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numberfivefinn · 4 years

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who: @numberfivefinn & @krt-hmml

what: kurt pays finn an unexpected overnight visit after the big fight with rachel.

where: finn’s bachelor apartment

when: wednesday august 23rd (i think)

triggers: none

KURT had left the apartment so quickly he hadn't even packed a change of clothes or his moisturizer, let alone a proper overnight bag. He didn't even take his keys. All he had on him was his wallet and his cell phone. While he had no specific plans on where he would go when he left, there was really only one option. Finn was the only one in their friend group who didn't live with either Jesse or Rachel, and he was Kurt's family so he had to take Kurt in. The smaller boy knocked on Finn's door and, as Finn answered, he realized he couldn't really explain why he was there. "Hey, what's up? Are you free tonight?"

FINN had just settled in his couch after a long day at work, a Dr. Pepper in one hand and the Apple TV remote in the other, scrolling through streaming services to find something to watch. He eventually landed on something he'd watched before, only because he was feeling his eyelids getting heavy and he didn't want to miss anything in case he fell asleep. With one foot rested on the table (a habit he gained after having to constantly elevate his injured knee), he leaned back in his seat, ready to chill for the rest of the night. Just when he put the remote down, he heard a knock, much to his surprise as he wasn't expecting anyone. He got up, opening the door that revealed Kurt behind it. "Hey brother. I am now," he half-joked, but he knew with himself that he definitely did not have plans. "I was just relaxing. Long day at work. Why this surprise visit?"

"Good!" KURT exclaimed before inviting himself into Finn's place. His back to his brother, he allowed his smile to falter for a brief second as Finn asked why he was here. As he turned to look at him, his expression was back in place. "Because we're going to officially be brothers soon! With the wedding coming up, I thought it would be good to spend some quality time together"

FINN closed the door behind his new company, settling himself back into the couch and patting the spot next to him for Kurt to sit. "That's cool of you to think about that, Kurt. I appreciate that," he said sincerely, the corner of his mouth tweaking up into his signature smile. "Things still busy at Vogue.com?"

KURT kind of felt bad that Finn was so happy about quality time, as it wasn't his primary motivation for the visit. But it was certainly a happy unintended consequence - a silver lining to the shit St. Berry had caused. He closed the door and sat down next to Finn. "Incredibly busy. I'm going to miss it when I resign, but I'm sure my fashion career will keep me incredibly busy."

You're always so good at what you do, so I'm sure you'll be awesome taking the next step as well," FINN nodded, lowering the TV volume down so it wasn't interfering with their conversation. "Can I get you anything to drink? Or snack on?"

"Thanks, that's very kind of you." KURT couldn't help the slight blush and smile that reached his face. He glanced at the TV, not really interested in whatever Finn was watching but perfectly content to have it on in the background. "Just water, please."

“Alright, water coming up,” FINN confirmed, getting up from his seat to get some water from the fridge. He came back with a glass of water and a bowl of cashews as he was feeling snackish himself. “So, did you wanna do something or talk about something?”26 August 2020

KURT watched Finn go into the kitchen, letting the expression fall off his face for a moment. But when Finn turned around and headed back to the couch, Kurt's mask was back on his face. He took the water, drinking a little bit of it as Finn asked him. "What were you watching?" Kurt asked, glancing back at the TV.

“Oh, this?” FINN asked, pointing at the TV. “Westworld. It’s pretty sick. I’ve seen it all before though so it doesn’t matter that I’m not paying much attention.” He shrugged, stuffing a few cashews in his mouth. “Have you seen it?”

KURT shook his head, he had not seen it. "It's the one about the virtual reality park, right? I've heard good things about it." Kurt's phone went off and, despite all the drama, he looked at it without a second thought. Surely, Jesse and Rachel weren't dumb enough to text him so soon after what had just happened. Except they were, or at least Jesse was. Kurt sighed at his phone and frowned

“Yeah, basically. They make robots who are as human as humans can be, so the people who go to that park don’t even notice the difference. And people go batshit crazy, killing and screwing people left and right,” FINN described with a soft laugh. He trailed off seeing Kurt’s phone go off and the reaction his brother had to whatever he saw on it, starting to grow worried for him. “What’s wrong, Kurt?”

"Hm? Oh, nothing. Just-" KURT was going to say fashion world drama, but he didn't want to lie. So he decided to downplay what really happened instead. "Rachel and I got into a dumb fight this afternoon. Nothing to worry about." He smiled back at his brother. "So, anyways, this sounds like a show Sam would like. Maybe him and I will start watching it soon"

FINN blinked in confusion and shock. Him fighting with Rachel too? What was going on? And why couldn’t he understand it? “What do you mean a fight? What’s going on?”

KURT hesitated. He couldn't tell Finn, because it wasn't his place to do so. Eventually he shook his jead. "I can't say much, it's Rachel's business. But she's been kind of awful to me lately and I called her out on it and it spiraled from there."

FINN knew Rachel had her mean moments, but they usually stemmed from her being dramatic or feeling strongly about something. “I’m sorry, bro. That doesn’t sound like fun. I know she’s your best friend.”

"We've had fights before and I know we'll be okay in a few weeks. But this isn't like other fights and I'm.....not sure..." KURT sighed again, not willing to say that he felt like they couldn't recover from this one, or that he felt like he was losing his best friend. His facade was long gone, and now he just looked sad and defeated. "I think even after everything calms down, it's going to be different between us."

FINN inched closer to his brother-to-be, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder for emotional support. “It’s really that bad?” He couldn’t even imagine what it could be, and without insight from either side, it was difficult to provide advice. “It probably feels like that now, but like you said, it’ll be okay again in a few weeks. You just both gotta take some time to cool down and talk again, and you’re gonna find out it was all a misunderstanding or something.”

KURT didnt stop Finn from putting a hand on his shoulder, but he also knew he had to be careful so Finn couldn't see his texts with Jesse. "It's not a misunderstanding." Kurt said, his voice so low it was nearly a whisper. "Things can still be okay if they're different, though. That's more the thought process I was going with here"

“I hope so. For your sake,” FINN comforted, squeezing Kurt’s shoulder lightly. “Are you talking to Rachel right now?”

"No, Jesse." KURT admitted. "Rachel and I fought in my living room, and Jesse was home so he heard all of it." That was technically true

"Oh," FINN uttered, pursing his lips into a pout. "How do you feel though? About being in this fight with Rachel?"

"Awful." KURT blurted out, then got another text from Jesse. He was in tears before he finished reading it. "God, sorry. I....hate crying. This is all so stupidly dramatic"

FINN got a little uncomfortable as Kurt started shedding tears, always unable to react naturally when someone in front of him cried. "Hey," he began as he wrapped his arm tightly around his younger brother. "It's all gonna work out. This is just temporary. I know it." Was he just repeating himself at this point? He wasn't sure what to say or do to make things better, but watching Kurt this upset was quite frankly upsetting him too. "Hey. The bakery across the street is still open for another hour. You want be to grab you some cheesecake?"

As Finn held him, KURT leaned into his brother and started crying harder. He didn't react to what Finn said....he knew Finn was trying to help while not understanding what was happening and he appreciated that. The Finn continued and Kurt's tears stopped briefly. "....Cheesecake?" He asked in a tone that confirmed he did in fact want some.

FINN let Kurt cry it out a little, knowing there wasn't much he could really do. Bottling up emotions were definitely not good either, something he had far too much experience with - hence the many chairs broken in his hands. His eyes perked up a little when Kurt got quiet, taking that as a green light on the cheesecake. "I'll be right back, then." He rubbed Kurt's arm gently before swooping out of his hold, grabbing his keys and wallet before heading out. "Help yourself to more water or whatever's in the fridge if you feel like it. I think I have some diet soda if you want that as well. And go wild on the Apple TV - I have pretty much anything."

KURT nodded at Finn's instructions. "Thanks." He responded, still crying but not as heavily. Once Finn left, he found Friday Night Lights on Netflix. It was a total soap opera, but he hoped Finn would appreciate the football aspect of it.

After facing a difficult decision of how many slices to bring, FINN finally came back from the bakery with a bag in his hand. "I wasn't sure how much you wanted, so I got four slices. Two original and two strawberry. I'll eat whatever you won't or give it away to my neighbor tomorrow," he stated, laying out the boxed slices on the coffee table in front of the couch. He proceeded to go to the kitchen for some spoons and forks, not really sure what one ate cheesecake with. "Enjoy." He took a seat himself, looking up at the TV. "What did you end up watching?"

When Finn got back, KURT was cuddled under a blanket. It was clear he had been crying, due to more texts with Jesse. He paused the episode, which he was only a few minutes into, as Finn set the cheesecakes down. He picked up a strawberry slice and took the fork from Finn. "Thank you" He wasn't as upset now, but he was still sad. "Friday Night Lights. I thought you would appreciate the football element of the show. It's like the OC meets sports"

"Oh cool. What's the OC?" FINN wasn't very caught up in the TV world, but he tried to be as cultured as he could, especially because he had met his fair share of actors during his career who his PR team had wildly encouraged him to photograph with, despite his lack of knowledge of who they actually were.

KURT "Youve never heard of the OC? It's a drama that takes place in Orange County, California. It focuses on four rich teenagers, its a total prime time soap opera!"

"Oh, is that the show with Rachel Bilson? She's hot," FINN realized, and it totally wasn't because she was a short brunette with the initials RB. "I never watched it."

"Yes, she's in that. With Adam Brody, and Mischa Barton and....oh my god, I'm blanking on his name - that guy who starred in Gotham." KURT left Netflix and went into Hulu, pulling up the OC. "You have to watch an episode of it with me"

"Yeah, that guy," FINN said pointing his finger, kind of connecting the dots because he had actually seen Gotham. "Whoa, this is like, old. At least older than I thought it was."

KURT "Yeah! I remember being in elementary school when it was on. Dad was usually too tired to monitor my TV viewing habits back then."

“Did he ever have the energy to monitor your TV habits?” FINN joked, letting out a quick laugh. “I remember that Mischa girl being really popular among the guys in middle school, though. I was busy playing football and playing video games so I didn’t watch a lot of TV.”27 August 2020

"Not really, no." The OC had started airing just a couple months before KURT's mom had died, though, so Burt's energy levels were even lower than usual at the time. But Kurt decided to keep that detail to himself, because he was already sad enough tonight without mentioning the immediate time after his mom's death. "I was a bit preoccupied, myself. I know she was partying with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie a lot, though."28 August 2020

“Whoa, really? Didn’t know she was that type,” FINN claimed. Not that he really paid attention to what celebrities were doing when he was 13. He took a sip of his soda, leaning back in his seat as he continued watching. “Did you like the cake?”

"I dont think she's that type anymore. There were a lot of mental health issues with her around that time." KURT explained, then looked up at Finn as he mentioned the cheesecake. "Yes, thank you" he smiled a little. "Uhm, would it be okay if I stayed here tonight? I realize Rachel's leaving for her show soon but I dont want to run into her before work tomorrow."

"Huh," FINN uttered, not too actively engaged with the topic. "I have to admit that I don't always know the best way to comfort someone, but you always order cheesecake when we go out for dinner," he admitted. He wasn't always the best observer nor was he good at paying attention to details; a flaw he wasn't quite proud of. It was definitely something he had to work on during his relationship with Rachel, so he always hoped he didn't mess up with the things he at least thought he knew. "Of course. The guest room is open for you. I just gotta clean out some stuff from there first."

"Oh, no. You've been great. With the cheesecake and a place to sleep and letting me gush about the OC. I really appreciate it, Finn" KURT turned the episode off, because he knew Finn wasn't really watching it. "You don't have to clean anything out, just as long as i can get to the bed"

“You sure? It’s kinda messy in there because it’s been unused for a while,” FINN stated, but shrugged since he didn’t seem to mind. “I’m gonna hit the hay. See you in the morning?” He grabbed the cheesecake that was left, putting it in the fridge and doing a quick, lazy clean-up of whatever was left out in the living room. “Oh, clean sheets should be in the closet in the guest room. I’m sure you’ll find it.”1 September 2020

"See you in the morning." KURT repeated in response, watching Finn put the cheesecake away. He nodded at the explanation on where to find the sheets. "Thank you, Finn" He added before disappearing into the spare room

FINN turned off all the lights before heading to his own room for the night. Something about having someone in the apartment made him feel less alone, and for the first time in a while, he went to bed feeling a little bit less lonely.

#para #para: 003 #para: kurt

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manjuhitorie · 5 years

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Hitori-Escape Tour 2019, they're at the halfway point, so time to post reports!

消せます！

Disclaimer: These were all pilfered, ransacked, polished and ravished from my JP Twitter mutuals,,,, Who are all such kind souls,, Not only have they used their memory skills to seed Rie's words, but they even bothered to share the concert's happenings with the world wide web, AND they have urged me forward to keep on translating them... So I'll take the liberty to post them organized here... When you pass by any JP Rie fans on twitter, click hearts...💘 Shinoda’s name is shortened to SND, ygarshy’s to yg(a), and Yumao to Yu(ma) throughout...!

1 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/3/2019 at Takutaku in Kyoto! Report!

Yumao's tweet "Our tour starts today! I have cut my hair too short."

The first show, the first step….

SND looked back at both of the members to say “Let’s do our best guys.” Yg nodded back. Yuma started it up…

●SND played FAST guitar while singing, yg howled out harmonies on [a] chorus. Yu snickered at one of SND's slips.

SND used Leader’s jaguar on a [very very special song].

They did their best…

●SND “Its hoooot... We always came to Takutaku in the winter so now I’m experiencing Takutaku in it's true form.... Can I take a drink break, fwaaaaah, it's hot y'know? I'm even properly hydrated y'know? This water is gonna churn in my stomach, gehh I feel sick....”

SND: "RAISE THE AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!!!!!! I DON’T GIVE A DAMN IF ALL OF THE POWER IN KYOTO GOES OUT!!!!!! GIVE TAKUTAKU ALL THE ELECTRICITY!!!!!!!!!! LIKE IT'S OPERATION YASHIMA!!!! (*In reference to the wonderful Evangelion episode: https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Episode:06).

●Shinoda’s band introduction was “On bass ygarshy, on drums Yumao, and on guitar and vocals is I Shinoda. Music and lyrics brought to you by wowaka.”

●SND “Umm…We have merch…But the towels? T-shirts? They all sold out… No seriously I’m just…. We really did bring a hefty load of stock…Thank you all… Also what else sold out?” Crowd “The cap! Pens! DVD! Pouch!!” Shinoda “‘OK, whatever..... Thank you…’” ←That is exact verbatim, SND spoke in English. All that Netflix watching is showing.

●SND “By the way ygarshy, did you know they’ve stopped selling HimoQ?" yg: ....... >>>*BWOON*<<< *responds with only the sound of his bass* *HimoQ is an old school gummy candy by the brand Meiji, and-

--yg turned away with a smile that couldn’t be concealed. While behind them Yumao was playing his drums while just repeating “HimoQ.... HimoQ..... Why HimoQ...”

●Lastly there were also many reports on people being showered on by SND’s sweat. Stay hydrated please sensei

●Nishimaki Taichi their cameraman’s comment: I was drenched in the sweat of Takutaku’s splintering heat until just a minute ago, yet now that I’m almost back home, this whole day feels like it could’ve been a dream. Lol

This is the start of a fabulous new year.

●Shinoda’s comment My ears are still pulsing,,, Takutaku of Kyoto, thank you so much. I’m glad I was able to come and be a part of your 45th anniversary, I’m happy I was able to see everybody’s faces. The journey begins. We’ll be in Okayama tomorrow, hope to see you there.

●The setlists I won’t repeat, just to avoid spoilers for any possible goers!

2 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/4/2019 at CRAZYMAMA 2nd Room in Okayama! Report!

All members have interactions, I'm relieved..

●SND “Yesterday was so hot I thought I was going to puke, I’d only ever been to Takutaku in the winter not the summer… I came to Crazymama today shaking in fear but… Air conditioning is the BEST! The number one necessity for any venue is!!!! heavy-duty!!!! Air-conditioning!!!!!”

●As soon as SND started talking about yesterday, Yumao dashed up front in a rush to talk. He asked to borrow SND’s mic so he could join in on the MC,

The way they were standing next to each other got them called out for looking like a stand-up comedy duo.

●Yu “Yesterday I mouthed the words ‘Were concerts always this painful?’ to ygarsh 5 whole times and he didn’t understand me,” SND “Well of course not (laughing).” Afterwards when Yu did ask him, ygarsh responded with "They aren’t." Yu thought he was the only one dying, ah sweet relief~, he says.

●Yesterday did Yuma really get exhausted enough to collapse against the wall? Did SND slide atop speakers to then stick the landing, singing with his knees against the floor? It's out there...

●Yu and SND bickered with each other over who watches more Netflix. (They both praised the Netflix show The Naked Director etc. on Twitter recently also).

●SND “By the way ygarshy did you know that cicadas actually live longer than 1 week?”

ygarsh “BWOON♪”

(Cicada’s having only a life span of one week is a common myth in Japan. Also this interaction mimics yesterday, is SND subtly taunting yg in new ways the new staple for the Mannequin intro? Amen.)

●SND tweet: "Thank you Okayama, after doing 2 concerts in row, I see that I really am capable of singing. We'll be back,, until then,,"

●Katou Haruhisa, the founder of LUCK'A Inc. who’s produced Rie’s merch for so many tours, QRTed today's official backstage photo and strutted with pride: "They're all wearing great shirts lol #I made this"

3 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/12/2019 at the five morika in Iwate prefecture! Report!

Yumao's tweet "Tomorrow is Morioka. The next day is Sendai. I hope to see you there!"

●In a small box with but a platform as the stage and a metal bar between the rockstars and the crowd, what happens if a SND sizzles up and sits down on the bar, gets up and gets down on the floor? FAN SERVICE. LOTS OF FAN SERVICE, THAT'S WHAT. SND was poked by fans, clapped by fan, had his head pet by a fan…. Amazing..

●SND praised the drama "Methanol” he watched on Amazon Prime. ●SND blessed the cool air of Morioka and rebuked the weather up in Tokyo. "I've still been walking around in shorts and sandals." *Looks down and checks himself out* "I ate such a ridiculous amount of grilled meat yesterday, I'm worried about my figure" "We all ate a ridiculous amount"

●SND "By the way ygarshy did you know that honeybees' body temperature can go up to 50 degrees celsius?"

　yg "....*BWOOON*" (goes into bass intro)

(The series...It's certain.. last time it was SND's provocative tidbits about a snack discontinuing.. then long-living cicadas, now..this.)

4 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/13/2019 at Sendai darwin in Miyagi prefecture! Report!

●All the effects smoke made Yumao, in the back of the stage, look like a mirage... Yumao got up and called himself a mirage... Yumirage bamboozle... From there the crowd was riled up into cheering: “Yumao~ Yumao~ You’re so cute Yumao~”

Yuma kept posing and hugging his hands against his chest* “Thank you...” SND “You pretty boy...” Yuma “I'm snatched everybody... My wig is like snatched...” SND “Snatched, snatched... What are you a Twitter fangirl.” (*Yumao was using the fujoshi term "尊い".) ●During encore intermission the electric fan next to the stage picked up yga’s shirt and blew it up, exposing yga. Laughter was induced among the crowd, and SND, who missed the whole thing, was left all confused as to why everyone was laughing—. ●SND “By the way ygarshy, it’s Friday the 13th but, did you know that Jason doesn’t actually use a chainsaw?”

　yg “*BWOOOON*” ●Someone dived during the last song... As in, a fan started climbing up on other fans and rolling around up there. Staff handled it, and their love for Rie is blazing but... Etiquette and respect for the show space is the best way to enjoy the best show!! Please... SND’s tweet: “Sendai performance complete. Thank you, thank you, thank you”

5 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/25/2019 at Koube VARIT in Hyougo prefecture! Report!

Yumao's tweet "Today is Koube, tomorrow shall be Hiroshima. I hope to see you there!"

●SND MC speech "Did you guys have fun today? I think there's a lot of mixed emotions right now. If you didn't have fun, know that we're coming back here again. And then if you still don't have fun again, we're still coming back here again." ●Encore intermission! Crowd as they were walking back out "ygarshy! Yumao! Shinoda!" Yumao, pretending to be a person in the crowd in a scheme for instigation: “Yumao~~!” The crowd “Yumao….?” Yumao “Yumao…? Yumao!!!” Crowd “Yumaooo~~~!” SND “You sound like a Pokemon, crying your own name as if you’re a Pikachu.” Yumao “Yumao!" SND "Can neither of you (or yg) talk normal on mic."

Yumao *Goes and sits down at his drums* Crowd "Yumao~" *Plays a drum trick* “Yumao~~~” *Plays an even more flavorful trick* “Yumaoooo~~~” *EVEN MORE* “YUMAOOO~~~~”

SND “He’ll keep doing that if you keep it up, so keep pampering him.”

●SND “Backstage, they have redbull right, so before the show I couldn’t get over how delicious it was and I kept glugging, and so I was ready to burp throughout the whole first song. SND tweet after: I was in danger of deranging into the wet pants monster. ●Also Shinoda was hopping around playing guitar and he bumped into ygarsh at some point, of who seemed super annoyed—. ●SND “Remember last show, I mentioned Jason, I said there's actually no chainsaw? Well I watched the second movie and, he gets attacked by a chainsaw in that one!” yg *Makes a face as if questioning if that gag was his queue* SND *Nods* yg *>BWWOOON<* (Into the Mannequin intro)

●In the post concert photo Yumao seems to be drinking a Chocola BB, a vitamin B2 supplement to help with acne, mouth sores, and overall exhaustion....

●SND tweet: Koube concert: complete, thank you all. Playing at VARIT is, truly, fantastic,,, I’ll meet y’all in Hiroshima tomorrow. Until then,,,

6 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/26/2019 at Second Crutch in Hiroshima prefecture! Reports!

●SND “By the way ygarshy-kun, did you know that Mocomichi Hayami started a youtube channel!”

yga *>BWWOOON<*

(*Mocomichi, dubbed “The olive oil fairy“, is an actor who gained internet fame after his displays on the TV show ‘MOMO’S Kitchen’ where he would dump HUGE AMOUNTS of olive oil over his food, ignore the recipe requested of him, and then praise his cooking like crazy in the end. He was a riot! And he’s truly skilled at cooking! He's won Gourmand cookbook awards, he loves olive oil, he has his own kitchen brand, he was in the Kamen Rider 555 movie where he got killed by monsters halfway through, he loves olive oil- Anyway his channel is here.)

+ SND used wowaka’s red jaguar guitar in today and yesterday's concerts. Introduced (W)HERE with "As Hitorie we only make good songs, we only make God songs. And this is a good one even out of the good ones".

●Crowd “What did you guys eat for lunch!” SND “For lunch I ate soba.” Crowd “Booo! Eat okonomiyaki!” (*Hiroshima is famous for it) “Screw that assholes!!!” “Whyyyy just try it!!!”

THEN YG TALKED

SND “And ygarshy gave Yumao an egg sandwich.” yg “… ...Uhm..” Crowd “!?!?!? Woooahh!!!” yg “Shut up for a second.” Crowd *Still bustling, not listening* yg “Over something so silly…. why are you all excited….” yg “… So uhm I just wanted to say that…. Yumao likes eggs.”

Post show Yumao tweeted “I like eggs.”

●SND tweet “The Hiroshima show: done. A rare event occurred today huh. Y’all were lucky… in a way? That aside I had fun. Thank y’all. I’m off to have a drink.”

7 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/26/2019 at Sapporo SPiCE in Hokkaido prefecture! Reports!

Yumao's tweet "Today is Sapporo. I hope to see you there! Ahh the first magnitude stars".

●SND ”Hokkaido, you’re so full of spirit! It’s ‘cause RSR had to cancel the first day, isn’t it!? How many of y’all missed out on seeing Number Girl?” *Hands rising all over* SND “Muahaha!!!! Well I already got to see them!!! Poor you!!!” (*Rocking Sun Festival last month was canceled due to Typhoon 10 hitting Hokkaido).

●Shinoda rued and revered the heat. Said that Sapporo’s been the second sweatiest show after Kyoto. Crowd “Let’s make it the hottest!” SND “No! You can’t beat it. That was a traumatic experience, I thought I was gonna die. But we can still make the excitement levels the hottest!”

●Encore intermission and the usual outfit change: SND “Aren’t you hot in that?” Yumao “Yeah, this sweatshirt is way too big for me. Oh, because it’s Shinoda’s” It was too hot for SND so he made Yumao wear and promo the official merch. SND opened his mouth to make a comment when the crowd slipped in with “Yumao you’re cute wearing that~~ so cute~~!” cheers. SND “Shut up I’m talking!!” SND “….I’m sorry for yelling!” ‘Apologizes before things go downhill’ Crowd kept the spirit high by asking ygarsh if he wanted to eat pizza, yg nodded his head, then scooted towards the mic as if to say something- but turned back... He tricked everybody! Rie weren’t going to let him get away with that, they had to pick on him for revenge!

Crowd “Hello! [At yg]” SND “What?! You’re resorting to teaching him the basics of conversation?” (SND and Yu laughing out loud) SND “He’s not an AI y’know??” (Yuma has his hands on his stomach at this point). yg *Still not talking* SND “Ahh what are we gonna do with him” SND “yga~rshy~kun~, have some fun with me~~!”

　yg “*>>>BWOOOOON<<<*

●SND tweet: Sapporo concert: complete!! That was way too fucking hot!! Damn ridiculous! That’s what makes it so good. Thank you.

