#it IS self insert because i self insert onto lumine so hard

[strxnged]

CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER I: descent.

chapter summary. in which Lumine makes a decision she will regret; in which Childe has everything under control.

wc. 3.4k. genre. enemies to lovers, adventure, pining.

table of contents / next chapter

Lumine’s muscles tensed as she felt the ground beneath her feet give way. She should have seen this coming, having ignored the signs placed around the area warning against trespassing. She’d never been the type to pay them much attention, nor had her target. And Paimon wasn’t around to drag her back, either—her floaty friend was left behind somewhere as she’d scaled the mountains and skidded back down them, only willing to stop for one thing.

That one thing would be her blade to the neck of the Eleventh Harbinger.

Paimon had said this whole thing was pointless, that “Mr. Moneybags” would only get them both into danger. Lumine had initially agreed, but seeing Childe, the man who had tried to kill her and wipe out all of Liyue Harbour, recklessly hunting a bounty across the nation had driven her to devote herself entirely to stopping him. 

Countless duels had commenced over the last few weeks, and Lumine had contributed greatly to the chaos that followed in his wake. He liked resisting her, and she liked that she got closer to defeating him every time. But it was because of Childe. It was all his fault. Him, and those damn Fatui.

Lumine had caught word of a bountied creature, some kind of rare animal belonging to a Sumeran noble. She had already understood that this was his goal. But she found it very suspicious of the deceptive (and wealthy) Snezhnayan to chase just any bounty. Surely it wasn’t just over some Mora, because that was definitely not worth falling several hundred meters into the so-called solar chariot ruins known as the Chasm. Thus, she had been keeping an eye on him. A very close, hunting eye.

He had told her about his plans himself during one of their duels, saying, “You can’t blame me for bounty hunting. You’ve done enough of that to understand the thrill of it.” And this, she could not deny. In a way, he was her own target, the unattainable bounty being satisfaction.

Lumine had never been great at saving herself from near-miss falls, but whatever ability she could muster would momentarily have to come into use. She would grab ahold of something—anything—to keep from getting herself stuck in the abandoned mines. She slid down a crumbling slate of rock, which angled her closer to the gaping black hole below. The Qixing had claimed to have sealed it off completely; how could it be that there was now a wide mouth to the dark caverns below?

Making quick use of Anemo, she managed to propel herself to the edge of the gap, scrambling up to uncertain safety. Only once she was assured the rock would hold her did she venture to peer down the hole. 

“Hey, girlie! You sure you wanna go down there?”

The nauseatingly charming voice echoed dramatically from somewhere above her and she looked up.

Childe stood on some jutting rocks further up the opposite side of the cavity, waving his fingers at her from over the edge. “Hello!”

She didn’t respond, making a face she hoped he could read from his distance.

“Someday you’ll be happier to see me,” Childe said. “Come now, no need to look at me like that. Suppose I’ll catch you later, then, traveller. Careful on the way down!”

With that, he took a step and a hop over the edge, soaring confidently towards the depths of the Chasm. A flash of grey and ginger later, and he had disappeared into the darkness. Lumine crawled to the overhang’s edge, gazing down into it again.

She had no defensive logic for the decision she was about to make, and yet… she had to. He was dragging her down with him without even touching her. She had to follow him, no matter what.

—

The first thing Lumine noticed upon landing was an ache in her legs. Her glider had served her well for most of it—but the amount of time it took her eyes to adjust to the low light level still had her legs nervously tensing for most of the descent.

It smelled of dank cave, metal, and some bitter scent she couldn’t place. She immediately took to a rock that was just the right size for leaning on, and regained her wits as she looked around. There was no exit; that was clear.  The cavern appeared to be fairly large, narrowing towards the stone ceiling from which she fell, assuring no simple clambering out. She’d find a way out eventually, as she always did, but escape seemed to be quite out of reach for now.

Damn. If only she could contact Venti to fly her out. But then, even if she could, the last time she had seen him he was too intoxicated to fly straight. It wouldn’t serve either of them well. Also, as lovely as Venti was as a friend, he was one of the last people she’d like to be stuck underground with. Childe was further down that list, of course.

Around herself, she could make out the shapes of different rocks and minerals, dismally glowing cave-dwelling blossoms, and in the distance, the faint silhouettes of abandoned mining equipment. 

And no Paimon. Paimon would have no idea where she was.

Lumine had no chance to grieve this lack of communication, because she heard footsteps and disfigured yelling just a moment later.

“Who’s there? Name yourself!”

She said nothing, hopping over the rock and gliding further down into the cavern. Unfortunately, she noticed the Fatui camp’s fire all-too-close to where she landed.

“There’s an intruder!” The distorted voice of a Pyroslinger broke out and she groaned internally. Not even a minute to catch her breath? Really?

Lumine’s attacks came naturally, blowing down the Fatui’s elemental shields and stunning them with Anemo vortexes. Finally reaching the last enemy, the Pyroslinger Bracer, she took slow steps towards the corner she’d blasted him into. She always soaked up the last moments of her victory for what they could offer: the Pyroslinger’s arms raised to protect himself, muttering curses just loud enough for her to enjoy, and the inevitability of his defeat. Her movements halted, suddenly, though it was neither her doing nor the Fatui skirmisher’s. Her vision was dimming, and she looked around herself to see strange dark mud covering the ground. Her nose was overwhelmed by the bitter smell now, and her legs were leaden.

Three shots from the recovering Pyroslinger now struck her chest, knocking her off her balance. She collapsed to the ground with hands cushioning her fall in the egregious mud. She looked up as the Pyroslinger repositioned his gun to aim again. She couldn’t pull her hands out of the mud fast enough to reach for her sword, which had fallen to her left.

“Stand down, comrade,” a tenor voice said from somewhere behind. 

The Fatui skirmisher looked up from her and cocked his head. “Who gives you the authority?”

A second later, two arrows had struck each of the skirmisher’s shoulders, just hanging onto the top of the fur, and a third zipped directly into the feather on his hat, knocking it clean off.

“Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya, grants me absolute authority.” Childe stepped into Lumine’s view, giving a cold smile to the skirmisher. “Can’t recognize one of the Eleven Harbingers, comrade?” A dim flash bloomed above his gloved palm in a shapeless lantern of elemental energy, casting an eerie blue glow on his visage. 

The skirmisher stood straight, giving an awkward salute. “Forgive me, sir.”

“You’re off the hook, but don’t go aiming your gun at me again,” he chided. “Her Majesty will hear about it.”

“No, sir. But—” he gestured to Lumine “—she took down my whole squad.”

