Hopepunk Princess

Was reading a fic and laughed out loud at it.

Am delighting myself writing Dollshops & Deathmages. I'm halfway done and happy with how it's shaping up.

Had an excellent peach kombucha to drink.

Have the house to myself for a glorious while, because my relatives are travelling.

Am enjoying a k-drama tremendously. Undercover Miss Hong. It's halfway aired, let's hope the rest of it is just as good. (You know those silly Hollywood action movies where there's a guy doing some kind of secret operation, and women who are in the narrative all have crushes on him, and he's too busy doing Important Stuff to notice? Imagine if it was the heroine doing stuff too Secret and Important to pay much mind to the men growing feelings for her, and you have Undercover Miss Hong. Trust k-drama to make something assuming *I* am watching the way other media industries make things assuming men are watching. And it features strong female friendships!)

Three out of the five things I have put down here are related to stories. 역시, whenever I'm happy, stories are usually at the heart of my happiness.

I'm participating in a cozy fantasy anthology with several other cozy fantasy authors from the FaRo discord. It's kept me writing throughout the whole rigmarole with Amazon and Wise, and since the deadline is approaching, I'm prioritising it over drafting the rest of Project Fang/Bloodhunt Academy. My contribution to the anthology is titled Dollshops & Deathmages. If it sounds spooky-cute, it sounds about right!

My colleagues at the FaRo discord are also helping me figure out how to get Amazon to behave. They say going wide is a separate matter. That I shouldn't have to have a distributor like D2D take a cut from my Amazon royalties if I can help it, since I'm already facing Amazon's retailer cut and Wise's conversion+payment processing cut. Most wide authors go direct to the big retailers like Amazon and Kobo because the bulk of their income is made there and you don't want more cuts on that income than you can help. They use D2D to distribute to Smashwords, libraries and smaller retailers, when uploading directly to another platform is more trouble than it's worth.

I do think this experience has put me off KU. I initially decided on KU after I was laid off, and that decision made me feel less insecure at the time. Not anymore, though. Now I feel more insecure putting my eggs in one basket because the basket has flaws. Guess I'm going wide, although I've yet to plan exactly what that will look like.

In other news, I tried out Fika as an alternative to Substack for my author newsletter. So far it's promising but lacking in some features I can't do without. I have less than a 100 subscribers now, but once the cozy fantasy anthology launches, it's going to be used as a newsletter magnet and I'll have to keep signups more organised. Fika doesn't show you which of your subscribers do and don't open your emails, nor does it show you how many opens a specific newsletter you sent out got (only your overall open rate). That won't help me trim inactive subcribers, and it's kind of important to do that so email services know I'm not spam. The technical term is sender's reputation. Substack shows me individual subscriber opens and clicks, plus stats per post, which will become necessary once I have a load of signups from people who wanted the anthology but don't necessarily want to stick around for news of what I'm writing next.

Last time, I asked for email service recommendations and switched to Tuta. It's great, and has made checking my email feel less anxious because no ads or clutter. Thanks to everyone who recommended it, yarnofariadne and octahedrite off the top of my head.

This time I would love your recommendations for newsletter services or Substack alternatives. Ease of use and economy are the main things, because I can't pay for a newsletter service. Perhaps it makes it easier that I don't need advanced features like list segmentation and so on. Mostly, I just need a welcome email that is sent to all incoming subscribers, individual subsciber stats, and good deliverability (don't want to end up in spam). Ideally would let me have a subscriber count of 1000 or so without having to pay a monthly fee, because I foresee quite a jump in subscribers once the anthology is out. (And ideally wouldn't be expensive in case I crossed the free range. Saw Ghost.org's pricing and balked.)

I'm okay with continuing with Substack in the absence of anything else that fits. I'm not going to monetise it, so it isn't going to benefit the shady guys at the top. But it's not ideal, given the shady guys at the top. And there are readers who don't want to touch Substack with a ten-foot pole.

Hence, I'm asking for recommendations! I think there might be something out there that I just haven't heard of.

