Welcome to Monet Café. Visitors, subscribers, newcomers, and friends, I'm artist Susan Jenkins. I hope you love today's lesson where I will be painting on Black Canson drawing paper. Yes, it can be done. Oh, and if you haven't subscribed, I hope you will. I'd love to have you as part of the Monet Café family. I was really happy with the result I achieved using a new strategy with Black Drawing Paper. Now, I have used this Black Canson drawing paper to paint on before, usually with harder pastels. But this time, I tried a new approach that you will learn about soon. And because so many of you have asked about the music that I use, particularly in a video I did of an alcohol wash with some beautiful blue flowers, this is the same song. It's from the YouTube Audio Library. I don't have to worry about copyright issues. It's called Frolick by E. Jammy Jams. The reference image is one of my own. I will be providing this image to my patrons from my Patreon page. And this was from a trip, I believe, to North Carolina in our conversion van, Mini Motorhome. My son and daughter-in-law love the tiny living so much, they got their own conversion van. And it is such a blessing to go on trips with them. Now, we may live tiny in the van, but we certainly don't eat tiny. It's amazing the meals we can create in the baby kitchen. Oh, and Jackson loves to travel too and sometimes meet new friends. And those are a few of the reasons I like traveling, but also because I can capture some great reference images. It is my goal to take my show on the road, so to speak, and my patrons are helping me to do that. As I said before, I use this Canson black drawing paper pad often. I actually can just do some little paintings in it, which are fun, especially like I said, the harder new pastels or Rembrandt's. But I can actually use some of the softer pastels on this too. I use this for lessons. This was a lesson on all the different strokes and markmaking you can do with pastels. But I also use it for storing pastels, especially when I'm not at home like I am now. It's a great way to store your pastel work and protect it between sheets of glassine or tracing paper. And here is a sneak peek to an upcoming painting tutorial. Can you tell I am missing Tampa? We're in the middle of a winter storm here in Mississippi. All right, here we go. I love using a pre-cut mat, a standard size. This is for a 5x7 image, but the outer perimeter is conveniently 8x10. So one mat serves for two different sizes. Now the magic ingredient for this lesson is Liquitex Clear Liquid Gesso. So this clear gesso is often, I use it a lot in my videos, I use it when I do an underpainting on watercolor paper, and then I put the gesso on top so I can apply pastel. And the reason it works for pastel painting is because it has a slight grit to it, almost like a little bit of sand in it. So while the black paper served okay for painting with harder pastels, it really didn't get a lot of layering because the paper doesn't have any tooth or any grit. Like we talk about a lot with pastel painting. Now normally I would put the gesso in a little dish, but I was kind of being lazy here and just putting it directly on the brush. But I want you to notice my strokes as I'm applying the gesso. I'm actually painting in the same direction as the elements in the reference image, which gives a nice textural feel and a feeling of energy. Now it will warp a bit. I just kind of rolled it a little bit while it was drying, and the final painting ended up being very flat. These are my initial pastels. You'll see me grab other colors as I work, but most of these are from the Paris collection. It's a 120 half stick set. I really like it. I do have it listed in my Amazon shop where whether you buy it from there or not, you can conveniently find it in the link in my description of this video. I will be keeping this first part of the lesson in real time and only speed it up a little bit at the end. So I wanted to let you guys know that working on a dark surface is interesting because it's already dark. How do you get in your dark values? I'm actually using a purple here. It looks different on the paper than it does in my hand. Now you can see it a little better. You can kind of see where I painted with the gesso a little bit of a tree line, and I really did like creating it this way. It sort of gave me a guide as to where things were, which was interesting. What I'm doing now is I'm using what I have learned about color temperature. Now right now, doesn't that blue look incredibly bright? It's because it's on the black surface, but as I add other elements, it will gradually not look so stark. So it's like I always say color and value is determined or perceived by what's around it. So right now, all it has is that black surrounding. So as I add other colors and values, that perception will change. It's really quite fascinating. Now why am I using these blues and purples? In the reference photo, I often say reference images lie, and I shouldn't say they lie, but they capture everything based on the camera's automatic settings. So unless you purposely change some of the settings, specifically the aperture, it's going to try to focus everything, and it often doesn't represent things well for painting. In my last video, I taught about color temperature, how it behaves in nature, but we can exaggerate these things to give a more interesting colorful and painterly end result to our paintings. Also notice how I'm working very loosely over the entire area. I advise always not to get bogged down into any one area, because what's going to happen is you may end up with your painting not being consistent with value and color, unless you try to get the majority of the large shapes, colors, and values down first. I find for me, it's the best way to paint. I have seen artists who quite wonderfully work from a teeny area and detail it all and work out. I typically find those paintings aren't as painterly though, and I know a lot of you guys, I mean the name of the channel is Monet Café, right? So we are typically trying to get a bit more of a painterly and impressionistic style, at least I am anyway. Now once again, notice the big shapes. I decided to make the sky rather than in the reference photo where the bands of the clouds are kind of going like a horizontal band to almost a bit up to the left. I decided to make it reaching up. I wanted to make a little, I decided in the little grasses down below. I want to make a little patch of some little sweet little flowers, and I love to create paintings where it looks like creation is praising the Lord, and often I will exaggerate things or create a sense of motion to lift the eye up or to give some sort of energy and just drama to the final painting. So again, you can see with my sky, I'm making the lighter areas reaching up more rather than going across, and I'm working on big shapes. And I am just gradually, lightly adding, I know I want to add, you see at the bottom on the reference photo the pink colors that I'm sort of adding right here. I did want to accentuate that, but when we have colors and a sunset down below, usually those same colors are going to reflect up underneath the clouds. And the reference photo didn't show that as much, but that's why I am purposely creating that same color reaching up into the the clouds that are above. It'll create some color harmony and definitely some interest. I want to talk a little bit about working on papers or surfaces prepared with liquid gesso like I have done here.  Some of you have said you've even sanded it down a bit and but then it didn't have enough tooth. So I know there might be some frustration with this, but what I have found typically is that initially it does look rather textured and not smooth. Look at the sky here, but I also have found the longer that I've been an artist, that actually a lot of pastel papers behave this way to a degree, but this perhaps a little bit more, that this is really just the loose beginning. The longer you work on things, the more layers that you add, the more they kind of start to blend themselves. So embrace that textural feel at the beginning. If you're going to try this, I always recommend, especially if you're trying something new, do a small study. Coat some paper, some black drawing paper, some matte board. You can tone it or tint it and then put some clear gesso on it and then just play around with a few studies. Now I do end up blending the sky a bit that I'll talk about a little bit in a minute. Right here I'm adding some of those lighter little marks on top of those grasses and it could feel a little weird, like I said, working on black paper because things are backwards or opposite as to when you're working on a lighter surface, but if you focus on the large shapes and the values and not get too carried away in any particular area, it will eventually feel like it's coming together. I really like here how I've created those negative shapes within the, you see how the sky is meeting the tree line. Look at those interesting shapes there. So I've just kind of carved the trees out with the sky. That's what negative painting is. It's working on the negative side of an object rather than the actual object itself. So now I'm adding some of the trees in front of the purples and the blues that I added. Now let me tell you my strategy here with the trees. I'm getting back to the fact that in the reference photo they're very dark. I'm going to keep them dark down at the base, but the top parts I wanted to accentuate distance and how do we perceive or achieve distance in a painting? It's those cooler colors. Like I said, the video right before this one is on color temperature. This particular pastel had one of those little edges. Sennelier pastels just so you know they're wonderful, but they're never rolled very smoothly. So when you first start using them, they might have those little tails on them that you might have to kind of sand down a little bit. But again, my strategy is to create distance. So I use the cooler blues and purples to create almost another level of trees in the back and it's going to give depth to my painting. Now I'm using some very neutral kind of not bright yellowy greens here because this tree that's in the foreground to the right is in shadow. And the only thing that's going to have those yellowy warmer greens are the tips of the leaves that are on the outer edge on the left hand edge there. Kind of comparing some warmer tones here to work into the tree. Maybe I'm thinking about doing some sky holes, but then I was like, nah, I'm not quite ready for that. And I decided to add a little bit of this warmth a little down deeper into the negative painting of the tree lines. And as I work on the sky bit here, let me talk about that tree line actually some more and where those warmer tones are. I know that I'm going to create that particular area as the brightest part. Look in the reference photo at the the far distant tree line. You see that little bit of pink that's kind of silhouetting or going around that distant tree. That's what I'm going to punch up with color. I wanted to keep it a lighter value, but we have a tendency sometimes to go too light with sunset type of scenes like this. So I encourage you, and what I've learned, is to resist the urge to go light, like the the lightest value yellow you can find or the lightest value pink, and instead go brighter, brighter with color intensity. It doesn't necessarily have to be a paled out value. Also too, when you're carving in sky holes behind areas like that where the tree is reaching up and you see some of the pink, eventually you'll see me working on that area again, try to use a value that's a little bit darker than the value that's reaching up above it. I'll try to talk about that more once I'm actually working on that area again. So you can see I'm just gradually working in some sky colors. I am using the reference photo as a guide, but not as a strict guide. Again, I am trying to give my own interpretation of this. I actually have, I was now looking back, I covered that wide up. I had just said about working brighter and not necessarily lighter, so I wasn't quite sure about some of the the lighter values I add there, and again in a minute you'll see me. I do blend the sky, and you'll see what blending tool that I use that I forget to mention sometimes it works really good. So there's a little cliffhanger. All right, now I am working again some of these distant trees, breaking out my artistic license to make them appear further away by the simple strategy and technique of color temperature. Once again, the video right before this one on color temperature will tell you all about how that works. You can see now how I'm still working in some of the blues and purples, and notice that everything is still so very suggestive. I haven't drawn any leaves