#but emily knew that playbook

[isagrimorie]

Criminal Minds 14x06 - Luke

People use covert/spy techniques and Emily Prentiss immediately notices. Parts 1, 2, 3 (Don't con a conman -- don't use covert tactics around a former spy)

[pathologicalreid]

stuck between a rock and a hard place | S.R.

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You, an undercover agent, uncover a hidden secret of the country's largest operation, putting your life in danger and under the protection of the BAU.

who? spencer reid x fem!FBI!reader category: angst content warnings: general cm violence, hospitals, medical inaccuracy, drugs, sex crimes/trafficking, attempted sa, reader works in sex crimes. mentions foyet and also 6x24 (supply and demand). established relationship. word count: 7.7k a/n: this has been sitting in my wip folder for far too long. i am now emotionally attached to these two. i will write more of this specific pairing because now all i want is for them to be happy.

Spencer

It wasn’t every day that men and women in suits piled into the BAU carrying evidence boxes, everyone stood up at their desks. Spencer watched as Andi Swann followed in behind the other agents, not even bothering to greet the team as she went straight to Emily’s office.

Prentiss opened the door, letting Andi in before beckoning for Reid to join them. This had to be about you.

Ignoring the way his heart rate spiked, Spencer stood up from his desk and went up to Emily’s office. On the other side of the bullpen, the rest of the team filed into the roundtable room.

“Spencer, have a seat,” Emily offered, gesturing to one of the chairs in front of her desk.

Glancing at Agent Swann, he crossed his arms in front of his chest, “No, I’ll stand.”

Andi cleared her throat, looking at Spencer, she spoke, “Y/N missed her last two check-ins. As her next of kin, I need to notify you to let you know that as of now, the FBI is considering her missing.”

He wanted to be angry. He wanted so badly to be mad, but he’d seen this before. Years ago, an agent in Andi’s unit missed her check-ins and the BAU helped find her. More than that, he knew how much Andi cared about her agents, so he couldn’t find it in himself to be mad.

“Section Chief Cruz has asked that the BAU help to recover Y/N,” Emily said, looking at Spencer. “You know I have to tell you that you can’t be on this case,” she explained, leaning against her desk, eyes flickering as she tried to read Spencer’s expression.

Taking a deep breath, Spencer looked at Emily, “Y/N’s gone missing, and I’m not allowed to help look for her?”

Sympathetically, Prentiss shook her head, dark hair swaying with the movement. “You know it’s a conflict of interest to be involved with a loved one’s case.”

“Isn’t that kind of what the BAU does?” He could’ve rambled off a list of BAU agents who worked on cases involving their loved ones – including himself and Emily.

Turning to face Agent Swann, Emily suggested she join the rest of the team in the roundtable room. She waited until the door was closed before speaking again, “When’s the last time you saw Y/N?”

Closing his eyes, he remembered the morning of the day you left, the both of you had stayed up late as if you could delay your departure, but the last time he saw you was when he dropped you off at the Sex Crimes Unit before making his way up to the Behavioral Analysis Unit. “We haven’t even spoken since she left,” he answered, almost a month ago now.

“Is there a chance she tried to reach you or her family?” Emily asked. She had to ask, he knew that, but it didn’t make the questions any less ridiculous to him.

Shaking his head, he began to pace around the office, “No, she wouldn’t have done that. She follows the undercover playbook obsessively. She always said freestyling was like signing your death certificate.” He tried. He tried to get you to leave him breadcrumbs, but you never did.

Nodding, Emily watched as he paced back and forth “When did you get married?”

Pressing his lips into a thin white line, he stopped in his tracks, “When I came back after The Believers. It was the next day.” You had offered to sleep on the couch in an attempt to give him space when he asked you to go to the courthouse with him. That was two months ago now.

He didn’t want space. Not from you. Never from you.

Finally, he sat down.

“Did you tell anyone?” Emily asked, sitting down in the chair next to him. “Did you have a witness to sign your marriage certificate?”

Nodding, Spencer reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and produced three rings, his wedding ring, your engagement ring, and your wedding band. You didn’t have the time to get them soldered together yet. “Rossi was our witness,” he responded, “He was the only one who answered his phone.” He slipped his ring on and closed his fist around your two rings.

After a moment, Emily stood, “I’m going to speak with the rest of the team, but I won’t tell them anything I don’t think is pertinent to the case.” Which was her way of saying ‘Your secret is safe with me.’ “Stay in here as long as you need, Spence,” she offered before walking out, shutting the door tightly behind her.

He thought of the last night you were together. Spencer tried to check in with you, he told you that if your job ever became too much, you just had to tell him, and he’d be there. What he neglected to tell you was that he was beginning to feel like your job was too much for him.

You had given him the opportunity to hold you close, and instead, he let you slip through his fingers.

Opening his fist, he looked down at your rings and the indent they had left on his palm, slipping them back into his pocket before he walked over to the roundtable room. Everyone paused what they were doing to look up at him.

Spencer just shrugged and looked at Emily, “I can’t just do nothing.”

In response, Emily nodded solemnly and suggested he go through the case files with Matt.

It had been hours. The sun had set, jackets had been shed, and takeout had been ordered. The clock behind him showed it was nearly midnight, meaning it had been almost two days since anyone had last heard from you.

“Oh god,” Penelope said, her voice cutting into the thick silence of the roundtable room. Her fingers began frantically typing on her laptop.

Spinning in the office chair, Spencer wheeled over so he could look at the screen, vaguely aware of Emily hovering above him, “What is it? What did you find?”

She hit the keyboard so hard he thought they might break, but she answered, “The trauma center at Johns Hopkins reported a Jane Doe brought in a few hours ago. She matches Y/N’s description.”

“Did they run prints?” Andi asked, of course, there would be red tape if the hospital tried to run your prints, seeing as you were undercover.

Another tap and dozens of files opened, “It looks like she went right into surgery. Uh, the EMTs reported she was listing off a string of numbers when they brought her in… 265D019Z?”

Spencer swallowed thickly, “That’s Y/N’s badge number.”

Shaking her head, JJ looked over at the map of DC on the wall, “It’s a two-hour drive to Baltimore from here.”

“But it’s a thirty-minute flight, Reid, Tara, Swann, and Alvez go. The rest of us will look into what happened from here,” Emily doled out responsibilities, nodding at everyone as the team broke.

Spencer stayed still, still looking at Penelope’s screen, his eyes flickering over the documents. Words jumped out at him, drugged, punctured, and knife. It made his stomach churn. How had you gotten to Baltimore? Your unit had you set up in an apartment near the Hill. When did you travel from the district to Baltimore?

The thirty-minute flight felt like it was hours long, the drive from the airstrip to the hospital dragged on, but thankfully Emily had called the hospital ahead of time to let them know who you were and who was coming for you.

A doctor stopped the four of you from going into the room, a police officer was already stationed outside of the room, and the blinds were closed. Please, Spencer wanted to plead, please just let me see her.

“She’s weak, she just came down from recovery and she hasn’t fully woken up yet,” the doctor said, placing her hands on her hips. “I can’t in good faith let you go in there and badger her with questions. Not with no one in there to focus on her well-being,” she ordered. The doctor stared the four of them down with piercing gray eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Spencer peeked through the doorway when a nurse exited your room. “She’s my wife, I’ll advocate for her,” he responded, hoping the doctor would let him through. He could feel Tara and Luke staring, but he didn’t care.

Nodding, the doctor continued sizing Reid up, “Alright, but just you, for now. She’s not awake enough to be questioned anyway.” Stepping to the side, the doctor let Spencer through before blocking the doorway to everyone else.

In the worst way possible, you took his breath away. Your skin was sallow, you had an IV, nasal cannula, and a chest tube out the left side. Walking to your right, he took a seat next to you, taking your hand in his and pressing a gentle kiss to your bloodied knuckles – evidence that you had put up one hell of a fight. “Oh sweetheart, what did they do to you?” He whispered even though he knew you wouldn’t answer.

Reaching over you, he smoothed your hair from your face, your skin was clammy, probably as a result of blood loss. It looked like they were still transfusing, so you had probably lost a considerable amount of blood.

Shuffling the seat closer to you, Spencer took your hand in his. The doctor came back in holding a tablet, “Dr. Reid?”

He hummed in response, not daring to take his eyes off of you. “What happened to her? Why did she need surgery?”

“She had been bleeding out in an alley, according to the police officers who reported to the scene. The other agents are talking to them now,” the doctor said, tapping a few buttons on the tablet. “She had been stabbed several times in the upper left side, we went in to repair damage to her spleen, liver, and lung. There was some strain to her heart, it appears she was drugged before she was stabbed.”

He intently watched the steady rise and fall of your chest before he spoke up again, “Is she going to be okay?”

Setting the tablet down, the doctor paused before answering, “We’ll know more when she wakes up.”

Spencer leaned back in the chair, finally taking his eyes off of you and looking at the doctor, “Was there anything… did they…” He felt ridiculous, having spent the better part of his adult life in the BAU, and he couldn’t even put the words together.

To his relief, the doctor shook her head, “There were no injuries that suggested she was sexually assaulted.”

Reading the doctor’s badge, Spencer nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Herman.”

“Hit the call button when she wakes up, we’ll need to evaluate her pain and other treatment,” the doctor said, gathering her things before walking out of the room, and shutting the door behind her.

Spencer kept his eyes on you, tapping his foot on the ground impatiently, every once in a while, his phone rang, but he didn’t have the energy to talk on the phone. When his phone buzzed, he pulled it out of his pocket and checked the messages.

Penelope Garcia: How is she? Spencer Reid: Still sleeping. Penelope Garcia: How are you? Spencer Reid: Not sure.

Setting his phone on the table, screen down, he watched you again, every once in a while, your nose would twitch, or your eyes would flutter. Every time he would hold his breath, hoping you’d open your eyes.

He waited, and about an hour after he had arrived, a small, keening noise came from you. His head snapped up at the sound, your eyes were still closed, but you were moving. “Y/N?” He whispered hesitantly, not wanting to wake you up if you weren’t ready. Slowly, he stood up from the chair, not sure if he should keep waiting or if he should hit the call button.

You were muttering something, talking to someone in your sleep, when suddenly you jerked away. Instinctively, Spencer put his hands on your shoulders to stop you from tearing your stitches, and it was that touch that caused your eyes to snap open. “No, no, no, no,” you babbled, frantically looking around the hospital room.

“Y/N,” Spencer said, keeping his hands on your shoulders, “You’re safe, I’m here. You’re at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.”

With wide eyes, you looked up at him and mouthed the word ‘Baltimore.’ As if you were trying to figure out how you had ended up in Baltimore, something the BAU still hadn’t figured out. “I thought I…” Your voice was nothing more than a rasp, but with the bruises he could now see littering your neck, that didn’t surprise him much. “Did you see it?”

Spencer pushed the call button without you noticing, “Did I see what, love?” He asked, keeping his voice low as he gently sat down on the edge of your hospital bed.

You furrowed your eyebrows and looked around the room, “Is Andi here?" Your voice was tight, like you were struggling to breathe. "I need to talk to Andi.”

Helplessly, Spencer watched as the number signifying your heart rate jumped, “Not just yet, alright?” He said, looking up when the doctor and a nurse came through the door.

The doctor introduced herself and started trying to get you to even out your breathing, one of the monitors was beeping like crazy until the nurse hit a button on it.

All he could do was watch, making sure he didn’t get in the way. Listening in to words about medications and making a mental note to research everything. “How’s your pain, Y/N? On a scale from one through ten.” The doctor asked, standing at the foot of the bed.

“Like a seven? When I breathe it’s more like a nine,” you answered, every word was strained. The doctor flashed a light in your eyes, “That isn’t helping,” you said through gritted teeth.

The doctor said something to the nurse, prompting her to nod before pushing something through your IV. After a few moments, Spencer watched as your heart rate lowered and your body visibly relaxed into the mattress. You nodded softly when the nurse asked if that was better.

Dr. Herman left and the nurse scrawled some notes down on your chart, introducing herself as Amelia before she left as well.

“Oh no,” you whispered, looking in the direction of the door. “Is the whole BAU here? How badly did I fuck up?”

Quickly, Spencer shook his head, “You didn’t, at all. It’s just me, Tara, and Luke,” he tried to reassure you as best he could without knowing the full story. “Do you feel up to talking?” He asked, smoothing your hair away from your face.

You nodded gently, “I need to talk to Andi. Alone, if it’s okay with you.”

“I can wait right outside in the hallway,” he offered, holding your hand in his and skimming the pad of his thumb over top of your knuckles.

You hummed contentedly, “Could you see if I can have water?”

Grateful to have something to do, Spencer stood up, leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to your forehead, “I’ll be right back.” He stepped out of the room, garnering the attention of the agents who were waiting in the hallway, all of them staring at Spencer expectantly, “Andi, she wants to talk to you.”

The Unit Chief nodded and disappeared into the room, leaving the door open just a crack.

He was gone for three minutes, that was the time it took him to walk to the nurses’ station and ask if you were allowed liquids and back, but when he returned the door to your room was wide open. “Where did they go?” He asked, looking over at Tara.

She was still leaning against the taupe hospital walls before nodding in the direction of the red exit sign, “Swann was in there for maybe two minutes before she came out in a huff, she took Alvez with her.” Lewis spoke calmly like it didn’t necessarily mean anything to her.

But it did to him. Walking back into your room, he stood at the side of your bed, “What did you tell Andi that you didn’t want me hearing?”

“Huh?” You sounded tired – rightfully so. Your pupils were dilated, which told Spencer that the drugs that the doctors had given you were working.

It comforted him that you weren’t in as much pain, but you were still hiding something from him. “You asked me to leave while you talked to Andi because you didn’t want me to hear what you were telling her. What did you tell her?”

Your face softened as your eyes filled with a different kind of hurt, “Don’t profile me.” You were too tired to hide the pain in your voice.

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, “Don’t lie to me,” He countered. You were lying by omission, but what was worse was that you might’ve been putting yourself in danger.

“Please don’t leave me,” you whimpered.

Spencer’s chest tightened as he watched your eyes fill with tears, he sat down on the edge of your bed and took your hand in his. “I’m not going anywhere. Why would you think I’d leave you, darling?”

Your eyes were half-closed, “because you…” your voice trailed off and he squeezed your hand to get your attention. “When Scratch had Emily, you wanted to kill him,” you murmured.

