Controversial writer opinion, but I’m never hiring an editor ever again

Cost me $100 for <500 hrs of work (he did charge a gig economy rate of whatever per word, but with Life360 I could see the amount of hours he spent on it.) Hired him for a development edit, line edit, copy edit, and proofread, which he did not do. Instead he wiped his hands when he was done and told me to "nuke it" and do it all over from square one. His dumbest comment... people would confuse my male pocket monster, Plinkachu, with the Nintendo character, and to “please for the love of God stop inflating Pikachu [sic], what has he done to deserve this?”

The worst part, he came highly recommended from some of the more popular and successful authors from DeviantArt at the time. This was a glowing referral! I'm still inflating with firey rage, years later after the book has been published on Ao3 and gooned to DOZENS of times.