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lostinthewinterwood · 4 years ago

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Worldbuilding Exchange 2021

Hey there friend!

Apparently you share some of my taste in obscure novels with gaps in their worldbuilding—impeccable, truly. I’ve got some expansion on all the tags I’ve requested below, though if you want to just get started feel free to ignore all that; some of them are distinctly longer than others, but don’t worry, just because I didn’t use as many words for any given prompt doesn’t mean I want it any less!

Anyway, thanks for writing for me! And if any of you lovely people are inclined towards treating, I will happily accept treats in any medium for any of the fandoms, including media I didn’t actually request there :D

General DNW

· non-con/dub-con;

· explicit sexual content;

· incest (incl. adoptive/chosen family);

· a/b/o;

· mpreg;

· non-canonical permanent major character death;

· complete downer endings;

· hurt no comfort;

· heavy angst;

· on-page deliberate self-harm*;

· on-page suicide;

· gore;

· graphic physical trauma;

· character bashing;

· cringe comedy;

· fic-as-writer-soapbox;

· setting AUs**;

· unrequested identity headcanons;

· romance as the main plot.

*I don’t include things like, say, punching a wall in a fit of emotion under this. However, something like cutting would not be appreciated.

**This doesn't mean that I'd expect you to hew very narrowly to what we know for sure in canon; after all, this exchange is for worldbuilding. However, for this exchange I'd prefer not to have anything that fundamentally alters the character of the world--eg elements like a/b/o, or things like a post-canon zombie apocalypse in a canon where that doesn't really fit in with the established tone/genre/world, that sort of thing.

General Likes

– I really like plotty fics

– A focus on family and/or friendship, especially characters realizing they’re not nearly as alone as they think they are, and just generally characters who like each other and enjoy spending time together

– Found family; families of choice

– Character studies

– Worldbuilding (obviously lol)

– Canon-divergence AUs and missing scenes; things set pre- or post-canon; wriggling into canon and poking at it to see what it spits back at you, if that description makes any sense at all.

- for a list of unconventional media/formats I’ve requested before, along with some commentary on them, please see my fic in a box letter.

Mother of Learning - nobody103 – in-universe meta

Any or No Characters (Mother of Learning)

Kirielle Kazinski (Mother of Learning)

Original Character(s) (Mother of Learning)

Original Eagle Shifter Character(s) (Mother of Learning)

Xvim Chao (Mother of Learning)

Zenomir Olgai (Mother of Learning)

fandom-specific dnw: romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian; physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family; significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction

WB: aranean languages (Mother of Learning)

So, we get at best a very vague description of the aranean language in canon; I’d love something that somehow expands on this! A brief grammar? Some other kind of profile? An attempt to turn their idea-morphemes into words, or outline what they are more explicitly? Up to you!

WB: Folklore and Literature (Mother of Learning)

Over the course of the story we learn plenty of things about the world and about their magic system; we learn a lot less about specific cultural things that aren’t directly relevant to the plot, and that includes folklore and literature—they have novels, we know that much, but that’s about it. So tell me more!

WB: how language and gesture and mana interact to form spells (Mother of Learning)

For all that the novel tells us about many different spells, we never really get to see the mechanics of spellcasting, or the underlying form of the mana—tell me how it works! And there’s also the fact that when you know the spell better you can cut parts out; how does that work in combination with all of this?

WB: Ikosian as spell language: how comprehension affects outcome (Mother of Learning)

Unless I’ve embarrassingly forgotten how canon actually goes, they use Ikosian (possibly a more specific dialect? I don’t remember, I’m sorry) for their incantations, but iirc they don’t speak that day to day, and even if they do not everyone does—so, you know, how does comprehension of the incantation affect the outcome of the spell?

WB: Oral Traditions (Mother of Learning)

If we don’t get much of literature, we get less of the oral traditions of… well, anywhere, tbh. So tell me more there! If you’re looking for something more specific, I’d love to hear about witch, Khusky, morlock, or shifter traditions, but really anything would be great.

WB: the development of unstructured magic and shaping exercises (Mother of Learning)

We know that way back in the past, human magic users were less adept with unstructured magic; now, if they want to be, they can be very good indeed with it. How did we get from Point A to Point B? How did that develop, who discovered all this?

WB: the Winter Mountains (Mother of Learning)

There’s very little to be heard about the Winter Mountains in canon; all we really know is that the eagle shifters flew off there, and the place is Very Dangerous. So… what are they like? How are the eagle shifters doing out there? What else lives there?

Mother of Learning - nobody103 – in-universe meta, fanart

Any or No Characters (Mother of Learning)

Kirielle Kazinski (Mother of Learning)

Original Character(s) (Mother of Learning)

Zenomir Olgai (Mother of Learning)

fandom-specific dnw: romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian; physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family; significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction

WB: Architecture (Mother of Learning)

We get a little bit of the architecture in Eldemar, mostly in Knyazov Dveri, but not too much of it; I’d like to see more of it, and from anywhere in their world really.

WB: Artistic Traditions (Mother of Learning)

If we only get a little bit of the architecture, we get less of the art—we know that they have carved doors and Kiri does pencil sketches, and realism is a style they have (or Zorian wouldn’t be thinking about how realistic her drawings were without any hint of that being unusual were she not nine) but what else can you tell me? What does their art look like; where do these traditions come from; is there some art that’s respectable and other art that isn’t?

WB: Clothing and Fashion (Mother of Learning)

Now. We get a bit of architecture, less of art, and approximately three lines in the whole 800k about clothing, and none of it very specific, so you’ve got pretty much total freedom here—show me what’s going on!

WB: how language and gesture and mana interact to form spells (Mother of Learning)

See above section—I just thought this would lend itself well to art as well as meta!

The Rhianna Chronicles - Dave Luckett – in-universe meta, fanfic

Antheus Northstar | Serenir (Rhianna Chronicles)

Any or No Characters (Rhianna Chronicles)

Arwenna Songsinger | Arwenna the Wise (Rhianna Chronicles)

Eriseth Arwensgrove (Rhianna Chronicles)

Original Character(s) (Rhianna Chronicles)

Original Male Eldra Character(s) (Rhianna Chronicles)

Rhianna Wildwood (Rhianna Chronicles)

Worldbuilding tags:

WB: academic magic and spellcasting techniques (Rhianna Chronicles)

We don’t see a whole lot of traditional spellcasting that actually works—mostly we see Rhianna’s attempts, which tend not to go all that well, lol. Other magic we see is primarily from people who know what they’re doing and aren’t explaining things in detail. Show me some that actually works! How is it different for schoolchildren and old archmages? What are the rules and mechanics—they don’t make sense to Rhianna, but clearly some things work and some things don’t, so there’s something going on there at least.

WB: Eldra magic (Rhianna Chronicles)

Since our main Eldra character is Eriseth, we don’t see much of their magic—tell me about it! How does it work? How do they channel it, what do they use it for?

WB: Eldra society (Rhianna Chronicles)

Again, we don’t see a lot of Eldra society—we see a few characters outside of their social group, and the one meeting thing, but not a whole lot of their day- to-day life. What’s it like? What’s the role of men in their society; we know they don’t do magic, so what do they do?

WB: Wild Talents and wild magic (Rhianna Chronicles)

To be fair, we do know a fair amount about how wild magic is worked from canon; I’m interested in going farther—go deeper into things! What can or can’t be done? Why are some people wild talents—how does this happen?

WB: Wizardly College (Rhianna Chronicles)

We only see Wizardly College through Rhianna’s eyes; she doesn’t get all that much of a look at it, either. So tell me more about it! What’s it like if you’re actually involved, not just a visitor?

The Farwalker's Quest - Joni Sensel – in-universe meta, fanfic

Any or No Characters (Farwalker's Quest)

Any Storian(s) (Farwalker's Quest)

Ariel Farwalker (Farwalker's Quest)

Ezekiel Stone-Singer (Farwalker's Quest)

Misha (Farwalker's Quest)

Original Character(s) (Farwalker's Quest)

Scarl Finder (Farwalker's Quest)

fandom-specific dnw: works that rely on knowledge of later books in order to make sense--i'm not gonna care all that much about spoilers? but i haven't read 'em, so.

WB: Essence and the Trades (Farwalker's Quest)

In some ways, Essence—or at least how it’s presented in relation to humans—seems kind of like an inborn specific magical talent, but in other ways it isn’t; Zeke’s tree talks to him, and then later the stones, but the tree talks to Ariel too, if only a little. Scarl was a Storian before he was a Finder; Ariel’s feet drag her where she needs to go, but she can also learn the basics of Finding and could have been a Healtouch if she’d not messed up the plants. So how closely are they tied together, Essence and the Trades? How much of an affinity do you need? How much can you make up for lack of affinity with desire and skill?

WB: Folklore and Fairytales (Farwalker's Quest)

We know a fair amount about the history of this world as people know it, but less about their folklore and fairytales—they have trees that talk and telling darts and Essence and ghosts, they definitely have folklore about those, or other things too. Do they tell children stories of what lies outside the village? Do they have spirits or Good People who may or may not actually exist? Who tells these stories—is this still a Storian’s job, or is it the purview of anyone who knows them? Did there used to be more, before the Forgetting?

WB: ghosts and how they work (Farwalker's Quest)

Misha’s dead, has clearly been dead for quite some time, and he can do a weird assortment of things—can other ghosts do them? He’s the only one we really see, so we don’t know if he’s special or not. And how common are ghosts anyway—how do they come to be? What’s up with them, overall?

WB: how Tree-Singer Abbey came to be (Farwalker's Quest)

Clearly, Tree-Singer Abbey is very old. If I had to guess, I would say it must have been made either before the Blind War or right after the sight came back—but most likely, given that it contains the Vault, it’s from before. But Essence, as far as the characters know, wasn’t discovered until afterwards; nor were the Trades. So who built this abbey, up there in the mountains, with all the trees? Why build it there in the way they did? Was it never widely known that it was also the Vault, or was that forgotten somewhere along the way?

WB: the nature of trees (Farwalker's Quest)

…so. What is up with the trees, anyway, and have they always been this way, or did the used to be normal trees? How sentient are they; how much can they move; what are they like, especially among each other? Zeke’s tree tries to catch him, so we know they can move on their own; is that typical? Can they do it whenever they want, or only under duress? Idk man, I just want to know more about the trees, y’know?

Star Split - Kathryn Lasky – in-universe meta, fanfic

Any or No Characters (Star Split)

Darci Murlowe (Star Split)

Lana | The Prima (Star Split)

Max Lasovetch (Star Split)

Original Character(s) (Star Split)

Original Umbula Character (Star Split)

Vivian (Star Split)

fandom-specific dnw--all of this is for the narrative level (not addressing it is fine; having characters who believe or do these things is fine): eugenics apologetics; segregation portrayed as good for society/the people living under it; infantilization of disabled characters; portrayal of low-prestige dialects as being "bad grammar" versions of higher-prestige dialects

fandom-specific note: the “setting AU” dnw is here amended to “surface-level setting AUs” and is expanded on as follows: This is a pretty loose dnw for this fandom, given that the canon leans very hard on the line between straight scifi and science fantasy; it acts like it's grounded future dystopia, speculative but not fantastic, but... well. Based on canon events, I can't fully consider it as such--so as long as you keep the surface elements more or less the same, no matter what the underlying justification for them is we'll be good. Is your explanation Aliens Did It? sweet, go for it. or anything else in that vein. this world is your oyster.

WB: "tears in the mind"/ancient word memories in masked chimeras (Star Split)

Okay. Okay. So. Most of this book’s worldbuilding is plausible, you know? If not real-world plausible, at least future scifi dystopia plausible, right? But. The word thing. There is no reasonable connection as far as I can see between the genetic condition of masked chimeras and having sudden, unexplained epiphanies about the meanings of words—since the relevant aspects of language are arbitrary, and Darci doesn’t have any particularly detailed knowledge of Modern English (being herself presumably a speaker of Future English, although I have to assume that Future English is surprisingly similar to Modern English given the time scale since the poetry fragments she’s reading don’t seem to have needed any translation for her to understand them, which would generally not be the case with Modern vs Old English—and that is the time scale we’re dealing with here—anyway, let’s move on), there’s no way for her to come up with this? So please, just, explain how all this works to me?

Really don’t feel you need to stay within the scifi world conventions here lol, especially since this element pretty much… doesn’t.

WB: disability in the Bio Union (Star Split)

We don’t see much of how disability works here—Darci doesn’t seem to consider herself disabled, and there’s no other character who could really be interpreted as such. Given how very eugenicist the Bio Union is, I have to wonder how they deal with disabilities they can’t engineer out of existence—tell me how it works!

WB: divergence/difference between Genhant and Original dialects and mannerisms (Star Split)

So we can see the effects of a long-term social separation here; the dialects used by Genhants and Originals seem fairly different. Darci observes that Originals’ grammar “might not be as good” but obviously that’s her perspective, being a kid who speaks the prestige dialect; the grammar within their dialect would be no better or worse than Genhant grammar in their speech. And the Original dialect seems to also include more specific nonverbal communication; if they’re talking less, but (presumably) communicating similar amounts, then they must either be able to convey more information in the same amount of time through their speech, or their dialect includes informal signed elements—Vivian doesn’t seem to parse it as such, but although Darci observes less dialogue from the Original kids, Vivian’s conversations with her uncle aren’t presented any differently than Darci’s conversations with other Genhants. A tragically unused opportunity, in my opinion.

Show me how these two dialects differ, in more specific ways, rather than just telling me they do! Tell me about potential miscommunications! Is there a lack of documentation of the Originals’ dialect due to its low status? How does this affect scholarship on it? Are the hand gestures elements of the language in some way, or are they nonlinguistic?

WB: growing up as a Laureate's umbula (Star Split)

So… how does this work? They try to replicate the childhood as closely as possible, but obviously it can’t be perfectly done. Do the kids grow up knowing they’re clones, that they’re meant to be Important Person The Second, Just The Same, or is that hidden from them? What happens if a Laureate’s umbula decides they don’t want to follow in their predecessor’s footsteps; what if they want to forge their own path in life? Is that allowed? No one forced the Laureate into being what they became, after all.

WB: growing up as an Original (Star Split)

Things that are not entirely clear in this book include the answer to the question of how much of the high degree of segregation we see is socially and economically enforced, and how much of it is legally enforced. This is interesting—clearly, the original divergence was economic, with the wealthy being able to afford genetic enhancements and the poor not being able to afford them; however, it strikes me as slightly unrealistic that there would be no Originals in Genhant schools or at non-scholarship Genhant summer camps, etc, if there was no segregation on a legal level. Of course it would be more difficult for Originals to become wealthy enough to afford these, but the fact that none of them seem to have reached that level is very revealing; that tells me there’s far less social mobility than we have in our modern society (which isn’t very mobile, much as we may like to think otherwise) or there’s legal discrimination and segregation keeping things this way or both.

…and with all that being said, I’d love to hear something about what it’s like to grow up in the underclass of this society. We see most things from Darci’s point of view, and she, being a thirteen-year-old who’s basically comfortable in her own life, doesn’t really see that much. What’s it like, being raised as an Original? What sort of expectations do Original parents and schools have for their children? What sorts of jobs do they typically do? Do they go to university? Can they go to university? Are there summer camps for them, or do they only get to do things like that on scholarships? What’s it like, being the Scholarship Kid due not only to your family’s finances but also your very genetics? How does that change your dynamic with your other Original friends, when you got a scholarship and they didn’t—what do they think about that? I’d assume they have less obsession with Genetic Predetermination, since they don’t get a map of their probable life at conception… how does that work, in this society that runs on genetic predetermination for so many things?

#exchange letters #worldbuilding exchange #requested: mother of learning #requested: the rhianna chronicles #requested: the farwalker's quest #requested: star split #requested: art #requested: fic

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revisionaryhistory · 4 years ago

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Three Days ~ 32

Catch up on AO3

~*~Sebastian~*~

The train was pretty crowded with people commuting into the city. I can't imagine spending three hours going back and forth to work every day. But right now, I thought an hour and a half with headphones sounded ideal. Processing didn't feel like the right word. I usually think of processing as something you do to deal with a negative or incorporate some insight you just had. Emma certainly wasn't a negative. But I guess process is the right word. A lot had happened in the last four days.

About fifteen minutes out of town my text alert went off. Emma sent me a picture of her in her classroom in front of a bunch of words. I doubt her pointing at baby, boy, and blue was accidental. I sent back the first thought that came to my mind, "Damn."

Next thing I knew I was at my station. I had not processed shit. I'd sat staring at her picture while my music played. Maybe that was processing?

I ducked into a shop to buy a bottle of water before hitting the gym. I was the last to arrive. I was going to get shit for this.

"Mr. Stan, glad you could join us."

Len looked at Don," Leave him alone. He slept in."

"I've been up since five-thirty, but thanks for the support." I dropped my bag close to the wall, "Got a train back from Beacon at seven."

Jackson crinkled up his face, "What's in Beacon?"

"Parents moved there. I was helping them unpack."

I must have smiled or something because Brad jumped on me, "I don't think that’s all you were doing."

I could feel my cheeks turning red. I joined them stretching out. "I did meet a woman"

There was a chorus of, "Oh yeah", from the four other men.

"Don't be like that," I admonished. "I haven't had a real date in forever."

George laughed, "We know. You'd given up."

I laughed too. I'd forgotten about that conversation. It had been George's twentieth anniversary and I'd commented I'd given up getting a date, forget about getting married. "I guess I was too hasty with giving up."

Len put his hands behind his head and thrust his hips, "If you're rusty and need some tips just let me know."

I covered my eyes with my hands, "Thanks, but I’m doing fine."

Hours later I walked into my apartment. Fuck, was I tired. Hadn't gotten much sleep the last couple of days. I smiled thinking about why. Checking out the picture on my phone again, I headed upstairs to shower. I wanted her face. I asked for a closer picture, put my phone on the charger, and hit the shower. Still wet, I fell face down on my bed and was out, not waking up until my manager called. We were going to have dinner tonight. I hung up and I saw I had a text. I closed my eyes and said, “Please."

The look on Emma's face in the picture was sweet with a touch of sexy. Her smile showed off her single dimple, but the slight quirk of her lip was like she had a secret. If I kept thinking about that I was going to get hard.

I was surprised when she responded to my text. It was a short conversation. I like how she'd brought up skipping past the when is it ok to call or text part. I suck at that shit. I think everyone does except assholes who like games. I don't have the time or inclination to figure out if I’ve waited long enough to contact someone. What happens is I'm waiting for the appropriate time, something happens, and I’m outside the window. Which, oddly enough, is exactly what happened with me trying to kiss Emma.

While I say I suck at this shit, I don't suck at all of it. Honestly, I'm a good date. I'm attentive and can be romantic. I like romance. I like how Emma and I started. The touching and talking were refreshing. It was like time stopped. There was nothing but she and I getting to know each other. I know that's not completely true. There were bumps and anxious moments, but that's part of it, part of life. I like how I felt as we maneuvered the bumps. I didn't feel alone. Feeling anxious feels alone. It feels like stuck in your head and you don't want to let the thoughts turn into words because it makes it real. If you don't say it out loud it’s not real. Good and bad with that. If it's not real, it's not real, but if you don't say it out loud no one can help. That’s a double-edged sword too. People think they're helping when they flood you with reasons you shouldn't feel how you do. If only anxiety disappeared with logic. Some people understand, some even know how to help. Then some people use it against you. I’ve known all three types. Even fell in love with the worst type.

The point of all that is to say Emma made it better. Without a pause she did the thing, said the thing, to make it better. By itself, not such a big deal, but when you combine it with everything else. She's smart, beautiful, fun, articulate, kind, sexy, and she makes me feel good. I feel like I've hit some kind of fucking jackpot.

There is an assumption that being famous is a sex buffet. Yes and no. Do you get offered anything you want and a few things you don't? Yes. I got talked into going with several of the Marvel guys to Vegas. I'd heard the stories. There were places one could have no strings sex and little to no risk of anyone talking. I'm not talking about brothels. I mean clubs frequented by locals who knew how to keep secrets. More than one of the guys had "usuals". There is money involved, but it's for discretion, not sex. Yeah, I know. I don't see the difference either. I went, but wound up out of my mind drunk with the faithfully married men. Wasn’t for me. Honestly, I got laid much more in college and the early years. Because once people knew who I was and the offers started I never knew if they wanted me, a story, a name crossed off their "to do" list, a photo op, or were a gold digger. Not that I had any money back then. When you’re shooting somewhere you're not running around fucking locals because you’re busy. And tired. I get up about two hours before call time, so I'm a human being before I get to set. What I'm saying is it's complicated and not easy. A buffet would be easy.

