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faithylilac · 3 years ago

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The Party Party Part 6

So... there was a bit of a situation... a very bad situation. Not a terrible situation, Faithy and Echo are doing quite lovely.

“Well we wouldn’t have been in this mess if I was the party leader!” Dax shouted at the shorter god. She simply huffed and started tapping her foot.

“Well I didn’t see you throwing any ideas around!” She looked around the dark cave they were in, double checking for a way out. “You twat” she said off handedly.

Dax’s eyes widen, sure what he said was rude... but not to deserve that.

What happened between the two residential celestial beings?

There they were, five papers spread across the floor, each with a different task. Cj explained that they decided to pick up side jobs to do on the way to wedding. Ash and Jo had realized they would be a week early if they went straight there, so this was a perfect idea.

Faithy just shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t party leader anymore so if anything happened, it wasn’t her fault.

“Wait which one is first on the list?” Dax finally decided to pipe in, as he knew he was free of compasses.

Carter held up their’s proudly, “we’re going after this thing called the uh....” he quickly flipped the paper around to read, “Mortem Spera... I don’t know if I said that right.”

“What is it exactly?” Ash asked. Carter read some more and shrugged. Apparently no information on it... weird.

Carter on the other hand, was having a tougher time that the two gods. Both of Ash’s and Jo’s cloaks were ripped to shreds. So their ears were out and the open, reminding Carter plenty of what they truly were.... Nyah Nyah kawaii anime cat people.

Jo had on a large hat, thank Gjhar feiiled, but her tail was sticking out. Ash on the other hand was a free cat boy, disgusting...

Carter was scurrying to look for a blind fold, make it out of anything... But there was hinderance to that plan.

“So Carter... Do you like oranges?”

Carter pulled all of his mental strength to not freak out that this cat girl was speaking to him. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes tight. “Why?” Jo just blinked at him. “I don’t want to answer that” carter continued. “I swear it’s not a deez nuts joke.” Jo replied. Carter kinda just roll his eyes but not, being that they are closed. “Kinda... but that’s so random— I’m confused.”

Jo giggle, “I just wanted to know if you liked oranges.” She replied. “I don’t hate oranges.”

“Anyway, I guess you can ask questions about me, or I can ask more about you— whatever you are more comfortable with.”

Carter shrugged, walking past her to pick up something he spotted once he opened his eyes. It was a clothe that was sticking out of rubble. “Uhhhh...” The nymph examined the clothe, it was embroidered with strange writing and lots of stars.

“Ash, you’ve studied a few ancient languages right?” Jo looked over him to find him staring at a large tapestry on the other part of the cave.

“No, where did you get that idea?” He asked. Jo just shrugged, “I didn’t know if you did, was just trying my luck.”

Carter brought over his clothe to compare the writing. It seemed to be the same letters, but slightly different... maybe it was handwriting? Ash looked over at Carter’s finding but they jumped away from him, trying to keep some distance.

“Oh shoot I forgot.” Ash said, flattening the ears on his head. Carter frowned and took a deep breath and inched back toward the bard. “Take this hurry up!” Carter shoves it at him and scurries farther away.

“Ok I guess.” Ash went back to the tapestry, trying to figure out the reoccurring letters.

Jo scooted closer to carter and smiled widely. “So... what happened with cats that caused you to be terrified so much?” She asked sweetly. Carter pauses. “Uhhhh....”

Earlier....

“Ok, everyone stick together. The shop keeper says there’s major stress at the entrance of the cave.” Cj explained as she examined the map that they bought from a gift shop. It was a old mine that housed crystals, but now it’s a tourist attraction.

The whole surrounding town was super old and and had a temple for just about every religion in the land. Even Gjhar feiiled.... Faithy kept her cloak on put away any loose jewelry. The main temple was up north, so as they traveled that way, more and more of them were more common.

But I’ll stop there. The shop keeper said someone covered in dragon scales came through the shop with a large box and went straight into the caves. He seemed like he was running for someone, so whatever was in the box seemed important.

As they ventured in the unconsciously huddled into three separate groups, Faithy and Echo on the left, Carter, Jo, and Ash on the right, and Dax and Cj in the middle.

Definitely unrelated though, Echo was tracing a wall painting with it’s finger and the mountain started shaking. “WHO DECIDED TOUCHING SOMETHING WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?” Ash screamed. “IT WAS CJ” Dax yelled back.

Like it was an action movie or something, rubble came tumbling down and separated the party.

“Ok whatever. Can you use your plants to get us out of here?” Dax asked he traced the walls of the cave.

Cj’s face read “oh duh” but as she went to feel the walls for roots or anything else she frowned. “No good. If I call them I have no idea what it’ll do to integrity of the cave.”

Dax huffed, frail mortals had to be so... frail. Sure the two of them would survive, but his favorite humanoids definitely wouldn’t.

A whistling noise echoed through the tunnel and they taking a fighting stance. Dax signaled her was going further in and Cj followed. They walk around a corner to see a green light emerging from further in.

“You got a few more millennias to live, I’ll go ahead.” Dax said dramaticly. Cj rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “Like someone would be able to kill, much less defeat a Chaos god.”

Dax slapped a hand on either side of his face and acted surprised.

“To think you’d have so much faith in me!”

Cj just punched his arm, “that would be Faithy, not you.”

“Can I help you two?” A voice from behind them caused them to scream and Dax jumped into the smaller God’s arms.

Even though she was a goddess, she didn’t have supernatural strength of any nature. So her small frame was having trouble keeping him up.

It was a very very very very very very very old person. Now, Cj and Dax had no room to talk, but they had a better skincare routine.

Dax jumped out of Cj’s arms suddenly and her arms flung upwards in a very fast motion, knocking her down in the process. Dax helped her up and they readjust themselves.

“Are you the reason I heard some rumbling?” He asked as he shown his blue lantern around.

A sweat ran down CJ’s back.

“Actually, it was a lizard thing.” Dax spoke up. Cj looked at him with audacity. He had just blamed her for touching the thing she shouldn’t have, causing the mountain to come down on them. So he knew....

The old person simply nodded, “ah well, it’ll take them some time to dig that out. It earns the nearby too much money from tourist to let it stay caved in.” He explained. “Now, why don’t we talk for a bit? I’ll pour some tea.”

They reluctantly follow him into his little cave house. Well it was a small cave room, what’s the term for that? Google isn’t very helpful because all it’s wanting to do is give me tips for a man cave layout.

“So what brings you into an empty crystal cave? You seem more like adventurers than tourist.”

Back to Carter and the cats.

“Oh yeah... cats.” Carter looked away, trying to avoid the question.

Jo sighed and took a step back. “Ok it’s ok, you don’t have to answer that.”

Carter sighed in relief and turned straight around. “But how did you learn to be so swag?”

Carter paused and slowly turned back to them and was about to answer when Ash interrupted.

“OK GUYS! The thing we’re are after is a weapon!” He then broke his instrument and tore off a part of his cape to make a proper torch. Now you might be wondering how they could see without a torch. Ash and Jo could see enough not to bump into anything and Carter could tell where the general area of something is. That piece of clothe was just pure luck.

“Jo can you light this?” He asked her. She nodded and snapped her fingers to start a flame and lit it like a birthday candle.

“How did you do that? I don’t think archers can do that.” Carter said in confusion. She laughed and pointed at her hat. “I can change my class depending on my hat. Not that I have any control of it... if kinda just happens and I can’t ever remember what hat goes with what, we kinda just got lucky.”

Carter blinked slowly. The hat made no sense and there was so no sense of making sense of the thing.

“Guys look!” Ash held up the torch near the tapestry to show the words formed a picture of a weapon. There were also stars scattered around it.

“How do you even know that’s the thing we’re looking for? It could just be something relating to something else?” Jo asked.

“Carter give me the flier.” Ash asked sticking his hand out. Carter scrambled around to remember where he stuffed it, “it’s on your belt of daggers.” Ash said. He grabs it and hands it to the cat boy.

Ash holds it up and looks for any similarity between the flier and the tapestry. “Well thats only convenient.” He said. Jo and Carter look over his shoulder and the weird drawing on the flier almost matches the tapestry.

“It’s missing the words that make up the weapon.” Jo pointed out. Now that was very apparent to Carter and Ash but ummm.... Jo is nice and is explaining what’s going on for you sweet Reader-Chan!

(Aughh that took thirty years off my life. I feel like I’m writing on Wattpad again)

But every single star was present. “Wow I feel smart for figuring this out.” Ash said proudly.

“Do they make a pattern?” Carter asked. Ash shoved the flier at him and started kicking random rocks until one fell apart. He picked it up and grabbed the flier back from carter and plopped down.

He used the fragile rock as chalk and connected each start. “Oooh smart.” Jo added.

There were five large stars and a few smaller stars scattered as well. When Ash connected them all together it looked like a deformed turkey.

“Surely that’s not right.” Ash quickly dusted off the flier and connected only the large stars. “Ok tell me if I’m wrong, but does this look like a straying path?” He pointed out.

It started at one point, split into three, then back to another. “Oh yeah I can see that.” Jo replied.

“Maybe we were going to split up anyway and the rubble just sped it up.” Ash purposed.

“I still don’t see how this has anything to with the Mortem Spera“ Carter replied. Ash thought on his question for a minute but shrugged. “Most of these stupid quest have no reason to link up together the way they do.” The cat boy replied.

“Wait, that means we should be able to meet back up with the others then.” Jo replied. Ash quickly rips the tapestry off the wall and rolls it up. “I don’t know if this will be helpful, but it’s worth a shot.” They then head off the find the others.

“So these star forgers are immortal?” Cj asked before taking another sip of tea. The elder nodded.

“The only thing known to strike down one of these beings is something called the Mortem Spera.” He replied, drinking some of his own tea.

The two gods looked at each other, remembering that was thing they were hired to receive.

“But hear my warning. No mortal has managed to get their hands on it, and if they did they would surely meet their end.” He added.

“So who wielded it?” Dax spoke up. Dax did not have tea, he was drinking black coffee. Not that the old man had coffee, he made it himself— French press and everything.

The old man fell silent and put down his cup. “I don’t know the answer to that question. My theory was a dying god.” Interesting, interesting cool story bro.

“But I don’t actually know that. But I don’t think too much about the subject.”

“Well thank you for your time, but we need to find our friends.” Cj announced and pulled Dax up with her.

“Thank you for humoring me, you young folk have fun.” He said as he was went back to drinking tea.

Cj and Dax scurried out and proceeded further into the cave. “I’m sorry I don’t think he knows what’s he’s talking about.” Dax said.

“How so?” Cj replied. The older god sighed. “As long as I’ve lived, I would have at least heard about a dying god THAT desperate to live. Sure some seek out the fountain of youth, but trying to kill something like a star forger.”

Cj thought on it and nodded, “he did seem like he belonged in a loony bin.”

They then turned another corner to find... Faithy and Echo having a tea party?

She had on a fake crown and Echo had on a fake mustache and top hat. But this wasn’t your average tea party, it was the real thing. With delicate dishes, a tower of Pastries, and Gjhar feiiled forbid... a white lace table clothe.

“Is this what you’ve been doing this whole time?” Cj asked, not that she was one to ask.

“We ran into this lovely dwarf who owns a restaurant in here and we’ve been waiting on the rest of you.” Faithy explained before drinking out of her cup with her pinkie at ninety degrees.

Dax and Cj looked at them confused, “how did you know we were coming this way?” Cj asked.

“Ahh... so the shop owner was telling us that the cave coming down on itself was just a illusion.” Echo replied.

Cj flops down onto the ground and leaves an indention around herself.

“Yeah the whole thing is tourist trap role playing adventure. At the end they trick you into trading a sack of gold for a wooden spear.” Faith added.

“That does explain why it didn’t get any darker when the rocks blocked the entrance.” Dax replied.

Cj shot up from her Cj shaped hole in the floor and started screaming incoherently. She then stop and narrowed her eyes at Dax. “You’re a Chaos god and you couldn’t sense an illusion?”

Dax just shrugged. “I’m a chaos god, everything I do is legit. I have no use for mortal’s artificial magic.” He said with disgust. “That and I wasn’t thinking about it.”

Then. A loud thundering noise echoed through the cave, causing everyone to get up and put up their guard. But here comes ash carrying a stupidly large tapestry and Jo carrying Carter like a baby. How were they making so much noise????

“Ok good, we all found each other and someone isn’t trying to get through rocks like an idiot.” Ash said in relief.

“How did you know about the illusion?” Cj asked. Ash raised his eyebrow, “what illusion? The freaking flier made a map. It’s stupid simple but it works I guess.” He replied.

So... this was so freaking long.

And color coding is a pain

Never again

Ever

I hate everything

Masterlist

Figure out who everyone is, I dare you

#saveethanchanfromsoup #the party party #friendfiction #original story #cottage core goddess might fight chaos god???#garfield #red herring #don’t trust old people #cat boys

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youeverfeelcursed · 4 years ago

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On the Narrative of The Last of Us 2 - (2/3)

So, we left he previous part at what I would call the end of Act 2, as I’m trying to remain as spoiler free as possible on these opening parts.

This part will actually deal with what I call act 3, and finally the next post will be about the ending, and some thoughts on secondary characters.

I know I rant a lot but I feel The Last of Us Part 2 is a game to unpack slowly as its full of details in both narration and enviroment that puts to shame some of the most wonderful movies I’ve seen.

On how opposites attract and the paralelism of Abby’s and Ellie’s storylines.

The first time we play with Abby is during the snow scene with Owen and her, where we learn that they are searching for “someone” around Jackson. This is the time where we get the first glance at Abby; kind of ruthless, insensitive, and point driven woman; who literally runs on her own to find that man who she is searching for, just to stumble upon him and to sheperd him to his own death.

