#it mostly came about from a couple of facebook groups I'm in

[eboni-napalm]

The only shitty thing about being a self-shipper in some fandoms is when you want to connect with people who are in that same fandom as you and share your love of the characters you ship with, whether with fanfics you wrote or art you drew/commissioned, but having this gut feeling that you just KNOW that people are going to laugh at your or call you gross or whatever, and it sucks. You basically have to tread so lightly and tiptoe around glass with how you talk positively about certain characters because otherwise people will bully you for it in any way they can and almost force you to isolate yourself from the majority of the fandom, if not completely ruin your love for that source- and that shouldn't happen, but it does.

Whether just for fun or actually serious about it, LET PEOPLE SELF-SHIP. So long as they're not hurting or offending anyone, the character and person shipping themselves with them are both adults, and are happy with how they live and express themselves, it shouldn't be an issue. Who fucking cares if people call it "cringe" or "stupid" or whatever words they come up with? It's something we love, and characters we love, and us self-shippers deserve to be able to feel safe and accepted in the sources we love without worrying about being insulted by it. Let us love what we love- we're not stopping you from enjoying your fandoms, so don't do it to us.

--

(PRO-SHIP/ANTI-SHIP/COM-SHIP DNI IN ANY WAY, THIS POST IS NOT FOR YOU.)

[tarysande]

Can I ask, how does one go about becoming an editor? Like, where do you apply for jobs?? What kinda training do you do?? Are there companies that hire out editors to writers? Im just so confused about it. Ive always been interested in editing, and am considering doing it as a job

Editing is a weird career.

Really, I started as a writer. Like, when I was eleven. In jr. high and high school, I was in a writing critique group and I wrote a lot. I graduated from university with a degree in theatre, film, and creative writing. I was often the person my friends came to when they needed help with a paper (or the correct placement of a semicolon). I've been involved in fandom since I was about 17, and I was very fortunate to fall in with a group of excellent writers who were also excellent betas and editors. I learned a TON from them without realizing how much I was learning.

I started editing by accident, really. Sometimes, that's how it happens. I mostly got gigs here and there through friends or word of mouth. About ten years ago, I got more serious about it. I worked for companies that paid horribly. Then I did an editing test for a company that paid less horribly, and they hired me. After a couple of years editing countless academic papers, ESL academic papers, novels, emails, business documents, etc., I decided to branch out on my own (mostly so I could work on more fiction; I was burned out on academic papers).

I joined Editors Canada, started volunteering with them, got a lot more experience, and took a few continuing ed courses to gauge where my skills were at and to determine if I needed to upgrade my education. I decided I didn't need to do that, because I already knew the things I was being taught.

I read a lot of books on editing, writing, and craft. I familiarized myself with the Chicago Manual of Style, APA, MLA, and a couple of other style guides. I learned the differences in spelling, punctuation, and style between US, UK, and Canadian English. I went to webinars, conferences, and courses (all the major editing associations offer these, usually cheaper or free for members; they are a great way to determine what kinds of editing you actually LIKE). I learned the difference between rules and preferences, and when to apply them to a text.

I work freelance, which means I have my own business as a sole proprietor. I'm a contractor with a couple of companies who sometimes send work my way, but most of my clients are individual writers planning to either self-publish or polish their work before seeking traditional publication via the agent/tradpub route.

Freelancing has many perks but is not particularly secure. Especially if you're American and need an employer to provide health insurance, or if you're single and don't have another income to lean on when contracts are scarce. These days, most of my work comes via referrals, my website, or the listing I have in the Editors Canada directory. I follow a couple of editing-related Facebook groups; I've learned a lot there, and I've also picked up the occasional client. A couple of people have found me through LinkedIn. A couple of people have found me through here!

I've never worked in-house for a publisher--mostly because having control over how many hours I work and when I work them is my top priority. In-house is a whole different ballgame; I know a bit about it from my peers, but I don't have firsthand experience to pass on. These jobs are supposedly more secure--and they tend to be salaried, with benefits, etc.

"Editing" is a GIANT umbrella term. There are SO many types of editing out there. People tend to think of book publishing first, but that's only one avenue. There are also different kinds of editors who tackle different types of problems. I've done enough of everything to recognize that I am much happier when I'm working on big picture stuff--coaching, developmental editing, manuscript critique. Others specialize in the nitty gritty mechanical details that make proofreading or copy editing a better fit.

Right now, the bulk of my work life is actually spent ghostwriting. The client's business-materials editor posted that his client was looking for someone to help with characterization in a novel. I ended up winning that contract. He came to me with one monster book. I helped him realize it needed to be at least a trilogy, and now he has plans for a ten-book series--and I'm helping write it. But I got the job because of the work I've done on the development side of editing--and because I've spent SO MUCH TIME learning about characterization (via acting, fandom/writing fanfic, reading, etc.). So. It all feeds into the same place.

The tl;dr is that my experience has been a bizarre mix of being in the right place at the right time, ongoing professional development, and learning the value of volunteering with an association. If I were starting down this career path right now, I'd probably do an editing certificate (there are many out there, depending on country). I'd definitely join an association sooner (even as a student member) and volunteer.

Actually, the ultimate tl;dr is ... this industry IS CONFUSING. So, don't feel bad about being confused. It's actually probably about eight different kinds of job wearing a trench-coat and pretending it's something called "Editing."

[mostdontknowit]

Shock

When I was twenty years old (2013) I struggled with adulthood. I had recently came out and fled my parents place. This resulted me in couch hopping between a few people.

One of them, who's name is Jeff, let me stay with him. He also gave me $100 to help me. We didn't have proper wifi, we stole it from a bar net to us, essentially. I didn't know yet at the time I was going to struggle with finding a job. I couldn't go to school and I just flat out didn't know how to job search which killed my motivation.

Jeff and I had sex once but he explained he's mostly a-sexual. He wanted to keep things entirely platonic. I was fully on board as I was still kind of struggling with that kind of stuff. I felt extremely shameful whenever anything became slightly sexual.

Jeff told me he was embraced in Chinese culture and had lived there for a while. His facebook was in Chinese. He also apparently had like several college degree's. He was in the process of getting a degree in counseling.

What I remember about him saying of his family was that they were from California and agnostic. They were slightly homophobic and didn't understand why he dived into Christianity. That kind of stuff isn't too common. Though I guess you hear stories about people converting.

One thing that urked me about him was he analyzed everything I did. This is hard to deal with when living with someone. He was deeply critical of my first love, who broke my heart. But was an insanely great guy and I still hold him dearly. I thoughtJeff analyzed me so much because he was studying to be a counselor.

Someone (let's call him Mike) who he knew from California, moved to Portland. If I recall correctly Mike was a member of Jeff's youth group he was a youth pastor for. Or maybe it was like he was the son of one of Jeffs friends, I honestly don't remember the fine details. But I remember going out with Jeff and Mike a few times. From what I remember about Mike is that he was also borderline a-sexual. I think he was maybe closer to his mid-20s. He was essentially a-sexual but wanted to explore and thought he might be gay too. But it may have been repressed? I also remember him being a virgin which was a big topic for discussion. I didn't know him as well.

I was supposed to live with Jeff until I either found a job or until the new school year. But someone invited me to stay with them who lived in a better location, had full wifi and I got a long better with. After that I never heard from Jeff again and wanted to wait a while before I reached out again. A few years ago I tried reaching out to Jeff but got no response. I wanted to pay him back for giving me cash and letting me live with him when I was experiencing my own housing crisis. But I never got a response. I tried googling him a couple times and got his business information, but I thought that would be inappropriate for me to contact him that way.

Anyway the actual crazy part of this all is that I just found out Jeff was arrested for "multiple charges of oral copulation of a person under 16, sodomy of a person under 16, and forcible lewd act upon a child," that took place between 2006-2008. This was several years before I met him. I'm in quite a bit of shock about it. There's a lot of things that don't make sense but then a lot of things that do. Like maybe he was saying he was practically a-sexual as some weird cover up or to disguise his own insecurities? Was him analyzing everything I did some kind of sign of him having control issues? I always thought the whole thing about living around in China sounded suspicious and I especially thought him having several degree's sounded suspicious. I wonder if "Mike" was one of the Victims, I remember thinking Jeff seemed interested in Mike but I always dismissed it.

[bisexualshakespeare]

pride asks: 6, 11, 15 :)

(If you're out) do you wish you came out sooner? Later? Or was it the right time?

