flucket

Hi! I understand your point, but you misunderstood what I was saying or else I misrepresented it. I didn't handhold Kino through how to handle this or instruct them on what to do. We talked, as friends, about good steps to take and they were the one that talked about doing a public queue and sending emails. At most I just validated them and helped them with wording. Kino is literally taking the initiative by organising their queue, writing it out, posting it, writing emails, sending emails, organising the BCC list, etc. I don't want to turn this into a discussion how valid it is or is not for me as a friend to talk to my friend about an issue they are having, I just want to clarify a misunderstanding due to my own fault in not clearly communicating things. I am not acting as a proxy for Kino, OP is free to bypass me entirely and contact Kino about this, which is what they should do anyway? Nor was I ever requested to act as one? I am just someone here who has had an account for AB already and occasionally has commented and was commenting mostly in my capacity as an AB community member with extra information. My offer is only insofar as "you got lost in the shuffle once, which sucks, and if you wish I could be sure to send Kino a reminder with your details to make sure it doesn't happen again for extra security." I'm not intending to run communications with Kino's clients, that's not really my problem and I have no interest in it, nor do I believe I ever expressed as much. I literally just said I'd pass on one single email. Also, artists hire managers all the time to organise things like client communications as a third party, while at most I am just passing on a message as a friend. If an artist can recognise that they have a fault or shortcoming in handling something, it is not irresponsible to turn to someone for help in picking up the slack so they can put their focus where it needs to be. It would be irresponsible to insist based on pride or mis-directed "professionalism" to do something that you yourself recognise overwhelms you, to the ultimate detriment of your clients. An artist who disconnects completely without warning or explanation until a third party has to step in to handle things is a different story, but that's really not what we're talking about here. I won't be responding further should this message be approved because I don't really want to derail the conversation, and tried to keep my response as pertinent to the actual subject as possible in that regard. As I said, I was only trying to clarify my own miscommunication of the situation, and I understand 100% where you're coming from as, I said, I am also a member of this site and have seen similar situations. I only hope I was able to more clearly express what I meant.

Whoofa, this is actually a friend of mine, so I'm even more doubly sorry to see this. I understand exactly how you feel all that being said, since I'm in the camp of "I don't really mind a long wait as long as I'm receiving clear communication". I passed on this caution to them and we had a talk, friend-to-friend, since I agree the lack of communication isn't great, but as an insider I understand how it came to be that way. I talked with them about essentially setting up a public list of their refund queue of just names, so people can be up-to-date about where they stand on the refund, and also about organising essentially a bi-weekly BCC mass email "newsletter" to any commissioners that want it, to keep people updated on how the refund queue is coming along and any life issues that popped up that may delay things. They should organise that over this week and hopefully you will receive an email about that. If you don't, please feel free to reply to me and if you're comfortable you can private message me with your email and I will pass it along to Kino to make sure it's on the list. They fully agree they didn't do a great job with communicating and in their own words:

I'm so very sorry for your experience. The constant lying and dodging is bad enough, but the attempt at guilt tripping and emotional blackmail on the "I have no family" line is just. Oof. Absolutely shameful behaviour. That's the point I would have stopped being civil, so your continued composure with this person is admirable to me.

