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tonystarksfavoritedaughter · 3 years

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Crazy Rich Avengers: Chapter 2

Peter Parker x Reader

Chapter Summary: Tony is oblivious, Shuri is a queen as always, Peter is breakfast man and Y/N’s a grandma

Warnings: swearing and one mention of sex

Word count: 2589

*Flashback to Wednesday*

“Alright troops, let’s get this party started.” Tony walked into the debriefing room that was used for only meetings, but this week it had a new purpose: discussing Wanda and Vision’s wedding plans. Everyone was gathered around a circular table with plans and maps strewn out across the table.

“What made you guys want to get married in Maui?” Nat turned to Wanda and Vision. Wanda simply shrugged, “We just wanted to see what the island has to offer.”

“Plus Mr. Stark has that lovely beach house in Spreckelsville,” Vision added.

“Are y’all inviting Peter and Y/N to the wedding?” Sam asked

“Of course! Why wouldn’t we?” Wanda seemed kind of offended that Sam would ask that. She was very close with Peter and the way he talked about you always made her warm inside knowing that he found someone he really loved. She was kind of like a second aunt to him in a way, though no one could top Aunt May.

“Oh, I love Y/N so much. Did you guys tell her happy birthday two weeks ago?” Nat asked.

A couple of ‘I forgot’’ and ‘Oh shit’ replies made their way into the group and Nat just shook her head.

“Wait wait wait. Who’s Y/N?” Tony was so confused. He had never heard of a Y/N Y/L/N before. Was she an employee close with Wanda? And why was she with Peter?

“What do mean who’s Y/N?” Steve asked.

“She’s Peter’s girlfriend, Stark.” Bucky stated it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And it kind of was. Peter would come into the Compound on the weekends sometimes for training and just gush about you to everyone and even Bucky seemed to know who you were. And he never pays attention to Peter. Tony just sat there, not knowing what to say to hearing his intern having a girlfriend.

“Pete has girlfriend?” How come you all knew and I didn’t?”

Thor took a swig of his drink. “Because you do not listen to the Man of Spiders.”

At this moment Shuri, T’Challa, and Okoye walk in, with papers and blueprints in only T’Challa and Okoye’s hands, while Shuri sips her iced coffee, like the bad bitch she is.

“Hey what’s up losers?” She walked in and took the papers from their hands and spread them out on the table. She turned to Wanda and Vision. “Okay so I developed a knew sound system for the reception that does not require a DJ, and you can choose which one you want!” They all look at the plans and sure enough, there were about four different designs that they could choose from. Wanda and Vision had put Shuri in charge of all the technological elements of the wedding because she was clearly the smartest out of all of them.

T’Challa stepped up to the table. “Sorry we are late; my sister had to bring all of her designs and took about three hours to pack.”

“What? I have to look my best for the wedding. We all know you just throw clothes into a suitcase and call it a day.” She turned towards everyone else. “The only shoes he brought were his flip flops.”

“What you don’t like my royal sandals?” He puts up his foot to show off his shoes and turned to Okoye for support. She just shook her head. “I’m not getting in the middle of this, but if I were to choose a side, I agree with Shuri.”

Shuri laughed in T’Challa’s face and fist bumped Okoye and he looked at them and shook his head.

“What do you two know what fashion?” He asked.

“More than you,” they both said at the same time. This got everyone laughing around the table and Steve did his classic belly laugh where he grabbed the side of his chest and basically fell over.

Shuri turned to Wanda, “So, whose all invited to your big day?”

“Well, we invited Peter and Y/N –“

“Yes! Sorry I just can’t wait to meet her for the first time. Go on.”

Wanda laughed, “Aren’t we all? Also, Peter’s friend Ned is invited because he helps us all out on missions. What is it he calls himself?”

“The Guy in the Chair,” Vision replied.

“Ah yes, and of course all of you people. We wanted to keep it small,” Wanda finished.

“You know,” Sam started, turning to the royal bunch. “Stark over here didn’t know that Pete had a girlfriend.”

“What?” They all three gasped.

Okoye spoke this time, “We live all the way in Wakanda, and knew about this. You live twenty minutes away.”

“We know. It’s ridiculous,” Rhodey spoke.

“Okay and is there a specific song that you are walking down to?” Shuri asked.

“We chose the song ‘To My Future Wife’ by Mr. Jon Bellion,” Vision replied

“Oh, I love his songs!”

“We figured it represented our love for each other,” Wanda looked at Vision and gave him a peck on the lips, with hearts in both of their eyes. A bunch of aw’s filled the room as a response to the couple.

*Flashback ends*

You wake up at around three thirty in the morning to your alarm. You were essentially trapped in Peter’s arms and had to pry yourself out to get up and get ready. You threw a pillow at him to wake him up.

“What was that for?” He groaned.

“Come on. We got to get up or we’ll miss the flight.”

He got up with a sigh and got ready. He just dressed in jeans and that tight black t-shirt that you loved. Why would he pick that for a flight? You bit your lip and just turned away getting ready yourself. You picked out your black leggings and a white shirt because you wanted to be comfy for the 12+ hour flight ahead of you.

You packed your purse as your carry on which had your phone chargers, headphones, perfume, you know, the essentials for flying.

“What are we going to do for breakfast?” He asked. Peter was a breakfast man and so deciding what to eat in the morning was very important for him.

“There’s a coffee place at the airport; don’t worry, Pete.”

You left your apartment at around four in the morning and made sure that everything was turned off and nothing was out of the ordinary. You two take an Uber to JFK and almost fell asleep again. One thing was for sure, you were taking a nap as soon as you got on the plane. When you got there, you checked in with the front desk and saw that your flight would take off at 5:30am. So, you took Peter to the little coffee stand in the airport to get him some energy and food. He got a mocha iced coffee with a blueberry scone and you got a caramel macchiato and a breakfast bagel. You sat down near where your flight would be boarding and ate your food. You were so excited to eat because your favorite breakfast item was just a good bacon, egg, and cheese bagel. You bit into it and sighed out in a state of peace.

You had downloaded a few episodes of your favorite shows on your laptop so you and Peter could watch them together. You had downloaded some from The Office, Brooklyn 99, Parks and Rec, and The Good Place. You pulled out your laptop and headphones and gave one earbud to Peter so he could watch too. You decided to watch the episode of The Office where Michael hosts the Fun Run for Rabies.

About an hour later they started to board for your flight and packed everything up and walked over to the flight attendant.

“Right this way,” she said. She led you past the economy class and into first class and you started to get suspicious. There was no way you could afford this. Sure, you had some money put into savings, but it wasn’t much. She led you into one of cabins and you put your purse down.

“Uh ma’am?” You called out.

“Yes?”

“Um there must be some mistake, I mean… we’re economy people. Like, we’re broke, there’s no way that we’re in first class.”

“Are you sure? You two are Y/N Y/L/N and Peter Parker, right?” She asked confused.

“Tony, I swear,” Peter sighed.

“What?”

“I told Mr. Stark to not upgrade us because we were fine, but I guess he didn’t listen.”

“Oh.”

The flight attendant walked away and you fell on the bed. The cabin had a little TV on the opposite wall and the bed facing it. Night tables were on both sides of the bed with little lamps that made it kind of cozy. You walked around the small room looking at the different little pictures of beaches from different countries. There were a set of silk pajamas on your nightstand and you held them up to Peter.

“These are nicer than my actual clothes!” Peter just laughed at how excited you were and pulled you down on the bed. He rubbed your thighs and started to kiss your neck and sucked lightly and slowly worked his way up to your ear and nibbled on it.

“As much as I would love to continue this, I am not having sex on a plane,” you laughed.

He laid down on the bed with you, “Well what do you wanna do then?”

“Tell me about everyone that’s going to be there. I want to be prepared to meet them when we get there.”

“Okay for starters, there’s Wanda and Vision, Wanda has like these mind-reading powers, so be careful about what you’re thinking around her. There have been plenty of times where I’ve thought about you in an adult way that’s caused her to not to be near me sometimes. But she’s awesome. She’s kind of like my second aunt when May’s not around; we’re really close.”

“Good to know. It’s also a good thing she’s not here right now because all I can think about is you in that shirt,” you wink at him.

He laughs and kisses your nose, “Vision is also pretty cool. You’ve seen Vision in like pictures and everything so you know he can shift between robot and human form, so that’s cool. Um, he’s just really chill and laid back. There’s also Sam and Bucky.”

“Oh yeah you’ve told me about them. Do they still tease you a lot?”

“Not much anymore, but I’m sure they will when they see us together,” he sighed. Yesterday when he went to the Compound for his camera, they had mentioned that Peter wouldn’t be getting much packing done if he knew what they meant. Peter did know what they meant and just rolled his eyes at them.

“Sam’s pretty cool when he’s not teasing me, and then he’s kind of a jerk, but overall he’s cool; you’ll probably get along more with him than anyone. He’s got a good sense of humor so,” he trailed off.

“Oh okay. Now what about Bucky?”

“Bucky still doesn’t really like me, all because of what happened in Berlin.”

“Sounds like he’s petty.”

“Yeah he kind of is,” he laughed.

He goes through telling you about all the Avengers and what they’re like. They all sounded pretty chill and fun to hang around.

“By the way, Ned is going to be there.”

“What? Really?” You neatly shouted because you haven’t seen him since about a month before college classes started. He had gone all the way to MIT for college, and the last time you saw him, was when you and Peter had helped him move into his dorm.

“Why is he going?”

“He’s like our ‘Guy in the Chair’ for the team. Tells us where to go on missions, and helps out with the team, so I guess Wanda and Vision wanted him there.”

“At least there will be someone I know and close with,” you laugh at Peter’s fake hurt expression.

“You’ll have me, baby.”

“Yeah, but you’ll probably be talking to everyone and doing wedding stuff and I’ll be just hanging out. But now I have Ned! Now, tell me about Mr. Tony Stark. I know he’s kind of like your father-figure as you put it sometimes. Do you think he’ll like me, or will he go all Papa Bear on me and tell me that I’m not good enough?” You joked.

“He should be cool with you. Mr. Stark’s a pretty easy-going guy so I don’t think there will be a problem. Unless you try to crash the wedding,” he smiled.

“Yeah I’m totally gonna crash it and just get shit-faced at the wedding.” It was now close to seven o’clock in the morning and you and Peter were wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep and still had another thirteen hours to go, so you just pulled your laptop back out and put on one of your shows and cuddled with Peter.

He held your waist against his and laid his head on top of yours. Your arms were wrapped around his torso and head on his chest, watching TV. You stayed like this for a couple of hours. You eventually got bored and started playing a game on your phone.

“Whatcha playing?” He asked.

“Candy Crush.”

He laughed at your game choice. “You’re such a grandma.”

“What? Just because I like candy crush that makes me grandma?’

“Yep.”

