#last year we had a drought until the end of october and it’s been such a wet fall this year and it’s been so relieving | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

journeyman-jack-in-ecuador · 7 months ago

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FRI 18OCT24 - "November and December will be the most critical months of 2024 due to energy shortages and power outages in Ecuador.

The low water level in the Mazar reservoir puts the operation of Paute-Molino at risk, and in the Amazon, low water flows are expected for Coca Codo Sinclair.

The energy generation crisis in Ecuador worsened in the first week of October 2024. And this is just the beginning, as the harshest drought period is expected to last until at least February 2025.

Ecuador is highly dependent on hydroelectric energy, but due to the drought, the hydroelectric plants, with an installed capacity of about 5,500 megawatts, are operating at only 50%, according to data from the National Electricity Operator Cenace.

"We experienced a 118-day drought last year, but it was from September to December 2023. Now in 2024, we're again facing a drought, but this time since August. So far, we’ve already had 89 days of drought," explains Lenin Álvarez, head of the Hydrometeorological Network of the public water company Etapa.

He referred to the lack of rain in the south of the country, where Ecuador's largest hydroelectric complex, Paute (comprising Mazar, Paute-Molino, and Sopladora), is located between Azuay and Cañar.

Given the severe drought, there is a high probability that the power outages of up to 10 hours, announced by the government of Daniel Noboa on October 9, 2024, could be even longer and continue until the end of the year due to the severe electricity generation deficit, adds electrical sector expert Gabriel Secaira.

This is because the Mazar hydroelectric plant is operating with only one of its two turbines, and if the water in its reservoir drops below 2,110 meters above sea level (masl), it will have to shut down. As of October 9, the water level was at 2,112 masl.

The water level in the Amaluza reservoir, which supplies the Paute-Molino plant, is also dropping. If the water continues to fall to critical levels, there is a risk that this plant will go offline, leading to even longer power outages, says Secaira.

What is happening in the Paute complex?

Paute-Molino, with its Amaluza reservoir, is part of a complex of three cascading hydroelectric plants. It is the largest plant in the complex, with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts.

How does this cascading complex work?

First, upstream, is the Mazar hydroelectric plant, which has a large reservoir with a maximum capacity of 2,153 masl. Further downstream is Paute-Molino (with the smaller Amaluza reservoir at 1,975 masl), followed by Sopladora, which has no reservoir.

Together, the three hydroelectric plants have an installed capacity of 1,756 megawatts, which is 38% of the country's demand.

Normally, when the water level in the Amaluza reservoir drops because the hydroelectric plant is operating at full capacity, the Mazar reservoir releases water to maintain sufficient levels in Amaluza and ensure the continued operation of Paute-Molino.

But now, Mazar has reached critically low water levels, just as the most severe drought season is starting.

It is likely that the water flowing into Amaluza will reach minimum levels during this period, jeopardizing the operation of Paute-Molino, which is currently generating 63% of its installed capacity.

"There has been poor management of the reservoirs. It seems that all the incoming water is being used for generation, preventing the reservoir from filling. The power rationing should help fill the Mazar reservoir, but that’s not happening," says Secaira.

Thus, the current power outages are not helping to fill the Mazar reservoir but rather indicate that Ecuador doesn't have enough energy for 10 hours a day.

Coca Codo is also at risk

Other energy specialists, such as Ricardo Buitrón, believe that the risk of Paute-Molino shutting down is lower because its Pelton turbines are designed to operate with very low water flows.

According to Buitrón, the Paute-Molino turbines can continue generating power with flows as low as 4 cubic meters per second (m³/s). In September, the average flow was 84 m³/s, but in early October, it dropped to 64 m³/s.

"Only if there is an extreme drought where virtually no water passes through Mazar or Amaluza would Paute-Molino be forced to shut down," he adds.

Buitrón explains that once the water level in the Mazar reservoir drops below 2,110 masl, the only option left would be to shut down the remaining turbine and open the floodgates, allowing water from the local rivers to flow directly into Amaluza.

This would be enough for Paute-Molino to operate, albeit at reduced capacity.

However, Buitrón adds that the situation will worsen in the last two months of the year due to other factors.

One of these is that by the end of the year, it is highly likely that the water flow supplying Ecuador’s largest hydroelectric plant, Coca Codo Sinclair (in Napo province), will decrease. This plant is not in the same basin as the Paute complex.

Historical hydrological data shows that November and December are when Coca Codo's water flow reaches its lowest levels of the year.

Coca Codo Sinclair is currently generating 450 megawatts, just 30% of its capacity, and the driest season has yet to arrive, explains Buitrón.

The problem is compounded by increased energy demand in December, driven by Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. Additionally, the government has promised to reduce electricity bills, "which doesn’t encourage energy savings," says Buitrón.

What about emergency contracts?

Secaira also points to the slow progress in contracting new thermoelectric energy.

Of the 340 megawatts the government has contracted, only 110 megawatts are operational, coming from the Turkish Karpowership barge.

Former Energy Minister Antonio Goncalves had promised that a new 250-megawatt barge would begin operating in early November, but he recently acknowledged that the contracting process has been delayed.

A third factor making Ecuador’s situation more critical is that Colombia stopped selling electricity to Ecuador on October 1, 2024, which means the country lost around 400 megawatts of power, the amount the neighboring country used to supply.

This restriction could last until 2025, as Colombia is also suffering from a severe drought." -

https://www.primicias.ec/economia/noviembre-diciembre-meses-criticos-cortes-luz-ecuador-80826/

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ariasandrey · 2 years ago

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Preserving the flow: A water conservation crusade

Definitions

Story: A description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events:

Tales: A story about imaginary events : an exciting or dramatic story.

Science fiction: A form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals.