Both Owen and her seem likeable enough up to the point we learn they are on a revenge trail. We are not supposed to like Abby in the beginning, we gotta have a flame for our moth to fly into, and she’s the perfect hook.

But everything changes in Act 3, when we start learning about her father, on how the Fireflies just disbanded because the only person that could have developed that vaccine died. On how her relationship with Owen failed because of her thirst for revenge that lead her to put it before her love for Owen.

We are shown how similar are both Ellie and her are, but whereas Abby is learning to deal with her violent side by helping Yara and Lev out, Ellie has gone into the deepest depths of her hatred.

Although I did find her part way too long, I’m not sure it would driven the same point if they had made it shorter, plus it also adds information on both warring parts of Seattle, the Seraphites and the WLF.

So whats the point of having Abby in the game? Well, to start, she’s the obvious “antagonist” to our “protagonist”. But Abby’s purpose is to show how incredible hypocrital we the players are.

How can you hate Abby for killing Joel, but not Ellie for wanting to kill Abby?

Let’s remember that Joel started it all. Let’s remember that Ellie knew he did it, and still she consciously decided to go after the group, even though I’m pretty sure she knew why they did it even before she met Nora. Nora’s conversation was pretty open about Ellie’s knowing what Joel had done back in Boston. We get confirmation later but up to that point we are always doubting. Up until that point we get some freedom to believe that Ellie is doing this revenge with maybe some doubts on Joel telling the truth but still, based on her love of him.

But thats not true. She’s doing it even knowing that Joel had fucked up humanity’s supposedly only chance to get a vaccine. That he had doomed them all.

That Abby and her people had their good reasons to get back to Joel and kill him.

Joel killed Abby’s father. Joel doomed humanity. Abby killed Ellie’s father figure.

Then why, do we root for Ellie and hate on Abby?

Although for most part of the game both of their storylines run parallel, its when Lev and Yara appear that they started running in different angles. When Abby manages to bring Yara’s medical supplies, Ellie is torturing Nora for information on Abby’s whereabouts. When Abby is saving Lev, Ellie is killing both Owen and Mel.

When Abby is starting to understand that maybe violence is not the solution, Ellie is reducing it all to hate and violence. The flame is burning and she cannot take her eyes from it.

Abby’s path is obviously a premonition for what Ellie’s will be. Because Abby trying to recover the life she lost because of her need for revenge, to recover her humanity but in this way she’s lost Owen, her innocence, her capacity of empathy.

And just when things are getting slightly better, shit hits the fan and Ellie appears. She starts to reap what she had sown with Joel’s killing. Actions cannot go without consecuences.

Abby is an example of what Ellie can, and will turn into during this game. On how to lives can forever get entwined by hatred and violence.

The clash

Ahoy! So Abby gets with Lev to the theater where she finds Tommy, knocking him down and killing Jesse in the spot. I think Jesse’s death was one of the things that I found most unfair and random, I get the idea behind it but I honestly think they could have taken a better turn with him.

But anyway, shit hits the fan. And we get to battle Ellie.

Ellie! We get to battle Ellie what the fuck!?!?

I mean seriously, how awesome can this be? Because this is the point. We don’t battle any other human as a boss during the whole game except Ellie. Because she’s not human anymore, she’s a monster.

She tortured, murdered, left behind both her lover and friends only for the sake of revenge. But as we talked in the previous post, its not as simple as that.

The battle between them is polarizing. I mean by this point I was already tired of the violence. I wanted Ellie to stop, but I didnt want her to die. And yet, she had killed a pregnant woman and done terrible things, didn’t she deserve it too? I also wanted Abby to get some closure, but what would it have to happen, for her to get closure?

I was in a polarized position. I didn’t know what to feel. And my heart jumped out of my body when Dina joined the battle and she ended in Abby’s arm, knife on her throat.

And again, parallels. Lev gets to be Abby’s cornerstone, while Dina gets to be Ellie. Things stop, and Abby decides to be the bigger person. To stop it all, to move on and bury the hatchet. She could have killed Ellie and let Dina leave, but she decided to finally, finally move on, because she was tired of violence. Of her lack of humanity, of battling instead of living.

We end the fight with a defeated monster and a new human living walking out of the door.

Abby just like every other character, is an imperfect being. We can decide to like her or not, but hating her only for the fact that she killed Joel is reducing ourselves to moths chasing a flame, and by that, becoming just like Ellie.

#the last of us 2 #the last of us 2 spoilers #tlou #tlou2 #tlou 2 #the last of us part 2 #the last of us II #tlou part 2 #the last of us 2 representation #the last of us 2 analysis

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imdoingthismspaintadventure · 5 years ago

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In which I nerd out about PS and portal windows.

THE GREEN TEXT WAS ATTRACTIVE. NOW VIEW THE RED TEXT AGAIN.

Oh god we’re going back to TG again.

John is 1000% done with all these huge logs.

TG: when the film crew zooms where the presidents at TG: im like if that dudes black ill eat my hat TG: turns out he is, so we're all "damn, director's got gumption" TG: like we'll all flip our shit he aint shining shoes or somethin TG: its called freemancipation. if its not pres-election its god-ascension TG: in bruce almighty. whoops, different bruce from the one i just mentioned EB: aaaaaarrrgh!

Oh my fucking god TG was still going on and on with his reality-shattering godraps. That is amazing.

He is creating the perfect pop culture amalgam in there, too! I said it before but TG, you are a treasure.

TG: cant explain to me why this aint condescension to think ill shit a brick TG: not even he can convey the intention with his quickspun wit TG: rather defray all this tension, sit on his lap while he whittles a splint TG: and some guy eyes what he does and patronizes: i guess negrocity's the mother of invention

I’m having an astral journey reading this.

TG, what in the actual fuck are you talking about??

You are the god of rambling I swear

EB: stop rapping for a second you horse's ass! EB: i have something important to talk about. TG: whats up EB: rose is in trouble and she needs help. i was going to connect to her with sburb but i lost my copy! TG: ok

Horse’s ass is a good insult.

Yeah I guess TG now has to bail her out after the car fuckup

EB: also she lost battery power. if she can get back up and running, she'll need someone with the game to get her out of there before her house burns down. EB: so i think you should use your copy of the game to help her! TG: my copy? TG: thats going to be tough

Oh no what will the shenanigans be this time.

EB: why? TG: i lost it TG: its a stupid story and id rather not talk about it TG: shit be embarrassing yo

Oh fucking hell.

Why are all the copies of this game getting lost so easily??? Take care of your videogames!!

What did you do to lose it, now I’m scared of whatever bullshit sequence of events transpired

EB: i thought you said you had two? TG: well yeah TG: one is my brothers copy EB: ok, well get his then! TG: alright TG: but hes not gonna be happy about that

Is this going to be like a Dad situation where there is an interactive boss? That was really great so I hope it is!

EB: whatever. EB: also you might want to read rose's walkthrough to get up to speed on this. TG: oh man EB: what? TG: nothing really TG: look all im saying is the girl tends to lay it on kinda thick you know? EB: /ROLLS EYES

Embrace the purple prose TG! Let it envelop you in its glorious overwritten radiance!

Ooh we’re back with the purple lady herself!

She needs to find an alternative energy source asap, to help John and be able to stay communicated, before she burns to death!

Your LAPTOP is out of BATTERY POWER. There's only one thing left to do. Time to make your way to that BACKUP GENERATOR.

Yup, figured it would end up being relevant.

Rose: Knit laptop cozy to shield your laptop from the rain.

...really?

Time managment is not really your strong point it seems.

Oh you already had one made!!

The heart octopus is just the best.

I remember her inventory system to be an unholy nightmare.

That would be such a waste of time! Besides, you already knitted one a while ago. You retrieve it from your KNITTING BAG and apply it to your LAPTOP. You captchalogue the LAPTOP PLUS COZY.

Cozy laptop is cozy!

Rose: Equip grimoire to strife specibus.

Ooh.

That could either result in getting arcane eldritch powers that man was not meant to know... or just a book to bludgeon people to death with.

Both seem worth it.

NOPE

I change my mind this just screams death.

That would be incredibly ill-advised! There are some dark forces you just don't want to mess around with. You understand this better than most. You put the book down.

I like the fact that Rose has an object with such dark and terrible powers even the inventory system and the narrator are advising us to put it as far away as possible from anything resembling a weapon slot.

Was I correct in the eldritch powers thing??

Rose: Recaptchalogue your items!

Oh hello again you terrible, terrible captchalogue system.

You grab the KNITTING BAG and the GRIMOIRE, in that order. It's always a logistical puzzle with your TREE MODUS. The tree AUTO-BALANCES, leaving the KNITTING BAG accesible in the ROOT CARD.

Imagine having one of this in a real videogame.

Seems the kind of move Yoko Taro would do.

................That rithym minigame

Rose: Allocate knitting needles to strife specibus.

Eesh, that seems like a very nasty weapon by necessity.

You feel a lot more comfortable with this as a weapon. You're so handy with those needles, you feel like you could probably use them to filet a sword fish.

Damn, Rose could be fucking deadly with those.

Say goodbye to all the tender spots of flesh in your body.

John has it lucky with his captchalogue thing.

You lose the ROOT CARD in the process, severing the tree. Hey, careful with all that stuff!

Yeah let’s not break the laptop. Or the Necronomicon, Or both.

Rose: Knit plush cuddle-cthulhu to soothe nerves.

Greatest idea so far.

...it’s the actual necronomicon isn’t it.

That would also be a preposterous waste of time!!! Besides, you're quite sure you've never heard of this creature called "Cthulhu" before. There are however many other specimens of the ZOOLOGICALLY DUBIOUS you're familiar with. Such as...

Or this universe’s version of it at least.

Rose: Consult the grimoire.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT’S FLUTHLU!! WITH A BUNCH OF HORRIFYING BEASTS AROUND IT.

IN THE IMAGINARY CITY STREETS

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN, LAST TIME I SAW YOU, YOU GOT STABBED BY A VERY CHARISMATIC DETECTIVE AND BEHEADED BY A WINDOW PORTAL.

IN CASE YOU COULDN’T TELL, I REALLY APPRECIATE THE REFERENCE.

FLUTHLU, FOUL PATRICIAN OF MISERY. To hear his mammoth belly gurgle is to know the Epoch of Joy has come to an abrupt end

Oh god, we get to see even greater elder gods now!!

Nrub’yiglith.... is that a reference to Shrub-Niggurath? Seems the most likely one to me.

And NRUB'YIGLITH, SHAMEBEAST KING OF GROTESQUERY, WRITHE-LORD OF THE MOIST BEYONDHOOD. Hearing his melodious chirps and tongue-clicks causes one's bones to explode.

WRITHE-LORD OF THE MOIST BEYONDHOOD!!

These descriptions are fucking amazing.

Oglogoth....Ok, this is definitely Azathoth, the daemon sultan.

Nice!

And of course there's OGLOGOTH, THE DEEP ONE. Whenever he grinds his teeth, all the children of a random galaxy somewhere will frown continuously for a nine thousand year span.

These fucking descriptions.... Holy shit give me 500 of these.

He is the first and smallest of the SMALLER GODS, appointed in servitude of a vile, unfathomable pantheon of MIDDLING GODS which caters to the whims of the NOBLE CIRCLE OF HORRORTERRORS, an omniscient, omnipotent order of the elite few, forever cloaked in the darkness of the FURTHEST RING.

What the fuck???

So in the homestuck universe, Azathoth is just a scrub! There are a whole three tiers above him in power!

The noble circle of horrorterrors, cloaked in the darkness of the furthest ring...

Someone should make a story with all this lore, or use it in a DnD campaign. Some of this is legitimately really good.

OH MY GOD

THE WINDOW PORTALS. THEY ARE OUTLINED HERE AS WELL.

And then there's this strange page containing some rather mysterious notes on summoning procedures. You've never been quite sure what these diagrams are getting at.

.....of course they are the summoning rituals!!

They lead to the imaginary city and if you cut their power while you are outside an eldritch being appears!!

Flutulhu was summoned after a city-wide blackout, so I wonder what would be needed for oglogoth... I was going to say a planet-wide blackout, but the imaginary city is.....all that exists over there, alongside the four realms and the cathedral/brothel/sun and moon/GPI, and all the other cosmology.

Maybe if you were outside a window during the last supermassive black hole?? That is probably the most pitch black you could ever get while in the imaginary world....

#Homestuck #Homestuck liveblog #mspaintadventures #mspaintadventures liveblog #Problem Sleuth #oglogoth

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 6 years ago

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Persona Problems: Apathy Syndrome, Mental Shutdowns, and Reverse Cases

Sooooo uhhh I can’t sleep so might as well ramble about this.

Comparing and contrasting the 3, ranting on why Mental Shutdowns are called Mental Shutdowns and why it’s stupid, and trying to fix PTS’ Reverse Cases.

An issue I’ve had with P5 tbh (I think I’ve talked about this before), but while thinking about it I realized that......my own idea of fixing P:TS’ Reverse Cases instead....made me realized some complications (I mean the complication was there to begin with but I’ll get to that).

Anyway I’ll save Reverse Cases for last since I’m sure most of you are only here for P3/5. 8U

So one thing that bothered me in P5 is.....the fact they call Mental Shutdowns well...Mental Shutdowns. I mean because....it’s just Apathy Syndrome (or at least, how it’s called by the public, “Mass Lethargy Syndrome, which we find out in P4D, as a similar case is happening there).

Well let me explain what each one basically is.

Apathy Syndrome. is basically when a person’s shadow goes on vacation in P3, and Nyx/Full Moon bosses be giving out those vacation tickets like Oprah when well....the Full moon comes around. 8U I mean technically the person’s shadow gets “eaten” by a Dark Hour Shadow (and yes it’s their shadow, MegaTen says “psyche” but it’s clarified more that by psyche they mean shadow). Basically, while there are technicalities in HOW the shadow isn’t in the person’s body, the fact remains it happens because the shadow is not in the body. As for what happens to the person, they usually go into a coma/vegetative state and will die without medical help.

