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virmillion · 5 years

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In the few days since Virgil walked out (on Logan, on the planning, on everything ), Logan has accomplished next to nothing. There were complications that kept the office closed a few days longer, all of which Logan spent pacing the apartment and sending countless unanswered texts to Virgil.

To get technical, Logan spent the first hour or so sitting at the table, motionless and staring at the papers. Next came a couple hours’ worth of punching the air, punching pillows, punching pretty much anything insignificant enough that it wouldn’t cause concern upon being punched. Following that little rage fest, Logan realized maybe he should try to talk to the runaway would-be groom. It started with one text every few hours, then once an hour, every half hour, and ultimately Logan threw his phone in a rage at (a carefully selected soft spot on) the couch and stormed into the bedroom to sulk.

Cut to now, where Logan is hunched over on the recliner and staring at his silent phone. Not one answer. Not even a read receipt. Nothing so small as social media activity, like a relationship status change from ‘engaged’ to ‘moving on and better for it.’ Logan briefly considers posting wanted signs around the building, but ultimately decides against it—mostly because his printer is broken. Finally, he snatches up his phone and does something he never would’ve expected of himself.

He calls Virgil.

This is an incredibly desperate last ditch effort, since Logan knows how much Virgil hates talking over the phone, but he’s desperate. The phone rings softly in his ear. One ring, two, three, four—

Someone picks up.

“Virgil, oh my gosh, I’m so glad I reached you, I didn’t mean any of it when I—”

The voice that interrupts him does not belong to Virgil. “Hey, Logan, this is Patton.”

“Patton? What—where’s Virgil? Why do you have his phone? Is Virgil okay? Is he hurt?”

“He—he’s fine, Logan. He’s perfectly alright, but he wanted me to ask you to, um, to stop texting him. And I guess to stop calling now, too. Please. Sorry.”

“Can you at least tell him—”

“No, I really—I don’t think that’s my place, really, to share whatever it is you want to tell him. I think you need to tell him yourself, and only when he’s ready to see you. On his terms.”

“Patton, I can’t exactly do that if I don’t know where he is.” There’s a kind of stilted silence, where only the muffled mumbles of Patton’s voice make it over the receiver. Logan can just barely hear the faintest s and t sounds, but that’s it.

A soft inhale makes it across and Logan’s breath catches in his throat, but his hopes immediately falter when Patton’s voice is the one to return. “He doesn’t want to talk right now.”

“But I need to talk to him about—”

“He doesn’t want to hear it. I’m sorry, Logan, but I really have to stick with what Virgil wants here. I think you need to hang up now.”

“Patton, wait, please, I need to talk to Virgil, I need him to hear—” Click.

Logan is pretty sure that’s the sound of his heart splintering into pieces. He glances at the list of recent calls, almost none of them outgoing. Micah, Cassidy, Micah, Joy, the main office line, Micah, Micah, Micah, Cadmium. Micah likes to call him with updates about the local restaurant scene. Logan holds back tears as he switches over to his recent texts, all to Virgil. He slumps on the couch, reaching out a hand to steady himself with every passing Cadmium, Cadmium, Cadmium, a never-ending list chronicling three years that he threw away in a few seconds because he didn’t agree with Virgil’s career choices and drove away the only person who seems to actually like talking to him or tolerate—

Logan switches to his contacts list. It’s not terribly long, and it matches his incoming calls almost point for point. The only additions are his parents and Roman. Alex refuses to give out their phone number when they can just borrow signal from whoever’s nearby. Saving minutes, to put it in their own words. Tough to save what you never had in the first place, but Logan is hardly one to talk.

He quickly rules out most of the people from the office as well as the building itself, as he doesn’t need to bother his coworkers on their day off. His parents certainly don’t need to worry themselves with something so trivial as this, and Cadmium is out for obvious reasons. He could probably bug the newer interns, but he’s felt awkward talking to them ever since the main huddle with Roman, Micah, Alex, Joy, and Cassidy fizzled out. A few years’ work together, all down the drain. He tries Joy first, given that they have that candy bar nickname deal going—or they did, though it’s been a while since they last did that pas de deux—but she doesn’t answer.

“I guess I do talk to Roman sometimes,” Logan reasons to himself. “Nowhere to go but up, right? Rock bottom Roman, don’t wear it out. Already talking to myself, so jot that down, surely I should mark this as being my lowest of lows. Don’t call yourself Shirley.”

He keys in Roman’s number. There’s a ring, another, too many rings, way too many, and just as Logan is convinced he should hang up and sulk in silence some more, someone answers. Hopefully the person he actually called this time, and not a messenger middleman intent on crumbling his soul like a Nature Valley granola bar. Hopefully, even if it is another messenger, it’s not one of Roman’s rotating one night stands or something.

Logan really doesn’t know all that much about Roman.

“Go for Roman, what’s pop-rockin’?”

“Hello, this is Logan Walders, and did you steal that turn of phrase from Micah?”

“Ha! Please, Micah stole it from me. I’m the originator, he’s just a petty copycat.”

“Yes, great, very good, so the reason I called you—”

“Hey, can you believe the office is closed again? I mean, come on, right? Great news, yeah? I’ve been putting off this major project for, like, ever, and it’s not like I’m actually gonna use this free time, but hey, day off, you know? Hope we still get full pay.”

“Roman—”

“Plus, I know you’ve got those huge reports due up soon, and weren’t you trying to submit those forms for the training program before the early admission deadline?”

“Yes, but I wanted to ask you—”

“Or no, you already had the forms submitted, didn’t you? You were just waiting for Katie-Lee to give you the go-ahead, weren’t you?”

“ Miss Katie-Lee, and yes, but that isn’t why I—”

“Right, her, isn’t she great? Still can’t believe she gave me that promotion right after you, makes me think there was some kind of nepotism involved, since it came right after your triple boost up, y’know?”

“Roman!”

“What’s pop-rockin,’ my good man?”

“Roman, Virgil left.”

A beat of silence.

Another.

“Virgil did what?”

“Virgil—he—I said some stupid stuff about how he doesn’t work a quote unquote real job , and he walked out, and I don’t know what to do, and I can’t—”

“I’m on my way.”

“Wait, Roman, don’t just—” Click. Logan wonders whether he’ll ever be able to get through a phone call without having to hear that infernal noise against his will. Probably not any time soon, if ever.

So he sits. And he sulks. And he waits for the world to stop turning. And he sits. And he sits. And he sits and he sits and he sits and he sits and maybe a tiny little tear leaks out of his eye as he sits and he sulks and he wishes he could have Virgil beside him to make it all just go away. Like he did a couple days ago.

Eventually, there’s a knock on the door, and Logan just about leaps out of his skin before he realizes that Virgil wouldn’t be knocking, since he has his own key. Logan is not as fast in getting to the door as he could be once he realizes this.

Seeing Roman on the other side is more jarring than one might expect, until it’s considered what Roman has elected to wear on his day off.

An off the shoulder, deep ruby top, paired with a pale pink scarf, a plaid red jacket tied around his waist, and torn up dark grey leggings. To be honest, the high heeled white ankle boots just pull the whole look together. So maybe you can imagine Logan’s surprise when this is the first outfit he’s seen besides his own in days.

“Roman, what are you—how did you even know where my new address was?”

“Wow, you live like this?” Roman steps past Logan into the apartment, glancing around and ignoring Logan’s protests.

“I don’t—how did you get this address?”

“I make it my business to know where my coworkers live for impromptu surprise parties as well as emergencies, so there’s never time wasted trying to deal with travel apps and messages, y’know?”

“I never gave you clearance to see—”

“And I never asked, which was obviously the right move, as I’m here right now, when you so obviously need me.” Roman stops in front of the couch and turns to face Logan, holding his arms out to the side. Looking for a hug, apparently.

“What are you doing.”

“You need to hug it out.”

“I do not need to hug it out. What are you doing in my home.”

“Hug it out. I’m not leaving until you do.”

Logan throws his hands in the air and huffs, toeing the door shut and trudging his way into Roman’s boa constrictor hug. He freezes, melts into it for a split second, and pushes himself away. He also pushes away the urge to run back to the comfort of Roman’s arms, but we’re not talking about that right now. “So tell me how you got into my secure personal file without my permission or written consent.”

“Not important.”

“I really think it is, though.”

“Okay, but, like, it isn’t, though. What’s important here is what’s going on between you and Virgil.” Logan blinks, unaccustomed to Roman being the one to steer the conversation in the right direction. “So tell me what happened. Start with why you decided it wasn’t important that I hear about you getting engaged sooner, then skip ahead to why I’m here. Leave out the part about me accidentally-on-purpose stealing your address.”

Logan lowers himself to the couch again and lets it all out at once, trying not to notice how awful each word sounds as he hears it fall from his own mouth. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? It’s not like I can judge the jobs he chose to have, can I? I mean, he’s had these jobs longer than he’s known me, let alone how long we’ve been together. It’s all so stupid.”

“That’s not—it’s more complicated than that, and clearly you know it, or you wouldn’t have called me in the first place.”

“But I still shouldn’t have—”

“But you did, and you can’t take it back, and that’s okay, isn’t it? Because you would’ve had to talk about it sooner or later. You got it out of the way, and that’s all that really matters, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like the worst person in the world right now.”

“Low bar, but okay. You had the discussion—”

“More of a yelling match.”

“—and now you have to deal with the fallout. Do you know where he is right now?”

“Probably hating me and every word that’s ever had the misfortune of leaving my mouth.”

“Not a valid or accurate answer, my guy. You need to talk this out with him, and the longer you wait, the worse it’ll hurt when it heals.”

Logan cocks his head to the side and gives Roman a long look. “Since when were you allowed to be smart about this kind of thing?”

“Since it’s in my name. Roman-tic.”

“More like your name is in the word, I would say.”

“Well, anyway, you need to talk to him. Do you have an actual, legitimate idea of where he might be?”

“Somewhere with Patton, probably, since Patton picked up the last time I called Virgil’s phone.”

Roman jumps to his feet and bolts for the door, leaving a very confused Logan alone on the couch. “What’re you waiting for? Let’s go!”

“Go where?”

“Patton’s been my best friend since, like, diapers, basically. He doesn’t like to be on the phone when he’s on shift at the museum, so he’s probably at home. I think tonight’s his night with his kid, actually, but Ariel might be there, too. I’m over there, like, every third day. You should know that by now, I mean, we’ve had coffee together, like, so many times. Come on, man.”

Logan nods absently, his mind prompting him with a vague memory of when he saw Roman hanging out at the museum on that first real date with Virgil. Maybe he’s just a little too hysterical at the moment to keep track of the people he’s been friends with for over two years. It’s not as if Roman didn’t already mention Patton constantly before Logan even met Virgil. Logan just wasn’t listening back then.

He barely remembers to grab a jacket from the coat rack as he follows Roman out the door, shouldering it on as they thunder down the stairs. His new cardigan. How appropriate.

“My car’s right over there, you can hop in the passenger seat. It’s maybe a ten minute drive, tops, but you have to listen to my music. I’ve got a good rhythm going with this playlist right now.”

Logan complies, and most of the trip is just a blur as he runs over the possible scenarios that might play out here. Virgil hates him and dumps him and flees the country. Virgil hates him and dumps him and starts dating Patton. Virgil hates him and dumps him and starts dating Roman. Virgil hates him and dumps him and steals Miss Katie-Lee’s job to hold a sadistic kind of power over him. Virgil hates him and dumps him and that’s just how it’s going to be, and there’s nothing Logan can do about it.

It is not a very fun car ride.

Logan vaguely registers Roman shifting the car into park, but he’s too focused on the lines of cookie cutter houses to react to it. A bunch of prim little gardens along prim little buildings that probably hold prim little families that have never had prim little fights because their prim little parents hate their prim little husband’s prim little jobs.

He traces his eyes down the sidewalk, watching a squirrel chase an imaginary acorn. Maybe he’s actually watching the imaginary acorn roll up the tree looming over the road. Maybe the squirrel isn’t chasing anything at all. Who’s to say? Certainly not him.

“Logan?” Logan offers a vague grunt of acknowledgement. “Logan.”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“We’re here.”

“We are.”

“So you need to get out of the car now.”

“I do not need to do that.”

“You do.”

He does.

He takes his sweet time unbuckling and getting out, closing the car door as softly as possible behind him. “Whoops, ha, didn’t quite close all the way, let me just—”

“Logan,” Roman says firmly. He leans across the seat to close the door himself. “Go.”

Logan blows out a big breath with his cheeks puffed up, turning to face the prim little house—or is this one a little prim house? You know, the one with a cute little set of bright blue flowers around the personalized address sign to match the boxes of plumbagos and hydrangeas.

His feet, apparently more impatient than Roman, carry his body to the front door without his permission, and his finger lifts to the doorbell long before he notices how high his hopes have risen. He wonders whether someone could see them floating over his head if they looked close enough. The bell chimes a bright, lilting melody that rings in his ears, still echoing through the house when the door swings open to reveal Patton in pajama pants and bunny slippers.

“Hey, Logan.” There’s no cheer in his voice, and Logan thinks falling straight to the center of the earth sounds pretty good right about now. “What’re you doing here?”

“I, uh, Roman brought me.” Logan angles his chin toward the car, where Roman is sticking his head out the window.

“Hi, Patton!” he yells, waving his hand excitedly.

Patton waves back, then returns his focus to Logan, his demeanor shifting from cold to cheerful and back in an instant. “Virgil explicitly said he didn’t want you coming around. D’you remember that?”

“I know, I know, but just—can you give him a message for me?”

Patton folds his arms and clicks his tongue, running his eyes along the top of the doorframe. “I guess I could, but I can’t promise he’ll want to hear it.”

“I—I know that.” Logan hesitates, unsure how to say what he needs to say when he knows it’ll have to filter through Patton’s head, through Patton’s voice. Yeah, he trusts the guy, he’s gone out for coffee with him quite a few times before, but personal things are personal for a reason. He swallows. “I know he won’t want to hear it, but I still need to say it.”

“Might want to be quick about it. Think your ride’s getting kind of impatient.” Patton nods at the car, where Roman is enthusiastically dancing to a song Logan doesn’t recognize.

“Just—just tell him I’m really sorry, okay? I know that’s lame, and cheap, and doesn’t even begin to describe how awful and gross and terrible I feel about what I said—well, more how I said it, because I do think it’s a conversation we need to have eventually—but anyway, I need him to know I feel like complete crap for what I said and how I said it.

“I shouldn’t have been so harsh out of nowhere when he’s made it clear before that it’s not a conversation he’s ready to have yet, and I should’ve been more accepting of his terms, and I should’ve just accepted that I was having a rough day, and I unfairly took it out on him, and I shouldn't have blamed him, and I messed up so, so bad, and I know that, and I just really, really, really need him to know that I get that I made a mistake, and I was in the wrong, and I just need to talk to him again, even if it’s for him to yell and scream at me and tell me how awful I am because obviously that’s what I deserve, or I wouldn’t be here.” Logan exhales, a big, loud, broken noise, and shakes his head, and stares at his shoes, and wishes he were on Neptune right about now.

He glances to the side when he feels something soft and heavy come to rest on his shoulder. Patton’s hand. He follows the line up to Patton’s shoulder, his chin, his eyes, and pretends not to notice the water swimming there. Or wait, no, maybe that’s not Patton’s eyes welling up. Maybe it’s Logan’s. Neptune is only about twelve earth years away.