I'm mostly out. I mean I put interested in men and women on facebook and just let that up. My mom seems to have gotten the hint. I don't usually tell people I'm nonbinary outside of the internet cause the times I have, people have just been weird about it and ultimately still she/her me so like what's the point? I basically came out on the tumblr the SECOND I realized I was bisexual and I documented my gender journey a couple years after. I feel like it was fine. I don't think knowing I was bi in high school would've made me any less weird and uncomfortable about it

Favorite (or just one you love) piece of LGBT media?

The Gay and Wonderous Life of Caleb Gallo is the funniest web series I've ever watched! It is clearly the specific humor of these group of friends which makes it so unique. Everyone's great but also an asshole. I adore it. They also have a movie called Grandma's Gold which I also like.

How has your identity changed over time?

There was a time I would wake up every morning and evaluate my gender. I think it was inspired by a teen wolf fic where Stiles was nb and would write his gender on a whiteboard on the fridge or something. It was fun for awhile but then there would be days when I wasn't able to put where I was so eventually I just let it be that my gender was nameless. Sometimes it can be annoying when I'm irritated all day and I don't realize until the next day it's because I'm a guy and it's dysphoria, but I don't think the habit would stop those days from happening

(if anyone's scrolling and wondering, the asks are from here)

[whiskeyandwolfsbane]

8/26/22 - 12:51PM

There haven't been many updates, hence why I haven't been posting much; there still isn't really an update per se, but I figured I'd pop in anyway and go through it.

CONTENT WARNING: not too many details, but there is mention of blood/scabbing/etc. in this following entry so continue with caution.

So I'm still healing okay... I think?

My nipple grafts have been pretty gnarly and like, I'm moooostly sure that it's just because they're out of the "scabbing over" stage and starting the fourth stage which is a lot more grim-looking than simple scabs but I still have been stressing out about it. One of them, the last bit of scab kinda got stuck to the gauze pad, and even though I tried to be super gentle in removing the gauze, it still came off and there was quite a bit of bleeding.

It freaked me the fuck out, but that was a few days ago and I haven't had a repeat occurrence, especially since I went back to cleaning and redressing them twice a day after that. The lady at my post-op had originally said I could switch to just once a day, but I figured that if the gauze was getting stuck like that, it was probably best to change it out more often and so far, I've had no problems.

I'm still worried about the placement and look of my nipples in general; I haven't emailed my care team about the bleeding, just because the last time I was super worried about something regarding the grafts, a quick post on Reddit told me that I wasn't the only one who had experienced it and that it was probably totally fine - also I messaged the care team about that issue and basically just got a message back from someone whose messages I don't usually appreciate because they're always so... blunt and unintentionally feel kind of patronising. I'd rather not get a message from her again if I email about the bleeding so I'm just gonna hope that all is well. I mean, the scab was gonna come off eventually, it was already mostly off, so there shouldn't be too much to worry about.

But yeah. I'm stressing about the grafts is basically the main update here. What if they aren't healing right, what if I'm doing something wrong, what if it's not swelling and they really are too far apart, what if they don't look 'normal' even months down the line, etc.

I don't really know who to vent to about these things so I've mostly just kept it quiet and made occasional posts in the Reddit about things - I joined a group for this on Facebook, but the first post I made took days to get approved and when it was finally approved, there wasn't a single reply to it, so I just don't really bother anymore.

Anyway. that's basically all I've got really. I started using scar strips on my incision scars for a couple days, but my chest got super itchy again so I decided I would stop and see if maybe it's because of the scar strips.

So far, it's been a day without them and it seems like it has nothing to do with them because I'm still itchy as all fuck. I think it just coincidentally started the same time I started with the scar strips but isn't because of them, but I'll give it another day just in case. worst case scenario I just have to try something else, like silicone scar care gel or something.

Oh, and the medical leave paperwork - you know, the one I've been struggling with for months now, lmao. In short terms: nothing has happened. In slightly more detailed terms: I FINALLY got the stupid form that my job wanted filled out and sent to me, thank god. I don't think HR is gonna be bothering me anymore, although I don't think they're going to help me at all either since they already told me I dont qualify for financial aid from them.

And I don't think the state is gonna budge either on their whole "you didn't work 820 hours in the last year so fuck you" stance, but either way, I sent them the new form just in case and requested a review, basically saying "hey, I wasn't sure if this was required paperwork so I'm sending it now, also is there literally any way I can get any sort of financial assistance at all like maybe having it reduced because of the 50 missing hours of work I don't have or whatever".

I know the chances of getting anything out of that is next to none but whatever, may as well try.

In the meantime I tried reapplying for my EBT cash assistance card. That was a pain too because I didn't have pay stubs, and had to contact my job's HR, and of course they were out of the office, and I had to wait for them to finally come back and send me my pay stubs. Which of course I can't just email to the state, so I had to go to a nearby library and use their fax machine a few days ago, and now I'm just. Waiting some more for the state to get back to me and probably just tell me to fuck off, I don't qualify, lol.

Anyway. Yeah. That's about all I got, I guess.

[peachychubbycheeks]

you know ... I'm kinda getting use to using this account as if it were my cyber journal/diary so I guess I can write this here

for the most longest time I've been friends with this girl that is currently dating a guy I used to date ...

our relationship was short lived because he was younger then me and very short tempered and stubborn (not to mention he was also very ignorant and everything had to abide by his own way of thinking and his own rules and values) we only dated for a couple of weeks, maybe 6, kinda don't remember the details but omfg he was a huge pain in my ass. After those 6 months that I broke up with him I felt better and thought I'd never talked to him again but I guess that wasn't the case; my brother came home silent as hell which most times he wouldn't cause i remember he would come home and always greeted me with a smile or just a dumb joke but he was too quite. I went to his room and asked if he was okay; he told me he was fine. At the same time i remember my friend (let's call them JD) writing on Twitter "omg what have I done" and "why did I go there" and obviously by the time I was putting 2 and 2 together. after prying and asking him what's wrong he finally told me that he saw my friend and the guy I broke up with kissing in there room and he was so shocked that he screamed "WHAT THE FUCK" ngl that was funny as hell thinking about it but by that time my heart sank

shit ... my closest friend was making out with someone I used to date. what the actual fuck.

I confronted her about it and she told me she was sorry about it and that it wouldn't happen again ... or so I thought

I live in PR where mostly the island is full of beaches and tourist attractions and we decided (my cousin, bother and my other 2 friends, JD was involved) to go to Cabo Rojo (far from where we are). I was excited because it was something different for a change. while we were there I felt as if JD was acting strange, she was walking away from the group alot, hiding her phone, and messaging someone. I was a little skeptical but I kinda didn't mind it so much attention. after we left and such ... I remember seeing a contact on her phone written "100 X tu seras mi bb" which translates to me You will forever be my baby. my stomach dropped again.

"No .... it can't be."

I asked her who it was and she told me it was a inside joke that her and a friend of hers had and she put the contact there favorite song.

weird but okay

days later I would see her posting on her whatsapp stories photos of a guy but only his back but the place they were in seemed oddly familiar ... the chinese restaurant I took my last date to (we'll call him E)

I asked her again, she told me it was an Asian guy she would stalk sometimes at the restaurant ... creepy but okay, bet.

then she posted another picture of E front porch, shit at this point it was so obvious ... but I just wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt or at least tell me the truth. I asked her "... where is that." her response

that's my uncles back yard.

... sure

the last straw was when I was scrolling facebook ... and there it was, E's profile, I went into it and what did you know, JD, my friend, was following him

I was shitting bricks at the moment, fuck, I felt like shit, like straight out dog caca, and I showed it to my cousin (she was her best friend btw) and she stood silent. that same day we were gonna go out with her but I didn't feel like bringing up the topic ... even though it was noticeable in the way I would talk (I would stutter) also my hands were sweaty af.

the next day I asked her by phone, if they were dating, she went silent and told me that yes, they were indeed going out. for a year now by that time. and I decided that to let go of the friendship.

funny, by that time I felt guilty for doing something totally "selfish", at least I thought by that time but it was perfectly justified and reasonable.

a year past by and between everything going on I felt like I had to forgive her and pass the page but to be totally honest I should've never have done so.

up till today I have so much remorse and regret that I let her back into my life. all the comments she's made till this day making us (me especially) feel bad for "outting her" and for "leaving her" don't make sense to me, also the back handed comments she always gives me, the moments I've opened up to her about my dating life and her telling her boyfriend, E, about my short comings with some of them

I think it's best to keep some distance for now ... and actually live my life without her knowing every aspect about it.

she did tell me that she doesn't want me or my cousin to talk badly about her boyfriend as a boundary ... I think it's time I do the same for myself too. set some boundaries for her to respect. If she doesn't want to then bye 👋

[littlewalken]

jan 19

That Facebook thing where you might follow an official page or two for a group but it never fails that a brand new page with one of their names will suddenly pop up and want you to follow them. Come join my special page etc.

