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threecrowsinatrenchcoat · 3 years ago

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Paint My Spirit Gold

Dukeceit Week Day 2: Green/Yellow

Fans of the YouTubers "Deceit" and Remus "The Duke" Sanders start to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the two of them are more than simple internet pals.

AO3 Link: [here]

Word Count: 2187

Warnings: n/a

@dukeceitweek <3

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a watercolor-style painting of a snake. The snake appears to be made of melting chocolate, and there is a large bite taken out of its tail. Cherries and jam are leaking out of the snake at the bite wound. The snake's expression of horror is overly-exaggerated to the point of comedy. The caption reads: "liked your snake boi, @SerpenThyme. thanks for the inspo." /end ID]

A notification ding cut Janus off mid-sentence.

“Wow, someone left their cell phone on, so professional,” he said, giving the camera a dramatic eye roll. That someone was him, of course, because he was the only one in the apartment- just him and the running livestream- but that was no excuse not to be a drama queen about it. He finished wiping flour off his hands and grabbed his phone to silence it; but the notification made him pause. He flicked his eyes up toward the camera and gave a slight smirk.

“My goodness, I’m famous,” he drawled. “The Duke himself has graced little old me with some fan art.”

Most of the comments in the chat wanted him to show it, so Janus opened up Twitter to see the full post he’d been tagged in. It was a watercolor painting of the coiled-snake chocolate sculpture- lovingly named Jake by his viewers- he’d made for his YouTube video last week; it was wearing an expression of such comedic horror that Janus had to stifle a laugh. He flicked his phone screen toward the close-up camera on his counter so his viewers could see.

“How kind of you, Remus,” he said. “All of you should go scold him for what he’s done to poor Jake here.”

Most of his viewers would know he was joking- after all, they were the ones to nickname him Deceit when he provided neither a real or fake name for his online persona. They knew full well what he was like by now.

The oven timer dinged. Janus silenced his phone and set it aside.

“And our first batch of cookies is done. You know, why don’t we show the Duke some appreciation?”

[ID: An Instagram post by user @SerpenThyme. The photo is an artistically-framed shot of a stack of sugar cookies with green, yellow, and pink icing. Propped up against the stack is another cookie, with an intricate icing-drawing of an octopus. The photo appears to have been color corrected to have high contrast, low saturation, and a dark vignette at the edges. The Instagram user @OctoDukie is tagged. No caption. /end ID]

“You know, I have often been accused of actually being a little old lady, what with my fondness for knitted jumpers, rocking chairs, and incredibly fucked up murder mystery books. Today I am doing nothing to dispel this accusation, by making soup.”

The studio was dark and empty aside from Remus' workspace. Everyone else had left long ago, even his own brother, which meant that it was officially ass-o'clock in the morning (or, as most people called it, somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m.) But Remus was stuck in hyperfocus, honed in on putting the last touches on a commission that he'd been putting off for weeks. It's not that it was a tough painting- once he'd gotten started, it was actually a very creatively satisfying piece- but man, executive dysfunction could go suck a dick

“French onion soup, specifically. Because while I do like to pretend I am a classy bitch, I am also, regrettably, a lazy bitch with a distaste for anything that takes longer than one bottle of wine to make.”

Remus hated working in silence. It was stifling, almost suffocating. His brain needed noise like his lungs needed air. So when the studio had grown still and silent, Remus had flipped open his laptop and queued up some YouTube videos.

“So we have here three pounds of onions that we need to slice up, pole to pole. You’re going to cry no matter what, so if you have any memories you’ve been repressing since middle school, now is an excellent time to dredge those up.”

And if it happened to be 90% SerpenThyme videos, well. Sue him.

“Now the first rule of caramelizing onions: fast and sloppy is always better than slow and thorough… at least, that’s what every man I’ve ever slept with tells me.”

Remus choked and glanced over to his laptop screen just in time to catch Deceit's trademark smirk directed at the audience just for a moment. It was the deadpan delivery that always got him. Remus could barely hold onto a joke long enough to get through it without cackling mid-punchline, but this fucker could say the funniest shit like an off-hand comment.

He wiped his hands off on his jeans (what use were clothes if you couldn't use them as paint rags?) and pulled his laptop across the table. He typed out a quick comment, citing the timestamp of the joke, and after it was posted, he shut his laptop.

'Cause ass-o'clock was short for "get-your-ass-home-or-I’ll-kick-it" o'clock.

[ID: A screenshot of a YouTube comments section. The first comment is by user TheDuke, and reads: "10:42 wow, rude." The second comment is a reply by user SerpenThyme, and simply reads ";)" /end ID]

Janus plopped down on the couch with a slight groan. He didn’t need to stream today, but he really hated missing days. Besides… he was fine. Really.

He adjusted the camera until he was happy with the framing, and then checked the settings on his streaming software. Satisfied, he started the stream, and watched as his usual viewers rolled in.

“What do you mean I’m not in my kitchen?” Janus drawled, addressing the chat. He glanced around with an expression of faux-shock on his face. “My goodness, when did that happen?”

He chuckled, and then gestured to his surroundings. “Yes, we are in my living room today. If you must know, my closest and most trusted friend tried to murder me today- yes, Virgil, it was attempted murder and nothing less- and I survived with nary a scratch… and a broken foot, but that is beside the point. Anyway, I’m not allowed to stand for long periods of time, and I may or may not be somewhat inebriated by pain pills and couldn’t stand even if I wanted to. So we are cooking from my couch today.”

Janus paused for a few moments to read the chat messages as they popped up. A few get well soon’s, a few theories about the “attempted murder,” Virgil- who moderated his chat for him- vehemently denying the “attempted murder” but otherwise refusing to clarify the event, and a large volume of wtf why are you streaming today, take care of yourself comments, which made him smile. But one particular comment caught his eye, almost lost amid the torrent of an active chat: wait this kinda looks like the Duke’s living room?

“Oh, VampSuga,” he said, addressing that commenter in particular with a slight smirk. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, since I can’t reach my oven from here, I thought some no-bake cookies were in order. For these you will need-”

[ID: A screenshot of a Discord conversation. The text reads:

“VampSuga: Ok ok hear me out. Dukeceit.

Starstruck96: who?

IneffableSnek: lmao

FeralBeauYasha: lol

VampSuga: Deceit and Remus Sanders! They’re totally dating. I will die on this hill.

FeralBeauYasha: Isn’t the duke w/ PatPat?

IneffableSnek: no thats his brothers bf

FeralBeauYasha: ohh

VampSuga: Did anyone see Deceit’s stream today? I swear that’s the Duke’s livingroom.

StarStruck96: idk that seems like a stretch

IneffableSnek: no wait i kno what u mean

IneffableSnek: im watching the duke’s old videos and that one where he shows off all his old weapons he’s in a living room kinda like deceit’s

FeralBeauYasha: They were acting all cute on twitter too

VampSuga: DUKECEIT” /end ID]

"Hey guys, been a while since you've seen my face and not just whatever my hands are busy with, when it's within YouTube's terms and conditions I mean. They used to be way more lenient…" Remus trailed off for a moment, then shook his head sharply and plastered on a grin.

"Anyway! In June me and a few other creators did a fundraiser for the Trevor Project, and y'all smashed the goal, so I let you decide what video I'd make this month." He paused, and gestured to the mountain of clothes piled behind him on the bed. "And you had so many juicy ideas to choose from, but you decided to dress me up like a Barbie instead."

Remus paused to scroll through his phone for a few moments. "Ah, ok, here we go. Twitter user YoonIsMyCat- oh, BTS, nice- sent in this first outfit. Uh… future Remus, put up the post here somewhere." He gestured vaguely to his right. "Y'all went with either a fuckton more clothes or a fuckton less clothes, which I respect. Apparently this outfit is called…” He squinted at his phone. “Amish chic? I take it back, no respect at all.”

Remus cycled through the outfits his viewers sent in, which ranged from the aforementioned “Amish chic” to “2008 rave attire” to “ok now you guys are just fucking with me” (which consisted of one of those big puffy snow coats, lime green in color; booty shorts with the shrug text emoji across the ass; fuzzy pink boots; and a yellow cowboy hat to top off the whole thing. It was awful. Remus loved it.) The mountain of clothes on the bed gradually became a mess of clothes spread across the floor instead, until there was just one outfit left.

“Ok so Twitter user VampSuga sent me this outfit that I’m gonna call ‘sexy librarian.’ I couldn’t find this exact sweater online, but-” he paused for dramatic effect, before brandishing a sweater toward the camera like a bullfighter. “My boyfriend had something that was close enough.”

Remus hopped up from the bed and switched off the camera so he could change.

“They’re going to lose their minds,” a voice drawled from the doorway. Remus threw his shirt at him.

“Shoo, I’m getting naked.”

[ID: A Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a selfie of YouTuber Remus “The Duke” Sanders, a Hispanic man with his hair dyed green and styled into a spiked mohawk. He is wearing a yellow knitted cardigan over a black button-up shirt. He is grinning widely at the camera. The caption reads: “my viewers pick my outfits! now live on youtube. go see what i look like as a sexy librarian!” /end ID]

DukeceitStan

first and only dukeceit shipper ig

DukeceitStan

wow there’s so many of you now! Hi!!

DukeceitStan

i want this to be canon so bad omg

DukeceitStan

i mean just look

[image]

how

[image]

cute

[image]

[ID: A series of three gifs featuring Youtubers SerpenThyme, aka Deceit, and TheDuke, aka Remus Sanders. Deceit is a black man with long, dreadlocked hair, and vitiligo patches along the left side of his face. Remus is a Hispanic man with green-dyed hair styled into a mohawk, many ear and facial piercings, and tattoos covering both arms. Each gif is edited so that the highlights are tinged yellow when Deceit is seen, and tinged green when Remus is seen.

The first gif depicts a close-up shot of Deceit’s hands as he carefully decorates a cookie with green and yellow icing. The cookie art he is working on appears to be a half-finished octopus. The gif then fades into a mid-shot of Remus, with his back to the camera, facing a canvas. The canvas is blank, and Remus appears to be laying out paints on a table to his left.

The second gif depicts Deceit seated at his couch, facing the camera. He has many ingredients spread across his coffee table (including oats, cocoa powder, and butter) and appears to be in the process of laying out several more. The gif fades to show Remus seated at a similar couch with a similar coffee table in front of him. The camera is angled slightly downward to better show the myriad of knives spread out across the table. Remus is gesturing wildly with a morning star held in his hand.

The third gif depicts Deceit in his kitchen. He is pulling on a bright, yellow knitted cardigan, and smirking toward the camera. The gif fades to show Remus in his bedroom, seated on his bed. He is holding up a similar-looking cardigan toward the camera and grinning. /end ID]

“Remus, it’s almost two in the morning. Come to bed.”

“I’m coming, sorry. Twitter distracted me.”

“Mm. I can’t believe the bird app is more distracting than I am.”

“You should try harder.”

“Come to bed and maybe I will.”

“Ok, ok, I’m coming. Hang on though, is it cool if I post this?”

“Sure. They figured it out anyway.”

“Sweet. Ok, Jannie, I’m coming.”

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It reads: “Dukeceit is canon.” /end ID]

#dukeceit #dukeceitweek #remus sanders #janus sanders #sanders sides fic #kye writes

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leetol-wamen-zone · 4 years ago

Photo

Can we talk about this image from the ending of Little Women (2019)? Specifically, can we talk about the levels of affection we see between the characters? Pardon the poor screenshot, but this was the best I could get that I felt would properly work.

We’ll start on the far left, with Amy and Laurie. Again, apologies for the poor screenshot, but any taken after this timestamp get very fuzzy. Anyways, before the scene fades completely to the book, we see Amy pull Laurie close and Laurie plant a kiss on her cheek. It is undeniable that the two feel very connected and affectionate with one another. They are an example of a “typical” couple.

Next we have Meg and John. Very little explanation needed, everything about their body language indicates affection for one another, another prime example of the “typical” couple.

Next is Marmee and Father. I won’t go into much elaboration here, but despite the distance we see in the screenshot, the entire movie proves how deeply they love one another. “thank goodness you’re home” “thank goodness for you”

Last is Jo and Friedrich. Now, out of the matches for the sisters, Jo and Meg are my favorites for many reasons, a lot to do with the authenticity I feel is the foundation of their relationships. However, as a queer person myself, I see a lot of wlw behaviors in Jo March, a lot of ace and/or aro behaviors as well. Of course we all know the purpose of Jo’s “heroine” being married, and, not sure if this is common knowledge, that was based on Louisa May Alcott’s conversation with her publisher. Thinking about those signs and the background, I think Greta Gerwig was trying to make some sort of statement here. See how Friedrich is positioned in relation to Jo? See how they compare to the other couples in terms of affection? This of course could just be coincidence, but I feel like it’s not. I feel that, even though it is heavily implied in the movie, never confirmed, that the two are married, Friedrich is a companion to Jo. They are not a typical couple you would expect to see, but their relationship is just as strong and important as the others.

Anyways thanks for listening to my ramblings about evidence of queer!Jo March

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wiener-soldiers · 5 years ago

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unsolved - peter parker

summary: “it’s a gen-z thing” or weird shit happens if you’re an avenger

words: 2.4k

warnings: my weird stark!reader post-blip, everything if fine and dandy au (welcome to the latest installment of eliza tries to erase the events of endgame)

a/n: this is a shit post but make it content (i saw the screenshot of the post on insta and immediately thought of this)

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved…”

You and Peter don’t listen to the rest of Ryan’s introduction as you are cuddled on the large sectional in the Avengers’ Tower common room. A bowl of popcorn and bags of candy from the bodega down the street surround the two of you, limbs intertwined underneath one of the plush cashmere Pepper insisted on keeping nearby (because someone always ends up too tired to make it back to their rooms on movie nights). Peter absentmindedly pulled apart gummy worms before eating them while he watched you attempt to throw popcorn up in the air and catching it in your mouth while laying your head in his lap. Admittedly, every time you miss, which was more often than not, he stole the piece himself before popping it in his mouth. Every time he did so, you scrunched your nose in disgust.

“That’s gross,” you tell him flatly.

“What’s gross?”

“You eating gummy worms and popcorn at the same time.”

“…What?”

You throw another piece of popcorn up in the air, this time landing in your mouth, “It’s sweet gummy worms, and buttery crunchy popcorn. Does that not…confuse your Peter-tingle?”

He groans, “Stop finding excuses to say ‘Peter-tingle!’”

“Happy says it!”

“That’s not a valid excuse and you know it,” he says, annoyed but amusement still evident in his eyes. He leans down to press a soft kiss on your forehead.

You smile against his lips before you say, “Do you find it a little weird that I consider Happy my Uncle and he’s dating May while we are dating?”

He pulls away and frowns immediately, “You had to make it weird, didn’t you?”

“You never answered my question.”

Peter stares at your face for a second, letting the thought sit with him. After a few moments, he shudders. “Let’s not think about it too much, it’s slightly too Game of Thrones for my liking,” he says before grabbing the remote to turn the TV volume up, the sound of Shane and Ryan bickering getting louder in return.

The two of you turn your attention back to the Unsolved: Supernatural playlist. With the both of you getting Blipped, you’ve missed five years worth of Unsolved episodes, obviously skipping any about the Blip because it’s still a little fresh for both of you.

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird that this boy ran away the day his mother died? If anything, I’d stay with my family,” Shane says, obviously skeptically of Ryan’s theory of a little boy got abducted by aliens.

“But now you’re assuming that he ran away! Look, his dad says he ran out of the hospital room. Then, he followed him outside after a few minutes, but he was gone!” Ryan exclaims in return.

“What if he just… ran into the forest? Looking for Goatman or whatever they have out in Ohio.”

“Who’s this episode about again?” you say with your mouth full of popcorn.

“Uh,” Peter mutters before checking the video description, “a kid named Peter Quill. Disappeared in 1988, apparently abducted by aliens.”

“Hmm,” you say before swallowing the popcorn, “who knows, maybe it’s true? I mean you’ve been to space, we all know aliens are real. Seems possible.”

“But, is it plausible? I mean what do aliens want with some scrawny kid? If they wanted food, why didn’t they go to a big city?”

“What are you guys watching?” Tony Stark says from behind you, leaning against the back of the couch. He reaches down to grab a handful of popcorn and you scowl.

“Dad!” you say, “Get your own!”

“It’s a big damn bowl, you can share,” he snickers before patting Peter on the shoulder.

“There have literally been alien invasions on this Earth! How can you not say this one doesn’t make sense!” Ryan exclaims, turning towards Shane.

Your Dad lets out a delighted sound. “I love the panicked one,” Tony says, “he seems like a funny guy.”

“So, you’re a Boogara!” you say excitedly while Peter groans.

“Not another one! All you Starks are Boogaras, the world needs more Shaniacs.”

“How can you possibly say that you’ve met aliens.”

As if on cue, another picture of the missing boy shows on the screen. This time, Peter and Tony study his face while you throw pieces of popcorn at your Dad.

Peter furrows his eyebrow and lets out a confused sound. You frown, analyzing his face as the episode continues to play. His lips are pursed, and you look back up at your Dad and find that he is wearing a matching expression.

“What?” you ask, confused.

