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Diagnosis: misogynist. Treatment: extensive reconstructive surgery.

⚠️ SPOILERS AHEAD (for the real drama AND my imaginary one) ⚠️

--PRE-OP BRIEFING 🩺

writing is fun for me. this entire operating room exists because i have fun doing this. pls don't make it UNfun. thank you!

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SURGEON’S ADVISORY for rom-com writers:

if you HAVE to... and i mean HAVE TO. Like... i mean, someone is twisting your arm going "NO!!! the romantic male lead MUST be a misogynist!!!" 😭 at LEAST dismantle it correctly.

so i did it for you.

quick operating room policy before we begin with the surgery:

generally, only dramas with an admission assessment of 7/10 or lower are getting admitted 😭

8s, 9s are SAFE, and 10s will most likely never be on my operating table obviously... cause if i liked you that much, i'm not performing surgery just cause i'd change a scene or two, im not a maniac.

HOWEVER... special circumstances CAN exist 👀 an 8+ might still end up under my scalpel if there's something specific that bothered me SO much that i can't stop rewriting it in my head.

but generally?

7 and under: eligible for surgery.

8 and up: operating table by special circumstances only.

im not just cutting people open for fun, well, i am, but you know what i mean 😭

discharge goal: 9/10 or higher.

that’s when i’m calling the operation a COMPLETE success.

7 or 8? patient survived, but we’re probably leaving with some scars or permanent damage that surgery cant fix..

6 and under? …i did what i could 😭 us surgeons can perform miracles, but we're not gods at the end of the day.

Admission Assessment: 3/10: patient arrived in CRITICAL condition. emergency surgery, STAT!!!

(skip to the operation aka my rewrite section below if your attention span is as horrible as mine 😭)

INTRO:

welcome to my K-Drama Operating Room 🩺

after having written 32 reviews, i noticed… every time a drama lets me down, i dont just cum to reddit and complain... i start mentally performing surgery on it too 😭

in the shower. at work. in the Uber to pilates class. at 2am when i should be asleep.

moving scenes around. cutting things. transplanting entire plotlines. trying to figure out what exactly went wrong and whether the patient can be saved 😭

so i figured… might as well open an operating room, im a self taught surgeon after all...

--operating room rules:

i save what worked. i cut what didn’t. i reconstruct what had potential.

and i explain WHY i’m making every incision, so you can see my reasoning and fight me in the comments like a civilized medical board of directors… you know, a group famously known for reasonable and humane decision-making 😭

this is NOT fanfiction (i dont read or write them lol) where everyone gets a golden retriever and nobody suffers, cuz you know i need somebody to suffer 😭

which, i admit, sounds mildly concerning coming out of the mouth of your surgeon… but moving on.

i’m working with the patient that came in. same basic drama, same characters and premise, same episodes. i’m just operating on what went wrong.

and there was no better first patient to start with than Love to Hate You.

if you missed my original review, here's the short version:

3/10. one of the most bingeable bad dramas i've ever seen. i watched 8 episodes i think in one night and finished the last 2 the next day, and my final takeaway was:

"Date a misogynist long enough, and you'll fix him."

so today, i'm fixing him. not by dating him tho😭

gonna cut him open instead hehehe 🔪

--WHAT I'M SAVING

before i make my first incision, i wanna be clear: this drama had healthy tissue worth saving, i didn't binge it in a day by accident.

the female lead is capable, confident, funny, knows how to stand up for herself. she stays exactly who she is. if anything, i'm giving her MORE to do.

The fake dating arc was when i was having the most fun, so it stays... and it gets BIGGER and better. no unnecessary amputations in MY operating room 😭

The comedy. when this drama was funny, it was REALLY funny. i'm keeping that energy. i'm just not making misogyny itself the punchline.

The actress going through the divorce. the ONE storyline that made me think they could’ve done so much more with it. her career getting destroyed while her cheating husband walked away with barely a scratch? that double standard deserved way more than a side plot.

in my version, it's the heart of the drama.

ML's best friend. he stays. but i'm actually making him BE a best friend??!!!

which means occasionally telling your friend when he's being an asshole instead of enabling him for YEARS.

and this fixes something else too: maybe now i'll actually care abt his romance with the FL's roommate. cause in the original, watching this man enable his best friend's misogyny for years played a HUGE part in why i never rooted for whatever was going on between him and the roommate.

you can't spend years going "haha that's just how he is" about your misogynistic bestie and then expect me to swoon when YOU get a romance too...