8 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 10/10/2019 at UMBER in Shizuoka prefecture! Reports!

Yumao's tweet "Today's Shizuoka!"

●A wild cockroach appeared before Yumao and SND backstage during the intermission.

It was a huge one, scurrying across the stage walls throughout the end of the show regardless of its own size.

●yg offered Yuma the rights to his front stage mic for Yuga and SND to be able to talk about it together, so he pulled at his mic in front of him…. Only for the cable to come spiraling out, yanked from the jack, off went the XLR connector, and all. yg's power move left him laughing hysterically. yga laughed!!!!! He laughed as he gave Yumao a powerless mic!!

●With the power move to piston off of, “Professor Yumao” was on the case to give a “lecture” with his cockroach wisdom! He told us about how the ones with the perfect figures come from the outside and live under trees, german cockroaches like to stay inside and come from the inside...

SND “Back when I used to live in a rundown apartment in Nagoya, there was 2 perfect cockroaches always waiting for me in front of my apartment”. Yu “Outside, right!!”

yga *Frozen up and now hiding against the wall*

●Prof. Yumao also gave another lecture about Shampoo from the anime Ranma 1/2, complete with “Ne!” imitations, SND piped in also until he realized something- and then got angry at Yuma because only few will know who he’s talking about....

SND “So tell me, what time is it?” Yu “Time to talk about things everybody will understand!” SND “No it’s encore time!” Yu " :O "

yg *Still hiding against the wall away from the nerds*

●SND “ygarshy! Ygarshy! Get a good look at this!” yg *Nods at him* SND *Proceeds to pose like the Dragon Ball Z Kamehameha* “Hah!” yga “>>>>*BWOOOOOOOOON*<<<”

●SND tweet: “Shizuoka show: complete, thank you so much. I had a lot of fun. We’ll be back. Nagoya will be tomorrow. Until next time,,,”

9 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 10/11/2019 at SPADE BOX in Aichi prefecture! Reports!

●Hasegawa-san, the drummer of SND’s past past band “Dr. Right” from around 2007 (See video of youngin SND and crew performing: https://nico.ms/sm11604475?ref=share_others_spweb…), he also payed a visit to the show!!!! And took pictures with SND! >See https://twitter.com/toshiya230/status/1182631585230704640

●First song SND immediately messed up the first note and the music halted, Yu and the crowd had to urge him onward-!

●SND “Hitorie is great. Hitorie’s songs are great. Only badass songs. Before I joined, Leader sent me demo versions and said “I want to do songs like this”… Electricity rushed through my veins, this is gonna be a revolution, am I really going to be a part of this?! I thought.”

●The stage at the venue is one that shook like crazy from everyone’s vigor, Rie seemed to enjoy the ride.

●SND “I left Nagoya, went up to Tokyo, and now I’m back in Nagoya, singing nonetheless... I’m not embarrassed carrying the mic to sing non-guitar songs anymore."

●SND "After 9 shows doin’ this, it's really hit me. Hitorie really make great songs! But even among all of them this one is peachy… Wait no one says that? This one’s at the tippy-top. ….Wait no one says these words in Tokyo, nor Nagoya?? Ah whatever let’s go” (The original words were ドンズバ and ダントツ, both old niche words).

●Encore intermission, Yumao came out in front of the mic then… Clenched his fist up into the air and stood stout! SND “You’re not gonna talk, now, what are you doing?” Yu “Freddie Mercury, is in the house!!”

“This move isn’t in Bohemian Rhapsody, b/c once the scene starts he’s already on the piano but, before the show Freddie does the *poses again*!!! SND “So that’s what you were doing? Even though you play drums? Drums aren’t a piano?” Yu *👌* SND “They are a little bit similar huh hahaha”

●Rie wished everyone safe travels home through Typhoon 19! They even cut the MC short to ensure swift departure- SND “I bet y’all would go off tweeting “Their chitchat was so long I couldn’t get home! Fuck them!” Well we’re fortunate, one day later and it would've been cancelled.."

●Then, the usual Thing.... SND “ygarshy, ygarshy! A fly seems to have sorta, landed on your bass over there!” yg *>BWWON*< (Interrupting SND’s sentence with a rushed note).

●SND tweet "Nagoya concert: complete. SPADEBOX shakes like crazy, it's such fun. Thank you so much. Make it home safe y'all. And let's meet again. Until next time."

🍕~~END~~🍕

((((((Shinoda, constantly: "I have a phobia of bugs" Also Shinoda, constantly: *His ways to provoke ygarsh involved cicadas, bees, cockroaches and flies.* + *Advises people dealing with heartbreak to go watch videos of giant hornets VS Japanese honeybees.* + *Draws super detailed cicadas in his manga Chikyuu Monogatari.*

Shinoda you maso.)))))

Ahhhh also! If you're a member Hitori-Atelier!-- (Which you should be!!! Because not only are Hitorie snazzy and there's the upcoming message campaign, but ALSO because Rie is always seeking more vigor which I KNOW YOU GUYS HAVE, I've seen your liberal usage of the almighty exclamation marks and emojis. You can't hide it, so show 'em some more of your energy!!!!!🙌🙌🙌)

--Shinoda has been periodically blogging about backstage tidbits and I've been translating those for fun so, plop: https://privatter.net/u/boat_manju

#ヒトリエ #long post

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let-it-raines · 6 years

Text

Second in Command (Ch. 17)

Summary: Life as the "spare to the heir" isn't all that it's cracked up to be when you're the supposed screw-up of the family, but people don't know what really happens behind closed doors.

Rating: Mature

A/N: Anybody like St. Patrick’s Day in November?

On a side note, if you’ve sent me a prompt today, I’ve gotten it! And as soon as I write it, I’ll post for your reading pleasure :D

Entire story available on AO3 | HERE |

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @kmomof4 @wellhellotragic @profdanglaisstuff @ekr032-blog-blog @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @a-faekindagirl @mayquita @captainsjedi @captswanis4vr @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @alys07

Emma has allergies. She has allergies, and every year as winter blossoms into spring, flowers blooming into a myriad of vibrant shades and grass becoming green again making things seem a little less dreary, she spends day after day sneezing with her eyes slightly swollen and her nose flushed as red as a rose. She texted him last night to let him know that if he comes over today to bring her medicine and tissues so that she can be a human being when he sees her. Apparently her parents haven’t had the chance to run around the corner to the pharmacy, or she’s been too stubborn to let them know that she’s suffering. He would bet on the latter. So not wanting to anger the red-nosed beast, he shuffles through his medicine cabinet and pulls a box of tissues out of his storage closet before climbing into his car and driving to the pub in the early afternoon.

It’s about an hour before opening, and when he slips in the door to the pub they’ve left unlocked for him today, he finds David and Mary Margaret setting down chairs off of the tables. He goes to help them, flipping chairs as he asks them how their week has gone and if they’ve been enjoying the nicer temperatures outside now that it’s March unlike their twenty-five year old daughter upstairs who seems to not be able to function. They both laugh at that before telling him good luck before he heads upstairs to greet Emma, who’s sitting on the couch watching the television, her skin pale with the expected prominent red nose.

“Hello, Rudolph.”

“I will hurt you,” she threatens, her voice congested and hoarse, and he’s not entirely sure that she’s only been afflicted with allergies and not a cold. She’s never been the best at handling sickness, always leaning toward the dramatics more when her head isn’t totally clear and her body aches at the feeling of being dragged around without its full capabilities. It’s one of the few times when she’s not the invincible Emma Nolan and instead a regular person with a beating heart.

She’s vulnerable, and he’s thrilled he’s been able to see that vulnerability over the past five years of knowing her. It makes his heart swell, blood pumping through him and heating his body in happiness while Emma threatens him for joking with her.

He laughs, possibly speeding up his own demise with the sound, before leaning down to kiss her temple. “I love you, even if you’re not in the mood for any reindeer games.”

“We’re breaking up if you make one more reindeer joke.”

“Aren’t you a scrooge?”

She grumbles something under her breath, but he doesn’t bother listening to it because he’s sure it’s something very unpleasant about his Christmas jokes, instead handing her the medicine and tissues before going to fix her a mug of hot chocolate, only joining her in the living room when he has a steaming mug of the chocolate with cinnamon and whipped cream, draping a blanket over her on the couch while he settles in the recliner he bought David for Christmas a few month prior.

Emma’s apparently been binging the Great British Bake-Off, and he somehow gets sucked into it as well, watching these poor people stress over their creations and do things such as forget to turn the oven on or undercooking their bread. It’s all fun and games until the next episode comes on, and it’s themed around his family, all of the hosts wearing costume crowns as they introduce the episode and tell the remaining contestants that they have to bake a cake fit for a royal wedding and tailor it to the family member of their choice.

He groans in frustration at how ridiculous that is as Emma snorts, quickly looking over at him before burying her face under her second mug of hot chocolate. More people choose him than anyone else as he’s the most prominent unmarried family member, and while some of the cakes look damn good, he’s a bit uncomfortable with the fact that these bakers are making cakes for his fake wedding, several of them commenting on how they hope he finds love soon as he’s been quiet on the romance front for quite some time now and it’s upsetting that such a “handsome and bright young man cannot find love with a nice, proper girl.”

“I know they shot this months ago, but if I call the show and tell them I’ve solved your ‘loveless’ situation, do you think they’ll let me eat some of those cakes?”

“Hell, I could make one instead of you blowing our cover, Nolan.”

Her eyes light up at that, a true smile forming on her dull pink lips and brightening her skin with the glow of it. “Would you really?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got to do something to get you to take me back after you broke up with me for my reindeer jokes.”

“You bake me a cake, and I’ll take you back with open arms, babe.”

It turns out that the Nolans haven’t gone to buy their groceries for the week, and all that they have that even resembles a cake or the ingredients to bake a cake is a package of snack cakes that he knows for a fact Emma and Mary Margaret hate while David loves. He’d give anything to just be able to go to the grocery and do their shopping for them to help them out and to make Emma’s day better, but he can’t do that. Once he’s in the apartment, he can’t really go anywhere except for the pub, and even then, it has to be incredibly discreet and only when it’s pretty much empty down there and the lights are dimmed.

He sighs before walking the few feet to the couch and plopping down next to Emma and resting his head on her shoulder, screw her possible cold. “You’re out of luck, love. You guys don’t even have eggs.”

“It’s fine. I’m just going to pretend I’m eating the food they cook on the show. It’s not like I can taste anything anyways.”

He chuckles before wrapping his arm around the back of the couch and her shoulder, kissing her temple again while she continues to watch the frantic bakers as he responds to emails and texts about the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations for tomorrow. It’s his mother’s last year of handing out the Shamrocks to the Irish Guard, and the entire family is set to join her and speak with some of the Guard before enjoying a Guinness with all of them at the base. This year he’s being appointed with the honorary rank of Colonel of the Irish guards. He’d never done military service like Liam had after University, instead choosing to serve his family and his country through working with patronages and charities at home instead. He’d thought about it, really and truly had as he knew how great it is to honor and serve one’s country, but something was holding him back. He just didn’t know what at the time.

“What are you doing?” Emma inquires as she takes his phone out of his hand to look at what he’s reading over before handing it back to him after skimming through the words. “Is this your thing for tomorrow?”

“Yes, it’s my thing. I’m sorry I can’t be here with you tomorrow, my little miserable love.”

She turns to face him, her nose still so red, but some of the color is returning to her face. “Babe,” she reassures, “it’s fine. This is your job, and just like mine, sometimes it keeps us working crazy different hours, but we’ve figured out how to deal with it. Plus, aren’t you supposed to get to wear that fancy new uniform? The one that makes you look like you’re out of a Disney movie?”

He groans, throwing his head back because as honored as he is by this distinction, tomorrow, he’s not the most fond of the red jacket and blue sash with all of the gold tapestry. Plus, there’s a hat and gloves, and he feels a bit like he should be arriving in a horse-drawn carriage instead of a car…not that he hasn’t done the horse-drawn carriage thing before.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Do you have a picture of you in it?”

He does, and even if he told her no, she’d request one tomorrow. So he slides through his pictures until he finds the one his mother had taken when he’d been getting it fitted at the Palace.

“Oh, Killian,” she sighs, looking at the photo before looking back at him, her hand tracing against his jawline, “I know I poked fun, but you look so handsome like this.”

Maybe the uniform isn’t too bad if Emma likes him in it.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m going to have to watch the news coverage of tomorrow just to get to see you in this since I won’t see it in person.”

“Maybe one day, love.”

The next day as he gets dressed, making sure that all of the strappings of his uniform are in the right place, he takes a picture of himself with his best smolder on his face and sends it to Emma. He can’t keep his phone with him during the event, and he’s going to be in the car with his mum so he doesn’t need to be texting Emma while his mother can see his face or possibly read his texts in such close quarters.

“Do you know who’s going to take over for you next year, Mum?”

“Not yet, darling,” she admits, softly smiling at him as she straightens her skirt. “I’d thought maybe Abigail, but I’m not sure. A part of me wants to keep doing it. I’ve always loved it, but I don’t think I’m the right person to be doing this particular one after so many years. I’m sure they want to meet someone new.”

“I’m sure you’ll find the right person, Mum.”

It’s warmer than they expected today, the spring sun feeling more like summer than something that’s melting away the last vestiges of fallen snow on tree tops and rural streets. His entire family is dressed in their military uniforms while his mother and Abigail wear winter green dress coats with tights to keep themselves warm despite the surprisingly warm weather. It’s always quite difficult to predict the weather for St. Patrick’s Day, even when they check it the morning of to make sure pre-planned outfits are suitable.

He’s stuck standing between his father and Liam while his mother hands out the sprigs of Shamrock, and while they make polite conversation with each other and the people around them, it’s all a bit stilted. He’s ready to go home the longer he stands there, but he knows that this day isn’t about him. It’s about honoring his mother and all of the members of the Irish Guard as they celebrate this festive day, his awkwardness with his family being pushed behind him for the sake of others.

Hours later when all of the shamrocks have been handed out and the pints of Guinness have been consumed, he’s back in his apartment, the lights dull as he’s reminded of the absolute stillness of his home, nothing out of place because if he doesn’t clean up after himself, a member of the staff will while he’s gone. His phone vibrates in his pocket to let him know an email came in, but he also sees several messages from Emma that she’s sent throughout the day.

Emma: Hot damn. My boyfriend is a smoking Prince Charming…or Prince Devilishly Handsome, which is much better than the Disney movies.

Emma: But seriously, you look just as handsome as I thought you would.

Emma: I know you don’t have your phone with you because you’re currently on my television, but I wanted to let you know that your medicine and doctoring yesterday has cured most of my ills and I’m more Frosty the Snow Man than Rudolph.

Emma: I think it’s three months too late to be making so many Christmas references.

Emma: Who am I kidding? It’s never too late.

Emma: Oh, also, Happy St. Patrick’s Day, babe. Love you to pieces.

Attached to the last text is a picture of her with a sparkly green headband on, two four-leaf clovers springing off the top of her head as she smiles at him. She’s got on a t-shirt that says “pinch me and I’ll punch you” and he loves her more than anything in the world, even if there’s still that slight redness at the tip of her nose. Maybe because of it.

Killian: Hey, darling. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier, and I know you’re working now but I just wanted to let you know I missed you today and am glad you’re feeling better. I’ve been told that I have incredible…touch…so it’s not surprising I’ve cured your ills.

Killian: Also, I think pinching you might be worth the resulting punch. Love you, too.

“Okay,” Emma mumbles, pining her hat to her head before adjusting her curls underneath so that they fall in waves across the dark green coat gracing her shoulders and falling just above her knees, “so all I’m doing is handing out sprigs of Shamrock and chatting a bit, right? Nothing I can really screw up.”

He knows she’s more talking to herself than she’s talking to him. They’ve gone over this several times with their aides and public relation specialists, and Emma could probably recite the day in extreme detail for all of the times she’s read through her preparation packet, like she does every time she attends an event with him.

“Right.” He fixes a stray hair caught in her collar before running his thumb over the apple of her cheek, lingering there a bit longer than usual just so she knows he’s here. “I’m going to by right by you the entire time, so if you somehow don’t know what to say or do, just follow my lead, yeah?”

She nods her head before her lips slightly tick up on the sides, and he knows she’d pull her lip between her teeth if it wouldn’t mess with her lipstick.

“You’re going to do great, darling. I know it, and obviously mum and dad know it for entrusting you with this task. Plus, we’re going to your parents’ pub to drink a Guinness with some of the Guard after. How great is that for you and me to get to go back to our beginnings?”

She finally fully smiles, even if it’s just a soft little thing, but the green of her outfit brings out the green in her eyes so that she looks to be absolutely glowing even in her timid state, especially as the light from the window makes her golden hair almost glow white.

“It’s pretty great.”

The two of them head to the car where they’re driven to the Irish base in West London with their aides and their security detail going over last minute details. These are all things that he knows, but he listens and asks the questions he can tell Emma is hesitant to ask so that there’s nothing she’s unsure of, especially since he knows they’re greeting crowds outside of the base before going in and handing out the shamrock and watching the parade put on by the Guard.

His mother had given up her position at this particular engagement the year before when he’d been granted his honorary position as Colonel of the Irish Guard, and while she hadn’t known who was going to be her replacement at the time, she’d almost immediately given Emma to honor after the two of them became engaged.

“I’m kind of sad you’re not wearing the uniform you wore to this last year,” Emma sighs as they get a bit closer to the base. “I’d like to see that in person.”

“Well, my darling, this is only because that’s what I’m wearing on our wedding day, as per your request when we were going through the options. Can’t have everyone seeing me in my wedding outfit while yours is such a big secret.”

She nudges his shoulder even as she shakes her head at his cheekiness. “You’re still not seeing the dress, my man.”

He and Emma go along to greet the crowds, making sure to stop to talk to those who are particularly enthusiastic or have brought a sign for the two of them, along with special greetings for the children and elderly. He sees Emma squatting down talking to a young child with blonde hair similar to Emma, and he’s just about to go join when he hears his name.

“Prince Killian, your lady is so beautiful.”

He smiles before going over to the older woman who’s talking to him from her position in her wheelchair, stopping and shaking her hand as a wind chill gusts through the crowd.

“Thank you, ma’am. What’s your name?”

“Susan Thomason, your Highness.”

“Tell you what, Susan,” he winks, “you can just call me Killian, and it’ll be our little secret since you’ve been so kind about Emma.”

Susan blushes as he still holds her hand, and he swears she might flutter her eyelashes. It’s endearing, and this is one of his favorite things about being who he is.

“We’ve all just waited so long for you to be happy, and I can just see it all over your face now. A man can’t hide when he’s in love.”

Well, he did for a long while, but it’s always nice to get to show his true feelings after so many years of hiding them.

“Well, I’ve been happy for a long time, but thank you, Susan. I hope you have a wonderful holiday.”

He squeezes her hand before moving on to greet other people, having to wave and not shake hands in order to catch up with Emma who seems to be in a lively conversation across the street with a group of young men. He comes up behind her and wraps his arm around her waist to pull her closer to him to help keep the chill away from her as she’s only in the wool coat dress and tights.

She turns to him and smiles when his hand rests on her side, his thumb running up and down to feel the dip of her waist above her hip while she fills him in on what they’ve been talking about to cause such jubilation.

“So these wonderful men have been letting me know that they were part of an Emma Nolan look-a-like party at Halloween last year,” she looks over to him with this brilliant smile on her face while very obviously trying to hold in her laughter.

“Do you all have pictures?” he questions because oh boy does he want to see this.

One of the young men slaps another before saying, “I told you they’d be cool about this. They’re the cool royals.”

Emma’s cheeks flush, and there’s no way for her to hide it. He’s had some hysterical conversations before, but this one is a personal favorite now. The men show them a series of pictures from Halloween, and nearly every one of them is in a blonde wig with skinny jeans and some type of plaid shirt or sweater like Emma was favoring during the fall of last year when she could still dress exactly how she pleased. None of them look anything like her, but Emma cannot contain her laughter anymore at the entire ordeal now that she’s seen proof of their story.

“Can I take a picture with them?” she turns to ask him. They’re not technically supposed to take selfies, but Killian has done it in the past when the time calls for it. What the hell? One time won’t hurt, especially because these will probably be the last people they talk to before they have to go inside the base.

“Of course, darling. Do you guys want me to use this phone?”

They all nod their heads before arranging for the picture, Emma leaning against the barrier with all of the guys surrounding her and smiling as Killian takes a few shots of the five of them before handing the phone back and guiding Emma away to where their security is waiting for them.

“None of them look like me, right?”

“Not in the slightest.”

The wind seems to pick up when they walk into the gates of the base, and he really hopes that it calms down because if he’s chilled, he cannot imagine how Emma is suffering at the impact. They’ve got to hand out sprigs to over three hundred Guards as well as having a bit of a chat with all of them thanking them for their service and wishing them a happy St. Patrick’s Day. Emma does swimmingly, as he knew that she would, and between the two of them it only takes an hour until they’re finished and sitting in a covered partition to watch the Guards march in their parade, the mascot of the Guard, an Irish Wolfhound leading the pack.

He notices Emma shivering, and wraps his arm around her shoulder to pull her closer into his side after placing a kiss on her forehead.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I just wasn’t expecting it to be this cold. I can’t remember the last time it was this bad in mid-March. Usually I’m holed up right now with some kind of cold, so I’m thinking that’s coming after today if we stay out here much longer.”

“Just a few more minutes, and we’ll be back in the car, okay?”

He was wrong in thinking they’d only be out there for little while longer because it’s another two hours before they’re walking into the familiar walls of the pub and its heating system, Emma practically sighing in relief before immediately moving to hug her parents as he does the same, holding on a little bit tighter at being back in this place for the first time in over half of a year.

It doesn’t seem to have changed except for the obvious security cameras in the corners and an upgraded flat screen on the wall, and he’s glad to see that it’s still so familiar. Just being here brings back so many memories, and when this is all over he and Emma are going upstairs to have dinner with David and Mary Margaret like his life is a little more normal.

The Guard members begin to shuffle into the pub, all of them stopping to greet Killian and Emma even if they’ve already spoken with them, and while he’s used to greeting people, it’s odd greeting them while inside of this building where he was no one but a patron. It’s also odd that he’s in here without a cap in the middle of the day with all of the lights turned on.

The two of them are really only supposed to drink a pint and pose for some photos, but that plan is pretty much nixed the moment Will and the Nolans get behind on serving the pints. Emma immediately gets up and goes behind the bar to help out, handing out glasses and chatting with everyone while still in her dress and heels from earlier.

“Your Highness,” their new joint assistant Isabelle whispers into his ear, “Ms. Nolan really shouldn’t be seen serving beer.”

“Why not?”

“It may be seen as her cheapening the monarchy.”

“No offense, Isabelle, but that’s a load of bullocks. She’s happy and in her element, and if you want my opinion…it’s that I don’t care about the opinions of others.”

Isabelle nods before backing away and going to stand in the corner with the photographers while Emma continues to stand behind the bar serving. She is indeed in her element, smiling and laughing as she talks to the service men and women, and he’d like to join in, walking around the side of the bar and going to stand behind the counter with Emma.

“Your Highness, I’d never thought I’d see the day where you’re serving me beer.”

He peers over to see the man’s full name on his uniform. “Well, Ross, I can only say that I never thought Emma here would allow me behind the bar.”

Ross raises his eyebrow at the two of them, and Emma laughs beside him. “I couldn’t have him knocking over all of the alcohol. You see,” she leans over the counter to get a bit closer to Ross and stage whispers, “I make him a little nervous, and he could be a liability with all of that flustering while he was trying to flirt with me.”

Ross as well as some of the other men and women at the bar laugh at Emma teasing him, and she just wraps her arm around his back and rubs circles there while he laughs along at the truth behind her statement. She’s always made him a bumbling fool.

“Funny and beautiful. No wonder you got swept off your feet by a prince.”

“Oh, Ross,” Emma chuckles, “I was the one doing the sweeping.”

The entire event ends up lasting for two hours, and by the end of it this has to be the most genuine, simple fun he’s ever had at an engagement as he and Emma sit in their booth at the back of the pub and talk to all of the guards and members of their families before everyone is shuffled out of the pub and all he has to do for the rest of the day is approve the media coverage he wants released from his official accounts before going to eat dinner with the Nolans.

“So that was insane,” David sighs as he sits down in the living room while Mary Margaret puts the lasagna they’re eating for dinner in the oven. “Did any of you bother to look outside? Because the streets were packed.”

“No, I didn’t look outside. I was too busy picking up your slack, Dave.”

Killian settles down onto the couch, Emma sitting at the opposite end and settling her feet in his lap with her heels still on. She did so well today. She is really a natural at this, but he knows that all of the attention is hard on her. It’s culture shock, and she’s being fully submerged in a short time. She wiggles her feet in his lap, and when he looks over at her, she smiles before nodding at her feet, silently asking for him to rub her feet through her tights.

“I was not slacking,” David protests and oh has Killian missed being in this apartment and teasing David even if he knows that he should be nothing but cordial to the man. “I was simply overwhelmed by my daughter’s Grinch costume.”

“Hey,” Emma whines, pulling a pillow out from underneath her to toss at her dad. “I think this looks nice. I’m not quite used to the hat thing all the time, but I think this was a nice outfit. I’m festive.”

“You looked beautiful, love.”

“See,” she looks at her dad before pointing at him, “that’s how you’re supposed to treat me, Dad.”

“Killian is marrying you. He’s going to be much kinder than I am.”

