#spelled separate correctly first try fuck yeah

[jorrated]

Some super stray thoughts I had while reading STCO so far:

Knuckles would NOT prioritize his past over Tikal’s suffering are you crazy in the head!!!!

Zak Simond-Hurn’s art is really charming, if it wasn't for the digital onomatopoeias, I wouldn’t mind having this style by a base for an official sonic comic! The design for the red echidna villain however… HM. Not pleasing to the eye.

I like that Ebony are having a bigger role on the fist few issues! But also Ebony’s constantly referring to Super as his friend and doing things to bring him back. Like I get it but also is this going to be her only trait now? Girl…

And porker is going on adventures again. Actually I don’t think they ever explained why Porker went back to being more adventurous in the og comic, participating in Chaos defeat and all. Not against it, and I like to see he still has a bit of bite and wasn't reduced to only a coward, tho it would’ve been cool to see at least a comment on how hes back on “adventuring”.

It’s cool to see Amy dealing with grief over Jhonny (I’ve given up trying to write his name correctly, too weird for me), but IDK. Amy probably was the best grounded character in that situation, so it feels weird to see her distressed over it? I don’t know how to explain it but in my eyes, Amy’s grief for Jhonny would definitively be more melancholic than scary/guilty. I’m glad they are trying to flesh out Amy more, but it doesn’t feel very cohesive with the comic to me. And Jhonny-zombie the killer… a bit tacky but in a funny way.

WHO…. Designed Vichama. I just want to talk. Tell me why you made him look that way. What is that. What went through your head. Dude. I get that Ebony has considerably more anthro body features than the other animal characters, but I feel like Vichama crosses the line into the “gross valley”. If he were drawn closer to how Zachary is I probably wouldn’t care, he probs would’ve looked like an Archie character. But the bulging muscles are kinda upsetting to look at. Cover up man.

So Shadow was created by some enemies of the echidnas. Noted.

Big and the Drakon prosecutor are actually really cute. I like them. Knuckles trying to break Ebony’s spell on Tikal is making me fume. HE WOULDN'T TRY TO DO THAT!!!!! He maybe would be a little desperate trying to trigger some memories but he wouldn't knowingly hurt someone to get information!!!! There is a pannel tho in this part of the comic that makes Knux ask “Where is Porker” and then “Where is the emeralds”. THAT is Knuckles to me, checking in on people before anything else.

Knuckles not being able to carry Big is bullshit. KNUCKLES PUNCHES ROCKS IN HALF LMAO. It’s fine I assume they need to be separated for a reason.

ROUGE STICK LEGS. Somebody please give my girl a double cheeseburger with extra fries and a big gulp of soda.

Actually I love that Rouge is a cunt here. Girlboss!!!! Stole this dudes emeralds AND left them to die, queen shit. Didn’t work but she did have the intent to kill them.

Big wouldn’t eat his friends….. He’d never eat Froggy, and DP (Drakon Prosecutor) even tho looks like a fish, Big considers a friend. BIG WOULDNT THINK ABOUT EATING HIS FRIENDS!!! HE IS A KIND BIG GUY!!!!!!!!!!!! ← most egregious mistake until now. Fucking funny tho can you imagine dying by vore They kept Mighty funny, that’s good.

MMMMN. I like that Sonic is consistently arachnophobic. Really nice continuity. How he first met Shadow tho… It felt underwhelming? Like yeah we know they were going to meet some time but IDK. The framing/pacing is weird to me. Either have them meet quickly at the start of the issue and Sonic is like “IDK WHO that guy is but I don’t like him!!!” or have them meet at the end of the issue, but only show Shadow in shadow (lol) to hook to the next issue. Shadow’s bland ass “I am Shadow” has the same energy as two kindergartners introducing themselves first day of school.

Shadow’s personality is interesting tho. I like him being a bit cocky but not too much, it’s a good take on him, plus he bounces off Sonic pretty well. I do wonder what the hell they’re going to do with him tho.

Awn… acknowledgment of some of the chaotix families… Blockhead Bill my dude

Tikal being given more of a spotlight is neat. It doesn’t give her much, but it’s refreshing to see her thoughts and intentions. However, I can’t help but think that she was mainly inserted to aid Knuckles and be a well of angst. Like IDK, Knuckles has moments mourning his past, or wondering if he will ever understand his ancestors, and Tikal well… She sees things rather than feel? If that makes sense? Like in this comic she is able to see a bit of the past and think “wow this is horrible! Must be a nightmare!” but she doesn’t feel despair? Or anything much? The only moment so far she felt despair was to make Knux Angst, like “ooooh shes suffering so we need to wipe her memories, that means Knuckles wont have his backstories :(“. Smells fishy.

Oh wow, Shadow has an actually interesting backstory here. It gives a reason to follow Robotnik, hate Sonic, not give a shit, aaaand its ambiguous enough you can probably pull off whatever. Fucking congrats STCO writers.

Fave image. What the fuck are they even doing here. Freaks.

Hm. No thoughts on Shadows maybe death. Thematically it’s interesting and all, but we don’t get enough time with him to give a shit. Unless I’m reading it wrong it seems like Shadow is sacrificing himself to save Robotnik, but IDK.

Grimer develops a situatioship depression.

2007 ANTI-ASIAN RACISM. BAD.

Bro what’s with this Knuckles characterization. He would NOT be mean to Tikal. If anything he’d probably be a bit overbearing, trying to give attention to her even if she didn’t want it. I get trying to tie him living his whole life alone being overwhelmed and feeling frustrated that Tikal can’t give him answers, but he wouldn't treat her like crap what is this. I like Porker’s and Knux bro moment, but that doesn’t make up for treating Tikal badly for no reason. Where’s her catharsis? She’s probably just as confused and desperate as Knuckles but she doesn't get any of these moments. Sigh. This idea could’ve definitely worked if Tikal was pushier or more imposing, but like she doesn’t do much, so Knuckles just snaps and it feels off. Knuckles’s stories are probably the issues with the biggest potential, but the writers for sure squander him the most, whomp whomp.

“One of Sonic’s fears is seeing Amy settle down with someone else” no it isn’t shut the fuck up. And the fact they put this on the same level of fear as Jhonny death is deranged.

The tonal whiplash between character comics is p funny honestly. You’ll have one really serious comic followed by a comedic one, lil bit of a mood killer. I guess STC also did this, but to me it at least wasn't jarring like this. Like how am I supposed to process Big getting shot, after Knux and Tikal experiencing the worst nightmare of their lives, living the trauma of seeing million of dead echidnas, after Vector put angel island as a security fund for his ship LMAO.

SONIC CHARACTERS HELPINH OUT THE POLICE SFAJHBJHBWRKJBJB??????!!!!!!!!????????????????????!!!!!!!!!????????11111111!!!!!!!111!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate this actually.

These Shorty and Tekno comics…… I don’t know what it is about them but god. I just don’t like them! Firstly that now it seems they are a completely separated duo from the rest of the team. Like They don’t interact with Sonic or Amy or whatever. Secondly.. Shortfuse is TOO nice. It doesn’t feel like him where is his tantrums??? And this isn’t a diss on the artstyle itself, cause I think it looks pretty nice and cute, but I don’t think it’s really fitting for the characters? Tekno and Shorty look like they’re in a shoujo manga.

I really like how Sonic is now a loser LOL. He got canceled to hell and back.

Finally Rouge makes and appearance. Kinda only realized how little she showed up during the SA2 adaptation.

Grimer destroying Sonic’s reputation is actually kinda nice. I like that they acknowledge his Robotnik situationship depression, tho I think it’s a bit over the top have him be behind EVERYTHING. Still like it tho. Go gross boy go! (Also the art in this issue is REALLY solid, wow, Zak Simond-Hurn really is my favorite artist from the STCO group).

At some point I think I need to stop complaining about Knux’s characterization. But I Do Not Like How They Write My Boy. Doc Zach is still serving cunt so that’s great. Go grandpa go!

It’s kinda awesome to see how the issues expanded through STCO’s run, but I think having so many stories at the same time kinda makes stuff bloated. Like I’m sure I’ll forget some parts of this, even if they are short bits. Like do we really need to follow 2 sonic stories and 2 amy stories at the same time? I think it would’ve been better to pace this with a limit of 3-4 stories MAX per issue. And then once a character story is done, release the next story with the same character. Sonic and Knuckles are kinda always going to be there, having the biggest pull on the comic’s lore and story, so the other ones could cycle out between amy, tekno, shorty, tails, sonic’s world, chaotix, and so on. I haven’t read some of the other non-sonic stories like decap n attack, but those could be thrown in the cycle too!

Actually I love that DP is just hanging out in Big��s restaurant. It’s goofy I really love it.

I wonder how old Sonic’s gang is supposed to be here. Like in theory some years have passed in the comic, but how many. It’s not important at all but Amy is seen drinking wine with Chrysalis and it’s like?? Is she a kid?? Is she an adult?? Is she underage drinking? Again it’s not a big deal, and I don’t even think these characters need a specific age but IDK this was odd to me.

Oof the multiple stories at the same type problem came instantly. I like how Amy acknowledges the losses of the group, Sonic is “evil”, Jhonny is dead, Tekno is missing and stuff, Porker has PTSD and cant fight… But like. That feels so weird when you have a story right next to it with Amy and Tekno together!!! This is why the pacing and bloating feels whack, the comic has continuity with SOME of the stories but not all so its confusing. I know the OG comic had moments like these but because it had less stories per issue, it was way less noticeable, and usually were one-off stories I think.

And on the topic of Porker, I did mention before how he just kinda.. went back to being more adventurous? But know the comic insists that he can’t do it? Man this is kinda messy. I don’t mind Porker starting to become more adventurous again and then maybe regressing a bit in recovery, being too much for him, but it doesn’t feel like that is what it’s being intended here. It feels like someone read STC and maybe skimmed on STCO and then wrote this, so it feels out of place? Like you have porker in the first issue of STCO going on a mission no problems at all, but then on another issue he goes on a mission to blow up an eggman database or smth and hes freaking the fuck out being nervous all the time. Like which is it!!!!! I don’t mind him progressing and regressing on his trauma but at least acknowledge or be consistent with it! Is it because the underwater mission didn’t involve Robotnik? Is that it? Who knows.

I get that Knux and the crew planned to bait Zachary and shit, but like, then why did they act like that in the previous issue? Like the plan was to break the shield so why did Porker said to Knux be careful about it? Girl. This information is only given to bait and switch the audience and it doesn’t work. Porker and Knux have no reason to pretend to not have a plan when they are alone what.

Tails working with cops I’m going to kill myself.

Oh so like. The special zone is dead for real. Like for real FR. Jesus. Could’ve let the characters grieve a bit huh.

Really liked the #250 issue (Tho its funny that I complained about the number of stories per issue, and then #250 has ONE story LOL)! It’s awesome to see the different arts from the varied artists on the STCO team. And even with my complains and whining, it’s an impressive project full of love, good to see stuff like this!

TURBO TURBO TURBO MY BOY TURBO!!!!

The art on this issue is great but some of the flow of the dialogue is off, as in, sometimes I don’t know which speech bubble I’m supposed to read next, cause usually you go left to right, but it seems this story follows top to bottom for speech bubbles and left to right to panel. Not awful but it did throw me off, and it does fuck up the pacing.

um. hi shadow? ok.

(Only read until issue #250)

#this is long #despite all my gripes it has been an interesting experience #dont take anything i say here as too serious

[darling-i-read-it]

Wretched Candy

Lucius Malfoy x reader

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: bad spell casting, break ups, cheating but not really, semi panic attack at meeting a Boggart, Lucius and his pure blood thing

Author’s Note: oh shoot guys, my first fic that I planned since the hiatus bitches...and it’s Lucius fucking Malfoy who has no audience but you know what I really liked this. 

Disclaimer: I added some of my own elements to some spells. I am aware that it’s not how it actually is lol 

Summary: You and Lucius were together when you were at Hogwarts. You are surprised to meet Draco years later. 

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director 

(not my gif)

You remembered your days at Hogwarts well. Most people lived them like they were going to be the end of their days. People like those were the head of the Quidditch team, a Head boy or girl, a prefect. 

The place was as magical as everyone said it was. The walls gleaned with wonder and mystery. There were places that were sure to be the doom of some students. Classes that could result in death, if not handled correctly. Although you had never really thought about the death count, you were sure it was up there. No one would give an honest answer if you asked back then though.

You were just a student. 

And a rather mediocre one at that. At least at first. 

You were sitting in the back of your Potions class. First day of class, your third year. You had your own friends here and there and you were close enough with people in your own year but no one in this class. 

You floated from person to person. There wasn’t a set of people that you could be found with. You had to assume that it was in your best interests to float. You looked up at the sky and saw the door open as the next person came into the class. People had begun filing in, finding their seats and their friends. You didn’t know the Professor, he was new. You weren’t sure if he would move you all around later but for now, everyone was looking for a place to stay all year. 

You recognized Narcissa Black walk in and take a seat next to one of her friends. You watched her smile rise and fall as other people she knew walked into the room, sitting beside her. There was quickly a group at the front of the class but one seat remained, beside her, empty. 

You were looking down when Lucius Malfoy walked into the class. You had taken your cauldron out of your bag, placing it carefully on your desk. The seat beside you was still empty but you expected it. When Lucius sat down you were noticeably intrigued. Not surprised, just intrigued. 

You raised an eyebrow at him but he was not looking at you. He was bringing his much too expensive silver cauldron out of his bag and placing it beside yours. Narcissa watched him as he did so and you realized that she had been hoping he would sit with her. You didn’t know that they had ever been together but if they were, they were clearly going through a rough patch. 

It would be ample entertainment to try and draw a rift between Noble houses like Black and Malfoy. Perhaps potions wouldn’t be as bad as you thought. 

He finally met your gaze, as you had been staring at him for a moment longer than necessary. 

“Starring isn’t very polite,” he told you. You shrugged. 

“Did your daddy buy that caldron for you from the top shelf in Diagon Alley?” you asked him. He gave you a sly smile.

“I picked it out, actually,” he told you. You raised your eyebrow and scoffed, looking away from him. 

“You got a tongue on you Malfoy. Is that what caused you and Lady Black to break up?” you questioned him. He shot you a look and you knew you had taken it a bit too far but you didn’t owe anything to Lucius Malfoy. He had quite a reputation for being a stuck up rich boy around the school. Living under his fathers thumb...a prick regardless. 

“Her name is Narcissa,” he told you. “What is your name?” 

“Y/N.” He waited for you to give him your last name and you did not. He was too hung up with the family stuff, you weren’t about to give him the satisfaction. 

“Alright Y/N. Would you like me to move and sit with her?” he asked. He had an enviable poise to him. You slowly leaned back in your chair and brought your quill feather to your nose. You pursed your lips and leaned forward again.

“Why don’t you stay? I could use some entertainment. You’re not bound to the back left corner seat if you and Narcissa get better.” 

Class began then and you and Lucius Malfoy were too intrigued with each other for it to go nowhere.

==========

Over the next few weeks, you would come to Potions and write each other notes, slipping them under the table. They started out with simple curiosity. It was two classes in when he pressed you for your family name and you gave it to him. It wasn’t anything fancy but you were a pureblood and you knew that was important to him. 

Every time you came to class you expected him to leave the spot and go back to Narcissa. He didn’t speak to you out of class and you barely paid him any mind. 

When you looked back, you knew you were in love with him. You had prided yourself with being able to withstand Lucius’s charms but you hadn’t. You had fallen for the sly smile and mysterious gaze. His silver hair that was cut just above his shoulders looked more and more appealing with each passing Potions class. 

You couldn’t let yourself fall in love with him. He was in love with Narcissa.

One day she didn’t show up to class. That wasn’t unusual, everyone got sick every once in a while. 

“Where's the princess?” you asked him. He took off his scarf as he sat down beside you. His eyes flicked to Narcissas empty seat.

“Her sisters and her are taking a week vacation. Don’t ask me where, I do not know.” You also had a feeling that he didn’t care. You glanced over at him.

“Aren’t you gonna miss her?” Your voice was a little more emotional than you had wanted it to be. He didn’t look at you. 

“Why are you so hung up about her?” he asked. You raised your hands in a sarcastic defiance.

“Sorry lover boy, I won’t bring her up anymore.” He leaned back in his seat and didn’t say anything more until class started.

That class he handed you a note as everyone was dismissed. You took it and read it the second he was out of sight.

‘Astronomy tower, 8 sharp’

=======

You hadn’t taken an Astronomy class yet so you had to do some hunting to make sure you went to the right place. After too many stairs and having to unlock the door with magic, you were able to slip in undetected. Lucius was waiting for you there, standing beside a railing in the dim lighted room.

“You wanted to see me?” you asked, voice small. You had attempted to slip hide your emotion but failed miserably. You walked up to stand beside him and leaned against the pillar. He turned to you and without warning, kissed you. You pulled away quickly, unsure of his intentions and suddenly feeling very flustered. “What about Narcissa?” you questioned, holding his cheek in your hand. 

He did not answer so you kissed him again. 

=====

Hiding a relationship with Lucius Malfoy had become to be more tedious than you had expected. He would lend you his scarf, even though you had your own, and people tended not to notice. A part of you was fine with the subtlety but you also wanted to be known. 

You were your own person but you were also his...for the time being at least. 

Narcissa returned to school and you watched her more carefully than you had before. She didn’t even seem to be more than acquaintances with him but then again, you probably looked the same way. 

But after classes he would sneak you away places. He would be romantic, he would show you a side to him that you had never seen before. His touch was tender and loving. His home was hard and challenging. Lucius confided in you and you tried to confide in him as well. Your relationship was easy. 

You ran your hand through your hair as you sat in the Three Broomsticks. Hogsmeade was alive with students and teachers alike, enjoying a nice day off from everyone's studies. Lucius leaned back in his chair and there was clearly something bothering him.

“So are you going to speak or am I going to have to get you something more to drink?” you asked. His empty cup of cider sat in front of him. “What will it be then? Another cider? Butterbeer? Pumpkin juice?” He shook his head and glanced at the door as another group of students came in.

“No, it’s alright.” He didn’t say anything more though. You rubbed your cold hands together and then took a drink of your butterbeer. 

“Lucius…”

“Don’t push it.” His voice was harsher than usual and you took the hint. You stood up and walked over to talk to someone else. You mingled around Three Broomsticks for a while and Narcissa came to talk to Lucius. You were pleased to see that he wasn’t very responsive to her either. 

“Hows you and Malfoy?” one of your friends asked. You rolled your eyes.

“Nothing is going on with me and Lucius.”

“Oh yeah?” You gave her a look but Lucius had walked up behind you. 

“Let’s go,” he muttered. He grabbed your arm gently and you nodded. 

“I’ll see you guys later.” Your friends nodded and gave you looks as you left but you ignored them. Lucius and you walked through Hogsmeade and his breathing seemed to get more shallow.

“My parents sent me an owl,” he said carefully. You shoved your hands in your pockets. You should have brought gloves. 

“What did it say?” He looked over at you and noticed how you were shivering. It was snowing pretty well. He took off his scarf and handed it to you and you took it gratefully. “Thanks.” 

“I...let’s not talk about it.” You nodded, deciding giving him space would be the best for both of you. You were going back to the school soon anyway and would be going to your separate dorms. 

You reached in your jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of candy.

“Where’d you get that?” he asked, an amused look on his face.

“Candy shop. I shoved it in my pocket while you were paying for yours.”

“Stealing isn’t good darling,” he said. You rolled your eyes.

“Thank you mister obvious.” You grabbed his hand and put some of the candy in his hand. “Enjoy,” you said with a smile. He unwrapped one and popped it in his mouth.

“This is wretched.” He was laughing.

“Well I didn’t look when I grabbed!” 

======

You remember the day that Lucius Malfoy branded you well. 

You were walking to Defense Against Dark Arts. Your mind was elsewhere and you hadn’t been listening to instructions the whole week so when you came in to find that you would be fighting actual Dark Arts, you were flabbergasted and wildly unprepared. You genuinely weren’t even sure what the monster was. 

You could slack off in some other classes but not DADA. Sometimes, you didn’t even trust the teacher to make sure they would save you if you couldn’t save yourself. 

You thought about skipping, taking the mark downs for the day but it would be hard without predetermined planning. The teachers tended to look around the halls for stray students.

You slipped into the back of the class and listened to the teacher as he spoke.

“Today we will be dealing with Boggarts, as you likely know already. I trust you’ve all practiced saying the spell at home.” You hadn’t. You furiously flipped through your textbook pages in a last dodge attempt to be prepared. “How about you Y/N? Would you like to start us off?” 

Your head shot up and all eyes were on you. You saw nervous looks and it didn’t make you feel any better. If students who had been actually paying attention were nervous, then you had every reason to be.

Prideful and with a hard look on your face you stood up. Your teacher gestured for you to walk in front of a wardrobe and quickly the other students stood behind you. You raised your wand but still had no idea what you were meant to say. 

What was a Boggart? 

Your Professor opened the wardrobe and your greatest fear stepped out. You froze. You kept chastising yourself in your head, you should have been listening, you should have been listening, you should have been…

The thought was the only thing that kept you from becoming paralyzed with fear. 

Your greatest fear took another step toward you and you could faintly hear your teacher speaking and your classmates gasping and whispering but all you could really focus on was that you should have been listening. 

Suddenly the thing was struck down and you could breathe again. You fell to the ground, your body suddenly feeling exhausted. On your knees you did not feel embarrassed all you could feel was relieved. 

You felt hands on your upper arms and assumed it was your Professor that had saved you but was surprised to turn and see Lucius. He wasn’t even in this class. 

“Lucius…” you whispered and before you attempted to hug him in thanks, you registered his face. Shock, worry...you couldn’t put your finger on it. Then all at once, completely unreadable. You swallowed. “What is it?” He was knelt on the floor beside you and he reached forward, taking a piece of your hair in his. 

Your hair, once Y/H/C, was now silver like his. Just one strip amongst the other natural colors. 

“A side effect of reckless spell casting,” your Professor said. “Shouldn’t you be in class Mr. Malfoy?” 

He stood up, hard and professional demeanor back. “I saw she may need help and stepped in.” You were holding your new strip of silver hair in your hand, trying to get a good look at it.

“Is it permanent?” you asked. Your teacher turned to you and leaned down, feeling your hair. He pursed his lips.

“Afraid so. Riddikulus is a spell that should be cast only by the person with the fear or someone who has been doing it for years. I’m afraid Mr. Malfoy is neither. It’s a branding that the spell was done wrong, that you did not complete it.” You scrambled up to your feet and the embarrassment set in.

“I’m sorry Professor. I will do better next time,” you promised and you meant it but truthfully you just wanted the attention to be off your new hair do. 

“I trust you will. Now Mr. Malfoy, aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?” 

Lucius barely gave you a glance as he left the room. 

====

You walked into Potions with your head down. People were talking about Lucius and yours little incident and you didn’t need more people gawking at your hair change. You sat in the same spot and only then is when you decided to look up at the classroom.

Lucius was sitting beside Narcissa. You tried to hide your surprise but you didn’t do it very well. A small, heartbroken look on your face was evident to everyone. He wasn’t looking. He didn’t spare you one glance as class went on. 

As he was about to leave you yanked his arm toward you, not caring who saw. His face was unreadable as he looked you in the face. You found yourself relishing in his gaze, after being deprived of it for so long. 

“What-”

“I thought I wasn’t bound to the seat?” he told you and his words felt like daggers. You let him go just as quickly as you had grabbed him and stepped back.

“You’re right.” You could tell that your words had hurt him a little bit too but he barely showed it. If you hadn’t been paying keen attention you would have missed it. He walked away, Narcissa Black at his arm. 

====

As everything in school did, the gossip about the two of you subsided. Lucius never gave you a proper explanation and you never asked for one. You grew to resent him through your final years and your grades went up. 

But every time you looked in the mirror you were reminded of the very quick and fleeting fling you never should have had. Constant proof that at some point you had belonged to Lucius Malfoy. 

===

- Years Later     - 

You put down the parchment papers on each desk. Things had changed since you were a student at Hogwarts but not a lot. The desks in the Potions room were likely the same and the textbook requirements definitely were. It made your teaching job a lot easier. 

You were teaching a first year class this year, among others. They would start filing in soon. This was your first first year class you were teaching so you really wanted to be prepared. You glanced in your reflection in the cabinet glass doors. You took a deep breath, adjusting your hair. Even after all these years, the streak of silver remained and you had all but forgotten the story of how it came to be. Lucius Malfoy had been nothing but a matter of your past since you left Hogwarts as a student.

The door opened and the first group of kids started to come in. You picked up your attendance sheet and sat down on the teachers desk as people started to take their seats, picking and choosing which friends to partner up with. 

You flipped through the textbook as well, opening up to the right spot and getting your last preparations done as the kids sat down. When everyone was seated you looked up with your best teacher smile.

“Welcome first years, to Potions.” You glanced at everyone quickly and your eyes landed on a boy sitting in front. He was whispering with the boys beside him, silver hair, sitting right in Narcissa's old seat. You looked down at your attendance sheet and found what you had suspected...Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. You quickly regained your composure. “I’m going to go through attendance, if you would please raise your hand when I call your na-”

“What happened to your hair?!” someone in the back called. You pursed your lips.

“I dyed it. Now, let's start with A’s.”

====

Draco paid you no mind. You asked around and found that his mother was in fact Narcissa, as you had suspected. You weren’t sure how to feel. It didn’t feel right, that you were sure about. Maybe you were just jealous because you hadn’t gotten married. Sure, you had had your fair share of flings here and there but nothing serious. 

You supposed Lucius was a fling as well. It was only a couple months anyway.

But you were not expecting him to show up to the school. You had been comforted in the fact that you didn’t have to see him or Narcissa again so when he showed up, you were noticeably shocked. 

Lucius stood beside Draco as they walked down the hallway. 

“I will have a conversation with Dumbledore about this, don’t you worry.” You tried to walk past them but Lucius stopped just as you were about to pass. 

“Y/N?” You looked up and feigned surprise. You smiled politely, like it wasn’t bothering you that he was there. He looked so much older but almost the same. You couldn’t deal with it.

“Lucius? Oh hello!” You stopped, holding your books close to your chest. His face was somewhat softened, the menacing look he usually had all but gone. 

“Draco, go on ahead. I want to talk to an old friend.”

“Professor Y/L/N?” Draco accused. 

“Professor?” Lucius said professor but he was really hung up on the fact that your last name had not changed. 

“I’m the Potions Professor,” you explained. Lucius had a sly smile creep onto his face. 

“Go on Draco.” Draco listened this time and walked forward. The hallway was empty except for the two of you. 

“It’s nice to see you again,” you lied. “Draco is a smart boy.” He nodded, gaze following his son as Draco disappeared behind a corner.

“As I was.” 

“I was your Potions partner for a good portion of our third year and I beg to differ,” you joked. He raised an eyebrow amusingly.

“Still have the quip of a teenager.” 

“And you still have the poise,” you said. He nodded. You were both silent for a second and he reached forward, deleticly grasping your silver strand of hair. 

“I never believed that Professor when he said it was permanent.” 

“Well it is.” You stepped back and his hand hung in the hair for a second before dropping. 

“I suppose I should apologize for leaving you all those years ago,” he said. You shook your head.

“We were just kids you don’t have to-”

“You deserve an explanation.” You didn't expect him to say that. The Lucius you knew would not succeed to any wrong doings he had ever done. “The letter I received from my parents detailed that I was to marry Narcissa if I wanted to or not. In the end I did want to.” He hardened his face into an unamused mask. “I couldn’t face you.” 

You always had wondered. You had truly loved him, even for only a moment. You nodded, the understanding showing on your face.

“Thank you for telling me.” 

You started to walk away, desperate to go cry somewhere as the feelings all resurfaced but he grabbed your arm. 

“Draco should have been yours.” It had been a lapse of judgement on his part but for a moment he truly believed it. Your faces were very close and you couldn’t hide your contempt for his words. He was right but you would never say that. You couldn’t say anything else so you yanked your arm out of his grasp before walking down the hall again. You got only a few steps before turning back around.

“Lucius?”

“Yes?” 

“I never thanked you for saving me from that Boggart. Perhaps we’ll get a glass of cider sometime. As thanks,” you said because you needed to say it. You couldn’t leave it like this. He raised his chin and smiled.

“And some wretched candy.” 

You grinned and nodded knowingly. 

“I’ll pay for it this time.”

“I believe you.”

#lucius malfoy x reader #lucius malfoy imagines #harry potter imagines

[descendants-brat]

This one scene about Mal always pissed me off

D2 Back to Auradon (This a fragment of a larger essay post about Mal pt 2 to the first part already posted) 

This.... This is where this bitch really ended up pissing me off because of how it made Ben look to people later on. As soon as they got back to Auradon he immediately asks her what she plans to do, should he cancel cotillion etc etc. She just stands there pouting and like a damn child, not a teenager who was just fighting bitches on the Isle and swore up and down she was going to take it back but a literal child pouting and couldn’t answer a simple question of whether or not she wanted to cancel cotillion after she dumped him. Why was this a problem because had the whole fight with Uma not went down and she became ‘the defender’ and that took over the spotlight it made him look like an asshole. Like his beloved girlfriend Mal had been working so hard to become a royal and he decides to Humiliate her by dumping her by bringing another girl by having her become his Lady instead of Mal. Situation sounds real familiar doesn’t it,  at least they had the gall to be mad this time but I recall them cheering when he did this to Audrey (I’m looking at you specifically Lonnie) Mal wasn’t helping by not making it clear as soon as she got there that they were separated, why? Because she thought she could just switch her mind back with no prior conversation with Ben, “Yeah I dumped him but now I changed my mind and he’ll take me back”. Nobody would’ve had the right to be angry with him if he brought Uma after him and Mal were broken up. It definitely wasn’t helping that Mal got all teary eyed and sad and started asking her EX BOYFRIEND about why he and Uma were together. I didn’t feel bad for her at all because he TRIED to talk to her as soon as they got back and she refused and went and talked with Evie, carlos and Jay instead never mentioning that she had broken up with Ben and that she was to blame for most of their fight while they were encouraging her to go and that if Ben doesn’t love her for her he’s not the one. I’d be concerned if Ben did love her with her feeling like she has the right to disrespect him over and over. The main problem here is BEN, everyone just took Mal’s side without even thinking over the situation and that made zero sense to me. HE is the one they grew up with, he’s the one who brought the girl you’re all dick riding there. It made no sense why they would all including his parents side with the girl who just six months ago admitted that she was plotting against them and not Ben. Thanks descendants once again proving how Ben’s only existence was to be Mal’s bitch. None of his kindness, his dreams, his work and his motivations and the things he did for others mattered. Ben should’ve considered getting a whole new group of friends after that AKS and VKS alike because I couldn’t continue to associate with people who only would support me if I was dating the person who drugged me and abused my trust. Also the fact that I’m supposed to be the King and ultimate ruler of Auradon and of my people would refuse to listen to me in favor of my at the time ex girlfriend (Spelled or not, the fact that they didn’t listen to him and would’ve listen to Mal is problematic) So many of them were wrong in that situation not because of a misunderstanding but simply because that shouldn’t have been their reactions period. Carlos’s first reaction to Ben dating someone other than Mal shouldn't have been to regret risking his life to save his because Ben was still his friend. Ben’s own parents should’ve at least stood by him but instead they stood with Mal and were even going to try to talk to him about it. Where was this energy when Ben broke up with Audrey Beast and Belle??? If I recalled correctly Belle you decided to insult a 16 year old girl instead of ‘talking to him’ about it. It didn’t matter the setting or that the situation was misunderstanding because if that misunderstanding was true this is how they would act.  Just for this one scene fuck all of them, Ben deserves better. 

#audrey deserves better #Audrey Rose #princess audrey #audrey descendants #ben deserves better #Ben deserves so much better than what he got Imma be mad about this man forever #ben florian #ben descendants #king ben #king benjamin #disney descendants #uma descendants #descendants #anti mal #anti mal bertha #anti lonnie i guess #anti lonnie #i dont dislike lonnie there wasnt much to her character unfortunately I didnt like the particular act

[kenmasangel]

getting back together after years

synopsis : the get back, part 1 “why am i even with you”

characters : sakusa, tsukishima

genre : fluff

warning : cursing, mention of alcohol

an : sorry for any gramma or spelling mistakes, everytime i’d right it was nighttime and i’d be really tired so i wasn’t able to focus 100%. please notice me of any mistakes masterlist

Sakusa Kiyoomi

years have passed since your break up with sakusa, it was a sad but necessary break up for you to move on and finally glow up

you also realized that the only person you truly ever needed was yourself and you worked hard to be the person you are today

“at the end of the day, men are trash,” you would try to cheer your friend who had a fight with her boyfriend in one of the best clubs of tokyo. “so wipe your tears and come move your hips,”

on the professional side you became tokyo's favorite journalist, sports related; not only because of your looks but also your professionalism and personality

every hot athlete you've ever interviewed tried to get with you, but they always got rejected

on the other hand sakusa joined MSBY Black Jackals; a professional volleyball team in japan's v.league, in the top tier of division 1

yes sir period

he never dated someone else, the break up kinda broke his heart but he'll never admit it

he also became more distant with people lowkey

however, one day your manager called you to tell you about who are you going to interview next

as she mentionned the name of a famous volleyball team you couldn’t stop your mind of thinking about your ex who used to play volleyball

little did you know that he was a part of the team

lmao who gon tell you

when you got back home you decided to do some research about that MSBY team or whatever

...

oh to your surprise when you saw sakusa kiyoomi’s face there

“no shit,” you mumbled to yourself lowkey annoyed

after the brake up you grew stronger and more independent as you put in mind that all men are trash, you didn’t want to go through that steretipycal sad phase where your self confidence would be all crushed. you wanted to remain strong and you learned how to truly love yourself without expecting anything from anyone as you had your own self

period boo

anyway, you kinda had numbed all your feelings, and to see him now made all your memories with him comeback; how you first met, your first kiss, your first dates and that fight

so here you were, in your appartement checking out their previous interviews trying to get all the juice you needed yet your mind would still zone out on his face

“just keep it pro, y/n, he probably even forgot about you, just keep it pro,” you told yourself before turning off your pc

the day of the interview, here we finally are. the MSBY team knew they had an interview with the most appreciated journalist of all times so they got ready.

“do y’all think they’re cute ?” asks atsumu, “if they’re cute you better back off guys, i’m sure i’m going to catch their attention anyway,” he cockily adds flipping his bang and flexing his muscles, no one bothered answering him at this point they were used to him

“they’re here,” their manager clapped in his hands. “don’t forget what i told you guys, they are very influent so don’t mess it up and don’t scare them away,” he looked at atsumu and bokuto who just stuck their tongues out

“good morning,” you greeted all of them and bowed, “i’m l/n y/n, the journalist who’ll interview you today,” you looked at all of them with a poker face. saying that sakusa was surprised would be an understatement; he was in shock, his brain forgot how to function correctly. you followed the others who took you to the room where all the staff would chill, offering you coffee, tea and snacks

sakusa couldn’t keep his eyes off you, seeing you after all these years was like a wave of fresh air; he was relieved to see you successful and blooming, what a beautiful sight he thought when he saw you laughing with his teammates as he got in the room. but at the same time his heart ached him as he remembred what made you two go separate ways and the guilt he tried to hide deep inside him all those years started creeping up again in his chest

“c’mon, it’s just an interview,” he sighed before sitting on a chair behind his team

the interview started and it was going fine, sakusa’s teammates were cool and you had a lot of fun interviewing them. you liked their chaotic energy and it happened for you to match it, they immediately liked you

“y/n-chan,” started atsumu getting close to you, ”would you like to go out with me tonight, we could have dinner together or just grab a drink-”

“okay barry b. benson, you’re not my type sorry,” you stopped him as you pinched his cheek making all his teammates laugh, you got a pout from him but he eventually laughed liking your attitude

“y/n-chan, why don’t you come and have dinner with us tonight?” asked bokuto with sparkles in his eyes, “oooh~ say please we’d love to!” joined him hinata with the same sparkles in his eyes

you akwardly chuckle looking at sakusa then bringing your stare back at them, “i don’t kno-”, “please come, it would be nice,” finally adds sakusa what made you look back at him

you kept staring at each other for  moment before you nodded makinf the three balls of chaotic energy; bokuto, hinata and atsumu scream a ‘yes!’ you exchanged numbers and you went back home

well, that wasn’t too bad you thought to yourself once back at you appartement plopping on your couch

for some reason your heart was beating fast and you damned those feelings you tried to hide and not get rid of for coming back

he was looking as handsome as ever, you were not going to lie

and that look in his eyes... was it regret ?

