June Favourites ’18

I cannot believe it is July! I ended off June by getting incredibly drunk and nursing a monster of a hangover with McDonalds chicken nuggets. xD

Oh dear. It’s a lovely warm day though, I’m between doing housework and blog work and getting ready to go out to a wedding this evening. I usually get my monthly blog posts written up and scheduled about a week in advance, but sadly that isn’t the case this month… OOPS! 😛

Anyway, enough blabbering, on with the favourites this month! 😀

• Australian Bodycare Tea Tree Oil Skin Wash.

If there is a product that I have REALLY loved lately, it’s definitely this tea tree skin wash, which you can use all over your body, including your face. My skin has been breaking out really bad lately, so much so that I worried I might have acne. Alas, it was just some of the products I was using on my skin as since I started using this stuff on my face it has changed dramatically! Not only that but I use it on my body too as a shower gel and I always get out of the shower feeling fresh and clean! I always forget how much I love this skin wash and from now on it’s definitely going to be a constant piece of my shower/bath!

• Simple Kind To Eyes Soothing Eye Balm.

I recently picked up this old favourite again as I was in need of a new eye gel. I’ve used this on and off over the years and never had a problem with it, but sometimes I’ve found it to be too expensive for what it is and that’s why I didn’t pick one up. However, recently I found it at a price I was willing to pay and oh man, I forgot how great this eye balm is! As many of us Brits know, it’s been really hot in the UK most of June so this eye balm has come in handy for helping cool down my eyes early in the morning, as well as in the evening before bed.

• L’Occitane Almond Foot Cream.

I don’t actually know if L’Occitane even sell this anymore but I’ve started using it lately to help soften my feet. On and off for about a year now I appear to now have eczema on one of my feet, which sucks. Since using this food cream in the mornings before work the eczema has improved dramatically! Some days I don’t use it, but most days I do. Due to the almond it smells really good too and has a matte texture to it so it doesn’t leave your feet feeling greasy after use, which is great!

• Le Mini Macaron Gel Manicure Kit in Midnight Blueberry.

I’ve wanted to try the Le Mini Macaron gel kits for agggges! It started off as a Kickstarter and I remember discovering it after it had finished. I’ve had my eye on the kits online for a while but I didn’t feel that the £30-£35 price tag was really worth it for what you get. However, recently House of Fraser had some of the kits on offer for just £10! So I finally picked one up. I’m so glad I did as I now have a new found love for gel nail polish and since then I’ve used more gel polishes with it than the one provided in the kit. Sadly House of Fraser don’t have anymore of these kits left. 😦

• Tangle Teezer The Ultimate Finishing Brush.

I picked up this hair brush when I went to Bristol at the start of June and oh my God, it has changed my life so much! For about 5-6 years now I’ve been using this style of brush, but never the Tangle Teezer brand. I knew I was in need of a new hair brush so I decided to use my Boots points to pick up one of these brushes, as well as their smoothing tool brush which you use when blow drying your hair. Their brushes are just amazing and I cannot wait to review them both on my blog.

So now my beauty favourites are done, time to talk about the miscellaneous favourites of the month!

Favourite TV Show – RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10.

Holy shit this season was crazy of RuPaul’s Drag Race and I’m not going to lie or reveal any spoilers, but I am so annoyed at who won… But whatever. If there was one queen on this season who I loved to the moon and back, it’s Monet x Change. She is such an amazing queen and she made me laugh constantly and SHE SHOULD HAVE FUCKING ONE! My favourite moment in this season is the clip I’ve posted above, and it’s definitely one of my favourite moments EVER! 😀

Image taken from giphy.com

Favourite Film – The Shawshank Redemption.

This is such a random film to have on my favourites this month, but it’s probably the only one I’ve actually watched. I fancied watching it after realising that Hank in Detroit:Become Human is the mean prison ward in this film! I just felt the need to watch it again really and I always forget what an amazing film this is. I’m watching it right now as I write this blog post… 😛

Image taken from giphy.com

Favourite Book – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.

