#i have to read 500 pages i'll see how i manage

[baileys-3]

Secret Dating Era - New Chapter (#37) now online

Puuhhh ... what shall I say ... 50.000 klicks and over 1100 Kudos ... that is so surreal ... thanks for all of you.

We still have a long way to go :) I just finished chapter 43. Do you know how much words? I tell you: 225000 ... 500 pages ... I just don't believe it that I wrote 500 pages ... oh god.

Then thanks for every comment. I love love love comments :)

And the greatest and biggest Thanks to beta-reading queen @himynameiscookies

So then I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Sneak Peak:

Bailey arrives at work earlier than usual, mostly because John got called in for an emergency in the middle of the night. Which means, that she was alone this morning. And when she's alone, everything just goes a little faster. Despite her early start, it's late morning since she has a later shift today. She hasn't heard from John yet and doesn't know whether that's a good or a bad sign.

Her phone rings right before entering the fire station, and she sees John's name on the screen. Finally! She answers, but she can't manage to say a word as John launches into a tale that seems like it's straight out of a fantasy novel or something. Well, he's definitely taking the lead in the realm of unbelievable stories now. This round clearly goes to the LAPD.

She makes a deal with him that she'll try to come by on her lunch break when he's still at Shawn Memorial and bring food for the whole gang. John mentions that they might need to wait for a bit, considering there are numerous injured individuals, and they are relatively unscathed, except for Tim. He has been hit the hardest.

As expected, she spends her lunch break with John at the hospital. She finds everyone in the waiting area. Well, not quite everyone, she only meets John, Celina and Aaron. The rest is either receiving treatment or being examined. She gives John a quick hug and then they all dive in on the food she brought.

"Maybe you could give the food to the others before it gets cold. They're likely in one of the examination rooms, passing the time until a nurse is available to attend to them. You know how it goes. First, there's waiting... then more waiting... and finally, more waiting." John's assessment seems accurate.

"Yeah, I'll go and find them. It can't be that difficult." With that, she's already on her way with the remaining three bags in her hand. She likes John's colleagues. She likes them a lot. Somehow, they are all like a little family. John has told her all about everything that happened over the years, the drama, the trauma, everything. And that seems to have brought them all extremely close together. She loves spending her free time with Angela, Nyla and Lucy. John's rookie Celina has even slept over several nights and she has become close friends with her. They are not just work colleagues; they are family.

Bailey asks a nurse in which rooms the injured LAPD officers are being treated and whether she can bring them something to eat. The nurse says yes and points to three rooms with sliding doors at the far end of the corridor.

She approaches the first room, finding the door ajar. Peeking inside, she discovers it empty. Alright, on to the next room. As she nears it, she catches hushed voices engaged in conversation—no, not talking, more like whispering. She stops by the wall just outside the open sliding door. Well, that is an exaggeration; it's barely ajar. She isn't sure why she stopped; perhaps it's the quiet nature of their conversation, or maybe it's because she recognizes the voices, or possibly she just doesn't want to interrupt them.

The voices unmistakably belong to Lucy and Tim, although she can't hear exactly what they are saying. Opting not to interrupt, she chooses to wait until they finish their conversation. In general, it is considered impolite to interrupt a conversation between two individuals. So, she is leaning against the wall for a moment, she patiently listens. It doesn't take long before the voices fade.

Assuming that they are finished, she takes a step forward and reaches for the handle with the intention of entering the room. However, just before she does, she looks up again and stops in her tracks. She stands there, frozen in place peeking through the small slit that's not wide enough for her to enter and she refrains from sliding the door further. She can't believe her eyes. She closes and reopens them, blinking several times. She realizes that she is not imagining it; it's really happening. HOLY SHIT!

#chenford #lucy chen #the rookie #tim bradford #tim bradford x lucy chen #archive of our own #tim x lucy #chenford fanfic #chenford fic #chenfordsource #lucy tim fanfiction #lucy and tim #lucy x tim

[theressomethinghappeninginparis]

Guess what happened! You'll never guess. Ever.

I wished for one thing during my trip really, really hard and so hard it became a canon event. The only thing I didn't get was a warm chamber- the fire place exists, but is not lit. The company I wished for, you asked? Well, since it is not hostile, but DEAD, I guess that also counts as granted.

Call me nothing but a lucky bastard.

Transcript of the first and second page: I don't know how I ended up here, I just wished upon something, but this is where the pool and the rooms afterwards lead to. It's a moist, dusty and abandoned libarary and there are statues of knights all over the place. The flags of the LV are red with a yellow LV-logo on them, I have never seen this combination before. Some book shelves had axes and swords on top of them, draped on the wall.The shelves were covered in cobwebs, dust and felt like they hadn't been moved in forever, in centuries for sure. The books in there are barely movable.

The knights that wore just armor had spears and a coat on top of the upper armor. Obviously it's the LV armor they used in their meetings and secret order doings. Dusty but not rusty, you know. On the floor were two mummier, I swear I jerked when I saw them. They were in front of the stairs leading to a statue next to a cracked wall. They looked as if they were in a deep slumber- and had redently been awaken. They also wore Lux Veritatis prints on their armors and both were male. The order might really have been males only which inherit to their sons.

Transcript of the third and fourth page: I think this was the fire place? It has statues of two lions on top. It might be a reference to the Golden Lion on Eckhardt's diary pages. But he isn't a member of the Lux veritatis, maybe he just used this room as sort of a message? As a payback perhaps? He conquered the LV even in their libraries, yet they still exist to this day and fight him. He intruded into their chamber of knowledge, all their secrets and magic rituals. Too bad I cannot open a book, they are sticking so close together and if I manage to open it, I'm unable to understand the language. Someone please translate that if they can read an angelic alphabet...?

I wonder if Vasiley has ever been here. I know he has ties to the Lux Veritatis, yet I'm not sure if he's a blood-related member, an ex-member, just someone appropriating the order...? What if he really was a member of them. That would explain his death- such bloody and cruel murder is personal. It suits the Montrum killings, which had ties to Carvier, to von Croy, to the Obscura Paintings, to Lara Croft and Kurtis Trent. If Eckhardt really tried to wipe out the order, his enemy for the last 500 years, os he even done yet? Kurtis is alive, last time I checked, as far as I could...check.

Transcript of the fifth and sixth page: On the right side of the room was a table with a skeleton and a book, with a lit(!) candle: 1. someone died here and has been here for a while now. I guess he's an LV 2. That's the page Vasiley has a replicate of in his house! He has to be connected to the LV, no way this is not the case. 3. There's a castle at the top of the page. Is this a nephilim in the middle? I took photos to examine the pages better.

Here's a list of books on the shelves:

too many Latin books I cannot read

BUT I have some information on the two open book pages on the table. Seeing the picture with the Periapt Shards up close will be a lot more useful than a bad scan

I get this is an LV hideout, but Eckhardt is an alchemist. Would he just stay here and read stuff or wouldn't he have his own laboratory? At least that's what I would do. I'll search around a bit more, my company is dead and dead people don't move

I found something! There's a whole lot about the Black Alchemist's weapons! And I know it has to be Eckhardt. They know about him, too!

He exists, they exist, I'm on a ride!

Transcript of the eighth page: Here it is, finally, I got my hands on this book and could take a photo up close. Carvier would be jealous- it's such a pity what happened to her. I need to be looking forward. So: these knives were indead the Periapt Shards, I can distinguish the lion heads. The dude in the middle is not a dude, it has to be a lion. Which dies if it is stabed by the shards, hence the deflating expression. The quote below is the one Eckhardt used in his diary- the Golden Lion, bla bla, taking over the world, you get it. The symbols in the corners are weird and I can only assume what it is. A sleeping winged dog, a crow, a man holding two snakes and a winged beast with a human (?). The LV-logo above obviously triumphs over the evil lion, which has to be Eckhardt. Maybe even including his following, I've collected photos of theses people. Seems like their rivalry has been going on for forever until someone- the last Lux Veritatis or the last Nephilim/Eckhardt dies.