Mass Lethargy Syndrome:

Now let’s look at Mental Shutdowns. It happens when a Shadow Self is killed.....ok.....so basically that means the Shadow is not there anymore. The Shadow is not in the body. Basically the same exact thing as Apathy Syndrome. What happens to the body? Same exact thing as Apathy Syndrome, they go into coma/vegetative state and will die without medical help. I mean sometimes they’ll die right on the spot for no good reason(ok maybe not RIGHT on the spot, stupid delay reaction Okumura....fudging things up), but of the 3/4 we saw, we know 2/3 (dunno if I should count train guy, but Wakabe and Kobayashi def count) died because they fell in traffic and not by whatever Okumura conveniently got. Also this doesn’t count Ichiko’s friend who was just in a coma, so it seems Okumura’s reaction is.....VERY rare. Btw fun fact, in P3′s 1st movie, something similar happens at a train station that mirrors Wakabe/Kobayashi, someone gets Apathy syndrome and falls in front of a train (I know it’s the movie, but the game DOES say there was a delay and the movie spells it out for us it’s cause of a body on the train tracks so.....there might be some weight to the movie).

Now PTS....I’m....I’m mostly gonna focus on Reverse Cases, I mean this anime has Apathy Syndrome but I don’t recall it (or I didn’t get that far into it), and the wiki states it’s when a Persona is taken or destroyed, while Reverse Cases (as well as Kagenuki) specifically mention Shadows....and I dunno it could be P:TS being weird again and not knowing how the relationship between Personas/Shadows work, but then again Kagenuki was used so that people could tell if that person has a strong shadow and thus strong Persona and....basically I don’t think the creators through it through or the wiki is missing some info. ANYWAY, Reverse Cases are similar, it’s where a Shadow is forcibly taken by another Persona user for a certain goal of summoning something more powerful by gathering those Personas (if any of you Arena/Ultimax fans feel like you might’ve heard something like this before yeah I think they repurposed P:TS’s thing), and when that happens the person is turned inside out! Whoops! Well that’s a bit different, but hey same concept, shadow leaving the body (THAT BEING SAID it’s understandable why it’s called something different, the outcome is different compared to AS and MS). (btw Kagenuki is where you pull a Shadow/Persona out but it’s used to relieve stress or some BS, it’s temporary and....it’s kinda more like you are forcing someone to summon their Persona rather than take it....unless you are discount Strega aka Marebito then they are trying to actually take it).

Fun Fact: P2IS I believe is the first place that showcases Apathy Syndrome (or whatever we wanna call all 3/4 of these things), as the character Yukino experience similar symptoms when her Shadow Self commits suicide. P2IS didn’t have a name for it but....just a fun fact. 8U

Anyway before I pick apart P:TS’ mess, lemme get back to P5. Why the fudge do they call it something different? Like I GET MS’ process is a little different, but the outcome is pretty much identical, esp to the public....who are the one’s naming the phenomenon. Like us the players know it’s different, one is caused by the Dark Hour and is temporary, the other is caused by Goro being an asshole and it seems like this one is a bit more permanent....BUT THE PUBLIC DOESN’T KNOW THAT! To them it should be “Apathy Syndrome/Mass Lethargy Syndrome has returned and a new phenomenon ‘Psychotic Breakdowns’ has emerged!” you could possibly connect them due to both showing up at around the same time, but calling AS something different? No, to the public it’s pretty much the same, people are becoming vegetables and we dunno how to help them. In all honesty, just because the way shadows are leaving people’s bodies are a bit different, I don’t think it warrants a new name...in fact I think it can be confusing “Wait isn’t it basically the same thing? How/why is it called something different?” it just raises unneeded questions. And no you can’t make the argument that ‘maybe AS wasn’t well known’ because 1) it’s mentioned later in P4D (and I think even in Arena), albeit by a different but similar sounding title and 2) even a small town like Inaba’s murder mystery was still being alluded to in P5 about 5ish years later in-game....and Iwatodai is a city and it was being talked about on the news A LOT.....so no it’s not a small town/city thing.

But...”Well why aren’t you complaining about P4D’s re-name?” Probably cause the rumor of knowing the cause of MLS vs AS/MS. MLS is associated with the cursed video, while AS/MS are unknown to the public..... Or maybe AS was just known as MLS to the mass public or it’s a phenomenon where a bunch of people fall to AS, I need to replay P4D tbh if there are additional details I’m missing, but the fact remains that, to the public, MLS has a possible root cause while the other two do not so it’s possible to let that slide....tho it brings up the fact MS should either be called AS or MLS.... Esp because there’s also the fact that P4D is probably taking place in Tokyo (P3/4/4D basically just call it “the city,” but I think it’s heavily hinted to be Tokyo, heck a quick google search lead me to a LMB festival look alike, aka Tokyo Idol Festival so....yeah 8U). Which makes it even more jarring for P5 since WE KNOW it takes place in Tokyo so why are they using two names for the same thing??? It’s like.....calling the Chicken Pox something like “Polly Pocket Pox,” same symptoms, we just feel like calling it something totally random and new now for no reason even tho it’s literally the exact same thing in everyone’s eyes. 8U

Anyway end rant on P5′s annoying alt naming, now for P:TS.

So.....Reverse Cases are a bit of a mess....both in the show (damn it be bloody) and.....lore wise (not new to P:TS bless its soul....haha soul....pun not intended). Lore wise it doesn’t make sense. I mean P3/4D/5′s way of doing it we basically have different ways of doing X1+A/B/C but we still get the same Y (basically X+A=Y, X+B=Y, and X+C=Y for P3/4D/5 respectively, X=a shadow leaving, A/B/C=the different forms aka Full Moon/Cursed Video/Goro-murders). RC is different, it’s end result is different even if say.....it’s the same as P5 (P5 involve another human harming another Person’s shadow so yeah). So with PTS, instead of X+C=Y, it’s now X+C=Z (Shadow leaving+basically stealing and absorbing the shadow=a person explodes).....so with PT X+C≠Y.....and that’s.....that’s some problems. Because PTS equates the shadow leaving with the person exploding (we’re ignoring AS in this universe cause....we don’t need more problems).

So....to fix it.....I originally thought “maybe add one more thing to the equation!” Have it be X+C+D=Z. With D= maybe the shadow goes berserk before it’s eaten and that’s how the person is exploded. Kinda similar to how Personas can turn on their user in P3 and strangle them....or in P4 the Shadow Selves....do something that kills them. I mean they both try to kill their hosts and seem to do different things to get the job done, and how they do it could result in a different outcome (P3 it’s strangulation tho not sure if traceable, P4 it’s unknown, PTS it’s explosion). There fix right? Nope.......I realized, thanks to P4 esp....there’s an issue....And this exists with how RCs already operate not just my fix it tweak. The issue is that.....once the person is killed, the shadow self (and by extension the Persona) disappears with it....

“Ok how is that bad?” Well the point of the RC are that the Marebito are gathering Shadows(/Personas) to make themselves stronger (and so that what’s his face can summon something, keeping it vague for spoilers but hey already dropped a spoiler so whatevs). But.....as soon as the Person explodes that Shadow should cease to exist. Rendering everything moot.

Which means we need to change PTS again, and we can do it a few ways thankfully! I mean you might have to rewrite PTS for some of the options but.....like it already needs rewrites so klnvkds;vna Anyway here’s what we can do:

No RCs! Instead it’s just Apathy Syndrome a new wave. What ain’t broke don’t fix it. Personas/Shadows are still stolen, but we just keep the symptoms as AS and just call it AS (or MLS, I’m down for either)

Might be an issue with getting the police involved, so either with the revamp have Shadow Ops be involved

Or make it so the police think AS in PTS has a different patter compared to P3′s so they think it might be a group or some BS.

Keep the RC, but don’t make it about stealing shadows/personas to make something stronger or summon something. Instead just make it about a (or a group of) serial killer(s)!

Either they just use their Persona to explode people

Or they utilize the Kagenuki to draw out the shadow self to do it for them!.

Use both 1 and 2, by which I mean I guess pull a P5 (aka have two going at the same time like P5 has with Mental Shutdowns and Psychotic Breakdowns, and RC could be the reason the police get involved), AS is when they steal the shadow, RC is when they wanna kill a person without the weird as time delay MS has at times.

I feel like I had more to say but it’s late and.....I think I’ll just end it here. 8V

#persona 3 #persona 5 #persona trinity soul #p3 #p5 #pts #tbh I should replay P4D cause I can't remember if Mass Lethargy Syndrome is the true public name for AS or #if they are doing what P5 is doing and calling the same thing by a different name #persona problems #persona 5 problems

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pinksweatergettingbetter · 8 years ago

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ah i almsot forgot: warning, the following has mainly snarky opinions on Spirit of Justice. Reader discretion is advised.

and we’re back to our scheduled programming

time to be rendered unconscious against your will you lil shit

“i hardly think anyone could pass out from eating something like this”

clearly you dont know what world youre living in, Sadmad.

...also he... might be allergic, guys. ever thought of that?

yes, EAT! EAT OR WE WILL HARASS YOU, POSSIBLY INNOCENT BYSTANDER!!! YOU THINK YOU HAVE RIGHTS???? CRAM THAT SHIT DOWN YOUR THROAT BEFORE I DO!!!!

...uh;

FIVE IS NOT AN OCCUPATION!!! EAT ANOTHER BUN AS PUNISHMENT!!!! REGRESS FURTHER!!!! HFKJGU;SUUSRSO

coping jokes aside holy shit

don’t hurt this tiny boy!!!

i hope you all feel guilty for being such pricks.

look at him. he's curled up under his jacket like a traumatized baby

at least this personality... sort of aligns with how DID is supposed to work? But now i just feel even worse. Someone get that kid a teddy and a juice-box, stat!

“Its clear that none of his personalities could be the killer!”

A) one of the three could still be lying

B) there’s four so far, what’s to discount a fifth? triggered by... i dunno, a reefer brownie.

C) I'm actually glad he's not the killer anyway just wanted to point out the possibilities youre discounting there

i love that theyre playing the goofy X people music for a traumatized five year old who witnessed a horrific murder of a loved one.

“I believe the person who laid the cards out is the very person who killed the victim” WELL.... DOY.

“How quickly you move onto a new theory when your old theory proves false!”

WELL.......... DOY

I love that theyre all just yelling and screaming about murder while the tiny child cowers behind the bench

hello??? anybody with compassion anywhere? maybe in the gallery? a bailiff? anybody???

“his emotions are spiralling out of control! something must have really frightening him”

maybe

THE FUCKING MURDER????

athena youre a psychologist; dont you know anything about calming people down or at least putting them at ease? youre gonna put scars on this kid’s scars!

i mean at least Cody Hackins was fairly fearless and defiant about what happened to him and only really broke down once it dawned on him what he’d actually seen. Owen is clearly very, very upset.

i passed out *image promptly closes eyes*

“poor kid, he's absolutely terrified of something”

KDJFKLDGDGL

“whatever it is, it might be the root of his out of control emotions!”

DSHFA;SLGHOHSO GIRSHG’

“see, all we got out of this boy is a tale he dreamt up”

fuck off sadmad

(sigh) Owen’s on his side, Shisho’s laying down, just get to it already

“rotating your thinking about?”

“oh! you mean turning your thinking around!”

“yeah, whatever...”

(SNERK)

“like the forehead, perhaps”

is that... just a random location or is it actually going to come true

also, back at the office, Apollo winces and he can’t figure out why

oh yeah its definitely gonna come back.

WHOA; OK, MANHANDLING

MANHANDLING, NOT GOOD

STEP AWAY FROM THE ATTORNEY, BLACKQUILL

yeah just fucking manhandle the stressed out anxious girl. you piece of shit. i knew me being your friend wouldn’t fuckin last.

“MOTIVE, OPPORTUNITY, EVIDENCE??? IS THAT ALL IT TAKES TO MAKE YOU STOP BELIEVING IT YOUR CLIENT?!”

to be fuckin fair, cuckoo, thats usually what loses most cases.

would phoenix manhandle athena?? would he berate her and shake her into doing her best?? i highly doubt it.

“prosecutor blackquill was just giving me a pep talk, thats all!”

athena thats unhealthy

legitimately simon’s been nothing but unpleasant this entire time. its fun to watch him wreck sadmad’s shit but he needs to keep the hell away from athena. whatever protective, elder-brotherly instincts he had for her in DD seem to have stayed in DD.

man I'm looking back at my previous commentary and i was. i was just so optimistic. how foolish. franziska, bring down your lash upon this foolishly foolish fool.

atcuall dont i bruise like a peach

jeez now I'm imagining Super Dad™ Phoenix Wright cross examining Owen with Athena instead and it’s melting my cold, hard heart

“unfortunately, i spy nothing of the sort”

again Sadmad acts like if he doesn't see the answer, then it’s nonexistent

not very monk-y of you, Sadmad.

gotta admit, i love this unique murder weapon

ive actually nearly suffocated under soft, cold, gloopy stuff and lemme tell you, its not fun.

...i love that simon took that logic-attack for us

maybe the animators just wanted to play his OH SHIT animation again

i know it looks like i pick on everything but in fact i edit these down. sometimes i take out whole statements because i rationalize them and realize that theyre actually plausible and i let them slide. so just, y’know. if you think I'm just blindly going at it, i am actually giving this game the benefit of the doubt. you just dont see it.

...if you read these

...uh

they used the pre-prepped noodles in the fridge. c’mon guys, as athena would say: Andale!

“perhaps the victim was simply playing with the cards, and they hold no other meaning”

oh NOW THEY COULD BE UNRELATED TO THE CASE

OF COURSE, NOW THAT IT’S CONVENIENT TO YOU

you sack’a shit

nice cliffhanger, kid.