I'm more of a serial monogamist. I like relationships. I like being part of a couple. There are dry spells. There are dates with sex. And there are dry spells. Most recently there's been a friend with benefits. She picked today to call. After the texts with Emma, but before dinner with my manager. We haven't seen each other in, I don't remember exactly, three or four months. It's been a while. Dry spell. Thankfully, this arrangement was not complicated so when I told her I was seeing someone she was happy for me.

The dinner meeting with my manager, Emily, went well. I stayed focused despite the little part of my brain that stayed acutely aware of the time. Volleyball practice was over at nine. Theoretically. It’s a bar league and timing might be loose. She has work in the morning. Probably won't be too late. I should probably stop thinking. If she can't talk she won't answer. Just like all day today when we texted when we could. You know, like functional adults.

Sebastian ~ You home?

Emma ~ Yep

I hit call and waited to hear her voice. "No, no, no."

Click.

Not what I was expecting. I pulled my phone away from my ear and looked at it like it was a foreign object. FaceTime popped up. Oh, okay. I answered and her face filled my screen, "Hey."

Emma smiled, "I'd much rather see you than only hear you."

"This is better." Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was without makeup. She looked like the day we met. "You're beautiful."

"Thank you." She laid her head to the side and shrugged her shoulders, "Why'd you think I wanted FaceTime?"

I pulled my eyebrows down and pursed my lips, "So I could tell you I think you're beautiful?"

Emma shook her head with a grin, "Because I wanted to see your handsome face."

"Thank you." I inclined my head slightly. "How was practice?"

"Brutal." She laughed. "Sand absolutely everywhere. I miss gym floors and shoes. A lot of drills and some three on three."

"Keep going." I liked listening to her talk. She went into more detail while I listened and watched her facial expressions. She was animated with small movements that brought her words to life. I was especially aware of the quirk of her mouth. I was missing her hands and how they talked as much as her words.

"And how was your morning at the gym?"

I raised a hand, palm up, "Didn't you see my Instagram post?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." I had posted a picture of the group with me lying face down. "You looked tired."

"It was a heavy weight day." I entertained her with some of the day’s antics. The comradery made it less exhausting. We worked hard and we laughed often. "I took a nap before dinner with Emily."

"How'd that go?"

"Good." I nodded. "We've worked together for over twenty years now. I start filming in Rome end of July."

"That will be warm."

"Yeah, it will be. June will be the longest I've been home for a long time."

"Lucky for me."

"When's school out?" I was making plans. Pretty global and unstructured, but plan.

"We have through next week to finish up with work. Then it's fun and games. Celebrations of art and music to show off the projects we've worked on but haven’t sent home. Then there’s a day of outside athletic stuff. Relays, three-legged races, carrying eggs, tug of war. All sorts of things to celebrate sending our fifth graders away and the others flying up a grade. All three weeks away. School ends on Wednesday. Closing ceremony for staff Thursday. Then Friday I am going home to Alpharetta for a few days. then back to do some curriculum work."

"I thought it was summers off." I was a little disappointed. I, like many, assumed teachers were really off during the summer. This wasn’t working with my as yet unmade plans.

"Depends on what’s going on. The last winter we had so many kids out with flu and an ice storm closed school. We decided we wanted to have options like video lessons on YouTube or Google Classroom. Right before school started, we got our curriculum cleaned up. Figuring out what are the necessary things we need to make sure we teach. Then over the school year we've been recording lessons. After faculty meetings, we’ve spent time organizing them. This summer we just have to finalize and work with IT do develop the web site."

"Wow, sounds like a huge undertaking."

"It has been, but it will be so helpful if a student is out for them to be able to see the lesson that goes along with their makeup work."

"Are all the grades doing this?"

"Eventually. First and third did this year. We’ll help them to learn from our mistakes."

I got an idea, "Does that mean I can watch videos of you teaching?"

She laughed, "If I enroll you in my class. You'd want to watch that?"

"Maybe. I mean you like watching me do my job."

"Ah, Sebastian. Leveraging a movie to be able to see me teach.”

"I'm not going to promise I'll be in class every day. Never was. But I'd like to see what you do? Someday you'll go on set with me and see how boring most of it is." What did I just say? I’m not shooting anything for almost two months. How very optimistic of me.

"Well, there's an offer I can't refuse."

Good answer. "I've got a photo shoot in a couple of weeks. I think it’s the same week you're going home."

"Ooo, where are you going?" Her face lit up with excitement.

"Toronto. It's promo stuff for the film festival."

"I feel like I should know what you have showing there."

I wanted to reach out and wipe away the annoyed curve of her lips. There was no way she could know unless she was poking around the internet. I liked that she wasn't. "I'll catch you up. It’s a love triangle kind of thing. I'm the bad choice." I told her about filming, how much was improv, and the basic plot. She asked questions to clarify and I enjoyed explaining. I never felt like I was being interviewed. Emma wanted to learn about me.

With the conversation, I'd lost track of time. Again. When I glanced at the clock it was much later than I'd thought. I ran my fingers through my hair, "It's like our first date all over again. Talking for hours."

She smiled, "Its a theme for us. I hate to, but I need to go to bed."

"Believe it or not I’d planned on watching the time, so we could both get some sleep. I, at least, took to a nap." We shared a smile, "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"OK. Good night, Sebastian."

"Night, Emma" She disappeared from my screen and I wasn't very happy. I wanted to keep talking, to keep seeing her expressions. Her green eyes weren't as vibrant on FaceTime, but my memory could fill in the details.

Wednesday was text free and my phone rang at three-thirty. "The children were horrible today."

The exasperated look on her face made me smile, "Could it be their teacher was extra tired today?"

She huffed out a breath, "It’s possible.” Her lips turned to a smile, "Wouldn't change a thing."

"What do horrible children do?"

"Tommy used his folders as frisbees. Annabelle and Brooklyn gave each other tattoos during recess with Sharpies. No one could sit still for lessons or story time. And finally, Marta threw up all over the table and we had to evacuate the room until the custodian got it cleaned up. Room smelled like vomit and Glade the rest of the day."

I had been cringing since the tattoos. "Sorry about the definitely bad day."

Emma nodded, "What did you do today?"

Not much. "Um, long run this morning. Lighter weights today. More core and flexibility. Picked up some Thai food on the way home. Took a shower. Then I started reading a book on female spy units. You called. Now, I’m mostly trying to figure out a way to climb through the internet so I can kiss you. We've still got some catching up to do.”

#Sebastian Stan #sebastian stan fanfiction #fanfiction

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feingeister · 5 years ago

Note

How have your thoughts on the outing scene changed?

this is very long, unstructured and rambly, so i doubt anyone will want to read it, but your answer is under the cut.

(triggerwarning up here bc tumblr sucks: discussions of homophobia and transphobia)

i think initially, people hated the outing scene so much because we really, really didn’t expect it and because it was a shitty ending to a shitty episode. watching this show in real time is always a little rougher and a lot more intense and at that point it had been weeks since we last saw a smiling david (i think maybe we even had a counter for that?? lmao). to clarify, i’m not saying that anyone overreacted, but when this fandom is pissed off, it sometimes tends to go all out in ways i don’t necessarily agree with.

so basically, i moved from being angry and disappointed in the outing scene, to still not liking it but also being a little defensive over it, because i think the way some people talk about it is not entirely fair. i’ve seen a lot of people claim that david was outed for shock value and drama, just to get cis and/or straight viewers to sympathize with him. that’s a trope that’s been talked about a lot on this site and it is very rightfully criticized. i think that’s maybe why a lot of people interpreted this scene the way they did.

the whole “make lgbt people suffer in media so straight people will realize that we’re fucked and maybe have some goddamn sympathy” trope exists for a good reason, it did use to be a legitimate cry for help. nowadays, it doesn’t really work anymore because it is overdone and pretty much exclusively targeted at cishet people, when lgbt narratives should be targeted at or at least be watchable for lgbt viewers. i know that some lgbt people feel seen by that kind of content and find comfort in having their suffering reflected back at them, and while i can respect that, the trope obviously does more harm than good. what it does to most lgbt people is that they see how much their life sucks – which they already knew, they’re living it – and the message is that they’re probably gonna die unhappy or lonely or brutally murdered. there is also something very humiliating about constantly begging for other’s sympathy when you’d have every reason to despise them for letting you die by the masses and calling it a divine cleansing or whatever the fuck.

to get back to the topic at hand – the problem with lgbt narratives in media in my opinion is not that lgbt characters have to suffer through hardships, it is that they are never rewarded for their suffering and they never find happiness, the only one being rewarded is the cishet viewer who gets to feel very kind and empathetic because they cried over one of the gays™ .

(there is also the problem that a lot of these narratives center around suffering when they really don’t have to, but i don’t think you can necessarily blame well written stories with a darker tone for that problem.)

i can’t tell anyone that david wasn’t outed for drama – of course he was, it’s a tv show – and that it wasn’t at least partially targeted at straight/cis people but this experience is a pretty central part to his narrative, he gets to properly deal with it and he ends up very, very happy with his boyfriend and his new friends, not only in the last episode of his season but in all of season four as well.

i’ve talked about david’s story arc a lot already and how i think it’s pretty centered around his (unhealthy) coping mechanism. first, we see david isolate and hide himself away, then we think he’s opening up but he’s only really opening up to matteo because he’s romanticizing the whole “you and me against the world“ thing. when he gets outed we truly realize that he really hasn’t let go of his run&hide approach (which makes it difficult for him to form, maintain and value connections to other people) during a catastrophe, because we see the catastrophe happen and it triggers that response. it retroactively becomes clear to the viewer that even if it seemed like david was doing better (and in a lot of ways he was! i don’t want to trivialize or downplay the fact that he came out to matteo on his own terms), he has some problems that romance can’t solve.

i’m not saying that this couldn’t have happened any other way or that the outing was ~absolutely necessary~, but you all know that i loooove the second pool scene and what it means for davids story. even if i don’t like the outing scene i can acknowledge that it does serve the narrative pretty solidly, which is why i don’t agree with the “only for drama” argument. in his talk with matteo, david finally makes the choice to rely on the support system that he has and it’s his step towards recovery. and it’s – again - a very solid narrative, it’s not “well you went through some shit and survived and now you’re badass”, its “your trauma doesn’t define you and even if you go through some shit, there are people who will love and support you and in loving them back you will find happiness, growth and recovery”.

ultimately, david’s arc doesn’t leave anyone feeling like life sucks and you just have to deal with it, it leaves with the message that even if things do suck, you can survive and be happy. so there, to me, lies the difference between the trope i talked about earlier and this storyline. instead of just showing a trans individual suffering to benefit cis people, this narrative acknowledges the suffering that trans people do face but it gives their character a happy ending, so anyone who might see themselves in david’s struggles, can also see themselves in his happy end, even if the latter is not (yet) a reality for them.

some other things i appreciate: david isn’t outed to us in that scene, his identity isn’t used as shock value, it’s not overly cruel and it’s very clear that outing someone, even if some people sympathize and no one outwardly attacks him, is a horrible and violent experience. but you know… is the bar really low enough for me to praise that?

all that being said, i’m absolutely not telling anyone how to feel, i don’t have the authority to do that and i don’t want to do that either. i really do understand why many people have an issue with this storyline and there are definitely things you can criticize about the scene. even if it was perfectly written, no one should have to justify not liking the scene and/or feeling hurt by it.

looking back, i don’t necessarily think that it doesn’t fit the tone of the show, but at the time we as a fandom didn’t really expect it and when these narratives come out of nowhere, they’re especially hurtful. and the whole thing did seem overdramatic – who filmed that exchange with mr. neuhaus? why are they only posting it now? why are they posting it at all? why did everyone immediately go and look at it and why is this all (in-)conveniently happening just as matteo is about to pick david up from school? and why is episode eight in general so shitty and weird?

aaaand lastly i just want to mention that i do realize how showing characters grow through things that are done to them can be a bit of a problematic narrative, because it could romanticize these experiences and give off a bit of a “you should be happy that you suffered because it made you stronger!! 😊” vibe, which is shitty, because trauma is trauma, no one deserves to go through it and no one should have to go through it just to “grow”. but you know, at least david never thanked anyone for outing him so we at least have that!

that’s it, you can come for me now.

#ask #druck #me @ myself: get to the point

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sign-from-god-complex · 6 years ago

Text

take care

Summary: Roman is bad at self-care, especially when he's struggling with video ideas, and so Logan takes it into his own hands to make sure he’s properly looked after. And if maybe he went a bit overboard? Well, Roman deserved it.

Pairing: Logince

Warnings: Bad self-care (not eating or showering for an extended period of time) and a tiny bit of negative self-talk.

A/N: Every so often my brain will just want me to write the fluffiest, softest, most sappy thing it can think of. The last piece of writing produced from that was “The Purpose of Marriage, To Know That You Are Loved” and the next one is this, so here you go. Maybe it’s out of character, but maybe sappy, fluffy, dumbass logince is underrated and we should have more of these flustered idiots.

And hey! I finally wrote some logince!!! Took me long enough honestly.

Tag list <333: @mutechild @super-magical-wizard

AO3 Link

Roman couldn't think of a single creative idea.

Things had been pretty stressful for everyone recently, really. Thomas had done quite a bit of socialising over the last couple weeks, meeting up with old friends and trying to spend time with some newer ones, and it was reaching the point where even Roman was getting exhausted.

However, the unfortunate truth was that videos needed to be made no matter how busy Thomas's schedule became. Roman couldn't afford time off to relax, not when there was still so much to do before they were able to upload the next video. The fans were getting impatient and he absolutely needed to do right by them, but no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't come up with anything good!

Roman had casually pitched two or three ideas to the other sides over the course of the week, and every single one had been shot down for one reason or another. It was either too expensive, or there wasn't enough material, or it was too similar to something that they'd already done, etc. etc.

And those were just the ideas Roman had suggested; Roman had been brainstorming on and off for two weeks. Nothing he thought of was good enough and the increasing pressure as he became more and more aware of his time running out was not helping the situation in the slightest.

He scrunched up the notebook page he'd been writing on and flung it at all the wall, watching as it bounced for a moment before landing with the other scraps of paper he'd launched in that direction. Could they make a video related to throwing balls of paper around? No, Thomas was terrible at throwing things with any sense of accuracy, and anyway, that was hardly an idea. You can't make a video out of that.

Roman let his head fall against the desk—hard enough that he felt it, but not hard enough that he was giving himself permanent brain damage (like he needed any more obstacles in the way of a good idea). He let out a groan, hands coming up to tug at his hair. This was ridiculous! He was creativity! He should be able to do better!

No, he was sure he was able to do better. He just had to keep trying.

There was the distant sound of the door opening behind him as Roman began writing down more words in the hopes of sparking something. A video to do with... fruit? Something similar to the "No Sugar" Awkward Adventures video, but with eating fruit? No, that was a terrible idea. What about another Disney mashup? Shit, no, they just did one of those. They couldn’t-

"Roman...?"

Roman turned around at the sound of his name, aware that he likely looked absolutely atrocious. He hadn't slept all night—too busy brainstorming—and he couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a shower, which was honestly disgusting if he thought too long about it.

In the door stood his boyfriend, cautiously adjusting his glasses as he took in the scene before him. Roman, feeling self-conscious about the state of his room and the state of his attire, suddenly wished he'd had the forethought to lock his door. Not only would it have prevented this exact scenario, but it also would have resulted in less potential distractions. Ugh, what an idiot he was! It seemed he couldn't get anything right recently.

Logan's brow was furrowed and Roman wanted to go over there and kiss his forehead to smooth it out, prompting that fond look Roman so adored. He didn't get up though, too aware of the fact that it had been over a day since he'd eaten and if he passed out now Logan would never let him hear the end of it.

"Are you quite alright?" Logan asked, eyes bouncing around the room for a moment before landing on Roman.

Roman gave a facsimile of a confident smile. "I'm perfectly fine, my love! Just thinking through some new ideas, you know how it is."

As Logan crossed his arms, quirking a single unamused eyebrow at him, Roman knew that he was caught. Well, it’d been a good run. So much for doing YouTube because Logan was going to force him to rest and Roman was never going to have another good idea ever again. Thomas was going to lose every single one of his subscribers and they were all going to die because Roman couldn't come up with one creative idea.

"I know that look," Logan said, making his way over to Roman's desk, "You're catastrophising again. Stop that. You're not Virgil; you do not need to act as if the world is going to end with every minor inconvenience."

Roman threw his hands into the air and Logan ducked back to avoid being inadvertently punched in the face. "This is not some 'minor inconvenience', Logan! This is my entire purpose! If I can't bring inspiration to Thomas then what in the world am I good for?!"

Logan gathered up Roman's hands into his and brought them to his chest. Then, slowly, he leaned down and pressed his mouth to Roman's.

It was delicate and affectionate and Roman felt his entire body collapse, hands tugging away from Logan's grip to wrap behind his neck. After a moment, Logan pulled away. He hovered his face in front of Roman's and Roman watched as he scrunched up his nose.

"You really need to brush your teeth."

In a different scenario, Roman might have thought that Logan looked adorable when he pulled that face, but as it was, he was too busy being offended. To be fair, Logan was definitely right—brushing his teeth was another one of those things that’d been thrown to the wayside during his brainstorming—but he still shouldn't say it.

Logan straightened up and stared at Roman with a contemplative look.

"Come," he said, grabbing Roman's arm and dragging him in the direction of the bathroom, "We're going to get you cleaned up and then you're going to get some rest, and tomorrow I will help you with your next brainstorming session."

Roman raised his eyebrows. He'd been expecting the first part of course, but Logan virtually never helped with brainstorming. He said he found it too creative and unstructured for his liking and instead preferred to come in in the planning stages since that was when he was the most helpful. Logan had probably realised just how badly things were going for him—and his boyfriend wasn’t the most perceptive person, so Roman must really look terrible.

As they entered the bathroom, Roman realised for the first time just how exhausted he truly was. He let himself be positioned on the closed toilet lid as Logan began running a bath, meticulously running his hands through the water every so often to check that the temperature was appropriate.

Roman always favoured extremely hot baths and showers—as opposed to Logan, who mostly took showers that almost bordered on freezing—so when Logan winced as he put his hand into the water, Roman knew he'd found the right temperature.

After prompting him to brush his teeth, Logan went to gently remove Roman’s top. Roman was glad for the first time that he wasn’t wearing his usual princely attire; that shirt was a bitch to get on and off. He stood shakily as Logan went to tug down his sweatpants and as Logan pulled his underwear off, Roman looked down and gave him a wink.

Logan rolled his eyes. “You are extraordinarily fatigued and overworked, Roman. As if either of us could be thinking about sex at a time like this.”

“You underestimate me, darling,” Roman smirked—or at least he attempted to, but his face wasn’t doing any of the things he wanted at the moment.

Logan just gave a breathy laugh before helping Roman into the bath, kneeling at his side as he settled himself.

Roman sighed deeply and closed his eyes, the warmth of the bath seeping into his bones and establishing a home under his skin. He could hear Logan running something through the water beside him and he was startled slightly by the feeling of water running over his hair.

He opened his eyes to see Logan filling up a mug—Roman’s, with cartoon birds on it—with the bath water, before pouring it carefully over the back of Roman’s head. Logan pushed his hand through Roman’s wet hair before cupping his cheek and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Roman only had a moment to grumble that Logan was stealing his move before Logan whispered, “Shut your eyes, love. Let me worry about everything for now, alright?”

Logan didn’t use pet names very often, so Roman felt his blush was entirely justified. He did as Logan asked, however. It was hard to give up control—especially when he was as stressed as he was—but if there was one person Roman trusted to take care of him, it was Logan.

The bath passed in a haze of warmth and gentle fingers running over his skin. Occasionally Logan would murmur something under his breath, but Roman was too lost in complete exhaustion to really process any of it.

Once the bath had ended, Logan wrapped him in a big fluffy towel and tried to pat him dry, Roman lazily moving his limbs in a weary attempt to help out. He shivered slightly from exposure to the cold air and silently wished Logan would hold him until he was warm again.

