#also I do not believe in the terms pr/ship and a/ti

[spicyicymeloncat]

I couldn’t respond earlier bc I was out but THIS

THIIIIIIISSSSS

WHY ARE MOST OF THE FANDOMS IM IN LIKE THIS.

THIS IS LIKE MY MAIN GRIPE WITH FANDOM (I’m in hater mode constantly because of this)

Long ranty post incoming, warning for opinions, discussion of sexism and brief discussion with “problematic ships”

Writers will show up and give you the most detailed world and people will have shipping wars for no reason.

And like I am in the boat of “enjoy fandom however you like, it’s your blog your content do what you want” but it’s disheartening when you’re on a tag for a franchise and none of the content is real or true or about the show and it just leads to a lot of other unpleasant problems with fandom. It’s fine if you do enjoy some of the things I’m about to complain about but the issue for me is when it completely dominates fandom bc it’s just incredibly boring to me personally.

AND DISCLAIMER. I do like shipping! Just not only shipping. It’s like butter. I like butter in my sandwiches but not tons of it on its own. I want the cheese or ham or lettuce and bread in my sandwich too. I’d like to enjoy the whole sandwich and the whole media franchise.

BUT LIKE CAN WE PLEASE talk about the huge mischaracterising and flanderisation that happens when people care more about a specific relationship dynamic and basically make content for that but with the costume of a specific fandom as long there’s a single hint of that happening. Like people just like a ship trope and they slap any old character onto it.

And it’s always the same fucking “they’re divorced <3” like I get it you like divorced old men (examples: the Magnus archives, Lego monkie kid) . And yknow I feel like all the fandoms I’m in have just a mlm couple and sometimes that’s the entire fanbase (examples: see above, Zelda, project sekai). Which at times feels a lot like a normalised version of just yaoi fangirling which has a lot of weird implications for society.

And also can we talk about women. Because whilst most fandoms tend to have THE MLM tm ship, sometimes fandoms have favourite men characters who don’t have to be shipped in order to be popular. But most women in the fandoms I’m in seem to only be popular because they can be shipped and this is such dated behaviour. (Example: Skylor vs Morro from Ninjago, again 80% of the cast of project sekai it makes me so mad). Like fandom only know horny or haunted by trauma fr fr /hj.

And like yknow, there’s also the normal amount of passive misogyny as a factor, such as women just being less popular in general (the Magnus archives has popular NON CANON ship of Elias and Peter which has no excuse of being so popular in comparison the two main cast canon couples of Melanie and Georgie or Basira and Daisy (ofc it makes sense that Jon and Martin are popular bc they’re the main main characters)

Like sometimes it feels like fandom is so romance oriented that women are simplified into their romanceability and they see this treatment much more than men (but this defo does happen to men and non binary people too but in general these are patterns). Also there’s also the immense woman hate when a piece of media has been implying a het romance but the fandom likes the gay ship more. I’ve seen this happen with Nya from Ninjago, this is basically happening with Yona from totk (and I’m going mad over it).

And speaking of romance orientated things, rip to anyone who looks into a hc tag and it’s entirely flooded with x reader and in like gentlest way possible all of those posts are not very in character and I guess they aren’t supposed to be, they’re just supposed to look dateable but like you see why that can be annoying right. Like I wish we had literally any other kind of headcanon. I wanna know a characters food preferences, I wanna know their medical history, I wanna know what kind of music they like or if their bilingual or what subjects they’d study at school. I want a description of literally any other relationship other than romantic.

But. But. The biggest rest in peace goes to fandoms where they’re main character roster is all sibling dynamics. My bestie is in the dc fandom and tmnt and like. Rip. Disastrous and terrifying. Deepest condolences. An entirely sibling cast combined with people determined to ship everything under the sun leads to unsavoury concepts. And yknow it could’ve been avoided if people realised that other relationships existed. And btw I said at the top that I think it’s fine to enjoy some things I complain about, this one doesn’t count. If you’re out here specifically glorifying and romanticising child relationships , sibling relationships or abuse, then you need to change your mindset. I don’t wanna get into the pro/anti bs, but like if you’re out here with the intent on saying that those relationships are perfectly fine, then I suggest getting therapy or something.

Other than that, generally it does frustrate me when it feels like a franchise is wasted on a majority of its fanbase. I have this same problem with tumblr sexymen, the jokes are funny but the actual unironic simping for a mischaracterisation really irks me, bc I just don’t like “horny” being an excuse to throw an entire franchise in the bin. Which is why I was so irrationally angry at people rehydrating Ganondorf from totk after only seeing the first teaser trailer. Also related, but I actually have the lmk macaque tags blocked because he was every other post and people mischaracterised him (imo) as hell he was the fandoms emo kitty cat (imo) and I do not care for it actually.

But I guess the solution is to be the change you wish to see in the world, so I’ll just come up with the headcanons and the content myself I guess. Bc I do believe ppl should enjoy how they want (barring supporting ickiness) even if I privately think that that character would not fucking say that. This is more of just a vent of why sometimes the fandom tag can be annoying to me, rather than telling people they should change bc I’m angry.

Sorry if I am being super blunt and mean (I started writing this and then life happens and suddenly you’re a little too angry :p), this is ofc all my own opinion.

Ps. I will note, I think Ninjago is one of the least ship dominated fandoms I’ve been in compared to the others. Like Ik there’s a lot non ship content and more hc in my experience at least. Like I don’t think as many characters get flanderised to the extent of my other fandoms. It’s not like it doesn’t happen but I appreciate the lessened severity of it (I might just be following cool ppl). And not saying there isn’t a wide variety of non ship content in other franchises, Ninjago just sticks out to me rn ig lol.

it sucks SO hard being one of the small minority in any fandom who couldn't care less about the ships present, and who really cares more for the lore than anything.

I dont CARE about new ship fuel youve found I wanna discuss why this super cool mystical thing has been secretly going on and what the fuck it means !!!!

[missdeepend]

Gajeel and Levy- The Redemption Love Story

After so long of a break, I finally figure I should talk about my favorite couple in the series. This of course is Gajeel and Levy, the love story between a little book worm and a tough redeemed villain. In terms of characters, we know very little about one compared to the other. This is most likely due to the fact that Levy was supposed to be more of a background character than a background character with some side essence. We assume that Levy's parents are either dead or walked out as she had been at the guild since she was a very young child with no mention of either one of her parents. This can also go for Jet and Droy who we know joined around the same time. When it comes to her character, Levy has proven to be useful on more than one occasion, with her really showing it off during the Battle Fairy Tail for the first time. She has never been one to be presented to be front and centered other than occasional scenes here and there and when she is with Gajeel. Gajeel, on the other hand, has become a fan favorite among people due to his backstory and personality. When it comes to Gajeel's past we have a few points about it, most likely due to him being a Dragon Slayer. Due to Fairy Tail's writing if it wasn't for him being a Dragon Slayer I doubt we would have any more information about before Phantom Lord, but we do so I digress. We know that Belno was a "motherly" figure to Gajeel and attempted to convince him to quit getting into trouble, but Gajeel being the hard head that he is did not relent and continued down his path. Eventually he became a villainous character of Phantom Lord and definitely not someone he is proud of being. We see this first hand with his battle on Tenrou Island against the chicken and dog duo who had beaten him to a pulp after he saves Levy.

Although Levy's scenes primarily focus on her and Gajeel together, it should be well known that it isn't a Juvia and Gray situation where she relies on him. I believe that it helps that Levy was already a background side character with Gajeel being a side character instead of Gajeel being part of the center cast. It meant that not all of his scenes had to be centered around her and even if they were they made sense because it wasn't shoved down our throats. From the first time Gajeel joins the guild and through their bickering it is a slow burn redemption romance that added character growth to Gajeel but also depth for Levy.

When Gajeel first joins the guild, Levy is the one who allows it. Although she is obviously nervous about his presence she welcomes him as one of their own. This continues even as Jet and Droy beat Gajeel and he takes their punches, wanting to be a part of their guild and be on equal terms. She never chastises him for being the way he was and doing what he did. The scenes show just how kind of a character Levy is and it encapsulates just how much being a member of Fairy Tail means to her. It really makes me wish that we had more information on her past.

Meanwhile, these scenes with Gajeel slowly give us hints on what Gajeel is going to be like as a character. The scenes we get with him through the Battle of Fairy Tail arc prove that he had so much potential building up in redeeming him, which makes us sympathize with someone we used to loath. Him allowing himself to take this hit from Laxus not only for Levy but also his rival Natsu shows he does care a little for this guild that he often casts aside as if it was nothing. Then we have the reveal that he is secretly a double agent which just ties a sweet little bow on it all at the end.