I bought quite a few Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid manga’s in June as 2 of them came out. I always love when I get the newest volume because I can carry on where the anime left off. I don’t feel like I need to write too much about this manga series as I feel like I wrote WAY TOO MUCH about them throughout June. 😛

Favourite Song/Album/Artist – Panic! At The Disco – A Fever You Can’t Swear Out.

I don’t know quite why, but recently on my journeys to and from work I’ve been mostly listening to A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out and it really took me back to over 10 years ago when it came out. I remember going and buying it one weekend and I listened to it so much at school. I just forgot how much I love it and it’s such a great album for summer too. I don’t care how old the album is, it’s still a classic!

Image taken from knowyourmeme.com

Favourite Game – VR Chat and Pokemon GO.

Well this is a game I’ve wanted to play for the longest time and although I only have a handful of times, I LOVE IT SO MUCH! The first time I went on the game I was incredibly overwhelmed and confused, I didn’t even turn my microphone on as I was too anxious to talk. The second time I went on the microphone was on and I had an amazing time with random people, one even told me how to do bits and pieces on there and it was lovely. As I wore a skin of an anime girl, I become some Ugandan Knuckles’s queen! It was hilarious and Dane filmed the whole thing. I’m really hoping to start making gaming videos with Dane. Keep eyes peeled for that in the future. 😛

Image taken from giphy.com

Image taken from giphy.com

I couldn’t not talk about Pokemon GO this month as I recently downloaded it again and since playing it with Dane and our friends I am in love with it! 😀 We’ve been out with our friends a few times now to play it and walked around our area as well as parks. I’ve also bought the Pokemon GO Plus so I can still play whilst I’m out and about without pulling my phone out of my handbag. I’ll be talking about that very soon! But yeah, I love Pokemon Go and I cannot wait to play it more over the summer.

So those are my favourites from June! What were you loving throughout last month? Make sure to let me know in the comments.

Until next time, I hope you all have a lovely day and are enjoying the warm weather.

Fan fiction: real or not real?

Hi everyone! I’m Kanra, taking over for Nat today since she’s on a vacation (and can’t answer the phone right now). I’m one of those odd bloggers who don’t really have a particular niche I stick to. Some days I’m posting about school (I’m a medical student), some days I’m posting about art (I really like painting) and some days I’m posting about random things that take up my interest. Today’s random topic of the day is fan fiction.

I’m not an avid reader of fan fiction and certainly not a writer either. In fact, I don’t think I would have been overly concerned about this topic at all if it hadn’t cropped up in a chat room I frequent. It was a writing group, where people who were either in the process of writing or editing would congregate to share their work and request for constructive criticism. It was a pretty nice group, until someone posted a fan fiction and asked if it could be reviewed.

Admittedly, it was a poorly written piece of work. I guessed the writer was maybe around 14-15 years old, merely writing out a rough draft of a fantasy or day dream they had. The writing was disjointed, meaningless details about the main character, unrealistic bullying and resultant save by ignoring the situation and focusing on the power of friendship or something along those lines. If someone asked me to constructively criticize that piece of work, I would have probably declined because there’s just so much wrong with it that needs to be fixed.

The moderator then decided to throw out the question: should fan fiction be banned from the group entirely?

I recently took an MBTI test which classed me as an INTJ, given the title of “The Architect” or “The Mastermind”. There are other characteristics of this personality type which include things like “avoiding eye contact while talking”. To be honest, I didn’t even realize I had some the characteristics I have until I read up on it, like arguing as soon as a person of power suggests something. So of course when the discussions started shifting towards a “yes, ban fan fiction”, I couldn’t help but argue against it. It’s like my inner rebel teenager came out.

The history of fan fiction is something long and messy, something we will not discuss at the moment (it involves lawsuits and copy rights). The only thing you need to know is that fan fiction is a gray domain. What fan fiction basically does is create a new story from an already published piece of work. There is almost nothing that you, as a fan fiction writer, can claim for yourself. Everything you build on, from the setting to the characters, is not yours. You can’t monetize your writing. I guess that’s why it explains why most fan fictions are poorly written wish fulfillment pieces.