The air had been knocked out of his lungs. You hadn’t been talking about a divorce. You were saying that you could identify your assailant, and you didn’t want Spencer to know. “I won’t go,” he whispered, “I’ll be right here.”

“It was Jake,” you mumbled, barely able to open your mouth as you fought your exhaustion.

That hadn’t been the answer he was expecting. He swallowed thickly, “Jake did this to you?” He asked slowly, looking at your hand, your fingers intertwined.

Minutely, you shook your head, “Jake blew my cover, Spence.” Yawning, you proceeded to mumble about him doing it on purpose.

Untangling your fingers, Spencer reached out and smoothed your hair away from your forehead, “Get some sleep, angel. I love you.”

You hummed an ‘I love you’ back, and the next moment your eyes were shut.

A nurse came in and asked for a moment while she checked the output of your chest tube, ushering Spencer and Tara out. “Okay, I’ll bite, who’s Jake?” Tara asked, putting a hand on her hip as she looked expectantly at Reid.

“Jake is her partner. When she’s not undercover and just out in the field, they’re partners,” Spencer explained.

Tara pursed her lips thoughtfully, “So, he would’ve known that she was undercover.”

Nodding as the newly added weight of the situation threatened to pull him down, Spencer turned and faced you, watching as the nurse examined you as you slept. “He blew her cover on purpose,” he reached up and rubbed his eye. Jake knew exactly what he was doing when he blew your cover, and you knew exactly what you were doing when you begged Spencer not to leave you.

“We have to go back in and ask her more questions,” Tara said.

Usually, Spencer agreed with Tara, but not this time. He saw the monitors you were hooked up to, he read your chart, and he watched the concerned looks on the nurses’ faces. They all told him that you weren’t stable enough to be speaking, let alone a cognitive interview. “No,” Spencer said finally.

Clearing her throat lightly, Tara stood next to him in the doorway, “We can’t let them get away, Reid.”

“And I can’t lose her,” he rebutted, ignoring the way his voice broke in his desperation. 

Stepping back slightly, the other agent nodded in understanding. “Okay, I’ll call Emily. You go sit with her.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice; he pulled a chair up impossibly close to your bedside and draped his jacket over the back of it before loosening his tie and sitting down.

You

When you woke up, it was still dark outside, but the bright lights of the hospital room made it hard for you to get any real rest. You were pleased to find that, true to his word, Spencer was right next to you when he woke up.

He was sleeping, resting his head on his hand with his wrist bent awkwardly. “Spence,” You whispered, clearing your throat, “Spencer.” You couldn’t reach out to touch him, but you wanted to wake him up, so his wrist wasn’t sore.

Jolting awake, he looked at you, “Hey, did you just wake up? How do you feel?”

It was a weird question, you felt like an absolute dumpster fire. “Better,” you whispered, “less hurt, achier. Sore. I don’t know, my head feels fuzzy,” you rambled, trying to move higher up on the hospital bed, but being limited by the chest tube. “How long do I have to have it?” You asked, staring at the plastic tubing as if you could make it go away via the power of suggestion.

“At least through the night, but it could be longer,” he said, reaching over and smoothing over the edges of your blanket. “Do you know what they gave you?” Spencer asked, shaking out his wrist.

You hummed in response, “No, it was intravenous though. They were big on amphetamines, but it didn’t feel like a stimulant. Benzos maybe,” you told him, your voice was soft. The pain in your throat had subsided after being intubated during surgery, but you were still swollen from when Cal grabbed you.

None of this made sense to you. The one thing that bothered you more than anything else was why Cal stopped when Jake said to. It couldn’t have been as simple as the money.

Spencer must’ve noticed you burrowing into your memories, “You remember everything?” He asked gently.

He knew what he was implying, in more cases involving severe trauma, victims generally remember everything or remember nothing. It was lucky for law enforcement when they remembered, but bad for the victims. Bad for you. “Mostly,” you breathed, avoiding his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” you said softly.

“Why? You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he tried to reassure you, reaching out and taking your hand in his.

You hummed, “I don’t remember anything after they drugged me, just the stuff before. Just the…” Your voice trailed off as you returned to your confusion. “Who’s still here that I can talk to?”

He squeezed your hand comfortingly, “Do you feel up to it?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much of a choice,” you answered him despondently.

Spencer nodded before he got up from his chair, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead before he stepped out into the hallway and let Tara in.

The agent smiled at you gently, “Hey, Y/N, how are you feeling?” She asked, sitting down at a free chair at the end of your hospital bed, leaving the chair at your side available for Spencer to return to.

You gave your best attempt at returning the smile before you answered, “I think I’m going to make it.”

As Spencer sat back down next to you, placing a water cup on your bedside table, Tara opened a file and looked through it, “Can you start by telling me a little bit about your assignment? You were undercover as… Barbara?” She read from the file.

Nodding slowly, you held out your hand for Spencer to hold, “Yeah, but they called me Babs.”

Three days ago...

You shifted self-consciously in the gold dress. It was a silky, slippery number that displayed more than you particularly liked. Spencer would probably like it, but he’d hate how uncomfortable you were in it.

Inadvertently, you smiled at just the thought of your husband. It was late, so he was probably at home, reading next to the fireplace. Maybe he was on a case, off somewhere in the United States and saving lives.

It had been twenty-nine days since you had last seen him.

“You look gorgeous tonight, Babs,” Johnathan McCallister, better known as Cal, told you, reaching out and placing a hand on either one of your shoulders before placing a kiss on both cheeks.

Bashfully, you smiled at him, “You’re too good to me, Cal. I can’t believe you got me in!” Deep down, you knew tonight could be the night, you would be able to take down The Program. At least the D.C. chapter of it.

When it was over, you could be Y/N Reid again, instead of Barbara McFarston.

The Program took women around your age and sold them into sex slavery. The chapter in Washington D.C. was one of the most active, which made sense when you looked around the room and saw a majority of the people were elected officials – men and women alike.

Andi Swann had assured you that taking down this chapter would create a domino effect, causing the other chapters to topple. According to her, if you could take down D.C., Miami, and Los Angeles, The Program would most likely cease to exist.

Turning to ask Cal about the selection tonight, you were startled to see familiar gray eyes on your companion’s other side. You felt your façade slip, but only for a second before you pasted a brilliant smile back on your face.

You tilted your head to the side, “And who might you be?” You asked Jake, wondering if Andi had sent him in to get a status report on you.

“Jake Cohn,” he answered, and goosebumps spread over your exposed skin at his answer. He should’ve said William Jacoby, that was his identity for this case.

In horror, you watched as Jake leaned in to whisper something in Cal’s ear, maintaining eye contact with you the whole time. You bit your tongue as Cal wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you in tightly, “Let’s talk.”

You stumbled a little over your own feet and looked at Jake with wide eyes, the leader forcefully shoved you into a private room, one that would probably light up like a Christmas tree under a blacklight. “What’s wrong, Cal?” You asked, standing up straight.

He reached over and grabbed the back of your neck, gathering the hair at the nape of your neck in his fist. The force of it made you scrunch your shoulders up, “You’re a fucking fed?” He seethed, tossing you to the ground in one swift movement.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you tried to convince him. Tried to flip the script so that Jake was the liar instead of you.

Cal grabbed your throat next, holding you down on a booth seat. “Oh, Y/N… Jake’s been one of my best employees for years.” He said, chuckling at the betrayal in your eyes, he only laughed more when you kneed him in the gut. “Oh, I like it when they fight back.”

You shut your eyes tightly as you heard the clinking of his belt buckle, but they snapped back open when you heard the word, “Stop.”

“What? Did you want first go on her?” Cal asked, wiping his cheek – you must’ve scratched him in your struggle.

Jake cleared his throat and met your eyes, “We should keep her clean, you know?” He said, and for a moment you thought he was actually trying to help you, “Think about how much a clean fed would go for here. Especially in D.C.”

And just like that, your hopes were dashed, “he’s right,” you told Cal, trying to formulate a plan.

“Shut up, whore,” Cal spat, causing you to involuntarily flinch.

At least there’s nothing he could call you that you hadn’t heard before, in your line of work, people got very creative.

Cal looked at you, inspecting your neck where he had grabbed you before, “You’ll make me a lot of money, won’t you?” He said, rubbing a hand up and down your arm soothingly before poking you with a needle.

Your legs gave out beneath you, but Jake caught you before you hit the ground. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t think he’d do this. I thought he’d kick you out, but I didn’t think…”

Looking up at him, your throat burned, and you weren’t sure if you were going to cry or throw up, but you shut your eyes. “No, you didn’t.” You don’t just casually tell the leader of a sex trafficking ring that the person with them is an FBI agent.

Present

“And that’s the last thing you remember?” Tara asked, scribbling something down in your file.

You nodded absentmindedly, “I think…” Your voice trailed off as you looked at Spencer, “I think Jake might’ve been in charge the whole time. Pulling the strings from behind the curtain while he waited for the perfect time to catch me off guard. That’s the only reason Cal would’ve backed off when Jake told him to,” You proposed your theory, not missing the way Spencer was holding your hand a little tighter than before.

Tara’s brows were raised, “Jake Cohn has worked in the bureau for almost a decade, it would be hard for him to evade detection for that long.”

“But he knows exactly how to evade it,” you rebutted. “He’d know all of the tricks from Sex Crimes and all of my tricks. He- He set me up,” you realized.

Spencer turned around and looked at your monitor, “Okay, let’s take a break. We can talk more later.”

Getting up, Tara let Spencer know she was going to call the rest of the team before she stepped back into the hallway.

“My chest hurts,” you said, hating how your voice sounded like a whine.

In response, Spencer smoothed your hair back in an attempt to comfort you. “Your heart is racing,” he whispered, “Take a deep breath, okay?”

You nodded slowly, breathing in deeply through your nostrils and letting the air collect in your lungs before blowing it out your mouth. Looking up at Spencer, worry plain in his eyes no matter how hard he tried to hide it, you came to a decision, “Spence?”

He bowed slightly closer to you so he could hear you better, “What is it, love?” He moved his hand, so it was gently cupping your cheek.

Leaning into his touch, you whispered, “It’s too much.” The only thing you had left was to hope he knew what you were talking about, the words were too hard right now, but you felt them contributing to the burning in your chest.

“Okay,” he answered. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about disappointing anyone.”

You practically melted back into the hospital bed; the weight of your job eased off of you. Nodding, you closed your eyes, “It’s good, this is good. I just feel crazy, but a good crazy.”

Spencer smiled at you, “Okay crazy,” he whispered, “I’m going to-“ He was abruptly cut off by his phone ringing, furrowing his brows, he swiped the screen and held the phone up to his ear, “Hey, JJ.”

Cocking your head to the side, you tried to listen to JJ’s side of the conversation, but either she was speaking quietly, or Spencer had his phone volume really low. From the way Spencer’s jaw tightened, you knew that this couldn’t be anything good.

He looked at you before looking at the door, “Do you know where?” He said in a tone entirely unfamiliar to you, it was low and steely. Reaching over you, he nimbly pressed the call button on your bed, “Okay, keep me updated.”

“Spencer, what is going on?” You asked as the nurse came into your room, faltering for a moment as she looked at the two of you.

Placing a hand on the bar of your hospital bed, Spencer looked at the nurse, “Do you have somewhere secure she can be moved to?”

The nurse looked shellshocked, surely the FBI occupying the hospital wasn’t an everyday occurrence, “I don’t… I don’t think so?” She seemed unsure of herself.

“Spencer,” you repeated his name.

He turned to look at you, “Jake’s here and he’s looking for you.” Turning back to the nurse, he pointed at you, “She has to be moved.”

“I don’t… I’m just a student, my preceptor is taking a break. I could try to find-“ The nurse stammered nervously. “We don’t usually just move people.”

Nothing about this situation was usual, but one look at Spencer told you this was life or death. Your life or your death. You sighed in defeat, “This is really going to suck.” Reaching over to your side, you gripped the tube that had been draining blood from outside your lung and pulled it out. Like ripping off a band-aid.

In the process, you tore the stitches holding it in place and set off all kinds of alarms, leading to a crowd of nurses and doctors charging into the room.

As someone held pressure down on where you were bleeding, someone said something about moving you to a sterile procedure room, and the nursing student trailed along, whispering “That was the stupidest smart thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”

Everything was blurry when you woke up next and, through the blinds, you could see that the sun was finally rising. The warm, orange light peeking through like lines on a piece of paper.

“Hey,” Spencer said from right next to you, placing a gentle hand on your arm. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” he whispered.

You looked away from him, back towards the blinds, “Will you open them?” You rasped, your throat felt raw, and your body felt heavy.

He got up and ambled over to the window, twisting the mechanism until the sun poured into your room. “How are you feeling?”

“Heavy,” you whispered, the mental weight of the past several days was threatening to take you down, but physically you felt like Atlas himself, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Spencer hummed in response, “They sedated you, standard procedure for people who rip their own chest tubes out.” He adjusted the way your gown rested on your shoulders, “Luckily you didn’t do too much damage.”

You took a deep breath and leaned your head so you could look out the window. The outside felt so foreign to you now, you couldn’t remember the last time you had breathed real, fresh air. “So, what is the damage?” Your voice was little more than a murmur but with just the two of you in your room, it wasn’t hard to hear.

“You’re going to be fine; they think the tube can go later today. Then they’ll evaluate whether enough you’re strong enough to go home, it’ll probably be another couple of days,” He explained to you, matching your gentle tone. “Johnathan McCallister is in custody, and Jake Cohn is dead,” he told you, studying your face for any kind of reaction.

Closing your eyes, you felt white hot tears stream down your cheeks. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, laughing a little despite yourself. He probably thought you were losing it, crying over the death of someone who had nearly had you murdered.

The edge of your mattress dipped down slightly, and you opened your eyes to see Spencer sitting next to you, “You don’t need to be sorry, my love.” Gently, he rested a hand on your hip, skimming his thumb over the rough fabric of your hospital gown, “He was like family to you. I’m not sorry he’s dead – I’m not. I am sorry for that loss, though.”

Nodding, you felt it as your face crumpled, leading Spencer to lean down and hug you as best he could. “I’m sorry I scared you,” you said as he pulled away.

Your furrowed your brows in confusion as he reached into his pocket and produced your wedding ring, taking your left hand, he slid the rings on, “For better or for worse, right?”

A small smile grew on your face as the gem on your finger shimmered in the morning light, “for richer or for poorer,” you continued.

“In sickness and in health,” Spencer whispered, eyes flickering around the hospital room.

