#you’ve been quote/unquote looking at my page

[yakayla-withay]

I wish that if she reads these, she would just tell me or talk about something that she’s read from up here

She’s told me she gets on here just to read my post

But I have yet to be asked about anything that’s been happening in the past 24 hours

[beelsnack]

I Put A Spell On You - Obey Me Boys and A Witch MC

I may have mentioned it in an ask or something before, but I'm actually a practicing witch. (Sorry, Mammon.) So, in honor of spooky season, I bring you witch MC!

----

Lucifer: "Can I ask you something?"

Lucifer looked up from the report he had been working on. In the House of Lamentation, hearing that question was very rarely followed by anything but disaster. He bit back the urge to sigh and turned to look at the human. "You may."

"Have you ever been summoned by a witch?" the human set down their pen. They had taken refuge in Lucifer's room in an attempt to actually get their homework done, and had been working diligently up until this point. "Like, successfully."

He raised an eyebrow. "No, I haven't. I doubt any mortal witch would have the power to actually summon me."

"That's what I thought," they leaned back in their chair, stretching.

"What brought this on?"

"A witch I know up in the Human Realm swore up and down that he had, quote unquote, ‘summoned Lucifer himself.’ No one believed him anyway, but I figured I would ask just to confirm my suspicions.”

“No, it is highly unlikely that a mortal witch would have the magical power to summon me,” Lucifer chuckled darkly. “Although many have tried.”

“What happens to them when they do?” they asked, completely abandoning their work at this point. Part of Lucifer wanted to reprimand them for getting distracted, but he couldn’t deny that he liked having their attention on him. “Do you curse them or something?”

“I do nothing,” he smirked as they got up to lean against his desk. Perhaps he could stand to take a break as well. “The minor demons they actually summon, however, often have their fun with those foolish enough to try.”

“Oh, I’ll bet the Little Ds have a blast with them, huh?” the human grinned.

“Ask Number Two about the time he possessed a ouija board and convinced a human they would die if they ever wore the color blue again.”

Laughing, the human moved to return to their spot at his coffee table where they had spread out all of their study materials. Lucifer, however, had different plans.

“Oof!”

In one quick, fluid motion, he had grasped the human around the waist and tugged them into his lap. The movement had mussed up their hair, and he affectionately moved a few strands out of their face to see their adorable pout.

“You know, my dear, you are the only human witch able to summon me. You should wear that fact like a badge of honor.”

Mammon: “Now that’s just playin’ dirty!”

The human had to make a concentrated effort not to laugh at Mammon. “Yeah, they really didn’t have to go that far. They already have you by the balls.”

“They do not!” Mammon growled, crossing his arms. “Nobody has control over The Great Mammon!”

“Except for the multitude of humans who you made pacts with because they promised you a few bucks.”

“Wow, okay.”

Shaking their head, they gently plucked the doll out of Mammon’s palm. It was a standard poppet, made out of cloth. “Why don’t you just have Lucifer or Satan undo the curses?”

“Because,” Mammon huffed. “Human magic is different from demon magic. None of us know the first thing about it.”

“You just don’t want to admit to anyone that the witches pulled one over on you again.”

“Can you fix it or not?”

Smothering another laugh, they brought the poppet closer to examine it. Aside from the basic filling, it felt like there were some stones in there, and they thought they smelled some herbs.

“So, basically all you need to do is remove whatever link they used to bind the doll to you,” they muttered, more to themself than anything. “Usually it’s hair, nail, a drop of blood if they’re feeling particularly nasty…”

“That’s what they were doin’?”

The human looked up, tilting their head. “What?”

“One of the witches was bein’ real nice to me,” Mammon sighed. “Patting me on the head when I dropped off some money for them. Shoulda known she was trying something fishy!”

“Okay, that answers that.” they made their way over to their desk, plopping down in the chair. “So she probably pulled out some of your hair and put it inside the doll. So all we have to do it get it out, this thing becomes a regular old doll, and voila, curse broken.”

“How do we do that?” Mammon asked, peering over their shoulder as they reached into their drawer. His blue eyes widened when they pulled out a pair of scissors. “Whaddaya plan on doin’ with those?”

“Mammon, this is going to hurt like a bitch.”

“Wha - ack!”

Mammon doubled over in pain at the same time the human cut open a slice on the doll’s belly. There, right in the center of the stuffing and stones - and there were herbs in there, they had been right! - was a little bundle of white hair, tied with a piece of twine.

“Ah-ha!” they plucked the bunch out of the doll, and Mammon just barely managed to catch himself on the corner of the desk before he went crashing to the floor.

“Holy shit, human, I’m gonna fuckin’ hurl.”

“Do it somewhere that isn’t my room, please.”

Leviathan: “Levi, I don’t know how to tell you this, but ‘witch’ and ‘magical girl’ aren’t the same thing.”

Ever since they let it slip that they practiced witchcraft, Levi had obsessively forced them to watch every magical girl anime he could think of. It was his way of relating to them, they were sure, but it was starting to get a little out of hand. There were only so many variations of the magical girl trope in existence.

Levi frowned at them. “It’s not?”

“Well, for one, I don’t own a super cute lolita dress.”

“Do you want me to make you one?”

The human laughed. “Somehow I don’t think showing up to a coven meeting wearing a pink loli dress will make the others take me very seriously.”

“What about blue?”

“Leviathan.”

“Fine, fine,” he huffed. “So if it’s not like in the anime, what is human magic like?”

“A lot more boring than demon magic, honestly.” the human shrugged, turning back to the monitor. Since they had put their foot down against watching Madoka, the two of them were rewatching Sailor Moon. “A lot of using herbs and crystals and energy. Really symbolic.”

“That is boring,” Levi scowled. “You don’t even get a transformation sequence.”

“I’m just as mad about it as you are, dude.”

Satan: “Holy shit, Satan, that is a ton of books.”

THe demon had no reason to look as proud as he did as he sat the stack of books on the table in front of him. “This isn’t even all of them. Some of them are cursed, so I let them be for now.”

“That’s...both impressive and concerning.” the human picked up a book off the top of the pile. “Whoa, it’s even handwritten!”

“I’ve collected my fair share of grimoires over the millennia.” Satan took a seat across from them, watching as they turned each page with reverence. “I believe that one is from a Scottish witch from the 16th century.”

“Should I be wearing gloves or something?” they cradled the book like it was made of glass. “This is historic, Satan.”

“I’ve cast the appropriate spells on them to prevent them from decaying, don’t worry.” Satan laughed. “Although your concern is appreciated.”

“I could learn so much about the craft from these,” their voice was barely above a whisper, eyes wide as they scanned each page like it contained the secret to eternal life. “This is...wow…”

The look of utter rapture that the human had on their face was endearing, and Satan couldn’t help but smile softly at them. “Feel free to peruse them whenever you like. They deserve to be appreciated.”

“You mean it?” they looked up with hope sparkling in their eyes. “Thank you so much, Satan!”

“Of course,” he reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind their ear. “That look on your face is worth any price.”

Asmodeus: “I have a gift for you!”

Asmo poked his head up from where he had buried it in his D.D.D. The human stood next to the couch, arms clasped behind their back and a giddy smile stretching across their face. Asmo could practically feel them vibrating from excitement.

“Ooh, for me? Darling, you shouldn’t have!” He pocketed his phone and gave them his full attention. “What is it?”

They held out their hands, revealing the treasure they had been hiding. “Ta-da!”

Asmo carefully picked up the chain from their palms. Dangling from the end of it was a small bottle, wrapped carefully in wire and turned into a pendant. Tiny, translucent pink stones sat inside, nestled in a layer of salt and herbs. The magic surrounding it was faint, as most human witchery was, but it was so uniquely them that Asmo could just about cry.

“Oh, darling, you made me a love charm!” he exclaimed, immediately slipping the necklace on. “It’s so cute! I love it, thank you so much!”

The human smiled. “I’m glad! I wasn’t sure what to do with the rose quartz, but I knew you would love them, so I figured I would make you something! Not that I really think a love charm would work on you, but I figured you would appreciate the aesthetic.”

Asmo laughed, reaching forward to cup the side of their face gently. “You don’t need to use a love charm on me, darling. I’m already captivated by you.” His other hand came up to touch the pendent resting against his collarbone. “This will just serve as a reminder of how spellbound you’ve made me.”

Beelzebub: When they had first described themself as a “kitchen witch,” Beel had thought that they meant they were a really good cook.

And while that was true, they also were literally a kitchen witch.

“Basil for protection...oregano to ward off negative magic...there, that should do it.”

To Beel, it just looked like they were making pasta. Which was never a bad thing. But they chose which herbs to season it with such intention and purpose, Beel knew it was more than that.

“Do herbs really have magic?” he asked, leaning on the counter next to the stove while the human worked on magic dinner. “I’ve never thought of them as particularly magical.”

“It’s more of a human thing,” they said, sprinkling the last of the oregano over the pot of sauce. “We don’t get the flashy sparks and all that, so we had to develop our own magic.”

“Hm…” Beel regarded the pot with curiosity. “Is that why your cooking is so good?”

“Sure, we’ll go with that.” they laughed, swatting at his hand as he slowly approached the pot. “You aren’t sneaky, Beel.”

“Can I just have a taste?”

“Your ‘taste’ is drinking the whole pot like it’s soup.” they rolled their eyes. “I haven’t even started cooking it yet! It’s cold!”

Beel pouted, looking every bit the kicked puppy. “But I want to taste your magic.”

“You can taste my magic when dinner’s ready.”

Belphegor: On nights when he couldn’t sleep, Belphie usually ended up with the human.

Sometimes it was just him wiggling his way into their bed and cuddling with them until he felt sleepy. But tonight, it looks like they were sharing a case of insomnia.

So that was how he ended up sitting on the human’s floor with his hand in their lap as they studied it like it was a textbook.

“So? What do the squiggly lines of destiny tell you about me?”

“That you’re a little bitch.” they shot back, running their thumb over the center of his palm. “You have a lot of crosses on your heart line.”

“Which means?”

“You’re emotionally fucked up.”

Belphie snorted. “I could have told you that one.”

“You’re the one who came in here and wanted to see some human magic, I don’t want to hear any complaining.” they let go of his hand. “The only reason I’m breaking out the salt and candles is to banish your demonic ass from my room.”

“You know that only works on lesser demons.”

“Anything will work as banishment if I throw it hard enough.”

Diavolo: This...felt kind of pointless, honestly.

They knew it was mainly because of Diavolo’s obsession with human culture. But doing a Tarot reading for the Crown Prince of Hell seemed like a waste of everyone’s time.

Well, regardless, a summons from Diavolo was not to be ignored, so they had dutifully gathered up their cards and made their way to the Demon Lord’s Castle.

“You know,” they began hesitantly. “If you want to know the future, you have a time-manipulating butler right there.”

Barbatos, ever watchfully, chuckled and inclined his head. “My Lord is fascinated by human methods of divination.”

“It’s true,” Diavolo nodded. “Tarot especially has always piqued my interest, but very rarely do I have time to indulge with the other witches who visit the Devildom.”

....Oh, they really couldn’t say no to the hopeful gleam in his eye. A man that large had no right to look that cute.

“Alright,” they handed him the deck of cards. It looked hilariously small in his hands. “Go ahead and shuffle them.”

“Oh, I get to do it?”

“If you want,” they shrugged. “I usually have whoever is being read for do the shuffling, so the deck can get a feel for their energy. Unless you don’t want to, of course.”

“No, this is exciting!” He really did look like he was having fun. “How many should I draw?”

“Just one, and we can go from there.”

With a focus that might have been a bit too intense, Diavolo began shuffling. He handled the deck carefully, which made them happy. So many people were rough with the cards, and they were always worried they were going to get ruined.

“Alright.” Diavolo laid a card face down on the table between them. “Would you like to do the honors?”

He was being dramatic, but they couldn’t help but play along. What was the harm in a little bit of fun? They flipped the card face up and let out a startled chuckle.

The Devil.

“Did you do that on purpose?” they asked, laughter dripping from their voice.

“No, honest!” Diavolo was laughing too. “What does the Devil card mean?”

“It means my deck has a sense of humor.”

[1kook]

netflix & chill

summary If you planned things right, you could rain down your raging displeasure on Jeon Jungkook right after the meal but before this proposed ‘Netflix and chilling,’ maybe dramatically throw your glass of wine at him, before storming out of his place and reporting him to the authorities (Namjoon) for his douchebag personality. warnings grinding, 2 seconds of sub kook, oral (f), cum eating, vanilla but [ passionate ], unprotected sex, dirty talk tags use of the oldest trick in the book (“your hands are sooo big”), shy oblivious AND gentleman jk? pick a struggle, brief ment of app developer kook, evil and conniving oc wc 10.2k !! wow!!

will I ever write a serious jk fic? NO. this entire thing was based off this pic of jungkook which i’ve said before that i would print out in sepia filter and crumple and stuff in a drawer n then tell my kids 35 years from now was a long lost lover i met on a cruise to the bahamas and never saw again ty to mia more @daechwlta​ for being there during my brief crisis over this fic 🥺

When Namjoon had first not so subtly mentioned the idea of setting you up on a date, it was with a faux air of disinterest that you had masterfully pried the details out of him. Namjoon has a friend, he said, a friend who was kinda sorta attached to his hip. And while Namjoon loved the kid, he also thought this friend could use some social interaction outside of Namjoon.

Now you and Namjoon weren’t exactly the most conventional of friends for him to be proposing blind dates to you at whim. He was your senior at school, your mentor in your scholarship program, an educated man studying for his masters. So when he’d first uttered the words you were immediately on the fence. Sure, the two of you knew each other well and probably got along better than most mentor-mentee pairings among your year, but you doubt Namjoon knew enough of your tastes to offer you up for a blind date.

According to Namjoon, his friend was a kid in the same year as you, making him not so much as a kid as he was your classmate. You brushed it off at first, spewing some bullshit excuse that you’d rather focus on your studies, and how dating was a distraction to your education, as if you hadn’t spent the weekend prior binge watching some Spanish novella while you dutifully ignored your essay.

The second time Namjoon mentions it you agree on the spot. Life on campus could only be interesting for so long, so you might as well make the best of it and go on as many stupid dates as possible.

Namjoon is over the moon.

He tells you he’ll pass your phone number on over to that friend of his—“Jeon Jungkook”—and promises you you won’t regret this because his friend was amazing, really. And for Namjoon to sing his praises for just any underclassmen was unheard of. In fact, besides you, you don’t think Namjoon knows many other students younger than him, and if he did, you hardly doubt he would regard them so highly.

So he gives his friend your number, and so ends your weekly meeting with your mentor. You only realize on the walk back to your dorm that you forgot to ask him about some club at school, the whole goal of this week’s meeting, but by then you don’t really care, the whole conversation fading into the background.

In fact, you forget about the whole ordeal until Friday night rolls around and you’re once again, binge watching another novella on your laptop, when your phone suddenly vibrates.

You were by no means a loser at school, a friendless nobody, but you were also not the outgoing, school-spirited student on the front page of your school’s website, and thus had nearly every app that could produce a notification on your phone muted, every text thread silenced. The only notifications and messages you allowed were from your email and from your roommate, and considering the fact Doyeon was face down in a puddle of her own mid-semester tears right across from you, it was probably your email.

Much to your surprises, it isn’t that “Monday’s Class is CANCELLED” email you were hoping for, but instead some unknown number in a text notification. You roll your eyes, click it open thinking it’s a reminder from some store or from some guy claiming to be from your bank, only to pause at the words written inside the little grey bubble.

hey its jungkook!!! joon gave me your number to I guess ask you on a date soo are you free tmrw night??

The excessive punctuation reminds you a little bit of your kid sister back home and the dorky emails she’ll send you from time to time. It’s with that memory and a smile on your face, that you’re suddenly reminded of what exactly this message is saying. “Oh shit,” you mumble, moving to sit up and reread the text. Doyeon complaining loudly in the background has you reading it twice more before you understand it, and by then there’s a fluttery feeling in your chest.

You were by no means easily swayed by people, but this guy had received praise from Kim Namjoon of all people, so he definitely had some prestige to his name. He doesn’t seem overbearing from this one text he’d sent, but he also didn’t seem completely disinterested.  

You try to match his nonchalant energy, letting him know you were in fact free and down to meet him, just to let you know more details.

You won’t lie, there’s a giddy feeling bubbling within you at the prospect of getting all dolled up, hitting the town, pawning a free meal off some unsuspecting college soul, and maybe even hitting it off. It’s been a while since you’ve dated, sue you.

Jeon Jungkook’s response crushes those dreams as well as hurdles you straight into a nightmare.

cool!! was thinking i could cook for us at my place, drink a little wine, maybe Netflix and chill a little bit??

You are blown away by the absolute gall of this man, to butter you up by painting a pretty picture only to reduce you to a mere booty call. The fact he had felt confident enough to say all that within the same sentence blows your mind.

Did this Jeon Jungkook, who you had no idea of what he looked like, who had no idea of what you looked like, seriously just invite you over for some quote unquote Netflix and chill?

Who, in the ever living hell, was this guy who so sleazily invited women over to fuck with no qualms about who they were?

You’re offended that Namjoon would set you up like this, pawn you off to such a greasy friend. But then again, you guess not everyone knows their friends thoroughly, because this Jeon Jungkook flirtatiously inviting your over for some sex sounds nothing like the golden boy Kim Namjoon had raved about earlier this week. You click your phone off, tapping the device against your lips as you ponder how to best rip this jerk to shreds via text.

It’s amidst Doyeon cursing out her statistics teacher that an idea hits you.

Tomorrow was Saturday night, and as far as you knew, you really didn’t have anything else going on for you anyway. You’d take Jeon Jungkook’s offer, let him cook you a free meal and drink some of his wine. He mentioned having his own place, and vaguely you remember Namjoon saying he lived alone, hence his introverted tendencies, so you could slip in and out without doing that walk of shame through a boy’s dorm hall.

Not that there would be anything to feel shameful about. In fact, if you planned things right, you could rain down your raging displeasure on Jeon Jungkook right after the meal but before this proposed ‘Netflix and chilling,’ maybe dramatically throw your glass of wine at him, before storming out of his place and reporting him to the authorities (Namjoon) for his douchebag personality.

Ha! That would certainly teach the asshole not to use his poor, unsuspecting friends to reel in nice girls like you into one night stands.

You could practically feel the devil horns begging to poke out of your skull, the forked tail wiggling behind you, as you click your phone back on and text Jeon Jungkook a great!! what’s your address :)

——

Saturday morning and afternoon are as boring as they usually are. You do a little homework, and spend thirty minutes filling Doyeon in on your master plan, which she eats up and even gives you some pointers—“and then you can be like, ‘you sick freak, as if I’d let you near this 5-star, Michelin reviewed, Gordon Ramsey approved coochie’ and throw the whole plate at his head!”—before getting ready for your little date at Jeon Jungkook’s.

You try hard to look good, harder than you would have if he hadn’t offended you by reducing you to a booty call, and Doyeon helps. She does your eyebrows all nice and natural, dusts the thinnest shin of liquid highlighter across the high points of your face, the whole shebang until you’re looking like a sexy, glowing goddess. You shimmy into a pretty dress, nothing too fancy nor too casual, and even pull on those strappy sandals you’d bought on sale last winter before blowing a kiss to Doyeon and meeting your Uber downstairs.

You don’t quite remember what the reason behind Jeon Jungkook living in such a swanky neighborhood a few minutes from campus was, if it was from a job you vaguely recall Namjoon mentioning, or if it was just purely hereditary, but his place is nice. It’s a connected townhouse, something you’d expect a newly wed couple to live in and not some douchebag third year.

Worse comes to worse, you get banned from this rich neighborhood after humiliating one of its residents in his own home, not that you’d ever make it big enough to live here anyway.

You’d texted Namjoon sometime that morning to let him know you were meeting his friend, an ominous text with an even more ominous smiley face attached to it. But it seems Namjoon is easily blinded by underclassmen he trusts, if Jeon Jungkook’s assholish feats and your own suspicious behavior is anything to go by, because he texts you back a polite have fun! he’s a little shy, so it might take a while for the ball to start rolling hahahaha.

Shy my ass, you think closing the door of your Uber behind you. You double check the address that had been texted to you, walking up to the neat townhouse and knocking against the polished door.

It’s a little chilly, and you hope finding an Uber is easier later tonight when you make your grand escape. It’s between these thoughts that the door swings open, revealing the most handsome man you’ve ever met.

He’s attractive, disgustingly so, with dark hair and light brown tips to contrast, tickling his cheekbones. His dark eyes are round and imploring as they meet yours, gaze almost innocent and doe like as he takes you in. He’s got this soft, blue turtleneck on, and it looks like it should be a seasonal sweater reserved for the holidays but he pulls it off nicely on this premature spring night. His pretty pink lips move, and it takes you a second to realize he’s talking.

“___?” He says, and his voice is deep, yet soft in its own unique way. You nod, like a stupid bobble head, because your throat constricted the moment this beautiful angel opened the door. “It’s cold outside, come in!” He urges you, out stretching his palm to make sure you don’t trip over the slight step up the door as he brings you into his home.

“Hi,” he exhales when you’re finally inside, standing a little too close to you in his small entryway.

“Hi,” you finally choke out, a little dazed by how handsome he is, and the sudden realization that you’re supposed to throw your glass of wine at him tonight because he’s a douchebag dawns on you. You blink yourself out of your stupor, taking a step back and gesturing towards your sandal clad feet.

“Oh!” Jeon Jungkook exclaims at the sudden realization. “I forgot to set out a pair of slippers for you,” he sheepishly admits, before he excuses himself to go get some. There’s a tiny ottoman pushed against the wall, beneath a long mirror, that you take a seat on it, carefully unstrapping your sandals.

All the while, you’re deep in thought.

It makes sense that someone like Jeon Jungkook was so forward in inviting you over for sex during your first interaction. Realistically speaking, the guy had it all. He lived alone in a swanky townhouse in a wealthy neighborhood (you finally remember Namjoon saying he did some app developing for major companies—yeah, still in college but already making it big because he was that good), and looked like the blueprint for the perfect man, someone who’d impress your parents. On top of that, the man was was a 21st century Adonis. You hadn’t missed the flash of ink on his knuckles, or the way his jeans had hugged his legs.

He’s making his way back now, inspecting the slippers in his hands, and you don’t miss the way the jeans are pulled taut around his thighs in particular.

Yeah, he definitely knew his way around a woman’s body, there was no way he couldn’t have.

You slip your feet into the slippers he places before you, wiggling your toes around, before glancing back at Jungkook. He smiles warmly, a little beauty mark beneath his lip making itself known. He takes your hand, pulls you up onto your feet, and begins guiding you down the hall and to what you assume is the kitchen.

“I didn’t know what you liked, and I figured asking you three hours before you came over would be too awkward,” he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. He glances at you again, and upon seeing your inquisitive stare, quickly turns away with flushed cheeks.

Oh this man knew the game, and he knew it well.

Jeon Jungkook still thinks he can play that cute campus boy being set up by his senior card now, after he’d shown you his true colors last night via text. But he has a big storm coming. As much as you could admit he was good to look at, you would not be fooled by some pretty face and tasty food. No, you came here with one goal and one goal only, and that was to give Jeon Jungkook a piece of his own two-faced medicine before running off to tattle to Namjoon.

You reach the kitchen and the heavenly smell of Alfredo sauce swarms your nostrils. “I… I’m still new to cooking, so I hope you don’t mind some Alfredo pasta,” he admits, shy smile adorning his features as he avoids your gaze once again to toy with the dish towel by the sink.

You creep closer to the counter, where two meticulously presented ceramic plates sit beside a wine bottle, and the glands in your mouth suddenly go into overdrive in their rush to make you salivate, and you choke out an overly eager, “it looks amazing!” before you know it.

Okay, you came here with two goals.

——

Jungkook carries the two bowls in his big hands to the dining room beside the kitchen, and you follow behind with the bottle of wine and two glasses as you set the table together. The utensils are already there, but Jungkook runs back into the kitchen anyway to return with some fancy cloth napkins for the two of you.

Just as you're tugging a chair out to sit, Jungkook beats you to it. “Ah, let me,” he smiles, and your heart thunders nervously in your chest as you return the expression, brushing your hands beneath you before sitting down and letting him push you in. Jungkook takes his own seat in front of you, and before you can dig in he calls out to seemingly nobody, “Alexa, dim the dining room lights.”

The overhead lights dim, and with their overbearing glow gone, you can finally appreciate the battery powered candles snuggled neatly into a little bowl on the table between you two. You ooh appreciatively, and Jungkook looks proud of himself.

Then, he says, “Alexa, play…Date Night Playlist.”

You blink, and a soft piano tune begins filtering through a speaker he’s hidden somewhere in the room. Even with the fake candles being your main source of light, the flush on Jungkook’s cheeks is evident as he gestures towards you to eat.

You won’t lie. Jeon Jungkook was extremely endearing.

This much becomes evident the further you get into the meal. As small talk devolves into full fledged conversations and story telling, his shy demeanor slipping away but still sticking to the edges of his personality, you begin to have a more difficult time connecting this Jungkook to the one who had less than 24 hours ago asked you to come over and “Netflix and chill” with him.

But the more you speak, the more distant that image begins to feel. For one, Jungkook does put on a fairly reserved aura for you, telling you about his job but refusing to brag about it even when you egg him on. He has no qualms gassing up his friends, Namjoon in particular, who Jungkook claims is his role model for some unknown reason, given the fact they are neither in the same major nor in any of the same clubs. They’re friends, point blank period, but Namjoon is very obviously a star in Jungkook’s eyes.

Additionally, he’s quite embarrassed to admit why Namjoon had been so set on getting Jungkook to date, but eventually tells you it’s because Jungkook’s last girlfriend had been during your freshman year—two whole years ago! It makes you wonder what he’d been doing since then, if he’d used the time to fully invest in his work or if he’d been mingling around, unbeknownst to his friends, which would explain the flirtatious offer that landed you here.

Still, a part of you refuses to believe last night’s Jungkook and tonight’s Jungkook were one in the same, and if they were, what had made this shy man so unabashedly invite you over for some sex. Was this act all a ploy? Or maybe, was he purposefully trying to ward you away by coming off as a gentleman now that he’d seen your face and wasn’t interested in you anymore?

Apparently it’s neither of the two, and you don’t realize this until you finish your meal and make your way into his living room to finally get down to the long awaited Netflix and chilling. It’s only when you sit down on the couch, smack dab in the middle, because at this point, you’re not gonna throw your wine at Jeon Jungkook like you planned, he was too nice. And if this niceness was an act to get in your panties, you didn’t care at this point. He was hot, achingly so, and at least you’d get a good fuck out of it.

But as you said, apparently not. Because Jeon Jungkook sees you purposefully take up the entire middle of the couch, sultry eyes staring him down, and decides to sit flush against the armrest, somehow leaving a good foot between the two of you, despite the fact you’re sitting next to each other.

Your brain can’t work fast enough to comprehend the situation, before he’s asking you what you want to watch. “Um,” you say, pointedly staring at him and not the screen. “Tr-Transformers?”

The way Jungkook’s eyes light up is insane, already round eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as he eagerly rushes to select it from whatever streaming service he has, probably not even Netflix, all the while chattering on about how much he loves that series, and is so glad you do too.

The whole time, you’re struck by the oddness of his casual tone, the way he’s overly invested in the 20th Century Fox opening, and how he’s very carefully avoiding intruding in on your personal space.

The last point in particular has you wanting to pull your hair out, because you want Jeon Jungkook intruding in on your personal space. You want him pressed so tightly against you you can’t breathe, you can’t move, until you’re drowning in him as he finally lives up to his promise of some Netflix and chill, because you want him, and you want him so. very. bad.

“Oh, I forgot the popcorn!” Jungkook exclaims, and you jump at the sudden volume of his voice, because he’d been pretty silent as he avidly watched the first few minutes of the movie. “Sorry,” he chuckles, and his leg brushes against yours as he shuffles between you and the coffee table on his way out. You vaguely hear the popping of the popcorn in the kitchen, but you’re too distracted by your suddenly overwhelming thoughts.

Okay, one thing was for sure, and that was that Jeon Jungkook definitely had no fucking idea what the phrase Netflix and chill meant, because the way he’d zeroed in on the movie and the popcorn, and not you, was unheard of on such invitations. You deduce he probably heard it somewhere, and, now understanding the true nature of Jungkook’s sweet and shy personality, made no such perverted connection to the phrase.

Which meant he most definitely did not demean you to a mere booty call, like you’d deluded yourself into believing, someone he could hump and dump with no regrets, before calling Namjoon up to thank him. Which meant he’d had no ulterior motives in meeting you tonight, just planning to get to know you at the suggestion of his friend, and had—unbeknownst to him—successfully wooed you thus far.

Which was great! If you turned a blind eye to the evil, conniving plans you’d made without even meeting the guy, and the subsequent flood of self-inflicted disapproval when you realized Jeon Jungkook was a sweetheart who definitely did not deserve having a glass of wine thrown at his face after making you a home cooked meal and giving you the full Olive Garden experience, with his dimmed lights and candlelit dinner and piano music on the background.

Yeah. Perfectly fine.

The only problem now was that you had become so dangerously smitten with the man that you wanted to sleep with him. You wanted that Netflix and chill, needed it like it was the last slot in a daycare class and you were a soccer mom of five wanting to get at least one kid out of the house for the summer for the sake of her own sanity. You were desperate.

No, you scold yourself. This was fine, this was good, this was perfectly okay. If anything, this just further made you enamored with Jungkook, because it proved how gentlemanly he was by not trying to sleep with you on the first date.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to, the devil on your shoulder crooned.

The microwave in the kitchen stops, and you hear the sound of cabinets opening as Jungkook pours the popcorn into a bowl. On screen, the main character is meeting a bunch of giant cars-turned-robots, you don’t fucking know.

But the devil was right.

Jungkook hadn’t offered to sleep with you, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. Furthermore, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be seduced into wanting to, your evil brain suggested, and the hope that had slithered it’s way into your chest from the very moment Jungkook had opened the door, took that fact and ran with it.

“What’d I miss?” Jungkook says when he returns, popcorn bowl in hand.

“Oh, um, he was with the car,” you offer, trying to stop the nefarious smirk from slipping onto your features. Jungkook laughs, cute and airy as he shuffles past you.

He’s too absorbed in the screen, not looking as he sits down, closer than last time until his thigh brushes yours and he jerks back in embarrassment. “Oh, sorry,” he flounders, goes to move away but you act fast.

You grab onto his upper arm with both of yours like an octopus, keeping him flush to you as you gaze up at him with wide eyes. “No, it’s okay,” you rush to assure him, loosening your hold as he tentatively relaxes beside you. You glance down at the popcorn bowl in his hand, swiping a piece to pop between your lips. “It’s easier for us this way,” you say, and you’re pulling that straight out of your ass, because you hate popcorn and have literally zero desire for it and wouldn’t have reached for it anyway if you weren’t trying to convince him this was all for popcorn sharing purposes.

Jungkook’s eyes briefly flicker down to where you’re munching on that popcorn, your lips, before he’s quickly averting his gaze. “Ah, y-yeah,” he agrees, and though he tries to relax back into the couch, you can still feel the tension of his muscles as he settles beside you.

With his eyes no longer trained on you, you snuggle closer into his side resting your cheek against the soft material covering his shoulder, finally letting that devious smirk slip onto your face. You keep yourself close to Jungkook, loving the way his warmth permeates the thick sweater he’s wearing, even if he’s still overly into the movie. You know he’s seen it before, because he keeps telling you random tidbits like, “they use this in the next movie!” Or “he ends up becoming really important in the sixth movie,” and you want to listen to this endearing nerd’s commentary, you really do, but once your brain is stuck on horny, it is stuck on horny.

He doesn’t even eat a lot of popcorn, setting it down not ten minutes later onto the coffee table. You release him as he moves forward, but quickly latch onto him again when he sits back down.

Much to your surprise, Jungkook is way more relaxed then, shrugging you off to rest his hand on the couch behind you, and you inwardly squeal at the prospect of getting to cuddle up to his body, and not just his arm. You cuddle in close to him, leaving your slippers on the ground as you tuck your legs up onto the couch cushions.

Jungkook is so warm and firm, and you know it’s your horny brain speaking, but you swear you feel a tight set of abs underneath the palm you rest on his stomach, and you give an experimental brush over the area. His heart picks up, you hear it by where your head is leaning against his chest, and you tilt your head up to give him a curious glance. His cheeks are red, and he doesn’t look at you even though you know he sees you, so you decide to kick things up a notch.

You sigh loudly, peeling yourself away from him to properly level him with a pout. “Jungkook, aren’t you hot in this?” You ask, pinching the wooly material between two fingers and pulling it from his skin. Jungkook finally looks away from the screen, nibbling his lower lip as he takes in your quizzical expression.