or painted any leaves in this, so keep your strokes loose and suggestive. Now here is my example of the sky and the colors I was mentioning. Kind of glad I mentioned it before because now you can pay attention. Notice how this pink is brighter, not necessarily a light pink. It's kind of a light to middle value pink, but notice how that just made that pop in the distance. This orange, notice how it's a brighter color, not necessarily a light value orange, and this is one of the focal point strategies that I've learned. That's another video you might like. It's five ways to create a focal point. That was one of my favorite videos to make because I learned so much making it, but I have learned that color intensity can serve as focal point. If it's the most intense color in an area of a painting, your eye is going to be drawn to that, and surely in this painting you could see, even in this loose stage, how your eye is definitely drawn to those brighter colors. Now I'm just gently working them into the clouds, once again for color harmony, to just make the painting feel more consistent, but I'm not overdoing it. Super light, light touch. Now do you notice that the sky, especially where I've worked on it in the area down above those trees, you notice how it's filling in a bit. It's not quite as chunky as it was before, so the more you just gradually layer and keep a light touch, the better you're going to or the happier you're going to be with your painting. Now I'm going to add a little paint to some of those little tops of the grasses and now I'm going to work a little bit on this bigger tray. There again is that Sennelier pastel that had the little tail to it. It wasn't smooth on the end, so I'm kind of trying to work it down, turning it around, trying to get a smooth area. I'm going to start adding some of the lighter values to the outside tips of those tree branches and leaves. Again I haven't painted a single leaf, just shapes. It's amazing what the brain will put together without a lot of information and if you want to know what creates that painterly effect, that's usually it. Not giving the viewer so much information that they don't need. We just need a little bit of information. Now the places you do want to give more information or more detail will be your focal areas. Once again about focal point and the bright colors drawing your eye in. Detail is another one of the focal point strategies. Your eye will go to detail versus non-detail. So reserve your detailed areas for where you want the focal point. Now do you see this little kind of, I love these interesting greens. It's a cool green, sort of right before you get to turquoise. So it was a nice green to add to those little tips of the grasses in the foreground reaching up. And I just decided to tone down some of those background trees, light them up. It's a lighter value, so I'm using that in my favor. Often you can use a lighter value, even if it's not the exact color, once you've got a few layers down, just to soften things like I'm doing here. But that little patch of grass in the foreground, you see now how it's starting to stand out. One of the reasons is because I'm keeping that black of the paper around it. It has some contrast, which is a third element of focal point strategy. Is contrast the difference between lights and darks? And because there's a decent contrast there, it's going to be more of a focal point than some other areas. So that's what I want to be more of the focal point. The little flowers leading your eye up to those distant trees and then the bright glow of the sunset behind it. Then the eye will continue to explore, hopefully, throughout the painting. Find some fun little places to visit and enjoy. And the reference image was pretty dark, especially with that tree on the right hand side. And I was playing around with trying to lighten it up a bit, but I think I got some of the areas a little bit too light. So I'll play around with that a little bit more later. But it's starting to take shape. It's still very chunky. And this is again where I like to encourage you to resist the urge to get caught up or overwhelmed by any particular area that's not working out. I have learned over the years that when something's not working out, move on. Come back to it later because you will just get bogged down in that one area, get frustrated, and your frustration will affect the rest of your painting. So I wasn't super excited about some of those strokes I made with the leaves in that tree, but I'm like, you know what, let me just, let me go somewhere else. And so now what I'm doing, I'm kind of negatively painting some of those teal colors in the tree. I don't have the where they are just right, but it's kind of like a little color note for me to remember that I want to add some of those teals. And that's a perfect example again about color value getting a little bit darker when you carve them in as what's called sky holes, which are the little spaces in between the tree branches that you see. And that also is what's called negative painting. Rather than drawing all the branches or the leaves around the holes, you do the whole mass of the tree, and then do like I'm doing here, carve into the spaces negatively. I'm going to zoom in in just a second on this little area that I'm working on so that you can kind of see it a little more clearly. And once again, it's negative painting, kind of carving in. And sky holes are a bit interesting and challenging. And I love to see artists who have just mastered it so well that they get everything right on the first stroke. I don't always do that, but I think I'm getting better. And you know, that's just, we just have to be happy that we're getting better and not always compare ourselves to everyone else. All right, now you can see where I have carved in a little bit of negative spacing there with some of the pinks and the the orangey colors behind the trees. And now I'm using this more of a deeper turquoise color to do some negative painting. We'll first add some of that color to the tree tops there, and then negatively paint the color in some areas in the little spaces where those trees might be peeking through. Also here, I know that down in the shadowy areas of this tree, the larger tree on the right, there's going to be some cooler tones, so I'm adding that as well. And at this point I have the majority of the black part of the paper painted on with bits of it peeking through, which I actually kind of like. I really do enjoy working on dark surfaces, but like I said with playing around with the clear gesso, it's probably a good idea to do some smaller studies if you decide to work on a dark surface. Now they do have dark sanded surfaces as well. I know that UART makes a paper UART dark, and also I believe Cinellié, LaCarte Pastelcard has some dark surfaces. I know they have a really nice kind of midnight blue color, and so you can play around with papers that are already sanded and have a dark tone to them.  And then you can throw in some softies too. I add some soft pastels on unsanded paper, but as a rule of thumb, it's typically best if you if you have to choose an order to paint in, it's better to use your harder pastels first and gradually get to your softest softies at the end. And the reason for this is that once you get a few layers down, you can't get harder pastels to sometimes even show up. It's like they almost slide across the surface. But the real buttery softies, like the Senneliers I'm using here, or Unison, Mount Vision, Mount Vision is kind of a nice in-between pastel. But the softest ones usually show up quite nicely at the end and they have their brilliant color. Now I often don't work in that order, like as a rigid rule. I sometimes just let color be my guide. And you can do that if you keep a light enough touch. If you have a heavy hand and you're putting down thick layers to begin with, you may get your paper overlayered very quickly. And what happens is colors get muddy and you reduce your ability to put down any other colors. So a light touch is the right touch. I can't remember what artist said that. But it's definitely best to keep a light touch. Now at this point in the painting, I wasn't sure if I was going to leave the sky very textural and you know a bit unfinished looking like this or if I was going to blend it. And I decided that it was getting too much attention. I am still playing around with it. I do want to add some of these yellows. You'll see before the painting is done I'm adding some of these buttery kind of an orange yellow. And again getting it like like that sunset that's happening behind the trees where we're not quite seeing the golden glow of the sun. But we know it's back there somewhere. And so it will be reflected up upon some of the lower clouds. And I think it was in my last video that I was saying we can use the rules of color and value. But we can also use our brains to think about what would really be happening. And sure enough we would have some of those yellowy, orangey colors highlighted up on top of the clouds. And here's where I decided to blend. And here is the mystery blending tool. It's just a paper towel. I've actually used paper towels in the past to blend with. Now you'll see a lot of the pastels kind of coming off. But that's okay. I am also turning the paper towel in certain areas because if you just keep using the same spot over the different colors it's going to get muddied. Now what's my goal here? My goal is to get it softer looking so it's not getting as much attention. It looks a little bit more like a sky. And also to reduce the black parts peeking through the sky. So I'm not going to see as much of the black in the sky now. Which was actually something I was happy I did. I think it looks more like a sky now, right? It did dull it out a bit. I do add some more color to the sky soon. Now this point is when I am speeding it up. You'll notice I'm getting a little bit more fun with colors starting to make things more defined. But did you notice that I was about what 20 something minutes into the video and I hadn't even really gotten super detailed about anything. I don't really get super detailed about a lot of things in this painting. But I had fun. So if you want that loose and impressionistic feel work the whole painting instead of getting bogged down in one area. Keep a light touch and don't be afraid of the yucky stages because that's kind of how it looks when you get started with a pastel painting. If you're doing it correctly and or with that impressionistic goal in mind.  You'll see that I've been adding some purples and some of the shadowy areas and now you notice that warmth you see that kind of burgundy. I'm using it to carve down into the trees. Remember the values get darker and I'm duplicating it throughout different areas of the painting to bring it together and have the painting feel harmonious. You see that little bit of that burgundy in the trees where the trunks are kind of and then down a little bit where the valley is where some of those other maybe grasses or bushes are and I really liked giving it that warmth because there's some warmth in the sky the pinks and the oranges and it would have felt too segmented if I had warmth in the sky and no warmth in the landscape. So now I'm going to add that lovely song I mentioned at the beginning of the video. You guys can enjoy and I am going to zoom in a bit more so you can see how I'm working a bit more on these sky holes for the trees. So I hope you enjoy. Watch to the end. Please comment, like, subscribe, and become part of this wonderful artistic family. I decided on the wildflowers because I thought they just created interest in a focal point and another element, this is another focal point element, I think it's called convergence or pointing where you're kind of pointing in a direction that you want the viewer to go to or admire and these flowers were reaching up towards that sky which will lead the viewer up to explore the heavens and so I wanted to keep them dainty and light and nothing too detailed so I played around with them, had some fun, decided on kind of pink blue and white flowers and if you're a patron of mine from my Patreon page and you decide to create from this tutorial I will have the reference image for you in your post and also I love it when you guys, my patrons, post your work in our homework album so I look forward to seeing your work patrons and I hope everyone watching on Monet Cafe learned something and just enjoyed the experience. It was definitely a healing experience for me as I am still currently in Mississippi caring for my mother-in-law with terminal cancer but we are bringing her back home to Tampa, Florida so I will be back in my studio soon. Here is the final painting which felt hopeful and was indeed healing so I hope you enjoyed and as always happy painting.


