#ok ok ok ok i think i'm done ranting about advertising now

[aesethewitch]

I'm still on my advertising in magical spaces shit, so here's an important follow-up:

If you're going to advertise the sale of your products or services in any market, you should have at least a passable knowledge of advertising laws in your country (or state, as may be applicable). You should know about the regulatory bodies that oversee business and advertisement where you live.

In the US, for example, this means knowing about the FTC Act. This is a set of laws allowing the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) to regulate advertisement, endorsements, credential claims, and more on a national level. There's also the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and each state's Attorney General office. The BBB has offices all over the place, and they mostly deal with individual complaints. State Attorney Generals deal with a range of issues, from scams to employee rights violations to investment fraud to corruption to unfair online services and more. Check out your state's AG website -- the stuff they cover might honestly surprise you.

In any case, being purposefully deceptive and unfair in your advertising can get you into serious hot water. Get enough complaints or cause enough damage to someone, and you can be smacked with cease and desist orders or even fines.

You should have, at the very least, an understanding of what it means for an advertisement to be deceptive and unfair. This FAQ from the FTC is a great starting place to learn about these terms and to see some examples. This article about international e-commerce, also from the FTC, is a must-read if you're going to sell online.

Beyond that, you should look into your particular state's (or county's or even city's/town's, sometimes) laws about the sale of metaphysical goods and services. For example, in New York State, fortune-telling is illegal! I'm required to state that my divination services are for entertainment purposes only, because it isn't illegal to entertain -- just to claim to tell the future for money. These laws differ depending on where you live, so look into your local laws before setting up shop.

(And that's not even getting into business licenses and registering with a tax ID... but that's another topic, lmao.)

Basically, you need to know how you're allowed to advertise whatever it is you're selling. You can't just say shit, you know? There are rules about this stuff, and for good reason. Consumers should be protected from charlatans, scammers, and unfair business practices. The system sucks, but if we're going to have to operate inside it, regulations like the FTC Act and other fairness-related laws are important to have to keep businesses from exploiting consumers any more than they already do.

Now, it's important to note that a business can (seemingly) be following all of these rules and still end up being a scam! The number one way to verify the information found in an advertisement of a small business is to contact the seller.

If you can't easily find their contact information, if you have to jump through hoops to talk to a real person, or if they refuse to give you details about the product or service they're advertising, it's likely a scam, and you've dodged a bullet.

A reputable business, particularly a small one run by one person or a handful of people, should be more than happy to discuss details and terms with a prospective buyer. If they aren't, even if they're legitimate, why the fuck would you want to give your money to someone who doesn't respect you enough to take your concerns seriously??

Anyways, learn the basics of advertising law if you're gonna sell witchy shit on the internet or elsewhere. And frankly, learn the basics anyways so you can spot bullshit artists more easily.

[lee-jinkis-ponytail]

man i need to rant a bit about kpop, tw for body dysmorphia/weight/ED discussions

my body has changed a LOT the last couple years as i deal with severe endometriosis that really limited my ability to exercise regularly. like, literally just carrying a light laundry basket up and down the stairs can sometimes bring me excruciating abdominal pain, even when i'm not on my period. forget working out. i went from doing yoga and zumba 5-6 days/week, to a few days a week, to 1 day a week, until it got so bad that i just gave up exercising entirely because it hurt too much.

i have gained almost 100lbs since my symptoms started worsening in 2021.

now that i've had surgery to remove the endo and treat the pain temporarily (until it grows back), i'm trying very gently to get back into regular 5-day-a-week exercise, which--after so long being sedentary--is so much easier said than done. i often feel discouraged and end my low-impact "beginner" workout sessions in frustrated tears because i cannot do even the most basic exercises anymore.

endo also destroyed my relationship with food. i fell into a bad habit of binge-eating on my "good" days whenever my GI symptoms eased up, which contributed to the weight gain. like, raiding the cabinets and stuffing my face with every food i could get my hands on so i could enjoy it while i was feeling somewhat ok, as opposed to my worse days, where i would barely eat more than, like, some hard boiled eggs and pretzels.