Honestly, in comparison to Gray and Juvia, it is no wonder why I grew up loving both of these ships. Gray and Juvia were my favorite for such a long time and yet were fumbled apart. Whether it be just the way the personalities or story were handled, I feel like it is a good learning lesson for writers out there. The way Gajeel was handled in his redemption was pretty much perfect and adding a sprouting seed of love sprinkled along the way to make it the reason he became a good guy makes it better. But even if you took Levy out of the scene Gajeel would still be a good character, he just wouldn't have his real grasp other than Pantherlily. Levy was the character that MADE Gajeel the way he is. The reason why he can care for not only himself and Lily, but also another human being and eventually a baby.

I would love to hear your opinions about this relationship though. Do you think that their story could've been better and do you wish for more? Or do you think it was just enough in the background while we watched the main story unfold. Anywayssss I'll see you all later in the Deep End!!

And hello! I'm back. Hopefully I stay back for a bit. I am thinking about adding some discussions about Edens Zero and maybe eventually Dead Rock as well since they are also becoming beloved series for me. I do love writing and going through all my thoughts to you all and I could write about Fairy Tail for days. I just had a bit of writers block and lack of motivation. But I hope you all enjoy these as much as I do!

[annislittleshopofhorrors]

I think one of the reasons i was so stuck on team PR is because i couldn´t accept that the man i have been supporting was the kind of person that not only was friends with racist, ancimetic, trolling, you name it people.. but in a willing relationship with one of them, like he really sold the golden retriver, steve rogers image quite well so coming to terms he was miles away from being that, well it was a blow. Also, it didn´t help that everything they do seems so.. curated? like the first pap walk droping the day of the only job she has premieres? only to see the videos from other sources and see how they look like when they think no one watching, the famous arthur fist, the fans pointing out something only for them later doing something to dissprove it, the lurking of their teams here and on twitter, man even at first they could tell how long they have been together first it was a year, couple weeks later almost to years only to tell months back tht it was more than that... it just didn´t help, but now well ti me its kinda clear that they are indeed in a relationship, now to me it looks like is a shitty one, like the power imbalance is through the roof... i can get over the fact is that she was coming to him atleast till recently, like she goes to his friends parties, she does his hobbies, damn she even reads the books he likes, she models herself to what he wants, girl attended his premieres but not her own.. i think thats one of the reasons why they have been together for so long, he says jump she ask how high, it still makes me giggle how he shipped her of , in economy none the less, after new years, he pretty much has the perfect built yourself girlfriend. I think if they are indeed goint to live together like for real is going to be their test of fire, cause sure she has been staying with him but during that time he was working and quite a lot, but now, nothing, nada from either of them, so them spending most of their time together .... what i would give to be a fly on the wall, I just dont think she can be all she "wants" all the time, like her fans said she did a 180 in terms of who she was before him, but then again who knows, from where I am standing it looks like she gave her whole life away to get him but that could be what she wants, still I want to see how this turns out because, if i am not wrong she is the first official gf who get to live with him, more so with how we "know" how he is and how much he values his alone time, etc. I think this will either make them or break them... Still can´t wait for the cheesy dumps in each other birthday trying to overcompasate. My bet is that she will post him to her feed... but i am not quite sure about him, do we think he will again post his endless love to his stories or finally to his feed?, considering how this rs has blown up in his face i don´t think it will be smart, but we shall see

I can't believe that I've read this long message. And it's interesting what everyone believes what they/she show you. But I said it before, I won't argue anymore. I won't give you 101 reasons why I don't think it's real. It's fine when you think it's a real relationship, I just totally disagree.

[alltheselights]

Hey so I am a solo louie, I follow you despite you being a larrie because I think you are super level headed and quite frankly I love that you separate how you feel about their relationship and their career your damn good writer too. I became a fan last year and I am well aware that for the most part larries don’t believe that child is his. Apart of me thinks that is just crazy but another knows that the entertainment industry is also batshit crazy so anything can happen. What I don’t understand is the point of it , nobody really cares and there is no way he would come out of this without without ruining his life and like I just don’t see how the whole thing makes any sense. None of it makes any logical sense like how do they plan all of this to end and why ?

VERY long response under the read more!

I think the key thing you’re forgetting is that when this started, people DID care. This didn’t start in 2017 or 2020 - Louis’ heavy closeting with Eleanor started all the way back in 2011 (a much different time then now) and babygate started in 2015. Louis was in the biggest band in the world and there were continual widespread rumors about him and his bandmate being together - his bandmate who was set up as the heartthrob frontman from the beginning of the band and I think starting in 2014 (or whenever Jeff first entered the picture) was looking toward an eventual future solo career, which is exactly what Sony wanted.

I think part of it was just to shut down the rumors with Harry, who again, I think Sony has always viewed as their money machine, and also just because just as many boybands before them, One Direction was marketed to girls as objects of their lust - boys the fans could fantasize about dating. I don’t believe any of the boys who may have identified as LGBTQ+ would have been permitted to come out while in the band because of this marketing strategy, but especially not Louis, who many stereotyped as gay from day one of the band and who many shipped specifically with the most popular of the heartthrob members.

I think the other big part of it is just punishment for Louis and always has been. Not only did he threaten their bottom line by not fitting into the cookie cutter One Direction straight boy mold that Sony clearly wanted and expected from all the boys, but he also fought for One Direction to become more than Sony/Syco wanted them to be. They expected the band to make them a lot of money with bubble gum pop songs for a few years and then burn out quickly when they’d overworked them too much and when all the girls turned toward a new shiny boyband or artist on the horizon, but what they didn’t account for was the fact that rather than falling in line, Louis and the others would fight to write more on the albums and Louis specifically would fight for them to mature their sound. And Louis was very successful in that because even though One Direction was not at their peak popularity with some of their later, more mature, and more well-written albums, they developed a fanbase with that music that would’ve stuck around long-term, not just for their personalities and pretty faces but for the actual music, which I suspect would never have happened if they’d just continued on their generic path that Sony set them on.

Most solo Louies recognize the sabotage of his career with his lack of promo, the fact that he is never protected or defended in the media by his team, and how they push his personal life as a focal point for most promo rather than his talent and music. If you can recognize that, it’s probably not that hard to imagine that they could saddle him with a beard and a fake child to double down on his heterosexuality and then continue it out of spite, fully recognizing that they have tied his hands in terms of his public image because it’s been so long of this, media trained him out of showing his true personality and mannerisms for years, and alienated him from large portions of his fanbase - because Larries are NOT the only group of his fans that suspect he is not straight - I know tons of solo Louies do as well.

The question of why it’s continuing today is a great one and I wish I had the answer and could see what’s happening behind the scenes. If Louis had finally gotten rid of Sony and Syco last year and immediately his solo career started improving, suggesting that his team was finally working for him and doing their jobs properly, and still the stunts continued, I think it would make sense to start to wonder whether Louis wanted that for himself. However, that’s not what happened at all. Louis still has the same management and PR, PR that has always been associated with Sony and Syco, by the way, and there have been no improvements to anything related to his career. I understand that there are limitations because he hasn’t toured or put out a new album yet, but I think you just have to see the lack of press, promo, and even basic respect and recognition around his massive record-breaking livestream in December and his upcoming festival to see that things haven’t changed. LTHQ on Twitter continues to be as useless as ever, Louis’ social media is rarely used to promote his career, and there has been no attempt to build hype for the future music that Louis is working on aside from a single set of pap pictures outside of the studio. These are some of the most basic things that a normal team would be working on, particularly considering how massive Louis’ platform is and how excited his fans have been even throughout the pandemic.

Louis watches what his fans say about everything on Twitter, and when he’s able to, he changes things with a snap of his fingers to ensure that his fans are happy. There’s no doubt in my mind that Louis has watched fans continue to complain about his team over the last year, yet nothing ever changes or improves, and he occasionally makes subtle nods to the fact that his support and successes are thanks to the fans only - never his team. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when he releases new music, but at least as of now, I think it’s evident that Louis is still not being positioned for success in his career with the team that he’s with, even after leaving Syco/Sony.

Without knowing what contracts Louis has signed over the years and how long they are binding, it’s impossible for fans to know how free he is officially, so all we can do is go off of what we see. And what I see right now is that nothing has changed with his career, and so while it seems absurd, it doesn’t actually shock me that much that other elements haven’t changed either. I also think it’s going to be very difficult for them to end babygate in particular at this point, which is probably something at the forefront of their minds.

