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.