You lightly slap his chest as a response and watched his smile turn wide into a laugh. God those eye crinkles, I swear, you thought. It was kind of true though, everyone in your family and in high school called you the grandma friend of the group because you picked crocheting and baking of all hobbies, just like a grandma. And apparently Candy Crush was now considered a grandma game.

“Okay, I’d like to see you beat an ultra-hard level where you only have twenty moves to save 10 gummy bears,” you challenged him.

“Is that seriously a level on there?”

“Yes, and I beat it on the first try. Why, you scared?”

“No, had me your phone.”

You gladly give it to him and throughout the level you have to hold in your laughs because seeing his face scrunch up in frustration may have been the best thing ever.

“Shit!” He exclaimed

“What, did you lose?”

“No,” he lied. You held out your hand for your phone and saw that he lost on the level.

“Ha! Loser,” you poked his chest as you teased him. “It’s a shame you lost though, because losers don’t get prizes.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s my prize?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

You shrugged. “Guess you got to win if you want to find out.”

This time he held out his hand for your phone. “Just know, you got four more chances to win before you run out of lives.” Peter tried so hard at the game and gently slammed your phone in frustration and you giggled. Let’s just say that Peter didn’t get his prize. The rest of the flight consisted of watching TV and eating the surprisingly amazing airline snacks. When the nighttime came, the flight attendants turned all the lights off, kind of like a silent go to sleep call for all the passengers. You and Peter snuggled up against each other and waited for the rest of the flight to be over.

Tag-List: @randomstufflol29 @spideyspeaches @binnotjin @lolooo22 @multi-universe21 @ladykxxx08

A/N: We got an Avengers flashback! Yay! I really wanted to incorporate the Wakandan bunch because a) Black Panther is my favorite movie, and b) They are all just amazing and I love the way that Shuri and Okoye tease T’Challa all the time and wanted to put that in this. The whole Candy Crush scene had actually happened to me before and I thought it would be nice to add a piece of me in the story, and Candy Crush is honestly underrated if you ask me lol. I hope you all really like this chapter, because the next one is going to be awesome! Thank you all for reading!

#peter parker fluff #peter parker x reader #peter parker #peter parker angst #peter parker smut #peter parker imagine #peter parker oneshot #peter parker x y/n #peter parker series

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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12x17 watching notes

(Finally :P)

expectations - well, I had pretty low ones before this episode came out but while I was mucking around waiting for it to become available through some channel or another, a couple of people have expressed actual excitement to me about it so now I'm confused, especially as they didn't offer any qualifiers about that, aside from that the Crowley and Lucifer stuff would be pretty boring, which was a lesser problem on my list of things to worry about.

Let's see what happens :P

The recap starts with the Crowley and Lucifer stuff. Yay.

Blah blah Dagon and Kelly... EILEEN HI

Okay interesting BMoL recap - starting with Mick and his character development so far, then sliding over to Ketch, punchy punchy Mary hitting things in time with him. So they're linked (see also: gloomy expectations :P) and actually doesn't tell us anything else about Mary in that moment, but keeps on recapping Sam and Dean's issues with the BMoL - Mary's been swallowed up into them.

Kendricks! With their creepy motto about being stronger together. Which is I guess what Sam accidentally echoed about the better the MoL are the better they are

(Mittens just told me the crossed keys on there are a symbol of heaven too which *anvils*

It is never a good sign when you're called into an office and they put plastic sheeting down. I guess one of these kids isn't coming out alive... I don't think they've said names yet but I think the pale dark haired one is Mick because duh

odds are they make him murder his friend for shits and giggles

I can't visuale "Michael" being Mick because that name just doesn't fit :P Also anvils again the whole Michael thing - we had his lance not too long ago. He's LURKING.

LOL the Headmistress pauses with horns behind her head. Not ominous about her being evil at aaaall.

LOL they are Michael and Lucifer parallels

And Michael wins. Obviously. Since we know Mick kinda makes it out of there. :P

So Headmistress with her codes is God, Mick actually wins the damn fight which is NOT good because the only other repetition of the entire cycle to win the fight was Cain and that ended *so well* for him.

All the Cas mirroring just got blown out of the water though. I guess he now gets to carry the weirdly dubious honour of dealing with the Michael mirroring... Michael who would not back down from the apocalypse because God Said So and he was going to be a good son and do what was destined of him, no matter if it meant killing his brother. Of course we've had that exact conflict remembered earlier this season with Ramiel musing on how Michael made his spear to kill Lucifer slowly and painfully. Cain mirrored down the line to Dean - Mick mirrors back up to it Michael. Interesting that they want to address this again even just thematically with parallels like this... I'm so not convinced ever at any point that Michael will actually come back, if nothing than for the show to dig in its heels and enjoy the "You forgot Adam" jokes to the end of time, but Michael IS a loose end narratively in that he's so heavily NOT been involved in the story again, and carries a real, terrifying weight that Lucifer does not, and tbh never really did, since he popped up in 5x01 all like hey I'm the villain, but Michael had a much more insidious awfulness to him... And with 2 appearances ever, remains far more mysterious and powerful in the story than the now over-blown cartoon villain Lucifer's been since, well, honestly, season 7, though obviously Hallucifer was not meant to be the real deal...

Anyway I should maybe not take forever to watch the thing because I always do and I started so late thanks to download links being terrible >.>

Wait

Mick is alone and drinking in the office at the BMoL compound remembering all this (yay alcoholism all of a sudden out of nowhere - he really has utterly switched gears to the Michael-Cain-Dean thread)

and now Sam n Dean are driving off to meet him

when the hell was the promo scene and was it even in this episode :P

EILEEN IMMEDIATELY

Yesssssss

I am immediately also upset that she loves Sam so much but doesn't tell him to not let Dean talk to her while he's driving if it means he has to keep looking down at the ipad to make it clear what he's saying to her >.> EYES ON THE ROAD. Sam's no good to you dead.

I am mostly admiring Eileen's hair because Kelly stuff is like... okay.

Aw she said goodbye to Sam specially. My heart.

Dean thinks it's cute too.

Sam's like "come on" oh god he's in love too.

Sammy, this is how it feels to be in the hot seat when people mock you for having an adorable crush. Leap behind denial and pretending there was nothing special about that "bye Sam" :3

And you should know you've seen it happen to Dean enough :P

Dean ships it.

And he always knows what's true and good :3

"He stole my line" says Crowley somewhere or other. I love how Dean was literally just saying not to call Crowley, and there's Mick in the library with the whiskey, "hello boys" and suuuuper ominous music, because he just let himself in. Does he know about Kelly? Sam and Dean are coordinating all the other hunters they know on this, but it's their resources. And they actually have other hunters they know and trust and are good, working with them.

And of course, the whole thing with the BMoL imposing on them - no privacy, the keys giving him full access to their lives, and, I think, assuming in a way they're their superiors because Sam n Dean are hunters, but Mick has the desk job and the education...

Sam and Dean present a united front stomping towards Mick, who has come to hang out. Now HE is on the case of Kelly, and of course it comes out that they were keeping it a secret...

Mick mentions cosmic shockwave but it's not Cas's cosmic consequences. I think we need to limit the word cosmic to one per season relevant things.

Anyway as with 12x14 showing the BMoL are playing on their stage but are tragically behind and under informed. I was recently musing on if they had the same technology as a start point as the Bunker and that detected the angel fall, they would have obviously a lot more time to develop it and would have equipment sensitive enough to detect all sorts of big events (I was wondering about the seals breaking in that context, but a Nephilim being conceived counts)

Now I have to listen to Dean recapping 12x08...

I feel like I should just leave a blank space for watching them arguing about killing Kelly or making her get an abortion. Just because... Buckleming, no, why are you even handling this subject. Why.

Mick takes the far more hardline approach that they should have killed her, but I mean, Sam and Dean start from the point of, we thought she agreed to get an abortion (are you not allowed to say abortion on American TV?)

I do love Sam and Dean sitting on the table side by side like this KNOWING they're like, the most intimidating men Mick will ever meet and if they play up the double act, he's so much more likely to crack from the pressure :')

This is rapidly turning into Buckleming's favourite trope of Sam n Dean judging you together, which I can't remember how often they do it but it is a Thing and 9x21 is not the only example though it’s the only one I can think of, and none of the other writers ever make them do exactly this.

I think part of why it stands out to me is just because while Sam n Dean are great and can be united against a mock-worthy foe, they actually aren't usually *united* and even when things are great, they play to their strengths, but often moments of unity highlight their differences, especially current conflicts or whatever. Moments of inward reflection occur and so on.

Here, they're just a block on this table which says "exposition: Winchester POV" while Mick is over there like "exposition: drop more anvils" (he just called the nephilim an "abomination" out of the blue)

"Until then, we drink" - I think Dean is distracting Mick more than anything - he already showed up in the Bunker, drinking, and Dean knows they have a lead thanks to Eileen. If they can get Mick trashed, who knows, maybe he'll forget, maybe this will all seem less urgent in the morning, maybe he can be reasoned with differently when the plan is he has the hangover and Dean is doing dishes noisily in the kitchen, if, you know, Mick had not out-drunk them

wait why is Lucifer back in that chair - did Buckleming literally not watch 12x15? It's so pointless to chain him up... he should be like, sitting in the corner of Crowley's room or whatever, LOOKING free and suffering.

The fact you could fade out from 12x13 and into 12x16 for the Lucifer stuff makes me think that Perez did the best he could and bless his cotton socks but you just can't un-fuck Buckleming writing when they're on a roll, because if they think Lucifer should be chained up in this chair like they wanted him, then here he is.

I mean aside from anything it's yet more complete disrespect for canon - that they clearly didn't do any homework for 12x13 because holy crap the Gavin stuff was badly handled, and that was their own story so you'd think they'd know how follow on from their OWN writing - and now they're not even playing ball with the other writers on current stuff >.>

As I said in an ask I answered a little before this episode, they have their own canon running adjacent to main canon, where all their mad plot stuff happens, and everyone else just has to deal with it as a sort of weird fever dream that happens in the background of the Winchesters' lives. You can't reason with it when they aren't listening. Or they just do not understand the point of what someone else wrote.

Anyway I guess Dagon feels like she failed Lucifer over something or other, which makes her a kid desperately trying to prove herself to her father.

Sounds ominous about Kelly "lasting" and that the pregnancy will probably include all sorts of body horror and then kill her - I suppose more burning up like the vessels or something in that vein.

So I suppose now we have the whole do you let the baby get born at the expense of the mother dying stuff - I really really hope this is not some wacky anti-abortion message but actually makes this look WRONG. I mean you'd think Lucifer and a trusted underling not valuing the mother over the baby would be a good start that this is a bad POV on abortion because it's again choosing for the mother what's "best" and which life to value more, but, well.

I also just don't trust the writers because the message was so bad in 12x08 with all the men arguing over what to do about her baby and Kelly's characterisation to not even consider abortion seriously despite having a baby from rape, before we even get into the ethical horror show of what it may or may not be intentionally saying about aborting babies with problems you just don't think you can deal with as a parent regardless of their potential

I mean fucking hell can we just not have this story arc?