So I can’t answer for why it hasn’t ended or when and how it will, but I can tell you that as long as his career is not prioritized by anyone around him, I find it very hard to believe that he is 100% free to make his own choices. Even if commercial success is not Louis’ number one priority, we’ve seen so many times how much it means to Louis when he does well on the charts. I do sometimes worry that Louis has given up and resigned himself to this fate because of how long he’s been sabotaged - I’ve worried about this particularly in the last year or so - but I still don’t believe this is all his choice. You can’t convince me that this person who was so clever with how to mature the band in One Direction, this person who has so much interest in the back end of the music industry, this person who has fought tooth and nail for a solo career that nobody thought he could pull off, this person who cares so deeply about what his fans think, is content with the team around him not bothering to do the basics of their job - to the constant widespread and loudly expressed frustration of his fanbase. And as a result, I suspect that babygate and Elounor are likely still around for the same reasons the rest hasn’t improved.

[mrchalamet-mrstyles]

A rebuttal. Of sorts.

I am putting this under a cut for people who want to avoid the wank. I don’t blame you, I would if I could, trust me. I would normally ignore (I've ignored A LOT) but people keep wanting to bring me back into everything so I wanted to set a few things straight.

This is a post made by rainbowdazzle, day before yesterday about me. Hi, I’m the anti. She posted another, much more scathing and hateful rant yesterday but I didn't manage to cap it before she deleted (why? Stick to your guns if you are going to fling them around like this) and I wanted to clear a few things up about this whole ugly ungodly mess.

First, you all should know that Steph and I go way back. Almost two years now we've known each other. We were pretty close, in fandom friendship terms. We shared a Twitter private group chat with a couple of other fandom old timers, back in the day. We were also in another group chat that didn't go so well for Steph. Ask her about it sometime and ask her who had her back then. I lost friends in that chat because I stood up for her. Legitimately went to bat for her when there were people in that group doing to her, exactly what she is doing to me here. (I can search my phone, I'm sure the screencaps of all that mess are buried in there somewhere) But she keeps throwing around the accusation that I threw my friends under the bus and I would like to ask how? Where? When? And what is it she thinks she is doing here?

I changed my mind. That is my biggest crime. I saw some things in Armie that I didn't like and decided he didn’t deserve my stanning heart or time. I also really looked at what I was hoping for, between these people, with lives and families and careers, and didn't like the person that made me. I've been in cheating scenarios personally. It's not fun and it's not good and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. So. I didn't want to be involved in shipping them in real life anymore. If, at some point, they do wind up being a couple, then I will be the first to congratulate them, but until then, it's none of my business. I never tried to convince anyone to think like me and I never was ugly or mean to those that don’t. If you want to ship them, have at it. I don’t. It’s that simple.

True there have been things said in the heat of the moment that I wish I never had said and would take them back if I could. But I never went on an attack. Anything heated that has come from me, has been in defense of myself, in cases like this. If this anon had seen fit not to bring me into any of this (why they did, I would love to know) I would never have thought to make this post. I have my say and I move on. I have moved on.  

I never called anyone delusional. I have searched my blog for any reference I made using that term that has become the Charmie battle cry and there is nothing about Charmies I have called delusional. I may believe that some of the ideas I see tossed around are delusional, but I have never called anyone that. Ever. It is not my fault if you read an answer to an anon, or a rare comment I make about any of this and infer I am saying that OR if you somehow recognise yourself in anything I say. That is not my fault. That is not my intention. If you identify or feel anything I say is pointed at YOU that is your problem and maybe you should look at your behavior a little closer. I never call out anyone publicly the way Steph feels the need to do here. Charmies are the ones that feel the need to put my name out there. Still. Even when it's been months since I've had anything to do with any of this.

Anons, stop using me to stir up shit. For all the anons I've received, telling me to move on and leave fandom already, you make it impossible for me to do just that. I'm doing nothing but posting pics of Tim and Harry and my BTS boys, or talking about writing, trying to encourage creative outlets but you all keep beating this dead horse by bringing me into fights I don't even want to have anymore.

As for the PR hullabaloo. Again, my words twisted and taken out of context to use as a weapon against me. It is NOT a lie that I know someone with legit (family) ties to Sony. That is something I am willing to swear on. It is not a lie that the boys were encouraged to hype their friendship during promo. Read that again: they were told to hype their FRIENDSHIP during promo. They couldn't be encouraged to hype something that wasn't there. They are friends. They are close and love one another. I never said it was all fake. Some (Steph) read my comment and took it to the extreme. I was a hater to even mention it. It's a fact. That's all. It doesn't negate anything from promo. It just means they did their job really well because we have no idea where the difference would have been. I only ever mentioned it because I do see Charmie content that goes well  beyond the level in lack of common sense and if some took these things into consideration, maybe the strife and the angst of the failed hope of meet ups in Cannes (or whatever wish Charmies have on a given day) wouldn't be taken so hard by so many. I hoped it would give a measure of lowered expectations if the truth were known. For example, knowing they hyped a bit explains the lack of sm interaction much more easily than they are covering their tracks. This isn’t saying their sm interaction was all fake or for PR, it just offers a different perspective on it. That is it.  But to mention any thing could have been PR related (they would have been stupid not to? It's a business after all!) in the eyes of Charmies is a crime worse than anything else. That's all I'm trying to say and all I meant with any of the stuff I said.

I doubt this post will change anyone's mind about me, but there comes a point, when you see yourself being accused of things you know just aren't true, that you have to speak up.

[dhaskoi]

The problematic stuff about Kara x Lena no-one wants to talk about

This isn’t meant to be an attack on anyone’s ship, but I just got another face full of SuperCat hate (because some people can’t resist the urge to travel into another part of the fandom just to sling shit) and I saw a statement I can’t let slide.  Here’s the statement I disagree with:

Lena isn’t emotionally abusive.

Here’s the thing: She is.

Right from the start Lena pursues a connection with Kara aggressively and acts to set the terms of the relationship.  She’s not above using emotional blackmail to make Kara feel dependent and/or obligated to be nice to her.  She outright tells Kara that without her friendship she (Lena) would be a supervillain, which is a hell of a weight to put on someone else’s shoulders and is exactly the sort of thing you shouldn’t say to someone you care about.  Not to mention it sets Kara up to feel unjustly guilty and responsible if Lena ever does do anything bad.  Lena also tends to prioritize keeping Kara pleased with her over telling her what she needs to hear.  In 2x15 for instance, the self publish plan that gets Kara fired was actually Lena’s idea.  And Lena is a CEO of a company that has a serious image problem when she takes it over who saw her brother brought down by an investigative journalist - are we supposed to believe she lacks the media awareness to see how this idea could blow up in Kara’s face? (Incidentally, if you don’t think Lena is acutely aware of the PR benefit to L-Corp when she sets out to build visible ties between herself and her company and Supergirl I have some National City real estate to sell you).

One of the things I love about SuperCat is how Cat and Kara’s relationship gets healthier as it evolves, partly because Cat works to make it healthier.  She treats Kara as more and more of an equal as time passes and she gets to know Kara better and eventually promotes Kara out of the position that makes her Kara’s very direct superior.  Not to mention, in 2x02, when Kara wants Cat to chastise Snapper for her, Cat makes it explicitly clear she’s not going to fight Kara’s battles for her, but also gives Kara the fantastic ‘Own your power’ speech where she reminds Kara that she can do this herself.  Fostering Kara’s confidence and faith in herself is something of a recurring theme - Cat is a booster of Kara’s self-belief and self-reliance.

In comparison, Lena often acts to encourage dependency in Kara and eventually appoints herself CEO of the company where Kara works.  She does this after their relationship, whatever form you believe it takes, is well established.  Even if you accept that Lena buying the shares was the *only* way to block the takeover attempt Lena making herself CEO was completely unnecessary.  She’s already got a company of her own to run, one that she actually has relevant experience to run, unlike a media conglomerate.  But it puts her in a position of power over Kara.

The power dynamic between Kara and Cat got healthier over time.  The power dynamic between Kara and Lena has gotten less healthy over time.

And there are undoubtedly reasons why Lena is this way - it’s unlikely there were any healthy examples of how to relate to others in the Luthor household.  But that doesn’t mean it’s okay.

Look, ship what you want to ship, always.  But if there’s a toxic dynamic present in your ship don’t ignore it or pretend it isn’t happening.  Talk about it.  Address it.  Don’t deny it or even romanticize it.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

Trump-Russia News Cliff’s Notes, 11/30-12/7

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s guilty plea for lying to the FBI is a big fucking deal on its own. In the few days since it happened, it kind of feels like the break shot at the beginning of a game of pool – this one strike sends things rolling in different directions. There’s a lot of other news which is no less important. This week, though, those other stories have been easier to distinguish, while Trump-Russia is the rat king.