You know I originally wrote out this long post tut-tutting this artist and their attitude and but then accidentally refreshed the page and lost the whole progress, and figured this was a good opportunity to maybe step back and approach this with more empathy. Nothing I say is to excuse the artist, and OP, you don't deserve to have been spoken to this way. I'm sorry you went through this experience. Any faults of your own (i.e. not reaching out to the artist for communication and expressing your concerns before making an AB) you have been honest about and have tried to rectify, and everything after that point was absolutely not your fault or error. To the artist, if you're reading this (and since you are aware OP wanted to make an AB about you, chances are you might be reading this): I get it. You've clearly had some really upsetting, negative experiences in the past that left you feeling very burned. There's a lot of frustrated aggression present in your TOS, and you also lashed out with some unrelated issues re: furries reselling your work against OP. It's clear that you've had people in the past burn you and had sales go sour due to unhelpful or disrespectful clients. But OP apologised. You were not obligated to accept that apology, and apologies should never be made on the predication that they will be accepted. But it wasn't necessary to continue to be combative and accuse OP of not being earnest. You got very heated and lashed out, and now you need to understand that it is that which is reflecting poorly on you more than anything else. It's perfectly human to get upset and get emotional, but by your own admission this is your work, your only work, and how you pay your bills. This is your business, and as a business owner you need to be level headed, civil, and responsible in dealing with your business. You need to learn when to step away from the computer when you feel yourself getting emotionally overwhelmed, in order to better deal with customers who may upset you with a clearer head. This could have very, very easily been resolved amicably between the two of you without the hostile escalation it came to. It sucks when you feel attacked, when you feel that you're being taken advantage of, doubly so if you've already had that happen to you. But the absolutely sucky thing about running a business is that it's your livelihood, so you have the responsibility to always conduct yourself respectably. You don't need to be a doormat to customers, but you absolutely need to be as respectful as the situation allows. If you had just paused, taken a breath, and politely but firmly reminded the client of your TOS and tried to be as friendly and helpful as possible, you could have come out of this AB looking absolutely fine. They were willing to apologise and were no longer looking for a refund once things had been clarified. They also got emotionally rattled because they were worried and scared over the possibility of being scammed, and reacted in a heated way, but were willing to back down and accept their mistakes. These things happen occasionally. It's possible to recover. But taking a hostile foot first, repeatedly accusing the customer of things they repeatedly tell you they no longer want, and unloading unrelated issues onto them in notes has burned the possibility of that bridge. It has burned the possibility of other people coming to this beware and saying "well, the artist was a little slow but I don't mind a long wait, and they were perfectly reasonable in resolving the situation, I wouldn't mind working with them myself". I'm not trying to say any of this to attack you. My hope is that you stop, take a breath, and learn. It's a really sucky situation; neither artist nor client can possibly feel happy about how things turned out. It's okay to get upset, frustrated, feel hurt. These are human ways to react to what feels like an attack. But you log off, you let the feeling pass, and you put on your customer service face before responding. I'm just generally sorry a completely avoidable situation came to such an aggressive head. I hope for both of you that you are able to resolve this in ways you are both content with. Sorry to be a busybody or if my words are out of line. Best of luck to both of you.

RyunWoofie, huh. Thought that name sounded familiar: there's another AB from someone who got the run around for 4 years from her. They are absolutely someone with a history of brushing off people who give them the benefit of the doubt. It sucks you're outside the PayPal window to file a claim, in your place I would absolutely start getting assertive about sending weekly at the very least emails/DMs. The other person who posted an AB got theirs resolved in the end, I genuinely hope you do too.

Very sorry that you were dicked around like this, OP. Your patience and willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt for so long through all of this is really commendable and I applaud you. I'd be sending civil but subtly passive aggressive emails and messages much sooner. The artist appears to have nuked their twitter and deleted most of their FurAff uploads, but not deleted either, so my guess is they want to go social media dark for a while. Hopefully for your sake it's to get all their work and business sorted out and put into order, but it's more likely they're hoping to wait for this to blow over and come back. Either way, again, my sympathies for your poor experience.