“as he fucking should,” you shook your head thinking about what he’d said in that fight

but you were young, he probably regrets, “stfu stupid heart,”

you got up and got ready for tonight’s dinner

“keep that poker face y/n, you’re doing great” you said to yourself before getting into the restaurant, you quickly saw hands waving at you, spotting the team and you went to the table. there was a place left next to bokuto and sakusa, just great, you tried hard not to roll your eyes and sat

the diner was going well, you were not bothered by sakusa’s presence, he didn’t talk much anyway and you had fun talking to the others who were really funny, the thing is that everyone got drunk; hinata and bokuto were hugging each other singing the yarichin bitch anthem, atsumu kept saying ‘ya like jazz?’ every time the someone would pass by, you and sakusa were the only ones in a good state. you couldn’t help but laugh at them trying to stop them but you’d eventually fail

“atsumu please stop,” you tried to stop him from getting on the table to ask everyone if they liked jazz, “i won’t unless you tell me ya like jazz, honey,” he wiggled his eyebrows as you couldn’t help yourself from laughing, “i do like jazz now sit down,” you finally said

sakusa kept thinking if he should talk to you or not in the mean time, he couldn’t help but to create two imaginary cases in his mind one for that says ‘yes’ and the other one ‘no’, he finally came back to earth when you sat back down after stopping tsumu from performing a jazz song

“but y/n i swear it’s a good jazz song, it is called... Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley,” he grins proud of himself, you stare at him trying to hold your laughter and when you were going to anwser you heared sakusa do it first, “no miya, and make the owl and the tangerine stop crying,” atsumu salutes him and goes to talk to the crying duo

“long time no see, l/n,” he finally says making your heart miss a beat

“never thought i’d see you again sakusa,” you answer, finally looking at him

“glad to see you’re doing well,” he adds. “even tho i wish we’d be on good terms,” you sigh turning your head. “gotta admit i am the one to blame,”

“glad to see you are mature enough to admit your wrongs,” you anwser him sipping on your drink

“i’ve always knew that i was the one who fucked up, y/n... maybe back then i just didn’t have the guts to admit it, nor to try keeping you close to me. i just saw how you were doing better off without me, and i thought it was better to let go even if it did hurt me...” he finally admits

all what you wanted to hear, craved to hear when you broke up with him. you felt some type of way, good memories you had with him flooding your mind and the feelings you’ve once had for the pretty germaphobe

what were you gonna say? were you finally ready to forgive him and move on or stay on your positions and just live like you’ve been living since the brake up

“well... we’re grown ups now, it’s all forgiven and forgotten,” you give him a small smile,

“thank you,” it was then quiet for a brief moment before he finally decided to man up, “i missed you,” he looked down at his plate

wow the butterflies in your tummy, heart and brain went off with no warnings, you stared at him with wide eyes trying to comprehend what on god’s green earth did he just say

did you miss him too ? did you hate him ? were you over the fight ? did you really stop loving him or did you just hide those feelings ?

too many questions yet no answers, as he realized you didn’t answer he mumbled few apologies but you stopped him telling it was fine

“it’s just... it’s been so many years and we didn’t end up on good terms,” you explain

“yeah, no, i totally understand that is normal,” you nodd looking down at your lap. “can i hold your hand?”

“pardon me?”

“can i hold your hand? fuck that y/n, can i have another chance? allow treat you right, to love you deeply. that guilt that built up in me kept growing with the years, and now that you’re finally here i just want one thing as i see your face is to make up for everything, even after years.”

oh wow, you were definitely not expecting that; not from sakusa who wasn’t this expressive with his feelings and especially not after all these years

you held his hand and smiled sincerly at him, “it’ll take me time; to figure out how i feel and to trust you again, but i’d like to give it a chance,” he smiled back, hope filling his eyes

after that night you tried to spend a lot of time together

usually he would be the one to initiate it

he did his best to prove you that you can trust him and that he became a better person for you

your heart would melt everytime he told you about a memory of you together or how he still remembered stuff about you

you were on your guards in the beginning but slowly you began to soften

eventually you got back together, but that’s another story

it took several months but you don’t even know how happy he was

oh and let’s just not talk about the media and how powerful you guys were

anyway you were happy and that’s what matters

Tsukishima Kei

ara ara what we have here

do you know how the life works in a weird way sometimes? a compilation of events that happen by sheer luck, fucking coincidences that are just way out of this world that lead you to bump into that one person even if you don’t want to?

no ? aight sorry

anyway, that is lowkey what life had in store for you and salt shaker man

tsukishima had gotten into that college he wanted to attend

he was happy but he would’ve secretely loved if you were there to share his happiness

oh how little did he know that you got into that college too

ahaha *awkward laughter*

homeboy found it out in a special way, not the best way there is but you know he had to know a way or another

he went to that party with his two roomates who actually lowkey forced him ngl

as he was making his way to the kitchen he heard someone laughing, a laugh he’s heard way too many times but he shook it off thinking about how many people may have the same laughter

“oi y/n, you look hot!” a male’s voice shouted

what ?

there was no way you were there and he decided to make sure by checking out by himself

he was CHOKED when he saw you there

“tell me something i don’t know,” you laughed as you approached the boy who called you. “what’s up hot stuff ?” he said as you were finally next to him

hot stuff? tsukki almost gagged at the horrible name you were just given, yet it was not false that you were indeed ‘hot’; you looked as flawless as ever, you did a 180° change

the sweet, soft, innocent y/n was replaced by the baddest bitch in the motherfucking block he almost didn’t recognize you. he wondered if you stayed together would you have gone through this change an didn’t notice you coming his way

“god, don’t stand in the middle of the- tsukishima ?” you stopped when you saw his face. “you attending a party, what a surprise,” you stood there a hand on your hip

“oh y/n, how are you?” homeboy didn’t know how to act at this point, he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck

“i’m doing great actually, so did you get into here ? the ‘college of your dreams’,” he could feel the sarcasm in your voice, he also noticed how cold you were

“yeah, thankfully. where’d you go ?”

“oh i go here, the same college as you,” you fake a smile, he feels his heart miss a beat.. or two.“you know sometimes i look back, and i can’t help from noticing that being in a committed relationship didn’t stop me from attending one of the best colleges out there and you, on the other hand who didn’t want anything to do with a relationship got here too,” you spat, obviously you didn’t get to tell him how you felt when you broke up. “good thing i’m not in the same major as you though,” you sighed

“y/n i_,”

“no save it tsukishima, there’s no need to say whatever you want to say. at this point i’ve moved on, i just found it funny to see you here after what you’ve said and how i actually also got here; now i know for sure that you were the problem... and i hated myself thinking it was me,” you scoff. “hope i won’t get to see you often, good luck for the rest,” and with that you left, joining a group of friends who waved for you to join them

needless to mention that he was pissed and heartbroken

he was not expecting that from you, he always saw you as this delicate person whose kindness is infinite

now, oh now he didn’t recognize you

even your voice got more.. mature? cold? idk

anyway after your encounter he directly headed back to his dorm

he couldn’t sleep the whole night rethinking about all what those years with you and what you said, you hated yourself as you thought you were the problem

bravo tsukishima they hate you, he thought to himself

uhm lol so the rest of your college ‘journey’ went without the two of you seeing each other

you were both majoring in different stuff, the campus is huge, y’alls schedules didn’t match and you had different friend groups

yet rarely he would find you at the library at 4am, many empty coffee cans on your table, looking all sleepy with your glasses falling off and your hair in a messy bun

“fucking ass why on god’s poluted earth did i ever want to major in that fucking shit of a topic, couldn’t i do something basic like stripper or something ? ugh fml,” he caught you once in the middle of an existencial crisis

he couldn’t help his lips from twitching upwards and he couldn’t stop the memories of the two of you studying together flooding his mind

he never came close to you tho, especially after what you told him in that party

sad </3

you guys graduated from college fucking finally

congrats folks you did it!

and you thought it was the end of your story

how sweet, how naive

uh-uh baby life decided otherwise and you saw each other years later

in the same company 🤪 

“oi tsukishima-san, don’t forget we have a metting with the new manager in 10,”

how could he forget ? everyone has been talking about this manager for a week

tsukki was respected by all his work mates as he was such a good element what made him get the best promotions and claims from his boss

n e way

he got into the conf room where everyone was seated and took his place waiting for the new manager and the boss to come in, he was clearly annoyed and didn’t want to be there; he just wanted to finish his work on go back home

anyway his attention was brought back by his boss entering the room, “good evening everyone, with no longer introduction let me introduce you to y/l/n y/n your new manager,”

tsukki’s head SNAPPED, he almost broke his neck

tsukiskima.exe has stopped working

you were surprised when your eyes landed on him too but you’re a bad bitch and kept it professional

he couldn’t focus for the rest of the meeting, even tho it was just presentations and basic information for the future collaboration

the meeting ended and everyone went back home, except for you as you stayed in late to work on some stuff

you thought you were alone since it was late, but you were wrong since tsukishima had also stayed in late to finish up whatever file he was asked to analize

this is why you were startled when you heard some noise and a tall figure got out of the office ahead of you

“oh my,” you held your chest and relaxed when you noticed it was tsukishima, “i thought i was alone,”

“staying in late on your first day huh, didn’t know you were still here,” he responded, you noticed how his tone didn’t change from when you first met him in highschool, maybe his voice got a bit more deeper tho

you couldn’t help noticing how good he looked in his suit, it fit him really well. his broad shoulders covered by the dark blue vest, the first few buttons of his white vector shirt opened letting you lowkey see his collarbone

“yea well i’m leaving now, good night,” you quickly say and took your leave, seeing him after all this time was weird and you didn’t know how to feel

you still remember what you said the last time you saw him at that party, you were hurt and you said some things you probably regret by now and you thought that he probably hated your guts and as long as you wanted to be at the top in your  new work you still decided to stay away from him

“ugh what a dumbass,” you whined and slapped the back of your head thinking tsukishima was still in the floor you left him in, but he saw you and his lips twitched upwards

everytime he thinks you can’t look any better you prove him wrong, he thought to himself as he went to his car finally heading back home. after all those years life decided to still play with you guys and put you in the same company, i mean, he wasn’t complaining but he wished it wasn’t awkward between the two of you

you guys started working together, a new journey for the both of you started

he thought you still hated him and that is why he was cold with you :(

so you were both distant with each other and if you ever had to talk it was cold, formal and quick

it’s been a few weeks your collegues had noticed the tension between the two of you

they were lowkey sus of something but didn’t want to butt in

it was physically painful to watch

n e way everything was going more or less smoothly until a new face made an appariction in the company

“my god! what are you doing here?” you hugged the good looking man

“i missed you and i thought that i couldn’t live without you, so i am here to cling,” you pull away and playfully slap his chest. “nah more seriously i am here to get that bag boo,”

“as you should hun, so you’re a trainee huh? i’ll ask them to put you under my supervision,” you wink

“say less,” he flirtily gets close to you

“uhm, sorry to interrupt your i bet very educational discussion but y/l/n, here, the file,” tsukishima butts in out of nowhere, his voice colder than usual and his eyes lowkey darker than usual

“oh thank you,” and he left

“well, that was awkward,” your friend cringes

“shut up, yuuji,” you roll your eyes

“wait wasn’t that tsukishami? sushikima? suspicual tall bitch who broke your heart?” the last attempt made you chuckle

“yes, it is,” you sigh, going through the file. “i can’t believe you still remeber that!”

“miss girl, you were not the one listening at your own self sobbing at how some tall, blonde, salt shaker broke your heart and how you’d want to, and i quote “punch his beautiful face then hug him so tight that i’ll squeeze his organs”,”

you narrow your eyes at him then for quite a while, then you scoff, “i am glad you’re here, dickhead,”

“so am i, headass,” he gives you a sincere smile

yuuji’s presence made things complicated even more

tsukishima didn’t appreciate the new flirty, good looking, lowkey smart trainee who was under your supervision

he was more irritable than usual, he knew he had no right to feel like that but still, he couldn’t help it

everytime he saw you two together working, laughing, grabing lunch together or even just being in the same area it made him want to break walls

but he couldn’t

he also saw how yuuji would flirt with other female collegues and it made him furious; you didn’t deserve that!

deserve what tho lol you and yuuji were friends but since tsukki was blinded by his jealousy or whatever he was feeling he assumes you were a thing or soon to be a thing

dumb mf

anyway

your boss had assigned you an important file to work on

all cool and shit until he mentioned that you had to work with tsukishima

ahaha.......... right

you started working the day after

°3°

it was awkward as fuck ngl, y’all would share max up to 3 words in a matter of 20mins

each one of you was sitting in their side

the tension buddy, the tension!!!!!

idk how you survived

day 2: you slapped some sense in yourself and an old relationship that ended in bad terms shouldn’t affect your work years after

so you started talking more, always pro stuff, but still

kei was the same as yesterday but that didn’t surprise you since he was always like that and you weren’t expecting anything from him except contribute effectively to the work, what he did

day 3: work in progress, nothing less

day 4: same as day 3 except that you stayed in later than the previous days

day 5: yuuji bursted in because he had broought you food, he kissed your temple before he left wishing you good luck. tsukki almost gagged, homie was fuming in rage

day 6:

it was late, everyone had left but you and kei still working on that goddamn file, thankfully he had given enough time to finish the work

“y/l/n, the food is here,” tells you tsukishima as he got back into the office

“thanks, i almost died from hunger,” you get up getting what you ordered

you were eating in silence until tall man decided to speak up, “funny, huh?” you looked at him confused. “how we went to the same highschool, same college and now we are working together,”

you just let an “oh” thinking about what you told him in that frat party, “i guess you were right, i was the problem,”

“tsukishima look, it’s been years and it’s all forgotten now okay?” he looks at his food, his mind elswhere

“remember what you told me in that party?”

“tsuki-”

“i mean, now that we’re grown ups we can talk about it, right? i feel like i didn’t get closure, not like i deserve it but still,8

you just nodd and go sit in front of him

“well, i lashed out on you on that party because i didn’t get closure, i was obviously still hurt and petty and immature. Seeing you there was like a slap in the face, i really want to apologize but i feel like what i said was true,”

“and it was true, it took sometime to accept it and realiwe it, but you don’t need to apologize; i didn’t treat you right, so i am sorry,”

you give him a small smile, “i am also sorry, i shouldn’t have talked to you that way it was rude,”

“but true,” he adds and you chuckle

“yeah, it’s all fine now. we can start over again,”

“i mean, i’d like to,” he gives you a small, tiny smile but you could still see it

“y/n?”

“mmh?” you look at him, your mouth full and cheeks about to explode

“i know we just made up and stuff but... please be careful with that new trainee,”

“yuuji? what why?”

“look i’m a man and i know wha another man thinks when i see him in action, and he’s just... not trustworthy i guess,”

“tsukishima kei, tf are trying to say?”

“look, i don’t want you to get hurt! but he is all flirty with other women and it’s just a huge disrespect to you and your relationship,” he explains

you look at him with wide eyes than laugh your ass off, you couldn’t believe what you just heard

“tsukki, yuuji is my bestfriend we’re not dating,” you wipe a tear tha slipped

he just stares at you, “oh” is all what he could say

“thanks for worrying tho,”

“whatever,” he rolls his eyes

as the days went by you and kei got closer

he would tease you and you’d tease him back

“oi, salt shaker, put my stuff on a high shelf again and i’ll pull your highschool pictures when you played vb,”

“as if you still have them” he scoffs

“don’t mess with me!”

“whatever shortie- OW why would you throw the stapler at me?”

“it’s your mouth that i’m gonna staple next time,”

anyway it was all giggles and shit

you enjoyed working together and gaining your complicity back

the due date came, you had to present in front of 3 other CEOs and your own ceo

you did an amazing job, obviously

everyone liked the harmony between the two of you and how neat your work was

“WOHOO here’s my bad bitch,” yuuji hugged you after the deliberation

“stfu we’re not alone,” you laugh. “did i look good?” you ask

he smirks and checks you out, twirling you and wolf whistling, “hotter than ever and thicker than snicker,” you laugh at his remark

“uhm-uhm,” tsukishima came behind you

“hey, sushimika, good job out there,” yuuji gives him a big grin

tsukishima just nodds and his eyes dart to yuuji’s arm around your waist, something he notices

“erm anyway, Vanessa is calling me gotta go,” he kisses your head and leaves

“he’s one of a kind, i gotta admit,” you say pulling him out of his trance

“i mean, y’all are bestfriends so i’m not surprised,” you roll your eyes

“we did a good job out there, i mean i was better but you weren’t too bad yourself,” he smirks

“you’re so annoying,” you laugh. “i guess we make a good duo,”

you lookn at each other for a while before tsukki finally speaks up

“uhm look, i know it’s only been one month since we’re back to normal but... would you maybe like to have dinner with me?” he rubbs the back of his neck

“like a date?”

“you know what i mean y/n,” he rolls his eyes

“uhm sorry i don’t clearly see what you mean,” you grimace

“ugh alright, like on a date, would go with me yes or no ?”

you laugh at his impatience, “pick me up at 7,”

“is that a yes?”

“you know what i mean, tsukki,” you say as you leave

so the date went well

really well

you didn’t want to burn steps so you lowkey took your time in the process of getting back together

going on dates, talking everything out to build a strong base

work together was fun

i mean i’m not gonna talk about the sneaky make out sessions but haha you know 👀 

surely you got back together, even shared an appartement and you are the happiest you’ve ever been

he proposed 3 years after

fin

taglist : @fallingforyuu @ukhyeonn @yeonayona  @terminallyvolatile @bryai003​ @ichigo-post​ @virgyalizu​ 

i truly hope you like it, <3

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu #haikyuu!! headcanons #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! scenarios #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu!! imagines #haikyuu imagines #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa #kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #sakusa scenarios #sakusa x y/n #sakusa x you #sakusa headcanons #sakusa kiyoomi x you #tsukishima kei #Tsukishima #KEI #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima x you #tsukishima scenarios #tsukishima x y/n #tsukishima headcannons #tsukishima x yn #karasuno #hq tsukishima #hq sakusa #haikyuu headcannons

[potassium-pilot]

Prompt 28: Bow

“So remind me why we’re doing this, if you’d be so kind”, Dia asked.

“You may be an all-powerful warrior with a spellbook in hand, but imagine the utility if you learned something new. Where better to learn than a training ground such as Camp Dragonhead?” Haurchefant reminded her kindly as requested.

“I guess. I don’t necessarily have anything better to do thanks to the Braves, now do I?”

“I hope this might prove sufficiently entertaining during your stay. Here is your weapon.” Haurchefant removed an oaken bow from the wall mount as well as a quiver filled with arrows.

“A bow?”

“Aye. Is aught amiss?” Haurchefant tilted his head at her comment.

“Well, no, I guess…I would have thought you’d recommend something a bit more, er, close combat than that.

“A knight cannot be content with simply one mode of combat. A quick marksman can have just the same impact as the mightiest of swords with the right timing.”

“Yeah, but the sword looks cooler.”

He sighed. “Aesthetics aside, I figured this would be an easier transition. Instead of slinging spells, you would sling arrows.”

“I guess. The bow is definitely a different medium though- easier to aim my hands than this.”

“Who knows? Mayhap you’ll find yourself enjoying it more than you think.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I’ll try anything once.”

“Attagirl! Now then, here is where you’ll stand.” Haurchefant lead her to a marker about twenty fulms away from a target. “Allow me to give you an example of proper bow handling.” He grabbed his own bow and quiver and prepared at a target next to hers.

“All right, first thing’s first, depending on your dominant hand- based off of what I’ve seen, you appear to be right-handed- you need to place one leg back and another to the front. As a right-handed woman, keep your right leg to the back for support…” Dia listened as he explained form for proper bow handling for about two minutes.

“….and last, but certainly not least, keep your eye on the target. If you’re aligned with your bow, you will hit your mark.” Finally, he demonstrated everything he said in one shot. Carefully, he drew back the bowstring, and fired at the blue and silver target in front of him. It flew skillfully towards the bullseye and landed perfectly, as if he told the arrow to simply go there. “Does this make sense, my friend?”

“I…think so. I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

“Indeed. Show me what you’ve learned.”

The answer was rather little. She fumbled with the quiver for a moment, failing to get an arrow since she failed to attach the quiver to her person properly. She spun in circles a few times as if she had a mi’qote tail she wanted to catch, but she did manage to get one.

“Got it! Now you said something about a nock”, she mumbled, looking for a slice of metal on the string as he pointed out. “Ah-ha!” she exclaimed quietly as she located it and placed the feathers against it. Slowly, she pulled back the bowstring, but found she couldn’t get it very far back, not to mention her slipping grip on the arrow.

Out of nowhere, Dia felt her arms be lifted upward gently. “Don’t let your elbows fall back into your sides or you’ll never get very far”, he spoke softly into her ear in a low tone. He slid his hands up her arm to her hand and corrected the positioning of the arrow, pulling it slightly backward so she didn’t grip the feathers. “Remember, slightly behind the feathers”, he instructed in the same tone.

Please don’t let go of me, she thought to herself, hoping to every god she could think of that he couldn’t tell how she drank up his warmth, that hot breath against her neck, the way he whispered to her just right, and how it made her heart race.

It only made things worse when he gently took her chin and tilted her head towards the front of her, pressing against his own cheek as he put his face parallel to hers.

“Eyes on the target”, he said just as low before turning his head to her ear, and whispering “Fire.”

She didn’t even register her own grip releasing. She just focused on her racing pulse and the shiver being sent down her spine at his whisper.

“Well done!” he exclaimed aloud, snapping Dia out of whatever the hells that was, and bringing her attention to the target. Her arrow pierced through the edge of the circle near the bottom.

“Uh…I-I didn’t even hit the bullseye.”

“‘Tis your first time, my friend. Many a fresh recruit have sent their arrows flying through our windows, so I consider this a rousing success for your first try!”

Now that he said it, it was rather nice to her that he could see a miss in such a way. To that end, she intended to try again. “Hey, so uh, you might want to help me try that again, Haurchefant. Maybe I’ll hit the bullseye this time with your help”, she suggested meekly.

“Nonsense! You’ll never learn with me hanging over your shoulder. Now then, use what you’ve learned, my friend.”

Dammit, she cursed in her head.

Dia picked up what he led her to do pretty quick, and went through the motions: straight arm, just past the feathers, eyes on the target. She waited a few moments as she felt herself practically fighting the bowstring, but the stage was set.

That is, until she took her eyes away from the target to look at Haurchefant, who seemed to stare her down as well, but why?

She would have thought about it more had she not just grazed his arm with an arrow.

“Oh, Twelve help me!” Dia exclaimed as she threw the bow to the ground to run to his side.

“I’m all right, I’m all right”, he tried to reassure her, but kept his arm conveniently covered. She pulled it away from the wound with great force as he attempted to keep the wound out of her sight. “Gah! I’m so sorry, Haurchefant!” she apologized as she began her ministrations on his arrow wound. “I’m an idiot; I got distracted by something at the last second and that arrow just flew in the exact direction I didn’t want it to go.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t; not when she was right there. The way the aether flowed from her into him electrified his senses. Her firm grip on his arms was exactly what he needed. The way she glistened with sweat in such a frozen wasteland; in this moment, she seemed rather…splendid.

“There. Are you all right?” she asked Haurchefant worriedly.

Halone help him, he needed out of there before he did something he’d regret.

“Oh, uh, yes, I’m fine now, thank you”, he answered rapidly and nervously, “Keep, uh, keep practicing with that bow. I just remembered that I have some business-like…business to attend to in my-my office. Excellent work! Keep it up!” He shot out of the shooting range as fast as he could and entered his office with all haste.

Dia, you fucking idiot, you scared him away. Focus! she berated herself in her head. She picked up the bow one last time, doing exactly as she was instructed, and fired the arrow. It hit the wood that held up the target. “Fuck!” she whispered loudly.

********

The evening sun hanged in the horizon of Ishgard. The golden glow of twilight still shone enough light that the garden she managed to keep alive in the courtyard behind Borel Manor could remain visible. She tended to her peppers and kidragora quietly in spite of the cold. None could make a master botanist stop doing botany, climate be damned.

Once weeds were pruned enough, fertilizer was laid down properly, and covers were applied to keep her labor of love warm through the night, she stepped away. Her garden was located in a different spot of the courtyard, separated by a wall, most likely at the former countess’s request. On that other side of the wall was a small area used to practice combat. Neither her nor Aymeric used the other side all that often; Dia had a proper setup for practicing gunbreaker maneuvers with Thancred back in Mor Dhona, while Aymeric preferred to use the mostly defunct Whitebrim front for his training. With that in mind, she was slightly curious about it, and decided to pay it a visit.

Upon reaching the other side, she took a quick look around. It was painfully obvious how unused everything was considering the frozen state of all the equipment. That said, there was one particular item that didn’t seem to share the same level of disrepair: a dark oak bow, complete with metal arrows in a quiver next to it.

It still hurt. After everything she’d seen and done, after everyone she ever met, after all the sacrifices she’d seen, it still hurt. But still, she always remembered how a smile better suited a hero. Dia picked it up off the wall, alongside a quiver that hung next to it, and stood at the line about 30 fulms behind the target.

The quiver was on correctly this time, making it much easier to pick one out of the collection. She found the nock easily, seeming to have been prepared already, and placed the arrow just above the feather. She placed her right leg back, and lifted the bow, ready to aim. “Arms up”, she whispered as she lifted her arms. “Eyes on the target”, she whispered as she focused on the target.

She could still hear him whisper, “Fire”.

In a moment, she let go of the arrow, and felt a small sting of disappointment as she just missed her mark. It landed on the right between the edge of the target and the bullseye. “Dammit”, she whispered.

“Fine form.”

She turned her head to see Aymeric at the doorway, clearly amused by her attempt. “Come to laugh at your girlfriend and her piss-poor aim?” she snarked, still disappointed in her efforts.

“I would never. Your aim is fine, my dear. That in mind, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you lack confidence in something before.”

“You should have met me when I first started adventuring. You’d be floored by how little confidence I’m capable of having.”

He smiled and laughed lightly. Aymeric walked towards her and said, “You look rather dashing with my old bow.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

“Naught to apologize for, my love. Consider it our bow.” He led her to lift up the bow again. “Your form is quite good, but don’t waver.” He held onto her bow arm to still her arm, and tilted her chin upward, keeping his hand in place. “Align yourself with the bow. Remember, it follows your lead, and you are a natural leader.” She kept her eye on the center of the target.

“Fire”, he ordered in a low tone.

Dia released her grip, and witnessed the glory of her arrow hitting the very center of the bullseye.

She squealed in excitement and hopped in place like a child, making Aymeric laugh in a mixture of pride and amusement. “Congratulations!”

She pounced him and kissed him in her jubilee, and he returned it happily. After a few seconds of enjoyment, she released and told him coyly, “Thank you for being such a great teacher.”

“Where would I be without my star pupil?”

She grinned and returned to kissing him with more passion behind her efforts than the first time, the both of them soaking in each other’s energy and warmth as the evening began to wane.

Thank you too, Haurchefant. I’ll carry your guidance with me always.

#ffxivwrite2021 #ffxivwrite #ffxiv #haurchefant/wol #aymeric/wol #haurchefant greystone #aymeric de borel #female wol #this is the stupidest i’ve ever written #i’m looking forward to writing stupider #just spritz those two with cold water and get them laid and they act normal #ffxiv fanfiction #fanfiction

[angstyaches]

The Demon You Know

CW: repressed childhood memories, childhood trauma, drowning, detachment, child with depression (?), anxiety, nausea, pain, angst.

It gets a little abstract because my brain’s been in a funny place lately. Hopefully it makes sense, but if it’s not clear, pleeease tell me. 

Swallow the World: The Ouija Board Pt.11

The headache came on so suddenly that he knew it must have been Rin arriving at the house, Ouija board in tow. Charlie grunted and hoisted himself up from the sofa, wincing and holding one hand to his temple, one to his stomach, willing it to stay settled through the pain. His dad had made pancakes for dinner before he and Charlie’s mum had taken off again for the new house, and he had no desire to see them again, splattered across the coffee table.

Days had passed since Charlie had seen Shayne, and he honestly wasn’t sure that he wanted to anymore. Ingrid and Trevor had returned for a few days, and had seemed determined to keep him occupied with movies and drives and takeaway food. Charlie couldn’t tell if they had sensed he was upset about something, or if they were buttering him up for more bad news. He’d accepted their attention with as much gratitude and as many smiles as he could muster, which was plenty. He was used to making himself appear happy, because it made them happy. And in turn, he felt a little less guilty for being a weight on their marriage, their lives, their plans. He also knew that, soon enough, he’d be as distant from both of them as Jonathan already was from their dad.

Charlie went to open the front door, wondering why he’d heard Rin’s car’s engine stop a few minutes ago, with no sign of her coming to the door.

Rin looked up as she walked from her car to the doorway. Her hair was in two buns, her neck wrapped in a thick scarf. The package under her arm made Charlie want to recoil from the doorway, but he held his ground, trying not to let his panic show on his face as his gaze fell upon a second figure, who was a few steps behind Rin.

He somehow looked worse than the last time Charlie had seen him, and this did nothing to help the sense of dread piling itself onto Charlie’s headache.

“Hi,” Charlie said to Rin, reaching out an arm for a hug as she approached, holding the package out to the side so it wouldn’t touch him. He squeezed his eyes shut, digging his head, maybe a little too harshly, against her shoulder.

“You alright, Charlie Bear?” she whispered.

“Mmhmm, I’m fine, Rin, I just…” He trailed off, words disappearing and leaving only a sour taste on his tongue.

Rin nodded in understanding and tickled at his back.

“How are – how are you?” he asked as he pulled back, standing out of the way so she could come into the hallway.

“Oh, you know,” she sighed. She glanced down at the package under her arm, pulling it out and holding it flat across both her hands. “At least things never stay boring around here for too long, right?”

Charlie hummed in agreement and gestured for her to go through to the front room, where he’d set the coffee table up in the centre of the floor with sofa cushions on either side. She half-smiled at him before carrying the board to the table.

He glanced back towards the driveway. Shayne was hesitating by the steps, like he still hadn’t decided if he was going to come in or not. He looked down and kicked lightly at the gravel with the toe of his boot.

“Waiting for me to –?” Charlie pressed a hand to his head as a spike of pain rippled above his left eye. Well, I’m sorry, but what do you expect? “Waiting for me to invite you over the threshold?”

“I – I was in the forest, and I heard Rin’s car,” Shayne mumbled as he walked past Charlie. “An invite might have been nice –”

“Yeah, except you don’t look at your phone, and you’ve forbidden any of us from coming to your house.”

Shayne scoffed and sat himself next to Rin, eyes glazing over slightly as he watched her starting to set up the board. 

“Come on, Charlie Bear,” Rin called out. “Let’s get started.”

 ___

h-e-l-e-a-v-e-s

Charlie met Rin’s gaze across the table, and she met his. This was the first thing they’d managed to wrangle out of the board since they’d started.

“Was that you?” Rin whispered as the planchet stopped moving beneath their respective fingertips.

“N-no,” Charlie said, cold fear traveling through his bones. He - he certainly hadn’t felt himself directing the little token over those letters. He was still reeling with relief that, after the first three letters, it hadn’t gone on to simply spell the word “hell” as he’d feared for a moment.

“Shayne?” Rin asked.

Shayne gave her a dull look. “Why would I bother?”

Ignoring the remark, Rin looked at Charlie again. “’He leaves’. Does – does it mean you, Charlie? The demon doesn’t want you living here, in this house?”

Charlie slowly shook his head. That didn’t make any sense, did it? Charlie Two had seemingly been with him for a long time, before his parents had bought the Mulberry house.

“It means me.”

Nausea tugged at Charlie’s gut as one finger left the planchet. Shayne let out a huff before getting to his feet.

“Wait, I don’t even know if you can –” Rin drew a deep breath and sighed at having someone leave the board unexpectedly. “Are you sure that’s what it means?”

“Of course.” Shayne winced slightly, his hand almost reaching for his stomach before he stopped it. “Why walk yourself into the shark’s jaw, right?”

“Come on, babe,” Rin chided softly, “don’t take it like that.”

“Like what, Rin? Like I’m a big, black hole that people and demons alike cower away from?”

“Shayne, hang on.” Charlie’s voice was low from the quivering sadness in his chest. He desperately wanted to abandon the Ouija board and go to Shayne, but something in his bones was keeping him from moving. “This whole week, I – I want to just forget about it, okay? Everything you said, and – and what happened with us, I’m – I’m sorry.”

“That’s the problem, Charlie.” Shayne paused and turned in the doorway to the front hall. His hand went towards his stomach again, and he didn’t stop it this time. “Half of you is terrified of me, and the other half is just fucking sorry for me.”

The threat of bursting into tears was too overwhelming by now, and the pain in Charlie’s skull was almost blinding. He was impressed that he’d managed to stay sitting upright this long. He looked down at his lap, coloured spots dancing in his vision. “Alright, then. Go.”

Shayne muttered something that was halfway between a “yeah” and an “mmhmm”. Charlie couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his chest as he heard him leave through the front door.

“Hey,” Rin whispered, squeezing his arm with her free hand. “This is working, Charlie, aren’t you excited?”

“I love him, Rin.”

Her hand dropped away. “I know, Charlie Bear,” she sighed.

Swallowing thickly, Charlie lowered his head and let out a choked sob. It was as though the words had been living in his chest for quite some time, and now that they were out, he was left a little hollow.

“Let’s just get through this. We can chat after, okay? Charlie”

The next time Charlie attempted to blink or lift his head, his muscles resisted him. He wanted to say something, anything, but his lips were - they were so cold, and his lungs couldn’t draw enough air -

“Charlie?” Rin gave Charlie’s arm a shake. 

“The b-b-beach,” Charlie whispered, through it felt like his lips were hanging too far from his mouth, unable to form the words correctly. “Are we at the beach again?”

“The beach?” Rin repeated. “What are you talking about, Charlie Bear? You’re in the Mulberry house with me. Rin.”

Charlie finally completed a single blink, and tears fell from his eyelashes. He couldn’t stop the trembling that travelled down his arms and into his fingertips. He felt like he was about to fall through the floor, only being anchored in place by the finger he had on the planchet. It felt as though he would disappear if he let go.

“M-M-Mum,” he sobbed out suddenly, pain shooting from his head all the way to his heart. “Where’d you – where did everyone go?”

“Charlie, listen to me,” Rin sputtered. “You’re here with me. With Rin?”

Charlie One had known hearts could break. He’d known they could be stolen. Hell, he’d had those things happen to him, so he knew what they should have felt like. But he’d never imagined hearts could be chopped in half and separated like slabs of meat on a butcher’s table.

“Th-th-they don’t w-w-want me,” Charlie stammered. “They never wanted me.”

The pain was physically agonising, yet his body felt too numb to react to it.

“Where did you go?” he mumbled, searching for something inside himself that he couldn’t quite visualise. “Do you not want me anymore either?”

The last thing he heard was Rin’s horrified scream as his eyeballs rolled back in his head, his body swaying in its last seconds of remaining upright, before he collapsed against the floor.

___

Charlie ran barefoot across the sand, leaving tiny footprints behind in the sunshine. The tuneless squawking of seagulls and the rushing of the waves overwhelmed his senses. He didn’t understand it. His cousins loved the beach, and they’d all been giggling and splashing one another in the water, but not Charlie. Charlie didn’t like it. Charlie wanted his mummy. He was breathing calmly because he knew he’d find her. He just needed to find the bright blue screen that they’d set up around their towels and the portable barbeque. It was all here somewhere, a little, temporary oasis of domesticity in the chaos of screaming children and screaming birds.

Finally, there it was. All of the noise and the brightness seemed softer, easier to cope with, once a hug from his mummy was within his sights. He slowed his pace as he got closer, finally able to hear her voice as she chatted happily with her sisters.

“– didn’t want to at the time,” she was saying to his auntie, “but it was my decision to make, Tina. Charlie might be an accident, but ending a baby’s life was just not something I was prepared to do. You have to understand that? I’d never have been able to live with myself, and every day since, I’ve made that same decision over and over again...”

Charlie felt like the sand was going to swallow his feet. He started running again, thinking if he kept moving, it couldn’t take him. He’d just keep moving, never sticking, never ever thinking...

___

Charlie One gasped and blinked, the image of that white face in the dark cave replaced by the same white face in the front room of the Mulberry house. It leaned across the Ouija board, a long, dark digit resting on the planchet. The demon peered down at him as he lay motionless on the floor, deaf and numb to Rin’s desperate attempts to rouse him.

You’re here, he thought.

“Always,” Charlie Two said, and Charlie One detected a smile lingering beyond the unmoving jaw of their skull.

 ___

Charlie ran barefoot across the jagged rocks, not really thinking about where he was going but knowing he didn’t want to turn around. It was like something dark and sticky was chasing him and somehow he knew it wouldn’t follow him into the caverns.

It grew so dark so quickly that he began to slow down, no longer able to see which rocks he needed to step over. When he fell, he didn’t see how far he dropped, or how many sharp rocks he landed on; he just knew that it hurt, and he was gasping too much to cry out for help. Who would even find him in here, anyway? Who would even care, who would want him enough to come and help him?

