#I would commission the art myself but I’m broke 🥲

[sserrafeim]

How do I make this post reach the Azriel commissioners because…

…🤓

[violetvelourr]

Tough life of a Kakashi goodies collector under sanctions. Part 1

My sad (but I’m still hoping for a happy end) Kakashi goodies parcel story 🥲

You don’t need to bother reading it, I am writing more for my own memory, because even as I wrote this I realised that I got the beginning of the story wrong because I’d managed to forget some of the details (which I did remember after I laid everything down here).

So, some of you might be aware, I come from an evil country that Must Not Be Named is currently at odds with a large chunk of the world… I am not going to debate who is right and who is wrong, though I definitely don’t support the war and in a way I humbly accept the corresponding punishment, though it’s still a bit sad since I never personally held any hate for anyone: I’m just trying to live my simple life, enjoy this world, be a decent person and mind my own business... but we have what we have, I guess...  

So anyways, last year, at the end of February, when it all collapsed, I remember I just made my final purchase on eBay – the next day the bank cards were cut off from the rest of the world and eBay cut us off as well (“this item does not ship to your country”). And that final item was Ninja Storm Kakashi action figure, insanely expensive and insanely gorgeous and desired by me...

I nearly had a fit while reading the news updates. Not to mention the general devastation at the absurdity of the situation… it all seemed surreal… 

I was almost certain I would not be getting my parcel and would end up losing my money: payment systems shut (no way to refund), deliveries halted, eBay no longer available. 

But, to my surprise, the parcel did arrive (probably because the seller was in China). And that was basically the beginning and the end of my Kakashi collection back then. I held on long enough convincing myself that I did not care enough for Kakashi to buy merch (bought perhaps 3 small items or so and was totally content with that), but I gave up around January-February 2022, so it was supposed to be the start of my crazy ‘serious’ collector career, haha.

To be honest, I was even relieved when we were banned everywhere – if I still had the same level of access to international purchases, I think I would have gone broke pretty fast, because if I get into something... I become almost uncontrollable. And since I’d basically just got into collecting Kakashi items... So yeah, those sanctions and limitations came in handy, I admit.

I did order minor things from AliExpress, still works with us, but they either sell mostly counterfeit trash, or really overpriced original stuff – so it was nothing really serious (*she said glancing back at her Kakashi collection which is still 60% from AliExpress*).

Anyways, I was sitting happily with my hands tied, my money almost safe, but then I was stupid enough to finally accept a commission request from a foreign customer for the first time since the war began.

I need to mention that alongside with our bank cards being cut off from the rest of the world, our PayPal accounts were also suspended. Well, mine is technically still alive, but I’m pretty sure that I cannot link any new card to it, or, if I can (I have a Kazakhstani card now), the account will be suspended immediately, so I’m not even going to test that. 

Plus, I heard that it is also illegal in my country to have transactions via PayPal now (similar way as it is illegal to even mention Instagram...). 

So this made it a bit tricky accepting payments from foreign clients. And in the last year I had to refuse quite a number of times because of that, I got overwhelmed every time I thought of having to deal with it... I don’t do art for a living, so I didn’t really bother too much about that and considered my mental health more important (it’s a bit challenging constantly struggling because you are basically an outcast). 

But this time for some reason (perhaps I finally got over it – it has almost been a year) I didn’t refuse and decided to test a couple of options. First one was getting paid via a platform similar to Patreon which worked in my country. It did work, but the % the platform charged for the transaction was insane. 

And then I had the second option… A gift card on eBay. 

And this was where I made the mistake…

I was thinking that I had it all covered because I met a girl who was about to move back from the USA. I had selected 3 items on eBay that were so tiny that this girl had no problems at all bringing them back with her.

What I did not expect was that in order to use a USA gift card, I had to be localized in the USA. When I tried creating a US eBay account, I was instantly banned and after trying to object the decision I was specifically told that the decision was final and any attempts to create more accounts would result in them getting suspended as well. I tried checking out as a guest using VPN with a US IP, but eBay still figured it out somehow, and I was not allowed to finalize the payment and check out...

So yeah, I ended up having a $75 eBay gift card (and I still have it, haha) and a strong desire to get the items I laid my eyes upon. I was fixated on getting them... And actually as time went by (while I tried to find ways to hack the system), my appetite grew and soon what was initially 3 small items became 9 items.

And so, at that point I felt already too shy to ask my friend for help with buying them for me, because not only I needed her help with the purchase, but also she’d have to receive 9 parcels, unpack them, etc... and… uh... um... see how crazy I am with my Kakashi fever 🙈 Not to mention that she was moving back after 3 years abroad and probably every cm / gram mattered…

So I started looking into other delivery possibilities...

Part 2 is here…