i don't mind looking at myself in a mirror, but seeing photos of myself nowadays or seeing myself in a video is... not good for my mental health.

especially as a kpop fan.

shinee are really the only boy group i listen to, and otherwise i primarily listen to girl groups.

it's gotten to a point where i had to stop watching blackpink videos because it seemed like every comeback they just got skinnier and skinnier and it really put me at risk for hating myself and developing an ED.

i like twice and sunmi because they are--or were, when i first discovered them--average, healthy weights. watching them did not make me feel bad about myself. they had a little more meat in their thighs, and it at least kept my own body dysmorphia at bay.

but idk, the pictures i've seen of them all in their most recent comebacks--between the veneers that have utterly changed the shapes of a lot of their faces (dahyun and mina are almost unrecognizable to me), and just how skeletal a lot of them look... i think i'm gonna have to stop watching them for the sake of my own mental health.

especially twice. idk, the dive photoshoot, they're just all so... bony.

and then to see netizens bodyshaming jeongyeon and even NAYEON??? recently??? during her waterbomb performance?!?! hello??? or everyone saying sunmi was too "fat" during tail era?!?! yeesh.

i'm not by any means knocking these women or body shaming them or whatever, they're all beautiful and i understand they're in an industry where beauty standards are INSANE. i am just commenting on the intensity of fatphobia in the entertainment industry in general and how it is causing issues for me personally, and i'm sure for so many other people.

and i mean i know a lot of these women have discussed how their own company-enforced diets are unhealthy and unsustainable and unrealistic, i just... idk, it's all very new to me, these feelings, and i don't like the way my thoughts are going recently. lots of "i shouldn't eat more than one meal a day," "i'm disgusting," "i need to be shaped like this celebrity woman" "i need to push myself on this exercise machine til i puke" etc etc.

i have never been susceptible to this type of thinking until recently, and it is largely in part because of how badly fatphobia is so so SO rampant throughout these fandoms.

and like, side-note, i think the return of fashion trends of the early 2000s is also making fatphobia so much more rampant. the fat-shaming then was *so* bad. and nowadays i see virtually ZERO body-positive advertisements anymore. it's all ozempic this, diet that, hoop or stepper exercise machines, this is how i lost 60+ pounds, and so on.

[beardedmrbean]

“Offending oppressive white Christians-“ holy fuck, South Park make fun of the fact every group can have superiority/victim complex.

Also offending oppressed minorities? Say Nunya which type of media usually demasculine the living fuck out of black males because progressive white woken can stand being around a group that contradicted their patriarch mindset?

I rather take Token(or Tolkien if you want to go by the recent gaslighting episodes) black and Chef than the average weak and submissive bitch black boys feminists love to have in their works.

Though that is due the fact I can tell SP creators do be around the working class vs the average woke creators.

Sorry for the rant

I hadn't seen the Tolkien thing, I imagine that's aimed at amazon.

the fun bit now, not really fun is people wanted equality back in the days of the civil rights movement very textbook if it's ok for you it's ok for me on most everything.

Could you imagine guys walking around like this now

I AM A MAN

(had to be done, been a rough day and I need the laugh)

Notice all the white dudes do not have the sign on, idea was when Black Americans had all their stuff up and running, they take the sign off because now they don't need to remind anyone anymore.

I think that was it at least, my knowledge of the civil rights movement gets really spotty in places, it's one where I like to race to the end because it has a mostly happy ending

But ya, they said I AM A MAN, not black man just man.

This is not me wanting to be able to drop hard R's or whatever slur the lgbt community is angry about this week. I wouldn't use those words even if people didn't automatically make assumptions about me for doing it, but the assumptions is the problem there.

I'm just tired of seeing an attempt at supremacy being advertised as equality, I like honesty a whole lot better.

