Because I’m watching so much Twitch, and have found a home in quite a plethora of streamers’ chats, I wanted to list out some of my favorites for y’all to follow! They’re mostly variety streamers that focus on social issues, mental health, fat liberation, etc. So check them out and at least give them a follow!

Streamers I’m loving the heck out of in alphabetical order.

• Andrealausell
• BeardPrincess
• BigMikeyOcho
• Blizzb3ar
• CriticalBard
• Chanzlyn
• Detune
• Frankthepegasus
• Glowpinkstah
• Granny
• GullibleGambit
• Imperial
• J0hnJ0hnn
• Jambo
• JasonSulli
• Katskratchh
• Kedapalooza
• LookItsLyrica
• Meleemira
• Mermaidroyal
• MiladyConfetti
• ThatNerdViolet
• Thyanel
• Vana

Image by THAM YUAN YUAN from Pixabay

This is post 17/31 for Blaugust You can find out more and sign up over at Belghast’s post!

I’m still working day job and creating adult content while getting back into streaming, so I’m trying to pace myself and take it slow, but also work towards consistent dates rather than picking something that may fit my schedule at the start of the week, but not work by the time the date I set comes around.

Anyway, all that to say, you can find me on Twitch this week on Thursday evening at 6PM EST, probably playing some DBD. I’ll also be live on Saturday afternoon at 11AM EST, though I’m not sure what I’ll be playing, yet. I hope to see you there!

Art by Chrystals.

This is post 2/31 for Blaugust You can find out more and sign up over at Belghast’s post!

It hit me hard, I’m not going to lie. But I’m feeling a smidge better (on the worst of days), so I’m back to blogging! I spent some time during this Panera moving my blogs to different hosting, playing with new domain name setups, dealing with viruses (that was a new one for me), and watching my blog continually blow up. And now it looks like any links in my site aren’t working correctly (I haven’t seen 404 errors on WordPress in a hot minute!) now that I have an SSL certificate on my site. After a quick look while writing this post though, it looks like it was just permalink issues. Phew! I like easy website fixes!

But anyway, it feels good to be back to blogging, even if I end up being the only one who reads it. Though, now that I’m understanding SEO way better to market my accounting website, I might dip into trying some SEO for this blog. Along with a facelift to fit some branding because…

In Other News

I’m also back to streaming this month. It’s something I didn’t want to stop, but I just… had to for my mental and physical health. And then the world went kablooie. I’m dipping back into it about a year after I stopped, and I’m excited to do so. But I’m going to take it slow. Work on my branding. Set up systems that work for me and will allow me to be more active in fostering a community. Commit myself to one day a week with a second floating day if I am feeling up to it. Dedicate myself to being more consistent with my content creation overall.

But speaking of branding? If you don’t know by now, I have an obsessive thing for caticorns, and I was leaning towards that being part of my brand. I just didn’t know how to go about it last year. I took the jump this year, though, and I’m excited to have everything the way I want it (for now).

Plus, aren’t they just hecking adorable?! Chrystals does some amazing work, and I’ve commissioned them for some more screens and panels as well to match! Somewhat related, just a quick plug that if you’d like to see behind-the-scenes content (like the sketches and line art for the aforementioned screens/panels), blog rough drafts, pet picture spam, and more you can check out my Fanhouse. Think of it like a single-tier Patreon, or an alternative to Ko-Fi! You can also get your first month for free with the code SOONTM.

DBD-Shaped Hole

During this whole world-upside-down thing, I picked up Dead by Daylight. And, well. It’s kind of become my new obsession (and only game) to be honest. I never thought I’d get into it, but I’m glad I have. I’ve found some great streamers to follow thanks to getting into the game, and it’s also a good way for me to try to balance relaxing and content and/or chores. While I still enjoy FFXIV, and have re-upped my subscription, it just didn’t give me the flexibility to easily put it down to tackle something. Yes, I could set timers and go back and forth, but it never feels right, y’know? Whereas there’s a clear-cut ending when a DBD match ends that I can get up and tackle whatever needs to be done for a few minutes before coming back to the computer and queueing for another match. Plus, while I’m waiting in queue I get to spend time working my way through whatever books I’m reading! I say it’s a win-win.