Oh well; I’m partially glad that the poor lil guy can get a rest, and partially upset that his last two surfaces put him through intense anguish. maybe get Uendo drunk and go to the theatre or something, guys. poor baby could use a pick-me-up.

n no–– rise from the ashes flashbacks–– RISE FROM THE ASHES FLASHBACKS

THE LUNCHBOXES

SO MANY LUNCHBOXES

AAAAAHHHHhhhhi gotta give bucky a hand; being drunk and riding a skateboard while supporting a tower of bentos isn’t an easy feat

ew slurping

and simon extends his douchiness to the guys he's even shafting Athena for.

just, fuckin, lighten the fuck UP simon, CHRIST

TIDDIES

seriously tho; we haven’t had a proper boob joke in ages. actually Geiru kinda reminds me of April May...

Meanwhile we’ve had several testicle references, a drunk guy, and the bloodiest overarching plot the series has ever had. I think we’ve left Ace behind and graduated to Edge Attorney

to be fair the judge could totally be talking about her actual rubber balloons, considering his childlike personality at times. so maybe ITS YOU, SADMAD, WHO’S THE VULGAR ONE!

GET YOUR MIND OUTTA THE GUTTER!!

bloooon. i think Drifloon says that, too. Is that a japenese onomatopoeia or something?

ooh he sadMad

heh

i guess its up to simon’s brilliant mind tricks to save us again..?

...yehhhh i knew it

...huh. didnt expect that. impressive use of air...sword... skill.

IM NOT A KOORAHEENIST, SHE’S NOT GONNA HEAR ME ANYWAY.

i know what theyre building up and yes, i am super excited to see all those balloons pop

...i gotta ask tho, why does Athena think those balloon animals are bad?? theyre extremely intricate and they look a lot more like the thing she promised than most of the ones ive seen.

aw no the cake disappeared. i want a huge explosion at the end!!

“I’ma cut ya, witch!”

...

.....

........

i uh, i have to um,,,,,,, go now

SHES GONNA CUT OFF A TIT

GIRD YERSELF ATHENA

me, into my DS mic: HOLD IT. Hold IT. Hold it. hold it... hold it... bold it

athena; HOLD IT

simon: athena youre stupid do something. I'm not helping you.

simon: this time I'm going to do something, but god forbid you dont run with it

i dont think we’ve ever had a co counsel add something to the testimony for us before. we’ve had them hint at answers and interrupt trials to get us out of tight spots, but never directly ordering something like that. Guess that proves just how highly BK thinks of Athena’s abilities......

ooh the cakes back and there was a pop

im super ready for this

shit thats a strong balloon. i wouldn’t advice biting very thing plastic...

............

the... fuck???

sadmad: here is what will prove that Geiru IS NOT the murderer!

(geiru reveals buckwheat allergy and ACUAL RED HAND)

how the fuck does that help your case, Sadmad?? We know that the killer used the dough to kill the master by suffocating him with it. Pointing out that she came into contact with the dough, WITH HER HANDS, IS PROVING SHE DID IT.

YOU JUST GOT HER CAUGHT LITERALLY RED-HANDED.

HOW DOES THIS HELP YOUR CASE??????

ok well apparently she could die just by being in the room but if we look at how badly her hand has reacted, and is still reacting, Geiru should probably have at least some difficulty talking if “breathing in the flour” was dangerous. If her hand reacted that badly from minor contact, her throat should be shut like a steel trap. what I'm saying is, she’s probably lying about the severity.

“As if I would do anything so underhanded”

oh sad-‘trigger my enemies into yielding’-mad, youre hilarious

y’know i just realized, it is a little insensitive of Taifu to make/buy/keep soba around the place. if Geiru is this deadly allergic, he’s risking killing her simply because he can’t give up his precious noodles. thats like living with someone with a deadly peanut allergy and being all “can’t get enough of my PBnJ!!”

its time for

Off!

Brand!

Logic!!!!

oh. its not. ...ok

hang on didnt she say the dough was udon already, or am i misremembering? if she did and everyone just forgot, thats a little sad.

anyway, i guess thats... an alright twist. i still say that saying your witness is allergic to something and showing a reaction on the body part associated with the murder is stupid thing to do.

“dont lose your nerve now. keep charging forward or you'll feel my blade at your back”

I'm just gonna let that speak for itself.

ah THERES the off brand logic. and we’re finally gonna talk about those fucking noodles in the fridge. its been a long time coming.

i like that ‘ramen’ is a third choice every time

that was a pretty involved murder. “alright, kill the old man, hmm hmm... make a dish that i’m deathly allergic to to throw of the scent; just gotta get the cooking! make sure Uendo doesn’t wake up and catch me in the act~~ get rid of the dough in a way that is probably time consuming, lalala~ and there! Blooooon, the perfect crime!”

how much time did she have??

also how much blood did she lose form that knick on her forehead? if its enough to permeate an entire clump of dough, she should probably need a transfusion.

simon: dog pun. have you figured out the twist yet???? DOG PUN, BY THE WAY. JUST SO YOU KNOW.

all the balloons are there. its time.

seriously, thats gotta be a lot of blood. I'm getting Gingerdead Man flashbacks.

“i wanna thank you, simon. without your constant abuse, i wouldn’t have been scared enough to succeed for fear of what would happen if i failed!”

...its a bit premature for breakdown animations; the police haven't gotten back to us about the dough...

...i didnt like this balloon explosion as much as i thought i was going to. this is kinda just... uncomfortable.

you know, she shouldn’t have resorted to murder or blaming the crime on an innocent, but I feel like Taifu should’ve.... I dunno, either Trained her properly or let her down easy instead of forcing her to be a sexy balloon clown.

It’s clear she really, really wanted to succeed her father’s name, (which I'm a little confused about; was he one of Taifu’s students? What is Uendo’s real name then? what is any of their real names...) so I’m sure that if she just practiced enough, she’d probably be able to do what she needed to get to that level of entertainment. And if she couldn’t, letting her down easy and encouraging her to find something she actually liked instead of making her do... um... balloons would probably be a whole lot less nasty.

also wtf uendo; what did whet ever do to you

man all of these people were kind of dicks. except bucky. the guy who came to his trial drunk.

Sadmad: Hmm.... upon further deliberation... seeing as you won... I believe I shall afford you a basic sense of human respect..................

Athena: thats all I ask, prosecutor sadmahdi!

heyy he’s sobered up! or should I say... SOBA’D UP AAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH but seriously i don’t think they’ve said drunk or hungover once in this entire case what the fu

“no way... i almost got convicted out of convenience?” you, larry butz, maggey byrde and a shit tonne of other characters in the series. its actually a fairly common occurrence.

“he didn’t give her the name because he wanted geiru to find her own calling in life...”

...you know. after foisting a sexy balloon routine on her. to encourage her to quite entertainment.

obviously Taifu was using the Simon Blackquill approach to encouragement.

“making udon was his way of showing his support of her in her new endeavour”

...what does that... mean

“oh, i’ll make safe dough instead of the stuff THAT KILLS HER to prove that i support her!”

genius

“So this entire situation happened because of a misunderstanding? How sad...”

i think you mean,,, hhhh

i hate misunderstanding plots so so much

this entire case is just “he was being an asshole to ENCOURAGE you, see!! now you HAVE to forgive him!!”

newsflash: no i dont. you know what works better than fear tactics, threats and coercion?

BEING ACTUALLY SUPPORTIVE

“he probably used some tough love on you so that the shop wouldn’t just go belly up”

I SAID SUPPORTIVE. ARE YOU DEAF???

see? athena is being a little misguided but at least she's using a positive -food- to try to accomplish something.

“i’ll make sure its got all the TLC Master Toneido would’ve packed in it, too!”

you got it! one ice-cold, bitter, al-dente bowl with a side of vinegar, comin’ right up!

no athena!! brand loyalty!! mr eldoon will never forgive you!!!

“do us all proud, bucky”

or else

(flashes air sword)

Athena: I wonder if this gave me any experience as a lawyer...

Simon: HAHA WRONG, IF I HADN’T BEEN THERE YOU’D HAVE HAD THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF YOU. YOU SUCK, ATHENA, AND YOU DO EVERYTHING WRONG. FUCK YOU~!

see what annoys me about this is that when I first played Athena, I had some issues with her being too inexperienced to be a proper lawyer, especially with her court-related PTSD which could seriously endanger her clients.

However... Why are they bringing up her lack of experience in the one case (it’s not even a full case) in a game that isn’t even about her? And ignoring all the progress she made in Dual Destinies?

The way they’re talking about it is as if theyre setting up some kind of sequel; ‘you need to improve athena, you need to practice’. Which would have been all well and good for one of the cases in the first run of her own game... but Athena has been and continues to be a side character to Apollo and Phoenix. Rather than this moment coming at a crucial moment in her own game, it comes out of nowhere during a case she got last minute, couldn’t have prepared for, and is abused throughout.

what I'm saying is, the ghosts of DD past has come to haunt us. They introduced Athena too early and are bungling up her character development. Lawyers need a full set of games to let them grow. Just make an actual Apollo Justice 2 or Athena Cykes 1, but don’t insult us by pretending that this five minute shit actually did either of them justice.

Simon: I hope you stay shitty so that I can always win

brilliant.

you know, usually when a character is jerk with a heart of gold, that ‘heart of gold’ thing is supposed to show up at the end.

i was going to ignore the horrible joke but then Widget said “ROTFL”

what a... great way to end this....... great case

and so we close this one off, and for a case about tasty food, it sure left a bitter taste in my mouth.

#sulking over SOJ #soj spoilers #soj spoilers obvs]#i had so many hopes simon

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we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years ago

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The Guide to Building Linked Unstructured Citations for Local SEO

Posted by MiriamEllis

This article was written jointly in partnership with Kameron Jenkins. You can enjoy her previous articles here.

When you’ve accomplished step one in your local search marketing, how do you take step two?

You already know that any local business you market has to have the table stakes of accurate structured citations on major platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Infogroup, Acxiom, and YP.

But what can local SEO practitioners do once they’ve got these formal listings created and a system in place for managing them? Our customers often come to us once they’ve gotten well underway with Moz Local and ask, “What’s next? What can I do to move the needle?” This blog post will give you the actionable strategy and a complete step-by-step tutorial to answer this important question.

A quick refresher on citations

Listings on formal directories are called “structured citations.” When other types of platforms (like online news, blogs, best-of lists, etc.) reference a local business’ complete or partial contact information, that’s called an “unstructured citation.” And the best unstructured citations of all include links, of course!

For example, the San Francisco branch of a natural foods grocery store gets a linked unstructured citation from a major medical center in their city via a blog post about stocking a pantry with the right ingredients for healthier eating. Google and consumers encounter this reference and understand that trust and authority are being conveyed and earned.

The more often websites that are relevant to your location or industry link to you within their own content, the better your chances of ranking well in Google’s organic and local search engine results.

Why linked unstructured citations are growing in importance right now

Link building is as old as organic SEO. Structured citation building is as old as local SEO. Both practices have long sought to influence Google rankings. But a close read of the local search marketing community these days points up an increasing emphasis on the value of unstructured citations. In fact, local links were one of the top three takeaways from the 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors survey. Why is this?

Google has become the dominant force in local consumer experiences, keeping as many actions as possible within their own interface instead of sending searchers to company websites. Because links influence rank within that interface, most local businesses enterprises will need to move beyond traditional structured citations to impress Google with mentions on a diverse variety of relevant websites. While structured citations are rightly referred to as “table stakes” for all local businesses, it’s the unstructured ones that can be competitive difference-makers in tough markets.

Meanwhile, Google is increasingly monetizing local search results. A prime example of this is their Local Service Ads (LSA) program which acts as lead gen between Google and service area businesses like plumbing and housekeeping companies. Savvy local brands (including brick-and-mortar models) will see the way the wind is blowing with this and work to form non-Google-dependent sources of traffic and lead generation. A good linked unstructured citation on a highly relevant publication can drive business without having to pay Google a dime.

Your goal with linked unstructured citations is to build your community footprint and your authority simultaneously. All you need is the right tools for the research phase!

Fishing for opportunities with Link Intersect

For the sake of this tutorial, let’s choose at random a small B&B in Albuquerque — Bottger.com — as our hypothetical client. Let’s say that the innkeeper wants to know how the big Tribal resort casinos are earning publicity and links, in the hopes of finding opportunities for a smaller hospitality business, too. *Note that these aren’t absolutely direct competitors, but they share a city and an overall industry.

We’re going to use Moz’s Link Intersect tool to do this research for Bottger Mansion. This tool could help Bottger uncover all kinds of links and unstructured linked citation opportunities, depending on how it’s used. For example, the tool could surface:

Links that direct or near-direct competitors have, but that Bottger doesn’t

Locally relevant links from domains/pages about Bottger’s locale

Industry-relevant links from domains/pages about the hospitality industry

Step 1: Find the "big fish"

A client may already know who the “big fish” in their community are, or you can cast a net by identifying popular local events and seeing which businesses sponsor them. Sponsorships can be pricey, depending on the event, so if a local company sponsors a big event, it’s an indication that they're a larger enterprise with the budget to pursue a wide array of creative PR ideas. Larger enterprises can serve as models for small business emulation, at scale.

In our case study, we know that Bottger is located in Albuquerque, so we decided to locate sponsors of the famous Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Right away, we spotted two lavish Albuquerque resort-casinos — Isleta and Sandia. These are the “big fish” we want our smaller client to look to for inspiration.

Step 2: Input domains in Link Intersect

We’re going to compare Bottger’s domain to Isleta and Sandia’s domains. In Moz Pro, navigate to “Link Explorer” and then select “Link Intersect” from the left navigation. Input your domain in the top and the domains you want to mine link ideas from in the fields beneath, as depicted below.