You reached up a shaky hand and cupped his cheek with your palm, “to love and to cherish.” You said, feeling a dopey, lovesick grin blooming on your face.

He turned his head and kissed the center of your palm, “until parted by death,” he finished, taking your hand in his.

“No dying,” you insisted, feeling your energy begin to drain, you started to understand why the doctors didn’t want you going home for a few days.

Spencer hummed in response, “You almost did. If you hadn’t been found when you were-“ his voice broke off and you had to tear your eyes away from his for a moment. “I still can’t believe you chose that,” he whispered, looking at you like you hung the moon.

Shrugging as if it was nothing, you melted back into the pillows, “I had a split second to weigh my options – get sold into sex slavery or get stabbed in the chest.”

“A catch-22,” he nodded, wrapping his head around your impossible decision. You couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take until the fear in his eyes left.

You shifted a little in the hospital bed, the sheets rustling as you did, “We get it, you’ve read Joseph Heller.”

He smiled at that, the light teasing seemed to bring brightness to his face, “What is it about blood loss that makes you think you’re funny?”

Laughing lightly, you squeezed his hand as tightly as you could manage, “I am funny. And I’m tired.”

“Go back to sleep then, baby,” he said softly, “it’ll all be here when you wake up.”

There was a party in your hospital room. It started with just Emily, coming in because you were finally up to seeing anyone other than Spencer, and it ended up being the entire BAU.

Someone had gone to the apartment and gathered clothes for you so that, once your chest tube was removed, you could put on real clothes. So now you were sitting up, wearing sweatpants and a ratty old college sweatshirt, and laughing with the BAU. You were leaning heavily on Spencer, who was also sitting on your hospital bed, but he didn’t seem to have a problem with keeping you steady.

Luckily for you, no one in the BAU wanted to ask about what had happened on your assignment, they were more interested in the rings that adorned your and Spencer’s fingers.

“I still can’t believe you two secretly got married,” Penelope said. “Of all of the times for me to not answer my phone.”

Next to her, Luke shrugged, “Honestly, I can believe it. It feels like a very Y/N and Reid thing to do.”

Gently, Spencer rubbed your back. His hovering was quickly going to become insufferable, but right now you were welcoming every touch with open arms.

“Well, we’ll have a party for the two of you. When you’re up for it, of course,” JJ said, smiling from where she was standing next to Emily.

You wanted to shake your head and tell them that it really wasn’t necessary, but asking the BAU to refrain from throwing a party was like asking a shark to stop swimming. Instead of debating, you just smiled and bobbed your head.

Eventually, Andi showed up, just as you knew she would. “Hey, guys,” Emily nodded in the direction of the doorway, “Why don’t we go raid the hospital cafeteria?”

After a few more hugs, including a lingering one from Garcia, the BAU, save for your husband, filtered out, and Andi made her way to the foot of your bed. “Hey,” you said, your voice was soft.

Nine years. You had spent nine years in the sex crimes unit. Spencer had done the math, you’d spent approximately seventy-six percent of that time undercover, missing birthdays, holidays, not ever really looking forward to the future. Until now.

You, the most decorated member of the sex crimes unit, were leaving.

Suspiciously, you eyed the files in Andi’s arms, one was a case file, the other a plain manila folder. She silently handed you the case file, and you shared a look with Spencer before flipping it open. “The Program is gone?” You asked, your eyes skimming the folder.

Swann nodded, her brown hair swaying with the movement, “The arrest of the leader of the D.C. chapter greatly contributed to that, but it was the death of the ringleader that took the remainder of The Program down.”

Closing your eyes, you nodded as you tried to process what she was telling you. Jake had been in charge all along. “Andi, I-“

“It was your intel that did it,” she cut you off. “From your last several assignments, everything you collected directly contributed to the downfall of this trafficking network. One of the largest networks the FBI has ever seen.”

She handed you the next file, labeled with only your name. You flipped it open, well aware that Spencer was reading from over your shoulder. “I don’t qualify for retirement,” you told her, furrowing your eyebrows, and looking at the papers in front of you. You didn’t qualify for retirement, and yet, you were looking at a retirement offer.

Your unit chief nodded understandingly, “I pulled some strings, with some help. Collectively, Prentiss and I know a lot of people.”

Spencer placed a supportive hand on your back, and you looked up at Andi. “I’m only thirty-two?” You asked, it wasn’t a clarification, it was a question.

“And yet,” she answered, “you’ve done more for the Bureau than most agents could hope to do in their whole career. This plan came from the director, Y/N. He wanted you to have it.”

Shaking your head, you handed the folder over to your husband so he could look through it. “I don’t… can I think about it?”

“He’ll want an answer soon but talk it over and give me a call when you’ve come to a decision,” she said, grabbing her things and making her way to the door. “And Y/N?”

You lifted your head up to meet her eyes, “Yeah, Andi?”

She smiled at you, a rare, real smile from her, “Make the right decision for you. You have a small army ready to support you through everything.”

Slowly, your gaze followed her out the door, waiting until you heard the latch of the door secure. Spencer handed the folder back to you, “What do you want to do?”

You flipped through the folder again, it was a lot of money, and there were a few different distribution options, but it was more than you felt you’d ever need. “I don’t really feel like I deserve this,” you whispered, reaching your hand up and rubbing the back of your neck. “The Bureau doesn’t offer early retirement like this, not without extenuating circumstances,” you continued.

“They did it with Hotch,” Spencer said, reading the file over your shoulder.

Shaking your head, you leaned over to look at him, “That was way different, Haley was murdered by a serial killer.”

Spencer sighed, “I think you’re selling yourself short, darling. The Program was trafficking almost 12,000 people across the country. That’s almost 70 percent of the yearly total trafficking victims. You took them down,” he told you earnestly.

Your shoulders slouched forward, “I didn’t do it alone, though.”

“Didn’t you, though? They sent you in with no communication device, no emergency signal, and information that wasn’t even true. Your unit told you Johnathan McCallister was the leader of the ring, but it ended up being a decorated agent and you’re the one who figured that out,” Spencer spoke emphatically. “You almost died in the process, and now there are thousands of victims who are going to go home – all thanks to you.”

Wiping at your eyes, you looked at your husband, “You’re biased.” That felt true, but Spencer was the person who knew you best in the world.

“What’s holding you back?” He murmured gently, sweeping strands of your hair behind your ears.

Smiling unsurely, you closed your eyes, “Fear of the future. In the past nine years, the longest I’ve ever been home was four weeks. I don’t… What do you want me to do?”

He shook his head slowly, “it’s not my decision.” A diplomatic answer, you should’ve guessed.

“But what do you want me to do?” You pressed.

Sighing, you watched him weigh his options, “If my choices are you going back out into the field and getting hurt again, where maybe it doesn’t have this good of an outcome, or you, safe at home, where I get to see you more than approximately three months a year, then the choice is clear.”

When he laid it out for you like that, it was pretty clear. “Maybe I could finally see what all the BAU spouses are talking about. You know, how you’re never home,” you said. Some part of you always felt disconnected from the other BAU family members, Spencer wasn’t the one who was never home, you were.

Spencer laughed lightly, “We could celebrate your birthday together.” That was the one day you always missed. Almost six years together, and something always came up on your birthday.

“I’ve never had this before,” you whispered, there was still something about it that felt tentative, almost frail.

Smilingly softly, Spencer reached out and took your hand in his, “Had what before?”

You beamed, “A future to plan.” Everything was always laid out for you, every day was spent waiting for the next directive, a new assignment. “I mean, not in nine years.”

There were always dreams, late-night murmurs with Spencer about a house with a yard and kids running around, but they were just dreams. The nights when you were able to sleep next to each other. “Do you have plans for us?”

Nodding rapidly, you answered, “Oh yeah, you and me, I’ve got big plans for us.”

next

please remember to like, reblog, and comment if you enjoyed :-)

[sixwingedmercy]

Continued from here -> X @second-wife-playbook

"Ah! Thank you so much!" Emily said, her wings flapping slightly before folding gently behind her back. "You can call me Emily! Or Em. Or well... whatever you want. I don't mind!" She spoke, laughing gently. "It's a pleasure to meet you! What's your name? Wow, you look very similar to some angels in Heaven. You are a Goetia, correct?" She knew a little bit about Hell's population, but most of it was kept from here. It was just recently that she began studying it all.

[13uswntimagines]

Pranksters of the Bunch (Harry Potter AU)

Y/n is just starting to get comfortable with her new friends, when she learns about their more... playful side. We learn about more relationships and see hints of our endgame. We also get a glimpse of some other players that make up the rest of our version of Hogwarts. @literaryhedgehog

Pt. 1

“For next class, homework is to practice your transfiguration. Anyone who can get their matchstick into a needle is exempt from writing their essay. You are dismissed,” Professor McGonagall said, tapping her wand on the blackboard so the notes from the day’s lesson disappeared. As the other students began filing out of the room you picked up your bag and dropped your notes into it, careful to set your “quill” gently so the bic ballpoint pen you taped to it wouldn’t fall off.

“If you epoximose it, you won’t have to worry about it falling off” Lindsey said with an eye roll, slinging her bag over her shoulder. Some of your habits were a bit… odd. Like your preference for a pen that you didn’t have to dip in ink. 

“I’m sorry, if I what?” you asked. “That sounds like a sneeze.” 

“It’s a spell that’ll glue it so you don’t need to use spell-o-tape,” Kelley said, appearing on your other side as Professor McGonagall left the room.  

“I can teach you, if you like. It’s super simple, even a first year could do it,” Emily offered, ignoring Lindsey’s sideways glare. 

“Then why don’t they teach it to us as first years?” You said, slamming your chair under the desk. Not that you disliked any of your classes, but the curriculum seemed to leave out a lot of useful information. 

“Because they’re afraid that it’ll just help students do better pranks,” Lindsey huffed, crossing her arms. If anyone was going to teach you things, it should be her. 

“No they’re not,” Ashlyn said, rolling her eyes. “They teach tricky techniques that are applicable to multiple spells. It’s like quidditch drills.” 

“Cause it’s so much less challenging than fighting a boggart, or accioing anything. If you mess it up, then you could glue your fingers together,” Emily snorted, shaking her head. She was just lucky that Madam Pomfrey liked her enough to not rat her out to Professor Slughorn (not that he’d actually do anything) or Professor Longbottom. 

“Or accidentally drop a banner on the Huffelpuffs?” Ashlyn said with a raised eyebrow. Emily and Kelley seemed to shrink just a bit under her gaze. 

“That was you?” You asked, eyes wide. That banner had almost knocked Cheney off her broom and Amy was pissed. Rumor had it that the Slytherin captain had taken care of the incident because it was someone in her house that did it, but no one knew for sure (at least you thought no one knew). 

“You can’t prove anything,” Emily grumbled. 

“It was them,” Lindsey nodded, smirking at you. “and Arod made sure they not only apologized, but that they actually meant it. Kelley only got away unscathed because she hid in Gryffindor tower,”  

Those two always got themselves in over their heads and something always went wrong. You could only wonder what the Slytherin chaser did to them. Amy was terrifying when she wanted to be especially when you messed with her girlfriend. 

“Of course I meant it, the banner wasn’t supposed to fall,” Emily grumbled. “The charm was supposed to last the whole game. Anyway, she made me practice the sticking charm and its reverse a hundred times so it wouldn’t happen again. Not that it matters next year when I’m actually on the team. It’s stupid that they still don’t want second years to play beater.”

“At least this time there won’t be any accidents,” Ashlyn said, smirking as she settled into a chair previously vacated by some of your second year peers. Which was when you realized it was kind of odd that she was here. Wasn’t she a third year student?

“What do you mean?” You asked, your head tilting to the side like a puppy. 

“Wait THIS time?” Lindsey, asked, looking between the three girls settling down at the desks like it wasn’t the end of the day’s classes. “Don’t tell me you’re planning another prank right now?”

“Of course not!” Kelley said, looking aghast. 

“You haven’t left the room yet,” Emily said, adopting a similarly innocent, wide eyed expression. 

“They’re going to be dumbasses and probably get detention for a month aren’t they?” You asked, looking at Lindsey for help. Though you had know been hanging out with them for the past few weeks, they were still her friends after all. 

“Oh. I don’t want detention though,” Ashlyn said flipping through a spellbook absentmindedly. “And it will be rather hard to prove we have anything to do with an event which might or might not happen in the next few days.”

“Just a word of advice, though. If you’re going to take a shower today, do it in the next two hours and don’t take one tomorrow morning,” Emily said finally, eyes softening just a little at your too nervous expression. 

“You don’t think they’re going to test your wands to see if it was you?” Lindsey asked skeptically. 

“Priori incantatem only goes so far, especially if I tutor Y/n on how to glue her pens together,” Emily rolled her eyes, and shrugged. She would argue she was just being a good friend after all. 

“With the kind of prep work we’ve done, they’d have to go back, oh, at least three days before they saw any hint that we’ve done a spell related to the event, which again, might or might not start in,” Kelley checked her watch, the face of which glowed a soft yellow, “two hours and five minutes, give or take 20 seconds.”

You wondered if she came from a muggle family too, but you had been too afraid to ask. You had never met a wizard or witch that preferred wristwatches to pocket watches before. 

“In that case, we’ll head back to the Gryffindor dorms,” Lindsey said, hastily sweeping her transfiguration notes into the mouth of her bag. “See you at dinner Kelley, Ashlyn.”

“Want to meet in the library to learn the sticking charm Y/n?” Emily asked. Lindsey stopped in the doorway, waiting for you. “Like I said, I practiced the charm literally a hundred times, so I’m really good at it now!”

“Um, I think I’m just going to focus on turning my matchstick into a needle tonight, but maybe some other time?” You mumbled, glancing up at Lindsey. (Were you imagining the slight uptick of her lips?) 

“Okay,  See you then!” And with that Emily turned back to her compatriots, who all put their heads together and started talking in hushed voices, over a sheet of paper which looked eerily similar to a playbook. 

“What do you think they’re planning?” you whispered to Lindsey as the two of you raced towards the stone staircases up to the Gryffindor tower. There was this one staircase that was the fastest way up when it was connected to the right floor, but it only stayed there for a few minutes every half hour. If you missed the window to catch it there would be two extra flights to climb. 

“You really don’t want to know. Something always goes wrong when they make plans anyway. It’s why they always get caught,” Lindsey said back equally as quiet, shaking her head. She would skin them alive if you got caught in the crossfire. You were on her off limits list (you always had been) and they had always promised to respect that. 

