instead of feeding my obsession by watching every FMV I can find on Youtube (been there done that), I’ve decided to rewatch the series at a slower pace, picking it apart piece by piece.

Some criticism might sneak into these deep dive posts, but my goal isn’t just to write a longer more in-depth review. I already know that I love this show, and I already know it’s got problems. Instead this will be a space for thinking out loud as I try to understand the story and characters on a deeper level, because I Have Thoughts and I Must Scream. Idk how many installments there will end up being, or how much content I’ll cover per post, but I think, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll try to proceed in episode order without jumping around too much. Oh but do watch out for spoilers—I’m writing for others like me who have watched the whole series at least once.

So...where better to begin than with the first scene of Episode 1? This opening scene is doing a lot. On the surface, it’s establishing Seul-gi as our narrator. This is her story, in her own words. We aren’t getting an “objective” account.

It’s also establishing style. From the first few seconds we know not to expect straight realism. There is no logical reason a child on a school trip would happen to have dog treats in her, um, royal handbag. This is the heightened realm of dreams and memories. She has the dog treats to illustrate an emotional truth. This poor girl is so desperate to be noticed that her efforts to stand out only isolate her more from everyone. (The princess dress is such a believable detail, too—you either know a stubborn kid who insists on embarrassing themselves like this, or you were that weird kid.) I’m struggling to think of a more perfect way to express that overwhelming feeling of invisibility than a dog turning up its nose at the treats in your hand.

This scene introduces some symbols that will pop up throughout the series. There’s another important dog later, and lots of water, and the princess dress comes back. I’m not sure what any of these are doing yet, but they seem intentional, not random. There’s some fun with the visual language too. We’re shown a series of snapshots in which Baby Suel-gi is always in the background or a bit out of frame. But some mysterious hand has helpfully outlined her and drawn some cute little pictures on the photos. Is she not only narrating her story, but illustrating it for us?

The thing about this scene is, while I love it and think it’s brilliant, it also doesn’t really make any sense. How hard could it be to locate a lost child in a princess dress if the parents knew which beach the school was visiting? Couldn’t they contact the nearest police station, or whatever institution deals with such cases? Or just contact every orphanage in the area? Maybe something got lost in translation, or maybe it just needed a little extra lampshading. Either way, it’s a bold move to hang the whole plot on a moment of what feels like dream logic.

On a poetic level, though, it’s very satisfying. The cosmic irony of being separated from everyone you’ve ever known, just because you wanted a little attention, is so deliciously bleak—and on a character level, it tells us exactly what we need to know about Seul-gi. This is a girl who has been fucked up by The Gaze. (Not The Gays yet but we’re getting there.) She’s either been ignored and forgotten, or she’s stood out in ways that have sharpened her isolation. The only thing she hates more than being noticed is not being noticed at all.

This is literally just the first minute of the episode, but already this scene is gesturing at a larger character arc. How will Seul-gi react to attention from others from now on? Will she be able to overcome the trauma of abandonment? Will she ever find someone—say, a popular girl at school who skateboards, perhaps—who can see her for who she really is?

Oh no. I just wrote six paragraphs about the first minute of the first episode. I am so doomed.

#friendly rivalry #friendly rivalry meta #girls love #gl drama #gl series #korean gl #korean drama #kdrama #deep dive

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chaehwa-archives · 1 month ago

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friendly rivalry deep dive part 17

cw: suicide

Pictured above: Me, twirling my gay little pink scarf in delight, as I prepare to type one million paragraphs about one of my favorite scenes in Friendly Rivalry.

This rooftop scene. This rooftop scene!!! The first time I watched FR, by this point, I was hooked. But this might be the scene that doomed me to never again be able to shut tf up about this show for as long as I live.

This isn’t the endpoint of Jae-yi’s character arc—we have a long way to go—but it’s the culmination of her growth so far. To do it full justice, I want to recap her arc up to this point. Bear with me bc this post is going to be a novella.