Wait if we're having more Mick flashbacks did he actually kill his friend or are we just wallowing on this

I can't tell with these writers if I should expect a plot twist or just over-writing :P

the Headmistress has a chessboard in front of her, currently all set up and not played. But in the actual game, her chess pieces are all over the board. Does she think she has them in neat lines, but they're actually running everywhere?

Who knows - Mick tries to complain he's still cleaning up after Toni's mess while the Headmistress thinks that they're hopeless because Toni said so. She doesn't want chess pieces she can't get neatly in line.

Not how the game works, ma'am

She seems to think so - "assimilate or eliminate" - she really does not understand the Winchesters and their role in the whole... cosmic order. You work around them, or with them, not over them. :P

Blah blah Kelly and Dagon - Dagon doing the bare minimum to keep Kelly alive while off the radar of everyone looking for her, clearly not caring about Kelly... Kelly demands to see a doctor because of course we need her to make stupid decisions.

I bet the baby has like, little horns and a pitchfork in there and the weird pains are because it's poking the inside of her tummy with the pitchfork.

Cackling comes over the ultrasound, somehow.

Also, better odds the doctor is randomly an angel, maybe because they've possessed every single doctor in the country waiting for Kelly to drop by because she wants pics of Satan jr to share on Facebook to make all her schoolfriends jealous.

The hangover scene - Sam and Dean have their sleeves rolled the exact same way. They really are still being a unified front. Of course, the whole table thing - they're in their rightful places while confronting a cheery Mick hanging out in their kitchen. Last interloper to do that was God.

Of course this implies that Sam and Dean keep the resources to make Bloody Marys in their fridge in the first place.

Which is completely and utterly horrifying, that Mick comes in right as they're asking each other about Mary, and makes himself a Bloody Mary.

Binge drinking: a national sport and we're GOOD at it

I am disappointed that Dagon did not just roll with the fake relationship thing because that would have been hilarious and maybe actually made me interested in the character dynamics going on here. She's not exactly done anything to make her look like more than the standard standoffish demon with old school lucifer loyalties and not much interest in being nice except for what it gets her. Of course there's a Meg vibe going on but like... without all the oozing charisma and personality that in Meg 2.0 was just in one eyebrow all the time. I mean, she could just stand there and eyebrow slightly and... gah, Rachel Miner just has ridiculous stage presence :P I don’t DISLIKE Dagon but she’s trapped in this writing and has no room to do anything fun or challenging.

I just took a little break to come up with a much better way to write this story with Mittens, and we've concluded if Kelly's not going to be HORRIFIED by what's happening inside her, she should be intentionally stoned out of her mind with nephilim baby brain, which Dagon has to deal with like "UGH" and long story short, she has to throw Kelly a baby shower to keep her happy and they sit there crocheting booties together and AGAIN would give us real character dynamics - Kelly wavering between "what's happening to me?" and wandering around their dilapidated hide out of the week wondering where to put the nursery while singing to herself, and Dagon grinding her teeth and helping Kelly pick out names all sweetly :P

I just want these poor actresses to have something real to work with

Can't see horns on the nephilim

oh well

*slowly decays on my chair into a neat little pile of dust while Crowley is being boring with Lucifer* I was just watching 9x02 before this, and Crowley chained up in the dungeon there, playing Kevin for all its worth, and oh my god that was excellent writing

boring

... I do not remember typing that

Oh, Michael reference. Cool. Cool cool cool. Nothing new about him, but with his presence in the narrative I have to wonder if Lucifer is lying or exaggerating.

Giving Crowley what he "wants" in order to make him bored or unsatisfied or whatever Lucifer seems to be playing with seems to go back to a much less interesting version of Crowley than the one who seemed to have a lot more fun torturing Lucifer in 12x15 with a genuinely clever way to BREAK him but oh well

the "you win" obviously is really fake and Lucifer attempting to manipuate Crowley while under his control and ugh Crowley does it so much better. He broke Kevin in like 3 lines of dialogue

Ooh Mary

She has a bigass gun - ha, as I was typing that she added another attachment and made it bigger

I suppose that's not a metaphor about their relationship - "I've learned not to argue"

"Major in murder, minor in mayhem?" okay we've switched to whichever of Buckner and Ross-Leming is the quippy one :P I like these lines, to be clear. Mary is fun. Mary and Ketch fascinates me, if you didn't notice me writing a 6k fic where they were married in the aftermath of the world without monsters :P

Oh my god is she actually going to talk about her life with Ketch? I was hoping nearer the start of the season she'd open up to Cas but obviously that would be too positive for the both of them. And now it's part of Ketch seducing her, so I'm gonna cut off that thought right here, since it would have been for sweet family reasons with Cas but sooo not where it's going here :P

She's wearing the same shirt with the XOXOX pattern from 12x02 and we can see the chain with the ring on but it's not really obvious the ring is there

Oh NOW we can see the ring, after the "Mrs Winchester, I believe you're drawn to danger" line and the camera changes to a wider shot and you can see the ring finally, like, they parted her plaid a little.

I kind of want to be more emo about Mary talking about her life, and I am in other contexts but this episode has exhausted me, so her laughing sadly about her quiet normal life not happening was kind of a non-moment to me >.> I suppose she's sort of coming through to a state of acceptance if you apply the stages of grief, but she's still dealing with it all wrong by not talking to her family - even Cas - but bonding with the worst possible character to bond with this season. I mean, c'mon, if she'd started hanging out with Crowley he'd have got weirdly attached in a non-creepy way and kind of hate himself for giving her honest girl talk advice :P

Mick can't seem to move without ominous music following him

Pfft there's another, worse Brit here now who is the Poshest and even drinking tea while he comes to chat with Mick. Mick being all rough and stubble-y and pointing a gun at him is immediately looking like a more relatable character in terms of what we're asked to relate to with hunters and all - he's picking up their mannerisms

The posh boy talks about another set of hands - NOT a Cas parallel or at least the worst freakin Cas parallel ever. I think in a way, if that line does mean anything, then the parallels to Heaven here, have Mick as the Cas here, and posh boy as the Establishment Cas is up against.

Oooh the blood is on the floor there next to Mick, but last episode Dean was standing directly on top of it so I missed that detail. Now it's just casually in the frame with Mick, reminding us and I guess therefore telling us what's on his mind. And, you know, showing us Mick framed with what was a huge pool of blood.

Okay I guess the guy who just murdered the doctor is a demon despite no eyes flashing because he didn't use an angel blade and an angel might have been a bit more, sorry have to murder you hope you understand - no idea why he did that unless Dagon's commanding some demons to clear up Kelly's mess, knowing her little mind control thingy might not be permanent. Or Crowley also is looking for the nephilim on the side to pointlessly torturing Lucifer.

I mean without the eyes he could have just been a really proactive hunter or BMoL

Oh gosh no Dean's on the phone to Cas, listening to his terrible voicemail. Help.

OH NO EILEEN'S HERE AND SHE'S SITTING IN THE 'COME AND GET ME' POSE

Sam you need to take her on that table right now

Dean will clear the heck out, he understands and thinks you're cute together

I literally did not listen to a thing they said while screeching about that *rewinds for plot*

Also just the whole Cas n Dean thing on one side and Sam n Eileen in the other room

OH gosh they saved the demon reveal for Eileen having a badass fucking showdown with him both showing their cards with him doing the eyes, and her pulling out an ANGEL BLADE

I know they're a lot cheaper in the current economy but I have to think Sam gave it to her from their spares pile, because of the Asa Fox thing on the one hand, that they ARE rare for hunters to best and angel in any way but also just this way it's sweet

but oh boy the Cas/Dean Sam/Eileen stuff that happens when you show her pulling an angel blade

Ah, the demon did work for Dagon

(Which means Crowley is flagging in this race, if he's even in it >.>)

But anyway Dean third-wheeling Sam and Eileen is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Sam is awkward and smiling! Eileen is gorgeous and smiling! Dean likes Eileen a lot with respect as a hunter (thinks it's cool she stabbed a demon in the heart) but is totally cut out of the final moment where Sam and Eileen clink beer bottles, I mean, he just *vanishes*

and then I realise - this is how Sam feels all the time when he's stuck in a scene with Dean and Cas :P

What is Crowley even doing

I suppose this scene is very blatantly illustrating how 2 stories can happen at once - Crowley thinks he's showing ultimate dominance, and Lucifer is subverting it by using the words Crowley wants to hear for his own ends, with actual wink wink nod nod to how he's the one saying how it will be. The demons are confused and hesitant about what they're clapping for... Not entirely sure which power is ruling them and how it's going to turn out for them - who do you support in this race? Crowley is the surface text, presenting what he thinks is obvious from the visuals. But Lucifer is the subtext, with his back turned to Crowley he's free to convey what ever else he wants, even to the point of painting the exact opposite story to what's going on

discord between surface and subtext.

Kelly seems to be genuinely trying to be totally normal about her pregnancy... is this denial?

Literally did not recognise Sam's voice... I knew it had to be SOMEONE putting on a voice but what the heck Sam can ACT?

I mean I'm not complaining I love it but AAAH

Also me whenever Sam and Eileen are on screen together: hands over my mouth, eyes all big and anime shiny, faint squealing whistle escaping from between my fingers

Aw Mick no don't ruin this party

Eileen: "no one cares" *continues making heart eyes at her* *sam sends heart eyes at her*

Oh god we're all in love with Eileen, this is not going to end well, because I can't fight Sam for her. I am smol and he will kill me.

Anyway more class struggle between the BMoL and hunters... they have files on them but think they have no training, despite the fact they survived. I mean, Eileen has made it as a deaf hunter. Can they not appreciate how fucking badass she must be? :P Learning on the job with live monsters means any hunter who makes it so far has not been killed by literally every “class” or “test” they ever had.

Blah blah Sam gets handed the colt while standing in the shadow of a bridge blah blah 1x21 parallels. In 1x21 they did not get the shot they wanted. Although Dean was handed the Colt by John (who Mick is now standing in for) and gave it to Sam before he didn't make the shot. I wonder if Sam will give the gun to someone else.

(For no reason other than that she's here, I'd love to see Eileen do it, although of course it would take away some narrative impact from a major character parallel. But I love her so)

Well that was an easy kidnap

Kelly really is not coming out of this well. I'm going to blame as much as I can on baby brain. She's such a pawn in this narrative and it sucks on a grand scale.

*nyoom*

Is Dean just taking her straight to the others for them to maybe shoot her? I mean, what is the actual plan here

*Dean continues missing Cas out loud* *doesn't care about this other guy who showed up instead*

Anyway a whole bunch of blokes are here to talk to Kelly about it, though she's now too hugely preggers for take-backsies

Sam wants to help, Mick has the unsympathetic POV that the baby won't even love Kelly because it's a monster, Kelly actually gets to say out loud that she was used and is upset about the Lucifer thing (woah, a whole line of dialogue about it :P) and that she loves her baby anyway.