“Um, only a little… but it’s fine!” He rushes to say, and you recall from your conversations over dinner that Jungkook doesn’t much like people fussing over him, so you quickly change gears.

You press a hand against your cheek, the same one that had been resting against his shoulder earlier. “Oh, well… it’s really itchy,” you announce, and his eyes widen, one hand absentmindedly reaching to clutch the material at his chest. “It’s making me really itchy,” you emphasize, and part of you feels bad for taking advantage of his caring nature, but this is all for the greater good, you convince yourself. “Do you mind taking it off?”

“I, uh, yeah,” he agrees, reaching for the hem of his sweater before carefully peeling it off. When he pulls it over his head, you can’t help the triumphant grin that overtakes your face, though you quickly mask it when he finally frees himself from the material. “Better?” He says once he’s clad in only a plain black shirt.

“Mm, much,” you sigh, and nearly soak your panties then and there when a tattooed sleeve comes into view. “Woah!” You exclaim, snatching his wrists up to examine his skin. “What’s this?” You marvel, tracing every inch of delicious skin with your predatory gaze. Jungkook huffs out a laugh, and you glance up to watch as he rubs the back of his neck in that same embarrassed way he’d done multiple times throughout your night together.

“My tattoos,” he says, and then seems to realize the simplicity of his statement and rushes to add to it, “I hope you don’t mind?”

You hum, shifting onto your knees to face him as you continue tracing over a huge tiger lily by his forearm. “Why would I? It’s your body,” you say, and watch the nervous glance melt off his face as he regards you with something new. Something akin to wonder as he lets you trace over more of his ink, nodding along to your words.

“Yeah… yeah!” He agrees, and you grin at his sudden zeal. He chuckles, physically relaxing beneath your touch, and it’s probably the most relaxed he’s been all night as you continue rubbing your hands over every tattoo on his skin, and then purposefully focusing on the ones near his bicep. “Sorry, ‘m just used to people pushing off their own opinions about them onto me,” he explains, and for a moment, the horniness that had been fueling you all night fades away, and you let your hands trail down, past his wrist, until you’re sandwiching his hand between yours.

“Fuck what anyone else thinks,” you tell him, eyes hard as you imagine anyone imposing their stupid thoughts on Jungkook, who was too good for this world. “If you think they’re cool, then they're the coolest thing in the world.”

He smiles at you, and you’ve seen this smile about a million times tonight—when you first came in, when you talked about yourself at dinner, when you mentioned this stupid movie—but it has something swelling in your chest. Something too intimate for a first date, so you quickly move to repress it.

Glancing down at his hand in yours, littered with smaller tattoos across his knuckles, your brain whirls into action. Bringing it up between the two of you, you turn his hand over to line your palms up. “Wow, your hands are so big,” you sigh, slowly reverting back to dirty thoughts as you twist yours and Jungkook’s hands this way and that. He snorts, bends the tips of his fingers over yours just to hear you ooooh again.

“Yeah, they’re pretty big,” he agrees, completely ignoring the film playing on the screen, which is a huge win in your eyes considering how deeply he’d been watching it earlier.

Finally, you see an opening and pounce.

“Well, that means something else is pretty big too,” you murmur, chancing a glance up at his face. His face is the perfect definition of composed, and you can tell when exactly he processes your words because those little pink lips part in surprise, red slowly filling the apples of his cheeks. You let go of his palm, letting it slide between your fingers until it falls limp beside him.

Jungkook watches you with wide eyes, as you raise yourself up onto your knees. “Jungkook?” You mumble, giving him no warning before you’re throwing a leg across his lap, knees pressed into the couch on either side of his thighs.

“Y-Yes?” He stutters, brown hair falling away from his face as he stares up at you. You flash him a sweet smile, and you can tell it relaxes him because his fists unclench beside him.

“You’re a really nice boy,” you sigh, and when you’ve scooted your knees a little closer to his ridiculously thin waist, you finally let yourself sit. You find yourself right before his crotch, which he desperately tries to hide as he shifts around, but can’t with you on top of him. You let your hands flutter to rest at his shoulders, and he gulps. “You’re so sweet and cute,” you add, relish in the flush that climbs up to his ears. “But I’m a little sad you invited me over to Netflix and chill, but won’t do just that,” you pout, a finger tangling itself in a soft strand at the back of his head.

“Huh?” He stutters, eyes nearly bulging out when you wiggle around again. “I-I’m sorry?” He huffs, and when you move too close to his crotch, where his jeans are slowly growing more and more strained, he panics and reaches a hand out to steady your waist.

You feign confusion, flashing him another pout as you duck closer until your noses bump against each other. “You know what it means, don’t you, Jungkook?” You inquire, eyes falling dangerously lidded as you swallow up every inch of his appearances.

He stutters, hands moving up and down as if he doesn’t know where to put them anymore. But you know exactly where Jungkook can put those hands, and you waste no time catching his wrists in your hands to guide him towards your hips. “No?” He breathes, fingers flexing against you, and you smile sweetly at him.

“It means,” you purr, shifting forward until you’re flush against where you need him most. You can barely contain the whimper that climbs out of your throat when you finally feel the rough material of his jeans against your panties. “It means you wanna fuck, Jungkook,” you exhale, tossing your head back as your body basks in the slight reprieve, the way Jungkook squirms beneath you aiding greatly in providing that sensation you craved.

“It’s nothing more than an excuse,” you huff, placing a hand on the back of his neck to steady yourself. At your touch, Jungkook jolts, thighs jumping beneath you and you stifle another groan when the zipper of his jeans prods against your core. “For you to fuck my brains out while some s-stupid movie plays in the background.”

You’re not sure when, but sometime during that last explanation your hands had fully delved into the thick tresses of Jungkook’s hair. You give an experimental tug, and poor Jungkook, so lost in all that you’re telling him, lolls his head back for you easily until the long expanse of his neck is available, soft creamy skin yours for the taking.

You pounce, kissing the skin gently at first, before sprinkling in a handful of nibbles. He’s sensitive, devastatingly so, as he gasps at a particular suck. You suction your lips on the spot below his ear, carefully biting down on the skin as he unravels beneath you. “Will you do it, Jungkookie?” You murmur against the shell of his ear,

He nods eagerly, and his fingers hurt where he’s pressed them deep into your waist, like he’s trying to brand you as his with his mere strength alone. “Y-Yes,” he exhales, hips jerking when you swipe your tongue over the pretty mark you’d left on his perfect skin.

You smother your smirk against his neck, grinding down on him once again. “Yes what?” You tease, and let his strong hands roll you against him afterwards.

“Yes, I-I’ll…” he stumbles, eyes dazed as he watches you through hooded lids. You raise a brow at him, shifting in his lap. It’s enough to kickstart him back up, and he’s biting down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. “I’ll fuck you, I’ll fuck you just like you want,” he rambles. He surprises you when he begins rutting up against you, so animalistic and uncontrolled, nothing like the sweet Jungkook that had indulged you over dinner. “I’ll make you come, p-promise,” he rasps.

You smirk down at him, hoping he doesn’t see the metaphorical horns sticking out of your head the further he falls into your trap. Before he can say anything else, you surge forward, slotting your mouths together for the first time that night.

It’s no surprise that Jungkook kisses just like he speaks, carefully like he’s afraid one hard press of his lips will ward you off. His lips are smooth, a fact you’d hyper-fixated on all night as he spoke, but before you can ponder on that any further, something hot and wet is prodding at your lower lip.

The gasp you barely manage to contain ends up escaping anyway when Jungkook’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face, tilting your head to the side as his tongue slithers into your mouth. You become obsessed with the way he touches you, every bit the gentlemen he’d been all night, fingers just barely pressing into your cheek like he doesn’t want to mess up your makeup. His other hand, snuggly wrapped around your waist, pulls you tighter against him until your chests are pressed together.

And that tongue. That tongue of his that leaves no room for argument, quickly shutting down any attempts of yours to overtake him. He’s graceful about it too, one nudge enough to convince you he’s got this, he’ll take care of you. You whimper, a sound Jungkook swallows before he’s biting down on your lower lip.

When he pulls away, his lips are red and glossy, and you wonder if yours are too. “Fuck, you’re so pretty,” he sighs, gazing at you like he can’t believe you’re there in front of him.

Before you can say anything else, he’s burying his face in the crook of your neck to brush kisses over your skin. “Let me eat you out,” he begs, but his voice is so silky and smooth that it doesn’t sound so much as a plea as much as it does a suggestion. He licks a stripe up your neck, and you jump in his hold.

It’s at this moment where the sudden realization hits you, the feeling of having the reins yanked out of your hands. You so vividly controlled every aspect of Jungkook just a few moments ago, when you’d had your own mouth on his neck, and carefully coaxed him into some sex.

But it seems Jeon Jungkook isn’t as soft or as pliable as you had dubbed him to be, and if the way he’s begun subtly rolling your hips into his crotch is any sign, he certainly wasn’t the submissive type either. Which leaves you wondering, exactly what type of person was Jungkook in bed?

Well, you had all night to figure that out.

“Hey,” he whines suddenly, ripping you out of your thoughts. You glance down at him, registering the bored set of his eyes and the unimpressed quirk of his lips. “Pay attention to me.”

You blink, lips twitching. You can barely muffle the giggle that tears itself from your throat, leaning your forehead on his shoulder as your body shakes at his suddenly childish words. Jungkook chuckles too, as if suddenly realizing how out of place his own statement was. “Sorry,” he smiles, cheeks pleasantly rosy and you can’t even stop yourself from kissing him silly.

Jungkook, bless his heart, let’s you rain down a good three kisses on him before he’s pushing you down on the couch beside him. There’s still a slight gleam in his eyes, but the rest of his face schools itself into a hungry expression as he drinks in your body laid out before him. “Let me eat you out?” He asks again, voice but a soft whisper.

You nod, heart beating loudly in your chest as he shuffles down until he can press a kiss to the tops of your thighs. He hasn’t even done anything that intense yet, but you already feel the muscles in your leg ready to spasm just from his proximity.

He’s mouthing at your skin, nudging your legs apart, and you, usually so confident in your sexuality, can’t find the courage to look at him as he so lovingly carries out his ministrations.

As if sensing your sudden bout of shyness (you! shy! Doyeon was gonna tease you about this for the rest of your life once you recapped this for her), he places a soft kiss just below where the hem of your dress begins, before pulling back and uttering, “this okay?”

You hum in response, face warm from just imagining how good he must look down there, peppering your skin with kisses. Your heart nearly rips itself out of your chest when a strong set of fingers wraps around your wrist suddenly, sliding over and around your hand until he’s tangled them with yours.

At this, you nearly break your neck trying to look at him, only to be met with an amused smile. Jungkook gives your hand a squeeze, and you barely get to appreciate the schoolgirl flood of emotions in your chest, when suddenly his free hand comes out of left field, cupping the back of your knee to push your legs further apart, before gliding across the expanse of your thigh to push your dress up.

If Jungkook holding your hand was enough to make your heart skip a beat, Jungkook pressing a chaste kiss to your panty-clad mound was enough to send you into cardiac arrest. Your leg twitches at the sudden touch, a gasp catching in your throat at the delicate path he kisses over your panties, until he’s flicking his tongue over your clit. “Oh,” you moan, and against your better judgment, your free hand is tangling itself in his silky strands.

Jungkook smirks, what sounds like a tiny chuckle muffled as he continues mouthing along your sex, until your panties are soaked both from your arousal and his saliva. Your little thong stares him in the face, and he groans at the sight, glancing up at you with those wide eyes of his like you’re his entire world. “Can I?”

Jungkook gives your clit one final kiss, before he lets go of your hand, and you can’t help the whine that leaves you upon the lost contact. Jungkook eats it up, pressing a kiss turned smile against your knee as he tugs your underwear down. It coils up as it goes, until he’s pulling a tightly twisted maroon thong off your ankles, and tossing it off somewhere behind him.

If his mouth felt good through your panties, it feels even better without. You mewl when he brushes his lips over your clit, plush lips working your sensitive bundle of nerves, sly tongue occasionally creeping out to toy with you further. “Jungkook,” you cry out, back arching. He licks and slurps likes he’s a starved man, and you're the first meal he’s ever had. You want to sob from how good it feels, his tongue flicking over your bud like he just can’t get enough.

He pulls away to catch your gaze, doesn’t let it go as he runs a lone finger over your slit, coating the digit in your own arousal, before carefully plunging it into your warm, wet heat. “Is this good?” He rasps out, watching your facial expressions carefully as he wiggles his finger deeper into your core, his other hand wrapped around your thigh to keep you still. You moan, feeling like a boneless heap of organs beneath this insanely handsome man who can’t keep his hands off your quivering pussy.

His fingers don’t let up, slowly pulling out before plunging back in. The room fills with disgustingly wet sounds, but that fact drifts to the back of your head the faster his fingers go. Your eyes roll into your head, your body twitching with each press of his fingers.

“Is it good, pretty?” He repeats, and since you’re not looking at him anymore, the sudden lick against your clit has your back arching and your thighs quivering with surprise. “Tell me it’s good, ___,” Jungkook croons, and you nod in a hurry.

“It’s good!” You cry, moaning loudly when he slips another finger into you, scissoring the two inside of you. “It’s so good, Jungkook—y-you’re so good,” you moan, and nearly cry actual tears when he curls his fingers inside of you, pressing down against the most sensitive spot within you.

Jungkook doesn’t let up, continues licking and slurping against your sensitive bud, even when your orgasm hits and you’re begging him to stop. He doesn’t let you go until he feels the warmth coat his fingers, feels the wetness begging to seep out of your plugged pussy. He lets you go then, only to move closer to your hole and replace his fingers with his mouth. There, he carefully catches and collects the cum that trickles out, mouth warm against your trembling body.

Your body quivers with each long drag of his tongue over your sensitive cunt, and you’re about to ask him to stop, when he finally pulls away and pushes himself over you, arms caging you in as he stares down at your withered form. “Kiss,” you manage to gasp out, and Jungkook raises an eyebrow in question. “Kiss me,” you repeat, and then, thoughtfully, “please.”

Jungkook complies, leans down to connect your mouths in a sweet kiss. You’re blinded by the delicacy of it all, that you in no way see coming the sudden substance that slides down your throat from his own. You choke at the sudden intrusion, belatedly realizing it’s your cum he’s pushing down your throat, the cum he didn’t swallow.

“That’s it, pretty,” Jungkook croons, licking up the residual come that hadn’t made it into your mouth. “See how you taste for me. Isn’t it sweet?” He murmurs, pushing his tongue into your mouth as if he regretted not saving any for himself. It’s the first time you’ve had your own pleasure in your mouth, so you’re not exactly sure how to feel. What you do feel is the overwhelming surge of arousal at seeing Jungkook rave about it and lap it up inside your own mouth.

He kisses you for a few moments, mouth moving languidly along yours. One hand reaches down to rub soothingly at your inner thigh, like he’s coaxing the feeling back into your body after lulling you into one of the most heavenly orgasms of your entire life. You whimper when he bites down on your lower lip, like you’re still too sensitive to reciprocate, but Jungkook doesn’t mind. He lets you go, licks over where he’d bitten like an apology.

After a few minutes of just this, of feeling like the most cherished girl in the entire world, Jungkook finally pulls away and levels you with a dashing smile. “All good?” He asks, hands still trailing up your waist until they’re framing the swell of your breasts, where he gently circles your nipple.

You nod, dazedly staring up at him and it’s at this exact moment that you realize there’s something stiff poking at your hip. You glance down, and Jungkook glances down with you, until you’re both staring at the hard on he’s hiding beneath his jeans. Jungkook chuckles, low and dark by your ear as he experimentally presses it against you.

Before you can stop yourself, your hand is untangling itself from around his shoulders and slithering down his front. You cup his erection, his shaky exhale giving you the courage to toy with his belt buckle until it’s undone and you're battling with the button on his jeans instead. You put up a good fight, but in the end the angle is too tight for you to properly undo it, and Jungkook brushes your hands away with a soft kiss to your lips.

He pushes himself off you, and you’re immediately craving the warm press of his body against yours the second he’s gone. “Get that dress off for me, pretty girl,” he says, pulling his shirt over his head, rendering you completely speechless as you gawk at his body. Jungkook glances down at you as he goes to undo his pants, a shapely brow raising in your direction and a soft quirk of his lips gesturing for you to do as you’re told.

You spur into action, wiggling the dress up and over your breasts until you’re pulling it over your head and letting it drop beside you on the floor. You’re just in time to see Jungkook push his jeans down his hips, a classic black Calvin Klein underwear band glaring back at you.

The chance to marvel at Jungkook’s thin waist framed by that tight underwear is gone as quickly as it came, and you’re greeted with an even more mouthwatering sight when he pushes the elastic band down, and that big cock you had alluded to springs out of its confines. You groan, subconsciously rolling your hips into the air as you take in the sight of his cock, mushroom tip swollen and flushed. There’s a thick vein that runs along the underside of it, one you only see when Jungkook grasps his dick in his hand and tugs upward like this isn’t his true form, and he can get bigger.

“Ready?” He asks, biting down on his lip as he continues to stroke himself. You nod, wiggling closer to him until the backs of your thighs rest on top of his, knees knocking against his waist. He grants you one more of those kind smiles, before he’s leaning down to press a hand beside your head, the other lining himself up with your soaked entrance.

Running his cock over your folds one last time, collecting as much of your cum as he can, he brushes a kiss against your cheekbone before he’s pushing in. You moan, throwing your hands around his neck as he pierces through the initial ring of muscle surrounding your warm heat. “Holy shit,” you choke, mouth dropped open as you pant like a dog against his shoulder. “J-Jungkook,” you cry, legs tightening around his waist the closer his body presses against yours.

Once he’s at the hilt, pelvis flush against you, you can’t help the series of whines and mewls that escape your lips from being so comfortably filled to the brim.

To your surprise, Jungkook is the first to speak. “Fuck,” he groans, breath hot against your ear. He sounds fucked out, once silky voice raspy with need as he grinds his hips against you tentatively. “This is what you wanted, isn't it?” He huffs, both hands coming down to wrap around your waist, your back arching under the wonderful hands that find themselves squeezing every inch of your back in an effort to pull you closer.

His mouth brushes against yours from this new position, and Jungkook puckers his lips, tongue coming out to lick at your bottom lip. You nearly cry when he finally pulls his hips away, relieves his cock from your tight heat before surging back in. “Wanted this from the moment you walked in, didn’t you, sweetheart?” Jungkook grunts, repeats the same motion until he’s picked up a steady pace of pushing and pulling, each roll of his hips sending a shock of ecstasy crawling up your spine.

You nod, eyes screwed shut as pleasure warms every inch of your body. It’s even worse to not see, because every sound and every touch is magnified tenfold, until you’re drowning in sensations. Jungkook’s choked groans, the slide of his hips, they all become too much too quickly and you’re choking back a sob.

“Fuck,” he groans, glancing down at your withered form like an animal as he picks up his pace. His hold on you tightens, never letting your body move away from him and he begins jack hammering in his thrusts, swallowing your cries with his lips. “Had me thinking you were a nice girl,” he huffs, and you wonder if he knows how tightly he’s holding you, how this grip will most likely leave you with fingerprint bruises tomorrow morning. But then again, you don’t care. All you care about is Jungkook’s voice and his body, guiding you toward completion. “But all you wanted was a quick fuck.”

You steel yourself to look at him again, and when your eyes finally open and focus, you’re wishing you hadn’t because Jungkook looks so hot over you. His pretty eyes, the ones that had led you into a false sense of comfort throughout the night and tricked you into believing he would be easy to bend to your every whim, are hard now. “Isn’t that right, doll?” He spits, and you whine when he punctuates this question with a particularly brutal thrust of his hips. His balls slap against your ass, and you squirm beneath him as you begin to feel the beginnings of an orgasm build in your core.

“I-I thought—“ you stammer, tone pitched from the way he jostles you with every thrust he gives. “Y-You wanted that,” you weekly defend, canting your hips down in a feeble attempt to progress this along.

He snorts, captures your lips in a rushed kiss where he wastes no time snaking his tongue inside your mouth. His saliva trickles into your mouth, and you whine as he purposefully lets it happen, pulls away just the slightest to pucker his lips and let a thick trail of spit fall straight into your open mouth. Satisfied with his little stunt, he rams his cock against you once more.

“If you wanted a quick fuck,” he says, nearly loses himself in your pussy, “you came to the wrong guy, sweetheart.”

You’re too caught up in the nice drag of his cock against your pussy, the tip of his cock stopping him from ever pulling out completely, that it takes you a second to process his words. “H-Huh?” You choke, teary eyes flickering across his face wildly as if the answer will be right in plain sight.

But all you’re met with is the soft pull of his lips as he flashes you a smirk, pearly white teeth tugging at the pink flesh, as he levels you with a glare of his own. Before you can question him further, he’s letting go of your waist to hike your knees into the crook of his elbows, his pouty lips growing further away as he leans back.

This shift has his cock nudging up, rubbing against the hood of your clit where a bundle of nerves he’d only briefly brushed before sits. You shriek in pleasure, writhing beneath him as the sudden sensation hits you full force. “Jungkook!” You sob, his hips slowing to a grind as he watches your face crumble beneath him.

“You like that?” He murmurs, rutting his hips against you shallowly. The change of pace, the rabid piston of his hips slowing to this, has your body melting into his touch. You barely manage a nod, eyes fluttering open and shut as his hips move sensually against you.

His cock brushes against that sensitive spot with each roll of his hips, and you’re a mewling, puddle of emotion by the third thrust. “Pretty girl,” he hums, letting go of one leg to place a hand above your mound, thumb circling your clit until you’re trembling beneath him. “Did you think I would fuck you and kick you out?” He husks, watching your body like he’s a lion and you’re his prey.

Your brain is far from comprehending anything at this point, reduced to a mere mass of nothingness as he continues moving against you, fingers rubbing your clit in all the right ways.

“Well, you were wrong about that, doll,” he huffs, and you’re blessed with the sight of his head lolling back as he loses himself in the tight grip of your pussy, skin glistening with sweat, trailing from behind his ear and over his neck, until you’re watching a pearl roll over his collarbones. “I don’t do that,” he informs you, and he pinches your clit between two fingers, hard enough that you almost miss his next words as you moan. “No, baby, I’ll fuck you and keep you forever,” he spits, and you whimper at his words. Finally, he lets go of your knees, right as you’re teetering on the edge of an orgasm and you moan out in protest as he ducks down to cage you between his arms again.

“Please,” you beg, voice hoarse as his hips slowly return to their pace from before. He’s still not pulling out as much, keeping his thrusts shallow as he kisses a trail up your neck and over your jaw.

“Gonna fuck you so good, you don’t ever want to leave, pretty,” he says, kisses the corner of your mouth as his hips pick up pace. You wanna cry, feeling so warm and cherished in his arms, his voice telling you how good you’re doing as the coil in your stomach tightens and tightens until you’re begging him for more. “Do you want that?”

“Yes! Yes!” You sob, rolling your hips against his like a madman as you chase your high.

Jungkook hums, smile smushed against your lips as he watches you desperately writhing beneath him. “Yeah? You want that?” You nod, mewls swallowed by his kisses. “Then cum for me, pretty girl.”

You whimper, just as he bucks into you once more, and suddenly you’re falling apart. It starts in your lower back, the ecstasy climbing it’s way through your body until you’re quivering and sobbing in his embrace, muffling your sounds against his shoulder. The muscles in your entire body tighten painfully, until suddenly a wave of contentment washes over you, and you’re too weak to even hold onto him anymore, arms flopping back onto the couch cushions beneath you.

The whole time, Jungkook mutters encouragement against your jaw, keeps his thrusts short but quick, guiding you through your orgasm. When you’re done, he presses an open mouthed kiss beneath your ear, pulling away to look at your boneless frame beneath him.

A few pistons of his hips later, and Jungkook is coming inside of you, cum coating your walls as he hammers his way through his orgasm. He pulls out when he’s done, and you instantly feel your mixed arousal drip out between your thighs.

Woozy from the wine and the two orgasms, you fall asleep soon after.

——

“Good morning,” you murmur, standing at the doorway leading into the kitchen, an area you’d only been able to find after stumbling around the upstairs of the house in confusion.

Jungkook whirls around, wide eyes taking in your appearance. You clutch at the hem of the big t-shirt you’d pulled on, the only article of clothing you saw that was thrown over a chair in a bedroom you didn’t dare snoop around. “Morning,” he exhales, calculating gaze never leaving you as you tiptoe over to him by the counter.

He doesn’t say more, spluttering into action when you peek over his shoulder to see what he’s up to. “What’re you making?” You inquire, and his hands begin fidgeting with the knife.

“Oh, um,” he stutters, and perhaps he’s overly aware of your presence so close beside him, because he suddenly doesn’t remember how he’s supposed to cut an avocado. Cute, you think. “Just, um, toast with avocado spread…”

You hum. After a moment, it seems Jungkook is able to quell his nerves, and he carefully slices the avocado open, spreading its innards across the toast. He hands you the first piece, which you take after masking your own surprise, and soon after he’s turning away from the counter as the two of you eat in silence.

After a few thoughtful munches of bread, you speak. “Thanks for carrying me to bed,” you say, refusing to look at him.

“You’re welcome,” he replies, almost a little too fast and you barely bite down a grin as he rambles on. “Wasn’t gonna leave you on the couch, especially not when you were so tired after… ah, yeah.”

It’s the reserved way he carries himself that gives you the balls to look at him. His ears are flushed adorably red, like when you were at dinner last night talking about his job, and all you wanna do is pinch his cheeks. “Yeah,” you agree, and then add with an air of faux shyness, “you were really cool last night.”

It’s the little devil in you begging to jump out, curious to see how far you can push Jungkook before he shifts into that suave version of himself from last night, and you would feel bad had the corner of his lips not tilted up in amusement.

He chokes out a laugh, mutters a “yeah?” and you don’t stop yourself when you jump into his arms and kiss that avocado spread right off his lips.

——

On Tuesday afternoon, Kim Namjoon is in the midst of delivering another sermon-like speech on the importance of utilizing your student ID when visiting any of the Starbucks within a two mile radius of your school, when you spot a chestnut head of hair from the corner of your eye.

“Sorry, Joon! My ride's here!” You yelp, shoving your notebook into your bag as you stumble over yourself in your haste to leave.

Namjoon blinks. “Huh? I thought you lived on campus?”

You nod, that giddy feeling starting up in your chest as he comes closer to where you and Namjoon have taken up residence on a table in the commons for your weekly meeting, and by the time he reaches the table Namjoon is still in the midst of questioning you.

“Jungkook,” You say, all dreamily and dazed, and you know this because Doyeon caught you with this same exact look on your face after he dropped you off at the dorms Sunday afternoon.

Namjoon startles. “What the f—“

“Hi,” Jungkook beams, leans down to brush a kiss against your cheek, which only serves to make you even more ditzy and dumb in the face of this handsome man. “Oh, hey, hyung.”

“What’re you doi—“

“All set?” Jungkook asks you, completely ignoring whatever his beloved senior was saying in favor of taking your bag off your shoulders. You nod, have to swallow a giggle down when he takes your hand in his. “Bye, hyung.”

“Bye, Joon!” You barely remember to throw over your shoulder, too busy wrapping yourself around Jungkook’s arm to hear Namjoon blabber in shock. 

“Kids these days,” he huffs.

[ part 2 ; hulu & woohoo ]

[fandomanxiety-fa]

"Fluffy February" - Day Three

The Outerworlds

Felix Millstone X Captain Dottie

Summary: Felix has never left the Groundbreaker, but now he's on a new ship with a new Captain. And she is ready to travel all over the system, and not only is she traveling the system in a cool ship with a dark past, she's traveling with him. After time on the ship, the first place he goes to is Roseway with the Captain along with her annoying Vicar friend, and Felix has seen nothing like it.

--------------------------------------------------

The Unreliable.

This was his new home, and by the way, this home has so much food. So much food. He still couldn't even process how they needed this much food for five people! He was standing infront of the fridge, door swung open, rummaging through the endless supply of food. The Captain gave him a bunch of Rizzos that she bought on Groundbreaker for him, and he had eaten all of it. Now, he wanted something salty, an actual meal.

The cabinets!

He might as well lunged to the cabinets and began digging. While doing so he didn't realize he was being examined by his Captain, and soon he came back with expensive whiskey. It had been hidden far in the back out of view and had Max scrawled out on the side. Felix smirked to himself.

"I can't tell if your hungry, or looking to get roaring drunk," she chuckled a bit, and Felix whipped around in embarrassment.

"Hey, Boss! Erm, what's up?" Felix said, while putting the whiskey back in shame.

"Hey, get that back out. I want some too," she smiled, walking to the fridge.

She was beautiful, and Felix was embarrassed for acting like an animal.

"Honey, don't let me stop you! I came to eat too, ya' know."

Felix turned red all over. He had never been called honey before, and it left him all flustered as he fumbled to retrieve the whiskey from the cabinet. He managed to grab it and close the cabinet door with his leg when he stood up. She smiled bringing glasses whilst setting down things to make food on the burner. Felix watched her long bare legs as she walked towards him. He heard the glasses clink on the table, and it brought him out of the trance he was in.

Stop being so obvious!

He wanted to shrink away, as he watched her strong arms move when she grabbed a pan off a rack. He had never had been cooked for, especially for free, and by a girl! Especially a girl!

Woman Felix, she's a woman, man!

He watched her begin to make something he had never had before.

"You like spicy stuff, Felix?" She asked him, and he perked up nervously.

"Yeah! I do. What erm about you, Boss?" Felix replied, and she laughed at him.

"Why are you so nervous, Millstone?"

"I am not!"

She shook her head, "Felix, did you see the game with Rizzos Rangers this evening?"

"Oh yeah! It was a great game, Boss! You like the Rangers, Boss?" Felix asked, his nervousness went away.

"Oh, I love them! They are a really good team! My favorite! I love the thirty-fifth back!" She smiled, and he poured himself some whiskey.

She was to perfect.. the perfect woman. She loves Rizzos Rangers, is super strong, and-.

"Pour me a glass, will you?" She asked, peeking back at him with her green eyes.

They are Auntie Cleo green...

"Sure, Boss."

"Come on, don't call me that. Call me, Dot."

"Okay."

Dot.

Felix awoke in his bunk with a headache along with a loud rap on his door.

"Open this door right now!"

The Vicar.

"Go get spaced, I'm sleeping!" Felix yelled back, and he rolled over to the window.

"Ada! I request you open this door! Now!"

"I cannot, Vicar. It violates the crewmate Felix's privacy. On another note, I will not tolerate disrespect from the likes of you, Vicar."

He cussed loudly, stomping down the hall. He made his way down the stairs to the Captain's Quarters, where he tried to compose himself enough to call for the Captain to sort out this mess.

"Captain!"

No response.

"Captain!"

Silence.

"Captain! I would like to speak with you!"

The door whooshed open where a very angry looking Captain stood. She wore nothing but a shorts and a odd top that ended far above her stomach.

"Captain! Make yourself presentable first!" Max scolded, all while red eared.

"This is what your getting for rudely tearing me from bed, Vicar. Now what is it?" She growled, and he tried to keep eye contact.

"What is that...that top?"

Please put a top on...

"It's called a sports bra. Spit out what you want. Now."

"Felix has taken one if my belongings, Captain," Max stated, and she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah. We both drank it. I will get you more. What are you even doing trying to drink this early? Or are you filling up that vial of yours?" She spoke, and he glared at her.

"That vial holds no such thing. You are mistaken, Captain."

"Yeah? Well, tell me what I took a big swig of then?"

Silence.

"Exactly, Vicar," she spoke, and then the door shut in his face.

Well played, Captain. I'll have to hide my spirits somewhere else...

Felix was excited. The Captain was going to Roseway now, and he couldn't wait. He had never been anywhere but Groundbreaker. He finished pulling his red sleeves on and began zipping it up while looking in the mirror. He looked at his wet hair through the steam in the mirror.

The water pressure is good here! And the water is warm! Not like that cold crap on the Groundbreaker!

He picked up his bracelet and slid it on his wrist, and then looked at all the toothbrushes in the cup on the sink.

Which one is mine? Do I use...um...do I have one? I lost mine when I moved in so, uh.

A knock erupted from the door, and he opened it, to reveal the Captian.

"I got you a new toothbrush. It's red, like your clothing," she spoke quietly, and he noticed she looked flustered.

"Aw thanks! What happened to my other one?" Felix asked, and she laughed nervously.

"I saw that it was...really old...and uh...well, I threw it out. It looked like it was really old. Sorry," she mumbled, and he smiled.