“It’ll be okay,” Patton murmurs, pulling Logan into a careful hug. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise.” Logan tries to stay stiff, to not accept the embrace from the person keeping him from the only guy in the world he wants to see right now, but he can’t really help himself. He buries his nose in Patton’s hair and sniffs and furrows his brow and tries to hold in the soft sobs as he chokes for air.

“Logan?” Logan is pretty sure his heart stops beating right about then.

He looks up and over Patton’s shoulder to see Virgil standing around the corner, arms wrapped around himself as if to keep warm. “Virgil, I—”

“Don’t, not yet,” Patton murmurs, pushing Logan away. He glances back at Virgil, his gaze a silent question, and Virgil lifts his chin ever so slightly. Patton looks to Logan. “I’ll be out here, give you some privacy.” His voice up until now, save for the initial coldness, has been relatively soft, but his grip on Logan’s arm is suddenly unbearably tight as he yanks him closer. Logan tries not to shudder at the feeling of Patton hissing a warning directly into his ear. “If I hear so much as a peep of distress from Virgil, I will not hesitate to have you thrown to the curb in ten seconds flat, so don’t you dare try me.”

Logan’s eyes go wide and he nods, flattening himself against the wall as Patton strides out. Logan glances at Virgil and is pretty sure he can feel his heart literally imploding. “Hey, Cad—Virgil.”

“Hey.” It’s all Logan can do not to sprint to Virgil and wrap him in a hug, but he manages to restrain himself. For now, at least. “You can come in, I guess.” Virgil turns on his heel and shuffles deeper into the house—presumably to the living room, where Logan follows silently.

In a big room with vaulted ceiling and comfy furniture, Virgil slumps on one of the larger couches and stares blankly at Logan, who stays standing. “Well? Say your piece already so you can go. What do you want to talk about?”

“I—everything, I think. I wanted to apologize.”

“Great. Do that and go.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Underwhelming. Great to see you again. Bye bye.”

“Wait, I didn’t—that’s not how I wanted this to go.”

“Then why don’t you tell me how you did want it to go, because so far, I’m not impressed.”

Logan forces a deep breath through his lungs and prays it’ll be enough to keep himself going. Somehow, he doubts it. “I was wrong to go off at you, and I get that, and I’m sorry. I still think it’s something we do need to talk about, but I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like I did, so I’m sorry for doing that to you.”

“Cool.” Virgil’s stiff response hurts worse than if he would just lash out or scream or something, and Logan kind of wants to scream himself.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You don’t have anything you want to say to me?”

“Logan.” Logan hates how cold his voice is. “I’m not going to apologize for walking out on an attack on my life choices just because it would soothe your ego.”

“Well, no, I wouldn’t expect you to do that, but aren’t you mad at me? Don’t you have anything to get off your chest?”

“Why yes, Logan, I am mad. Thank you for asking, and for considering my perspective for once. I’ll make sure not to let it get to my head. Or did you just wear that cardigan to make me feel better? Aw, Logan, you shouldn’t have.”

“Okay, so you don’t want to yell at me? Get loud, blow up, start screaming?”

“Not really. I know you made the choice to be a jerk, so I’ve made the choice not to deal with it. Pretty simple, really. I’d expect a rocket scientist genius like you to be able to figure it out, even without doing any actual rocket science.”

Logan elects to ignore that little jab. “You don’t want to yell, to let it out? It’s not important enough to you that you vocalize your anger? It’s not important enough for you to fight over it?”

“No.”

“ I’m not important enough to you that you’d want to fight over it?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s familiar, isn’t it? Because when we were twisting my words around, you sure didn’t care about the letter of the language, did you?” Logan can feel himself getting hysterical now, louder by the second, but he doesn’t care. “Does it bother you to have your words twisted around and thrown back at you like that?”

“Sure it does, but why should you care? Not like it’ll harm your precious little office job.” Virgil’s calm, steady voice is only that much more infuriating, and Logan wants to throw something.

“Don’t you want to scream? To yell, to tear me to pieces?”

“Why?”

“Come on!” Logan is desperate now, balling his hands into fists at his sides, working the muscles in his jaw and wishing Patton would follow through on his little threat right about now. “I’m being such an ass to you right now, why won’t you fight back? Yell, scream, tell me how awful I am to say all this shit to you, about you!”

“Do you want me to do that?”

“Stop being so damn calm and just tell me how much I suck, how awful I am, how hard I insulted you, how hard I am insulting you just by being here when you told me to stay away and why I’m in the wrong and you deserve so much better than a pompous perfectionist who can’t handle even the smallest thing going wrong in his perfect world without tearing the whole production to pieces because one single variable has the nerve to go against the arbitrary grain!”

Virgil doesn’t even blink, his expression painfully neutral. Fewer emotions on his features than there are ripples on a frozen pond on a windless day.

“Scream! Yell! Curse or break or something or anything, I don’t care, but give me some kind of reaction, tell me we jumped into this engagement thing too soon and too fast, tell me I was wrong to blow up at you like that and like this so we can just get it over with and you can dump me and tell me how much you hate me and we can both be done with this mistake of a relationship!”

A painful beat of silence. Logan relaxes his fists, breathing heavily and wishing his face weren’t as pink as he knows it is. It always gets so blotchy, so messy, so horrible on the rare occasions he gets all worked up crying like this, an irrational, ridiculous mockery of his usual put-together facade. There’s a reason he doesn’t let himself break down like this when he can help it.

Evidently, he couldn’t help it this time.

He can’t even bring himself to look at Virgil, just trying to focus on a fiber in the carpet and sniffling quietly.

“You think this relationship is a mistake?” Virgil’s voice is soft, gentle, hesitant, and it’s enough to bring Logan to his knees. He sinks to the ground, ducking his chin to his chest and just letting his shoulders shake in the weighted silence. “Logan, do you really think we’re a mistake?” He feels his whole body shudder when Virgil’s fingers graze under his chin. “Logan, look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Logan, look at me.”

“I can’t.”

Virgil doesn’t seem to hear this, or if he does, he doesn’t care, as he presses his knuckles softly against Logan’s adam’s apple. Logan chokes back a sob. “You think that us being together is a mistake?”

“I—I don’t—I can’t—”

“Hey. Hey, Logan, look.” Virgil waves his other hand in front of Logan’s face, the glint of the light catching on the ring around his finger. “Look at this, look, look here, you see?” He pulls the ring to the tip of his finger, not quite removing it all the way as he holds it before Logan’s eyes to show off the inscription. “‘I’ll bring you the moon.’ Remember when you promised me that?”

Logan hiccoughs. “I—yeah, yeah, I do. I do.”

“So you remember that you haven’t followed through on that yet.”

“I do.”

“So you know that this is just one little road block on a long trip that we’ve agreed to take together, and you know that I don’t think this is a mistake.”

“I don’t—”

“Logan.” Virgil’s voice is soft but clipped, pleading. “I need you to tell me that you know we aren’t a mistake.”

“I know we aren’t a mistake,” Logan tells the floor.

“Tell it to me .”

“I know we aren’t a mistake,” Logan tells Virgil’s left ear.

“To me, Logan. Please?”

“I—” Logan hesitates, his voice catching when he sees that glimmer in Virgil’s eyes. “I know we’re not—I know we aren’t a mistake.”

“Good.” Virgil’s voice sounds about as broken as Logan feels, and he slides off the couch to join Logan on the floor, wrapping him in a loose hug.

It’s not as extravagant as Roman’s, not as steadying as Patton’s, but it feels like home, and there on the floor in Virgil’s arms, Logan exhales.

#labhwrites #mine #i'll bring you the moon #ibytm

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chiseler · 5 years

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A Perfect 46: Trixie Friganza

In the late 19th century, theatrical careers for women were considered about on a par with prostitution. Maybe a few steps below that in terms of social respectability. So in 1889 when 19 year-old Delia O'Callahhan, then living in Cincinnati with her family, earned a spot as a chorus girl in a traveling production of The Pearl of Peking, she didn’t tell her mother and didn’t officially join the show until it moved on to the next town. By playing it low-key she hoped to avoid bringing any unnecessary shame upon her family. She’d been working as a counter girl in a small shop, struggling to support her mother and three younger sisters on her meager wages. Given she had some singing and acting ability, and given the theater would pay her three times what she was earning at the shop, it was a decision based solely on simple economics.

Well, despite her best efforts to duck the radar, her mother found out what she was up to and was none too pleased, immediately contacting the police in Cleveland. The cops dragged O'Callahhan’s out of the theater and dropped her before a judge, who asked her to explain herself. O'Callahhan’s recounting of the above justification was apparently so compelling the judge sent a note back home to her mother, explaining that Deliah was doing the right thing by her family.

After adopting the name Trixie Friganza (“Trixie” being a nickname bestowed on her by a friend and “Friganza” being her mother’s maiden name) she spent the next twenty-eight years moving from the chorus to supporting roles to leads in musical comedies. She was aided by her strong stage presence, her clean but husky voice, and her tendency to learn everyone’s lines, allowing her to fill in for any other cast member at a moment’s notice.

At five-foot-four and 180 pounds, Friganza was a comparatively large woman, but it not only didn’t bother her, she took it as a point of pride, describing herself as “a perfect 46.” She argued among other things that large women are better suited for comedy, and encouraged women in the audience to have a healthy and relaxed body image. Such an early proto-feminist stance was rare and borderline radical for the times, but was only one of several social and political causes that drove her. She was an outspoken proponent of sexual equality, active in the suffrage movement, often spoke at rallies and protests, and wasn’t known for holding her tongue during interviews. As her fame as a musical comedy actress grew, she even made occasional (though well-disguised) pronouncements onstage. Another pet cause was giving the poor access to art, pressing whatever show she was in at the time to offer a free performance for local poor working families.

Starting around 1906 Friganza began developing a one-woman act she would take to vaudeville when not involved in a play. The solo routines, which ran under a variety of names, involved a string of comedic songs interspersed with a bit of mild social commentary and some self-deprecating humor, often aimed directly at a female audience. (As she would later tell an interviewer, if a woman can readily make another woman laugh, it’s solid proof she has a pretty decent understanding of her own sex.) On the surface her act seems a juggle of contradictions, as what she presented onstage seemed to run headlong into her personal life and public activism. Myself I think she was being far more subversive than her audiences may have realized. Although her big musical hit was “No Wedding Bells for Me,” she’d actually been married briefly three times, and despite reportedly never being shy of beaus, in her act she often bemoaned her struggles to find a man. And in the face of her outspoken activism and talk about body image, most of her remaining jokes revolved around her weight. So while presenting an act that dealt with commonplace female fears and neuroses, she undercut it at every step with who she really was.

Friganza’s show was a huge vaudeville hit, and by 1917 she’d all but abandoned the straight theater. She played the Palace in New York an astonishing 15 times, headlining most of them. She was considered as big a comedy star at the time as Fannie Brice or Chaplin. In 1929 her act, “My Bag O’ Tricks” was filmed by Vitaphone, and Friganza, then almost 60, proved she was still a relaxed and magnetic performer. In the naughty opening monologue she plays a woman who, in quasi-musical terms, tries to tell a friend about a wild drunken night she’d spent with her lover, but since her young son is in the room she’s forced to spell everything out. Her delivery is wonderfully smooth considering the tricky, tongue-twisty nature of the material. Following that, she flips a cello over and begins beating out a primitive rhythm while chanting a mildly racy song which opens, “Poor little Lula/Went down to Honolulu/Where she learned the hula…” (Many things happen to Lula until she hurts her “wikki wakki woo.”) The following year Vitaphone filmed another of her acts, “Strong and Willing,” and has since included it on Vitaphone Varieties, Vol. 2.

Not surprisingly, following her success both in theater and on the vaudeville stage, Hollywood seemed the next logical step, but the reality seems as ironic as her stage show. In spite of her fame, when she began appearing in films in the mid-’20s it was like starting all over again, minus the talk with the judge and the letter to her mom. While other big comparable vaudeville stars like, say, W.C. Fields entered films with top billing, Friganza was relegated to small, often uncredited support roles in silents and shorts, usually playing dowagers, aunts, mothers, and neighbors. In 1930 she did offer a splendid co-starring turn as the domineering mother of a would-be movie queen in Buster Keaton’s Free and Easy, but such roles were rare. She left vaudeville around 1932 when it was pretty well dead for everyone anyway, and despite concentrating on film the roles didn’t get much bigger, and only grew more sparse. In the 1930 talkie remake of Tod Browning’s The Unholy Three she plays an uncredited pet store customer, and in William Wellman’s 1937 A Star is Born she joined a glorious cast only to play another uncredited role.

Due to increasing health troubles (mostly arthritis), Friganza retired from everything in 1940 and moved to a convent just outside Pasadena. There she taught drama to students at the convent’s school and was quickly forgotten by everyone else. She lived at the convent until her death in 1955, and remains today a testament to the power of technology. She was huge in her day, forward thinking, sharp and hilarious, but the performances that made her huge were brief and ephemeral. As with so many huge vaudevillians who never fully cracked Hollywood, the lasting film record to remind us who she was is so spotty there’s little left to keep her memory alive. Which, as with so many others, is a sad loss. by Jim Knipfel

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dominionleathershop · 6 years

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Status - Dec 5, 2018

OK all, I am going to be posting a status here and I will be putting a date on it and listing social media contacts and everything in one post. So you will see some repeated info at the bottom (that is obviously needed for the future)

Updates:

I took some time to look at the following sites:

bdsmlr.com ( tumblr ripoff, with massive stability problems, and a Terms of service that is sketchy)

sharespace.com (huge stability problems, might be able to be used to replace tumblr, but the stability issue kepted me from really using it)

swarmr.com (tumblr rippoff in an even more basic version, less than bdsmlr, no information on who runs it and why)

Nothing as of yet was a good sub for Tumblr

Status of Dominion Leather Tumblr

Well, this is fairly easy. I will be here up to and beyond the Dec 17 date. At this time, we are unsure of how their “censorship” will occur. Entire blogs vanishing...or just content. If its just content, I might be able to survive since I can avoid posting “adult” content. (assuming they clean up the algorithm, as I have had simple leather collars show up as NSFW). This is a wait and see the situation as far as what happens HERE.

Recreating a new Blog...not on Tumblr

This is where we have a hard time. Tumblr is unique in its physical design. Finding a replacement for it will be hard on multiple levels:

Tumblr brings the following (which is a large benefit):

Mobile App

Existing Large Audience

Long Form text posts as well as short ones

Ability to respond to people on posts in public

Ability to message people privately

All of the messaging is very easy to perform

I have yet to find anything that meets these requirements. I could achieve numerous pieces of it...but not all. For instance, I could create a new “Wordpress Blog” site that is essentially a child of my main site. It would do some of them, but not all of them.

I honestly...do NOT know what I could do away from Tumblr. There are some others that supposedly do it like something called Pillofort...but its currently down. :( I am happy to hear other ideas.

I mean it. Do you have ideas...of something that meets all of the above items...possibly minus the existing large audience. I am an IT guy...so I get things :)

Mastodon Social Network

I did create a new social network (I paid for it). It is on a platform called Mastodon. Now that I am using it, it is essentially Twitter. There are some subtleties to it that are a cool thing. I own it, and I can have this social network as our own walled garden, or I can allow connections to other Mastodon systems.

You can access it at https://dominionleather.masto.host LINK

Will this stay forever, no idea. This was a test, to explore...can’t hurt to try.

