How did I miss this one? - It's a (late) anniversary for my YT channel! · 9:46am Jun 11th, 2020

Okay, so I just discovered a message on my phone's emails that tells me ''Happy YouTube-versary! It's been more than 1,576,000 minutes since your first upload! That's 3 whole years!''

And I completely missed it. This was sent to me in May! In this time, so much has happened since the first time I uploaded a video. I have tried in the past to make YouTube channels, back in what many would call ''The Golden Age of YouTube'', when there was a logic about it all, but I got nowhere. To see notice I've been here three years and to be still going with continued support from my subscribers, I can't tell you how it feels!

I was so bad at creating content I would often cringe at hearing my own voice on playback during editing and thinking that nobody would like to hear my voice or care what I'm saying, nor would they care to subscribe, so imagine my surprise when I saw my subscriber count surpassed 50 and then one hundred! As it sits, we're just over 700! Only 300 away from the big 1K mark! I'm setting it as my goal to get there before the year is out.

Still, I have to say a massive thanks to everyone who allowed me to read their stories and enjoy the result, especially Anonpencil. If it weren't for here, I wouldn't have a tonne of material to get through and die of laughter midway through reading them, so be sure to thank her for all those fantastic stories of hers! I really do appreciate it. I have to admit there were times where I felt I didn't do the work of any author's work justice at times, almost butchering them, and that did hurt my confidence inside. I tell you, trying to keep a professional quality is so hard to maintain, and I always try to do my best with the standard-issue British voice of mine that keeps cracking, messing up lines and missing emphasis. If you watched my Off the Record video, you'll hear how exactly I react, swear to myself and bicker under my breath while editing.

I...I can't tell you what a journey it's been so far! YouTube is one of the things I've wanted to do since it was a thing, and I remember the days when Newgrounds was a thing, basically the pre-YouTube website that everyone used. Those were the days! So far, I've covered so many romance / comedy / horror stories and those sweet, sad little tales that leave your heart pounding warmly and your face blushing and / or crying softly while sniffling to yourself in joyful melancholy, and I want to keep this going for as long as I possibly can!

There's one thing that I find enjoyable about this route, and it's getting to portray the characters in my own way and put on different accents to fit their personalities. By far, my favourite one to do is Applejack and any of the Apple Family. For some reason, doing the Southern accent is so much easier than most anything else, and with my obnoxious voice box, pulling a posh Rarity or a raspy Rainbow Dash or a bubbly Pinkie Pie is out of my range. Due to some unknown problem, I can't physically yell, scream or do high-pitched noises. If I do, my vocals fry and eventually become irritated, so I try to refrain from doing any of that stuff. I'd rather do a video about most of my feelings / thoughts on how this channel has grown and the journey I've been on once the 1K mark is hit.

If there is one thing about the content I've created, it's the TextingStory videos I've made featuring Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Soarin and Applejack with Rainbow Dash. Between these three videos, my most popular ones out of all my content, that's 58K views alone! Like, I'm completely baffled on how that came to be! The first one was made when I was stuck at home and unable to attend college due to that injury with the glass door that landed me in hospital, where I got stitches in my leg for a couple weeks. To this day, I find it odd that something I did for the sake of it if it meant I didn't go insane from boredom became so popular, when I personally think it's trash! No, seriously, the amount of cringe within my being as I wrote that, feeling awkward for synthesising a texting session between two fictional mares was...*Violent Shudder*

As of right now, I'm trying to spend my time battling with an unknown illness, constant fatigue and general boredom by practicing my songs on guitar and recording them in the very strong hope that you'll all get to hear them some day soon. In the end, I'm thinking of stopping MLP content and turning the channel into a music channel based solely on playing instruments, covering songs as well as writing them and anything related to the craft. Until then, I'm going to do what I can to further my channel's production rate and finish all the stories on my to-do list.

Don't give up hope on anything until that final decision is made. All I have to say for now is thank you all for the support you've given me over the years, sharing my videos, helping promote the authors who wrote them, subscribing to me, leaving uplifting comments and pushing me forward to do better and to keep it all up over the years. It's been fun so far!

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Peace, love and empathy,

With love, from England,

- FireRain 💛