Something I'm grateful for recently is that I got a scholarship/free spot for a writing workshop series, Writing for Rage. My friends Trish and Venky recommended it to me. It's six sessions, and after the first two, I find myself better at experiencing my anger as anger rather than hardening it into depression. We were given journal prompts to write about in our own time:

How do you envision your rage? Envisioning how I want my rage to express itself. I want my rage to be powerful. Because I have felt the most enraged when I was made helpless, when control was wrested from me, and when I was unable to protect myself. I wish to be destructive with no consequences. My rage so powerful that I don't have to say NOBODY MESS WITH ME, everyone gets it. It's a foregone conclusion. And so nobody dares mess with me. Because whatever they do to me, my rage will do worse. I think of Kali. Vengeful rage that ensures there are no repeat offenders.

What would the world be like if anger was normalised? People would be more honest. It wouldn't be a matter of who is allowed to be angry, and at whom, and who isn't, who has authority over you and who doesn't. One's sense of when something is wrong would be sharper. Less guilt for making someone else uncomfortable when confronting them about how they made you uncomfortable.

This month's horoscope for Libra by Alice Sparkly Kat also talks about anger, with journalling questions about the safety of expressing it.

( February horoscope )

Questions for Libra for February 2026:

What happens in your body when you piss someone off?
My body feels like my life is under threat, even in a verbal confrontation.
TW: physical violence
My childhood consisted of physical punishments whenever my mother was angry, including beatings and one time when she strangled me. My body's reaction to anger directed at me now, as an adult, is a hangover from those childhood experiences when I felt scared for my life.

Is there anyone who you are comfortable pissing off?
Nope. I wish there was. This isn't just about being safe when their anger is directed at me, but about how willing they are to make repair efforts if we hurt each other's feelings. What if I am, but they aren't?

How do you want to make more decisions in those relationships where you are free to argue?
I don't think I have any such relationships. But if I did, I would try to understand why we each believe what we do. I would stand up for what I believe in.

I have put off making this post, but I'm writing it now.
( Had to unpublish Bloodhunt Academy from the Zon. )

Writing Bloodhunt Academy was an achievement for me, considering I wondered whether I could ever read or write again at some point before it. I can't just let it languish. I've started cutting the chapters into smaller chunks and uploading it to Royal Road (link!). It was not meant to be a web serial so I don't know, but I'm going to just continue expanding it instead of making Book Two separate. For the people who bought the book from the Zon upon release, and the ARC readers who indicated they wanted to read Book Two, I'm planning to send a free e-copy of the completed expanded version. If you bought the book, DM me with the email you'd like me to send it to and I'll save it on my ARC reader spreadsheet.

A consequence of the indie author dream fizzling out is that I'm having to terrify myself trying to figure out ways to have hope for the future. Trying to believe I won't live and die in this house. I'm having to face the prospect of jobsearching again and trying to stave off the depression that rises whenever I do.

My friend Venky sent me a job posting he saw that he thought I'd be interested in, and he was right. I applied for it, but the fact that I actually want this job, as opposed to thinking that something or the other will have to do, has made the tenterhooks another kind of torture. The employer responded to my application email saying they will get back to candidates within a certain timeframe. I waited for double of that timeframe to pass, with no word from the employer, before sending my followup email a few days ago, asking them for the status of my application. I hate how the process has played havoc with my mental health throughout. I'd probably go insane if I didn't have the tarot. Although I use tarot predictively, I don't usually do timing readings, because my success with them has been mixed. But not knowing how long I should wait or whether I was going to be ghosted entirely for a job I actually want was kind of destroying me, so I did a timing reading. I used one of my Thoth decks, the Parrott Tarot, because the Thoth system is less scenic and more symbolic which works better for timing.



Based on my reading, I'm assuming I'll hear from them next week. If next week passes by and I don't hear from them I'm going to stop waiting. The thought of not getting this job terrifies me. The thought of what to do if I have to stop waiting, give it up, find some other path somehow, terrifies me. I'm assuming I'll hear from them next week and, according to a predictive tarot reading I did that reassures me, I'm assuming I'll get the job.

