#screenshot cause it wouldn’t let me copy the link??

[strafethesesinners]

Lmaoooo

#fallout #fallout show #screenshot cause it wouldn’t let me copy the link?? #the hard drive #hard drive #tbf my fo4 game didn’t crash all that much #just had a hella lot of glitches #they were funny tho so I didn’t mind

[pastafossa]

The Plagiarist: Act 3, Return of the Impasta

So I woke up to a few eagle-eyed anons in my box who’ve spotted what appears to be my plagiarist, again. Even if this person’s not my plagiarist (though I suspect it is), I’ve confirmed this person stole a direct quote from one of my stories, the honey scented salve that Matt uses in TRT, and once again tried to use the same tag that gave the plagiarist away before. I’ve also confirmed that she’s following me on tumblr.

If you’re looking to catch up on this wild ride, you can find the first post about the plagiarist here, and then the second post when she reappeared and attempted this again here.

Now. Hi @spencerception​ (AO3 account here). Congrats for being obvious af by lifting a very unique line from my fic, which was a dead giveaway. You might have gotten away with the rest of this, but you just had to steal a quote word for word. My fic ‘Appreciation’:

Her fic ‘Devil’s Advocate’ containing the plagiarized line. Note how the punctuation is suddenly different from the rest of her dialogue, indicating she just copy-pasted the line from my fic and deleted a few words:

The above is the most blatant, tbh. The rest of this I probably would have let go but when paired with the stolen line, it’s clear this was taken intentionally. So two more: 

Anyone who reads my fic TRT knows about the tin of medicinal honey-based salve Matt uses. I’m not going to post every chapter link because I’ve used it a lot over 140 chapters but here’s some screenshots just to back it up.

And now here’s her fic, where a jar of honey based salve used for injuries ALSO makes an appearance.

And lastly, if you’ve been following the Saga of the Plagiarist Impasta, you’d know she has, in the past, given herself away by using a very unique tag I created (used by 3 fics on AO3 total, with mine being the first). I’m not sure how she thought a slight alteration wouldn’t make it noticeable but here we are again cause damn does she love stealing that tag.

My tag on TRT:

Her tag on her Matt Murdock x Reader fic:

Honestly the sheer, breathtaking audacity to try this not just in the same fandom but in the same ship (a ship which is not all that large) is astonishing, especially if this is indeed our plagiarist, which I believe it is. And the equally bizarre thing is, there’s enough story in those fics that she didn’t have to steal. There’s precisely zero reason to take this shit again.

As before, it’ll be reported to AO3, and I’ll send an update to tumblr staff. I’m going to leave the same type of comment on their AO3 - calm but firm, stop stealing my shit. If you’re going to comment, please do the same - no threats, nothing bullying cause I don’t want anyone banned or blacklisted on AO3 and tumblr. But yeah, here we go again. We’ll see how this one goes.

#plagiarist #plagiarism #the red thread #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock #daredevil #tagging her ships and fandoms for this cause may as well #she threw some House MD stuff up there so if you read in that fandom maybe go take a look #and see if you recognize anything #fanfic plagiarism

[out-of-jams]

Direct Message || Part one || kth

↠ Direct Message ↞ “Never in a million years would you have expected Kim--motherfucking--Taehyung of world famous Bangtan Sonyeondan, the biggest boyband in the entire world, to find it. To watch your whole cover of his song, Winter Bear, and actually like it. And not just like it.

He posted a link on Weverse for everyone else to see it too.”

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings/Genre: Fluff. Drabble series. Language barrier!au. Idol!Taehyung. Youtuber!Reader. Bad language. Somewhat social media!au.

A/n: Just a smol series. And yes, this is completely inspired by that one post Tae made on Weverse with a link to that girl’s yt channel. LOL. Also, this is kind of a part of the Cheers If You Agree universe!

All of my works are purely fiction. Everything I write is my intellectual property and therefore belongs to me. ©out-of-jams. Do not copy or repost without permission.

                             | Next | Masterlist | 

“Holy shit.”

There was no word in the history of the English language that could be used to describe what you were currently going through.

“Are you literally fucking kidding me?” Your voice, so high pitched that you were pretty sure only your next door neighbor’s demonic chihuahua could hear it, barely left your parted lips. Because you couldn’t believe what you were staring at. To be honest, you weren’t even sure if you could believe it despite the clear proof in the form of your phone. If you weren’t sitting on your bed, you were pretty sure that your legs would have collapsed right out from under you.

“This is..is...” Shaking, you lifted your hand to bring the brightly lit screen closer to your face. No matter how many times you swiped up to refresh the page with trembling fingers, it didn’t change. It was still there. Your fucking face! Well, the thumbnail at least.

You blinked.

Again.

Again.

Refreshed the page.

Again.

Yup, still there.

A link to YouTube of a video that you’d just recently uploaded stared back at you unwaveringly. You hadn’t thought anything of it when you’d made it, had just figured that it’d be like any other cover you’d uploaded throughout the past year. And you hadn’t been expecting a whole lot of views either, seeing as how your channel was still relatively new and all. When you’d clicked “upload” and closed out of the page, you’d figured that you’d go back and check in a few days to see how it was received. If people had liked it.

Sometimes you would get very nice, encouraging comments from people. And even though it was a slow climb, your subscriber count went up every couple of days. You’d been singing for years, as long as you could remember honestly, but you’d only just gotten the confidence to put yourself out there last year. Hell, the only reason you started posting in the first place was because your friends all but threatened bodily harm if you didn’t do it.

“You’re so talented, dude. Don’t let that go to waste.” Your best friend had told you one day over coffee. “Or you’ll regret it when you’re old and dusty.”

You hadn’t thought you’d become overly famous or anything. Just branch out and share your music with other people.

Never in a million years would you have expected Kim--motherfucking--Taehyung of world famous Bangtan Sonyeondan, the biggest boyband in the entire world, to find it. To watch your whole cover of his song Winter Bear and actually like it. And not just like it.

He posted a link on Weverse for everyone else to see it too.

When the green little notification that he’d posted something had first slid into view on your screen, you hadn’t thought much thought of it. Taehyung was incredibly active on the app and would spam it all the time with ridiculously funny selcas or respond to army’s posts in his free time. So you’d just brushed it to the side to check on later. Fighting the lag of millions of other people to try and translate what he posted wasn’t something that you were interested in at that moment.

Even if he ended up deleting it later, you were pretty sure that someone on Twitter would have taken a screenshot and it’d circulate around at some point. It wasn’t that you didn’t care, you just didn’t check every single thing the members posted to the app the moment that they were uploaded. Therefore, you hadn’t really given it a second thought.

Until your best friend and fellow army blew your phone up with over a dozen messages, completely interrupting your lazy Netflix binge. Most of them hadn’t made any sense, had just been a string of nonsensical key smashes with the occasional “!!” tacked on. Since she was stuck in a movie theater with her boyfriend, she hadn’t been able to call you without causing a scene. So she’d resorted to flooding you with texts until you responded.

Why she’d even been checking the Weverse notification in the darkened theater in the first place was a mystery to you. Especially since you knew she’d been dying to see that movie for weeks. Whatever it was. But that didn’t matter, not when she’d piqued your interest with a text saying, “WEVERSE HUGHIH NOW.” You’d figured that Taehyung must have just posted a thirst trap or something again.

But you’d been wrong.

Flooding in right beneath his post were hundreds of comments. Some were in English, others in Korean, and the rest in languages that you had no idea how to read. They varied in reactions too, and everytime you started to read one, the page would glitch out and another would take its place.

He hadn’t put any text in the post, just the link.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? That he liked it? He had to have, right? Otherwise he wouldn’t have posted it. Unless...well, unless he absolutely hated it and wanted to send army after you to--

Shaking your head to get rid of the onslaught of extremely unrealistically anxious thoughts, you watched the amount of comments and cheers to the post skyrocket. If just his post was getting so much attention, what would that mean for…?

Immediately you switched apps and opened up YouTube. Navigating to the video only took a minute, but felt like hours and your heartbeat pounding in your ears didn’t help. Especially not when you pulled up the same cover and could do nothing but freeze in shock.

“Oh, my god.” Not only did you have over a hundred thousand views already, but subscription notifications were going off every two seconds.

Setting your phone down onto your bed, you watched with unseeing eyes as the screen went dark from inactivity.

How the hell were you supposed to respond to the comments? Were you even supposed to? You’d never spoken a word to Kim Taehyung in your whole life. In fact, you’d only ever been to a handful of BTS concerts. But you knew how crazy some people could get. Would they start thinking you were dating him or something just because he’d shared a link to your video.

Fuck, you really hoped not.

Your phone lighting up snapped you out of your thoughts. You’d turned off all push notifications for comments and subscriptions, so you reached for it without a second thought. And stared down at the bright screen with bewilderment.

Whatever the rest of the message was got cut off there. Who the..? 

With a shrug and curiosity needing sating, you swiped it open.

#taehyung #taehyung fic #bangtanarmynet #magicshopnet #btsbookclub #ficswithluv #r taehyung

[august-anon]

Ok, so, winter prompts... I’m not the best at coming up with ideas... But what if the sides were doing a Christmas wish list sort of thing, and one of the sides rights down that they want to be tickled? (I’d imagine it’d be Virgil, but you can choose who it is I don’t really care)

Hey, hope you enjoy it! Thanks for sending in the prompt, my friend!

Joyful Noise

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ship(s): Platonic LAMP

Characters (lee/ler): Lee!Virgil, Ler!Roman, Ler!Logan, Ler!Patton

Word Count: 1221 words

Summary: Virgil tiredly lets something slip on his Christmas list, but it doesn’t turn out as bad as he fears.

[ao3 link]

——————————–

Virgil didn’t know why Patton had insisted they all make Christmas lists. It wasn’t like Virgil even knew what he wanted, let alone how to ask for things.

And yet, he seemed to be the only one having problems.