The ground cut his feet. He knocked his head against rocks jutting out from the cave walls, because he couldn’t see them. Eventually, he turned his head and could no longer see anything but a sliver of sea, a sliver of sky. The cries of the birds and the drone of human activity didn’t reach this place. It was as if he didn’t exist in the same world he’d been in just minutes before.

“Are you okay?”

Fingers reached out in the dark and scared the boy so much that he began to run again. The creature to whom the fingers belonged should have known better, would have if they had been thinking clearer. For they knew of the small plunge pool just ahead, and the small child did not.

Charlie screamed as the ground - painful as it was to run on barefoot - dropped away, and water swallowed him up. He gulped, and he screamed, and he gulped, and it felt as though he’d be screaming and gulping endlessly for the rest of his life, without relief, without end, because who, who would come to save him?

“Stop crying. I’m here now.”

Charlie didn’t know where the air had suddenly come from, but he gasped it gratefully into his lungs, small hands clutching at the thing that anchored him to the rocks, to the world, to himself. He didn’t know where the words floated up from, but he gained control of his wet coughing long enough to ask; “Will you s-stay with me, please?”

The demon embraced the child, too weak to deny such a simple request, so simply asked. “Always.”

#swallow the world #demon whump #possession #tw abuse #tw fainting #demon sickfic #angst #tw drowning #tw child finding out they were an accident

[ceratonia-siliqua]

Heaven Is a City We’ve Been Priced Out Of (Ch 2)

AO3 Link 

Warnings: Possible triggers revolving around the idea of death and dying.

The knife in his lap was heavy but the man next to him was sweet. 

Bucky passed him a burger and fries, adjusted as he drove one handed out of the drive thru. The heat radiated through the wrapper, piping hot in a way only mom and pop burger joints ever seemed to achieve. Drool was pooling in his mouth as he carefully unwrapped the palm sized gift. Bucky stopped the car in the parking lot briefly to situated his own burger, foot still on the break, suggesting that he planned to eat while they drove. 

Peter was nervous but hid it as his teeth sunk into the burger. The paper crinkled and the bun greased his lips shiny. Juice squeezed out the sides, bubbling but contained as the bread soaked it up. The beef was tender but still maintained enough body to pull its own weight. The sour spiked note of the pickle and the slightly sweet harmony of the ketchup had a sigh slipping past his lips. As he pulled away, strands of cheese followed, keeping him connected. Licking his lips, he wiped away the mess but immediately dove in for more. Eyes slipping shut, he hummed as his first warm meal in months settled like a soft ember in his stomach, warmed up from the inside out. In his blissed out state, the eyes watching him went unnoticed, their normal daggers softened by the scene, allowing them to slip by. 

The burger disappeared quickly, the rest of the meal quick to follow suit. As Peter leaned back he took a deep breath. Food had been too scarce for too long, his stomach pushed at his lungs from the volume of the meal. It ached but he’d take it over the familiar knaw of hunger. The car had started moving once more at some point in his meal. He watched as the city bled to suburbs then farmland. Didn’t take more than a half an hour on the freeway to reach rural stretches. Was strange to think about all those bodies jammed into the tent city when so much land lay just outside. 

The drive was quiet, the hum of the radio tuned to a 40s channel filled the cab. Peter rolled the closed knife between his palms, mindless and simply needing to fidget. Nearly jumped out of his skin when Bucky spoke.

“Almost home.”

“Oh,” The sound quiet and just before he turned to look at Bucky. 

Bucky was handsome, it was hard not to stare and Peter was certainly doing so. The short beard, the long hair peeking out from under his cap. Strong jaw and a frame so large he made Peter look like a child in comparison. A part of him wanted to reach out and touch him, assure himself that Bucky was real, that this wasn’t a cruel dream. 

“You okay there, sweetheart?” Bucky didn’t take his eyes off the road. 

Peter wished he could sink into the seat, snapped his head forward and pretended he hadn’t been blatantly looking up the man next to him. “Yeah… just making sure you aren’t gonna vanish into thin air.” Bit his tongue, hard. 

Bucky was silent. Peter jumped when a hand gently touched his elbow. “I’m not going anywhere, darling.”

Peter ignored the safety of that phrase, the way it pulled at his ribs. It was too intimate, too much of a promise from someone he’d just met. He wanted to trust Bucky so badly. Knew that this drive could well be his last. At some point though… why not just let it happen? He was dying. He could feel it. His body moments away from vanishing into dust. At least here, if Bucky killed him he would have a full belly. He would have lived the last hours of his life with some shreds of tenderness. Easier to die fighting than to roll over and let his body waste away.

Even with the knife, Bucky could still hurt him. The man was a mountain and Peter a finch. Still, the knife was a promise. An oath. Maybe Peter was naïve for buying into it but he’d lived his life on faith too long to jump ship now. 

They pulled up to a farmhouse. Startlingly rustic and was hard to put with Bucky’s city attire and accent. It was dark, but he could make out soft russet siding, a roof traditional of the housing style in brown. It was charming, didn’t read as a murder den but then he doubted most of them did. 

He was pulled from his thoughts as Bucky stepped out of the car. 

“Need help gettin’ out?” Bucky leaned in through the open door way of the driver’s side. 

“I think I can manage.” It was harder for him to lower himself with the way his hip had been injured, it locked at a fairly shallow angle and sitting was more often a semi controlled fall unless he was on his knees first and then turned. Standing on the other hand was easier. There were still hiccups, his joints would creak and pop in protest but he would make it. Did make it as he braced himself on the door frame once he’d swung it open. The sound of Bucky’s door closing behind him and the crunch of gravel suggested Bucky was coming around. 

It was a moment he was left completely open. The knife was resting in his pocket so he could stand and his slowed rise left him vulnerable. Yet, Bucky came around and leaned on the door frame next to him, letting him take the time he needed. Didn’t touch him or pressure him in any form, and fuck, if it wasn’t just another point in Bucky’s favor. Too many times others would ignore his need for some level of independence. The things he could do, no matter how hard, were important to him. He may have needed Bucky’s help sitting but Bucky refraining from forcing his assistance on Peter was more than most would give him. 

Bucky walked behind Peter as they started towards the house, a nearby field of mint spicing the air. The house loomed, tall and dark. It promised something, whether it was good or something which would spell his end was uncertain. He stuck his hands in his pockets, ran his left one over the handle of the folded blade, had to take the right side railing in order to keep holding on to the knife. Bucky rounded in front of him once they were on the porch, unlocked the door and flipped on the lights as he went in. The honey toned lights made the door just welcoming enough to encourage Peter through. 

The interior of Bucky’s home gave off an energy that could only be described as sturdy. Everything from the armchair to the coffee table was made of solid oak and dark twisted iron. It made each piece look capable, like the mountain that used them was no more a burden than a feather. The walls were covered in a cream colored wallpaper, their edges not quite laid correctly and overlapping. It was endearing, suggested that it had been done by an occupant rather than a professional, a personal touch. 

“The shower is down that hallway, second door on the left. I’ll bring you some fresh clothes just leave yours outside the door.” Bucky pointed to a hallway that ran off to the right towards the middle of the room, separated the living room and what appeared to be a small dining room. 

“Okay,” A hint of uncertainty leaking into his tone as he turned down the dark hall, almost jumped when the light turned on. He glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Bucky’s arm disappearing behind the wall, presumably having turned on the light for him. Peter caught himself smiling at the detail. 

The bathroom was painted a rich chocolate brown, it felt homely and warm and Peter honestly loved it. The clawfoot tub called his name, he could see himself spending a lazy fall night in it. Was quick to shunt that idea out of his head, reminded himself that this was temporary and only for the night. He was only supposed to shower, not dirty the white porcelain. He ignored the tub and went about figuring out the shower. The two knobs were unlabeled, worn away by time and use. It took nearly burning himself to figure out which was which. 

 Peter stripped himself bare, stared at the ratty jeans and the band t-shirt so faded that the design was nothing more than a shadow. Most embarrassing was his underwear. Plain blue boxer briefs with holes ripped below the elastic, so stretched out that it barely stayed on his hips. There was a large stain on the front, an old blood patch from when a man had been beaten and Peter’s desperate attempts to help ended with him covered in blood and most of his clothes taken as evidence by the police. His outfit was pitiful, no wonder Bucky had suggested a shower. Between the clothes and the layer of grime he must have looked like an orphan child from a Charles Dickens novel.

Being naked in a stranger’s house was nothing short of strange, even for something as innocent as a shower. That was until the shower washed away everything but positive, floaty thoughts and feelings. The stall had glass that had been fogged in such a way that it almost looked like a wall of opalescent stones, all carefully pieces together until no gaps remained. The tile was a shade of pink so light that Peter wasn’t quite sure it wasn’t merely a trick of the light. He felt near boneless under the spray and started to wonder if this is what a shower in heaven would look like. The hot water seemed to pull all the impurities, physical or not, from his body. Ushered them down the drain as black, torrid ink. 

The knock on the door was unwelcome but expected. Bucky let himself in. Peter watched as a black shadow moved just behind the door. Like an evil spirit, a demon, just beyond the gates of heaven. Or an angel arriving home. 

“I got you a pair of shorts and a tshirt. The shorts are too small for me. They’ll still probably be a bit big for you but at least you won’t drown in these. Plus the shirt will cover anything the shorts don’t catch,” Bucky broke the silence, shuffling around. “I’ll-“ Bucky fell quiet, something in the air… shifted. 

“What were you saying?” Peter pulled himself under the spray, trying to ward off the chilling aura.

“Peter,” The way Bucky said his name, it was painfully gentle. “Why is there blood on your clothes?” A barely contained bite to the edge of the comment, still sharp but not cutting. 

Peter feared Bucky believed him to be harming others, didn’t know how to explain that body fluids, blood and urine especially, were common on the streets. “The big one on my underwear is from trying to help someone who was injured. It happened about a year ago.” Hoped that was enough, didn’t want to relive that moment.

It was as if the very house itself sighed. As quickly as the tension came it fled. Ran to opposite corners of the house and out windows, through walls. Peter didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath.

“That's fine then. I was worried you’d gotten hurt. I’ll get you some boxers.” 

“Oh you don’t have to-“ Bucky was already gone. Left Peter to shower a minute more before he returned and left the boxers without much fanfare. Once again Peter was left to his own devices. He finished off by scrubbing out his hair, used a small amount no bigger than a quarter of the shampoo and conditioner. Wondered if his curls would come in full force now that they weren’t weighed down by dirt and oil. 

He turned the water off and toweled down as best he could. He picked up the boxers, just a simple black pair that was certainly too big for him but the elastic had a shot of at least holding onto his bony hips. He’d worn other people’s clothes before but not their underwear. It was clearly clean, but some part of his brain kept pinging that detail. It was either this or going commando though and Peter was far more opposed to the latter. He put them on along with the shorts and shirt. The shorts reached down to his calves and needed to be tied up snug to stay on but they worked. The shirt was a plain black and fell just above his knees. It forced Peter once again to acknowledge the vast size difference between them. Peter was having a hard time believing just how big Bucky was. He could see it clearly with his own two eyes and it still didn’t seem like it was possible for someone to be as tall and densely muscled as Bucky. Bucky’s body wasn’t for show, it was built for strength. His muscles weren’t disproportionate and veiny like a body builder’s. Instead, he came off more as a wall, sturdy and capable.

His old clothes were gone, swept away and likely beyond salvaging. He hoped Bucky sent him off with something to cover up with tomorrow before taking him back to the city. He was about to leave the bathroom when he noticed the obsidian knife resting on the counter. Bucky had removed it from his pants and set it back out for him. Peter picked it up, amazed by the dedication to trying to make Peter feel safe. His only defense could have easily been swept away without him noticing or thinking about it until it was too late. He almost wanted to leave it behind, show Bucky he trusted hi-

A knock at the door. “Peter, I’m making hot cocoa, want some?” Slightly muffled by the slab of wood between them. 

Peter opened the door wide. Taken aback by the tender look Bucky gives him. Watched it fall back to something more neutral, friendly. Stuttered as he spoke. “I-uh yea-, sure.” God, he hoped he could sink into the floor. 

Bucky smiled, affection already having found a home in the looks he gave Peter. “Alright sweetheart, follow me and we’ll whip something up.”

Peter obeyed, the knife forgotten as he was drawn away by Bucky’s gentle demeanor. The kitchen Bucky took him to was new. All the appliances were up to date, cabinets still holding the sheen of new paint, new tile and countertops. It was modern compared to the usual set up for the style of house. A rack hung above an island that copper pots and pans hung from, chained to the ceiling by black iron hooks. The kitchen island was topped with wood, making it into a giant cutting board if one wished to use it that way. Two wooden stools were tucked under it. Bucky pulled one of them out for Peter to sit on as he went to the stove, a pot of steaming milk already resting there. There were two mugs set out filled with mix. One cup was bigger than the other, meant for hands much larger than Peter’s. Bucky poured the steaming milk into each, stuck a spoon in both and stirred. Just as Peter thought, Bucky took the larger mug. It looked normal in his hands, just another coffee mug. 

“Here you go, doll.” Bucky set the other one in front of him. 

“Thank you,” Peter took a sip, was surprised by how rich it was. Drank more, doing his best not to burn his mouth in the process. The whole cup gone in under a minute. 

Bucky chuckled, still nursing his own cup and pulling up the stool next to Peter. “Good?”

Peter let out a small gasp as he came up for air. Set the now empty cup on the island. “Really good. What brand was that?” 

Bucky hummed, sipped from his cup before answering. “I made the blend myself. Found most places didn’t make it the way I wanted it so I took matters into my own hands.”

“Wow, well you did a really good job. It was delicious.” 

He practically beamed. “Thank you, Peter.”

Peter nearly choked on his own spit, gave a few hardy coughs as Bucky reached over and thumped on his back. Felt dumb for it. Choked just because Bucky had said his name. 

“Don’t die on me now,” Teasing but concerned. “Like you alive a little too much for that.”

“I’m-” A round of coughs. “-okay.” He croaked out. 

“Mhm.” Bucky set his cup down and stood up. He took Peter’s mug to the sink, rinsed it, and filled it with water before handing it back to Peter. “Here.”

Peter took the water, sipped until the tingling passed and powered through the coughs that came in between. He was tired, didn’t know if it was the coughing or something else but he felt it now. Maybe it had been there for awhile, something he was just now noticing. 

“You look a bit tired.” 

He nodded, rubbed one eye and shook his head out like a dog, trying to ward off the sensation. 

“Why don’t we get you set up in the guest bedroom.” Bucky stood up. “Follow me.” Bucky abandoned his cup as he started walking. Peter slipped off the stool and followed behind. 

The rest of the house felt… cool. Like a house with it’s blinds closed on a hot summer day. It was an opposite comfort to the way a warm house felt. The crisp chill made him feel comfortable in his skin, like it wasn’t drawn tight by heat and anxiety. 

Bucky led him up the stairs, was patient as Peter took his time getting up. It didn’t hurt but it was something he needed to take his time on. Once at the top he was guided down the stretch of hall. It was only four doors. All were closed except the bathroom, which Bucky pointed out as they went. At the end of the hallway were two doors next to each other, the small line of wall between them indented and creating a sort of ‘Y’ look. Bucky pointed to the door on the left. 

“That one is my room,” He switched to the door on the right. “That one is yours.” Reached out and opened the door to reveal a room painted a mid-toned blue. Deep blue curtains covered the windows and that same coolness was present in this room. The bed was a full size, had a cozy looking quilt all laid out across it. The quilt was a deep maroon, contrasting the color theme of the room. There was a nightstand with a lamp and a dresser off next to the window. The walls had pictures of the ocean on them. Peter was sensing a theme. 

“If you need anything just come get me. If you can’t get out of bed for some reason knock on the wall. I’ll be able to hear you since the rooms share the one the bed is against.”

“Okay, thank you Bucky.” Peter looked at him, tried to convey just how important, how meaningful this was through his gaze and simple words. 

“Of course, Peter.” One of those massive hands reached out towards him and cupped his cheek gently. Peter nearly crumbled into pieces. “Anything you need, anytime. Just say the word.”

Peter refused to tear up, gave one firm nod before Bucky pulled away to let him lay down. He wanted to follow, didn’t want Bucky to go but stayed where he was. Watched as Bucky disappeared, closing the door with a click!

He crawled into bed without much fanfare. Curled up under the covers and sighed as the long forgotten feeling of clean sheets slid across his skin, drawing him down into the lazy waves of sleep. Dreamed of grey eyes and trust and warm chocolate and longing. Got to experience more of those precious human comforts. 

In the end, it was nothing more than a precursory apology for what was to come as Peter woke up in a sea of his own unending vomit.

#winterspider #siliqua writes #peter parker x bucky barnes #fic #marvel #bucky barnes #peter parker

[onepdumpsterfire]

Disclaimer: These stories are based ‘loosely’ on the game Obey me shall we date. The major stuff will be the same, but here and there the story will be changed or embellished. It is just an AU and I do not own the game the characters, from both One Piece or Obey Me, nor do I own One Piece in general. It would be cool though…

Warning: The characters will mostly be ooc and for the most part will not have the same background as in the anime/manga. The reader’s age will be above consent; the exact number is up to you.

Nola

Devildom!AU

(pt6/?)

Various Characters X Reader

Shanks heard about the fight the brothers had. He’d heard about how you got hurt. At first, he was angry at Sabo for doing what he did. If anything happened to the exchange student this whole thing would be a waste. He punished Sabo for what he did. Beating him bloody. Shanks decided he couldn’t take his eyes off him until he was sure he wouldn’t rage out again. So he proposed a three-day retreat. He could keep an eye on Sabo, and make all three realms get along. He needed to see results in his plan, if this was the only way to do it then it’ll have to do.

As courteous as he was, he made it known that this request was no entreaty. You all would show and be in your best behavior. No protests. No complaints. No objections. And so, that is how you found yourself taking a tour of his palace. Benn, One of Shank’s loyal servants, was explaining the more historic artifacts that decorated the halls. It was interesting to hear the different stories each piece held. One, in particular, held more than the rest. It was a painting of a woman she dressed in clothing from what seemed like the mid-1800s. She wore a high waisted baby-blue gown with a white lacy bonnet and shawl. This seemed to be from the human world. Her out of time style clothing wasn’t the only thing that drew attention to her. She seemed to be moving…

“Sanji!” came her scream. The painting can speak? Sanji looked puzzled. Had he done something to the painting to make them mad? “Oh, I know you! Violet, from when I visited Spain in the human world.” So he had. “You hornswoggler, pigeon-livered, ratbag!” 

“Now, now, sweetheart. No need to get nasty.” Sanji barely seemed to consider her as anything. What wrong had he done to make her say such strange…insults? “What brings you down here? Was the power you gained from me not enough?”

“Power?! From you?! Yeah right! You left me for dead!” Her shrieks shook the frame she was imprisoned in. “the coven betrayed me and trapped me in here! I’ve been passed around and showcased like one of those wagtail wenches! This is all your fault! If only you had st-”

“If only I had what? Stayed and helped? If I recall correctly all you asked for was ‘unimaginable power’ to bring those meaters of the coven to their knees” Sanji approached the painting, “If you didn’t know how to properly use them and was outwitted by those Vazey, Mumbling coves, it was on you.” His tone was dark and airy. Like he was trying to threaten her without letting the others know, but by how the room seemed to resonate around him, it wasn’t that convincing. “You Flapdoodle! I’ll make you pay!” You what…. Flapdoodle, really? You didn’t get much of a chance to wonder what that word implied. She let out bright light, oils swirling inside the painting. They turned into a vortex sucking everything near inside. First, it was Sanji then Nami and Ace. the last ones it took were you and Kid who grabbed on to law for support, but they were both dragged in anyway. 

The lights where you appeared were dim. Beside you was Kid and Law, separated from the rest. “We need to find the others,” was the first thing said in the eerie quietness of the corridor you were in. “What we need to do is find out where we are.” An interjection from the other male. “Not the time to fight, both of you.”

“We’ll look around, figure out where we are and find the others at the same time.” Both men looked at each other, surprised by your sudden leadership. “Yes, ma’am,” Law mocked you but listened to your orders nonetheless. Not like he had much of a choice. After the pact, every order you gave no matter how small, was followed. You didn’t like making them do things, giving them orders, but when the hands were down… You needed them to focus right now. 

The path twisted and turned in many directions. There were dead ends and traps, like a maze. For the leader of this makeshift gang, you had to take the back seat in most dangers that befell you. They were too grand to fight off yourself. If one thing came out of this, you learned the extent of both your companion’s capabilities and an invaluable piece of information. While you held a pact with them their demon forms wouldn’t hurt you. The power that they release, that is.

Their presence felt otherworldly, like Sabo’s. Their combined power would have pulverized you. It was just as great and magnificent as the first time you were able to see it. When Sabo threw you against the tomb’s wall. This time you could hold your own against this gripping force that radiated out of them. Your sight was clear and your head didn’t hurt. Your body didn’t weaken at the proximity. It was probably because of the pact you made with them.

Their forms changed as Sabo’s had. Law grew tusk-like horns that protruded from the back of his head, wrapping around to the front. They were pearl-white and sharp. Under his coat there was a tail, thin with a tuft of black hair at the end. Kid Had also grown one of his own, a golden tail that faded into pitch black. His own set of horns came out from the top of his head, twisting into their sharp endings. His teeth ground into fangs. They looked savaged like they’d maul anything that crosses his path. 

They both ferociously protected you from any trap that was set up in the labyrinth. Tearing into anything that moved and ripping you away from any danger that befell you. Eventually, you did come across the others, having a hammering headache as your guide. The two demons had to go ahead in front of you to tell Ace and Sanji to turn back from their demon forms so you could step closer. Nami, on the other hand, wasn’t affected by it. Her magic gives her protection from their power. “Oh my sweet, Y/n. it’s okay to come closer now.” Sanji called out for you. “R-right,” you turned the corner to meet them.

“Now we need to find an exit.”

“Darling, how I love it when you take charge.” Sanji was a flirtatious fool, no wonder that woman, Violet, was mad at him. However, she should have known better than to cross a whole coven. Pushing you in front, the two brothers you made a pact with ‘protected’ you from their brother. Not wanting you close the lascivious demon.

There was more walking, the labyrinth seemed endless. Yes labyrinth, Ace had filled you all in about it when you caught up. It was below the castle, and nearly inescapable, to those who didn’t know the way. But a powerful mage could figure it out with a spell or two, she just wanted to find the others first. With you guys here there was nothing stopping Nami. She started her spell, but there was this rustling coming from the chambers. It was a persistent sound, like sliding on the floor. Nami stopped her spell to hear it better, “what is that?” All present stopped to listen to the low creeping sound that was… getting closer. 

A wall down the path to your left was moving, you could swear that it didn’t lead to a dead-end before. “Guys, what is that?” You pointed at the scaly impasse that seemed to be moving to block all exit points. “Oh, fuck,” Law whispered under his breath, “That’s my pet Mindsnare Naga, Nola.” Kid punched his arm, “a mindsnare, really Law, really.” They were nasty creatures who seek power above all else. They’re immortal beasts that needn’t worry about time, creating convoluted plans to get to their goal. The highest-ranking person in the location they decide to nest in. They live to control and dominate their victims into submission. They suck them out of life with their venom then fill them with false memories and a built personality to help them reach their goal. If it was deep in the bowels of the castle had it already started it’s schemes? Does the ruler of Devildom know what resides underneath his very feet? You could worry about the troubles of the palace after you manage to escape its clutches.

Law had forbidden you all from harming his ‘poor Nola’. The others protested though he left them no choice, threatening that he’d destroy everything they loved if they were to harm a scale on the serpent. He gave them no choice but to oblige. Crossing the avatar of envy was one of the last things anyone wanted to do. He knew how to ruin any person until they gave up on themselves. He’s sent many into an endless cycle of loathing and suffering. “You’re its master, command it!” Kid yelled at law. “I can’t, she escaped when she was still young. I didn’t have time to train her.” How useless! How were you all supposed to defend yourselves now? You can’t hurt it, much less fight it. “I should have known she’d head to the palace. Her kind charm leaders of lands to do their bidding. Shanks must have found her and trapped her down here. My poor baby.” Not the time to hand out sympathy to something that wants to kill you. “Then what are we gonna do,” Ace piped in, the first time he talked since you’ve all gotten together. “We can’t fight it-”

“Her.”

“Not the time, Law.” If anyone was pissed at the scenario you seemed to be stuck in, it was wrath himself. “Don’t those things grow a second head if you kill it?” Law rolled his eyes at his brother’s ineptitude. “No, that’s a Hydra of Lerna. And they only regrow TWO heads from one that was chopped off, not if you kill it.” Thanks for sharing the knowledge, not helping though. “A mindsnare naga charms its enemies to kill them. Which is what she should be doing now….so we better think of something. Fast.” Law said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Why not try to be a little less smug and a little more helpful? “I know what we can do.” It was Nami this time who spoke up. “If I use my pact with Sanji I can boost his own power and mesmerize the snake.”

“Not a snake.”

“No one cares.” Nami turned to Sanji. “Are you ready?” He gave her a seducing smile. “For you? Always.” Nami raised her hand, a ball of glowing light sitting in her palm. Power flowed from her and Sanji seemed to be transmitting her energy. “Praebueris tua poteste quod tibi commodare mea. Nos hanc novam transmittat; coniuncta cum virtute non moveretur a te transiret ponam inimicos.” Her incantations forced an unyielding power to surge out of Sanji. “Don’t worry, Y/n. with my power I’ll protect you, so you won’t pass out.”

Sanji’s demon form is an incubus. Leathery wings bent to make a heart around his head then they straightened into a fine point. Short curved horns came out of each side of his head, and a long thick tail with an arrowhead tip at the end. He radiated an aura that was seen flowing out of him. The boost Nami gave him made his already grand power even more so. Sanji flew through the space between the ceiling and the top of the snake. Following it till he reached the head. Nola had wrapped herself around every way out. She was now coming in through the last passageway with Sanji in tow. He had charmed her on his way over, the serpent didn’t hold any more malice. “Get on! Nola is gonna show us the way out.” Law grabbed you by the waist and jumped on, the others in right behind you. “If she knows the way out then why is she still in here?” Sanji chuckled at Law’s question. “She’s not imprisoned. Shanks found her when she was young and let her stay down here. She gets fed every day and can go out if she pleases.” Law looked sad. His serpent had chosen a different master. As much as he loved her, there wasn’t anything he could do. She was just another of the nine monsters in this realm that guarded the nine circles now. 

After you finally got out of the labyrinth you all had dinner prepared by the demons. Shanks announced that the next day you will be doing a scavenger hunt in the palace. Hence the tour of the place. The lower demons had continued the tour after you vanished, so most of what the ones left standing saw was a mystery to you. The scavenger hunt tomorrow was gonna be hard. All of them knew this and demonstrated it with a groan that passed from one to another. After supper, Shanks separated you into groups. You were with Sanji and Ace. Kid was with Law and Robin. Nami was with Luffy and Usopp. Lastly was Sabo and Shanks.

Kid had protested, yelling that you had a pact with him and should be placed with him, but Sabo told him to zip it and follow orders. You all split up into separate bedrooms for the night. Nami staying back to have a word with you. She lent you some of her power for the rest of the retreat. She said you deserve to have some form of protection for the rest of the trip, not to mention she wanted you to have a good time with the rest. You were a bit confused by her sudden willfulness to share power, something you didn’t even know could be done, but Nami was very front face about everything. She wouldn’t have lied about her intentions. Feeling a tad closer everyone you made your way to your shared room with the rest. Today was a long day, though it was filled with many fun and exciting things.

1800’s slang-

* Hornswoggler- a fraud or a cheat

* Flapdoodle- sexually incompetent man

* Meater/Pigeon-Livered- coward

* Mumbling cove- a shabby person

* Ratbag- a general term of abuse

* Vazey- stupid

* Wagtail- promiscuous woman/ dissolute man

#one piece #one piece imagines #one piece sabo #one piece ace #one piece luffy #one piece kid #one piece law #one piece sanji #one piece nami #one piece robin #one piece usopp #one piece shanks #one piece benn beckman #one piece benn #devildom #obey me #obey me shall we date #sabo the revolutionary #revolutionary sabo #red hair shanks #eustass kid #eustass captain kid #trafalgar d. water law #trafalgar law #black leg sanji #cat burglar nami #nico robin #devil child robin #god usopp #portgas d. ace

[prtgniiist]

all the numbers 👀👀

 ⤿  roleplay habits  | not accepting 

i’m grateful but jESUS that’s a lot 

what’s a grammar rule you find yourself breaking or ignoring a lot? 

answered  x 

are there any languages besides english in which you think you could comfortably roleplay?

nope. i know filipino and japanese too but i don’t think i can fully write using those languages roleplaying as i’m not fluent anymore

how often do you reach for a synonym dictionary when writing? how about mentally?

oh lol i have the thesaurus.com opened on a separate tab while writing. though i find myself not using it as much, only occasionally. 

how often do you need to translate your own or the other’s writing with a dictionary or google when writing and reading replies?

uh not a lot? not anymore. sometimes though i have to double-check if i spelled certain words correctly but other than that, i don’t really check. i get too distracted if i look through a different site/page while writing, i have to continuously write otherwise i’m gonna lose my train of thought

do you listen to music while your write?

answered   x 

do you have ideal writing circumstances when you can do a lot of drafts or tackle really long ones very easily?

its not very specific but i feel like writing more early in the day ( though unfortunately since i work a 9-5 job i don’t get enough time being on here ). i also get into the right mood writing long ones after reading something ( i usually read some novels but lately, i just read some fanfictions )

are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer?

morning

how does tiredness affect your writing?

it affects me a lot. being in a good mindset helps me write so when i’m feeling meh because i’m exhausted i just don’t feel like doing anything/write anything

have you ever written a serious reply intoxicated?

nah, i only drink when i’m with friends or when i’m at a party. and i usually just pass out in bed as soon as i get home 

how much do you proof-read as you are writing vs. proof-read at the end?

hahahaha none at all. after i write it, i just always go “FUCK IT” and hit reblog/publish and then after maybe an hour i reread what i wrote and then cry internally when i find any typos/grammatical errors

when you are writing a reply, how much ahead in the thread do you plan?

it depends on the plot of the thread + the overall mood. when its more on the fluffy, lighter side i just go with the flow. sometimes its fun to see how a thread progresses as i write it on a whim. but if the thread is more plot-based  ( something that i have already plotted out with a partner )  i try to implement everything that was talked about in order to go specifically to where we want it. one time i wrote ( physically write with a pen and paper !!! ) all the bullet points that i have to hit in my reply

is there ever been a time when you’ve had to drop a roleplaying partner because you’ve found their writing style exhausting?

yeah, once. not on this blog though, it was a while ago so i don’t remember much. i just remember that they wrote in this specific dickens-esque purple prose style that was just super exhausting because haha wow what are you even saying 

does writing roleplay things in public spaces make you uncomfortable?

not really. i used to write replies while i was in a lecture in uni lol as long as its not nsfw then i’m completely fine with it

what do you do after you see a person has replied? do you read it immediately, or do you wait for it to show up on the dash? do you like it, draft it immediately, etc?

i read it first and then draft it ( unless i’m already on the computer when i see the reply ) 

how often do you need to change the icon in your reply while or after writing the reply?

actually not that often. what icon i’m gonna use is usually the first thing i know before writing the reply. i internalize the emotions first before replying and since i sort my icons/graphics in order of emotions  ( like one would be named smile1 or sad2 etc ) i know exactly what to use

do you first get in the “zone” when writing, or do you start writing and “enter” it that way?

i get in the zone first! by reading something  ( these days, its fanfiction )  just to get in the mood. otherwise i just stare at my drafts for an hour and then i just go play minecraft

what is your biggest obstacle to writing every day, if time doesn’t count?

laziness. depression. minecraft. but mostly its time... my work takes so much of my time, especially considering i don’t drive so i commute everyday and that takes most of my day

what’s your inbox count currently? what did you do to get it so high/low?

atm there are 2 i haven’t replied to

how many drafts is a paralysing amount?

more than 30! especially if its for different partners. i just feel really bad 

if you are writing a wrong reply that’s not working out, do you save what you have to be continued at another date, or do you scrap it and rewrite?

i save what i have written and then try to continue it when i’m in a better mindset/when i can better write what i want to. but now after the tumblr update, for some reason, if the thread is already in drafts then i write my reply but i want to save it as draft again, it publishes it? idk why that happens. has that happened to you?

does making icons give or take away energy to write? what about other graphics?

it makes me feel calmer so it gives me energy? but it also enables me to procrastinate because after spending hours capping episodes + make icons, i just think to myself “okay at least i was productive its fine” i don’t actually make my own graphics. i commission graphics mostly ( like my theme background right now! ) 

longest reply you’ve ever writen on mobile?

i used to roleplay on kik  ( ahaha ah the good ol days )  so that’s the only time i roleplayed on mobile. i don’t write replies for threads on here while on mobile because for some reason, i don’t really know why. 

does the total amount of threads you have going on matter to you, or just how many you owe?

uh yeah it makes me really anxious 

what’s your thought process when you format? any unspoken rules you follow?

i just really do CAPS + bold for emphasis and that’s pretty much my “aesthetic formatting”  i used to do this whole                     i write in small line                    like its a poem                     because i used to be a                      p r e t e n t i o u s  dude   

how does your follower count affect your mood?

doesn’t affect me at all i think? i don’t really look at my follower count  it does affect me though when i see a partner/or someone i wanted to interact with deactivate 

#/ ICANT BELIEVE #/ thank you though you're the best #creturae #《 — 𝑶𝑶𝑪. ⤿ chris chris fall in love 》 #《 — ⤿ ask answered. 》

[emptymanuscript]

One way to REname a character with internal story logic

I want to talk a moment about Zephyr.

Not the wind.

My character. 

(He wishes he was this tough) Not even really the person but his NAME itself, Zephyr, and how it changed.

One of the things I don’t mention too much just to avoid trouble is how extremely different Knights of Day is now compared to how it was originally. At its early height, Knights of Day peaked at 4 authors. The goal was in no way to publish or publicize any of it. It wasn’t even really meant to be any sort of cohesive story. Or even to consist of cohesive stories rather than “adventures” for fun. I’m not even sure I can tell you WHAT it was. It wasn’t quite a piece of fiction, it wasn’t quite a table top rpg, it wasn’t quite rp’ing. It was just its own behemoth of a thing that included all of those. Compared to 1 book and 1 book in progress now.

Case in point: Fun Adventure #3 was ~

Kinda John Edward but real & real evil

Set up: Most Mediums are terrible people who fake their powers to rip victims off when they’re at their most emotionally vulnerable. Because when you’ve just irrevocably lost one of the most important people in your life you’ll pay anything or do anything for the even the illusion of getting them back.

What if: Imagine someone who can really do everything they say they can do… but they’re still a terrible predator trying to take advantage of people when they’re at their most emotionally vulnerable - they just have more power to make it even worse.

Mission: Save young suddenly widowed mega-rich heiress Helena Lawson from real Medium but still conniving con-man Kenton Dean. Because the greedy, racist, no goo Ted Lawson doesn’t want Kenton Dean to get the money instead of himself. And Ted is willing to pay exorbitantly to make sure it doesn’t. So James and Zeferrello are tasked with finding any reason to separate Helena and Kenton.

Twist: Yeah, Kenton Dean CAN summon and control the dead but it’s so much worse than that. He can summon and control the GOD of the dead. Assuming, of course, that all of this isn’t the god of the dead actually controlling Kenton Dean for its own purposes.

Which Became The Hidden and the Maiden. But instead of a climactic conflict between James, Zephyr, Kenton Dean, and Kherty-Aken decided by force, force of will, and clever use of all magic available inside the seat of Kenton Dean’s power, his theater, “Kinda John Edward but real & real evil” ended with a mildly tense chat between James and Zefferello versus Kherty Aken just kinda hanging out, tensely, next to an ambulance. James points out that Kenton Dean has reprogrammed Kherty Aken like a computer to just believe all this BS. Kherty Aken realizes, Oh Shi-! he’s right, and flys away. Next day, paper says Kenton Dean is dead. So the general idea is there but just not at all the same when you look close.

As an aside, this is by the way why most writing teachers dismiss ‘ideas’ as the least important element of story telling. One version of this ‘idea’ I stuff under a rug and pretend doesn’t exist. The other I sell in paperback for $10 a pop. If the fundamental idea hasn’t changed really, why the vast difference in price? Because of the execution. And if execution is more than infinitely greater in effect 0 -> 10 why bother putting that much effort into the idea when, even if you only go to 5 through execution, that will have more effect than any idea will. I am not 100% convinced by this line of reasoning but it’s not meritless either. A bad idea well written will just get more in the marketplace of ideas than a good idea poorly written. A bad idea badly written is doomed. A good idea well written may or may not do as well as the mediocrity. So, I disagree that it is of zero importance but I do think it is certainly not the most important element for 3/4’s of all story types. Ok, that’s another post, enough asides.