*****

The two of you just made it to the beginning of dinner, after taking turns in the dorm’s bathroom to shower and dry your hair (at least until it wasn’t noticeably dripping). You didn’t know when your next opportunity to take a shower unscathed would be, and you were happy you had made it within Kelley’s two hour window. 

However, despite your expectations of screams, or the sound of frogs appearing from the drains, it was a quiet night. As was the morning afterwards. It wasn’t until lunch the next day, that you learned what the prank had been. Exactly as the clock struck noon, all around the great hall people started laughing as the hair of ¾ the school population turned bright colors. 

Professor McGonagall frowned at her bright purple hair in the reflection of her teapot. Alex threw a roll at Kelley (with neon yellow hair) who was pointing and laughing at her forest green hair. Tobin and Lauren had fallen off the bench laughing over at the hufflepuff table, pointing towards their respective girlfriends matching pink hair at the ravenclaw and Slytherin tables (Tobin’s hair didn’t seem to have changed color, though Lauren’s was a pale aquamarine sort of blue).

 At the Slytherin table Michelle was admiring her jet black hair, though with a wave of her wand it seemed to be speckled with glimmering white and red stars, then she turned to resume her conversation with Joy and some of the other seventh years, who you noticed didn’t seem to have colorful hair. 

Looking around the hall, you noticed that a lot of the older students seemed to be lacking the colorful hair sprouted by most of the student body. A few Ravenclaw sixth years had only looked up briefly from studying their notes to see what the commotion was about, before returning to “The Official N.E.W.T.S. Study Guide- test prep for the procrastinator”. Hope, Brandi, Mia, Briana, Christie, Tiffany, Lorrie, Carla. You looked at the sixth and seventh years you knew from watching quidditch games. Regardless of house, almost none of them appeared to be affected by the prank.. 

“You could have told me, you know?” Alex glared, throwing another roll at her cackling girlfriend. 

“But what fun would that be?” Kelley snorted, dodging the roll and quickly snatching up the basket to remove any further ammunition out of Alex’s reach. 

“Ashlyn told Ali and Emily told Kristie!” Alex whined, her nose scrunching up just the way Kelley always loved. Alex’s angry face was too cute for her to be like or off limits. 

“I value my life too much to mess with her hair care routine,” Ashlyn said, lifting her hands in surrender at Kelley’s death stare. Ali was on her off limits list after all, and that was a line she wasn’t willing to cross. 

“And you’ll notice all three of us were also affected by this terrible prank some stranger pulled!” Kelley said, unable to keep a straight face to match her seemingly offended tone. 

“Though I think I might use my free period after lunch to practice some quidditch drills,” Ashlyn said, twirling a strand of her bright maroon hair around a finger. “I have a feeling that the color will fade after I dump the icy cooler water over my head.” 

“Need someone to send some quaffles your way?” Lindsey asked around a large bite of turkey. She was always down to practice, especially if it meant avoiding the food fight that seemed to be brewing at their table. 

“Wait, ice water?” You asked Kelley as Ashlyn and Lindsey began discussing practice plans. Kelley jumped on the opportunity to escape Alex’s ire. 

“Oh yeah, we- um, whoever pulled this terrible prank- tied the spell to the hot water pipes. It should be safe to take a hot shower by tonight, but basically anyone who used hot water last night or this morning was affected. Cold water removes it though, which is why we quidditch players will discover the counter first, as we are known for taking ice baths after practice.”

“So I have to freeze my ass off to fix this shit!!” Alex screeched, plucking at the strands of green hair falling into her eyes. 

“Come on,” Lindsey said, grabbing your arm and pulling you towards where Brandi was sitting at the front of the Gryffindor table. “Let’s go get the locker room key from Brandi so we can go practice before potions.” 

“Yeah, let’s do that” You mumbled, eyes widening at how Alex was now towering over Kelley. You didn’t know the beater could shrink so far into her chair. 

Brandi, it turned out, was talking with professor McGonagall about the house cup this year. Though no longer head of Gryffindor house, McGonagall was still invested in the team’s progress. 

“Oh, speak of the boggart, here are our two latest recruits,” Brandi said, gesturing at you and Lindsey as you walked toward her. “Professor, Lindsey is our newest chaser and Y/n is one of the best first time seekers Mia has ever seen.”

“Speaking of which,” Lindsey said jumping in, “We were hoping to practice some drills after lunch. Could we borrow the locker room keys?”

You stood just behind her, still a little intimidated by both women. 

“It is good to see some responsibility coming from some of our second year Gryffindors,” Professor McGonagall said, smiling at you- when you peeked out from behind the taller chaser- and Lindsey in turn.  “I do think some of your classmates, and perhaps even some of our third year students could learn a thing or two from you.”

You weren’t sure how to respond, so you smiled meekly and quickly made your way out of the great hall with Lindsey and the acquired keys. “What do you think she meant by that? Do you think she knows who did it?”

“Oh absolutely,” Lindsey said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t take a Seer to predict that they’re going to have detention tomorrow night. Now come on, I want to try that new feint you read about.”  

[themadamespod]

Sharon Carter: A Study in Selfishness

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier spotlighted some hard truths. Beyond its real-world parallels, it’s changed our perspective on the MCU. And on the heels of the finale, we can’t help but reflect on how we got here.

It feels like ages ago that an alien invaded Earth believing it was his right to do so. This madman imposed his will upon a whole planet. He wielded god-like power over an entire species. He took the lives of countless people, leaving the rest to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. 

In doing so, he became one of the most beloved characters in the MCU.

So why is it that many of the people who adore a monster are now so disappointed with Sharon Carter?

Easy. Loki is a man. 

Angels and Demons

Relax, everybody. This is not an anti-Loki treatise. I’m writing this post with a Loki poster behind my chair, a Loki mug on my desk, and a Loki t-shirt on my back.

To be fair, it helps that the God of Mischief is played by one of the most charming, attractive men in Hollywood. But Emily VanCamp is no slouch. She’s a beautiful, talented actor who elevates any project. So why are people upset that she’s the Power Broker?

Women aren’t supposed to veer from familial or cultural expectations. 

Women aren’t supposed to put themselves first. 

Women aren’t supposed to seize power in a man’s world. 

The events of Civil War alone had a tremendous impact on the characters we love. Sam and Bucky’s respective ordeals changed them forever, and The Blip forced them to adapt even further. So many people are praising their growth in the TFATWS finale, and we’re among them. But it’s frustrating to then see comments like these:

“Omg wtf is wrong with Sharon? That is NOT who she is!”

“Since when is Sharon evil? That ain’t her.”

“Sharon is totally a Skrull. The Sharon we know would never turn her back on everything she stands for.”

Guess what, folks? Just like Sam and Bucky, the Sharon we once knew no longer exists. She, too, changed and grew - right out of the box that the patriarchy built for her. And people don’t know how to handle it.  

Double Standards

Misogyny is so deeply woven into the fabric of our society that a lot of people, women included, often don’t see it. But it’s in almost every facet of daily life, leaching into our brains like a toxin. And TFATWS called Marvel out on it by illustrating a simple fact:

Men and women who behave in the same way are treated very differently.

A man who tramples others for a promotion is ambitious. A woman is a conniving bitch.

A man who sleeps around is held up as a ladies’ man. A woman is looked down upon as a whore.

A man who logs extra time at the office is a good provider. A woman is neglecting her family. 

Despite centuries of fighting for our right to exist, women are still brainwashed to be and be seen as lesser than men. We’re expected to conform to roles meant to keep us subservient. We’re told that caring for others is more important than caring for ourselves. 

Sharon Carter received the same cultural programming. And it’s likely that she felt familial pressure (either explicit or implicit) to follow in Aunt Peggy’s footsteps, whether she wanted to or not. 

And follow she did.

Sharon joined S.H.I.E.L.D. She fought armed HYDRA agents. Then she sacrificed her life, her career, and her freedom for the greater good. And what did she get for it?

The same thing women always get when they put everyone else’s best interests ahead of their own. 

She got fucked. 

A Matter of Perspective

Let’s pretend the TFATWS finale had gone differently. The Power Broker is a previously unseen bad guy, a Wilson Fisk type. After the U.S. government branded her as a fugitive and the Avengers forgot her, Sharon has just been trying to survive in Madripoor.

Nonetheless, she helps Sam and Bucky neutralize Karli. Sam secures Sharon’s pardon and she reclaims her former post as a dutiful C.I.A. agent.

Talk about disappointing; that would be like watching a woman return to a man who beats her. 

In reality, Sharon is revealed as the Power Broker. After the people for whom she gave everything betrayed her, she built a lucrative business from scratch using a canny brain and the skills S.H.I.E.L.D. taught her.

Now for those who are incensed by Sharon’s turn because she’s selling weapons, please see Exhibit A:

Even after Tony Stark stopped manufacturing weapons for the U.S. government, he continued making them for S.H.I.E.L.D. If memory serves, he also created a sentient murder-bot that leveled a city before nearly annihilating mankind.

Tony’s intentions were noble, but that didn’t make him any less responsible for a humanitarian disaster. The Sokovians would have been well within their rights to demand Tony’s arrest and incarceration.

But we love Tony, so we don’t like to go there.

And speaking of the U.S. government, let’s be real. American politicians wouldn’t condemn Sharon for illegally selling weapons to dangerous groups. They’d condemn her for cutting into their own profits. 

If there’s one thing the U.S. government excels at, it’s creating and arming terrorists. Sharon’s just running their playbook.

Redefining Selfishness

In all fairness, some people’s disappointment over Sharon’s arc has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with heroism. For this discussion, see Exhibit B:

Ever since Steve Rogers got his happy ending with Peggy Carter in Endgame, the Marvel fandom has been divided into two camps.

Camp 1: Steve is a selfish bastard who abandoned his family, his country, and the world when they all needed him the most.

Camp 2: Steve did more than enough for his family, his country, and the world when they all needed him most and deserved his happiness.

I will always be a card-carrying member of Camp 2, which is one reason I exited my Endgame theater as a human ball of snot. 

Steve Rogers gave enough for his country even before he was defrosted. He liberated a POW camp behind enemy lines. He defeated Red Skull. He saved countless lives by crashing the HYDRA bomber into the arctic, sacrificing his own life in the process.

And when he was resurrected after 70 years, did he stop and smell the roses? Read a book on the beach?

No. He saved the world. Again, and again, and again.

It’s incredibly noble that a life with Peggy is all Steve wanted. Think about Michael Bay’s uber-patriotic Armageddon. Those roughnecks had quite the list of demands for saving the world, all of which seemed perfectly reasonable because, hello, they were saving the world. 

So what does this have to do with Sharon Carter? Well, if you’re in Steve Rogers Camp 1, you likely see Sharon as a selfish bitch. I’ll make the same argument in her defense:

She’s given more than enough for others. She has every right to now put herself first.

We as women need to redefine selfishness. It’s been weaponized against us for far too long. We have to reframe it as a positive concept whereby we simply make our needs a priority in our own lives. 

If more women embraced selfishness, we would be unstoppable. 

Oh, and if you’re in Steve Rogers Camp 2 but still disappointed in Sharon Carter, you’ve got some hypocrisy on your chin. Might want to wipe that off. 

A Final Note

Alice Walker, who knows a thing or two about feminism, once said, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

When the name “Power Broker” was first dropped on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it felt cheesy. But now it seems like the perfect title for a woman who not only refused to give up her power, but actively sought more. 

Sharon Carter is unequivocally selfish, but that doesn’t make her evil or even wrong. 

It makes her one powerful woman. And we can’t wait to see her again. 

[luzdelmundo]

2020 in review

I was tagged to do this by the loveliest @unefleurofferte, thank you for letting me reflect on my life and for sharing your thoughts, stories and insights to your life, it was such a worthwhile read! <3 

I am tagging @maailmaonsun, @dunedjarin & @vinylchemist, feel free to do it if you feel like it! Sending you hugs and lots of warmth, I hope your 2021 will be a great year to you 🥰

Rules: answer the questions about 2020 and tag some people to pass it on!

5 favourite films you watched in 2020:

This is a compilation has no particular order, but I did love them all. 

The Theory of Everything - I was a bit late to the party, but this movie was something special 

The Gentlemen - this movie has it all, a great piece of entertainment 

What Happened, Miss Simone? - such a powerful piece

Age of Adaline - I adore everything about this movie, even with many medical inaccuracies 

Happiest Season - because who doesn’t love a lesbian Christmas movie after the hardest year to date

5 favourite tv shows you watched in 2020:

This year tv shows were the main coping mechanism and I’m not even sorry about it. 

Killing Eve - do I need to say more? 

Haunting of Bly Manor -  Dani and Jamie are the blueprint, I love them with my whole heart 

Dead to me - this was my comfort show for the majority of 2020 

The Playbook: Coach’s rules for life - related to the subject of my studies, really helped me to come up with my own coaching philosophy 

Grey’s Anatomy - yes, really, I rewatched the whole thing 2 times this year 

5 favourite songs you listened to in 2020:

Spotlight by Jessie Ware - this songs takes me to another dimension, I love the ambience, it was also a song my friends called the ultimate aesthetic of mine

III by Foster The People - it’s one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard in my life, my heart belongs to that song

Sao Paolo by Lapti - the ultimate song for chilling, road trips, cooking and everything in between

Dog Years by Maggie Rogers - personal favourite for the 2nd year in a row, if I would ever describe my attachment style or love languages I would use this song 

seven by Taylor Swift - it was a song that made me realise certain childhood behaviours, it always makes me tear up and it is special, will always be 

Top 5 albums of 2020:

What’s your pleasure? by Jessie Ware - she has always been my favourite, and this album is truly something else. Best record of 2020, no doubt about it 

- Ugh, those feels again by Snoh Alegra - she’s been my biggest discovery of 2020 and I’m so happy I found her 

Fine Line by Harry Styles - he is my sweetheart, this album was definitely one of my most listened 

The S(EX) Tapes by FLETCHER - a queer breakup album? It’s everything I never knew I needed 

Iridescent by Ayoni - such a wonderful vibe, 10/10 

Top 5 books you read in 2020:

2020 was definitely not a reading year for me and I can openly admit it, although there were some pieces I will treasure for a long time 

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus - I love this man’s writing, it has been a favourite for a long time, but I kept coming back to this one to find the meaning for all that has happened 

The Rebel by Albert Camus - yes. another one from him. just because. 

