#I once found a couple of people (back when I was in the MM server for a few weeks before it got too overwhelming)

[the-one-who-lambs]

Fanfic roadmap for the near future...

So I'm working on a longer oneshot wip and it's about 69% done. (I won't promote it on this blog when I do post it, but there's your hint as to its contents.)

But, after that, inspiration to revisit my series, The Risen Lamb and the Fallen God, has definitely hit. Though I still cherish it dearly, there's a lot I want to expand upon! I wrote it a year ago in a hyperfixated stupor, and looking back at it now, I have so many more ideas I want to delve more into. I'm planning to absolutely keep my first drafts up as a series because I intended for most of them to be able to stand alone. This time around I'll probably write it as a multichapter fic, since I aim to build upon many of the plot elements. With all I'm planning to add, I expect the wordcount to double.

For those of you who are following me from my earlier days, I'd love to hear from you all what you want to see more of in a rewrite of the series. I don't think I'll delete many (if any) scenes from my first draft, but some ideas I plan to detail further in my new-and-improved Narilamb saga include the following so far: the awkward not-quite-enemies but not-quite-friends stage between Narinder and the Lamb, Lamb's raw bitterness towards Narinder soon after the boss fight for betraying them (and vice versa!), lore from the Relics of the Old Faith update including interactions with the Mystic Seller (and thus Lamb needing Narinder's guidance on wielding the crown, which opens them up to the idea of how much they actually need him as an ally), Narinder interacting with the other members of the cult... among other smaller ideas as well.

When I started thinking about this series again, it made me realize how many of my readership have stuck around from my early days in the fandom. Those of you who have stuck around for more than a year and continue to read what I put out, especially, seeing you continuously makes me so, so happy. I appreciate you all so much.

Anyway. Let me know what y'all want to see too.

[edendaphne]

“Discordant Sonata” Chapter 19

>>Click here to read on Ao3<<

>>Click here to read on Wattpad<<

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CHAPTER 19: ATTACCA

Music glossary:        Attacca - "To attack at once"; used as a direction in music at the end of a movement to begin the next without pause

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(Mood music: "The Conversation" - Pearl Django)

Being mere months away from graduating lycée meant that their group of friends didn’t have as many classes together, due to their diverse individual interests and talents. However, they always made sure to make time to hang out after school before their extracurricular activities began.

And thus, Adrien, Nino, and Alya made their way to the classroom where the art club gathered to meet up with Marinette. From there, Adrien would make his way to either fencing lessons or Chinese, depending on the day of the week. Marinette would join him on days when he had Chinese (as she’d become determined to master the language ever since her uncle visited from Shanghai a few years back), Alya would go to her journalism club, and Nino would travel to his part-time internship at the local recording studio.

“–and the backlogs just keep piling up!” Alya spoke as they walked, voice full of vigor and excitement. “I’ve had to recruit yet another mod to help me keep order in the forums! Especially since the Ladyblog has started going international and we’ve had to organize servers in different languages. You wouldn’t believe how crazy it’s gotten in there recently!”

“Dang, babe,” Nino interjected. “Sounds like things are super rough for you right now.”

“Not really, more busy than anything. Especially because I have that big research article due next week, there’s just not enough hours in the day to try to read everything that goes on in there. But I have my mods report to me daily, ‘cause I always like to stay on top of everything that goes on in the chats!”

“What’s gotten everyone so riled up in the Ladyblog lately?” Adrien chimed in. “I don’t recall it being nearly this busy last year.”

The trio entered the art club’s classroom and settled down at the table where Marinette sat, getting her various sketches organized. The art teacher was quite easy going, so they didn’t have to talk in hushed whispers and could come and go as they pleased.

“Well, to be honest, it’s because of Chat Noir,” Alya replied.

Adrien tried to contain his surprise. “R-really? What– uhhh, what do people have to say about him?”

He winced inwardly. He knew he shouldn’t ask. But curiosity got the better of him today. Maybe learning the news through the filter or Alya’s paraphrasing instead of reading the negative comments firsthand would lessen the sting of what people said about him.

Marinette whipped her head around at the mention of his alter ego. “Wait, what about Chat Noir?” she inquired.

“Girl,” Alya replied, her voice filled with renewed exuberance. “You would not believe how much we’ve had to censor and moderate all the inappropriate things people have been saying!”

Adrien flinched in his seat. “Wow… do people really hate him that much?” he asked, trying to conceal the dejection in his voice.

Alya busted out into loud guffaws. “Hate?! Dude, most people don’t hate him; they LOVE him! By ‘inappropriate’ comments, I mean the kinda stuff you wouldn’t want your grandma to catch you reading! There’s a whole giant section dedicated to his new fan club!” she said as she removed her glasses so she could wipe away the tears of laughter.

“WHAT?!” Adrien squawked in confusion, his face feeling hotter than the ovens back at the bakery. “A fan club??”

Marinette burst into uncontrollable snickering. “Has it really gotten that bad?!”

Nino joined in, “Bro! Adrien, I can’t believe you haven’t heard Alya rant about these rabid fans before! They call themselves the ‘Noir Nation’, and the kind of things they’ve been writing would make adult romance authors blush like schoolgirls!”

Alya nodded, thoroughly amused. “And that’s not including all the fanfiction people have been writing.”

“Wait– the WHAT?! There’s fanfiction?!!” Marinette gaped in shock, as if she’d been hit in the face with an enormous pie. “Alya, how come I never knew about this?!”

“Why? You wanna read em? Girl, you’ll get no judgment from me. If you wanna check ‘em out for yourself, just go check under the hashtag ‘Ladynoir’.”

Marinette stammered as her arms flailed in her bewilderment, accidentally knocking her phone off the table and onto the floor, her eyes bigger and rounder than Adrien had ever seen them. “They have a ship name?!” she screeched.

“Just mind the ratings though,” Alya advised. “Some of them can get pretty steamy. You wouldn’t want someone to catch you reading those in public,” she added with a wink.

Marinette continued to sputter incoherently. “NO, I am NOT gonna read it!! It would be different if they were fictional characters, but I could never read fanfiction about real people!”

Alya raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “Mm-hmm… Sure.”

Marinette’s hands flew to her face, trying to hide how red her entire face had gotten, and released a long squeak that resembled a hamster on helium. As shocked as Adrien was about these rather unexpected news, seeing Marinette’s over-the-top reaction brought a wide grin to his face and he busted out laughing.

He bent over to retrieve Marinette’s phone, since she was too busy being mortified to notice it had fallen to the floor. As he was about to hand it back, the screen lit up and Adrien saw the lockscreen wallpaper: it was the same photo of Ladybug and Chat Noir that he himself had saved earlier that day. He smiled, not exactly sure what to make of it, but finding it adorable that she’d liked the photo enough to set it as her lockscreen.

He tapped her shoulder, waiting for her to respond. She emerged from behind her impromptu hand shield and turned her head, then her eyes widened once again as soon as she saw what Adrien was showing her. She jolted straight up, stiff as a board, and her eyes met his, cheeks turning tomato red. He winked at her, amused about this little secret between them, and handed back her phone without a word.

Marinette accepted it with a meek-sounding, “Thanks,” looking like she wanted to explain the photo, but not able to do so unless she wanted Alya and Nino to find out that she was potentially a… ahem– “Ladynoir” shipper.

Switching the conversation to something else (which Marinette seemed to be eternally grateful for), the group chatted until it became time for them to scatter to their next destinations.

With a wave, Adrien exited the classroom and headed towards fencing practice, one of the few activities he decided to stick with despite not being forced to participate. Fencing, along with Chinese lessons, were not only enjoyable, but were also quite useful. Sadly, he didn’t have access to a piano anymore, so he wasn’t able to pursue that hobby for the time being. Hopefully later down the line, when things had settled down and he’d found his own place to live, he’d be able to finance one.

Thinking about the future had become an exciting pastime instead of an anxiety-inducing one, and it was all thanks to his friends and those he cared about. He smiled as he reached the door to the locker rooms, continuing to daydream of what was to come.

(Mood music: "Recollection 3" - Shirō Sagisu (BLEACH OST, "The Diamond Dust Rebellion")

Adrien finished getting dressed for fencing, his head still blissfully floating in the clouds. He stored his belongings into his assigned locker, shutting it with a loud clang, which echoed through the empty room.

Huh...? Empty?

He swiveled his head around, surprised that there was no one beside him. He stood up and began walking down the large room, peeking down the other locker rows looking for his classmates; but there was nobody.

Where was everyone? There’s no way that every single one of them was running late. Had his lessons been cancelled and he’d somehow missed a text message or email? He began heading back towards his locker to check his phone for any schedule changes.

Before he reached his destination, however, heavy thudding footsteps broke the eerie silence. Adrien whipped his body around to greet whoever they belonged to.

The owner of those footsteps was one of the last people Adrien expected to meet here.

“Gaspard?!”

Adrien stood agape, face to face with his old bodyguard, whom he hadn’t seen in a couple of years; not since he’d resigned and moved out of the country. Nathalie had mentioned that in his resignation letter, Gaspard said that he’d become involved in an overseas business venture involving the market of rare action figures. Nevertheless, Adrien couldn’t help but suspect that his father’s ill temper and poor treatment of their employees was the true reason for his departure.

Adrien’s first reaction was surprise and joy, and he rushed forward to greet and embrace him. However, as he approached and got a better look at the man’s face, Adrien’s mood instantly morphed into confusion and apprehension. There was something odd about his eyes.

Something wasn’t right. Why was Gaspard here? And why now?

He came to a halt about a meter before reaching him. An oppressive weight seemed to press in all around him, and he had to suppress a shiver. “Wait. Gaspard, did–” he gulped, “–did my father send you?”

His old bodyguard did not reply, but took a heavy step towards him. Adrien stepped back.

“Please… I can’t go back. I live somewhere else now, and I’m very happy there. Whatever he told you about the situation, it’s a lie.”

His bodyguard continued to approach him, his stare vacant and unsettling.

Fighting the urge to panic, he pleaded, “You don’t have to do this. If he’s offered you compensation, I can match it; it’ll just take me a bit of time. But we can work something out, right?? For old time’s sake?”

He continued walking backwards until he bumped into something firm, but it wasn’t a wall; it was another person. Before he could turn around, they grabbed him by the shoulders, detaining him and preventing him from running away.

He was about to shout for help when something sharp jabbed him on the side of the neck, injecting a cold liquid. Adrien’s eyes grew wide in terror.

Shit.

Adrien swore as he jerked away, elbowing whoever was behind him and managing to break free. Rubbing at the spot where the syringe had stabbed him, he glanced back to take a look at his other assailant, only to see... another Gaspard?

Why are there two of him??

This was wrong. Gaspard didn’t have a twin; he knew that for a fact. He’d worked for the Agrestes ever since Adrien was a toddler and was too young to even pronounce his name correctly (hence the nickname “Gorille”, which stuck around for years afterwards). Additionally, there was something uncanny, otherworldly, even, about the way these two men looked and moved.

He shook himself out of his stupor. He didn’t have time to contemplate any possible explanations. He had to get out of there fast.

He sprinted towards the exit, but only managed to travel a few paces before he lost his footing and tripped. He fell to the ground hard, almost hitting his head on a nearby bench. As he struggled to get up, he realized that his fingers and toes had already gone numb.

Not good.

Time was running out. Adrenaline coursed through him and, with a grunt, he hefted himself to his feet and scrambled towards the exit, as fast as he could despite a heavy limp. Though his heart was hammering and his legs felt like they were filled with sand, he pushed himself, concentrating on reaching the door.

After taking a few steps, however, he realized that even if he did manage to exit the locker room, the area beyond was an open courtyard. Meaning he wasn’t going to be able to reach someplace safe before getting caught. He had no choice but to transform into Chat Noir, and hopefully Plagg’s powers and strength could help him escape and find somewhere to hide.

He’d scarcely uttered the first syllable in the transformation phrase when he was tackled to the ground. A giant hand swiftly covered his mouth and Adrien felt his hands get bound together with thick zip ties behind his back. A muffled scream of writhing frustration made its way up his throat as his limbs became more and more useless by the second.

No… This can’t be happening! Please, this can’t be how it all ends!

Just when his life had finally gained a semblance of normalcy and he’d found happiness again, it would get ripped away and he would disappear without a trace, leaving everyone to wonder what had happened to him. Leaving his friends to think that Gabriel had pulled him from school and they would never see him again. Leaving Ladybug to wonder if Chat had abandoned her forever. Leaving her to fight Hawkmoth alone. Again.

He couldn’t let that happen. He thrashed and struggled as furiously as he could, fighting the feelings of overwhelming helplessness that threatened to consume him. Nearing despair, he was too distracted to notice Plagg phrasing through the wall, away from the skirmish, in search of the only person who could save him.

(Mood music: "Run" - Ludovico Einaudi)

Marinette fidgeted with her pencil, her feet wiggled and bounced under her desk. She didn’t understand; when she’d arrived at the art club, her head had been filled with inspiration and ideas that she’d been excited to draw and execute. However, at the moment, her mind was filled with noise and disquietude.

Having had enough, she excused herself to visit the restroom. Once she’d walked far enough from the classroom, she opened her purse to talk to Tikki about her current dilemma.

“It’s the same feeling as last night, Tikki! Except that would mean one of three possibilities. Option A.) It’s nothing and I’m going crazy. And— don’t give me that look, Tikki! I can see what you’re thinking and I don’t have time for your cheeky sass right now!” The kwami snickered while Marinette cleared her throat and continued, “Option B.) that Chat is here, at this school, which is impossible because his school’s on the other side of the city, that’s why he always leaves the house super early for his long commute.”

Tikki opened her mouth and looked like she was about to say something, but then didn’t (...or couldn’t?).

Marinette resumed, “Or, C.) that my–– what do I even call it? My ‘Spidey sense’??–– that it’s got a long distance mode, and Chat is all the way across Paris and he’s in trouble! But what am I supposed to do about that from here?! I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking!”

Tikki shrugged. “Follow your instincts, Marinette. There’s no harm in taking a quick look around the school, right?”

Marinette groaned. “UGH! It doesn’t make sense!! Am I going to get interrupted like this all the time from now on?” She shook her head resolutely. “No. I can’t just go off on random field trips every single time I feel a random fit of anxiety. I’m sure it’s just leftover jitters from last night. I’m supposed to call Master Fu after school anyway; he can help me figure everything out. I’m just gonna go back to class and forget about it.”

Tikki frowned, not quite convinced, but deciding not to press further.

Marinette made her way back to the classroom in a frustrated huff. But as her hand reached to turn the handle, the feelings of danger and urgency multiplied tenfold. Without a word, she sprinted away in the opposite direction, not even knowing where she was running to, only knowing she had to get there immediately.

She reached the large common area of the school downstairs. Her head whipped around, frantically searching for something, anything. In her haste, she didn’t notice a small black creature zoom into her open purse.

A few moments later, she felt a frantic tugging at her shirt from below.

“Marinette!! Over there! Check the locker room, quick!!!” Tikki whisper-screamed as she peeked outside the purse, her tone uncharacteristically frantic.

Marinette nodded, then sprinted to the locker room.

“Wait! You should transform first!” Tikki added.

No time!

“Marinette, wait!!”

Despite Tikki’s protests, Marinette raced towards the double doors, tackling them open.

Three sets of eyes landed on her as she skidded to a halt, but only one pair consumed her entire attention. She gasped in horror, hands flying to her face as she stared at what was occurring in front of her. Adrien let out a desperate, muffled scream urging her to run.

His panicked voice snapped her out of her dazed shock; but instead of running, she stood her ground, eyes darting back and forth across the area searching for something useful. The room was remarkably barren except for a lone broom a short distance away from her. She grabbed it and leaped towards the closest attacker (the one holding Adrien down), swinging it like a baseball bat.

The man didn’t even try to avoid the hit; the broomstick merely bounced off the side of his face where Marinette had hit him. She frowned in confusion, then tried hitting him again, bringing the stick down on the top of his head like an axe.

SNAP.

The end of the broom flew off, and Marinette stared in shock at the broken broomstick.

“What the hell are you?!” Marinette exclaimed, shifting her grip on the shortened wooden stub.

She pounced at the second bodyguard, bringing her weapon down in a stabbing motion; but he swatted at her hand, disarming her. She yelped in pain, leaping backwards to get some distance between them.

She was outmatched. The only strategy available was to use their own size against them. With a feint to the side, she shot at his legs for a takedown, hoping to catch him off balance. He called her bluff and shoved her backwards with his giant palm, then kneed her in the stomach.

Winded from the impact, Marinette doubled over with a gasping wheeze, fighting with all her might to keep herself from collapsing onto the ground. She forced herself upright and attacked again. With a clumsy jerk, she lunged forward, swinging wild punches at her opponent. The shots connected but his expression barely changed; it was like beating a breathing punching bag.

The bodyguard backhanded Marinette across the face. Pain shooting across her cheek, she staggered, almost losing her balance. In her daze, she watched helplessly as the man reared his arm back. There was no chance to dodge. His fist connected with her abdomen, delivering a liver shot that shut down her entire body. She crumpled to the floor as if boneless. She tried to call out Adrien’s name, but her mouth merely opened in a silent scream.

Marinette could hear Adrien’s distressed screaming, but it sounded distant, like they were underwater. The edges of her vision grew black and fuzzy, the entire room dissolving around her. She had to consciously force her lungs to inhale, but couldn’t fill them all the way, as if a boulder had been placed on top of her chest.

Faintly, she felt herself getting picked up off the ground and carried away over someone’s shoulder. Disoriented and semi-blinded, the sudden movement and rough jostling made her head spin and gave her vertigo. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block it all out.

A few moments later, they stopped moving, and she heard a door burst open. Where were they? Before she could gather her senses, she was in the air, thrown several meters away, landing with a hard thud. A sharp pain traveled down her body as she rolled into the wall across them. The shriek that tried to escape her throat emerged as a strained, shallow whine.

The man stomped out, leaving her alone in the room. “Stop…!” she rasped out, managing to tilt her neck upwards, head pounding.

The bodyguard slammed the door shut, followed by a bang and a clattering sound that could only mean he’d broken the doorknob of whatever room she was in.

Marinette's vision became more and more blurred. At the verge of losing consciousness, she fought to keep her eyes open as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

No, she couldn’t pass out! She had to save Adrien! Stay awake, Marinette, stay awake!!

She bit down on her lip hard, focusing on the sharp sting, on the swelling that was already forming around her right eye, forcing herself to feel the pain her body was in. At this moment, feeling pain was better than falling unconscious. She concentrated on her breathing, slowly regaining her senses.

She reached down to open her purse and get Tikki’s help… only to be met with emptiness. Panic settled in her gut as she realized that sometime during the skirmish, the purse had slipped off her shoulder. She sat up, slowly, so she wouldn’t risk feeling faint again from the change in positions.

She squinted, adjusting her eyesight to the darkness of the room. It seemed to be some sort of supply closet. After a failed few attempts to stand, she crawled towards the door instead, careful not to bump into the crates and shelves that filled the area.

The girl eyed the broken doorknob wearily. She was pretty proficient at lockpicking and breaking into things, but not as good at breaking out. Her only hope was that Tikki would be able to find her… if she was even nearby.

She swore to herself. Why had she rushed in and attacked two grown ass men (who, incidentally, may or may not be supernatural to boot!) instead of hiding and creating a strategy?! Now she was useless, Tikki was gone, and Adrien was surely on his way to get auctioned to the highest bidder in the criminal black market and ransomed off for an enormous sum. Great job, Marinette. Adrien’s been abducted and it’s all your fault.

Gathering all the determination she could muster, she tried to call out for help. But her voice was still too hoarse, and only a weak croak came out. She clenched her fists, grumbling irritably. Time for a different approach. Somehow, she needed to make noise.

After a brief search, she found a hard, metallic object that she could use to hammer on the door. She tested it out; it was surprisingly effective. She doubled her efforts, making as big a racket as possible. Hopefully, it would only be a matter of time before somebody heard her, let her out, and she could go find Adrien.

She couldn’t let anything else happen to another loved one. Not again.

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I'M REEEAAAAALLY SORRY FOR THAT CLIFFHANGER JSHDKFJHSKDF ᕕ(╯°д°)ᕗ  I tried splitting up the sections differently but it didn't really flow as well.

But the next chapter is almost done, so I'll have it ready by next weekend!!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Moe Moe Mallekei Kyun~

In which Malleus and Cater go to a maid café, and shenanigans ensue.

... I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time.

***Warning: mild spoilers for Malleus’s PE Uniform personal story!***

Imagine this...

“Lilia-sama.”

Two bodyguards fell into line, saluting simultaneously to their vice dorm leader.

“We just finished combing through the prime gargoyle locations around campus,” Silver reported. “Unfortunately, there was no sight of Malleus-sama to be found. The accounts of the various students we interviewed also corroborate that the Young Master has not recently been spotted in the area.”

“I see. Thank you, Silver.” Lilia sighed, cupping his cheek in one hand. “Hm, this is a bit odd. Wherever could he have wandered off to this time?”

At that moment, a ping! sounded off. Lilia fished his phone out of his pocket and, with one glance at the screen, his expression softened.

“You don’t suppose some dastardly villain has… kidnapped the Young Master and is holding him for ransom, do you?!” Sebek’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull at the thought. “If that is the case… THEN WE HAVE FAILED AS MALLEUS-SAMA’S KNIGHTS!!”

“Now, now--let’s not jump to conclusions. Even if that were true, I’m certain that Malleus would be able to easily fend off assailants on his own. Perhaps he has simply lost his way, or headed off campus to run an errand.”

“... Without warning us in advance?”

“I would have happily accompanied the Young Master wherever he went--EVEN TO THE ENDS OF TWISTED WONDERLAND ITSELF!!”

“Kufufu. Malleus is still young at heart. Let us allow him this moment of independence, just this once. He will find his way home eventually.”

“Welcome home, my masters!!”

Malleus skidded to a stop in the doorway—for beyond it laid unknown territory. The interior sported cream walls, with fairy lights, streamers, and paper flowers strung up. A number of tables and chairs, populated with people, were set against flowing white curtains.

Young ladies flitted about, balancing trays of food and drinks, cameras, and microphones. Each wore the same outfit, consisting of a frilly headdress, an apron, and a black dress with lace trim and ribbons.

And now, one of those uniformed girls extended a hand to him and a warm, welcoming smile.

Malleus frowned and turned to the orange haired young man beside him. “... Diamond. What is this strange establishment you’ve brought me to?”

“Mm? It’s a maid café,” Cater chirped, glancing up from his phone. “You said you’ve never been before, right?”

“Well, yes… However, when you invited me to join you for an outing, I did not expect this to be our destination.”

“It’ll be fine~ We’re already here, so let’s get seated!” Cater insisted cheerily, ushering the fae through the door. 

“Right this way, my masters!” The greeter giggled and led the way, eventually stopping at a vacant table set for two. As the duo slipped into their seats, she handed them menus and moistened towels. “We have a wide selection of special services and delicious dishes for your enjoyment!”

Malleus hesitantly flipped open the (very pink) menu and ran his eyes down the page of available items. Along with the expected offerings of desserts, savory foods, and beverages were odd listings: massage, ear cleaning, karaoke, game, arts and crafts, picture, spoon feeding, live song and dance...

He stared quizzically at Cater, who seemed to be taking everything in stride.

“I’ll take a plate of omurice! How about you, Malleus-kun?”

He stared back at his menu, trying to make rhyme or reason of the unique names. What in the Great Seven was a Pyon ❤ Pyon Sunshine Bar…? Or a Lucky☆Happy☆Cookie? Malleus’s brows furrowed in both concentration and confusion.

“I… I shall have the local specialty, whatever that may be,” the fae prince declared at last.

“Excellent choices! And would you like a bunny, or a kitty?”

“You hand out animals at this eating establishment? Is that not a health code violation?”

“Aaah, Malleus-kun, she doesn’t mean real rabbits and cats. Look--you’ll see when she brings them, okay?” Cater laughed awkwardly. Then, turning to the waitress, he held up his index finger. “One of each, little lady~”

“Of course!” She scribbled down a few words on her heart shaped notepad before prancing off.

“... Diamond. Are you certain this is the fabled maid café of which you spoke of?” Malleus asked, folding his arms. “I find it difficult to believe that every patron here is descended from a high class lineage. Furthermore, the servers are wearing attire entirely unlike that of a traditional household servant.”

Cater blinked once, twice—then chuckled.

“Maid cafés are like normal cafés. Anyone can go to them to play pretend and chill for a while! The difference is that the waitresses are dressed cutely and offer fun services. Singing, dancing, playing games—that kinda thing!”

“I do not understand.” Malleus swept a hand at their surroundings. “The purpose of this establishment is merely for… amusement?”

“Yup! People get tired of the daily grind sometimes, so they go to places like this to see cute stuff and just take a load off.”

“I… I see.” Malleus tucked his thumb and forefinger under his chin. “We do not have anything like your maid cafes in the Valley of Thorns.”

“You don’t? What sort of things do you do back home for fun, then?”

“I was not allowed to venture far from the palace grounds. Most of my time was spent indoors, studying spells or honing my magical abilities.”

Cater inclined his head. “Oooh, right! Because you’re a prince and all, you weren’t able to do much—but hey! Things are different now! You’ve got Cay-kun to show you a good time!”

“Ah, yes. A ‘good time’...” Malleus attempted at a smile, which came out more wary than he had intended.

“Thank you for waiting!” a girlish voice chirped—their waitress had returned, wearing a tray of food in one hand and two headbands in the other. “Here is your omurice and Nyan ✨ Nyan ✨ Kitty-chan Parfait, plus one pair of kitty ears and one pair of bunny ears!”

She handed Cater his dish—a bed of ketchup flavored fried rice, sealed by a wobbling omelet and garnished with a sprig of parsley.

“Mm! Smells delicious. Thanks a bunch~” Cater grinned, winking at his server.

The maid giggled and placed Malleus’s dessert before him, along with the headbands.

“Would you like me to draw or write something special for you on your meal, master?” she asked, gesturing to Cater’s omurice.

“Sure thing! Could you write ‘Mallekei’? Oh, and a couple of hearts would be cute, too!”

“As you wish!”

As the maid set to work, Malleus marveled at the sight of his parfait.

Colorful scoops of ice-cream, granola, and sliced fruits were layered inside of a tall glass cup. A generous crown of whipped cream and a drizzle of strawberry sauce topped it off. Sticking out from the whipped cream were two wafer triangles and dots of chocolate candies, forming a cat-like face.

How adorable.

… But not adorable enough to be spared.

“Thank you for the food.” The fae raised his spoon to demolish the poor parfait kitten—

“Stop, stop, Malleus-kun!!” Cater cried, frantically waving his arms. “N-Not yet!!”

Malleus lowered his spoon with a frown. “Food is meant to be consumed, Diamond. Is there an issue you have with my table etiquette?”

“Well—no, but…” Cater played with a lock of his orange hair and sighed. “There’s certain rituals we need to do first!”

“Rituals? Oh, my apologies. I was not aware. Please proceed with your regularly scheduled… rituals.”

“Ahaha, you’re a quick learner! First thing’s first, let’s put on our headbands!” Cater swept up the cat ears and passed them over. “Here, to match your parfait! I’ll take the rabbit.”

Malleus gingerly nestled the cat ears on his head, copying Cater’s movements. It was a bit tricky maneuvering around his horns, but somehow, he managed.

“Oh!! Those ears suit you so well!” the waitress said, glancing up from decorating the omurice. Carefully placed splotches of ketchup spelled out ‘Mallekei’, hearts and little sparkles littering the space around the boys’ combined names.

“... Do they?” Malleus doubted it.

“They do!!” Cater reassured him with a laugh. “Ne, ne, miss! Can you take our picture so my friend here can have a souvenir to take home with him?” 

“Certainly!” She replaced the bottle of ketchup and hurried off, returning shortly after with a polaroid camera. “Are you ready, my masters?”

“Ready, Malleus-kun?”

“Hmph. Of course. I will have you know that my posing abilities have improved considerably since our last encounter. Do not underestimate me.”

“Oh, that’s great! You’ve been practicing! Then… on the count of three, we nyah, okay?”

“... What is ‘nyah’?” Malleus inquired, his confidence suddenly waning.

“Eh?” A blip of surprise crossed Cater’s face. “Like, y’know… nyah!”

The influencer curled both of his hands into balls and made a pawing motion at his friend. “Now you try!”

“Like this?” Malleus mimicked him. He was more stiff—definitely not as practiced—but the general motion was still recognizable.

“Very good, master!!” the waitress gushed, raising the polaroid up. “On three?”

“1, 2, 3… Nyah!”

A flash went off, sending stars into Malleus’s vision. As he rubbed the daze out of his eyes, Cater’s voice called out to him.

“Are you okay there?”

“I am well. There is no need for your concern,” the fae insisted. “This ritual… it is more confounding that I took it to be.”

“Eeeh? It’s not meant to be hard or anything. Just relax, relax!” Cater paused before adding, “It’s part of the ritual’s requirements! You need to be nice and loose for the last step!”

“What is this last step?”

“We need to cast a magic spell to make your food taste extra tasty!” the waitress declared cheerily.

“Hoh?” A smirk found its way onto Malleus’s face. “That can easily be arranged. Allow me to do the honors.”

He put his hand before his parfait, an eerie green glow emulating from his palm. The sinister light engulfed his dish and Cater’s, sending them floating midair. Radioactive ice-cream and omurice hovered above their heads, causing both Cater and their maid to recoil in shock.

Other customers stared at the spectacle from their own tables. One man’s jaw dropped, the forkful of spaghetti bolognese in his mouth clattering onto the floor.

“You, who provides sustenance to the masses, become that which is delici—“

“H-Hold on a sec, Malleus-kun!!” Cater practically leapt over the table to seize his friend’s glowing hand. “Not that kind of spell!!”

Eyes wide with surprise, Malleus allowed his magic to settle down. The parfait and omurice gently floated back onto their table, and the maid sighed with relief.

“Is there a different spell needed for this occasion? I assure you that I am well-versed in practical magic—you need only speak its name, and I can conjure the proper…”

“No, no! It’s—“ Cater casted a look at their server and nervously chuckled. “Ne, Maid-chan~ Think you can give us a demonstration of the right spell?”

“Yes, master!” the girl, ever professional, flashed a perky grin. “Please watch carefully!!”

The maid set down her polaroid on the table. She then arched her fingers into C-like shapes, thumb extended straight. Pushing her hands together, she formed a heart and aimed it in the direction of the boy’s dishes.

“Moe moe kyuuuuuun!”

“What an odd spell. In all my years, I have never heard of such an enchantment…”

“Well, there’s a first for everything, right?” Cater flicked one of his floppy rabbit ears. “Plus, it should be no problem for the great Malleus-sama to pull off this spell, right?”

“This is child’s play,” Malleus’s laugh was like the earth itself rumbling. His lips quirked into a small smile. “You will join me in performing this sacred ritual, will you not, Diamond?”

“Of course~”

“Very well.”

They made hearts and thrust them upon their meals. And together, they uttered those three magic words.

“Moe moe kyuuuuun!!”

“Welcome back, Malleus,” Lilia greeted. The vice dorm leader nonchalantly hung from the ceiling, his raven and magenta bangs suspended midair. “Did you have fun on your outing?”

“Lilia. You knew?” Malleus slowly shut the door behind him, chasing away the cool air of the night. He spoke softly, knowing that sounds carried in the dusty hallways of Diasomnia and could disturb its residents.

“The wonders of modern technology,” Lilia trilled, expertly landing beside his young master. He brandished his phone in a gloved hand, a text message displayed on the screen.

hey hey lilia-chan! gonna steal malmal-kun for the day~ he’ll be back later, but do me a solid and keep it a secret from s&s til then, ‘kay? thnx!! (✿˶˘ ³˘)~♡

“It looks as though I have been exposed.”

“There is no shame in making new friends. In fact, I’m proud of you for expanding your horizons.” Lilia beamed. “Though what a shame it is that I was not present to grab a few pictures. Hopefully Cater fulfilled that task for me.”

The ancient fae tilted forward in his toes and peered up at his prince. “Soooo? Where did you sneak off to?”

“Fufu. Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“My. Is that any way to treat the man that kept Silver and Sebek from hunting you down?” Lilia teased, wagging a finger.

“Such loyalty,” Malleus smirked, hands on his hips, “deserves to be rewarded.”

He produced a polaroid photograph from his breast pocket and presented it with a flourish. The image, forever captured in time, was that of Malleus and Cater—the former with cat ears, the latter with bunny ears—with hands balled to resemble paws. Cater cheekily winked, while Malleus looked slightly bewildered.

The edges of the polaroid were dotted with stickers—smiley faces, flowers, and hearts. Marker had been used to scrawl on whiskers and blushes over both boys’ cheeks.

Overall, cutesy—overwhelming so.

But the Malleus and Cater in the picture were happy.

Their eyes shining like jewels.

Nyah-ing their hearts out.

[burnedbyshoto]

disconnected

— Kirishima answers a phone call that wasn’t intended for him, and of course he can’t help but be interested in the beautiful voice and soul that angrily began to rant about their day. —

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pairing: kirishima eijirou x fem!reader

warnings: fluff, lil angst (lol sorry), cursing

word count: 7,786

a/n: this was a stupid thought that slammed into my mind, and here it is!!!! now I have a calc midterm tomorrow that I did not look at because why think about double derivatives and integrals when I can think about kirishima????

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It was eleven at night when Kirishima strolled out of his bathroom, ready to go to bed. After a rather long day, he was looking forward to sleeping and not having to wake up at the crack of dawn. Tomorrow for the very first day in a very long time, he wouldn’t have to work at the local coffee shop he was hired at. It was a job he had acquired with his good friends on the promise of it being a manageable job on top of his college work, and of course, the pretty girls who would go in.

From what Kirishima had gathered from the four months working there was that there were a lot of pretty girls who entered the coffee shop — most of which were focused on the angry ash-blond friend of his — and that it was so unnecessarily stressful. 

Some days he was up at four in the morning to open at six for the morning regulars, then he’d go to his afternoon classes, only to return for a two-hour shift in the middle of rush hour, and would leave while trying to keep the peace between a certain ash-blond and two new hires. To say the least, it was hell on Earth at times. 

Regardless, he didn’t have to open tomorrow morning, so he was content! On top of not having classes tomorrow, Kirishima was excited to sleep in.

Falling on his bed with a massive sigh, Kirishima snuggled his face into his pillow, rejoicing in the way that the laundry detergent still clung to the fabric and relaxed.

Sleep sounded so—

RIIING.

RIIING.

Kirishima’s eyes slammed open, his head snapping to see his illuminating phone on his nightstand. He had no idea who the hell was calling this late. There was no way it was Bakugou; he was asleep already at this point. Sero had broken his phone two days ago during a failed stunt and wouldn’t be able to get a new phone until the weekend. Kaminari only called him when there was a bug in his apartment, but he was currently closing… maybe it was Mina? Kirishima shook his head, no, he hadn’t spoken to Mina in ages.

Grabbing the phone, he didn’t bother to look at the caller ID and answered.

“Hello—?”

“Oh my god, I am fucking raging! You can’t believe what kind of fuckery I just went through tonight!” a voice shouted into the receiver, and Kirishima flinched a bit at the loud and angry voice. “So you know how I wasn’t supposed to work today, right? Because my coworker had sex with her ex-boyfriend like an idiot, and I owed her for covering my shift three months ago, but anyways irrelevant. I’m taking the order of this one group of adults. That’s right, A-D-U-L-T-S, adults! They are completely staring at my tits the entire time, and not my face. At first, I thought maybe you know, I had spilled something on my tits earlier, no. No! NOTHING! So I call them out on it, and they say something along the lines of ‘you could be a camgirl with that body, but like not in a sex sort of way’ I’m sorry, WHAT?! Like yes, continue sexually harassing your server who is a college student and therefore has no will to live, so will gladly beat your Gucci belt wearing ass into a bloody pulp! What they gonna do? Sue me? I have one dollar to my name, fucking take it, I don’t care, I’ll find another dollar in the sewer after I beat their asses up!

“But you know, I’m saying all this in my head because I’m broke and can’t afford to be fired from this place because the tips are hella good here. But they continue saying dumb shit, and then the obvious ringleader — I know he was the ring leader because his beard looks like it was the first picture printed on a new ink cartridge and his manspread was ten times wider than all of theirs — have the fucking audacity to slip his number while only tipping TEN DOLLARS ON A TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR TAB!!!!” Kirishima doesn’t know what to say, his jaw on his mattress, breathing having stopped while your voice wheezes from your lack of air. He makes a croaking noise, wanting to speak up and apologize for what had happened and for not being the person you thought it was, but it seemed that you weren’t over. “AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THAT FUCKING KAREN!!! ‘I didn’t like the way you looked at me so I won’t be tipping you tonight!’ yeah, well maybe if you didn’t order enough FOOD TO FEED AN ARMY AND KEPT SENDING IT BACK I WOULDN’T BE LOOKING AT YOU LIKE THAT!!!”

There was a pause, and Kirishima, while feeling entirely sorry for you, finally spoke, “Fuck, that sounds... horrible.”

“Damn right, it was horri— wait, who the fuck is this?” your voice squeaked, and Kirishima almost started to laugh at the difference in the tone your voice took. Once so loud, angry, and entirely ‘fuck the world,’ had changed into a meek and embarrassed voice.

“Um, this is Kirishima. Kirishima Eijiriou?”

“This isn’t Hagakure?” you moaned into the phone. “03-9082-2395? That isn’t this number?”

“2-2-9-5,” Kirishima repeated his own number back, a small smile overcame his features knowing that you had accidentally misdialed a number.

“Fuck my fat fingers,” you cursed, and Kirishima chuckled lightly at the mutterings that were poorly picked up. “Well, um, I am so sorry for calling you and dumping that unnecessary bullshit on you—”

“No, no,” Kirishima interrupted, rolling onto his back, staring up at the dimly lit ceiling. “It’s totally okay! You seem less stressed out now too, and it really isn’t a big deal!”

“You are very kind, Kirishima Eijirou,” you laugh, and Kirishima can’t help but imagine a figure curled up on a couch.

“Thank you!” he beamed, a hand threading through his hair, “um, but what happened with the Karen? And why were you typing in your friend’s phone number?”

“Do you really want to know?” you ask after a fit of bubbling laughter; it seemed that you were not at all convinced.

“I work at a coffee shop for one, so I totally understand the Karen situations! Secondly, all my contacts are on my phone, I don’t have a single one of them memorized!”

“Okay, okay, okay, I do not have this number memorized! Hagakure is my roommate, and she has a new number that she left posted on our fridge and because Mr. Sprinkles left in the middle of my rant, I called her to finish it!” you explain in what Kirishima could only consider being childlike glee. “And a coffee shop? Oof, Kirishima, you might have it just as bad as I do then.”

“Ever had a boiling cup of coffee thrown back at your face?”

“Shut. Up.”

“I wish I was joking!”

“The nastiest thing I’ve ever been put through is a highschool couple breaking up in the middle of the restaurant, and a bowl of cold soup and milkshake were thrown at me! And I had to work for another five hours!”

“That… that beat mine by a long shot…”

“Okay, but like, it was cold. If you hadn’t dodged, you’d be dead!”

As time passed Kirishima soon found himself sitting up on his bed, his back pressed against the headboard, a lamp on so that he wasn’t in the dark while he talked to you. Somehow conversation flowed so perfectly between the two of you, so smoothly, so naturally. You had extremely compelling energy and a pretty bright one at that as well. Your stories were exceedingly extravagant, most derailing into hundreds of side stories before making its way back to the main point, but he didn’t mind. Though there was no proof, he imagined that your arms were swinging around while you talked, a bright smile on your face, and lights shining in your eyes.

“So anyway, I had to beg my professor to let me remake this exam because, for some reason, my brain would not switch back to Japanese. I almost cried because I was only speaking in English, and I think because I am an amazing person, my professor let me do that!” you laughed after explaining an issue with being fluent in a third language. 

“My English skills deteriorated after leaving high school, I’m rather jealous you can speak three languages,” Kirishima admitted, his head falling back onto the cold wall. “My Japanese professors probably think my Japanese sucks too.”

“Just because I am amazing and can speak three languages doesn’t mean I’m perfect at it,” you laugh, obviously trying to make him feel better about himself.

“Mm, I don’t know, you’re painting yourself as a pretty perfect person,” Kirishima sighed. “Or you have an enormous ego…”

A loud scoff came from your end of the phone, and Kirishima waited for your verbal retaliation but was met with a moment of silence.

“Oh! Welcome home!” you called out, and Kirishima quickly put together that your roommate Hagakure was home. “Yeah, no, I’m talking to someone right now! ...who? Oh, um, a friend! ...no, I tried to call you when I got home but misdialed your number and got him instead! NO! You’re not going to get a pic of him! Wait, it’s what time?!”

Kirishima’s eyes fell over to his alarm clock and saw in the dim red light that it was 04:57. 

His jaw dropped.

“Well, um, Kirishima, it seems that our call is going to end,” you whisper into the phone, and Kirishima lets out a breathless chuckle, sudden sleepiness creeping into him. “It was pretty fun chatting with you stranger, thanks for putting up with that ranting in the beginning! Most normal people wouldn’t have picked up or let me rant like that!”

“It’s no problem,” Kirishima smiled softly, his fingers stretching out to turn off the light. He licked his lips, five hours on a phone call with an absolute stranger, and he didn’t have your name, and better yet, a part of him wanted to ask if it was okay to be friends. You were magnetic to him, and he wanted to know more about you, even if this was this weird modern and accidental penpal thing. “I didn’t have anything to do today, and you were fun talking to!”

“Aww, thank you!”

Silence.

Ask, he thought, his teeth biting down onto his bottom lip. Ask!

“Um, I know this is weird and all, but do you think I can keep your number?” you ask, your voice almost timid and meek.

Kirishima’s heart rate spikes at those words, he very much wanted that, but his mouth had a mind of its own it seemed. “Why?”

“Wha— well, I just had a lot of fun talking with you! It was fun, and I don’t know, you seem like a pretty chill guy!”

His fingers gripped his phone, a warmth spreading through him when he relaxed under his sheets. “On one condition.”

“Oof, if you’re going to ask to decide between Crimson Riot or All Might you’re going to be—”

“No, no,” Kirishima lets out a snort, his shoulders rolling while he imagines the curious look coming over your face. “I would like to know your name?”

“My name? Why would you want— HOLY SHIT! I never gave you—” there was a loud noise on your end of the call, and Kirishima heard you apologize profusely before returning in a hushed whisper. “Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t give you my name?!”

“No,” he laughed loudly, one that was pushed from his belly, spreading warmth through his body. “You never did, but I did learn every name of every person you’ve ever talked with!”

“God,” you groan, a small whine emitted from you. “I’m an idiot, I’m so sorry! Y/l/n y/n at your service!”

Y/l/n y/n, that’s a pretty name, he thought while imagining just what you could look like. 

“Well, goodnight y/l/n, I’ll save your number, and we’ll see if you still would like to be friends when you wake up?”

There was a small noise of agreement, “I’m like a drug, Kirishima, you’ll be back for more.”

“Okay, okay, goodnight…”

“Goodnight, sweet dreams!”

“Sweet dreams.”

Kirishima listened to the line ending, and he pulled his phone away from his ear and no sooner did he do that, a text came in at what he believed to be your number:

don’t let the bed bugs bite! 🕷😱‼️

He snorted and replied back before eventually letting sleep consume him.

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“You’ll never believe what just happened!” you squealed into the phone, and Kirishima laughed while wiping his sweaty face with a white towel. You had called thirty minutes earlier than usual and had caught him leaving the gym.

It had been a bit over two months since your misdial, and things with you had been going pretty well for strangers. The two of you didn’t talk every day, most weeks going by with just a single call, but they were always delightful talks. You worked most nights, and he most mornings, the two of you discovered. So most calls took place the night he didn’t have to work the following morning. 

“You got a customer who complained that there was too much salt in their meal that had no salt in it?” he asked, pulling a random story of something that had happened at his own coffee shop today. You let out an amused snort, a clear indicator that he was wrong, but found his guess to be amusing at the very least.

“No, but oddly enough, someone did ask for an insane amount of salt on their food and hated it!” you sang, clearly happy with how you found their distress to be funny.

“Close enough!” Kirishima laughed, but he was straight out of guesses, so he stopped. “So, what happened?”

“I tried coffee for the first time ever today!” you squealed loudly, and Kirishima cheered happily.

Through these two months, there were some hard facts that Kirishima had learned about you. One, you were living in the same city as him. Two, you worked at a semi-classy restaurant. Three, you had two roommates named Hagakure and Jirou. Four, you were twenty, just like him. And five, you were a child who only drank hot chocolate and tea because you were afraid of coffee.

~

“Caffeine is a drug you know,” you had snarkily teased him one night when he said he was going to make a cup of coffee. “Nice to know I’m friends with an addict!”

“If drugs were as amazing as coffee, I’d be an addict!”

“You know…” your voice whispered, your voice suddenly taking a guilty approach. “I’ve never actually tried coffee…”

“WHAT?!”

~

“Wow, look at you, becoming an old woman in front of my own eyes!” Kirishima chuckled, starting his walk back home. 

His fingers pushed the headphones to be more secure over his ears, hopeful that there it wouldn’t pick up too heavily on the wind of the outside world. 

“To be honest, it wasn’t that good, your taste buds are just tarnished from drinking that bitter crap all day!” you huff and he half imagined you turning your nose up.

“Okay, okay,” Kirishima laughed, a warmth flooding in his chest at the sounds of your muffled laughter. A visible indicator that you were also amused at this. “I hated coffee until I started working at a coffee shop, and that was because I needed to know my shit.”

“Wow, you only got that job while not being a coffee addict?” you tease. “Seems like a fake barista to me.”

“It’s pretty hard to believe, I know,” Kirishima stated his tone one of fake melancholy. “I’m so sorry for deceiving you, and honestly, I am a shit barista.”

“Aww, don’t say that!” you exclaim, and it seems like you’re ready to fight him. “I bet you put all those fancy TikTok baristas to shame!”

“TikTok?” he laughed, his pace speeding up just a bit so he would get home faster. “Wow, I am honored you think that!”

The light conversation continued, nothing too deep or too intense, just chatter about today's shifts and classes. Eventually, Kirishima made it back into his apartment complex, and stumbled into his room, collapsing onto his bed. 

“Can I ask something?” you ask suddenly, and Kirishima lets out a small hum.

“Yeah, of course, what’s up?”

“What do you look like?” you asked softly as if you were curled up in bed, seconds from letting sleep consume you. “I haven’t come up with a mental image that I like, and well, I want some hints.”

“I can just send you a picture of me,” Kirishima smiles, his eyes closing. “It would be much easier than me trying to explain to you what I look like.”

“No!” you disagree, and there's a long sigh from your end of the phone. “I’m not ready for that kind of information yet, Kiri. I just… I can’t accept a pic of you without sending one back, and I’m not mentally ready for that yet…”

“Don’t tell me the big fat Gucci bougie you is shy?!” Kirishima exclaimed, humor drowning his words as he referenced you to something you had called yourself one drunken night weeks ago.

“Not shy!” you bemoan, your voice muffling out at the end of it. “I’m more scared you’ll find me ugly and ghost me…”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Kirishima interjected, his voice stable and confident.

“Which part?”

“Both parts.”

“How do you know that? You don’t know what I look like…”

“...call it… Kirishima’s intuition,” Kirishima slowly stated, his eyebrows furrowing. “I find your voice and your personality to be attractive on their own, so I would never ghost you. And of course, appearance isn’t anything; plus, there’s no way you’re not gorgeous.”

He says these words with honest truth, and a part of him fears he overstepped and made you wildly uncomfortable with the amount of silence that is heard from your end of the line. But finally, as Kirishima is ready to apologize to you, a soft exhale is heard.

“You’re a dork,” you whisper, and a soft grin spreads on his own face. “Anyways, I’ll ask questions, you answer them first, and then I’ll do the same.”

“Sounds good!”

“Hair color?”

“Black, but I dye it red.”

“Mm, edgy teenager, I like it, and also knew that because you complained about your stained sheets! Eye color?”

“Red.”

“Oh, am I sensing a theme? How tall are you?”

“I’m… a bit over six feet?”

The list went on, most questions becoming more of a joke than anything else, but he was glad that you were asking these things because now he had an insight on how you looked too. You had told him your eye color, your hair color, how tall you were, and a whole bunch of trivial things he would have never thought to ask about to begin with.

“Okay, last question!” you cheered, happy to have finally included Kirishima into your inside joke that revolved around your eyebrows. “Do you have any distinguishing features?”

“Well, I don’t actually...” Kirishima admitted, his fingers brushing against the scar on his eye, and then it hit him. That was one! “Oh, wait—” CRASH. A loud crashing noise emitted from your side of the call.

“Shit, hold on!” you curse and Kirishima can only remain silent while he hears you yelling in the background, it was too far away for him to quite understand, but it was enough to know that it didn’t sound okay. 

Kirishima sat on his side of the call, the phone pressed to his ear while he tried to strip his gross and sweaty shirt from his body. His teeth bit into his lip, his canine pressing into the permanent indent of his lip, an indicator of how anxious he used to be. 

“Fuck, Kiri?” your voice suddenly snapped back onto the call, your tone frantic and quick.

“Everything okay?”

“No, Hagakure showed up drunker than… a drunken drunk, I don’t know expressions, ANYWAYS I know tonight is our unofficial official call night, but anyway I can get a rain check?”

There was guilt that swallowed your voice, a pang of guilt that made Kirishima warm a bit because it showed that you valued these calls, just like him. 

“Of course, I don’t have class or work Friday morning this time around, so Thursday night?”

“That works perfectly,” you sigh, gratitude. “I owe you, text you later if you don’t fall asleep! Goodnight, sweet dreams, love ya!”

Kirishima couldn’t repeat the whole statement before you hastily hung up, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face the entire time he showered. The shower didn’t take too long, and by the time he emerged from the shower, towel around his neck and his waist, he had a text message. 

sero - hey bro!!! i can’t pick up my morning shift tomorrow i know you have tonight to speak w y/n but todoroki and bakugou can’t cover it!

Kirishima sighed, he definitely didn’t have anything tomorrow anyways, he could manage with going in for an extra shift to help a friend.

kirishima - yeah sure what time?

sero - youre a life saver T-T im covering 8 am - 3 pm!!!

Kirishima sent a simple affirmative emoji before finishing up his nightly routine. 

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Kirishima looked at his apron while he was assembling himself in the backroom. The aroma of roasted coffee beans and pastries was almost pungent in the back, and he was eager to get out of there. As per employee regulations, he was to wear a black apron, a name tag, and something to hold his hair because it was a bit too long, for that, he wore a white bandana around his forehead.

“Wait, where’s my name tag?” Kirishima called out, his eyebrows furrowing when he turned out to Kaminari, who was currently in the back with him.

The blond froze and scratched the back of his neck, laughing awkwardly, “About that…”

So Kirishima was in the front of the store with a shiny silver name tag that read Hanta Sero. Because Kaminari was the best barista they had on hand currently, he was busy teaching Midoriya — their newest hire — around the bar. For now, Todoroki was nowhere to be found, and Kirishima was handling the cash register. 

Today was a slow morning, most people had their day off today, so morning coffee rush wasn’t in existence. Sure, there were a few outliers, but it was never chaotic. 

The gentle bell of the front door rang, and Kirishima automatically called out.

“Welcome!”

You had walked into the store, your eyebrows furrowed while you prayed that this was the coffee shop your roommates had been raving about. You’d never been here before, but it was the closest coffee shop available that wasn’t something generic and basic like Starbucks. You looked up from your phone at the voice, a thank you automatically being repeated while you neared the register.

You froze when you saw the red hair and the red eyes of the handsome man at the register. A careless thought entered your mind, Kirishima said he had red hair and red eyes… but he said he didn’t work today… 

A kind smile sat on his face, his eyes taking you in, waiting for you to approach him. 

This couldn’t be him, right?

The last time you had assumed a redhead working in a coffee shop was Kirishima, it had ended embarrassingly. 

“Um, hi,” you drawled out, your eyes reading the board to figure out your own order. 

Kirishima couldn’t keep his eyes off of you, you were exactly what you had described to him, but he wouldn’t ask until he was sure. He would ask you for your name after collecting your order for either tea or hot chocolate, and if it was you, he’d reveal that he was Kirishima. But he didn’t want to be wrong; he didn’t want to pin any other person as you, after all.

“I’ve never been here before,” you confess, your hand rubbing the back of your head. You were transfixed on the caramel macchiato that was spelled in the prettiest font, though, plus Hagakure promised all their coffee was good. 

“Oh, well, welcome! If you need any recommendations or have anything else to order, I can put those through while you look?”

His smile was kind, and you felt blood rush to your face, something you desperately tried to fight off by thinking of anything you didn’t like. 

“Oh! I do have two orders, though! There’s going to be one chai tea latte with three pumps of vanilla, and a lavender tea with a splash of oat milk.”

Kirishima nodded his head, “Will this be for here, or to go?”

His voice sounds so similar to Kirishima, you hoped, studying his face. While you answered that it was to go, you saw a distinctive scar on his right eye. Kirishima had said he didn’t have any distinguishing features… 

“What are your favorites here?” you ask, your eyebrows scrunched in confusion, your thoughts very evident in your face.

Kirishima couldn’t help but find hope bubbling up in his chest, there was always the possibility that you two lived in the same city-based off the same area code, and with what seemed like an incomplete knowledge in coffee, maybe…

Kirishima rambled off about the different seasonal drinks right now, his recommendations leaning towards the teas and non-coffee things primarily after his general and basic list. You seemed to take every word out of his lip like gospel, agreeing and nodding when appropriate, and his lips stretched into a grin when you bluntly exclaimed your ill knowledge of this all.