Transcript of the tenth page: Castle Bouzor, here we go again! That's the castle I had been looking into, the one I had contacted. This thing in the middle has elongated arms and legs, I think that's supposed to be a nephilim. Especially with the figure in the right lower corner, I think that's a human being in its regular size as a comparison. Maybe the nephilim isn't crucified, but rather sinking...down? Down to earth? The texts about nephili taking over the world weren't particularly kind and low on violence. The text in the lower corner is another written in an angelic alphabet, something I haven't learned yet and I assume I never will unless I decide to make a pact with them. I doubt I ever will do that...I think the pages were to be read left-right. So on the left side we see what humanity will be threatened by if nothing happens, and the right page shows how to avoid doomsday- the Shards that kill evil. They're parts of a talisman, I wonder what happens if you put them together?

I still have some books to go through and pictures to take photos of and hoping my film will not run out, otherwise I'd have to start drawing whatever I see.

I have noticed however that there is no real way out of here. The way I came from is open and I guess I won't die out of thirst, but other than that I haven't seen a door. Maybe there's a secret switch or something? I have something to do after taking all these notes. Maybe I'll wish for something again, or...maybe I shouldn't try my luck.

#angel of darkness #journal #tomb raider #traod #tomb raider angel of darkness #tomb raider series #aod #classic tr #lara croft #classic tomb raider

[pr0ng3ls]

So weird thing I'm chatting about right now, I have an Etsy! Or, well had.

At the current moment my page is down, why? Lots of fun real life problems ;o;! The most prominent being the fact that my ability to get packages sent out has been horrendous, I think its because the packages are so small and bland looking that they just easily get lost in the mail. So, as of the last few months stuff has just seemed to be stacking up.

If you wish to read more, everything is under the cut including some behind the scenes in recent developments.

So I'm just gonna be 100% transparent about all the reasons my shop has been down:

•My wrist has been getting Really bad, I've had to purchase a wrist brace just to function with my right hand, it hasn't been fun.

•My dad and So managed to both have a hospital visit within a month. My dad had 2 serious viruses (idk the name of them. Funny enough one you can only get on cruises while the other was a simple fungal infection of the throat), while my SO had hydroplaned on his way home from work one morning and crashed into a tree, he had came out amazingly well, with just a few scrapes, bruises, and a pulled shoulder. Scary thing about it was maybe 10 ft away was a large irrigation ditch that would have easily swallowed and flooded his car.

•Depression and ED had a pretty solid hold on me, I was left with unfulfilled orders and by the time I would wake up the next day the post office was already closed. This was going on for a few months, all orders that were not fulfilled were fully refunded.

•My products are just not getting to me. I've been waiting on our old housemate to send me the rest of my Sakura enamel pins, this was back in... Feb? March? Just after we moved.

•Many if not all of my designs just don't sit right with me anymore. I still like them, but they need a heavy dose of updating to better suit what I have planned for them. At the current moment I'm experimenting with a new hand heart design for the characters. I will exsplain this further bellow.

•The last reason is income has been very strained because of the reasons above. For the past 3 years I've personally been doing my best to aquire a stable job, but oh boy has that not been fun. I'll be honest when I say I've applied to just about every job I was able bodied and skilled to do in my old home town, employers just don't want to hire and its been making it quite difficult to focus on my etsy store because of this.

Now, I have been working on the Etsy page off on the side for the past few weeks. I've been making a new banner, icon, I've got certain things lined up and will probably have my shop remained closed for a while till I have everything figured out.

Bellow is my current lineup on how I've been overhauling the etsy page:

This has been the best way I can organize everything I've got. Now, I was going to have the Sunflower Sun Sticker checked off but unfortunately I ordered 10 beta Keychain instead of 10 beta Stickers cause my ability to comprehend words is a little... Lack Luster. But again if I decide I like the Keychain, Ill keep the design idea!

Bellow is a comparison of Sunny's old desigm and the new one!

As you can see there is a HUGE difference between the two designs now. Which I'm quite proud of actually, I'm thinking after I get my Keychains in I'll do a giveaway with them so 9 lucky people can have the design before I even properly sell it which may be months from now.

Things I don't have written down are holiday exclusive designs which I'll be selling on my Kofi later down the road till I can get settled. These will only be sticker designs atm.

Any and all inputs are welcomed at this point as I've been slowly working up a new stock, waiting until I hit a 500 count on each item before I decide its time to reopen the shop, its alot but its something I just feel I need to do.

#etsyshop #etsy #advice #etsy shop #pronglez blabber #pronglez #pronglezartz #man this post made me nervous #glad to be back #rambles #fnaf sun #might post the hands later idk #yeah I'll do it whateves

[dixiechloesblog]

DIXIE CHLOE GAJWAYEN

Grade 11 Stem- Elijah

BLOG

>How would you introduce yourself to the blogging community? Be creative! (at least 500 words)

A blog is a type of website. It is usually maintained by an individual and will have regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

The word “blogging” means maintaining or adding content to a blog. People blog for many reasons. Blogs may provide commentary or news on a particular subject while others are like personal online diaries. In most cases, a blog includes text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs have an interactive format to leavecomments.

Some blogs may focus on art (art log), photographs (photo blog), sketches (sketch blog), videos (v log), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Micro blogging is another type of blogging. It features blogs with very short posts.

The personal blog is the most common kind of blog. Personal bloggers spend a lot of time on their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by others. Blogs offer a means to reflect on life or works of art. Few personal blogs gain widespread fame and attention but some personal blogs do manage to win a good following.

Micro blogging seeks to capture a moment in time. Sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family. It is much faster than e-mailing or writing. This form of social media is very popular with an online generation which is too strapped for time to keep in touch.

There are corporate blogs as well which are maintained for business purposes. Such blogs are either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes. Question blogging is a kind of blog that answers questions.

Blogs may focus on particular subjects, giving rise to political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (also referred to as blows) or dream logs. A blog used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Sp log but it is not a legitimate one.

There are many, online communities that connect people to blogs and bloggers to other bloggers. Some of these are Blog Catalog, My Blog Log, and YUL BIog. Many blogs also carry advertisements which financially benefit the blogger or promote the blogger’s favourite causes. Blogs have become so popular that they have led to the rise of “fake blogs”. In such blogs, a company may create a fictional blog as a marketing tool to promote its products.

>Answer the following:

1. Where do I see myself 10 years from now? Was my learning in SPUP vital to where I'm leading to?

10 years from now I see myself as a successful Engineer in our town. To become an Engineer is my ultimate dream since I was a little girl. To build different structures at different places where I can apply all my skills and knowledge. I am proudly believe that this prestigious institution will lead me to my future profession and will nurture me with the necessary knowledge and experiences that I will need towards my career.

2. Was STEM the best choice after all?

Yes, STEM is my best choice since I want to pursue Engineering course when I'll be in College. I believe this strand will be my preparatory stage to know what mathematics, science and technology really is. It will be our guide to understand the different branches and perspective that can introduce us to the world of our future profession.