I cannot believe I had to try to remember my password just so I could log on and comment about how deeply, insanely sorry I am that you went through this kind of treatment. The artist in question is on twitter framing it as them having clearly expressed warnings about the wait time and you disregarding that and omitting that detail, which is why I feel the need to comment this: There is such, such, SUCH a difference between "due to health reasons, I cannot promise a clear ETA on your commission and I hope you understand that" versus, uuuh, "don't talk to me about the commission you've been waiting on for a year, I'm trying to play video games". There is such a clear difference between "sorry, I haven't done your art yet because, as I discussed with you, my mental health is frail and I haven't been able to work on it so far" and "hey look at all this personal art I did for myself, don't talk to me about your art*". Simply saying "I communicated that the wait would be long" is not a catch all excuse for not only not giving updates and communication, but actively shutting down the client's requests to seek clarification. Did OP omit conversations where the artist conveyed to them that the wait time would be long at the arrival of the art uncertain due to mental health? Sure, maybe. Does it mean fart to me? Absolutely not, since the issue here isn't even "the wait time was really long", the issue here is OP: hey, I want to be really understanding of what you're going through right now and I don't want to pressure you for the art, but I'd really like some clearer communication. Artist: whoa dude can you not talk to me you made me miss my cool drop in this video game. (As you can tell I am just particularly flabbergasted by that as a response to some really earnest and patient appeals for clearer and healthier communication, absolutely incredible) Basically the artist blowing up at OP at the end is, to me, shocking but not surprising. They more or less treated OP with the same disregard, dismissal, and passive aggression regarding attempts to get the commission sorted out previously, just a little more disguised. They seemed to be saying "shut the fuck up" to the OP repeatedly in the 13 months leading up to this blow up, just not as overtly. *I just want to be clear myself here: there is nothing wrong with artists doing personal art between work on commissions. It's healthy, in fact, and can help them maintain their creativity between professional work to do something loose and low expectation for themselves. I do not have an issue with the artist doing personal work between commission work. But there is something personally weird to me about showing off personal art in private to someone waiting on commission while also actively dodging and shutting down any conversation that person tries to seek about that commission.

HEY SORRY I POSTED THIS IN THE WRONG SUBFORUM PLEASE MOVE IT I AM SO SORRY, I WAS IN SUCH A STATE I DIDN'T REALISE.