Already Existing Locations on the Interwebs

I have my already existing Social Media Locations:

STORE - DominionLeather.etsy.com main WEBSITE - DominionLeatherShop.com FetLife – DominionLeather (https://fetlife.com/users/3535308) Facebook – DominionLeather (https://www.facebook.com/DominionLeather/) Instagram – DominionLeatherShop (https://www.instagram.com/dominionleathershop/) Pinterest – DominionLeather (https://www.pinterest.com/dominionleather/) Twitter – DominionLeather (https://twitter.com/DominionLeather)

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wenevergotusedtoegypt · 6 years

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I think you once mentioned that you had a good friend who was male (I could be wrong). After becoming frum did you maintain your relationship with your male friends or did things change? If so, was it a difficult adjustment? As far as I know, frum people don’t really hang out with members of the opposite sex. I’ve spoken to Baal teshuvas whose stated that it’s easy for guys to develop romantic feelings for girls they’re friends with. Do you agree?

Wow, you have a pretty good memory, because I haven’t seen the person you’re referring to in around 4.5 years.

I ironically didn’t really have any male friends until I started becoming frum. Two close male friends were a huge catalyst in the process of my becoming frum, and I also had a few other more casual male friends in my social circle throughout college. I have no contact with the person you’re thinking of. The other formerly close one I haven’t seen in 4 years and only vaguely keep up with now and then on Facebook. The casual friends were just that, casual friends, so those relationships faded quickly after I finished college.

I’ll say this: friends of the opposite sex are just not a good idea. I can’t say that I regret those past friendships, because they made me who I am today, but I would unequivocally not pursue similar ones knowing what I know now. It’s a recipe for at least one person getting hurt, if not more.

In retrospect I realize that my relationship with the person you’re remembering was extremely toxic for me. I had very strong, unreciprocated feelings for him for years. I should have cut ties as soon as I knew those feelings weren’t returned, but I kept up the relationship out of a combination of those exact feelings and the message often put out in today’s society that if you want a romantic relationship with a person and just their friendship isn’t enough for you, you don’t actually value them as a person, and you should be able to healthily ignore any attraction you feel (which, if attraction were purely physical, might be a more defensible premise, but romantic emotions are a big deal). What resulted was a relationship where he got all the emotional and practical benefits of a significant other (minus the physical - we were shomer negiah) without the commitment. And I got a false sense of intimacy (even intellectually knowing we weren’t a couple - especially during seminary, most of our hangouts could have been dates if not for the fact that it was understood they weren’t) that prevented me from being able to move on or being truly open to meeting someone else. I was essentially being taken advantage of. I don’t mean that he maliciously or manipulatively set out to do so - I believe he genuinely cared about me in a platonic way, or at least thought he did - but at the end of the day, that’s what the relationship was. He got the real deal of what he needed until those needs could be fulfilled by his now-wife, and I got a cheap artificial substitute that kept me around until I’d inflicted enough harm on myself for things to implode.

And yeah, things aren’t always that dramatic. But in my experience, the frequency of romantic feelings in male-female friendships is extremely high, and at the very least someone usually ends up getting hurt on a minor level (if you think it doesn’t happen, it’s probably the other person who’s hurting). In my college social circle with 5 women and 4 men, that I know of (not ruling out other things I didn’t know about), there were 3 instances of unreciprocated feelings, 3 brief relationships that ended with one party deciding they weren’t into the other after all, and only one long-term relationship, which only came about after literally years of drama and hurt feelings.

It’s not just that it’s easy for people (not only men) to develop feelings in these friendships. It’s that it’s natural. It’s normal. When you spend a lot of time with someone, sharing with and supporting each other, and there is even a bit of physical attraction there, it is completely normal to develop feelings. And it’s not healthy to pretend otherwise or to pretend like it’s unlikely. People get hurt all the time in these friendships. You do hear the odd story where it was mutual and they figured it out and ended up together. But that’s not the majority of cases.

It’s not a good idea.

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cecphotos · 3 years

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Fall in Death Valley

Price: $950, Optional Post-Processing After Workshop for $125

Join me November 5-7th, 2021 in Death Valley for a multi-day immersive experience in one of the most unique landscapes in the world. Spend 4 Golden Hours and 2 nights exploring the vast arid landscapes that the park has to offer. As one of my favorite areas to photograph, I truly hope you’ll join me for an unforgettable photographic experience.

Scroll down for all the details

About The Workshop

During this workshop, I will guide you to some of the most interesting areas of the park, some well known and some hidden gems. Rippled sand dunes, multi-colored badlands and salt flats of surprising patterns are just a few of the incredible opportunities for translating emotion and vision through our photographic medium. I am dedicated to providing the best instruction on all aspects of the art of landscape photography. Whether you are just beginning or are a seasoned pro, I am ready to help you move forward with your photography as all levels are welcome to participate. Together we will create an unforgettable photographic experience this fall.

Itinerary

Tentative Schedule: Since this is a field workshop, we will remain flexible to weather and light conditions. The final itinerary with exact times will be made available on Day 1. Lodging, airfare, transportation, park fees and meals are the responsibility of the attendee.

DAY 1: Friday, November 5th

12:00 PM Meet in Parking Lot of Furnace Creek Visitor Center 1:00 PM Depart for Sunset Shoot, Blue Hour, and Quick Night Photography Session 6:30 PM Depart back to Hotel for dinner

DAY 2: Saturday, November 6th

5:30 AM Meet in Parking Lot of Furnace Creek Visitor Center for sunrise shoot 9:00 AM Return To Hotel for Mid Day Meals and Rest 1:00 PM Meet For Afternoon/Sunset 1:30 PM Depart for Sunset Shoot 6:30 PM Return to hotel

DAY 3: Sunday, November 7th (Daylight Savings)

4:30 AM Meet for Sunrise Shoot 7:00 AM Move to 2nd Location 9:00 AM Workshop Concludes for easy hotel checkout

*Weather is a huge a factor on good shooting conditions. The schedule will adjust to meet these conditional opportunities as they present themselves.

Transportation

No Transportation will be provided to, from or during the workshop. All attendees are responsible for arranging their own transportation. Any car will be sufficient for our outings, but a vehicle with higher clearance may allow you more ease on some roads throughout the park outside of our workshop.

Airports

• The nearest airport is in Las Vegas. McCarran International Airport (LAS) is about two hours away from Furnace Creek. • Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is about five hours away from Furnace Creek.

Rental Cars

Many options are available for renting a vehicle of any kind from either airport listed above. Any car will be sufficient for our outings, but a vehicle with higher clearance could make driving easier on some roads in the park.

Accomodation

Hotels:

The most convenient and recommended location to stay is with the Oasis at Death Valley in the Furnace Creek area for both the Ranch and the Inn. The Oasis is the most expensive and the Ranch is a bit less. Many rooms are available at this time, but they do fill fast so don’t wait to purchase accommodation. There are also room available in StovePipe Wells, which is about a 20-30 minute drive to the north of Furnace Creek. I’d only recommend staying here if the Oasis is full.

Camping:

Camping can be done at this time of the year but can be fairly cold in the early hours of the morning. Furnace Creek Campground is conveniently located and it takes reservations in advance online and by phone. There are options for backcountry camping nearby if your vehicle has at least 9 inches of clearance, 4x4 not necessary. There is also camping available at the StovePipe Wells Campground. RV Camping is available at both Furnace Creek and StovePipe Wells. Showers are usually available for $10 per person at the Furnace Creek Resort.

Things to Bring

It’s always good to know what equipment you need. If you have any questions about the necessities I’m here to help, but here is a list of essentials and recommendations for the trip:

Equipment:

DSLR / Mirrorless camera and lenses

DSLR or Mirrorless camera is an essential tool to get the most out of the workshop and your photos

Wide Angle Lens - 12-24mm (Faster lenses are better for night photography, but not essential)

Mid to Long Range Zoom - 24-70, 70-200, 100-400 are great ranges to capture intimate scenes

Tripod (Sturdy as the Fall months can have very strong winds)

All filters you might have, a Circular Polarizer is a great tool

Remote / cable camera shutter

Needed for tack sharp images and long exposures

Several memory cards

You never want to run out of space for pictures. Bring several or empty at the end of the day

Spare camera batteries

Another thing you never want to run out of in the field. Bring several fully charged with you and charge over night

Head torch (for any night or low light walking and shooting)

Raincover for camera and camera bag cold come in handy in some rare cases of rain or high wind!

Small Camping Chair or Stool for comfort

Clothing Items:

Many layers - It can be quite cold in the morning hours, but usually mild to warm in the middle of the day. I’ll have more on the weather 1 week prior to our meeting date

Gloves, Warm Hat, warm socks

Sunglasses, Large Brim hat, and Sunscreen are recommended for the daytime

Hiking Shoes\Boots are recommended

FOOD:

Food, Water, and all other essentials. No Food or water will be provided before, during or after workshop; unless otherwise stated in the itinerary.

Plan ahead and have plenty of water available as it is very dry and can warm quickly on clear days.

Physical Requirements

Hiking will be required, but the hikes will be around 1-2 miles at most. The Sand Dunes and Badlands provide the most strenuous of the hikes, but are moderate at best. Typically shooting is done within a mile of the car and most hiking should be flat in elevation. We’ll be sure to move at a fair pace and no student will be left behind, but please consider that there will be walking involved and participants should be prepared physically.

What is Included and Not Included

INCLUDED:

• Tuition • Expert instruction in the field with Chris Ewen Crosby • Video Introduction and Presentation Prior to Workshop • Guidance to key compositional attributes throughout the park

NOT INCLUDED:

• Flights and transportation • Lodging • Meals • Park entrance fees • Travel and cancellation insurance

Payment, Fees and Terms

COST: The cost of the workshop is $950 and includes everything listed in the “What’s Included” Section

PAYMENT: A non-refundable deposit of $250 is required to reserve a space on this workshop. The final balance of $950 is due and payable 30 days before the workshop begins. Full payment is due at that time or thereafter, and there will be no refunds on the full amount owed if you cancel after final payment. However, if another client happens to fill your space, you will receive a full refund, minus your non-refundable deposit. Payment(s) can be made using the Add To Cart button of this web page using a credit card via Paypal and Stripe. If you would like to pay by another method, use the contact form on this page to ask Chris about options for sending a personal check or bank transfer.

COVID-19 ADVISORY:

In accordance with state and local public health organizations, Chris Ewen Crosby Photography & Samy's Photo School are following all COVID-19 related protocols. All participants will be asked to maintain social distancing protocols of 6 feet from anyone not in their household. Face coverings are mandatory for all. The class size for this event has been limited to only 5 students to further minimize the risks associated with COVID-19. Please do not attend this class if you are experiencing any symptoms related to COVID-19 including fever of 100.4 or higher, cough, shortness of breath, loss of sense of taste/smell, fatigue, diarrhea, muscle aches and headache.

Participants will be required to sign a COVID-19 addendum and assumption of risk form

CANCELLATIONS: Cancellations require me to re-open enrollment and/or to engage in additional promotional efforts to fill the workshop on a short notice, therefore, my policy is that there will be no refunds of the deposit. The balance (minus the non-refundable deposit) is refundable up to the 60-day deadline. Thereafter, the balance is also non-refundable, with one exception: if we find participants to fill all canceled spaces and the workshop is ultimately full when it begins, then you will receive a refund of the balance within two weeks of the workshop’s conclusion. The deposit remains non-refundable. All refunds are subject to a 6% processing fee. I highly recommend that you obtain travel/cancellation insurance for all workshops to protect yourself against unusual circumstances.

PARK FEES: All attendees of the workshop are required to pay the National Park Entrance fees upon entry to the park and are not included in Workshop Fee. Further instruction will be provided to students prior to their visit.

Death Valley Entrance Fee - per vehicle - $30.00

This permit allows all persons traveling with the permit holder in one single private, non-commercial vehicle (car/truck/van) to leave and re-enter the park as many times as they wish during the 7-day period from the date of purchase.

Death Valley Entrance Fee - per motorcycle - $25.00

This permit allows persons traveling on one motorcycle to leave and re-enter the park as many times as they wish during the 7-day period from the date of purchase.

Death Valley Entrance Fee - per individual - $15.00

This permit allows a single individual traveling on foot or individuals traveling on one bicycle to leave and re-enter the park as many times as they wish during the 7-day period from the date of purchase.

Death Valley Annual Pass - $55.00

Annual pass providing free entrance to Death Valley for 12 months from the date of purchase

Curriculum

Curriculum will be catered to each individual’s skill level and may vary from student to student. Below you’ll find some common topics based upon different skill levels.

BEGINNER-INTERMEDIATE

I am a big believer in fundamentals in the development of any skill, photography is no different. I start all my workshops by ensuring that we have a good foundation to build on. Below you’ll find some sample topics:

Shooting in Manual Mode

Understand The Exposure Triangle and how each affects the image (aperture, ISO, shutter speed)

How to Meter and Expose for best results

Using light for better captures

Compositions made simple and easy

Understanding and using camera settings and menu options

ND’s, Polarizer and Grads - Which to use and when to use it

Tips and Tricks for easier workflows and shooting experience in the field

INTERMEDIATE - ADVANCED

Those who have a greater understanding of their cameras will get some more advanced shooting techniques to focus on light, location and making good decisions to make the most of the variables. Some advanced topics are listed below:

Exposure bracketing and blending

Focus stacking for depth of field and sharpness

Creative blending to bring the vision to life

Composing for interest, depth and focus

Conclusions and Expectations

SUMMARY

Your satisfaction, enjoyment and educational experience is important to me. The goal of this workshop is to allow you to further understand your camera, composition and artistic expression while using the amazing landscapes of Death Valley. I want to ensure that everyone comes away with great instruction as well as a great experience in nature. Most importantly, we are going to have fun! Having fun is a critical part of any good photography adventure. When you have fun, your mind is free to expand and learn.

POST PROCESSING

Post Processing is not included with this workshop. You can purchase an additional 3 hours of post processing instruction with this workshop that will be completed following the workshop. Editing is done via group video session in the following weeks from the workshop. It is recorded and available for download shortly after the session is complete. Instruction is given in both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Topics of post processing will vary upon your skill level. Common topics below:

Lightroom and Photoshop Workflows

Maximizing your RAW captures

Keys to clean editing

Stacking for depth of field and noise

Use of Luminosity Masks

Blending methods

Finishing an Image

and much more...

This workshop is powered by

Learn More About Chris

Chris is a photographer and educator based in Long Beach, CA. It is a desire to teach, love for the outdoors, and photography which resulted in his role as a landscape photographer and educator. When not sharing his photography knowledge he can be found exploring nature’s beauty in his endless search for perfect light and discovery.

Learn More About Chris’s Workshops

Chris’s workshops cover a wide-range of photographic instruction and all its aspects, but also put an emphasis on having fun to enable creativity to thrive. Chris puts the emphasis your development as a photographer, incorporating infield fundamentals and cutting edge techniques to help you find your vision and bring it to life in post-processing. Whether you are just beginning or a blooming professional, Chris will help you to create meaningful and inspiring photographs while leading you down a path towards finding your own creativity.

#Death Valley #Workshop #Group Workshop #Photo Tour #Photo Adventure #Landscape #Photography #Photography Workshop #Desert #Sand Dunes #Salt Flats

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ren1327 · 3 years

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Stay Away From Lake Derek: A Sentry Prequel

Hi guys, this is my first creepypasta that would be my jumping off point for The Sentry series. I thought I'd post the first three chapters here (minus The Midnight Tea Party). I really like my series and want to give it some more love here. And if you guys like it, please find more on my AO3 under Original Works!