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Today marks 15 years since the “Big Drought” happened, a world catastrophe so big it managed to break up society as a whole. Unlike any disasters history has recorded, this one was unprecedented, though it was particularly warned about.

[...]

I was born around 3 years before all this happened, oblivious to any of this. Admittedly, I was indeed too young to comprehend. Likewise, society also failed to understand.

[...]

And that’s when it hit them. As a consequence of ruthless water consumption, the Earth ran out of its most precious resource. Chaos quickly ensued, and following came governments. Entire nations breaking apart, helpless to the situation. By dusk, borders ceased to exist. Moreover, greedy corporations had taken the last bastions of usable water, only sharing amongst themselves.

[...]

It is now 2076. What used to be a blue marble, is now nothing more than a barren, arid land. To survive, we started organizing in clans. Each clan receives a weekly ration of water, although a paltry one. Hence, many of us started scavenging looking for any unoccupied water source. Furthermore, some clans resorted to guerilla-like operations, preying upon weaker clans to take away their water. All of this, meanwhile the big fish sat back and enjoyed the mess, as if it were nothing but a spectacle to them.

[...]

“It’s scorching, and I’m thirsty.” – I said, as we descended towards the cave.

“Focus on the mission. We’re here to search out water.” – Ryu replied.

“Do you really think we’ll find anything?” – Cassie asked, knowing full well the task’s complexity.

[…]

“It’s been hours since we’ve been here, set out and rendezvous with the clan.” – Ryu complained.

“Shhh. I think I hear water.” – Cassie pointed out.

“Let’s find out then.” – I replied.

[…]

Upon reaching a hidden creek, we came across a curious little tablet.

The tablet turned out to be a time travel device, and in a flash we were transported to 2015, a time our elders had talked about numerous times. Water was abundant here, though it seemed it was where all our problems started. Big cities, big needs. Simultaneously, we saw the chance to revert it all. We talked, we warned. They called our anecdotes a spiel, fearmongers. We took leaders to our reality, to hardship. They acknowledged, no longer deaf ears.

[…]

Suddenly, everything shifted. Water resurged; scarcity ended. The world at peace again, no traces of catastrophe.

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References

story [sic] (n.d). Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved in October 13, 2023 from:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/story

Tale Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved in October 13, 2023 from: https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/tale

Science Fiction Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved in October 13, 2023 from: https://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction

How did I generate this image?

The image was really simple to generate.

The image was generated using Microsoft Image Creator, powered by DALLE-3 and found inside the newly implemented Microsoft Copilot, found in the newest version of Windows 11.

It was given the prompt, or rather, the whole story, for the AI to decide the best scenee that represented the narrative. It decided to choose the discovery of the tablet, and then generated images around it.

These images were later tweaked with shorter prompts, until I found the one I considered suitable for the narrative.

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#water conservation #story writing

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mariacallous · 2 years ago

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the former San Francisco mayor whose pioneering career paved the way for a generation of women in politics, will not seek re-election in 2024, her spokesperson told The Chronicle Tuesday.

"I am announcing today I will not run for re-election in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends," Feinstein said in a statement. "Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives. Each of us was sent here to solve problems. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years."

The announcement was not a surprise given that Feinstein would be 91 on Election Day 2024 and, if re-elected, 97 when her six-year term ended. Many high-profile politicians have already jumped into the 2024 race, anticipating an open contest for the first time in decades.

Questions about Feinstein’s mental fitness have followed her for more than two years, and even her Democratic colleagues told The Chronicle in April 2022 that they believe her memory issues were hindering her ability to do the job. Feinstein defended her abilities amid each new wave of concern.

Feinstein said she plans to finish out her current term, which ends in December 2024. She plans to spend her remaining time in Congress focusing on preventing wildfires, mitigating the drought that has plagued the state in recent years and working to pass legislation on one of her longstanding priorities— gun violence, she said in a statement.

Feinstein’s retirement announcement comes as yet another mass shooting shakes the country and less than a month after two mass shootings roiled California.

Democrats began vying to replace her days after the new Congress was sworn into office. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, launched her campaign in January, followed by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, two weeks later. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, is expected to announce her candidacy soon.

Yet Feinstein’s massive shadow had hung over the race until now. Schiff made a point to say that he spoke with Feinstein, a longtime ally, “weeks before” announcing. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi prefaced her February endorsement of Schiff by saying, “If Senator Feinstein decides to seek re-election, she has my whole-hearted support” and called her “iconic.”

It was a sign of respect — and perhaps a proposed reframing of how Feinstein’s last months in office should be viewed.

Feinstein’s influence in Washington, once substantial, has been waning for several years. First elected in 1992, last year Feinstein became the longest-tenured female senator in history, and is the longest-serving congressional member from California.

Yet despite Feinstein’s status as the Democrat with the most seniority, she does not chair any Senate committees. Last month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer appointed Sen. Patty Murray of Washington to the position of Senate president pro tempore, a position that stands third in the succession line to the presidency and typically goes to the most senior member. Feinstein said in October that she would not be seeking the position.

Feinstein’s late-career low profile stands in stark contrast to her decades of ground-breaking public service, which started shortly after she graduated from Stanford University in 1955. Her career has been shaped by tragedy, perseverance and an adherence toward political moderation — even as she represented some of the most progressive areas in the country.

“I’ve learned through all this — through death, through illness — this is what I’m meant to do,” Feinstein told The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast in 2018. “It’s sounds like I’m on some kind of messianic mission. That’s not the case. But you do figure out what you’re meant to do. I’ve tried to serve people.”

That mission started in 1960 when Gov. Pat Brown — father of former Gov. Jerry Brown — appointed Feinstein to the California Women’s Parole Board. It was a different era, when sexism was more overt and it was harder for a woman to be taken seriously in politics. A 1965 article in The Chronicle on Feinstein headlined, “A Pretty Expert on Crime,” said “San Francisco’s Dianne (Mrs. Bert) Feinstein is a raven-haired, blue-eyed beauty who looks more like an actress (which she was) than an expert on California criminal justice (which she is).”