So, here’s your Trump-Russia cheat sheet for the first week of December:

Michael Flynn looks even guiltier. Flynn’s guilty plea was mostly discussed in terms of his negotiating with the Russian government before Trump took office. That is, he was inappropriately acting like a public official when he was still a private citizen. Since then, we’ve learned:

Those interactions were actually worse than we thought. K.T. McFarland was a mid-level adviser during the campaign, and afterward was hired to work for Michael Flynn. She was the person staffing Trump (like, taking his calls and stuff) while Flynn was having those conversations with the Russian ambassador. At the time, McFarland sent emails (EMAILS!!11!!) to colleagues, saying that Trump would have a hard time overturning the sanctions politically because Russia “has just thrown U.S.A. election to him.” She’s claimed since that she was describing how it would look to the public, but even in the least damning context, it still shows that Trump’s staff casually accepted that Russia interefered in the election to help them.

Flynn also tried to use his public position to enrich himself personally. Eleven minutes after inauguration – there’s literally a picture of him looking down at his phone during Trump’s speech – he texted a business partner to say that sanctions would be “ripped up,” so they could go ahead with their plan to build nuclear facilities across the Middle East with the help of a Russian firm.

Reminder: Lifelong shit-eating narc Pence tried really hard to see no evil here, but he was personally notified that Flynn was a problem when he was running the transition team. 

-

Trump confessed to obstruction of justice. AGAIN. This time, he’s saying that he fired Flynn because of Flynn’s lies to the FBI, which would mean he knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI when he pressured former FBI Director Comey to let Flynn off the hook.

While the Department of Justice official overseeing the investigation has said he’s confident in Mueller’s work, Trump and the people around him are frantically attacking the FBI. Right now they’re flogging the news that an FBI agent was removed from the Mueller investigation months ago because the agent exchanged text messages with a co-worker which were critical of Trump. That’s Mueller and the agency bending over backward to avoid anything remotely resembling a conflict of interests.

It’s just peak Trump rhetorical victimhood. The FBI is a corrupt disaster because Comey was a spectacularly unfit director, which is why Trump is in the White House. Back in January, someone at the FBI misled the Washington Post to protect Michael Flynn. This is not an unprofessionally anti-Trump organization. Quite the opposite. But even they can’t cover for him any more, so he’s attacking them.

-

The special prosecutor’s office has Trump’s finances. They subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, which has a) paid some hefty fines for laundering Russian money and b) given Trump millions of dollars in loans when no other bank would. Trump has been desperate to hide this information and congressional Republicans have tried to help him. Democrats in the House of Representatives wanted to get these records for their investigation, but Republicans wouldn’t issue a subpoena.

So, if you’re keeping score: Republicans subpoenaed people who were already cooperating with the investigation, but would not subpoena people who refused the investigator’s requests. That is the opposite of how subpoenas work. There is no innocent explanation for this. Congressional Republicans are actively trying to help the Kremlin get away with sabotaging our democracy. That is not hyperbole. It is the only rational explanation for this pattern of conduct.

-

Trump’s legal entourage has gone full Nixon. They’ve gone from “no dealings in Russia” to “no collusion” to “it doesn’t matter if he colluded and even if he did the cover-up wouldn’t be illegal.” You’re probably sick of hearing it, but this is really, really bad for the rule of law.

-

Paul Manafort keeps digging. The day before the Flynn indictment, Paul Manafort’s bail restrictions were loosened. Basically, the judge and the special prosecutor agreed to let him take the ankle bracelet off and leave the house. That same night, the special prosecutor’s office found out that Manafort was communicating with a contact linked to Russian intelligence.

So, loosened bail agreement, pretty much over. Turns out Manafort, while under house arrest, was ghostwriting an oped defending his work in Ukraine, with help from someone linked to Russian intelligence. That’s actually worse than it sounds.

It violates a gag order. 

It ties the charges against Manafort to Russia. So far, he’s actually been charged with activities related to his work for former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, which a) ended before the Trump campaign started and b) was in a whole other country. Yanukovych was overthrown for being a craven Putin lackey, but there’s still technically a little daylight. But Manafort would only be talking to this guy if it was somehow related to Russia.

It continues the disinformation campaign. This wasn’t a heartfelt letter to the editor saying “I, Paul Manafort, believe that President Yanukovych’s career and vision have been misconstrued because blah blah blah.” Manafort planned to write a bunch of lies, run a draft by his handlers at the Kremlin, and publish under someone else’s name. That probably wouldn’t convince anyone on its own, but you don’t have to convince people if you’re just trying to muddy the waters so nobody can understand the truth. This, of course, was a huge part of how Russian intelligence attacked our election last year. 

Mueller runs a tight ship, so what they do show the public is usually important. The office didn’t have to make it clear that Manafort intended to lie when he violated the gag order – as they say, it’s enough that he intended to violate the gag order. Just my two cents here, but it looks to me like a signal that people who write the news and people who read the news need to be on the alert for lies about this. If you are going to read up on Manafort’s work in Ukraine, you should listen to Ukrainian people. 

-

On that last point about Manafort, there’s a story* about the 6/6/16 Trump Tower meeting out there. I’m using the asterisk because the contents of the story are unreliable and still worth knowing. One of the Russians at the meeting was Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Kremlin-affiliated lawyer and PR person who lobbies the American government for Russian interests. She was there and she knows what happened, but everything that she says about the meeting should be taken with a grain of salt. You didn’t trust everything Junior said in his interviews about the meeting, right? Well, Veselnitskaya is a) smart enough to lie convincingly and b) not a high-profile American citizen with Secret Service protection.

Thus, the asterisk. Veselnitskaya told a Senate committee that Junior asked her for any negative information that the Russian government may have had on the Clinton Foundation. That would mean the Trump campaign was actively soliciting information from Russian intelligence that day, not just passively hearing them out as Junior has claimed. That certainly could be true. It could also be a lie. The Kremlin doesn’t care about the Trumps, it cares about the Kremlin. Junior might be more of a liability than an asset; he might be getting burned to send a message to his father; flinging red herrings in his direction might be more diversion-via-chaos.

This doesn’t shed any light on what happened at the meeting, but it is something you might scroll by if you end up reading some of the Trump-Russia related stories this week, so it’s worth being aware of the context.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Understand the story and the stakes, and try to help the people around you get it, too.

We have to assume that Trump will try to fire Mueller, and when he does, we have to be ready to mobilize. There are rapid response protests planned all over the country. 

[ravishankarsivasubramaniam]

Marmalade: A Very British Obsession

Olivia Potts | Longreads | July 2020 | 15 minutes (4,161 words)

The dark wood-panelled dining room is quiet, heavy with concentration. Around the room, six pairs of judges sit at tables crowded with glass jars. As the light catches the jars they glow amber, saffron, primrose. The only real sounds are the murmurs as the pairs of judges consult, and the regular pop! of sterilized jars as they open. Occasionally, there is the tap of a pen against glass, signifying that a gold medal has been awarded, followed by quiet applause or cheers depending on how sugar-drunk the judges are.

This is the judging room of the World’s Original Marmalade Awards, an annual event in Penrith, England, in the English Lake District. I’m here because I’m obsessed with marmalade. Not with making or eating it — although I enjoy both — but the enigma it represents. I suppose I’m obsessed with those obsessed with it: what is the appeal? Marmalade is made from a sour, bitter fruit that doesn’t grow in the UK; a fruit that requires days of preparation to render remotely edible. And yet, marmalade holds a central role in British life and British culture. It appears in the diaries of Samuel Pepys; James Bond and Paddington Bear eat it. Officers that served in British wars received jars of marmalade to remind them of their home country. Captain Scott took jars to the Antarctic with him, and Edmund Hillary took one up Everest. Marmalade is part of our national myth. I want to know why.

***

Marmalade in Britain is overwhelmingly made from citrus aurantium, the bitter orange grown in the Spanish city of Seville. This city produces over 4 million kilos of the orange a year, almost entirely for export to Britain for the marmalade market. How on earth did that happen?

James Bond and Paddington Bear eat it. Officers that served in British wars received jars of marmalade to remind them of their home country. Captain Scott took jars to the Antarctic with him, and Edmund Hillary took one up Everest. Marmalade is part of our national myth. I want to know why.