3. What course will you take in College and why?

When I graduate in Senior Highschool, I will take Bachelor of Science in Engineering at College. This course is what I am dreaming of since I was a child. I think it is amazing course where you can build different structures using your knowledge and skills. Honestly, to become an engineer is a hard battle, but when you have self- determination, make a big efforts and sacrifices I believe nothing is impossible. Just focus on your goal and continously pray for God's guidance, peace and wisdom.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update

[prev]

I put this off by a day so I could include another book on the "finished" list, and oh my GOD it was so good and I'm so excited to gush about it, so let's gooooo:

what have I been reading?

Starsoul (C.L. Polk) - what a DELIGHTFUL end to a series!! like Witchmark and Stormsong, it filled me with warm fuzzy feelings AND socialist rage! and I'm only a little miffed that [spoilers] we never got to see a certain promised wedding. C.L. Polk is tremendous, go read all their shit immediately.

The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love [Second Edition] (Sonya Renee Taylor) - glad I read it! been on the list for a LONG time! do not actually remember a TON of things about it now that it's been a few weeks! but I'm sure it's doing a lot of really positive work for a lot of people, yeehaw!

Kink (edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell) - okay, so. I made a point of reading this pretty quickly after it came out because so many people were harassing Kwon and Greenwell about it on twitter and I HAD to know what the hype was about, and it's... an impeccably well-curated collection of short stories, I'll give it that. the tone is pretty dang consistent throughout, and there are some real standouts - Brandon Taylor and Vanessa Clark's contributions come to mind. overall, though? man, these are some stories about sex that manage to never actually get very sexy. I don't want your literary prose, man, I want to intellectually nut.

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights (Molly Smith and Juno Mac) - this is hands down one of my FAVORITE books I've read this year. absolutely rock solid work, a great breakdown of various models of criminalization and legalization of sex work around the world and how it impacts the workers - written by actual sex workers. I feel like I really LEARNED reading this book, and I'm delighted. if you only read one nonfiction book this year make it this one.

Skin Folk (Nalo Hopkinson) - this collection didn't quite capture the delight I felt reading Falling In Love With Hominids, but the bright spots are absolutely radiant. special mention goes to "Fisherman," which offered up more tasteful smut in a single short story than the entirety of Kink.

The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - oh holy shit holy fuck you guys this was SO FUN, I love big sweeping fantasies so much!! I'm so excited to read the sequels!! Nahri and Ali are both delightful, the world is DECADENT, and the political intrigue is sumptuous. this is exactly the kind of shit I want in a doorstopper fantasy. can't believe Nahri and Dara managed to over 500 pages without boning but there's always hope for the sequel.

what am I reading now?

Book of Hours (Kevin Young) - okay, listen, we've established that I'm not good at reading poetry. but this one has a narrative so clear and coherent that even a dummy like me can pick up on it, and that's helping a lot!

what did I grab from the library to read while I hang out with my mom for two weeks?

Red at the Bone (Jacqueline Woodson) - Woodson is one of my favorite children's/middle readers authors in the entire world, and I'm super jazzed to read more of her adult fiction!

Children of Vengeance and Virtue (Tomi Adeyemi) - yes it's been more than two years since I read Children of Blood and Bone but I'm sure that it'll be fine!

Living a Feminist Life (Sara Ahmed) - this is another one that's been on my to-read list FOREVER, largely because of Ahmed's Feminist Killjoy work. can't go home without something academic to read so I can pretend my brain isn't in full vacation rot, etc.

#bookblr #reading updates

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2021 - May*

I had a very patchy reading month, some days I read loads in one go and finished two books in as many days. Other times I was reading the same book for ages (looking at you Persuasion!) Reflecting on this, I probably should write separate reviews for some books in future...

Villette by Charlotte Brontë - I've made no secret that I absolutely despise this book. To date it's perhaps the book I hate the most... I could quite happily burn my copy and I don't say that kind of thing lightly. If you're interested I've written a full review here because it's too long to summaries here.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - In a complete turn around I really liked this book, I won't say love because it wasn't perfect but I do think it's worth the praise it has. I will admit my love of this could be due to my new found utter hatred for Charlotte Brontë, but I do think it's genuinely fabulous.

I loved how Rhys gave Bertha Mason, Antoinette Cosway, a voice of her own. A flawed quite voice because she's never really given the chance to define herself, but it is a voice nonetheless! And she uses Antoinette's liminal place in the world - both of the Caribbean and not, and of Europe and not - to explore the conflicts in both race, power, and identity that torments the emancipated Caribbean of the 1830s. Antoinette gives us a wonderful insight into this world that is seemingly a dream but in reality is a nightmare full of hatred and needless violence. No one wants to move on from the horrendous history of the slave trade to build something new. Instead the cycle of hatred and abuse is maintained by everyone until no one is free of it. All of this means Antoinette is cast out with no home or real identity to call her own, she never finds out who she is or where she belongs. No one gives her the opportunity to do so. We almost see it in the unnamed Mr Rochester - they could have been happy together, if it wasn't for the hatred that inhabits everyone in this story.

I loved how Rhys used this backdrop and theme to explore whether Bertha Mason is really mad and, if so, what made her so. It was a fascinating character study of a woman who otherwise might as well be a faceless monster. The similarities between Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway are pronounced but Jane was allowed to form her acceptable identity as a white English woman, with all the privileges that brings, whilst Antoinette was stripped of everything, including her own name, and locked away in shame.

My one criticism for this book is that it wasn't enough. It needed to go bigger with the disorientation - by the end of part three I was expecting to come out of this story in a haze, as if I'd lost my own grip on reality... It just didn't do this, sadly. The language wasn't quite weird enough to cause that disorientation and really bring the reader into Antoinette's mind as she started to lose herself. It's a minor thing really, but I think it would have really helped develop Rhys' themes that one step further and turn a good book into an excellent one.

Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay - I have a complicated history with this book, I've DNDed it twice in the last year or so but managed to finish it third time around. It is a fantastic book, full of excellent world building based on the Byzantine Empire, some wonderful characters, and stunning writing - Kay has a truly beautiful style.

However, there are some flaws: Crispin, his family, and the chapter lengths. I really disliked Crispin, our protagonist... I’ve met far too many men like Crispin in my life and I just don't like them. It's on me and I do think Crispin is a well drawn character, but we wouldn't get on and there is A LOT of time we spend just in his head and I didn't love that, especially in part one.

To be honest Crispin and I would have got in a bit better than we did if it wasn't for not one, but THREE women dying OFF PAGE to give Crispin some character development. His wife and daughters had died before the start of the novel from a plague and, of course, he's angsty about it before learning to continue living his life... This could have been done in ANY other way and I wouldn't have minded but three women dying to serve a man's character arc is something I'm tired of and have a very low tolerance for.

I also think the book needed some better organisation. 10 chapters in a 500+ page book is not enough. I think this is a large part of why I struggled to get into this book and it just needed a few more. It became a chore to read a times because I'd be reading for 70 pages just to finish a chapter! It's a minor issue and, again, very personal to me but I genuinely think chapters longer than 30 pages are too much unless it's a major sequence such as a battle.

These are very personal flaws though and I did enjoy the book as a whole! The prologue is possibly the best opening sequence I've ever read in a fantasy novel in terms of creating characters, establishing tone, and the sheer power of worldbuilding. It was astonishingly well done and I'm still in awe of what Kay achieved. If you like slow, world and character driven novels then I'd definitely recommend it, though if you're starting with Kay maybe try Tigana first.

Persuasion by Jane Austen - I've already written about Persuasion last year. This was a reread and I regret spending the time on it, my opinion hasn't changed and it's time to just admit I dislike this one.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson - I'm going to write about this one separately as this is already ludicrously long. Needless to say I loved it, Sanderson is the King of modern fantasy, and Stormlight is my favourite in the works fantasy series. I'll link the separate review here when I've had time to write it.