“I am your daughter. I feel like you should also be nice.”

David shrugs, Emma rolls her eyes at her dad, and this entire thing is perfect.

The four of them sit down to dinner a little over an hour later, formal clothes long since discarded as he and Emma get to eat for the first time since that morning. Emma speaks to her parents every day, but he doesn’t so it’s nice to be able to catch up with them and how they’re doing. They’re still looking for a new home, and his face goes red when they say they’re trying to find a place fit for watching grandchildren. It’s a casual comment and good reasoning for their search in a home, but Mary Margaret gives Emma a very pointed look. She might as well tap her watch and tell the two of them that she’s waiting.

The pub is still open for the rest of the evening, St. Patrick’s Day too big of a day for them to close down, so David and Mary Margaret do eventually have to go downstairs to help Will, leaving he and Emma to be guided out by their body guards and walked to the car until they’re safely on their way home.

“You did fantastic today, you know that?”

Emma reaches over to tap his knee, running her thumb against the material of his slacks. “Thank you. I liked today. It was fun. Tiring but fun. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to all of this, though.”

“Most likely not, but it gets easier the more you do it, love.” He leans over to whisper in her ear so that everyone else in the car cannot hear. “You want to go get luckywhen we get home?”

She snickers at his come on, and harshly pinches his thigh, causing him to flinch back from her ear.

“Bloody hell. What was that for?”

“You’re not wearing green.”

The next Saturday is the Kidding A Goal opening, and this is the most nervous he’s been about an event in a long time. He knows it’s because this is his own personal charity instead of it being a patronage he supports, and he simply wants things to go right. He wants everything to run smoothly, the kids to have a good time, and he mostly wants it to be successful in the long run and to make some kind of difference for these kids.

“You’re pacing, babe.”

“I’m not pacing.”

“Okay,” Emma exaggerates, bending down to tie her sneakers, “then you’re walking back and forth over the same section of hardwood flooring. I think that’s called pacing, but sure. Whatever you say.”

His shoulders sag forward because she’s right. She’s always damn right, reading him even when he’s only giving the most subtle of signs to his true feelings. Of course, he most definitely is pacing, so it’s not like this is a subtle sign. Even people who don’t know him could tell that he’s nervous.

Emma stands after tying her shoes, and the both of them are in athletic clothes instead of dressing up so she looks much smaller than she usually is when they go out and she’s stuck in heels. The thought sobers him just a bit, reminding him that today isn’t like most of his other days. Of course there’s pressure from all sides, but it’s about everyone having fun. He’s going to be playing with the children more than anything else, and he can do that without a problem.

“I’m a little nervous,” he admits, tugging Emma into his side and kissing her temple. “I just want things to go well.”

She stands on her toes to press her lips against his jaw, nosing at him so that he looks down at her. “This is years in the making, Killian, and it’s a brilliant idea. The only thing that’s possibly going to go wrong is that I’m going to kick your ass today when we play the games.”

“In you dreams, Nolan.”

By the time the two of them get there, all of the kids and families are already inside, sitting in chairs in the auditorium of the facility as the concert they arranged for the children begins to wind down, the music dying until he walks out on the makeshift stage filled with all kinds of banners with their logo. He’s got to read a speech off the teleprompter, going on and on about the power of sport and teamwork, especially at young ages, before he smiles and yells, “let the games begin.”

For awhile he simply makes the rounds with all of the coaches, administrators, and wonderful people who have made his vision a reality, thanking them for their hard work and dedication not just for making today possible but for all of the days in the future. Emma does the same even if she’s never met most of them like he has, and after they’re through with their official duties, they can move on to talking to the children who are taking part today.

There’s a group of kids doing some sort of relay, running around cones and then hula hooping before having to pass the baton off to their teammate to continue the course. He doesn’t want to do it, but Emma’s got this glint in her eyes that basically says “game on.” She wasn’t kidding earlier when she told him she was going to outdo him today for the sake of competitiveness.

He and Emma get in line so that they’re paired up with each other before the next section of children start the race. When they’re told to go, he and Emma both take off, but he’s the slightest bit faster than her, always has been when not running on the beach, so as he jumps through the tires and runs around the cones, Emma lags just enough behind so that he can hand his baton off before she does. It’s not about winning, but he’s most definitely going to tease Emma about this later just because he can.

After the relay they go about talking to all of the kids on their teams, and after he finds himself finished with his team, Emma is still talking. One thing he’s noticed as they do engagements, despite her hesitancy toward a public persona, is that she is incredibly comfortable talking to people, particularly those who are not public officials or diplomats. So it’s really no surprise to him that she’s talking to a little girl as he walks over to join her.

“Do you play sports, Emma?”

“I run, and I play tennis sometimes but I think you’re already much better than I am when it comes to running obstacle courses.”

“Yeah, I am pretty good, aren’t I?”

He and Emma both try to contain their laughter, but Emma fails, her giggles passing through her lips even as she covers her mouth because this little girl is confident. He likes it.

“You know, Laura,” he begins, squatting down next to Emma, placing his hand against her back as she holds Laura’s hand, “my family plays a football match every Christmas, and Emma was on the wining team this year.”

She doesn’t seem to be too interested in what he has to say, but she appeases him anyways. “What about you?”

“Oh, I lost,” he chuckles, and Emma looks back at him and smiles, “but I tried my best and had a fun time. That’s what I want you to do today, okay? Try your best and have a good time.”

After all of the children have had time to take part in the opening day activities, more fun and games than actual sport just for today as the real coaching and practicing will start to take place on Monday, he and Emma are set to play a few strokes of tennis against each other. He’d foolishly let Emma pick the sport they were going to play when Isabelle encouraged the two of them to do a bit of an official exhibition of some sort, and she’d picked the one thing where she excelled and he floundered.

He would have expected nothing less.

It’s much warmer today than it was at the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations last week, and as they’re led to the courts outside, he wants to take his pullover off but he can’t as it has the charity’s logo and the video of this match will be used as promotion. Emma doesn’t seem to be affected by the heat at all, though, breezily chatting with one of their coaches and swinging her racket around as they walk.

They have it set up as an entire event, temporary stands constructed around the court so that as many kids as possible can watch them play. He and Emma are equipped with headsets with microphones, as Emma very kindly reminds him to watch his language for when he inevitably gets a little frustrated. Yeah, they’re trying to teach the children all about the power of sport and having a good time while trying your best, but that doesn’t mean he’s not competitive, especially when competing against a woman like Emma.

“Heads or tails,” their umpire says after the two of them stand at the net for pictures like they do in real matches.

“Heads,” Emma answers for him as she hops on her feet to warm herself up, and he already knows she’s going to be cheeky during this entire thing.

The coin lands on heads, and Emma elects to serve before taking two fingers and pointing at her eyes before pointing at him. “Don’t think I’m taking my eyes off of you for a second.”

“I would despair if you did.”

Killian insisted that this entire day is casual, so much so that no one refer to him as Prince or His Royal Highness once everything has begun. He’s simply Killian, while Emma is Emma, not going by the formality of Ms. Nolan as she’s gotten used to in the past month or so. This has kind of backfired a bit, however, because Emma seems to be much more fun for the children to chant as he and Emma rally, the yellow ball gently being passed back and forth on the blue court. Every time she gets a point on him, especially if it’s a winner, all of the kids break out into cheers that have Emma absolutely beaming across the net.

“You hear that, babe,” she teases through her microphone, probably not even realizing that she called him by her endearment for him in front of all of the people watching here and on the live stream, “I think all of your charms have gone away because it seems that I’ve got an absolutely fantastic cheering section.”

She gently hits the ball at him then, setting it up to his forehand and leaving a section of the court wide open so that he has no choice but to hit a winner, and he does, the yellow ball of fuzz passing Emma so that she doesn’t even attempt to get her racket on it. The crowd cheers, chanting for him a bit as they probably haven’t realized Emma totally let him have that, and then he hears Emma’s voice over the microphone leading the chant. When he looks over to her, she’s absolutely radiating happiness, and when he over exaggerates a fist pump, she throws her head back in laughter while all of the children do the same.

After their “match” they do a friendly handshake at the net, and when Emma pulls him in for a hug, kissing his slightly sweaty cheek, he hugs her a bit tighter before joking that she’s a regular Andy Murray.

The event winds down after that, the children tiring after eating the snacks they’ve provided, and he and Emma have to do their mini closing ceremony, giving a speech telling everyone that they hope that they had a great day and sign up forms for each individual sport or activity are at the booths in the back of the auditorium or online on their newly launched website.

When they get home, he practically collapses on the bed, not necessarily tired but relieved that the entire thing is over and that it went better than he could have ever dreamed. He just hopes that the actual organization runs that smoothly.

“That was fantastic,” Emma compliments before joining him on the bed, her head flopping down next to his as she accidentally knees his stomach, and she’s really beating up on him today, isn’t she?

“Yeah?”

The mattress squeaks the slightest bit as she turns her body to face him, soft smile on her face that makes all of his insecurities about that day fade away for at least the moment. “Absolutely. Everything about it was perfect, and some of those kids’ lives are going to change because of you. You know that?”

He does. He finally feels like he’s making an actual difference, even if it may just be a small one. “I do. Thank you for being so great today.”

Emma reaches up to caress his face, her fingers running through his hair and pushing it back so that it doesn’t fall to his forehead anymore. God, he could fall asleep with her playing with his hair, and he almost does until Emma speaks.

“You’re going to be the best dad when the time comes. You know that, right?”

His eyelids flutter open to find her still hovering above him, hands running through his hair in a soothing motion.

“You’re sweet, love. What’s brought this on?”

“Just watching you with all of those kids today. I know as much as we talk about it and then don’t talk about it, as much as you want them, you’ve always been nervous that you couldn’t be a good dad because of your relationship with your family and the lifestyle you’d be bringing kids into, but Killian, none of that matters with how wonderful you just instinctively are.”

He reaches his hand out to cup the back of Emma’s head, threading his hands through her hair before bringing her down to intermingle their lips in a soft, slow kiss that has no purpose other than to show his affection for her.

“You’ve changed my whole world, Emma.”

#second in command #captain swan #cs ff #cs fic #captain swan fic

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caranfindel · 5 years

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Recap/review 14.08: “Byzantium”

THEN: Beardy Sam! Lily Sunder! Oh, I had such high hopes for Sam using Lily's dark angel magic... could this be happening? (Spoiler alert: nope!) Jack's total systemic failure!

NOW: TFW is gathered at Jack's bedside. Sam's the one sitting next to him, but Dean is the one who's the most upset. OF COURSE. Jack thinks maybe this is just how it's meant to be, which of course Dean disagrees with, because this "isn't part of some damn plan." And of course, even if it was part of some damn plan, it's not like Dean follows anyone's damn plans. {Sidebar: It reminds me that, when Kelly was pregnant, Cas received some kind of vision about unborn Jack saving the world. Was that supposed to be a prophecy? Or just a possibility?}

Jack's still coughing, and actually using an oxygen mask, but there's no blood and he can breathe enough to speak easily, so he doesn't seem to be at death's door just yet. Dean stomps out into the hall to hit things, and Jack asks Sam to tell him he's okay. But clearly Jack isn't, like, 2 minutes from dying, so Sam says Dean will be back in a minute and Jack can tell him himself.

Jack asks what will happen after he dies, and Sam sadly says he doesn't know. "Then it's going to be an adventure," Jack says, and he lies back and coughs a little bit more.

Cas comes out into the hall to comfort Dean, or confront him, I don't know. Dean says it's not fair and Cas is all, yeah, duh, but he needs you (ah, confront him it is), so stop making this about yourself. Even though the previous episode obviously did give you the idea that it is, in fact, all about you.

Dean comes back into Jack's room, 66 seconds after he left it, to find him lying quietly with his eyes closed. "He's gone," Sam says. Wait. What? Like that? No more coughing blood, no rattling last breaths, no slip into unconsciousness? Just boom, Jack's gone before the title card like a random victim of the week? That's cold, guys. It's a good thing Sam didn't follow Dean out into the hall, or he would have died alone. As it is, Sam was the first person he saw when he was born and the last person he saw when he died (I'm not crying, you're crying). Everybody is sad (oh god, you guys, Sam's face), but Dean is the saddest, at least as far as we can tell, because he's the one who gets the sad, sad closeup.

Well, that escalated quickly!

Title card!

TFW stands sadly in the hall (Sam's all hunched over, poor baby) and discusses what to do next. "Wake and a bonfire," Dean says, because that's what Jack would have wanted, and because that's what they'd do even if he didn't want it. {Sidebar: Has anyone noticed these signs that have appeared in the bunker? I never saw them before. Do the new roomies need directions, or rules posted on the wall, or something?} Sam quickly peels off without saying a word. Cas tries to go after him, but Dean stops him, saying Sam needs his space.

That’s the sound of my heart breaking.

Dean calls Mary to tell her Jack died. I don't know that I would have done that. I would have asked her to call me so I could tell her in person, considering that they were close. And apparently she didn't even know Jack was sick. Seriously, boys, you don't communicate well at all. While Dean makes his uncomfortable phone call, we see Sam leave the bunker with a bag slung over his shoulder. Cas watches him but doesn't say anything. Dean shows up, literally a second or two later, and asks him if he's seen Sam.

Cut to Cas driving, with Dean in the passenger seat. It's not his tiny blue car from the last episode, it's something much bigger. Dean is berating him for letting Sam leave, and he doesn't accept Cas's defense that Dean said to give him space. Cas, you're supposed to know that Sam is allowed space in the bunker, but that doesn't mean he gets to leave. They find him quickly enough, though, which makes sense since he had like a five second head start. He's just off the road, in the dark, sitting next to the Impala. Sam, you took the Impala? What were you thinking? {Sidebar: Dean told Mary Jack died "this morning," and now it's dark. Does that mean Jack died very early, and it's still before dawn? Or have they just sat around grieving all day, and now it's nighttime?}

(Could you please stop worrying so much about minor timeline inconsistencies? Nobody cares!)

Sam weakly raises a hand to block the headlights when Dean and Cas arrive, but doesn't get up, and he just looks broken and miserable. Dean is furious. He jumps out of Cas's car (which turns out to be a big Dodge truck, and why does Cas get two cars when Sam doesn't even have one?) and yells "tell me you didn't make a deal!" Sam's shocked that Dean would accuse him of such a thing (ha ha, why would he ever) and says he was trying to build a pyre.

We get a flashback of him furiously chopping trees until his axe handle snaps in the middle of the second tree, and yet he still took the second tree down, so he must have kicked it over or attacked it with his bare hands because he was JUST THAT UPSET. Oh, Sammy. "I couldn't... I couldn't even do that for him," he says. "I should have done more. I should have tried harder. Everything we've got, the spells, the lore, what good was any of it if we couldn't save him?" Oh, oh, Sammy. He's so broken-hearted.

Ha ha this is not okay.

{Sidebar: Was Sam planning to build the pyre out there in the woods? Or take the wood back to the bunker in the Impala? I mean, he knows Cas has that nice big truck, right?}

(Again, we do not care as much about logistics as you seem to think we do.)

Cas remarks on how odd it feels for Jack to be dead, that it's not so weird for angels to die but it just doesn't seem right that Jack can. Apparently he considered the boy immortal. Dean decides they will say goodbye tomorrow, but tonight they're getting shitfaced.

And they do. As a sad Allman Brothers song plays in the background, they drink whiskey and eat candy bars (do they even know about his nougat love? do they?) and apparently switch to tequila (and Chuck, I do not know what anyone sees in tequila) and I guess tell funny stories about Jack because they're all laughing. Sam's the first one to get up and stumble drunkenly out of the kitchen (and why are they drinking in the kitchen and not the library, which seems like the traditional sad drinking spot). As Cas leaves, Dean says "we did everything we could, right?" (Spoiler alert: wrong!) and continues to drink alone. "Here's to you, Jack," he says, "wherever you are."

Which is our segue to wherever Jack is. He's with his three dads, happily eating a burger on the hood of the Impala on a beautiful sunny day. Sam can't get a signal on his phone, which should be his first clue that something is horribly, horribly wrong. Then Dean kind of fritzes and the sky goes dark and Jack knows something is wrong. We seem him stepping through a door into the white hallway of Heaven. But something is wrong there, too. And the "something wrong" is a great flood of black goo that rushes toward him. He runs.

Cut to Dean, waking up where he's been asleep on the kitchen table (and dang, Dean sleeping on the kitchen table is so pretty). We hear voices in another room and I think oh, people are back in the bunker, but it turns out this is another episode where all of the people are conveniently away at the same time. He staggers into the map room to find Cas and Sam talking to a woman with an eyepatch. It's Lily Sunder! An older version, to be sure {Sidebar: She's played by Veronica Cartright, who you may remember from Alien and The Witches of Eastwick. Or you may not. I don't know your movie viewing habits.} Dean thoughtfully points out that she got old, and she calls it "an unfortunate side effect of giving up magic." You know, she really is a pretty decent older version of Alicia Witt. Good show, Show.

Sam says he realized last night that they'd never looked at Kevin's translations of the angel tablet to see if there was anything there that could help Jack. He hoped Lily would be able to read them, and possibly find a way to bring Jack back. It's interesting that there has been no discussion of whether they should bring Jack back. I guess the talk about how weird it is that he actually died was as close as they're going to get. And yeah, I know, this is nothing new for them. But considering that Jack was at peace with it, and considering how well these things always go, you would think they'd at least pay lip service to the idea that it might be best to let what's dead stay dead.

{Sidebar: Dean remembers that Lily tried to kill Cas, but nobody remembers that Cas thought Lily's child was a nephilim, even though Lily was still alive after giving birth to that child. Just putting that out there.}

Lily flips through Kevin's notes, which look like a bunch of cuneiform, and says she can't decipher them. Dean's all, okay, we're done here, but Lily has a suggestion. They can use her magic, drawing on the power of Jack's soul to heal his body and bring him back. Dean's completely against it, but Lily says it won't use his entire soul. "How much of it?" Sam asks, and Dean gives him a disbelieving look. But Lily says it will only use a small amount, and he'll never miss it. Well, it's not like they've never used soul power before, though those have always been for temporary purposes.

Dean points out the obvious flaw in the plan, which is that Jack is already dead and his soul is gone. But if his soul is in Heaven, Cas thinks he can pull it into his body for a few seconds, long enough for Lily to work her magic. (Ew. I wonder if it's gross for a soul to find itself in a dead body.) Her magic uses the power of his soul to resurrect him and keep him alive, and boom. Jack's back.

But she's not doing it for free. She knows she's going to Hell when she dies, being that she killed a lot of angels, which means she'll never get to see her daughter again. So she wants TFW to get her into Heaven.

Dean still thinks it's a bad idea to use any of Jack's soul for this scheme. Cas thinks Jack should be the one to make the decision, and Sam points out that he knows (better than anyone, one might say) the importance of a soul, but if they can bring Jack back, they have to try. So this still feels flip-flopped: Sam willing to make a possibly unwise deal to bring back a dead loved one, and Dean holding back.

Of course, none of this will work if they can't figure out how to get Lily into Heaven. Dean wonders if they could get Billie to do it, but Cas points out that Death and her reapers don't make that decision (thank you, Continuity Fairy). Oddly, Sam seems a little surprised to hear that. This wouldn't be news to him, would it?

Anyway, they have to turn to Anubis, the ancient Egyptian guardian of the dead. It's interesting that they didn't go with St. Peter. I mean, I like that they're not limiting their characters to traditional Christianity, but it seems like Cas, in particular, would have suggested someone from the Bible. Cas explains that Anubis weighs your heart against "justice's feather," and Sam says what I'm thinking, which is that Osiris did that, and they've already met him. (Did they kill him? I don't remember.) Cas says Osiris is Anubis's father, and when God left, they needed a new judge, so Heaven passed over Osiris to work with his son. It's convoluted but whatever. I mean, it's cool that they're incorporating different religions and gods, so. Let's summon a god!

Cut to a lush garden, with a pond and lots of too-pretty-to-be-real flowers. A little girl is playing with her dog, who runs after a ball and disappears into the bushes. He's gone too long, and then we hear rustling in the bushes, and I'm ashamed to say I was pretty sure Lucifer or Nick was going to step out of them (I covered the guest star credits on first watch and didn't know who was in this episode). But it's Jack. Oh, then the little girl is Kelly, and he found his way to her heaven! When he tells her he's her son, she changes to grown-up Kelly, who is thrilled to see her son until she realizes she's in Heaven and therefore she must be dead... and so is he. I'm glad Jack has the ability to leave his Heaven and find Kelly's. I mean, if Heaven is made up of your good memories, think of how skimpy and repetitive his would be.

Bunker. Sam and Dean prepare for the ritual as Lily writes instructions for Jack. Dean's still disgruntled about the whole thing, and they argue for a bit. Dean says he just doesn't trust her just as we hear footsteps, and it looks like they're doing it AGAIN - the thing where someone says something bad about the character who is right behind them, and can we just not, please? But it's Cas, not Lily. Yay! He reports that Heaven is in distress and all the gates are open. I guess that will make it easier for him to get in. Sam tells him to go on to Heaven, and when they're ready for him, they'll pray. Oh, so they can still pray to him? Good to know.

Dean paints symbols on the floor as Lily hands Sam a really thick instruction manual for Jack. I wonder how long it took her to write all that? Sam says he has to go "grab one more thing" and then gives Dean a significant you need to apologize look and head tilt toward Lily. I do love these unspoken conversations. Dean's apology is everything you'd expect from a man who learned to apologize at John Winchester's knee, since he says "looks like we got off on the wrong foot" (i.e., it's not my fault) and immediately asks, suspiciously, why she stopped using the angel magic if it's so awesome. He guesses, correctly, that she's letting herself get old, because she wants to die, and why does she want to do that if she's pretty sure she's going to Hell? She says she has a tiny bit of her soul left, and if there's even a teeny chance that she'll get to see her daughter in Heaven, well.

Anyway. Cut to Cas, wandering through Heaven. He comes across puddles of goo and a couple of bodies. Looks like we're down to, what, nine angels now? (As always, it's interesting to me that angels use vessels in Heaven, though I understand it would be pretty difficult to portray them if they didn't.)

(Then again, if we didn't insist on including angel drama, we wouldn't need to show angels in Heaven at all, would we?)

(Just saying.)

Turns out one of the bodies is alive, and it's Duma. She has black goo coming out of her nose and only remembers that when "it" touched her, everything went black. Cas dramatically tells her he's looking for Jack, and she goes with him. They find the spot where Jack was with TFW on the beautiful sunny day, but his food is cold. (Does your food get cold in Heaven? I thought it would stay at the perfect temperature. Bummer.) Naomi shows up and tells them Jack is gone, and that they're under attack. "It" stormed Heaven and they can't stop it. What is it, you might ask? "The shadow. The thing that rules The Empty." Naomi reminds us that Cas and Empty Dude are "old friends" and they show us Empty Dude forming out of the black goo and oh, wait, wait. Is this what was happening last week, when Nick prayed to Lucifer and we saw something skeletal forming in The Empty? It wasn't Lucifer at all? It was Empty Dude? Is that what's going on here? I'm confused. I mean, I'd love for Lucifer to stay asleep in The Empty. So I'm all in favor, if that's what's really happening.

Naomi says Empty Dude wants Jack, and maybe he does belong in The Empty after all, since he's half angel. Well, if I were Jack (or Cas), I'd point out that his grace was mostly gone and he was more human than angel. But no one asked me. Naomi says Empty Dude will destroy Heaven if they don't let him have Jack, and "46,750,000,000 human souls will be cast in the wind." I really want someone with math skills to tell me what percentage that is of all of human life so far, because I wonder how many people Show has decided probably went to Hell. Naomi says one nephilim isn't worth all those souls, and I'm sure she's supposed to be Evil Bureaucrat, but honestly, she's right. But you know Cas won't see it that way. He refuses to help, and then suddenly Naomi is overcome with black goo and she yells at him to run. He does.

Bunker. Sam reads the spell. Lily draws her blood. Anubis shows up. Turns out Egyptian gods also look like bureaucrats, with a suit and briefcase. He recognizes the Winchesters and Dean is kind of snarky with him, which is exactly what you'd do if you summoned an ancient god to ask him for a favor. Lily tells him she wants to know where she's going when she dies, and he says it's against protocol but what the hell (spoiler alert...). He draws an abacus with black and white beads out of his bag ("you were expecting a scale and a feather?") and invites Lily to put her hand above it. The beads move and change color and when they stop, there are more black than white. Well, that ain't good.

Anubis tells her he can't change it, and Dean threatens him because, once again, that's what you do when you summon an ancient god and ask him for a favor. And Sam jumps right in there. Come on, boys, you know how this works. Anubis explains that he's not the one who decides if you go to Heaven or Hell (which you should remember from your experience with his father, fellas.) "You do. Each of you. Your individual choices, all tallied at the precise moment of your death. Keep me here. Try and kill me. It is not going to change Lily Sunder's fate. But it might change yours." Now this is how you threaten someone, boys! There's more silent conversation ("I don't want to go back to Hell, do you?" "Aw, fuck no"), Sam rubs some paint off the floor, and Anubis disappears.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven. Cas and Duma find Kelly's Heaven and there is a joyous reunion. Cas apologizes for not keeping her son alive, and tells Jack they have a way to bring him home, but the magic will draw from a piece of his soul. He pretty much takes any choice away from him by telling Jack that Empty Dude will destroy Heaven if he doesn't come back to life. "Smart," says Duma, except she's not Duma! She's Empty Duma! Oh noes! (The black goo effect really is pretty good, I've got to say.)