Yes, I’m not going to lie. More often than not, fan fiction has disappointed me. The majority of these pieces of writing are poorly written, self insert fantasies. The occasional rare gem does show up and I couldn’t let a brash decision of “ban fan fiction” stamp these out. Not to mention the fact that most writers started out using fan fiction as a way to improve their writing before creating original content.

It’s okay to write bad fan fiction! You have to start somewhere and practicing it out with preexisting characters, universes and laws is better for hammering out the fluency of your words and polishing the entire process of writing before putting in effort to bring to life an original creation.

It’s really sad that there are amateur writers out there, who write as a hobby, dismiss fan fiction as legitimate literature. In my opinion, fan fiction involves just as much effort and skill as original content. It doesn’t matter what your idea is or how novel your plot is, if you don’t have the ability to convey ideas properly through good pacing, than what’s the point? It’s much more important for writers to focus on presentation and delivery rather than whether it’s original or not. To be very honest, the kind of attitude I see about fan fiction really makes me wonder why people focus on the wrong things. It’s just a harmless exercise that helps young writers develope their skills. If it’s not good fan fiction, then just leave it?

Personally, I like the idea of fan fiction. I watched Dexter a few months ago and in one of the seasons, Dexter is set up to almost turn himself in to the police, but of course, it doesn’t happen. When I finished that season, I wanted to know so bad what would have happened if Dexter had turned himself in. What would the other characters think? How would they react? I needed to know and I really wanted a fan fiction to answer these questions for me. Imagine how many other “could’ve been” scenarios there are out there that can be elaborated and explored through fan fiction! Isn’t that exciting? Of course, finding such literature is truly a challenge.

I normally don’t read fan fiction regularly, but there are some popular fan fictions that I’ve checked out and was blown away by and if you have zero exposure to fan fiction, then you should check it out! My absolute top favorite fan fiction ever is “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality”. This is a full fledged Harry Potter book and it’s amazing, it condenses the plot of all seven books and years just into this fan fiction Harry’s first year at Hogwarts. It’s amazing and I can’t stress enough about how great this is. The writing style is great, the concept is great, it’s just amazing and deserves more attention!

The other fan fiction is something I came across while seeing art on Pinterest. This might sound really childish but it’s a PowerPuff Girls fan fiction called “More than Human”. Revolving around a high school (instead of preschool) where the PPGs go, it turns out the RowdyRuff Boys are there too. I actually haven’t read all of it (to be honest I kept getting the boys’ names mixed up) but it was really nice nevertheless (very slice of life, high school drama sort of thing) and there’s a lot of artwork out these from fans who loved the fan fiction, so hey! Check it out, might be your cup of tea!

What do you think about people who write fan fictions? Have you ever dabbled in this art? What’s your favourite fan fiction? Have a nice day!

I just want to say a MASSIVE thank you to Kanra for writing this post! As regular readers on my blog will know, I always love talking geeky on my blog whenever the chance arises! Although I’m not a fan fiction reader, Kanra’s post really opened up my eyes to it from both a reader and a writers point of view!

I hope you enjoyed reading her post just as much as I did! Until next time take care all and I hope you’re doing well!

This Or That: Summer Tag

Image taken from weheartit.com

I know we’re still in summer for well over a month BUT before we know it summer will be over, so I thought I would take part in this tag today before I NEVER get the chance to!

I found it over on lifethroughtsg which is run by Hayley. She didn’t tag me in taking part but I will anyway. I hope you’re all having a lovely weekend and Sunday. I’ve just had an amazing Lush bath. Enjoy the tag and make sure to take part yourself if you enjoy reading my answers.

1. Ocean or Pool
I like both to be honest for different reasons. When I went to Fuerteventura with Dane for the first time it was also the first time I went into the ocean properly and I actually really loved it! I’d probably choose ocean over pool though to be honest.

