A Word on Kindness

Hey everyone,

I've been thinking about this for over a week, now (or, if I want to be really honest with myself, during the entirety of working on Night Vale) and feel at this moment it's right to say it.

(Even though, to a lot of you, I'll just be doing my usual thing and repeating myself as per usual every few months.)

I appreciate you all so much more than you realize. Your being here, being contributors, supporting the channel--it makes my life.

I don't think it's in question for anyone that I haven't quite been myself lately. April was sluggish after opening Cabin Fever Dreams, and this month has been worse. Unlike the beginning of winter, there isn't any major misfortune going on that's kept me away, but there has been just as much disruption.

I hate talking about personal life things, because, you know, I'm totally an interdimensional shapeshifter monster/eldritch being with no major human concerns and all, but since the beginning of April, I've been dealing with constant weekly disruption, interruption, and events that have taken away  my ability to work as the living environment I've been in has undergone a lot of traffic in anticipation of being closed down and sold.

Strangers coming and and out while I slept, not knowing which days this was going to happen, not being able to record or focus because of their presence; spending entire days cleaning, reorganizing, throwing things away; not knowing how much time I'd have to do this, or that, or when someone was going to show up out of the blue; not knowing if I was causing an issue by dedicating a day of work to Night Mind instead of taking care of something as part of this messy process. I often had to flip a coin: spend two days taking care of a task right now, or work on the channel? Each had consequences that hurt the progress of the other long-term commitment.

And, ultimately, facing the need to pack up years and years of my life and get ready to leave well before I anticipated was involved, especially recently. Meeting with people, doing research, juggling the responsibility of the channel and the process of closing down and selling a property... it's all been going on at once.

It's kept me from work and kept me from feeling comfortable and feeling like I've been functioning properly. I know the turmoil that's been all around, and yet, still feel irresponsible as a content creator and someone running a Patreon.

Your kindness during this time has been my saving grace.

I'm involved in a major life change right now happening months before I anticipated it, taking a lot of time from me, creating a lot of confusion, uncertainty, and a sense of being under a ticking clock. And even as I've been weak on getting out content at the pace I expect of myself and that you expect of me, you've all still remained.

Having you guys here during the worst drought I've seen on YouTube so far also can't be understated for how incredibly valuable it is; like most channels, my daily revenue has dropped by half. Things are really bad on the YouTube side and content creators (myself included) will have to maximize output if they want to see things return to normal until the company manages to restore advertisers' faith and fix what's gone wrong.

Ultimately, I'm in a time of uncertainty, major life change, and disruption that has impacted me and my ability to work to the level I expect of myself and that I've come to be known by, and I've been hurting about it. But you guys have been here. You've been kind, and you've been patient.

And I cannot thank you for that enough. So, thank you!

The new Night Vision episode I'm working on should be up on Friday or Saturday. We'll have that unrecorded Darkroom, too, and I've got some other stuff slated for videos. It's a weird time right now, so I don't know about the pacing of my uploads, but I'm trying as much as I can to bring balance back to my life and be a more frequent uploader despite what's going on.

Once again, thank you for sticking with me, and for being here in the first place.