#you have no idea how badly I wanted this page to land on a Friday for Maximum Over the Weekend Cliffhanger effect TT^TT

[zoe-oneesama]

?!?!?!?

Episode 53 Part 17 First < Previous > Next Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5 Ep 41, Ep 42, Ep 43, Ep 44 Ep 45, Ep 46, Ep 47, Ep 48, Intermission, Ep 49, Ep 50, Ep 51, Ep 52

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[littlemissagrafina]

A Sunflower's Bloom

Third and final part in the Remember the sun, little flower series for @angxlsgrxce

Read on AO3

Tony walked into the lab only to be greeted by Peter who was sitting on top of his work bench in a position that could only be described as pretzel meets spaghetti. 

Peter was lying on his side with his back against the wall that his bench was propped against, his one leg was stretched behind him, the other bent over it with his foot flat against the table top.

It was then that Tony noticed his one arm was looped under his bent leg and he was using his other arm to prop his head slightly as he carefully stirred up a new batch of his web formula.

Overall, it was quite normal for Peter with his strange spider flexibility but just looking at him made Tony's back ache.

"Peter, buddy, spider of my life, are you ever going to sit in a slightly normal position?" Tony couldn't help but tease the teenager, letting out a laugh at Peter's fake look of betrayal.

"Mr. Stark! That would imply that I am a regular person and we both know that I could never be normal. Besides, it's comfortable." With that he went back to his formula, looking at it with a slight furrow to his brows that made his nose scrunch up in a way that Tony couldn't help but think resembled a bunny rabbit.

Tony walked over to his own work bench and wheeled his chair back to Peter's. Sitting down in front of the bench, he picked up a pen and poked at Peter's leg until he looked up at the older man.

"What's got you frowning at your webs like that?"

With a huff, Peter unfolded himself and sat up on the edge of the bench with his legs hanging off the edge. He handed Tony the bodum beaker and picked up his bag, fishing his notebook out from it before putting it back on the floor. He flipped to a page near the back and handed that to Tony as well.

"I'm trying to find a way to make it stop clogging up the compartment when I have to refill it but I can't figure out what I need to do without changing the components of the fluid I already have. Everything that I've come up with so far makes it too watery." He explained as Tony looked over his workings on the paper.

Tony hummed to let him know that he was listening. He was quiet for a while before speaking again. "Okay, a fair warning, Pete. I have an idea but, as far as Pepper would be concerned, it's not the safest so we're gonna move over to the testing station and try it out there. That good?"

Peter nodded and slid off the bench to follow Tony to a more secured area of the lab that they had made after their last drone went a little crazy and set fire to Dumm-e and Tony's R&D paperwork.

Setting up the beaker and grabbing a few chemicals as well as safety goggles and gloves, Tony explained his idea for adding a different chemical to slightly tweak the reaction of Peter's new formula, hoping to stop the clogging as Peter desired without too much change to the original tried and tested formula.

"Ready?" 

Peter just grinned, slipping his goggles over his eyes. He watched as Tony added one of the chemicals, stirred it, and asked him to look at it as well as prompting Peter to tell him what changes he saw with each new chemical that they added.

Neither paid attention as Tony reached for the last chemical he wanted to test. 

Neither of them noticed that it had accidentally been switched by Dumm-e while they had been speaking and nerding over the ways they could change and improve the formula for different uses other than Peter's regular webs.

Neither noticed until the drops of liquid from the last chemical went up in an explosion of harmless sparks and smoke, a black cloud blowing back up into their faces and the sparks setting off the lab's sprinkler system automatically.

Both Tony and Peter jerked backwards, Peter almost falling over when he slipped on the water currently still falling from the sprinklers. He grabbed onto Tony which ended up being what pulled both of them off balance, sending them to the floor in a jumbled mess of limbs and a pained yelp with Peter landed on his arm.

"Peter!" Tony gasped, managing to heave himself up a moment later and reach down to help Peter up too. He hesitated when Peter hissed and pulled his arm away, panic instantly flooding his chest at Peter's pain.

Kneeling down, Tony lifted Peter to his feet by his shoulders instead of pulling him up by his arm. As soon as the teenager was standing, Tony was fussing over him, grabbing a clean rag (now conveniently wet from the sprinklers) from a nearby table and wiping the wet cloth over Peter's face to clean the ash off and make sure none of it had somehow made its way into his eyes behind the safety goggles. 

Tony was damn grateful that he had become so much more careful when it came to lab safety after he had started working with Peter so often.

Used to Tony's automatic fussing, Peter took a moment to assess himself for any pain or irritation, knowing Tony would ask him as soon as he calmed slightly.

A moment later the man did just that.

"Were you hurt? I heard your cry when you landed. What's wrong with your arm? Did you inhale any of the smoke?" Tony rapidly shot the questions at him, ushering Peter towards the dry end of the lab and onto the couch in the one corner.

"No I wasn't badly hurt, I just sprained my wrist when I tried to catch myself when we fell. Yes, I did inhale some but not a lot because I don't feel a lot of irritation or pain." Peter answered and then cut Tony off before he could ask more questions.

"Yes, I know we have to be careful with the smoke inhalation, especially because of the chemicals, but I know how it feels when it's bad because of the fires I've had to help with. I promise I'll tell you if I start feeling anything bad or painful."

Peter's straight to the point answers finally calmed Tony enough for him to sit down on the couch next to him.

Tony opened his mouth, going to ask if Peter was sure he was okay before changing his mind. "Okay, okay, I believe you. Can Fri scan you just to be safe?"

Knowing that Tony needed the peace of mind, Peter nodded and a moment later the A.I reported back with exactly what Peter had said. A sprained wrist and minor irritation to his windpipe.

"I would recommend ice for his wrist and a glass of milk for his throat, Boss." Friday's Irish voice spoke out.

Peter nudged Tony lightly with his shoulder. "See? I'm okay. Now that we're done with me, are you okay?"

With a little huff and a smile, Tony relented. His kid was okay. No need to panic. Nope, not at all.

Peter nudged him again. If he had to answer truthfully then so did Tony.

"Yeah, Roo, I'm fine, I promise. A bit of irritation as well but no sprains, bruises, or broken bones." Tony assured him, and asked Friday to do a quick scan of him as well, thinking it was only fair since he had the A.I scan Peter.

Once again she confirmed that there was no major injury or problem.

"C'mon, I wanna go wash the ash off my face and we should probably both go grab a shower and change into dry clothes. We need to make sure that we don't have any leftover chemicals left on us and you don't need to get sick from sitting around in wet clothes, either." 

Tony was about to get up from the couch when he noticed a bruise peeking out from under the sleeve of Peter's injured wrist. He reached out and carefully held it in his own hand, the sleeve riding up more to show the black lines of what looked like the sunflower that was usually etched across the skin of Peter's lower forearm.

The only thing that made it not so normal was that the ink looked like it wasn't running down Peter's arm after getting it wet. It hadn't even smudged at all.

Looking up at the teen in question and receiving a nod, Tony pulled the sleeve up more to reveal the rest of the flower. He ran a finger over it, careful to not put pressure on Peter's wrist.

"Peter?" Tony asked softly, making sure that his voice was open and gentle.

Peter gave a quiet hmm in response. He knew that he didn't have to be nervous of telling Tony, the man's reaction and acceptance just of the markers when he first found out was proof enough of it, but he couldn't help the slight anxiety that bubbled up in his chest.

An arm was draped over his shoulders, and he was pulled into a hug.

"When did you get it done, bud?"

"A few weeks ago." Peter mumbled into Tony's shoulder.

  Oh, Tony thought. The sudden light, happiness that Peter had exuded recently made sense now. His kid had finally found the permanency that he had needed.

Pulling away, Tony asked Peter to look at him. He grinned widely at the teen when he did, three simple words being said and immediately soothing a place in Peter's heart that he hadn't known was scared.

"I like it."

Peter smiled too. "Yeah?" At Tony's nod he spoke again. "I uhh, I got two. I have another one, I mean, not just this one. I got two that day." He stumbled over his words now, a bit bashful now that he wasn't as nervous about Tony's reaction.

Tony's steady smile helped some of his confidence come back.

"Can I see it? The other one?" Tony asked him, taking notice of the shy excitement in Peter's eyes.

Peter gave a small smile and turned a bit. "It's on my back." He explained to Tony's slightly confused expression.

Peter tugged his shirt up a bit until he was sure that the colourful petals and leaves of the sunflower were visible.

"That's Ben's flower." Tony muttered. It wasn't quite a question nor was it a statement but Peter answered anyway.

"Yeah. It's Ben's flower."

After a moment of silence, Peter lowered his shirt and turned around to face Tony. The man looked at him, a strange glint in his eyes.

"He'd be proud of you, you know. I didn't know him but from what you and May have told me… well, he was an incredible man Peter. Especially to have had a hand in raising someone like you who is so kind, giving, and loving."

Hugging the man who had become his father in all but blood, Peter felt his heart warm. He had lost, he had grieved, and he had hurt. But he had also found, healed, and loved.

Peter was drawn from his thoughts by Tony hugging him closer before pulling away and getting up from the couch. "C'mon, kid. Let's go get clean and then we can sort out the mess in here before Pepper has both our hides to cushion her seat during that meeting tomorrow."

"Tony, do you really think he would be proud?" Peter asked him just as they walked out the lab doors.

"Bud, the proof is right there in those very petals on your skin. He loved you and would be so proud."

Tony was right in more ways than one as Peter would later learn because a sunflowers meaning was adoration, loyalty and longevity.

And in the ink on his skin, in the pictures and paintings on the walls, in the memories of his uncle, Peter found that and so much more. 

Peter had finally found healing from the grief that had swallowed him for so long. He had a reminder and a hope with him, something to remember the good, the happy, and the love that he had experienced as well as all that was still to come.

His sunflower had bloomed and it was glorious.

[notalittlebutalottie]

Oh!!!! Caroline and Klaus are both attorneys on opposite sides of a case. They are litigating which party can go to which social venue on which days (I've actually dealt with this shit) and both of them are fed up with their clients for being ridiculous.

Hey, I hope you’re doing well. I wanted to fulfil something small for you and this was sitting in my drafts just begging to be finished!

♡ KLAROLINE DRABBLE #56: The Coffee Shop on Third ♡

It had taken Caroline some convincing but as Katherine was utterly incapable of playing nice, she agreed to represent her in the divorce. She liked Stefan and she couldn’t say she approved of Katherine’s actions but the choice opposing council was already introducing some bias. If his best man was representing him, then her maid of honour would help balance things out.

Klaus had sent her a message prior to their first proceeding not long after she agreed to it.

I look forward to a good and clean fight, sweetheart.

Naturally, she spent the following ten minutes debating on the level of flirtation she could get away with. Ever since the wedding, they had cultivated a fine friendship of equal parts provocative and rivalrous. Their views on the law and general courtroom etiquette differed—he was Law and Order while she was more Legally Blonde—but their obvious physical attraction was undeniable. At group events, they engaged in lengthy debates, always itching to just say to hell with it and let the alcohol take charge. Yet they had done all but crossing that line.

Afraid to get your hands dirty?

She had chewed on her nails after sending it. She didn’t usually take such a bold route but the wine she had been drinking that night was mighty encouraging.

If you’re willing, game on.

So far, the proceedings had gone smoothly. Stefan got their apartment, their dog (Katherine was never really a pet owner) and their television. Simple. That was until it came to social venues. She laid her pen over the papers and stated, “My client believes it’s only fair she gets the coffee shop on Third as she was the one who introduced your client to it.” She watched Klaus carefully, trying to evade any and all ogling of him in that well-tailored suit. Though they talked law, they had never seen each other in action and now that she had? She was interested in another type of action.

Stefan interjected before either council could reply or add, “Well, if your client believed in fairness, she wouldn’t have slept with my brother.” He was leaning far into the table, shooting daggers at Katherine, who was coolly inspecting her nails.

Klaus sighed and began to place a hand out on the table. “Stefan, mate.” Caroline pressed her lips tightly at the sight of his Adam’s apple bobbing. It was really the last thing she should have been thinking about during the deterioration of their friends’ marriage but it was so easy to get caught up in the idea.

Katherine hummed, “Maybe I wouldn’t have slept with your brother if you hadn’t been flirting with my cousin.” She finally gave him eye contact and grinned.

“Elena and I were just friends!” Stefan argued, gesturing wildly. Caroline couldn’t help the small smile on her lips (Stefan had always had a soft spot for Elena) and when she found Klaus staring right at her with the same expression, she bit down.

“Yeah?” Katherine, as grandiose as ever, rose from her seat, the six-inch heels she had insisted on wearing only adding to the drama. She rested her fingertips on the table and leaned forward to whisper, “How was your date last night?”

“That happened after you slept with Damon,” he retorted, his whole face scrunching at the words. She exchanged a blank look with Klaus. They all knew that wasn’t strictly the truth. Emotional cheating was just as detrimental to relationships. It just so happened Katherine was the one inclined to the physical. Stefan eventually huffed and flitted his hand out. “Fine. You can have the coffee shop. I get the bistro.”

“Now, that’s unfair!” It was Katherine’s turn to raise her voice. Caroline tugged her by the wrist, encouraging her to sit down. Katherine obliged, thankfully, but there was no chance of such obedience occurring in any other context. “You know that bistro is the only place I’ll eat burgers from!”

Stefan offered a short smirk, folding his arms tightly. “Then I want the coffee shop on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s when you can have the bistro.”

Katherine’s eyes widened and she not so politely, pointed out in offence, “I’m a vegetarian on Tuesdays, you asshole!”

Klaus shot a dull look Caroline’s way and she nodded. She took Katherine by the arm and leaned away from the table to whisper, “Can’t you be a vegetarian on Wednesdays?”

“Absolutely not!” Katherine whispered back with a sharp tone. She then gestured loosely to her body, eyebrows raised. “My modelling agency has me on a strict meal plan.”

Caroline’s brows knitted closely. “Then why the hell do you want the bistro so badly?”

“I don’t really,” Katherine murmured, a small laugh choking out under her breath, “I just want to piss him off.”

Caroline’s lips parted as she watched her friend shrug. “Jesus, Kat...” she groaned, rubbing her temples. She loved the girl but she could stand to be a little less...everything.

“Miss Forbes?” Klaus called softly across the table. His voice was pure heaven to her ears, the kind that she could fall asleep and wake up to.

She fluttered her eyelashes and threw a glance his way. “My apologies,” she replied abruptly, sitting up straight. “My client will accept those terms under the condition that only she may use the Mystic Nightclub on Fridays.”

“Nice,” she heard Katherine mutter beside her, undoubtedly smirking. Yes, that was more her preference than Katherine’s, but their divorce impacted her social life just as much as theirs.

Stefan was swift to whine, “But Friday is their double shot night!” It was in moments like this it was easy to remember he was the youngest in his family. The straining notes of displeasure were so obvious.

“Miss Forbes, my client has been rather generous considering the circumstances,” Klaus attempted to point out, tilting his head towards Katherine. If this were settled in a bar, she was sure his language would consist entirely of insults. Katherine had landed on her feet and in the bed of Klaus’ older, better dressed (her words) brother not long after the divorce was filed. That only added insult to Stefan’s injuries, including, but not limited to, estrangement from his own brother. And seeing as Elijah was staying with Klaus for the time being, it was complicated.

She tossed her blonde locks behind her and remained firm in her reply, “Your client can have any other day of the week.”

Klaus studied her for a moment, eyes narrowing. She had no time to consider how attractive it was; they were negotiating on their friends’ lives, after all. With the clearing of his throat and a small adjustment of his tie, he asked, “Don’t you think such an agreement might have an impact on third parties?” His brows twitched upward and his eyes searched hers.

Caroline knew exactly the reason for his question. Mystic Nightclub had been the location of one heated dance between them not too long ago. It was also where she had come to realise he was the magnet for many other pretty ladies. It wasn’t a game she would play unless she was sure to win. She traced an invisible line across the page, her pen hovering, and mused, “That depends on one of the third parties’ intentions, Mr. Mikaelson.” She offered him her blue eyes, raising an eyebrow.

“They are most pure, I assure you,” he replied calmly and the corners of his lips curled just a tad. It was a familiar expression. He had used at the club one night. One more drop of alcohol and she would have bit the bullet. Oh, she was so screwed.

“God, get a room,” Katherine finally groaned, slumping back against her chair.

Stefan squared his shoulders and nodded. “That I can agree on.”

“Fuck off, Stefan.”

                                                REVIEW HERE

[dnd-drunks-n-debauchery]

Recap/highlight reel of Friday's session

Brought to you by @nevergonnarollagain aka Cookie (23/04/2021)

Last session, Rosania lead the group to a mining village to go through the mines and try to recover diamonds needed to revive Jayfice. On the way they were attacked by some skeletons and spiders, who were swiftly defeated by the group. They rescue a young wood elf called Avadele and return them to the village where they live, and while the group are resting in the temple overnight Rosania is jolted from her thoughts as a signal horn echoes through the night.

This is where we pick up from, and Rosania is not the only one to have noticed the horn; the rest of the party all stop what they're doing and look at each other in confusion. Quint gets up and walks over to the window, but it's completely dark outside; the elves who live here all have darkvision, so there are no lights of any sort outside.

Some of the elves from earlier all hurry into the room led by the healer, who gestures for everyone to stay quiet and put out the small lanterns they'd brought out for Quint. He turns to our group and quietly explains that the horn we heard is a war horn; the village is likely going to be attacked, and if the attackers are using a warhorn then they're likely a sizable force.

Quint pulls a torch out of his pack and starts lighting it, while Rosania steps outside to see if she can see the would-be attackers, determined not to let them cause any damage. She can't see anything unusual even with her darkvision, so she turns in the direction the horn seemed to come from and starts walking in that direction. She's wary of coming under attack, otherwise she'd be running.

As Rosania walks a voice calls out from somewhere south of the workhouse. "I have come to retrieve an asset. If you do not return it to me, we will burn down your little town." She hesitates, and Quint catches up and asks what we should do. Ned is hurrying after the pair, however it seems that Javier and Harmony are staying behind for now.

Knowing that it won't do any good to wait around for something to happen, Rosania glances at Quint and mutters "Well that's rather harsh" to him before turning and continuing in the direction of the speaker. Though she doesn't show any signs of it, she's feeling a lot more nervous about the attackers with this threat being made. As she walks, the voice calls out again. "I'll give you 5 seconds. If you don't give me what I want, I'll start burning your buildings down." Sure enough, the trio hear fire cracking somewhere where the voices seem to be coming from, and some arcane muttering.

Rosania panics. She thought she'd have more time to get to the attackers, that there'd be enough time to talk to them and stop them from attacking, she doesn't even know what they could want. All of that, plus the stress of having such a short time limit in the first place, hits her all at once and she feels the scales rippling across her skin as the world starts shrinking around her.

As she turns into the Allosaurus she starts running in the direction of the voice, and hears the others hurrying after her. Her darkvision fades away as her body shifts into the huge scaled form, but she's able to make it past the workhouse. As she rounds the corner, she sees a drow woman on the back of a large cow, and she's summoning a fireball that's somewhat illuminating her and her steed. There do seem to be other figures here as some of them are blocking her line of sight, but they're not close enough to the drow and her fire to see properly.