Rachel Barber was 15 years old in 1999 when she went missing after a dance recital. She was last seen alongside her babysitter that afternoon, but investigators found no trace of her after this. But detectives did find a disturbing diary entry written just days before she vanished, in which her babysitter confessed to what really happened that day. Rachel Barber was born on September 12, 1983. She was the oldest of three sisters and had parents who were deeply involved in her life, doing their best to provide her with everything she could have ever wanted. Her mother Elizabeth and her father Michael had been together for many years, and Rachel's home life was the very definition of healthy and typical for a girl her age. Sometime around 1992 or 1993, Rachel and her family moved to Mont Albert, hoping for better opportunities. It was around this time that the family met a young girl named Carolyn Reed Robertson. Carolyn quickly became a friend of the family, with Rachel's parents often hiring her to help babysit the children. Carolyn would grow up alongside Rachel and her siblings, but she was around four years older and certainly more mature than the young Barber girls were at the time. Rachel was just 15 years old by 1999. She spent much of her childhood training to become a dancer, and she was incredibly talented. Not only was she a great dancer, but she aspired to be a model as well. Her goal in life was to eventually interact in classes and work her way into musicals across the globe, particularly musicals in the US, as most of her favorite venues and performances were taking place in Chicago. Rachel had become a full-time student at the Dance Factory in Melbourne, Australia. She was known for her beauty, as well as her popularity and her athleticism. She was in great shape and was often in the top of her class, becoming a world-class dancer at a strikingly young age. While Rachel may have been quite popular in school, she was actually a quite shy young girl. She didn't take too well with strangers and would often seem withdrawn around people that she didn't know very well, but she was always very nice and respectable. Even though she was quite shy, Rachel had been dating her boyfriend Manny for several months, and it seemed that the two were closer than ever. Despite her timid nature, she had no problems opening up to Manny, who seemed to make it easy for Rachel to just be herself. Carolyn Robertson, the babysitter I mentioned a moment ago, was right there alongside the Barber family for about seven years or so. She watched Rachel turn from a shy young girl into a vibrant young woman who was bound for success in her dance career. Carolyn adored Rachel, but she had other feelings towards Rachel that were less than loving. Carolyn was a very jealous teenager. She had trouble dealing with other people's successes, especially considering that, in all honesty, she didn't have much going for her at the time. She was a perfectly good looking girl, but she didn't have the magnetic energy and charisma that Rachel had, and this bothered Carolyn deeply. As she watched over the girls for most of their childhood, it seemed that this resentment toward Rachel grew. What had begun as a simple feeling of jealousy, something all of us struggle with from time to time, grew to something far more dangerous and far more sinister. Carolyn wanted to live Rachel's life, and if she couldn't live it, either could Rachel. Carolyn's troubles with self-worth and jealousy would reach new heights as her teenage years drew on. By the time she was in her mid teens, she began to feel horrible about herself and not just in the typical way that most teens will at some point or another. It seems that, by all means, she had begun to develop a genuine hatred toward herself. She didn't look the way that she wanted to look, she didn't feel smart enough, and she certainly didn't feel worthy of being loved. According to those around her, she'd always put herself down, referring to herself as a loser, as unwanted, fat, dirty, or even dumb. In fact, she created a self-portrait around the age of 14 that had several of these words written on it, with misfit being written in bold letters at the very top. Carolyn was reaching an all-time low and was happening quickly, but as she got a little bit older, some of this hate turned away from herself and was beginning to surround her father, this being after her father walked out on the family, leaving Carolyn and the rest of her loved ones to fend for themselves while her dad started a new, better life elsewhere. Carolyn would take her anger and write it down in letters to her estranged father. I don't know if she ever mailed these letters or if they were purely therapeutic, but the letters grew very vicious, with her one time blaming her father for her feelings of alienation, writing, quote, I feel like a troubled, tortured, lost soul that's been thrown into an alien environment full of angels. These terrible feelings of self-hatred that Carolyn held on to would eventually lead her to plotting a crime of disastrous proportions.  It was March 1st, 1999. Rachel's father drove her to a tram stop that morning around 9.30 am so that she could attend her classes at the dance factory in Melbourne. She left home wearing her favorite gold necklace, having only $13 in her wallet. She told her boyfriend, Manny, that after classes she was going to head out for a secret job offer that she wasn't allowed to talk about. The sheer fact that she even mentioned the job to Manny was against the rules, but she felt like he needed to know. This secret job was supposedly to pay incredibly well, but this was the only information that she was willing to share with anyone. She left the dance factory that afternoon headed off for this secret location. Her parents had no idea that she had any other plans after classes that day, outside of hanging out with her friends as she normally did. The last reported sighting of Rachel came just after she left the dance factory, when she was spotted walking around a tram station with a woman. Hours passed by and Rachel had not returned to the tram station to meet her father that evening, and their parents grew very worried. Rachel had never missed curfew before and she was reported missing right away. Manny quickly opened up to Rachel's parents and the police and admitted that she told him about a secret job offer, but he didn't know anything else about this job, so this information wasn't very helpful with the investigation. By all means, Rachel simply vanished off the face of the earth and no further updates would be released until 13 days later, when some shocking news would leave the Barber family in shambles. It was March 14th when police approached the Barber family with news that they could have never expected. Keep in mind at this point the Barbers had no idea that police were investigating the case as a potential homicide, so you can imagine their surprise when officers knocked on the door of the Barber family home and revealed that they'd arrested a suspect in connection with Rachel's disappearance. When police revealed that the suspect was none other than Carolyn Robertson, their jaws hit the floor. Carolyn had been a close family friend for the better part of a decade, so how could she have been involved in Rachel's disappearance? Unfortunately, the follow-up statements from detectives only made things far worse. Carolyn had been arrested because police had found remains buried in a shallow grave near Killmore, and they had evidence connecting Carolyn to the scene of the crime. Investigators would soon learn that Rachel had been ambushed with a telephone cord, then buried under less than 12 inches of dirt. One of the most unexpected twists in this case came after police brought Carolyn to the station for questioning. It didn't take them long to get Carolyn to open up and she admitted to everything. Well, almost everything. Within a few short hours, Carolyn admitted that she had in fact taken the life of Rachel Barber, but she claimed it was an accident. Carolyn says that she met up with Rachel that day, shortly after her classes at Inden. I'll admit, I don't fully understand the specifics of what Carolyn was explaining here, but the best I can make out is that she explained to police that she'd convinced Rachel to come to her apartment for some sort of psychological exercise. But it's not clear why Rachel thought this was a