I’ve been having a lot of fun in FFXIV, which is surprising in a way based on how meh I’ve felt about the game until picking it up again. I can’t believe I’ve already hit 45! I expect that I’ll be through the majority of the base game MSQ by the time the new patch implements changes to it. Though I can’t find details on if Patch 2.1-2.55 MSQ will be affected by the newest patch. I’ve especially been enjoying the eye candy that is Cid. His voice could be deeper… but he’s still fun to look at.

No Cam Streams

I decided to try dabbling with a no-cam stream on my last stream. I’ve been having a rough time balancing my day job workload and my spoons. Day job has been draining them faster than usual as of late, and it’s made doing anything else day-to-day beyond difficult. To try and combat this, I decided to try streaming without cam because I truly wanted to stream… I just didn’t have the spoons to add that extra oomph that a cam requires.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Though I do still want to use my cam, I will probably do no-cam streams more often as day job continues to be draining. There’s only one solution to the draining, and it’s not one I can realistically pursue at this point in time (though I am trying hard to work my way to the point where I can).

Still Planner Obsessed

I’m still enjoying my planner stickers and the act of using them. They have been keeping me on track better than I expected, even weeks after the fact. Or months at this point, I suppose. I’m still catching up on my YouTube planner videos, however. Catching up as in, following the schedule I’d laid out for myself that didn’t take lack of spoons into account. But I’m slowly working my way into a better schedule. I’ll get to a place where I can put out content as I like eventually.

New Rig, Get

For those that don’t follow on Twitter, I finally replaced my ten year old computer with a new rig! I originally purchased my old rig in December 2010/January 2011 at Micro Center for approximately $500 USD. It was one of their store builds, and served me well for quite a long time. The newest components in the PC were a gaming card that I upgraded in November 2015, and the hard drives which got replaced last year.

I still need to put together a true list of what’s in my rig, but… I’m enjoying it so much! It’s a miracle to me to not have programs crash. To be able to publish content in under an hour. To not have the fan running constantly as fast as it can. I’m not sure how my computer held out as long as it did, but I’m grateful that it kept chugging. Now, however, I get to enjoy a pretty RGB computer with four hard drives!

Last week I finally had the opportunity to finish the Summerset Zone Story, even though I was rushing a bit to make it to WoW raid on time. I didn’t know when I first started playing ESO that Morrowind wasn’t the starting area. Once I found out, I decided that I wanted to complete the Morrowind > Clockwork City > Summerset arch before going back to the “base game” and doing Khenarthi’s Roost > Auridon > Grahtwood > Greenshade > Malabal Tor > Reaper’s March. While I love the One Tamriel initiative, it does make things a bit confusing on what to do when. Luckily, the forums have been a godsend.

Anyway, I finally finished Summerset. And I didn’t think that the story would wreck me the way it did. I enjoyed Morrowind once I got about halfway through the zone story. And while I was all, ‘SAVE THE CITY DO IT NOW’, it didn’t hit me super hard. Clockwork City was much the same way. I enjoyed the zone story sooner, but it was a very zen ending, and learning more about Sotha Sil was relaxing. Summerset, however. Summerset is where everything comes to a head. The bits of story you get in Morrowind and Clockwork City all convene for the end of Summerset.

Characters that I’d just met (and consequently didn’t know very well) met their endings, and it absolutely wrecked me. It destroyed me. I ended up sobbing on stream. But it says something about the writing in ESO. It helped cement that ESO has become my new main game of choice. Story is one of the most important things to me in a game, and when something hits me hard like that, I become more invested in the game.

It’s that time of year, again! Time for Blaugust, 2019 rendition! I first participated back in 2015, and then again in 2016. Blaugust disappeared for 2017, and was reborn as something a little bit new and different in 2018 (and of course I participated again!).

Blaugust is a blogging festival/challenge for all types of bloggers, and, really, all types of serialized content creators. Be sure to check out Bel’s post for full details. If writing text-heavy blog posts isn’t your thing, or even if you just need ideas on what kind of content to create, Bel recently put together a list pulling from ideas folks have previously done.