2. Beach Vacation or Wilderness
Definitely beach vacation! I’ve done wilderness before but I didn’t like it that much. I found that I couldn’t wait to get back home and I don’t want to feel like that when I’m supposed to be getting away.

3. Watermelon or Strawberries
Neither! Allergic to watermelon and I can’t stand strawberries.

4. Bikini or 1-piece
Bikini! At least you can get a tan on your tummy in one. 😛

5. Lemonade or Iced Tea
Iced tea!

Image taken from weheartit.com

6. Hotdogs… grilled or over a fire
Either way as long as they’re cooked. 😛

7. Hat or Sunglasses
Sunglasses.

8. Windows Down or AC all the way
Windows open, I want to hear all the sounds whilst driving.

9. Tanning Lotion or Sunscreen
What’s the difference? Anything that keeps me protected from the sun and gets me a tan all in one.

10. Baseball Game or Concert
Concert!

11. Ice Cream or Popsicle
Depends on the mood I’m in really. Usually opt for ice cream though in this country and ice lollies in Fuerteventura.

Image taken from weheartit.com

12. Fireworks or Fireflies
Fireworks usually but if I could see fireflies for a night I would love that.

13. Flip Flops or Bare Feet
Depends on the mood but definitely flip flops.

14. Water Balloons or Squirt Guns
Squirt guns are definitely more fun. 😛

So those are my answers for the summer this and that quiz! I really enjoyed giving it a go whilst I chilled out after my bath. I can’t believe that in just over a months time we’ll be into autumn weather. This year is going by so quickly!

Tell me, what’s your favourite and your least favourite thing about summer? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

I tag EVERYONE who reads this tag to give it a go! 😀 I’ll also be tagging a few of my favourite blogger beauties over on Twitter too so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Until next time, take care all and I hope you have a lovely evening.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! & New Year’s Resolutions

Image taken from rottenecards.com

With the New Year literally hours away I’m currently on my way to Coventry to my boyfriends. We’ll be going out tonight to celebrate New Year’s at our friends house and I for one am mighty excited for it! I still don’t know what I’ll be wearing yet but I’m sure with a good look around my wardrobe, I’ll find something nice to wear.

As much as I wish to get drunk, I don’t want to worry about a hangover in the morning, so I’ll probably not drink all that much, but after my boyfriend has finished work I may ask if me and him can pop to Tesco to pick up some Pringles and Lucozade for myself just incase, as well as any hangover cures for him!

We’ll be traveling back to Birmingham tomorrow morning/early afternoon to watch Sherlock all day and then watch the new episode for series 3 in the evening. SO DAMN EXCITED!

So with a New Year comes resolutions and although many people don’t bother to make them, I always try to every year. Boy, do I have a lot I want to do this year!

2013 for  me wasn’t a very good year. A lot of shit happened including my Gran dying, my aunt being rushed into hospital, losing my old job, I had to postpone my masters course due to the bank mucking me around with my loan and finally I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression.

BUT where there is bad, there is good too. I met my boyfriend, I started to get help for my anxiety and depression, my aunt made a fast recovery and is now home and well, I soon found a new job and I let go of the most horrible group of friends I ever had and have made a load of new and awesome friends.

So really, whilst a lot of shit happened, a lot of good happened too!

But enough of what did and didn’t happen during 2013, I’m going to make sure 2014 is the year of change for me. I’ll be 24 in 6 days and I have a lot of things I wish to change, as well as do this year, which I thought I would share with you all.

Image taken from weheartit.com

• Start to learn Japanese.

For the past two or three years I have wanted to learn Japanese but I’ve never really made it a resolution to try and learn it, until now! A couple of my friends know some Japanese and have offered to help me learn and my boyfriend also wishes to learn so we both downloaded a free Japanese language app called Mirai Japanese. As I have an iPhone I know it’s available on the App Store, but I’m unsure if it’s available on the Android Store. Either way it’s free and is an amazing app! As well as this I hope to try and attend some free classes, as well as pick up a book to help me, maybe “Japanese For Idiots” or something along those lines.

