I don't like that I have to make this. I'm not sure how to even really word what I want to convey, so I'll start with the truth of what happened and go from there.

Recently (Well in July) I took a commission; Due to moving it was delayed significantly, until October to be precise. I spoke with the commissioner (Who will remain unnamed) about the delay and he was super cool about it. When I quoted him the price, I didn't say it to the commissioner, but I quoted him a lower price than usual due to the fact that I knew there was going to be a bit of a wait. I didn't foresee that it would be as long as it was.

Immediately following this I was briefly hospitalized and had to recover from my appendix surgery, I believe I made a journal about it at the time. In November, I once again had to go back to the hospital and spent another two weeks recovering. Earlier this month, I once again was hospitalized, I spent some time hooked up to an IV and have thankfully recovered from this.

During all of this I was open and clear with the commissioner about all of the delays, again he was super chill and polite and kind, and I appreciate that. Dude had waited since July for his commission so I pulled myself together and worked pretty hard on it. 5 months in the making and I get Covid, unfortunately (And still have it) But I suffered through and took the time through headaches, nausea, body aches, dizziness, (general hell really,) to thoroughly go through this commission for this guy and do it right, or, at least what I thought was right. I had been given multiple prompts from said person and chose one, we agreed, he shared some details about things he'd like to see. I expressed as I always do that sometimes things can be slightly different than the prompt (Not a lit, just a little bit) so everything works overall and he seemed okay with this.

Let me preface this by saying: I've never had a problem with any commission in the past where I have deviated slightly from the prompt. Everyone is generally cool with this, they understand the amount of work that goes in and that things like writing style, character perceptions, drafts and brainstorming, and generally the fact that I can't read your mind, might change things.

The prompts I was given were a bit vague, they had details of what the commissioner wanted but didn't quite specifically specify anything directly or tell me that something needed to or didn't need to be in the story. I worked with this and wrote an 8028 word story. A story I'm quite proud of. It's a cute little padded pony story involving Cadance and filly Twilight. Jumping back to my earlier statement, the normal price for this sort of thing is usually around $80, this is partially because any sort of padded pony thing is generally considered fetish, and once you add a younger character into it, on most sites, this gets it labeled as extreme/adult/fetish regardless of if the story is or is a bit more wholesome. The price is also so my co-writer and I can split the money after paypal fees and still both feel adequately paid. We used to do commissions for less but with rising paypal fees and the fact that things are so damn expensive right now, writing for less isn't exactly profitable. Remember, we do this for fun in our free time, however, we still want to get paid for it because it is at the end of the day, work. I won't reveal the amount I charged this individual but I will say that it was less than the aforementioned $80. I feel like this is worth leaving in because it makes what happens next a bit. . . shitty.

So after spending 6 months on this story, various hospital visits, and general hell, the story was finally done. I was so proud, I'd worked hard on it, went through and edited it. I made sure I got as many grammar and writing errors as I did. I even went back over the original prompts and made sure things were pretty close to what they should be.

The thing is, part of writing for commission is a lot of trying to interpret a relatively small amount of information and turn it into something sometimes 10, maybe even 100 or 1000x bigger than what you have. It's not an easy job, and sometimes things don't come out the way people thought they would.

Upon completion of the story I sent it over to the commissioner, he read it and said "It's very cute, although it isn't quite what I was expecting" and "Overall the story is good and cute but misses the mark on what I had envisioned. " I felt bad I had missed the mark and asked if there were things they wanted me to change. I do this for all of my commissioners before posting a story or finalizing it, if there is something you want changed I'll generally do it.

Unfortunately for me this particular 'change' the person wanted more or less was a gut, teardown, and rewrite of the story. At this point, I'm 6 months in, I'm sick, I'm tired, I'm not even fully paid (Out of the goodness of my heart) and the guy wants me to rewrite the story from the ground up. As most of you can probably guess, this didn't happen. What followed was a series of back and forths between myself and the commissioner on how we could make this right, minor changes I could make? Nope, complete rewrite. Again, not going to happen.

I apologize that things didn't go well and that I can't rectify it the way they want it to be. I then prepare to upload the story, it's a perfectly good story, there's nothing wrong with it. To this the commissioner tells me not to upload it. In the case of stories where I upload or don't upload based on the commissioners request usually pends on if there is personal information or their OC in the story; In this case there was neither, its cannon characters from MLP:FIM

I ask if there was a reason why and the only reason I really got was because it wasn't satisfactory to them. Keep in mind, when an artist or writer does a commission, they reserve the right to get credit for their work and add it to their portfolio, that's not a special rule I made up, that's literally how most things go in my experience of both commissioning things and being the artist/writer.