Some would have you believe that marmalade was born in a vacuum. That, like Post-it notes or penicillin, it was invented all of a sudden, brought about by a confluence of unlikely factors. The story goes like this: it was a dark and stormy night. The rain fell in torrents, and a Spanish cargo ship was forced to take an unscheduled dock in Dundee, though it could as well have been anywhere; any port in a storm. Its cargo: oranges. A Dundee grocer, James Keiller, rashly buys up the whole load of them. He quickly discovers these oranges aren’t sweet and fleshy, but face-puckering sour and bitter, more pip than fruit. His mother, Janet, in an attempt to produce something, boils them up with tons of sugar. And so, marmalade was born.

The truth, I’m afraid, is rather more prosaic. We know that Seville orange marmalade in Britain predates this charming tale: there are British recipes for conserves of Seville oranges as far back as the 1587 A Book of Cookrye, and a marmalade very much like the one we eat today appears in a recipe book by Eliza Cholmondeley published around 1677. The Keiller family probably were the first to produce Seville orange marmalade on a commercial scale, but the Spanish ship story was and is just good PR. It is likely, according to C. Anne Wilson’s The Book of Marmalade, that the cargo ship would only have been carrying large quantities of Seville oranges because there was a ready market for them in Scotland, and that Janet Keiller would not have needed to invent a recipe for the orange marmalade, as many were in circulation by that point in England and Scotland. The expansion of the railways came at just the right time for the Keillers, and when Queen Victoria took a shine to the stuff, it quickly became fashionable in London. Once commercial production was underway, marmalade became a celebrated British export, perfect for overseas trade, able to travel long distances preserved by its sugar content, and capable of withstanding extremes of temperature.

In any event, marmalade was also made with other things long before it was made with the Seville orange. Early marmalades were often made from quince, and closely resembled what we now call membrillo: a thick paste that could be moulded and would hold its shape. A recipe from 1587 reads “stir it till it be thick or stiff that your stick will stand upright of itself.” Like membrillo, this marmalade was eaten after dinner, alongside sweetmeats, and as a digestion aid (one thing the Scottish did do in the nineteenth century was move marmalade from dinner to the breakfast table). It was a luxury item, sometimes flavored with prized ambergris, rose, and musk. It was given as gifts as a show of generosity and riches: Henry VIII received “one box of marmalade” from Hull of Exeter in 1524.

Quinces also gave marmalade its name: the world comes from the Portuguese name for the fruit, marmelo. Indeed, early port records tell us that marmalade first arrived in the UK from Portugal, though our appetite for the stuff meant it was soon coming from Spain and Italy too. It didn’t take long for English travellers to discover the recipe — a happy occurrence, since quinces grow very well on our temperate isle. We were, for a short time at least, an independent marmalade-making nation, until we got a taste for the foreign bitter orange.

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Only in English does marmalade connote a citrus-based preserve containing peel. In Greek (marmelada), French (marmalade), and Italian (marmellata), the word just means “jam,” with the fruit added afterward to distinguish. Thus marmellata di arance is orange jam: sweet, pulpy. Only marmellata di arance amare is what the English think of as marmalade. And it’s not just Romance languages: marmelad in Swedish, Marmelade in German, and marmelade in Danish, all generic terms for any fruit cooked in sugar. The British clearly think of marmalade differently from the rest of the world.

***

There are many ways to make marmalade. Some boil the fruit whole; others prefer to cut the peel first. The merits of pressure-cooking are fiercely debated. But broadly speaking, marmalade is made by separating the citrus fruit into its different components — pips, peel, pith, juice — and boiling, before adding sugar and boiling again. Generally, the pith, pips, and flesh are tied up in a muslin bag. The peel is sliced into equal sized strips or chips. The muslin bag and peel are left to soak overnight in the water. The following day, the peel is cooked until tender. Sugar is added, along with any reserved juice, and heated gently until it dissolves, before the heat is ratcheted up to bring the mixture to a rolling boil. In 10-15 minutes, the mixture should have reached 105°C/220°F — jam temperature — meaning that it will set once cool. If you make it with Seville oranges, it’s something of a nose-to-tail preserve: the pips and the pith contain enough natural pectin, a gelling agent, to set the marmalade without additional ingredients. Nothing is wasted. In theory, it’s a straightforward process; in practice it is riddled with possible unforced errors. You can overboil it, underboil it, add too much acid, add too little acid; you can burn the syrup in the same batch you undercook the peel. You can pot too hot, you can pot too cool. Over the years, my husband, Sam, has encountered every one of them.

It was Sam who properly brought marmalade into my life. He was late for one of our early dates because he was waiting for his marmalade to set. He arrived, clutching a sticky, still-warm jar of Seville orange marmalade, in lieu of flowers. Back then, I didn’t even really eat marmalade. I certainly would never have countenanced making my own. Why would anyone bother? Was he aware that you can buy it in the supermarket? I was a criminal barrister, and the point in my life where I would ditch criminal law in favor of retraining in pâtisserie was still years in the future.

It was Sam who properly brought marmalade into my life. He was late for one of our early dates because he was waiting for his marmalade to set.

But Sam came from a long line of marmalade lovers and marmalade makers. In marmalade season —  in the UK, Seville oranges are only available for a few brief weeks from the end of December to mid-February — it’s all his family talks about, with long WhatsApp threads devoted to techniques, yields, sets. Sam was a good cook, but not an especially enthusiastic one: he cooked simple, functional meals. But marmalade was different. Marmalade making was, for him, non-negotiable. Even if we had shelves packed full of the previous years’ labors, when January rolled around, more must be made.

(It’s not just Sam and his family who are fanatics. So devoted are the marmalade makers of the UK that it’s possible to buy canned, prepared Seville orange peel and pulp, “Ma Made,” the marmalade equivalent of a cake mix box — just in case you get that marmalade-making hankering outside of season.)

For the first few years of our relationship, this was something I simply endured. Love the man, love his marmalade. As I got into cooking, I tried to make my own a few times, with varying success, but never quite caught the bug. (Besides which, we had an awful lot to get through. Even a small batch is a lot of marmalade for two people.) It all seemed so unpredictable; some years, whole batches had to be reboiled as Sam muttered darkly about it being a “low-pectin year.”

Once you’re hooked, of course, this is all part of the appeal. Lucy Deedes is a veteran of both the homemade and artisan classes of the World’s Original Marmalade Awards, scoring three gold medals in the artisan. “You have to get things right at the right time. I’ve never made jam because it’s not much of a challenge. Marmalade only has three ingredients, but every batch is different, and sometimes it just doesn’t turn out.”

In other words: the tricky, maddening nature of marmalade is precisely why people love making it. It’s a bit like sourdough: if you’re going to get into it, you have to really get into it. Even then, failure lurks around every corner —  but so does the possibility of improvement. That’s irresistible to a certain sort of person; marmalade attracts the obsessive. Helena Atlee, author of The Land Where Lemons Grow puts it more bluntly. “Marmalade attracts bigots. They believe in one true product made from the sour oranges the British call Sevilles, and coming most probably from a steamy Scottish kitchen in Dundee.”

For the first few years of our relationship, this was something I simply endured. Love the man, love his marmalade.

I want to meet some of these obsessives, and understand the hold that marmalade has over so many. And I think I know where to find them: the World’s Original Marmalade Awards.

***

I arrived at Dalemain, where the awards are held, against the odds, having battled Storm Ciara to make it to the flooded and snowbound Lake District. At that point, I was fairly sure that extreme weather conditions would be the biggest challenge the awards would face this year. How much February Olivia had to learn. I first spoke to Jane Hasell-McCosh, who is the founder of the awards over the phone, asking if I could interview her and perhaps a couple of the judges for this piece. ‘“We can do one better than that,” she told me. “Would you like to help us judge?”

I agreed on the spot, but afterward, I began to worry that I didn’t know enough about marmalade for the gig. Thanks to Sam, I eat it far more than I used to, and would tend to choose it over jam. But is that enough? Well, it was too late for that. On my way up to the judging, I braced myself for the marmalade obsessives of which Helena Atlee writes — if not bigots, then at least fundamentalists. I was ready to be told there is only one true way to make and enjoy marmalade, and that any deviation from it is an aberration and, possibly, a perversion.

Dalemain is astonishing. The main frontage is Georgian, built in 1744, with the old hall dating far further back to the 12th century. It has been in the family for over 300 years. Although from the outside the house looks like a National Trust property, when you step inside you immediately realize it is a family home. Laundry hangs in the huge stone kitchen, dogs weave between legs, and back copies of Vogue spill out from under a table in the hallway. On the walls, portraits of distant ancestors mingle with recent family photos. In one of the guest rooms, a bed gifted by Queen Anne still resides. (The mattress, I am told, has been changed.)