Blonde posh twat just wants to kill her immediately, which causes Dean to go into human shield mode to Kelly

Eileen's just like, not everyone is looking directly at me, what is going on

*individual reaction shots for literally everyone being thrown around*

*everyone shoots Dagon pointlessly*

elizabethrobertajones has anyone talked about how Kelly looked when Dagon came to get her

mittensmorgul Not that I've seen... How did she look?

elizabethrobertajones she has such muted reactions to everything but in this case Dagon walks right up to her and Kelly says nothing but is leaning away reluctantly and then Dagon grabs her hand and pulls her and the shot of her being led off screen is like this defeated school kid who was caught going truant

mittensmorgul She knows she's still being used...

elizabethrobertajones yeah NOW I feel sorry for her because she seems defeated and used and broken

mittensmorgul yeah.

elizabethrobertajones it's just sucky they didn't write her well enough before to build any of that up or like... actually make her look genuinely depressed and unwell

mittensmorgul yep they just made her seem like a flake

elizabethrobertajones that one little defeated kid being taken home moment where Dagon grabs her hand says EVERYTHING but they had like FOUR SCENES together already and I didn't see this!!

YES Eileen has the Colt!!!! GO GO EILEEN

I guess she shoots british blonde dickhead instead because he was gonna shoot Kelly or something

Colt slow mo! It really does slow down the flow of time every time it's shot.

Aw, crap, she shot the blonde loser instead but because Dagon did, well, the 1x21 thing, and we got to see how a Colt kills a human (which I ALWAYS wondered, because it can't just make you sort of die normally from gunshot wounds - you have to, you know, DIE of a kill anything gun wound, so messy, quick and awful :P)

Anyway Eileen NOOOO you look so horrified :( I was just saying to Mittens her Cas mirroring piles on and I can't even think what this is, just that she now feels like shit for things which aren't her fault but she has this death on her conscience, and it didn't even happen in defence of anyone, it was just he stood in the way like an idiot and Dagon didn't feel like getting shot today and knew exactly what was happening because Eileen hesitated just long enough to let her disappear.

... Does Dean actually know the Colt is in play because UGH we were robbed of that reveal

MICK NO

EILEEN IS PRECIOUS AND THIS IS DEFINITELY CROSSING A LINE. YOU LEAVE HER THE FUCK ALONE

I guess the Code IS brainwashing, and this is again a Cas parallel - this would be a crypt scene kind of moment for him except that the cute love story is between Sam and Eileen, and Mick's interloping on that with the brainwashedness and the whole... already killed his puppy because the Headmistress said so flashbacks, so what is random old hunter Eileen to do with anything, but even someone he openly disliked as much as whatsisface was a BMoL and should be defended

honestly he should remember Eileen's being defended by 2 legacies and she herself is a legacy and I think if I remember correctly was raised by a hunter with connections to the Irish chapter?

We're crossing over into the final 10 minutes of a Buckleming episode here

Sam argues for free will, which is a bit of a turn around when Dean's right there (not that Sam isn't about free will - they ARE Team Free Will after all, but Dean tends to lead the way on this while Sam has a much more interesting relationship with it for other reasons), but hey, it's a Buckleming episode - themes can bounce around pretty wildly and get connected to anyone. :P Sam's been all in the centre of attention and having a lot of big dramatic moments lately. Plus, crypt scene parallel and all, he had to talk the brainwashed person out of killing the one he loves so that at least the romance angle is in there somewhere. It's like, one step removed from the original, but allows Sam to interject himself into the scene, without getting tangled up in crypt scene stuff himself (don't think he's ever really done more than a few cursory I know you're in there moments, back and forth with being the one in there or the one saying it, which were MotW little things and not part of the big narrative, just the supporting mirrors :P).

Of course also parallels the subverted crypt scene, by the crypt scene obsessed director in 12x10, where again Ishim was used as an intermediary to break the back and forth-ing of the crypt scene repeats between Dean and Cas, and didn't need a I know you're in there, but again boiled it down simply to protecting a loved one in a particular framing playing off previous iterations (10x22, which was much more in the formula) - Sam gets this parallel where he can fight for his loved one without it being all twisted up and weird in possession that THEY have to deal with, just the attacker. So it looks nothing like the actual crypt scene, guy in a long tan coat and scruff trying to kill a loved one because brainwashing aside, but is still part of the organic growth of the way this subtext has gone.

Aaand Mary took off the ring. Do not want John to see this.

Ketch like, wow, I thought I'd just end up killing you.

Charming.

Flash some more of your excellent calves at her to make her forget you said that.

(I am personally offended by his calves as I made Mary practically gag over him having pallid calves in said fic where they were married. Dammit DHJ can you stop being amazing because I need to hate every aspect of your character down to his calves and you're like, hi, I'm going to sit in this ridiculous pose now so you can see my calves are indeed the same colour as all the rest of me and not the garish calves of the man who wears a suit all year until you drag him to the beach)

Anyway Ketch is like blah blah thanks for giving up your family and throwing yourself into hunting and my bed with no strings attached, isn't this grand, and Mary's like, uh, I like my family and I want to have it all, hunting and family, and Ketch is like wow I just started to like you and now I really have to kill you and oh dear.

Oh dearie dearie me.

Imminent attempt on her life by Ketch aside, I think Mary has a bit of a misunderstanding about hunting and family - 12x03 was them trying to show her how their life actually was, but she was too messed up to appreciate it and actually needed the space. But it was trying desperately to build a life where Mom comes along on hunts and that's cool because we hunt and Mom hunts and she's here, so... uh, this is what we do now.

But instead Mary split off from them entirely - 12x06 showed she hunted in secret away from her family in the past, and kept the two completely partitioned - I think something Sam also has issues with although he had been more open to the idea of marrying someone in the life, said in a Robbie episode before the Robbie episode where Eileen showed up and uh hey guess who's here right now... Uh, slightly sidetracked (slightly hit by a massive shipping container that is Sam and Eileen)... But yeah, Mary needs to reconcile that she has a hunting family, that that isn't a bad thing, and the two things can coexist perfectly normally. They don't NEED her to get rid of all the monsters and in a way she's talking to Ketch about two life choices, to hunt and have a family, ignoring the detail that she and Ketch are on an extermination run against all monsters, so eventually there won't BE hunting to define herself by so she won't be able to have it all because one part will be over... and of course, the more she goes on like this, the more precarious it seems for the other part too. Dean's worrying about not hearing from Mary although he's making a bigger fuss about not hearing from Cas. And their arcs are paralleled, though to obviously different ends that Cas is romantically estranged from Dean and Mary's estranged from being his mom.

Blah blah Lucifer, he's shirtless, exposition is still happening, Crowley's found himself a hacker to crack the spells on him. he just made it out of this scene but I suppose next Buckleming episode he's queued for untimely death of a black guy.

Him leaving and the sounds of the Bunker door overlap nicely.

Eileen <3

(She hasn't done anything yet, she just looks sad)

Sam and Dean agree with me. Dean says nice things, and then Sam gently touches her shoulder (I am officially, like, noped out of these DeanCas parallels I just can't) and turns her around and signs to her and and he's touchign her hairrrrr and aannanodsigrdoh epjddpawhtiwoeugipeow[pe[wkgo[rdf

I'm all overcome with emotions about Sam touching her hair all gently and her weeping into his chest and I can't deal with Kelly and Dagon scenes immediately after. Now Kelly really is the scolded child who tried to run away, and Dagon is showing Kelly FINALLY that she only cares about the baby in no uncertain terms (it seemed fairly obvious in their first scene but I guess it just wasn't obvious enough to Kelly, who has the worst case of baby brain ever, which I always thought was a thing where you put the kettle back in the fridge after you made tea or something, not trusting a Prince of Hell with your unborn nephilim baby and your own life)

okay now Kelly has a nearly appropriate horror level to what's going on with her baby

Oh noes Headmistress has shown up

More schoolboys getting scolded

Everyone is children

But Mick is our inside guy at least. He actually wants to argue against it because he passed a crypt scene test. I still don't know if he's gonna survive but I mean, at least he had this? Sometimes cool characters get an entire backstory right before they get murdered and I can honestly see this ending with Ketch being in the room because he's about to slice Mick's throat, probably with the same dagger he once killed his BFF with back in Kendricks because why not :P

Which means Mick softening up only serves a metaphorical purpose unless he left some inside way for the Winchesters, like idk his bottle of tomato juice and recipe for a Bloody Mary turns out to be the code or something

WHO KNOWS

Well me if I ever finished the episode

She asks if the hunters obey him, but Mick obeyed them >.>

Mick's chest hair is trying to get out of the room before him...

Dang, sir. I was gonna joke about it during last episode when he was hanging out in the back of the car, but I didn't feel like it was worth mentioning and i now regret that comment not happening completely; it's definitely actually heightening the tension here, with his half-open shirt.

Nooooo they can't kill Eileen... Why is she on their shitlist? I mean I know why but this is so unfair

MICK IS REBELLING

he is so gonna die because he's doing the Naomi Gadreel Metatron redemption moment

especially because they're all symbolic useless deaths; I think Gadreel was the only one who even made any sort of real difference

RIP Mick

Your scruff will be missed

Dean you can not sigh like that about Cas, with the big soulful heaving of shoulders and audibly wet breath and all I mean

someone might think you were in love with him or something, the way you're carrying on

Incidentally I thought there was something fishy about it and Mittens confirmed to me it's literally 2 days later and Sam and Dean appear not to have seen each other since shit went down, but Sam was the last person to talk to Eileen and know what she's doing, so I'm guessing Sam and Eileen spent 2 days in Sam's room rearranging the furniture.

I am beyond proud of my boy.

HEY Dean gets the Colt. I mean it's almost enough to fill the gap between Sam x Eileen and Dean x Colt and forget Destiel :P

It parallels him and Ketch again (he also had sweet talky words to the Colt, which mirrored back to Dean getting her in 6x18), so I'm starting to feel like he kills Ketch with it? Like, symbolically needing to use it on a human person instead of the monster big bad or something? I know Eileen already accidentally killed a dude with it, but I mean, Dean and Ketch seem to have a reckoning coming, whether Dean knows Ketch and Mary hooked up or not (although, narratively, ends up heaping on weirdass subtext whether he knows or not >.> Dean vs the step father kind of thing)... this would be sort of neat.

Poor Mick just laying there.

Oh I typed that thing about Dean and Ketch before the Headmistress threw down the files for the Winchesters with Dean's on top, so, yeah. That's their reckoning a'coming.

It's 1am and I really have not conclusive thoughts about this except that I am delighted Sam and Eileen hooked up and she fled the country instead of sticking around making me nervous about her getting the hit on her, and Sam did a bad Irish accent earlier because he's like, goofily in love with her, so I guess he might just like, randomly fly to Ireland in the season finale to help her and they get married while they're out there and -

Oh and also whenever Cas comes back Dean narratively has full permission to take him back to his room and not let him out for an entire two days.

