Today is that day! It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns has been around for the last 7 years. Wow! It's amazing how time flies.
Normally,
I color code questions and answers in orange and green because I
usually change the background scenery for Halloween.
It goes without
saying that 2020 has been an extremely shitty year for most of us.
The
incessant Doomsday reports about the Coronavirus by the media and
social media fucked up everything for all of us.
In celebration of It's Not All
Gumdrops & Unicorns' 7th anniversary, questions about rare Horror
Anime, Carl Jung's Typologist Test, and more will be answered in today's
Q&A blog. All questions are in bold red italics and my answers are
simply bolded. So, let's begin!
1) DanniDarkness: Are there any rare Horror Anime that you would recommend?
I
don't know your exact definition of Horror Anime but... if you happen to like Horror Comedy, I highly recommend watching Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi
Henge.
Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge was renamed "The Wallflower" in
English.
Sunako Nakahara is the protagonist spoofed
off the character from the J-Horror movie, Ringu, which soon became the
Americanized remake called The Ring in 2002.
2) A. P. Fuchs: Do you write regardless of how you feel, whether you're tired or slightly sick or just plain unmotivated?
Answer: It really all depends on the situation. If I am extremely nauseated
from something and have been barfing up my lungs for rounds, then no.
If
lethargic, I will take a nap. Then, finish writing.
Meanwhile, writing angry poetry was my personal catharsis during my adolescence.
Growing
up, I always took a lot of shit from people ranging from my classmates
to certain teachers intentionally making negative examples out of me.
Generally
speaking, the preceding ALWAYS contributed to bullying and has especially led to
more school shootings if not teen suicides within the last nearly 3
decades. I don't condone school shootings and teenagers committing
suicide, but I understand why both happen.
Sometimes
teachers ARE to blame for the bullying, school shootings, and suicides
with their need to make negative examples out of their students.
It
has been 15 years, since I last wrote any poetry. Whenever I did, it
was usually angry poetry. Yeah, in some ways, I've been that weird,
stereotypical, angry Goth Chick for 2-3 decades.
An
estranged guy friend from college loved making snide remarks, mocking me and the Goth
Sub-culture.
Within the last few years or so, a longtime mutual friend of ours introduced him to some
BDSM and fetish communities. Gotta love those bandwagoners always trying
to "fit in."
Most average people do NOT know, that BDSM originated from
the Goth Sub-culture.
BDSM is NOTHING like 50 Shades of B.S. Those novels are piss poor representations of BDSM.
3) Donald: Based on Carl Jung standards, what is your personality type?
Answer:
For those who didn't already know, Carl Jung is usually discussed in
both Psychology and Sociology classes.
It has been many years, since the
time of taking those classes.
If you are interested, you can learn more about Carl Jung's theory of personality types, RIGHT HERE.
According
to the Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test I took last Friday, my type is
ISTJ. 12% Introvert 25% Sensing 3% Thinking 56% Judging
4) DJ Scott Wilcox: It's so hard to get published nowadays. What is the status of your short story collection?
Answer: Please re-read the beginning of this Q&A blog. Also, ~2 weeks ago, I
published a blog explaining more about my writing status.
"Maliciousness," "The Bill Collector," and "Psycho Vs. Psycho" have all been converted into 1 novella.
"Across
The Street," "The Horrors Of Womanhood," and "All Of Chastity's Men"
still have yet to be published. The last 3 stories are much darker and
grislier than my novella.
"Across The Street" is a Horror Flash Fiction piece and the shortest story I have ever written.
Because
that story is different from the others, I don't know HOW it will be
published. Maybe it will have to be published separately from the
others.
Also, I still have yet to finish writing
"All Of Chastity's Men." This particular story has been put on hiatus
more times than any other story I have ever written. You may be
wondering, "WHY?"
I think the hiatus is somewhat because I am writing "All Of Chastity's Men" more for my own personal catharsis.
Normally, I wrote poems for my catharsis. Writing THIS story for my own catharsis is a much bigger challenge.
Well,
it appears that I answered everyone's questions for today's Q&A
blog. It would've really been fantastic, if more readers and subscribers had
questions to ask. Then again, less is more.
Thank
you for asking your questions and reading today's Q&A blog in
celebration of It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns' 7th anniversary! I
look forward to your feedback!
Wow! Can you believe it? Today is the day that marks It's Not All
Gumdrops & Unicorns' 6th anniversary. How's it going my gumdrops?
Before I forget, Happy Birthday to Whiskey Brewer on MeWe!