*I'm not proofreading this, sorry but I don't have the time!

#books #reading #bookblr #mini reviews #sort of #may reading #may wrap up #books of 2021

[littleeyesofpallas]

Was chatting with a coworker the other day and two things crossed my mind...

that I've been at this weeb shit so long that I forget what I just sort of take for granted and what might not be commonly known little factoids, and

that VIZ's attempt at a monthly Shonen Jump magazine has been gone so long most people probably never saw them. (nevermind the old RAIJIN Graphic Novels that tried the same thing)

So, here's some fun little things you might not have known about manga if you've only ever read English publications and/or digital scans...

For one, there's the matter of print formatting... In general, Japan actually uses their own standards for print that tend to differ from those in the US; The JIS(Japanese Industrial Standards) series A and B. Magazines like the typical anthology format manga are printed in JIS B5, which is comparable to the US Letter standard, or the ISO A4.

This was the same format that RAIJIN Comics printed in as well, and although I don't have a copy of the old English Shonen Jump for reference, if memory serves they printed in the same format as well in an attempt to really sell that "authentic" manga feel. Sadly, I don't know that the effort or attention to detail was much appreciated. Neither published a volume comparable to a Japanese weekly or even monthly serial magazine, though --not by a long shot. But this might not be the most practical for comparrison, since there actually just isn't much of an English language equivalent format. (unless you count actual magazines that happen to include comic illustrations or miniscule comic strip segments)

Despite the mammoth size of a serial magazine, Japanese tankoban are actually smaller than the North American equivalent. But notably the Japanese small book format isn't just a matter of contending with nearest print standards... What I believe is the JIS B40(although I could be wrong) tends to be the standard print size of small books in general, not just manga, and it's a print size that is only marginally smaller than VIZ's standard size manga, but with the very particular benefit of being deliberately portable. The small difference in size is the difference between a Japanese manga fitting in my coat pocket where as the English equivalent can't.

(I realize I photographed a copy of Shonen ACE, and not Weekly JUMP, but I measured a copy of Weekly JUMP for the thickness and not the copy of ACE; the copy of JUMP was around 506pg, while the copy of ACE was 570pg. Those are both older though, and the most recent digital copy i have of Weekly JUMP actually had around 520pg)

And I don't think it's always addressed just what a difference there is, culturally, in how Japan approaches the print medium. It's kind of an old cliche by this point, and I don't know how accurate it's remained in the past decade or so, but the quintessential image passed around between comic nerds has always been the Japanese bullet train; A place packed with commuters all passing their transit time with isolated preoccupation with music and/or reading, with manga being the king of this time killing arena. And its not just about sheer popularity driven by interest, American comic vendors have long envied the sheer accessibility of manga in Japan.

Here in the U.S. we used to have a thriving newsstand retail scene for comic books, and a kind of similar ease of grab and go comic purchase, rather than the explicitly niche interest driven "direct market" model that has been slowly but surly strangling the comic market ever since. But in Japan serialized manga has remained in relatively quick, impulse friendly, arm's reach of readers on the go. And what lubricates that business model more than anything is price.

I still remember a time when VIZ dominated the English manga market by offering at $7.95(and am I crazy or am I remembering a time when it got down to $6.99?) but now'days it's settled on a low end of $9.99. You know how much the recent vol.29 of My Hero Academia goes for? ¥484. That's less than $4.50.

You know how much that big ass magazine with 500+ pages and 21 different series goes for? Do you think it's more or less than the little pocket-size tankoban? Did you guess something close to ¥290? That's less than $2.75. But how does something bigger in both page size and page count managed to sell for less???

There are a few secrets to that, but one is that the things are packed to the gills with ads. But that's the boring answer. The other feature contributing to keeping an accessible cost on weekly/monthly manga is something we don't think about much in the U.S.; it's the paper and print quality.

The nice little books are printed in what you might expect as far as starch white paper and clean black inks, but those big honkin' phone book(do people still know what phonebooks look like??) size magazines are printed on cheap recycled pulpy newpaper with typically rough print jobs. This is most noticeable in the quality of solid blacks, and when scanning the texture of "white" space.

(I tried to take individual photos of different series chapters to show off the fact that the paper is differently colored... but my phone's camera seems to be smart enough to auto balance that kind of thing when there's no other context to anchor it to. (It doesn't help that it's night and my lights have a harsh yellowing glow to them.) but on th left you can still kind of see the different paper colors; this particular issue alternated every 3 chapters between pink-ish, green/gray, a kind of off-white/gray, and sepia, but I've also seen blue-ish, oranges, and a different shade of yellow different from the sepia-ish one.)

Back in ye olden days when it came to fan scanlations, more slapdash teams and projects would often stumble over levels in photoshop (too much black and the pulpy paper texture shows up as grainy shadows, but too far white and the edges of lineart get crunchy and ugly) but those who had more robust readership and a regular streamlined flow of work, we'd actually go in and touch up the solid blacks and whites by hand. We'd also redraw art to erase overlaid text so the type setters could lay the new English in over top.

(Weekly Jump: Left, Bleach tankoban: Right)

They do however keep a few coveted color pages in better quality paper and ink. In contrast, the standard quality tankoban actually don't include color pages at all, and just print what had been color pages in grayscale. There are also all kind of irregularities between publishers and special editions and such, but on the most basic level this difference in quality both keeps serial prices down, while also incentivizing tankoban purchase.

In the U.S. we might still have the draw of an ad-free reading experience in our TPB, but the print quality between a biweekly issue and a TPB are basically the same. Incidentally, even though manga are generally drafted at a much larger scale than even the serial magazine proportions anyway, the scaled down size of the tankoban also serves to sharpen the image. When put side by side the nice clean tankoban print looks noticeably better than the serial.

Now'days the English scanlation scene seems to be conducted almost entirely through ripped digital releases (at least as far as I can tell with popular, regular weekly titles) which is great for quality, frankly, but it does kind of lack the charm and personal touch of a band of amateurs finding round about solutions to a convoluted bootlegging pipeline. But obviously I'm a little biased.

[edit]: Oops i posted this without really ending it in any sensible ro conclusive way... I feel like ive lost sight of the point since i first drafted this but I guess its mostly just me pining after if we could just get super cheap, disposable quality, bulk manga in that classic Japanese magazine model to work here in the states. I already tend to sell manga in big runs, even at $9.99+, and frequently I'll have customers put volumes back, or clearly want the next volume but just can't afford it and wait to come back. If I could sell these customers more volumes, and more importantly more titles, at the same price, I would love to. I would love to see these things fly off the shelves. I would love to see people keeping up with multiple series. I would love to see someone look at a 44vol long series and actually feel like that's a number of volumes they can afford.

[kathyreviewsbooks]

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Rating: 5/5

Summary: This story follows the Eastwood sisters in the year 1893. The sisters were once close, but splintered apart and estranged for many years, suffering at the hands of their abusive father. However fate or destiny or something drew them together once more at a suffragette rally at St George's Square in New Salem. They each know that witching used to exist, once upon a time, but it has long since faded into simple charms or nursery rhymes. It is a time where the power of the history of witches and witchcraft has been diminished. The sisters now look to transform the women's rally into something more, into something to bring back witching. Perhaps along the way to also heal the broken bonds between them. There's no such thing as witches anymore but the sisters will make sure there is and will continue being for a time to come.

Review: This book is 500+ pages long and yet I never once felt the length of it. The acing was perfect, it sucked me in and made sure to keep me reading. I was hooked right from the first chapter and I never lost interest in the story. It had me wanting more and more. The plot twist was amazingly written and I definitely didn't see it coming. Harrow did such if great job of amazing me, of surprising me.