The awards began as a one-off. Fifteen years ago, rural Britain was still struggling after being decimated four years earlier by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, a highly infectious disease which affects cows and other cloven-footed animals, and generally requires widespread culling of livestock. Jane wanted to do something to bring her local community together, something cheering. There was never any plan for it to become a regular event.

The fact that it did is perhaps down to Jane’s formidable organizational nouse, though I believe her when she tells me how much the growth and success of the event took her by surprise. That first year, around 60 jars were received, almost exclusively from local competitors. This year, there are more than 3,000 entrants from 40 countries around the world, plus spin-off festivals in Japan and Australia. During the time I spent at Dalemain, two separate production companies were filming.

After 15 years, judging has been honed to a fine art. The way it works is this: the marmalades are tasted on plastic spoons (never double-dipped), without the interference of bread, oatcakes or any other vehicle. Bath Oliver biscuits (a savory cracker) are on the table as a palate cleanser. Each entry has a scorecard and is judged on its appearance, texture and flavor, with points available for lack of smudges on the jar, color, brightness, peel distribution, jar filled to the top, balance of jelly to peel, set, size of peel, texture of peel, balance of flavors, balance of acidity, length of finish, and “overall harmony.” The marmalades can receive a commended, a bronze, a silver, a gold, or nothing at all. Those which have scored top marks are then re-judged: there is a Best in Show awarded to the top homemade marmalade, and a “Double Gold” award given to a handful of the very best across the categories. The winner of the best homemade marmalade is sold in the luxury London department store, Fortnum & Mason.

After a short briefing, and armed with our spoons, we were ready to start judging.

There are more categories than you could shake a stick at: in the homemade category, as well as the standard Seville orange (which have two sub-categories), dark and chunky marmalade and “other citrus,” there are categories for children, first-timers, men, gardeners (where the predominant ingredient beyond the citrus was grown by the competitor), octogenarians, and campanologists (bell-ringers). Special categories of former years have included everything from peers, political & clergy, to hairdressers.

The range is mind-boggling: a sweet potato and coffee marmalade from Taiwan sat alongside a lime glitter marmalade, which looked like something a teenage girl would daub on her eyelids. A coconut and chocolate marmalade elicited groans when it was plucked from a crate, followed by raised eyebrows and “not bad!”s once actually tasted. I tasted fruits I’ve never even heard of, let alone tried: daidai (the Japanese equivalent of the Seville orange, bitter, pocked, and pithy), tachibana (a wild mandarin found in Southern Taiwan and Japan), kawachi bankan (a Japanese pomelo), and tangelo (a sweet tangy orange that tastes, to me at least, like jelly beans).

It is no coincidence that some of the most striking and delicious citrus fruits previously unknown to me come from Japan, and that the Japanese tend to enjoy particular success at the awards. Marmalade is big news in Japan, despite the absence of Seville oranges. Two years ago, Seiko and Yoriko Ninomiya, Japanese marmalade makers, received a double-gold award for their marmalade, a yuzu and ginger and, suspended in the jelly, tiny yuzu peel stars. They came to marmalade as a hobby after they retired from careers in the airline industry. They have been involved in the inaugural Japanese Marmalade Awards, which are held at Yawatahama, where the citrus groves tumble down the hills to the ocean. This year, they have come to the Lake District to help judge the World awards.

I was told by more seasoned judges that when I tasted a full mark, gold marmalade, I would know immediately. And they were right. I was the first person to try one of the marmalades that ultimately won the Double Gold International Marmalade award in the artisan category, and it was stop-you-in-your-tracks good. It too was a Japanese marmalade, made from the endangered tachibana fruit, which tastes like a Seville orange crossed with a mandarin — but it’s not just the flavor that set it apart. This was a reduced sugar marmalade, which often results in a loose, syrupy set, but here was a set so perfect that many full-sugar marmalades fail to achieve; crystal clear, wibbly jelly; identical, perfectly cooked peel was suspended throughout the jar. How could a marmalade be so clever? I wanted to ring everyone I know and tell them about this stuff.

…here was a set so perfect that many full-sugar marmalades fail to achieve; crystal clear, wibbly jelly; identical, perfectly cooked peel was suspended throughout the jar. How could a marmalade be so clever?

***

It’s hard to comprehend when you’re sitting in the stone kitchen of Dalemain, but marmalade’s appeal is not what it once was. Thane Prince, a British cookery writer, preserves specialist and judge of The Big Allotment Challenge, tells me that British tastes and customs have moved on. “It’s old-fashioned. I think the appeal was that it was exotic. A luxury product, and these things always have caché. But now it’s just old-fashioned. And people don’t have breakfast in the same way.” During the height of marmalade’s popularity, a cooked “Full English” breakfast, accompanied by toast and marmalade was standard. But Britain’s marmalade consumption has been in decline since the 1960s. Perhaps establishing marmalade as a breakfast food was actually sealing its fate. We have less time for breakfast now; we pick something up on the go, from a coffee shop. More and more of us avoid sugar, or carbs in general. None of this bodes well for marmalade’s future.

Its bitterness probably doesn’t help, either. We are programmed to dislike bitterness, as Jennifer McLagan explains in her book Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor. In nature, bitterness often suggests something poisonous, which is why babies screw up their faces at bitter tastes. As we age, we lose taste buds, and learn to like bitter things: coffee, cigarettes, Campari, dark chocolate. But each is a struggle. And with marmalade, many of us seemingly never get off the ground, plumping instead for jam, or peanut butter. It is certainly true that peanut butter and chocolate spread are gaining ground in the share of the spreads market, where marmalade resides. Marmalade sales were in steady decline from 2013.

Even in decline, though, marmalade has sway in the supermarkets because of its status as a basket item: one that shoppers use to judge where to shop. As such, it is a common loss leader, meaning retailers sell it at a rock-bottom price to get people through their doors. At the time of writing, a one-pound jar of marmalade can be had for as little as 27p (34¢), an impossible price on which to make a profit.

But, the tide may be turning. The 2017 release of Paddington 2 — which involved a set piece showing Paddington making marmalade in prison — increased marmalade sales by 3 percent in the UK after a steady four-year decline, according to supermarket data collected by research firm Kantar. It’s fitting, perhaps, that Britain’s distinctly un-British national preserve might be saved by a bear from darkest Peru.

***

I didn’t get the conclusion I expected to when I began researching marmalade. I thought my marmalade journey would end with the festival that accompanies the World’s Original Marmalade Awards: a festival festooned in orange and oranges which celebrates this absurd tradition, as well as the people who perpetuate it. In a normal year, there are classes and presentations, tastings and exhibitions, a church service, all devoted to marmalade. Even the sheep go orange: 50 were dyed in readiness for this year’s festival (it was supposed to be fewer but Jane tells me they “got carried away.”) At the judging in Dalemain in February, the excitement for the festival was palpable. But of course, it was not to be: COVID-19 swept in far more comprehensively and destructively than Storm Ciara. A festival that attracts hundreds of international visitors and involves repeated tastings was off the table long before we went into lockdown.

Even as a peripheral player in the awards, it was deflating. But then I came home and made marmalade.

***

I am standing in my kitchen in London in front of a large pan full of orange jelly, trying to put all the advice and tips that I was given over my four days in Dalemain into practice. I need to make sure the peel is fully cooked before adding the sugar. I need to avoid squeezing the muslin bag so the jelly doesn’t become cloudy. Despite my best efforts, I turn my back for one second (OK, two minutes) to wash out my jars for sterilizing, and turn back to find that the marmalade has whooshed up and spilled all over my hobs in a big sticky puddle. I soldier on, undeterred. Fifteen sticky minutes later, my marmalade is approaching the magic 105ºC. I deploy the wrinkle test — twice, just to be sure — which involves cooling a spoonful of the mixture on a frozen plate, to see if it forms a skin which wrinkles. I leave the marmalade a few minutes before potting, determined not to make the classic “potting too hot” error (which introduces tiny air bubbles into the finished product). And, although no one but me or Sam will ever see this batch, I make sure each jar is filled right to the top.

I stand back and admire my five-and-a-half jars and… I get it. Of course I do. How could I not? My jelly isn’t quite crystal clear, but it is basketball orange, bright and glowing. I dropped saffron strands into a couple of the jars, stirring last minute, and they hang, suspended in the jelly, perfect threads. It may not be award-winning, but it is the best I have ever made. It really does feel like I’ve potted sunshine, a moment in time.