“Here,” Logan said, presenting Roman with a set of pyjamas—and when had he had the time to get those?—”Put these on. I will be back momentarily.”

Roman watched Logan slip out the door before holding up the pyjamas to take a closer look.

Logan had grabbed his favourite pair of pyjama pants, decided upon as not only were they incredibly soft, but they matched his aesthetic perfectly—red and covered in cartoons of little gold crowns. Roman couldn’t exactly remember who’d given them to him. However, he had a vague memory of preteen Roman receiving them as a Christmas gift, followed by him immediately putting them on and not changing out of them for a week.

In place of the matching pyjama shirt, however, Logan had given him a hoodie. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be one of Logan’s two hoodies—the blue one Roman got paint splatters on. He chuckled lightly. His boyfriend was a dork. To his credit though, Roman was known to “borrow” items of clothing from Logan on occasion, and this hoodie was very cozy. Plus it smelled like Logan—like pine and paper and clean and safe and home (and probably a little bit like paint).

By the time Roman had thrown the clothes on, Logan had returned. He grabbed Roman’s hand, trying to carefully maneuver them across the bathroom floor to avoid stepping in any puddles and Roman could feel his face heating up again. It was silly to feel as flustered as he was over something that small, but his boyfriend was treating him so gently and he just couldn’t help it.

As they reentered Roman’s bedroom his blush only intensified.

The entire room felt transformed.

His bed had been made, adorned with layers of fluffy blankets (with some around the headboard so he could wrap them around his shoulders if needed) and his laptop laying in the centre. The piles of scrunched up paper littered around his desk had been removed and instead, his desk was clean with his notebooks stacked into a neat pile. And on his bedside table sat two mugs and a plate of toast, with what Roman would assume was Crofter’s spread on top.

But the most wondrous thing was that the lights were dimmed, any brightness he could see instead emanating from fairy lights that had been strung up around almost every surface. Roman also spotted a few candles and he could smell the faint scent of rose filling the room.

It was soft and awe-inspiring and Roman was absolutely astounded.

“You… did all this for me?”

Roman ripped his eyes away from the scene in front of him to face his boyfriend. Logan was watching him with an attentive look, eyes flitting up and down Roman’s face, seemingly searching for something. He must have found it because he cut his gaze away, ducking his head slightly.

“I had some help from Patton and Virgil, but I thought a more pleasing and relaxing environment would be conducive to helping you “unwind,” so to speak,” Logan said, failing to hide his blush in the wake of the adoring look Roman was sure he was giving him, “I also felt it imperative to bring you something to eat, as the likelihood that you were keeping up the recommended- mmph!”

Roman crashed his lips into Logan’s, cutting off whatever speech he had planned about Roman’s terrible eating habits. His chest was warm as he wrapped his arms around Logan’s waist, pulling them closer together and he smiled a little into the kiss.

Logan might seem at first glance like he doesn’t show any kind of affection. His endearments were sparing and though he may put up with Roman’s incessant need for physical contact, he rarely initiated anything himself. However, to claim that his boyfriend was uncaring would be—to borrow a term from Logan—an absolute falsehood.

Logan showed his affection in much more subtle ways that Roman did, and since the beginning of their relationship, Roman had learnt to look for them.

Logan liked to be helpful. If there was something you had to do but didn’t necessarily want to, Logan would almost always be willing to assist you. On occasion, he would even do the entire task for you, citing that “it wasn’t a big deal” and “it was really more for my sake than yours” in order to save face. Roman saw through that though, exactly the same way Logan saw through him.

On top of being helpful, Logan also just appreciated spending time with the people he cared about. He didn’t need to be doing anything in particular, more often than not Logan was simply reading, but his passive company almost meant more than his active company.

More than once Logan had arrived in Roman’s room, apropos of nothing, and sat down on Roman’s bed to continue his Agatha Christie novel. This usually occurred when Roman was working, so Roman would simply resume his work, distantly aware of Logan’s presence behind him as he did so.

Not a single word would be spoken between them until Patton called them down for dinner, but regardless, Roman would feel closer to Logan somehow. He knows how important time alone is for Logan. His boyfriend regularly gave up his personal private time to be around him instead and it made Roman almost giddy to think about what that really meant.

Looking at this evening through that filter, Logan’s actions were a blatant declaration of love. And so he’d responded the most Roman way he knew how.

He drew away, watching as Logan’s eyes fluttered open, the shock on his face made even more evident by the blush covering his cheeks. Roman wanted to kiss him again almost immediately, but he managed to refrain.

“It’s perfect. Thank you, Logan.”

Roman whispered the words into the small space between them and watched as Logan’s face went through about 5 different iterations of pleased and shocked, before settling on poorly faked indifference. Roman tried his best not to laugh; it really would have ruined the moment.

Logan cleared his throat. “Yes, well… you’re welcome, of course.”

Roman pulled his boyfriend over to the bed, instantly getting comfy under the blankets and ordering Logan to do the same—more because Roman wanted to use him as a pillow than anything else. In return, Logan handed Roman the toast, insisting that he eat. As he began to do so, despite his protests that he’d rather not get crumbs on his bed, Logan pressed play on the Disney movie he’d set up on Roman’s laptop.

Crofters, cuddles and Disney. God, his boyfriend knew him too well.

By the time the movie had finished, the toast was long since eaten, the hot chocolate Patton had supplied had been drunk and Roman was on the verge of falling asleep. His head was resting on Logan’s chest, Logan tracing patterns delicately over all the skin he could reach and Roman could feel himself tearing up slightly from all the emotions he held.

He let his eyes fall shut. “I love you.”

Roman faintly recognised that it was the first time either of them had said it from a romantic standpoint, but sincerely it didn’t matter because it was so overwhelmingly true that Roman just couldn’t keep it to himself anymore.

Roman could feel Logan stiffen underneath him before relaxing with an exhale.

“I love you too.”

And he’s sure that in the morning Logan will have some kind of lecture prepared about not being able to come up with creative ideas if you don’t take care of yourself first and foremost, but Roman wasn’t thinking about that. That was for tomorrow’s Roman to worry about.

No, for now, Roman simply let his awareness of his boyfriend’s breathing—the sound of his heartbeat and the steady rise and fall of his chest—lull him into a peaceful, dream-filled sleep.

#there are like a billion things I don't like about this fic but hopefully I'm just being nitpicky #sanders sides #sanders sides fic #sanders side fic #logince #romantic logince #logan sanders #roman sanders #lo can write

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adventuresofamodernscholar · 6 years ago

Text

**Disclosure** I wrote this entire post in order to avoid making my presentation for a conference…and forgot to finish it until about 18 months later. So everything that refers to “this week” or “in a few days” happened over a year ago. I am the world’s worst procrastinator.

Phew! I am exhausted!

A few weeks ago I decided to quit my day job, so I have been nothing more than a full time graduate student for the past month or so. While I am looking for another (less stressful) job, my days have been pretty unstructured and open; somehow I cannot remember having had a minute of free time this month, though, so maybe I haven’t been as free as I seem to think…. hmm.

Anyway, a big chunk of my time this month has been dedicated to working on building my CV in preparation for applying to PhD programs next summer. I have been studying for my GRE exams, submitting papers and abstracts for publication and conferences, and, of course, I have been working hard on my schoolwork and preparing presentations for conferences for which I have already been accepted.

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to present virtually at a conference in India, but this past weekend I had my first in-person presentation at an academic conference; it was simultaneously the most exciting and most terrifying moment in my academic career so far. I was so nervous, especially since I had no idea what to expect, what to wear, or how I would be able to afford to go! I spent an unreasonable amount of time delving through obscure sites trying to find some solid information about these conferences, so I wanted to create a helpful post for other young academics with the same questions that I had. I hope this is helpful!

What to Wear

For some reason, this was one of the most stressful parts of my preparations; I had no idea what to wear to an academic conference! I tried searching a variety of websites geared towards academics, but there is almost nothing out there on the subject. Even my trusty friend, Pinterest, had an overwhelmingly diverse array of results for “academic conference outfits” (although there are some cute ideas, hence the link). I did find one very useful piece of advice, though, in the bowels of an internet Q&A page: “don’t be the jerk who shows up in a full suit”.

Considering the fact that I was thinking about splurging on a new suit for this conference, I was beyond grateful for this piece of advice.

Eventually, I settled on a crisp new cardigan, black slacks, and a nice blouse, and I would certainly say that I fit in with what everyone else was wearing. I was actually surprised to see that I was among the better-dressed attendees.

While at this point I can only speak for my experience at one conference, I can recommend something similar for other first-time conference presenters. You want to look nice and professional, but there is no need to go out and buy a full suit. However, despite the fact that I did see several people wearing more casual outfits, I would not recommend going the t-shirt and jeans route either. As a young academic, you have a lot to prove, and looking professional (but not like you are trying too hard) will really help you to look and feel confident and competent.

*update* as a now-veteran conference attendee (I have attended about a dozen conferences in the past 18 months) I can attest that something business casual, like what I wore to my first conference is perfect. I have seen people wear jeans and a nice shirt to conferences, but I think that this is best left for days when you are simply an audience member, rather than a presenter.

How to Pay

A few weeks ago, when I made the decision to quit my job, I did a quick audit of how much I could expect to spend on the conferences to which I have been accepted (I have a total of 7 within a 9 month period), and I was shocked to see that between travel, hotels, and conference fees, I was looking at several thousands of dollars in expenses. The average academic conference costs about $300 to attend and, apart from the conference that I am attending this weekend in DC, I will need to travel for each conference, staying out of town and/or abroad for several days for each.

I reached out to one of my professors/mentors for advice, and boy am I glad that I did! While his first suggestion (asking the department for funding) was unsuccessful, his second suggestion (taking my request to the Dean of my school) resulted in a huge financial relief. While I will not be able to fully fund my conferences through my school, I will be able to receive significant financial assistance.

Before you begin attending conferences, find out if your program or school is willing and able to financially assist students who are planning to attend conferences. If not (or if you need more assistance than your school provides), you can also apply to a number of scholarships for graduate students, which you can put towards your conference expenses. One of my favorite resources is ScholarshipOwl, but there are plenty of free lists out there with some potentially really helpful scholarships.

What to Bring

Business Cards – If you do not have any yet, have some made ASAP! I did not remember to bring any with me to UF, and I instantly regretted this lapse when I began connecting with other speakers. You will meet so many interesting and important people in your field at these conferences, and you want to make sure that they can contact you (and you them) afterwards. *NOTE* make sure that you collect cards from the people you meet and EMAIL THEM ASAP. You may make some valuable connections and you want to reinforce them before you become just another card in their wallet.

Extra Copies of Your Presentation – I have been using Prezi lately for my presentations and, even though it is a beautiful presentation program, I tend to get very stressed out when it is time to present because, with my free account, I cannot put my presentations on a flashdrive. I am thinking that, as I begin attending more conferences, I may need to shell out and pay for the upgrade that will allow me to save a copy of my presentations separately from the website. All that is to say, if you are smarter than me, you should have multiple copies on hand of your presentation, just in case there is an issue. I recommend, at the very least, emailing yourself a copy and having a copy available on a flashdrive, in case either copy does not work. I also recommend printing several copies of your script (if you are using one), in case one gets lost, damaged, etc. Murphy’s Law.

A Buddy – If possible, it is great to have a buddy there with you when you present, especially if that person is in your field. Not only will their presence help with emotional support as you put yourself out there, but it is also helpful to have someone in the audience who you can rely on to ask a question during the Q&A session. Of course this is not always possible, and only really applies to your first experience to help you through your jitters. I had my boyfriend with me for my first conference and, though I luckily did not need him to fill an awkward silence after my presentation, it was such a comfort to have him there silently cheering me on. When you are putting yourself and your work out there to be judged, it helps to know that someone in the audience believes in you.

What to Expect

I honestly had no idea what to expect before my first conference. My imagination pictured any and every possible scenario, from a huge lecture hall filled with peers, to a tiny classroom with two other people in it. In reality, I found myself in a seminar room with about 20 audience members of various academic backgrounds; about half were PhD students, about a quarter were faculty, and the remainder were a mix of undergraduates and family/friends of presenters.

What really surprised me was the relaxed nature of the conference. There was a set schedule, but everything seemed to be very casual and nonchalant; no one was concerned when the projector issues interrupted the schedule, or when one presenter was late so the schedule had to be moved around. It definitely took the pressure off to realize that the people presenting and listening were just people who were there to learn and teach, without making a show of professional superiority.

How to Prepare

Whatever you do, do not be like me. As I am writing this post, I am supposed to be writing my presentation for my next conference (which is happening less than two days from now), and I am procrastinating like you would not believe. The funny thing is, just a few days ago I was crying and yelling in a hotel room, where I swore that I would never procrastinate again, especially for another presentation. I swear to you, I woke up the morning of my presentation without a finished script, without a finished visual presentation, and without having rehearsed at all. I woke at the crack of dawn to get to work, and finally printed my finalized script about 30 minutes before I needed to leave for the conference. DO NOT DO THIS! I thought that I would learn from my first experience, but I have made this mistake over and over again. While my presentations usually go over well, the stress and anxiety are simply not worth it.

Try to have your presentation 90% prepared a week before the conference. This gives you time to practice, edit, and ask for revisions from your professor(s). Have a prepared script that goes over your research in depth and allow your slideshow to guide your talk. In my experience most presenters read straight from their papers, so while presentation skills are important, it is okay to refer to your paper as needed.

What to Do While You are There

Conferences should be as much (if not more) about learning from others as it is about presenting your own research. I have learned more from attending panels, lectures, and exhibits at conferences than in my 22+ years of schooling. Make sure to go through the conference schedule and circle anything of interest and GO! You will have paid an arm and a leg to attend this conference, so get every learning opportunity that you can out of it.

As I mentioned before, you should also be using this opportunity to network like crazy. I missed many opportunities for this during my first few conferences, but eventually one of my professors instilled in me the importance of forming professional connections outside of my own university. I have met and learned from dozens of grad students, faculty, and researchers, and I have managed to create small opportunities for myself along the way (such as chairing MLA panels and award committees). I have even gotten to squeeze my research into a special edition of a competitive journal coming out in 2020 because I had an opportunity to chat with one of the publishers about my research. Network people!

Finally, take this opportunity to visit the hosting city beyond the conference center walls. I have seen more of the USA in the past 18 months than I had in my past 26 years, and it has been a blast! I took my dad with my to Colorado for the RMMLA conference and we had a week of adventures, I visited Vegas (somewhere I never thought I would go but ended up enjoying), and I got to road trip with my (now) fiance to Florida and visit a great-aunt who I had not seen in 20 years. The world is your oyster and there is more to learn at a conference than what panelists have to say.

*Note* at this point I have attended about a dozen conferences both in person and virtually.At this point I would say that everything in this post continues to hold true, but I welcome any suggestions for further advice!

How to Survive Your First Academic Conference **Disclosure** I wrote this entire post in order to avoid making my presentation for a conference...and forgot to finish it until about 18 months later.

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andorknuckles · 6 years ago

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An analysis of the 3 Smash Brothers Leaks and their credibility.

First, I wanna share this image

This is a simplified version of my initial analysis of the leaks, with the claims broken down, and ordered from when they were first posted. Of these three leaks, only the first came from before Joker’s reveal, with the second one coming mere days after the fact, while the third one came a little over a week later. I do want to stress that even if I make a perfect case for destroying a rumor’s credibility, that doesn’t mean I 100% believe it will be false. Credibility doesn’t equal probability.

4Chan Leak

This one won’t take long. I don’t think this one has any real credibility, and it’s really only getting attention because they happened to get a lucky guess. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily wrong, but there’s almost nothing one can use to gauge its veracity. On top of that, all of the choices are rooted heavily in pre-existing speculation.

Joker is the most out-there of the five listed here, but Sakurai did state an enjoyment of Persona 5. Realistically, though, if enough people make fake leaks, then at least one person is going to get one thing right, so I’m chalking this up to coincidence.

Infamous leaker Vergeben frequently discussed how Square was getting a character in the Fighter Pass. I’ll be discussing this more down the line.

Microsoft had some suspect things to say, describing themselves as ‘third parties’ at E3 2018, leading to considerable discussion regarding a number of their characters.

Edelgard has been speculated as an obvious choice for a cross-promotion.

Sylux has been built up as an upcoming villain/chaotic-neutral in the Metroid series for some time, and so cross-promotion with a theoretical appearance in Metroid Prime 4 would seem logical.

As such, these five characters really just seem like safe picks, with Joker as the possible exception. Other than listing the names of the characters, they do say one other interesting thing, that incomplete character models exist, which I think segues into an important bit of speculation I have regarding the Fighter Pass and how it’s being developed.

Intermission: Important Speculation

Smash 4′s DLC development cycle seemed a little improvised and unstructured, with each phase of development seemingly existing as a self-contained run through 3 or 4 characters, with one of those characters receiving a bit of a head start. In Smash Ultimate’s case, however, I have little doubt that the entire run of characters has at least entered the planning stages, and that the development model is something far more graceful than Smash 4′s.

The (presumed) process model used for Smash 4 was to create characters in batches, spreading the team out across a small number of characters, making sure that there’s enough for everyone to be working on something. In many ways this model seemed to work, but there are certain problems it must have created. Namely, balance testers can’t adjust attack properties until designers are done working on hitboxes. Designers can’t work on hitbox and hurtbox placement until the animators are done animating. Animators can’t animate until the Modelers are done modelling and rigging, etc.

This is why, for the Fighters Pass, a pipeline style of development is ideal. A pipeline model would consist of something like Team A, Team B, Team C, etc.

Team A finishes the first parts of Character 1′s development, then passes them on to Team B as they start on Character 2. Now Team B can finish that part of Character 1, and pass that on to Team C. This continues, until you eventually have Team A working on Character 3, Team B working on Character 2, Team C on Character 1, etc. This way no one’s time is ever wasted, and character releases can happen on a near constant basis.

I may go into further detail on why I think this is the case at a later date, but for now the evidence largely comes from how the two characters have been released so close together, and yet always one at a time.

5Channel Leak 1

So, here it is, the big one. The leak that seems to have gained the most traction. It’s a common misconception that it and the second 5Channel leak are one-and-the-same, but the two contain very different levels of information, with very different levels of credibility. Erdrick, Hayabusa, Steve?, and Doomslayer. A mix of a character from a series hugely popular in Japan, an NES character who had a brief resurgence in the 00s, a rep from arguably the most popular game of all time, and a character from the most influential and most ported FPS of all time.

This one also gets some points for predicting P5R would be coming in 2019, but then loses them again for getting the specifics wrong, neither mentioning its full title, nor getting the general time frame of its release right. Normally just getting the official abbreviation of an announced game right gives a lot of credibility, but that information had already leaked from an official website registration.

So, the character this and the next leak both include, as well as the one the former leak has a Square Enix-shaped opening for... Erdrick.

This is the character that tends to grant a lot of credibility to these leaks, as the character was rumored here well before a certain datamining incident occurred. In the code of Smash Ultimate, there previously existed data for three then-unreleased characters. However, the data for two of those characters did not reference those characters by name, but instead gave them codenames. Specifically, Joker was referenced as ‘Jack’, while the other character was given the name ‘Brave’.

While speculation is open as to what the name ‘Brave’ could mean, such as an equivalent to NATO code, where a word sharing the first letter of the character’s name is used, or perhaps a reference to the game Bravely Default, the most common interpretation is that this refers to the Japanese name of the Dragon Quest main character’s title, which literally translates to brave.

The fact that all three leaks match the datamine in implying the character after Joker is Erdrick is part of what makes them so credible. However, in the case of this leak, it all comes crumbling down thanks to what it says about E3.

“Doom Guy and Steve? will be announced at E3 2019.”

Hoo nelly, I smell a contradiction, or at the very least, a bit of an unlikely scenario.

So, a part of me thinks this person expected Erdrick to be out before E3. That Joker and Erdrick (and maybe Piranha Plant) would be released at roughly the same time, just because of how Smash 4′s DLC went down.

But that rides on the assumption that this leaker actually meant the characters would be coming in the order they posted, and that Erdrick isn’t coming in May or something. But let’s go with that, let’s run with those premises.

Premise 1) Erdrick isn’t next

This Premise is a bit dead-on-arrival, since it means that ‘Brave’ has to either refer to a different character, or that data from the fourth or fifth character slipped in next to the first one. But for the sake of argument, we’ll say that ‘Brave’ actually means ‘Steve?’ due to the similar lettering.

