About Charging and Bandaged Cats

Hello octopods,

(Octopod is the Bulgarian for octopus if you're curious. Not sure if I've used this one before but I've always liked it, sounds quite sci-fi.)

The admin-y bit first then. I'm sat on a few ideas I'd very much like to make real, and the plan is to work with Valeia, my brilliant artist again. I've had a script floating around for several years now about some animals who are lifted up to human levels of intelligence and go exploring a post-apocalyptic Earth – all in the style of a children's poem of course. I'd also like to make something about the history of chess, and how we even evolved to be so good at games that have infinite variations. The plan was never to use Patreon (and your kindness of course) to pay rent, I was always against that, but in situations where it involves paying an artist or commissioning something bespoke or buying licensed music or whatever, that was rather where I was hoping you might be able to help out. I think the last time I charged you was back in November of last year, so it is with some reluctance I'll ask if you'd like to help out again for the next project. As is tradition, I'll of course leave it a week so I don't spring it on anyone. If you'd like to opt out in the meantime, please do so, that's totally understandable. If not, then a week from now, I hope it's quite all right if I charge yourselves and attempt to turn it into something terrible for your eyeballs a little while from now.

Second mildly admin-adjacent thing then. I should probably apologise for taking the last video down. Sometimes you screw up with writing in a way that isn't apparent at the time, but you look back on it a while later and it's just glaringly obvious. I can't in good faith leave it up – in places it's just far too gross and self-indulgent and I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea in the first place. There's a weird effect here where once you've put something out, you don't really have control of it any more, it isn't yours, so I can understand why it seems like a weird move on my part. But I'm rather ashamed of it all and it didn't exactly feel right keeping it up. The fault is entirely with me and I'd just rather I'd never made it at all.

Cat news. The smol cat is currently recovering from surgery and making my life all kinds of interesting as a result. I'll attach photos of course. She had some slightly cancer-y seeming lumps on both front legs, so off they had to go – the lumps not the legs. She's been wearing bandages and a cone so she doesn't yoink the stitches out and that was all going fine. I stayed in with her for a few days making sure she knows she's the feline love of my life. Then I popped out on Wednesday to see a friend for a few hours and came back to a cat with NO cone, NO bandages, and greeting me at the door looking ever so proud of herself – hey look what I did, isn't it neat! She'd torn several of the stitches out and didn't seem at all bothered by that. She's been to the vet since, she's absolutely fine, but I won't be letting her out of my sight for the next three thousand years. Anyway, she's recovering great otherwise and I'm sure she'd send her love if she was capable of language.

I wonder if you ever got into the recent version of Battlestar Galactica – the 2000s one. I think I saw a few episodes when I was a teenager and just assumed it was militaristic war nonsense for some reason. A few weeks back I thought I'd try it out again. Jeeeeeeeeeesus was I wrong. It's absolutely brilliant. Parts of it are a decently entertaining soap opera in space, but the overall theme – the last of humanity trying to escape from the AI they created? It's brilliantly done, and there's just so much compelling character drama. When the writing is good, it's perfect. Almost everyone has a secret only the audience knows, and that makes for constant tension, the sort you stay up until 6 in the morning for. Hypothetically. Massively recommended in any case.

I'd also recommend chess again but I reckon you've probably heard of it. I spend my free hours getting mollywhopped left and right by irritatingly clever friends from India and Indonesia, forever pulling some insane gambit on me that I never see coming. For script reasons, I've been doing quite a bit of reading about chess recently, and you can't go wrong checking out The Immortal Game by David Shenk – a brilliant history of how we even came up with the thing in the first place.

Anyway, plans are in action as always. I'm not quite settled on what direction to go with the next video, but I'd like to get some stuff in motion. For the last time (I promise), let me say that the new book is almost finished. I'm just putting the last touches on the thing. I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm proud of it, but it's certainly the one that was the hardest to work out what it was at first, meaning it was the most gratifying to crack in the end. Can't wait to show it to you, I really really do hope you like this one. It should be out with the next video – I'm almost there now, and of course I'll be attaching it here for free so you can hate it without having to pay for torture by words.

From finally warm Bulgaria then, thank you ever so much for sticking around this far. Again, if you want to bow out with being charged next week, please do, the support so far is hugely appreciated and I'd never want to lock you into anything. Wherever you are, I hope the weather's clement and the beer is delicious.

Massive love as ever, and thanks again,

Ex.