Hectic Days!

Hi everyone,

I know I said I’d be able to show you all the finalized artwork for Moonlight Defender and Smug Scoundrel, as well as the lotus design. And while I technically completed it when I said I would, I have had a non-stop week since my email update and hadn't been able to take the time to really update you all. For those who don’t wanna read the details, here are the completed designs:

The Lotus
This design is a little extra fancy this month, measuring a little larger than 2" and featuring something we've never used on a pin before: PEARLS! Pearls symbolize purity and in Buddhism, the lotus represents purification. During the google form input last month, I had one of you mention that you felt the mugen club didn't really offer enough in terms of what you get for $18 to justify raising the price to $20, when you could just wait for the pins to come in hand and pay $13-15 (depending on the grade) for the pin. I thought I'd address this a little bit, even though, as creators giving part of ourselves in our art, we don't have to justify the value of our time. It's true, sometimes the cost of membership is equal to what you'd pay just to buy the design alone, but each month, you are receiving not only the pin, sometimes with a value higher than $15, but also a sticker sheet we would normally sell for $4 (especially now that we are outsourcing), a small print inspired by Goshuin, and shipping included. Another consideration is that unlike most pin clubs, we offer very premium free gifts if you stick with us. Those may be free to you, but they are not free to us. They still require our time to design, our own money to produce, on a product we make exclusive to you and we are unable to sell later on; this is true also of the Pretty Winkers club.

While some of the mugen designs may look simple compared to our other designs, it doesn't mean it is simple. Some of the floral designs have actually often taken me longer than the yokai designs did last year because florals have a lot of small details and organic curves which are harder to make clean than strong, straight lines. Some of the pins are simpler like the Ume & Camellia, but others are more detailed like the hydrangea, wisteria, and now the lotus. We plan on making the lotus retail for $17-20 alone, without shipping included or any freebies. Another person noted that they don't really need the extras, and I understand that and if it feels like a waste of materials to receive that, then I highly encourage you to just wait til pins are in hand and only purchase the designs then if you don't want the extras. We primarily create the extras because we want to make more experiment and explore more original artwork, and we thought you'd enjoy being part of that.

The Champion of Justice
At long last, everyone's favorite heroine is ready to join the team! She's a little larger than normal (2.37"), but hey, what do you expect from the savior of the universe? She's gotta be a little larger than life! She features a lot of glitter in her brooch and her background, and the brooch at the base will have recessed metal so that the details can pop out!

Taka and I were both especially happy with her hair. If you haven't noticed, we've made all the sailors have more wild hair and more energetic faces because we really wanted the energy of battle to come through for these designs! For the background, I did something pretty different than the other Cutie Moon designs and based it a lot on the very first manga cover's colors (well, first when it was translated in the US).

Crimson Jerk
Ok, so I probably won't use that for his backing card name, though I'm a little tempted to! He reminds me of an early 2000s nu-metal dude as far as style goes. He's rotten to the core, but a hottie with a body! For real, he looks like he works out and tans, which is probably why Fiery Fashionista dreams about turning this bad boy into her dream man. Though we chose to do two scenes for his background, the sphere is from a scene with Baby Love, and the lines in the background are the pillars that we used in the Malefic Medium design. In the manga and anime, he flirts a little with her back on the ship in the scene where she's also holding her glass of wine. So we wanted these two designs to tie in to each other a little bit.

NEXT PIN DROP

All the packages for Pretty Winkers have gone out and I’m about to slap labels on all the Mugen and Docchimo packages now that I’ve gotten the sticker sheets in for March-July. So that means I’m finally able to prep the extras of the most recent arrivals of designs. Designs I’ll be dropping include Guardian of Convictions, Guardian of Passion, Laughing Queen, Forever Forlorn, Malefic Medium, the 4 peony variants, and the extras from the Year of the Tiger collab we did at the beginning of February.

Drop will be Friday at 1pm PST. I’m only dropping for secret shop. For those of you who want your order shipped right away, there is no free shipping, however, if you’d like free shipping, I can hold onto your pins until the next pin club package goes out. Shipping is weight based, so to get free shipping for up to 12oz more (that’s usually about 8-10 more pins in a package), use the code: 

PCCMBN

That's pretty much all the news I have for the club at the moment. This week and next is gonna be fairly chill for me, so I am looking forward to finishing up Madoka, some new sticker and sticker sheet designs, and working on some sketches for SG, board filler, and possible future jewelry designs. If you want to know what's going on outside of art stuff, read on, otherwise, stay tuned for more updates shortly!