"Nah! That's fine! I just couldn't get a new one. Didn't have much money. Thanks, B-Dottie!" He smiled, and it was that boy-ish, cute smile he had.

She smiled and he closed the door when she left. He began brushing his teeth with joy.

This toothbrush is stiff...

He forgot what a new brush felt like. He'd only ever had one. The harsh bristles of the brush glided across his teeth as he though of his new serial-worthy Captain.

She's pretty, and looks like she could break my arm. Which is attractive too. I wonder if she is been everywhere. She seems like it. She has pretty eyes. A nice green. They have a look to them. I bet she's a good fighter and not some board lackey. Yeah! A rebel like me! That makes her even more hot!

Felix realized he had brushed his teeth until they bled, and quickly spat it all out of his mouth.

Oh no! Is this bad? Maybe I should see Ellie? Man, what does this mean? Crap! She probably is asleep! I'll go see the Captain.

Quickly Felix rushed out the door to see the Captain, where he spotted her heading down the stairs. He tapped her shoulder while spewing her name in panic.

"I brushed my teeth and now I'm bleeding!" He cried, and then she burst out laughing.

"Felix that's when you brush your teeth to hard! Your fine!"

"Oh."

He felt embarrassed and looked at his feet. The laughing ceased, and she put her hand on his forearm making him look at her.

"Don't feel bad! It's okay, Felix. I am glad you trust me to diagnose you!" She smiled sweetly, and footsteps came from behind.

"I came for my armor Captain," a voice that sounded an awful lot like a blood-boiling, loathing Vicar.

"Wait. He's coming?" Felix asked, and she sighed.

"You two are going to have to get along. I mean it. So, you'll get to bond over the mysterious Roseway mission," Dottie sighed, and Felix huffed.

He noticed some lockers up against the wall. Six to be exact. Dottie opens a door and began slipping armor on over her clothes.

"Your armor is in a locker over there, Felix," she pointed at the locker on the end.

"Has Ms. Fenhill expressed her concerns to you, Captain?" Max asked, and the Captain looked at him.

"Yes. She thinks it quote, this Roseway business smells, unquote. Do you have anything to say, Vicar?" Dottie asked slipping on her boots.

"I believe we should proceed with caution. This could very well be a trap," Max spoke, and Felix noticed Max's eyes linger a bit on Dottie.

Back off Vicar. She doesn't like you, man. Ew. Who would?

Felix pulled on his final armor piece besides his helmet and glanced back at Dottie, who now had her helmet on.

"Ready to go?" She asked him, and he nodded with an ear-to-ear grin.

This made her smile. She liked he's boy-ish smiles and light filled eyes. He was a dreamy, silly boy that makes her laugh. He proved that last night as they exchanged jokes over whiskey and spicy casserole.

Soon enough, they walked outside the ship. Felix's eyes squinted as the bright light outside hit his eyes, and the fresh air invaded his nose. Glancing around Felix saw beautiful plant life around him that was foreign to him.

Pictures and serials didn't do the outside world justice!

"Felix? Honey? Are you alright?"

He hasn't noticed the tears going down his face, and he grew embarrassed trying swipe them away.

"You've never been off Groundbreaker?" The Vicar asked.

"No. He hasn't. Hey, we can go anywhere you want, Felix! And here, let me show you something," Dottie spoke soft and timid, reaching into her pack.

She pulled out a journal, and opened it while leaning to show him.

"It can be our project. I've been putting different flowers and ferns and such inside from each planet. To remember things and stuff. I've been writing what I can that I know about them. We both can do it!" She smiled at him, and he looked at her pretty handwriting and plants smashed into the pages within the journal.

"Yeah, Dot! Can I sign it? Read the other pages?" He asked excited, while wiping some tears away.

"Duh! Your family now! You can write your name in it!"

His heart grew warm. He smiled and almost started crying, but held it back (he couldn't afford for that insufferable Vicar to see him like that again).

"Now," she began, slipping the book in her bag, "let's go!"

Family.

His heart was pounding with joy at the thought. If a family was a Captain who could break his arm, a pirate sawbones, a sweet mechanic, and a grumpy "Vicar" (that didn't really count)...well, this was a interesting family for sure.

And he didn't want it any other way, because life wasnt dull anymore, and now he had a purpose. He could go anywhere he wanted, no longer being shacked to the Groundbreaker by poverty.

And most of all...

I've got a family!

--------------------------------------------------

[fandomanxiety-library]

"Fluffy February" - Day Three

The Outer Worlds

Felix Millstone X Captain Dottie

Summary: Felix has never left the Groundbreaker, but now he's on a new ship with a new Captain. And she is ready to travel all over the system, and not only is she traveling the system in a cool ship with a dark past, she's traveling with him. After time on the ship, the first place he goes to is Roseway with the Captain along with her annoying Vicar friend, and Felix has seen nothing like it.

--------------------------------------------------

The Unreliable.

This was his new home, and by the way, this home has so much food. So much food. He still couldn't even process how they needed this much food for five people! He was standing infront of the fridge, door swung open, rummaging through the endless supply of food. The Captain gave him a bunch of Rizzos that she bought on Groundbreaker for him, and he had eaten all of it. Now, he wanted something salty, an actual meal.

The cabinets!

He might as well lunged to the cabinets and began digging. While doing so he didn't realize he was being examined by his Captain, and soon he came back with expensive whiskey. It had been hidden far in the back out of view and had Max scrawled out on the side. Felix smirked to himself.

"I can't tell if your hungry, or looking to get roaring drunk," she chuckled a bit, and Felix whipped around in embarrassment.

"Hey, Boss! Erm, what's up?" Felix said, while putting the whiskey back in shame.

"Hey, get that back out. I want some too," she smiled, walking to the fridge.

She was beautiful, and Felix was embarrassed for acting like an animal.

"Honey, don't let me stop you! I came to eat too, ya' know."

Felix turned red all over. He had never been called honey before, and it left him all flustered as he fumbled to retrieve the whiskey from the cabinet. He managed to grab it and close the cabinet door with his leg when he stood up. She smiled bringing glasses whilst setting down things to make food on the burner. Felix watched her long bare legs as she walked towards him. He heard the glasses clink on the table, and it brought him out of the trance he was in.

Stop being so obvious!

He wanted to shrink away, as he watched her strong arms move when she grabbed a pan off a rack. He had never had been cooked for, especially for free, and by a girl! Especially a girl!

Woman Felix, she's a woman, man!

He watched her begin to make something he had never had before.

"You like spicy stuff, Felix?" She asked him, and he perked up nervously.

"Yeah! I do. What erm about you, Boss?" Felix replied, and she laughed at him.

"Why are you so nervous, Millstone?"

"I am not!"

She shook her head, "Felix, did you see the game with Rizzos Rangers this evening?"

"Oh yeah! It was a great game, Boss! You like the Rangers, Boss?" Felix asked, his nervousness went away.

"Oh, I love them! They are a really good team! My favorite! I love the thirty-fifth back!" She smiled, and he poured himself some whiskey.

She is to perfect.. the perfect woman. She loves Rizzos Rangers, is super strong, and-.

"Pour me a glass, will you?" She asked, peeking back at him with her green eyes.

They are Auntie Cleo green...

"Sure, Boss."

"Come on, don't call me that. Call me, Dot."

"Okay."

Dot.

Felix awoke in his bunk with a headache along with a loud rap on his door.

"Open this door right now!"

The Vicar.

"Go get spaced, I'm sleeping!" Felix yelled back, and he rolled over to the window.

"Ada! I request you open this door! Now!"

"I cannot, Vicar. It violates the crewmate Felix's privacy. On another note, I will not tolerate disrespect from the likes of you, Vicar."

He cussed loudly, stomping down the hall. He made his way down the stairs to the Captain's Quarters, where he tried to compose himself enough to call for the Captain to sort out this mess.

"Captain!"

No response.

"Captain!"

Silence.

"Captain! I would like to speak with you!"

The door whooshed open where a very angry looking Captain stood. She wore nothing but a shorts and a odd top that ended far above her stomach.

"Captain! Make yourself presentable first!" Max scolded, all while red eared.

"This is what your getting for rudely tearing me from bed, Vicar. Now what is it?" She growled, and he tried to keep eye contact.

"What is that...that top?"

Please put a top on...

"It's called a sports bra. Spit out what you want. Now."

"Felix has taken one if my belongings, Captain," Max stated, and she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah. We both drank it. I will get you more. What are you even doing trying to drink this early? Or are you filling up that vial of yours?" She spoke, and he glared at her.

"That vial holds no such thing. You are mistaken, Captain."

"Yeah? Well, tell me what I took a big swig of then?"

Silence.

"Exactly, Vicar," she spoke, and then the door shut in his face.

Well played, Captain. I'll have to hide my spirits somewhere else...

Felix was excited. The Captain was going to Roseway now, and he couldn't wait. He had never been anywhere but Groundbreaker. He finished pulling his red sleeves on and began zipping it up while looking in the mirror. He looked at his wet hair through the steam in the mirror.

The water pressure is good here! And the water is warm! Not like that cold crap on the Groundbreaker!

He picked up his bracelet and slid it on his wrist, and then looked at all the toothbrushes in the cup on the sink.

Which one is mine? Do I use...um...do I have one? I lost mine when I moved in so, uh.

A knock erupted from the door, and he opened it, to reveal the Captian.

"I got you a new toothbrush. It's red, like your clothing," she spoke quietly, and he noticed she looked flustered.

"Aw thanks! What happened to my other one?" Felix asked, and she laughed nervously.

"I saw that it was...really old...and uh...well, I threw it out. It looked like it was really old. Sorry," she mumbled, and he smiled.

"Nah! That's fine! I just couldn't get a new one. Didn't have much money. Thanks, B-Dottie!" He smiled, and it was that boy-ish, cute smile he had.

She smiled and he closed the door when she left. He began brushing his teeth with joy.

This toothbrush is stiff...

He forgot what a new brush felt like. He'd only ever had one. The harsh bristles of the brush glided across his teeth as he though of his new serial-worthy Captain.

She's pretty, and looks like she could break my arm. Which is attractive too. I wonder if she is been everywhere. She seems like it. She has pretty eyes. A nice green. They have a look to them. I bet she's a good fighter and not some board lackey. Yeah! A rebel like me! That makes her even more hot!

Felix realized he had brushed his teeth until they bled, and quickly spat it all out of his mouth.

Oh no! Is this bad? Maybe I should see Ellie? Man, what does this mean? Crap! She probably is asleep! I'll go see the Captain.

Quickly Felix rushed out the door to see the Captain, where he spotted her heading down the stairs. He tapped her shoulder while spewing her name in panic.

"I brushed my teeth and now I'm bleeding!" He cried, and then she burst out laughing.

"Felix that's when you brush your teeth to hard! Your fine!"

"Oh."

He felt embarrassed and looked at his feet. The laughing ceased, and she put her hand on his forearm making him look at her.

"Don't feel bad! It's okay, Felix. I am glad you trust me to diagnose you!" She smiled sweetly, and footsteps came from behind.

"I came for my armor Captain," a voice that sounded an awful lot like a blood-boiling, loathing Vicar.

"Wait. He's coming?" Felix asked, and she sighed.

"You two are going to have to get along. I mean it. So, you'll get to bond over the mysterious Roseway mission," Dottie sighed, and Felix huffed.

He noticed some lockers up against the wall. Six to be exact. Dottie opens a door and began slipping armor on over her clothes.

"Your armor is in a locker over there, Felix," she pointed at the locker on the end.

"Has Ms. Fenhill expressed her concerns to you, Captain?" Max asked, and the Captain looked at him.

"Yes. She thinks it quote, this Roseway business smells, unquote. Do you have anything to say, Vicar?" Dottie asked slipping on her boots.

"I believe we should proceed with caution. This could very well be a trap," Max spoke, and Felix noticed Max's eyes linger a bit on Dottie.

Back off Vicar. She doesn't like you, man. Ew. Who would?

Felix pulled on his final armor piece besides his helmet and glanced back at Dottie, who now had her helmet on.

"Ready to go?" She asked him, and he nodded with an ear-to-ear grin.

This made her smile. She liked he's boy-ish smiles and light filled eyes. He was a dreamy, silly boy that makes her laugh. He proved that last night as they exchanged jokes over whiskey and spicy casserole.

Soon enough, they walked outside the ship. Felix's eyes squinted as the bright light outside hit his eyes, and the fresh air invaded his nose. Glancing around Felix saw beautiful plant life around him that was foreign to him.

Pictures and serials didn't do the outside world justice!

"Felix? Honey? Are you alright?"

He hasn't noticed the tears going down his face, and he grew embarrassed trying swipe them away.

"You've never been off Groundbreaker?" The Vicar asked.

"No. He hasn't. Hey, we can go anywhere you want, Felix! And here, let me show you something," Dottie spoke soft and timid, reaching into her pack.

She pulled out a journal, and opened it while leaning to show him.

"It can be our project. I've been putting different flowers and ferns and such inside from each planet. To remember things and stuff. I've been writing what I can that I know about them. We both can do it!" She smiled at him, and he looked at her pretty handwriting and plants smashed into the pages within the journal.

"Yeah, Dot! Can I sign it? Read the other pages?" He asked excited, while wiping some tears away.

"Duh! Your family now! You can write your name in it!"

His heart grew warm. He smiled and almost started crying, but held it back (he couldn't afford for that insufferable Vicar to see him like that again).

"Now," she began, slipping the book in her bag, "let's go!"

Family.

His heart was pounding with joy at the thought. If a family was a Captain who could break his arm, a pirate sawbones, a sweet mechanic, and a grumpy "Vicar" (that didn't really count)...well, this was a interesting family for sure.

And he didn't want it any other way, because life wasnt dull anymore, and now he had a purpose. He could go anywhere he wanted, no longer being shacked to the Groundbreaker by poverty.

And most of all...

I've got a family!

[seavoice]

Horse Trading

(link to ao3 on title, or continue reading after the read more)

“Octavian was an asshole,” Reyna said, a contemplative look on her face as she laid on the floor of Hazel’s Praetor Villa, “but sometimes I think, can you really blame him?”

“Yes,” Hazel said, from her position on the floor next to her, where she was trying to sketch Reyna, a task made inordinately difficult by the older girl’s constant moving around. “I really can.”

Reyna sighed. It was a long and contemplative sigh. It wasn’t unusual to see Reyna with a brooding, thinking look on her face, but the relaxed and content expression added a new dimension to it. It was something structural; it somehow made her look younger yet more self-assured at the same time. “Octavian,” Reyna repeated, “was an asshole. But this Villa, Hazel. This Villa. I can see why Octavian was so desperate for praetorship. This house almost makes up for the stress of leading a child army.”

“It does not,” Hazel said. “It really does not, Reyna. Distance has just made your heart grow fonder. And delusional.” She sighed as Reyna shifted her position yet again. Reyna winced as a wordless apology. “Also,” Hazel said, reaching for her eraser, “Octavian didn’t want the praetorship for the house. He wanted it because he was a power hungry and blood thirsty politician.”

“At least you agree the bed is worth it?”

The bed was very nice, Hazel had to admit. Californian King, which seemed excessive, but was appreciated, and the fluffiest pillows Hazel had ever laid her head on. “Maybe. But I’m not agreeing with you when you literally opted for laying on the floor instead of the bed.”

“Fair enough,” Reyna said. She stretched on the floor, some complicated starburst. Hazel decided to give up her endeavour at drawing Reyna and flipped to the previous page in her sketchbook where she had been working on a drawing of Arion. It was half completed, and it was an attempt at drawing purely from memory, but Hazel enjoyed the challenge. “But it’s good for your back, believe me.”

“You’re an immortal Huntress now. Does that really matter?”

“Also fair enough,” Reyna agreed. Reyna rolled over to prop herself up on her elbows and peeked at Hazel’s sketchbook. She raised a single eyebrow. “Oh, that’s certainly more...horse-y than I usually look.”

“I gave up. You move too much.”

Reyna inclined her head in acceptance. Still on her belly, she folded her arms and laid her head down on them.

It was weird to see Reyna so carefree. Weird in an undoubtedly good way, but weird nonetheless. Immortality had, perhaps ironically, taken years off her shoulders.

Hazel hadn’t invited Reyna to New Rome to draw her, but inevitably, that was what the visit had come to. She had written to her asking for advice — advice on running an entire city, advice on leading a quote unquote “child army” in times of peace, advice on not going crazy with stress — and Reyna had accepted so readily that a ventus spirit had brought her letter the very day Hazel had sent hers. Hazel had prepared for the visit with a single minded focus; she had brought a notebook for note taking, three different colours of pens, a highlighter, and her firmest handshake.

But then they had skipped the firm handshake and instead had hugged, tight, and Reyna had snagged a bowl of jelly beans from the Praetor office, and for the next few hours they had done nothing but lay on the floor of Hazel’s newly acquired Praetor Villa, swapping stories after stories, lazing around and sketching. Reyna had told her about the Hunt’s newest undertaking, some mythological boar or the other, and also about Thalia’s new obsession with 80’s rock. Hazel had told her about Lavinia’s latest shenanigans, and Gwen’s new job as a much valued mental health counsellor for the Legion. No notetaking had taken place. No praetor advice had been shared.

“It’s very good,” Reyna said, gesturing to Hazel’s drawing of Arion. “The likeness is stunning.”

Hazel beamed. “Really?”

“Of course!” Reyna scrambled to sit up. “It’s uncanny. This is really, really good, Hazel. It’s like…” Reyna made a hand gesture like she was pulling something; Hazel recognised it as an unconscious tick that Reyna had, one usually employed in Town Hall meetings when she was struggling to find the correct words to use for convincing reluctant denizens. “It’s like make a career out of it good,” she finished.

It was a warming compliment. Hazel’s smile grew wider; this was a pride unlike any other, something simple and easy and painless. Hazel had convinced herself to take pride in the smaller things more often. It made a dreary life just a little bit happier and easier when she could take pride in mastering her mist magic, in baking a sweet cupcake to perfection, in a good sparring session, in making a friend smile. But this pride in her artwork was somehow—brighter. It was something she’d dedicated long hours to.

“Horse artist?” Hazel said. “You think there’s a market out there for that?”

“Are you kidding me? Pet artist! Lucrative as they come.” Reyna laughed, an easy, lovely sound, and this too was unusual, this too was good, this too warmed Hazel. “People go crazy when they get pets. Put them in all cute little kinds of outfits and hire professional photographers, artists...I’m serious, Hazel. Business idea.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Hazel said, with a laugh of her own. Then she sighed and set down her pencil. “I appreciate the business advice, though honestly, what I need more is Praetor advice. I feel I’m going insane.”

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Reyna said. “You don’t need my advice, Hazel. You’re a force of nature.”

This was a sweet sentiment, and Reyna probably meant it, but it didn’t help Hazel’s case. “Thanks,” she said. “Like—genuinely. But I do feel...I do feel like I’m going insane. It’s—it’s a lot.”

Reyna’s eyebrows furrowed. She looked older at once, older in all senses of the word. Like the Reyna of before the Hunt, and the break from her duties—Reyna in charge, Praetor Reyna, sixteen year old Reyna with the world on her shoulders. She sat up straighter. “Is someone giving you trouble?” Reyna asked. “I was joking about Octavian earlier, but gods, if someone’s coming up to take his spot as Asshole of the Year—“

“No,” Hazel said quickly. “It’s nothing like that. That’s nothing. I could deal with someone like that no problem. It’s just—like you said...child army.”

Reyna exhaled softly and closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

Hazel hated bringing the mood down, hated evaporating Reyna’s good cheer, but she set that uncomfortableness aside for the time being. She pulled up her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. And there was solidarity in this too, acknowledgment. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Everything’s—okay, now, for the time being. Doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way forever.”

“That’s not really ever in your control,” Reyna said with a rueful smile. “But I do...I do get what you mean. I understand.”

“I thought you would,” Hazel said. “That’s why I wrote to you.” She’d thought of going to Frank with these thoughts too, and she was sure he’d give good advice, and be kind about it, but a part of her—a stubborn part, maybe, a conscious part, sure, but a valid part, nonetheless—hadn’t wanted to show a weakness to her co-Praetor, even one as familiar as Frank.

“I don’t know if I can give you any great advice,” Reyna said at last. “I don’t know if I can tell you anything you don’t already know, and you are doing a great job.”

Hazel tried to keep the sadness out of her smile. “Hm.”

“What I needed?” Reyna said. “What I needed when I was a praetor was...gods, just a ear. Just someone to bear it with me. Someone to understand. Jas—he was gone, and it was just me. For the longest time. But then with Frank, it wasn’t as hard again, because we could...we could switch off. We could share. That’s the only thing I can really tell you, Hazel. Only advice I can give you. Share. Share it with me, always. With Frank. Lavinia. Nico. Your friends. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re alone. You don’t have to be.”

“I know,” Hazel said. She’d been alone for so long in Asphodel she had thought she could survive loneliness, if she had to. But she didn’t have to. And she didn’t want to. “And you sold yourself short Reyna—you do give great advice.”

“Sounds like I didn’t say anything you didn’t already know.”

“But I think I needed to hear that from you,” Hazel said. “From someone else. You said it yourself—I just needed to know someone else understood. Otherwise it gets...it gets lonely.”

Reyna’s smile was soft. “You’ve got good instincts, Hazel. You’ll be just fine.”

Gods, she hoped. “Thanks for coming out here on such short notice. You probably were busy with the hunt.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Reyna said, and there was that strange new lightness to her again, a relaxed happiness. “Haven’t you heard? I’ve got time now.”

Hazel picked her pencil back up. “You know, if you try sitting still, maybe I can still do a quick sketch. Before you leave.”

“Actually,” Reyna said, and was Hazel imagining things or did she actually look self-conscious? “I have a sketch request, if you’d accept.”

Hazel was intrigued. “Oh. Oh. Sure. Who?”

Reyna smiled a little sheepishly. “Don’t laugh okay? I miss him. Scipio.”

Pet artist...Hazel let out a small giggle. “Oh, so when you said people go crazy when they get pets, you meant—“

“I told you not to laugh!” But Reyna was laughing herself. It wasn’t sad, but it was sort of wistful. “I never dressed him up or whatever, but he’s been on my mind lately; I’ve been wondering when he’ll reform. Pegasi reform slow, apparently. I thought I’d never see him again in this life, but now that I’m a Hunter—holy Pluto, I can. And you drew Arion so well—“

“I think it’s sweet,” Hazel said. It was, exceedingly so. Hazel was trying to recall Skippy in her memories, and she felt a pang of sadness as she remembered him soaring above them during the War Games. It had been a long time since she had seen him, but she thought she remembered enough to manage a sketch for Reyna. “It might not be a perfect likeness—“

“I’ve got a photo.”

Now, Hazel absolutely couldn’t control herself. She smiled wide, a fond laugh bubbling in her chest. “Oh, Reyna—“

“Will it, or will it not make it easier to draw him?” Reyna asked, tips of her ears a faint pink.

“It’ll be perfect,” Hazel promised. “Where have you got it? In the Praetor office?”

Reyna reached into her pocket and brought out a worn out photograph. As much as it was hilarious, it was also heart-warmingly sweet, a touch melancholy. Hazel sympathised with her—she couldn’t imagine losing Arion. She probably would start carrying a picture of him everywhere too; it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Sure,” Hazel said, studying the picture. “I can do a drawing for you no problem. You can carry it everywhere along with the picture. A horse drawing in exchange for solid advice. My first political quid pro quo as Praetor.”

“That’s a terrible deal, Hazel. I can literally commission you, if you want.”

“I’ll settle for a refill of my jelly beans,” Hazel said, gesturing at the now empty bowl of jelly beans. They’d made fast work of it. It hadn’t survived the first hour.

Reyna sighed and stretched out on the floor. “Oh, I forgot,” she said glumly. “One more piece of advice, Praetor to Praetor.”

Hazel looked up. “Yeah?”

“Stock up on those beans,” Reyna said mournfully. “And never let anyone break into your stash. You’ll need them.”

[mikauzoran]

Adrienette: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: Kiss Eighteen

Read it on AO3: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: ...as encouragement.

“What did I miss?” Adrien called as he trotted up to his friends waiting at the bottom of the school’s front steps.

“Marinette’s going to win this contest Hermès is holding,” Alya announced with a smirk. “You know. No big.”

“Alya,” Marinette sighed in exasperation. “I haven’t entered yet. I haven’t even come up with a design.”

Adrien gave Nino a fist bump in greeting before turning to beam at Marinette. “Yeah, but you’re going to win once you do.”

“I don’t know about that,” Marinette mumbled, looking back down at her sketchbook.

“I do,” Alya snickered. “Listen to the boy. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s a fashion thoroughbred.”

Adrien blushed, finger going to tug at his collar. “Uh, technically, I think I’m more of a nouveau riche upstart, but I definitely know a thing or two about fashion, and you’ve got talent, Marinette. What kind of contest is it?”

“Ties,” she sighed, trying to hide how red her cheeks had become at his praise. “The artistic director for the men’s line, Véronique Nichanian, is going to be judging the finals herself, so I really want something that’s going to stand out.”

Nino gave Adrien a nudge. “Didn’t you do some modeling for Hermès a year or so ago when your father was pimping you out to other fashion houses to quote-unquote ‘expand your resume and build up the foundations of your career’?”

Adrien sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah. That happened.”

“Well, hook a girl up,” Alya chuckled, giving Adrien a teasing shove. “Not that I don’t think Marinette can win on her own merits, but having an edge never hurt anyone. What kind of insider knowledge do you have?”

“Nothing really,” Adrien admitted shamefacedly. “I wish I could be more helpful, but the only piece of advice I can think of is to do a fun, quirky pattern, but camouflage it so that it doesn’t look tacky. Like, Hermès does have some silly patterns. For example, there’s this one with horses and jockeys up in the clouds, and then on the reverse side it has the horses and jockeys with parachutes.”

Nino cracked up. “Seriously? And let me guess…they want, like, two hundred euros for it, yeah?”

Adrien shrugged helplessly. “It’s hand-sewn silk?”

Nino shook his head sadly. “Mec…no. Two hundred euros for a silly tie? That’s criminal.”

“Okay,” Adrien admitted. “That one’s a little…less sleek, in my opinion, but then they have this one tie I actually really like.”

“Also probably for two hundred euros,” Nino chuckled, elbowing his best friend playfully.

“It’s got a bunch of little blue fish on it,” Adrien explained, giving Nino a light shove. “From afar, it just looks like a normal tie with a small geometric pattern repeating, but when you get up close, you can tell that they’re fish, and it’s kind of funny. It looks professional at a distance, but up close it’s a quirky tie. I think that’s the kind of design the judges will be looking for.”

Marinette, who had been hanging on Adrien’s every word, nodded, making mental notes.

As if coming to an important realization, Adrien gave a start and hurriedly added, “Only if that’s what you’re inspired to do. I don’t want you thinking you have to limit yourself based on what I said. I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and you have such a sharp instinct for this kind of thing, so…just do whatever you think is best.”

“No, I really appreciate your input,” Marinette assured, stepping in across the little circle their group had formed to rest a hand on his forearm. “In the end, I’ll go with my gut, but what you said gave me some ideas, so I think I’m off in the right direction. Do you think there’s anything I should avoid doing? Any colours or patterns or subjects?”

Adrien bit his lip as he considered briefly. “A lot of their products have the H logo all over them. I think they’ve done the H in all the ways it’s possible to turn an H into a design element. I know you’re super innovative, but I think that, since it’s their signature thing, they’ve probably seen pretty much everything and have higher standards for what they want in that kind of design, so it might be really hit or miss. I’m not saying to play it safe, but maybe save tackling a new take on one of the signature elements of their branding for later.”

“Noted,” Marinette affirmed.

“Also, maybe avoid horses,” Adrien added with a grimace. “It’s another one of their things. I’m sure plenty of other people do horses, so if you do horses, you might not stand out unless your design is over and above amazing—which I’m sure it will be anyway, but—and, besides, they already have a lot of merchandise with horses on it, so I don’t know that that’s what they’d be looking for.”

“Why horses?” Nino couldn’t help but wonder aloud…though, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.

“If I remember correctly, the company founder originally made luxury leather goods like saddles and stuff for English nobles for horseback riding. So, yeah. Lots of horses,” Adrien explained with a smile and a shrug.

Nino frowned. “I mean…I guess that’s legit.”

“So, do you have any ideas now?” Alya excitedly inquired of Marinette…who didn’t respond because she was already absorbed in her sketchpad, quickly drafting the beginnings of a handful of possible designs.

The squad watched in awed silence as Marinette’s pencil moved frenetically across the page.

Less than five minutes later, she had three rough sketches and half a dozen other fledgling ideas in the works.

“What do you think?” She flipped the sketchbook so that the others could see the page with her quick sketches and notes on colour.

Adrien’s eyes went wide as he observed that the designs were all Chat Noir-inspired.

The first featured green paw prints on a black ground, spaced close together and turned around anticlockwise on their axis so as to give the impression of cohesive dynamism.

The second was black cat heads on a rose-pink background that had the same effect as Adrien’s fish tie. From a distance, it would look like a respectable, grownup tie, but up close you could see the fun in the design.

The third had miniature Chat Noir batons arranged in staggered, downward diagonal lines that, again, looked like a normal tie design from farther away.

“That’s amazing,” Adrien breathed, looking up at Marinette as she stowed the sketchbook back in her satchel. “Did you seriously just come up with all these right now, in, like, five minutes?”

Marinette smiled shyly, tucking a bang behind her ear as she shrugged. “What can I say? You really inspired me.”

A surge of joy and pride and love welled up in his chest.

His girlfriend was the most talented, incredible woman, and he wanted to put her up on a pedestal so that everyone could see how awesome she was. And yet, she was so humble about her gift and her achievements, going so far as to pretend that he had anything to do with her genius.

He took her by the hands and watched as her eyes went wide, locking with his.

“You are so amazing, Princess,” he cooed, overwhelmed by her greatness and the miracle that a girl so out of his league could be interested in him. “You’re going to win this contest. I know you are. Do you even know how epic you are?”

She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off as Adrien leaned in, catching her lips in a short, sweet, bolstering kiss.

Marinette froze as her brain tried to reboot.

Alya gasped even as she mentally lamented the fact that she hadn’t been recording this momentous occasion.

Nino cursed under his breath, preparing to build his bro back up after Adrien inevitably got shot down.

“I am so proud of you,” Adrien continued obliviously as he pulled out of the kiss. “You’re going to have your own label before you graduate.”

“Adrien!” Marinette hissed as her system came back online, pulling back and turning away.

Adrien blinked, shrinking slightly at her sharp tone. “What? I think it’s true.”

“Adrien, you can’t kiss me like that,” she groaned.

“…Oh, crap,” he breathed, covering his face with his hands. “I did it again. I am so sorry, Marinette. I don’t—”

“—Back up,” Alya interrupted. “‘Again’? As in, this has happened before?”

“Al,” Nino growled warningly.

Alya didn’t seem to hear him. “How many times have you guys kissed behind my back?”

“Three now?” Adrien mumbled miserably.

“Alya, this is serious,” Marinette chided. “I have a boyfriend—a serious boyfriend.”

Alya rolled her eyes. “Who I’ve never met and don’t even know the name of. Girl, you may have given up on Adrienette, but I haven’t. If my ship is sailing, I deserve to know.”

“Alya,” Nino snapped even as he put one arm around Adrien’s shoulders and rested the other hand on Adrien’s forearm. “Situational awareness much?”

To Adrien, he directed a soft, comforting, “Hey, it’s okay, Mec. It’s going to be okay.”

“This is kind of a big deal,” Alya huffed. “My bestie could easily have the man of her dreams, but, instead, she’s insisting on pretending to have some fake boyfriend she made up because she’s afraid to accept happiness and the good things the universe has sent to her. Clearly, an intervention is necessary for the good of both of our best friends.”

“He’s not fake!” Marinette retorted vehemently. “I told you, I met him online. We game together, and I only know his username, but he’s a real guy, and we’re really dating, so I can’t be making out with other blondes behind his back.”

“The good of our best friends?” Nino snorted crossly. “Right now, I think the best thing for our best friends is to keep them from getting akumatized.”

“I am so sorry,” Adrien repeated powerlessly, unsure of what else he even could say.

Nino gave him a squeeze. “It’s okay, Mec. Why don’t we head down by the river and try to calm down, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marinette huffed, making a break for it and striding off towards the bakery. “I’m going home.”

“Marinette!” Alya called and started to chase after her.

Nino sighed, briefly watching them go before getting back on task.

“Come on, Adrien,” he gently coaxed, leading Adrien down onto the walkway along the river.

They found an empty bench and sank onto it, Adrien snuggling up against Nino’s side and dropping his head onto Nino’s shoulder while Nino wrapped an arm around his friend and gave another supportive squeeze.