The Sentry series follows three young men: Cole; an adhd boy who's often about to be killed by his own curiosity, Jacob; his best friend who is trying to escape his past trauma and make something new, and Mac, thier schoolmate turn friend desperately trying to find a sense of normal as he find himself shifting into a murderous beast nightly. They try to come to terms with losing thier humanity and escaping the sights of a Wendigo and his human followers. They are taken in by Grayson; an exiled fae prince turned sentry of a sealed doorway between worlds, Jasper; his literal man-eating southern husband, Mac's cousin Paige; a badass barista and her sleepy bat-shapeshifting partner, Toffee, and later a mysterious hybrid humanoid named Kai, among many familiar myths and legends known through out the united states and the world.

CW: Violence, Gore, HS senior aged boys being dumbasses.

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His mom had just got a new job as a deputy at a sheriff's office in a town surrounded by thick woods on one side and the coast of Washington state some miles west of Victoria. The town wasn't too big, but not staggeringly small. They had a Walmart and the drive to the city wasn't too hard to manage.

His new school was a one-story building with a gym, a computer lab, a standard size library and about eight classrooms. So, getting to class was quick and easy, the only downside being no official cafeteria, but a fully stocked kitchen. The food was often delivered to the home rooms, where they would report to for their lunch break and free period.

Another plus was that they only had four classes a day, so the students were able to arrive at 10, have lunch, then start the one-hour classes. They had our forty-minute home room, where they would gather supplies for the day, finish homework, catch up, use the bathroom, hear school announcements, and watch the local news on donated TVs. Then the first of their five-minute change of classroom started. Being a small school with under one hundred students, it was easily managed by both staff and students.

Cole, luckily, already had a friend to help him get around.

Jacob Bennett had been his friend since he was a boy. Despite the very religious and severe upbringing, Jacob was colorful and kind. Then he had been taken from his parents and placed with his Uncle Tristan. Tristan had taken Jacob as far as he could to Seattle, then moved farther as an opportunity to give Jacob a new outlook and the ability to start over.

Cole knew Jacob needed this change, and despite the many years that passed, Cole never made any more friends.

So when his mother told him she would go as a consultant for a year, Cole begged to go and see his friend. Esperanza Fletcher-Ruiz had counted on Cole coming along for the ride and told him her new apartment had two rooms so he wouldn’t have to stay behind with his grandmother. The moment he saw his blond friend, now delightfully chubby with freckles doted over his honey toned shoulders and cheeks, as opposed to sallow and thin, Cole knew he would be okay.

Jacob let Cole know the rules over the phone; how to easiest navigate school life and mostly, who was who and how to connect. And who to avoid.

Cole’s first day had been pretty nice. He had connected with a few teachers, and even made some acquaintances.

During fourth period, he was packing up his history notes when he noticed…her.

She was willowy, thin and pretty, but a little on the shorter side, with long dark hair that hid some of her face. She was still writing in her journal. The teacher had long gone already, and the school would be closed soon for the night. Cole adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

"Hey, um, class is over." He called.

She didn't move except her scribbling.

"Hey?" Cole called again; now nervous he might have to talk to her even more. He didn't like talking to others if he could avoid it.

He felt Jacob’s warm hand grab his wrist and yank him away. “Hey, yeah, no. Do not talk to her.”

"What? Why?" He asked, rubbing his wrist.

"That Marla Gutierrez. Her Grandpa is scary as hell." He explained as they walked to the bus stop. They lived a few stops away and luckily were only a floor apart in the apartment building.

Once they paid and took their seats, Jacob continued. "Rumor is the old man killed his wife and son and kidnapped Marla. She never ever talks. Like ever!"

"That can't be true. Wouldn't the cops have taken him away?" Cole asked, knowing how much Jacob liked tall tales and gossip. "Come on, Jake, you don't believe in that stuff."

"They can't prove it." He said with a huff.

"DNA test on her?" The speckled boy countered.

"Well...okay, you got me there. But what if he killed her parents. His son went missing and washed up on the lake shore in pieces. They said a bear did it...but you never know." He said in a spooky voice.

"Lake? As in Lake Derek?" He asked.

"Yeah! Lots of kids go there to mess around. Speaking of which...Wanna go tonight?" Jacob asked, cheeks a little rosy. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

As much as Cole hated socializing, he was curious. Jacob had talked about a new friend in the last few months.

“This Dom guy?” Cole asked, a little flare of jealously igniting in his gut.

“He doesn’t like that name.” Jacob said, smoothing a lock of hair behind his ear. “But trust me, you’ll love him.”

They went to Lake Derek, parking by a chain link fence with a huge hole cut into it, duct tape wrapped around the lose wires to protect clothes and flesh from the cut metal.

Sneaking through, they came upon a huge bonfire and several people standing around, drinking from a couple of kegs and coolers filled with wine coolers and sodas. There were even a few beanbag chairs thrown onto a tarp as the occupants passed around a gun shaped bong.

Jacob snapped Cole out of his stupor.

"Cole, meet Macrae. But call him Mac. This tall jerk was my only saving grace I had when I first got here." Jacob said, motioning to the tall teen next to him.

Cole shook the stranger's hand. So this was the boy who had soothed Jacob’s transition.

The guy was tall, with dry, most likely dyed blond hair and eyes that held blackout contacts, as one could see a ring of pale blue around them. Cole noticed he had faded scars on his shoulders, and slouched lazily, wearing blue jeans, a sleeveless rock band shirt, combat boots and a shark tooth necklace.

"Jakey! I was gonna go for a swim. Wanna join?" He asked gleefully, immediately ignoring Cole and pulling Jacob close.

"No. I just got here!" Jacob said with a laugh, pushing the sweaty boy away. "Take my buddy here on one of your famous adventures. Just don't get tangled in the rocks again."

"I got out...minus some skin." Mac muttered before putting a long arm around Cole’s shoulders. "How about it, Cole?"

Cole looked at Jacob, who smiled and nodded. Cole could feel the taunt muscle of Mac’s arm, warm from the fire and nodded back, Mac feeling him and whooping loudly.

He guided Cole down a dirt path, away from the party, away from Jacob.

" Let's go visit old Mr. G." Mac said, taking out a flask and downing whatever was in it.

The smaller teen dug his heels in the dirt, causing Mac to pause. "Wait. Isn't that bad?"

"Naw. Come on." Mac said, taking off his jeans and shirt.

Cole covered his eyes before he noticed Mac hanging up his clothes in a tree and walking down to the sandy area. He kicked off his shoes and waded in the water. Cole sighed.

Might as well just stay in the shallow area. He undressed to boxers and went in. They waded in the shallow area along the edge of the rocks. Cole noticed some looked broken from the cliff and Mac huffed.

"Weird, right? Use to be connected to the sea." Mac said and he climbed on a boulder above the lake. "They'd find all kinds of fish that swam through this underwater cave from the cove. That's why the water smells so salty. Plus, this lake is a deep goddamn hole. My pop said people use to scuba dive into it. Til the Main Cave collapsed. Blocked off all the other underwater caves. Now it's just a deep ass lake. Bet ya down there, in what the old folks call the Way Deep...there's something."

"Really?” Cole asked, scrambling up the bolder. "People would have had noticed or something, right? That can’t be true."

"Then how do you explain the disappearances?" Mac asked with a grin.

He pulled Cole up to sit next to him, making sure he was steady.

"In the last ten years, there's been 35 drownings in this lake. And the bodies never found. Everyone thinks it Old Man Gutierrez.”

“Why?” Cole asked.

“He lives out here and acts all suspicious, like he's hiding something.” Mac said. “I bet he axed off his wife that way. Everyone thinks he dumps the bodies in the lake, weighing them down so they can never be found."

"Seriously?"

"I kid ya not. I try to get Jakey out here, but he can't swim. Still love him though." He slurred slightly. "Plus, I got stuck in them at one point. Maybe I was drunk, but it felt like something was yanking me into the water."

"Uh...I think I need to get back. I still have a curfew." Cole said, trying to find an excuse to get out of the creepy lake.

"Whatever, dude!" Mac teased. "Tell Jakey I'll be back soon!"

Cole nodded and scuttled down the rocks back to the sand, quickly getting dressed and quickly following the path. He stopped when he saw a deep red from the corner of his eyes.

Marla.

She was staring at the lake several meters from me. Just standing there on the edge like she was frozen. Her long dark hair fluttered along with her deep red skirt that brushed the dirt around her feet. Cole thought to call out, but just wanted to find Jacob and go.

Speak of the devil, Jacob was walking towards him.

“Cole?” He asked. “Why are you alone?”

Cole looked behind him to see Marla was gone and so were Mac’s clothes.

“Where—” Cole looked at Jacob.

“Where’s Mac?” Jacob asked.

“He wanted to go to Mr. Gutierrez’s.”

Jacob froze, looking shocked and scared. He pushed pass Cole. "We gotta go get him!"

"What? Why? What's wrong?" Cole asked.

“I can only assume he’s drunk right now and he’s not the safest guy.” Jacob hissed. “He’ll really hurt himself this time.”

Cole looked at his feet, face burning in shame. He stammered and pointed the way he came.

“This way.” he said, taking Jacob’s hand and leading him to the boulder, but finding the area barren of any life.

"Where is he?" Jacob asked, distraught.

"Maybe he’s already at Mr. Gutierrez’s house?"

Jacob nodded and led Cole around the lakeside, his hand trembling in Cole’s.

“What are you not telling me?” Cole asked.

“…Mac…He’s an alcoholic.” Jacob said. “He’s been doing better, moderating.”

“But?”

“But he got all weird when I told him you were coming, and I don’t know why he would fall so hard off the wagon.” Jacob whispered.

“Are you guys…a thing?” Cole asked. “Does he know why you’re here?”

“No. I mean, yeah, he knows about my parents but we’re not exactly…No.” Jacob answered, cheeks red. “Just, keep walking, we’re like, right in front of the house.”

They finally made it over to a rough looking lake house. The wood exterior looked murky, the porch littered with dirt and dead leaves. The wooden railing was splintered and rotting, the steps in just as bad shape.

"Is this it?" Cole whispered too loudly.

Jacob winced and made a push down motion with his hand, Cole covering his mouth.

"Yeah." Jacob said in a better volume. "Mac might be around the dock. It leads into the house."

“You guys come here often?” Cole asked.

“Not to mess with him.” Jacob said with a soft sigh. “just for a thrill or two…”

Jacob pulled Cole to a dock that led into a boat garage. The lake went under the thick rusty door into a pool Cole assumed a boat or canoe would be docked to. Jacob went to the door and jiggled the handle, finding it unlocked. He slowly opened the door and both teens gasped at the sight.

Leading from the pool where a worn rowboat was, blood led out of the water, along the edge of the opening and through a door leading into the house. From the blood pattern, it looked like someone was dragged.

And in the blood smears was a familiar shark tooth necklace.

Cole covered his mouth to keep in a fearful shout down.

He grabbed Jacob’s shirt, who had picked up the necklace and gave a breathy shutter. He cradled it in his hands, cheeks and nose reddening as he let out a soundless gasp.

They both shrank against each other when they heard a yell from inside.

“No!” Mac’s voice, muffled, yelled out. “Let go, man!”

“He’s alive…” Jacob whispered.

"We have to get help.” Cole croaked.

"It might be too late when they get here!" Jacob said. And Cole remembered with cold dread they had left their cell phones in Jacob's car, halfway around the lake. Cole knew he was right.

Gutierrez could kill Mac before they even had the chance to call for help.

Cole crept to the open door and peeked through into the kitchen to find Marla hiding under a table, hugging her knees and drenched in water.

“What the…” Jacob scanned the room and crawled under to kneel in front of her.

"Are you okay?” He asked.

She nodded, her eyes wide and lips pressed together hard.

“Have you seen our friend? He has long blond hair and was wearing a ripped shirt.”

She looked at them, eyes widening more as she clutched the fabric of her long skirt and nodded again.

"Do you know where he is?"

Another nod.

"W-where's your Grandfather?" Cole asked.

She pointed to the window and they peeked out to see the grizzled old man going into a shed. They heard a machine start, maybe a table saw, and immediately knew the small window of time to find Mac was closing.

"Can you show us where he is?" Jacob asked Marla.

She nodded and started to crawl from under the table through the door. Jacob followed and Cole noticed Marla’s hands had left a few red splotches.

She still crawled forward despite them being out of sight from the windows. Cole stood up as he looked at the peeling wallpaper…No…newspaper clippings…

Most were about people missing from the lake or even sightings of a strange creature. And framed on the wall, was a news article about a man's remains being recovered on the rocks near the lake.

To the left was a shrine to the same man and an older woman in the corner, their pictures immaculate and fresh flowers around the frames. They were in several pictures with Mr. Gutierrez. Two newspaper obituaries were laminated in plastic: Alma Gutierrez, who died of breast cancer and Derek Gutierrez, who had been attacked by a bear.

Cole’s head was spinning with so many questions, but he found himself gravitating to another shrine across the room, where a small…coffin with a glass top was, salt poured around it. The box was wrapped in chains and Cole looked over it, gasping at the sight, drawing Jacob’s attention.

He fought the urge to vomit when he and Jacob saw it was the torso and head of a mummified woman. Her waist was covered on scales and looked like she had been cut in half, nails long, hair greenish and scales along with two wide membraned fins next to her in the box. Her teeth were all as sharp as steak knives and thin as nails, jutting out in a snarl. Like a goblin shark. Her body was still decomposing, skin leathery and hanging off the bones, and the stench that escaped horrible.

On the box, carved around the border, it said: "Fair is fair Trade a life Take my child Take my knife Rest in pieces Like your prey Sleep now, devil Evil still stays"

Marla opened a trapdoor in the floor at the back of the room and pointed inside.

"Marla...what is this?" Jacob asked hands out.

Marla looked at the shrine and mouthed "Papa"

"Derek's your Dad. Okay...but what is this...thing?!" Cole asked, voice cracking as he gestured at the box.

She pointed again to the inside of the trap door. Cole finally noticed the same smell of rotten meat came from there too. But...fresher.

Cole shook his head. "What is this monster? Why is it here? Did it kill your Dad? What is it?!"

Marla stared at them for a few seconds before smiling. Her lips opened to reveal the same jutting sharp shark teeth. In a lyrical voice she said, "My Mama."

Jacob pushed Cole out of the room and slammed the door behind them. Marla screeched like some alien creature and banged on the door from within. Jacob ripped off his belt, clumsily tying the doorknob to an exposed pipe in the wall.

Cole grabbed his arm and quickly ran back to the kitchen, seeing Mac being helped onto the table, wearing a splint made of crudely cut pipes and blankets. Mr. Gutierrez looked at the boys, holding Mac steady.

“Jakey! Cole!” Mac croaked. Mr. Gutierrez still held him as he growled.

"What the hell are you doing there? You think I put up that damn gate for decoration?!" He shouted before going pale at hearing Marla's screeching.

"Shit! You all need to get lost. Take my truck and get out of here! Make sure no one comes near the lake!"

"That thing in the box...it's the thing that kill those people back then..." Cole said, connecting the dots. "It came in from the sea and..."

"Got trapped here." Gutierrez said, looking for his keys. "It lured my son in. He was such a romantic boy...who wouldn't want to be friends with a mermaid? But she...she killed him. I went after it. I found it and made sure it would never hurt anyone again...and then I found the baby. She looked normal. Legs and all. She looked so much like Derek did...”