Sorry, I know this isn't really the right place for this but I literally have no idea where else to turn short of reddit which I'd rather not because 1) reddit and 2) I wouldn't even know which subreddit anyway. If all you can offer by way of advice is "try asking on this reddit/forum instead", I'd still really appreciate it. A friend of mine have worked together a couple times before making published comics for a small publisher, myself writing and them doing the art. We had an RP project that they were attached to and we agreed to turn it into a comic, they spoke with the publisher (I've never had contact with the publisher, the relationship was always that the publisher contacted them, and they hired me to be their writer), and things have been cooking for a while, but got delayed due to a whole host of reasons going on in both our lives. But during all of this, whenever my friend mentioned their desire to work on it, I always said, "Just give me a sort of outline of how you want this organised and I will start writing. Feel free to poke me or start setting me deadlines, I just need an outline to start." The story was more focused on their character, so I felt it would be better for my friend to set the general outline of how they wanted it. No pokes or deadlines were every provided, it was barely ever mentioned, even the few times I took the initiative to be like "hey did you do that outline". I did not bring it up often, as this friend was extremely busy and every time we talked it was some variation of "I wish I had the time/energy to do personal work but I have been doing 8 hours of commissions/merch design/anthology comic work/house moving/whatever and am wiped", and I dunno, I just took that to mean "my plate is so supremely full that this comic project we had isn't even on my mind". That was, I admit, and assumption on my part, and as they say, to assume is to make an ass etc. Found out today that THREE days ago they made a public announcement on social media that the comic was being developed. I don't go on social media often as it's unhealthy for me, so when I do, I mostly just post something and browse a little then stop. Especially more recently given the state of the world, it's just been an increasingly unhealthy place for my anxiety. Every couple of days I check my friends personal/private social media accounts just to keep up to date with anything important in their lives, and this was how I saw this announcement. I responded with just "oh", mostly because I literally had no idea how to respond to this announcement but wanted to indicate I'd seen it and that we could talk about it. To be honest, I was expecting my friend to message me and say "yeah I thought we should get a move on and I'd made the announcement public to motivate us to keep to it" or something. Instead they messaged me in private and said they "didn't feel I was up to it" and that it would be "a heavy burden of stress" on me they didn't want me to have to go through (due to my mental health and family situation), and that's why they were "going ahead with a different writer" and would "pay me for use of [my character]". I've worked with this publisher via my friend enough to know that if public announcements were being made, contracts were probably already signed (to be clear: this is speculation). My friend and for the purposes of this project creative partner, without asking me if I was okay with it or if I felt I was up to the work, went behind my back, courted another writer, did not run this writer by me to see if I felt they were able to convey my character and the collaborative story I had contributed to in a way I felt was true to both, signed contracts with them, and posted a public announcement about it. They had three days after the public announcement to tell me about this, and probably weeks beforehand of private conversation with publisher and writer to communicate with me about this, but didn't say anything at all until after I publicly acknowledged the announcement. To be honest I don't care if they really do go ahead and do the story with a different writer, as I said, it's more about their character than mine, and I'm not really as attached to it as they are -- especially now, I don't think I'd even want to work on it if they offered. If they had been up front and said "hey I don't think you're up for this/I think I'm more invested in making this happen than you are and would like to talk with other writers" I would have probably agreed just so long as I could be involved in talking with them and be allowed to sit in on talks about the story and provide feedback on scripts etc. even if just in the capacity of the depiction of my character. I'm actually extremely chill, afraid of confrontation, and willing to compromise, but entirely on the caveat that I receive clear communication. It's just the lack of communication, and the using of my personal health and life problems as justification for leaving me entirely in the dark and (possibly) signing contracts about using my character without permission or even giving me a heads up has made me more upset than not being the writer any more. Due to anger and hurt, I reacted strongly in private conversation, said some nasty things I do regret but also don't right this second because I'm still upset and I'm writing this fresh off talking with my friend, and told them flatly to inform the publisher the comic would have to be put on hold unless my character was changed to a new one, as I did not consent to mine being part of the comic and would "be filing a DMCA takedown if I see him anywhere near it in the future". Again, something I do and don't regret at this moment. It was nasty and there are nicer ways to say "please don't go ahead with this until we've had an opportunity to fairly and thoroughly talk this out and come to an amicable compromise", but, angey. When I've calmed down I'll address this more fairly with them. On the one hand, once I calm down I think I'd be open to negotiating selling the usage of my character to the comic, but I'm still feeling incredibly angry and hurt that all of this was negotiated and initiated without ever involving me at any step of the process, and it also makes me feel, for lack of a better term, "icky" to just let them go ahead, and I have no idea whether I'm justified or I'm just emotional. I'm a salt-the-earth kind of grudge holder and know I can be unreasonably petty, so it's hard to know a lot of the times. I'm asking for both legal and personal advice to this end. On a legal level, what are my negotiation rights here? The story was collaborative but I'm holding less affection and attachment to it by the second and I don't even know if I have any legal rights to "roleplay story". But for use of a character that would (as far as I am aware based on what we discussed about the story last year anyway) tread a balanced line between co-lead and second lead, so not a small part, what would a fair price for usage rights be? I don't know how many chapters/volumes the comic would be (I was never given that outline), but it was specifically expressed to be a long term project. On a personal level, and all I can ask for is each person's opinion and how they would feel, I know there's no objectively correct answer here; how would you handle this situation? Would you negotiate usage rights or ask for the original level of involvement as a writer, or completely pull away from the project and deny usage rights? I'm writing this still in a state of heightened emotion but would appreciate a clear and objective kick in the butt if I'm being the petty asshole here, I came here specifically for an outsider's perspective. And again, if all you have to say is "I don't think we can help you with that, you might want to check out [site]", that would also be appreciated.

Yeah, I figured as much. I was also like "I dunno that also seems pretty norma- wait hhhwhat."

Just to chime in, I less read it as "profiting off work done after a commission has been cancelled" and more as "I will have my cake and eat it too". She states she will "further profit" from the piece while also still a) rescinding the commissioner rights to the work and b) also refusing to provide a refund. Basically, "I keep the art and the money, you get nothing." Further, with the combined point of "the buyer is not allowed a refund under any circumstances" (which like, you plain just cannot do that and furthermore you cannot possible predict every possible circumstances and say for sure that a refund cannot/should not be provided) is what makes it shady to me. An artist has a right to keep the work and recycle it into something new to recoup losses. But when you're refusing refunds under any circumstance, and then also keeping the art and further monetising it, that's when it becomes shady. This artist isn't recouping losses. They're keeping payment for a commission and the commission itself, when it should be one or the other. That's their business model and I think that's what @AngelEars was bringing up. There are no losses here the artist needs to recoup.