The three main characters each felt different. They each had their strengths and their flaws. They felt real because Harrow didn't try to make them perfect. Harrow made sure to have us rooting for them but also seeing that they could fail, that they could be wrong. That their failings had consequences, that is what makes a character great. Once a character fails you root for them to fix things and these characters do fix things but harrow shows that sometimes not everything can be fixed thoroughly that splinters will always remain.

Trigger warning for abuse here. Harrow did such a great job of showing how long lasting the effects of abuse can be. How it never fully leaves you, but how you can push through it and become a powerful person the person that was always hiding inside of you. I haven't read many books that show people struggling throughout the whole book what effects abuse leaves on you. Especially not ones that show how it remains even after years of being away from it. This books did duch a great job of showing it.

Let's talk about the world building now shall we? The world building is so amazing. Books that truly invest time in their world building will always have my heart. Harrow packs so much world building into this back yet it doesn't feel overwhelming because it isn't given to you all at once. It's sprinkles throughout the story at exactly the correct times. It's exactly the same with the magic.

Magic or witching as it's called in the book, is handled wonderfully. It's not given to you in big grand gestures. In beautiful displays but in small simple one. Simple ones that make you see how with ingenuity women have hidden witching. How they have managed to keep it alive through simple gestures. Here in this book, magic is handed down through legacies but things are lost and women have had to learn how to make it work despite what they're missing. "witchcraft isn’t one thing but many things, all the ways and words women have found to wreak their wills on the world.”

Now let's talk about the lgbtqia+ aspects of this book. There is transgender representation and wlw representation. Harrow shows how the woman have to hide it due to the era they live in. How even siblings have their questions on it. However, she shows how it can be done and how people have hidden it but still lived as happy as they can.

In conclusion, this book is definitely one I'll be rereading. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a god story involving witches, for those looking for a story of vengeance but also one of coming together. For those who want to be sucked into a world entirely unique.

Rep: wlw, black characters, suffragette movement, disability,

Content Warnings: Violence, forced confinement, torture, kidnapping, physical and verbal abuse, homophobia.

#book reviews #book tumblr #books #kathyreviewsbooks #bookish #bookworm #book reviewer #the once and future witches #alix e. harrow

[woozi]

YZAAAAAA LOVE~~~

lucky for us we r both equally obsessed w each other, who's doing it like us.

i think you've been busy lately? good luck w everything wifey! you got this!

and yeah i'm gonna retake the chem exam this coming may-jun (when the next series runs). this means i've got 9 instead of 8 fdgdfsldfs but it is what it is. my friend (she's such a genius omg) has 10 bc she's retaking chem and physics (BIG BRAIN SHIT) and i do not envy her omg.

ALSO YES OMG all books in series should have like a synopsis of everything that's happened so far before the prologue or smth. authors are you seeing this. important tip.

aww thank you for the ring <33 at this point i think we've exchanged a million - and we'll exchange a million more, methinks.

ILY YZAAAAA

- honey <33

my honeyyyyy, i'm so sorry for getting to this so late 😭 uni has absolutely been whooping my ass fdjkfdjkjfdk

ALSO HOW DID U KNOW I'VE BEEN BUSY FJDFKJJK in ur defense when i'm not busy im on here like 24/7 so 😭

ALSO NAURRRRR i hope u get to manage ur time v well so that u can sufficiently prepare for all of the exams!! and idk how, but if theres anything i can help u w (even outside of school) just lmk i got u <3333

RIGHT????????? please dont make me read like 500 pages again just to jog my memory fdkjfjkfd

i'll exchange rings w u until this goddamn hellsite burns down my love <33 i hope ure taking care of urself!! ily stay safe always 🥰🥰

#honey 🐝 #👀👜 anon #anon #y.ask

[fapangel]

199 chars, I got cites. I'll stick to actions and militia/cult behavior. The sniper attack on power station citation is you missing my point. Antifa has no weapon stockpiles or military training. The groups law enforcement see as a threat are the militias: "Law Enforcement Assessment of the Violent Extremist Threat". PBS: "armed militia groups surging across nation" Cult stuff: Business Insider:"right-wing-militias-recruit-young-soldiers-on-4chan-2017-5" psychologytoday:"the mind the militias".

Firstoff, pastebin.com is definitely the go-to for things like this -there’s no way anyone can make a cohesive argument in that tiny askbox. Just say “pastebin: and it’ll get you past that “no URLs”filter tumblr imposes. But I can answer these points/sources here: 

Have you heard of the John Brown club? They’rean antifa group - the usual insane anarchists - and they’re showingup at protests carrying loaded weapons. The Phoenix group inthat article made a video of themselves doingrange practice. I believe that qualifies as training, youknow, with those weapons you say they don’t have.What fucking training do you think the right-wingmilitias have besides target shooting and playing paintball in thewoods? In other words, exactly what these people are doing? 

And what the fuck do you mean stockpiles? Bro,I don’t know if you’re aware, but we live in America - you know,that free country? If you want a gun, are over 21,and don’t have a felony conviction on your record, you can walkinto any store, do 5 minutes of paperwork, wait for them to call theFBI background-check database and walk out with a new long gun. It’sthat fuckin simple. And they’re not that expensive either, you canget a decentAR-15 pattern rifle for under $500, easily. Same for ammo -you can easily buy bulk, online. The only state where both of thoseare harder is California, and I imagine that suits the huge mobs ofclub-armed antifa cunts just fine, because semi-auto firearms with large reloadable magazines are the best way to counter thugs that badly outnumber you. Stockpiles? That crazy fuck that shot the hell out of a US Representative and two Capitol police officers was using an SKS, a fucking WWII era Soviet rifle that loads from the top with fucking stripper clips. And look how much damage he did - it’s only pure dumb luck that nobody was killed or mortally wounded. 

... stockpiles?  Just how much do you know about guns? Here’s what I found in literally five goddamned seconds on ammoseek.com - you got $290, a credit card, and a shipping address? There you go, a thousand goddamned rounds of .223 Remington. Want two thousand? Three? Change the number in the “quantity” box.

Stockpiles? 

Anyway, I’m not surprised that PBS and pals are back at their fake news, doing their damnedest to gin up right-wing militias as the real threat even as they reply to attack after violent attack by radical Islamists with hey - not all Muslims! Yes, that is the trend; witness this Atlantic article trying to justify it.  But that’s beside the point. For starters, if you haven’t read my 6,500 word post on left wing vs right wing violence and violent rhetoric, I go into some depth with the whole militia thing there. For all their LARPing in the woods, swaggering and shit-talking, there hasn’t been any significant violence committed by right-wing militias since... forever, considering that Timothy McVeigh was never really part of one - and his attack was twenty-two years ago. Moreover, I cover how his attack - and the attention it drew to the militia movement - sent anywhere from “2/3rds” to “80%” (according to two different militia-affiliated folks being interviewed) scrambling away from them at high speed. Protip - actual terrorist organizations tend to attract attention when they manage huge, spectacular attacks - you know, like how Black Lives Matter is still going strong after multiple ambush attacks on cops? Gee. 

And that brings us to the essential point -  if these militias are really dangerous, and not just a bunch of shit-talking LARPers playing soldier in the woods - then where’s the violence? Again, as I document in that post, the only “cells” they find are a few shitheads talking shit in a bar too close to an FBI informant that eggs them on - one of them even gave them free automatic rifles to shoot, to get them all excited. 