Childe peered into the shadows, noting the unconscious or incapacitated forms of said squad. “I see.” His dim elemental lantern extinguished and he offered Lumine his hand, which she greeted with nothing but an offended stare. “Good work, girlie. You know, you really don’t have to attack ‘em unprovoked, hey?”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she spat, getting to her feet without his assistance and dusting herself off. This mud would surely leave quite the stain.

“Don’t I get a ‘thank you’?”

“I had that under control.”

“I’d beg to differ,” he said, leaning over to her to wipe a bit of muck out of her hair. She froze, at first, and then stepped away from him, slapping his hand away. Fetching her sword from the mud, Lumine nearly stormed off.

But then she realized, with much consternation, that she had nowhere to walk away to. Her goal had been to stop him. She wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

By now he should have prompted a duel, as had happened each time before. She’d interrupted him chatting with (interrogating) innocent civilians in Qingce Village, prevented his discovery of Albedo’s camp, and taken clues for herself. Rumours were everywhere, of course—and yet they had both been acquainted with similar directions to the earthquake zone which had dropped them here. The targeted creature was last spotted and chased away by guards of the Chasm. The guards were the reckoned finish line of their race for intel. But the guards were at the Surface, and they were down here. 

Childe grimaced at her movement. His eyes didn’t leave her.

Lumine cleared her throat. “You didn’t, by chance… end up talking to the…”

“The guards? Nah, I didn’t make it that far. You thought I might have come back for you, girlie?” He sniggered.

Lumine stared at him blankly. She wanted to ask him, what now? But she also didn’t want to be confronted about her decision to come down here in the first place.

He turned to the Pyroslinger. “When’s your relay over?”

“Twenty-seven days.”

“Rations?”

“We’re fine. There’s water sources down here, and mushrooms we can roast in the worst case.” 

“Good. Carry on, comrade.” He eyed a Fatuus in the shadows, who was groaning in pain. “And… try to take care of your squad, will ya?”

“Acknowledged.”

Lumine almost felt guilt for causing this group all the trouble. But then she remembered. They were Fatui.

And so was Childe. She placed her hand on the hilt of her sword and glared at him. He turned to her with an amiable smile, ignoring her stance.

“Now, then, traveller, whaddya say we explore a little?”

Lumine tightened her hand’s grip on the hilt. “For what?”

“Well, for fun, of course.”

She gave him a hard look. “Okay,” she said slowly, relaxing her hand, “let’s explore. For fun.”

—

Oh, it was excruciating walking alongside her enemy like this. Lumine hated how he walked a little bit ahead, how he pointed out directions they should go, how he made small talk. How he attempted banter and she fell into the trap of responding. How he never hesitated at a single turn, offering light from his vision in case she found the dark to be too much (which she denied, affronted by the preposition that she was afraid of darkness).

“It seems to narrow into a smaller cave, here,” Childe was saying, “why don’t we—”

“You should let me walk ahead,” she interrupted.

He cocked his head at her, Fatui mask in his hair shifting with the movement. “Why? You want to protect me?”

“No, idiot. I don’t trust you.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust his intuition—it was sharp, she could admit—but that she hated being out of control. She was used to the “why don’t we—”s from Paimon, but rather than observant reminders as it was with her pixie companion, it sounded like suspicious schemes. Anything he said sounded like a part of a ploy, a puzzle to unravel. Some kind of evil mission, probably. It always would be with him.

He tch’d, but gestured for her to walk ahead. “You have so little faith in me.”

“I wonder why, Childe,” she spat his codename. “I wonder why.”

With a pause, he sent Lumine a more serious look. He spoke carefully. “I think it would help,” he said, “if you took the time to hear me out a little, girlie.”

Lumine studied his expression. It wasn’t often she got to see his expression reveal anything more than military, wiley, or bloodthirsty. The corners of his lips were nudged back, his brows were slightly gathered, and his eyes were direct. And his Fatui mask was as red as ever.

“I respectfully disagree,” she said, taking the lead ahead. “No amount of explaining can justify your actions. And don’t call me that.”

“I’m not trying to challenge your morals, traveller.”

She threw her arms out. “Then stop acting like you want me to fancy your ass.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about, Childe?”

He hesitated again, boasting an irked expression. “I don’t need a babysitter, but you’ve been following me for weeks. Why?”

“You have the codename ‘Childe’ for a reason, don’t you?”

He went silent. Lumine looked over her shoulder to see his brows lowering.

“Giving up on your own case already?”

His gaze set into hers. “Do you hear that?”

Lumine listened, and then latched her eyes onto an ominous shape in the darkness. There was a soft, rattling snarl, which she recognized as that of a Geovishap only a second before it was too late. She leapt before Childe, raising her sword just in time to deflect the pounce of the dragonish Creature. Its claws scraped against the stone floor as it fell back, gearing up to leap again. Childe dashed past her and the Geovishap, and aimed a shot right at the nape of its neck, causing it to freeze milliseconds before lunging. It twitched, falling to its curved back.

For a second, Lumine thought he’d slain the Geovishap in a single shot, but it then began to twitch, spin, roll, towards Childe this time. He dove out of the way, narrowly escaping one hit which only seemed to aggravate the Geovishap more, landing directly in front of him with its claws out. Lumine always thought of Childe as rather tall and altitudinally advantaged, but when standing before an adult Geovishap he looked so small. Fleeting fear overtook her mind and with a leap from behind she took a steady blade through its skull.

Childe stepped back as it crumpled in his direction, Hydro blades dissolving into elemental energy as he gave her a taunting look. “You know, I had that under control.”

A proud smile spread across Lumine’s lips. “Ha. I’d beg to differ,” she said, planting one foot on the creature’s back, almost too high to reach, and driving her sword heavily into its back through scales.

His gaze shifted between the hilt of her sword, her overstretched leg, and her expression. A grin bloomed gradually, blessedly, on his own face and he laughed jovially. “Alright, then. You can lead the way.”

Lumine cleared her throat and withdrew her blade, swinging it inattentively before sheathing it. She forced her smile down. “Yes. Good. I will.”

He took to walking behind her, and she hated that more, because she could not see him. After a few minutes, she commanded, “Walk beside me.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Shut the hell up.”

He took to her right side with an expression like a satisfied fourteen-year old who just won a match of cards. “We should find somewhere to set up camp pretty soon, no?”

Lumine huffed. She did not want to set up camp with No. 11 of the Fatui Harbingers.

“Unless you want to go back and find my subordinates. I’m not sure how pleased they would be to host you after your unprompted attack, but I am great at convincing.”

“You’re not always so great at convincing,” she said, still unable to admit he had a point. She had no way to tell the time but she knew it had been late afternoon upon their descent, and they had been walking for several hours. Her legs were in need of rest.