Feinstein served on the parole board six years before she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969. Even then, she faced discrimination. She recalled that she and fellow Supervisor Dorothy von Beroldingen wanted to have lunch at the private Concordia-Argonaut Club in the early 1970s, but were told they couldn’t because it was a men-only day. Feinstein told the staff that if they wanted them to leave, they’d have to call the police to have them escorted out. The club backed down.

She failed in two early runs for mayor — in 1971 and 1975. By 1978, Feinstein was openly contemplating leaving politics for good.

But her career path changed on Nov. 27, 1978, when former Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in their offices. Feinstein heard the shots and rushed into Milk’s office, where she was the first to see him. The daughter — and former wife — of physicians — instinctively reached for his pulse. She found a bullet hole.

“Then,” Feinstein told the podcast, “everything changed.”

It was “the hardest thing I have ever gone through. The shock and the horror and the fact that this is a colleague of yours that has killed another colleague,” she said.

Then the president of the Board of Supervisors, Feinstein’s colleagues voted to make her mayor — the first woman in the city’s history to hold the position. It was a tumultuous time in San Francisco. Earlier that month, 913 people — mostly San Franciscans — were massacred at a compound in Guyana run by cult leader Jim Jones.

Feinstein steered the city through that era on a more moderate path than her predecessor, the more progressive Moscone. She was re-elected twice — in 1979 and in 1983. She survived a recall attempt in 1983, organized by a group that was upset by her gun-control efforts.

Her popularity grew, and she was on the shortlist to be Sen. Walter Mondale’s running mate in the 1984 presidential election. Mondale ultimately chose New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro — and lost all but one state to the incumbent, President Ronald Reagan. The snub didn’t hurt her standing. In 1987, a Chronicle-sponsored poll found that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed thought that she had done a good or excellent job as mayor and 78 percent gave her a favorable rating.

But her bid to jump to higher office initially stalled. She lost a 1990 bid for governor to Republican Sen. Pete Wilson. Two years later, however, she won election to the Senate along with fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer, in what was dubbed the “Year of the Woman.”

There she carved a role as a centrist at a time when some still existed.

In 1994, she shepherded into law the Desert Protection Bill, which carved new national parks from the Southern California desert and preserved more than 6 million acres of endangered land as wilderness. That same year, she spearheaded passage of the assault weapons ban — inspired in part by a 1993 mass shooting at a Financial District building at 101 California St. that killed eight people and wounded six.

Feinstein wasn’t shy about taking on some institutions.

As the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2009, she oversaw its six-year investigation into the CIA’s post-9/11 program of torturing terrorism suspects to try to gain information. In 2014, she spoke for an hour on the Senate floor, outlining the panel’s 525-page report, which found that the CIA misled policymakers about the extent and effectiveness of the torture program. It showed how intelligence officers tortured foreign prisoners and terrorism suspects, with no proof the efforts were effective in preserving American lives.

She won her current term in 2018, when she was challenged by then-state Senate President Kevin DeLeón, who presented himself as a more progressive alternative. She barely campaigned and refused to debate him, consenting only to a “conversation” hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California that wasn’t televised. The executive board of the California Democratic Party endorsed De León. Nevertheless, Feinstein coasted to a fifth term with 54% of the vote.

But she largely disappeared during what will be her final term in the Senate. She rarely did interviews longer than a brief chat with reporters in the Senate hallways and rarely did public events in her home state. She hasn’t led a town hall meeting in California since 2017, according to LegisStorm. Her job rating tumbled to an all-time low in February 2022, as 30% of registered voters approved of her performance while 49% disapproved, according to a Berkeley IGS poll. At her peak in 2001, 57% of voters backed her.

In April, four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and a California Democratic House member told The Chronicle that her memory is rapidly deteriorating. They said it appears she can no longer fulfill her job duties without her staff doing much of the work required to represent the nearly 40 million people of California.

One staffer for a California Democrat told The Chronicle, “There’s a joke on the Hill, we’ve got a great junior senator in Alex Padilla and an experienced staff in Feinstein’s office.”

Feinstein told The Chronicle in a statement at the time that the past year “has been extremely painful and distracting for me, flying back and forth to visit my dying husband who passed just a few weeks ago.” Her husband, financier and philanthropist Richard Blum, died in February 2022.

Other episodes disappointed even her most loyal supporters. She shocked colleagues at the end of the contentious 2020 Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett by unexpectedly praising Republicans for having conducted a great process. Critics howled when she hugged Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at the close of the hearings.

“This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” Feinstein told Graham, the Republican chair of the committee. “I want to thank you for your fairness.”

If that was a snapshot of Feinstein at the tail end of her five-decade career, Pelosi preferred to focus on the complete arc of her time representing the state.

“For years,” Pelosi wrote in her February endorsement for Schiff, “California has had a champion for democracy and working families in Senator Feinstein.”

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sophfandoms53 · 5 years ago

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@ The DuckTales Fandom

Please don’t fool yourself into believing all of these unnecessary and over extensive hiatuses are because the cast and crew are taking the time to work on the show.

This is not the reason for any of the hiatuses.

Yes the cast and crew do fantastic work on the show and make it as best as they can, it’s evident. And certain hiatuses they are working on the show and others are because they are required vacation days.

However, the show going on 4-5 month hiatuses in the middle of ONE season is not because they decided to extend the time they have to work on the show.

That’s not how this business works.

DuckTales’ episode are all done simultaneously. Ending of season one airing, and the start of season 2 airing, production of season 2 was either close to or completely being finished and production on season 3 was already started, and this was back in 2018. I gurantee around 6-7 episodes of season 3 are already finished and animated ready for airing.