#12x17 #season 12 spoilers #I loved a lot of this but #buckleming appropriate wank for ts #for all the bits that were like... hey pacing and characterisation are words in the dictionary #my stuff #rape mention cw #poor old Kelly >.>

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morningmindsetpodcast-blog · 5 years

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MM214 - What Lifts you Up?

We all get down or feel down. That is natural. We should focus on and remember things that lift us back up and make us feel good. What in your life lifts you up? Try to spend more time focusing on that. (Filter: Take a Picture, playing my guitar, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to Morning Mindset, I got it right that time. That's right. I am your host Paul Markel. Thank you, once again for joining me for this show for sharing this with other people for leaving comments on your favorite podcast application. Whatever that happens to be today. We're going to talk about what lifts you up. We all get down. We all feel down at certain times we go through highs and lows in our lives. That's what life is all about. That's natural. - But what we need to focus on is not so much the things that get us down or when we do get down when we feel low when we feel bummed out when we feel like we don't want to get out of bed or we don't want to do anything, what have you. Need to focus on things that lift us up? What lifts you up? What makes you feel good? Put you back on your feet, again, Julie Andrews. She sung are saying about it in The Sound of Music. - That's right, it was called favorite things and you older people understand this and you know these younger people are like, what is he talking about raindrops on roses and Whispers on whiskers on kittens, not Whispers and warm woolen mittens. Those are a few of her favorite things when the dog bites when the bee stings when she's feeling sad. She simply remembers her favorite things and then she doesn't feel so bad. That's an actually a concept that's pretty old. But how often do we think about that? - How often when you're feeling down when you get down when you just win the blues have taken a hold of you. Do you have a plan in place to bring you out of it? Or do you just kind of float along? I know I've been guilty of this. Sometimes I've gotten down or felt like, you know, what's the point and I don't have a plan or I didn't put a plan into action. What I want you guys to do is I want you to think about that now it's easy to feel good when everything is going well course, it's natural when you encounter something that makes you, legitimately, seriously just it uplifts you. - It makes you feel good. I don't know what it is, it could be a song. It could be a picture that you look at it could be an episode of a television show. They're the office is a classic American television show. I know it was British first, but no one cares about that. There are certain episodes of the I like the office. It's been off the air for a while now, but it's still available on Netflix and there are certain episodes of the television show The Office that actually just make me feel good. There are certain songs that just instantly it's like an adrenaline rush. It's like a stiff drink or what have you makes me feel good. For instance. The band filter has a song called take a picture. That when I listen to that song it instantly lifts me up. - They're older songs that lift me up. For instance. I talked yesterday about Stairway to Heaven Sarah to have an instantly lift me up because it transforms me back to where I was at the time and I think about that that makes me feel good. Playing my guitar as I said before I'm not I don't claim to be a musician by any stretch of the imagination and I don't play for other people, but when I have the opportunity I sit down by myself, and I play and I don't think about other things. That's the great thing. That's the greatest thing about musical instruments is that when you're focusing on the instrument itself and focusing on trying to hit the right chords and hit the right strings and all of that stuff. - When you're focusing on that, you're not focusing on anything else. You're not focusing on what's got you down or depressed or angry or frustrated or what have you when I'm playing my guitar. I don't think about what's on Facebook or social media or anything as think about the good stuff. What lifts you up? Maybe it's a passage that you have read or a poem or a song or what have you something that I when I if I'm feeling depressed or if I'm feeling like extremely frustrated. I guess. I like to read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. If you guys don't know what Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, it was actually turned into a song many many years ago. - But it's a time for everything and it explains an ecclesiastic that includes you a sees that as humans who inhabit this Earth. There's not only time for happiness. There's also time for sadness. There's not a time for us, for death, but for birth. Birth and death happiness and sadness peace and War there's a time for all things under heaven and when I read that, I reread it. I'm in a pretty much have it memorized by now, but I'll go back and I'll read it. It makes things and puts things into perspective. Sometimes we just need some perspective in our life. - Sometimes when we get down or feeling down or we're bummed out, we just need something to kick-start us to give us that little bit of perspective to make things seem like they're not all that bad. Just like Julie Andrews song sang about or something about what is the correct pronunciation is she sing. She sang she sung. My English professors. I hope they're not listening to this right now. But so. What I want you guys to do when you're feeling good when you're feeling up when you're feeling upbeat and you encounter something and there may be things that you've never thought about. You know, what I forgot about that song Or that passage or that book or that show or whatever set yourself a plan. - Set up a defense mechanism or a defense plan create your own defensive plan against the blues that sometimes we all need to sing the blues and sometimes singing the blues is just part of life and I understand that you know, that's something that Darryl taught Michael singing the blues is sometimes part of life. There's an office joke for you guys for those who get it, Congratulations. - If you don't don't know what to tell you. So what lifts you up and when you find something that lifts you up make a mental note of it so that the next time you need to enact your your plan your defensive plan against the blues you can go and do that thing, and appreciate that thing for what it is whether it's a song whether it's a passage whether it's a book whether it's a musical instrument, whatever it is, maybe it's just petting your dog. - I don't know but think about that consider what it is in your life that lifts you up. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for you today. Thank you. Once again for being a part of the Morning Mindset audience. I hope you're enjoying it. I hope you're sharing it with others. Don't be greedy. Don't be greedy. Share this show with other people. I'm sure that there's at least one person that you know, that would get something out of this show, and if you'd like to leave us a message or write us a letter or what have you go to MorningMindsetPodcast.com and you can do that, and if you'd like to get a copy of the book it's available on Amazon, or you can get signed copies from our website. All right, that's it. That's all I have for you guys today Merry Christmas. Happy New Year, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.

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cryptnus-blog · 6 years

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The blockchain believers - MIT Technology Review

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/04/the-blockchain-believers-mit-technology-review/

The blockchain believers - MIT Technology Review

What makes blockchain devotees so passionate about the technology? Is it a means to get rich or something much bigger? And how do you even explain the thing to people who don’t quite get it? We sent reporters to blockchain conferences in Dallas, Texas, and Cambridge, UK, to find out.

Julia Robinson

“We should stop trying to explain blockchain and start trying to show what the benefits are, because consumers don’t really need to know how it works. They don’t know how Visa or the Treasury—how any of those things work, but they know that they add value to their lives.” —Aari Lotfipour, 33, Dallas

This story is part of our May/June 2018 Issue

See the rest of the issue Subscribe

Julia Robinson

“The internet was really started because of the same ideas. We wanted the freedom to share information, freedom of voice, level the playing field, allow small ideas to become big. This is all the same thing that’s going on. It’s just another layer on top.” —Chris Nichols, 47, Dallas

“Years ago when Bitcoin was three cents I got too busy to buy it, and they kept saying buy it, and I kept saying I’ll get to it, and then I forgot. And then the other week I saw it was at $19,000. I thought, if I had it, I’d sell it now. But I didn’t have it. I really kicked myself in the butt. Those are millions of dollars that I could have had.” —Michael Mullen, 50s, Dallas

Andrew Testa

What do you tell your friends about cryptocurrencies?

“They were like, ‘You’re putting all that money in? You’re crazy!’ and now they are all calling me for advice.”

Has it made you rich?

“Oh, yes. In my country, Croatia, yes. I bought a house.”

—Petar Juršic, 23, UK

Andrew Testa

“The internet unlocked applications we didn’t think were possible—like Twitter, which came completely out of the blue. The same way the internet revolutionized communication, blockchain is going to revolutionize trust. Now there is an alternative to institutions and governments. We can rethink the whole system.” —Justin Drake, 29, UK

Julia Robinson

“Through the blockchain, everyone’s going to have a global ID, so you’ll have your own genome that’ll be anonymize-encrypted, and then through crypto-keys you’ll be able to totally manage who has access to your genome. So you can donate it, you can monetize it, but this is all going to be something that you control.” —Henry Ines, 43, Dallas

Julia Robinson

What do you think this ends up doing 10, 20 years down the line?

“I think that if I had an answer for that, it would be the most bullshit answer that I’ve ever given to anything in my life.”

Okay.

“If you asked me in 1997 what the internet was for, I would tell you that I could use it for e-mail and to download some pictures of boobs, and now it’s on my phone and I can do so many ridiculous things with it at the touch of a button or a swipe at any point in time. I don’t think we know what those future iterations look like. I would love for people to have more financial sovereignty and more control. I would love for it to lead to a freer, more borderless, more censorship-resistant world.”—Amber D. Scott, 39, Dallas

Andrew Testa

“In India there is a lot of black-market trading going on, and it seems that with blockchain—with its ledger that can never be changed—it’s a secure location. And as someone who’s seen black-market deals happening in front of my eyes, the idea that that might become a lot harder to do, and might one day be eradicated—it’s just really fascinating.” —Ashkay Shah, 21, UK

Julia Robinson

“Six months ago on my LinkedIn feed there was not a lot of blockchain or crypto chatter. Three months ago I started getting more. Now, like 75 percent of my news feed is all about crypto and blockchain and who’s doing what.” —John Nolz, 44, Dallas

Andrew Testa

“A few years ago I got involved in a hackathon and they were looking at finding a way to give an identity to 230 million children unaccounted for by the authorities in Africa and India. The idea that our team came up with was that you can take a picture of the child, and take their fingerprint every year and store it on the blockchain, and then you give the child their digital identity when they turn 18.” —Christiana Imafidon, 24, UK

Andrew Testa

Would you buy any cryptocurrency?

“No, because I don’t back horses, and you know if a horse doesn’t win, you don’t get anything. Same with a cryptocurrency—if it fails, you’ve got nothing!” —John Goldworth, 89, UK

Andrew Testa

“We’re going to start seeing the beginnings of a borderlessness in politics and the marketplace. That’s what really stood out to me … to not be at the behest of the people who are in control anymore.” —Elizabeth Munker, 28, UK

Julia Robinson

How would you explain blockchain to your grandma?

“I would say, Grandma, you know how you have your credit card now? Just think of it as you have the credit card, but it’s all on your phone now, Grandma.” —Trek, 38, Dallas

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martinfzimmerman · 6 years

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Michael Pento: Currencies Will Be “Flushed Down the Toilet” Triggering a “Mad Rush into Gold”

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Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcome back Michael Pento, president and founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies, and author of the book The Coming Bond Market Collapse: How to Survive the Demise of the U.S. Debt Market.

Michael is a well-known money manager and a fantastic market commentator, and over the past few years has been a wonderful guest and one of our favorite interviews here on the Money Metals Podcast and we always enjoy getting his Austrian economist viewpoint.

Michael, welcome back and thanks for joining us again.

Michael Pento: What a great introduction. Thanks for having me back on, Mike.