Crowdsourcing opinions: what's an email service you like/recommend? I want to leave Gmail and only use it for signing into websites because nowadays it's all Gemini this Gemini that.

I saw an amazing Tumblr post about a Chinese poet who was so brilliant and her man so mediocre 😭 the love story she didn't deserve. She made a poem puzzle that yields more poems the more you look at it. So cool!

Historic medical event: I had an online consultation with a gynaecologist and she said my periods are definitely not normal. No hesitation, no excuses, just straight up "That's not normal. Have you had an ultrasound done?" And when I said I never have, she said I needed to get one done, along with a blood test. And that once I got tested, the results would give her some idea of where to go from here.

First time a doctor has said heavy painful periods are not normal, and that we need to find out causes.

She prescribed that I'm got to get tested for my complete blood count, fasting blood sugar, free testosterone, total testosterone, liver function test, serum creatine, fasting lipid profile, HDA1C (haemoglobin A1C), fasting insulin, HOMA IR (for insulin resistance), Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, prolactin. And I've got to get an ultrasound of my abdomen and pelvis.

I saw an Instagram post by The Period Lab about what to get tested in your bloodwork if you have bleeding more than 8 diva cups over your entire period (I bleed that amount in ONE DAY) and there's a lot of overlap, but also other things not included in my prescription that I want to get done as well:

Hung out with my friend Nikki today! We met for the first time at a get-together for polerinas that my instructor put together. And we were comfortable with each other right away. Today, she had the day off for Christmas. We had lunch at a cafe, a hummus platter and a vegan banana walnut cake. She has similar gut issues as I do so we enjoy ordering food together; neither of us feels like we're making the other person miss out on something else they'd rather eat.

Afterwards, we went to the library. I finished reading the book I'd borrowed, and she browsed for a while before picking out a pile of books and then flipping through them to decide what she wanted to borrow. I borrowed Butter by Asako Yuzuki, and it's the specific edition that I'd been eyeing in Shelfish ever since I worked there and wasn't allowed to read the books. (You know, when you're not allowed to do something you want to doubly do it.) Is the fact that the library had it a Sign? Anything's a sign if you want to give it significance. I'm healing, so it's a Sign.

Nikki had wanted to go to Spinebreaker or Shelfish initially. I told her that both places had traumatised me and that it was a long story. She thought I was joking at first, but I didn't want to go into the whole history of both places and why I wasn't welcome at either. I told her that it was awkward telling people that I was traumatised by bookstores because, when I tell them I was traumatised by school for instance, they instinctively understand, but when I say I was traumatised by bookstores, they think I must be joking.

The part I didn't tell her is that when people react like this, it feels like they're laughing at what I experienced or trivialising my hurt, even though they mostly don't know enough to react aptly in the first place. It's just such a difficult thing to talk to people about that I wish it never came up in the first place. The emotional labour of explaining it and making them understand the impact it had on me just sucks, as a process. For a while, I've been thinking that they can't understand me as a person without knowing this about me, but maybe this isn't as big a part of my self as all that. At one point it defined everything about the way I was, but thankfully that time is behind me. As the heroine of the manhwa Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story says, people heal with time and people are more resilient than they think.

There's a Cozy Fantasy Book Blast happening, and I picked up Good Neighbours by Stephanie Burgis, and Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox by Forthright. Speaking of cozy, I had a conversation on the FaRo discord about project-hopping, because while I know I'll return to angsty paranormal romance in future projects and am committed to writing Book Two of Bloodhunt Academy right now, I need to have a cozy fantasy writing project ongoing alongside. The cozy dragon romantasy is what I'm eyeing right now. While they're two different vibes, I'm going to keep them on the same pen name (I looked at my collection of book ideas and realised I'm not a writer who can come up with similar things for long in the first place).
( We've been menstruating so many centuries, and yet. )
How does one go through life WITHOUT feminine rage? Given everything?