Your Dad crosses his arms, “He looks…familiar.”

Peter nods in agreement, “Yeah, I swear I’ve seen him somewhere. Normally I’m good with faces, but this…”

Tony stares for a little longer before shrugging and walking away while mumbling, “Must be my subconscious or something.”

You look back at Peter before he says, “No, but I have definitely seen him before…”

All you can give your boyfriend is a supportive smile before saying, “Maybe you saw a screencap on Instagram or something.”

He nods, unconvinced. He ignores it though, continuing the Buzzfeed Unsolved marathon.

Weeks later, you and Peter get in the car with Happy to drive to the Avengers’ Upstate facility. The both of you live in New York fulltime (you in the Avengers Tower with Pepper, your step-sister Morgan, and your Dad and Peter with May) but make weekly trips to the Upstate compound so Peter can train and you can spend time with your Avengers’ Aunts and Uncles. As your Dad often made quick trips from Upstate to New York throughout the week, the smaller Quinjet was already parked on the large lawn when Happy pulled into the facility.

As you and Peter exit the car and step inside, you notice a lot of employees frantically running around while a timer was being projected on a large wall across from you.

An engineer runs by, trying to type something on a tablet while glancing at the timer every few seconds.

“Excuse me?” Peter calls out to the woman, who stops abruptly, pushing the glasses up her nose.

“Oh, hello Mr. Parker and Miss. Stark. Your father is in the control room and was wondering what time you’d get here,” she says quickly.

You smile at her, “Thanks but…what’s going on?”

“You haven’t heard?” she asks, taken aback. She points at the timer being projected, “We received an astronomically broadcasted encrypted message from an alien vessel a few days ago. Based on the timestamp of the message and how long the message took to be picked up by our satellites, we predict the vessel to arrive like…now.”

“Who sent the message?” you ask.

“Thor.”

Peter whips his head around to face you, and you do the same. You stare at each other in shock. It had been years since you had last had contact with Thor. Since coming back from the Blip, you and Thor spoke for a brief second before he left. It had been more than a year since you saw him.

“Are… you sure?” you ask.

She nods, “He used a method specific to our communication systems, one that I doubt imposters would know to use effectively. And the message was encrypted with the language your father made for all encrypted Avengers messages. No one else has the key—”

“Except for Avengers,” Peter finishes.

“And like…Pepper,” you add.

You say thanks to the woman before running hand-in-hand to the control room. As soon as the door opens, you and Peter stumble inside. The large room on the highest floor of the building had floor-to-ceiling windows that made up two walls. Rows of people seated at monitors all monitored the vessel, which was already entering the Earth’s atmosphere. A wall-sized screen covered one of the walls, which showed a map of the vessel’s projected path beside the same timer projected downstairs.

Your Dad stood beside Steve who was standing beside Bruce who exchanged encrypted messages with the ship as it landed. Clint and Bucky stood in front of the window, looking up at the sky. Nat was seated at a computer beside them with Wanda, who were analyzing the specs of the ship. Sam, Vision, and Rhodey were all suited up outside, flying around the perimeter of the compound.

“Dad!” you say as you and Peter and approach.

Steve and Tony both turn around with stern looks before both of their faces soften at the sight of the two teenagers who weaseled their way into everyone’s hearts.

“Hey, kids. I’m assuming you heard,” your Dad says.

You nod frantically, “Are you sure it’s him?”

Bruce calls from behind them, still typing, “Like 98% sure, sweetheart. He was able to tell me about our…adventures in an alien gladiator ring, for the lack of a better explanation.”

“And the other 2%?”

“He keeps making Footloose references? And other 80s references in general.”

“They’re here,” Bucky calls out, staring wide-eyed with Clint at the window.

Everyone turns to face the window, watching an orange alien ship descend onto the lawn.

As everyone is distracted, you turn around and attempt to sneak out of the room to meet Thor when he exits the ship. Two steps later, someone significantly stronger than you picks you up. Your turn your head slightly and see Steve dragging you back beside Peter.

“Uncle Steve!”

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, kid. Unless we know that it’s Thor and whoever he’s with isn’t a threat, the both of you are staying here,” he says sternly, looking to both you and Peter.

“But—”

“He’s right,” your Dad says before putting his EDITH glasses on. “If either of you gets hurt, Pepper and May will have my necks.”

You frown and sit down, and Peter follows suit, visibly upset he can’t see an alien spaceship up close. Bucky throws Steve his shield and the rest of the Avengers file out of the control room, leaving the rest of those cleared to work in the control room and two sulking teenagers in the room.

You and Peter roll towards the computer that Bruce was sitting it, which is now unoccupied.

“You think there are any games on here?” Peter asks suggestively as he logs back onto the computer.

“You’re kidding right?” you say, annoyed, “Of course there are games on here. This is Michael’s desk, there’s probably Galaga, or Minecraft if we’re lucky.”

Fortunately, there was indeed Minecraft and you and Peter spent half an hour exploring a world called ‘If Mike Was an Avenger.’ Peter even switched the game-mode to Creative and spent a solid five minutes spawning villagers and random animals in Michael’s house. After playing for a while, the two of you decided to continue your Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural playlist. You were on your third episode before your Dad came back, signaling that you could come to see Thor.

You followed him into the medical wing where you could see Thor seated on a medical bed with a group of people: some Avengers, another man you’ve never seen before, and a group of…beings that were definitely aliens.

As soon as you caught sight of him, you took off. You barreled into the room and launched yourself into Thor’s arms. Though caught off-guard, he lets out a hearty chuckle, standing up and spinning you in a circle. You laugh in delight as Peter and your Dad walk back into the room.

As soon as he sets you down you punch him in the torso. It was obviously not enough to even phase him, but he looks at you in shock.

“What was that for?” he asks, his heavy Asgardian accent coming through. You take a moment to glance at Thor. His hair was tied in a half-up bun while he wore dark pants and an athletic shirt (which probably belonged to Steve). He wasn’t as fit as he was when you first met him, but his beer-bod had gone away significantly.

You point a finger accusingly at him, “You left! Again! You can’t just keep disappearing and not tell us.”

“I’m truly sorry, Lady (Y/N),” Thor says, putting a hand on your shoulder. “I was assisting my new friends, who you may have recognized.” He gestures to the band of misfits scattered around the room; a giant green and veiny muscular man, a girl with antennas, a…racoon?, a tall tree who kept poking random things in the room, and a regular-looking man with styled side-burns that you didn’t know people in the 21st century still did.

“These are the Guardians of the Galaxy,” Thor says while nudging you, “and I’ve sort of become their leader.”

“You’re not our leader,” the human one says.

“Well, more like honorary—”

“No, not even. I’m the leader,”

“Yeah, sure you are,” the raccoon says and your eyes bulge out of your head slightly.

The man rolls his eyes and steps towards you, sticking out your hand to shake, “I’m Peter Quill, by the way.”

You immediately pull your hand from his and stare at his face. Peter pushes past Bruce and Bucky to stand beside you, analyzing his face. Instantaneously, all the puzzle pieces click.

“You’re—” you start, shocked.

“OH MY GOD. RYAN BERGARA WAS RIGHT,” Peter yells, whipping his face frantically around the room.

“What—” Quill starts before getting cut-off by you and Peter jumping up excitedly and yelling at him.

“You were abducted by aliens in 1988—”

“Outside of a hospital in Missouri—”

“Your Dad wanted to give you space so he waited a few minutes before he came out to find you—”

“But by the time you were already gone—”

“And everyone thought your case would remain—”

“Unsolved!”

Both you and Peter take a breath, looking at Peter for acknowledgment. He gives you a curt, bewildered nod in confirmation, sending you and Peter off into an excited frenzy. You immediately pull out your phone while Peter sits in front of the room’s desktop to pull up the Unsolved episode about Peter. The adults in your room look very confused, except for Tony. He smugly saunters to the center of the room and puts an arm around Peter’s shoulder as he types.

“It’s a Gen-Z thing,” he says, desperately trying to act like the Cool Dad.

Peter Quill takes a deep breath before sitting onto the nearest chair and rubbing a hand over his face. Apparently, he had missed a lot.

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ckret2 · 4 years ago

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So I've been deeply pulled into the Radiosnake pairing bc of your fantastic writing! Problem is, now I have fic ideas but no knowledge of the Hazbin background. Can you tellI me where I can get more Hazbin info? I've only watched the pilot and read your stuff. I heard there were comics??

That is an excellent question anon, because right now it is really hard to get Hazbin background easily.

Okay, so, the canon info on Hazbin Hotel can be sort of sorted into four tiers, from most to least canon.

Tier 1: The Definitely Canon

There is, of course, the pilot. And then there is an Angel Dust prequel comic, only seven pages of which have been released so far. We’ve been told it’s gonna be finished and we’ve had glimpses of in-progress prequel comics for a couple other characters—most prominently Alastor’s and Charlie’s—but so far that unfinished Angel Dust comic is the only one that’s been officially released.

Finding the in-progress comic pages is... a challenge. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has been specifically collecting all of the pages we’ve seen so far. I was able to scrounge up:

Couple more Angel pages

some Alastor pages

another Alastor page

a random Alastor panel

another random Alastor panel—I’ve seen the full page of this before, Alastor goes “Hello ladies!” and they go “HELLO ALASTOR~<3″ but I can’t find the full page now

There’s a smattering more canon panels on the artist faustisse’s twitter, but I haven’t dug them all out, and some of the posts I’m gonna link in a lil bit have a glimpse of another panel.

If you haven’t already heard of Helluva Boss, I recommend looking into it as well. It’s a second series being created by the same folks, different cast of characters but set in the same version of Hell, so any canon details we learn in Helluva also apply to Hazbin.

Helluva’s pilot is here. Plus a cute music video here.

Earlier this month, during a BLM charity stream hosted by show artist Ashley Nichols—she runs regular streams under the title “HuniCast”—they released a few sneak peaks of future Helluva scenes, all compiled here.

And that’s it for canon. Two pilots, a music video, a smattering of future scenes, part of one comic, a few WIP pages/panels from other comics.

Tier 2: Pseudo-Canon

Everything else we currently know about Hazbin (and Helluva) are things that the creators have told us. Consequently, they’re all pseudo-canon—and likely subject to change in the future as the shows and comics are further developed and released. Some details that were released/described in the past have been contradicted at other times, or else radically changed by the time the pilot came out.

(For example, when Alastor was first created years and years ago as an OC with no plans for Hazbin, he was a demon deer who could shapeshift into a human shape—now he’s a demonized human with a few deer traits. And Charlie and Cherri Bomb used to look very different.)

So until and unless they make it into canon, all these pseudo-canon details are subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt—but, they also comprise most of what we know about the characters’ backstory and the as-yet-unaired characters.

Pseudo-canon info on Hazbin is scattered mainly between two sources: the creators’ twitter accounts, and livestreams where they take questions and talk about the making of the show. If you and livestreams do not get along (my ADHD and livestreams do not get along), or if you don’t want to wade years and years back into twitter accounts to dig up every scrap of info on the characters the creators have ever mentioned, collating all the pseudo-canon info is gonna be hard. (It’s gonna be hard even if you do want to sit through the streams and dig through all their tweets.) Lots of fans, me included, depend on the absolutely heroic work of various fans who are willing and able to watch hours-long streams and collate a list of canon factoids released during the streams. I’ve reblogged as many of these posts as I’ve been able to find:

Alastor’s sound design (on twitter)

Alastor's Sound Design (post I made with screenshots of weird—but very interesting—subtitles slipped into the aforementioned video)

Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb’s sound design

Niffty and Husk’s sound design

Charlie, Katie, and Tom’s sound design

Intro song’s sound design

Happy Hotel’s sound design

details from Faustisse (including a pic of a couple costume designs. Most of these posts come from zatyrlucy, who’s been doing a fantastic job of going stream-by-stream to get lists of details from the regular streams by Ashley Nichols and by comic artist Faustisse.)

more details from Faustisse (including a pic of the Von Eldritch family dining room)

Faustisse 3 (better look at that table)

Dollymoon’s Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART ONE (Shoutout again to dollymoon for compiling these, we’ve never spoken but I am eternally grateful for this service. Dollymoon’s posts are THE single most reliable compilation of Hazbin Hotel’s nebulous pseudo-canon facts that I have found to date, including both links to the sources and timestamps where applicable. Dollymoon’s URL has changed since making this post so the “read more” link doesn’t work but the “source” or “reblogged from” links direct correctly to the new blog. Incidentally, the risk of other blog creators deleting their blogs/posts or changing their URLs is why in info posts like these, I always link to my own reblogs rather than their original posts—their original posts might vanish without warning, but I know I ain’t gonna delete my posts, so these links will still work in the future.)

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART TWO

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART THREE

Faustisse 4

HuniCast - Australian Wildlife Relief charity stream

I think this was a faustisse stream (the original source deleted these posts, so the comic pages that were originally behind that read more cut are now gone.)

Faustisse stream 6?

And those are all the masterposts of factoids I’ve managed to collect. If anyone has more masterposts, chuck ‘em at me.

Even this isn’t all the knowledge that’s been released about the show. The posts that dig the farthest back are Dollymoon’s, and even they don’t comprehensively cover all of Hazbin’s production. A couple of these characters, Vivziepop created as a teenager, so there’s some truly ancient concept art floating around out there that will have details that probably aren’t canon anymore... but might still be until something happens to actively contradict them.

Tier 3: The Wiki

The wiki is kind of an absolute mess. It’s a chaotic blend of things actually seen in the pilots/comic, things mentioned at some point in some stream somewhere, and wild fan speculation based on what they headcanon as plausible based on the above, all mixed together with very little indication for which is canon, pseudo-canon, fanon, or speculation. Most of the statements on the wiki don’t have citations.

(And, on top of that, half the main characters’ info gets split up into separate tabs instead of just having a normal-ass wiki page, AND their image galleries are on COMPLETELY SEPARATE pages that are linked to in one of the tabs, and the most important characters all have TWO SEPARATE GALLERIES. Which doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the facts hidden underneath those tabs, but nevertheless drives me up the wall.)

Some things on the wiki were added according to info released so long ago it’s probably changed by now. Some are possibilities that got reported as facts. Other things on the wiki have unambiguously changed, or else are just flat-out incorrect. (For instance, at this moment Alastor’s page still lists him as an overlord, even though it's been confirmed that Alastor is not an overlord despite his power level because he isn’t interested in and didn’t pursue that position, per this stream. For a little bit, somebody’s fanart of their headcanon human Alastor got added to the wiki as concept art.)

tl;dr: the wiki should never be trusted as a primary source. The wiki’s better than it used to be. Even so, at this time, it’s only trustworthy to fill in the gaps of what you already know is true from other, better sources.

The thing it’s good at is it more or less compiles all the known info all in one place. Trying to figure out who the hell this Vox guy is is really hard if you’re reading for mentions of him in compilations of a dozen different streams, much less if you’re trying to comb through those dozen streams yourself, plus a dozen more, plus three different artists’ twitters. In comparison, it’s really easy to, say, just go look at Vox’s wiki page, where all the trivia is compiled. (And Vox’s page is actually one of the better cited on the wiki. Look at all those numbers!)

So, if you need to find out who this character is you’ve never heard of before, if you want to see a full list of the thus far named characters, if you don’t remember whether Alastor likes coffee or tea, if you want to know what Angel’s twin sister looks like, if you need a reminder of Sir Pentious’s death year... check the wiki. It’s an okay starting point.

But, if you see a “fact” on the wiki that you yourself don’t remember from straight out of the pilot, and it doesn’t have a citation that links to a tweet or a stream... regard it suspiciously. And do not trust it unquestioningly as fact until and unless you have seen the source.

Tier 4: Noncanon Creator Shitposting

I’ve mentioned Ashley’s HuniCast streams a couple times. The biggest draw of them is that she usually gets several of the voice actors in the streams, where they’ll happily say nonsense in their character voices. For the most part, they’re not sharing any actual canon info they’ve been given on their characters, just goofing around pretending to be their characters. Nevertheless, a lot of the things that happen in streams get accepted as broad fandom headcanons, like Alastor being into dad jokes. (My favorite, for obvious reasons, is this one.)

It’s easy to find the source audio for all this wonderful nonsense by searching youtube for “HuniCast highlights,” and then rummaging around for animatics people make out of the audio. The only one noncanon video of this sort I can think of that didn’t originally come from HuniCast is a lone one from Alastor’s singing voice (who’s a different voice actor than his speaking voice).

So, obviously, none of these are canon. But they do come from some of the people actually involved in the creation of the show, and they are in the characters’ canon voices, so a whole lot of people treat them as semi-canon anyway. (Even the wiki lists “dad jokes” among Alastor’s likes, which to my knowledge hasn’t come up anywhere except for HuniCast streams.) Since they’re so broadly-known, they’re worth knowing about as important sources of fanon, even if you don’t want to adopt them into your own headcanons. They’re basically the same level of canon as blooper reels.

#anonymous #ask #hazbin hotel #reference #helluva boss

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exydays · 4 years ago

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A blatant and disappointing theft.