In this scenario, we get both classic and relatively modern reps for Smash, both of which are very well known globally and, while a bit too ‘obvious’ for some, are definitely worthy of inclusion. If there’s ever going to be a time when the Fighters Pass reveals more than one character at a time, it’s going to be E3. If that does happen, I’d assume one would be released on the day, while the other would be for release down the line. Either way, we’re left with one big problem:

The only two characters left to reveal are incredibly Japan-centric. Japanese fans are pretty fond of these characters, but the global appeal of Dragon Quest, while not terrible has never been particularly high, while Ninja Gaiden’s declining sales in the US are part of why the franchise’s brief resurgence in the 00s eventually died off.

All-in-all, these are just two characters that wouldn’t really bring much fanfare if they were all that July 2019-February 2020 had to offer. While Erdrick might work as the final curtain call, it would ultimately mean ending Smash Ultimate off on a spark, rather than a bang. 8 months is a long time to announce nothing but a pair of niche characters.

Premise 2) Erdrick is next

After that last breakdown, having THREE at E3 would really just push the problem even further. Unless Nintendo is secretly publishing a Ninja Gaiden game that’s intended to be the next Breath of the Wild in terms of its magnitude, Ryu Hayabusa simply cannot work as the only character to be announced in all of the second half of 2019.

Unless you want to believe that there’s a second Fighters Pass coming (and that it will be filling out the rest of the space before February 2020), this is a scenario of different factors pushing at each other until something has to give, and that something is the announcement of Doomslayer and Steve? at E3, and if that’s breaking, then this leak breaks down even further.

Oh, and the idea that Steve? was moved from base game to DLC? I find that idea rather suspect. You can’t really change something like that so late in development without making a footprint on your game. Perhaps they scrubbed the files very effectively, with the only remnants being the Microsoft/Rare Spirit data people found, and the extra development time the removal of Steve? created going to Echo Fighter development. Maybe that’s why Isabelle is half-derivative, half-original? Probably not, though.

5Channel Leak 2

When you actually leak something that couldn’t have been reasonably guessed beforehand, you immediately start off on the right foot. Of course, some people have leaked things like this before, and had the other parts of their leak turn out false. In those scenarios, it can be because a person had inside information, and added their own made up information to it for one reason or another (trolling, not wanting to be caught, etc.), and in other scenarios, it’s because they get their information from multiple sources, and one or more of them turn out to be wrong.

However, most of the rest of their Smash leaks have proven to be correct, or are thus-far indeterminate. Joker’s stage was Mementos, and Nintendo has been making a suspiciously big push for the new Dragon Quest games. The only mistake in the leak was that of Jack Frost’s appearance ‘as a skill’ on the Mementos stage.

The details regarding Joker are things I would consider a safe assumption. Mementos just makes sense as a Persona 5 stage, while Jack Frost is a mascot for the superseries, as well as Atlus in general. That he would appear as a stage Easter Egg or in Joker’s moveset is a reasonable expectation. It’s possible that the Leaker (or their source) saw Morgana and thought he was Jack Frost due to a lack of familiarity, or that a Jack Frost cameo was planned but eventually removed.

Another possibility is that this person knew of the datamine information ahead of the general public, learning of the Mementos stage, and used the codename Jack to further spurn on their expectations regarding a Jack Frost appearance.

But that’s a narrative that really can’t be proven, and requires further narrative to explain why they know what they know about the Dragon Quest promotion, or the Granblue game.

So... this leak passes the test. The Erdrick stuff lines up with Vergeben’s generally accurate Smash leak portfolio, Mementos was accurate, and Brave definitely lines up with Erdrick. Personally, I’d rather almost any other character to Erdrick, but I’ll at least take having the remaining three characters still being a mystery.

#Smash Leaks #smash brothers

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english-ext-2 · 6 years ago

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Work Experience and Internships

Most of us go to university with the expectation that we’re positioning ourselves for a better starting salary, improved social mobility, and the chance to do our best work, live our best lives, and retire comfortably. But you probably know by now that a piece of paper isn’t going to cut it in the real world™, and employers expect more than good grades.

Work experience is one of the many ways to distinguish yourself from the crowd. (For more on maximising your graduate employability, check out this post on the boredofstudies forum) Internships, and unpaid internships especially, are an increasingly popular source of work experience to spruce up the CV. Considering how intense competition in the graduate market is these days, students are seeking out unpaid internships from as early as first year.

This post is supposed to be an introduction to internships, with a particular focus on unpaid internships and their accompanying risks and pitfalls.

What’s an internship?

“Internship” is a bit of a nebulous term to which we’ve attached certain expectations and ideas; in popular culture, interns are akin to coffee runners and menial office workers, or the ones we jokingly blame for misfired tweets, but the reality (as it tends to be) is far more complex.

You can think of internships as a bridge between academic theory and practical workplace experience - they’re a learning (and often networking) opportunity to give you a taste of what it’d be like to work at a particular organisation or in a particular sector.

An internship can be structured or unstructured, paid or unpaid, and can last anywhere from a few weeks to twenty four months. They can be arranged through your university for academic credit, or you can seek them out yourself. The content of an internship is highly variable and dependent on the industry and organisation. You may be assigned a project or task, made to shadow senior executives, rotated through several divisions, or even invited to attend networking events and receive professional development.

The pros and cons of unpaid internships

Pros

Gaining experience in your academic field, or a field related to what you intend to pursue as a career;

Taking on or refining transferable skills that will enhance your employability;

Getting a sense of an organisation’s day-to-day rhythm and a feel for their workplace culture;

If doing an internship for credit, your work and study time overlap;

In some cases, being provided with mentoring, training, career coaching and/or professional development;

The opportunity to form connections and grow your network.

Cons

You are not reimbursed for travel or meals, which means paying out of pocket for what can be lengthy commutes to your workplace;

Employers who don’t respect your boundaries or provide flexibility;

Doing work that is used but not credited to you;

Managing paid work, study and other commitments on top of the unpaid internship;

Being given boring and trivial tasks that don’t challenge you or help you learn, conversely;

Being given a heavy and unrealistic workload for an intern, i.e. doing the work a normal employee would but without pay (this ABC Online report and Pedestrian TV article cover the pitfalls of unpaid internships).

This Junkee article also looks at the social implications of unpaid internships, e.g. widening the gap between privileged and underprivileged students.

Know your rights

Students are often treated as free labour because you don’t have the requisite work experience or skills to justify being paid. That means you aren’t afforded the same workplace protections and rights as paid employees. This makes unpaid internships ripe for exploitation, and frankly, you deserve better.

According to the Fair Work Ombudsman, an you might be in an employment relationship rather than interning if:

You are doing more productive work than observational;

The work you are doing is normally done by paid employees, and/or is necessary to the organisation’s or company’s daily operations;

You are expected or required by the organisation to come work or do productive activities;

The company is benefiting more from the the arrangement than you.

Apart from reporting to the Fair Work Ombudsman, you can reach out to Interns Australia, which advocates for fairer and more transparent rules surrounding internships. It also recently launched the National Fair Internship Pledge to help employers and interns identify fair and high quality internship programs.

Searching for internships

Depending on your field of study, internships can be in huge or limited supply. My undergrad was in International Studies, which wasn’t something that had a neat and direct equivalent in the workplace like a Commerce or Business degree. However, communications, media and law internships are practically booming (the problem’s in the amount and quality of competition). So the big question is, where do you start looking?

University careers boards

These should really be your first stop. Get into the habit of regularly checking the careers board; if you know you’ll forget to, subscribe for weekly updates. The big upside of uni job boards is that you’ll see internship ads for small, obscure-sounding companies or organisations that you wouldn’t find when browsing big sites like GradAustralia (see below).

Also a friendly reminder that your careers centre has resources beyond job boards -- self-assessment tools, fact sheets on just about every aspect of jobseeking, industry news and updates, drop-in career advice and resume-polishing sessions, and careers workshops. Use these!

Online job boards

Career One, SEEK, gumtree and Indeed are popular for obvious reasons, but because of their scale, you’re bound to spend most of your time weeding out shifty ads from the legitimate ones.

I’d advise starting with these websites:

Grad Australia

GradConnection

Graduate Careers Australia, which manages Graduate Opportunities

Australian Internships

If you’re doing a generalist degree and not entirely sure what companies are suitable, fear not -- the first three sites have an “Arts and Humanities” filter in their search engines.

Careers fairs

There’s nothing like spending a half-day at the careers fair picking up freebies and chatting to recruiters. They’re a good next step if you’re serious about an internship with a big name company and have done some preliminary research into their internship or graduate programs.

Meeting representatives and recruiters allows you to get answers from real people, rather than answers from the other side of a screen. It’ll help you get a feel for what kinds of people the company is looking for, and even make some basic connections. (Of course, don’t forget to ask them for tips on what makes a successful application!)

Applying for internships

It’s always worth checking the credibility of any organisation you want to intern with -- have people mentioned good or bad experiences, is the work they do legitimate, are your roles and duties as an intern clearly laid out? Once you’ve narrowed your search down to a couple of internships, it’s time to do further research.

You need to be able to articulate why you want to intern at any organisation or company, and that requires knowledge of the organisation or company beyond “your brand is great” and “I want work experience”. What do you hope to gain from interning? How do you fit the company’s values? Make sure your applications are targeted, that you’re not just throwing yourself at any internship in your industry and hoping to land one. Consider your own personality, strengths and skills, and try to apply for internships that match them. If you know you don’t meet half the desired criteria of an advertised internship, then it’s probably best not to apply.

Which isn’t to discourage you from limiting your options. When you’re starting out, it’s okay to apply to as many places as possible just to get a feel for the entire application process. You need the experience of writing up cover letters and attending interviews, because it’ll serve you well when you start looking for a proper job post-graduation.

It’s a very, very good idea to ask for help and feedback on your application. Again, remember that your university’s careers centre pretty much exists for this reason. They can provide personalised advice on your resume and cover letter, and if fronting up to staff isn’t your cup of tea, there’s always the online resources.

International internships

International internships are the logical escalation of everyone and their hamster doing an internship. The “international” part adds a lot of value in soft skills (your independence, organisation, intercultural awareness, etc.) along with experience in your industry/field. Business is global now, and demonstrating your willingness to seek out international experience is a huge plus for employers. But as you can imagine, there’s a lot of preparation involved.

Finding an appropriate overseas internship

You can look for internships independently on sites like GoinGlobal, browse your university careers board, or apply through an organisation like The Intern Group. The last option is easier in the sense that the organisation will match you to a company, and may offer stipends or cover certain costs. Depending on the organisation, you might be able to access a range of other benefits like networking and social opportunities, professional development, and career training.

Regardless of how you look for an overseas internship, you want something that relates to what you’re studying. That’s also where applying through an organisation can help -- you tell them what you’re studying, and they fit you with one of their partner companies.

Affording the many costs

Many overseas internships tend to be unpaid, yet you have to fork out a lot of expenses for airfares, accommodation, visa fees, and daily living expenses (e.g. food, transport, leisure), not all of which will be covered by your sponsoring organisation. Many countries will require that you be able to show proof of available funds when applying for a visa, because they need to know you can financially support yourself for the duration of your stay.

You can finance your studies with OS-HELP, which is a loan available to students enrolled in a Commonwealth supported place who want to undertake some of their study overseas. You can access a maximum of two (2) OS-HELP loans over your lifetime.

Option two is applying for scholarships or grants that might cover part of your expenses. You can contact your university’s study abroad office for a better idea of what’s available and to determine if you’re eligible.

The complexity of visa application and work permit processes

Don’t underestimate how long it can take to acquire the correct documentation. Every country has different procedures, and some will take longer than others, but you should factor in a few months at most. Some types of visa need an in-person interview, and you have to travel to your city’s embassy or consulate for that. Be aware too that immigration requirements can and do change at short notice, and that you need to be on top of any changes to ensure you’ll be legally working in the country of your internship.

Allowing enough time to prepare

Travelling overseas to work isn’t something you can organise on short notice. You need to book airfares and arrange accommodation well in advance, make a list of all the things you need to pack, and if applicable, allow enough time to apply for and hear back from scholarship/grant providers. Between your organisation, you’ve got all the other minor inconveniences and hassles of student life to manage. So if you truly want an overseas internship experience, start preparing early.

Work Integrated Learning (WIL)

WIL simply refers to work experience that’s part of your university course, including internships, clinical and fieldwork. It’s good on a couple of levels:

Applying your university-acquired skills to the workplace;

Further developing your soft/transferable skills;

It’s part of your study, meaning that you’re doing work and study at same time, as opposed to fitting odd part-time hours around your timetable;

Your workplace rights are protected by arrangements with the university;

Your learning is structured in such a way that you benefit most;

Networking opportunities with reputable and even high-profile organisations like the Commonwealth Bank, the NSW Government, and various consulting firms (can depend on the university), leading to…

A ‘foot in the door’ for when you do graduate (I have a friend who did so well in one of Deloitte’s vacation programs that they were invited to return once they’d graduated.)

Universities are already moving towards a model of work integrated learning -- Usyd’s new Bachelor of Arts and Advanced Studies includes a fourth-year industry project that has you working on real-life problems and solutions, while the combined Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation at UTS includes a compulsory internship. Some universities have been using WIL for well over a decade, see the University of Newcastle and Macquarie University.

#my posts #unpaid internships #internships #work experience

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badxgirlxshimizu · 4 years ago

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Did Utsumi’s test. Pretty good description of how am I sexy badass, ha.

Type “The Entrepreneur” (ESTP-A)

Traits

Extraverted - 60%

Observant - 86%

Thinking - 86%

Prospecting - 76%

Assertive - 90%

Role Explorer

Strategy People Mastery

Introduction

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Entrepreneurs always have an impact on their immediate surroundings – the best way to spot them at a party is to look for the whirling eddy of people flitting about them as they move from group to group. Laughing and entertaining with a blunt and earthy humor, Entrepreneur personalities love to be the center of attention. If an audience member is asked to come on stage, Entrepreneurs volunteer – or volunteer a shy friend.

Theory, abstract concepts and plodding discussions about global issues and their implications don’t keep Entrepreneurs interested for long. Entrepreneurs keep their conversation energetic, with a good dose of intelligence, but they like to talk about what is – or better yet, to just go out and do it. Entrepreneurs leap before they look, fixing their mistakes as they go, rather than sitting idle, preparing contingencies and escape clauses.

Never Confuse Movement With Action

Entrepreneurs are the likeliest personality type to make a lifestyle of risky behavior. They live in the moment and dive into the action – they are the eye of the storm. People with the Entrepreneur personality type enjoy drama, passion, and pleasure, not for emotional thrills, but because it’s so stimulating to their logical minds. They are forced to make critical decisions based on factual, immediate reality in a process of rapid-fire rational stimulus response.

This makes school and other highly organized environments a challenge for Entrepreneurs. It certainly isn’t because they aren’t smart, and they can do well, but the regimented, lecturing approach of formal education is just so far from the hands-on learning that Entrepreneurs enjoy. It takes a great deal of maturity to see this process as a necessary means to an end, something that creates more exciting opportunities.

Also challenging is that to Entrepreneurs, it makes more sense to use their own moral compass than someone else’s. Rules were made to be broken. This is a sentiment few high school instructors or corporate supervisors are likely to share, and can earn Entrepreneur personalities a certain reputation. But if they minimize the trouble-making, harness their energy, and focus through the boring stuff, Entrepreneurs are a force to be reckoned with.

Most People Don’t Listen Well Enough

With perhaps the most perceptive, unfiltered view of any type, Entrepreneurs have a unique skill in noticing small changes. Whether a shift in facial expression, a new clothing style, or a broken habit, people with this personality type pick up on hidden thoughts and motives where most types would be lucky to pick up anything specific at all. Entrepreneurs use these observations immediately, calling out the change and asking questions, often with little regard for sensitivity. Entrepreneurs should remember that not everyone wants their secrets and decisions broadcast.

Sometimes Entrepreneurs’ instantaneous observation and action is just what’s required, as in some corporate environments, and especially in emergencies.

If Entrepreneurs aren’t careful though, they may get too caught in the moment, take things too far, and run roughshod over more sensitive people, or forget to take care of their own health and safety. Making up only four percent of the population, there are just enough Entrepreneurs out there to keep things spicy and competitive, and not so many as to cause a systemic risk.

Entrepreneurs are full of passion and energy, complemented by a rational, if sometimes distracted, mind. Inspiring, convincing and colorful, they are natural group leaders, pulling everyone along the path less traveled, bringing life and excitement everywhere they go. Putting these qualities to a constructive and rewarding end is Entrepreneurs’ true challenge.

Entrepreneur Strengths

Bold – People with the Entrepreneur personality type are full of life and energy. There is no greater joy for Entrepreneurs than pushing boundaries and discovering and using new things and ideas.

Rational and Practical – Entrepreneurs love knowledge and philosophy, but not for their own sake. What’s fun for Entrepreneur personalities is finding ideas that are actionable and drilling into the details so they can put them to use. If a discussion is completely arbitrary, there are better uses for Entrepreneurs’ time.

Original – Combining their boldness and practicality, Entrepreneurs love to experiment with new ideas and solutions. They put things together in ways no one else would think to.

Perceptive – This originality is helped by Entrepreneurs’ ability to notice when things change – and when they need to change! Small shifts in habits and appearances stick out to Entrepreneurs, and they use these observations to help create connections with others.

Direct – This perceptive skill isn’t used for mind games – Entrepreneurs prefer to communicate clearly, with direct and factual questions and answers. Things are what they are.

Sociable – All these qualities pull together to make a natural group leader in Entrepreneurs. This isn’t something that they actively seek – people with this personality type just have a knack for making excellent use of social interactions and networking opportunities.

Entrepreneur Weaknesses

Insensitive – Feelings and emotions come second to facts and “reality” for Entrepreneurs. Emotionally charged situations are awkward, uncomfortable affairs, and Entrepreneurs’ blunt honesty doesn’t help here. These personalities often have a lot of trouble acknowledging and expressing their own feelings as well.

Impatient – Entrepreneurs move at their own pace to keep themselves excited. Slowing down because someone else “doesn’t get it” or having to stay focused on a single detail for too long is extremely challenging for Entrepreneurs.

Risk-prone – This impatience can lead Entrepreneurs to push into uncharted territory without thinking of the long-term consequences. Entrepreneur personalities sometimes intentionally combat boredom with extra risk.

Unstructured – Entrepreneurs see an opportunity – to fix a problem, to advance, to have fun – and seize the moment, often ignoring rules and social expectations in the process. This may get things done, but it can create unexpected social fallout.

May Miss the Bigger Picture – Living in the moment can cause Entrepreneurs to miss the forest for the trees. People with this personality type love to solve problems here and now, perhaps too much. All parts of a project can be perfect, but the project will still fail if those parts do not fit together.

Defiant – Entrepreneurs won’t be boxed in. Repetition, hardline rules, sitting quietly while they are lectured at – this isn’t how Entrepreneurs live their lives. They are action-oriented and hands-on. Environments like school and much entry-level work can be so tedious that they’re intolerable, requiring extraordinary effort from Entrepreneurs to stay focused long enough to get to freer positions.

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daynamartinez22 · 4 years ago

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 322 Copy

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 322 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

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

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

Announcement

Hey, everybody, welcome welcome. Welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 13th of January 2021. And this is Episode 322 of Hump Day Hangouts. So if you’re watching this, thanks for joining us, or at least thanks for watching the replay. Either way, we’re happy you’re checking it out. And before we dive into questions, which we have several this week, we are going to say hi to everybody. And we got a couple quick announcements. So let’s get into that. I’m going to go counterclockwise here and Marco, your first step. How you doing today? Oh, Maginot, I’m good, man. What’s up? Let me look at this. Look at this. I can’t help it. I keep telling you guys, I was gonna do this for a year, I was gonna show my camera and show the weather in Costa Rica that I spent the previous It was like, What five years say and how beautiful the weather was, but never turned on the webcam. Well, now, here it is. This is what you get. You’re seeing it every week. As a matter of fact, when I do the other webinars, the cameras on and the weather change.

We’ll start talking about the webinars. We’ll circle back in a minute Marco. Gonna Say hi to everybody in the room. Not yet. Yeah, I want to make sure everyone’s on board about the webinar. So Chris, how you doing man?

Yeah, I don’t know. Like I’m thinking about moving to another country or like, I don’t know, like the discussing of lockdowns to Easter. And um, I’ve had it pretty much.