“It’s okay,” he repeated like a mantra, keeping an eye out for purple butterflies. “It’s okay.”

“I think I just ruined things with the person I’m desperately in love with,” Adrien responded blandly. “I don’t think it’s okay.”

Nino was silent, contemplating for a moment before he amended, “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to make this okay for you, all right? Marinette’s still going to be friends with you, and everything’s going to be fine, yeah?”

Adrien didn’t have the energy to engage in optimism. “I royally screwed up, Nino.”

“Yeah, but what you did wasn’t unforgivable,” Nino tried to comfort. “Things can be patched up. You’ll see. Just hang in there for me right now, okay? Try to think happy thoughts.”

Adrien managed an affirmative grunt.

And then his phone chimed with an incoming text.

There on the screen was a short message that restored his strength.

Marinette had written: “I’m not mad at you. <3 Everything’s fine between us.”

Adrien tipped the screen so that Nino could see and then smiled up giddily at his friend.

“There you go,” Nino chuckled. “Everything’s fine.”

Adrien sighed, sinking back into Nino. “No, it’s not. Wanna hear a secret?”

Nino shrugged. “Sure.”

“I’m Marinette’s boyfriend.”

It felt really good to finally get it out into the air.

Nino took a deep breath, schooling his expression into a cautious neutral before responding. “…The one she plays online games with?”

“Yep. She doesn’t know it’s me, and you can’t tell her. She has her reasons, but she won’t let me reveal my identity to her, so…I keep accidentally kissing her because she’s my girlfriend, but she doesn’t know she’s my girlfriend, so…we end up having scenes like the one you just witnessed,” Adrien wearily informed.

“…Dude,” Nino replied poignantly.

“Yeah,” Adrien sighed.

“You have to tell her,” Nino insisted. “No joke.”

“Yeah,” Adrien repeated. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nino pursed his lips, trying to process. He wanted to tell Adrien that nothing too bad had happened when Nino and Alya found out about Rena Rouge and Carapace’s secret identities. (In fact, Alya had seen through Carapace right away, so…) And nothing bad had come of Nino being ninety-nine-point-nine-repeating percent sure that Adrien was Chat Noir, so…

Nino took a deep breath and let it out, giving Adrien’s hair a distracted tussle. “Well…if…when you do want to talk about it, I’ll be here. You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Anything.”

“Yeah,” Adrien breathed, snuggling in closer, resting his head under Nino’s chin. “Yeah, I know. I want to, and I know I can trust you with anything, but…I can’t talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” Nino agreed, letting his chin rest on top of Adrien’s head. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Adrien hummed, closing his eyes and letting himself relax.

[fvaleraye]

Letters and Locks

Well, would you look at that, another Scintillam thing :D this one focuses pretty much entirely on Caecus and the Historium, and takes place some time after Turning in Old Goods, but not directly after. some time has passed i have spent p much all day on this, and i hope y’all enjoy reading it asdlkfn-

It was a rather calm day in the Silver City, grey clouds hung lazily over the sun, a gentle drizzle peppering the roads, roofs and towers. A good day for a walk, if you had an umbrella. A better day for just sitting at home with a good book, listening to soft pats of rain against the roof. Caecus enjoyed days like these, where he could rest his old bones in his private study, read over one of his favorite books, and just listen to the not so distant sounds of nature, just barely kept in check by the walls of the city. A bastion of civilization and knowledge, nestled right in the middle of one of the wildest and untamed parts of the great kingdom. It was poetic.

Today was one of the few days where he was not working, where he just sat, and read some silly stories. He chuckled as he flipped through the pages, apparently amused by the current events of the book. Some people thought that he never stopped working, but they would be instantly proven wrong if they could see him now. It was pleasant. Peaceful. Of course, such peace could only last for so long.

There was a knock on the door, polite and soft, so as to not disturb the rooms inhabitant too badly. He just tried to ignore it, still taking in his story. He would very much prefer not to be bothered. He thought that much was obvious by how he was in his private study. And then there was another knock, this one a little more forceful. He just let out a sigh, and set his book aside. "Alright- come in." He called, quietly grumbling to himself as he took his cup of coffee from the nearby side-table. His rather disgruntled expression softened a bit once he saw who it was.

"Mors!" He said, setting the coffee back down. "You should have said it was you, come in come in, sit down!" He gestured to a guest chair he had nearby.

The scholar in question stood awkwardly in the doorway for a moment, before scuttling in and closing it gingerly. He was a sullen and nervous looking fellow, wearing glasses and robes similar to the magus's. "I apologize for disturbing you, magus." He said, quietly, his voice as anxious and quiet as you would expect from looking at him.

"Don't apologize my boy! Come come, sit down, please."

"M-magus-"

"I insist, my boy."

There were a few indignant sputters and mumbles, before the young scholar let out a deep sigh, and walked to the empty seat. He looked as if he was sitting on pins and needles.

"Comfortable?"

"S-sire, I must-"

"Sire?" The magus parroted, tilting his head and giving an incredulous look. "Now, Mors, how long have we known each other? I practically raised you, where are all these "sires" and other formalities and pointless honorifics coming from?"

"I promise it is of utmost importance-"

"Everything is with you..." He cut in, his tone starting to show slight signs of exasperation.

"-otherwise, I would not disturb you during your time off."

Caecus sighed again, and leaned forward towards the younger scholar, hands pressed together in front of him. "Mors, why must you always be such a doom and gloom fellow?"

"I'm just a realist, sire." He replied quickly, seemingly used to these sorts of questions.

"Mors..." He let out another sigh, one hand reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance, while the other went to rest on the armrest as he leaned back into the chair. "... Mors, my boy, there's a difference between being a realist, and being a bore and a downer. And I don't see what being a realist has to do with anything happening right now... but, you've already ruined my good mood, so just... just- just get on with it, for gods sakes."

Mors took a deep breath, and leaned forward, clearly wanting to stand up, but also not wanting to upset the magus any further. "Sire, there have been noise complaints from the church."

"Gods sakes, I thought we were past this..."

"One of the pastors claims he heard screaming from the Historium."

A dread silence hung over the room, Caecus' previously annoyed expression shifting to one more... unreadable. He leaned forward again. "... would you like to run that by me again? I don't think I heard you right."

"One of the clergymen was passing by the Historium early in the morning on his way to the church, to get ready for his afternoon sermon, and claimed to hear, and I quote, "hysterical and inhuman sobbing and screaming", from the Historium, most likely from the lower levels of the building."

"... that's impossible..."

"That's what I said too, I said that the only thing below the Historium were the storage rooms and your private laboratories, and no-one would be down there that early, not even you. We even questioned the early morning staff who were in the building at the same time he was passing by, and none of them heard anything, and even if there was screaming he shouldn't have been able to hear it from outside the building, but the good father stands by what he said."

There was no response, just silence, as he slowly leaned back in his seat, the wood creaking below the chair. While his expression was hard to decipher, it was clear that he didn't like what he was hearing. He took a deep breath, and another, and another, tapping his fingers together as he started to mumble quietly. "... okay... okay." He set an elbow down on the armrest, and placed his head in his palm. "Okay. Who was the clergyman?"

"Pastor Daniels, sire."

The old scholar took a deep breath, his face contorting into something beyond anger, before quickly shifting back to his previous one of indecipherable annoyance.

"I've been talking to him all day, but he is convinced that he heard something ghastly." He sighed, his look one of worry to contrast the magus' unreadable expression. He didn't like his expression. It was usually one he wore when he was about to blow up in someone's face. "... I might have a few theories."

"Do you now?" He responded, his tone just short of a yell, clearly already fed up with the topic.

He flinched at the others tone. "... y-yes, I think I do." He cleared his throat awkwardly, and shifted in his seat. "Well, th-there is a- uh- a sewer grate near the tower, perhaps it could have come from there, all sorts of ghastly things lurk down there, or, perhaps-"

"Do you want to know what I think, Mors?"

"... w-what do you think, magus?"

"What, I, think..." He slowly pushed himself out of his chair, getting to his feet as he spoke. "... is that the church is back to their old games."

"S-sire?"

"You know how they are, Mors, they've always hated me, hated the Historium, because so much of what we find and research doesn't fit into their little narrative, "blasphemous" this, "heretical" that-" He started to pace, gesturing wildly in the air as he felt that his raising tone was not properly voicing his frustration. "-they've been trying to get us shut down and silenced for years, ESPECIALLY Daniels-"

"S-sire-"

"And NOW, HE wants to RUIN me, he's probably going to tell EVERYBODY about what he heard, maybe even go to the Councilman Argentum and try to convince him to cart me out of the Historium so he can finally burn it all down and ruin all my work-"

"Magus Coluber, m-maybe you should sit back down-"

"I WILL NOT SIT DOWN, MORS." He yelled, his face nearly entirely red with anger. "Actually, it's a good thing you're here!" He grabbed some paper, a quill, and tossed them at Mors, causing the young man to flinch and tense. "Write down what I say, and send it to the head of the church."

He swallowed the lump of anxiety and panic in his throat, and fumbled with the paper and quill for a moment. "Y-yes sire-"

The sorcerer cleared his throat, straightened his posture, folded his hands behind his back, and spoke clearly, and forcefully.

"Dear Your Holiness, I have heard your complaints and concerns from Father Daniels, and I understand the concern you must feel from what you have heard from him, but I can assure you that these claims are false. Young Mors, my personal assistant, questioned every Historium staff member who were here that morning, and none of them, not one, could claim to have heard the same sounds Father Daniels claims to have heard, despite being in the same building he claimed to have heard the screaming come from. It is not exactly a secret that me and Daniels have had longstanding animosity for each other, and me and the church have never exactly seen eye-to-eye, but I assure you, if such a thing happened in my Historium, I would investigate, but, as it stands, there is no evidence that he actually heard anything, and it is the word of over a dozen hard working Historium scholars, most of whom are in their physical and mental prime, who were within the building itself at this time, versus the word of only one of your oldest preachers, one who is pushing seventy, might I add. In short, I sincerely doubt that he actually heard anything, and, even if there was the, quote unquote, "hysterical and inhuman sobbing and screaming", coming from the building, my staff would have heard it and reported it to me, and your Father Daniels would have hardly heard anything from the road. Especially if it came from the lower floors of the building as he claimed. I stand by my staff and what they have said, and I hope that you will, for once, stand on the side of reason, as I have. Serpentis oculo veritas, Caecus Coluber, Librarian Argentum of The Historium, Duke of The Turrim Veritatis, High Magus Argentum of The Domus Autem est Argentea Serpens."

"Did you get all that?"

"D-did you r-really need to use all the- the d-dead language terms for these things, s-sire-"

"Did. You. Get. All. Of. That."

"Yes sire-"

"Good. Now leave."

"Y-yes sire-"

The magus watched as the young scholar scurried out of the room, letter in hand. When the door slammed shut, he sat back down in his chair, idly rubbing his now throbbing forehead. He let out a deep, tired sigh, and started to mumble to himself. "... I can't believe this..." He grumbled, snapping his fingers and letting his book disappear in a puff of smoke. "... today was supposed to be quiet... and nice... I was going to read my stories, and suddenly..." "... I have another letter to write..." He clapped his hands, and a decidedly unique looking piece of parchment appeared in his hands, along with another quill, which had seemingly been dipped in silver, and a new bottle of ink. "... where to begin..."

"My most trusted accomplice, I hope this letter finds you in good health. I thank you for the documents that you so graciously gifted me with earlier this month, as well as the compilation of folk stories. While I am pleasantly surprised at the prevalence of my theories in these folk tales, most of their contents venture too far into the realm of the absurd for me to use as a reliable source. I thank you for them still, as they have been a good source of entertainment in these stressful workdays. Your theories are most interesting, though they stray quite close to the realm of make-believe for my tastes. Nevertheless, I am open to hearing more. Your "Starborn" hypothesis, in particular, was fascinating. I would be delighted if these "star children" you are so adamant about would exist as you say they do, and even more so if you could find a living one, but I have my reservations. On a more serious matter, however, I must ask that you relieve me of the rejects at your earliest convenience. Besides the noise they constantly make, and the slime and shed skin that have begun to accumulate, one of them attacked an intruder this morning, and a passing local clergymen heard the cries of pain through a grate. At least this confirms the soundproofing spells for the rest of the building are functional, as none of the morning staff heard anything. Furthermore, I fear that the reject responsible has developed a taste for blood, and can no longer be safely worked with. I am too old, and I do not have the tools to terminate it in the Historium, nor do I have the means to deal with the remains. Of the subject, that is, there were no remains of the hoodlum besides some blood to be mopped up. Besides, this entire batch was a dud. Nothing gained, no changes, and too much material lost. I expect replacements for both materials and subjects by the summer solstice. Lastly, I beg of you, please cease with your more criminal activities, at least for the time being. I respect you as a scholar and a mage, but for gods sakes, if you get caught then all of this will have been for naught. I could swear you were taunting the council itself with your antics. If you are apprehended and brought before the council of nine, and you would go before the council of nine for the severity of your numerous crimes, there are no strings I would be able to pull to save you. And I refuse to go down with you. So please, for both of our sakes, exercise discretion. We are so close. Don't ruin this for us now. In the eye of the serpent, the truth, Caecus Coluber, Silver Librarian of The Historium, Duke of The Tower of Truth, High Silver Magus of The House of The Silver Serpent."

Folding the finished letter, he slid it into an envelope, and stamped it with the seal of the silver magus. He then walked out to his outside balcony, protected from the drizzle by a stone overhang, and tied it to his personal carrier raven, which quickly flew off to its intended destination, as it had been trained to do. He gave one more deep sigh, and walked back into the study, glancing at the clock. "... it's getting late..." He mumbled, opening a drawer on his desk, full of mostly broken orbs. He took one, and looked it over, slowly. "... no help to my research, in the end, but fascinating nonetheless..." He let his somber expression soften into a smile. "... "you learn something new every day..."... well, not quite, not anymore, but it's still nice when it happens." Placing it back, he closed the drawer, and walked out into the rest of the building, nearly bumping into a pair of passing scholars.

"O-our deepest apologies, magus-" One of them stammered, bowing deeply.

"No, no, my apologies, I should look where I'm going..." He pat the bowing young scholar on the head, and sent them both off.

The old sorcerer continued on his way, making passing greetings at the various Historium staff as he walked, his shoes thumping quietly on the marbled floors and stairs. As he was passing through the lobby, he took a moment to look at all the people, scurrying to and fro, the sound of feet and shoes on marble drowning out the conversations some were having in the corners of the room, and the opening and closing of creaky wooden doors grating on his ears. Now he remembered why he spent so much time and energy getting the upper and lower floors soundproofed. Nevertheless, he stepped back onto the stairwell, and eventually arrived at a small intersection below the surface. There were a few doors, and the construction was mostly stone, as opposed to marble, showing that it was mostly likely built after the rest of the building, and for sturdiness rather than aesthetics. Each one was locked. There was someone else in the room, fiddling with the lock. "... hello?"

The person jumped, and turned towards him. They both eased up once they saw each other. He sighed. "... James, what are you doing down here? You know the rules."

"I-I know, I..." James fidgeted a bit, his usual professionalism not quite all there at that moment. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, but it took a few moments before he could actually answer. "... sir, I think I might have... dropped the keys to my locker of personal things in the grate outside... I was... hoping I could... slip in and get them before you noticed."

He chuckled at the response, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "Is that all? I'm on my way in there, I can grab your keys for you and have someone leave them in your quarters."

"Thank you magus." He replied, giving a smile and a bow.

"It's no problem, James. Now, off with you."

The young assistant stepped out of his superiors way, and hurried up the steps. With that out of the way, Caecus stepped towards the one directly across from him. He looked over the wood and iron door, and gripped the padlock. He reached into his pocket for a large iron key, and inserted it into the lock.

Click.

[neshabeingchildish]

Poly Wanna? Ch.5

Doing confession in bold to see how this goes. I may not set chapters up in "reality TV format" but I had a couple of things that I wanted to do in that style just to see. I be trying out stuff sometimes. Forgive me for being a whole trash can.

Lemme know if I need to take you off the tag. Idk who’s actually reading because I’ve only heard from a couple of people, so idk if y’all still interested (or if y’all’ll be after this MESSY shiz in this chapter. 

@adorkable-blackgirl  @chenoahchantel @ciara-knightly @cactus-con @up-the-tube @riebellion  @itsyaapollochild@oof–musicals @lesbian-so-what @woahjusttakeiteasy-man @meadowstryingtobepretty @imma-sensitive-btch @okaygal21 @midernacht @divinereign4ever @xoxoemille

Here is the song from the bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iibMNsSRCE

And, the Drama Begins

Jasper wanted to have one more Girls Day with the Hartbroken Club before filming started, but the production team felt like that was actually a perfect place to begin recording him. Of course, he couldn't see it in progress. The thought of doing things for six months then having to wait another six months before even seeing it and probably being a completely different person in another year… that was a little terrifying.

But, the team had made a filming schedule and decided to start out with Jasper for the beginning of the show for a few reasons: 1. He was the longest friendship that Henry Hart has ever had. 2. He was the most likable person that they currently had on the cast. And 3. They weren't convinced that he and Henry were over each other and felt like establishing that on camera, early on would be a wonderful bang to begin with.

Henry hadn't been in a serious relationship since he and Jasper broke up a few years prior and there must've been a reason that it also took Jasper a long time to move on and when he did, it was with Henry's ex. They were pretty much convinced that either the relationship was a ruse to get to Henry, or one or both of them were lying to themselves about how one another felt.

Also, unknown to Jasper, they had reasons that they wanted to see Charlotte face to face with Bianca and Chloe. If the cast members weren't telling each other certain things, that was fine for the production team. They had a feeling that they knew how to start with a hefty dosage of mess from something that Charlotte had admitted in her interview when asked how she felt about being on screen with Henry's other exes. They had a feeling that Jasper didn't know this little piece of information. It would bring in good ratings at the start of the program...

.

Jasper's confession/testimony room was in his bedroom, where he interviewed, but with a much better camera set up. They gave Jasper a list of things that they wanted him to share with the confession camera: Why do you go to these outings with Chloe and Bianca? Is all of this because of your connection to Henry? How does Charlotte feel about it?

He sighed and set the paper down. "Those don't have to be recorded right now," Grumpy Cat said. "But, I'd say maybe do a short introduction for your first voiceover."

"Can it not be the stuff from the interview? Because I can guarantee you that whatever I said then is all that I'll come up with if I sit in that chair."

"Sure. I don't care." He rolled his eyes and walked off.

Jasper waited until he was gone to start his confession. "My name is Jasper Dunlop. I'm 28, he/him/his pronouns, cis, but not het. Ummm… Bisexual, not entirely sure of what it means to be pan, so I don't absorb that title. I have a beautiful girlfriend of about 7 months now. We live together and decided to take this weird journey with our ex-best friend and mutual ex boyfriend.." That probably sounds like we dated him at the same time, which technically… I mean, depending on how you look at it… Henry was definitely still in love with Charlotte when he and Jasper… Jasper looked at the paper then at the camera again.

"I go to these outings with Chloe and Bianca, who also dated Henry because when we broke up, it was my chance to vent, but now I just love having spa days. That's good stuff. This time, we're bringing Charlotte along. She wants to go for spa stuff. She couldn't really care about the whole Henry angle. She got over him better than any of us did, I think, especially considering that theirs was a much more serious relationship… Honestly, Char just deserves a good relaxing day. She hasn't had a great year."

.

Charlotte and Jasper came to the spa and Chloe and Bianca were waiting inside. "Hi!" Both girls cheered. Charlotte smiled, but didn't rush to hug them like Jasper had. They came to hug her, though. She smiled a little. "My God, you look amazing! What do you do for your skin? Your hair is divine! Omg, this dress is so cute! You smell great…" Her smile tensed up with all the overdoing going on here.

But, she had given a confession that would surely be used when this was aired…

"I don't know if Bianca and Chloe know that I know that they're two of the women who Henry was paying attention to behind my back. I don't know if they know that I know that pix were sent and that a threesome was discussed. But I know that I know, and both those girls better watch how they handle me."

In the spa, Charlotte said, "Okay! I'm not a collectible doll and neither of you are at a petting zoo." She bumped past them and asked for a price list, which she took to studying as Jasper confusedly resumed speaking to the girls about their usual plan.

She wondered, to the woman at the counter, "Just wondering about this Henry Hartbreak Plan… I think I want it, but is there a way to take off certain services for a discounted price? For instance… I don't do tanning beds…"

"Are you Charlotte?" The woman asked. Now, the whole group was paying attention. Charlotte raised an eyebrow, reluctant to answer, "I've got whatever your services are covered."

"What? Why?" Charlotte asked suspiciously. She had been broke for a few years and nobody ever gave her anything for free in her life.

"We have card information and instructions to let you whatever you need, if you are."

"What card information?"

"Dr. Henry Hart." Charlotte almost refused, but you know what? Eff it. He owed her at least one spa day, and the looks on both Bianca and Chloe's faces were worth it as the girl behind the counter read, "Charlotte Page. Special instructions. Whatever she orders, charge it to this card." The woman looked worried, like she'd said something wrong.

"Okay then, but can I still skip the tanning bed? I like to tan like nature intended, basking in the sun…"

Jasper spoke to the confession camera about this, "It was troubling to me that Henry was paying for Charlotte's way, but a little more troubling that she accepted. Because, I'd offered her and she declined. But he offered and..." he shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes were stressed.

.

Charlotte had a wonderful time, but avoided the girls and by association, Jasper most of the time. It wasn't really his fault, but she just preferred to focus on her experience there. "Honestly, I didn't go there to bond with Chloe or Bianca and I didn't go there to confront them about old stuff. I went for a spa day. They had their little girl's day. Charlotte had her spa day, AND it was free." On the way home, she reclined the seat and said, "I'm probably gonna sleep."

"Are you tired from all the energy it must've taken you to ignore everybody all day?" He said, jokingly.

"Nope. It took none. It was as natural as breathing. That's an awesome spa! My skin feels glorious." She said. "I loved those lavender lemonade spritzers."

"Too rich for my blood," he muttered.

"Should've told me. I'd have gotten you some on Henry's dime." Jasper took a deep breath. "You okay, Jasper?" She poked him a little in the side, playfully, trying to get him to look at her.

"I don't feel comfortable with what happened today."

"Why? I got a free spa day and you got your day with your little friends. Everybody won."

"For one, they were trying to be nice and you were kind of rude to them, then you refused to interact with any of us. Why did you come when we did and not some other time if you didn't want to be there with us?"

"Next time I won't. Sorry for how it affected you," she said and rubbed his shoulder.

He sighed. He wanted to say it was no big deal and move on, but that was the kind of stuff that got his heart in trouble with Henry. "Now, I feel like you're dismissing it."

"I am, because you're wrong, but if it's how you feel, who are me to judge?" She laughed to herself about her silly reference. He didn't get it. He looked stressed and she didn't want that at all. She honestly didn't think it would matter to him that she stayed to herself, because they were both pretty independent in this relationship. He seemed like he was upset, so she added, "I wasn't trying to ignore you. I thought that was better than me being bitchy towards those girls. I won't mess up your next date with them, as long as you aren't talking playfully or otherwise about having a threesome with them."

"Why would I be?"

She shrugged her shoulders, "Henry did." Jasper squinted and looked at her sideways.

"What?"

"This story never got back to you?" He shook his head. "Okay. Wow. Well, whenever Henry and I had our last little blow up, one of the contention sources was his group chat with Bianca and Chloe and very inappropriate things being said and done there, one of which quote unquote just joking about having a threesome with them."

"I… did not know that. Henry didn't really ever want to say much about what happened between you and him. Just that it was his fault and that you left him."

"And in the past year or so you've been hanging with them they never mentioned it?"

"They mentioned that something happened after you two broke up, but nothing about causing it."

"Wait, something happened, like what? Like the threesome?"

"I mean… would it matter at this point? Are you still hurt?"

"To be honest, I didn't really deal with my heartbreaking. I just moved along, focused on school until I was ready to see other people socially, and I guess in the anger and blocking and stuff… maybe I am still hurt…"

"I don't know. But whether or not I am, I didn't like how they approached me either, so I still wouldn't have been interested, even if I didn't have those being my last memories of them."

"Why didn't you tell me this before? Like.. why come to this and then tell me afterwards?"

"I thought it would be petty to bring it up to you, at all. But, just now, you looked upset and I hate seeing you upset. I wanted to explain myself. I didn't think I'd be as dismissive of them when I got there as I was. I'm sorry."

He pulled over and gave her a hug. "I'm sorry. That's really messed up that you went through that. That would never happen with me."

.

"I'm Charlotte. Part science whiz, part art hoe, part witchy bitch, sarcastic, realistic, and just passionate about the things that I'm into. I came here for no other reason than for people to be able to see sides of me that I don't necessarily talk about. I know that this is about Henry, but that's not why I'm here." Charlotte was doing yoga in the living room, then made some juice and went outside to watch the sunrise.

Whenever Jasper saw her do it for the first time, he waited for her to come back in and asked, "Is that a you and Henry thing?"

"Nothing is a me and Henry thing," she said, laughing. Jasper had stepped out onto the balcony with Henry before and Henry asked him not to interrupt that time. It was his special alone time with the sun. Jasper thought it was weird, but gave him the space. So, seeing Charlotte do the very same thing had been deja vu. But, instead of being hard on him, she'd asked, "You ever wanna join me? I know you're not usually up so early…"

"I'd love to!" He said, then never woke up for it. Sometimes, if he left the bar super late, he'd still be awake when she got up. To be perfectly honest, watching her do yoga was more interesting to him than watching the sunrise, but there was something in how she watched it, something in how Henry had watched it that made Jasper feel like he understood them both better now. He didn't. He couldn't put his finger on it. But, he was just… kinda really fond of them in some of the same ways.

"You know, Henry does this every morning, too. That was why I'd asked if it was a you and him thing."

"It's a me thing that rubbed off on him."

"There was a lot, I think. I didn't realize that was your influence, but living with you after living with him…"

She smiled a little, "Well, he and I have to have both changed enough to where I don't remind you too much of him?"

"Yeah, there's a lot of very clear differences. Like, the bathroom! He keeps all his bathroom stuff in a bag and puts it out when he's in there and puts it away when he leaves."

"Yeah, because if he has to get out and go, he needs those things to go with him. He and Ray went on a… business trip suddenly and we're there for over a week. He came back and kept insisting his skin was in shambles." She laughed. "He was so ashy! I didn't even know that could happen to him, but he's got a kinda dark white complexion, so I guess." Jasper laughed too, recalling that. THAT was why he did that?

"Of course, you don't even care. You just spread your things all over my bathroom before you ever even moved in! I'd go in to find my toothpaste and there's women's stuff, beauty stuff, all those oils and stuff.."

"You're welcome. Don't think I don't notice you using my stuff."

"It's high quality stuff!"

"I have something for you!" She rushed to get a pretty bottle, that looked sort of like a genie bottle and handed it to him. "I blended this juice especially for you."

He tried some and shrugged. "Pretty good."

"It will help with some things…" she smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

"Don't leave me in suspense. What things?"

"Jasper has bruh… I don't know how else to say it… very off-putting semen. It's super bitter - WAY more tart than it should be. I know that his diet is part of the problem, but I can't really, you know… change his diet for him. This is one of the things that I do, though. Juices, herbs, soaks, whatever… we can get him tasting right. I'm not gonna keep trying to figure out what to do with that swamp gunk!"

Charlotte answered, "Your output. This will help with it."

"I have no idea what that means."

"I'll LOVE it, okay?"

"Good enough for me." She gave him a peck on the lips, then went to go get cleaned up for the rest of her day. *Shows off the bottle "Look at how gorgeous this thing is. I don't even know what it's made out of, but it's beautiful and the juice tastes magical."

.

Jasper showed up while Henry was watering plants. He'd left the door open. "Heyyy!" Henry cheered. "Jasper's here, ladies," he said to a group of flowers.

"Yo. Oh! Is it still watering time?" He backed away, getting ready to leave the place, in peace.

"Yeah, it's all good." Jasper raised an eyebrow. "Things have changed, Jasp. I'm not as mean as before… or as abusive." His eyes fell and he shook his head. He was honestly horrible to Jasper.

"I wouldn't call it abusive. You just were snappy about your boundaries."

"Yeah, but when you have so many boundaries…"

"Speaking of, sometimes I watch the sunrise with Char. She told me that you got that from her."

Henry smiled sadly, "Keep living. She'll put things on you too."

"Yeah! She makes me special juice and puts it in this beautiful bottle for me!" He held out the bottle to Henry.

"What's in it?"

Jasper took a swig, "Like.. bananas, something tropical, citrusy.." he took another, "Different flavors. My palate is getting a lot."

"May I?" Jasper reluctantly handed it over and Henry beautifully took a sip. How was he so damn hot, just drinking from a bottle? He swished it in his mouth, swallowed, smacked his lips and said, "I've got papaya, cinnamon, peppermint��� celery…" He snapped his fingers, "This is for your semen." He handed the bottle back. "To help it taste better for her."

"What?" Jasper hugged the bottle close to himself, scandalized.

"I mean, sure those things have other properties, so it could be anything, but my vote is on semen, because yours was always super strong tasting and she doesn't like flavors like that. Knowing her, she'd give you something to help without straight up saying, this is for this problem that I've noticed… Because, she feels like we ignore her when she does that."

"My output!" Jasper said, embarrassed.

Henry laughed, then apologized. "I remember her telling me, I got you something! Then showing me my very first konjac sponge. Apparently, I needed to exfoliate, especially my lips, which got really dry and licking them only wet them, not moisturized them." Henry laughed. "I do a routine flush to keep that down below good to go, though, especially if I'm expecting to engage. You let her down there with...just whatever? DId you not notice her wince or anything?"

"I don't wanna talk sex with Charlotte with you, Henry. You understand."

"Sure. Well, you ready to run?"

"No! But I agreed to it, so…""Charlotte is super healthy. Henry is super healthy. Henry is gonna be around because we're doing this show, so… I want to look better than I've been looking. I look great! Don't think I'm self conscious. I just know that I could stand to try to be in better shape, especially with the weirdness of Charlotte and Henry and me. Henry said that I could come with him on his morning runs. I hate running, but I've gotta start somewhere, I guess." The two of them were lightly jogging. Jasper fell behind a few times and told Henry not to worry, but he'd slow down every time.

"Jasper running is kinda comical, kinda adorable. He seems like he might die and that's sad, but his facial expressions and the stuff he yells out just make it hard not to smile."

"Running is what they get you to do when you wake up in Hell!" Jasper toppled over. Jasper poured a jug of water down his shirt. Jasper nearly collapsed. "Why would people choose to do this any time after like, age 6?" Jasper rested his hands on his knees, then fell forward, then lied down in the grass. "You should go on without me. I've been out here too long." Henry jogged next to him as he caught his breath. Henry checked his watch. "Okay, Buddy. It's been like 8 minutes…"

"PERIOD?" "Jasper is not a runner."

.

Henry made a mental note to simply work out later. After 20 minutes, Jasper was ready to die. "Come on. I'll get you something to eat and we can sit down for a while." Henry placed Jasper on his shoulder and said, "Maybe a gym. A treadmill? You could better control the volume and speed. We'll look into that."

"Henry and I used to work out all the time. I started going to the gym with him when he and Charlotte broke up. He would go more frequently, trying to blow off stress I think and I went along because he was mentally in a bad spot and I didn't want him to be alone. I got a membership back then and we went and talked and worked out and I was in my best shape at that time. I was hot. Ouch!"

Charlotte wasn't home whenever Jasper got back, but he texted her about spending the afternoon with Henry. Once they were out and about again, they just flowed well. And, they'd spent time together before he and Charlotte, so they would likely do so again. He looked at the countertop in the kitchen and Charlotte had left him this cute jumbo organza bag with a drawstring and a note, "Put together a blend of oatmeal, epsom salts, fragrances, flowers, herbs and essential oils for the soreness that you'll surely have when you get home. Love you!" Jasper held his heart over his chest, "She's honestly so thoughtful. Like… She talks to you mean, but literally nobody in my life has ever anticipated that I might be sore and made me a bath soak for it." He was blushing, uncontrollably.

.

Henry pulled out all the 'Steal Yo Girl' stops for his visit to the lounge that Jasper and Charlotte were working at. Neither of them were expecting him, but he knew where they worked and decided that he would go to socialize and smize at them. He had on a button down shirt, with the buttons open at the top, a floral jacket, silk to be exact, his eyebrows, hairdo, skin and teeth groomed to perfection. Jasper had spent a lot of time with him earlier. They had brunch and found a gym to join together and Henry was able to finish up his run on the treadmill, while Jasper preferred a comfortable walk on the one next to it. They had a good time. Henry felt good about them, but Charlotte was still out of his reach.