Seconding calling you "love" is really unprofessional, not to mention depending on your region can be seen as super passive aggressive and condescending. Also, I found it personally kind of chilling that when you sent that longer message putting your foot down and demanding better communication, she didn't provide a single apology or explanation or promise to do better. Just another "it'll be done" and then a couple of smiley faces. I mean, not that I believe an apology would even be sincere, but at least it would be a better acknowledgement of your frustrations than ":)". ALSO JUST WOW AT IGNORING THE REF. Even if it's a case of "this design works in an illustration but when translating it to fursuit doing XYZ would be better" (which this isn't anyway, but best case scenario), you still gotta... DISCUSS that with your client. 😬

I would encourage you both to also submit a beware if you can/want to. Multiple bewares help, as people who search his tag on AB will then be able to see he has a pattern of this behaviour. A single beware could be an artist getting overwhelmed by circumstances. Multiple bewares is an artist with a pattern of irresponsible behaviour.

As Celestina already helpfully pointed, the auction specifically stated it was open to any gender. The masculine genitalia was most likely just there as a base or example. Personally, it really feels absurd to me that "don't misgender/missex my character" should be counted amongst statements like "don't forget the eye markings" or whatever. I feel like, both within art communities and within larger society, "please don't arbitrarily attach incorrect genitalia onto people" should just be a given, but especially in situations where images of the correct genitalia are right there for reference. A penis isn't an artistic decision; it's a whole ass extra piece of anatomy. If I got a commission of my character and it came back with an extra set of arms, and when I explained that actually my character only has two arms, not four, I got told "I made a choice" in return, my response would be "and I made the character, so please fix it or provide a partial refund as this is unusable to me". I wouldn't be like "ah yes I see clearly it was my fault in not properly communicating the correct amount of arms my character has, even though on every reference you were given they only have the two. Certainly I shall take this as a learning experience and be on my way!" I don't mean to be rude, but this response just boggles my goggles. I get that you made this comment under an incorrect assumption about the details of the auction, but even in the case it was an M/M YCH, speaking from an artist perspective, in the instance someone won an M/M auction off me but sent in a reference for a female character, I would take it upon myself to remind them that the auction was for masculine sex characters, and ask them if they a) wanted a R63 of the character they provided or b) would like to choose a different, male character. I wouldn't look at a female sex reference image for a female identifying character and just "make a choice".

For me personally, this an "everyone here is a bewaree" situation. I agree with everything Celestina said, so I won't re-iterate those points, but my addition is: you also explicitly agreed to doing latex at their specific request, and then later on when you failed to do the agreed upon thing your argument was literally just... "I think this is better." Yikes. I dunno. I wouldn't commission you for that alone, but I'm pretty picky. Kuro's behaviour was rude but in most instances not out of line (just the chargeback thing, that was wildly out of line and poor behaviour). And while I don't think you're not allowed to give another client a heads up about someone else being this unhappy about a shared YCH base exactly, but... I do know if I were in Kuro's shoes, I would be equally really hurt and unhappy to find out you were talking about me behind my back to others. Personally, I'd like to see a snippet of just your message to this other client (none of their replies for privacy reasons), because nothing in the way you behaved during this commission yourself inspired much confidence that it was just an innocent heads up that Kuro wasn't happy... but that's up to you and the mods. Yeah, I dunno how to feel about this except while I hope the disputes settle in your favour because he had no right to do that, I walk away from reading this feeling like I'd want little to do with either of you...