“To be honest, I only step into coffee shops to take a cute pic and then leave,” you laugh, pressing your hands against your lips and screaming a bit in your throat. 

Kirishima laughed, more confidence blooming through his body over the hope that this was you. It had to be you.

Your eyes then found the nametag on his apron, and like a sinking ship, you read Sero.

Not Kirishima.

“And for you?”

“I’ll have the caramel macchiato,” you decide, a grateful smile on your face while he looks down and writes the orders.

“A name?”

“Penny,” came your automatic response.

You never used your real name in coffee shops.

Kirishima suppressed the way that his mouth wanted to drop into a sad smile, and like two rejected teenagers, the money was exchanged. Before Kirishima could attempt to calm his disappointed soul, you walked out of the shop with the coffees and tea in hand.

“What was that about?” Kaminari asked, his eyes wide. “There was so much flirting and then poof, gone from both sides. Come on, dude, it’s my job to fail at flirting, not yours!”

Kirishima laughed, ignoring the way that his three friends looked at him with concern and curiosity. “Nothing, I just… the customer looked like how y/n described herself to be…”

“Oh… sorry, bro.”

“Nah, it’s all good,” Kirishima waved it off, and without so much as another slap on the back, he went back to work.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“What the hell are you doing?”

Kirishima looked up from his phone, his fingers mid-type pausing only for a millisecond before continuing to text blindly. 

“Oh, hey, Bakubro, what’s up?” he cheerfully spoke, ignorant to the controller in the ash blond’s hand. 

“It’s your turn, shitty hair, pay fucking attention!” Bakugou barked, tossing the plastic controller into his chest. Kirishima grunted, the feeling of the plastic slamming against his chest was less than ideal, but the smile on his face didn’t waiver while he offered his best friend the controller back.

“It’s all good, you can have another turn, I can handle being out this round!”

“Kiri, that’s six rounds in a row,” Kaminari spoke up, his face in a teasing smirk.

It was then that Kirishima’s face turned approximately the same color as his hair. “I didn’t—”

“Awww, Eijirou has a little crush on y/n!!!” Kaminari sang, resulting in agreeing with noises from Sero and Midoriya. Only Bakugou and Todoroki remained silent. 

Kirishima only laughed, he knew he couldn’t deny that fact, but he wouldn’t say it aloud — especially because Bakugou seemed to hate you. It had been now four months since the two of you had ‘meet,’ and while he still had no face to imagine you with, things had taken a slightly flirty route between the two of you.

Calls were much more frequent, nearly all nights the two of you would speak, even if it was just a measly summary of the day and a ‘sweet dreams’ and a ‘goodnight’ and an ‘I love you.’ It always happened nowadays.

Tonight was an exception, of course, because he was out with his friends, and apparently, you were doing the same. 

“You can’t be fucking serious?” Bakugou spat, a laugh spluttering from his lips, but it was cold and held no humor. “You caught feelings for a person who’s too much of a fucking coward to reveal a picture of themselves?”

“That’s not fair; besides, it's not about physical appearance!” Kirishima waved him off, pressing send to his text message.

have fun tonight! text me when u get back home if ur able to!

“Just how naive can you be?” Bakugou sneered, his hand taking the phone from Kirishima's side. “Six months of talking every week, texting every day, and this y/n still hasn’t trusted you with a single picture of them? I know you said that she told you how she looked, and all that shit, but let's be real, it’s so easy to lie about how you look like when you don’t have to provide a picture. What y/n say? Big tits? Big ass? Small waist? What about her did she say that made you so fucking insane over her?”

“N-Nothing! We didn’t talk about our body types!” Kirishima’s eyes widened significantly, the once comfortable atmosphere of the room wholly gone while Bakugou’s vermillion eyes seethed silently. “None of that matters! I told you the truth! I like y/n because of her personality, she’s manly, and I like that a lot! It’s not about her appearance, how pessimistic can you get, bro! I promise you, she’s trustworthy!”

“Is she really?”

“What?”

“How can you be in love with someone who you trust entirely, but doesn’t trust you at all? You said that y/n won’t show you a picture of herself because she’s scared you won’t like her? How is that trusting you? How is that fucking fair? To me, that sounds like some fucked up catfishing thing.”

“We talk on the phone, dude,” Kirishima said softly, but those thoughts were invading his mind. Did you not trust him? He knew he wasn’t the best option in the world, and he had accepted that in time and by improving on what he thought he was best at. But did you, after all this time, really not believe him when he claimed nothing would change when he saw you? “Catfishes don’t even do that… besides, the first call was by accident, why would someone—”

“Dunce face, what’s that one fucking idiotic thing you do for fun?” Bakugou snapped at the blond, not even bothering to look at him.

“Well, there’s a lot of things I do that you—” Kaminari laughed awkwardly, his smile tight and awkward.

“Kaminari.”

“I call… random numbers… pretending to have a big issue to see how they react…” he admitted, and Kirishima’s stomach clenched.

“And?” Bakugou snarled.

“I pretend to be a girl…”

“Don’t be stupid, Bakugou, this is more than one time!” Kirishima groaned.

“It's a voice that you can’t attach a face to, who knows if this is a person you can trust! People with voice acting exist in this world, how the hell do you possibly know that they’re not one of them?! Be fucking real, if ‘y/n’ trusted you, if that’s even their name, they wouldn’t be hiding their face from you.”

Kirishima didn’t say anything else, the acid piling in his throat was too much for him to even look at his friend. The night didn’t really recover from that conversation, and Kirishima eventually found himself back home.

He sat at the edge of his bed, his phone in his hands, waiting for a message from you. He couldn’t sleep, and even though he had work tomorrow morning, he found himself wide awake, unable to let sleep consume.

It was three in the morning when you sent a text, his eyes still wide awake, and with shaky fingers, he read the message.

i just got home can you believe that i drank three cups of wine and didnt get tipsy??????? thats on being a raging alcoholic ;D

Kirishima wanted to laugh; on god, he would’ve found this beyond delightful to read because he knew you couldn’t handle your liquor, but that bitter stream of acid destroyed the humor in his thoughts.

Were you really telling the truth? Was this all a lie?

He didn’t text back; instead, his finger pressed the call button, and he held his breath.

“Helloooo?” a voice picked up on the second ring, but it wasn’t your voice. It was a voice he didn’t recognize at all.

‘Voice actors,’ Bakugou’s voice reentered his thoughts, and the phone in his hand nearly dropped.

“Sorry, hello?” the voice he knew as you finally came through, and Kirishima let out a shallow breath, one so small, so mediocrely weak it burned his lungs.

“Do you trust me?” he asked softly, maybe too softly because you asked with a strained laugh for him to repeat his words. “Do you trust me, y/n?”

There was a pause on your end, too long a beat for Kirishima to be comfortable with.

“Of course I trust you, Ei, are you okay?”

“Do you actually trust me, or are you lying?”

“Woah there,” you said a small laugh on your tongue, but there was only confusion in it, not your contagious sound. “Did you drink? It’s a work night, you never do that!”

“Answer the question,” Kirishima spoke with finality, his shoulders tense, tears pushing past his eyes while he struggled to maintain composure.

Prove Bakugou wrong, please, prove Bakugou wrong.

“Of course I do,” you spoke with genuine clarity, but still, Kirishima was rattled, his confidence blown. “What’s going on?”

Did he want to confess to his insecurities? Was it worth it? His breathing became frantic, almost as if he was going insane just thinking about where his thoughts were. But Kirishima was never good at hiding things, no he was as open as a book.

“Why won’t you let me see you… we’ve been friends for six months, and the only thing I know about you is your eye color and your hair color. It’s so insanely generic that I can’t… I can’t do this.”

“What are you trying to say?” you ask, your voice small, almost a whisper of all the energy one could have at this time of night.

“I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t trust me, who’s using me,” he spoke with perfect clarity that hid away his insecurities about this all. “For all, I know nothing about you is real, that this is all just some ploy to hurt me in the end. Six months and you can’t trust me with a single meet up or even a picture? I just… has this been a game for you, y/n? Or is that even your name.”

The call ended and a single message held on his screen, this call has been dropped, but you didn’t seem to want to call him back.

Kirishima didn’t sleep a wink that night, his words coming back to bite him in the throat each and every time he thought he was close enough to sleep. Insecurities riled up in him, consuming him entirely.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

He tried to call back.

For fourteen straight days, Kirishima attempted to call you back.

Every time he called you, he would always hang up before he could take back his words. But each call, after he had prematurely hung up, he would recant his mean words to the unresponsive phone. He did trust you, he was weak, he was unmanly to assume those things. You could take, however long it took to finally trust him again because he would wait for you no matter what. He apologized again and again until the very last one he broke down into silent tears, a single message of ‘I hope one day you’ll forgive me’ hung weakly on his voice and put his phone away. 

It was sixteen days since he had spoken those cruel words to you, and in that time, he didn’t regret finally talking about his ill feelings towards wanting to reveal yourself to him. But he did regret the way it came out; instead of it being a deep and personal conversation, it came out as bitter and one-sided. The two of you were disconnected, and he felt empty.

But he couldn’t focus on it, not today, after all, it was Bakugou’s birthday, and everyone was gathering at the local fancy restaurant to celebrate. 

Kirishima dressed up presentable, wearing a navy blue button-up, and dark slacks. He walked towards the entrance of the restaurant where Kaminari, Sero, and Midoriya were eagerly leading the group of them into the building. Typically Kirishima would’ve been with them in terms of spirit, but he felt energyless at the moment.

With the moon high in the sky, Kirishima stilled when Bakugou called out his name.

He stared at his best friend, the ash blond’s lip curled into a sneer while he huffed, “Listen, Kirishima, I’m sorry for what I said that night.”

“What? Oh, no, it’s okay, Bakugou!” Kirishima laughed, his hand slapping to the back of his neck. “You weren’t wrong.”

“I never said I was wrong,” Bakugou grunted, his eyes locked on Kirishima’s while he shoved his hands into his pockets. Kirishima stilled, unsure as to where this would be leading. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I know that Mina hurt you badly, and you’re too big of an idiot to not see when things arise. Maybe y/n is genuine, but if you aren’t fucking honest with her about your own feelings about how she’s so secretive, it’s not going to work.”

Kirishima smiled softly, a weak shrug moving through him, “I know, thanks, man.”

Bakugou nodded, and without a word, he continued on ahead where Midoriya was yelling at them to hurry up and come so they could be seated. 

Kirishima sighed, rolling out his shoulders before following afterward.

Kirishima followed after the hostess, smiling at her gratefully when she sat the group into their own private room and left. 

“Bakugou’s paying, right?” Kaminari stage whispered to Midoriya while staring at the prices on the menu.

“Eat shit, dunce face, learn how to save up your fucking money the next time you offer to come to this fucking place!” Bakugou roared, hearing the whisper.

“I’ll be covering the bill,” Todoroki informed with a smirk on his face. Kirishima laughed, looking at the prices and indeed agreeing with Kaminari’s statement. Having a wealthy friend was very convenient at times like this.

“Hi, welcome to Eiko, I’ll be your waitress today!” a voice chirped from the entrance of the room, and Kirishima froze, he recognized that voice and face.

It was the person he had mistaken for you all those months ago.

By the smile on your face, it seemed that you recognized them all too.

“And what is your name,” Sero winked, his eyes captivated by you.

“Oh, haha, sorry, my name is y/n,” you smiled, moving the menus you held in your hand to show the silver nametag on your uniform.

“Oh, like Kirishima’s y/n,” Kaminari laughed, pointing a finger at Kirishima, not at all being as quiet as he probably thought himself to be. But it seemed that he wasn’t the only one who thought that because while Kirishima was staring at your face, embarrassingly taking you in, you followed Kaminari’s finger.

Your sight sat on the redhead in the middle whose name was Kirishima, and you straightened up in what felt like panic. 

“You’re Kirishima?” you asked quietly, your finger grasping the menus so tightly, your knuckles turned white. “Kirishima Eijirou.”

“The one and only,” Kaminari voiced for him, his arm thrown over Kirishima’s shoulder while he nodded like a scholar. “And why do you ask?”

“Shut the fuck up, dunce face.” Bakugou hissed.

Kirishima continued to stare at you, a million words running through his head, yet not a single one being translated on his tongue. You were beautiful.

What should he say?

What could he say?

Your lips pursed, and you shook your head, a smile of disbelief spreading across your face, “Unbelievable.”

“Y/n—”

“Be quiet,” you snap, your tone angry, but your eyes beyond hurt. “What can I get you guys to drink?”

Dinner wasn’t exactly a pleasant time, you came in and left faster than anyone could blink, and yet none of their drinks went empty, nor did they really have a problem. Much quicker than Kirishima would’ve liked, they were done and were soon piling out of the restaurant after Kirishima decided to leave a very, very generous tip.

“I’m going to stay until I can speak to y/n,” Kirishima said, waving off his friends who were expecting him to follow. But he couldn’t, not when he felt like the world's biggest ass for what he did to you.

“Good luck,” they all wished him well before eventually leaving, knowing better than to stick around.

So there at the outside bench, Kirishima waited.

Two hours he sat there until you emerged from the front door, your hair was no longer put back, you held your apron in your hand, and your purse on your shoulder.

“Y/n!” he called out, his feet no longer cemented into place; he strode after you.

You didn’t seem to pick up the pace, nor did you slow down. You were focused on your car that sat at the edge of the parking lot, and you ignored his calls.

It wasn’t until his hand touched your shoulder, and he appeared before you did Kirishima freeze again. Angry hot tears slid down your face, your face screwed up, your shoulders stiff.

“What do you want, Kirishima?” you spat, but there was only exhaustion in your voice, nothing bitter, nothing at all what Kirishima deserved from you.

“I want to apologize,” Kirishima whispered, his hands struggling to reach out and wipe your tears away. You were crying because of him, he did this to you. “I was a dick, I was… beyond unmanly to you, and I’m so sorry! I just let Bakugou get into my head, and I’ve never been a secure person because, well, I’m just… fuck, I don’t even know, but all I know is that you didn’t deserve this. And I like you so much, but I didn’t — I don’t know what to do?!”

Your eyes stared up at him, they were bright with tears, wounded beyond anything Kirishima could hope to fix.

“That night, you said if I didn’t trust you, but I did trust you! I’ve always trusted you—” your finger jabbed his chest— “but it was you who didn’t trust me! I get that it’s hard to not have a picture of someone you care about after a long length of time, but we were always fine for a while! It was going to happen, but while I trusted you, I didn’t trust myself, okay?! I couldn’t trust myself to see that if you were so much more handsome than me that I couldn’t be confident enough to let myself be friends with you! I constantly fuck up relationships when I have crushes on people because… I don’t know, I just do! But you were someone with no risk and the highest risk, and I wanted to be sure in my own feelings before giving you a picture of me! But… fuck, Kirishima, you didn’t trust me!”

Kirishima’s throat tightened, the tears on your face a guilty reminder that this was because of him. But how could he fix this?

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his hands grabbing onto your arms just above the elbow, and his head hung by your forehead, not quite touching you, but just enough that his spiked hair teased the atoms between you. You were taller than he expected, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t deal with, no, not at all. “You’re right, I didn’t trust you, and you didn’t deserve that. I don’t think there’s anything that I can say, or do for that matter, to change your mind, and I’m sorry. I just panicked because who gets into this type of situation, how do I tell my phone friend that I have feelings for her? I was weak, and I am so fucking pathetic, and I just want to make things better. If you’ll let me be your friend again…”

He slowly looked back up at you, and you were frozen in your place, tears falling down your face still.

“I don’t think we can be friends,” you confessed, and Kirishima’s heart broke in two, his hands dropping from your arms in his embarrassment and humiliation.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry still, um… maybe I’ll see you again?” Kirishima smiled despite it all, he kept smiling despite the crack in his chest and his soul.

“You will,” you murmured, and before Kirishima could blink, your fists wrapped in his collar, and you brought him down for an ardent kiss that he was not quick to respond to. It took three seconds for him to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you in, kissing you again and again and again.

It didn’t seem to matter to either one of you that you were both now kissing without a care in the world in the middle of a parking lot, because you both had your emotions exposed to the other, and you didn’t want to be friends. At least not when the man who held your heart confessed that you held his in yours. 

The two of you weren’t truly disconnected, it was just a little lost moment in your call.

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Victor’s Return Home Date (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

The date begins in a conference room, where a meeting has been going on for almost three hours

When LFG invested in an online video platform called SE, LFG held a press release stating that it was a strategic move for the international film and TV market

However, just within two years, SE found itself racking up billions of dollars in debt due to its poor project management

As such, people in the know have been secretly ridiculing Victor for making an error of judgement

Fortunately, LFG’s connections with the media prevented this information from leaking out

But it doesn’t change the fact that LFG messed up this time

Victor hasn’t slept in two days - he’s been poring through documents, project materials, and would sometimes sit in the conference room alone for several hours, forgetting to eat :

When Victor returns to the hotel, there are over a hundred unread notifications on his phone. 

He doesn’t pay attention to such information, but taps on the only pinned message amid the countless lists of prompts.

Unsurprisingly, it’s filled with insignificant idle talk, coupled with several different emoticons.

Victor loosens his tie slightly, reading through the messages from top to bottom. 

“I made an improved version of omurice. Want to try it?”

“What is Goldman talking about in his Moments - something about being angry and tired. Is the meeting not going smoothly?”

“Remember to eat...”

“And remember to sleep!”

Victor’s finger pauses at this line, and there’s a gentle emotion flowing in his eyes.

“The internet celebrity lawyer you mentioned the other time agreed to my invitation for an interview, so I’ll be rushing out the proposal this Saturday. Want to be a supervisor?”

Victor opens the dialog box. Once he sends an “ok”, the other party immediately responds with an emoticon of a winking cat. 

Thinking of the time right now, he arches his brows slightly. 

-

Nestled in my quilt, I’m just about to embark on a long speech regarding the weekend’s schedule, but the phone in my hand suddenly vibrates, surprising me. 

Victor: Did you not sleep, or did you wake up?

MC: Haha...

Victor: What are you laughing at? 

MC: It feels like that is something I often ask you. Why is it now your turn to ask me?

Victor: It’s only 5am now. 

MC: I didn’t get a reply from you, so I couldn’t sleep...

I turn over, changing to a more comfortable position against the corner of the quilt. I press the phone tightly to my ear. 

MC: What project are you busy with this time? Is it going smoothly? 

Victor: Smoothly. It’s still early, you can sleep for a while longer.

MC: ...I can’t really sleep now. Are you still coming back on Thursday as you said last time? 

Victor: Before Saturday. 

MC: It’s only Tuesday today... and the sun hasn’t come out yet. 

I hear Victor laugh, his low tone mixed with some tiredness.

Victor: You find it too late? 

MC: I wouldn’t dare to. If it weren’t something important, you wouldn’t delay returning. However... even if it’s because of work, you did go back on your word, so you have to promise me one thing. 

A deep and slow sigh enters my ear, revealing a faint sense of fatigue.

Victor: You can say it. 

MC: You have to eat, and you have to sleep.

The other end of the phone call grows silent for a few seconds. 

Victor: Mm, I promise you.

The misty morning light is on the curtains. In the midst of my quiet grogginess, I close my eyes, wanting to feel the frequency of his breaths. 

MC: ...it has been raining continuously in Paris these two days. 

Victor: It’s like that during this season. 

MC: Is... is it very cold...

Victor: No, it isn’t. 

My consciousness grows increasingly darker, but I can still clearly capture his voice in my bizarre dream world. 

Victor: [in the gentlest of gentle voices] Sleep if you’re tired. I’m hanging up. 

MC: N-not tired... don’t hang up...

Victor: You can’t even speak clearly, and you’re still unwilling to sleep?

MC: ...

I just need five more seconds to be clear-headed--

I let out a sound of agreement, unsure if I managed to say this aloud.

Very soon, only Victor’s long and steady breaths at my ear remain in my world. It’s very, very close. It’s a closeness that gives one a peace of mind. 

Victor: Are you asleep?

MC: ...

Victor: Sleep then.

Victor: ...

Victor: Sleep peacefully. 

-

On Saturday afternoon, I lift my head towards the wall clock for the nth time. When the needle points to the number ‘3′, I can no longer help myself, and give Victor a call. 

After the dial tone, the notification that the other party is unable to answer the call sounds. Before I can react, the doorbell rings. 

Victor is standing at the door and just about to put his phone back into his pocket. In a daze, I look towards at his empty hands. 

MC: Your luggage...

Victor: Goldman took them back. I still have to return to LFG tonight. 

As he speaks, he enters and changes his shoes in the hallway. After that, he walks straight into my bedroom.

Victor: What have you been doing these two days? 

He walks to the coffee table, picking up the messy outline I was working on for an interview. He takes a glance and then lifts the corners of his lips. 

Victor: You said you were working seriously for several days, but you just did a few outlines? 

MC: Don’t underestimate me! I’ve looked through quite a number of materials. Look!

I point at the stack of trending societal topics and legal-related books on the floor. 

MC: Preparatory work speeds up the actual process. Also, didn’t I recognise my inadequacies and ask you to be a supervisor? 

I hurriedly drag a chair to the coffee table and place a headrest on the back of it. 

MC: Please sit. I guarantee that from this second onwards, I’ll concentrate on the proposal. Before the sun sets, I’ll definitely have the first edition out. 

Victor can’t help but laugh. He hangs his coat on the clothes rack in the corner, then pulls the chair over to himself. After sitting down, he seems to recall something and lets out a faint sigh. 

Victor: Lend me your laptop for a while.

I hand him my notebook computer, and a thought flashes across my mind -- how could he not have brought a laptop out?

MC: Victor, when did you get infected by my scatterbrained habits? 

Victor: Only this time. I forgot to take it with me after leaving it in the backseat.

Victor avoids my teasing gaze. With his expression unchanged, he starts approving documents on the LFG intranet. 

Victor: The sun is setting in two hours. 

MC: Who knows - maybe the sun wouldn’t feel like going home today. 

I return to my seat, resting my chin on my palm while looking towards Victor. 

The light golden sunlight streams in from the window, slowly enveloping Victor. The quiet, warm rays of light are coupled with a calming woody scent, and are very pleasant. 

Victor doesn’t speak. His fingers tap against the desk from time to time. In this quiet room, the sound of our breathing is amplified.

After an inordinate amount of time, he finally lifts his eyes and meets mine.

Victor: Staring at me can help you finish your proposal?

MC: I’m not staring at you. I’m silently conceptualising ideas.

After my words are out, a short “ding” sounds.

MC: Wait for a moment~ 

In a flash, I rush to the kitchen and retrieve the aromatic cookies from the oven. After carefully placing them on a cooling rack, I bring it back to the room along with two cups of warm drinks. 

MC: Afternoon tea time!

Victor casts a glance at the cups and arches his brows slightly. Steam floats from the hot cup of milk, and strands of warmth merge with the sweetness in the house.

MC: Your dark circles are so deep, so don’t drink coffee, all right?  

Victor: I’m fine. 

I thought Victor meant that he wouldn’t drink this, but he holds up the cup after speaking. 

Once I sit down, I push the plate filled with cookies towards him. 

MC: Look at my new mold - isn’t it cute?

I point at the cookies, which are shaped like cats with different expressions on them. 

MC: This one is yawning, this one is full of grievances, this one has already fallen asleep, but I like this one the most. It keeps having an angry face. I called it “Qi Gu Gu”.

[Note: Names don’t translate well into English, so I left it as it is. The original name is 气鼓鼓, which means “seething”]

Victor’s eyes sweep towards my fingers. 

Victor: Looks like you. 

MC: Is that so?

I puff my cheeks, mimicking the cat on the cookie and squinting my eyes to look at Victor. 

As predicted, Victor ignores me. There is a measure of speechlessness in his eyes.

I laugh and bring “Qi Gu Gu” to his lips. 

MC: Give it a try? 

Victor takes a bite straight from my hand, then returns his gaze to the laptop. 

MC: Aren’t you going to evaluate it? 

He purses his lips slightly, and I can’t tell if he’s smiling or not. He leans forward a little, then finishes the remaining half of “Qi Gu Gu” in my hand. 

His warm lips brush against my fingertips, leaving behind a soft, lingering warmth. A fluffy, light, and sweet sense of happiness stirs up slowly in my heart. 

Contented, I sweep the crumbs off my hands and take up my pen again. 

Soon after, MC’s mind starts wandering to how fine the weather is

And how fine her man is 👀

He doesn’t show much emotion while working, and his expression looks as calm as always. But the deep look of concentration between his eyebrows is a little different from usual.

As for what exactly is different...

It’s probably how one just can’t look away.

Victor: It’s only been a few minutes. How many times have you lost focus? 

I hurriedly retract my gaze, pretending to be scribbling on the paper like an “obedient” student who got caught doing something improper by a teacher.

But my ideas have not been completely formulated, and I can’t think of anything to write. The only thing I can do is draw a small heart at the top right-hand corner of the paper. 

Sensing Victor’s lingering gaze on me, I continue scribbling until it becomes a solid heart, then attach a tilde at the end.

After pausing for a moment, I let out a soft sigh and lift my head slightly. 

Victor: Why are you sighing.

MC: ...I can’t help it.

Victor: Can’t help what? 

MC: Can’t help looking at you. 

I cross my arms together, changing to a more comfortable position and plopping onto the table. I tilt my head towards Victor. 

He lets out a barely audible laugh. Just as he’s about to speak, a familiar ringtone sounds from his pocket. 

Watching Victor pick up the call, my messy thoughts instantly vanish, and I feel slightly downcast.

Victor: The time now is...

While speaking, Victor looks at the bottom right corner of the laptop. After a slight pause, he looks at the phone. 

Victor: 4.30pm. Have them give me a reply by 8pm. 

His words are concise. After he hangs up, I ask him a little hesitantly. 

MC: Do you... have to go back to LFG now? 

Victor: I'm not leaving. 

While saying this, he sets his phone on silent mode and places it at the corner of the table. Meeting my hesitant gaze, there’s a sense of resignation in his calm eyes.

Victor: Your laptop is set to Paris’ timezone. 

I fail to understand the implication behind his words, so I just nod subconsciously. 

MC: Mm, it’s easier to tell the time like that. 

Victor doesn’t speak. He sweeps another glance at the laptop. At this moment, the system sends a report of the weather forecast in Paris over the next five days - there will be continuous rain every day.

He smiles faintly, then closes the laptop slowly.

Victor: ...you’re really becoming more and more dumb.

MC: ...yes yes yes, taking care of a dummy like me is really a bother for Mr CEO. 

I deliberately pout, but can’t help but smile along with Victor. I stand up and retrieve our two empty cups.

MC: I'll go wash the cups. Is there anything you want to eat?

Victor: No need. Are you treating me as you? 

I let out an indignant “hmph”, then turn around and head to the kitchen. 

I originally thought it would only take a few minutes to wash the two cups. But by the time I cleaned and tidied up the tools I used for baking earlier, half an hour has passed. 

When I return to the room, Victor is lying on the bed, my incomplete outline in his hand.

I soften my footsteps and walk over, leaning close to his ear and whispering:

MC: Victor, are you asleep? 

Victor doesn’t respond, but has a shallow intake of breath, his eyelashes quivering gently under the twilight. 

MC: Are you really sleeping or just pretending to sleep? 

Very lightly, I climb onto the bed, inching towards him.

MC: Victor? 

I call his name again softly, but he still does not respond. But the corners of his lips curl up slowly, revealing a smile.  

MC: You aren’t asleep, are you.

I lean one hand on the bed, and use my other hand to lift up a few strands of his hair. 

Looking at his smooth and sharp jawline, my fingertips unconsciously rub the tips of his hair. 

MC: ...have you been very tired recently?

Victor: No.

His words carry with them a certain sleepiness - perhaps he hasn’t had rest in a few days, so he gets drowsy once he relaxes just a little. 

MC: Didn’t you already look at my interview outline? Why are you looking at it again? 

Victor: To see what exactly you were scribbling. 

I think about that heart with its little tail, and am left speechless, as though I got caught having a bad idea. 

Victor: You specially got me here to supervise you, but you only wrote these few sentences the whole afternoon? 

MC: Yeah. Next time, I won’t ask you to be a supervisor! When you’re in front of me, my work efficiency takes a nose-dive. 

I reach out to take my notebook from his hand, then cover him with a blanket. Victor turns his head, his half-closed eyes meeting mine. 

It’s very rare for me to see such a burnt-out look in his eyes. Right now, I can only feel the emotions in my heart towards this person becoming a hundred times more tender. 

MC: Sleep for a while before going to LFG? I’ll wake you up at 7.30pm.

With the rigour of Victor’s schedule, several important meetings were cancelled at short notice so he could fly to Paris. After that, his return was delayed twice.

We already agreed that he’d return before Saturday, but it suddenly changed to Saturday itself...

This wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t an extremely troublesome matter. 

...and he still stubbornly said that he wasn’t tired.

I place my forefingers on his temples, making slow circles. After a while, a soft laugh drifts from his lips. 

Victor: [releases a sigh which sounds like a moan lol]...

Victor takes my right hand and encloses it in his palm, wordlessly pulling me closer to him. 

With this distance, every one of his breaths mingle with mine. I can’t help but bend down, pressing the corner of my lips to his fringe.

In the quiet darkness, I hear the frequency of our heartbeats and breathing mingling and becoming more and more synchronised.

Victor: ...there’s no need to worry about me. I haven’t reached the point where a dummy has to worry about me.

MC: Mm, I got it. 

I respond softly, but can’t hide the touch of peace in my smile. 

MC: ...I just can’t help it.

Can’t help but worry if you’re hungry or not, whether you're cold or not, whether you’re tired or not. 

Can’t help but want to see you, whether you’re in front of me or not.

Can’t help but reveal the smile in my brows and lips just because you surface in my mind. 

I look out the window - the clouds spread across the dim twilight and the stars are looming. The golden sunset and the quietness of the night meet at the end of the sky. 

The sun is about to set.

MC: Victor, I didn’t finish the interview outline before the sun set. Are you going to punish me? 

Victor: ...

The only response I get is the sound of his steady and peaceful breathing. 

I lower my head and look at his sleeping face. This familiar side profile has gotten slightly thinner over the span of just a few days. I reach out, stroking his cheek in mid-air.

Afraid to disturb him, I silently watch him.

MC: Sleep then.

MC: ...

MC: Sleep peacefully. 

[searchingwardrobes]

Valentine Throwbacks: Day 5

This is another one that was written for the Valentine’s Day Prompts back in 2018. This was for Day One: Secret Admirer. I’m posting it last because it has a part two which I’ll post later.

I really wanted it to be Emma who is the secret admirer because all the fics I've read in this genre has Killian as the secret admirer. So I was going through the Chick-fil-A drive thru, mulling over how closed-off Emma could actually do that, and . . . well, this happened. I didn’t realize when I wrote this that the kind of drive thru at our Chick-fil-A was a prototype and not found anywhere else. Basically, instead of driving up to a window, there’s this open area where they just walk out and give you your food.

**Please note: I have made no attempts to hide that this story takes place at a Chick-fil-A. I have tagged it accordingly here and on Ao3. If you have a problem with Chick-fil-A, please just skip this story.**

Summary: Emma Swan is slightly embarrassed to admit that she sometimes goes through the Chick-fil-A drive thru twice a day. She's even more embarrassed to admit she's leaving anonymous notes for the owner-operator, Killian Jones.

Nominated for Best Captain Swan Modern AU One-Shot in the OUAT Fandom Awards 2018

Rated: G

Words: about 3k

Also on Ao3

Tagging: @snowbellewells​​​​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​​​​ @kmomof4​​​​ @let-it-raines​​​​ @teamhook​​​​ @bethacaciakay​​​​ @xhookswenchx​​​​ @tiganasummertree​​​​ @shireness-says​​​​ @stahlop​​​​ @scientificapricot​​​​ @welllpthisishappening​​​​ @resident-of-storybrooke​​​​ @thislassishooked​​​​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​​​​ @kday426​​​​ @ekr032-blog-blog​​​​ @lfh1226-linda​​​​ @ultraluckycatnd​​​​ @nikkiemms @optomisticgirl​​​​ @profdanglaisstuff​​​​ @carpedzem​​​​ @ohmakemeahercules​​​​ @branlovestowrite​​​​ @superchocovian​​​​ @sherlockwhovian​​​​ @vvbooklady1256​​​​ @hollyethecurious​​​​ @winterbaby89​​​​ @delirious-latenight-laughs​​​​ @jennjenn615​​​​ @snidgetsafan​​​​ @xsajx​​​​​ @itsfabianadocarmo​​​​ @spartanguard​​​​ @hookedonapirate​

Emma Swan was not a people person. It was for this reason that the Chick-fil-A drive-thru wasn’t her sort of thing. You had to talk – face to face – with at least four people just to get your food. And they asked for your name at the beginning of the entire process. Then everyone afterwards actually used it, with a mega-watt smile on their faces. And Emma Swan never would understand the Southern phenomenon of tacking “Miss” on the front of a person’s first name. Miss Swan, she understood. Miss Emma? Not so much.

But she had to hand it to those cheery employees walking up and down the line with their i-Pads. They were efficient. Which was one of the reasons Emma put aside her anti-social ways on her way to work. No matter how much of a hurry she was in, she could count on Chick-fil-A. She could be in and out of that line in five minutes flat.

Then there was the coffee. Sustainably sourced by local farmers. Or something. There was a big poster about it in the lobby. All Emma knew was that it was damn good, especially for a fast food place. And then there were chickin-minis. She had Mary Margaret to blame for getting her hooked on those. Or more accurately, her four year old son Leo. Tiny nuggets wrapped in tiny fluffy biscuits. Where had those been all her life? It was her new favorite food. Okay, breakfast food. Grilled cheese and onion rings still held the one and two spot.

So she gladly put up with the bright smiles and the over-the-top hospitality for a decent breakfast a couple of times a week. Or three. Okay, four max.

But she was not going to be one of those people who had drunk the kool-aid and made odes to how wonderful Chick-fil-A was on You Tube. And then Mary Margaret had to go and introduce her to the sweet iced tea.

“You can’t re-locate to Georgia and not drink sweet tea,” she had argued with Emma while practically shoving the straw in her mouth.

“So what next, MM? I have to start monogramming my towels?”

But she had begrudgingly took a sip anyway, and there was no turning back. Then she discovered the lemonade, and the cookies and cream milk shake. Some days, she was hearing “It’s been a pleasure to serve you, Miss Emma” twice in twelve hours.

She was one “Eat Mor Chikin” cow from making a You Tube video while holding a Styrofoam cup with a red straw.

To make her obsession even more embarrassing, it led – albeit indirectly – to her being an actual- to-God secret admirer. Who left anonymous love notes. Seriously. What had she become?

Killian Jones, according to his name tag, was the owner-operator of Emma’s neighborhood Chick-fil-A. She had figured immediately that he wasn’t just a regular burger- er – chicken sandwich flipper because he was wearing slacks and a navy blue button down shirt – no tie. His chest hair must need plenty of breathing room because he always had at least the first five buttons of his shirt undone (not that she was counting or anything). The first morning they met, he hadn’t started out on the best foot, inadvertently insulting her food preferences.

When he handed Emma her food, Killian Jones had leaned over slightly to glance in her back seat, simultaneously handing her a coupon.

“We’re doing a special promotion today. Would your little one like a gift card for a free cone?”

His words sort of trailed off when he saw that the backseat was empty. Emma had barked out a wry laugh.

“Uh, there’s no kid back there. Sorry.”

“My apologies,” he muttered as he stood quickly, his face flaming and his hand lifting to rest behind his ear, “I just assumed. You ordered the chicken minis, and usually people get those for their kids . . . “

Normally, Emma would have been insulted, but he seemed so genuinely embarrassed, that she simply chuckled. “Well, I have been told that I have the appetite of a twelve year old.”

The smile that he gave her was lopsided and almost sinful. He arched a very expressive brow, and leaned towards her open window with a conspiratorial whisper. “I must admit, I rather fancy them myself. I mean, they’re chicken nuggets in little biscuits. What’s not to love?”

“I know, right? It’s revolutionary.”

They gazed at one another way longer than necessary, threatening to bring imbalance to the well-oiled drive thru machine. Killian blinked, as if suddenly remembering where he was, awkwardly cleared his throat, and then handed Emma her coffee.

“It’s been a pleasure to serve you. God bless.”

In a slight daze, Emma took the coffee, noting the brush of his fingers against hers like she was some fifteen year old with a crush. It wasn’t until she was driving away that his accent registered with hers. Instead of a southern drawl, it had been a lilting Irish accent.

Intriguing.

********************************************************

Later that day, Emma’s hand literally shook as she took the Styrofoam cup of lemonade from the drive thru. For a brief moment, she considered chickening out – pun completely intended – but then shook off her fear and resolutely snatched the envelope from the passenger seat of her Bug.

“Could you give this to your owner-operator?”

“Okay,” the girl server said with a smile and a nod as she took the note, “we always like to hear how we can better serve our customers. Is there anything I can do to make your experience here better?”

“Oh,no!” Emma said quickly, making a quick slashing motion with her hand. “It isn’t a complaint. Quite the opposite actually. Just . . . “ she nervously bit her lower lip, “don’t tell him my name or . . . anything. Okay?”

The girl gave a slightly different smile this time as she pocketed the note. “Sure thing, ma’am.”

Emma couldn’t tell if the smile was just relief or a kind of knowing. Maybe the girl thought it was Emma giving her boss her phone number. Maybe women were frequently passing notes to Killian Jones. She wouldn’t be surprised. Emma’s face flamed red as she drove away.

It wasn’t like it was that kind of note. All it said was, “You made a hectic morning bearable. Thank you.” For a company that emphasized customer service so much, it was really just a thumbs up for a job well done. Like a positive review on Amazon. Nothing more.

********************************************************

Killian Jones was there again when Emma stopped to get a quick breakfast. This time, he arched a knowing brow when her yellow Bug pulled up to the curb.

“Ah, Miss Emma Swan once again. Your chicken minis, m’lady, and I must say, a fine dining choice for a woman of mature tastes.”

He gave a mock bow as he passed the bag through the window, and Emma was mortified when a giggle made its way past her lips. He waggled his eyebrows at her, to which she rolled her eyes. Yet, he had remembered her.

She cleared her throat as she took the bag, and then asked him, “I was wondering about the accent. Isn’t it the wrong one?”

At first, he furrowed his brow. “The wrong one . . . oh! You mean, as in, why don’t I go around saying mornin’ ma’am, or ya’ll have a good day now?”

Emma giggled again at his horrible impression of a Southern accent and shook her head. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. Your accent is . . . Irish?”

“Aye. And if you’re wondering how I ended up in Atlanta, well, the short version is I came across the pond as a kid.”

Emma nodded. It was about all she was going to get. She was sitting in a drive thru with at least half a dozen other cars behind her. So she simply nodded, tilted her head in a way that was only slightly flirtatious and said, “I like it.”

*****************************************************

The rest of the day sucked, to put it bluntly. The scumbag she was staking out took hours to show up, she twisted her ankle chasing him down, and she never did get to eat lunch. So today was a cookies and cream milkshake type of day.

And today the note she asked the girl at the drive thru to pass along to Killian Jones said, “I’m glad you moved here. It’s a long way from Ireland, but . . . welcome home – I hope.”

******************************************************

“Is that required?”

On this particular morning, it was pretty cold outside, and Killian had kept his banter at a minimum as he handed Emma her order. So maybe she was grasping at straws for a little interaction. Or maybe it was a legitimate question.

“Is what required?” he asked, both eyebrows jumping slightly.

“God bless,” Emma clarified, “everyone here says it. Is it company policy or something?”

Killian shrugged, “Sort of. I mean, not officially. You can’t make someone use religious language, of course. But we’re encouraged to if it’s something we believe in.” He pulled the collection of necklaces he always wore around his neck free from his pea coat and scarf. He grasped a pendant shaped like a cross and waved it at Emma. “And I’m a good Irish Catholic boy.”

The smile he gave her belied his words, especially when his tongue darted out to swipe at his bottom lip. Emma cocked her head to the side and gave him a teasing smile.

“Not so sure you’re always a good boy.”

He leaned down, lowering his voice to a timbre that did something to Emma’s insides. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Emma rolled her eyes as he leaned back with a triumphant grin. Then his features became suddenly sincere.

“However, Swan, I do wish you every blessing. I mean that.”

**************************************************

The cold weather made it a “second cup of coffee in the afternoon” sort of day. But she had brought in a skip so easily she could have done it blind-folded, her little nephew Leo stopped by her office with a picture he drew of the two of them in preschool, and Mary Margaret insisted she come over that night for David’s famous chili.

And Killian Jones wished her every blessing.

On today’s note, Emma wrote, “You make me smile. That’s rare. Thank you. (Or should I say, God bless?)”

She had hesitated including that last line. After all, she didn’t want to give herself away. But was there any harm in dropping a hint or two? She shook her head, sealed the envelope, and passed it off to the girl who received all of her notes for Killian. Emma now knew her name – Holly.

And did Holly just wink when she took her note?

*************************************************

“Lovely as always, Miss Swan.”

Killian’s hand lingered as he passed Emma her coffee. She blinked and opened her mouth to say something, and –

Jumped a foot in the air when the SUV behind her honked. She and Killian both laughed, and he shuffled backwards, his face turning red. His smile was a broad one that dimpled both cheeks and crinkled the corners of his eyes.

That day, Emma’s note read, “I find myself looking forward to your smiles. You’ve got a great one, but you’ve probably heard that before. Anyway, just wanted to let you know it always brightens my day.”

**************************************************

Today it was raining, and yet the employees of Chick-fil-A were still there, bravely traversing the drive-thru line in ponchos, their i-Pads encased in water proof plastic. Killian stood huddled beneath the awning at the service door, in a thick navy blue raincoat. Raindrops had gathered on his eyelashes, making the blue of his eyes sparkle in the gray misty haze of the Georgia rain.

“Wow,” Emma quipped when he handed her the to-go bag, “this is dedication. And still telling me, it’s a pleasure to serve you.”

His eyes seemed to light up even more as he smiled at her. “For you, Swan, it is more than a pleasure.”

That day, her note read, “Your blue eyes make a rainy day a little brighter.”

It was the most blatantly flirtatious note she had left, but she no longer cared.

************************************************

“Your accent is the wrong one too, you know.”

Emma smiled broadly as she leaned against the open window of her Bug. Killian made no move to give her her food, swinging the bag idly in his hand. She shrugged.

“Yeah, I moved around a lot growing up. Minnesota. Portland. I moved here a few months ago. I had been living in Tallahassee, but my foster sister wanted me here to be close to family. There’s way more work here in bail bonds anyway.”

Killian nodded as he handed her the bag of chicken minis and her coffee. “Well, Swan, welcome home . . . I hope.”

He winked before turning his back to receive the next order. Emma’s jaw dropped, but she had the sense to ease out of the line and onto the highway.

Did he know? To test it out, her note to him that day read, “I’ve never really felt at home anywhere. This is getting close. You’ve helped make it feel that way.”

**************************************************

Emma was only half listening to Mary Margaret as she set the table in her and David’s eat-in kitchen. Their house was small, but quaint, and was in a great neighborhood. They had been willing to buy a smaller house rather than keep renting in the apartment complex, knowing the back yard and park down the street were better for Leo. It worked out for Emma too, as she spent way more time here than in her lonely one bedroom apartment.

Mary Margaret was lecturing Emma about something – probably about how she ought to be more social – but Emma’s mind was on Killian Jones. Had he gotten her latest note yet? Would he figure out who she was? If so, would he think she was a total stalker?

“ . . . so since you keep giving me excuses, I just decided to ask Killian over for dinner tonight.”

The name tore Emma immediately from her daydreaming. “I’m sorry? What did you say?”

Mary Margaret shook her head at Emma. “I said set one more place because I invited that guy I told you about over for dinner.”

Emma set down the stack of forks she had been laying at each place and waved both hands back and forth. “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You said his name was, what?”

Mary Margaret had been going on and on about her and David’s former neighbor at the apartments and how he would be perfect for Emma. But surely that couldn’t be the same Killian as her drive-thru Killian. Could it? Okay, so Killian wasn’t exactly a common name . . .

“Killian Jones,” Mary Margaret answered with an exasperated sigh.

Emma shook her head rapidly. “Killian Jones? What . . . what does he do for a living?”

Mary Margaret grabbed the forks Emma had abandoned. “He’s the owner-operator of the Chick-fil-A near here. I was going to introduce you the day you went with me and Leo, but Killian was at some training thing at corporate.”

Emma grabbed the back of a chair as the room started to spin. Crap. She had to go and open herself up in that damn note today. And Mary Margaret just had to invite him over for dinner, tonight of all nights.

This was going to be interesting.

*****************************************************

Killian was just as surprised as she was when he arrived at the Nolans. Apparently, Mary Margaret had gushed on about her “sister,” but had failed to mention a name. They told Mary Margaret and David about their interactions in the drive thru, and everyone had a good laugh about it. What a small world! How ironic! That sort of thing. Killian seemed no different than normal. Maybe he hadn’t gotten the note yet?

Emma, on the other hand, was wound tight. Maybe things had been more comfortable between them when there was a car door and a time restraint. Or maybe it was all those stupid notes hanging over Emma’s head. Whatever it was, it made Emma’s face feel like it was stuck in a perpetual blush. She couldn’t think of a damn thing to say, and Mary Margaret and David were not-so-subtly trying to play matchmaker as they attempted to steer the conversation Emma’s way. But all she could do was give one word answers and stare at her plate.

“Well,” Killian said with a satisfied sigh, “I can’t tell you Mary Margaret how delicious this was. Working at a restaurant all day, the last thing I feel like doing when I get home is cook. This was amazing, really.”

Mary Margaret beamed at his compliment. “Well, we are pleased to have you. You should come over more often. We miss you. Right, David?”

“Yeah,” David chuckled, shoving Killian’s shoulder, “I’ve got no one to watch hockey games with anymore. It’s not really a popular sport around here.”

“The notes were from me,” Emma blurted out.

Everyone immediately fell silent at Emma’s completely out of context outburst. Except for Leo, who ran his fork across his plate with a loud screech and demanded to know what was for dessert.

Emma lifted her gaze from her lap to meet Killian’s. “The notes that kept arriving at Chick-fil-A in the afternoons? They were all from me.” She let out a long, shaky breath.

“I know,” was all Killian said in response.

Emma’s eyes widened. “I – I thought you might. When did you figure it out?”

He chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I suspected, or hoped, it was you from the start. You see, every note corresponded with our morning interactions. But of course, today confirmed it. I was testing you by quoting one of your notes, and then when the note this afternoon was about home . . . “

He trailed off, a grin splitting his face.

“You hoped it was me from the start?”

He nodded, and Emma just sat there grinning right back at him like a fool. Mary Margaret hurriedly jumped from the table, scooping up Leo.

“Hey!” the little boy protested. “What about dessert?”

“We’ll eat cookies in front of the TV,” Mary Margaret muttered in response, “David, now.”

Killian and Emma chuckled as their matchmakers hurried from the kitchen. Emma felt as nervous as she had been back in junior high when she went to her first school dance. Killian rose from his seat across from her and came to take the seat beside her. They both shifted their chairs to be a little closer.

“I felt something between us the moment I first saw you,” Killian said.

“You mean when you offered my non-existent kid a free ice cream cone?”

Killian chuckled and ducked his head. How a man could be so sexy, cocky, and bashful all at the same time was incredibly endearing. He lifted his eyes to meet hers, a silent question passing between them. Emma nodded imperceptibly as they both leaned towards one another. When Killian’s lips met hers, the contact was charged with an intense attraction she had never felt before.

Except when his fingers had brushed hers in the drive thru.

Those fingers now carded through her hair as she tilted her head to deepen the kiss. His lips were soft against hers, but his kisses were firm and passionate. His other hand came up to gently caress her face, his thumb tracing her jaw and coming to rest on her chin. Emma pulled back, giving him a shy smile, which he returned. Then they resumed kissing, their tongues entwined in a dance so perfect, it felt as if they had been molded to fit together. When they finally parted, they were breathing heavily. Emma rested her forehead against his and sighed in complete contentment.

“Emma,” he murmured. God, she loved the way he said her name!

“Yeah,” she mumbled back dreamily.

“It’s definitely been a pleasure to serve you.”

[rookie-ramsey]

Baby Blues, chapter 2

Description: MC and Bryce can handle just about anything. Hopefully, pregnancy and parenting fall into the “just about everything” category.

Pairing: Bryce X F!MC

previous chapter

Emily found a highly-rated OB/GYN not far from Edenbrook. For now, she wanted to keep her pregnancy a secret until she was ready to announce it to the world.

She scheduled an appointment for a day when she had a half shift, taking care to arrange it during Bryce’s lunch break so he could join her. He met her in the atrium and followed her outside. 

Slipping her hand into Bryce’s, Emily gave it a squeeze. “It’s just a block away. Since it’s a warm day, I thought we could walk there and grab some lunch on our way back.”

“Sounds like an amazing lunch time adventure.” Bryce kissed her cheek as they walked down the sidewalk. 

It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the OB/GYN’s office. Emily opened the door and checked in. A moment later, the nurse called her back and questioned her to fill out her new patient paperwork.

Emily held the clipboard and skimmed over the papers, filling them out as she went. Once she was done, she handed the clipboard back to the nurse. “Here you go.”

“Thank you. Dr. Tahan will be with you in just a minute.”

Nodding, Emily took a seat on the exam bench. Once they were alone, she let her gaze fall on Bryce. “It feels a lot different being a patient.”

“Yeah?” Bryce nodded. “I’ve gotta say, it feels a little… weird. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

“You’re not upset, are you?”

“No! Of course not.” Bryce shook his head fiercely. “I’m not gonna lie and say I’m not freaking out a little, but I’m not upset at all.” He leaned over and gently squeezed her knee. 

Relaxing, Emily rested a hand over his. A knock on the door caught their attention, and a moment later her doctor entered.

“Hello,” she greeted, shaking each of their hands. “I’m Dr. Tahan. Why don’t we get started?”

“Sounds great.” Emily leaned back on the exam bench and rolled up her shirt. Dr. Tahan spread the gel on her stomach and started the machine. She pressed the wand to Emily’s stomach and moved it around until an image formed on the monitor.

Emily reached over and took Bryce’s hand. He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed gently as they watched. Finally, Emily could see a fuzzy shape on the screen.

“There’s your baby.” Dr. Tahan angled the monitor so they could see. “I would say you’re around seven a a half weeks pregnant.”

“Our baby looks… like a blob.” Emily lightly touched her stomach. “We’re doctors, so I should have expected this, but… it’s hard to believe there’s something in there.”

“Mm hmm. Would you like a copy of your very first sonogram?”

She nodded. “Okay.” When Dr. Tahan handed her a wipe, she cleaned the gel off of her belly and lowered her shirt. A minute later, Tahan handed them a print-out.

Bryce leaned over Emily’s shoulder. “A picture to commemorate.”

“Mm hmm.” Emily carefully tucked the print out into her purse. They checked out and booked her next appointment before they left the doctor’s office. “We still have some time. Let’s grab some food.” 

They stopped at a diner on their way back to the hospital.  When Emily sat in a comfortable booth, Bryce sidled up next to her. 

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” Emily grinned. “This whole table, and you sit right next to me. I love it.”

“Yep.” Bryce put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close for a kiss. Soon, a waitress took their order. 

As they waited, Emily drummed her fingers on the table. “I know it’s still months away, but January will be here before we know it.” 

Bryce nodded. “Guess it’s a good thing I got that three bedroom apartment after Keiki moved in. The extra bedroom is just gathering dust.”

“We can turn it into a nursery.” Emily settled a hand on her stomach. “Did you tell Keiki she’s going to be an aunt?”

“Not yet.” Bryce shook  his head. “I thought we could do that together since she’s obsessed with shipping us.”

Emily chuckled. “That helps break the news.” 

“It does. She’s always trying to give me relationship advice. It’s creepy.”

When the server brought them their lunch, she started eating her burger. She sighed softly, taking a slow bite. 

“Before long, I’ll be stuck with healthy food for nine months. I’m gonna enjoy every bite of this burger and make it count.” 

Bryce grinned. “You’re adorable.” 

Shaking her head, Emily dipped a fry in ketchup. “That’s you.”

“I didn’t deny that. At least we know this kid is gonna be ridiculously cute.”

“Duh.” Emily stole a fry from his plate. “I think your fries taste better.”

Bryce’s lunch break ended entirely too soon for their liking. He paid for their lunch and walked back to Edenbrook with Emily, stopping for a soft farewell kiss. “Gotta go back to cutting people open. Enjoy the rest of your time off.”

“I’ll try. My shift starts in two hours.” Emily kissed him back before they parted. She watched Bryce disappear into the building. Unsure of what else to do, she walked to a nearby shopping center. She found a baby store and lingered outside for a moment before she entered. 

Surrounded by baby clothes, toys, and furniture, Emily suddenly felt a little overwhelmed at how much they would have to buy. She browsed the aisles, her gaze softening as she took in everything. 

Already, she felt her wallet shrinking as she perused the baby clothes and toys. A particular onesie caught her eye. Immediately, she grabbed the gray onesie, admiring the stethoscope printed on the front. 

How was she not supposed to buy it?

Emily made her way to the checkout and paid for it before she had a chance to buy anything else. She left the store and checked the time. Her evening shift didn’t begin for another ninety minutes, so she browsed a few more shops before she reported to Edenbrook. 

She made her way through the halls and to the locker room, keeping her bag from the baby store concealed. When she reached the locker room, she tucked the bag safely into her locker. She snapped a quick picture of the stethoscope onesie and sent it to Bryce, grinning when he soon responded with a heart eye emoji. 