Roman had passed out a copy of his list to each of them a few days ago, practically a scroll with the length of the parchment, written in his best calligraphy. Logan had given his out the day after that, typed neatly and formatted well, short and to the point. Even Patton had finished his, scribbled and scrawled in markets and full of doodles because he kept getting distracted. While the contents were technically the same, each of his lists were unique.

But Virgil sat there, barely days left, staring at the notes app he opened in his phone, the text blank. He had nothing. He didn’t know what to ask for.

He could just… wing it? What were things he liked? Virgil liked comfort items like blankets and pillows and stuffed animals. He liked spooky things. He liked Disney. He liked t—

Nope. Not typing down that one.

But what if he did?

Judgement impaired by the fact that it was three in the morning, Virgil hastily typed the word in and quickly clicked off his phone, tossing it to the side. He’d probably take it off in the morning, or at least before he sent it, but for the time being Virgil could at least pretend he was brave enough to admit it.

Even if just to himself for this time.

The next morning, Virgil groggily added a few more things to his list. Chocolate. Cookies. A new pair of headphones. Simple things that wouldn’t be too imposing or difficult to get him.

“How’s the list coming, kiddo?” Patton asked eagerly that afternoon.

“It’s, ah… it’s coming.” Virgil grimaced, suddenly self-conscious.

Patton gave a sympathetic pout and squeezed his shoulder. “If you need any help, let me know. I know it’s hard to think of things you want sometimes.”

Virgil hesitated. “I mean, I guess it’s pretty much done. I just don’t know if it’s good enough.”

Patton beamed and clapped his hands together. “I’m sure it’s perfect, Virge! Could you send it to us?”

So Virgil sent it that night, sending a screenshot of the list to each of them individually later that night. It felt too weird to put a Christmas list in the group chat.

After sending it, Virgil glanced the list over himself one last time.

-warm blankets

-fluffy/squishy pillows

-stuffed animals

-anything Disney

-to be tickled

-candy

-cookies

-a new pair of headphones

-a new phone case

—Wait. What?!

“-to be tickled?!”

Virgil forgot to remove that from the list! And it was too late! They’d all seen it by then, there was no taking it back.

Virgil was doomed. This wasn’t how he had planned to tell them. He hasn’t planned on telling them at all! How could he have forgotten to take that off his list?!

Virgil would just have to hope they didn’t notice, or that their eyes skimmed over it, or that they thought it was a joke. He ignored the tiny, desperate, hopeful voice in the back of his head, saying that maybe he’d actually get what he wanted.

He was a mix of mortified, relieved, and disappointed when no one mentioned it the next day. Or the day after that. In fact, Virgil had almost (almost) forgotten about it by the time Christmas Day finally rolled around.

And of course, the day started with Patton waking them all up far too early over his excitement for the holiday.

“Five more minutes,” Virgil groaned into his pillow, rolling onto his stomach.

“Now, Virgil,” Patton practically sang, “don’t make me take drastic measures.”

Virgil didn’t reply, which only made Patton let out a faux-displeased hum. Really, it sounded more fond (and almost teasing) than anything, but Virgil was too tired to place why that made a tingle go up his spine.

But then two hands slithered under his mound of blankets and scribbled at his right side and ribs and Virgil yelped, eyes going wide and jerking to the side so violently that he toppled off the other side of the bed.

Virgil popped his head up with a frazzled look, but was only met with Patton’s cheeky grin.

“Be downstairs in ten minutes, kiddo! There’s breakfast to make and presents to open!”

Virgil eyed the door warily after Patton left. Eventually he did get off the floor to toss his blankets back on the bed and Mae himself slightly more presentable. He didn’t want to know what Patton would do if he wasn’t downstairs at the end of his time.

Or maybe he did.

Either way, Virgil left his room and slowly started dragging himself down the stairs. Footsteps sounded behind him, but he didn’t pick up the pace. Not even when an annoyed, overly-dramatic sigh ruffled his hair.

But then two fingers jabbed into the flashiest part of his left side, then his right, then his left again, causing Virgil to make an embarrassing eep! noise and jerk away from where the fingers were. He barely swallowed down a giggle.

“Really, Virgil,” Roman said, finally gliding past him, “pick up the pace.”

Virgil grumbled some rude things when Roman turned his back, causing him to turn back around and point at Virgil threateningly before going back on his way.

Virgil stared after him, confused and suspicious, but his brain was still addled with sleep. Yet another poke to his side, this time closer to his hip, had Virgil jumping once more and spinning around to see who it was.

“You alright?” Logan asked, an eyebrow raised.

“I, uh, yeah. Fine.”

Logan hummed, That same teasing hum as Patton, and continued on his way as well. Virgil followed slowly behind.

The rest of the day went much of the same. Random, subtle teases, and pokes or tweaks out of nowhere, setting Virgil endlessly on edge. It wasn’t until halfway through opening gifts (when Virgil’s coffee was finally kicking in) that Virgil’s brain woke up enough to make the connection.

They really went and followed through with his mortifying Christmas list.

But the best part came after the gifts.

“I’m done waiting.” Roman announced loudly.

“Ro—“ Patton tried to start.

“Waiting for wh—ah!” Virgil cried out as he was tackled onto his back.

“To give you the best present of all,” Roman replied cheekily, and shoved his hands up under Virgil’s arms.

Virgil shrieked and tried to pin his arms to his sides, not bothering to hold in his joyous laughter. He cried out again as his arms were lifted above his head and pinned there.

Logan grinned above him. “Merry Christmas, Virgil.”

Virgil felt fingers start skittering around his knees and tweaking at the ticklish pressure points.

“Pat—!” Virgil squealed.

Patton giggled. “Now what kind of dad would I be if I didn’t get my kiddo what was on his Christmas list?”

Virgil burst into a new wave of cackling as six different hands targeted all-new sensitive places. He howled and thrashed, but he didn’t really want to get away or stop it, and they all knew it.

Needless to say, it was a very joyful Christmas that year.

#tickle fic #My writing #sanders sides tickling #lee!virgil #ler!patton #ler!roman #ler!logan #ticklish!virgil #sanders sides #virgil sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #Platonic LAMP/CALM

[notquitechaotic]

so I’m back online, never thought I would be blogging again but here I am after having to deal with man children and their audacity. and y’know, what better way to deal with yet another misadventure with the male species other than bitching about them?

given that this happened like a day ago, I feel like I’ve cooled down enough to try and talk about it. 

screenshots will be included but I would have to blur out the guy’s face (sadly) because of POHA

for some context, I matched with this guy named William (”Will”) on Bumble. I want to say that things kind of went well at first and we exchanged telegram usernames and started talking there instead.

(edit: he has “changed” his alias and is now “Wilford”)

first red flag was the reason he gave after he unmatched with me.

and if anything, I’ve learnt that most of the time when guys like him say that a girl is crazy or “batshit crazy” without elaborating, it’s mostly the guy who is the problematic one and because the girl isn’t reacting the way they want the girl to, the girl would then be “crazy” to fit their “I’m a nice guy” narrative.

I let the matter slide, and I moved on with my day because it was none of my business too. and everything was kind of fine until he accepted my follow request on Instagram.

I’m not that great when it comes to remembering faces but it’s not that bad to the point where I would forget a person’s face completely. So when I realised that he looked different, I asked him.

“my hair diff only” were the exact words he sent so I asked him to sent the photos that were posted on the app. 

this was the part where he fucked up lol

I asked him who the person was because when I tapped into the photo of the guy who is in a sauna, it was a screenshot of someone else’s Instagram account.

he said that it was his good friend and they “agreed to exchange photos” (honestly I don’t believe that for a second, the photo he sent is of his friend, blurred it all out in case someone recognises it)

all the while being pushy to meet irl.

if anything, I absolutely hate it when a person lies to me (because I find things out eventually) and I hate it when they are pushy (in this scenario, this guy just flat out reeks of desperation)

at this very point of time, my impression of him hasn’t been all that great, I was starting to feel really uncomfortable, I just didn’t think it would get worse (but I was wrong)

screenshots from here on out have the top cut off because it shows his phone number and again for privacy issues *cough* POHA *cough*, it has to be cropped out.

on hindsight I should have just set the record straight and say that I wasn’t comfortable meeting him instead of trying to imply it because I wasn’t explaining myself right and it just flew right past him.

“don’t you realise texting can be deceiving” and “some is my friend some is mine, I told you honestly already” are two very contradicting sentences. and again, he was being pushy about meeting.

I probably shouldn’t have used “weird” should have outright say that it was sus, but I would say that I was okay/ somewhat comfortable with the idea of meeting him until I realised that he wasn’t being honest. if he can’t even be honest about his own identity, then whose to say that he wouldn’t have ill intentions? so yeah I would say that me being uncomfortable meeting him is justified.

but this is the part where shit hit the fan because he started showing his true colours when he was being met with rejection:

“there’s nothing to be scared about” again, he wasn’t being truthful of his own identity, I think it is fair for me to overthink and be afraid that he has ill intentions and I’m just trying to protect myself. I don’t think I’m wrong for that lol

you can say “go google and stop ignoring the facts” but he can’t even try to link his sources. errr, when Dr Inna Kanevsky roasts people who use psychology to back to talk about things, she includes sources to support what she says.

again, made the mistake of not telling him outright that I wasn’t comfortable but if you scroll up a little bit to the screenshot where he made the contradictory sentence, I did try to imply that I was no longer comfortable meeting him.

he is trying to act all smart and shit but he can’t imply or at the very least, try to infer

“because it’s wrong (referring to him invalidating how I feel)”“how you feel is plain false” hello? I’m not a robot. and I’m pretty sure that there are paid and experienced psychologists and therapists, not just in Singapore but around the world, who would beg to differ with your statement. no one is wrong to feel the way they feel.

yes I did say that I would be more comfortable texting, but I did make it clear that I’m not comfortable meeting him.

“doesn’t change how you were wrong” “you are completely wrong” ok so feeling uncomfortable meeting a guy who was displaying signs that he may potentially be dangerous is wrong. noted with thanks.