Hello! We’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this. It’s a wild ride, so buckle up. We are the admin team of Exy Days RP. You may have seen our posts in the AFTG and roleplay community tags. For those of you who are unfamiliar with us, we’re a Discord roleplay server, based on the All For the Game Trilogy by Nora Sakavic. As far as we know, we’re one of the first. Exy Days RP was founded in June 2018. As of June 2020, we are 2 years old. This is a major accomplishment for any roleplay server, but it’s particularly impressive for a server geared towards an indie/niche fandom.

This server has been a labor of love for the past two years. We built the server from the ground up. One of our hallmarks is our unique stat system, bi-weekly IC games run with a dice mechanic, and bi-monthly IC events. The game system, xp system, solo training guidelines, fame and notoriety system, and application were designed and created by the Exy Days RP admin team. This, along with our original team and associated OCs created by our members, is something we’ve always been very proud of. We’re consistently praised for our uniqueness, and the fact that it’s what sets us apart from other smaller, newer AFTG servers.

Imagine our shock and disappointment, then, when we discovered that our server had been plagiarized. Before we spill the tea, we want to address the fact that this has taken a toll mentally and emotionally on each of the admins. The plagiarists in question were people we once considered friends, as well as former server mates. This level of theft is not only petty, it’s extremely distressing and disrespectful. If you’ve spent any time in the rp community, I’m sure you can understand what a violation of trust this is, as well as a personal affront. This has been a slap in the face. It undermines the hard work we’ve put into our server, and the creativity we strove so hard for. For roleplay veterans, you also, I’m sure, understand that this is considered a cardinal sin.

We debated how to address this issue. We ultimately decided to provide the tumblr and Discord community with the facts. The truth is unbiased and irrefutable. In the following post, we’ll be sharing screenshots highlighting the key aspects of our server that were stolen by this server. We ask that you refrain from harassing the server mentioned here. While we’re upset and hurt by the actions of these individuals, we just want to share our side of the story.

Here we go!

The server we’re talking about is https://rbu-krakens-exy-rp.tumblr.com/ The similarity of the URL aside, the most intriguing thing is the use of the team name ‘Krakens.’ This is the name of an NPC Exy team specifically created for our IC championship match in 2019. The following is a screenshot of our tumblr, announcing the impending Championship game and date. As shown here, this post predates the Krakens server by 9 months.

While the location of the team differs, the team colors do not. In fact, it would appear as though the Krakens have blatantly and wholesale copied the royal purple scheme of The Tasmanian Devils’ team colors, which are canonly purple and gold. However, the original NPC Krakens team was plum and white. Coincidence? Nah, fam.

The next screenshot showcases their tumblr header. The description of their server is lifted almost verbatim from our own:

Next, we’d like to bring your attention to our fame and notoriety mechanic, which is originally referenced and explained here:

This post can be found on our server’s tumblr blog, and was introduced February 17th, 2019. Compare it to the Krakens Exy RP:

Their server/application status is likewise a blatant theft. For comparison, refer our statistics post:

Below is a screenshot of the Krakens stats, again, effectively copied and pasted:

The following is side by side comparison of the stats field found in our application:

And theirs:

Because they have no shame (or creativity, apparently,) they also stole our dice mechanic, and are not shy about publicly taking credit for a stat and dice mechanic they did not create:

Next is a screenshot outlining our rules for solo training (used for leveling up.)

And their own, again, shamelessly copied. (Please note, this is a sever announcement. The responsible parties would have needed to be a member to obtain this guide.)

They copied our dice mechanic, and how IC games are played:

Here is a further example of this server blatantly stealing our original content, in terms of IC events and (again,) NPC team names. First, our own, original post (note the timestamp of 10/12/2019 for the team.)

Theirs:

We believe that the evidence speaks for itself. It is damning, and it demonstrates a lack of originality, shame, or tact. We ask that you help us get the word out by actively signal boosting and reblogging this post.

Thank you!

#we are extremely upset and hurt by this #thank you for taking the time to read #and signal boost #aftg #exy days rp #aftg rp #aftg oc #exy rp

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thetruthnowtold · 6 years ago

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regarding arden (@bwisou) and soyoon (@ddaengg)

As many of you may know, the news of Soyoon's (@/ddaengg) passing from cancer was announced back in late December of last year. It has recently come to the attention of those of us closely tied to her and in the general friend group with which she was involved, Soyoon is still alive. We wish this was a time that we could rejoice at the idea of regaining our friend back into our lives, but a lot more troubling information came to light in this situation that prevents us from doing so. Beyond the lie about her death, there are inconsistencies in her explanations that lead us to believe that her reasonings regarding her illness and her treatments are false or heavily altered. Arden, who many of you know as @/bwisou, is an accomplice in this, and did not only aid Soyoon in carrying out this lie, but has fabricated her own lies both directly related to this situation and in our own interactions with her as friends and mutuals, regarding her identity.

On March 9th, there were several people who noticed that Soyoon's twitter account had become active. Thinking that it may have been a family member or friend, a number of us reached out to the user and asked why the account was active again. Alex messaged Soyoon for clarification and Christine reached out to Arden to ask if she knew anything about it, only to receive no response from her, initially. A few hours later, Soyoon dm'd Alex and Christine on twitter explaining how she had suffered a herniation and had been in a coma until mid-late January. She continued to explain how breathing and recuperating had been her focus, and thus she was not able to contact anyone until then, except for Arden. She told Christine that Arden had known about her being alive since early February, but that both decided to keep it a secret. Additionally, it was explained that someone Soyoon had known well prior to her coma had stole her phone and contacted Arden on a different social media platform, acting as Soyoon's brother and announcing that she had passed, and later went on to make post for his "sister" on tumblr. While incredulous, but still somewhat believable, many of us started to question the authenticity of further descriptions of Soyoon's treatments and the timeline within which they took place.

As you can see, in Soyoon’s explanation [at first] she claims that she did not have the twitter app installed on her phone at the time. Later on, she went on to say that she did in fact have the app installed, which was why “he” was able to deactivate her twitter and tumblr in the first place. That is already one inconsistency.

It soon became evident that medical facts weren't adding up, and the things she was able to do within such small timeframes following high risk surgeries did not make sense. Soyoon had told Annie that she had begun her clinical trial in October/November of 2018. However, in her messages to Alex and Christine, she claimed that she had been accepted to and started another clinical trial in NYC as of February.

This isn’t how clinical trials work. In order for clinical trial participants to be approved, it usually takes 6 to 7 months. Additionally, if you go to the U.S.’ database for clinical trials, you can see that they were only recruiting participants in 2014 to 2016. Their status is now: “active, not recruiting”, meaning that she could have not possibly been approved for the trials in February 2019, 3 years after it had initially begun. Secondly, Soyoon described her cancer a stage 4 glioblastoma, which would render the majority of her brain cancerous. However, as you can see in the screenshot, she said that her tumor was “FULLY” removed. If her tumor were to be truly “fully” removed, that would mean that the majority of her brain is gone. And even if that was not true, that would have meant that she would be physically and mentally impaired for a long time. The timestamps show that this message was sent on March 13, 2019 and she said she had recently undergone surgery two weeks ago (and two more procedures prior to that). So within those two weeks, she claimed to have regained her ability to walk and use her hands, be able to write coherent paragraphs with no grammar errors or typos, able to play the guitar, and ice skate with perfect balance.

Soyoon has poor prognosis but was miraculously able to be treated and stabilized within the span of 6 months. Her overall presentation of cancer is inconsistent with typical cases of glioblastoma multiforme. She also claimed to have traveled back and forth between New York and Korea shortly after her surgery, which is unlikely to be cleared by any doctor after undergoing such a high risk procedure due to high altitudes, air pressure, and so on.

In addition to this, Arden's messages also became suspicious in the way that they were not only failing to match up with aspects of the information Soyoon was giving, but contradicting her own posts that she had made in December in regards to attending Soyoon's funeral and claims of passing condolences directly onto the family of the deceased.

When Christine asked Soyoon to clarify the situation, she had mentioned that she had been unaware of such a post until recently, and sent the screenshots of Arden’s explanation from when she asked her directly about it.

She would be under a lot of grief and despair, understandably, however she disregards the fact that people would definitely have paid attention to her tags on her posts. She is the original poster who announced that Soyoon had passed away, and she mentions that she has connections with the family members and will pass along condolences directly.

In trying to explain her story about attending the funeral, she states that when she attended the funeral home, she saw the surname “Kim” and assumed it was Soyoon, though this is quite obviously one of the most common surnames in Korea, and it is a bit strange that she hadn’t confirmed.

This is not the first time that Arden has raised the suspicions of some of us who have built a friendship with her over the last couple of months to years since she has been active in the fandom. Amber had been told that Arden’s hometown was Chicago, but as time went on, she began to say that her hometown was actually Daegu. She first began to tell people of her Korean ethnicity and familiarity with the language privately, but in time it became evident that what she started to present herself as more publicly on her blog was different. ¼, ½, ¾ Korean, a Korean proficiency at a low/grade school level versus her now obvious fluency to the point that she can translate with ease and thoroughly describe the language.

This clarifies things a little, but still doesn’t explain why her statements changed over time from making her “less” to “more” Korean, so to speak.

The most noticeable occurrence has been her recurring tendencies to use the photos of other people as her kakaotalk/line icons, and more recently, as selfie/daily life posts on twitter, and claim that they are her. In 2017, Arden posted a series of selfie tags (1, 2, 3, 4). About a year or so ago on kakaotalk, Amber noticed that the photo Arden had recently changed her icon to did not quite resemble the few photos that she had seen of her in the past, but the image was small and not the clearest. When Amber asked if the photo was Arden and if she had gotten her hair cut/dyed, she got a confirmation that yes, it was her, and she had recently changed her hairstyle. This image was followed by several photos with a similar hairstyle and an unclear face. A few other close friends of Arden noticed this as well, but little was thought of it at the time until it came to Amber's attention later on that the pictures had actually been taken from an account on instagram (ah.hyeon), which did not belong to Arden.

Those of us who were close to Arden began to notice throughout the following months that she took longer to reply than usual, but with her being busy with pre-med in university and with internships, this was understandable. However, Amber and Annie in particular started noticing that Arden's frequent displays of interest in wanting to call, skype, and actually meet up in person would never be followed through with on her end. Concerts, theme parks, trips to other countries, etc. had been in the works between Arden and a number of her mutuals, but they never happened. It seemed that something always came up last minute, or the plans were disregarded on her side altogether. It was inconsiderate towards those who set aside specific time and funds in hopes that the meetings would be followed through with. When Amber attended the Hamilton stops for the Love Yourself tour in September 2018, she caught wind that Arden had driven hours and crossed the border to attend the same show that she had the day prior, but did not communicate with Amber, who had at this point been a close friend of two years, that she was there. Arden had said that she would be/had attended the concert with a friend, but then told Alex that she had attended with her mom (who lives in a different state). Amber had not heard from Arden for almost three weeks prior to this, thus there was no indication to her directly that Arden had chosen to attend. Amber messaged her bluntly, making it known that she was aware they had attended the same show, to which Arden responded to the 3-week old messages as if nothing was wrong, said she hoped Amber had a nice time, and then proceeded to say that it was a mistake not to tell her, but that when she met her for the first time, she wanted to be a better version of herself. Between this and the general past that Amber had experienced with Arden bailing on plans and not replying to her messages while blatantly interacting with others elsewhere, she made the decision to call off their friendship, wishing for no grudges and no hard feelings. Arden then blocked Amber on all platforms and they have had no direct contact since.

This also brings up the topic of attending the Love Yourself concert in Hong Kong, as she had promised to send her mutuals pictures of Hong Kong Disneyland and of the concert while she was there. However, she never did and would change the topic whenever it was brought up. In recent weeks, she has been enthusiastic about the idea of meeting up with Christine when she moves to the west coast for school, but there is little reason for Christine to believe that this would actually play out and be followed through with in the end.

This is around the time that Arden's use of other people's photos she claimed as her own began to increase, this time from a different account (seosoosoo).

Since then she has moved onto using the pictures from a korean pizza restaurant's facebook, and most recently as you can see in the 3rd set of screenshots, photos with a dog in which she altered "her" hair colour in order to match up with her previous claim that she had dyed it purple, while the original owner of the photo is clearly someone else. She received many kind comments that she accepted gratefully from friends who were still unaware of the falsifying of her identity, or that were suspicious but didn't think much of it, much like Amber had nearly a year prior. The photos from seosoosoo in particular were posted from 2016-2018, and she is clearly a fully Korean woman, which is inconsistent with Arden’s claims to be only partially Korean and the photos she had initially posted of herself(?) in her first year or so on tumblr. The chat directly above shows Arden blatantly lying about this photo being of her. The majority of the times that she posts are unprovoked, and none of us pressured her to show us pictures of herself at any point in time.

Christine received a notification on April 3rd from Arden’s line account that she had updated her photo to the 2nd photo above. She proceeded to ask Arden if it was her, which she confirmed as being true. Karina, Christine, and Alicia then confronted her about them being stolen from instagram on April 7th.

She apparently “couldn’t recall” using someone else’s photos in the past, but we are clearly aware that this was not a “single isolated” incident, as we already had copious amounts of proof that she had done this many times before, and she was completely disregarding the blatant lie about the photo of the girl with the dog that she had posted on April 4th. Karina ended their conversation following Arden’s explanation, although Christine was not given the chance to reply to Arden’s messages, as she deleted her public twitter account immediately after sending them. Both Christine and Alicia reached out on line/kkt, where Arden apologised for leaving twitter and was willing to explain. Alicia was told that Arden would be stepping away from social media, and stopped her replies. When Christine had sent the following message, Arden read approximately 2 minutes later, but gave no response.

We understand social anxiety and not wanting to post your face on the internet, however she posted these photos at her own merit and was not forced to do so. She did not have to steal the identity of other people online and claim them as herself, time and time again. Some of her close friends and mutuals, some who wish to remain anonymous, confronted Arden and gave her more than enough chances to come clean, tell the truth and be forgiven. She chose to continue digging herself in a deeper hole, and guilt trip her mutuals into believing her.

In addition to her public twitter account, Arden has now deleted her private account, and Soyoon has followed suit with her own.

Initially we did not want to “expose” Arden or Soyoon because they were our friends, after all. It hurts and disappoints us to know that no matter how many chances we gave them to explain themselves, they would not confess or own up to their mistakes. Instead, they continued to lie and tried to block out those who were suspicious of them or pointed out their lies, and we felt that this was the only option they left us. Cancer and death are not topics to be taken lightly, or used for clout or pity. Many of us are going through a whirlwind of emotions and anxieties due to all of this coming to light. As a group of friends, mutuals, and acquaintances who have been close to one or both of these individuals, who all had to mourn the loss of a friend and who put our faith and trust into two people who always presented themselves as genuine and kind, we feel betrayed, hurt, angry, and sad. We feel as if we are experiencing loss again, not once but two times over. Soyoon and Arden have made it very difficult to determine what is truth and what is a lie, if Soyoon truly is alive or if she ever existed to begin with, if Soyoon and Arden are two different people, or one and the same.

It has been a rough couple of weeks for us all, and it took us a long time to compile the information above and inform many of those who we felt were close enough to the situation to know before we publicly shed light on this issue for many of you who may have also been friends, acquaintances, and followers of these individuals. We wanted to compile and post this information to put you all in the know, but also to spread awareness on how easily it is to be manipulated by others online that you thought you could trust. It is easy to make friends here with similar interests and quickly fall into a rhythm of trusting and loving one another. However, it is still the online world, and there should always be a guard kept up to some extent. Lying, guilt tripping, blaming others, inconsistent stories, breaking plans and promises, and ignoring general responsibilities of being a close friend are all signs to look out for. Arden and Soyoon are well-known for being incredibly nice, genuine, angelic people and it is so easy to refer back to these qualities when suspicion and your own anxiety gets the best of you. It is hard to end friendships, and even those of us who had let go or had been trying to move on found it difficult to rest easy with this situation still lingering in the air. This has been a big burden to carry, we have no hard feelings towards Soyoon or Arden, and ask that you please refrain from sending any negative messages to them. Posting this will be a form of release and closure for all of us, and will hopefully be a way for us to grow stronger in a moment where trust and faith seem so out of reach. We are deeply sorry to those who are shocked and understandably feel betrayed, confused, or overwhelmed by this information. Let this situation be a lesson for you and learn from our experiences.

Thank you and take care.

- @kimseokjin, @hobies, @taeguk, @jiminrolls, @jinsjade, @daegucrew, @artistkimv, @yoonmin

UPDATE:

Following our post regarding the Arden/Soyoon situation, one of us has been contacted by someone who wishes to remain anonymous. This person is the original owner of the photos that Soyoon has posted and claimed as her own, and we regretfully announce that her identity had been falsified as well. The real owner of the photos wants none of her information released and we will strongly respect that. She wanted us to mention that if any of you think you happen to see the girl in these photos, do not approach her or think she is Soyoon because she is not.

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tendomayas · 6 years ago

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The Revue of Solitude & Re: Create, An In-Depth Analysis

Endlessly listening to Re: Create made me revisit the Revue of Solitude yet again. I picked up on a lot of details about the song itself, and how it interacts with the visuals we’re seeing in the anime. In this essay, I will be discussing themes regarding childhood, the use of fire & water in the sequence, symbolic motifs that are present, etc.

