The salt hag from The Man Trap did nothing wrong

Right now, I’m in the middle or almost done with Pursuit of Jade and the First Jasmine—which I really enjoyed to start with!! I had such high hopes for these dramas. But both fizzled out and some less than glowing reviews online are not motivating me to push through the murky middle slump.

This seems to be the theme of the year. Insert that one post of the horse drawing: super realistically beautiful rendered head, womp womp body and tail.

I probably need to watch older dramas or more recent dramas I missed out on/wasn’t in the mood for. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen into this habit of watching what other people on tumblr are watching because the posts and hype get me fixated on a show. But then my work schedule doesn’t allow me to keep up and I find it hard to click with any other watches without the fandom foregrounding. (Ignore that I’m on summer break rn and this excuse doesn’t hold)

Here are some dramas I need to finish or try:

Pursuit of Jade (2026 cdrama) : I’m on episode 29/40. I’m disappointed by reviews saying the Marquis gets sidelined in his own drama and that Changyu’s characterization becomes more girlboss-y and less developed. I wanna push through for the remaining ship scenes even if I don’t care much about the plot anymore.

The First Jasmine (2026 cdrama) : I’m on episode 36/40. I got this far and I’m determined to have this on my “completed dramas” list. It’s just boring now after the lishan arc concluded—which is crazy to me because I feel like there’s so much they could do with the aftermath that would be interesting for the lead characters!

Love Beyond the Grave (2026 cdrama) : I watched ep 1 and it was okay. This is my kind of drama (fantasy romance with some existential immortal stuff) so I want to see if it’ll click with me better on a second try.

Head Over Heels (2025 kdrama) : I have Amazon prime again so I can watch this (my piracy skills are nil rn). I bounced off this when I tried it once because I was feeling depressed. Def a me thing and not the drama. Maybe I’ll be in a better state for it now…

The Blossoming Love (2025 cdrama) : I’m on episode 17/40. I bounced off of this one despite seeing a lot of love for it online. I want to come back to it so I can experience the hype too.

EDIT : I forgot that I really wanted to watch Moonlit Reunion (2025 cdrama). I’ve been waiting for it to come to Viki but it seems like it’s being held hostage by Disney +. Curse you Disney.

EDIT 2: I also forgot that I wanted to watch Veil of Shadows (2026 cdrama) but I’m being a little baby about it because I didn’t like Ju Jing Yi in In Blossom, a drama I otherwise liked but couldn’t finish because her wooden cheerfulness annoyed me so much. I’ve heard she’s better in this but I’m trying to get over myself about it!

Dramas I’m giving up on (for now at least)

Generation to generation (2026 cdrama) : I’m on episode 9/37. I enjoyed the unhinged-ness of the male lead when I started this and the female lead is soooo pretty. The fantasy world was okay. For some reason I just never felt like I Had to go back to this, which is a bad sign for me.

The Haunted Palace (2025 kdrama) : I was on episode 5/16. This is the kind of kdrama I should love based on genre and set up. I found it kind of snoozy. Idk maybe I’ll try it again sometime.

Blossom (2024 cdrama) : yep I never finished this one. I stopped at episode 24/34. There were bits of this I loved but found a lot of it to be a slog. I found the family scheming and female lead interesting. The romance was very meh for me, which led me to lose steam in the drama as a whole.