The hiatuses we have been on are not at the fault of the cast and crew at all.

It’s the network and it’s decision to air 10 episodes in a burst of two weeks instead of letting the episodes air weekly. If those 10 episodes aired weekly, we’d have a little over 2 months worth of content and the hiatus from middle of season 2 to the last few episodes of season 2 wouldn’t have been such a drought.

Instead of waiting May-September, the weekly schedule would’ve only had us wait July-September. That’s barely a 3 month hiatus, and the fandom wouldn’t have any drought because we just had 10 episodes aired to explore and discuss to fill in that two month gap.

This applies to the the hiatus we’ve been on since September. Had those 10 episodes leading up to the finale aired weekly, this hiatus we’ve been on wouldn’t have started until early-mid November. Again that would be about a 2 month hiatus versus the 4 month hiatus we find ourselves in.

This is an issue season one didn’t have. We had our first 9 episodes air, we had a December-May hiatus (which was annoying), but then 4 episodes aired in May followed by a two week hiatus until June 16th and the season remained on air with a weekly schedule for the rest of the summer until August 18th. And finally, Season two aired on October 20th, meaning there was around a 2 month hiatus between seasons 1 and 2.

These hiatuses won’t stop being as omnipresent or extensive until Disney decides to ditch the airing episodes in daily burst formula and go back to a weekly schedule.

I hope some of you have had this myth dispelled from you and understand how lack luster the network has been with its schedule in the recent year.

#ducktales #ducktales 2017 #disney #hiatuses #ive seen people saying the crew are taking their time thats why we’re on hiatus but thats just not true #this isnt the crews fault #if it was up to them the episodes would be airing properly

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

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Despite the dumpster fire of 2020, here are 11 huge achievements we made in science

https://sciencespies.com/humans/despite-the-dumpster-fire-of-2020-here-are-11-huge-achievements-we-made-in-science/

Despite the dumpster fire of 2020, here are 11 huge achievements we made in science

With just a handful of days left in this strange beast of a year that will most certainly go down in history books, we thought it would be nice to reflect on the marvellous things scientists still delivered, despite everything.

Of course, scientific achievements are usually years in the making. Nevertheless, here’s a round-up of some of the exciting science news we reported in 2020. Just to remember that it wasn’t all terrible.

1. We found the first known extraterrestrial protein in a meteorite

Could life emerge elsewhere in the Solar System? As curious and intelligent beings, humans are naturally interested in finding out if living creatures thrive beyond the confines of our little blue space rock. One way to discover this requires turning to meteorites.

Earlier this year, scientists revealed they had found the first-ever extraterrestrial protein, tucked inside a meteorite that fell to Earth 30 years ago.

“We’re pretty sure that proteins are likely to exist in space,” astronomer Chenoa Tremblay told ScienceAlert in March. “But if we can actually start finding evidence of their existence, and what some of the structures and the common structures might be, I think that’s really interesting and exciting.”

2. We avoided some troubling changes in the atmosphere

A new study revealed that the famed Montreal Protocol – the 1987 agreement to stop producing ozone-depleting substances – could be responsible for pausing, or even reversing, some troubling changes in air currents around our planet’s Southern Hemisphere.

Healing the protective ozone layer surrounding Earth seems to have paused the migration of an air current known as the southern jet stream, a phenomenon that ended up pushing parts of Australia into prolonged drought.

“If the ozone layer is recovering, and the circulation is moving north, that’s good news on two fronts,” explained chemist Ian Rae from the University of Melbourne.

3. An AI solved a 50-year-old biology challenge, decades before anyone expected

Earlier this month, scientists at the UK-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind announced that a new AI system had effectively solved a long-standing and incredibly complex scientific problem concerning the structure and behaviour of proteins.

For about 50 years, researchers have strived to predict how proteins achieve their three-dimensional structure. The astronomical number of potential configurations has made this task – known as the protein-folding problem – incredibly difficult.

DeepMind’s success means a huge step forward in a range of research endeavours, from disease modelling and drug discovery, to applications far beyond health research.

youtube

4. Scientists used fast radio bursts to find the Universe’s missing matter

In a mesmerising tale of mystery within a mystery, earlier this year a really clever application of fast radio burst (FRB) tracing gave astronomers an answer to a perplexing question – just where is the missing matter in the Universe?

We’re not talking about dark matter here, but the baryonic (normal) matter that should be there on account of all our calculations, but simply couldn’t be detected until now. The Universe is vast, and the stretches between galaxies enormous. Yet in that seemingly empty space, lone atoms are still kicking around.

While looking for the source of the powerful interstellar signals known as FRBs, researchers figured out that extremely diffuse gas can account for all the missing ‘normal’ matter in the Universe. Phew.

5. We also confirmed the first-ever detection of an FRB in our own galaxy

That’s right. On 28 April 2020, a Milky Way magnetar called SGR 1935+2154 flared up in a single, millisecond-long burst so incredibly bright, it would have been detectable from another galaxy.

This landmark detection made a huge and immediate impact on the study of mysterious FRBs, that until now had only been detected coming from outside our galaxy, making their precise source difficult to pin down.

“This sort of, in most people’s minds, settles the origin of FRBs as coming from magnetars,” astronomer Shrinivas Kulkarni of Caltech told ScienceAlert.

Astronomers had a whale of a time doing follow-up work on this detection, and by November we also had confirmation that this intra-galactic FRB is a repeater. We can expect even more excitement around this next year, for sure.

6. SpaceX and NASA made history with the first crewed launch

Space enthusiasts truly had lots of cause for excitement this year, as various launches and space missions soldiered on despite the global pandemic. On 30 May 2020, SpaceX became the first private space company to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

We have liftoff. History is made as @NASA_Astronauts launch from @NASAKennedy for the first time in nine years on the @SpaceX Crew Dragon: pic.twitter.com/alX1t1JBAt

— NASA (@NASA) May 30, 2020

Not only did they safely bring them home several months later, another crewed launch went off without a hitch in November, delivering four astronauts to the space station – the first in what will likely be many routine missions in 2021 and beyond.