He took a deep breath.

“I thought it was all over until our dog went missing. She had eaten him in the bath. She can't be out of water for more than a few days or she'll die like her mother did. But she also can't help hunting. I let her out to hunt fish and deer but..."

"She started hunting people." Jacob said.

"I should have..." Gutierrez shook his head, finding his keys and handing them to Cole. "Marla is still Derek's daughter. I can't...I can't lose my son again!"

He gave Mac a metal bat to lean on as he helped him to the door. "All three of you get out of here! Get out!"

Jacob and Cole grabbed Mac, shuffling out to the truck and starting it as Marla's screams grew louder.

The next few hours were a blur.

Jacob had drove around the lake to the hole in the gate, got Mac into his car and gunned it to the nearest hospital. Mac had a huge bite on his calf, which would leave him with a nasty scar and a temporary limp, but at least he was alive.

Esperanza had been the officer to respond to the hospital’s call and grilled Cole on what happened, but all three boys stayed quiet. After she noticed how all three of us were scared out of our minds, she simply asked if an animal had attacked them, wherein all three nodded.

They never went back to the lake. As far as Cole knew, Mr. Gutierrez built a new fence. One that was high, smooth bars with spikes on top. Impossible to climb or scale.

Many people noticed right away it had no door or entry way. As if not trying to keep anyone out, but keep something in.

Inside, the game would run out. The fish would be gone. And Mr. Gutierrez would find his last moments like that of his son.

It would be comforting to think Marla would eventually starve to death. If not for the rumors of a hooded figure seen walking in the trees.

Then recent news update about a storm reopening the Main Cave and the recent disappearances.

#original story #original characters #the sentry #the sentry cole #the sentry jacob #the sentry mac #the sentry series

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zenosanalytic · 7 years

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Zenofriend did you see the New Amplified Official Homestuck Personality quiz????? what are!!! your thoughts!!!

Ok! This is VERY LATE, but I am finally ready to give My Extended Zodiac Thoughts. This is Long :|:

First off, I found the possible answers really limited and limiting. For example #7 -Which option best describes what’s more important to you? Understanding yourself, and fully knowing who you are? Or thinking rationally, and making strong decisions?-is a false choice/dichotomy. Leaving aside the questionable adjective-choice of “strong”(I mean: wth does a “strong” decision even mean???), rational decisions require information, and the more the better; specifically, they require knowing yourself. To make a “rational” choice is to make a choice from reasoning, which is to say “based on reasons” using “Reason”(working from one point to that which it implies). If you are unaware of yourself and your interiority -your biases, your wants, your tendencies, your susceptibilities, your emotions, your impulses, your psychological needs, etc- then you can’t make rational decisions because you aren’t aware of, and aren’t considering, how the “irrational” architecture of your personality and behavior could be influencing your reasoning, nor are you making explicit(to yourself or others) the full set of potential reasons for why you are making the decision the way you are. Indeed, not only are these two NOT opposite extremes and NOT mutually exclusive, they are mutually Necessary. Just as one must “know thyself” to rationally know the world and rationally navigate it, so too must one be able to look at oneself rationally -to dispassionately assess oneself as a subject, as if with the eyes of another; judging your behavior, wants, and biases as a stranger might- to “understand yourself and fully know who you are”. Meaning to do good is irrelevant if you do harm and, if your concept of “good” requires the harm of another, then obviously they will not judge you as “good” and you will not be good, regardless of how you feel about it. The true answer to this question is that you can’t achieve either without achieving both, but that doesn’t fit into the simplistic(and sadly too common in Euroculture) Manichean dualism this quiz is built around -in this instance that emotion/interiority is the opposite of “Reason”/Intellect. And, more broadly, that the specific/practical and general/ideal are at odds- and so it isn’t a choice.

Many of the available answers to the questions are equally limited; some by false dichotomy, some by, just, insufficient choice-scope:

In #6: what if the result sought by the project is learning the process???

In #2: what if you prefer to help people learn through the Socratic method; by asking questions? Are you showing them, in that you are modeling for them the process of reasoning their way to an answer with the information available to them, or are you encouraging them, in that you are asking them to collate the information they have and extrapolate from it and doing so non-explicitly?

#1: what if you see yourself as a protagonist of your story, but also understand that everyone sees themselves as the protagonist of their own story? What if you see “Society” as the emergent, evolutionary outcome of an inevitable “Egotism of Being” coming into contact with innumerable iterations of Self? What if you conceive of your existence as fundamentally lonesome but also of society not as a natural and essential aspect of environment, but as a natural and essential aspect/expression of personality, such that the equal personhood of all “characters” is inescapable, such that “lonesomeness” is a social act/choice just as much as “ensembleness”, and such that “protagonism” can only be understood as a purely narrative conceit and choice? These povs don’t really fit with the choices available.

#3: can’t it be both things? Can’t mystery inspire you to both learn and invent? Can’t learning lead to the realization of new mysteries, which is part of why Curiosity is so satisfying to you in the first place?

#8: to understand the consequences of your behavior is to understand your potential; to understand your potential is to understand what consequences your behavior can effect.

#9: What if your strong convictions are precisely what drives you to deconstruct arguments which said convictions deem inaccurate, limited, and poorly reasoned? What if you deconstruct arguments not because you find them particularly offensive, but because you hold a strong conviction that “Knowledge” is much more difficult or complicated than people tend to think it is, ala Socrates, or even impossible to attain by your own efforts, ala Medieval Christendom and anti-empiricism? “Can’t Decide” implies an ambiguity, indecisiveness, and moral disinterest in the question that would be inaccurate to these mindsets.

#10: doesn’t choosing “burn it all down” imply that one considers “burning it all down” to be a “better” state than the status quo? Wouldn’t it, then COUNT, as “A Plan” and “something better” waiting in the wings??

#11: what if your desire to help others is driven by an instinctive empathy and moral-revulsion towards situations which cause suffering, and allowing suffering to continue? The answers frame the choices as in opposition and empathy as something either to prevent or which prevents action, rather than compelling it.

Ok I’ll stop, but you get the idea.

Second, I thought the lean of each question was really obvious; to the point that you could practically score each available answer along a scale between the two binary choices the question engaged with(probably because this is exactly how the test works). The result of this is that the Test is easily gamed, and thus not really “impartial” or “rigorous” in any way. This is somewhat complicated by the test’s Built in Biases(Hat Tip to @the-awkward-goldfish for chasing this down), which basically require you to “no opinion” every non-Aspect-related questions to get anything “below” Light, but even that just goes to show how partial and contrived the test is, and thus how bad an assessment of one’s “Nature”, or affinity to the Aspects as presented in canon, it provides.

Which, you know, OBVIOUSLY -it really isn’t MEANT to be those things(well, one could reasonably expect it to be decent at Aspect-Affinity)- but this is a central problem of “personality tests” in general, and I’m going to rant about it for a second. When a test asks about The Thing it appears to be asking about, Social Animals will give it either a)the answer they think it wants, b)the answer they feel fulfills their social “role” in the test/situation, c)the answer they would like to be true about themselves(or would like you to think is true about them), or d)the answer they feel creates the least social stress in the situation, rather than an honest answer. Similarly, test-makers will, with stupefying regularity, render their own biases implicit within the tests they create if collaboration and strict oversight are not a part of the test design process. This is because Social Animals are Social Animals, and part of being Social Animals is 1)a near-instinctive awareness of The Rules of whatever Social “Game” happens to be being playing at any moment, and 2)an instinctive desire to project ones personal “Rules” onto the world[1]. This makes gaining an honest assessment of Social Animals(and even asking Honest Questions about them), independent of their own objectives and social assumptions, difficult. This is why modern psych studies are neither upfront about what they’re really studying, nor obvious in their design, and why the question of Method and Test-Design is so important to the field.

None of this matters when personality tests are seen as just A Fun Thing to Play With, but unfortunately lots of people take them really seriously(I will not speculate as to why), so I kinda feel like the huge biparagraphic spiel above about social psychology and why it means personality tests are A Crock is sort of necessary. Though, Ironically and completely tangentially, this also all means that the ominous and impenetrable Voight-Kampff machine and Turing Test it is used to administer from Bladerunner are actually closer to what an “accurate” psychological test should look like than most of the “personality tests” people are familiar with.

Third, I found the Test really unsatisfying from a canon-perspective. Some of them fit, others kind of fit but with important provisos, and others are just wildly far off. For example:

Sagittarius. Equius might count as an enthusiast, but inconstant? His interests are long-term and rigid. Expansive? He is self-effacing to the point of suicide. Magnetic? Everyone but Nepeta and Gamzee find him repulsive(though Aradia is attracted, at times, by her disgust for him). Rebellious? 8/ Optimistic? 8/ 8/ Surprising? 8/ 8/ 8/ Not Knowing his own Strength? He obsesses over it. Skeptical? He accepts Alternian Convention without question or complaint(Aradia being the notable semi-exception). Secretive? While he doesn’t put himself forward, neither does he keep his opinions -no matter how offensive- to himself, ever. A stronger argument could be made for this description fitting Roxy, but even then she’s rather single-minded and constant in her interests and feelings, and, contra the description of Derse-dreamers, not terribly self-aware, as symbolized by her dream-self -a metaphor for her self-knowledge- being asleep, albeit ambulatory, until she dies(minus seeing Rose once). Her most important arcs are about seeking answers, not accepting mysteries(Rose and Calliope).

Sagiries&Sagipia: Again, the Sagittarius description, specifically the “enthusiast” and “inconstant” bits, don’t really fit either Dave or Rose. While they ARE “enthusiastic” about their interests, those interests are rather constant, focused, and rather than trying to teach or pull others into those interests, they display them through creative endeavor. “Derse” fits them both pretty well, minus the “self-awareness”, and their approach to hiding insecurity is the opposite of “self-deprecating humor” and “false humility”; they do it through “evincing hyper-competence” and “false arrogance”. Dave is certainly a “Fighter”, but against Fighting, and while he can be goal-oriented he much prefers perambulation, even to the point of contributing to problems which he then must rush to fix. Really I’d say the description for Space fits him better than Time(though this Time description entirely ignores the repeated recycling/recontextualizing/remixing theme in Time characters in HS). Light fits Rose better, but it ignores how her interest in mystery and the unexplained drives her interest in learning, how personal and not “for its own sake” her seeking is, and how actual knowledge can petrify her if she is in the wrong place emotionally.

Sagigo: This is nitpicking, but I wouldn’t describe Jade as “careless”, and she, mostly successfully, struggles to remain tactful in the face of universe-ending levels of buffoonery and extra-amphibian-interference.

Leo: Again, Nitpicking, but I don’t think Nepeta can be described as having herself as her “favorite subject”. I think the rest fits well though

Gemini: Sollux isn’t preachy, nor railroady in conversation, nor difficult to understand, and his interests -at least what we see of them- are all about computers, networks, and the internet. The description of Doom I’m iffy on: it certainly describes him, but his willingness to drop everything and dedicate himself to a project he believed would save his planet, even though he hates it, doesn’t really fit with it.

Pisces: “Forget to actually do things”, “enigmatic”, “recalcitrant”(i.e., not being open about their feelings), “worrier”, and “trouble with follow-through”, are not things I would describe Feferi with. Meenah clashes even worse with this description.

Scorpio: “Blue Signs are the ones to watch”? Yes for Vriska, Aspirational for Aranea. “Those bound to the aspect of Light are the universe’s knowledge-seekers. They are, above all, driven to learn and understand”? “learn about it” certainly, but I don’t think either Vriska or Aranea feel any real impulse to understand anything. They’re more about hoarding information and manipulating it to their advantage/purposes, and Vriska’s interest in knowledge is highly selective, personal, and instrumental. “Marked by a flexible optimism”? For a given, and extremely idiosyncratic, definition of “optimism”; and provided it allows for bouts of deep negativity, and an intense, arrogant cynicism about the world and others. “They have a mask for every occasion”?More so for Aranea given he secretiveness about herself, but Not Really for either of them as Aranea really just has the one. “They often resent those they see as more well-positioned than they are”? This fits Aranea well, but I never got the sense Vriska was envious of her “social betters”; she seemed to be more envious of people with healthier relationships to less overbearing Lususes, and who had an easier time forging relationships.

I’m not going to go through all of these obvsl. There are those -like John’s, Terezi’s, and Kanaya’s- that fit near-to-perfectly, and those -like Eridan’s- that fit thematically while being wildly off-base on the specifics, but mostly I found them disappointing.

Fourthly, I object to it aesthetically. The signs are well designed; what I mean is that I very much dislike the idea that this is a complete Troll Symbology. If it were, it would make the Troll world and society much smaller and less creative than I would like it to be. There’s not enough signs here for a population as large as the Trolls would need to support a galaxy-spanning empire, and certainly not enough for sign-repetition in the context of such a vast population to be so rare as to become a mythical sign of genetic reincarnation. There’s not enough room here for imagination and invention. Part of what I liked about the Homestuck Fandom, and still like, is the empty places in it for the fandom to fill in. Presenting this as a complete list of signs, based on a complete Hemospectrum(and yes, I also object to the canon Trolls having the only canon blood-colors; minus Lime which apparently Karkat is now, which doesn’t make any sense[2]), makes the Homestuck Universe a far, far, smaller pond to swim in, which is less fun from a fan perspective.

And it also, through the “True Sign” designations, makes the canon Trolls far larger and more obvious fish than they(minus Feferi and Kanaya) ought to be. If the rest of the signs are seen as derivative of the “True Signs”, as the phrase and the EZ’s naming conventions imply, and the signs are associated with specific ancestors, then it’s reasonable to assume that the Ancestors associated with those signs would be seen as “Truer”, or perhaps more Significant and Primary to Troll History, than the ancestors of the other signs. Those who inherited them would then be inheriting not just the unfinished business of their immediate predecessor, but a historical heritage that every Troll would be taught to consider “Truer” and “More Significant” to Trolldom than that of the other signs. I don’t like this idea. The Betas were hardly social coded in a way that would have made them completely representative of Earthican culture, so why would the Trolls? And also: why wouldn’t any of the signs bear any resemblance to their writing? But this is getting into worldbuilding :T

So, basically, I think it’s a fun thing to play around with. But, I also find it a bit inconsistent, more than a bit biased, a bit limited, somewhat backwards and somewhat derivative(all signs derived from 12 prefixes and suffixes, themselves derived from the Earth-Zodiac, which was only made up of the signs of those Trolls who played The Game? Really??). As additional fan-fodder, it’s ok; as something comprehensive that invalidates fan-signs and fan-theories, I take exception.

[1]a weird sort of “Personification”. Coincidentally, we also see this in philosophy, where the pronouncement that moral decisions “declare a rule for all” can be found from Kant to Sartre.

[2]”Candy-Red Blood” is a mutation. It isn’t natural. Which is to say: It doesn’t fit into the Hemospectrum. The “Signless” had no sign because of this. So the idea that it would be the “True” Cancer symbol, rather than a later addition so insignificant that the breeding-bureaucracy didn’t even notice when it was snuck into the registry, is doubly ludicrous. Also: Why would the breeding registry 1)not notice a new Lime sign being added when the Lime Bloods were exterminated, and 2) not immediately destroy the grub when it was assigned the sign of a blood-caste registered for extermination? How is giving a mutant blood a caste-sign that would get them immediately destroyed any better than them not having one??