Bunker. Sam points out that Lily could still do the spell to save Jack, even though there's nothing in it for her. Because that's what Sam would do. But Lily's not interested, and she packs up her stuff to leave and Sam finally shouts "he's our kid!" and oh, Sam. Just stick that knife in my heart and twist it a bit more, why don't you? Dean says he thinks she's lost so much soul, she's not human any more, because why would she let anyone else lose a child, knowing how it feels?

Heaven. Empty Duma says Jack belongs to her and where she's taking him is worse than Hell, because "at least Hell is something." You know, I think The Empty would be pretty awful if you were awake, but from what we've seen, no one is awake there. Even its ruler was asleep. So, would being asleep forever actually be worse than Hell? I'm thinking not. (Honestly, if Heaven is full of good memories, a big chunk of my Heaven is going to be drifting off in a soft bed in a cold bedroom under flannel sheets and a quilt and a cat.) Anyway, Empty Duma is pleased that her threats are upsetting Cas. He draws his angel blade and attacks, but she flings him into the kitchen cabinets.

Bunker. Jack's body is surrounded by candles. Lily pulls out her locket and kisses the photo of her daughter, then says "I'm ready" and picks up the spell book, so I guess Sam and Dean were able to convince her after all.

Heaven. Fighty fighty.

Bunker. Dean prays to Cas and tells him they're ready. Lily starts chanting.

Heaven. Empty Duma starts to strangle Jack. Cas tells her to take him instead. She drops Jack and then says what I'm thinking, which is that she gets him anyway. "Not for years," he says. "Eons, maybe." But if she lets Jack go, Cas will go with her now. She accepts, but says she won't take him now. She wants him to suffer, so she wants him to go back and be happy, and once he does feel happiness, then she'll come and "drag you to nothing." Cas accepts.

The Empty leaves Duma, and Jack angrily confronts Cas, asking why he made the deal. "Because I made a promise. Because I love you, Jack. Sam and Dean, they love you, and they are fighting for you this very minute." He tells Jack not to let the Winchesters know about the deal, and Jack promises not to tell. {Sidebar: Would Jack even remember what happened in Heaven? Sam and Dean didn't, until Joshua specifically made them remember. But does that mean they naturally forgot every time? Or that Joshua made them forget every time, but in Dark Side of the Moon he decided not to, and he let them naturally remember? Discuss.}

Jack doesn't want to leave Kelly yet, but she tells him she'll be waiting. And this is something that didn't occur to me until rewatch - did Empty Duma give up the right to Jack's soul period, or just for this particular death? If and when he dies again, is The Empty going to claim him again? I would have made that clear, Cas.

Anyway. Cas holds Jack's face and in the bunker, Jack gasps back to life. Sam gives him a spell to read and his eyes glow and he says he feels good. Dean hugs him (because of course Dean gets the hug, why would I think Sam gets the hug, for fuck’s sake) and then the guys notice that Lily has quietly died in the corner. Well, I didn't see that coming.

Nah, that’s cool, I’ll just stand over here and watch, thanks.

We see Lily walking into Anubis's office. He holds up the abacus again and this time, when she puts her hand over it, there are more white beads than black. "Did you know what doing the spell would cost you?" he asks. Apparently she did, and that good deed outweighed enough of her bad deeds that she gets to go to Heaven after all. Yay Lily!

Back in Heaven, Naomi thanks Cas for saving Heaven, even though she knows he didn't do it for them. And she wants to give him a reward. "Like, for example, the archangel Michael's location?" Nice try, Naomi. We all know his location. He's in Lebanon, Kansas right now.

Isn't he?

Bunker. Jack and his dads eat burgers and smile at each other and Dean's glad they know where Michael is. Cas points out that they don't know where Dark Kaia and her spear are, and I'm still thinking about that damn archangel blade, and Jack with his archangel grace which is supposedly regenerating, and why haven't any of them made that connection? Anyway, it's a happy, homey scene, and the camera pans off to the side and I'm absolutely certain that something bad is waiting here. It's going to be a dream, or Dean's eyes are going to flash blue, or something. But no, it just fades to black. Huh.

This seemed a lot more ominous than it should.

So. Let's talk about Cas's deal. I hate it. Jack is back, and the only lasting effect from his brief death is something that will impact Cas. I hate that they took a non-Cas problem and made it a Cas problem. I hate that the rest of the season is going to be about the Sword of Damocles hanging over Cas's head. I want my angst to be over 6 ft tall and to be wearing flannel, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I just can't get into the sad saga of Cas waiting to be yoinked away. Especially since we know exactly when it's going to happen, even if Cas doesn't. Bad things happen in May, people. (I also wonder why Empty Dude doesn't just go back to sleep.)

And let's talk about the Winchesters' decision to save Jack in the first place. I don't like it. It makes sense only if you know that (1) he'll be taken to The Empty and that it is somehow worse than Hell, and (b) if he doesn't go to The Empty, Heaven will be destroyed. And they didn't know any of that when they decided to go after him. I wanted at least one of them (spoiler alert: SAM) to say "yes this is awful but he was at peace with it and every time we un-kill someone, something awful happens, so maybe we should just let this one go," and of course they would have done the spell anyway, but there should have been some pushback.

And finally, the Michael thing. Are we to believe that Michael is not hiding in Dean after all? Because that means he really did abandon his vessel for no good reason, and that's... that's something that they REALLY need to explain. Hiding in Dean made SO MUCH MORE SENSE. (Could it be that Naomi is lying to Cas? Was she, possibly, Empty Naomi?)

Also, Sam yells he's our kid and then gives him a hearty pat on the shoulder? What the fuck ever.

Anyway, please help me stay unspoiled, thanks!

#spn #14.08 #spoilers #recap #tv recaps #season 14

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sinsiriuslyemo · 7 years

Photo

EPISODE 16

Nevada and OJ walked into the hotel and paid off the employee at the front desk for the master key to the rooms. Making their way down the hall, they pulled their guns out after Chibby called from outside in the SUV, letting them know he’d cut the surveillance feed.

“We take him alive for now, me entiendes?” Nevada mumbled to OJ, who nodded his head before they kicked the door in and went inside. The TV was on, the bed was unmade, but Matias was nowhere in sight.

“Jefe…” OJ gestured to the dresser where a room key had been left. “Think he’ll be back?” he asked.

“Probably not,” Nevada mused as he looked through the empty drawers. “Looks like he left in a hurry,” he added angrily.

“Damn,” OJ looked at a note and an envelope on the dresser and smirked a little. “Your father in law is a psycho.”

He handed both over to Nevada. The note was to him.

Looking forward to meeting the man who makes my baby girl so happy. They say a girl always marries her father. I can see in your case, this is true. Give this letter to my daughter for me.

“Come mierda,” Nevada mumbled. “Let’s get the fuck outta here. We’ll have Chibby check out the security footage from earlier, see who the fuck we gotta pay off,” he added, moving out of the room.

The men exited the room heading back to the car where Chibby sat in the back seat, furiously tapping away at his keyboard.

“Fearless leader returns empty handed which means that the cruel villain has once again escaped?” Chibby frowned. “How can Chibby help?”

“Check out the security footage from earlier today, see if you can figure out when he left,” Nevada replied, looking at his watch. “Vamos, the shipments gonna be here in twenty minutes, we gotta meet up with other guys.”

They nodded as OJ started the car.

----

Roxie had fallen asleep against Rafael’s chest, her breathing slow and calmed as Mowgli crawled onto his chest beside her, sitting right down and snorting at him. Petting the piglet briefly, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Izzy.

“Why are you still hanging out with homeless men?” he asked her in a soft voice so as not to wake his girlfriend.

“Okay, one, hi to you too and two, they are my friends.” She rolled her eyes, Rafael could practically hear the eye roll.

“Okay, one, there’s no need for sass, and two that doesn’t mean you should bringing them around Roxie’s bakery. That’s her business, Izzy, have some respect. No one is going to want to go a bakery where homeless people regularly come in and out looking for you,” he replied, mimicking her tone.

“Well your girlfriend seems to have neglected that they bought food and they know I go there because we have lunch there sometimes.”

“I don’t care, don’t bring them around there anymore. People don’t care that they bought food, they only care that they smell unpleasant,” he replied. “And it is her bakery, not yours.”

“She won't feed hungry people because they smell? Wow. I didn't realize you were dating such a snob.”

“Don’t talk about her that way,” he warned. “It’s a bakery, not a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen. I know you’re not heartless, just inconsiderate of others, so why would you want to drive customers away from her business by bringing homeless people into it?”

“They have money to spend. Their money is as good as everyone else's. Or does little miss London think she's too good to feed customers in a lower tax bracket?”

“You know what, Izzy? Stay the hell away from there if you think she’s so terrible. If I ever see you in her bakery again, we’re gonna have a serious problem,” he growled angrily.

“Oh yeah? Are you gonna turn me into the cops for eating at a public place? Jesus why are you being such a jerk?”

“It’s a privately owned establishment that can refuse service to anyone they want. That includes inconsiderate, thoughtless little brats, who are nice to the owner’s face, and then behind their back says awful things about them for no other reason except she always has to be right,” he replied.

Izzy hung up on him just as Roxie stirred, opening her eyes.

“What's all the noise?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he said softly, sighing as he dropped his phone beside him. “I was on the phone with Izzy, trying to have an adult conversation. The keyword there being, trying.”

Roxie smiled a bit and nodded, snuggling closer.

“Be patient, she's never had someone who cares enough to fight with her.”

“My patience isn’t the best tonight,” he replied in a sigh, picking up his phone again and shooting Izzy a text.

I’ll be by to pick up my things tomorrow. If you let the homeless in there too, please do me the courtesy of not letting them into my room until I’ve gotten all my belongings out.

“I tried to ask her to stop bringing her homeless friends into your place of business and all she did was give me attitude about you being too ‘good’ to feed the homeless,” he spat, setting the phone down again. “Where does she get off being such a--”

The phone buzzed again.

Your stuff is in the hallway. Now it's a race. Will you get it? Or my dirty friends?

The text was followed with a picture of her giving him the middle finger.

“Bitch,” he hissed, moving to get up. “I have to go and pick up all my clothes from the fucking hallway now,” he growled. “Are you gonna be okay?” he asked as he put on his jacket and shoes.

“I don't know…” she said softly, looking a little panicked just as Rafael's phone buzzed again, this time it was Lila calling.

“What now? Is she setting everything I have on fucking fire?” he growled angrily, picking up the phone. “What? I’m on my way, okay!” he snarled.

“Don't use a tone with me, Rafael, I want no part in this idiocy. Your stuff is in a box in the living room. It will stay there and not in the hallway. You're welcome.”

“Fine, we’ll be right over to pick it up, and you might want to tell your wife to get herself a part time job to help you pay the mortgage. I’m moving out,” he replied harshly.

“Duly noted,” Lila said, clearly uninterested in being a part of a silly fight. “Come over whenever you'd like, it'll be here.”

“Oh thank you so much for the invitation to my own God damn apartment, Lila!” he yelled sarcastically, hanging up, and looking up at Roxie. “Come on, get dressed. I am sick and tired of coddling her. I’m done, if she’s gonna be a selfish little brat. I am done with her ‘boohoo, be there for me whenever I need, and I don’t give a shit about anybody else attitude.’”

Roxie rubbed his back. “Let's go tomorrow, it's not good for you to see her when you're like this. Rafael, you know it's not.”

His phone buzzed with a message from his realtor this time.

Got a great offer!

Roxie glanced and quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe you'll be kicking them out sooner than later.”

Rafael sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, and dialing Izzy again.

“What?” she said sniffling.

“I sold the apartment, because Roxie and I are getting a place of our own. So you and Lila need to start packing your stuff up to move in here, to Roxie’s apartment,” he told her in a much calmer voice. “I didn’t want to tell you this way, but...we got an offer for the place, and we’ve already found a new one.”

“I know you have an offer, Lila just got off the phone with your realtor. I'm not giving up the only home I've ever known.”

“You’re not giving up your home, Izzy. You’re moving into a new one with your wife. And just where the hell did Lila get enough for that apartment? We were asking a million nine. I know she’s doing well, but she doesn’t have that kind of money, and with her only recently settling in one place, I doubt she has good enough credit for a loan,” he replied. “Besides I don’t want either of you staying there with these people knowing where I live. It’s too dangerous.”

“This is my home. I'm not moving. And you have no idea how much Lila makes. Her last album made tons of money and her record label gave her an advance on this one.”

“Oh good, well tell her to save it because I’m rejecting her offer,” he answered.

“Are you fucking joking?” she growled. “I love it here, this is my home and you don't get to move out just because you're tired of living with me!”

“I’m moving in with my girlfriend, Izzy. It has nothing to do with you,” he replied.

You don't get to kick me out of another home! I'm tired of moving! I finally felt like I had somewhere that felt safe and you're ripping it away from me?” She hung up on him again.

“Un-FUCKING-believable!” he growled, calling her again. “You hang up on me one more time Izzy, and I swear to God I will call the police right now! My name is on mortgage, not yours! What, am I supposed to live with my sister and her wife for the rest of my life? You need your space, I need my space. I do not want you staying in an apartment that may or may not be safe! Not everything is about you!” he shouted.

The other end of the line was silent and he took a breath, trying to calm himself down as Roxie rubbed his shoulders.

“What is it about this that you don’t understand, Iz? These people know where I live, do you have any idea how much it would kill me if anything happened to either one of you?” he asked.

“I'm not gonna do this,” she said softly. “I have to go.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Isabella Barba. Be an adult and talk to me,” he said sternly.

“No.”

Rafael clenched his jaw. “I’m rejecting the offer, and that’s that.”

“I know.”

“How did she even know I was selling?”

“Because I looked it up. I called in to see you today and Carmen said you'd gone to look at a place with Roxie. It doesn't matter. It's fine.”

“Fine,” he mumbled, letting out another breath.

“Your stuff will be in your place. Lila and I are heading out.”

“Where are you going? Izzy, it’s ten o’clock at night, just stay there,” he replied.

“You really don't have a say in this Rafi. I'm so tired of this,” she sighed. “I'm tired of New York.”

He closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Roxie was attacked in her bakery tonight,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I would rather not visit my sister in the hospital or the morgue. I’ve had quite enough scare as it is. If you still wanna leave in the morning, then fine, but don’t storm off in the middle of the night just because you want to get back at your brother.”

“We're coming over.” She hung up.

Dropping the phone on the bed, he rubbed circles over his temples, stretching his neck to one side to try and relieve some of the tension in his shoulders.

“Why does she have to make everything so fucking difficult?” he hissed. “And if I get angry, then she lays on a guilt trip, as though I have no right to feel any kind of natural human emotion.”

“I think she idolizes you, and seeing someone you idolize act...human, is sometimes very emotion-provoking.”

“I don’t need to be put up on a pedestal, I just wanna be treated with basic human respect. She can’t even do that,” he replied, rubbing over his face.

“I'm not sure she quite knows how to treat you. Have you considered that you're the only man in her life, other than Nevada, who hasn't done some kind of physical or psychological damage to her? I think she's just never encountered someone like you before. She sits around and draws at the bakery often, she draws your father, she draws Vincent. But any time she ever draws you, she draws herself beside you.”

“You would think after years of living with me, years of watching the way I talk to people, the way I treat others, that some of it would’ve rubbed off. Most of the time I just feel taken advantage of, even if I know that’s not her intention,” he said in a whisper, sighing heavily.

“She's a child, I don't care if she has a wedding ring or a college degree. She's a child. You do so much for her, but she may always pull away. That's what happens when you face that kind of damage. If she was one of the other victims you protect, reacting like this, would you treat her differently?”

“That’s different, the women I advocate for have a support system. All I do for them is help them have a voice in court. After the verdict, it’s up to them to help themselves heal with the support of their family or if they don’t have family, professionals. Izzy’s my sister, and she doesn’t seem to ever want my help or professional help, for that matter. She couldn't care less if I tried to help her, all that matters to her is what she wants in that moment. She has no concept of the real world, and I don’t know how to deal with that.”

“I'm sure neither does she.”

There was a knock at the door.

“They got here rather quickly.”

He sighed, not moving from the bed as he rubbed over his face. He had never been more stressed in his life, not even when they’d had a dangerous fugitive escape custody that resulted in a two day manhunt.

“Will you get it? I just...need a second,” he whispered, still working to calm himself down.

She nodded going to the door and letting the girls in. Lila looked Roxie over before giving her a tight hug.

“You should have told me, Rox. Jesus, are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” she said gently.

Izzy hugged her next, smiling. “I'm glad you're okay.”

“Are you?” Rafael asked sarcastically from the bedroom. “I thought you said she was a snob, too good to feed hungry people,” he mused, still a little angry. “Oh, you know what, I forgot, now you’re here, so to her face, you’re gonna be her best friend.”

“He’s still a bit tense,” Roxie offered quietly.

Izzy said nothing, just looking down at her feet.

“You should go in and apologize to him,” Roxie mused softly, giving Izzy an encouraging smile.

Lila snorted, “Don't get involved Rox. These two are...a mess.”

“And you shouldn't let it continue. They’re siblings, they shouldn’t throw their relationship away over a silly row.

Izzy walked into the bedroom, “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I really truly am. You know I love you Rafi. I always will.” She shifted front one foot to the other for a moment before finally walking back out of the bedroom.

“Can you please do me the courtesy of coming in here and talking to me?” he called out.

She walked back in, arms crossed. “I already apologized, Rafi I just don't want to fight again.”

“I don’t want to fight either, but you won’t even give me a chance to say my peace. You just walked out, like it didn’t matter if I have anything to say,” he answered calmly.

She nodded and stood waiting.

“Why do you hate me so much?” he heard himself ask.

“If you think I hate you, then you never knew me.”

“I don’t understand why any time I ask something of you, unless it benefits you in some way, you always give me a hard time about it. Not just that, but you mock me, you mock my girlfriend. Why would anyone do that to someone they love?” he asked softly, looking up at her.

She shook her head and hugged herself tight. “You don't know what you're talking about,” she mumbled.

“No? I asked you to stop bringing homeless men to Roxie’s bakery because it drives away customers, which is a perfectly reasonable request, and your response was to mock her for not wanting them there. You didn’t seem to care that it’s her business, it’s not yours to treat however you want,” he answered.

“She doesn't get to come in here and change everything it's not okay! She tells me where I can and can't hang out, she talks to me sometimes like she's you! Asking when I'll be home and who I'll be out with.”

“Because she cares about you, Izzy,” he whispered. “And because she knows how much I care about you too.”

“And you're always with her! Now You're moving in with her too!” She glared. “Fine, whatever. I said I was sorry.”

“So that’s it? Whatever? That’s all I get?” he asked. “She knows how much you mean to me, and she loves me, Izzy. So it doesn’t surprise me that she worries about you,” he said, sighing heavily. “Do you just want her to go back to London? I can move back in and wait around for you to have time to spend with me? Because you’re married now, you’ll want to spend as much time with your wife as you can since she works a lot. I can just go to work, come home, be available for whenever you need me?” he inquired.

“You're supposed to love me!”

“I do love you,” he answered.

“You're supposed to be my best friend,” she sniffled.

“I am, Izzy--”

“You're supposed to take care of me, and love me.”

“And I’m not supposed to love anyone else. It’s not okay for me to be in love with someone, and have a life with them even if it doesn’t change how much I love you…” He swallowed tears back. “Is that right?”

She shook her head and sniffled, “No,” she whispered stubbornly. “Just me.”

“You can get married, have a life with the woman you love. But I’m not allowed to be happy with anyone.” He wasn’t asking, he was stating.

“Exactly.”

Nodding his head, he looked down at Mowgli.

“Okay,” he mumbled.

If he said any more he wouldn't be able to stop the tears. As it was everything except he and Roxie’s relationship had been seeming to fall apart right in front of him.

“Thank you,” he whispered, still not looking at her.

“For what?”

“For reminding me that I’m not meant to find love. It never works out, I’m...just meant to be alone.”

“Stop that,” she whispered. “You know it's not true.”

“It is true, you said it yourself, I can’t be in love. I can’t be happy with anyone because there’s no room for that in my life. My role is big brother, that’s all I’m meant to be,” he answered.

“You and Roxie are happy together,” she whispered. “Stop it, you're being insane,” she shook her head. “I just want you to be...my person.”

“I am.”

She shook her head and glared. “I don't like feeling like this. I didn't want to care this much about you or Dama or this stupid family!”

“I’m sorry I made you care.”

She started to cry, hugging her arms tight across her chest and looked away.

“Can I at least spend one more night with her before I’m...back in my room, living with a married couple...waiting to be needed?” he asked. He was hoping that making her see what a ridiculous thing she was asking of him would help her understand that just because they didn’t live together anymore didn’t mean he would disappear from her life.

She ran back into the living room, opened the door and rushed out of the apartment. She wasn't quite at the point of handling her emotions. She was getting closer everyday but Izzy wasn't equipped to deal with the guilt she felt. Rafael sighed heavily, taking his sister’s non answer as a no, and stood up.

“Take care of her, okay?” he mumbled to Mowgli before he went out into the living room, right to Roxie and kissed her lips. “I have to go,” he whispered to her.

He was willing to take this as far as Izzy would let him. With any luck, Lila, who he assumed was the more mature of the two would intervene and talk Izzy down before it went too far.

“I love you,” he mumbled, brushing some hair from Roxie’s face.

“You're leaving me alone?” she whispered in a panic. He shrugged, struggling to hold back tears as he gestured to the direction his sister had gone.

“Izzy needs me to be available at all times,” he answered. “I’ll call Carisi and ask him for a favor. He’ll keep you company, sleep on the couch.”

“Are you joking?” she asked in disbelief. “I was attacked, robbed and are you seriously going to leave?”

“She obviously doesn’t care about any of that, and she doesn’t care that I do. Isn’t that right, Lila?” he asked, hoping his sister in law would put a stop to all this. “She’s your wife. All of this is perfectly fine with you?”

“Rafael, I think what she's doing is insane. But I'm not being a part of this. She doesn't adjust to this kind of stuff, she doesn't get it.”

“She’s your wife, that’s your job, as a wife is to make her get it. You married into this, that was your decision, so you are a part of it, whether you want to be or not. You staying out it is you agreeing with her,” he answered. “Maybe getting married was a mistake if you don’t care to counsel your wife when she’s behaving irrationally.”

“Watch yourself Rafael, I like you but I'm not gonna take the shit you pull with her. I know she's being irrational. But I also watch her cry almost every night, I watch her panic that you'll become just another person that leaves her. I watch her tear herself to pieces because she can't seem to ask for help with the simplest of tasks. If you want me to pick a side, she's my wife, I'll always pick hers.”

“Hold on,” Roxie intervened. “You have a lot of nerve talking to him like that. He asked her to move in with him so that she could have a family, a real family. He has always been there for her when she’s needed him. I have watched him panic that she’s going to end up dead on the street somewhere. I have watch him tear himself apart with worry that she’ll never be able to move past her trauma and let herself be happy. I have watched him toss and turn in his sleep because he wonders whether she’ll sink deeper into a depression. So don’t you talk that way to him, Lila.”

“I know what he does, she tells me all the time how much he means to her, Roxie. Although I'd like to remind you, that he was just leaving you.”

“I think he was waiting for you to grow some balls and go after your wife, ask her why she’s putting herself before him when all he ever does is put her first!”

“I'm not her fucking keeper!”

“Yes you are, you married her!”

“If you want to ask her something, ask her!”

“Oh right then, it’s just that simple. Where is she then?” Roxie challenged, putting her hands on her hips.

“You think it's a picnic for me when I fight with her? No. But we handle things. She needs to calm down, if you keep pushing her and pushing her you will lose her. I know that she fucked up, and if it meant anything, I would apologize for her. But she's hurting, whether she's in the right or not. That's what matters to me.”

“That’s good then, indulge her wrong behavior so that she thinks it’s okay. Spouses are there to put you in check when you’re wrong,” Rafael offered. “So...what are you gonna do? Are you stand here and keep defending her wrong behavior, or are you going to find her and try to explain to her that just because I’m moving in with Roxie doesn’t mean that I love her any less? Are you going to be part of the problem, or are you going to try and help her realize that she’s being selfish?” he asked.

“She knows she's being selfish, of course she is. She knows what she's doing is wrong. That's why she left. And now I get the pleasure of searching the streets of New York for my wife. So thanks for that. I'll be sure to send you both a thank you note when I find her.”

“Oh so it’s my fault that she ran out of here,” Rafael countered.

Lila shook her head and dialed the phone. Tapping her foot impatiently. “Baby, I know you're upset but-” She sighed, “I told you I'm not getting involved. I don't want to play messenger-” Another sigh. “No, I'm already using a tone because you're pissing me off! Get back here and sort your own fucking shit. You think I wanna be here? No. Now fucking get over here. I'm not raising my voice, you are- YOU WANT TO FUCKING HEAR YELLING?! GET UP HERE!” She ended the call.

#nevada ramirez #rafael barba #trouble in the heights #law and order svu #cuba v dr

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beyondvapepage · 5 years

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Adam: Alright, we are live Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts. This is one where I get all hopped up on a bunch of cold drugs and pills and pretend like I’m not sick for a little bit. But this is Episode 244. We’re glad you’re here. This is your first time joining us. Thanks for being here, you’re in the right place. If you are on Youtube, you’re kind of in the right place. But you should come over to https://semanticmastery com./HDquestions and that’s where you can actually ask the questions and interact. But real quick before we get into stuff, we got some really good announcements, some fun stuff coming up. Just want to say hello to everyone real quick. I’ll start on my left. Chris, how you doing?