I'll have timestamps linked and screenshots attached to specific moments in the Revue. I even found a video that isolates Re: Create, so we can solely focus on the song & visuals (Credits to youtube user mint pepper!). I will be talking about the lyrics at times too, but I used @angelXind’s translations found on the /r/RevueStarlight page (credits to her too!). The video has Eng translations too, and I know both translator’s translations don’t exactly match word for word, but they’re close enough to get the same ideas across. And I know translating things to English can only go so far in really portraying the exact sentence’s meaning in its original language. We’ll just use what we have.

Let’s watch and listen closely to the whole revue, shall we? This analysis is very long (it’s almost 3k words don’t say I warned you...), but there is so much to unpack, guys. I hope you enjoy my reading of it!

Right off the bat, there are two sounds I want to focus on: the violins and the piano(and/or xylophone?) keys.

(0:06) The Piano/Xylophone Keys as Lullaby Music They remind me of lullaby music because of the high pitch. The sound is reminiscent of times when everything was still pure and innocent, and not tainted by how harsh reality is. This sound comes and goes a couple of times, and is mostly in the background, being overpowered by the other instruments.

(I’d like to point out that I’m 100% sure the lullaby sounds are not just only piano keys. They might be xylophones at times or even chimes... or a triangle? Whatever they are—I’m calling them lullaby music.)

The lullaby music being in the background is representative of how Hikari is still warming up to the idea that she and Karen can be on the same stage together. These sounds are only completely audible when Hikari fully reflects about their promise, and begins believing in it. I’ll talk more about this later on.

(0:07) The Violin(s) as Fairytales This initial violin sound reminds me of fairytale music—yet another theme in relation to childhood. The violin(s) sound very “flowy”—as if you’re being surrounded by their magic.

We are all captivated with stories as kids, and for Hikari, that story was Starlight. She loved it so much that she showed it to Karen. And Karen loved it so much that she saw herself and Hikari in it; believing that they could perform the play. Kids love roleplaying characters from stories, and they took that seriously that Starlight inspired them to pursue theater.

Fairytale settings are also known for having an ideal world where anything is possible. And of course, as children, you believe that two people can indeed stand on the same stage. Until you grow up and realize that’s not how the system works after all.

(0:30) The synth(?) reminds me of an igniting fire—a huge symbol we’ll see later on.

(0:43)

This is for the promise we made

Hikari’s lines in the entire song are dedicated to Karen. Let that thought sit throughout this whole analysis.

(1:48) The synth sounds come back in full-force, as the stage is filled with fire.

(1:57) Remember how I talked about that the lullaby sounds are just waiting to be heard, despite being in the background? This is one instance of it. In this part specifically, it sounds like it’s knocking on something. I would even say that’s indicative of how much the full memory between Hikari and Karen is just waiting to be explored.

(2:14) The lullaby-like keys are back, but they are in a more melancholic tone. They sound like they’re being defeated, and that is because Hikari’s stage is now filled with flames.

Fire as Passion, & Nana Nana wants to keep the flame of the Seisho’s 99th class’ Starlight play alive with her reenactments.

Fire as Rage, & Nana It is also a symbol of her rage towards Hikari, as her arrival broke the time loop. Hikari joining the auditions threw off Nana’s comfort zone. (Up until now, Nana thinks Hikari is the reason why things are changing—and not Karen—like we see her realize later on in EP9) And Nana has been trying so hard, in every iteration, to protect all their memories together. And with Hikari’s arrival, she has to deal with the possibility of leaving it all behind.

Fire as Destruction, & Nana Aside from Hikari disrupting Nana’s loops, the fire shows how destructive her own wish is to herself. She tells the giraffe that her ideal stage has become too radiant for her to reach, but is still convinced she’ll get it someday. And that thought has trapped her in an endless spiral for who knows how long—preventing her to move on and progress further.

Fire as Destruction, & Hikari Yes—fire is also a symbol of destruction for Hikari! It literally destroyed her stage!

The Fire and Grabbing Hand as the Top Star System First of all, let’s make it clear that Hikari’s stage represents her time London.

And more specifically, it’s the recital stage she performed on while she was at the Royal Academy for Theatrical Art.

The very beginning of the Revue looked like this:

Hikari is standing on top of some steps, ready to challenge Nana. Her being on the higher plane indicates dominance and power, and she had that while she was still in London. She was so good that she got to perform in their auditions—until she lost. But before leaving, she was told, in the exact same setup during that recital, that “Someday, [she] will have to fight that thing”.

Which brings us back to where we are now:

That “thing” could mean a lot of things, but one of my readings is that she has to face the reality of the Top Star system, and how destructive it is.

That system already destroyed her in London because she kept fighting in the auditions until she was just a pawn in their game. And when she was defeated, she lost all her motivation to become a stage girl. She realized how it feels like when the system makes a puppet out of you, and what happens if your brilliance as a star gets taken away. And that is all being mirrored by how wrecked her stage is right now.

The huge grabbing hand, along with the fire, emphasizes how powerful and controlling that system can be. We even get a sense of its massive scale in comparison their bodies. And see how it also has long, pointy fingernails? Remember in fairytales, how the villains always have those kinds of hands? Yup!

Nana is the one standing on a higher plane now, and the daunting hand is on her side of the stage, while Hikari is completely backed down to the ground. Nana clings onto destructive this system so much, that in this moment, her character represents it. Earlier in the Revue, Nana says, “You’re one of us now” to her. Hikari may have gone far in the London auditions, but she was back to square one in Seisho’s. Her weapon was even reduced from an actual sword to just a dagger.

(2:28) Hikari is prompted in answering this question. And it seems very intimidating to tell this daunting stage that you and your friend made a promise to do Starlight together.

(2:40) Lullaby Music as Comfort But moments after, Hikari finally starts to face this fear. Once she begins to tell the whole story about how much Starlight means to her and Karen, the mood of the music changes. It’s more uplifting, and we even hear some hints of sparkling sounds as that memory brings her comfort. The music, along with the visuals, takes us to that happy place when there was nothing wrong in the world. In these few seconds, she is reliving that sweet fairytale in her head.

(3:05) The sparkle sounds are back again, right when she says, “That was the moment I was born. As the stage girl, Kagura Hikari.” And her hand isn’t even trembling anymore.

(3:24) Intensified Violins as The Chase to Become a Stage Girl Oh god, this is one of my favorite parts of the whole song. The music sounds like it’s chasing something. This “chasing” music, paired with the visuals of her very first Revue, shows that that was the moment she bounced back from her defeat. She started fighting again because she remembered why she wants to in the first place.

(3:52) it sounds like the music is being defeated again. This shift reflects Hikari realizing it is now inevitable that she would have to fight Karen in the auditions. We hear a loud bell too, as the visuals also took us back to reality, forcing us out of those dream-like flashbacks.

(3:59) I really love this because they are literally fighting on the last building standing. Hikari has that much foundation left, but it’s enough to keep her going. The scale composition is also good because you could really the tower, where the crown sits, as it looks down on Hikari’s burnt stage.

(4:16) Lullaby Music Sounding Like a Child’s Wind-Up Music Box Oh lord, another favorite part of mine. Notice how this is the only part of the song where the lullaby music is completely isolated. We are shown a flashback of that day where Hikari and Karen catch up on all those years apart from each other—the very day where Karen reminds her about their promised stage—at the same place they made it years ago.

The lullaby music isn’t even a lullaby anymore—it’s a full-on children’s wind-up music box. And you know how you have to wind up its key all the way back, in order to hear the whole song? That’s exactly what happened on that day they caught up. They went back to the place they made their promise, as grown-ups. Karen reminded Hikari that if they can pass the auditions together, they could still stand on the same stage. And the very thought of that comforts Hikari so much, that she starts believing in it.

(4:39) Her hair pin—which Karen gave to her during the promised day—begins to shine, as she is empowered from all these memories.

(4:42) Alright guys here we go! The stage is shifting and so is Hikari’s weapon!. There is a lot happening, so let’s go over this one by one.

(4:51) Hikari’s Weapon, Part 1: the Eye Motif I like to think that the twinkling eye represents how much Karen has literally opened her eyes to the possibility of sharing the same stage together.

(4:57) The little “barriers”(/guard? quillion? Not sure what that part of a dagger is, and Googling can only go so far) weapon literally opens up too.

And having the lyric at this very moment be

Our dream unfolds

Is such impeccable timing.

(5:01) Tokyo Tower Falling The Tokyo Tower falling into the water, causing a giant tidal wave, is how powerful Hikari’s promise is with Karen. All these memories she just reflected on elevated her emotions—represented by the water—so much that it’s overflowing.

(5:18) Literally—who could forget these magnificent succession of frames. Who. Tell Me.

Before I talk about the water, I’d like to point out that Hikari and Nana are finally standing on the same plane. Meaning they now both have the same amount of power to give their all in the audition.

Anyway, let’s discuss what all this water means.

Water as Emotions As I’ve mentioned above, water is the element of emotions. The amount of water in this scene is how much emotion is contained and released within Hikari, as she remembers her drive to win.

Water as a Flowing Current and Tidal Wave Water is an element that flows—free to literally roam around anywhere it wants to be. At times it can be blocked by huge rocks or pieces of wood, but a tiny stream will eventually form, and will find its way out. Water also comes and goes in waves, especially in the sea. These two qualities of water shows how Hikari is able to bounce back in times where she has lost. Despite how many times her flow has been disrupted, or her tidal wave crashed—she will always make a come back.

Water as Cleansing Ultimately, the water is a metaphor for Hikari cleansing the toxic environment the burning stage had. Her memories with Karen are enough to get rid of it all—to wash off the destruction, and the doubt that they can’t win.

(5:25) Water as Life The lyrics here translated to English are along the lines of:

In the days when we were young The small seed that we planted then Has started to grow and bloom Guided by the stars

The seed is Hikari and Karen’s promise to perform Starlight together. That seed is being watered every time they remember to wear their hair pins, even when they got enrolled in performing art schools, and as they became actresses in their school’s stage plays, etc. Their plant has been growing until it started blooming today—because of their reunion. And because of Hikari finally warming up to the concept that they can win together.

And you know, the Act 2 of the Revue is literally titled, “Blooming the Star.”

The music in this sequence sounds like actual happy fairytale music again—but there’s a lot more instruments this time, making it feel grander than before.

(5:40) There goes the “chasing” music again, adding even more drama to the emotional quality of the song. All of this shows Hikari’s fierce determination to win.

(5:45) Hikari’s Weapon, Part 2: the “Hook” as Her Perseverance No matter how far astray Hikari has gone during her auditions in London, she still managed to find her way back to her roots with Karen. Just like how the hook will continue to grip on the same spot, until one reaches that point after following the rope it’s attached to.

She also uses the dagger/hook as a swing, and you know how she literally swung back after being defeated? Yup.

Not to mention how great it is again that the lyrics are

I’ll reach my hand out towards you

is sung once she uses her newly transformed dagger/hook for the first time.

And with all of that perseverance, Hikari wins this round of the auditions.

The last thing I would like to point out are the last lines of the song:

Our bonds connected by the stars Can make a miracle happen

Hikari finally defeated Nana—who has won the auditions countless times beforehand. Now I consider that a freaking miracle. But guess who else won?

Karen. She won against Claudine too, the second-best one in the class. I would say that’s a miracle. Karen—the girl who jumped in—someone who wasn’t even supposed to be a part of the Revues in the first place. And she won because she holds her dream with Hikari so close to her heart.

And that ends this long analysis of Re: Create + the Revue of Solitude! If you made it this far, please know that I love you. And I hope all these small details will add to your experience in rewatching/listening to the song/scene again! Thank you for reading.

#hikari kagura #nana daiba #karen aijou #hikaren #revue starlight #shoujo kageki revue starlight #i can't believe i fucking did this #HIKARI IS NOT EVEN MY FAVORITE CHARACTER. FIRST OF ALL #i mean i love her but like #MIMORIN JUST DIDN'T HAVE TO GO SO HARD SINGING RE:CREATE OKAY #also if anything is grammatically wrong please spare me i haven't written a ~formal~ analysis in about 2 years #my analysis

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spoonie-living · 8 years ago

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Review: PillDrill Medication Management System

Editor Diane on deck! Frustrated with your med management setup? We’ve got a neat, nicely integrated system for you here.

First, a quick overview:

Category: medication management, caretaker aids

Good for: organization, habit-keeping, record-keeping, reminders, institutional use

Design: 4/5 ★★★★☆

Functionality: 4.5/5 ★★★★½

Bang for your Buck: 5/5 ★★★★★

Overall: 4/5 ★★★★☆

This product is best for fairly specific needs and could use additional development to really live up to its potential, but I still really enjoyed using it and would heartily recommend it to the right user. I would recommend the pill strips on their own, too.

Read on to find out if this is your own personal holy grail!

Disclosure: I have been given this product as part of a product review through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. Although the product was a gift, all opinions in this review remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company.

So. There’s a lot to discuss here.

As a starter, let me introduce my partner Ash! They are agender and use the singular they/them pronoun. We’re polyamorous, and I live with them and our other partner Steve.

Ash is a lot sicker and less mobile than I am, so I and the able-bodied Steve tag-team on helping them out. I got the PillDrill specifically for Ash, so I’m reviewing from the perspective of someone supporting a partner, and also based on the feedback they’ve given me.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dig in!

What is it?

PillDrill is a system meant to fully address medication management. It has a small “mission control” hub, 1, 2, 3, or more pill strips, scan tags you can put on your individual medication bottles, and a cute little mood cube you can use to quickly log how you’re feeling at any time.

The concept here is to use the hub to scan medications as you take them. The pill strip pods are scannable, and you can attach lettered tags to individual bottles with straps or adhesive. The hub can accept a scan of these or the mood cube, and can prompt you to make certain scans with beeps and flashes.

Tying all of this together is a little app that you and a caretaker, friend, or family member can download to keep track of everything. Since you won’t always be right in front of your hub, you can also log a dosage from the app by medication name, pill strip, or letter. The app will send you scheduled reminders if you like, and send an alert to someone if you are a specified number of hours late in taking them.

The app keeps track of when you log any medication, which is helpful if you need to space your dosages carefully. It keeps your history so you can easily look back and see your adherence to your schedule, or how often you’re using rescue medications.

What we liked

This system is feature-rich and pretty while still being modular and flexible. Don’t want reminders? Just log your meds when you take them! Don’t want to bring others in on your medication management? Don’t need to! Not really into scanning or the hub? Just buy the pill strips!

Ash and I did a lot of trial and error with the system, figuring out what did and didn’t work for them. In the end, they found that they like having the hub around by their nest on the couch, but mostly log doses on their phone. They don’t care about me or Steve being looped in on what they take, but I did find their mood notifications really handy and used their medication history/”med cabinet” in the app to make sure I filled their meds up correctly each week. They found medication reminders a bit too stressful (the hub beeps and flashes and their phone lights up), so we turned those off really quickly.

The pill strips are absolute keepers. They’re nice and easy for Ash to open despite painful joints, and—fitting in with the modular approach—each day’s pod pops out for easy carrying. Very handy. The pods are surprisingly spacious, too! Ash was worried their enormous host of dinner medications wouldn’t fit, but they (just barely) do.

Ash's pill strips are in the places they are mostly likely to take a certain dosage, so Steve and I find the individual pods extremely helpful when Ash asks us to fetch their meds from another floor of the house; there’s no worry of us moving an entire pill case to the wrong spot and forgetting to put it back. When they go out for a meal, they bring their pod along with ease (although this does mean there’s a weekly “where-did-you-leave-that-one-pod” moment).

As you may have gathered, I just love the pill strips as a concept, and think they really stand out on their own as an individual product. Do read on to the next section for some of my concerns, though.

The mood cube, too, is a really great addition to the system. The hub is a bit like a clock radio, so you could keep it by your bed or wherever you nest up during the day, and just scan the cube whenever you notice it. Ash doesn’t let on about how bad they’re feeling—mostly by habit, but also because they don’t emote unless they feel socially obligated to. The mood cube was so great, because I could get passive updates over the course of the day without bothering them with “how do you feel on a scale of 1-10″ or any other such silliness.

While we didn’t end up using the other features, I absolutely see how they could be useful for the right person! I love that the PillDrill seems to have been designed with different experiences in mind.

What we didn’t like

I actually have a pretty long laundry list of things we didn’t like in the PillDrill. They aren’t dealbreakers, but they do somewhat detract from the product as a whole.

The pill strips make me a bit uneasy for travel. I definitely would recommend them to someone who is mainly taking their meds at home, but a trade-off of easy-opening pods is that the closures aren’t very strong; if your pods were being jostled in your purse every day, you’d probably have a few spills. Ash was hesitant to try carrying them because of this, but the shortness of the trips they generally take with the pods seems to minimize the risk.

The strips also have nice magnetic straps you can pull over them to keep them in place when you travel, but I’m still not convinced they wouldn’t pop open in your luggage under the right circumstances.

Note: If you’re looking for a good on-to-go pill case, I highly recommend looking into the Sabi Folio, which I love and have been using for the last 2 years. Here’s a review I wrote a while back for Ethos Disability, if you’d like to learn more.