The drow glances at Rosania and speaks again, adressing her directly. "I won't hurt you beast. I don't want to play games. Just give me what I want and I won't reduce this town to ash." Rosania blinks in surprise at being referred to as a beast, but before she can do anything the drow casts her spell. A line of roaring fire shoots from her hand and hits the wall of the workhouse, causing a large explosion. The smell of burning alcohol wafts through the air as the drow raises her voice. "Alright. Now that you see I'm not messing around, if you give me what I want maybe I'll douse the fire."

Quint runs up behind Rosania and calls over to the drow, explaining that we don't know what she wants. She looks over to him and tells him that the temple has been defiled. Confused, Quint explains that we only arrived a few hours ago and have no idea what's going on. She informs us that if that's the case, we'll die last. Quint says that surely we can come to some kind of arrangement, and after a moment of thinking the drow agrees. She explains that she's looking for one of her fallen Order, and tells Quint that he has exactly one minute to go and get them otherwise she'll continue her attack. Quint turns and sprints back to the temple, and unsure of what to do Rosania stands watching the drow and her forces.

Back at the temple, Quint runs over to the healer and tells him that the drow wants one of her fallen order. The healer is confused as there aren't any fighters who may be part of the order here, however he does have a plan that might at the very least buy us some time. Feeling guilty, he turns to one of the elves who needs healing after being caught in the explosion and tells them that he's going to heal them before making them fall asleep. Then he picks them up, hands them to Quint and tells him to take them to the drow.

Quint rushes back to the drow and carries the elf right over to her. She looks down at the elf, then slowly looks back up at Quint. "What mockery do you take me for? Do you think I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a high elf and a drow?" Quint tells her that he was told to bring this elf to her, and she remarks that perhaps the town ought to be "cleansed" after all.

Hearing this, Quint panics. He grabs hold of the drow and casts Inflict Wounds on her, severely injuring her. She glares at him, and orders all of her forces to attack Quint no matter what. All of the army turn to look at Quint, and he realises quite how screwed he currently is; there are five drows at the front armed with bows; two at the side he's standing on with swords, and two sprites that he can see. They all start attacking him, with two more drows with swords coming up behind him to attack, and while most of them miss the hits that are landed are very serious. Quint screams in agony, and the rest of our group hear the screams and start racing towards us.

Quint doesn't think he's going to make it out of this fight, at least not conscious. He decides to try and take down the drow at least and reaches to grab her again. She's prepared this time though, grabbing her shield to block him and creating magical armour around herself. He pulls away, casting a healing spell on himself to heal up a little bit.

Rosania charges at the fighters, swiping at the nearest melee fighter with her claws. She manages to knock them off their feet, and as they fall she leans forward and chomps them. They seem pretty injured, however they're not dead yet.

The drow casts a spell to manipulate the earth and trap Rosania in place, then orders her stronger soldiers to attack her. The cow disengages from the fight and walks away, carrying the drow to safety. Her forces meanwhile do as they're ordered; the shooters shoot at Quint, the melee fighters all run over to Rosania (turns out there were four of them) and attack her, and the sprites (turns out there were three) poison Rosania.

Harmony and Javier make it over to the group. Harmony conjures a tentacle void, which attacks the soldiers and kills some of them. Javier conjures a fireball, and it hits the group full force. Rosania and the stronger drow fighters survive, but Quint is knocked to the ground unconscious and the other attackers are killed.

As soon as Rosania sees Quint on the ground, a feeling of dread washes over her. Her mind goes back to the fight with Ivan in the temple, when Jayfice was killed and Javier, upon realising that, started stabbing himself to try and activate some kind of magic. Terrified at the thought of a repeat of that experience, she forces herself back into her elven form and casts Healing Word on Quint. 

Seeing the fight turn so swiftly in our favour, the drow on the cow casts a spell to make the ground around us crumble and shift. Quint is shaken about so badly that he ends up almost being knocked out again, but it throws her troops off balance and they don't manage to hit Rosania again.

Harmony and Javier just want the fight to be over. They both cast fireball at the group, killing the remaining drow soldiers but knocking out Quint and Rosania in the process. Thankfully, Ned was out of fireball range, so he runs over to the pair and heals them up.

As soon as Quint comes round again he loads up his crossbow. He takes aim at the final drow and fires, shooting her and causing her to fall off of the cow. As she falls a book falls out of her grasp, and Quint scrambles to his feet and makes his way over to grab it, closely followed by Rosania.

The cow doesn't attack the pair when they reach it, and as Quint picks up the book it starts licking him. He starts to open the book on the first page when he pauses, instead opening at a random page nearer the middle of the book. The page it opens on has some text written out in Common, and a peculiar feeling washes over Quint as he reads it.

"The great wings of black

They fly through the night

The hero he sought her

To prove his great might

The cultists of Red’ne

Did not forgive his great slight

The hero, once righteous

Now lost his inner light"

(Recap ends dramatically.)

[friendlylocalwhumper]

caution: this drabble contains explicit child abuse (from lux’s past, but written as if it’s current). please proceed with caution.

When he hears it, Lux’s movements falter for just a moment. Flinches are mocked, are punished, so he doesn’t let the remembered pain associated with the clinking of a belt buckle jerk his shoulders up or force him to step closer to his room. He hasn’t done anything particularly annoying today so it’s probably not gonna end up with him in pain. He hasn’t done anything wrong.

There are eyes on him. Lux can tell. He hates these long, terrifying moments when his father’s eyes lock onto him, searching for some glaring fault to tear at. The warlock turns the page of his chapter book and tries not to shift his weight on the squeaky kitchen chair.

He’s read this page about four times but the words still aren’t sinking in. It takes another two attempts for him to build up the courage to flick his eyes up, to glance over toward the living room.

There his dad lounges in his armchair, looking just as dangerous as ever. Sometimes Lux wishes he had the kind of dad who has that same type of chair and seems to melt into it, out of shape and lazy, tossing an empty beer can at the TV at most. But no, his dad isn’t like that. He’s a proud veteran of the war, short sleeves rolled up to display the tattoos from the service, his gun on the table beside him in pieces ready to be reassembled. And he’s staring straight at Lux.

His belt is undone, the end hanging free of the buckle. Lux swallows past a lump in his throat and meets his father’s eyes again. Just an angry day, he guesses, and the only solution is hitting. He dog-ears the page of his book subtly.

“Get over here.”

The paperback flops onto the table as Lux hurries to stand. His legs carry him in the exact opposite direction of where he wants to go. “Yeah, Dad?”

There’s nothing but mild disgust on his father’s face. In his resignation, Lux’s mind runs through all the serious dangers he needs to keep track of: the sniper bullet in the glass case that’ll be used to kill him one day, the unassembled gun on the side table, the bat by the back door. It’ll definitely just be the belt right now, so he’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.

“Get on your knees.”

Lux hesitates, searching for some excuse to avoid this. But searching for a lie and then being caught in it is dangerous, so after his few seconds of inaction, the warlock kneels, eyes searching for the spot he likes to lock onto. There, a hole, a bullet hole in the carpet. That’s from when he was little and he tottered over to fumble his dad’s gun off the table only to set it off by accident. He got hurt for that, but whatever the punishment was, it’s faded in his memory in the haze of all the others. It just feels like a small, safe act of rebellion to remember pissing the guy off that badly, startling him with a gunshot that came out of nowhere.

The belt clinks again. In eleven years, Lux hasn’t managed to figure out why the belt is used for hurting. Punches work well enough, and they’re random, they’re easy to use and move on, get back to doing other things. This whole thing, though, being made to kneel and take off his shirt and take hits that leave plain stinging, and then welts, and then eventually dark bruises if it goes on long enough? It’s just a lot of work to be put into one little punishment. It’s embarrassing, somehow, to have made his dad so angry that this whole process is the only way to make a lesson sink in.

He doesn’t have a shirt to take off, so there’s one step they can skip. Already he’s thinking about school tomorrow; how the welts will chafe under his shirt, how he’ll be grumpy and distracted, how he’ll get in trouble for his attitude and maybe end up in detention. He could try to be nice and act fine, he thinks, to avoid that, but the thought of having to pretend like he isn’t in pain just makes him angry. Lux curls his fists around two little fluffed-up tufts of carpet.

Thwack. Lux jerks and his brow crumples; he has to bite his lip to keep quiet. He wouldn’t get yelled at for making a sound, probably, but just knowing that his dad would see it as a sign of weakness makes him want to prove he’s tough. The bullet hole in the carpet remains, and his eyes stay locked on it even as they tear up with the coming blows of folded leather against his back. It’s eerily silent in between the lashes. He never feels more alone than when he’s taking the belt, when he remembers sorely that no one is near, no one can make it stop. Not even his mom, who couldn’t ever stop it from coming, but who helped after, all gentle and worried. No, Lux is alone. Alone with his dad, and the belt, and their quiet house.

~

Walking through the hallways at school with welts under his shirt is when his thoughts are always darkest. When he’s bitter that no one’s noticed what’s been done to him, and when he desperately hopes that no one will notice. Sometimes he gets home to find small lines of blood on the inside of his shirt from where the worst welts apparently bled, and he crumples with relief knowing that the blood didn’t seep through and get him caught.

He steps to avoid students hurrying to their classes, angling his shoulders to avoid all bustling. If anything, a backpack, an arm, a swinging locker meets his back, he’s going to make a sound. The teachers standing at their doors waiting for their students watch him, some subtly and some with open concern or judgement. Lux adjusts the textbooks in his arm, cheeks flushing. Yeah, he’s got his books for once. Puts a strain on his back that’s no fun, but he’s so anxious over what his dad will do if he gives him a reason to get angry, so today he’s gonna try in his classes. That was the plan, anyway, that he formed last night at 2am to calm himself down from a wave of panic. He can try in his classes, and he won’t get detention, and everyone will be a little less pissed at him than usual.

History class. That’s this period, and it’s going to be good. A relief, maybe even some fun. Lux hustles, a little bit, to get to his favorite teacher’s class on time.

Mr. Carter holds the door open for him with his usual smile. Lux flashes a half-smile back. If Mr. Carter ever suspects anything or worries about Lux, he doesn’t let it show, not at the start of class. Lux thinks he knows more than he lets on, but wants Lux to think he’s getting away with hiding things, and that makes it so much easier for the warlock to shed his stress for the span of a class period and listen.

Finding his seat and sliding his books onto the wire shelf underneath, Lux folds his arms onto his desk and leans forward in an attempt to look casual without letting his back press against his seat.

“Good morning, class,” Says Mr. Carter, letting the door close behind him as he walks over to his whiteboard. Lux relaxes at the guy’s posture alone. Mr. Carter just walks, he doesn’t stride, doesn’t take heavy angry steps, doesn’t put on any kind of haughty demeanor that authority figures tend to put on. The guy leans against his desk, popping the lid off a dry-erase marker and seeming to consider the color of it before looking back up at his class.

“So, today, we’re going to be debating, class.”

Lux perks up, eyes watching keenly for everyone’s reactions, and watching the teacher too. Lux loves debating, Mr. Carter knows that. But can he really work up the energy to do it today? Is he in such a rotten mood that he’ll get offended and lash out and be laughed at?

“Everyone will participate. Even if you don’t want to talk in front of the class, I want everyone to write down their arguments and slide them over to their debating team members, alright? And if it doesn’t get too heated, guys, pizza on Friday.”

A rare smile breaks across Lux’s face. Free food, and incentive for the class not to get all loud and angry today? A chance to debate, or to just write down his ideas, no pressure? Mr. Carter is the best.

Mr. Carter glances at him, and Lux’s stomach flutters with the panic that comes with being noticed, only to instantly settle into he knew I’d like this plan, he’s got my back, this is gonna make today so much less sucky.

~

The debate has heated up, and Lux, usually eager to jump in and land a well-executed point, is slinking back in his seat, avoiding eyes. Mr. Carter is watching every point of action, keeping an eye on his students’ volume levels and movements. Here and there, though, he glances at Lux, worried that maybe this debate topic has veered over the line.

“Cops are dying and those no-good killers are just roaming the streets! They’re all a bunch of crackheads you know, they’ve got knives and guns and no permits, they’re all fucking-”

“Language, Mr. Peterson,” Chides Mr. Carter, arms crossed, tense as he considers how to calm down a classroom full of passionate, but misguided, young people. “And remember what I always say about assumptions versus facts? This is less of a debate and more of a witch hunt at this point.”

“Witch hunt! Speaking of, let’s talk facts,” A girl chimes in, and Mr. Carter seems to relax. She’s one of his most clever, quiet students - if she’s joining in, she’s got to have a good, mature point to make. “Witches have been burned at the literal stake, hunted down, and today it’s not poking a girl to see if she bleeds and then drowning her in front of the town. It’s monitoring your search search history, it’s cops dragging people off the street with guns and tasers. How far can we go with murder and oppression in the name of safety before we become the thing we fear?”

Mr. Carter reels from the force of her logic, nodding. “Excellent, Miss-”

“Warlock sympathizer!” Cries the guy that was cut off for making assumptions, pointing at the girl who refuses to back down. “They’re killers, that’s not an assumption that’s a fact, government says so, news say so, my dad’s a cop, he-”

“Then your dad’s the killer,” She shoots back, face flushed. “Witches are getting murdered, can’t find a safe place to live, can’t even get a job, they’re dying out there. There’s no healthcare for women with magic-”

“Women with magic? Like people of color?” Jeers someone from the back of the classroom, and snickers break out.

“-and some of us can’t even afford food for kids, for warlock kids who got kicked out for being who they are, the witches give the kids food and the warlocks don’t because they need the strength to go fight off the cops dragging their friends off to die, and… and…” Her argument fades as her voice falters. The whole classroom is staring at her, dumbstruck.

“Witch,” Someone mutters, and her skin goes grey.

“Incredible,” Cries Mr. Carter, sweeping forward. Lux isn’t breathing, where he sits at the deck farthest from the debating, his instincts screaming at him to run, get to the door, before the grabbing, the accusations, the death. “Excellent. Thank you, Miss Abby. You can sit now.”

She does, legs wobbling, somehow summoning a nervous smile.

“I asked her to drop that point into her argument at some point today, so I could see how you’d all react. That’s the real lesson here, today - Mister Connor, put that phone away, no texting your girlfriend in my class, you know the rules.” Mr. Carter shakes his head as the class snickers at Connor, who opens his mouth, hesitates, then turns off the phone that shows the number for reporting a warlock sighting half-dialed. “Class,” Continues the history teacher - and Lux spots a tremor in the man’s hand as he raises it - “You all just fell victim to the number one pitfall in debating. You panicked at hearing something that’s seen as a taboo in our society, and instantly all logic left the room. You were ready to pick up your pitchforks and jump into your assumptions rather than facts, weren’t you?”

“But, Mr. Carter, we’re supposed to report-”

“Not in my class, you’re not,” Interrupts the teacher, eyes hard with stern disapproval. “Listen. I’m not discussing the broad topic of dangers to society and what role in that magic users play. I’m talking about logic and reason as used in debates in this isolated environment. I’m talking about your instincts in an argument, and how you can avoid losing an argument when it really matters. For example, Miss Abby, as I asked her to, aimed to distract you all. It worked instantly. In a political debate that you’d see on the news, the first mention of warlocks switches the debate from taxes and civil rights and the funding of things like hospitals. Do you see that now? How she could have been arguing something that would establish a policy that your political party is directly opposing, but with one buzzword like witch, she distracted you?” Mr. Carter presses on with a lecture about the strategies used in debating, a long winding talk that bores everyone out of their near-frenzy to attack.

Lux and Abby, meanwhile, take the time to remember how to breathe and keep their eyes on the floor. No one seems to remember that they’re there as everyone tries to find a sneaky way to scroll through apps on their phone or doodle in their notebooks as the teacher rambles and starts to write his talking points on the whiteboard.

Lux wonders, sitting very still to avoid reigniting the pain in his back, if Mr. Carter really knew Abby was going to say that.

[thesaltofcarthage]

I dreamed a Good Omens fic last night

For various reasons I slept badly last night, and this was the fic which unfurled in my head over three hours as I drifted in and out of sleeping and waking.

What if they aren’t being monitored? There is no Ineffable Plan; God just turns everyone loose and sees what happens. Crowley still Saunters Vaguely Downwards, because that happened before she created humans. There are still angels and demons, and what they are Supposed To Do, but the “sides” are not quite so fiercely drawn.

So Aziraphale and Crowley get to know one another over the years, but they can become friends openly because no one is watching them and there’s no one to report to. The Flood is the only time God intervenes with humanity. The scene outside the Ark still happens but then Aziraphale and Crowley end up on the Ark because there’s nowhere else for their corporeal bodies to go.

And Crowley grieves all the children, terribly. After a few nights he ends up curled up in Aziraphale’s arms weeping, and they continue to bed down together because who else are they going to stay with? 

A week or two later, after becoming accustomed to waking up next to a friendly, familiar face, Crowley wakes up alone. He flatlines mentally and just sits in their blankets hugging his knees and rocking back and forth for hours. Aziraphale finally returns, chilled to the bone, and Crowley clings to him. “I thought you left me,” he says, crying.

Aziraphale doesn’t quite look all there. “I’m sorry, my dear. I was up on the deck.” 

“For six hours?”

“I just needed to clear my lungs out a bit; it’s a little musty down here with the goats.” Crowley realizes Aziraphale is a mess, inside and out. The angel was also deeply affected by the death of every living thing on the planet not on this boat. He pulls himself together.

“You’re soaking wet, Angel,” Crowley tells him softly, running his fingers through Aziraphale’s dripping wings. He miracles the water away, but Aziraphale still looks dazed with shock and depression. They lie down together again and eventually end up kissing. Both of them realize they want more. Aziraphale says “I can’t allow you to tempt me to lust!” and Crowley says “No, Angel, you’re comforting the afflicted. I’m miserable and having horrible nightmares. You’re winning a demon over to love.” 

“Oh, well, if you put it that way, my dear.”

They end up making love pretty much every night, sometimes twice a day, because the rain doesn’t stop and they’re on a lower deck with the big animals, and it’s pretty grim on that boat, honestly. By the end of the soggy forty days they admit they’ve fallen in love. Crowley begs Aziraphale to stay with him, and he says he will.

And they do. They stay together more or less openly for the next millennium and a half. As long as they aren’t macking on each other in public, they won’t get into trouble. They take turns visiting each other once a week to be together.

Christ is born. Aziraphale doesn’t know what happened, but he knows something did, and things shift inside him. When Crowley next comes to visit, sneaking up on his angel from behind and wrapping his arms around him, full of smooches, Aziraphale kisses him back gently but says he’s not really in the mood. Crowley is surprised but respects that. They have dinner and cuddle and kiss a bit, and sleep chastely holding each other.

This happens on the next visit, and the next, and the next. Crowley is hurt, but Aziraphale continues to say that he loves Crowley and is always happy to see him, and seeks him out eagerly, and visits when it’s his turn. Conversation is always easy. There are lots of forehead kisses and tender face touches, but that’s it.

Two years pass. It’s a lovely summer night, and they’re lying together on a lounge on a city rooftop somewhere looking at the stars. Aziraphale is holding Crowley, who’s curled up with his head on his angel’s chest. Crowley finally can’t bear it any more and looks up at him. “Angel, may I ask you something?”

“Of course, my dear, anything.”