While
still working for my uncle, I self-built this website on September 23,
2013. In a way, I cannot help feeling somewhat disappointed that I still
have not accomplished as much as I really wanted this year.
Since
2017, I have endured a plethora of issues ranging from dealing with my
mother's eternal health issues to chores, editing, revising, and
submitting my short stories for publishing, contacting publishers, voice
actors, editors, job hunting, etc.
Earlier this
year, I was sick at least twice. For the 4th time in 19 years, I had
bronchitis and a cold. Long story short, this year has been brutal.
Since
this year's Q&A blog has a few jargon-filled questions, I tried
answering them as best as I could by giving them the so-called "college
try." Anyway, let's begin!
[It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns Q&A 2019:]
Kersten's Questions:
1) What is the most difficult part about having kept a blog this long?
2) Who is your favorite Horror artist?
My Answers:
1) Creating a blog
is nothing compared to self-building a website full of content. All the
while, trying to generate exposure and attracting the right
demographic.
Also, spambots, site, and server glitches.
Those have been my biggest problems.
In addition to self-building It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns, there is managing it, generating SEO, traffic, visitors, and loyal subscribers.
At the same time, enduring social climbing opportunists, selfish and misanthropic
"friends" pretending to care about me, indifference, jealousy, envy,
the bitterness of others, and copycats.
2) When it comes to Horror artists (because they are more than just Metal
vocalists and guitarists), I guess I would say Rob Zombie, Glenn Danzig,
and Wes Borland. Even though Wes Borland is best known as Limp Bizkit's
lead guitarist, he collaborates with other bands besides fronting his
own.
Tard Tardnation: What's your favorite type of weather?
Answer:I love the hot summer weather.
Then again, I was born ~1 week before
Summer Solstice. Now that it's fall, I dread having to rake leaves and
shovel snow again.
Meanwhile, rain and snow help set
ominous tones to my short stories, since I mostly write Psychological
Horror, Crime, and Psychological Thriller.
Jesse: Do
you ever use Duolingo or Babbel to help learn a new language? I've just
started using Duolingo recently because I am interested in learning
German.
Answer: Yes, I have heard of both Duolingo
and Babbel but have never used either.
Even though it has been years
since I last took German I highly recommend the book, Komm mit! You may want to visit the 50 Languages foreign language website and
download their app, too.
Much like my family, I believe
it is best to traditionally learn a foreign language with drills. Using
apps make for great aids but it is best to have a quality foreign
language book. My youngest aunt uses Duolingo to help her with learning
Japanese.
According to her, Duolingo is not the best
way to become fluent in a foreign language.
Regardless of what foreign
language you want to learn, you MUST have quality foreign language books
with drills to help learn a foreign language.
DJ Scott: What's your fondest memory from blogging/blog responses?
Answer: My fondest memories actually predate building It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns.
For
those, who didn't already know, I originally started blogging 13 years
ago on Yahoo 360. This was months after graduating from Carthage
College, while STILL battling a severe bleeding disorder at the time.
My
English Literature Professor sometimes used my Yahoo 360 blog as
an educational source for his classes. Compared to the last 6 years of blogging on here AND Blogster, more educational information was
published on my Yahoo 360 blog.
Unfortunately,
all good things always come to an end. This can most definitely be said
about Yahoo 360. Yahoo always discontinues their best products.
Years later, I discovered the blogging community, Xanga. I regret not discovering Xanga years sooner.
Before
The Xanga Team dumped their money problems into OUR laps by making it
mandatory to pay to blog, which caused division within our community, I
had both national AND international traffic, friends, and loyal
subscribers.
In addition, more readers genuinely cared about my content
and I made top blogger AT LEAST a few times, 6 years ago.
C. Afflerbach: Do you like crafting? Ancient aliens? Ghosts?
My Answers:
1)The closest I will ever get to crafting is building this website.
Otherwise, I always suck at crafting. As cool as crafts look, I never
had that skill. 25 years later and I still suck at doing Origami.
2) I'm not a huge fan of ghosts and aliens.Blame it on
Hollywood filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, for example and the media.
They love spreading (as I use the cliche term) "misinformation" and
stupid ass stereotypes about the paranormal and extraterrestrials.
The
contrived and unrealistic scripts and special effects in Spielberg's
movies only validate all those skeptics, who don't believe in ghosts and
aliens.
Even though I'm not a huge fan of either, I know that both DO
exist, especially the paranormal.
Whiskey Brewer: Are there any cartoons you grew up watching, that you'd actually like to see remade for youngsters nowadays?