Mike Gleason: Well, we often talk about bond yields with you, Michael, and I think that’s a good place to start today. You recently published an article where you made the case that 4% would be the floor when it comes to the 10-year note – not the ceiling, the floor, and you made some observations that now seem striking. The yield on that note averaged 4.6% in 2007, just the year before the 2008 financial crisis.

Today practically nobody remembers yields ever being that high… 10 years is a long time we suppose. Heck, it seems like investors have already forgotten the early February selloff in the equities market, so I guess we can’t be surprised that they can’t remember the situation a decade ago.

In any event, markets are not prepared, or priced for 4% yields on the 10-year. Talk a bit about why 4% is likely to be a minimum and why yields should probably be much higher than that.

Michael Pento: Let’s start with the fact that normally speaking throughout history, the 10-year note seems to run with nominal GDP growth, which is basically your real growth plus inflation. So, if we’re running around 2% inflation and we have growth at 2.5% around that, you would assume that the 10-year note should be historically speaking around 4.5% right now. But I can make a very cogent argument, Mike, that rates should be much, much higher because if you look back … as you mentioned the 2007 when that average interest rate was, again, 4.6% and nominal GDP was sort of around that same ballpark, the annual deficit was 1.1% of GDP.

But going into fiscal 2019… sounds far away, not maybe that far away, but it sounds further away than really what it is. It begins in October of this year. Our annual amount of red ink will be $1.2 trillion. That is the Treasury’s annual deficit, but you have to add to that to the fact that the central bank of the United States will be selling… and I say selling, because what they don’t buy the Treasury must issue to the public, $600 billion less of Treasury Bonds. So, that’s $1.8 trillion deficit. That has never before happened in the history of mankind, a $1.8 trillion deficit, which happens to be 8.6% of our phony GDP if we don’t go into a recession.

If we go into a recession anytime in the near future, and I don’t think the business cycle has been outlawed, then were talking about $3 trillion annual deficits. Let’s just take the 1.8 which is 8.6% of GDP. Why would the 10-year note not go to at least 4.5% where nominal GDP is? It would probably go much higher, especially even the fact that back in 2007 we had $5.1 trillion dollars of publicly traded debt, but not we have $15 trillion dollars of publicly traded debt. So over above the fact that the Fed’s balance sheet went from $700 billion to $4.5 trillion; it’s $4.4 trillion right now.

But you still have $4.5 trillion that they hold, but guess what? There’s an extra … what’s that, $11 trillion of publicly traded debt that has to be absorbed by private bond holders? So, deficits are exploding. The amount of publicly traded debt has exploded. And there isn’t any reason, and there isn’t any rationale. Central banks are getting out of the bond buying business so there isn’t any cohesion, rationale, for rates not to not only normalize but be much higher than they were normally.

Let’s just say they normalize… 4.6%, 4.5%, maybe higher than that. By the way, let me just add this quickly Mike, the average interest rate going on a 10-year note going back since 1969 is over 7%. So, the interest rate on the 10-year right now is 2.88%. It is going to not only go up much higher, but it’s going to rise dramatically, probably towards the end of this year as the ECB, European Central Bank gets out of their QE. They’ll be ending QE by the end of this year.

So, then you’ll have only the Bank of Japan in the bond buying business. So, yields are going up … and I’ll let you in after this one more comment … if the yield on a 10-year note goes from 2.8 … and don’t forget … it was 1.4. Now it’s 2.88 or 2.9, it’s going to go to 4.5 very quickly in my opinion. Probably by the end of this year unless we have a recession and a stock market collapse.

Where do you think junk bonds will be? The average yield on junk bonds is 5%… a little bit over 5%. So, junk bond yields are going to spike. That means that prices are going to plummet. And my god, you’re talking about a complete blow-up of the income market across the spectrum, especially in the riskiest part of it. Just like subprime mortgages. So, buckle your seat belts, the low-volatility regime is dead and gone.

Mike Gleason: The housing market is a very big part of the economy and that’s tied to the 10-year and it’s likely to get crushed. And honestly that’s just the most direct example, but honestly there is so much in our financial world, as you just alluded to, that’s dictated by that treasury note. So, if people are ever wondering why you talk so much about these bond rates it’s because it’s so vitally important, isn’t it Michael?

Michael Pento: Absolutely. You have not only junk bonds, you’ve got collateralized bonds, you’ve got collateralized loan obligations, leverage loans, private equity deals … you have the risk-free rate of return, sovereign debt, taken to 1.4% and that was in the summer of 2016. So, let’s just say, that if I’m correct, it goes to 4.4%. So, the 10-year note goes from 1.4 to 4.4 just at 300 basis point increase in yields leads to a 24% plunge in your principle.

So, if you lose a quarter of your net worth that you have in bonds in the risk-free treasury, imagine what your loss will be in leverage loans, COOs, junk bonds, muni bonds, equities, real estate, REITS, I mean you could go on and on. Everything is based off of that risk-free rate of return, which by the way, if hedge fund’s rate was 0% for almost 9 years, and a German bund into 0.7%, it was negative for many years, people in corporations in Europe were floating debt with a negative yield, so you had the biggest bond bubble in history that’s slamming into the hugest gargantuan increase in debt in history. And when those things meet, it’s an awful deadly cocktail.

So, like I said, buckle your seat belts because this is going to be one hell of a year coming up. It already has been and it’s only going to intensify.

Mike Gleason: Now with that said, there are some that argue that the Fed will not let yields move that high, they simply cannot. Officials there know well what will happen to growth and to the federal budget if rates should rise so do you think the Fed will intervene and can they continue to keep rates capped indefinitely?

Michael Pento: Well if you listen to the new Fed chair Jerome Powell, testifying yesterday saying he’s so ebullient and upbeat about the stock market and the economy. I don’t know what he’s looking at, I mean we had two quarters in a row at 3%, now the 4th quarter came in at 2.5%.

If you listen to the Atlanta Fed, they started Q1 at 4.5% now it’s down to 2.6%. So, I don’t know where the excitement is about GDP. I don’t know where it’s coming from. You mentioned housing, if you look at pending home sales it’s 4.7% down. It was announced this morning. All the other data on all prices is heading south, including existing home sales and new home sales. And that’s only when we had a slight uptick in interest rates.

People talk about how beneficial the tax cuts are, but they forgot about the other side of the equation which is rising rates. Rising debt service costs are erasing any and all benefits that’s coming from the tax plan. So, what we’re seeing now in the economy is a sugar high, an adrenalin shot. But going towards the end of this year I fully expect the economy to fall out of bed.

And Jerome Powell who is still upbeat on the stock market and the economy, he’s going to have to change his tune. But what happens when you change your tune, is the Fed is going to have to admit, Mike, that they had the mistake. In other words, their 9-year experiment in Quantitative Easings, and huge increase in the size of the balance sheet, failed to rescue the economy. And instead of being able to ever normalize interest rates … this is why this watershed epiphany is going to be so hard for the Fed to admit … they’re going to have to admit that all of their manipulations failed to provide viable and sustainable economic growth.

And then they’re going to have to change course, because as you said, if interest rates rise and rise they must, and we’re paying all this extra interest on this debt. And they’ll say well, we have to cap interest rates from rising, this is a watershed epiphany that they’re very much loathe to admit. Because if you change your tune at 5.25% on a Fed funds rate as they did in 2008, that’s one thing. But if you change your tune when interest rates on the Fed funds rate … the effect on Fed funds rate is 1.4% as it is today … that’s a totally different story. You’re not only going to have to take back your 150 basis points of rate hikes, but then you have to go right back into QE, you have to admit that you can never drain your balance sheet, you have to admit that interest rates can never normalize.

Do you know what that would do to the currency? Do you know what that would do to the silver and gold price? Do you know what that would do to the fate of the stock market and the state of the treasury? So, all these things are going to be loath to admit but they will have to come back into QE as the stock market and the economy plunges. And then it’s game over. I think the faith in fiat currencies goes away and it’s going to end very quickly, and it’s probably going to start by the end of this year.

Mike Gleason: Yeah, it’s certainly a hyper-inflationary type of scenario could play out there if all that comes to pass for sure. I was recently watching an interview you did with legendary investor Jim Rodgers, which was really great and very fascinating by the way, and you guys were talking about ETFs and the dangers that those funds may pose the next time equity investors rush for the exits.

You made some really great points. Now back in 2008 the markets were crushed by directives – securities so complex that lots of people who were on them didn’t understand what was in them or how they might perform. These days the markets may be at risk from exchange traded funds which are designed to make investing simple.

Please explain why you were so concerned about ETFs and their increasing dominance in the markets, and how a sell-off could be made much worse by the fact that so many people are invested in these things.

Michael Pento: Well you look at what happened with inverse volatility trade. I’m sure you guys are aware of what happened there. So, people were lulled to sleep in the stock market, believing that the only direction that stocks can go is up. Because there was no other alternative. You take yields to 0%, leave them there for 9 years, and of course people are going to go out, way out, along the risk curve.

So, people were actually saying to themselves after a while, hey, why don’t I just short volatility? Well the problem is, when everybody shorts volatility, is that when volatility spikes by 100%, inverse vol goes to zero. And that wiped out billions of dollars of net worth, pretty much in hours. And it’s not exactly the same thing, but that same concept is now in play with the ETF’s spectrum. So, 9 years, 0% interest rates, everybody went into passive ETF funds, by the way Mike, a lot of these funds own very much the same securities. So, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Google, Apple, these are all contained in various weightings in all of these passive ETFs. Or much of them.

So, what happens is you have passive ETFs ownership, which has gone off the charts, as well as a huge surge, a gargantuan increase, in passive ETFs that are leveraged to the bond market. So, you have ETFs that own bonds, that are long bonds, ETFs that are long, high-yield junk, ETFs that are long the same securities. And when everybody hits the exit door at once, as they did with these inverse volatility trades, they will blow up.

So, you try to redeem the ETFs. The ETFs in turn have to redeem the underlying securities, which in turn causes the ETF’s value to fall, so it’s a vicious cycle, a downward spiral. And that’s what I’m afraid is going to happen. Because you have globe investors to sleep by 9 years of inculcation that yields can only go down and prices on bonds and equities can only go up. And when that changes, and it could change violently as yields start to rise, then you’re going to have this implosion in pretty much everything … you had bubble in everything, you’re going to have an implosion in everything.

That’s the real danger. I’m not a Cassandra. I was way out in front of the spectrum of all these perma-bulls in 2007 and in the year 2000, I warned about the housing market in 2005 and 2006. So, I have a history of identifying these problems. I have said for the last few years that you cannot construct a healthy, viable economy by taking interest rates to 0 and leaving them there for years.

And also increasing a massive amount of debt… $230 trillion dollars, 330% of GDP. That is the total amount of debt in the globe today. Up $70 trillion dollars since the great recession. While you’ve taken interest rates and deformed the whole risk spectrum, while you’ve increased debt, you’ve also blown up the biggest asset bubble in equities ever. So, we’re now at 150%, 1.5 times. The market cap of equities are now 1.5 times the underlying economy.