As for this study, it’s a start, but this paper freely and breezily equates “anti-government extremism” with “right-wing extremism,” and that’s a false equivalency - because Antifa are anarcho-communists. Just read their handy-dandy guide to setting up an antifa group, where they call the state their enemy multiple times - as well as cops. Shit, they have a whole section on “state repression.” Also note the bit under “political orientation,” where they openly state - in case there was any doubt - that the majority of their membership in the US are anarchists. In case you weren’t aware, anarchists are, by definition, anti-government extremists. The list on page 4 covers “anti-capitalist violent extremism,” but considering that antifa are anarchists and anti-capitalists - where do they fall in the reporting? Did every agency report them the same? In light of antifa’s own literature (again, that guide) advocating strongly that they not even name their groups and keep their identities secret as long as possible, how accurate is each agencies accounting? Hell, where do right-wing terrorist groups fall on this scale, considering there’s several anti-immigration militias that focus on finding and reporting illegal immigrants? Doesn’t that qualify as racist? Or are they anti-government, considering that anti-government sentiments tend to run pretty strong in groups like that, especially with a black Democrat in office who personally did as much as he could to hamper border control efforts?

Shit, by their own admission on page 4, they defined “Al-Qaeda inspired violent extremism” as “violent extremism inspired by the radical Islamist ideas advocated by al-Qaeda and other like-minded extremist groups,” and every other category with one general example; “violent extremism motivated by any other political, social, or religious concerns, including, but not limited to, anti-government, racist, radical, environmentalist, or anti-capitalist views. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski,) and the Sikh temple shooter, Wade Michael Page, are examples of ‘other violent extremists.” So they only define one category well, loosely define the others, and then they start standing around characterizing the results with terminology (right wing, left wing) they didn’t even use in the fucking survey? When all those other categories were lumped together into “other violent extremism” in other categories? 

And then there’s other data-sets - one just adds up every every crime committed by “groups or individuals with far-right associations,” (which would include every skinhead robbing a gas station, which they do a lot, because skinheads are dime-store hoods almost by definition,) and the well defined report - focusing on premeditated plots by individuals or groups that rise to the level of attempted or actual domestic terrorism,” has a whopping total of... 34 incidents listed in 14 years, and is published by the Anti-Defamation League, which is a fucking activist group, not academics, or law enforcement. Wew lad. The Global Terrorism database is better - more data, and a good definition of qualifying incidents - but it’s only being compared to Islamic extremist terrorist attacks in the US, not left wing domestic terrorism, which is what we’re discussing here. 

Bruh, this is some pretty rough shit, here - all twelve pages of it. Especially that bit at the end where they make a claim about how law enforcement agencies see “right wing terrorism” (a phrase used nowhere in their survey to said law enforcement agencies) as a bigger threat in the city than in rural areas. Yeah, dense urban areas, which overwhelmingly vote Democrat, as anyone who’s seen a county-by-county electoral map can tell you, are the hotbeds of right-wing militias? 

Bruh. Bruh. 

But, listen, you’re actually doing your fucking homework here, which is more than most assholes can say, so lemme help you. The FBI is a great resource here - not only do they publicly publish huge annual reports on all sorts of categories of violence, (law enforcement officers killed and assaulted, general crime stats, hate crime stats, etc,) but they watch fucking everyone. There is no group too big or too small for them to not worry about - they’re basically a domestic surveillance agency. That’s why you have agents going out of their way to hand out automatic rifles to a trio of knuckle-dragging rednecks to egg them on till they can arrest them - these guys have time and resources to spare, apparently. They watch everyone - and they cover them, too, with published reports. I’ve read their reports on motorcycle gangs, and in researching that big post on violence, I found (and used) their public information on the “Sovereign Citizen” movement, which is definitely right-wing. While we’re at it, here’s their page on anarchist extremism. Note that page is out of date, though: 

For today’s generation of American anarchist extremists, the rioting that disrupted the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle is the standard by which they measure “success”—it resulted in millions of dollars in property damage and economic loss and injuries to hundreds of law enforcement officers and bystanders. But fortunately, they haven’t been able to duplicate what happened in Seattle… 

LOL HAMBURG. But you get my point - the FBI watches everyone, even esoteric groups like anti/pro abortion “activists” that get a little out of hand. So the FBI is an excellent primary source to go to - certainly better than another PBS hit piece which is also regurgitating data from the “Anti-Defamation League” and making claims of “thousands” of people flooding to the Sovereign Citizen movement, without citing any source at all. Especially when they started in on how dangerous sovereign citizens are! As I noted in my big effortpost (see that for the links,) Sovereign Citizens managed to kill six police officers since the year 2000 - but twenty officers have been ambushed and murdered in 2016 alone, with multiple attacks committed by black people acting on black separatist/revolutionary rhetoric, including the Dallas shooting (killing five and wounding nine) and the Baton Rouge shooting nobody seems to have heard about (killing three and wounding three.) The latest ambush murder of a police officer in New York was similarly motivated - I haven’t even counted the ambush killings of cops in 2017 yet. But yeah, man, the fuckin right wing millitias are the real threat! Hooooo boy, how fucking hard can they shill? 

Anyway, here’s the FBI’s resources page, complete with all their copious reports in .pdf format, including several on terrorism related topics. I’ll bet $5 you can make a better argument than fuckin PBS with just what you find here. I’d also track down the sources cited in that 12 page “paper” you linked and read them yourself, see what you can get out of them. That should be a good start, at least. 

[gounlikelybouquetwolf-blog]