“I’d like to think sometimes it takes longer than other times, but the job always gets done.”

“You’d like to think a lot of things.” The tunnel around them was widening rapidly as they walked. “I’d like to think this is our way out, but how likely is that?”

He pointed ahead. “There’s actually a bit of a semi-cave there, under that overhang, you see? You wanna set up there?”

She squinted into the darkness. “You’re joshing. There’s nothing to see.”

“Come on.” They walked in the direction he had gestured towards, and there was indeed a semi-cave, three walls but a big enough opening on the fourth side that there was no chance of getting trapped. “Is this to your liking, girlie?” he asked, like they were touring a couple’s apartment.

“Could be worse,” she conceded, and dropped her bag against the wall. “Now, by setting up camp, what is it you’re actually referring to?” Lumine crossed her arms, eyeing him. “Fire, food, shelter, and comfort? Or do you just conk out for a few hours on the ground?”

“Do you think I’m a savage?” he asked with a laugh. “I carry a leather blanket in my bag. I can make a fire with wet wood. I know how to turn a snowy tree into a cozy shelter. Hm… But we haven’t got any kindling, so shall we find some cave grass?”

Lumine, slightly insulted that he supposed her straightforward method of setting up camp to be savage, sauntered towards the greater opening of the cave and surveyed the area. There was still a strangely sufficient amount of light, though perhaps not enough for her to pick up on details such as potential grass locales. She squinted, trying to decide quite how far away the other side of the cave really was.

“Let’s walk this way.” Childe waved her over, providing his blue glow with elemental energy. She wished she knew how to do that. But she didn’t dare ask, knowing that sharing any trade secrets with a Fatuus would be both humiliating and disgusting.

“Childe,” she said, instead, and then hesitated. The forthcoming inquiry was terrible, but had to be inquired nonetheless.

“Yeah?”

“What are we gonna… or rather, what are you doing down here, and…”

He met her eyes without a tinge of sass. “You’re really asking your sworn enemy to reveal his plan to you?”

“Uh…” Lumine sucked air through her teeth. This was atrociously painful. “What’s the plan?”

Childe’s face broke into a wide grin and he howled. “You are so cute.”

“Answer the damn question, Harbinger.”

He chuckled some more. “Alright, since you asked so nicely. I already have enough leads that I know the bounty’s down here.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “Shouldn’t take longer than a few days to reach it.”

Lumine narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you… know the Chasm well?”

He clicked his tongue. “Not particularly, but I don’t get lost.”

“You don’t get lost? Not even in massive, cursed cave systems?”

“Nope!”

“Do you have much experience underground?”

“Oh…” he said. “Yes, a bit.” 

For a fraction of a second his smile flickered, and this Lumine noticed with suspicion. However, she decided not to push it, keeping a watchful eye on him as they descended deeper into the cavern.

Wherever they were going, Lumine would have to stay on her guard for the deception that the Fatui Harbinger inevitably had in store for her. She knew how to survive, but she did not know the Chasm. She had not even seen a map of it before, and only had a trifle of knowledge about what had happened here. She was aware that it was related to the cataclysm 500 years ago, but its role was a mystery to her and the reason for its hushed nature in Liyue was just as mysterious. It was unclear whether Childe knew the Chasm, but he was of this world and was therefore at an advantage.

That, and he was the one who had some kind of true motive for being down here.

And Lumine’s only motive was to prevent him from accomplishing it.

author's note. please reblog if you enjoyed. thanks so much for reading! i'm so excited about this series man i poured my soul into it

— table of contents / next chapter

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

[the-end-of-art]

Sewn into his jacket an incoherent note

How to Make Love, Write Poetry, & Believe in God by Nin Andrews

A few weeks ago, I was part of a Hamilton-Kirkland College alumnae poetry reading, and after the reading a woman asked a simple question: “How do you write a poem?” I didn’t have an answer so I suggested a few books by poets like John Hollander, Mary Oliver, and Billy Collins. The woman said she had read books like that, but they didn’t help. She wanted something else, like a genuine operating manual—a step by step explanation.

I, too, love instruction manuals, especially those manuals on how to perform magic: write a poem or know God or make love, if only love were something that could be made. Manuals offer such promise. Yes, you, too, can enter the bee-loud glade and the Promised Land and have an orgasm.

I love the idea that my mind could be programmed like a computer to spit out poems on demand—poems with just the right number of lines, syllables, metaphors, meanings, similes, images . . . And with no clichés, no matter how much I love those Tom, Dick and Harry’s with their lovely wives, as fresh as daisies. I can set them in any novel or town in America, and they will have sex twice a week, always before ten at night, never at the eleventh hour, and it will not take long,time being of the essence.

I love sex manuals, too: those books that suggest our bodies are like cars. If only we could learn to drive them properly, bliss would be a simple matter of inserting a key, mastering the steering wheel, signaling our next moves, knowing the difference between the brakes and the gas pedal, and of course, following the speed limit.

A depressive person by nature, I am also a fan of how-to books on God, faith, happiness, the soul, books that suggest a divine presence is always here. I just need to find it, or wake up to it, or turn off my doubting brain. That even now, my soul is like a bird in a cage. If I could sit still long enough and listen closely, it might rest on my open palm and sing me a song.

God, poetry, sex, they offer brief moments of bliss, glimpses of the ineffable, and occasional insights into that which does not translate easily into daily experience, or loses its magic when explained.

In college, I took classes in religion, philosophy and poetry, and I studied sex in my spare time—my first roommate and I staying up late, pondering the pages of The Joy of Sex. As a freshman, I auditioned my way into an advanced poetry writing class by composing the single decent poem I wrote in my college years. The poem, an ode to cottage cheese, came to me in a flash as a vision nestled on a crisp bed of iceberg lettuce. Does cottage cheese nestle? I don’t know, but the professor kept admiring that poem. He said all my other poems paled by comparison.

This was in the era of the sexual revolution,long before political correctness and the Me-Too movement. My roommate, obsessed with getting laid, said we women should have been given a compass to navigate the sexual landscape. She liked to complain that she’d had only one orgasm in her entire life, and she wanted another. “What if I am a one-orgasm wonder?” she worried. The subject of orgasms kept us awake, night after night.

In religion class, my professor told the famous story about Blaise Pascal who had a vision of God that was so profound, his life seemed dull and meaningless forever afterwards. He never had another vision. But he had sewn into his jacket an incoherent note to remind him of the singular luminous experience.