#witchknights #Homestuck #The Extended Zodiac #HS Analysis #zA's Pompous Philosophizing #ask replies

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enterdavao-blog · 5 years

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beyondvapepage · 5 years

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 271

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 271 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

Adam: Alright, Hey everybody. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. We got a special Hump Day hangouts today for episode number 271. Today is the 22nd of January 2020. I’m glad I got that right, because I have still been signing stuff 2019. But hopefully, it’ll be better for me. So before we dive into everything and answer questions and tell you about the special stuff we got going on today. Let’s take a second and say hello to everyone. So off to my left here, I see Bradley. So Bradley, how you doing today?

Bradley: I’m good, man. I was just telling you that we were going to talk about just a minute but the Double Your Agency Training is available today. And I’ve been working on the presentation and the first lesson video. I’ve got to record the first lesson video still because I was working on the presentation. And I actually created this. Well, I repurposed it from my real estate business. It’s just kind of like a marketing calculator that you can use to put in all the different activities that you want to do for prospecting for your own agency. It breaks it down by monthly targeted goals and then weekly goals and daily goals. It has everything laid out into it in a spreadsheet to where you just plug in the numbers and it calculates how many marketing contacts you have to make on a monthly basis, weekly basis, daily basis. And then we put in what your conversion rates are and all that and ends up spitting out like it basically will be a revenue projection tool. So it shows you that if you stick to specific marketing activities, and you do it consistently, which is the key to it all that you should be. You can expect within you know, plus or minus give or take to be able to see these particular numbers. So, it’s kind of a projection sheet. It’s really, really cool and I’m glad I spent a lot more time on it than I planned on. That’s why the video first lesson is not done today like I hope to, but I think it’s a valuable resource that all the agency members will certainly appreciate.

Adam: so awesome. Well, yeah, we’ll circle back to that because I’m a nerd for calculators but it’s also a huge time saver. But anyway, we’ll come back to that. So Hernan! I like your shirt today, man. How are you doing?

Hernan: I’m doing good. I’m wearing the OG. This is the original. This is not for sale. I show up but sometimes they hang out or sometimes or whatever. And people will say hey, we’re gonna buy the shirt for sale. I apologize. This was the first batch that we did. So I’m really excited, really excited, dude. Because today we’re launching the 2xyouragency. It’s good. It’s really good. We’ve been working hard on it. I have some stuff that I want to share with you guys in terms of prospecting as well. How I have been able to land some high level you know retainer fees, some high-level consulting fees, and all that good stuff. So I’m excited to share with you guys that and excited for today.

Adam: Nice. Nice. And last but certainly not least, Marco. How are you doing man?

Marco: Hey, What’s up, man? I’m doing good. Looking forward to the presentation. Today’s should be fun.

Adam: Whoa, just about knocked everything off my desk. I’m not excited. But yeah, before we get into it, then let’s talk a little bit more about 2xyouragency and I like this. I’m gonna lead off with this was pretty fun. I had a meeting group of guys. I meet weekly and one of them owns multiple six-figure agencies and he does a lot but he focuses on funnel design and offers creation for people. And I was asking for their feedback. You know, I said, hey, we’ve got our launch going on today. You know, here’s the outline. I’d like some feedback on a couple of areas. And he’s like, “Oh, yeah, like, really? is it available for purchase?” And I said, “Yeah, give him the URL.” And then his name popped up in Slack. And he bought it. I was like, yeah, that’s awesome. Like he was he was pumped to and you know, he’s a good example of someone where he’s already had some success. And that’s what we’re looking for is people who have clients, you know, this isn’t the right place. If you have zero clients and you’ve never worked with clients, that it may not be a good fit, but he’s a great example of, hey, I’ve already come this far, I want to go further and can be putting this to use. So it was really exciting to see that. Hernan and Bradley, do you guys want to talk a little bit more about some of the specifics?

2XYourAgency

Hernan: Yeah. Here’s how I see the training that’s coming up. There are three main pillars of what we’re doing. And because, you know, again, we have been servicing small business owners or mostly digital agency owners for the past couple of years, you know, with Semantic Mastery. And when we kept on asking, you know, what do you guys need help with, and specifically when working with clients, when it comes to digital marketing, you know, serving digital marketing services to them in whatever capacity. It could be SEO, it can be PPC, it can be web design, it can be graphic design, social media, Facebook Ads, so whatever that is, and everything like the pain points came back over and over again, which were, which were like, basically three. Number one, how do I get more clients? How do I get more clients to my agency? That is number one. Number two, how do I work with better clients? Like how do I increase the revenue that I make for each client that I have? Right? Which basically, it’s like, if you can double that, you’re doubling your revenue without you having to go out there and get more clients. That is pillar number two.

And pillar number three is how do I take my time back because if you’re working with three or four clients, and you’re doing everything yourself, imagine doing the same for tank lines. It’s impossible to scale at that point. And the reality is that if you want to go from four or five clients to 10 or 15 clients, you cannot do it everything yourself. So what we decided to do on 2xyouragency is basically go ahead and kind of give you a framework of a how-to prospect how to get clients how to get that pipeline full of leads, be what type of clients you know, you need to get, I think that there’s an exercise that we’re going to go through into how to recognize your best type of client, like the type of client that you really want to work with, what type of traits and and and and kind of behaviors they need to have in order for you to work with them and be really happy and fulfilled by providing them with services. That is number two.

And number three, how do you actually go ahead and outsource and delegate without compromising quality, which is one of you know, biggest pet peeves that we all have. We don’t want to outsource because oh, well, if I outsource to a VA, then they’re going to screw up, you know, and then it’s my name on the line and all that stuff. So that’s the three pillars that we’re going to be going after. And, you know, we’ve been doing this for the past six years. So it’s basically you know, put it in a step by step, step by step framework for you guys to actually take action and digest and during that community, so I’m really excited about that. And those are the three pillars that we’re going to cover.

Adam: definitely before I know Bradley got some really cool details he wants to share. But some of this too, you know, we’re known I feel and we’ve been told this, but for great video-based training like this. We do a lot of video interaction. We’re continuing that great way of doing things, you know, no details left uncovered. I know Bradley and Hernan are gonna be doing the bulk of the training. But you know, as known, they really give you the good, but we also so there’s a membership area, you’re also going to get access to a members-only Facebook group. And then for every single training lesson, we’re doing we know sometimes, you know, we’ve taken courses ourselves, right? Together, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on training. Yeah, so the training is great, and you need that, but what if you need to come back or you need a refresher, sometimes you don’t need to watch all of that. So what Bradley’s doing it or Hernan or whoever’s doing the training is putting together these cheat sheets basically, right? Like the resource guide for every single training session that goes on. And so I think that that is going to that’s basically like some people would add that as an upsell or you know, an additional cost but we’re just going to pop that in there. Because we know what it’s like to go through and it’s nice to have a refresher or you need to go back. You want to point someone at it and say this is exactly what needs to happen.

Bradley: Yeah. So we’re for each lesson after the video lesson has been added, you know, basically recorded, then it’s going to be turned into like an executive summary, and checklist so that every single week or every lesson because some weeks there’s going to be more than one lesson. Every single lesson there will be its own executive summary and checklist. So it’ll make it much easier for people to, once they’ve already, you know, go through the video lesson, they’ll be able to review that the executive summary and the checklist to determine what needs to be done. It would be much easier to manage that way, I think in my opinion. And then something else is if we have any lessons that go particularly long or whatever will either timestamp them so that people can jump specifically to the sections of the video or the training and we might even mention those timestamps in the executive summary or we’ll have them chopped up the longer video edited into smaller pieces so that people can jump directly to whichever video they want one of the other so we haven’t really determined that process just yet. But that said, I just want to give a quick preview as to what it is that is inside the training. It’s over the course of the next 12 weeks guys we’re going to be adding training so it is on a drip schedule only while it’s being recorded. Once it’s done it’ll be all available at once so but obviously the price could go up at that point too.

Adam: So yeah, definitely will hop in while you’re bringing that up Bradley and save that you know if you want to get started with this go to 2xyouragency.com and get started because it is at a lower price. Obviously, we want to do it for people who are following us who watch Hump Day hangouts in our email subscribers, but that’s only lasting for four days and it is a one-time payment and there’s some reason behind that we’ll get into in a little bit, but go for it, Bradley.

Bradley: Yeah, so the idea here guys is the 2xyouragency plan comes in three parts as Hernan was just talking about, you know, we’ve been surveying our members, you guys, for two years now maybe even longer. And consistently over time, we hear the same things over and over again. The biggest roadblock or hurdle to people’s success is number one, consistently getting clients. Number two is getting, you know, good clients. Well, that’s so first of getting clients. Number two is getting clients that people enjoy working with, you know, pay decent amounts of money for services and that kind of stuff. And number three is how to get better repeatable results, you know, reliable results, consistent results. A lot of times we hear that people struggle with that. And then also lastly, how to grow how to scale and so the 2xyouragency training program is really going to be broken down into three major parts or three main areas and I hope that each section will be basically four weeks.

So four weeks for the first section, which is 2xyour pipeline, or double your pipeline, right? Consistently fill your pipeline with prospects. You can cherry-pick and close only that is the best fit because that is by far the one that we hear the most. In the first several weeks, we’re going to talk about getting your mind, your mindset, and developing habits to have consistent leads coming into your business. You have to build a system around prospecting and then implement that system consistently. As soon as you take your foot off the gas, you’re going to start slowing down your leads. And that’s the peaks and valleys that most people go through. And I myself have been through that through my own marketing agency, through my real estate business, though many businesses, if you know what happens is we need money, right? We need revenue to come into our business. So out of desperation, we go out and start prospecting for leads to try to pitch our services. And we might we get a few leads, right? Whatever it is that we’re doing, whether it’s email or cold calling, or whatever the case is for generating leads, most of the time, most people will typically, once they have some leads come in, they stopped the prospecting so that they can work on processing the leads, right? Doing audits or analysis of the prospect’s web, you know, doing web audits or analysis, online presence analysis, that kind of stuff, then creating proposals, right? Going through all that and then hopefully knock on wood, if we’re lucky, we’ll end up losing a couple of one or two of those prospects. And then we go into fulfillment mode where we’re working on setting up and doing all the things that they hired us for. And this time prospecting has been turned off. So that once we get that client to a particular point, where you know, we can take our foot off the gas or it’s not so many hands-on, you know, time invested from us. It’s not so labor-intensive for us because we’ve got the kind of up and running now, then it’s back to square one we need leads again. So it’s starting that whole process over again. And that’s the problem, guys, there’s a direct correlation between your monthly revenue and the number of marketing or prospects that you talk to on a weekly basis or pitch or on a monthly basis, if that makes sense. So in order to have, first of all, to be able to get a steady stream of clients, and then also to be able to cherry-pick just the best clients that you want to work with, you have to have a steady lead stream of leads coming in.

So that’s why I think that that’s got to be number one, or the first part of 2xyouragency training is getting your mind right and setting up your pipeline to where it will double or quadruple you’re the number of leads coming in and on a consistent basis. The other part of that just briefly. If you only have let’s say you only have 10 prospects, 10 leads that have come in from whatever prospecting efforts you’ve done. If you’ve only got 10 leads, I guarantee that most of you probably try your damnedest to close all 10 of those leads, you’ll bend over backward at some point to accommodate the needs or the desires of the prospect that you’re talking to just because you need the damn revenue. And guys, prospects can smell desperation, you know, like dogs can smell fear. So, when you’re desperate for revenue, it comes across that way and a lot of times, we will make exceptions to what we would otherwise provide a service or for charges that certain amounts that we charge for services and that kind of stuff will make exceptions because we need the damn revenue. But when you have a steady stream of prospects coming in through the door, you can be very strict as to what it is that your offer is and not deviate from that. You can also not have to try to close every prospect that you pitch to because it’s you can select the prospects, cherry-pick the best prospects the ones that seem to be the best fit and pitch them right or you can pitch all of them but only choose to work with some. So again, you kind of pre-qualify your prospects, which is kind of what Herna was saying. So that’s number one.

Number two is to 2extra results. Okay, first, once you’ve got your prospecting machine up and running, you’ve got a consistent steady amount of leads coming into your business, which is the lifeblood of your business, then you want to be able to produce reliable and repeatable results with proven methods. So how do you do that? Well, we’re going to talk about Semantic Mastery methods and how you can implement those to get reliable and repeatable results for your client without you having to learn how to do everything yourself. You certainly can. We will point you in the direction of resources throughout the training if you want to learn the specifics, the nitty-gritty of how to do each one of the methods that we’re going to talk about. But moreover, we’re going to point you to our done for you services at our store, MGYB, once we’ve explained what methods that work and why they work and why you should be employing these for all or implementing them for all of your clients, in what order, what timeline, all of that kind of stuff. And then we’re going to point you to MGYB because your job as a business owner should not be doing, performing all of these marketing tactics yourself, but it should be to hire it out through trusted third-party providers, such as Semantic Mastery and MGYB or to hire somebody in the house, a virtual assistant. So they don’t have to be an actual employee. They could be a contractor but like a virtual assistant or an in house employee, and put them through the training so that they do it for you. So again, as a business owner, you should be working on sales and working on growing your business, figuring out how to grow your business not working on an actual day to day operations staff. We’re going to talk about 2xing your results, how to get better results. Then lastly, the last section, the last few weeks is going to be about 2xing your business or scaling, essentially, double your business without doubling your time commitment. So it goes hand in hand with section two, which is doing to actually results in that take yourself out of the way, out of the equation because you’re most likely the bottleneck in your business. I have been for many years and for different parts of my businesses and I’ve gotten way better at that. But even my newer real estate business, there are still things where I am the bottleneck. And I’m trying to alleviate that by automating, delegating or eliminating and that’s something that we talked about so 2xyouragency is going to be about how to scale, how to outsource, how to manage, how to use third-party providers, and how to really plan for growth as well. And so, Hernan and I are going to be doing most of the training. Hernan and I will be doing a lot of part one and a lot of part three together. I will probably be doing the bulk of Part Two or section two. But we’re going to try to keep it in three sections of about four weeks per section. And by the end of it, if you take action and you implement what you’re going to learn throughout the 2xyouragency plan, you will absolutely double your agency, whether you’re going from one client to two, or five to 10, or 10 to 20, you should be able to as long as you take action. Consuming the content isn’t going to help you, you have to actually implement what it is that you learn it so it’s going to be kind of a fast-paced thing. We’re going to go through a lot, but it’s going to be very, very beneficial. And obviously if you have any need additional assistance, and you’re ready to take it up to the next level, that’s when you’re going to come to join the Mastermind. What do you think I was at a pretty decent explanation?

Adam: Yeah, and I’ll just add to that and say if anyone has any questions and you’re watching, you know, definitely, Of course, ask questions. If you’re watching the replay, go ahead and leave a comment on the video. And we’ll definitely get back to you something. I mentioned before, see if you guys have anything else was You know we have been asked you know, right now like I said it’s a limited time we’re discounting slightly because we want to offer a good deal for people who hop in right now at the beginning it’s going to $97 but I’ve literally been asked you know, why isn’t this $500 to roughly $1,000 which is kind of what comparable training from some other people out there is available at. We talked about this and we said you know, we want a lot of people to take this you know, this is a combined knowledge that we have. We want people in there so that they can get to the point where they are generating more revenue and they have the time and then come join our mastermind totally transparent on this. We’re not saying haha this is some evil ploy to get you in the mastermind you know about it you can go look at it it’s a mastermind.semanticmastery.com, but we know there’s a lot of people out there. If you have one client maybe or two, you know, if you lose a client, you can’t afford to be part of a group a mastermind, you can’t afford to even spend the time, so we want to get to that point where you’re better spot where you have time to interact with others. You can be a part of the group really contribute, learn, and then that’s just adding fuel to that fire.