That has never before happened in history. It was only reached about that same level in March of 2000. This is a dangerous bubble and it’s going to burst, and you and your investors need to be aware of how dangerous it is. And you should also understand if you’re going to invest, you should have somebody that understands this dynamic now and can at least try to profit from the 3rd, 50%+ plunge in prices since the year 2000.

Mike Gleason: Yeah, a very troubling set up for sure. Well as we begin to close here Michael, I wanted to talk to you about gold and silver. They’re often viewed as safe havens, and in the aforementioned scenario you got to think metals would get a boost. But if we go back to the last financial crisis, they did get taken down, gold and silver, they did get taken down with equities although they bounced back much sooner.

However, leading up to the fall of ‘08, we had a pretty hot commodities market that drove metals up in the preceding few years, but this time metals have been languishing a bit and seem cheap compared to everything else. So, what do you see happening in the metals markets this time around during a big stock market crash, if and when we do get one?

Michael Pento: So, you know Mike that I love gold, I think it’s going to be supplanting fiat currencies after the debacle ensues. But I’m underweight gold in the portfolio now. You once talked about 2008, what happened in 2008 don’t forget. If you remember back then we had the BRICs trade going. So, people were short dollars and long Brazil, Russia, India, China currencies. So, when people became aware that the stock market globally … and economies globally and real estate market globally … was going to tank, they had to close out that carry trade, which involved buying dollars.

That trade is not prevalent today, so I don’t think gold is going to get hurt the next time this happens. But I’m underweight gold now, precisely, because while the dollar does stand to weaken because of these massive trade deficits … we have huge trade deficits, in fact the last one came out at minus $74 billion dollars for one month of goods and services in the deficit … we also have, and I mentioned it, the massive debt. That’s very negative for the dollar and positive for gold. What we have on the negative side for gold is rising nominal and real interest rates. So that is never good for gold. So, there’s a battle on right now, it’s like this $1,300 to $1,350 kind of battle. You see gold tries to get higher and then you realize well, rising rates are not very good for gold, and then it starts to fall and you realize that hey, a falling dollar is really good for gold, so it’s kind of caught in this trading range of ignominy.

But that all ends when that epiphany, that watershed moment comes from the Federal Reserve that yes, we have to stop draining our balance sheet, and we must reduce the federal funds rate. And then I think, as I said, fiat currencies get flushed down the toilet and there’s going to be a mad rush into gold like you’ve never seen before. Because what’s going to happen is you’re going to have bond prices and equities tanking simultaneously. And people will be fleeing to gold, flocking to gold, in the realization that normalization in the interest rate spectrum, normalization in the economy, is not going to be able to be achieved any time in the near future.

Mike Gleason: It’ll certainly be interesting to see if you could get your hands on it in that sort of a mad rush of retail investors trying to get gold. Right now, we’ve got a lot of access to inventory and it’s on sale still so people should heed that warning.

Well we appreciate it as always Michael, it’s great having you on once again and we always love getting your insights. Now before we let you go, as we always do, please tell people about how they can both read and hear more of your wonderful market commentaries and also learn about your firm and how they could potentially become a client if they want to do that.

Michael Pento: Well thank you. It’s Pento Portfolio Strategies, PentoPort.com. My email address is [email protected]. The office number here is 732-772-9500 give us a call, we won’t bite. And please subscribe to my podcast, its only $49.99 a year and it gives you my ideas on a weekly basis, kind of analysis of economics and markets that you won’t find anywhere else.

Mike Gleason: Yeah it’s truly great stuff. Michael is somebody that I’ve been following for a long time, we always love having his comments here on the podcast, and we certainly appreciate it and look forward to catching up with you again before long. Thanks very much for all you do Michael.

Michael Pento: Thank you, Mike.

Mike Gleason: Well that will wrap it up for this week, thanks again to Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies. For more information visit PentoPort.com. You can sign up for his email list, listen to his mid-week podcast and get his fantastic marking commentaries on a regular basis. Again, just go to PentoPort.com.

Mike Gleason is a Director with Money Metals Exchange, a national precious metals dealer with over 50,000 customers. Gleason is a hard money advocate and a strong proponent of personal liberty, limited government and the Austrian School of Economics. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason has extensive experience in management, sales and logistics as well as precious metals investing. He also puts his longtime broadcasting background to good use, hosting a weekly precious metals podcast since 2011, a program listened to by tens of thousands each week.

The post Michael Pento: Currencies Will Be “Flushed Down the Toilet” Triggering a “Mad Rush into Gold” appeared first on Gold Silver Worlds.

from Gold Silver Worlds http://goldsilverworlds.com/money-currency/michael-pento-currencies-will-flushed-toilet-triggering-mad-rush-gold/

#Gold Silver Worlds

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hotspreadpage · 7 years

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New Research Reveals Habits of Top Content Marketers

It’s my favorite time of the year – time to report on the findings of the annual content marketing survey. Now in our eighth year partnering with MarketingProfs on this research, I never stop getting excited about sharing the new insights with you.

B2B Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, sponsored by Brightcove, indicates that B2B marketers continue to see content marketing success as they explore ways to work more creatively and build their audiences.

I’m thrilled that, like last year, nearly 65% of B2B marketers surveyed report more success with their overall content marketing compared with one year ago. How can marketers keep that momentum? How will you take your content marketing to the next level?

Nearly 65% B2B marketers’ #contentmarketing programs are more successful than a year ago. @cmicontent #research Click To Tweet

To provide some answers, we looked at how the “most successful” of the survey respondents do things differently than the overall marketer population. What kinds of things set these self-described “extremely” or “very successful” content marketers apart? As we’ve found each year, these marketers are more likely to:

Have a documented content marketing strategy

Describe their organization’s content marketing maturity level as sophisticated or mature

Have a high level of commitment to content marketing

Agree that their organization is realistic about what content marketing can achieve

Agree that leadership gives them ample time to produce content marketing results

Deliver content consistently always or frequently

Top-performing content marketers always/frequently deliver content consistently. @cmicontent #research Click To Tweet

In the 2018 results, however, some additional characteristics appear in the picture of the more successful marketers. Consider how you can use these insights to make your content marketing programs more successful.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 22 Examples From Brands (and Marketers) That are Winning at Content Marketing

Build audiences

Across the board – at all levels of content marketing success – the research shows more marketers concentrate on building audiences. Among all respondents, 80% say they are focused on this (versus 92% of the top performers), representing an 18% year-over-year increase.

80% content marketers are focused on building audiences, representing an 18% YOY increase. @cmicontent Click To Tweet

This is terrific news to see more marketers doing what CMI has been urging them to do for years. Why is audience-building important? Because your audience can be one of your organization’s most valuable assets. Content marketing gives you a way to build a subscribed audience, which is what differentiates content marketing from other forms of marketing. The intent of content marketing is to offer valuable information so people want to hear from you … so they sign up to receive your content.

How to use this insight: Distinguishing between leads and subscribers is important for B2B organizations that want to differentiate.

#Contentmarketing lesson: Distinguish between leads and subscribers, advises @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

A lead is someone who discloses information in exchange for a piece of content or something else of value. This doesn’t necessarily mean they want to have an ongoing conversation with your business. In fact, the lead may not have an active interest in your products or services at all.

A subscriber is someone who signs up to receive regular communication from a company because the subscriber believes you have something valuable to offer him or her— and you’ll continue to provide this value beyond the initial engagement. In other words, the subscriber signs up in anticipation of the value expected to be received.

Think about building an audience through subscription, then mining that subscription list for leads (as the audience engages in your pieces of content). But don’t ignore the possibility of the reverse situation. As Kim Moutsos, CMI’s vice president of editorial, points out, “If your lead-gen piece is great, you could earn a subscriber at the same time you earn the lead. You can also mine leads for subscribers, just as you might mine subscribers for leads. For example, offer an opt-in to your newsletter on the thank-you page of a download or from within a PDF, infographic, or video.”

If your lead-gen piece is great, you could earn a subscriber at the same time you earn a lead, says @KMoutsos. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

8 Big Questions From Content Marketing World to Ask Year Round

How to Increase Conversions at Each Stage of the Customer Journey

Blend craft and process

Effective content creation entails getting quality projects completed efficiently. Eighty-eight percent of top performers value creativity and craft in content creation and production, compared with 74% of all respondents. In addition, 70% of top performers rate project management flow of their content-creation projects as “excellent” or “very good” versus only 36% of all respondents.

88% of top B2B content marketers value creativity & craft in content creation & production. @cmicontent Click To Tweet

As you can see, most respondents value creativity and craft. Where successful content marketers seem to have an edge is that they have good processes.

How to use this insight: Process and creativity are not at odds. Process is key to enable your team to have time to be creative. While it takes time to set up processes, once they are in place, the conversation changes from “who is doing this,” or “what are the steps we need to take,” or “oh no, we forgot to include someone/something.” Then the team has time to work on the art of creating exceptional content.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

The 3 Behaviors Driving the Most Creative Content Marketers

How to Document Your Content Marketing Workflow

Discontinue ineffective activities

For the first time, we asked respondents if they stopped content marketing activities they found to be ineffective to concentrate on those that yield the best results.

While 64% of the top performers say they are doing so, only 47% of all respondents say the same. That’s not enough. Even the top performers have work to do in this area.

How to use this insight: You and your team only have so much time to work. You need to be sure you’re working on the right things. Instead of only adding things to your content to-do lists, remove some things to make room for others.

How do you do this? It all comes back to that documented content marketing strategy.

Michael Porter, founder of the modern strategy field, says “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” CMI founder Joe Pulizzi has talked about strategy documentation for years, and it’s more important now than ever.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do, says @MichaelEPorter. #productivity Click To Tweet

Once your content marketing strategy is documented, get hyper-focused and work only on things that support your strategy.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: What Should Your Content Marketing Priorities Be?

Align metrics to goals

In past surveys, respondents picked their content marketing goals and metrics from lists, which included things for goals like “brand awareness,” “engagement,” and “lead generation” and metric items like “website traffic,” “sales lead quality,” and “sales.”

And you know what? Nearly every year brand awareness was the top goal and website traffic was the top metric. We also learned over the years that goals and metrics highly depend on the organization’s situation (e.g., its content marketing maturity level, its prospects’ unique buyer journey, its annual revenue goals).

This time, we switched it up to focus on a single question – how well does the organization align its metrics to its content marketing goals.

Only 19% of marketers rate their organization as “excellent” or “very good” at aligning metrics to their content marketing goals (compared with 54% of the top performers and 2% of the least successful) – another big disparity between the most and least effective. Again, though, even the top performers have room to improve.

54% of top performers align metrics and #contentmarketing goals via @cmicontent. #research Click To Tweet

How to use this insight: To correlate your goals and metrics, first consider the four primary reasons why you may use content marketing:

To be found by the right people (awareness)

To build an interested and engaged audience (consideration)

To increase sales with new customers (decision/purchase)

To build loyalty and increase revenue with existing customers (loyalty)

Once you pick your goals, then pick the corresponding metrics. This chart offers some suggestions.