Oofadoofa. I get that this was like, a roundabout commission in a way (in the final cap she did refer to this as a commission straight out), but the concept of paying $700 to someone for them to make commercial merchandise and stories out of your character for their own profit/benefit feels kind of scammy. I mean, generally speaking just conceptually I feel like it would be the other way around, eg. "I want to use your intellectual property for this project, can I pay you for the rights to use it in this." Then the ol' "hey, someone just made a better offer, can you one-up it" as a lowkey pressure to get you to "buy in" in a hurry just seems like textbook scam tactics. Add on to that, that it turns out the author wasn't even aware that they were charging you seven hundo to use your intellectual property? Toe to tip, this is scam behaviour. It just... it really sucks you got put through the wringer like this, I'm so so sorry. Regardless of anything else though, she agreed to refund you. She said she would work out a payment plan and intended to refund you. Whatever it may say in her TOS, I personally think that's invalid when she readily agreed to a refund (if she can't even remember her own refund policy then it's a bit silly to demand other people adhere to it, especially when she's agreeing to things out-of-term). To turn around and fairly aggressively declare that she changed her mind because she suddenly remembered the terms of her own contract that she didn't bother remembering beforehand is... something. It's also highly laughable to me that she calls you "rude and unprofessional" when she's the one: Making you pay so she can commercialise your intellectual property (for a self-declared "spare time" project no less). Pressuring people for large up-front payments or else insinuating they'll go to another customer. Not communicating with her own creative partner about the (large) amounts of money she's making people pay her. Leaving what are effectively customers of her in the dark, with no transparency or communication, for months on end and only communicating when they're the ones who chase her up for information. Spending money she hasn't earned yet. Forgetting the terms of her own business contract. Agreeing to refunds only to then back out on them. By her own admission, leaving people to wait even longer than 12 months on her queue with no sort of update. Rude and unprofessional? I'd say that there was that behaviour there, but it wasn't on your part OP.

Yikes. Considering how active and chatty they are on twitter, at this point they're transparently just avoiding you and dodging the refund (considering this all stemmed from a lack of communication, I don't know what the artist hopes to gain from ghosting you!). This absolutely blows, and please don't stop dogging the artist for your refund. I hope you get it eventually. 😥

One of these things is 👏 not 👏 like 👏 the 👏 other 👏!

Er, sorry for double posting but I can't edit my post so just to add (if the mods can edit the post, feel free to add this message to my original post rather than approving this double post) - all that being said, just to clear my own personal conscience: as poor as this artist's behaviour was, I do think spamming their twitter beware with replies to this beware constitutes as harassment. That's my personal opinion, no one is required to agree with me, but yeah, I do think maybe just QRTing the original tweet with a link to this beware then washing your hands of it is enough. It sucks they were giving an intentionally inaccurate account of events to make you look worse, but I don't think anything was gained from responding to every tweet in their thread with the exact same message except to make them feel frustrated and overwhelmed and escalate the situation emotionally. Their behaviour is a different issue and is still absolutely appalling. I just feel the need to say that. Also: Was there meant to be a twitter screencap accompanying this? Because nothing is showing up for me, so I'm not sure what this is referring to.

What can I say but "yikes!" This is, from toe to tip, a really concerning commission and I am genuinely so, so sorry for you, OP, that you were put through this treatment. Nobody deserves to be treated this way by someone who is accepting payment from them (or anyone in general, but in a professional setting it's extra yikes!), but I gotta just gripe about the two things that leapt out at me as the most concerning: "my tos does state that if it's been less than 6 months I can do only 75% refunds" - besides being a baldfaced lie, since no where in the TOS (of the caps provided) does this clause exist, it's also HYPER suss to me personally that they would not provide a full refund for mysteriously the same window of time as the PayPal chargeback window. Basically - you're not allowed to chargeback for a full refund while your buyer protection allows it, and only afterwards do you get a full refund, predicated entirely upon the artist operating in good faith? Really? I dunno man. Even if that was in the TOS, it'd be a crimson red flag to me. Telling you that you will be blacklisted for getting a refund. Even if they backpedalled on this, it is wild to me that they really put this threat on the table at all. I literally cannot read that entire interaction at all as anything buy bullying, coercing, and guilt-tripping you out of wanting a refund, and it's a bad look. I mean that whole exchange was bonechilling. Pulling up nonexistent TOS clauses, threatening you, then after you continue to respond with a great deal of patience and reasonability, "I'm sorry it came off that way" - basically a step down from "I'm sorry you felt that way" as far as I'm concerned - and deflecting their behaviour by pointing out your "hurtful" behaviour as being partially at fault for making them feel "irked". Considering Mugs has a manager, and said manager even took over the conversation later that evening, I can't fathom why it wasn't given to Tabby to handle from the beginning if Mugs knew they were tired and irritable. Anyway, I don't wanna make another really long comment on a beware again, ahaha. It's just so much of their behaviour was really maddening and really concerning that it's impossible to even react to it all, but just these two points especially, as business practices, are so insanely sketchy and unsettling to me I wanted to stress my discomfort at reading them. For OP: Again, I am so sorry you had to deal with this. You should be commended on your classiness in handling this, because even when you became short, you were never rude, and your unicorn character is very cute. Just a bit if positivity to end this on. 💛