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There’s always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Chris: Yeah, it’s pretty good. Like, many people think it’s chilly because we are like, I don’t know, between 18 to 20 degrees right now, which is like 20 degrees less three in Celsius, obviously. But yeah, I like it that way for me to be better. I can work. I can do my projects. I can hit the gym and stuff. I don’t have to sweat all day and actually can go out and stuff as well. So I’m super happy. I can’t complain. How are you doing?

Adam: Good, good. Except for the cold. It’s, it’s nice. I’m one of those people man when I get a cold I just turned into like a hibernating bear. I don’t want to go outside. off that it’s sunny and nice outside. I just want to sit here be pissed off. But yeah, that’s me. I’m happy. I’m here though. today. We got like I said some good stuff. But Marco, how are you doing?

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won’t cure the cold, but you’ll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it’ll, it’ll make you feel better.

Bradley: We’re going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It’s leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we’re going to have the hump day hang out while we’re there. And we’ll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Bradley: Good. I��m happy to be here. Excited about a lot of stuff going on with my business and some new stuff we got going on next week in the mastermind. Well, for a small group. Things are good. I started a new business, it’s really kicking ass. Somebody’s got a question about it. So I’ll get to that here in a minute when we get to questions, but it’s been really fun. Applying digital marketing to a new business model that’s not specifically a marketing business, there’s a lot of marketing to it. All businesses require marketing. That’s what we do as marketing consultants, right, we help businesses grow by improving their marketing. But it’s you know, as a marketing professional, we typically are working on other companies marketing, not so much our own, you know what I mean? Like to grow our own businesses, even as a, as an agency, a lot of the marketing that I’ve done for my own agency, which really hasn’t been a lot has come from word of mouth. And, you know, a lot of outbound marketing, not so much inbound marketing, and it but as soon as we get a new client or several clients, whatever, we end up working on those businesses, right, so we help other businesses grow. Instead of a lot of time growing around, of course, the more clients we get, the more we grow. But it’s just interesting to start another business where I’m generating leads for my own business. And it’s an in applying all that I’ve learned, and kind of perfected over the years to my own business. And watching it grow rapidly, which I’ve done for others, but not so much myself. And it’s just really interesting to see the different dynamic, to be in different shoes, so to speak. I’m still a marketing professional. But now I’m applying it to my own business. And I’m watching that really take off. And it’s, it’s been a pretty cool experience. And so that’s something that we’re, you know, I’m really excited about and we’ve got some pretty cool things going on in the mastermind in a smaller group within the mastermind, specifically around that kind of stuff. So nice. Excited to be here.

Adam: Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to kind of touch on that. Just real quick. If you’re, like I said, new. Thanks for watching. You know, you’re in the right place. You can show up every week, same time. You know, I think was this episode 244. We’ve been doing this for a little while. We’re going to keep doing it for a while longer, but be here 4pm Eastern every week on Wednesdays. If you’re looking for the next step, you know, that is a question we get you to know what, what should I do? You know, I’ve been watching your videos, what’s the next step grab the battle plan, check it out at https://battleplan.semanticmastery.com. After that, the place you’re going to want to be is what Bradley was just talking about was our mastermind, you can find out more about that at https://mastermind.semanticmastery.com. And then for those of you who are, you know, either doing client work, you’ve grown your own agency or you know the value of your time. If you want to get premium done for you SEO Services, head over to https://mgyb.co. Real quick to I wanted to say we sent out an email. Or you know what all on this one, I sent out an email with a little bit of a spelling error. Turns out it’s POFO, not POFU. fo if you want to come to poke who live in Denver, it’s October 11, 12th and 13th. The 11th is going to be the VIP day. Wrapping that up right now it is going to be kick ass until I confirm it. That’s all I’m going to say. But that’s going to be a great way to get to know everybody. You know, just do the networking, meet up with people, and then roll into the event on the 12th and 13th. And have a great time a lot of actionable content and kick ass guest speakers along with ourselves. But literally tomorrow, the early bird pricing is going away. So if you’ve been on the fence, you’ve been thinking about it, now is the great time to buy your ticket after that prices are going up. And that’s where they’re going to stay until the event. So grab those today. I’ll put the link on the page for everyone to go and grab their tickets. Let’s see. We talked about Oh, Bradley, do you want to mention what’s coming on next week, you talked about the training for the new business. But I believe there’s another webinar for everyone next week, right?

Bradley: Yeah, next Thursday, we’re doing at 4pm Eastern, an MGYB kind of Syndication Academy update webinar, where we’re going to be talking about how to get the most I guess the most bang for from press releases, how to get the best SEO effect and for driving traffic. And we’re going to talk a little bit about PR stacking and how to how to do that the PR stacking method, and also how to get just how to even add more power to the press releases into the PR stacking method. And so it’s again, that’s going to be kind of an mg ye webinar, as well as the Syndication Academy update webinar, because there’s a way that you can apply the PR method to a syndication network to and use that as another way to amplify the PR the press releases. So I would highly encourage you guys to go check that out, it’s going to be cool, we’re going to talk about, you know, again, you can get press releases from MGYB, which is the same service that we all use. And they’re very, very powerful if you know how to how to do it correctly. So we’re going to be talking a lot about that a lot of the stuff that will be talking about has actually really ever only been explained fully before in Local PR Pro. So we’re going to touch on some of those concepts in the webinar next week.

Adam: Very cool. Awesome. Yeah. So everyone, stay tuned, you’ll be getting if you’re on the email list, you will be getting an update about that and some information about where that’s going to be at and how you can get there. If you are not, and you’re watching us today, you can just head down on the page and get signed up below. If you’re watching this at https://semanticmastery com./HDquestions, you can just sign up right there. And that’s how you get notified of all this stuff along with flash sales. Lot of the content we put out as well. So I think that’ll do it you guys anything else before we dive in?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Bradley: Okay, good. So I set up a YouTube ads campaign to help them prove our subscriber increase our subscribers and are like 90% up from the last 28 days with just a very small ad spend. So it’s pretty cool guys, you can use YouTube to do that kind of stuff, you know, buy ads to increase subscriber rates and it’s very inexpensive.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don’t miss it.

Bradley: Awesome. Let me grab upsets the wrong button. All right, let’s get into questions. We have quite a few already, which is good. See, I guess we start with Justin T. Let me actually blow this up a little bit, guys.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Alright, hey guys, thanks for everything. I’m in the process of setting up my first lead generation asset I’m going after the photography niche. Should I brand the site like any other photographer? example, shutterbug photography, or should I go with something like Edmonton photographer.com? No. Go with a branded name, or branded domain if that’s what you’re talking about because you’re much better off with brand guys. With a brand, excuse me a branded domain and a branded like a brand name than trying to use exact match keywords or exact match keyword domains. Those are all. Like, you know, we don’t recommend that for many reasons, because it’s it looks spammy, it sounds spammy. For GMB assets. Specifically, you want to try to get away from doing anything spamming, including the name itself. And also exact match domains typically will trigger penalties a lot easier or quicker with a lot less, it takes a lot less, in other words, to trigger a penalty, because even a soft penalty, because again, it’s already optimized right off the bat. And so everything that you do has that additional layer of optimization. And so I don’t recommend that at all. If you’re new to the SEO game, then I completely understand why you would think that that might be something to go after, you know using exact match keyword domain and perhaps, you know, an exact match or even partial match keyword for the brand name itself. But I recommend that you go with something that’s branded Instead, it will allow you to get away with a lot more SEO stuff without actually triggering a penalty. Any comments, guys?

Marco: It’s also pigeonholing yourself if you go Edmonton photographer, right? What if you don’t want to just what if you want to start ranking for something else besides Edmonton, or in the surrounding areas of Edmonton, if you just go, but if you go with branded and your look, and then you have a locations page, Edmonton and whatever else, God I’m sorry, I’m not that familiar with Canadian geography. But you go with photographer, let’s just say photographer.com, but it should be a brand. And then you’re going to have a locations page. And then you’re going to have Edmonton and whatever other cities, and then you can offer services or you can have services plus whichever way you set up your silo, you have a lot more flexibility than if you start off with Edmonton photographer. And you’re going to offer a wedding photographer. And so you have to be really careful with how often you use the word photographer. So that you don’t get filtered for all these things. And you have all these bad things that can happen with a TLD, when you go with an exact match domain, you have to be really careful with the keywords and how you use them.

Bradley: Yeah. And so the next question is from him as well. And he says, and so it clarifies this first question. He says, I’m confused how I branded this thing, especially when it comes to the GMB. Is it a photography company branded like a regular business? Or is it something like wedding photography, location name, if it is set up as a business, then when someone calls once they be confused when another business that they are sent to? Yeah, and so, you know, there’s, and I’ve talked about this a lot and Local Lease Pro on how to resolve that kind of an issue. So typically, what, what I’ve done in the past is I would set up kind of a generic type name. But again, it would still be a brand name, not a, an exact match keyword because, or even for that, for that matter, a partial match keyword. So for example, I use tone prose a lot like I would use the city name home Pros for like remodeling or general contractors and things like that because it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a related type term. But it’s not something that is a keyword that people typically search for people don’t search for Remodeling Contractors by typing in, you know, home pros, but it makes sense because it’s related, right. And then once the assets would rank and start producing, when I would find a service provider that wanted to purchase the leads from me or lease the asset from me, however, however, we you know, whatever agreement we came to, then after a few months, if they had proven themselves to be good service providers, and it looks like they were going to be long term, then I would rebrand it. Okay.

And that’s part of the reason why we’ve talked about not building citations. There’s a number of reasons why you don’t want to build citations for lead generation asset. One would be if you plan on rebranding it because then you have to go back and update all of the existing published citations. But the other thing is if it’s a spam GMB, in other words, if it’s a Google My Business address, that you use to verify or excuse me, a listing that you’ve got verified, that you don’t have access to the actual address where it was verified to, then you don’t want to build citations, because that once you start building citations, naturally, that physical location will start receiving mail, as solicitation offers from marketing companies, and directories and other all kinds of things. And it will be addressed to that business name. So if you purchased a GMBs that it was verified by somebody else, then you don’t want to do citations. Because next thing, you know, you’re going to start getting business mail sent to that location. And it could very well very easily be reported by whoever’s at that location, right, whether it’s a business or a residential address, somebody is going to be getting mail that’s addressed to a business that doesn’t actually exist there. And so that’s one reason I said, don’t build citations. But another is if you are going to rebrand it, for the service provider that you end up ultimately, you know, securing for that location or for purchasing that lead those leads or whatever, then you also don’t want to be you don’t want to build citations, right? So that’s why I said if you’re gonna if you’re going to do one of the things that I’ve done, as far as how do you resolve that? Well, we would I use a call center for all of my lead generation assets, where the calls go directly to you know, what I use? It’s called AnswerConnect, answerconnect.com and I set up a script where they answered the phone. And so let’s say that it’s, you know, shutterbug photography is the name of your business, right, your lead generation asset. And let’s say it’s going to Joe Smith photography is the actual photographer that’s going to be handling it, then I, the way that I would set it up is that the call center would answer it as shutterbug photography, part of the Joe Smith photography group, or something like that. And so it’s just a way to inject the actual business name, that the leads are going to be serviced by into the introduction or the greeting that the when the caller answers the phone. So again, you know, I’ve said this many times, if you’re going to be building lead generation assets, you’re better off using a call center, if you’re going to be directing leads, or you know, the field having calls coming in. Because another reason why you want to do that, and I talked about this, I think in the last week, last month, Hump Day Hangouts is because when you start getting calls, if you direct the for forward the phone number directly to the business, unless they have a full-time receptionist in a photography photographer might, unless they have a full-time receptionist, they’re going to get hammered with a bunch of solicitation calls. It’s funny how when you rank a Google asset or rank on the first page, but primarily in maps, when you rank in maps, all of a sudden, you start getting a bunch of calls from marketing, and advertising agencies, like Yelp, is one of them. Again, I use contractors a lot as examples. But home advisor will absolutely start hammering contractor lead generation assets, with phone calls, trying to sell them leads. And so and it’s funny that that only happens once you’re ranked on page one, when you’re ranked on page two, when you really need those types of lead, like in other words, I would you know, as I would think as a marketing and advertising agency, they would be targeting page two, but they’re always targeting the page one people. So anyway, my point is, is that the business will get inundated will get hammered with solicitation calls. And so that could actually piss a business off. And I know it because I’ve been doing this for years. So that’s why I always recommend setting up a lead or excuse me a call center, because the call center will screen the calls and filter out the solicitation calls, those won’t ever go those messages won’t get to the business, it’s going to be purchasing leads from your leasing asset, or however you work it out. Now, if they got a full-time receptionist, the reception, that’s the receptionist job, you can still forward it to them. But in that case, I would have a whisper on the line. Right? If you if you’re directing the phone calls directly to the business and the business has a receptionist or somebody that answers the phone regularly, then I would put a whisper on the line that states that the call is coming from your lead generation asset. So for example, if again, if you’re if you named it shutterbug photography, I would have the winner per se shutter call from shutterbug photography or call from shutterbug, or something like that, so that when they answer the phone, they’re going to hear that, right as soon as they pick up the phone.

And they’re going to know that they should greet it as a shutter shutterbug photography, part of the Joe Smith photography group or something like that. Does that make sense? However, you word the greeting. But it’s just a way to inject the actual service, whoever’s servicing that lead into that actual greeting so that it doesn’t confuse people. And I’ve always told this to people in the past, like a lot of Tree Service contractors wouldn’t know, when I was caught what like how to how to respond to a customer when they would go out to the customers’ location to give them an estimate for a Tree Service job. When you know, the caller called in and it was a different Tree Service Company Name because it was a lead generation asset, I’ve always told them, You just tell them that smart our lead generation website, and it just hasn’t been updated with our brand name that’s all about that’s all you have to say. So my point is Don’t lie. Just try to work it into coming up with a creative way to work it into there, to where you say, you know, the service providers name in the greeting as well as whatever. And if anybody if the question ever came up why called Soderbergh photography? Why is Joe Smith photographer, answer, you know, answering line, so Well, that’s because that’s a lead generation website that we’ve had on the web that just hasn’t been updated yet or something like that. And that’s I’ve always been able to get around it that way and never had any issues. So that’s, that’s how I would recommend that, again, you build it with kind of a generic brand name, as shutterbug photography would work? Well, I know, don’t know if that’s really what you’re planning on using. But use that as your brand name until you get a service provider that’s going to be in place for what you hope to be long term, don’t do it right away. Don’t switch the brand right away. Because what happens if you find out that they’re not, you know, they’re not going to pay you on time, or they’re a pain in the ass to deal with. You don’t want to start switching the brand name of a champion that said, just so you guys know, a lot of stuff that you’re doing in GMB right now is a bit, you know, I would caution you make any sort of significant changes in the Google My Business assets except for perhaps when you first set it up, because Google is certainly on a rampage right now with triggering suspensions for like the slightest kind of changes. And it’s, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. So I don’t know that change. I’ve gotten away with changing the location name of GMB assets, I mean, many times in the past, even changing the location address without being triggering a suspension or re-verification. But right now, Google’s got like what I call an itchy trigger finger, they’re looking to suspend with some of the slightest changes if it’s a brand new list, and you might be able to get away with some immediate changes. But once it’s been established or aged for any period of time, it seems like any sort of significant change can trigger a suspension. Now that all might change again, and a few weeks or a few months, I don’t know. Right now, it’s a bit hairy. I would rather and staying away from any sort of big changes, but that’s, that’s why I said guys, you know, there was a period of time of almost an entire year now that we could get away with murder. And now they’re really cracking down on it. And this is a fluid type of business guys, you have to evolve with what’s going on in the current state, or you know what I mean? And so that’s why I don’t recommend going after building a bunch of lead generation assets right now. In fact, we kind of more or less, I think Marco would agree with me. I have kind of switch back to building like a real GMB asset that you can have access to verifying the address that kind of stuff and then building that out Local GMB Pro style, instead of building a bunch of additional assets that could potentially get terminated or suspended right now. Marco, do you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, I hate doing a whole bunch of work for you know, when it’s possible that you’re going to get shut down. Think about this. And I mentioned this in another group that I was talking to, so has an Uzi right now. And they’re just blasting anything that moves. Why in the fuck would you stick your head out right now? It’s really that simple. Think about it. So that’s happening. Someone’s got the Uzi out there shooting anything that moves, you don’t stick your head up, you turn around and get and get the fuck out the way. So right now just leave it alone. And the way to do it is you go to local GMB Pro, which is totally you can work in somebody else’s asset, right, a real company with a real GMB. And if anything happens, you can go and ask for it to ask for the suspension to be removed. So a whole lot simpler, you can still apply all of the principles that are taught to this area except that controlling the asset has become just almost impossible, I’m not gonna say impossible because nothing’s impossible, somebody will figure something out. Another way to get around Google and it’ll go wide open again, Wild West. But in the meantime, it’s almost impossible for you to control the asset. It means that if it gets suspended, there’s no way for you to recover the asset, you just have to let it go. And now you lost whatever however much time you invested in it. That’s another one of the reasons why, you know, all this time, time is always is so valuable, that I had to come up with a way instead of rebranding these assets I didn’t for somebody else come up with to come up with it with a simple solution. So that I wouldn’t my staff or I wouldn’t have to go through all the work of rebranding with it. And that’s just giving the person that answers the phone. A simple line couple of seconds. Yeah. And that takes care of everything. Think about how much time you just save. If you do it that way, then if you do a brand and you try to rebrand. So it’s time Don’t waste all that time on shit that might not pay off and it might you might get away with it. And I mean, if you are willing to take the risk, then go ahead and gamble on and I’d rather go on work on something that I know is going to be around for a while and especially if it’s a client or something that’s really important. That’s making me money. I don’t want to lose it. Agreed.

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Okay, next is I am building out an authority site and health niche. It seems that our wise stacks are geared towards local GMB assets. Do you have any case studies that are wise tax benefit authority sites and broad niches? Well, they most certainly do. You know, Marco always says local is relative. Right? So it really, you know, we have been pushing because there was a wide-open loophole guys, for the last year, really, because it was July of last year that the loophole opened up for GMB stuff that is now being shut, which is what we’ve been talking about today. But you know, for a year, that’s why we really shifted our focus because there was a wide-open opportunity, and we will want to exploit it. And that’s what we did. But now that loophole is closing, but RYS was actually built the that was developed that that that strategy, that method was developed not strictly for local at all. Ok. So again, probably because we had been touting GMB stuff for the last year. That’s why it may seem that way. But that’s that is absolutely not the case. Like in other words, RYS drive stacks can push authority into national global sites, national sites, you know, regional sites, whatever you want. Your local is relative. And that’s what Marco always says. So Marco, how would you best explain to him?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t go into that I’m not going to reveal anything that I’m working on, you know how difficult it is, especially if it’s making money because people will try to go and tear it down, spam it, reverse engineer it and then say they did it. So I don’t like revealing any particulars of what I’m doing. As Bradley said, your local is relative. And the only difference between a local niche and something national, global, regional, whatever it is, is the way that you approach it. It’s the way that you approach the entity. We teach all that RYS Academy Reloaded or if you order a done for you are is that you will get the done for you user’s guide that tells you what to do. We’ve also died also done countless webinars on entities and iframes and entity stacking iframe stacking. I did the webinar for the charity right when I was holding the charity drive where I did a series of three webinars where we went over the entire thing and highlight get the most out of a drive stack kit. Think about it just local, are you going to miss the point of what drive stack and G site can actually doing? How it pushes power to the destination and to everything that’s attached to it? It misses the bot if you only think of it as local, then that’s the only way that is going to work for you. Because you’re not thinking outside the box on how you can push that power to whatever it is that you’re looking to do.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah. And again, that’s, you know, I certainly understand the reason why somebody might assume that it’s only for local in this because that’s what we have been talking about how to apply it to local since the local strategy was what we were really pushing for the last year. However, as I said, we have all with what the current statuses, right that whatever the current situation is the environment. And right now, again, I’m not pushing hyperlocal stuff. In fact, I’m working on, you know, my new business model and just maintaining my existing client base right now and looking at different ways to produce results without having to have to rely specifically on hyperlocal stuff as we have been for the last year. So I’m you know, my point is that RYS drive stacks are still absolutely foundational because they’re so damn powerful. And what’s great about it is they become an SEO firewall, like, we use that as a foundational method, because from there, we can do all of the additional nasty SEO stuff that we want to externally to the actual drive stack and protect our money sites are our primary assets within the drive stack, right. So it’s almost like building up a shield around it that then we can do everything nasty we want to to that shield, and it’s not going to hurt otherwise, all it does is end up helping it to rank. And we have countless examples of that. My new business model, specifically, I created a new business, like I said, new website, which is actually just Click Funnels page, it’s a single landing page. And I’m ranked in the top three for my state now for my primary keyword. And all I’ve done is I think four or five press releases and a drive stack. And I haven’t even built links to the drive stack yet. And so it just goes to show you that it’s very, very powerful. And that’s why you know, we always suggest that a standard operating procedure, if you haven’t gotten a battle plan, go pick up the battle plan, there’s the the the banner to go buy it right there. And that explains how and when to use them. Whether it’s a local site or national site, it doesn’t matter. Okay.

Bradley: Scott’s

Marco: By the way, before you go on for the new mastermind project that we have, we will be building an authority site, and it’s going to be national. I don’t know if that’s ever going to get out of that specific group. But it’ll be available for anyone who is lucky enough to get in there. At one point or another. We’re still working out the details. But we are going to be building a National Authority site to take down the top guy in the niche.

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

The next one is Scott, I think is Scott Walker. He says I belong to a number of groups and get a lot of questions about how to I feel these people really need your courses. How can I become an affiliate? A reach call just contact Support, [email protected]. If you’re looking I don’t think we have an affiliate program for me. Why be yet but we probably should at some point? We don’t?

Marco: I think we do. It’s really simple to set up a failure, right to both [email protected] and [email protected], Scott and we’ll take care of you Well, we’ll figure out how to give you affiliate links so so that you can push our stuff. We don’t mind you pushing our stuff.

Bradley: Yeah. And I know we’ve got affiliate stuff Semantic Mastery training, as far as the done for you products. I wasn’t sure but yeah, you know, I’m sure we can get you that too. So absolutely. He says I don’t plan on making this a full-time career, but would like a bit of financial incentive for serious referrals. Your courses are still the best bang for the buck. Thanks. Yeah, I thank you. I appreciate that. Scott.

How To Have Access To Bradley’s Real Estate Group?

Ernest is up. He says, Hey, Bradley, how do I find out more about the Real Estate Group you have? I’m new to this page and don’t know how to access it. Thanks for all the great information. Well, Ernest. That’s a great question. So, unfortunately, the accountability group that started as a very small accountability group, it’s only available to mastermind members that have expressed an interest in and that’s only because it’s, it’s the first time I’m going to run the accountability group. So I wanted to keep it very small, very exclusive. And part of being in our mastermind is that our mastermind members always get the first opportunity at these sort of things. Beta testing, for example, they get the first opportunity for new training that we release, or new small groups like this, like the one that I’m talking about. So, unfortunately, it’s not something I can share with the greater public right now. Or the broader public, I should say, we at some point, it may be something that we present outside of the mastermind, but I can’t guarantee that I can’t tell you when that’s going to happen or even if it will happen. So, unfortunately, if you want more x, more information specifically about my accountability group, you have to be in the mastermind. However, that said, I do feel strongly enough about my new business model that I am willing to share where you can learn about the actual business, you won’t have the account access to the accountability group with me, and my partners, and all this cool stuff that we’re doing to help our members get very profitable very quickly. I’ve been very fortunate with this new business in the last three months and done very, very well very quickly. And it’s because of our I think it’s because of our ability, like our knowledge. And I’m not saying me specifically, but just like us as a group, like we know, and you included, you’re on this hump day hangout webinars, so you have access to a wealth of knowledge just from us in our Semantic Mastery YouTube Channel, as well as probably other groups and things like that. And the new business model that I’m in is primarily being as being like the competition is primarily using traditional marketing methods like direct mail and stuff, and don’t get me wrong, I’m doing that too. And it works. But knowing what we know about digital marketing, and being able to apply that to this business that is virtually uncompetitive, compared, you know, relative to digital marketing, it’s giving me like an unfair advantage, a competitive edge over most of the other people competing in this space. And it’s not an overcrowded business space anyways. And so again, I think that I feel strongly enough about this. And I’ve done so well, so quickly with this, that I don’t mind sharing this URL with you guys to go check it out. Because I learned from this guy, he’s got a great course.