Laughing quietly to herself, she changed into her white coat. She closed her locker and reported downstairs for clinic duty.

next chapter

Tags: @elephant9998 @mvalentine @fortunatelywaywardsandwich @whatchique @achalantspitfire @lahellacute @virtuallytakenby @oofchoices @dang-lahela @miss-whit12 @drakeismyweakness @sitsoncornflake @a-tragical-tale​ @bitchloveskcbaseball​ @laceandlula​ @paulfwesley​ @bloomingsivan​ @anotherbeingsworld​ @vamped99​ @datynasuha​

[bensakindofmagic]

Cafe Girl

Okay so I’ve been working in a cafe all summer and this is where my brain goes when I’m bored (which is constantly). I wrote it in my lunch breaks while silently wishing it would really happen 

Thursday, 1st August 

“I hope that fit guy comes in again,” Jenny called from the coffee machine. 

You teetered in from the kitchen with a tray full of clean cups and started restocking the shelves. “What fit guy?” 

“Of course, you weren’t in yesterday. This really cute guy came in for a coffee.” 

“Is that it?” you scoffed. “You made it sound like something happened.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Sophie interjected. “He was gorgeous.”

“Right up your street actually,” Jenny nodded to you. 

Sophie rolled her eyes, “So you’re going to get all courteous now, just ‘cause you were blatantly flirting at him and he didn’t bat an eye.” 

“What girl isn’t going to try their luck with him? He was beautiful.” 

“Yeah, you mentioned,” you laughed, shaking your head. 

You didn’t have to wait long to find out if they were exaggerating or not. You were merrily folding napkins to keep yourself occupied when Jenny nudged your arm and whispered, “It’s him.” 

You looked to the door that he had just walked through. They were right, he was something else. You’d never seen anyone pull off jeans and a t-shirt that well. His shirt was just a little too tight on his arms, making his biceps bulge out of it. You imagined that he’d bought the shirt before he’d started bulking, but liked the way it accentuated his muscles. He looked as though he had that subtle arrogance of a man with confidence and a path laid out before him; not that you minded, it was wildly sexy. His hair, bright blonde, fell in obnoxiously effortless waves over his forehead. A light tan made his skin glow. 

Jenny nudged you to the till, and you rolled your eyes at her. 

“Hi, what can I get you?” you said, putting on your customer voice. You were a little startled to see his eyes were bright, piercing green. Flecks of blue and grey and gold gave them such kaleidoscopic depth that you feared you could stare into them forever and never see them fully. 

“Uh, just a flat white please.” 

“Right,” you quickly hid your flustered moment, “to take away?” 

“Please.” 

You smiled — only to be polite, of course — but he smiled back and your heart fluttered. His cheeks popped into cherries and you saw his tongue hover behind slightly parted teeth, the most subtle indication of his urge to wet his lips. 

You made him his coffee. Much to your embarrassment you made a heart in the foam, quite without thinking. Thank god you covered it up with the lid. 

“Here you go,” you handed it over to him. 

He mumbled, “Cheers,” not quite meeting your eye as he took his drink and left. 

“I think he likes you,” Jenny smirked. 

“Oh piss off,” you laughed, shaking your head. 

Friday, 2nd August

“Remember that guy that came in on Wednesday? He was in again yesterday and Y/N flirted with him,” Jenny told James, another coworker, animatedly. 

“We did not flirt,” you asserted. 

“What was that smile then?” 

“I smile at every customer, it’s called being friendly.”

Despite your thinly veiled condescension and dismissal of Jenny’s excitement, you caught yourself thinking about him far too often. That blonde god that had come in filled your idle thoughts against your will. You found yourself torn between wishing he’d come back, wanting to see him again, and silently praying that he wouldn’t. 

But within the hour he was back. Again he ordered his flat white and while he waited you contemplated who he might be. He was in on a weekday, when most people were at work, but wasn’t in a suit. He wore comfortable clothes, usually dark colours, quite plain. So not in the offices or shops along the street. You wondered if he worked in the theatre down the road. You got a lot of actors and tech crew coming in on their way to rehearsals. They’d come in everyday, or every few days, for a couple of months and then they’d disappear again once the run of the show was over.  You imagined him on a dark stage, lit in a single spotlight, reciting some melodramatic monologue, pouring his heart out to an enraptured audience... 

“Cheers,” he said, taking his coffee. 

“Have a nice day,” you smiled. 

Monday, 5th August 

You had to wait until after the weekend to see the handsome stranger again, confirming to you that he was coming on his way to — or while at — work. 

“Flat white?” you smiled as he walked up to the till. 

“Am I so predictable?” he laughed. It was deep, a rich rumbling sound like churning of the ocean.

“You’ll be a regular soon if you’re not careful.” You almost winked, but stopped yourself. That would be a step too far. 

“Maybe we’ll start getting to know each other better then.”

With that he turned away, walking to a quiet corner to wait for his coffee. He leaned nonchalantly against the wall, his body rolling in languidity, and you tried to ignore his staring.

Tuesday, 6th August

When he came in again you smiled widely. This handsome stranger was a becoming part of your daily routine. You lit up when you saw him, and he made each day a little brighter. You looked forward to seeing him each day, even if you only exchanged a few words. Occasionally you caught yourself thinking about him, wondering what it would feel like to run your fingers through his hair or have his arms wrapped around you, and felt like an idiot. You’d known him for less than a week — hell, you didn’t even know him! While his comment about getting to know you better gave you some modicum of hope, you berated yourself and tried to keep your wondering thoughts to a minimum. But still your heart seemed to flutter whenever he walked in. 

“The usual please,” he grinned. 

“If you’ve got a usual then you’re definitely a regular,” you said, putting his order through and looking at him through your lashes. 

“You say that but I’m new to the area, I barely know my way around. I’m supposed to be taking someone for dinner tonight but I have no idea where to go.”

“Is it a date?” you asked, perhaps a little too fast and quickly backtracked, “‘Cause there’s this really romantic Italian place just round the corner.”

“Not a date, I suppose it’s a business meeting.” 

“Well, the Thai over the road is really good. A bit rough and ready but the food is incredible. Or there’s a curry house a few streets over — proper fancy.”

“Oh great, thanks.”

You latched on to the scraps of information he gave you about his life, and hungry for more, the question slipped from your lips before you had a chance to second guess yourself, “Do you work in the theatre down the road?”  

He cocked his head, “How did you know?”

“We get a few actors and such coming through here, you look like the type,” you shrugged.

He laughed, “Is that an insult or a compliment?” 

You bit your lip, “Whichever you like.” 

When he took is coffee from you your fingers met briefly. His skin felt rougher than yours but warm and electric. You seemed to burn where he had touched you. 

“That was definitely flirting,” Jenny whispered to you as you both watched him walk away. 

Thursday, 8th August

“A guy came in yesterday asking for you,” your manager said with faux nonchalance, but you saw the glistening of intrigue in her eyes. 

“Oh really?” you replied as indifferently as you could. Quite against your will your heartbeat started to speed up a little

“Mm, he didn’t know your name but he described you. Seemed disappointed that you weren’t here.” 

You made no reply, but busied yourself loading the dishwasher. 

“Y/N, can you grab the till please,” Sophie called into the kitchen.

You walked out to see him standing there, hand thrust deep into his pockets, but his face lifted when he spotted you. 

“You could have got the till,” you breathed to Sophie as you walked past. 

“I’m busy,” she lied, biting back a laugh. 

“How did your dinner go?” you asked your handsome stranger (who didn’t feel so much like a stranger now), putting his order through without having to ask. 

“Yeah really good. I think I might have the part,” he beamed. It was written all over his face how much it meant to him, how proud he was of himself. You couldn’t help but smile, and you certainly couldn’t help the way your heart fluttered like a juvenile butterfly. “Congratulations.”

He held the cup up to you in a silent cheers when Sophie gave him his coffee. Just as he turned to walk away you blurted out, “My name’s Y/N, for next time you come in asking for me.” 

He blushed, the pink blossoming up his neck and onto his cheeks, “I’m Ben.”

Friday, 9th August

“Y/N, are you wearing makeup?” Sophie goaded. 

“A little, so what?”

“You never wear makeup to work.” You shrugged without a word and she grinned, “It’s that guy, isn’t it? You like him.” 

“Shut up,” you grumbled. 

Tuesday, 13th August 

Ben had come in everyday you were there, the girls even calling you back from your break once to see him, and very slowly you had started to learn more about him. He talked a bit about the play he was in and the part in the big blockbuster movie he really wanted (but he couldn’t tell you the film). You told him how you were saving up for art college, how you found working in the cafe soul destroying. He saw a customer complain to you once, being very rude about things that weren’t your fault, and saw how you bit your tongue and smiled as sweetly as you could muster until they left in a huff. 

“Jesus, I don’t know how you didn’t blow up at her,” he had said. 

“It never helps, you learn to just let them rant and look apologetic,” you mumbled back, disinterested. 

“Does that happen a lot? People being rude.” 

You nodded, “Customers tend to forget you’re human as soon as you put the apron on. You’re a robot whose only function is to serve them coffee.” You laughed bitterly. 

He had shaken his head and promised to never complain to a server again. 

“You’re early,” you smiled as Ben walked in, looking perfectly dishevelled, his hair still a little wet from his shower. Your mind wandered, quite of it’s own accord, to the image of him standing under the hot water, naked, wet... 

“Got in trouble yesterday for being late. Chatting to you for too long, clearly,” he chuckled. 

“I won’t keep you then.” 

“What do you think I came in early for?”

He leaned against the counter as you made his coffee, looking casually out into the distance. He thrust his hands into his pockets. When he licked his lips your nearly burnt yourself on the coffee machine. 

“I’m thinking about getting a dog.” 

“Oh really?” you giggled. Of course he was a dog man. “What breed?” 

“Well that’s the problem, I wanted a foxhound but they’re not great for the city I don’t think. Don’t like apartment living.” 

“What about a beagle then?” you offered. “Similar breed, still a hunting dog but smaller. Don’t need quite so much exercise.” 

“A beagle, you say?” he said, ponderous. 

“Or border terriers have a good temperament, or a westie. Or a dachshund if you wanted a hound over a terrier.” 

“You know a lot about dogs, huh?” 

“God blessed us with dogs when he realised what arseholes cats were. They’re more than we deserve.” 

“No strong feelings then.” 

“None at all.” You handed him his coffee with a songful laugh. 

Thursday, 15th August 

Ben gave you the biggest smile when he walked in that morning. 

“Finally it’s Thursday. I hate Wednesdays.” 

“What’s wrong with Wednesdays? Hump day, it’s my day off,” you simpered. 

“Exactly, I don’t get to see you.” 

You blushed an impressive shade of fuchsia. 

Friday, 16th August 

You were rushed off your feet when Ben came in the next day. You were on the coffee machine, frantically making order after order. Latte after cappuccino after flat white after macchiato, dealing with every variant of syrup, number of shots, type of milk, wet or dry, iced or otherwise, that the world could throw at you. You were desperately trying to keep up when a familiar voice wafted over to you; your shoulders seemed to relax and your heartbeat seemed to slow, “I guess I won’t be getting my morning chat today, you look a little busy.” 

“Just a little,” you laughed through a grimace, sending someone off to run an order. Instead of starting on the next one in the queue you set about making a flat white. 

“Why’s it so full?” he queried. 

“Cafe down the road is closed for the day, we’ve got all their customers.” 

“Good for business.”

You scoffed, “Not good for my stress levels. Here,” you said, handing his drink over to him. 

“But I’m not in the queue yet.” 

“Wouldn’t want to make you late for work,” you smirked. 

“I haven’t paid.” 

“This one’s on me.” 

Saturday, 17th August 

You were wiping tables once it had gone quiet again in the afternoon, after the weekend lunchtime rush. The weekends had seemed to become a little more dull without Ben to put a smile on your face. You were quietly singing to yourself in a small effort to make the time go faster. You were vaguely aware of the door opening behind you but ignored it; someone else could get the till. 

“I don’t care if Monday’s blue, Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too” you hummed along to The Cure.

“So she can sing as well,” came a voice behind you. You whipped round, startled, to see Ben grinning at you. “Hey,” he said softly, barely more than a whisper, eyes glistening. 

“Hi,” you mumbled. It was the first time you’d seen him up close, without a counter between you. You inspected the lines that formed around his mouth when he smiled, you noticed the flecks of hazel in his eyes. 

“You have a beautiful voice.” 

You laughed through your nose, “You’re being generous, I can just about hold a tune.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, examining you, his head cocked just a little. There was such intensity in that innocent gaze that you felt yourself being drawn towards him. You so nearly leaned in. He licked his lips. 

There was a clatter as someone dropped a knife and you came to your senses. 

“So what can I get you? The usual?” 

“Actually, I’ll have it to drink in if you don’t mind.” 

“Breaking boundaries there Ben,” you joked. His name still felt alien on your tongue. 

“I could use some company too.” 

Your chest inflated, lungs full, “I’ll see what I can do.” 

Ben sat down at a quiet table in the corner while you went to put his order through. You pled with your boss for a break, even though you’d already had your full hour for the day. She smiled, glancing over at Ben, shook her head with a small laugh, and said you had 20 minutes. You had to stop yourself from skipping over to him, and placed two cups on the table before sitting down. 

“You should have let me get that, I owe you one from yesterday,” he said, motioning to your cup of tea. 

“No you don’t, anyway I get it for free,” you demurred with a closed-lip smile. 

Twenty minutes felt like seconds with Ben. Conversation was easy despite your nervous energy and all too soon you were lamenting that you had to get back to work. 

“I suppose I’ll see you on Monday,” you winked, but as you turned to walk away you felt a hand on yours, strong and warm. 

“I’d like to see you again, not here I mean. Maybe we could go out for coffee or something.”

“Absolutely not.” Ben’s face fell but you laughed, “I spend far too much time in coffee shops, you can take me out for lunch.” 

[elvendara]

April Challenge 2019 Day 23

Ch 4 of the MM Mafia AU I’ve been collaborating on with @umberchips 

I should really work on this some more.

Here’s the first 3 chapters if you need to reread, I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated.

Yoosung watched the twins as they entered the noodle shop. They sat by the window, a mistake in his eyes. It would be all too easy to take them both out before they could even react. His fingers itched to do just that. Unfortunately, Jumin was not a big believer in guns. It was too easy to become complacent and dependent on the illegal firearms. And too easy to get arrested because of them as well. Yoosung preferred to get his hands dirty anyway.

He'd seen them often enough that he could easily tell them apart. Saeran sat on the left, Saeyoung on the right. While they perused their menu, they also took in their surroundings. Yoosung grinned, it's what he would do, make note of all the exits, the people inside, any potential danger. Yet, the biggest danger was outside, across the street, hiding in the shadows of the alleyway. It was only luck that had brought him to this spot. He'd been fleeing his screeching cousin. He was right, she had been furious with him.

"What did you do?! What the fuck did you do Yoosung?! Why?! Why would you do this?!" She screeched pressing her finger into his chest, the newspaper in her fisted hand. Jumin had not even bothered to let her know. She'd found out like everyone else. Her scream had been loud and ear splitting. Yoosung rolled his eyes and turned away from the banshee.

She grabbed his arm and yanked him back around, her fingers digging into his arm as she slammed the door closed behind her. He had contemplated not answering the furious banging at all, but he was more concerned that she would cause a scene in the hallway, pulling his neighbors out.

He grabbed her wrist, ripping her fingers from their grasp on him and pushed her backwards. She gasped, her eyes flaring dangerously.

"You're hurting me!" she yanked her hand free, tears welling in her eyes. Yoosung paid them no mind. She was far from the proverbial damsel in distress. He sighed and dropped onto his sofa, laying on his back, his head leaning against the arm.

"How much did he pay you? Do you have any idea what you've done? What...what Jumin will do to me now?" She grated and droned on. He let her vent her frustration, the words gaining no purchase in his mind. She loomed over him, her hands in fists. He knew she wanted to throttle him, but she was also trying to calculate how far she would be able to push him before he retaliated. Or how that retaliation would manifest itself. He had to admit, he admired her determination and bravery. She had to know that it was possible Jumin had asked him to eliminate her as well. Yet, here she was, as brash as ever.

"Calm your tits!" Yoosung interjected. He grabbed his laptop from the coffee table and placed it on his chest. “How vulgar!” she spat.

“If you’d wanted me to stay the nice guy, you should have let me be.” He countered.

Those days were long gone. He sometimes wondered how things would be different had he said no to Rika and Jumin’s offer. No matter, here is where he was, and he was happy. He logged onto the LOLOL Shooting Star server and waited for the game to load.

“What are you doing? Didn’t you hear me?! Jumin is going to kill me Yoosung!”

“Then what are you doing here?” he asked absently.

“You’re my cousin! How could you choose that man over me? I need you!”

Yoosung rolled his eyes and his mood was suddenly flipped upside down as the familiar ‘servers down for maintenance’ blinked on the screen.

“Fuck!” he slammed the laptop closed and tossed it on the sofa at his feet as he sat up.

“Yoosung!” she grabbed him again and he pushed her away.

“Damn it Rika! This is your own fault! Your own ambition and blindness! You thought that old man was going to protect you forever? What do you think would have happened even if you’d managed to marry Jumin? Pop out a couple of heirs and he wouldn’t kill you as soon as his father was dead anyway? How long have you known the man? What use to him would you have been after already being a brood mare?”

Rika slapped him hard, the ring on her finger leaving a scratch across his cheek. She backed up immediately as the realization of what she had just done dawned on her. She held her hand up towards Yoosung.

He turned his head slowly towards her, eyes blazing with anger. He lashed out and wrapped his hand around her throat. He pushed against her and she scuttled backwards until her back hit the wall. He pressed harder then leaned in close to her ear.

“Do that again, and I will not hesitate to snap your fucking neck! You’re pissed because I didn’t take your side? You should be thanking god you are my cousin, because if you weren’t, you’d be dead right now. Settle your shit with Jumin and keep me out of it!”

He shoved away from her, walking away. He grabbed his blue hoodie from the hook and pulled it on.

“Where are you going?” she rasped.

“None of your business.” He growled.

“Yoosung, please. I need to know I can count on you! That I can trust you!”

“You know where my loyalties are Rika.” He didn’t respond to the questions she tossed at him as he headed towards the door.

“You owe me! Damn you son of a bitch! We’re not done!” she squawked.

"I'm not doing this right now. We can talk when you regain control." Yoosung walked out the door, her screams following him down the stairs and across the sidewalk. He pulled his hoodie over his head and put in his ear buds, turning his music up all the way.

He strolled toward the subway, intending to ride it and try to clear his head. He finally decided to hop off randomly.

Once above ground, he looked around.

“Fuck.”

He was in the Kim Family territory. He thought about just getting back on the subway, but, what the hell. The sudden feeling of danger around every corner was intoxicating and thrilling. He pulled his hood further down, hiding most of his face and hair. He put the earbuds away, needing to be aware of his surroundings.

He walked down several random streets, nothing interesting happening. He was beginning to get bored. He was just about to turn around when he saw two red heads bouncing towards him. He kept a steady pace towards them until he was sure they were the Choi twins. He crossed the street so he wouldn’t pass them too closely, then ducked into an alley when he saw them enter a restaurant.

Now, here he was, his heart beating furiously as he watched the two. He made sure to stay hidden as best he could, but he couldn’t help studying them. How often would he find himself in this kind of position? He knew Jumin would not be pleased if he ever found out. But who was going to tell him? He grinned and settled in.

They ate quickly, especially Saeran, who seemed rather anxious. Soon enough they were paying, Saeyoung flirting with the waitress again, and walking out the door. Yoosung debated whether or not to follow them, but he figured, he was probably already pushing it. He would wait until they were gone and head back to the subway and home. If he was lucky, Rika would be long gone.

The twins did not move away immediately. He could almost catch their conversation, but it was nothing but mumbling from his vantage point.

They surprisingly broke apart, with Saeyoung going back the way they’d come and Saeran crossing the street towards him. Yoosung backed further into the alley way, into the shadows, pressing himself against the wall. He couldn’t have been seen. If he had, they would both be heading towards him. Suddenly, Yoosung was worried that they were trying to trap him. Was Saeyoung at this moment running around the block to the other side of this alley? He clutched at his dagger and waited, listening for the forthcoming footsteps. It didn’t take long, he could hear Saeran’s shoes getting closer. The man walked right past him, not slowing down, not even glancing into the dark alley. Was he that unaware? Or that sure of himself. He pushed away from the wall and began to follow the man. It wasn’t really a decision; his body just did whatever it wanted.

There was enough of a crowd still on the streets that he could blend in somewhat. He kept his head down, but his eyes were locked on Saeran’s shoes. They walked a few blocks without turning. Yoosung wondered why the man didn’t have a vehicle if he was going to be doing this much walking. It was a brief thought, perhaps he was like him, Yoosung enjoyed walking places. It helped him better stay aware of those around him.

Saeran took a right up ahead and Yoosung slowed down. He neared the corner and peeked around it. Saeran was already more than halfway down the block and he had crossed the street. Damn! Yoosung crossed hurriedly and tried to catch up without running. They were close to the subway now. Yoosung could just do the safe thing and leave. Saeran took a left and Yoosung stopped. He could either keep following the man, or he could go home. His feet began to move. He took the next left and was just in time to see Saeran step into a doorway of what looked like an abandoned warehouse. The building was small, it’s large windows, about 20 feet above the ground, were mostly broken, shattered glass still littered the sidewalk. There was no one on this street in either direction. His hackles were up. He should definitely leave now.

He reached the door and tried it. Not locked. Yoosung took a deep breath and pushed it open. It was silent, the darkness inside broken only by the light of the street lamps shining through the broken windows. It was musty, the ground thick with dust. What the hell was Saeran doing here? He could clearly see foot prints heading deeper into the building towards a small room in the center. The office probably. As he stepped into the warehouse, as light was turned on in the small room. Yoosung pushed the door closed and made his way towards the room. There was plenty to hide behind. Boxes and crates littered the floor. The beams were thick enough to hide his entire body. He kept glancing down at the foot prints, making sure they didn’t deviate from their path.

Sure enough, they ended at the door. He pressed himself against the wall, his dagger in his hand. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do if he was discovered. Neither Jumin nor V would be happy if one of them ended up killing the other. In fact, they would be livid.

“Are you just gonna’ stand there fingering your dagger or are you going to come in?” The voice filtered through the slightly open door. The tone was inviting, and a little amused.

Yoosung grinned and shook his head. The man had known he was being followed, and he had stepped right into the trap. If that’s what this was. Had he really wanted to trap him; he would not have given himself away like that. This was something else. An invitation. But an invitation to what?

He pushed the door open and stepped into the lit room.

Saeran stood against the opposite wall, his own dagger in his hands. He twirled it against his finger, completely at ease.

“Hello Yoosung.”

“Hello Saeran.” He countered. Saeran’s eyebrows arched up. He must not be used to people being able to tell him apart from his twin.

“It’s not that hard.” Yoosung answered the unasked question. He stepped further in and pointed towards Saeran with his dagger. “You’re leaner, Saeyoung has more muscle. He got his scar in a fight, you did that to yourself, it’s too straight, not jagged like his. He walks with purpose, as if he has to be somewhere fast, you, ‘saunter’.” He air quoted with a laugh.

“Saunter?” Saeran pushed away from the wall, his face a mask of barely contained fury.

Yoosung laughed again. “I wasn’t being rude. I was just letting you know how I can tell you apart.”

Saeran’s lips thinned out, but he looked visibly less angry. He was quick to temper, just like Yoosung. That was something new to file away.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Yoosung shrugged, “I found myself here and decided to…take a stroll.”

“I could have killed you you know. I saw you, in the alley, across the restaurant.”

“If that was true, you would have told your brother. Or is here already here? Hiding somewhere?” Yoosung looked around, but there was no sign of Saeyoung. He hadn’t really expected one though. If they had lay a trap, he was well and caught, but they would pay for taking him down.

“Forget about him. I was hoping you would follow me.”

“Is that so? Why?”

“If we fight, and one of us dies, that would be bad.” Saeran arched an eyebrow and his mouth pouted. “But, if we fight, let’s say, until one of us gives, well, then we could see who the better fighter is without getting the families involved.” He grinned.

So that was his angle. Yoosung had to admit, he was curious himself if the red head was any kind of real threat. Together the twins were something to be wary of. But Saeran alone? Was he disciplined enough to beat him?

“What are the rules?” he asked, leaning on his right side, his hip out.

“Only one, no killing blows.”

“Oh, I think we should also make another. No permanent harm to the face! I’d hate to have Saeyoung mutilate his face more to keep up with the whole identical thing. I’m not sure he would do it, like you did.”

Saeran clenched his jaws. This was going to be too easy; he was already off balance. The man might be stronger than Yoosung, but he did not have any control over it.

“Done!” he agreed.

“Done!” Yoosung echoed. They both pulled another dagger from their stashes and began to circle each other.

[safrona-shadowsun]

Sungrass Oasis

{Rp between @beamgully and myself. Thank you for reading if you do!}

The arid sun beaming through the purple Tanari sky began to dip westward, just barely considering its retirement. Gadgetzan was somewhat quiet. Many of its denizens were likely enjoying dinner. Amidst a cluster of adobe buildings there was one with a desert-blush sheet serving as a door. It complemented the sunbaked hue of the clay it rested against. Artful script flitted above the small foyer entrance:

Sungrass Oasis -Tea Lounge-

The void elf that stepped into Gadgetzan may have been more of an odd sight had the importer not been a known personage among several traders. What did draw a few eyes was the glowing scythe carried on her person, indicating that she was something more dangerous than a simple ‘delivery girl’. Yet, with a blink of an eye the ethereal blade of the Black Harvest was dismissed to a pocket of the Void, returning Safrona to her shades of nuanced professionalism. Stranger things had happened in the little desert city, perhaps.

Her eye was caught by the shift of the sheet that seemed to beckon her to an entrance she’d never stepped inside before, the written word of ‘tea lounge’ murmured soundlessly between her lips in consideration. Her step inside was preluded by her curious smile, tucking away the black shard between her fingertips. Tea sounded more cleansing against the trinket’s corruption than her usual glass of bourbon.

Though a hole-in-the-wall, it was contemporary chic and polished. The floor was tiled in sleek black. Voguish artwork brought the white walls to life. Framed in thick, black frames, the paintings were as soothing as they were stylish. They depicted modern abstract, turquoise beaches, and desert blossoms. A few were pieces that might have been pretentious in another setting, but somehow felt innocently trendy here. Two of them were offset by equidistant sandstone bowls resting in tasteful square impressions on the wall. Sweeping glass sculptures ribboned with solid colors - some glittering in the light - added bold character to the lounge. Most of them were feet tall and stood on the floor.

On each chair was a pale yellow cushion. Filled with sand, sea glass, and shells, a candle resting in a glass bowl embellished every table, along with a daisy in a white vase. A handful of firebloom petals were strewn about them. Each table was large enough for two guests, with a pair of long, slender menus. At the far back was a bar (of sorts), near another curtain which supposedly led to outdoor seating. It offered several stools should anyone choose to be in company with the Sin'dorei woman behind it. She scribbled something down with a quill, a gnomish-styled calculator beside her hand.

One look at her sleek, leggy physique and one might already imagine her at an amateur marathon. Yet she had a breezy posture as if vacationing somewhere nice. Her clothes paralleled the establishment: contemporary chic with painted, manicured nails. A sand dollar rested below her slim neck, joined by two silver starfish on a sterling chain.

Her tawny skin was mottled thick with freckles. Coffee brown hair, streaked subtly with caramel highlights, draped either side of her thin face like a square curtain - save the asymmetrical chunk knifing a few inches above her collarbone. Her nose was sloped, and her wide, pale lips coated in gloss. Smoky lavender makeup embellished the golden lights of her eyes.

They were upturned, and cheerfully lean in shape. For now there were only two separate couples occupying the lounge as guests, far too engrossed with each other to notice anything outside of themselves. It was the apparent owner who looked up from her work at the scarlet-haired courier, and spread a sunflower smile. She had a neighborly and wizened kind of charisma. Even her breathy, sand-like voice conveyed warmth: "Welcome! Please, take a seat anywhere you'd like."

The Courier took her study of what could have been considered a diamond in the rough of Gadgetzan as she walked, violet pupils glinting in low light approvingly of the little secret she'd stepped into. That arresting, otherworldly gaze eventually drifted to the desert flower that was the owner as she was greeted with warmth. She offered a practiced smile of her own, pulling away the burgundy hood that matched the long spirals of her gathered hair a little too well.

"I will. Quite the lovely place here," she spoke, her silk voice pleasant, if not a touch unsettling with its residual echo of the Void. "Almost Ramhaken in appeal. I'm surprised I've never found it before, actually." The scarlet importer took an elegant seat of a nearby barstool, a long leg flattered by the cut of her skirt as she'd cross one over the other. "Do you own this little gem in the sand?"

"Thank you!" the owner beamed. Her Muppet-esque friendliness was simple, but not patronizing. Pure, yet the opposite of naive. Her affable smile only broadened as the new guest drew back her hood and made herself comfortable. The tell-tale echo didn't appear to inspire any hesitation in the server whatsoever. She reached under the bar to procure a menu, then offered it.

"Oh, we're very new," she explained. "We opened weeks ago. I'm Colpeia, by the way! Let me know if there's anything that catches your eye." She nodded at her question. "Yes, I do! Though I couldn't have done it without the help of my tribe. A few continue to help as waiters, cooks, and business assistants."

The void elf inclined her head slightly with her gratitude as she took the offered menu, swiveling readily in her barseat to face Colpeia directly. "Ah, that explains much of why we've not met. Safrona. Safrona Shadowsun, importer of many of a needful thing. Maybe business will get us better acquainted, yes?"

Mystery was weaved beneath her try at simplistic professionalism, lending to the idea that she had not always been this simple importer she wore. She was too practiced, an enigmatic charm pooled there to her merlot smile. The emerald eyes of a bronze scarab trinket glinting in her gathered hair, set apart from the scarlet and shadow she wore. It seemed she favored this scarab theme, another design dangling prettily from the lace at her throat.

"I'd say let's see what I can help you with...but.. " she opened the menu as her eyes flowed down the lists inside. A breath of a chuckle unraveled beneath her next words. "Maybe I should just be the customer today for a change."

"Well it's an honor to meet you, Safrona," Colpeia dipped her head, with her own brand of flourished, Cheshire, yet plain charisma. "And sure! Actually, I know one way we may be able to help each other. My parents own a glass business called Beamgully Crystal. Maybe you've heard of it? It's been around for a long time. Their wares range from windows and vials to extravagant art. Much of what you see in this shop was crafted by their hands. They have me acting as their personal courier at times, so I would be very surprised if they wouldn't welcome a charming new courier like yourself."

A brief fondness flashed across Colpeia's features when she eyed the diplomatic woman's scarab motif. It reminded her of a friend. Her smile grew. "I think that's a great idea. We all need to treat ourselves sometime." The elegant script on the menu displayed prices that - while not dirt cheap - were reasonable.

"You as a courier, when you have this fine place to run?" Safrona lifted her eyes from the menu to connect her gaze to Colpeia's once more.  "Well, we can't have that, lovely. All you need to do is give your parents my name, and I'll come do my job. I can handle fragile glass well enough too with the travel, and fees can also be settled on before I come for pick up. My specialty's actually connecting businesses and filling client bases, so maybe we'll see both the Oasis and your parent's glassware business growing, yes?"

Her eyes returned to the menu then and began to settle on a decision. "Mm...my inner wine importer is telling me you could use more alcohol for this menu, but let me slide away from that and take some of your Sweet Spice Tea. And...I'm tempted by Desert Dumplings, but I've...." she chuckled. "The meat choices are....different. What do you recommend to pair with the tea?"

Colpeia shrugged a shoulder. "It's something I've done for many years," she replied. Her dark brows lifted at the proposal. "What a generous offer! I'm certain they'll be very happy to speak with you about it. Perhaps they can meet you at a neutral location that's easy to get to?" She chuckled. "I have thought about it. I wanted to focus on tea, but some alcoholic options might be a good idea."

An unsurprised, but somewhat amused glint couldn't help but touch her eye as Safrona ruminated over her meat choice. It wouldn't be the first time she'd heard similar remarks about Tanari cuisine. "Well there's no arguing that," Colpeia agreed. "Desert meat is unique. The sweet and spicy flavors of the tea may go well with something that's subtle and light. So I would recommend the sandworm meat. Silithid is bold, and hyena is milder than lamb but more robust than beef."

"Dalaran is the easiest for me to arrive to as far as neutral cities go. And seeing as much of my business brings me there, I'm there often enough for the odd appointment. They can simply place a reservation at the Ledgermaine Lounge with the barkeep and I'll  meet them there and take care of the tab."

Safrona nodded her acceptance on the suggestion, folding the menu to offer it up for the collecting. "Being a courier is...not a very satisfying lifepath to wander for the long run.  Take it from me," the Void elf chuckled witheringly. "A good spring point for a while, but even I don't see myself playing delivery girl forever." Her violet gaze took its run down the dusky skinned Colpeia, tilting her head slightly as she did. "You look like you belong here in your little cafe. Not running around about out there making sure people receive their packages on time."

"That's great!" Colpeia smiled. "And so generous of you. I'll tell them. I think they'll be very happy to meet you." She gathered the menu, stowing it somewhere underneath the bar.

She listened patiently. Her gaze on Safrona was deep and open. When the worldly courier finished speaking, Colpeia gave another sincere smile. "Delivering packages for my parents has been something I've done for a long time, but only as an occasional side-job when their schedules were very tight," she reassured. "I'm actually a freelance mathematician. The cafe has become a side job for me, but one I hold dear in the short amount of time it's existed." Her pause was pensive, her golden eyes falling briefly to the floor.

"Our world still bleeds and everyone is tired." Colpeia looked back up at her. "I built this lounge to offer respite, even if for a little while. We all have a role in a time of war. Some believe theirs is to fight in it. Others to heal wounds and keep their friends alive. I think people forget that we need ways to find solace in these times the most, not the least. We all need to be reminded what we fight and are alive for. So I guess for that reason, I absolutely agree with you, Safrona. For now my place is here."

Colpeia's reasonings had the world-worn courier closing her eyes briefly with a small, warmed smile. When she spoke again, another piece of the professional that tried to take over had taken a back seat, letting someone more genuine and perhaps even a little bitter through. "It's true, isn't it? We're all a little predisposed to war like a bad habit. Consistently assigned our roles and thrown at one another for a battle cry in honor or glory of this or that. Told our lives won't be the same if we do not fight for the little piece of land we were born to. Some become weapons. By the time they come home...do they even know how to live anymore? Or is normalcy stripped from us and replaced by the cycle of conditioned violence? As much as I can tell you that war is profit, most of the time its empty gold put right into a cycle, breeding more machines."

The Courier shrugged as her eyes veered away with the same bitter smile. "I don't think war will ever change. People will always have something to fight over, and something will always be trying to deaden Azeroth, because other forces decide our only real, true mercy is the idea of death, or some degree of unified mindlessness. And honestly there are days I wake up and can't find a legitimate argument against that when we are faced with the same old rut, over and over..."

Her unearthly gaze floated back over to the golden-eyed Colpeia with a withering chuckle. "But...that is perhaps more the Void talking than I. And its quieter here, in many aspects. Finding a place like yours, people like you...? It does remind me that some things are still worth putting in the fight for. Living for. Strange that, the little things, yes? Little mortal things like the delight of an oasis in the middle of the desert. A family trying to make the best of things, apart from the call of nations of war. It's important, keeping those little things running. The bakers must bake, the teachers must teach, the vintners must make their wine. The midwives must welcome new life, the pallbearers must put their dead to rest."

Safrona rested her heart-shaped face in the cradle of her fingers, her eyes still alight on her hostess. "I may be a little outside of the cycle of it all, but I find some strange satisfaction in helping keep that quality and culture of life for others in its order more than anything, as a courier. So yes, very much agreed. And I need more people like you in my life, lovely girl."

The air grew pleasantly cool as night fell outside the lounge. Colpeia briefly dipped behind the bar to obtain a clear kettle and cup. Placing them on the countertop, she released a folded pellet of herbs into the kettle's basin, then aimed her curved fingers. A stream of cold water materialized from her palm to trickle inside. It stopped when it was full. Since then, her gaze was present and sincere, never drifting from Safrona's thoughtful monologue. If anything, it deepened. Her manicured palm rested on the kettle's underside while she used subtle magic to heat it.

Safrona's last sentence softened Colpeia's eyes. A smile warm enough to rival the sun from hours ago beamed back at her. "Thank you. I feel lucky to have met you too, Safrona. I think you're doing something important. Couriers help keep the poetry of our world alive." The smile dimmed. "I wish I had reason to disagree with many of the other things you've said. People don't like to see themselves in their enemies. War is easier when you're blind."

A reflective glimpse landed on the back of a human Shafisian waiting a table. "My tribe has a saying for feeling stuck. 'The mind wants to heal.' A lot of people forget how to live normal lives after surviving hell. They don't heal until they decide they're ready. It's a hard journey that often takes a lifetime, if they ever accept it.”

"Death can seem like an easy answer, but I've seen secondhand that it doesn't give us peace. We can't control wars or the mindlessness behind other people's eyes. All we can do is create a mindfulness in ourselves. I think that helps when peace is hard to find." Colpeia's polished nails clinked as she removed her hand. Bubbles and steam now clung to the kettle walls, a vibrant flower blossoming in its pinkish water. Another server reappeared from behind a curtain. He balanced a platter of dumplings in his hand, which he served beside Safrona's now steaming hot tea. Colpeia exchanged nods with him.

The teaflower blooming its gift of bounty for her was it's own touch of magic Safrona had never gave her attention to before no matter how many teahouses she had visited and supplied before this one. Perhaps there was this small, simple meaning now in the generous courtesy of being served by Colpeia and her tribe that gave the moment its credence.

Safrona sat to let the steam and its delicate floral aroma caress her face from the teacup.  Little cleansing rituals seemed to fall aside her, a deeper bottle of sin the default to reach for by habit in the knowing of what she was. "It's good," she murmured with a smile after that first sip. The little things. "I think...I simply want to go back to knowing nothing tonight, lovely girl. Other than the fact that I need to come here again, and more often, yes?"

Colpeia smiled. Watching Safrona enjoy her tea gave her a certain warm pleasure. She dipped her head in a sincere bow, her hand raised in a cheshire-esque gesture. "We will always be happy to see you, Safrona. I certainly will."

[eerythingisshaka]

The Coffee Prince Pt. 4

(T’Challa x Reader)

 *Part 1*  *Part 2* *Part 3*

Word Count: 7.1k

Plot:  Stuck in your ways of living, one day at the coffee shop, you run into a tall dark roast that threatens to wake you up from your romantic hibernation.

*Previously*

You close your room door, tossing T’Challa Jr. on your bed.  Kicking your shoes off, taking your hair down, you pull out your phone.

Home safe!  You send to him.  You put your phone down and unclothe to get comfortable.  Suddenly a ding sounds and you dive for your device.  

Glory to Bast.  Sleep well, umhle.

You read it a couple of times before setting your phone back down.  Laying down, you clutch your prized possession T’Challa won you to your chest as the day’s event float in your head: euphorically exhausted.

The next few weeks with T’Challa that follow are some of the best you have experienced in a long time.  You guys meet at the coffee shop from time to time when your schedules allow, and take evening walks to vent about your days and life, ending with sweet kisses before you guys part ways.  You can’t remember the last time you walked into work on cloud nine, but T’Challa seemed to be doing that for you now.

This day however was particularly tasking.  Your company’s online server was down, causing an uptick in calls from begrudging customers wanting answers on when their products would be available again to use.  The worst part was that your processors had no clue what the problem is or how long it would take to fix, so you try your best to white lie your way to keeping customers satisfied enough to keep from threatening to revoke their memberships.  Just before you are at your wits end however, you see your phone light up with T’Challa’s name calling in.  T’Challa wasn’t a big texter; he likes to hear your voice and feels texting is too impersonal which you thought was quite sweet but could be inconvenient at times.  You pick up and speak in a low tone.

“Heyyy, Chacha, what’s up?”  You were still kind of trying to figure out a nickname for him.  You kinda like this one.

“So much, right now, umhle.  I could really use a break at the moment.  Are you free to meet?”

You look at the queue of calls sitting in your phone line and the stack of paperwork you need to upload and organize.

“Yeah, I can step away for a bit.  The usual?”

“If you don’t mind.  We could do something else if you’d rather.”  His tone tickles your eardrum as you imagine him saying that in another context, but T’Challa was completely pure in his intentions with you most of the time.

“No, no.  I could kill for some caffeine right now and it’s closer.  My energy is too low to walk far.” you say with a whine.

“Ms. Macchiato, in her true form.  I’ll see you there then.”  

“Ok, see you!”  You’re cheesing as you hang up the phone.  You look around at your other co-workers completely ignoring the queue and roll your eyes as you walk out.  No way in hell you would be the only person putting in phone work around here.  You remind yourself to do some job searching later when possible.  

Walking into the shop, the smell of the coffee beans roasting was enough to make you moan audibly.  You were so damn ready to wrap your lips on the rim, letting the warm liquid rejuvenate your spirit.  As you approach the register, you hear a voice call to you.

“(Y/N)!  Over here!”  T’Challa waves from a table by the window.  

You wave and mime the you are going to order something and he replies, “I’ve got you right here, umhle.”  

You squint as you see the extra cup sitting in front of him with your name correctly scrawled along the side.  Walking up to him your heart swells with appreciation.  T’Challa stands up placing a hand on your arm and a kiss on your cheek.

“You didn’t have to buy it for me.  I owe you for a couple other ones already.”  you say taking your seat.

T’Challa hisses his disdain for your comment.  “You have no reason to pay me back.  That’s not how I do things; my treat is seeing you in front of me.”

You feel heat rise to your face from something other than the coffee.  You hide your goofy smile in your cup as you take a sip.

T’Challa smirks at you a while before continuing, “A hard days work looks good on you, by the way.  I know you said things have been piling up, that’s why I wondered if you would even be able to see me today.”  T’Challa sips from his ‘Thomas’ cup.

You tweak your mouth as you shift in your seat, “Yeah, I just figured, the work will still be there whether I take a break now or later.  And trust me, the work will still be there for me to do alone.”

“Ahh, so your co-workers aren’t as dedicated as you seem to be.”  T’Challa summizes.

“I mean, dedicated is a strong word.  I do what I need to do to get things cuz otherwise I’m going to hear someone’s mouth about it, and I don’t needed that added stress, you know?”

T’Challa nods hugging himself in contemplation, “I see what you mean.  Your situation seems to be working in comparison with mine.  You know of my community work in high-crime areas?”

You nod.  T’Challa had spoken of his work with a non-profit to rebuild some areas that were pretty violent and drug ridden that you knew all too well.

“Well, of course it is not so simple as to give people things and expect them to use the materials to create a better situation for themselves with education.  So we are trying to do that, educate, but everyone is at a different learning level, and not everyone learns at the same rate or method.  So, as much as we would love to be projecting great numbers of progress, they have been slow to come and almost stagnant at times due to us still trying to build a foundation for a successful program.”  T’Challa lifts his hands in surrender, shaking his head as he grips his cup up, staring into space.

“I get it.  That’s some of the hardest work in the world; helping others in a completely selfless way.  It can consume you, corrupt people and forget the mission at large.  But I think you have a good head on your shoulders to keep things on track.”  You reach for T’Challa’s hand, running your thumb along his slightly rough knuckles.

T’Challa sighs deeply watching your hand on his; his eyelids halfen his eyes.  You see his shoulders start to relax as he grips your hand in yours.

“Look at that.  It looks funny to me how polar opposite our hands are.”  You stretch his out, raising it up to mirror yours, palm to palm.  “Mine is stout and chubby, yours long and knuckly.”  You chuckle to yourself regarding the assessment,

T’Challa interlaces his fingers in yours, his eyes smizing, “It’s a beautiful combination, I think.  I need something soft to rest my hands on.”

Your heart skipped a beat at this statement.  T’Challa kept doing things like this.  You smile at him and he just smiles back, kissing the back of your hand gingerly, maintaining the hold as he drinks from his cup.  Does he really not realize the double entendre or are you just too hot for him at this point?  That’s something Tavia has practically put a countdown on: the time when you all fully express yourselves physically.

T’Challa says, “We have a community get-together happening this weekend by the way.  You could come by; there will be food, music, games, the works.  I’ll be working a little bit of everything, trying to spread the word of our program for people to take advantage of, but I could escort you around.”  T’Challa says with a smile.

“Oh yeah!  I’d love to see you in action over there.  You had me at free food, but you know, the kids are the future as well.”  You quip.

T’Challa scoffs, “Well that’s what the food is there for.  Cheapest advertising tool known to man.”  T’Challa looks at his watch, “I think I may have taken more of your time than I anticipated.”  

You look at your phone at get a mini heart attack.  Someone may actually notice your absence this time.  You could just say you were in the bathroom the whole time.  You both get up to leave the coffee shop.  

Once outside you guys turn to each other.  A thought crosses your mind and you start to speak but decide against it.  

T’Challa, always observant, notices.  “What’s on your mind, umhle?”

“Uhh...I don’t, mm.”  You bite your tongue.

T’Challa rests his hand on your arm, sending an electricity through you that you found to be completely unfair.  “If you can’t make the community event, it is alright.  Your rest is more important. And I know you have plenty other things to do.”

“No, it’s not that.  But um, are...do we…”  T’Challa looks at your expectantly.  “Are we...exclusive?”

There it is.  Something that has been plaguing you for a while is how much you guys have hung out and gotten to know each other, but you couldn’t place if you guys were good friends who just kiss sometimes, or if he was looking for anything more.  

“Are we exclusive?”  T’Challa parrots back.

You nod, not wanting to say much else out of embarrassment.

T’Challa steps in front of you slowly leaning to whisper in your ear, “I don’t kiss my friends the way I kiss you, umhle.”

His bass snakes your inner ear like the serpent on an apple, as you twinge to keep your juices from flowing on sight.

He pulls from your ear staring you, hand resting on your hip.  “And I am a one woman kind of man, (Y/N).  Don’t think anyone else could carry a single percent of my attention from you.”  Looking to your mouth he hovers his over it before allowing you to close the gap between you.  His lips fit with yours perfectly as the suction creates a chorus of smacks, sealing the definition of your relationship.

A low grunt comes from T’Challa as he sighs deeply pulling from you.  “So, do you like me?  Yes or no?”  He smiles goofily at you as you laugh at his childish question.

Stifling your smile, you say, “Maaaybe.  But it’s in your favor.”

Heading back to your place, Tavia is posted on the couch with an array of books and papers scattered around her.  She is back in school to earn a certification in something you keep forgetting.  

Tavia looks at you over her glasses, “Whaddup, doh?”

“Nuthin much, girl.  You?” You kick off your shoes and throw your keys in a bowl.

“Hun, you lookin at it.  Procrastination remains the death of me.  Them white folks still giving you hell at the job?”

“Yeah, they stay lazing around and I’m tending the field like Boss asks.”  You exasperate as you plop on the easy chair massaging your scalp.

“You need to get the fuck outta there.  They don’t appreciate you.  And you too smart for that busy work.”

“Yeah.  It would be so much easier if I could just stay and not start all over in a new place, though.”

Tavia wags a finger, “Uh-uh.  Cuz then you would be getting more responsibility that does not reflect in your pay.  Leave!!”

You marinate on Tavia’s words.  It seems like she’s right honestly.  You have no position in that job and there is no way to work up because positions get taken quick or just aren’t available.

“At least we can get our frustrations all out on some canvas at the Sip and Paint Saturday.  Groupon finally came through with something good.”  Tavia says bobbing her neck as she reads her notes.

Your stomach drops as you remember the plan you made last week with her.  “Uhh…”

Tavia snaps to look at you, “Uhhh? Uh what?”

You play with your fingers as you speak, “So I ran into T’Challa today…”

“And?”  Tavia winds her hand in the air for you to hurry up.

“He has a thing at his non-profit.  Like a block party type thing.  I said I would help…”  You squeak out, waiting for the storm to blown.

Tavia looks at you frozen with blank expression.  “Ok, I see.”

You recoil into your body as you continue, “Are you mad?”

“NAH!  You good!  I get it, dick is important to lock down.  I applaud your efforts.”  Tavia whips out her phone.  “I guess I’ll get back on this app life.  The Groupon is only good in for a couple, not single.”

You go over to half hug Tavia, “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Girl.”

“Tsk, make it up by making that dick dance for you.  That’s all I ask.”  She pats your head on her shoulder before rolling it to get you off her.

You go to your room as you hear Tavia’s phone pinging on and on.  “See?  I got options too!”

Saturday comes and you make your way to the park the community party was being held at.  Balloons and tables were in abundance; speakers were playing everything you heard on the radio and then some.  The smell of burgers and brats filled the air and your stomach instantly caved in with hunger.  T’Challa said they were good on set up and really just wanted you to enjoy yourself for the most part.  

Making your way through the crowd, you go to the food table to fix a plate.  You smile and thank the servers as they pile your plate with the goods.  Once you make it to the dessert area, you feel two hands grip sides, making you jump a little.

“I have to admit, the sweets on that table would only disappoint you.”  A voice you know too well tickles your hearing as his lips greet the side of your face.

You turn to see T’Challa smiling at you.  “They look pretty good to me, what’s the problem?”

“As sweet as your lips are, they’d only taste sour.”  he says screwing his lips in disgust before planting his mouth on yours.  You didn’t need the plate or dessert if this was all that touched your lips today.

“Brother!  This is not the way you introduce me to your girlfriend, eh?”  a voice says behind you.

A young lady with braids in a bun shakes her head clicking her tongue at the both of you.  “Shame, shame, I must say.  We have health codes to maintain, please move the PDA along elsewhere.”

T’Challa smiles speaking to her, “(Y/N), this talkative volunteer is my sister, Shuri.  I told you about her a little bit.”

Shuri nods proudly, sticking her hand out.  “The pleasure is all mine.  I am the subject of many people’s conversations, I’m just that memorable.  And don’t let him fool you, I am running this operation, not just volunteering.”

Taking her handshake, you buck your eyes at T’Challa “Oh?”

T’Challa shifts his weight, pursing his lips, “Shuri, you know better than to fib.  This isn’t Wakanda, you have a secondary position here.”

Shuri waves her hand in his face, “Ah ah ah!  Bump all of that, Brother.  Science and tech is the most important aspect of the program, no surprise.  The public schools here do nothing to emphasize the importance and hone their knowledge to be able to apply what they learn outside the classroom.  Also, I meant the picnic anyway.  You barely lifted a finger to decorate.”

“Bast!  I did more than life a finger.  Anything heavy was my job to handle!  Cutting up cake is not ‘doing everything’.”  T’Challa exclaims.

Shuri holds a fist up to her face and demonstrates a winding motion next to it.  “I wonder what will pop up?”  Her middle finger slowly unravels.

“Can I get the apple pie, please?”  a person asks.

Shuri drops her hands and puts on a winning smile, “Of course!  We have plenty, so don’t hold back!” She says as she hands over a pre-cut slice.

You were getting your life to the back and forth between T’Challa and Shuri.  Rubbing T’Challa’s  back you dismiss yourselves.  “Thank you Shuri, and it was so nice to meet you.”

“Likewise, (Y/N).  He can’t shut up about you, so use that to your advantage.”

T’Challa moans in frustration shaking his head as he leads you away to a table to sit.

You sit and start to to smack on your food.

“(Y/N), I’m going to make rounds for a bit.  Will you be ok here?”

You nod with a mouth full of food hindering your speech.  T’Challa smiles, kissing your forehead as he walks toward some informational tables.  The whole party seemed to be a smash hit.  Hordes of people walked around enjoying the sites and music.  Kids ran after each other and got their faces painted.  Shuri moved from the dessert table to the science area where she and others demonstrated simple experiments making fog and foam appear from virtually thin air.  There was a mini exhibit on an element called ‘vibranium’ that you hadn’t heard of before so maybe you would check that out.  

Finishing your plate, you definitely had The Itis, so you needed to get up and do something.  You weren’t sure where T’Challa went, but you went around to enjoy the sights regardless.  You played a couple of the carnival games, trying to knock bottles down with a nerf gun and that one cornhole game that’s always a classic.  

You waited in line forever to get your face painted and while the clown lady was giving you a gorgeous flower on your cheek, a voice calls out to you.

“Yaaass!  Getcho face BEAT for the Gods!”

Turning slightly to not mess up the creation, you see Tavia made it to the party.

“Hey girl!  Whatchu doin here?  You didn’t say you were coming!”  You exclaim taking her hand lovingly.  

“I love surprises though, so here I be!  I did wanna be nosy too though.  Where’s Tobago?”

You roll your eyes, “Tavia, I will knock you clean the fuck out if you get his name wrong in front to his face.  T-Cha-lla.”

“Listen, it only matters that you get Thalia’s name right.  Don’t worry bout me!  Where is he anyway?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.  I thought he would be escorting me around but he got caught up in the mix I guess.  Why are you here though?  Ain’t Sip and Paint tonight?”

Tavia nods, “Uh-huh.  I found a willing participant to accompany so I’ll be leaving, like now.”

The lady gives you a mirror to show you the finished art on you.  “Ok, well have fun.  I know this is about to wrap up too in like 15 minutes, so if I don’t do anything after, I’ll be home.”

“Please, do something else!  You made your way out here for the nigga to abandon you for most of it.  He owes you somethin!”  She raises her eyebrows at you suggestively.

“Ok!  Bye!”  You say dismissing her.

As Tavia leaves, you look around to see where T’Challa went.  Instead, you see Shuri breaking down the science exhibit area and decide to ask her.

“Hey, Shuri.  Have you seen your brother around?”

Shuri looks across the way, “I don’t know actually but I hope he is deflating the bounce house.  People will keep coming and kids will never leave if that stays up.”  Shuri struggles to fold a table and you reach down to bend the leg joint of it so it folds.