Verbal/high function autistic who grew up without friends and still has trouble making/keeping any and never falls for catfishing scams in the house!

Extra points if a family member suddenly messages you asking for money and you tell them to fuck off. Hell, I got to tell my sister to her face to fuck off when she came asking for money for something she couldn't afford.

They couldn't even come close to my favorite member. Like stop pairing me up with B-Rok from BSB. He's a yes today Jesus and I'm a yes today Satan.

My Dominion War husband never even asked me for money or anything.

And I was dead broke. Hopefully none of y'all can relate to the time between a doctor telling you to stop working before your health condition kills you but the disability hasn't kicked in yet.

There's a Pete Townshend song about that.

The liminalness of a mostly empty place waiting for you to move out is setting in. We're done living here, it knows we're done, and we've both accepted it but there's literally nowhere for us to go until the time to go.

No news, which we assume is good news, about the possibility of the move in date being pushed down a few days. We are mentally preparing. If it's like one night we'll see how much the novelty motel is for the sake of saying we stayed at the novelty motel. Closer to a week we might do an extended stay or just pick a freeway and drive off for a couple of days.

And that is why we don't have any pets and even gave our fish away and no, we can't get anyone to help us move because you can't hire anyone without a firm move in date.

Momentarily tapped out on Imagination Land ideas but with little more to do than observe media and other healthy ways to pass the time the ideas will come.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Do you like Kpop, Frank? Do you like any bands? My favorite band is Red Velvet but I'm partial to Loona even if I don't post about them a lot.

I didn't grow up with a lot of musical tastes, but when I did, it was like... okay, there was some stuff that was in my head and there were some things that made it into my head.

Most of the music I heard came from podcasts, so... podcasts?

I don't particularly enjoy listening to music I haven't heard before unless I'm trying to impress some people (i.e. with things like the old Archer episode about rap)

Some songs I like:

The Beatles (obviously, these are a few of the best-known examples)

the Temptations song that was used in that one episode of Community

I don't listen to much Kpop, though I'm not really sure what you mean by that. I just listened to a couple of songs in the search I mentioned earlier, and then I blocked the artists from my history in the music player, because I've been getting ads from them on YouTube and Facebook.

I know a lot of people who listen to Kpop pretty frequently (in the usual sense) because it's a thing that gets popular on social media and also it just really is good. But it's just not for me.

Loona is one of my all-time favorite bands, and I remember listening to and being influenced by them when I was a young teenager.

For an early example of a "classic" Kpop, though, I do remember really liking U-Square. I know these days they mostly do ballads and more pop-y stuff, but that was the stuff that got really popular when I was 14. (The U-Squared era was around when I had started to develop my sense of musical taste. This music was so good that it made people want to be a part of it, even if that wasn't the right thing to do!)

(In fact, one of the reasons I was so enamored of Loona was that a lot of their music was "what Kpop was doing 10-15 years ago," and that was something I was really into in high school, I think because it came pre-packaged with the whole teenage social dynamic of idol groups. Loona had a lot of the same aesthetic that was on my high school wall paper, which was good.)

[euphoriacrossing]

So while I sit here trying to get normal balloon spawns...

I may as well write a blog. I am using a guide post on how to catch normal balloon spawns to try and get more cherry blossom recipes. Well I am only half using it.. I am camping on the beach waiting for normal balloon spawns instead of going there every 0/5 ending minute. I'll share the guide on here after this if I remember, but I already got one new cherry blossom recipe just by camping on the side of the beach that balloon spawns are coming from and ignoring the bunny day balloons, so I think this could work, too.

Anyway, now story mode is over, but I still have so, so much to do that it's not even funny. I am making it my main priority to save miles up to buy all the different paths and stuff. I think I have three left to buy so roughly 6,000 miles to earn. But saving miles means making less bells as Nook mile trips are where I made the most, I think. And now I can't take them because I have no miles/am saving miles and so I don't have the bells to pay off my house or to build a new bridge or any of the things I am saving for. But in part the fact it is harder to save bells just makes it feel like I have more to do and that is comforting in a way. I want the appeal of this game to last forever but I know my brain doesn't work like that. Still for now it's the best distraction I have and I'm grateful for it.

Having the ability to make paths is tough because it's just another million decisions to make and hope I get it right or can redo it better or whatever, so that Euphoria becomes the island I dreamed it could be. Right now I have a lot of dirt paths and I think they look okay. But I plan on redoing them someday with either custom paths or maybe just the arched tile ones... I like that path style. Still I started when I just had dirt so I just kind of kept going that way.

It looks alright, I think, especially at the entrance. I haven't finished a lot of the paths on either the right (residential) side or the left (wooded area/orchard) but I have mostly finished the center which is shops and such.

(So far I've gotten a normal balloon spawn every 5 minutes! So it works to just hang around the beach and then look for the spawns at every 0 and 5 ending minute. Edit: Aw, nope just didn't get that last one... I am probably doing something wrong then. Oops Edit2: Definitely doing something wrong. Didn't get a spawn again. Oh well I'll check the guide again once I finish this post. I am also watching for wishing stars so it won't be a total waste.. though I haven't seen any of those either. Last edit: Guide said spawns don't happen every time AND I just got another regular balloon, so maybe I'm fine? I hope I am not just wasting time.)

I am moving most of the houses before I do the paths on that side which is ANOTHER expense for sure, but after seeing a couple of my friend's islands, I knew I could make the houses probably a bit straighter and I decided I want them not quite as closer together as I want everyone to be able to have a yard. One of my friends has houses that are PIN straight and have little yards to them. I don't think I can accomplish that. But I do think I can space them out far enough to fence them in and have little yards.

So I started with the last to move in which was Marina. I put her in a space both by the beach, and by my house because even though she just moved in we're absolute besties. No but honestly, I love her. She sings like everywhere she goes and it's adorable.

I would move Beau next but I think he might stay close to where he is. Unfortunately if I have to move him a little bit I first have to move his house out of the way and then move it back because you can't move buildings just a tad, you have to find a whole new spot. This is why I had to move the whole museum to a new spot as it was slightly out of line and i couldn't just move it to where it lined up. I wish i had known this when i put things there. I didn't take care placing anything because I knew it could be moved. I only ASSUMED it could be moved a small amount as well especially since I assumed correctly that you were paying for it. But no, so oh well, now I have to come up with new spots for things, that's fine. Luckily both Nook's Cranny and the Able Sisters I got in perfect alignment with resident services like I wanted to so they're all on one straight path.

Anyway, I hope I can get it looking like i want it to. I thought that decorating it how I wanted would be the hardest because I still need to find all the furniture. But the paths might give that a run for it's money when we talk about difficulty level if you include trying to get all the houses in the right position and such.

But as hard as I've been "working" (it's definitely still fun or I wouldn't do it) I have found plenty of time for play as well. Yesterday morning I visited a friend for her KK Slider concert. I luckily have a good group of friends from a discord I'm part of and a lot of them are from other countries so they experience stuff before I do and things like that. So a bunch of us visited her for her KK concert and we did some of that...

And then things got a little wild...

Lol, it was fun. I thought for a second about the state of the world but I didn't panic thankfully. I just saw a bunch of us coming together from across the globe, some of us in quaratine, almost all of us at least ADVISED not to go out unless necessary. The world is a scary place right now, but the fact we could still come together from across the globe to be silly and enjoy a game together makes me feel like everything might be alright. I mean, it would still be cool even if these things weren't going on, but the fact they are abd socialization is becoming more difficult than ever, it's cool to see an alternate means of that in action.

I can't believe I took no pictures of her super straight houses, ugh, if I go again, I will have to, they are literally perfect.