“All right — and please know that I’d never ask you to do anything you don’t want to do, or share anything you don’t want to share, but — ” and here his voice trembles a little and gets very small, “Angel, why don’t you want to have sex with me any more? On the ark it was every night, and then it used to be a few times a week, but you haven’t wanted to touch me in two years.” Aziraphale gasps. Crowley is in tears. “Just — tell me, please, did I do something wrong? I would never, ever force myself on you or demand anything of you, I just — I just want to know what happened.”  

“It’s been that long?” he says, horrified. “Oh, Crowley, my love, forgive me, I didn’t mean — I never meant to hurt you!”

“Then what did you mean?” Crowley says, wretched.

Aziraphale explains: “Something changed — I can’t put my finger on it, but something happened. It took all the desire out of me. I thought it happened to you too — you’re still an angel, even if you’re a fallen one. Something… I just get the sense that something is going to happen, soon, or soon-ish. There’s definitely an end date to this. And we have to — prepare for it, I guess.”

“Soon-ish?” Crowley says with some hope. “Does that mean years? decades?”

“A few decades, I think? Less than a century, to be certain.” Now Aziraphale is welling up. “My darling, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t realize. Do you want me to — well — help you out?”

Crowley laughs through his tears. “No, Angel, it’s all right. Sex isn’t any fun if it’s not both of us. I can wait for you.” He cups Aziraphale’s face. “I can wait for centuries if I have to. I love you.”

“I love you too, my dearest.” They kiss, gently, and then hold each other close. Crowley inhales the smell of Aziraphale’s skin to hold him over.

Crowley spends the next thirty-odd years jerking off once or twice a day, continuing to visit with Aziraphale every week, cuddling, and coping.

They witness the Crucifixion. Crowley is horrified and heartbroken, again. Aziraphale isn’t accepting; he’s inconsolable from Friday to Sunday.

On Monday, however, he wakes up with raging desire. He pulls down the sheets and starts sucking Crowley off. Crowley wakes up startled and very happy. “I see you found your libido again!” he says with a delighted gasp. They don’t leave the bed for two days.

The world keeps turning, and they stay together. Crowley starts wearing the sunglasses after the Crucifixion. Somewhere in the Middle Ages Crowley buys a thousand-acre plot of land in what will eventually be England and starts building an enormous house in the middle of the lot. He hires humans to build it with wood and stone, proper architecture to hold it up, no miracles. “I don’t want this dependent on a miracle, because I don’t want either my side or yours to come by and un-miracle anything,” he explains.

Somewhere along the line on some part of the planet, there’s a municipality which will solemnify non-religious marriages. Aziraphale and Crowley get hitched, because it seems silly otherwise after how many thousands of years.

Now they do live together, albeit discreetly. Civilization rises. Their house is surrounded by woods on all sides. The driveway is a mile long, crushed gravel, and isn’t marked — you can only find it if you’re looking for it. There’s a high wooden fence around the house proper. The house number is 504. Originally they were putting up dueling signs like “Welcome/Go Away,” but Aziraphale noted that it would attract too much attention, so there’s just a small white porcelain oval with the house number in black type.

They save as many people from various wars and plagues as they can, but there’s only so much they can do without getting caught out. Crowley ends up doing the book deal with the Nazis; the prophecy books are of course complete tripe, and additionally the pages are soaked in poison (which was Aziraphale’s idea, because he’s delighted by the thought of books being able to bite back).

At some point in the 1970s or 1980s they are out doing something silly in London (public drunkeness?) and they get arrested. They are in the local hoosegow, which doesn’t have a drunk tank per se, and Aziraphale is outraged to realize there are kids in the cell with them. He hustles right over and hisses “Crowley! There are children here!”

“Children? In a jail? Why are there children in jail?”

“I. don’t. know but I intend to find! out!” And the guards explain they are in for stupid things like graffiti or smoking or truancy or whatever it is, and Aziraphale loses it.

“Oh, you’re in for it now, you’ve gotten my husband good and mad,” Crowley drawls from his corner of the cell. The cops think he’s a weird poofter because obviously two men can’t get married, but then magically all the kids’ bail is getting paid and charges are being dropped left and right. And now Aziraphale has a mission.

They take aliases: Anthony J. Colubra (which means snake, thank you Madeline L’Engle for sticking in my subconscious) and Arthur Z. Fell. Aziraphale closes the bookshop and keeps the building (he owns all of it) as their second home in London. They instead open a community center. There’s a large open room with pews where people can meditate and worship as they choose, but no services and no leaders. Aziraphale is still an angel who wants people to do what’s right, but seriously, after the Flood and the Crucifixion and the Black Plague and Spanish Flu and WWII, he’s not particularly happy with God or Heaven.

There’s a gym, a library, a daycare, and various other rooms as needed (somewhat suspiciously just as they’re needed… there’s some Room of Requirement shenanigans going on). The kids are wary of the two at first because they think they are just there to preach, but one evening Aziraphale is talking to the kids earnestly about doing good and Crowley walks by and ruffles his angel’s hair in a clearly Old Marrieds way, and Aziraphale stops mid-sentence to melt into a puddle of heart eyes and can’t remember his train of thought for ten minutes, and the kids realize these two are on their side.

As the decades pass, more queer kids and outcasts and homeless come to the center because they have a home there, and the non-binary and gender-fluid kids flock to Crowley because they see him as a kindred spirit. 

There is no Antichrist; Adam is a human boy. Adam and Warlock are born at the same hospital and get switched because stupid things happen. Both of them end up going to university in London, and they meet and fall in love at a community center called Wings of Hope.

[hope-for-olicity]

Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - May 24th, 2019

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them. This and all previous Fabulous Olicity Fanfic posts can be found on my blog.

The Consolations of Philosophy multi-chapter WIP by ivorykeys09 - After five years of working abroad and undercover as the United States' top cryptanalyst, Felicity returns home with more than a few secrets. AU, no island https://archiveofourown.org/works/12042972/chapters/27267447

Time for a Story multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. YOU NEED THIS STORY IN YOUR LIFE. https://archiveofourown.org/works/3912157/chapters/8757172

Paging Dr. Smoak multi-chapter WIP by @laxit21 - When Oliver Queen gets into a car accident, he meets Dr. Felicity Smoak. He had no idea how much a chance meeting would change his life. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262497/chapters/40595483

Summer Vacation: My Name is Felicity Smoak by @dmichellewrites - prompt: malfunction https://archiveofourown.org/works/11074743/chapters/27297582?view_adult=true

Mon Amour (My Love) by @crazycrystal10 - Oliver & Felicity meet in a coffee shop and the rest is a sweet tale of sugary sweet love. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12051564

Bodyguard multi-chapter WIP by @originalhybridloverfics - Felicity needs a new bodyguard and Diggle referred her to an old friend, Oliver Queen. Unknowingly she meets the man she would one day marry. https://archiveofourown.org/works/9656798/chapters/21814571

I'd Go Anywhere With You multi-chapter Complete by @laureningall - Felicity has said many times that she would go anywhere with Oliver. They’ve already checked off so many to-dos in their new life together. New apartment, learning to parent a preteen, their engagement, elopement, and of course annulling that pesky League of Assassins sham marriage. Why has checking off that last wedding box been so elusive - their honeymoon. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12023805/chapters/27215448

Double Standards multi-chapter Complete by @felicityollies - Felicity is a young actress trying to be taken seriously in Hollywood. Oliver is her Oscar-winning boyfriend. Everything is peachy keen for them... that is until their sex tape gets released. https://archiveofourown.org/works/10676223/chapters/23636349

The Fan multi-chapter WIP by @leuska - For the past couple of months, Felicity Smoak, previous child star known to the world through her alter ego Lisy the Tech Whiz, who ended her career and her growing popularity at the age of thirteen rather abruptly, has sporadically received disturbing notes and gifts in her mail. Police believe the notes to be just little tokens of appreciation by a former fan. Despite having left the spotlight over a decade ago and living in anonymity since, the fan mail keeps coming, increasing in frequency as well as intensity. Thelast drop is when Felicity receives another letter with a love note. A scary, ominous note. A note written in human blood.FBI director Amanda Waller tasks her best Agent to the case. Oliver Queen, a criminal profiler, is currently working on a special task force formed between SCPD and FBI to catch a man dubbed the Start City Slasher, who has murdered at least three young women in the past nine months. Agent Queen is not thrilled with the prospect of holding a former princess’ hand through her problem with a simple stalker while a serial killer is still at large. However, once meeting her, Oliver finds there is nothing easy or simple about Felicity Smoak as their worlds start to intertwine. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17726573/chapters/41820368

From Somewhere Within multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - Their connection has always felt natural to them, safe and secure. But others tend to fear what they don’t understand, and as far as their enemies are concerned, the world isn’t ready to accept two people who can know each other the way that Oliver and Felicity do. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16009244/chapters/37356257

Providence multi-chapter WIP by @so-caffeinated - Will Queen has struggled in silence in the year since he was shot. But when a shadowy crime lord known as Domino targets the only woman Will’s ever truly loved, fate forces him to confront his demons in ways he never could have imagined… Whether he wants to or not. Amelia Prescott has fought to take control of her life since learning two years ago that her personal and professional worlds were manipulated by others. But nothing can prepare her for just how hard she'll have to fight to set her own course, especially when her heart belongs to a damaged man and a crime lord threatens her every professional move... And her life. Destiny brings them together, but as chaos reigns and personal demons haunt Will and Amelia both, it may also threaten to tear them apart. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17919056/chapters/42308753

Will Fate Allow? multi-chapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - Seeing her parent's marriage dissolve at a young age made Felicity yearn for a healthy marriage of her own. She thought she'd finally found what she was looking for when Billy Malone showed up offering her what her heart desired. She thought she was happy and had everything she could want, but things began to unravel. Slowly she turned to someone who had become an unparalleled constant in her life...Oliver Queen. Oliver and Felicity are the definition of polar opposites. He is the mob boss that strikes fear in the hearts many, while she is seen as the sweet girl next door, but there is more to both of them underneath the surface. Along the way, they become connected to one another leading to their lives being intertwined forever. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521596/chapters/38699951

I Can't Make You Say You Love Me multi-chapter Complete by intolauren - Felicity Smoak is a woman in her twenties who has never really been kissed, never been in an actual relationship. She doesn't know what it means to be intimate, to be loved, to be needed. She's plagued with a crippling anxiety that gets in the way of every single relationship she's ever tried to have. Her friends can't understand why she's so terrified to let someone in, why she's so terrified of life in general, and sometimes, neither can she. She's told herself a million times that she's okay with being alone; solitude is her favourite thing in the world, it's safe there, she can't hurt anyone there. But what if it's not? What if there's something, or someone, better out there, just outside her apartment building, that she just won't let herself have? What if one day, someone scares her so badly in the best possible way, someone who has been there all along, and she starts to question everything she's ever believed about herself? https://archiveofourown.org/works/8709418/chapters/19969525?view_adult=true

Back to Start multi-chapter WIP by @laurabelle2930 - Felicity left home almost ten years ago. She missed her family, the land that she'd always felt bonded to and, the boy who was not only her best friend but, also her true love. Now with the help of her family she's about to see if the boy she left behind is still just as in love with as she still is with him. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16043321/chapters/37451873

(Freaky Friday) Things Ain't Goin' My Way multi-chapter WIP by @felicityollies - what happens when you mix an ancient textbook, an angry hacker, and an equally angry vigilante? Short answer: nothing good. https://archiveofourown.org/works/6496711/chapters/14871091

Love By Contradiction multi-chapter WIP by @pimsiepim - When Felicity meets Oliver, it’s anything but romantic. Taking her best friend’s spot at a speed-dating event wasn’t exactly how she had pictured spending her Friday night. Meeting said best friend’s soulmate? Even less expected. And even though Felicity never really believed in that silly prediction a fortune teller made ten years ago, the occasion is just too good to pass up. Alena is stuck in a toxic relationship and maybe what she needs to finally get over her ex… is to get underneath someone else. Mission “Get-Alena-And-Oliver-Together” is on the way, and Felicity will stop at nothing to make sure her best friend gets her happily ever after. Nothing. Not even Alena’s lack of interest, or Oliver’s weird tendency to ask Felicity out on fake dates. The plan is perfect, the execution flawless... except for one small detail: it’s not Alena who’s starting to fall for the guy... https://archiveofourown.org/works/18550876/chapters/43969807

P.S. Hong Kong: Was it Real?!? multi-chapter WIP by @cruzrogue for Olicity trope-tastic award: Fake Marriage - This is off season 3 Flashbacks. When Tommy goes to Hong Kong he doesn’t go alone he takes his friend Felicity as the best information system being to help him locate Oliver Queen. Tommy may leave empty handed but Felicity gets to be a bride… https://archiveofourown.org/works/15025697/chapters/34832747

Mothers Know Best mulit-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - Since they have been kids, they have been best friends. Since they have been friends, their mothers wanted them to be together. After coming back from the east coast, Felicity takes over a position at Queen Consolidated, the company her best friend will soon take over from his father. Their mothers still push for them to be together, and they seem closer to that goal than ever because wedding bells are ringing. The only problem is that they both plan to get married to someone else. https://archiveofourown.org/works/18921118/chapters/44918146

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper // @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 // @laxit21 //

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Folklore Friday

So, I realized that my version of The Boy Who Went To Learn About Shudders doesn’t really match the original story all that much, so now I’m doing a “Radio Explains Fairytales Badly” for this one.

Right, this is a weird one.

So this isn’t one you’re likely to see a Disney adaptation of, unless Disney really really runs out of ideas. And they might. Who knows.

So to start with, we’ve got this man, and he’s got two sons. Fairytale patterns dictate that the younger one is going to go out on some kind of adventure. The dad goes to his boys like, “Okay, it’s time for you to learn a trade!” (In other words, get a job! ) And he asks them what they’re going to do with their lives. The older one’s answer isn’t really recorded that I remember, presumably because he’s the oldest and is probably going to take over whatever the dad’s business is, being the firstborn and all.

The dad asks the younger one, “What kind of trade do you want to learn?”

And he says, “I want to learn to shudder.”

Hm. Ah. Okay, so, in this day and age, that could mean “I’m going to make Let’s Plays of horror games on the internet and earn money that way!” or “I’m going to be a professional tester of carnival haunted-houses and get paid to be scared out of my wits!” or “I’m going to sew clothes made out of that awful material they make picnic tableclothes out of, the kind that gives you goosebumps whenever it touches your skin.” But in presumably-medieval fairytale-land, that’s just not a viable career choice.

And everyone seems to realize, “Wait, I don’t think this kid actually knows what fear is!”

Now, the local sexton, for some reason, hears about this. And he tells the dad, “Hey, tell the kid -- okay, he needs a name, let’s say Charlie -- to go to the belltower in the church at midnight and ring the bell. I can help him learn to shudder, then he can go job hunting like the rest of us.”

This apparently does not strike the dad as odd. The sexton clearly has some kind of prank in mind, the lack of reaction does make you wonder how many other people he has done this to.

So the boy is sent out to the church at night, and he rings the bell at midnight. And in comes the sexton, wearing a sheet, and pretending to be a ghost. That’s not all that concerning to the boy. Maybe he could see the guy’s feet, I don’t know.

“What are you doing here?” the boy asks, and since he’s in-character at the moment, the sexton doesn’t answer. The boy decides he doesn’t like this in the slightest, and chucks the guy down the stairs, which seems like a fairly drastic reaction to a guy in a bedsheet wandering a belltower at night.

The sexton breaks his leg.

There’s a little bit of a hue and cry over that in the village. This is understandable, but to be fair, he was up in a dark belltower at night trying to scare a guy with no concept of fear. He probably should’ve planned for something weird happening.

So the dad says, “Son, you should probably skip town, lay low for a while. You broke that guy’s leg!”

And he’s like, “Okay Dad, maybe I’ll find someone else to teach me how to shudder!”

He goes off, probably hitchiking, and wanders into this other town where he apparently tells anyone who will listen that he’s trying to learn to shudder. He meets this guy who says “Hey, you should spend a night sitting under the gallows. That will guaranteed creep you out.”

This is fair, that is a perfectly logical thing to creep a person out. Unless you’re this kid, apparently.

He goes and he sits under the gallows that night and --

Okay. So, I do have some questions about this protagonist. I’m kind of wondering how old he’s supposed to be, or else whether he’s just been living some kind of idyllic, sheltered village life. Because at this point, it’s midnight, and he’s sitting under the gallows and there are actual dead men up there. Actual, very dead men, and he doesn’t look at them and think “Hey, those are some dead guys!”

No, he looks at them and thinks, “Hey, they look cold!”

That...wouldn’t be my first thought when I’m looking at a corpse, I’m just gonna be honest with you. But that’s apparently his first thought, so he goes up and he cuts them down! Off the gallows! He cuts these guys down off the gallows and sits them down in front of his fire!

These are, as we have established, dead men, so they don’t really sit up well at the fire. They kinda...lean, or sort of flop, I guess. And one of them’s clothes catch fire. Because the kid sat a dead guy right up against the fire. And the kid gets mad.

“Well if you’re not sensible enough to move away from the fire,” he says, apparently thinking this corpse can hear him, “I’m going to put you back where I found you!”

And he does. He puts all seven of these dead guys, who were probably up there for a reason, back on the gallows. Ah...okay, kiddo. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

And the next day he goes on, unsatisfied, because he didn’t learn to shiver. He goes travelling for a while with this waggoner. And presumably this waggoner has had to hear some really weird stuff during this trip. They end up staying in this town and someone is like, “Hey guys, did you know there’s a haunted castle here? Would anybody like to stay there?”

Of course, our boy is like, “Boy would I! Maybe I’ll learn to shudder!”

(And everybody else is thinking, “Yeah, if this doesn’t work, we don’t know what to do with you.”)

Come to find out, there was this king who really wanted to stay there. But he really couldn’t, because that castle was super haunted. And, y’know, you can’t really do your day-to-day king stuff when you’ve got shrieking and moaning and chains-dragging-down-the-hall going on. It’s kind of distracting, keeps interrupting the budget meetings. And once you’ve figured out that the shrieking and moaning isn’t the people trapped in the budget meetings, then you gotta call the fairytale equivalent of the Ghostbusters.

In this particular case, because it’s an old fairytale with...less than stellar social situations for some people...calling the Ghostbusters looks like the king saying “Anybody who clears out this castle can marry my daughter. She’s super pretty, by the way. And you’d get to rule my kingdom.”

Dude. You really want to screen people a little better than that. At least have some minimum qualifications, come on. You could get some kind of Ghostbuster Prince, or you could get a weirdo out for power, or you could get Luigi in yet another haunted mansion. I mean, if that’s what you’re looking for in a son-in-law okay, you do you, but the point is: you don’t know what you’re going to get when you basically put the princess’s hand up for auction like that. I’m just saying.

So, the boy doesn’t seem like he’s really got an interest in marrying the princess. All he wants to do is learn to shudder and go on his adventures. And he’s like, “Alright, I’ll stay the three nights in your haunted castle.”

And the king says, “You can take three non-living items with you.”

I don’t know why he made this rule. Maybe this was his attempt at screening some of the would-be son-in-laws coming through? It’s entirely arbitrary, most of these things are. So the kid asks for a tinder set to make a fire, a lathe, and a cutting board that comes with a knife. Okay, technically that’s probably four or five items, but the king allows it.