Yesterday I met friends! Trish, who I haven't seen for years, and we were later joined by Venky, who I likewise haven't seen for years, even though we live in the same city. I love them, but they've had different lives and schedules from me because they're self-employed business-people, and Trish was my first and best employer, aeons ago. (That business of hers shut due to the pandemic). I could've still wrangled meeting them, but in the aftermath of the indie bookstore debacle I felt insecure and out of place around them and their friends. I had never felt it so starkly, that they had privilege (capital) that I didn't, as during that time when I was going from shit job to shit job. I avoided hanging out with them, although we've been in touch on and off via text. Thankfully, our friendship is the kind that feels like we are picking up exactly where we left off.

Interestingly, despite not having income coming in right now, and despite telling them all about how I started out in the workforce five years ago on a 40k rupee ($450) salary and being laid off a couple of months ago from a 45k rupee ($500) salary, despite telling them all about how it has turned out that working a job gives me neither stability nor financial independence, that I have seen no growth or increase in income, that I don't believe I will have a future if I choose to bet that future on working jobs... I didn't feel insecure or out of place with them. I felt comfortable, even understood. I even told Trish about how it was the part-time job she had given me that enabled me to negotiate my first full-time salary to be $450, because I lied and said Trish's job paid on a sliding scale up to that amount, so that they had to offer to match it.

Wen I left the cafe, on the way home I felt uplifted as I usually feel after spending time with friends.

Trish and I talked about self-care. About how she doesn't have a work-life balance because she's working in a family business, but she gets to decide to take time off without applying for it, and is trying to do that more. About her horrendous boyfriend and how our friends are finding decent men and we aren't (and how that's entirely luck, because we have literally tried exactly what worked for our friends, but we can't control who we get to meet in this life nor can we control how other people treat us). About how I have felt helpless when trying to find something good in the job market, and how I need to carve out flexibility and freedom for myself because employers aren't going to do that, they're going to pigeonhole me. About how I'm never going to feel like I've figured it out in life because nobody feels like that, or not for long. About how Trish needs long breaks between socialising while I need it with somewhat regularity (we settled on meeting once a month after I made her self-conscious by looking at her in happy silence and she asked, 'What?' and I said I was committing her presence to memory). She loves villainess isekai, like me, and we shared recommendations with each other.

Venky and I talked about how self-discovery goes on forever. I said wanting to figure everything out is probably mid-twenties angst and he and Trish said it's forever angst. Venky asked me whether I had thought about working in education (Trish makes curricula and teacher training programs) and I told them about the disastrous teaching job that I bled straight through because my uterus thought I was running from predators every day. I also said that if I got a job now... nothing would change, and I wouldn't feel like I'm in a better place than before. Venky said this was a good time to think about what I want, a good time to change, since I'm what, twenty-four? I said no, I'm twenty-eight. Venky was surprised, recovered, and said, well I'm thirty and I can tell you... it doesn't necessarily get easier when you're thirty. Or ever, probably.

And that doesn't sound reassuring at all but it was strangely reassuring and comforting!

I came home, texted both of them, and then the next day both my mother and father wanted to talk about it. My mother annoyed me by asking me whether I asked Trish to employ me again if she's planning to start something of her own again. If that's what I say to Trish after meeting her for the first time in years, that gives me an agenda I didn't have, and also, that's a surefire way to make me feel weird about our friendship just when I'm feeling belongingness again. My father told me I should look into stock trading because he's learning to do it, and the thought of doing that when I have no incoming money stresses me tf out (plus he's doing a course on it, that's so demanding, I definitely don't have the spoons for it right now). I'm like CAN YOU GIVE IT A REST. Also, whenever they do this I want to scream that if they want me to do a job so bad, they should have been supportive of the indie bookstore job when it was offered to me. I was telling Trish that I realised I have to keep my own counsel about important life decisions, and not involve them or discuss anything with them, but they brought these topics up by themselves because they knew I met Trish and they know she was once my employer.

Anyway, that affected me, although I didn't want it to. Apparently it's a Libra thing to be sensitive to the feedback of those around you, and it's just my luck that those around me are family. I know that looking for a job or trying to figure out a way to earn money for its own sake is not the right thing for me to do right now. Whenever I ask the Tarot whether I should job search again, I draw the Nine of Swords, which is a clear mental health warning. There is no point working if it's going to make me depressed. There is no point getting a job right now when it's going to make me hopeless. I'll apply for something if I come across it and it seems promising, but I'm not going to actively search for jobs or do any sort of labour other than writing and fannish labour.