(don’t ask me about the copy cat thing though cause I deadass have no clue why that was being sent to me also lol)

I rejected his call, and by then I’ve blocked him because I was too tired to deal with his shit. And I thought it would be the last I heard of him until I swiped down on my notifications  and saw that this crazy (he deserves this label by now) called me 5 times 

and iMessaged me instead because he couldn’t reach me on Telegram anymore

(what was in the screenshot he sent to me)

“no wonder take so long to graduate”

“lowlife vermin”

“pathetic”

“retard”

“bitch”

“pathetic piece of shit”

(this guy was an NUS student btw)

but I just want to rebut the thing where he said that “it’s a fact you can’t get to know someone by text”

because just based on his outburst and the way he acted and reacted to things, I can kind of tell what kind of a person he is and what his attitude and personality is like:

- he is egoistical (obviously)  “I’m a nice guy” type person, can’t handle rejection

- most likely toxic (based on how verbally abusive he was, I wouldn’t be surprised if he verbally abuses a person to bring down their self-esteem before making it seem like the person can not live without him, and thereby trapping the person in a toxic relationship)

- disrespectful (especially towards women)

- and based on everything, he is most likely insecure 

update: found out who he is, and this isn’t the first time he’s done this shit and it pains me that I can’t expose his identity

[loulougoingsolo]

Ice, shadows and bright spots

I’m a simple being with a child-like curiosity to just about everything, and like the proper nerd I am, I am absolutely fascinated by chemistry. Liquid nitrogen is one of the many things I’ve always wanted to get my hands on, but it’s probably for the best that I’ve never succeeded in acquiring it. Even if you could theoretically use it for cool smoke effects or making ice-cream, I have seen Terminator 2, and let’s just say, I’d most likely manage to turn myself into a slushie.

Today’s GMM doesn’t serve us slushies, nor do they cause biohazards by freezing mercury robots, but liquid nitrogen is very much involved, as the show returns to the series of destroying things in reverse, with a Frozen themed episode. Let’s get smashing!

Whoever guesses what is being destroyed the fastest, scores as many points as there are seconds left (out of total 10 seconds) in the timer, and for special Frozen related items, you get an extra point. The winner gets to punch the other on the shoulder in a friedly manor, in reverse and slow motion. The previous takes on this game have led to a near fight and a rather hilarious act of rebellion from Rhett, so it’ll be interesting to see how things go this time (we’re all looking at you, Link).

Prop-master “Mad Dog” Lucas, and art-director “Mad Dog” Pasley are in charge of destroying stuff today - but after yesterday, I’m not sure if it’s too soon to welcome them with a bark? (Link sounds like a bigger dog when he barks...I’m thinking a boxer, or a rotweiller...) The first round is over in a split second, when Link manages to guess the smashed item faster than you can say meatball. Meatballs appear to turn into deadly cannon balls when frozen, and Lucas manages to look like a mob contract killer while smashing the spaghetti.

I feel pretty proud of myself after being able to recognize a shattered carrot before Rhett and Link did, but I assume it’s much easier to do while not in competitive mode. I wonder how many carrots they had to smash before this perfect shot? Rhett takes the points for this round, and gets an extra point for a Frozen item (I hope the snowman has extra carrots on hand).

Lucas clearly isn’t the only one today with a killer focus: Rhett guesses the next item before the clip even has time to start. The only copy of the BTS for Rhett’s ambient massage song music video. What a shame that is no more (I know they’re kidding, but they should really make a music video and an extended version for that.)

Apparently, if you smash a frozen rubber ducky with a shovel, the shards look a lot like potato chips. Link is so happy for beating Rhett in this round, even though he only gets two points. But now that he is back in the game, Rhett must feel a little threatened, and finds it necessary to agree upon the rules for the slow-mo punch beforehand to avoid an argument. A wise decision, I’d say, although the arguments have been entertaining to watch. But I bet Rhett wasn’t the only one saying awww, at what Link said:

“We don’t have to like each other all the time, because we love each other.”

That IS sweet. Why do I feel this episode was filmed after yesterday’s video?

Where can you get your hands on a treasure chest that looks just like something from a video game? I was half convinced the gemstones were animated, but that can’t be. I love how beautifully these clips are filmed, and I kinda want a chest of colourful gems for myself now - not to smash, but to stare at. I personally think that Pasley has every right to look pleased with himself for creating such a pretty video, but I love how Rhett and Link critique each smash. Next time, they should have score cards like in a skating competition.

Who knew rubber bands would look this awesome when hacked with an axe (while frozen)? I know this wasn’t a Frozen item, but Rhett should get bonus points for delivering his answer with such musical talent. Not that he needs any bonus points - Link basically has zero chance of winning at this point. But can you see the wood?

I saw pieces of continents flying in the next clip, and I thought this was so easy to guess, but somehow, Link answered wrong. A  Star Wars droid? I know the Mythical crew has zero respect for cool items, but even they wouldn’t kill a droid, surely. And there were all those continents!

I don’t have to go through all the remaining rounds to say that everyone was rooting for Link to win this, even Rhett, who complimented Link’s adorably apologetic guess of a pumpkin, and even made a deal which gave Link a chance in the last round. But Rhett won, and he got to direct the slow-mo punch. And honestly, it was pretty perfect. I love these dorks.

In More, Rhett and Link are guessing if anyone is on the stock photos they are shown, or not. Instead of following the game, I greatly enjoyed the conversation about Zack’s photoediting skills. I hope Link gets some bright spots to his life, and if Zack doesn’t send him the random heartwarming greeting cards he asks for, someone should. (It might be a fun fandom project, but then he’d get buried in heartwarming greeting cards, and making them appear randomly would be difficult, considering how many Mythical Beasts there are...) But Link deserves all the bright spots he wants, and some. Rhett and Link are the bright spots in my life, after all. (And if Rhett is happy with some extra shadows, I support them, too. What is light without shadows, anyways? There needs to be a little bit of both.)

I have to say, Rhett’s description of the McLaughlin family way of accepting gifts reminds me of my mom. I love her, but she is also my worst critic, and somehow, with pretty much every piece of art I make and show her, she finds something to say, like “there’s something funny about the way this hand is”, or “so this IS a deer? I wasn’t sure.” She is pretty hard to please sometimes - but at least she hasn’t thrown away anything I’ve given her - not even the stuff I asked her to get rid of. But you know, moms and daughters.

I’m happy that Link got to give Rhett his own love lick at the end, even if Rhett didn’t really pay much attention to Link while explaining Zack that he should add path removal and adding shadows to his resumé as special skills. And because I have no sense of shame at this point in my life, I just had to go and see what I could do to add some shadows and bright spots to this final screenshot of mine. I’m not going to add this to my resumé. This is all just for me  - like the little happy dance Pasley did after a successful smash in the main episode.

#gmm #gmmore #rhett and link #gmm 1697 #destroying things in reverse slow motion #liquid nitrogen #frozen edition #slow-mo friendly punches #shadows and bright spots

[jasper-the-menace]

What Really Happened: An Ex-Mentor Versus A Witch Academy

Hello all, welcome to my TED talk about a very recent drama that has cropped up. In this essay, I will explain what happened during the drama, what information I’ve collected, and what the big issues were.

Earlier this very month and near the end of last month, a slew of posts were made from three sides of a drama - @swedishsorceress (Riley), @acturianacademy (during the drama it was mainly run by @starlight-and-coffee, Ambrose, but the other two who run it are Skye and Mickey), and @gingersguide (Sophia). I also collected testimony from @hidingsikki (who we shall call Sikki) and from Ciera on Discord.

I have no connection to any party involved, so my information comes from posts made after the apparent drama. I also reached out to the people involved for more clarification, making it clear that I was a neutral party. Also, I am not making this post just to get attention. I’m doing it so we can all see what happened, what went wrong, and how to learn from it.

The Acturian Academy is run by three people: Ambrose, Skye, and Mickey. Riley was once a mentor but was removed from their position. Sophia was the messenger between the two after the drama escalated. Sikki is another mentor at the Academy. Ciera was once a student of the Academy and is a valued member of my witch Discord server.

I will preface this by saying that everyone I listed was an absolute dear to work with and speak to, and they answered all of my questions and got the screenshots I asked for. Bless them all, and may they not be too angry at me by the end of this discussion/drama/commentary/thing.

(As another thing, thank you to Ambrose for correcting me on Riley’s pronouns when I was unaware of them.)

So what happened? How did this become a drama that dragged a good portion of the Witchblr tag into it?

Let's begin with the posts that were created after the drama from many sides. Note: I didn't go digging through these to see who had the “last laugh”, so to speak, so a few reblogs may end with a different party saying the final thing. https://swedishsorceress.tumblr.com/post/188147771902/oh-thanks-ill-make-a-mental-note-that-the-truth https://swedishsorceress.tumblr.com/post/188149767397/since-youve-had-your-content-stolen-before-if https://swedishsorceress.tumblr.com/post/188149683997/settling-drama https://acturianacademy.tumblr.com/post/188143271075/i-honestly-believe-the-mentor-was-wrongfully https://acturianacademy.tumblr.com/post/188143105825/no-dont-fucking-say-thank-you-for-understanding

As I went through Riley's initial post (the first one I linked), it seemed odd to me that Riley didn't screenshot the folder with their lessons in it. However, they did put all of their screenshots in this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lHVQCJvOXdFfKeQOk9DqNR97I6sRuQv0RWmeIErGN7I/edit

Ambrose and Sophia both stepped in and made their own posts and reblogs. They have something in their mentor handbook saying that any lessons given in the server can still be used by them after a mentor leaves, regardless of circumstances:

Sikki backed this information up by providing me with a slightly different screenshot of the same thing.

Sophia spoke to Ambrose and relayed a message to Riley that said that Ambrose had removed all of the lessons ORIGINALLY WRITTEN by Riley, minus a few that were started by or co-taught by another mentor. I can now confirm that Ambrose did, indeed, authorize this.