HECTIC TIMES

For those interested in what’s been going on behind the scenes, it’s been a rather hectic week. Because the topics are so personal I want to give a trigger warning before you read on.

TW: Body Issues, Anorexia, Mental Health

After dropping Taka off at the airport on the 5th, I went right to work on prepping the house for my little sister’s visit, as well as wrapping up the Smug Scoundrel and Moonlight Defender design. I finished those up the night my sister arrived, though that was not without incident. My sister couldn’t figure out how to use the trains between gates at the airport and her phone died, and rather than ask for help (she’s stubborn and doesn’t like to ask), she just sat at the gate til her phone had any charge. So I hung out for about 45 minutes at the airport waiting for her phone to charge so that I could talk her through how to navigate the SeaTac airport, already having her luggage in hand. That wasn't a big deal overall, but the primary stressor was my stepmom told me right before her trip that she was recently (like a week prior) diagnosed with intentional anorexia. My sister is skinny, but doesn’t look unhealthy, so my stepmom wasn’t concerned about all her weight loss in the past year, especially since she was dealing with depression. However, my sister’s nutritionist has been very concerned and after finding out my sister has been counting calories, starving herself on days after she eats a bunch the day prior, and subscribing to pro-ano TikTok's where people are competing to eat the least amount of food in a day, she diagnosed my sister with anorexia. According to my stepmom, my sister is aware of her disorder and willing to change, but I worry she’s not under enough scrutiny to change that behavior. She definitely does eat plenty when she eats, but her habits are rather unhealthy from what I can tell. She thinks drinking matcha lattes or coffee, or eating all the snacks in my house is a substitute for a meal. While my stepmom said my sister says she isn’t purging, I have suspicions of Bulimia, as she seemed to go to the bathroom rather soon after most our food and drinks whenever I’d take her places or give her food/snacks.

Normally I wouldn’t share something so personal, but I have very strong feelings about what led her to this mindset. From a very young age (like 3 or 4 years old), my sister has always obsessed with YouTubers, Tiktok creators, Vine (when that was a thing), actors, reality stars, musicians, etc… And unfortunately, most of what she has been exposed to has been unsupervised, so who's to say what terrible things she's learning from possibly terrible "influencers."

Unfortunately, I am personally unable to relate with the fascination of celebrity or influencers, because aside from admiring the deeds of the few good actors/actresses out there (we must protect Keanu), I have never given the slightest care about celebrities of any nature outside of their skill or talent. I believe my sister's fascination (and many people who get sucked into social media in general) with celebrities is the desire for attention, despite the fact that my stepmom has always given her more attention than my brother, who in all honesty is fine to entertain himself. My sister can’t seem to get enough and aspires to become a dancer/singer/actress/director/restaurateur, etc. anything in a place of fame and adoration

And I’m not one to say you can’t make all your wildest dreams come true, but the issue I see and have always seen is the lack of focus to really pursue those passions or spreading yourself too thin, doing the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" routine. Taka and I were lucky that we both knew almost right away when we were like 12 or 13 that our path would only ever take us down the road of art. And while we both have always had a clear path before us to follow our passion, I would even argue it is due to our stubborn determination that we refuse to give up even when most people in our life have insisted our lives would be hard. And yeah, it has been hard, and even with our success it is never without risk or hardship, but it’s the only life we could consider.

I understand we live in a world where it is hard to feel confident, whether that is because we were belittled, or told it's impossible, or made to feel lesser than by people we knew or the media. The realization that my sister has anorexia has made me consider what brought her to this point, and why was I able to avoid that, despite, like everyone else, having parts of my appearance or abilities that I have insecurities about.

Reflecting on it for the past week or so, I realized it was because my parents both exuded so much confidence in their skills, their decisions, their abilities, taking pride in their work and efforts. While we struggled financially my entire life, I never saw my parent doubt or even regret their decisions, never saw them feel hopeless that things wouldn't be ok in the long run. Seeing them behave that way, I believe, instilled the idea that there was no reason to not be confident. Like because I didn't see a lack of confidence, it was as though confidence was just a behavior I was meant to adopt.

