I know this is the last thing anyone wants to hear; bad news. But I'm afraid I need to share some anyway... x.x

To give a little backstory... When we budgeted for the Kickstarter it originally included enough budget to pay off some of our art debts and to cover programming for the avatars/pet release and a new site layout. Unfortunately, when Sapphie resigned as an artist the staff and I agreed the best thing was to pay off our art debt to her entirely. We'd originally planned to give her half, so the full amount was an added expense to our budget. We feel it was the right thing to do, even though it has left us in a pickle now.

The bad news is that we don't have enough money to cover the programming to get the pets finished and released. I was in the process of covering this charge myself, but then I lost my job and spent the summer bumming money off everyone I knew. I'm still paying back those debts and also trying to get moved again (driving an hour one way to and from work is getting old fast). It would take me a couple months just to start making substantial payments again. I feel like Origins really can't afford to keep waiting and so I've been talking with the staff about what we can do...

So far, collectively, we've got a small portion of what we need to get the programming moving again, but we're still short. We need a total of $300. As I said, together the staff and I are sitting at $100, we would just need another $200. If people wanted I could put together a Kickstarter, but to cover KS fees, bank fees, etc we'd need to set the goal at around $500. Which is more than we need. The same can be said of Indiegogo and other, similar crowdfunding sources.

As such, I think the best thing we can do is just have a small fundraiser on the site to get the $200 we need. We have a few things we were holding onto in order to use as Kickstarter Incentives later on down the road (the Crane and Nian pets specifically) and we will be giving JB for every contribution. I'm in the midst of setting up a reward tier and will release a separate news post with further details.

I'm sorry to keep asking for money when we still haven't been able to release pets, but we're in between a rock and a hard place at the moment. We need to get the site moving, but we made a choice that has left us lacking months later. That's on us, but truthfully, it had to be done. I don't want us to be the site that never settles its debts, that takes advantage and never follows through. The staff and I have been struggling to get Origins going for years, it feels like we're finally so close to reaching one of our major goals and yet we've once again hit a bump. I wish I was rich and could pay for whatever I wanted for Origins, but sadly I'm not. I'm struggling, too and I put in what I can to keep us alive. The staff have been amazing, they pitch in a lot. If they didn't, Origins would never have made it this far. Thank you all, for being patient, for being supportive and for continuing to stick it out with us despite everything. If it weren't for our fans, Origins still wouldn't have made it this far.

It's come to my attention that JB still aren't adding automatically after purchase. Please be sure guys that you send me a PM with your Paypal email address so I can verify and manually add the JB for you. This is necessary anyway so I can double it up for you as well! Thanks to those who have contributed so far, it is much appreciated and is very helpful!

I thought you guys might like to see the Stretch Goal pets all finished up. They won't be released as Starter Pets, but they will be coming later on down the road as a regular release! Ryou did an amazing job of shading them, as usual! We are very blessed to have her working with our team!



And it seems that Dropbox has changed how files are shared and decided that people with a standard account shouldn't be able to share images. This is rather disconcerting for me as I don't have money to give them atm (I was subbed for a while so I didn't notice the change until my sub ran out recently). So if you notice images missing from the news posts, well that's why. (Thanks a lot Dropbox)



Paul and I are trying to nail down a timeline for getting changes made to the site. We'll be starting with the layout and going from there. Once he can give me an ETA I will be making a news post to inform everyone! I'm incredibly excited that things are getting to move forward again. I believe the site will be a thousand times more interesting with pets... because you know, that's why we're all here.

Well first off, let me start by saying that I am now employed! I've been hired on at a hospital in their customer care management department (scheduling/screening patients that sort of thing) and will be starting this coming Monday! I'm very excited to finally be back among the work force and hope to keep this job for a very long time.

That being said, Origins is in a small pickle. Our hosting is coming due in a few days and I won't have money to renew it for another couple weeks. So, I'm going to do what I did a few months back over Discord and offer Double JB! If you buy 12 JB at $10 you instead get 24, etc. It would only take 4 $10 purchases for us to have another 3 months of hosting.

As a further incentive I'm going to have another "All in" FA sale where limited/seasonal items get chucked into the Jade Emporium for a couple weeks. This should give you guys something to spend all the JB on or you can hoard it for when pets get released! (which I will have more solid information on that and on our new layout very soon)



So how long is this all going to last? Well, the Double JB Sale is going to last for a week, so until 5PM Origins Time Aug 24th. The FA Limited Sale will last two weeks, until 5PM Origins Time Aug 31st!

As always we greatly appreciate our benefactors and contributors. If you can't help monetarily, we definitely understand. You can help in other ways, such as giving feedback and just being active. We love to hear from our community, ultimately Origins is for you guys, so please come to us with anything that might be on your mind! Also be watching the Suggestions board, I'll be throwing a few threads up that I'd love to get everybody's insight on!

In short, (haha after babbling), thank you all and I hope you enjoy the impromptu sale!!

We are certainly trying to move forward. The ball is rolling, it's just a little uphill so it's slowed way down!

But, that doesn't mean you guys can't be giving us ideas and helping us figure out what to do with future updates. Something that we plan to fix up a bit is our Newbie Package and we'd love it if you guys could share what you think is the best package! Here's the link to the thread - Clickie meeee!