7. NASA touched an asteroid, and JAXA brought back a sample

After a long trip of more than 320 million kilometres (200 million miles), NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft finally touched down on asteroid Bennu in October, collecting a sample of its surface rubble, its efforts captured for posterity in magnificent footage delivered by the space agency. We can expect the probe to return with its precious cargo in 2023.

Last year, the Japanese space agency JAXA achieved a similar feat with the Hayabusa2 probe, collecting a sample from asteroid Ryugu. In December this year, we witnessed the safe return of that sample, and have already been treated to a first glimpse of some of the black dust the team retrieved. We can’t wait to learn more about what these asteroid missions will discover.

Ryugu dust on the outside chamber of the retrieval capsule. (JAXA)

8. Scientists found the first animal that doesn’t need oxygen to survive

Back here on our own world, biologists were in for a surprise when they found the first multicellular organism without a mitochondrial genome – which means an organism that doesn’t breathe. In fact, it lives without any need for oxygen at all.

While some single-celled organisms are known to thrive perfectly well in anaerobic conditions, the fact this common salmon parasite, a jellyfish-like creature Henneguya salminicola, doesn’t need oxygen to survive is quite remarkable, and has left researchers with many new questions to answer.

H. salminicola under the microscope. (Stephen Douglas Atkinson)

9. We got spectacular footage of a “long stringy stingy thingy” off the coast of Australia

Back in April, a trailing ribbon of conjoined tentacled clones caused quite a stir amongst a bunch of biologists exploring a little-studied part of the ocean off the coast of Western Australia. This strange entity was a particularly long siphonophore, a floating string of thousands of individual zooids. In fact, it could be one of the longest such strings ever observed.

Check out this beautiful *giant* siphonophore Apolemia recorded on #NingalooCanyons expedition. It seems likely that this specimen is the largest ever recorded, and in strange UFO-like feeding posture. Thanks @Caseywdunn for info @wamuseum @GeoscienceAus @CurtinUni @Scripps_Ocean pic.twitter.com/QirkIWDu6S

— Schmidt Ocean (@SchmidtOcean) April 6, 2020

“Everyone was blown away when it came into view,” biologists Nerida Wilson and Lisa Kirkendale from the Western Australian Museum told ScienceAlert.

“There was a lot of excitement. People came pouring into the control room from all over the ship. Siphonophores are commonly seen but this one was both large and unusual-looking.”

10. A physicist came up with the mathematics that makes ‘paradox-free’ time travel plausible

Wouldn’t it be great to pop into a time-machine and fix up some mishap you’ve done in your past, all without accidentally killing your grandfather in the process?

Well, 2020 also became the year when we learned of a mathematically sound solution to time travel that doesn’t muck everything up. Physics student Germain Tobar from the University of Queensland in Australia worked out how to “square the numbers” to make time travel viable without the paradoxes.

While it hasn’t gotten us immediately closer to having a working time machine, his calculations show that space-time can potentially adapt itself to avoid paradoxes. And, according to Tobar’s supervisor, the mathematics checks out. Fabulous.

11. The first COVID-19 vaccines are already being administered outside of clinical trials

The single biggest challenge the world faced this year was the global COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare professionals and essential workers have carried much of the burden of keeping society afloat, and we can never thank them enough. Meanwhile, researchers from myriad relevant fields – from immunology to genetics – have also worked tirelessly all year long to better understand the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

That work will continue into the new year, but in late November we finally got the first taste of what it means to accelerate scientific research and funding beyond its typical pace. The very first vaccines intended to protect people from COVID-19 have already completed all the necessary phases of clinical trials, and are being rolled out in the UK, US, and parts or Europe.

Lots more will need to be done before we can put this devastating pandemic behind us and protect the most vulnerable communities worldwide, but already having effective vaccines is a truly fantastic achievement, and without a doubt the biggest cause for celebration of science this year. One to carry us into 2021 full of hope.

#Humans

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks for 1st time (AP) Hunger is a harsh reality in the richest country in the world. Even during times of prosperity, schools hand out millions of hot meals a day to children, and desperate elderly Americans are sometimes forced to choose between medicine and food. Now, in the pandemic of 2020, with illness, job loss and business closures, millions more Americans are worried about empty refrigerators and barren cupboards. Food banks are doling out meals at a rapid pace and an Associated Press data analysis found a sharp rise in the amount of food distributed compared with last year. Meanwhile, some folks are skipping meals so their children can eat and others are depending on cheap food that lacks nutrition. Those fighting hunger say they’ve never seen anything like this in America, even during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The first place many Americans are finding relief is a neighborhood food pantry, most connected to vast networks of nonprofits. Tons of food move each day from grocery store discards and government handouts to warehouse distribution centers, and then to the neighborhood charity. An AP analysis of Feeding America data from 181 food banks in its network found the organization has distributed nearly 57 percent more food in the third quarter of the year, compared with the same period in 2019.

