decided to stop the revisions here, thanks everyone for their helpful input .
I have it to a point where its a clear and smooth listen while maintaining its closeness it was intended for. Had to tweak with the de-essing and cross fading the harshness where needed. Backed off the compressor and automated the vocals to keep them piercing just enough.
Next step is working on my mic technique!
Nice! 
It’s because it’s all done automatically, for example with a de-esser. The problem is that no two esses are the same. The only way to do it well is to manually automate, which obviously takes up too much time for the big boys.
Indeed. While I do have an automatic de-esser working around 8kish ( at a medium threshhold ) where most of my esss were located , I did have to manually automate and cross fade at many other parts.
I did learn a lot from working on my own vocals. In my experience, working on dry vocals is hard to do. There is not much delay and reverb to mask the pitfalls. It is what it is… raw.
I wanted to make dry vocals sound upclose, personal and rich. The tips in this thread from everyone are great and should be followed rigorously. The tips that helped me the most were to use the limiter sparingly and manually automate the vocals instead. The sheer clarity of the vocals that came out in the end compared to my original sound were a result of a lot of manual riding. That beats any kind of automated vocal rider or limiter. Unless in a rush, those kind of tools should be used with a grain of salt. The only thing remaining is micing technique and prononciations which no tools can fix in post without massive changes to tonal quality.
In the end I am pretty happy with the test results overall.
yeah, that’s workin 
Might be that you could just sing it over next time? Beautiful
This thread has given me an idea for a plugin. Boooooz!
I am not against making a good deesser. I’ve tried different methods, everything from standard de-essing to completely regenerating the S with a vocoder. I haven’t found a method that works perfectly for all sources yet.
I’ve got two ideas:
Sample replacement. The plugin scans for the sibilants, then replaces each one with a sample from its library. Detection threshold/frequency and of course, output level are user-definable, and users can add to the library if they wish.
The plugin scans as above, but simply automates each sibilant down to a user-defined level, as opposed to compressing it. (Would probably need to measure the loudness of each sibilant individually in order to know how much to automate down.)
I’ve got Drum Leveler, in my tiny inadequate mind I’m thinking I might be able to set it to perform as in 2.
Sorry for Hijacking your thread, Michelle 
Moving to a new thread.
glad to be of help lol
Really enjoyed this song! You have a beautiful voice, and I think you did well with the production aspects.
Starliner