He came in and saw a little flier that said that Charlotte was singing tonight. He didn't even know that she sung here. He thought she said she was a waitress. He headed for the bar to order a drink and this music started and a sweet singing voice that made him turn around and stare. She was just in a silhouette, but he knew her form, even holding a guitar. "When we first collided -The timing wasn't right. I showed you the signs. You disappeared into the shadows. Now you're back again, Telling me you do. You do…" She came from the darkness into the dim light of the room, continuing. He was transfixed, but everyone was.

Charlotte wore a figure hugging shimmering gold dress that showcased her gorgeous legs, strap up shoes, and her hair pulled up, adorned with gold accents and some extensions that made her kinda look like that suitoress in Coming to America. She kicked her leg up when she got to the chorus, "I've been to the moon. Don't tempt me. I've been where you are. God help me…" Jasper and Charlotte seemed to both notice Henry at the same time, or maybe Jasper noticed him after she focused in on someone in the audience… "I've been to the moon and stars for you, and now it's your turn to go for me too…" Henry was drawing closer to the stage when he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder and broke his trance. Jasper.

"Hey.. you didn't tell me that Char was singing tonight!"

"I didn't expect to see you here, so I'm not sure why I would've. She has good vocals and can play guitar, so sometimes she does this for extra cash when they can't book anybody." Jasper smiled and folded his arms, trying not to look Henry over and failing. "What are you doing here?"

"Wanted to have a few drinks." They headed for the bar and Jasper was ready to serve. "What's this song she's singing?"

"Ummm.. it's Corinne Bailey Rae, I think. She's doing some of that tonight and some Esperanza Spalding, Marsha Ambrosious… You know…"

"Charshit," they both said at the same time. Henry ordered his drink then stared at her some more before Jasper interrupted, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you still wanted her." Henry blinked out of it and turned in his seat towards Jasper with a soft smile. "I want her not to hate me. We never got a chance to get to that point. She crossed me off and didn't look back. I spent years trying to get over that."

"Over the fact that someone was strong enough to leave you?" Jasper teased

Henry studied his glass for a while, before admitting, "Over the fact that the one person I always thought would never, had."

"The one person…" Jasper reeled in his sympathy to say, "Well when you're planning threesomes with your exes while you're dating, executing aforementioned threesome when you break up, and then inviting all of them to your shit show, I'm not sure how you expect her to forgive you any time soon."

Henry rubbed the temples of his head, shot the rest of his drink, and gestured for another. Jasper rolled his eyes at the fact that he went silent when called on his BS. Earlier today, he thought he'd changed. When he set down Henry's drink, Henry said, "I want everything out of the way. All the dirt dealt with… everything drudged up and maybe we can put all the shit behind us."

"Says the shit starter," Jasper said. He leaned on the bar, kinda close to Henry's face, "If that's what you want, just say it. Stop playing games."

Henry smiled and said, "I feel like that's going to be used completely out of context when this airs." He booped his nose, laughed, and turned away from Jasper to watch Charlotte finish her set and nurse his drink. "Charlotte said everything that she needed to say to me whenever she left me. She had some valid reasons. She was well within her right and it was the best thing for her to do for her. I always thought that whenever somebody messes up, you work on it, forgive, maybe even forget. My parents have been together for like 30 years and I know that there's been infidelity and other troubles, but they never leave each other and they've never even considered a divorce, and I guess that I thought that when you love someone, there's a lot of room to make mistakes. That… wasn't what I believed after that break up and I felt like I had an epiphany that I was never going to have any great love, because I had one and I messed up."

Charlotte came off of the stage and looked Henry up and down then said, very firmly, cutting off whatever cheery compliments that he was about to give her, "Listen. If you're gonna go after my man, all up in my face, I should tell you that you're not the only one with some fight training."

Henry scoffed and Jasper handed her a drink, "He's not, Babe."

"Don't come up in here trying to look like a meal and getting all up on Jasper, smiling and booping his nose and shit!" She snapped at Henry.

"Wow. You misread all of that," Henry said.

"You misread!" She snapped. "Jasper is a nice person and he has a hard time telling people to shove off. I don't. He doesn't want you anymore, Hen, You messed that up."

"I know that," Henry said, shot the rest of his current drink and threw some money on the counter, "Sorry for the misunderstanding. We still on for the gym?"

"Uhh... " Jasper looked at Charlotte, tapping her foot angrily and clenching her glass in her fingers. "I don't know. I'll call you in the morning." He rubbed Charlotte's shoulder and said, "He wasn't flirting with me."

"I know. You were flirting with him," She said and drank her drink.

"No, I wasn't. I was confronting him about the way that he was looking at you!"

"You had to be nose to nose with him to do so?" She slammed her glass down and said, "Jasper… I'm not going to be any man's fool."

"I would never. I'm tired of you not trusting me."

"Should we take a break? You're certainly not tired of Henry. You were with him all day and now he's here tonight?"

"He just showed up!"

"And you decided to fawn all over him right in my goddamn face, Jasper!"

"I noticed that he looked nice, but I wasn't… I don't want Henry, and hell no I don't want to take a break!"

Henry bit his lip and looked at the camera. "I think that I started a fight between them.." He left the bar, stifling a chuckle. It wasn't funny, but he couldn't help it. He actually had not meant to do that, at all. He didn't know how he was gonna fix it, but probably invite them both over for dinner to clarify what he was doing there.

.

[thoughtsofanaveragebeinguncut]

this one has been a long time coming. and nothing is confirmed, nothing is solidified but it feels like such an important aspect of my life that I have yet to properly acknowledge so here I am. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to retrospectively look on this post and either feel fully validated or feel idk nostalgia for younger me trying to sort her goddamn life out. 

So, it’s been on my mind awhile now but I don’t know what it means to like someone and I generally feel like something’s wrong with me. Starting with that first point there, I literally just don’t get it. Let me give you an example. Recently, a close friend of mine said that she encountered a situation at work where a colleague gave her butterflies unexpectedly whilst doing a completely mundane activity and it totally caught her off guard. She told us and she said she didn’t know if she’d ever had butterflies before, even in her previous crushes. And a friends of ours was confused and asked ‘how did you know you had a crush on someone previously if you’ve never experienced butterflies?’ And this sent me spiralling (not that they knew) because I’ve never experienced butterflies. 

I think I’ve given myself butterflies by just willing it, like I don’t know for sure. Like my previous crushes were more like admiration and more like aesthetic attraction (def so much of this, because when I discovered this term I was bamboozled. because this is what I see, this is how I determine if I quote unquote like someone most of the time I think). And then this sent me down another path, and I was like well if I don’t feel things for boys, then maybe I feel things for girls? But I have so many female friends and I’ve never had the desire to date a single one of them. So that kinda rules that one out of my book. 

And I like the idea of dating a guy but putting that to practice, in addition to finding a guy that I actually like is a challenge in it of itself. So, basically this leaves me with two scenarios. Either I am asexual or I am demisexual. I have such a strong desire to be demisexual because I am a hopeless romantic at heart, I want a romance that blows me away. One beyond my wildest dreams but that’s difficult, and only seen in Hallmark movies apparently but I want it nevertheless. But if it terms out I am asexual, I guess I’d have to accept that? But how would I know? I’m so nervous of everything and one of those things would help me determine if I were ace or not. I quite blatant on this page but that’s something I am not spelling out. 

Yeah I think this is something that I’ve wanted to address for a while but I really just didn’t know how to approach it. I still don’t. But I think airing out my thoughts will help a little bit, whether I notice it or not. And here’s hoping that one day, I can look back at this and just laugh. Worst case scenario, I was completely on the dot for one of my scenarios and though that might suck, it truly is just what it is. 

Now I’ll save the following post for more thoughts on my mental state because this is enough baggage for one post I reckon 

[angryhausfrau-writes]

I Travel Troubled Oceans: Chapter 8 - In Which Jack Embarks Upon an Illustrious Career and Anne Needs a Fucking Break

If Anne had thought Jack was annoying as all fuck before, it's got nothing on how he is now that he's decided to actually be a fashion designer instead of just pretending at it and using his money to hide a lack of actual talent or effort like every other rich person. But Anne supposes that he's going to be a perfectionist in this scheme just like he is in every other fucking thing he does. She just wishes he'd leave her out of all the madness.

He's actually treating her like his fucking PA, if you can believe that. Trying to get her to schedule meetings with various rich idiots who might want to be patrons or some shit like that. Like he's fucking Michelangelo or whoever the fuck the Borgia patronized. And all this when Anne and Jack both know full well her job is to intimidate all the people Jack might need intimidated, not acting as his fucking secretary.

Though, in Jack's defense, the meetings are a good way to figure out new marks. Anne might not be much for subterfuge, but she's good at determining where wall safes might be hidden and an expert at valuating Rolex's and the like. When someone's got fifty thousand pounds worth of Swiss watch on their wrist, they're generally going to be a more worthwhile target for a con than someone with only fifty.

And she does get to do some intimidation. Sitting in the back of Jack's meetings, staring at the marks over the top of her blackberry. Like they're ants, like they're nothing and they're wasting her valuable time just by existing. The sort of looks men like that used to give her, when they realized she wasn't fuckable.

It's almost fun, watching them squirm. Cathartic, maybe, it you wanna be all fancy about it. Anne's always had a vindictive streak to her.

So she don't really mind that part all that much, though she ain't gonna let Jack onto that fact – he'd just rope her into more of this play pretend bullshit.

But what she does object to is the everything else that goes along with the meetings. Because if Jack's going to be a fashion designer, then he needs things like a sewing machine and dressmakers dummies and a truly bullshit ridiculous amount of fabrics and buttons and who even fucking knows what else. And he makes Anne go and get all of that shit, which is a real pain in the ass and takes considerable time away from her preferred activities of fucking Max and lounging threateningly at their new posh neighbors.

Fortunately, Mr. Scott knows Eme, who used to work for Eleanor – and is since out of a job because of her fall from grace and obscene wealth. And she's more than willing to come work for Anne and go round up all of Jack's stupid shit. And she knows a bunch of people looking to find jobs as housekeepers and gardeners and cooks. So they're gonna have a household staff like all the other posh fucks they've surrounded themselves with.

Charles had been pissed about it at first, which makes sense. But none of them can cook for shit or particularly want to spend time dusting all the stupid posh shit they've accrued as a cover for their new life as upper-class twats. And Mary had backed Anne in her half-pretending threats to mutiny if they've got to eat Jack's burned eggs one more morning. So Charles had eventually been persuaded into it – him being the fucker who don't have to bear the brunt of Jack's latest obsession and therefore not getting as much of a vote.

Though Charles had insisted on looking over the employment contracts Jack drew up. And they've ended up paying a comparatively obscene amount – which just means a living wage for London – but everyone's relatively happy with the arrangement. And ain't that what partnership is supposed to mean? Them all in this together. Compromising.

So Anne'll suck it up and deal with Jack in a tizzy over whatever fucking thing he's so worried about that particular minute. And she'll know everyone else in her crew's got her back when she needs it.

Which is a bit of a novel thought, if she's being honest. She's always had Jack, always trusted him since they met – but it's a real cock fight out there and Anne's had to scrabble for every fucking inch she's ever carved out for herself in the streets. It's nice to have Mary here with her along with Max. Someone who knows, someone who understands what that's like.

And Mary's been a real help wrangling Jack. Talking him down off whatever imaginary ledge he's got himself on. Keeping up his instagram and twitter and whatever so that when he schedules meetings with posh fucks they've at least heard of him. And she's started putting together little files on potential marks based off whatever she can find on their own accounts as well as the gossip Charles collects and the intel she and Jack report.

It's all the bullshit busy work that Anne has no patience for. But Mary's real good at it. Keeps everything nice and neat and organized, which Anne knows Max appreciates.

And she ain't half bad on the eyes.

Really, taking her in when Lord Hamilton's deadbeat son left her behind may have been one of Jack's smarter ideas. And to hear him talk, he's had a lot of 'em.

--

Jack is an idiot. An ignoramus. An absolute fucking moron.

Why on earth had he thought it would be a good idea to have his character's cover be a fashion designer?

He knows how to sew and has even made some of his own clothes – or altered charity shop finds into something half wearable. But he doesn't know the first thing about fashion. And certainly not the avant garde shit he'll be expected to trot out for Kaylen's gallery show.

Max's suggestion, backed by Charles, of just having the models be as near to naked as possible and letting the quote unquote sex appeal carry him through would probably work. But it's detestable to him. It does nothing to showcase Jack's talent or ability. Nothing to prove his worth or further his name.

Plus, it's cheating. And he may be a crook and a con, but he's not a cheater.

So he gets Max to round him up some women to use as models. And they're corner girls, not the sleek, starved models most people would probably use. But they're real people, with personality and preference and something for him to at least start basing ideas for outfits off of.

One woman had told him straight out that she'd knife him if he dared put her in anything with sequins, and that's something to work with.

So Jack commandeers one of the empty upstairs sitting rooms for a sewing room and starts sketching just reams and reams of absolute garbage. Nothing's right. Nothing looks right.

It's so endlessly frustrating.

He's got a feeling, a sense, ephemeral and fleeting, of what he wants to do. But he just can't draw it out. Can't get it out on the page, not for the fucking life of him.

And Charles has been less than helpful. Hanging around Jack's workshop and lounging there, having the time of his fucking life, while Jack's tearing his hair out by the roots.

When Jack had snapped at him, asking what, exactly, the fuck he was doing there, Charles had simply replied, “I'm supposed to be your muse, aren't I? I'm musing.”

And it had been such a terrible, horrible, awful thing to say, Jack had balled up his latest shitty drawing and chucked it at him, starting off a sort of indoor snowball fight that lasted until all rejected sketches were exhausted and they lay panting on the rug.

“Feel better?”

Jack groans dramatically. But he does feel a little less like banging his head against his desk, so probably.

“I'm beginning to think that all of this was a terrible mistake.”

Charles snorts. “Just now, you're thinking that?”

“Oh fuck off, Chaz. It's not like you've got to do anything but sit there and look pretty. Not exactly a difficult task for you.”

“Aw, you think I'm pretty.”

Jack laughs, despite himself. “That was not what I meant you to take away from that.”

“I know. You were trying to call me a lazy piece of shit.” Charles shrugs. “Maybe you're working too hard, Jack. Thinking too hard about this.” Like he always does. “Maybe you should just start doing shit instead of agonizing over if it's right or not.”

Which is just such a fundamentally Charles way of going about things.

But maybe he's right. Jack's approach certainly isn't working. And he's not really wasting anything by mocking up some of his ideas in muslin. Nothing that he hasn't already wasted by fucking around with paper and pencil and bad idea after bad idea.

“Maybe you're a fairly decent muse after all, Charles.”

Charles grins at him. “I can take my shirt off, too, if you think that'll help. Like Mary keeps telling me to for all those pictures.”

Then again, maybe not.

[clickairadio]

CAIR 32: Growing Your Funnels With AI !!!

Is AI relevant to my marketing funnels? If so, how do I apply AI to my funnels? Can I move my customer away from pain toward pleasure using AI?

Hey, thank you for joining another episode of click AI radio. All right. So I was looking at Russell Brunson his book called Traffic Secrets. I don't know if you've looked at that. It's got this he's got this great these great insights on how to drive traffic to your business interior to your sites and such.

Alright, I wanted to call out something in there. So he's got this activity, it's on page 19. If you have the book, open it up to page 19. If not get the book. He gives it away for free. So Alright, so page 19. He's got this, this little activity on there. I'm just flipping through it right here as we go. All right. And and what he's focusing on here is moving customers away from pain and towards pleasure. And he's got this, I'm gonna read something. I'm gonna quote him right here.

He says, He says that the next step to entering the conversation inside your customer's mind is to understand which direction they're moving, right and quote, so in essence, he goes on to say, hey, they're moving away from pain towards pleasure. So he's got this framework, he draws this line. And it's he's got this little person moving away from pain, towards pleasure. And he makes the point that as humans, we're either walking away or running away from pain, or we're moving towards pleasure. And it's that way for our customers. And it's important for us to get into the heads of our customers so that we know which direction they're moving. Well, when I was a kid, my family spent many summer vacations at Lake Powell. It's this lake at the southern Utah, Northern Arizona area. Anyway, we did a lot of activities like you'd imagine right swimming, waterskiing, cliff diving, so forth.

For the most part, we were moving towards pleasure, right, I'd like people to use Russell's framework. But one time, though, there is this massive storm that hit the lake. And we my parents had this really small ski boat is like an 18 footer. We were about an hour away from our camp on the lake. So we were kind of a ways away. And so the big storm comes in, it's not like you can get out and get on a road because the big cliffs there, there's just no way out. So you're sort of stuck down inside these big, high Cliff areas. And the waves got really massive, so big that they're coming over the front of the boat. So it started to get a little scary for us, right. So for about an hour of watch, my dad tried to navigate through these massive waves trying to get us back to our little Cove and get to some safety. So I would say in that case, we were moving away from pain. Now the interesting thing here is that in both scenarios, it's the same boat. It's the same Lake, it's the same location. Sometimes we route we were moving, of course towards pleasure. And other times we're moving away from pain, right?

So sometimes in business, we are moving toward pleasure, or we're moving away from pain. It's the same quote unquote boat, metaphorically, right with our businesses. What changes as we know around us is the context, right? So like, like in this lake Powell experience. When the weather was great, we were focused on moving toward pleasure, right? We wanted more skiing, more snorkeling, more eating food, and so on. But when the weather course turned bad on around us, then of course, our focus shifted to moving away from pain. Now, what I'd like you to do is draw two lines. All right, take take out a piece of paper, draw two lines, like the ones on page 19, and Russell's Traffic Secrets book. So you're gonna have two lines. And the first one is going to represent the spectrum of moving away from pain towards pleasure for our customers, right?

So that first line represents our customers, we want to move them away from their pain towards their pleasure. And as you know, this is generally where we start our focus as business owners And it's the right thing to do, right, we want to serve our customers. And so we want to help them move away from their pain and towards pleasure. And then if you look at the second line, draw that. Alright, that's going to represent the spectrum of moving away from pain, towards pleasure for ourselves, meaning the business owners. Now, there are things in our business that are painful, of course, and we seek to course move away from those, and certainly there are business pleasures that we move toward as well. Well, my experience has been that the more closely we assert, we understand our customers and we seek to serve them, the closer these two lines come together, right. And in fact, at times, they may, they may even lay on top of each other. So I'll give an example.

The more we see business impact on our customers, in other words, the services and products that we're providing, if we see that that's impacting our customers, in other words, if we see that it's reducing their pain, and increasing their pleasure, in general, that translates into a greater reduction of pain and a greater increase of pleasure in our own businesses, right. So these lines can in fact, get very close to each other. So the question is, what does this have to do with funnels and AI? Well, the answer is everything right funnels track the footprints of customer behavior, right, as we're looking to bring them into our products and services. Ai analyzes those footprints, meaning the customer behavior.

Now, one of our pain points as a business owner, is to misuse and Miss apply our resources in the customer acquisition process. This manifests itself in lost sales or sales reductions, you know, when we perform in a not so good manner, this creates a pain situation, right. And of course, as business owner, we want to move away from that AI analyzes customer behavior in our funnels, right. And in doing that it uncovers the pain points, that ultimately means that you may not be serving your customers most optimally. Now, this is great insight for business owner to have this clarity, and to be able to pivot or adjust. You could look at what's happening with that funnel and the results of it and to discover, oh, things don't go well.

In these situations. We want to move away from that because that creates pain for us as business owners. And in a similar manner. Ai analysis of customer behavior and funnels uncovers pleasure points that ultimately mean that you are serving your customer very well. And in this case, ai provides guidance on which of those activities you should do more of now by applying AI to our funnels, it means we can emphasize the productive behaviors, and de emphasize the unproductive behaviors. And by doing this as a business owner, you're able to more effectively deliver more of your products and services. In other words, helping your customers to move away from their pain and move towards their pleasure.

So in this manner, your direction moving from pain to pleasure is directly connected to your customers movement away from pain towards pleasure. So these lines do get very close. Applying AI on your funnels unlocks the doors to continuous insight to help your customers on their journey which is course what we're all about as small to medium business owners. Now eating frybread late at night, while watching the moon rise over the cliffs at Lake Powell. That was always a treat. And I would call that moving towards pleasure. And I actually think we could all use a bit more of that. Alright everybody. Thanks again for joining. Until next time, move your business and your customers away from pain towards pleasure by applying AI to your funnels.

Thank you for joining Grant on ClickAI Radio. Don't forget to subscribe and leave feedback. And remember to download your FREE eBook, visit ClickAIRadio.com now.

Check out this episode!

[mikauzoran]

Lukadrien: Song of the Sun: Chapter Fifteen

@lukadrien-june

Song of the Sun: Chapter Fifteen: Cuddles

Luka wasn’t really in a good mood.

His mother had been getting on his case again about how, despite Luka and Adrien having recently celebrated their first anniversary of dating, Adrien was still deep in the closet and not even telling his closest friends that he had a boyfriend.

“I don’t like it,” Anarka snorted. “Adrien’s a sweet boy, and I like him, but I don’t like what he’s doing to you.”

Luka put down his guitar and crossed his arms. “Regrettably, Adrien isn’t doing anything to me. We’re taking things super slow.”

Anarka rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean, Luc. I’m talking about when he’s done experimenting and decides he wants to be straight again. He’s going to pretend none of this ever happened, that you never meant anything to him, and it’s going to break your heart. I don’t like it.”

“Maman,” Luka growled through gritted teeth. “Adrien would never do that. He loves me.”

Anarka rolled her eyes. “No. You love him, and that’s why you’re blind to what he’s doing. If he loved you, he’d introduce you to his family. He’d be seen with you in public. Luka, I’m telling you, he’s not treating you right. You deserve better.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Maman,” Luka snapped, snatching up his guitar and storming off, going to lounge topside in one of the deckchairs at the prow of the ship.

Upon reflection, Luka realized that his mother was worried and only wanted to protect him. She had no way of knowing how in earnest Adrien was, and even Luka had to admit that it looked bad when you dated for a year and were still no closer to meeting your boyfriend’s family and friends.

Anarka just didn’t understand how much Adrien stood to lose. Adrien was a celebrity with very little privacy. In a way, Adrien was protecting Luka by not publicly acknowledging their relationship.

It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t as bad as it looked from the outside either.

Luka believed in Adrien. There was no reason to doubt his love.

Luka took a deep inhale and breathed out the negative feelings caused by the argument with his mother. After several more cleansing breaths, Luka lifted his acoustic guitar into position and began to play while he waited for Adrien to arrive.

The warm, early-September air ran its fingers through Luka’s hair and carried the melody off across the Seine.

 “You’re late,” Luka observed, setting his guitar aside when Chat Noir finally landed on the ship’s deck. “Is everything okay?”

Chat shook his head, letting it hang in shame. Even his cat ears drooped, and his tail hang limp. He looked like he was going to cry.

Luka pushed himself up, going to his boyfriend, pulling Adrien into a hug. “P5, what’s the matter? Do you need to talk?”

“Y-Your room,” Chat choked, voice scratchy and raw, as if he’d already been crying.

Luka gave his boyfriend a squeeze and then let go so that he could slip his hand into Chat’s and thread their fingers together as they made their way below deck.

Adrien detransformed in the stairwell, and Luka could make out hastily applied makeup covering up, no doubt, a blotchy complexion.

Anarka was still in the main cabin reading a magazine when they came down.

Luka nodded, muttering a, “Sorry for earlier” just as Adrien replied lifelessly, “Hi, Capitaine.”

Anarka took a deep breath and shook her head. “And I’m sorry for upsetting you. I love you, so I worry, Luc,” she replied with a sigh and then turned to Adrien to nod, her tone noticeably cooler. “Hello, Adrien.”

Luka ushered Adrien into his room before Anarka could cause a scene. Adrien was obviously already upset, and he didn’t need to be pressured and guilt-tripped into coming out when that wasn’t something he was ready to do.

Adrien slipped off his shoes and collapsed onto the bed.

Luka finally got an eyeful of how bad Adrien looked. The makeup coverup job was shoddy, like Adrien had started applying concealer but then given up in the middle.

Luka toed his own shoes off, letting them rest where they fell as he too got up onto the bed, climbing over Adrien so that he was on his own side and Adrien was in the spot he had claimed as his own nearly two years before.

Luka wrapped his arms around Adrien, pulling him into a loose hug. “You okay?” he whispered.

Adrien shook his head, lips pressing together as his brow scrunched up, looking like he was about to cry again.

Luka leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Adrien’s temple. “Talk to me, Angel. What is it?”

“It’s stu-pid,” Adrien choked.

“Nothing that upsets you is ever stupid,” Luka assured, repeating, “Talk to me. Is this about your father?”

Adrien tensed and nodded. “He had me play the pieces I’m working on in my piano lessons. I…I’m such a failure.”

Finally the tears started to fall.

“Adrien, no,” Luka cooed, tightening his embrace and nuzzling Adrien’s hair. “Did he tell you that? He’s wrong.”

“I-I made all kinds of mistakes, and my interpretation wasn’t good. There were parts I couldn’t play up to tempo, and—It was just a mess, Luka,” Adrien laughed bitterly, burying his face in Luka’s shoulder to hide his shame. “I’m a mess. Father…he was so disappointed. He didn’t yell or anything. He just shook his head and said…he said…my performance was unworthy of the name A-Agreste…and that he’d expected better.”

Adrien flinched as if his father’s judgment was being delivered again in that moment.

“I’m such a failure,” Adrien muttered. “I can’t do anything right.”

Luka pulled back, propping himself up so that Adrien could see his face. He cupped Adrien’s cheek in his hand and whispered, “Shhh. None of that. You need to stop telling yourself those hurtful lies, Adrien. None of it’s true. You’re not a failure, and there are plenty of things that you can do right.”

Adrien shook his head, trying to look away.

Luka forced Adrien to meet his earnest eyes. “You’re not a failure,” he repeated firmly. “Maybe you weren’t able to play to your father’s standards tonight, but that doesn’t have anything to do with you in the long run or you as a person. Tonight didn’t go well; that doesn’t mean that it will never go well.”

Adrien shook his head. “I did my best. I’ve been practicing these pieces ad nauseum for weeks, and that was the best I could do. I don’t think I can do any better.”

Luka’s eyebrows slanted into a frown. “What pieces are you playing?”

Adrien sighed in exhaustion just thinking about the songs. “Baba Yaga and The Great Gate of Kiev from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Balakirev’s Islamey.”

Luka’s jaw dropped in surprise for a second before he clenched it in anger at Gabriel Agreste. “Adrien, those pieces are hard.”

Adrien scoffed. “Tell me about it.”

“No.” Luka shook his head. “Those pieces are challenging for professionals. Islamey is literally a virtuosic show-off piece, and Baba Yaga has some difficult passages too. It’s not like The Great Gate of Kiev is a walk in the park either. Those are hard pieces, Adrien.”

“Yes,” Adrien replied, losing patience. “I know. I’ve been playing them until my fingers feel like they’re about ready to fall off. In my despair, I stare at the notes on the page until they blur together and lose all meaning. I think I get that what I’m playing is hard, Luka, but thank you for confirming my assessment.”

Luka shook his head again, replying in a soft, soothing tone. “My Love.”

Adrien’s annoyance faded as colour pooled in his cheeks at the term of endearment. Adrien loved being Luka’s “Love”.

“What I’m trying to say is that your father is being cruel and unreasonable expecting you to play at a professional level. You trying your best is more than good enough. It’s more than what should be expected. He should be proud of you for doing so well on such difficult pieces,” Luka explained gently.

“…Really?” Adrien was afraid to believe those kind, compassionate words.

Luka nodded. “Even though your performance wasn’t quote, unquote ‘perfect’, your father should have been proud of you for all of the hard work you’ve been putting in to even get to that point with the pieces. I know you’ve been learning piano since you were four, and I know there are people out there your age who play professionally already, but you weren’t born to be a professional pianist, and that’s not something you even want. The fact that you are this good at a hobby is astounding, Adrien. P5, you are amazing. You take my breath away with how amazing you are.”

Adrien laughed softly, Luka’s words going to his head and making him dizzy. “Really? You really think so?” He reached up to wipe the tears from his cheek.

“Definitely,” Luka breathed, pressing a kiss to Adrien’s forehead. “You’re such a hard worker and an extremely talented musician. You inspire me, Adrien. Your diligence and discipline are extraordinary, and your music is so authentic and full of emotion. The way you interpret pieces makes me see them in ways I’d never heard them before. You give new meaning to pieces that have been around for two hundred years, and I love your playing style. You’re not a failure just because you don’t live up to your father’s expectations. You’re a success because other people can connect with and find themselves in the music you make. You make people feel your music. You make me feel when I listen to you, and being able to touch someone like that is a remarkable talent…so get your father’s voice out of your head. You’re amazing.”

“Yeah?” Adrien whispered, leaning in until his forehead met Luka’s and their breath mingled together.

“Yeah,” Luka confirmed, sealing it with a kiss.

[easyhairstylesbest]

Lauren Oyler on Writing a Book 'Good Enough So People Can't Hatchet-Job You'

Lauren Oyler is the kind of literary critic who makes thin-skinned writers think twice about putting their thoughts onto the page. She once questioned if New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino had ever met someone who wasn’t pretty (yikes!) and asserted that the best-selling novel American Dirt could have “perhaps used a little more self-doubt” (…fair). With bylines in the London Review of Books, New York Times, The Baffler, and more, Oyler often reflects on online phenomena like the popular rise of astrology and the destabilizing effect of social media on our collective mental health. More than one of her pieces of criticism have gone viral, a feat for the genre in its own right, but all the more extraordinary for their lack of sensationalism. Though her critique is often sharp-edged, it does not sacrifice nuance.

Now, she’s turned efforts to her own novel, Fake Accounts, which distills much of her critical musings into a timely premise, with a protagonist who feels like someone you follow on Twitter—an Internet writer who lives in New York City. The unnamed narrator discovers that her boyfriend of several years has been hiding a second life as a popular online conspiracy theorist on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, but as she roves the sea of pink pussy hats at the 2017 Women’s March that same weekend, her boyfriend dies in a freak accident before she can confront him. Left in a social media-hazed mania, the narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on a truly deranged online dating spree and other expat follies.

The book mirrors details from Oyler’s own life—a writer, often for the internet, who lives part-time in Berlin—and parodies the contemporary literary trends she often critiques, like autofiction and the fragmented structure popularized by Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, to explore the tension and lack of distinction between our real and online personas. If, like much of the population, you are addicted to social media, the book resonates in a very specific way.

ELLE.com talks with the author about how she deals with her inner critical voice, her lukewarm feelings about social media detoxes, and how she found empowerment in blurring the lines of her online persona through fiction.

I first heard about your book after seeing a tweet from Emily Gould that calls you an “enormous bitch” but then praises the novel as “unimpeachably great.” How do you unpack a comment like that?

Ha! I don’t think Emily meant that being a bitch is a bad thing necessarily. We’re so used to seeing more or less positive criticism or only tepidly questioning criticism, but not a ton of harsh book criticism, so I seem like more of a bitch than I think I am. But I mean, that’s totally what I was going for—make the book good enough so people can’t hatchet-job you, right? That’s what everybody is going for, I hope.

I imagine that task was really challenging as someone who reviews books. How were you able to shut off those critical voices and write?

I think a lot of people are probably feeling pressure from hypothetical critics now. Social media puts everybody in this position where you’re constantly imagining how something is going to be taken the wrong way, or the least generous reading of something that could possibly be made. How likely is it that someone will make it? There’s an aspect of the novel where the narrator is constantly anticipating the reader’s thoughts, and she is trying to justify her thinking or how she’s behaving. So I think that’s a broader issue and not just related to the fact that I’m a “bitch.” [Laughs]

AKA critic! Reading your criticism, I have been struck by the level of authority you assume—as a writer, I always struggle with “what’s my right” to say any of this. I’m curious where that comes from for you.

I think it does come in part from growing up in a place where people were not quite interested in the same things I was. I grew up in Hurricane, West Virginia, a small town between Charleston and Huntington, and I was not a total misfit, but I wasn’t encouraged the way I might have been if I had gone to a nice private school in New York City. I had to learn to trust my process of thinking through objections and criticism and shoring up all sides—because I do feel, and maybe some people would disagree, that I think quite a lot about things before I say them, and that’s part of where the sense of confidence comes from. But I do have social media-inflicted paranoia.

You’ve written a lot about social media as a critic—what made you want to approach the topic from a literary standpoint?