The boy sets up camp, and to be fair, he’s by himself in a large, drafty castle at night. Nobody’s keeping the place warm, and there’s no central heating. So fire and flint was a good choice. He gets set up and the first night he’s there he hears these voices wailing and crying about how cold they are.

His reaction is to yell something along the lines of, “I have a fire right here you nitwits! Just come warm yourselves!”

No concept of fear, and apparently not much for patience, either.

Out of the shadows jump these giant black cats. Now, I don’t know if they’re ghost cats, or some kind of cat sidhe, but either way they were probably up to no good in that particular castle. The cats come up to the fire and propose a card game.

If talking animals come up to you and say, “Hey, do you wanna play cards with us?”, there is probably an ulterior motive and you should probably be suspicious.

So, they start playing, and a couple turns in the kid realizes that the cats are cheating. This bothers him more than the fact that talking animals who don’t have opposable thumbs are holding cards and playing with a human. Animals behaving wildly out of character is apparently a-okay, but by golly they’d best not cheat at cards! Go figure.

He uses the knife and cutting board to somehow trap the cats’ paws. I think he may have said something about filing their claws, but unless there was some kind of clamp or something on the board to hold food down, I don’t know how one goes about trapping something with a cutting board.

In one version I’ve seen, he proceeds to throw the cats out the window, which is cruel even if they might’ve been planning to eat him or whatever ghostly card-cheat cats do in their spare time. In another version, he just chucked them out the chamber door and into the night to sulk, which I prefer because let’s not have our fairytale protagonist engaging in animal cruelty. Absolute no-thank-you.

Things get a little hairy after that, pretty much every shadow in the room comes to life and takes the shape of a giant black dog or cat that’s trying to scratch out his fire and tear him to pieces. This time, I’d say his actions are a little more justified, because he’s just defending himself. He picks up the knife and cutting board and fights off all the animals doing their darndest to kill him, and the results are rather gruesome and gory despite the fact that these things seem to be shadows that came to life rather than actual animals.

Despite how horrible all this was, the boy just kind of thinks, “Well, that sure was a thing,” and decides to go to sleep. He gets in bed, and the thing takes a page from Beauty and the Beast and goes marching off with him still atop it, which actually sounds kind of fun. Then it tips over and attempts to crush him, which is less fun. And that’s the end of Night One.

Well, the second night comes around, and as he’s setting up his fire, an actual human torso falls down the chimney. Most people, if confronted with a torso falling down a chimney, would probably either react like someone in a horror movie and peer up the chimney (thereby pretty much guaranteeing that they’ll be the next to go), or else run screaming from the room. Running away from Unexpected Trespassing Torsos is a perfectly valid response.

This guy looks up the chimney and yells, “Hey! You’re missing a piece! Where’s the other half?!”

Obligingly, whatever ghost is up there throws the other half down. Which then puts itself together and steals the kid’s seat by the fire. He is rather annoyed about this. And then all these other bones and body parts start falling down, all these various pieces, and they form into several other kind of dead guys who set up a game of ninepins with human bones and skulls.

This does not faze the kid. He’s all, “I want in on this!” and he takes his lathe to smooth the skulls out, because a skull as a bowling ball isn’t really going to roll all that well. And the probably-dead guys are somewhat appreciative of their new and improved bowling-skulls, so they let the kid join the game. He loses some money to the dead guys who can dismember themselves and throw themselves up and down chimneys. The former part of that sentence probably bothered him more than the latter part. And that’s the end of Night Two.

Now we get to the third night. On the third night, the door opens up, and these six guys come in. Now mind you, there have been no people in the castle thus far. Just the kid, some ghost animal things, and the dismembering ninepin party. But now six guys come in, holding a coffin. And inexplicably, this kid comes to the conclusion that this is his cousin who has died, and he’s very distressed and pulls off the lid of the coffin to wail and hug this corpse.

Okay, I’d like to point out two things:

First, that coffin lid was closed, so I don’t know why he’d assume it was his cousin. Maybe the guy was doing poorly before he left home, I don’t know, but why would they bring the body to the castle?

Secondly, let’s consider how the kid has reacted to dead people thus far. Does he...does he even understand the concept of death? Or is he just thinking “I’ll warm up my cold cousin with a hug!”

Actually, that might be the point of the story, what with him having no fear. It might be a story about someone who lacks fear because he has absolutely no concept of his own mortality. Maybe because a lot of fears are rooted in the idea of death?

Anyway, the dead guy does wake up, because this is a very haunted castle. And he’s understandably confused about this strange man hugging him and crying, and threatens to strangle him if he doesn’t let go. This seems a little drastic, but to be honest, if I woke up to a random guy hugging me, I wouldn’t be thrilled either.

So then the boy is kind of upset by this, he doesn’t really want to be strangled, thanks, and he kind of closes up the coffin and steps back like “okay, you can take this away now.”

The only other thing that really happens that night is that this random old man comes in. Why is he there? We don’t know. How did he get in? We don’t know that either, unless he’s a ghost. And for some reason, because the kid reacts violently towards a lot of things, he traps this guy’s beard in an anvil, and beats him up! WHY?! I can remember no reason for this! Why would you do that?!

But he does, and he’s passed the three nights in the haunted castle at this point. The king says, “Oh, okay, did you happen to get rid of the ghosts?”

“I don’t know about ghosts,” says the kid, “You’ve got some weird people in there, though. The old guy I beat up with an anvil showed me where all this treasure was in there though, so that was cool.”

The king is probably thinking, “Uh...okay, that was, that was my treasure, actually….since I, y’know, lived there...but okay I guess?”

So the boy marries the princess. That’s the way it goes in a lot of stories: the princess isn’t so much a character as a prize at the end of the journey. “And they all live happily ever after.” Blech.

In this case, however, it’s a little different.

First of all, nobody ever seems to stop and think about the fact that this is a guy with zero qualifications for this job who has just been told, “here, have a kingdom and a wife. Mind you don’t go wandering anymore! Now you are required to learn some administrative skills, because you’re in charge of an entire kingdom! Have fun, kiddo!”

I mean, I wouldn’t want to be that guy.

So not only is he married to a complete stranger now, but he can’t go wandering and looking for the shudders anymore, because now he has to learn things like politics and budgeting. Compare this with a similar tale from England with a female protagonist: her story ended with her getting paid a heck ton of money for beating up a zombie with a stick, and she gets to go back home and do whatever the heck she wants with her life, because now she’s filthy rich.

I think the girl protagonist got the better deal, guys.

And that’s not even mentioning the princess, here. She gets a little tired of hearing her new husband moan and groan about never having learned to shudder. And she decides to Take Steps about it. This is the kind of princess who, if she’s annoyed enough with her husband, goes and gets a bucket of ice cold water and fills it with gudgeon. Which are apparently a kind of small, bottom-dwelling fish. Live gudgeon. In a bucket of ice cold water.

She takes this bucket into his room at night and goes, “You wanted to learn what it’s like when your skin crawls?” and throws living fish on him.

And he, presumably, was like “GAH!” and then thanks his wife for teaching him what shuddering feels like. And that’s how his story ends: stuck in a castle, learning politics, and married to a woman who will, in fact, put live fish in his bed if he angers her. H-happily ever after?

And he never does actually learn what fear is, in the end.

[littlerose13writes]

Sweeter Than Fiction Chapter 8: A Strong Cup of Tea

Scorpius Malfoy and Albus Potter have decided fifth year is going to be their year; the year everything works out for them, and if that means Scorpius keeping his huge crush on his best friend a secret, then that’s just what he’s going to have to do.

It’s just a crush. He can get over it well before fifth year is over, can’t he?

Chapter 8/27

Warnings: contains description of a panic attack

Updates every Monday and Friday

Read on AO3 or FF

The following morning was hellish when Scorpius was woken up by his dorm mates leaving the room and feeling completely unsatisfied with the amount of sleep he’d had, and still a bit shaken up from his nightmare, not least because his brain was choosing to focus on the beginning part where Albus admitted to having feelings for him.

Their morning lessons were a blur of exhaustion and Scorpius didn’t feel he’d fully woken up until halfway through Care of Magical Creatures, which thankfully was over quickly.

Scorpius and Albus walked side by side back to the castle, Albus’ school bag swinging between them while he laughed about their Care of Magical Creatures lesson where a niffler had made its way into Pucey’s wallet and stolen all his gold. Scorpius stifled a huge yawn.

“Am I boring you, Scor?” Albus teased.

Scorpius shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night.” He hadn’t planned to tell Albus about his nightmare, he didn’t need to know.

Albus looked at him very seriously and Scorpius knew he had figured it out. He tried to arrange his face into a casual expression but another yawn took over and slightly spoiled the effect.

“Did you have another nightmare?” he asked in a low voice, even though there was a good distance between them and the rest of the class who were hurrying through the high winds inside for break.

“Sort of,” Scorpius admitted. “It wasn’t too bad. It’s just impossible to fall asleep afterwards.”

Albus looked a bit put out. “You should’ve woken me up.”

“Why? So we could both be sleep deprived today?”

“No! So I could… I don’t know, help you somehow?” He looked apologetic with this lame response. “I’ve been using that portable, two-way silencing charm from Uncle Ron since Higgs started snoring so badly. I didn’t hear you wake up. Do you want to talk about it?”

Scorpius could hardly explain why his nightmare had been so horrible without revealing his feelings for Albus, and he wasn’t about to do that in the break before double Potions on a windy Tuesday morning.

“It was just the usual, you know. Delphi was there, she was trying to torture me, Voldemort was in power, I was the Scorpion King, you never existed.” He tried to say this casually, almost with amusement, to trick himself into thinking it was all a funny story that couldn’t hurt him in his sleep.

The truth was that, even with all of that horrificness, the one thing that tore Scorpius from sleep for the rest of the night was the crushingly real feeling that Albus was gone, the idea of losing him. It made him feel sick.

“Scorpius?” Albus had stopped which made Scorpius realise he had stopped too. He was standing stock still, rooted to the spot and feeling like all his blood had just been drained from him in one quick motion.

He couldn’t breathe, his lungs were working furiously but nothing was happening. Oxygen refused to enter them, he was going to pass out and die because he couldn’t breathe. His vision was blurring, darkness creeping in from all sides as he felt his legs crumple beneath him. He was falling, falling, further and further down and he wasn’t breathing anymore. He was going to die.

“Scorpius look at me, right at me, that’s it, just look at me.” Scorpius vaguely heard a calm voice as he breathed in and in over and over, trying to get his breath to catch right at the back of his throat where he needed it. It wasn’t quite reaching, but it was going into his lungs, his vision was clearing.

Albus’ familiar, kind face swam into view. Albus, I’m going to die. He tried to speak, tell Albus, ask him for help. But nothing happened. All he could do was continually breathe in, he was hyperventilating.

“Press your palms together. The Battle of Hogwarts took place between the first and second of May, 1998 and culminated in the demise of Tom Riddle. Take your hands apart. Many consider this battle as the start of the new wizarding world, due to the major reformations to the key structures of our world since.”

He’d joined his hands together as if praying then taken them apart as instructed. Why? He knew these words, these words were familiar and they came from his History of Magic textbook. He could breathe when he heard Albus’ voice read these words, he knew these words and these words wouldn’t hurt him. Albus wouldn’t hurt him, wouldn’t let him die. His heart was staying put inside him, its thumping had decreased. His breath had finally caught, he wasn’t going to die. He wasn’t going to die.

“Hands together. Harry Potter was a key figure throughout this process. Hands apart.”

“M’okay.” Somebody with Scorpius’ voice spoke and it took him a few seconds to realise it was him. He was breathing heavily, as if he’d forgotten how.

“Breathe in through your nose.” Scorpius obeyed. “Out through your mouth. And again.”

Albus talked him through this breathing process a few more times before he became fully aware of his surroundings again. He was in the grounds, not far from Hagrid’s hut but nobody was around apart from Albus, who was focused intently on Scorpius. He was sat on the ground, leaning weakly against Albus’ school bag and Albus was sat in front of him, looking concerned.

“Tell me what you need now.”

Scorpius was starting to realise what had just happened. He’d been fine for months, no nightmares, no panic attacks, and he’d just been walking to class with Albus. Everything had been completely normal, he’d been trying not to think about his nightmare, and it had hit him like a strong reducto. Now he was here outside with Albus and he just wanted to bury his face away from view.

“I need you.”

Albus said nothing and just got up onto his knees and opened his arms out tentatively. Scorpius didn’t think and simply fell into them. Albus cradled his head against his chest and they stayed like that for a few minutes before Scorpius could speak.

“What’s wrong with me, Al?”

Albus pulled away from him and held him at arms’ length, his hands atop Scorpius’ shoulders. “Nothing is wrong with you. You went through something most people can’t even imagine. It’s normal to have a reaction, you can’t just snap back as if it never happened.”

“Why can’t I just get better?” Scorpius heard the childish desperation in his question.

“My cousin Victoire is studying stuff like this at St Mungo’s. You know, mental health rather than physical. She says it’s often harder to heal a brain than a body. It’s going to be her specialism when she becomes a Healer.”

“She’ll be good at that.” He was remembering Victoire from James’ birthday and imagined her presence would be quite calming.

“She will. Wizards don’t put enough value on some muggle therapies, like just talking about how they feel, and instead want to use spells and potions to fix everything. But that doesn’t always work.”

“Can’t really use episkey on my mind can we?” He tried to smile light-heartedly but he felt like he’d been in a fight with a troll and the troll had got a good few whacks of his club in.

“We can write to her if you want. Vic, I mean. She might be able to help you. Only if you want to though,” Albus said tentatively.

“Maybe.” Scorpius wasn’t sure how he felt about this prospect when a thought occurred to him. “Were you reading A History of Magic to me earlier?”

Albus flushed. “I memorised a few pages, just in case this happened. I thought you’d like it.”

Scorpius managed a small smile. “I can’t believe I’ve got you memorising textbooks.”

Albus beamed when he heard Scorpius speaking in a more light hearted tone. “C’mon, I’m taking you to Madam Pomfrey.”

“No,” Scorpius protested, trying to stand up. Albus was still holding onto him.

“What do you mean no? You have to, she’ll remember what to do.” Albus was pulling him to his feet. “Come on, before the corridors fill up for classes.”

“No,” Scorpius repeated. “I don’t want to go to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey will write to my dad, and he was so pleased when I told him I wasn’t having panic attacks anymore. I don’t want him to know.”

Albus looked at him with sad eyes. “Scor, you have to tell him.”

Scorpius pictured his father, still encumbered with grief and the way he had failed to hide how distraught he had been when Scorpius had panicked over the summer. He’d tried, of course he had tried, but Scorpius knew it was too painful for his dad to see him suffer. Here at Hogwarts, he had the ability to keep this from him, and maybe that way his dad could start to heal himself.

He thought of Albus’ own father, when he’d been staying at the Potters’ in the summer. How warm and easy the relationship between Harry and Albus had become, the way Harry made it so clear he was there to listen to anything Albus had to say, even when Albus was in one of his moods. It made Scorpius’ heart ache with envy. He knew his dad loved him, but he also knew his dad was nowhere near ready to talk about what happened. He didn’t want to cause him even more pain.

“Not yet, please.” It was all he could answer. “Don’t make me go to the hospital wing, she’ll only want to give me a calming draught and you know I hate the side effects of that stuff. It’s not as if she can stop me having another one ever.”

Albus looked at him sympathetically then gazed around them, his eyes landing on Hagrid’s hut. “Can we at least go to Hagrid’s? You look like you could do with a strong cup of tea, no side effects to that.”

“We’ll be late for class. It’s double Potions, Al, your favourite.”

“I don’t care,” he shrugged, beckoning for Scorpius to follow him. “You’re more important.”

You’re more important.

Scorpius wondered if Albus had any idea the effect his throwaway comments could have.

They knocked on the door and Hagrid emerged, a large and unwieldy knife in his hand. Scorpius eyed it warily, not that Hagrid was at all threatening, but he didn’t always have the best aim.

“Hi Hagrid,” Albus said as soon as the door opened. “Can we come in please? I’m, er, not feeling well.”

Hagrid looked concerned and stepped back to let them inside. The table was mostly taken up with what looked like rotten vegetables, which Hagrid was preparing with the knife for an unknown creature.

Scorpius was grateful that Albus had lied for him and he stayed silent as Hagrid quizzed his best friend about why he felt unwell and tried to force him to the hospital wing and said he was going to write to Al’s parents. Albus let him fuss, but he slid the cup of strong tea Hagrid made for him in Scorpius’ direction, swapping it for his own. Hagrid didn’t notice.

“Bin meaning ter have a word with yer about yer sister,” he said, appraising Albus over the rim of his mug. “She ‘asn’t bin turning up ter feed her Hippogriff like the other third years.”

Scorpius found this information surprising; he knew Lily Potter was very fond of animals. Albus however, didn’t look very surprised and instead rolled his eyes.

“What were you asking her to feed it?” he asked knowingly.

“Usual stuff, Hippogriffs eat insects and small mammals. I’ve had ‘em on ferrets and worms.” Hagrid looked confused by Albus’ question.

He nodded in understanding. “She has a thing at the moment about eating animals. She won’t do it anymore, apparently that extends to feeding Hippogriffs too.”

“But they’re wild creatures? That’s wha’ they eat.” Hagrid was perplexed.

“Try telling that to Lily,” Albus muttered and took a sip of tea.

Hagrid watched him for a second. “I found ‘er in the forbidden forest yesterday.”

Albus nearly spat his tea out. “Lily was in the forbidden forest? Oh, don’t tell Dad. He might have a heart attack.”

“Nearly gave me an ‘eart attack and all! Tiny thing like ‘er, wandering around with all those creatures. She told me she got lost.”

Albus scoffed and rolled his eyes. “If Lily was in the forbidden forest, she wanted to be there. Trust me.”

“I didn’t think ‘er story added up, going on about a homework assignment ter draw a map o’ the grounds or something?”

Scorpius laughed, and instantly felt his mood lift and his heart lighten. He still felt as if he’d been pummelled with a beater’s bat, but that was normal after a panic attack. For now, he was safe with his best friend, laughing together about his little sister and her eccentric ways.

“The thing about Lily is detentions don’t seem to worry her,” Albus chatted away. “She thinks of them more as social occasions, or a chance to practise her singing if she’s left alone.”

“The Potters like their singing, Hagrid,” Scorpius said, throwing Albus a mischievous look, letting his best friend know he was feeling better and he was very grateful for him.

Albus grinned back, picking up on Scorpius’ change in mood. “We’re thinking of starting a band,” he laughed. “Shower Serenades.”

Hagrid watched Albus. “Yer seem quite bright. Are yer feeling well enough to go to class? I’ll write yer teacher a note, who do yer have next?”

“Slughorn, double Potions,” Albus muttered, glancing at Scorpius who nodded. “And yes, I feel well enough.”

“Right then, best be on yer way then,” he said, scribbling a note. He looked up at Scorpius when he’d finished writing. “Yer a very good friend, Scorpius, making sure ‘e’s alright.” His eyes were twinkling as if he knew what was going on.

“Are you sure you feel better?” Albus said worriedly as they climbed the castle steps. “You don’t need to lie down?”