And I’m going to post the link here, and the course is called, there’s a webinar for it specifically if you want to, and I posted the link to the webinar, so you guys can get an idea anybody that’s interested in what the new business model is, I’m flipping vacant land. So it’s kind of like flipping houses, but I’m flipping vacant land, it’s kicking ass. It’s a relatively uncompetitive business, especially if you know digital marketing, and you know how to apply digital marketing principles to the business, you can absolutely crush it. You know, I can’t, I can’t tell you that you’re going to repeat my results. But I pretty much I feel very strongly that most people, especially in our group could, because of like, I guess said how, how quickly, I’ve been able to get, like, make serious, serious money with this business, and just a few months. So again, the course is fantastic guys go to semanticmaster.com/LPG webinar, that’s LPG dash webinar that stands for land profit generator webinar, the guys from Austria or Germany, excuse me, his name’s Jack Bosch, it’s he’s kind of a goofy guy, but he’s great. He’s a great teacher and instructor, he’s got a great course, if you go to the webinar, it’s obviously going to pitch you the course at the end. But it’s exactly what I took and went through. And it took me one month to go through the course and set up my will because we know, we know marketing guys, right? You know, everybody on this webinar knows how to set up a landing page. So I spent a month going through the prop product there the training, and then I set up a landing page and kind of developed out my SEO plan. And my ads plan because I’m using paid traffic to. And within my first month, you know, a month later I started my marketing. And within my first month, I landed my first deal and make $15,000. Again, I cannot say that you guys are going to make that kind of money. But it’s very, very possible. And since then I’ve closed several other deals and made many 10s of thousands of dollars on top of that. So it’s a great, great course, this is not an affiliate webinar or guys, and I’m not trying to pitch you on this for any other reason other than I think there’s a lot of opportunity in this business for digital marketers, that a lot of the people actually competing in that space, really have no clue how to implement what we do you know what I mean. And so I think there’s a lot of opportunities there. So again, if you ever wanted to come to join the accountability group that I’m hosting, where we have a small group, and where we’ve got like a slack, slack group, you know, Slack channel, where we can communicate in real time, we’re holding weekly accountability meetings where we discuss current events within the business and like current deals that are pending, and that kind of stuff, you have to be part of the mastermind to get that.

So, anyway, it’s pretty exciting guys, I’m really, really, really excited about this business, something I haven’t been this excited about a long time, because it’s not the typical cat and mouse game with Google that I’ve been playing for 10 years now. You know, it’s, in fact, it’s a breath of fresh air because it’s, you know, I can very, very quickly have been able to generate a lot of leads for my own business, my own real estate business now, using the principles that we know. And it’s almost like I said, the competition is almost nonexistent my SEO, I’m already in the top three for my primary keywords for the state of Virginia, which is I’m into, I’m targeting the entire state of Virginia. And I’m in the top three for with within what, two, two and a half months, with just a handful of press releases in a DR stack, and a single page landing page. It’s It’s incredible. And I’m getting leads every single week, eight to 10 leads every week just from Google and a couple from Facebook, actually. And then I’m doing some direct mail. So it’s crazy. But you know, I get 25 to 30 leads per week and about a third of them come from Google and Facebook. Just from our you know, organic stuff, really, and some paid traffic to. So it’s a great business model, go check it out, you’ll get to see what it’s all about. And if you really want to get in on the accountability group, then come join the mastermind and you have an opportunity there. All right. Great question, though. Ernest, thank you for asking.

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Next one says, ran across a WordPress plugin called Google Site kit made by Google, really a WordPress plugin made by Google No shit. Okay to connect all Google functions like AdWords analytics to site any thoughts on using a plugin like that? I’m now because I haven’t seen it.

Um, I don’t see why it would be an issue. I mean, I know some people don’t like, like, they think that they want to keep Google out of their site. But trust me, Google knows everything about your site. Well, regardless. It’s funny because I remember a few years ago, people would say that they wouldn’t put analytics on the site or, or submit the site to search console. What used to be Google Webmaster Tools, because they didn’t want Google knowing what was going on with their site. Yet they’d have a WordPress site with Google Fonts installed. Or, you know what I mean, it would they’d access it from Chrome, you know, so it didn’t make any sense to me. But, uh, you know, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Marco, do you have any thoughts on that?

Ah, you know, me, I hate giving Google more information than they need. I don’t know if I’m going to be putting all that together. Although Yeah, if you already have analytics and search console, by all means. If you’re using AdWords and YouTube might as well because they’re already on your website anyway. But if you don’t, and you don’t want to get it. There are websites that I simply refuse to let Google into, then they are you going to have to make that choice? Do you let them in? Or do you not?

That’s interesting. I might actually play with that. I might even put that on my new. No, that’s just a minute. Well, I’ve got a blog set up on a subdomain for my new business, I might put this on that. So I can play around with this plugin a little bit. I’ve never cared guys, I’m not gonna lie. I’ve never given a shit about it. Because I always submit everything to search console so that it can get indexed quicker and everything anyway, so I know everybody teaches their own, but I’ve never had any issues with that. I like to use analytics. I’m not an analytics nerd, but I do like the data that it provides. So you know, honestly, and I and I put, I put the Google Tag Manager and the remarketing tag on everything now because if you’re not using remarketing, and the Google Display Network for remarketing, you’re out of your mind, you’re missing out on a lot of additional traffic, because it’s and it’s very inexpensive. So to run remarketing and retargeting, it’s remarketing on Google retargeting on Facebook, but I run a lot of remarketing ads for clients as well as lead gen assets. And my new business as well, just because once people land on the side if they haven’t converted, why not continue to market to them until they do convert? Or until they get annoyed? Which I don’t care. So anyway, but that’s pretty cool. I’m going to actually install that.

Chris: There is also one more thing that many people never think about. So if the site before you has like Google tools installed into the site after you as Google tools installed, Google knows exactly like when the past it’s going, you know, like users going. So you can hardly like to eliminate Google at all. If you want to hide.

Bradley: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don’t Set Up A Related Listing?

Anyway, next is Gordon, what’s up, Gordon? He says, Hey, guys, thanks again for helping us, customers. Your generosity is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Gordon. He says last week, someone asked a question about whether or not it was more difficult to rank a new site for local business niche and location if you didn’t want to set up a related GMB listing but your answer was about local organic rankings in general and did not address the GMB question. If you want to rank a new site for a local business niche location, if you didn’t want to set up a related can be listed but your answer was about local organic rankings in general and did not address the GMB question. Okay. I’m not sure how those are two separate things. But could you please comment on whether it’s more difficult or the same difficulty to organically rank a new site locally without setting up a related gym be listening? I think you misunderstood my explanation. So I’m going to try to explain it again. But it’s going to be the same explanation. So I may, maybe, maybe Marco can chime in here in just a moment and rewarded or convey what I’m trying to convey in a different way that makes more sense to you. But it’s the same answer that I’m going to give you before the problem with ranking a local site, or a site for local keywords is that in the organic section, instead of in maps, is that you’re competing with a lot of directory style sites now, which are highly authoritative, highly or, you know, very aged domain, typically, which carry a lot of inherent authority. And it’s very difficult to outrank them, depending on the locations, you know, obviously, if it’s more of a smaller area, then you can typically get much better results because they’re not, if you’re targeting like neighborhoods or suburbs, those kinds of things, you’re you can usually get much, much faster results similarly to what you could within maps, but I’m talking about in the organic section, because a lot of times the directory sites are not optimized for any of those smaller areas, right, that they’re optimized for the greater metropolitan area, right, which is an all-encompassing type of keyword, location, keyword, location modifier, so to speak. But when you’re talking about trying to rank organically for like, again, I’m going to use Fairfax, Virginia, because that’s a big area. very competitive SEO area for SEO in Virginia. So Fairfax, Virginia, if you’re trying to rank for like plumber or plumbing contractor, Fairfax, Virginia, again, and I’ll just approve it, you know, we’ll go just do a quick search if I said, you know, plumbing contractor, and I always use contractors, guys, but that’s because that’s primarily what I’ve done for the last 10 years. If I say, Fairfax, plumbing, Fairfax County plumbing contractor, excuse me, Fairfax VA, what do you see here? Yelp, home advisor, branding.

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

Yeah. And then what do you get, then you get three directories in a row, then you get a company that’s been around for a long damn time, John C Floods a big contractor up in that area, then you get another director directory, then another really aged authority if type site that company has been around, then another directory, you see what I’m saying about this? out of the top 10, it looks like seven of them. And the organic section which is already buried by Google guarantee. ads and maps. It looks like seven out of the top 10. organic rankings are of other directories. So again, I’m not talking about GMB stuff. I’m talking about organic rankings. Can you rank a local a site for local terms in the organic section? Yes, but it’s a dogfight is what I’m telling you. Yes, you can. And it depends on the location modifier the that you’re trying to rank for. Right? If you’re Fairfax is a broad that cut because Look, listen, like in this example. Fairfax is a county, Fairfax as a county, but it’s also there’s the city of Fairfax, too. But there are 23 locations within Fairfax County like Vienna and oak 10 in Tysons Corner. And so trying to rank for those would be much easier, it’s still relatively hard or difficult. But trying to rank for a plumbing contractor, Vienna, Virginia is going to be easier than trying to rank for plumbing contractor Fairfax because that’s essentially targeting the whole county or the city. But either way, it’s basically one and the same, they’re synonymous. Right. So my point is, it’s very, very difficult to do that. And that’s because Google is for whatever reason, they’re promoting index pages of other directories on their primary index page, page one, which remember, Google is nothing other than an index of listings. And so all and when what happens when you click through to this, it’s an index page on Yelp, for plumbers in Fairfax, which I think is stupid. Like you go from one index to another. I think that’s dumb, but it is what it is. And so again, like I said, That’s why I have I’ve shifted years ago, I shifted away from ranking, trying to rank organically through just sticking to maps, because again, look at it like that, that always came up first, it tended to be a lot easier to rank for maps than it did for organic. But yet, can it be done? Yes. But you’re in for a dogfight. That’s all I’m saying. So I don’t know if I explained that any differently than I did last week. Marco, do you want to take a stab at it?

Marco: No, that was perfect. That’s all I added to what you said was the amount of power that you’d have to push. I mean, how do you explain the amount of power to take down Yelp? And the amount of work that you have to do? And is it going to be worthwhile going for that? It could be for your contractor, but you may not be getting paid enough to get you paid back for the work that you have to do to get there. I know that you have to push massive amounts of power. We have ways where you can push massive amounts of power, but it’s going to require more money than most local people are willing to pay.

Bradley: That’s correct. That’s the point with the right budget, then yeah, you could do it. There’s no question. But a lot of times trying to, you know, like, because of these like the plumbers here that I’m talking about, like John C Flood and FH for their well, big established companies, that they’ve got a lot big. They’ve got deep marketing budgets, like deep pockets, you know what I mean? So, you know, if you’re trying to get your foot in the door with a smaller company, a newer company, whatever, that’s got a smaller marketing budget, there’s really no way to compete with that. I mean, you can, but it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort. And it’s not going to again, Marcos correct, absolutely correct. They’re likely, it’s weird how they turned to blackmail, but they’re likely not going to have, you know, pay you enough for the amount of effort that you’re putting in. So it makes sense. And if they give you a small, if you have a smaller budget to work with, then it could possibly still be done. But it’s going to require more time because you’re going to have to stretch, you know, do a little bit at a time because that’s all the budget allows. And chances are you’re going to lose the client before you ever get them to reach because it’s taking too long. But it’s hard to explain. I know because especially again, I don’t know that you’re dealing with contractors, but I’ve dealt with a lot of smaller contractors, in fact, that was my primary client base for the last 10 years is smaller contractors. And so it’s difficult to, you know, explain to a contractor, and it’s like banging your head against the wall when you say, Listen, if you want to get results really, really quickly, I’m going to need more money. They say I don’t, I don’t have any more money. But I want you to give me results right away. If you got me results, I’d have more money. Well, I can’t get your results without more money. And it’s like, you know who’s on first, you know what I mean? It’s that whole chicken and the egg type thing cart before the horse and that kind of stuff. So, again, I don’t know if I explained anything different. But um, there you go.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google’s Suspension?

Based on your experience, what are the niches in addition to pest control that you believe Google thinks has a lot of spam listings, and that Google may have a trigger finger for regarding their suspension tirade for just editing, listening? Thanks, again. You know, Marco, and I actually talked about this just briefly right before the Hangout today. And it’s hard to say I mean, there are certainly that some that are more known to be spammy than others. pest control is definitely one of them. I know that for a fact, garage, like overhead garage doors is another one that’s incredibly spammy. And so you know, that I know that one would be one that I’d stay away from locksmiths, I believe is another one. So there’s a number of them that are there. But as far as you know, I don’t know because right now, Gordon, a lot of the, like Google’s on a tirade period. And as Marco said, it’s like somebody firing an Uzi. Why would you ever want to stick your head up? And it’s almost like, I think anything’s a target right now. I don’t know that to be sure. Because I’ve stayed out of intentionally I’ve stayed out of a lot of the GMB listings recently, for even my clients other than just doing GMB posts, specifically for that reason, because I don’t want to stick my head up. That makes sense. But so, you know, again, we don’t work for Google. So I can tell us specifically which niches are worse than others. I do know some that have historically been spammy and pest control is one of them. So I probably should have kept my ass out of my clients’ pest control. But it’s such an established site. We’ve never done you know, business and we like free for seven years. I’ve never done anything spammy. All I did was change, deleted an image of a photo, uploaded a couple of new photos and published the GMB website because, for whatever reason, it had been created, but was never published. And I click the Publish button and boom, suspended. And that was two over two weeks ago now is about Yeah, it was just like, I don’t know, 1718 days ago now 17 1717 or 18 days ago now and it’s still suspended. So again, I don’t recommend really doing a whole lot in GMB. If you can get away with it. Marco made a good point last week where he said if you if you’re just got a new listing verified, you can make all your changes right away that does make sense as likely won’t get suspended because it’s new, you’ve got to you got it up, you know, kind of updated that kind of stuff. But if it’s been established, I’d keep your ass out of it for right now. Honestly.

Marco: Yeah, and I’m trying to do and to clear that up. Once you get it back, I think maybe the I didn’t communicate that correctly. Get all of your edits and all of your work done before you send for the pin, get as much information in there as possible images, videos, however much of the information what we teach it in Local GMB Programs, I’m not going to go through everything that you can do for the listing. But once it comes back to the there should be no reason for you to touch it, because everything is then correct already. And then you can just concentrate on the next part of local GMB Pro, which is post images post posting in a certain way. Your images, your images have to be done, right. They have to be done correctly, we show how to get images we show it all. But the whole point is, once you’ve sent for that pin, and you verify it, don’t touch the fucking thing. Don’t do anything, leave it because now you’re taking a tense at at at at getting suspended. And that’s that said this for now. It might change. Yeah, we don’t know when we don’t know how long we don’t know which niches and which ones are going are still going to have that hair trigger. We just don’t know. Yeah, sometimes I wish I were a fly on the wall of Google GMB to know what the hell is going on because there’s no rhyme or reason to what they’re doing.

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

Correct. Next one’s from Scott again. He says a few weeks ago, you mentioned service for done for you schema markup creation. I have a multi-location client and my schema markup needs some major help. Would you please give us the name and the URL again? Thanks. Yeah, it was Ryan Rodan, he was a mastermind member for quite some time. And he got really, really geek out on schema. And he really did. And so like he created a certain he ended up because he got so good at it. And he had so many people asked, I’m all the time like for help with their schema, he decided to create this. And I’m assuming he still does it. I haven’t talked to him in probably two years now. But it’s skeema.pro. And it’s spelled instead of the way that schema is really spelled he spells it’s skeema.pro. So just go to Skeema Pro. And you can check out a schema code order structured data overhaul, he’s got several he’s got, you know, the guy knows what he’s doing, at least he did two years ago. And as long as he’s still staying up to date with what’s going on, which is geek out as he was about schema back then I’m assuming that he is still up to date, or he’s staying on top of that stuff. But just reach out to him. Tell him that we sent you. We don’t get any affiliate referral or anything for that. But it’s always good too, you know, give credit to people that refer business. So check it out skeema.pro, and that’s spelled, SKEEMA Pro. Right.

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Fitz is up. He says Good afternoon, gents. Thanks for allowing this forum to continue. It is greatly appreciated. My question today is Google loves QA should we add a single question and answer to one-page post? For the website? I asked because the new schema requirement is to only have one q&a per page, but in an industry with a good number of Q and A’s. Do you put only one page for 10 or more pages? Do you think that is valuable? Okay.

Bradley: I’m not I had always lumped similar questions together. And q&a post guys are great content for blog posts, and then you could break them out as individual like GMB posts. You can create a syndicate, you know, blog posts with them, that kind of stuff. But my point is, q&a posts are great. And a lot of times and I’ve talked about this in syndication Academy, I can go over it just now we don’t have enough time. I was gonna say I can go over briefly. But we only got five minutes, I show you some ideas on how to do that. But I had always lumped similar questions together on the same page. However, if the new schema requirement is to only have one q amp a per page, then yeah, I mean, I don’t see why not. I would just do it as blog posts. Right, I would do short blog posts and mark each blog posts. So no, I wouldn’t dedicate a whole page to it. If you’re going to have a page, I would have q amp a, you know, grouped in similar questions into groups and separate and different headings sections, right header sections within the page. And then even then you can create a table of contents with jump links. And again, can’t get into that, because Margot, kill me. But you can do things for that page to make them more powerful too. But what I would do is for the blog posts, yeah, I would mark up blog posts with individual Q&A markup, right, that’s what I would do. And in fact, you could even probably link from the page where you group them together with within certain headings and that kind of stuff, then you could probably link the individual Q and A’s to blog posts. And again, fits in fewer in the mastermind, which I think you’re trying to get back in Actually, I heard something about that. We can go much more into depth on how you can get the most power out of that same setup that I was just mentioning, and specifically how to structure the linking the internal linking from within that site because you got to do it a very specific way. Now, Marco just revealed in the mastermind recently about certain things that have changed recently that pertain to internal linking that we’d have to cover in the mastermind. So all right, I think we’re just about out of questions. And we’re almost out of time.

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Justin says for new GMB, would you include geolocation information in the photo files? Or do you think that’s spamming? No, I would absolutely include that. Because here’s the thing, if you’re taking photos, like if, if the business owner, so to speak, was taking photos from a mobile device, with GPS enabled, which almost all of them are, that’s going to have that embedded information by default anyway. And if they’re uploading it to their own GMB listing, then it would see that if customers are uploading photos, remember, like for stores and places, as you know, I’m a Google local guy, you know, I do a review, I don’t do it all the time. But when I think about it, if I’m at a restaurant, or if I’m in a hotel or something, and I and I think about reviewing it, then I’ll take a photo and upload that with my review. And guess what, it’s got my GPS, my access data, right? My geolocation, geo metadata is it is embedded in that file. And that then gets uploaded to that GMB listing by as a customer photo, right. So, by the way, that’s if you’re going to be doing a lot of uploads to a GMB right now, I wouldn’t do it as an owner, I would do it as a customer. So you could do that through persona, email, persona Gmail accounts, guys, you know, persona profiles, Google profiles that you set up, so that you’re you don’t trigger a suspension from uploading photos, I haven’t heard of anybody actually will actually Marco had one that was triggered from uploading a photo. But if you upload as a, if you upload a photo to a GMB listing as a customer, then Google can’t suspend the listing as far as I know. Now, you know, as far as I know, I haven’t heard of that happening. But I have heard of uploading a photo as the business owner, so from within the GMB dashboard, and it causing a suspension. I haven’t experienced that myself yet, yet. But a customer photo wouldn’t do that. So again, think about that. It’s not spammy at all. Now, if it’s an image that Google knows is on the web, which Google’s image recognition is incredibly good, and all you did was change the metadata, then that could perhaps look spammy. And that might be something that triggers trouble in the future, I haven’t seen it trigger anything right now. But a quick way to determine that guys, as you can always go to 10, nine, calm is one of them.

There are probably other ones at Google, I think even has its own image recognition engine that you can play with, I think Marco shared that in RYS or something. But tonight, calm is free. And you can just actually go grab the image and drop it in here. You can even take them if it’s already on the web, you can take the URL and drop it in here. Or you can just actually take the photo from your country from your, you know, your file system on your computer and upload it. And it’ll tell you if that image has already been indexed on the web. And I will show you where if it has been. Right. And again, 10 is not as good as Google with that, but it’s, it still will give it So again, if you’re just taking an image that’s already been used on the web and changing the exit data, then you know, that may cause an issue in the future. I haven’t seen it cause any issues currently. Although it’s not as effective either, though, just keep that in mind. And we’ve proven that. Alright.

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Let’s see. Thanks for your answers before thanks so much for the information off topic, but I’m in Richmond VA today from a totally familiar those areas mentioned. Okay, so he’s talking about like Fairfax and all that. Yep. Alright, guys. Well, we appreciate y'all being here. mastermind webinar is tomorrow. For those of you that are in the mastermind, and thanks, everybody for sticking around. You guys. All hung out. Thanks.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244 posted first on http://beyondvapepage.blogspot.com

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

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Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 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

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There’s always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won’t cure the cold, but you’ll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it’ll, it’ll make you feel better.

Bradley: We’re going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It’s leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we’re going to have the hump day hang out while we’re there. And we’ll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Bradley: Good. I’m happy to be here. Excited about a lot of stuff going on with my business and some new stuff we got going on next week in the mastermind. Well, for a small group. Things are good. I started a new business, it’s really kicking ass. Somebody’s got a question about it. So I’ll get to that here in a minute when we get to questions, but it’s been really fun. Applying digital marketing to a new business model that’s not specifically a marketing business, there’s a lot of marketing to it. All businesses require marketing. That’s what we do as marketing consultants, right, we help businesses grow by improving their marketing. But it’s you know, as a marketing professional, we typically are working on other companies marketing, not so much our own, you know what I mean? Like to grow our own businesses, even as a, as an agency, a lot of the marketing that I’ve done for my own agency, which really hasn’t been a lot has come from word of mouth. And, you know, a lot of outbound marketing, not so much inbound marketing, and it but as soon as we get a new client or several clients, whatever, we end up working on those businesses, right, so we help other businesses grow. Instead of a lot of time growing around, of course, the more clients we get, the more we grow. But it’s just interesting to start another business where I’m generating leads for my own business. And it’s an in applying all that I’ve learned, and kind of perfected over the years to my own business. And watching it grow rapidly, which I’ve done for others, but not so much myself. And it’s just really interesting to see the different dynamic, to be in different shoes, so to speak. I’m still a marketing professional. But now I’m applying it to my own business. And I’m watching that really take off. And it’s, it’s been a pretty cool experience. And so that’s something that we’re, you know, I’m really excited about and we’ve got some pretty cool things going on in the mastermind in a smaller group within the mastermind, specifically around that kind of stuff. So nice. Excited to be here.

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don’t miss it.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Bradley: Scott’s

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

How To Have Access To Bradley’s Real Estate Group?

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Bradley: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don’t Set Up A Related Listing?

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google’s Suspension?

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244 published first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes

jenniferbowley · 5 years

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 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

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There’s always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won’t cure the cold, but you’ll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it’ll, it’ll make you feel better.

Bradley: We’re going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It’s leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we’re going to have the hump day hang out while we’re there. And we’ll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don’t miss it.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Bradley: Scott’s

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

How To Have Access To Bradley’s Real Estate Group?

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Bradley: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don’t Set Up A Related Listing?

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google’s Suspension?

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Let’s see. Thanks for your answers before thanks so much for the information off topic, but I’m in Richmond VA today from a totally familiar those areas mentioned. Okay, so he’s talking about like Fairfax and all that. Yep. Alright, guys. Well, we appreciate y’all being here. mastermind webinar is tomorrow. For those of you that are in the mastermind, and thanks, everybody for sticking around. You guys. All hung out. Thanks.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244 syndicated from https://medium.com/@SpanishFly

0 notes

localwebmgmt · 5 years

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 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

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There’s always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won’t cure the cold, but you’ll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it’ll, it’ll make you feel better.

Bradley: We’re going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It’s leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we’re going to have the hump day hang out while we’re there. And we’ll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don’t miss it.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Bradley: Scott’s

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

How To Have Access To Bradley’s Real Estate Group?

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Bradley: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don’t Set Up A Related Listing?

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google’s Suspension?

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244 published first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes

angelagiles18 · 5 years

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 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

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There’s always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won’t cure the cold, but you’ll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it’ll, it’ll make you feel better.

Bradley: We’re going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It’s leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we’re going to have the hump day hang out while we’re there. And we’ll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don’t miss it.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Bradley: Scott’s

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

How To Have Access To Bradley’s Real Estate Group?

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Bradley: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don’t Set Up A Related Listing?

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google’s Suspension?

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244 published first on your-t1-blog-url https://ift.tt/1WMpNvB July 15, 2019 at 09:37PM Semantic Mastery https://ift.tt/2YeHIxM

0 notes

pledje · 5 years

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 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

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There’s always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won’t cure the cold, but you’ll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it’ll, it’ll make you feel better.

Bradley: We’re going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It’s leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we’re going to have the hump day hang out while we’re there. And we’ll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don’t miss it.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Bradley: Scott’s

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

How To Have Access To Bradley’s Real Estate Group?

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Bradley: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don’t Set Up A Related Listing?

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google’s Suspension?

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244 published first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes

youngwinnertragedy · 5 years

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 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

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There’s always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won’t cure the cold, but you’ll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it’ll, it’ll make you feel better.

Bradley: We’re going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It’s leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we’re going to have the hump day hang out while we’re there. And we’ll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don’t miss it.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Bradley: Scott’s

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

How To Have Access To Bradley’s Real Estate Group?

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Bradley: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don’t Set Up A Related Listing?

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google’s Suspension?

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244 published first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes

semanticmastery · 5 years

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Adam: Alright, we are live Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts. This is one where I get all hopped up on a bunch of cold drugs and pills and pretend like I'm not sick for a little bit. But this is Episode 244. We're glad you're here. This is your first time joining us. Thanks for being here, you're in the right place. If you are on Youtube, you're kind of in the right place. But you should come over to https://semanticmastery com./HDquestions and that's where you can actually ask the questions and interact. But real quick before we get into stuff, we got some really good announcements, some fun stuff coming up. Just want to say hello to everyone real quick. I'll start on my left. Chris, how you doing?

