*blows the dust off the feed*

Hello there, everyone. Long time no see ; w; ?

THis is going to be a rather long post, probably one of my longest so far. But yall deserve an update especially after my feed has been rather quiet as of late.

However, before I do, amidst this current global crisis, I hope that you all are staying safe and healthy. There's some scary stuff happening in the world right now. ?

As for the past month and a half, I apologize for the somewhat sudden and intense absence. There's been a lot that happened between early Feb and now and I'd like to be transparent about that.

So when Feburary rolled around, I was hired at Chipotle. I struggled for a bit to find someone to stay with at first because the job location was in Richmond, Virginia and I was still living in Maryland at the time. So I messaged people and heard back from a good friend of mine (Sam) and started staying with him.

From his place (in Newport News) I was able to have less of a commute. During Early Feb I was getting used to the commute (an hour and a half one way) as well as waking up between 4-4:30 am every day to make it to work by 7 am. I was very much not used to this because when doing commission work from home I had a more relaxed sleeping pattern. But I digress, this was hard to get used to at first also because my body wasn't used to the physical toll that restaurant work demands.

So while I was getting used to all of this, commissions taht I took in previous months started to sit, my presence online was lessened as time went on and commissions, projects, and other work started to sit on the back burner. Along with this, I was also trying to find a place to live. I found a few places on Zillow/Apartments/etc but they were a bit expensive.

Sam sent me a link to this small 2 br house listing on Craigslist that was within my budget and still not too far away from where I'm working. I decided to message the person who posted it. He replied very fast and was rather friendly. I was happy to hear back and for a week or so, we were exchanging information back and forth. Then I got hit with a rather intense two weeks at work, I was very busy and working days that were back to back to back. This made me very tired and I'd work, come home, crash.

During that time I was not in contact with the homeowner and was worried that the place sold already so I hesitantly emailed him again to see if the property was still available. He said it was. I was a little shockled but pleased. I asked him what I needed to do to expidite the process. He sent me an application in an email, I filled it out, a day or so passed and he said I was accepted. By this point we had exchanged phone numbers and were now texting back and forth. The agreed deposit for me was $500 + first month's rent ($570) which was $1070 total. That didn't bother me cause that's how my previous apartments did business.

I asked him how he'd like me to send my deposit payments and he said MoneyGram. I was a bit put off at first but he assured me that it was alright. I sent the first few payments without a hitch. Everything was going smoothly. After I sent them he said that despite not having the whole grand paid yet I would still eb able to get the keys and documents for the place sent to me (because he lived in texas and maintined properties elsewhere). I gave him my current address and then he sent me a tracking number and a photo of the shipping label.

When the day came that I was to expect the delivery, nothing came. I was irritated because at this point Iw as working a lot and my days off were normalyl spent sending him money or traveling to see my pets, family, and plants while I'm living with Sam. So, I recvieved a text that said his attourney would feel more comfortable with the delivery being sent after I sent the last few payments. I was getting anxious at this point. Sam was mentally preparing for me to move out, I was planning out how I'd arrange the place, my animals have been getting antsy and were missing me, and I was unable to send payments cause msot of the deposit so far was sent very shrotly after I got paid. My paydays are two weeks apart so paying him was difficult due to the wait. While venting to some frineds, one of them offered to let me borrow some money to help make this whole process go quicker. I took the money and attempted to send it. This was the home stretch, the last amount of money that I owed him. At this point I sent over $600 to him.

With the last $400 in tow, I made it out tot eh same person, sent it from the same location, everything was golden. However, for some reason the person I was sending it to wasn't able to pick it up. I wasn't sure why so I decided to call MoneyGram and see what the issue was. My account was fine. The payment was ready for pick up. There was not reason why they shouldn't be able to get it.

The fella started to get a bit more hasty with his replies, telling emt o go down to the location I sent the money from and make it available. I drove out once and then called two more times and told him everything both the cashier and the folks I called told me. He still said that I was doing something wrong and was starting to get angry. During all this, my friend Sam was noticing how anxious and stressed out I was getting.

One night I had to be up early for work, I'm normally in bed by 8 and asleep by 8:30-9 pm but I was still getting messages from this person, saying they were STILL unable to pick up the money. He suggested that I cancel the payment and resend it to the same name that I had been sending it to.

I called MoneyGram AGAIN around 9:45 and cancelled the payment. They said it was ready to be picked up and I could get my money back. I drove out to the location I sent it from and tried to get it back but it was past 8 pma nd they didn't process any transactions past that time. I was angry and sad and frustrated. I was concerned that I wasn't going to get the house. I stil;l had no idea when the keys were going to get to me and then Sam sat me down.

We had a short but necessary talk. He was concerned I was getting scammed, tried to ask me about information I had about this person, etc. We hunted down the realty comapny that posted the listing on Zillow and other sites and I managed to hunt down a name of a realtor. Despite not getting much sleep that night, the next morning I shot him an email and went to work.

MY whole workday was just stressful and I felt liek Iw as constantly on the verge of a panic attack. I messaged my mom on my lunch break with concerns about being scammed and I dind't have enough time to tell her everything about it before I had to go back to work. More stress ensued.

Finally, my workday was over and I saw an email from the realtor I contacted. In one paragraph a wave of relief wasshed over me. He listed the house for sale, it was never for rent, and I was not the only person to contact him about this. My refund was still waiting for me to pick it up and I finally knew exactly what had been going on.

The whole thing was a scam and I'm still in disbelief that I fell for it.

After I got back home, I went to go pick up my refund. I got my $400 back and get a blunt fuck you to the guy I had been messaging all this time with the email I sent to and recieved from the realtor.

It was finally over.

Between Feb 11th and March 10th this guy was sucking my bank accounts dry.

During all fo this happening, I was not ina good mental state. I managed to get some doodles done ehre and there to post on Twitter to keep some sort of online presence going while I figured this out.

I hardly touched any digital work between then and now... And I'd like to remedy that.

So with that out of the way, I am still very sorry for the radio silence on patreon, for not giving you all things that were promised, and for hardly even touching the Discord as well. You deserve better and I'm going tot ry to make that up to yall in time.

Since the virus is doing some detrimental damage to my work schedule, I'm taking my extended days off and using them to get some of my commission backlog done. I'll be working a bit haphazardly during this time but after I post this I'm going to keep working and also update my Trello, the folks who commissioned me, and do a little social media update.

If I can find some time between working and commissions, I'm going to continue working on some pieces that I started for some Patron-only content. Yall deserve something after this massive absence of mine ;w;

And I'm gonna close off this post with a massive massive thank you to Snow, Wilt, Angel, Sam, Quin, and my patient and understanding mother. I sincerily cannot thank you enough or properly verbalize my graditude. I'd also like to thank my commissioners who have been patient and understanding through this whole ordeal. And once again, I'd like to thank you, my patrons, for sticking around despite my activity here lately. I know that I've hardly posted anything this month and last but I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you guys sticking around. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

With that, I'm going to get back to commissions.

____ A Very Tired Yokai