Scorpius imagined going back to the dorm and laying in the dark by himself, then he imagined attending Potions and being in the same room as Albus. He knew which was more appealing.

“I’d prefer to keep busy,” Scorpius said honestly and Albus nodded.

They shuffled into the dungeon classroom and every head turned to stare at them. Scorpius looked at his feet and Albus awkwardly handed Slughorn the note from Hagrid. He read it and nodded sympathetically. “Take a seat, boys.”

Potions was Scorpius’ favourite subject (other than History of Magic which would always be his ultimate favourite) because he loved seeing Albus excel. Ever since fourth year, when he had really come into his own, Albus shone in Potions class, working in an adorably unsystematic order but somehow still managing to produce the best brew in the class. Slughorn doted on him and said he was a natural, which made Albus squirm in discomfort but didn’t stop him continuing to be top of the class. It was another lesson they shared with the Gryffindors.

“You’ve joined us just in time to hear which brew you will be making today.” Slughorn smiled at him and Albus. “This potion is tricky, one of the trickiest you will learn this year, and my intention is for you to brew it today, and then again at the end of the school year when you will have all, no doubt, improved.”

There was an excited buzz as they waited to find out which potion they would be brewing.

“You will be attempting to brew the cure for Dragon Pox. As some of you may know, this potion originates from the 14th century but was revised more recently. Unfortunately, nobody has found a revision of the cure which completely eradicates the greenish tinge to the sufferer.”

“Like poor Jeremy Boot,” whispered Imogen Carlisle.

Jeremy Boot was a Ravenclaw in the year above who had suffered a bad case of Dragon Pox as a child. He’d survived but his skin was a faint shade of green at all times and nobody ever liked to mention it.

“You will be using the revised recipe, which you will find on page seventy-nine of your books. As this potion is particularly tricky,” he flicked his wand at the blackboard and everyone’s names wrote themselves in a long list, “you will be working in pairs.” Another flick of his wand rearranged the names so they were lined up in pairs.

There was a moment of silence while everyone browsed the list for their partner’s name and movement started as people partnered up and started to collect ingredients. Scorpius ran his eyes down the list and found his name.

Scorpius Malfoy - Cole Flint

Just below, he read:

Albus Potter - Thea Jordan

Scorpius shared a look with Albus and he shrugged and gathered his potions kit up to go and sit with Thea. His place was taken instantly by Cole, who looked pleased.

“If I have to work with an Arrows supporter…” He grinned and placed his own potions kit on the desk. Scorpius smiled back and started to set a cauldron up between them. “Are you any good at potions, Blondie?”

Scorpius looked up from the bracket he was setting the cauldron up on. “I’m alright, I can follow the instructions well enough that nothing usually  goes horribly wrong.”

Cole looked relieved. “I’ve been called a hazard near a cauldron on more than one occasion. Mind if I stick more to prepping the ingredients?”

“Not at all.” They shared a friendly smile and Scorpius flipped the textbook to the correct page, glancing over the rather complicated instructions.

“We have to soak the dragon scales in essence of murtlap for thirty minutes before we can add them, so we should do that first.” Cole read over his shoulder and rummaged in his Potions kit for what he needed.

“Isn’t it weird that you need dragon scales to cure Dragon Pox?” Scorpius mused as he lit a fire under the cauldron with his wand and set it off gently warming.

“Hmm? A bit. Dragons can’t catch Dragon Pox.” Cole held up one of the greenish-blue dragon scales and it caught the light attractively. “Look at these things. My aunt has a dragon-hide handbag like this. This is the ingredient that turns people green; shame it’s useless without them.”

“You know a lot about this potion,” Scorpius observed as Cole tipped the shiny scales into the murtlap.

“My grandma had it this summer, a really bad case too. Even if she’d been younger she probably wouldn’t have survived.” Cole was rummaging in his potions kit again and not looking at Scorpius as he spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Were you close?”

Cole looked up with the next ingredient in his hand and sighed. “We were as it happens. She was almost like a mum to me, seeing as mine wasn’t that interested in being a mum.”

Scorpius had never spoken to his dorm mate about anything other than trivial, day-to-day topics like if he could borrow some toothpaste or who a cloak belonged to. It was like they were meeting for the first time as completely new people.

Cole seemed to notice Scorpius wasn’t sure how to respond to that and he grinned. “Don’t feel sorry for me or anything, I had Dad and Oliver growing up and they were more than enough. And then I had my grandma, until this summer.”

“I know how that feels. I… I lost my mum, more than two years ago now.” The cauldron fire roared between them but neither of them were touching the ingredients.

“I know. I’m really sorry for your loss, Scorpius. I wanted to say something at the time, but we didn’t really speak and I didn’t want to intrude.” He paused for a second. “Does it… does it get better? Missing them?”

Scorpius could hear the desperate plea in his voice. “Better isn’t the word. You’ll always miss her, but it becomes easier to accept after time. The missing doesn’t go away, but it’s fonder and less painful.”

He realised he was smiling away to himself and Cole gave him a grateful look. “Thanks, Scorpius. That's… thanks. You’re a mate.”

“And how are things going over here, boys? Good to see you’ve got your dragon scales soaking, many have overlooked that instruction. Hop to it, get slicing your daisy roots, chop chop.” Slughorn leaned over their cauldron and peered inside as he spoke, not that there was much in there to see.

“Chopping, sir,” Cole said briskly, doing exactly that.

“Now, when you add the sea water, Scorpius, you’ll want to pour from the left side of the cauldron, like Albus over there is doing.” He pointed across the classroom at where Albus and Thea were working.

Albus was clearly in what Scorpius called ‘Potions Mode’ and what Albus called ‘shh, Scor, I’m trying to concentrate’. He’d loosened his tie and pulled it to one side and he’d rolled both of his jumper sleeves up to his elbows. His hair was its usual mess but he’d swept it back from his face, where the steam from his cauldron made it stay in place. It made him look completely different, having his hair pushed back like that, older and more mature but at the same time incredibly attractive to Scorpius. He was smiling broadly and passing ingredients back and forth with Thea, who looked highly impressed.

“Scorpius, mate,” Cole interrupted his staring and Scorpius turned to him with a guilty start. “I know you said it was nothing at the party, but you can tell me. I don’t mind if you fancy her.”

Oh. Cole thought he’d been staring at Thea.

“No, no, I don’t, honestly. Just… thinking about the potion.” Cole shrugged and smiled again as Slughorn bobbed back into view.

“Come on, boys. You’re hardly any further on than the last time I was here.”

He stood watching over them as Scorpius hastily tipped the sliced daisy roots into the cauldron and it turned a bright white. Cole kept glancing suspiciously at him, as if he didn’t believe a word, but Scorpius could hardly say anything to defend himself in front of Slughorn. It was true though, he didn’t fancy Thea and he hadn’t been staring at her.

“Counter-clockwise, that’s it.” Slughorn waited expectantly for Scorpius to stir the potion, but he couldn’t help his eyes flicking frequently to what Cole was doing. Clearly, he was enough of a hazard near a cauldron for Slughorn to monitor them constantly. “Now, Scorpius, can I expect your attendance at my November soirée?”

Scorpius lost count of his stirs and hurriedly tried to work out if he’d done enough. “Yes, sir, I’ll be there. Thankyou for the invitation.”

“That’s quite alright. It was quite the adventure you got up to last year, everyone’s still talking about it of course. The stories! Of course, I don’t like to listen to gossip, but…” he tailed off with a wicked glint in his eye.

“Not yet! It’s too hot to test.” Scorpius hurriedly grabbed the spoon from Cole’s grasp before he could taste a drop like the instruction recommended at this stage.

“Just like your mother, she was always careful with her potioneering. I always said she’d make a wonderful Healer if circumstances had been… well, you’re very alike in a lot of ways.”

“That’s what I want to do, sir,” Scorpius said eagerly, hoping Slughorn would tell him more about his mum in class. “I want to be a Healer when I leave school.”

“A Healer, hey? Well now, let me think.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Ah, Hetty Fairchild. Taught her everything she knows about healing potions I did, and now she’s in charge of a team of forty at St Mungo’s. What do you say I drop her an owl, see if she can’t join us for our next get together? I’m sure she’d love to talk to you about Healer school.”

“Thanks, sir.”

This seemed like an interesting prospect. He’d really enjoyed talking to Albus’ cousin, Victoire, about her experience as a student at St Mungo’s School of Healing Excellence. It would be fascinating to also talk to someone who’d been in the field for a long time.

Their potion was complete with the final ingredient of the soaked dragon scales, which turned it a lurid green, not far from the shade described in the recipe.

“Blimey, I feel like I’m turning green just looking at this thing.” Cole pretended to shield his eyes from the potion’s bright glare while Slughorn came round to inspect.

To nobody’s surprise, Albus and Thea’s potion was the best by far, but Slughorn did take vials of several pairs’ work, including Scorpius and Cole’s attempt.

“It’s a shame you can’t cosy up together with Jordan during the game on Saturday, Potter. Then maybe you’d stand half a chance of catching the quaffle,” Polly hissed snidely, loud enough for most people to hear.

Thea simply rolled her eyes and muttered but Albus, only slightly red, turned around to glare at her. Albus, who had always coped by ignoring and looking the other way, and never bit back.

“It’s a shame you didn’t make the team this year, Polly. Or last year. And remind me, did you make it the year before that either? Have you ever made the team?”

There was a shocked silence at Albus’ words. Not because of what he’d said, but the rest of their classmates, like Scorpius, were expecting Albus to ignore her like he usually did.

“Yeah, well…” Polly visibly cast around for something to hit back with as Albus glared at her and turned to clear his Potions kit away. “At least I don’t have stupid hair.”

Even Karl Jenkins was looking at her with secondhand embarrassment.

read from the beginning

<<< read chapter 7

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chapter index

[sweetpeasgirl]

Two | Pop's and Long Nights

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Female!Reader

Word count: 2512

Warning: Mentions of physical abuse

Summary: Y/n has to get out of the house quickly and faces the difficulty of the streets of Southside Riverdale before wandering to Pop’s and running into a certain tall serpent

Tag list: (tell me if you want to be added)

@mariechristine91 @chanel5

Your heart races as the footsteps get louder. Your stomach aches, a reminder of what happened only minutes ago. You had managed to make it to your room and to lock the door in your haze of fear. Your window is open, ready for you to climb through it, but you can’t find the one thing you need. It’s not in your closet, nor under your bed, and it’s definitely not already in your pocket. You’ve checked there too many times already. It seems that, if you want to make it out of your very own house of horrors, you’ll be leaving without your cellphone.

You hear the door handle jiggling behind you and you run for the open window, launching yourself through it as the door splinters behind you. You land in a pile on the grass, barely having time to grab the backpack stashed under the large oak on your property before you’re sprinting down the familiar pathway. You hear his slurred shouts from behind you. Slut. Whore. Mistake. You just keep your head down, your feet on the pavement, and your mind closed. You don’t need to hear what you already know to be true anyway.

You slow your pace when you make it to the Main Street. For a Friday night it’s pretty dead but that doesn’t make you any less nervous to be wandering the streets alone. You have no plan, no money, and no idea when it will be safe to re-enter your house. That makes for one hell of a long night but, really, what else is new? It’s not like you didn’t know that sooner or later you’d have to flee your own house again. You had gotten about a month free from escaping, it was due for a night on the streets about now. It builds your character.

You keep to under the bright lights, away from the ominous stares of the darkened alleyways and sewer grates. You hate the dark. That’s another downside to having to leave your house. Every noise you hear makes you jump and look over your shoulder. You’re freezing, the cold air preying on your uncovered fingers. You can see your breath coming out in white clouds of fog. You’d bet the few dollars in your pocket that your nose is red too. All in all, you want to sit down right here, on the dirty sidewalk, and cry. You feel like that’s all you do anyway; cry.

You pull your backpack from your shoulders, stopping under a street lamp to see what you managed to throw in there before you tossed it outside. A change of clothes, eleven dollars, and an old, dog eared paperback about falling in love on a sunny beach. Everything you need in order to buy yourself a burger at Pop’s and a little shelter for the time being. Besides, it’s been too long since you last saw that old man. It’s about time you payed him a visit. It might do you some good to clear your head.

You sling the bag back over your shoulders and make your way to the other side of town. It’s a long walk but you don’t mind so much anymore, knowing you’re going somewhere with a little life still left in it. It always does feel like you’re crossing a barrier when you go from the Southside to the Northside. It feels like going from danger to safety in the blink of an eye. All you have to do is walk from one sidewalk corner to the next and you’ve stepped over the metaphorical tracks that divide the already small town into two smaller parts.

The red glow of Pop’s breaks your train of thought, warming your face under the full moon. You run the last few steps towards safety; towards one of the only places that has ever felt like home. Pop’s is like that for a lot of you teenagers in Riverdale; a beacon of hope in what is steadily becoming it’s very own horror movie. When you finally get tired of watching your own backs you always find yourselves in the same place, resting under the glow of a faded sign.

The door chimes when you enter but no one really glances to see who stumbled in. Why would they? It’s just a tired girl in an even more worn hoodie. No one needs to see that. But, much to your relief, Pop’s welcomes it.

“Y/n! I’ve missed you bud,” Pop’s quickly finds his way around the counter, pulling you into a much needed hug, “how’ve ya’ been doing? Not so good it looks.”

Pop’s, you have no idea. You pull back after a minute, trying to soak up as much warmth as you can get before releasing the jolly old man. You try not to notice the wrinkles on his skin. You don’t ever want to think about a time where Pop’s isn’t there to greet you with a smile.

“I’ve been better but I’ll live. I sure could use some food though, I don’t think I’ve really eaten anything today,” you laugh at your understatement, forcing the bitterness out of your voice.

You haven’t eaten since yesterday and the morning at that. It was a bowl of cereal before your dad woke up. You can tell it shows on your face. Your eyes are sunken and your skin is lacking it’s usual lustor. Plus, without the needed nutrients, your bruises have yet to really fade. You didn’t have time to cover them before you left either, so they’re bright on your cheek. The perfect cherry on a horrible sundae. The ice cream is melting but you refuse stop eating it.

“What do you want, kiddo?” Your stomach rumbles when you look at the menu board.

You memorized it years ago but you need all the time you can get.

“Can I have a cheese burger? And a strawberry milkshake please?” You take the crumpled bills out of your pocket while you speak, smoothing them to the best of your ability as to look somewhat presentable to Pop.

You want to look like you have one aspect of your life sorted through. Like you’re not walking into the one place that means something to you with your hat in your hand. Like you have enough money for your meal and then some, not just for your first meal in a few days. You just want to be seen as a normal teenage girl.

Pop glances at your hand, “put your money away bud, it’s on me. You want onion rings too?”

His generosity would be perceived as small to an outsider looking in but to you, in the midst of your desperation, it is unmeasurable. It brings tears to your eyes and all you can do is nod your head, attacking the old man with another hug. He just chuckles his familiar laugh and rubs your back before shooing you to one of the only empty booths.

It’s in the back, hidden away quite well from the rest of the diner. The lights are a little more dim and the booths are just a little more faded. It’s right next to a big window looking out on the parking lot. You slide in immediately and lean your head against the cool glass, closing your eyes for a moment. The hum of the diner, and the lights above you, lull you into a sort of daze. You don’t mind; it’s nice to be able close your eyes when you want to sleep.

“Hey, bud. Wake up,” a warm hand on your shoulder wakes you from your short nap, “you need to eat something, sunshine.”

You rub your eyes, letting out a small yawn. You thank Pop as he leaves the abundance of food on the table. It’s beautiful and you can feel the tears rushing back. Pop rubs your shoulders, tells you to eat and to ask for more, and walks away. You don’t hesitate to dig in. You savour it, pulling out the old romance novel and hunkering down. It’s about time you just sat back and let the world keep moving without you for a little while.

You glance out the window, onion ring in hand, to see motorcycles that you hadn’t seen before. Your head races with impossible ideas. You don’t give them any leeway, just noting the bikes and not anyone who could be on them. That will only drive you crazy. You don’t have your phone, what are the odds that he’ll walk through those doors?

The answer: more likely than you’d think.

A group of teenagers with black leather jackets and slicked back hair walk into the diner, hollering and laughing with each other. To most of the people in Pop’s it looks like raw chaos but to you it looks like fun. You’ve never been one for normality, no matter how much you crave it. It’s just never comes naturally to you. You’re starting to be more okay with that. If it means being as carfree as them, or at least gathering a facade like them, then why not? What can be worse than what you already have?

You look back down at your food, forcing yourself to not scan the group for the boy you know isn’t there. You just take a bite of your cheeseburger and flip the page. The girl just got to the island and she hates it. You want to scream at her; tell her to get her shit together and to just fall in love like she’s supposed to. Some people don’t have it that easy, you want to say. If only she could hear you, she would know just how badly you wish you could trade places with her. A white sand beach below you and a gorgeous boy beside.

“Y/n, why the hell didn’t you call me?” The book tumbles out of your hands at the rough voice calling out across the diner.

Your eyes widen at the tall, dark haired serpent storming towards you. Your eyes scan over Sweet Pea, taking in his tight jeans and flannel thrown over a fitted t-shirt. He looks rugged, like he just came off the streets as well which, by the sight of his rowdy friends, was just where they were. His hair is messy and you kind of want to run your fingers through it. The tattoo on his neck just adds to the appeal, it’s ink sharp against his tanned skin. He’s healthy, spare the bags under his eyes. And, god, those eyes are perfect. Melted chocolate and filled with a passion you didn’t even know existed.

“I lost my phone,” the words barely escape your lips before you’re hauled into a sturdy chest.

Before you can stop it, a small groan of pain escapes your lips. Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed but, alas, Sweet Pea isn’t anyone else. He sets you down on the edge of the table before you can protest, wanting to stay in his warm arms a little bit longer. You hadn’t noticed the chill until it was gone but now it’s back and you’re fully aware of that. You pout up at him but he doesn’t notice as he’s studying you for any new marks. You decide to spare him the trouble and lift the edge of your shirt, your hoodie now stashed in your backpack. A fresh handprint stands bright against your skin, a mangled green and purple badge of dishonour.

Sweet Pea swears under his breath, tracing the outline of the bruise with his fingertips. Wherever his hands touch fire erupts against your skin, as cliche as that sounds. It fogs your mind for a moment. You almost forget the reason he’s touching you.

“Can you please tell me what’s going on?” His voice is low this time, pleading.

You shake your head, unable to meet the eyes you can feel staring into your head, “I can’t let you get hurt too. I’m sorry.”

Your voice breaks slightly at the end and you wrap your arms around yourself. All you want to do is tell him the truth but that would mean risking him to the wrath of your father. You wouldn’t submit your worst enemy to that, let alone your closest friend. The hot tears slide down your face without your permission, yet another thing that doesn’t go unnoticed by him.

“Baby, please,” he steps closer to you, taking your face in his hands and lifting your chin until your eyes meet his shattered brown ones, “I can help you.”

With a few little words, the dam of emotions inside of you breaks. You had done well keeping it together for the entire night but as soon as Sweet Pea came into frame that entire idea had been shot to hell. You dissolve into choking sobs, the kind that make you dizzy, and he tucks you neatly into his chest again. His leather and pine scent wraps around you as he tightens his arms and drops his head on yours, completely enveloping you.