[chronicasexual]

If you wouldn't mind bestie, I'm gonna need that essay on the tdm movie.

inhales

ok here we go

Firstly, the interactions between Ruby and Liam felt so awkward and forced, which was nothing like their very natural bond in the books. It fell into the same problem of many dystopian and/or ya stories which try to force two characters together simply because they exist near each other's vicinity. I still feel mortified watching the scene in the movie where Liam said "iS tHaT wHy yOu dIdn'T wAnT tO kIsS mE." No hate to the actors, it's obvious they weren't given much to work with. Because of this, we never got to see those intimate moments between them felt so raw and comforting. The little things like Ruby instinctively reaching out to touch Liam's face and trying to pull away because she's anxious about her powers, but Liam keeps the hand there and says "Nope, mine now." Or the time she tells him that the space between them is a no-lie area (I can't remember the exact quote but you get the gist). The movie tries to fit their entire love story into an hour and a half and fails to do it effectively, to the point that I can't even understand how they fell in love at all. Oh and bonus cringe moment the scene at East River when everyone's dancing and they compare it to Hogwarts (bestie in what world????? if anything it's similar to camp half-blood) and they call each other Ginny and Harry or something like that before realising that the two end up together felt so unnecessary???? It made them so much more awkward than it needed to be and was obviously set up to make them feel embarrassed but also interested in each other.

Complaint two. Literally, what was the reason for making Chubs a Green? Is it not possible to be smart without a power to make you so? Chubs isn't smart because his ability made him that way, he's just smart because he is and even though he doesn't really admit it because it sounds unrealistic in their situation, he craves a further education. His powers never influenced him as a character, and he only used them two or three times overall. If anything it just played into the stereotype of the kid with glasses being the nerdy character who was also used as comic relief. (also maybe a slight loophole but if Chubs had been a Green wouldn't he had worked out EDO a lot quicker than Ruby did, because there's literally no reason for him not to have done so).

Mini rant but why did the movie make Ruby go back to her parents when she very clearly knew by now that she had erased herself from their memories. She knew they wouldn't recognise her. She had literally no reason to return and basically a waste of like five or ten minutes in the movie. And that small toy?? Maybe it's just me, but I don't get why it was so significant? Was it some sort of advertisement? idk

Also the eyes. The stupid glowing eye thing. Nowhere in the books did it mention them having LED eyes and NO ONE in the movies even brings up the fact that they have glowing eyes when they use their abilities. It's an unnecessary detail. Woudn't you think it would be super easy for PSFs to discover if someone was secretly an Orange hiding as a different colour at Thurmond if they just saw their eyes go orange when they activated and just shoot them🤡. Anyway, not to throw shade but instead of wasting the budget on making their eyes glow they could have actually given Sam a tiny bit more story instead of nothing, or including the bit about Jack and the letter, just saying :)

One final point probably because if I don't stop now I'll be here for ages and it's late but maybe I'll rant some more tomorrow. The movie removed so many compelling plot points that made the story what it is and removed details that were important to explanations. Movie Cate's explanation of "No kids, no economy." isn't accurate because in the book we find out a bunch of other things that happened whilst Ruby was at Thurmond that have led to the collapse of the economy. Sam? Removed. Martin? Removed. Jack? Removed. Ruby's mini argument over almost reading Jack's letter with Liam before having a deep conversation with him? Removed. Alongside a lot of other important thing. The movie feels so empty? It doesn't have much storyline to it, I get that the book was long but they removed so many things that it's an empty shell of what it could have been. The movie is kinda bland ngl. (apologies to anyone who may have enjoyed the movie. although if you did you probably never read the books)

One final final point because I just thought of it on the spot. Chubs saying "I knew you were Orange" very smugly makes no sense. Like. No. You. Didn't? She literally didn't show any signs of being an Orange to them and just existed. I know Greens are smart but he had nothing to infer that from. Actually maybe the glowing eyes gave it away my bad 🤡🤡🤡