Riley did provide screenshots of the messages relayed between them and Ambrose by Sophia, which they put in this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YeFdTHf581SI0q3qeaDx9tCsUjIJ3fNRM3Hx5NtVXY/edit One part that they made a big note of was the final portion in this image:

I reached out to both Ambrose and Riley about why Sophia didn’t just send screenshots and instead copy-and-pasted messages. Riley didn’t know why. Ambrose said that they (Ambrose) had had their screenshots photoshopped in the past to make them look bad in the past and wanted to avoid that happening again.

So why was Riley let go from the Academy?

The Academy has strict inclusion rules - which is a nice thing, to not exclude witches based on religion, gender orientation, sexual orientation, culture, et cetera. However, Riley is a transmed/truscum - they said so in the discussion I had with them and in headers and posts on another blog of theirs. Photos:

None of these beliefs were ever pushed onto students, but a few anonymous students felt unsafe because of it.

According to Ambrose, the Academy fact-checks to make sure that people making claims are actual students of the Academy. They then privately research the claims brought to them and bring it up with the mentor. I have no way of knowing that this is what happened other than testimony, so I’ll take their word on their method in good faith.

This isn't the reason why the drama started, however.

Riley claimed that one of their lessons was uploaded with their name removed after they left. I spoke to Ambrose about this, who claimed that the Academy removes the ex-mentor's name as they were no longer affiliated with the Academy, and the Academy assumed that they wouldn't want their names associated with the Academy after leaving.

Side note: According to Ambrose, an ex-mentor staying in the Google classroom after being asked to leave the Academy was a violation of their terms. Riley apparently did this to see the lessons, but I can't say for sure as I was not present in the classroom.

Ambrose said that the request for all of the mentor's lessons to be removed is something that doesn't happen in the Academy - in Ambrose's words, “mentors are supposed to leave all of their work with the academy after termination/leaving”. Riley demanded that their work be removed. After a lot of back-and-forths, Riley's lessons were eventually removed.

But wait, there’s more.

I found it interesting that the Statement of Ownership was so hard to find, so Ciera sent me a PDF copy of the student manual (bless her for hanging onto the student manual when everyone else seems to just delete theirs). The 2019 Student Handbook I have access to is 16 pages long and has a great focus on the students, not mixing in the information that’s only for the mentors.

The Academy is very open and accepting, according to their vision and belief statements. However, going through it, the Statement of Ownership is nowhere to be seen, so the regular student wouldn’t know that lessons would be used even after a mentor leaves. It’s not a big deal, but it’s still something to be aware of.

Also if you look in the manual that I’m seeing, you see that one of the teachers is named Jasper, but I swear it’s not me, it’s a different Jasper.

Complaints About the Academy: What You Hear in the Tea Room

This is probably a weird title for a subchapter that has almost nothing to do with the drama itself, but a common complaint I’ve found regarding the Acturian Academy is that they go through mentors like water.

Considering this seems to be a volunteer-based organization, that doesn’t surprise me. Volunteers come and go, and it takes a long time to build a core group of supporters.

So what did we learn?

Well, lesson one is definitely “don’t be shady” and lesson two is “run better background checks”. This situation was caused by miscommunication, flared temperaments, and people being too quick on the trigger on both sides.

“But Jasper!” y’all may be saying. “Who do you think is right?”

I started off in this drama as a neutral party. Through talking with those involved, I reconsidered my stance quite a few times. But now, in the end, I believe I’m right back where I started: as a neutral party who sees both sides.

In the defense of the Acturian Academy, I understand wanting to have an open and safe environment for beginning witches or ones who want to learn things more in-depth. Having a teacher with views on the lines of a transmed goes against that idea and may make students feel unsafe.

But in the defense of Riley, I understand not wanting your hard work to go uncredited, particularly when you run or co-run no less than (in the handbook I’m looking at) four lessons for the Academy.

In the end, this drama was dumb. Credit is due where someone made something, and the Academy taking this “unless they specifically ask us not to, we’re taking their names off of the lessons they make after they leave” stance is something that they should talk about and maybe change. As for Riley, they have their own thing going on from what I see of their timeline, so good for them. Maybe they’ll become a mentor again one day, maybe they’ll start their own academy thing, who knows.

To everyone involved and those that weren’t, see this as just a learning experience. Take what worked, think about what didn’t work, and change yourself and your groups for the better.

Please don’t hate me for making this post, it was an interesting drama and I wanted to dig deep into it.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

~Jasper

#witchblr #witchcraft #witch #drama #discourse #acturian academy #drama with jasper #fallout and dragon age commentaries #long post #my post #signal boost

[lattetimes]

Callout Post: Commandomal/Creepypastajack

hi everyone, sorry that this post i’m making is not fun but this is incredibly serious. a kind person approached me with some information about a user on Deviantart, and this needs to be shared. i’ve been trying to wrap my head around all of this for the past days and i honestly can’t for the life of me. 

the person who gave me this information will be left anonymous (since the user is scared of being harassed for showing me this), so i will be sharing this on their behalf. i am copy & pasting the information they sent to me, and will keep the warnings for the links provided in case any of the content may trigger someone. links are bolded, and another post will not have the link (to keep the user who sent me all this anonymous), but there will be a transcript of the chats for everyone if you can’t read the screenshots. 

please, be careful around this person. 

the person in this callout is a 22-year old. she is NOT a minor (and there is proof in the 3rd link- screenshot below saying she goes to college). 

Her disgusting little series: https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=%2F&edit=0&q=Stainglass (I urge you to read carefully: this is not satire)

Her pettiness after a 16 year old girl she gaslighted (She’s 22) stopped taking crap from her: https://comments.deviantart.com/4/28631558/4454834204

(And just in case you need proof she’s over 20: https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/art/El-Cadejo-On-Strike-635280479 (it’s in the comments)

Her sympathizing with the Joker (a known abuser) and blaming Harley Quinn: https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=%2F&edit=0&q=Joker

Her stalker-ish obsession with that one guy from Eddsworld that hasn’t worked on the comic for 9-ish years: https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=%2F&edit=0&q=Tord

Her bringing religion into a F###ING R.P. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.:

https://tdweallstarscamp.deviantart.com/art/Holy-Blackmail-666637195 (check comments)

https://total-drama-reboot.deviantart.com/art/Hell-Break-685927537

The journal entries of her throwing a tantrum and quitting the R.P:

https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/journal/I-Can-t-Do-This-Anymore-687498888 (check the comments here, too)

https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/journal/Why-I-Called-Everyone-Out-By-Name-687635692

https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/journal/Don-t-Feel-Like-Myself-691654970

(This one is just her being ridiculous: https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/journal/Devil-Won-This-Round-706091885)

(Found some Pseudo-incest-y R.P comments in some of these art submissions: https://creepypastajack.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=%2F&edit=0&q=Loki)

(All of the gallery examples have fetishing examples, but here’s a more recent R.P: https://comments.deviantart.com/1/733320123/4560036205)

(Also, all of her non-white characters (so, like, 4?) are stereotypes)

(I am so sorry you have to see this. If you want, you can post it. I’m still afraid she’ll send her hounds after me. I had to deal with a lot of her bullshit last year.)

attached are more screenshots, with the person giving me the link being left anonymous in order for them to avoid dealing with any sort of backlash. 

anonymous:  I'm sorry if it sounded negative. But it's been a decade. Most likely, He's moved on from Eddsworld, I mean, he is almost 30.

creepypastajack:  This isn’t about Eddsworld, this is about getting Tord to return to doing his artwork again because those were his dreams before the bullies ruined everything for him

anonymous:  Yeah, but look at the facts. It was 10 years ago. If anything, he's moved on. Heck, he could be making art again under a different name.

creepypastajack:  If a bully causes you to give up on your dreams, that wound doesn’t just heal easily under a different name. Tord had full intentions of having his own series after he left Eddsworld but the bullies just wouldn’t quit and caused him to delete his Youtube as well. I’m just trying to encourage him to come back so all of his supporters can help heal the wounds not just because The Lord is leading me to but because I also care about his wellbeing. Have some compassion, why don’t you? He is a real person, not just some cartoon character that left early in the show.

anonymous:  Actually, it does. People do it all the time. You never know. Plus, Ridgewell literally had to tell people to stop bothering him. Larsson's not upset, he's annoyed because both the haters and fans won't leave him alone.

creepypastajack:  Well, if by any means you find an account somewhere with art that resembles Tord’s, let me know. Niether Tom, Edd, Matt or even Tord himself said that the fans who loved him had anything to do with this, they just said that Tord was being harassed without giving much detail. Thanks to The Lord, I was able to find proof that Tord was cyber bullied into leaving, photographic evidence as well as evidence that Tord leaving because of us was a lie fabricated by the same bullies to make him seem shallow. They are of the enemy and they sought to kill, steal and destroy. They wanted to destroy Tord’s reputation as well as his dreams. He is upset, I know he is because The Lord told me and I’m going to obey him and do everything I can to help him. Now it’s your turn for persecution...Why are you trying to push the Tord left because of the fans lie when photographic evidence of the bullying has been presented and just what are doing to help anyone on planet Earth? Why persecute the person who is trying to do something to help someone who was hurt? Are you in on it? Are you one of the bullies? Because after the way you acted on Total Drama Reboot, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a hand in what happened to Tord...

anonymous:  You know art styles can change, right? It literally came out of Ridgewell's mouth that it was all of the fans who were bothering Larsson. I didn't even know what eddsworld was until you started making art? I just looked into it. And those comments are not even cyberbullying, that's a bunch of stupid trolls that can't tell the difference between the character and the real thing. ...What did I do to you? I'm honestly confused.

creepypastajack:  He said people and I quote “people” were harassing him, he never once said the fans were harassing him. Trolls are cybeybullies! If you are saying something rude to someone then you are indeed cyber bullying, especially if you’re saying something about someone behind their backs but of course you would be on their side, you came to T-Mack’s defense too after what she said about me. I’m not even surprised by you at this point...Whether they could tell the difference between real or fiction does not excuse their actions...They still hurt Tord’s feelings and they still made him give up on everything. You know exactly what you did to me, as I previously stated. You sided with a person who said terrible things about me where they thought I wouldn’t be able to see it and you kept attacking my characters when both me and my characters were in the right. I told you I forgave you for that and you completely ignored me then when you finally do say something to me, you’re actively trying to tear down something that I’m trying to do for good but this isn’t about me, you or even T-Mack this is about Tord and God’s will. Now, you can redeem yourself, change your ways, join the group and help us either support Tord or find more information about the bullying or you can just keep being the way you are while I continue to help out.

anonymous:  I... I was just asking a question...I thought we were just having fun in TDR! It was like, the first time I've ever done something with people on the Internet! And that's what everyone was doing! Pixanne, Candy, Manda, T-Mack and DLZ accepted me with open arms, and I wanted to be your friend, too...