Image source: 10 Most Common Content Marketing Questions: Real-World Insights for Enterprise Marketers, a CMI e-book

More insights

There are several more new questions on the 2018 survey – as well as a restructuring of the way we ask about the content types, distribution formats, and social media. View the report today to see the new findings, and watch for more analysis of the results – along with tips for continuously improving your content marketing – in the months to come.

http://ift.tt/2hz7I38

2018 Content Marketing Benchmarks Budgets and Trends – North America from Content Marketing Institute

If you have ideas for future questions that you’d like to see us ask, let us know in the comments – we’d love your feedback.

Special thanks to all our survey respondents and distribution partners, as well as to Kim Moutsos, CMI vice president of content, and Michele Linn, CMI editorial strategy adviser, for their assistance with this article.

To ensure that you receive the latest research when it’s released, subscribe to the free CMI daily newsletter.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute.

The post New Research Reveals Habits of Top Content Marketers appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

New Research Reveals Habits of Top Content Marketers syndicated from http://ift.tt/2maPRjm

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lucyariablog · 7 years

Text

New Research Reveals Habits of Top Content Marketers

Nearly 65% B2B marketers’ #contentmarketing programs are more successful than a year ago. @cmicontent #research Click To Tweet

Have a documented content marketing strategy

Describe their organization’s content marketing maturity level as sophisticated or mature

Have a high level of commitment to content marketing

Agree that their organization is realistic about what content marketing can achieve

Agree that leadership gives them ample time to produce content marketing results

Deliver content consistently always or frequently

Top-performing content marketers always/frequently deliver content consistently. @cmicontent #research Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 22 Examples From Brands (and Marketers) That are Winning at Content Marketing

Build audiences

80% content marketers are focused on building audiences, representing an 18% YOY increase. @cmicontent Click To Tweet

How to use this insight: Distinguishing between leads and subscribers is important for B2B organizations that want to differentiate.

#Contentmarketing lesson: Distinguish between leads and subscribers, advises @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

If your lead-gen piece is great, you could earn a subscriber at the same time you earn a lead, says @KMoutsos. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

8 Big Questions From Content Marketing World to Ask Year Round

How to Increase Conversions at Each Stage of the Customer Journey

Blend craft and process

88% of top B2B content marketers value creativity & craft in content creation & production. @cmicontent Click To Tweet

As you can see, most respondents value creativity and craft. Where successful content marketers seem to have an edge is that they have good processes.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

The 3 Behaviors Driving the Most Creative Content Marketers

How to Document Your Content Marketing Workflow

Discontinue ineffective activities

For the first time, we asked respondents if they stopped content marketing activities they found to be ineffective to concentrate on those that yield the best results.

While 64% of the top performers say they are doing so, only 47% of all respondents say the same. That’s not enough. Even the top performers have work to do in this area.

How do you do this? It all comes back to that documented content marketing strategy.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do, says @MichaelEPorter. #productivity Click To Tweet

Once your content marketing strategy is documented, get hyper-focused and work only on things that support your strategy.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: What Should Your Content Marketing Priorities Be?

Align metrics to goals

This time, we switched it up to focus on a single question – how well does the organization align its metrics to its content marketing goals.

54% of top performers align metrics and #contentmarketing goals via @cmicontent. #research Click To Tweet

How to use this insight: To correlate your goals and metrics, first consider the four primary reasons why you may use content marketing:

To be found by the right people (awareness)

To build an interested and engaged audience (consideration)

To increase sales with new customers (decision/purchase)

To build loyalty and increase revenue with existing customers (loyalty)

Once you pick your goals, then pick the corresponding metrics. This chart offers some suggestions.

Image source: 10 Most Common Content Marketing Questions: Real-World Insights for Enterprise Marketers, a CMI e-book

More insights

2018 Content Marketing Benchmarks Budgets and Trends – North America from Content Marketing Institute

If you have ideas for future questions that you’d like to see us ask, let us know in the comments – we’d love your feedback.

To ensure that you receive the latest research when it’s released, subscribe to the free CMI daily newsletter.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute.

The post New Research Reveals Habits of Top Content Marketers appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/09/research-habits-content-marketers/

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coachonlinesalestuff-blog · 7 years

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GR NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GB DDR2 Memory 16GB Flash 10

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The Slider features a built in keyboard that slides out when you need it making note taking or writing an essay as easy as surfing the web. With a typing experience that far more intuitive than an on screen touch keyboard the versatile Slider switches between tablet mode and a full fledged notebook with ease. Take notes in class, surf the web, create presentations on the fly, do it all with the Eee Pad Slider. With NVIDIA Tegra 2 1.0GHz dual core CPU, AndroidTM 3.1 Honeycomb OS with ASUS Waveshare UI, Polaris Office 3.0 and the kind of connectivity you expect in a PC, the Eee Pad Slider is revolutionizing what it is to be a tablet.

Built in QWERTY keyboard and integrated USB port The built in QWERTY keyboard offers a much more comfortable typing experience. The Eee Pad Slider provides intuitive tablet usage while simulating a laptop like user experience that people are more familiar with. Easily change your Eee Pad Slider from a tablet to a notebook with just one slide. With 16/32GB eMMc, MicroSD Card Reader, USB port, and ASUS WebStorage (unlimited one year service), you can store and share your data anytime and anywhere. The snappier response time and better multi tasking performance make the Slider a true mobile entertainment powerhouse. Built in SRS Sound technology provides a dynamic audio experience, with maximum bass response. An IPS panel made from durable and scratch resistant Corning Gorilla glass is viewable at angles up to 178, and produces crisper and more accurate color range by up to 50% when compared to other tablets in the market. The 1.2MP front camera and 5MP rear camera can shoot and record HD videos, which can then be played in HD right on the Slider. You can also output your videos to HDTVs via the mini HDMI port for enhanced multimedia experience.

Android 3.1 Honeycomb OS (3.2 upgradable) with ASUS Waveshare UI Android 3.1 Honeycomb OS (3.2 upgradable) with ASUS Waveshare UI

Google's Android Honeycomb is a revolutionary operating system specially designed and optimized for tablets, and gives users the full web experience on the go. Supporting Adobe Flash and the ever growing Android Market, entertainment is just a finger swipe away. The convenient ASUS Launcher also allows users to launch software, manage content, access online services, and connect devices with a few simple taps.

ASUS' Waveshare Interface hosts a variety of unique applications The Eee Pad Slider allows you to listen to your music or online radio and bring them wherever you go. MyNet easily streams digital media wirelessly within home network devices. HD videos or music can be played on devices such as HDTVs or desktop PCs. MyLibrary consolidates downloaded books, magazines, and newspapers in to one easy to access location. MyCloud is a total cloud solution, providing access to digital content such as music, videos, and files from the cloud. Users can even use MyCloud to remotely access and control PC or Mac systems, which further extends the versatility of the Eee Pad Slider.

Pros: Prices was very reasonable. closeout sale, I think, but there is a Transport that I think is comparable or better. Bought one for me and one for a customer. We both really like the ease of use and the availability of the keyboard when we want to do more detailed typing. michael kors outlet online keyboard base as a stand is nice feature.

Cons: I do not use this for reading in bed. probably more information that you want to know but it really pretty heavy to hold up as a conventional michael kors handbags clearance tablet. I will sit in a chair or on the couch and use it on my lap or sitting at the table while I eat breakfast to read the news.

Other Thoughts: It just narrow enough to thumb type when held in a vertical position. I also got it to use on my frequent long bike rides. While the SL101 is a tad heavier, its wonderful, solid materials. The charging cord is much longer than the TF101 None yet. Newegg was fast, polite and ill se them again as well as recommend them. After checking out multiple tablets i decided on this one. This tablet is great in my opinion. It is snappy and very responsive to your touches. I recommend upgrading right away to 4.0 ICS. The screen is awesome, very bright and vivid colors and text. The battery life is good, with regular use such as surfing the web, pandora running reading PDF books or michael kors clearance files my wife will use it for hours and still have plenty of battery life left for the next day. The design is quality as ASUS makes good It feels strong, i dont know why people complain its heavy. Hello its got a little slide out keyboard that mostly all other tablets dont, unless you buy additional keyboard docks that will make another tablet heavier than the Eee Pad Slider. The keyboard takes some getting use to but its a wonder to use when browsing and e mails. I recommend using google chrome browser. I found that its a bit faster then stk

Cons: None as of yet. We have had it for almost a month now and its been working perfectly. I guess the charge cord could be a little longer and also the speakers could be a little louder but its not a big deal. The price is good, its not an ipad or a top of the line samsung but IMO it performs just michael kors canada sale as well.

Other Thoughts: Ohhh i forgot to mention and ran out of space in the PRO sections. But this tablet has a standard size USB 2.0 port something michael kors handbags outlet online that alot of tablets fail to have. The USB port makes it super easy to transfer files.

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Pros: I bought this unit two months ago to replace my old 17 laptop. It definitely does what I wanted it to do. It light and the charger isn huge like you see for laptops. The charger is smaller than an iPad charger. The battery life on this unit is amazing. I can use it for 5 straight hours of class, surfing the web, and Pandora and I will have plenty of battery life. The keyboard takes a little getting used to but it quite efficient. I can easily take notes in class, and I use the Polaris Office along with Google Drive to organize my homework and things. I upgraded it right away to ICS 4.0.3 which looks and feels amazing. The gaming is fun as well. The speakers are sufficient but not extremely loud. The camera works well for Skype. I would recommend this item to anyone looking for a lightweight unit that operates well in a school environment.

Cons: The cons are subtle. The very first thing I noticed was the way that the unit slides out of the tablet form into the keyboard. I feel that in a few months, it may not snap into form. It seems like the air piston in the back will wear out. Also, the screen unlock button and the volume buttons are not exactly convenient to michael kors online outlet get to on the left hand bottom side. They too close together. This doesn matter very much to me but I thought I would make it known The Tegra 2 processors tend to lag when playing certain high graphic games. I didn buy this unit for gaming so it didn concern me but some users michael kors canada outlet may want the higher quality processors.

Pros: Item is snappy, responsive, sufficiently fast, and feels pretty solid. The craftsmanship isn superb, but it is pretty darn good.

I updated to Android 4.0.3 right away read that Jelly Bean might not be far behind from the date this is posted and hopefully it help smooth out performance. It doesn seem to have any performance issues with Asus minimal skinning.

The battery life is also acceptable, I get roughly 6 8 hours of use. on, low brightness, GPS off, general browsing and games mostly keyboard isn fantastic seem to miss a space about 40 of the time but it feels okay. The more I use the keyboard, the better it seems to be. I think it needs to be in Perhaps it muscle memory.

The unit is portable. The weight isn any issue for me, I normally use it at school and I leave it in my backpack.

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