The Jae-yi we first encounter has sunk deep into a pit of depression and self-loathing. While she maintains an impeccable facade as the girl who has everything, the weight of her guilt and repression are crushing her. She’s done terrible things to maintain her place at the top, including alienating the only person in her family who ever cared about her. To cope, she does everything she can to distance herself from her emotions. And she begins to fantasize about escape.

But as much as Jae-yi tries to convince herself she has no heart, in reality she is always driven by emotion, even at her coldest and most calculating. In this recap I’ll focus on two emotions in particular: love and fear.

We can see both in the scene after she hurts her sister in Episode 3. She’s heartbroken because she loves Je-na, and doesn’t want to hurt someone she loves. But her father steers her away from compassion toward a different emotion: What if Je-na doesn’t love her back? What if Je-na would even kill her?

Love comes naturally to Jae-yi. Fear has to be taught.

Over time, under her father’s influence, fear becomes the primary emotion driving her. Fear of her sister causes her to distance herself. Fear of her own emotions tells her to lock away her heart where no one can touch it. Fear of the unknown, of the future, compels her to seize control any way she can.

Soon she can imagine only one escape from fear: sinking to the bottom of the Hangang River, where she can’t hurt or be hurt by anyone else.

Even in contemplating suicide, though, Jae-yi is a control freak. If she’s going to die, she’s going to do it her way, which means taking care of unfinished business first.

In the early episodes, Jae-yi is focused on achieving her goals by any means necessary. She wants to make amends with her sister, if she can. To do that, she needs to find out what happened to her. And she wants to take revenge against her father, the man who turned her life into a waking nightmare.

One person is key to achieving both ends: Woo Seul-gi. Seul-gi is the daughter of Woo Do-hyeok (who she suspects her father of killing) and Do-hyeok is connected to Je-na’s disappearance. Through Seul-gi, Jae-yi can work toward finding her sister and exposing her father at the same time.

To get to Seul-gi, Jae-yi tries every tactic of manipulation in her playbook. But her early efforts are fear-driven—you can tell by their urgency. From day one, she’s pulling out all the stops, cooking up some truly outlandish schemes to bring Seul-gi under her control. If she fails, she has nothing left. This plan is the last bulwark between Jae-yi and the void.

But Seul-gi is more stubborn than anyone she’s met before. Bribery is a failure. Seul-gi sees through her fake “kindness” and rejects it. At first, none of Jae-yi’s elaborate plans work. She only starts to make headway by chance...when she listens to a different impulse.

Consider the first Jae-yi x Seul-gi rooftop scene back in Episode 2. What works isn’t Jae-yi’s original plan (presumably to bribe Seul-gi with cram school materials), or even her improvised plan to call Seul-gi while she’s waiting on the roof. It’s her impulsive and not entirely logical choice to go up to the roof directly (aren’t they more likely to get caught this way?) that finally convinces Seul-gi to take her hand.

What emotion tells her to go?

In Episode 3, it’s not the new uniform that earns Seul-gi’s trust, but the spontaneous moment in the closet when Jae-yi protects Seul-gi by covering her ears. What emotion tells her to do that? What feeling tells her to keep reaching for Seul-gi, to keep looking at her, touching her? Is all of that necessary for her plan to work?

Throughout these early episodes we can see a pattern developing: Jae-yi’s plans, at least when it comes to Seul-gi, rarely succeed. It’s the moments when she deviates from those plans, like when she tells the story of her scuba diving trip, that bring her and Seul-gi closer together. It’s when she isn’t in control—those moments of surrender when she allows this strange other emotion to take over.

Yeeep it’s love babey.

The more she opens her heart, though, the more she begins to doubt herself. Her plan is working, but at the same time her feelings, stifled by fear until now, are waking up—and they start telling her, “Hey, this is kind of fucked up?” What if hurting Seul-gi isn’t worth whatever she can gain from her?

Jae-yi has a crisis of faith. She’s tired of mind games. She’s almost ready to admit to herself that she might want something different with this girl: a relationship based on more than domination and control. But just when she’s ready to forsake the game, Seul-gi distances herself. And oof. It hurts.