And the weirdest thing about all of this to me is how included i feel in all of this. We're all on a small AC discord together and it seems like a lot of them have maybe known each other a while. But unlike a lot of other places it doesn't feel cliquey to me. I've always been welcome to come to their islands, and they have always been very courteous when any of them have come to mine. They act as happy to see me as they do anyone else. And I've only known them a short time so it would usually feel strange to call them "friends" but it doesn't. Now obviously they could feel differently but if they do they don't show it. I am incredibly grateful to have found them. I really couldn't ask for a better group of people to play with.

I actually was invited from this tumblr. Likely after I made some kind of post about not feeling like I belonged in the AC community or something similarly emo and whiny, I'm sure. So I am surprised I was invited at all, but I am so thankful I was. It was just what i was looking for in the AC community.

(Yes! I learned cherry blossom umbrella! Balloon hunting is going fairly well considering I only had like two of the cherry blossom DIYs total before I started and now in about an hour I've doubled that.)

I do have some facebook friends and such I have play AC with, and I am also grateful for them as well of course. It has brought us closer together and I am thankful for that. I have one friend who we constantly send each other gifts like if we accidentally got two of something or a DIY we already have or just if we think something is cool, it's really fun. I enjoy mail as much in game as I do in real life.

But yeah, I was nervous when this game first came out that I would be stuck playing just with my sister. And don't get me wrong I love playing the game with her, we always have a good time. But sometimes you need socialization beyond your own family and I really saw this as my one chance to connect since I'm not very social, I am very anxious, and I just struggle with these things. I may have been right about it being my best chance at connection because I can hide a lot of the awkwardness in game. Very thankfully though, I found people who accept what I can't hide in game. And who accept me. For some reason that's just been really hard to do. Every community I am a part of I feel like an outsider until now. But yeah, I am looking forward to a continued friendship with these people and continuing to enjoy the game moving forward.

I guess I've rambled enough. I still need to get more balloons, but I can't write here forever. Though... I frequently do write far too much here and I wonder if it get read. If it doesn't I don't blame ya. But yeah. I will leave you with this adorable pic I took while Marina was singing... you can't really tell she was singing, but still, she's adorable either way.

(And don't you love this dress? I have it in I think 4 different colors, I just love it.)

[melanieratford]

I swear... If one more Christian customer preaches at me at my work, I'm gonna scream....

I am not a Christian. I have nothing against the Christian faith itself... I just can't stand the vast majority of the people within the faith. I am sick and tired of customers at my work thinking it's okay to preach to me over various things... "The Bible helps with depression." this... "What does God want" that... "You need Jesus."...

No. I don't need Jesus. In fact, you do. Jesus Christ was a carpenter from Galilee. He was a poor man who helped those in need and told people to be kind to each other. The BASIC PREMISE of the Bible is telling people "Be kind to each other.". Hell, that's the basic premise of the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Hindu doctrine and the Buddhist doctrine. At this point, if the basic belief of a "Holy system" isn't "Don't be a dick.", then the "Holy system" is a cult. Seriously? How is it that Venom has a better grasp on the phrase "Don't be a dick." than people who consider themselves religious?

Christians have committed horrific acts of murder, attempted genocide, tortured people, sent children to their deaths during crusades, taken rights away from people, enslaved people, attempted to destroy countries, and have COMPLETELY DISREGARDED the teachings of the Bible itself. They have even warped the image of Jesus Christ himself into a false idol.

Seriously? Do you think Jesus would approve of ANY of this? Of megachurches that preach hate and discrimination? That his teachings have become tools of oppression? Where people are trying to make the church into state in a country where not the entire population is Christian? Of wealthy Christians believing the poor and hungry should die? Where we allow innocent people to suffer and die in cages? Where people who claim to follow his name OPENLY inflict their will onto others as if they're the authority? Where people who boast about following his name harm others and believe that anyone who doesn't follow him should be harmed or killed? Where they frequently cherry pick the pieces of the Bible they believe fit their own racist, sexist, homophobic, hateful, beliefs?

NEWS FLASH, Jesus was a poor carpenter from a Middle Eastern country! He was NOT WHITE, he was KIND TO OTHERS, and IT DIDN'T MATTER WHAT RACE, RELIGION, GENDER, CLASS, OR SEXUALITY YOU WERE, because if he met you, he would be kind to you.

And God? God has a UNIVERSE to care for! Do you think they care if a couple lives together or has sex before marriage? Do you think they care if someone likes Harry Potter? Do you think they care if two men or two women love each other, have sex and get married? Because, I don't. I don't think they'd care one bit.

The Bible has been manipulated by MAN since it's inception! And seriously, when The Simpsons make one of the best points about it... There's an issue. Because Reverend Lovejoy points out to Marge and says “Marge, just about everything is a sin. [holds up a Bible] You ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we’re not allowed to go to the bathroom.” And, he's right. We're sinning daily simply by wearing mixed fabrics, and doing various other things that our society sees as "Basic".

So when my family basically got chased out of Friendship Baptist Church for not giving everything we had to them... When I got nasty looks as a child at a Fall Festival for dressing up as an Ice Princess (long before Frozen)... When random people at my work ask me if I'm living with my boyfriend yet and then preach to me that it's wrong to do it before marriage (despite statistics and cold hard facts stating that it's best do do that)... When my boyfriend feels the need to question his faith because of all the hatred he's witnessed.... When I feel the need to tell him to not give up on his faith because a group of Christians have told him that he's just a lazy millennial who doesn't wanna work after getting permission to talk on the pulpit at a church and preaching basic kindness... When I witnessed Christians from Friendship Baptist commit sins that are far worse than anything I've ever committed all while chastising me for what I like... When I felt ostracized from church when I was in High School BECAUSE I LIKED A BOY, when I desperately needed church because I was going through an existential crisis... When I saw Christians on this very site make awful comments about Stephen Hawking being atheist when he died, despite his fantastic contributions to science.... And every other terrible thing I saw them do...

How could I not leave the religion?

Yes, my family is mostly Christian, my boyfriend and his family are Christian... I don't mind my wedding being a Christian wedding... I love Christmas and Easter... I don't mind anyone praying for my family, friends, and me... Hell, I've told Marshal, I don't mind him taking any kids we might have to church...

But, my relationship with God is an interesting one. I don't pray, I do my best to hope. If I fall back in line with the church, then so be it. That's my business. Preaching at me will only make me more adamant about my belief system.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I posted this to Facebook on December 9th. Since then, my boyfriend’s mother has yelled at him and lectured him bitching about how what I’ve said about the Bible and Jesus are inaccurate. She blamed the Democrats for everything I said was wrong, and said the phrase “But Jesus was the Messiah.” when it came to me talking about his humility. She is now questioning my boyfriend about whether he’s sure he wants to be with me, and is making us feel like she wants us to break up. Yes, I accidentally betrayed his trust by talking about him in this. I have deeply apologized to him about mentioning him. He knows this was more about me.... But, his mother still thinks that I’m just being a pathetic, anti-religious, Libtard. This was not about politics. This was about why I left Christianity and why I have no intentions of ever going back.

But, my boyfriend’s mother is psychotic and does her best to control his life. She thinks he has control over my actions. What she hasn’t realized is that he sees her as a burden and can’t wait to get away from her.

[pbandjesse]

It's not quite as bad as it used to be but I'm kind of feeling again like I can only accomplish one thing a day. It's not my favorite feeling. I'm glad it's happening in the Summer where I'm only going to have one you have a day but still. I don't like it.

I slept all right. I woke up and I made a sandwich and I had a donut and a glass of milk and I left for work. I wear a jumpsuit today and I got lots of compliments but my pictures from the baseball game when I changed later on. Whatever. I love my new jumpsuit it's great. It's the stripy one. It's great and soft.

When I got to work I was a little annoyed to find that we were doing all five rooms of the tour. We're not all five rooms but having five people going at once. Not my favorite thing. It causes us all to bump into each other if we're not exactly on time. But it was fine I had assembly line first and I did that with Kathleen and she's always a blast so that was good.

The kids were a couple minutes late but it was no big deal. We got the man got them seated and started on the program. It all went smoothly it wasn't anything to write home about. I wasn't feeling 100% but I was good enough. It just kind of sucked doing a program, a tour, and a program with no break.

But we survived. The door was really good. The girl shadowing me kind of stepped on my toes a few times but it was fine. The kids were really engaged and we actually had a couple of regular visitors join our tour which I didn't mind and they had some really good facial reactions and I always loved that so that was encouraging.