“You can’t- I’m not-,” you can’t get enough air but you need to finish the heartbreaking idea that you started, “I- You can’t help me. I- I have no where to go from here, I have nowhere to go, and this is the first thing I’ve eaten since yesterday. It’s best if you just forget me, forget what you’ve seen. Forget everything. It’s not worth it. I’m not worth it. Just forget it all!”

You push away from him at that, grabbing your backpack and running as fast as you can out of Pop’s. Two voices, the two people you’ve ever known to take their time to talk to you, call out behind you but, for the second time that night, you just keep your head low and eyes on the pavement. You don’t make it far, though, as apparently tall gang members are quick on their toes.

You’re picked up, this time, and thrown over Sweet Pea’s shoulder as he starts walking towards an old, black pick up. He keeps an arm secured firmly over your behind as he pulls open the passenger door of his truck. He sets you down but keeps his hands on your hips if only to keep you from running again. His deep eyes stare into yours, daring you to look away.

“Okay baby, apparently we have some things we need to sort out. So this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to come home with me. And we’re going to sit there until you tell me what’s happening. And then you’re going to get some sleep. Because, baby, those bags under your eyes aren’t voluntary and it’s hurting me a little.”

All you can do is nod, your eyes locked on his and his hands rubbing soothing circles on your hips. It’s going to be one hell of a night.

“Okay,” he leans in and places a searing kiss on your forehead, “let’s do this.”

[gamebazu]

Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by DiTomaso

Contrary to popular belief, SEO and PPC aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of ways the two search disciplines can work together for benefits all around, especially when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads. In this informative Whiteboard Friday episode from last Spring, MozCon speaker and Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso explains how you can harness the power of both SEO and PPC for a better Google experience overall.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz readers. My name is Dana DiTomaso, and I'm President and partner at Kick Point. We're a digital marketing agency way up in the frozen wilds of Edmonton, Alberta. Today I'm going be talking to you about PPC, and I know you're thinking, "This is an SEO blog. What are you doing here talking about PPC?"

But one of my resolutions for 2019 is to bring together SEO and PPC people, because SEO can learn a lot from PPC, and yes, PPC, you also can learn a lot from SEO. I know PPC people are like, "We just do paid. It's so great." But trust me, both can work together. In our agency, we do both SEO and PPC, and we work with a lot of companies who have one person, sometimes two and they're doing everything.

One of the things we try to do is help them run better Ads campaigns. Here I have tips on things that we see all the time, when we start working with a new Ads account, that we end up fixing, and hopefully I can pass this on to you so you can fix it before you have to call an agency to come and fix it for you. One of the things is this is actually a much longer piece than what I can present on this whiteboard. There's only so much room.

There is actually a blog post on our website, which you can find here. Please check that out and that will have the full nine tips. But I'm just going to break it down to a few today.

1. Too many keywords

First thing, too many keywords. We see this a lot where people, in Google it says make sure to put together keywords that have the same sort of theme.

But your theme can be really specific, or it can be kind of vague. This is an example, a real example that we got, where the keyword examples were all lawyer themes, so "defense lawyer," "criminal lawyer,""dui lawyer," "assault lawyer," "sexual assault lawyer." Technically, they all have the same theme of "lawyer,"but that's way too vague for it to be all in one single ad group, because what kind of ad are you going to show?

"We are lawyers. Call us." It's not specific enough. Take for example "dui lawyer,"which I know is a really very competitive niche, and then you can do [dui lawyer], [dui lawyer seattle], and then "dui lawyer" and +dui+lawyer+seattle spelled out a little bit differently. I'll talk about that in a second. By taking this one thing and then breaking it down into a much more specific ad group, you can really have much more control.

This is a consistent theme in all the tips I talk about is much more control over where you're spending your money, what keywords you're spending it on, what your ads are, having a much better landing page to ad match, which is also really important. It just makes your ad life so much easier when you've got it in all of those ad groups. I know it might seem intimidating. It's like, "Well, I have three ad groups now.If I follow your tips, I'm going to have 40."

But at the same time, it's way easier to manage 40 well organized groups than it is to manage 3 really badly organized groups. Keep that in mind.

2. Picking the right match type

The next thing is picking the right match type. You can see here I've got this bracket stuff and this phrase stuff and these plus signs. There are really four match types.

Broad match

There's broad match, which is terrible and don't ever use it. Broad match is just you writing out the keyword, and then Google just displays it for whatever it feels like is relevant to that particular search. For example, we've seen examples where it's like a catering company and they'll have "catering" as a keyword, and they're showing up for all sorts of phrases in catering where they can't provide catering, so searching for a venue that only does in-house catering. Or they're spending money on a catering conference or just totally irrelevant stuff. Do not use broad match.

Broad match modifier (BMM)

The upgrade from that is what's called broad match modifier or BMM, and that's where these plus signs come in. This is really the words dui, lawyer, and seattle in any order, but they all have to exist and other things can exist around that. It could be, "I need a DUI lawyer in Seattle." "I live in Seattle. I need a DUI lawyer." That would also work for that particular keyword.

Phrase match

The next type is phrase, and that's in the quotes. This "dui lawyer" is the example here, and then you can have anything before it or you can have anything after it, but you can't have something in between it. It couldn't be "dui who is really great at being a lawyer" for example. Weak example, but you get the idea. You can't just shove stuff in the middle of a phrase match.

Exact match

Then exact match is what's in the brackets here, and that is just those words and nothing else. If I have [dui lawyer], this keyword, if I didn't have [dui lawyer seattle], this keyword would not trigger if somebody searches [dui lawyer seattle]. That's as specific as possible. You really want to try that for your most competitive keywords.

This is the really expensive stuff, because you do not want to waste one single penny on anything that is irrelevant to that particular search. This is your head on, it's really expensive every click. I've got to make sure I'm getting the most money possible for those clicks. That's where you really want to use exact match.

3. Only one ad per group

Next, tips. The next thing is what we see is a lot of people who have only one ad per group.

Have at least 3 ads per group

This is not a tip. This is a criticism up here. The thing is that maybe, again, you think it's easy for management, but it's really hard to see what's going to work, because if you're not always testing, how are you going to know if you could do better? Make sure to have at least three ads per group.

Add emotional triggers into your ad copy

Then look at your ad copy. We see a lot of just generic like, "We are the best lawyers. Call us." There's nothing there that says I need to call these people. Really think about how you can add those emotional triggers into your copy. Talk to your client or your team, if you work in-house, and find out what are the things that people say when they call. What are the things where they say, "Wow, you really helped me with this" or, "I was feeling like this and then you came in and I just felt so much better."

That can really help to spice up your ads. We don't want to get too fancy with this, but we certainly want to make something that's going to help you stand out. Really add those emotional triggers into your ad copy.

Make sure to have a call to action

Then the next thing is making sure to have a call to action, which seems basic because you think it's an ad. If you click it, that's the call to action. But sometimes people on the Internet, they're not necessarily thinking. You just want to say, "You know what? Just call me or email me or we're open 24 hours."

Just be really specific on what you want the person to do when they look at the ad. Just spell it out for them. I know it seems silly. Just tell them. Just tell them what you want them to do. That's all you need to do.

Use extensions!

Then make sure you add in all of the extensions. In Google Ads, if you're not super familiar with the platform, there's a section called Extensions. These are things like when the address shows up under an ad, or you've got those little links that come up, or you've got somebody saying we're open 24 hours, for example. There are all sorts of different extensions that you can use. Just put in all the extensions that you possibly can for every single one of your groups.

Then they won't all trigger all at the same time, but at least they're there and it's possible that they could trigger. If they do, that's give your ad more real estate versus your competition, which is really great on mobile because ads take up a lot of space at the top of a mobile search. You want to make sure to shove your competition as far as you possibly can down that search so you own as much of that property as you possibly can. One thing that I do see people doing incorrectly with extensions, though, is setting extensions at say the campaign level, and then you have different ad groups that cover different themes.

Going back to this example over here, with the different types of lawyers, let's say you had an extension that talks specifically about DUI law, but then it was triggering on say sexual assault law. You don't want that to happen. Make sure you have really fine-tuned control over your different extensions so you're showing the right extension with the right type of keyword and the right type of ad. The other thing that we see a lot is where people have location extensions and they're showing all the location extensions where they should not be showing all the location extensions.

You've got an ad group for, say, Seattle, and it's talking about this new home development that you have, and because you just loaded in all of your location extensions, suddenly you're showing extensions for something in say San Francisco. It's just because you haven't filtered properly. Really double-check to make sure that you've got your filter set up properly for your location extensions and that you're showing the right location extension for the right ad.

I know that Google says, "We'll pick the locations closest to the client." But you don't know where that person is searching right there. They could be in San Francisco at that moment and searching for new home builds in Seattle, because maybe they're thinking about moving from San Francisco to Seattle. You don't want them to see the stuff that's there. You want them to see the stuff that's at the place where they're intending to be. Really make sure you control that.

4. Keep display and search separate

Last, but not least, keep display and search separate.

By default, Google so helpfully says, "We'll just show your ads everywhere. It's totally cool. This is what we want everyone to do." Don't do that. This is what makes Google money. It does not make you money. The reason why is because display network, which is where you're going to a website and then you see an ad, and search network, when you type in the stuff and you see an ad, are two totally different beasts.

Avoid showing text ads on the display network for greater campaign control

It's really a different type of experience. To be honest, if you take your search campaigns, which are text-based ads, and now you're showing them on websites, you're showing a boring text ad on a website that already has like 50 blinky things and click here. They're probably not seeing us and maybe they have an ad blocker installed. But if they are, certainly your text ad, which is kind of boring and not intended for that medium, is not going to be the thing that stands out.

Really you're just wasting your money because you'll end up with lower relevancy, less clicks, and then Google thinks that your group is bad. Then you'll end up paying more because Google thinks your group is bad. It really gives you that extra control by saying, "This is the search campaign. It's only on search. This is the display campaign. It's only on display." Keep the two of them totally separate. Then you have lots of control over the search ads being for search and the display ads being for display.

Don't mix those two up. Make sure to uncheck that by default. Definitely there are more tips on our blog here. But I hope that this will help you get started. SEOs, if you've never done a PPC campaign in your life, I recommend just setting one up. Put 50 bucks behind that thing. Just try it out, because I think what will really help you is understanding more of how people search, because as we get less and less keyword data from the different tools that we use to figure out what the heck are people googling when they try to search for our business, ads give you some of that data back.

That's where ads can be a really great ally in trying to get better SEO results. I hope you found this enjoyable. Thanks so much.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Ready for more?

You'll uncover even more SEO goodness in the MozCon 2020 video bundle. At this year's special low price of $129, this is invaluable content you can access again and again throughout the year to inspire and ignite your SEO strategy:

21 full-length videos from some of the brightest minds in digital marketing

Instant downloads and streaming to your computer, tablet, or mobile device

Downloadable slide decks for presentations

Get my MozCon 2020 video bundle

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[paulineberry]

Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by DiTomaso

Contrary to popular belief, SEO and PPC aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of ways the two search disciplines can work together for benefits all around, especially when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads. In this informative Whiteboard Friday episode from last Spring, MozCon speaker and Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso explains how you can harness the power of both SEO and PPC for a better Google experience overall.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz readers. My name is Dana DiTomaso, and I'm President and partner at Kick Point. We're a digital marketing agency way up in the frozen wilds of Edmonton, Alberta. Today I'm going be talking to you about PPC, and I know you're thinking, "This is an SEO blog. What are you doing here talking about PPC?"

But one of my resolutions for 2019 is to bring together SEO and PPC people, because SEO can learn a lot from PPC, and yes, PPC, you also can learn a lot from SEO. I know PPC people are like, "We just do paid. It's so great." But trust me, both can work together. In our agency, we do both SEO and PPC, and we work with a lot of companies who have one person, sometimes two and they're doing everything.

One of the things we try to do is help them run better Ads campaigns. Here I have tips on things that we see all the time, when we start working with a new Ads account, that we end up fixing, and hopefully I can pass this on to you so you can fix it before you have to call an agency to come and fix it for you. One of the things is this is actually a much longer piece than what I can present on this whiteboard. There's only so much room.

There is actually a blog post on our website, which you can find here. Please check that out and that will have the full nine tips. But I'm just going to break it down to a few today.

1. Too many keywords

First thing, too many keywords. We see this a lot where people, in Google it says make sure to put together keywords that have the same sort of theme.

But your theme can be really specific, or it can be kind of vague. This is an example, a real example that we got, where the keyword examples were all lawyer themes, so "defense lawyer," "criminal lawyer,""dui lawyer," "assault lawyer," "sexual assault lawyer." Technically, they all have the same theme of "lawyer,"but that's way too vague for it to be all in one single ad group, because what kind of ad are you going to show?

"We are lawyers. Call us." It's not specific enough. Take for example "dui lawyer,"which I know is a really very competitive niche, and then you can do [dui lawyer], [dui lawyer seattle], and then "dui lawyer" and +dui+lawyer+seattle spelled out a little bit differently. I'll talk about that in a second. By taking this one thing and then breaking it down into a much more specific ad group, you can really have much more control.

This is a consistent theme in all the tips I talk about is much more control over where you're spending your money, what keywords you're spending it on, what your ads are, having a much better landing page to ad match, which is also really important. It just makes your ad life so much easier when you've got it in all of those ad groups. I know it might seem intimidating. It's like, "Well, I have three ad groups now.If I follow your tips, I'm going to have 40."

But at the same time, it's way easier to manage 40 well organized groups than it is to manage 3 really badly organized groups. Keep that in mind.

2. Picking the right match type

The next thing is picking the right match type. You can see here I've got this bracket stuff and this phrase stuff and these plus signs. There are really four match types.

Broad match

There's broad match, which is terrible and don't ever use it. Broad match is just you writing out the keyword, and then Google just displays it for whatever it feels like is relevant to that particular search. For example, we've seen examples where it's like a catering company and they'll have "catering" as a keyword, and they're showing up for all sorts of phrases in catering where they can't provide catering, so searching for a venue that only does in-house catering. Or they're spending money on a catering conference or just totally irrelevant stuff. Do not use broad match.

Broad match modifier (BMM)

The upgrade from that is what's called broad match modifier or BMM, and that's where these plus signs come in. This is really the words dui, lawyer, and seattle in any order, but they all have to exist and other things can exist around that. It could be, "I need a DUI lawyer in Seattle." "I live in Seattle. I need a DUI lawyer." That would also work for that particular keyword.

Phrase match

The next type is phrase, and that's in the quotes. This "dui lawyer" is the example here, and then you can have anything before it or you can have anything after it, but you can't have something in between it. It couldn't be "dui who is really great at being a lawyer" for example. Weak example, but you get the idea. You can't just shove stuff in the middle of a phrase match.

Exact match

Then exact match is what's in the brackets here, and that is just those words and nothing else. If I have [dui lawyer], this keyword, if I didn't have [dui lawyer seattle], this keyword would not trigger if somebody searches [dui lawyer seattle]. That's as specific as possible. You really want to try that for your most competitive keywords.

This is the really expensive stuff, because you do not want to waste one single penny on anything that is irrelevant to that particular search. This is your head on, it's really expensive every click. I've got to make sure I'm getting the most money possible for those clicks. That's where you really want to use exact match.

3. Only one ad per group

Next, tips. The next thing is what we see is a lot of people who have only one ad per group.

Have at least 3 ads per group

This is not a tip. This is a criticism up here. The thing is that maybe, again, you think it's easy for management, but it's really hard to see what's going to work, because if you're not always testing, how are you going to know if you could do better? Make sure to have at least three ads per group.

Add emotional triggers into your ad copy

Then look at your ad copy. We see a lot of just generic like, "We are the best lawyers. Call us." There's nothing there that says I need to call these people. Really think about how you can add those emotional triggers into your copy. Talk to your client or your team, if you work in-house, and find out what are the things that people say when they call. What are the things where they say, "Wow, you really helped me with this" or, "I was feeling like this and then you came in and I just felt so much better."

That can really help to spice up your ads. We don't want to get too fancy with this, but we certainly want to make something that's going to help you stand out. Really add those emotional triggers into your ad copy.

Make sure to have a call to action

Then the next thing is making sure to have a call to action, which seems basic because you think it's an ad. If you click it, that's the call to action. But sometimes people on the Internet, they're not necessarily thinking. You just want to say, "You know what? Just call me or email me or we're open 24 hours."

Just be really specific on what you want the person to do when they look at the ad. Just spell it out for them. I know it seems silly. Just tell them. Just tell them what you want them to do. That's all you need to do.

Use extensions!

Then make sure you add in all of the extensions. In Google Ads, if you're not super familiar with the platform, there's a section called Extensions. These are things like when the address shows up under an ad, or you've got those little links that come up, or you've got somebody saying we're open 24 hours, for example. There are all sorts of different extensions that you can use. Just put in all the extensions that you possibly can for every single one of your groups.

Then they won't all trigger all at the same time, but at least they're there and it's possible that they could trigger. If they do, that's give your ad more real estate versus your competition, which is really great on mobile because ads take up a lot of space at the top of a mobile search. You want to make sure to shove your competition as far as you possibly can down that search so you own as much of that property as you possibly can. One thing that I do see people doing incorrectly with extensions, though, is setting extensions at say the campaign level, and then you have different ad groups that cover different themes.

Going back to this example over here, with the different types of lawyers, let's say you had an extension that talks specifically about DUI law, but then it was triggering on say sexual assault law. You don't want that to happen. Make sure you have really fine-tuned control over your different extensions so you're showing the right extension with the right type of keyword and the right type of ad. The other thing that we see a lot is where people have location extensions and they're showing all the location extensions where they should not be showing all the location extensions.

You've got an ad group for, say, Seattle, and it's talking about this new home development that you have, and because you just loaded in all of your location extensions, suddenly you're showing extensions for something in say San Francisco. It's just because you haven't filtered properly. Really double-check to make sure that you've got your filter set up properly for your location extensions and that you're showing the right location extension for the right ad.

I know that Google says, "We'll pick the locations closest to the client." But you don't know where that person is searching right there. They could be in San Francisco at that moment and searching for new home builds in Seattle, because maybe they're thinking about moving from San Francisco to Seattle. You don't want them to see the stuff that's there. You want them to see the stuff that's at the place where they're intending to be. Really make sure you control that.

4. Keep display and search separate

Last, but not least, keep display and search separate.

By default, Google so helpfully says, "We'll just show your ads everywhere. It's totally cool. This is what we want everyone to do." Don't do that. This is what makes Google money. It does not make you money. The reason why is because display network, which is where you're going to a website and then you see an ad, and search network, when you type in the stuff and you see an ad, are two totally different beasts.

Avoid showing text ads on the display network for greater campaign control

It's really a different type of experience. To be honest, if you take your search campaigns, which are text-based ads, and now you're showing them on websites, you're showing a boring text ad on a website that already has like 50 blinky things and click here. They're probably not seeing us and maybe they have an ad blocker installed. But if they are, certainly your text ad, which is kind of boring and not intended for that medium, is not going to be the thing that stands out.

Really you're just wasting your money because you'll end up with lower relevancy, less clicks, and then Google thinks that your group is bad. Then you'll end up paying more because Google thinks your group is bad. It really gives you that extra control by saying, "This is the search campaign. It's only on search. This is the display campaign. It's only on display." Keep the two of them totally separate. Then you have lots of control over the search ads being for search and the display ads being for display.