It’s a blessing I never realized until I’ve witnessed so many times my stepmom’s lack of confidence or decision anxiety. Hence, why she sent my little sister to visit me so very last minute despite me inviting my sister back in early May. My stepmom is currently going through a lot of therapy these past two years to undo so much trauma she didn’t realize she had as a kid growing up in a home where women were given little power and told they couldn’t do much, not directly, but through actions. As an example, she had 2 other sisters and whenever any of the three girls wanted to join a club or sport or whatever interest they might have, their father would say no because they didn’t have the extra money. But when the youngest and only son wanted to do something, somehow they magically could afford whatever he wanted. Her father wasn’t cold or cruel, but old-fashioned without realizing it. Her mother was a transplant from Brazil whose family had fled Lithuania during WWII. Being raised in Brazil, a country that women come second (let’s be real, what country is that not true), her mother didn’t really make a fuss about the rights of their daughters.

So, as you can see, my stepmom was raised more or less of the mindset that life isn’t fair and she was afraid to make decisions or speak up because she’d be ignored or dismissed. This is something she also experienced a lot in work, and ultimately why she left a job of over 10 years right before the pandemic. She’s told me one of the reasons she loved my father was because he was so confident. They also worked at the same government company together and often when she spoke up about an idea, some man would then try to claim the idea as their own. And it wasn't until my father would call them out on it and point out that it was my stepmom's idea first, that she'd get the credit, whether the idea was utilized or not. Unfortunately, she also depended heavily on him to make all the decisions as she was more or less paralyzed of making a choice, even to the point that she'd have him pick all her clothes when we'd go shopping because she couldn’t even decide if something looked good on herself or not.

She definitely suffers from decision anxiety and is awaiting results of an ADHD diagnoses which previously I would have never believed, but after having so many friends with it, I recognize a lot of the likely symptoms, a huge one being rejection sensitivity. Rather than make a decision, right or wrong, she’d rather wait til her options are limited. So even with both my sister and I asking if my sister could visit back in May, she waited until 3 days before Taka was leaving, not considering how that might affect my work. I know it was absolutely unintentional, but unfortunately, this action heavily affected the past week for me both with work, and actually physically. I love my stepmom dearly, so please understand that I am 100% on her side for her to heal and flourish. I harbor no anger towards her, but this did throw a big ol wrench into my timeline for the business.

This past weekend, I already had an event lined up for Friday/Saturday, which I was able to do, but was more difficult than usual because I needed to cater to my sister who easily gets bored. Being 14 and always seeking to be center of attention, and never having seen me work in person with customers, she couldn’t read the air when I’d be talking with customers, and would try to continue a conversation with me. Furthermore, part of her need for attention is also a fear of rejection, something I feel she has inherited from my stepmom's behaviors, so she entertained herself by drawing really dumb teenager type things (like toilets, Robert Pattinson, weird things etc) and would insist I pack customer purchases in them. And with her sensitive state at this time, tbh, I did pack them because she’d likely be upset if I didn’t, despite it not being on brand.

On top of all that was going on with me worrying about my sister’s well-being, trying to make sure she’s being fed and is happy, I was also undergoing a major flare up in my face. I don’t think it was stress-related, though it could have exasperated it, but for about 3 months now I have been dealing with seborrheic dermatitis, a type of atopic dermatitis that is otherwise known as dandruff. I hesitate to say dandruff because it’s not really flaky white skin on my scalp, and at a glance, I appear normal. But what I’ve been experiencing is a super ridiculously itchy face and eyebrows, neck and near my ears for months now. So much so that I’ve actually noticed my eyebrows are so thin now (since I cut my bangs last week) and I’ve always had very thick brows, so this is a little wild! 😱 furthermore, my skin feels so smooth but is actually so tight that the texture is paper-like and hot to the touch. It has kept me from sleeping well on many occasions, and despite discontinuing my entire skincare routine and using only the stinky chemical-smelling Head & Shoulders, Selsun Blue and the prescription shampoo my doctor recommended, my condition seems to have worsened to the point that on Thursday last week my face flared up throughout the day of me showing my sister around Capitol Hill. I only realized after looking at a pic we took together of how red my face was. It was so hot that even after we got home and I put an ice pack on my face for THREE hours I couldn’t cool down! Then to make it worse, my eyelid below and above was swelling up!