job offer, or why she thought she'd be receiving any payment for this. Now, the rumor is that Carolyn had invited Rachel over and promised her $500 to take part in a highly confidential survey of some sort. But this was only mentioned in one source, so I can't verify that this is true. But either way, Carolyn explained that the two rode the tram together, then got out at her apartment after promising Rachel that she'd have pizza and drinks ready for them. And sure enough, when Rachel entered the apartment, pizza and drinks were ready. But Rachel was blissfully unaware that Carolyn had spiked the pizza with high doses of anihistamines, causing Rachel to become more and more delirious the more she ate. After Carolyn was satisfied with Rachel's impairment, she began her attack. She told Rachel that she was ready to begin the psychological survey, asking Rachel to close her eyes and think of happy and pleasant thoughts. As soon as Rachel was lost in a dream state, Carolyn ambushed her from behind with a telephone cord. Carolyn then stuffed Rachel inside of a wardrobe, keeping her there for several days while she worked out the next steps in completing the crime. She would eventually wrap Rachel in two rugs and enlisted the help of an innocent taxi driver to help her move what she called a heavy statue to her father's property. Obviously, what the taxi driver helped her haul away was no statue. But once the two arrived at Carolyn's father's house, Carolyn took the so-called statue out to the back of the property. And after the taxi driver left, she buried the remains in the family's pet cemetery next to Carolyn's former dog, Lucy. In the days after Rachel Barber had gone missing, Carolyn became very withdrawn from her normal activities. She went to work the day after the crime, March 2nd, but one of her coworkers ended up driving her home after Carolyn reportedly looked very ill and wasn't able to function well enough to get her job done. Carolyn would call out of work for the next few days as well, claiming that she was sick. During this time, investigators were hot on the trail of Carolyn, tracing Rachel's last moments and getting witness testimonies from everyone who had seen her at the tram station that day. As they dug into phone records, they soon noticed that Rachel had spoken with Carolyn on the day of her disappearance. In fact, she'd spoken with her within hours of her last known whereabouts, meaning Carolyn may have been the last person to see Rachel alive. Witnesses from the tram station also reported that they'd seen Rachel walking alongside a, quote, plain-looking young woman. Detectives went to Carolyn's apartment on March 12th, but they weren't getting any response at the door, even though they knew that Carolyn was inside. They eventually made their way into Carolyn's apartment and found her unconscious on her bedroom floor. They soon learned that she had suffered an epileptic seizure which had likely been caused by the severe stress that she'd been under while trying to hide Rachel's body. While inside the apartment, they searched through Carolyn's belongings and soon came across her diary. Now, if you've been watching true crime stories for the last few weeks, you'll know that this is the third case I've covered in less than a month where the criminal was found because either they or the victim kept a detailed diary of events leading up to the crime. I don't know how so many of these cases ended up leading to the exact same situation, but that's exactly what happened here as well. When investigators took a closer look at Carolyn's diary, they realized that she'd been deeply obsessed with Rachel. And certainly not in a playful way or in any sort of innocent infatuation, Carolyn had kept detailed records of Rachel's recent life and had even written down several possible ways that she planned on taking Rachel's life. She scribbled several options down with one of the options claiming that she planned on incapacitating Rachel then placing her into an army bag and dumping her out in the middle of the woods somewhere. These clues were a bit too suspicious for investigators and they soon began investigating Carolyn's recent movements, tracking down her connection with her father's property and the aforementioned taxi driver. Detectives were able to prove that Carolyn had been spending days, maybe even weeks, plotting to take Rachel's life and in essence become Rachel. This was only amplified when detectives later found an application for a copy of Rachel's birth certificate in Carolyn's apartment. This is likely why she tricked Rachel into thinking she was offering her a job, as it would have been the easiest way to get personal information about Rachel, including her social security number, ID cards, and everything else she needed. Well, everything except for her birth certificate obviously. Alongside this application was documentation for a bank loan for $10,000, as well as detailed plans on what Carolyn had planned to do. Her plans for the day claimed that she needed to clean up her father's farm, including the area where she had placed Rachel in the pet cemetery. She also planned to secure the bank loan on the following Tuesday, as well as rent a moving van, dye her hair to match Rachel's then thoroughly clean her house and carpet. She then planned to disappear and begin life under Rachel's name. By October of 2000, Carolyn was still in police custody in a surprising twist, Carolyn had opened up to investigators and admitted to taking Rachel's life, even pleading guilty during her trial. She was ultimately given 15 years behind bars. During her court sessions, she explained how much she hated herself and wanted to be someone else, so much so that she was willing to go to great lengths to achieve this. She was diagnosed with a personality disorder just before the trial, with a judge claiming that she was a danger for anyone that she became fixated with. But what's really interesting about her time in prison is that she never once showed any kind of remorse for her actions. In fact, while she was in prison, she progressively made herself look more and more like Rachel. She began styling her hair differently. She appears to have lost weight and did her best to become the spitting image of Rachel, at least as much as she realistically could. Rachel's own mother even spoke out about the uncanny resemblance after Carolyn was released from prison in 2015, after fulfilling her sentence. Carolyn is now a mostly free woman. She still lives under the surveillance of the court system, but she's now allowed to continue on with her life, or rather Rachel's life. While she never successfully claimed Rachel's identity, she's done her best in the years since to continue living in the shadow of Rachel, and her fixation doesn't seem to have faded over the last 23 years. Honestly, I don't understand how someone like this is allowed to live in the free world after there was such a massive amount of evidence proving that she'd been plotting this crime for years, but I guess the laws in Australia only allowed the court system to do so much to someone so young. Thankfully, after all this, Rachel's memory is still very much alive in the minds of those who knew her, but unfortunately one of those minds belongs to Carolyn Robertson. Before we close out today's video, it's time to announce the winner of last week's true crime stories mug giveaway. The winner was chosen completely at random, and the winner is Misty Waters. So Misty, all you need to do to claim your mug is email me at tieknotsyyt at gmail.com with your address, using the same email as what you use here on YouTube, and I'll get your mug shipped out right away. And for everyone else who entered and didn't win, be sure to continue tuning in each week because I'll likely be doing more giveaways like this in the very near future, maybe even next week, so be sure to stick around. But with that, thank you guys for tuning into another episode of True Crime Stories. If you're liking the channel and want to see more videos just like this one, be sure to hit the like button and leave a comment below. Comments are the best way to help support a small channel like this and they're incredibly appreciated. If you'd like to help out the channel financially, you can hit the blue join button below or even support me over on Patreon. But with that, I thank you guys again for watching and I'll catch you in the next video.


