Hi Stitchers!

Thank you so much for all your help and advice on my first post sharing my story with this Chinese AI printed pattern and my fear of rinsing.

Short backstory: I am returning to cross stitching after 15+ years off because my mom got suckered into buying a kit from Facebook that turned out to be AI + pattern mill slop (my how the world has changed!) But I want to finish it anyway.

The rinse out was successful and my whites are white! It also revealed a few squares I either fully or half missed, oops!

Besides that, the last step seems to be backstitching.

This is not something I did much of long ago and there are no instructions on placement . Where would you put backstitching on this? Every single line and border? Just the cat? Black or metallic gold or both or another color? Should I just even bother?

The AI/pattern mill threw a bunch of what I think is called “confetti” in the lines so this is part of why I am confused. The whiskers also got hallucinated into the window panes/fur…

Any advice appreciated!