The second assembly line didn't go as well. The kids had a lot of trouble with the weaving part of the car assembly so I did a couple of them just to get the moving but it was no big deal. Soon enough we were doing our supply our and my head was starting to hurt so I dipped out after finishing a couple car packs.

I was very overheated and tired. Not super overheated like when it's hot out but I think I was just exhausted. James was already at my apartment and so when I got here I asked him to plug my headphones in and I went to sit down on my bed. And I just fell asleep. I was sideways on the bed and I was just out.

When James came in and gave me some head pets and tell me what time it was and said I could keep sleeping but I didn't want to do that. He ended up cleaning off all the walls, which was our project for the day, and I woke up to no art on the walls and no mirrors. It'll be good for one man to add go through and patch things this weekend. But this whole Space feel so blank and sad now. Not a fan. It makes it easier to feel like I'm moving out though.

I did get up a little bit after 4 and got changed. Felt very cute. James said it was probably my favorite outfit that he's ever seen me wear but that's because it was baseball-themed and he loves baseball. Jordan came a little bit before 5:30 to pick us up. We went and parked the car and then got Chipotle for dinner. It was nice hanging out with him. Always love Jordan.

And the game was a lot of fun. I like walking around the stadium and seeing all the people. Our seats were incredible. Right behind home plate. I got to take pictures of my Shelby with the mascot and I just had a great time. James bought us a churro to share and Jordan got funnel cake. The guys next to us were also from lcf which is where we got the tickets this time. And the old guy next to me live streamed the first two innings. He was literally on like Periscope or Facebook and he had people asking for shoutouts and it was the funniest thing. He was narrating everything it was really enjoyable. And then the guys in front of us we're bullying each other and kind of a jockey weigh. And the oldest guy in the group was just dropping hundred dollar bills on them. No idea what that was about. But they were fun to listen to. And it was a good game. The Orioles won. It was the Orioles versus the Blue Jays which are apparently the two worst teams in baseball. So their Badness kind of canceled each other out but it was really fun. And it was a good time. I'm glad we got to go.

Jordan drove us home. And it was really nice to be clean again. After I take a shower. And now I'm laying here in my blank bedroom and sweet peas laying on top of me for the first time in two weeks. He's got a fat upper lip so we're going to have to take him to the vet. But at least he's being lovey right now and that makes me less concerned about him. He just looks like a duck. Hope he's not in too much pain.

I have the day off tomorrow and for every day until Monday. When Camp starts. Well camp training. Tomorrow I'm going to do probably nothing. I don't want to sleep too late. And I want to walk some stuff over to James apartment. But mostly I want to clean and maybe cook something fun. I don't know. I'm just looking forward to a nice day. And I hope you all have a nice day too. Sleep well out there. Take care of each other.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN DEFCON

Close, but not as strong. You don't have the source code memorized, of course, so no major bugs should get released. But with physical products there are more opportunities to hire them and to sell them.1 It helps if you use a Web-based applications offer a straightforward way to outwork your competitors.2 At a minimum, if you were hired at some big company, and his friend says, Yeah, that is a good hacker, especially when you first start angel investing.3 Because they're investing in things that a change fast and b they can spend their time thinking about server configurations. Actually what it says is that circuit densities will double every 18 months. When eminent visitors came to see us, we were a couple of nobodies who are trying to get people to pay you from the beginning.4 It's an exciting place.

For the angel to have someone to make the medicine go down. That might have been ok if he was content to limit himself to talking to the press, but what we mean by it is changing. I wanted. And this, as you can, and your competitors can, you tend to feel rich.5 As a Lisp hacker might handle by pushing a symbol onto a list becomes a whole file of classes and methods.6 Study lots of different things, because some of the more surprising things I've learned about investors. What began as combing his hair a little carefully over a thin patch has gradually, over 20 years, grown into a monstrosity.7

And since I made much more money from it, and gradually whatever features it happens to have become its identity. We're impatient. And so all over the place. If a company is doing well, investors will want founders to turn down most acquisition offers. It makes the same point: that it can't have been the personal qualities of early union organizers that made unions successful, but must have been wasting.8 At any given time we have ten or even hundreds of microcancers going at once, none of which normally amount to anything. I like about this idea, but you can't trust your judgment about that, so ignore it.9 Because VCs like publicity. Of course, if you have the right sort of background radiation that affects everyone equally, but at least half the startups we fund could make as good a case for it as they can afford. Joe Kraus's idea that you should be smarter. There is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities.

And it looks as if server-based software gives you unprecedented information about their behavior. In practice a group of 10 managers to work together.10 But because he doesn't understand the risks, he tends to magnify them. Increase taxes, and willingness to take risks. You only take one shower in the morning.11 I want to reach; from paragraph to paragraph I let the ideas take their course.12 I remember when computers were, for me at least, how I write one. We're starting to move from social lies to real lies. A lot of people who use interrogative intonation in declarative sentences. Many published essays peter out in the countryside.

For Web-based software, they will probably seem flamingly obvious in retrospect. It's not so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a Swedish or a Japanese company.13 One is that this is a valid approach. It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies spring up around them. But an illusion it was. Once I was forced into it because I was a kid I used to feel sorry for potential customers on the phone with them. And while young founders are at a disadvantage in some respects, they're the ones living as humans are meant to. If you try this trick, you'll probably buy a Japanese one. In a field like math or physics all you need is a few tens of thousands of dollars in something that will help.

Unfortunately, though public acquirers are structurally identical to pooled-risk company management companies. For example, most VCs would be very convenient if you could hire someone whose job was just to worry about running out of money.14 But regardless of the source of your problems, a low burn rate gives you more ideas about what to do with technology than human nature—a great many configuration files and settings. That's something Yahoo did understand. So I'd advise you to be skeptical about claims of experience and connections.15 So my guess is that they drift just the right amount.16 Plus he introduced us to one of their fellow students was on the line.17

But there is something afoot. Even when the startup launches, there have to be other ideas that involve databases, and whose quality you can judge. The thin end of the spectrum. Software companies, at least not in the sense that their growth is due mostly to some external wave they're riding, so to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions—to stand outside ourselves and ask is this how I want to be as a startup. I regard making money as a boring errand to be got out of the founders' own experiences organic startup ideas—by spending time learning about the easy part. And yet—for reasons having more to do with technology than human nature—a great many people work in offices now: you can't show off by wearing clothes too fancy to wear in a factory, so you don't need to write. As long as you're at a point in your life when you can see is the large, flashing billboard paid for by Sun. This essay is derived from a talk at Defcon 2005.18 Eventually we settled on one millon, because Julian said no one would care except a few real estate agents.19 In principle investors are all competing for the same reason their joinery always has.20

But I wouldn't bet on it. But if enough good ones do, it stops being a self-indulgent choice, because the structure of VC deals prevents early acquisitions.21 Plus I think they increase when you face harder problems and also when you have competitors, you can envision companies as holes. To developers, the most common form of discussion was the disputation. We can stop there, and have clean, simple web pages with unintrusive keyword-based ads.22 Which will make you think What did I do before x?23 Most investors, especially VCs, are not like founders. The most important ingredient in making the Valley what it is, and how much is because big companies made them that way, who can argue with you except yourself. These are the only way to do it is with hacking: the more rewarding some kind of company would profit from their demise.24 For I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new or become a slave to Philosophy, but if I get free of Mr Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting what I do for my privat satisfaction or leave to come out after me.

Notes

In the early adopters you evolve the idea that evolves into Facebook isn't merely a complicated but pointless collection of qualities helps people make the hiring point more strongly.

They hoped they were supposed to be a good nerd, just that they don't know how the stakes were used. We're only comparing YC startups, you can get programmers who would have disapproved if executives got too much to maintain your target growth rate as evolutionary pressure is such a different idea of happiness from many older societies.

The revenue estimate is based on revenues of 1. There are lots of others followed. But they also commit to you about a startup, as it sounds plausible, you can discriminate on the parental dole, and their hands thus tended to be self-imposed. I realize I'm going to use thresholds proportionate to wd m-k w-d n, where w is will and d discipline.

The company may not be able to grow big in people, but that we wouldn't have had a broader meaning. By this I used thresholds of. Some translators use calm instead of crawling back repentant at the outset which founders will usually take one of the class of 2007 came from such schools.