And then everything just went so crazy! Why did you turn Bunny into that?! You could've tried to talk it out with T-Mack (He wanted to talk it out), but all you did was start to bully everyone! And it was only the second episode! What did T-Mack say that made you flip the script and start drama?! Please, I just want to know!

creepypastajack:  The fact that you think I’m the bully really shows how you think. I cannot associate with someone I can’t trust and T-Mack has proven to me that I can’t trust her. The first person who ever cyber bullied me started to get on Pixane for being friends with me and when T-Mack asked why I was a problem the person said my art was offensive then T-Mack agreed that I was problematic then when a few, more bullies started to complain about Thorn because their precious, snowflake brains can’t handle gospel, T-Mack agreed with them all and even linked them to some of my art and journal entries so they could harass me even more and you know what the worst part is? You, Candy and Pixane were all supposed to be my friends and you all sided with that two-faced fraud! Did any of your characters even think to ask Bunny what was wrong? Nope! She got the same cold, cruel treatment as me. Well, now both Vivian and Bunny are dead because of all of you so I hope you’re satisfied. You may have made me give up on T.D.R. momentarily but I will not let you keep Tord in this dark corner he’s currently trapped in. Once again, this isn’t about what happened in T.D.R. Tord getting his art back is more important to me than any of this petty drama.

anonymous:  Ok. First off, T-Mack is a guy. Second, Pixane tried to talk to you, but you never explained what had happened to her. Third, I ASKED what was wrong through Waylon, and got ignored. I thought this was just a drama-filled R.P, but I'm a worrywart, so I asked just I case. You brought Bunny and Vivian's demise in order to get back at Candy. Don't blame other people for that. I...I'm just gonna go. Ok? No bad blood anymore. Please.

creepypastajack:  I did explain to her and Candy both but they still sided with T-Mack over me. I wouldn’t have had to do that had she not done what she did. Fine, just no more tearing down anti-bullying groups at least, okay? I just wish you would apologize for what happened...

anonymous:  was just asking a question... I'm a curious person. Goodbye.

creepypastajack:  It sounded rude and you kept saying the same thing over and over after I had already answered you... It made me feel attacked...

anonymous: Sorry for sounding rude. Peace out.

creepypastajack: It’s okay.

#long post #callout post #incest mention

[laser-lance]

Please don’t Copy, Trace, edit my arts. And Ask for permission before you want to do anything with my works.

July 10, 2017 I make a post saying there’s a blog been copy/trace my art style. [Here’s the link] 

I was hoping they see this and decided to stop, but it didn’t. So the a week later I contact this person in tumblr message. ( I didn’t send in ask cause that way I can’t keep evidences.) 

This is the conversation from first day. They said they were inspires by “dinilahi” which is the username I use on DeviantArt many years ago, I remove all my fanarts there after I find out my works and the request I did were repost to 4chan, they using my works in shipping war, hate posts, make fun of my poor English with racist jokes..etc (If you have doubt about if it really is me, send me messages there, I will answer you when I see it) I remove my works there cause I can’t stand people using my arts to do such things, and I stop drawing for monthes. It was the first time this kinda painful thing happen to me.

This person then claim they “really had not seen anything about you blog”. But how can that be? If it was “dinilahi”’s arts inspire you, why is the arts you trace “similar” to the arts on my tumblr blog not what was on DA?

This is screenshot of their blog:

And here’s a screenshot of my old arts I used to post on DA:

And let’s take a closer look at this screenshot:

[Link to their post]  [Link to my post] 

I made this art and post on December 28, 2014, and the date I decided to leave DA is around March 2012. And they make their post on September 12, 2015. So this doesn’t seems right. plus they use some of my costume designs for characters, which I design them after I using tumblr.  Therefore I ask them for more explanations.

They mention they don’t speak English, I understand that, My native language is not English as well, and like I said, there’s people made fun of my English before. That’s why after this conversation, I ask someone if they could help me translate my messages into Spanish. 

The second thing they mention is a site name Z forum, which I haven’t heard about before. And they bring up youtube video.

 Actually, about two years ago, I made a post saying I am not okay with a certain channel using my comic without asking for permission first, and they still did not notify me after I ask them to. Here’s the post. I am aware this channel wasn’t the only one using my arts/comics without asking, so I didn’t do anything after that post. and the channel and those video still there ( with different music at least, I do appreciate they at least change the music)

The Third thing they said “If some of my resent publications resemble something to yours is because I’m taking old jobs that I had already saved for two years” .....in my opinion, this action you took is already not okay....

Here’s the message I ask the person to translate, if you want to read it: " I understand that you did take inspiration from my art and you think I should find it flattering but right now I hope you can understand that your artworks still resemble my work a lot and it's giving me a lot of anxiety. I'm not asking you to stop drawing but just start experimenting with different art styles. That is all that I ask. "

And here’s the reply:

They said they would put water mark on the drawings, and I don’t think it can fix anything. I thought they must misunderstood my words again.

Second, here’s the link they gave me:  http://fdzeta.com/temas/los-padrinos-magicos.33824/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62InlLmCuuk&t=30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAiiD5Xhg9A 

No surprise, the video was from the channel I complained about two years ago. But even though this channel did not ask for my permission, at least they did put a link to my tumblr blog on the description. So....why would this person still claim they didn’t know my existence? And even thought I can’t find their user name in my follower list, but they follow my friend who reblog my posts pretty often, it doesn’t make much sense that they did know me.

evidence:

So I send my suspicion to them again: “ You seems misunderstood my words, please stop using my art style, and find your own art style. And thank you for the link. I know this YouTube channel, they use my comics without my permission and I am still not happy about this. But if you claim you didn't know my existence and only saw my work in these video, that wouldn't make sense since they did put a link to my tumblr blog in the description.”

And here’s their final reply:

First, Why do you think I don’t deserve any explanations? 

Second, In which part do you feel I am “threatening” you? 

Third, I never ask you to stop drawing or posting, I am only ask you to not use my art style and my arts no matter how old they are. Finding your own art style will help you in the long way, wouldn’t you want to be better? 

fourth, let’s see some more screenshots: 

Please explain what do you mean by “many difference” for me?

I understand you think you work hard and spent time and effect to do your things, but do you think I don’t need to work hard, spent my times and effect and put my heart in my works?

I can see you have talent at story telling and comic making. This is a good thing, please continue to draw and work on your story. But please DO NOT USE MY ART STYLE. It’s not going to be easy to come out a new art style, but it will be worthy once you tried. 

I am not seeking for a fight, the reason I am doing this is to avoid the same thing happen years ago when I abandon my DA account and my identity as “dinilahi”. I finally made friends and met real nice people I can trust on tumblr after what happen in DA. I can’t keep pretend to be okay with this and let you doing this to me, and forced me to abandon everything again. If you really are not lying about liking my works when I was dinilahi, you should be able to understand how I feel.

#FOP #Art trace

[seo78580]

How to Find the Right Keywords to Rank #1 on Google For

Do you want more traffic?

Well, who doesn’t?

The reason you want more traffic is that you think more traffic equals more revenue.

But here is what you’ll learn the hard way… as your traffic goes up, your revenue won’t increase at the same pace.

And in many cases, as your traffic goes up, your revenue won’t increase one bit.

In other words, if you get the wrong kind of traffic, you’ll find yourself spinning your wheels and becoming frustrated.

It happens to all of us, let me show you what I’ve learned the hard way.

So how good is my search traffic?

Take a look at the screenshot below.

That’s a laundry list of keywords that drive me the most traffic. But there is an issue with a lot of those keywords. They drive traffic but not revenue.

Keywords like affiliate marketing, SEO analyzer, SEO checker, statistical significance calculator are all terms that won’t drive me any revenue.

I don’t offer affiliate marketing services and anyone searching for terms like “SEO analyzer” are looking to do SEO themselves versus paying my agency to do it for them.

Even terms like “statistical significance calculator” don’t drive revenue. Anyone searching for that is looking to see how their A/B tests are performing versus hiring my agency to run tests for them.

If I naturally ranked for these terms without any effort, that’s one thing. But I created dedicated landing pages, like this one, because I was trying to rank for them.

In other words, I spent time and money ranking for keywords that don’t drive any revenue.

Now, there is a reason why I rank for these terms and I do want this traffic, even though they don’t drive revenue, but I will get to that later in this post.

First, let’s go over how you can pick the right keywords to rank number 1 for.

How to pick the right keywords

You probably already have some ideas are a good fit for your business. I want you to type them into Ubersuggest.

Ubersuggest will show how many people search for that keyword within a particular region as well as the SEO difficulty and paid difficulty.

In addition to that, you’ll see a laundry list of keyword ideas if you click on the “keyword ideas” navigational option.

What you’ll want to look for are keywords that have high paid difficulty, which means the keyword is so valuable that a lot of people are competing for the paid ad spots.

In addition to looking at the paid difficulty number, you’ll want to find keywords that have a low SEO difficulty score.

When a keyword meets those 2 requirements it means it is easy to rank and people find it valuable enough to buy ads on the keyword. And if they find it valuable enough for people to buy paid ads, that means the traffic is converting into customers.

That’s more important than just finding popular keywords as traffic doesn’t always equal sales.

And when you are doing keyword research, make sure you pick the right regions.

Not all traffic is equal

Again, you already know I get good traffic, but as I mentioned earlier, not all of the traffic is equal.