Covid Nomads (WSJ) Alan Frei lives the life of a backpacker. That is, all 62 of his belongings fit into a single backpack, which he carries with him as he travels and lives in different cities around the world—a total of 53 countries over the past three years. The 38-year-old Swiss entrepreneur in October got rid of his apartment near Zurich and all his furniture. Items he kept include his watch, a toothbrush, seven pairs of underwear, and sunglasses. Mr. Frei is an extreme version of a digital nomad, a person with no fixed address, who lives and works while traveling the globe. Today, their ranks are small, but they could become more common in the years ahead. “There will definitely be more digital nomads,” says Nicholas Bloom, professor of economics at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Before the pandemic, only about 2% of Americans worked from home full-time, Mr. Bloom says, but he expects that will rise to about 8% to 10% of workers. If just 10% of them travel and work remotely, that will still be enormous, he says. Scott Cohen, a professor at the University of Surrey’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, expects more countries will cater visa and tourism programs to digital nomads, as they seek an alternative to the standard business travel market. Chekitan S. Dev, a professor at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business, School of Hotel Administration, says the trend was first driven by millennials; now older millennials are taking their families with them when they move around. By normalizing remote work and school, the pandemic has supercharged a trend. In the future, digital nomads may be middle-aged, rent or own homes for less time, want to go to more exotic destinations and move more quickly between destinations.

California Water Futures Begin Trading Amid Fear of Scarcity (Bloomberg) Water joined gold, oil and other commodities traded on Wall Street, highlighting worries that the life-sustaining natural resource may become scarce across more of the world. Farmers, hedge funds and municipalities alike are now able to hedge against—or bet on—future water availability in California, the biggest U.S. agriculture market and world’s fifth-largest economy. The contracts, a first of their kind in the U.S., were announced in September as heat and wildfires ravaged the U.S. West Coast and as California was emerging from an eight-year drought. They are meant to serve both as a hedge for big water consumers, such as almond farmers and electric utilities, against water prices fluctuations as well a scarcity gauge for investors worldwide. “Climate change, droughts, population growth, and pollution are likely to make water scarcity issues and pricing a hot topic for years to come,” said RBC Capital Markets managing director and analyst Deane Dray.

‘It’s a free-for-all’: how hi-tech spyware ends up in the hands of Mexico’s cartels (The Guardian) Corrupt Mexican officials have helped drug cartels in the country obtain state-of-the-art spyware which can be used to hack mobile phones, according to a senior DEA official. As many as 25 private companies—including the Israeli company NSO Group and the Italian firm Hacking Team—have sold surveillance software to Mexican federal and state police forces, but there is little or no regulation of the sector—and no way to control where the spyware ends up, said the officials. “It’s a free-for-all,” the official told the Cartel Project, an initiative coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a global network of investigative journalists whose mission is to continue the work of reporters who are threatened, censored or killed. “The police who have the technology would just sell it to the cartels.” [And then the cartels would use it against their enemies or those investigating them.] The nexus between state and criminal forces has fuelled a wave of targeted violence which have made Mexico the most dangerous country for journalists in the world, outside a war zone. At least 119 media workers have been killed in Mexico since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the inevitable fear for reporters is that surveillance could lead to more tangible dangers.

Pope makes surprise early morning prayer visit in rainy Rome (AP) Pope Francis on Tuesday made a surprise early morning visit to the Spanish Steps in Rome to pray for people worldwide struggling in the pandemic. With rain falling and dawn breaking, Francis popped up in the square at the foot of the Spanish Steps at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT), two hours after the end of Italy’s overnight curfew. Before heading back to Vatican City, where he resides in a hotel, Francis stopped to pray some more and celebrate Mass in St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome. Early in the pandemic, Francis made a similar pop-up visit to a little-frequented church in the heart of downtown Rome to pray, startling the few Romans who were in the area during exceptionally tight lockdown measures. In separate, written comments, Francis stressed the need for all to have employment when the world emerges from the pandemic. “How can we speak of human dignity without working to ensure that everyone is able to earn a decent living?” the pope wrote. He urged people to “find ways to express our firm conviction that no person, no person at all, no family should be without work.” As he has previously during the pandemic, the pope praised what he called the “ordinary people” who have kept the world functioning as it reels under the strain of the global pandemic. He cited those providing essential services—health care workers and shopkeepers, cleaners and caregivers and “so very many others.”

The Kremlin Is Offering Russians Free Vaccines, but Will They Take Them? (NYT) Aleksei Zakharov, a Moscow economics professor, got the Russian coronavirus vaccine injected into his upper arm over the weekend. Getting the shot was an easy decision, he said—not because the Russian government said it was safe, but because scores of Russians have shared their experience with it on social media. “I trust the grass roots collection of information far more, of course, than what the state says, at least before the testing results are available and published in a medical journal,” Mr. Zakharov, 44, said in a telephone interview Monday, already clear of a mild fever—a side-effect of the vaccine. Russia made its coronavirus vaccine available for free in recent days to teachers, medical workers and social-service employees younger than 61 in Moscow. But even more than in the West, a lack of trust is hobbling Russia’s rollout of a vaccine: the country’s scientists may well have made great strides in battling the pandemic, but many Russians are not ready to believe it. That distrust looms large as Russia races to roll out the vaccine while facing the fiercest onslaught of the pandemic yet, with some 500 deaths per day.

Mt Everest grows by nearly a metre to new height (BBC) The world’s highest mountain Mount Everest is 0.86m higher than had been previously officially calculated, Nepal and China have jointly announced. Until now the countries differed over whether to add the snow cap on top. The new height is 8,848.86m (29,032 ft). Everest stands on the border between China and Nepal and mountaineers climb it from both sides. Officials at Nepal’s foreign ministry and department of survey said surveyors from both countries had co-ordinated to agree on the new height.

China condemns new US Hong Kong sanctions, Taiwan arms sale (AP) China on Tuesday lashed out at the U.S. over new sanctions against Chinese officials and the sale of more military equipment to Taiwan. The U.S. actions are part of what critics see as an effort by the Trump administration to put in place high-pressure tactics toward Beijing that could make it more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to steady relations. The Cabinet’s office for Hong Kong affairs expressed “strong outrage and condemnation” over the sanctions leveled against 14 members of the standing committee of China’s legislature, which passed a sweeping Hong Kong National Security Law earlier this year. Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, meanwhile, demanded the U.S. cancel its latest arms sale to Taiwan and said China would make a “proper and necessary response.” President Donald Trump’s administration has incensed Beijing with 11 separate arms sales and closer military and political ties with the self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. China has stepped up military flights near the island and pledged to punish U.S. companies involved in the arms deals in response.

