Hey everyone,

Thankfully, moths are at least PARTIALLY done before their holiday!

The rest of the pins they were not able to get the printing done for, before they shut everything down for the holiday/ports stop accepting packages. Menhera was done too but they printed it wrong, so it will be in the 2nd shipment. That means the rest will ship probably mid-February.

I still have to make sure everything looks good and sort after they arrive. To be honest that's going to take longer than expected, however I'm not sure what exactly that means. I have been dealing with a medical emergency but even the ER couldn't manage my pain, I have to wait to see a specialist...and the earliest they could get me in was Feb 28th. While I am on their waitlist, I really am going to need to be annoying and call back daily to see if they can fit me in earlier. If I can't have this effectively dealt with by the time these pins arrive, I am going to really struggle with fulfillment. The doctor I saw in the ER also tried to fast-track my referral so we'll see - but my PCP also won't even fit me in until March so I'm in serious limbo here.
 
Ultimately, it's looking like as many pledges as possible (as in, the included designs were in the first shipment) will be fully sorted and with the pins graded by mid-February, but I'm not sure how many will have already shipped by then due to my health. The good news is that both freebie pins are included in this first shipment, if they were not, way fewer would be possible to sort out in the meantime. 

Also, catmoths will be paid for immediately upon the collected funds from surveys reaching my account! I have not received those funds yet.

More for backers only below.

Locking is not the same thing as "permanently closing" (which I will do end of February) but it needs to happen in order for cards to be charged. If you need to ask for an address change suddenly before the pins arrive, you can still do so and/or I can manually update it for you! The order itself just cannot be changed.

19 surveys are still in limbo.

Someone pointed out (thank you, I appreciate it!) that quite a few of you also backed the Jellinom campaign! I filtered out those of you who haven't received rewards yet, because you are waiting on the remakes arriving with the moths, and I assigned you all $6 "complimentary credit" since you are all domestic (US) pledges.

This means that anyone who was quoted more than that on the survey will be charged only the difference, which I left that way because it's weight-calculated. Anyone who has a pledge that - despite being combined with jellies - is NOT heavy enough to have warranted that, now has "free shipping" for the moths since the rewards will ship together. If you added anything else via the survey you will still be charged full price for that!

I genuinely appreciate being given the reminder, because what I otherwise would have done is go through individually to refund overages, something I've had to do a couple of times in the past, and that would just annoy everyone. The ability to do this from my back-end and not ask staff seems to be fairly new, I've used BK fulfillment for I believe 5+ years now and haven't seen or been notified of this option before. Problem avoided!

[Backer-only update]

Currently, 122/157 surveys have been filled out! I will then charge on Jan 20th! Payment from the "pledge manager" (aka all the post-campaign management) is deposited really quickly compared to the crowdfunding bulk payments, so I'll be able to get catmoths started soon after. 

I will have another short update on Jan 15th to remind, reminder emails will go out Jan 16th, and then surveys will lock Jan 18th. Make sure all addresses are correct and up to date!! 48hrs later, I will manually submit the charge.

I went back to check out my pledge tiers, which are frozen in time and still visible on the campaign page, and they do actually say the designs included (albeit numbered) and that each spin is at random. However, this info is hidden behind a "learn more" button! And the survey doesn't rehash the pledge tier description at all. 

I continue to receive (now very polite, thank you!) emails from people not knowing the pins were random pulls because they haven't encountered gachas before. For Pintopia this month, the descriptions will be more up-front and in the about section instead of just in the pledge tiers and add-ons. I will also try to include a video, since I have the sample paws I can demonstrate with. It might have to be in gif form since I can't embed proper videos at any length. 

I'm giving feedback to BK staff while coordinating my Pintopia campaign's launch about this being frustrating, and hopefully things are implemented differently on their end in the future. This could have been far less of a headache for everyone if the UI had been more user-friendly.

That factory will be on break for CNY Jan 25-Feb 3rd. So I'm not sure when the catmoths will be done, but I was told the designers will still be finalizing vectored proofs during this time. I don't like to ask anyone to work during their holidays, but even though I will ask them to not worry about it, they'll probably finish the proofs during that timeframe anyway. I wish this process had been smoother, but I had absolutely no idea so many cards would error (and as said before, I'm not blaming anyone for that, there are so many different factors as to why). I sincerely apologize for that!

Ideally, I can still send out all catmoth-inclusive orders within the same fulfillment window as the rest, because it will take several weeks for me to fulfill this campaign. I have ME/CFS and I'm struggling really hard to finally get my all-but-confirmed Narcolepsy diagnosis - and those two conditions combined are just a disaster. Please be patient with me. 

I won't have as many add-ons available in the cat paw campaign so that I don't get as frazzled about everything. 

Thank you!