There’s this idea that floats around periodically that the realist novel is not equipped to respond to the pace and technology of the day, and you can’t put the Internet in a novel and have it still be literary because the Internet is inherently tacky and ephemeral and nothing on it matters and everyone on it is kind of stupid. We have this idea about literary fiction, that it has to be very elevated and concerned with the greatest issues of human life, but I think the compulsion to be sort of ephemeral and the willingness to be stupid in public without thinking much about it is a very human impulse. I was interested in this idea of the realist novel and the quote-unquote “traditional novel” that is supposed to be inimical to the Internet and social media.

What was your writing process like?

When I started thinking about writing this novel, the voice didn’t come to me immediately. I was really struggling with it. And then I wrote a version of the first paragraph, which has this much more cynical, slightly complicated tone with an inherent ironic quality that is really appealing to me, and then went from there.

One thing I thought about a lot is the possibility that people will read the book autobiographically in some way and take something about me from the protagonist. I started to feel very empowered by that, building up this fake persona that was still definitely connected to my real self.

That sounds absolutely terrifying to me.

I think it’s personally empowering because I don’t think I care if someone thinks a certain detail or one of the things the protagonist says is attributable to me. It may be attributable to me, or it may not be, and keeping both possibilities alive throughout the text is something I was concerned with. I think what is compelling about experiencing art and also making it is that it allows you to create your own agency. You can, within the confines of the work, do more or less whatever you want. I think it’s very important for people to have at least one sphere of life where you can sort of control how it works.

I have listened to and read a lot of interviews with authors who get frustrated with the notion that some part of their novel is autobiographical, and they have a point, but I also think the process of writing a novel is one in which you are pulling all sorts of things from your life. You only have what’s in your mind, what you can imagine or experience. Now, increasingly, we live in a time where we just know a lot about each other, and what I try to show in the book is that the construction of online persona versus the construction of a quote-unquote “real persona” is a very fluid process. You can’t point to any one thing and say that’s real and that’s fake. There are definitely things that are straightforward lies, but there are lots of ways to fudge things without lying and, in some way, you’re being more truthful by not being completely honest, which is the nature of fiction traditionally—that it’s saying something true by saying something false.

As a literary critic, how do you hope your book is received?

First of all, I know this is a trick question, but I hope it’s not just seen as a commentary on social media, because I think that discussion of social media even now can be siloed, like, “Oh, that’s what’s happening on the Internet. That’s an Internet writer.” I would ideally not be considered a quote-unquote, “Internet writer.” I would be considered a writer, one of whose themes is the internet.

“I started to feel very empowered by that, building up this fake persona that was still definitely connected to my real self.”

Has your relationship to social media changed since the pandemic?

I’ve got to say no, but that’s because I didn’t have a job before, so I was always on the computer at my house and I continued to be on the computer at my house. I’m kind of disappointed that I haven’t had an awakening that allows me to get off it for good. I did take a five-month break last year, and that was sort of nice, but it didn’t change me as much as I hoped. I obviously get quite a lot out of social media—my career definitely has a lot to do with having been on Twitter for ten years—and I think it’s very fascinating just to watch people and see what they do on it and how they respond and interpret things. It’s an amazing opportunity to watch this many people just behave.

What books or authors do you think people should read more of?

As far as contemporary authors go, I think Miriam Toews deserves much more attention. I loved Patrick deWitt’s novel French Exit, which didn’t get very much attention when it came out (and looking it up just now, I had no idea it was made into a movie). More people can always be told about The Last Samurai and Helen DeWitt (no relation to Patrick, I think). Joan Silber, Percival Everett. I think it’s safe to say that most authors in translation who aren’t extremely famous deserve more attention; it’s hard to go wrong with translated books in the U.S. because so few authors get translated, and the ones who do are usually some of the most renowned authors in their own countries. Which is a problem, because in the U.S. we have no idea what’s going on with contemporary literary culture in other countries, but it’s a useful way to narrow your search. Daša Drndić, Jenny Erpenbeck, Alina Bronsky (I liked The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine). Tove Ditlevsen’s memoirs, The Copenhagen Trilogy, are being reissued by FSG in January, and I wrote about them and loved them. I still think about the book Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, who has a few other books out here, too.

Annie Werner Annie Werner is a writer from Texas living in New York.

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Lauren Oyler on Writing a Book 'Good Enough So People Can't Hatchet-Job You'

[daynamartinez22]

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310

Click on the video above to watch Episode 310 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

There’s a search console because that’s my go to I don’t care what anything else says. And right when I’m looking at everything, I had a form submission come in. So I got it, I got it, I got the screen capture because I had to blur out some stuff. So I’m going to be sharing that as soon as we’re ready to go.

And we are live Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts, Episode 310. While Bradley’s doing some stuff in the background here, we’re gonna get going. I’m gonna say hi to the guys real quick. We got some quick announcements. And then I’m just scrolling through here. It looks like we’ve got a good number of questions. So with that said, Marco, I’m going to loop back to you, man, how you doing today? Like, by the way, like your shirt, you’re looking good.

I’m good, man. I’m sorry. I took it away from from my window. Should I have done that? I got I got I got a mess in the office right now. But you guys, you see? Nothing but like, Man, this is how I do to do I do. I can’t help it again. Come get some come get some guys. Just Just a quick word, stop relying on on third party vanity metrics for what’s going on on your website, according to Google. So you go to somebody else to see what’s going on in Google. I it for the life of me, I can’t figure that out. So in a minute, when we get to that question or five, whenever we get to it, I’m going to be sharing something on screen, just so you guys can see why you can’t go with third party vanity and domain authority then, whatever the hell it is you’re relying on. you’re relying on the wrong thing. And I’ll show you some and let’s see, I’ll get I thought it was muted. Sorry, Chris. How’s it going?

Doing good here? Good. They can complain and yeah, I think we got something pretty sweet coming. Oh, really? I made a video about something today, so, huh?

All right. Well, now I’m curious. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Well check Facebook.

Ah, all right. I will check it out. Bradley, you got the tech stuff done. Are you available?

Well, it’s the fucking video still not on know that on the page. Click Funnels bullshit. I’m tired of it. And I really am.

It’s still not even there we go. Yeah, it’s updated now.

Well, it’s not for me.

Gotcha. Well, we’ll circle back around. I’m going to type something in while I ask her not How you doing today, man?

Great, man. I’m in Miami. Having fun. Everything’s good.

Well, you got to talk for a little bit longer. I gotta, I gotta touch.

Okay. I’m in Miami. It’s raining. I’m having a lot of fun. This is awesome. And I’m waiting for Adam to stop typing so that he can keep on doing the intro. But did I mention that I mean, Miami? And

I’ve heard that you’re in Miami. Is that true?

No, I don’t know what you got that from? Yeah, man. How? how weak Are you really in the gym right now after all these months of no workouts? I’m a pussy. I’m doing like a D load quote-unquote, D load week right now. And I’m like, so sore. And I did like, two squats on Monday.

Those are right now, but we still had it. So.

Gotcha. All right. Well, I got a little note there. So if you’re watching us on YouTube, let us know. Also, if you’re somehow seeing this on the page, just shoot us a message let us know you can see it. But in the meantime, we’re gonna keep rolling and maybe figure something else out. But Bradley, how are you doing man? Besides page refreshes and caches?

Yeah, I’m just I’m tired of Click Funnels in their stupid fucking. There are always issues with Click Funnels, it seems to be getting worse. So anyway, maybe we can move the webinar on to a page on our site instead. I think we should probably do that. Because we won’t have to deal with this every week. It seems to be getting worse. So anyway, that said I, everybody.

Everything is fine. Yeah, that’s cool. Um, I’ve actually been testing out group funnels, maybe that’ll grab the lifetime account. And that came out, maybe we can just toss it on there and see if that works. Or just put it on the website, like you said, or do like a direct YouTube type of thing. love to see. But anyway, with that said, we have a couple of announcements. First of all, if you’re on the email list, that’s great. You’ve gotten the announcements about the POFU Live recordings, you got access to the little special offer we had to go in there. But if you’ve missed out on that, first of all, go to semantic mastery or go to Hump Day Hangouts. Just Google that and go to our page, enter your email address, so you can get notified about stuff like this. We do give special deals, special offers, and some bonuses to subscribers, but I’m also going to put it on the page here today. The recordings are available. Along with the recordings, you have the option to get executive summaries we’ve gone through and we’ve taken and distilled every single talk that we had into a quick basically reference guides. So you’ve got links, you’ve got the main points, so you can go back or have that open as you’re watching the talk. Super, super handy. So that will be on the page in just a minute. Oh, man, I am just losing my place like crazy today. I’ve got a couple more announcements. And while I hunt these down, did you guys have anything we need to also cover? Before we dive into things?

What about POFU?

About It was a great event.

Oh my god, what about it?

The live of the recordings are available, right?

Should be right.

Yes, that what I was just talking about or not my losing my mind about POFU.

I don’t know, but well I’m gonna keep running on because I don’t know where we’re going and this is gonna get pretty weird for people watching. So anyway, I do want to talk about one other thing, if you go to the SEOshield.com, the SEOshield.com that’s a great place. If you’re new to Semantic Mastery and MGYB You can find out how to shield your site and never worry about algorithm updates. Again, it’s a free training, just head over to the SEOshield.com and grab that if you’re more on the agency owner kind of consultant side and you want to get more clients to grow your revenue scale your team, head over to 2xyouragency.com. And last but not least, if you’re ready to grow your digital marketing business, your agency then you can join our experienced community. With the mastermind You can find out more about that at mastermind dot semantic mastery.com I like to go through these every time because we don’t know you know, we have new people watching every week. And those are some pretty typical questions we get from people, you know, hey, I’m just starting to watch you guys where the hell do I start? Right? Good question. So finding out about the SEO shield is great. Then we got people are saying hey, I either want to start or kind of grow my agency, I’m not sure what to do that’s to x your agency COMM And then we’ve got people, of course, are like, Hey, I’m in it, I want to grow, I want to be around other people like me who have got their agencies going who’ve got their businesses going. And that’s where the mastermind comes in. So those are the big ones. Of course, we mentioned MGYB, if you’re not familiar with that it’s mgyb.co, save time and money with done for you services. This is all stuff that we’ve used, and either converted into a done for you process or stuff that we had done for us. And now we’re offering it as well. So you can get it done for you and save time. So this is a great place to be like white labeling, things like press releases link building the SEO shield, for example. Lots more over there, too, and lots more coming. So with that said, guys, that’s it for the quick announcement. Anything else we want to cover before we dive into questions? I’m waiting around to say something No, just kidding. Wait, good. All right, let’s do it is that we got a bunch of questions already. So let me get the page pulled up here. And I’ll grab the screen.

This has got me all screwed up. Because the format has changed in the last couple of weeks. And after years of having one particular startup format. It’s hard to hard to transition.

All right,

you guys are seeing my screen now. Correct. Good to go. Yes.

Yep. All right.

What Is The Name Of The Upcoming Buffer Site S3 Creator?

Let me expand this a little bit. There we go. So the first question up says, Hi, you mentioned something about an upcoming buffer site s3 creator from ABS right? Yeah. Abbess. Rathje. As I think I’m saying his name correctly, I always feel like I’m mispronouncing that. Or he says, Can you please give us some URL or spell the product or the name as I can’t find anything? Yes, buffersites.com. It’s not available yet. But I believe it says coming soon. And I think he’s working on something because I recently got an email from him about kind of a technology that he created for that works with Amazon s3, hosted web pages, as well as some other type of web 2.0 sites and things like that. So I think buffersites.com is in the pipeline, but it’s not available yet. So that’s what it is buffersites.com and the developer’s name is Abbess Abbess. ABB BB as Rathje. And I think I always butcher his name when I try to say it. But he’s, he’s got many different types of software products out there that are fairly good. Some of them are but got a little bit of a learning curve, but he’s got like video marketing Blitz was one of them, it was a good product that we use for quite some time. So he’s got several different kinds of products out that you know, software programs that do things so that’s the one I was talking about.

Should You Make A Separate Page For Each Location When Siloing A Local Service Business Site?

Next question is Tommy says when creating location pages for a local service business, would you make a location page for the location the business is located in the business already has the primary location in the footer about, etc, and ranks on page two for keywords in the primary location on a general service page? Would it be overkill to create a location for it to and be duplicate content would appreciate your advice? Thanks. Now, if it’s a single location site, you don’t need to you don’t need a location page for it. The only time that I would recommend having location pages is if you have if it’s a multi-location business right? Because then you can, you’d have one location is typically going to be like a headquarters, right? Like the main location or, you know, the primary location, the first location, whatever you want to call it. And so that would be like what I would, you know, a lot of So for example, if I were to build a lead gen site that was optimized for one location, but then I decided, because let’s say it was really successful, and I decided to start expanding locations for that brand, then what I would do is I would make that, you know, the primary location would be the first location, and I would take that as kind of like the name, address and phone number for the primary location would be like the organization, you know, essentially, the main location for that multi-location business, and then I would create separate location pages for each individual, or additional location, I should say, that’s how I would do it. But yeah, I wouldn’t recommend creating a location page on a site that is optimized for one location. Because you’re it that that’s kind of, you know, Department of redundancy department, you know what I mean? So I would recommend that you don’t do that, you don’t need to do that. But what you can do is you can split out like suburbs, or, you know, I’m not, I’m not sure what how you’ve got your site structured, but you can create geo posts, that’s what I call it, but they’re locally optimized posts for localities within your service area, if it’s a service area business, I’m just assuming that it is. But it could be a storefront business, in which case, you wouldn’t even really need to do that either. But for service area businesses, like contractors, which is what I do, then what I would do is have the one location, you know, is probably the only location but then I would start optimizing content in what’s called geo posts, or what I call geo posts, which would be optimizing content for like the suburbs, the adjacent areas, that and then I would, you know, kind of optimize cut, my blogger does all this, but she’ll go out and pull in like points of interest, historical, you know, references, things like that, that are relevant to each individual, you know, suburb or municipality or whatever that I’m trying to expand into, and then show, you know, produce some content, you know, included about whatever products or services the company offers. And you can start to blog that way, so that you can start really kind of expanding your service area footprint, so to speak. But you don’t need to have a separate location page for the location. If it’s a one-location business, it just doesn’t make sense to do that, in my opinion. Any other input on that guy just said, there’s no such thing as a duplicate content.

And we see this all the time, no such thing as that happening. Now, as far as would it be overkill? to us that perfectly? The advice is that when looking at content is whether you’ve given the content, proper attribution. That’s all that matters. Because if you haven’t, then let’s say if your G site is really strong, it might outrank your money site. That’s the only problem you’re going to run into. But if you have proper attribution, if if Google understands where the master copy of the content resides, and there is no problem, there are only problems if you’re running like duplicate titles, duplicate descriptions, and things like that. But we’ve literally only changed location on content and run the same, like 15,000. More than that pages have the same content except for the location and it works. It’s working. Right now. I’m about to show you how it’s working right now. And when we get to that question, there is no such thing as duplicate content, you got the master copy. And then you have copies of that content. proper attribution takes care of any duplicate content issues, and so does canonical. If you canonicalize. correctly, you’re fine. You’re good to go.

There you go. Let me unpause the screen for a minute if I can find it. Okay.

What Do You Recommend For A Self-Hosted URL Shortener?

So the next question is from Jr. My guess, says, Hey, guys, do you have any well-recommended URL shortener? Excuse me? Do you have any good recommendations for a self-hosted URL shortener looking to set up one for a client to be public-facing so users can create short links easily from their website? Open to using a hosted solution if it exists? Thanks. Also, is there any SEO value for the target site if users create short links? So, Marco, you would be the one to answer that because we set that up for MGYB.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there eventually will be SEO value once you power it up. However, how long is it going to take you to power up that URL shortener on that website that has no power to start with? Which is what you need, which is the reason why Well, the reason why just say use a shortener To make the URL easier to handle, right, when you’re sharing it, you don’t want this long 50 character URL, you want something short and memorable. That’s why Bitly for a while was so good. And then we started realizing the SEO value in Bitly, until they decided that they were going to 302. At well, then we went to the Google goog l URL shortener until they took it away. So we decided rather than rely on others, why not create our own power that up, give everybody the SEO value and the added benefit that you could go in, and I think it’s only for like five or six, I don’t know, seven bucks a month, I don’t even know. Use your own use of our shortener which is powered up. And then you could have your own URLs, right, you can have your own URL extensions, you could have your own. If you want to call them vanity, whatever you want to call them. They’re yours, but they reside in MGYB. And they continue to get powered up by dedhia. So I will be there’s the SEO benefit, the SEO benefit that you get is the power that’s behind that. But right from the start when you go and install that whether you do it on a subdomain on your client site, whether you use pretty links, whatever it is that you’re going to use is not going to have any SEO value until you power it up.

All right, there we go on the resume share again.

Because doing some background stuff. Alright.

Can You Make Multiple GStacks On One Google Account That Are Interconnected?

So the next question would be Hey, guys, the question on G stacks. Can I make multiple G stacks on one g account that are not interconnected? Uh, yeah, I suppose you could. Now I’m not sure why you would want to we separate them. But you know, Marco, now that we’re not using the script. There’s not a limitation on that, though. Is there?

Let me see, of course, there is.

Why would you want to go and break up the well, not a limitation? But why would you want to put two things that are unrelated in the same dry stack?

We go for G stacks under one account. So different g stacks, but yes,

no? No. Okay.

Oh, unless they’re totally relevant if I mean, if you can, if all right, same niche, yes, it makes sense. If you’re going to break up the niche, if it’s going to be totally unrelated, then No, they’re not because now you’re putting all your eggs. First of all, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, right? Everything is in a Google takes that away, you’re gonna lose everything that’s in there. That’s why we turn over we create our own Gmail accounts. And we turn them over to you so that you can use it. And if you order 1000 from it, you’re gonna have 1000 Gmail accounts, but you can manage a whole lot of them from one account, which is what we recommend, you can are we send a letter, we send an email when we deliver the drive stack, and we tell you what to do with it, make your main account the manager of that account, so you never again have to go back into that account. But this way, you won’t take any chances in eliminating the public-facing dry stack and decide you’re not going to run any into any problems or getting locked up or anything like that. Right. And then we tell you to change the phone number, change the recovery, make sure that you can get in there eventually. But only if you have to only have you must, once we turn it over, there is absolutely no reason for you to go back in there. Unless you want to go in there and Tinker and then you’re on your own. So please understand what it is that we’re doing. And what it is that we recommend for you putting like 50 I don’t know you could you get 15 What is it 15 gigabytes in that drive stack, excuse me in Google Drive to play with. So there’s plenty of space in there for you to get multiples in. But you’re putting everything in one basket you’d be put you putting all your eggs in there, and you drop that fucking basket and all your eggs break, you better know how to make scrambled eggs.

Yeah, I agree with that limit, you know, mitigate your risk that way. And so you know, as Marco said, we deliver it with its own Gmail account. And that’s you know, the primary owner of the drive stack which you can always add you know, your main Gmail account or G Suite account, whatever as a manager or share it with that so you can still manage the stack from within your own account, but it’s owned by the other account that way you’re limiting your risk like Marco said, if that you had one account that had all of your G stacks in it and then something happened in it got suspended or terminated, then you’d be screwed. So I totally agree with what he says there.

Is It Better To Have An Old Google Account Better Than A Gsuite Account When Creating Drive Stacks?

Okay, the next question was which is better and old g account or a new G Suite account? Well, I’m always gonna say G Suite account because you’re paying Google that way and I use G Suite for freaking everything now. So if it’s a brand or a project that I know I’m going to be working on for any amount of time Other than just for testing purposes, I always set up G Suite accounts for everything. Now, that’s just my own personal preference. One thing you can do is if you have old Gmail accounts, you can set up a G Suite account through the old Gmail account. And that, I don’t know if that actually adds any additional benefit or not. But I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. You know, I can’t imagine that hurts anything. And so like, if you’ve got some old Jeep, like, for example, I have a Gmail account that I’d set up for Tree Service stuff way back in, I think, 2012, that I just recently decided to turn that into a brand and I created a G Suite account with that. Email is like the, you know, the, when you set up a G Suite account, you need to have an email account anyways, and all that, you know, to add to the system, so I use that one. And I think and again, I don’t know this without testing, but it makes sense that it would have some inherent authority built-in because it was an age, an old account, something that I had set up in 2012, that I just now turned into a G Suite account. Now again, I don’t know that that’s true. But it makes sense to do. So do you have any input on that as part of the entity validation, isn’t it? I wrote that when I wrote the black book, I mean, we’ve been recommending go G Suite, go pay Google, or pay Google for extra drive space, get that credit card, on file, get your stuff in the database. So now you’re a real thing on the web. Rather than someone trying to gain Google, you’re still trying to gain Google, but you’re going the extra step, which most people won’t do. And you go pay for ads, ads for branding, Brandy put out a great course, ads, I run ads, for branding purposes. So again, you’re going a step further validating your entity. This is all talked about how old is the black book about four years old? It’s all in there. I don’t know, you guys, it’s all available to you. I think we also send it with that email with that recommendation email. For us, excuse me, the user’s guide, done for your users’ guide is what we send out. And it’s all in there how to add validation to your entity pay Google, get your credit card, and Google, they’ll tell you that it doesn’t have any effect in rankings. And they the way that they’re saying it is right, I would say okay, that in and of itself doesn’t. But when you’re validating the entity, that part of it has a big, big play in what the end results are going to be.

Unknown Speaker 22:33 Absolutely. All right. So next is Oh, by the way, a couple of things I wanted to briefly mention I was distracted from the start-up for the webinar being rough again. But a couple of things. One, I want to talk about this, this great post in our free group Facebook group from Max Lucey fam bam, we had we did a webinar on Monday with Mike Martin for Lead Simplify if you guys haven’t seen it yet, I would highly recommend that you check it out. I know most of our audiences into local SEO, local client work or lead generation. And it’s a fantastic application. It’s very inexpensive, and it works really, really well. The lead simplifies the app, I use it in my own business. In fact, I started using it eight or 10 weeks ago, probably closer to 10 weeks ago now. And I reached out to the developer Mike Martin, specifically after I had set the app up and integrated it into my own lead gen business. Because I saw the value of it, I decided to reach out to Mike and the developer and asked him if we could promote it to our audience specifically, because, guys, you know, we don’t promote other people’s stuff ever. Unless we, ourselves, you know, or somebody in our, my partners or one of us in my company use something and can vouch for it. And so we rarely promote other people’s stuff. And in this case, I reached out specifically to try to ask if we could promote it because I think it is such a valuable app. And so the webinar was great. We had some technical difficulties at the beginning of that part of the reason why I was frustrated this today for Hump Day Hangouts, but I got that cleaned up. So now the replay is just the content. And it’s really good content about what he calls the hybrid lead generation model. It’s fantastic content, as well as the app itself, is very inexpensive and very useful. And I use it in my business now. So we also throw in a couple of bonuses that I use specifically for generating lead buyers. So basically prospecting for lead buyers. And it works really, really well. I’ve been bringing multiple new lead buyers into my business over the last several weeks because of this app, as well as the prospecting systems that I have built, which I share all of that in our bonuses, so I would highly recommend that you guys go check out the lead simplify webinar that we did with Mike on Monday, and check it out.

Also, I just wanted to give a shout out to max Lu See fam bam, for this great post that they posted about watching that webinar and becoming inspired, because of some, you know, basically having some issues with clients, client work can be very frustrating guys in I’ve said that over the years, there’s certainly ups and downs with client work. But I really have decided that you know, I don’t want to work with any more take on any new clients, I just want to work on building my lead gen business and for several of the reasons that were mentioned in this post here, as well. So just wanted to kind of point that out, give a shout out to Max, Max Luci for posting such a thoughtful and thorough posting here. And, you know, we’re excited to see you, we’re excited to see you excited, and I think you’re on the right track, build your own assets instead of others. Now don’t get me wrong, guys, if you got to do client work, to make money do it, you know, but at the same time, instead of always building other people’s businesses budget some time and some money to start building your own assets to so that you can be gain more control over your revenue, right and your future. Clients can fire you at any moment, right? They can stop paying you to go find the bargain basement $99 a month SEO from you know, India or wherever and fire you in a heartbeat. And what are you going to do? You know, one of the things in our mastermind is we’ve had people that have come in that have had, you know, perhaps one or two clients that provide 90% of their income. Like for example, like a 4000 or $5,000 a month retainer client, what happens if that client drops you and your, your, your 90% of your revenue is based upon that one client, does that make sense or just a couple of clients and then you lose one of them. And now you’ve cut your revenue in half or a third or whatever my point is, you know, start thinking of ways to generate your own assets so that you have more control over your, your revenue and your future. And, and so again, I’ve got clients now, and I’ve still got a handful, I just took a client on about seven, six or seven weeks ago now a new client, but I don’t think I want to take on any more clients unless they’re going to give me you know, a much higher retainer value than what I typically asked for, because I really just want to focus on building my own business. So I thought this was a really thoughtful post and I just wanted to give a shout out to there and also encourage you guys to go check out the replay.

How Do We Use of Text Transcripts From Videos For Traffic And Link Building Purposes?

Alright, any comments on that before I move on guys? Nah, perfect. Okay, Franklin says, Hey, guys, given the rise of video integration in SERPs, and Google taking snippets of sentences, and focusing more on YouTube and looking to get a syndication ring and look into backlinking for videos, is there anything we can do with text transcripts from our videos for traffic, and link building purposes. Um, you know, the only thing that I, I don’t, what I’ve done in the past that works fairly well, like with client work, especially is I’ve had, I’ve trained some of them. Like, for example, I’ve got an outdoor pest control company that does like mosquito control, take control, that kind of stuff. It’s a very seasonal business. But I trained their technicians to, like I told the company owners to tell their technicians to just when they go out on job sites, which are just people’s yards, essentially, to just take their phone out and grab, record a short video, like literally like, Hey, this is John, for a company name, I’m out in, you know, Fairfax, Virginia, providing mosquito control services. And, you know, if you want your yard to be tick free ticket, mosquito, free, contact us, and then drop a phone number, whatever. So very, very short little video clips that then they send to me, I upload them to YouTube, optimize them, and then have that transcribed, which is, you know, literally, it’s usually about a minute long the video or less, so cost a buck or a buck 50 to have it transcribed, and then embed that into a blog post with the transcription underneath. And that syndicates out to the branded network that’s attached to the, to the website, as well as the YouTube channel can be attached to that too. So both can be syndicated to it, that’s what I’ve done. And it just it that tends to work because it adds some text without having to have you know, it’s, it’s all done with just a video, right? a short video can be turned into a video plus a blog post with the text with the transcription, the call to action, everything that you need for additional content, you know, to multi-purpose the content. So that’s what I’ve done. Maybe somebody else here has some other suggestions for how to use text. But that’s pretty much the extent of what I’ve done. And that works quite well actually.

Anybody else? Yeah, I mean, what you could do lots with the transcript, right? You can add it to your page and it becomes part of the blog post when you embed the video on your website. The transcript can actually become the content on your pay. I mean, we recommend that this time and again right then you syndicate it, then when you do your embed, right With the video, you could do the page I mean, not just the video, you can do an embed run of that page. Right? Because then that it’s an iframe, and that’s perfectly fine. You want you’re not going to run into any duplicate content issues. But people are still going to say, Okay, yeah, there are problems there are. So that’s another thing that you could take the audio from that video and start going to the audio distribution, I’d SoundCloud would be one podcast, and then you can create a syndication network for that. And there are so many different things that you could do with that, to get tons of value, rather than just think, Okay, what I do with this transcript, you could also convert it into a PDF, a downloadable PDF on your website. Right? That content, so I framed the video. And rather than just put the text on there as content, you could put additional content on it, then a link to a PDF that people can download, then you go and submit that to all these PDF directories that you have all over the web. And, I mean, that’s, that’s another thing that you can do, really, you’re only limited by, by, you know, your imagination. And what you can come up with the limit is the things that you can think of to do with this content. Not that you have multiples, but you have video, you have audio, and you have text, and then that text can become a PDF, it can become any other kind of download, it can become an image, the text itself can become an image, you can do the question and answer images of each. I mean, it becomes what you could do becomes ridiculous. The thing is, is it necessary? And why are you needing to do all of this a lot of times, all of that just simply isn’t necessary because the process that we use, requires you to do as little work as you can for as much benefit as you can saving the bullets. In case you need more.

There you go. Always keep some, some in reserve, right.

How Do You Properly Optimize The GMB And Website Of An Old Business?

Okay. The next question is a basic GMB question. I have a client who bought his dental practice from another dentist. The old dentist GMB is ranking Okay, three in some map packs around the office. And second, organically what is the best approach try to merge in the GMB market is closed and rank the new one with the new business name for the web for a website, the old one as a pop up directing to the new site, should I take that site down or leave it up just worried about the possum, but I think I could rank them both, I would be fine with that both businesses have exact same address. Okay, I’m going to give you what I would do in that situation. And then I’d love to hear Marco’s opinion on this as well. But what I would do is I would merge those two GM B’s the one that was shut down, I would contact Google My Business support and explain exactly what you just did to us without the SEO terminology, because you want to act dumb, or even, you know, you can act on behalf of the business owner. But I’ve done that in the past something similar where you know, there’s two GM B’s because of a tree service company bought another tree service company, for example. And so since they ended up sharing the same address, but it was different names and everything else, I don’t want to cause any PII issues, right where you can ambiguous ate the data for a particular business. So what I do is I contact Google My Business support and tell them, hey, this company bought this company there now. And you know, it’s now this name, but it’s in the same location, I want to merge the two and Google support Google, my business support will help you with that. I’ve had I’ve done that on multiple occasions. So that’s personally what I would do as far as the website. What I would do with the website is do a redirect. Right? If it’s ranking second, organically, I think you said yeah, second, organically, the website is got some authority, obviously. So if you’ve got the new website for the new brand, what I would do is do a redirect, I wouldn’t leave both of them up because it could cause some excuse me some NAEP issues and possibly some entity ambiguation. So I would like I said I would merge the two GM B’s you might have to contact you will likely have to contact GMB support to do that so that it can be done properly. For example, you know if you have I had another client that had a GMB where they had to they moved all they did was move locations so when they moved locations, they set up a new GMB instead of changing the original, like the information in the original GMB, they just set up a new one. And so when they came to me as when I, you know, brought them on as a client, they had a bunch of reviews for their old location, but they had their new location that had you know, just a hand a couple of reviews but they wanted to merge the two and so once again, I contacted GMB support and I had them merge the two. So they basically called and removed the old GMB from the old location, but merged all of the reviews into the new one under the new location. And so you can do those kinds of things as long as it’s 100%. legit, if it’s spam stuff, don’t even attempt it. But if it’s 100%, legit, then I would absolutely contact GMB support have the two merged. And then again, for the organic site, I would have that redirected to the new site so that you can push that authority over to the new site. Now that’s my method. Would anybody have a different opinion? merge and properly three? Oh, and I totally agree, is a having tool and maybe creating. Now, this is where duplicate matters, right? And, and the entity comes into play, and you create ambiguity, and then Google doesn’t Okay, so which dentist is which? And how does this all work? Because it’s a bot and it’s stupid. And if you don’t give it the information is not going to know. And you want to try to relate them to one to the other, and why what’s changed and all that you’re going to get into a whole lot of issues that you don’t want. Bradley told you exactly how to solve it, merge the GMB’s call and act really stupid with the owner as a matter lead to let the dentist’s quiet Look, I bought those dentists out and now he’s got a GMB and I got I let them work it out. And then you could properly 301 the old site to the new and gain from all that power that the old one has. And as a matter of fact, if you properly three or one, you could hammer the old website for a while and get the benefit into the new website.

Or you go so the next question. I’m not sure if well, I guess there is a question in there. It says guys, I’m looking both at land solutions and alpha land realty not typing these names for a reason. I don’t care. I know. I honestly don’t care that I’ve never tried to hide my homeland realty business. They’re public. Yeah, they’re public. I’ve always mentioned that and he said, anyway, I’ll finish the question then I’m going to comment and I’m sure Marco has some comments as well says I don’t see any good rankings there. In fact, I see a huge decline. I see a huge decline in something that was not very impressive anyway. Well, that’s okay. Because that not very impressive, impressive Alfa land realty site makes me between three and $15,000 a month and fucking month and has for a year and a half. So that’s not very impressive. They’re not you know, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to impress you. It works just fine for me. He says I know you do local use GM B’s ads, etc. You said, you said and you said it many times. It’s about calls and leads I get it but it looks more narrowed towards local map listing rather than a national campaign or global campaign. Mine is not a national or global campaign Alfa land realty is a Virginia based real estate acquisition company. All I target is Virginia. That’s all I’ve ever targeted since I set it up. And I use Google ads, direct mail and SEO, and I get all the damn leads that I want or can handle from those three methods. So and most of my traffic comes from direct mail I’m not gonna lie I do get leads from Google ads and from organic SEO, but those leads aren’t really the leads that I want. Those are typically not as good leads because I like to target specific land types in certain areas. And so with direct mail, I can do that. And so again, I’ve always I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I’ve not done a whole ton of SEO for Alfa land realty because I haven’t needed to most of the traffic that I generate is through direct mail. However, I do get probably eight to 12 leads per month from Google ads and or organic SEO but those they tend I bought several properties from you know, leads that have come in from either Google ads or from organic SEO, but most of them that come through aren’t those good they’re not that good leads because they’re not as targeted as I want them to be like I can do with direct mail. So again, I’ve never tried to hide that guys there’s no reason for me to I’m always honest with what’s going on in my business and it’s all been about Virginia land by land acquisitions in Virginia so I’ve been able to accomplish my goals with the methods that I’m using that solutions go ahead.