Virtual Office Executive Overview Virtual office executive is one of the best job opportunities for millions of data entry operators, work at home moms, students, part time job workers to make a decent income every month by doing simple data entry typing job. Executive job will include only typing work, i.e. 100% pure text typing only. Every EXECUTIVE is allotted a weekly task. You have to complete the task in 7 days. You won't be getting a big task which is hard/impossible to finish in 7 days. Each task can be easily completed in a time frame of 3-4 days. However for your flexibility you've around 7 days to submit work. You'll have complete freedom to select tasks of your choice only. Types of Task:- We won't be giving you a difficult task like programming, software development, designing work, logical work, PDF2Text conversion, tables, images etc. Work will be only related to data entry typing, simple text typing without tables and images. Frequently asked questions?1. Who can apply for this job & skills required?Anyone having basic knowledge of internet surfing, typing speed of around 20-30 WPM can apply for this job.2. How to get started?It's very simple and hardly takes 2 minutes to get started. Your first step is to register on this website. Once you register, your EMPLOYEE ID will be generated. You'll get welcome email with login details. You've to login with employee id and password to start work.3. How to start work?Once you login to my account section you can find different tabs, TASK TAB (Apply for New) will display the list of available tasks. Before applying to any task you can read the instructions, after that whatever task you are interested to do, just click Apply. Once applied to any task, you won't be able to do any further task until and unless you complete this task in 7 days or before 7 days time duration for the task is over. If you have completed the task before last submission date or in less than 7 days, you'll find option to go for next task. Active Tab - will display details of running task or task you are doing. Completed Tab - will display list of tasks you have completed.4. What happens if I'm unable to complete the task in time?If you are unable to complete the given task in 7 days time period, whatever work you've done respective earning will be added to your account & will be released during payout time.5. What will be the work load of each task?The task will be very easy to complete in just 3 days, for which you will get 1 week time. Let's say for example, you are applying to a task of form filling, and task includes to do 300 form filling submissions in a week. This means around 42 form submission per day, which one can easily do in 24hrs. There is no target for a particular day, just before end of last submission date respective no. of work should be completed.6. What if I did less no. of work in a task, will my account be terminated?No your account will be active. Whatever amount is earned by you will be credited to your account. Account will be terminated only when there is no activity from your end for 3 months.7. How will I know if I'm doing the correct work?Your work is checked every minute by appointed Manager, who verifies all your work as per the task instruction. If work done is not correct, you will see rejected message under work summary tab with details of error and how to correct same. Once you submit a work, their status are set as Pending | Rejected | Approved. Pending :- Work awaiting checking by Manager Rejected : - Work rejected by Manager Approved : - Work Approved by Manager You'll only be paid for APPROVED WORK.8. What happens when work is approved?Once work is approved you can check same under work summary tab. For every approved work, your earnings are udpated too. Inside My account section, you'll find the tabs like Work Summary, Earning Summary. Work summary - All the work done from your end, will display work status as pending, approved or rejected. Earning Summary - Overall Earnings w.r.t work done of particular task.9. How much monthly payouts I'll get?Each task will be of $250 USD and of 7 days. That means every month you can do 4 tasks, if you complete each task in time. Having 4 task means earning around $1000 USD. Even if you are making little bit of mistakes you can expect your earning between $800 - $1000 USD per month.10. How and when will I'm going to get my earnings?In My Account section there is an option called - Payout method. You'll be paid as per the payout method you select here. Normally we send payouts though Bank Wire, PayPal, 2Checkout, Plimus, Fund transfer, Netbanking, NEFT/RTGS, MoneyGram & Xpressmoney only.Payouts are sent every 15th & 30th of the month, and same will be delivered or credited to your account in less than 7 days. Incase of non reciept of payment you can contact our support team, using contact us page.11. Incentives?Candidates successfully completing 4 weekly tasks in a month, without any lapse, will get 15% incentive of total earnings in particular month.12. How to enroll?First register on website, get your Employee ID & Password. Next for Executive Designation you need to pay a One time Registration Fees of $100 USD or 6030 INR PAY NOW. 100% Refundable if you change your mind within 10 days of activation. Why should i pay? Amount you pay includes server charges, account setup fees, monthly work report, 24hrs. support fees, postal charges, Bank transaction charges and other charges for 1 year. Work Summary Type of work : simple data entry job work Total Task : 4 task every month (Each task will be of 7 days). Work load in each task : Between 30 to 500 entries, but not more than 500. Each entry will be around 3-5 lines and in some cases around 10-20 words only. One can easily do 500 entries in 3-4 days, however we will give you around 7 days to do things perfectly and with ease. For each entries you'll be paid $0.5 USD. If entries are less, per entry amount will be more. For example if in a particular task you have to do only 25 entries, that means you will be paid $10 USD per entry. Total Amount per task : $250 USD Payout : Bimonthly means you'll be paid twice in a month i.e. on 15th and 30th. In other words, you'll be paid after every 2 task, each task is of 7 days. Total payment every month $1000 USD Contract Period : 12 Months. Payment will be sent directly to your bank account worldwide. We dont send payment through cheque.Your Designation will upgrade after 2 months to Admin and after 4 months from joining to Manager. However if you want to directly start work as Admin or Manager check details. Interested candidates please follow below steps to get started. $100 USD or 6030 INR PAY NOW through fund transfer, Netbanking, 3rd party transfer or bank wire transfer if you are outside india. Bank details Bank Name: AXIS Bank Account No.: 911020051022601 Account Holder Name: Rackspace Outsourcing Account Type: Current Account Branch Name: Vashi, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, INDIA IFSC/RTGS/NEFT Code: UTIB0000072 SWIFT Code: AXISINBB072 (Required if you are doing bank wire transfer from outside india) After making payment either send SMS on ([phone]) or email us (virtualofficejob.team @ gmail.com) full payment details and make sure to mention, for Virtual Office Job. If you didnt understood anything or need more info please feel free to call us anytime. Executive PayoutType of work : simple data entry job work Total Task : 4 task every month (Each task will be of 7 days). Work load in each task : Between 30 to 500 entries, but not more than 500. Each entry will be around 3-5 lines and in some cases around 10-20 words only. One can easily do 500 entries in 3-4 days, however we will give you around 7 days to do things perfectly and with ease. For each entries you'll be paid $0.5 USD. If entries are less, per entry amount will be more. For example if in a particular task you have to do only 25 entries, that means you will be paid $10 USD per entry. Total Amount per task : $250 USD Payout : Bimonthly means you'll be paid twice in a month i.e. on 15th and 30th. In other words, you'll be paid after every 2 task or 14 days whichever is earlier, each task is of 7 days. Total payment every month $1000 USD Contract Period : 12 Months. Payment will be sent directly to your bank account worldwide. We dont send payment through cheque. How to Register?First register on website, get your Employee ID & Password. $100 USD or 6030 INR PAY NOW through fund transfer, Netbanking, 3rd party transfer or bank wire transfer if you are outside india. Bank details Bank Name: AXIS Bank Account No.: 911020051022601 Account Holder Name: Rackspace Outsourcing Account Type: Current Account Branch Name: Vashi, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, INDIA IFSC/RTGS/NEFT Code: UTIB0000072 SWIFT Code: AXISINBB072 (Required if you are doing bank wire transfer from outside india) After making payment either send SMS on ([phone]) or email us (virtualofficejob.team @ gmail.com) full payment details and make sure to mention, for Virtual Office Job. If you didnt understood anything or need more info please feel free to call us anytime.

#www.workfromhomeinus.com

[topicprinter]

