BTS #003 (Patreon)

Last night/this morning when I went to bed I had a feeling that someone would try to disrupt my sleep. Lo and behold I woke up to two missed calls. "Private number" which to me reads as "go fuck yourself". It's probably grandma and the answer is NO.

My most looked forward to "top secret" mystery project was delayed due to a critical costume error. I will need a little while to fix it but I'm aiming to finish it before Xmas. Literally everything besides the costume is ready to go. I've worked on this plot for a little while, longer than my other videos anyway. As you probably know, I don't script any of my videos. Mostly because I can never seem to focus long enough to actually write anything down... Instead I like to have a general idea of what I'm going to do in my head, like a movie playing in my inner eye, and go from there. Only that the movie in my inner eye is typically more aesthetically pleasing than reality, but that's to be expected. 

Thank you for being so understanding in my last post. It made me feel like it's ok to be the way I am. Due to my upbringing I kind of expect negative reactions to being myself so your kindness and acceptance was surprising and relieving. 

I've been wanting to elaborate on why I don't monetize my videos and just put all of the reasons in one spot. I guess I will do that in a separate, public post just so I have something to refer to when people ask - and boy do they ask. Maybe I should make a general statement about witchcraft aswell. I couldn't help but notice that way too many people post comments on my videos telling other people I'm Wiccan. I have no idea where they get that and honestly, my first response is always DO YOU READ? Even my contact email is witchNOTwiccan ... It's fine if you don't know the difference, I don't hold that against you. The problem begins when people sell false assumptions about somebody as facts. Nobody likes lies being spread about them, especially on the topic of their beliefs. So that's something that has been bothering me. It seems like no matter how often I respond to those comments and correct people, someone else always perpetuates that false rumor. I thought leaving it alone would make it go away at first, I was wrong. Also, there are people saying I made videos in which I talked about being Wiccan - I would like to see those videos because I don't recall ever in the history of my own life claiming to follow any religion, including Wicca. (In case that wasn't clear, I fall under the category of an eclectic witch, that means I don't limit my practice to just one singular belief system. I take what works from wherever and cast spells and shit is what that means.)

On a similar topic, I've started blocking people from commenting on my videos liberally. One of my life lessons is learning not to take shit from people - whether it's my own mother or random assholes in the comments who think they're somebody. I regret not having done that sooner out of fear what message that would send. Between "Oh she just deletes all criticism" and "I have a right to free (hate) speech!" ... I just let them be and now it's just no longer working. I don't see why I should let people insult me on my own channel - and I'm not talking criticism, you can go ahead and tell me why you think my videos suck, but theres a line you can cross where you step into the realm of being personally offensive and that I will not allow. On one hand it's frustrating that I have to do that and I think, why can't people just have common sense? It's a lot of work on top of a lot of things I'd rather be working on... On the other hand it gives me a sense of power that I craved quite badly. Because while I was trying to send the message that I'm not shaken by people's petty comments and don't have to censor feedback to protect my ego, what that was really saying is I'm a doormat. My actions were saying that I care so little about my work that any idiot can just spew whatever utter bullshit they want all over it and that's just not true. YouTube comments have become very toxic and I've decided to utilize the power I do have as a content creator. Abusers will always make it look like cowardice to filter out comments, but at the end of the day it's self-respect. And I'm not saying I won't still take a good opportunity to troll - that's like my personal entertainment. I've blacklisted a few words and I will probably blacklist a few more. It's fun - every time I get an offensive request to smoke cigarettes, I can send a fuck you their way and delete all. Though my personal dream would be for YouTube to let me have a function that automatically sends grumpy cat memes in response to all creepy video requests. 

You're still reading? Wow, you must really love me. If you take away anything from this post, let it be automated grumpy cat meme comment responses. 

I'm gonna go and update all my passwords as part of my regular maintenance routine (I seriously get hacked way too much for being such a nobody...) and that probably means reset them all instead because the only safe passwords ever are unmemorizable. Have a good day.

//Ally