It really does feel like I’ve potted sunshine, a moment in time.

British food writer Diana Henry describes preserving as “holding onto a season, a particular mood” — she calls it “one of the most poetic branches of cooking.” I love this idea. Simone de Beauvoir felt similarly. “The housewife has caught duration in the snare of sugar, she has enclosed life in jars.” There are few fruits for which this is more true than the Seville orange, which you can find in the shops for a handful of weeks; the ability to pot and revisit that season six months down the line is its own breed of kitchen magic. Each jar tells the story of both the season and the maker. When I spoke to fellow judge Will Torrent about the nature of the marmalade awards, he found that this emotional quality seeped into the judging as well as making of the marmalade. ‘There will be a story that has led to that marmalade maker entering at that point. Food awards can sometimes become very serious. It becomes very technical, and yes there is a technical element to this, but at the same time — and I think this is the way I judge — it’s, ‘How does it make me feel?’ And it brings such joy, and it rubs off on everyone else.”

But right now, since global lockdown, it’s more than that. There is something inherently optimistic about preservation, about putting something away for your future. You are saying, “I will be here in a year’s time, and so will this marmalade.” Making marmalade is a lot of effort, and by that token, it is a commitment. Marmalade is a tether to your own future, it’s a savings account. It is shoring yourself up against the instability and uncertainty of life. You do not make marmalade without a small optimism, a hope of orange-colored happiness in your future.

Marmalade is something stable in an uncertain world. It has survived plagues and wars, fires and uprisings. I know that the marmalade I make today will still be there tomorrow. It doesn’t actually need a festival — it doesn’t even need supermarket sales. Marmalade has staying power. That is surely why the British love marmalade so much: because tomorrow everything will be different, but marmalade will be the same.

***

Olivia Potts’ bio goes here.

***

Fact checker: Julie Schwietert Collazo

Editor: Krista Stevens

[componentplanet]

Stadia Is a Graveyard Because Devs Don’t Trust Google, Either

When Google launched Stadia last year, it tried to put a brave face on a deeply uncertain debut. The Stadia launch was barebones, even for what was a relatively barebones service. Five months after launch, things haven’t improved much, with just 28 games currently available on the platform.

A number of game developers gave their thoughts on Stadia and discussed with Business Insider why so few indie developers have shown any interest in porting their games to the platform. The individuals and studios they spoke to raised issues in three broad categories. First, and the one intrinsic to any new platform or service, is that Google Stadia is a brand-new effort with no built-in audience. But because every new product or service goes through this phase, it’s important to have a good strategy for dealing with it. The typical way companies develop new markets is to offer substantial incentives to software developers to port games to its platform. According to the developers themselves, Google isn’t really doing this.

Stadia-offered incentives are variously described as “non-existent,” or involving an amount of money so low, “it wasn’t even part of the conversation.” It seems noteworthy that this is happening to indie developers, specifically. While Shovel Knight and Untitled Goose Game aren’t going to drive the numbers that Doom Eternal or Cyberpunk 2077 will, indie developers don’t need AAA budgets to make it worth their time to port a title to a new platform.

In and of itself, this isn’t necessarily alarming, either. Google is claiming it will launch 120 games on Stadia this year and it appears to be focusing on AAA titles. It’s possible that the company believes it needs to build its market by emphasizing top-tier launches with same-day or soon-after availability rather than building a back catalog of indie titles. It’s possible this difference in funding is part of a difference in strategy.

But if the low audience figures and near-zero funding is bad, the last piece of the puzzle is worse. According to Business Insider, every single developer they spoke to expressed very little faith that Google would put any effort into building Stadia into a long-term service. When a survey of developers reveals that every single one of them is concerned enough about the longevity of your platform to bring it up unprompted, it tends to mean you’ve got a serious PR disaster on your hands.

Google’s response to this news was remarkably tone-deaf. Here’s BI:

When reached for comment, Stadia representative Patrick Seybold said, “The publishers and developers we speak with regularly are very supportive, and want Stadia to succeed. It is also worth pointing out that not every publisher has announced their games for Stadia so far, and more games will continue to be announced in due course.”

In Which Google Reassures Precisely No One

Stadia has a problem: People don’t trust Google. When told that many developers don’t trust Google, Google’s response is “The publishers and developers we talked to want Stadia to succeed!” Imagine if you told your partner or spouse that you had serious concerns about whether you could trust them to keep their word and they responded with “My mom says she trusts me!”

Now, imagine what an actual response that addressed the problem might look like. “We at Google understand that our policy of killing services many people valued has created the fear that we might treat our customers poorly. Nothing could be further from the truth. In order to reassure customers and developers that we are in this for the long haul, we are pledging to operate Stadia until at least December 31, 2025.”

That’s not the only option the company might take. Google could alternately pledge to operate the service for at least 12 months after deciding to cancel it, to give people time to play titles they’d previously purchased. It could take a truly radical step and promise that all Stadia customers would receive refunds on every title purchased in the previous 12 months in the event Google decided to cancel the service. It could also make it clear that this guarantee would only apply for the first few years of the service’s life and that it was explicitly being offered as a way to reassure gamers that they could count on Stadia for the long haul.

Google has an unusual product model with Stadia, an unproven distribution system, and severe trust issues. Typically, when companies sincerely want to enter a new, highly competitive market like gaming, they do so with their absolute best foot forward. The original PlayStation pioneered a new approach to third-party game development. Microsoft’s original Xbox was the first console to ship with an integrated ethernet port and Xbox Live revolutionized online play for console gamers. When Valve decided to start requiring its customers to use Steam (and everyone hated Steam at first debut), it tied the requirement to the launch of Half-Life 2, betting that one of the best games in history would be reason enough for people to try its new online service. The Epic Game Store has been highly controversial with gamers, but as far as developers are concerned, it absolutely followed this model. The EGS promise for developers is simple: “Sell your game with us and keep more of the profit.” Valve, meanwhile, has updated the Steam client more in the past year than any recent time I can recall. GOG recently announced its own incredibly generous return policy as a way of building customer loyalty.

My point in recounting all of this history is to illustrate that companies involved in every aspect of gaming commonly try to create customer loyalty by offering good deals or new features. Google could spin a service guarantee to be entirely in the spirit of this kind of outreach, but it doesn’t. Instead, we get the PR equivalent of “My mom thinks I’m cool!” There’s literally zero chance that Google hasn’t noticed the fact that almost every single article about Stadia raises concerns about the platform’s longevity. The company isn’t responding to the issue because it either doesn’t want to commit to supporting its own service or thinks that ignoring the fact that no one trusts it will magically make the problem go away. It won’t. Every month that Google refuses to address the fact that no one trusts Stadia to remain in business only reinforces the perception that the company isn’t serious about its own product.

Then again, it took Microsoft months longer than it should have to realize that the Xbox One unveil was an utter disaster requiring nothing less than a complete and immediate overhaul of the product. But if Google doesn’t figure things out soon, Stadia is going to die — not because it had to be this way, but because Google found it inconvenient to admit nobody trusts it.

This is a solvable problem. The solution is called “Spend the money required to do it right and prioritize good service over immediate profit.” It might require making some guarantees of service or experience that go beyond what Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, or Valve would offer. That’s literally the historical norm for how new companies compete for gaming dollars. When Sega wanted to compete with Nintendo, they designed an entire console game around the idea of an experience different than anything Mario offered. GOG survived for years as the only remote competition for Steam by offering a DRM-free platform. Asking Google to address its own weak points isn’t unreasonable when the company is asking you to pay full price for games with no assurance of long-term access, and the company’s stubborn refusal to perceive that fact is going to prove deadlier to Stadia than any rival ever could.

Now Read:

Google Confirms Some Stadia Games Don’t Render at 4K

Google Kills Google Cloud Print

Review: Google Stadia Might Be the Future of Gaming, but We’re Not There Yet

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/306980-stadia-is-a-graveyard-because-devs-dont-trust-google-either from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/stadia-is-graveyard-because-devs-dont.html

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How to Become a Marketer Who Thinks Strategically — SEO NYC & Digital Marketing

One of the greatest challenges that a fresh marketer will confront is getting into, and staying in the perfect mindsight.

From its very nature, promotion is extremely strategic. There are countless ways to engage your audience.

Regrettably, the majority of the tactics tend to be achieved in a vacuum with no thought to plan.

They’re reactionary, which may bring diminished results and less-than-desirable returns.

That is why more than half have been trying hard to create advertising campaigns that truly engage an audience and create a considerable return. Those diminished returns tend to drive marketers back to traditional channels like banner ads.