Just here at Harry Potter World, soaking in the magic. I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter franchise. I took my family to Universal Studios. This isn't an ad. I'm just a big fan. So next few days I'll be here taking footage, talking about the movies. It's gonna be awesome. My family and I recently had the pleasure of going to Universal Studios, checking out the wizarding world of Harry Potter. I thought, hey, you know what? What better time than now to relive the classic films? We got to see them up close in the form of rides and spectacles and large grandiose structures. Now I wanna talk about the movies that brought these to life based on the books, Imagined and Written by J.K. Rowling. I wanted to fully enjoy the experience without thinking about work or this hobby, but I did bring the camera with. I did get some footage. I did linger around the shops. I did bop out the camera once in a while and take some footage. So throughout this review, not only will you see some movie footage, not much, because Warner Brothers likes to copyright flag these. Clearly this is gonna be a substitute for watching the movie. Come on, Warner Brothers. But also there will be magical moments of my video camera footage. That's shoddy at best of the parks. So enjoy and let's begin the review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or Philosopher's Stone if you must. 😜 Reviews. It is almost asinine to believe that the first Harry Potter film came out in 2001.  Hold am I. How old am I? Before we step out onto the Quidditch Pish though, make sure to get your wand ready and go ahead and cast a spell on that subscribe button because I'm gonna be talking to Harry Potter all week on the channel. Have to have you stick around. Book by J.K. Rowland. Screen adaptation by Steve Knowles and directed by Chris Columbus. The original Harry Potter picture is amazing. No, it's not aged perfectly. There's gonna be cracks showing here and there, especially when it comes to the CG department, some of that computer-generated imagery is not holding up the best, but damn it if it isn't fun all the same. Damn it if it doesn't retain the spirit, the magic, the whimsy of the book. Ooh, it's a fun time. And the fact that it's so expertly crafted from top to bottom, a script that flies by, visuals that are unlike anything you've ever seen on the big screen, some of the most iconic music your ears will ever have the pleasure of hearing. Scored, expertly by John Williams. Did I mention the almost perfect cast? Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, and Rupert Grint as Little Ron Weasley. This is a dynamic trio, a trio that we will see grow up in front of us as these films progress, not only from a physical and emotional standpoint, but also acting-wise, especially Little Hermione Granger. She really comes into her own around the third film. The first Harry Potter is not my favorite, but it is the one I've seen the most, because every year, at least once a year, my family says we're doing a Harry Potter marathon. We start with number one. Usually it peters out around the fifth or sixth, been there, done that, or other things come up in our life. But man, that first one is such a trip, it's such a treat. They nailed so much of it right out of the gates that it's hard to find fault. Now to circle back to the cast, I did say it's almost perfect. One standout for me is Dumbledore. Neither version, I think, really knocks it out of the park. In fact, neither version really gets it even close. I just don't understand the thought process in hiring Richard Harris. He already has one foot in the grave and the poor bastard barely made it through the second movie. That's another depressing thing about the Harry Potter movies. Half the cast is dead at this point. When I watch these people, it's like dead, gone, mourning you. It's kind of sad now. It's honestly kind of depressing. And the Dumbledore in the book is spry. He's silly, he's out there. Richard Harris's version is gentle, soft, spoken. And it's just not what I pictured Dumbledore becoming. There are so many highlights in this first film, it's hard to know where to start. The sets are in a league of their own. Lord of the Rings levels of set design here. That castle Hogwarts is beautiful. The robots leading into it is haunting, it's exciting. It brings you into that world. You want to talk about perfectly executing something? Let's look at Quidditch, the made up hardcore game from the book. Brought to the big screen, there are no words for how well they did this. She will be mine. Oh yes. She will be mine. Draco Malfoy, hilarious in this film. Just such a douche. And the way he says Potter, hello, Potter. Every time he hits that P, hard as hell. Potter, go to the ballet, Potter. Oh, I love it.  Very well executed by Tom Felton, who would later go on to be in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and then Nothing Ever Again. I'm sure he's doing Broadway or indie films or something. I just don't, I haven't seen him in a long time. It's kind of sad. I'm Petunian, Uncle Vernon, also perfectly casted here.  So Dumbledore dead, Uncle Vernon dead. Hagrid's great too, also dead. On that depressing note, let's switch gears and talk about my favorite professor, Snape, played by Alan Rickman. He's dead too. Just leaving King's Cross station, heading into Diagon Alley. Hey, what's your favorite Harry Potter again? Number fourth. Number fourth. School system is atrocious in America. There are certain lines in movies that I blow way out of proportion. One of them's in Harry Potter.  It's not even close to that. But the way he says it, it like rises up inside of me. It elicits a feeling of excitement that I guess I take to an extreme when I repeat it back. This is a huge franchise. Nailing these characters from day one was a massive W for this thing. Yes, Dumbledore, disappointing that we had to replace him, but everyone else, every single other character is like lifted from the books. The Weasley family. Beautiful, beautiful. The twins, up to no good. Mother the father, little Ginny Weasley, who yeah, she would be a little neutered, well I guess spaded, that would be more appropriate. She'd be more spaded in the later films. Doesn't quite have that rough and tumble attitude or she just doesn't get the chance to prove it. And yes, we don't see Peeves at all from the books and that's fine.  So he won't be missed. And Maggie Smith, I mean, come on! Professor McGonagall? Professor McGonagall, no way you could have casted that role any better than Maggie Smith. And old Voldy does make an appearance at the end of this one, but he is not played by Ray Fiennes. Think I said that name right? We're gonna move on. It's actually Richard Bremmer as the face of he who shall not be named. I can forgive this. I can let this slide since he is just a face transposed on the back of Professor Quirrell's head. He will float away in spirit. He'll come back later in a diary. He'll be MIA in Oskobon. And finally he will form into his true version, his snake-like self in the goblet of fire. But for now, I just want to appreciate the hell out of Sorcerer's Stone. I know people say it's kid-ish, it's childish. Yeah, yeah it is. So what? They're gonna be childish movies. They're gonna be movies for entire families to enjoy. I understand you're a grown adult, so am I. And you don't want to watch this kiddie crap? Well, that's a shame on you. Because you can enjoy it. You can look at it and say, you know what? This might not be geared toward the John Wick community or even the Avengers community, but it is geared towards that fantasy world, that larger-than-life scale that I look for in movies that take me away from my miserable, miserable existence here, and the crippling depression will kick in. That's when you turn on Harry Potter. And forget about all of it. One more negative I will throw at this film. The movie runs really good from beginning to about that final act. But once we get to the dog scene, the three-headed dog, Fluffy, that's when things really do start to get a little too Nickelodeon, a little too Disney afternoon. It's a bit silly. And in the final confrontation with Voldemort and the Mirror and the Fountain of Youth, Sorcerer's Stone in the Pocket, that stuff all feels a little convoluted, a little jumbled. It's not explained the best like it is in the book. Now, this will be a problem as the movies continue on. I can overlook it as a fan of the book series, but I can understand the criticisms from people that are just watching the films, thinking, what happened here? How does this make any sense? It's magic. At the end of the day, it's magic. And so is this movie. That's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or Sorcerer's Stone, depending on who you are, where you live and what you feel like saying. I want to hear from you. I love it. You like it.  Put it in the comments below. Like the video if you had a good time. And please think about subscribing here because we're gonna be talking about Harry Potter all week on the channel, baby. Gotta have you stick around for it. It's gonna be a good time. See you soon.


What's up everyone? It's your girl Kenzie here from Lane Sports Guards and I'm a personal for Ben. Why we've got a 2022 Penini Phoenix ball hobby. All right, best of luck Ben. Thanks for hopping in Let's see. What's up Brett? Try my best as always good luck Rift any Phoenix in a while? See we get here our hill a beginning rookie. We have Aqua Dalvin Cook that is to 150 and Contours of Trevor Lawrence Kyler Watson a Bailey Zappi rookie We've got lava Daniel Jones to 175 and Flamethrower silver of Justin Herman Parsons Brian Cook we have 2299 RPA Kenny Pickett nice one there for you Ben Kenny Pickett that is 203 out of 299 Congrats on that one Very nice hits We'll take that in a cam Thomas Thomas Silver rookie Sanders filler We've got yellow hot routes of Travis Kelsey to 75 and rising rookie silver of Christian Watson That's Burrow Shakira rookie. We've got to 149 Calvin Austin the third on the rookie jumbo patch here Steelers box here for you Ben Let's see if we can get a pick ins and you got the trio and we've got our color burst Jerome Ford On the rookie color burst there one per box on the Phoenix Kirk rookie of Malik Willis. We've got an orange Trevor Lawrence to 99 and a Aiden Hutchinson Contours and Jacobs Phillips purple rookie of Rashad White to 125 and a Silver Flamethrower's Trevor Lawrence Lotto Connor Christian Watson base. We have pink Zach Wilson to 199 And a hot routes Mike Williams Chubb Jefferson. It's on Haskins rookie. We've got our next auto is gonna be a Chad Mooma rookie auto Jags mr. Mooma that is 9 of 15 Color match there for the Jags to Silver Mac Jones AJ Brown Cooper Cobb Mathis rookie red rookie of Kavon Tibbeto 36 of 250 there Joe Burrow Flamethrower's Packs left Hagan's Patterson Kennedy Brooks yellow of James Robinson for the Jets to 75 Hot routes Tyree Kill last pack Leonard McLaren James Cook. We have a Contours Aaron Rodgers that is gonna be green to 150 and A terry Bradshaw fire forged Alrighty, Ben that will do it for your box. Congrats again on the picket RPA there. Thanks so much for hopping in We'll get this right out to you