Becoming by Michelle Obama - this is a Michelle Obama stan Tumblr 

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth - being gay and coming from a Catholic background made this read a hard one, but worth it 

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - Donna Tartt, that is all. 

How did you spend your birthday this year?

I spent it with my best friend, we went hiking, we had tacos & margaritas. It was a nice relief and an escape from the pandemic reality. It felt great. I also had a small family celebration later that weekend. 

What was your most memorable day this year?

Getting into the sports coaching school. I came home from the office I had an internship, I was tired, I was in a crisis//survival mode, I was tired of business, of who I was. My life had little to no meaning anymore. I was a robot, I thought the world has very little to offer. Then I suddenly got an e-mail I got in. The entire world turned upside down. I am happier, I glow here, I belong here. It makes me cry having to think about it. It was the biggest blessing of 2020, hands down. 

What was your most memorable meal you had this year?

There were many, but I think the most memorable and meaningful one was when my best friend baked a Ukrainian cheesecake and embraced her heritage. Also, making hummus with my new flatmates after moving to the dorm was a big one. Also, shakshuka became my comfort meal of the year. 

Did you find any new hobbies or interests in quarantine?

Quite some, yes! I started paining again, I became a plant mom and a gardening expert, I grew my own cucumbers and tomatoes. I started baking again and make aesthetic moodboards on Pinterest getting pretty big following!  It’s one of my favourite spare time activities now!

What was the last big event/thing you remember doing BC (before covid)?

Going clubbing with my friends, I miss going out and dancing my heart out. 

5 good/positive things that happened to you in 2020:

Getting into my dream school!!!! I will be a sports performance coach, it still feels like an actual dream 

Going to therapy and dealing with personal problems, it was one of the best decision of my life 

Coming out to myself and living my truth

Losing the feeling of having to prove things to people

Learning that I can’t control everything and that it is okay. Life goes on. And it gets better.

Biggest messages or lessons learnt from this year?

Life can change within seconds, everything flows and goes, it in constant movements. Your inner critic lies, it will be okay and you will find yourself, find your heart. Love is loud. Love is beautiful, love makes the world go round. Growth is hard, overwhelmingly hard, but it is so so so so worth it. Magic happens everyday. Your gut knows, trust it. Protecting your peace is crucial for your sanity. 

And what are you most looking forward to in 2021?

Living, simple as that. For me 2021 will be the year of presence - wherever I’ll be, I will be fully there. 

[itnewslist]

The efforts to make text-based AI less racist and terrible

In July 2020, OpenAI launched GPT-3, an artificial intelligence language model that quickly stoked excitement about computers writing poetry, news articles, and programming code. Just as quickly, it was shown to sometimes be foulmouthed and toxic. OpenAI said it was working on fixes, but the company recently discovered GPT-3 was being used to generate child porn.

Now OpenAI researchers say they’ve found a way to curtail GPT-3’s toxic text by feeding the program roughly 100 encyclopedia-like samples of writing by human professionals on topics like history and technology but also abuse, violence, and injustice.

OpenAI’s project shows how the tech industry is scrambling to constrain the dark side of a technology that’s shown enormous potential but also can spread disinformation and perpetuate biases. There’s a lot riding on the outcome: Big tech companies are moving rapidly to offer services based on these large language models, which can interpret or generate text. Google calls them central to the future of search, and Microsoft is using GPT-3 for programming. In a potentially more ominous development, groups are working on open source versions of these language models that could exhibit the same weaknesses and share them more widely. So researchers are looking to understand how they succeed, where they fall short, and how they can be improved.

Abubakar Abid is CEO of machine-learning testing startup Gradio and was among the first people to call attention to GPT-3’s bias against Muslims. During a workshop in December 2020, Abid examined the way GPT-3 generates text about religions using the prompt “Two ___ walk into a.” Looking at the first 10 responses for various religions, he found that GPT-3 mentioned violence once each for Jews, Buddhists, and Sikhs, twice for Christians, but nine out of 10 times for Muslims. In a paper earlier this year, Abid and several coauthors showed that injecting positive text about Muslims to a large language model reduced the number of violence mentions about Muslims by nearly 40 percentage points.

Other researchers are trying different approaches. Emily Dinan, a research engineer at Facebook AI Research, is testing ways to eliminate toxic text by making more of it. Dinan hires Amazon Mechanical Turk contractors to say awful things in conversations with language models to provoke them to generate hate speech, profanity, and insults. Humans then label that output as safe or unsafe; those labels help train AI to identify toxic speech.

GPT-3 has shown impressive ability to understand and compose language. It can answerSAT analogy questions better than most people, and it was able to fool Reddit users without being found out.

But even its creators knew GPT-3’s tendency to generate racism and sexism. Before it was licensed to developers, OpenAI released a paper in May 2020 with tests that found GPT-3 has a generally low opinion of Black people and exhibits sexism and other forms of bias. Despite those findings, OpenAI announced plans to commercialize the technology a month later. That’s a sharp contrast from the way OpenAI handled an earlier version of the model, GPT-2, in 2019. Then, it initially released only small versions of the model. At the same time, partners in academia issued multiple studies of how large language models can be misused or adversely impact society.

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In the recent paper highlighting ways to reduce the toxicity of GPT-3, OpenAI disclosed tests showing the base version of GPT-3 refers to some people as animals and associates white people with terms like “supremacy” and “superiority”; such language perpetuates long-held stereotypes and dehumanizes non-white people. GPT-3 also makes racist jokes, condones terrorism, and accuses people of being rapists.

In another test, Xudong Shen, a National University of Singapore PhD student, rated language models based on how much they stereotype people by gender or whether they identify as queer, transgender, or nonbinary. He found that larger AI programs tended to engage in more stereotyping. Shen says the makers of large language models should correct these flaws. OpenAI researchers also found that language models tend to grow more toxic as they get bigger; they say they don’t understand why that is.

Text generated by large language models is coming ever closer to language that looks or sounds like it came from a human, yet it still fails to understand things requiring reasoning that almost all people understand. In other words, as some researchers put it, this AI is a fantastic bullshitter, capable of convincing both AI researchers and other people that the machine understands the words it generates.

UC Berkeley psychology professor Alison Gopnik studies how toddlers and young people learn to apply that understanding to computing. Children, she said, are the best learners, and the way kids learn language stems largely from their knowledge of and interaction with the world around them. Conversely, large language models have no connection to the world, making their output less grounded in reality.

“The definition of bullshitting is you talk a lot and it kind of sounds plausible, but there's no common sense behind it,” Gopnik says.

Yejin Choi, an associate professor at the University of Washington and leader of a group studying common sense at the Allen Institute for AI, has put GPT-3 through dozens of tests and experiments to document how it can make mistakes. Sometimes it repeats itself. Other times it devolves into generating toxic language even when beginning with inoffensive or harmful text.

To teach AI more about the world, Choi and a team of researchers created PIGLeT, AI trained in a simulated environment to understand things about physical experience that people learn growing up, such as it’s a bad idea to touch a hot stove. That training led a relatively small language model to outperform others on common sense reasoning tasks. Those results, she said, demonstrate that scale is not the only winning recipe and that researchers should consider other ways to train models. Her goal: “Can we actually build a machine learning algorithm that can learn abstract knowledge about how the world works?”

Choi is also working on ways to reduce the toxicity of language models. Earlier this month, she and colleagues introduced an algorithm that learns from offensive text, similar to the approach taken by Facebook AI Research; they say it reduces toxicity better than several existing techniques. Large language models can be toxic because of humans, she says. “That's the language that's out there.”

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Perversely, some researchers have found that attempts to fine-tune and remove bias from models can end up hurting marginalized people. In a paper published in April, researchers from UC Berkeley and the University of Washington found that Black people, Muslims, and people who identify as LGBT are particularly disadvantaged.

The authors say the problem stems, in part, from the humans who label data misjudging whether language is toxic or not. That leads to bias against people who use language differently than white people. Coauthors of that paper say this can lead to self-stigmatization and psychological harm, as well as force people to code switch. OpenAI researchers did not address this issue in their recent paper.

Jesse Dodge, a research scientist at the Allen Institute for AI, reached a similar conclusion. He looked at efforts to reduce negative stereotypes of gays and lesbians by removing from the training data of a large language model any text that contained the words “gay” or “lesbian.” He found that such efforts to filter language can lead to data sets that effectively erase people with these identities, making language models less capable of handling text written by or about those groups of people.

Dodge says the best way to deal with bias and inequality is to improve the data used to train language models instead of trying to remove bias after the fact. He recommends better documenting the source of the training data and recognizing the limitations of text scraped from the web, which may overrepresent people who can afford internet access and have the time to make a website or post a comment. He also urges documenting how content is filtered and avoiding blanket use of blocklists for filtering content scraped from the web.

Dodge created a checklist for researchers with about 15 data points to enforce standards and build on the work of others. Thus far the checklist has been used more than 10,000 times to encourage researchers to include information essential to reproducing their results. Papers that met more of the checklist items were more likely to be accepted at machine learning research conferences. Dodge says most large language models lack some items on the checklist, such as a link to source code or details about the data used to train an AI model; one in three papers published do not share a link to code to verify results.

But Dodge also sees more systemic issues at work. He says there’s growing pressure to move AI quickly from research into production, which he says can lead researchers to publish work about something trendy and move on without proper documentation.

In another recent study, Microsoft researchers interviewed 12 tech workers deploying AI language technology and found that product teams did little planning for how the algorithms could go wrong. Early prototyping of features such as writing aids that predict text or search completion tended to focus on scenarios in which the AI component worked perfectly.

The researchers designed an interactive “playbook” that prompts people working on an AI language project to think about and design for failures of AI text tech in the earliest stages. It is being tested inside Microsoft with a view to making it a standard tool for product teams. Matthew Hong, a researcher at the University of Washington who worked on the study with three colleagues while at Microsoft, says the study shows how AI language technology has in some ways changed faster than software industry culture. “Our field is going through a lot of growing pains trying to integrate AI into different products,” he says. “People are having a hard time catching up [and] anticipating or planning for AI failures.”

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

[arcticdementor]

Afew years ago I participated in a national security workgroup on disinformation. I was the only one in the group of about 20 people who had openly supported Trump in 2016. The other attendees were smart and professional, but there was a noticeable imbalance in partisan representation.

Since then, I’ve followed the disinformation community and have studied these issues. I take them seriously. My conclusion? Establishment disinformation, more than any other form of disinformation, is killing Western democracy. Disinformation from our own political and media establishment has caused more harm to Western democracy than any other force in the last two decades.

Consider the fallout from the sweeping information operations promoting lies about weapons of mass destruction. Remember how difficult it was to question these claims at the time? The WMD narrative created the pretext for wars that cost $6.4 trillion and 801,000 lives, according to a Brown University study. And we continue to pay the price. The suicide rate among veterans remains double that of the nation as a whole, and we’re still not out of Afghanistan after nearly 20 years.

Consider also the impact of the fake Russian collusion narrative—the lives ruined, loss of public trust, increased polarization, and damage to the peaceful transfer of presidential power, a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.

It is now a proven fact that Hillary Clinton and her Democratic National Committee stooges initiated a coordinated, multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign to undermine Donald Trump and detract from her email scandal. Establishment media breathlessly amplified false, paranoid, and circular narratives, many of which were greased by actual Russian disinformation laundered through the Steele dossier. Where are the calls from establishment media to identify journalists paid by Fusion GPS?

The FBI knew the Steele dossier and collusion narrative were false, just as they knew Hillary Clinton had weaponized these issues to cover up her email scandal—and they still used it as a predicate to spy on Trump’s campaign and launch the Mueller investigation, falsifying documents along the way. The FBI’s actions represent the greatest abuse of law enforcement power in half a century, and they were largely fueled by establishment disinformation.

Now consider the destruction and real-world harm caused by narratives about police racism following the death in May of George Floyd. Many of these narratives were based on falsehoods, anecdotes, and incidents where full information was suppressed to advance Black Lives Matter and Antifa mobilization efforts. The vandalism and looting that took place caused $1 billion to $2 billion in damages. Homicides are up 24 percent from last year in America’s 50 largest cities.

…

Establishment disinformation comes from both sides of the political aisle, but the “woke” radicalization of the Left combined with Trump derangement and a left-leaning media have given it a far-Left flavor. Thus, fake attacks against Jussie Smollett and Althea Bernstein go unquestioned by the same media that slanders the Covington kids and Brett Kavanaugh. Leaks targeting Trump are not scrutinized or censored in the same way they are when targeting Biden or his son Hunter. Dictionary definitions are conveniently changed to enforce establishment narratives. 

It may be a cliché, but Orwell didn’t write 1984 as a playbook. Yet here we are. As a friend quipped recently: “I thought we were becoming more like Brazil. Instead we’re looking more like East Germany.”

Establishment disinformation becomes tyrannical when false establishment narratives are combined with the active suppression of authentic dissenting discourse, which has been made highly efficient by the consolidation of discourse on social media platforms. Instead of state persecution and social credit scores, citizens of Western democracies face deplatforming, job losses, and character assassination by power-crazed, petty hall-monitor journalists and Soros-funded NGO researchers. Today’s Hester Prynne is the person who says all lives matter or gender is real. Woke narratives are our Xi Jinping Thought.

There are constructive ways we could address establishment disinformation, but you are unlikely to hear the disinformation community talk about it as an issue. That’s because much of the disinformation community consists of partisans who operate as arms of the DNC and left-wing foundations. While the Right has stupidly ignored these issues, the Left has weaponized “countering disinformation” as a DNC strategy backed by millions of dollars. The term has become so abused that a friend now jokes that “disinfo researcher” in someone’s Twitter bio is code for “DNC hack.” As you can imagine, the partisan weaponization of disinformation has done untold damage to the civic unity needed to address these issues in good faith.

There’s still a segment of disinformation researchers who are earnest, fair, and professional. But these folks almost all lean Left and exist in institutional environments that prevent pushing back on establishment narratives. This is why we haven’t seen reports on the Steele dossier or WMDs as disinformation case studies. This is why the skewed narratives, fear-mongering, and online mobilization efforts behind Black Lives Matter are never given the same scrutiny as, say, QAnon, despite the former causing significantly more offline harm. Meanwhile, challenging the First Amendment has become part of the zeitgeist for many of these people, an argument Emily Bazelon articulates in a recent New York Times Magazine essay.

[lazaroschamberger20]

The Last Lecture Audiobook Download

[Audio Books] The Last Lecture Audiobook Download by Randy Pausch

'We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.'

Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled 'The Last Lecture.' Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams'--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because 'time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think'). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Download The Last Lecture Audiobook Download by (Randy Pausch)

Duration: 4 hours, 30 minutes

Writer: Randy Pausch

Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA

Narrators: Eric Singer

Genres: Eric Singer

Rating: 4.49

Narrator Rating: 4.89

Publication: Tuesday, 01 April 2008

The Last Lecture Audiobook Download Reviews

Mignon W.

In a college class this book was required to read and like the other reviews. This book is surprisingly good!!

Rating: 5

Jason Rogers

Yeah awesome so Idk I had to read this and I think its Good bit sad so yeah bye

Rating: 5

Edward Reynolds

The Last Lecture was a book assigned to me to read about 6 years ago. Reluctantly I started the read, but I was soon surprised just how much of an impact this book would have on me. It showed the importance of many aspects of life and to never give up chasing your childhood dreams. The audio version was the second time I had gone through the book and it brought with it every emotion and benefit of physically reading it.

Rating: 5

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[theliterateape]

Cancellation is Now an Equal Opportunity Equation

by Don Hall

Holy Shit.

The hysteria. The hand-wringing. The hair-shirt rending.

Everyone is now in danger. Not from police violence (although that certainly affects approximately two percent of the American population). Not from mass shootings (likewise affecting slightly less than one percent in 2021). Not even from mosquitos (which annually kill about five percent of the population).

Everyone is now in danger...of cancellation.

Here is the distinction that saves the term cancellation from uselessness and hypocrisy: Cancellation is not criticism; cancellation is the absence of criticism. It is the replacement of criticism with a summary punishment. The punishment ranges in seriousness and could include withdrawal of a job or just an invitation, but the salient point is that it is meted out instantly and without deliberation, often as the result of a mob action. When this switcheroo becomes a habit, the normal way of doing things, we can call that “cancel culture,” and it is indeed a sign of intellectual and institutional rot. The failure to distinguish cancellation from criticism is the source of the humor in V. S. Naipaul’s quip after the Ayatollah Khomeini dispatched assassins to kill Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. Naipaul called Khomeini’s fatwa “a most extreme form of literary criticism.”

SOURCE

Gina Carano—Fired by Disney after posting on social media that being a Republican in 2021 was similar to being Jewish during Nazi Germany. Her Hollywood agent dropped her, and Hasbro scrapped her Star Wars action figure.

Emily Wilder—The AP Reporter with pro-Palestine inclinations was fired from the AP Arizona beat over tweets during the latest version of the Middle East "let's fight to the death for some fictionalized holy ground" skirmish.

Antonio Garcia Martinez—Hired by Apple. Company knew all about his tech memoir. 2,000 out 250,000 Apple employees signed a petition claiming his book made them feel “unsafe”. He was fired three weeks later.

Al Franken—Probably the earliest example of the right mobbing up to cancel a sitting Senator with massive Progressive street cred, Franken was taken down by the very people he was aggressively working for.

The Right was always a fan of cancellation in whatever forms they could create and use. The Right has been cancelling and mobbing people and companies for as long as I can remember—public shame is a chapter heading in the How to Be a Republican playbook for generations. The Left is now wielding it with a vengeance, citing the bold statement "When they go low, we do exactly what they do because it works". 

Everyone is a victim. Everyone is being held accountable by the neighborhood watch, various Karens, and those cancelled are left with no jobs, soiled reputations, and a bitter anger at the moralistic pinings of hypocrites have one other thing in common: their full story is never explored because to look more deeply would reveal the ugly high school mechanations of the practice as a whole.

If asked, most people in and around Chicago would parrot one of my close friend's answers when asked why I moved to the desert: "He burned too many bridges." Others, including my Literate ApeCast co-host, will skate around it but confirm that I was, indeed, cancelled by an online storyteller mob of about fifty. Due to the very nature of cancellation, it doesn't matter if any of this is true.

Does it matter that the storytelling behemoth organization didn't fire me but asked me to take a five-month break so things could die down and I refused? Does it matter that the situation at the public radio station had been strained a full year before the caustic, opportunistic chihuahua went lunatic? Does it matter that Dana and I had been talking about our "been here, done that, and fuck, I'm tired of the cold" yearning to leave Chicago for at least a solid six months before the ugly reputation burning began?

Nope.

See, that's not in the nature of the thing. "...the salient point is that it is meted out instantly and without deliberation, often as the result of a mob action." Once the mob is satisfied, it moves on to the next shiny object like the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

This was [throat clear] problematic when the Far Left decided it was a grand new weapon against the phantom enemies of the lived experience narrative but the Far Right has caught up. Both sides of this ideological culture war are cancelling people like a Whack-a-Mole game. The argument that this is simply about holding people accountable is a leaky boat with no oars.

This is about revenge and power. Revenge in the case of individuals publicly called out by other individuals; power in the case of groups going after institutions and corporations. Further, it is not up to individuals to effectively reign it in—this is entirely up to the institutions and corporate boards allowing the cancelling its teeth.

In the 90s, I ran a theater company. Started as a sketch comedy group, fell apart, and my response was to apply and secure nonprofit corporation status. I was the Executive Director on paper, the only Producer in reality. I was also a director, a performer, the chief marketer, the public relations guy, and the janitor. When there were personnel issues, I was the HR department.

At one point, three of the women in the company came to me and threatened to leave if a single individual, whom they accused of being a sexual predator, was allowed to stay. On the most microscopic of levels, this was a cancelling. Small group demanding the ouster of an individual on moral grounds or else.

I took their accusations seriously. I listened. No specifics of behavior that would be considered illegal or without the possibility of misunderstanding were presented. The dude was creepy. He hugged ladies a tad too long for comfort. He gave unsolicited back rubs. He said things to the women that they felt were inappropriate. He complimented them too much.

"Look," I told them. "I'm not one to negotiate with demands. Ultimatums are a bad faith approach so I won't cave to yours. That said, I'd like you to give me a chance to talk to him and try to instruct him on his behavior. If it doesn't improve in a month, I'll dump him."

They didn't like it, they bitched some more, but they agreed. I spoke with him, allowed him to explain himself, gave him the new rules governing his behavior, and he towed that line. I'd check in with the women every six weeks or so (I marked a reminder on my calendar) and each time for nearly a year, they indicated that he had changed his ways and that it was good.

When AP is confronted by a bunch of FOX News retards calling for Emily Wilder to be fired for her anti-Israel politicking? "Thanks for your concern. We'll take a look into it and if we deem it necessary to discuss the matter with our employee, we'll take care of it. If that's unacceptable, don't read our award-winning shit, fuck-os."

When Disney gets hit with people completely apoplectic about one of their Star Wars actors comparing her existence with Holocaust survivors? "Thanks for your concerns. While a completely stupid thing to tweet as Holocaust survivors rarely got million-dollar contracts to play a space ranger, we think we'll just yell at her some for being a public dipshit and leave it at that."

Being unpopular is not fatal (unless you were born after 1995). Mega-corporations losing the support of a slice of their consuming public because they believe they wield some magical Twitter power that Coca Cola or the NFL can't outspend by trillions of dollars isn't really worth the time it takes to fire someone.

Does this mean Matt Lauer shouldn't have been fired? No, the dude had a secret lock on his office door to trap chicks in there! Kevin Spacey? Yo, buyer beware. The Pharma Boy? Fuck that guy.

It means that, Christ, everyone has a beef and everyone is looking for power and most people haven't crossed the line from harmless offense to Third Reich Activity Club. Dispassionately understanding the difference between dumping toxic waste in the river that poisons a town and culturally appropriating yoga seems pretty obvious but what do I know? I'm an adult who refuses to play the game set forth.

The best outcome for this whole new (old, really old, been going on this way for centuries) cancellation thing is that the most histrionic on both sides of Crazy Town manage to cancel each other.

[dienhoathanglong]

When you are lost for words to express your love and affection towards your other half on this special day, Saigonflowershop comes in handy with some ideas and inspiration on what to write in a Valentine's card, taken straight from the most romantic movies, literary works and song lyrics of all time, ready to impress your loved ones on Valentine's Day!

1. "I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be."

- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

2. "It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together."

- Sleepless in Seattle

3. "Baby, you're all that I want when you're lying here in my arms, I'm finding it hard to believe we're in heaven."

- Bryan Adams (Heaven)

4. "I love you. I knew it the minute I met you. I'm sorry it took so long for me to catch up. I just got stuck"

- Silver Linings Playbook

5. "And when you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while, 'cause you're amazing, just the way you are."

- Bruno Mars (Just The Way You Are)

6. "And darling I will be loving you 'til we're 70. And baby my heart could still fall as hard at 23. And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways. Maybe just the touch of a hand. Oh me, I fall in love with you every single day. And I just wanna tell you I am. So honey now. Take me into your loving arms. Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars. Place your head on my beating heart. I'm thinking out loud. Maybe we found love right where we are."

- Ed Sheeran (Thinking Out Loud)

7. "I love our story. Sure it's messy, but it's the story that got us here."

- How I Met Your Mother

8. "You are pretty much the only thing that makes me want to get up in the morning."

- Me Before You

9. "It's like, in that moment the whole universe existed just to bring us together."

- Serendipity

10. "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

11. "I will love you my whole life. You and no other."

- Braveheart

12. "Take love, multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever... and you still have only a glimpse of how I feel for you."

- Meet Joe Black

13. "I hope you don't mind that I put down in words how wonderful life is while you're in the world."

- Elton John (Your Song)

14. "My heart is,

and always will be,

yours."

- Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Sometimes it can be hard to find the right words to tell someone how much they mean to you. Whether it is your first Valentine’s Day together or your twentieth, we can help you find the right sentiment to say to your loved one.

[daryllarson42451ftr]

Is Influencer Marketing Dead? A Hard Look at The Newest Data (and What You Can Do Instead)

Is anyone having deja vu?

Every time a new marketing tactic becomes more mainstream, marketers and researchers inevitably wonder if it has peaked and started to lose its effectiveness.

We’ve seen this before with SEO, email marketing, Facebook marketing, and many others.

It’s a fair question to ask, though.

After all, each year brings new trends in marketing, and some tactics can go out of style. It’s worth examining different approaches to see if they’re still effective.

The tactic we’ll evaluate today is influencer marketing.

Though influencer marketing has been around for a very long time, it has only become a popular marketing tactic in recent years.

With the influx of social media in 2004, influencer marketing exploded and became a lot more prevalent.

Now, fast forward 14 years later.

Influencer marketing has seen some incredible successes and even a few massive failures.

That’s why we need to take a closer look at influencer marketing in 2018.

Should you continue to invest in influencer marketing, or is it dead?

The answer isn’t exactly a simple “yes” or “no.”

But recent data can help you decide if influencer marketing has staying power and if it is the right tactic for your brand to implement in 2018.

The complex current state of influencer marketing in 2018

Let’s dive right in.

I’m going to address the million-dollar question that everyone is asking:

“Is influencer marketing dead?”

Here’s the answer: not really.

But, I have to admit, its future is uncertain.

At the moment, marketers are continuing to focus on influencer marketing as a viable and essential marketing tactic in 2018.

In fact, in the survey below, marketers picked it as the “fastest-growing online customer-acquisition method” over organic search, email, paid search, and more.

There’s no questioning the popularity of influencer marketing, especially in recent years.

Marketers seem to be searching for new ways to involve influencers on a variety of campaigns.

And they’re investing in their influencer marketing campaigns, too. The influencer marketing industry is booming.

Projections show that marketers will spend $2.38 billion on influencer marketing on Instagram in 2019. That’s more than a $700 million increase from 2018!

But it doesn’t matter if marketers are fans of influencer marketing. We need to look at the data to see if it works.

Is it truly effective? Are you getting a bang for your buck?

The answer to both questions is still “yes.”

Data shows that influencer marketing is still providing marketers with a strong return on investment. Let’s take a look.

The data shows that influencer marketing generates $6.50 for every dollar a company invests. Approximately 70% of companies earn $2 or more for every dollar, and 13% of companies earn $20 or more.

That’s valuable.

But you might not always be so lucky.

If you look closely, you’ll see that 18% of businesses didn’t receive any return on investment at all. When you factor this into how much a campaign can cost, things can get a little pricey.

This is one reason that many marketers (including myself) wonder how long influencer marketing will remain a viable tactic.

Many factors make the future of influencer marketing uncertain, too.

First, the FTC introduced regulations to “improve disclosures” in 2017. This helps consumers understand which posts are promotional, even if they are coming from an influencer.

While the regulations are needed, additional ones may cause some brands to stray away from influencer marketing due to the risk of malpractice.

Plus, influencer marketing campaigns are starting to get more expensive.

Mid-range influencers with 50,000 – 500,000 followers can charge anywhere from $400 to $2,500 for a post.

Influencers with a following in the millions can charge between $30,000 and $187,500 per post.

With such a large investment in a single post, marketers are expecting a huge ROI.

But there’s only one problem:

Many don’t know how to accurately measure the ROI from their influencer marketing campaigns.

An overwhelming majority (76%) of marketers agree that the biggest challenge of influencer marketing is determining the ROI of campaigns.

How can you improve something if you don’t measure it? Worse yet, how can you even know if it’s working?

But the problem isn’t just with marketers.

Consumers are evolving, too.

The scale has tipped, and millennials are now trusting influencers less than they were in previous years.

Can you blame them, though? After all, think back to the Fyre Festival influencer marketing gaffe.

Influencers including Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Whitney Fransway, and many others promoted the event. But it didn’t live up to expectations.

As a result of this failure, 94% of marketers stated they were “not likely” or “very unlikely” to seek out big-name influencers for future projects.

All of these factors play into the unstable future of influencer marketing.

As you continue with influencer marketing campaigns for now, you should also begin to test, expand, and optimize other areas of your marketing strategy.

Here are the alternatives to influencer marketing that you should be focusing on in 2018 to help accelerate the growth of your business.

1. Focus on experiential marketing for live events

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget there’s a whole world “out there.”

Your customers aren’t always online.

Live events can provide a unique touchpoint for your customers that influencer marketing can’t.

And they’re effective, too.

According to a recent study, “79% of brand respondents said they would execute more experiential programs this year compared to last.”

Take Clif Bar as an example.

They focused on creating an experiential marketing activation at Pitchfork Music Festival last year. Their activation included a tattoo parlor, photo booth, and more.