I also noticed that some pods stay in the strips better than others. They’re supposed to pop into the strip pretty securely, but we have a couple days that can’t quite stay in, which bugs me just from an aesthetic perspective. This is a production issue and could probably be fixed in future versions.

I think the app is where this product needs the most work.

There were a bunch of little things that bothered us, so I’ll just throw them in a little list:

There’s no way to assign doses to pill strips. This means that if you log a day’s pod, you’re not logging exactly what you took that day. This is a real miss, since folks will probably want to keep track of when they start and stop certain medications. The alternative is to log each medication one at a time, which is ridiculous when you take so many medications.

You can’t name pill strips. They just go by Strip 1, Strip 2, and so on. Kind of rough when you have a bunch of them.

Notification overload. When you take a bunch of meds all at once, you get this cascade of reminders. You can fix this by setting up a pill strip instead of individual meds, but the above two items make that a little less viable. A short-term fix would be to group those reminder notifications.

No mood-only notifications. I don’t care when Ash takes their meds—that’s their business—but I do want to know how they’re feeling. Unfortunately, I can only get these with “meds taken” notifications, so I experience a notification overload on my end, too.

Better mood gradation needed. Ash’s health has been ranging from “bad” to “awful” lately, and they’ve expressed a real desire for better gradation in that area; the data we’re collecting here isn’t so useful. I know cubes are useful and cute, but maybe PillDrill can take a cue from the dice used for tabletop RPGs.

No time stamp editing. Right now, you can’t edit the timestamps, meaning that if you forget to log your meds and try to do it later, it won’t show an accurate time. Ash takes a number of meds that restrict when they can eat before and after, so it’s pretty important that they keep track of when they were taken. They’ve been foggy enough that they might be able to remember they took something 15 minutes ago, but will forget that a few minutes after and not know when it’s safe to eat yet. This could be a big barrier for folks who use rescue meds they need to space out by a certain number of hours.

No way to export medication lists. This is pretty self-explanatory—it would be great to be able to share the contents of your “med cabinet” in the app with a doctor. As it is now, you’ll either need to take screenshots or keep a separate list. This makes the “comprehensive solution” feel a bit less comprehensive.

Symptom tracking would be pretty cool. We’re both hoping to see this in a later release of the app, as it’s the obvious next step.

Who will benefit from this system

Overall, it seems like this system was designed primarily for foggy stay-at-home folks with or without caretaker(s). It also seems like it would be great in an institutional setting, given the at-a-glance medication adherence features and ability for a caretaker to add multiple patients to their app.

Anyone with a bunch of different medication times will love the reminders, and folks who generally take their doses at home will love the pill strips to death.

Otherwise, it’s all about what you’re into!

Want one of your own?

Look no further! Head over to the PillDrill site to pick up the whole system, or just the beautiful pill strips.

Enjoy, y’all! ❤

#spoonie #chronic illness #disability #invisible illness #medication management #patient #caretaker #medication #organization #reminders #pilldrill #review #product #sponsored

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terabitweb · 5 years ago

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Original Post from Trend Micro Author: Trend Micro

By Jaromir Horejsi and Joseph C. Chen (Threat Researchers)

We found a new modular fileless botnet malware, which we named “Novter,” (also reported and known as “Nodersok” and “Divergent”) that the KovCoreG campaign has been distributing since March. We’ve been actively monitoring this threat since its emergence and early development, and saw it being frequently updated. KovCoreG, active since 2011, is a long-running campaign known for using the Kovter botnet malware, which was distributed mainly through malvertisements and exploit kits. Kovter has been involved in click fraud operations since 2015, using fraudulent ads that have reportedly cost businesses more than US$29 million. The botnet was taken down at the end of 2018 through concerted efforts by law enforcement and cybersecurity experts, including Trend Micro.

The dismantlement hasn’t deterred the cybercriminals. Though the botnet is dead, we noticed that the KovCoreG campaign didn’t stop their activities and instead developed another botnet. Working with ProofPoint’s threat researcher Kafeine, we were able to uncover a new fileless botnet malware — Novter — being distributed by the operators of KovCoreG.

While the malvertising attacks were originally focused on U.S.-based users, they have since expanded to several European countries starting this summer. Our telemetry also revealed that the malvertising attacks were being distributed through a few of top 100 websites in the U.S., which were also abused by Kovter in their previous activities. Our analysis of Novter, particularly its most notable modules, are detailed in this technical brief.

Figure 1. Infection chain of KovCoreG, Novter, and Nodster

KovCoreG’s attack chain

KovCoreG’s attacks are socially engineered malvertisments that lure unwitting users into downloading a software package needed to update their supposedly out-of-date Adobe Flash application. However, it instead drops a malicious HTML application (HTA) file named Player{timestamp}.hta. When the victim executes the HTA file, it will load additional scripts from a remote server (communication is RC4-encrypted) and run a PowerShell script that appears to take inspiration from the open-source Invoke-PSInject project.

Figure 2. Screenshot showing an example of KovCoreG’s malvertisements (captured by ProofPoint)

Figure 3. Snapshot of KovCoreG’s malvertisement traffic (captured by ProofPoint)

The PowerShell script, in turn, will disable Windows Defender and Windows Update processes. It runs a shellcode to bypass User Account Control (UAC) via the CMSTPLUA COM interface (related to connection management). The PowerShell script is also embedded with Novter, which will be executed filelessly via the PowerShell reflective injection technique.

Analysis of the Novter malware

Novter is a backdoor in the form of an executable file. Immediately after its execution, it performs the following anti-debugging and anti-analysis checks:

Searching for blacklisted processes and modules by comparing the CRC32 algorithms of their names with a list of hardcoded CRC32s

Checking if the number of cores is too small

Checking if the process is being debugged

Checking if the Sleep function is being manipulated

If it finds any of aforementioned information, it is then reported to the C&C server. Note that it uses different sets of C&C servers for different purposes. One set, for instance, is solely used for anti-analysis reporting. After the affected machine’s environment is double-checked and reported, the malware goes to sleep for a long time.

The backdoor commands that Novter supports are:

killall — Terminate a process and delete a file (for all modules)

kill — Terminate a process and delete a file (for a specific module)

stop — Terminate the process without deleting its file (for a specific module)

resume — Start a process (for a specific module)

modules — Download and execute an additional module

update — Download a new version and install the update

update_interval — Set an interval between two consecutive update attempts

Novter communicates with its command-and-control (C&C) servers and downloads multiple JavaScript modules for different purposes. We have identified three Novter modules, which include:

A module that shows a technical support scam page on the victim’s machine

A module that abuses WinDivert (Windows packet divert, a tool that enables network packets sent to and from Windows network stacks to be captured, modified, or dropped) to block the communication from processes like those from antivirus (AV) software

A module (which we named “Nodster”) that is written with NodeJS and io for proxying network traffic. We consider it a module responsible for building the proxy network needed to support the click fraud operations.

Analysis of Novter’s module “Nodster”

During our analysis of Novter, we came across three notable modules downloaded by the malware. One of them, which we named “Nodster,” is a network proxy module. The module installs NodeJS on the victim’s machine and executes a NodeJS script “app.js” in the background. The script will connect to an embedded C&C server address and receive the second C&C server address.

It will then establish a backconnection to the second C&C server with the socket.io protocol. The second C&C server will return commands to instruct the module to make a TCP connection, send a TCP payload, and return the response from the server back to them. This turns the system infected with Novter become a proxy for the attacker to use.

Figure 4. The communication flow between the Nodster proxy and C&C servers

Correlating Nodster’s traffic

During the course of our research, we observed lots of encrypted traffic proxied through the Nodster module, but we managed to decrypt some of it, which showed scripts used for web advertising. This indicates that the C&C server instructed the infected machine to open a website with an embedded JavaScript code related to displaying advertisements.

We also noticed that the ad traffic appeared to have been sent from Android devices, since the HTTP(S) requests transferred through the proxy had HTTP User-Agent headers from Android devices. These requests are appended with a “X-Requested-With” header with many Android app names. We inspected those apps on the Google Play store because we initially thought that the traffic could have been generated by these applications. However, we did not find any suspicious code in these applications that would have generated this traffic. We didn’t find any similar code shared between these Android applications either.

Figure 5. The HTTPS request header spoofed to be from an Android device

With this finding, we inferred that the ad traffic was not coming from the mobile devices, but was instead being generated by the attacker. The attacker disguised the traffic to appear as if it was being sent from Android devices and mobile applications and proxied them through the Novter/Nodster botnet. After all, KovCoreG’s operations involved click fraud.

Defending against Novter

Advertisements are an innocuous online staple, but KovCoreG’s campaign demonstrates how they can be intrusive, not to mention how Novter can expose the user’s system to other and actual threats. Given how KovCoreG engages in click fraud, it can significantly affect businesses. A single mobile ad fraud incident in 2018, for instance, cost Google and its partners around US$10 million in losses.

Novter also exemplifies fraudsters’ maturing techniques with its use of fileless infection methods and obfuscating its C&C connections and fraud-related traffic. Users, for their part, should adopt best practices, especially against socially engineered threats like malvertisements.

Trend Micro endpoint solutions, such as the Smart Protection Suites and Worry-Free Business Security that have behavior monitoring capabilities, can protect users and businesses from threats like Emotet by detecting malicious files, scripts, and messages as well as blocking all related malicious URLs. Trend Micro Apex One protection employs a variety of threat detection capabilities such as behavioral analysis, which protect against malicious scripts, injection, ransomware, memory and browser attacks.

The full details of our research on Novter is in this technical brief, while the indicators of compromise (IoCs) are in this appendix.

With additional analysis from Ecular Xu.

Hat tip to ProofPoint’s researcher Kafeine whom we worked with in this research.

The post New Fileless Botnet Novter Distributed by KovCoreG Malvertising Campaign appeared first on .

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Go to Source Author: Trend Micro New Fileless Botnet Novter Distributed by KovCoreG Malvertising Campaign Original Post from Trend Micro Author: Trend Micro By Jaromir Horejsi and Joseph C. Chen (Threat Researchers)

#Trend Micro

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lawrenceseitz22 · 6 years ago

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 224 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

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

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

Announcement

Bradley: Okay. Now we’re live. This is screwing me up. Hey everybody! This is Bradley Benner with Semantic Mastery. This is Hump Day Hangouts Episode 224. It is February 20th, 2019. I’m sorry I don’t have my camera today. For some reason Google Hangouts decided it did not wanna recognize my camera at the last minute. You guys would probably appreciate the fact you don’t have to look at my face. I’ve only got two people on with me today because Adam and Hernan are out at the Funnel Hacking Live event. They’re out having fun while we’re hard at work.

Let me say hi to Chris. What’s up, Chris? How are you?

Chris: Doing good. Great to be here.

Bradley: Marco.

Marco: I made it, man. I’m here.

Bradley: Good. I don’t really have any announcements specifically, except that we’ve got a Mastermind webinar tomorrow, for those of you that are in the Mastermind. We’re gonna be covering several things that I’ve been tracking for the last few weeks now as far as doing some off-page tests for ranking GMBs, doing a whole bunch of different types of off-page tests and isolation.

In fact, let me se, for one moment, I’ve got pause the screen for a minute. Marco, do you have any announcements while I do that?

Marco: No. But I’m so glad you’re gonna talk about this because my write-up for the Mastermind, which I’m finishing up today by the way, is about that, testing, whether it’s single variable testing or whether it’s testing in isolation, or what it actually is that you’re trying to do.

What you’re trying to do is gauge whether there’s an effect. You’re not trying to show that something doesn’t work. It’s crazy going in and trying to test that something doesn’t work. The test should be, what does it do? You should get the data. The data should speak for what the tests. You’re testing a variable, but does the variable move the needle? No, it doesn’t. Okay, onto the next thing, which is what you’re doing, you’re testing all of these different variables and you’re isolating so that you can do whatever it is that you’re doing to each one.

I’m really glad that you’re talking about this. I’m gonna go a little bit more in-depth in the Mastermind newsletter about testing and how people are being misled by so-called, all of these are expert testers that don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Bradley: Yeah. I’ve been tracking, well, about a month ago was. It was around January 21st when I started setting these tests up. I’m testing every one of these methods and isolation. In other words, they’re GMB or Google My Business profiles that had the initial on-page stuff done and what my standard operating procedure is for optimizing a new profile, and then from there, all I’m doing is specifically one of these methods.

I’m testing across multiple properties per methods so that I can see if we get positive results or negative results or no results on any one method, I want to see if that occurs across more than one property for the same type of method. Because if we get positive results on two properties, if I’m only doing two tests or testing on two locations per method and they’re both positive, then that’s a really good indication that that’s a viable method or something that moves the needle.

Like he says, that’s actually funny you said that because that’s the title or the subtitle of the actual test that I’m doing Which Method Moves the Needle the Most? These different tests that I’m doing, and like I said, if a positive result occurs on two properties, two separate locations, then I know that it’s a good method to use and that it will continue … It will be duplicatable, in other words.

I will obviously set it up and see if I can repeat it again across other properties. If I get two no changes, or two negative changes, then it’s probably the case also. But if we get one that’s positive and one it’s neutral, or one that’s positive, one is negative, then it’s obviously gonna have to require further investigation.

So that’s essentially what I’m doing. I’ve tried several these things and I’ve got some really super good results back with one of these methods in particular. I’m not gonna tell which one here, guys, you got to join a Mastermind for that. But I’m gonna be covering it tomorrow because I’ve got really, really good results from one method in particular. It’s actually one of the easiest methods and that’s what I love about. I’m pleasantly surprised. Actually, I was not surprised that the method works because of what I know about that method, but I’m glad that it’s one of the easier methods for any one of us to achieve, or to implement, I should say.

Again, I’m gonna be covering that in the Mastermind webinar tomorrow as well as I’m also gonna be covering some questions about PR stacking from some of our members. I’m also gonna be talking about setting up display ads for remarketing using the Google Display Network because it’s a much, much easier process now and it’s very, very effective.

So that’s what I’ve got to tease with for tomorrow. It looks like we don’t have that many questions. But I’m gonna get right into it.

Chris: I got a question, man.

Bradley: Go ahead.

Chris: I scrolled through my Facebook feed today, people are literally scared of GMB and Google all of a sudden. You just were talking about, yeah, which method is the most potent or the biggest needle move of them. Anybody, you wanna share your insights on that, Marco or Bradley?

Bradley: I’ll start. Yeah. Armageddon is coming, right? The sky is always falling, Chicken Little type stuff. By the way, that screenshot that you’re looking at there, guys, that’s the tease for tomorrow’s webinar in Mastermind because those are the movements that I’ve seen occur just in the last few days from that one particular method I’m gonna be covering.

Anyways, Marco and I, well, we’ve been around long enough to know that shit changes all the time. It’s SEO. For the last several months we’ve been pushing really hard on GMB stuff because it’s been working so well and I’ve been saying all along it at some point Google’s gonna shut it down. I don’t necessarily think that existing properties are gonna be taken down. What I think is gonna happen, and this is just my assumption, guys, my educated opinion about this or my educated guess, prediction I should say, is that it’s gonna become damn near impossible to register new GMB profiles. I think that’s how it’s gonna be shut down.

That’s why I’ve been pushing for people to build, build, build for the last several months, and to build your ass off and to build a team for scaling your build processes so that you can secure as many location as possible prior to what I think is going to happen, which is going to be damn near impossible to register new businesses.

I don’t know exactly what they’re gonna do to shut it down, but it’s likely going to be something like having to take photographs at a storefront or at the business location. It could also be requiring … Again, guys, just speculation, but it could also require you to send corporate documents in or something that shows proof of address with the business name on it, so like a utility bill or something. I know because I’ve actually had to call Google Support before to get help moving a legit business for a client of mine to get the Maps listing updated. That was one of the things required, was a bank statement, the account details and everything could be blurred, but it had to show the company name and the mailing address and all that.

Those are things that I assume or that I predict are going to happen. But we always find workarounds and we always find ways to continue to make money. That’s really the name of the game, guys. Don’t freak out. Don’t go into panic mode. Relax. Know that you’re gonna have other options. We’re gonna figure them out eventually and other people will figure them out as well, and you can too. But it’s about keeping your head cool and realizing that this is a cat-and-mouse game that we play and that’s the business that we’re in.

Marco, what are your thoughts?

Marco: I get a little bit more basic, man. Yeah, I don’t care. Why? I say basic because there’s basic web principles. The foundational stuff that we teach is based on web principles, right? We’re in the semantic web. We all know that, right? We talked about ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority, and how to generate all that. But there’s foundation of principles. You can only code one way. If you write spaghetti code, you’re writing garbage that nobody’s ever going to be able to tell what it is if someone needs to come and take over. So there’s international standards that are set.

There are basic principles where the guidelines are not set by Google. Google’s Terms of Service and Google’s guidelines are determined by Google, but coding standards are set by other people. In order for Google to mess with that, Google has to go and push at a higher level where there’s a bunch of other people pushing back. I’ve been talking about this since Semantic Mastery began. Google is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Correct, but there’s others on the web. Google can’t just go and do whatever the fuck they want to do. There’s some stuff that they just can’t touch.