Yeah, like, that’s definitely not my portal. Yeah, gotcha. I thought this was gonna be about it being dark and cold. But yeah, fair enough. Oh, no. Like that would actually be nice. Like if I was able to go snowboarding and stuff. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, you know, somebody was sending me pics of themselves in the gym yesterday. It was none other than that Hernan. So somebody’s been keeping up the routine, man. Good on you for being able to do that and good workout program man.

That not good, man. Good. I’m good. I’m just enjoying Marcos Boca Juniors shirt. That’s pretty cool. So he’s represented and I’m good man. I’m good. I’m pretty good.

Yeah, I mean as long as the gym doesn’t close I’ll keep them going so up until you know when I stopped sending you pictures because they close so that was good and everyone is about her knowledge is being saved he’s got a face mask doing all that they got people spread out so it’s good to see but yeah, man That’s impressive. You’ve been able to keep up your routine for most of this time so good Anya

Bradley last but not least, how you doing today? Good man happy to be here busy as all can be. Which is a good start to this year so got a lot of stuff cooking. anxious to share it but I can’t just yet but it’s coming so we’ll talk about that when it’s ready. So on the personal side I know it’s cold you know in Virginia this time of year but you get out you like getting out in the mountains doing the the ATV stuff Have you been able to do any of that or is it kind of downtime for that? You well I get it for the New Year’s weekend for a long weekend went and rode then but yeah, it’s it’s definitely slower this time of year but don’t do as much riding it’s more about maintenance on the machines rebuilding and all that kind of stuff. So but I mean, I try to ride when I can but it’s not it’s not as fun when it’s stupid cold. That’s for sure. So yeah, so probably be another four or five weeks before I go on another ride. You get upgraded to snowmobiles to know and all that well 90% of people I ride with all right and those side by sides which are like these little cars, right like the buggies that have enclosures roll cages, a lot of them have heaters and they have stereos and all this shit. Not me I ride a quad a sport quad four wheelers, like two wheel drive. And I don’t want any of that shit. They all try to talk me into buying those side by sides. And I’m not interested in that i like i like the actual at the sport ATV. So well, this might be a little bit too much in the personal stories, but it reminds me I moved to upstate New York. I’ve never been in a place where you get snow that long. And we moved there when there wasn’t snow. And we were like walking along and are driving along and you’d see little stop signs there like this big. And they’d be like a waist height. They’re like here and I’m like, What in the hell is the one crossing? Yeah, like who’s driving here and that? Yeah, I had to wait till winter. I felt stupid. I didn’t want to ask him and then I was like, ah, I get it. Yeah, it’s a snowmobile trail.

All right. Well, Marco, like I said full circle. If you can let people know what’s going on with the webinars, the charity, how things are going with that. Can you do that now?

Well, I’m getting them set up.

We’ve had some people shuffle around, but I am planning to start them on January 25. Regardless whether people are are on on schedule or not, because we just have so much information to give

What’s working? I don’t know how much I usually give away the farm. Because I’m using I mean, I told you guys yesterday how I’m using a certain thing for SEO, not just for what everyone else is using it for and and to get fantastic results. Just everywhere. It’s a great SEO target people and and a link building tool as a matter of fact, when people don’t don’t see it that way, and I don’t understand why we’re supposed to be SEO, we’re supposed to be scientists, and we’re supposed to be investigating. And we, when we’re at this point, at the technical point, we’re supposed to be able to understand how things work and why.

And so when you do that, you say, oh, okay, so if this is this way, then I can do all of the things here. And I can push it. So now you understand where it where you’re concentrating the power and how it concentrates that you can push it. But the underlying power behind all this is when you give people the correct brand, the correct entity, you make all of the associations of everything that’s about your brand on the web. And it’s like it’s like a Christmas tree. It just lights up. Rob did a fantastic job in a webinar. Oh, no, sorry, po foo live, of explaining why. And he showed it. He showed Google and he showed what it is that we do. And he made the comparison, which I wasn’t expecting him to go that far. But it was it’s amazing to see how much we just mimic what’s going on how much we mimic these, these?

What would we call them agric aggregated data, points on all these nodes on the web? And how it is that we can then give Google what Google is looking for, which is what is your entity about? What is your your thing on the web? What is this thing about? Please tell me more because I need to know. And the more that you tell Google, the more that you get rewarded, so we’re going to go deep into that is going to be five or six different webinars, hour and a half. And the questions and answers and Rob will be there. Jordan’s gonna be there. Ah, Dixon, Jones of inlinks is going to be there confirm. As we did, we just we just got fantastic people coming to tell you how even unstructured data can be in a way structured so that it works for the bot. So it’s just a fantastic concept of one unstructured unstructured data, working with your, with your structured data in a way so that everything comes together. And if I confused you a bit, I understand, because these are like like heavy concepts. But we’re gonna try to break it down during the webinars. So look for it, I’ll go ahead and post the donation page. On the on the events page, guys, all you have to do is go and donate send an email to the email address that I’ll give you, and you’ll be put on the list you will be notified of when the first webinar is it’ll be on the 25th probably 5pm. Eastern, don’t hold me to that. Probably. Okay. So there you go. Donate whatever you can. Yeah, if you’re on the replay, go to semantic mastery comm HD questions, if you’re watching this on YouTube, and you can see the questions there. And you’ll be able to see the links Marco has and what exactly to do. And if you guys have any confusion at all about this, just send an email to support at semantic mastery comm we’ll get you sorted out.

Cool. All right, well, first things first, if you’re new to Semantic Mastery new to MGYB, you’re in the right place that we appreciate you watching and just want to say that one of the first things you should do is head over to the SEO shield comm you can find out how to shield your site, you don’t have to worry about algorithm updates again, and it’s free training. Get started there, you’ll hear his talking about the SEO shield. So if nothing else, it’s worthwhile to figure out what’s going on there. I know a lot of you already know but occasionally we get people each week showing up that are new and haven’t heard of it. That’s a great place to get started. Next up for that if you want repeatable processes for your SEO and getting results, pick up the battle plan and you get that at battle plan dot semantic mastery.com. After that, we also hear a lot from agency owners or consultants. If you want to get more clients, you want to grow your revenue you want to scale your team the answer to those should probably be Yes, depending on where you’re at. So that you can work less and earn more than head over to to x your agency.com. All right, we got a lot more information there for you. And last but certainly not least, if you’re ready to grow your digital marketing business, then you want to join an experienced community. All right, and that is what the mastermind is all about. And there’s more information at mastermind dot semantic mastery.com and I said last but not least, but I guess I kind of slipped up there because I’ve mentioned the SEO shield. If you want to get an SEO shield if you want to get links, you want to get press releases, you want to get all this good stuff. You

Find out more at mg y b.co. And that is the done for you services with all that good stuff I just mentioned.

So with that said, you guys, any other announcements before we dive into the questions?

Let’s do it.

All right, let me grab the screen.

You guys are seeing it now. Correct? Yeah, yes. Yep.

All right. So I pulled this up, because this was a blog post on majestic. The majestic blog that Rob shared back in December, they posted it, they published it December 15. But this is about the link graph. That majestic now has this tool that shows this is what Marco was talking about, guys, this is what we optimize for. When we do entity based SEO, it’s to it’s to mimic or to to build this sort of a structure. That makes sense. So that’s what that’s what Marco was just now talking about. In the opening was about how we do it, we build all these nodes. And that’s why we always talk about increasing your entity expanding your entity footprint, right? The footprint is always in the SEO world, people always think footprint is a bad thing. But when it comes to Semantic Web, it’s not when you’re when you’re talking about reinforcing and validating the entity, which is a really, really good blog post, by the way, I pasted this link in the chat box, guys. So you can scroll down and find it and click through, spend some time reading through this. It’s pretty cool. And it will hopefully shed some light on what it is that we’re actually doing when we do what we do. So Mark, do you want to comment on that before I move on? Because, you know, they focus on trust flow and citation flow, which is nothing about nothing? That’s their interpretation of an algorithm or how they place value on links, which to me, it just makes absolutely no sense unless you have a really powerful website, in which case, yeah, I do go use their, to their software to see, yeah, that the way that so all of those red dots on there are nodes. On the web, the lines are, of course, the connections between those nodes. And if you think of this in this space that we call the World Wide Web Wide Web, which is simply servers, you know, those red nodes, can can be servers, or they can be within the servers node within nodes within the service. But the only way that Google can get to those are through links. That’s why this is called a link. Graph. Those lines are representations of what the links are between those nodes. Otherwise, what you’re seeing is is a, what do you call it an ad ID, which is an identifier for the node, you name, the node. So this works two ways, because you can identify the node for Google in code. And then you can show what the relationship is between those links not only between those nodes, not only through the link, but through code. And you can tell Google, through code exactly how these links and how all of these nodes relate to one another within your link graph within your entity, and then I’ll call it within your entity link graph. Because it’s going to be everything that’s related to your entity rather than everything that’s on the web, which I think is what the representation is here.

Very cool. Well, thank you, Marco. So we’ll get into questions now.

Why Would You Use WordPress Tags When The Categories Mainly Serve A Similar Purpose?

All right, so the first question looks like for Blake SEO from a week ago, he says, what do you do with WordPress tags and why would you use them when categories mainly serve a very similar purpose? I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about this, because I’ve gone into a lot of detail in our process doc, which if you go to semanticmastery.com/process, go to the website section. And you’ll see where how I use tags to create location based silos. Again, I’m not going to go into detail into that right now, guys, because if you want to learn what I’m talking about, or know more about what I’m talking about, just go to semanticmastery.com/process, click on the website tab, and then go through the training there. And I talked about how I, you know, I want when I’m building local based sites, right, which is all I do anymore. Well, I say that now. I’m working on something now that’s a national site. But anyway, almost everything I do are local, locally based sites, right. And so for that, I use categories for the topical silos, which is the traditional silo structure, right? The traditional taxonomy and WordPress that we use for solid structure using categories. But then for location based silos. I use tags now because you can do some really cool and creative things with tags that you can’t get. You can’t do with categories.

And it also resolves some conflicts that occur when you try to share subcategories between categories. Right. And again, I talked about all of that in semantic mastery, comm slash process, it’s free, you guys can go check that out. And you’ll see when I talk about it on a very high conceptual level, because if you want more mechanics on a more technical level of it, of that process, you have to join either semantic mastery mastermind or the heavy hitter club. So, but again, it’s on a conceptual level, kind of like a high level overview of why I use tags the way that I use to create location based silos. It it works really, really well. I’ve been doing that for the last two or three years. And then Jeffrey Smith, right. Seo ultimate training goes he goes in depth about tags also. Yeah, and especially semantic tags, and the semantic relationships between the tags. And those, again, are nodes. And how you connect those nodes. Guys, it’s all about.

Alright, so the recurring theme here is going to be links and how those those links function with one another to create all of these relevant semantic relationships.

Yeah.

How Do You Create Ads For Two Spam GMB Listings While Avoiding Suspension From Google?

Okay, so rocket blasters up he says, last Hump Day Hangout, I asked if you can do Google Ads with spam listings, but I guess what I meant to ask was, how do you do it? Because I put my credit card on two accounts in my Google ads were suspended because Google can tell I was using my card for two different listings? Well, first of all, I have my credit card across several Google accounts, I’ve never had that problem. I don’t know why some people have that problem. I’ve never had that problem. Maybe (knock on wood) I’ve been lucky. But I’ve got my credit card associated with multiple Google accounts, both on the G Suite or Google workspaces level, but also on Google ads, a couple, maybe three different ads accounts. And so I’ve never had that issue. So I don’t know what the problem is with that. But I’ve heard other people say that too. So I’m not doubting you there. My question to you though, is why would you set up separate Google Ads accounts, why not just add a manager account and use your primary Google Ads account to serve ads to your even your spammed listings is my point, if you set yourself up as a manager where you connect the GMB to your Google Ads account. Whatever your primary ads account is, then you can still run ads through your primary account, even to spammed listings, which is what I do. That’s how I do everything. I have one primary Google Ads account. I manage several clients accounts as well. But that’s different. I’m talking about, I run, even for all of the projects that I work on for my own business.

I do it all underneath one primary Google Ads account, I have a couple other smaller accounts that I’ve done some stuff with, but they were more or less test accounts. But so again, if I’ve got it set, like because, and I’ve said this before, but for a lot of clients, I run ads through my account, and I just charge them a flat fee. Like, for example, for YouTube ads, when I run YouTube ads for clients, depending on what the campaign structure is, if it’s just a branding ad, which I was doing that for several years, just doing YouTube branding ads for clients, I would charge them $300 a month to run the ads. And that would pay for the ad spend plus my management fees, because I could get away with setting up ad campaigns for, you know, $2 or $3 a day. So 60 bucks to 90 bucks per month is what I would use out of that $300 a month that they were paying me but I would manage it all through my own Google Ads account. That way, it was just easier, is more efficient for me to manage all from one account then for me to constantly be logging in to other Google, you know, Google Ads accounts.

So I run everything through my own account. And you can do that again. For example, if I was let’s say I was running Google ads in the through my own account for a client, what I would do is I would connect the GMB from my client to my Google Ads account, you can link accounts that way. Okay, it’s very simple to do. You can do it from the GMB dashboard, by the way, and then I would link the accounts and then I would run ads from you know, YouTube ads where the link might be clicking the click right to target URL for the ad would link back to their GMB website or their Google Maps listing or their you know, their website or a specific landing page, whatever, whatever it is that I’m driving traffic to, which could be multiple targets. But it’s all done through my account that way. Again, if I’ve got a client where they’re, you know, they’re funding the ad account, and I’m just acting as a manager and they’re just paying the management fees, then I log into their account. That makes sense. So

rocket blasts are what I would suggest doing is running ads through one account that you have and that will become your master account. And here’s another reason for that. Because you guys know, if you’re not spending a certain threshold of money per month with Google ads, you have limit, they limit the data that they share with you in that Google Ads account. So why not have one account that you’ve aged that you have consistent spend with? And that just makes it a more, you know, a better account for you to manage? That would be my suggestion. Anybody else? Yeah. I mean, I’ve heard people mention that they’ve gotten it suspended for using the same the same credit card, right across multiple accounts. That’s why you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Either you do it the way that you do, or you do it the way that I do, which is just get a whole bunch of credit cards, and open a whole bunch of different accounts to run a whole bunch of different ads. So all of your eggs aren’t in one basket. I also know that you can get the virtual cards, right? Yeah, well, you can, you can create an endless amount of numbers through that virtual cart. The problem is that if your main card ever gets rejected, then all of the numbers related to that card, are also going to get rejected, then everything comes down. Again, putting all your eggs in one basket, you just have to be sure that it’s something that you keep an eye on, when it’s going to expire, you always keep it fully funded. You never miss any payments, you know, I mean, do you really have to be careful? Because I know someone that got that got tagged. He was using the virtual card with with virtual numbers. And I mean, literally dozens and dozens of numbers and everything came crashing down.

Can You Build Backlinks To Different Press Release URLs?

Okay, so rocket blaster says one more question. I received my press release. And in the Excel file was a list of URLs, can I build backlinks to those different press release URLs that came in the Excel file? Yeah, you can there’s only one thing that I would suggest, why not? Why Why not to do that? Which would be because some press release, you know, publication points, right? The they purge, oh, you know, 90 days, six months, whatever it may be.

So if you’re building links to press release URLs, that in 90 days, or 180 days, or whatever the threshold is the timeframe is that they purge, then when that when that platform deletes that press release from from the site, then you’ve just lost all that link building that you’ve done to that particular URL? It’s not that you can’t do it, you can, you absolutely can, you know, if you’re in a regular cycle of link building, and press release publishing, then it’s okay. Because you’re it’s it’s natural, looking to have links, you know, build links to a tier one link, and then the tier one link disappears. And it’s kind of natural cycling lifecycle of links, so to speak. But a better way, in my opinion, would be to, if you’ve got a drive stack, which you should you’ve been coming here and asking us questions, for weeks. So you should have a drive stack. Now, an SEO shield with a drive stack. Why not take that Excel file and upload it as a Google Sheet into one of your public drive stack folders, the appropriate folder, if you’ve done your theme mirroring, and your silo expansion stacks and everything, so put it in the appropriate folder, make it will be a public sheet at that point, and then you can build backlinks to that public sheet URL. Or you can publish that Google Sheet and get the embed code and do embed gigs from MGYB and link building to the embeds. Right. And that’s another way to do it. And the reason why I say that is because now you’re building links to all of the links in that Excel file, which was all the press release URLs. But you can also update that with additional press release URLs from you know, that you have published by just copying and pasting them into that same sheet. So in other words, you can power up that one sheet. And you can continue to power up that sheet. And you can just continue to add to that sheet as opposed to having if you build links directly to the press release URLs, and then they purge, you’ve lost that link building. Does that make sense? Mark, do you want to comment on that? Yeah, you know, I just submit the PDF.

To Dadea, I just give it. I just give him that I just give him the list of links, and I’m hammered. And then it goes in a cycle. And if they if they go, you know, off the active index, then so be it. Because it like, as you said, yeah, it is natural for stuff to fall off. So you shouldn’t just be link building to things that are always index. If you’re going to hit everything that did they just go ahead and hit it or if you’re going to do link building, hit everything. And if it falls off, well, so be it. Yeah, you did. You did lose that but you’re still powering up everything else. And by all means, include that PDF and that spreadsheet from from those links, excuse me from those press releases in the drive stack, include those so that every time you link build into your drive stack into the G site, whatever, it’s always getting links so you constantly link building, not only you’ll be link building to this shit, that’s probably not in the index. But the ones that do stay the permanent ones, then they get constantly, they get constant PageRank and ranking score. Yeah.

And so there’s one other thing that you can do that would would kind of stack our methods, which is kind of what I always try to do, which is take your G site from your SEO shield, write your Google site, create a page on it in the appropriate place within a proper silo structure, and then embed, take the folder, take the folder, and you can embed that folder into the G site. And now you can just take all of your Excel files for each press release that you get for that particular, you know, make sure it’s siloed correctly, but for that particular subject, or topic or whatever, and you can upload them into that g site folder, excuse me, that drive stack folder, and that folder is embedded into a G site page, you can constantly hit that g site page with backlinks and each time you have new press releases, you just add another Excel file which becomes a sheet into that public folder. And they’re all going to benefit from that one g site page that you just keep hammering with links. So that’s another way to do it so that you get more bang for your buck so to speak.

You just got to get creative guys if you understand like what we talked about with theme mirroring and again, go to semantic mastery comm slash process, a lot of that is explained there or you can go to SEOshield.com, sign up for the four day training, it’s free, and go through all that and you’ll start to get a more of a an understanding of what it is that we’re doing with the G sites, the drive stacks and you can start to use that that structure to your benefit. Okay.

All right. He says Lastly, I bought local GMB pro and I am trying to follow these steps to rank my GMB listings. Okay, yeah, you can do a ton of stuff with G sites, guys that and the whole SEO shield that it’s just insane. I mean, take your GMB posts and embed them. Like there’s just so much stuff that you can do. And you could use the G site for primarily everything. So

Is It A Good Idea To Buy Social Signals From SEO Butler And Point Them To Branded Syndication Ring Post URLs?

Alright, Mark says, Is it a good idea to buy social signals from a place like SEO Butler and point these to the branded syndication ring post URLs for a boost? Are they better spent directly to the money site? It’s a good question. I don’t know, I haven’t bought social signals in probably three or four years.

I just stopped doing it. Because I did a test three or four years ago, testing social signals directly to the properties that I was trying to rank and I didn’t see any like purchased social signals, if they were organic social signals, those tend to have an effect. But if they’re just spammed social signals, I didn’t see any at all movement period for my test about three or four years ago, and I tested I think, five or six different SEO, or excuse me, social signals services, SEO Butler, I’m not I can’t remember if that was, it’s not SEO Butler anymore, but I can’t remember if that was one of them or not, it might have been, there was a service that I saw a little bit of movement from that was tiered social signals, which would be like, you know, you’d share the money page, or the you know, the service would share the money page to some social profiles. And then there would be activity on that shared post from that social proof, if that makes sense. So in other words, like one of the, you know, Facebook share profiles, it would share the target URL, what I was trying to promote. And then there would be comments, likes and shares of that Facebook post, if that makes sense. That had a little bit of an effect. And that was again, three or four years ago, probably four years ago now. But that was the only one that had any effect on SEO, from my test. Again, several years ago, things may have changed, but I can’t imagine that spam social signals got any more powerful? In fact, it would, it’s likely it’s logical that it’s it’s more.