To her surprise, Jae-yi realizes that she cares what Seul-gi thinks of her. She doesn’t want Seul-gi’s trust because it’s part of her plan—she wants Seul-gi’s trust for real.

But she still hasn’t figured out how she gained that trust in the first place. It was never her big-brain 4D chess moves that won Seul-gi’s heart. And now she’s afraid again—afraid that Seul-gi doesn’t feel the same way, that she’ll never win her back, that she isn’t worthy of love anyway. And fear brings on a relapse. It brings her right back to all her old manipulative ways.

In Episode 7 we find Jae-yi torn between these emotions. She loves Seul-gi, but love hasn’t liberated her from fear. It’s made her more afraid. Now she has something—someone—to lose.

“Fear” might seem like a strange way to approach this scene. Jae-yi doesn’t seem very fearful. Ever since Episode 6, when she hatches her plot to lure Seul-gi back into her orbit, she’s been ecstatic. Just look at her wicked little smile as she watches Seul-gi make her way to the rooftop. Once again, everything is going her way—all according to plan.

But what kind of person needs a plan like this? What kind of person tricks their crush into thinking they’re on drugs just to pretend to rescue them from being incriminated by a urinalysis?? I mean damn Jae-yi how hard is it to send a “heyy ur kinda cute? haha jk but do u like girls” dm?

Only a scared and insecure person would ever think of a plan this unhinged. And Jae-yi has good reason to be afraid. Seul-gi doesn’t even know the half of what she’s done. How could Seul-gi ever trust her, let alone return her feelings, if she knew the truth?

Bad habits become habits in the first place because they feel good. Seul-gi takes the pills because they make her feel secure, and Jae-yi plays these games for the same reason. If she weren’t terrified, she wouldn’t bother.

But something interesting happens offscreen before Seul-gi goes through the door to meet her conqueror. The Jae-yi she encounters on the roof isn’t smirking with satisfaction, savoring her victory. She isn’t tripping off the first hit of dopamine she’s had in months, like in Ep 6 when she meets Seul-gi in the skate park. She isn’t playing any of the roles we’ve seen her play so far: the bad girl, the noble savior, the sympathetic friend.

She’s standing on the edge of the roof, on a high ledge, looking down.

We know that, for Jae-yi, anticipation is a form of control. She likes to imagine things before they happen, to brace herself for the blow. It’s not just painful things she likes to anticipate, either. All this time she’s been eagerly awaiting her rendezvous with Seul-gi, wearing that devious little grin. She’s looking forward to it.

So she’s up here on the roof kicking her feet, waiting for the moment when she gets to see Seul-gi face-to-face and talk to her again. And then, before she knows it, her mind wanders to what comes next. So Seul-gi needs her. So what? Is that going to make Seul-gi want to sit next to her on the bus? It’s not even Jae-yi that Seul-gi needs, is it? All she needs (or thinks she needs) is some piss in a cup.

And then she imagines…not seeing that face anymore. Never talking to Seul-gi again.

Victory is hollow for Jae-yi. As soon as she wins, the fun is over, and she’s back to wondering, What the hell did I do all that for? What does any of this matter, if it’s all going to disappear?

That’s where Seul-gi finds Jae-yi. The high has worn off, and she’s staring at the future, trying not to be afraid.

Wow Jae-yi is such a complex character! It’s a good thing Seul-gi is so much more straightforward and easier to read......oh lol nvm.

Seul-gi is just as fascinating as Jae-yi in this scene. If anything she might be harder to read than Jae-yi is. On my first watch, I thought she was basically sincere. She’s beaten, right? She’s found herself in yet another situation where relying on Jae-yi is her only way out—or so she thinks.

But wait. Didn’t she just prove herself Jae-yi’s equal in the midterm test? Why would she choose to debase herself now by begging at Jae-yi’s feet?