The real thing I’m actually thinking about is the Zefferello to Zephyr change. Zefferello was Zephyr’s original name. The author who created the original character said specifically her thoughts were that she had never had any character under any situation whose name started with Z. So she wanted a Z character and she plucked the rest out of thin air because. And because it didn’t matter, that was cool enough. So he was Zefferello for the first few years of life. No particular reason why. Never mind that nothing in any back round of anything anywhere would give Zefferello as a name.

It was only as I was moving from the first to the second draft of The Hidden and the Maiden that it was really bothering me about this Korean-American dude with the abusive Super Whitey Mega Rich father, the utterly absent and possibly dead Korean Trophy Wife mother, and the abusive DID having ghost but still white mother. Why would any of them give him that name?

Well, the father might do it just to torture his son throughout life. He’s that kind of asshole. As little as he is in it, I actually think of Zephyr’s father as the Antagonist for Knights of Day because he is just pure dagnasty evil because he likes it. He may not appear most on the page or wield the most power - partially because he’s just not my favorite kind of villain, at all, his side-kicks is way more my speed - but there’s no denying he does the most damage. BUT, the father is also very image conscious. Part of what he likes is doing terrible things while other people praise him for it. For making people suffer but having no one believe them because he is such a paragon of virtue. One of his side kicks actually got James to just start punching him toward the end because he kept talking about what a saint Zephyr’s father was and all the haters just didn’t understand what a wonderful person he was and how hard he worked when he never had to to improve the life of others. If I recall correctly James literally held a knife on the guy and pointing to Zephyr: ‘you had to fucking know what that motherfucker was doing to him! You evil lying sack of fucking shit!’ So… torture wasn’t going to work for a reason.

So I’m looking for any great people in history with the name Zefferello. Nope. Nada. Is it by some miracle a Korean name that Eun Ae Gwon might have given him? Nope. No dice. And slowly all eyes  turn to JJ. JJ is nuts. There’s no getting around it. But I’m rarely happy with that as an explanation. Especially with JJ because most of what she does that SEEMS nuts, isn’t. The fundamental rule I made for JJ fairly early on is that she is ALWAYS up to something. She is playing every angle. She is working every leverage. She is a survivor in a way that most people will never be. She’s dead and she is still playing to win. So she will do things that appear unreasonable at point A in time in order to increase her odds of getting what she wants in point B in time.

And I’m looking at that name. That ello. That’s sounds latinate to me. And masculine. I already knew Zefferello’s real name at this point, and it had a Jr. at the end and I started wondering if maybe, just maybe, JJ gave Zefferello a different Jr. name. A name for the father that she wished Zefferello had. Instead of the one he did. He’s hers, and what better to claim a baby she would never hold than to rename him into a family that she wanted to exist but never did. That’s very JJ.

At which point I’m reviewing JJ’s history. It’s sparse-ish at that time. But I know when she got pregnant and I know more or less what happened to her from that point until she died. And there’s nothing in there to hint at a Zefferello Sr. But… there were already some hints about there maybe being a Zefferella. And of course that’s not a name either. But fiddle with the spelling and drop the “el” sound and you do get a Greek female name: Zephyra \

And that was the lightning bolt of inspiration and change. That JJ’s second and last love of her life was a fellow prostitute named Zephyra, and IF JJ could rewrite reality to be anything she wanted then her son would also be Zephyra’s - that they would be the family unit and the other would be the ghostly illusion. And with Zephyra as a real name, I also had a male equivalent: Zephyr. Sounds similar but much more plausible that he might somehow obtain it. Plus, with the idea of Zephyra, his name also becomes a key to unlocking tons of emotion and backstory.

And you’ll know it’s important the second that this repressed little guy walking around giving out the name of Zephyr Wayne, shamefully cringe-admits that his legal name is Peter Bailey Jr. That that exists at all says that there is a story to find down in there and that it isn’t a simple one.

So that’s one to rewrite a name based on the internal logic of a story. Zephyr’s name was researched and found but never picked out of a name directory. It was back-engineered to tell the story I wanted to tell and avoid the random story I didn’t. By following the logic that might lead to a name like his, I was able to find the one I thought was right for him.

And, since the original Cup Bearer was one of the winds, that also worked to my advantage… though it is generally considered the wrong wind. Oy. Which I’ll probably just end up deleting because Zephyr’s name is better for a story hook than anything I made with Thulebelore being the General of the Western Winds.

If you actually got here. Wow. Thank you. If you ever want to solicit writing advice, dropping a question in my ask prompts me better than whatever happens to occur randomly to my head. So, you know, that’s there.

#Knights of Day #Zephyr #The Hidden and the Maiden #Writing advice #writeblr #writeblogging #unsolicited advice

[bernadineisreborn]

Princess

Fred Weasley x reader

Summary: Y/N and Fred Weasley meet up after spending their years after Hogwarts apart.

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: alcohol use (butterbeer and firewhiskey), smut (kinda???), not canon (Fred lives), unedited (oops)

A/N: This came to life when I was thinking about a uni classmate that I haven’t seen in a few years :) ENJOY!

During your school days, you were pretty quiet. Not quiet in the usual sense, you could be rambunctious when you wanted, but you were shy around people you didn’t know well. And people you found attractive. Yes, it seemed that every time you got up the courage to say something when he was around, you ended up sounding completely idiotic, so you usually opted for silence.

During your sixth year at Hogwarts was one of these times. Umbridge was teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, and you were getting tired of constantly feeling helpless against her, and against the war you knew was coming. So, when you heard that Harry Potter might be giving people separate lessons, you were immediately interested.

Harry, as everyone knew, was uncommonly good at dealing with threats, and learning from him might take your helpless feeling away.

By the third meeting of the group that had become known as Dumbledore’s Army, you had greatly improved on your stunning spell. Your improvements were so vast, in fact, that you were starting to get a bit cocky.

“Stupefy!” you cried, aiming your wand across the room at Neville Longbottom, who you were currently practicing with.

At your words, he flew backward, hitting the mat behind him with enough force that you winced from where you stood watching.

“Oh, sorry, Neville! Are you alright?” you called.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Y/N. You hit me good is all.” He rubbed the back of his head as he walked back toward you.

You were a year older than him, but your grandmother was good friends with his, so you had known each other almost all your lives.

You heard laughing from the other side of the room. A laugh that you could not ignore, no matter how you tried.

“Let’s go again, yeah?” Neville’s voice rang distantly in your ear. You were still focused on the laughing. Something really funny had happened, no doubt, because now you could hear twin laughing sounds accompanying the first laugh.

“Y/N! Hello?”

You turned around to face Neville again, “Sorry, just got distracted for a second. I’m ready.”

Neville narrowed his eyes at the blush dusted across your cheeks and the smile plastered on your face. His eyes darted across the room, where Fred and George Weasley were doubled over in laughter watching Ron get up from Hermione’s stunning spell.

Connecting the dots, Neville smiled sheepishly, “Hey, Y/N! Let’s go practice over there, I want to ask Harry if I’m doing this right.” He gestured to Harry, who was helping Luna hold her wand correctly, and happened to be standing right next to Fred and George.

Your eyes widened, “Neville, no! Let’s just wait until he circles about…”

But Neville was already making his way to the new practice spot. Groaning, you followed him.

Neville was standing next to George, which meant you would be standing next to Fred. The older twin caught your eyes as you settled in and gave you a small smile. As he did so, George shot a stunning spell at him, and it hit him square in the chest. Fred was thrown backward.

“Well, that’s not fair, is it?” called Fred as he stood back up, “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You snooze, you lose, brother,” said George.

Neville had been talking to Harry for a few seconds now, and you figured you had a few seconds before having to defend yourself, so you lazily looked around the room, watching your friends practice.

“Oh, so I just do it more like this: Stupefy!”

As Neville’s words rang out, you turned around. But you were too late. The spell threw you backwards, and you landed on top of something not particularly comfortable.

Groaning as Neville had earlier, you tried to get up, but you were tangled in something. Someone.

And laying on the ground with you, having only been about to stand up when you had landed on top of him, was Fred.

“Oh, Merlin. I’m sorry,” you apologized. His face was dangerously close to your breast, and you missed the way he had to tear his eyes away before looking at your face.

“It’s all right. I reckon it’s more Neville’s fault any way,” he smiled, pried himself free, stood up, and then offered you a hand.

You took it, the burning in your cheeks intensifying.

“Well, er, thanks,” you said, once you were up.

“I’d cushion your fall anytime, princess,” he said with a wink before going back to George.

You stood there speechless.

When you finally managed to return to Neville, you said, “Nice one, Neville. Caught me off guard.”

He smiled, “Anything to help out a friend.”

----

And now, years and years later, you hardly ever think about him anymore. Your crush had endured most of your school years, but you had never gotten to know him very well. You had dated other people, always subconsciously comparing them to Fred, always breaking up with them in the end.

But, you hadn’t seen Fred Weasley since the Battle of Hogwarts. You’d heard he’d needed a few weeks in St. Mungos after he was almost killed in an explosion.

So, as you waltzed into Diagon Alley, during a stay in the Leaky Cauldron, and saw the bright colors of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, you were caught in a wave of nostalgia.

You knew Fred and George were probably inside and wondered how they were doing. The store had a stream of people flowing in and out, so you assumed business was good. You had almost made up your mind to go in, when you realized that you might actually have to talk to Fred if you did that.

No, I’d better just head back to the pub, you thought, and turned around to go back to the Leaky Cauldron.

That night, you were eating dinner and having a butterbeer by yourself, enjoying the lively atmosphere of the pub, and reading a Daily Prophet, when a flash of red caught your eye.

It was a flash of red unlike any you had seen since Hogwarts, and you knew who it must be.

Fred had walked up to the bar, unaccompanied by George, a smirk gracing his face. He sat down and glanced around the room. You quickly tried to pretend that you hadn’t been staring, looking down at the Daily Prophet and sipping you butterbeer.

A few minutes later, he was being served a firewhiskey, and you were waging a war in your mind.

I should go talk to him. Just to say hello, and then I can leave. No, no, no. You’ll be too nervous to get a word out. Remember how badly you fancied him? Merlin, Y/N, get it together. Say hello, then excuse yourself. It’s not that big of a deal.

So, you downed the rest of your butterbeer, mustered up any courage you had, and made your way over.

“Hello, Fred,” you managed, face burning with all the blood in your body.

He looked up and smiled a bit, “Hello…” He searched your face, and you realized he was trying to recall your name.

“Oh, it’s Y/N. Y/N L/N. From Hogwarts. I was a year under you.”

His expression shifted, “Uh, yeah thanks, I was having trouble remembering,” he said.

Now you were embarrassed, “Well. I just wanted to say hi, erm, I guess I’ll be off to bed now.”

“No, no, come on. Stay and chat a bit,” with this, he pulled out the chair next to him and gestured for you to take a seat.

You sat.

“It looks like you need a drink. I’ll get some for us both,” declared Fred, immediately turning to the bartender.

“Oh, that’s okay, really…” your words died on your lips as you watched his profile. God, he’s pretty.

So, when you were handed a firewhiskey a few minutes later, you thought, Fuck it.

By time 10 o’clock rolled around, you had consumed two drinks. Your eyes were starting to glass over a bit and the tip of your nose was fuzzy with alcohol.

“And I could have sworn this kid was stealing! We never could find anything on him, but the look on his face when we threatened him with Veritaserum was enough to pay the price of anything he might’ve nicked.”

You laughed heartily as Fred finished his story. You had missed hearing about his adventures, not that you really heard any directly from him before.

As your laughter died down, you and Fred grew silent. You were looking at each other, his big eyes had crinkled a bit around the edges as he’s gotten older, but the red in his hair was just as bright. You felt the crush you’d had all those years ago being tugged to the surface.

He continued to stare at you, and you at him. For a second you thought he might kiss you, but then he cleared his throat and looked away.

You glanced down and laughed under your breath, “Remember the time during a DA meeting we were practicing stunning spells and Neville hit me just as you were recovering from one George got you with and-”

“You landed on top of me, yeah,” he laughs a bit, too, “Merlin, Neville’s skills have improved shockingly since school time.”

You laughed again, “They have, haven’t they?”

You’re looking down at your lap now, playing with your hands, and Fred is watching you. He opens his mouth to speak, but you beat him.

“You know, I had quite a thing for you back then,” you looked up, meeting his eyes.

Fred’s eyes widened, “You did?”

You smiled, more to yourself than to him, a bit embarrassed, “Yeah, yeah. I’m surprised you never noticed; I always thought my face turned bright red whenever you were within a ten-foot radius.”

He was quiet, and you thought you’d ruined the evening.

Then, he asked, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“What, like ask you out? No, I was far too shy to do anything like that. And you were so much cooler than me. I just… I just didn’t think I had a chance,” you admitted, “Anyway, it’s probably better that way. I fancied you so much, but I didn’t really know you, so I just had this idea of you in my head that you probably could have never lived up to. I was ridiculous, really.”

His eyes were inching over your face, and the laughter had left his eyes, “Hmm,” he said.

The silence is deafening for a few seconds, and then you say, “It’s not a big deal, erm, it’s a long time in the past, now. Anyway, I ought to be getting to bed. It was nice to see you, Fred,” you make to get up, but he grabs your wrist.

His eyes are still clouded by something foreign, and you’re not quite sure what to make of it. Then he says, “Why don’t you come see the store? It’s probably quite a bit different from the last time you were in.”

You hesitate, but your brain is screaming, Fred is asking you to come over, you idiot!

“Erm- sure! Not like I have anything better to do.”

He smiles at you, the light returning to his eyes, “Absolutely nothing could be better than visiting the best store in Diagon Alley, Y/N.”

And there’s something about the way he says your name that makes you feel like you are falling deeper into a hole that you won’t be able to crawl out of.

Fred is right, Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes is much different than the last time you were there. There had been improvements made to almost the entire place. Everything was grander and more modern, and the shelves were lined with prank objects that you were sure wreaked havoc at Hogwarts.Poor Neville.

“Where’s George?” you wonder aloud.

“Georgie? He’s upstairs with Angelina,” Fred wiggled his eyebrows, “They haven’t seen each other in a few weeks if you know what I mean,” he winked, and you giggled.

You had heard that the two Gryffindor quidditch players were together. It made sense for them.

“What’s upstairs?” you ask, a bit confused by Fred’s comment.

“Oh, George and I live here! You know what they say, home is where the job is. Our bedrooms are upstairs. Come on, I’ll show you,” and then he started jogging up the steps. You were hesitant to follow, unsure of what Fred was hoping to get out of this night. You found your legs climbing the stairs anyway, looking forward to finding out.

There was a kitchen, a living area, a bathroom, and two bedrooms in the surprisingly spacious upstairs area.

“Last, but certainly not least, this is my bedroom,” proclaimed Fred, a small smile of pride etched onto his face.

The room was tidy, but there were still a few pieces of clothing out of place, and the sheets were thrown haphazardly into place on the bed. The décor was minimal, and there were sketches on his desk of what you presumed to be more ideas for the shop downstairs.

“I like it,” you said, looking at him with a smile.

At this, Fred blushed, and you realized that he held a lot of pride for this place.

“Y/N, I have to confess something to you,” said Fred, looking down at his shoes, his tone grave.

Your heart sunk. You were sure you had done something wrong, “What is it?”

“I knew your name earlier.”

Your eyebrows pinched together in confusion, “What?”

“Earlier. At the Leaky Cauldron, when you came over. I knew your name, but then you introduced yourself to me anyway.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” now you were really confused, did he want you to apologize? “I only thought… because you looked like you didn’t.”

“No, no. I didn’t say it at first because, well, because I was too busy admiring how beautiful you’ve gotten these past few years. I mean I’ve always thought you were beautiful, but, now you’re older, and I wasn’t expecting to see you, so…”

You were stunned into silence, not sure what he meant by telling you this.

“What I’m trying to say is that I fancied you too, back at Hogwarts, I mean. I never went for it because I thought you had a thing for Neville,” he had a look of sincerity you had never seen in his eyes before, but you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh, God, Neville? No, no, we grew up together. He was my closest friend is all. He still is one of my closest friends.”

Fred smiled a bit and cleared his throat, “If only I’d have known that then…. But forget about then, how about now?”

You met his eyes, “What do you mean?”

“What I mean, is are you seeing anyone?”

You shook your head, and his smile widened, “Well, good. That’ll make me feel less guilty about this.”

He glanced down at your lips, and tilted his head towards yours. Before you knew what was happening, he was kissing you. It was gentle, but there were years of longing behind it, and you kissed him back eagerly.

Your arms curled around his neck and his reached behind you, resting on your butt for a second before lifting you up and pinning you against his bedroom wall.

He broke the kiss and trailed his lips down your neck. You wrapped your fingers in his soft, orange hair and curled your toes. There was a feeling of ecstasy escaping you as the thing that you had imagined happening so many times became a reality.

Fred stopped kissing your neck and looked up at you. His hair was a mess and the pink staining his cheeks matched the pink on yours.

“Well?” he asked.

“What now?” you responded, a bit upset that he was talking and not kissing you.

“Well, is it living up to your expectations?”

You laughed and whacked him slightly on the arm. Feeling brave again, you responded, “It just might live up to them, Fred Weasley. But only if we relocate to your bed.”

He laughed and blushed deeper, “Anything you say, Princess.”

----

A/N 2: I hope you guys liked this! Comment or send me an ask letting me know what you thought! Reblogs appreciated but not expected :)

My masterlist

#fred #fred weasley #weasley #fred x reader #fred weasley x reader #george weasley #george wealsey x reader #dolores umbridge #harry potter #harry potter x reader #harry potter fanfic #harry potter fanfiction #george weasley fanfic #fred weasley fanfic #george weasley fanfiction #fred weasley fanfiction #x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince #harry potter and the order of the phoenix #bernadine writes #love story #smut #kinda #love #writing #writeblr #writers of tumblr #heyyooooo

[themagicianshea]

From now until November, we’ll be spotlighting one of our MHHE registered authors every week. Want to be featured? Just fill out this form!

MHHE Author Spotlight: Jeannie

What piece of work best represents your writing style, and how would you briefly describe it?

My piece "Plums and Mugs" I believes highlights the best of my style. I'm very good at vitriolic prose. Writing can be a release for me and so when I think that comes out in my writing. I was so devastated by the season four finale that I jumped on the "fix it" bandwagon. I hadn't written fanfiction in an amount of time that will admit my age lol and that finale just sparked something within me. And what came out was this fic.

The tone of her voice indicated the deeper meaning. The connection and bond between the two. Bambi told him that they saw their past selves, but he didn’t want to inquire further. She started talking again and Eliot had to tell himself to pay attention. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to let it go at first, you know? Letting it burn meant that he would be gone. Really gone.” She pressed the tissue against her cheek capturing the tears that fell.

“Yeah… I don’t think I could ever eat a peach again.” Eliot said half dazed.

Alice nodded. “But… where did it come from?”

“Our life in Fillory.” The statement was so matter of fact. Someone could see Alice trying to compute the information and thinking of when that would be significant. At Alice’s silence Elliot came back to the present. She didn’t know. No one…knew. Quentin hadn’t told anyone. That’s why he wasn’t being treated like Alice was. Everyone knew about their relationship and it seemed that there was more of it he had missed. How long after the destruction of the keys did he forgive her? But, of course Quentin didn’t tell anyone about Eliot! Wasn’t that the whole reason why Eliot went on those fucking mind quests?! He had rejected Quentin solidly. Why would Quentin want to broadcast that pain to the world?

“During the quest last year, we had to go back in time to Fillory to solve this puzzle of a mosaic. It took much longer than expected. We spent… over 50 years, I guess, trying. The mosaic was our job but we had a life. We had a son. I died.” Eliot wondered about their son. But it was so long ago; and, it became a pocket timeline because Margo came back with the key. “No matter how hard it got we always had peaches and plums.”

Alice had gone rigid. Her demeanor could have eased the spring warmth. Penny-23 was in front of them. Eliot was unsure if he was reading their thoughts or just that good at reading a room. “I’m going to go check on Julia. She’s been outside for a while. Alice will you be okay?”

“I think… I think I need to lie down. I don’t think I can take much more of today.” 23 held out his hand for her and she used it to stand and gather her wits. Turning to Eliot, her face softened to the point it began to break, “I’m sorry about your peaches.” It took Eliot too long to form words, the realization of what he had just said hitting him like a brick wall, causing Alice to make her leave. 

What piece of work are you most proud of and why? 

While Plums and Mugs have been the most well received, I think I'm most proud of "When Are You Gonna Come Down?" because it is an old-fashioned song fic. These aren't around anymore but they used to be everywhere. There are song fics and then fics that are inspired by songs. They are not the same thing. This is a classic, true to form, song fic. It you can read it without listening to the song, but it really loses the magic if you don't have it. If read correctly, the words of the lyrics will line up with the song being played. That is what makes song fics so difficult. You have to find the pace of your writing and make sure it meets up with what you are putting it to.

The unity key. It was the link. If Quentin was still connected to them then it should be the apparatus to catapult him back. The spell took each one of them on a separate journey. Julia's started with childhood, Josh relived forgotten inside jokes, Eliot went back to the Fillory of his private timeline, and Margo got to feel the touch of Quentin's hand again. It was her best kept secret. Her and Q sitting next to each other holding hands when it all got to be just a little too much.

For Alice, she went back to their first year. The study groups, next to the mirror, and cottage parties. She saw them at Brakebills South in the freezing cold. Felt the electricity of their first coupling. She saw the absolute devastation he wore after he cheated on her. Their declarations of love, from the unspoken in Fillory to the last in the kitchen of the loft. Throughout her journey a blue thread shimmered between them. Connecting them. Alice followed the thread, ran for what seemed like miles, to a black wall where it disappeared into. Alice pounded, kicked, and screamed at it. All of it in silence. The spell absorbing all of her pain and anguish.

This was her good-bye. She could throw as many mugs into as many fires as she wanted. But if she was honest with herself, she had never let go. She was upset at Eliot for letting go. He moved on. Alice’s entire life was spent with her head and heart at war with each other. Tonight felt like that final battle. Alice’s mind and heart screaming at each other to let go or hold on.

Alice's soprano hushed the crowd; the barista had dimmed the lights to ease the busyness of the house, but not enough for her to get lost. She could still see each face. Eliot had trained her voice well enough for her to move between light soprano and a heavy chest voice. It was that heaviness that kept the tears threatening to fall at bay.

“Oh I've finally decided my future lies…”

The tears welling in her eyes began making the crowd a blur. The final notes were approaching, if she could only keep her vocal chords loose until the end.

Alice exhaled softly, one tear falling on the plastic keys of Eliot’s keyboard. Gathering the last of her wits about her she took one of her last breaths.

“I've finally decided my future lies…”

It was that same focus that reminded her that the shop was busy tonight. So many acts had come before her and were going to follow her. The crowded ambiance allowed her to filter out the jingling bells from the door opening.

“Oh I've finally decided my future lies…”

Expelling the war from within her Alice looked out to the crowd, all of them waiting on baited breath to see how she would finish. What choice would she make? If only she knew.

What tropes can we look forward to in your MHHE fic? 

What can I say that won't give the plot away? (Hey, that rhymed!) You've got a bitchy ruler, drama between the High Queen and the Girlfriend, and political plots to overthrow the throne! And that's just in the first quarter of the story! 

Fuck, Marry, Kiss (under the mistletoe) with three Magicians characters of your choice!

Ooo!! Right off the bat, I'd fuck Eliot. He just oozes sex appeal. I would marry Quentin because duh. And hmm... I would kiss... Fen. In a totally Katy Perry cherry chap stick kind of way.

#mhhe #mhhe author spotlight #the magicians

[omg-imatotalmess]

Amortentia ~Part 1~

Hey guys! So, I got this request and I have so many thoughts about it. Like, I can’t even make it just one part because it would be too long. I hope whoever requested this doesn’t mind that I’m splitting this up into two parts. Hopefully this is kinda what they were looking for. Hope y’all enjoy! 

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Reader 

Requested: Yup

Anonymous Requested: Can you write a Draco x Reader where they completely loathe each other, but they amortentia in class one day and it just kind of flies over their head that it smells different to each person, so they’re yelling each other’s scents out and Snape or Hermione is just like “you idiots” ??? Thanks love! Your writing is so brilliant, I’m completely in awe. 

Warnings: Swearing

Draco Malfoy. Draco Fucking Malfoy. The blonde bane of your existence. You couldn’t even begin to articulate how much you hated the little prick. All he ever did was go out of his way to fuck up you whole day. Literally any time he thought he could do something to annoy you, he did. Not that you were any less guilty of the same thing. Basically, you became thorn in his side because he’d decided to be a pain in your ass. 

Of course, you ended up having nearly every class with him from first year on, so he had plenty of time to make you hate him all the more. Sometimes it was just stupid things, other times he made dangerous potions explode in your face. Your eyebrows had only just grown back from his previous stunt. Growling under your breath, you twisted your hair into a bun and stabbed a pencil through it. Potions was your next class and you were already pissed. Just the thought of Malfoy made your skin crawl. 

“Easy, (Y/N), you’re gonna pull your hair out if you keep at it,” Harry said, keeping a safe distance between the two of you. You grunted in response. 

“Come on, mate, you can’t let Malfoy ruin your day before you even see him,” Ron said. 

“My eyebrows just grew back,” You snarled. Both of the boys gave you a wider berth as Hermione fell into step beside you. She always seemed amused by how terrified the boys were of you. 

“You know, Ron’s right. You really shouldn’t let him,” She said. 

“I know,” You sighed, stopping just outside the classroom, “But he’s just such a... a...” 

“Vulgarian?” Hermione offered. You clicked your tongue. 

“I was gonna go with dickheaded ass face, but yours works too,” You said, shrugging. The three of you shared a giggle before heading inside for the longest hour of your life. 

Now, it wouldn’t be quite so bad if you sat with your friends, but oh no. Snape decided that you’d cause less trouble sitting beside Malfoy. That only lead to more disruptions and arguing, but he stood by his decision. Greasy bastard. Glaring, you tossed you bag by your stool and readied yourself for the usual arguments. 

“Merlin’s beard, (L/N), must you wear such a repulsive perfume?” Draco exclaimed, dramatically pinching his nose and waving his hand in the air. 

“Must you always wear such a repulsive mask?” You retorted. “Oh, that’s just your face.” 

 “How clever,” He sneered. 

“I thought so, Dragon,” You said. He glared at you. 

“It’s Draco, you filthy little mudblood,” He snarled. You placed your chin in your hand, letting a bored look settle over your face as you turned to the front of the room. 

“My condolences,” You deadpanned. By the sound of his offended snort, you knew you’d won this one. You could barely manage to keep the impending smile off your face as Snape stared you down. That was the worst part of sitting in the font. Snape always found a reason to yell at you. 

“Something funny, Miss (L/N)?” He asked. 

“No, sir.” He scrutinized you for a moment longer before finally beginning class. 

“Our next potion will be Amortentia, can anyone tell me what it is?” Snape droned. You knew exactly who the first hand to be up was. 

“Miss Granger.” 

“Amortentia is an extremely powerful love potion. If made correctly it should smell like one or multiple things a person loves. It smells different for every person,” She answered. You smiled. Go Hermione, you thought. 

“I believe I ask only what it was, Miss Granger. Ten points from Gryffindor,” He snapped. 

“Jerk,” You muttered, under your breath. 

“It’s a good thing no one loves you, (L/N), they’d get a nose full of that awful perfume you wear,” Draco whispered. You shot him a glare. 

“At least it wouldn’t smell like daddy issues and self importance,” You shot back. 

For the next hour, you were forced to listen to Snape drone on and on about the potion. You weren’t even going to make it until next week. On top of that, Draco just wouldn’t shut up. Usually he didn’t do much while Snape was talking, but he really had a bee in his bonnet today. By the end of class you were just happy you’d left your wand in your last classroom. You were pretty sure casting an unforgivable curse on someone in class was grounds for detention at the very least. 

“What did that chicken ever do to you?” Ron asked as you as you violently sunk your teeth into the drumstick. 

“She’s just upset because Malfoy won’t leave her alone,” Hermione said, closing her book and looking across the table at you. 

“Damn straight,” You said, glaring past your friends towards the blonde. He was currently making faces at you as well as crude gestures. You had a few crude gestures yourself. Feeling your friends eyes on you, you focused back on them. 

“Maybe you should try and relax a little,” Harry said, glancing down at the poor roll that you’d practically mutilated. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” You said, “I think I’ll go do some studying by the lake tonight and try to chill out a little.” 

“Good idea! It’s lovely out,” Hermione said, cheerfully. 

So that’s what you did. You took your books, a blanket, and an extra roll that you’d snagged from dinner and made your way to the lake. Hermione was right; it was a great night. The air was crisp and warm with a cool breeze blowing over the lake. Smiling, you set out your blanket, laid on your stomach, and opened up your divination book. A soft wind blew towards you carrying and earthy scent that you loved. Your eyes closed as you enjoyed it. 

The feeling of the last rays of the sun warming your back and the tickle of the grass where your feet went past the blanket was grounding. You could hear people skipping stones. It was nice. Everything was quiet and the lake was as still as ever. You could feel the stress melting away as you enjoyed your rare moment of peace. Not even your friends were there to disturb you. 

“Sitting out here with all your friends, (L/N)?” Nevermind. 

“Fuck off, Malfoy,” You grumbled. 

“Such foul language,” He gasped in a mock scandalized tone. 

“Don’t you have something better to do?” You asked, glaring up at him. 

“Not particularly,” He said, smirking at you. 

“You know, with the amount of time you spend following me around, I’m beginning to think you have a crush on me,” You said, looking up at him. He snorted indignantly. 

“You’d like that wouldn’t you, (L/N)?” He spat. You rolled your eyes, sitting up. So much for you relaxing trip to the lake. 

“Sure, I mean, who wouldn’t want Slytherin’s finest bigot asshole?” With that you began gathering your things. Just one time you’d like him to just walk by you without saying anything. All you wanted was a little bit of peace and quiet, but, apparently, that was too much to fucking ask. 

“Say that again,” He challenged, drawing his wand. Instinctively, you disarmed him because he was close enough to do it by hand. Without even thinking, you turned and hurled it into the lake. 

“Oops,” You said feigning innocence. 

“You filthy little mudblood! My father will hear about this!” He sapped. You rolled your eyes. 

“Sure, Dragon, whatever,” You said, brushing past him. A little smile took over your lips as you turned back to watch one of his friends use a spell to fish it out of the lake. You almost wished you were sorry. 

You’d almost made it inside when Draco caught up with you. He grabbed your shoulder, spinning you to look at him. If looks could kill, you’d be dead ten times over. His entire neck and face were taken by an angry flush that you knew all too well. The red he turned had become your favorite color. You watched him with the best look of cool indifference you could muster. Part of you wanted to laugh and the other wanted to flat out deck him in the face for laying a hand on you. You did neither. 

“I’ll get you for that,” He growled. 

“Okay,” You said. 

“I mean it, (L/N), I’ll make your miserable like a living hell,” He said darkly. You blinked slowly at him. 

“You literally already do that. Can I go now?” You could almost see the smoke pouring from his ears, but he released you.

By the time you were supposed to make Amortentia, the trio and Draco’s friends had to keep the two of you physically separated. You had been at one another’s throats all week. Everyone was a little concerned that you’d slit one another’s throats if you weren’t kept apart. It was probably true. 

Well, it just made you all the more glad when Draco didn’t show up for potions. You hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to get ready this morning, so you were happy he wasn’t around to comment. You hadn’t even had time to put on your perfume. Grumbling, you finished off the potion just as the blonde walked through the door. Think of the devil and he shall appear, apparently. Snape made no mention of the fact that he was late. You watched as he made his way to your desk with his face all scrunched up. 

“Merlin, (L/N), did you bathe in that damn perfume?” He asked, glaring at you. 

“I’m not wearing any, you damn fool,” You snapped. 

“As Miss Granger pointed out, if done correctly,” Snape shot a pointed look at you, “It should smell like something you love. Would anyone care to share what they smell?” Surprisingly, Draco’s hand was the first in the air. 

“Mr. Malfoy.” 

“It smells foul, like too much perfume,” He said. You glared at him, taking a wif yourself.

It smelled offensively masculine. Clean, but offensively masculine nonetheless. It smelled expensive and oddly familiar. You weren’t sure what it was exactly. You knew it from somewhere. You sniffed it again. It wasn’t your dad or any of your friends. There was also the underlying scent of fresh linen. What was it? Where had you smelled it before? It bothered you. 

“Mine smells like fresh linen and very masculine,” You said, staring Draco down. 

“I smell old books as well,” He said, staring back with narrowed eyes. 

“I smell something old and expensive.” 

“Like you’d know what that smells like,” He huffed. You were kinda surprised that Snape was just letting the two of you go back and forth like this. 

“Oh? And just what else do you smell?” You asked. He leaned close to the potion, sniffing delicately at it. 

“Chocolate,” He said, slowly, “And something earthy?” 

“How original,” You said, rolling your eyes. 

“You try it then.” You leaned down, copying his prior movements. You could just make out the smell of clean, crisp air. In a strange way, it smelled like Quidditch. You couldn’t really explain how though. Even deeper under that, you could smell a strong black tea. 

“Tea and what I can only describe as Quidditch,” You said. He gave you a withering look before turning to look at Snape. 

Snape stared down at the two of you like he couldn’t believe how stupid you were. When you glanced back to Hermione, she had the same look on her face. You eyes flicked between the two attempting to decipher why they held that expression. Snape stared down his nose at Draco like he was waiting for an answer of some sort. You blinked slowly. What could they possibly be looking at the two of you like that for? You ran over your list of scents again in your head before it hit you. When it did, you nearly fell over. You were smelling Draco in your Amortentia! 

“Sir, I’m feeling a little ill, may I leave?” You asked, suddenly feeling woozy. He looked at you, nodding once. 

“Miss Granger, please escort her back to her dorm and hurry back,” He said. 

“Yes, sir,” She said, leading you out. You only made it around the corner before she said something. 

“Figure it out?” She asked smugly. 

“Figure what out?” You asked nervously. 

“Did you figure out what you were smelling or, who, rather,” She laughed. You felt heat rush up your neck. 

“I smelled Malfoy, didn’t I?” You said. She nodded, looking incredibly amused. 

“I believe so.” Great. That pretty much drove the final nail into your coffin. You finally had to face something you’d been running from since you were thirteen and you weren’t happy about it. 

#Draco #Draco Malfoy #Harry #Harry potter #Hermione #Hermione Granger #Ron #Ron Weasley #Golden Trio #Draco Malfoy x Reader #Draco x Reader #Draco Malfoy x reader fluff #Draco x Reader fluff #Draco Malfoy imagine #Draco imagine #Draco Malfoy oneshot #Draco oneshot #harry potter imagine #hp

[homeiswherethestuckis]

Cavern Song

 I wrote this based off a super awesome prompt from @notedchampagne!  It’s a davekat music camp au that I got a little carried away with, to be honest (lol).  I had lots of fun writing this, and I hope you all like reading it!

(note: this is actually super long for a short fic, so take warning)

For someone as vocal as you are, you tend to keep quiet when it comes to anything personal.  You can’t spill your guts to just anybody, no matter how much you may like to do so.  Back on Alternia, that kind of thing could’ve landed you in some deep shit.

But you’re not on Alternia anymore.  

You haven’t been for months.  

That’s still something you’re getting used to.  It’s difficult, but you’re trying.

It doesn’t really help that you don’t know anyone on this entire planet aside from your hivemates.  You technically didn’t know anyone back on Alternia, either, since you never left your hive if you could help it.  But you did meet people online, through trollian.  People you considered friends.

You haven’t even had that measly amount of social interaction since you got here.  The moment you left, your trollian account was disabled and you were informed that you were not to talk to anyone you knew from before.  A precautionary measure in case you let something slip about your less than legal relocation.  

You get it, you really do.  Just because you understand doesn’t mean you like it, though.  

You get...really fucking lonely sometimes.

It’s not something you’ve ever mentioned, but you think your hivemates must have noticed.  You can’t think of a better explanation for why they would cut your adjustment time short abandon you at some shitty camp for a week or so.

Music camp, no less.

You know fuck all about music and have never given any indication of knowing any shit about the subject.  Sure, you have the lyrics to a lot of songs memorized, and you can kind of read notes, but that’s it.  That’s the single turd nugget of knowledge you have.  Definitely not enough to justify sending you to a camp fucking dedicated to the entire damn subject.  

But no matter how much you pointed this fact out between bitch fits, going to music camp wasn’t your decision to make.  You were packed into the scuttle buggy and driven to camp despite your protests against it.