You know, it’s tiered social signals and having relevancy, you know, and all of that, I think would be more important, which is, again, why I just don’t buy fake social signals anymore. So I can’t tell you whether that would help or not, because I just don’t know, I don’t I don’t think that it would, but I haven’t tested it. What do you think, Marco?

I think a better way. We talked about this last week, I suggest that you go Now listen, is that I don’t want to answer. And I’m going to give you a further answer. But go back and watch what our answer from last week. Because we really went into detail into detail on this. What I am going to tell you is you’re better off, like buying the social signals from the social media that you’re trying to target. And you can send people to other places or you can send them to your website, wherever it is that you want to send these people. And now what you’re doing is you’re sending someone that might and if you’ve done a really good job of targeting this person, and reaching out and putting the ad in front of the person that’s looking for it

You’re likely to get a conversion. Whereas if you’re just buying some odd social signals from whomever, they’re not really interested in your stuff, they’re not interested in buying.

And that conversion is not likely to happen, I’m always going to go with how I’m likelier to get a conversion. So if I can pay Facebook, for ads, Hernandez does a great job. If I can pay Instagram, if I can pay whomever, and it doesn’t take a lot, I’m telling you, you said at the beginning a $200 a month budget, it might might sound like less 20 $400 a year. But within a couple of months, it should run itself, the ads should run themselves. And you should make enough money from that where you can start investing more money into your ads, if you’re going to use them, right for social signals for branding, and however else it is that you want to use them. But also because these people will convert at the end of the day, these are people who are interested enough in your ad to click on it to see what it is that you’re trying to sell or whatever it is that you’re trying to do.

Yeah, and just to kind of expand on that briefly is think about relevancy, right? When you’re buying spam social signals, they’re just I mean, why even if the profiles have been built up to look real and things like that, if that if those profiles that are being used to produce or provide those social signals, chances are there is a huge wide range of, you know, topics that that profile is interested in, right, that has an affinity for. Right, that makes sense. So it’s going to be very, very broad. And I guess that’s okay. But my point is, if you can buy social signals from real people from true, relevant audiences, right, so people that have a genuine interest, how do you do that? Well, you can do it from Facebook, you can do it in Google Now, which you can go in. And it’s called intent based or interest based targeting. Right. So you can go in and you can buy traffic from I do Google ads, I don’t do any Facebook ads, I just don’t. So I’m going to speak about this from the Google Ads standpoint, you can go into Google ads, and from YouTube, or from the display, network, whatever you can go in and buy in market audiences, or life event audiences, or you can create your own audiences, right. So interest based targeting. So you can go in and it’s called a custom audience. And you can do that through keywords and or URLs of sites that somebody that would be interested in your product or service that you’re trying to promote, would would likely be visiting. And so Google will create your own custom audience based upon the intent criteria or the interest criteria that you set. So now if you’re buying traffic signals from a real relevant audience, that is has a true or genuine interest in the product and or service that you’re trying to promote. Then now you’re getting that activity relevance trust and authority signals, right art that we always talk about to you directly to your properties. And then if they decide to engage by liking, sharing, whatever commenting, then now you’ve got an even heavier weighted signal than just buying spam social signals from general profiles out there that you know have no true affinity or interest in any one thing. That makes sense. It’s a heavier weighted signal is my point. So again, I don’t know I haven’t tested any spam social signals in years I just stopped using them years ago because I didn’t see any any benefit in them. So I just don’t know if anything has changed. I can’t imagine that they’ve gotten any stronger though. So I mean, there is some benefit there is to like jumpstart, but if it’s not replaced by real signals, it just dies. That’s that’s what I’ve seen. I don’t know some people I don’t I know that I see them in Facebook. Sometimes they say that they have success with spamming all of these things. I see it I see it I see the kickstart and then I see it diet because you guys know I’ll test some fiber I’ll take us I’ll go and buy some I’ll go and see someone say okay, Pinterest, good enough for AdSense I’ll go check it out Pinterest or this traffic or that traffic good enough it is and I’ll go test it out. But no, no, no, it never has the power or the effect or the ability to make your money like real ads real people interested in whatever it is that you’re doing.

How Do You Market Niche Sites With GMB?

Okay, so next question says I have a shopping cart website that is the root domain however, I decided to diversify my website to create sub directory blogs using WordPress to create different niches. I have 50 WordPress niche blogs and directories. How do I market my niche sites with GMB?

Uh, well, you know, local is relative, we talked about that or Marco always says that.

I don’t know how much I can talk about it here because yeah, you’re saying no, no, I don’t know how much we can talk about it here but I would suggest either joining the heavy hitter club for local GMB pro. You get access to the Facebook group, but then you’d be able to get questions answered on how to apply that on a national level as well. But you can you can do a lot of really cool things with GMBs, it doesn’t have to be like a strictly local business, right.

I still think I don’t know. Because I don’t know exactly what your setup here is. But you know, 50 word. That’s a lot of damn WordPress blogs to be maintaining. So I’m not I don’t I don’t know what you’re doing with that. But yeah, again, I’m sorry, I can’t really get into detail here.

We talked about how you can use GMB for kind of what Marco was talking about at the very beginning of this webinar. First. There’s some really powerful things you can do with GMB on even a national or even a global scale. For even, you know, projects or businesses that aren’t technically local businesses. It makes sense to have a GMB because of some of the things that you can do with that. That’s about as far as I can take it in a free setting like this. Come join the mastermind or heavy hitter club or local GMB pro and we’d be happy to give you a lot more guidance on that. This the method that I’m using right now how I’m using the local GMB. Okay, let’s make this clear. Local GMB Pro, I’m still using to get fantastic results locally, that hasn’t changed. The only thing that’s changed about local GMB pro and why we have not updated the training is that you need to fill out as much of the information as possible before you send for that pin. If you’re going to get a pin. That’s it. That’s the only thing so that you never have to go back and change that information. because that’ll get you suspended sometimes not often not not everyone, not always, but it does get get you suspended.

So when we go and tell you optimize your information, get it to 100% including images, local, whatever you can get in there, so that you never have to go back so that you can then focus on the other things that we teach in local GMB Pro. And I’m not going to go into what we teach in local GMB Pro. that to this day is getting me fantastic results. But then I started thinking, because I always do well how then do I use this in other ways? And I did. And so now I’m using it.

But the only place that I’m teaching this is in the heavy hitter club right now.

Because I want people to come back like like on what was it last? Last night? on our mini mastermind? Someone came and said, Look, I was stuck with a client. I couldn’t figure out what to do. I went and I used your GMB method. And within three days,

I was ranking him. I wasn’t I was getting the results that I needed for him. Because he was the client was complaining. So three days. And it’s that quick. Why? Because posts, they they still index almost automatically, yeah, almost immediately.

And then they stay in there in the mobile index. And then Google gives you notifications on desktop that your post is about to expire. It doesn’t. It’s still there, it’s still in that role in search. And so if you understand it, see, the reason why I don’t want to give most of this away is because someone just take it off for the training from our ship and say it’s there. So I’m not going to do that. I’m sorry, come to our group. And I’ll be more than happy to cover this for you. If you have any questions. I’ll be happy to go over them with you so that you can get the best results possible, not only nationally, but you can go globally. You can go regionally. You can you can use it however you want. It just takes just a little bit of tweaking. That’s all. So there you go. heavy hitter club. That’s your best bet for that.

How Do You Show Line Of Products In GMB?

Also on GMB, how do I show my line of products? Well, depending on what type of GMB It is like in other words, what type of category business category you select. You ought to be able to add products into your GMB for example, you know, even some of the contractor GMB profiles have a section for services that you can add and also a section for products which I’m not even sure why because some of these contractors don’t have products that they sell. It’s just services yet. Some of them still have a products tab available in GMB and I’ve never, I’ve never added a product to GMB just because none of my clients actually sell products. They just sell services. So I’ve not even explored that tab in GMB. But I know there’s one there. So I you know, I don’t know what category you’re in. But it’s likely that you will have a product tab in GMB. And you can just go in and add products there as far as I know. Have you any experience with that or not? Oh, yeah, yeah. Not all GMB’s have products. And not all GM bees have services. Right? It’s really interesting Google, the Google give us and the Google taketh away. And you just have to work with whatever it is that they’ve given you. If you’re in a niche when you do have a product or when you’re expected to have a product line, then you will have a product tab available. And then you have to go to the process of getting approved. Because there is a process that you have to follow when you when you’re inserting them. And then they have to get approved. Once that happens, then it’s you just keep adding them if you have new products, or you just keep promoting a product, it’s really that simple. Yeah. And it’s cool, because I know it’ll, it’ll push a featured snippet or a rich snippet, I should say in the Knowledge Graph or the excuse me knowledge panel with products that creates like a little product carousel, right.

So kind of like the GMB posts. So it’s pretty cool.

By the way, I meant to show this to you earlier, Marco, I’m not going to pull it up. Now, because we’re on Hump Day Hangouts. I’ll talk about it maybe in the mastermind, but a structured data, having the structured data on a local page, like it’s really cool. Now, when I do a brand search for a particular company, like I’ve got Not only do I have knowledge panel on the right, but at the very top, I have position zero. Now it’s a it’s a cool Rich Snippet for the brand name with the featured image from that, that landing page. It’s really cool. Like, that’s the first time I saw it was today. So not only is there a knowledge panel, but there’s also a position zero or rich snippet. position zero record snippet. Yeah. And that’s just from having proper structured data on the page.

How Do You Deal With A Suspended Drive Stack Or GSite?

So anyways, next question was what would your plan? What would be your plan in the event a drive stack or G site was reported in suspended? You know, I’ve not had I’ve not experienced that.

If I did, I would try to request reconsider reinstatement, right.

And here’s my logic for that. Why would a drive stack or G site, especially the G site be reported and suspended? I mean, it’s a real site, right? I mean, like, unless you’re doing something incredibly spammy with it, which we do a lot of that too. It’s a real site, why would it get suspended? You know what I mean? Like, my question is, like, it might have been reported in suspended because it might be Google’s default to just suspend shit when people complain about stuff, which is, you know, canceled culture. At its at its best. But my point is, I would I would dispute it is my an ask, try to get it reinstated first.

If you can’t get it reinstated, which again, I’m not sure why. It doesn’t make sense to me for somebody be able to report something in or decide to just be taken down unless you’ve been doing some really, really spammy shit with it. But I don’t know. What do you think Marco, the only time I’ve seen what suspended was when when we had meta refresh. And it was to what they call it a forum, right? a contact form. Because that’s phishing, Google takes that especially you can’t go from a contact form on Google to somewhere else, you can’t go from Google, especially meta refresh, to a form because that’s, that’s a recognized form of phishing, we got tagged for that, we got suspended, that you got to understand we’ve built 1000s, literally 1000s of these 1000s. And I have member, Paul, if I’m not gonna mention his last name, but he was begging us to get one taken down because the government was on them. They were on his brother, he was, he was supposed to take it down, he had to take it down. And he couldn’t get in there. And so even reporting it, even trying to get it suspended. And he couldn’t do it. I don’t know what finally happened. All of you listening to this, let us know what happened with that with a decided drive stack. Because he lost access to it is what happened, he lost the logins, whatever it was, and he couldn’t get back in to put a private as it was. I’m not laughing at you, man. I’m just laughing at the situation. He was in a situation where his brother was in real trouble. And we couldn’t get in there to do anything for him. Google just wouldn’t allow it. And they would not suspend it. So looking at this scenario, it isn’t likely that someone’s going to come along and report you anyway. And if they do, Google trust itself, we bank on that. I think we literally place all of our money on Google trusting itself. Proven is that theory, by the way. And so I don’t I don’t see this. And in the event that Google suspends it, we have the software to put it back up somewhere else.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And that’s all I would say is, you know, if I were to lose one, I just rebuild it. Right? I mean, I would rebuild it i i’d have it rebuilt, so to speak. So but um, you know, that kind of stuff does happen occasionally. Not not. I’ve not seen a G site. I’ve seen I’ve seen a Google account suspended. Yeah.

But not the actual, just that, you know, drive stack in G site itself.

What Does The Embeds Products In MYGB Means?

Alright, heads up, says I understand what an actual embed is. I just don’t understand what or how embed packages from MGYB works. I already had my SEO shield, I did a natural link building package. I’m curious about embeds. Now, are these embeds on your network? slash sites? Yeah. So our link building network, Daddy, our link building manager has been, you know, building that network and feeding it with additional sites and theming them. So we have like, categorized link, you know, web 2.0 networks that we use for that he uses for building links so that we can, you know, there’s topical relevancy in the blogs that we’re using to build links back to your target URLs. So with the embed package, okay, so you understand the link building side, right? So he’s got, what over 2 million now? He’s got it, I’ll have to ask whatever. He’s got millions, a million plus web to Dotto sites that networks that are themed aged, topically, you know, themed in the topic, cat topical categories, excuse me. And when you buy a link building package, he goes out and places, you know, relevant articles on those web two Dotto paid sites, you know, and with link building, you know, tart with links pointing to your target URLs, whatever you submit it. Okay, so you understand that? Well, the embeds is the exact same network. The only difference is instead of pointing links from the articles on those web two Dotto networks to your target URLs. Instead, you take the iframe the he he takes the iframe, the embed code, and embeds that in those articles on those web two dot o pages. And then you can link build that as the second tier, right? You link build to those pages or posts on those web two dot o networks where your properties or assets are embedded. Does that make sense? So in other words, instead of having a hyperlink on the web two dot o network, pointing to your target URLs, instead, your properties, whatever you submitted, your embed codes are embedded into those posts on the web to auto network. So they’re surrounded by relevant content on themed networks. And then if you order the second tier link building to the embeds, then the the then there’s link building done to those posts on those web two Dotto networks where your embeds sit. Does that make sense?

All right. comments on that? Not good enough. He says, What am I actually buying when I buy embed packages? Like what’s the deliverable I get from MGYB team when buying links straightforward. When buying links, straightforward, I get a spreadsheet of links Buying Event sort of confused on what the end product is, it’s the same thing, you get the exact same type of report that you do from a link building report, if you click So again, if you buy, you know, whatever 2500 and beds, then you’re going to get a G sheet, a Google Sheet that has your 2500 embed URLs, where you can click through and go view the post or page, whatever, where your embed your iframe resides. Does that make sense? So again, it’s that you get the exact same type of report, as you would a link building report. It’s the same network. So.

Is Syndwire And Other Social Bookmarks Still Useful To Get Social Signals For The Website?

Okay, hopefully that clears that up for you. The next question is, are old tools like Syndwire and other social bookmarks still useful for anything in SEO? Or to get social signals for our websites? If so, what’s a good way to get different signals from places like Reddit, Twitter, Twitter, etc? I don’t know. I stopped using those tools a long, long time ago.

I’m sure I still have Syndwire somewhere, because I had, I had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of probably well over 1000 profiles in there. And I used it quite a bit. But that was years ago, I stopped using that stuff years and years ago.

I don’t know I honestly I can’t answer that. It would probably those tools can probably be useful for like building links to your tier one entity assets or to you know, use them as second tier or third tier links to stuff. I don’t know that I would do it directly to the money site. In fact, I wouldn’t do it directly to the money site, g site.

Yeah, drive stack prop profiles, and tier one entity assets, stuff like that. I just I don’t run any of those tools just because it’s too time consuming for me. And I don’t really enjoy doing that kind of stuff. There’s probably a use for them, but I don’t use them. What do you think Marco? I haven’t used bookmarking sites other than what’s in our syndication network in forever. Yeah, because we get really good results. By the way, we’re attacking the entity and we’re the way that we do things. I mean, it’s just the results are there and there’s no reason to go and get anything extra and when we do need extra power, we can go get it elsewhere, rather than from a bookmarking sites not to say that there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t know enough anymore about social bookmarking or bookmarking sites, and whether they have SEO value to tell you whether they do. So I’m not knocking them. I’m not saying I’m just saying I don’t use them.

Yeah.

Okay, uh, if so what’s a good way to get different signals from places like Reddit, Twitter central? Well, we talked about that, in the beginning of today, you know, paid traffic from relevant audiences from those platforms is the best way to do it. You know, it’s because you’re buying real traffic that is from relevant audience that, you know, stands a good chance of actually converting of whatever your conversion goal may be to become an opt in a lead, request an estimate by a product, whatever your conversion goal is. So that’s just the way that I do it also. Alright.

Is There Any Other Use For Tools Like MTurk For SEO?

Next, in the webinar from last week, somebody mentioned CTR, which click through rate using mturk Mechanical Turk, which is effective, which isn’t effective much now. Is there any other tools any other use for tools like em Turk for SEO? I don’t know. Because I don’t use that for anything else.

Like micro task workers was one of them. I can’t mturk Mechanical Turk, which is an Amazon company, same thing. It’s like micro task workers. It’s a micro task platform. I used it specifically for CTR spam, right for manipulating click through rate. But that was years ago, because then then it was automated by a lot of these spam bots, these CT spam bots. And now I just use paid traffic. So I don’t know, I don’t know what else. I mean, if you’ve got small tasks that you need repetitive tasks that can you cannot, you know, hire somebody to do like through something like that, then then I’m sure there might be some other uses for it. But it’s, it’s been a long time since I’ve hired any micro task workers. So can’t really give you any guidance on that. Anybody know? Okay.

Would You Advise Linking City Pages From The Homepage And To Each Other?

Austin, Dom, what’s up, man? He says, would you advise linking the city pages for the from the homepage, and then linking city pages to each other? This is for a site with about 10 or 15 to 15 or so city pages, I would not. And the reason why I wouldn’t do that. Now linking From the homepage to individual city pages that may be fine, depends on you know what it is you’re trying to do. But for example, like if you had like a locations tab in the navigation menu, and you hover over that tab, and it’s a drop down, and it’s got you know, 10 City, landing like 1010, you know, 10 links to go in each city page, that may be fine, why I wouldn’t link from one city page to another, I mean, you may be able to get away with it, there has to, I need more context to be able to provide any guidance on that. Because the way that I do things again, Austin dawn, you can go to semantic mastery comm slash process, which you’ve probably already seen that by now. But if you haven’t go through that, go go to the website tab and click watch the training, I talked about silo structure, and specifically location silos using tags within WordPress.

And the reason so I wouldn’t be linking between cities cross linking from one city page to another because I silo my locations into location based silos. And so if I want to link from one location silo to another for user experience for navigation purposes, that which makes sense, right? That’s logical in some cases to do that, then I would do that with a nofollow link so that I’m not bleeding the theme of that location silo into another because that creates confusion, right? ambiguity between silos between topical themes, in this case, their location based themes. Does that make sense? So I wouldn’t do that I would have a silo structure on my main money site, there. And again, semantic mastery comm slash process, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. I use categories for topical silos, and tags for location based silos. And I keep all of my silos incredibly tight, all the internal linking between them, because as Mark was talking about at the beginning of this webinar, and again, go look at that Majestic blog post that I posted earlier talking about the link graphs, and if you understand how to amass or accrue power in certain spots, and then how to direct that power through very targeted points. And again, silo structures, how you can accomplish that, then you understand why you wouldn’t want to cross link between location pages, because you can essentially bleed any power from any one silo to where it’s kind of like it becomes more of a flat site. In other words, you ambigua each one of the topical themes from each silo, and I wouldn’t want to do that. But again, without having more context, I can’t give you real solid guidance on that. Hopefully that didn’t confuse anybody. Mark, do you want to comment on that?

Yeah, I just wouldn’t, I just wouldn’t because

I hate having to answer these things. It’s not the way that I silo is that the way that I would recommend siloing? I don’t recommend breaking up the way that it’s siloed. If you want further insight into that, you’re welcome to join me in the heavy hitter club where we go in depth into why you don’t want to do that.

Yeah.

Is There Any SEO Benefit To Google Redirects?

Okay, the next question is, is there any SEO benefit to Google redirects? Like? Yes, there is I can’t disclose why. But there is absolutely a benefit to that.

Guys, you don’t have to come here and ask us. Try it. Yeah.

Yeah, I see how it works. I can’t disclose why I’m here, because that’s an RYS Academy secret.