Rough time at the moment. Hey, the YouTube's actually up. Oh My god Now there's gonna be like three different separate videos on my YouTube channel just have like four seconds long Okay Releskaity asks do you have any thoughts on a rejection sensitive dysphoria? I do I know it's something that's that's talked a lot in terms of ADHD but I think that You know a lot of the experiences that autistic people have is specifically during Teenagered adolescence during school It tend to be fairly negative and we experience a lot of rejection from all sides All sides of the spectrum in life I know it's something that I experienced a lot whether it was you know me trying to find someone to have a Relationship with whether me try to find some friends but a friend group I was always very sensitive to that kind of stuff and I think I Think as well, you know going into adulthood having that sort of looming negative bias about my experiences when I was younger and having sort of those inbuilt reactions and Defense mechanisms, they didn't really lend themselves very well to me Dealing with rejection in adulthood. It's kind of like You know, oh here we go again. Something bad happens that kind of thing I Don't know if there's that there's been any any sort of research Specifically around that and I know that a lot of people have been talking to me about how You know the common reaction to people saying that you you have that kind of RSD tendency is that you know, well, everyone experiences rejection and rejections horrible to everybody and I think that that's it's kind of a wrong attitude to have about stuff like that because the reason why those turns have come about is because You experience it to a very great degree and you experience it almost immediately and there's this like really intense emotional response with like loads of withdrawal There's a self-esteem issues following even for like the smallest things. So it's kind of You know, I think it's very dependent on the person Hello viewers to the YouTube welcome to the stream. I have set this up like two times and failed to Choose the correct settings. So there will be like some really short videos on my channel I'll have to go through and delete them So, um, I just want to ask something because I've been talking to A Russian guy who is wanting to help me was sort of setting up with streaming and stuff and I'm thinking of doing some more commentary type Stuff like on different YouTube videos that are popular at the time different sort of hot topics and issues and things of that nature If you watched like other streamers before like, I don't know asman gold or Hassan That's that's the kind of style that I'm wanting to go for but I'm also wanting to perhaps dedicate like a day of streaming to like Indie games or like roguelikes or you know stuff like that something that's chill I can not feel like I have to be concentrated on it on it all the time because that's is that is one of the Biggest issues that I have it's the multitasking element. It's like two things at once It's it's sometimes a bit hard to a bit hard to manage sometimes I have time Managed to sort it out the camera is on Any travel trips plans coming up for you, um Not really not the moment. I do have this really big project that I'm Waking on at the moment, which may require me to travel to America at some point. So Could be traveling to the US possibly. I don't have any like leisure trips that are scheduled in to do at the moment By I'm wanting at the mechanics and get my business out to Start doing some more like public speaking events and training events in person. So that should be really cool Yeah, traveling is cool It takes a little bit time to get used to especially if you've been out of practice for a while though like It's the same with anything in life really for me. It's like if I haven't socialized for a long time I'm gonna Finally a little bit more stressful than usual But then if if I have done for a while and I go to an event It's it's a little bit easy for me to get like in the groove of it and I think it's the same with traveling So whenever I do set out to do like a traveling holiday and stuff I like to like bulk it together. So I'll do like instead of making like two trips a year or something. I'd love to You know, like travel to some different places do a bit of like the back to back packy kind of Sort of holiday, you know see places talk to new people from different cultures That's that's what I like to do I'm autistic too and I'm struggling with body addictions. What does what do you mean by body addictions? Oh No, I don't I don't know Adolf what what's happening to her. What's what's occurring? We used to be good friends. I Think what we just ran into a sort of some sort of like issue within our friendship like I think she was thinking that I was like this this really bad person or something that I Don't know. I made like a really You know a post and I thought it was fine and it wasn't necessarily received in the best light and She got in touch and she was like, you know, this is not You know accusing me of being a bad person and stuff. So I don't know I have good, you know rapport rapport with her. I think she's a great creator and You know, it's But yeah, I'd like to know what's happening with her Yeah, um, I don't know. I think it would be because I'm working with someone who's like a celebrity. So I will be working Possibly traveling to like I don't know what where is Hollywood? somewhere somewhere near Hollywood somewhere near like the media place Uptem says on YouTube that They can't travel anywhere due to the war That's that must be really tough Like no lies. Um Yeah, it must be really hard Janie says I find dating or having romantic relationships It's so difficult these days because everyone wants to travel the word now and I need time to build up and get used to the idea totally I Think as well if you're It's it's quite a bit. I don't know for you, but it's quite a big thing for me to like go traveling with someone because I Need to feel like completely comfortable and like on top of things when I'm traveling and if I don't then I get Pretty bad anxiety Around it, you know, I like to know exactly what I'm doing that kind of thing Find traveling difficulty to sensory everyone. Yeah Totally Yeah, it's it is stress and it yeah is a good stress I think You know, sometimes it is good to to expose yourself to some level of like stress and different things But I think I think for us we need to be kind of a bit more careful around how we go about doing it It's like Instead of going in and just just going for like a two-month trip Might be good to do like do a couple of smaller trips beforehand just to get used to the Feeling of being in a different place and coping with anxiety in the organization and stuff. So I Think so she got banned. Oh I Don't think I'll be doing any acting Relic Katie It'll be more like media stuff Why do what what was the post like? Why did you why did she get banned? like before diving with a scuba totally or I've got a funny story There's there's probably one of the the most silly things that I've ever done in my life but basically I was um For anyone who knows I took a year abroad in Thailand So I went and I studied mosquitoes there and I did all sorts of different Crazy adventures on the side and there was this one one time that we went to this Park near it was near Chiang Mai and I Sorry, I'm just reading the chart Yeah, it was it was near Chiang Mai and it was this this place it was Kind of it was called the light the Grand Canyon water park or something It was really cool. They had like some massive like inflatable Park in there that these these weird Like water contraptions that you have to like bounce on to keep it going like kind of like water water skater It's pretty cool, but there was this cushion. There's sort of Dean like This this sort of water I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this this cushion on the water and people sat on the end of it And then people went up to the top of this like ladder and jumped off and then the person on the end of it would just fly off and I saw someone doing it with like two people and I Was like, hey, you know, it'll be a really great idea What what why don't I have free people jump on to it and and see how I do with that? So I sat on the end of it and there's about three people who just Jumped on to this inflatable cushion. I've got no word of a lie.  So I went flying off and I was like free-falling in the What happened but the figures I had no anxiety beforehand because I wasn't expecting to go so high And I I pretty I got like pretty bad we plashed from doing it as well It was really not a good idea Yeah, I went like You know like one and a half times the place that they jumped off, which was probably about five meters seven meters Bit crazy. I shouldn't have done that wait, so She wrote that she was kidnapping a friend and That was offensive That's weird. Is it like it's she been like completely outright banned or is it like a temporary thing? Or does she not know because that's our social media platforms do this stuff That sounds like proper summer fun. Yeah That's a weird for it. I thought I was brave jumping off like the seven meter cliff that they had but No, I should have been a lot more hesitant about the inflatable cushion You don't know That sounds really tough. I actually get sort of count back.  It's really tough Um, it's trying to think of what else I've done this week. I've had pretty chill week to be honest I haven't really been doing much If you follow you can still see a page. Yeah That's a good sign So they haven't like completely removed it Hmm, I'm gonna check a page. Yeah, we did a a podcast back in Okay, I just show up on Google weird. Oh Wait, no, I'm chopping on the wrong name. No, it's not it's not showing up.  I think during lockdown. I was looking for like some games to play while I listened to like audiobooks So I can't read I found it really difficult to like follow the words on the page And I was like miss miss and then I go off in my head And I I think about certain things and then I come back to reading again. Don't know where I am But um, yeah rescape used to be something that I played a lot, you know, it's It's good It's a good game and I made I made a friend on there who I'm really close to Turns out that the new person I interacted on there was also autistic, which I thought was quite funny Um But it's good I like to do the really boring stuff though old school. Mmm. I Like to do the boring stuff like chopping down a tree or running a jet an agility course or something like that Yeah, you've never played it before It's um, it's pretty cool. It's good. It's got a good community around it sort of I mean It's got a big community around it And the people on that I've tried to avoid being always been quite nice and stuff But now is more about something that I did just to like wind down in the evening just like chops and trees and just like Watch the numbers going up. Sounds like it like Stardew Valley Maybe maybe I'm always very hesitant start new games because I tend to get very like Into it. Hmm Jane it says recently started streaming on twitch playing horror games. It's good fun and gives you a focus definitely recommend Yeah, I I heard someone else. Um, you did that. I think one of my my youtube members He uh, he does is into like bodybuilding and stuff and he he does some some streaming on that Um It did it will pull you in. Yes I like animal crossing animal crossing was something I really enjoyed Although I got to a point where I was getting frustrated with my progress So I I I use like a duplication glip glitch on the money And I just yeah, it was not a good idea because I pretty much just like ruined the fun for me with like I'm bringing up You stream on twitch for