The next day in religion class, a student stood up and announced that the professor was wrong—about Pascal, God, everything. The student knew this because he was God’s friend. He even knew His first name, and what God was thinking. The professor smiled sadly, put his arm around the student, and led him out of the classroom, down the steps and into the counselor’s office. When the professor returned, he warned us that if we ever thought we knew God, we should check ourselves into a mental institution. Lots of insane people know God intimately.

But, I wondered, what would God (or the transcendent—or whatever word you might choose for it: the muse, love, the orgasm, the soul, the higher self) think of us? For example, what would a muse think of a writer trying, begging, praying to enter the creative flow? All writers know it—that moment when inspiration happens. The incredible high. And the opposite, when words cling to the wall of the mind like sticky notes but never make it onto your tongue or the page.

What would an orgasm think of all the people seeking it so fervently yet considering it dirty, embarrassing, unmentionable? And then lying about it. “Did you have one?” a man might ask. “Yes,” his lover nods. But every orgasm knows it cannot be had. Or possessed. Or sewn into the lining of a coat. No one “has” an orgasm. At least not for long.

What did God think of Martin Luther, calling out to him in terror when a lightning bolt struck near his horse, “Help! I’ll become a monk!” And later, when he sought relief from his chronic constipation and gave birth to the Protestant Reformation on the lavatory—a lavatory you can visit today in Wittenberg, Germany.

I don’t want to evaluate Luther’s source of inspiration. But I do want to ponder the question: How do you write a poem? Is there a way to begin?

I think John Ashbery gave away one secret in his poem, “The Instruction Manual:” that it begins with daydreaming. Imagination. And the revelation that the mind contains its own magical city, its own Guadalajara, complete with a public square and bands and parading couples that you can visit this enchanted town for a limited time before you must turn your gaze back to the humdrum world.  

But a student of Ashbery’s might cringe at the suggestion that poetry is merely an act of the imagination. In order to master the dance, one must know the steps. And Ashbery was a master. So many of his poems follow a kind of Hegelian progression, traveling from the concrete to the abstract to the absolute. Or what Fichte described as a dialectical movement from thesis to antithesis to synthesis. Fichte also wrote that consciousness itself has no basis in reality. I wonder if Ashbery would have agreed.

In college I wrote an inane paper, comparing Ashbery’s poetry to a form of philosophical gardening in which the poet arranges the concrete, meaning the plants or words, in such an appealing order that they create the abstract, or the beauty, desired. Thus, the reader experiences the absolute, or a sense of wonder at the creation as the whole thing sways in the wind of her mind.

Is there a basis in reality for wonder? Or poetry? I asked. Or are we only admiring illusions, the beautiful illusions the poet has created?  How I loved questions like that. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Fichte and Hegel and Ashbery and write mystical and incomprehensible books. I complained to my mother that no matter how hard I tried, I could not compose an actual poem or philosophical treatise—I was trying to write treatises, too. “That’s good,” she said. “Poets and philosophers are too much in their heads, and not enough in the world.”

I didn’t argue with her and tell her that not all poets are like Emily Dickinson. Or say that Socrates was put to death for being too much in the world, for angering the public with his Socratic method of challenging social mores, and earning himself the title, “the gadfly of Athens.”  

Instead, I thought, That’s it! If I want to be a poet, I just need to separate my head from the world. Or at least turn off the noise of the world. And seek solitude, as Wordsworth suggested, in order to recollect in tranquility. I imagined myself going on a retreat or living in a cave, studying the shadows on the wall. Letting them speak to me or seduce me or dance with me.

The shadows, I discovered, are not nice guests. Sometimes they kept me awake all night, talking loudly, making rude comments, using all the words I never said aloud. “Hush,” I told them. “No one wants to hear that.” Sometimes they took on the voices of the dead and complained I hadn’t told their stories yet or right. Sometimes they sulked and bossed me about like a maid, asking for a cup of tea, a biscuit, a little brandy, a nap. One nap was never enough. When I obeyed and closed my eyes, they recited the poems I wanted to write down. “You can’t open your eyes until we’re done,” they said, as if poetry were a game of memory, or hide and seek in the mind. Other times they wandered away and down the dirt road of my past, or lay down in the orchard and counted the peaches overhead. Whatever they did or said, I watched and listened.

That’s how I began writing my first real poems. I knew not to disobey the shadows. I knew not toturn my back on them and look towards the light as Plato suggested—Plato who wanted to banish the poets and poetry from his Republic.I knew to not answer the door if the man from Porlock came knocking.

To this day I am grateful for the darkness. For the shadows it creates in my mind. It is thanks to them I have written another book, The Last Orgasm, a book whose title might make people cringe. But isn’t that what shadows do? And much of poetry, too? Dwell on topics we are afraid to look at in the light?

(https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2020/09/how-to-make-love-write-poetry-believe-in-god-by-nin-andrews.html)

Five prose poems by Nin Andrews (formatting better at http://newflashfiction.com/5-prose-poems-by-nin-andrews/)

Duplicity

after Henri Michaux “Simplicity���

When I was just a young thing, my life was as simple as a sunrise. And as predictable. Day after day I went about doing exactly as I pleased. If I saw a lovely man or women, or beauty in any of its shapes and forms and flavors, well, I simply had to have it. So I did. Just like that. Boom! I didn’t even need a room.

Slowly, I matured. I learned a bit of etiquette.  Manners, I discovered can have promising side effects. I even began carrying a bottle of champagne wherever I went, and a bed. Not that the beds lasted long. I wasn’t the kind to go easy on the alcohol or the furnishings, nor was I interested in sleep. It never ceased to amaze me how quickly men drift off. Women, many of them, kept me going night after night. You know how inspiring  women are.

But then, alas, I grew tired of them as well. I began to envy those folks who curl up into balls each night, their bodies as heavy as tombstones. I tried curling up with them, slowing my breath, entering into their dreams. What dreams! To think I had been missing out all along! That’s when I became a Zen master, at one with the night. Now I teach classes on peace, love, abstinence. At last I have found bliss, I tell my followers. The young, they don’t believe it. But really, I ask you. Would I lie?

The Broken Promise

after Heberto Padilla, “The Promise”

There was a time when I promised to write you a thousand love poems. When I said every day is a poem, and every poem is in love with you. But then the poems rebelled. They became a junta of angry women, impossible to calm or translate, each more vivid, sultry, seductive than the next. Some stayed inside and sulked for weeks, demanding chocolates, separate rooms, maid service. Others wanted to be carted around like queens. Still others took lovers and kept the neighbors up, moaning at all hours of the day and night. One skinny girl (remember her? the one with flame-colored hair?) moved away. She went back to that shack down the road where we first met. At night she lay down in the orchard behind the house and let the dark crawl over her arms and legs. In the end even her dreams turned to ash and blew away in a sudden gust of wind.