Answer: When it comes to movies and shows, including animation, you could say,
that I am more of a "purist." Today's filmmakers, writers, and animators should leave Classics alone.
Continuously remaking
and rebooting movies, shows, and cartoons because they want to stay
relevant only proves, that all these filmmakers lack creativity
and originality.
The incessant political activism and correctness, which mostly consists of CONTRIVED
tokenism to pander to politically correct hipsters are biggest problems with today's
writers, filmmakers, cartoonists, musicians, etc.
Why does a
famous superhero suddenly have to be non-heterosexual or female?
Speaking of, have you seen the commercials for CW's Batwoman?
Batwoman Trailer CW (2019)
If anything, more network programmers should introduce younger demographics to Classics.
Yes, they may look dated but as they get older,
they might have a better appreciation for said movies, shows, and
especially cartoons. They should be able to imagine what life was like
during an era(s) that was before their existence.
For
example, every time I watch a movie that was made before, during, and
slightly after I was born, that film allows me to embrace and reflect on
what life was like before we had cell phones, laptops, tablets, the Internet,
social media, etc.
As a 37-year-old woman, I do miss
the days of publicly socializing with friends and on my bedroom's phone
line as a teenager, going to public places without someone staring at
his cell phone, while playing video games on it, and being able to cherish memories WITHOUT some girl snapping selfies and recording the play
by play of her vapid, daily life with poses on social media for instant praises by sycophants.
C.S. Michel's Questions:
1) Have you seen the trailer for the new Joker movie?
2) Have you seen Doom Patrol?
3) Do you like Erotic Anime?
My Answers:
1) Yes, I have and please reread my answer to Whiskey Brewer's question.
The Batman franchise was meant to be campy. Since the time of the 21st
Century, filmmakers have ruined Batman by dramatizing what was
originally a campy franchise.
2)I had no idea what
Doom Patrol was until Googling it, last week only to discover that it
was ANOTHER DC Comic Flick.
Batman, Blade, The Phantom, and The Crow are
probably the only movies based on comic books that I liked.
Otherwise, I was never a comic book fan.
As as a teenage girl 20 years
ago, I tried but reading comic books just don't resonate with me.
3)
Erotic Anime or in other words, Hentai? Since I love Anime, I am not
that fast to dismiss Hentai. It has been a long time, since I last
watched any Hentai.
Over the last 13 years, I have
watched more Ecchi, Seinen, and Josei Anime that somewhat border the
lines of Hentai Anime than actual Hentai.
Donald's Questions:
1)
Over the past year, what has been the best resource you have turned
toward to promote your own growth, both personal and professional?
2)
The notion of incremental improvement is a powerful one, compared to
yourself a year ago how have you bettered yourself and in what ways?
3) What are the best books or lectures you have interacted with on the subject of personal development?
2) While
re-revising my short stories recently, I noticed that I am able to
mentally re-edit certain lines as I type. I believe that spending HOURS
editing AND revising all the blogs I've published over these last 6
years, from night to beyond sunrise made me a better writer.
Despite
what pompous elitists (including a few delusional Fan Fiction writers)
think, BLOGGING is a fantastic way to improve writing skills. Blogging
is journaling for the most part.
3) Please reread Answer #1.
So, how did I do with answering all your questions?
By giving it the "good ol' college try," I answered each question to the best of my ability.
If
I misunderstood your questions, I apologize. However, I will NOT
apologize for MY opinions in regards to today's Hollywood entertainment
and how political correctness is destroying it with contrived tokenism.
So, thank you my gumdrops! Please leave your feedback in the comments section below!
How's it going my gumdrops? Can you believe that 2018 will be over in
4 more months? I can't believe how much time has gone passed.
This year
did not exactly go the way I planned, which is highly disappointing.
Realizing this makes me feel unaccomplished.
Throughout
every year, I always hope for the better but it seems like everything
keeps getting worse. Anyway...
Today is the 5th anniversary of It's Not All
Gumdrops & Unicorns. There are fewer questions this year. Here are
the following questions I have answered:
It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns Q&A 2018:
Zombified: How do you think things with your website will evolve in the future?
Answer:
Honestly, I have no idea. Webs' engineers need to hurry with their
repairs. They are that 1 straw breaking every camel's back. In other
words, most of us, who use Webs as a platform for publishing content
like myself and/or business owners are suffering.
As I
explained to a Webs Customer Service Representative over the phone last
Friday, we have been losing customers, subscribers, traffic, etc. It
all depends on what that person is using Webs for.
I
personally use Webs.com's platform for blogging at least 2-3 days a week along with publishing and sharing excerpts of my
short stories for only members of It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns
to read on my Horror/Thriller page.