I can’t disclose that here. There. There is absolutely a benefit to using that link that that URL format, but it’s a redirect from Google, but only if you know how to use it correctly. And that is taught in our ys Academy. So I can’t share that here. We vote we’ve always had this power in using Google to rank in Google rank your shit Academy. rank your shit Academy reloaded? The foundation of it all? is Google trust Google. So we’re going to go and we’re going to draw as much power as we can out of Google. And anytime that you can find a Google property to manipulate just learn to manipulate it. That’s it. Yeah, that’s concept.

Which Server Do You Use?

So there’s bb. It’s not too many questions, BB. Baby. He says, Hey, guys, which server do you use? I used to I use either liquidweb. While you I mean, I use both. I use liquidweb. And I use WP x hosting.

I like both of them. And also for a lot of like tests. I use siteground reseller for like, a lot of like test sites, and, you know, like feeder sites and things like not necessarily PBNs, I could use it for that. But that I wouldn’t put money sites on siteground. Not Not, not reseller hosting for sure. But um, for money sites, I use liquid web or web hosting.

Yeah, I use liquid and I use AWS, I use Amazon, I use the shit out of Amazon. Everybody does. I don’t know how anyone can go without using Amazon nowadays. But if it’s something that I really care about, where like, I don’t want to have

What do you call it? Someone that goes that has to go into the server, I don’t want to have to pay someone, I want to just pay someone to go and talk to the liquid web support. From that fantastic you go you call them. They’ll do whatever it is that you need them to do. They’ll help you with whatever help you need. Those people, I don’t know how they do it. But I can’t recommend them enough. You have to speed you got a VPS By the way, and then you can just keep upgrading, you can upgrade to a dedicated server. But you’ll never need to pay somebody else something someone outside of liquid web to come and work on the server because they’ll do it. You can’t lose. By the way, look at the list of clients who use liquid web and you’ll understand why we use liquid whey. Yeah, and I mean again, I just want to reiterate, I also use WP x I’m really happy with WP x also. That’s Terry Kyle is behind that and their support is fantastic a WPX as well it rivals liquid web support.

So again, I’m really really happy with WPX I’ve been I’ve had a you know hosting account with them for like three years, and they keep rolling out new features that don’t cost anything else. Like it’s just they keep adding additional features and their support is super super fast. You can live chat like almost instantaneously. So it’s just it’s a really good service. So either one or the other. Both of them I endorse both. Alright, so then the next question is what is happening with Virginia SEO so you’re probably talking about the SEO or excuse me the the first drive stack that I ever built the crude one from the Virginia SEO project from May 2015. I went in about I don’t know five or six weeks ago and made some changes to it. And it tanked

yeah did it thank you I don’t even know if it’s in the I haven’t looked at it in a few weeks but I know a few weeks ago it was it wasn’t even on page one anymore I can guarantee is still fresh paid I don’t even have to look it can’t have fallen off that much yeah did it did let’s let’s do the search right now man up I’ll put my money where my mouth go. I mean, maybe one of the keywords there was few several variations that I just use SEO virgin it just go to the top i o virgin SEO.

Okay, they’re using schema bamboo marketing. They’re now benefiting. See, this is a site. No, that’s not mine.

Using a G site, look at that. Yeah, somebody else’s. Okay. But this big bamboo that’s pushed by by all that that is Yeah. And that that might have been one one. So I did I went in and made some changes to it because I said, You know what, I ought to probably go in and make some updates to this and then, but honestly, it was it was it was just because I had some spare time, which is I don’t want anymore at the time when I went into play with it. And after I made those changes it tanked. I was like, Oh shit. And I honestly it was I don’t? I am not looking for.

Look at that. It’s not even on page two. Oh, so you killed it. You killed Virginia steel. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it’s still indexed. But they’re not. Bradley, shame on you. Yeah. And it was it was funny because like, honestly, I’m not interested in spending any time on trying to revive that, because it was great to point to for examples of how powerful drive stacks can be. But I went in and made some changes, like I said, there it is right there. So on Virginia SEO agency, it’s at the bottom of page two. And I promise you remember guys, it stayed ranking for five over five years, about five and a half years. And I did nothing to it, no link building nothing and went up about six or eight months ago, when I noticed it had dropped three or four spots from number one down to like, you know, four or five, for several keywords, I did one freakin press release. And it pushed it right back up to number one for about four or five months. And then I went in and made some changes. So like I said, if I wanted to spend some time on this, or money for that matter, not even time I could just buy some link building gigs to this and probably push it back up. But it was used for nothing other than just as as a as a, you know, something to show. I don’t, I will not take just general SEO clients anymore at all. So if I was when I because I did generate leads from that. But I won’t, you know, now unless they’re a Tree Service contractor, I flat out won’t even quote anybody. So like, there’s really no point in me spending any time or money on that site anymore. I’m working on a national project right now that I will share when the time is appropriate. And that’ll be you know, kind of the new case study that I’ll run with for Semantic Mastery for the next several years. Because it’s a it’s the biggest project I’ve ever worked on in my digital marketing career. And I’m super excited about it. But I can’t share what that is right now. So I but we can shed defeat flower? Sure you can. We can do that. Well, why don’t you do just let’s do spend another minute and just real quick.

Number one, number two, number two and organic. Thank you. And the other one, the root domain, the self hosted domain for that same project. So number four, inorganic decide those got a proper drive stack and, and a property site. One of those is the G site which outperforms everything. So there you go. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And sometimes you have Bradley breaking shit. Yeah. But for five and a half years, other than like I said about six or eight months ago, I did one press release because it dropped about middle of page one, after five years with no link building nothing. It was a number one position and every now and it would bounce to like number two or number three, but for four or five main keywords, it was always ranked number one for years. And what’s funny is some of those competitors now that are have Google sites listed on page one, I promise you that they went and either bought drive stacks from us or reverse engineered and built exact replicated what I did and those were other SEO Virginia SEO agencies that did that. So for five years, I was ranked number one with no link building no press releases nothing from a very crude SEO shield, and wasn’t even called that a drive stack that I built. It wasn’t built properly wasn’t interlinked properly. And there was nothing done to it. So

I’m a believer.

And I’m gonna remain a believer. I don’t care if it’s dropped to page two. Now when I haven’t done anything Well, again, I edited it and I shouldn’t have So anyway, that was it. I think we got to all the questions today. No, I think they’ll beautiful. Well, thanks for being here, guys. We will see you all

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 322 Copy published first on your-t1-blog-url

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localwebmgmt · 4 years ago

Text

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 322 Copy

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 322 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

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

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

Announcement

Yeah, I don’t know. Like I’m thinking about moving to another country or like, I don’t know, like the discussing of lockdowns to Easter. And um, I’ve had it pretty much.

That not good, man. Good. I’m good. I’m just enjoying Marcos Boca Juniors shirt. That’s pretty cool. So he’s represented and I’m good man. I’m good. I’m pretty good.

All right. Well, Marco, like I said full circle. If you can let people know what’s going on with the webinars, the charity, how things are going with that. Can you do that now?

Well, I’m getting them set up.

We’ve had some people shuffle around, but I am planning to start them on January 25. Regardless whether people are are on on schedule or not, because we just have so much information to give

Find out more at mg y b.co. And that is the done for you services with all that good stuff I just mentioned.

So with that said, you guys, any other announcements before we dive into the questions?

Let’s do it.

All right, let me grab the screen.

You guys are seeing it now. Correct? Yeah, yes. Yep.

Very cool. Well, thank you, Marco. So we’ll get into questions now.

Why Would You Use WordPress Tags When The Categories Mainly Serve A Similar Purpose?

Alright, so the recurring theme here is going to be links and how those those links function with one another to create all of these relevant semantic relationships.

Yeah.

How Do You Create Ads For Two Spam GMB Listings While Avoiding Suspension From Google?

Can You Build Backlinks To Different Press Release URLs?

Is It A Good Idea To Buy Social Signals From SEO Butler And Point Them To Branded Syndication Ring Post URLs?

You’re likely to get a conversion. Whereas if you’re just buying some odd social signals from whomever, they’re not really interested in your stuff, they’re not interested in buying.

How Do You Market Niche Sites With GMB?

Uh, well, you know, local is relative, we talked about that or Marco always says that.

But the only place that I’m teaching this is in the heavy hitter club right now.

How Do You Show Line Of Products In GMB?

So kind of like the GMB posts. So it’s pretty cool.

How Do You Deal With A Suspended Drive Stack Or GSite?

So anyways, next question was what would your plan? What would be your plan in the event a drive stack or G site was reported in suspended? You know, I’ve not had I’ve not experienced that.

If I did, I would try to request reconsider reinstatement, right.

But not the actual, just that, you know, drive stack in G site itself.

What Does The Embeds Products In MYGB Means?

Is Syndwire And Other Social Bookmarks Still Useful To Get Social Signals For The Website?

Yeah.

Is There Any Other Use For Tools Like MTurk For SEO?

Would You Advise Linking City Pages From The Homepage And To Each Other?

Yeah, I just wouldn’t, I just wouldn’t because

Yeah.

Is There Any SEO Benefit To Google Redirects?

Okay, the next question is, is there any SEO benefit to Google redirects? Like? Yes, there is I can’t disclose why. But there is absolutely a benefit to that.

Guys, you don’t have to come here and ask us. Try it. Yeah.

Yeah, I see how it works. I can’t disclose why I’m here, because that’s an RYS Academy secret.

Which Server Do You Use?

Okay, they’re using schema bamboo marketing. They’re now benefiting. See, this is a site. No, that’s not mine.

I’m a believer.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 322 Copy published first on your-t1-blog-url

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zed-air · 4 years ago

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Pandemic Thoughts

______

Strange times. Strange thoughts.

Assorted and unstructured. Updated as needed.

- - - - -

2020-04-23

I spent a lifetime in the service industry, and I’m still very emotionally invested in it. A lot of restaurants will not survive the pandemic. Period. Pick a few favourites and support the hell out of them, as regularly as you can, if you want them to still be around a few months from now. Preferably independent ones that enrich your community.

For those using third-party delivery services to bring you dinner, be aware: for every $10 a restaurant receives through Skip the Dishes sales, $3 of that sale goes to these delivery services (only $7 goes to the eatery). The pub/restaurant where I worked all those years wouldn't have lasted long with those margins. (link)

I've been hammering on about this for a while, and I'll probably continue doing so. If you're in a position to support local independent restaurants, go to the effort of calling them yourself and collecting your own order. Many offer their own delivery service, so use that when needed. Avoid using a third-party service unless necessary.

I still speak to local restauranteurs and pals in the service industry. They concur: these third-party delivery services are not about supporting local eateries. They were primarily useful for supplementing, not replacing, dine-in business. Overall, they are about convenience - and they are now crippling the businesses trapped into using them.

- - - - -

2020-04-27

Before I left the service industry, I fully expected to spend the rest of my life as a publican, performer, and venue operator. Had my fortunes been different and that proved possible, the current situation would have destroyed whatever I had built to this point. This will likewise be the case for countless others worldwide right now, including established successful ones. (link)

I have no idea what will remain after this - when we reach a point that public gatherings are an option again. Will there be anywhere left to gather? Will there be any venues left where performers and audiences can safely meet? Safely rehearse? Safely travel?

Have I played my last concert? Have we all? Not a clue.

- - - - -

2020-04-28

I chipped a couple teeth some time in the last month. Thanks to PPE mask shortages and general public health concerns, I’m unable to get an appointment with my dentist of 20+ years. As a result, two relatively minor procedures are likely to spiral into major dental issues before they can be addressed. Probably much more expensive ones too. With a persistent jaw ache to keep me company in the interim.

About two months ago, I wiped-out badly on slippery ground whilst entering my workplace, and I’m pretty certain I either fractured or broke my tailbone in the fall. It’s made sitting fairly painful, and resuming standing agonizing. Only time and avoiding sitting can really help mend it, so I’ve been trying to alternate between walking, sitting, and lying down whenever possible. Two months later, it’s only marginally better. No point bothering trying to get an x-ray these days. Same goes for the non-essential blood work a different doctor requested.

The pandemic is causing major interruptions and interference in many different areas of life, and might cause a variety of completely unrelated health issues in the process. People will die (and have died) just from the massive disruptions all this has caused. Please keep things like this in mind if your primary complaint is being bored at home, or that you’re being oppressed.

- - - - -

2020-05-19

I was finally able to get into my dentist’s office today to fix my chipped teeth from a few months ago. Spent the appointment listening to a staff meeting with telephone earbuds, and trying to hear how COVID-World is affecting operations. This is modern life now: work from everywhere, go nowhere, remain active whilst being passive (possibly as your skull is drilled out), and do your best not to catch the plague in the process. Tough times, and tight days ahead.

Keeping busy. The weather’s finally stable enough to allow my wife to start working on her new garden. After a long winter and countless weeks delay, this will be very healthful for her. I’m taking any available radio shifts, workshopping various music ideas of my own, mixing songs for The Bolt Actions album when there’s time, and working with my daughter on her remote schooling. We’re also spending a lot of time learning math by playing cribbage, and trying to take walks when the weather’s agreeable. She misses her school friends and teacher. This is a bizarre time to be anybody, but it must be particularly strange to be a child right now.

Temperament-wise, this period hasn’t been as difficult for us as it has been for so many others. I can spend long periods indoors without irritation or issue, but motivation and action are sluggish as inertia reigns. I should be reading books like mad in the evenings, but I don’t remember the last time I felt like picking one up. As time grinds into a homogenous paste, weeks disappear. This has made keeping up with friends and correspondence far tardier than I intended. The atmosphere has been very good at dispelling impulse activity, though. I don’t remember my last drive-through hamburger or vending-machine soda. Nevertheless, it remains troubling to see so many businesses and friends struggling with the very real feeling that they won’t survive these times, and that what will follow might be unrecognizable.

I hope you’re coping ok.

- - - - -

2020-05-28

Keeping occupied during isolation. I’ve been listening to a lot of vinyl records, and I’ve also been enjoying my long-neglected CD collection now that I have the remote radio kit linked to my stereo.

I’m going through recordings at a pretty heavy clip presently. Keeping track of what I’ve listened to is bogging down my phone with photographs and notes. Decided to change how I’m sharing this information. My posts on zedair.net are a bit clunky and overlooked, and I don’t want to bog-down my own personal Instagram profile with music posts.

So, I’ve started a new Instagram to better document the Zibliothek. Not ideal, but it’ll keep things orderly and more people are likely to see and/or enjoy it there than they do here. It’ll save me some extra cross-posting time too. Feel free to give it a follow if you like album art, books, films, and other cultural artifacts.

- - - - -

2020-08-13

I’ve now been tested twice now for COVID. Negative results both times, I’m relieved to say.

In Edmonton, most folks are being directed to the same facility in Mill Woods on the city’s south side - walking distance from the neighbourhood where I grew up. The building used to be a Grant MacEwan campus, but has since been converted to some kind of Covenant Health facility. The tests occur in the building’s gymnasium.

I keep hearing that the tests are quick, but both times I've gone there have been 400-500 people in a line snaking around a field. Off days, I'm told, but luckily both had beautiful weather. Each time I got inside, I asked if something was amiss to cause such a backup, and the nurses (who are working like crazy just trying to keep up) can only apologize for the delay. I would never give them a hard time about it, but I still don't know why some days there's a quad filled with bodies waiting to enter, and other days where one can get in and out in under 30 mins.

The first time I went, I had an appointment for 10:30am. Not knowing what to expect, I arrived at 10:30 and found two long lines of people. The left line is for people with appointments. The right line is for drop-in testing. Finding it a bit perplexing, I asked a random person in middle of the left line if she have an appointment, and for when. Like me, her appointment was for 10:30, and she was a good 200 people ahead of my place at the back of the line. I have no idea if the people in front or behind had the same appointment times. You just joined the back of the line regardless of appointment, and waited for everyone before you to finish. I'm not certain what making an appointment actually accomplishes, but it seems to get you access to the faster-moving line once it actually starts moving. The actual time of the appointment seems meaningless. The appointment line was stationary until around 11:15 with zero movement, but then began moving gradually, slow and steady. I didn't notice much movement in the drop-in line. On that occasion, I was finished by 12:15.

My second test occurred yesterday. The second time, I decided to try the drop-in. Hindsight has taught me that, though this line is much shorter than the appointment line, it moves far slower. I recognized several people from the appointment line who arrived hours after I had, who were tested and leaving before I'd advanced 50 feet. Lesson learned: always make an appointment, but never for earlier than 11:30am.

I seem to be a beacon to people with questions in situations like this. Behind me in the drop-in line was a very talkative, but friendly woman who was about to fly to Egypt with her husband. They required COVID clearance to be allowed to fly. Anyway, after the first hour she bailed to go collect her husband, who'd been waiting in the car due to mobility issues. I promised I'd hold her spot. They parked far away, so it was nearly another hour before they returned to the line. I enjoyed the quiet interim.

Husband didn't seem to like her talking with a strange man, but eventually decided I was harmless and struck up a separate conversation with me. Given that the line was moving super slowly, and that I'm chronically friendly when there's a language barrier, it made for a long slog when he led with "So, do you think this whole Corona hype is a media invention?" Especially when I'd already said that my profession is in radio.

I don't know whether it was a constructive conversation, but we parted friendly, and they will hopefully have clearance to fly to Cairo in a few days time.

#blog #covid2019 #covid #pandemic

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180abroad · 5 years ago

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Days 168-174: Oberwesel and a Week on the Rhine

After a busy week in Munich, it was time for a scenic and relaxing week on the Rhine. We’d be staying in a charming little medieval town called Oberwesel, halfway between the cities of Frankfurt and Koblenz. None of the Germans we’d talked so far had ever heard of it. Which is a shame because it’s gorgeous–and also dead quiet. But we’ll get to that later.

We didn’t fit in quite as much sightseeing as we’d hoped, but we did get some rest and relaxation that we desperately needed. After nearly six months abroad and with only three weeks left, we were starting to feel the strain of constantly staying on the move.

The train ride from Munich to Oberwesel was long but easy, and toward the end we got to enjoy a lovely preview of the vineyard-laced Rhine river valley.

From the train station, we could just barely see the local castle–now a hotel and restaurant–peeking up from the top of a nearby hill.

Our host kindly offered to pick us up at the station and drive us to our Airbnb. It was only about half a mile away, and it might have been faster just to walk rather than wait, but after five and a half months on the road, we were grateful for any opportunity to not lug our packs across town.

Our Airbnb flat was wonderfully spacious and comfortable, with a large dining/living room, a full kitchen, and two full bedrooms. It was one of our best homes through the entire trip, right up there with those in Avignon and Betws-y-Coed.

After settling in, we set about finding something for dinner. It was a Sunday evening, so the grocery store and most of the restaurants were closed. Luckily, we found a delightful little garden restaurant where we enjoyed some great food and a tasty local wine–a perfect introduction to the region.

After dinner, there was still plenty of summer sunlight left, so we took a relaxing walk around the town.

The Rhine is positively peppered with old castles and walled towns, and Oberwesel has the best-preserved medieval walls of them all. Inside these walls is a charming collection of buildings that mostly date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, but some of the houses and churches date back to the Middle Ages.

In the center of the town is a small but proudly ornamented market square, featuring the beautiful town hall, the local bank, and a statue of a giant wine glass.

Going out through the walls, Jessica and I walked along the waterfront. We spotted the ferry office where we’d need to book tickets for our Rhine cruise on a later date, and we got some more great views of the town.

—

The next day we visited Frankfurt. It was a fun if somewhat unstructured day trip to a very historic city, and we had a pretty good time. We’ll cover it all in our next post.

—

Our first full day in Oberwesel was a lazy one. We slept in, walked over to the local TI to get some information on the local wineries and wine bars, then went grocery shopping. There are two main grocery stores in Oberwesel, and they're both on the far southern outskirts of town--nearly a mile away from where we were staying. Not having a car, we would have to balance the number of trips we wanted to make with the amount of stuff we wanted to carry each time we went shopping.

After bringing our food haul home and fixing up some lunch--consisting of fresh rolls, knackwurst, and sweet mustard--we went out to wander some more around town.

Even in the middle of a weekday, Oberwesel was almost depressingly quiet. It seems like these Rhine villages only really come alive on Fridays, Saturdays, and festival days, when all the wine shops open. Otherwise, a lot of stores seem to stay closed during the week or else keep very short hours. Many storefronts were boarded up, and "For Lease" signs were visible on almost every corner outside the main market square.

