⛤ August Q&A (Patreon)

happy September! like clockwork the air has started to change from an oppressive, almost suffocating vapor to the balmy dewiness that comes with the arrival of fall. the cool morning breeze carries in its essence the excitement for what could be and I, I am under its spell. new beginnings excite me, temperate days tempt me. I feel myself once again coming alive after a long and numb and weary sleep. today I have a stream scheduled for a much needed energy tuning session. I burnt myself out a little yesterday so I just want to submerge myself in healing energies and give myself to the tides of magic - not to be the one who pours from the cup of life but to be the water - boundless, animating, free. I imagine that's how the cat must feel, melting in my lap, never forcing anything. I want to live like that, even for just a little while.

Where do you see your channel in the next 5 years? in the next 5 years I'm going to have my own spooky story series. my videos will be increasingly gorgeous and with my approach of doing exclusively what I want I expect to see continued slow growth. maybe in 5 years I'll have 250k subs. I'm in no rush. as long as I ensure that I stay true to my values, I will still be here in 5 years, even 10 years. it's hard for me to envision anything because I have no sense of time at all. my understanding of time is limited to far past, recent past, present. so unless I am driven by desire, the future is just impossible to quantify. maybe my predictions are overly modest. maybe they are ambitious. no one knows what will happen. the one thing I can guarantee is that I will spend my time pursuing my passions.

Are you going to add a voice chat to your discord eventually? you know, if I wanted to do that I would have. voice chat has been requested at least once before and I get why. people can't be bothered to type, it's easier to just say what you want to say out loud. the problem is, I can't be bothered to listen. 90% of my job is just to listen. it takes a lot of processing power. my brain is already overtaxed on a daily basis. so if I were to add voice chat, I would never participate, nor keep up with what's being posted, making it hard to moderate my server. it is sadly just more of a headache for me to keep up with which is why I prefer text chat which I can skim over at my convenience.

So you have been out of Germany for quite a while now and I guess you're done with it. But is there anything good that you've taken with you from Germany or is there anything you miss that you can't get in the US? Und sprichst du ab und zu noch Deutsch oder hast du die Sprache schon verlernt? the only thing I've taken with me is my understanding of what desserts should be. I got into baking because American bread is mediocre and expensive and American desserts taste like diabetes and it shows in just how popular my homemade treats are. you just can't buy 'em like that. and I'm used to just running to the nearest bakery real fast because there was one on every block in Germany, there were 6 in the local mall alone, and being able to get something as delicious if not better for an extremely reasonable price. and I'm talking cakes, cookies, breads, pastries, pretzels, sandwiches, coffee, all in one place. here I can't even find so much as a greater than mediocre cappuccino and some of the battery acid they try to pass off as coffee (popular chains, too!) is a crime against humanity. it makes me mourn the poor coffee beans. I would kill for a proper cappuccino from the coffee and wine shop at the mall. cafe culture is just not the same here. there's no place where you can just sit and hang out for an hour sipping java and slowly eating a giant cream puff and just chat with friends or people watch. and while I will likely never own a cafe, I do have aspirations of becoming the local dessert person. I want to be the eccentric old lady that everyone knows for her desserts. I want people to be like "you want the real good stuff? you have to befriend that crazy bitch"
so you might think this is weird but I never liked speaking German. I would avoid speaking German when I lived in Germany if I could get out of it. I find the language abrasive and unnatural to my tongue and I cringe everytime I am forced to speak it. always have. people would make fun of either my accent of my lack of a local dialect since I was a child. in all these years, the language has never grown on me. it's really only good for an ice breaker when getting to know people here. naturally everyone wants to talk to the exotic German girl and chat about that one time they visited distant relatives in Hamburg and say German phrases in such a thick accent that I have to ask them to repeat what they said multiple times to understand what's going on. people are really open and curious here and I'll give them the satisfaction of explaining words to them but other than that, I couldn't care less about the German language.

Have you been to the Grand Canyon yet? Also do you have any alien/ufo stories? I wish! the closest thing I have to an alien story is that one time several years ago when I woke up with strange markings on my back that couldn't have been caused by anything in my house. there were 3 lines of dots, very regularly spaced, each line more faded than the other. I didn't even have a clue they were there until my friend pointed them out to me. I posted the picture and someone later reached out to me saying they've seen markings like that from alleged alien probing. I never looked further into it and the markings literally disappeared by the end of that day. the grand canyon may be a destination for another time, as so far we have yet to venture further than St. Louis.

Hi Ally,  I’m a new patron and I’ve always wanted to ask you something. I’m an actor.  Or I was an actor. No, still am. Anyway, your ability to be so natural and intimate to whoever you’re addressing in videos like “ASMR for Burnout” and “A Simple Aura Cleansing” and the heightened style you evoke in the “Blood Banquet” videos always made me think “this girl has acting chops”.  Other things too, like how you use your voice.  So my question is: Do you have film acting training? Or were you or are you an actor? I'm not an actor. never been trained and my acting isn't actually that good either. I joined the theater club for one year and I was so unconvincing, if not for my singing I think they'd have kicked me out. but maybe my crippling social anxiety skewed that experience for me. it's a lot easier to deliver a role in the comfort of my studio with no distractions and no pressure. just vibing with myself. the secret to creating intimacy in a video is to make a video for a certain person. the camera is not a camera. it's a person who needs to hear what you're about to tell them. who needs the experience you're about to give them. that person can be someone you know, it could be you. you are a person.  you have to know the human condition deeply enough to know what is needed. then the monologue flows naturally and the actions are cohesive and you are projecting into the very soul of the viewer.

What is your favorite fall activity and why? my favorite fall activity is photography and this is why

What is Jacks opinion on asmr overall? Also, is Jack in the room when you're recording or do you have to be alone in order to concentrate? Jack thinks it's nice. (that's all he said).
and Jack is fast asleep while I am recording so if you hear someone snoring in the background of my video then I must have snoozed while editing. when I'm filming it's not that big of a deal because I'm gonna end up dubbing everything anyway. but when I'm recording, it has to be between midnight and 3AM (realistically, 1-3AM) because that's the one time of day where I can get a few minutes of silence at a time to do my voiceovers. at 3AM Jack gets up and the ultra sensitive 3dio will pick up any noise from anywhere in the house.

Ally if you were a teacher which subject would you rather be teaching? I'm ridiculously bad at teaching anyone anything because I have a hard time putting myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't have the background knowledge I have and lose patience when someone doesn't understand me right away. so probably art. there's no explicitly wrong way to do art. as an art teacher I could just make kids do art stuff, tell them they did a good job and go on my merry way.

I have to go prep my stream now. if you have any more questions, there will be another question dump here and I will be awaiting your comments. wear your sunscreen and drink responsibly 🥃