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Her rejecting the proposal, her explanation abt the marriage culture she grew up around was so true to her character. for abt 5 seconds i thought the ending was going to be refreshing. that moment stays. what came after it does NOT. we’re excising that shit completely 🔪😭

--WHAT I'M CUTTING

The vomiting after the kiss scene??? unnecessary. why are we doing elementary school cooties with a GROWN MAN??? 😭
and it also turned him into a punchline instead of a person.

AMPUTATED. 🪚

The medication he needs to touch women. also AMPUTATED.

i'm not rooting for a romance where the man needs pills to touch women... thats absurd and cartoon-ish. and not even funny, so whats the point...

“I’ve never met someone like her.” / “she’s different.” i thought that was the title of the drama or something 😭
we’re NOT amputating the phrase itself, actually. we’re removing the part where the drama thinks this is romantic for some reason... cause if he wants to call her “different”? fine.
we’re turning that sh!t from a compliment into a symptom.

also removed is that “not all men” nonsense from the bar scene with FL and her roommate. the scene itself can stay. the dialogue needs reconstructive surgery. we’re cutting that line completely and fixing basically the entire conversation tbh. it was kinda painful to listen to. felt WAY too much like a bunch of men in the writers room going “okay so what do women talk about when we’re not there?” and then writing a scene with 2 women talking like that...

The roommate being painfully spineless. she stays, but we’re performing a spinal reconstruction**,** and giving this woman a BACKBONE and some standards 😭

she doesn't need to become the FL 2.0, but she DOES need boundaries, opinions, and the ability to actually stand up for herself.

"Being tamed is my next challenge."

it never existed. we will never speak of it again.

AMPUTATED.

--WHAT NEEDS SURGERY

these are the problems that this rewrite HAS to solve:

his contempt for women was never dismantled. the story just told us he changed cause he "fell in love" with ONE woman.

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"not like other girls." the drama kept telling us she's the exception... which agrees that every other woman is "the problem."

nobody around him ever challenged him. his best friend enabled him for years, and the story left the entire job of changing him to her.

the final scandal was that she'd dated multiple men. i couldn't take it seriously.

the romance. he never PROVED anything.

y'all know my drill: he falls first, he falls harder, and if he hurts her, he pays.

my specific rule for this operation:

i'm NOT removing his misogyny. that would be too easy lol (i mean i'd prefer a misogynist male wasnt in my rom com, but what are you gonna do, ykwim? ¯\(ツ)/¯ gotta roll with the punches, ya know...)

i'm making him actually confront it.

by the time this man gets anywhere NEAR his happy ending, he needs to understand that she was never the exception.

he was wrong and an asshole.

alright. scalpel pls. 🔪

--THE OPERATION

patient is prepped. let’s see what we can save 😭

EPISODES 1 & 2: THE SETUP

same meet. she's the lawyer, he's the top actor, they can't stand each other. comedy stays like i said but his distrust of women isn't played as cute anymore... cause like... misogyny is a serious thing lol, not a cute character quirk...

we SEE what it looks like more explicitly, and it’s portrayed more seriously and not like it was portrayed in the original where it seems like the actress was the bitch making things inconvenient FOR HIM:

so, show a proper montage of him being awful AND cold to every actress he works with. he's deliberately built his professional life around minimizing his interactions with women. and we SHOW how hellish it is for them to work with him. cause imagine being the actress who has to work with him, right? You'd hate coming to set every day and would dread doing your scenes with this dude.

show all that.

oh, and one more thing...

FL has a crush on someone else.

let's introduce this SML!

he's a prosecutor she's been going up against in court for years. their banter is flirty, he respects her, and she lights up every time his name comes up.

our male lead is already irritated by this and has no idea why yet 👀

EPISODES 3 & 4: THE FAKE DATING ARC (EXTENDED EDITION)

the fake relationship happens for the same reasons, but now it runs almost the entire first half, cause THAT'S where the fun was.

and this is where HE falls first.

she's treating it like a contract, rules and clauses and penalties, writing up terms on a napkin and billing him for her time like the true lawyer she is.

meanwhile ML is taking the fake relationship WAY more seriously than the person he's fake dating 😭

he insists every fake date requires a "rehearsal" and he's finding reasons to text her that have absolutely NOTHING to do with their agreement.

the prosecutor's name pops up on her phone during pf of their "date rehearsals" and he has 67 questions.

