pop reads

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.