Little Big Man

after Russell Edson “Sleep”

There was once an orgasm that could not stop shrinking. Little big man, his friend called him, watching as he grew smaller and smaller with each passing night, first before making love, then before even the mention of making love, then before even the mention of the mention of making love. Oh, what a pathetic little thing he was.

One night he tried reading, Think and Grow Big, but it only caused him to shrink further inside himself. Oh, to grow large and tall as I once was, he sighed. What he needed, he knew, was a trainer with a whip and chains. Someone to teach him to jump through hoops and swing from a trapeze and swallow fire until he blazed ever higher into the night. Yes, he shuddered. Yes! as he imagined it. A tiny wisp of smoke escaped his lips.

Questions to Determine if You Are Washed Up

after Charles Baudelaire, “Get Drunk!”

Do you feel washed up lost, all alone? Do you fear that time is passing you by like a train for which you have no ticket, no seat? That you have lived too long in the solitude of your room and empty mind,  that now you are but a slave of sorrow? Or is it regret? Do you no longer taste the wine of life on your lips, tongue, throat? Is there not even even a chance of intoxication? Bliss? No poetry or song above or below the hips? No love in the wind, the waves, in every  or any fleeting and floating thing? No castles in your air? No pearls in your oysters? Are you wearing a pair of drawstring pants?

Remembering Her

after Herberto Padilla

This is the house where she first met you. This is the room where she first said your name as if it were a song.  This is the table where she undressed you, stripping away your petals, leaves, your filmy white roots and sorrows. And there on the floor is the stone you picked up each morning, the stone you clung to night after night. Sometimes she kicked it aside. Sometimes she placed in on the sill and blew it out the window as her presence filled you like a glow, and you thought for an instant, I, too, can fly.

[fusionholders]

Kitty Section - Milky Way and Chevalier Headcanons

In this AU, Kitty Section’s actually a little bit different! It’s Adrien idea to start it, as a means of “rebelling” against his father. Its his first taste of it.

He immediately goes to Luka and asks if he wants to join. He politely declines because of work and studies, but Juleka takes up the role as soon as Adrien asks.

I h/c them both as good singers so they sing together

So now we got Adrien and Juleka - but who else?

Max joins as the band drummer. Just because he’s a geek doesn’t mean he can’t rock out too! He’s lowkey like, really good too

Marc is brought into the spotlight a little more when its revealed he can play bass. (This is actually a self-insert headcanon of sorts because I’m a writer who WANTS to play bass too lmao)

Marinette is a guest member - she doesn’t always perform with them, but when she does, she’s their tapper. Not only can she dance outside of being Milky Way, but she doesn’t have to enter into some dance competition to be up on stage and do what she loves!

Now onto the band headcanons, like as a fam

Mari’s dance shoes have little heels that make her slightly taller (despite Adrien still needing to practically pick her up to smooch her)

She does exceed Max in height when she wears them tho! This leads Max to harbor an immeasurable distaste for Marinette forever.

Jkjk, the Kitty Section percussionists are actually very close. They like making beats together whenever they get a chance

Adrien and Juleka singing duets. Need I say more?

Every one of them know they can confide in one another anything at all. The only tea that is never spilled is Marinette’s crush on Adrien.

Band gang sleepovers!!! Mainly at the Dupain-Cheng’s or the Couffaine boat house

Adrien, Marc, and Max become great friends and quite close because of the band. So do Marinette and Juleka; other than Rose, she’s the only one Juleka will really open up to.

Bugimatrix, Cinder Cat, and Luminous Fowl know each other from the get-go. Its not that hard to figure out, in their opinion.

Milky Way and Chevalier, as expected, are another story entirely.

Alix actually plays piano too - she and Adrien once did a duet together at one of the concerts and it was sick

Marinette feels completely comfortable tapping around Adrien, for some reason. No fears whatsoever. She thought it might be key to getting over her embarrassment but she can’t tap everywhere all the time

One band practice session Marc absolutely went ham on his bass and nailed Megalovania first try. Everyone’s too scared to ask how

[autumn-foxfire]

First: I’m so glad to talk about this with someone else haha. I don’t like the travelers as well lol I think they’re too boring and they limit the story too much. Also their stans are so annoying and they keep dragging everyone else into their mess cause apparently we are all obliged to LOVE the twins. That’s also the reason why I hate any shipp with the twins… but I have a special hatred towards the one with childe and the not male traveler for many other reasons.

Second: I would like to talk about Childe himself since he seems the type of character you tend to like a lot as well. And how people seem to have a misconception about him that made my poor son a fckboy that flirts with us and everyone else all the time when actually… he’s just being charismatic and polite, I never saw him flirting with anyone and yet the majority of the fandom insists that he’s trying so hard to seduce us. Sometimes I wonder if these people actually flirted with actual human beings or had any romantic interactions with someone else that’s not a pixel. I don’t mean it in a rude way, it’s just that I find it kinda funny that they see one guy being nice and suddenly he’s in love with them.

Third: I would like to recommend you the show Arcane, if you haven’t watched it yet. You don’t need to play or understand the game (league of legends) to watch, don’t worry. It just seems the type of show you would enjoy since the characters are so well written and there’s no good or bad, it’s just a bunch of people trying to solve their problems while trying to stick to their ideals and all that. It’s pretty complex I think, and if you decide to watch it people keep an eye on my man viktor, he’s my favorite and I like to see your opinion on him.

This response got very long XD

It's always the issue with protagonists in games, they're mostly made to be a self-insert and while the travellers do have their own personalities in the game, it doesn't stop the story and the characters from bending over backwards to love them, especially in the latest archon quest and the character quests that followed where we were suddenly okay with the Raiden Shogen enough to go on basically a date day trip with her and how Kokomi was like we were the only one who understood her and wanted us around more... I just find it really frustrating, I want characters that don't fall for our "charms" like Rosaria and Dainsleaf again T-T And not them dying like Signora.

Manifesting Scaramouche to hate our guts forever XD

It reminds me of Pokemon games, where everyone loves us the 10 year old trainer and while that's okay for games, when it comes to fanfiction I prefer stories where they don't exist and the characters in those regions have to solve the issues themselves! I don't mind the travellers as much in Genshin, or I didn't for Mondstadt and for Liyue because we weren't really alone when we faced the threat of those nations, we were just the support but that changed in Inazuma where Ei took interest in us personally and the resistence didn't really end up doing much of anything, it was just us which ended up being disappointing because I expected more from the support cast. But that archon quest is acknowledged by fandom to be disappointing so hopefully that changes for the Dendro archon.