“You’ll have a good time there.”  You were told.  “It’ll be good for you to be out of the hive for awhile.  Meet people your own age before school starts.  Socialize.  Make friends.  It’ll be good for you, I promise.”

You reply without looking at him.  You stare out the window and watch buildings rush by.“I still think this idea is shit.”  

“Yes,” he replies, “you’ve made that much clear.”

“And yet here we are.”

The drive is short.  You arrive sooner than you expected.  You know you’re supposed to get out of the vehicle now, but you just sit there and stare out at the unfamiliar landscape.  It just looks so alien to you.  The thought of being left completely alone in such a strange environment is enough to put you on edge.  

How much begging would it take to convince him to go back?

“Karkat,” you shift around in your seat to face him, “here.”

He presses something smooth and metallic into your hand.  It’s warm from his pocket, but not as warm as you notice his hand is.  He keeps his hand on top of yours for what feels like an uncomfortably long time.  

After he finally pulls his hand away, you examine the thing he gave you.  “You got me a palmhusk?”

“The common term here is cell phone,” he corrects, “and yes, I did.  I was going to give it to you as a present for your first day of school, but I thought you might benefit from having it now.  The only numbers in the contacts are Kankri’s and my cell phone and the number for the house.  If you need anything, feel free to call.”

“Okay.”  You look through your contacts.  There are only the three numbers, just like he said.  You feel a little better about leaving now that you have a way to contact him.  You start to push your door open. “Thank you.”

“Wait, one more thing,” he stops you before you get out, “I just want you to know that if this...ends up being too much for you right now or if you get overwhelmed, then it’s okay for you to call me to pick you up.  It’s important that you get used to being around people, but it’s more important that you feel comfortable and safe.  You understand that you can call me no matter what, right?”

“Yeah.”  You nod.  You have no idea how to respond to this.  “If I need anything, I’ll call.”

“Promise?”  He asks skeptically.  

“Promise.”  You climb out of the car.  “I’ll...see you later.”

“Yes.”  He nods.  “Good bye.  Have fun, try to make friends.”

“I will.”  You close the car door.  He waves at you as he starts driving away, and you wave back even though you’re not even sure he can see you.

And just like that, you’re alone.

You turn around.  The building you’re supposedly having camp in isn’t the biggest you’ve ever seen, but given the situation it looms over you.  You start walking towards it with your head down.  

There’s no one on the side of the building you’re dropped off in front of, so you turn the corner to find people scattered all over the place in groups.  Most of them are talking loudly, others laughing, some standing close to each other and speaking in hushed tones.  You think they’re all waiting for something.  Maybe this is the only room open right now?  You’d ask, but at this point you’d feel like you’re interrupting something.

You shuffle your feet and look for an empty spot to stand around and wait until whatever the fuck’s supposed to happen next starts.  You find a free space of wall between two groups of people and settle there.  You shift your bag off of your shoulder and into your arms.  There’s nothing for you to do right now, so you look around at the people you’re supposed to be spending the next few days with.

They all look about your age, which was to be expected but is still a little jarring of an experience for you.  You’ve never seen this many people your age in one place before.  What’s more nerve wracking is that it seems like they’re all human.  Everywhere you look, there’s no horns, no grey skin, no visible fangs or claws to speak of.

It occurs to you that you might be the only troll here.  

You slide down the wall and sit on the floor.  You feel like you’re standing out like a bleeding thumb, so you try to make yourself small.  

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

You look up and oh thank fuck.  Turns out you’re not the only troll here, after all.  

“Yeah, sure.”  You scoot over.  “Go ahead.”

“Thank you." She takes a seat beside you and adjusts her skirt beneath her.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around before, are you new?”

“Yeah.”  You nod. “I’m Karkat.”

“Kanaya.”  She holds her hand out to you.  You shake hands, her palm is soft and warm. “I wasn’t expecting to see any other trolls here.  Those I’ve met in the past didn’t have much interest in music.  Do you play any instruments?”

“Not really."  This is the first conversation with someone outside your hive.  So far it’s going a lot better than you thought it would.   “Do you?”

“I had piano lessons when I was younger, and recently I’ve taken the guitar.”

You have no idea what the fuck that means, and it shows.  

“That look on your face leads me to believe that you don’t know what I’m talking about.”  She says.  “You haven’t been on Earth very long, have you?”

“Fuck, is it that obvious?”  You groan, leaning heavily against the wall and holding your bag closer to yourself.  “I’ve only been here a couple months.”

“I see.”  Kanaya nods.  “I’ve lived here my whole life, so if there’s anything you need to know I could probably help. ”

“Thanks.”  How much dumb luck did it take for you to end up talking with such a nice person?  “I could tell you about Alternia, if you want?”

She probably already knows all about Alternia, but it’s not like you have anything else to offer.  Kanaya smiles, her whole face brightening.  You can see just how sharp her fangs are as they glint off the artificial lights.

“Please, tell me all about it.”

Maybe she doesn’t know as much about Alternia as you thought.

You end up talking on the floor with Kanaya for awhile.  You trade information about what life on your separate home planets is like.  You tell her as much as you can about Alternia and the culture there, and she describes her life on Earth, specifically in this town.  

The doors are finally opened, and everybody rushes inside.  You try to stay close to Kanaya since she’s the only one you know.  

“Do you know where the fuck we’re going?”  You mumble to her.

“Probably to the gym to drop off our bags, or at least that’s my first guess.”

“There’s a gym here?”

“Of course there’s a gym here.”  Kanaya replies, her tone suggesting that should be obvious.  She glances at you, and you see something akin to realization cross her face.  “Oh right, you might not be aware.  Do you know where we are right now?”

“Music camp?”

“Yes,”  she laughs, “technically you’re right.  The camp itself is run by volunteers from the high school’s music department.  They host the camp inside the school.  Actually, this would be a good opportunity for you to get used to the building’s layout before school starts.”

“Do you think I’ll have time to do that?”  The crowd comes to a near standstill.  Everyone’s forming themselves into something resembling a line.  Apparently the people in charge want you to enter the gym single file for some damn reason.

“If I remember correctly, the counselors aren’t particularly strict about kids wandering around unsupervised.” The line moves.  Kanaya is nearing the front.  “And the classes themselves only take up a few hours of the day, so you should have plenty of time to gain your bearings while camp is in session.”

There’s some guy with a clipboard and the tight lipped smile worn solely by teachers who are sick of students but are only a few more years from retirement.  “Name?”

“Kanaya Maryam.” She states evenly, spelling it for him so it’s easier to locate on his sheet.  He marks it down and lets her go.  You do the same as Kanaya and walk into the gym after her.

The gym...is fucking huge.  And bright.  Why the everloving bulgefuck would anyone need an area this huge and blindingly lit just for recreation?  Particularly in a place dedicated to education?

You glare up at the lights (okay, more like squint because as you said it’s bright as radioactive shit) and you honestly don’t give a fuck about the why of the lights anymore.  Right now all you want to do is punch them out.  Probably with a heavy ball.  Preferably with your fist.

You train your eyes on the ground because your eyes are starting to burn.  The lights will still be there for you to continue your feud later, for now you need to find someplace to dump your shit and then look for Kanaya again.  You came in right after her, and yet you still lost her to the crowd.

You find a big enough empty space to drop everything and start scanning the crowds for her.  She really shouldn’t be that hard to find, given the easily visible length of her horns.

Despite this, she finds you first.  “Karkat, over here!”

You stumble your way over at the sound of your name.  You have to push through groups of people to get to her.  She’s sitting on the floor with another girl, both of them are pulling things out of their bags and setting them on the ground beside them.

Kanaya introduces the other girl as Jade, a close friend of hers.  She smiles and offers her hand up to you.  You take it and introduce yourself.  Her grip is stronger than you expected, you hear a couple of your fingers crack.  She pulls you down so you’re sitting on the floor with them.

“Nice to meet you!”  She says.  She has glasses and something metal on her teeth that you want to ask about.  

“Jade’s been helping me with my guitar lessons.”  Kanaya says before you have the chance to say anything.

“I actually play bass, but I do know how to play the guitar unlike the person Kanaya originally tried to get to help her practice.” Jade gives Kanaya a knowing look, and Kanaya looks down and rummages around in her bag, her face flushed green.  “Do you play anything, Karkat?”

“No.”

“Oh.”  She tilts her head inquisitively, her dark hair tumbling over one shoulder. “Well what the fuck are you doing at music camp, then?”

“I don’t know.” You admit. “It’s not like I don’t know bulge about music, though.  I can recognize the melodies from all the songs in my favorite movies, I could probably play them on something pretty well.  I know all the words to the popular music on the radio.  All the grub songs.  I’m not a complete shit idiot on the subject.”  

You haven’t broken eye contact with Jade since you started talking.  The weight of her gaze is heavier than you expected.  You can tell she doesn’t believe you.  

“Okay, you know what?  Fuck, I’ll admit it, I’m a panless asshole.  I can’t tell my wastechute from one of your human music devices.  Congratulations, you exposed me!  I really am an idiot whose aural cavities are stuffed full of shit.  I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m here!  Thanks for making that obvious, Jade, nice work!  I am literally shitting my self with gratitude, wallowing in a steaming stink pile of my own appreciation towards you, and soon there will be so much of it we’ll all just fucking drown in it.  I hope you’re happy about this, Jade, because-”

“Holy shit, can you stop talking?”  Jade interrupts you midsentence.  She looks pissed, and you can feel the aggravation coming off her in waves.  You keep your mouth shut because if you’re being honest with yourself, she looks scary as fuck and you don’t want to know what’s going to happen if you make it worse.  “I’m not sure what happened, because I definitely didn’t say anything to cause a weird tantrum like that, but why you’re here doesn’t matter!  I mean, yeah, you not knowing how to play an instrument or anything is weird, but camp is as good a place as any to start learning.  No one cares that you don’t know music.”  

Your shoulders sag a little, you hadn’t realized how tense you’d gotten when Jade started talking.  

“What does matter,” she continues, and you tense right back up again. “is that you said some pretty loud and nasty stuff just now, mainly directed at me even though I didn’t do anything, which is a total dick move on your part.  If you were just some random person I was talking to, I would have punched you and never talked to you again.  But since Kanaya said you were okay I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Jade inches closer on her knees and socks you hard in the arm. “You’re on thin ice.”

You take the warning to heart. “Fine.”  

Kanaya hasn’t said anything this whole time.  The only sound between the three of you now is just her continuing to empty her bag.  Just how much shit did she bring with her?

“Hey, Kanaya, what’s this?”  You pick up a small bottle filled with a suspiciously thick green liquid.  It kind of looks like blood.  You sincerely hope it’s not.

“Oh, that?”  She takes the bottle from your hand and sets it back on the floor.  “It’s just nail polish.”

“There’s colored nail polish?”

“Why would you bring that?”  Jade laughs.

Kanaya shrugs.  “I saw no reason not to bring it.  And to answer your question, Karkat, yes.  Most nail polishes here are.”

“That’s weird.”  What the fuck’s the point of coloring it?  As dumb as you think it is, you can’t stop staring at it.  There’s so many colors, one close to every blood color and then some.

Kanaya catches you staring.  “Did you want to paint yours, Karkat?”

You can‘t use any of those colors. “Do you have black?”

The three of you are sitting close together and painting each other’s nails.  You have no idea how this came about, but you now have one of Jade’s hands in yours and are trying your best to paint evenly onto her nails.  

“You’re not very good at this.”  She comments as you clumsily smear green onto her finger, nearly missing the nail entirely.

“Fuck you, this brush is small.”

“Karkat, you mentioned the cavern songs earlier, right?”  Kanaya inquires as she examines her still drying nails.  “Or did I hear you wrong?”

“Yeah, I think I said something about them.”  You accidentally put too much on Jade’s middle finger and try to smooth out the green with the tiny ass brush.  “Why?”

“I’ve never met anyone who remembers them, aside from vague snippets.  You’re saying you do?”

“Vividly.  Shit’s stuck in my pan all the damn time.  They’re all auricular dirt noodles.”

Jade wiggles her fingers, smudging some of the nail polish onto your hand.  “What are you talking about?”

“Cavern songs.”  Kanaya explains.  “The jadebloods sing them to grubs to comfort them and help them go to sleep.  Most trolls don’t need them past their first sweep because they have access to sopor by then, so they forget them.”

You had no idea people forgot the cavern songs, you’d never mentioned them to anyone before.  Then again, you guess you never really had the opportunity to forget them.  You never felt safe on Alternia, so you self soothed with songs from your wrigglerhood to get you through all the hard days and, more recently, the difficult nights.

Not that you’d ever share that information with anyone.

“So they’re lullabies?”  

“Yes.”  Kanaya nods.  “They’re lullabies.  Most of them have been forgotten here, though.  Something happened when we came here and the songs were lost.  Now we supplement the missing songs with earth lullabies, but it’s not the same.”

“I could write down what I remember, if you want.”  You offer as you concentrate on Jade’s pinkie.  “All the words, the melodies and shit.  I think I could get it all down if I tried.”

Kanaya considers your offer, chewing on her bottom lip with uncertainty. “Karkat, you’d have to transcribe the song using human musical notation, right?  I can’t read Alternian music very well.  Are you sure you want to deal with that?  Just having the lyrics back would be more than enough.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”  You shrug off her concern as you replace the cap on the nail polish.  “How hard can it be?”

As it turns out, very hard.  Very very fucking hard.  In your first class you learn what a piano is and see your first piece of sheet music.  

Once again, your confusion is written all over your face.  You’re taken aside and informed that the teachers were made aware of your circumstances (that you don’t know anything about music at all) and they tell you that you can ask for help from any of them if you need it.  You decline.

You have a class about the basics of music.  You’re completely lost, but you don’t bother to admit it because the few other people there seem to understand what’s going on and honestly, it’s not all that important to you to begin with.  There’s also choir, which is okay and more your speed.  Yeah, you can’t read any of the notes at all, but you can carry a tune and match pitch pretty well.

Afterwards someone gives you some simple sheet music to practice with.  You only know it’s simple because you were told it’s simple.  You have no fucking idea what it means.  You’re musically illiterate.  

You don’t mention that and instead thank them for the music.  The plan now is to practice at some point when the auditorium is empty.  That also turns out to be easier said than done, there are people in and out of the auditorium all god damn day.  Apparently it’s a high traffic area.  People take their practicing very seriously here.

Before you know it, the day is officially over and you’re herded into the gym with the rest of the kids.  You spend about a half hour talking with Kanaya and Jade before someone calls lights out.  So far, they’re the only people you’ve befriended, if you can really call what’s going on right now friendship.

Fuck, you hope it is.

You drag your feet over to your sleeping bag before the lights are shut off.  You’re not tired at all, but you’re used to that by now.  You’re just going to lay on the ground and stare at the ceiling until the lights are turned back on and you’re told you can get up again.  

An hour into laying around and doing nothing, it occurs to you that everyone is here in the gym.  That means, for the first time all day, the auditorium is finally free.  

Now is as good a time to practice as any.

You wait another half an hour to make sure everyone’s asleep before you sneak off.  You take your sheet music and a pen and step carefully over all the sleeping bodies surrounding you.  Somehow, you make it all the way to the door without incident.  

There’s even less incident when you exit the gym for the dark and empty hallway.  You walk slow and as quietly as possible, which isn’t hard given you’re walking around in your socks.  The auditorium is also unlocked, and some idiot left a couple of the lights on.  

There’s a piano up on the stage.  You set up your music and just stare at it.  There are so many notes on the sheet, most of them look like they’re repetitive, but you don’t know which of the keys they correspond to.  

You press down on one of the keys.  The note rings out and echoes in the cavernous room.  It’s so shockingly loud in contrast to the silence that you almost flinch.

Figuring out how to play this is going to take you all fucking night.

Good thing you don’t have anything better to do with your time.

It’s been hours and you don’t know this simple fucking song and you feel like such a fucking dumb asshole right now.  You’ve made zero headway since you got here.  You don’t know what this song is supposed to sound like, so you can’t even tell if you’re playing it right in the first place.  You don’t understand this system of notation at all and how it applies to this instrument.  You don’t know how this tune is supposed to go.  None of this makes sense.  All you have to show for your time wasted here is a burning hatred for pianos and a vessel in your pan that’s fit to burst.

You’re stupid and you don’t know shit.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”  You scream as you smash the keys with every ounce of energy you have left in you.  

You’re done.  You are so fucking done.  Let this horribly jarring cacophony be your swang song, because you are finished, you don’t give a shit.  Fuck this.  Fuck this song.  Fuck music.  Fuck pianos.  Fuck this planet.  Fuck your whole god damn life.  

You hate everything right now but most of all yourself.

You pound on the keys emphatically a couple more times before you finally give up and rest your head on them in defeat.  Your moan is the same tone as the notes your forehead makes contact with.  They fade out together in an unsatisfying and weak harmony.  

All is quiet again.  After all the noise you just made, it’s kind of stifling.  

There’s a soft crackling noise above you that you think originates from one of the speakers.  You think nothing of it.

A few seconds later, the crackling is replaced with a voice.

“Hey I don’t mean to be that guy, but you should probably be keeping loud noises like whatever the fuck that just was so we don’t get in trouble for being in here, you get me?”

You sit up and look around.  Has there been someone else here the entire time? “Who the fuck are you?”

“Who the fuck am I?  Like, right now?  As we speak?”  The voice responds.  “Because if we’re talkin’ big picture, grand scheme of things sort of deal, that’s a pretty heavy question that I’m not prepared to answer without delving into some deep philosophical bullshit that I don’t think either of us wants or has the time for.”

“Yes, asswit.  Who are you right in the fucking now?”  There’s only one place someone could hide from you and be able to communicate through the speakers...

“I don’t know, some guy in a booth?”

Just as you thought.  There, high above you and all the way across the auditorium, is the sound booth.  Inside is a vaguely humanoid shape, specific features too far away to make out.

“Okay, random fuckface in a booth,” you sit up and face the sound booth,  “you’ll be happy to hear that I’m done making noise for the night.  Possibly forever.  Please excuse me while I collapse face first on the floor and wait patiently for my self loathing to press so heavily against me I sink deep into the flaming bowels of this garbage planet.”

You stand up to do just that, only for the voice to interrupt you.  “I didn’t say you had to stop making noise altogether, dude.  All I said was that you have to quiet the fuck down or we’ll both get caught here and you won’t get to keep practicing whatever that shit is you were working so hard on.”

“Why the hell do you care if I keep practicing or not?”  You lay down on the floor on your back.  “Are you getting off to my discordant rage and frustration, you weird fuck?”

“I’ll admit, that last bit where you screamed and punched the piano for like five minutes was hilarious, but other than that it was mostly dull.  Impressive that you spent so much time trying to play this shit even though you clearly have no idea what the fuck you’re doing, but yeah mostly dull.”

“I’m glad you were having such a fucking good time at my expense, but I’m done now.  I give up.”

“Seriously?  After all those hours you spent pounding on the keys you’re just gonna quit?  That’s lame as fuck, dude, things were just getting interesting.”  The voice whines.

You lean on your elbow and glare up at the sound booth.  “Fuck you, I am lame.”

“And a whiney asshole baby, apparently.”  You can practically hear the eye roll.  “You’re really just going to give up as soon as things get a little hard?  You do realize that means you stayed up all night and got your boxers in a bunch halfway up your rectum for nothing, right?”

“As if I was going to sleep tonight, anyway.”  You scoff as you get up.  You think you’re gonna call it a night and go back to the gym.  “Good bye, you annoying disembodied piece of shit.  I’d say it was nice talking with you but I don’t care enough about your feelings to lie.”

“Wait, are you actually leaving?”

“Yeah?  What, me repeating it a million times over wasn’t enough to convince you?”  You pick up your sheet music and start to walk off the stage.

“What song were you playing?”

You stop.  “What?”

“What song?”  The voice prods.  “Maybe I could help you with it.  You’ve never heard it before, right?  And you’re obviously having trouble reading the sheet music.  I could find a recording of it or something on my phone and you could at least listen to the song so you know what it’s supposed to sound like.”

You’re suspicious of the guy in the sound booth.  What reason would he have to help you?  What does he gain?  Despite your suspicions, you don’t move from your spot.  “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Fuck, can’t a bro just help another bro out?”  He asks.  “Seriously, as funny as it was to watch you just hit random keys in total utter confusion for a couple hours, I do think you deserve a hand.  You seem way out of your element here.”

You hate to admit that he has a point there.  “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

“What?”

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  That’s the song.”  You repeat.  “Do you know it?”

“Yeah, of course I know it.  Everyone over one knows it.  Holy shit, are you saying you don’t?”

You bristle defensively.  “I’m leaving!”

“Sorry, wait!”  The guy pleads.  “Listen, I got the song loaded up on here ready to play whenever and I also got all the notes for it right here if you need those, too.  I’ll shut up and you can sit your ass back down at that piano and listen to the song, okay?  That cool?”

You take a hesitant step back towards the piano.  “And you’ll really shut up?”

“Yeah.  Unless you have a question or something.  Other than that, my lips will be locked tighter than Rockefeller’s oyster vault.”

“Okay fine, you convinced me,”  you sit back down at the piano, your arms crossed over your chest as you stare down at the keys, “play it.”

And he does.  And it’s so short and so fucking simple you can’t believe it.  You’ve been struggling with it for hours.  What the fuck.

“So?”  He asks once the song ends.  “Do you think that helped at all?”

“Yeah, I think so.”  You nod.  At least you know what it’s supposed to sound like now.  “I think I’ve heard some of those notes before.  Can you play it again?”

And the guy plays the song for you again, and again and again and so many times that you lose count while you hunt around for the right notes.  It takes you awhile, but after a little less than another hour you’re able to play a shaky and pause filled version of the song.

But you played it.  You played it and that’s what matters.

Fucking finally.

You’re so relieved to have this entire ordeal over with you can literally feel the stress lift off your shoulders.  You never would have gotten through this if it weren’t for that guy in the sound booth.  Maybe you should go up there and thank him.  Ask him if he wants to walk back to the gym with you.

Yeah.  Yeah, you should do that.

You stand and head towards the sound booth.  You throw open the door, but it’s empty.  Whoever it was left before you could get here.

Oh.

You’re...more disappointed than you expected to be.

Fuck.

You’re about to close the door and head back when something on the back of a chair catches your eye.  It’s a sticky note.  You peel it off the chair and have to hold it close to your face to read it.

good job dude five hours and one breakdown and you’re already piano master you’re a fast learner keep up the good work

On the bottom there’s a poorly drawn person smiling and giving a thumbs up.

You crumple the note up and shove it in your pocket.  “Asshole.”

“So you spent some time with this stranger last night and when you went to talk to him in person he was gone, but he left you a note.”  Kanaya reiterates after you tell her all about your late night auditorium venture.

“Yeah, here it is.”  You hand her the wadded up note.

You’re sitting in the cafeteria with Kanaya pretending to enjoy something that passes itself off as breakfast.  Jade found some of her other friends here during classes yesterday and elected to sit with them instead.  You can’t even see her in here, it’s so fucking crowded.  It’s also pretty loud, which is working in your favor because this isn’t  really something you want anyone to overhear.   “This is cute.”  Kanaya says.  “Do you think he’ll be there when you go to practice later tonight?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe?  Fuck, Kanaya, what if I never see-”

“-hear.”  

“-hear from him again?  I didn’t even fucking thank him, I was just an asshole the whole time.”  

“Isn’t you being an asshole just you being yourself?”  She raises an eyebrow.

“Thank you, Kanaya.”  You grumble as you poke at your breakfast with your fork.  “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear right now.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“So what have you been doing?” You ask. “What’s been going on with you, Kanaya?”

“Not too much, really.”  She shrugs.  “To be perfectly honest there’s a particular girl who’s caught my eye recently, but I haven’t made much headway with her.”

“Oh really?”  You lean forward, intrigued.  “What’s she like?  Tell me about her.”

Kanaya doesn’t require much prompting.  “She’s pretty,” she smiles, “and she’s mysterious and funny and smart.  She plays the violin and it sounds almost as beautiful as she is.”

“Wow,” her description of this girl is so sweet that you can’t help but smile as she speaks, “she sounds amazing, Kanaya.  You said you haven’t been making much headway with her?”

“I haven’t.” She sighs.  “I’ve been trying to ask her out for months now, but she hasn’t acknowledged a single one of my advances.”  

“Is she dense or are you just bad at flirting?”

“I don’t know, possibly both?  I have to admit flirtation isn’t my strong suit.  But I am determined to get my feelings across to her before camp is over.”

“Wait, she’s here?  At camp?”  You start looking around.  “Which one is she?”

“She’s over there.”  Kanaya points to a far away table.  “Try not to be too obvious.”

All you can see is the back of her head.  Across from her you can see Jade and some guy in sunglasses.  You’re trying to will the other girl to turn around, but all you get is the guy staring back and giving you a weird look.

You look back to Kanaya.  “I really hope that happens for you, Kanaya.  If you need any help with that, let me know.  I’m kind of an expert on these things.”

“Are you?”  She laughs.  “Well, thank you, Karkat, I doubt I will be seeking out your expertise, but I appreciate the offer.  If you need any help with your auditorium phantom, I’d be happy to help you with that, too.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be taking you up on that, either.  I probably won’t hear from him again.”

You spend all day in your classes, and even though you don’t understand all that much you do understand more than you did the day before.  At lunch you ask Kanaya to help you figure out all the names of the notes you worked on yesterday.  

At the end of the day you write down the words to one of the cavern songs.  As you do this, it occurs to you that learning that song yesterday was the easy part.

Transcribing the cavern song from Alternian to human music notation when you don’t even know the original Alternian?

Hard as hell.

Well, at least this time you know what the fuck it’s supposed to sound like.

You wait until late in the night again to go back to the auditorium.  You’re going to need as much time on that piano as you can get.  

You walk into the auditorium with your lyrics and your pencil to write the notes down in the margins.  It’s quiet, and the lights are on again.  You wonder if the guy is in here.

You remind yourself that it doesn’t matter if he’s in here or not.  That’s not what you’re here for.  You have more important things to do.

You sit at the piano and hum the melody to yourself, maybe you can determine which you’re supposed to start with before playing it like this.  Your fingers are hovering over the keys.

You hum it again.  You think you know the first note.  

You press it and...yeah, it sounds right.  That’s the one.  You’re certain of it.

You’re pretty sure Kanaya said that one was F.  You write it down so you don’t forget it.

You go through the same process for the next note, and the note after that.  It’s a meticulous, slow, and boring process, but it’s okay.  Sometimes you can be patient, and this song happens to be one of your favorites.  It’d be a damn shame if no one else got to hear it.

You’re so lost in your slow work that you almost jump at the sound of the speaker crackling.

“What are you working on now?”  The sound booth guy asks through static.  “That shit doesn’t sound like Twinkle twinkle little star. ”

“It’s not.”  You don’t turn to address the sound booth and the person inside it.  Your eyes are trained on the keys in front of you.  You plunk one, but it doesn’t sound right.  “I don’t know what the title translates to.”

“Oh.  It’s a song from your home planet, then?”  

“Yeah.”  You play another note.  This one seems right.  You write it down.

“So I guess you won’t be needing any help then.”  He sounds a little...disappointed?  No, that can’t be right.  

“No, I won’t.”  Another note.  Wrong.  “You can stay, though.  Listen to some real music for a change instead of your simplistic earth dirt sound.”

“That’s some big talk for a guy that broke down crying because he couldn’t play a beginner’s kid song the other day.”  He replies tauntingly.

“I didn’t cry!”

“Yeah, but you were close.”  

“Fuck off!”

“Make me.”  

You snort but don’t reply.  The guy in the sound booth doesn’t say anything for awhile either.  The only sound is you, humming and plucking carefully at the piano.

“Did you get my note?”

“Yeah.”  You reply.  “You’re a shitty artist.”

“Wow, way to kick a guy straight in the sack.  I’ll have you know that was probably the best work I ever did.”

“Well that’s sad, because looking directly at it gave me a a stroke and made me lose function in one half of my pan for an hour.”

“Fuck, I was going for two hours.”

“I wouldn’t pursue art as a career if I were you.”  You continue, “Unless making people shit out their internal organs by the sheer force of their revulsion is what you were going for.”

“Bro, you just described the dream.  That’s literally all I want to do with my life.  I wanna hang in the Louvre and then swim around in their liquidy insides.   I’ll be such hot hot shit that everyone will have no choice but to melt into inferior shit while looking at it.  Like Medusa but sicker, yknow?  I’ll get some bomb ass dark glasses so I don’t go all Frankenstein and die at the hands of my own messed up but sweet as hell creation.  Then I’ll buy a boat and row around in all the shit flooding the halls, singing like one of those romantic Italian boatman.  It’ll be an offally good time.”

“I didn’t understand half of what you just said and I really don’t think I want to.”  You write down another note.  You feel like you’ve been at this for hours, but you only have the first line done.

This song’s a fuckton longer than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

This is going to take you all night, at least.

Sound booth guy goes quiet again.  You keep humming and playing.

You get five more notes down before you hear him clear his throat.  “You speak English pretty well for a guy fresh off the space boat.”

What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?  “Of course I am?  I was taught Earth languages as soon as I was out of the breeding caverns.  All Alternians are.”

“Wait, so you’re saying you know every language?  Every fucking language?”  He says in disbelief.

“Every language of the nation’s we’ve established major trade with, yeah.”  You nod.  “Not just earth, other planets, too.”

“Holy shit, you’re busy being a lingual genius and I’m over here busting my ass off trying not to fail Spanish.”

“Thanks, but I just have normal language skills, by our standards.  The only reason I’m even decent at English is because it was popular to learn and I kind of liked the sound of it.”  Also most of your favorite movies are in English.  “Are you saying you’re not taught Alternian here?”

“I think they teach it in bigger schools, but not here.”

“Would you...” you can’t believe you’re about to suggest this, “want to learn?”

“What, Alternian?  Yeah, that’d be pretty cool.”

“I could teach it to you sometime.”  You offer.  “If you want.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”  You reply.  “The fact that I had to cram my pan full of your languages since I pupated and you’ve just been sitting on your ass in complete ignorance is fucking abysmal and want to fix that obvious mistake on this incompetent school system’s part.”

“Wow,” he laughs, “and here I thought you were just trying to do something nice for me.”

“Never make that mistake again, sound booth guy.”  

You get another note down.  Then another.

“Dave.”

You look over to the sound booth and tilt your head in confusion.  You can see someone.  A figure sitting in a chair, leaning close to whatever device he’s using to speak to you.  You can’t make out a face.

“That’s my name.”  He says.  “It’s Dave.”

“Oh.”  You turn back to the piano and play another note.  “I’m Karkat.”

You spend awhile longer on the piano, you have three fourths of the song figured out as best you can before you call it a night.  Dave hasn’t said anything more since he told you his name.  You’re not even sure if he’s still there.

He probably left without saying anything.  Just like he did the night before.

You’re probably alone right now.

You get up from the piano without saying anything.  Exit the stage.  Walk towards the door.

Dave’s voice booms through the quiet.  “Good night, dude.”

“Night, Dave.”

You grin ear to ear like an idiot all the way back to the gym.

Dave is there the next day, too.  You can see him in the booth.  Or at least, you think it’s him.  You have no idea who else would be in here at late as fuck o’clock.  

He doesn’t say anything when you come in, and you don’t say anything, either.  You just get to work.  You’re almost done with this one.  You’re going to start on another one tonight, though.  You think you should be able to finish it before camp is over in a few days.

The end of the song is easier to figure out than the rest.  It’s almost identical to the beginning.  

All you have to do now is make sure it all sounds right as a whole.  You haven’t played it as a whole song yet, only separate notes.  

You take a deep breath and hope to mother grub you did this right.  You don’t want to start over again.  

You hum as you play.  It takes you longer to get through the whole song on the piano than it does to sing, but it sounds good.  It sounds correct.

You play it again, just to make sure.

Holy shit, you did it.

“That’s a really nice song.”  Dave says.  “Is that the one you were working on yesterday?”

“Yeah.”  You nod.  You can‘t stop smiling, you‘ve never been so proud of yourself. “This is it.”

“Hey, you’re in the choir program, right?”

That question came out of fucking nowhere.  “Yes?”

“I was wondering...” he says slowly, uncertain, “I heard you humming along to it earlier.  Would you mind singing it?  The song?  I’ve never heard a song from another planet before.  If you want you could consider it my first lesson in Alternian.”

“Well fuck, Dave, how do you expect me to say no if you beg like that?”  You roll your eyes.  “Sure, you pathetic barkbeast in human skin, I’ll sing it for you.”

“I just got the image of a dog wearing a person suit like a reverse furry in my head and I think it’s going to be burned into my eyes forever now so thanks for that.”

“I didn’t understand some of those words, but from your tone of voice I bet it’s terrible.  You’re welcome.”  You reply.  “Now shut up so I can sing.”

Dave shuts up, and you take a minute to prepare yourself.  You’ve never really sang in front of another person before, never by yourself.  You squeeze your eyes shut and pretend Dave’s not there.  That you’re going to sing this song to yourself like you have a million times before.

You play the first note, and you sing.  Your voice is soft, sometimes it trembles, but it’s audible and for the most part, confident.  As you sing you can feel yourself relax.  Any stress you had is pushed to the back of your pan.  Pain, physical, emotional,is numbed.  Your fears are small now, insignificant.

You didn’t know you were feeling bad, but you feel better.

The last note wavers, and finally the song ends.

You rub your eyes with your hand and look expectantly over to the sound booth.

“Well?”  Your speaking voice is so much louder than when you’re singing, it’s almost jarring.  “What did you think.”

“I liked it.”  His words are almost completely swallowed up in a yawn.  “I’m sorry, I liked it, I swear, I’m just really fucking tired for some reason.”

“That’s what it’s supposed to do, but I didn’t expect it to have such a big impact on human wrigglers.”

“I have a feeling that was an insult, but I’m too tired to care.”  Dave yawns again.

“Do you want me to take you back to the gym to sleep, Dave?”  You ask.  You might go to bed, too.  You feel like you might actually be able to sleep tonight.

“No, I’m gonna sleep here.”  He says.  “I usually sleep here.  Fuck ton of people in the gym.  Shit’s uncomfy.”

You nod.  “Yeah, I get it.  I’ll leave so you can sleep.”

“Thanks.”

You get up and start walking towards the door.  You’re halfway out before he calls back out to you.

“Karkat?”  You can practically hear his grip on consciousness slipping.

“Yeah?”  

“Your voice is really pretty.”

You laugh.  “Good night, you sleepy dunderfuck.”

And with that, you leave.  It’s obvious to you as you drag your feet back to the gym that you’re going to have to come back tomorrow.  

Because you didn’t accomplish what you wanted to do tonight.

Not because Dave’s there.  Obviously.

Obviously.

“Sorry I fell asleep last night.”  Dave says the moment you walk into the auditorium.  

You look over to the sound booth and shake your head.  “It’s fine.  It was a...lullaby, I think was the human word for it.  It was supposed to do that.”

“Fuck, really?  That was an alien version of a lullaby?  What do you guys call it?”

“A cavern song.”  You set your stuff up on the piano and take your seat.  

“Hey, before you go and start whatever the fuck you’re doing, I noticed you were playing kinda weird yesterday.”

“Of course I’m playing weird, ass face, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing!”  You snap, slamming some of the keys with your whole hand as emphasis.

“See, that’s the thing!  Right the fuck there!  Or at least part of the thing.”

“Dave, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You slam the keys too hard, dude.  You’re supposed to, like, press on them softly.  They don’t call it tickling the ivories for nothing, Karkat.”

“What the fuck, who calls it that?”

“A lot of people.  Now come on, try it.”  He persuades.  “Be gentle.”

You roll your eyes but do it anyway.  The note is softer and less harsh than when you played it before, but it’s still the same sound.  

“Yeah, that’s how it’s usually played like.”  Dave says.  “Now here’s the other thing; bro, you’re only playing with one finger.”

“Am I...not supposed to do that?”

“Nah.  You’re supposed to use all five of them.”

“All five?  At once?”  That sounds so fucking fake.  “Like this?”

You press down with all of your fingers at once.  The sound produced is awful.  There’s no way that’s right.

“No, not like that.  You know where C is, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Put your thumb on that one.”

You do it.  “Okay, then what?”

“Second one goes on D, middle on E, and you’re not a total moron so I’m guessing you get the pattern by now.”

“Oh.  Yeah, I do.  Fuck, I’m an idiot.”  You sigh.  This would have been obvious if your pan wasn’t clogged with shit.

“Dude, shut the hell up, you’re not an idiot.  You’re an alien.  I actually think you’re doing pretty good considering you’re doing this from scratch.”

“Thanks.”  You don’t believe him, but the lie is nice.  “So I’m supposed to play it like this?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“That seems weird as shit.”

“Don’t bitch to me about it, I’m not the one who invented it.  Maybe play something like that so you get a better feel for it or something.”  Dave suggests.

“That’s not a horrible idea.”