Earlier this year (late
January to be more specific), I stopped blogging on It's Not All
Gumdrops & Unicorns and started experimenting again on Blogger.
After
building my 2nd Blogger page, OMG, Anna! What's Going On?! I noticed
there were less problems with publishing my blogs.
Also, the features
that us bloggers can use on Blogger like scheduling blogs to be
published and meta tagging WITHOUT any glitches are free.
Not having to pay for more artistic designs on Blogger is another bonus.
Countless
times over these last 5 years, I have said that WordPress is highly
overrated and overpriced for vapid designs and is user UNFRIENDLY. The preceding statement still holds true today. The ball is currently in everyone
else's court other than mine.
Only YOU can help
generate traffic to content by liking, sharing, and having discussions.
Discussions especially generate THE MOST traffic to a website.
Marquis DeBlood: What inspired you to start writing?
Answer:
This is a great question. Since elementary school, I learned how to
create my own short stories. My 1st and 2nd grade teachers in made us
draw our own pictures and write short stories.
By 3rd grade,
my English teacher gave us a monthly chart with ideas to create stories
with for assignments.
Once it reached October, we had to create our own
Halloween stories. You, as well as some other Horror fans would've
loved those assignments in school. That year in
October, I really had fun.
I wrote short stories about werewolves,
zombies, vampires, and Chucky from Child's Play. Looking back, I suppose
that would've been labeled as "Fan Fiction," before Fan Fiction was
ever a term or a website. Not that I support Fan Fiction, but you get my
point.
After becoming a teenager, that was when I really became interested in Creative Writing.
As
a form of personal catharsis, I wrote angry poetry, when I wasn't
creating my own characters and writing short stories.
During my high school
senior year, I had a disparaging teacher for Creative Writing Class. That
same teacher claimed, that all my stories and poems were "depressing."
Maybe some of my poems were but NOT my stories. You have read some of
the excerpts of my short stories on my Horror/Thriller page to know,
that they are NOT "depressing."
After minoring In
Creative Writing in college, my professors appreciated my work. Those
disparaging remarks from my Creative Writing teacher in high school did NOT stop me from graduating college with a
Creative Writing Minor.
In a nutshell, that
frumpy, red-headed, divorced cow (or pig) from high school, along with my
asshole study hall monitor, who labeled me as "The Next Columbine
Student" can go fuck themselves to Icy Hot.
BTW: I
added more excerpts to the Horror/Thriller page. Whenever you have the
chance, I highly encourage every member to sign in and read them.
Robert: What is your favorite album of all time?
Answer:
That is a tough question to answer. After being exposed to numerous
music genres, sub-genres, and albums by so many mainstream and
underground bands and singers, I cannot name only 1 album. The following
is a list of my favorite albums:
Gravity Kills' Gravity Kills and Perversion
Stabbing Westward's Wither, Blister, Burn, & Peel and Darkest Days
Lords Of Acid's Lust, Voodoo-U, and Our Little Secret
Stone Temple Pilots' Core, Purple, and No. 4
Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses and October Rust
KoRn's KoRn, Life Is Peachy, Follow The Leader, and Untouchables
Dokken's Breaking The Chains and Back For The Attack
London After Midnight's Psycho Magnet
Lacuna Coil's In a Reverie, Unleashed Memories, and Comalies
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult's A Crime For All Seasons
The preceding list only names a few of my favorite albums.
With all that has been answered, did you enjoy learning anything new from today's Q&A blog? What are your thoughts?
In
the near future, I always look forward to seeing more of you on It's
Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns and on OMG, Anna! What's Going On?!
Thank you!
How's it going lurkers? These last several days, especially yesterday I have not been as talkative online. Blog community hunting, enduring advertisers and mainstream media
cramming Valentine's Day down my throat, and getting into a fight with a
friend don't exactly mesh too well.
Yesterday was already an emotional roller coaster and Valentine's
Day really sent me over the edge. Not that I didn't get any presents for Valentine's Day because I got several.
A new lounge pants set, chocolate candy, an extra pair of lounge
pants with snowflakes, hearts, and skulls on them (which I am currently
wearing), and food from Taco Bell.
After being told that my favorite Taco Bell Burrito (The Volcano Burrito) was discontinued, I was a little upset.
Taco Bell's Volcano Burrito had rice, cheese, nacho strips, sour cream, spicy hot cheese sauce, and obviously ground beef in it.
Since
my family spent a lot of time and money trying to make Valentine's Day
special for moi, I didn't want to complain.
