Daphne Elizabeth Shackleton, Etsy Capitalist Extraordinare

(2:23:49 PM) ventricularPipefitter: So!
(2:24:00 PM) ventricularPipefitter: I am, of course, the best-dressed Veteran in paradox space, right?
(2:24:18 PM) ventricularPipefitter: (We are beginning story time.)
(2:24:24 PM) mislaidLullaby: ( Yay stories )
(2:24:28 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Sure
(2:24:33 PM) tenaciousTheseus: No wait, that's FF
(2:24:47 PM) mislaidLullaby: I'm up there on best dressed newkid though
(2:25:02 PM) ventricularPipefitter: He's a troll pirate ponce. 'Fabulous' is not 'sharp' or 'classy.'
(2:25:07 PM) unseeingAugur: I'd argue that I have fantastic clothing.
(2:25:13 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Hahaha, okay
(2:25:29 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Okay whatever Abel, we'll have a style-off later.
(2:25:35 PM) stanzicApparati left the room (quit: Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client).
(2:25:37 PM) mislaidLullaby: Heh
(2:25:42 PM) ventricularPipefitter: I confess to you now that this was not always so.
(2:25:49 PM) unseeingAugur: (I'll hold you to it.)
(2:26:27 PM) mislaidLullaby: Oh gosh
(2:27:41 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Imagine if you will, pre-game me. Derpy, possibly brain-damaged, teenage slob, me. The most earnest little steampunk and alt-history fanboy you can imagine. Living out in the Lousiana hill country.
(2:28:04 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Hahaha
(2:28:23 PM) mislaidLullaby: I am trying but it doesn't quite fit
(2:28:32 PM) mislaidLullaby: Derpy? Slob? What is this I do not even
(2:29:20 PM) ventricularPipefitter: That's very kind of you, Maria. But I assure you, Tens has the right of it.
(2:29:29 PM) mislaidLullaby: :P
(2:33:52 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Mama's family...well, they ain't wealthy. And a lot of folks moved back to the upcountry parishes after Katrina: better than a shitty confab or getting shipped off to middle-of-Goddamn-Nowhere, West Texas. And G'pa's pension is getting stretched thinner with a few more mouths of feed, even if Mama is the best damn mechanic and fix-it type in three parishes. So I, hip young internet savvy type, am thinking about how I can get a little extra cash to help out around. Maybe get a bus ticket and a hotel stay sometime at the big yearly convention in Austin.
(2:35:21 PM) ventricularPipefitter: So what am I good at? I'm a little crafty. Got some doodles. Got a lot of bits of scrap around. G-mama was a seamstress.
(2:35:22 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Etsy.
(2:35:39 PM) mislaidLullaby: Wait hang on you missed a bit
(2:35:50 PM) mislaidLullaby: How to -what-?
(2:35:55 PM) tenaciousTheseus: "Etsy"?
(2:36:13 PM) ventricularPipefitter: "about how I can get a little extra cash to help out around. Maybe get a bus ticket and a hotel stay sometime at the big yearly convention in Austin."
(2:36:38 PM) mislaidLullaby: Ah. Sorry.
(2:38:21 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Tens it was this place where people made shit and sold it. It was all artsy and vintage and sometimes it was something someone pulled out of their backyard or bought at home depot or bought en masse from china and convinced you it was vintage and unique
(2:38:49 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Like E-Bay for crafters and hobbyists.
(2:38:59 PM) mislaidLullaby: That sounds amazing
(2:39:11 PM) tenaciousTheseus: That does sound pretty cool
(2:39:26 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Uh. Sometimes.
(2:40:56 PM) mislaidLullaby: Man. I wish I could've seen something like tht
(2:40:57 PM) mislaidLullaby: that*
(2:42:15 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Can I point to the part where it was the people pulling scrap metal or 'artistically aged wood' out of their back-yards, giving it a posh photography job, and calling it 'soulful' and 'could be used in a variety of art installations' that made me think I could make any money doing this?
(2:42:46 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Ah, I see
(2:42:58 PM) mislaidLullaby: Ah
(2:43:25 PM) ventricularPipefitter: But whatever it was that THOSE people were doing right, I sure wasn't.