My own goals for Blaugust are a big ask compared to my current attempted schedule of one blog post a week. I am going to temper these posts with some of the ideas from Bel’s list. Things you’ll see from me here during August (that I may or may not continue in the future):

• Long, word-heavy blog posts sharing thoughts and feelings (Example)
• Screenshots from games with a paragraph or two on thoughts related to the screenshot (Example)
• VODs (from YouTube) of my Twitch streams with a paragraph of what went on during the stream (Example)

You will definitely be seeing a bunch of the VODs this month (2-3 per week). I also have a lot of screenshots I’ve been taking in ESO that will make their way into the blog this month as multi-screenshot posts. So maybe trying to post every day won’t be so much of a challenge as I am afraid it is.

Streaming Schedule Changes

Speaking of streaming, I’m contemplating adjusting my schedule again. As of now, my schedule is Sunday/Tuesday/Friday. More often than not I seem to end up cancelling Sundays. Tuesday and Friday seem to work out pretty well (vacations aside). I’d like to continue with three days, but I really feel like I need Sundays to get myself together and work on some of my other content creation. So I’m thinking/typing aloud:

• Sunday: Need to use it as a “me” day, which I don’t have many of.
• Monday: Monday Meeting Marathons at day job are definitely going to keep me from having any sort of energy. It is also raid night in WoW, and the night I typically try to do some meal prep for the week.
• Tuesday: Currently streaming, and works out well! The 7 PM EDT time works out well, too.
• Wednesday: This is date night, so streaming is pretty much out of the question.
• Thursday: I have raid, but more often than not it is a day that I work remote, so I’m thinking of trying to fit in a shorter stream before raid. Maybe just a quick two-hour thing from 6 PM EDT to 8 PM EDT.
• Friday: Currently streaming, but 8:30 PM EDT feels so late to start streaming. I mean, it’s helpful because I typically need to get some NSFW content finished and posted before I stream, but it also feels super stressful ending at midnight and still needing some down-time after streaming.
• Saturday: This is pretty much my “hang out with people” day.

So I’m thinking my new schedule will look something like this. At the very least, it’s worth giving it a try for August and readjusting as necessary.

Just a quick, obligatory, yes, I’m still playing WoW. The game hasn’t been of interest to me much outside of raiding. Which I know is a detriment for gear, but I just don’t get much enjoyment out of it right now outside of raiding with folks. We got Heroic Mekkatorque down last week, and will hopefully have the folks right before Jaina (I can’t remember their names and don’t feel like googling) down soon.

I’m hoping that the story becomes more engaging again, soon. I mean, Legion wasn’t the best expansion ever, but I at least felt like I had fun logging in to do things, and pursue various stories and class-based things. I think part of my lack of enthusiasm is also due to the whole, “factions fight each other, rawr!” bit, but that’s just speculation, because I haven’t had time to delve into the “whys”.

Back to Streaming!

As detailed in my last post, I want to try to better balance vanilla and NSFW endeavors, so I’m back to streaming this week!

I'm back from my streaming hiatus on Thursday! Come hang out for beginner @TESOnline streaming fun!

June 6th @ 5:30-8:30 PM EDThttps://t.co/JnTzQBobaM @GirlStreamers @Themooglespom #ESO #ESOFam pic.twitter.com/zmQpA3ECjA

— Chestburster (@ChestnutPlays) June 3, 2019

Pigs Fly, and Hell Froze Over

Since I’ve been so busy and burned out with real life, I’ve been trying to find a new game, again, that catches my fancy. I considered City of Heroes, but I’ve never been a bit superhero fan. So I figured why not give ESO a try, for the third time. The farthest I’ve gotten is level 8, but it’s never clicked. My assumption, before starting back up this particular time, was due to the fact that I wasn’t taking things at my own pace, and exploring the way I wanted to, because I was playing with other people.

So Manthing and I have come to a sort of agreement where we’ll still both be playing ESO, but sit in Discord and do our own things in game instead of trying to play it with characters together 100% of the time. And I’m enjoying both the extra time with him (seeing him only once a week is difficult, sometimes), and doing my own things in the game… even if that just means talking to every NPC I run into, reading every single book I open, and gathering everything I can with no care in the world.

I also decided to roll up a Bosmer, this time. “Wait, you’re playing an Elf, Chestnut?” Yep. For those that don’t know, I don’t like Elves in fantasy. I never really have. But I’ve been watching Aeyvi stream a bunch, lately, and saw that she had a Bosmer, but with horns.