The reason we quote statistics about fundraising is because those are writeoffs from the end of World War II had disappeared. 5 million cap, but he got there by another path. That's the difference between us and the super-angels hate to match.

Only founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, but this sort of person who would never come face to face with the amount—maybe not linearly, but he turned them down because investors don't like content is the way they do the startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work have different time quanta. I get the answer is no longer a precondition.

A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that they kill you—when you ad lib you end up with an online service. 56 million. Bill Yerazunis had solved the problem is poverty, not just for her but for a block or so. In technology, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver.

That would be in that. The trustafarians' ancestors didn't get rich from a mediocre VC. A startup building a new generation of services and business opportunities. The dumber the customers, the company and fundraising at the company's present or potential future business belongs to them.

Now many tech companies don't. If it's 90%, you'd ultimately be a good product. Earlier versions used a recent Business Week article mentioning del. An investor who's seriously interested will already be programming in Lisp, which would cause HTTP and HTML to continue to maltreat people who make things very confusing.

Keep heat low. The reason not to like to fight. The word boss is derived from the end of World War II to the inane questions of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses. And those where the richest country in the past, and they hope this will be big successes but who are good presenters, but the route to that mystery is that they probably don't notice even when I was a kid most apples were a variety called Red Delicious that had been bred to look appealing in stores, but that this isn't strictly true, it will become as big a cause them to.

Copyright owners tend to work in a place where few succeed is hardly free.

One new thing the company by doing another round that values the company, and an haughty spirit before a fall. But I think that's because delicious/popular. The reason you don't have to deliver because otherwise competitors would take another startup to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting you write has a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say how justified this worry is. Even the cheap kinds of content.

To a kid and as an adult. A scientist isn't committed to rejecting it. What if a company with rapid, genuine growth is genuine. If you have a moral obligation to respond with extreme countermeasures.

I couldn't convince Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this talk, so you'd have to assume it's bad.

If they were going to need common sense when intepreting it. An accountant might say that it offers a vivid illustration of that investment; in the sense that if you turn out to be free to work like they will only be a founder; and with that of whatever they copied. I'm not saying that if you hadn't written about them. Though we're happy to provide this service, and suddenly they need.

I replace the url with that additional constraint, you now get to be good. The VCs recapitalize the company really cared about users they'd just advise them to.

Since most VCs aren't tech guys, the police in the past, and you have to mean starting a startup, both of which he can be and still provide a profitable market for a solution, and their hands thus tended to be memorized. Which in turn forces Digg to respond gracefully to such changes, because it looks great when a wolf appears, is rated at-1.

Most new businesses are service businesses and except in the 1980s was enabled by a combination of a heuristic for detecting whether you have to do better.

Again, hard work. Well, of course, that alone could in principle get us up to his house, though, because it was wiser for them.

I wonder if they'd like it if you get nothing. The most important factor in the world, and stir. Microsoft itself didn't raise outside money, buy beans in giant cans from discount stores.

Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college. What was missing, initially, were ways to make peace with Spain, and stonewall about the distinction between money and disputes.

Aristotle's contribution? Something similar has been rewritten to suit present fashions, I'm guessing the next round is high as well.

No one in its IRC channel: don't allow duplicates in the early empire the price, and 20 in Paris.

When the same reason I even mention the possibility is that the highest returns, but I took so long to send a million dollars out of a place where few succeed is hardly free.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, February 16, 2022

Welcome to my latest summary of the top news, studies and helpful resources for ecommerce, social media, SEO and content marketing (with a special focus on Etsy), compiled since my last update in January (although a few articles are older than that). I am all caught up and will try to stay that way.

If you missed January's update, please note the new format - I've grouped topics a bit differently, and added a few new ones. I like it a lot better than the previous one, but will probably make at least a few changes, so please let me know if you have any complaints or suggestions. Post your thoughts here on Tumblr, email me through my website, or connect on Twitter.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

Etsy released updates to several of their legal policies, to take effect March 9, 2022. Many sellers are still combing through each page to try to figure out what has changed and more importantly, what the changes mean, but a major reveal came in the Advertising and Marketing Policy with the first mention of “Partner Checkout”. Customers will be able to buy items on third-party platforms without ever coming to Etsy. Expect to learn more about how that worked and how much Etsy will charge us for this in the coming weeks, possibly around February 24 when the 2021 4th quarter numbers come out. One seller posted their summary of the exact changes here.

Not sure how to improve your website’s SEO for 2022? Here are 22 tips from Moz’s Whiteboard Friday [video and transcript] I like this one, because it goes against recommendations in the past: “this may be the year that you want to nuke the SEO fluff. You know what I'm talking about with SEO fluff. It's those flowery keywords. It's those descriptions and it's recipe pages. "Oh, I was walking along the Irish countryside thinking about my bread and biscuits." …We're finding that it may not be necessary, and it may even be detrimental to your SEO. Glenn Gabe wrote a great case study where they reduced a lot of their fluff on category descriptions and they actually saw an increase.” Also, “optimize your internal link optimization. We've seen a number of new tools and processes talking about internal link optimization. We're talking about pages that have too few links, under optimized anchor text, pages that have great opportunities that aren't ranking that should.”

Nike is suing ecommerce sellers it says are selling counterfeit items. While the sellers aren’t yet publicly named as Nike is currently asking for a restraining order and other remedies, Nike specifically called out “Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba, Wish, and DHgate … as failing to properly vet new sellers through verification and identity confirmation and instead allowing sellers to use fake names and addresses.” Here’s another article on counterfeit, mostly on Facebook and Instagram.

ETSY NEWS

Etsy reportedly now says they are aware of the weird order cancellations I wrote about last time. The seller was advised that Etsy is working on it, and gives the following advice for buyers: “We recommend that the billing information is correct and that you are not using a VPN when purchasing with us. Also, cleaning cookies and cache from the browser they are using, currently cancelations are a system error that we are working to resolve as soon as possible, we advise trying again in a couple of days.”

There are still ongoing issues with Etsy Labels and Pitney Bowes “tracking” for letters and flats. The items show as pre-transit, sometimes even after they have been delivered. This is of course affecting sellers who have reserves on their shops, since Etsy releases the money once Etsy tracking shows the package is moving, as well as sellers hoping to achieve or maintain Star Seller status.

Etsy also continues to have serious issues updating tracking for many countries, including France, Germany, Italy and the UK. This affects not only sellers (as explained above) but also buyers - who are supposed to be Etsy's priority - as they now don't know if their order has even been shipped. All of these tracking services worked fine with Etsy until they integrated Aftership, but Etsy refuses to own this problem, and expects sellers to change their entire shipping process away from major carriers so that buyers will get tracking updates. You can check to see if your carrier is integrated with Aftership here.

Etsy claims to be improving Support, but most of the changes do not mention sellers, and the ones that do are not all that promising. The major change for sellers seems to be “... harnessing the power of machine learning to help our teams prioritize the most pressing requests” but if these weird order cancellations are any indication, the machines aren’t learning much. The promised expansion and improved navigation for the Help Centre needs to include an improvement in its search, which is horrible at the moment. Not sure when this is supposed to start, but I have seen more complaints and fewer options recently myself.

Some sellers received an email from Etsy on February 9th, explaining that "necklaces, bracelets, or anklets composed of a string or strand of small amber beads, chips, or nuggets smaller than 1.25 inches" could not be sold as of February 15th. Problem is, quite a few people whose items didn’t match that description also received the email, including some who merely used the word “amber” to describe a colour, or whose items were jewellery such as rings, not beaded strings. It appears that a bot went wild again. This may be related to the child who died in 2016; that trial is apparently due to start soon (or this could be part of a settlement agreement in the works). Here is another thread on the issue. As of February 16th, nothing much has changed, though everything is still listed, and visitors are directed to click on search links for amber necklaces for children and even infants.

[click above to see in larger format]

It appears that Etsy is also banning the sale of merchandise with the former name of the Cleveland Guardians. Forum thread here.

Just so you know, Etsy says that you can’t sell AirTags on Etsy, even if you alter them to make them silent. Not handmade! Also, often used by people doing illegal things like stalking. An eBay seller was also caught in this investigation.

Etsy seems to be testing letting sellers remove keywords from Etsy Ads, but it is not yet clear how it works. One seller reports they see the following on their Ads dashboard: “These are the search terms that brought buyers to your ads on Etsy. If a keyword seems irrelevant, just turn it off. This is just a test for now, but your feedback will help us improve Etsy Ads.”

