Cardinal West

I am once again fighting a copyright claim on the Zuko video. Guess we'll see what happens.

1 year ago | [YT] | 148

Cardinal West

Quick update on why some of my older videos aren’t available now:


This last week or so, I’ve been getting a number of claims and restrictions on older videos—it started out on videos I’d already privated, so I didn’t think much of it, but then a few live ones got hit with claims or blocks, as well as one age restriction and one outright strike.


It’s coming from different companies/rights holders, so I don’t know if one bot for some random company stumbling across my videos led to others tagging stuff (no one knows how this system works, to be perfectly honest). Usually, you can appeal successfully if you fight them long enough, but we’ll see.


Thankfully, the longer I’ve been making videos, the more I’ve learned about avoiding Content ID and restrictions and so on, so it seems like it was only my older stuff that was at risk. Still frustrating, but to be safe I’ve privated the videos that were getting hit until I can sort this out, since I really don’t want to risk this channel accumulating restrictions or strikes or anything (another area where I’m not entirely sure how the system even works). Sorry for the inconvenience.

1 year ago | [YT] | 142

Cardinal West

As you may have noticed, my videos have been getting recommended a lot more recently, so there is a good chance that I will hit 50,000 subscribers in the next few months.


To celebrate, I’ll be doing a Q&A, so feel free to leave your questions in the comments, and I’ll begin collecting them right away.


I have also made a short video and twitter announcement, so you can also ask your questions there.

As for a brief content update, I've got two new scripts completed and recorded (with the audio for the first fully edited), so I hope to have one video out in February, and another sometime in April-May. Additionally, I have several remasters of old videos (some of which are already done) coming out over the next few months.


Thanks for everything, and I’ll see you all at 50K!

2 years ago | [YT] | 664

Cardinal West

Hey everyone, I just got verified as a GoodReads author, so if anyone would like to follow me for both reviews and my own releases, you can do so here.
And if you’ve read anything by me, ratings and reviews would be most appreciated.
www.goodreads.com/author/show/22730098.Casimir_Las…

2 years ago | [YT] | 74

Cardinal West

I just finished reading Brian Carter’s "A Black Fox Running", and I wish I’d known about it before I made my xenofiction video, because it is easily one of the greatest animal novels I’ve ever read. There’s a good chance I’ll end up covering it with a video of its own someday, but I thought I’d spread the word here with a little review in the meantime.


Set in rural England shortly after World War II, "A Black Fox Running" follows the life of Wulfgar (the titular black fox) and a number of others of his kind living around Dartmoor as they go about their lives, frequently coming into conflict with a local trapper. It takes the classic structure of an English “fox in foxhunting country” story, but mixes an unflinching level of realism akin to Mannix’s "The Fox and the Hound" with the mythic cultural anthropomorphizing of Adams’ "Watership Down" , and wraps it all in prose as beautiful as J.A. Baker’s "The Peregrine".


The foxes of the novel have myths and religious practices, observing omens in the natural world and receiving visions from their deity, Tod, in the stars, revering death by the local Hunt as the noble “Good Death.” But they also fight, kill, mate, groom, mark territory and relieve themselves in the manner of wild animals. Carter shifts from human to animal perspectives, and between differing species in the case of the latter, with an ease and grace that emphasizes the connected and diverse nature of all living things, tying into the eastern-inspired mysticism present in the foxes’ beliefs. And while the primary antagonist of the novel, Leonard Scoble, is portrayed as a foul-tempered, misanthropic hunter traumatized by his experiences in the First World War, even his characterization remains distinctly nuanced.


Throughout it all, Carter’s prose remains among the most beautiful I have ever read, evocative and fluid while remaining easy to digest and never overstaying its welcome—just see this passage from early on in the novel, where the sickly fox Runeheath is run down by the hounds of the Hunt:


"Numbness cancelled out the sudden flash of fear and beyond the black silence of Lancer’s jaws the country of abundant game and eternal summer moonlight opened to receive him. The crash of hound clamour ended as the beasts milled around the body Runeheath had left behind."


Apparently, the novel was originally published back in 1981, and then mostly forgotten about before being reprinted only a few years ago (with an excellent foreword by an author who was originally inspired by this novel). I highly, <highly> recommend this for anyone interested in xenofiction.


(By the way, shout out to mrspectrum, the commenter who recommended this to me.)

3 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 99

Cardinal West

Thanks for getting the channel to 15K! To celebrate this mini-milestone, if anyone has any questions they'd like answered, feel free to post them here.

3 years ago | [YT] | 33

Cardinal West

Thank you all so much for helping this channel reach 10,000 subscribers! I’m currently working on a huge video (2-2.5 hours long), aiming for a mid-April release, but once it’s done I’ll turn my full attention to the Q&A special.

4 years ago | [YT] | 60

Cardinal West

To celebrate the upcoming milestone of reaching 10,000 subscribers, I will be doing a Q&A special, so post your questions either here or in the comments of the announcement video – I’ll do my best to get to all of them (within reason). Thanks for all your support, and I’ll see you at 10k.

4 years ago | [YT] | 39

Cardinal West

I just saw The Spiffing Brit's video on how community posts affect the algorithm, so I figured I'd give it a go while also providing an update (I know, I'm a little late on this, but it's worth a shot).

Right now, I'm putting the finishing touches on one big script and starting out on another (each video will probably be 40 to 80 minutes long), and I already have a few other smaller projects either finished or nearly done that will be releasing in between them over the next few months.

Since I've been covering a lot of movies, shows and books about animals recently, comment on this post with some of your favorites, whether I've mentioned them so far or not - it's for research, I swear.

Also, apparently polls gain the most traction, so while you're here, do you have something against dogs?

4 years ago | [YT] | 33