Libya’s east-based forces seize Turkish-owned vessel (AP) Forces of a Libyan commander who rules the eastern half of the country and who was behind a year-long military attempt to capture the capital, Tripoli, have seized a Turkish vessel heading to the western town of Misrata. The development by Khalifa Hifter’s forces could escalate tensions in the conflict-stricken Libya, since Turkey is the main foreign backer of Hifter’s rivals, the U.N.-backed administration in Tripoli, in western Libya. Hifter’s forces stopped the Jamaica-flagged cargo vessel, Mabrouka, on Monday off the eastern port town of Derna, said Ahmed al-Mosmari, the spokesman for Hifter’s forces. Al-Mosmari said the vessel entered a “no sail” zone and did not respond to calls from the naval forces. It’s the second Turkish-owned vessel seized by Hifter’s forces this year, according to Ambrey Intelligence, a British private maritime intelligence firm. In 2020, Hifter’s forces have seized at least six ships.

#headlines #news

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star-anise · 5 years ago

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I hope it's alright to ask, but I see you know quite a lot about gardening and I have recently acquired a lawn, but know very little about gardening. What are some resources you might recommend for learning, especially with regards to reseeding lawns? I am hoping to largely replace the grass with clover ☆ and now that december is almost over I can feel spring coming and want to get ready!

Haha I know�� enough to begin with, with gardening! I’ve begun a lot of projects, but now they’ll take months or years to really see to fruition.

I will say: I have found many books by longterm gardeners very helpful, and the blogs of people in my hardiness zones, but I’ve found Youtube to be patchy in its usefulness. A lot of Youtubers are people just starting out their gardening or farming journeys, so they’ll make a video documenting a brand new process they’re excited to try out for the first time, but it’s a lot harder to find follow-up “Welp, that didn’t work” conclusions. The videos are good to show my mom to demonstrate what the work will look like, but I want to do more research before I decide to try a technique.

I have definitely found that other local gardeners are really valuable to get to know! It can be really hard to figure out what works in your specific area and a lot of it requires trial and error, so it’s helpful to know what’s already been tried. You can also end up sharing tools, plants, seeds, and labour.

Finding people local to you can be as simple as finding local garden centres or seed stores (preferably dedicated year-round places that hire people specifically for plant knowledge, not just the pop-up garden centre at a store that doesn’t really focus on plants). That way you can talk to employees who have seen a lot of gardeners try things locally and hear how it went. I’ve gone to some really useful talks given by independent greenhouses.

However, a step up from that are actual local gardening groups or clubs. Local to me there are events like Seedy Sunday, which is organized in March in my area, where outdoor planting is still a few months away but people might be starting seeds indoors soon. It has a seed swap, vendors, and information sessions. There I learned about the local permaculture guild’s annual festival a month later, and it had even more info sessions, and the presenters there frequently handed out seeds or were like “PLEASE come and take an apricot seedling from my back yard, here is my address, PLEASE.” From there you might even make garden friends whose garden you could visit, or who could visit your garden, to say things like “Yeah that’s a fungal infection” or “This part isn’t getting enough water.” (I mean, you could also get a landscaper or garden consultant to do that, but it costs money.)

Because really the trick with gardening, as far as I can tell, is all about location and region. I automatically add “zone 3″ to all my google searches now. Clover works really well in some places–I’ve successfully grown it on the bare dirt on the north side of my house, dangit I forgot to post pictures–and not as well in other places. It’s going to act differently depending on what kind of winter you have (Cold but not freezing? Frosty but not snowing? Snow and ice that freeze and thaw several times over the winter? Heavy consistent snow blanket until spring?) and what your general climate’s like. In some places you might be better off with prairie grass or an eco-friendly fescue mix or a mix of grasses and flowers..

I tend to sow seed over the living grass of my lawns instead of completely getting rid of the old grass. I guess I mostly figure that if the new grass really is a better fit for the lawn, it’ll choke out the old stuff. It’s… sometimes worked out well so far? Although I live in a pretty arid area, and I learned that if I want my grass to grow, it MUST get an inch of water every day for the first two weeks, and then at least once a week for a good month or two. It’s drought-resistant when it’s mature, but not when it’s a baby. My garden lives and dies by my automated water timer.

If you wanted to completely kill the grass you had starting out, I’m also not sure about the specific procedure for smothering grass and replacing it with a different lawn cover. A really common technique is to smother it with newspaper or cardboard and mulch like wood chips, straw, hay, or autumn leaves, but I’m not sure how well it works to seed something new on top of that–I can forsee patchiness if you’ve got clover trying to establish itself in, say, wood chips. Maybe mulch and a bit of soil? Complicated questions. Anyone know? @elodieunderglass? Bueller?

Anyway, the smothering process takes months. I moved into my new garden May 2019 and spent the whole summer using the bare-earth beds that came with the house and plotting out where 2020′s new beds would go, and then lasagna gardened them in October 2019 so they’d smother and decompose and be ready for next May 2020′s planting. And I’m still very nervous about whether it’ll work out! All my elderly neighbours are very dubious about the whole idea and ready to lend me their rototillers. My PRIDE is on the line.

I hope to hear more about people’s gardens! Everything’s going to be solidly under snow here for another four months, and I just had to move my compost bins into the heated garage because the compost had literally frozen solid. GOD WHY DOES WINTER HAVE TO LAST SO LOOOOONG. (Oh, though I could update about the seedlings we got going upstairs, and my poor beleaguered boston fern)

#staranise original #staranise garden #long post #littlestarprincess

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resistantbees · 9 months ago

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#DeeLusby #smallcell #Varroaresistance #treatmentfreebeekeeping #smallcellbeekeepers

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journeyman-jack-in-ecuador · 7 months ago

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FRI 18OCT24 - "November and December will be the most critical months of 2024 due to energy shortages and power outages in Ecuador.