Hernan: Yeah, I like I like what Adam just said a lot because you know, one of the reasons why somebody will join the mastermind is because you’re surrounded by people that are successful, right? So we’re kind of giving you the blueprint for you to be successful as possible in whatever area you’re lacking. Whether it is prospecting, or maybe you have to prospect down, but you’re like running with your hair on fire all day. So we want to help you so those things so that by the end of that, you might want to join the mastermind because you will see the value of all of it. As possible, we want to make it like a no absolute no brainer. It’s going to be tons of tons of value as usual Semantic Mastery style. We’ve been around for five, six years delivering a lot of value. So this is not going to be any different. So really,

Bradley: Seven years. Damn it. Seven years. We’ll be in, I think, March or June or something like anyways, it’ll be seven years this year. So very quickly, I just want to showcase this. This is available with week one, again, the video training. And all of that will be available for this tomorrow. But this is what I call a marketing calculator, marketing projection. I basically repurpose this from a real estate, my real estate business. So I spent some time and they’re editing it today to kind of make it apply to a marketing agency. And this is great, guys because it breaks down like it’s a calculator that will break down what your marketing activities should be. And if you plug in all your numbers, which you know, you might not know all your numbers, it’s going to take marketing and tracking to be able to figure out what your numbers are. But then you should be able to consistently predictably project what your revenue will be if you hit specific marketing goals. Right. So as I mentioned before, there’s a direct correlation between your monthly revenue, and the number of marketing attempts that you make, right. So the number of proposals that you make and your number of proposals you make are directly correlated to the number of contacts you make with prospects. So the point is, guys, in order to get consistent results, you have to be consistently marketing, right? I’ve even worked in the virtual assistant, you know so that you don’t have to do all this. You might have to do it at first, I assume most of you guys will have to do this yourself first. But that’s fine. You can do this, build systems around it and then kind of create a standard operating procedure and sap out of what it is that you’ve created, and then turn around and outsource that to a VA and it’s very inexpensive. So, for just an example, if you said that you wanted to spend you know how to $500 in the marketing budget for your own agency, to produce leads for your agency on a monthly basis. You can see that you know, got this broken down to where if you had a VA doing 20 leads per sending 20 emails per day, which could be done in one hour a day or five days a week, in five days per week. So essentially, you’re paying $3 an hour cost you $60 and virtual assistant fees over the course of a month to have a virtual assistant sending 100 emails, prospecting emails per week, right? So 400 per month. And if you get a 4%, which is probably high, but a 4% response rate. So even if we change that to it’s a 2% response rate, that’s going to produce about eight leads per week, right from 400 outbound emails, so that’s eight people that have at least replied positively to prospecting emails.

But then the same thing, sales letters, which I’m having great results with sales letters. Sales letters could be sent out at a rate of 50 per week, right? So 200 per month at a 10% response rate, which is absolutely doable. That would be 20 leads per week, right coming in, or 20 leads per month coming in. And these are your costs right here. And then lastly, and these were just three items that I put in there, guys, there are some other ones that we could put in there like voicemail drops, or ringless voicemail, for example. There’s a lot of things that we can do. These were just the three big ones that I’m using for prospecting right now that works really well. Postcards, for example, that’s another one here shows the costs and everything else. And if you’re sending out 50 or 200 postcards per month, and you get a 3% response rate from postcards at six leads in a month. So that’d be a total from just these numbers here of 34 leads generated per month by targeting these specific monthly, weekly or daily goals. And all the costs are associated there. And then you can talk plugin your percentage of your average conversion rate. So how many times if you make 10 proposals, and you close three of them, that’s a 30% conversion rate, right? So you plug all those numbers in there and your plugin with your average profit per sale is whether that’s average profit on the front end. Or what I like to do is calculate what my average profit of monthly rep, monthly profit will be for a client if I’m able to land them. And so you can play around with these numbers, but then what it does, it will actually project what your gross revenue per month will be. And then after your expenses, and this is what your net monthly revenue will be in your yearly net revenue, based upon those numbers, so you can go in here and really fine-tune what it is that figure out what your primary revenue goals are, what your desired revenue goals are, and then break it down into how many how much marketing do I need to do to be able to make this many presents proposed to get this many leads in per week to make this many proposals with this much of a conversion rate to be able to hit that target revenue goal, then you can adjust your marketing around that number to where you can almost guarantee that you’re going to hit that provided that you do it consistently.

How do you make sure that it gets done consistently? Stop doing it yourself. Right? That’s the thing guys, I guarantee none of you guys are going to want to stay on top of doing sending out. I’m going to show you guys throughout the training how to do how to teach a VA how to do it. It’s all completely brain dead simple to have, you can do some of the programs that I’m using for direct mail, you do it all from online. So it’s just point and click a few clicks and boom, an email goes or a letter gets sent or a postcard gets sent all of that stuff. So you can train a VA to do it and that becomes the VA is the job, right? The VA does this on it could be a daily basis an hour per day or two hours per day or they could block it all in like on Monday work for five hours on one particular task. If that’s the case, however, you want to break it down. But that way you know it gets done because what’s going to happen with you is you’re going to get tied up putting out fires or playing whack a mole which is what we all do as business owners and you’re not going to prospect you’ll allow the process. You’ll put prospecting off because other more important things will come up, right? So that’s why you want to delegate this as soon as you can. So that you know that it’s getting done weekend and week out regardless of your input. Okay. So anyway, I know that were way longer than I want to do, guys, but I thought that was valuable. Any comments on that before we get into questions?

Adam: No, I mean, there’s comments for me. Let’s good stuff, but I don’t see any questions right now. We got some good ones, though, that kind of touch on some of this stuff. So I guess it’s about time to hop into questions. Anybody else? Any closing comments?

Good, anybody? All right. All right. Zoom in one more and we’ll get into this.

What Is The Point Of Siloing The Category If It Is Redirected To The Main Target Page?

Okay, so the first question comes from looks like Justin he says, Hey, guys, support told me to ask this question here. Thanks. I was going over the Battle Plan training and I’m confused on the categories it was said we should do this permalink structure /%category%/%postname%/. That’s not absolutely necessary. That’s if you want to, you know after 2xyour agency is done, guys. In the next 12 weeks, the Battle Plan will be updated. That’s going to be one of our to-do lists. So anyway, just kind of want to point that out. That’s not absolutely necessary, you can do that it’s not going to harm anything. But just to carry on that’s not absolutely necessary. You can leave it at posts name if you’d like. It’s perfectly fine to do that. Create main location pages to a silo, create a category with the same slug as Page Setup, 301 redirect to send the category page to the main target page. What’s the point of creating the category if we’re just wanting it to the page, because if you understand silo structure, then you’re going to want to stack supporting keyword content articles, right? So posts, blog posts, that’s how you build depth into a silo. Right? So you create a category and then you place every related keyword. Every time you do a supporting article, which will be published as a post when you’re targeting a supporting related keyword, right? Then you’re going to place that within that category. So you’re adding depth to that category. Okay, that makes sense? And so all of the ways that the taxonomy structure is within WordPress is all of the link equity that flows through that category, especially when you have proper internal linking too but there’s it also flows through the category structure, the relevancy does, so that you end up creating the content silos. So when the bots come in and crawl a particular contents a category, a content silo, then when it goes from one post to the next to the next to the nest with within that particular category, that silo, it will start to paint a picture, develop a picture of over what the overall theme of that particular category is, which ultimately creates buoyancy. It helps everything within that silo to rise in the SERPs if everything is done correctly. So that’s why because of the category index page guys, for most websites, especially local businesses and such. The top of their silos will be their services that they provide either products or services, right. And so if they’re creating a silo structure where they’re posting articles about a particular service or about a particular product, and they’re placing it in that category, it’s not really necessary for a visitor, a user to go to the website and click on the category just to see all the blog posts within that particular category. So we 301 the category index page, which is like a blogroll page for all the posts within that category, over to the primary service page or product page on the website, because we kind of want to push all of that relevancy to that page on the site, that we’re ultimately going to rank for that top-level keyword, which is also set up for conversions like lead generation or sales or whatever the conversion goal is. So that makes sense? So hopefully you understand what we’re talking about there. But that’s basic silo stuff. You know you don’t have to if you want, for whatever reason you do have a category index page on your site to where people can click to go to a category and see all the posts within that specific category, then you don’t have to 301 the category page to the actual page. Right? You don’t have to you can leave it that way. I like to 301. But you don’t have to. Does anybody want to comment on that?

Hernan: I think that’s great.

Should You NoIndex And NoFollow Categories In WordPress?

Bradley: Okay. He says, and what should and we should both know, index and nofollow follow categories? Or what’s the current best practice for a local service type site? No. Well, see, that’s the thing if you 301 your category, index page or category archive page over to your page, then you wouldn’t want to no-index, nofollow it because there would be no need because even it’s not going to index as a category index archive page because it’s 301 to the primary service page. So it makes sense. So it doesn’t matter. If you’re going to not 301 it, then I still wouldn’t noindex it or nofollow it, because there’s no reason to do that. There is a reason at times to noindex tag pages. But I don’t see the reason for noindexing category pages unless you had category archive pages that weren’t 301. And you only had one post in that category. Because then you end up with a category archive page that, depending on your theme, could publish, show the whole post within that category. And now you’ve got what looks like duplicate content on your site. But most likely, you’re not going to have any categories with just one post. And if you do, there’s no reason to have a category archive page. You should just reopen it to your primary service page. Okay. So anyway, hopefully that was helpful.

Marco: I just want to point out that there’s a really good video in YouTube, about this, the simple silo, and I can post it on the back and go look for it and post it but I really like to channel and go use the channel search function, and you can find the video.

Bradley: In fact, if you just go to, I’m just going to show so that maybe this will help other people too. First of all, go to our channel, youtube.com/semanticmastery. Click the Search icon up here for search channel that will search just the videos on the channel or you can go to playlists and if you scroll down in here somewhere there should be a silo structure playlist. Somewhere in here, there’s a silo structure playlist and it’s got all the videos in there specifically about how to create silos and all that kind of stuff. But all you need to do is just clicking here and click silo. I think structure just silo brings it up.

Yeah, silo went to I’m sure. Simple silo structure setup, complex silo structure set up. Those are the two right there. Four years ago, they haven’t changed a bit.

Marco: The theory doesn’t change. That’s perfect.

Bradley: That’s right. All right, beautiful, next.

Is There A Negative Effect For PR On A Page With Two Different Anchor Text?

Okay, so Sean’s up. He says, Is there a negative effect for PR on one particular page? When for user experience purposes, I use multiple HTML anchor links in the body to link to one other particular page. Okay, so is there a negative effect on page rank? If you link from within the content body of a page or post with multiple HTML links to the same target or destination URL with different anchor text phrases? Um, I don’t think that’s best practice. But Marco could probably do a much better job of explaining why that would be good or not good.

Marco: First of all, there’s no such thing as negative PageRank. So that cannot be a negative effect for PageRank. They can only be diminishing PageRank where you splitting it up. If, you know adding two links on a page splits, whatever page rank, you have two ways. If you have four now you split it four ways. So you only get 25% through each link. Why would you do that if they’re all going to one other particular page, you only need one link doesn’t make sense to add all of those links. I don’t even see it, why you would do it for user experience. And if you have to do it, if you have to do that, then what I always suggest, is find another way to code your links so that you don’t divide your PageRank. And that’s as far as I’m going to go with that in a free group.

Bradley: There you go.

How To Keyword Research For Non-English Languages?

Next question is all the major tools support the keyword research in English, but how to do the keyword research for other languages? an example I have a blog in Hindi for Indian readers, but I’m not sure how to do it for non-English languages. That’s a really good question. I don’t do anything but US-based projects. So I can’t really answer that. But I know Marco and Hernan might be able to help.

Hernan: Um, yeah, so SEM Rush has a big database of different keywords. So even if it’s not in the database, you can actually search Google Keyword Tool within SEM Rush in different, like search engines like different, you know, country to least. So you can actually go that route. So SEM Rush, I think it’s one of the best and now, you know, it has allowed me to do keyword research in Spanish, and you know, other languages, I’m pretty sure that they have Hindi in their database. And yeah, that’s how I would go ahead and do it. You know, it’s a tool. It’s one of the best tools when it comes to keyword research in other languages.

Marco: Yeah, I would say SEM Rush probably has Hindi in its database because of how, how big it is. I’m not sure if my favorite tool of all time and you guys know what that is? It’s a Power Suggest Pro. And you can actually geotarget. So Bradley, why don’t you open that up and use the geotargeting function over to the right. Where you change countries.

Bradley: Oh God, okay. See I’ve never done it. So I’ve never changed countries but yeah, right there. Yeah. So you can set the country up, you know, reset Yahoo. He said, India, right. India. Yeah, India, okay. So I’m going to say reset or okay. India, okay, cool. And then I don’t know.

Marco: And then Okay, and then you start searching. Did he specify what and see what it spits back like, I don’t speak Hindi. So I can’t give you any keywords that you would lookup. But I mean, try it out. But what is this now $57-$67 but it’s literally nothing for For guys, it’s there’s gold in here. Yeah, but I’m saying is, there’s money in this tool, you just have to need you just have to learn how to use it to find the money keywords in your niche. And you could target this is working bottom-up, right? You can target the long tail start targeting the long tail, and then like dead simple to start ranking for.

Bradley: So this is bringing back the keywords from like suggest from Google and YouTube in India, but it’s still returning them in English though, right? That’s what you’re saying?

Hernan: Now probably because we put out we put a keyword in that.

Bradley: Oh, you got to put it in in Hindi, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let me see.

Marco: Let’s do this live. Go Google Translate. And you know, see what the Hindi word for the keyword is the keyword and translate to a Hindi, English to you said Hindi. It looks like that’s what he said.

Where to go? Oh, there it is right there. Okay, let me try that. See if it works. So that’s for the keyword. It brought back a suggestion but it’s got the English modifier. So,

Marco: so why don’t you try the asterisk before the word space? Yeah, yeah, an asterisk after space. See if anything comes back that it brought back to and if that doesn’t work, the last thing I’m thinking is trying the, I don’t know what you call it where it’s like the English side. Right. Spelling before it like KEVARD sub one.

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Do you mean that version right there?

Yeah. Nothing like a like a live, it’s nine coming up. Yeah, yeah.

It was worth a shot. Nothing beats a try but a fail, right? That’s got that right.

Marco: Answer the Public. I’m like I’m checking all of the ones that are that I know maybe Google Suggest in your native language or I’m setting a goal such as Google Trends in handy. You could start that way, and maybe dig into those keywords and see what Google will suggest. But that would be what I would say.

Hernan: I just went through to SEM Rush, by the way, and they do have a database indeed. So they have a bunch of keywords there. So that’s another option.

Bradley: Cool, thanks, Hernan. All right.

Can You Get The Benefits Of A Site’s Ranking And Leads If You Simply 301 Redirect It?