Open Link Explorer in a new tab

Next to Bottger’s domain, we've selected “root domain” as that will show us all competitor links who haven’t linked to us at all. We’re also going to select “root domain” on the resort domains, so we can see all of their backlinks, rather than just links to particular pages on their sites.

Moz’s Link Intersect tool will let you compare your site with up to 5 competitors. It’s totally up to you how many sites you want to evaluate at once. If you’re just getting started with link building, you may want to start with just one domain, as this should yield plenty of link opportunities to start with. If you’ve already been doing some link building, you have more time to dedicate to link building, or you’d just generally rather have more options to work with, go ahead and put in multiple domains to compare.

Step 3: Find link opportunities

Once you’ve input your domain and your competitor(s) domains, click “Find Opportunities.” That will yield a list of sites that link to your competitors, but do not link to you.

In this example, we’re comparing our client’s domain against two other domains: A (Isleta) and B (Sandia). In the “Sites that intersect” column, you will see whether Site A has the link, Site B has it, or if they both have it.

Step 4: The link selection process

Now that we have a list of link ideas from Isleta and Sandia’s backlink profiles, it’s time to decide which ones might yield good opportunities for our B&B. That’s right — just because something is in a competitor’s link profile doesn’t necessarily mean you want it!

View the referring pages

The first step is to drill down and get more detail about links the big resorts have. Select the arrow to expand this section and view the exact page the link is coming from.

In this example, both Sandia and Isleta have links from the root domain marriott.com. By using the “expand” feature, we can see the exact pages those links are located on.

Identify follow or no-follow

You can use the MozBar Chrome plugin to view whether your competitor’s link is no-followed or followed. Since only followed links pass authority, you may want to prioritize those, but no-followed links can also have value in the form of generating traffic to your site and could get picked up by others who do eventually link to your site with a follow link.

Select the MozBar icon from your browser and click the pencil icon. If you want to see Followed links, select “Followed” and the MozBar will highlight these links on the page in green. To find No-Followed links, click “No-Followed” and MozBar will highlight these links on the page in pink.

Common types of links you’ll see in the profiles of local business websites

If this is your first foray into link building for local businesses, you may be unfamiliar with the types of sites you’ll see in Link Intersect. While no two link profiles are exactly the same, many local businesses use similar methods for building links, so there are some common categories to be aware of. Knowing these will help you decipher the results Link Intersect will show you.

Types of links and what you can do with them:

Press releases Press release sites like PRweb.com and PRnewsire.com are fairly common among local businesses that want to spread the word about their initiatives. Whether someone at the business won an award or they started a new community outreach program, local businesses often pay companies like PRweb.com to distribute this news on their platform and to their partners. These are no-followed links (don’t pass link authority aka “SEO value”) but they can offer valuable traffic and could even get picked up by sites that do link with a follow link. If your competitor is utilizing press releases, you may want to consider distributing your newsworthy information this way! Structured citations / directories One of the primary types of domains you’ll see in a local business’ backlink profile is directories — structured citation websites like yellowpages.com that list a business’ name, address, and phone number (NAP) with a link back to the business’ website. Because they’re self-created and not editorially given, like Press Releases, they are often no-followed. However, having consistent and accurate citations across major directory websites is a key foundational step in local search performance. If you see these types of sites in Link Intersect, it may indicate your need for a listings management solution like Moz Local that can ensure your NAP is accurate and available across major directories. Typically, you’ll want to have these table stakes before focusing on unstructured linked citations. News coverage Another favorite among local businesses is local media coverage (or just media coverage in general — it’s not always local). HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a popular service for connecting journalists to subject matter experts who may be valuable sources for their articles. The journalists will typically link your quote back to your website. Aside from services like HARO, local businesses would do well to make media contacts, such as forming relationships with local news correspondents. As news surfaces, they’ll start reaching out to you for comment! If you see news coverage in your competitor’s backlink profile, you can get ideas of what types of publications want content and information that you can provide. Local / industry coverage Blogs, hobby sites, DIY sites, and other platforms can feature content that depicts city life or interest in a topic. For example, a chef might author a popular blog covering their dining experiences in San Francisco. For a local restaurant, being cited by this publication could be valuable. If you see popular local or industry sites in your competitor’s backlink profile, it’s a good signal of opportunity for your business to build a relationship with the authors in hopes of gaining links. Trade organizations Most local businesses are affiliated with some type of governing/regulating body, trade organization, award organization, etc. Many of these organizations have websites themselves, and they often list the businesses they’re affiliated with. If your competitor is involved with an organization, that means your business is likely suited to be involved as well! Use these links to get ideas of which organizations to join. Community organizations Community organizations are a great local validator for search engines, and many local businesses have taken notice. You’ll likely find these types of organizations’ websites in your competitor’s backlink profile, such as Chamber of Commerce websites or the local YMCA. As a local business, your competitors are in the same locale as you, so take note of these community organizations and consider joining them. You’ll not only get the benefit of better community involvement, but you can get a link out of it too! Sponsorships / event participation Local businesses can sponsor, donate to, host or participate in community events, teams, and other cherished local resources, which can lead to both online and offline publicity. Local businesses can earn great links from online press surrounding these groups and happening. If an event/team page highlights you, but doesn’t actually link to benefactors/participants, don’t be shy about politely requesting a link. Scholarships / .edu sites A popular strategy used by many local businesses and non-local businesses alike is scholarship link building. Businesses figured out that if they offered a scholarship, they could get a link back to their site on education websites, such as .edu domains. Everyone seemed to catch on — so much so that many schools stopped featuring these scholarships on their site. It’s also important to note that .edu domains don’t inherently have more value than domains on any other TLD. If your business wants to offer a scholarship, that is a great thing! We encourage you to pursue this for the benefit it could offer students, rather than primarily for the purpose of gaining links. Scholarship link building has become very saturated, and could be a strategy with diminishing returns, so don’t put all your eggs in this basket, and do it first and foremost for students instead of links. Other businesses Businesses may sometimes partner with each other for mutually beneficial link opportunities. Co-marketing opportunities that are a byproduct of genuine relationships can present valuable link opportunities, but link exchanges are against Google’s quality guidelines. Stay away from “you link to me, I’ll link to you” opportunities as Google can see it as an attempt to manipulate your site’s ranking in search, but don’t be afraid to pursue genuine connections with other businesses that can turn into linking opportunities. Spam Just because your competitor has that link doesn’t mean you want it too! In Link Intersect, pay attention to the domain’s Spam Score and DA. A high spam score and/or low DA can indicate that the link wouldn’t be valuable for your site, and may even harm it. Also watch out for links generated from comments. If your competitor has links in their backlink profile coming from comments, you can safely ignore these as they do not present real opportunities for earning links that will move the needle in the right direction.

Now that you’re familiar with popular types of local backlinks and what you can do with them, let’s actually dig into Isleta and Sandia’s backlinks to see which might be good prospects for us.

Step 5: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Both the Albuquerque Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn link to Isleta and Sandia on their “Local Things to Do” pages. This could be a great prospect for Bottger! In many cases, “things to do” pages will include lists of local restaurants, historic sites, attractions, shops, and more. Note how their addresses are included on the following pages, making them powerful linked unstructured citations. Bottger hosts fancy tea parties in a lovely setting, which could be a fun thing for tourists to do.

Isleta and Sandia also have links from a wedding website. If Bottger uses their property as a wedding venue, offers special wedding or engagement packages, or something similar, this could be a great prospect as well.

Link Intersect also yielded links to various travel guide websites. There are plenty of links on websites like these to local attractions. In the following example, you can see an Albuquerque travel guide that's broken up by category, “hotels” being one of them:

Isleta and Sandia also have been featured in the Albuquerque Journal. In this example, a local reporter covered news that Isleta was opening expanded bingo and poker rooms. This seems to be a journalist who covers local businesses, so she could be a great connection to make!

Many other links in Isleta and Sandia’s backlink profiles came from sources like events websites, since these resorts are large enough to serve as the venue for major events like concerts and MMA matches. Although Bottger isn’t large enough to host an event of that magnitude, it could spark good ideas for link building opportunities in the future. Maybe Bottger could host a small community tea tasting event featuring locally sourced herbal teas and get in touch with a local reporter to promote it. Even competitor links that you can’t directly pursue can spark your creativity for related link building opportunities.

And let’s not forget how we found out about Isleta and Sandia in the first place: the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta! Event sponsors are featured on an “official sponsors” page with links to their websites. This is a classic, locally relevant opportunity for any Albuquerque business.

Step 6: Compile your link prospects in Link Tracking Lists

If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but it also sounds like a lot of work. How am I ever going to keep track of all this?” — we’ve got you covered!

Moz Pro’s “Link Tracking Lists” was built for just this purpose.

In Link Intersect, you’ll see little check boxes next to all your competitors’ links. When you find one you want to target, check the box. When you’re done going through all the links and have checked the boxes next to the domains you want to pursue, click “Add to Link Tracking List” at the top right.

Since we’ve never done link building for Bottger before, we’re going to select “Create New List” from the dropdown, and label it something descriptive.

Make sure to put your client’s domain in the “target URL” field. For Step 3, since we’ve just selected the links we want to track from Link Intersect, those will already be populated in this field, so no further action is needed other than to click “Save.”

We’ll come back to Link Tracking Lists when we talk about outreach, but for now, all you need to know is that you can add the desirable competitor links (in our case, links from Isleta and Sandia) to Link Tracking lists straight from Link Intersect, making it easy to manage your data.

Step 7: Find out how to connect with your link prospects

Now it’s time to connect the dots: how do you go from knowing about your competitor’s links to getting those types of links for yourself?

There are three main ways you can get unstructured linked citations to your local business’ website, and those categories are what’s going to dictate the strategy you need to take to secure that opportunity for yourself.

Self-created: Self-created links are like voting for yourself, so sites that accept these types of submissions, like Yelp.com, will NoFollow the link to your business' website. Visitors are still referred to your website through that link, but the link doesn't pass authority from Yelp.com to your domain. You should only get authority from a website if they link to you on their own (what Google calls "editorially placed" links). Neither NoFollow nor Follow links are inherently good or bad on their own. They are just intended for different purposes, and it's the misuse of followed links that can get you in trouble with Google. We'll talk more about that in a later section titled “Avoiding the bad fish: Risks of ignoring Google’s link scheme guidelines”

Prompted by outreach: In many cases, people won’t know about your content until you tell them. These links are editorially placed by the site owner (not self-created), but the site owner was only made aware of your content because you reached out to them.

Organically earned: Sometimes, you get links even without asking for them. If you have a popular piece of content on your site that receives lots of traffic, for example, people may link to that on their own because they find it valuable.

Since this tutorial is about proactively pursuing link opportunities, we’re going to focus on unstructured linked citations types one and two.

Articles

If your competitor has been featured in an article from say a local journalist or blogger, then your outreach will be focused on making a connection with that writer or publication for future link opportunities, rather than getting the exact link your competitor has. That’s because the article has already been written, so it’s unlikely that the writer will go back and edit their story just to add your link.

The one exception to this rule would be if the article links to your competitor, but your competitor’s link is now broken. In this scenario, you could reach out to the writer and say something like, “Hey! I notice in your article [article title] you link to [competitor’s link], but that link doesn’t seem to be working. I have similar content on my website [your URL]. If you find it valuable, please feel free to use it as a replacement for that broken link!”

Sometimes the contact information of the writer will be right next to the article, itself. For example:

If there’s no email address or contact form in the writer’s bio, you can usually find a link to one of their social media accounts, like Twitter, and you can connect with them there via a public or direct message. If you live in a small, tight-knit community, you may even be able to meet with the author in person.

Press releases

If you notice your competitors are issuing a lot of press releases and you want to try that out for yourself, you’ll likely need to sign up for an account, as these are a primarily self-serve platform. Most quality press release sites charge per release, and the price can differ depending on length.

Citations / directories

You’ll either want to sign up for a citation service like Moz Local that distributes your data to these types of listings programmatically, or if you do it manually, you’ll want to find the link to create your listings. Please note that your business may already be on the directory even if you haven’t set up a profile. Before creating a new listing, search for your business name and its variants, your phone number, and current and former addresses to see if there are existing listings you can claim and update.

Business websites

Most businesses will make it easy to contact them. If you’re trying to contact another business for the purpose of proposing teaming up for a co-marketing opportunity, look in their footer (the very bottom of the website). If there’s no contact information there, search for a “Contact Us” or “About” page. You may not find an email address, but you may be able to find a contact form or phone number. Below is an example from Albuquerque Little Theater, where they have contact information on the right and advertising information in the top navigation for businesses that are interested in taking out ads in their printed show programs. Not an unstructured linked citation, but a great way to get your business known to the community!

Organizations

Most organizations will make it easy for those who want to join, unless they are more exclusive or invitation-only. In the event that you do wish to get involved in an invitation-only organization that has no public-facing contact information, try viewing a member list and seeing if there’s anyone you know. Or maybe you know someone who can introduce you to one of the members. Genuine connections are key for this type of organization.

Step 8: Writing a good outreach email (for unstructured linked citations requiring outreach)

Outreach emails are necessary when the link opportunity you’re pursuing isn’t a link you could create yourself, or if the link source is one where you can’t make face-to-face contact with decision-makers. One of the most important questions you should be asking yourself for these opportunities is, “Why would this website link to me?”

Here’s how Bottger might go about sending an outreach email:

Greeting that matches the nature of the outreach target

“Hey Jill!” might be fine when outreaching to the author of a blog, while “Hello Ms. Smith” might be better for more professional outreach.

Introduction

Give a brief summary of who you are, what you do, and your interest in contacting them. For example: “I work with Bottger Mansion, a historic Bed & Breakfast in Old Town Albuquerque. I found your page about Albuquerque activities — you’ve really captured a lot of what Albuquerque has to offer!”