Moving onto ships: I can safely say I agree with you about Childe and a certain female traveller because I'm so tired of people shoehorning that ship into every other het ship that could have a similar dynamic like Itto and Sara where every other post was like "they're like the Childe and Lumine of Inazuma" and I just wanted them to shut the fuck up and let me enjoy the dumb oni and the tengu warrior he likes to pester T-T Petty? Probably but I don't care.

Don't get me started how people think he's flirting because he calls Lumine "girly". I have no clue how the fuck that is flirting to anyone, especially because I never see the claims for similar dialog for the male traveller, it's always the female traveller they make this claim for. Of course Childe enjoys the company of the traveller, he likes to fight and will befriend people who can give that to him. It's why he's not too angry at Zhongli either and still accompanies him to dinner and drinks (or well he did while still in Liyue) as he wants to one day fight him.

Now if you want to explore that as flirting in FANON then I'm all for that, I'd be a hypocrite otherwise as I like Childe/Zhongli, however I don't go around insisting that the ship is canon seriously because of their canon interactions or that Childe is "totally in love with Zhongli" like I've seen many who ship him with both Lumine and Zhongli do and insert this dynamic into other ships. I get equally annoyed when they do this too because IT'S NOT TRUE. Stay in your own goddamn shipping lane and stop trying to force the ship onto others T-T

People can be so annoying about ships and I just want to tell them to stop being an embarrassment to other shippers.

I really do think Childe is one of the most misinterpreted characters in the fandom as people just like to shove him into stereotypical character tropes instead of exploring his canon personality. It's why I'm so selective of even Zhongli/Childe fics because I want to read about Childe not some depressed fuck boy.

Anyway, I've actually already started Arcane because of how highly my friends recommended it and even the brief amount I've seen of it is already pulling at my feels T-T I'll definitely keep an eye on Viktor when he's introduced.

[foursprout-blog]

The TV industry seems to have no plan for the future of advertising

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/the-tv-industry-seems-to-have-no-plan-for-the-future-of-advertising/

The TV industry seems to have no plan for the future of advertising

The big TV networks spent the past week hoping to dazzle ad buyers with clips of their new shows, while selling the enduring emotional power of the medium.

That still matters to many legacy brands. But increasingly marketing is about brands selling directly to consumers, using tech and data.

The TV industry largely doesn’t seem to have a plan for this future.

“The broadcasters must be aware that the big, television-centric consumer brands are being challenged by direct brands,” IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg told Business Insider. “They must adapt their capabilities and processes to be more appealing both to these disruptor brands, and to the giant incumbents.”

  American consumers are buying personalized lip glosses from brands they only been exposed to on Instagram, or custom mattresses they’ve never touched or laid up on, or curated subscription boxes of form-fitting apparel.

At the same they’re ordering household items in bulk with a few mindless clicks on Amazon.

And the TV industry is still focused on selling the whole country the same soap, beer or chips.

Marketing is going through a revolution, as upstart brands chip away at the business of legacy giants in nearly every category. As chronicled in a recent Interactive Advertising Bureau Report, these newbie brands are focused on selling directly to consumers, using data, sophisticated targeting and primarily digital media.

They buy ad space using automated software. And they only buy ads when they want to sell more stuff.

Yet as the top broadcast and cable networks rolled out splashy presentations of their upcoming shows in New York this past week at the fabled upfronts, it seemed clear that the TV business doesn’t have a plan.

The contrast of big old brands fussing about the Upfronts vs young DTC brands spending 100% of their money with Facebook is pretty stark.

— Ari Paparo (@aripap) May 14, 2018

Sure, most of the sales chiefs at the big broadcast players paid lip service to data and so-called advanced TV this past week, though more often they criticized social platforms for how they misuse data. But primarily their pitches were more heart than science, hoping to get brands to tell their stories to as many people as they can alongside TV’s comedies and dramas.

That may make sense for now, as the Cokes and Budweisers and General Motors and Procter and Gambles of the world still have massive media budgets compared to every indy purse maker or craft hot sauce purveyor selling products one by one on Facebook or Instagram.

The big brands will be big for a while, and TV is still a $70 billion plus market. And they’ll still want to buy loads of TV ad space up front, since TV ad space is a shrinking commodity, given how ratings continue to slide. 

Yet TV advertising had its first down year in a while, reported Bloomberg.

And what happens when these giant brands start fading into the background? What does TV do then?

It’s the biggest change to marketing in decades

Dave Morgan, CEO of the TV tech firm Simulmedia, said the shift from mass marketing to direct brands is the biggest he’s seen in 15 to 20 years in the ad business.

It’s not easy to quantify, but the IAB recently noted that “non store retailing” (which includes direct selling on the web, catalogs, etc.)  accounted for less than 4% of retail sales in the early 1990s. That figure swelled to 9.4% of a $5.3 trillion retail economy as of 2015.

Is TV ready for this?

“TV remains an extraordinarily efficient way of connecting brands and retailers to consumers,” said IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg. “That said, the broadcasters must be aware that the big, television-centric consumer brands are being challenged by direct brands … they must adapt their capabilities and processes to be more appealing both to these disruptor brands, and to the giant incumbents.”

That’s why this week’s upfront presentations were striking – for hardly talking about this new reality.

“It’s not inevitable that these brands get to TV,” Morgan said. “But for TV’s sake they better get there or it’s going to lose its growth.”

There’s no going back for direct brands

Take Evereden, a new skin care brand for babies.

Kim Ho, the cofounder and CEO said that the company spent hundreds of hours brainstorming marketing strategies before launching, and “never once did TV come up” as an option.

To be sure, Evereden isn’t exactly spending hundreds of millions of marketing dollars. But regardless, the company sees TV as simply not viable for its data-driven approach.

“We grew up on social, and we have people shopping on Facebook,” she said. “We don’t think about TV, because not only is our demographic hard to reach there but the analytics are just lagging.”

“On Facebook, we know who is buying what, who is abandoning purchases, what people are interested in. There is no way TV could ever tell me that.”

Ho’s point of view regarding TV advertising is increasingly common, even among larger direct brand marketers like Warby Parker, Casper, and Dollar Shave Club.

Terry Kawaja, CEO of Luma Partners, explained the mentality of a new generation of marketing leaders this way: “The nature of the person who controls ad budgets at Airbnb is not a chief marketing officer. They’re a growth officer. They’re a revenue person.”

Jackson Jeyanayagam, CMO of the e-commerce startup Boxed, said there’s often another factor at play for these disruptive brands. Many are backed by venture capital.