At the event, they distributed 26,000 CLIF bars, and one in 20 social posts with the tag #Pitchforkfest also featured the CLIF bar activation.

Live events provide a unique experience in real life, and their impact often expands onto social media.

HBO tapped into its live event playbook when they debuted their interactive Westworld event at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

Participants boarded buses and went right outside the city limits for an immersive experience that brought to life the fictional Westworld town from the hit TV series.

The experience was highly detailed and highly personalized. Participants could get their picture printed on a western “Wanted” poster, which aligned well with the brand.

People constantly shared experience on social media during SXSW. It stole the show and earned 62% of the entertainment brand mentions at SXSW.

Live events are an important marketing tactic to help you connect with your customers in a meaningful and authentic way. Influencers simply can’t do that for you.

2. Invest in video content to share your company’s narrative

Video marketing isn’t just flashy, and it isn’t a fad.

It is here to stay, and it can drive serious growth for your business.

Most importantly, though, is that it is becoming mainstream and responsible for a bulk of Internet traffic.

According to estimates, video will make up more than 80% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021.

Hopefully, you already use video as a part of your content strategy. If not, you’re going to fall behind soon.

In a recent survey, 49.5% of marketers said that video will be a focal point for their marketing.

That’s nearly half of all marketers.

Now, I know what you might be thinking: “My influencer campaigns already use video, so I’m all set.”

Unfortunately, you’re wrong.

You’re missing the chance to focus on everyday people and create meaningful, evergreen content that showcases your brand’s values and embodies your mission.

You can’t rely on influencers to create content that resonates with your audience. You have to do it yourself.

After all, brands often miss opportunities to connect with their customers. A study found that 78% of people feel that brands never connect with them emotionally.

But LinkedIn recently did this well in a documentary-style integrated video campaign. They used the hashtag #InItTogether for it.

Eszylfie Taylor turned his past sales experience into a lesson in life. The more he gives people, the more he gets back. He’s in it to share the wealth. https://t.co/UNiC2JJiF1 #InItTogether pic.twitter.com/5WyqE4ij1l

— LinkedIn (@LinkedIn) January 18, 2018

Campaign Director Stacy Peralta talked about the impact of the campaign. She said, “I knew from the first reading of the boards that this was one of those rare opportunities.”

She added, “They asked us to tell real stories about real people, they wanted it shot in black and white, and they wanted energy, enthusiasm and candor from the people involved.”

That campaign generated great content for LinkedIn to share with their audience.

But where should you share your video content after you finish creating it? Well, consumers watch and engage with branded content in different ways on different platforms.

It’s important to know which works best for your business, but here are some generalizations across all social platforms for consumer viewing and engagement habits:

As you can see, Facebook has the highest viewership as well as engagement numbers (60% and 49%, respectively), while Twitter has the least (41% and 22%).

The interesting part, though, is that there is only a 2% difference in viewership among the top three platforms: Facebook, Instagram (Video), and Snapchat. YouTube and Twitter fall close behind.

On the engagement side of things, it is much different. Facebook is the clear winner (49%) with YouTube (32%) coming in second. That’s a 17% difference.

So that gives you an idea of where you should be sharing your content. But now, you might be wondering how long your videos should be.

Thankfully, there is data to support the ideal length, and the conclusions are clear as day. Here’s the basic principle:

Make them short.

Approximately 56% of all videos that users shared in 2017 were less than two minutes long.

Viewers will lose interest and likely leave if a video is longer than two minutes.

If you aren’t yet certain that video content can be effective in marketing, look at this experiment from HubSpot. They examined the difference between acquiring customers with video content and non-video content.

They tried switching to video content as opposed to blogs and whitepapers.

As they optimized and emphasized their videos, their views and engagement rates skyrocketed. Here were their engagement rates with their old strategy:

Now, here were their engagement rates after they started emphasizing their video content:

Before this experiment, their videos averaged 50,000 views per month. But in their first month of optimizing and promoting their video content, they achieved 1 million views. Those are clear results!

Another great example is BakedNYC’s video campaign.

BakedNYC used video to capture emails, and their results were fantastic.

Through this campaign, they achieved a 40% increase in pie sales, a 68% increase in leads, and a 30% decrease in cost per lead.

Video content presents a huge opportunity for your brand. But creating quality videos might feel like a daunting task.

Don’t fret if don’t think that you can do this alone. You don’t have to be Steven Spielberg.

There are plenty of tools that can help you create engaging video content on a low budget in a tight timeframe.

One of them is Promo.

I love Promo because they have over 12.5 million clips that you can customize. You can add music, text, and even your logo to personalize the clips and make them your own.

Magisto is another great tool to use.

The cool thing about Magisto is that it has a smart video editor, which makes it incredibly easy to cut and edit your videos online.

These tools can help create great video content..

from DIYS https://ift.tt/2MoH22N

[filipeteimuraz]

Is Influencer Marketing Dead? A Hard Look at The Newest Data (and What You Can Do Instead)

Is anyone having deja vu?

Every time a new marketing tactic becomes more mainstream, marketers and researchers inevitably wonder if it has peaked and started to lose its effectiveness.

We’ve seen this before with SEO, email marketing, Facebook marketing, and many others.

It’s a fair question to ask, though.

After all, each year brings new trends in marketing, and some tactics can go out of style. It’s worth examining different approaches to see if they’re still effective.

The tactic we’ll evaluate today is influencer marketing.

Though influencer marketing has been around for a very long time, it has only become a popular marketing tactic in recent years.

With the influx of social media in 2004, influencer marketing exploded and became a lot more prevalent.

Now, fast forward 14 years later.

Influencer marketing has seen some incredible successes and even a few massive failures.

That’s why we need to take a closer look at influencer marketing in 2018.

Should you continue to invest in influencer marketing, or is it dead?

The answer isn’t exactly a simple “yes” or “no.”

But recent data can help you decide if influencer marketing has staying power and if it is the right tactic for your brand to implement in 2018.

The complex current state of influencer marketing in 2018

Let’s dive right in.

I’m going to address the million-dollar question that everyone is asking:

“Is influencer marketing dead?”

Here’s the answer: not really.

But, I have to admit, its future is uncertain.

At the moment, marketers are continuing to focus on influencer marketing as a viable and essential marketing tactic in 2018.

In fact, in the survey below, marketers picked it as the “fastest-growing online customer-acquisition method” over organic search, email, paid search, and more.

There’s no questioning the popularity of influencer marketing, especially in recent years.

Marketers seem to be searching for new ways to involve influencers on a variety of campaigns.

And they’re investing in their influencer marketing campaigns, too. The influencer marketing industry is booming.

Projections show that marketers will spend $2.38 billion on influencer marketing on Instagram in 2019. That’s more than a $700 million increase from 2018!

But it doesn’t matter if marketers are fans of influencer marketing. We need to look at the data to see if it works.

Is it truly effective? Are you getting a bang for your buck?

The answer to both questions is still “yes.”

Data shows that influencer marketing is still providing marketers with a strong return on investment. Let’s take a look.

The data shows that influencer marketing generates $6.50 for every dollar a company invests. Approximately 70% of companies earn $2 or more for every dollar, and 13% of companies earn $20 or more.

That’s valuable.

But you might not always be so lucky.

If you look closely, you’ll see that 18% of businesses didn’t receive any return on investment at all. When you factor this into how much a campaign can cost, things can get a little pricey.

This is one reason that many marketers (including myself) wonder how long influencer marketing will remain a viable tactic.

Many factors make the future of influencer marketing uncertain, too.

First, the FTC introduced regulations to “improve disclosures” in 2017. This helps consumers understand which posts are promotional, even if they are coming from an influencer.

While the regulations are needed, additional ones may cause some brands to stray away from influencer marketing due to the risk of malpractice.

Plus, influencer marketing campaigns are starting to get more expensive.

Mid-range influencers with 50,000 – 500,000 followers can charge anywhere from $400 to $2,500 for a post.

Influencers with a following in the millions can charge between $30,000 and $187,500 per post.

With such a large investment in a single post, marketers are expecting a huge ROI.

But there’s only one problem:

Many don’t know how to accurately measure the ROI from their influencer marketing campaigns.

An overwhelming majority (76%) of marketers agree that the biggest challenge of influencer marketing is determining the ROI of campaigns.

How can you improve something if you don’t measure it? Worse yet, how can you even know if it’s working?

But the problem isn’t just with marketers.

Consumers are evolving, too.

The scale has tipped, and millennials are now trusting influencers less than they were in previous years.

Can you blame them, though? After all, think back to the Fyre Festival influencer marketing gaffe.

Influencers including Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Whitney Fransway, and many others promoted the event. But it didn’t live up to expectations.

As a result of this failure, 94% of marketers stated they were “not likely” or “very unlikely” to seek out big-name influencers for future projects.

All of these factors play into the unstable future of influencer marketing.

As you continue with influencer marketing campaigns for now, you should also begin to test, expand, and optimize other areas of your marketing strategy.

Here are the alternatives to influencer marketing that you should be focusing on in 2018 to help accelerate the growth of your business.

1. Focus on experiential marketing for live events

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget there’s a whole world “out there.”

Your customers aren’t always online.

Live events can provide a unique touchpoint for your customers that influencer marketing can’t.

And they’re effective, too.

According to a recent study, “79% of brand respondents said they would execute more experiential programs this year compared to last.”

Take Clif Bar as an example.

They focused on creating an experiential marketing activation at Pitchfork Music Festival last year. Their activation included a tattoo parlor, photo booth, and more.

At the event, they distributed 26,000 CLIF bars, and one in 20 social posts with the tag #Pitchforkfest also featured the CLIF bar activation.

Live events provide a unique experience in real life, and their impact often expands onto social media.

HBO tapped into its live event playbook when they debuted their interactive Westworld event at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

Participants boarded buses and went right outside the city limits for an immersive experience that brought to life the fictional Westworld town from the hit TV series.

The experience was highly detailed and highly personalized. Participants could get their picture printed on a western “Wanted” poster, which aligned well with the brand.

People constantly shared experience on social media during SXSW. It stole the show and earned 62% of the entertainment brand mentions at SXSW.

Live events are an important marketing tactic to help you connect with your customers in a meaningful and authentic way. Influencers simply can’t do that for you.

2. Invest in video content to share your company’s narrative

Video marketing isn’t just flashy, and it isn’t a fad.

It is here to stay, and it can drive serious growth for your business.

Most importantly, though, is that it is becoming mainstream and responsible for a bulk of Internet traffic.

According to estimates, video will make up more than 80% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021.

Hopefully, you already use video as a part of your content strategy. If not, you’re going to fall behind soon.

In a recent survey, 49.5% of marketers said that video will be a focal point for their marketing.

That’s nearly half of all marketers.

Now, I know what you might be thinking: “My influencer campaigns already use video, so I’m all set.”

Unfortunately, you’re wrong.

You’re missing the chance to focus on everyday people and create meaningful, evergreen content that showcases your brand’s values and embodies your mission.

You can’t rely on influencers to create content that resonates with your audience. You have to do it yourself.

After all, brands often miss opportunities to connect with their customers. A study found that 78% of people feel that brands never connect with them emotionally.

But LinkedIn recently did this well in a documentary-style integrated video campaign. They used the hashtag #InItTogether for it.

Eszylfie Taylor turned his past sales experience into a lesson in life. The more he gives people, the more he gets back. He’s in it to share the wealth. https://t.co/UNiC2JJiF1 #InItTogether pic.twitter.com/5WyqE4ij1l

— LinkedIn (@LinkedIn) January 18, 2018

Campaign Director Stacy Peralta talked about the impact of the campaign. She said, “I knew from the first reading of the boards that this was one of those rare opportunities.”

She added, “They asked us to tell real stories about real people, they wanted it shot in black and white, and they wanted energy, enthusiasm and candor from the people involved.”

That campaign generated great content for LinkedIn to share with their audience.

But where should you share your video content after you finish creating it? Well, consumers watch and engage with branded content in different ways on different platforms.

It’s important to know which works best for your business, but here are some generalizations across all social platforms for consumer viewing and engagement habits:

As you can see, Facebook has the highest viewership as well as engagement numbers (60% and 49%, respectively), while Twitter has the least (41% and 22%).

The interesting part, though, is that there is only a 2% difference in viewership among the top three platforms: Facebook, Instagram (Video), and Snapchat. YouTube and Twitter fall close behind.

On the engagement side of things, it is much different. Facebook is the clear winner (49%) with YouTube (32%) coming in second. That’s a 17% difference.

So that gives you an idea of where you should be sharing your content. But now, you might be wondering how long your videos should be.

Thankfully, there is data to support the ideal length, and the conclusions are clear as day. Here’s the basic principle:

Make them short.

Approximately 56% of all videos that users shared in 2017 were less than two minutes long.

Viewers will lose interest and likely leave if a video is longer than two minutes.

If you aren’t yet certain that video content can be effective in marketing, look at this experiment from HubSpot. They examined the difference between acquiring customers with video content and non-video content.

They tried switching to video content as opposed to blogs and whitepapers.

As they optimized and emphasized their videos, their views and engagement rates skyrocketed. Here were their engagement rates with their old strategy:

Now, here were their engagement rates after they started emphasizing their video content:

Before this experiment, their videos averaged 50,000 views per month. But in their first month of optimizing and promoting their video content, they achieved 1 million views. Those are clear results!

Another great example is BakedNYC’s video campaign.

BakedNYC used video to capture emails, and their results were fantastic.

Through this campaign, they achieved a 40% increase in pie sales, a 68% increase in leads, and a 30% decrease in cost per lead.

Video content presents a huge opportunity for your brand. But creating quality videos might feel like a daunting task.

Don’t fret if don’t think that you can do this alone. You don’t have to be Steven Spielberg.

There are plenty of tools that can help you create engaging video content on a low budget in a tight timeframe.

One of them is Promo.

I love Promo because they have over 12.5 million clips that you can customize. You can add music, text, and even your logo to personalize the clips and make them your own.

Magisto is another great tool to use.

The cool thing about Magisto is that it has a smart video editor, which makes it incredibly easy to cut and edit your videos online.

These tools can help create great video content that will drive sales on your website.

If you want to get the most out of your marketing efforts in 2018, spend time crafting video promotional campaigns and fine-tuning your video content strategy.

3. Initiate an affiliate marketing program

Not having an effective affiliate marketing program in place is simply leaving money on the table.

Affiliate marketing can bring in a lot of money for your business. To put it in perspective, 15% of the digital media industry’s revenue comes from affiliate marketing.