BUT i'm not letting his one sided crush immediately cure his misogyny either. actually, i think him falling for her should expose the problem even MORE.

cause now he's confused. he likes her and GASP! respects her. he genuinely enjoys being around her. and instead of that making him go "huh... maybe im an asshole with strange, harmful beliefs,"

his conclusion is: she's different.

there it is!!!! except THIS TIME, the drama knows that’s a problem; he still hasn't changed his opinion of women. he's just carved out one exception.

and THAT is what we're building toward.

EPISODE 5: HE HURTS HER

turning point, and the piece the original was missing entirely.

and its important for this to land: she needs to start having a tiny crush on him by this point too.

halfway through the fake relationship and JUST when she started liking him, she overhears him with his best friend, talking abt women the old way, like from the 1st episode. they're all after something. they all want money, (?? idk who doesn't want money, but ok buddy) status, attention, whatever he was saying lol.

and then he says she's "different, at least."

and she realizes "different" in this case is NOT a compliment!! like an intelligent woman should.

shes like HELL NO!!

she walks straight into that room. she's PISSED. and remember, she's a lawyer!! which i think the drama frequently forgets...? so let her do lawyer things. like let her start asking questions.

"different from who?"

"what exactly makes me different?"

"what exactly do you think about all these other women?"

"what happens if tomorrow i do something that makes me NOT "different" anymore?"

"do i suddenly become one of 'them' too?"

and THAT'S the cross-examination!

and i need this man to slowly realize, while trying and FAILING to answer her, that literally every possible answer makes him sound worse 😭

THAT'S my lawyer FL!!!

put his ass on the witness stand!!😭😭

then she pulls out that stupid little napkin contract and tears it in half.

FAKE RELATIONSHIP OVER!

real feelings unfortunately very much NOT over tho😭 (and of course thats what make it hurt for FL... cause eventually she comes back to him cause its a romcom and all that, but if she doesn't have feelings for him here already, there'd be no reason to come back, so thats why her having developed feelings for him at that point makes sense for this to work.)

And here's where i'm changing his best friend too.

Cause immediately, ML turns to him afterward expecting the usual reassurance. cause that's what he's gotten from this dude for YEARS. excuses. laughing it off. "that's just how he is."

not this time.

his best friend basically tells him: she's right.

and ML is almost MORE pissed cause excuse me???? weren't you on my side 5 minutes ago??? 😭

GOOD.

now BOTH of these men have sh!t to fix.

EPISODES 6 & 7: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU LOST HER. NOW WHAT?

this is where i'm making him SIT in it.

but b4 all that, he goes outside her house looking pathetic and expecting a sad face to do all the work. it doesnt.

he does some superficial acts so the FL can see hes "changing," and she shuts that shit down, including him finally getting her to have a conversation with him and he's still making his "possible change" abt HER.

he's basically saying: look!!! i'm trying!!! doesn't that mean you can forgive me now???

and she's like... you're still not getting it. and tells him never to speak to her again.

OOP.

because if he's only becoming a better person so she'll date him again, then we are RIGHT BACK where we started.

so she removes herself from the equation.

no more fake dating. no more hanging out.

and NOW we see whether any of this actually stuck.

he gets another actress as a co-star.

and we do NOT make her some perfect angel specifically designed to teach him a lesson. actually, let her annoy the sh!t out of him!!! 😭

THAT'S THE FIRST TEST.

because we don't want our drama to be saying that respecting women means discovering that every woman is secretly wonderful.

we need to show ML seeing that women can be annoying. rude. difficult. completely incompatible with you. AND STILL DESERVE THE SAME BASIC RESPECT HE'D GIVE A MAN.

revolutionary, i know 🫤

and eventually, he has to work with the actress from the beginning again too, and she remembers EXACTLY how he treated her, shhe doesnt care that he's "working on himself." she isn't required to forgive him.

he apologizes anyway for the way hes treated her.

no FL watching, or cameras, and no reward.

meanwhile, i have another man to fix 😭 ugh, thats what i signed up for as a surgeon ig...

cause remember ML's best friend???

yeah. you're not escaping either sir.

keep the roommate actually liking him, her crush was a bit shallow and came out of nowhere lol but what are you gonna do ¯\(ツ)/¯