The ask, and the value add

This is where you’ll actually ask for the link. It’s a good idea here to add value. Don’t just ask for something; offer to give something back!

To continue the same example: “As long-time residents of Old Town, we’d love to provide you with a comprehensive list of activities in the city’s historic district! We feel an Old Town Activities list would be a great addition to your page. Bottger Mansion regularly hosts high tea, for example, which we’d love to let more people know about with a spot on your list!”

Wish them well, thank them for their time, and sign off. Make sure that it’s easy for them to find information about you by including your full name, title, organization, and website/social links in your email signature.

Don’t be afraid to get on the phone, either! Hearing your voice can add a human element to the outreach attempt and offer a better conversion rate than a more impersonal email (we all get so many of those a day that ones from people we don’t know are easy to ignore).

And remember that local businesses have a particular advantage in accruing unstructured linked citations. Lively participation in the life of your community can continuously introduce you to decision-makers at popular local publications, paving the way towards neighborly outreach on your part. Learn to see the opportunities and think of ways your business can add value to the content that is being written about your town or city.

Step 9: Tracking your wins

Next-to-last, we’re going to jump back to Link Tracking Lists for a second, because that’s going to come in extremely handy here. Remember when we created the list with Sandia and Isleta’s links that we were interested in pursuing? Those will now show up when we go to Moz Pro > Link Explorer > Link Tracking Lists.

Every time Bottger successfully secures a link that they’ve added to their Link Tracking List, the red X in “Links to target URL?” column will turn blue, indicating that the site links to Bottger’s root domain. If we were pursuing links to individual pages, and a link prospect linked to our target page, the red X would turn green.

Another handy feature is the “Notes” dropdown. This allows you to keep track of your outreach attempts, which can be one of the trickiest parts about link building!

Avoiding the bad fish: Some words of caution before you get started

Before starting this process for yourself, familiarize yourself with these four risks so that your fishing trip doesn’t result in a basket of bad catches that could waste your resources or get your website penalized.

1. Risks of a “copy only” strategy

Link Intersect can be amazingly helpful for discovering new, relevant link opportunities for your local business, but link builders beware. If all you ever do is copy your competitors, the most you’ll ever achieve is becoming the second-best version of them. Use this method to keep tabs on strategies your competition is using, and even use it to spark your own creativity, but avoid copying everything your competitors do, and nothing else. Why be the second-best version of your competition when you can be the best version of yourself?

2. Risks of a “blindly follow” strategy

Comparing your site’s backlink profile with your direct competitors’ backlink profiles will return a list of links that they have and you don’t, but don’t use Link Intersect results as an exact checklist of links to pursue. Your competitors might have bad backlinks in their profile. For example, avoid pursuing opportunities from domains with a high Spam Score or low Domain or Page Authority (DA/PA). Learn more about how to evaluate sites by their Spam Score or DA/PA.

They might also have great backlinks that aren’t the right opportunity for your business, and those should be avoided too! Do you remember Isleta and Sandia’s links for events like MMA matches? If Bottger were to blindly take those resorts’ link profiles as directives, they might think they have to host a fight at their B&B, too!

Take what you find with a grain of salt. Evaluate every link opportunity on its own merit, rather than deeming it a good opportunity simply because your competitor has it.

3. Risks of an “apples to oranges” strategy

Choose the domains and pages you want to compare yourself against wisely. As a small local B&B, Bottger wouldn’t want to compare their backlink profile to that of Wikipedia or The New York Times, for example. Those sites are popular, but not relevant in any way to the types of unstructured linked citations Bottger would want to pursue, such as links that are locally relevant or industry-relevant.

In other words, just because a site is popular doesn’t mean it will yield relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities for you. Here in this tutorial, we’ve outlined one potential use-case for Link Intersect: finding unstructured linked citations your local business competitors have. However, this is not the only use for Link Intersect. Instead of comparing your site against competitors or near-competitors, you could compare it against:

Sites or pages about your locale (ex: sites like https://www.visitalbuquerque.org/ or http://www.albuquerqueoldtown.com/). This could yield locally relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities.

Sites or pages about your industry (ex: sites like http://www.paii.com/ or http://lodgingmagazine.com/). This could yield industry-relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities.

If you know what types of links you’re trying to find, choosing sites to evaluate against your own should be a lot easier, and yield more relevant opportunities.

4. Risks of ignoring Google’s “link schemes” guidelines

If you’ve never embarked on link building before, we encourage you to read through Google’s quality guidelines for webmasters, specifically its section on “Link schemes.” If you were to distill those link guidelines down into a single principle, it would be: don’t create links for the purpose of manipulating your site’s ranking in Google search. That’s right. Google doesn’t want anyone embarking on any marketing initiatives solely for the purpose of improving their ranking. Google wants links to be the natural byproduct of the quality work you’re doing for your audience. Google can penalize sites that participate in activities such as:

Buying links that pass PageRank (“followed” links)

Excessive “you link to me and I’ll link to you” exchanges

Self-created followed links that weren’t editorially placed by the site owner

This underscores that the activities that are just good business, like being involved in the local community, are also the ones that can produce the links that Google likes. Sites owners might need a little nudge, which is why we’ve included a section on outreach, but that doesn’t mean the links are unnatural. Unstructured linked citations should be a byproduct of the good work local businesses are doing in their communities.

In conclusion

At Moz, we’re strong believers in authenticity, and there is no better pond for building meaningful marketing relationships than the local one. Focusing on unstructured linked citations can be viewed as a prompt to grow your community relationships — with journalists, bloggers, event hosts, business associations, and customers. It’s a chance for a real-world fishing trip that can reel in a basket of publicity for your local brand beyond what money can buy. Your genuine desire to serve and build community will stand you in good stead for the long haul.

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jackoshman · 8 years ago

Text

#BellLetsTalk

let me introduce myself for those not close to me: i’m josh, a university freshman from a middle-class family. a middle-class home in a middle-class neighborhood. i’m a white jewish cis male so, you know, the world is pretty much set for me to succeed - i’d like to start this by explicitly making note of that. i live on treaty 1 land, the land of the dene, anishinaabe, oji-cree, metis, ojibwe, cree and dakota nations (although the dakota never signed treaty 1). no matter my problems, there are many that inherently have had it much tougher simply because of their skin colour, religion or sexual orientation.

all that aside, i write this with hopes that i can reach 1 person who is going through something similar to my life. i’ve been reading a lot of articles and stories from people that are experiencing the same adversities, and i’ve found a lot of comfort in seeing that i’m not alone.

i wont beat around the bush. lets get right to it.

my mother has struggled with a crack/cocaine addiction for approximately 12 years. it has been generally swept under the rug, as most families with addict-parents and small children do. until last year. after spending a lot of time at my girlfriends house and seeing how other people live, i convinced my mom to join narcotics anonymous. this was one of the hardest conversations i’ve ever had to have.

although she struggled to stay sober for months after her first NA meeting, the dialogue opened and i have been able to start my healing process. i’ve realized my deeply-rooted anxiety problems and just being able to be open about this has been such a free-ing experience.

i know there are many questions. how did our household function? what was it like?

right off the bat i’d like to mention my mother never used in front of me until this last year, which was another huge step towards pushing me to get her help. for over a decade she was able to keep me pretty sheltered. in 10+ years i only spotted strange men leaving my garage maybe 4 or 5 times. i only saw the lingering, distinctly thick smoke a handful of times. i rarely came face to face with a pipe and never the actual substance itself. my mother really did make a conscious effort to make sure my sister and i were never completely traumatized. for me personally, the events i look back on as traumatizing (seeing the smoke, dealers, my mother high) only have emerged as traumatizing this year, when i actually realized they were traumatizing. many childhood memories are tainted with the idea that my mom was likely either high, about to use, or in the process of using, just across the hall from my bedroom.

to give some more context, i’ll go a little further back.

my mother’s sister committed suicide on halloween in 2006. i was 7 and my sister was 9. this sent my mother spiraling into a deep depression and so her use increased. by the time i was 9 and my sister was 11, we were used to my mom being locked in her room for hours each night. because we grew up with friends who lived across the street and loved playing outside for as long as we could, we definitely used this to our advantage and got to stretch our curfews more than a few times. -

- this is an incredibly common thing among children of addict-parents. because an addict’s behavior is so dramatically different depending on what amount of substance is in their blood, the rules of the house get bent or changed basically at complete random. this plants a seed of mistrust in the child; a lack of trust between the child and their parent, and generally all figures of authority.

in november of 2008, i was in the 5th grade. i remember waking up one day and instantly knowing i was late for class - this was a frequent occurence in our house, another product of our complete lack of real structure. sometimes when i noticed i was late, i would just lie in bed and wait for my mom to wake up and yell at me and then go to school for the afternoon or whatever. this was one of those times.

the hours went by. it was almost lunch time and my mom hadn’t come to yell at me, so something felt strange. i left my bed to go see if she was still sleeping. her bed was empty. i looked out the kitchen window to see if she had left but the car was in the garage. i checked the living room, nothing. and then i checked the basement. the light was on, which my mom always got on us about turning off. when i go down the stairs i see my mom asleep on the couch. a little unusual perhaps, but nothing that extreme. i walked over and began to lightly shake her to wake her up. nothing. no response at all. i shook her harder. still nothing. it was at this point that i went upstairs, got dressed, woke my sister up and filled her in with what was happening. we both went back down and shook her at the same time. my moms eyes briefly opened and she made out a few unintelligible sounds. after maybe 10 more minutes of this my mom finally gained enough consciousness to assure us she was fine and sit herself up. within 10 seconds she was completely slouched into her own lap. we shook her again. she fell to the floor and went completely limp. i ran to the phone and dialed my baba. my grandfather picked up and i did my best to explain what was happening. although clearly confused and unclear about what was happening, he came over within about 10 minutes. it was when we lead him down the stairs to her that i actually noticed something weird. there were pills scattered everywhere (my mom was on a plethora of anti-depressants, pain-killers, etc.). my grandfather dialed 911 and luckily she made it and spent the next 2 weeks in the ER and psych ward at the hospital.

it wasn’t the hospital visits that were the most difficult. after the ambulance came to get my mom, i was dropped off at school and all my friends rushed to me to ask why i was late. i had no idea what to tell them. i had no idea what the fuck just happened. the first responders explained to me that my mom must have accidentally taken too many sleeping pills. even though i always considered myself the smartest person in my class, i completely believed thats what happened. but i was too ashamed to even tell my friends that; i just walked away holding back tears until i could get to the washroom and let it out. the rest of the day i avoided the question and all the kids, as kids do, got something else to be excited about. -

- a few follow ups to this story: i didnt understand my mother attempted suicide until years later. looking back i have absolutely 0 idea how it took me so long to realize this, but what i’m finding is that it’s extremely common among children of addict-parents to have distorted ideas of reality. because children are often given a sugar-coated version of stories, children of addict-parents are at an exponentially higher risk to confuse what they see with what their told and so they have trouble wondering what’s real and what isn’t. their external and internal realities often exist separately. are they crazy? is it their judgement that’s flawed? obviously it’s easy to see that the child is rarely delusional, but for the child that may be difficult to see, especially if they have nobody to talk to about this problem, which nicely ties in the 2nd follow up to this story: living with an enormous family secret is one of the toughest things a child can experience. mainly, the shame is unimaginably overwhelming. a child of an addict may avoid friendships with other children and may feel they cannot invite their friends to their house, because their parent might be at home high, coming down from the substance, in the process of getting high or drunk, and the parent will embarrass them. another result of a major family secret is fear and/or paranoia. a child of an addict lives in constant fear of having their truth revealed to someone outside the house. the child is constantly worried they might be taken away from home and put into the foster system, and that their parent could go to jail for their addiction.

after reading x many articles theres definitely a lot of the same things i’m noticing between the stories and experiences of children of addicts. heres a small guide that can help u understand ur trauma if u are a child of an addict, or a guide that will help u offer better support for those u know who had a strange childhood:

lets talk about “normal”. i briefly eluded to this before but i want to be more clear. children of addicts have no idea what the fuck normal is. let me tell u. generally speaking, normal shouldn’t include instability, fear, or any form of abuse. for children of addicts, this is literally new information. normal for us is taking care of your household, your siblings, your parent(s), and very rarely yourself. this is a major reason that many children of addicts are seen as pushovers or unable to stand up for themselves. we’ve learned forever to put other people before ourselves, because nobody has put us first. ever. an addict parent, to be very blunt, puts their addiction before their children all the time, whether they mean to or not.

fear. fear is an instinctive feeling that everyone experiences at some point or another. everyone is afraid of something. but it’s very different for children of addicts. we live in fear most of the time. and the fear is hidden — sometimes very deeply. we’re afraid of the future, specifically the unknown. the unknown has been our reality for many years. we may not have known where our parents were, or when they’d return. we might not have known if there would be a pleasant family dinner or awkward silence through the whole house. while we may know now that we no longer have to worry about our households because we’ve moved out or some other reason, life can still be terrifying. coming home and not knowing what to expect (at all), all through your childhood, is a major factor in making us incredibly anxious people. this fear or anxiety may express itself in a number of ways, everything from anger to tears. we probably won’t recognize it as fear or anxiety without professional help or doing our own research. so read as much as u can!

we feel guilty. about everything. we don’t understand self-care. we don’t have clear-cut boundaries. if we stand up for ourselves, we feel guilty. if we take care of ourselves, we feel guilty. our life is built on a foundation of i give to you and receive nothing. we don’t know how to receive. this is a super tough thing to learn for us and can take a really long time to understand. it was very difficult for me to move out for this reason. how could i not be there to help my mom? shes kinda fucking crazy and doesn’t have many friends. what is she gonna do without me? eventually you have to hold your addict parent accountable, solely for your own mental health. you didn’t make them an addict. get yourself some space and distance. you can tell them to join AA or NA (which aren’t that helpful for a large % of people, sadly) or some other rehab program, but at the end of the day the addict has to want to get better. and that is only on them. nothing to do with u. at all. trying to empathize and work with an addict will drive u insane cause their brain doesn’t work properly anymore.