Upon telling this person I was going to upload it but I would omit their name from being the commissioner they told me that I need to disclose that they didn't approve of the story. "If you do post it I would request that you include my name and that it is being posted against my wishes." Now, when I got that message I'm thinking to myself 'Okay, well your oc isn't in the story, and there isn't anything that would link you to it, so why would I do that?' Honestly, at that point, I felt like the guy was getting petty, like he wanted a free story from the ground up.

Upon being denied this, as well as being denied him being credited for a 2 or 3 sentence prompt that I turned into 8000+ words, he got irate and made some pretty weird statements, some of which contradicted themselves, like that he liked the story, Buuuuuuuuut~

"And as for being unsatisfied, I kind of am.

But this commission has been ages, and I'm naturally not the sort of person to push confrontation, a really big part of me did just want to do 'it's perfect' and wash my hands of it. But I also wanted to let you know how I felt about it, since it didn't feel right to just say I was cool with it when I'm not."

Now that statement I was okay with, that's fine, let me know how you feel, thats part of the whole commissioner/writer dynamic, I want your feedback. However things. . . went south from there.

"Okay, but you do realize I can just tell people that you posted it despite my wishes?"

"I think it's a cute story, though a bit of nothing fluff for the most part, but it does not represent the idea I offered. "

And here's where we get to the last contact from the guy,

"Alright first, I'm am allowing you to post it, I couldn't stop you even if I wanted to, you're upset that I would say I didn't like it.

2ndly, I just realized that this story is just an rp between you and your other writer that you cleaned up a little, and I'm done. Do with it what you will, I can't promise I won't tell people I didn't like it. "

Now this statement is just downright mean. Claiming that the story is 'just an rp between me and my cowriter but cleaned up a little' That's uncalled for, this story isn't written any different from the other dozen+ stories I've written and posted, if he had read them, he'd know what to expect in the style. Do my co-writer and I go back and forth writing different characters? Yes, but not because we're roleplaying, it's because I'm better at writing certain characters than he is, and he's better at writing others than I am. We do this to ensure quality and keeping the characters in character. As for 'allowing me to post it" As the writer, I reserve the right to post my word. I'm not going to write 8k words and then just not share it unless there's a damn good reason.

Following up on my reply to that, threatening me that you'll tell people you didn't like it isn't cool. I mean, feel free, go right ahead and do so that's your right, but I have no obligation to put anywhere in the story or its description that you disapproved (Unless I publicly list you as the commissioner or your OC's or property is in the story)

Do I feel bad the guy didn't get exactly what he wanted? Yes, I do, but at the end of the day, if you order a pizza, it might not always be perfect either, even if they put in all the ingredients that you asked for. A picture by an artist might not look how it looked in your head when you described it, a story is no different.

This is the sort of thing that makes me not want to take commissions, (or ever do requests for that matter.) It makes me wonder things like "Am I a bad writer?" and then that spirals into "Well if people don't like my work why should I even try?" and that turns into "Well fuck it I'm not doing stories for other people anymore if they're just going to hate it." 9 times out of 10, this is why your favorite artist or writer stops doing art or writing, because they've been attacked for having their own style or way of doing things, we can make changes to it to try and make it more what you wanted after the fact, but very rarely will you ever get something from scratch without being paid.

Overall I'm struggling on whether or not to post this story. I'm torn between the amount of hardwork myself and my co-writer put into it, we're both proud of it, we want people to read and enjoy the story. At the same time, I kind of don't want to deal with the needless drama, someone being petty, the story wasn't a 100% perfect replica of their fantasy in their mind, so they want to deny others from the chance to enjoy it, and the people who made it the chance to share their work with others.

In the end, I'm not really sure how to end this journal entry. I feel like I'm an ass even though I've been told by a significant amount of peers that I'm completely vindicated in my actions. So yeah, there's the story of what happened. I wanted to address this before it got out and twisted and made into some bigger than it needs to be thing. This doesn't have to be anything, it doesn't have to be drama, honestly, I'm tired, I don't want the drama.

If you take nothing else away from this, remember to always be clear and vocal with the people you're commissioning. If something absolutely needs to be included in the thing you're getting, say it, don't him haw around and say things like "If it fits" or "maybe this happens" or things like that. It can lead to this unfortunate circumstances where it just ends poorly.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I'll see you all next year.

Edit*: Negative comments or those made in poor taste will be removed.