First, I know I'm a bit late! Technically everything wrapped up on Monday, but I was still on the road coming home from AC until around midnight, so I wasn't able to post then and spent Tuesday just trying to recover some brain function. I'm still stuck in bed because of injury relapse after a weekend like that which kinda goes without saying by this point but my brain was finally on enough for me to get some more In One Place kind of work done.
You will see some differences between the campaign offerings and the pre-order store! Specifically, the giant plush are all only available unstuffed, in-stock plush are available to add to your order, and Udon is up for an unlock order. If we make enough on the pre-order store, especially if it is direct orders of Udon, he can still be made! The in-stock plush are also available since the pre-order store is more of a direct sale than an actual campaign. Stuffed plush will not become available through the pre-order store. If you absolutely require a stuffed plush you will want to wait for the plush to stock on lairbrew.com.
THE BASICS OF WHAT'S NEXT:
First, I need to actually receive the funding. This is going to be a difficult one this time folks. Not because of Backerkit, but because there has been a tremendous amount in failed payment, and because of the percentage of pay-in-4. Almost 13 thousand in pay-at-once payments have failed thanks to this being a sizeable pledge that can cause many banks some alarm, and about another 15 thousand have not been collected yet. That puts me at having received an amount that is frankly not yet useful. All of the money that has been received is going in to an account where it will sit untouched until we've successfully received enough to start manufacturing.
Currently I anticipate we will be delayed by 4 months, which is the amount of time it takes for Pay-in-4 payments to conclude, since I can't know how many failed payments will turn in to successes. That means instead of February 2026 fulfillment we're looking at more like June 2026. This delay would basically be us in a holding pattern waiting to place the order once we can pay it all off up front, which is just as well, since:
August means the circus is back in town. There's already a whiff of Entry of the Gladiators on the winds since the clown running this country is starting to honk his nose about imaginary deals getting made. I went in to this expecting that things might return to the nuclear business killing levels they were before, but if that ends up being the case for a solid 4 months past elephants in costume getting trotted out then all that set aside money is most likely going to just be returned. We have selected a secondary manufacturer in a country with stronger trade ties to our state in the US, which means I do have a plan in place if the response to tariffs. Only time will tell if this plan remains affordable.
Once money is had, manufacturing actually begins if everything is actually dancing to a more hopeful tune. The first step will be making production samples that will go through Plush Hell in the name of safety testing. These are extremely large plush made with a difficult to work with material, and the ones being fulfilled through the Backerkit are going to be shipping stuffed which means only 2 to 3 plush per box. So safety testing, manufacturing, and shipping is not currently anticipated to be arriving at the station early.
TL;DR: Right now we're basically just waiting for time to pass and money to move.
After I'm done resting and can ambulate properly it is back to the pre-order stuffing mines for me, so expect updates to be fairly sparse starting out. There isn't going to be much at all to report on until it is time to move forward with manufacturing. Once that process actually begins we are fully locked in and there won't be any stopping the project from hurtling forward, so until we know the path is safe we're not gonna run it. I'll see you as soon as I have anything of substance to share!