Don't mix those two up. Make sure to uncheck that by default. Definitely there are more tips on our blog here. But I hope that this will help you get started. SEOs, if you've never done a PPC campaign in your life, I recommend just setting one up. Put 50 bucks behind that thing. Just try it out, because I think what will really help you is understanding more of how people search, because as we get less and less keyword data from the different tools that we use to figure out what the heck are people googling when they try to search for our business, ads give you some of that data back.

That's where ads can be a really great ally in trying to get better SEO results. I hope you found this enjoyable. Thanks so much.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Ready for more?

You'll uncover even more SEO goodness in the MozCon 2020 video bundle. At this year's special low price of $129, this is invaluable content you can access again and again throughout the year to inspire and ignite your SEO strategy:

21 full-length videos from some of the brightest minds in digital marketing

Instant downloads and streaming to your computer, tablet, or mobile device

Downloadable slide decks for presentations

Get my MozCon 2020 video bundle

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[noithatotoaz]

Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by DiTomaso

Contrary to popular belief, SEO and PPC aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of ways the two search disciplines can work together for benefits all around, especially when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads. In this informative Whiteboard Friday episode from last Spring, MozCon speaker and Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso explains how you can harness the power of both SEO and PPC for a better Google experience overall.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz readers. My name is Dana DiTomaso, and I'm President and partner at Kick Point. We're a digital marketing agency way up in the frozen wilds of Edmonton, Alberta. Today I'm going be talking to you about PPC, and I know you're thinking, "This is an SEO blog. What are you doing here talking about PPC?"

But one of my resolutions for 2019 is to bring together SEO and PPC people, because SEO can learn a lot from PPC, and yes, PPC, you also can learn a lot from SEO. I know PPC people are like, "We just do paid. It's so great." But trust me, both can work together. In our agency, we do both SEO and PPC, and we work with a lot of companies who have one person, sometimes two and they're doing everything.

One of the things we try to do is help them run better Ads campaigns. Here I have tips on things that we see all the time, when we start working with a new Ads account, that we end up fixing, and hopefully I can pass this on to you so you can fix it before you have to call an agency to come and fix it for you. One of the things is this is actually a much longer piece than what I can present on this whiteboard. There's only so much room.

There is actually a blog post on our website, which you can find here. Please check that out and that will have the full nine tips. But I'm just going to break it down to a few today.

1. Too many keywords

First thing, too many keywords. We see this a lot where people, in Google it says make sure to put together keywords that have the same sort of theme.

But your theme can be really specific, or it can be kind of vague. This is an example, a real example that we got, where the keyword examples were all lawyer themes, so "defense lawyer," "criminal lawyer,""dui lawyer," "assault lawyer," "sexual assault lawyer." Technically, they all have the same theme of "lawyer,"but that's way too vague for it to be all in one single ad group, because what kind of ad are you going to show?

"We are lawyers. Call us." It's not specific enough. Take for example "dui lawyer,"which I know is a really very competitive niche, and then you can do [dui lawyer], [dui lawyer seattle], and then "dui lawyer" and +dui+lawyer+seattle spelled out a little bit differently. I'll talk about that in a second. By taking this one thing and then breaking it down into a much more specific ad group, you can really have much more control.

This is a consistent theme in all the tips I talk about is much more control over where you're spending your money, what keywords you're spending it on, what your ads are, having a much better landing page to ad match, which is also really important. It just makes your ad life so much easier when you've got it in all of those ad groups. I know it might seem intimidating. It's like, "Well, I have three ad groups now.If I follow your tips, I'm going to have 40."

But at the same time, it's way easier to manage 40 well organized groups than it is to manage 3 really badly organized groups. Keep that in mind.

2. Picking the right match type

The next thing is picking the right match type. You can see here I've got this bracket stuff and this phrase stuff and these plus signs. There are really four match types.

Broad match

There's broad match, which is terrible and don't ever use it. Broad match is just you writing out the keyword, and then Google just displays it for whatever it feels like is relevant to that particular search. For example, we've seen examples where it's like a catering company and they'll have "catering" as a keyword, and they're showing up for all sorts of phrases in catering where they can't provide catering, so searching for a venue that only does in-house catering. Or they're spending money on a catering conference or just totally irrelevant stuff. Do not use broad match.

Broad match modifier (BMM)

The upgrade from that is what's called broad match modifier or BMM, and that's where these plus signs come in. This is really the words dui, lawyer, and seattle in any order, but they all have to exist and other things can exist around that. It could be, "I need a DUI lawyer in Seattle." "I live in Seattle. I need a DUI lawyer." That would also work for that particular keyword.

Phrase match

The next type is phrase, and that's in the quotes. This "dui lawyer" is the example here, and then you can have anything before it or you can have anything after it, but you can't have something in between it. It couldn't be "dui who is really great at being a lawyer" for example. Weak example, but you get the idea. You can't just shove stuff in the middle of a phrase match.

Exact match

Then exact match is what's in the brackets here, and that is just those words and nothing else. If I have [dui lawyer], this keyword, if I didn't have [dui lawyer seattle], this keyword would not trigger if somebody searches [dui lawyer seattle]. That's as specific as possible. You really want to try that for your most competitive keywords.

This is the really expensive stuff, because you do not want to waste one single penny on anything that is irrelevant to that particular search. This is your head on, it's really expensive every click. I've got to make sure I'm getting the most money possible for those clicks. That's where you really want to use exact match.

3. Only one ad per group

Next, tips. The next thing is what we see is a lot of people who have only one ad per group.

Have at least 3 ads per group

This is not a tip. This is a criticism up here. The thing is that maybe, again, you think it's easy for management, but it's really hard to see what's going to work, because if you're not always testing, how are you going to know if you could do better? Make sure to have at least three ads per group.

Add emotional triggers into your ad copy

Then look at your ad copy. We see a lot of just generic like, "We are the best lawyers. Call us." There's nothing there that says I need to call these people. Really think about how you can add those emotional triggers into your copy. Talk to your client or your team, if you work in-house, and find out what are the things that people say when they call. What are the things where they say, "Wow, you really helped me with this" or, "I was feeling like this and then you came in and I just felt so much better."

That can really help to spice up your ads. We don't want to get too fancy with this, but we certainly want to make something that's going to help you stand out. Really add those emotional triggers into your ad copy.

Make sure to have a call to action

Then the next thing is making sure to have a call to action, which seems basic because you think it's an ad. If you click it, that's the call to action. But sometimes people on the Internet, they're not necessarily thinking. You just want to say, "You know what? Just call me or email me or we're open 24 hours."

Just be really specific on what you want the person to do when they look at the ad. Just spell it out for them. I know it seems silly. Just tell them. Just tell them what you want them to do. That's all you need to do.

Use extensions!

Then make sure you add in all of the extensions. In Google Ads, if you're not super familiar with the platform, there's a section called Extensions. These are things like when the address shows up under an ad, or you've got those little links that come up, or you've got somebody saying we're open 24 hours, for example. There are all sorts of different extensions that you can use. Just put in all the extensions that you possibly can for every single one of your groups.

Then they won't all trigger all at the same time, but at least they're there and it's possible that they could trigger. If they do, that's give your ad more real estate versus your competition, which is really great on mobile because ads take up a lot of space at the top of a mobile search. You want to make sure to shove your competition as far as you possibly can down that search so you own as much of that property as you possibly can. One thing that I do see people doing incorrectly with extensions, though, is setting extensions at say the campaign level, and then you have different ad groups that cover different themes.

Going back to this example over here, with the different types of lawyers, let's say you had an extension that talks specifically about DUI law, but then it was triggering on say sexual assault law. You don't want that to happen. Make sure you have really fine-tuned control over your different extensions so you're showing the right extension with the right type of keyword and the right type of ad. The other thing that we see a lot is where people have location extensions and they're showing all the location extensions where they should not be showing all the location extensions.

You've got an ad group for, say, Seattle, and it's talking about this new home development that you have, and because you just loaded in all of your location extensions, suddenly you're showing extensions for something in say San Francisco. It's just because you haven't filtered properly. Really double-check to make sure that you've got your filter set up properly for your location extensions and that you're showing the right location extension for the right ad.

I know that Google says, "We'll pick the locations closest to the client." But you don't know where that person is searching right there. They could be in San Francisco at that moment and searching for new home builds in Seattle, because maybe they're thinking about moving from San Francisco to Seattle. You don't want them to see the stuff that's there. You want them to see the stuff that's at the place where they're intending to be. Really make sure you control that.

4. Keep display and search separate

Last, but not least, keep display and search separate.

By default, Google so helpfully says, "We'll just show your ads everywhere. It's totally cool. This is what we want everyone to do." Don't do that. This is what makes Google money. It does not make you money. The reason why is because display network, which is where you're going to a website and then you see an ad, and search network, when you type in the stuff and you see an ad, are two totally different beasts.

Avoid showing text ads on the display network for greater campaign control

It's really a different type of experience. To be honest, if you take your search campaigns, which are text-based ads, and now you're showing them on websites, you're showing a boring text ad on a website that already has like 50 blinky things and click here. They're probably not seeing us and maybe they have an ad blocker installed. But if they are, certainly your text ad, which is kind of boring and not intended for that medium, is not going to be the thing that stands out.

Really you're just wasting your money because you'll end up with lower relevancy, less clicks, and then Google thinks that your group is bad. Then you'll end up paying more because Google thinks your group is bad. It really gives you that extra control by saying, "This is the search campaign. It's only on search. This is the display campaign. It's only on display." Keep the two of them totally separate. Then you have lots of control over the search ads being for search and the display ads being for display.

Don't mix those two up. Make sure to uncheck that by default. Definitely there are more tips on our blog here. But I hope that this will help you get started. SEOs, if you've never done a PPC campaign in your life, I recommend just setting one up. Put 50 bucks behind that thing. Just try it out, because I think what will really help you is understanding more of how people search, because as we get less and less keyword data from the different tools that we use to figure out what the heck are people googling when they try to search for our business, ads give you some of that data back.

That's where ads can be a really great ally in trying to get better SEO results. I hope you found this enjoyable. Thanks so much.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Ready for more?

You'll uncover even more SEO goodness in the MozCon 2020 video bundle. At this year's special low price of $129, this is invaluable content you can access again and again throughout the year to inspire and ignite your SEO strategy:

21 full-length videos from some of the brightest minds in digital marketing

Instant downloads and streaming to your computer, tablet, or mobile device

Downloadable slide decks for presentations

Get my MozCon 2020 video bundle

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[pacoteemagrecer]

Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by DiTomaso

Contrary to popular belief, SEO and PPC aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of ways the two search disciplines can work together for benefits all around, especially when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads. In this informative Whiteboard Friday episode from last Spring, MozCon speaker and Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso explains how you can harness the power of both SEO and PPC for a better Google experience overall.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz readers. My name is Dana DiTomaso, and I'm President and partner at Kick Point. We're a digital marketing agency way up in the frozen wilds of Edmonton, Alberta. Today I'm going be talking to you about PPC, and I know you're thinking, "This is an SEO blog. What are you doing here talking about PPC?"

But one of my resolutions for 2019 is to bring together SEO and PPC people, because SEO can learn a lot from PPC, and yes, PPC, you also can learn a lot from SEO. I know PPC people are like, "We just do paid. It's so great." But trust me, both can work together. In our agency, we do both SEO and PPC, and we work with a lot of companies who have one person, sometimes two and they're doing everything.

One of the things we try to do is help them run better Ads campaigns. Here I have tips on things that we see all the time, when we start working with a new Ads account, that we end up fixing, and hopefully I can pass this on to you so you can fix it before you have to call an agency to come and fix it for you. One of the things is this is actually a much longer piece than what I can present on this whiteboard. There's only so much room.

There is actually a blog post on our website, which you can find here. Please check that out and that will have the full nine tips. But I'm just going to break it down to a few today.

1. Too many keywords

First thing, too many keywords. We see this a lot where people, in Google it says make sure to put together keywords that have the same sort of theme.

But your theme can be really specific, or it can be kind of vague. This is an example, a real example that we got, where the keyword examples were all lawyer themes, so "defense lawyer," "criminal lawyer,""dui lawyer," "assault lawyer," "sexual assault lawyer." Technically, they all have the same theme of "lawyer,"but that's way too vague for it to be all in one single ad group, because what kind of ad are you going to show?

"We are lawyers. Call us." It's not specific enough. Take for example "dui lawyer,"which I know is a really very competitive niche, and then you can do [dui lawyer], [dui lawyer seattle], and then "dui lawyer" and +dui+lawyer+seattle spelled out a little bit differently. I'll talk about that in a second. By taking this one thing and then breaking it down into a much more specific ad group, you can really have much more control.

This is a consistent theme in all the tips I talk about is much more control over where you're spending your money, what keywords you're spending it on, what your ads are, having a much better landing page to ad match, which is also really important. It just makes your ad life so much easier when you've got it in all of those ad groups. I know it might seem intimidating. It's like, "Well, I have three ad groups now.If I follow your tips, I'm going to have 40."

But at the same time, it's way easier to manage 40 well organized groups than it is to manage 3 really badly organized groups. Keep that in mind.

2. Picking the right match type

The next thing is picking the right match type. You can see here I've got this bracket stuff and this phrase stuff and these plus signs. There are really four match types.

Broad match

There's broad match, which is terrible and don't ever use it. Broad match is just you writing out the keyword, and then Google just displays it for whatever it feels like is relevant to that particular search. For example, we've seen examples where it's like a catering company and they'll have "catering" as a keyword, and they're showing up for all sorts of phrases in catering where they can't provide catering, so searching for a venue that only does in-house catering. Or they're spending money on a catering conference or just totally irrelevant stuff. Do not use broad match.

Broad match modifier (BMM)

The upgrade from that is what's called broad match modifier or BMM, and that's where these plus signs come in. This is really the words dui, lawyer, and seattle in any order, but they all have to exist and other things can exist around that. It could be, "I need a DUI lawyer in Seattle." "I live in Seattle. I need a DUI lawyer." That would also work for that particular keyword.

Phrase match

The next type is phrase, and that's in the quotes. This "dui lawyer" is the example here, and then you can have anything before it or you can have anything after it, but you can't have something in between it. It couldn't be "dui who is really great at being a lawyer" for example. Weak example, but you get the idea. You can't just shove stuff in the middle of a phrase match.

Exact match

Then exact match is what's in the brackets here, and that is just those words and nothing else. If I have [dui lawyer], this keyword, if I didn't have [dui lawyer seattle], this keyword would not trigger if somebody searches [dui lawyer seattle]. That's as specific as possible. You really want to try that for your most competitive keywords.

This is the really expensive stuff, because you do not want to waste one single penny on anything that is irrelevant to that particular search. This is your head on, it's really expensive every click. I've got to make sure I'm getting the most money possible for those clicks. That's where you really want to use exact match.

3. Only one ad per group

Next, tips. The next thing is what we see is a lot of people who have only one ad per group.

Have at least 3 ads per group

This is not a tip. This is a criticism up here. The thing is that maybe, again, you think it's easy for management, but it's really hard to see what's going to work, because if you're not always testing, how are you going to know if you could do better? Make sure to have at least three ads per group.

Add emotional triggers into your ad copy

Then look at your ad copy. We see a lot of just generic like, "We are the best lawyers. Call us." There's nothing there that says I need to call these people. Really think about how you can add those emotional triggers into your copy. Talk to your client or your team, if you work in-house, and find out what are the things that people say when they call. What are the things where they say, "Wow, you really helped me with this" or, "I was feeling like this and then you came in and I just felt so much better."

That can really help to spice up your ads. We don't want to get too fancy with this, but we certainly want to make something that's going to help you stand out. Really add those emotional triggers into your ad copy.

Make sure to have a call to action

Then the next thing is making sure to have a call to action, which seems basic because you think it's an ad. If you click it, that's the call to action. But sometimes people on the Internet, they're not necessarily thinking. You just want to say, "You know what? Just call me or email me or we're open 24 hours."

Just be really specific on what you want the person to do when they look at the ad. Just spell it out for them. I know it seems silly. Just tell them. Just tell them what you want them to do. That's all you need to do.

Use extensions!

Then make sure you add in all of the extensions. In Google Ads, if you're not super familiar with the platform, there's a section called Extensions. These are things like when the address shows up under an ad, or you've got those little links that come up, or you've got somebody saying we're open 24 hours, for example. There are all sorts of different extensions that you can use. Just put in all the extensions that you possibly can for every single one of your groups.

Then they won't all trigger all at the same time, but at least they're there and it's possible that they could trigger. If they do, that's give your ad more real estate versus your competition, which is really great on mobile because ads take up a lot of space at the top of a mobile search. You want to make sure to shove your competition as far as you possibly can down that search so you own as much of that property as you possibly can. One thing that I do see people doing incorrectly with extensions, though, is setting extensions at say the campaign level, and then you have different ad groups that cover different themes.

Going back to this example over here, with the different types of lawyers, let's say you had an extension that talks specifically about DUI law, but then it was triggering on say sexual assault law. You don't want that to happen. Make sure you have really fine-tuned control over your different extensions so you're showing the right extension with the right type of keyword and the right type of ad. The other thing that we see a lot is where people have location extensions and they're showing all the location extensions where they should not be showing all the location extensions.

You've got an ad group for, say, Seattle, and it's talking about this new home development that you have, and because you just loaded in all of your location extensions, suddenly you're showing extensions for something in say San Francisco. It's just because you haven't filtered properly. Really double-check to make sure that you've got your filter set up properly for your location extensions and that you're showing the right location extension for the right ad.

I know that Google says, "We'll pick the locations closest to the client." But you don't know where that person is searching right there. They could be in San Francisco at that moment and searching for new home builds in Seattle, because maybe they're thinking about moving from San Francisco to Seattle. You don't want them to see the stuff that's there. You want them to see the stuff that's at the place where they're intending to be. Really make sure you control that.

4. Keep display and search separate

Last, but not least, keep display and search separate.

By default, Google so helpfully says, "We'll just show your ads everywhere. It's totally cool. This is what we want everyone to do." Don't do that. This is what makes Google money. It does not make you money. The reason why is because display network, which is where you're going to a website and then you see an ad, and search network, when you type in the stuff and you see an ad, are two totally different beasts.

Avoid showing text ads on the display network for greater campaign control

It's really a different type of experience. To be honest, if you take your search campaigns, which are text-based ads, and now you're showing them on websites, you're showing a boring text ad on a website that already has like 50 blinky things and click here. They're probably not seeing us and maybe they have an ad blocker installed. But if they are, certainly your text ad, which is kind of boring and not intended for that medium, is not going to be the thing that stands out.

Really you're just wasting your money because you'll end up with lower relevancy, less clicks, and then Google thinks that your group is bad. Then you'll end up paying more because Google thinks your group is bad. It really gives you that extra control by saying, "This is the search campaign. It's only on search. This is the display campaign. It's only on display." Keep the two of them totally separate. Then you have lots of control over the search ads being for search and the display ads being for display.