“Digital is the best way to track exactly what you’re going to get,” he said. “When you are spending other people’s money, TV’s very difficult to measure and justify.”

If you’re Casper, what’s is the point of an upfront?

For decades, the big TV networks have been able to sell roughly 70% of their annual ad inventory during just a few short weeks in the spring, at the so-called upfront. Marketers like Unilever wanted to lock up ad space, get preferred rates and importantly, not get shut out, since the amount of ad space in linear TV is finite. There are just 24 hours in a day after all.

So you can see why they’d be hesitant to change their approach.

But direct brands don’t think ahead that way. They buy ads online where there’s always plenty of inventory. And they buy at the last minute. 

“The upfronts were built on the idea of scarcity,” said prominent media investor and former top News Corp and AOL executive Jon Miller. “If you wanted to secure the best environment and context for your messaging, which for a long time was adjacent to high quality TV, you needed to participate in the upfront.”  

But on platforms like Facebook and Google, marketers buy ads through programmatic tools, and space is sold via an auction, not upfront.

“Some of the larger brands will continue to need this kind of lock in, but many if not most brands will and are gravitating to a pay as you go model,” said Miller.

Booking.com is a big-budget direct brand that actually does some TV advertising. But upfront buying? “Probably never will unless TV’s ad tech fundamentally changes,” said Pepijn Rijvers, chief marketing officer at Booking.com

“This type of buying does not give us the flexibility nor the inventory nor the prices we need.” 

TV advertising is not a platform

The fundamental difference between TV advertising and digital is that TV ads are sold, while digital ads are purchased. Meaning that the bulk of TV advertising is still negotiated between ad buyers and sellers on the phone and over lunches.

Compared to Facebook, Google, Pinterest and others, there’s no way for a small brand to log onto a self-serve platform and start buying primetime ads on Fox. The process is largely analogue, and the cost of entry is high.

Yes TV advertising is changing. Just slowly

To be sure, all of the major TV networks are experimenting with selling more ads using sophisticated data. For example, Disney announced recently the formation of a new division, Luminate, focused on helping bring more sophisticated targeting to its networks. 

And CBS announced plans to use tech to insert ads dynamically into live TV, a la digital advertising.

Turner, NBCU, Fox and Viacom are working together on an initiative called Open AP which aspires to help marketers better define specific audiences to run ads against. 

But these initiatives are tiny in the grand scheme of things. According to eMarketer, addressable TV advertising (which uses cable boxes to deliver ads to specific households) is growing fast, but represents less than 2% of the US market.

“The scale is just not there yet,” said Courtney Lawrie, director of brand & integrated marketing at Wayfair.

Jeyanayagam, who before joining Boxed ran digital marketing for Chipotle, said he’s excited about the potential of more automated, targeted TV ad buying.

“The networks are more progressive than they get credit for,” he said. “But they are going to have to move faster.”

There’s also the Amazon factor

Ok, so new brands are not drawn to TV upfront buying. But plenty of legacy giants still are. Procter and Gamble and Unilever and others still need to sell paper towels and kitchen cleaners and the like to the whole country. 

So that’s a win for the TV ad business. That is, “until you just buy all that stuff on Amazon,” said digital ad veteran Eric Bader.

“I really have to question whether the P&Gs, Unilevers, and multi-brand conglomerates are prepared for the next decade,” he said. “They are mostly still using the formula developed over the last 70 years. These changes are significant and they are not changing fast enough.”

But wait. This could be good for the TV networks – someday

Kawaja sees a huge opportunity for TV, if it can eventually embrace opening up its ad sales process to technology as more people stream TV shows over the internet.”You may see a democratization of TV ad spending,” he said.

That may require the TV business to lower pricing in some areas, so that small brands can buy ads in piecemeal. Easier said than done.

Indeed, it would be a a huge mental shift for these networks, going from selling $10 to $20 million ad packages to a few hundred advertisers to letting thousands or even millions of brands buy ads on TV whenever they want, like they do on Facebook and Google

A scary plunge for sure, but one that could reduce operational costs, said Morgan. “That kind of platform buying will actually be very good for networks since their cost of sale will be much lower,” he said. “They won’t have commissions, bonuses and heavy customer service costs.”

Small brands like the aforementioned Evereden would love to jump on board if TV goes fully programmatic some day. “This is the future of marketing,” said founder Ho. “So 100% we’d be interested.”

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Ally Financial CMO says that too much data hurts a brand — and is dangerous for the industry in the long-term

[ramialkarmi]

The TV industry seems to have no plan for the future of advertising

The big TV networks spent the past week hopping to dazzle ad buyers with clips of their new shows, while selling the enduring emotional power of the medium.

That still matters to many legacy brands. But increasingly marketing is about brands selling directly to consumers, using tech and data.

The TV industry largely doesn't seem to have a plan for this future.

"The broadcasters must be aware that the big, television-centric consumer brands are being challenged by direct brands," IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg told Business Insider. "They must adapt their capabilities and processes to be more appealing both to these disruptor brands, and to the giant incumbents."

  American consumers are buying personalized lip glosses from brands they only been exposed to on Instagram, or custom mattresses they've never touched or laid up on, or curated subscription boxes of form-fitting apparel.

At the same they're ordering household items in bulk with a few mindless clicks on Amazon.

And the TV industry is still focused on selling the whole country the same soap, beer or chips.

Marketing is going through a revolution, as upstart brands chip away at the business of legacy giants in nearly every category. As chronicled in a recent Interactive Advertising Bureau Report, these newbie brands are focused on selling directly to consumers, using data, sophisticated targeting and primarily digital media.

They buy ad space using automated software. And they only buy ads when they want to sell more stuff.

Yet as the top broadcast and cable networks rolled out splashy presentations of their upcoming shows in New York this past week at the fabled upfronts, it seemed clear that the TV business doesn't have a plan.

The contrast of big old brands fussing about the Upfronts vs young DTC brands spending 100% of their money with Facebook is pretty stark.

— Ari Paparo (@aripap) May 14, 2018

Sure, most of the sales chiefs at the big broadcast players paid lip service to data and so-called advanced TV this past week, though more often they criticized social platforms for how they misuse data. But primarily their pitches were more heart than science, hoping to get brands to tell their stories to as many people as they can alongside TV's comedies and dramas.

That may make sense for now, as the Cokes and Budweisers and General Motors and Procter and Gambles of the world still have massive media budgets compared to every indy purse maker or craft hot sauce purveyor selling products one by one on Facebook or Instagram.

The big brands will be big for a while, and TV is still a $70 billion plus market. And they'll still want to buy loads of TV ad space up front, since TV ad space is a shrinking commodity, given how ratings continue to slide. 

