• When you filled out your survey, you were not charged immediately for shipping or add-ons.
• We have to press a button to actually charge the cards, and we obviously wanted to wait to do that until mailing would start in earnest. 
• Please don't be surprised if you suddenly see a backerkit/gaybreakfast charge!  I promise your card history does not show any charge from when you filled out your survey. 

• You have one week left to make any changes you want to your survey!
• That includes address changes!  Please make sure your address is up to date!

• So some of you may see your card charged next week, but won't get your pins until late June or early July. 
• When you get your tracking number email, please wait a couple days before you search the tracking number.  We often print a label and pack an order a couple days before actually dropping it off at the post office. 

• Red is having a hysterectomy at the end of May.  We're told they should be able to do low-intensity work (like mailing) within a week.  However, if there are complications to the healing process, it could cause delays on our end.   We'll update you if that ends up being the case.
• In our last update we mentioned being a bit low on certain variants of some pins that were unexpectedly popular in the later surveys.  We have enough to fulfill many orders while we wait for the reorder (ETA early June after Red's week of bedrest), but if the reorder gets stuck in customs we could have a delay on that as well.  If that comes to pass, we'd update you again. 

The pearl dice collectors arrived and they're looking lovely!  Mailing is about to ramp up now that the crew is assembled! 

• Some late surveys tipped past our supply of LRGBTQ D20 Dragons, as well as our Legacy dracos and Legacy werewolves for a couple of flag variants, so some folks who got those will have to wait until June to get their package, as that re-order is in production right now.  That's not late yet though, as June was our original ETA (specifically to make room for situations like this.;)  )
• International backers may experience delays at customs due to the trade war the US is waging on the world.  
  • That said, please keep an eye out for any notices you get from your country's customs.  We are not able to pay applicable import duties for you, and if your package is returned to sender, we will only mail it again if you've emailed us at [email protected]   (yes dot gay not dot com).  We're asking for you to email us first because we cannot keep paying for expensive international shipping until we know the receiver is able to actually receive the package. 

• Tracking numbers are recycled by USPS.  That means if you look at your tracking info right away, it could show something that seems ridiculous.  Don't worry.  Check it again in a couple days. 
• If your tracking number shows your package in limbo for over 3 weeks, or if you know you missed your package, or if you got the wrong item, that's the time to email us.
• Please only use email to ask us these questions.  We do not get notified of Backerkit messages.

We've officially placed the order for the final pins!

The final corvid batch should arrive in 5-6 weeks.  After we mail our last quarter of pins for our pin club during March, we may start mailing non-corvid reward packages before we get the corvids in the mail.  The original goal to mail all packages before the end of June remains very optimistic with this slow and steady pace.

Speaking of our pin club, this month's fierce pin is a pilot for one of two possible upcoming crowdfunding campaigns.  The collection would be based around the indomitable perseverance of our community, and so far it has been a cathartic way to channel our own feelings and challenge ourselves artistically. 

Patrons who join by midnight pacific will be able to get the pin(s) for cheaper than they would be in the potential campaign ($15 for one, 28 for two, or $40 for all three-- all with free shipping).  Additionally, patrons at the $3 tier and up will get to see and vote on early concepts for the rest of the collection as we continue development work. 

To be clear: development work on new projects does not interrupt the workflow of fulfilling this project.  We have hired a friend to help Red mail this project.  That way, Red can spare partial time for some drawing, and I (Lane) am completely free for the rest of the art and organizational tasks of development. 

Thank you again so much for supporting our work.  It means the world to us that we can create the kind of validating work we care about in these challenging times. 

• You have until June 1st to fill it out.
• We might start mailing orders as soon as April, and will chip away at it slowly for most of spring, with a goal of finishing by the end of June, as originally estimated.  
• If we mail your order before June 1st, that means your survey will be locked before June 1st.

• We worked hard to get an estimate of pins made ahead of whatever tariffs the new administration would install. (more info on that below)
• That is part of what helped us keep shipping costs within our original estimates.

• We have not yet ordered pearl versions of the Corvid Dice Collectors, just made a deposit.
• We may need to order additional pins of certain variants if the survey shows them to be more popular than our first batch order anticipated. 

That said, we had a lot of uncertainties and difficulties to navigate the last couple months. It was my instinct to wait until we had solved problems to update, because when I'm getting news, my anxiety prefers to hear a plan later than an unknown sooner.  However, that may have been a mistake, as I understand some folks were worried we disappeared.  I'll keep that in mind in the future, and apologize for not posting sooner.

 If you're intersted in all the challenges we tackled, keep reading!   If not, just scroll to the bottom to see a pic of one of the finished pins!

In early December I began to have some frequent and severe headaches at the back of my head. It was debilitating, and often made working impossible.  Every time I worked for an hour or two, I'd get a headache that'd take me out of comission for the rest of the day.  As a cancer survivor, it also meant I needed to get an MRI to see if it was a recurrence before making a treatment plan. While I'm grateful it was just an overuse injury, my ability to work was still quite limited until I could find a decent physical therapist and make some headway on healing. PT and a standing desk is finally helping some, so I finally finished the survey.

Some of the work I did during this time was to try to figure out what tariffs were landing on pins (28% to be paid by us, the importer), and troubleshoot how to mitigate the unexpected expense without charging y'all more shipping & handling than originally outlined.  Even though this project reached a size where we planned to hire White Squirrel for all of fulfillment, we will instead be hiring a friend to help us get through some of the orders here at home.  It would save the most money if we mailed alone, but Red is fast-tracking their gender-confirming hysterectomy because of the political climate.  They'll be recovering throughout the month of June, and our good friend Cat will take up mailing whatever isn't mailed already at that time.

I know that the last few months have probably been stressful for a lot of our backers as well, from watching transphobic EOs cause confusion in schools and hospitals, to the dismanteling of the federal government, to the anti-DEI changes from flakey tech giants.  However, we're going to persist in making queer art year-round.  We want our pins to continue to help folks express pride, find community, and identify safe spaces in ways that get past bigoted radars.  Thank you so much for supporting us in that effort, and again, for your patience as we tackled the last few months.