I was in the mood for a hot, steamy drama (helloooo, spring!), and after a deep search involving both AI and friends (turns out I’ve already watched a lot of steamy dramas), I landed on one I somehow missed, The Forbidden Marriage.

This little gem tells the story of a king who, after the death of his beloved queen under suspicious circumstances, forbids marriage throughout the kingdom until he can find a new queen. Fast forward seven years, and the entire country is (understandably) frustrated (sexually, too) with the morals police catching lovers left and right.

Enter our heroine: a consummate swindler (and secretly a noblewoman with a tragic past, of course), who claims to be possessed by the spirit of the dead queen in order to “cure” the King’s depression. From there, the story unfolds in a way that is hilarious, refreshingly sexy, and deeply moving.

I found it fascinating how the heroine becomes an unwitting therapist, helping the King process his trauma over losing his wife. At times, it even felt like they were flirting with the idea of using her as a kind of sex surrogate to heal him—an idea that was both uncomfortable and strangely compelling. The show handled this tension well and never lost a sight of the heroine’s internal conflict: falling for the King, genuinely physically desiring him and wrestling with guilt over her deception.

They did front-load a lot of the steamy, flirtatious tension at the beginning of the series. Later episodes leaned more heavily into palace politics and cartoonishly evil villains doing their cartoonishly evil deeds, which, while distracting at times, didn’t fully overshadow the heart of the story, the idea that love, in all its forms, is essential to human happiness. (We even got a happy ending for a gay couple, pwhew.)

What impressed me most was how authentically the main couple not only loved each other but also desired each other physically — something rarely portrayed so openly in K-dramas.

I’m very glad I watched this show to ease my sexy spring blues. :)

tonight i just watched The Call on netflix. it was very strange, but had a stellar cast starring Park Shin Hye - but my surprise was the cameo by Kim Min Ha! literally a one or two second shot... am enjoying spotting her again, after Way Back Love...

I vowed I wasn't going to watch the second series of Weak Hero... but, guess what, I'm watching the second series of Weak Hero. It is just as violent and just as addictive as the first series. But can it really end well?

Still enjoying The Haunted Palace, surprisingly, since it skirts the edge of horror, which is definitely not my thing. I needn't have worried about losing interest after the body swap - the male lead's transformation into the Imugi is really impressive.

Serendipity. Dropped fifteen minutes into episode one. I don't know if it gets better as it goes on, but the first fifteen minutes are made of cardboard. Cardboard plot. Cardboard acting.

The Demon Hunter's Romance🛡 ep 15-20 Still enjoying watching this. I like the episodic feel of the storylines but it still has an overarching story. I like both leads and their characters. The story at the inn is quite interesting and I like how it brought together the characters. The romance between the leads is developing and I like how its playing out in the painting storyline.

The Haunted Palace 🐉3-4 I am getting attached to the Imoogi. Kdrama writers had clunky resolutions to body swap/body possessions in the past based on AOS and Mr Queen so I am a bit apprehensive on how his story will be resolved. So I am hoping that the Imoogi gets a happy ending. I like our shaman FL. She is smart and takes no BS from the imoogi. Those little moments the leads have makes wonder who FL ends up liking more.

Karma 🦹‍♀️ ep1 It was difficult for me to get through ep1 since I didnt like any characters. Not sure if I will continue watching.

Hyper Knife ⚕️ ep 3-10 Park Eun Bin and Sol KyungGu are great onscreen. It was interesting to watch them play against each other. Not sure if I like how the show ended.

I somewhat finished Doubt. I couldn't focus on the story to really enjoy it. It felt slow to me. The mystery was there but it wasn't exciting imo. I'm not watching any on air kdrama. Planning to watch Resplay for the rom, I see the tweets about the main couple(?) and they remind me so much of Najung and Oppa from Reply 1994. But Resplay couple is more complex, related by family marriage and same career. I watch Grey's Anatomy and has all sorts of messy relationships hahahaha. Yes, I'm still watching Grey's Anatomy. I enjoy it. My yearly guilty pleasure 😂.

Well, first of all, @solstices, I want to know about this version of Maurice! I clicked on the link to the Youtube video that you provided and it blew my mind.

This week I watched:

One Day Off, which was perfect for me. Yes, OK, it was a "healing drama" and generally I don't like those, but...it was very funny and cute. Also, it had Shim Eun Kyung as the childhood best friend. She also played the NEW college best friend in Way Back Love, which I watched and loved so much last week.

Also she was the original Miss Granny, a connection I didn't make until just now.

I also watched the first two episodes of The Haunted Palace this week. I might watch the ones I haven't seen yet from the weekend this week. I am not sure. There was definitely nothing wrong with this show at all. It was interesting and plotty, but also extremely fictional, very very fictional. So, maybe for me?

I'm still watching Heesu From Class 2. It's made me realize that the web comic was actually pretty great, because the ways the show deviates from it are annoying me a lot. I still want to see it because of Ahn Ji-ho. At first, I liked that Heesu (and therefore, Ji-ho!) had interests aside from boys. The astronomy subplot I didn't remember from the comic meant all these wise, emo voice overs. It was great and it was visual. But now it kind of feels like they lost the point of the story. Heesu is supposed to be clueless and emotional. Ugh, OK, you know I will still watch it.

I've got a lot going on and I'm trying to sleep more. We'll see how that goes, see my username.