But even display advertising with no plan isn’t always likely to perform how you want it to.

To receive the best results, you will need to have a proactive and strategic approach to your advertising. Here is how it is possible to start thinking like a strategic marketer.

See Past Urgency

If you’re constantly in reactive mode, pursuing fires and reacting to matters as they develop then your tools will remain tapped. You are never going to have the chance to plan beforehand or create campaigns based on research.

I hear this all the time with manufacturers that suddenly recognize that a vacation or promotional chance “snuck up on them.” They scramble in the last minute to put together email campaigns, promotions, social campaigns, display ads, as well as direct email campaigns.

The first step toward strategic thinking is to get your head from urgency/emergency mode.

Marketing must be regarded as a strategic imperative if you want to actually see benefits. Reactive tactics aren’t a plan and are much riskier whenever the time isn’t taken to research and measure prospective outcomes.

Strategic marketing appears months before the present situation, preparation well in advance so that you have enough time to research, plan, produce assets, review and deploy efficiently.

Take the Time to Calculate Risks

Throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks isn’t strategic thinking. That is just hoping you are going to get blessed with outcomes, and it is incredibly wasteful especially in the event you have few resources.

Strategic marketers look forward and may frequently observe the repercussions of their plans more certainly than strategic marketers. They also don’t charge kindly forward as an idea seems good. They take the time to carefully look at the downside of every action.

“What happens when this or that occurs after we execute. Can we live with outcomes Y, X or Y?”

Weighing the dangers of campaigns and potential consequences provides insight into next measures. This makes it that much simpler to pivot to a different new in the plan as opposed to scrambling to discover a solution if the single tactic doesn’t perform as expected.

Be Capable of Execution

I have met my fair share of strategic marketers that have impressed me with creative prowess. Among them are some of the most creative minds, nevertheless struggled tremendously with executing the ideas they developed.

Strategic entrepreneurs do not overthink or worry incessantly about outcomes. They’re not afraid to pull the trigger when their approach is constructed. They realize that no approach is 100% sound, and change is likely.

You want to have the confidence to pull the trigger and know that no approach is ideal. Being a strategic marketer signifies never procrastinating.

Get your plan developed and do not be afraid to execute it.

Just keep in mind that once a plan is implemented, the cycle starts again. There is no end point.

Be Eager to Detach From The Ideas

The best strategic marketers I have met have always been able to see    past their own genius. They cut the fat and are prepared to lose their own ideas when better ideas come from outside, and they’re prepared to consider the ideas of others — no matter how crazy those ideas might seem.

Don’t get caught up in your thoughts ideas and plans. A wise marketer understands to leverage the brilliance and skill of the others through team ideation and brainstorming to fuel robust marketing strategies.

Rob Carpenter from Hitshopshared with Moz the way his team chooses content brainstorming and ideation to the next level:

When we believe we’ve got a good idea we use Publicate to follow an idea by compiling all the content out there for that particular subject (especially those that rank for your crucial term we’re aiming for). In Publicate we could add notes to every piece of content we curated about what elements of this post we could expand on, and what we could say otherwise. In addition, we mark which articles we would like to connect to and quotes to include in our own piece. This step is extremely critical for helping us produce not just ‘good, unique content,’ but content that’s 10x better than what is presently available.

Make Decisions Based on the Data

In my view, data is the core of business. It ought to be in the middle of decision making for any sort of business or advertising plan. It gives advice to answer key questions, while raising different questions that you may not have thought about.

Afterwards, that info will help change the direction of your own strategy. Initially though, that data is vital to produce the strategy.

Strategic marketers rely on a great deal of data to construct their long-term plans. This may include:

How long audiences participates with certain issues

Which products are left handed most frequently

Which are leading products during different seasons

How long does it take the typical opportunity to convert

What Sort of content or advertising do prospects respond to best

How can viewers be segmented for the Ideal engagement with email Advertising

How does the customer respond to direct email campaigns post buy compared to the Identical effort used on prospects that haven’t yet bought

Locate the data to answer your main questions, then identify the data you’ve got and use it to start building your plan. Leverage it to establish your goals and the tactics you will use to achieve them. A strategic marketer may use the data and information that they compile through research to determine the expenses of campaigns and define whether the campaigns are justified.

Your data is a key part of risk assessment — something every advertising and PR campaign requirements. It’s a loop that feeds back to the start, using the data to establish then continue to drive the strategy forward

Know the Target and Make Aims

Anyone can specify a marketing target, but the most strategic marketers set goals that are realistic, attainable and are based on business goals.

Setting goals might seem simple, but it is something of a mixture of art and science. Just like anything, it takes practice. That comes from constantly refining existing goals, refocusing, pivoting and a willingness to try out some weird stuff.

How do you set goals for something like fluid and changing as a promotion strategy? Practice. And find somebody that has been doing it for a while and apply what they’ve learned.

The best technique for setting achievable marketing goals will be to spend time evaluating your existing position. Most startups set lofty, unattainable goals and end up discouraged, that can be detrimental in the early days. On the other hand, some startups set easy, insignificant goals and end up overlooking growth potential.

Just take the time to actually understand your expansion amounts up to now. If you run a popular site and visitors has increased by 8-10% for the last four months, then you know that a 12-15% month-over-month increase in blog traffic is a difficult yet achievable objective. Don’t be the startup that shoots for 20% or the startup that believes anything over 8% a triumph.

Concerning what kinds of goals you must be placing, it depends heavily on what stage your startup is currently in. Early on, concentrate on participation goals and collecting feedback to validate your service or product. Later on, concentrate on development metrics. There are no universals when it comes to metrics, sadly. What’s important is that your core goals are tied to important business goals.

The one most important point to keep in mind about advertising goals is to remain focused. Pick 1-2 core goals that impact the bottom line and 3-5 supporting goals. Anything more than that will divert you from what is most important (as will changing goals too frequently).

When you identify those primary and secondary goals, you may break them down to landmarks that can help establish the roadmap of your marketing strategy. That map plays a important role in defining the strategies you will use along the way.

Follow the Course; Don’t Chase the Glitter

Ideation and brainstorming are a vital part of making a marketing plan, but it doesn’t mean that every concept will pan out.

Likewise, your research is very likely to reveal what opponents and other companies are doing to market themselves.

With all the options and potential ideas, it is rather easy to get lost in transit with no mapped strategy.

I liken it to maneuvering a ship; should you twist the wheel every time a glimmer on the horizon catches your eye, you’re likely to zigzag across the sea and never really get anywhere.

In spite of a documented marketing plan, it’s easy to get off course seeking to do the next big thing everyone items is a tendency for every year. Experimenting is OK, but not at the cost of your aims.

The most prosperous marketers know to stick to their approach, and perform those experiments within that strategy.

Establish Your Measurements for Progress and Success

Effective marketing goes well beyond ideation and installation. Success isn’t automatic, and as I mentioned there’s no such thing as a perfect strategy.

More frequently than not you’re likely to have to make adjustments on the fly and refine your plan. Knowing when to do that, and, comes from constantly measuring the performance of your campaigns.

Just like you use data to form the basis of your plan, you’re constantly using data and analytics to monitor the health of your advertising and marketing campaigns.

Document Your Strategy

It continues to surprise me just how many marketers do not record their advertising strategy, instead opting to fly blind from memory.

There is a lot that could go wrong if your plan isn’t documented.

It’s more than just a roadmap detailing everything you do to get to the next step. It’s a living document that joins together a lot of moving parts, along with a great deal of individuals. Some of what is included in a solid documented approach…

Who the crowd is, and the way to achieve them

The approaches to be used

Who’s involved, who is responsible for what aspects of this plan

How advertising materials are dispersed, or in which the audience is engaged

The achievement is measured

Conversion strategies used

Promotions, commissions and pricing

Communication requirements and coverage

There is a great deal more that can and needs to be included, which is a good deal to be floating about — especially with numerous individuals or teams involved. With all the moving parts, lacking a registered approach invites mistakes and error.

Conclusion

Among all the facets of being a strategic marketer, there’s one thing that remains constant: awaiting.

If you want to think as a strategic marketer, then you need to check beyond now.

Don’t get caught up in the desperation. Plan ahead, look at the future, and also produce a rolling plan that’s built around proactive inbound and outbound practices, rather than the reactive installation of tactics.

What psychological practices have you tried as a way to think strategically?

from SEO Consultants – wz2s.net http://wz2s.net/how-to-become-a-marketer-who-thinks-strategically-seo-nyc-digital-marketing/