obviously, we had no peace in our childhood. we don’t know peace. chaos, stress, unrest: these are comfortable for us. we feel at home in these circumstances, not because they are healthy, but because they feel normal. we develop different survival tactics that people shouldn’t need until much later in life. we have trouble planning things and managing our time. many of us would rather live without a schedule. nothing in our households have ever been consistent. and so we learn to deal with random fucking shitstorms all the time.

after a month and a half of detox and rehab programs, my mom is now a few months clean and i am living at home. things can always get better. that being said, getting here has been the toughest thing i’ve ever had to do in my life, and by no means is it over. addiction is a struggle my mom will have to deal with daily. i have panic attacks. but reaching out to others for support has been instrumental in getting my life in order.

i know i talked about this already but having to keep a secret like this from your friends and other family members is mentally and emotionally exhausting, and after over a decade this manifested in me into anxiety, depression and paranoia. because i couldn’t explain this problem to anyone without explaining the root of it, nobody knew what i was going thru for over 5 years. opening up to my closest friends, some of over 15 years, has been the toughest but best thing ive ever done (they have been wonderful so i’d like to thank them here for that). i’ve cried more in the last year of my life than the other 17 combined. it has been sooooo worth it and i can’t stress that enough. i was never able to have any sort of real relationship before i sorted my brain out, and this is often the case for those struggling with mental illnesses and/or trauma. there is nothing more important than than your own mental health. put yourself first for just a bit. sharing your experiences opens the doors for yourself and others who are struggling to come forward.

this is also (maybe obviously) why i’m so hellbent on doing away with the war on drugs - and capitalism as a whole but i’ll leave that for another day - because i’ve literally been on the dark side of it. the war on drugs, though ADMITTEDLY a war on poor (black) people, has failed massively as a detterent away from drugs. treating addicts like criminals is the worst and most damaging thing we can possibly do. my mom was scared of getting help for all of those years, and partially, rightfully so. coming forward with two young kids could’ve sent me and my sister away from her, could’ve put her in jail, not to mention the massive public shame she would feel from the jewish community, and our local community. keep in mind were just a middle class family in winnipeg manitoba. the damage the war on drugs has taken onto marginalized communities across the USA (especially) and the world is beyond measure. what we know concretely, is that this system of prohibition doesnt work. it never has over the course of modern history. what does work is decriminalizing, best showcased in Portugal where money once spent on harrassing and imprisoning addicts has been redirected into rehab programs and subsidies for companies willing to hire addicts. this is what progress looks like!!! their overdose and addiction rates generally have plummeted since decrimnalization. the choice here is simple.

anyway thanks for reading my rambled story. thank you to everyone voicing their issues today. dialogue is our best medicine. be kind to each other and think about where people may be coming from before you jump to conclusions about them.

love, josh

#bellletstalk

0 notes

gatsuuprince · 8 years ago

Text

I need to document this dream, since the night before I was doing some magic in my room, so it was full of lingering energy...I believe that because of this my dreams I had held such significance to me, and was as vivid as they were. I must have tapped into many different things, and although the last part of the dream was pretty normal (I dreamt of final fantasy characters haha) it was still so real. -- I was in a non traditional airplane (it had rooms rather than a isle of seats) and on my way to Russia. The vibe of the place was really off, and many of the people there weren't very happy. The bathroom had a line of people, and they stood away from the toilet because it had no door for privacy. I was out there, finishing using the bathroom when the flight attendant found me and told me that I was required to work in the other room with the others. I didn't feel too great about being told that, but I followed her regardless. She said that not many people are qualified to get the job and to feel luck- and don't mess it up. The other room was a computer room, and many others were tapping away on the keyboard. The attendant showed me to my computer, pointed out all the tabs open on the internet, and told me it's my job to send spam messages to people. So that's what I did, I was somehow able to hijack people's facebooks and post spam on their page. Eventually I just knew I had to leave. I couldn't take anymore of this. I needed to escape the place, so I found a nearby door and went exited the room. Now, apparently I wasn't on the airplane anymore because the door led to an abandoned parking garage. There was daylight lighting up the place, And the first thing I really noticed was the heat. It was really hot, but I continued on, going wherever.... I didn't know where I was really. The parking garage was structured differently, it had rooms and easily climbable columns, and in general, was pretty big with many floors to it. As I walked down a floor I started to hear deep animal grumbles coming from an open room I was about to walk in. From what I could see, I saw a huge fuzzy dog like-beast-dragony thing (a lot like falcore but dirty and fiercer ). It knew I was near and started to speak, its words sadistic and carnal. It said "come give your body to me. I only like sluts but you can do." And I RAN away. No NO way was I going near that beast! I went down another level or two and and began to realize that this world wasn't normal at all. Maybe something happened because, an apocalypse maybe? I couldn't hear anything from outside-no cars or people-no city sounds- silence. I had a feeling that something happened to the world while I was away, but I didn't know what. Somewhere along the line I found someone. She had long hair and seemed adapted to her surroundings and this off world. She was very strong and able to climb around the place with ease. She was also very careful of her surroundings and easily spotted me. At first she seemed ready to fight, but then that passed and she joined me. It was fuzzy remembering what was happening, but next I was near the door to the outside, sitting on some rubble with her. We found some ocarinas and began to play them. The one I found was apparently rare and a good find. When it was over we realized something (I forgot the significance and importance), but whatever it was, we had to go back up to the original floor, and back into the airplane-computer room. Luckily there was an elevator that we took straight up. I think what I was trying to do was rescue those who were in there with me. The ones I went to rescue ended up being the my little ponies, twilight and fluttershy. (WhY them??I have no clue..) We got out and the ponies were gone. Something happened and I think the long haired girl I was with turned on me, left and didn't want to see me, and if I did find her she wouldn't be as nice as before. I was looking for her, and made my way to the roof of the building. I was with someone else now, I'm not sure who he was. On the roof was the girl with some guy. They apparently stuck together as a team, and I just happened to meet her without him by her side. When they saw us, it wasn't good. The guy by my side was a good fighter and did whatever he could to protect us when a fight broke out. Thats when something unintentionally bad happened to the other guy (the one with the girl). He was attached to some robe or chain that fell over the side, and so he fell off the building and died. The dream changed, and it was almost like I was able to walk from one dream to the next. I ran away from the building, and ran through a hilly grove of trees that looked beautifully twisted, and had flowers on the leaves. The color of it all-the roots, the ground, the sky, was a deep blue-dark mossy green. This wasn't really a world and lacked many things besides the trees and the ground i walked on. I continued on until BOOM the other dream took place... I wasn't me anymore, and the point of view I was in changed a bit. In the beginning I was a younger prince, walking outside. The trees here were GIANT! Like redwoods. I walked into a building and sat down at a chair designated for me. I was waiting for my father to be done talking to other officials and was just bored...really bored and uninterested in everything. The prince, I realized then, was a slightly younger Noctis. Out of boredom, or maybe out of special interest, he had his childhood friend/Shield, Gladiolus, go get something for him. Gladiolus went outside. It was hot again, really hot-Prompto (another friend) was even complaining how hot it was-, (I felt the heat in the dream yet I wasn't hot while sleeping) and then he went inside a small greenhouse/rv building. It was small, had a kitchen, shelves, and lots of light coming from the many windows. Gladiolus stood on a step stool to reach the very top shelf, and began to organize and look for what noctis wanted. Clothing and random items were on that shelf. Noctis came to him eventually. the item wasn't found and that was ok with Noctis since 'it didn't matter anyway'. He stuck around gladiolus because he enjoyed his company and was most comfortable around him, and happy he didn't have to act like a prince around him. Last part of the dream-not sure it's order but.. It wasn't me, nor was I one of the people in this dream. It was over in a matter of seconds before it changed, and It felt as if I walked into something that wasn't for me to see, so I left immediately . There was a room, and although it wasn't the focus, it was a bedroom with red draping cloth everywhere as well as pillows. And the two beings were having sex, and it wasn't explicit- I didn't even get to see there faces really. One was male bodied and the other femaled. I'm not sure who, but one of them was part snake because there was a thick black scaled snake body that was an active part of the two's sex. The 'woman' had really long, thick, black hair, and they both wore gold accessories. If anyone has thoughts of what the huge beast was in the room-I'd love to hear your thoughts...

#dreams #vivid dreams #magic #Wicca #pagan #dream meaning #dream interpretation #wicca help

0 notes

we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The Guide to Building Linked Unstructured Citations for Local SEO

Posted by MiriamEllis

This article was written jointly in partnership with Kameron Jenkins. You can enjoy her previous articles here.

When you’ve accomplished step one in your local search marketing, how do you take step two?

You already know that any local business you market has to have the table stakes of accurate structured citations on major platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Infogroup, Acxiom, and YP.

A quick refresher on citations

Why linked unstructured citations are growing in importance right now

Your goal with linked unstructured citations is to build your community footprint and your authority simultaneously. All you need is the right tools for the research phase!

Fishing for opportunities with Link Intersect

Links that direct or near-direct competitors have, but that Bottger doesn’t

Locally relevant links from domains/pages about Bottger’s locale

Industry-relevant links from domains/pages about the hospitality industry

Step 1: Find the "big fish"

Step 2: Input domains in Link Intersect

Open Link Explorer in a new tab

Step 3: Find link opportunities

Once you’ve input your domain and your competitor(s) domains, click “Find Opportunities.” That will yield a list of sites that link to your competitors, but do not link to you.

Step 4: The link selection process

View the referring pages

The first step is to drill down and get more detail about links the big resorts have. Select the arrow to expand this section and view the exact page the link is coming from.

In this example, both Sandia and Isleta have links from the root domain marriott.com. By using the “expand” feature, we can see the exact pages those links are located on.

Identify follow or no-follow

Common types of links you’ll see in the profiles of local business websites

Types of links and what you can do with them:

Now that you’re familiar with popular types of local backlinks and what you can do with them, let’s actually dig into Isleta and Sandia’s backlinks to see which might be good prospects for us.

Step 5: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Step 6: Compile your link prospects in Link Tracking Lists

If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but it also sounds like a lot of work. How am I ever going to keep track of all this?” — we’ve got you covered!

Moz Pro’s “Link Tracking Lists” was built for just this purpose.

Since we’ve never done link building for Bottger before, we’re going to select “Create New List” from the dropdown, and label it something descriptive.

Step 7: Find out how to connect with your link prospects

Now it’s time to connect the dots: how do you go from knowing about your competitor’s links to getting those types of links for yourself?

Since this tutorial is about proactively pursuing link opportunities, we’re going to focus on unstructured linked citations types one and two.

Articles

Sometimes the contact information of the writer will be right next to the article, itself. For example:

Press releases

Citations / directories

Business websites

Organizations

Step 8: Writing a good outreach email (for unstructured linked citations requiring outreach)

Here’s how Bottger might go about sending an outreach email:

Greeting that matches the nature of the outreach target

“Hey Jill!” might be fine when outreaching to the author of a blog, while “Hello Ms. Smith” might be better for more professional outreach.

Introduction

The ask, and the value add

This is where you’ll actually ask for the link. It’s a good idea here to add value. Don’t just ask for something; offer to give something back!

Step 9: Tracking your wins

Another handy feature is the “Notes” dropdown. This allows you to keep track of your outreach attempts, which can be one of the trickiest parts about link building!

Avoiding the bad fish: Some words of caution before you get started

1. Risks of a “copy only” strategy

2. Risks of a “blindly follow” strategy

Take what you find with a grain of salt. Evaluate every link opportunity on its own merit, rather than deeming it a good opportunity simply because your competitor has it.

3. Risks of an “apples to oranges” strategy

Sites or pages about your industry (ex: sites like http://www.paii.com/ or http://lodgingmagazine.com/). This could yield industry-relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities.

If you know what types of links you’re trying to find, choosing sites to evaluate against your own should be a lot easier, and yield more relevant opportunities.

4. Risks of ignoring Google’s “link schemes” guidelines

Buying links that pass PageRank (“followed” links)

Excessive “you link to me and I’ll link to you” exchanges

Self-created followed links that weren’t editorially placed by the site owner

In conclusion

0 notes

we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The Guide to Building Linked Unstructured Citations for Local SEO

Posted by MiriamEllis

This article was written jointly in partnership with Kameron Jenkins. You can enjoy her previous articles here.

When you’ve accomplished step one in your local search marketing, how do you take step two?

You already know that any local business you market has to have the table stakes of accurate structured citations on major platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Infogroup, Acxiom, and YP.

A quick refresher on citations

Why linked unstructured citations are growing in importance right now

Your goal with linked unstructured citations is to build your community footprint and your authority simultaneously. All you need is the right tools for the research phase!

Fishing for opportunities with Link Intersect

Links that direct or near-direct competitors have, but that Bottger doesn’t

Locally relevant links from domains/pages about Bottger’s locale

Industry-relevant links from domains/pages about the hospitality industry

Step 1: Find the "big fish"

Step 2: Input domains in Link Intersect

Open Link Explorer in a new tab

Step 3: Find link opportunities

Once you’ve input your domain and your competitor(s) domains, click “Find Opportunities.” That will yield a list of sites that link to your competitors, but do not link to you.

Step 4: The link selection process

View the referring pages

The first step is to drill down and get more detail about links the big resorts have. Select the arrow to expand this section and view the exact page the link is coming from.

In this example, both Sandia and Isleta have links from the root domain marriott.com. By using the “expand” feature, we can see the exact pages those links are located on.

