 Greetings, students, acolytes, magi, lore, devotees, all Oculus here with I guess what is now the Q1, Q2 state of the channel and general announcements missive. It was one hell of a year last year. The channel is now well past its second birthday, which I didn't celebrate, probably should have, but did not, hindsight, so it's a pretty good time to take stock. I am all kinds of delighted and just blown away by what the last year has brought. We broke through 10,000 subscribers and then some were actually pushing 20,000 as this missive goes out. That number is still going up month on month. I still kind of can't believe that this project has attracted so many people to it, but I am not in any way complaining. I am delighted to have so many newcomers to the videos this year and equally delighted so many of you have elected to hit the old subscribe button and stick around to see me do what I do. I fully intend to make sure that you will not regret the support. Which on that note, the support and love I get every time a video goes up from those of you who are kind enough to take the time to comment, is immensely gratifying, creatively as well as anything else. A lot of you point out that you really enjoy the approach I take with script writing, with character work, and while the former has always been my focus from day one, the love you've shown towards the latter has been a wonderful surprise. I want to assure people that are here for the lore, which is, I imagine, well, most of you, that this will always be a lore channel first and foremost. The character of the chronicler, of Oculus, is a means through which the history and lore of the world of Warhammer can be explored and contextualized, and I found that through him, the Imperium, the Horus Heresy, and the Galaxy at large, can be given a bit more life and richness, a paltry though my own writing may be compared to the sources that I work with. The character won't ever be the central focus, because the lore is irreplaceable. That being said, working on developing Oculus, in his dissent into say, Xenobiological Study or his work as a Horus Heresy advances, is immensely fun for me to rice, so to that end, as you may have already seen in recent months, the channel in 2019 will be delving a little bit more into the present, the world of the Dark Imperium, of the Primarch Return, of the Vigilist campaign, the aftermath of the Breaking of Cadia, the advent of the Great Rift. This is the world that the character inhabits, and while my initial brief with the channel was a historical exploration of the Horus Heresy, appealing as it did to my own historical sensibilities, the modern Imperium is just too juicy to leave on the sidelines. I hope that this will come as good news to those of you who have been asking for a long time for explorations of newer lore, and for those of you who love the Legion videos, do not worry, the Heresy will not be going anywhere anytime soon. There's plenty of stuff I haven't done that I can't wait to cover, especially going to the fact that I just got my hands on Malevolence, and the white scars scripts are done, with the Blood Angels coming very, very soon. In terms of just general video output, I'd like to address the fact that one of my Patreon goals is to produce three videos a month, and while I will always be aiming for that, I have not always been quite good at that goal since last year. This is partially because last year I started a new job, which has taken up a lot of energy, as I don't do this channel full time, and partially because my audio recording situation has kind of been all over the place, and I have horror putting up bad quality audio if I can help it. The room that I record in is solid concrete, and EchoE is all hell, and my job prevents me from utilizing the library's AV studio, so it will always be a bit of an imperfect situation for the moment. The point I'm trying to make is that their goal is still one that I'm striving for, and I like to think I've been pretty consistently hitting since the start of the year, but I do want to be realistic about not compromising on the quality of videos you've all come to expect over this time by simply shoveling them out. I hope you'll all appreciate this approach, as the last thing I want to do is compromise the work. But moving past that, it's also time to announce another Q&A. It's been a long time since I've done one. The channel and the content has changed quite a lot since that, so whatever questions you have for me, be they lore-related, channel-related, hobby-related, or really just about anything, throw them in the comments here, hit me up on Twitter, just make sure you know that I'm getting a comment for the video, and yeah, get asking. And the final announcement, which is actually very, very exciting, is that the channel is coming up on its 50th episode, so to speak. The next full lore video is going to be the 50th one I have written, which is mind-blowing, in a way, and incredibly exciting. These nice round, decimalized numbers give one a chance to kind of take stock, which is partially what this video is, but also kind of a chance to celebrate where the channel started, where it's going, just a bit of a birthday of sorts. So, with that in mind, later on this week, you'll be getting a bit of a prelude to it, penned by my own hand, and then next week, a pretty special version of an Oculus Imperial Chronicle. I'm not going to spoil anything too much, I kind of want to wet appetites here, so be sure to tune in on Thursday, the 25th of April, 2019, for the very special Oculus Imperial 50th episode. I want to end with thanks. A deep and heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you who are watching this, even those who don't want to hear me waffle on about channel-related stuff or non-lore stuff. Everyone from my Patreon subscribers to those of you who have only been here since the last video, support, comments, likes, shares, love, all of the things that you've shown towards this humble project of mine is truly wonderful in every way, and something I am incredibly grateful for. I'm sure you hear this from just about every creator you follow, but your support has a very real and profound effect on us. I started this channel as a labor of love for the hobby that I've had for entirely too much of my life now, and a desire to give something back to it. And where it's gone, well, I am just eternally thankful for. So whatever the future may bring, I just want to thank you all now. You all rock. And on a bit of a personal note, I'm recording this in the aftermath of the just horrendous disaster that's happened at Notre Dame. I don't know exactly at this point what the ultimate fate of that poor cathedral is going to be, but the day has had something of a profound effect on me in terms of just how much the sight of it going up in flames has just kind of hit me. I was brought there when I was 12 by my parents on a trip to Paris, and I won't lie that there was something about the very incredibly vast Gothic space that I was in that had something of a profound effect on me. I come from Ireland, which is not a place usually renowned for large buildings. And the scale kind of overawed me, as did just the general design. And I would not be surprised if that sheer Gothic magnificence had a very profound effect on my soon-to-be-coming love for Warhammer's general aesthetic. I don't want to pontificate about this endlessly, but I will say that probably a lot of the upset or distress that I may have felt today, seeing it go up in flames, is to do with just a general love for history and a general love for the connection that that can make people feel to humanity as a whole. So if you're feeling kind of the same, I would encourage you to take some time whenever you're listening to this to just listen to your favorite album, look at even a JPEG of your favorite painting, read a passage from your favorite book, dip into your favorite comic, paint something, create anything that kind of makes you feel a little bit connected to those wonderfully more ephemeral things about human nature, might be worthwhile. Anyway, I will say no more about the subject, but get your questions rolling in for the Q&A. I can't wait to see you both for that and for the 50th episode next week. Ave Imperator Gloria in Excelsis Terra.