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There's always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Chris: Yeah, it's pretty good. Like, many people think it's chilly because we are like, I don't know, between 18 to 20 degrees right now, which is like 20 degrees less three in Celsius, obviously. But yeah, I like it that way for me to be better. I can work. I can do my projects. I can hit the gym and stuff. I don't have to sweat all day and actually can go out and stuff as well. So I'm super happy. I can't complain. How are you doing?

Adam: Good, good. Except for the cold. It's, it's nice. I'm one of those people man when I get a cold I just turned into like a hibernating bear. I don't want to go outside. off that it's sunny and nice outside. I just want to sit here be pissed off. But yeah, that's me. I'm happy. I'm here though. today. We got like I said some good stuff. But Marco, how are you doing?

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won't cure the cold, but you'll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it'll, it'll make you feel better.

Bradley: We're going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It's leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we're going to have the hump day hang out while we're there. And we'll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Bradley: Good. I'm happy to be here. Excited about a lot of stuff going on with my business and some new stuff we got going on next week in the mastermind. Well, for a small group. Things are good. I started a new business, it's really kicking ass. Somebody's got a question about it. So I'll get to that here in a minute when we get to questions, but it's been really fun. Applying digital marketing to a new business model that's not specifically a marketing business, there's a lot of marketing to it. All businesses require marketing. That's what we do as marketing consultants, right, we help businesses grow by improving their marketing. But it's you know, as a marketing professional, we typically are working on other companies marketing, not so much our own, you know what I mean? Like to grow our own businesses, even as a, as an agency, a lot of the marketing that I've done for my own agency, which really hasn't been a lot has come from word of mouth. And, you know, a lot of outbound marketing, not so much inbound marketing, and it but as soon as we get a new client or several clients, whatever, we end up working on those businesses, right, so we help other businesses grow. Instead of a lot of time growing around, of course, the more clients we get, the more we grow. But it's just interesting to start another business where I'm generating leads for my own business. And it's an in applying all that I've learned, and kind of perfected over the years to my own business. And watching it grow rapidly, which I've done for others, but not so much myself. And it's just really interesting to see the different dynamic, to be in different shoes, so to speak. I'm still a marketing professional. But now I'm applying it to my own business. And I'm watching that really take off. And it's, it's been a pretty cool experience. And so that's something that we're, you know, I'm really excited about and we've got some pretty cool things going on in the mastermind in a smaller group within the mastermind, specifically around that kind of stuff. So nice. Excited to be here.

Adam: Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to kind of touch on that. Just real quick. If you're, like I said, new. Thanks for watching. You know, you're in the right place. You can show up every week, same time. You know, I think was this episode 244. We've been doing this for a little while. We're going to keep doing it for a while longer, but be here 4pm Eastern every week on Wednesdays. If you're looking for the next step, you know, that is a question we get you to know what, what should I do? You know, I've been watching your videos, what's the next step grab the battle plan, check it out at https://battleplan.semanticmastery.com. After that, the place you're going to want to be is what Bradley was just talking about was our mastermind, you can find out more about that at https://mastermind.semanticmastery.com. And then for those of you who are, you know, either doing client work, you've grown your own agency or you know the value of your time. If you want to get premium done for you SEO Services, head over to https://mgyb.co. Real quick to I wanted to say we sent out an email. Or you know what all on this one, I sent out an email with a little bit of a spelling error. Turns out it's POFO, not POFU. fo if you want to come to poke who live in Denver, it's October 11, 12th and 13th. The 11th is going to be the VIP day. Wrapping that up right now it is going to be kick ass until I confirm it. That's all I'm going to say. But that's going to be a great way to get to know everybody. You know, just do the networking, meet up with people, and then roll into the event on the 12th and 13th. And have a great time a lot of actionable content and kick ass guest speakers along with ourselves. But literally tomorrow, the early bird pricing is going away. So if you've been on the fence, you've been thinking about it, now is the great time to buy your ticket after that prices are going up. And that's where they're going to stay until the event. So grab those today. I'll put the link on the page for everyone to go and grab their tickets. Let's see. We talked about Oh, Bradley, do you want to mention what's coming on next week, you talked about the training for the new business. But I believe there's another webinar for everyone next week, right?

Bradley: Yeah, next Thursday, we're doing at 4pm Eastern, an MGYB kind of Syndication Academy update webinar, where we're going to be talking about how to get the most I guess the most bang for from press releases, how to get the best SEO effect and for driving traffic. And we're going to talk a little bit about PR stacking and how to how to do that the PR stacking method, and also how to get just how to even add more power to the press releases into the PR stacking method. And so it's again, that's going to be kind of an mg ye webinar, as well as the Syndication Academy update webinar, because there's a way that you can apply the PR method to a syndication network to and use that as another way to amplify the PR the press releases. So I would highly encourage you guys to go check that out, it's going to be cool, we're going to talk about, you know, again, you can get press releases from MGYB, which is the same service that we all use. And they're very, very powerful if you know how to how to do it correctly. So we're going to be talking a lot about that a lot of the stuff that will be talking about has actually really ever only been explained fully before in Local PR Pro. So we're going to touch on some of those concepts in the webinar next week.

Adam: Very cool. Awesome. Yeah. So everyone, stay tuned, you'll be getting if you're on the email list, you will be getting an update about that and some information about where that's going to be at and how you can get there. If you are not, and you're watching us today, you can just head down on the page and get signed up below. If you're watching this at https://semanticmastery com./HDquestions, you can just sign up right there. And that's how you get notified of all this stuff along with flash sales. Lot of the content we put out as well. So I think that'll do it you guys anything else before we dive in?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Bradley: Okay, good. So I set up a YouTube ads campaign to help them prove our subscriber increase our subscribers and are like 90% up from the last 28 days with just a very small ad spend. So it's pretty cool guys, you can use YouTube to do that kind of stuff, you know, buy ads to increase subscriber rates and it's very inexpensive.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don't miss it.

Bradley: Awesome. Let me grab upsets the wrong button. All right, let's get into questions. We have quite a few already, which is good. See, I guess we start with Justin T. Let me actually blow this up a little bit, guys.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Alright, hey guys, thanks for everything. I'm in the process of setting up my first lead generation asset I'm going after the photography niche. Should I brand the site like any other photographer? example, shutterbug photography, or should I go with something like Edmonton photographer.com? No. Go with a branded name, or branded domain if that's what you're talking about because you're much better off with brand guys. With a brand, excuse me a branded domain and a branded like a brand name than trying to use exact match keywords or exact match keyword domains. Those are all. Like, you know, we don't recommend that for many reasons, because it's it looks spammy, it sounds spammy. For GMB assets. Specifically, you want to try to get away from doing anything spamming, including the name itself. And also exact match domains typically will trigger penalties a lot easier or quicker with a lot less, it takes a lot less, in other words, to trigger a penalty, because even a soft penalty, because again, it's already optimized right off the bat. And so everything that you do has that additional layer of optimization. And so I don't recommend that at all. If you're new to the SEO game, then I completely understand why you would think that that might be something to go after, you know using exact match keyword domain and perhaps, you know, an exact match or even partial match keyword for the brand name itself. But I recommend that you go with something that's branded Instead, it will allow you to get away with a lot more SEO stuff without actually triggering a penalty. Any comments, guys?

Marco: It's also pigeonholing yourself if you go Edmonton photographer, right? What if you don't want to just what if you want to start ranking for something else besides Edmonton, or in the surrounding areas of Edmonton, if you just go, but if you go with branded and your look, and then you have a locations page, Edmonton and whatever else, God I'm sorry, I'm not that familiar with Canadian geography. But you go with photographer, let's just say photographer.com, but it should be a brand. And then you're going to have a locations page. And then you're going to have Edmonton and whatever other cities, and then you can offer services or you can have services plus whichever way you set up your silo, you have a lot more flexibility than if you start off with Edmonton photographer. And you're going to offer a wedding photographer. And so you have to be really careful with how often you use the word photographer. So that you don't get filtered for all these things. And you have all these bad things that can happen with a TLD, when you go with an exact match domain, you have to be really careful with the keywords and how you use them.

Bradley: Yeah. And so the next question is from him as well. And he says, and so it clarifies this first question. He says, I'm confused how I branded this thing, especially when it comes to the GMB. Is it a photography company branded like a regular business? Or is it something like wedding photography, location name, if it is set up as a business, then when someone calls once they be confused when another business that they are sent to? Yeah, and so, you know, there's, and I've talked about this a lot and Local Lease Pro on how to resolve that kind of an issue. So typically, what, what I've done in the past is I would set up kind of a generic type name. But again, it would still be a brand name, not a, an exact match keyword because, or even for that, for that matter, a partial match keyword. So for example, I use tone prose a lot like I would use the city name home Pros for like remodeling or general contractors and things like that because it's, it's, you know, it's a related type term. But it's not something that is a keyword that people typically search for people don't search for Remodeling Contractors by typing in, you know, home pros, but it makes sense because it's related, right. And then once the assets would rank and start producing, when I would find a service provider that wanted to purchase the leads from me or lease the asset from me, however, however, we you know, whatever agreement we came to, then after a few months, if they had proven themselves to be good service providers, and it looks like they were going to be long term, then I would rebrand it. Okay.

And that's part of the reason why we've talked about not building citations. There's a number of reasons why you don't want to build citations for lead generation asset. One would be if you plan on rebranding it because then you have to go back and update all of the existing published citations. But the other thing is if it's a spam GMB, in other words, if it's a Google My Business address, that you use to verify or excuse me, a listing that you've got verified, that you don't have access to the actual address where it was verified to, then you don't want to build citations, because that once you start building citations, naturally, that physical location will start receiving mail, as solicitation offers from marketing companies, and directories and other all kinds of things. And it will be addressed to that business name. So if you purchased a GMBs that it was verified by somebody else, then you don't want to do citations. Because next thing, you know, you're going to start getting business mail sent to that location. And it could very well very easily be reported by whoever's at that location, right, whether it's a business or a residential address, somebody is going to be getting mail that's addressed to a business that doesn't actually exist there. And so that's one reason I said, don't build citations. But another is if you are going to rebrand it, for the service provider that you end up ultimately, you know, securing for that location or for purchasing that lead those leads or whatever, then you also don't want to be you don't want to build citations, right? So that's why I said if you're gonna if you're going to do one of the things that I've done, as far as how do you resolve that? Well, we would I use a call center for all of my lead generation assets, where the calls go directly to you know, what I use? It's called AnswerConnect, answerconnect.com and I set up a script where they answered the phone. And so let's say that it's, you know, shutterbug photography is the name of your business, right, your lead generation asset. And let's say it's going to Joe Smith photography is the actual photographer that's going to be handling it, then I, the way that I would set it up is that the call center would answer it as shutterbug photography, part of the Joe Smith photography group, or something like that. And so it's just a way to inject the actual business name, that the leads are going to be serviced by into the introduction or the greeting that the when the caller answers the phone. So again, you know, I've said this many times, if you're going to be building lead generation assets, you're better off using a call center, if you're going to be directing leads, or you know, the field having calls coming in. Because another reason why you want to do that, and I talked about this, I think in the last week, last month, Hump Day Hangouts is because when you start getting calls, if you direct the for forward the phone number directly to the business, unless they have a full-time receptionist in a photography photographer might, unless they have a full-time receptionist, they're going to get hammered with a bunch of solicitation calls. It's funny how when you rank a Google asset or rank on the first page, but primarily in maps, when you rank in maps, all of a sudden, you start getting a bunch of calls from marketing, and advertising agencies, like Yelp, is one of them. Again, I use contractors a lot as examples. But home advisor will absolutely start hammering contractor lead generation assets, with phone calls, trying to sell them leads. And so and it's funny that that only happens once you're ranked on page one, when you're ranked on page two, when you really need those types of lead, like in other words, I would you know, as I would think as a marketing and advertising agency, they would be targeting page two, but they're always targeting the page one people. So anyway, my point is, is that the business will get inundated will get hammered with solicitation calls. And so that could actually piss a business off. And I know it because I've been doing this for years. So that's why I always recommend setting up a lead or excuse me a call center, because the call center will screen the calls and filter out the solicitation calls, those won't ever go those messages won't get to the business, it's going to be purchasing leads from your leasing asset, or however you work it out. Now, if they got a full-time receptionist, the reception, that's the receptionist job, you can still forward it to them. But in that case, I would have a whisper on the line. Right? If you if you're directing the phone calls directly to the business and the business has a receptionist or somebody that answers the phone regularly, then I would put a whisper on the line that states that the call is coming from your lead generation asset. So for example, if again, if you're if you named it shutterbug photography, I would have the winner per se shutter call from shutterbug photography or call from shutterbug, or something like that, so that when they answer the phone, they're going to hear that, right as soon as they pick up the phone.

And they're going to know that they should greet it as a shutter shutterbug photography, part of the Joe Smith photography group or something like that. Does that make sense? However, you word the greeting. But it's just a way to inject the actual service, whoever's servicing that lead into that actual greeting so that it doesn't confuse people. And I've always told this to people in the past, like a lot of Tree Service contractors wouldn't know, when I was caught what like how to how to respond to a customer when they would go out to the customers' location to give them an estimate for a Tree Service job. When you know, the caller called in and it was a different Tree Service Company Name because it was a lead generation asset, I've always told them, You just tell them that smart our lead generation website, and it just hasn't been updated with our brand name that's all about that's all you have to say. So my point is Don't lie. Just try to work it into coming up with a creative way to work it into there, to where you say, you know, the service providers name in the greeting as well as whatever. And if anybody if the question ever came up why called Soderbergh photography? Why is Joe Smith photographer, answer, you know, answering line, so Well, that's because that's a lead generation website that we've had on the web that just hasn't been updated yet or something like that. And that's I've always been able to get around it that way and never had any issues. So that's, that's how I would recommend that, again, you build it with kind of a generic brand name, as shutterbug photography would work? Well, I know, don't know if that's really what you're planning on using. But use that as your brand name until you get a service provider that's going to be in place for what you hope to be long term, don't do it right away. Don't switch the brand right away. Because what happens if you find out that they're not, you know, they're not going to pay you on time, or they're a pain in the ass to deal with. You don't want to start switching the brand name of a champion that said, just so you guys know, a lot of stuff that you're doing in GMB right now is a bit, you know, I would caution you make any sort of significant changes in the Google My Business assets except for perhaps when you first set it up, because Google is certainly on a rampage right now with triggering suspensions for like the slightest kind of changes. And it's, there's no rhyme or reason to it. So I don't know that change. I've gotten away with changing the location name of GMB assets, I mean, many times in the past, even changing the location address without being triggering a suspension or re-verification. But right now, Google's got like what I call an itchy trigger finger, they're looking to suspend with some of the slightest changes if it's a brand new list, and you might be able to get away with some immediate changes. But once it's been established or aged for any period of time, it seems like any sort of significant change can trigger a suspension. Now that all might change again, and a few weeks or a few months, I don't know. Right now, it's a bit hairy. I would rather and staying away from any sort of big changes, but that's, that's why I said guys, you know, there was a period of time of almost an entire year now that we could get away with murder. And now they're really cracking down on it. And this is a fluid type of business guys, you have to evolve with what's going on in the current state, or you know what I mean? And so that's why I don't recommend going after building a bunch of lead generation assets right now. In fact, we kind of more or less, I think Marco would agree with me. I have kind of switch back to building like a real GMB asset that you can have access to verifying the address that kind of stuff and then building that out Local GMB Pro style, instead of building a bunch of additional assets that could potentially get terminated or suspended right now. Marco, do you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, I hate doing a whole bunch of work for you know, when it's possible that you're going to get shut down. Think about this. And I mentioned this in another group that I was talking to, so has an Uzi right now. And they're just blasting anything that moves. Why in the fuck would you stick your head out right now? It's really that simple. Think about it. So that's happening. Someone's got the Uzi out there shooting anything that moves, you don't stick your head up, you turn around and get and get the fuck out the way. So right now just leave it alone. And the way to do it is you go to local GMB Pro, which is totally you can work in somebody else's asset, right, a real company with a real GMB. And if anything happens, you can go and ask for it to ask for the suspension to be removed. So a whole lot simpler, you can still apply all of the principles that are taught to this area except that controlling the asset has become just almost impossible, I'm not gonna say impossible because nothing's impossible, somebody will figure something out. Another way to get around Google and it'll go wide open again, Wild West. But in the meantime, it's almost impossible for you to control the asset. It means that if it gets suspended, there's no way for you to recover the asset, you just have to let it go. And now you lost whatever however much time you invested in it. That's another one of the reasons why, you know, all this time, time is always is so valuable, that I had to come up with a way instead of rebranding these assets I didn't for somebody else come up with to come up with it with a simple solution. So that I wouldn't my staff or I wouldn't have to go through all the work of rebranding with it. And that's just giving the person that answers the phone. A simple line couple of seconds. Yeah. And that takes care of everything. Think about how much time you just save. If you do it that way, then if you do a brand and you try to rebrand. So it's time Don't waste all that time on shit that might not pay off and it might you might get away with it. And I mean, if you are willing to take the risk, then go ahead and gamble on and I'd rather go on work on something that I know is going to be around for a while and especially if it's a client or something that's really important. That's making me money. I don't want to lose it. Agreed.

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Okay, next is I am building out an authority site and health niche. It seems that our wise stacks are geared towards local GMB assets. Do you have any case studies that are wise tax benefit authority sites and broad niches? Well, they most certainly do. You know, Marco always says local is relative. Right? So it really, you know, we have been pushing because there was a wide-open loophole guys, for the last year, really, because it was July of last year that the loophole opened up for GMB stuff that is now being shut, which is what we've been talking about today. But you know, for a year, that's why we really shifted our focus because there was a wide-open opportunity, and we will want to exploit it. And that's what we did. But now that loophole is closing, but RYS was actually built the that was developed that that that strategy, that method was developed not strictly for local at all. Ok. So again, probably because we had been touting GMB stuff for the last year. That's why it may seem that way. But that's that is absolutely not the case. Like in other words, RYS drive stacks can push authority into national global sites, national sites, you know, regional sites, whatever you want. Your local is relative. And that's what Marco always says. So Marco, how would you best explain to him?

Marco: Yeah. I can't go into that I'm not going to reveal anything that I'm working on, you know how difficult it is, especially if it's making money because people will try to go and tear it down, spam it, reverse engineer it and then say they did it. So I don't like revealing any particulars of what I'm doing. As Bradley said, your local is relative. And the only difference between a local niche and something national, global, regional, whatever it is, is the way that you approach it. It's the way that you approach the entity. We teach all that RYS Academy Reloaded or if you order a done for you are is that you will get the done for you user's guide that tells you what to do. We've also died also done countless webinars on entities and iframes and entity stacking iframe stacking. I did the webinar for the charity right when I was holding the charity drive where I did a series of three webinars where we went over the entire thing and highlight get the most out of a drive stack kit. Think about it just local, are you going to miss the point of what drive stack and G site can actually doing? How it pushes power to the destination and to everything that's attached to it? It misses the bot if you only think of it as local, then that's the only way that is going to work for you. Because you're not thinking outside the box on how you can push that power to whatever it is that you're looking to do.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah. And again, that's, you know, I certainly understand the reason why somebody might assume that it's only for local in this because that's what we have been talking about how to apply it to local since the local strategy was what we were really pushing for the last year. However, as I said, we have all with what the current statuses, right that whatever the current situation is the environment. And right now, again, I'm not pushing hyperlocal stuff. In fact, I'm working on, you know, my new business model and just maintaining my existing client base right now and looking at different ways to produce results without having to have to rely specifically on hyperlocal stuff as we have been for the last year. So I'm you know, my point is that RYS drive stacks are still absolutely foundational because they're so damn powerful. And what's great about it is they become an SEO firewall, like, we use that as a foundational method, because from there, we can do all of the additional nasty SEO stuff that we want to externally to the actual drive stack and protect our money sites are our primary assets within the drive stack, right. So it's almost like building up a shield around it that then we can do everything nasty we want to to that shield, and it's not going to hurt otherwise, all it does is end up helping it to rank. And we have countless examples of that. My new business model, specifically, I created a new business, like I said, new website, which is actually just Click Funnels page, it's a single landing page. And I'm ranked in the top three for my state now for my primary keyword. And all I've done is I think four or five press releases and a drive stack. And I haven't even built links to the drive stack yet. And so it just goes to show you that it's very, very powerful. And that's why you know, we always suggest that a standard operating procedure, if you haven't gotten a battle plan, go pick up the battle plan, there's the the the banner to go buy it right there. And that explains how and when to use them. Whether it's a local site or national site, it doesn't matter. Okay.

Bradley: Scott's

Marco: By the way, before you go on for the new mastermind project that we have, we will be building an authority site, and it's going to be national. I don't know if that's ever going to get out of that specific group. But it'll be available for anyone who is lucky enough to get in there. At one point or another. We're still working out the details. But we are going to be building a National Authority site to take down the top guy in the niche.

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

The next one is Scott, I think is Scott Walker. He says I belong to a number of groups and get a lot of questions about how to I feel these people really need your courses. How can I become an affiliate? A reach call just contact Support, [email protected]. If you're looking I don't think we have an affiliate program for me. Why be yet but we probably should at some point? We don't?

Marco: I think we do. It's really simple to set up a failure, right to both [email protected] and [email protected], Scott and we'll take care of you Well, we'll figure out how to give you affiliate links so so that you can push our stuff. We don't mind you pushing our stuff.

Bradley: Yeah. And I know we've got affiliate stuff Semantic Mastery training, as far as the done for you products. I wasn't sure but yeah, you know, I'm sure we can get you that too. So absolutely. He says I don't plan on making this a full-time career, but would like a bit of financial incentive for serious referrals. Your courses are still the best bang for the buck. Thanks. Yeah, I thank you. I appreciate that. Scott.

How To Have Access To Bradley's Real Estate Group?

Ernest is up. He says, Hey, Bradley, how do I find out more about the Real Estate Group you have? I'm new to this page and don't know how to access it. Thanks for all the great information. Well, Ernest. That's a great question. So, unfortunately, the accountability group that started as a very small accountability group, it's only available to mastermind members that have expressed an interest in and that's only because it's, it's the first time I'm going to run the accountability group. So I wanted to keep it very small, very exclusive. And part of being in our mastermind is that our mastermind members always get the first opportunity at these sort of things. Beta testing, for example, they get the first opportunity for new training that we release, or new small groups like this, like the one that I'm talking about. So, unfortunately, it's not something I can share with the greater public right now. Or the broader public, I should say, we at some point, it may be something that we present outside of the mastermind, but I can't guarantee that I can't tell you when that's going to happen or even if it will happen. So, unfortunately, if you want more x, more information specifically about my accountability group, you have to be in the mastermind. However, that said, I do feel strongly enough about my new business model that I am willing to share where you can learn about the actual business, you won't have the account access to the accountability group with me, and my partners, and all this cool stuff that we're doing to help our members get very profitable very quickly. I've been very fortunate with this new business in the last three months and done very, very well very quickly. And it's because of our I think it's because of our ability, like our knowledge. And I'm not saying me specifically, but just like us as a group, like we know, and you included, you're on this hump day hangout webinars, so you have access to a wealth of knowledge just from us in our Semantic Mastery YouTube Channel, as well as probably other groups and things like that. And the new business model that I'm in is primarily being as being like the competition is primarily using traditional marketing methods like direct mail and stuff, and don't get me wrong, I'm doing that too. And it works. But knowing what we know about digital marketing, and being able to apply that to this business that is virtually uncompetitive, compared, you know, relative to digital marketing, it's giving me like an unfair advantage, a competitive edge over most of the other people competing in this space. And it's not an overcrowded business space anyways. And so again, I think that I feel strongly enough about this. And I've done so well, so quickly with this, that I don't mind sharing this URL with you guys to go check it out. Because I learned from this guy, he's got a great course.

And I'm going to post the link here, and the course is called, there's a webinar for it specifically if you want to, and I posted the link to the webinar, so you guys can get an idea anybody that's interested in what the new business model is, I'm flipping vacant land. So it's kind of like flipping houses, but I'm flipping vacant land, it's kicking ass. It's a relatively uncompetitive business, especially if you know digital marketing, and you know how to apply digital marketing principles to the business, you can absolutely crush it. You know, I can't, I can't tell you that you're going to repeat my results. But I pretty much I feel very strongly that most people, especially in our group could, because of like, I guess said how, how quickly, I've been able to get, like, make serious, serious money with this business, and just a few months. So again, the course is fantastic guys go to semanticmaster.com/LPG webinar, that's LPG dash webinar that stands for land profit generator webinar, the guys from Austria or Germany, excuse me, his name's Jack Bosch, it's he's kind of a goofy guy, but he's great. He's a great teacher and instructor, he's got a great course, if you go to the webinar, it's obviously going to pitch you the course at the end. But it's exactly what I took and went through. And it took me one month to go through the course and set up my will because we know, we know marketing guys, right? You know, everybody on this webinar knows how to set up a landing page. So I spent a month going through the prop product there the training, and then I set up a landing page and kind of developed out my SEO plan. And my ads plan because I'm using paid traffic to. And within my first month, you know, a month later I started my marketing. And within my first month, I landed my first deal and make $15,000. Again, I cannot say that you guys are going to make that kind of money. But it's very, very possible. And since then I've closed several other deals and made many 10s of thousands of dollars on top of that. So it's a great, great course, this is not an affiliate webinar or guys, and I'm not trying to pitch you on this for any other reason other than I think there's a lot of opportunity in this business for digital marketers, that a lot of the people actually competing in that space, really have no clue how to implement what we do you know what I mean. And so I think there's a lot of opportunities there. So again, if you ever wanted to come to join the accountability group that I'm hosting, where we have a small group, and where we've got like a slack, slack group, you know, Slack channel, where we can communicate in real time, we're holding weekly accountability meetings where we discuss current events within the business and like current deals that are pending, and that kind of stuff, you have to be part of the mastermind to get that.