“Just one of those things you gotta know about me, Karkat.  When you’re someone as full of ideas as I am, sometimes you find a nugget of gold among the turds.”

“That’s disgusting, never open your mouth again.”

He scoffs.  “Like you’re one to talk.”

You start going through Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  “Shut up.”

“And deprive you of my sweet, sweet voice to keep you company throughout the night?  I would never.”

You finish that one smoothly and play the cavern song.  It goes just as well as the first song.  Holding your hand like this on the piano is a little uncomfortable, but you think you’ll get used to it soon and it does seem to have good results so far.

“Do you have another thing you’re working on tonight, Karkat?”  Dave asks.

“I have another cavern song I was hoping to get done tonight.”  You admit.  “It’s a lot shorter than the last one so I don’t think it should take me as long.”

You start humming and determining notes.  

“Do you know a lot of cavern songs?”

“More than the average troll, yeah.”  You have to move your hand a bit more for this one than you did for the other two songs.  This is the first time you’ve used a note below C.

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know.”  You find another note.  “I never thought about it before.”

You don’t want to know.

Dave goes quiet and lets you keep working.  Before you know it, you’ve finished the song.

“Hey, Dave?”  Your fingers are poised to play as you turn to the sound booth.  “I’m about to play this song, do you want me to sing?  So you can hear the words?”

Dave doesn’t respond immediately.  The air feels dead for two whole minutes.

“Yeah.”  He finally says.  All the tension leaves your shoulders.  “That would be good.”

So you do it.  You play the piano, and you sing.  It’s not your favorite cavern song, but right now it feels perfect.  The piano and your voice are both soft, and the words are sweet and comforting.  You know Dave doesn’t understand them, but you hope he does understand the feeling in the melody.

The song ends.  You have nothing to say.  You look over to the sound booth and wait for Dave to say something instead.

“That was...” he sounds like he’s struggling for the right words, “a great song.  I think I got what you were trying to convey, but I still wish I understood the words.”

“Yeah.”  You agree.  “It’s a really good song.”

A soothing one.  Good for calming down after a bad dream in the middle of the day.

“Hey, I know this might sound weird as all hell and you can feel free to say no,”  Dave says suddenly, “but would you play it again and could I...record you singing it?”

“You want to record me singing?”  

“Yeah.  Listen, if you’re worried about being on camera or something it’s only audio, the only thing getting recorded is your voice.  Of course if you’re uncomfortable having that recorded, too, especially by someone you barely know, then that’s fine, too.  You don’t have to, I just thought I’d ask because this is a nice song and I think I would like to listen to it again sometime.”

And he thinks your voice is pretty.  Can’t forget that.  

You take a minute to consider it.

“I don’t have a problem with you recording me while I sing.  That’s alright.”  

“Yeah?”

You nod. “Yeah.”  

“Okay,” You hear Dave fumble around with something, “ready when you are.”

You play the song again.  There’s heat rising in your face as you do so because of the recording.  You can’t believe he’d want to listen to it, to you, again.

Does he actually like your voice?

Does he actually like you?

Fuck, you don’t know.

The song ends again.  Dave thanks you for letting him record it.  You tell him it’s no problem, and then you get up and say good night.  Dave says it back.

You still don’t know if Dave likes you or not.

As you’re walking down the hall, it occurs to you that there’s only one more full day of camp left.

You have to make that last night count.

You don’t bring anything with you when you go into the auditorium this time.  You also don’t go to the stage, either.  

You walk straight into the sound booth.  

There’s some guy sitting cross legged and hunched over in a chair facing the stage.  He’s wearing a ratty t-shirt and pajama pants that look a little too big.  He’s stiff.  Pushed up into his pale and frizzy hair is a pair of sunglasses.  There are dark bags under his eyes.  He looks completely shocked to see you.

“Karkat.”  He sounds as surprised as he looks to see you here.  

You smile.  “Dave.”

It’s nice to finally put a face to a voice.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?”  He asks.  It sounds a bit harsh, but you think he’s genuinely confused on why you’re in the booth and not out on the piano.

Shit, you hope that’s what’s going on.

“It’s the last night of camp.”  You shrug.  “I wanted to hang out with you at least once before it’s over.”

“Oh.”  Was that not the answer he expected?  “Okay.  Cool.  Yeah, obviously, why else would you be in here, duh.”

He unfolds his legs and stands up.  Dave’s taller than you thought he was at first glance.  He fumbles around with his sunglasses and slides them back down over his eyes.

“Hey,” he clears his throat, “I’m Dave.”

“I know that, Dave.”

“And I know you know that.”  He sighs and hangs his head, a hand runs absently through his hair.  “It’s been awhile since I’ve had to talk face to face with people I don’t really know.”

“I don’t like talking to people I don’t know, either.”  You admit.  “It’s not like that matters, though.  This entire fucking planet is populated by strangers.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.  That sounds bleak.”

“That’s just how it is.  I’m just glad I’m not the only one who thinks it sucks.”

“Yeah.”  He smiles.  It’s a slight smile, but it’s definitely there.  “So, uh...do you want the grand tour?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Of your crawlspace?”

“Hey, fuck you!  This is a nine and a half by nine and a half foot room.  See, I can’t even touch both of the walls!”  He waves his arms.  “See?  Space!  Look at all this mother fucking space!”

“Okay, I see your point.  It’s not a crawlspace.”  You laugh.  “But really, what are you gonna do?  Introduce me to all the dust motes you just stirred up?”

“No, listen, listen to me, Karkat, I’m in the drama club.  I am the resident sound guy.  This shit right here?  This is my domain, and damn do I have some wild stories to tell about casa audio.”

“Alright, fine.  You talk a good game, Dave.  I’ll take your tour.”

Dave wasn’t kidding.  He did have some wild stories to tell.

“...and over here you’ll see the board that John spilled my special ordered apple pie flavored soda all over and short circuited to the point where we had to call some of the tech kids and bribe them not to tell anybody what happened because food and drinks aren’t allowed in here.”

“I understand all of those words separately, but the way you strung them together was utter nonsense, Dave.”

He claps you on the shoulder.  “That’s what it was, dude.  Utter nonsense.”

“...If you look up you will see right above you an inexplicable stain that looks a little too much like a human hand if you squint and have an active imagination.  Come on, try it, look up at it and squint and then tell me that shit’s not a human hand.”

“It...does kind of look like a hand.  What the fuck is it?”

“A hand, we both just said that.”

“No, I mean what kind of fucking stain is that?”

“An inexplicable one.”  He replies. “It can not be explained.”

“Oh.”  You keep staring up at the stain.  “Shit, I think it just gave me the finger.”

“...this thing, this thing right here, Karkat, do you know what it is?”  

“A button?”  

“Not just any button.”  Dave replies mysteriously.  “The Red Button.”

“What the fuck does the fact that it’s red matter?”  You ask.

“Because there’s only the one red button, and nobody knows what it does.”

“Wait, what?  You don’t know what it does?  Why not?  Didn’t this thing come with instructions or some shit?”

“It did.”  He nods.  “But the Red Button’s not on them.  It’s a rogue button.  So, since nobody knows what it does, nobody pressed it.  Now we just have theories to discuss what the button’s original function was.  My sister’s theory is that if we press it it’ll self destruct.  Personally, I think it’s a fake button some little shit added just to fuck around with us.”

“Why don’t you just press it and find out?”

“That would ruin the mystery, Karkat.”  Dave shakes his head slowly.  “Besides, what if it does self destruct?  I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

“Good call.”

“And last but not least,”  Dave goes to a corner of the room and drags out a sleeping bag, “ta-dah.  I already told you the other day that I sleep in here, right?”

“Yeah.  Too many people in the gym, you said.”  The sleeping bag looks like it’s meant for a single occupant.  “Are you expecting us to share that?”

“What?  No.  This thing’s small as shit, we’d literally be on top of each other.  I’m not comfortable with getting all up and snug with somebody until the third date, at least.”  

You know he’s kidding, but the word date catches you off guard and you don’t know how to respond to it.  While you’re trying to figure out what to say, Dave rolls the sleeping bag up and puts it back on the floor.  He lays down, using the rolled up sleeping bag as a pillow.  

“Come on, Karkat.  Get over here and pop a squat.”  He pats the space next to him.  “There’s enough room here for you.”

“Alright.”  You lay down next to him.  “What are we supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know.”  Dave shrugs.  “We could talk some more?  I could find a movie or some shit on my phone and we could watch that or something?”

“Yeah.”  You nod.  “I like both those ideas.”

Dave pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling through it.  You inch closer to see what he’s looking at, but he’s scrolling so fast you can’t read the titles.

He finally settles on something. You think it’s a sitcom.  It’s not like it matters what it is, though, you have a feeling you won’t be paying much attention.

Dave’s really close.  You can feel how warm he is next to you.

He presses play and holds the phone up in the air so you can both see it.  You lean in closer to him so you can see it better, but you’re not really watching.

“Hey, Dave?”  You ask after awhile.  You think you’re halfway through the episode.

“Yeah?”

“Where’d you go?  You said you sleep in here, but you weren’t in here that first night.”

“My sister texted me and asked where I went.”  He explains.  “I came in here without telling anyone, so I guess my disappearing act worried her.”

“What about you?  Do you have any siblings or anything?”

“I didn’t back on Alternia.  But now that I’m here, I have an annoying asshole of a brother who never stops spewing verbal diarrhea from the talking anus he calls a mouth.”

“Wow,”  Dave laughs, “you say the grossest things, you know that?”

“Yeah, like everything you’ve said has been completely clean and child appropriate.”  You roll your eyes.

“You got me there.”  He acknowledges.  “You and me, Karkat?  We’re cut from the same foul mouthed shit rag.”

“Fuck, I feel bad for whoever has to deal with us.”

Yeah.”  

You both lapse into silence again.  You have no idea what’s going on in the show.

Dave clears his throat.  “Hey, uh...thanks for letting me record you earlier.”

“No problem.”

“No, I mean it.   I’ve never heard interplanetary music before, and your voice is...really nice.  The combination was fucking fantastic and I appreciate that you letting me record it.”

“Really, it’s fine.”  You’re trying and failing not to blush.  

“Would you be willing to let me record you singing again sometime?  It doesn’t have to be one of your cavern songs if you don’t want to.  Is that weird?”  He’s talking fast, scrambling for words.  “Sorry, I’m not trying be a creep or anything, you just have a really nice voice.  It’s...soothing?  You can sing whatever you want, I just want to sample it, maybe use it in my own work in the future?  If you’re okay with that?  Fuck, this is weird.  This is a weird question.  I’m sorry, just ignore all of that, it was stupid and-”

“Okay.”

Your interruption surprises him so much that for a moment he’s left fumbling for a response.  “What?”

“Okay.”  You repeat yourself, more confidently this time.  “I’ll do it.  I’ll sing for you, if that’s something you’d really want to hear.”

“Yeah.  Yes, thank you.”  He smiles. “I’d love that.”

The episode ended a couple minutes ago.  Dave puts on another one without really looking at it.  

“Hey, would you mind holding this?  My arm’s getting tired.”

“Yeah, sure.  No problem.”  You take the phone from him and hold it up so you can both see.  You also inch a little closer.  Your head’s almost on his shoulder.

So Dave can see it as well as you can, of course.  Not because he’s warm and his shirt is soft.  Definitely not because he smells nice.

Of course not.

It’s late.  You’re getting sleepy.  Your eyelids are so fucking heavy and itchy from lack of sleep.  

“Hey, Dave?”  You yawn.

“Did you want me to take the phone back?”  He asks.

“Yeah.”  You hand it back to him.  “That’s not what I was going to say, though.”

“Okay.  Then what were you going to say?”

“I was going to thank you.”

“Thank me?”  Dave mumbles, confused.  “For what?”

“For making camp interesting.”  You rub at your eyes with a hand.  “This is the best time I’ve had since I left home.  Thanks, Dave.”

“You’re welcome, Karkat.”  He replies.  “I’ve had a good time, too.”

You and Dave sleep together in the sound booth until his alarm goes off.  You both get up and shuffle out of the auditorium and back to the gym.  Dave is holding his sleeping bag close to his chest.  You’re still struggling to keep your eyes open.

People are already waking up when you get there.  You can see a few glances trained on you and Dave as you walk in.  You don’t like it.  

You find yourself unconsciously reaching out for Dave’s hand.

You’re interrupted by a girl with short messy hair, the same color as Dave’s.  “I need to talk with you.”

She takes his hand before you can.  

“Okay, sure.”  He turns to you.  “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah.”  You nod.  “See you.”

The girl looks you up and down curiously before giving Dave a knowing look.  Dave stares down at his feet, his face is a shade darker than before, you think.

You wave at his back as she drags him away.  

You don’t know if you’re ever going to see him again.  You pray to fuck you do.

There’s not much time before camp is officially over.  You make sure you have all of your stuff packed up before you lay down on the floor and stare up at the ceiling.

Your view of the ceiling is eclipsed by Kanaya.  

“How was your late night rendezvous with Dave?”  She asks.

“Good.  How was your confession to Rose?”

“Good.”  

You sit up.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yes.”  Kanaya sits down.

You both trade stories about how your night went.  Kanaya’s story is cute and romantic and exactly what you always wished would happen to you.  It’s heart meltingly sweet.  You’re so happy for her.

Your story feels childish and dull in comparison.  Kanaya still seems to enjoy it.

“Well, it sounds like we both had a good time.”  Kanaya grins.  “Maybe we both have more game than we thought.”

“Yeah,” you snort, “or we found the only people here whose game is worse than ours.”

“Both things are plausible.”  She shrugs.

“Did you want what I got done for the cavern songs, Kanaya?”  You ask, rummaging through your bag.  “I didn’t get them completely finished, they’re not set to sheet music at all, but I do have the words and what notes you’re supposed to use.”

You find the papers in your bag and hand them to her.  She examines them, mouthing the words and nodding.  

“These are beautiful lyrics.”  She says.  “I’d love to hear how they sound when actually played.  Since I know how to read and write music and you know how it’s supposed to sound, perhaps we should get together sometime and work on these.”

“Hell yes.”  You agree eagerly.  “That’d be great.”

“Do you want to exchange numbers?”  

You reply a little too excitedly at the suggestion.  “Yes!”

You trade numbers with Kanaya.  You officially have one friend’s number.

...you officially have a friend.

Fuck yes.

You talk with Kanaya a little longer, but eventually there are other people who want her attention.  Other friends.  She says good bye to you, promises to text you later, and runs off to join the others.

You get a text from your guardian.  He says he’ll be there soon and you should get outside so he can pick you up.  

You grab all of your stuff and head out.  

The morning sun is bright, so much so you have to squint.  It’s also surprisingly cold.

“Hey, Karkat!”  There’s Dave, waving you down by the street curb.  He’s got sunglasses on still, lucky bastard.

You join him.  “Hey.”

Down the street, you can see your guardian’s vehicle approaching.  You don’t want this to be your last interaction with Dave.  You’re not ready to go yet.

Dave follows your gaze and turns his head.  “Shit, is that your ride, dude?”

“Yeah.”  You sigh.  “It is.  I guess I have to get going, then.”

“Alright.  Well then,” he opens his arms up to you, “bring it in, I guess.”

“Oh, uh, okay.”  You put down your bag and hug him.

It’s an awkward embrace.  You hang on a little too tight and Dave keeps giving you weird pats on the back.   It’s obvious that neither of you have much practice doing this.

But...it’s nice.  You don’t want to let go.

Dave releases his grip on you, and regretfully, you have to let go, too.  He claps a hand onto your shoulder and gives you a final nod before walking away.

Fuck if that wasn’t the most disappointing good bye you’ve ever had.

You pick your bag up.  Something flutters off your shoulder and onto the ground.  It looks like a sticky note.

You pick it up and read it.

call me if you ever wanna turn that solo act into a duet ;)

At the bottom is a phone number.

You call it.

Dave’s voice is on the other end, it sounds small and tinny.  “Hello?”

“Dave, you’re such a fucking idiot.”  You can’t stop laughing.  “Hey.”

Dave turns around and waves at you, his face is bight red.  “I figured we can’t really hang out if we can’t even contact each other, you know?”  He shrugs.  There’s an easy smile spreading across his face.  “So, do you think we’ll see each other soon?”

“Yeah.”  You reply.  “Soon.”

You hang up and wave good bye to him one more time before heading off towards the car.  

“Hello, Karkat.”  Your guardian says as you climb into the vehicle.  “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah.”  Your phone vibrates in your pocket.  You have a text.  “I did.”

#dave strider #karkat vantas #davekat #really long post #music camp au #fic request #I don't know anything about music or camp so I'm sorry if this is really bad #tbh that's the only reason karkat doesn't know music #yo it's a fic and i wrote it #I might try to put this up on ao3 later just because I think that'll be a smoother read

[daynamartinez22]

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310

Click on the video above to watch Episode 310 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

There’s a search console because that’s my go to I don’t care what anything else says. And right when I’m looking at everything, I had a form submission come in. So I got it, I got it, I got the screen capture because I had to blur out some stuff. So I’m going to be sharing that as soon as we’re ready to go.

And we are live Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts, Episode 310. While Bradley’s doing some stuff in the background here, we’re gonna get going. I’m gonna say hi to the guys real quick. We got some quick announcements. And then I’m just scrolling through here. It looks like we’ve got a good number of questions. So with that said, Marco, I’m going to loop back to you, man, how you doing today? Like, by the way, like your shirt, you’re looking good.

I’m good, man. I’m sorry. I took it away from from my window. Should I have done that? I got I got I got a mess in the office right now. But you guys, you see? Nothing but like, Man, this is how I do to do I do. I can’t help it again. Come get some come get some guys. Just Just a quick word, stop relying on on third party vanity metrics for what’s going on on your website, according to Google. So you go to somebody else to see what’s going on in Google. I it for the life of me, I can’t figure that out. So in a minute, when we get to that question or five, whenever we get to it, I’m going to be sharing something on screen, just so you guys can see why you can’t go with third party vanity and domain authority then, whatever the hell it is you’re relying on. you’re relying on the wrong thing. And I’ll show you some and let’s see, I’ll get I thought it was muted. Sorry, Chris. How’s it going?

Doing good here? Good. They can complain and yeah, I think we got something pretty sweet coming. Oh, really? I made a video about something today, so, huh?

All right. Well, now I’m curious. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Well check Facebook.

Ah, all right. I will check it out. Bradley, you got the tech stuff done. Are you available?

Well, it’s the fucking video still not on know that on the page. Click Funnels bullshit. I’m tired of it. And I really am.

It’s still not even there we go. Yeah, it’s updated now.

Well, it’s not for me.

Gotcha. Well, we’ll circle back around. I’m going to type something in while I ask her not How you doing today, man?

Great, man. I’m in Miami. Having fun. Everything’s good.

Well, you got to talk for a little bit longer. I gotta, I gotta touch.

Okay. I’m in Miami. It’s raining. I’m having a lot of fun. This is awesome. And I’m waiting for Adam to stop typing so that he can keep on doing the intro. But did I mention that I mean, Miami? And

I’ve heard that you’re in Miami. Is that true?

No, I don’t know what you got that from? Yeah, man. How? how weak Are you really in the gym right now after all these months of no workouts? I’m a pussy. I’m doing like a D load quote-unquote, D load week right now. And I’m like, so sore. And I did like, two squats on Monday.

Those are right now, but we still had it. So.

Gotcha. All right. Well, I got a little note there. So if you’re watching us on YouTube, let us know. Also, if you’re somehow seeing this on the page, just shoot us a message let us know you can see it. But in the meantime, we’re gonna keep rolling and maybe figure something else out. But Bradley, how are you doing man? Besides page refreshes and caches?

Yeah, I’m just I’m tired of Click Funnels in their stupid fucking. There are always issues with Click Funnels, it seems to be getting worse. So anyway, maybe we can move the webinar on to a page on our site instead. I think we should probably do that. Because we won’t have to deal with this every week. It seems to be getting worse. So anyway, that said I, everybody.

Everything is fine. Yeah, that’s cool. Um, I’ve actually been testing out group funnels, maybe that’ll grab the lifetime account. And that came out, maybe we can just toss it on there and see if that works. Or just put it on the website, like you said, or do like a direct YouTube type of thing. love to see. But anyway, with that said, we have a couple of announcements. First of all, if you’re on the email list, that’s great. You’ve gotten the announcements about the POFU Live recordings, you got access to the little special offer we had to go in there. But if you’ve missed out on that, first of all, go to semantic mastery or go to Hump Day Hangouts. Just Google that and go to our page, enter your email address, so you can get notified about stuff like this. We do give special deals, special offers, and some bonuses to subscribers, but I’m also going to put it on the page here today. The recordings are available. Along with the recordings, you have the option to get executive summaries we’ve gone through and we’ve taken and distilled every single talk that we had into a quick basically reference guides. So you’ve got links, you’ve got the main points, so you can go back or have that open as you’re watching the talk. Super, super handy. So that will be on the page in just a minute. Oh, man, I am just losing my place like crazy today. I’ve got a couple more announcements. And while I hunt these down, did you guys have anything we need to also cover? Before we dive into things?

What about POFU?

About It was a great event.

Oh my god, what about it?

The live of the recordings are available, right?

Should be right.

Yes, that what I was just talking about or not my losing my mind about POFU.

I don’t know, but well I’m gonna keep running on because I don’t know where we’re going and this is gonna get pretty weird for people watching. So anyway, I do want to talk about one other thing, if you go to the SEOshield.com, the SEOshield.com that’s a great place. If you’re new to Semantic Mastery and MGYB You can find out how to shield your site and never worry about algorithm updates. Again, it’s a free training, just head over to the SEOshield.com and grab that if you’re more on the agency owner kind of consultant side and you want to get more clients to grow your revenue scale your team, head over to 2xyouragency.com. And last but not least, if you’re ready to grow your digital marketing business, your agency then you can join our experienced community. With the mastermind You can find out more about that at mastermind dot semantic mastery.com I like to go through these every time because we don’t know you know, we have new people watching every week. And those are some pretty typical questions we get from people, you know, hey, I’m just starting to watch you guys where the hell do I start? Right? Good question. So finding out about the SEO shield is great. Then we got people are saying hey, I either want to start or kind of grow my agency, I’m not sure what to do that’s to x your agency COMM And then we’ve got people, of course, are like, Hey, I’m in it, I want to grow, I want to be around other people like me who have got their agencies going who’ve got their businesses going. And that’s where the mastermind comes in. So those are the big ones. Of course, we mentioned MGYB, if you’re not familiar with that it’s mgyb.co, save time and money with done for you services. This is all stuff that we’ve used, and either converted into a done for you process or stuff that we had done for us. And now we’re offering it as well. So you can get it done for you and save time. So this is a great place to be like white labeling, things like press releases link building the SEO shield, for example. Lots more over there, too, and lots more coming. So with that said, guys, that’s it for the quick announcement. Anything else we want to cover before we dive into questions? I’m waiting around to say something No, just kidding. Wait, good. All right, let’s do it is that we got a bunch of questions already. So let me get the page pulled up here. And I’ll grab the screen.

This has got me all screwed up. Because the format has changed in the last couple of weeks. And after years of having one particular startup format. It’s hard to hard to transition.

All right,

you guys are seeing my screen now. Correct. Good to go. Yes.

Yep. All right.

What Is The Name Of The Upcoming Buffer Site S3 Creator?

Let me expand this a little bit. There we go. So the first question up says, Hi, you mentioned something about an upcoming buffer site s3 creator from ABS right? Yeah. Abbess. Rathje. As I think I’m saying his name correctly, I always feel like I’m mispronouncing that. Or he says, Can you please give us some URL or spell the product or the name as I can’t find anything? Yes, buffersites.com. It’s not available yet. But I believe it says coming soon. And I think he’s working on something because I recently got an email from him about kind of a technology that he created for that works with Amazon s3, hosted web pages, as well as some other type of web 2.0 sites and things like that. So I think buffersites.com is in the pipeline, but it’s not available yet. So that’s what it is buffersites.com and the developer’s name is Abbess Abbess. ABB BB as Rathje. And I think I always butcher his name when I try to say it. But he’s, he’s got many different types of software products out there that are fairly good. Some of them are but got a little bit of a learning curve, but he’s got like video marketing Blitz was one of them, it was a good product that we use for quite some time. So he’s got several different kinds of products out that you know, software programs that do things so that’s the one I was talking about.

Should You Make A Separate Page For Each Location When Siloing A Local Service Business Site?

Next question is Tommy says when creating location pages for a local service business, would you make a location page for the location the business is located in the business already has the primary location in the footer about, etc, and ranks on page two for keywords in the primary location on a general service page? Would it be overkill to create a location for it to and be duplicate content would appreciate your advice? Thanks. Now, if it’s a single location site, you don’t need to you don’t need a location page for it. The only time that I would recommend having location pages is if you have if it’s a multi-location business right? Because then you can, you’d have one location is typically going to be like a headquarters, right? Like the main location or, you know, the primary location, the first location, whatever you want to call it. And so that would be like what I would, you know, a lot of So for example, if I were to build a lead gen site that was optimized for one location, but then I decided, because let’s say it was really successful, and I decided to start expanding locations for that brand, then what I would do is I would make that, you know, the primary location would be the first location, and I would take that as kind of like the name, address and phone number for the primary location would be like the organization, you know, essentially, the main location for that multi-location business, and then I would create separate location pages for each individual, or additional location, I should say, that’s how I would do it. But yeah, I wouldn’t recommend creating a location page on a site that is optimized for one location. Because you’re it that that’s kind of, you know, Department of redundancy department, you know what I mean? So I would recommend that you don’t do that, you don’t need to do that. But what you can do is you can split out like suburbs, or, you know, I’m not, I’m not sure what how you’ve got your site structured, but you can create geo posts, that’s what I call it, but they’re locally optimized posts for localities within your service area, if it’s a service area business, I’m just assuming that it is. But it could be a storefront business, in which case, you wouldn’t even really need to do that either. But for service area businesses, like contractors, which is what I do, then what I would do is have the one location, you know, is probably the only location but then I would start optimizing content in what’s called geo posts, or what I call geo posts, which would be optimizing content for like the suburbs, the adjacent areas, that and then I would, you know, kind of optimize cut, my blogger does all this, but she’ll go out and pull in like points of interest, historical, you know, references, things like that, that are relevant to each individual, you know, suburb or municipality or whatever that I’m trying to expand into, and then show, you know, produce some content, you know, included about whatever products or services the company offers. And you can start to blog that way, so that you can start really kind of expanding your service area footprint, so to speak. But you don’t need to have a separate location page for the location. If it’s a one-location business, it just doesn’t make sense to do that, in my opinion. Any other input on that guy just said, there’s no such thing as a duplicate content.

And we see this all the time, no such thing as that happening. Now, as far as would it be overkill? to us that perfectly? The advice is that when looking at content is whether you’ve given the content, proper attribution. That’s all that matters. Because if you haven’t, then let’s say if your G site is really strong, it might outrank your money site. That’s the only problem you’re going to run into. But if you have proper attribution, if if Google understands where the master copy of the content resides, and there is no problem, there are only problems if you’re running like duplicate titles, duplicate descriptions, and things like that. But we’ve literally only changed location on content and run the same, like 15,000. More than that pages have the same content except for the location and it works. It’s working. Right now. I’m about to show you how it’s working right now. And when we get to that question, there is no such thing as duplicate content, you got the master copy. And then you have copies of that content. proper attribution takes care of any duplicate content issues, and so does canonical. If you canonicalize. correctly, you’re fine. You’re good to go.

There you go. Let me unpause the screen for a minute if I can find it. Okay.

What Do You Recommend For A Self-Hosted URL Shortener?

So the next question is from Jr. My guess, says, Hey, guys, do you have any well-recommended URL shortener? Excuse me? Do you have any good recommendations for a self-hosted URL shortener looking to set up one for a client to be public-facing so users can create short links easily from their website? Open to using a hosted solution if it exists? Thanks. Also, is there any SEO value for the target site if users create short links? So, Marco, you would be the one to answer that because we set that up for MGYB.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there eventually will be SEO value once you power it up. However, how long is it going to take you to power up that URL shortener on that website that has no power to start with? Which is what you need, which is the reason why Well, the reason why just say use a shortener To make the URL easier to handle, right, when you’re sharing it, you don’t want this long 50 character URL, you want something short and memorable. That’s why Bitly for a while was so good. And then we started realizing the SEO value in Bitly, until they decided that they were going to 302. At well, then we went to the Google goog l URL shortener until they took it away. So we decided rather than rely on others, why not create our own power that up, give everybody the SEO value and the added benefit that you could go in, and I think it’s only for like five or six, I don’t know, seven bucks a month, I don’t even know. Use your own use of our shortener which is powered up. And then you could have your own URLs, right, you can have your own URL extensions, you could have your own. If you want to call them vanity, whatever you want to call them. They’re yours, but they reside in MGYB. And they continue to get powered up by dedhia. So I will be there’s the SEO benefit, the SEO benefit that you get is the power that’s behind that. But right from the start when you go and install that whether you do it on a subdomain on your client site, whether you use pretty links, whatever it is that you’re going to use is not going to have any SEO value until you power it up.

All right, there we go on the resume share again.

Because doing some background stuff. Alright.

Can You Make Multiple GStacks On One Google Account That Are Interconnected?

So the next question would be Hey, guys, the question on G stacks. Can I make multiple G stacks on one g account that are not interconnected? Uh, yeah, I suppose you could. Now I’m not sure why you would want to we separate them. But you know, Marco, now that we’re not using the script. There’s not a limitation on that, though. Is there?

Let me see, of course, there is.

Why would you want to go and break up the well, not a limitation? But why would you want to put two things that are unrelated in the same dry stack?

We go for G stacks under one account. So different g stacks, but yes,

no? No. Okay.

Oh, unless they’re totally relevant if I mean, if you can, if all right, same niche, yes, it makes sense. If you’re going to break up the niche, if it’s going to be totally unrelated, then No, they’re not because now you’re putting all your eggs. First of all, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, right? Everything is in a Google takes that away, you’re gonna lose everything that’s in there. That’s why we turn over we create our own Gmail accounts. And we turn them over to you so that you can use it. And if you order 1000 from it, you’re gonna have 1000 Gmail accounts, but you can manage a whole lot of them from one account, which is what we recommend, you can are we send a letter, we send an email when we deliver the drive stack, and we tell you what to do with it, make your main account the manager of that account, so you never again have to go back into that account. But this way, you won’t take any chances in eliminating the public-facing dry stack and decide you’re not going to run any into any problems or getting locked up or anything like that. Right. And then we tell you to change the phone number, change the recovery, make sure that you can get in there eventually. But only if you have to only have you must, once we turn it over, there is absolutely no reason for you to go back in there. Unless you want to go in there and Tinker and then you’re on your own. So please understand what it is that we’re doing. And what it is that we recommend for you putting like 50 I don’t know you could you get 15 What is it 15 gigabytes in that drive stack, excuse me in Google Drive to play with. So there’s plenty of space in there for you to get multiples in. But you’re putting everything in one basket you’d be put you putting all your eggs in there, and you drop that fucking basket and all your eggs break, you better know how to make scrambled eggs.

Yeah, I agree with that limit, you know, mitigate your risk that way. And so you know, as Marco said, we deliver it with its own Gmail account. And that’s you know, the primary owner of the drive stack which you can always add you know, your main Gmail account or G Suite account, whatever as a manager or share it with that so you can still manage the stack from within your own account, but it’s owned by the other account that way you’re limiting your risk like Marco said, if that you had one account that had all of your G stacks in it and then something happened in it got suspended or terminated, then you’d be screwed. So I totally agree with what he says there.

Is It Better To Have An Old Google Account Better Than A Gsuite Account When Creating Drive Stacks?

Okay, the next question was which is better and old g account or a new G Suite account? Well, I’m always gonna say G Suite account because you’re paying Google that way and I use G Suite for freaking everything now. So if it’s a brand or a project that I know I’m going to be working on for any amount of time Other than just for testing purposes, I always set up G Suite accounts for everything. Now, that’s just my own personal preference. One thing you can do is if you have old Gmail accounts, you can set up a G Suite account through the old Gmail account. And that, I don’t know if that actually adds any additional benefit or not. But I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. You know, I can’t imagine that hurts anything. And so like, if you’ve got some old Jeep, like, for example, I have a Gmail account that I’d set up for Tree Service stuff way back in, I think, 2012, that I just recently decided to turn that into a brand and I created a G Suite account with that. Email is like the, you know, the, when you set up a G Suite account, you need to have an email account anyways, and all that, you know, to add to the system, so I use that one. And I think and again, I don’t know this without testing, but it makes sense that it would have some inherent authority built-in because it was an age, an old account, something that I had set up in 2012, that I just now turned into a G Suite account. Now again, I don’t know that that’s true. But it makes sense to do. So do you have any input on that as part of the entity validation, isn’t it? I wrote that when I wrote the black book, I mean, we’ve been recommending go G Suite, go pay Google, or pay Google for extra drive space, get that credit card, on file, get your stuff in the database. So now you’re a real thing on the web. Rather than someone trying to gain Google, you’re still trying to gain Google, but you’re going the extra step, which most people won’t do. And you go pay for ads, ads for branding, Brandy put out a great course, ads, I run ads, for branding purposes. So again, you’re going a step further validating your entity. This is all talked about how old is the black book about four years old? It’s all in there. I don’t know, you guys, it’s all available to you. I think we also send it with that email with that recommendation email. For us, excuse me, the user’s guide, done for your users’ guide is what we send out. And it’s all in there how to add validation to your entity pay Google, get your credit card, and Google, they’ll tell you that it doesn’t have any effect in rankings. And they the way that they’re saying it is right, I would say okay, that in and of itself doesn’t. But when you’re validating the entity, that part of it has a big, big play in what the end results are going to be.

Unknown Speaker 22:33 Absolutely. All right. So next is Oh, by the way, a couple of things I wanted to briefly mention I was distracted from the start-up for the webinar being rough again. But a couple of things. One, I want to talk about this, this great post in our free group Facebook group from Max Lucey fam bam, we had we did a webinar on Monday with Mike Martin for Lead Simplify if you guys haven’t seen it yet, I would highly recommend that you check it out. I know most of our audiences into local SEO, local client work or lead generation. And it’s a fantastic application. It’s very inexpensive, and it works really, really well. The lead simplifies the app, I use it in my own business. In fact, I started using it eight or 10 weeks ago, probably closer to 10 weeks ago now. And I reached out to the developer Mike Martin, specifically after I had set the app up and integrated it into my own lead gen business. Because I saw the value of it, I decided to reach out to Mike and the developer and asked him if we could promote it to our audience specifically, because, guys, you know, we don’t promote other people’s stuff ever. Unless we, ourselves, you know, or somebody in our, my partners or one of us in my company use something and can vouch for it. And so we rarely promote other people’s stuff. And in this case, I reached out specifically to try to ask if we could promote it because I think it is such a valuable app. And so the webinar was great. We had some technical difficulties at the beginning of that part of the reason why I was frustrated this today for Hump Day Hangouts, but I got that cleaned up. So now the replay is just the content. And it’s really good content about what he calls the hybrid lead generation model. It’s fantastic content, as well as the app itself, is very inexpensive and very useful. And I use it in my business now. So we also throw in a couple of bonuses that I use specifically for generating lead buyers. So basically prospecting for lead buyers. And it works really, really well. I’ve been bringing multiple new lead buyers into my business over the last several weeks because of this app, as well as the prospecting systems that I have built, which I share all of that in our bonuses, so I would highly recommend that you guys go check out the lead simplify webinar that we did with Mike on Monday, and check it out.

Also, I just wanted to give a shout out to max Lu See fam bam, for this great post that they posted about watching that webinar and becoming inspired, because of some, you know, basically having some issues with clients, client work can be very frustrating guys in I’ve said that over the years, there’s certainly ups and downs with client work. But I really have decided that you know, I don’t want to work with any more take on any new clients, I just want to work on building my lead gen business and for several of the reasons that were mentioned in this post here, as well. So just wanted to kind of point that out, give a shout out to Max, Max Luci for posting such a thoughtful and thorough posting here. And, you know, we’re excited to see you, we’re excited to see you excited, and I think you’re on the right track, build your own assets instead of others. Now don’t get me wrong, guys, if you got to do client work, to make money do it, you know, but at the same time, instead of always building other people’s businesses budget some time and some money to start building your own assets to so that you can be gain more control over your revenue, right and your future. Clients can fire you at any moment, right? They can stop paying you to go find the bargain basement $99 a month SEO from you know, India or wherever and fire you in a heartbeat. And what are you going to do? You know, one of the things in our mastermind is we’ve had people that have come in that have had, you know, perhaps one or two clients that provide 90% of their income. Like for example, like a 4000 or $5,000 a month retainer client, what happens if that client drops you and your, your, your 90% of your revenue is based upon that one client, does that make sense or just a couple of clients and then you lose one of them. And now you’ve cut your revenue in half or a third or whatever my point is, you know, start thinking of ways to generate your own assets so that you have more control over your, your revenue and your future. And, and so again, I’ve got clients now, and I’ve still got a handful, I just took a client on about seven, six or seven weeks ago now a new client, but I don’t think I want to take on any more clients unless they’re going to give me you know, a much higher retainer value than what I typically asked for, because I really just want to focus on building my own business. So I thought this was a really thoughtful post and I just wanted to give a shout out to there and also encourage you guys to go check out the replay.