When she sees Jae-yi standing on that ledge, her first instinct is not to bow and scrape—she’s furious. She rushes at Jae-yi and lunges straight for the ankle. She’s ready to throw hands—maybe even to push her off the roof!

Then she swallows her anger...and, reluctantly, kneels.

There have been plenty of shots emphasizing the power imbalance between Jae-yi and Seul-gi, but the image of Seul-gi kneeling while Jae-yi stands on the wall above her is the most dramatic by far. Jae-yi towers over Seul-gi, who prostrates herself like a subject before royalty. But it’s also a dramatic image in the theatrical sense—it’s exaggerated, the same way Jae-yi exaggerates her emotions when she’s acting. It’s a subtle hint that Jae-yi’s dominance, and Seul-gi’s submission, are a little less real, less absolute, than they might seem.

Even more than the imbalance, this shot emphasizes the distance between them. They are not on the same page. Seul-gi thinks she knows what Jae-yi wants, but she’s wrong. Jae-yi thinks Seul-gi is sincere…but is she?

We’ve seen Seul-gi put on an act to fool Jae-yi once before. On my second watch I started to wonder if Seul-gi might be putting on a show here too. I mean, she literally says, “I forgot my place.” Girl what?? Seul-gi would never devalue herself like that! She’s many things, but she is NOT ashamed of who she is.

Everything else about this situation is fake: Seul-gi isn’t really on drugs, and she doesn’t really need a urine sample. Jae-yi isn’t really after the settlement, or after Seul-gi’s submission, either. Jae-yi is perched high above Seul-gi, but in reality, she’s at the bottom of a well of despair.

The more I think about it, Seul-gi’s speech only makes sense to me as a performance. She’s trying to make herself seem as pitiful and downtrodden as possible. She still suspects that Jae-yi’s primary motive is the settlement, but she also suspects that Jae-yi likes to feel powerful. And there’s a risk that, by tying with Jae-yi for first place, she’s made an enemy of the most powerful girl in school.

Another hint that Seul-gi is being sneaky is her line about Hankuk University. She claims it’s her goal to get into medical school there, but since when? The only time we’ve seen her talk about Hankuk is when she’s trying to figure out the keychain mystery.

I think Seul-gi is testing her leverage. If she has to swallow her pride and play the part of the lowly bullied orphan girl, how much can she gain from it? Could sucking up to Jae-yi help her get into the top university in the country?

If we understand that Seul-gi is manipulating Jae-yi, then this isn’t just a retread of the rooftop scene from Episode 2, despite the clear parallels. It’s a reversal. There, Jae-yi used her power to gain Seul-gi’s trust, and Seul-gi took the bait of her outstretched hand, unaware of her ulterior motives. Here Seul-gi is the one with ulterior motive, and Jae-yi is the one who takes the bait.

Their influence on each other is reciprocal. Jae-yi softens when she’s with Seul-gi—she’s less hypervigilant, less suspicious. Seul-gi draws out her latent empathy. And Jae-yi’s scheming side is rubbing off on Seul-gi, too. She’s getting craftier by the day.

So when Seul-gi tugs on Jae-yi’s heartstrings, it works. Jae-yi melts. The part of her that cried for her sister all those years ago stirs again. Just watch Jae-yi’s reaction when Seul-gi says, “I forgot my place.” Jae-yi gulps—and her expression!! The *saddest* guiltiest puppy dog eyes. This is the most openly remorseful Jae-yi has ever been. She’s chastened: This is what the person I care about most thinks of me. This is how awful I seem to her. And she’s not wrong!

Ironically, as Seul-gi explains her theory about the lawsuit, and about how all of Jae-yi’s kindness was emotional manipulation to make her cave in, Seul-gi isn’t the one caving. (Is she really planning to ask her stepmom to sign the settlement papers? I doubt it.) Jae-yi is the one who caves in to Seul-gi’s emotional manipulation. In another genius chess move, Seul-gi snatches victory from defeat.

At least, that’s how the game seems to be going...but Seul-gi’s play has unforeseen consequences. And the game gets weird.