First and foremost: thank you all for your kind support in this thread... not only the responses, but the dozen+ messages. Some of you just wrote to say you're interested, some even offered to help out. I'm grateful and hope you all keep along with me on the journey - rain or shine.Let's get the first part started - Hi guys - long time lurker and new time poster. I've been reading /r/startups & /r/Entrepreneur for years and all the information I've gathered has been invaluable in my day job, and now I'm hoping to make the step-up to stop thinking and start doing. I'm going to start a dropshipping e-commerce website with a large number of items & a (hopefully) unique value proposition.Most importantly: I'm not now, nor plan to, sell anything or benefit from this directly by any means. I won't be posting my website, linking to my blog, or offering a course at end (if I start making money). The reason for these posts will be: to gather my thoughts into words, to regurgitate what I'm learning (teaching is the best way to learn new concepts, etc etc) and most importantly to get input from you guys. I'm hoping people may learn from what I do, mistakes I make, things I read/summarize, etc. and that I can learn from your guys' experience.1 - The BasicsThe idea: I debated whether to get specific with you all or not, but.... here goes. If you can do the idea better than I will, congratulations :) The website will be a variety of items curated into collections for gift giving. For example - a curated list of items for college graduation for someone who is into automobiles. This custom curated list will include car tools, unique car items (one real example: an anti-glare sun visor), maybe a battery charger, etc. This gives me two target markets - for the gift giver, and the gift getter. It will have a request feature ("wishlist") but will be marketed towards gift givers ("hey sister of a college graduate, no idea what to get your brother? check out what our staff recommends"The problem(s): it's broad. But what's the biggest problem I forsee? Gift giving isn't always thought ahead of time. It's not something you plan a month in advance (because, you know, dropshipping). Shipping times, shipping problems, shipping times, shipping problems. We'll tackle it. Our marketing will have to be top-notch.Unique Value Propositions:Curated list definable by occasion, age, relationship, hobbies, etc.Established "trustworthyness" from custom lists, so that people can feel comfortable purchasing the items without thinking "will they like it?"The ability to create wishlists - both for personal use and for marketing (instagram influencers, hello.)The ability to REQUEST a custom collection of items. You fill out a form that says 'hey I have a sister who's into this hobby, this hobby, and this hobby. She's graduating college this year. What should I get her?" Boom, we create a list for you, and you fill your cart upPricing. Gift giving for some is super easy - just ask what they want, and buy that playstation 4 they want. For some... it's kind of... scary. I want to buy my friend something nice, but I don't want to spend $50 on a gift. The items on our website will be REALLY reasonably priced. Ranging from $15 and above. Pretty reasonable for a gift.The Future: The first step forward will be to move suppliers away from Aliexpress (will be described more below) to specialty vendors. This will require talking to them individually and will require more work (less automation) but will improve pricing, quality, and shipping times.My ULTIMATE goal somewhere along the line is an automated list of items based on an individuals own social media and/or ideas from the inputter. Listen, if someone has the time to make this website/idea - do it. You input your friend/relative's social media accounts, the bot crawls them for keywords, and creates a curated list based on keyword match. You can teach it to add/remove certain categories (ex: she complains about make-up but she never wears it - so don't give me makeup suggestions). This is not something I have any way of making yet, but it's actually kind of how this idea was bore. I think this would be an awesome website/tool.2 - Where I am NowSite & Structure:Domain registeredShopify hostedProducts (see below)Pages done: FAQ, Contact Us, About Us, ShippingAs of now, I have imported 255 products into my store with appropriate titles & pictures. The only thing left is to fix up the descriptions on them all - I will be adding a small slight personalization to them all (two-three sentences) but the majority will just be fixing & improving Alibabi's product descriptions.What's Left:Logo - Any suggestions? Will probably be deciding on a freelancer from Fiverr or something similarOfficial paperwork - I have an LLC registered, but I need to register a DBA under my websites name. This wormhole will also lead me down to banking, credit card, etc. I hope Shopify/Aliexpress will ease these a little bit but I need to figure out the nitty gritty.Aliexpress research - I need to learn & try purchasing from Aliexpress vendors. For the beginning, I will not be using an automated app to order. I would also like to learn about the best procedures for communicating with vendors, shipping, etc.So how close are we to launching? Two weeks.3 - Apps, Programs & WebsitesDomain - namecheap.comHosting - ShopifyApps I am using or will use:Consistent Cart - this was the first one I tried out but I'm open to suggestionsFomo - I love these little popup social proofs on ecommerce websites. I hope it'll be very helpful in the conversion rate stageMailChimp - I'm not sure how I'm going to incorporate newsletters, but I know it's an important facet in recurring salesOberlo - This is the quarterback of the team. It is how I am importing products from Aliexpress, pricing them, and keeping up with quantity. I hope it works as good as looks so far with the pricing and inventory. It claims to update once a day I believe. So far it's been working great for importing, but I have not yet used any of it's order fulfillment tools (and don't plan to, at least in the beginning)TRUST - Adds trust seals onto the pageWHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW: Wishlist. Any suggestions? The one's I've tried haven't been great.FUTURE: Kit/Marketing tool - open to suggestions... Kit was the most I've run across in suggestionsFUTURE: Fraud Filter - I've seen Subuno recommended most oftenFUTURE: Upsell Bundle - to include bundles. I'm not sure if this will work great for my website. I'll take a look once we go liveFUTURE: Product Reviews - looking for suggestions here as well. I've seen a few recommended. I'm also interested in how you guys would recommend starting. I don't want to begin with all products having 0 reviews, I don't want to fake reviews, and I think with a wide variety of items I'll be hardpressed to ask for reviews off the bat. Should I put this on pause until I get a steady stream of purchases?Social Media Management - this is another area that I will be looking into further. I know Instagress & buying likes get a bad rap, but I'll be reading into them more to get started. At least at the beginning, I just want to look like an established business more than worrying about engagement & conversion.Products - Aliexpress.com4 - Choosing ProductsSo to get into the meat of it all. As mentioned in my previous thread -My rules for myself & my customers - I won't use dropshipping from overseas as an excuse for lack of quality. I will only put up items that I have faith in because of reviews, orders, and vendors. I will spend the time to make sure my customers are not "fooled" - upfront on shipping times, easy returns, etc. I will not con people for the sake of making a sale. With transparency & honest interactions I hope to limit my returns/problems & keep recurring buyers as well as take pride in my products & websiteSo, with that in mind: my criteria for finding items on Aliexpress (using Oberlo as a tool to filter):Must have ePacket shipping (12-20 days shipping times) avaliableMust have over 500 ordersVendor must have 4.5 or higher star ratingBrand names must be from the brand store onlyI took a quick look through the comments & reviews just to see if I could spot anything out of the ordinary (example: some items have lots of orders & high review but lots of 5 star reviews saying 'product didn't come, but vendor was quick in refunding me'.... that's not what we want)Items were unique and not a very common product someone could pick up from a store. For example, the anti-glare sun visor mentioned before... it's available in a store somewhere, but you wouldn't just 'run across' it while looking for a gift. You would have to specifically search for it, and it may not even be available at a regular storeBrand names did not sound very foreign (sorry guys)5 - Marketing PlanSEO - My main focuses will be on the collection pages. Using the example of college graduate with an interest in automobiles, I will gear the page to hit keyword for long-tail searches like "gift ideas for college graduate interested in cars". Throw in lots of backlinks, and see the organic results come on. Did I sound like I know what I'm talking about? This is gonna require lots of reading & research.Social media - My biggest hope is what I believe to be a very undervalued form of advertising - social media influencers. I hate them as much as you do, but I really think it could be great value for the money. I plan to offer influencers a few options - a set $ for posting a link to my website/product, a free product for posting about it, a % of net profit for posting my website, OR the option of posting their own curated collection (give their followers the impression of 'wow I'm so important that this website made a page just for me'.PPC - I don't believe google adwords will be my #1 converter, but I'll give it a try (thank you Shopify for the $100 free adword credits). Facebook ads & Facebook video ads most of all are where I will be focusing most of my budget & focus.6 - FinancialsRevenue - $0Expenses so far: $66.87Domain name: $8.88Email: $5.00/monthFomo: $19.00/month (I forgot to cancel the trial!)Shopify: $29.00/monthConsistent Cart: $4.99/month (will remain active, for the moment)Future fees:DBA registrationPO Box / Virtual Mailbox (any tips??)Fees per order:Shopify: 2.90% credit card fee + $0.30/order7 - Short Term Gameplan1) Finish the product listings (about 20/255 done as of time of writing)2) Get logo finished3) Set up DBA, P.O Box/Virtual mailbox4) Set up social media accounts5) Order 2-3 items from website to learn what customer sees, learn how to order from aliexpress, any unforseen problems6) Make site live8 - Long Term Gameplan1) Start off with aliexpress so I can minimize my interactions with vendors prior to sales coming in. Work on SEO, website, marketing, etc. Learn the ins and outs of the game before I move into bigger time & money commitments.2) Once the idea is somewhat validated, I have a good grasp on the basics of service & marketing, I will look into a service with similar dropshipping capabilities to aliexpress but local (the current options I've ran across such as Doba aren't as easy to manage or begin with). This will hopefully improve my quality & my shipping time while cutting down on my customer service problems & time3) Start working with individual vendors and products that can dropship. More time spent with each individual vendor and product (remember, there will be a large list of items), in exchange for only top quality products, service, and customer relationships.TL;DR: IM SORRY ABOUT THE 9 PAGE ESSAY. Please give me all your input and criticism so I can improve my idea, my posts, and we can work together. I'd love to hear any suggestions you all have.Since this is post #1 - I'd love to hear your thoughts on the presentation of the post. I tried to be concise but expand and it's kind of in the middle. Did I talk about too much? Didn't get specific enough? Too specific? Tl;DR? Should I focus on something else I forgot? Please let me know. Part 2 will be adapted to your responses.P.S. I will respond to posts & messages as fast as I can, but please be patient. Thanks. Thanks for your kind words, thanks for your help, and thanks for your love.

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