So, anyway, it's pretty exciting guys, I'm really, really, really excited about this business, something I haven't been this excited about a long time, because it's not the typical cat and mouse game with Google that I've been playing for 10 years now. You know, it's, in fact, it's a breath of fresh air because it's, you know, I can very, very quickly have been able to generate a lot of leads for my own business, my own real estate business now, using the principles that we know. And it's almost like I said, the competition is almost nonexistent my SEO, I'm already in the top three for my primary keywords for the state of Virginia, which is I'm into, I'm targeting the entire state of Virginia. And I'm in the top three for with within what, two, two and a half months, with just a handful of press releases in a DR stack, and a single page landing page. It's It's incredible. And I'm getting leads every single week, eight to 10 leads every week just from Google and a couple from Facebook, actually. And then I'm doing some direct mail. So it's crazy. But you know, I get 25 to 30 leads per week and about a third of them come from Google and Facebook. Just from our you know, organic stuff, really, and some paid traffic to. So it's a great business model, go check it out, you'll get to see what it's all about. And if you really want to get in on the accountability group, then come join the mastermind and you have an opportunity there. All right. Great question, though. Ernest, thank you for asking.

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Um, I don't see why it would be an issue. I mean, I know some people don't like, like, they think that they want to keep Google out of their site. But trust me, Google knows everything about your site. Well, regardless. It's funny because I remember a few years ago, people would say that they wouldn't put analytics on the site or, or submit the site to search console. What used to be Google Webmaster Tools, because they didn't want Google knowing what was going on with their site. Yet they'd have a WordPress site with Google Fonts installed. Or, you know what I mean, it would they'd access it from Chrome, you know, so it didn't make any sense to me. But, uh, you know, I don't see anything wrong with it. Marco, do you have any thoughts on that?

Ah, you know, me, I hate giving Google more information than they need. I don't know if I'm going to be putting all that together. Although Yeah, if you already have analytics and search console, by all means. If you're using AdWords and YouTube might as well because they're already on your website anyway. But if you don't, and you don't want to get it. There are websites that I simply refuse to let Google into, then they are you going to have to make that choice? Do you let them in? Or do you not?

That's interesting. I might actually play with that. I might even put that on my new. No, that's just a minute. Well, I've got a blog set up on a subdomain for my new business, I might put this on that. So I can play around with this plugin a little bit. I've never cared guys, I'm not gonna lie. I've never given a shit about it. Because I always submit everything to search console so that it can get indexed quicker and everything anyway, so I know everybody teaches their own, but I've never had any issues with that. I like to use analytics. I'm not an analytics nerd, but I do like the data that it provides. So you know, honestly, and I and I put, I put the Google Tag Manager and the remarketing tag on everything now because if you're not using remarketing, and the Google Display Network for remarketing, you're out of your mind, you're missing out on a lot of additional traffic, because it's and it's very inexpensive. So to run remarketing and retargeting, it's remarketing on Google retargeting on Facebook, but I run a lot of remarketing ads for clients as well as lead gen assets. And my new business as well, just because once people land on the side if they haven't converted, why not continue to market to them until they do convert? Or until they get annoyed? Which I don't care. So anyway, but that's pretty cool. I'm going to actually install that.

Chris: There is also one more thing that many people never think about. So if the site before you has like Google tools installed into the site after you as Google tools installed, Google knows exactly like when the past it's going, you know, like users going. So you can hardly like to eliminate Google at all. If you want to hide.

Bradley: Yeah, it's very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don't Set Up A Related Listing?

Anyway, next is Gordon, what's up, Gordon? He says, Hey, guys, thanks again for helping us, customers. Your generosity is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Gordon. He says last week, someone asked a question about whether or not it was more difficult to rank a new site for local business niche and location if you didn't want to set up a related GMB listing but your answer was about local organic rankings in general and did not address the GMB question. If you want to rank a new site for a local business niche location, if you didn't want to set up a related can be listed but your answer was about local organic rankings in general and did not address the GMB question. Okay. I'm not sure how those are two separate things. But could you please comment on whether it's more difficult or the same difficulty to organically rank a new site locally without setting up a related gym be listening? I think you misunderstood my explanation. So I'm going to try to explain it again. But it's going to be the same explanation. So I may, maybe, maybe Marco can chime in here in just a moment and rewarded or convey what I'm trying to convey in a different way that makes more sense to you. But it's the same answer that I'm going to give you before the problem with ranking a local site, or a site for local keywords is that in the organic section, instead of in maps, is that you're competing with a lot of directory style sites now, which are highly authoritative, highly or, you know, very aged domain, typically, which carry a lot of inherent authority. And it's very difficult to outrank them, depending on the locations, you know, obviously, if it's more of a smaller area, then you can typically get much better results because they're not, if you're targeting like neighborhoods or suburbs, those kinds of things, you're you can usually get much, much faster results similarly to what you could within maps, but I'm talking about in the organic section, because a lot of times the directory sites are not optimized for any of those smaller areas, right, that they're optimized for the greater metropolitan area, right, which is an all-encompassing type of keyword, location, keyword, location modifier, so to speak. But when you're talking about trying to rank organically for like, again, I'm going to use Fairfax, Virginia, because that's a big area. very competitive SEO area for SEO in Virginia. So Fairfax, Virginia, if you're trying to rank for like plumber or plumbing contractor, Fairfax, Virginia, again, and I'll just approve it, you know, we'll go just do a quick search if I said, you know, plumbing contractor, and I always use contractors, guys, but that's because that's primarily what I've done for the last 10 years. If I say, Fairfax, plumbing, Fairfax County plumbing contractor, excuse me, Fairfax VA, what do you see here? Yelp, home advisor, branding.

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

Yeah. And then what do you get, then you get three directories in a row, then you get a company that's been around for a long damn time, John C Floods a big contractor up in that area, then you get another director directory, then another really aged authority if type site that company has been around, then another directory, you see what I'm saying about this? out of the top 10, it looks like seven of them. And the organic section which is already buried by Google guarantee. ads and maps. It looks like seven out of the top 10. organic rankings are of other directories. So again, I'm not talking about GMB stuff. I'm talking about organic rankings. Can you rank a local a site for local terms in the organic section? Yes, but it's a dogfight is what I'm telling you. Yes, you can. And it depends on the location modifier the that you're trying to rank for. Right? If you're Fairfax is a broad that cut because Look, listen, like in this example. Fairfax is a county, Fairfax as a county, but it's also there's the city of Fairfax, too. But there are 23 locations within Fairfax County like Vienna and oak 10 in Tysons Corner. And so trying to rank for those would be much easier, it's still relatively hard or difficult. But trying to rank for a plumbing contractor, Vienna, Virginia is going to be easier than trying to rank for plumbing contractor Fairfax because that's essentially targeting the whole county or the city. But either way, it's basically one and the same, they're synonymous. Right. So my point is, it's very, very difficult to do that. And that's because Google is for whatever reason, they're promoting index pages of other directories on their primary index page, page one, which remember, Google is nothing other than an index of listings. And so all and when what happens when you click through to this, it's an index page on Yelp, for plumbers in Fairfax, which I think is stupid. Like you go from one index to another. I think that's dumb, but it is what it is. And so again, like I said, That's why I have I've shifted years ago, I shifted away from ranking, trying to rank organically through just sticking to maps, because again, look at it like that, that always came up first, it tended to be a lot easier to rank for maps than it did for organic. But yet, can it be done? Yes. But you're in for a dogfight. That's all I'm saying. So I don't know if I explained that any differently than I did last week. Marco, do you want to take a stab at it?

Marco: No, that was perfect. That's all I added to what you said was the amount of power that you'd have to push. I mean, how do you explain the amount of power to take down Yelp? And the amount of work that you have to do? And is it going to be worthwhile going for that? It could be for your contractor, but you may not be getting paid enough to get you paid back for the work that you have to do to get there. I know that you have to push massive amounts of power. We have ways where you can push massive amounts of power, but it's going to require more money than most local people are willing to pay.

Bradley: That's correct. That's the point with the right budget, then yeah, you could do it. There's no question. But a lot of times trying to, you know, like, because of these like the plumbers here that I'm talking about, like John C Flood and FH for their well, big established companies, that they've got a lot big. They've got deep marketing budgets, like deep pockets, you know what I mean? So, you know, if you're trying to get your foot in the door with a smaller company, a newer company, whatever, that's got a smaller marketing budget, there's really no way to compete with that. I mean, you can, but it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort. And it's not going to again, Marcos correct, absolutely correct. They're likely, it's weird how they turned to blackmail, but they're likely not going to have, you know, pay you enough for the amount of effort that you're putting in. So it makes sense. And if they give you a small, if you have a smaller budget to work with, then it could possibly still be done. But it's going to require more time because you're going to have to stretch, you know, do a little bit at a time because that's all the budget allows. And chances are you're going to lose the client before you ever get them to reach because it's taking too long. But it's hard to explain. I know because especially again, I don't know that you're dealing with contractors, but I've dealt with a lot of smaller contractors, in fact, that was my primary client base for the last 10 years is smaller contractors. And so it's difficult to, you know, explain to a contractor, and it's like banging your head against the wall when you say, Listen, if you want to get results really, really quickly, I'm going to need more money. They say I don't, I don't have any more money. But I want you to give me results right away. If you got me results, I'd have more money. Well, I can't get your results without more money. And it's like, you know who's on first, you know what I mean? It's that whole chicken and the egg type thing cart before the horse and that kind of stuff. So, again, I don't know if I explained anything different. But um, there you go.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google's Suspension?

Based on your experience, what are the niches in addition to pest control that you believe Google thinks has a lot of spam listings, and that Google may have a trigger finger for regarding their suspension tirade for just editing, listening? Thanks, again. You know, Marco, and I actually talked about this just briefly right before the Hangout today. And it's hard to say I mean, there are certainly that some that are more known to be spammy than others. pest control is definitely one of them. I know that for a fact, garage, like overhead garage doors is another one that's incredibly spammy. And so you know, that I know that one would be one that I'd stay away from locksmiths, I believe is another one. So there's a number of them that are there. But as far as you know, I don't know because right now, Gordon, a lot of the, like Google's on a tirade period. And as Marco said, it's like somebody firing an Uzi. Why would you ever want to stick your head up? And it's almost like, I think anything's a target right now. I don't know that to be sure. Because I've stayed out of intentionally I've stayed out of a lot of the GMB listings recently, for even my clients other than just doing GMB posts, specifically for that reason, because I don't want to stick my head up. That makes sense. But so, you know, again, we don't work for Google. So I can tell us specifically which niches are worse than others. I do know some that have historically been spammy and pest control is one of them. So I probably should have kept my ass out of my clients' pest control. But it's such an established site. We've never done you know, business and we like free for seven years. I've never done anything spammy. All I did was change, deleted an image of a photo, uploaded a couple of new photos and published the GMB website because, for whatever reason, it had been created, but was never published. And I click the Publish button and boom, suspended. And that was two over two weeks ago now is about Yeah, it was just like, I don't know, 1718 days ago now 17 1717 or 18 days ago now and it's still suspended. So again, I don't recommend really doing a whole lot in GMB. If you can get away with it. Marco made a good point last week where he said if you if you're just got a new listing verified, you can make all your changes right away that does make sense as likely won't get suspended because it's new, you've got to you got it up, you know, kind of updated that kind of stuff. But if it's been established, I'd keep your ass out of it for right now. Honestly.

Marco: Yeah, and I'm trying to do and to clear that up. Once you get it back, I think maybe the I didn't communicate that correctly. Get all of your edits and all of your work done before you send for the pin, get as much information in there as possible images, videos, however much of the information what we teach it in Local GMB Programs, I'm not going to go through everything that you can do for the listing. But once it comes back to the there should be no reason for you to touch it, because everything is then correct already. And then you can just concentrate on the next part of local GMB Pro, which is post images post posting in a certain way. Your images, your images have to be done, right. They have to be done correctly, we show how to get images we show it all. But the whole point is, once you've sent for that pin, and you verify it, don't touch the fucking thing. Don't do anything, leave it because now you're taking a tense at at at at getting suspended. And that's that said this for now. It might change. Yeah, we don't know when we don't know how long we don't know which niches and which ones are going are still going to have that hair trigger. We just don't know. Yeah, sometimes I wish I were a fly on the wall of Google GMB to know what the hell is going on because there's no rhyme or reason to what they're doing.

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

Correct. Next one's from Scott again. He says a few weeks ago, you mentioned service for done for you schema markup creation. I have a multi-location client and my schema markup needs some major help. Would you please give us the name and the URL again? Thanks. Yeah, it was Ryan Rodan, he was a mastermind member for quite some time. And he got really, really geek out on schema. And he really did. And so like he created a certain he ended up because he got so good at it. And he had so many people asked, I'm all the time like for help with their schema, he decided to create this. And I'm assuming he still does it. I haven't talked to him in probably two years now. But it's skeema.pro. And it's spelled instead of the way that schema is really spelled he spells it's skeema.pro. So just go to Skeema Pro. And you can check out a schema code order structured data overhaul, he's got several he's got, you know, the guy knows what he's doing, at least he did two years ago. And as long as he's still staying up to date with what's going on, which is geek out as he was about schema back then I'm assuming that he is still up to date, or he's staying on top of that stuff. But just reach out to him. Tell him that we sent you. We don't get any affiliate referral or anything for that. But it's always good too, you know, give credit to people that refer business. So check it out skeema.pro, and that's spelled, SKEEMA Pro. Right.

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Fitz is up. He says Good afternoon, gents. Thanks for allowing this forum to continue. It is greatly appreciated. My question today is Google loves QA should we add a single question and answer to one-page post? For the website? I asked because the new schema requirement is to only have one q&a per page, but in an industry with a good number of Q and A's. Do you put only one page for 10 or more pages? Do you think that is valuable? Okay.

Bradley: I'm not I had always lumped similar questions together. And q&a post guys are great content for blog posts, and then you could break them out as individual like GMB posts. You can create a syndicate, you know, blog posts with them, that kind of stuff. But my point is, q&a posts are great. And a lot of times and I've talked about this in syndication Academy, I can go over it just now we don't have enough time. I was gonna say I can go over briefly. But we only got five minutes, I show you some ideas on how to do that. But I had always lumped similar questions together on the same page. However, if the new schema requirement is to only have one q amp a per page, then yeah, I mean, I don't see why not. I would just do it as blog posts. Right, I would do short blog posts and mark each blog posts. So no, I wouldn't dedicate a whole page to it. If you're going to have a page, I would have q amp a, you know, grouped in similar questions into groups and separate and different headings sections, right header sections within the page. And then even then you can create a table of contents with jump links. And again, can't get into that, because Margot, kill me. But you can do things for that page to make them more powerful too. But what I would do is for the blog posts, yeah, I would mark up blog posts with individual Q&A markup, right, that's what I would do. And in fact, you could even probably link from the page where you group them together with within certain headings and that kind of stuff, then you could probably link the individual Q and A's to blog posts. And again, fits in fewer in the mastermind, which I think you're trying to get back in Actually, I heard something about that. We can go much more into depth on how you can get the most power out of that same setup that I was just mentioning, and specifically how to structure the linking the internal linking from within that site because you got to do it a very specific way. Now, Marco just revealed in the mastermind recently about certain things that have changed recently that pertain to internal linking that we'd have to cover in the mastermind. So all right, I think we're just about out of questions. And we're almost out of time.

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

Justin says for new GMB, would you include geolocation information in the photo files? Or do you think that's spamming? No, I would absolutely include that. Because here's the thing, if you're taking photos, like if, if the business owner, so to speak, was taking photos from a mobile device, with GPS enabled, which almost all of them are, that's going to have that embedded information by default anyway. And if they're uploading it to their own GMB listing, then it would see that if customers are uploading photos, remember, like for stores and places, as you know, I'm a Google local guy, you know, I do a review, I don't do it all the time. But when I think about it, if I'm at a restaurant, or if I'm in a hotel or something, and I and I think about reviewing it, then I'll take a photo and upload that with my review. And guess what, it's got my GPS, my access data, right? My geolocation, geo metadata is it is embedded in that file. And that then gets uploaded to that GMB listing by as a customer photo, right. So, by the way, that's if you're going to be doing a lot of uploads to a GMB right now, I wouldn't do it as an owner, I would do it as a customer. So you could do that through persona, email, persona Gmail accounts, guys, you know, persona profiles, Google profiles that you set up, so that you're you don't trigger a suspension from uploading photos, I haven't heard of anybody actually will actually Marco had one that was triggered from uploading a photo. But if you upload as a, if you upload a photo to a GMB listing as a customer, then Google can't suspend the listing as far as I know. Now, you know, as far as I know, I haven't heard of that happening. But I have heard of uploading a photo as the business owner, so from within the GMB dashboard, and it causing a suspension. I haven't experienced that myself yet, yet. But a customer photo wouldn't do that. So again, think about that. It's not spammy at all. Now, if it's an image that Google knows is on the web, which Google's image recognition is incredibly good, and all you did was change the metadata, then that could perhaps look spammy. And that might be something that triggers trouble in the future, I haven't seen it trigger anything right now. But a quick way to determine that guys, as you can always go to 10, nine, calm is one of them.

There are probably other ones at Google, I think even has its own image recognition engine that you can play with, I think Marco shared that in RYS or something. But tonight, calm is free. And you can just actually go grab the image and drop it in here. You can even take them if it's already on the web, you can take the URL and drop it in here. Or you can just actually take the photo from your country from your, you know, your file system on your computer and upload it. And it'll tell you if that image has already been indexed on the web. And I will show you where if it has been. Right. And again, 10 is not as good as Google with that, but it's, it still will give it So again, if you're just taking an image that's already been used on the web and changing the exit data, then you know, that may cause an issue in the future. I haven't seen it cause any issues currently. Although it's not as effective either, though, just keep that in mind. And we've proven that. Alright.

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Let's see. Thanks for your answers before thanks so much for the information off topic, but I'm in Richmond VA today from a totally familiar those areas mentioned. Okay, so he's talking about like Fairfax and all that. Yep. Alright, guys. Well, we appreciate y'all being here. mastermind webinar is tomorrow. For those of you that are in the mastermind, and thanks, everybody for sticking around. You guys. All hung out. Thanks.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

#Semantic Mastery #Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

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oasisoptimization · 5 years

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 244

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Click on the video above to watch Episode 244 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

Chris: Doing excellent as always.

Adam: There's always a good deal. Good deal with your situation. Back to normal in Australia.

Marco: Dude, edibles have great medication. It won't cure the cold, but you'll feel a whole lot better as a cure. what ails you, it'll, it'll make you feel better.

Bradley: We're going to Denver in October, man.

Chris: It's leaving Air France to them in Europe.

Marco: There you go. You guys, you guys are incorrigible.

Adam: POFU Live is going to take on some new weird meaning. So

Bradley: we're going to have the hump day hang out while we're there. And we'll all be big.

Adam: Bradley, how you doing?

Chris: Yeah, I highly recommend to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Adam: Agreed, you should definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Bradley: Okay, good. So I set up a YouTube ads campaign to help them prove our subscriber increase our subscribers and are like 90% up from the last 28 days with just a very small ad spend. So it's pretty cool guys, you can use YouTube to do that kind of stuff, you know, buy ads to increase subscriber rates and it's very inexpensive.

Chris: Be sure to subscribe to get easter eggs. We have a surprise coming on our YouTube channel. So make sure you don't miss it.

How Would You Brand A Lead Generation Asset In A Photography Niche?

Do You Have Any Case Studies That RYS Stacks Benefit Authority Sites In Broad Niches?

Okay, next is I am building out an authority site and health niche. It seems that our wise stacks are geared towards local GMB assets. Do you have any case studies that are wise tax benefit authority sites and broad niches? Well, they most certainly do. You know, Marco always says local is relative. Right? So it really, you know, we have been pushing because there was a wide-open loophole guys, for the last year, really, because it was July of last year that the loophole opened up for GMB stuff that is now being shut, which is what we've been talking about today. But you know, for a year, that's why we really shifted our focus because there was a wide-open opportunity, and we will want to exploit it. And that's what we did. But now that loophole is closing, but RYS was actually built the that was developed that that that strategy, that method was developed not strictly for local at all. Ok. So again, probably because we had been touting GMB stuff for the last year. That's why it may seem that way. But that's that is absolutely not the case. Like in other words, RYS drive stacks can push authority into national global sites, national sites, you know, regional sites, whatever you want. Your local is relative. And that's what Marco always says. So Marco, how would you best explain to him?

Bradley: Scott's

Bradley: I know we will do.

Do You Offer Affiliate Programs Of Your SEO Courses?

The next one is Scott, I think is Scott Walker. He says I belong to a number of groups and get a lot of questions about how to I feel these people really need your courses. How can I become an affiliate? A reach call just contact Support, [email protected]. If you're looking I don't think we have an affiliate program for me. Why be yet but we probably should at some point? We don't?

How To Have Access To Bradley's Real Estate Group?

What Are Your Thoughts On Google Site Kit?

Chris: There is also one more thing that many people never think about. So if the site before you has like Google tools installed into the site after you as Google tools installed, Google knows exactly like when the past it's going, you know, like users going. So you can hardly like to eliminate Google at all. If you want to hide.

Bradley: Yeah, it's very difficult. Because Google owns the internet, or a big, big part of it anyways.

Would It Be Difficult To Rank A GMB Listing Organically If You Don't Set Up A Related Listing?

Go ahead. Even before you get to the organic tea, scroll back Oh, look, right. You got Well, this. It depends on the industry, but Google guarantee. No, but yes, yeah. Then ads, then.

What Do You Think Are The Niches That Have A Lot Of Spam Listings That Trigger Google's Suspension?

Based on your experience, what are the niches in addition to pest control that you believe Google thinks has a lot of spam listings, and that Google may have a trigger finger for regarding their suspension tirade for just editing, listening? Thanks, again. You know, Marco, and I actually talked about this just briefly right before the Hangout today. And it's hard to say I mean, there are certainly that some that are more known to be spammy than others. pest control is definitely one of them. I know that for a fact, garage, like overhead garage doors is another one that's incredibly spammy. And so you know, that I know that one would be one that I'd stay away from locksmiths, I believe is another one. So there's a number of them that are there. But as far as you know, I don't know because right now, Gordon, a lot of the, like Google's on a tirade period. And as Marco said, it's like somebody firing an Uzi. Why would you ever want to stick your head up? And it's almost like, I think anything's a target right now. I don't know that to be sure. Because I've stayed out of intentionally I've stayed out of a lot of the GMB listings recently, for even my clients other than just doing GMB posts, specifically for that reason, because I don't want to stick my head up. That makes sense. But so, you know, again, we don't work for Google. So I can tell us specifically which niches are worse than others. I do know some that have historically been spammy and pest control is one of them. So I probably should have kept my ass out of my clients' pest control. But it's such an established site. We've never done you know, business and we like free for seven years. I've never done anything spammy. All I did was change, deleted an image of a photo, uploaded a couple of new photos and published the GMB website because, for whatever reason, it had been created, but was never published. And I click the Publish button and boom, suspended. And that was two over two weeks ago now is about Yeah, it was just like, I don't know, 1718 days ago now 17 1717 or 18 days ago now and it's still suspended. So again, I don't recommend really doing a whole lot in GMB. If you can get away with it. Marco made a good point last week where he said if you if you're just got a new listing verified, you can make all your changes right away that does make sense as likely won't get suspended because it's new, you've got to you got it up, you know, kind of updated that kind of stuff. But if it's been established, I'd keep your ass out of it for right now. Honestly.

What DYF Schema Markup Creation Do You Recommend?

How Would You Setup A Schema Page For An Industry With Lots Of Q&As?

Fitz is up. He says Good afternoon, gents. Thanks for allowing this forum to continue. It is greatly appreciated. My question today is Google loves QA should we add a single question and answer to one-page post? For the website? I asked because the new schema requirement is to only have one q&a per page, but in an industry with a good number of Q and A's. Do you put only one page for 10 or more pages? Do you think that is valuable? Okay.

Should You Include The Geolocation Of The Photo For A New GMB Listing?

There are probably other ones at Google, I think even has its own image recognition engine that you can play with, I think Marco shared that in RYS or something. But tonight, calm is free. And you can just actually go grab the image and drop it in here. You can even take them if it's already on the web, you can take the URL and drop it in here. Or you can just actually take the photo from your country from your, you know, your file system on your computer and upload it. And it'll tell you if that image has already been indexed on the web. And I will show you where if it has been. Right. And again, 10 is not as good as Google with that, but it's, it still will give it So again, if you're just taking an image that's already been used on the web and changing the exit data, then you know, that may cause an issue in the future. I haven't seen it cause any issues currently. Although it's not as effective either, though, just keep that in mind. And we've proven that. Alright.

Want to keep that tab open. So I want to check that out. All right.

Whoo, you all right, man.

See you guys tomorrow. Then.

#Semantic Mastery

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