Identify follow or no-follow

Common types of links you’ll see in the profiles of local business websites

Types of links and what you can do with them:

Now that you’re familiar with popular types of local backlinks and what you can do with them, let’s actually dig into Isleta and Sandia’s backlinks to see which might be good prospects for us.

Step 5: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Step 6: Compile your link prospects in Link Tracking Lists

If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but it also sounds like a lot of work. How am I ever going to keep track of all this?” — we’ve got you covered!

Moz Pro’s “Link Tracking Lists” was built for just this purpose.

Since we’ve never done link building for Bottger before, we’re going to select “Create New List” from the dropdown, and label it something descriptive.

Step 7: Find out how to connect with your link prospects

Now it’s time to connect the dots: how do you go from knowing about your competitor’s links to getting those types of links for yourself?

Since this tutorial is about proactively pursuing link opportunities, we’re going to focus on unstructured linked citations types one and two.

Articles

Sometimes the contact information of the writer will be right next to the article, itself. For example:

Press releases

Citations / directories

Business websites

Organizations

Step 8: Writing a good outreach email (for unstructured linked citations requiring outreach)

Here’s how Bottger might go about sending an outreach email:

Greeting that matches the nature of the outreach target

“Hey Jill!” might be fine when outreaching to the author of a blog, while “Hello Ms. Smith” might be better for more professional outreach.

Introduction

The ask, and the value add

This is where you’ll actually ask for the link. It’s a good idea here to add value. Don’t just ask for something; offer to give something back!

Step 9: Tracking your wins

Another handy feature is the “Notes” dropdown. This allows you to keep track of your outreach attempts, which can be one of the trickiest parts about link building!

Avoiding the bad fish: Some words of caution before you get started

1. Risks of a “copy only” strategy

2. Risks of a “blindly follow” strategy

Take what you find with a grain of salt. Evaluate every link opportunity on its own merit, rather than deeming it a good opportunity simply because your competitor has it.

3. Risks of an “apples to oranges” strategy

Sites or pages about your industry (ex: sites like http://www.paii.com/ or http://lodgingmagazine.com/). This could yield industry-relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities.

If you know what types of links you’re trying to find, choosing sites to evaluate against your own should be a lot easier, and yield more relevant opportunities.

4. Risks of ignoring Google’s “link schemes” guidelines

Buying links that pass PageRank (“followed” links)

Excessive “you link to me and I’ll link to you” exchanges

Self-created followed links that weren’t editorially placed by the site owner

In conclusion

0 notes

we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The Guide to Building Linked Unstructured Citations for Local SEO

Posted by MiriamEllis

This article was written jointly in partnership with Kameron Jenkins. You can enjoy her previous articles here.

When you’ve accomplished step one in your local search marketing, how do you take step two?

You already know that any local business you market has to have the table stakes of accurate structured citations on major platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Infogroup, Acxiom, and YP.

A quick refresher on citations

Why linked unstructured citations are growing in importance right now

Your goal with linked unstructured citations is to build your community footprint and your authority simultaneously. All you need is the right tools for the research phase!

Fishing for opportunities with Link Intersect

Links that direct or near-direct competitors have, but that Bottger doesn’t

Locally relevant links from domains/pages about Bottger’s locale

Industry-relevant links from domains/pages about the hospitality industry

Step 1: Find the "big fish"

Step 2: Input domains in Link Intersect

Open Link Explorer in a new tab

Step 3: Find link opportunities

Once you’ve input your domain and your competitor(s) domains, click “Find Opportunities.” That will yield a list of sites that link to your competitors, but do not link to you.

Step 4: The link selection process

View the referring pages

The first step is to drill down and get more detail about links the big resorts have. Select the arrow to expand this section and view the exact page the link is coming from.

In this example, both Sandia and Isleta have links from the root domain marriott.com. By using the “expand” feature, we can see the exact pages those links are located on.

Identify follow or no-follow

Common types of links you’ll see in the profiles of local business websites

Types of links and what you can do with them:

Now that you’re familiar with popular types of local backlinks and what you can do with them, let’s actually dig into Isleta and Sandia’s backlinks to see which might be good prospects for us.

Step 5: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Step 6: Compile your link prospects in Link Tracking Lists

If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but it also sounds like a lot of work. How am I ever going to keep track of all this?” — we’ve got you covered!

Moz Pro’s “Link Tracking Lists” was built for just this purpose.

Since we’ve never done link building for Bottger before, we’re going to select “Create New List” from the dropdown, and label it something descriptive.

Step 7: Find out how to connect with your link prospects

Now it’s time to connect the dots: how do you go from knowing about your competitor’s links to getting those types of links for yourself?

Since this tutorial is about proactively pursuing link opportunities, we’re going to focus on unstructured linked citations types one and two.

Articles

Sometimes the contact information of the writer will be right next to the article, itself. For example:

Press releases

Citations / directories

Business websites

Organizations

Step 8: Writing a good outreach email (for unstructured linked citations requiring outreach)

Here’s how Bottger might go about sending an outreach email:

Greeting that matches the nature of the outreach target

“Hey Jill!” might be fine when outreaching to the author of a blog, while “Hello Ms. Smith” might be better for more professional outreach.

Introduction

The ask, and the value add

This is where you’ll actually ask for the link. It’s a good idea here to add value. Don’t just ask for something; offer to give something back!

Step 9: Tracking your wins

Another handy feature is the “Notes” dropdown. This allows you to keep track of your outreach attempts, which can be one of the trickiest parts about link building!

Avoiding the bad fish: Some words of caution before you get started

1. Risks of a “copy only” strategy

2. Risks of a “blindly follow” strategy

Take what you find with a grain of salt. Evaluate every link opportunity on its own merit, rather than deeming it a good opportunity simply because your competitor has it.

3. Risks of an “apples to oranges” strategy

Sites or pages about your industry (ex: sites like http://www.paii.com/ or http://lodgingmagazine.com/). This could yield industry-relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities.

If you know what types of links you’re trying to find, choosing sites to evaluate against your own should be a lot easier, and yield more relevant opportunities.

4. Risks of ignoring Google’s “link schemes” guidelines

Buying links that pass PageRank (“followed” links)

Excessive “you link to me and I’ll link to you” exchanges

Self-created followed links that weren’t editorially placed by the site owner

In conclusion

0 notes

we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The Guide to Building Linked Unstructured Citations for Local SEO

Posted by MiriamEllis

This article was written jointly in partnership with Kameron Jenkins. You can enjoy her previous articles here.

When you’ve accomplished step one in your local search marketing, how do you take step two?

You already know that any local business you market has to have the table stakes of accurate structured citations on major platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Infogroup, Acxiom, and YP.

A quick refresher on citations

Why linked unstructured citations are growing in importance right now

Your goal with linked unstructured citations is to build your community footprint and your authority simultaneously. All you need is the right tools for the research phase!

Fishing for opportunities with Link Intersect

Links that direct or near-direct competitors have, but that Bottger doesn’t

Locally relevant links from domains/pages about Bottger’s locale

Industry-relevant links from domains/pages about the hospitality industry

Step 1: Find the "big fish"

Step 2: Input domains in Link Intersect

Open Link Explorer in a new tab

Step 3: Find link opportunities

Once you’ve input your domain and your competitor(s) domains, click “Find Opportunities.” That will yield a list of sites that link to your competitors, but do not link to you.

Step 4: The link selection process

View the referring pages

The first step is to drill down and get more detail about links the big resorts have. Select the arrow to expand this section and view the exact page the link is coming from.

In this example, both Sandia and Isleta have links from the root domain marriott.com. By using the “expand” feature, we can see the exact pages those links are located on.

Identify follow or no-follow

Common types of links you’ll see in the profiles of local business websites

Types of links and what you can do with them:

Now that you’re familiar with popular types of local backlinks and what you can do with them, let’s actually dig into Isleta and Sandia’s backlinks to see which might be good prospects for us.

Step 5: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Step 6: Compile your link prospects in Link Tracking Lists

If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but it also sounds like a lot of work. How am I ever going to keep track of all this?” — we’ve got you covered!

Moz Pro’s “Link Tracking Lists” was built for just this purpose.

Since we’ve never done link building for Bottger before, we’re going to select “Create New List” from the dropdown, and label it something descriptive.

Step 7: Find out how to connect with your link prospects

Now it’s time to connect the dots: how do you go from knowing about your competitor’s links to getting those types of links for yourself?

Since this tutorial is about proactively pursuing link opportunities, we’re going to focus on unstructured linked citations types one and two.

Articles

Sometimes the contact information of the writer will be right next to the article, itself. For example:

Press releases

Citations / directories

Business websites

Organizations

Step 8: Writing a good outreach email (for unstructured linked citations requiring outreach)

Here’s how Bottger might go about sending an outreach email:

Greeting that matches the nature of the outreach target

“Hey Jill!” might be fine when outreaching to the author of a blog, while “Hello Ms. Smith” might be better for more professional outreach.

Introduction

The ask, and the value add

This is where you’ll actually ask for the link. It’s a good idea here to add value. Don’t just ask for something; offer to give something back!

Step 9: Tracking your wins

Another handy feature is the “Notes” dropdown. This allows you to keep track of your outreach attempts, which can be one of the trickiest parts about link building!

Avoiding the bad fish: Some words of caution before you get started

1. Risks of a “copy only” strategy

2. Risks of a “blindly follow” strategy

Take what you find with a grain of salt. Evaluate every link opportunity on its own merit, rather than deeming it a good opportunity simply because your competitor has it.

3. Risks of an “apples to oranges” strategy

Sites or pages about your industry (ex: sites like http://www.paii.com/ or http://lodgingmagazine.com/). This could yield industry-relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities.

If you know what types of links you’re trying to find, choosing sites to evaluate against your own should be a lot easier, and yield more relevant opportunities.

4. Risks of ignoring Google’s “link schemes” guidelines

Buying links that pass PageRank (“followed” links)

Excessive “you link to me and I’ll link to you” exchanges

Self-created followed links that weren’t editorially placed by the site owner

In conclusion

0 notes

we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years ago

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The Guide to Building Linked Unstructured Citations for Local SEO

Posted by MiriamEllis

This article was written jointly in partnership with Kameron Jenkins. You can enjoy her previous articles here.

When you’ve accomplished step one in your local search marketing, how do you take step two?

You already know that any local business you market has to have the table stakes of accurate structured citations on major platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Infogroup, Acxiom, and YP.

A quick refresher on citations

Why linked unstructured citations are growing in importance right now

Your goal with linked unstructured citations is to build your community footprint and your authority simultaneously. All you need is the right tools for the research phase!

Fishing for opportunities with Link Intersect

Links that direct or near-direct competitors have, but that Bottger doesn’t

Locally relevant links from domains/pages about Bottger’s locale

Industry-relevant links from domains/pages about the hospitality industry

Step 1: Find the "big fish"

Step 2: Input domains in Link Intersect

Open Link Explorer in a new tab

Step 3: Find link opportunities

Once you’ve input your domain and your competitor(s) domains, click “Find Opportunities.” That will yield a list of sites that link to your competitors, but do not link to you.

Step 4: The link selection process

View the referring pages

The first step is to drill down and get more detail about links the big resorts have. Select the arrow to expand this section and view the exact page the link is coming from.

In this example, both Sandia and Isleta have links from the root domain marriott.com. By using the “expand” feature, we can see the exact pages those links are located on.

Identify follow or no-follow

Common types of links you’ll see in the profiles of local business websites

Types of links and what you can do with them:

Now that you’re familiar with popular types of local backlinks and what you can do with them, let’s actually dig into Isleta and Sandia’s backlinks to see which might be good prospects for us.

Step 5: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Step 6: Compile your link prospects in Link Tracking Lists

If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but it also sounds like a lot of work. How am I ever going to keep track of all this?” — we’ve got you covered!

Moz Pro’s “Link Tracking Lists” was built for just this purpose.

Since we’ve never done link building for Bottger before, we’re going to select “Create New List” from the dropdown, and label it something descriptive.

Step 7: Find out how to connect with your link prospects

Now it’s time to connect the dots: how do you go from knowing about your competitor’s links to getting those types of links for yourself?

Since this tutorial is about proactively pursuing link opportunities, we’re going to focus on unstructured linked citations types one and two.

Articles

Sometimes the contact information of the writer will be right next to the article, itself. For example:

Press releases

Citations / directories

Business websites

Organizations

Step 8: Writing a good outreach email (for unstructured linked citations requiring outreach)

Here’s how Bottger might go about sending an outreach email:

Greeting that matches the nature of the outreach target

“Hey Jill!” might be fine when outreaching to the author of a blog, while “Hello Ms. Smith” might be better for more professional outreach.

Introduction

The ask, and the value add

This is where you’ll actually ask for the link. It’s a good idea here to add value. Don’t just ask for something; offer to give something back!

Step 9: Tracking your wins

Another handy feature is the “Notes” dropdown. This allows you to keep track of your outreach attempts, which can be one of the trickiest parts about link building!

Avoiding the bad fish: Some words of caution before you get started

1. Risks of a “copy only” strategy

2. Risks of a “blindly follow” strategy

Take what you find with a grain of salt. Evaluate every link opportunity on its own merit, rather than deeming it a good opportunity simply because your competitor has it.

3. Risks of an “apples to oranges” strategy

Sites or pages about your industry (ex: sites like http://www.paii.com/ or http://lodgingmagazine.com/). This could yield industry-relevant unstructured linked citation opportunities.

If you know what types of links you’re trying to find, choosing sites to evaluate against your own should be a lot easier, and yield more relevant opportunities.

4. Risks of ignoring Google’s “link schemes” guidelines

Buying links that pass PageRank (“followed” links)

Excessive “you link to me and I’ll link to you” exchanges

Self-created followed links that weren’t editorially placed by the site owner

In conclusion

0 notes