Guava Continent Outpost

Hi guise!! (That's my gender-neutral variation of 'guys' as a catch-all term of endearment). I finished watching the k-drama Knight Flower on china_shop's recommendation and IT WAS SO GOOD.

The heroine is a widow during the old-timey monarchy; her life is extremely restricted and it's actually similar to how widows are treated in my country/culture including in my own family just a couple generations ago. So she was immediately sympathetic to me. She becomes a masked vigilante at night, so that she can give herself something fulfilling to do, and her fight scenes are such fun!

Her love interest is a guy in law enforcement who is supposed to catch her but ends up wanting to protect her identity and aid her, which is DELICIOUS to me. He's so righteous in a non-bureaucratic way, I love it. And when he's jealous he's not scary jealous, he's cute pouty jealous, which is my FAVOURITE. It's a delicious slow burn but they don't even kiss at the end, which gave me the feeling of reading a fic tagged with edging and finding out it's actually orgasm denial. Speaking of fic, I have found a couple of fics in which they purportedly kiss, so I'm going to savour those!

I also binge-watched Season 2 of Deadloch, six episodes in two days. Shoutout to isabrella because I wouldn't have found out a second season was out now if you didn't mention it!

I'm still reblogging Yunho things on Tumblr despite the pain mixed with my usual adoration when he appears on my dashboard. I've weaned myself off an idol before, and forcing it doesn't work, so I'll see how I continue to feel, I guess. Vara talked to me about it, and she said a lot of people who have messy romantic relationships are decent in general/in their other relationships. I see her point, and I think any idol in his place would have done the same (not standing up for his girlfriend in order to protect his career). But I can't excuse him allowing her to think he was going to come back and make it up to her, if he had no intention to make good on those promises. Vara said it's not all on him to give her closure, but at the very least he should be honest with her about breaking up with her. He was neither honest nor kind.

I've been bleeding lightly since the 21st even though I had my moontime on the 8th this month. It's the second month I'm bleeding during my luteal phase. It's a good thing I've got cloth pads for light bleeds because imagine if I had to run through boxes of pads during my heavy periods and then had to use pads again for the irregular bleeds. I told Bella that I'm using one to two pads a day and she said she considers that a normal period because that's how much she bleeds during her period. We laughed mirthlessly about me calling it a 'light bleed'.

I've ordered chasteberry vitex tablets so I'm hoping those will reduce my estrogen dominance. I found out that poongar rice, a traditional rice variety from Tamil Nadu, is called 'women's rice' because it's got the nutrients needed for better menstrual health. I'm planning to start eating it for breakfast. It's got iron, magnesium, zinc and calcium. It's got as much protein as a similar serving of greek yoghurt, so with all the talk of protein in wellness spaces I'm surprised it isn't better known. Traditional and heirloom varieties of rice and millets seem to be pretty nutrient-dense, and I'd like to pop fewer vitamin pills.

In the week leading up to and week of my moontime I mistakenly thought I'd relapsed into depression, because my PMS symptoms were that bad. The day after I finished bleeding, I wrote the rest of Dollshops & Deathmages, in a dramatic restoration of my spirits and creativity. I don't want to be miserable and listless for half a month, even if I'm in a creative flow for the other half. In quite the synchronicity, The Cozy Creative posted a video about how her menstrual cycle affects her creativity.


It made me feel better, knowing that I'm not alone in having to plan my writing work around moontime, but I really wish my symptoms would be limited to the week of moontime because two weeks is a lot of time lost.

Now to wait for the other authors participating in the cozy fantasy anthology to finish their stories. I've also talked to my cover designer about a cover for Dollshops & Deathmages, because after the anthology has run its course the participating authors will release their stories individually as they see fit. I'm hoping to make Dollshops & Deathmages an evergreen prequel novella and occasional reader magnet for the subsequent cozy books I have planned, so it needs its own cover.

Back when I was employed, I saved up and got myself covers for a couple of the cozy books I'm writing (Dragons & Debutantes and Pumpkin Jack Proposes) since covers are the biggest authorial expense. Dollshops & Deathmages wasn't planned for because I didn't know I was going to participate in a cozy anthology until the opportunity came up, and I crafted this story specifically for this anthology. So I have had to commission the cover for this now, not in advance like the others.

My parents are decently supportive about this indie author project and funded the cover for Dollshops & Deathmages, but I'm not decently grateful because I wanted their support long before this and didn't get it. If I'd gotten their support before this I would've had a job and would've been able to pay for my own covers. Their opposition to me taking that job was very gendered, so I don't feel privileged at all. Even though I am.

I'm bitter and prideful whenever I have to ask them for money, and when they sweetly tell me I have only to ask them, I'm overwhelmed by anger because they could have been supportive all along but only chose to be after I was driven into a corner and had no options left.

I think the contrast between them happily giving me handouts vs. their crashout when I wanted to work at the bookstore is probably because they like me being at home and dependent. I mean it makes no sense that they're supportive about this, but weren't supportive about the stable salaried thing.