“Ugh, thanks (Y/N).”

“No problem!  Do you need help with anything else around here?  I got nothing else to do.”

Shuri nods looking around,  “If you collect some tablecloths and toss them.  They are disposable so we aren’t keeping them.  After that, we got tables we are loading up in the trucks nearby.  Don’t wear yourself out though!  Just a couple would be a great start and you can leave whenever you want.”

“Ok, will do.  This was an amazing event by the way.”

Shuri laughs with her tongue out, as she brushes her shoulders off, “I does what I can!”

Collecting the tablecloths you think about how beyond her years Shuri appears to be.  The girl is a teenager, but is of course so smart and has a great business-head on her shoulders.  Plus it was so cute to hear her talking shit with her accent; she really was down!  You wanted to be her when you got your life together.  

With all of the tablecloths disposed of, you head to tipping a table and getting it folded.

“Eh!  My sister has you working now?”  T’Challa comes out of nowhere, reaching to fold the legs down.

“No, I volunteered!  I wasn’t doing anything else so…”

T’Challa raises the table on its side, walking the table to the truck.  “I’m sorry about that, by the way.  There was a lot of behind the scenes stuff that I had to help with that was...unexpected.”

You nod, quiet.  You couldn’t hide your disappointment.  “I still saw a lot though, escorted on not.  This place was hopping with shit to do.”

T’Challa steps in front of you, grasping your chin, eyes locked on you suddenly.  Your insides jump at the anticipation of what was to come from his touch.  

He turns your head slightly to the left, studying your art, “Ahhh, a purple flower.  It almost resembles the Heart Shaped Herb from back home.”

Your pace steadies as you realize his intentions.  “Yeah?  I just wanted something pretty and purple and boom!  There it is.”  

T’Challa nods, licking his lips as he studies your face.  Letting go, he say, “Let me make it up to you.  We could get some dinner...or a movie.”  You contemplate the options.  “Or both?  We could really paint the town if you want, so we can catch up.”  He says softly caressing your painted cheek.  Your center began to throb again.  T’Challa was always making it impossible to think clearly when he is talking about completely normal things but not giving you any room to breath.  If it weren’t for the people around, you would press up on him right now; that’s what you wanted to do!

“Both is good,”  you squeak out before moving away to go back to get another table.  You walked with a bounce to ensure he would have a show as you walked away.    

T’Challa had three tables down as you had just finished folding your one.  Walking it back to the truck, your foot hits a hole in the ground you didn’t see.  You lose your balance as you try to hold the table, but it sends you off kilter even more.  A sharp pain shoots through your ankle as you land, the table plops on top of you.  

You yelp in pain as you try to push the table off and not move your leg.  Suddenly the table is clear off of you and you see T’Challa over you, face riddled with worry.

“(Y/N), are you ok?  Where are you hurt?”  He asks, kneeling and holding your head in his hands.

You point down to your leg.  “My ankle!  God!”

Shuri has come over to look it over.  She presses something on her bracelet causing a stream of light to cascade over your swelling foot.  Your skeletal make up in your ankle is revealed for a short period.

“What is that?”  you ask, having never seen that kind of technology.  

Ignoring you, Shuri says, “It isn’t broken, thank Bast.  We can’t handle an OSHA case right now, right brother?”  Shuri jabs him, chuckling.  T’Challa’s returned expression snaps her back to a professional tone.  “Like I said, not broken, just sprained so she needs to lay off of it a while: wrap it, ice it, the works.”  She instructs as she heads back to her duties.

T’Challa nods, “Ok, come (Y/N).  I’ll take you home.”

You didn’t protest this time.  Your ankle hurt like hell, so a free ride couldn’t hurt.  T’Challa reaches your arm around his shoulders and reaches his arm under your knees to lift you.

“Whoa, whoa!  I don’t like that.  Please, I’ll hop.” you say.

T’Challa looks at you incredulously, “It will be faster if I carried you.”

Your body tenses up, “Come on, I don’t wanna...weigh you down or whatever.  Please, this is embarrassing enough.”

T’Challa bats his eyes realizing the problem, “Do you think I cannot lift you?”

You lean your head back, mortified.  “I know you are strong, I can tell.  But I’m a sturdy gal, I’m just trying to warn you.”

T’Challa sucks his teeth, going at lifting you again.  You close your eyes tightly as your weight becomes nothing in his arms.  You feel the bounce of his stride as you peak to see you are in motion.  T’Challa looks ahead, no signs of strain, he looks at you and winks.  Your cat could meow with how good he was making you feel right now showing off himself.  You hadn’t been lifted since grade school, and your current boo does it like you are a toddler.  God bless it.  

T’Challa puts you down a moment to get the door to his Lexus open.  T’Challa takes your hands as you slowly sit down, folding your legs in, careful to not bump your ankle against the door.

“How are you feeling?”  T’Challa asks, resting his hand on your knee, eyes wide with concern.

You nod, “I’m good, don’t worry.”  You cup the side of his face, causing him to lean his face into your palm.  He turns to kiss your palm before getting up to close your door and make his way to the drivers’ side.

Starting the engine, he asks, “Alright, now what is your address?”  as he searches for the GPS program in his dash.  You give it to him, praying to God Tavia hadn’t made it home yet.

Once you guys are on the road, T’Challa reaches over for one of your hands in your lap.  “Are you still ok?”

“Yeah, more than.  Thanks, by the way, for the ride.”

“Ahh, don’t thank me.  It’s the least I could do.  You were such a big help today.”  T’Challa says gripping your hand a little tighter.

“Hardly!  I took down two tables and almost broke an ankle.  Plus we won’t be able to go out tonight cuz of me.”  You say disappointedly.

“If I was by your side like I said I would, there would be known of these issues to begin with.”  T’Challa takes your hand, kissing the back of it.  

You almost forget your ankle when he warms you up like that.  A man admitting fault was a big turn on, you had to admit.  And you loved how affectionate he was, without pressure; just enough.  Looking at your ankle you remember something from earlier, “What was that device Shuri used?  It was like a portable X-Ray device?”

T’Challa nods slowly, “Precisely what it was.  Shuri developed it in her lab in Wakanda and it’s been pretty vital to our village.”

You think on this, “Wow, you guys have a lot more to you than I imagined.  It’s beautiful.”

T’Challa smirks, “The Western media would make you think we are impoverished but we have handled ourselves without outside help, and I think that says something.”  Your mind was churning with so many other questions but before you knew it, you guys made it your your place.  

Luckily you all have an elevator, so T’Challa only carried you, without hesitation, to the elevator then your door.  Setting you down, you get your keys together to find the one for your door.

“Umm, once I get inside, I should be able to manage if you need to make it back to the park.”  you say nervously.  

“Oh, they wouldn’t miss one person, I think.  If it’s comfortable with you, I want to check your ankle once more before I head back, though.”  He looks at you with a serious expression.

You nod, turning to the door to hide your excitement.  As you open the door, the apartment is dark and quiet, so Tavia must be having a good night.  Turning on the lights, you start hobbling to the couch.  T’Challa doesn’t miss a beat, ducking under your arm to support you as you sit down.  

T’Challa takes a couple decorative pillows and props them under your ankle, lightly inspecting it.  

“Well it doesn’t look worse, which is good.  Do you have little baggies and ice?”

You nod and point, “The fridge makes it, yeah.  And the drawer under the microwave should have some lunch bags to fill.”  

T’Challa gets to work, Macgyvering an ice bag for you.   As you lay back, you catch yourself smelling like the outside, and instantly get embarrassed.  You can’t get comfortable when you’re funky anyway, plus T’Challa would help you hobble around so might as well use him while he is here.

“Uh, T’Challa, can you hold off on the bag for a second.  I need to go to my room, if you can spare your shoulders.”  you ask.

“All the more for you to lean on, umhle.”  T’Challa says lovingly, as you direct him to the right room.  “It’s nice to see how you live on a daily basis.  You keep a nice home.”  T’Challa says as you reach your room.”

“My roommate gets most of the decorating credit, I gotta say.  I do tell her when to reel it in though, so points for creative direction goes to moi.”

As you step into your room, you declare, “So I need to shower, cuz yikes.”  You say sniffing yourself.  “But did you want to stick around or….”

“I would love to!”  He answers a little quicker than necessary.  “No problem at all.  Do you want me to order something?  We could still have our dinner here.”

“Yes!  Good idea.  Let’s just do a pizza, from that local spot we passed.”

“I am well aware of it.  Excellent choice.”  He takes his phone out as you get a change of clothes and head for the bathroom.

In the shower you give yourself a pep talk.  You are a goddess, queen!  With your prince out there lying in wait for this body.  He wants ALLADIS, sis!  Don’t get nervous, or shy.  If you run out of things to talk about, hey, you are on a bed, fill in the blanks.  Damn, Tavia really got into you.

You lather your body in berry scents as you rinse, giving yourself a towel off and quick moisturization.  You picked some shorts and a baby doll tank  to wear.  Still pajamas, but with a hint of lingerie appeal.  Opening the door you step out to see T’Challa flipping through the TV channels.  His head cranes in your direction.

“I didn’t think I’d smell something so heavenly until the pizza arrived.”  He says smiling, eyes darting down your body.

“Haha, good one.”  You say limping to the bed, sitting back.

“Was it too….”

“Don’t!”

“....cheesy?”  T’Challa says scrunching his nose.

You slap his back with an audible thud.  He holds takes your calf, placing it on his lap to ice with the bag he made earlier.  The cool sensation was relieving, making you moan audibly.  You bite your lip when you realize how comfortable you were getting.

T’Challa massages your calf as he holds the bag on your ankle, “Does that relieve you, umhle?”

You nod before answering, “Yeah, it does.  Keep doing it.”  You say, your vocal cords suddenly laced with honey as your voice dips seductively.

T’Challa rubs your calf some more.  “I told you it is nice to have something soft to rest my hands on.” studying your leg as he goes.

You could’ve jumped out of your skin with that comment.  So he DID know the double entendre, sly devil!

You chuckle trying to keep from freaking out before saying, “I’m pretty soft just out the shower though, don’t be fooled.  Takes a lot to maintain.”  You make a face behind T’Challa at your words.  Snatching an insult out of the jaws of a compliment, nice.

“You make it look effortless.” he says looking up at you.  “You think you could lend me some products?”  he says showing all those beautiful teeth to you.

You smile into your chest shaking your head.  “You can have whatever you like.  But you have to follow the steps or you’ll just be a mess!”

T’Challa squints at you, “Eh?  What process are you talking about?”

You swallow, hoping this doesn’t go over his head, “Well, you are on the right track practically.  I like to start with my calves, very important.  But I have so much more leg to go.”

T’Challa nods slowly, appearing to understand.  “I see, so then we go to…”  His hand hovers above your thigh.  You shiver in anticipation, “The knee!” planting his hand on your kneecap.

You guffaw, “Right!  Can’t neglect ashy knees! True!  Then what, Chacha?”

He looks at your knee quizzically like its a jigsaw to solve, “The only way to go is the…”  and without a word he snakes his hand up your thigh.  You bite your lip, elevating your hips under his touch.  

T’Challa tucks his lips as he notices your movement, “Is your reaction normal for the process?”   he asks as his voice has caught the honey coated timbre of seduction as well.  His eyes glaze over, looking from your face to your body, mouthslightly agape to the treats he will hopefully be soon to receive.

His hands grip both your thighs, one working inner, the other outer; his long hands encompass the surface area of your thickness easily.  Your walls start to talk back to you, awaiting their turn for a massage.

“When it’s done right, yeah.”  you say, unafraid at this point.  You pull T’Challa’s face into yours, gripping the back of head.  The kiss starts off as your regular ones do, only once did T’Challa try to slip tongue, but you go into a schoolgirl giggle fit when he had.  This time was different, there was no ‘will he, won’t he’ because you were both on the same page.  Your mouths opened simultaneously to welcome each other in.  T’Challa moves your leg away gently as the ice bag falls to the floor.  One of his hands grips your booty cheek, spreading it about like dough.  You felt the spread in your lips as you moaned against his mouth, gripping his back to wrestle his shirt up, feeling the warmth of his skin.  

You lean back on the bed as T’Challa hovers over you, sucking your neck; the sounds sensations of his lips against you could make you climax on its own.  Then he got the nerve to pepper your collarbone and chest area with kisses, gripping your titties up like the were ripe for the picking.

“I have been wanting to explore your body for weeks.”  He says suckling on your neck in between.  “You can’t imagine the torture I have sustained to remain respectful.”

You shiver at this confession.  All the feelings you had and that he gave you were mutual.  “I think I can, ‘Challa.  I feel it, 10 times more.”

You hadn’t gotten this far before, and it was becoming overwhelming for you.  You either had to stop or get it in.  Reaching for the button of his pants, you were shooting for the latter.  T’Challa freezes above you as he watches your hands undo his pants.  His breathing is heavily laden as you work the fly down to relieve his growing protrusion.

T’Challa begins to ask, “Umhle, are you sure-” before there is a knock on the front door.

You instantly dry up as you forgot the pizza was on the way, dropping your hands frustratedly.  T’Challa rests his head on your shoulder a moment, before unmounting you to gain his composure on the side of the bed.

You don’t see his face but an awkward amount of time passes before you sit up.  “I’ll get the door...”

T’Challa waves his hand in protest, “No, you rest your ankle, I’ve got it, I just...need time.”  He gets up, buckling and zipping his pants as he walks outside.  You cross your arms in wait, thinking about what almost happened.  You would have to take another shower with all the preheating he did to your oven.

T’Challa stands at the door with the box in his hand.  “Did you want to eat in here?”

He looked at you like a lost puppy.  You weren’t sure what he was thinking of, but you figured the moment between you both has passed for now.

You nod, patting the bed.  “Yeah, nothing fancy here.  Come on.”

T’Challa sits on the edge of the other side, placing the box between you both.  He picks up the ice bag to place on your ankle once more, patting your leg like cattle this time.  

The fresh smells makes your stomach churn as you remember how hungry you were, grabbing a slice; T’Challa takes one as well, taking a big bite.  You turn the TV to one of your tried and true comedies to binge.  As the canned laughter fills your room, you look over to T’Challa looking like he is about ready to doze off.

“T’Challa?”  you call to him.

His eyes flutter open as he looks to you, a lazy smile spreads across his face.  “I’m sorry, umhle.  I’m more tired than I thought before.”  He gets up to stretch, joints popping, groaning with relief.

“You can sleep over if you want...just sleeping, you know.  You’re tired, I’m tired, let’s just...sleep.”  you say rambling.  You wanted to make sure there was no pressure to spontaneously perform again.

T’Challa leans over the bed kissing you on the side of your face.  “You would take in a lost Wakandan to lay his head at your residence?”

You give him a defiant look, “I didn’t say the whole village, now.  Just you!”  You both laugh as he takes the pizza box and sets it on your table.  

“Plus my ankle has felt much better since you been here.”  You tell him as if he needed further convincing.  He climbs in next to you, resting his head on you, wrapping his arm around your waist.

“Then let’s dream for a speedy recovery.”  He says sleepily.

You feel his hand rub your side gently, slowing up until he goes to sleep.  The hum of his breathing sounds so sweet to you as you close your eyes to listen to its melody.  Turning off the TV, you shimmy down to lay next to him, stirring T’Challa only a little, who adjusts to pull you in for spooning as you call it a night.  You thought about how wild the night progressed but you still wouldn’t change a minute of it.  His arms beat the panther plushie you have been hugging on any day.

Morning rays flood your room as the sun woke you up.  You start to stretch and jerk with alarm when you feel him around you still.  You forgot for a second he stayed with you.  Adjusting your titties back in your shirt, you hear him waking up behind you as well.

“Mmm, is it morning already?”  T’Challa groaned.

“It is, Chacha.”  You look back at him, eyes still squinting awake but smiling at nonetheless.   “Do you want to do breakfast?”  you ask turning to face him.

T’Challa rubs your back as he replies, “I wish I could.  But I have to get back to the center to debrief about yesterday’s festivities.  It’s already-” he looks at his watch.  “9:30 am.  I’ll be there around noon, so I’ll go home and freshen up first.”

You whine at his plans, rubbing his chest for coaxing, “I don’t want you to go yet…”

His forehead meets yours, “How about I order you breakfast to enjoy in my absence and we make a date for my place next week?”  He looks at you for a reply.

You wipe some sleep out of his eye before answering, “I guess that sounds good.”  You exchange smiles before pecking a kiss on each other.  

Suddenly music blasts from the living room.  Tavia has been on a workout kick that requires a trap soundtrack to stay motivated.

T’Challa winces at the noise, “And we can be free from interruptions...”  He twirls a wayward twist in your hair.  “Completely free to do...anything.”

You squeeze your thighs at the thought before squirming away to get up.  “I’d like that, T’Challa.  Let me walk you out.”

Opening your bedroom door, you see Tavia hopping from one side of the room to the other.  She sees you come out.

“Hey girl!  Listen, when I’m done, let’s do a brunch thing or somethin!  I’m starving and got some stories for you!”  After one rotation she looks back at you for reply, by now noticing T’Challa.  Tavia stops in her tracks, pausing her video.

“Tavia, this is T’Challa.”  You make faces, pointing at Tavia from behind him as he walks over to her.

“Nice to meet a friend of (Y/N)’s.  I have heard wonderful things.”

“Same here...T’Cha...lla.”  Tavia says dumbfounded.  You give her a thumbs up.

You and T’Challa walk over to the front door going outside to kiss each other goodbye once more before closing the door.  

You and Tavia look at each other in silence for a second before bursting out in shrieks and giggles, jumping around.

“That’s my BITCH!  I see you with that morning after glow on you!  Talk to me, tell me something GOODT!”

You guys park on the couch before you start, “Ok, so first things first, we didn’t sleep together; like we literally just slept.”

Tavia instantly checked out.  “Oh HELL NO!  Did he go down on you at least?”

You shake your head.

“Come ON, B!  Well what the fuck is there to talk about??  How is he here in the morning but not for getting it in.  You need to swipe your card before it expires!”

“It doesn’t expire, hoe!  And I’m more than ready to swipe it, cash it, turn it in to the authorities, but if you let me tell the story-”

A knock raps on the door.  You both look at each other confused before you get up to answer.  Peeping through the hole, you see a delivery man, you think.

Opening the door, the man holds two sacks to you.

“Delivery, miss!”

“We didn’t order anything…” You say looking to Tavia.

The delivery man looks at the receipt. “A….Ms. Macchiato?”

The name rings bells.  T’Challa said he would order breakfast for you, but you forgot to turn it down.  

Tavia comes up behind you, “What is it?”

“T’Challa got us breakfast,”  you say taking the bags and thanking him.

“Bish whet??  Gimme gimme gimme!”

Tavia rips open a bag to see the omelettes, hashbrowns, toast, boiled eggs, sausage, bacon.  

Another knock comes to the door.  You jump to get it.

“Here are the drinks too, Miss.”  the delivery man huffs and puffs.

“Oh thank you!”  you reply taking the OJ and apple juice cups.

Tavia is tearing through her spinach omelette when she says, “Ok, I’m ready to hear it.  What freaky shit you put on him to do alladis??”

Part 5

Other Works

King Kil’mawalls  

T’akia

N’Jadaka’s Helpful Hands

Some Weeks Are Better Than Others

Song of Stevens

Commencement Day

Wakanda Got Y’all

My Ragtag

@sweetpeachjones@scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade@hairhattedghooligan@universalbri @therevolution-willbelive@you-like-this-chain @sarcastic-sunshines@airis-paris14 @afraiddreamingandloving @kreolemami @lalapalooza718 @syreanne

No mans land Tags

afraiddreamingandloving groovybbyy and nyeebey, yall here too! I just can’t tag you for some reason <3</p>

[afterspark-podcast]

Let’s Play Transformers War for Cybertron, Chapter 3 Transcript

Episode

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Into Music]

[The main menu for Transformers War for Cybertron displays.]

O: Hi, guys!  Sooo, uh, we found out a thing last week.  Um, they shut the servers for this game down, and you need the servers in order to play multiplayer.  Soo... here’s what we’re gonna do.  Ah, I’m gonna play, uh, and, uh, Specs and Chezni are going to provide commentary, probably while I’m making a fool of myself.  And that’s how we’re gonna finish this damn- game dammit, because we are going to finish this.  I started it, I wanna finish it.

C: A moment of silence for the Activision servers.

S: [sighs] Yup.

C: [laughs]

O: [laughs] Fuck you Activision.

S: [laughs]

O: I get it, just why can I not host a game or something!?  I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.  I’m just annoyed, because I was actually having fun playing multiplayer and I’m like, oh COME ON!

S: It was fun, I’d been looking forward to it.

O: Well, hopefully, you’ll still be somewhat amused by watching me play.  Unfortunately, and I’m- I’m really sad, cause I was so happy, I was like, yay, Chezni’s going to play as Soundwave, because I refuse to play as Soundwave, cause he basically, has a healing gun, which is all but useless when you have like, computer allies.  So I’m like, oh yay, Soundwave will get some love!  Mm-mm.  Mm-mm.

S: [laughs]

O: And I refuse to play as anybody that isn’t Megatron in the Decepticon campaign, if he’s available, because unlike most of the other guns, you cannot pick up the Fusion Cannon as a drop, I am using the damn Fusion Cannon.

S: Ah.

C: You can’t steal Megatron’s arm?

O: [laughs] No, but in the sequel game you can!

[Owls selects Campaign > Solo Campaign > Chapter Select.]

C: I’m pretty sure that’s wrong…

O: [laughs] Well, I mean why not, the man stole a Prime arm- er, a Prime’s arm in Transformers: Prime, did he not?

[Chapter III, Iacon Destroyed is selected.]

O: Alright, uh, wait- what chapter was it?  Yeah, Iacon Destroyed.

[Owls clicks on the first checkpoint before immediately backing out and then clicking on it again.  The character selection menu is displayed and she scrolls through the three available characters for the level, Megatron, Soundwave, and Breakdown.]

O: We are in Iacon Destroyed, uh, our three characters available are: Breakdown, Soundwave, and Megatron.  And Soundwave, rather sadly, doesn’t like, have any way to use his cassettes when you’re playing as him.  Which makes me sad.

S: Aww.  That’s disapp-

O: Cuz he definitely- he definitely uses them to fight you later.

S: That’s disappointing.  I would have liked to play with um, Breakdown.

O: Yeah.

C: Yess.  Specs you- you’re with me in that you’re- you’re a big Breakdown fan, right?  Oh, no, wait!  This is Breakdown, not Knockout, sorry!

O: [laughs]

S: Well, I- I like both of them.

C: Is Knockout in this game?

O: No, not at all!

S: No.

O: Knockout was created wholesale for Prime.  Like he’s not- he didn’t appear in anything before that.

S: Yeah.

O: Whereas Breakdown, even if Prime wasn’t out yet (which I don’t think it was) was a character that existed in G1.

S: Yes, he came out late in Season 2, and he was part of the Stunticons.  And his personality quirk is that he’s very neurotic.

C: Heh.

S: Like, he thinks street lights are staring at him.

C & O: [laugh]

O: Wow, that was quite different in Prime, wasn’t it? [laughs]

C: Wow.

S: Well, that’s just in G1, he’s not paranoid about things in uh, Prime.  Cuz he’s an entirely different character with a completely different origin- origin, probably.  Though, a lot of people like to write him as originally being a member of the Stunticons.

O: Is it bad my brain sunk- just jumped straight to, “Well, it’s amazing how much less neurotic he is after getting boned for a couple million years, huh?”

A: [laugh]

S: Oh god, the fact that apparently Breakdown-

O: I’m just saying, somebody look at Knockout and tell me that boy don’t fuck.  I’m just saying! [laughs]

S: Well, the fact that Knockout’s entire design philosophy was apparently, make him sexy.

O & S: [laugh]

C: [imitating TFP Starscream] “Oh, you’re one of those.”

O & S: [laugh]

O: Starscream, you have no room to talk! [laughs]

C & S: [laugh]

O: NOOO room! [laughs]

S: Now I kinda wanna go get out the Prime artbook, but this is not the time!  So let’s get to the- let’s get to the game.

C: Right, right.

O: Let’s get to me blowing things up!

[Owls selects Megatron and the game goes to a loading screen, before opening up with a text crawl narrated, yet again, by Steve Blum.

Narrator: Hungry for more power.]

O: [quietly] Oh, thank fuck.  It was so loud guys, it was so loud, and now it’s not! [Referring to the sound issues in the last couple of chapters. ~O]

[Narrator: Megatron plans to corrupt the very core of Cybertron itself with Dark Energon.  But to do so, he must first find the Omega Key.  Which will unlock the gateway to the core.]

O: Nothing bad can happen with this plan!

S: [sighs] Oh, Megatron.  He wants-

[Narrator: Megatron launches a full scale assault on Iacon, capital city of the Autobots where the key is protected by Zeta Prime--leader of the Autobots.]

O: This is a terrible idea!  Why does he think this is a good idea!?

S: He really wants the Space Crack.

O: I- I guess, but- but did he need to give it to the planet!? [laughs]

S: He wants to infect the planet with Space Crack to get more Space Crack.

O: Ah, so he needs a Space Crack generating machine.

[An in-game cinematic starts with a drop ship hovering close to the ground in what appears to be the middle of a city.  Megatron, Soundwave, and Breakdown jump off the ship onto the ground below, while Starscream drops out of the ship, and floats a little above the group in robot mode.

Megatron: Starscream - continue forward and meet Zeta Prime’s armies on the front line!

Starscream: Have no fear, Lord Megatron!  Under my leadership, Decepticon victory is assured!]

O: Oh, shut up.

[Megatron: Do not fail me!

Starscream transforms and flies off into the sky.

Breakdown: Why aren’t we joining the main battle, Megatron?

Megatron: While Starscream attacks Zeta Prime’s armies head on, we shall move behind enemy lines and obtain the Omega Key.

As Megatron talks, the camera view cuts back and forth between the three party members as well as the battle they’ve been dropped into.  Around them Autobot and Decepticon forces are fighting each other.]

O: Because-

[Breakdown: The Omega what?]

O: -he basically, will be invisible.

[Soundwave: The Omega Key grants access to the Core of Cybertron.]

C: Omega say what?

O: Soundwave <3

[Megatron: Once I have access to the core, I will infuse it with Dark Energon and subject the entire planet’s energy supply to MY WILL!

New Objective, Enter the Stellar Galleries, displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

The camera swaps to the gameplay view.  The party has been dropped off on a raised platform that has two sets of stairs leading down to ground level off to the right and left.

In front of them is a large reddish-brown building, surrounded by more reddish-brown structures on either side.  Directly in front of the building there appears to be some kind of courtyard, that contains blueish energon flowing like water in two fountains, two artificial waterfalls on either side of the courtyard, as well as additional water features visible at the building’s entrance.

The front of the building resembles a face with two eyes and a mouth.]

C: Does that building have a face?

[Autobot: Decepticon intruders!  They’re inside the city!

Megatron stops and looks up at the weird face on the building.]

O: You know, it might?

[Breakdown: Autobots attacking!  Hey, wasn’t Starscream supposed to keep these guys occupied?

The group is in the middle of a firefight, and Megatron is hit by a shot before running over to the edge of the raised platform the party is on and looking around.  He shoots an Autobot at a sentry gun.]

O: Oh fuck, who’s shooting at me bug- you bastards!

[Megatron: Even the Autobots aren’t foolish enough to leave the Stellar Galleries undefended.  Destroy them!]

O: That one exploded...

C: So Specs, now we get to act like uh, we're the masters of everything and we would never make any of the mistakes- [laughs]

O: [laughs] Yeah, yeah, you guys have fun over there.  I'll just uh, you know- I'll put my metaphorical life on the line.

[Megatron continues to shoot at Autobots with his Fusion Cannon and attempts to avoid taking enemy fire.]

C: [laughs]

O: Or, you know, insert comment about, “I still have a Fusion Cannon here, thank you!”

S: Yeah, oh-

O: Fucking rocket fucker. [laughs]

[Megatron takes aim at an Autobot hiding behind a large energy shield.  Periodically, the shield drops and the Autobot shots missiles, leaving them vulnerable for a few seconds.]

S: Oh.  I like... I can't decide if the lighting is like, very warm or if that's supposed to be the metal color.  One of those things- pieces of wall looks like a face, and it’s kind of-

O: [laughs] That’s what Chezni said too.

S: -fucking with me.

O: [laughs] The building is staring at you Specs!  The building is staring at you, it’s a friendly building!

[Megatron jumps down off the platform and takes aim at some Autobots he couldn’t see in his previous vantage point.]

S: Nooo…

O: I feel like I’m in a- like, watch- now I feel like I’m watching a children’s show where like, everything has faces. [laughs]

S: Yeah.

C: Your friends on the right exploded for like, no reason.

O: Will you stay still, you!?

[Several Autobots run up to the area where Megatron and some Decepticon grunts are.  Megatron attempts to shoot them but misses multiple times before finally hitting them.]

S: Oh.

O: Megatron!  We need more bullets, or you need to have better aim!

[Megatron is still firing on Autobots, but is running low on ammunition.]

S: Hm, so-

[Autobots continue to target Megatron.]

O: Oh my god, go away!  Oh sorry, Specs.

S: This area actually looks like it would be really pretty... if it wasn't in the middle of a firefight.

O: Yeah!

C: I agree.

O: Yeah, it does.  And, you know, we're actually outside in what passes as daylight on Cybertron?  Which, uh, which we- we haven't gotten to see like this entire time, you know?

[Megatron turns around in a circle, looking up at the sky which is reddish orange in color.]

S: Yeah.

C: So, wait, is it normal for Cybertron to have water?

O: Uh... yeah-

S: That’s not water.

O: It’s Energon.

C: Oh.

[The immediate Autobots defeated, the party moves forward towards the interior of the building, walking past all of the ‘water’ features.]

C: The Energon must flow.

O: Although, som- sometimes it has water?  Sometimes it doesn’t.  Sometimes it has the Sea of Rust?

S: Sometimes it's got other things.  I mean, it could be uh, like, some sort of metal with a very low melting point.

O: Yeah.

C: Gotcha.

O: Pick one?

[Megatron is able to fully replenish his Fusion Cannon ammo.  Off to his left a weapon chest is visible, he walks over to it.]

O: Oh good, a gun.  Sniper rifle?

[Megatron smashes the chest and receives a Scatter Blaster (Full-Auto).]

O: No?  No?  Oh, damn.

[Megatron walks over to the left, smashing another ammo chest and then walking around to an area with multiple artificial waterfalls.]

S: Just the fact that your method of opening certain things just involves beating the shit out of it with-

O: Why- why do you think I’m like, “Megatron smash!”  [laughs] Cuz it- it's very, very accurate, thank you.

S: Yeah.

[Seeing nothing else of value, Megatron turns around and transforms into vehicle mode, heading further into the interior of the building.]

O: Look, if I’m playing as a hulking warlord, I’m gonna have fun with it, okay?

[Soundwave: Megatron -- sensors indicate Autobot energy signatures nearby.

Breakdown: Where?  I don’t see anything...

After heading up some stairs, Megatron exits into another smaller open air courtyard.  In the middle stands a giant statue of some unknown Cybertronian.  Soundwave and Breakdown follow behind Megatron, while three Decepticon grunts are waiting in front of the statue.]

O: I keep trying to shoot the Decepticons, because I’m like, “PEOPLE ARE RUNNING AT ME!”

[Megatron: The Autobots are here, no doubt skulking in the shadows.]

O: Do you have any room to talk?

C: Ah, yes, the Autobots, known for their skulking.

O: Yes!

[The Decepticon grunts are all killed when some energy blasts come out of nowhere.

Decepticon Grunt: NOOO!

Megatron backs up and begins looking around the room.]

O: Oh god, even our guys sound stupid when they die.

S: Known for their deception.

C: [laughs]

[Breakdown: They’re all around us!]

S: Nevermind our uh, faction name.

[Megatron: Return fire!  Destroy anything that moves!]

C: Right.

O: You are being deceived-

[Megatron is destroyed by energy blasts from the invisible enemies, and Owls is kicked out to the Mission Failed screen.]

O: -goddammit. [laughs]

C: [laughs]

S: Bye, Megatron.

O: I am deceiving myself, apparently!

[Owls selects, “Restart From Last Checkpoint,” and the game reloads at the doorway to the second courtyard.

New Objective, Enter the Stellar Galleries, displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

C: Just shaking off the rust!

O: Uh-huh.  I- why- I wish it would have saved me picking shit up though.

[Megatron turns around and smashes the weapon chest behind him to pick up a Scatter Blaster.

Megatron: This shall be the downfall of countless Autobots!

He then runs over to an ammo chest and smashes it to refill his ammo.

Megatron: Argh!]

C: Alright, so they're here for the Omega Key, and they want the Omega Key because…?

[Megatron enters the doorway, walking out into the same courtyard as before.

Soundwave: Megatron -- sensors indicate Autobot energy signatures nearby.

Breakdown: Where?  I don’t see anything...]

O: They need the key to get to the center of the planet, so he can put is Space Crack into the planet.

[Megatron: The Autobots are here, no doubt skulking in the shadows.

The 3 Decepticon grunts are killed, a firefight ensues.]

S: I kind of want to say that the Omega Key is supposed to open the Omega Lock and it-

O: Well, it’s held by Omega Supreme, so you’re not wrong.

S: [sighs]

C: Omega Supreme.

S: They really like their Omega naming.

[The party moves forward and begins attacking the invisible enemies.

Breakdown: They’re all around us!

Megatron: Return fire!  Destroy anything that moves!]

O: You know, the one that sounds like a burrito!

C: Yeah.

S: [laughs]

C: Sounds like the kind of thing you’d go to a fast food restaurant and order.

S: Except that um, having um, having that order means that you automatically want to murder all the Constructicons.

O: [laughs] Your rage at the Constructicons will be complete!

C: Yeah, so I’d like an- a number 6?  An Omega Supreme with a side ord- with a side of killing all the Destructicons.

O: Constructicons, but yes.

C: Constructicons, sorry.

O: What- sorry, with a side of uh, the rage at being betrayed by my Constructicon bros.

S: Yup.

C: So wait, are those the green and purple ones?

O: Yup.

S: Yes.

O: They make Devastator!

S: They are construction equipment.

[Megatron chases around a particularly troublesome enemy that keeps dodging his shoots.]

C: Why does Omega Supreme hate them?

O: Watch our podcast and find out! [laughs]

S: Yeah...

C: I edit your podcast!

O: We haven’t gotten to that episode yet, that’s why I’m making that joke. [laughs]

C: Gotcha.

[The last enemy is taken out, Megatron grabs some additional ammo, and heads down some stairs to where Breakdown and Soundwave are waiting.]

O: But yes, please Specs, feel free to enlighten him, I just had to rib him first. [laughs]

S: It involves um... crimes against architecture.

O: [laughs]

C: Great. [unintelligible]

O: [continues laughing] “Crimes against architecture,” huh?

S: Well, that's roughly what happens.  Very roughly.

[The party exits into a circular area that is open to the sky.  In the distance an Autobot drop ship crashes.  Megatron throws a grenade into the center of the area.

Note: Owls did not mean to throw the grenade.

Breakdown: What are you trying to do!?]

C: Megatron keeps his troops on his toes.  “Didn't expect me throw a grenade at your feet, did ya!?”

[Starscream (COM): Megatron -- the Dark Energon is proving every bit as formidable as you predicted!  The Autobot armies crumble before it!]

O: [deep voice] On your toes, Breakdown!  On your toes!

C: [laughs]

[The party heads through a doorway on their right, and onto a walkway.  Megatron grabs a Scatter Blaster from a nearby weapon chest.

Megatron: Excellent, Starscream.  Continue engaging them so that I can acquire the Omega Key.

Breakdown: There’s something off about that Starscream guy, Megatron.  I don’t trust him.]

C: So wait, that was um, those enemies you were fighting earlier were invisible weren’t they?

O: Yup.

S: Yeah, they turned up in one of the previous areas.

[Megatron: Oh, I trust Starscream about as far as I can blast him… but he shows a rare cunning that I find intriguing.

The party continues up a ramp, once they reach level ground again, Megatron walks over to a gun that is lying on the ground.  It is revealed to be a Null Ray (10x Scope) and he picks it up before continuing forward.]

O: THANK YOU!

[Soundwave: Be aware -- snipers at the entrance.

Megatron: Move forward and flank them!  Let nothing stand in my way!

Megatron takes cover around the corner and shoots at the snipers with the Null Ray he just acquired.]

S: Though, I'm not sure what they are or what they do based off of in previous uh..

O: I don’t know.

C: They’re all Smokescreens.

O: [laughs] Mirage.

S: They’re more likely be to be Mirage.

O: Are they’re all Mirages?

[The party moves out into another large open area, with a big fountain in the middle and Megatron takes cover behind the fountain, still shooting Autobots.]

C: Mirage, sorry.  I don’t know why, I get Mirage and Smokescreen mixed up.

O: Well, I mean, they do similar things but in completely different ways?

S: Yeah.

O: Uh, Mirage keeps people from seeing him by turning invisible.  Smokescreen keeps people from seeing things by generating smoke.

S: Yeah.

C: So ones really fancy, and the other one just pollutes the environment, got it.

S: [laughs] More or less.

O: Yeah!  Yeah, you know what?  I feel like- I-I, you know, I have the feeling Mirage would agree with that statement.  Like, a lot.  You would probably have made his day by describing it that way. [laughs]

[The last Autobots in the area are defeated.  Megatron walks around the fountain passing another gun, before finding an ammo chest and smashing it.]

O: Smash~

[Megatron passes under a large arch directly in front of the fountain, passing by another ammo chest and smashing it.]

O: Why did I do that?  That doesn’t get me anything.  I like to smash things, that’s what’s going on here.

C: It’s addicting.

[The party continues forward, passing by two large water features and heading up some stairs.]

O: [quietly] Smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash.

[Breakdown?: Let’s go, Decepticons!

The party turns a corner and comes across a bridge flanked by a multitude of statues.  Autobot snipers are on some platform above the bridge, shooting down at the party.]

S: Breakdown looks so tiny compared to um, to Megatron.

C: Yeah.

[Megatron takes out three Autobots with the sniper rifle in rapid succession.]

C: Those guys didn’t stand a chance.

S: You're very good at the sniper stuff.

O: Eh, it’s easier? [laughs] Cuz I’m not in a firefight.  I don’t actually do that well when I uh-

[Autobot reinforcements come out of an entry way behind the platforms and jump down onto the bridge, firing on Megatron and the others.]

O: I wish this sho- thing in the sequel where you could swap arms- um, I don’t very well in the middle of a fight, unfortunately.

[Megatron runs in front of the bridge so he can take cover on the other side and better aim at the enemy, and then takes out the remaining two Autobots.

Megatron: Decepticons cannot be stopped!]

C: Yup, Owls is our sniper.

O: So I just do this.  And then, they threw the sniper into the game by herself. [laughs]

C: I'm the one who gets lost, and Specs is the one who runs up and cuts people.

A: [laugh]

O: I’m gonna cut ya.

S: Well, you're not the only one who gets lost Chezni, I do too.

[Megatron grabs some ammo and then walks over to Breakdown and Soundwave, who are standing in front of a locked door.

Soundwave: Megatron, the gate to the Stellar Galleries is locked.

Megatron: I anticipated this.  A powerful infusion of Dark Energon will bend the doors to my will!

Megatron uses Dark Energon and destroys the door, allowing them to walk in at their convenience.]

C: That is true.  We both get lost.

S: Yeah, the problem I find is just that a lot of, um.  Well, a lot of games have to reuse uh, environment assets enough that I have difficulty ident- identifying other areas.  Cuz ia lot of it just looks the same to me.

[Upon entering the tunnel, Megatron smashes two nearby Autobots who had been injured by the Dark Energon blast.]

C: Yeah.

O: It all looks the fucking same!

S: Pretty much.

[Megatron briefly enters a room before turning around and exploring the adjacent hallways. He picks up some health from a health chest and returns to the room.  There is a large rotating pillar in the center that has multiple sets of lasers at varying heights, and seven spaced out platforms surrounding the center pillar.  Three of the platforms have some sort of batteries on them that the quest markers are indicating, 4 are smaller, circular and at a lower level than the ledge the party entered on.  Blue energon is visible on the floor.

Autobot Security System: Initiating defense grid.

Soundwave: Megatron -- those batteries feed the security grid.

Megatron: Quickly!  Infuse the batteries with Dark Energon!

New Objective, “Disable the security system,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

O: [singing to the tune of the Star Wars theme]  Space crack!  It’s some space crack!  He wants to use some space crack for THINGS!

[Megatron dodges a laserbeam and jumps to the platform on his left, landing on the one right below it that a battery is on.]

C: Megatron- just used his force powers to open that door.

O: Yes.

C: But… why does he not just use his force powers to do everything now?

O: I- he kinda does use for it for a bunch of things?

[By the time Megatron gets to the battery it has already been infected with Dark Energon.  Sentry guns pop out of the wall and fire on him and Breakdown.

Breakdown: We gotta turn of these lasers before we all get fried!]

C: Or was he just like, super charged when he first got it and now he’s coming off-

O: I mean, I think he was super charged uh, when he first got it, uh, for sure, but-

S: Yeah, and now he’s-

C: And now he’s just chasing after that.

[Megatron takes aim at the sentry guns around the room, trying to dodge the guns and laser with limited success.]

O: Yeah, he’s chasing after that high- what is shooting at me?

S: That sweet, sweet high.

C: I think you’re shooting yourself.

S: Also-

O: Maybe I am, but I didn’t think I could do that the Fusion Cannon.

C: Oh.

[Breakdown: We gotta turn of these lasers before we all get fried!

Megatron jumps up on a higher platform, and attempts to jump to a higher platform with a battery on it, but aborts and lands back on the platform he jumped from when it doesn’t look like he can make it.]

O: Ugh.

S: I don't know how you're supposed to turn off the lasers.

C: Violence.

O: I know there must be a way, I just don’t remember how.

C: See, Specs, after watching all of um, you know, the- the footage that I’ve edited for the- vid- epi- videos that we were able to play together in.  You are amazing good at finding-

[Soundwave: Scans indicate that the batteries power the security grid.

Megatron jumps back up on the platform he entered on and attempts to go around the pillar and jump on another platform but instead just walks off the edge, landing in the energon and dying instantly.]

O: That’s-!  I- do- it’s- die! [annoyed gibberish noises]

[The Mission Failed screen displays, Owls selects ‘Restart From Last Checkpoint’, and the game loads at the doorway to the pillar room.

New Objective, Enter the Stellar Galleries, displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

C: [laughs] You are amazingly good at finding the button you need to push.

[Autobot Security System: Initiating defense grid.

New Objective, “Disable the security system,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

Soundwave: Megatron -- those batteries feed the security grid.

Megatron: Quickly!  Infuse the batteries with Dark Energon!]

O: Yeah, I'm actually suffering from that right now.

[Megatron jumps over to the battery platform on his left and plants a detpak on it.]

C: I think you- I think Specs nailed like 75% of anything we needed to interact with.

S: I don't know, it's a talent, I guess?

C: [laughs]

[Megatron jumps over to the battery platform across from the entrance and plants a detpak on it as well.  He then turns around and bashes a health chest to get health before jumping to the last battery platform, but before he lands, Breakdown runs over and plants a Detpak on the battery and it explodes.]

S: Maybe you're supposed to shoot something?  Maybe?

C: I think she just needed to go over and hit the computer.

[The lasers deactivate, and the middle pillar is now covered in Dark Energon and little bits of purple electricity are coming off it and the three battery packs.

Autobot Security System: Security measures deactivated.

Megatron: Soundwave.  Damage report.

Soundwave: Scans show minimal damage.]

C: Looks like it’s off now.

O: Yup.

S: Oh, that’s good.

C: So, that’s good.

[New Objective, “Find the Omega Key,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

The blue energon on the floor has also disappeared- Megatron jumps down to the floor and the party leaves through a newly opened door.]

O: Yeah, I had to- I had to, you know, put my Space Crack all up in it.  That’s what I had to do.  Mmm-hm.  Mmm-hm.  Seems legit.

[The party walks down a hallway that opens up into a long room.  Across the room a weapon chest is visible.]

O: And now I literally do not care about any other gun, because I have the two I want.

[Sentry guns on the walls to the left begin firing at the party, who fire back.

Megatron: Now...time for more strategic slaughter!]

C: How do you think Starscream would feel about him using his gun?

O: How do you think he got it?

S: He might find it hot?

O: [laughs] There we go, yeah.

C: [laughs]

[Two Autobots also begin firing on the party, who make quick work of them.]

S: It’s like, obviously this is the hottest thing.

O: I mean the only thing hotter is him using Megatron, right?

S: Yeah.

O: [laughs]

[The Autobots destroyed, Megatron walks around the room, destroying weapon chests and picking up ammo.

Soundwave: Megatron, our data indicates that the Omega Key is located just beyond that door.

Megatron: Excellent!  This venture has proven far less taxing than I had anticipated.]

C: Now that would be a fun part of a game, if in multiplayer Megatron could turn into a gun and other people could use him.

[Breakdown: Are you serious?  I’m feelin’ pretty taxed, myself.]

O: That would be weird but…

S: That could be... kind of weird-

C: [laughs]

S: Actually, I’m wondering what that sort of…

C: Well, I don’t know it’s just-

S: Like, would other people have the ability to actually shoot you or would you still have control of the shooting?

C: No, I think- I think they would just move and you would shoot.

S: That could be interesting.

O: [laugh] That would be interesting.

S: Like, it might give you a powerup or something?

C: Yeah.

O: I will see that and raise you, imagine trying to have to control a combiner between three people.

C: That would be fun!

S: Oh god, five people.

O: Yeah, no-no-no, I know- I know but- but like, if you could- had to limit it or something so there were only 3 players.

C: Yeah.

O: Um, I just think it sounds funny.

[Megatron walks over to a large doorway where Breakdown and Soundwave are standing and destroys the door with Dark Energon.  The party walks forward into a large room centered around a floating sphere (presumably a model of Cybertron), with smaller circular bodies orbiting it.  To the left and right there are staircases that wind their way up the wall.

Soundwave: The Autobots maintain these rooms for tranquil contemplation.]

S: Honestly, it's reminds me of that game like um, QWOP, I think?

C: Yeah.

[Breakdown: Tranquil contemplation?  What does that even mean?]

S: Basically where you have to control each of the limbs with uh, um…

C: Q, W, O, P.

[Megatron: It means the Autobots laze about and whine over their own inadequacies.  Ugh… what a waste of time and resources.  Decepticons!  Find the Omega Key!]

S: Yeah, or there's a similar game where you have to control a horse.

O: [snorts]

S: Or a unicorn and often it just flops.

C: Yeah, you’re lucky if you can do anything with it.

[Megatron jumps on a nearby platform and begins shooting some of the small spheres orbiting the model.]

O: Apparently Megaton is, in fact, petty enough to shoot these things.

C: Yeah, what- what- is that-

O: He's like, “They're all wimps!  They have a meditation room, how dare they have that!”

C: Ah!

[Megatron begins running up the staircase on his left.]

S: Oh, I was under the impression that they were like, ads.

C: He-

O: [laughs]

[Megatron jumps off the stairs and roams around the first floor of the room some more looking for any missed items.  Not finding anything else, he looks up and continues shooting spheres as he walks back over to the stairs.]

C: “Megatron hates ads!”

S: Or at least that’s what I was thinking.

O: [continues laughing]

C: “Oil change at Sparky’s?  I’ll show you oil change!”

O: [continues laughing] Goddammit.

C: “This is for interrupting my SpaceTube episode!”

O: “It was from SPACE!” [laughs] I do love that idea, I love the idea of it being uh, of- those being like, pop up ads, that’s way funnier.

[Megatron walks back up the stairs arriving on a platform with Breakdown and Soundwave.  To the right is a console.

Megatron: Behold, Decepticons!  The Omega Key!]

C: Yeah, Specs, that’s amazing.

S: I mean, honestly- [laughs] You're welcome, it's just, Cybertron seems like the sort of place where you would have pop-up ads everywhere.

O: Yeah!

C: [laughs]

O: Also, apparently the Omega Key was just here, in this room.

C: What?  In the room with all the space pop-ups?!

S: [laughs]

O: Yes.

C: They didn’t even know they’d come-

S: Well, but maybe they’re representations of the moons?  In which case, it looks like there's an awful lot of Cybertronian moons.

[Megatron walks over to the console and activates it.  The reddish-orange forcefield around a small floating orb in front of the console drops, and the sphere opens, revealing nothing inside but the indent of where a key should be.

Breakdown: Wow.  That is one empty container.]

O: [snorts] Thanks, Breakdown.

[A hologram of Zeta Prime appears above the empty key container.  The camera pans around behind him as he points at Megatron.

Zeta Prime: Megatron, I’m warning you right now.  You are toying with forces beyond your understanding or control.]

O: What is it with Primes and their chins?

[Megatron: Ah, Zeta Prime.  I see you’re still afraid to face me in person.]

C: I was thinking the same thing.

S: Maybe they based it off of, um, Animated?  Cuz that was one chin-tastic animation.

[Zeta Prime: Ha!  Predictable as ever, right down to the empty words.  The Omega Key is under MY protection now, Megatron.]

O: Yeah, Animated is just chin-tastic all the way through, let’s be honest.

S: Yeah.

O: But Sentinel had like, the chinny- the most chin-tastic chin out of all of the chins. [laughs]

S: The chinniest chin chin chin.

C & O: [laugh]

[Megatron: That is hardly a deterrent.  I will enjoy taking the Omega Key from your lifeless hands.]

O: Oh, you have it, so I just have to kill you to get it, cool. [laughs]

[A variety of Autobot enemies appear and a fight ensues.

New Objective, “Defeat Autobot ambushers,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

C: [laughs] “Right, wait- that's not what you're supposed to think!”

S: Oh no-

O: “You’re supposed to be like, Oh no, that sounds difficult!”

S: And Megatron's just like, “Oh, you're challenging me?”

O: “-BIIITCH!”

S: Congratulations!  You’re dead!

C: What a terrible case of me murdering you, you seem to have come down with.

O & S: [laugh]

[Megatron: [laughs] For glory!

Megatron is on the stairway, shooting the various Autobots with the Null Ray, and taking them down in rapid succession.]

O: Oh yes, please just- just stand there let me shoot you, that- that's my favorite thing, yes.

C: Man, Owls makes this look easy.

S: Yeah.

[To the left of the screen some Autobots begin to fire on Megatron who runs behind a pillar to continue shooting.]

O: Ah!

C: I remember these doggone flying guys in the first chapter and I had no idea what to do.

S: Yeah... Actually, now I'm wondering what like, Megatron's preferred scent would be or if Cybertronians even have like, fragrance preferences?

O: [deep voice] “Ah, yes, the scent of motor oil-”

C: A couple of them reference their ‘olfactory sensors’ so they must have some kind of scent.

O: Yeah, they- they clearly can smell but that’s like- yeah, what scents do they like?  I mean, like, humans seem to like flowers, or the smell of rain, what do Cybertronians like?

C: Crop rust!

S: I mean, honestly, would rust smell like the beach to them considering the Sea of Rust?

O: I- considering rust is usually seen as a bad thing, I’m gonna say it wouldn’t have the same connotations.

S: Mmm.

[Megatron shoots an Aerialbot, and the Aerialbot goes flying in a different direction than the momentum of the shot before exploding.]

O: Pfft, that was a weird direction to take that, but okay.

S: Yeah, I mean-

C: So, the Sea of Rust is actually like, a beach of rust?

[Megatron heads down the stairs to his left, before jumping off and landing on the bottom floor.  He is low on ammo, completely out of Fusion Cannon shots, and has 11 Null Ray shots left.]

S: Maybe not?  The problem is I'm not entirely sure if it's considered like a wasteland or…

O: A destination, as it were.

S: Yeah.

C: [chuckles] Like a destination in your mind?

O: Well, I mean like, a vacation destination kind of thing.

C: Oh, oh.

S: Yeah.

O: I-I yeah, I really don’t know-

[Soundwave: Autobots, incoming!

A door in front of Megatron explodes, revealing 2 of the large Autobots carrying machine guns from the first level.]

O: Oh fuck- NO.  NO.  YOU.

C: Wha-

O: YOU!

[Megatron takes cover behind a pillar and shoots at the Autobots.]

S: You need to reload.

C: Are those guys bad?

O: We died against them so many times in the first chapter!

C: Oh!  Right, right, right.

[Megatron transforms and drives up the stairs in tank mode.

Megatron: I shall lead the way!]

O: That's great, but we're gonna do it from higher ground, buddy.

[Megatron goes up the stairs before transforming back to robot mode.  He takes cover behind a pillar, shooting at the large Autobots down below, taking out one of them.]

S: I mean, maybe different metals have different scents?

O: Or minerals?

[Megatron runs out of ammo in his two guns.  Transforming he goes back down the stairs and takes aim at the last remaining Autobot in while in vehicle mode.  He shoots once, hitting an explosive barrel near the Autobot and killing him.]

S: Yeah, I don't know, maybe the Autobots would find more organic notes more interesting because they'd have- it would be exotic and they're more used to those.  Whereas Decepticons might be- might prefer um, more metallic scents.  I don’t know.

C: I would say Tungsten would be-

S: [laughs]

[Megatron: Soundwave, trace Zeta Prime’s broadcast signal.

Soundwave: Commencing scan… Complete.  Its origin is 12.7 cycles ahead.

Megatron runs over to the maintenance door Soundwave and Breakdown are standing by.]

O: Wow- wow, he wasn't even trying to hide himself if Soundwave could do it that quickly!

S: Yeah.

[Soundwave: Scans reveal poor structural integrity surrounding this maintenance access door.

Megatron: You heard him!  Blast the wall!