There really wasn't enough money for me to
buy them anything for Valentine's Day.
Last year, I
won free Galaxy Desserts Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes via Facebook from
the Dating With Dignity page. I wasn't expecting to win anything,
last Valentine's Day.
Nonetheless, I did and shared my cupcakes with my immediate family. Because they spent so much time and
money on me yesterday, I just washed the dishes.
After
signing back into Facebook last night, I was in a bad mood again. I
had to sit and look at some of my friends' wedding pictures, their "I
love my husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend" statuses, obnoxious
Valentine's Day articles, advertisements, etc. Ugh! ENOUGH, ALREADY!
You
are probably thinking, "So what? If you don't like it, don't look" or
something along those lines.
This Valentine's Day week has been on my
last nerve. Local TV stations, commercials, biased news anchors, the media, and social media are generally to blame for this.
Our EXTREMELY biased local news reporters kept reporting about Valentine's Day and couples,
which only poured salt into invisible wounds.
Those of
us eternal bachelors, bachelorettes, widows, widowers, those who are only conveniently dating, or in a contrived "committed
relationship," and being unable to celebrate with their significant others, or
have no one are BARELY acknowledged.
It's infuriating!
If I have to listen to or read that
same bullshit about "Valentine's Day is just a Hallmark Holiday.
Why celebrate love once a year, when couples should celebrate their
relationships everyday?", I'm gonna bitchslap somebody!
Here's
what these people don't understand: Valentine's Day is mostly Christmas
for COUPLES. Albeit, Valentine's Day is mostly Show & Tell Day for
women.
Whether we are in relationships or NOT, we
are forced to be shown and told about how great someone's man is to
her because he bought her fill in the blank, showed he DOES listen to a
single word she says by doing something romantic, creative, etc.
It's not that Valentine's Day is necessarily a woman's Show & Tell Holiday because men are given presents as well.
Valentine's Day in Japan is nicknamed "Chocolate Day." Basically, it is a man's Show & Tell Holiday in
Japan. What a
twist!
Japanese females either buy chocolate candy,
or custom make it for whoever they have a crush on and give them
chocolate candy as Valentine's Day presents.
Females
also give their female friends "obligatory chocolate." If you have ever
watched Anime, you'll understand what I mean.
Then, March 14th is White Day. White Day is the female version of Valentine's Day.
Those,
who were given chocolate, must do something special for females, who
gave it to them.
This could be a treat to an onsen (hot spring), or buy or
do something special for them.
Regardless, singles and couples celebrate Valentine's Day. Japan is only celebrating it differently than in Western countries.
As
an American woman, I take Valentine's Day personally. It's mostly
because I'm constantly having to endure people intentionally pouring
salt into my wounds.
The last guy I dated was 8
years ago. My last ex-boyfriend was a womanizing crooked cop. He
committed hate crimes, loved playing highly offensive and deplorable
pranks on people, and was a cheapskate.
I was
matchmade to be with that loser mostly because my oversexed friend's
boyfriend at the time, planned our blind date. I dated that scumbag for 3 months.
He had ZERO respect for me because that womanizing crooked cop cared more about how he could strategize ways to get an ethnically ambiguous college girl drunk enough to have sex with him on his mind.
That piece of shit automatically assumed that I was a dumb and naive, slutty college freshman, when I was a senior and 2 years OLDER than HIM.
During the 3 months of dating each other, he didn't even care about the fact that I was in the middle of enduring a severe menstrual bleeding disorder the night after I met him.
Luckily, I NEVER had sex with the creep, especially since he was NEVER the type of guy I would've EVER dated in a million years, had an unattractive personality and physique.
My highly oversexed friend's boyfriend wanted to play matchmaker and force chemistry between us.
You can't force chemistry between 2 people. They either have chemistry, or they don't.
I'm convinced that womanizing crooked cop was a curse to my health before I graduated from Carthage.
Instead of
him buying me anything for Valentine's Day, he was supposedly "working
late." Then, 2 months after I dumped him, he told me about how he
knocked up his fuck buddy, shacked up with her, and got married. I
bitched him out.
Valentine's Day 2007, he felt the
need to e-mail me and 3 other women about his new born daughter's baby
pictures.
I ended up sending him another angry message and blocked his
ass.
I would've dumped that asshole sooner in 2006, but my highly oversexed friend kept begging me to give him another chance.
My
crooked cop ex and several other exes are the driving forces behind me
writing "All Of Chastity's Men." How's that for an Anti-Valentine's Day
Story? There really should be more of them.