I have no allergies, like for real, I was tested right before the pandemic for all major and a big number of rare allergies. Though I guess technically seb derm is essentially an allergic reaction to the yeasts that all humans have on our skin, particularly if you’re more oily. I’m not visibly more oily, but I guess my skin produces a lot of oil?? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I ended up having to call a 24/7 nurse at 3am to see what I should do and I was recommended to take some anti-histamine creme, Claritin, and just keep icing my face and eyes. My eyes managed to get a little more normal, but the swelling returned again the next night and was even worse to the point that I went to the urgent care. In triage, the nurse told me she thought I was suffering from eyelid eczema, but I wouldn’t be able to see a doctor for 5 hours. Not wanting to leave my sister at home for so long only to have them likely tell me there wasn’t much I could do, I just left and called my aunt who is a nurse who has struggled with eczema flare ups since her early 30s. After struggling to have puffy and droopy eyelids for like 2 days, I managed to get mostly normal by applying antihistamine and doubling up on Claritin, per my aunt’s suggestion. I also had a phone call doc visit yesterday and they gave me a stronger, non-steroidal cream that does seem to be helping, though I’m still feeling a little overheated in my face and very mildly itchy. I do feel more positive after talking with the phone doctor who told me she’s struggled with eczema since childhood and to be hopeful that my skin will be able to return to normal, though to expect flare ups from time to time.

So, anyway, that’s everything that’s been up for the past week. Again, I don’t usually think it’s professional to share so much, but I’m also an over-sharer in my personal life, not because I want sympathy, but because I believe we all have struggles and I always hope that sharing our struggles helps each other know we’re not alone, or that maybe we have insight in things that could help each other out. The human experience is a strange, beautiful thing and sharing, in my own life, has more often than not proven to be more helpful than not, whether that helps me or helps a friend or stranger out. I do hope none of this makes you uncomfortable, and also I do welcome any insights or advice you all might have, whether that’s how I might be able to lead by example for my sister or help her or my stepmom in their own journeys, or if you have any advice for my new dermatitis issues.

To be honest, I was really stressed about meeting deadlines for you all and I know you all are incredible and understanding, but I always want to do my very best to serve you all. I’ve always been a service-minded person, like my parents before me. I think my language of love is acts of service, so I feel like I’m not showing my appreciation to others if I don’t always serve. 😅 I know I don’t always have to help or serve others, but I also don’t know how not to.

On a more positive note, Taka is doing well in Japan. He’s had a couple tattoo sessions with his main client there, has been to visit with his parents and despite Taka not really having much interest in his own family growing up (whereas I probably have TMI for my own parents), Taka took the time to chat with them due to my own curiosity. He doesn’t like alcohol and almost never drinks it, but his father offered him some sake to which he usually refuses. However, Taka said after not seeing his parents in 3 yrs, he noticed he can really start to see their aging. He said he wanted to have at least one drink with his father so he never regrets not doing it. Taka’s parents have always been somewhat unhappy with the path Taka chose of becoming a tattoo artist, but for the first time he was able to have more of a heart to heart with them about his reasons. He explained to them the history of tebori, that his goal is to keep a cultural art of Japan alive as it is a slowly dying art or being bastardized by Western influence or westerners trying to take it. He explained he not only studied under his master, but actually spoke in depth with a prestigious Tokyo University professor (before they passed away) about the science and history of tebori, why it is that the ink stays more vibrant in the skin due to the technique than in electric tattooing. After talking about it with his parents, they seem to have come to an understanding and respect for Taka’s intentions behind tattooing not only being for vanity, but for preservation, and even encouraged him to write a book so that other Japanese can learn about it as well.

His father also explained his own struggles as a young man and how defeated he felt when he found out he couldn’t be a pharmacist due to his color-blindness. His father dreamed of developing medicines that could help people. He was devastated, but through seeing a friend of his who grew up poor and struggled so hard to graduate university to become a teacher, he was inspired by that friend and it led him down the path to want to fight educational political corruption and through a strict path as a teacher, eventually led him to now being the superintendent of ALL of Tokyo’s school district. Taka was always already proud his father had reached the top without nepotism, but didn’t know the reason why his father wanted to do so was to help youth and the injustices that go on behind the scenes. If you all knew Taka personally, you’d understand he and his family haven’t ever been particularly close, which is pretty common in older Asian families, so this is a really incredible thing he got to share. While I wish I could have gone to Japan with him, I think this wouldn’t have happened if I was there. He also asked to be able to get to know his younger sister more and get me in touch with her since we’re almost the same age and like similar things. She doesn’t know much English and I only know basic Japanese, but together we will try our best! 💪🏼💪🏼

I know a lot of this update has little to do with the business, and I know I’m not the only creator who shares their personal struggles and triumphs—I truly do see you all as more than just customers. I really believe each and every one of you, even if we never spoke personally, could be great friends if we met in person. ☺️

So if you made it through all that heavy stuff, thank you! Again, I know much of this isn’t relevant to you all, but I appreciate you for “listening” and learning more about us.

More biz stuff soon!

- Mandy (and Taka)