BUT now that my spinal reconstruction was successful on her, she's bothered by the fact that the ML's bestie spent YEARS enabling the ML's shit.

and his defense is basically:

"well, i never agreed with him."

okay???

you never challenged him either.

you laughed. you made excuses. you helped smooth things over whenever his behavior caused problems.

and THIS becomes his tiny lil arc.

he has to realize that privately thinking "well I'M not misogynistic" while spending years enabling your misogynistic best friend isn't exactly the moral victory he thinks it is.

and the roommate doesn't fold just cause she likes him, now he has to actually show HER something too.

and NOW maybe i'll care when these two eventually get together.

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meanwhile FL is BUSY.

because unlike him, she has other things going on 😭

this is where i’m taking that divorced actress storyline i liked and making it an ACTUAL major part of the drama; her husband cheated, but somehow SHE’S the one getting destroyed for the divorce. she’s losing work. endorsements are getting nervous. the press is picking apart everything she does. she’s too old, too angry, too difficult, too bitter, blah blah fcking blah.

FL gets involved through the firm and helps her fight the professional/legal fallout.

but im also not turning this woman into a walking lesson whose only job is teaching everybody else something.

LET ME KNOW HER.

let her be angry, funny, make a bad decision. let her be petty about her ex-husband. let her have moments where she’s absolutely THRILLED to be divorced!!!!

and through all of this, she and FL actually become super good friends.

and the best part is the ML is not involved in any of this.

she’s living her life, and he’s fixing his shit.

separately.

and somewhere in here, he starts realizing something else:

the woman he called “different” is not actually some magical exception to womankind.

she is just… a woman.

HE was the one with the problem.

THERE WE GO. NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE.

EPISODE 8: OH YOU THOUGHT SHE’D WAIT??? 😭

the prosecutor finally asks her out for real. and she says yes.

OBVIOUSLY.

and our ML finds out.

oh this is delicious 😭 cause there is absolutely NOTHING he can do abt it, so our male lead has to SIT with that 😭

here's the jealousy i live for. he sends spies, maybe his useless best friend to report lol, and he sees pictures. hes fumin'😭 but like i said, he cant do sh!t lmaooo

he has to sit somewhere knowing she’s currently having dinner with a man who respected her BEFORE he wanted to sleep with/date her.

And prosecutor is actually a VIABLE option; he’s in her line of work, funny, attractive obvi, he respects her, has chemistry with her.

i want ML SWEATING! beside himself!!

and more importantly, FL genuinely considers it. cause i’m not giving her a second male lead just to use him as JUST a jealousy prop.

she liked this man BEFORE all of this too which adds to the juice! now she’s actually asking herself whether maybe the healthier choice is the person who didn’t need a 6-episode character rehabilitation program before becoming dateable 😭

meanwhile ML does NOT confess yet. nope. SUFFER SOME MORE.

(says the surgeon😭)

EPISODE 9: HIS PAST COMES TO COLLECT

NOW we do the scandal.

but absolutely nobody gives a f4ck how many men FL has dated because i REFUSE... that was ridiculous 😭

instead, somebody starts digging into HIM. years of stories from actresses who hated working with him.

old interviews, dismissive comments, people who worked on sets with him finally talking, and the important part:

IT’S TRUE.

im not doing that thing where suddenly everything is taken out of context or is exagerated and poor ML is secretly the victim. NOPE.

congratulations sir. these are YOUR chickens. theyve returned home 🐓

his agency immediately wants to do damage control. deny. minimize. explain. blame his ex. say he was misunderstood. he refuses.

and THIS is his actual SECOND test.

because now changing costs him something!! he publicly admits that he treated women badly.

no tragic backstory or “but i was hurt.” cause in hte original, the flimsy excuse was ridicuclous and not well done. nothing excuses misogyny but this excuse was ESPECIALLY done horribly 😭

And no “that’s not who i really am” either. it WAS who you were.

own it.

and he does! meanwhile FL is watching all of this like 👀

but i’m STILL not letting one public apology win her back, tho.

then the actress from earlier tells her or they see each other somehwere, and she casually mentions that he came to apologize to her weeks ago. before the scandal, before anybody was watching, before there was anything in it for him.

okay, so THAT’S what gets FL.

not the press conference or public humiliation. but the fact that he was already trying to change when he thought he was getting absolutely nothing for it.