How Do We Use of Text Transcripts From Videos For Traffic And Link Building Purposes?

Alright, any comments on that before I move on guys? Nah, perfect. Okay, Franklin says, Hey, guys, given the rise of video integration in SERPs, and Google taking snippets of sentences, and focusing more on YouTube and looking to get a syndication ring and look into backlinking for videos, is there anything we can do with text transcripts from our videos for traffic, and link building purposes. Um, you know, the only thing that I, I don’t, what I’ve done in the past that works fairly well, like with client work, especially is I’ve had, I’ve trained some of them. Like, for example, I’ve got an outdoor pest control company that does like mosquito control, take control, that kind of stuff. It’s a very seasonal business. But I trained their technicians to, like I told the company owners to tell their technicians to just when they go out on job sites, which are just people’s yards, essentially, to just take their phone out and grab, record a short video, like literally like, Hey, this is John, for a company name, I’m out in, you know, Fairfax, Virginia, providing mosquito control services. And, you know, if you want your yard to be tick free ticket, mosquito, free, contact us, and then drop a phone number, whatever. So very, very short little video clips that then they send to me, I upload them to YouTube, optimize them, and then have that transcribed, which is, you know, literally, it’s usually about a minute long the video or less, so cost a buck or a buck 50 to have it transcribed, and then embed that into a blog post with the transcription underneath. And that syndicates out to the branded network that’s attached to the, to the website, as well as the YouTube channel can be attached to that too. So both can be syndicated to it, that’s what I’ve done. And it just it that tends to work because it adds some text without having to have you know, it’s, it’s all done with just a video, right? a short video can be turned into a video plus a blog post with the text with the transcription, the call to action, everything that you need for additional content, you know, to multi-purpose the content. So that’s what I’ve done. Maybe somebody else here has some other suggestions for how to use text. But that’s pretty much the extent of what I’ve done. And that works quite well actually.

Anybody else? Yeah, I mean, what you could do lots with the transcript, right? You can add it to your page and it becomes part of the blog post when you embed the video on your website. The transcript can actually become the content on your pay. I mean, we recommend that this time and again right then you syndicate it, then when you do your embed, right With the video, you could do the page I mean, not just the video, you can do an embed run of that page. Right? Because then that it’s an iframe, and that’s perfectly fine. You want you’re not going to run into any duplicate content issues. But people are still going to say, Okay, yeah, there are problems there are. So that’s another thing that you could take the audio from that video and start going to the audio distribution, I’d SoundCloud would be one podcast, and then you can create a syndication network for that. And there are so many different things that you could do with that, to get tons of value, rather than just think, Okay, what I do with this transcript, you could also convert it into a PDF, a downloadable PDF on your website. Right? That content, so I framed the video. And rather than just put the text on there as content, you could put additional content on it, then a link to a PDF that people can download, then you go and submit that to all these PDF directories that you have all over the web. And, I mean, that’s, that’s another thing that you can do, really, you’re only limited by, by, you know, your imagination. And what you can come up with the limit is the things that you can think of to do with this content. Not that you have multiples, but you have video, you have audio, and you have text, and then that text can become a PDF, it can become any other kind of download, it can become an image, the text itself can become an image, you can do the question and answer images of each. I mean, it becomes what you could do becomes ridiculous. The thing is, is it necessary? And why are you needing to do all of this a lot of times, all of that just simply isn’t necessary because the process that we use, requires you to do as little work as you can for as much benefit as you can saving the bullets. In case you need more.

There you go. Always keep some, some in reserve, right.

How Do You Properly Optimize The GMB And Website Of An Old Business?

Okay. The next question is a basic GMB question. I have a client who bought his dental practice from another dentist. The old dentist GMB is ranking Okay, three in some map packs around the office. And second, organically what is the best approach try to merge in the GMB market is closed and rank the new one with the new business name for the web for a website, the old one as a pop up directing to the new site, should I take that site down or leave it up just worried about the possum, but I think I could rank them both, I would be fine with that both businesses have exact same address. Okay, I’m going to give you what I would do in that situation. And then I’d love to hear Marco’s opinion on this as well. But what I would do is I would merge those two GM B’s the one that was shut down, I would contact Google My Business support and explain exactly what you just did to us without the SEO terminology, because you want to act dumb, or even, you know, you can act on behalf of the business owner. But I’ve done that in the past something similar where you know, there’s two GM B’s because of a tree service company bought another tree service company, for example. And so since they ended up sharing the same address, but it was different names and everything else, I don’t want to cause any PII issues, right where you can ambiguous ate the data for a particular business. So what I do is I contact Google My Business support and tell them, hey, this company bought this company there now. And you know, it’s now this name, but it’s in the same location, I want to merge the two and Google support Google, my business support will help you with that. I’ve had I’ve done that on multiple occasions. So that’s personally what I would do as far as the website. What I would do with the website is do a redirect. Right? If it’s ranking second, organically, I think you said yeah, second, organically, the website is got some authority, obviously. So if you’ve got the new website for the new brand, what I would do is do a redirect, I wouldn’t leave both of them up because it could cause some excuse me some NAEP issues and possibly some entity ambiguation. So I would like I said I would merge the two GM B’s you might have to contact you will likely have to contact GMB support to do that so that it can be done properly. For example, you know if you have I had another client that had a GMB where they had to they moved all they did was move locations so when they moved locations, they set up a new GMB instead of changing the original, like the information in the original GMB, they just set up a new one. And so when they came to me as when I, you know, brought them on as a client, they had a bunch of reviews for their old location, but they had their new location that had you know, just a hand a couple of reviews but they wanted to merge the two and so once again, I contacted GMB support and I had them merge the two. So they basically called and removed the old GMB from the old location, but merged all of the reviews into the new one under the new location. And so you can do those kinds of things as long as it’s 100%. legit, if it’s spam stuff, don’t even attempt it. But if it’s 100%, legit, then I would absolutely contact GMB support have the two merged. And then again, for the organic site, I would have that redirected to the new site so that you can push that authority over to the new site. Now that’s my method. Would anybody have a different opinion? merge and properly three? Oh, and I totally agree, is a having tool and maybe creating. Now, this is where duplicate matters, right? And, and the entity comes into play, and you create ambiguity, and then Google doesn’t Okay, so which dentist is which? And how does this all work? Because it’s a bot and it’s stupid. And if you don’t give it the information is not going to know. And you want to try to relate them to one to the other, and why what’s changed and all that you’re going to get into a whole lot of issues that you don’t want. Bradley told you exactly how to solve it, merge the GMB’s call and act really stupid with the owner as a matter lead to let the dentist’s quiet Look, I bought those dentists out and now he’s got a GMB and I got I let them work it out. And then you could properly 301 the old site to the new and gain from all that power that the old one has. And as a matter of fact, if you properly three or one, you could hammer the old website for a while and get the benefit into the new website.

Or you go so the next question. I’m not sure if well, I guess there is a question in there. It says guys, I’m looking both at land solutions and alpha land realty not typing these names for a reason. I don’t care. I know. I honestly don’t care that I’ve never tried to hide my homeland realty business. They’re public. Yeah, they’re public. I’ve always mentioned that and he said, anyway, I’ll finish the question then I’m going to comment and I’m sure Marco has some comments as well says I don’t see any good rankings there. In fact, I see a huge decline. I see a huge decline in something that was not very impressive anyway. Well, that’s okay. Because that not very impressive, impressive Alfa land realty site makes me between three and $15,000 a month and fucking month and has for a year and a half. So that’s not very impressive. They’re not you know, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to impress you. It works just fine for me. He says I know you do local use GM B’s ads, etc. You said, you said and you said it many times. It’s about calls and leads I get it but it looks more narrowed towards local map listing rather than a national campaign or global campaign. Mine is not a national or global campaign Alfa land realty is a Virginia based real estate acquisition company. All I target is Virginia. That’s all I’ve ever targeted since I set it up. And I use Google ads, direct mail and SEO, and I get all the damn leads that I want or can handle from those three methods. So and most of my traffic comes from direct mail I’m not gonna lie I do get leads from Google ads and from organic SEO, but those leads aren’t really the leads that I want. Those are typically not as good leads because I like to target specific land types in certain areas. And so with direct mail, I can do that. And so again, I’ve always I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I’ve not done a whole ton of SEO for Alfa land realty because I haven’t needed to most of the traffic that I generate is through direct mail. However, I do get probably eight to 12 leads per month from Google ads and or organic SEO but those they tend I bought several properties from you know, leads that have come in from either Google ads or from organic SEO, but most of them that come through aren’t those good they’re not that good leads because they’re not as targeted as I want them to be like I can do with direct mail. So again, I’ve never tried to hide that guys there’s no reason for me to I’m always honest with what’s going on in my business and it’s all been about Virginia land by land acquisitions in Virginia so I’ve been able to accomplish my goals with the methods that I’m using that solutions go ahead.

On the other hand is national and as a matter of fact we got we had a lead once from Bali so it’s it’s global. We did lead from somebody was selling land in Bali wanted us to do one to see if we would buy it I and I’ve prepared some some stuff that I that I want to share my skis Mind if I grabbed the screen shirt. Let me go here. And I can’t you got to give me permission or stop sharing your stop sharing mine. How about that? And I was Okay, here we go. Let me make sure I share the right one. Get rid of the porn. All right. So I saw this question and I came a look. Because I love the use of the turn of the phrase, I see a huge decline of something that was not very impressive anyway, wasn’t meant to be impressive was meant to get results. I’m not to impress anyone. I’ve never, I’ve never been it, I don’t want to impress you. All I want is the person here. If you can see my screen, when they come on here to fill out the fucking form. That’s all I want. Not to impress. So here we go. Are we seeing that position? I took a look. I don’t know how many top 10s I have. I but if I can scroll down? I don’t know. I can keep scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Right. So you can see yes, it’s very local. It’s heavily local. How else would you target local real estate? Please, what are we talking about? Can we please define what we’re talking about first, because yes, even though this is National in nature, I have to target it locally. Or else, the person that’s looking to sell their land, in bumfuck, whatever, would never find me to sell me the land. So of course, I don’t know what it is you’re using you said hrs, I don’t use hrs. I don’t use sem rush, I don’t use any action. I use go, this is what I use. This is what tells me what it is that I’m doing. And whether what I’m doing works. Not only this, but while I was doing this, what’s so funny is let me pull this up in my G but look at the time 1:37pm I haven’t even opened because I was going through this, to show this during have to have a web web form fill came through. This is what I’m after man. Now, not you, you why user specific or targeted or whatever. But this is what I’m after I’m not after you. And I’m not after a dress to impress a dress and whatever the fuck it is they decide to give because I could give a shit about a trust and majestic. And and whoever else, you name it, I don’t care. I get my information from analytics, I get my information from the Search Console. That’s what tells me what to target. So I can get this because as Bradley said, Now these, what I do is I’ve been turning them over to the alpha land Realty, that you created Bradley. Yeah, the group, I’m sure you see me posting in there. And this is what I’ll do with this form. Because I have enough with what I’m doing with what I’m targeting in the states that I’m targeting. Or I’m good where I don’t know, four or five sales.

I wouldn’t say that much, let’s say three to four sales per month, three to four k average, well, that’s an extra 10 k in my pocket that I’m not expecting to see. I mean, and this is after expensives after expenses, after cost lawyers and everything else, it’s in my pocket is what I put in my pocket. That feels really nice. I don’t know about you, it may not be impressive to you. And I understand that. Okay, you may you probably make way more than I do, from something that just a side hustle, and a website that we haven’t done really anything to other than you know, we set up the SEO shield, some schema, some q&a, but not really giving it the love that it should not giving it all of the attention that we need to. Because since this is my main source of income, since this is just a playground, whatever I get here is perfect. I mean, this is fine for me, if I get I don’t know, 10 of these is what we’re getting per month, and I turn them over to the guys and and they can close a few. And they give me the commission. I mean that that’s an extra source of income in my pocket. So in addition to whatever it is that I’m closing and that I’m making every month, now this, this last solution network will also produce webform fills, where the guys who took Bradley’s training can go and they can get after these people make the offer and try to make that close and sell and put a couple of grand in their pocket. And they really didn’t have to do the effort other than to contact and try to close it. Because this person is hot. This person is hot to sell. They don’t go and find you organically unless they’re hard to sell this we know. So I’m sorry that you’re not impressed. But yeah, I mean, the other part of this what you said is so like calls and leads, because that’s the only way that you gonna make money. And I could be number one in everything and not making a penny and I could be selling it hot. Look, look, I’m number one. Number one. Number one, I’m not making a penny. And yet you’re going to fall for it. Because you see number one everywhere and is not really doing anything. So I mean, hopefully, this is the example you should be focusing on. We put everything through Google through analytics, and through search console. That’s what that personally, this is what I focus on. I don’t care about anything else. And I don’t care what anybody says about analytics and search console, because they’re generally wrong and they don’t know how to use it. And so they can’t see how it works. that’s their problem, not mine. All right, my hand a second, let me just finish my mastermind, people, my heavy hitter club and my mini mastermind. They know how to use this shit, because I’ve shown them how to use it. And how it is that you’re supposed to take a look at analytics and search console so that you can get the most benefit from it. And I’m done. Go ahead, man.

Yeah, no, I was just mentioning that, again. You know, I, I spent last year I’ve been running my alpha land realty business for about a year and a half now. And it’s, it only requires about eight to 10 hours a week now, because I’ve got personnel in place, and automations and systems and everything that I built took me months to build all of it. But now it just requires very little of my attention. Like I said, between eight to 10 hours a week on average. And for a period of time, I did spend more time on SEO and a lot of time in Google ads. But I’ve refined the Google Ads campaigns. And I realized, after starting to receive leads from just SEO and from Google ads, that those aren’t the best quality leads, because they’re often in random areas of the state that I’m not interested in, which ends up taking more time to research those markets to get to know those markets. I know which markets, I can flip properties in very quickly. And so those are the markets that I target and I target them more specifically with direct mail, because it’s a higher quality lead, and it works better for my business model. So again, it’s not I’ve never tried to, you know, sell people on the fact that my alpha land realty site was super optimized and all that shit. And everyone, it’s a single page landing page on Click Funnels, but still ranks. So what difference does it make, it generates me a very nice income with very little effort now, because I’ve built the systems and everything else. So anyways, if anybody’s interested in learning more about that specifically, reach out to support at Semantic Mastery, we’ve had a couple of people reach out in the last month or so and say that they’re interested in possibly joining a paid training group where you where I’ll teach how to flip land, it’s a great business guys, you can do it virtually from a computer at home, like out of I think I flipped. I don’t know, 28, maybe between 20 and 32 properties in the last year and a half. And I’ve only been to three of them. And it was only for very specific reasons that I went to three of them, I’ve been able to buy and sell land and make, like I said, on average, on my low end, in fact, this month, I only make 2300. But on my on my low months, it’s still a four figure profit. And on my good months, I’ve made five never made more than 16,000 in a month. But you know, that’s a really good income now for three to or excuse me for eight to 10 hours a week of effort. And so again, if anybody’s interested in that business, just reach out and say you’re interested in land flipping business. And once we get enough interest, I’ll put together another group and do some training on that it will be a paid training though, guys, so just keep that in mind. All right, we’ve got about 12 more minutes. I’m gonna grab the question. Question, though.

It was a good question. And we’re weren’t attacking you for your vote on another way. No, no. And and it’s good. I love this when people call you out. And it’s okay, so well, because the proof of a profit is and whether the prophecy comes true. If it doesn’t, then the profit is useless, right? So what we say is the results are what matter we need to be able to show results so that people who are in a dress and doubting I understand the doubt man, I understand the doubt. What I’m saying is your focus is wrong. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying the focus that you’re giving it is wrong, because we’re not interested in HS. And they can show whatever they want. And you could go ahead and share. It’s the land some land solutions network, you can share it, you can go look at it, reverse engineer it, because we did a lot of nasty stuff in there a lot of testing, and it’s still it’s ongoing. We’ll get back to it and give it some love man, because we can take over a lot of stuff with the way that it’s ranking right now. At any rate, yeah, it’s not anything done to you or set to you specifically. It’s just that when you when you focus on Ah, they’re going to show you what they want majestic what they want SEMrush what they want. I only care about Google. That’s all I care about.

Yeah, and just one other thing about that is what’s interesting is if you take a look at my site, somebody’s got positions here. Oh, look at that son of a bitch anyways. But you can see like sell land fast, Virginia. We buy land Virginia, there’s a few other keywords that work really well for ranking. But if you take a look at my site, guys, it’s a single page landing page on clickfunnels, which clickfunnels doesn’t even give you the ability to optimize the page much there. You can’t really optimize the elements and Click Funnels. It’s very difficult. But that’s it. I mean, it’s a very simple site on a wide Firefox has been so slow, but that’s it. It’s that I mean, there’s no content marketing going on there. I’ve had a syndication network built but I never I don’t I don’t blog. I don’t publish posts. I don’t have I’m not doing GMB posts or anything like that. I do a few a handful of press releases per year. And that’s it. And that’s all I’ve had to do because look, I’m ranking number one in Virginia for my primary keywords the keywords from because I’ve run Google ads for this for a year and a half, I know which keywords produce conversions generate leads, those are the only keywords I give a shit about all the other ones I could care less about. It’s not a it’s not a it’s not a you know, a test to see how how many rankings I can get. In this case, it’s producing like I said, on the low end, four figures and on the high end five figures per month consistently month in and month out. And it has been for a year and a half. So I’d say it’s a success. And I don’t spend a lot of time on it anymore. I did four months but it’s it’s where it is now to where it’s on. It’s almost on autopilot requires very little my attention. So

I’m not sure what why am why Oh, niches What does that mean? Do you know what y m y l means?

Marco? You’re You’re muted

by the way.

What is okay?

Nevermind.

I’m sorry. Somebody want to answer that?

Now? I thought I thought it was something else. MF

Global campaign for y m y l niches? I’m not sure what that means. Okay. Um, are these methods suitable for current moments for something outside at the current moment? Excuse me for something outside local marketing? Yeah, of course. I mean, again, like if you I mean, Mark always talks about local is relative, right? Your local can be a neighborhood, a city, a county, a state, a country, or global, it really just depends you local is relative, you know, there, I’m just targeting on a statewide basis, because I found that it doesn’t make sense to target like, we buy land Culpepper, Virginia, we buy land, it doesn’t make sense to go through all of that additional effort for that particular project. Because again, like and here’s the other thing about that project. And tree services, people will go to Google because they got a tree that is overgrown or a dead tree that’s in danger of falling on their house or their car or something. So they need that service. So they go to Google, and they search tree service or tree removal, Tree Removal near me or tree removal and whatever their city is, right. But with the landowners and for again, for that business, it’s a lot of times these are people that own land that really doesn’t haven’t even considered selling it, they just pay taxes on it, you know, year in and year out. And so I all of a sudden send them a letter that says, hey, I’m interested in purchasing your vacant land parcel located at whatever, whatever. If you’re interested in receiving an all-cash offer, fill out this form at this website, or call this number, which goes to my call center. That’s it. And so again, you know, a lot of the times I’m targeting people that have land that doesn’t even know that they want to sell it, the ones that do think, well, I’ve got a piece of land I need to generate some money from there are the ones that go to Google and search for it. But I found again because those are in random areas throughout the state that I’m not specifically targeting and ends up requiring more research on my part. And then it’s a market that I’m unsure about whether I can flip it quickly and all that other kind of stuff. So it’s that uncertainty is the reason why I don’t like those leads as much Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still make offers on them. But I like the areas that I’m specifically targeting through direct mail those areas better So again, just to kind of explain.

it’s just a different model period. So why am while your money or your life. Okay? What is it your money or your life niche? Not sure what that means?

Is It Okay To Optimize Two YouTube Channels For One Money Site

Anyway, so we’re gonna move on fit says good agents, I have a client posting on two different YouTube channels, only one optimized, should they optimize both? And add the money to site to both thanks for all you do. Yeah, I guess you could, uh, I don’t see how that could hurt anything. As long as it’s the same brand. I mean, I guess it depends on what it is that you’re doing. What it is that they’re doing? If it’s the same brand, but like, perhaps two different topics, or for whatever reason, then then yeah, I don’t see why that would hurt anything. Um, that’s what I would do. I mean, obviously, I need some more details, Fitz, to be able to give you a better answer, then that but I mean, if it’s the same brand, I don’t see why you couldn’t, it wouldn’t cause any ambiguity as long as you’re not, you know, trying to create two different types of brands for the same company if that makes sense.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link Vs Sharing It Publicly?

So Okay, the next question is a G Drive folder is shared to anyone with the link versus public on the web. What’s the drawback? Or is it completely useless to do it that way? Is it thoroughly tested? I’ve heard it’s still good for buffering if you share with anyone with the link, but don’t know about entity validation. What’s your take? Marco? That’s a question for you.

The link shared folder has no fucking use that has to be public on the web. Really? It has to be it won’t pass if you Uh, no. It has to be public on the web man. Hmm. Now, even if you try the iframe that anyone with the link, it has it if you don’t do it right, it has a frame breaker. So once you if it has a frame breaker then we were losing all the benefits from what we now know, as our ys Academy reloaded, right? Because that’s built upon the power of the iframes and how they work. Okay,

so you’re saying his shit has to be public on the web to provide the benefits public and if you can’t do it, don’t worry. Go to MGYB to order drive second t site from us because we can make it public.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link?

There you go. Rob says thanks, guys. Baby’s up. What’s up, baby? I was wondering where the hell you are today. He says, Hey, guys, after I asked all the External links variations now it’s time for a new wave. So so we’re gonna go through several weeks Marco has some other topic but one topic.

Yeah. 1000 ways. Maybe I’m giving you shit, man, we appreciate you, man. There’s no there’s no question. He says, Does the organization schema have to be on each page or just the home page? What page or post should the organization schema on which should be an article scheme? Okay, that’s a great question. And I’ve recently because of POFU Live and some of the training I’ve received from there, I started digging into schema more and I only put organization schema as the only schema on the homepage now. But if you understand the connected schema, then you can, you’ll still can work organizations schema into like local business schema or into article schema because the organization can be the publisher, there’s it’s connected schema is like combining schema types, but it has to be done correctly, or else it will ambiguity of the page that multiple schemas are on. So in other words, you have to understand how to connect schema properly, it’s not something we’re going to cover here, you’d have to go to heavy hitter club, that’s you that’s the place to be if you want to learn how to do that stuff. I’ve been learning from Marco and Rob and also doing some research on my own. And I’ve just recently begun to understand the idea of the concept of connected schema. And so I was actually doing it wrong for a lot of my own local business sites for the last couple of years because I would put organization schema sitewide. And then on location pages, I would have local business schema also. But that actually ambiguous. It’s the main entity of that particular page unless you combine them into a connected schema. And then you designate the main entity of the page or you can ref local like for example, local business schema can be the primary schema for a location page, but it can reference the overall parent organization. The same thing for articles schema, Article schema is going the primary entity of the pages the article itself, right. But then you can reference the publisher as an organization, for example, or even the author could be an organization. And that can pull in all of your organization schema with your same as attributes and everything else. You have to learn how to put that together properly. And I didn’t know how to do that until after I went through POFU Live. And I got to watch some of our speakers, which by the way, you can buy POFU Live recordings right now. So if you want to get a really good bass training for what connected schema is, and how you can develop this kind of stuff out, go get the POFU Live recordings. And I just want to mention, as I said, I realized after the POFU Live event and hearing some of our guest speakers, that I really needed to step my schema game up. And so I’ve spent the last several weeks now actually really tightening up my schema on a lot of my lead gen properties. And I’m starting to see some significant results from that already. But as so organization schema can go on all the pages if it’s nested within the other schema properly. Otherwise, just put it on your homepage or your about page or both. It can be on both of those even. But for everything else that would have the main entity of the page have that only schema on that particular page only unless you’re using connected schemas. So essentially nested schema where it would reference organization schema, hopefully, that didn’t confuse a lot of people. Mark, do you want to comment on it before I move on?

parent, child-parent, you can have organization either on the homepage or on the about page don’t make both if you’re going to do that I prefer it on the own baby to that’s where the bot will generally come in and go through the rescue website. So that’s what I like. As far as everything else. I mean, no, yeah. Don’t ambiguity. You’re in big trouble, man. Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s the thing. Like if you have multiple schemas on a page, and they’re not, you can actually main entity of page that’s it. That’s an attribute that’s a type that you can designate so that you can specify which one it is but if you’re using connected schema, or like you said Parent-Child, nested schema is another term for it, then it should validate correctly. Anyway. But yeah, it’s an interesting man, I didn’t realize how much I was missing drugs and data world until we had the poker live event. Now, that was my main takeaway. And I’ve told that to everybody. I was like, my main takeaway was I need to step my schema game up. And so I spent and I’m still just scratching the surface, Robin, and Marco, and heavy hitter clubs where you want to go for all of that stuff. Guys, there’s no question. It’s what we’re teaching a heavy hitter, man.

Yep. All right.

Last thing, I’m just gonna answer the part two real quick. And then we’ve got to wrap it up. He says, What if the homepage is general info, the representation of the brand, sort of, and then there is long-form post, which is targeted for the main service, keyword example tree removal, how to place schemas there. Yeah. So again, that would be I would consider that article schema. And you can also nest within article schema services, right? You can mention service. You can even have like offer catalogs, all that kind of stuff. Again, it’s a, it can get very, very complex. So you have to understand what it is that you’re doing. But I would say like a main like service page where with an article that talks about services, you could create a service schema type, but I don’t think that’s as valuable. And I don’t know, maybe Marco can answer that. Or maybe this isn’t the proper place to answer that. But I’m testing right now with some of my Tree Service sites having the like Tree Removal page, for example, marked up as a service page. And then I’ve got others that are article pages with nested services in it. I think the article page with a nested service is the proper way to go but I don’t know and that’s why I’m kind of testing and comparing right now. Mark Oh, am I am I revealing too much or what?

Yeah. Because that’s stuff I mean, how we, how we create the relationships and and how we stack the schemas. What it’s what’s dealt with in the heavy hitter club.

There you go. So that was a tease, go go join heavy hitter club guys. It’s inexpensive, and it’s totally worth it if you want that kind of technical knowledge. So all right. Thanks, everybody for being here. We got to wrap it up. Everyone knows next week. Thanks, guys.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310 published first on your-t1-blog-url

[localwebmgmt]

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310

Click on the video above to watch Episode 310 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

There’s a search console because that’s my go to I don’t care what anything else says. And right when I’m looking at everything, I had a form submission come in. So I got it, I got it, I got the screen capture because I had to blur out some stuff. So I’m going to be sharing that as soon as we’re ready to go.

And we are live Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts, Episode 310. While Bradley’s doing some stuff in the background here, we’re gonna get going. I’m gonna say hi to the guys real quick. We got some quick announcements. And then I’m just scrolling through here. It looks like we’ve got a good number of questions. So with that said, Marco, I’m going to loop back to you, man, how you doing today? Like, by the way, like your shirt, you’re looking good.

I’m good, man. I’m sorry. I took it away from from my window. Should I have done that? I got I got I got a mess in the office right now. But you guys, you see? Nothing but like, Man, this is how I do to do I do. I can’t help it again. Come get some come get some guys. Just Just a quick word, stop relying on on third party vanity metrics for what’s going on on your website, according to Google. So you go to somebody else to see what’s going on in Google. I it for the life of me, I can’t figure that out. So in a minute, when we get to that question or five, whenever we get to it, I’m going to be sharing something on screen, just so you guys can see why you can’t go with third party vanity and domain authority then, whatever the hell it is you’re relying on. you’re relying on the wrong thing. And I’ll show you some and let’s see, I’ll get I thought it was muted. Sorry, Chris. How’s it going?

Doing good here? Good. They can complain and yeah, I think we got something pretty sweet coming. Oh, really? I made a video about something today, so, huh?

All right. Well, now I’m curious. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Well check Facebook.

Ah, all right. I will check it out. Bradley, you got the tech stuff done. Are you available?

Well, it’s the fucking video still not on know that on the page. Click Funnels bullshit. I’m tired of it. And I really am.

It’s still not even there we go. Yeah, it’s updated now.

Well, it’s not for me.

Gotcha. Well, we’ll circle back around. I’m going to type something in while I ask her not How you doing today, man?

Great, man. I’m in Miami. Having fun. Everything’s good.

Well, you got to talk for a little bit longer. I gotta, I gotta touch.

Okay. I’m in Miami. It’s raining. I’m having a lot of fun. This is awesome. And I’m waiting for Adam to stop typing so that he can keep on doing the intro. But did I mention that I mean, Miami? And

I’ve heard that you’re in Miami. Is that true?

No, I don’t know what you got that from? Yeah, man. How? how weak Are you really in the gym right now after all these months of no workouts? I’m a pussy. I’m doing like a D load quote-unquote, D load week right now. And I’m like, so sore. And I did like, two squats on Monday.

Those are right now, but we still had it. So.

Gotcha. All right. Well, I got a little note there. So if you’re watching us on YouTube, let us know. Also, if you’re somehow seeing this on the page, just shoot us a message let us know you can see it. But in the meantime, we’re gonna keep rolling and maybe figure something else out. But Bradley, how are you doing man? Besides page refreshes and caches?

Yeah, I’m just I’m tired of Click Funnels in their stupid fucking. There are always issues with Click Funnels, it seems to be getting worse. So anyway, maybe we can move the webinar on to a page on our site instead. I think we should probably do that. Because we won’t have to deal with this every week. It seems to be getting worse. So anyway, that said I, everybody.

Everything is fine. Yeah, that’s cool. Um, I’ve actually been testing out group funnels, maybe that’ll grab the lifetime account. And that came out, maybe we can just toss it on there and see if that works. Or just put it on the website, like you said, or do like a direct YouTube type of thing. love to see. But anyway, with that said, we have a couple of announcements. First of all, if you’re on the email list, that’s great. You’ve gotten the announcements about the POFU Live recordings, you got access to the little special offer we had to go in there. But if you’ve missed out on that, first of all, go to semantic mastery or go to Hump Day Hangouts. Just Google that and go to our page, enter your email address, so you can get notified about stuff like this. We do give special deals, special offers, and some bonuses to subscribers, but I’m also going to put it on the page here today. The recordings are available. Along with the recordings, you have the option to get executive summaries we’ve gone through and we’ve taken and distilled every single talk that we had into a quick basically reference guides. So you’ve got links, you’ve got the main points, so you can go back or have that open as you’re watching the talk. Super, super handy. So that will be on the page in just a minute. Oh, man, I am just losing my place like crazy today. I’ve got a couple more announcements. And while I hunt these down, did you guys have anything we need to also cover? Before we dive into things?

What about POFU?

About It was a great event.

Oh my god, what about it?

The live of the recordings are available, right?

Should be right.

Yes, that what I was just talking about or not my losing my mind about POFU.

I don’t know, but well I’m gonna keep running on because I don’t know where we’re going and this is gonna get pretty weird for people watching. So anyway, I do want to talk about one other thing, if you go to the SEOshield.com, the SEOshield.com that’s a great place. If you’re new to Semantic Mastery and MGYB You can find out how to shield your site and never worry about algorithm updates. Again, it’s a free training, just head over to the SEOshield.com and grab that if you’re more on the agency owner kind of consultant side and you want to get more clients to grow your revenue scale your team, head over to 2xyouragency.com. And last but not least, if you’re ready to grow your digital marketing business, your agency then you can join our experienced community. With the mastermind You can find out more about that at mastermind dot semantic mastery.com I like to go through these every time because we don’t know you know, we have new people watching every week. And those are some pretty typical questions we get from people, you know, hey, I’m just starting to watch you guys where the hell do I start? Right? Good question. So finding out about the SEO shield is great. Then we got people are saying hey, I either want to start or kind of grow my agency, I’m not sure what to do that’s to x your agency COMM And then we’ve got people, of course, are like, Hey, I’m in it, I want to grow, I want to be around other people like me who have got their agencies going who’ve got their businesses going. And that’s where the mastermind comes in. So those are the big ones. Of course, we mentioned MGYB, if you’re not familiar with that it’s mgyb.co, save time and money with done for you services. This is all stuff that we’ve used, and either converted into a done for you process or stuff that we had done for us. And now we’re offering it as well. So you can get it done for you and save time. So this is a great place to be like white labeling, things like press releases link building the SEO shield, for example. Lots more over there, too, and lots more coming. So with that said, guys, that’s it for the quick announcement. Anything else we want to cover before we dive into questions? I’m waiting around to say something No, just kidding. Wait, good. All right, let’s do it is that we got a bunch of questions already. So let me get the page pulled up here. And I’ll grab the screen.

This has got me all screwed up. Because the format has changed in the last couple of weeks. And after years of having one particular startup format. It’s hard to hard to transition.

All right,

you guys are seeing my screen now. Correct. Good to go. Yes.

Yep. All right.

What Is The Name Of The Upcoming Buffer Site S3 Creator?

Let me expand this a little bit. There we go. So the first question up says, Hi, you mentioned something about an upcoming buffer site s3 creator from ABS right? Yeah. Abbess. Rathje. As I think I’m saying his name correctly, I always feel like I’m mispronouncing that. Or he says, Can you please give us some URL or spell the product or the name as I can’t find anything? Yes, buffersites.com. It’s not available yet. But I believe it says coming soon. And I think he’s working on something because I recently got an email from him about kind of a technology that he created for that works with Amazon s3, hosted web pages, as well as some other type of web 2.0 sites and things like that. So I think buffersites.com is in the pipeline, but it’s not available yet. So that’s what it is buffersites.com and the developer’s name is Abbess Abbess. ABB BB as Rathje. And I think I always butcher his name when I try to say it. But he’s, he’s got many different types of software products out there that are fairly good. Some of them are but got a little bit of a learning curve, but he’s got like video marketing Blitz was one of them, it was a good product that we use for quite some time. So he’s got several different kinds of products out that you know, software programs that do things so that’s the one I was talking about.

Should You Make A Separate Page For Each Location When Siloing A Local Service Business Site?

Next question is Tommy says when creating location pages for a local service business, would you make a location page for the location the business is located in the business already has the primary location in the footer about, etc, and ranks on page two for keywords in the primary location on a general service page? Would it be overkill to create a location for it to and be duplicate content would appreciate your advice? Thanks. Now, if it’s a single location site, you don’t need to you don’t need a location page for it. The only time that I would recommend having location pages is if you have if it’s a multi-location business right? Because then you can, you’d have one location is typically going to be like a headquarters, right? Like the main location or, you know, the primary location, the first location, whatever you want to call it. And so that would be like what I would, you know, a lot of So for example, if I were to build a lead gen site that was optimized for one location, but then I decided, because let’s say it was really successful, and I decided to start expanding locations for that brand, then what I would do is I would make that, you know, the primary location would be the first location, and I would take that as kind of like the name, address and phone number for the primary location would be like the organization, you know, essentially, the main location for that multi-location business, and then I would create separate location pages for each individual, or additional location, I should say, that’s how I would do it. But yeah, I wouldn’t recommend creating a location page on a site that is optimized for one location. Because you’re it that that’s kind of, you know, Department of redundancy department, you know what I mean? So I would recommend that you don’t do that, you don’t need to do that. But what you can do is you can split out like suburbs, or, you know, I’m not, I’m not sure what how you’ve got your site structured, but you can create geo posts, that’s what I call it, but they’re locally optimized posts for localities within your service area, if it’s a service area business, I’m just assuming that it is. But it could be a storefront business, in which case, you wouldn’t even really need to do that either. But for service area businesses, like contractors, which is what I do, then what I would do is have the one location, you know, is probably the only location but then I would start optimizing content in what’s called geo posts, or what I call geo posts, which would be optimizing content for like the suburbs, the adjacent areas, that and then I would, you know, kind of optimize cut, my blogger does all this, but she’ll go out and pull in like points of interest, historical, you know, references, things like that, that are relevant to each individual, you know, suburb or municipality or whatever that I’m trying to expand into, and then show, you know, produce some content, you know, included about whatever products or services the company offers. And you can start to blog that way, so that you can start really kind of expanding your service area footprint, so to speak. But you don’t need to have a separate location page for the location. If it’s a one-location business, it just doesn’t make sense to do that, in my opinion. Any other input on that guy just said, there’s no such thing as a duplicate content.