And this might not make sense to people but my life doesn't have to look sensible from the outside when it's rotting me from the inside. I want a life that enriches me from the inside. I want to repair my relationship with myself so that I enjoy my own company more than any other, once more. I want to curl up into the passing of time like a contented cat.

Moontime began today. It was preceded by one long cramp, one that doesn't flare and subside but is a constant burn, and I took naps until it faded. One of the corporates here set up a public library as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, so my city finally has a public library! FINALLY. I can read physical books without buying them. I visited it this morning and borrowed A Curse So Dark And Lonely. Angsty romantasy might be nice to read when I'm hormonal.

The library also sent an email to its members saying they were taking job applications and preferred candidates qualified with an M.A. in English, which I have. So I applied. But a couple of hours later they sent an email saying they were recalling their previous email. So I have no idea whether they're actually hiring or not; I don't know why they would draft a hiring email in the first place if they didn't need to. I asked the tarot whether I'd get the job and drew the Hermit. That's a no, and it's also telling me I will (or should) spend more time living slow and looking inwards.

I travelled to Mumbai to attend the K-town festival. This is K-town 3.0, which means there was a 1.0 and a 2.0 (both of which I missed because I didn't even find out they happened in the first place, until now). There was no WAY I was missing this year's festival after finding out it happens.

I SAW TAEMIN LIVE. He just walked onto the stage and started performing Move (!!!!) with no preamble, no warning, no mic check. I went feral. He was wearing a tank top and a jacket/shrug that he kept shrugging off to show his arms and it was amazing. I've always thought, from videos of his performances, that he had breathtaking artisty and grace, stylistic movements all his own. But live, Taemin Hits Different. He was like a celestial being, whatever the male version of an apsara is.

I was suffering as a short girl who'd bought the cheapest tickets in the standing area way at the back, because random uselessly tall Indian guys kept blocking my view. Also people kept coming and going from the more expensive areas, walking in front of me or making me have to step back to make way for them. And when Taemin was due to perform there was a huge surge towards the barricade, so seeing him was harder than seeing the other performers. I was doing a lot of neck-craning and tiptoe-standing, and my shoulders ached.

However! It was all so surreal and such a dopamine hit! He was THERE. Taemin was there, he's REAL, y'all! Like, he might be a celestial fairy but he also, like, exists ON THE SAME PLANE AS ME. He performed Move, Advice, Deja Vu, Criminal and Sexy in the Air. Only five songs sobs BUT three of them are favourites of mine. I wish we got a whole concert of him but you know what. I'm so damn lucky I got to see him. I SAW HIM PERFORM MOVE LIVE. WHAT!!!

I posted a few clips in an Instagram post (Insta shortened all the clips, as Insta does, but it doesn't matter because this is just to document my ferality. Other people are sure to post actual fancams later.) You'll notice I couldn't hold the camera straight or steady or focused. Nor could I stop people blocking my camera with their whole heads. But you'll also notice I was shouting my head off cheering for Taemin and yelling the lyrics to his songs, which is the bit that I wanted to capture. I'M WINNING AT LIFE.

After the festival I felt this sense of wonder because Taemin is REAL and he's THERE, but I also felt an overwhelming melancholy. I was like, that was such a dopamine hit, what do you mean I can't do this every weekend? What do you mean that might be the first and last time I see Taemin live? K-pop acts almost never come to India… but maybe this is a sign times are changing. I don't know. I did a tarot reading about this and got the Ace of Cups, just a lot of feelings, big feelings. I love that I saw him, I'm sorry that I couldn't see him better, and I want to see him again and again.

I'm waiting for fancams of his K-town performance to be uploaded and then I'll share them here. In the meanwhile, if you're curious about just how ethereal he is live, this will give you an idea:



Going to talk about the other performers in a separate post because this post is already long and fulsome with Taemin squee.