While that goes on we’ll just keep going and getting the results that we get. That’s what you saw. The test that you’re shown, which is beautiful because it’s based on basic foundational principles, that’s what we work from. Now all of these other stuff, yes, they’re hacks, guys. We manipulate. That’s our job. We’re in this to make money. We’re not here to make people happy. We’re not here to make Google happy. I’m in this to make money. I don’t care. They can’t tell me that it’s wrong to do what I’m doing, well then, Google should go and change their whole scheme for making money online because it’s all based on lies and it’s all based on moving people into their funnel and keeping them there as long as possible; they don’t care how they do it, they just want to do it. Well, that’s fine. That’s their business model. I have mine.

Just to get back to this, basic principles, they still work. Why? Because everyone has to adhere to the same standards no matter what. That’s my rant for today – well, hopefully.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree with that. Let’s get into questions, guys. Not a whole lot of questions and I’m surprised. Maybe it’s this new platform that’s scaring people off, the discus platform. All right.

Chris: The sky is always falling.

Bradley: What’s that?

Chris: The sky is always falling. Some people say it’s …

Bradley: Chicken Little, yeah. Okay. Ben’s up. He says, “Hey Bradley, thanks for our call last Thursday.” Okay. Ben’s one of our Mastermind members and I’d been doing Mastermind calls. I opened up an opportunity for our Mastermind members to schedule a 30-minute call with me. It started the first week in January and this is the seventh week that I’ve been doing those calls. Next week, I’ll wrap it up and then it’ll be closed down until June. In June, I’m gonna open it back up again.

I encourage our Mastermind members that even scheduled to call with me in this first round to call schedule a second call with me in June because in six months you will have hopefully overcome some of the issues that we discussed on our call, and hopefully you have a new set of issues. I really want to continue to find out what’s going on with our members. It’s been super insightful for me to learn more about what’s going …

Well, first, to get to know our members on a more personal level. It’s been great. It really has been. I’ve really enjoyed the calls. Number two, it’s given us a lot of insight as to what’s going on, and in our Mastermind, which is our top level program, what’s going on in our members’ businesses, so that we can develop better tools and resources and training to help them overcome their obstacles. It really has been beneficial to me as well as, hopefully, to others.

Is Local GMB Pro Included In The MasterMind?

That’s what Ben is referring to here. He says, “Thanks for our call last Thursday. It was good to talk to you and I got a lot out of it.” Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. He says, “A couple of questions. Number one, is Local GMB Pro included in the Mastermind? Not that I need it. Local Lease Pro is looking pretty comprehensive as I go through it. I’m just curious as it doesn’t recognize my username.”

Yeah, I know. We had Rob Beale collaborate on that with us and so there is an additional charge for that. But as a Mastermind member you get it at a silly ridiculous discount from what the advertised price is, if you look at the sales page publicly. Just contact Support when you’re ready for that, Ben. But since I did talk with you, trust me, you’re not ready for that yet. Go through Local Lease Pro, start implementing those strategies, provided that they’re still going to work, depending on what happens with the GMB stuff going forward.

As it stands right now, it’s still working just fine. But just keep in mind that you should be implementing that right now and then the Local GMB Pro training would really be more about assets that need the additional push, or if you’re in super competitive areas, that’s where you’re going to want to implement Local GMB Pro. But again, that’s not something that I would recommend you start with right now, you’re gonna be overwhelmed. I know you and I talked about that. Do not overwhelm yourself with too much training. I’d rather you take action and Local Lease Pro is set up with actionable data, actionable information for you to go out and implement immediately to start building, and that’s the most important thing. Okay.

Good question. But, yeah, as a Mastermind member, you’ll get a significant discount on that when you’re ready. But I can tell you right now you’re not ready for that. Okay.

How Do You Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome?

Number two, he says, “You said you were a former shiny object syndrome sufferer.” Yes, I was. That’s absolutely true. I think most of us in this industry or in this space are or have suffered from that, and maybe still do at this point. As SOS is so clearly at the root of my lack of progress to this point, I was wondering what it was that helped you turn the corner. You are clearly totally recovered and in control today.”

Yeah. You know what it was, honestly, it was kind of a perfect storm in that I was trying to do too many things and trying to not only teach on too many different topics as far as digital marketing, but I was trying to do too many things for my agency and provide too many services. What happens is I became overwhelmed with chasing different methods and trying to implement every method that I could learn about. So every time I saw a marketing email come through, and you guys know, I’m sure you are all on a million email list too, I would get the same type of emails, you guys would about new methods, about new tools and processes and things like that and I would get sucked in. The grass is always greener, right? I would see the opportunity that I thought, as an entrepreneur, I would see opportunity and I’m want to go after it, I want to chase it.

But what happened was over time things started to accumulate and accrue to the point where I had 15 projects going on and none of them were really progressing because I was spread too thin across too much. We, as a corporation, Semantic Mastery kind of suffered that for a period of time too and in part, I’m the face of the company, I should say, not to discredit my partners or anything, but in part because I was doing that in my own business as well. So we were kind of going that way with Semantic Mastery, trying to be too many things to too many people.

Really what happened was, and fortunately, my partner Adam, he’s not here today, but he introduced us to a book by Gino Wickman, I think it is, called Traction. It’s a program for really zeroing in on a singular focus and purpose for a company, for any organization. We’ve been working through that now, guys. What are we, over a year now into that, Traction? Are we on our fifth quarter now? Somebody would comment on that?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what quarter we’re on.

Bradley: I think we’re on our fifth quarter now. Anyways, we do everything now. It’s kind of a combination of various methods, but the 12-week year is one of the books that we provide to our Mastermind members when they come join. Another one is That One Thing. That’s another book that where it teaches you how to really focus in on one thing to get results and find out what is the most important thing, the one thing that I can do such that everything else becomes irrelevant or less important or irrelevant, or something like that. It’s a great book. Then there’s the 12-week year, which is about taking 12-month goals and boiling them down into 12 weeks, which is a 90-day period. What we call them 12-week Sprints. It’s a quarter every year.

We started implementing these strategies and then traction really kind of started giving us the organizational structure as a corporation to start developing our goals, figuring out what our primary focus was going to be, zeroing in on that, and then building out our processes and systems to achieve those goals. Like I said. I think we’re on our fifth quarter of that process now. That’s why over the last probably six months or so, you guys have been following us and probably noticed we’ve really shifted to just local marketing stuff. Not that we don’t still talk about and teach and share and present information in the Mastermind about all types of marketing, but our primary push is local.

That’s because I needed to do that in my own business in order for me to get better results for my clients to increase my own income and to get some of my time and my sanity back because I was just all over the place and it was overwhelming and, honestly, it was exhausting. Also, as you guys know, shit’s changing all the time in the digital marketing space, so having to stay on the cutting edge of everything is incredibly difficult.

So I really wanted to shift my focus into something that I preferred, which was local marketing. I also feel that that’s one of the quickest ways to earn revenue, is local marketing. So I kind of shifted to that. We took several surveys of you guys, our members, to find out that that’s what the vast majority of our audience was doing, was local marketing or lead generation, that kind of stuff. So we really shifted all of our focus to that.

Again, Ben, to answer your question, how I got over it was kind of a combination of recognizing the fact that I was really spinning my wheels and not making any progress in a lot of different areas because I was going after too many things, my attention was spread too thin, and then also, again, when the student is ready the teacher appears.

Adam kind of presented us or brought to our attention like this, Gino Wickman’s Traction program and they call the EOS, I guess the employee operating system, and all this stuff. Just get the book, guys, it’s inexpensive, and go through it. It’s a lot of work. We’ve been at it for five months now-, or excuse me, five quarters now, I think five quarters, and it’s a lot of work. But it’s totally worth it because we’re seeing the benefits and the fruits of the work that we’re putting in.

So a combination of those two things for me really kind of got me to stop … Guys, I’m not kidding, I’ve unsubscribed from just about every single email list. I got one specific email that I would always sign up for stuff and now, because over the years I’ve subscribed to so many lists, I’ve unsubscribed from just about everything. But yeah, I still get emails for internet marketing products and stuff all the time, from stuff that I’ve never even subscribed from. You guys know how that goes, people sell lists and your name gets passed, your email gets passed around from one list to another, whether you subscribed or not.

I’m not gonna lie, every single day now when I get a marketing email unless it’s from somebody that I want to be on their list, I go find the unsubscribe button. as soon as I open an email, hit the unsubscribe button, and then I come back and hit the spam button. I do it every fucking day every single day. Some days I might only get one email now, other days I might get five or six spam type marketing emails. But I do the same thing. I open them up, I don’t even read them, I just go right find an Unsubscribe button, click Unsubscribe, and then I come back it’s hit the Spam button. What it’s done is it’s really reduced the amount of junk that I see on a daily basis.

I was telling this to Ben when we had our call, our Mastermind call, it’s like being an alcoholic and going to a bar. Right? When you open your email account, if you know you have shiny object syndrome and you’re not getting any traction in any one area of your business because you keep chasing opportunity, stop, stop going in your email box and reading these emails, guys. Stop. It’s like get yourself out of the bar if you’re a recovering alcoholic, right? It’s the same principle. You need to avoid the shit that’s detracting from you being able to get make progress in your business.

So for me, it was just eliminating the marketing messages. I’m a marketer so I’m susceptible to marketing messages, right? For me, it was just avoiding them. Out of sight, out of mind. Putting blinders on. Putting my nose down. Working through what I knew I needed to do and that was local marketing. Right now it’s about building a lead gen business and developing processes but I’m not doing all the work and then teaching our members about what I’m doing and how we’re doing it. So that’s what’s worked for me.

Any of you guys have comments on that?

Chris: Yeah. You probably should read the latest Mastermind issue, for February, because what I wrote about was pretty much what you’ve just talked about, but in steroids. It’s like if you’re struggling with that there’s something really, really valuable in there for this month.

Bradley: It’s awesome.

Chris: Not to reveal everything, so from Masterminding members, you can be looking forward to some really sweet stuff. I recommend you check it out as well, Bradley.

Bradley: I sure will. Marco?

Marco: Well, the way that I stopped is I realized that we’re producing better shit than most people out there. So I focus on our own things and I know that you focus, we, the Mastermind’s focus is local. But I’m still in the lab looking at manipulation methods for national, global, just whatever, because that’s just how my mind works. I can’t just do the local thing and be happy. I have to be able to see where all of the algorithms are going, where Google is going, where it’s taking us and why, and then try to intercept at the right time, which is kind of like how RYS Academy was born, then RYS Reloaded, Local GMB Pro, as a matter of fact, came through because of that. It was just looking to see where Google was going and why. So I’m constantly after that, where is Google going, why?

As long as I’m on that, I don’t care about somebody else’s shit because I’m too busy with my own shit. That’s how I was able to overcome. We’ve all been there. If you’ve been online for any length of time, it could be a week, you bought something. Yeah. That’s just the way it is.

Are Both G+ Personal And Business Profiles Be Shut Down By Google?

Bradley: Yeah. That’s a great question, Ben. I really appreciated that question. Hopefully, that was helpful. Ken. What’s up, Ken? He says, “Are both G Plus personal and business profiles going away or is it just personal?” I believe it’s all Google Plus. I think the only Google Plus that’s going to remain, and I could be wrong about this guys, but I’m pretty sure that they’re all being killed off unless you’re what they call Google Plus Enterprise, which is only for like, it’s like internal Google Plus for large organizations. I don’t even know anything about it. I just read somewhere about it.

So as far as I know, Google Plus is being completely killed. I think in April it’s gonna be down completely. You won’t be able to access even your old stuff. I got notifications, dozens and dozens of notifications about it where they say if you got any photos in Google Plus, the notifications, you got to download the photos and all that kind of stuff because in April they’re gone. That’s it. They’re extinct. Whatever. Good riddance. No big deal. Move on.

Which, by the way, guys, we covered the Google Plus … Oh, yeah, guys, if you’re in the Syndication Academy and you didn’t watch the update webinar from last week, go back and watch it. I mean, literally, as soon as Hump Day Hangouts is over, go watch it because it’s super, super powerful what I was talking about, because one of the things I was covering was Google Plus being shut down. We had a lot of people comment and question about, “What’s going to happen? Because Google Plus is down and that’s one of our main social hubs.” Yeah. So what? We find others.

I shared exactly what I’m using now, which is so much more effective anyways, and it’s really, really powerful. If you’re in Syndication Academy, guys, go watch the update webinar that was just recorded last week. It’s in the archives area, the updates area along with all the notes and everything in there. Super powerful and it’s easy to do. Okay. AlL right. I’m gonna keep on moving.

What Photo Selection In GMB Is It That Dictates Which Image Is Displayed In Google Maps?

Jay says, what’s up, Jay? “Inside the GMB, what photo selection option is it that the dictates which image is displayed in Google Maps? I’ve tried several options there but it won’t change.” Yeah. I’ve had that issue in the past too, Jay. I don’t know, maybe Marco has an answer. I’ve tried in some cases to get an image to change too and not been able to get it to change. I just don’t even care at this point. I know some clients do, but it’s not been a major issue for me so I haven’t dug into it that much.

Marco, do you have an idea as to what you can do to get Google to display what you want?

Marco: No. I don’t have an answer for that. It sometimes displays the latest one, it sometimes displays what it wants to, I don’t know. If you have GMB that is legit, that is tied to a company or whatever, you might wanna get in touch with a Google rep and see if they can help you out. If you act really ignorant, if you act really stupid, like you don’t know what’s going on, they’ll really help you out. They’ll go out of their way to help you out. I found that the more ignorant you act and the more that they … “I don’t know …” “Oh, you mean like Chrome?” I mean they go that deep into … Just totally being blissfully ignorant about everything online.

Because you’re a business owner who doesn’t have time for all of this. The only people who have time for this are marketers who are in there trying to manipulate every day, who are the first ones that find out what doesn’t work and what does. So you wanna try to avoid being that know-it-all marketer because if you do that you’re gonna get nuked, your IP is gonna get tagged, and you’re in for a lot of trouble.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree. If it’s a legit business, man, just contact the Google My Business Support. Again, if it’s legit verifiable business, guys, I don’t have any problem contacting Support anymore. I found them to be quite helpful when needed. Again, don’t be afraid to do that. I remember years ago it was damn near impossible to get support help from Google and it was only via email and it would be sometimes days or even weeks before they would reply and it was just a bitch. But now it’s a lot easier to get in touch with Google Support. Again, if it’s for legit business, don’t be afraid of trying.

What Are Your Most Successful Tactics In Getting Client Response From Cold Emails?

Okay. Jeff says, a minute, I still got to get used to this platform, guys. Jeff says, what’s up, Jeff? He says, “Two questions. What is the record for most F-bombs dropped by Marco in one rant?” Well, apparently, Ken’s been counting, he says 87.

Chris: Did you see the RYS Academy sales video, the webinar, the very first one? I bet it goes higher.

Marco: Guys, listen, I don’t do it purposely. It’s just when I get excited I get really animated and it just flows. Please excuse me, I don’t mean to offend. Well, I have meant to offend people in the past, let me change that. You guys, in general, I don’t intend to offend you. If you are, please excuse me. Please understand that that’s just … My partners know that that’s me because they have to deal with me on a daily basis, so they know. They know Marco.

So you guys, just please excuse me. Next time if you come to my webinars or whatever, please put the kids away and you might not want the wife, girlfriend, boyfriend or whatever around while you’re listening to me talk.

Bradley: Yeah. I remember we had a Mastermind webinar about three years ago, maybe three and a half years ago, and Marco and I, we’re a little loose with our lips as far as some of the things we were saying. One of the members posted like “I’ve got kids in the room.” It was so funny because immediately after that I put a parental guidance suggested explicit language, image, or whatever, graphic on the bottom of the header image for the page that we were hosting the webinars on. In that point forward, we always kept it to be like, hey, keep your kids out. It’s not safe for work-type stuff. I think it was really funny. I think Carolyn was her name.

Anyway, so to carry on with the real stuff here, guys. Jeff says, “I know you mentioned this previously, but I couldn’t find it when researching out-, or excuse me when reaching out to business owners. In an effort to sell them the leads we were generating, what has been your more successful tactics for getting them to respond? This is primarily a cold email question.” Jeff, that’s a great question. That’s something we’re going to be covering a lot in depth in actually going through real live tests in case studies and such for monetizing GMB assets. We’re gonna be doing a lot of outreach stuff in the Mastermind coming up over the next several weeks. In fact, that was supposed to be started this week. I’m a little bit delayed, but I’m gonna be working on that a lot next week. I’ve got several assets that I need to start doing outreach for too.

But to answer your question, what I found and I spent a lot of time last year, in 2018, doing prospecting and trying to do sales for traditional agency services. I got really good at prospecting, getting the conversation started. As far as sales, I failed miserably. I think we spent like $18,000 between our salesperson and our VA staff which was handling the cold email outreach and all that stuff. I think we made like $6,000 in sales. It was ridiculous. That in part is just because I think that the local business market is so saturated with solicitation calls from marketing and advertising agency.

So long story short, that’s part of the reason we shifted back to the lead generation model because it changes the dynamic entirely, and I know that’s what you’re asking about. But when it came to prospecting, I found the easiest thing to do is, are quick question type emails.