And we see this all the time, no such thing as that happening. Now, as far as would it be overkill? to us that perfectly? The advice is that when looking at content is whether you’ve given the content, proper attribution. That’s all that matters. Because if you haven’t, then let’s say if your G site is really strong, it might outrank your money site. That’s the only problem you’re going to run into. But if you have proper attribution, if if Google understands where the master copy of the content resides, and there is no problem, there are only problems if you’re running like duplicate titles, duplicate descriptions, and things like that. But we’ve literally only changed location on content and run the same, like 15,000. More than that pages have the same content except for the location and it works. It’s working. Right now. I’m about to show you how it’s working right now. And when we get to that question, there is no such thing as duplicate content, you got the master copy. And then you have copies of that content. proper attribution takes care of any duplicate content issues, and so does canonical. If you canonicalize. correctly, you’re fine. You’re good to go.

There you go. Let me unpause the screen for a minute if I can find it. Okay.

What Do You Recommend For A Self-Hosted URL Shortener?

So the next question is from Jr. My guess, says, Hey, guys, do you have any well-recommended URL shortener? Excuse me? Do you have any good recommendations for a self-hosted URL shortener looking to set up one for a client to be public-facing so users can create short links easily from their website? Open to using a hosted solution if it exists? Thanks. Also, is there any SEO value for the target site if users create short links? So, Marco, you would be the one to answer that because we set that up for MGYB.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there eventually will be SEO value once you power it up. However, how long is it going to take you to power up that URL shortener on that website that has no power to start with? Which is what you need, which is the reason why Well, the reason why just say use a shortener To make the URL easier to handle, right, when you’re sharing it, you don’t want this long 50 character URL, you want something short and memorable. That’s why Bitly for a while was so good. And then we started realizing the SEO value in Bitly, until they decided that they were going to 302. At well, then we went to the Google goog l URL shortener until they took it away. So we decided rather than rely on others, why not create our own power that up, give everybody the SEO value and the added benefit that you could go in, and I think it’s only for like five or six, I don’t know, seven bucks a month, I don’t even know. Use your own use of our shortener which is powered up. And then you could have your own URLs, right, you can have your own URL extensions, you could have your own. If you want to call them vanity, whatever you want to call them. They’re yours, but they reside in MGYB. And they continue to get powered up by dedhia. So I will be there’s the SEO benefit, the SEO benefit that you get is the power that’s behind that. But right from the start when you go and install that whether you do it on a subdomain on your client site, whether you use pretty links, whatever it is that you’re going to use is not going to have any SEO value until you power it up.

All right, there we go on the resume share again.

Because doing some background stuff. Alright.

Can You Make Multiple GStacks On One Google Account That Are Interconnected?

So the next question would be Hey, guys, the question on G stacks. Can I make multiple G stacks on one g account that are not interconnected? Uh, yeah, I suppose you could. Now I’m not sure why you would want to we separate them. But you know, Marco, now that we’re not using the script. There’s not a limitation on that, though. Is there?

Let me see, of course, there is.

Why would you want to go and break up the well, not a limitation? But why would you want to put two things that are unrelated in the same dry stack?

We go for G stacks under one account. So different g stacks, but yes,

no? No. Okay.

Oh, unless they’re totally relevant if I mean, if you can, if all right, same niche, yes, it makes sense. If you’re going to break up the niche, if it’s going to be totally unrelated, then No, they’re not because now you’re putting all your eggs. First of all, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, right? Everything is in a Google takes that away, you’re gonna lose everything that’s in there. That’s why we turn over we create our own Gmail accounts. And we turn them over to you so that you can use it. And if you order 1000 from it, you’re gonna have 1000 Gmail accounts, but you can manage a whole lot of them from one account, which is what we recommend, you can are we send a letter, we send an email when we deliver the drive stack, and we tell you what to do with it, make your main account the manager of that account, so you never again have to go back into that account. But this way, you won’t take any chances in eliminating the public-facing dry stack and decide you’re not going to run any into any problems or getting locked up or anything like that. Right. And then we tell you to change the phone number, change the recovery, make sure that you can get in there eventually. But only if you have to only have you must, once we turn it over, there is absolutely no reason for you to go back in there. Unless you want to go in there and Tinker and then you’re on your own. So please understand what it is that we’re doing. And what it is that we recommend for you putting like 50 I don’t know you could you get 15 What is it 15 gigabytes in that drive stack, excuse me in Google Drive to play with. So there’s plenty of space in there for you to get multiples in. But you’re putting everything in one basket you’d be put you putting all your eggs in there, and you drop that fucking basket and all your eggs break, you better know how to make scrambled eggs.

Yeah, I agree with that limit, you know, mitigate your risk that way. And so you know, as Marco said, we deliver it with its own Gmail account. And that’s you know, the primary owner of the drive stack which you can always add you know, your main Gmail account or G Suite account, whatever as a manager or share it with that so you can still manage the stack from within your own account, but it’s owned by the other account that way you’re limiting your risk like Marco said, if that you had one account that had all of your G stacks in it and then something happened in it got suspended or terminated, then you’d be screwed. So I totally agree with what he says there.

Is It Better To Have An Old Google Account Better Than A Gsuite Account When Creating Drive Stacks?

Okay, the next question was which is better and old g account or a new G Suite account? Well, I’m always gonna say G Suite account because you’re paying Google that way and I use G Suite for freaking everything now. So if it’s a brand or a project that I know I’m going to be working on for any amount of time Other than just for testing purposes, I always set up G Suite accounts for everything. Now, that’s just my own personal preference. One thing you can do is if you have old Gmail accounts, you can set up a G Suite account through the old Gmail account. And that, I don’t know if that actually adds any additional benefit or not. But I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. You know, I can’t imagine that hurts anything. And so like, if you’ve got some old Jeep, like, for example, I have a Gmail account that I’d set up for Tree Service stuff way back in, I think, 2012, that I just recently decided to turn that into a brand and I created a G Suite account with that. Email is like the, you know, the, when you set up a G Suite account, you need to have an email account anyways, and all that, you know, to add to the system, so I use that one. And I think and again, I don’t know this without testing, but it makes sense that it would have some inherent authority built-in because it was an age, an old account, something that I had set up in 2012, that I just now turned into a G Suite account. Now again, I don’t know that that’s true. But it makes sense to do. So do you have any input on that as part of the entity validation, isn’t it? I wrote that when I wrote the black book, I mean, we’ve been recommending go G Suite, go pay Google, or pay Google for extra drive space, get that credit card, on file, get your stuff in the database. So now you’re a real thing on the web. Rather than someone trying to gain Google, you’re still trying to gain Google, but you’re going the extra step, which most people won’t do. And you go pay for ads, ads for branding, Brandy put out a great course, ads, I run ads, for branding purposes. So again, you’re going a step further validating your entity. This is all talked about how old is the black book about four years old? It’s all in there. I don’t know, you guys, it’s all available to you. I think we also send it with that email with that recommendation email. For us, excuse me, the user’s guide, done for your users’ guide is what we send out. And it’s all in there how to add validation to your entity pay Google, get your credit card, and Google, they’ll tell you that it doesn’t have any effect in rankings. And they the way that they’re saying it is right, I would say okay, that in and of itself doesn’t. But when you’re validating the entity, that part of it has a big, big play in what the end results are going to be.

Unknown Speaker 22:33 Absolutely. All right. So next is Oh, by the way, a couple of things I wanted to briefly mention I was distracted from the start-up for the webinar being rough again. But a couple of things. One, I want to talk about this, this great post in our free group Facebook group from Max Lucey fam bam, we had we did a webinar on Monday with Mike Martin for Lead Simplify if you guys haven’t seen it yet, I would highly recommend that you check it out. I know most of our audiences into local SEO, local client work or lead generation. And it’s a fantastic application. It’s very inexpensive, and it works really, really well. The lead simplifies the app, I use it in my own business. In fact, I started using it eight or 10 weeks ago, probably closer to 10 weeks ago now. And I reached out to the developer Mike Martin, specifically after I had set the app up and integrated it into my own lead gen business. Because I saw the value of it, I decided to reach out to Mike and the developer and asked him if we could promote it to our audience specifically, because, guys, you know, we don’t promote other people’s stuff ever. Unless we, ourselves, you know, or somebody in our, my partners or one of us in my company use something and can vouch for it. And so we rarely promote other people’s stuff. And in this case, I reached out specifically to try to ask if we could promote it because I think it is such a valuable app. And so the webinar was great. We had some technical difficulties at the beginning of that part of the reason why I was frustrated this today for Hump Day Hangouts, but I got that cleaned up. So now the replay is just the content. And it’s really good content about what he calls the hybrid lead generation model. It’s fantastic content, as well as the app itself, is very inexpensive and very useful. And I use it in my business now. So we also throw in a couple of bonuses that I use specifically for generating lead buyers. So basically prospecting for lead buyers. And it works really, really well. I’ve been bringing multiple new lead buyers into my business over the last several weeks because of this app, as well as the prospecting systems that I have built, which I share all of that in our bonuses, so I would highly recommend that you guys go check out the lead simplify webinar that we did with Mike on Monday, and check it out.

Also, I just wanted to give a shout out to max Lu See fam bam, for this great post that they posted about watching that webinar and becoming inspired, because of some, you know, basically having some issues with clients, client work can be very frustrating guys in I’ve said that over the years, there’s certainly ups and downs with client work. But I really have decided that you know, I don’t want to work with any more take on any new clients, I just want to work on building my lead gen business and for several of the reasons that were mentioned in this post here, as well. So just wanted to kind of point that out, give a shout out to Max, Max Luci for posting such a thoughtful and thorough posting here. And, you know, we’re excited to see you, we’re excited to see you excited, and I think you’re on the right track, build your own assets instead of others. Now don’t get me wrong, guys, if you got to do client work, to make money do it, you know, but at the same time, instead of always building other people’s businesses budget some time and some money to start building your own assets to so that you can be gain more control over your revenue, right and your future. Clients can fire you at any moment, right? They can stop paying you to go find the bargain basement $99 a month SEO from you know, India or wherever and fire you in a heartbeat. And what are you going to do? You know, one of the things in our mastermind is we’ve had people that have come in that have had, you know, perhaps one or two clients that provide 90% of their income. Like for example, like a 4000 or $5,000 a month retainer client, what happens if that client drops you and your, your, your 90% of your revenue is based upon that one client, does that make sense or just a couple of clients and then you lose one of them. And now you’ve cut your revenue in half or a third or whatever my point is, you know, start thinking of ways to generate your own assets so that you have more control over your, your revenue and your future. And, and so again, I’ve got clients now, and I’ve still got a handful, I just took a client on about seven, six or seven weeks ago now a new client, but I don’t think I want to take on any more clients unless they’re going to give me you know, a much higher retainer value than what I typically asked for, because I really just want to focus on building my own business. So I thought this was a really thoughtful post and I just wanted to give a shout out to there and also encourage you guys to go check out the replay.

How Do We Use of Text Transcripts From Videos For Traffic And Link Building Purposes?

Alright, any comments on that before I move on guys? Nah, perfect. Okay, Franklin says, Hey, guys, given the rise of video integration in SERPs, and Google taking snippets of sentences, and focusing more on YouTube and looking to get a syndication ring and look into backlinking for videos, is there anything we can do with text transcripts from our videos for traffic, and link building purposes. Um, you know, the only thing that I, I don’t, what I’ve done in the past that works fairly well, like with client work, especially is I’ve had, I’ve trained some of them. Like, for example, I’ve got an outdoor pest control company that does like mosquito control, take control, that kind of stuff. It’s a very seasonal business. But I trained their technicians to, like I told the company owners to tell their technicians to just when they go out on job sites, which are just people’s yards, essentially, to just take their phone out and grab, record a short video, like literally like, Hey, this is John, for a company name, I’m out in, you know, Fairfax, Virginia, providing mosquito control services. And, you know, if you want your yard to be tick free ticket, mosquito, free, contact us, and then drop a phone number, whatever. So very, very short little video clips that then they send to me, I upload them to YouTube, optimize them, and then have that transcribed, which is, you know, literally, it’s usually about a minute long the video or less, so cost a buck or a buck 50 to have it transcribed, and then embed that into a blog post with the transcription underneath. And that syndicates out to the branded network that’s attached to the, to the website, as well as the YouTube channel can be attached to that too. So both can be syndicated to it, that’s what I’ve done. And it just it that tends to work because it adds some text without having to have you know, it’s, it’s all done with just a video, right? a short video can be turned into a video plus a blog post with the text with the transcription, the call to action, everything that you need for additional content, you know, to multi-purpose the content. So that’s what I’ve done. Maybe somebody else here has some other suggestions for how to use text. But that’s pretty much the extent of what I’ve done. And that works quite well actually.

Anybody else? Yeah, I mean, what you could do lots with the transcript, right? You can add it to your page and it becomes part of the blog post when you embed the video on your website. The transcript can actually become the content on your pay. I mean, we recommend that this time and again right then you syndicate it, then when you do your embed, right With the video, you could do the page I mean, not just the video, you can do an embed run of that page. Right? Because then that it’s an iframe, and that’s perfectly fine. You want you’re not going to run into any duplicate content issues. But people are still going to say, Okay, yeah, there are problems there are. So that’s another thing that you could take the audio from that video and start going to the audio distribution, I’d SoundCloud would be one podcast, and then you can create a syndication network for that. And there are so many different things that you could do with that, to get tons of value, rather than just think, Okay, what I do with this transcript, you could also convert it into a PDF, a downloadable PDF on your website. Right? That content, so I framed the video. And rather than just put the text on there as content, you could put additional content on it, then a link to a PDF that people can download, then you go and submit that to all these PDF directories that you have all over the web. And, I mean, that’s, that’s another thing that you can do, really, you’re only limited by, by, you know, your imagination. And what you can come up with the limit is the things that you can think of to do with this content. Not that you have multiples, but you have video, you have audio, and you have text, and then that text can become a PDF, it can become any other kind of download, it can become an image, the text itself can become an image, you can do the question and answer images of each. I mean, it becomes what you could do becomes ridiculous. The thing is, is it necessary? And why are you needing to do all of this a lot of times, all of that just simply isn’t necessary because the process that we use, requires you to do as little work as you can for as much benefit as you can saving the bullets. In case you need more.

There you go. Always keep some, some in reserve, right.

How Do You Properly Optimize The GMB And Website Of An Old Business?

Okay. The next question is a basic GMB question. I have a client who bought his dental practice from another dentist. The old dentist GMB is ranking Okay, three in some map packs around the office. And second, organically what is the best approach try to merge in the GMB market is closed and rank the new one with the new business name for the web for a website, the old one as a pop up directing to the new site, should I take that site down or leave it up just worried about the possum, but I think I could rank them both, I would be fine with that both businesses have exact same address. Okay, I’m going to give you what I would do in that situation. And then I’d love to hear Marco’s opinion on this as well. But what I would do is I would merge those two GM B’s the one that was shut down, I would contact Google My Business support and explain exactly what you just did to us without the SEO terminology, because you want to act dumb, or even, you know, you can act on behalf of the business owner. But I’ve done that in the past something similar where you know, there’s two GM B’s because of a tree service company bought another tree service company, for example. And so since they ended up sharing the same address, but it was different names and everything else, I don’t want to cause any PII issues, right where you can ambiguous ate the data for a particular business. So what I do is I contact Google My Business support and tell them, hey, this company bought this company there now. And you know, it’s now this name, but it’s in the same location, I want to merge the two and Google support Google, my business support will help you with that. I’ve had I’ve done that on multiple occasions. So that’s personally what I would do as far as the website. What I would do with the website is do a redirect. Right? If it’s ranking second, organically, I think you said yeah, second, organically, the website is got some authority, obviously. So if you’ve got the new website for the new brand, what I would do is do a redirect, I wouldn’t leave both of them up because it could cause some excuse me some NAEP issues and possibly some entity ambiguation. So I would like I said I would merge the two GM B’s you might have to contact you will likely have to contact GMB support to do that so that it can be done properly. For example, you know if you have I had another client that had a GMB where they had to they moved all they did was move locations so when they moved locations, they set up a new GMB instead of changing the original, like the information in the original GMB, they just set up a new one. And so when they came to me as when I, you know, brought them on as a client, they had a bunch of reviews for their old location, but they had their new location that had you know, just a hand a couple of reviews but they wanted to merge the two and so once again, I contacted GMB support and I had them merge the two. So they basically called and removed the old GMB from the old location, but merged all of the reviews into the new one under the new location. And so you can do those kinds of things as long as it’s 100%. legit, if it’s spam stuff, don’t even attempt it. But if it’s 100%, legit, then I would absolutely contact GMB support have the two merged. And then again, for the organic site, I would have that redirected to the new site so that you can push that authority over to the new site. Now that’s my method. Would anybody have a different opinion? merge and properly three? Oh, and I totally agree, is a having tool and maybe creating. Now, this is where duplicate matters, right? And, and the entity comes into play, and you create ambiguity, and then Google doesn’t Okay, so which dentist is which? And how does this all work? Because it’s a bot and it’s stupid. And if you don’t give it the information is not going to know. And you want to try to relate them to one to the other, and why what’s changed and all that you’re going to get into a whole lot of issues that you don’t want. Bradley told you exactly how to solve it, merge the GMB’s call and act really stupid with the owner as a matter lead to let the dentist’s quiet Look, I bought those dentists out and now he’s got a GMB and I got I let them work it out. And then you could properly 301 the old site to the new and gain from all that power that the old one has. And as a matter of fact, if you properly three or one, you could hammer the old website for a while and get the benefit into the new website.

Or you go so the next question. I’m not sure if well, I guess there is a question in there. It says guys, I’m looking both at land solutions and alpha land realty not typing these names for a reason. I don’t care. I know. I honestly don’t care that I’ve never tried to hide my homeland realty business. They’re public. Yeah, they’re public. I’ve always mentioned that and he said, anyway, I’ll finish the question then I’m going to comment and I’m sure Marco has some comments as well says I don’t see any good rankings there. In fact, I see a huge decline. I see a huge decline in something that was not very impressive anyway. Well, that’s okay. Because that not very impressive, impressive Alfa land realty site makes me between three and $15,000 a month and fucking month and has for a year and a half. So that’s not very impressive. They’re not you know, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to impress you. It works just fine for me. He says I know you do local use GM B’s ads, etc. You said, you said and you said it many times. It’s about calls and leads I get it but it looks more narrowed towards local map listing rather than a national campaign or global campaign. Mine is not a national or global campaign Alfa land realty is a Virginia based real estate acquisition company. All I target is Virginia. That’s all I’ve ever targeted since I set it up. And I use Google ads, direct mail and SEO, and I get all the damn leads that I want or can handle from those three methods. So and most of my traffic comes from direct mail I’m not gonna lie I do get leads from Google ads and from organic SEO, but those leads aren’t really the leads that I want. Those are typically not as good leads because I like to target specific land types in certain areas. And so with direct mail, I can do that. And so again, I’ve always I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I’ve not done a whole ton of SEO for Alfa land realty because I haven’t needed to most of the traffic that I generate is through direct mail. However, I do get probably eight to 12 leads per month from Google ads and or organic SEO but those they tend I bought several properties from you know, leads that have come in from either Google ads or from organic SEO, but most of them that come through aren’t those good they’re not that good leads because they’re not as targeted as I want them to be like I can do with direct mail. So again, I’ve never tried to hide that guys there’s no reason for me to I’m always honest with what’s going on in my business and it’s all been about Virginia land by land acquisitions in Virginia so I’ve been able to accomplish my goals with the methods that I’m using that solutions go ahead.

On the other hand is national and as a matter of fact we got we had a lead once from Bali so it’s it’s global. We did lead from somebody was selling land in Bali wanted us to do one to see if we would buy it I and I’ve prepared some some stuff that I that I want to share my skis Mind if I grabbed the screen shirt. Let me go here. And I can’t you got to give me permission or stop sharing your stop sharing mine. How about that? And I was Okay, here we go. Let me make sure I share the right one. Get rid of the porn. All right. So I saw this question and I came a look. Because I love the use of the turn of the phrase, I see a huge decline of something that was not very impressive anyway, wasn’t meant to be impressive was meant to get results. I’m not to impress anyone. I’ve never, I’ve never been it, I don’t want to impress you. All I want is the person here. If you can see my screen, when they come on here to fill out the fucking form. That’s all I want. Not to impress. So here we go. Are we seeing that position? I took a look. I don’t know how many top 10s I have. I but if I can scroll down? I don’t know. I can keep scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Right. So you can see yes, it’s very local. It’s heavily local. How else would you target local real estate? Please, what are we talking about? Can we please define what we’re talking about first, because yes, even though this is National in nature, I have to target it locally. Or else, the person that’s looking to sell their land, in bumfuck, whatever, would never find me to sell me the land. So of course, I don’t know what it is you’re using you said hrs, I don’t use hrs. I don’t use sem rush, I don’t use any action. I use go, this is what I use. This is what tells me what it is that I’m doing. And whether what I’m doing works. Not only this, but while I was doing this, what’s so funny is let me pull this up in my G but look at the time 1:37pm I haven’t even opened because I was going through this, to show this during have to have a web web form fill came through. This is what I’m after man. Now, not you, you why user specific or targeted or whatever. But this is what I’m after I’m not after you. And I’m not after a dress to impress a dress and whatever the fuck it is they decide to give because I could give a shit about a trust and majestic. And and whoever else, you name it, I don’t care. I get my information from analytics, I get my information from the Search Console. That’s what tells me what to target. So I can get this because as Bradley said, Now these, what I do is I’ve been turning them over to the alpha land Realty, that you created Bradley. Yeah, the group, I’m sure you see me posting in there. And this is what I’ll do with this form. Because I have enough with what I’m doing with what I’m targeting in the states that I’m targeting. Or I’m good where I don’t know, four or five sales.

I wouldn’t say that much, let’s say three to four sales per month, three to four k average, well, that’s an extra 10 k in my pocket that I’m not expecting to see. I mean, and this is after expensives after expenses, after cost lawyers and everything else, it’s in my pocket is what I put in my pocket. That feels really nice. I don’t know about you, it may not be impressive to you. And I understand that. Okay, you may you probably make way more than I do, from something that just a side hustle, and a website that we haven’t done really anything to other than you know, we set up the SEO shield, some schema, some q&a, but not really giving it the love that it should not giving it all of the attention that we need to. Because since this is my main source of income, since this is just a playground, whatever I get here is perfect. I mean, this is fine for me, if I get I don’t know, 10 of these is what we’re getting per month, and I turn them over to the guys and and they can close a few. And they give me the commission. I mean that that’s an extra source of income in my pocket. So in addition to whatever it is that I’m closing and that I’m making every month, now this, this last solution network will also produce webform fills, where the guys who took Bradley’s training can go and they can get after these people make the offer and try to make that close and sell and put a couple of grand in their pocket. And they really didn’t have to do the effort other than to contact and try to close it. Because this person is hot. This person is hot to sell. They don’t go and find you organically unless they’re hard to sell this we know. So I’m sorry that you’re not impressed. But yeah, I mean, the other part of this what you said is so like calls and leads, because that’s the only way that you gonna make money. And I could be number one in everything and not making a penny and I could be selling it hot. Look, look, I’m number one. Number one. Number one, I’m not making a penny. And yet you’re going to fall for it. Because you see number one everywhere and is not really doing anything. So I mean, hopefully, this is the example you should be focusing on. We put everything through Google through analytics, and through search console. That’s what that personally, this is what I focus on. I don’t care about anything else. And I don’t care what anybody says about analytics and search console, because they’re generally wrong and they don’t know how to use it. And so they can’t see how it works. that’s their problem, not mine. All right, my hand a second, let me just finish my mastermind, people, my heavy hitter club and my mini mastermind. They know how to use this shit, because I’ve shown them how to use it. And how it is that you’re supposed to take a look at analytics and search console so that you can get the most benefit from it. And I’m done. Go ahead, man.

Yeah, no, I was just mentioning that, again. You know, I, I spent last year I’ve been running my alpha land realty business for about a year and a half now. And it’s, it only requires about eight to 10 hours a week now, because I’ve got personnel in place, and automations and systems and everything that I built took me months to build all of it. But now it just requires very little of my attention. Like I said, between eight to 10 hours a week on average. And for a period of time, I did spend more time on SEO and a lot of time in Google ads. But I’ve refined the Google Ads campaigns. And I realized, after starting to receive leads from just SEO and from Google ads, that those aren’t the best quality leads, because they’re often in random areas of the state that I’m not interested in, which ends up taking more time to research those markets to get to know those markets. I know which markets, I can flip properties in very quickly. And so those are the markets that I target and I target them more specifically with direct mail, because it’s a higher quality lead, and it works better for my business model. So again, it’s not I’ve never tried to, you know, sell people on the fact that my alpha land realty site was super optimized and all that shit. And everyone, it’s a single page landing page on Click Funnels, but still ranks. So what difference does it make, it generates me a very nice income with very little effort now, because I’ve built the systems and everything else. So anyways, if anybody’s interested in learning more about that specifically, reach out to support at Semantic Mastery, we’ve had a couple of people reach out in the last month or so and say that they’re interested in possibly joining a paid training group where you where I’ll teach how to flip land, it’s a great business guys, you can do it virtually from a computer at home, like out of I think I flipped. I don’t know, 28, maybe between 20 and 32 properties in the last year and a half. And I’ve only been to three of them. And it was only for very specific reasons that I went to three of them, I’ve been able to buy and sell land and make, like I said, on average, on my low end, in fact, this month, I only make 2300. But on my on my low months, it’s still a four figure profit. And on my good months, I’ve made five never made more than 16,000 in a month. But you know, that’s a really good income now for three to or excuse me for eight to 10 hours a week of effort. And so again, if anybody’s interested in that business, just reach out and say you’re interested in land flipping business. And once we get enough interest, I’ll put together another group and do some training on that it will be a paid training though, guys, so just keep that in mind. All right, we’ve got about 12 more minutes. I’m gonna grab the question. Question, though.

It was a good question. And we’re weren’t attacking you for your vote on another way. No, no. And and it’s good. I love this when people call you out. And it’s okay, so well, because the proof of a profit is and whether the prophecy comes true. If it doesn’t, then the profit is useless, right? So what we say is the results are what matter we need to be able to show results so that people who are in a dress and doubting I understand the doubt man, I understand the doubt. What I’m saying is your focus is wrong. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying the focus that you’re giving it is wrong, because we’re not interested in HS. And they can show whatever they want. And you could go ahead and share. It’s the land some land solutions network, you can share it, you can go look at it, reverse engineer it, because we did a lot of nasty stuff in there a lot of testing, and it’s still it’s ongoing. We’ll get back to it and give it some love man, because we can take over a lot of stuff with the way that it’s ranking right now. At any rate, yeah, it’s not anything done to you or set to you specifically. It’s just that when you when you focus on Ah, they’re going to show you what they want majestic what they want SEMrush what they want. I only care about Google. That’s all I care about.

Yeah, and just one other thing about that is what’s interesting is if you take a look at my site, somebody’s got positions here. Oh, look at that son of a bitch anyways. But you can see like sell land fast, Virginia. We buy land Virginia, there’s a few other keywords that work really well for ranking. But if you take a look at my site, guys, it’s a single page landing page on clickfunnels, which clickfunnels doesn’t even give you the ability to optimize the page much there. You can’t really optimize the elements and Click Funnels. It’s very difficult. But that’s it. I mean, it’s a very simple site on a wide Firefox has been so slow, but that’s it. It’s that I mean, there’s no content marketing going on there. I’ve had a syndication network built but I never I don’t I don’t blog. I don’t publish posts. I don’t have I’m not doing GMB posts or anything like that. I do a few a handful of press releases per year. And that’s it. And that’s all I’ve had to do because look, I’m ranking number one in Virginia for my primary keywords the keywords from because I’ve run Google ads for this for a year and a half, I know which keywords produce conversions generate leads, those are the only keywords I give a shit about all the other ones I could care less about. It’s not a it’s not a it’s not a you know, a test to see how how many rankings I can get. In this case, it’s producing like I said, on the low end, four figures and on the high end five figures per month consistently month in and month out. And it has been for a year and a half. So I’d say it’s a success. And I don’t spend a lot of time on it anymore. I did four months but it’s it’s where it is now to where it’s on. It’s almost on autopilot requires very little my attention. So

I’m not sure what why am why Oh, niches What does that mean? Do you know what y m y l means?

Marco? You’re You’re muted

by the way.

What is okay?

Nevermind.

I’m sorry. Somebody want to answer that?

Now? I thought I thought it was something else. MF

Global campaign for y m y l niches? I’m not sure what that means. Okay. Um, are these methods suitable for current moments for something outside at the current moment? Excuse me for something outside local marketing? Yeah, of course. I mean, again, like if you I mean, Mark always talks about local is relative, right? Your local can be a neighborhood, a city, a county, a state, a country, or global, it really just depends you local is relative, you know, there, I’m just targeting on a statewide basis, because I found that it doesn’t make sense to target like, we buy land Culpepper, Virginia, we buy land, it doesn’t make sense to go through all of that additional effort for that particular project. Because again, like and here’s the other thing about that project. And tree services, people will go to Google because they got a tree that is overgrown or a dead tree that’s in danger of falling on their house or their car or something. So they need that service. So they go to Google, and they search tree service or tree removal, Tree Removal near me or tree removal and whatever their city is, right. But with the landowners and for again, for that business, it’s a lot of times these are people that own land that really doesn’t haven’t even considered selling it, they just pay taxes on it, you know, year in and year out. And so I all of a sudden send them a letter that says, hey, I’m interested in purchasing your vacant land parcel located at whatever, whatever. If you’re interested in receiving an all-cash offer, fill out this form at this website, or call this number, which goes to my call center. That’s it. And so again, you know, a lot of the times I’m targeting people that have land that doesn’t even know that they want to sell it, the ones that do think, well, I’ve got a piece of land I need to generate some money from there are the ones that go to Google and search for it. But I found again because those are in random areas throughout the state that I’m not specifically targeting and ends up requiring more research on my part. And then it’s a market that I’m unsure about whether I can flip it quickly and all that other kind of stuff. So it’s that uncertainty is the reason why I don’t like those leads as much Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still make offers on them. But I like the areas that I’m specifically targeting through direct mail those areas better So again, just to kind of explain.

it’s just a different model period. So why am while your money or your life. Okay? What is it your money or your life niche? Not sure what that means?

Is It Okay To Optimize Two YouTube Channels For One Money Site

Anyway, so we’re gonna move on fit says good agents, I have a client posting on two different YouTube channels, only one optimized, should they optimize both? And add the money to site to both thanks for all you do. Yeah, I guess you could, uh, I don’t see how that could hurt anything. As long as it’s the same brand. I mean, I guess it depends on what it is that you’re doing. What it is that they’re doing? If it’s the same brand, but like, perhaps two different topics, or for whatever reason, then then yeah, I don’t see why that would hurt anything. Um, that’s what I would do. I mean, obviously, I need some more details, Fitz, to be able to give you a better answer, then that but I mean, if it’s the same brand, I don’t see why you couldn’t, it wouldn’t cause any ambiguity as long as you’re not, you know, trying to create two different types of brands for the same company if that makes sense.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link Vs Sharing It Publicly?

So Okay, the next question is a G Drive folder is shared to anyone with the link versus public on the web. What’s the drawback? Or is it completely useless to do it that way? Is it thoroughly tested? I’ve heard it’s still good for buffering if you share with anyone with the link, but don’t know about entity validation. What’s your take? Marco? That’s a question for you.

The link shared folder has no fucking use that has to be public on the web. Really? It has to be it won’t pass if you Uh, no. It has to be public on the web man. Hmm. Now, even if you try the iframe that anyone with the link, it has it if you don’t do it right, it has a frame breaker. So once you if it has a frame breaker then we were losing all the benefits from what we now know, as our ys Academy reloaded, right? Because that’s built upon the power of the iframes and how they work. Okay,

so you’re saying his shit has to be public on the web to provide the benefits public and if you can’t do it, don’t worry. Go to MGYB to order drive second t site from us because we can make it public.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link?

There you go. Rob says thanks, guys. Baby’s up. What’s up, baby? I was wondering where the hell you are today. He says, Hey, guys, after I asked all the External links variations now it’s time for a new wave. So so we’re gonna go through several weeks Marco has some other topic but one topic.

Yeah. 1000 ways. Maybe I’m giving you shit, man, we appreciate you, man. There’s no there’s no question. He says, Does the organization schema have to be on each page or just the home page? What page or post should the organization schema on which should be an article scheme? Okay, that’s a great question. And I’ve recently because of POFU Live and some of the training I’ve received from there, I started digging into schema more and I only put organization schema as the only schema on the homepage now. But if you understand the connected schema, then you can, you’ll still can work organizations schema into like local business schema or into article schema because the organization can be the publisher, there’s it’s connected schema is like combining schema types, but it has to be done correctly, or else it will ambiguity of the page that multiple schemas are on. So in other words, you have to understand how to connect schema properly, it’s not something we’re going to cover here, you’d have to go to heavy hitter club, that’s you that’s the place to be if you want to learn how to do that stuff. I’ve been learning from Marco and Rob and also doing some research on my own. And I’ve just recently begun to understand the idea of the concept of connected schema. And so I was actually doing it wrong for a lot of my own local business sites for the last couple of years because I would put organization schema sitewide. And then on location pages, I would have local business schema also. But that actually ambiguous. It’s the main entity of that particular page unless you combine them into a connected schema. And then you designate the main entity of the page or you can ref local like for example, local business schema can be the primary schema for a location page, but it can reference the overall parent organization. The same thing for articles schema, Article schema is going the primary entity of the pages the article itself, right. But then you can reference the publisher as an organization, for example, or even the author could be an organization. And that can pull in all of your organization schema with your same as attributes and everything else. You have to learn how to put that together properly. And I didn’t know how to do that until after I went through POFU Live. And I got to watch some of our speakers, which by the way, you can buy POFU Live recordings right now. So if you want to get a really good bass training for what connected schema is, and how you can develop this kind of stuff out, go get the POFU Live recordings. And I just want to mention, as I said, I realized after the POFU Live event and hearing some of our guest speakers, that I really needed to step my schema game up. And so I’ve spent the last several weeks now actually really tightening up my schema on a lot of my lead gen properties. And I’m starting to see some significant results from that already. But as so organization schema can go on all the pages if it’s nested within the other schema properly. Otherwise, just put it on your homepage or your about page or both. It can be on both of those even. But for everything else that would have the main entity of the page have that only schema on that particular page only unless you’re using connected schemas. So essentially nested schema where it would reference organization schema, hopefully, that didn’t confuse a lot of people. Mark, do you want to comment on it before I move on?

parent, child-parent, you can have organization either on the homepage or on the about page don’t make both if you’re going to do that I prefer it on the own baby to that’s where the bot will generally come in and go through the rescue website. So that’s what I like. As far as everything else. I mean, no, yeah. Don’t ambiguity. You’re in big trouble, man. Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s the thing. Like if you have multiple schemas on a page, and they’re not, you can actually main entity of page that’s it. That’s an attribute that’s a type that you can designate so that you can specify which one it is but if you’re using connected schema, or like you said Parent-Child, nested schema is another term for it, then it should validate correctly. Anyway. But yeah, it’s an interesting man, I didn’t realize how much I was missing drugs and data world until we had the poker live event. Now, that was my main takeaway. And I’ve told that to everybody. I was like, my main takeaway was I need to step my schema game up. And so I spent and I’m still just scratching the surface, Robin, and Marco, and heavy hitter clubs where you want to go for all of that stuff. Guys, there’s no question. It’s what we’re teaching a heavy hitter, man.

Yep. All right.

Last thing, I’m just gonna answer the part two real quick. And then we’ve got to wrap it up. He says, What if the homepage is general info, the representation of the brand, sort of, and then there is long-form post, which is targeted for the main service, keyword example tree removal, how to place schemas there. Yeah. So again, that would be I would consider that article schema. And you can also nest within article schema services, right? You can mention service. You can even have like offer catalogs, all that kind of stuff. Again, it’s a, it can get very, very complex. So you have to understand what it is that you’re doing. But I would say like a main like service page where with an article that talks about services, you could create a service schema type, but I don’t think that’s as valuable. And I don’t know, maybe Marco can answer that. Or maybe this isn’t the proper place to answer that. But I’m testing right now with some of my Tree Service sites having the like Tree Removal page, for example, marked up as a service page. And then I’ve got others that are article pages with nested services in it. I think the article page with a nested service is the proper way to go but I don’t know and that’s why I’m kind of testing and comparing right now. Mark Oh, am I am I revealing too much or what?

Yeah. Because that’s stuff I mean, how we, how we create the relationships and and how we stack the schemas. What it’s what’s dealt with in the heavy hitter club.

There you go. So that was a tease, go go join heavy hitter club guys. It’s inexpensive, and it’s totally worth it if you want that kind of technical knowledge. So all right. Thanks, everybody for being here. We got to wrap it up. Everyone knows next week. Thanks, guys.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310 published first on your-t1-blog-url