New Objective, “Proceed to the lower city,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

O: Smash it, you say? [laughs]

[Megatron smashes the door and runs through.]

S: Oh~

[Megatron walks over to an ammo chest and smashes it.]

O: Oh, thank fuck.

[Soundwave: Megatron -- the city subsystems provide a direct line to the broadcat’s origin.

The group enters a dark tunnel with a vaguely green tint.  Up ahead, on the right, there is another maintenance door.  This door is held in place by locks, which Megatron destroys before knocking the door down.]

C: Alright, alright, so, we're in greenlight mode now.

O: [quietly] There we go...

S: Yeah, and I don't much like it because… meh.

C: Megatron, meanwhile-

[The other side of the maintenance door reveals a large pillar with slowly blades spinning on multiple levels.  The room goes down quite a ways, with several sets of blades below the party and blue energon below that.]

O: Oh, look!  More things that want to kill us!

C: -demonstrates that he, uh, doesn’t properly know how to open doors.

[Megatron: Descend here.  And have a care -- one wrong step, and you’re scrap metal.

Megatron jumps off his current level, landing on the next set of blades below.]

O: Well, he was born in a mine, why would he use doors?

C: [laughs]

[Megatron jumps down another level, and waits as the blade slowly moves towards a maintenance door on the opposite wall.

Breakdown: Uh… not that I’m arguing or anything, but -- why don’t we just go back to the dropship and hitch a ride?

Megatron: This is the shortest distance to travel, Breakdown.]

O: [laughs]

S: Okay, who would design this like this?

C: [laughs]

S: Like, seriously, that’s a door!

[Megatron shoots the maintenance door and jumps through, landing in another dimly lit hallway.]

C & O: [laugh]

O: It- maybe it was a maintenance door or something?  I don’t know. [laughs]

S: Maybe…

[The party walks up a stairwell at the end of the hallway, which leads up to a closed door.]

C: Oh, the- the coffee room?

O: [laughs]

C: It’s down- it’s down the pillar of evil fan death.  Death fan.

O: [continues laughing] You can either take the stairs or you can brave the f- fans of death, but if you miss them you will die.  How much do you want your coffee?

[The door opens and party continues through and up another set of stairs before running into an Autobot using a console on the wall.  A fight ensues.

Autobot: Decepticon intruders!  They’re inside the city!]

S: It's too exciting, I’ll do without coffee.

C: [laughs]

[Megatron: Into the tunnel, Decepticons.  And try not to get crushed by the trains.

Megatron takes out the Autobot and the party walks out onto a platform inside of a much larger tunnel.]

S: Oh, trains?  Is this their mass transit system?

[Breakdown: You’re joking, right?

Megatron: Yes, Breakdown -- I am famous for my sparkling sense of humor.  Now GET MOVING, before I dismantle you myself!]

O: [laughs] “I’m known for my sparkling sense of humor.”

S: Oh, it’s mass transit system time…

C: [laughs]

S: ...with mines.

[The large tunnel is indeed revealed to be some kind of mass transit system.  In front of the party the tunnel descends deeper underground.  A train running on the ceiling passes by overhead.  Rolling spherical mines are scattered throughout the floor of the tunnel.  Megatron transforms and begins heading down the tunnel.  Soundwave and Breakdown manage to stay ahead of him.]

C: It's a pity Megatron is a tank, while everyone else is a travelling vehicle.

O: Right?  Like, they’re so much faster than me and I don't just think it's because they’re computer AI’s.

[The party continues down the tunnel, which is also, for not explainable reason, littered with ramps.

Breakdown: Whoa!  Watch out!

More trains pass overhead, the party enters a party of the tunnel with transparent walls.  Other trains are seen running in the distance, along with a lot of exposed piping.]

S: I'm honestly sort of amused that Soundwave is faster.

O: I mean… it- he is a vehicle in this one.

[There are also a few sets of pillars with laser sensors running between them.  Megatron jumps off a ramp and manages to hit one, causing some guns to pop out of the wall and shoot at him with missiles.]

S: I know, but considering that his most well known iterations aren’t vehicles, it's just- I always just find it really funny.

C: It’s like that scene in Beast Wars, “For the Predacon Alliance!”

O: [laughs]

C: Turns into a tape deck.

O: Oh, Ravage, I love you.

[The party continues onwards, until their tunnel meets up with another one.  Ahead of them a train moves across from right to left and two trains go past them on the ceiling.  Megatron turns on the new tracks, following Breakdown and Soundwave who are still ahead of him.]

O: Oh dear, I remember this.  I died.

C: [laughs]

[Megatron: Onward!  Through that door!

A smaller tunnel branches off the main one to the left.  Megatron transforms into robot mode and looks around, nearly getting hit by a train from behind before entering the dark tunnel.]

C: That’s some really good advice, don't get hit by a train.

O: Right?  I'm like, Megatron did not listen to his own advice the first time I played through this level, I don't think! [laughs]

S: And we're back to the green.

O: Yeahhhhh, Cybertron’s a dark, dark place, Specs.

S: Ehhhh…

C: [laughs]

[Megatron heads left at a fork in the tunnel, and walks over and picks up some ammo.

Megatron: A brilliant addition to my efforts!]

O: Megatron, I- do you say that every time you pick up ammo?  And like, I don't mean out loud.  I mean to yourself. [laughs]

S: He very well could.

[To the right a doorway can be seen on other side of the room through a hole in the wall.  Megatron heads back the way he came, heading down the right fork and smashing a weapon’s chest on his way.]

O: [quietly] I don’t know why I’m hitting this-

S: He likes to talk to himself.

O: He just likes to talk. [laughs]

C: [laughs]

[Megatron continues down the hallway, coming to door he’d seen through the wall.

Breakdown: It’s no use, Megatron!  The door’s locked!

Megatron: A simple solution, then.  Break the locks!

Megatron tries to shoot the door and hit it with his melee attack, but neither do anything.  He attempts to aim at the red targets, but nothing happens and he heads back up the hallway to the hole the door was visible through before.]

O: We’ve got to go around.

C: I was gonna say, I was like, “What?”

S: You have to shoot through something?

O: Yeah, but I- I think I have to go over here and shoot something.  Yeah.

C: Oh, of course you have to go to the other side of the door to open the locks on the door.

[Megatron shoots the locks through the hole, destroying them and the door.]

C: Why don't you just climb through there [the hole]?!

[Megatron: Blow open that door!]

O: [deep voice] “We're not savages!”

S: I mean…

O: [laughs]

[Megatron transforms and drives back over to the doorway, jumping down into the room below where Breakdown and Soundwave are waiting.]

S: We’ve got to be polite, got to knock first and then we open- then we go through.

O: Megatron’s idea of knocking is two Fusion Cannon blasts, through the door!  I mean, don’t you know anything? [laughs]

[Megatron: Move to that exit!  NOW!]

C: You do not want the third.

O & S: [laugh]

[Breakdown: Uh, Megatron...]

O: The third goes into your head.

[Soundwave: Autobot cloakers, present.

Megatron: Quickly!  Infuse the batteries with Dark Energon!

Invisible enemies begin firing on the party.]

S: Yeah…

O: Seems legit.

[Quest icons appear over three consoles in the room.  Megatron fires back at the Autobots firing at the party.]

S: Oh, I think- yeah, it looks like you need to um…

C: Shoot everything!

O: Uh, when don’t I?

C: [laughs]

[Megatron continues to shoot at enemies.]

S: I mean, did you activate the... thing [console]?

O: No, because I'm trying to kill the things that are shooting at me!

S: Good point.

[A cloaker uncloaks on top of a nearby platform.  Megatron fires off several shots, missing, but the cloaker continues to stand out in the open.]

C: That guys really content to just stand there.

S: Yeah.

[Megatron finally kills the cloaker and then runs over to one of the indicated consoles, planting a detpak on it.]

C: We believe in you, Owls.

S: Yeah.

O: Thank you, I’m not sure if I believe in me.

[A health chest is visible in the distance, across an area enemies are currently firing on.]

O: I want that health over there though! [laughs]

C: Classic shooter dilema.

[Megatron continues to fire, ducking in and out of cover.  Soundwave walks over and begins healing him.]

O: Oh, Soundwave, you're a beautiful bastard!

S: He is earning his keep today.

[Megatron: Hurry!  Destroy the batteries!]

O: Soundwave always earns his keep in my opinion.  Soundwave could be having an off day, and he’d still be more useful than half the Cons.

S: Oh, yeah.

[The party takes out several enemies clustered around one of the consoles, before Megatron runs over and plants a Detpak on it.]

S: But in this iteration he doesn't have, um, offensive features, or combat features.

O: I know you meant ‘off-fen-sive’ but my brain totally just heard he- he’s ‘o-ffen-sive’ somehow.  As in like, bad.

[The last of the cloakers are destroyed.

Megatron: Excellent work, Soundwave.  Now unlock the exit door.]

C: No, that’s clearly uh, the Soundwave from Animated.

S: [laughs]

O: He was fine!

C: [laughs]

O: He was fine!

C: He had the most catchy, annoying theme-

O: Like, no, I didn’t like him as much as other Soundwaves, but I liked him anyway.

[Megatron walks around the room, looking for any items and then heads over to the health chest and retrieves the health.  He then walks over to a console and activates it, opening a door in front of the group.

Megatron: MOVE, Decepticons!  Double-time!]

C: He was pretty funky fresh.

S: Yeah.

O: [laughs] Goddammit.

[Megatron transforms into vehicle mode and drives down a stairway, arriving at a platform in the same (or similar to) the large tunnel from before.  He grabs some nearby ammo.

Breakdown: Hey Soundwave, you wanna race?

Soundwave: Negative.]

C: Alright, so Megatron-

S: So is it time for trains- sorry.

C: Oh no, go ahead.

S: Is it time for trains again?

C: It might be.

[Megatron transforms into vehicle mode and follows Soundwave and Breakdown into the descending tunnel.  The features from the last tunnel go around are still present, there are spherical rolling mines, ramps, movement sensors, and trains passing over head.]

C: Oh, no just mines of death.

O: Ah, I mean those- those were there in the last go around too.

S: Yeah, more trains!

C: [laughs]

S: The Cybertronian um, transit system is…

[Large flashing red warnings appear on the right and left just before a train passes in front of Megatron.  He uses a ramp, jumping over the moving train.]

O: What does that mean?  That doesn’t-

C: Whose idea do you think it was to put all these ramps down here?

[Megatron: Don’t get hit by the train, you fool!]

O: [snorts] Megatron!  We are far more likely to get hit by a train than either of your subordinates because I’m the one in the driv- the one behind the steering wheel!

[Megatron hits a mine before taking another ramp to avoid the next train.]

O: Um, obviously they’re for maintenance bots, honey.

[The tunnel ahead ends abruptly with a crashed train in the center.  The party diverts from the tracks to a smaller ramp on the right.

Megatron: There -- that station.  From there we can infiltrate the lower levels of Iacon.]

O: Well, they're obviously for getting over those trains that are perpendicular to you.

C: [laughs]

[Breakdown: What -- that’s it?  I was kind of having fun.  In a high speed, suicidal kind of way.]

C: They were probably like, “Well, we could dig safety maintenance tunnels, you know, to go under the trains,” and they were like, “No, you fool!  Ramps!  Ramps are the way to go!”

O: RAMPS! [laughs]

[The party heads up some stairs, exiting to an open air area.  Bridges, buildings, and various pipes all loom overhead.  In front of them are two sets of train tracks.

Soundwave: Megatron --Omega Key detected.  We should proceed through the logistics station.]

S: They’re much sexier.

[Megatron: Excellent!  The Omega Key awaits!]

O: [laughs]

C: It'll be awesome!  We’ll get all the- all the Cybertronian chicks, all two of them!

O & S: [laugh]

[A train passes in front of the party on the tracks nearest to them.

Soundwave: Megatron -- sensors indicate approaching Autobot energy signatures.

New Objective, “Pass through the lower city,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

S: Get all the hot jets.

C: [laughs]

Megatron: Decepticons -- ready your weaponry for battle!]

O: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the- the jets are the ones they’re trying to uh, allure, my dear.

C: Oh, okay.

[A bunch of Autobots pop out of hiding and begin firing at the party, who fire back.  More trains sporadically pass by on the two tracks.]

S: I wonder how many of the trains might actually be other transformers who are like, so done with the firefight in their workplace.

O: [laughs]

C: That’s a good point!

[The first wave of Autobots are destroyed and another group, this time with energon shields fall jump down from above.]

O: I mean, to be fair, we only know of like- the only time we’ve every really seen train Transformers was uh, in uh-

C: Astrotrain?

[Megatron takes cover behind a box and begins sniping the Autobots.  More trains cross by in front of him.]

O: Well-

S: Well, yes, there's Astrotrain and then there's the three of them from Car Robots in the original RID.

[Note: Transformers: Robots in Disguise, 2001, was called Transformers: Car Robots in Japan.  We frequently use the Japanese name to get across what we’re saying quicker because in the US there’s not less than three goddamn things using the title ‘Robots in Disguise’.]

O: Yeah, I mostly meant like, working train ro- like, robots that worked as trains.

C: Oh.

S: Which is-

O: Is what I’m trying to get across there.

S: Which is the three from um, Car Robots.

O: Yeah.

S: Cuz they like, abandon- at least one of them abandons like, a group of passengers in a tunnel to go in fight ah, Decepticons or Predacons.

C: Oh wow.

S: You know, I kind of want to see what would happen if an Autobot who was shielded was just in there when a train comes through.

C: [laughs]

O: Right? [laughs]

C: Maybe we’ll get lucky, I keep waiting for it.

O: And that’s how I died, by being crushed!

[Megatron suddenly dies and the game briefly goes to the ‘Mission Failed’ screen before the game loads back at the stairway leading up to the outdoor station.]

O: Oh!  Okay…

C: Whoa, what happened?

O: I don't know, somebody hit me.

[New Objective, “Pass through the lower city,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

C: From our perspective uh, I’d say it looked like you were winning.

S: Yeah.

O: [quietly] To a certain degree of winning. [normal volume] All right, come out, come out wherever you are, so I can shoot you.

[Megatron walks forward just enough to get the Autobots to come out of hiding before taking cover behind another box.]

S: It’s train time.  Unfortunately, you- we can't get in the trains.  Oh.

[Megatron snipes enemies.

Megatron: All shall fall before Megatron!]

O: Uh-huh, uh-huh, that’s nice, buddy.

C: [laughs]

S: His ego requires it.

[Megatron: Only fools stand against Megatron!]

O: Look, I’m just saying, riding shotgun with this character just involves me being like, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, that’s nice.”

[The second wave of Autobots jump down after the first wave of Autobots are dispatched.]

C: Oh, you can’t see [your] health when you’re in the zoomed in mode. [When using the sniper rifle scope.]

S: Yeah.

C: That might have been what confused us.

S: Maybe.  Or maybe your character, maybe Megatron just ended up on the tracks?

O: I don’t think so, I was back behind the box.

[The last of the second wave are destroyed, when a third wave of Autobots run down stairs on the other side of the station.]

O: Goddammit, how many of there are you!?

S: Uh… a lot?

O: A lot, yeah!

[Megatron continues sniping.]

C: A lot of Autobots were really unhappy with their life and wanted a quick death.

O: And I’m providing it for them, got it. [laughs] Megatron’s providing a service.

[Megatron moves closer to the last Autobot killing him and clearing the room.  The Autobot cries out rather loudly when he’s shot.]

O: [imitating the Autobot] Blaaargh!  Blah, I say!

[Megatron walks around picking up ammo and other enemy drops before heading over the train tracks towards the other stairway.]

O: [sighs] Oh, jesus.  Alright.

C: I remember being a kid and playing games and like, things like running across the railroad tracks always freaked me out.

O: Were you afraid of the trains squishing you?

C: I don’t know why.

S: I mean… trains are dangerous.

[Megatron runs up the steps into a tunnel, and heads to his left.  Ahead of him the wall explodes and a sparking cylindrical object is sticking out of a newly created hole.

Breakdown: Take cover!

Megatron: Steady yourself, coward.  I marked this area for Dark Energon bombers.

Breakdown: Are you insane?!?  I mean… yes, brilliant, Megatron!

The party heads to the left, an open area that is currently the grounds of a large firefight is visible in the distance.]

O: [laughs] That- that inflection was- was amazing.  Thank you, thank you Knockout.

S: Breakdown?

O: Breakdown, yeah, sorry.  I blame Chezni, he was talking about Knockout earlier!

C: Yup, it’s my fault.

O: ~Always!

[Megatron stops and snipes some of the visible enemies ahead, before the area’s bombed with Dark Energon.]

O: I don’t know why I’m wasting my ammo when they're just going to get bombed with Dark Energon.  Meagtron, should- should I ask how you got this much Dark- I- I know we- I know supplied you with Dark Energon, but you had- you had enough to make Energon- Dark Energon bombers?  Really?!

[The party continues on, fallen Autobots litter the ground and the way forward is blocked by a pile of rubble.

Megatron: Perfect!  Soon Iacon will be no more than a thick layer of rubble!

Breakdown: The wreckage is in our way, Megatron.]

S: I don’t know, maybe it's-

[Soundwave: Megatron -- the debris scans as stable enough to support our weight.

Megatron jumps on the debris before jumping up into another tunnel.]

S: Maybe it turns into exponential growth at some point?  That would make it easier…

O: Nah, he just wants an easy supply of Space Crack.  Definitely that.

S: Yeah...

[Breakdown: Hey!  There’s Autobots unloading off the train!

Megatron: Leave no Autobot alive!

The party exits into another large room.  They are standing on a platform, below there are some stopped trains and several Autobots.  The party begins firing on them.

Megatron: Fall before Megatron!]

O: I don’t know why you felt the need to say that Megs, we never leave any Autobots alive.

[Breakdown: Okay, what needs doing?]

S: He just wants to you-

C: He won’t let us-

S: [laughs] Sorry.

C: Oh no, I just gonna say, you won't let us open the doors until we kill them all.

S: Yeah…

O: For some reason!  (Soundwave being incredibly petty.)

[Megatron attempts to shoot a distant Autobot, but the Autobot isn’t getting hit despite Megatron being on target.  The camera pulls out as he reloads, and it’s apparent the shots have clipped into a nearby wall instead.  He backs up and shoots the Autobot, finally destroying them.

O: I was like, “Why isn’t that working?

[Megatron: Blast those Aerialbots!

Aerialbots fly in from above.]

O: Oh, goody.

C: Yeah, the odd clipping on the box.

S: It’s the Aerialbots again.  I don't think they're a combiner in this one or maybe not, maybe they are, I don't know.

O: No, these are- that's just what they call any flying Autobots I’ve noticed.

S: Oh, that’s...

O: I know, not confusing at all, but…

S: Yeah, not a fan.

[The Aerialbots fly over the party dropping bombs as the party attempts to fire back.]

C: So wait, what did they call them in this one?

O: Well, they're just called Aerialbots because they can fly.

[The last Autobot is destroyed, and the party jumps down from their platform.

Soundwave: Megatron -- I have detected the Omega Key.  It lies beyond the train tunnel.

Megatron: Move out, Decepticons!

Megatron smashes some item chests, grabbing a nearby shield.]

S: It's just a generic term for flying Autobot instead of what it was in the cart- the G1 cartoon was- well, and in the comics- they were a combiner team who combined into uh… well.

O: Superion?

S: Yep.

C: Oh, and they were specifically called the Aerialbots?

O: Yeah.

S: Yes.

C: Gotcha.

S: Because they were planes.

O: And because so few of the- the Autobots really flew too, that was kind of distinct.

S: Yup.

[Megatron runs up some ramps and does some light platforming to reach Soundwave and Breakdown who are standing off to the left of some train tracks.  He then transforms and follows the tracks into a tunnel.  Ahead of him several red notices pop up in an alien text and he drives into a little area off the tracks to his left, returning to bot mode.  A train passes by on the tracks.

Megatron: Stay on the tracks -- if you want to get smashed to pieces!]

O: I feel like he’s having way to much fun with that…

S: I think he is too.

[Megatron transforms back into tank mode and drives up to another small area off the main tracks, this time on the right side of the tunnel.  He transforms back to bot mode.

Soundwave: Scans reveal poor structural integrity surrounding this maintenance access door.

Megatron smashes the maintenance door in the floor with his mace and falls to the floor below when it breaks.

New Objective, “Approach the Iacon Vaults,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

(COM) Brawl: Starscream!  This is Brawl!  We’re pinned down outside Zeta Prime’s vaults!  We need air support!]

O: Hey, there’s Brawl!

[Megatron: Excellent!  Brawl is already near the Omega Key!

Megatron walks forward and activate a console that is directly in front of him that opens a door on his right.  The party heads out the door and up some stairs, when they near the top something smashes through the ceiling in the room ahead, followed by an explosion.]

O: Yeah, that looks healthy.

C: Now they’re going to have to patch the roof.

O: I mean, Megatron I think, just wants to you know, start from ground zero I-I don't think- I don’t think- I think he just wants to redecorate by rebuilding, to be honest.

C: Big skylight.

S: Yeah.

[The party runs reaches the top, taking a left up a smaller flight of stairs, and Megatron shots an Autobot ahead that has his back to them.  The party then runs over to a large window.  There is a firefight going on outside, and the party fires on the Autobots.

Megatron: Autobots fall so easily!]

S: He takes a decidedly ballistic approach to redecoration.

O: [laughs] Yes!

C: That's well phrased.

O: Megatron doesn’t know the meaning of redecorating, he’s just going to renovate.

S: Yup.

[The party follows the walkway to their left, taking out another Autobot.

Breakdown: Look!  They’ve got Brawl outnumbered down there!]

C: What on Earth…?

[In an in-game cinematic it cuts to the floor of the area outside the windows from where the party is.  Six Autobots all pile on top of an enemy, before revealing they were attacking Brawl as he throws them all off at once.]

C: “They're eating him!  Then they're gonna eat me!  OH MY GOD!”

A: [laugh]

O: I think that’s Brawl just doin’- doin’ his thing- doin’ his thing down there.

S: Yeah.

C: Right, right, got it.

[The continue to follow the walkway, leading more into the interior of whatever building/structure they are in and run into one of the large Autobots with shields.]

C: That guy's got a big shield because he's just saying, “Please shoot me in the back!”

O: Right?  Not, you know, “I'm gonna put some extra shielding on my back!,” it’s gotta all be on the front.

[The Autobot is primarily focused on Soundwave as Megatron is going back and forth attempting to shoot the Autobot in his weak point on his back.]

O: Will you explode already?

C: He's trying.

[Megatron gets a few more shoots into the Autobot who finally explodes.]

O: [laughs] Well, tell him to try faster!

S: [laughs] Try harder to explode.

[Continuing ahead the party encounters two Autobots with the glowy barriers that are taken out relatively quickly.]

O: [nasally voice] Tell them to explode faster, Chezni!

C: All right, but I don't think he’ll listen.

O: [laughs] Does anyone ever listen in this [game]?

[Megatron grabs some ammo, and heads towards the next room.  A wall explodes in front of the party and a glowy barrier Autobot on the other side begins throwing grenades at them.]

C: Umm... Soundwave- er, not Soundwave, Starscream.

S: [snickers]

O: I don’t think Starscream listens either.

C: He uh, did in that first episode with- when he had his tail between his legs.

[Another glowy Autobot joins the first and Megatron backs up swapping to his Null Ray and taking one of them out.

Megatron: All shall fall before Megatron!]

C: “What's that, Lord Megatron?”  “Yes, of course, Lord Megatron!”

O: [laughs]

C: “Let me go off and get you that Dark Energon right no- right away, Lord Megatron!”

S: He was very intent on that booty call.

[The other Autobot is shortly dispatched and the party continues ahead.  They come out to a room with a large hole in the wall ahead of them.  An Autobot is standing on the edge with his back to them, but is quickly dispatched.]

O: Yeah, he was- he was turned on, also who the fuck is banging out there!?

C: It’s Cream, er, our cat.

O: I- I thought it was coming from the wall!

C: No.

O: Either that or we’ve got multiple banging going on here, but Cream is very insistent to be out here. [laughs]

[The party takes up the position vacated by the Autobot and Megatron begins sniping all the visible Autobots.]

O: Cream is not out here, cuz otherwise you would be hearing her over the mic giving me headbutts.

S: [laughs]

[Breakdown: Snipers!  Across the street!]

O: This isn’t an exaggeration, she just does that.  And I love it- it's adorable just not when I'm on a headset, like when I'm at work!

[Megatron: None can resist us!

The snipers across the street are hastily dealt with and Megatron runs over to the edge of the platform he and Soundwave are still on.]

O: Is that it?  You guys were making a big deal about snipers, is that all the snipers there were?

C: “Oh no, there’s snipers!”

O: Oh no?

S: Well, I mean there’s still s- that dude.

[Megatron looks down and snipes the one lone Autobot visible below.]

C: [laughs]

[He shoots another Autobot.]

O: It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, literally! [laughs]

S: You're in a very good spot for that.

[Soundwave: Megatron -- the area is now clear.

Megatron: Let us speak with Brawl, then.  I want to hear how my war is going.]

O: [snorts] Pharsing? [laughs] Okay.

[Megatron jumps down and checks the nearby nooks and crannies for items, picking up a shield in the process.

(COM) Brawl: Waiting for your orders, Megatron...]

O: Hey Brawl, how’s the explosions?

[Megatron runs over to a Decepticon standing on a platform in the middle the area.]

O: Are you Brawl?  No you’re not.  Where is Brawl?

[Megatron turns to his left and heads towards where the quest marker is indicating.]

O: Probably where the blue arrow is indicating, huh? [laughs]

C: “I am generic cep- Decepticon 75.”

O: [coughs and then laughs] “I am honored you thought I was Brawl, however!”

[Megatron smashes an ammo chest and walks over to the stairs Brawl is standing on.

Brawl: Lord Megatron!

Megatron: Report, Brawl.

Brawl: The Autobots are dug in and our precious air commander won’t provide support!]

O: [snorts]

[Megatron: Enough excuses!  Where is Zeta Prime?]

O: [laughs] Color me surprised!  Shocked even!

[Brawl: He’s just beyond those doors, Lord Megatron!

Megatron: Witness the power of Dark Energon!

Megatron walks over to some large stairs on his left and uses Dark Energon when prompted.]

C: So, is it only through the power of Dark Energon that they've been able to just do all this and kind of… hack Cybertron?

O: I think?  Maybe?

[Nothing happens.

Megatron: Impossible!

A large hologram of Zeta Prime materializes in front of the door.

Zeta Prime: It will take more than a speck of Dark Energon to breach the armor of our Vaults.]

C: OHHHHHH!

O: [laughs]

[Zeta Prime: Surrender now, Megatron and I will consider sparing your life.]

C: OHHHHHH!

[Megatron: You dare threaten me!?!  ME?!?

Megatron shoots at hologram, ineffectively.]

C & O: [laugh]

[Zeta Prime: So be it, Megatron.  I leave you to your own… futility.]

S: You know, his helmet is surprisingly Galvatron shaped.

O: Yeah, the irony is kinda funny.

[Breakdown: Oh great -- here we go…]

O: Alright.

[Megatron: [yelling] Brawl, call in the Dark Energon bombers!]

C: Oh, Megatron’s mad.

O: PISSED.

[Brawl: But Megatron, there’s too much firepower -

Megatron:  DO AS I HAVE ORDERED, BRAWL!

Brawl: Yes, Megatron.  Bombers, target these coordinates!  Everyone else -- CLEAR THE STREET!]

O: “Yes, Lord Megatron.  Right away, Lord Megatron.  Please don't take off my head, Lord Megatron.”

[Megatron transforms and drives into an area where the Decepticons are sheltering from the bombers, he passes by several Decepticon grunts as he heads towards some stairs.

Sensible Decepticon: Look!  It’s Megatron!

Decepticon With A Death Wish: About time.  Why’d he show up so late?

Sensible Decepticon: Shut UP!  You trying to get us both killed?]

C: I assume the guy on the projector was Omega Supreme?

O: No, no-no-no-no.  That was-

S: Sentinel Prime?

O: -Sentinel Prime.

[Note: Despite his name literally being on the screen less then a minute ago, we’re both wrong, it’s Zeta Prime.]

C: I see.

[In-game cinematic: Two Decepticon bombers drop into frame flying over the area the party just vacated.

Brawl: Bombers inbound!]

O: Omega Supreme is HUGE.  Like, he is, I think, the final boss for the Decepticon campaign, and he’s HUGE.

C: Oh!  He’s the one that turns into the- the base.

O & S: Yeah.

C: Okay, I’m sorry.

[The bombers are quickly shoot by anti-aircraft guns and go down, crashing into buildings.  The camera returns to Megatron.  One of the downed ships is burning right in front of him.

Breakdown: Well, THAT was a complete disaster.]

Megatron: Silence!  Obviously our bombers are incompetent!]

O: [laughs]

S: Yeah, I think in the Autobot campaign it's Trypticon, that's the final boss, maybe?

O: Yeah, yeah, it’s Trypticon.

[Brawl: Lord Megatron -- if I may make a suggestions?  Disabling the anti-aircraft guns would open the way for our air support...

Megatron: An excellent though, Brawl.  Carry it out.

New Objective, “Disable the anti-aircraft guns,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

C: Wait.  They called for air support and the plane flew into the wall?

[Megatron heads to his left, stopping on the edge of a drop off.  The Autobots and Decepticons are in a fire fight.

Brawl: Decepticons!  Take those guns!]

O: Ehh, the- the anti-aircraft guns took it out.

C: Oh.

O: So they’re like, “Take out those guns and that’ll help!” and you’re like, “No shit!”

[Megatron begins sniping Autobots who are on another ridge across from the platform he’s standing on.

Megatron: We got another one!]

C: Wait… are the machines flying other non-transforming machine?

O: Yes.

S: Uh, probably.  It’s also-

C: Is that normal?

O: Yes.

S: Yeah… It's also entirely possible that they could be uh, flying Transformers that are actually transformed, or dead.

C: Yikes.

O: Well... I mean that’s kind of what they do with Trypticon later, it’s not that weird, unfortunately.

[Megatron moves closer to the Autobot occupied area.]

C: Yeah.

S: I mean, it’s what they did in More Than Meets the Eye after uh…

O: Oh, yeah!

S: Yeah, the- the Necrobot’s base.

O: They're like, “Oh shit, we have no ship to get off we're just gonna take this Decepticon, mass shift him and fly his dead corpse off planet.” [laughs]

C: [laughs]

S: Yeah.

O: Like, I'm not even paraphrasing or exaggerating-

S: That’s pretty much just…

O: Pretty much, yeah.

S: Pretty much what they did.

[Megatron pauses and looks behind him at the firefight before entering a doorway on his left and following a path upwards towards where the anti-aircraft gun are located.]

C: Megatron’s like, “Ehhh, you guys got that.”

[Megatron enters a room that has two large windows on the left side.  Two Decepticons grunts are firing back at Autobots inside.

Breakdown: Turrets!  They’re gonna chop us to pieces!

Megatron: No one turns back!  Destroy those guns by ANY means necessary!]

O: Or take them, maybe?

[Brawl: You heard Lord Megatron!  Decepticons -- lay down cover fire while we take that building!

Megatron takes cover behind the pillars next to the windows and door and snipes various Autobots, some snipers, and some stationed at turrets.]

C: Ultra Magnus.  That's who I was thinking uh, Omega Supreme was for some reason.

O: [laughs]

S: Oh...

O: Wow, that was wildly inaccurate!

S: Yeah.

[Megatron continues sniping Autobots, butsome turrets he already cleared out are being manned by Autobots again…]

C: Right?  I think it's cuz they're both- they're both- both of their names are like two words?

S: Yeah.  I can see that.

[Megatron attempts to back up but is blocked by a Decepticon that is ducking behind him.]

O: [deep voice] “Move, Decepticon!”

C: Right? [laughs] “No!  I’m safe here!”

O: [deep voice] “You’re not safe behind me if I decide to shoot you!”

[Megatron: This fate awaits all who oppose me!

Megatron continues to snipe.  The Autobots keep spawning in and taking control of the turrets.  The nearest turret turns towards Megatron and shoots at him, missing.]

O: Oh my god, why!?  Why do you keep spawning?  Just stop already!

C: Yeah, the real question is why they're like, “Hmm, well we were shooting down this hallway at the people coming at us maybe if I do it, I’ll fare better than the guy who died last time?

O: Right!?

C: That one at least tried to point the gun at you.

[Megatron shoots at an Autobot but instead of moving in the direction of the gunshot’s momentum he flies backwards out of Megatron’s scope at high speed and hits a large cylindrical object, then slides down and explodes.]

O: [laughs] I love physics!  Like, the physics in this is so weird!  He just went flying backwards. [laughs]

C: But yeah, they're like, “Hmm, someone from the side is shooting us.  Oh well, I’ll just run and grab this gun!”

[After sniping a few more Autobots Megatron runs out of the room and up stairs to his right.  An Autobot sitting in a turret on one of the stairway landings leaves his turret and tries to attack the party, but gets a Fusion Cannon to the face.]

O: I think I’m supposed to be going up there without uh, killing all of them.

[Autobot: We’ve got to protect the anti-air guns!

Brawl: Now!  Hit the Autobots while they’re distracted!

The party continues upwards and into a dimly lit corridor before ascending more stairs.  They pass by a glitching Zeta Prime hologram.]

O: Like, maybe- maybe I'm supposed to be moving, but I- I like my idea better.  They just keep coming because they’re idiots.

[Megatron reaches a console and activates it, opening a door to his right that leads back outside.  Seeing a health chest he runs over and smashes it, despite still having a shield left.]

O: I don’t know why I hit that, I don’t need that either.

[There is a console to Megatron’s right, as well as a nearby Autobot who has his back to him.  Megatron runs over to the console, but no UI displays as he runs around the console.]

C: These are not working computer.

[Megatron runs over to the oblivious Autobot and smashes him with his melee attack.]

C: [laughs]

[Megatron: There!  The gun controls!]

O: [laughs] Yes!  I know!  I was trying to hit them, Megs!

[Megatron returns to the console, having to wait for his dialogue to complete before finally being given the option to interact with the console and planting a detpak on it.]

C: You had to smash that guy over the head first.

O: Ey- ust Megatron really wanted to smash that guy over the head.

[The detpak explodes, and the console swaps over from Autobot red to Decepticon purple, complete with Decepticon insignia on it’s screen.  Dark Energon begins forming on the nearby anti-aircraft gun.  Megatron turns back to the console, which is now also being consumed by Dark Energon crystals.]

O: Okay, so now we've got Dark Energon infecting the aircraft guns… and everything else to be honest.

[Breakdown: Niiiice!  Takes one gun to blow up the other!

Soundwave: Megatron -- the controls are overloading.

Purple electricity begins coming off the console, and Dark Energon begins taking over a nearby wall.]

O: The Dark Energon’s too much!

[Megatron: Move, Decepticons!

Megatron jumps off the platform to the ground below, transforming in midair and driving little ways before returning to bot mode and looking back up at the anti-aircraft gun.  The console explodes.]

S: Oh, and this is very hectic.

[Breakdown: That almost punched our tickets!  I thought Dark Energon was on our side?]

O: [snorts]

[Megatron: Brawl -- call in the bombers.

Dark Energon still covers the anti-aircraft guns and surface near it but doesn’t appear to moving out any further.]

O: [laughs] Megatron’s like, “Moving on.”

C: Right-

[Megatron wanders around the nearby area while Brawl coms Starscream.

Brawl: Transmitting the coordinates…

Starscream (COM): Brawl, this is Starscream!  Your request is denied.  I won’t have you wasting more of my ships!]

O: Oh god...

S: Dark Energon does not give a shit.

O: Neither does Megatron in about 3 seconds!

S: Pretty much.

[Megatron: I see.  When did they become YOUR ships, Starscream?]

S: Mmmmmm!

[Starscream (COM): Oh -- Lord Megatron!  I didn’t realize YOU were there!]

O: [laughs] I mean, “Yes!”

[Starscream (COM): Air support request approved -- but it will be a few cycles before the bombers can reach you.  I’m afraid you’ll just have to be patient.

Brawl: We’ve got Autobot reinforcements headed our way!]

C: When did Starscream grow a spine!?

O: Right!?!

S: Apparently, when the booty call turned out to be unsatisfying.

[Megatron: I shall make you pay for this, Starscream.  Decepticons -- hold your positions until the bombers arrive!

Megatron takes control of a nearby turret and begins shooting at the Autobot reinforcements below.

New Objective, “Defend the anti-aircraft guns,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

O: Yeah, are we assuming that already happened and he was not satisfied with how that went?  I mean...

S: Either that or he's pissed off that Megatron did not notice him.

O: [laughs] He didn’t comment on how pretty and shiny he was the last time they met.

[Brawl: Snipers on the bridge, Megatron!

Megatron aims the turret upwards and targets the Autobots that appeared on the bridge.  After they are destroyed he resumes shooting at Autobots on the ground who have decided to court death and are aiming directly at him.]

O: Hey, Chezni, you still there?

C: Oh, yeah.

O: Okay.

C: Sorry, uh, I think I was talking earlier wasn't I?

S: Maybe?

O: Uh, maybe I’m not paying enough attention.

[All the Autobots are destroyed.

Breakdown: That’s it?!?  We beat ‘em?

Brawl: No, no, no… there’s NO way the Autobots would give up that easily.]

C: I might have been cutting out through Discord, I’m not sure.

[Megatron: Agreed, Brawl.  Everyone hold fast and stay alert.

Breakdown: On the roof over there!  More Autobots!]

O: Strangely quiet as those lasers are being fired over there.

[Megatron attempts to turn to the Autobots who have spawned in on his left, but is restricted by the turret he’s on which doesn’t turn far enough.  Megatron hops out of the turret and begins sniping the enemy Autobots.

Decepticon: Autobot ground vehicle approaching!]

Megatron: We got another one!]

C: I was just so mesmerized by watching the machine gun fire.

O: [laughs]

C: It was addicting to watch.

O: Cuz machine guns make you happy.

C: Yes!

[Brawl: They’re firing from the windows!

Megatron continues firing at Autobots, periodically more drop down from the roof onto the balcony area the rest are shooting from.]

C: It's actually quite satisfying every time to see uh, Owls zoom in and just shoot things.

O: Well, I’m glad your entertained!

[One of the large Autobots with a machine gun walks out and Megatron begins shooting it.  Unfortunately, it does not die in one hit so Megatron continues to shoot it.]

O: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

C: That one's less satisfying!  It's not dying.

O: Ah what-

C: Make it die!

O: [laughs] “Make it die!”

[The large Autobot is vanquished!  Megatron swaps to his Fusion Cannon and begins shooting the other nearby Autobots.]

O: This is why I like the things- I- I like the- the weapons that kill them in one hit, ya know?

C: Yeah.

[Breakdown: The Autobots just keep coming!]

C: Specs, what's your uh, favorite weapon of choice?

[Brawl: Jets attacking from above!

Megatron picks up the turret gun dropped by the large Autobot and turns to his right, targeting a group of Aerialbots.]

S: I... don't think I actually have a preference for any of the weapons, because I'm not good with sniper rifles… Um, I mostly just a spray-and-pray sort of…

O: So, machine guns?

S: Yeah.

C: Yeah, I'm hearing machine guns.

[Megatron continues his machine gun Aerialbot rampage.

Megatron: All shall fall before Megatron!]

C: Actually, I think that lines up as well uh, with uh, previous levels that you played.  I remember see you get uh...

[Breakdown: Blast those Autobot junk-heaps on the bridge!

The pilfered turret runs out of ammo and Megatron swaps back to his Fusion Cannon.]

S: Yeah, I think I mostly had machine guns.  Either that or- well, uh, playing with the mealy weapons- or melee.

C: [laughs] I like to stab!

O: [snorts]

S: Yes.

[Megatron runs over to another mounted turret and takes aim at more Aerialbots.]

O: [laughs] I’m a talking car!

S: [laughs] Well, when I remember to transform.

C: Yeah!  As funny as it sounds in a Transformers game.

O: [laughs] You kinda forget you can do it.

S: Yeah.

[Two large turret carrying Autobots appear on the distant bridge.  Megatron shoots them but they persist in living.]

O: Oh my god, will you die already!?

C: Megatron is-

S: I wonder if you can shoot the screen?

C: The screen?

S: Cuz there's a screen that's occasionally-

[Megatron turns to his left where a glitching screen is visible, he shoots it but nothing happens.]

O: Oh.

C: Oh! [laughs]

O: I was like, no, you can’t have it [the gun] face the camera, was the way I was interpreting that in my head.

S: [laughs]

C: Makes me want to-

[One of the two large Autobots finally goes down.]

O: FINALLY!  Jesus!

C: Make sure that the canon of uh, the- the plot of um, Megatron vs all Cybertronian ads continue.

O & S: [laugh]

O: I mean… I would be into that-

[Breakdown: We’re gonna get slaughtered!

Megatron: Stop your whining, Breakdown, or I’ll stop it for you.

Brawl: They’re coming from all directions!]

O: -would be funny to me.  The real reason um, the real reason Megatron fucking lost it is because he was tired of ads.

[Megatron rips the turret off and begins shooting at snipers that have spawned on the bridge.

Breakdown: Megatron, they’re everywhere!  What do we do??]

C: Right.

[Megatron: WE HOLD THEM OFF.  The bombers will clear the street when they arrive!  Rely on that!]

C: “My fellow Decepticons, do you realize that every day you are assaulted by 20,000 different advertisements?  Where’s the decency!?”

O: [laughs] “But they’re all from two ad agencies on the entire planet!”

[Megatron: [laughs manically] ]

S: Oh gosh, that's just making you wonder if someone's done an ad agency AU, where they're basically competing ad agencies instead of competing factions?

[Megatron continues targeting all the large number of Autobots that are now spawning in multiple locations, until runs out of ammo in the turret.  He drops the turret.]

O: Fuck that was-

C: Right, Megatron is just busting up the monopoly.

[Breakdown: That’s -- that’s the WHOLE AUTOBOT ARMY!  We’ll never--

Brawl: BOMBING RUN WILL COMMENCE IN FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE!

Megatron runs over to another turret but is taken down by Autobot fire.]

O: Crap!

[The Mission Failed screen appeared and Owls selects, “Restart from checkpoint.”]

O: OH MY GOD!  I have to do that again! [laughs] I apparently got right to the end but I died.

[The level reloads at the point where all the Aerialbots had started spawning in.

New Objective, “Defend the anti-aircraft guns,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

S: Oh, no!

C: Maybe it saved?

[Breakdown: The Autobots just keep coming!

Brawl: Jets attacking from above!]

O: Well, I’m hoping that I don’t have to do all of them again, maybe?

C: Yeah.

S: No, you’re probably going to have to do- kill all of them, again.

[Megatron takes a turret, and begins shooting Aerialbots.  This one is revealed to not be a machine gun, but something much more akin to his Fusion Cannon blasts.]

O: This is not a machine gun turret.  I did not know these existed!

C: That looks like a fusion gun- cannon turret, thing.

S: Maybe?  Yeah, that’s-

O: I mean, I’m okay with this, to be honest.  I prefer being- not having to shoot things a billion times.

[Megatron shoots one of the Aerialbots which causes and explosion that takes out two additional nearby Autobots.]

O: And that's very satisfying.

C: Satisfying to watch!  I hate using things like this.

O: Well, that’s why you give me all the bigger guns, dear.

C: That is true.

[Breakdown: Blast those Autobot junk-heaps on the bridge!

Two large turret wielding Autobots appear on the bridge, Megatron begins shooting at one of them, while periodically swapping back to take out groups of Aerialbots.]

O: I have better aim than you anyway.

C: Aim!?!  What's that?

O: I know.

C: Food?

O: [laughs] You’re like, machine gun, shot gun, what aim?  There is no aim, there is only shoot!

[Megatron targets one of the turret Autobots but keeps missing because the Autobot is moving.]

C: Although, you need to aim where they're going to be and not where they are.

O: I KNOOOOW.

C: [laughs]

[One turret Autobot goes down.  Megatron takes aim at the other.]

C: At least killing those guys is easier with this thing.

O: Oh, thank you god!

[The second turret Autobot is defeated.  Megatron begins taking damage as shoots hit him from below.]

S: Like, this is going a lot faster than the other one did.

O: Who is shooting at me?  You are shooting at me.

[Megatron destroys the one lone Autobot on the ground.]

S: They’re from the ground, yeah.

C: A tiny boy.

O: A tiny boy is shooting me.  A tiny boy must die.

C: Tiny, dead boy.

O: Tiny, dead boy.

[Breakdown: I’m the fastest thing on four wheels!]

C: [laughs] No one's arguing that point but is that really necessary to bring up right now?

S: Well, I feel like-

[An Autobot gets on the platform with the party and begins shooting.  Megatron can’t maneuver the turret to hit him and tries to exit, but instead rips it off.]

O: Argh!  I keep hitting the wrong button.

S: He's channeling Dragstrip.

[Breakdown: We’re gonna get slaughtered!

Megatron: Stop your whining, Breakdown, or I’ll stop it for you.]

C: Wait!  He goes from, “I’m the fastest thing on two [four] wheels!” to, “We’re gonna get slaughtered!” 

[Brawl: They’re coming from all directions!]

O: Oh!  I thought an Autobot said that.

[Breakdown: Megatron, they’re everywhere!  What do we do??]

C: Oh, did he?

S: Maybe?

O: Maybe I’m wrong.  [Yup, I am very wrong. ~O]

[Megatron continues to run around with the Nucleon Shock Cannon shooting as a large number of Autobots spawn in.

Megatron: WE HOLD THEM OFF.  The bombers will clear the street when they arrive!  Rely on that!]

S: Well, I don’t know- I don't think they have particularly of a wide range of voice actors?

O: Yeah… at least not- certainly not for the little guys.

S: Yeah.

C: Oh, did you rip that thing off?

O: I did.  I wasn't trying to.

C: The Nucleon Shock Cannon.

O: Which, apparently, I like much more than the other guns!

[Breakdown: That’s -- that’s the WHOLE AUTOBOT ARMY!  We’ll never--

Brawl: BOMBING RUN WILL COMMENCE IN FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE!

An in-game cinematic plays, as the Decepticon bombers finally hit their targets.  The party, plus Brawl are standing on a platform, Brawl turns to Megatron.]

S: Well, nucleon makes sense considering uh, what it actually does in the comic canon.

[Breakdown: Wooooo-hoooo!  BOOM!  Eat THAT, Autobots!

Brawl: The street looks clear, Megatron.]

O: Does it-

C: Wait, so it’s a real thing?

S: Yeah, nucleon is basically a heavy-duty powerup, but it prevents transforming in the Marvel Comics.

O: Huh.

[Brawl: That should’ve blown the Vault doors clear off!

Megatron: Good.  Brawl -- remain here and hold this position.  The rest of us will move forward and acquire the Omega Key!]

S: And it may, or may not uh… uh, also kind of fuck with them.

[Megatron jumps down from the platform the party has been on during the prior fight.  The street below is littered with debris, Dark Energon crystals, and Autobots with varying degrees of damage.  A nearby Autobot runs towards Megatron, but trips and Megatron stomps on him.

Autobot: Help… me… Must… fight… Must warn… Zeta Prime...]

S: Cuz, I think like, Grimlock ends up an Action Master because of it.  An Action Master as a transformer who doesn't transform.

O: Hmm.

C: Gotcha.

S: It's been a while since I've done anything with… since I’ve read any of those um...

[New Objective, “Enter the Iacon Vaults,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

Megatron hits Autobots with his melee attack that are on the ground as he heads towards the Iacon Vaults’ entrance.]

C: Are you running around punching corpses!?

S: [laughs]

O: Uh, they were still alive.  They were still shooting at me, they had to die.

C: [laughs]

[Megatron runs over to some ammo but is unable to pick it up.  He reloads the Null Ray and then picks it up refilling 1 ammo.]

O: I’m taking the one thing of ammo from it, alright?  Don’t judge me.

S: Like, nucleon is apparently an actual thing rather than just nucleon in Transformers.

[An in-game cinematic plays as the party reaches the Iacon Vaults.  A huge Autobot, 2 to 3 times the height of Megatron bursts out of a wall and lands in front of the party.

Big Autobot: Engaging Decepticons at the Iacon Vaults.

The Autobot moves forward while a Decepticon grunt fires on him, crushing the grunt under his giant feet.

Decepticon: Fall back!  Fall back!

The big Autobot then transforms into a big tank.]

S: Oh a giant- !

O: Oh goody.

S: I wonder if that’s-

C: I wanna play as that guy!

[Breakdown: What the-?!?  That guy is huge!]

C: Yeah, I want to be that thing!

[Megatron: Split up and flank him!  Use the debris for cover!

Megatron fires some tentative shots at the tank but doesn’t appear to be doing any damage.  He uses the debris to maneuver around the tank looking for a weak point.

S: Okay- yeah, nucleon is an incredible power- incredibly powerful energy source capable of being used as fuel by a Transformer but though it can give great strength and power and has even revived the non-functional it has terrible side effects to quote uh, the TF Wiki.

C: Alright.

[Breakdown: The tank’s armor is too tough!  We gotta find a weak spot!

The tank has a weak point on it’s rear and Megatron unloads several Fusion Cannon rounds into him.]

S: And yeah, one really common side effect is loss of transformation.

[The Autobot transforms back into robot mode.  Megatron targets him, and seeing that the reticle turns red on the Autobot’s crotch begins shooting accordingly.]

O: Shoot the crotch!

S: [laughs]

C: Would you be stuck in whatever form you were in when you took it?

S: Um, possibly?  Mostly I think they were stuck it in robot mode.

[The party continues firing on the Autobot, who seems to only be targeting Soundwave.  Megatron hangs back, transforming into tank mode once his Fusion Cannon ammo runs out and continuing to fire.]

C: Gotcha, and yeah, Owls you are definitely shooting the crotch.

[Megatron: We’ve breached its armor!  Now DESTROY IT!]

S: [laughs]

O: The ret- the reticle turned red!

C: [laughs]

O: Don’t judge me!

C: For obvious reasons!

O: Obviously!  I'm sorry Soundwave, but I'm really glad you say aiming at you and not me. [laughs]

C: Soundwave’s over there just going, “OH MY GOD, WHAT’S GOING ON!?!” [laughs]

[The Autobot if finally taken down after 8 tank rounds are unloaded into the crotch area, he then explodes.

Soundwave: Megatron -- the tank has been rendered non-functional.]

C: I mean, “Didn’t even break a sweat, thanks boss.”

O: [laughs]

[Breakdown: You see that?  *I* did that.  ALL.  Me.]

C: Ohhhh my god.

O: Breakdown, Breakdown are- do you want to die?

[Megatron picks up some nearby ammo.

Megatron: A brilliant addition to my arsenal!

He then walks forward, towards where Breakdown and Soundwave are waiting next to the vault entrance.

Megatron: Onward, Decepticons.  Into the Vaults!]

S: Well-

O: “You know what?  You know what I'm having for dinner tonight?  Your ass.” [laughs]

C: [laughs]

S: Dead End is the one with the death wish.

O: Yeah…

[Megatron walks up to some debris blocking the vault entrance and plants a detpak on it.]

C: Wait, who's Dead End?

S: Another Stunticon, he sounds very British in the G1 cartoon.

[The detpak explodes and the party enters the Vaults.  Debris litters the floor, and just inside a hologram of Zeta Prime appears.

Zeta Prime: Megatron.  My, you are a persistent one!  But breaking into my Vaults?!?  You’ve overstepped yourself.]

O: Yeah, I don't really remember him I only know him because you like him.

S: He's a Porsche [Porsch]- or a Porsche [Por-shuh].

O: That’s funny. [laughs]  Why- like-

S: Breakdown’s a Lamborghini.  Yes?

O: Were the Stunticons the ones Starscream made?

[Megatron: I won’t waste words with you, Zeta Prime.  Give me the Omega Key, and I may spare what’s left of your city.

New Objective, “Find the Omega Key,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.]

S: No, that was um, the Combaticons.

O: Gotcha.

S: The Stunticons are the ones that uh, Megatron stole like, the key to Vector Sigma for.

O: Right, right.  I know there was something.  Like they were created somehow.

S: Yeah.

[Megatron shoots a large piece of debris that is still barely connected to ceiling.  It falls and creates a hole in the floor.  The party jumps through.]

C: You know, they should make Con-a-cons.  Cons that were made specifically for cons?

[A large Zeta Prime hologram appears to the right of the party.

Zeta Prime: The Omega Key will NEVER be yours Megatron.]

S: [quietly] God.

O: [laughs] Why are you like this, Chezni?

[Megatron: I look forward to debating that with you IN PERSON.]

O: [snorts]

[Decepticon: Lord Megatron!  Help!

Megatron heads down some stairs on the left.]

C: They'd be great at cons!

O: I think Starscre- or I think Megatron’s like the worst customer, like, [deep voice] “I will come into your store and you WILL process this return!”

A: [laugh]

O: “Or so help me, Primus!”

[The party enters a room where a Decepticon grunt is visible behind a large glass-like barrier in front of them.

Breakdown: Zeta’s got one of our guys trapped!

A reddish insignia appears on the ground underneath the grunts feet.

Breakdown: Look at the floor!  What’s Zeta up to?]

C: “You will give me a refund of $39.99!”

O: Right.

C: “Uh, sir, that's not how this works!”  “I don't think you understand you will give me a refund.”

O: [laughs] Right?  Seems- seems accurate

[A large pillar of metal slams down as the grunt throws himself forward avoiding it.  Another insignia appears under where he is currently standing.

Decepticon: Hey -- I’m still functional!  I’M STILL F--

The Decepticon waves to the party before being smashed by another pillar.

Megatron: Idiot.  Decepticons!  Onward!

Zeta Prime: You cannot hope to overcome my defenses, Megatron!