I don't want to repeat anything that anyone else has said, I think armaina's advice post is a good last word and so normally I wouldn't have added anything. I'm just... I'm just feeling extremely flabbergasted that there has been literally NO apology for the message from the boyfriend? Am I wrong? I reread through everything twice and I didn't pick it up, can someone direct me to an apology over the boyfriend's actions if there was one? No matter how frustrated, justified or not, I might end up at a client, I would be absolutely fucking mortified if someone close to me spoke to a client that way, and on my own account no less. But it just sort of went completely uncommented upon by the artist? Was there a private apology that wasn't provided in the post? The artist seems to be trying to take some kind of measure of responsibility for their actions, but there has been zero mention of any feeling of contrition over their boyfriend using their discord account to speak to Eelowyn in a truly revolting manner. "cant give you the cum out of my balls"? Really? You don't feel the need to offer an apology for that? I don't know if Toasti is still reading these comments, but I can't say I'd ever want to commission anyone who seemed to comfortable and justified in allowing their boyfriend to speak to their paying customers in that way. It's creepy, it's inappropriate, and the lack of any kind of apology is shocking to me. Toasti may insist this is an "isolated incident", but I feel doubtful about that considering they confessed straight to Eelowyn at the beginning they had an "angry commissioner causing drama". I imagine if Eelowyn hadn't gone public with this beware and proof of Toasti's actions, they would have been marked down as an angry commissioner causing drama too.

Person with (severe) anxiety that leads to actual memory blackouts chiming it FWIW (disclaimer: my experience w/ mental illness is not everyone's, what I have to say is pure anecdata): Anxiety does not tend to make me forget about $450 transactions. Anxiety makes me much more acutely aware of $450 transactions because $450 is a lot of money and that kind of burden of wealth actually tends to stick in my anxiety-riddled brain. So I dunno, there's no way to state for sure what her mental state might be, but "my anxiety made me forget about an entire extended conversation over multiple days (timestamps on FA notes are Aug 2nd and 3rd so it's not like an hour long conversation that it's possible to black out, it's at least two days of correspondence) and that someone sent me $450 dollars" is extremely suspect. To be honest it's the fact that the conversation about the transaction with the other person took place over at least two days that make me doubt the legitimacy of the "anxiety" thing, as generally, these blackout fugue states don't tend to last multiple days - and also generally, these blackout fugue states tend to come with mental lethargy that makes doing things as complicated as detailed correspondence and large transactions pretty difficult. At least for me, when I have these blackouts, I mostly just do stupid shit like put my wallet in the fridge crisper drawers or peel half a potato for no reason and then leave it in the sink. Again, this is all purely just me. I'm not going to try to speak with authority on how other people's mental illness impacts them. But even if it is legitimate, I just think saying, "Yes, I did this. It was wrong of me to do, I apologise for my actions. I'll discuss refunds with you and the other person involved to rectify this situation" would suffice. I'm so sorry you got burned like this, OP. It's such an ugly situation, and I truly hope you get your full refund.