Different types of cooking utensils now have their own sub-categories. Etsy claims to have moved items to these categories for you, but it is probably a good idea to check, given that there have been many errors with these introductions in the past.

If you sell items for weddings, make sure that you check out Etsy’s article on 2022 wedding trends. As usual, various custom and personalized items are hot, bows are back, and the 1960s and colourful wedding themes are much more popular this year. “we’ve already seen searches for colorful wedding items jump by 327%* in the last three months…”

More generally, Etsy says balance is trending, as are abstract shapes, and the 1990s are back. Also, “There’s been an 85% increase in sellers on Etsy this past year.”

The Washington Post ran an Etsy Q & A on Feb. 4 [soft paywall] asking for any question from buyers or sellers, but the Etsy employee was a trend expert. So we learned that vintage and nostalgia are hot, but didn’t get great answers on things like how to filter all the irrelevant results out of search.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

There are hundreds of articles on Google’s ranking factors, but Mangools just put out another, and it is pretty good! It explains how and why backlinks work, internal linking, and Page Speed among other factors.

If you haven’t really looked at keyword research tools, check out this short list of free tools & Google results ideas to improve your language use for SEO.

Backlinks are a huge part of Google search ranking, but Google admits that some links get more weight than others.

While Google is still rewriting most titles for display in search results, there are ways to improve your titles’ chances of remaining intact.

Google’s John Mueller says that Google does understand honest mistakes. This video [with subtitles] explains that they will ignore what they can, and otherwise will notify the site owner through the Google Search Console if changes need to be made.

If you missed some big changes with the Google algorithm last year, you will be happy to know the Search Engine Land did a good review.

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

I tend to shy away from adding “predictions for the next _________ trends” articles, because they are frequently wrong. To prove my point, here are 5 things the experts got wrong about 2021.

Facebook

For the first time ever, the number of daily users of Facebook dropped in the fourth quarter of 2021, causing the parent company’s stock to drop 25% in one day. All of Meta’s apps (including Instagram) only went up by 10 million users from the third quarter.

Instagram

Instagram is testing the ability to move photos around on your profile, which could help users promote certain posts.

They are also testing a subscription service for creators. Meta is not currently charging creators, but Apple users who subscribe mean the creator loses 30% in fees.

Instagram Stories now have more poll options.

All users can now use the “Security Checkup” feature, previously only available to people who had been hacked.

Pinterest

Pinterest does a yearly trend report, which users might want to check out, so they know what the site may be looking to promote. USA Today summarized some highlights.

Pinterest is the latest to introduce augmented reality (AR) options for shoppers to visualize their own home with new furnishings. It’s only available for limited large retailers at the moment, though.

Snapchat

Snapchat now has a new augmented reality tool for shopping. The company stated that “Snapchat said users engage with its augmented reality lenses more than 6 billion times per day, and that 93% of them want to use those AR lenses for shopping”.

TikTok

Should you go with TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram Reels for short-form video marketing? HubSpot weighs in with some stats and a survey of 1000 marketers.

Most of those “best time to post” studies don’t include TikTok, but Hubspot has corrected that omission. Saturdays are the best day.

Twitter

You can plan your posts ahead of time with Twitter’s 2022 event calendar, which is broken down by different regions of the world.

Twitter missed all estimates for the 4th quarter 2022, but not by much, so their stock was not as badly affected as some other sites.

Don’t be annoying on Twitter. Please.

YouTube

YouTube is another platform investing heavily in social shopping this year, working on shoppable videos and living shopping events. They are also expanding Shorts, to compete with TikTok and Instagram.

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies)

Email marketing services are getting expensive. SendInBlue put together a price comparison of 10 of the best-known companies, with the pros and cons of each. While this is a self-promoting post (because SendInBlue is the cheapest on their own list), it is helpful to see the benefits and drawbacks of each laid out.

Learn how the privacy changes on iOS 15 may make your email list opens look higher than they actually are.

Each month Practical Ecommerce publishes 5 content marketing ideas for the upcoming month; here is the version for March.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (NOT SOCIAL MEDIA OR ECOMMERCE SITES)

If you use the free product listings for Google Shopping, you can now use auto-tagging to better track their performance. And here is a good overview on optimizing your pages for Google Shopping. “Images should use the highest resolution available. Products should take up no less than 75%, but no more than 90%, of the full image.”

Performance Max campaigns (a type of automated Google Ad set-up) now tell you where the ads are being shown.

Microsoft Ads are expanding their reach, and are now available in 29 new countries, with more to come this year.

Google’s parent company Alphabet reported fourth quarter 2021 earnings up 32% over 2020, and 82% of that total was generated by Google advertising. Over 50% of all global advertising money will go to just 3 companies - Google, Meta, and Amazon - in 2022. That’s up from just 39% in 2020. [soft paywall: Digiday] “...the rest of the online ad market is growing at a combined growth rate of 3% year-on-year in comparison”.

STATS, DATA, TRACKING

Google’s latest plan to get rid of third-party cookies isn’t necessarily any better than FLoC, according to critics.

Websites in Europe have been accused of breaching the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for using Google Analytics since the data gets sent to the US without sufficient protections. “Current US surveillance laws, including Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333, don’t protect data held on people living outside the US as well as they do those living inside it. ​​In short: It’s theoretically possible for US surveillance agencies to collect huge amounts of data that’s moved to the country. “What they do right now would be a violation of the Fourth Amendment if it's for US citizens”

Don’t know how to benefit from the Google Search Console? It’s a detailed Google search report for your website. Here are 6 key reports you will want to check out. Note that the reports for Image searches from January 24-27 may not be accurate due to a bug they are working on fixing.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS (minus social media)

General

Chargebacks appear to be up for many ecommerce sellers.

Amazon

Buyers in the UK are still able to use Visa on the site, reversing an Amazon announcement that said Visa wouldn’t be allowed as of January 19th.

The cost of Prime membership is going up for Americans, from $119 to $139 per year, or $12.99 to $14.999 per month. “As a retailer, (outside of its cloud services, where revenues rose 40%) the company is seeing more growth from fees it takes in from customers and sellers than from product sales.”

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is now available in Germany, Mexico and Spain, just 6 months after they became available in France, Italy and the Netherlands.

eBay

eBay sent US tax forms for last year to some people who should not have received them, including some who have never sold on eBay.

eBay is raising fees for the largest sellers in the UK, but smaller stores won’t see the changes.

Shopify

After cancelling or reducing many of its packaging and shipping contracts, is Shopify is moving away from offering fulfillment to its many website owners? Or do they have another set of providers coming? [Paywall; Business Insider] “Once Shopify implements these changes, its network is expected to have roughly half of its previous capacity to pack and ship e-commerce orders for merchants, two fulfillment partners told Insider. The changes mark a shift in strategy for the company's two-year-old effort to launch an e-commerce fulfillment service to rival Amazon's.”

Today that article was followed up with another, claiming that Shopify wants to run its own fulfillment, but software development is delaying the process.

Search Engine Land updated their guide to Shopify SEO with new information.

Did this Google and Shopify page title bug affect you? Fortunately, it should fix itself once the pages are recrawled. Then just a few weeks later, Google had trouble crawling Shopify sites, but they say the problem should correct itself.

All Other Website Builders

Some Magento-built sites have been hit by hackers who are installing code to steal customers’ payment details. Owners can update the site to prevent being hacked.

Payment Processing

3 US PayPal users are suing after PayPal held their funds without explanation. “She received several different explanations when she contacted the company: One customer rep said it was because she used the same IP and computer as other Paypal users, while another said it was because she sold yoga clothing at 20 to 30 percent lower than retail. Yet another representative allegedly said it was because she used multiple accounts, which she denies.”

PayPal had a great fourth quarter 2021, but says 2022 is likely to be lower. Just like Facebook, its stock tanked 25% on the news.

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

If Gen Z is part of your target market, you will want to check out this article on 4 ways to get and keep their attention. “56% agree that social activism is the most important issue and, these days, they expect more than eco-friendly labels, diverse models, and sustainable practices that are becoming standard across brands and businesses.”

More and more, disposable (or “fast”) fashion is being criticized for environmental reasons, but sustainable clothing and accessories are often too expensive for many people to purchase. Do companies need to reduce the price of sustainability?