six years. Wow Holy damn Yeah, it's it's That's that's pretty cool I am interested in doing it. I don't know if to be honest. I don't know if it'll be a good idea to stream on youtube or stream on twitch Because I'm not necessarily going to be gaming all that much. I don't think Maybe just be watching like Different things you dropped it because of work. Yeah Yeah, I think that's the issue that I have because if I'm going to start I want to be consistent and I'd want to I'd want to stream for like um I don't know. I'd want to do some long streams and I'd probably only be able to do the streaming during the evening So I'd have to check if that's like a good time to do it or not If you tried discord for streaming now Although I am working with go from planet aspy on um creating a discord sort of subgroups in her discord around My podcast and around like different aspects of this work that I do YouTube's pretty better for general stuff. Yeah I think it'd work as well because it's You know, it's something that I feel like I can I don't know I'll have to think about it Yeah, once a week. I could try that Yeah, I'd really like to do that. I just I know that I think what what what I'm really Would be looking for with doing the streaming is to be able to like chop up the clips and like um Post them on my youtube channel is like separate clips about different videos because I feel like For me, it's been particularly quite hard to grow on youtube With the type of work that I'm doing and I think it would be good to have some More of like the mainstream audience come on Just do like raise awareness for like non-autistic people Neurotypicals Anyway, um I should probably talk about something that's not streaming and probably related to autism. So I'm going to have a look at my page um If it will show up Hey, look Thomas only is alive. Yes. I am I talked about maintaining friendships This weekend this this week Talked about um being autistic in the gym Uh, I talked about trigger stacking which You know my post this week my longer form like carousel posts this week I haven't been doing very well. I don't know why but I guess that's how it goes Talked about interception bit about the uh coke bottle bottle effects Very we're really wanting to sort of dive into more like the aspect of trigger stacking because I feel Although it is something that is being created for like um Like dog owners and stuff I feel like a lot of the concepts in there can be quite useful for Sort of understanding the ways and times that we have meltdowns like because is basically All the stuff around this this trigger stacking concept is around cortisol And cortisol is something that everyone has and the idea of trigger stacking is that when you experience multiple stressful events over a long period of time and In a short no not over a long period over a short period of time um, this cortisol is released and it kind of builds up And then once you get to a point Where that cortisol is really high you become very sensitized to different um stressful events So it's basically like you've had a really hard day You've had a lot of difficulties. Um You've got people You've had a confrontation at work. You've had some anxiety Just generally throughout the week and then something small happens like you can't find your keys for your house and It just absolutely just tips you over the edge and you just get Absolutely overwhelmed out of something that's so small and I think a lot of people can put a lot of pressure on themselves for um You know For having an issue With managing their stress levels um In that time I think for me as well definitely because there's often stuff in my own life like if I have like a small inconvenience um it's uh I've I've got very upset at myself sometimes about how How little it took for me to like tip over in the edge and have like a shutdown or a meltdown or going on verbal but um I think understanding that was really interesting. There's that there's another study on autism and um sort of cortisol in general and they've they've shown that Autistic people release more cortisol than most people And it also stays up for longer That means that you know, it might take us a lot more time to sort of rid that cortisol from our system Awareness to be good acceptance would be better. Sure. Definitely You like the podcast I'm glad I did talk about sui on the podcast which is um It's it's a bit of a hard one. I I really Like it with my podcast titles to be like straight to the point about what I'm talking about But I knew that if I called it something like that um If I was very direct about what we were speaking about in that podcast it would have been A little bit too much for the algorithm to push me out. So I had to be very careful with my wording I think it's a good it was a good podcast to talk about sui because it you know, um It is definitely like a big thing within the autistic community in terms of Just how prevalent is even even at young ages So it's kind of I think it is important with that that stuff to really speak about it Yeah, I did very well with the podcast. I'm glad It was a hard one There's a hard one to talk about but um, I think it's really important Hey, jay true love. How you doing? I just want to Say again you guys on instagram if you want to ask some questions You're very welcome to you can comment or you can use the little chat feature Um either of those would work for me You can ask anything about sort of autism personal stuff related Uh, no one questions Although if there are questions that I don't want to answer then I just won't As far as I can judge being in the gym music slash trance my full sounds from outside my head Helps you being in the center of your own world concentrating on your barbell I like that Yeah, I I try this as much as I can at the gym to remove all sense of um I don't know Also all like background noise. I don't like I don't like hearing people So I just turn my music really loud screw in my earphones just to make sure that there's no like sound leaking into my ears I found that to be really helpful. I've got a song at the moment that I just I'm playing on repeat constantly You know like one of those songs where you just You know, it's like your go-to kind of chill song that you have And it's I've got one of those at the moment Names Jess and you're meh Why are you meh? I'm not too bad. It's um It's been a bit Been a bit of a weird week again some some bad things happening, but also You know, there's some good things as well thought I didn't What's the song? Let me see if I can find it Why is there no showing up? I saw I'm listening to it constantly. It should be like the first thing that comes up It's probably got one of those annoying names that is not using the correct characters It's called blaster, but it's not spelled like blaster It's like it's like a bit of a funk a funk song I really love it God, where's it gone? It should be my top favorites By the way, if you want to check out the music that I listen to you can you can find me on spotify and there is a like a spot 4080 song song of the day pot podcast playlist that's down in my um Down in the description of my podcast if you click on that you'll you'll be able to see my page on that Yeah, it's it's it's called blaster, but instead of an s It's a dollar sign It's by a two switchblade um So in like two minutes long I'm gonna play it actually connect my headphones It's just one of those ones that you you know, you can walk to and it's kind of It's a bit more sort of strong and upbeat, but it's it's also like Quite relaxing for me for some reason It's just live right now. It's not going very well. I'm sorry to hear that Yeah, it's tough Also, do you have a specific thing that you like to talk about? I like theme parks. I can talk about them forever Yeah, autism is my thing or the gym But because because I do these lives and because I I do so much like speaking work I feel like I don't really have much to talk about so I just kind of I like to listen to people mostly Um, I don't I'm not as vocal in person as I am sort of online Not because I can't no because I don't because because I want to and I can't but Just because it's you know, sometimes I just like to chill um I think to be honest my my interests tend to Like fluctuate look quite a lot. I have some core things that I really love like martial arts and um Sort of gym work and You know those kind of things. Yeah autism isn't info dump. Yeah Yeah, totally. I don't know They get very much depends on what I'm interested in at the moment Do you guys do you guys info dump about autism to your friends like every single time? Oh my god, I was also talking about some of the things this week about um, autism in the gym like One of the things that I I You know, I'm I'm kind of one. I'm one of those people. I don't really mind about making I don't make as much eye contact as like most neurotypicals, but I do make some but One of the things that I found really difficult at the gym or I did do for a while Kind of got over it at this point, but it's knowing where to look between your sets at the gym like You just kind of look around like are you supposed to look around and are you supposed to like Avoid people's gaze. Are you supposed to look at people for a little bit and then look away? Are you supposed to not look at people at all? I have no idea No idea I just kind of stuck to like doing a lot of my social media work at the gym. So that way I just constantly looking at my phone Sorry about wobbling the camera.  I'll just like You know go in the corner and just do some stretching just waiting to like continue my workout um I think as well like I have to record every single Like set that I do how many reps have I done how many how much time do I wait in between the sets? It's can't can't get by without like recording every single meticulous thing I'm also starting to do um some what I've been doing some neck training at the gym, which is You know, it's it's interesting to do that in public.  