I've never had much of an interest in watching Acorn purely because I've seen bits and pieces of her awful attitude scattered across miscellaneous submissions and incidents over FA, so I'm very surprised she was "polite" during this transaction.

I guess that's not particularly relevant, save for the journal.

"It's just retarded when they didn't even ask for a refund in the first place. I would have GLADLY done so. I've done it in the past for other commissioners. "

We've already seen that OP DID ask for a refund, but why didn't Acorn even offer a refund? At any point in time if she didn't want to go through with it, she could have just said "I can't/don't want to do this anymore, can I just refund you?"

It is not wholly the commissioner's responsibility for communication and it is not wholly the artist's responsibility either.

Also, I don't know if this bothers anyone else, but I don't like statements like " I work to support our household so we don't end up homeless or without a car."

I'm not certain why, but little... details like that just sort of get to me. I guess it just seems like playing the passive-aggressive pity card. Something like "Art is my only job" would have sufficed. I think pretty much every artist who regularly takes commissions is also working to not be homeless and to have food, no need to state the obvious. :\