The Part of the Website Where I Have to Talk About Myself

Most About pages open with a photo, a title, and the sentence: "Hi, I'm [Name], a [adjective] writer passionate about [vague thing]."

This is not that.

What follows is a mix of facts, things I'm not entirely proud of, opinions I hold with moderate confidence, and a general attempt to explain myself without being boring about it. Some of it might make you uncomfortable. Some of it might make you laugh. Some of it will probably make you question why you're still reading.

Keep going. That's the point.

This Was Not the Plan. There Was No Plan.

I wanted to be a pirate. Captain Jack Sparrow kind. Real ship, rum in one hand, compass pointing toward something inexplicable.

But India & "reality" said no.

Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly too much time to think. I started writing poems, then thoughts, then everything else. That somehow turned me into a writer who now covers finance, SaaS, healthcare, and technology.

My name is Rupes Jasmine. Also, Jasmine McCandless, depending on which version of me showed up that day. I'm an Indian writer who lives largely inside her own head.

The pirate dream isn't dead. It's just on hold, gathering interest.

What I Do (and Have Done)

SEO Medical Writer at Dr Good Deed June 2025 to Present
Online Biology Tutor at YaClass June 2025 to Present
Finance Content Writer at Adeptd December 2024 to Present
Freelancer SEO Human Content Writer Nov 2021 to June 2025
Academic Writer Intern at Quizzy March 2022 to May 2022
Content Writer Intern at Beta Testers August 2021 to November 2021

Things I Actually Enjoy [Hobbies]

→ Watching Hollywood movies and writing reviews on Plex; disproportionately addicted to horror.
→ Thinking obsessively about the next career level, because standing still feels worse than failing.
→ Reading books whenever there's a power cut or the Wi-Fi gives up.
→ Sleeping every Sunday from 2 PM to 6 PM without apology.

Fictional Men I Have Feelings For

James McAvoy as Kevin (Split)
Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker (The Amazing Spider-Man)
Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (X-Men)
Chris Hemsworth as Thor (Avengers)
Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector (Moon Knight)
Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock (Daredevil)

Things I'm Bad At

Finishing books I've started. I have eleven books in active abandonment across three rooms. They're aware. We've made peace with each other.

Answering "how are you?" without editing myself. The real answer exists. It's long and probably inconvenient for everyone involved.

Keeping timelines for work I'm not interested in. Give me a deadline attached to something I care about and I'll deliver early. The other kind? I'll get there. Eventually. I promise.

What You'll Find Here

This site is where I try to make sense of things I can't leave alone.

Topics here shift because I do. Some pieces are properly researched. Some are just me following a thought until it shows me where it was going. Occasionally a poem. Occasionally something dark, written at 2 a.m. and published before I thought too hard about it.

Just writing that means something to me first, to you if you're lucky.

If I Disappear, I'm Probably…

...three hours deep into a topic I stumbled on while researching something completely unrelated.

Or watching a movie/series on Netflix and emotionally absorbed into it.

Or I wrote something dark and honest at 2 a.m., scheduled it to publish, and am now mildly regretting the level of transparency while also knowing I'll do it again next week.

Or I'm reading about something nobody asked me to read about because some questions won't leave me alone until I follow them to wherever they end.

I don't disappear often. But when I do, it's always for one of those reasons.

That’s it. This is who I am right now.

This page is not a brand story or a success narrative. It’s just me… working, wondering, and refusing to pretend this is the dream. That’s all for now. Anything more would be dishonest.

If you stayed till here, you’re either curious or bored. Either way, hello!

Personal FAQs

Rupes Jasmine is my actual name. Jasmine McCandless is the name I write under — borrowed from Into the Wild, the film about Christopher McCandless, who walked into the Alaskan wilderness trying to figure out who he was. I watched it and understood something immediately. Google either name and you'll find the same person.

The pandemic made private feel pointless. Writing and keeping it in a notebook felt like talking to an empty room. Putting it out there made the words feel like they existed somewhere outside my own head. Once they did, I couldn't stop. There's something about knowing even one person might read it that forces a kind of honesty that journaling never quite manages.

I tried. Lasted three weeks. The honest answer is I'm interested in too many things to convincingly pretend otherwise. Everything I write are all feeding the same large, unresolved question about how life actually works. I'll narrow it down when I have the answer.

Both. The client work is for the client. The 2 a.m. posts on this site are for me. Everything in between is for whoever reads it and recognizes something in it. Writing for "an audience" tends to make writing worse. Writing honestly tends to find its own audience eventually. I've chosen to believe that.

Four years of researching and writing across all three. Content that has reached millions of readers. I helped a client go from a few hundred impressions to 3.73 million with just words. Ask to see the work. That'll tell you more than this answer.

It's where I put things. Thoughts that don't belong in a client brief. Poems, dark pieces, half-formed theories about life and India and animals… and whatever else won't leave me alone. There's no grand purpose. I needed somewhere to put things. This is that place.

Both at the same time. This is personal. I also take on writing work… multi-niche, properly researched blogs, web copy. If that's what you're looking for, reach out.

Here? Yes. Weirdly, I write more honestly on this site than anywhere else… partly because I'm fairly sure most people aren't reading it. The less I optimize for an audience, the more real it gets. Which probably explains why the best thing I've ever written is sitting on a page with twelve views.