The party enters a hallway on their left.  It is lit with reddish lights on the walls, and a circular doorway is visible on the far end.  Megatron walks forward and the reddish insignia from before appears underneath his feet.  An insignia also appears further down the hallway, but Megatron transforms and drives to the clear area between the two.]

C: Also, did somebody get flattened?

O: Yup!

S: Yes.

[The large pillars smash down where the insignias were.

Megatron: Your pathetic machinery won’t stop me, Zeta Prime!]

C: Oh, geez!

O: Which is why I’m waiting until that one-

[Another insignia appears where Megatron is standing.  He quickly drives as ahead as the pillar in front of him slowly rises.

Breakdown: Watch out, Megatron!  You’re gonna get smushed!]

C & S: [laugh]

O: Bitch, I've done this before!

[Megatron reaches the door, and returns to robot mode.  A hologram of Zeta Prime appears in front of the door.  Megatron smashes some nearby chests and picks up ammo while Zeta talks.

Zeta Prime : Come no further, Megatron!  The sacred Vaults are no place for your tainted spark.]

C: Breakdown said sm- he didn't say smashed or flattened, he said-

C & O: ‘Smushed!’

O: [laughs]

S: Yes.

[Megatron: Nothing is sacred to me, Zeta Prime.  You should have realized that by now.  Decepticons!]

C: ‘Smooshed.’

O: [laughs] He- he baby.

C: [laughs]

S: Smoosh, smoosh, smoosh.

O: Smoosh, smoosh.  Breakdown, baby. [laughs]

[Zeta Prime’s hologram disappears and Megatron uses Dark Energon on the door.]

O: It's just funnier when I try to connect that this eventually became the Breakdown in Prime.

C: Oh, yeah!

[The doorway is destroyed, and Dark Energon crystals form in the general vicinity.   A room with a lone dais in the center is revealed.]

O: Because same continuity and all, and my brain hurts.

C: Is he the one who loses the eye?

O: Yup!

S: Yup.

O: Same character, supposedly.

[An in-game cinematic begins.  The party enters the room and Megatron walks up to the dais, reaching towards the large key-like object that is floating on it.  The dais suddenly sinks into the floor and the key flies off.

Megatron: Finally!  The Omega Key is within my - What?!?]

O: [yells] Ah! [laughs] Yoink!

[Zeta Prime rises from a large platform in the back of the room and catches the key.

Zeta Prime: Did you really think it would be that easy?]

C: “I’ll be taking that.”

[Megatron points at Zeta Prime.

Megatron: Come down HERE, Zeta Prime, and I will give you the answer!]

C & O: [laugh]

[Zeta Prime: I shall remain where I am -- this vantage point will provide an excellent view of your destruction.

A dome shaped barrier appears around Zeta.  He remains still with the key floating next to him as the room begins to change around the party.  A large number of pillars lift up revealing a much larger room.  The large room is circular, with Zeta Prime in the center.]

C: “You don’t understand, Megatron.  I'm this level's boss!  I wait in a room while you dispatch all of my minions-”

O: [laughs]

[A large dome shaped metal object above Zeta’s own little barrier dome generates a massive hologram of Zeta Prime from the chest up.  The hologram’s movements match the real Zeta’s below.

New Objective, “Defeat Zeta Prime,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

Zeta Prime: My will controls this entire chamber, Megatron.  I need only close my hand to crush the life out of you!

Megatron transforms and begins driving around Zeta.]

C: He’s acting like he’s so tough!  But he’s standing in a bubble!

O: Okay, I remember this.  I remember this, oh no, I remember this.

[Breakdown: The floor is glowing!  It’s everywhere!  He’s gonna smash us!

The floor beneath Megatron begins glowing red, as he tries to get out of range but isn’t quick enough and gets smashed by a pillar.]

O: Uh...

C: Oh no, the floor is lava!

[The Mission Failed screen appears.]

C: Oh, geez!

O: I did not move fast enough.

[Owls selects, “Restart From Last Checkpoint,” and the game reloads.]

S: That’s concerning.

O: [laughs]  Noooo, no.

[The same cinematic as before plays.

Owls pauses, and unpauses a few times looking for skip option.

Megatron: Finally!  The Omega Key is within my - What?!?]

O: Can- can I skip this?

O: No?  Am I just gonna have to watch this a zillion times?  No.

C: You know what-

S: I think you just have to be-

[The cinematic is skipped and the battle begins.

New Objective, “Defeat Zeta Prime,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

Zeta Prime: My will controls this entire chamber, Megatron.  I need only close my hand to crush the life out of you!

Megatron transforms into vehicle mode.]

C: -they spent a lot of time on that cinematic, you’re gonna watch it!

O: Zeta Prime spent a lot of time on that hologram to make him super buff.

C: Right?

[Breakdown: The floor is glowing!  It’s everywhere!  He’s gonna smash us!

Megatron successfully evades the pillar this time.  The pillar is reveals to be two pillars that effectively cover the entire distance from Zeta to the wall in a straight line.

The way the pillars in this fight work is that there are two rings of them, one inner ring immediately around Zeta’s little bubble and another outer ring going around.]

O: Yes, I got that much.

[Zeta continues to bring down more pillars, in two sets of two.  Imagine it as if you were drawing a line through the center of a circle, and that’s the pattern the pillars are falling in.]

C: So, wait, so he's not even smashing you with a hologram?  He's just smashing with random metal things.

O: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but he's still posing with the hologram, you know?

C: Yeah.

O: That part is important!

C: Right?  And I know this is probably a stupid question, but why doesn't he just make all of them come down to the same time!?

[Zeta Prime: Do you see now, Megatron?  This is my domain.]

O: Because he wants to feel powerful.

C: I think he can’t-

[Megatron transforms into robot mode.

Megatron: Your theatrics don’t frighten me, Zeta.]

O: I agree!  I agree, that I think they ARE theatrics!

C: Yeah!

[Zeta Prime: Here, I have the power to control… and create…

Several life sized Zeta Prime holograms appear and begin attacking the party who fight back.]

C: Now he's gonna make his tiny boys come after, you even though he's sit- he's sitting there safe in that bubble!

[Zeta Prime brings down three of the inner pillars briefly before they are lifted back up.  The remaining Zeta clones are dispatched.

Megatron: Endless duplicates of Zeta Prime - how nauseating!

Megatron picks up ammo that was dropped by the clones.]

O: I’m just saying, not all the time does Megatron have no reason to be mad at the Autobots, you know?

C: Yeah.

O: When their leaders are like this, he's got a point.

C: Also, wait, are those fake Autobots?

O: They’re his holograms.

S: Apparently he just does stuff with solid light holograms.

C: Right!?

[Megatron: Is that all, Zeta?  A pathetic army of energon clones?  Is that the best you can do?]

O: [snorts]

C: Oh, energon clones.

[Zeta Prime: HAHAHAHA!  You have NO idea!  Here, I have limitless power!]

C: So that’s what Megatron did in G1…

O: Huh?

[Soundwave: Megatron, we may be able to damage Zeta’s machinery during its recharge cycle.

The metal dome above Zeta opens up revealing a large reddish-orange core.  The party begins firing at it.]

C: With all those clones of everyone he has-

O: OH.  Well, I don’t they’re holograms, unfortunately.

[Breakdown: Blasting his shield won’t work!

The metal closes in around the core again.

Zeta Prime: A valiant attempt, Decepticons, but Autobot machinery is more resilient than you realize.]

C: No, no, I know, they don't have their shininess.

O: [laughs]

[Soundwave: Alert.  ALERT.  Zeta Prime is modifying the room.

The floor below Megatron begins glows he begins walking away from it but is smashed by a pillar.]

O: Oh come on!  I thought I’d gotten away...

[The Mission Failed screen displays.  Owls selects, “Restart From Last Checkpoint,” and the game reloads right after they’d damaged the core.

New Objective, “Defeat Zeta Prime,” displays briefly on the right side of the screen.

Zeta Prime: A valiant attempt, Decepticons, but Autobot machinery is more resilient than you realize.]

C: Yeah, I didn’t quite catch what hit you.

O: It was another smashy thing.

C: Oh.

O: Thankful it saved, so I don’t have to do all of that again.

[Breakdown: Ceiling’s coming down!  Get away from the mashers!

Zeta brings the outer ring of pillars down one at a time, Megatron moves into the interior to avoid them.]

C: So Specs, what is- what is Zeta Prime usually do?  I actually haven't really seen anything with Zeta Prime.

S: Uh, Zeta Prime is actually not a character I remember seeing very much about, he’s probably just one of the-

O: Well, he can bring them all down, Chezni.

C: Oh.

O: Oh shit.

[The floor under the inner ring begins glowing and the party tries to stay ahead of them to avoid getting smashed.  They eventually reach a gap where an exterior ring was either not brought down or has already been raised and exit into the gap.]

C: He just can’t bring them down when they’re close to you, oh.  No, I'm dumb I just now realized the red markings on the floor indicate he's going to bring them down.

O: [laughs]

C: Just now.  I am- you are probably very happy that we are not playing with you.

[Zeta Prime raises all the pillars and generates more clones of himself.

Breakdown: How can we win if he keeps making more clones?!?]

O: [laughs] You would have gotten crushed so many times.

C: Yes.

S: Okay, Zeta Prime is apparently from the original Transformers cartoon, from the third season, I think.  But I don't think he had a very uh, big part I think he's mostly from um, the ID- the 2005 IDW continuity.

[Zeta Prime brings down more pillars in the inner ring, but misses the party and they are raised again.

Soundwave: The Energon composition of these clones is remarkable.

Breakdown: You can be a SUCH a nerd, Soundwave!]

O: [snorts]

[Soundwave: Megatron -- Zeta Prime’s machine core is now vulnerable.

The machine core is visible again, and the party fires on it.]

C: Gotcha.

O: Is he a bastard in that one too?

[Soundwave: Zeta Prime’s shield has proven impenetrable.]

S: Mm, well, I don't think he’s, like, a bastard in the Marvel com- or not Marvel, ugh.

O: In G1.

[The core is hidden again and the screen shakes as something above the party explodes, small debris falls around them.

Megatron: Your machine is failing, Zeta Prime.  Where are your boasts now?]

S: Yeah, in the original G1 cartoon, but yeah IDW, he’s definitely an asshole.

[Zeta Prime: The battle is far from over, Decepticon!  Prepare for destruction!]

O: All the Primes in IDW were assholes, even Prime!  Er, or even Optimus.

S: Yeah.  Yeah.

C: Yikes.

[Zeta Prime: Stay off the glowing floors if you wish to live!]

Zeta Prime begins bringing down pillars 2 at a time, effectively moving to cover the entire room.  Megatron transforms into vehicle mode and manages to stay ahead of the glowing floors.

C: Also, rewind- did Breakdown say, “You are such a nerd Soundwave”?

O: Yes.

[Zeta Prime lifts all the pillars and generates a bunch more clones for the party to fight.  Explosions continue to rock the room.

Zeta Prime: I can easily create more energon clones!  You WILL be destroyed!]

C: He’s lucky it's not the Soundwave from Prime.

O: Well, I mean it is, technically.

C: OH GOSH, right.

S: Technically, yes.  Except he gets a very heavy-duty makeover before Prime.

O: Well- well, I think the- the sort of running implication is that he got very heavily damaged at some point before the start of Prime.

S: Well, it counts as a heavy-duty makeover.

[The party continues to fight clones while also dodging the various pillars that Zeta Prime keeps slamming into the floor.  White electricity is briefly visible on the floor while the explosions continue.

Soundwave: The Energon composition of these clones is remarkable.

Breakdown: You can be a SUCH a nerd, Soundwave!

C: Then he scanned a what, a stealth drone?

O: Yeah.

S: Yeah.

O: I still think if you’re gonna give him a vehicle mode, I think that’s a really good vehicle mode for Soundwave.

[Breakdown: Shoot the big glowy thing!  SHOOT IT!!

The machine core opens up again and the party fires.]

C: [laughs]

O: Thanks, Breakdown.

S: Ahhh…

O: Thanks, baby.  You’re tryin’, baby.

S:  That’s- that’s super helpful.

C: Hashtag, “shoot the glowy thing.”

[Zeta Prime: No!  Systems failing… this cannot be!

Zeta appears to make a last ditch effort to drop all the pillars but is foiled by a cinematic.]

O: Oh, yes it can!

C: He’s like, “No!  How could you kill me while I sat here in my bubble!?”

O & S: [laugh]

O: “Not so tough now, are ya?”

[Zeta Prime’s barrier has dissipated, he stands on his platform while metal from his machine rains down around him.  He falls, partially trapped under some debris.  Megatron walks over and picks him up with one hand so they’re mostly facing each other eye to eye.

Zeta Prime: Finish it!

Megatron pushes his fist into Zeta Prime’s chest, causing him to drop the Omega key.]

C: Woah!

O: You were saying?  I’ll take that key, and your spark, and I’m done.

[Zeta Prime: [screams]

Megatron: The Omega Key is mine!  The Core of Cybertron is mine!

Megatron catches the key and slams Zeta Prime back onto the ground.  The camera zooms in on the key in Megatron’s hand as a single light in the middle begins blinking red.]

C:  Eh- eh?

S: I think there’s going to be some boom.

[Zeta Prime is lying on the ground, twitching.

Zeta Prime: [laughs] Your spies were misinformed, Megatron.  That device only activates the key to the core.  But don’t worry, the Omega Key will come to you.]

C: You can still talk!?

[The screen cuts to a different cinematic that pans over the face of a huge Autobot as his optics come online.

Omega Supreme: Omega: Activated.  Power: Optimal.]

C: Oh, snap!

[More shots of Omega Supreme’s systems coming online as his Autobot badge is prominently displayed.

Omega Supreme: Mission: Destroy Megatron.

In the final shot, Omega Supreme is his vehicle mode, which is a large aircraft, and he takes to the air.]

S: Well, they've definitely got he has speech pattern right.

O: Yup, and he a big boi.

S: Yes, he is.

O: [laughs] Thanks for watching guys, hopefully, that's still fun even though there's not you know, three of us idiots running around.  There is only but one idiot running around.  Uh, and um, again, I’m sad I can’t play as Soundwave, but join us next time for chapter 4, Death of Hope.

S: Nice.

O: I’m Owls.

S: I’m Specs.

C: I’m Chezni.

O: Have a good day!

[Outro Music]

[aresmarked]

theivorytowercrumbles answered your question “i’m twitching to write i need to get through at least half of my chem…”

Ruby and Weiss trying to comfort Velv when she’s homesick (presuming Menagerie origin HCs~)?

Crying is healthy and contrary to popular belief, it’s actually better to talk about being homesick.

-

Velvet had been off the past few days.

It’d only been small things at first. She was quieter in their conversations, distracted as well. Several times it took some prodding to draw her attention back, and her insistence that she was fine was halfhearted at best. Malaise trailed after her like a downtrodden dog on a leash.

To Weiss and Ruby’s dismay, it took tears falling into the bowl of stew set before her for them to realise what was wrong.

“Ah… We’ve been away a while, haven’t we? No, don’t worry about my shirt, Velvet, just let it out.” Weiss wrapped one arm around Velvet’s shoulders, drawing her close while she mouthed at the server to please give them some privacy.

Ruby slid around the seats to hold Velvet from the other side, and chinned themselves on her shoulder. "Did you get to call home, before we left?"

"I did, I did, but—ah, gods." Velvet snuffled, and gave a watery laugh. "Look at me, I'm a mess."

Weiss smiled crookedly. "Would it help to know that even as a mess, you're wonderful to behold?"

It earned huffed laughter and a playful shove. Collected once more, Velvet's shoulders rose and fell with her next breath. "I did call before we set out, but... I don't know. It just, hit hard, how long I’ve been gone, how much I’ve missed, being away." Her eyes were distant. "Terry told me they were working on their sparring... normally I'd be the one teaching them that."

Neither missed the wistfulness in her voice, and for a few moments the sounds of the diner and wind outside washed back in between them. Velvet idly traced a whorl in the wooden counter. 

It was Ruby who moved first, laid a hand over hers, squeezed. "Must've been hard first year."

"Oh, I called home almost every other night at first." She chuckled again. "I did get settled eventually, just... a couple things piled up I think, it's been so long since it was this bad."

"The stew being one?" Weiss eyed it, as if she expected the meat in it to spring to life.

"Mm. It's a Menagerie dish. They must have a Faunus cook back there, there's quite a bit of lemongrass in it, among other things." She plucked out a long piece and popped it in her mouth, chewed it thoroughly before spitting the stubborn remaining fibres into a napkin and wrapping it up. Her shoulders relaxed a hair as she ran her tongue over her teeth. "Anyone else would have cut the lemongrass to bits, if they put it in at all."

Weiss looked at the bowl with more interest than suspicion then, and after silently asking permission, put a spoonful in her own mouth. She sat back with a soft sound of surprise. "More punch than you'd expect."

"It's the spices," Velvet explained, tearing a piece of bread and dipping it in the stew before she offered it to Ruby. "There isn't anywhere in Vale that makes it like this—or at least, if there is, I haven't found it."

Ruby started to talk, an eager light on their face, before remembering themselves. They swallowed and only then said, "We should go looking together sometime! And you can tell us more about the Menagerie even if we don't find anything.... Or you could tell us now, if you wanted."

"It's a plan." An uncharacteristically shy expression crossed Weiss' face, before it turned into something carefully casual. Her eyes fixed on her own plate as she started cutting into her fish. "When we get back we could see if your parents would be alright with taking two extra people in. And if we can fit in a visit to the Menagerie, of course."

Velvet's melancholy was faint then, in comparison to how warm the thought was of bringing them back, them bearing a bit of her home too. So she smiled, laid a kiss on their cheeks. "I'd love that."

[lawrenceseitz22]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 133

Click on the video above to watch Episode 133 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://ift.tt/1NZu6N2.

  Announcement

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:00:03].

Adam: Hey, all right. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts, this is episode 133, the episode with Adam and Bradley, and where Adam is working on being more expressive using his hands and making more movements instead of being here like twisting in my seat, I was told I do that a lot.

Bradley: Yeah.

Adam: Anyways. It’s good to be here, and despite two of us, we do have someone else coming on, we’ll introduce, shortly. Then, I think the rest of the gang may show up, here as we get going. Everyone is pretty busy right now, so we’re just going to go ahead and get started. As far as announcements go, I just want to remind people, if you’re new to Semantic Mastery, please check out the Syndication Academy, I’ll put the link if you’re watching this on YouTube or if you’re watching this live, check it out. All right?

It’s a great place to get started with us, besides Hump Day Hangouts, although we highly recommend if you can come by ask us questions, you know, these are live every week, and you can catch the replay if you’re not able to make it. Also, if you have not, yet, create your free account over at SerpSpace, all right, that’s where all of the done for you services are, you can find, so check those out. We got a bunch more coming out, too, along with, I’m trying to think of the newest one, it’s going to be a YouTube accounts, kind of done for you, we’re still working on exactly how that’s going to come out, but you can check that out and then another one that just came out, what was it? Indexing, and citations.

Bradley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam: Citations live, this is bad, I’ve got so many things going on-

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:01:24], citations is live, yet.

Adam: All right.

Bradley: It’s damn near it, if it’s not already, because I’ve seen it in the dashboard in the development server and all that.

Adam: Right. I’ll quit rambling, because the secret guest is going to be Roman, who is one of our partners on SerpSpace, so he can talk about this a little bit more. We’re doing a lot of, well, that’s him right there, it says Hernan, but it’s actually-

Bradley: Yeah. He’s playing Hernan’s part today.

Adam: Incognito. Then, real quick, too, one more thing is we’re going to be sending out some information about syndication networks, and we had a webinar this past Monday where we had a lot of information about the Syndication Academy, as well as syndication networks. Part of that is because hearing from other people, who have ordered services elsewhere, we know there’s other people that make syndication type networks and some of them are okay, and others are really not so good, so we’ve heard back from some people, like, hey, I bought this network, can you guys fix it? It’s like, well, probably not.

Bradley: No.

Adam: It would be expensive to fix it, then it would be to just do it. So, we’ll be sending out some information just doing some comparisons and then, you know, why you would want to use this service. We get that question a lot. Like, hey you guys charge more, why? So, diving into that, because we get that question and I think it’s a valid question and I understand, if I saw that, and was like, wow, why do you guys charge 10 bucks more? What’s up with that? Answering some of those questions, and then there might be a special opportunity with that. We’ll leave it at that, for now. Roman, can you hear me?

Roman Barnes: Yes, I can. Can you hear me?

Adam: Ew. Yeah. Your audio is awesome.

Bradley: Still, no camera, though. Right?

Roman Barnes: No. I need to go get a camera.

Adam: Got you. All right. Yeah. Everybody, this is Roman and Roman I’m not going to butcher your last name, you want to introduce yourself?

Roman Barnes: Yeah. My name is Roman Barnes. Not too bad to ruin my-

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:03:16].

Adam: Actually don’t ask, I was thinking-

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:03:17].

Adam: Don’t ask. I was thinking about your email address. I got confused for a minute and I was thinking that was your last name. Yeah. I’m out there. Anyways. Yeah. I mean, right before you hopped on we were talking about what’s coming up at SerpSpace, how we had the indexing come out. There’s some cool stuff like the done for you YouTube channels. Then, I even got confused, myself, as far as what has most recently come out since we had so much rolling out that you guys have been working on. If you don’t mind if you can kind of do it off the top of your head, what’s the latest two or three things that have come out?

Roman Barnes: The two things that we’re working on/pushing out kind of at the same time, one of them is something called TAS, or traffic authority stacking, it’s based on Jimmy Kelly’s Domain Authority Stacking. It’s the 2.0 version that everybody was waiting for that never happened through Network Empire. Storm alerts. Outside of that, also, we have citations coming out and that should be very shortly.

Adam: Nice. That’s right. Yeah. For some reason I thought they’ve gone live, and then I was like, wait a second, maybe not. All right. Cool. All right. Again, hopefully we’ll be having you on these Hump Day Hangouts more often, so something I’ll just say to everyone who is watching this now, if you guys have questions about SerpSpace, I know from time to time we get them. By all means, pop those in here and we’re going to try to be hooking up with Roman here, and bringing them on Hump Day Hangouts, so I mean he can answer all sorts of SEO questions, but obviously he’s going to be kind of the go to for SerpSpace stuff, so we can give you some more in depth answers.

Bradley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam: One thing, before we get started, I wanted to say we sent out an email, but if you haven’t heard about it, the Video Link Vortex webinar is tomorrow. That’s a free webinar. I’m going to pop the link on here. Bradley, did you, are you going to be involved in that?

Bradley: Yeah.

Adam: Okay. Cool.

Bradley: I’ll be there.

Adam: Awesome.

Bradley: I’ll be there with my buddy Bill, and Lem Moore, those guys are awesome. We always have a great time when we get together on webinars. It will be fun. We’ll have a good time, so guys, come check it out. He’s got another application that kind of, it’s kind of like a one, two punch with the Rocket Video Ranker, or the Tube Authority Rocket, whatever you want to call it. We promoted that with Bill a few weeks ago, and I did a case study, and Video Link Vortex kind of is like the next step, it can do, like automate YouTube silo builds, and it can do silos within, so in other words it’s like a playlist thing. It’s awesome.

Adam: Nice.

Bradley: It can do it from within the same channel. It can do it within, you can create silos using other channels, as well. It’s insane.

Adam: That’s awesome.

Bradley: Yeah. It creates like video link wheels and all kinds of stuff. It’s a really cool application that would work really well with the other app, too. Anyways, that’s what that’s about. Come check it out tomorrow, guys. There will be a replay, so if anybody asks, because I know we get that every time, so there will be a replay, don’t worry about it if you cannot make it live, we’ll send out the replay. Okay? By the way, Roman, while I got you on, real quick, did you say the super web 2.0’s are available, now, or they’re coming out?

Roman Barnes: Not, yet.

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: We still have a big piece to finish for that.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:06:31].

Bradley: Dude, I was logging into SerpSpace when you were saying that, I was like, no shit, they’re ready? That’s awesome.

Roman Barnes: Okay. Cool.

Adam: All right. Yeah. I guess, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got for announcements. You guys got anything else? Any SerpSpace news coming up, Roman, or anything people should know about?

Roman Barnes: Not too much. Once the citations are live, we’re going to be good to go on those for the desks, task type of stuff, that we haven’t pushed live now on the site. We can take a couple of orders, but we cannot handle heavy volume, yet, until we get more people trained on it.

Adam: Yeah.

Roman Barnes: It’s live, but-

Adam: Awesome.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Limited.

Adam: Cool. All right. Awesome. Let’s get into it.

Bradley: Cool. All right. I’m going to grab the screen, and bear with me, I’ll drop out for a minute … Can you guys hear me?

Adam: Yes, I can.

Bradley: Okay. Cool. All right. Ed [inaudible 00:07:34] up, he is a newer Mastermind member, and he is a hustler like no one I’ve, I mean, like it’s rare to find people that hustle as much as Ed does, so Ed, again, welcome and keep doing what you’re doing, dude. You’re going to crush it, there’s no doubt.

Short Tutorial On How To Use Live Rank Sniper

Ed says, “Any way to get a short tutorial step by step on how to use Live Rank Sniper? I thought I had it to create videos, to even use it. Thanks, Ed [inaudible 00:07:56].” No. Ed, and in fact you should as a Mastermind member, anyways, regardless of whether you purchased it or no you should have access to the bonus site, the MPR/, well, MasteryPR/SemanticMasterybonussite and there’s a case study in there that I did on how to use Live Rank Sniper. So, there is step by step tutorial on exactly how I use it in there. Just go check that out, if you do not have access, just reach out to us via support and we’ll get you set up, but you should have it already. Okay?

Next question, and by the way guys, you don’t need videos to use Live Rank Sniper, because all it does is, it creates scheduled live events within YouTube, which are indexible, if they’re set to public. You don’t even need a video. You can just go in and schedule a whole bunch or live events, targeting keywords, you get a YouTube URL and everything. It’s just like a YouTube video, there’s just no video, it’s just a placeholder. Then, once you’ve tested, if you decide that you want to replace the placeholder with an actual video, then you can stream to the placeholder. That’s possible to do, you can do it within Live Rank Sniper. You can do it with Hangout Millionaire, which is Peter Drew’s, basically it’s the enterprise version, or whatever, of Live Rank Sniper.

It does more than that, too, by the way, or you could use something like OBS, which is free. OBS Studio, and live stream to those scheduled live events. Really, the trick to using that tool is really just use a bunch of test channels for spamming with scheduled live events for poking keywords. In other words, testing the rank ability of keywords, using test channels that have no syndication networks, no connection to anything else on the web, they’re just spam channels for testing purposes, and then from there, once you’ve identified, which ones ranked, then you can go through and delete all those scheduled live events, and then just upload, or target those keywords from money channels that do have syndication networks, that have authority and all that kind of stuff, and you should be able to crush it.

That’s really what the whole purpose of that tool is for. It’s not necessarily to actually replace those scheduled live events, you know, like actually add videos to those events, because the tool isn’t really designed for that, it’s more for, it’s a poking tool. It’s a keyword testing tool, so to speak, although, you can do that it’s just a slower process.

Difference Between The Link Services Provided At Serp Space and Backlinks Indexer

Ed’s up next, he says, “I am taking all of my URLs for my client website, social media, and Web 2.0 sites and listing them on a spreadsheet, and then having my VA create a Google shortener for each URL and then I run both sets through the backlinks indexer, which I buy monthly, but I only get a total of 1400 links. SerpSpace allows for almost the same amount of money, it does 5,000 links. What is the difference in service? Objective answer please.”

Adam: Wow. What a good time to have Roman, here.

Bradley: Yeah. It’s a great question. Roman, do you want to tackle that one, or shall I? He might be muted.

Adam: Yeah. Roman, if you can hear us, you can feel free to talk, I don’t know if you’ve got yourself muted, or something happened, otherwise, Brad-

Roman Barnes: Yeah. I muted, myself.

Adam: Oh, okay.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. All I see is a black screen in front of me.

Bradley: What? You don’t see the screen? Does anybody else not see the screen?

Adam: I see it. Here, Roman, I’ll just send you the Skype, there you go, I just sent it to you.

Bradley: You need the, he doesn’t have the event page URL.

Adam: Right. Yeah. Let me send that to you, also.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:11:19].

Adam: As you can see everyone we’re working through-

Bradley: I’m surprised he’s not seeing my screen from his angle. Anyways, whatever. That’s interesting. Everybody else can see, right? I’m going to assume.

Adam: Yeah. I can see.

Bradley: Don’s asking, “What are the super web 2.0’s?” Cannot talk about it, yet, Don. “I was asking because it’s something that’s coming out with SerpSpace.” We’ll let you know as soon as it comes out. We’ll definitely be talking about it. Okay. Can you see, now, Roman? Apparently, not. All right. I’m just going to answer it-

Adam: Sure.

Bradley: If Roman wants to add on, he certainly can. Okay.

Ed’s asking, he’s using, let’s see, backlinks indexer. Backlinks Indexer is good. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve been using Backlinks, I actually canceled my subscription, I’m not kidding, like probably five or six weeks ago, only because we’ve got Dedia in our indexing service now, through SerpSpace that is guaranteed at 60% of indexing. That’s pretty freaking fabulous.

I don’t know of any other indexing services that do that, maybe they do, I don’t know of any that do, and I could be wrong, but that’s pretty cool and I know that Dedia, it’s amazing, because the amount of links that, that dude builds is unbelievable. Him and his team, I mean millions and millions of links per week, and he’s getting, I cannot tell you what he’s getting on his indexing, but we’ll guarantee he’s above-

Roman Barnes: Is it quite?

Bradley: 60%.

Roman Barnes: Or, is it just me? I’m just curious. I’m sorry.

Adam: What’s that? No. I can hear you.

Roman Barnes: Okay. The only person I could hear is you, in the last little while.

Adam: Weird. Yeah. You might have dropped out, especially if you’re having storms.

Roman Barnes: Do you want me to rejoin on the webinar?

Adam: [crosstalk 00:13:01].

Bradley: Hey, guys. I can hear you guys.

Roman Barnes: Okay. Yeah. I’m trying to understand the question that-

Bradley: What’s going on? Can you guys not hear me?

Adam: Yeah, Bradley, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Bradley: Yeah, but I hear Roman in the background talking, so I don’t know-

Adam: Yeah. Roman, you’re here, right? You can hear me, right now?

Roman Barnes: Yeah. I can only hear you though, I cannot hear anybody else.

Bradley: He cannot hear me is what I’m saying Adam.

Adam: Okay. So, Bradley is talking. All right. Roman, we’ll probably have you stop, just because it’s going to get all sorts of messed up.

Roman Barnes: Okay.

Adam: Yeah. Thanks. If you want to type me something as far as an answer about this or anything, feel free, and I’ll just kind of relay it.

Roman Barnes: All right. Sounds good.

Adam: Thanks.

Bradley: We’re going to have to switch back to Hangouts, man. I can see it already. All right. Anyways, that’s really the whole reason why Ed, is why, like, I mean, again, Backlinks Indexer is a great service, but since we have the ability, you know, through SerpSpace to indexing links at 60% or above, we guarantee, which is amazing. That’s why. If you can get better value by using SerpSpace, absolutely use it. Why not? Okay. By the way, I don’t think it’s necessary, Ed, honestly, to be taking your, well, if you want to do it one time, like take your clients website, social media, URLs and Web 2.0, like the profile URLs, like the main blog URLs, and shorten them, and then submit them, that’s fine, although I really don’t think that’s necessary. I think that’s overkill.

I mean, again, you can, it’s not a problem, if it’s not costing you a lot of money it’s not something you’re doing it’s a VA doing, then feel free to do so, but again, I think that’s overkill. Just submitting the URLs directly into the indexer ought to be good enough. It just seems like that’s redundant, is to shorten those URLs and then submit them, unless you wanted them shortened for a reason, for other link building purposes, in which case it would be nice to already have it done. If that makes sense?

Again, if your objective is specifically just for indexing those URLs, it’s really unnecessary to shorten them and submit them twice, because you can just take the actual URLs instead of shortening them and submit them more than once if you wanted. That’s not a problem. You can submit the same links over and over again. Usually most of the indexing services if you submit duplicate URLs in the same batch it will filter out the duplicates, but if you resubmit the same, like submit a batch, and then you resubmit the batch a second time it will take both times. If that makes sense? It’s probably going to vary from service to service, but that’s typically how it would work.

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: All right. Jeff’s up next, he says, I’m sorry, go ahead, Adam.

Adam: No. I was just saying, yeah, that makes sense. Then, also if anyone is interested, something we’re looking at is the possibility of integrating the indexer in SerpSpace with network management. If you know what I’m talking about, and that sounds interesting to you, just put something on the page, please.

Bradley: Can I elaborate on that a little bit?

Adam: Yeah. Sure.

Bradley: All right. Guys, if you’re a member, for those of you that have been using syndication networks or part of the Syndication Academy for any length of time, you probably remember over a year ago, from two years ago to about a year ago we had been endorsing a plugin called Backlink Commando that was really great, because it was a plugin that you could add to, you could take the RSS feeds from your Web 2.0 URLs, from your Web 2.0 sites, your network properties. Any of the properties that created, or had an RSS feed, so think of Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, Delicious, and [inaudible 00:16:29]. Delicious is pretty much dead in the water, right now, but Delicious and [inaudible 00:16:33] had RSS feeds. Pocket, was another one.

If you use pinboard.in that was another one that has a feed, anyways, any that had a feed, period, you could add to this plugin and it would basically run on a cron, so a cron job, so you could set it to once every, or four times a day, let’s say four times a day it would go basically call or fetch all the RSS feeds that were submitted to the plugin and pull any new posts that it had discovered. It would submit them or put them into a queue that then would go submit those URLs on a cron to a backlinks indexing service, and there was several of them that it would integrate with, one of which was Backlinks Indexer, and that was the one we always recommended. It was awesome.

It was an awesome way to automate your Web 2.0 post URLs, so your syndicated content from your money site, or your YouTube channel that goes out to your Web 2.0’s and is published on the Web 2.0’s it would extract those URLs, post URLs and auto submit them to indexer, as well. About a year ago, they just stopped supporting that plugin, and it stopped working. They don’t sell it anymore, either. They don’t support it anymore, which I think that’s shitty, but it is what it is, and it stopped working, so we really didn’t have any other solutions for that.

Now, about two or three, maybe even four months ago, now, on one of the Syndication Academy update webinars there was a hack that was brought to me, or was shown to me by one of our Syndication Academy members, his handle in the Facebook group is Rico Suave, but he gave us an awesome, or shared an awesome method for being able to use Google Sheets, which would extract the post URLs and put them in a Google Sheet and then you could index the Google Sheet and do all kinds of stuff with that. That’s been covered in the Syndication Academy updates, guys, if you want to go look at that, but again, it was still kind of a bit of a pain in the ass to set up.

It was a decent alternative, but it was kind of a pain in the ass, so anyways, the next step is now that we have indexing services inside of SerpSpace, along with the network management. Right? Network monitoring service, we can possibly, and that’s what we’re working on is have that service to where it will auto extract the URLs and submit them to the indexer, so it’s going to be the solution that we’ve been waiting for, for about a year, now. Thanks to our friends over there at SerpSpace. Hopefully, that makes sense. Guys, when that feature rolls out, we’ll certainly let you know, because that in of itself will be totally worth having a subscription for the indexing service just for that reason if nothing else. Okay?

Thoughts On Syndicating WordPress Blogs To Personally Branded IFTTT Networks

Okay. Jeff’s up, let’s see, he says, “I have a new client who, he and his wife both have problems in the past with showing up on Ripoff Report we are working on citations, and soliciting new reviews. If I can bury a Ripoff Report beyond page two for his name I get paid a handsome bonus. He has a consultingbusiness.com, domain number one, and his wife is a real estate agent and she owns her name.com, domain number two, and he owns his name.com, domain number three. They also own a prominent real estate development, domain number four.” Okay. “I was thinking, syndicating their respective WordPress blogs to personally branded IFTTT networks. Thoughts?” Yeah. That’s fine. There’s no reason you cannot do that.

You can certainly brand, like think about consultants and things like that, speakers, coaches, those kinds of things are typically going to have their brand is themselves, you know what I mean? They are their brand, that’s what I mean. Okay? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, Jeff. That’s perfectly logical and normal.

Ordering IFTTT Networks And Use Real Names/Photos Instead Of Personas

“If so, can I order syndication networks and use real names, photos, instead of personas?” Absolutely. Yeah. We only use personas stuff when we’re creating specifically just for SEO boosting purposes. You know, syndication networks specifically just for SEO boosting purposes, but if you’ve got, you know, a real person that has their own blog, absolutely, we don’t spoof anything there.

That should be branded for them. Right? It should be branded after them personally, because they are their brand. Yes. You can absolutely do that. “Could these be ordered so that IP’s match the regional area?” They could be, but here’s the kicker with that, Jeff, it’s not something we cannot do, but you’re going to have to provide the proxy when you purchase the order, and it’s going to have to be a custom order, which means we charge, it’s a small nominal customization fee. I think it’s like 20 bucks.

If Roman is still on, and he can confirm that, or Adam, if you can confirm that. I think it’s 20 bucks as an add-on for something like that. Here’s the deal, when you go to order the network, as far as I know, you order the network and place a support tech ticket after it’s been ordered, mention that you would like to use a specific proxy, pay the upgrade fee and send us the proxy with the user name and password for it, and we should be able to get it done for you. Okay? Am I wrong in saying that, guys? Anybody want to comment on that, before I move on to the next one?

Roman Barnes: I don’t think we have that option available in the site, but we could certainly take care of it if you-

Bradley: Right.

Roman Barnes: Send in a ticket afterwords-

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: That’s not a problem.

Tiers Suggested Per Property For All Four Domains/Properties

Bradley: Okay. That’s your deal, Jeff, just send in a support ticket, as long as you can provide us with the proxy, and again, I think it’s just a small fee for customization. That kind of stuff happens from time to time. We do accommodate things like that when needed. “If I ordered networks for all four domains, properties, how many tiers do you suggest for property?” Honestly, I would just suggest one tier one network for each property, Jeff. That hasn’t changed, that’s the same suggestion that I always do for blog syndication, I want one branded tier for each domain. Right? Because there’s going to be four different brands, really. That’s all I recommend.

You can do multi tiered networks, but it’s more hassle, in my opinion, then it’s really worth, unless you’re using something like RSS Masher, Damon Nelson’s product, which is a good product, and that’s a good way to kind of like reduce footprint issues on tier two. For YouTube channels, you can get away with as many networks as you want, but for money channels, I recommend that you stick with just a branded tier one network for now.

Syndicating Youtube Channels To The Same Set Of Web 2.0 Properties

“Can I also syndicate YouTube channels to the same Web 2.0 properties?” Of course. Of course, you can.

“Any other tips, recommendations?” No. The only thing I would recommend is from the personal blogs, because it’s kind of like all wrapped up in one, those four brands, believe it or not, I would recommend actually, probably interlinking between networks. What I mean by that is not linking everything together, but I’m talking about like occasionally do a blog post from one site where they mention or reference another site, kind of like, you could do it multiple ways, a traditional contextual link from within a blog post with an anchor text or you could do curation style link. Remember, where you could actually curate some content from one of those other three domains on to the blog. Right? Then, cite, or give attribution. Just like you would for any sort of curating content over to that site.

Another thing you could do is like a resource box, like, at the bottom of a post, say recommended reading or additional resources, or something like that, and then put links to related content on the web, one of those links being one of your own sites, or one of your clients sites. You know what I mean. The reason I say this, you don’t want to interlink everything all the time, but you don’t want to start just at kind of randomly, occasionally linking from one to the other, and another to another, that kind of stuff and what will happen is you’ll start to improve the authority and the relevancy of all four of those. Right? That’s a little bit counterintuitive.

Our friend, Pavel from Rank Whiz has been doing a ton of testing with that kind of stuff. He’s got a lot of data showing that, that will improve actually interlinking between network properties, now, in a randomized fashion, and Roman could talk about this a little bit, as well, but that seems to be actually really effective for reinforcing the relevancy of the network properties, and actually improving the overall authority and the power of them.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Definitely. One of the things I wanted to maybe also add into that is maybe some JSON structured data markup might help in his situation as well, because it’s general reputation management from what I’m understanding from the question, same attributes, and that kind of thing would definitely go a long way.

Associated Website For A YouTube Channel

Bradley: Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Cool. On to the next one. Greg’s up, he says, “My established website has an empty YouTube channel, it’s part of it’s branded syndication network. I went through YouTube mastery course and will not be adding a lot of videos and I’m wondering about the companion website you discussed, is a companion website needed in my situation, or is that only when used when YouTube is a primary focus and there is no related website already placed?” Yeah. That’s what I mean, Greg, the companion website, associated website, whatever you want to call it, that’s typically if you’re going to be using YouTube as your main content distribution engine.

In other words, if that is your epicenter, your golden frame, is your YouTube channel, itself, like that’s your main content platform, then I recommend buying a domain and creating a companion/associated website and it attaching it, because it does help to improve the authority of the YouTube channel, but it’s not necessary if you have that, for example, in your case it’s part of a branded network, it’s just not being used, then it’s not necessary, because it’s again, it’s only, I only recommend doing that if you’re using YouTube as the primary content source for your networks.

If you’re going to be using a website, then I recommend creating the associated website, right away, and then using that as your content distribution, so that’s the center of everything, is your website, because you want to transfer as much authority to your website as possible. Right? If you’re doing specifically YouTube marketing, YouTube video stuff, then I would recommend just sticking with the YouTube channel as your primary source and you can add a companion website if you want, but if you already have it as part of a network, it’s really not necessary, because it should already be linked to your existing, and excuse me, interlinked with all of your existing properties in that network. It’s just your call. It’s up to you. It’s really up to you.

Pinvid As Top Recommended Theme For A Youtube Companion Website

“Is PinVid still top recommended theme for a companion website?” Yeah. In a reality, if you’re doing video based stuff, oh, God, I want to talk about this, this screen, here, at some point, if we have time.

Adam: Yeah, man. Do it. Momentum?

Bradley: Yeah. This is awesome. I freaking love this. Guys, this in a Chrome extension. It’s called Momentum, it’s free, but what I love about it is once you install it, you’ve got this to do list over here, and I’ve just always used paper and pen or whiteboard and I have for years, now, I’m just keeping tasks and stuff, daily tasks, this is awesome, because you can swap stuff around, you can move stuff, all kinds of stuff. You can put your favorite links, the links you access often up here. What I like about it is every time you go to open up a new tab to go to another website-

Adam: Hold on, your man focus today is get shit done.

Bradley: My man focus today is-

Adam: That’s awesome.

Bradley: To get shit done. That’s right. What that means is look at your to do list, dummy.

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: That’s what that means. You know? Every time I go to open up the tab to go check Facebook, or go look at the new offer from some stupid email that I got, or whatever, I click on this, I open this up and it is basically starring me in the face, like hey, this is the stuff you’ve got to do quit being stupid. You know?

Adam: Maybe we should have an episode of Hump Day Hangouts that’s all about workflows and productivity, or maybe just an extra episode. I think it would be interesting.

Bradley: Yeah. All right. What I was looking for was structured, you would know this one, Roman, if you’re still on.

Roman Barnes: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bradley: Semantic WordPress themes, that’s what I was thinking of. Kevin Polley, he coded these. If you’re just doing this, let’s see if I can find it, this is on the Network Empire website, but they had, he had his own website for, I thought it was semantic WordPress themes. Anyways, this is it here, guys, just go to Google, if your curious, look up semantic WordPress themes, this is from the Network Empire guys, specifically Kevin Polley, and he’s the one that coded all this out, it’s basically the PinVid theme, so you can see the Pinvid theme. It’s 50 bucks, or the PennBid Pro theme, only for certified advisors, so this is the one that you could get, here. PinVid theme for 50 bucks.

I’m telling you it’s a really good theme if your focus is video stuff, and you’re just building a companion website for the sake of the authority boost that it gives the channel, then this is a great theme for that. This is the same theme I use for those. Okay, guys? The reason I’m telling you that is because it’s been marked up entirely with schema, so the video objects, the whole entire theme is marked up and you can automate the posting of the videos to the WordPress theme, or excuse me, the site through plugins or you can do it with IFTTT. Right?

I prefer to do it with IFTTT, because there’s no load on the server. That’s why you can set up an IFTTT account guys that will automatically post your word, excuse me, YouTube videos to your self posted WordPress site. We actually covered that, I think, last month in the Syndication Academy Update webinar. That’s a great theme specifically for that purpose. I wouldn’t use it for much of anything else, but for that, it’s a great theme. Okay? There you go.

Uploading Videos To YouTube Without Persona Syndication Network

We’ll move on. “I don’t have a persona syndication network build around my YouTube channel, yet, should I wait to upload any videos until that is completed, or if I add the videos to the channel now can they be added to the network once it’s finished? Thanks.” They can be, Greg, but you have to set up the like recipes, so you have to build out a whole other set of recipes that are triggered by liking a video, so I would recommend just holding off if you’re going to build a persona network as well. I’d just wait, if I were you, but it’s up to you. You can always go in and add the like recipes, or applets, now, and I’d just click on those and that will syndicate it, as well, but that means you have to build a whole other set of applets.

Google Maps For Online Business With No Intention Of Getting Foot Traffic

Okay. Steve’s up, he says, “I ran a number,” excuse me, “I run a number of online websites out of my home, and I’m definitely not interested in foot traffic. Are they’re any good ways to still use Google Maps for SEO, or should we just ignore them outside of local SEO?” Now, you can, here’s the thing, guys, look, and I started doing this, too, for some of my affiliate businesses and stuff, guys, I’m not kidding, I’m registering Google My Business pages with registering addresses and all of that for even affiliate based businesses, now, guys, because of the boost that it can get, because it validates the entity.

When you get a Google My Business page, and you verify an address via postcard or whatever, how ever you verify it, for me it, it’s always been postcard, then that’s a verified business entity in Google’s eyes. Like, I’ve even got, recently, the Ketogenic Diet project that I’ve been working on, some of you would be familiar with that, I actually formed another company for that project and so I registered that. We just started a traffic agency, Semantic Mastery, we just registered that. I mean, even affiliate websites, guys, can be registered, but you have to verify an address.

The thing is, Steve, all you got to do is once you’ve registered the Google My Business page you want to during the initial process of setting it up adding your business to Google Maps or to Google My Business, there’s going to be a checkbox at the bottom when you go to, and it says something like, does your business serve customers at their location? You want to leave that to no, at first, which is the default setting, because when you go through the process and it sends, and it wants to send you a verification postcard, a mail via US mail, if you had selected yes, I serve customers at their location, unless this was a bug and it might have been fixed, because about six months ago when I was setting up several lead gen locations, or lead gen Google My Business location pages if you had that, yes, I serve customers at their location checked on the sign up process.

When it got to the point where it would direct you to send the postcard there would be no address in the postcard address field, it would just be the name of the business, and the city, it would have no street address, because that’s what happens when you select that option after you’ve verified the address, so in other words, leave it to no, I don’t serve customers at their locations, when you set it up. Then, request the verification postcard, then once you receive the postcard and you enter your pin number in, which then verifies it, then you can go in there and set, yes, I serve customers at their location, and what that does is removes your street address from Maps. It’ll still give you a Maps listing, it will still identify the city that the business is listed in, but it will remove the street address and the Map marker from the pin, or excuse me, the Map pin from the map, itself.

It will just show your business name, and the city, and then obviously the contact details, phone numbers, stuff like that. Again, I recommend for those of you who are willing to do so, I mean, guys, I don’t care what anybody says about post office boxes not working, still. I just did two more of them last week. I’m not kidding. The US Post Office boxes still work, as I’ve recommended before don’t try to register several boxes for the same Google My Business profile, so whoever the Google My Business owner is, like if you’ve got, if you’re going to be using the black hat method of USPS post office boxes, guys, then don’t go try to register four under the same account. Does that make sense?

You don’t want to do that, because that will flag it, I know it, I’ve seen it happen, it hasn’t happened to me, but it’s happened to several of our Mastermind members or Local Kingpin members, or whatever. That’s why I recommend for every single Google My Business profile that you set up if you’re using the PO box method is that you use different persona accounts for each GMB profile, and then once the listing has been verified, then you can add your main profile, or a single profile as the main manager for every single one of those that you set up. If that makes sense? Okay. That way you can access everything from one profile, but the actual owners are all separated. All right. That’s how I’ve gotten around it, and again, I just did two of them last week. I know it still works.

Webinar on KML

Chris G is up. He’s our support guy, and our partners in Mastery PR, he’s awesome. He had a support question from Daniel [inaudible 00:35:49], he says, “Can you point me to the webinar that talks about KML? I’ve seen that except floating around the Facebook group numerous times, but have no idea where it’s from. I believe there was a webinar about it in the past, but not sure if it was free or a paid webinar.” Okay. My answer to that is, Daniel, it’s funny, but I was chatting with Marco about this earlier today, and Chris, and KML files it stands for Keyhole Markup Language. That’s a, I guess it’s a specific language or whatever, like what Google Earth uses.

I have limited knowledge on KML, guys, except for how I used it in the past. Okay? When I first got into doing, and I promised Marco that I would just talk about it based upon what I know from back in 2012 when I was using KML files a lot, and Marco and his team of mad scientists have been in the lab and they’ve got some really crazy shit that they’ve discovered about KML, recently, that is strictly for RYS members, guys, so I cannot, I don’t even know half the shit that they’re doing to be honest with you. I can tell you specifically about what KML used to be. I didn’t even realize that they were still valid or viable files that would help SEO.

Back in 2012, I was introduced to KML files through Ivan Budimir he’s one of my primary mentors for local SEO, and this goes back when Google Maps SEO was brand spanking new. Right? It was in its infancy, so KML files are, you can even go to Google and look for this, let’s say, KML file generator. Let’s see if they still have them, because this was back in 2012 when I used it. Okay. Yeah. Here’s some of them, here. See if I recognize any of these. Geo Site Map Generator, that’s the one I used to use back in 2012, and look this site hasn’t even changed in five years. Look, it’s 2011 was when it was created.

I’m telling you, this was back in 2012 when I joined Maps Magic, which was Ivan Budimir was the coach, again, he’s one of my primary mentors for local SEO, the guy was a freaking ninja. Anyways, this is where Geo Site Maps something else we don’t use too often anymore, but a geo site map is basically like any other site map. Right? It’s an XML file that you can create and basically you can upload it as just a file to your server, to the root of your domain, and then just put a link, we used to do this, guys, all the time, we would create, and this is the exact site I used to use to create them, I would create, it creates a geo site map and a KML file, and what you would do is upload both files that you download once the application spits out the files for you.

You upload them to the root domain, the server on your root domain and then you would just put a link in the footer of your site, just like your privacy and terms of service links. One would say location, and that would point to the KML file, and then the other one would say geo site map and it would point to the geo site map file. That used to work like gangbusters, I mean, I’m talking about in 2012, guys. I had lead gen sites at the time that literally all I did was go in and once I learned this technique and add the geo site map and the KML file and within two, three days boom I’d be the top of Maps.

Now, again, this was back in 2012, I got away from doing it, honestly, because once structured data came out I heard that this had been basically rendered useless. It wasn’t really all that valuable, although, again, I don’t know what the hell Marco’s doing in the lab, right now with KML files, but he’s pretty freaking excited about it, so apparently there’s still some value to these files that I am not aware of. Again, just very simply the extent of my knowledge to these were creating the geo site map and by the way the Yoast plugin has that local SEO add-on, it’s expensive, you could purchase, I don’t like it, personally. The local SEO plugin and add-on, or extension, whatever you want to call it, that has a geo site map built into it. Okay.

I personally don’t really like that plugin at all. The add-on, especially, it’s expensive, and I think it’s just too much bloated code and all that kind of stuff, so I don’t use it, anymore. I know that the local SEO plugin does have that ability where it creates a geo site map. One other thing I want to mention about this, guys, is I know that, here’s another thing, whenever you go to, and let’s walk through this, real quick. We’re running out of time. A lot of great questions today, guys, I really appreciate that. Am I logged in? Yeah, I’m logged in. Let’s go to Semantic Mastery. Okay. I’m logged into my AdWords Manager account, so I’m logged into Google.

Here’s the thing, guys, I’m just using this as an example. Whenever you see how it says Semantic Mastery and then there’s this star, here? When I click that star, you see how it says saved to your map? That just created a KML file. There are gigs on Fiverr that you can order that will have a bunch of, you know, they’ll take, they’ll give you 30 KML files for your Maps listing, or for your Google My Business listing, business page, whatever. That’s what this does. All it does is they’ll take 30 different profiles and they’ll go search for it, you know, go visit, or whatever it is that you tell them, and they’ll just click on it, or maybe you send them the maps URL, whatever. Same thing.

If I go here and go to maps, so I can see the maps listing, you’ll see the same saved icon, here, so that means that by doing so this account, this Google account has now created a KML file. I know that you can use KML files for spam purposes, as well. Also, the thing is when you click on a, and I don’t know where, I don’t know if you can download or extract that, but I know that at least years ago that would create a KML file, because that was another way that you could boost maps listings, was spamming the saved maps. Does that make sense? All right.

Just so you know, when you click on a KML file all it does is open up Google Earth and it takes you directly to where that location is, so you want to be very, very precise, if you’re going to use something like the KML file generator, and put the exact geo coordinates in for the Google Maps listing. Guys, remember to get the exact geo coordinates, go search for your listing, go to maps, search for your listing in maps, in Google Maps, and then right here in the address bar, right there are your geo coordinates.