No caption necessary as this is MY image. 😉

• Start my own photography business/company.

This year since meeting my boyfriend I’ve done nothing but progress with my photography and have found myself taking a lot of live photography, as well as some nature too. I would like to start off my own photography business, or company. There is a possibility that at first I would do photographs for bands and people for free to get myself out there and at the same time get my portfolio started and then if my photography got more busy and well-known by people, I would start to charge a small fee for photographs. This being said though, I could do with the money and wouldn’t charge people a lot anyway as I’d be new on the scene! This will be more of a hobby and any money I would earn from it would be saved up to go towards my masters course, which I would still like to go and study in the hopefully near future! Keep your eyes peeled for news and a blog post about my future photography business/company! I currently have one name in mind, which I’m really liking the idea of, stay tuned!

Image taken from weheartit.com

• Learn how to snowboard.

I mentioned in August on my My Goals post that I wanted to learn to snowboard within the year and as of yet, I still haven’t been able to go for my lessons, due to lack of funds. Plus, as the price has gone up during the winter period, I’m going to wait until Spring to go and take the day course to learn how to snowboard in a day. I used to love skateboarding as a teenager but after a scare of possibly breaking my two front teeth, I grew too scared to carry on with it and retired my skateboard. I have my snowboarding pants and gloves, all I need to get now is a jacket, a helmet and some crash pants to help keep my bum protected. My boyfriends been amazing and has said that by April or May if I still can’t afford to pay for my classes, then he will pay for me. Never felt so lucky in all my life! My boyfriend is an amazing snowboarder and I know in his company I would be safe, so I can’t wait to hit (literally!) the snow with him!

Image taken from weheartit.com

• Take up pole dancing classes again.

I really have missed pole dancing and it’s been over a year now since I was last in a class. I lost weight from pole dancing, as well as it giving me something good to look forward to doing every Tuesday evening. Now I feel more confident to drive I have decided that I will be traveling to where all the classes are held and even if my boyfriend is here during the weekend I have decided I will go for the hour class and he could stay at mine. I hate fitness but with pole dancing it’s so much fun you feel the urge to keep going with it and even if you can’t perform a move you push and push yourself to do it! My best move to pull is actually the one I have posted a picture of above, but I didn’t hold onto the pole with my hands. I really miss being able to do this and I know when I start my classes again, I probably won’t be able to do any of the moves I could once do. At only £5 a class, I won’t be breaking the bank by going either!

Any other resolutions I come up with will probably be to stop eating crap food such as chocolate, sweets, crisps etc as well as drive more, although this is on my goals list anyway!

I’m really quite pleased with my four resolutions and I really hope I can keep up with them this year!

So, what resolutions has everyone come up with for the New Year? Or do you not bother with resolutions? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time take care all and I hope you have an amazing New Year! Here’s to 2014.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Image taken from weheartit.com

As many of you will know, it’s only one day until Christmas and I hope all your shopping is done and you’re safe at home with your families and loved ones!

I not long ago finished work and I’m at home and getting ready to have a nice relaxing evening before Christmas Day tomorrow!

I’ll be going to my boyfriends Christmas Day afternoon and for all of Boxing Day which I’m extremely excited about!

In all honesty 2013 has been pretty shit for myself and my family, as regular readers will know and to have a nice Christmas with them this year would be amazing! I’m going to wake up super early so that I can exchange presents and cards with them before I leave, as well as have some lunch with them before I head off for my boyfriends.

I’m going to possibly get drunk and dress up in one of my Christmas jumpers (candy cane one), a cute skirt (tartan) and my Chelsea boots.

Image taken from weheartit.com

I’m really quite excited for Christmas this year and I just hope it’ll be as good as I hope for it to be.

I’ve managed to get my Christmas presents bought, wrapped and ready to be given to my loved ones!

Are you excited for Christmas this year?

I’ll be scheduling a post tomorrow so if you have a few minutes to take a peek at it, please do!

I wish you all a merry Christmas Eve and until tomorrow, take care.