Re: the edits, I second everything Celestina said, but I wanted to add some further advice in general because of what you said about your TOS gave me pause. In the future, simply having it posted freely available should not be enough. Linking it on your YCH posts going forward is also a good step, but I would also, before accepting money, specifically link your TOS to your clients and have them respond with clear, written agreement to it. Assuming your clients read and agreed to your TOS just because it's freely available isn't good business practice, and unless this client specifically expressed that they had read and agreed to your terms before going in to the transaction, holding them to a TOS they clearly weren't aware even existed... I kiiiind of feel that fumble is on you, sorry. ? You, and others, are free to disagree with me on that, but situations like this is exactly why you should always have this in writing.

Not to harp on you, because you're right, right to refuse service is NOT a red flag at all and every artist has that right, whether or not they put it in writing. I can only speak for myself, but I think others here may agree with me: Goldenwolfen's "Asshole Clause" is just NOT a "right to refuse service" clause. Not just because it has a rude name, but because the clause is "if I don't like how you treat me I will just block you and keep your money", and that has nothing to do with right to refuse service, that's just blocking someone and keeping money you haven't fully earned because you feel it's... I don't know, compensation? Or something? Right to refuse service would be (to me at least) refunding the client, THEN blocking and blacklisting them if you so wish. Wash your hands of the business, and maybe flip what work you have on the commission as a YCH to make some money back. But saying "your money is just mine now and you get nothing because you were rude" is a hell of a red flag. It's a problem because what could be counted as, in GW's own words, "belligerent, rude, overly demanding [...] disrespectful, threatening [...] or otherwise mean and nasty" is entirely up to the discretion of the artist, and just listing synonyms of "rude" doesn't really give much framework of what falls into "asshole" territory. If a client who has paid in full and has been waiting, I don't know, three years including the 17 months to just have the commission started, finally says enough is enough and asks GW if they can have their commission done by X date or a refund, and when GW responds that they need to "chill and be patient" or whatever, the fed up client tells them they want the art or a refund in a firmer tone or they'll make an AB, does that count as "threatening" or "overly demanding"? Are they being belligerent or nasty because GW perceives their firm demand for their work or a refund as overstepping a boundary, or them ignoring the TOS ("I can offer NO time frame on commissions. Period.")? Is a client who sends monthly requests for updates on their commission going to be seen as overly demanding, or belligerent, because GW might personally find being chased up on the reg kind of overwhelming - especially if even only half of their waiting clients are sending monthly emails, that's still what, a couple dozen emails a month? They might not, of course! GW may be perfectly patient and understanding with their worried clients! But they might also not be, and there's really no way to tell because the wording is vague and the terms are completely beholden to how the artist feels and the stakes are a little too high to risk. Every artist has a right to refuse service. And even if they want to call it an "Asshole Clause" I don't care myself, I can read that as kind of tongue-in-cheek. But when that clause is extremely vague as to what constitutes as bad behaviour and includes getting to keep all the money while the client gets blocked, with no way to try to negotiate a refund, that's... I dunno, to me that just feels kind of threatening, ironically. TL;DR: Every artist certainly has a right to refuse service but I feel it's a moot point to even bring up because GW's "Asshole Clause" doesn't remotely resemble a right to refuse service clause. It just feels like a clause to coerce clients into not kicking up a fuss or risk losing their money and the commission.

Okay, well, I don't see how it was "dumbed down" to that when those are literally the only two options here? You can either wait for the commission or ask for a refund. Or I guess give up on seeing your money and your art altogether, but that doesn't sound like a fun result. Forgive me if there's another option I'm not seeing here. ? And looking at that list of other people waiting for work is... exactly why I'd ask for a refund myself. You posed the hypothetical question "would other people would take a refund after four years", the answer for me would be a resounding yes because at that point even if I got the art, looking at it leave a bitter taste in my mouth. If you're absolutely set on the art, though, I'd recommend being a little less chill and a little more firm. You shouldn't have to be the one chasing the artist around, but as you said, it reads a lot like an artist taking advantage of a very laid back personality to put off giving results, maybe prioritising some of those many other waiting clients who are less chill (This isn't me putting the blame on you in any way, just agreeing that they are probably taking advantage of your attitude).