This Timeline Is Hellish - You're All Making It Measurably Better - As does Fluffy Animals.

My dearest Patrons.To start, here's a photo of my alter ego at the local Renn Faire last weekend. We'd already purchased tickets for it and the Canterbury Renn Faire ( and they were/are non-refundable) so we decided to go. I met not one, but two Dungeon Crawler Carls, some lovely fantastical creatures, a King of England, and of course, a very special pupper who only wanted me to tickle under her chin. I tell you all of that, not because I'm being flippant, but because, this post is... heavy, Doc.

I am blown away by the sheer generosity and kindness of the TE massive. Yeah, I just said that. I'm aware. It dates me as someone closer to AARP membership than graduation. I don't mind.

Tomorrow marks 2 weeks since my beloved looked up from her desk in her office and met my eyes as I returned upstairs after a particularly good Peloton workout session and said, quietly, "I'm being laid off today. They've just sent me the email."

The email in which someone who she didn't know from HR was going to be present. The email which her former employer had been teasing for the best part of five months.* The email which led to the call. The call which said, yeah, Friday will be your last day. You'll get severance...

It's been two weeks minus a day since I made the post on Patreon, saying "hey, things are not good. We need help."

And in the two weeks since, you have stepped up.

Some of you have sent donations via the mail, or PayPal, or KoFi. Some through increased subscriptions. And some of you have subscribed for the first time.

I have no canvas broad enough to share my gratitude. We're not out of the woods. Not by a long shot. But you've helped extend the runway. TE is now out of the very difficult place it was in two weeks ago, and on a more marginally stable footing.

Tomorrow, I will have enough money to sign myself and my wife up for healthcare through TE for a few months, instead of through COBRA (the mandated health insurance that is offered when someone is laid off, but which is so insanely expensive that most people just go without).

As someone with a rare heart condition who absolutely needs those meds to help reduce the risk I'll just suddenly have a cardiac arrest, it's $1200 a month well spent. I couldn't have done that two weeks ago. (And yes, that's for both of us, approximately.)

That's because of all of you.

My wife is still job hunting — and I don't need to tell most of you what that's like in the U.S., in 2026, with AI busily gobbling up jobs left and right. I'm also not about to walk you through the ins and outs of her prospects right now, because that would be wildly unprofessional. But I'll say this much: there are leads, real ones, well before the severance has even run dry — and one of you actually reached out and helped her reach some initial interview stages, which meant more than I can say. And if you'd like to hire her? She's brilliant, and her resume's right here: littlecollie.com

I'm walking a fine line betwixt telling you everything and keeping some privacy — but here's what I can be straight about, because you've earned that honesty. Something not everyone realizes: for a long time now, TE's Patreon has covered the team's salaries, the employee perks, and the company's bills. That part works. What it was never built to do was pay me — because it never had to. The house had a second income for that. The layoff didn't break the channel. It pulled the floor out from under me, specifically — the mortgage, our healthcare, an income. And now TE has to do a job it was never sized to do.

I do have a plan — I've sat down and mapped the runway out properly. What you've given these past couple of weeks is extraordinary, and I'll never stop being grateful for it. In honest terms it's something like another month and a half of that runway — which, if I'm careful, might mean I can pay myself a little, or stretch what we have a bit further. It buys time. It doesn't, on its own, replace a whole income.

I'll be straight about the last resort, too. My truck was valued after the accident, and there's some liquidity sitting there. But that's not a lever I pull to keep us going — it's the one I'd only ever pull to keep the house. And if we've reached the point of pulling it, the conversation has already become "we need to find another couple of months from somewhere, and TEN is over." It isn't a lifeline. It's the last thing left in the room before the lights go out — and, mercifully, it's a long way off. I tell you about it not to frighten you, but so you know I'm being honest about the floor.

And here's the thing that matters most: the gap between where we are right now and my wife landing the right job is exactly the gap your support bridges. As long as we can keep growing our Patreon — as long as people keep watching, keep sharing what we do — we have a chance. A real one. And right now that chance is bigger than it was two weeks ago, because of you.

I will keep you all posted. I will keep you all in the loop, because, for whatever reason, you're choosing to keep this ship sailing, and I am so very grateful for that.

I'm contemplating a livestream next week for those of you here, where I can maybe give you a little more detail than this post can describe. Drop a comment if you'd like that.

Much love and gratitude,

Nikki. x

* I have written this footnote six times, each time removing details that could lead to problems. So I'll simply note this: sometimes I can be diplomatic. This is not a car review or TEN — where you expect me to be brutally honest. So here, I will be diplomatic.