Do you see that there? I know it’s probably small on your end, but right there past the at symbol in the maps URL is your latitude, then it’s comma, longitude. If you’re in the US, at least, you’re going to typically, I’m pretty sure they’re always formatted latitude then longitude, so that’s what it is right there. Right there, your exact coordinates based upon Google’s data, so that’s what you want to use in a KML file. Does that make sense? Anyways, hopefully I didn’t confuse anybody on that, again, my knowledge is very limited on that, other than from what I know from years ago.

I know Marco’s got a whole bunch of stuff he’s looking at and again that’s stuff that’s got to be reserved for the RYS Academy, in fact, I don’t even know half the shit he’s doing. From five years ago, that used to be a really effective method. I don’t know that it still is, today, because I thought, again, I haven’t used it at all since we really got heavy into doing structured data markup, or schema markup. I don’t how effective that is. Do you know, Roman, if you’re still on, do you have any input on that?

Roman Barnes: Not on the KML stuff. I joined the first webinar Marco did, but he had to redo the webinar, because he had a bad connection that day.

Bradley: Yeah.

Roman Barnes: I missed out on it.

Bradley: Okay. Cool. Had you ever heard of that stuff, before?

Roman Barnes: Not before that.

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: That was the first time I have ever heard of it.

Bradley: Yeah. It’s so funny, because when I saw this question come up, I was like, really, KML files, are they still effective and that’s when Marco was like, oh, my God. I was just like, wow. I may have to revisit that, because I stopped using them like three, four years ago. Probably at least three years ago. Okay.

Pitching A Syndication Network To A Video Production Company

Columbia is up, she says, “You mentioned selling network to a video production company.” You can, Columbia, I prefer, well, it depends on your strategy, yes, you can sell networks to video production companies, in fact that’s a great way to generate a whole bunch of revenue in one lump sum. Excuse me.

Then, upsell them on network management, and that’s maintaining the networks, so that’s monitoring them, also boosting the networks, so additional link building, that kind of stuff. I can tell you, my engagement with the video production companies, I’ve got one, I’ve got a handful of video production companies that send me like a couple jobs per year, if that. They’re really not pushing it all that hard. I got this one video production company it’s in the neighboring town, in an adjacent city to me that at any given time we have between 25 to 35 videos going, per month on what they call the Google boost program, and it’s only a $100.00 per month, per video, but that’s pretty decent money, if you think about it. I’ve been dealing with this particular video production company for three years, now, at least three years. You know, it depends.

For them, again, I don’t sell them networks, they rent, I sell them video ranking services at wholesale prices on my own networks, now I quoted them on selling them networks, and I told them that I suggested that they purchase their own networks, because then it could be branded after their company, which is their video production company, which means every time that any of their client videos that are currently ranked on my networks, but if those videos were ranked on their own networks, with their own branding. Then every time somebody was exposed to one of their client videos they would also be exposed to the video production company, because they could have their branding on the channel and all that other kind of stuff, but they didn’t want to put up the initial investment.

They have been for three years, now, using my networks, and I still to this day, probably two or three times a year get an email from the owner of the production company saying, hey, I just was looking at the rankings for this particular client and I noticed that there’s two listings on page one that says, it’s a John Doe blog and it’s got the clients video on that, what is this? And, I’ve told this to the owner like three times, a year, for the last three years, no kidding, that those are persona based properties that I use to help rank the videos, but they’re like, you know, this doesn’t make any sense, why would they have videos on somebody else’s video on their blog, blah, blah, blah, I said, look, it’s just a way to rank stuff.

I’ve had to explain because the client says, or the business owner will, or the video production company owner says, “Well, what happens if the client goes and looks and he sees this? Isn’t this going to make him mad?” I say, “You think the client is going to be mad that his video is taking up three or four places on page one, and knocking three or four competitors off of page one, just because it’s on some persona based blog that he doesn’t know who it is? That’s more of a problem than having his competitor in that place?” “Oh. I guess, when you put it that way it makes sense.” You know?

Anyways, every time I have to reexplain that to the video production owner, is always another opportunity for me to pitch him on his own done for you networks, which we don’t charge what we charge you guys as internet marketers buying networks, we charge high dollar when we charge an end user for networks, it’s a hell of a lot more expensive than when you guys buy it. You know what I mean? As far as how to pitch that, Columbia, okay, so her question is, “Do you do some video promotion for their clients while remaining invisible to their customers?” Meaning the video production company’s customers, “And, later pitch the network to the production company, or would you pitch it all up front?” No. I don’t do that, because that’s sneaky.

What I do is I go directly to the video production company and the exact pitch that I use, that worked, and it’s worked four times, now, is to go to the video production company, strike up the conversation, especially if you can send them, what I like to do is send video emails, I’ve talked about that a million times, but if you send video emails to the video production company, so inside the email, it’s got a screen shot that looks like a video, so if somebody clicks on it, it opens up a video and it’s you explaining very quickly, because you have a very, very small window of opportunity to catch their attention, but show some results of ranked videos that you have ranked.

They can be generic videos that you ranked specifically, okay, now, where is Adam? They can be videos that you rank specifically just so that you have a portfolio of results to show, even if you don’t use those videos to actually monetize them in any way, just rank a few videos, and then show that in a video when you’re pitching a production company and say, “Look, I provide video SEO services, I can do this for your clients,” and how you pitch it is most video production companies, they sell the video service, the creation service. It’s a one off fee. They have to constantly be going out and getting new clients. Right? New customers. New people to buy new videos from them.

Once the video has been created they are done, unless they get repeat business from that same customer, they’re pretty much done, so you frame it as, how would you like to generate recurring revenue from your existing client base, existing and future client base, customer base? Whatever you want to call it. Explain to them that you provide wholesale SEO services and you can rank those customers videos, so that they can not only produce the video and sell the video to the customer, but then they can upsell them on monthly SEO and mark that up, so that they get recurring revenue from them. Right? It’s a win-win-win situation.

The customer gets more exposure and more leads from their video, which otherwise would probably only get put on their website and maybe shared to their Facebook page and that would be the end of it, nobody would ever see that video again. It wouldn’t generate leads, it would only be seen by people that had already, were already leads. Does that make sense? It wouldn’t be used for lead gen, most businesses buy these super nice videos that they pay $3500.00 for a local production company to create and then nobody ever sees the damn video unless they’re on their website. What good is that? Use the video as a lead magnet. Right?

That’s the whole way you frame it. You frame it as the customer wins, you guys win, because you get to provide this service and generate recurring revenue from an otherwise one off service, and I win, because I get to do what I like to do, which is the SEO, the man behind the curtain. I don’t have to do sales. I don’t have to do customer contact, or support. None of that. All I got to do is perform. Does that make sense? That’s the way to pitch, and that pitch works really, really well. Here’s the thing, if you get some people on the fence, that are unsure, offer to rank a couple of their existing clients videos for them for free. That’s what I’ve done.

I’ve done it, three out of the four companies that I’ve landed from using this exact method, I ranked videos for them for free, and I did it very quickly, too. You know what I mean? I’d tell them, “Send me three, or five videos of current existing clients that you have, that you would like for me to rank,” and they’ll send me three to five videos and I’ll select one or two, or maybe three, out of them and I’ll rank them. Then, I’ll contact them back once they’re ranked, which typically only takes a couple of days, and I’ll rank them for something like the company name, plus review. Something like that, so it’s not hard to rank, but it’s just to show results, and say, “Look, I got this done. Here’s the results. If you’re interested in this service, let’s talk.” It works really, really well. Okay. It’s a great strategy. I love that strategy. I don’t do a whole lot of it anymore, because I got enough volume from the current clients.

We’re going to wrap it up in four minutes, guys, we’re trying to get through a couple more very quickly. Yeah. Again, Columbia, it depends, if you want to sell networks, you can generate large lump sums of cash up front, for that, or you could build your own networks to where you’re building your own assets that you can use for not only ranking videos for production companies, but also for your own stuff. You can build your own lead gen assets, because you’ll have the networks in place. If they’re your networks, you can do whatever you want with them. Remember if you’ve been following us for any length of time and I know you have, we always talk about building your own assets. It makes sense to do both, even. Sell them networks and then build your own, as well.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Make sure you charge them for it.

Bradley: You’re damn right.

Roman Barnes: The value of the IFTTT networks, I’ve known people that have sold them for more than $2500.00 a pop.

Bradley: Yeah. One of our Mastermind members, John, a realtor, or he sells to realtors, and he’s sold them for, he showed that check $1995.00. All right. Robert says, “Do you use a proposal when selling syndication networks?” Me, typically, no. We talked on the Mastermind webinar last week very briefly about in the past for my agency, guys, like the client services, I’ve never had like packaged prices or like boxed service prices, except for a few things, one of which was syndication networks. I charge 797 to local businesses for a network order.

It’s not really a proposal, it’s just on my agency website there’s a services, that’s funny, that site hasn’t even been updated since 2012, because I don’t get clients from my website, guys, I don’t know if too many marketers that do. All my clients come from either cold contacting, and prospecting, or referrals. Anyways. But, my website has in the packages section, it’s got for example the syndication networks, 797, and it explains on the page what it is, there is no need for a proposal for that, obviously during the pitching process if some questions arise, I’m happy to answer questions, but I really don’t need a proposal for that.

What I was getting ready to say earlier was it used to be my opinion in the past was to never have boxed prices, except for something like SEO, especially, because you’d have to approach every project, independently, or separately, and evaluate every project separately, so the pricing is always going to be customized pricing based upon the project. My attitude has changed a bit into more now, to me it makes more sense to have boxed or packaged prices that are specific to services or activities. Not necessarily results. You can promise results, or whatever based upon a combination of these services, but that way everything is like ala carte, like a menu of services, and it makes it easier, because you don’t need, the problem with doing customized proposals is the amount of time it takes.

That’s where I had always done it that way before, but going forward, looking with our new traffic agency, that I’m basically heading that up, is I want to be able to prospect and pitch, or send proposals in volume in mass, and you cannot do that when you’re doing customized proposals. Does that make sense? Again, I recommend for something, especially for syndication network, is just having a sales page basically that you can direct people to that has your pitch for why it’s important, and why it would help their business on it already, and then just send people to that. All right.

All right, guys. We got to wrap it up. I’m going to answer one more question, just because I saw this one earlier from Alexander and I just want to answer this very quickly, guys, and then we’re going to wrap it up, because it’s at the hour mark. He says, “Do you guys still use and endorse Crowd Search?” Yes. I still do. I still use it the same way that we talk about it in the Crowd Search demo webinar, the update webinar that we did last year. I use it the same. I don’t typically use it to direct traffic directly to the money site, I usually it unless it’s just for navigational search purposes, which means like brand searches, and that kind of stuff. I do use it for referral traffic, a lot. That’s primarily how I use it, is referral traffic.

He says, “How can you be sure that Google will notice the traffic on link to money site?” Because if you have Google Analytics on the money site, it knows where the traffic is coming from. You can use the goo.gl, the Google short links to inject analytics in any link stream. Right? Anywhere that you shorten a URL with Google you’re adding analytics to that link stream. Analytics will see everything. Google will see everything. That all traffic activity through that link, they will know the referrals, where it came from, all that kind of stuff. The user’s device, their browser, all that kind of stuff, where they are in the world, all that comes through the goo.gl short URL, but then on your money site, if you have analytics, which why shouldn’t you? I mean, some people are afraid to use all that, but I use Google Analytics on all my sites, and Google analytics will know where the traffic is coming from. Okay? Yeah. That’s pretty much it. All right, guys. We got to wrap it up. We’re already a couple minutes over. Roman, thanks for being here, dude.

Roman Barnes: Definitely not a problem.

Bradley: All right. We’ll see everybody, tomorrow the Rocket Video Ranker webinar, or the Video Link Vortex webinar, so don’t miss it. If you guys are interested in that at all, otherwise the replay will go out. We’ll see you all next week.

Adam: Awesome.

Bradley: Thanks, everybody.

Adam: Have a good one.

Bradley: Thanks, Adam. Bye.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 133 posted first on your-t1-blog-url from Blogger http://ift.tt/2s83jbS via IFTTT

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 133

Click on the video above to watch Episode 133 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

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:00:03].

Adam: Hey, all right. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts, this is episode 133, the episode with Adam and Bradley, and where Adam is working on being more expressive using his hands and making more movements instead of being here like twisting in my seat, I was told I do that a lot.

Bradley: Yeah.

Adam: Anyways. It’s good to be here, and despite two of us, we do have someone else coming on, we’ll introduce, shortly. Then, I think the rest of the gang may show up, here as we get going. Everyone is pretty busy right now, so we’re just going to go ahead and get started. As far as announcements go, I just want to remind people, if you’re new to Semantic Mastery, please check out the Syndication Academy, I’ll put the link if you’re watching this on YouTube or if you’re watching this live, check it out. All right?

It’s a great place to get started with us, besides Hump Day Hangouts, although we highly recommend if you can come by ask us questions, you know, these are live every week, and you can catch the replay if you’re not able to make it. Also, if you have not, yet, create your free account over at SerpSpace, all right, that’s where all of the done for you services are, you can find, so check those out. We got a bunch more coming out, too, along with, I’m trying to think of the newest one, it’s going to be a YouTube accounts, kind of done for you, we’re still working on exactly how that’s going to come out, but you can check that out and then another one that just came out, what was it? Indexing, and citations.

Bradley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam: Citations live, this is bad, I’ve got so many things going on-

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:01:24], citations is live, yet.

Adam: All right.

Bradley: It’s damn near it, if it’s not already, because I’ve seen it in the dashboard in the development server and all that.

Adam: Right. I’ll quit rambling, because the secret guest is going to be Roman, who is one of our partners on SerpSpace, so he can talk about this a little bit more. We’re doing a lot of, well, that’s him right there, it says Hernan, but it’s actually-

Bradley: Yeah. He’s playing Hernan’s part today.

Adam: Incognito. Then, real quick, too, one more thing is we’re going to be sending out some information about syndication networks, and we had a webinar this past Monday where we had a lot of information about the Syndication Academy, as well as syndication networks. Part of that is because hearing from other people, who have ordered services elsewhere, we know there’s other people that make syndication type networks and some of them are okay, and others are really not so good, so we’ve heard back from some people, like, hey, I bought this network, can you guys fix it? It’s like, well, probably not.

Bradley: No.

Adam: It would be expensive to fix it, then it would be to just do it. So, we’ll be sending out some information just doing some comparisons and then, you know, why you would want to use this service. We get that question a lot. Like, hey you guys charge more, why? So, diving into that, because we get that question and I think it’s a valid question and I understand, if I saw that, and was like, wow, why do you guys charge 10 bucks more? What’s up with that? Answering some of those questions, and then there might be a special opportunity with that. We’ll leave it at that, for now. Roman, can you hear me?

Roman Barnes: Yes, I can. Can you hear me?

Adam: Ew. Yeah. Your audio is awesome.

Bradley: Still, no camera, though. Right?

Roman Barnes: No. I need to go get a camera.

Adam: Got you. All right. Yeah. Everybody, this is Roman and Roman I’m not going to butcher your last name, you want to introduce yourself?

Roman Barnes: Yeah. My name is Roman Barnes. Not too bad to ruin my-

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:03:16].

Adam: Actually don’t ask, I was thinking-

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:03:17].

Adam: Don’t ask. I was thinking about your email address. I got confused for a minute and I was thinking that was your last name. Yeah. I’m out there. Anyways. Yeah. I mean, right before you hopped on we were talking about what’s coming up at SerpSpace, how we had the indexing come out. There’s some cool stuff like the done for you YouTube channels. Then, I even got confused, myself, as far as what has most recently come out since we had so much rolling out that you guys have been working on. If you don’t mind if you can kind of do it off the top of your head, what’s the latest two or three things that have come out?

Roman Barnes: The two things that we’re working on/pushing out kind of at the same time, one of them is something called TAS, or traffic authority stacking, it’s based on Jimmy Kelly’s Domain Authority Stacking. It’s the 2.0 version that everybody was waiting for that never happened through Network Empire. Storm alerts. Outside of that, also, we have citations coming out and that should be very shortly.

Adam: Nice. That’s right. Yeah. For some reason I thought they’ve gone live, and then I was like, wait a second, maybe not. All right. Cool. All right. Again, hopefully we’ll be having you on these Hump Day Hangouts more often, so something I’ll just say to everyone who is watching this now, if you guys have questions about SerpSpace, I know from time to time we get them. By all means, pop those in here and we’re going to try to be hooking up with Roman here, and bringing them on Hump Day Hangouts, so I mean he can answer all sorts of SEO questions, but obviously he’s going to be kind of the go to for SerpSpace stuff, so we can give you some more in depth answers.

Bradley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam: One thing, before we get started, I wanted to say we sent out an email, but if you haven’t heard about it, the Video Link Vortex webinar is tomorrow. That’s a free webinar. I’m going to pop the link on here. Bradley, did you, are you going to be involved in that?

Bradley: Yeah.

Adam: Okay. Cool.

Bradley: I’ll be there.

Adam: Awesome.

Bradley: I’ll be there with my buddy Bill, and Lem Moore, those guys are awesome. We always have a great time when we get together on webinars. It will be fun. We’ll have a good time, so guys, come check it out. He’s got another application that kind of, it’s kind of like a one, two punch with the Rocket Video Ranker, or the Tube Authority Rocket, whatever you want to call it. We promoted that with Bill a few weeks ago, and I did a case study, and Video Link Vortex kind of is like the next step, it can do, like automate YouTube silo builds, and it can do silos within, so in other words it’s like a playlist thing. It’s awesome.

Adam: Nice.

Bradley: It can do it from within the same channel. It can do it within, you can create silos using other channels, as well. It’s insane.

Adam: That’s awesome.

Bradley: Yeah. It creates like video link wheels and all kinds of stuff. It’s a really cool application that would work really well with the other app, too. Anyways, that’s what that’s about. Come check it out tomorrow, guys. There will be a replay, so if anybody asks, because I know we get that every time, so there will be a replay, don’t worry about it if you cannot make it live, we’ll send out the replay. Okay? By the way, Roman, while I got you on, real quick, did you say the super web 2.0’s are available, now, or they’re coming out?

Roman Barnes: Not, yet.

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: We still have a big piece to finish for that.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:06:31].

Bradley: Dude, I was logging into SerpSpace when you were saying that, I was like, no shit, they’re ready? That’s awesome.

Roman Barnes: Okay. Cool.

Adam: All right. Yeah. I guess, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got for announcements. You guys got anything else? Any SerpSpace news coming up, Roman, or anything people should know about?

Roman Barnes: Not too much. Once the citations are live, we’re going to be good to go on those for the desks, task type of stuff, that we haven’t pushed live now on the site. We can take a couple of orders, but we cannot handle heavy volume, yet, until we get more people trained on it.

Adam: Yeah.

Roman Barnes: It’s live, but-

Adam: Awesome.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Limited.

Adam: Cool. All right. Awesome. Let’s get into it.

Bradley: Cool. All right. I’m going to grab the screen, and bear with me, I’ll drop out for a minute … Can you guys hear me?

Adam: Yes, I can.

Bradley: Okay. Cool. All right. Ed [inaudible 00:07:34] up, he is a newer Mastermind member, and he is a hustler like no one I’ve, I mean, like it’s rare to find people that hustle as much as Ed does, so Ed, again, welcome and keep doing what you’re doing, dude. You’re going to crush it, there’s no doubt.

Short Tutorial On How To Use Live Rank Sniper

Ed says, “Any way to get a short tutorial step by step on how to use Live Rank Sniper? I thought I had it to create videos, to even use it. Thanks, Ed [inaudible 00:07:56].” No. Ed, and in fact you should as a Mastermind member, anyways, regardless of whether you purchased it or no you should have access to the bonus site, the MPR/, well, MasteryPR/SemanticMasterybonussite and there’s a case study in there that I did on how to use Live Rank Sniper. So, there is step by step tutorial on exactly how I use it in there. Just go check that out, if you do not have access, just reach out to us via support and we’ll get you set up, but you should have it already. Okay?

Next question, and by the way guys, you don’t need videos to use Live Rank Sniper, because all it does is, it creates scheduled live events within YouTube, which are indexible, if they’re set to public. You don’t even need a video. You can just go in and schedule a whole bunch or live events, targeting keywords, you get a YouTube URL and everything. It’s just like a YouTube video, there’s just no video, it’s just a placeholder. Then, once you’ve tested, if you decide that you want to replace the placeholder with an actual video, then you can stream to the placeholder. That’s possible to do, you can do it within Live Rank Sniper. You can do it with Hangout Millionaire, which is Peter Drew’s, basically it’s the enterprise version, or whatever, of Live Rank Sniper.

It does more than that, too, by the way, or you could use something like OBS, which is free. OBS Studio, and live stream to those scheduled live events. Really, the trick to using that tool is really just use a bunch of test channels for spamming with scheduled live events for poking keywords. In other words, testing the rank ability of keywords, using test channels that have no syndication networks, no connection to anything else on the web, they’re just spam channels for testing purposes, and then from there, once you’ve identified, which ones ranked, then you can go through and delete all those scheduled live events, and then just upload, or target those keywords from money channels that do have syndication networks, that have authority and all that kind of stuff, and you should be able to crush it.

That’s really what the whole purpose of that tool is for. It’s not necessarily to actually replace those scheduled live events, you know, like actually add videos to those events, because the tool isn’t really designed for that, it’s more for, it’s a poking tool. It’s a keyword testing tool, so to speak, although, you can do that it’s just a slower process.

Difference Between The Link Services Provided At Serp Space and Backlinks Indexer

Ed’s up next, he says, “I am taking all of my URLs for my client website, social media, and Web 2.0 sites and listing them on a spreadsheet, and then having my VA create a Google shortener for each URL and then I run both sets through the backlinks indexer, which I buy monthly, but I only get a total of 1400 links. SerpSpace allows for almost the same amount of money, it does 5,000 links. What is the difference in service? Objective answer please.”

Adam: Wow. What a good time to have Roman, here.

Bradley: Yeah. It’s a great question. Roman, do you want to tackle that one, or shall I? He might be muted.

Adam: Yeah. Roman, if you can hear us, you can feel free to talk, I don’t know if you’ve got yourself muted, or something happened, otherwise, Brad-

Roman Barnes: Yeah. I muted, myself.

Adam: Oh, okay.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. All I see is a black screen in front of me.

Bradley: What? You don’t see the screen? Does anybody else not see the screen?

Adam: I see it. Here, Roman, I’ll just send you the Skype, there you go, I just sent it to you.

Bradley: You need the, he doesn’t have the event page URL.

Adam: Right. Yeah. Let me send that to you, also.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:11:19].

Adam: As you can see everyone we’re working through-

Bradley: I’m surprised he’s not seeing my screen from his angle. Anyways, whatever. That’s interesting. Everybody else can see, right? I’m going to assume.

Adam: Yeah. I can see.

Bradley: Don’s asking, “What are the super web 2.0’s?” Cannot talk about it, yet, Don. “I was asking because it’s something that’s coming out with SerpSpace.” We’ll let you know as soon as it comes out. We’ll definitely be talking about it. Okay. Can you see, now, Roman? Apparently, not. All right. I’m just going to answer it-

Adam: Sure.

Bradley: If Roman wants to add on, he certainly can. Okay.

Ed’s asking, he’s using, let’s see, backlinks indexer. Backlinks Indexer is good. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve been using Backlinks, I actually canceled my subscription, I’m not kidding, like probably five or six weeks ago, only because we’ve got Dedia in our indexing service now, through SerpSpace that is guaranteed at 60% of indexing. That’s pretty freaking fabulous.

I don’t know of any other indexing services that do that, maybe they do, I don’t know of any that do, and I could be wrong, but that’s pretty cool and I know that Dedia, it’s amazing, because the amount of links that, that dude builds is unbelievable. Him and his team, I mean millions and millions of links per week, and he’s getting, I cannot tell you what he’s getting on his indexing, but we’ll guarantee he’s above-

Roman Barnes: Is it quite?

Bradley: 60%.

Roman Barnes: Or, is it just me? I’m just curious. I’m sorry.

Adam: What’s that? No. I can hear you.

Roman Barnes: Okay. The only person I could hear is you, in the last little while.

Adam: Weird. Yeah. You might have dropped out, especially if you’re having storms.

Roman Barnes: Do you want me to rejoin on the webinar?

Adam: [crosstalk 00:13:01].

Bradley: Hey, guys. I can hear you guys.

Roman Barnes: Okay. Yeah. I’m trying to understand the question that-

Bradley: What’s going on? Can you guys not hear me?

Adam: Yeah, Bradley, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Bradley: Yeah, but I hear Roman in the background talking, so I don’t know-

Adam: Yeah. Roman, you’re here, right? You can hear me, right now?

Roman Barnes: Yeah. I can only hear you though, I cannot hear anybody else.

Bradley: He cannot hear me is what I’m saying Adam.

Adam: Okay. So, Bradley is talking. All right. Roman, we’ll probably have you stop, just because it’s going to get all sorts of messed up.

Roman Barnes: Okay.

Adam: Yeah. Thanks. If you want to type me something as far as an answer about this or anything, feel free, and I’ll just kind of relay it.

Roman Barnes: All right. Sounds good.

Adam: Thanks.

Bradley: We’re going to have to switch back to Hangouts, man. I can see it already. All right. Anyways, that’s really the whole reason why Ed, is why, like, I mean, again, Backlinks Indexer is a great service, but since we have the ability, you know, through SerpSpace to indexing links at 60% or above, we guarantee, which is amazing. That’s why. If you can get better value by using SerpSpace, absolutely use it. Why not? Okay. By the way, I don’t think it’s necessary, Ed, honestly, to be taking your, well, if you want to do it one time, like take your clients website, social media, URLs and Web 2.0, like the profile URLs, like the main blog URLs, and shorten them, and then submit them, that’s fine, although I really don’t think that’s necessary. I think that’s overkill.

I mean, again, you can, it’s not a problem, if it’s not costing you a lot of money it’s not something you’re doing it’s a VA doing, then feel free to do so, but again, I think that’s overkill. Just submitting the URLs directly into the indexer ought to be good enough. It just seems like that’s redundant, is to shorten those URLs and then submit them, unless you wanted them shortened for a reason, for other link building purposes, in which case it would be nice to already have it done. If that makes sense?

Again, if your objective is specifically just for indexing those URLs, it’s really unnecessary to shorten them and submit them twice, because you can just take the actual URLs instead of shortening them and submit them more than once if you wanted. That’s not a problem. You can submit the same links over and over again. Usually most of the indexing services if you submit duplicate URLs in the same batch it will filter out the duplicates, but if you resubmit the same, like submit a batch, and then you resubmit the batch a second time it will take both times. If that makes sense? It’s probably going to vary from service to service, but that’s typically how it would work.

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: All right. Jeff’s up next, he says, I’m sorry, go ahead, Adam.

Adam: No. I was just saying, yeah, that makes sense. Then, also if anyone is interested, something we’re looking at is the possibility of integrating the indexer in SerpSpace with network management. If you know what I’m talking about, and that sounds interesting to you, just put something on the page, please.

Bradley: Can I elaborate on that a little bit?

Adam: Yeah. Sure.

Bradley: All right. Guys, if you’re a member, for those of you that have been using syndication networks or part of the Syndication Academy for any length of time, you probably remember over a year ago, from two years ago to about a year ago we had been endorsing a plugin called Backlink Commando that was really great, because it was a plugin that you could add to, you could take the RSS feeds from your Web 2.0 URLs, from your Web 2.0 sites, your network properties. Any of the properties that created, or had an RSS feed, so think of Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, Delicious, and [inaudible 00:16:29]. Delicious is pretty much dead in the water, right now, but Delicious and [inaudible 00:16:33] had RSS feeds. Pocket, was another one.

If you use pinboard.in that was another one that has a feed, anyways, any that had a feed, period, you could add to this plugin and it would basically run on a cron, so a cron job, so you could set it to once every, or four times a day, let’s say four times a day it would go basically call or fetch all the RSS feeds that were submitted to the plugin and pull any new posts that it had discovered. It would submit them or put them into a queue that then would go submit those URLs on a cron to a backlinks indexing service, and there was several of them that it would integrate with, one of which was Backlinks Indexer, and that was the one we always recommended. It was awesome.

It was an awesome way to automate your Web 2.0 post URLs, so your syndicated content from your money site, or your YouTube channel that goes out to your Web 2.0’s and is published on the Web 2.0’s it would extract those URLs, post URLs and auto submit them to indexer, as well. About a year ago, they just stopped supporting that plugin, and it stopped working. They don’t sell it anymore, either. They don’t support it anymore, which I think that’s shitty, but it is what it is, and it stopped working, so we really didn’t have any other solutions for that.

Now, about two or three, maybe even four months ago, now, on one of the Syndication Academy update webinars there was a hack that was brought to me, or was shown to me by one of our Syndication Academy members, his handle in the Facebook group is Rico Suave, but he gave us an awesome, or shared an awesome method for being able to use Google Sheets, which would extract the post URLs and put them in a Google Sheet and then you could index the Google Sheet and do all kinds of stuff with that. That’s been covered in the Syndication Academy updates, guys, if you want to go look at that, but again, it was still kind of a bit of a pain in the ass to set up.

It was a decent alternative, but it was kind of a pain in the ass, so anyways, the next step is now that we have indexing services inside of SerpSpace, along with the network management. Right? Network monitoring service, we can possibly, and that’s what we’re working on is have that service to where it will auto extract the URLs and submit them to the indexer, so it’s going to be the solution that we’ve been waiting for, for about a year, now. Thanks to our friends over there at SerpSpace. Hopefully, that makes sense. Guys, when that feature rolls out, we’ll certainly let you know, because that in of itself will be totally worth having a subscription for the indexing service just for that reason if nothing else. Okay?

Thoughts On Syndicating WordPress Blogs To Personally Branded IFTTT Networks

Okay. Jeff’s up, let’s see, he says, “I have a new client who, he and his wife both have problems in the past with showing up on Ripoff Report we are working on citations, and soliciting new reviews. If I can bury a Ripoff Report beyond page two for his name I get paid a handsome bonus. He has a consultingbusiness.com, domain number one, and his wife is a real estate agent and she owns her name.com, domain number two, and he owns his name.com, domain number three. They also own a prominent real estate development, domain number four.” Okay. “I was thinking, syndicating their respective WordPress blogs to personally branded IFTTT networks. Thoughts?” Yeah. That’s fine. There’s no reason you cannot do that.

You can certainly brand, like think about consultants and things like that, speakers, coaches, those kinds of things are typically going to have their brand is themselves, you know what I mean? They are their brand, that’s what I mean. Okay? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, Jeff. That’s perfectly logical and normal.

Ordering IFTTT Networks And Use Real Names/Photos Instead Of Personas

“If so, can I order syndication networks and use real names, photos, instead of personas?” Absolutely. Yeah. We only use personas stuff when we’re creating specifically just for SEO boosting purposes. You know, syndication networks specifically just for SEO boosting purposes, but if you’ve got, you know, a real person that has their own blog, absolutely, we don’t spoof anything there.

That should be branded for them. Right? It should be branded after them personally, because they are their brand. Yes. You can absolutely do that. “Could these be ordered so that IP’s match the regional area?” They could be, but here’s the kicker with that, Jeff, it’s not something we cannot do, but you’re going to have to provide the proxy when you purchase the order, and it’s going to have to be a custom order, which means we charge, it’s a small nominal customization fee. I think it’s like 20 bucks.

If Roman is still on, and he can confirm that, or Adam, if you can confirm that. I think it’s 20 bucks as an add-on for something like that. Here’s the deal, when you go to order the network, as far as I know, you order the network and place a support tech ticket after it’s been ordered, mention that you would like to use a specific proxy, pay the upgrade fee and send us the proxy with the user name and password for it, and we should be able to get it done for you. Okay? Am I wrong in saying that, guys? Anybody want to comment on that, before I move on to the next one?

Roman Barnes: I don’t think we have that option available in the site, but we could certainly take care of it if you-

Bradley: Right.

Roman Barnes: Send in a ticket afterwords-

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: That’s not a problem.

Tiers Suggested Per Property For All Four Domains/Properties

Bradley: Okay. That’s your deal, Jeff, just send in a support ticket, as long as you can provide us with the proxy, and again, I think it’s just a small fee for customization. That kind of stuff happens from time to time. We do accommodate things like that when needed. “If I ordered networks for all four domains, properties, how many tiers do you suggest for property?” Honestly, I would just suggest one tier one network for each property, Jeff. That hasn’t changed, that’s the same suggestion that I always do for blog syndication, I want one branded tier for each domain. Right? Because there’s going to be four different brands, really. That’s all I recommend.

You can do multi tiered networks, but it’s more hassle, in my opinion, then it’s really worth, unless you’re using something like RSS Masher, Damon Nelson’s product, which is a good product, and that’s a good way to kind of like reduce footprint issues on tier two. For YouTube channels, you can get away with as many networks as you want, but for money channels, I recommend that you stick with just a branded tier one network for now.

Syndicating Youtube Channels To The Same Set Of Web 2.0 Properties

“Can I also syndicate YouTube channels to the same Web 2.0 properties?” Of course. Of course, you can.

“Any other tips, recommendations?” No. The only thing I would recommend is from the personal blogs, because it’s kind of like all wrapped up in one, those four brands, believe it or not, I would recommend actually, probably interlinking between networks. What I mean by that is not linking everything together, but I’m talking about like occasionally do a blog post from one site where they mention or reference another site, kind of like, you could do it multiple ways, a traditional contextual link from within a blog post with an anchor text or you could do curation style link. Remember, where you could actually curate some content from one of those other three domains on to the blog. Right? Then, cite, or give attribution. Just like you would for any sort of curating content over to that site.

Another thing you could do is like a resource box, like, at the bottom of a post, say recommended reading or additional resources, or something like that, and then put links to related content on the web, one of those links being one of your own sites, or one of your clients sites. You know what I mean. The reason I say this, you don’t want to interlink everything all the time, but you don’t want to start just at kind of randomly, occasionally linking from one to the other, and another to another, that kind of stuff and what will happen is you’ll start to improve the authority and the relevancy of all four of those. Right? That’s a little bit counterintuitive.

Our friend, Pavel from Rank Whiz has been doing a ton of testing with that kind of stuff. He’s got a lot of data showing that, that will improve actually interlinking between network properties, now, in a randomized fashion, and Roman could talk about this a little bit, as well, but that seems to be actually really effective for reinforcing the relevancy of the network properties, and actually improving the overall authority and the power of them.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Definitely. One of the things I wanted to maybe also add into that is maybe some JSON structured data markup might help in his situation as well, because it’s general reputation management from what I’m understanding from the question, same attributes, and that kind of thing would definitely go a long way.

Associated Website For A YouTube Channel

Bradley: Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Cool. On to the next one. Greg’s up, he says, “My established website has an empty YouTube channel, it’s part of it’s branded syndication network. I went through YouTube mastery course and will not be adding a lot of videos and I’m wondering about the companion website you discussed, is a companion website needed in my situation, or is that only when used when YouTube is a primary focus and there is no related website already placed?” Yeah. That’s what I mean, Greg, the companion website, associated website, whatever you want to call it, that’s typically if you’re going to be using YouTube as your main content distribution engine.

In other words, if that is your epicenter, your golden frame, is your YouTube channel, itself, like that’s your main content platform, then I recommend buying a domain and creating a companion/associated website and it attaching it, because it does help to improve the authority of the YouTube channel, but it’s not necessary if you have that, for example, in your case it’s part of a branded network, it’s just not being used, then it’s not necessary, because it’s again, it’s only, I only recommend doing that if you’re using YouTube as the primary content source for your networks.

If you’re going to be using a website, then I recommend creating the associated website, right away, and then using that as your content distribution, so that’s the center of everything, is your website, because you want to transfer as much authority to your website as possible. Right? If you’re doing specifically YouTube marketing, YouTube video stuff, then I would recommend just sticking with the YouTube channel as your primary source and you can add a companion website if you want, but if you already have it as part of a network, it’s really not necessary, because it should already be linked to your existing, and excuse me, interlinked with all of your existing properties in that network. It’s just your call. It’s up to you. It’s really up to you.

Pinvid As Top Recommended Theme For A Youtube Companion Website

“Is PinVid still top recommended theme for a companion website?” Yeah. In a reality, if you’re doing video based stuff, oh, God, I want to talk about this, this screen, here, at some point, if we have time.

Adam: Yeah, man. Do it. Momentum?

Bradley: Yeah. This is awesome. I freaking love this. Guys, this in a Chrome extension. It’s called Momentum, it’s free, but what I love about it is once you install it, you’ve got this to do list over here, and I’ve just always used paper and pen or whiteboard and I have for years, now, I’m just keeping tasks and stuff, daily tasks, this is awesome, because you can swap stuff around, you can move stuff, all kinds of stuff. You can put your favorite links, the links you access often up here. What I like about it is every time you go to open up a new tab to go to another website-

Adam: Hold on, your man focus today is get shit done.

Bradley: My man focus today is-

Adam: That’s awesome.

Bradley: To get shit done. That’s right. What that means is look at your to do list, dummy.

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: That’s what that means. You know? Every time I go to open up the tab to go check Facebook, or go look at the new offer from some stupid email that I got, or whatever, I click on this, I open this up and it is basically starring me in the face, like hey, this is the stuff you’ve got to do quit being stupid. You know?

Adam: Maybe we should have an episode of Hump Day Hangouts that’s all about workflows and productivity, or maybe just an extra episode. I think it would be interesting.

Bradley: Yeah. All right. What I was looking for was structured, you would know this one, Roman, if you’re still on.

Roman Barnes: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bradley: Semantic WordPress themes, that’s what I was thinking of. Kevin Polley, he coded these. If you’re just doing this, let’s see if I can find it, this is on the Network Empire website, but they had, he had his own website for, I thought it was semantic WordPress themes. Anyways, this is it here, guys, just go to Google, if your curious, look up semantic WordPress themes, this is from the Network Empire guys, specifically Kevin Polley, and he’s the one that coded all this out, it’s basically the PinVid theme, so you can see the Pinvid theme. It’s 50 bucks, or the PennBid Pro theme, only for certified advisors, so this is the one that you could get, here. PinVid theme for 50 bucks.

I’m telling you it’s a really good theme if your focus is video stuff, and you’re just building a companion website for the sake of the authority boost that it gives the channel, then this is a great theme for that. This is the same theme I use for those. Okay, guys? The reason I’m telling you that is because it’s been marked up entirely with schema, so the video objects, the whole entire theme is marked up and you can automate the posting of the videos to the WordPress theme, or excuse me, the site through plugins or you can do it with IFTTT. Right?

I prefer to do it with IFTTT, because there’s no load on the server. That’s why you can set up an IFTTT account guys that will automatically post your word, excuse me, YouTube videos to your self posted WordPress site. We actually covered that, I think, last month in the Syndication Academy Update webinar. That’s a great theme specifically for that purpose. I wouldn’t use it for much of anything else, but for that, it’s a great theme. Okay? There you go.

Uploading Videos To YouTube Without Persona Syndication Network

We’ll move on. “I don’t have a persona syndication network build around my YouTube channel, yet, should I wait to upload any videos until that is completed, or if I add the videos to the channel now can they be added to the network once it’s finished? Thanks.” They can be, Greg, but you have to set up the like recipes, so you have to build out a whole other set of recipes that are triggered by liking a video, so I would recommend just holding off if you’re going to build a persona network as well. I’d just wait, if I were you, but it’s up to you. You can always go in and add the like recipes, or applets, now, and I’d just click on those and that will syndicate it, as well, but that means you have to build a whole other set of applets.

Google Maps For Online Business With No Intention Of Getting Foot Traffic

Okay. Steve’s up, he says, “I ran a number,” excuse me, “I run a number of online websites out of my home, and I’m definitely not interested in foot traffic. Are they’re any good ways to still use Google Maps for SEO, or should we just ignore them outside of local SEO?” Now, you can, here’s the thing, guys, look, and I started doing this, too, for some of my affiliate businesses and stuff, guys, I’m not kidding, I’m registering Google My Business pages with registering addresses and all of that for even affiliate based businesses, now, guys, because of the boost that it can get, because it validates the entity.

When you get a Google My Business page, and you verify an address via postcard or whatever, how ever you verify it, for me it, it’s always been postcard, then that’s a verified business entity in Google’s eyes. Like, I’ve even got, recently, the Ketogenic Diet project that I’ve been working on, some of you would be familiar with that, I actually formed another company for that project and so I registered that. We just started a traffic agency, Semantic Mastery, we just registered that. I mean, even affiliate websites, guys, can be registered, but you have to verify an address.

The thing is, Steve, all you got to do is once you’ve registered the Google My Business page you want to during the initial process of setting it up adding your business to Google Maps or to Google My Business, there’s going to be a checkbox at the bottom when you go to, and it says something like, does your business serve customers at their location? You want to leave that to no, at first, which is the default setting, because when you go through the process and it sends, and it wants to send you a verification postcard, a mail via US mail, if you had selected yes, I serve customers at their location, unless this was a bug and it might have been fixed, because about six months ago when I was setting up several lead gen locations, or lead gen Google My Business location pages if you had that, yes, I serve customers at their location checked on the sign up process.

When it got to the point where it would direct you to send the postcard there would be no address in the postcard address field, it would just be the name of the business, and the city, it would have no street address, because that’s what happens when you select that option after you’ve verified the address, so in other words, leave it to no, I don’t serve customers at their locations, when you set it up. Then, request the verification postcard, then once you receive the postcard and you enter your pin number in, which then verifies it, then you can go in there and set, yes, I serve customers at their location, and what that does is removes your street address from Maps. It’ll still give you a Maps listing, it will still identify the city that the business is listed in, but it will remove the street address and the Map marker from the pin, or excuse me, the Map pin from the map, itself.

It will just show your business name, and the city, and then obviously the contact details, phone numbers, stuff like that. Again, I recommend for those of you who are willing to do so, I mean, guys, I don’t care what anybody says about post office boxes not working, still. I just did two more of them last week. I’m not kidding. The US Post Office boxes still work, as I’ve recommended before don’t try to register several boxes for the same Google My Business profile, so whoever the Google My Business owner is, like if you’ve got, if you’re going to be using the black hat method of USPS post office boxes, guys, then don’t go try to register four under the same account. Does that make sense?

You don’t want to do that, because that will flag it, I know it, I’ve seen it happen, it hasn’t happened to me, but it’s happened to several of our Mastermind members or Local Kingpin members, or whatever. That’s why I recommend for every single Google My Business profile that you set up if you’re using the PO box method is that you use different persona accounts for each GMB profile, and then once the listing has been verified, then you can add your main profile, or a single profile as the main manager for every single one of those that you set up. If that makes sense? Okay. That way you can access everything from one profile, but the actual owners are all separated. All right. That’s how I’ve gotten around it, and again, I just did two of them last week. I know it still works.

Webinar on KML

Chris G is up. He’s our support guy, and our partners in Mastery PR, he’s awesome. He had a support question from Daniel [inaudible 00:35:49], he says, “Can you point me to the webinar that talks about KML? I’ve seen that except floating around the Facebook group numerous times, but have no idea where it’s from. I believe there was a webinar about it in the past, but not sure if it was free or a paid webinar.” Okay. My answer to that is, Daniel, it’s funny, but I was chatting with Marco about this earlier today, and Chris, and KML files it stands for Keyhole Markup Language. That’s a, I guess it’s a specific language or whatever, like what Google Earth uses.

I have limited knowledge on KML, guys, except for how I used it in the past. Okay? When I first got into doing, and I promised Marco that I would just talk about it based upon what I know from back in 2012 when I was using KML files a lot, and Marco and his team of mad scientists have been in the lab and they’ve got some really crazy shit that they’ve discovered about KML, recently, that is strictly for RYS members, guys, so I cannot, I don’t even know half the shit that they’re doing to be honest with you. I can tell you specifically about what KML used to be. I didn’t even realize that they were still valid or viable files that would help SEO.

Back in 2012, I was introduced to KML files through Ivan Budimir he’s one of my primary mentors for local SEO, and this goes back when Google Maps SEO was brand spanking new. Right? It was in its infancy, so KML files are, you can even go to Google and look for this, let’s say, KML file generator. Let’s see if they still have them, because this was back in 2012 when I used it. Okay. Yeah. Here’s some of them, here. See if I recognize any of these. Geo Site Map Generator, that’s the one I used to use back in 2012, and look this site hasn’t even changed in five years. Look, it’s 2011 was when it was created.

I’m telling you, this was back in 2012 when I joined Maps Magic, which was Ivan Budimir was the coach, again, he’s one of my primary mentors for local SEO, the guy was a freaking ninja. Anyways, this is where Geo Site Maps something else we don’t use too often anymore, but a geo site map is basically like any other site map. Right? It’s an XML file that you can create and basically you can upload it as just a file to your server, to the root of your domain, and then just put a link, we used to do this, guys, all the time, we would create, and this is the exact site I used to use to create them, I would create, it creates a geo site map and a KML file, and what you would do is upload both files that you download once the application spits out the files for you.

You upload them to the root domain, the server on your root domain and then you would just put a link in the footer of your site, just like your privacy and terms of service links. One would say location, and that would point to the KML file, and then the other one would say geo site map and it would point to the geo site map file. That used to work like gangbusters, I mean, I’m talking about in 2012, guys. I had lead gen sites at the time that literally all I did was go in and once I learned this technique and add the geo site map and the KML file and within two, three days boom I’d be the top of Maps.

Now, again, this was back in 2012, I got away from doing it, honestly, because once structured data came out I heard that this had been basically rendered useless. It wasn’t really all that valuable, although, again, I don’t know what the hell Marco’s doing in the lab, right now with KML files, but he’s pretty freaking excited about it, so apparently there’s still some value to these files that I am not aware of. Again, just very simply the extent of my knowledge to these were creating the geo site map and by the way the Yoast plugin has that local SEO add-on, it’s expensive, you could purchase, I don’t like it, personally. The local SEO plugin and add-on, or extension, whatever you want to call it, that has a geo site map built into it. Okay.

I personally don’t really like that plugin at all. The add-on, especially, it’s expensive, and I think it’s just too much bloated code and all that kind of stuff, so I don’t use it, anymore. I know that the local SEO plugin does have that ability where it creates a geo site map. One other thing I want to mention about this, guys, is I know that, here’s another thing, whenever you go to, and let’s walk through this, real quick. We’re running out of time. A lot of great questions today, guys, I really appreciate that. Am I logged in? Yeah, I’m logged in. Let’s go to Semantic Mastery. Okay. I’m logged into my AdWords Manager account, so I’m logged into Google.

Here’s the thing, guys, I’m just using this as an example. Whenever you see how it says Semantic Mastery and then there’s this star, here? When I click that star, you see how it says saved to your map? That just created a KML file. There are gigs on Fiverr that you can order that will have a bunch of, you know, they’ll take, they’ll give you 30 KML files for your Maps listing, or for your Google My Business listing, business page, whatever. That’s what this does. All it does is they’ll take 30 different profiles and they’ll go search for it, you know, go visit, or whatever it is that you tell them, and they’ll just click on it, or maybe you send them the maps URL, whatever. Same thing.

If I go here and go to maps, so I can see the maps listing, you’ll see the same saved icon, here, so that means that by doing so this account, this Google account has now created a KML file. I know that you can use KML files for spam purposes, as well. Also, the thing is when you click on a, and I don’t know where, I don’t know if you can download or extract that, but I know that at least years ago that would create a KML file, because that was another way that you could boost maps listings, was spamming the saved maps. Does that make sense? All right.

Just so you know, when you click on a KML file all it does is open up Google Earth and it takes you directly to where that location is, so you want to be very, very precise, if you’re going to use something like the KML file generator, and put the exact geo coordinates in for the Google Maps listing. Guys, remember to get the exact geo coordinates, go search for your listing, go to maps, search for your listing in maps, in Google Maps, and then right here in the address bar, right there are your geo coordinates.

Do you see that there? I know it’s probably small on your end, but right there past the at symbol in the maps URL is your latitude, then it’s comma, longitude. If you’re in the US, at least, you’re going to typically, I’m pretty sure they’re always formatted latitude then longitude, so that’s what it is right there. Right there, your exact coordinates based upon Google’s data, so that’s what you want to use in a KML file. Does that make sense? Anyways, hopefully I didn’t confuse anybody on that, again, my knowledge is very limited on that, other than from what I know from years ago.

I know Marco’s got a whole bunch of stuff he’s looking at and again that’s stuff that’s got to be reserved for the RYS Academy, in fact, I don’t even know half the shit he’s doing. From five years ago, that used to be a really effective method. I don’t know that it still is, today, because I thought, again, I haven’t used it at all since we really got heavy into doing structured data markup, or schema markup. I don’t how effective that is. Do you know, Roman, if you’re still on, do you have any input on that?

Roman Barnes: Not on the KML stuff. I joined the first webinar Marco did, but he had to redo the webinar, because he had a bad connection that day.

Bradley: Yeah.

Roman Barnes: I missed out on it.

Bradley: Okay. Cool. Had you ever heard of that stuff, before?

Roman Barnes: Not before that.

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: That was the first time I have ever heard of it.

Bradley: Yeah. It’s so funny, because when I saw this question come up, I was like, really, KML files, are they still effective and that’s when Marco was like, oh, my God. I was just like, wow. I may have to revisit that, because I stopped using them like three, four years ago. Probably at least three years ago. Okay.

Pitching A Syndication Network To A Video Production Company

Columbia is up, she says, “You mentioned selling network to a video production company.” You can, Columbia, I prefer, well, it depends on your strategy, yes, you can sell networks to video production companies, in fact that’s a great way to generate a whole bunch of revenue in one lump sum. Excuse me.

Then, upsell them on network management, and that’s maintaining the networks, so that’s monitoring them, also boosting the networks, so additional link building, that kind of stuff. I can tell you, my engagement with the video production companies, I’ve got one, I’ve got a handful of video production companies that send me like a couple jobs per year, if that. They’re really not pushing it all that hard. I got this one video production company it’s in the neighboring town, in an adjacent city to me that at any given time we have between 25 to 35 videos going, per month on what they call the Google boost program, and it’s only a $100.00 per month, per video, but that’s pretty decent money, if you think about it. I’ve been dealing with this particular video production company for three years, now, at least three years. You know, it depends.

For them, again, I don’t sell them networks, they rent, I sell them video ranking services at wholesale prices on my own networks, now I quoted them on selling them networks, and I told them that I suggested that they purchase their own networks, because then it could be branded after their company, which is their video production company, which means every time that any of their client videos that are currently ranked on my networks, but if those videos were ranked on their own networks, with their own branding. Then every time somebody was exposed to one of their client videos they would also be exposed to the video production company, because they could have their branding on the channel and all that other kind of stuff, but they didn’t want to put up the initial investment.

They have been for three years, now, using my networks, and I still to this day, probably two or three times a year get an email from the owner of the production company saying, hey, I just was looking at the rankings for this particular client and I noticed that there’s two listings on page one that says, it’s a John Doe blog and it’s got the clients video on that, what is this? And, I’ve told this to the owner like three times, a year, for the last three years, no kidding, that those are persona based properties that I use to help rank the videos, but they’re like, you know, this doesn’t make any sense, why would they have videos on somebody else’s video on their blog, blah, blah, blah, I said, look, it’s just a way to rank stuff.

I’ve had to explain because the client says, or the business owner will, or the video production company owner says, “Well, what happens if the client goes and looks and he sees this? Isn’t this going to make him mad?” I say, “You think the client is going to be mad that his video is taking up three or four places on page one, and knocking three or four competitors off of page one, just because it’s on some persona based blog that he doesn’t know who it is? That’s more of a problem than having his competitor in that place?” “Oh. I guess, when you put it that way it makes sense.” You know?

Anyways, every time I have to reexplain that to the video production owner, is always another opportunity for me to pitch him on his own done for you networks, which we don’t charge what we charge you guys as internet marketers buying networks, we charge high dollar when we charge an end user for networks, it’s a hell of a lot more expensive than when you guys buy it. You know what I mean? As far as how to pitch that, Columbia, okay, so her question is, “Do you do some video promotion for their clients while remaining invisible to their customers?” Meaning the video production company’s customers, “And, later pitch the network to the production company, or would you pitch it all up front?” No. I don’t do that, because that’s sneaky.

What I do is I go directly to the video production company and the exact pitch that I use, that worked, and it’s worked four times, now, is to go to the video production company, strike up the conversation, especially if you can send them, what I like to do is send video emails, I’ve talked about that a million times, but if you send video emails to the video production company, so inside the email, it’s got a screen shot that looks like a video, so if somebody clicks on it, it opens up a video and it’s you explaining very quickly, because you have a very, very small window of opportunity to catch their attention, but show some results of ranked videos that you have ranked.

They can be generic videos that you ranked specifically, okay, now, where is Adam? They can be videos that you rank specifically just so that you have a portfolio of results to show, even if you don’t use those videos to actually monetize them in any way, just rank a few videos, and then show that in a video when you’re pitching a production company and say, “Look, I provide video SEO services, I can do this for your clients,” and how you pitch it is most video production companies, they sell the video service, the creation service. It’s a one off fee. They have to constantly be going out and getting new clients. Right? New customers. New people to buy new videos from them.

Once the video has been created they are done, unless they get repeat business from that same customer, they’re pretty much done, so you frame it as, how would you like to generate recurring revenue from your existing client base, existing and future client base, customer base? Whatever you want to call it. Explain to them that you provide wholesale SEO services and you can rank those customers videos, so that they can not only produce the video and sell the video to the customer, but then they can upsell them on monthly SEO and mark that up, so that they get recurring revenue from them. Right? It’s a win-win-win situation.

The customer gets more exposure and more leads from their video, which otherwise would probably only get put on their website and maybe shared to their Facebook page and that would be the end of it, nobody would ever see that video again. It wouldn’t generate leads, it would only be seen by people that had already, were already leads. Does that make sense? It wouldn’t be used for lead gen, most businesses buy these super nice videos that they pay $3500.00 for a local production company to create and then nobody ever sees the damn video unless they’re on their website. What good is that? Use the video as a lead magnet. Right?