With affiliate marketing, you’re letting related sites and partners do the work for you.

So, where do you begin?

There are three types of affiliate programs that you can implement:

Pay-per-sale: The merchant pays the affiliate in relation to the number of sales that they received from their site.

Pay-per-click: The merchant pays the affiliate in relation to the number of clicks that visitors performed while browsing the affiliate’s site.

Pay-per-lead: The merchant pays the affiliates in relation to the number of people who sign up.

Affiliate programs succeed in ways that influencer marketing doesn’t. First, it’s usually a win-win for both the affiliate and the merchant because you share the same business goals.

Sites want to send you traffic so that they can earn money. You want the same thing because the affiliate will send you new customers. It’s a win for both of you.

In some cases, influencers don’t share the same mission. They might be just looking for a quick payout, which could lead them to share your campaign in a way that isn’t authentic or true to their brand or yours.

The Points Guy is an example of a company that has a strong affiliate marketing program in place.

He started his site as a place to show people how to travel by using points they’ve amassed from purchases. Now, the site is an affiliate site for credit cards, hotels, and flights.

In his AMA, he confirmed that he receives “2.5 million monthly unique views and gets $50-$400 per credit card someone signs up for.”

As a business, you can harness the traffic that is already in place for a well-oiled site. By giving them a little kickback, you both win.

They’ll make money, and you’ll acquire a new customer. It’s really a no-brainer.

4. Be responsive on social media and circulate user-generated content

If you’re reading this blog, I’d go out on a limb to say you have, at the very least, a presence on social media.

While influencers typically utilize social media to propel their efforts, sometimes taking matters into your own hands can retain customers and have a more profound impact on your sales.

Social media marketing has been an important part of any marketing strategy over the years, and it only continues to evolve in 2018.

Your customers are already hanging out on there. New data shows that a majority of Americans are now on Facebook and YouTube.

Once again, this fact reinforces your need for video content.

But how else can you use social media to grow your audience and increase sales? One important answer is quite simple:

By being responsive.

Data shows that companies can make a dramatic effect on their bottom lines if they are responsive and engaging on social media.

Consumers say that the best way for a brand to get them to make a purchase is by simply being responsive.

If you respond on social media, people will talk about your positive customer service interactions. Studies found that approximately 48% of people tell their friends about a good customer experience on social media.

This creates a powerful form of word-of-mouth marketing. Your customers’ friends can soon become your new customers.

Facebook understand how impatient people are. They’re now labeling pages with badges that designate their response times.

To get the coveted “Very responsive to messages” badge, you need to achieve two things over the course of seven days:

A response rate of 90%

A response time of 15 minutes

But what if you get a lot of inquiries? How should you keep up with all of them?

Mention is a tool that can help you streamline your customer experience operations on social media.

It can provide assistance and organize your mentions in an easy-to-read way so that you aren’t overwhelmed.

An example of exemplary customer service on social media would be JetBlue.

Before things got out of hand, they moved quickly and efficiently to resolve the situation, resulting in a happy, satisfied customer who might buy again.

But that’s not all. JetBlue cares so much about their customer service that they announced a partnership and investment in the customer service startup Gladly.

Here’s what Bonny Simi, the president of JetBlue’s corporate venture group, said about their customer service strategy:

“People just don’t want to call in anymore, so we are aiming for omnichannel communication that is on at all hours.”

He added, “[This communication should] take advantage of AI to resolve customers’ issues as quickly as possible, and that will work with all of the important messenger apps.”

As you work on being responsive on social media, you’ll want to circulate the incredible content (photos, videos, and comments) and great accolades that your users are sharing. User-generated content is incredibly valuable.

Sponsors generally pay influencers to post about their products or content. User-generated content, on the other hand, has no financial incentive.

It makes your brand more authentic.

And it’s needed now more than ever.

Research shows that “92 percent of consumers trust organic, user-generated content (UGC) more than they trust traditional advertising.”

Currently, Southwest Airlines is running a user-generated campaign that they call 175 Stories. This integrated campaign invites customers to share their seat story using the hashtag #175Stories.

They even launched a microsite to further share the content.

Judging by a quick hashtag search, the campaign seems to be effective.

Encouraging users to act as your own photographers and share their content can have a positive impact on your business’s growth.

An active presence on social media is not only beneficial to your customers. It can also do wonders for your brand awareness and revenue.

5. Leverage social messaging apps to reach more customers and connect with existing ones

Mobile messaging marketing has emerged as a new trend in 2018.

It seems like social messaging apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and many others) are all the craze these days.

And honestly, they should be.

Influencer marketing shares one message with many people. By using social messaging apps, you can send numerous highly-personalized messages to many people.

Users and businesses on Facebook send approximately 8 billion messages on Messenger every month.

The best part is that they usually have high open and click-through rates, too.

The growth of these messaging apps has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2017, over 76% of smartphone users worldwide used messaging apps.

The graph also shows that, according to current projections, there will be 2.48 billion mobile phone messaging app users by 2021.

If you want to be where your customers are, then you should think about how you’re leveraging your messaging app strategy.

But what’s interesting is that not all marketers, for some reason or another, aren’t using this as a marketing tactic.

“The State of Social 2018” study found that, despite the increase in interest and adoption of messaging apps, nearly 80% of businesses don’t market through them at all.

That’s bad for them, but it’s great for you.

Fewer businesses promoting their messages means a greater chance of yours cutting through the clutter.

Messaging apps are a great place to distribute content and offer promotional deals directly to your customers.

Look at how DigitalMarketer used a chatbot to distribute their “Ending the War Between Sales & Marketing” report.

Those interested in the report could connect their Facebook with just a simple click. Then, an automated message would arrive in their Messenger account with a link to the report.

It’s quick, easy, and even feels a little personal.

But this isn’t just a flashy way to distribute content.

It gets results, too.

For example, look at this retargeting campaign that used a chatbot to allow customers to “unlock a special discount.”

The results were incredible. They achieved a 48.2x ROAS (up from 5.6x) and a 1133% conversion rate increase.

HolidayPirates saw incredible success when they used a chatbot to deliver a promotion code to their customers.

They have over nine million digital followers, and they wanted to interact with them on social messaging platforms and send them a holiday promotion.

They grew their WhatsApp following to 750,000+ and achieved open rates of 50-60% and 90% click-through rates for the campaign.

A 90% click-through rate?

That’s something you don’t see every day.

To get a chatbot set up, you just need to follow a few easy steps.

For this example, I’m going to use itsalive.io.

First, visit their homepage and click on “Get Started for Free.”

Then, fill out the information they ask for to register your account.

From there, choose your plan and hit “Next.”

Name and describe your bot, and then hit “Create this bot.”

Click on the pencil icon to edit the test bot that you get by default.

Add your trigger and text. Triggers can vary from keywords to events. You can then program what you’d like the bot to do.

You can add as many triggers and texts as you’d like.

In this case, I am setting up the bot to answer FAQs.

Then, click the back button and select “Link to Facebook” in the menu.

From there, you’ll want to “Connect to your Facebook account” and select your business page.

Take special note of the test code as well. You will have to add that four-character code when you test your bot.

Then, you can test your bot and see it in action for yourself.

Continue to tweak your bot until it accomplishes your business objectives.

Due to the widespread adoption of messaging apps and the generally untapped potential of social messaging marketing, your business could cut directly through the clutter with this tactic.

You should really consider how you can leverage it to reach new customers.

6. Continue to invest in your email marketing strategy

You might be thinking, “Email marketing. That’s so old school.”

While that may be true, it’s still a viable marketing tactic that you should double down on.

One advantage is that you can control and target your audience with email marketing better than you can with influencer marketing.

Emails are part of everyday life, and using them as a marketing medium gets results. After all, users send 149,000+ emails each day.

That might sound like a lot of clutter, and it is. But it’s important that you keep your business top of mind in your customers’ inboxes.

But why?

Email still has the highest ROI when you compare it to any other marketing tactic.

For every $1 businesses spend on email marketing, they average a $38 return.

Notice how email marketing soars ahead of affiliate marketing, paid search, display ads, videos, social media marketing, and traditional marketing tactics.

If you want to assess the ROI of your email marketing campaigns, I recommend this email marketing ROI tool.

It’s very easy to use and can provide great insights into your current email marketing efforts.

Marketers even collectively agree that email has staying power in 2018.

In one survey, marketing professionals rated the effectiveness of digital marketing channels. Approximately 35% gave email marketing a “good” rating, and 18% rated it as “excellent.”

This put email marketing in the lead as one of the most effective digital marketing channels according to marketers.

In 2018, you need to have an email marketing strategy in place and execute highly-personalized and targeted campaigns.

Customers are expecting this in all marketing tactics, but especially in email. If you haven’t targeted your email, they’ll consider it irrelevant to them. You can bet they’ll delete it.

Even worse, they might not open it.

A total of 49% of shoppers said that personalization “has led shoppers to purchase an item that wasn’t planned.”

By personalizing your copy, messaging, design, and even your pricing structure, you can encourage conversions and move customers to buy.

You can do this by segmenting your lists (separating your lists to ensure the correct campaign is going to the right audience) and using dynamic copy or pricing.

How do you make sure that you’ve personalized your email campaigns and that you’re sending them to the right people?

That’s what the men’s shirt company Twillory had to answer.

The team initiated an email campaign when they moved into a larger warehouse. They sent the below email to their first-tier recipients and achieved a 48.5% open rate and an 8% CTR.

To their less-engaged tier, they stripped the graphic away and took a simpler, personalized, text-based approach.

This resulted in “a 33% open rate and 11% click-through rate with a group of people who had not engaged in over 270 days.”

That’s a significant impact for their email marketing efforts.

If you want to effectively reach your customers, then deploy smart, personalized, and targeted email marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing isn’t dead.

At least, it isn’t dead yet.

For now, it still can perform as a viable part of your marketing strategy. The influencer marketing industry is still booming, and it’s still profitable in many cases.

But it may not be around for much longer. It’s becoming increasingly expensive, there’s no guarantee of results, it’s difficult to track the ROI of campaigns, and users are beginning to trust influencers less.

You need to prepare for alternate ways to acquire customers.

Turn to video content to share a compelling narrative about your brand or help put a product on display.

Engage with customers directly on social media. Go out of your way to provide out-of-this-world service experiences that will turn your customers into passionate fans.

Focus on messenger marketing and directly share content, promotions, and solutions through messaging apps.

Finally, double down on email marketing. But as you do so, make sure that you target the right audience and personalize your messages with dynamic content.

If you do all of this, you’ll be ready if the days of influencer marketing come to an end.

What marketing tactics will you use in place of influencer marketing in 2018?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2018/06/is-influencer-marketing-dead-hard-look.html

[haleyfury]

You know those blurbs that say The Hunger Games meets The Fault in Our Stars meets Percy Jackson meets Harry Potter meets Game of Thrones meets Outlander meets Stranger Things? Okay, so maybe you haven’t seen that exact synopsis, but books blurbs tend to use other books or media that will entice readers to pick up said book. Today’s Top Five Wednesday is all about mash-ups that would make me want to pick up a book.

“A mix of Jenny Colgan’s Meet Me at the Cupcake Café and Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”

The similarities don’t end in the authors’ first names. While I’ve predicted a To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before spinoff series following Kitty, I’d love to have a book with an NA-aged Lara Jean opening up her own bakery! Anyways, I’d love a mash-up of Meet Me at the Cupcake Café and To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before with a character with a family as great as Lara Jean’s and opens her own bake shop like Issy, who also has a great support system.

“A mix of Sex and the City and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl”

Okay hear me out on this one. I want a mash-up of Sex and the City for its female friendship and four best friends alongside Cath’s passion as a fangirl and love for the Simon Snow series. Now picture four best friends and fangirls living in New York City, going to book stores, cookie dough cafes, author events, and more together. How awesome would that be??

“A mix of Morgan Matson’s Since You’ve Been Gone and Jennifer Mathieu’s Moxie”

Moxie does feature female friendship, but I’d love a book where two female best friends, like Sloane and Emily (expect without the whole disappearing thing), team up together and spark a feminist revolution in their town during the summer. Because summer contemporaries are EVERYTHING.

“A mix of The Devil Wears Prada and Ashley Poston’s Geekerella”

Okay this is definitely my most out there mash-up, but it can work as such: A girl begins working for a food truck connoisseur in hopes of getting a recommendation for a top-notch culinary school. Add in working for her boss being not such a piece of cake and a cute Harry Potter fan of a guy stopping by everyday, and my pre-order would already be in!

“A mix of Hart of Dixie and Emery Lord’s The Start of Me and You ”

I enjoyed Hart of Dixie for its small-town, Southern charm and I feel like that setting would mesh really well with a book like The Start of Me and You. After facing some personal struggles, girl enters for small Southern town for a fresh start and relationship opportunities.

Top 5 Wednesday is a collaborative group of book bloggers from various platforms who love sharing lists on Wednesdays. The T5W group can be found here on Goodreads.

Today’s T5W topic and my own anticipation for some 2018 releases has made me consider what mash-ups have inspired me to add books to my TBR. Below are some of my anticipated 2018 releases whose mash-ups made me immediately add it to my TBR shelf on Goodreads.

Love à la Mode by Stephanie Kate Strohm

Mash-up: “Chopped Teen Tournament and Kids Baking Championship”

Food Network’s Baking Championship series is among my favorite TV shows, and I especially loved this past season of Kids Baking Championship (reminder that I still need to try and make a unicorn cake). I also like putting on Chopped while I’m writing, so once I got to this mash-up, I knew I was sold. The book follows Rosie and Henry as they attend a prestigious cooking program in Paris who must cook like never before while sparks fly between them.

Love & Other Carnivorous Plants by Florence Gonsalves

Mash-Up: “For fans of Becky Albertalli, Matthew Quick, & Ned Vizzini

Okay I admit that Becky Albertalli alone sold me on this mash-up, but I did enjoy Matthew Quick’s Silver Linings Playbook a few years ago. The book has been described as a darkly funny debut about a 19-year old student at Harvard who’s been consumed by love and grief. SIGN ME UP FOR ALL THE COLLEGE-AGED PROTAGONISTS

Would you be into some of the above mash-ups? What are some of your own? Share in the comments!

Top Five Wednesday: Ideal Mash-Ups & Anticipated Mash-Ups You know those blurbs that say The Hunger Games meets The Fault in Our Stars meets Percy Jackson meets Harry Potter meets…