There’s a great book by the guy that the developer of quickmail.io. If you go to quickmail.io, it’s a service that you can subscribe to, it’s like an email tracking service and all that. I personally like gmass.co better as an email marketing platform, but I started out with using quickmail.io. There’s a book by the developer. It’s a real short book. You can get it on Amazon, Kindle. I think you can get in paperback too, but I got it on Kindle. It’s a real short book, it’s only like 30-some pages I think, really inexpensive. I think it might only be $1 or $2.99 or something like that.

Go get it. Go to quickmail.io and probably click through some of the links and you’ll find the guy’s name, the developer’s name, and then you can find the book on Amazon. Pick that book up. Guys, I tested last year multiple types of cold email outreach methods for prospecting. Out of everything that I tested, and I tested David Sprague stuff, David Sprague’s got some really good tools, guys, there’s no question, but as far as his cold email outreach programs and stuff, I just had miserable success and we gave it full on effort.

I mean, for months, not just his program but all different types of outreach methods. What I found that produced the most success, especially dealing with contractors, was the quick question type emails. That strategy is outlaid perfectly in that short little book by the developer quickmail.io. His name is Jeremy something, I think. Anyways, just go pick it up, read through that book, and then start testing. That’s what I did and it worked really, really, really well.

We’re actually gonna be testing in the Mastermind. I’m gonna be using a combination of the more mass email approach, which is what I was talking about with the quick question type emails, which all you’re trying to do is solicit a response, a reply, that’s it. No, you’re not asking them to click through any links, you’re not getting diarrhea of the mouth and dumping a whole bunch of information and doing an email. You just ask them a simple question that’s kind of disguised like a lead for them. It’s a little bit misleading, but not so, because you’re gonna present them with an opportunity.

Again, it’s not unethical. Like I said, it’s just a way to ask questions. For example, maybe if I got a tree service site or assets that I need to monetize, I might contact 10 or 15 different … When I was doing the mass prospect, I would contact 50, 60 tree service contractors with these quick question type emails. Now I’m going to be doing a hybrid model that it incorporates the video email process, which is, we have a training program that I developed that I’ve used for years to get results for prospecting and sales and that’s called the video lead gen system.

It’s how to use video emails to get people’s attention. It’s a bit time-consuming because you got to record videos that are personalized to each person you reach out to. I’m trying to templatize that now to where it’s going to be a lot easier and more efficient and have a team that does the video editing and all that kind of stuff so that we can turn it into more of a process. Like an assembly line to where we can do 10 or 15 videos in a short period of time and then targeted emails out.

But I’m still going to be using those quick question type emails where I might say like, “Quick question, are you guys accepting or are you guys providing estimates for tree removal right now?” When they reply yes, that’s the conversation starter. “Okay, great. Would you mind if I sent you a video explaining what it is that I’ve got?” Then if they reply yes again, now you they’ve given you permission to send them a video. Then you send them the damn video, which is a personalized video explaining what you got.

“Hey, look, I got these leads coming in right now.” You don’t show your assets, guys. You show call volume or you show the fact that you’re generating leads. Show proof. Say, “Look, I really need somebody who can take these leads. If you’re interested, let me know I’ll send a few of them to you for the next week, or I’ll send you five leads or 10 leads or whatever, whatever your business model is good for. You say to them, “I’ll send you five leads for free,” and then, “I’ll follow up with you after that to find out if you’re if you like them. If they were good genuine valid leads that you’d like to continue that service, we can talk then,” stuff like that. Just real simple little questions, guys.

I’ve tested all kinds of processes and what I found was those quick questions where you don’t drop a link in it, you don’t ask them to click, you don’t ask them to go to a landing page and fill out a survey, or watch a video on the first email, none of that, you just ask them to reply. That’s a conversation starter. That starts the dialogue. Once the dialogue starts, then you ask permission to send them a link for them to click, which is just a video essentially. You say, “Can I send you a video to explain what I’ve got?” If they say yes, now they’re giving you permission.

Then you send them the video link, and then they’ll click on it, and now watch the video. Then sometimes they will reply, sometimes they won’t. But that’s really the whole point. Again, video lead-gen system was the course that we did on how to use video email. Then I’m going to be kind of mixing that with the more … I’m trying to templatize that and make it towards a process to where it’s not so time-consuming to do those emails, although they’re very, very effective. Okay?

Again, this is stuff that in the Mastermind, guys, were gonna be covering over the next several weeks. Okay. Those were great questions, Jeff.

Does anybody else have-

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second.

Bradley: I’m sorry?

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second. I already got it.

What Are Your Thoughts On WebFire 3.0 Tool?

Bradley: Okay. Cool. Yeah, it’s a great little book. All right, moving on. Martin says, “Have you any experience with the WebFire 3.0 tool?” No, Martin. When you said that, I clicked on it and I looked, I don’t, so I can’t really comment on that. I don’t have time to look through it right now. Perhaps, if you remind me, next week I will take a look at that before. I might look through that thing when we’re off this webinar today.

Marco: Hey Bradley, those are all like, those are click … Well, what do you call that, the auto traffic-

Bradley: It’s like a click-through spambot?

Marco: Yeah. Tons of websites like that.

Bradley: Okay.

Marco: The problem that I’m seeing, and by the way, they’re working. Some are working better than others. I’m not gonna say which one because then everyone will run there and ruin it for me. I don’t want you guys messing with my money. At any rate, they are working, go and test them out. But interestingly enough, what I found works the best is … You did a course on it, it’s only available in the Mastermind.

Bradley: Yeah.

Marco: The way that you teach it becomes actually cheaper than most of these click-through spams or spam traffic networks, which is really interesting because you’re targeting real people to come and visit your stuff. These real people have a genuine interest in whatever it is that you’re doing right and they’re going to ask way-, they’re going to act, excuse me, way differently than the people that have to click on your link. Does that make sense? They pay for it. Well, you paid for it, they go, they click, then they get credit. It just becomes crazy because they’re not really interested in your stuff, they’re only interested in theirs.

Now since we’re targeting real people with the real interest, through Bradley’s training, it becomes that much better. Guys, activity, relevance, trust and authority. We’re in trusted and authoritative to the max because were inside Google.

Bradley: That’s right.

Marco: Relevance because we’re targeting whatever it is that we’re targeting. I’m not gonna say anything because it’s something that’s right now only available in the Mastermind. Then, activity on that link. It’s relevant activity. People clicking on that link going and acting the way that real people do. Some might not like it and bounce back, many will. But that’s what real people do and that’s what we’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. I’m not gonna reveal the method here either, but exactly what Marco was saying, because that is real genuine traffic that Google knows has an interest in what you’re sending them to. So guys, when you’re talking about activity and engagement, which is one of the primary ranking signals now, is engagement, it’s not just blind engagement.

Again, if you are trying to rank something locally and you’re getting clicks from China and Russia and Korea and UK, and I’m talking about in the US, I’m just using this as an example, guys. But if you’re getting a bunch of clicks from things that are non-relevant either geographically especially for local stuff or non-topically relevant, in other words it’s just kind of like random traffic coming, do you think Google counts that traffic as an engagement signal, the same type, and gives it the same amount of weight as somebody that is in the local area that’s clicking from a local IP, likely from a mobile device that is intimately connected to them at all times, that they have a history of being interested in that particular type of content or service or product? Think about that guys, which click, which engagement signal is gonna be given more weight by Google? You already know the answer to that.

It’s not that these kind of tools and stuff can’t produce some nominal results, they can, but if you wanna get really good results and do it within terms of service, there are alternative ways to do it and it’s super, super effective. I mean, super effective. So it’s absolutely true.

Marco: I just want to be clear, Fiverr geeks, Fiverr traffic geeks, they get some results. These types of websites, the spam traffic, they get some results. But when you compare them all and compare them to the course that we have, it’s night and day. it’s just totally different because it’s just targeted traffic, people that are targeted to the geolocation so that they interact with whatever it is that you’re doing at that level, if that’s necessary. If not, then you can adjust to whatever it is that you’re doing and get traffic for pennies on the dollar, guys. That’s what it’s all about.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, topical relevance and geographic relevance, and you can combine both and get super, super good results. It doesn’t take a lot of traffic to get good results when you have heavily weighted engagement signals, which is what that is. It only takes a few engagements to get significant results when you have a really targeted audience that Google knows about. All right.

Anyways, we’re gonna keep moving. Sorry, I can’t give you a better answer on that. Bryan says, “What is the backlog on GMB listings in MGYB purchases. I’m out about four weeks.” Bryan, you’d have to contact support. I don’t manage any of that stuff, I’m sorry. Just contact support or send us ticket to [email protected] and we’ll get it answered for you. Okay?

Marco: I was just talking to Rob about this to make sure. We have to deal with whatever it is that Google decides. I mean, they were on the show, we don’t control them. So we can’t say it’s definitely this or definitely that, or we’ll have it in a day, in seven days or whatever. It takes however long it takes. Some of them are nearly impossible. I believe that Bryan has already contacted Support and gotten an answer.

Now my thing is if you go through Support and then you come here, it just slows the process because then I have to go reach back to support, ask what’s going on, track it down, and then they all go and track it down and try to see what’s going on when it has already been answered.

The only thing that I can add to this is, guys, we’re not in control of this. We’re trying to do what we can. Bryan, you’re welcome to request a refund. If it gets too long, you’re welcome to request a refund and try to find someone who stands behind the product like we do 60-day guarantee replacement. If it gets suspended within those 60 days, we offer a legitimate guarantee. Now how long it takes to get it for you, that’s another question altogether.

Bradley: What’s up, Daniel? Hey man, the question you asked two weeks ago on Mastermind that we didn’t get to because the training went so long, please repost that for tomorrow because the Mastermind webinar is tomorrow and I didn’t want to spend some time on that. It was about a GMB question you had. We’re gonna have time. I’m gonna be covering specific training tomorrow, but it will be a lot shorter because I just did the Mastermind newsletter entry specifically about that. So that we’re gonna do some video training on it tomorrow, but you guys will have the written process.

You guys know how I do my process stocks. Well, you’re gonna have the written processes, the newsletter entry that you’re gonna get in about two or three weeks, whenever you get the next newsletter. That means my training tomorrow, the video training, will be a bit more streamlined so I should be able to get to your question. All right. I apologize I didn’t get to that, man, and it’s been weighing on me for almost two weeks now.

Is It A Good Idea To Leverage A Popular Family Name Or Brand To Get Press And Media Attention?

Anyways, Quentin’s up. He says, “Hello my name is Quentin Ravenel. I’m a full-time musician based in Charleston, South Carolina. Arthur Ravenel Jr. is a staple here. We’ve named a bridge after him that gathers 25,000 people every year in April to run or walk on the Ravenel Bridge. Is there any way to use my last name as leverage?”

That’s a really good question. Yeah. I would think Press Releases would probably be a great way to kind of piggyback off of that name recognition because that’s essentially … It’s a brand, right? Ravenel is a brand, right? If you can use that … There’s a strategy called newsjacking. Look into that, Quentin. Look in the newsjacking. In fact, you could just do a Google search for newsjacking and find plenty of resources, Amazon books, whatever that can teach you the strategy of newsjacking that I think would be perfect for that, for what you’re saying here because you have the same last name-, excuse me, as a brand that’s well-known in that area. I would use that newsjacking strategy as a way to get some press and some media. It’s almost like click bait but in a proper way, in an ethical way.

Again, I don’t do a lot of that stuff, I just haven’t had the opportunity to, but I’m familiar with that strategy. That’s something that I think you could implement here.

Marco, do you have any suggestions for that?

Marco: Entity relationship, man. That’s what he’d have to do. Relate his name to the Ravenel Bridge name so that when it comes in the, what they call, the Google auto predict, autosuggest, so when people go looking for the Ravenel Bridge walk, or a Ravenel Bridge run, Ravenel Bridge weekend, all of that stuff, your name comes up in there too. I mean, we’ve done that, right? Social conditioning?

Bradley: Yeah, social engineering.

Marco: Yep.

Bradley: Newsjacking, go check it out. There’s tons of information about it. There’s the book, David Meerman Scott, I think is the pioneer of that or whatever, at least the most well-known, but you can find all kinds of information about this free and paid. Just spend some time researching that newsjacking because it’s something that I think you could implement and get some significant results that way. Okay. By the way, go to mgyb.co to purchase Press Releases and we’ll publish them for you, they’re really, really nicely done. Okay.

Gregg. What’s up, Greg? You and I got a Mastermind call tomorrow, Gregg. Looking forward to it. We got a lot to catch up on.

Urban Towing says, “Does SerpClix work well for traffic to RYS or is there something else you would recommend?” Again, I’m not familiar with SerpClix. If it’s another CT spambot or crowd search, click-through thing-

Marco: It is.

Bradley: -which I imagine it would be. Yeah, I would probably produce some results, I don’t know how much. But I would recommend finding some better methods where you can actually buy or get real targeted traffic from real people that may have a genuine interest in your potential product or service. Guys, paid traffic is a good way to do that kind of stuff.

Marco: I actually went to SerpClix and did the math. It’s 14 cents per click. We can beat that through your method, can’t we, Bradley?

Bradley: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Marco: And this is real people. Real people targeted, remember that. Activity, relevance, trust, authority, that’s what you’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. Guys, we did … for years, Dan Anton had a product called crowdsearch.me. It works like gangbusters for a long time. Click-through spam was an engagement signal … I call it click-through spam. But that’s when somebody does a search on Google for example, keyword search, it could be a brand search, which is called a navigational search.

Guys, you can go to our YouTube channel. You can just go to Google and search crowdsearch.me and you’re gonna find this Semantic Mastery webinars. I’ve done two of them because we did one webinar and I think two years later we did another webinar because it was still working so well. I explained in that webinar, and both of those webinars and great length what click-through spam is and why it works so well.

It was actually a method that I learned way back in 2011 from Ivan Budimir, who was my most influential mentor in the local marketing, digital marketing space. It was Ivan Budimir. He’s no longer in the space, but he was absolutely amazing. I learned so much from that guy. He actually introduced that method to me back in 2011 and showed the Google patent. It’s not the actual official name of the Google patent, but he always called it site weight.

Site weight. In other words, if all things being equal, if there were two sites that were identical, which we know is impossible, pretty much, but theoretically, if two sites were equally authoritative, like they had the same amount of on-page optimization, the same amount of off-page optimization but one site got navigational search queries, which now in the semantic web is incredibly important, what is a navigational search query?

That’s a brand search or a variation of a brand search, like brand plus keyword, or brand a plus phone, like for somebody looking for the phone number of a company, or brand plus location, or brand plus map so that people looking for how to get to that location or get to that company or that store or whatever the case may be. Those are called navigational queries. If all things being equal, there were two identical sites competing brands and one had navigational queries and the other did not, the navigational query site would outrank the other, one hands down, two to one every time. Every time and it was tested over and over and over again. That was because of the site weight algorithm, or filter, or whatever you call that shit. Again, I’m not the patent nerd like Marco. Marco, that’s a term of endearment, by the way.

He introduced that way back in 2011 and the strategy then was to hire microtask workers to set up these little gigs. You would pay microtask workers two or three cents or something like that to go do a particular search, preferably with the brand dimension. Then find the link that you told them to find, click through, and then you would tell them, “Go find copy and paste the third word of the seventh paragraph on that page into the answer box,” and the answer box was their proof that they did the task that you assigned.

The reason why you wouldn’t just tell him to go click the link and copy because you want them to dwell on the page. That dwell time counted as an engagement signal, right? They would land on the page and then they’d have a hunt for that specific word or phrase or whatever it was that you told them to do that would make the answer. That would be the answer that means they solved the task that you gave them to do. That would create the dwell time, potentially scroll, you might ask them to click through to another page, whatever the task might be, click through to the link, then click through to the contact page, and then leave a message or whatever the case may be. You could set it up multiple different ways, but those were engagement signals way back in 2011 guys and it moved the needle like almost overnight.

The problem was as soon as you would stop paying in microtasks workers within just a few days your rank positioning start falling again because it was all about those engagement signals. Guys, again, this was eight years ago. Well, now, we’ve just been talking on this webinar alone about how important engagement signals are. So engagement signals are weighted even more now than they were back then.

Now the engagement signals are weighted more because Google can track and knows its users and the users’ behavior and their history. That’s what I was talking about. If you can get engagement signals from people that are locally and/or topically relevant to the content that you’re having them engage with, then that’s going to be weighted so much more.

What I’m saying is, again on a local level, if you can get people from a local geographic area that have a history for having an interest in that topic or that product or service as well as being local, a handful of clicks from them can produce better results than dozens or hundreds of click from non-relevant and non-non topically and non-geographically relevant clicks. Does that make sense?

So the click-through spam, and that’s what I called it because we were literally spamming click-throughs, isn’t as effective as it is when you can get relevant audience to engage because Google understands its audience, guys. Google knows its audience because everybody’s connected to Google all the time, right? So it knows what their history is and what their interests are and where they’re located and all that kind of stuff.