And really, I’m all here for some Succubus Forest Witch shit, so I decided why not go Goth Bosmer? It’s definintely been making the game enjoyable for me, so I will concede that Elves maybe aren’t all bad, so long as they don’t follow the normal body shape and have horns, and I can pretend they practice sex magick.

Sunday I got into my first Yakuza game ever—Yakuza 0. I’ve been watching Sushi and Elly play various Yakuza games for a while (I can never seem to catch Ty when he’s streaming!), and they look like fun. But I’ve always postulated that fighting games (and shooters) aren’t my jam, so I’ve never really delved into them outside of one or two attempts at different titles (of which I couldn’t even name, now).

Having won Sushi’s most recent subscriber giveaway, I found Yakuza 0 sitting in my library. And since I was having fun watching the ladies play, I figured it was worth at least giving it a try myself (on the easiest setting, of course).

And you know what? I had a blast! I’m engaged in the story, the fighting pieces feel relevant and I’m not beating my head against a wall on them, and I’m enjoying the humor a lot (the “fisting master” piece broke me—approx 1:27:00)!

I’m looking forward to playing more of it and working my way through the story.

Sunday’s stream counted as a part of the first “week” of August for my personal counting purposes. I decided that I needed something where I could lean back in my chair (thus, needed to be a controller), and something that was fun, had some story, but was pretty mindless. So I decided on Yakuza 0 (which I won from a subscriber giveaway that Sushi did).

I know streaming isn’t everyone’s shtick, but if you’re interested, come by and hang out some on Thursday!

I’ve never shied away from talking about how I suffer from depression and anxiety. I may not always get into full-blown details, but it has never been something that I hide. It has, however, been very intense the past month or so. Which in turn has been making it difficult to do even basic things. You may have seen me talk about “spoons” on Twitter (relating back to Spoon Theory). I honestly prefer “Spell Theory”, though, if I’m explaining it to my nerdier friends.

Well, on a typical weekday basis, I have a lot to do—get up for work, prep food for work, take care of the pets, get ready for work, go to work (possibly have multiple meetings), go home, take care of the pets… and then depending on the day, my evenings differ. I could have a LARP ST meeting, or pole class, or date night, or WoW raid (currently on hiatus, which helps). Then add in any chores that need to be taken care of, or a shower… you get the idea.

On a day when my depression is good (manageable), and I’ve filled my spell slots because I was able to sleep the night before, I can manage pretty much everything (maybe taking out some chores, or a shower), and then add in some streaming because I feel good, and enjoy streaming and interacting with folks.

But life has been stressful (car accident, multiple chronic health concerns, apartment flooding), and thus my already limited spell slots (I haven’t been sleeping well due to the other chronic health stuff) have been used up lickity-split on things from managing contact between car insurance and car loan, to just getting out of bed in the morning and getting to work. It’s to the point where I come home, take care of the pets, and take a nap so that I can try to function and tackle minor things.

I do think this week is starting to be a turn-around week, however, due to laying out some short-term future plans (planning moving to a new apartment, car accident management is almost done, doctor appointments have been made), and being able to manage my spoons a little bit better (sleep is starting to get better, slightly, slowly increasing my spoon count).

Schedule Going Forward

So what does that mean for streaming? Well, that means my schedule for the next few weeks will be up in the air. I will not be streaming this week (July 22-28). I do want to slowly get back on the wagon with streaming, however. So I’m going to be working at this by looking to stream one day a week to begin. The downside is that this day will be up in the air, and the game I’ll be playing will also be up in the air depending on where I’m at, and what I can manage.

Once I’ve conquered more real-world shenanigans (the car being settled, getting set to move and break my lease, going to doctor appointments), I’ll be able to do more of the follower giveaways, etc. that I’ve set up and haven’t gotten to due to the depression. I am going to wait, however, on setting up my web cam for streams, because I’ve already started packing some things up, and it was one of those things. That’ll finally get used in late-September, early-October (after moving).

I originally wanted to try a birthday stream (my birthday is next week) sometime in early-August, but there is no guarantees on anything, anymore. I will probably nix a birthday stream, and just do a long Halloween-themed stream instead, because it seems much more manageable after moving.

So, TL;DR? Keep an eye on Twitter, or join the Caticorn Palace Discord to keep up to date on streams, and just chat in general.