NOW she believes him.

and more importantly, now i believe him 😭

EPISODE 10: FINE. YOU MAY HAVE YOUR WOMAN BACK.

Now he can confess 😭and there’s ONE thing i absolutely do not want him saying:

“you changed me.”

NO SHE DIDN’T.

we’re not putting that job back on her at the finish line!!!

she was the person who forced him to actually LOOK at his horrible behavior and do some internalizing, but everything after that, HE had to do.

So, that’s what he tells her.

he fell for her during the fake dating.

losing her forced him to confront himself.

but he didn’t change so she’d come back, somewhere along the way, he realized he needed to change even if she NEVER came back.

okayyyyyyy.

NOW you may kiss her 😭

and she chooses him.

not cause he’s finally achieved the extraordinary accomplishment of Respecting Women™.

congratulations on reaching the floor???? 😭

she chooses him cause she already loved him, she can finally respect him, AND now she actually believes the change is real.

prosecutor loses ☹️ ☹️ ☹️ i’m sorry mr.prosecutor, you did nothing wrong 😭 but thank you VERY much for your service.

the proposal:

i’m keeping the proposal rejection. eventually he asks.

she says no. same reasons as the original.

NOT “no for now.”

not “ask me again when i’ve been sufficiently tamed.”

just no.

she doesn’t want marriage.

and do you know what he does???

respects her answer... yes, i'll allow him to maybe tease her about it a bit, but at the end of the day, he knows her answer is her answer.

groundbreaking television ik 😭

EPILOGUE

BUT i still want my stupid little contract callback 😭

so later they’re having dinner and she slides a folded napkin across the table.

he opens it.

NEW CONTRACT

rule #1: a callback to something they share in an early episode. could be anything, as long as its a "them" thing.

rule #2: mind your business.

rule #3: the prosecutor’s name is NOT a swear word. (poor sml lol)

he looks up immediately asking “why is HE still in the contract?”

she smiles.

CUT TO BLACK.

LMAOOOOOO.

close her up. send her to recovery. 🩺

THAT’S IT.

--POST-OP CHECKLIST

☑ he falls first AND harder

☑ he pays for hurting her

☑ his change shows up with every woman, not just her

☑ she's capable, and her skill matters to the plot

☑ a real rival who makes him jealous

☑ 2 friendships between women at the center

☑ SML remains hot and viable until the bitter end 😭

☑ the ending gives her something of her own

☑ the final 20 minutes belong to the couple

☐ epic longing (hey i know my limits 😭)

--PATIENT STATUS

Admission Assessment: 3/10

Post-Op Assessment: 8/10

STATUS: STABLE, WITH SOME PERMANENT SCARRING.

SHE LIVED!!! 😭

did she leave my operating room as a 9 or 10/10?

no.

there’s some permanent damage i simply could not repair with the material i was given 😭 BUT this patient came into my operating room at a THREE and is leaving at an EIGHT.

huge win!

what keeps it from a 9 or 10?

even fixed up, this is a light rom-com about a man with a LOT of catching up to do. which means some of the runtime has to go to him becoming a decent person instead of the two of them being ridiculous together. and the deep, SICKENING, longing that i crave needs a different kind of story 😭 this man spent half his drama becoming dateable. i only have 10 episodes. lets be realistic, my surgery skills have limits.

and at the end of the day, i still need to BELIEVE the chemistry, and no amount of rewriting can guarantee that 😭

Is this Rewatch Worthy:

my version? yes.

A bit about my personal prescription:

if you give your male lead a flaw this serious, make it COST him something. make him face it. make him change for everyone, not just for her. and make him earn her back.

don't just give him a girlfriend and call that growth, babes...

Questions:

which of my changes would you keep, and which would you throw out?

team prosecutor or team reformed actor?

which drama should i rewrite next? (i already have a list and it is LONG 😭)

r/asiandrama

A Kdrama you didn’t want to end:(

Are you team ongoing or team wait till it's finished first or team just binge the series once it's fully done?

Who is THE kdrama character with the most aura??

I’m looking for office/workplace theme no focusing on romance

What are your favorite Foodie Rom-Coms?

New K-drama Fan Diary #3: further proof that i'm always on the right side of history

New K-Drama Fan Operating Room:: Love to Hate You | Rewrite #1 🩺🥼💉