Still, despite the borderline ghost-town atmosphere, it was spectacularly picturesque.

We wandered up toward the northern edge of town and eventually climbed a staircase leading up onto the walls. There was a group of wasps busy at work, but we gave them a wide berth and enjoyed some spectacular views of the town.

We took another path down from the wall and saw a little outdoor chapel, featuring icons of local patron saints.

Making our way back along the wall into town, we stumbled upon an old hotel bearing a commemoration plaque. Apparently, this hotel is the site of one of the first known performances of the German national anthem ("Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles…").

Ironically, while this song's call to put Germany Above All was tainted by the Nazis, it was originally intended as a call for liberalization. At the time it was written in the 1800s, Germany was divided into a confederation of autocratic states that put their rulers' squabbles and ambitions above the welfare of the people. The anthem's call was meant to encourage a united Germany where the good of the people came above political infighting.

On a corner near the market square, we found another testament to the damage done by the Nazi regime--a holocaust memorial dedicated to the town's Jewish residents who were deported or arrested by the Nazi regime.

On a happier note, Jessica and I were able to make a purchase that we had long been looking forward too--a pair of Rhine wine glasses.

There seemed to be only a single tourist shop in town that was open that day, but they had a great selection of Rhine glasses and other souvenirs.

—

A cruise along the Rhine is an absolute must-do for anyone visiting the area. It proved a bit more complicated that we had anticipated, however, and we probably would have had an even better time if we had a bit more sense what we were getting into.

Ferries go up and down the river all day, but it's a long ride with a tight and complex timetable. Trying to figure out which tickets to buy was also a bit of a head-scratcher. You can get a hop-on-hop-off type ticket, but it's expensive and there aren't enough boats that you can take much advantage.

After puzzling it over between ourselves, Jessica and I eventually just decided to ask the ladies at the KD Rhine ticket counter what we should do. The first thing we should have done was to just go up and ask them in the first place, since they were able to sort us out very quickly.

Our plan was to start in Oberwesel, ride north downriver to Koblenz--a medium-sized city at the confluence of the Rhine and Mosel rivers--stop for lunch, then ride back upstream past Oberwesel to the popular tourist town of Bacharach. After exploring to our hearts' content, we would catch a quick train back home to Oberwesel.

After a couple minutes explaining this to the ticket ladies, they recommended a round-trip ticket from Bacharach to Koblenz as the most economical option.

Finally, our boat arrived and it was time to board. We were a little nervous when we first boarded. Far from the luxuriously lazy experience I was expecting, the boat was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists and nowhere to sit down. There was also no wifi onboard, contrary to the cruise company’s advertisements. We had been hoping to get some work done on the return ride, but if the crowds stayed the same, that wouldn’t be an option anyway.

More concerning was the lack of any food service onboard–also contrary to the advertisements.

At one of the next stops, however, a large group disembarked, and there was room for us to sit down, for Jessica to take a Dramamine, and for both of us to just enjoy the ride. A huge chunk of the tourists who got off were Japanese. Apparently, one of the castles is privately owned by a Japanese businessman, and the nearby town of St. Goarshausen has become an object of fascination among Japanese tourists.

It's funny how different places become tourist destinations for different cultures. I'm sure Heidelburg would not have become a mecca for American tourists were it not for the American GI’s stationed there after WWII.

The Japanese castle is called Burg Katz, which means Cat Castle. Close by stands the rival Mouse Castle. And across the river from Burg Katz is the massive Rheinfels Castle in St. Goar, which Burg Katz was built to supplement. Between the two of them, the owners could command an entire stretch of the Rhine.

Because that's what all of these castles were built to do.

As we've learned so thoroughly, Germany spent the vast majority of its history as a constellation of semi-independent states that were allied more in theory than in practice. Local lords had free reign to raise money and fight for their own interests in pretty much any way they saw fit.

The Rhine was one of the busiest trade routes of them all, and everyone wanted a taste. Castles were erected every few miles, and sometimes much closer. Not for war or defense, but for toll collecting. Any trader wishing to raft their goods downstream would need cash for dozens of tolls along the way.

Most of those castles fell into ruin or were destroyed during various border wars with France, but a good handful have survived or been rebuilt by wealthy enthusiasts.

Nature provided its own set of obstacles as well. As idyllic as the sleepy valley seems to us, parts of it were a menace to sailors. Just downriver of Oberwesel lies a cluster of deadly reefs known as the Seven Sisters, followed by a narrow hairpin turn in the shadow of a massive, echoing cliffside known as the Loreley (a sort of Germanic equivalent to the mythological Green sirens). Simply making it the few miles from Oberwesel to St. Goar could be a day-long endeavor and would certainly merit an evening's celebration.

High-contrast signs and kilometer markers posted along the banks of the river make it easy to follow along in a guidebook.

Above St. Goar looms the aforementioned Rheinfels Castle. Now a hollow ruin, it was once one of the mightiest castles in the entire Holy Roman Empire--a bastion of vigilance against the threat of French invasion.

Further downriver stand the twin castles of Sterrenberg and Liebenstein, joined together by a long defensive wall.

Even further downriver are the charming town of Boppard--where we had originally considered staying--and the brilliantly whitewashed Marksburg Castle--possibly the best-looking of all the Rhine castles.

Marksburg was never destroyed, and it has been restored to look more or less like it would have back in the days of the Holy Roman Empire.

Learned from Rick Steves that there are two German words for "castle," each with its own meaning. A burg is a functional castle like pretty much all of the castles on the Rhine once were, whereas a schloss is luxurious castle used primarily as a prestigious residence, like Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau back in Bavaria.

The last stretch of the Rhine is mostly filled with long lonely vineyards and a constant stream of commercial barges going past in both directions. Even in the age of trains, planes, and ultramax cargo ships, the humble river barge remains a mainstay of European trade.

Finally, we arrived in Koblenz. It seems like a nice city, but we were hungry and in a hurry. Since there hadn't been any food on board, getting something to eat was top priority. Moreover, our boat was behind schedule, so we had just 30 minutes to get off the boat, find something to eat, eat it, and get back on the boat with enough time left to get a good seat.

The closest fast food or grocery store we could find on our phones was over 10 minutes’ walk each way, so we ended up just grabbing a bratwurst from a nearby stand, scarfing it down, and getting back onto the boat. Luckily for me, we had brought some meal bars just in case.

We decided to enjoy the upstream journey below-decks, where we could enjoy some comfortable seats, cold beers, and a table to set up our laptops and get a bit of planning done.

About halfway back, though, it started to rain–driving everyone above-deck down below. Then we picked up a huge crowd of people from one of the towns. Our quiet, comfy booth soon became a crowded, stuffy, and painfully noisy confinement. I must admit that the pressure of all the planning, moving, and sightseeing we'd been doing hit me especially hard that day, and that hour in particular was not my happiest. At least the beer helped once I finally broke down and ordered one, too.

The rain had mostly died down by the time we were nearing Oberwesel, so I went back above-decks to get some views and fresh air.

But remember, we weren't done yet. We'd be heading a few stops further upriver.

Just upriver from Oberwesel lies the painfully postcard-perfect town of Kaub. On the hillside nearby stands Gutenfels Castle, while its sister Pfalz Castle sits right in the river--the ideal spot for collecting tolls.

Finally, with the lowering sun piercing the clouds like a spotlight, we arrived at our final stop--Bacharach, a winemaking town named after the god of wine Bacchus himself.

Bacharach is Rick Steves’ top recommended place for staying on the Rhine, and after visiting it we can see why. It’s not as big as Oberwesel or dramatic as St. Goar, but its sweeping hillsides, cobbled streets, and half-timbered houses are a photographer’s delight. Seriously, if we had an extra day I’d be tempted to come back and spend it all just taking pictures.

Finally, we caught the train back to Oberwesel, arriving home tired and hungry but satisfied with the day’s adventure.

—

We spent the next day taking a trip to Cochem, a small town on the Mosel river known for its charming medieval architecture and abundance of wine shops. There was no question that Jessica and I had to go for ourselves. Things didn't all go quite as expected, that just meant that we got to learn a lot we didn't know about German wine tasting culture. It was a fun day, and we'll cover it in it's own post, too.

—

We had originally planned to spend the next day visiting St. Goar and Rheinfels Castle, but instead we decided to stay home and relax.

Well, we stayed home, but we didn’t do very much relaxing.

We decided to do some planning for our upcoming stay in Amsterdam, the penultimate destination of our trip. We hashed out our itinerary easily enough, but when it came to planning our transit strategy, things got very frustrating very quickly.

Public transit in Amsterdam is very easy and reasonably affordable, as long as you’re staying inside the city limits. We weren't staying that far outside the city center, but apparently it was enough to put us into a different municipality. Most major cities have transit cards or passes that you can buy and use to get cheap access to local transit and commuter trains. In Amsterdam, however, you can only get one of these cards if you're a resident. Rather than being able to use a discount transit pass like we had in many other European cities, we'd need to buy two sets of full-price tickets for every day we went into the city--one for the commuter train and one for the city transit system.

Lesson learned: If you're going to try and save money by being clever, make sure that you are actually being as clever as you think you are.

In the end, we at least managed to find a smartphone app by the Dutch rail system that would let us buy our tickets digitally--something that would prove far more important than we could have anticipated.

Anyway, all of that proved to be a headache that consumed much of our day.

Things got better that evening, when we went to a wine tasting and cellar tour at a local winery called Lanius-Knabb. We'd heard about the place when we were first researching Oberwesel, and when we visited the TI a few days earlier, they offered to call the place up and let them know we were coming.

We showed up right on time, but the owner didn't seem to have been expecting us. He let us in, however, and we joined a German couple who were already a couple glasses into the tasting. Perhaps the information in the TI brochure was out of date, or maybe Rhine time is just a bit like island time that way.

In any case, we had a great time. The German couple didn't speak much English, but their English was still far better than our German. They seemed very nice, and we learned they were from the town of Nürburg (not to be confused with Nuremberg, which is on the opposite side of the country).

Our first two wines were Pinot Noirs--one red and one white. They were interesting, but not particularly enjoyable (at least to me). The red tasted tight and sour, while the white seemed flat and a little boring. Jessica liked the white better, since it was a bit like an unoaked Chardonnay.

Next came the dry Rieslings, which were spectacular.

Their standard estate wine was light and fruity, with light and refreshing fruity flavors that sparkle and dance on the tongue.

The second Riesling--which they called their "Premier Cru"--was even better. It didn’t dance, but it had a more powerful and cohesive flavor profile.

The third Riesling–which they called their "Grand Cru"–blew everything else away. It was rich, fruity, tart, powerful, and refreshing all at once. And the owner of the winery (who was the one giving the tasting) said that it was still too young to really appreciate. Basic Rieslings should be drunk within a year or two, but he said that this one could be cellared for around ten years before it hits its prime.

This third Riesling was made exclusively with grapes from their Oelsberg vineyard--a distinctive sideways "Y" on the slopes just north of town. We'd seen it plenty of times by then and recognized its picture instantly.

We then moved on to the sweeter Rieslings, with one half-dry, one sweet, and one late harvest (very sweet). I liked them all, but the last two were too sweet for Jessica's taste. She did still appreciate them, though, comparing them favorably to some California dessert wines that failed to reach the same level of balance and delicacy as these Rieslings.

While we were enjoying our tasting, a bit of travel stress managed to force its way back in. Halfway through, our phones buzzed to inform us that our Airbnb host for Iceland had just cancelled our reservation.

Great.

But we couldn’t do anything about it then, so we resolved not to worry about it. It also gave us an excuse to stay in town the following day as well so that we could sort everything out.

After the tasting was finished, we bought two bottles of the Oelsberg Riesling, saddened to learn that the winery doesn't ship to the US. As we'd come to expect, our German friends bought far more wine. Then, unexpectedly, they left. Which left us to enjoy a 1-on-2 tour of the cellar with the owner.

Now, you might have already noticed something a bit strange. Every other time we've done a wine tasting with a cellar tour--at home or in Europe--the cellar tour always came before the tasting. And that seems like a very sensible idea, considering all the stairs, dark corridors, and industrial equipment that one has to traverse along the way.

We made it through just fine, however, and we had a good time listing to the owner. He told us about his passion for winemaking and the story of how he grew the estate from one small vineyard to a relatively large operation over the past twenty-something years.

Jessica particularly appreciated how the cellar reminded us of the ones we saw in Burgundy, filled with natural dust and molds. In the States, everything is sterile. Which isn’t to say that cleanliness is a bad thing, but sterility also means lifeless. And when it comes to things like wine or beer or even milk, cheese, and bread, food is alive. Sterile food is dead food. And it just doesn’t taste as good.

Thoroughly pleased and beginning to sober, we made our way home and enjoyed a nice, simple dinner–with a bottle of wine, of course.

Such a good wine…

—

On our last day in Oberwesel--time flies!--we slept in, made a nice big breakfast, and sorted out the Iceland situation. We were able to find a very nice place that was only a bit more expensive than our original place, and we booked it.

We later learned that our original host had to cancel all of her bookings because of an emergency situation that had rendered their home uninhabitable. We made sure to tell them not to worry about us and that we hoped their situation improved soon.

While we hadn't done nearly as much sightseeing as I had originally hoped, I at least wanted see more of Oberwesel itself. Luckily, our Rick Steves guidebook had a great walk mapped out for us, starting at the market square.

Like many towns along the Rhine, Oberwesel started as a Celtic settlement in pre-Roman times. After the Romans displaced the Celts from the European mainland, it became a Roman military base, and then a rest stop for Medieval loggers and traders moving their products downriver.

Today, the Rhine is as economically important as ever, but the diesel-powered barges no longer need to stop for a rest every few miles. The towns of the region are struggling to maintain their relevance and identity through winegrowing and tourism, but it's an uphill battle. The streets are all but abandoned on most days, and many of the vineyards lining the river valley have been left untended in the hope that future generations will have the will and resources to reclaim them.

In a way, it reminds me of all the small, struggling towns you might pass through on the old US Route 66, or any other bypassed backroads.

The main attraction of Oberwesel in particular is its exceptionally well-maintained medieval wall and its many surviving watchtowers--each of which has its own distinctive character.

The Hospital Tower--named for its proximity to the town's medieval hospital--was built too heavy for its foundations and started to lean over like the Tower of Pisa. Rather than start over, the builders simply lopped off the top at an angle to make the roof level.

A little further down is the chapel of the medieval hospital, which is built directly into the walls--perhaps so that the guardsmen of the town could pop in for a quick prayer while on their rounds.

Next is the Stein Tower, named for the town's first paved road. It has a similar canter to the Hospital Tower, but this one is climbable. Steep wooden stairs carried us up to the top, where we enjoyed an absolutely spectacular view.

Apparently, this very spot was enjoyed by some of the most famous Romantic writers and painters of the 19th century, including Victor Hugo.

Further downriver stand the beautiful and now-inaccessible Cat and Ox towers, which marked the northwestern corner of the town.

Having reached the end of this stretch of wall, we climbed down from the wall and climbed up to St. Martin's, the big white church overlooking the northern end of town.

Much like Frankfurt Cathedral (which we'd already seen but will cover in the next post), St. Martin's was built from cheap local stone, then plastered over and given a clever paint job to look like it was made with more exotic foreign stones. It's ironic and a bit telling of the human condition that wealthy people in slate-rich places showed off by building in limestone, while wealthy people in limestone-rich places showed off by building in slate.

The church's bell tower actually predates the rest of the church. It was originally a watchtower along the town wall, and the locals decided to convert it into a belltower and build the rest of the church out from it.

Around the back of the church is a peaceful community garden and a secluded cemetery with a chapel dedicated to the local men and boys who died during WWII.

That left the western town walls. We couldn't walk on top of them, but there is a little hiking path that runs just outside of them. Apparently, the town allows people to lease the old watchtowers and turn them into houses–as long as the buyers agree to restore and maintain the tower with their own money. One of these converted residential towers even has its own drawbridge.

According to Rick Steves, there is a local legend about its owner's then-teenage son. When his parents were away, he threw a big party. Locals complained about the noise, and the cops showed up. Unintimidated, the kids simply raised the drawbridge and kept on partying.

From there, it was a short walk to the end of the western walls, with some great views of the southern part of the town and the castle overlooking it all.

Back inside the old town, we peeked into a lovely little park where they shine lights up on the walls at night. There was a wedding reception going on, however, so we didn’t linger.

The last stop on the Rick Steves tour was the old Franciscan abbey. It was dissolved by Napoleon in the early 1800s and burned down shortly afterwards. But a couple generations later, when the local economy was suffering, desperate locals started moving into the ruins and setting up makeshift homes inside them. Local authorities have done some restoration work to expose the old abbey ruins, but the houses still stand and remain occupied to this day.

Satisfied with our day's walk, we made one last trip to the grocery store and headed home for relaxing afternoon before packing up. We didn’t get to do everything we had planned on doing in the Rhineland, but we had a great time with what we did. The Rhine isn't necessarily at the top of my list of places to visit again--unless as part of a wine tour--but I would still happily visit it again. It definitely feels like the sort of place where it's important to visit on the right days and with the right expectations.

Tomorrow, we would be heading to the Belgian coastal city of Bruges.

#180abroad #oberwesel #rhineland #germany #travel #castles #river cruise #koblenz #bacharach #cochem #wine #riesling #even travelers need days off

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daynamartinez22 · 4 years ago

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 322

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 322 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

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

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

Announcement

Yeah, I don’t know. Like I’m thinking about moving to another country or like, I don’t know, like the discussing of lockdowns to Easter. And um, I’ve had it pretty much.

That not good, man. Good. I’m good. I’m just enjoying Marcos Boca Juniors shirt. That’s pretty cool. So he’s represented and I’m good man. I’m good. I’m pretty good.

All right. Well, Marco, like I said full circle. If you can let people know what’s going on with the webinars, the charity, how things are going with that. Can you do that now?

Well, I’m getting them set up.

We’ve had some people shuffle around, but I am planning to start them on January 25. Regardless whether people are are on on schedule or not, because we just have so much information to give

Find out more at mg y b.co. And that is the done for you services with all that good stuff I just mentioned.

So with that said, you guys, any other announcements before we dive into the questions?

Let’s do it.

All right, let me grab the screen.

You guys are seeing it now. Correct? Yeah, yes. Yep.

Very cool. Well, thank you, Marco. So we’ll get into questions now.

Why Would You Use WordPress Tags When The Categories Mainly Serve A Similar Purpose?

Alright, so the recurring theme here is going to be links and how those those links function with one another to create all of these relevant semantic relationships.

Yeah.

How Do You Create Ads For Two Spam GMB Listings While Avoiding Suspension From Google?

Can You Build Backlinks To Different Press Release URLs?

Is It A Good Idea To Buy Social Signals From SEO Butler And Point Them To Branded Syndication Ring Post URLs?

You’re likely to get a conversion. Whereas if you’re just buying some odd social signals from whomever, they’re not really interested in your stuff, they’re not interested in buying.

How Do You Market Niche Sites With GMB?

Uh, well, you know, local is relative, we talked about that or Marco always says that.

But the only place that I’m teaching this is in the heavy hitter club right now.

How Do You Show Line Of Products In GMB?

So kind of like the GMB posts. So it’s pretty cool.

How Do You Deal With A Suspended Drive Stack Or GSite?

So anyways, next question was what would your plan? What would be your plan in the event a drive stack or G site was reported in suspended? You know, I’ve not had I’ve not experienced that.

If I did, I would try to request reconsider reinstatement, right.

But not the actual, just that, you know, drive stack in G site itself.

What Does The Embeds Products In MYGB Means?

Is Syndwire And Other Social Bookmarks Still Useful To Get Social Signals For The Website?

Yeah.

Is There Any Other Use For Tools Like MTurk For SEO?

Would You Advise Linking City Pages From The Homepage And To Each Other?

Yeah, I just wouldn’t, I just wouldn’t because

Yeah.

Is There Any SEO Benefit To Google Redirects?

Okay, the next question is, is there any SEO benefit to Google redirects? Like? Yes, there is I can’t disclose why. But there is absolutely a benefit to that.

Guys, you don’t have to come here and ask us. Try it. Yeah.

Yeah, I see how it works. I can’t disclose why I’m here, because that’s an RYS Academy secret.

Which Server Do You Use?

Okay, they’re using schema bamboo marketing. They’re now benefiting. See, this is a site. No, that’s not mine.

I’m a believer.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 322 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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