(2:43:49 PM) mislaidLullaby: That's annoying
(2:44:15 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Nobody wants 'Master Eberhardt's Preternatural Artificings' or whatever it was I had the shop called.
(2:44:41 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Heh
(2:44:47 PM) mislaidLullaby: Preterna- what
(2:44:50 PM) mislaidLullaby: What does that even mean
(2:45:08 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Ask Past Me.
(2:45:27 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Well, okay. Someone bought the taxidermy gator feet that G-Pa donated to the cause.
(2:45:47 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Then they re-sold them for a few hundred dollars more by incorporating them into necklaces.
(2:46:29 PM) mislaidLullaby: That is annoying
(2:46:36 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Someone used gator feet in a necklace
(2:46:46 PM) tenaciousTheseus: And someone bought it for hundreds of dollars
(2:47:01 PM) mislaidLullaby: If you actually have killed something, THEN it's cool to wear it I reckon
(2:47:02 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Like, $225
(2:47:20 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Damn
(2:47:40 PM) mislaidLullaby: Skies above
(2:48:29 PM) ventricularPipefitter: So I got out my little black notebook and got down to some /market research/
(2:48:42 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Who is making money?
(2:48:47 PM) ventricularPipefitter: What are they selling?
(2:49:05 PM) mislaidLullaby: Is it stupid stuff?
(2:49:48 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Mercifully, not all of it.
(2:51:45 PM) mislaidLullaby: Oh good
(2:53:18 PM) ventricularPipefitter: So it turns out that to make it go Step Three: ??? to Step Four: Profit!, the solution is something like, "Sky-Captain Daphne Elizabeth Shackleton's Wardobe Whimsies."
(2:53:38 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Uh
(2:53:40 PM) mislaidLullaby: Daphne
(2:54:04 PM) mislaidLullaby: Daphne Elizabeth Shackleton
(2:54:19 PM) ventricularPipefitter: There being an *awful lot* more female users on Etsy than those possessed of healthy testosterone levels, such as myself.
(2:54:42 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Pfffhahaha
(2:54:53 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Miss Shackleton MADE BANK.
(2:55:30 PM) mislaidLullaby: When you say bank how much bank?
(2:56:07 PM) ventricularPipefitter: We polished up an old engineblock Mama couldn't fix to a mirror-sheen and draped necklaces and blouses and shit across it for photographs.
(2:56:49 PM) mislaidLullaby: Man. If we wanted spare cloth we had to go mug somebody
(2:56:52 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Uh. I covered the rent a few times.
(2:56:55 PM) mislaidLullaby: I am /envious/
(2:57:34 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Wow
(2:58:55 PM) ventricularPipefitter: So, for Steam*Con in Austin, I make up business cards, right?
(2:59:20 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Sure
(2:59:54 PM) ventricularPipefitter: I'm uh. I'm obviously not Daphne. No way. I don't make those things, just the photographer. She couldn't make it.
(3:00:09 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Hahaha
(3:00:16 PM) mislaidLullaby: Yeah, not sure I'd believe you're a Daphne personally
(3:01:56 PM) lucidChthonia left the room (quit: Quit: See you in the juice box!).
(3:02:59 PM) mislaidLullaby: Oh man, I just found an Ebonpyre
(3:03:01 PM) mislaidLullaby: See you guys
(3:03:06 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Later.
(3:03:50 PM) ventricularPipefitter: One thing leads to another. The news coverage of the screaming row and fisticuffs during a panel about Race and Historical Anachronisms did not, in fact, have anything to do with me. No, really.
(3:04:18 PM) ballisticSpectacle [[email protected]] entered the room.
(3:04:34 PM) tenaciousTheseus: Bahahaha
(3:04:47 PM) ventricularPipefitter: But once my friends (my sessionmates) had started asking me questions about the con and how it went, well...
(3:04:54 PM) ventricularPipefitter: They did a little sleuthing.
(3:05:14 PM) ventricularPipefitter: And put two and two together regarding Miss Shackleton.
(3:05:34 PM) ventricularPipefitter: And never let me forget that I impersonated a woman on the internet for over a year in order to make money.
(3:05:44 PM) ventricularPipefitter: And participate in steampunk fandom.
(3:05:56 PM) ventricularPipefitter: Lord help me, I never heard the end of it.