Don't mix those two up. Make sure to uncheck that by default. Definitely there are more tips on our blog here. But I hope that this will help you get started. SEOs, if you've never done a PPC campaign in your life, I recommend just setting one up. Put 50 bucks behind that thing. Just try it out, because I think what will really help you is understanding more of how people search, because as we get less and less keyword data from the different tools that we use to figure out what the heck are people googling when they try to search for our business, ads give you some of that data back.

That's where ads can be a really great ally in trying to get better SEO results. I hope you found this enjoyable. Thanks so much.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Ready for more?

You'll uncover even more SEO goodness in the MozCon 2020 video bundle. At this year's special low price of $129, this is invaluable content you can access again and again throughout the year to inspire and ignite your SEO strategy:

21 full-length videos from some of the brightest minds in digital marketing

Instant downloads and streaming to your computer, tablet, or mobile device

Downloadable slide decks for presentations

Get my MozCon 2020 video bundle

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[evempierson]

Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by DiTomaso

Contrary to popular belief, SEO and PPC aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of ways the two search disciplines can work together for benefits all around, especially when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads. In this informative Whiteboard Friday episode from last Spring, MozCon speaker and Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso explains how you can harness the power of both SEO and PPC for a better Google experience overall.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz readers. My name is Dana DiTomaso, and I'm President and partner at Kick Point. We're a digital marketing agency way up in the frozen wilds of Edmonton, Alberta. Today I'm going be talking to you about PPC, and I know you're thinking, "This is an SEO blog. What are you doing here talking about PPC?"

But one of my resolutions for 2019 is to bring together SEO and PPC people, because SEO can learn a lot from PPC, and yes, PPC, you also can learn a lot from SEO. I know PPC people are like, "We just do paid. It's so great." But trust me, both can work together. In our agency, we do both SEO and PPC, and we work with a lot of companies who have one person, sometimes two and they're doing everything.

One of the things we try to do is help them run better Ads campaigns. Here I have tips on things that we see all the time, when we start working with a new Ads account, that we end up fixing, and hopefully I can pass this on to you so you can fix it before you have to call an agency to come and fix it for you. One of the things is this is actually a much longer piece than what I can present on this whiteboard. There's only so much room.

There is actually a blog post on our website, which you can find here. Please check that out and that will have the full nine tips. But I'm just going to break it down to a few today.

1. Too many keywords

First thing, too many keywords. We see this a lot where people, in Google it says make sure to put together keywords that have the same sort of theme.

But your theme can be really specific, or it can be kind of vague. This is an example, a real example that we got, where the keyword examples were all lawyer themes, so "defense lawyer," "criminal lawyer,""dui lawyer," "assault lawyer," "sexual assault lawyer." Technically, they all have the same theme of "lawyer,"but that's way too vague for it to be all in one single ad group, because what kind of ad are you going to show?

"We are lawyers. Call us." It's not specific enough. Take for example "dui lawyer,"which I know is a really very competitive niche, and then you can do [dui lawyer], [dui lawyer seattle], and then "dui lawyer" and +dui+lawyer+seattle spelled out a little bit differently. I'll talk about that in a second. By taking this one thing and then breaking it down into a much more specific ad group, you can really have much more control.

This is a consistent theme in all the tips I talk about is much more control over where you're spending your money, what keywords you're spending it on, what your ads are, having a much better landing page to ad match, which is also really important. It just makes your ad life so much easier when you've got it in all of those ad groups. I know it might seem intimidating. It's like, "Well, I have three ad groups now.If I follow your tips, I'm going to have 40."

But at the same time, it's way easier to manage 40 well organized groups than it is to manage 3 really badly organized groups. Keep that in mind.

2. Picking the right match type

The next thing is picking the right match type. You can see here I've got this bracket stuff and this phrase stuff and these plus signs. There are really four match types.

Broad match

There's broad match, which is terrible and don't ever use it. Broad match is just you writing out the keyword, and then Google just displays it for whatever it feels like is relevant to that particular search. For example, we've seen examples where it's like a catering company and they'll have "catering" as a keyword, and they're showing up for all sorts of phrases in catering where they can't provide catering, so searching for a venue that only does in-house catering. Or they're spending money on a catering conference or just totally irrelevant stuff. Do not use broad match.

Broad match modifier (BMM)

The upgrade from that is what's called broad match modifier or BMM, and that's where these plus signs come in. This is really the words dui, lawyer, and seattle in any order, but they all have to exist and other things can exist around that. It could be, "I need a DUI lawyer in Seattle." "I live in Seattle. I need a DUI lawyer." That would also work for that particular keyword.

Phrase match

The next type is phrase, and that's in the quotes. This "dui lawyer" is the example here, and then you can have anything before it or you can have anything after it, but you can't have something in between it. It couldn't be "dui who is really great at being a lawyer" for example. Weak example, but you get the idea. You can't just shove stuff in the middle of a phrase match.

Exact match

Then exact match is what's in the brackets here, and that is just those words and nothing else. If I have [dui lawyer], this keyword, if I didn't have [dui lawyer seattle], this keyword would not trigger if somebody searches [dui lawyer seattle]. That's as specific as possible. You really want to try that for your most competitive keywords.

This is the really expensive stuff, because you do not want to waste one single penny on anything that is irrelevant to that particular search. This is your head on, it's really expensive every click. I've got to make sure I'm getting the most money possible for those clicks. That's where you really want to use exact match.

3. Only one ad per group

Next, tips. The next thing is what we see is a lot of people who have only one ad per group.

Have at least 3 ads per group

This is not a tip. This is a criticism up here. The thing is that maybe, again, you think it's easy for management, but it's really hard to see what's going to work, because if you're not always testing, how are you going to know if you could do better? Make sure to have at least three ads per group.

Add emotional triggers into your ad copy

Then look at your ad copy. We see a lot of just generic like, "We are the best lawyers. Call us." There's nothing there that says I need to call these people. Really think about how you can add those emotional triggers into your copy. Talk to your client or your team, if you work in-house, and find out what are the things that people say when they call. What are the things where they say, "Wow, you really helped me with this" or, "I was feeling like this and then you came in and I just felt so much better."

That can really help to spice up your ads. We don't want to get too fancy with this, but we certainly want to make something that's going to help you stand out. Really add those emotional triggers into your ad copy.

Make sure to have a call to action

Then the next thing is making sure to have a call to action, which seems basic because you think it's an ad. If you click it, that's the call to action. But sometimes people on the Internet, they're not necessarily thinking. You just want to say, "You know what? Just call me or email me or we're open 24 hours."

Just be really specific on what you want the person to do when they look at the ad. Just spell it out for them. I know it seems silly. Just tell them. Just tell them what you want them to do. That's all you need to do.

Use extensions!

Then make sure you add in all of the extensions. In Google Ads, if you're not super familiar with the platform, there's a section called Extensions. These are things like when the address shows up under an ad, or you've got those little links that come up, or you've got somebody saying we're open 24 hours, for example. There are all sorts of different extensions that you can use. Just put in all the extensions that you possibly can for every single one of your groups.

Then they won't all trigger all at the same time, but at least they're there and it's possible that they could trigger. If they do, that's give your ad more real estate versus your competition, which is really great on mobile because ads take up a lot of space at the top of a mobile search. You want to make sure to shove your competition as far as you possibly can down that search so you own as much of that property as you possibly can. One thing that I do see people doing incorrectly with extensions, though, is setting extensions at say the campaign level, and then you have different ad groups that cover different themes.

Going back to this example over here, with the different types of lawyers, let's say you had an extension that talks specifically about DUI law, but then it was triggering on say sexual assault law. You don't want that to happen. Make sure you have really fine-tuned control over your different extensions so you're showing the right extension with the right type of keyword and the right type of ad. The other thing that we see a lot is where people have location extensions and they're showing all the location extensions where they should not be showing all the location extensions.

You've got an ad group for, say, Seattle, and it's talking about this new home development that you have, and because you just loaded in all of your location extensions, suddenly you're showing extensions for something in say San Francisco. It's just because you haven't filtered properly. Really double-check to make sure that you've got your filter set up properly for your location extensions and that you're showing the right location extension for the right ad.

I know that Google says, "We'll pick the locations closest to the client." But you don't know where that person is searching right there. They could be in San Francisco at that moment and searching for new home builds in Seattle, because maybe they're thinking about moving from San Francisco to Seattle. You don't want them to see the stuff that's there. You want them to see the stuff that's at the place where they're intending to be. Really make sure you control that.

4. Keep display and search separate

Last, but not least, keep display and search separate.

By default, Google so helpfully says, "We'll just show your ads everywhere. It's totally cool. This is what we want everyone to do." Don't do that. This is what makes Google money. It does not make you money. The reason why is because display network, which is where you're going to a website and then you see an ad, and search network, when you type in the stuff and you see an ad, are two totally different beasts.

Avoid showing text ads on the display network for greater campaign control

It's really a different type of experience. To be honest, if you take your search campaigns, which are text-based ads, and now you're showing them on websites, you're showing a boring text ad on a website that already has like 50 blinky things and click here. They're probably not seeing us and maybe they have an ad blocker installed. But if they are, certainly your text ad, which is kind of boring and not intended for that medium, is not going to be the thing that stands out.

Really you're just wasting your money because you'll end up with lower relevancy, less clicks, and then Google thinks that your group is bad. Then you'll end up paying more because Google thinks your group is bad. It really gives you that extra control by saying, "This is the search campaign. It's only on search. This is the display campaign. It's only on display." Keep the two of them totally separate. Then you have lots of control over the search ads being for search and the display ads being for display.

Don't mix those two up. Make sure to uncheck that by default. Definitely there are more tips on our blog here. But I hope that this will help you get started. SEOs, if you've never done a PPC campaign in your life, I recommend just setting one up. Put 50 bucks behind that thing. Just try it out, because I think what will really help you is understanding more of how people search, because as we get less and less keyword data from the different tools that we use to figure out what the heck are people googling when they try to search for our business, ads give you some of that data back.

That's where ads can be a really great ally in trying to get better SEO results. I hope you found this enjoyable. Thanks so much.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Ready for more?

You'll uncover even more SEO goodness in the MozCon 2020 video bundle. At this year's special low price of $129, this is invaluable content you can access again and again throughout the year to inspire and ignite your SEO strategy:

21 full-length videos from some of the brightest minds in digital marketing

Instant downloads and streaming to your computer, tablet, or mobile device

Downloadable slide decks for presentations

Get my MozCon 2020 video bundle

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[thanhtuandoan89]

Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by DiTomaso

Contrary to popular belief, SEO and PPC aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of ways the two search disciplines can work together for benefits all around, especially when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads. In this informative Whiteboard Friday episode from last Spring, MozCon speaker and Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso explains how you can harness the power of both SEO and PPC for a better Google experience overall.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz readers. My name is Dana DiTomaso, and I'm President and partner at Kick Point. We're a digital marketing agency way up in the frozen wilds of Edmonton, Alberta. Today I'm going be talking to you about PPC, and I know you're thinking, "This is an SEO blog. What are you doing here talking about PPC?"

But one of my resolutions for 2019 is to bring together SEO and PPC people, because SEO can learn a lot from PPC, and yes, PPC, you also can learn a lot from SEO. I know PPC people are like, "We just do paid. It's so great." But trust me, both can work together. In our agency, we do both SEO and PPC, and we work with a lot of companies who have one person, sometimes two and they're doing everything.

One of the things we try to do is help them run better Ads campaigns. Here I have tips on things that we see all the time, when we start working with a new Ads account, that we end up fixing, and hopefully I can pass this on to you so you can fix it before you have to call an agency to come and fix it for you. One of the things is this is actually a much longer piece than what I can present on this whiteboard. There's only so much room.

There is actually a blog post on our website, which you can find here. Please check that out and that will have the full nine tips. But I'm just going to break it down to a few today.

1. Too many keywords

First thing, too many keywords. We see this a lot where people, in Google it says make sure to put together keywords that have the same sort of theme.

But your theme can be really specific, or it can be kind of vague. This is an example, a real example that we got, where the keyword examples were all lawyer themes, so "defense lawyer," "criminal lawyer,""dui lawyer," "assault lawyer," "sexual assault lawyer." Technically, they all have the same theme of "lawyer,"but that's way too vague for it to be all in one single ad group, because what kind of ad are you going to show?

"We are lawyers. Call us." It's not specific enough. Take for example "dui lawyer,"which I know is a really very competitive niche, and then you can do [dui lawyer], [dui lawyer seattle], and then "dui lawyer" and +dui+lawyer+seattle spelled out a little bit differently. I'll talk about that in a second. By taking this one thing and then breaking it down into a much more specific ad group, you can really have much more control.

This is a consistent theme in all the tips I talk about is much more control over where you're spending your money, what keywords you're spending it on, what your ads are, having a much better landing page to ad match, which is also really important. It just makes your ad life so much easier when you've got it in all of those ad groups. I know it might seem intimidating. It's like, "Well, I have three ad groups now.If I follow your tips, I'm going to have 40."

But at the same time, it's way easier to manage 40 well organized groups than it is to manage 3 really badly organized groups. Keep that in mind.

2. Picking the right match type

The next thing is picking the right match type. You can see here I've got this bracket stuff and this phrase stuff and these plus signs. There are really four match types.

Broad match

There's broad match, which is terrible and don't ever use it. Broad match is just you writing out the keyword, and then Google just displays it for whatever it feels like is relevant to that particular search. For example, we've seen examples where it's like a catering company and they'll have "catering" as a keyword, and they're showing up for all sorts of phrases in catering where they can't provide catering, so searching for a venue that only does in-house catering. Or they're spending money on a catering conference or just totally irrelevant stuff. Do not use broad match.

Broad match modifier (BMM)

The upgrade from that is what's called broad match modifier or BMM, and that's where these plus signs come in. This is really the words dui, lawyer, and seattle in any order, but they all have to exist and other things can exist around that. It could be, "I need a DUI lawyer in Seattle." "I live in Seattle. I need a DUI lawyer." That would also work for that particular keyword.

Phrase match

The next type is phrase, and that's in the quotes. This "dui lawyer" is the example here, and then you can have anything before it or you can have anything after it, but you can't have something in between it. It couldn't be "dui who is really great at being a lawyer" for example. Weak example, but you get the idea. You can't just shove stuff in the middle of a phrase match.

Exact match

Then exact match is what's in the brackets here, and that is just those words and nothing else. If I have [dui lawyer], this keyword, if I didn't have [dui lawyer seattle], this keyword would not trigger if somebody searches [dui lawyer seattle]. That's as specific as possible. You really want to try that for your most competitive keywords.

This is the really expensive stuff, because you do not want to waste one single penny on anything that is irrelevant to that particular search. This is your head on, it's really expensive every click. I've got to make sure I'm getting the most money possible for those clicks. That's where you really want to use exact match.

3. Only one ad per group

Next, tips. The next thing is what we see is a lot of people who have only one ad per group.

Have at least 3 ads per group

This is not a tip. This is a criticism up here. The thing is that maybe, again, you think it's easy for management, but it's really hard to see what's going to work, because if you're not always testing, how are you going to know if you could do better? Make sure to have at least three ads per group.

Add emotional triggers into your ad copy

Then look at your ad copy. We see a lot of just generic like, "We are the best lawyers. Call us." There's nothing there that says I need to call these people. Really think about how you can add those emotional triggers into your copy. Talk to your client or your team, if you work in-house, and find out what are the things that people say when they call. What are the things where they say, "Wow, you really helped me with this" or, "I was feeling like this and then you came in and I just felt so much better."

That can really help to spice up your ads. We don't want to get too fancy with this, but we certainly want to make something that's going to help you stand out. Really add those emotional triggers into your ad copy.

Make sure to have a call to action

Then the next thing is making sure to have a call to action, which seems basic because you think it's an ad. If you click it, that's the call to action. But sometimes people on the Internet, they're not necessarily thinking. You just want to say, "You know what? Just call me or email me or we're open 24 hours."

Just be really specific on what you want the person to do when they look at the ad. Just spell it out for them. I know it seems silly. Just tell them. Just tell them what you want them to do. That's all you need to do.

Use extensions!

Then make sure you add in all of the extensions. In Google Ads, if you're not super familiar with the platform, there's a section called Extensions. These are things like when the address shows up under an ad, or you've got those little links that come up, or you've got somebody saying we're open 24 hours, for example. There are all sorts of different extensions that you can use. Just put in all the extensions that you possibly can for every single one of your groups.

Then they won't all trigger all at the same time, but at least they're there and it's possible that they could trigger. If they do, that's give your ad more real estate versus your competition, which is really great on mobile because ads take up a lot of space at the top of a mobile search. You want to make sure to shove your competition as far as you possibly can down that search so you own as much of that property as you possibly can. One thing that I do see people doing incorrectly with extensions, though, is setting extensions at say the campaign level, and then you have different ad groups that cover different themes.

Going back to this example over here, with the different types of lawyers, let's say you had an extension that talks specifically about DUI law, but then it was triggering on say sexual assault law. You don't want that to happen. Make sure you have really fine-tuned control over your different extensions so you're showing the right extension with the right type of keyword and the right type of ad. The other thing that we see a lot is where people have location extensions and they're showing all the location extensions where they should not be showing all the location extensions.

You've got an ad group for, say, Seattle, and it's talking about this new home development that you have, and because you just loaded in all of your location extensions, suddenly you're showing extensions for something in say San Francisco. It's just because you haven't filtered properly. Really double-check to make sure that you've got your filter set up properly for your location extensions and that you're showing the right location extension for the right ad.

I know that Google says, "We'll pick the locations closest to the client." But you don't know where that person is searching right there. They could be in San Francisco at that moment and searching for new home builds in Seattle, because maybe they're thinking about moving from San Francisco to Seattle. You don't want them to see the stuff that's there. You want them to see the stuff that's at the place where they're intending to be. Really make sure you control that.

4. Keep display and search separate

Last, but not least, keep display and search separate.

By default, Google so helpfully says, "We'll just show your ads everywhere. It's totally cool. This is what we want everyone to do." Don't do that. This is what makes Google money. It does not make you money. The reason why is because display network, which is where you're going to a website and then you see an ad, and search network, when you type in the stuff and you see an ad, are two totally different beasts.

Avoid showing text ads on the display network for greater campaign control

It's really a different type of experience. To be honest, if you take your search campaigns, which are text-based ads, and now you're showing them on websites, you're showing a boring text ad on a website that already has like 50 blinky things and click here. They're probably not seeing us and maybe they have an ad blocker installed. But if they are, certainly your text ad, which is kind of boring and not intended for that medium, is not going to be the thing that stands out.

Really you're just wasting your money because you'll end up with lower relevancy, less clicks, and then Google thinks that your group is bad. Then you'll end up paying more because Google thinks your group is bad. It really gives you that extra control by saying, "This is the search campaign. It's only on search. This is the display campaign. It's only on display." Keep the two of them totally separate. Then you have lots of control over the search ads being for search and the display ads being for display.

Don't mix those two up. Make sure to uncheck that by default. Definitely there are more tips on our blog here. But I hope that this will help you get started. SEOs, if you've never done a PPC campaign in your life, I recommend just setting one up. Put 50 bucks behind that thing. Just try it out, because I think what will really help you is understanding more of how people search, because as we get less and less keyword data from the different tools that we use to figure out what the heck are people googling when they try to search for our business, ads give you some of that data back.

That's where ads can be a really great ally in trying to get better SEO results. I hope you found this enjoyable. Thanks so much.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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