Just look at the regions that made up my traffic in the last 7 days:

The United States makes up a large portion of my traffic. Over time I’ve expanded globally, hence you are seeing my traffic increase in regions like India and Brazil. Even Japan, which is the newest region I have been expanding to, has been growing rapidly.

Knowing the split between regions, which ones would you say make up the largest portion of revenue?

If you guess the United States, you are correct. But what region do you think is in second place?

If you guess India or Brazil, you are wrong.

I love those two countries, but the United Kingdom generates more revenue than both of those regions combined, even though it produces 25.6% of the traffic as Brazil and India combined.

Are you picking the right regions?

When you are doing keyword research, you need to think about regions. This is also the main reason why I integrated regions within Ubersuggest.

You can’t just focus on keywords that have high paid difficulty and low SEO difficulty. You need to focus on the countries where the majority of your customer base is.

Now, you know SEO is competitive and it takes a while to rank. So if you can go after up and coming regions that you know you’ll want to target in a few years, then you should go after those keywords right away.

It takes a while for people to see this, but the reason I have done pretty well when it comes to picking the right terms is that I focus on regions that aren’t ready for my company just yet but will be over the next 5 to 10 years.

I know that sounds crazy, but to do well you need long-term goals and a strategic outlook for your business.

To give you an idea of how I think, let’s look at how the worlds GDP is going to change over the next 10 years:

That video bases GDP growth off of historical data. Companies like Standard Chartered believe there will be much more aggressive GDP growth, especially coming out of Asia.

China: $64.2 trillion

India: $46.3 trillion

US: $31 trillion

Indonesia: $10.1 trillion

Turkey: $9.1 trillion

Brazil: $8.6 trillion

Egypt: $8.2 trillion

Russia: $7.9 trillion

Japan: $7.2 trillion

Germany: $6.9 trillion

No matter what source you look at, almost everyone is coming to the same conclusion… countries with big populations will see faster GDP growth.

If I were you and I was trying to pick the best keywords to rank number 1 on Google, I wouldn’t just focus on countries that are already established and saturated, I would also focus on countries that are growing fast and aren’t competitive yet.

Even in the short run, although some of these countries may not have as much demand, there is no competition, which means it will be easier to take up a larger chunk of the market.

How do you find popular keywords in these countries?

Doing keyword research in new countries isn’t as simple as typing in random keywords and seeing what’s popular.

You can do that with tools like Ubersuggest, but that may still cause you to pick the wrong ones.

For example, in the United States, the keyword “SEO” is more lucrative than the phrase “digital marketing.” But in Brazil, the phrase “marketing digital” (their version of digital marketing) is more lucrative than the term SEO.

In other words, cultures are different.

So, what you should do is use a tool like Similar Web to see who your closest competitors are. When I look at NeilPatel.com on Similar Web, it gives me the following results:

You can then take those competing URLs and enter them into Ubersuggest.

What I want you to do is first look at the “top pages” report. This report shows you the most popular pages that are driving traffic to any given site.

The best part about this report is that you can break down popular pages by country.

From there you can see the popular pages and even the keywords that drive traffic to that page within that country.

And similar to the top pages report, you can do the same thing with the keywords report.

With the combination of the top pages and keywords report, you should have a list of great keywords to go after. Not just from a domestic standpoint, but from a global standpoint as you can see the popular keywords for each country in Ubersuggest.

But how do I rank number 1?

Once you have a list of keywords, it’s time to create content and focus on ranking at the top of Google. But you already know that. 😉

The real question is, how do you rank high?

Well, I have tons of blog posts on that. Here are a few of my favorites that will help you out:

How to dominate Google – there are over 200 factors in Google’s algorithm. One too many for you to follow. In this post, you’ll find a 4-step process that will help you climb to the top. It’s made SEO more feasible as there is no way you are going to focus on all 200 of Google’s algorithm factors.

How to build links when no one will link to you – link building is still a huge part of Google’s algorithm. This post breaks down how to do link building when nobody knows you and you don’t have money to spend on link building.

The future of SEO – if you want to rank high and maintain your rankings, you need to know the future of search and how algorithms are going to change.

How I think about SEO – this post breaks down my personal SEO strategy for NeilPatel.com. If you copy it, you will do well. Look at the brand hack I mention in that post, it helps a lot with rankings.

The advanced SEO formula that helped me rank for 477,000 keywords – this is how I rank for thousands of keywords on Google.

Once you start ranking for the terms you want to go after, you need to do one last thing.

The last step

Remember how I said earlier in this post that I rank for terms like “SEO analyzer” that don’t drive me any sales?

And how I want to rank for those terms?

Once you rank for the main terms and even the long tail ones that will drive you direct revenue, you need to start winning mindshare.

The way you create a successful SEO campaign is to capture an audience before they are even ready to become your customer. This way your brand will grow with all segments of your potential customer base.

Just think of it this way, when people Google the term “SEO analyzer” and land on my site, the majority of those people will want to do SEO on their own.

But a small portion of those people may get frustrated and realize that they should just hire someone to do it for them.

And then there is another group that will search for that term, want to do SEO for their own site, and they’ll even get great results over time. Then when their friends asked them how they did it, they’ll mention how they used a free tool on NeilPatel.com.

Their friend will probably check out my site and maybe even contact me for services as they don’t care to do their own SEO.

In other words, when you are doing keyword research, you’ll want to focus on ranking for all the terms in your industry if you want to build the biggest brand and dominate.

The mistake I made is I went after those terms too soon. It worked out in the end, but I should have first focused on keywords that drove direct sales and then went after the keywords that would grow my brand.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t free! It takes time and money.

You have to look at it as an investment just like you would with paid ads.

So, if you are going to rank for keywords and do SEO, go after the correct terms. Spend a little bit of time doing keyword research and competitive analysis because you don’t waste a year climbing to the top of Google only to find that the term you went after doesn’t drive any sales.

And if you happen to be lucky enough to have extra money to invest in SEO, consider expanding internationally. It’s the best move I made, and I am dumping in as much money as I can to dominate the globe.

Businesses no longer have to live within one city, region, state, or even country. You have to think global if you want to win in the long run.

So, what do you think about my keyword research process?

The post How to Find the Right Keywords to Rank #1 on Google For appeared first on Neil Patel.

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#DIYS

[filipeteimuraz]

How to Find the Right Keywords to Rank #1 on Google For

Do you want more traffic?

Well, who doesn’t?

The reason you want more traffic is that you think more traffic equals more revenue.

But here is what you’ll learn the hard way… as your traffic goes up, your revenue won’t increase at the same pace.

And in many cases, as your traffic goes up, your revenue won’t increase one bit.

In other words, if you get the wrong kind of traffic, you’ll find yourself spinning your wheels and becoming frustrated.

It happens to all of us, let me show you what I’ve learned the hard way.

So how good is my search traffic?

Take a look at the screenshot below.

That’s a laundry list of keywords that drive me the most traffic. But there is an issue with a lot of those keywords. They drive traffic but not revenue.

Keywords like affiliate marketing, SEO analyzer, SEO checker, statistical significance calculator are all terms that won’t drive me any revenue.

I don’t offer affiliate marketing services and anyone searching for terms like “SEO analyzer” are looking to do SEO themselves versus paying my agency to do it for them.

Even terms like “statistical significance calculator” don’t drive revenue. Anyone searching for that is looking to see how their A/B tests are performing versus hiring my agency to run tests for them.

If I naturally ranked for these terms without any effort, that’s one thing. But I created dedicated landing pages, like this one, because I was trying to rank for them.

In other words, I spent time and money ranking for keywords that don’t drive any revenue.

Now, there is a reason why I rank for these terms and I do want this traffic, even though they don’t drive revenue, but I will get to that later in this post.

First, let’s go over how you can pick the right keywords to rank number 1 for.

How to pick the right keywords

You probably already have some ideas are a good fit for your business. I want you to type them into Ubersuggest.

Ubersuggest will show how many people search for that keyword within a particular region as well as the SEO difficulty and paid difficulty.

In addition to that, you’ll see a laundry list of keyword ideas if you click on the “keyword ideas” navigational option.

What you’ll want to look for are keywords that have high paid difficulty, which means the keyword is so valuable that a lot of people are competing for the paid ad spots.

In addition to looking at the paid difficulty number, you’ll want to find keywords that have a low SEO difficulty score.

When a keyword meets those 2 requirements it means it is easy to rank and people find it valuable enough to buy ads on the keyword. And if they find it valuable enough for people to buy paid ads, that means the traffic is converting into customers.

That’s more important than just finding popular keywords as traffic doesn’t always equal sales.

And when you are doing keyword research, make sure you pick the right regions.

Not all traffic is equal

Again, you already know I get good traffic, but as I mentioned earlier, not all of the traffic is equal.

Just look at the regions that made up my traffic in the last 7 days:

The United States makes up a large portion of my traffic. Over time I’ve expanded globally, hence you are seeing my traffic increase in regions like India and Brazil. Even Japan, which is the newest region I have been expanding to, has been growing rapidly.

Knowing the split between regions, which ones would you say make up the largest portion of revenue?

If you guess the United States, you are correct. But what region do you think is in second place?

If you guess India or Brazil, you are wrong.

I love those two countries, but the United Kingdom generates more revenue than both of those regions combined, even though it produces 25.6% of the traffic as Brazil and India combined.

Are you picking the right regions?

When you are doing keyword research, you need to think about regions. This is also the main reason why I integrated regions within Ubersuggest.

You can’t just focus on keywords that have high paid difficulty and low SEO difficulty. You need to focus on the countries where the majority of your customer base is.

Now, you know SEO is competitive and it takes a while to rank. So if you can go after up and coming regions that you know you’ll want to target in a few years, then you should go after those keywords right away.

It takes a while for people to see this, but the reason I have done pretty well when it comes to picking the right terms is that I focus on regions that aren’t ready for my company just yet but will be over the next 5 to 10 years.

I know that sounds crazy, but to do well you need long-term goals and a strategic outlook for your business.