So that’s what I’m getting at. As far as the click-through spam stuff, for a long time it was working really well. Dan Anton’s, I think the best bot that came out, which was crowdsearch.me and for I think three, four years, I mean, I used it heavily. I was getting 50,000 credits per month and I was using every bit of them. It worked like gangbusters. But over time, it slowly started to stop working as well. I know that service is still out there. There are potential uses for it but it’s not something that I would do to direct to money site anymore. There are better alternatives now in my opinion, which is what we we’ve been talking about. We did some training about that in the Mastermind a few weeks ago.

It was a good question though. I was worried we’re not gonna have enough to talk about today, man, and look, we’re almost up. It’s awesome. Let’s see. “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.” That should actually be how stupid the median person is, right? It’s awesome. Thanks, Greg.

Okay. Grant says, “It might be easier to just close/delete designed junk email accounts ThAn unsubscribe endlessly.” Yeah. I know what you’re saying, Grant, but this is an email account that I’ve had for, God, 15 years, so it’s not something I wanna get rid of. But, yeah, I know what you mean.

By the way, I did all the heavy lifting. Now it’s just a daily maintenance thing. If I see an email come in, if that’s from something that was unsolicited, I open it, unsubscribe, and then as soon as the unsubscribe is successful, I go back and hit the spam button. Again, most days now guys, I might only get one or two spam emails. There are some days where I’ll get five or six or whatever, but almost every day now it’s just a bare minimum. So it’s manageable now. It just took a little bit of time.

Also, there’s a service called unroll.me. Guys, go check it out. Go to unroll.me, especially any of you suffering from shiny object syndrome. Type in your email and it’ll take a few minutes to run and it’ll come back and show you how many lists you’re subscribe to, and tell me it doesn’t take your breath away. It’s like, holy shit, how did I get subscribed … It’s just over the years, you accumulate, you get added to so many subscription lists either voluntarily or involuntarily, a combination of both really.

If you go to unroll.me, it’s amazing. It’ll just take your breath away when you see how many email lists you’re on, and you can start to systematically unsubscribe. Okay.

Chris: You’re the nightmare of every email marketer.

Bradley: Yeah. Well, now, I am, yeah. But trust me, a lot of email marketers made a lot of money from me too. All right. Let’s see, Walt says, “Not an affiliate link.” Okay. This is the quick, probably the quick … There you go, Grow Your Business With Cold Emails, Jeremy Chatelaine. That’s correct. He’s got an accent or whatever. It’s awesome, guys. Really short book. Look at that, it used to be cheaper, but 10 bucks, buy it, guys, it’s worth it. 100% worth it, buy it, and read it. It’s a great book for anybody’s doing prospecting. Guys, hands down, that has been the best strategy for me that I’ve ever found. Okay.

I’ll keep moving. Grow Your Business With Cold Emails: Everything You Need to Know. Go, perfect. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

Daniel, awesome. “Guys, I’m not whining about the GMB question, and I do have faith in SM.” Bryan, I think he took offense to which you said, Marco. Just looking to start implementing building out the local strategy and certainly anxious to get moving.” I totally get it, Bryan. I totally get it.

Marco: Yeah, so do we. I didn’t expect or intend again to offend. I just come across that way. I was just explaining that it just takes time. We try to get as quickly as possible. We know all you guys were anxious, but there’s only so much we could do when the beast keeps changing shit around.

Bradley: Correct. Yeah. That’s one of the issues, guys. Again, we all have to keep changing our methods to get these things done verified and such. I don’t even know what they’re doing to do it. I don’t care. Bryan, I’m just like you. I placed my orders too. I’m not kidding. Guys, I placed my orders just like you do now. I do have a little bit of pull sometimes, most of my orders are in queue still now because they’re not critical. But sometimes, for clients, for example, that have requested maps expansion, then I pull some strings to get them pushed forward a little bit. So that’s one of the benefits I guess of the CEO.

But for the most part, guys, I’m in queue just like you guys. It’s not you guys aren’t waiting because I’m getting all mine done. Trust me. I’m waiting too. Awesome. Unroll.me, You’re welcome, Grant

All right, guys. We gotta wrap it up. “Marco, you didn’t drop an F-bomb on me so I was unsure about the love.” It was Bryan again.

Chris: It’s coming.

Bradley: Marco, you got to say fuck just to make everybody happy once.

Marco: Yeah. Let me just close this off with this: fuck Google.

Bradley: All right, there you go. ‘Nuff said. All right everybody. Thanks for being here. Mastermind webinar tomorrow, don’t forget. If you did not check out the Syndication Academy update webinar from last week, do it, guys. Super, super powerful stuff. I showed you how to use RSS feeds there with geo-tagging.

By the way, I’m doing a lot of testing with I have it … No, I must already closed it down. No, there it is, RankFeedr. I’ve got it open. I’m not gonna show my projects. But Lisa Allen’s RankFeedr, guys. I know the coupon has expired now. She actually extended it because of the Syndication Academy update webinar that I did last week. I talked about it in there. Although the method that I showed was how to use Feedburner feeds to create local geotag feeds and they’re super powerful too, not as powerful as the RankFeedr feeds though because RankFeedr you can splice together and create static or sticky items and you can add the geotag and not just a specific geo coordinate but you can add what’s called a geo box, which is like a service area business. Super powerful stuff, guys.

I’ve been testing really hard for the last week now with the RankFeedr stuff and I’m seeing good results. Again, I know the coupon that she gave is expired, but it’s still totally worth it. It’s super inexpensive guys for the elite subscription, which I think allows you to create eleven hundred RankFeedr feeds.

Guys, it’s a set and forget. You set up a RankFeedr feed one time and you let it go. It just runs for as long as you keep your subscription active and you don’t have to do anything else. It will help to create co-citation geographic and topical relevancy on autopilot, guys. I’m telling you and for the elite service the elite subscription level, which again I think is 1,100 feeds, it’s $47 a month. It’s a no-brainer.

So if you haven’t already picked it up, guys, go watch the Syndication Academy update webinar, and go pick up the RankFeedr subscription service, which is how you create those things. I’m only telling you guys, we don’t pimp other people’s products unless we truly believe in them and I’m endorsing this because it’s such a good product and you can go to our website SemanticMastery.com I think it’s RSS-authority-sniper-3 I think. You could find the webinar replay and go through that process, if you want to watch the webinar where she talks about it.

But honestly, you don’t even need to watch the webinar, just go pick up the damn service because it’s really powerful. All right. With that, we’re gonna close it out. See you all next week. Thanks everybody. Thanks, Marco. Thanks, Chris.

Marco: Bye everybody.

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jenniferbowley · 6 years ago

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

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Click on the video above to watch Episode 224 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

Let me say hi to Chris. What’s up, Chris? How are you?

Chris: Doing good. Great to be here.

Bradley: Marco.

Marco: I made it, man. I’m here.

In fact, let me se, for one moment, I’ve got pause the screen for a minute. Marco, do you have any announcements while I do that?

So that’s what I’ve got to tease with for tomorrow. It looks like we don’t have that many questions. But I’m gonna get right into it.

Chris: I got a question, man.

Bradley: Go ahead.

Marco, what are your thoughts?

Just to get back to this, basic principles, they still work. Why? Because everyone has to adhere to the same standards no matter what. That’s my rant for today – well, hopefully.

Chris: The sky is always falling.

Bradley: What’s that?

Chris: The sky is always falling. Some people say it’s …

Is Local GMB Pro Included In The MasterMind?

Good question. But, yeah, as a Mastermind member, you’ll get a significant discount on that when you’re ready. But I can tell you right now you’re not ready for that. Okay.

How Do You Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what quarter we’re on.

Any of you guys have comments on that?

Bradley: It’s awesome.

Chris: Not to reveal everything, so from Masterminding members, you can be looking forward to some really sweet stuff. I recommend you check it out as well, Bradley.

Bradley: I sure will. Marco?

Are Both G+ Personal And Business Profiles Be Shut Down By Google?

What Photo Selection In GMB Is It That Dictates Which Image Is Displayed In Google Maps?

Marco, do you have an idea as to what you can do to get Google to display what you want?

What Are Your Most Successful Tactics In Getting Client Response From Cold Emails?

Chris: Did you see the RYS Academy sales video, the webinar, the very first one? I bet it goes higher.

Again, this is stuff that in the Mastermind, guys, were gonna be covering over the next several weeks. Okay. Those were great questions, Jeff.

Does anybody else have-

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second.

Bradley: I’m sorry?

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second. I already got it.

What Are Your Thoughts On WebFire 3.0 Tool?

Marco: Hey Bradley, those are all like, those are click … Well, what do you call that, the auto traffic-

Bradley: It’s like a click-through spambot?

Marco: Yeah. Tons of websites like that.

Bradley: Okay.

Bradley: Yeah.

Bradley: That’s right.

Is It A Good Idea To Leverage A Popular Family Name Or Brand To Get Press And Media Attention?

Again, I don’t do a lot of that stuff, I just haven’t had the opportunity to, but I’m familiar with that strategy. That’s something that I think you could implement here.

Marco, do you have any suggestions for that?

Bradley: Yeah, social engineering.

Marco: Yep.

Gregg. What’s up, Greg? You and I got a Mastermind call tomorrow, Gregg. Looking forward to it. We got a lot to catch up on.

Marco: It is.

Marco: I actually went to SerpClix and did the math. It’s 14 cents per click. We can beat that through your method, can’t we, Bradley?

Bradley: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Marco: And this is real people. Real people targeted, remember that. Activity, relevance, trust, authority, that’s what you’re after.

If you go to unroll.me, it’s amazing. It’ll just take your breath away when you see how many email lists you’re on, and you can start to systematically unsubscribe. Okay.

Chris: You’re the nightmare of every email marketer.

I’ll keep moving. Grow Your Business With Cold Emails: Everything You Need to Know. Go, perfect. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

All right, guys. We gotta wrap it up. “Marco, you didn’t drop an F-bomb on me so I was unsure about the love.” It was Bryan again.

Chris: It’s coming.

Bradley: Marco, you got to say fuck just to make everybody happy once.

Marco: Yeah. Let me just close this off with this: fuck Google.

Marco: Bye everybody.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224 syndicated from https://medium.com/@SpanishFly

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brendajhensonblog · 6 years ago

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 224 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

Let me say hi to Chris. What’s up, Chris? How are you?

Chris: Doing good. Great to be here.

Bradley: Marco.

Marco: I made it, man. I’m here.

In fact, let me se, for one moment, I’ve got pause the screen for a minute. Marco, do you have any announcements while I do that?

So that’s what I’ve got to tease with for tomorrow. It looks like we don’t have that many questions. But I’m gonna get right into it.

Chris: I got a question, man.

Bradley: Go ahead.

Marco, what are your thoughts?

Just to get back to this, basic principles, they still work. Why? Because everyone has to adhere to the same standards no matter what. That’s my rant for today – well, hopefully.

Chris: The sky is always falling.

Bradley: What’s that?

Chris: The sky is always falling. Some people say it’s …

Is Local GMB Pro Included In The MasterMind?

Good question. But, yeah, as a Mastermind member, you’ll get a significant discount on that when you’re ready. But I can tell you right now you’re not ready for that. Okay.

How Do You Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what quarter we’re on.

Any of you guys have comments on that?

Bradley: It’s awesome.

Chris: Not to reveal everything, so from Masterminding members, you can be looking forward to some really sweet stuff. I recommend you check it out as well, Bradley.

Bradley: I sure will. Marco?

Are Both G+ Personal And Business Profiles Be Shut Down By Google?

What Photo Selection In GMB Is It That Dictates Which Image Is Displayed In Google Maps?

Marco, do you have an idea as to what you can do to get Google to display what you want?

What Are Your Most Successful Tactics In Getting Client Response From Cold Emails?

Chris: Did you see the RYS Academy sales video, the webinar, the very first one? I bet it goes higher.

Again, this is stuff that in the Mastermind, guys, were gonna be covering over the next several weeks. Okay. Those were great questions, Jeff.

Does anybody else have-

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second.

Bradley: I’m sorry?

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second. I already got it.

What Are Your Thoughts On WebFire 3.0 Tool?

Marco: Hey Bradley, those are all like, those are click … Well, what do you call that, the auto traffic-

Bradley: It’s like a click-through spambot?

Marco: Yeah. Tons of websites like that.

Bradley: Okay.

Bradley: Yeah.

Bradley: That’s right.

Is It A Good Idea To Leverage A Popular Family Name Or Brand To Get Press And Media Attention?

Again, I don’t do a lot of that stuff, I just haven’t had the opportunity to, but I’m familiar with that strategy. That’s something that I think you could implement here.

Marco, do you have any suggestions for that?

Bradley: Yeah, social engineering.

Marco: Yep.

Gregg. What’s up, Greg? You and I got a Mastermind call tomorrow, Gregg. Looking forward to it. We got a lot to catch up on.

Marco: It is.

Marco: I actually went to SerpClix and did the math. It’s 14 cents per click. We can beat that through your method, can’t we, Bradley?

Bradley: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Marco: And this is real people. Real people targeted, remember that. Activity, relevance, trust, authority, that’s what you’re after.

If you go to unroll.me, it’s amazing. It’ll just take your breath away when you see how many email lists you’re on, and you can start to systematically unsubscribe. Okay.

Chris: You’re the nightmare of every email marketer.

I’ll keep moving. Grow Your Business With Cold Emails: Everything You Need to Know. Go, perfect. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

All right, guys. We gotta wrap it up. “Marco, you didn’t drop an F-bomb on me so I was unsure about the love.” It was Bryan again.

Chris: It’s coming.

Bradley: Marco, you got to say fuck just to make everybody happy once.

Marco: Yeah. Let me just close this off with this: fuck Google.

Marco: Bye everybody.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224 posted first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes

makironata-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 224 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

Let me say hi to Chris. What’s up, Chris? How are you?

Chris: Doing good. Great to be here.

Bradley: Marco.

Marco: I made it, man. I’m here.

In fact, let me se, for one moment, I’ve got pause the screen for a minute. Marco, do you have any announcements while I do that?

So that’s what I’ve got to tease with for tomorrow. It looks like we don’t have that many questions. But I’m gonna get right into it.

Chris: I got a question, man.

Bradley: Go ahead.

Marco, what are your thoughts?

Just to get back to this, basic principles, they still work. Why? Because everyone has to adhere to the same standards no matter what. That’s my rant for today – well, hopefully.

Chris: The sky is always falling.

Bradley: What’s that?

Chris: The sky is always falling. Some people say it’s …

Is Local GMB Pro Included In The MasterMind?

Good question. But, yeah, as a Mastermind member, you’ll get a significant discount on that when you’re ready. But I can tell you right now you’re not ready for that. Okay.

How Do You Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what quarter we’re on.

Any of you guys have comments on that?

Bradley: It’s awesome.

Chris: Not to reveal everything, so from Masterminding members, you can be looking forward to some really sweet stuff. I recommend you check it out as well, Bradley.

Bradley: I sure will. Marco?

Are Both G+ Personal And Business Profiles Be Shut Down By Google?

What Photo Selection In GMB Is It That Dictates Which Image Is Displayed In Google Maps?

Marco, do you have an idea as to what you can do to get Google to display what you want?

What Are Your Most Successful Tactics In Getting Client Response From Cold Emails?

Chris: Did you see the RYS Academy sales video, the webinar, the very first one? I bet it goes higher.

Again, this is stuff that in the Mastermind, guys, were gonna be covering over the next several weeks. Okay. Those were great questions, Jeff.

Does anybody else have-

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second.

Bradley: I’m sorry?

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second. I already got it.

What Are Your Thoughts On WebFire 3.0 Tool?

Marco: Hey Bradley, those are all like, those are click … Well, what do you call that, the auto traffic-

Bradley: It’s like a click-through spambot?

Marco: Yeah. Tons of websites like that.

Bradley: Okay.

Bradley: Yeah.

Bradley: That’s right.

Is It A Good Idea To Leverage A Popular Family Name Or Brand To Get Press And Media Attention?

Again, I don’t do a lot of that stuff, I just haven’t had the opportunity to, but I’m familiar with that strategy. That’s something that I think you could implement here.

Marco, do you have any suggestions for that?

Bradley: Yeah, social engineering.

Marco: Yep.

Gregg. What’s up, Greg? You and I got a Mastermind call tomorrow, Gregg. Looking forward to it. We got a lot to catch up on.

Marco: It is.

Marco: I actually went to SerpClix and did the math. It’s 14 cents per click. We can beat that through your method, can’t we, Bradley?

Bradley: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Marco: And this is real people. Real people targeted, remember that. Activity, relevance, trust, authority, that’s what you’re after.

If you go to unroll.me, it’s amazing. It’ll just take your breath away when you see how many email lists you’re on, and you can start to systematically unsubscribe. Okay.

Chris: You’re the nightmare of every email marketer.

I’ll keep moving. Grow Your Business With Cold Emails: Everything You Need to Know. Go, perfect. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

All right, guys. We gotta wrap it up. “Marco, you didn’t drop an F-bomb on me so I was unsure about the love.” It was Bryan again.

Chris: It’s coming.

Bradley: Marco, you got to say fuck just to make everybody happy once.

Marco: Yeah. Let me just close this off with this: fuck Google.

Marco: Bye everybody.

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