On the other hand is national and as a matter of fact we got we had a lead once from Bali so it’s it’s global. We did lead from somebody was selling land in Bali wanted us to do one to see if we would buy it I and I’ve prepared some some stuff that I that I want to share my skis Mind if I grabbed the screen shirt. Let me go here. And I can’t you got to give me permission or stop sharing your stop sharing mine. How about that? And I was Okay, here we go. Let me make sure I share the right one. Get rid of the porn. All right. So I saw this question and I came a look. Because I love the use of the turn of the phrase, I see a huge decline of something that was not very impressive anyway, wasn’t meant to be impressive was meant to get results. I’m not to impress anyone. I’ve never, I’ve never been it, I don’t want to impress you. All I want is the person here. If you can see my screen, when they come on here to fill out the fucking form. That’s all I want. Not to impress. So here we go. Are we seeing that position? I took a look. I don’t know how many top 10s I have. I but if I can scroll down? I don’t know. I can keep scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Right. So you can see yes, it’s very local. It’s heavily local. How else would you target local real estate? Please, what are we talking about? Can we please define what we’re talking about first, because yes, even though this is National in nature, I have to target it locally. Or else, the person that’s looking to sell their land, in bumfuck, whatever, would never find me to sell me the land. So of course, I don’t know what it is you’re using you said hrs, I don’t use hrs. I don’t use sem rush, I don’t use any action. I use go, this is what I use. This is what tells me what it is that I’m doing. And whether what I’m doing works. Not only this, but while I was doing this, what’s so funny is let me pull this up in my G but look at the time 1:37pm I haven’t even opened because I was going through this, to show this during have to have a web web form fill came through. This is what I’m after man. Now, not you, you why user specific or targeted or whatever. But this is what I’m after I’m not after you. And I’m not after a dress to impress a dress and whatever the fuck it is they decide to give because I could give a shit about a trust and majestic. And and whoever else, you name it, I don’t care. I get my information from analytics, I get my information from the Search Console. That’s what tells me what to target. So I can get this because as Bradley said, Now these, what I do is I’ve been turning them over to the alpha land Realty, that you created Bradley. Yeah, the group, I’m sure you see me posting in there. And this is what I’ll do with this form. Because I have enough with what I’m doing with what I’m targeting in the states that I’m targeting. Or I’m good where I don’t know, four or five sales.

I wouldn’t say that much, let’s say three to four sales per month, three to four k average, well, that’s an extra 10 k in my pocket that I’m not expecting to see. I mean, and this is after expensives after expenses, after cost lawyers and everything else, it’s in my pocket is what I put in my pocket. That feels really nice. I don’t know about you, it may not be impressive to you. And I understand that. Okay, you may you probably make way more than I do, from something that just a side hustle, and a website that we haven’t done really anything to other than you know, we set up the SEO shield, some schema, some q&a, but not really giving it the love that it should not giving it all of the attention that we need to. Because since this is my main source of income, since this is just a playground, whatever I get here is perfect. I mean, this is fine for me, if I get I don’t know, 10 of these is what we’re getting per month, and I turn them over to the guys and and they can close a few. And they give me the commission. I mean that that’s an extra source of income in my pocket. So in addition to whatever it is that I’m closing and that I’m making every month, now this, this last solution network will also produce webform fills, where the guys who took Bradley’s training can go and they can get after these people make the offer and try to make that close and sell and put a couple of grand in their pocket. And they really didn’t have to do the effort other than to contact and try to close it. Because this person is hot. This person is hot to sell. They don’t go and find you organically unless they’re hard to sell this we know. So I’m sorry that you’re not impressed. But yeah, I mean, the other part of this what you said is so like calls and leads, because that’s the only way that you gonna make money. And I could be number one in everything and not making a penny and I could be selling it hot. Look, look, I’m number one. Number one. Number one, I’m not making a penny. And yet you’re going to fall for it. Because you see number one everywhere and is not really doing anything. So I mean, hopefully, this is the example you should be focusing on. We put everything through Google through analytics, and through search console. That’s what that personally, this is what I focus on. I don’t care about anything else. And I don’t care what anybody says about analytics and search console, because they’re generally wrong and they don’t know how to use it. And so they can’t see how it works. that’s their problem, not mine. All right, my hand a second, let me just finish my mastermind, people, my heavy hitter club and my mini mastermind. They know how to use this shit, because I’ve shown them how to use it. And how it is that you’re supposed to take a look at analytics and search console so that you can get the most benefit from it. And I’m done. Go ahead, man.

Yeah, no, I was just mentioning that, again. You know, I, I spent last year I’ve been running my alpha land realty business for about a year and a half now. And it’s, it only requires about eight to 10 hours a week now, because I’ve got personnel in place, and automations and systems and everything that I built took me months to build all of it. But now it just requires very little of my attention. Like I said, between eight to 10 hours a week on average. And for a period of time, I did spend more time on SEO and a lot of time in Google ads. But I’ve refined the Google Ads campaigns. And I realized, after starting to receive leads from just SEO and from Google ads, that those aren’t the best quality leads, because they’re often in random areas of the state that I’m not interested in, which ends up taking more time to research those markets to get to know those markets. I know which markets, I can flip properties in very quickly. And so those are the markets that I target and I target them more specifically with direct mail, because it’s a higher quality lead, and it works better for my business model. So again, it’s not I’ve never tried to, you know, sell people on the fact that my alpha land realty site was super optimized and all that shit. And everyone, it’s a single page landing page on Click Funnels, but still ranks. So what difference does it make, it generates me a very nice income with very little effort now, because I’ve built the systems and everything else. So anyways, if anybody’s interested in learning more about that specifically, reach out to support at Semantic Mastery, we’ve had a couple of people reach out in the last month or so and say that they’re interested in possibly joining a paid training group where you where I’ll teach how to flip land, it’s a great business guys, you can do it virtually from a computer at home, like out of I think I flipped. I don’t know, 28, maybe between 20 and 32 properties in the last year and a half. And I’ve only been to three of them. And it was only for very specific reasons that I went to three of them, I’ve been able to buy and sell land and make, like I said, on average, on my low end, in fact, this month, I only make 2300. But on my on my low months, it’s still a four figure profit. And on my good months, I’ve made five never made more than 16,000 in a month. But you know, that’s a really good income now for three to or excuse me for eight to 10 hours a week of effort. And so again, if anybody’s interested in that business, just reach out and say you’re interested in land flipping business. And once we get enough interest, I’ll put together another group and do some training on that it will be a paid training though, guys, so just keep that in mind. All right, we’ve got about 12 more minutes. I’m gonna grab the question. Question, though.

It was a good question. And we’re weren’t attacking you for your vote on another way. No, no. And and it’s good. I love this when people call you out. And it’s okay, so well, because the proof of a profit is and whether the prophecy comes true. If it doesn’t, then the profit is useless, right? So what we say is the results are what matter we need to be able to show results so that people who are in a dress and doubting I understand the doubt man, I understand the doubt. What I’m saying is your focus is wrong. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying the focus that you’re giving it is wrong, because we’re not interested in HS. And they can show whatever they want. And you could go ahead and share. It’s the land some land solutions network, you can share it, you can go look at it, reverse engineer it, because we did a lot of nasty stuff in there a lot of testing, and it’s still it’s ongoing. We’ll get back to it and give it some love man, because we can take over a lot of stuff with the way that it’s ranking right now. At any rate, yeah, it’s not anything done to you or set to you specifically. It’s just that when you when you focus on Ah, they’re going to show you what they want majestic what they want SEMrush what they want. I only care about Google. That’s all I care about.

Yeah, and just one other thing about that is what’s interesting is if you take a look at my site, somebody’s got positions here. Oh, look at that son of a bitch anyways. But you can see like sell land fast, Virginia. We buy land Virginia, there’s a few other keywords that work really well for ranking. But if you take a look at my site, guys, it’s a single page landing page on clickfunnels, which clickfunnels doesn’t even give you the ability to optimize the page much there. You can’t really optimize the elements and Click Funnels. It’s very difficult. But that’s it. I mean, it’s a very simple site on a wide Firefox has been so slow, but that’s it. It’s that I mean, there’s no content marketing going on there. I’ve had a syndication network built but I never I don’t I don’t blog. I don’t publish posts. I don’t have I’m not doing GMB posts or anything like that. I do a few a handful of press releases per year. And that’s it. And that’s all I’ve had to do because look, I’m ranking number one in Virginia for my primary keywords the keywords from because I’ve run Google ads for this for a year and a half, I know which keywords produce conversions generate leads, those are the only keywords I give a shit about all the other ones I could care less about. It’s not a it’s not a it’s not a you know, a test to see how how many rankings I can get. In this case, it’s producing like I said, on the low end, four figures and on the high end five figures per month consistently month in and month out. And it has been for a year and a half. So I’d say it’s a success. And I don’t spend a lot of time on it anymore. I did four months but it’s it’s where it is now to where it’s on. It’s almost on autopilot requires very little my attention. So

I’m not sure what why am why Oh, niches What does that mean? Do you know what y m y l means?

Marco? You’re You’re muted

by the way.

What is okay?

Nevermind.

I’m sorry. Somebody want to answer that?

Now? I thought I thought it was something else. MF

Global campaign for y m y l niches? I’m not sure what that means. Okay. Um, are these methods suitable for current moments for something outside at the current moment? Excuse me for something outside local marketing? Yeah, of course. I mean, again, like if you I mean, Mark always talks about local is relative, right? Your local can be a neighborhood, a city, a county, a state, a country, or global, it really just depends you local is relative, you know, there, I’m just targeting on a statewide basis, because I found that it doesn’t make sense to target like, we buy land Culpepper, Virginia, we buy land, it doesn’t make sense to go through all of that additional effort for that particular project. Because again, like and here’s the other thing about that project. And tree services, people will go to Google because they got a tree that is overgrown or a dead tree that’s in danger of falling on their house or their car or something. So they need that service. So they go to Google, and they search tree service or tree removal, Tree Removal near me or tree removal and whatever their city is, right. But with the landowners and for again, for that business, it’s a lot of times these are people that own land that really doesn’t haven’t even considered selling it, they just pay taxes on it, you know, year in and year out. And so I all of a sudden send them a letter that says, hey, I’m interested in purchasing your vacant land parcel located at whatever, whatever. If you’re interested in receiving an all-cash offer, fill out this form at this website, or call this number, which goes to my call center. That’s it. And so again, you know, a lot of the times I’m targeting people that have land that doesn’t even know that they want to sell it, the ones that do think, well, I’ve got a piece of land I need to generate some money from there are the ones that go to Google and search for it. But I found again because those are in random areas throughout the state that I’m not specifically targeting and ends up requiring more research on my part. And then it’s a market that I’m unsure about whether I can flip it quickly and all that other kind of stuff. So it’s that uncertainty is the reason why I don’t like those leads as much Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still make offers on them. But I like the areas that I’m specifically targeting through direct mail those areas better So again, just to kind of explain.

it’s just a different model period. So why am while your money or your life. Okay? What is it your money or your life niche? Not sure what that means?

Is It Okay To Optimize Two YouTube Channels For One Money Site

Anyway, so we’re gonna move on fit says good agents, I have a client posting on two different YouTube channels, only one optimized, should they optimize both? And add the money to site to both thanks for all you do. Yeah, I guess you could, uh, I don’t see how that could hurt anything. As long as it’s the same brand. I mean, I guess it depends on what it is that you’re doing. What it is that they’re doing? If it’s the same brand, but like, perhaps two different topics, or for whatever reason, then then yeah, I don’t see why that would hurt anything. Um, that’s what I would do. I mean, obviously, I need some more details, Fitz, to be able to give you a better answer, then that but I mean, if it’s the same brand, I don’t see why you couldn’t, it wouldn’t cause any ambiguity as long as you’re not, you know, trying to create two different types of brands for the same company if that makes sense.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link Vs Sharing It Publicly?

So Okay, the next question is a G Drive folder is shared to anyone with the link versus public on the web. What’s the drawback? Or is it completely useless to do it that way? Is it thoroughly tested? I’ve heard it’s still good for buffering if you share with anyone with the link, but don’t know about entity validation. What’s your take? Marco? That’s a question for you.

The link shared folder has no fucking use that has to be public on the web. Really? It has to be it won’t pass if you Uh, no. It has to be public on the web man. Hmm. Now, even if you try the iframe that anyone with the link, it has it if you don’t do it right, it has a frame breaker. So once you if it has a frame breaker then we were losing all the benefits from what we now know, as our ys Academy reloaded, right? Because that’s built upon the power of the iframes and how they work. Okay,

so you’re saying his shit has to be public on the web to provide the benefits public and if you can’t do it, don’t worry. Go to MGYB to order drive second t site from us because we can make it public.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link?

There you go. Rob says thanks, guys. Baby’s up. What’s up, baby? I was wondering where the hell you are today. He says, Hey, guys, after I asked all the External links variations now it’s time for a new wave. So so we’re gonna go through several weeks Marco has some other topic but one topic.

Yeah. 1000 ways. Maybe I’m giving you shit, man, we appreciate you, man. There’s no there’s no question. He says, Does the organization schema have to be on each page or just the home page? What page or post should the organization schema on which should be an article scheme? Okay, that’s a great question. And I’ve recently because of POFU Live and some of the training I’ve received from there, I started digging into schema more and I only put organization schema as the only schema on the homepage now. But if you understand the connected schema, then you can, you’ll still can work organizations schema into like local business schema or into article schema because the organization can be the publisher, there’s it’s connected schema is like combining schema types, but it has to be done correctly, or else it will ambiguity of the page that multiple schemas are on. So in other words, you have to understand how to connect schema properly, it’s not something we’re going to cover here, you’d have to go to heavy hitter club, that’s you that’s the place to be if you want to learn how to do that stuff. I’ve been learning from Marco and Rob and also doing some research on my own. And I’ve just recently begun to understand the idea of the concept of connected schema. And so I was actually doing it wrong for a lot of my own local business sites for the last couple of years because I would put organization schema sitewide. And then on location pages, I would have local business schema also. But that actually ambiguous. It’s the main entity of that particular page unless you combine them into a connected schema. And then you designate the main entity of the page or you can ref local like for example, local business schema can be the primary schema for a location page, but it can reference the overall parent organization. The same thing for articles schema, Article schema is going the primary entity of the pages the article itself, right. But then you can reference the publisher as an organization, for example, or even the author could be an organization. And that can pull in all of your organization schema with your same as attributes and everything else. You have to learn how to put that together properly. And I didn’t know how to do that until after I went through POFU Live. And I got to watch some of our speakers, which by the way, you can buy POFU Live recordings right now. So if you want to get a really good bass training for what connected schema is, and how you can develop this kind of stuff out, go get the POFU Live recordings. And I just want to mention, as I said, I realized after the POFU Live event and hearing some of our guest speakers, that I really needed to step my schema game up. And so I’ve spent the last several weeks now actually really tightening up my schema on a lot of my lead gen properties. And I’m starting to see some significant results from that already. But as so organization schema can go on all the pages if it’s nested within the other schema properly. Otherwise, just put it on your homepage or your about page or both. It can be on both of those even. But for everything else that would have the main entity of the page have that only schema on that particular page only unless you’re using connected schemas. So essentially nested schema where it would reference organization schema, hopefully, that didn’t confuse a lot of people. Mark, do you want to comment on it before I move on?

parent, child-parent, you can have organization either on the homepage or on the about page don’t make both if you’re going to do that I prefer it on the own baby to that’s where the bot will generally come in and go through the rescue website. So that’s what I like. As far as everything else. I mean, no, yeah. Don’t ambiguity. You’re in big trouble, man. Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s the thing. Like if you have multiple schemas on a page, and they’re not, you can actually main entity of page that’s it. That’s an attribute that’s a type that you can designate so that you can specify which one it is but if you’re using connected schema, or like you said Parent-Child, nested schema is another term for it, then it should validate correctly. Anyway. But yeah, it’s an interesting man, I didn’t realize how much I was missing drugs and data world until we had the poker live event. Now, that was my main takeaway. And I’ve told that to everybody. I was like, my main takeaway was I need to step my schema game up. And so I spent and I’m still just scratching the surface, Robin, and Marco, and heavy hitter clubs where you want to go for all of that stuff. Guys, there’s no question. It’s what we’re teaching a heavy hitter, man.

Yep. All right.

Last thing, I’m just gonna answer the part two real quick. And then we’ve got to wrap it up. He says, What if the homepage is general info, the representation of the brand, sort of, and then there is long-form post, which is targeted for the main service, keyword example tree removal, how to place schemas there. Yeah. So again, that would be I would consider that article schema. And you can also nest within article schema services, right? You can mention service. You can even have like offer catalogs, all that kind of stuff. Again, it’s a, it can get very, very complex. So you have to understand what it is that you’re doing. But I would say like a main like service page where with an article that talks about services, you could create a service schema type, but I don’t think that’s as valuable. And I don’t know, maybe Marco can answer that. Or maybe this isn’t the proper place to answer that. But I’m testing right now with some of my Tree Service sites having the like Tree Removal page, for example, marked up as a service page. And then I’ve got others that are article pages with nested services in it. I think the article page with a nested service is the proper way to go but I don’t know and that’s why I’m kind of testing and comparing right now. Mark Oh, am I am I revealing too much or what?

Yeah. Because that’s stuff I mean, how we, how we create the relationships and and how we stack the schemas. What it’s what’s dealt with in the heavy hitter club.

There you go. So that was a tease, go go join heavy hitter club guys. It’s inexpensive, and it’s totally worth it if you want that kind of technical knowledge. So all right. Thanks, everybody for being here. We got to wrap it up. Everyone knows next week. Thanks, guys.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310

Click on the video above to watch Episode 310 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

There’s a search console because that’s my go to I don’t care what anything else says. And right when I’m looking at everything, I had a form submission come in. So I got it, I got it, I got the screen capture because I had to blur out some stuff. So I’m going to be sharing that as soon as we’re ready to go.

And we are live Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts, Episode 310. While Bradley’s doing some stuff in the background here, we’re gonna get going. I’m gonna say hi to the guys real quick. We got some quick announcements. And then I’m just scrolling through here. It looks like we’ve got a good number of questions. So with that said, Marco, I’m going to loop back to you, man, how you doing today? Like, by the way, like your shirt, you’re looking good.

I’m good, man. I’m sorry. I took it away from from my window. Should I have done that? I got I got I got a mess in the office right now. But you guys, you see? Nothing but like, Man, this is how I do to do I do. I can’t help it again. Come get some come get some guys. Just Just a quick word, stop relying on on third party vanity metrics for what’s going on on your website, according to Google. So you go to somebody else to see what’s going on in Google. I it for the life of me, I can’t figure that out. So in a minute, when we get to that question or five, whenever we get to it, I’m going to be sharing something on screen, just so you guys can see why you can’t go with third party vanity and domain authority then, whatever the hell it is you’re relying on. you’re relying on the wrong thing. And I’ll show you some and let’s see, I’ll get I thought it was muted. Sorry, Chris. How’s it going?

Doing good here? Good. They can complain and yeah, I think we got something pretty sweet coming. Oh, really? I made a video about something today, so, huh?

All right. Well, now I’m curious. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Well check Facebook.

Ah, all right. I will check it out. Bradley, you got the tech stuff done. Are you available?

Well, it’s the fucking video still not on know that on the page. Click Funnels bullshit. I’m tired of it. And I really am.

It’s still not even there we go. Yeah, it’s updated now.

Well, it’s not for me.

Gotcha. Well, we’ll circle back around. I’m going to type something in while I ask her not How you doing today, man?

Great, man. I’m in Miami. Having fun. Everything’s good.

Well, you got to talk for a little bit longer. I gotta, I gotta touch.

Okay. I’m in Miami. It’s raining. I’m having a lot of fun. This is awesome. And I’m waiting for Adam to stop typing so that he can keep on doing the intro. But did I mention that I mean, Miami? And

I’ve heard that you’re in Miami. Is that true?

No, I don’t know what you got that from? Yeah, man. How? how weak Are you really in the gym right now after all these months of no workouts? I’m a pussy. I’m doing like a D load quote-unquote, D load week right now. And I’m like, so sore. And I did like, two squats on Monday.

Those are right now, but we still had it. So.

Gotcha. All right. Well, I got a little note there. So if you’re watching us on YouTube, let us know. Also, if you’re somehow seeing this on the page, just shoot us a message let us know you can see it. But in the meantime, we’re gonna keep rolling and maybe figure something else out. But Bradley, how are you doing man? Besides page refreshes and caches?

Yeah, I’m just I’m tired of Click Funnels in their stupid fucking. There are always issues with Click Funnels, it seems to be getting worse. So anyway, maybe we can move the webinar on to a page on our site instead. I think we should probably do that. Because we won’t have to deal with this every week. It seems to be getting worse. So anyway, that said I, everybody.

Everything is fine. Yeah, that’s cool. Um, I’ve actually been testing out group funnels, maybe that’ll grab the lifetime account. And that came out, maybe we can just toss it on there and see if that works. Or just put it on the website, like you said, or do like a direct YouTube type of thing. love to see. But anyway, with that said, we have a couple of announcements. First of all, if you’re on the email list, that’s great. You’ve gotten the announcements about the POFU Live recordings, you got access to the little special offer we had to go in there. But if you’ve missed out on that, first of all, go to semantic mastery or go to Hump Day Hangouts. Just Google that and go to our page, enter your email address, so you can get notified about stuff like this. We do give special deals, special offers, and some bonuses to subscribers, but I’m also going to put it on the page here today. The recordings are available. Along with the recordings, you have the option to get executive summaries we’ve gone through and we’ve taken and distilled every single talk that we had into a quick basically reference guides. So you’ve got links, you’ve got the main points, so you can go back or have that open as you’re watching the talk. Super, super handy. So that will be on the page in just a minute. Oh, man, I am just losing my place like crazy today. I’ve got a couple more announcements. And while I hunt these down, did you guys have anything we need to also cover? Before we dive into things?

What about POFU?

About It was a great event.

Oh my god, what about it?

The live of the recordings are available, right?

Should be right.

Yes, that what I was just talking about or not my losing my mind about POFU.

I don’t know, but well I’m gonna keep running on because I don’t know where we’re going and this is gonna get pretty weird for people watching. So anyway, I do want to talk about one other thing, if you go to the SEOshield.com, the SEOshield.com that’s a great place. If you’re new to Semantic Mastery and MGYB You can find out how to shield your site and never worry about algorithm updates. Again, it’s a free training, just head over to the SEOshield.com and grab that if you’re more on the agency owner kind of consultant side and you want to get more clients to grow your revenue scale your team, head over to 2xyouragency.com. And last but not least, if you’re ready to grow your digital marketing business, your agency then you can join our experienced community. With the mastermind You can find out more about that at mastermind dot semantic mastery.com I like to go through these every time because we don’t know you know, we have new people watching every week. And those are some pretty typical questions we get from people, you know, hey, I’m just starting to watch you guys where the hell do I start? Right? Good question. So finding out about the SEO shield is great. Then we got people are saying hey, I either want to start or kind of grow my agency, I’m not sure what to do that’s to x your agency COMM And then we’ve got people, of course, are like, Hey, I’m in it, I want to grow, I want to be around other people like me who have got their agencies going who’ve got their businesses going. And that’s where the mastermind comes in. So those are the big ones. Of course, we mentioned MGYB, if you’re not familiar with that it’s mgyb.co, save time and money with done for you services. This is all stuff that we’ve used, and either converted into a done for you process or stuff that we had done for us. And now we’re offering it as well. So you can get it done for you and save time. So this is a great place to be like white labeling, things like press releases link building the SEO shield, for example. Lots more over there, too, and lots more coming. So with that said, guys, that’s it for the quick announcement. Anything else we want to cover before we dive into questions? I’m waiting around to say something No, just kidding. Wait, good. All right, let’s do it is that we got a bunch of questions already. So let me get the page pulled up here. And I’ll grab the screen.

This has got me all screwed up. Because the format has changed in the last couple of weeks. And after years of having one particular startup format. It’s hard to hard to transition.

All right,

you guys are seeing my screen now. Correct. Good to go. Yes.

Yep. All right.

What Is The Name Of The Upcoming Buffer Site S3 Creator?

Let me expand this a little bit. There we go. So the first question up says, Hi, you mentioned something about an upcoming buffer site s3 creator from ABS right? Yeah. Abbess. Rathje. As I think I’m saying his name correctly, I always feel like I’m mispronouncing that. Or he says, Can you please give us some URL or spell the product or the name as I can’t find anything? Yes, buffersites.com. It’s not available yet. But I believe it says coming soon. And I think he’s working on something because I recently got an email from him about kind of a technology that he created for that works with Amazon s3, hosted web pages, as well as some other type of web 2.0 sites and things like that. So I think buffersites.com is in the pipeline, but it’s not available yet. So that’s what it is buffersites.com and the developer’s name is Abbess Abbess. ABB BB as Rathje. And I think I always butcher his name when I try to say it. But he’s, he’s got many different types of software products out there that are fairly good. Some of them are but got a little bit of a learning curve, but he’s got like video marketing Blitz was one of them, it was a good product that we use for quite some time. So he’s got several different kinds of products out that you know, software programs that do things so that’s the one I was talking about.

Should You Make A Separate Page For Each Location When Siloing A Local Service Business Site?

Next question is Tommy says when creating location pages for a local service business, would you make a location page for the location the business is located in the business already has the primary location in the footer about, etc, and ranks on page two for keywords in the primary location on a general service page? Would it be overkill to create a location for it to and be duplicate content would appreciate your advice? Thanks. Now, if it’s a single location site, you don’t need to you don’t need a location page for it. The only time that I would recommend having location pages is if you have if it’s a multi-location business right? Because then you can, you’d have one location is typically going to be like a headquarters, right? Like the main location or, you know, the primary location, the first location, whatever you want to call it. And so that would be like what I would, you know, a lot of So for example, if I were to build a lead gen site that was optimized for one location, but then I decided, because let’s say it was really successful, and I decided to start expanding locations for that brand, then what I would do is I would make that, you know, the primary location would be the first location, and I would take that as kind of like the name, address and phone number for the primary location would be like the organization, you know, essentially, the main location for that multi-location business, and then I would create separate location pages for each individual, or additional location, I should say, that’s how I would do it. But yeah, I wouldn’t recommend creating a location page on a site that is optimized for one location. Because you’re it that that’s kind of, you know, Department of redundancy department, you know what I mean? So I would recommend that you don’t do that, you don’t need to do that. But what you can do is you can split out like suburbs, or, you know, I’m not, I’m not sure what how you’ve got your site structured, but you can create geo posts, that’s what I call it, but they’re locally optimized posts for localities within your service area, if it’s a service area business, I’m just assuming that it is. But it could be a storefront business, in which case, you wouldn’t even really need to do that either. But for service area businesses, like contractors, which is what I do, then what I would do is have the one location, you know, is probably the only location but then I would start optimizing content in what’s called geo posts, or what I call geo posts, which would be optimizing content for like the suburbs, the adjacent areas, that and then I would, you know, kind of optimize cut, my blogger does all this, but she’ll go out and pull in like points of interest, historical, you know, references, things like that, that are relevant to each individual, you know, suburb or municipality or whatever that I’m trying to expand into, and then show, you know, produce some content, you know, included about whatever products or services the company offers. And you can start to blog that way, so that you can start really kind of expanding your service area footprint, so to speak. But you don’t need to have a separate location page for the location. If it’s a one-location business, it just doesn’t make sense to do that, in my opinion. Any other input on that guy just said, there’s no such thing as a duplicate content.

And we see this all the time, no such thing as that happening. Now, as far as would it be overkill? to us that perfectly? The advice is that when looking at content is whether you’ve given the content, proper attribution. That’s all that matters. Because if you haven’t, then let’s say if your G site is really strong, it might outrank your money site. That’s the only problem you’re going to run into. But if you have proper attribution, if if Google understands where the master copy of the content resides, and there is no problem, there are only problems if you’re running like duplicate titles, duplicate descriptions, and things like that. But we’ve literally only changed location on content and run the same, like 15,000. More than that pages have the same content except for the location and it works. It’s working. Right now. I’m about to show you how it’s working right now. And when we get to that question, there is no such thing as duplicate content, you got the master copy. And then you have copies of that content. proper attribution takes care of any duplicate content issues, and so does canonical. If you canonicalize. correctly, you’re fine. You’re good to go.

There you go. Let me unpause the screen for a minute if I can find it. Okay.

What Do You Recommend For A Self-Hosted URL Shortener?

So the next question is from Jr. My guess, says, Hey, guys, do you have any well-recommended URL shortener? Excuse me? Do you have any good recommendations for a self-hosted URL shortener looking to set up one for a client to be public-facing so users can create short links easily from their website? Open to using a hosted solution if it exists? Thanks. Also, is there any SEO value for the target site if users create short links? So, Marco, you would be the one to answer that because we set that up for MGYB.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there eventually will be SEO value once you power it up. However, how long is it going to take you to power up that URL shortener on that website that has no power to start with? Which is what you need, which is the reason why Well, the reason why just say use a shortener To make the URL easier to handle, right, when you’re sharing it, you don’t want this long 50 character URL, you want something short and memorable. That’s why Bitly for a while was so good. And then we started realizing the SEO value in Bitly, until they decided that they were going to 302. At well, then we went to the Google goog l URL shortener until they took it away. So we decided rather than rely on others, why not create our own power that up, give everybody the SEO value and the added benefit that you could go in, and I think it’s only for like five or six, I don’t know, seven bucks a month, I don’t even know. Use your own use of our shortener which is powered up. And then you could have your own URLs, right, you can have your own URL extensions, you could have your own. If you want to call them vanity, whatever you want to call them. They’re yours, but they reside in MGYB. And they continue to get powered up by dedhia. So I will be there’s the SEO benefit, the SEO benefit that you get is the power that’s behind that. But right from the start when you go and install that whether you do it on a subdomain on your client site, whether you use pretty links, whatever it is that you’re going to use is not going to have any SEO value until you power it up.

All right, there we go on the resume share again.

Because doing some background stuff. Alright.

Can You Make Multiple GStacks On One Google Account That Are Interconnected?

So the next question would be Hey, guys, the question on G stacks. Can I make multiple G stacks on one g account that are not interconnected? Uh, yeah, I suppose you could. Now I’m not sure why you would want to we separate them. But you know, Marco, now that we’re not using the script. There’s not a limitation on that, though. Is there?

Let me see, of course, there is.

Why would you want to go and break up the well, not a limitation? But why would you want to put two things that are unrelated in the same dry stack?

We go for G stacks under one account. So different g stacks, but yes,

no? No. Okay.

Oh, unless they’re totally relevant if I mean, if you can, if all right, same niche, yes, it makes sense. If you’re going to break up the niche, if it’s going to be totally unrelated, then No, they’re not because now you’re putting all your eggs. First of all, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, right? Everything is in a Google takes that away, you’re gonna lose everything that’s in there. That’s why we turn over we create our own Gmail accounts. And we turn them over to you so that you can use it. And if you order 1000 from it, you’re gonna have 1000 Gmail accounts, but you can manage a whole lot of them from one account, which is what we recommend, you can are we send a letter, we send an email when we deliver the drive stack, and we tell you what to do with it, make your main account the manager of that account, so you never again have to go back into that account. But this way, you won’t take any chances in eliminating the public-facing dry stack and decide you’re not going to run any into any problems or getting locked up or anything like that. Right. And then we tell you to change the phone number, change the recovery, make sure that you can get in there eventually. But only if you have to only have you must, once we turn it over, there is absolutely no reason for you to go back in there. Unless you want to go in there and Tinker and then you’re on your own. So please understand what it is that we’re doing. And what it is that we recommend for you putting like 50 I don’t know you could you get 15 What is it 15 gigabytes in that drive stack, excuse me in Google Drive to play with. So there’s plenty of space in there for you to get multiples in. But you’re putting everything in one basket you’d be put you putting all your eggs in there, and you drop that fucking basket and all your eggs break, you better know how to make scrambled eggs.