When Seul-gi says she’ll get Jae-yi whatever she wants, Jae-yi responds, “What is it that I want?” It’s rhetorical. She isn’t really asking Seul-gi. But she doesn’t answer her own question, either.

Instead she asks: “What do you want, Seul-gi?”

It’s safe to say that this is not what Seul-gi expected. A simple, direct question from Jae-yi? About her? What kind of mindfuckery is this?

Seul-gi doesn’t know the rules of the game anymore. She doesn’t realize that, for the very first time since they met, Jae-yi’s stopped playing.

Jae-yi has only one model of what a loving relationship looks like, the way Je-na cared for her when they were children. Otherwise she has only her empathy to guide her. It’s empathy that finally prompts her to ask what she should have asked ages ago. Until now she’s been too wrapped up in her own selfish fears to give Seul-gi’s feelings the consideration they deserve—too afraid to face the reality that she’s hurt someone she cares about yet again.

But now she’s standing between two poles: on one side, there is fear and nothingness, and on the other side, there’s Seul-gi.

Jae-yi never says out loud what she wants, but her actions speak louder than words. She turns her back on the void—no more of that. (Sorry, void, you’re just not as cute.) And as she looks down on Seul-gi from high above, Jae-yi realizes something else: She doesn't want this, either.

She hates this distance between them. Hates the way Seul-gi, who stood up to her so proudly, who took her on and beat her at her own game, is reduced to groveling at her feet. Jae-yi knows that Seul-gi doesn’t really need her. She knows that Seul-gi scored the same as her without drugs. This whole farce of dominance and submission is something she’s engineered. There’s nothing *real* about the roles she’s forcing them to play.

Jae-yi stands alone at the top of the world, at the pinnacle of her father’s empire, and realizes there’s nothing up here. The only thing in the world that she wants, the only thing that’s real, is down there.

And she’s hurting her poor knees because of me!

Jae-yi makes a choice. She closes the gap. She climbs down from her elevated position, and she lifts Seul-gi up to her level.

Her supposed “superiority” is bullshit, an illusion, and she knows it.

For once Jae-yi isn’t at all subtle or indirect—she isn’t satisfied with hints or gestures. She states exactly what’s on her mind. From now on Seul-gi’s safety is her top priority. And, by the way, if Seul-gi has any ideas about those pills helping her do better on the exam, she’s wrong. Her name belongs up there. Jae-yi is even honest about her own feelings for once: She wasn’t upset to see Seul-gi’s name next to hers. She was thrilled.

Think about that. This girl has been conditioned all her life to view others as competitors whose success is a threat to her own. But when Seul-gi succeeds, she’s happy.

This happiness is a refutation of her father’s fear-based zero-sum worldview. It’s pure love—and for Jae-yi it’s radical love.

Although this is by far the most straightforward that Jae-yi has ever been, it’s still Jae-yi, so there’s still subtext. Every word and gesture here is an apology. She is finally facing the harm her manipulation has caused, and trying her best to undo it, letting empathy, not fear, guide her. Wiping Seul-gi’s knees is her way of saying: You shouldn’t have to do that. I shouldn’t have *made* you do that. And I will do everything in my power to make sure you are never put in a position beneath me again.

This is a side of Jae-yi that Seul-gi has only seen in brief glimpses. And she wants to believe it—because let’s not forget that Jae-yi isn’t the only one who’s madly in love here. In spite of everything, Seul-gi is still attracted—she wants to see the best in Jae-yi. And she wants this apparent sincerity to be real.

But she isn’t convinced yet. It’s going to take more evidence to repair the trust damaged by Jae-yi’s betrayal.

If Jae-yi is being real—if she genuinely wants to be someone Seul-gi can rely on—then she should be able to keep her word.

Seul-gi confronts Jae-yi about the bargain they made in Episode 6. But really this is a test of integrity. Seul-gi did not score higher than Jae-yi on the midterm exam. If Jae-yi wanted to wriggle out of her end of the deal on a technicality, she could. But who would do that? Only someone who prioritizes games and rules over promises.

