A somewhat late August/September/beginning of October recap post! AKA What's happening in the Life of Blue? (Patreon)

Hey y'all!! I wrote a more formal one of these the past couple of months, but this one will be more of a rant. I'm working on this in between editing breaks while working on this Sunday's audio, You Can Write On Me Instead, haha. Lots of ramble ahead!

What's Blue been up to?

Script Fill September was such a freaking blast!! I had so much fun working with all of the authors whose scripts got chosen, and you'll see the remaining two here in the next couple of weeks! You Can Write On Me Instead by DanDLion9 will go up this Sunday!

My girlfriend's precious person who I told you was having big health struggles earlier in the month continues to fight and defy doctor's expectations. Predictions for them are still currently not good, but they are, as of this writing, awake and alert and responsive. I can't discuss many details here (obviously), but just keep sending them your good thoughts when you can.

I recently signed not one, but TWO mysterious voice acting contracts that I am absolutely BURSTING to tell you about, but I have to wait until the owners of both projects are ready to announce things... AAAAAAA THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING MEEEEEEEE I WANNA TELL Y'ALL SO BAD!! In the meantime, please show your support to the Ladies & Labyrinths dating sim/RPG game if you haven't already. See the adorable design for my character, the friendly giantess Jorhildr, HERE! (I also voice one of the stretch goal characters, the chaos witch Lisbeth.)

It gets chilly quickly where I live, so I've been all bundled up in scarves, sweaters, and sweatpants...cozy!!

An Update on Where Your Support Is Going!

I really like when people I support on Patreon do this, so I thought I would do this this month, too! Most of your support goes to keeping a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs without me having to work a secondary job, which is pretty freaking awesome and greatly helps with making you guys new stuff without stressing. (Haha!)

Here's where your generous support went this month, and some things I would like to do in the future!

Improvements in the Bluemobile:

- I purchased some new photo backgrounds! As most of y'all know, I do both this and some visual stuff. My cat Mose, who is a right little bastard, decided my box of old backgrounds was his mortal enemy the other day and ruined most of them, so I replaced them with some higher-quality ones...as well as a new plastic storage bin! That should keep my furry little monster away.

- I got a new stool for my recording closet. It's a little ottoman with a cushioned top and it's SO COMFY!! No more hunching over like a goblin for hours.

- I am looking at some professional sound absorption blankets to put into my recording closet. My closet is actually a really great space to record because the spot it's located in in my apartment is pretty well-insulated from neighborhood sounds, but I still get some sound bleed from the people upstairs. I would like to put some sound absorption on the ceiling of the closet to reduce that!

- My makeshift back wall sound absorption setup with foam mattress cutout is starting to fall apart, so I'm probably going to replace that with a blanket as well!

- I subscribed to a new sound library! You might have noticed that there's been a lot more SFX in the past few audios, which is something I've always wanted to improve upon. I'm now subscribed to two big libraries: EpidemicSound (which I've loved for a while and it just amazing for music), and ZapSplat (which is rapidly becoming my favorite for SFX! Seriously, they have EVERYTHING!)

- This has been ongoing, but I'm going to physical therapy! As some of y'all might remember from an audio I posted a while back, I struggle with chronic pain from an old hip/lower back injury. It used to kill me working a regular job, I would come home after being on my feet all day and just lie down with an ice pack on me for a couple of hours before I could even move. I still struggle with pain most days, but physical therapy has been helping me out SO FREAKING MUCH!! I've even been able to go out dancing again, which is something I thought I would pretty much never be able to do. Woohoo!!!

- I'm hoping to purchase a proper professional pop filter soon. Currently nothing I own can beat the dishrag I have tied around my microphone for quality (haha!) But we'll see if we can clean things up even more!

Future Improvements to the Bluemobile:

- I am looking into some online university courses on audio mixing/editing to really step up my game there! This is a longterm goal I'd like to realize by the end of 2023.

- I would love to hire a professional to build me a website to host my audios! NSFW audio content has always been a sketchy gray area when it comes to pornography restrictions, and while Patreon has stated that they have no plans to remove it from their platform, I always like to be safe. I currently have a backup in the form of SubscribeStarAdult (soon to be fully live!), having a place that I have full creative control over would be amazing.

- Upgrading to an XLR setup. I'm still rightfully roasted for using a USB plug-in mic, and despite how amazing and convenient it is, sometimes the quality is just inconsistent and I'll have to throw out an entire take. Grrr! I'm told an XLR setup can really help with this. This is another longterm goal, partially because the idea of learning how to set up an XLR fills me with deep existential, luddite dread.

- This one is the most important to me: I used to give 10% of all of my visual site earnings to charity (generally either the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide or Doctors Without Borders) each month, and I would really like to get that restarted. I had to stop for a while as my girlfriend and I were struggling financially due to some health circumstances and paying self-employment taxes for the very first time. (Holy shit!) I would like to go back to giving a percentage of my earnings to people who need it. I'm planning to restart this with my visual site in January 2023, and I would like to start giving 5% from here, too! I'll need to discuss this with my girlfriend so we can make sure our finances are secure enough to start giving again as we rebuild from this year's financial hits, but stay tuned!

Blue's Question For You This Month

What game are you playing right now? Or if you don't play games, what book or show are you enjoying right now?