Yeah, I agree with that limit, you know, mitigate your risk that way. And so you know, as Marco said, we deliver it with its own Gmail account. And that’s you know, the primary owner of the drive stack which you can always add you know, your main Gmail account or G Suite account, whatever as a manager or share it with that so you can still manage the stack from within your own account, but it’s owned by the other account that way you’re limiting your risk like Marco said, if that you had one account that had all of your G stacks in it and then something happened in it got suspended or terminated, then you’d be screwed. So I totally agree with what he says there.

Is It Better To Have An Old Google Account Better Than A Gsuite Account When Creating Drive Stacks?

Okay, the next question was which is better and old g account or a new G Suite account? Well, I’m always gonna say G Suite account because you’re paying Google that way and I use G Suite for freaking everything now. So if it’s a brand or a project that I know I’m going to be working on for any amount of time Other than just for testing purposes, I always set up G Suite accounts for everything. Now, that’s just my own personal preference. One thing you can do is if you have old Gmail accounts, you can set up a G Suite account through the old Gmail account. And that, I don’t know if that actually adds any additional benefit or not. But I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. You know, I can’t imagine that hurts anything. And so like, if you’ve got some old Jeep, like, for example, I have a Gmail account that I’d set up for Tree Service stuff way back in, I think, 2012, that I just recently decided to turn that into a brand and I created a G Suite account with that. Email is like the, you know, the, when you set up a G Suite account, you need to have an email account anyways, and all that, you know, to add to the system, so I use that one. And I think and again, I don’t know this without testing, but it makes sense that it would have some inherent authority built-in because it was an age, an old account, something that I had set up in 2012, that I just now turned into a G Suite account. Now again, I don’t know that that’s true. But it makes sense to do. So do you have any input on that as part of the entity validation, isn’t it? I wrote that when I wrote the black book, I mean, we’ve been recommending go G Suite, go pay Google, or pay Google for extra drive space, get that credit card, on file, get your stuff in the database. So now you’re a real thing on the web. Rather than someone trying to gain Google, you’re still trying to gain Google, but you’re going the extra step, which most people won’t do. And you go pay for ads, ads for branding, Brandy put out a great course, ads, I run ads, for branding purposes. So again, you’re going a step further validating your entity. This is all talked about how old is the black book about four years old? It’s all in there. I don’t know, you guys, it’s all available to you. I think we also send it with that email with that recommendation email. For us, excuse me, the user’s guide, done for your users’ guide is what we send out. And it’s all in there how to add validation to your entity pay Google, get your credit card, and Google, they’ll tell you that it doesn’t have any effect in rankings. And they the way that they’re saying it is right, I would say okay, that in and of itself doesn’t. But when you’re validating the entity, that part of it has a big, big play in what the end results are going to be.

Unknown Speaker 22:33 Absolutely. All right. So next is Oh, by the way, a couple of things I wanted to briefly mention I was distracted from the start-up for the webinar being rough again. But a couple of things. One, I want to talk about this, this great post in our free group Facebook group from Max Lucey fam bam, we had we did a webinar on Monday with Mike Martin for Lead Simplify if you guys haven’t seen it yet, I would highly recommend that you check it out. I know most of our audiences into local SEO, local client work or lead generation. And it’s a fantastic application. It’s very inexpensive, and it works really, really well. The lead simplifies the app, I use it in my own business. In fact, I started using it eight or 10 weeks ago, probably closer to 10 weeks ago now. And I reached out to the developer Mike Martin, specifically after I had set the app up and integrated it into my own lead gen business. Because I saw the value of it, I decided to reach out to Mike and the developer and asked him if we could promote it to our audience specifically, because, guys, you know, we don’t promote other people’s stuff ever. Unless we, ourselves, you know, or somebody in our, my partners or one of us in my company use something and can vouch for it. And so we rarely promote other people’s stuff. And in this case, I reached out specifically to try to ask if we could promote it because I think it is such a valuable app. And so the webinar was great. We had some technical difficulties at the beginning of that part of the reason why I was frustrated this today for Hump Day Hangouts, but I got that cleaned up. So now the replay is just the content. And it’s really good content about what he calls the hybrid lead generation model. It’s fantastic content, as well as the app itself, is very inexpensive and very useful. And I use it in my business now. So we also throw in a couple of bonuses that I use specifically for generating lead buyers. So basically prospecting for lead buyers. And it works really, really well. I’ve been bringing multiple new lead buyers into my business over the last several weeks because of this app, as well as the prospecting systems that I have built, which I share all of that in our bonuses, so I would highly recommend that you guys go check out the lead simplify webinar that we did with Mike on Monday, and check it out.

Also, I just wanted to give a shout out to max Lu See fam bam, for this great post that they posted about watching that webinar and becoming inspired, because of some, you know, basically having some issues with clients, client work can be very frustrating guys in I’ve said that over the years, there’s certainly ups and downs with client work. But I really have decided that you know, I don’t want to work with any more take on any new clients, I just want to work on building my lead gen business and for several of the reasons that were mentioned in this post here, as well. So just wanted to kind of point that out, give a shout out to Max, Max Luci for posting such a thoughtful and thorough posting here. And, you know, we’re excited to see you, we’re excited to see you excited, and I think you’re on the right track, build your own assets instead of others. Now don’t get me wrong, guys, if you got to do client work, to make money do it, you know, but at the same time, instead of always building other people’s businesses budget some time and some money to start building your own assets to so that you can be gain more control over your revenue, right and your future. Clients can fire you at any moment, right? They can stop paying you to go find the bargain basement $99 a month SEO from you know, India or wherever and fire you in a heartbeat. And what are you going to do? You know, one of the things in our mastermind is we’ve had people that have come in that have had, you know, perhaps one or two clients that provide 90% of their income. Like for example, like a 4000 or $5,000 a month retainer client, what happens if that client drops you and your, your, your 90% of your revenue is based upon that one client, does that make sense or just a couple of clients and then you lose one of them. And now you’ve cut your revenue in half or a third or whatever my point is, you know, start thinking of ways to generate your own assets so that you have more control over your, your revenue and your future. And, and so again, I’ve got clients now, and I’ve still got a handful, I just took a client on about seven, six or seven weeks ago now a new client, but I don’t think I want to take on any more clients unless they’re going to give me you know, a much higher retainer value than what I typically asked for, because I really just want to focus on building my own business. So I thought this was a really thoughtful post and I just wanted to give a shout out to there and also encourage you guys to go check out the replay.

How Do We Use of Text Transcripts From Videos For Traffic And Link Building Purposes?

Alright, any comments on that before I move on guys? Nah, perfect. Okay, Franklin says, Hey, guys, given the rise of video integration in SERPs, and Google taking snippets of sentences, and focusing more on YouTube and looking to get a syndication ring and look into backlinking for videos, is there anything we can do with text transcripts from our videos for traffic, and link building purposes. Um, you know, the only thing that I, I don’t, what I’ve done in the past that works fairly well, like with client work, especially is I’ve had, I’ve trained some of them. Like, for example, I’ve got an outdoor pest control company that does like mosquito control, take control, that kind of stuff. It’s a very seasonal business. But I trained their technicians to, like I told the company owners to tell their technicians to just when they go out on job sites, which are just people’s yards, essentially, to just take their phone out and grab, record a short video, like literally like, Hey, this is John, for a company name, I’m out in, you know, Fairfax, Virginia, providing mosquito control services. And, you know, if you want your yard to be tick free ticket, mosquito, free, contact us, and then drop a phone number, whatever. So very, very short little video clips that then they send to me, I upload them to YouTube, optimize them, and then have that transcribed, which is, you know, literally, it’s usually about a minute long the video or less, so cost a buck or a buck 50 to have it transcribed, and then embed that into a blog post with the transcription underneath. And that syndicates out to the branded network that’s attached to the, to the website, as well as the YouTube channel can be attached to that too. So both can be syndicated to it, that’s what I’ve done. And it just it that tends to work because it adds some text without having to have you know, it’s, it’s all done with just a video, right? a short video can be turned into a video plus a blog post with the text with the transcription, the call to action, everything that you need for additional content, you know, to multi-purpose the content. So that’s what I’ve done. Maybe somebody else here has some other suggestions for how to use text. But that’s pretty much the extent of what I’ve done. And that works quite well actually.

Anybody else? Yeah, I mean, what you could do lots with the transcript, right? You can add it to your page and it becomes part of the blog post when you embed the video on your website. The transcript can actually become the content on your pay. I mean, we recommend that this time and again right then you syndicate it, then when you do your embed, right With the video, you could do the page I mean, not just the video, you can do an embed run of that page. Right? Because then that it’s an iframe, and that’s perfectly fine. You want you’re not going to run into any duplicate content issues. But people are still going to say, Okay, yeah, there are problems there are. So that’s another thing that you could take the audio from that video and start going to the audio distribution, I’d SoundCloud would be one podcast, and then you can create a syndication network for that. And there are so many different things that you could do with that, to get tons of value, rather than just think, Okay, what I do with this transcript, you could also convert it into a PDF, a downloadable PDF on your website. Right? That content, so I framed the video. And rather than just put the text on there as content, you could put additional content on it, then a link to a PDF that people can download, then you go and submit that to all these PDF directories that you have all over the web. And, I mean, that’s, that’s another thing that you can do, really, you’re only limited by, by, you know, your imagination. And what you can come up with the limit is the things that you can think of to do with this content. Not that you have multiples, but you have video, you have audio, and you have text, and then that text can become a PDF, it can become any other kind of download, it can become an image, the text itself can become an image, you can do the question and answer images of each. I mean, it becomes what you could do becomes ridiculous. The thing is, is it necessary? And why are you needing to do all of this a lot of times, all of that just simply isn’t necessary because the process that we use, requires you to do as little work as you can for as much benefit as you can saving the bullets. In case you need more.

There you go. Always keep some, some in reserve, right.

How Do You Properly Optimize The GMB And Website Of An Old Business?

Okay. The next question is a basic GMB question. I have a client who bought his dental practice from another dentist. The old dentist GMB is ranking Okay, three in some map packs around the office. And second, organically what is the best approach try to merge in the GMB market is closed and rank the new one with the new business name for the web for a website, the old one as a pop up directing to the new site, should I take that site down or leave it up just worried about the possum, but I think I could rank them both, I would be fine with that both businesses have exact same address. Okay, I’m going to give you what I would do in that situation. And then I’d love to hear Marco’s opinion on this as well. But what I would do is I would merge those two GM B’s the one that was shut down, I would contact Google My Business support and explain exactly what you just did to us without the SEO terminology, because you want to act dumb, or even, you know, you can act on behalf of the business owner. But I’ve done that in the past something similar where you know, there’s two GM B’s because of a tree service company bought another tree service company, for example. And so since they ended up sharing the same address, but it was different names and everything else, I don’t want to cause any PII issues, right where you can ambiguous ate the data for a particular business. So what I do is I contact Google My Business support and tell them, hey, this company bought this company there now. And you know, it’s now this name, but it’s in the same location, I want to merge the two and Google support Google, my business support will help you with that. I’ve had I’ve done that on multiple occasions. So that’s personally what I would do as far as the website. What I would do with the website is do a redirect. Right? If it’s ranking second, organically, I think you said yeah, second, organically, the website is got some authority, obviously. So if you’ve got the new website for the new brand, what I would do is do a redirect, I wouldn’t leave both of them up because it could cause some excuse me some NAEP issues and possibly some entity ambiguation. So I would like I said I would merge the two GM B’s you might have to contact you will likely have to contact GMB support to do that so that it can be done properly. For example, you know if you have I had another client that had a GMB where they had to they moved all they did was move locations so when they moved locations, they set up a new GMB instead of changing the original, like the information in the original GMB, they just set up a new one. And so when they came to me as when I, you know, brought them on as a client, they had a bunch of reviews for their old location, but they had their new location that had you know, just a hand a couple of reviews but they wanted to merge the two and so once again, I contacted GMB support and I had them merge the two. So they basically called and removed the old GMB from the old location, but merged all of the reviews into the new one under the new location. And so you can do those kinds of things as long as it’s 100%. legit, if it’s spam stuff, don’t even attempt it. But if it’s 100%, legit, then I would absolutely contact GMB support have the two merged. And then again, for the organic site, I would have that redirected to the new site so that you can push that authority over to the new site. Now that’s my method. Would anybody have a different opinion? merge and properly three? Oh, and I totally agree, is a having tool and maybe creating. Now, this is where duplicate matters, right? And, and the entity comes into play, and you create ambiguity, and then Google doesn’t Okay, so which dentist is which? And how does this all work? Because it’s a bot and it’s stupid. And if you don’t give it the information is not going to know. And you want to try to relate them to one to the other, and why what’s changed and all that you’re going to get into a whole lot of issues that you don’t want. Bradley told you exactly how to solve it, merge the GMB’s call and act really stupid with the owner as a matter lead to let the dentist’s quiet Look, I bought those dentists out and now he’s got a GMB and I got I let them work it out. And then you could properly 301 the old site to the new and gain from all that power that the old one has. And as a matter of fact, if you properly three or one, you could hammer the old website for a while and get the benefit into the new website.

Or you go so the next question. I’m not sure if well, I guess there is a question in there. It says guys, I’m looking both at land solutions and alpha land realty not typing these names for a reason. I don’t care. I know. I honestly don’t care that I’ve never tried to hide my homeland realty business. They’re public. Yeah, they’re public. I’ve always mentioned that and he said, anyway, I’ll finish the question then I’m going to comment and I’m sure Marco has some comments as well says I don’t see any good rankings there. In fact, I see a huge decline. I see a huge decline in something that was not very impressive anyway. Well, that’s okay. Because that not very impressive, impressive Alfa land realty site makes me between three and $15,000 a month and fucking month and has for a year and a half. So that’s not very impressive. They’re not you know, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to impress you. It works just fine for me. He says I know you do local use GM B’s ads, etc. You said, you said and you said it many times. It’s about calls and leads I get it but it looks more narrowed towards local map listing rather than a national campaign or global campaign. Mine is not a national or global campaign Alfa land realty is a Virginia based real estate acquisition company. All I target is Virginia. That’s all I’ve ever targeted since I set it up. And I use Google ads, direct mail and SEO, and I get all the damn leads that I want or can handle from those three methods. So and most of my traffic comes from direct mail I’m not gonna lie I do get leads from Google ads and from organic SEO, but those leads aren’t really the leads that I want. Those are typically not as good leads because I like to target specific land types in certain areas. And so with direct mail, I can do that. And so again, I’ve always I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I’ve not done a whole ton of SEO for Alfa land realty because I haven’t needed to most of the traffic that I generate is through direct mail. However, I do get probably eight to 12 leads per month from Google ads and or organic SEO but those they tend I bought several properties from you know, leads that have come in from either Google ads or from organic SEO, but most of them that come through aren’t those good they’re not that good leads because they’re not as targeted as I want them to be like I can do with direct mail. So again, I’ve never tried to hide that guys there’s no reason for me to I’m always honest with what’s going on in my business and it’s all been about Virginia land by land acquisitions in Virginia so I’ve been able to accomplish my goals with the methods that I’m using that solutions go ahead.

On the other hand is national and as a matter of fact we got we had a lead once from Bali so it’s it’s global. We did lead from somebody was selling land in Bali wanted us to do one to see if we would buy it I and I’ve prepared some some stuff that I that I want to share my skis Mind if I grabbed the screen shirt. Let me go here. And I can’t you got to give me permission or stop sharing your stop sharing mine. How about that? And I was Okay, here we go. Let me make sure I share the right one. Get rid of the porn. All right. So I saw this question and I came a look. Because I love the use of the turn of the phrase, I see a huge decline of something that was not very impressive anyway, wasn’t meant to be impressive was meant to get results. I’m not to impress anyone. I’ve never, I’ve never been it, I don’t want to impress you. All I want is the person here. If you can see my screen, when they come on here to fill out the fucking form. That’s all I want. Not to impress. So here we go. Are we seeing that position? I took a look. I don’t know how many top 10s I have. I but if I can scroll down? I don’t know. I can keep scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Right. So you can see yes, it’s very local. It’s heavily local. How else would you target local real estate? Please, what are we talking about? Can we please define what we’re talking about first, because yes, even though this is National in nature, I have to target it locally. Or else, the person that’s looking to sell their land, in bumfuck, whatever, would never find me to sell me the land. So of course, I don’t know what it is you’re using you said hrs, I don’t use hrs. I don’t use sem rush, I don’t use any action. I use go, this is what I use. This is what tells me what it is that I’m doing. And whether what I’m doing works. Not only this, but while I was doing this, what’s so funny is let me pull this up in my G but look at the time 1:37pm I haven’t even opened because I was going through this, to show this during have to have a web web form fill came through. This is what I’m after man. Now, not you, you why user specific or targeted or whatever. But this is what I’m after I’m not after you. And I’m not after a dress to impress a dress and whatever the fuck it is they decide to give because I could give a shit about a trust and majestic. And and whoever else, you name it, I don’t care. I get my information from analytics, I get my information from the Search Console. That’s what tells me what to target. So I can get this because as Bradley said, Now these, what I do is I’ve been turning them over to the alpha land Realty, that you created Bradley. Yeah, the group, I’m sure you see me posting in there. And this is what I’ll do with this form. Because I have enough with what I’m doing with what I’m targeting in the states that I’m targeting. Or I’m good where I don’t know, four or five sales.

I wouldn’t say that much, let’s say three to four sales per month, three to four k average, well, that’s an extra 10 k in my pocket that I’m not expecting to see. I mean, and this is after expensives after expenses, after cost lawyers and everything else, it’s in my pocket is what I put in my pocket. That feels really nice. I don’t know about you, it may not be impressive to you. And I understand that. Okay, you may you probably make way more than I do, from something that just a side hustle, and a website that we haven’t done really anything to other than you know, we set up the SEO shield, some schema, some q&a, but not really giving it the love that it should not giving it all of the attention that we need to. Because since this is my main source of income, since this is just a playground, whatever I get here is perfect. I mean, this is fine for me, if I get I don’t know, 10 of these is what we’re getting per month, and I turn them over to the guys and and they can close a few. And they give me the commission. I mean that that’s an extra source of income in my pocket. So in addition to whatever it is that I’m closing and that I’m making every month, now this, this last solution network will also produce webform fills, where the guys who took Bradley’s training can go and they can get after these people make the offer and try to make that close and sell and put a couple of grand in their pocket. And they really didn’t have to do the effort other than to contact and try to close it. Because this person is hot. This person is hot to sell. They don’t go and find you organically unless they’re hard to sell this we know. So I’m sorry that you’re not impressed. But yeah, I mean, the other part of this what you said is so like calls and leads, because that’s the only way that you gonna make money. And I could be number one in everything and not making a penny and I could be selling it hot. Look, look, I’m number one. Number one. Number one, I’m not making a penny. And yet you’re going to fall for it. Because you see number one everywhere and is not really doing anything. So I mean, hopefully, this is the example you should be focusing on. We put everything through Google through analytics, and through search console. That’s what that personally, this is what I focus on. I don’t care about anything else. And I don’t care what anybody says about analytics and search console, because they’re generally wrong and they don’t know how to use it. And so they can’t see how it works. that’s their problem, not mine. All right, my hand a second, let me just finish my mastermind, people, my heavy hitter club and my mini mastermind. They know how to use this shit, because I’ve shown them how to use it. And how it is that you’re supposed to take a look at analytics and search console so that you can get the most benefit from it. And I’m done. Go ahead, man.

Yeah, no, I was just mentioning that, again. You know, I, I spent last year I’ve been running my alpha land realty business for about a year and a half now. And it’s, it only requires about eight to 10 hours a week now, because I’ve got personnel in place, and automations and systems and everything that I built took me months to build all of it. But now it just requires very little of my attention. Like I said, between eight to 10 hours a week on average. And for a period of time, I did spend more time on SEO and a lot of time in Google ads. But I’ve refined the Google Ads campaigns. And I realized, after starting to receive leads from just SEO and from Google ads, that those aren’t the best quality leads, because they’re often in random areas of the state that I’m not interested in, which ends up taking more time to research those markets to get to know those markets. I know which markets, I can flip properties in very quickly. And so those are the markets that I target and I target them more specifically with direct mail, because it’s a higher quality lead, and it works better for my business model. So again, it’s not I’ve never tried to, you know, sell people on the fact that my alpha land realty site was super optimized and all that shit. And everyone, it’s a single page landing page on Click Funnels, but still ranks. So what difference does it make, it generates me a very nice income with very little effort now, because I’ve built the systems and everything else. So anyways, if anybody’s interested in learning more about that specifically, reach out to support at Semantic Mastery, we’ve had a couple of people reach out in the last month or so and say that they’re interested in possibly joining a paid training group where you where I’ll teach how to flip land, it’s a great business guys, you can do it virtually from a computer at home, like out of I think I flipped. I don’t know, 28, maybe between 20 and 32 properties in the last year and a half. And I’ve only been to three of them. And it was only for very specific reasons that I went to three of them, I’ve been able to buy and sell land and make, like I said, on average, on my low end, in fact, this month, I only make 2300. But on my on my low months, it’s still a four figure profit. And on my good months, I’ve made five never made more than 16,000 in a month. But you know, that’s a really good income now for three to or excuse me for eight to 10 hours a week of effort. And so again, if anybody’s interested in that business, just reach out and say you’re interested in land flipping business. And once we get enough interest, I’ll put together another group and do some training on that it will be a paid training though, guys, so just keep that in mind. All right, we’ve got about 12 more minutes. I’m gonna grab the question. Question, though.

It was a good question. And we’re weren’t attacking you for your vote on another way. No, no. And and it’s good. I love this when people call you out. And it’s okay, so well, because the proof of a profit is and whether the prophecy comes true. If it doesn’t, then the profit is useless, right? So what we say is the results are what matter we need to be able to show results so that people who are in a dress and doubting I understand the doubt man, I understand the doubt. What I’m saying is your focus is wrong. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying the focus that you’re giving it is wrong, because we’re not interested in HS. And they can show whatever they want. And you could go ahead and share. It’s the land some land solutions network, you can share it, you can go look at it, reverse engineer it, because we did a lot of nasty stuff in there a lot of testing, and it’s still it’s ongoing. We’ll get back to it and give it some love man, because we can take over a lot of stuff with the way that it’s ranking right now. At any rate, yeah, it’s not anything done to you or set to you specifically. It’s just that when you when you focus on Ah, they’re going to show you what they want majestic what they want SEMrush what they want. I only care about Google. That’s all I care about.

Yeah, and just one other thing about that is what’s interesting is if you take a look at my site, somebody’s got positions here. Oh, look at that son of a bitch anyways. But you can see like sell land fast, Virginia. We buy land Virginia, there’s a few other keywords that work really well for ranking. But if you take a look at my site, guys, it’s a single page landing page on clickfunnels, which clickfunnels doesn’t even give you the ability to optimize the page much there. You can’t really optimize the elements and Click Funnels. It’s very difficult. But that’s it. I mean, it’s a very simple site on a wide Firefox has been so slow, but that’s it. It’s that I mean, there’s no content marketing going on there. I’ve had a syndication network built but I never I don’t I don’t blog. I don’t publish posts. I don’t have I’m not doing GMB posts or anything like that. I do a few a handful of press releases per year. And that’s it. And that’s all I’ve had to do because look, I’m ranking number one in Virginia for my primary keywords the keywords from because I’ve run Google ads for this for a year and a half, I know which keywords produce conversions generate leads, those are the only keywords I give a shit about all the other ones I could care less about. It’s not a it’s not a it’s not a you know, a test to see how how many rankings I can get. In this case, it’s producing like I said, on the low end, four figures and on the high end five figures per month consistently month in and month out. And it has been for a year and a half. So I’d say it’s a success. And I don’t spend a lot of time on it anymore. I did four months but it’s it’s where it is now to where it’s on. It’s almost on autopilot requires very little my attention. So

I’m not sure what why am why Oh, niches What does that mean? Do you know what y m y l means?

Marco? You’re You’re muted

by the way.

What is okay?

Nevermind.

I’m sorry. Somebody want to answer that?

Now? I thought I thought it was something else. MF

Global campaign for y m y l niches? I’m not sure what that means. Okay. Um, are these methods suitable for current moments for something outside at the current moment? Excuse me for something outside local marketing? Yeah, of course. I mean, again, like if you I mean, Mark always talks about local is relative, right? Your local can be a neighborhood, a city, a county, a state, a country, or global, it really just depends you local is relative, you know, there, I’m just targeting on a statewide basis, because I found that it doesn’t make sense to target like, we buy land Culpepper, Virginia, we buy land, it doesn’t make sense to go through all of that additional effort for that particular project. Because again, like and here’s the other thing about that project. And tree services, people will go to Google because they got a tree that is overgrown or a dead tree that’s in danger of falling on their house or their car or something. So they need that service. So they go to Google, and they search tree service or tree removal, Tree Removal near me or tree removal and whatever their city is, right. But with the landowners and for again, for that business, it’s a lot of times these are people that own land that really doesn’t haven’t even considered selling it, they just pay taxes on it, you know, year in and year out. And so I all of a sudden send them a letter that says, hey, I’m interested in purchasing your vacant land parcel located at whatever, whatever. If you’re interested in receiving an all-cash offer, fill out this form at this website, or call this number, which goes to my call center. That’s it. And so again, you know, a lot of the times I’m targeting people that have land that doesn’t even know that they want to sell it, the ones that do think, well, I’ve got a piece of land I need to generate some money from there are the ones that go to Google and search for it. But I found again because those are in random areas throughout the state that I’m not specifically targeting and ends up requiring more research on my part. And then it’s a market that I’m unsure about whether I can flip it quickly and all that other kind of stuff. So it’s that uncertainty is the reason why I don’t like those leads as much Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still make offers on them. But I like the areas that I’m specifically targeting through direct mail those areas better So again, just to kind of explain.

it’s just a different model period. So why am while your money or your life. Okay? What is it your money or your life niche? Not sure what that means?

Is It Okay To Optimize Two YouTube Channels For One Money Site

Anyway, so we’re gonna move on fit says good agents, I have a client posting on two different YouTube channels, only one optimized, should they optimize both? And add the money to site to both thanks for all you do. Yeah, I guess you could, uh, I don’t see how that could hurt anything. As long as it’s the same brand. I mean, I guess it depends on what it is that you’re doing. What it is that they’re doing? If it’s the same brand, but like, perhaps two different topics, or for whatever reason, then then yeah, I don’t see why that would hurt anything. Um, that’s what I would do. I mean, obviously, I need some more details, Fitz, to be able to give you a better answer, then that but I mean, if it’s the same brand, I don’t see why you couldn’t, it wouldn’t cause any ambiguity as long as you’re not, you know, trying to create two different types of brands for the same company if that makes sense.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link Vs Sharing It Publicly?

So Okay, the next question is a G Drive folder is shared to anyone with the link versus public on the web. What’s the drawback? Or is it completely useless to do it that way? Is it thoroughly tested? I’ve heard it’s still good for buffering if you share with anyone with the link, but don’t know about entity validation. What’s your take? Marco? That’s a question for you.

The link shared folder has no fucking use that has to be public on the web. Really? It has to be it won’t pass if you Uh, no. It has to be public on the web man. Hmm. Now, even if you try the iframe that anyone with the link, it has it if you don’t do it right, it has a frame breaker. So once you if it has a frame breaker then we were losing all the benefits from what we now know, as our ys Academy reloaded, right? Because that’s built upon the power of the iframes and how they work. Okay,

so you’re saying his shit has to be public on the web to provide the benefits public and if you can’t do it, don’t worry. Go to MGYB to order drive second t site from us because we can make it public.

What’s The Drawback If A Google Drive Folder Is Shared To Anyone With The Link?

There you go. Rob says thanks, guys. Baby’s up. What’s up, baby? I was wondering where the hell you are today. He says, Hey, guys, after I asked all the External links variations now it’s time for a new wave. So so we’re gonna go through several weeks Marco has some other topic but one topic.

Yeah. 1000 ways. Maybe I’m giving you shit, man, we appreciate you, man. There’s no there’s no question. He says, Does the organization schema have to be on each page or just the home page? What page or post should the organization schema on which should be an article scheme? Okay, that’s a great question. And I’ve recently because of POFU Live and some of the training I’ve received from there, I started digging into schema more and I only put organization schema as the only schema on the homepage now. But if you understand the connected schema, then you can, you’ll still can work organizations schema into like local business schema or into article schema because the organization can be the publisher, there’s it’s connected schema is like combining schema types, but it has to be done correctly, or else it will ambiguity of the page that multiple schemas are on. So in other words, you have to understand how to connect schema properly, it’s not something we’re going to cover here, you’d have to go to heavy hitter club, that’s you that’s the place to be if you want to learn how to do that stuff. I’ve been learning from Marco and Rob and also doing some research on my own. And I’ve just recently begun to understand the idea of the concept of connected schema. And so I was actually doing it wrong for a lot of my own local business sites for the last couple of years because I would put organization schema sitewide. And then on location pages, I would have local business schema also. But that actually ambiguous. It’s the main entity of that particular page unless you combine them into a connected schema. And then you designate the main entity of the page or you can ref local like for example, local business schema can be the primary schema for a location page, but it can reference the overall parent organization. The same thing for articles schema, Article schema is going the primary entity of the pages the article itself, right. But then you can reference the publisher as an organization, for example, or even the author could be an organization. And that can pull in all of your organization schema with your same as attributes and everything else. You have to learn how to put that together properly. And I didn’t know how to do that until after I went through POFU Live. And I got to watch some of our speakers, which by the way, you can buy POFU Live recordings right now. So if you want to get a really good bass training for what connected schema is, and how you can develop this kind of stuff out, go get the POFU Live recordings. And I just want to mention, as I said, I realized after the POFU Live event and hearing some of our guest speakers, that I really needed to step my schema game up. And so I’ve spent the last several weeks now actually really tightening up my schema on a lot of my lead gen properties. And I’m starting to see some significant results from that already. But as so organization schema can go on all the pages if it’s nested within the other schema properly. Otherwise, just put it on your homepage or your about page or both. It can be on both of those even. But for everything else that would have the main entity of the page have that only schema on that particular page only unless you’re using connected schemas. So essentially nested schema where it would reference organization schema, hopefully, that didn’t confuse a lot of people. Mark, do you want to comment on it before I move on?

parent, child-parent, you can have organization either on the homepage or on the about page don’t make both if you’re going to do that I prefer it on the own baby to that’s where the bot will generally come in and go through the rescue website. So that’s what I like. As far as everything else. I mean, no, yeah. Don’t ambiguity. You’re in big trouble, man. Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s the thing. Like if you have multiple schemas on a page, and they’re not, you can actually main entity of page that’s it. That’s an attribute that’s a type that you can designate so that you can specify which one it is but if you’re using connected schema, or like you said Parent-Child, nested schema is another term for it, then it should validate correctly. Anyway. But yeah, it’s an interesting man, I didn’t realize how much I was missing drugs and data world until we had the poker live event. Now, that was my main takeaway. And I’ve told that to everybody. I was like, my main takeaway was I need to step my schema game up. And so I spent and I’m still just scratching the surface, Robin, and Marco, and heavy hitter clubs where you want to go for all of that stuff. Guys, there’s no question. It’s what we’re teaching a heavy hitter, man.

Yep. All right.

Last thing, I’m just gonna answer the part two real quick. And then we’ve got to wrap it up. He says, What if the homepage is general info, the representation of the brand, sort of, and then there is long-form post, which is targeted for the main service, keyword example tree removal, how to place schemas there. Yeah. So again, that would be I would consider that article schema. And you can also nest within article schema services, right? You can mention service. You can even have like offer catalogs, all that kind of stuff. Again, it’s a, it can get very, very complex. So you have to understand what it is that you’re doing. But I would say like a main like service page where with an article that talks about services, you could create a service schema type, but I don’t think that’s as valuable. And I don’t know, maybe Marco can answer that. Or maybe this isn’t the proper place to answer that. But I’m testing right now with some of my Tree Service sites having the like Tree Removal page, for example, marked up as a service page. And then I’ve got others that are article pages with nested services in it. I think the article page with a nested service is the proper way to go but I don’t know and that’s why I’m kind of testing and comparing right now. Mark Oh, am I am I revealing too much or what?

Yeah. Because that’s stuff I mean, how we, how we create the relationships and and how we stack the schemas. What it’s what’s dealt with in the heavy hitter club.

There you go. So that was a tease, go go join heavy hitter club guys. It’s inexpensive, and it’s totally worth it if you want that kind of technical knowledge. So all right. Thanks, everybody for being here. We got to wrap it up. Everyone knows next week. Thanks, guys.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 310 published first on your-t1-blog-url