The next one is from Dan. He says, I have a site where the owner retired, but it is still ranked and giving leads, can I simply 301 redirect all ranking pages to another site? Or how would you handle a situation where I can still take advantage of the traffic, you can throw on it? But the problem is, it’s if you have another site in the same area that’s optimized similarly in that kind of stuff, then you can throw on it and it may very well the one target URL may very well end up replacing in the SERPs where the exit where the current site is ranked. But it’s you know, it’s it’s unlikely unless you already have some like, you can’t just like build a brand new site three, I want it to that and expect it to rank is it’s not likely to happen. You’ll see some usually significant dancing and all that I’m not saying it can’t be done. It can be but you know, One of the other things that you could do would be it so that you don’t lose or do any dancing, or lose positioning would be to iframe in your new website page into the existing pages so that that’s what comes up at the top above the fold. That’s something that you can do that way, you’re still taking advantage of the existing positioning of the existing site, but you can throw one it, that’s something you can do. But again, you’d probably want to have another site built that was similarly optimized, you know, similar structure and all that kind of stuff so that you’re not pointing from a site that is doing well to another site that’s not optimized. Well, where you end up will you’ll lose that positioning, you’re still likely going to see some dancing anyways, Marco would say you?

Marco: Yeah, it’s gonna dance. I mean, I don’t know what it is that he’s trying to accomplish. I understand that he wants to take advantage of the traffic. The 301 redirects will work but as you said, you will have to change the pages and have a similar structure on the 301 destinations so that you could get the most effective. It’s still going to dance. But it’ll probably come back, especially if you put that SEO shield around your new project.

Bradley: Don’t they have? Now they have I didn’t even really like to use them. But don’t they have those rank, like plugins where you can overlay another page on top of a page. I know that’s technically cloaking or something it’s not. It’s frowned upon by Google. But I know there are plugins that you can overlay one page on top of another page so that you could display a different page on top of what’s already ranking. The other way to do it would be to just like I said, embed you were a different web page into the page that’s already ranking, make that the top above the fold everything else to where when a user lands on that page, they’ll still likely and you know, they’ll still see the page that you want them to see, but it’s not actually cloaking. What do you think about that one?

Marco: Well, you can actually We have a responsive iframe to take the whole page. But again, that’s cloaking. What, however, you call it, it’s cloaking. You get caught doing that you’re gonna get deindex. So all that work that you did, you’re gonna lose it.

Bradley: Yeah, that’s true. That’s why I never liked using these WordPress plugins that do that, but that might be one there.

Marco: Yeah, I don’t even like talking about it. Because people can get into a whole lot of trouble. Then they come back and say, well, you told me to do it. No, the fuck I didn’t.

Bradley: Yeah, no. I said specifically, I don’t like to do it. I’d rather use the iframe model. But yeah, you could do that. I’m not telling you to do that though. Be careful because yeah, you can get in trouble for that. You’re psyching me deindex.

What Has Been The Most Effective Method In Getting Clients To Chase After You?

Okay, uh, let’s see. This is a great question. from Matt. He says what has been the most effective method and getting clients to chase after you? Specialization. So niche specialization is number one that’s been the most effective for me. And consistent follow up. Those are the two. That’s it, period. I mean, if there are two things I can tell you. Well, number one you have to prospect have a, you know, a prospecting system in place that is providing a steady stream of leads, right? But then once you’ve engaged with that lead how do you get them to follow up with number one is if you have an if your agents, a boutique agency or a very like a niche-specific where you cater all everything to that one type of business that tends to get people to pay more attention to your pitch than it does to others. Also consistent follow-up and again, we’re going to talk about that. The vast majority of the sales are made through the follow up. So you know, you have to get through a bunch of noise to get to a yes. And that’s going to be you know, if you want and do it like in other words, if you pitch a prospect one time and you and they say no and you leave it and you never contact them again, then you’re going to have a really hard time ever really growing your business, the best thing to do is once you pitch to prospect, they say No, that’s okay just means not yet, right? No just means not yet. So if you put them on some sort of follow up campaign, which again can be automated, or it can be delegated to an outsourcer depending on you know, a virtual assistant or an in house employee, to make sure that the follow up gets done. It might be different for depending on what kind of clients it is, you know, you might just want to reach out every three months, you might want to be more aggressive and once a month, contact them again, various methods, direct mail, email, voicemail drops, you could call them, there’s a number of things that you could do. But you know, typically follow up is where you’re going to because it’s crazy, but especially if you have an aggressive remarketing setup. Once they’ve engaged with you, they’re going to start seeing your brand everywhere anyway. Right. And then if you follow up with them, outreach to them once every three months or whatever time schedule what you want. Send them a direct piece of direct mail, lumpy mail, a postcard, hit them with direct ringless voicemail things like that once every month or six weeks or every three months, whatever schedule you want, but you just remind them besides what they’re seeing from the remarketing ads everywhere, you remind them hey, I’m still interested if things have changed for you yet, give me a call. You know, that kind of stuff. That’s where you’re going to start seeing it guys, but too many people give up after one No. And that’s the biggest problem. I see.

Marco: My top I’m seeing this differently. I’m reading this differently. How you get people to chase you is by providing massive results that just blow people away so that they have no choice but to brag about you. They tell their friends about you they go to their dinner meetings at the business meeting. And they’re talking about you and people are seeing it. This is how you get people to chase you, instead of you having to go out there and takes you it’s called POFU what we talked about all the time, you’re at the position of fuck you so that people are coming to you instead of you having to go to them. And then you’re picking and choosing who it is that you work with. Interestingly enough, just yesterday, we had our mini mastermind meeting. And we have one person that’s actually there that is picking and choosing. We have another one that it’s just getting massive results and the name gets around your neck. Once you start doing that you’re if you’re the person in wherever it is, and I happen to know that matters in Arizona, you become the man in Arizona, and you provide massive results for whoever your client is. They’re going to brag about all of the shit that you I got this fantastic guy who’s just doing all of this for me, and people will come to you, you’ll get referrals you get tons. As a matter of fact they’ll referrals. If you want the You have your client, your current clients coming to you and saying, hey, you mind if I have a buddy? Who does this? Would you mind helping him? And it’s like, he’s he already talked to his buddy, they already know you see? The sale is already done. They’ve done the clothes for you. All you have to go in and it’s just go talk to the person and say, Okay, yeah, make the deposit, and we’ll get started. On terms. Yeah, that’s how you get people chasing after you, instead of you having to chase after them.

Hernan: Yeah. I’m going to add real quick add, you know, how you sign up for some programs or some stuff that they’ll teach you how to how to grow your agency, whatever. And they’re like, what a one-trick pony, right? And if that doesn’t work, the rest of the program doesn’t work. And that’s one of the things that I’m really excited about is that each of us have our own approach to stop, right. I don’t want to get through a bunch of notes to get a yes Bradley does and he’s a machine and I totally respect him because of that, but I’m more like, okay, I want to create a whole lot of like goodwill in the marketplace so that people will search for me and I kind of share that a little bit on the personal branding that I talked about on POFU Live 2019 and that is something that I was definitely looking forward to sharing with you guys. How you can position yourself as an authority in your niche, in your marketplace. I totally agree that you need to niche down but then how do you get you to know, how do you get yourself known. So that is one of the things that I want to share with you guys but it’s basically going out like this, you need to be consistent in putting out good content and putting out like massive amounts of value so that when people reach out to you, I don’t want to reach out to anyone that reached out to me so when people reach out to you, then you have the position to say hey yeah, let’s talk and let’s work together or no. Listen, you know, this is not going to be a good fit and whatnot. I was like literally talking to two a potential customer yesterday but I just had to not go for it because you know, it wasn’t a good fit. So that gives you that leverage and whatnot. And it comes, you know, it all comes down to leveraging the personal branding and a couple of strategies that I want to share with you guys. So this is a great question. And I think that the fact that you have like three or four or even five, like different approaches to client generation, you can pick and choose the one that it’s right up your alley, right. The one that resonates with you, and the one that you want to go out like, do you want to brute force the marketplace? Go ahead and do it, here’s the blueprint of how to do it. Do you want to do it in a way that it’s cool and you know, you know, you don’t have to talk to anyone to follow here’s the blueprint, go do it, you know, so I think that’s pretty. That’s pretty cool. And that’s how you know working with me to have this so

Adam: all right. And last but not least, I’m going to put my two cents in on this and say it’s a good combo to have all of these because like Hernan I know what he’s capable of. Not only have I worked with him, but I’ve seen the results he’s done. And talking about providing value for people, you’ve provided massive value for me. So when I hop off a call with an agency owner who has 50 to 60 clients, and he’s looking for someone for PPC strategy and work, who do you think I recommended? Did I go out and look at Upwork? But now, I can send the email to Hernan said, Hey, here’s the deal. This guy seems like he could use your help. Are you interested in or not said, Yeah, I’ll check it out. You know, and that extends, I’ve done that in the mastermind as well. I know that there are people in there who have certain specialties, and this is not just a pitch for the mastermind, but, you know, it’s about providing results and sharing those and under, you know, so people understand what your value is, and then, you know, that becomes part of your referral network.

Bradley: Absolutely. And just to clarify, yeah, I agree that when I say to get through a bunch of noise to get to a, yes, I mean, if you have people like the best way to prospect, is to have inbound marketing is I totally agree 100% with what Hernan said because that’s when people see you out. When you’re starting out, you might have to do out, you’re likely going to have to do outbound prospecting. In order to get some, some revenue in the door, some clients in the door generate some revenue. But the idea is to build that presence, that brand so that people start to seek you out. And you can do that a number of ways in niche-specific or industry-specific so that you become a big fish in a small pond, providing extraordinary value, which what Marco said that whether it’s in a particular industry, or if you get referrals from just other businesses because you provide massive value to a client and it’s referred you Whatever the case, those are all great ideas, those are all great ways to have clients come to chase you and all that kind of stuff. But what I was saying What I meant was and I might not have been clear about it was you’re not going to close 100% of your proposals, even on a referral basis, most of you guys are including my partners, I’m sure when you get a referral. It’s all Almost a done deal, it’s almost a closed deal, usually just have to agree upon terms, as we had already said, but sometimes you can’t reach an agreement on terms and if that’s the case, don’t give up on that lead because that leads still there, that prospect you’ve already had a communication built some sort of rapport with them you just want it the timing might not be right for them for you for whatever proposal you sent them whatever offer you sent them.

So you have two options, there are three options that let it go entirely, which would be a complete waste of time. Change your pricing structure or the terms which you would say so in other words, you know, kind of lower your standards for what you expect, which I don’t recommend anybody to or number three, put them on just a follow-up schedule to where you touch them you know when I say touch them, meaning you contact them in some way, shape or form on a regular basis, every so often to remind them that you’re there until they’re ready because of time and circumstance change changes almost everybody’s mind.

So anyway, we’re almost out of the time we’ll try to run through one or two more really quickly, guys, sorry, we didn’t get time for everybody. But it is what it is.

How Are You Handling The Changes That Google Made With The January Update?

So the next one is from no marketing says how do you handle the changes that G made after January update to Google mega January update? Anybody?

Marco: I heard there was a core update.

Bradley: I heard there was too, I’m being asked. No, because fortunately, we haven’t seen you know, a lot of times I don’t even know updates occur except for the incessant chatter online, or when people post in the group about Hey, you guys experiencing and I’m only saying that because fortunately, we’ve been. The methods that we’ve been implementing developing for years now have been specifically for strengthening the entity for the Semantic Web, hence our name Semantic Mastery, and it seems like every time we experience or we go through one of these updates that we are that are revealed to us by somebody like you on our Hump Day Hangouts. We haven’t been affected negatively. In fact, a lot of times we are experiencing a positive effect. And, in fact, in our mastermind, community, there have been several people that have talked about that have posted results showing the positive effects that their sites have seen since the January update that you speak of, so we haven’t done it. So the next part of this question, which will probably answer my local service site dropped to the second page and there’s less real estate for organic listings do what organic listings do I need to change anything or just follow the battle plan? Strengthen the entity. I want to hear Marco’s opinion on this is probably all we’re gonna have time for. But if that’s the number one most important thing you can do right now is to strengthen the entity. What do you agree Marco?

Marco: Totally, totally. It’s the SEO shield. We call it the SEO shield for a reason. It’s set up the way it is, for a reason. We’re after basic web principle, we’re not after hacks or things that may well, it may it could change tomorrow. But then again, we could all die tomorrow. So we don’t know. What we have right now has been working for about five years, some even longer. For example, Syndication Academy. And just everything that we do is just based on web principles that even Google has to observe because their foundation is what we’re after. That’s where we are. That’s what we target. That’s where we play. That’s our playground. And so until they do a monumental shift in their algorithms, and in their math, our methods are going to work period.

Bradley: Beautiful.

Is It Okay To Add Another Page When You Mirror The Gsite To The Money Site?

Alright, last question. First is a comment from Fitz and in order to answer fits his question Which is next. And then we’re going to wrap it up, guys. If it says Good day, gents, thank you, Marco, for the amazing charity, you have started to help kids and by helping them help their families to have a pathway to a better life. Thank you also for the charity series of webinars, they’re very, very helpful. So that one’s for you, Marco. Fits then asks the question for today for me is when you were mirroring the G site to money site, is it okay to add other pages that are not on the money site? I like to embed my videos from YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook but not money site. Well, you can’t embed Facebook that I’m aware of. Maybe I’m wrong. But as far as I know, you can’t embed it but not the money site only on a page on my G site. Is that okay? I don’t know what Marco’s answer is going to be on this but I do it. I mirror the relevant pages into the G site. But then, if they’re supporting content that can help to add relevancy to that page, like a YouTube video, for example, then I would add that in there. I might add, you know, I might iframe in a press release, for example, that is particularly relevant to that particular page, for example, something like that. I do it but I don’t know what the actual professionals’ opinion is on this. Let’s say you, Marco?

Marco: In Dadea’s case study, he embedded the corresponding money site page in the G site. And it’s working. You guys have seen how it’s working from what he’s saying in the mastermind. So by all means, and if it’s relevant if it’s part of the entity, why would you not? The beautiful thing about what we do is a sense it’s ours, we can do anything we want with our entity, it’s part of who we are as part of what we are on the web. So anything that reinforces that can only help, especially when you’re doing it through iframe.

Bradley: Yeah, and there are some interesting things you can do there, guys. I’m just going to mention one and it’s five o'clock and we’re going to wrap it up. But you know, for example, you could take your category RSS feed, for example, for it from your website, your money site, and convert that into a feed burner feed, and then use the buzz boost, which will create an HTML version of your RSS feed that then you could embed that into the G site on that page within that particular you know, that corresponding mirrored page for that category. That makes sense. So now you’ve got not only the embedded web page, but you also have the feed with the category with all the posts within that particular category, dynamically updating that page, if that makes sense. Because every time you post something new within that category will update that feed, which is an HTML version of the feed burner feed embedded in the G site, which is another Google property. So it’s another iframe stack within Google. I mean, there’s you can do that with tag feeds, tag RSS feeds, category feeds. It’s really crazy, which you can there’s a lot of stuff you can do with it. So

okay, uh, that’s about it. Anything else guys?

Adam: Yeah, just real quick one. We were talking about at the beginning if you’d like to double your agency and by that we mean doubling your revenue without doubling your time involvement at over two, 2xyouragency.com. As Hump Day hangout watchers, we’ve got a special deal going but it’s only going to last for a few days. So 2xyouragency.com, find out more hop in getting started there, whether you’re a consultant, agency owner, digital marketing, SEO, whatever it is, if you have clients, this is the place you want to be.

Awesome. Thanks, everybody. See you guys.

Bye, everyone.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 271 posted first on http://beyondvapepage.blogspot.com

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angelagiles18 · 5 years