To give you an idea of how I think, let’s look at how the worlds GDP is going to change over the next 10 years:

That video bases GDP growth off of historical data. Companies like Standard Chartered believe there will be much more aggressive GDP growth, especially coming out of Asia.

China: $64.2 trillion

India: $46.3 trillion

US: $31 trillion

Indonesia: $10.1 trillion

Turkey: $9.1 trillion

Brazil: $8.6 trillion

Egypt: $8.2 trillion

Russia: $7.9 trillion

Japan: $7.2 trillion

Germany: $6.9 trillion

No matter what source you look at, almost everyone is coming to the same conclusion… countries with big populations will see faster GDP growth.

If I were you and I was trying to pick the best keywords to rank number 1 on Google, I wouldn’t just focus on countries that are already established and saturated, I would also focus on countries that are growing fast and aren’t competitive yet.

Even in the short run, although some of these countries may not have as much demand, there is no competition, which means it will be easier to take up a larger chunk of the market.

How do you find popular keywords in these countries?

Doing keyword research in new countries isn’t as simple as typing in random keywords and seeing what’s popular.

You can do that with tools like Ubersuggest, but that may still cause you to pick the wrong ones.

For example, in the United States, the keyword “SEO” is more lucrative than the phrase “digital marketing.” But in Brazil, the phrase “marketing digital” (their version of digital marketing) is more lucrative than the term SEO.

In other words, cultures are different.

So, what you should do is use a tool like Similar Web to see who your closest competitors are. When I look at NeilPatel.com on Similar Web, it gives me the following results:

You can then take those competing URLs and enter them into Ubersuggest.

What I want you to do is first look at the “top pages” report. This report shows you the most popular pages that are driving traffic to any given site.

The best part about this report is that you can break down popular pages by country.

From there you can see the popular pages and even the keywords that drive traffic to that page within that country.

And similar to the top pages report, you can do the same thing with the keywords report.

With the combination of the top pages and keywords report, you should have a list of great keywords to go after. Not just from a domestic standpoint, but from a global standpoint as you can see the popular keywords for each country in Ubersuggest.

But how do I rank number 1?

Once you have a list of keywords, it’s time to create content and focus on ranking at the top of Google. But you already know that. 😉

The real question is, how do you rank high?

Well, I have tons of blog posts on that. Here are a few of my favorites that will help you out:

How to dominate Google – there are over 200 factors in Google’s algorithm. One too many for you to follow. In this post, you’ll find a 4-step process that will help you climb to the top. It’s made SEO more feasible as there is no way you are going to focus on all 200 of Google’s algorithm factors.

How to build links when no one will link to you – link building is still a huge part of Google’s algorithm. This post breaks down how to do link building when nobody knows you and you don’t have money to spend on link building.

The future of SEO – if you want to rank high and maintain your rankings, you need to know the future of search and how algorithms are going to change.

How I think about SEO – this post breaks down my personal SEO strategy for NeilPatel.com. If you copy it, you will do well. Look at the brand hack I mention in that post, it helps a lot with rankings.

The advanced SEO formula that helped me rank for 477,000 keywords – this is how I rank for thousands of keywords on Google.

Once you start ranking for the terms you want to go after, you need to do one last thing.

The last step

Remember how I said earlier in this post that I rank for terms like “SEO analyzer” that don’t drive me any sales?

And how I want to rank for those terms?

Once you rank for the main terms and even the long tail ones that will drive you direct revenue, you need to start winning mindshare.

The way you create a successful SEO campaign is to capture an audience before they are even ready to become your customer. This way your brand will grow with all segments of your potential customer base.

Just think of it this way, when people Google the term “SEO analyzer” and land on my site, the majority of those people will want to do SEO on their own.

But a small portion of those people may get frustrated and realize that they should just hire someone to do it for them.

And then there is another group that will search for that term, want to do SEO for their own site, and they’ll even get great results over time. Then when their friends asked them how they did it, they’ll mention how they used a free tool on NeilPatel.com.

Their friend will probably check out my site and maybe even contact me for services as they don’t care to do their own SEO.

In other words, when you are doing keyword research, you’ll want to focus on ranking for all the terms in your industry if you want to build the biggest brand and dominate.

The mistake I made is I went after those terms too soon. It worked out in the end, but I should have first focused on keywords that drove direct sales and then went after the keywords that would grow my brand.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t free! It takes time and money.

You have to look at it as an investment just like you would with paid ads.

So, if you are going to rank for keywords and do SEO, go after the correct terms. Spend a little bit of time doing keyword research and competitive analysis because you don’t waste a year climbing to the top of Google only to find that the term you went after doesn’t drive any sales.

And if you happen to be lucky enough to have extra money to invest in SEO, consider expanding internationally. It’s the best move I made, and I am dumping in as much money as I can to dominate the globe.

Businesses no longer have to live within one city, region, state, or even country. You have to think global if you want to win in the long run.

So, what do you think about my keyword research process?

The post How to Find the Right Keywords to Rank #1 on Google For appeared first on Neil Patel.

Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/03/how-to-find-right-keywords-to-rank-1-on.html

[reputationiseverything]

How to Find the Right Keywords to Rank #1 on Google For

email marketing top 10

Do you want more traffic?

Well, who doesn’t?

The reason you want more traffic is that you think more traffic equals more revenue.

But here is what you’ll learn the hard way… as your traffic goes up, your revenue won’t increase at the same pace.

And in many cases, as your traffic goes up, your revenue won’t increase one bit.

In other words, if you get the wrong kind of traffic, you’ll find yourself spinning your wheels and becoming frustrated.

It happens to all of us, let me show you what I’ve learned the hard way.

So how good is my search traffic?

Take a look at the screenshot below.

That’s a laundry list of keywords that drive me the most traffic. But there is an issue with a lot of those keywords. They drive traffic but not revenue.

Keywords like affiliate marketing, SEO analyzer, SEO checker, statistical significance calculator are all terms that won’t drive me any revenue.

I don’t offer affiliate marketing services and anyone searching for terms like “SEO analyzer” are looking to do SEO themselves versus paying my agency to do it for them.

Even terms like “statistical significance calculator” don’t drive revenue. Anyone searching for that is looking to see how their A/B tests are performing versus hiring my agency to run tests for them.

If I naturally ranked for these terms without any effort, that’s one thing. But I created dedicated landing pages, like this one, because I was trying to rank for them.

In other words, I spent time and money ranking for keywords that don’t drive any revenue.

Now, there is a reason why I rank for these terms and I do want this traffic, even though they don’t drive revenue, but I will get to that later in this post.

First, let’s go over how you can pick the right keywords to rank number 1 for.

How to pick the right keywords

You probably already have some ideas are a good fit for your business. I want you to type them into Ubersuggest.

Ubersuggest will show how many people search for that keyword within a particular region as well as the SEO difficulty and paid difficulty.

In addition to that, you’ll see a laundry list of keyword ideas if you click on the “keyword ideas” navigational option.

What you’ll want to look for are keywords that have high paid difficulty, which means the keyword is so valuable that a lot of people are competing for the paid ad spots.

In addition to looking at the paid difficulty number, you’ll want to find keywords that have a low SEO difficulty score.

When a keyword meets those 2 requirements it means it is easy to rank and people find it valuable enough to buy ads on the keyword. And if they find it valuable enough for people to buy paid ads, that means the traffic is converting into customers.

That’s more important than just finding popular keywords as traffic doesn’t always equal sales.

And when you are doing keyword research, make sure you pick the right regions.

Not all traffic is equal

Again, you already know I get good traffic, but as I mentioned earlier, not all of the traffic is equal.

Just look at the regions that made up my traffic in the last 7 days:

The United States makes up a large portion of my traffic. Over time I’ve expanded globally, hence you are seeing my traffic increase in regions like India and Brazil. Even Japan, which is the newest region I have been expanding to, has been growing rapidly.

Knowing the split between regions, which ones would you say make up the largest portion of revenue?

If you guess the United States, you are correct. But what region do you think is in second place?

If you guess India or Brazil, you are wrong.

I love those two countries, but the United Kingdom generates more revenue than both of those regions combined, even though it produces 25.6% of the traffic as Brazil and India combined.

Are you picking the right regions?

When you are doing keyword research, you need to think about regions. This is also the main reason why I integrated regions within Ubersuggest.

You can’t just focus on keywords that have high paid difficulty and low SEO difficulty. You need to focus on the countries where the majority of your customer base is.

Now, you know SEO is competitive and it takes a while to rank. So if you can go after up and coming regions that you know you’ll want to target in a few years, then you should go after those keywords right away.

It takes a while for people to see this, but the reason I have done pretty well when it comes to picking the right terms is that I focus on regions that aren’t ready for my company just yet but will be over the next 5 to 10 years.

I know that sounds crazy, but to do well you need long-term goals and a strategic outlook for your business.

To give you an idea of how I think, let’s look at how the worlds GDP is going to change over the next 10 years:

That video bases GDP growth off of historical data. Companies like Standard Chartered believe there will be much more aggressive GDP growth, especially coming out of Asia.

China: $64.2 trillion

India: $46.3 trillion

US: $31 trillion

Indonesia: $10.1 trillion

Turkey: $9.1 trillion

Brazil: $8.6 trillion

Egypt: $8.2 trillion

Russia: $7.9 trillion

Japan: $7.2 trillion

Germany: $6.9 trillion

No matter what source you look at, almost everyone is coming to the same conclusion… countries with big populations will see faster GDP growth.

If I were you and I was trying to pick the best keywords to rank number 1 on Google, I wouldn’t just focus on countries that are already established and saturated, I would also focus on countries that are growing fast and aren’t competitive yet.

Even in the short run, although some of these countries may not have as much demand, there is no competition, which means it will be easier to take up a larger chunk of the market.

How do you find popular keywords in these countries?

Doing keyword research in new countries isn’t as simple as typing in random keywords and seeing what’s popular.

You can do that with tools like Ubersuggest, but that may still cause you to pick the wrong ones.