I like using like a harness or something You don't info dump about autism and you recently diagnosed and still working on coming out That's understandable I think there's a lot of stigma around autism. It's a bit harder to like Tell people about it than it is for like stuff like ADHD because I feel like some people can relate somewhat to The struggles that ADHD is might have Whereas when you're autistic, it's kind of it's a bit I guess I think it's harder for people to relate. They want autistic You're in oughty as well. You go to the gym. What kind of stuff do you do? Jane who asks have you made any content about autism and feeling romantic love? I have indeed I have a whole series of about it on my youtube channel And it's called the dating and autistic series and I also have a Dating and neurotypical series, but I didn't I didn't do many videos on that before I switched to doing my podcast stuff So if you're interested in those, that's you know, my youtube's in my link tree but I do have um If you scroll my profile to like the little newspaper icon You can see like some of the Post collections that I've thought I put together one of them is about relationships and dating So I I do do stuff I don't do too much because um, it's it's not of why does the topic has just general autism information and I don't tend to I think I think there's sometimes when you talk about Dating and relationships some people can you know Perhaps get a little bit upset about it because it is something that I think a lot of us find hard to navigate um So it's you know And I will I will produce some more stuff around it. I think I just need to think about What what exactly is going to be like the the frame that I'm going to go with You know You look at you you look either at your phone or at someone doing an identical exercise for a comparison Very cool You hate part of king and public because it looks like I'm having a fit That's um, that's tough You know, I've I've had a couple meltdowns in public as well. Those were Not not not the most exciting experience of my life. I can tell you You appreciate the job I'm doing I'm I'm very happy Very happy Mainly basic stuff. Do you mean like like weights weight training things like that? Like the the minimalist kind of bench squat pulling exercise Carves and lateral raises kind of thing Uh, oh you do I've heard press nice Do you do strength? Or uh, are you looking to put some of the muscle on? I'm gonna have to after this stream. I'm gonna have to go through and properly like um Delete some of like the the attempts that I did with the youtube stream I think there was one of them was like 29 seconds people people are not in the stream. They're gonna be like, what what is going on? Yeah, for muscle that's cool and strength Bre asks, how are you doing today? I'm not doing too bad Feeling very chill although there's a lot of stuff going on at the moment Jay true love says uh I hate everything like that loud noises and people being behind me and everything and yet the impacts can't be Are you a vestibular stim? I like me you like uh balance based stims I love them They're like the most relaxing thing for me So, um, just a bit of an update on the the pod um I'm gonna have a podcast with mr. Kiran Lee Who is an autistic singer? He's really great. Um, I love his music and uh, we're gonna talk about autism and mental health for men In that one. So it's gonna it's gonna be a bit more of a focused one. We talked about mental health in general but I feel like there's a lot of um barriers that that one has to overcome as as a man to Recognize that you you have mental health and and to also feel okay about getting support So I think that's that'd be something I think that would be a good thing to talk about And you know, you obviously have the aspects of being autistic that can make mental health a little bit different Like Alexa fine. Yeah That sounds like a good topic for the podcast looking forward to it. Yeah Should be good. It's it's it's gonna go out on sunday. I know I said that I was gonna produce my podcasts for monday's but um Kieran made this like graphic this animation Which um, he like embedded like the the date of the podcast that we're gonna do Into it. So I'll probably have to talk to him. It may be more might I might reschedule it for monday But it's gonna be a really good one Hey, Austin How you doing man? You've been to the gym today Right So we've probably we've got about 10 minutes. I'm gonna have to actually cut it off exactly A half past six because I've got about a 30 30 minute window in between ending this and Um, I've got a podcast that I'm going on to as a guest so it's um I've got about half an hour to eat so I need to get some food in the system Great like day coming up brilliant. I had one like yesterday I'm actually um, I'm downsizing my my regiment From six days to two five days Which I'm a little bit anxious about because I hate change, but I don't know. I'm I'm struggling. It's it's less about having the motivation to go and more about having the time and like because The the stuff that I do online. It's so up and down in terms of You know when I'm able to Actually get out for two hours and just just have that two hours just to go and exercise Bri says I'm working on my masters in mental health counseling and I'm worried about being ADHD and autistic And if I'll be a good therapist um To be honest, I feel like just as Austin says, you know, it's I think it's um I think it'll it'll probably give you a bit more of a more empathic angle specifically for ADHDs and autistic people if that's something that you're wanting to to go for Because it's not like you have to learn how to how Autistic and ADHD people work necessarily in terms of How to get on to them how to communicate because you're already that so it's It's kind of like you have a bit of an edge with that I would say might be a bit more difficult with the neurotypical clients, but um You'll probably be able to offer a lot of out-of-the-box ideas and sort of different perspectives That they might find quite helpful So I definitely wouldn't be put off by by that. I think you'd make a good You know, it's it's not gonna Get in the way It might be any place that it might as um, if you find constant Sort of contact with with people that you use kind of strangers with um on a regular basis if you're doing like Anywhere upwards of like three Um sessions a day. I think it can sometimes be quite a lot But it'll just be something that you'd have to Work what works out for you and to be honest um, there is a big demand for like therapists and psychologists around autism So you could definitely fill that that niche. We definitely need that What's the podcast that you'll be going on? We'll check it out I um, I don't know if I can Let me have a look Uh, what is it called? It's called something Leave your mark podcast But there's there's quite a few leave your mark podcasts So it's a bit of a smaller one, but I like any opportunity to kind of go on and and speak and share the message in different spaces So it sounds like it'll be a very in-depth podcast. We did like a whole hour like talking about How what would be best to talk about during the episode? So I think it'll be quite good Leave your mark podcast if you want to check it out I used to go six times a week to the gym, but I think five times is better for recovering gains totally Brie says thanks Austin. I wonder That's but I worry about the trivial things such as eye contact So clients know that you're listening and stuff like that. Yeah Yeah, I think that that that could also be another thing but again if you're working with Autistic clients, it's not going to be necessarily something that They're bothered about having because you know for me The best way that I get the most out of conversations like that is By not making hardly any eye contact. So I think it really depends Are we definitely trying to specialise a bit more with autistic people? For sure I plan on taking on no more than 20 clients a week. I'd burn out fast totally Yeah, you gotta be gotta be careful that stuff um Might feel good like the first couple of times in the day, but You know long term That's sort of constant social interaction and press to communicate can sometimes be a lot So I've got about five minutes and then we're going to wrap up the stream I know it's been a bit of a short one because I've been trying to Sort out my My youtube Oh my god, I don't I have no idea why my camera is being so annoying at the moment Gonna have to go through and like delete the the random clips I made Dark path says my daughter are free just got diagnosed autistic How is that being going for you? Like someone someone keep people keep asking me like what what age did you start speaking and I don't know You know, I'll have to ask my mom If that's good, so that's what you're gonna ask. So it's a very common question that people have This should probably fill myself in a bit more um Hey, yorick, how you doing? Thank you for coming in to the stream. Thank you very much, man. We've got um Four minutes left. So if anyone wants to send in some Questions for us to finish up that would be absolutely amazing Dark path says not not bad very expensive to get medical support and psychologist, but I'm loving him good good Austin says that he had speech therapy until he was 14. Wow That's not something that I will ever went through as far as I know so we're probably I'm chatting to um Someone with uh Who's going to help me with setting up streaming? So it's possible that at some point we are gonna Start up a very long stream perhaps sometime in the evening So that's something that you really would enjoy I'm going to be looking at some like videos on youtube Um, so I'll do my own sort of commentary on that stuff and go to upload that um We're probably gonna look at some I don't know. I'll have to like Collect a number of like videos that I think will be really good to talk about because I think um There's a big there's a big like reactionary movement at the moment on people being autistic or um sort of displaying their neurodiversities online Um and sort of people reacting very negatively towards that So it'd be good to watch a video on something like that and give some commentary See you later adult. Thank you for for contributing to the to life lovely to see you Got two minutes left. Um, just wanted to say as well if you haven't already Um, please go check out the podcast youtube channel Trying to grow that at the moment I'm also um Doing some stuff on twitter and um Tiktok now So if you if you prefer any of those platforms Um, you you'd be able to find all my links in my in my link tree It's like a icon list at the top that you can check out Oh, I I didn't see your question How do I have a question how to overcome being autistic and being a 64 dude? Um, I don't know necessarily. Oh in terms of dating That's that's that's gonna be a long question. I have to approach that on another another stream Hmm, I think to be to be honest, you probably have a bit of a advantage when it comes to that, but It's still not going to be very easy. You know, it's I think the advice I give for anyone trying to find a relationship find a date someone to To fall in love with and have a romantic time with I'd always recommend trying to find social groups and workplace not workplace um like hobby groups like sports, um Hobbies around whatever thing you like trying to find those kind of things in your area and just approaching it just trying to meet new people that kind of approach because you may find someone that you like And you'll have a bit bit less of a sort of open conversation as in like You know, you will have to try and Think about different topics to bring up you can you can just know because you're already in a place that You know, it's surrounding a certain topic. So I think that's that's often the best things One topic which might be hard to discuss or not appropriate is to ask about Oh Yeah, um, maybe Maybe it could it could be a topic. I do need to do a topic around like sexuality and stuff. So Yeah, maybe I need to find someone who can do that though Because I don't know if there's a lot of people who talk about that kind of stuff It could be interesting I know that that like the drives of people in the spectrum can be Either at one end of the scale or the other end some You know, you know, you have a sort of high occurrence of like asexuality in my autistic people Which is interesting, but then again, you're not on the other side So, um, I'm gonna wrap things up. I know it's been a bit of a disordered dis disordered Disordered livestream. So I appreciate your You guys on YouTube for Being patient around that um Yeah But I appreciate you all um coming in to ask questions and be involved in the stream so Always really lovely to to do these kind of things and I will update you on The status on streaming For a long time um On instagram or i'll try and remind people See you later guys You're welcome sminkity. Thank thank you guys for coming on to chat. See you later and