Yet TV advertising had its first down year in a while, reported Bloomberg.

And what happens when these giant brands start fading into the background? What does TV do then?

It's the biggest change to marketing in decades

Dave Morgan, CEO of the TV tech firm Simulmedia, said the shift from mass marketing to direct brands is the biggest he's seen in 15 to 20 years in the ad business.

It's not easy to quantify, but the IAB recently noted that "non store retailing" (which includes direct selling on the web, catalogs, etc.)  accounted for less than 4% of retail sales in the early 1990s. That figure swelled to 9.4% of a $5.3 trillion retail economy as of 2015.

Is TV ready for this?

"TV remains an extraordinarily efficient way of connecting brands and retailers to consumers," said IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg. "That said, the broadcasters must be aware that the big, television-centric consumer brands are being challenged by direct brands ... they must adapt their capabilities and processes to be more appealing both to these disruptor brands, and to the giant incumbents."

That's why this week's upfront presentations were striking – for hardly talking about this new reality.

"It's not inevitable that these brands get to TV," Morgan said. "But for TV's sake they better get there or it's going to lose its growth."

There's no going back for direct brands

Take Evereden, a new skin care brand for babies.

Kim Huang, the cofounder and CEO said that the company spent hundreds of hours brainstorming marketing strategies before launching, and "never once did TV come up" as an option.

To be sure, Evereden isn't exactly spending hundreds of millions of marketing dollars. But regardless, the company sees TV as simply not viable for its data-driven approach.

"We grew up on social, and we have people shopping on Facebook," she said. "We don't think about TV, because not only is our demographic hard to reach there but the analytics are just lagging."

"On Facebook, we know who is buying what, who is abandoning purchases, what people are interested in. There is no way TV could ever tell me that."

Huang's point of view regarding TV advertising is increasingly common, even among larger direct brand marketers like Warby Parker, Casper, and Dollar Shave Club.

Terry Kawaja, CEO of Luma Partners, explained the mentality of a new generation of marketing leaders this way: "The nature of the person who controls ad budgets at Airbnb is not a chief marketing officer. They're a growth officer. They're a revenue person."

Jackson Jeyanayagam, CMO of the e-commerce startup Boxed, said there's often another factor at play for these disruptive brands. Many are backed by venture capital.

"Digital is the best way to track exactly what you're going to get," he said. "When you are spending other people's money, TV's very difficult to measure and justify."

If you're Casper, what's is the point of an upfront?

For decades, the big TV networks have been able to sell roughly 70% of their annual ad inventory during just a few short weeks in the spring, at the so-called upfront. Marketers like Unilever wanted to lock up ad space, get preferred rates and importantly, not get shut out, since the amount of ad space in linear TV is finite. There are just 24 hours in a day after all.

So you can see why they'd be hesitant to change their approach.

But direct brands don't think ahead that way. They buy ads online where there's always plenty of inventory. And they buy at the last minute. 

"The upfronts were built on the idea of scarcity," said prominent media investor and former top News Corp and AOL executive Jon Miller. "If you wanted to secure the best environment and context for your messaging, which for a long time was adjacent to high quality TV, you needed to participate in the upfront."  

But on platforms like Facebook and Google, marketers buy ads through programmatic tools, and space is sold via an auction, not upfront.

"Some of the larger brands will continue to need this kind of lock in, but many if not most brands will and are gravitating to a pay as you go model," said Miller.

Booking.com is a big-budget direct brand that actually does some TV advertising. But upfront buying? "Probably never will unless TV's ad tech fundamentally changes," said Pepijn Rijvers, chief marketing officer at Booking.com

"This type of buying does not give us the flexibility nor the inventory nor the prices we need." 

TV advertising is not a platform

The fundamental difference between TV advertising and digital is that TV ads are sold, while digital ads are purchased. Meaning that the bulk of TV advertising is still negotiated between ad buyers and sellers on the phone and over lunches.

Compared to Facebook, Google, Pinterest and others, there's no way for a small brand to log onto a self-serve platform and start buying primetime ads on Fox. The process is largely analogue, and the cost of entry is high.

Yes TV advertising is changing. Just slowly

To be sure, all of the major TV networks are experimenting with selling more ads using sophisticated data. For example, Disney announced recently the formation of a new division, Luminate, focused on helping bring more sophisticated targeting to its networks. 

And CBS announced plans to use tech to insert ads dynamically into live TV, a la digital advertising.

Turner, NBCU, Fox and Viacom are working together on an initiative called Open AP which aspires to help marketers better define specific audiences to run ads against. 

But these initiatives are tiny in the grand scheme of things. According to eMarketer, addressable TV advertising (which uses cable boxes to deliver ads to specific households) is growing fast, but represents less than 2% of the US market.

"The scale is just not there yet," said Courtney Lawrie, director of brand & integrated marketing at Wayfair.

Jeyanayagam, who before joining Boxed ran digital marketing for Chipotle, said he's excited about the potential of more automated, targeted TV ad buying.

"The networks are more progressive than they get credit for," he said. "But they are going to have to move faster."

There's also the Amazon factor

Ok, so new brands are not drawn to TV upfront buying. But plenty of legacy giants still are. Procter and Gamble and Unilever and others still need to sell paper towels and kitchen cleaners and the like to the whole country. 

So that's a win for the TV ad business. That is, "until you just buy all that stuff on Amazon," said digital ad veteran Eric Bader.

"I really have to question whether the P&Gs, Unilevers, and multi-brand conglomerates are prepared for the next decade," he said. "They are mostly still using the formula developed over the last 70 years. These changes are significant and they are not changing fast enough."

But wait. This could be good for the TV networks - someday

Kawaja sees a huge opportunity for TV, if it can eventually embrace opening up its ad sales process to technology as more people stream TV shows over the internet."You may see a democratization of TV ad spending," he said.

That may require the TV business to lower pricing in some areas, so that small brands can buy ads in piecemeal. Easier said than done.

Indeed, it would be a a huge mental shift for these networks, going from selling $10 to $20 million ad packages to a few hundred advertisers to letting thousands or even millions of brands buy ads on TV whenever they want, like they do on Facebook and Google

A scary plunge for sure, but one that could reduce operational costs, said Morgan. "That kind of platform buying will actually be very good for networks since their cost of sale will be much lower," he said. "They won't have commissions, bonuses and heavy customer service costs."

Small brands like the aforementioned Evereden would love to jump on board if TV goes fully programmatic some day. "This is the future of marketing," said founder Kim. "So 100% we'd be interested."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Ally Financial CMO says that too much data hurts a brand — and is dangerous for the industry in the long-term