For example, in the United States, the keyword “SEO” is more lucrative than the phrase “digital marketing.” But in Brazil, the phrase “marketing digital” (their version of digital marketing) is more lucrative than the term SEO.

In other words, cultures are different.

So, what you should do is use a tool like Similar Web to see who your closest competitors are. When I look at NeilPatel.com on Similar Web, it gives me the following results:

You can then take those competing URLs and enter them into Ubersuggest.

What I want you to do is first look at the “top pages” report. This report shows you the most popular pages that are driving traffic to any given site.

The best part about this report is that you can break down popular pages by country.

From there you can see the popular pages and even the keywords that drive traffic to that page within that country.

And similar to the top pages report, you can do the same thing with the keywords report.

With the combination of the top pages and keywords report, you should have a list of great keywords to go after. Not just from a domestic standpoint, but from a global standpoint as you can see the popular keywords for each country in Ubersuggest.

But how do I rank number 1?

Once you have a list of keywords, it’s time to create content and focus on ranking at the top of Google. But you already know that. 😉

The real question is, how do you rank high?

Well, I have tons of blog posts on that. Here are a few of my favorites that will help you out:

How to dominate Google – there are over 200 factors in Google’s algorithm. One too many for you to follow. In this post, you’ll find a 4-step process that will help you climb to the top. It’s made SEO more feasible as there is no way you are going to focus on all 200 of Google’s algorithm factors.

How to build links when no one will link to you – link building is still a huge part of Google’s algorithm. This post breaks down how to do link building when nobody knows you and you don’t have money to spend on link building.

The future of SEO – if you want to rank high and maintain your rankings, you need to know the future of search and how algorithms are going to change.

How I think about SEO – this post breaks down my personal SEO strategy for NeilPatel.com. If you copy it, you will do well. Look at the brand hack I mention in that post, it helps a lot with rankings.

The advanced SEO formula that helped me rank for 477,000 keywords – this is how I rank for thousands of keywords on Google.

Once you start ranking for the terms you want to go after, you need to do one last thing.

The last step

Remember how I said earlier in this post that I rank for terms like “SEO analyzer” that don’t drive me any sales?

And how I want to rank for those terms?

Once you rank for the main terms and even the long tail ones that will drive you direct revenue, you need to start winning mindshare.

The way you create a successful SEO campaign is to capture an audience before they are even ready to become your customer. This way your brand will grow with all segments of your potential customer base.

Just think of it this way, when people Google the term “SEO analyzer” and land on my site, the majority of those people will want to do SEO on their own.

But a small portion of those people may get frustrated and realize that they should just hire someone to do it for them.

And then there is another group that will search for that term, want to do SEO for their own site, and they’ll even get great results over time. Then when their friends asked them how they did it, they’ll mention how they used a free tool on NeilPatel.com.

Their friend will probably check out my site and maybe even contact me for services as they don’t care to do their own SEO.

In other words, when you are doing keyword research, you’ll want to focus on ranking for all the terms in your industry if you want to build the biggest brand and dominate.

The mistake I made is I went after those terms too soon. It worked out in the end, but I should have first focused on keywords that drove direct sales and then went after the keywords that would grow my brand.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t free! It takes time and money.

You have to look at it as an investment just like you would with paid ads.

So, if you are going to rank for keywords and do SEO, go after the correct terms. Spend a little bit of time doing keyword research and competitive analysis because you don’t waste a year climbing to the top of Google only to find that the term you went after doesn’t drive any sales.

And if you happen to be lucky enough to have extra money to invest in SEO, consider expanding internationally. It’s the best move I made, and I am dumping in as much money as I can to dominate the globe.

Businesses no longer have to live within one city, region, state, or even country. You have to think global if you want to win in the long run.

So, what do you think about my keyword research process?

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DISCLAIMER: I was very fortunate because my parents let me live with them rent-free. I attribute a lot of my success to them Stage 1: Get StartedSo June last year I got laid off from my job. From there I decided I'll make a copywriting business from scratch. I hated the politics and the grind (I'm sure a lot of you can relate).Problem is.........I didn't know how to write copy. Or even get started. So I learned the only way I could, by going on Google.I must have read through 50 + blog posts on getting started and finally found a copywriter I liked. Read all his content and bought his course.Took it religiously and read every single book that he recommended front and back. I still have the books littered with notes.But I had NO CLUE how to get clients. Zero.One of the blog posts I saw online mentioned to look for Facebook groups. They said there were clients there looking for work.So I decided to join one, messaged someone and got a response. I had a phone interview with my very first 'prospect.'Holy shit I had a prospect. But that enthusiasm was short-lived. After talking to me and seeing that I didn't have anything close to a portfolio he wasn't convinced.He liked me, but he wasn't sure if I could do the job. I don't blame him.But I was one step closer; I knew what I needed was a portfolio. I got his attention, but the product (me) wasn't good enough.I actually have to thank Reddit. I saw at the time there were a lot of posts going around offering 'free work.' I was interested and tried it.It changed everything. Stage 2: First few clientsI set up a Reddit post offering free copywriting. Waited for an hour or two with my fingers crossed.Nothing.Went to sleep and woke up the next morning...........25 messages.Holy. Okay, now we can get started.Long story short, I got a few portfolio pieces. I also got my first client!If you're reading this, you know who you are :)I just made my first dollar...well it was a whole lot of dollars. But for the first time in forever, I felt like this had a chance.Mind you this was six months in after I got fired. I was eating through my savings cause of small bills.So it was very welcome.Also through a referral from that client, I got my second job!Now I was ready. Stage 3: Leveraging my first few projects to get more!Ok. Now I have a portfolio, what next?I was reading about getting clients online like a madman. And I had mixed feelings about my next step.I've read A LOT of good and A LOT of bad about Upwork. But I wanted to try it out to see if I could get clients on there.What did I have to lose?But I couldn't be like any other freelancer and start sending out proposals.That wouldn't get me anywhere. The thing was at this point I knew a lot about copy.I know how the process worked and I could explain to anyone why I wrote anything.I could break down sentences, user personas, headlines, bullets.....you name it!This came in handy. I created a WordPress site next.I then wrote full-length, in-depth case studies on every single project I did to date. I mean testimonials from my clients, linked sources, screenshots......the works.I legit spend 2-3 weeks writing 1000+ word case studies. I applied every copywriting trick I knew to the case studies. Stage 4: Bite the bullet and try out UpWorkBefore I got on upwork, I researched every single part of a profile. What my tagline meant, what my user profile should be like and how do I frame my portfolio pieces.Every single thing was geared towards getting clients.No 'Hey I'm so and so a professional for x years yadda yada.'It was straight, 'Hey you want great copy and clients? Well, this is what you have to do'.Well not in those words but you get the drill. I made sure it was personal and tried my best not to be generic.I send out my first 35 proposals in 2 days and waited. I won't lie I was nervous AF.If this didn't work, that was almost a month down the drain.Out of the 35 proposals sent, I got 11 responses and three jobs.............this is working what in the hell.The best feeling was out of the 11 clients, at least 7 mentioned my case studies. They said they loved and learned a lot.They mentioned no freelancer came close concerning presentations, even those with experience on UpWork.I beat out several experienced freelancers (the job had 70+ proposals) for a really great project.I still have that client to this day, they pay well and give me projects that look stellar on my portfolio. Stage 5: Trying to growLife was good. I was legitimately making money per month. I'd get clients and do great work.I leveraged work I did to get even better work. I was building up my reviews.Now you're probably wondering, 'Hey I hear Upwork had a shit ton of crappy clients, where's the story about that?'Yeah, I had those for sure.I had people hit me with a '?' for not responding in 3 minutes (god can't I take a #2 in peace?)The simple story? Cut them lose. I don't care how much money you bring to the table.If you bring my morale down for dumb reasons, you're out.I only worked with clients that I loved working with. If that meant less income, I'd take the hit.As I mentioned, I was living with my parents, so the money I made was more than enough for my bills to be paid.And now I was starting to get referrals. The clients that I got off Upwork liked me.Why? Because I had MORE than enough time to spend on them. And I made sure to deliver service above and beyond what was expected.Need this done in 5 days? I'll get it to you in 4.Wanted 3 headlines to split test. No problem man, here's 5.If I liked the client, I would give them extra stuff. Is it the best way to do business? Maybe not.But it's how I wanted to do business, and that's I think all that matters at the end of the day.Those referrals turned into more referrals with great work. I started getting legitimate results.There was a B2B campaign for a well known Australian Marketing brand I worked on. I was able to get a 10% conversion rate on the first split test.I charged $400 for that landing page, every lead to the client was worth 1k+.Within the first month, they had 17 leads from that one landing page and closed 5.Safe to say they were happy as hell and had me do a bunch more.I now had an idea of what I was doing.......about time.But I didn't want to stay stagnant; I wanted to see how far I could take my hourly rate.So every time I'd get two clients at a dollar amount I'd increase it by 50%.I went from 40 to 60 to 90 to now 100.I'm close to closing my first 100/hr client now, and it feels great.I'm still nowhere close to where I want to be, but I'm MUCH closer than I was a year ago.I've heard so many great stories on this subreddit from the FBA stuff to the brick and mortar stuff.It all motivated me to want to start and do my own thing. Thought I'd share my story.I'm pretty caffeinated and tired at the moment, but I really wanted to type this out.I still think about the days where I used to work 9-5. I know it works for a lot of people, but it just isn't for me.Don't get me wrong some days are bad. But the lows aren't that low.And the highs (to me at least) are out of this world.I'm so happy I decided to get on this journey.I can't wait to see where I am in 5 years, now that I started there's no way I'm stopping.I have a dream of starting my own agency one day and I sure as hell am going to try to make it.Also, this is just me pouring on the page so watch out for typos! (Yes writers make mistakes.....we're human too you know) Cheers r/Entrepreneur!P.S. I still think UpWork is a bit cancer and I'm trying my best to create other forms of lead gen. I think I might try Google Ads, Facebook Ads and go to networking events around my area. P.P.S I have no idea how to edit on Reddit.....sorry if this looks bad.

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