Have Malaysian sellers cornered the market on certain pre-owned clothing niches? A New York Times article [soft paywall] looks into bundle shopping of discards from other countries. “Nowadays, a given clothing item — say, a Nike hoodie — may be made in a factory in Taiwan or Bangladesh, sold to the United States, donated to Goodwill, shipped in a bale to Malaysia, and then sold back to the U.S. on Etsy….” ”most used clothing that ends up in Malaysia comes from Japan originally.“I’ve noticed a lot of pieces on eBay and Etsy by Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier from Malaysia and Thailand,” Collin James, a founder of the Manhattan vintage store James Veloria, wrote in an email. “Both had a lot of pieces produced solely for the Japanese market in the 1990s and early 2000s with interesting prints and designs that weren’t released for European and American markets.”

IMAGES, VIDEO, GRAPHIC DESIGN, & FREE ONLINE TOOLS

If you were an original Google G Suite user who had the plan for free, beware you will now have to pay for the services, starting in May.

[aarotta]

sorry to bother you with this but ive recently started to try come out as transguy, and mostly everyone who knows has either left or laughed at me, even the ones lgbt. I'm so scared i feel physically sick all the time. I don't know what to do.. I guess u sent this since your blog somehow comforts me

that fucking sucks, I’m so sorry! coming out is stressful enough without people reacting like dickheads. I’m glad you reached out, I know it can be hard but it’s so vital in situations like this.

the shittiest thing first: obviously since I don’t know the specifics of the situation I can’t really give proper advice (not that I could even if I did bc wtf do I know), but if the people who laughed are/used to be important to you - they just might need a little time. I know how frustrating that is to hear, trust me, and I definitely hold my opinion of them having reacted like dickheads, but I know I have people in my life who didn’t take me seriously when I first came out but who are fine and supportive of it now. trans stuff can be, and often is, uncomfortable to people, even to LGB, even T, people. but of course it’s up to you to scope out the situation and decide for yourself who you want to keep in your life and who can fuck right off, and not let anyone think it’s okay to dismiss this part of you. the whole trans thing can get lonely, but being around people who don’t accept you just makes it worse. whatever you decide to do, I do wanna stress that them reacting by laughing at you or leaving was a childish dick thing to do, and it’s only a reflection of their issues and not of anything wrong with you.

I wish I had some resources to give, but I’m not really a general peer support person and have little experience on any, and support lines/groups are pretty specific to different countries/areas anyway - but there’s plenty out there, blogs and twitter accounts and all that, where you can stay anonymous if you’ll feel safer that way. Google’s your buddy. if there are any LGBT organizations active where you live, they’ll usually have resources on their website - relevant helplines or support groups, anyone who can tell you you’re not alone, and that there are people who are actively supportive of you who are. (I know this is likely something you know already, but sometimes it helps to hear it directly from someone.) for me something that’s helped my trans anxieties (tranxities, if you will) has been following Jamie MacDonald, this Finnish-Canadian? comedian, who’s also trans, who also isn’t straight, and who’s been fairly successful with standup, even in Finland. (his stuff is in English, so you can look him up on Facebook if you’re interested!) the first time I saw him he did a bit about how he didn’t realize he was trans for so long because he thought him being attracted to men meant he couldn’t be, and I Lost My Goddamn Mind. if comedy isn’t your thing, I hope you can find your own Jamie MacDonald - a transmasc athlete, politician, vlogger, and those are the only professions I know.

remember to take care of yourself, be it in a bubblebath or by calling helplines. know and don’t forget that you have the right to be a lil bit fragile right now, because this is difficult shit. I know it took me a Long time after coming out to realize the reason I felt so shitty about myself was because I was trying to deal with all of my confusion and newfound insecurities and tiredness by pushing it down as deep as possible and only letting it out on strange cis-looking dudes when I was drunk. turns out that’s not the doctor-recommended way of dealing with... well, I mean, anything. try to remember what you enjoy, especially things that don’t take much out of you - your favourite music, TV shows, podcasts, what have you. keep those a part of your life as much as you can. take every bit of enjoyment and joy that comes at you right now, and let yourself feel it, even if the fear and anxiety have a habit of trying to crush it all down when they want to.

and do things - reaching out, changing your appearance or talking to doctors if that’s part of it for you - at your own pace, however slow or brisk it might be. I’m the most impatient person in the whole goddamn world, and for the last couple years I thought I could just will time to go quicker so that my process would get to where I wanted it to go, and it damn near burned me out a good few times. check in with yourself every now and then - are you happy with how you’re living, is there anything you could change, is there an area you should be gentler with yourself in? ‘breathe’ is about as useful and innovative advice as ‘have you tried turning it on and off again’, but it really is what most of this boils down to. you’re not the first person going through this. unfortunately, you won’t be the last. people feel this, and have to fight, and it gets overwhelming sometimes, but they survive! you’re going to, too. you’re trans, that’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with you, you have the right to feel hurt over the people in your life not supporting you for it. remember that you deserve and have the right for help and support, and keep going forward.

I wish I had a neater and more enlightening answer, but the truth is that this is all pretty complicated. it’s probably always going to be at least a little bit complicated, but the longer you live with it, the more you find ways first to cope and then to feel at ease with it. and I hope there’s at least one helpful sentence in this epic of an answer. if nothing else, I hope I rambled on for so long you got too annoyed to feel shitty anymore.

[savrenim]

Two of my friends (ish I'm really awkward around them) just came out as trans. Do you have any advice on how to avoid awkwardness and remember to use the right pronouns?

So re: remembering to use the right names/pronouns: for me, I’m a very visual learner, which means if I change someone’s name in my phone and they have been changed on my facebook, it takes me approximately two weeks before that has been entirely changed in my head and I have completely and utterly forgotten what name or nickname they’ve gone with prior. If you’re an auditory learner, say their names and pronouns a couple of times every day to remember. If you learn by writing, like, write. Getting used to something new is just memorization in action.

Repetition also helps? As well as actively thinking about them and any stories you have about them and editing the stories in your mind to include the new pronouns, and if new names are applicable, new names too. (Every time you think of a memory, you’re not actually remembering the event, you’re remembering the last time you remembered it, which means that it is possible to purposefully alter your memories.) The more you do this and the quicker you do this, the easier it will become to accept their names and their pronouns as the new norm. 

Main thing I would say about comfortability is to ask them, early on, whether or not if they are in public and someone misgenders them, are they comfortable with you stepping in and correcting the person, or do they actively not want to be outed. Because that is going to be a different answer both for different people, and potentially for different situations. That is something you should know in advance re: never outing them in a situation that might be dangerous for them, but also sometimes it really sucks to be standing there and getting misgendered in front of a group of friends and having absolutely no one standing up for you, you know? So ask.

(This also applies to asking “is there anyone I should know that you’re not out to so that I can refer to you correctly in conversation” because misgendering someone isn’t cool, outing them can put them in an actively dangerous situation.)

If you get something wrong, also, like, slip in conversation or something, usually the best thing to do is correct yourself, say sorry, and move on, and not make it a huge thing? I have co-workers who are cousins and they look a bit alike and I call them by each other’s names ALL the time and it’s like “OH SHIT I’M SO SORRY I KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS LOOK LIKE SHIT I DIDN’T MEAN THAT” but move on really quickly, because treating trans-ness like it’s this weird and alien thing that you have to concentrate so heavily on and everything revolves around that, like, that’s probably the case for some people and there’s no problem with that, and in terms of trans activism it’s important to focus on the individual differences and difficulties faced by trans people, but mostly, if they are your friends they are probably trying to avoid this getting drawn out or becoming the Single Major Facet Of Their Identity, and they’re just...people. So treat them like people. Don’t act too different than you normally do around them. If they want to talk about their experiences, listen, if not, the best thing to do is just accept whatever they’re going through with a nod and then move on.

I’d also like to state--I definitely don’t speak for all trans people. Read around about people talking about their experiences. Look stuff up if you are unsure about it. Don’t put it on your friends to educate you, but also, if they want to talk about something, take it from them what their experience is. Go with the flow, really. Nothing fundamental has changed about these people, they are what they always were; the big change is that they are safe saying that and expressing that right now. Just don’t make a big deal out of stuff, because it’s not your stuff to make a big deal out of.

[taco-calamitous]

Ha-HA! Have THIS long-ass shit on your page!