If Jae-yi tries to back out or move the goal posts now, she isn’t worth giving the time of day.

Cliffhangerrrrr........and it’s PAINDROP TIME.

(Such a banger.)

Okay I swear to god I’ll try to wrap this up quick—there isn’t that much left! Episode 8 starts with Jae-yi upholding her end of the bargain. She explains how she found Seul-gi’s information, and we know she’s telling the truth—we’ve seen her snooping in her dad’s office.

So she proves her loyalty, Seul-gi scores a ride-or-die baddie, they stab Tae-joon in the neck with a scalpel, make out in the operating theater, and...oh, that’s not what happens?

For all the forward progress this rooftop scene represents, it ends on a surprisingly ambiguous note. I mean, not that surprising, since we aren’t even halfway through the series yet.

After Jae-yi tells Seul-gi the truth, there’s a turn in the conversation. The end of Episode 7 showed Jae-yi finally ready to choose Seul-gi over the game, to choose love over fear. And her love was more than just a subconscious impulse for once—it was a decision to come down off the wall, to face her mistakes, to make amends.

But, in Episode 8, she seems to backslide. Advancing on Seul-gi, she says what almost sounds like a threat: “What you can do for me...I’ll contemplate that.” These words, and the way she says them, are uncomfortably similar to how Tae-joon threatens Ye-ri at the beginning of Episode 7.

What happened Jae-yi? You were doing so well!!

I think she realizes that she’s all out of bargaining chips. She doesn’t have anything that Seul-gi could possibly want from her anymore. She’s given up her piss and her intel—and, once again, fear rears its ugly head.

Jae-yi doesn’t have any ill intent towards Seul-gi—she meant what she said about keeping her safe. But she’s also panicking. Now that she has Seul-gi back, what if she loses her again? How can she keep Seul-gi from abandoning her?

In her insecurity, she clutches at anything she can think of that might keep Seul-gi around—and all she has to fall back on is the game she just tried so hard to quit.

And then of course comes our iconic scarf...and what a symbol it is. I am and will forever be in awe of this final touch on a masterpiece of a scene.

So far Jae-yi’s sincerest gestures of love have been spontaneous. The way she wipes Seul-gi’s knees when she helps her stand up—there’s no calculation in that, just care.

This scarf, on the other hand!! We have been watching her play with this damn scarf for ten minutes straight. The show draws attention to it. This might be the most obviously and ostentatiously planned thing Jae-yi has ever done. She’s been rehearsing this little routine in her mind all day—I wouldn’t be surprised if she practiced tying that knot in the mirror.

The scarf is Part of the Plan. And Jae-yi’s plans, in the past, have been...less than respectful of Seul-gi’s autonomy and personhood. Naturally, as viewers, we’re suspicious of it. Is this another insecure selfish gesture, a way of staking her claim, putting a collar on a pet?

But can love only be spontaneous? Can’t an expression of love and commitment be planned? When Jae-yi pledges to protect Seul-gi, she’s committing to love her as a conscious ongoing choice. That means planning ahead.

Depending on how you read the intent behind it, the action itself transforms. It can be sweet or sinister. It can be both!

And what if Jae-yi’s intent changed? What if her existential crisis on the rooftop makes her decide the scarf is just meant to keep Seul-gi warm, not to mark her property?

I haven’t made my mind up about it yet, and maybe I never will. But this moment perfectly captures all the tensions inside Jae-yi at this point in the story: She wants to protect Seul-gi, but she’s terrified of letting her go. She wants to choose love, but she’s still not free from fear.

The one thing she is ready to do is commit. From now until the bitter end, her heart will belong to no other. Her last bulwark against the void isn’t her plan anymore—it’s Seul-gi.

#friendly rivalry #friendly rivalry meta #girls love #gl drama #gl series #korean gl #korean drama #kdrama #jaeyi x seulgi #deep dive

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