Please Read ✦ Important Announcement

[Content Warning: Pet Loss]

Hi everyone,

Normally I would be sitting here making the Upcoming image of the reactions for October and sharing the post with you all. Instead I am spending my time discussing end-of-life care and options for my sweet girl, Ella. It was a week ago when this realization confronted me and over the past few days I've been having some really hard conversations with my closest loved ones. I have come to the incredibly hard decision to send her walking across the Rainbow Bridge in 12 days.

I am still attending TwitchCon and will be away from home October 17-24 and this upcoming absence was a big reason for finally having these hard conversations, as this trip isn't really something that I can back out of (and I don't want to anyway). Anyone that has had pets will understand not wanting to put a burden on others with their pets condition. And the anxiety and worry of wondering if something drastic will happen when you're gone and can't easily return home is not ideal either. I'm sure you understand.

This is the very first time in my life that I will be saying this kind of goodbye to someone that is very close to me. I honestly have no idea what my grief is going to look like leading up to and after this time.

Because I'm entering unknown territory with myself, I don't know what the impact is going to be for my reactions. I already have the feeling that recording is going to be really hard, but editing will be easy and a good distraction. I have some general thoughts about how October may look and I apologize that it's so different from normal.

• Recordings that are done are my main priority at the moment to work on over recording new reactions. The Matrix along with Loki Eps 1-3. Ahsoka will still be going out throughout October like planned and the finale will be watched next week
• If recording becomes difficult for me and all of the above are completed, then I will shift my focus to editing the Member of the Month movie reactions that aren't on the channel. I have four of them that I can work on, so that can keep me busy
• For Agent Carter and Better Call Saul reactions at the Insiders tiers, I can't be certain on when these may go out. Their shorter length and exclusivity may mean that it's easier for me to do this over movie reactions for YouTube, but we'll see
• The scary movies that I had planned for October will be rescheduled. I'm not going to abandon them, but it's just not the right time for them anymore. So we'll begin some scary movie sprinkling in between everything else. For those curious, the movies I was going to watch: IT (2017), Saw (2004) - with my brother, and The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

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Patreon Membership

I won't be pausing my Patreon billing for October because I know that many of you are happy to continue to be here and thank you so much for that.

That said, I will accommodate refund requests for the month of October if there is any disappointment in my content delivery or if you're also going through a hard time too - emotionally, financially, etc. I just want to say that I get it, I understand and I wish the best for you. Just send me a DM after your October payment has gone through and I will process it. You will still have access to my Patreon, so don't worry about losing that.

Financial Assistance

I may get questions asking if this is an option, so I will share my Ko-fi page here: ko-fi.com/kaiielle. This is for anyone who may want to help with the financial costs of end-of-life care for Ella that goes above and beyond your membership here, you can use this page to do that. It's basically a tipping platform. Thank you so much, if you do. ❤️

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Ella Bean

Allow me to spend the rest of this post to let out my love for this girl. Obviously every dog is the best dog in the world, but right now she is the best dog in the world.

Ella was adopted shortly after she turned 7 years old back in late 2016. I picked her up a few days after Christmas Day. When I met her for the first time, she hadn't been visited by anyone else and had been with the foster for over a month. That made me sad to hear. I believe it was a combination of her left eye being blind and her age. But these were her adoption photos - how could I not visit her?

She was originally from Palm Springs, California and ended up in Alberta after being hit by a car in August 2016 and ending up at a shelter. It's unknown if she had a family at the time, but based on her behaviour and how well trained she was, we all guessed that she did have loving families while in California. Her name at the time was Canela (cinnamon in Spanish) but the foster here had started calling her Ella and Miss E and she was receptive to it, so I just continued that when I brought her home.

I had started working from home with my corporate job right before adopting her, so Ella has been blessed to never have a life with me where she was left alone for a large portion of the day. I was also grateful to find a family very early that loved having her whenever I needed to leave the area for the day or for any vacations. Ella has experienced their family growing from 3 to 4 (and their youngest is now over 5 years old) and also became besties with their dog Riot, who she was able to meet the week they got him when he was just a few weeks old. 

When I started streaming on Twitch, Ella was basically the main star of my channel - at least that is what a lot of viewers would say and I don't disagree. 😂 She was given the nickname CHONK very early on and it quickly caught on with everyone. We had a CHONK sound bite for the channel and I had Ella emotes created. She was able to eat peanut butter at the time, which we called NUT in the channel and I had a way for people to redeem their points to give her a peanut butter snack. I am grateful to have an entire Discord channel of Ella memes and screenshots that viewers made and captured during my streams, along with clips taken. Here are some of my favourite moments and captures from Twitch:

• Too !CHONK, need assistance 
• Ella being precious 
• Ella getting COMFY 
• Ella Dance 
• The top Ella moment on the channel, IMO: Ella having the best dreams
• And finally please enjoy my friend Mark dying laughing at me and Ella from a Twitch team event we were both in: Part One and Part Two 

I am so grateful to have these memories of her in video form. ❤️

Here are some pics (and memes) from over the years:

Ella DeGeneres:

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Thank you for reading and your understanding. I appreciate you all so very much. ❤️

✦ KL