That’s the whole way you frame it. You frame it as the customer wins, you guys win, because you get to provide this service and generate recurring revenue from an otherwise one off service, and I win, because I get to do what I like to do, which is the SEO, the man behind the curtain. I don’t have to do sales. I don’t have to do customer contact, or support. None of that. All I got to do is perform. Does that make sense? That’s the way to pitch, and that pitch works really, really well. Here’s the thing, if you get some people on the fence, that are unsure, offer to rank a couple of their existing clients videos for them for free. That’s what I’ve done.

I’ve done it, three out of the four companies that I’ve landed from using this exact method, I ranked videos for them for free, and I did it very quickly, too. You know what I mean? I’d tell them, “Send me three, or five videos of current existing clients that you have, that you would like for me to rank,” and they’ll send me three to five videos and I’ll select one or two, or maybe three, out of them and I’ll rank them. Then, I’ll contact them back once they’re ranked, which typically only takes a couple of days, and I’ll rank them for something like the company name, plus review. Something like that, so it’s not hard to rank, but it’s just to show results, and say, “Look, I got this done. Here’s the results. If you’re interested in this service, let’s talk.” It works really, really well. Okay. It’s a great strategy. I love that strategy. I don’t do a whole lot of it anymore, because I got enough volume from the current clients.

We’re going to wrap it up in four minutes, guys, we’re trying to get through a couple more very quickly. Yeah. Again, Columbia, it depends, if you want to sell networks, you can generate large lump sums of cash up front, for that, or you could build your own networks to where you’re building your own assets that you can use for not only ranking videos for production companies, but also for your own stuff. You can build your own lead gen assets, because you’ll have the networks in place. If they’re your networks, you can do whatever you want with them. Remember if you’ve been following us for any length of time and I know you have, we always talk about building your own assets. It makes sense to do both, even. Sell them networks and then build your own, as well.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Make sure you charge them for it.

Bradley: You’re damn right.

Roman Barnes: The value of the IFTTT networks, I’ve known people that have sold them for more than $2500.00 a pop.

Bradley: Yeah. One of our Mastermind members, John, a realtor, or he sells to realtors, and he’s sold them for, he showed that check $1995.00. All right. Robert says, “Do you use a proposal when selling syndication networks?” Me, typically, no. We talked on the Mastermind webinar last week very briefly about in the past for my agency, guys, like the client services, I’ve never had like packaged prices or like boxed service prices, except for a few things, one of which was syndication networks. I charge 797 to local businesses for a network order.

It’s not really a proposal, it’s just on my agency website there’s a services, that’s funny, that site hasn’t even been updated since 2012, because I don’t get clients from my website, guys, I don’t know if too many marketers that do. All my clients come from either cold contacting, and prospecting, or referrals. Anyways. But, my website has in the packages section, it’s got for example the syndication networks, 797, and it explains on the page what it is, there is no need for a proposal for that, obviously during the pitching process if some questions arise, I’m happy to answer questions, but I really don’t need a proposal for that.

What I was getting ready to say earlier was it used to be my opinion in the past was to never have boxed prices, except for something like SEO, especially, because you’d have to approach every project, independently, or separately, and evaluate every project separately, so the pricing is always going to be customized pricing based upon the project. My attitude has changed a bit into more now, to me it makes more sense to have boxed or packaged prices that are specific to services or activities. Not necessarily results. You can promise results, or whatever based upon a combination of these services, but that way everything is like ala carte, like a menu of services, and it makes it easier, because you don’t need, the problem with doing customized proposals is the amount of time it takes.

That’s where I had always done it that way before, but going forward, looking with our new traffic agency, that I’m basically heading that up, is I want to be able to prospect and pitch, or send proposals in volume in mass, and you cannot do that when you’re doing customized proposals. Does that make sense? Again, I recommend for something, especially for syndication network, is just having a sales page basically that you can direct people to that has your pitch for why it’s important, and why it would help their business on it already, and then just send people to that. All right.

All right, guys. We got to wrap it up. I’m going to answer one more question, just because I saw this one earlier from Alexander and I just want to answer this very quickly, guys, and then we’re going to wrap it up, because it’s at the hour mark. He says, “Do you guys still use and endorse Crowd Search?” Yes. I still do. I still use it the same way that we talk about it in the Crowd Search demo webinar, the update webinar that we did last year. I use it the same. I don’t typically use it to direct traffic directly to the money site, I usually it unless it’s just for navigational search purposes, which means like brand searches, and that kind of stuff. I do use it for referral traffic, a lot. That’s primarily how I use it, is referral traffic.

He says, “How can you be sure that Google will notice the traffic on link to money site?” Because if you have Google Analytics on the money site, it knows where the traffic is coming from. You can use the goo.gl, the Google short links to inject analytics in any link stream. Right? Anywhere that you shorten a URL with Google you’re adding analytics to that link stream. Analytics will see everything. Google will see everything. That all traffic activity through that link, they will know the referrals, where it came from, all that kind of stuff. The user’s device, their browser, all that kind of stuff, where they are in the world, all that comes through the goo.gl short URL, but then on your money site, if you have analytics, which why shouldn’t you? I mean, some people are afraid to use all that, but I use Google Analytics on all my sites, and Google analytics will know where the traffic is coming from. Okay? Yeah. That’s pretty much it. All right, guys. We got to wrap it up. We’re already a couple minutes over. Roman, thanks for being here, dude.

Roman Barnes: Definitely not a problem.

Bradley: All right. We’ll see everybody, tomorrow the Rocket Video Ranker webinar, or the Video Link Vortex webinar, so don’t miss it. If you guys are interested in that at all, otherwise the replay will go out. We’ll see you all next week.

Adam: Awesome.

Bradley: Thanks, everybody.

Adam: Have a good one.

Bradley: Thanks, Adam. Bye.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 133 posted first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 133

Click on the video above to watch Episode 133 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://ift.tt/1NZu6N2.

  Announcement

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:00:03].

Adam: Hey, all right. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts, this is episode 133, the episode with Adam and Bradley, and where Adam is working on being more expressive using his hands and making more movements instead of being here like twisting in my seat, I was told I do that a lot.

Bradley: Yeah.

Adam: Anyways. It’s good to be here, and despite two of us, we do have someone else coming on, we’ll introduce, shortly. Then, I think the rest of the gang may show up, here as we get going. Everyone is pretty busy right now, so we’re just going to go ahead and get started. As far as announcements go, I just want to remind people, if you’re new to Semantic Mastery, please check out the Syndication Academy, I’ll put the link if you’re watching this on YouTube or if you’re watching this live, check it out. All right?

It’s a great place to get started with us, besides Hump Day Hangouts, although we highly recommend if you can come by ask us questions, you know, these are live every week, and you can catch the replay if you’re not able to make it. Also, if you have not, yet, create your free account over at SerpSpace, all right, that’s where all of the done for you services are, you can find, so check those out. We got a bunch more coming out, too, along with, I’m trying to think of the newest one, it’s going to be a YouTube accounts, kind of done for you, we’re still working on exactly how that’s going to come out, but you can check that out and then another one that just came out, what was it? Indexing, and citations.

Bradley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam: Citations live, this is bad, I’ve got so many things going on-

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:01:24], citations is live, yet.

Adam: All right.

Bradley: It’s damn near it, if it’s not already, because I’ve seen it in the dashboard in the development server and all that.

Adam: Right. I’ll quit rambling, because the secret guest is going to be Roman, who is one of our partners on SerpSpace, so he can talk about this a little bit more. We’re doing a lot of, well, that’s him right there, it says Hernan, but it’s actually-

Bradley: Yeah. He’s playing Hernan’s part today.

Adam: Incognito. Then, real quick, too, one more thing is we’re going to be sending out some information about syndication networks, and we had a webinar this past Monday where we had a lot of information about the Syndication Academy, as well as syndication networks. Part of that is because hearing from other people, who have ordered services elsewhere, we know there’s other people that make syndication type networks and some of them are okay, and others are really not so good, so we’ve heard back from some people, like, hey, I bought this network, can you guys fix it? It’s like, well, probably not.

Bradley: No.

Adam: It would be expensive to fix it, then it would be to just do it. So, we’ll be sending out some information just doing some comparisons and then, you know, why you would want to use this service. We get that question a lot. Like, hey you guys charge more, why? So, diving into that, because we get that question and I think it’s a valid question and I understand, if I saw that, and was like, wow, why do you guys charge 10 bucks more? What’s up with that? Answering some of those questions, and then there might be a special opportunity with that. We’ll leave it at that, for now. Roman, can you hear me?

Roman Barnes: Yes, I can. Can you hear me?

Adam: Ew. Yeah. Your audio is awesome.

Bradley: Still, no camera, though. Right?

Roman Barnes: No. I need to go get a camera.

Adam: Got you. All right. Yeah. Everybody, this is Roman and Roman I’m not going to butcher your last name, you want to introduce yourself?

Roman Barnes: Yeah. My name is Roman Barnes. Not too bad to ruin my-

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:03:16].

Adam: Actually don’t ask, I was thinking-

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:03:17].

Adam: Don’t ask. I was thinking about your email address. I got confused for a minute and I was thinking that was your last name. Yeah. I’m out there. Anyways. Yeah. I mean, right before you hopped on we were talking about what’s coming up at SerpSpace, how we had the indexing come out. There’s some cool stuff like the done for you YouTube channels. Then, I even got confused, myself, as far as what has most recently come out since we had so much rolling out that you guys have been working on. If you don’t mind if you can kind of do it off the top of your head, what’s the latest two or three things that have come out?

Roman Barnes: The two things that we’re working on/pushing out kind of at the same time, one of them is something called TAS, or traffic authority stacking, it’s based on Jimmy Kelly’s Domain Authority Stacking. It’s the 2.0 version that everybody was waiting for that never happened through Network Empire. Storm alerts. Outside of that, also, we have citations coming out and that should be very shortly.

Adam: Nice. That’s right. Yeah. For some reason I thought they’ve gone live, and then I was like, wait a second, maybe not. All right. Cool. All right. Again, hopefully we’ll be having you on these Hump Day Hangouts more often, so something I’ll just say to everyone who is watching this now, if you guys have questions about SerpSpace, I know from time to time we get them. By all means, pop those in here and we’re going to try to be hooking up with Roman here, and bringing them on Hump Day Hangouts, so I mean he can answer all sorts of SEO questions, but obviously he’s going to be kind of the go to for SerpSpace stuff, so we can give you some more in depth answers.

Bradley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adam: One thing, before we get started, I wanted to say we sent out an email, but if you haven’t heard about it, the Video Link Vortex webinar is tomorrow. That’s a free webinar. I’m going to pop the link on here. Bradley, did you, are you going to be involved in that?

Bradley: Yeah.

Adam: Okay. Cool.

Bradley: I’ll be there.

Adam: Awesome.

Bradley: I’ll be there with my buddy Bill, and Lem Moore, those guys are awesome. We always have a great time when we get together on webinars. It will be fun. We’ll have a good time, so guys, come check it out. He’s got another application that kind of, it’s kind of like a one, two punch with the Rocket Video Ranker, or the Tube Authority Rocket, whatever you want to call it. We promoted that with Bill a few weeks ago, and I did a case study, and Video Link Vortex kind of is like the next step, it can do, like automate YouTube silo builds, and it can do silos within, so in other words it’s like a playlist thing. It’s awesome.

Adam: Nice.

Bradley: It can do it from within the same channel. It can do it within, you can create silos using other channels, as well. It’s insane.

Adam: That’s awesome.

Bradley: Yeah. It creates like video link wheels and all kinds of stuff. It’s a really cool application that would work really well with the other app, too. Anyways, that’s what that’s about. Come check it out tomorrow, guys. There will be a replay, so if anybody asks, because I know we get that every time, so there will be a replay, don’t worry about it if you cannot make it live, we’ll send out the replay. Okay? By the way, Roman, while I got you on, real quick, did you say the super web 2.0’s are available, now, or they’re coming out?

Roman Barnes: Not, yet.

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: We still have a big piece to finish for that.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:06:31].

Bradley: Dude, I was logging into SerpSpace when you were saying that, I was like, no shit, they’re ready? That’s awesome.

Roman Barnes: Okay. Cool.

Adam: All right. Yeah. I guess, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got for announcements. You guys got anything else? Any SerpSpace news coming up, Roman, or anything people should know about?

Roman Barnes: Not too much. Once the citations are live, we’re going to be good to go on those for the desks, task type of stuff, that we haven’t pushed live now on the site. We can take a couple of orders, but we cannot handle heavy volume, yet, until we get more people trained on it.

Adam: Yeah.

Roman Barnes: It’s live, but-

Adam: Awesome.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Limited.

Adam: Cool. All right. Awesome. Let’s get into it.

Bradley: Cool. All right. I’m going to grab the screen, and bear with me, I’ll drop out for a minute … Can you guys hear me?

Adam: Yes, I can.

Bradley: Okay. Cool. All right. Ed [inaudible 00:07:34] up, he is a newer Mastermind member, and he is a hustler like no one I’ve, I mean, like it’s rare to find people that hustle as much as Ed does, so Ed, again, welcome and keep doing what you’re doing, dude. You’re going to crush it, there’s no doubt.

Short Tutorial On How To Use Live Rank Sniper

Ed says, “Any way to get a short tutorial step by step on how to use Live Rank Sniper? I thought I had it to create videos, to even use it. Thanks, Ed [inaudible 00:07:56].” No. Ed, and in fact you should as a Mastermind member, anyways, regardless of whether you purchased it or no you should have access to the bonus site, the MPR/, well, MasteryPR/SemanticMasterybonussite and there’s a case study in there that I did on how to use Live Rank Sniper. So, there is step by step tutorial on exactly how I use it in there. Just go check that out, if you do not have access, just reach out to us via support and we’ll get you set up, but you should have it already. Okay?

Next question, and by the way guys, you don’t need videos to use Live Rank Sniper, because all it does is, it creates scheduled live events within YouTube, which are indexible, if they’re set to public. You don’t even need a video. You can just go in and schedule a whole bunch or live events, targeting keywords, you get a YouTube URL and everything. It’s just like a YouTube video, there’s just no video, it’s just a placeholder. Then, once you’ve tested, if you decide that you want to replace the placeholder with an actual video, then you can stream to the placeholder. That’s possible to do, you can do it within Live Rank Sniper. You can do it with Hangout Millionaire, which is Peter Drew’s, basically it’s the enterprise version, or whatever, of Live Rank Sniper.

It does more than that, too, by the way, or you could use something like OBS, which is free. OBS Studio, and live stream to those scheduled live events. Really, the trick to using that tool is really just use a bunch of test channels for spamming with scheduled live events for poking keywords. In other words, testing the rank ability of keywords, using test channels that have no syndication networks, no connection to anything else on the web, they’re just spam channels for testing purposes, and then from there, once you’ve identified, which ones ranked, then you can go through and delete all those scheduled live events, and then just upload, or target those keywords from money channels that do have syndication networks, that have authority and all that kind of stuff, and you should be able to crush it.

That’s really what the whole purpose of that tool is for. It’s not necessarily to actually replace those scheduled live events, you know, like actually add videos to those events, because the tool isn’t really designed for that, it’s more for, it’s a poking tool. It’s a keyword testing tool, so to speak, although, you can do that it’s just a slower process.

Difference Between The Link Services Provided At Serp Space and Backlinks Indexer

Ed’s up next, he says, “I am taking all of my URLs for my client website, social media, and Web 2.0 sites and listing them on a spreadsheet, and then having my VA create a Google shortener for each URL and then I run both sets through the backlinks indexer, which I buy monthly, but I only get a total of 1400 links. SerpSpace allows for almost the same amount of money, it does 5,000 links. What is the difference in service? Objective answer please.”

Adam: Wow. What a good time to have Roman, here.

Bradley: Yeah. It’s a great question. Roman, do you want to tackle that one, or shall I? He might be muted.

Adam: Yeah. Roman, if you can hear us, you can feel free to talk, I don’t know if you’ve got yourself muted, or something happened, otherwise, Brad-

Roman Barnes: Yeah. I muted, myself.

Adam: Oh, okay.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. All I see is a black screen in front of me.

Bradley: What? You don’t see the screen? Does anybody else not see the screen?

Adam: I see it. Here, Roman, I’ll just send you the Skype, there you go, I just sent it to you.

Bradley: You need the, he doesn’t have the event page URL.

Adam: Right. Yeah. Let me send that to you, also.

Bradley: [crosstalk 00:11:19].

Adam: As you can see everyone we’re working through-

Bradley: I’m surprised he’s not seeing my screen from his angle. Anyways, whatever. That’s interesting. Everybody else can see, right? I’m going to assume.

Adam: Yeah. I can see.

Bradley: Don’s asking, “What are the super web 2.0’s?” Cannot talk about it, yet, Don. “I was asking because it’s something that’s coming out with SerpSpace.” We’ll let you know as soon as it comes out. We’ll definitely be talking about it. Okay. Can you see, now, Roman? Apparently, not. All right. I’m just going to answer it-

Adam: Sure.

Bradley: If Roman wants to add on, he certainly can. Okay.

Ed’s asking, he’s using, let’s see, backlinks indexer. Backlinks Indexer is good. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve been using Backlinks, I actually canceled my subscription, I’m not kidding, like probably five or six weeks ago, only because we’ve got Dedia in our indexing service now, through SerpSpace that is guaranteed at 60% of indexing. That’s pretty freaking fabulous.

I don’t know of any other indexing services that do that, maybe they do, I don’t know of any that do, and I could be wrong, but that’s pretty cool and I know that Dedia, it’s amazing, because the amount of links that, that dude builds is unbelievable. Him and his team, I mean millions and millions of links per week, and he’s getting, I cannot tell you what he’s getting on his indexing, but we’ll guarantee he’s above-

Roman Barnes: Is it quite?

Bradley: 60%.

Roman Barnes: Or, is it just me? I’m just curious. I’m sorry.

Adam: What’s that? No. I can hear you.

Roman Barnes: Okay. The only person I could hear is you, in the last little while.

Adam: Weird. Yeah. You might have dropped out, especially if you’re having storms.

Roman Barnes: Do you want me to rejoin on the webinar?

Adam: [crosstalk 00:13:01].

Bradley: Hey, guys. I can hear you guys.

Roman Barnes: Okay. Yeah. I’m trying to understand the question that-

Bradley: What’s going on? Can you guys not hear me?

Adam: Yeah, Bradley, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Bradley: Yeah, but I hear Roman in the background talking, so I don’t know-

Adam: Yeah. Roman, you’re here, right? You can hear me, right now?

Roman Barnes: Yeah. I can only hear you though, I cannot hear anybody else.

Bradley: He cannot hear me is what I’m saying Adam.

Adam: Okay. So, Bradley is talking. All right. Roman, we’ll probably have you stop, just because it’s going to get all sorts of messed up.

Roman Barnes: Okay.

Adam: Yeah. Thanks. If you want to type me something as far as an answer about this or anything, feel free, and I’ll just kind of relay it.

Roman Barnes: All right. Sounds good.

Adam: Thanks.

Bradley: We’re going to have to switch back to Hangouts, man. I can see it already. All right. Anyways, that’s really the whole reason why Ed, is why, like, I mean, again, Backlinks Indexer is a great service, but since we have the ability, you know, through SerpSpace to indexing links at 60% or above, we guarantee, which is amazing. That’s why. If you can get better value by using SerpSpace, absolutely use it. Why not? Okay. By the way, I don’t think it’s necessary, Ed, honestly, to be taking your, well, if you want to do it one time, like take your clients website, social media, URLs and Web 2.0, like the profile URLs, like the main blog URLs, and shorten them, and then submit them, that’s fine, although I really don’t think that’s necessary. I think that’s overkill.

I mean, again, you can, it’s not a problem, if it’s not costing you a lot of money it’s not something you’re doing it’s a VA doing, then feel free to do so, but again, I think that’s overkill. Just submitting the URLs directly into the indexer ought to be good enough. It just seems like that’s redundant, is to shorten those URLs and then submit them, unless you wanted them shortened for a reason, for other link building purposes, in which case it would be nice to already have it done. If that makes sense?

Again, if your objective is specifically just for indexing those URLs, it’s really unnecessary to shorten them and submit them twice, because you can just take the actual URLs instead of shortening them and submit them more than once if you wanted. That’s not a problem. You can submit the same links over and over again. Usually most of the indexing services if you submit duplicate URLs in the same batch it will filter out the duplicates, but if you resubmit the same, like submit a batch, and then you resubmit the batch a second time it will take both times. If that makes sense? It’s probably going to vary from service to service, but that’s typically how it would work.

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: All right. Jeff’s up next, he says, I’m sorry, go ahead, Adam.

Adam: No. I was just saying, yeah, that makes sense. Then, also if anyone is interested, something we’re looking at is the possibility of integrating the indexer in SerpSpace with network management. If you know what I’m talking about, and that sounds interesting to you, just put something on the page, please.

Bradley: Can I elaborate on that a little bit?

Adam: Yeah. Sure.

Bradley: All right. Guys, if you’re a member, for those of you that have been using syndication networks or part of the Syndication Academy for any length of time, you probably remember over a year ago, from two years ago to about a year ago we had been endorsing a plugin called Backlink Commando that was really great, because it was a plugin that you could add to, you could take the RSS feeds from your Web 2.0 URLs, from your Web 2.0 sites, your network properties. Any of the properties that created, or had an RSS feed, so think of Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, Delicious, and [inaudible 00:16:29]. Delicious is pretty much dead in the water, right now, but Delicious and [inaudible 00:16:33] had RSS feeds. Pocket, was another one.

If you use pinboard.in that was another one that has a feed, anyways, any that had a feed, period, you could add to this plugin and it would basically run on a cron, so a cron job, so you could set it to once every, or four times a day, let’s say four times a day it would go basically call or fetch all the RSS feeds that were submitted to the plugin and pull any new posts that it had discovered. It would submit them or put them into a queue that then would go submit those URLs on a cron to a backlinks indexing service, and there was several of them that it would integrate with, one of which was Backlinks Indexer, and that was the one we always recommended. It was awesome.

It was an awesome way to automate your Web 2.0 post URLs, so your syndicated content from your money site, or your YouTube channel that goes out to your Web 2.0’s and is published on the Web 2.0’s it would extract those URLs, post URLs and auto submit them to indexer, as well. About a year ago, they just stopped supporting that plugin, and it stopped working. They don’t sell it anymore, either. They don’t support it anymore, which I think that’s shitty, but it is what it is, and it stopped working, so we really didn’t have any other solutions for that.

Now, about two or three, maybe even four months ago, now, on one of the Syndication Academy update webinars there was a hack that was brought to me, or was shown to me by one of our Syndication Academy members, his handle in the Facebook group is Rico Suave, but he gave us an awesome, or shared an awesome method for being able to use Google Sheets, which would extract the post URLs and put them in a Google Sheet and then you could index the Google Sheet and do all kinds of stuff with that. That’s been covered in the Syndication Academy updates, guys, if you want to go look at that, but again, it was still kind of a bit of a pain in the ass to set up.

It was a decent alternative, but it was kind of a pain in the ass, so anyways, the next step is now that we have indexing services inside of SerpSpace, along with the network management. Right? Network monitoring service, we can possibly, and that’s what we’re working on is have that service to where it will auto extract the URLs and submit them to the indexer, so it’s going to be the solution that we’ve been waiting for, for about a year, now. Thanks to our friends over there at SerpSpace. Hopefully, that makes sense. Guys, when that feature rolls out, we’ll certainly let you know, because that in of itself will be totally worth having a subscription for the indexing service just for that reason if nothing else. Okay?

Thoughts On Syndicating WordPress Blogs To Personally Branded IFTTT Networks

Okay. Jeff’s up, let’s see, he says, “I have a new client who, he and his wife both have problems in the past with showing up on Ripoff Report we are working on citations, and soliciting new reviews. If I can bury a Ripoff Report beyond page two for his name I get paid a handsome bonus. He has a consultingbusiness.com, domain number one, and his wife is a real estate agent and she owns her name.com, domain number two, and he owns his name.com, domain number three. They also own a prominent real estate development, domain number four.” Okay. “I was thinking, syndicating their respective WordPress blogs to personally branded IFTTT networks. Thoughts?” Yeah. That’s fine. There’s no reason you cannot do that.

You can certainly brand, like think about consultants and things like that, speakers, coaches, those kinds of things are typically going to have their brand is themselves, you know what I mean? They are their brand, that’s what I mean. Okay? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, Jeff. That’s perfectly logical and normal.

Ordering IFTTT Networks And Use Real Names/Photos Instead Of Personas

“If so, can I order syndication networks and use real names, photos, instead of personas?” Absolutely. Yeah. We only use personas stuff when we’re creating specifically just for SEO boosting purposes. You know, syndication networks specifically just for SEO boosting purposes, but if you’ve got, you know, a real person that has their own blog, absolutely, we don’t spoof anything there.

That should be branded for them. Right? It should be branded after them personally, because they are their brand. Yes. You can absolutely do that. “Could these be ordered so that IP’s match the regional area?” They could be, but here’s the kicker with that, Jeff, it’s not something we cannot do, but you’re going to have to provide the proxy when you purchase the order, and it’s going to have to be a custom order, which means we charge, it’s a small nominal customization fee. I think it’s like 20 bucks.

If Roman is still on, and he can confirm that, or Adam, if you can confirm that. I think it’s 20 bucks as an add-on for something like that. Here’s the deal, when you go to order the network, as far as I know, you order the network and place a support tech ticket after it’s been ordered, mention that you would like to use a specific proxy, pay the upgrade fee and send us the proxy with the user name and password for it, and we should be able to get it done for you. Okay? Am I wrong in saying that, guys? Anybody want to comment on that, before I move on to the next one?

Roman Barnes: I don’t think we have that option available in the site, but we could certainly take care of it if you-

Bradley: Right.

Roman Barnes: Send in a ticket afterwords-

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: That’s not a problem.

Tiers Suggested Per Property For All Four Domains/Properties

Bradley: Okay. That’s your deal, Jeff, just send in a support ticket, as long as you can provide us with the proxy, and again, I think it’s just a small fee for customization. That kind of stuff happens from time to time. We do accommodate things like that when needed. “If I ordered networks for all four domains, properties, how many tiers do you suggest for property?” Honestly, I would just suggest one tier one network for each property, Jeff. That hasn’t changed, that’s the same suggestion that I always do for blog syndication, I want one branded tier for each domain. Right? Because there’s going to be four different brands, really. That’s all I recommend.

You can do multi tiered networks, but it’s more hassle, in my opinion, then it’s really worth, unless you’re using something like RSS Masher, Damon Nelson’s product, which is a good product, and that’s a good way to kind of like reduce footprint issues on tier two. For YouTube channels, you can get away with as many networks as you want, but for money channels, I recommend that you stick with just a branded tier one network for now.

Syndicating Youtube Channels To The Same Set Of Web 2.0 Properties

“Can I also syndicate YouTube channels to the same Web 2.0 properties?” Of course. Of course, you can.

“Any other tips, recommendations?” No. The only thing I would recommend is from the personal blogs, because it’s kind of like all wrapped up in one, those four brands, believe it or not, I would recommend actually, probably interlinking between networks. What I mean by that is not linking everything together, but I’m talking about like occasionally do a blog post from one site where they mention or reference another site, kind of like, you could do it multiple ways, a traditional contextual link from within a blog post with an anchor text or you could do curation style link. Remember, where you could actually curate some content from one of those other three domains on to the blog. Right? Then, cite, or give attribution. Just like you would for any sort of curating content over to that site.

Another thing you could do is like a resource box, like, at the bottom of a post, say recommended reading or additional resources, or something like that, and then put links to related content on the web, one of those links being one of your own sites, or one of your clients sites. You know what I mean. The reason I say this, you don’t want to interlink everything all the time, but you don’t want to start just at kind of randomly, occasionally linking from one to the other, and another to another, that kind of stuff and what will happen is you’ll start to improve the authority and the relevancy of all four of those. Right? That’s a little bit counterintuitive.

Our friend, Pavel from Rank Whiz has been doing a ton of testing with that kind of stuff. He’s got a lot of data showing that, that will improve actually interlinking between network properties, now, in a randomized fashion, and Roman could talk about this a little bit, as well, but that seems to be actually really effective for reinforcing the relevancy of the network properties, and actually improving the overall authority and the power of them.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Definitely. One of the things I wanted to maybe also add into that is maybe some JSON structured data markup might help in his situation as well, because it’s general reputation management from what I’m understanding from the question, same attributes, and that kind of thing would definitely go a long way.

Associated Website For A YouTube Channel

Bradley: Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Cool. On to the next one. Greg’s up, he says, “My established website has an empty YouTube channel, it’s part of it’s branded syndication network. I went through YouTube mastery course and will not be adding a lot of videos and I’m wondering about the companion website you discussed, is a companion website needed in my situation, or is that only when used when YouTube is a primary focus and there is no related website already placed?” Yeah. That’s what I mean, Greg, the companion website, associated website, whatever you want to call it, that’s typically if you’re going to be using YouTube as your main content distribution engine.

In other words, if that is your epicenter, your golden frame, is your YouTube channel, itself, like that’s your main content platform, then I recommend buying a domain and creating a companion/associated website and it attaching it, because it does help to improve the authority of the YouTube channel, but it’s not necessary if you have that, for example, in your case it’s part of a branded network, it’s just not being used, then it’s not necessary, because it’s again, it’s only, I only recommend doing that if you’re using YouTube as the primary content source for your networks.

If you’re going to be using a website, then I recommend creating the associated website, right away, and then using that as your content distribution, so that’s the center of everything, is your website, because you want to transfer as much authority to your website as possible. Right? If you’re doing specifically YouTube marketing, YouTube video stuff, then I would recommend just sticking with the YouTube channel as your primary source and you can add a companion website if you want, but if you already have it as part of a network, it’s really not necessary, because it should already be linked to your existing, and excuse me, interlinked with all of your existing properties in that network. It’s just your call. It’s up to you. It’s really up to you.

Pinvid As Top Recommended Theme For A Youtube Companion Website

“Is PinVid still top recommended theme for a companion website?” Yeah. In a reality, if you’re doing video based stuff, oh, God, I want to talk about this, this screen, here, at some point, if we have time.

Adam: Yeah, man. Do it. Momentum?

Bradley: Yeah. This is awesome. I freaking love this. Guys, this in a Chrome extension. It’s called Momentum, it’s free, but what I love about it is once you install it, you’ve got this to do list over here, and I’ve just always used paper and pen or whiteboard and I have for years, now, I’m just keeping tasks and stuff, daily tasks, this is awesome, because you can swap stuff around, you can move stuff, all kinds of stuff. You can put your favorite links, the links you access often up here. What I like about it is every time you go to open up a new tab to go to another website-

Adam: Hold on, your man focus today is get shit done.

Bradley: My man focus today is-

Adam: That’s awesome.

Bradley: To get shit done. That’s right. What that means is look at your to do list, dummy.

Adam: Yeah.

Bradley: That’s what that means. You know? Every time I go to open up the tab to go check Facebook, or go look at the new offer from some stupid email that I got, or whatever, I click on this, I open this up and it is basically starring me in the face, like hey, this is the stuff you’ve got to do quit being stupid. You know?

Adam: Maybe we should have an episode of Hump Day Hangouts that’s all about workflows and productivity, or maybe just an extra episode. I think it would be interesting.

Bradley: Yeah. All right. What I was looking for was structured, you would know this one, Roman, if you’re still on.

Roman Barnes: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bradley: Semantic WordPress themes, that’s what I was thinking of. Kevin Polley, he coded these. If you’re just doing this, let’s see if I can find it, this is on the Network Empire website, but they had, he had his own website for, I thought it was semantic WordPress themes. Anyways, this is it here, guys, just go to Google, if your curious, look up semantic WordPress themes, this is from the Network Empire guys, specifically Kevin Polley, and he’s the one that coded all this out, it’s basically the PinVid theme, so you can see the Pinvid theme. It’s 50 bucks, or the PennBid Pro theme, only for certified advisors, so this is the one that you could get, here. PinVid theme for 50 bucks.

I’m telling you it’s a really good theme if your focus is video stuff, and you’re just building a companion website for the sake of the authority boost that it gives the channel, then this is a great theme for that. This is the same theme I use for those. Okay, guys? The reason I’m telling you that is because it’s been marked up entirely with schema, so the video objects, the whole entire theme is marked up and you can automate the posting of the videos to the WordPress theme, or excuse me, the site through plugins or you can do it with IFTTT. Right?

I prefer to do it with IFTTT, because there’s no load on the server. That’s why you can set up an IFTTT account guys that will automatically post your word, excuse me, YouTube videos to your self posted WordPress site. We actually covered that, I think, last month in the Syndication Academy Update webinar. That’s a great theme specifically for that purpose. I wouldn’t use it for much of anything else, but for that, it’s a great theme. Okay? There you go.

Uploading Videos To YouTube Without Persona Syndication Network

We’ll move on. “I don’t have a persona syndication network build around my YouTube channel, yet, should I wait to upload any videos until that is completed, or if I add the videos to the channel now can they be added to the network once it’s finished? Thanks.” They can be, Greg, but you have to set up the like recipes, so you have to build out a whole other set of recipes that are triggered by liking a video, so I would recommend just holding off if you’re going to build a persona network as well. I’d just wait, if I were you, but it’s up to you. You can always go in and add the like recipes, or applets, now, and I’d just click on those and that will syndicate it, as well, but that means you have to build a whole other set of applets.

Google Maps For Online Business With No Intention Of Getting Foot Traffic

Okay. Steve’s up, he says, “I ran a number,” excuse me, “I run a number of online websites out of my home, and I’m definitely not interested in foot traffic. Are they’re any good ways to still use Google Maps for SEO, or should we just ignore them outside of local SEO?” Now, you can, here’s the thing, guys, look, and I started doing this, too, for some of my affiliate businesses and stuff, guys, I’m not kidding, I’m registering Google My Business pages with registering addresses and all of that for even affiliate based businesses, now, guys, because of the boost that it can get, because it validates the entity.

When you get a Google My Business page, and you verify an address via postcard or whatever, how ever you verify it, for me it, it’s always been postcard, then that’s a verified business entity in Google’s eyes. Like, I’ve even got, recently, the Ketogenic Diet project that I’ve been working on, some of you would be familiar with that, I actually formed another company for that project and so I registered that. We just started a traffic agency, Semantic Mastery, we just registered that. I mean, even affiliate websites, guys, can be registered, but you have to verify an address.

The thing is, Steve, all you got to do is once you’ve registered the Google My Business page you want to during the initial process of setting it up adding your business to Google Maps or to Google My Business, there’s going to be a checkbox at the bottom when you go to, and it says something like, does your business serve customers at their location? You want to leave that to no, at first, which is the default setting, because when you go through the process and it sends, and it wants to send you a verification postcard, a mail via US mail, if you had selected yes, I serve customers at their location, unless this was a bug and it might have been fixed, because about six months ago when I was setting up several lead gen locations, or lead gen Google My Business location pages if you had that, yes, I serve customers at their location checked on the sign up process.

When it got to the point where it would direct you to send the postcard there would be no address in the postcard address field, it would just be the name of the business, and the city, it would have no street address, because that’s what happens when you select that option after you’ve verified the address, so in other words, leave it to no, I don’t serve customers at their locations, when you set it up. Then, request the verification postcard, then once you receive the postcard and you enter your pin number in, which then verifies it, then you can go in there and set, yes, I serve customers at their location, and what that does is removes your street address from Maps. It’ll still give you a Maps listing, it will still identify the city that the business is listed in, but it will remove the street address and the Map marker from the pin, or excuse me, the Map pin from the map, itself.

It will just show your business name, and the city, and then obviously the contact details, phone numbers, stuff like that. Again, I recommend for those of you who are willing to do so, I mean, guys, I don’t care what anybody says about post office boxes not working, still. I just did two more of them last week. I’m not kidding. The US Post Office boxes still work, as I’ve recommended before don’t try to register several boxes for the same Google My Business profile, so whoever the Google My Business owner is, like if you’ve got, if you’re going to be using the black hat method of USPS post office boxes, guys, then don’t go try to register four under the same account. Does that make sense?

You don’t want to do that, because that will flag it, I know it, I’ve seen it happen, it hasn’t happened to me, but it’s happened to several of our Mastermind members or Local Kingpin members, or whatever. That’s why I recommend for every single Google My Business profile that you set up if you’re using the PO box method is that you use different persona accounts for each GMB profile, and then once the listing has been verified, then you can add your main profile, or a single profile as the main manager for every single one of those that you set up. If that makes sense? Okay. That way you can access everything from one profile, but the actual owners are all separated. All right. That’s how I’ve gotten around it, and again, I just did two of them last week. I know it still works.

Webinar on KML

Chris G is up. He’s our support guy, and our partners in Mastery PR, he’s awesome. He had a support question from Daniel [inaudible 00:35:49], he says, “Can you point me to the webinar that talks about KML? I’ve seen that except floating around the Facebook group numerous times, but have no idea where it’s from. I believe there was a webinar about it in the past, but not sure if it was free or a paid webinar.” Okay. My answer to that is, Daniel, it’s funny, but I was chatting with Marco about this earlier today, and Chris, and KML files it stands for Keyhole Markup Language. That’s a, I guess it’s a specific language or whatever, like what Google Earth uses.

I have limited knowledge on KML, guys, except for how I used it in the past. Okay? When I first got into doing, and I promised Marco that I would just talk about it based upon what I know from back in 2012 when I was using KML files a lot, and Marco and his team of mad scientists have been in the lab and they’ve got some really crazy shit that they’ve discovered about KML, recently, that is strictly for RYS members, guys, so I cannot, I don’t even know half the shit that they’re doing to be honest with you. I can tell you specifically about what KML used to be. I didn’t even realize that they were still valid or viable files that would help SEO.

Back in 2012, I was introduced to KML files through Ivan Budimir he’s one of my primary mentors for local SEO, and this goes back when Google Maps SEO was brand spanking new. Right? It was in its infancy, so KML files are, you can even go to Google and look for this, let’s say, KML file generator. Let’s see if they still have them, because this was back in 2012 when I used it. Okay. Yeah. Here’s some of them, here. See if I recognize any of these. Geo Site Map Generator, that’s the one I used to use back in 2012, and look this site hasn’t even changed in five years. Look, it’s 2011 was when it was created.

I’m telling you, this was back in 2012 when I joined Maps Magic, which was Ivan Budimir was the coach, again, he’s one of my primary mentors for local SEO, the guy was a freaking ninja. Anyways, this is where Geo Site Maps something else we don’t use too often anymore, but a geo site map is basically like any other site map. Right? It’s an XML file that you can create and basically you can upload it as just a file to your server, to the root of your domain, and then just put a link, we used to do this, guys, all the time, we would create, and this is the exact site I used to use to create them, I would create, it creates a geo site map and a KML file, and what you would do is upload both files that you download once the application spits out the files for you.

You upload them to the root domain, the server on your root domain and then you would just put a link in the footer of your site, just like your privacy and terms of service links. One would say location, and that would point to the KML file, and then the other one would say geo site map and it would point to the geo site map file. That used to work like gangbusters, I mean, I’m talking about in 2012, guys. I had lead gen sites at the time that literally all I did was go in and once I learned this technique and add the geo site map and the KML file and within two, three days boom I’d be the top of Maps.

Now, again, this was back in 2012, I got away from doing it, honestly, because once structured data came out I heard that this had been basically rendered useless. It wasn’t really all that valuable, although, again, I don’t know what the hell Marco’s doing in the lab, right now with KML files, but he’s pretty freaking excited about it, so apparently there’s still some value to these files that I am not aware of. Again, just very simply the extent of my knowledge to these were creating the geo site map and by the way the Yoast plugin has that local SEO add-on, it’s expensive, you could purchase, I don’t like it, personally. The local SEO plugin and add-on, or extension, whatever you want to call it, that has a geo site map built into it. Okay.

I personally don’t really like that plugin at all. The add-on, especially, it’s expensive, and I think it’s just too much bloated code and all that kind of stuff, so I don’t use it, anymore. I know that the local SEO plugin does have that ability where it creates a geo site map. One other thing I want to mention about this, guys, is I know that, here’s another thing, whenever you go to, and let’s walk through this, real quick. We’re running out of time. A lot of great questions today, guys, I really appreciate that. Am I logged in? Yeah, I’m logged in. Let’s go to Semantic Mastery. Okay. I’m logged into my AdWords Manager account, so I’m logged into Google.

Here’s the thing, guys, I’m just using this as an example. Whenever you see how it says Semantic Mastery and then there’s this star, here? When I click that star, you see how it says saved to your map? That just created a KML file. There are gigs on Fiverr that you can order that will have a bunch of, you know, they’ll take, they’ll give you 30 KML files for your Maps listing, or for your Google My Business listing, business page, whatever. That’s what this does. All it does is they’ll take 30 different profiles and they’ll go search for it, you know, go visit, or whatever it is that you tell them, and they’ll just click on it, or maybe you send them the maps URL, whatever. Same thing.

If I go here and go to maps, so I can see the maps listing, you’ll see the same saved icon, here, so that means that by doing so this account, this Google account has now created a KML file. I know that you can use KML files for spam purposes, as well. Also, the thing is when you click on a, and I don’t know where, I don’t know if you can download or extract that, but I know that at least years ago that would create a KML file, because that was another way that you could boost maps listings, was spamming the saved maps. Does that make sense? All right.

Just so you know, when you click on a KML file all it does is open up Google Earth and it takes you directly to where that location is, so you want to be very, very precise, if you’re going to use something like the KML file generator, and put the exact geo coordinates in for the Google Maps listing. Guys, remember to get the exact geo coordinates, go search for your listing, go to maps, search for your listing in maps, in Google Maps, and then right here in the address bar, right there are your geo coordinates.

Do you see that there? I know it’s probably small on your end, but right there past the at symbol in the maps URL is your latitude, then it’s comma, longitude. If you’re in the US, at least, you’re going to typically, I’m pretty sure they’re always formatted latitude then longitude, so that’s what it is right there. Right there, your exact coordinates based upon Google’s data, so that’s what you want to use in a KML file. Does that make sense? Anyways, hopefully I didn’t confuse anybody on that, again, my knowledge is very limited on that, other than from what I know from years ago.

I know Marco’s got a whole bunch of stuff he’s looking at and again that’s stuff that’s got to be reserved for the RYS Academy, in fact, I don’t even know half the shit he’s doing. From five years ago, that used to be a really effective method. I don’t know that it still is, today, because I thought, again, I haven’t used it at all since we really got heavy into doing structured data markup, or schema markup. I don’t how effective that is. Do you know, Roman, if you’re still on, do you have any input on that?

Roman Barnes: Not on the KML stuff. I joined the first webinar Marco did, but he had to redo the webinar, because he had a bad connection that day.

Bradley: Yeah.

Roman Barnes: I missed out on it.

Bradley: Okay. Cool. Had you ever heard of that stuff, before?

Roman Barnes: Not before that.

Bradley: Okay.

Roman Barnes: That was the first time I have ever heard of it.

Bradley: Yeah. It’s so funny, because when I saw this question come up, I was like, really, KML files, are they still effective and that’s when Marco was like, oh, my God. I was just like, wow. I may have to revisit that, because I stopped using them like three, four years ago. Probably at least three years ago. Okay.

Pitching A Syndication Network To A Video Production Company

Columbia is up, she says, “You mentioned selling network to a video production company.” You can, Columbia, I prefer, well, it depends on your strategy, yes, you can sell networks to video production companies, in fact that’s a great way to generate a whole bunch of revenue in one lump sum. Excuse me.

Then, upsell them on network management, and that’s maintaining the networks, so that’s monitoring them, also boosting the networks, so additional link building, that kind of stuff. I can tell you, my engagement with the video production companies, I’ve got one, I’ve got a handful of video production companies that send me like a couple jobs per year, if that. They’re really not pushing it all that hard. I got this one video production company it’s in the neighboring town, in an adjacent city to me that at any given time we have between 25 to 35 videos going, per month on what they call the Google boost program, and it’s only a $100.00 per month, per video, but that’s pretty decent money, if you think about it. I’ve been dealing with this particular video production company for three years, now, at least three years. You know, it depends.

For them, again, I don’t sell them networks, they rent, I sell them video ranking services at wholesale prices on my own networks, now I quoted them on selling them networks, and I told them that I suggested that they purchase their own networks, because then it could be branded after their company, which is their video production company, which means every time that any of their client videos that are currently ranked on my networks, but if those videos were ranked on their own networks, with their own branding. Then every time somebody was exposed to one of their client videos they would also be exposed to the video production company, because they could have their branding on the channel and all that other kind of stuff, but they didn’t want to put up the initial investment.

They have been for three years, now, using my networks, and I still to this day, probably two or three times a year get an email from the owner of the production company saying, hey, I just was looking at the rankings for this particular client and I noticed that there’s two listings on page one that says, it’s a John Doe blog and it’s got the clients video on that, what is this? And, I’ve told this to the owner like three times, a year, for the last three years, no kidding, that those are persona based properties that I use to help rank the videos, but they’re like, you know, this doesn’t make any sense, why would they have videos on somebody else’s video on their blog, blah, blah, blah, I said, look, it’s just a way to rank stuff.

I’ve had to explain because the client says, or the business owner will, or the video production company owner says, “Well, what happens if the client goes and looks and he sees this? Isn’t this going to make him mad?” I say, “You think the client is going to be mad that his video is taking up three or four places on page one, and knocking three or four competitors off of page one, just because it’s on some persona based blog that he doesn’t know who it is? That’s more of a problem than having his competitor in that place?” “Oh. I guess, when you put it that way it makes sense.” You know?

Anyways, every time I have to reexplain that to the video production owner, is always another opportunity for me to pitch him on his own done for you networks, which we don’t charge what we charge you guys as internet marketers buying networks, we charge high dollar when we charge an end user for networks, it’s a hell of a lot more expensive than when you guys buy it. You know what I mean? As far as how to pitch that, Columbia, okay, so her question is, “Do you do some video promotion for their clients while remaining invisible to their customers?” Meaning the video production company’s customers, “And, later pitch the network to the production company, or would you pitch it all up front?” No. I don’t do that, because that’s sneaky.

What I do is I go directly to the video production company and the exact pitch that I use, that worked, and it’s worked four times, now, is to go to the video production company, strike up the conversation, especially if you can send them, what I like to do is send video emails, I’ve talked about that a million times, but if you send video emails to the video production company, so inside the email, it’s got a screen shot that looks like a video, so if somebody clicks on it, it opens up a video and it’s you explaining very quickly, because you have a very, very small window of opportunity to catch their attention, but show some results of ranked videos that you have ranked.

They can be generic videos that you ranked specifically, okay, now, where is Adam? They can be videos that you rank specifically just so that you have a portfolio of results to show, even if you don’t use those videos to actually monetize them in any way, just rank a few videos, and then show that in a video when you’re pitching a production company and say, “Look, I provide video SEO services, I can do this for your clients,” and how you pitch it is most video production companies, they sell the video service, the creation service. It’s a one off fee. They have to constantly be going out and getting new clients. Right? New customers. New people to buy new videos from them.

Once the video has been created they are done, unless they get repeat business from that same customer, they’re pretty much done, so you frame it as, how would you like to generate recurring revenue from your existing client base, existing and future client base, customer base? Whatever you want to call it. Explain to them that you provide wholesale SEO services and you can rank those customers videos, so that they can not only produce the video and sell the video to the customer, but then they can upsell them on monthly SEO and mark that up, so that they get recurring revenue from them. Right? It’s a win-win-win situation.

The customer gets more exposure and more leads from their video, which otherwise would probably only get put on their website and maybe shared to their Facebook page and that would be the end of it, nobody would ever see that video again. It wouldn’t generate leads, it would only be seen by people that had already, were already leads. Does that make sense? It wouldn’t be used for lead gen, most businesses buy these super nice videos that they pay $3500.00 for a local production company to create and then nobody ever sees the damn video unless they’re on their website. What good is that? Use the video as a lead magnet. Right?

That’s the whole way you frame it. You frame it as the customer wins, you guys win, because you get to provide this service and generate recurring revenue from an otherwise one off service, and I win, because I get to do what I like to do, which is the SEO, the man behind the curtain. I don’t have to do sales. I don’t have to do customer contact, or support. None of that. All I got to do is perform. Does that make sense? That’s the way to pitch, and that pitch works really, really well. Here’s the thing, if you get some people on the fence, that are unsure, offer to rank a couple of their existing clients videos for them for free. That’s what I’ve done.

I’ve done it, three out of the four companies that I’ve landed from using this exact method, I ranked videos for them for free, and I did it very quickly, too. You know what I mean? I’d tell them, “Send me three, or five videos of current existing clients that you have, that you would like for me to rank,” and they’ll send me three to five videos and I’ll select one or two, or maybe three, out of them and I’ll rank them. Then, I’ll contact them back once they’re ranked, which typically only takes a couple of days, and I’ll rank them for something like the company name, plus review. Something like that, so it’s not hard to rank, but it’s just to show results, and say, “Look, I got this done. Here’s the results. If you’re interested in this service, let’s talk.” It works really, really well. Okay. It’s a great strategy. I love that strategy. I don’t do a whole lot of it anymore, because I got enough volume from the current clients.

We’re going to wrap it up in four minutes, guys, we’re trying to get through a couple more very quickly. Yeah. Again, Columbia, it depends, if you want to sell networks, you can generate large lump sums of cash up front, for that, or you could build your own networks to where you’re building your own assets that you can use for not only ranking videos for production companies, but also for your own stuff. You can build your own lead gen assets, because you’ll have the networks in place. If they’re your networks, you can do whatever you want with them. Remember if you’ve been following us for any length of time and I know you have, we always talk about building your own assets. It makes sense to do both, even. Sell them networks and then build your own, as well.

Roman Barnes: Yeah. Make sure you charge them for it.

Bradley: You’re damn right.

Roman Barnes: The value of the IFTTT networks, I’ve known people that have sold them for more than $2500.00 a pop.

Bradley: Yeah. One of our Mastermind members, John, a realtor, or he sells to realtors, and he’s sold them for, he showed that check $1995.00. All right. Robert says, “Do you use a proposal when selling syndication networks?” Me, typically, no. We talked on the Mastermind webinar last week very briefly about in the past for my agency, guys, like the client services, I’ve never had like packaged prices or like boxed service prices, except for a few things, one of which was syndication networks. I charge 797 to local businesses for a network order.

It’s not really a proposal, it’s just on my agency website there’s a services, that’s funny, that site hasn’t even been updated since 2012, because I don’t get clients from my website, guys, I don’t know if too many marketers that do. All my clients come from either cold contacting, and prospecting, or referrals. Anyways. But, my website has in the packages section, it’s got for example the syndication networks, 797, and it explains on the page what it is, there is no need for a proposal for that, obviously during the pitching process if some questions arise, I’m happy to answer questions, but I really don’t need a proposal for that.

What I was getting ready to say earlier was it used to be my opinion in the past was to never have boxed prices, except for something like SEO, especially, because you’d have to approach every project, independently, or separately, and evaluate every project separately, so the pricing is always going to be customized pricing based upon the project. My attitude has changed a bit into more now, to me it makes more sense to have boxed or packaged prices that are specific to services or activities. Not necessarily results. You can promise results, or whatever based upon a combination of these services, but that way everything is like ala carte, like a menu of services, and it makes it easier, because you don’t need, the problem with doing customized proposals is the amount of time it takes.

That’s where I had always done it that way before, but going forward, looking with our new traffic agency, that I’m basically heading that up, is I want to be able to prospect and pitch, or send proposals in volume in mass, and you cannot do that when you’re doing customized proposals. Does that make sense? Again, I recommend for something, especially for syndication network, is just having a sales page basically that you can direct people to that has your pitch for why it’s important, and why it would help their business on it already, and then just send people to that. All right.

All right, guys. We got to wrap it up. I’m going to answer one more question, just because I saw this one earlier from Alexander and I just want to answer this very quickly, guys, and then we’re going to wrap it up, because it’s at the hour mark. He says, “Do you guys still use and endorse Crowd Search?” Yes. I still do. I still use it the same way that we talk about it in the Crowd Search demo webinar, the update webinar that we did last year. I use it the same. I don’t typically use it to direct traffic directly to the money site, I usually it unless it’s just for navigational search purposes, which means like brand searches, and that kind of stuff. I do use it for referral traffic, a lot. That’s primarily how I use it, is referral traffic.

He says, “How can you be sure that Google will notice the traffic on link to money site?” Because if you have Google Analytics on the money site, it knows where the traffic is coming from. You can use the goo.gl, the Google short links to inject analytics in any link stream. Right? Anywhere that you shorten a URL with Google you’re adding analytics to that link stream. Analytics will see everything. Google will see everything. That all traffic activity through that link, they will know the referrals, where it came from, all that kind of stuff. The user’s device, their browser, all that kind of stuff, where they are in the world, all that comes through the goo.gl short URL, but then on your money site, if you have analytics, which why shouldn’t you? I mean, some people are afraid to use all that, but I use Google Analytics on all my sites, and Google analytics will know where the traffic is coming from. Okay? Yeah. That’s pretty much it. All right, guys. We got to wrap it up. We’re already a couple minutes over. Roman, thanks for being here, dude.

Roman Barnes: Definitely not a problem.

Bradley: All right. We’ll see everybody, tomorrow the Rocket Video Ranker webinar, or the Video Link Vortex webinar, so don’t miss it. If you guys are interested in that at all, otherwise the replay will go out. We’ll see you all next week.

Adam: Awesome.

Bradley: Thanks, everybody.

Adam: Have a good one.

Bradley: Thanks, Adam. Bye.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 133 published first on your-t1-blog-url