The low water level in the Mazar reservoir puts the operation of Paute-Molino at risk, and in the Amazon, low water flows are expected for Coca Codo Sinclair.

The energy generation crisis in Ecuador worsened in the first week of October 2024. And this is just the beginning, as the harshest drought period is expected to last until at least February 2025.

He referred to the lack of rain in the south of the country, where Ecuador's largest hydroelectric complex, Paute (comprising Mazar, Paute-Molino, and Sopladora), is located between Azuay and Cañar.

What is happening in the Paute complex?

Paute-Molino, with its Amaluza reservoir, is part of a complex of three cascading hydroelectric plants. It is the largest plant in the complex, with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts.

How does this cascading complex work?

Together, the three hydroelectric plants have an installed capacity of 1,756 megawatts, which is 38% of the country's demand.

But now, Mazar has reached critically low water levels, just as the most severe drought season is starting.

It is likely that the water flowing into Amaluza will reach minimum levels during this period, jeopardizing the operation of Paute-Molino, which is currently generating 63% of its installed capacity.

Thus, the current power outages are not helping to fill the Mazar reservoir but rather indicate that Ecuador doesn't have enough energy for 10 hours a day.

Coca Codo is also at risk

Other energy specialists, such as Ricardo Buitrón, believe that the risk of Paute-Molino shutting down is lower because its Pelton turbines are designed to operate with very low water flows.

"Only if there is an extreme drought where virtually no water passes through Mazar or Amaluza would Paute-Molino be forced to shut down," he adds.

This would be enough for Paute-Molino to operate, albeit at reduced capacity.

However, Buitrón adds that the situation will worsen in the last two months of the year due to other factors.

Historical hydrological data shows that November and December are when Coca Codo's water flow reaches its lowest levels of the year.

Coca Codo Sinclair is currently generating 450 megawatts, just 30% of its capacity, and the driest season has yet to arrive, explains Buitrón.

What about emergency contracts?

Secaira also points to the slow progress in contracting new thermoelectric energy.

Of the 340 megawatts the government has contracted, only 110 megawatts are operational, coming from the Turkish Karpowership barge.

This restriction could last until 2025, as Colombia is also suffering from a severe drought." -

https://www.primicias.ec/economia/noviembre-diciembre-meses-criticos-cortes-luz-ecuador-80826/

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psyga315 · 5 years ago

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Fixing RWBY Volume 3

Volume 3 is most likely not going to receive a lot of changes due to how this is the lynchpin for which all other RWBY volumes make or break. It is because of Volume 3 that people were either turned off or were re-engaged by the tonal shift and it is because of Volume 3 for which people compare all other finales to, as well as scenes that were clearly made to recapture that feeling from Volume 3.

So, instead of going episode by episode in trying to change plot elements, I’m going to go in broad strokes with this.

Like before, I’d recommend Celtic Phoenix’s Fixing Volume 3 video, though only for the Vytal Festival Tournament and Cinder’s overall plan. After that, all bets are off.

Though, we need to address the Goliath in the room. Midway through Volume 3’s production, Monty Oum passed away and, if Shane Newville is to be believed (which, given how they used Adam’s V3 fight footage for V6, might be more likely), a lot of stuff was changed last minute, much to Shane’s chagrin. Now, some rewrites would simply go for “let’s go with the original plans” route, but I find that would be not only too easy, but would go into the route of “this is what Monty wanted”, which is not only a stupid complaint in more ways than one, but a real slap in the face to his friends.

Instead, I want to go with a somewhat more… meta route. I understand that this is a little more controversial, so if you wish, you may skip this. The long story short is that we’d be getting a 2.5 where we see the Vytal Festival Tournament and its ulterior motive is to get animators that hopefully would not lead to the fight scene drought of Volumes 4 through 5. Also, Jason Liebrecht is Qrow instead of Vic because Vic was busy in another role by the time RWBY finishes up with 2.5.

Those Who Treasure Monty

We begin in our world, on February 2, 2015, news of Monty Oum’s passing breaks out onto the web and a long, lingering shadow is cast over RWBY’s future. Even with multiple confirmations that RWBY will continue, it’s clear that without Monty Oum’s animation, RWBY would eventually slow to a crawl in fight choreography.

So, RT is forced to make a decision. They need to put RWBY off for a year while they figure out how to proceed. To ensure the RWBY fans stay sated and to search for talent that could either replicate or even succeed Oum’s, they create short, five-minute fights set during the Vytal Festival tournament that anyone with an animating talent can use. While some used Poser like RWBY, the fact that Maya is used more gets RT to thinking… Perhaps they should make the switch to Maya.

It’s been stated that Monty insisted on Poser when Maya was a superior option, and I wanted to reflect that in this meta-arc. This would also pave the way for animators to get RT’s spotlight.

In the middle of this hiatus, we’d also get Grimm Eclipse, which, given how not a lot of attention is given to RWBY proper, means that RT would funnel more support into the game’s first year than they did originally. This might also get Gray to try and put his name out by doing Gen:Lock, or at least releasing teasers for it, much like how Monty hyped RWBY through the four trailers.

The fights are in a purgatory of “semi-canon”, where it technically happened, but don’t expect RT to actually call back to it. Much like the DC Comics. HEY-O!

By the end of this hiatus, RT will most likely get their new talent and will definitely cut ties with Sheena and Shane, much like they did originally, but hopefully with less resentment given the cooldown. RWBY would get an October 2016 premiere which would be predated by RWBY vs. ABRN, JNPR vs. BRNZ, and SSSN vs. NDGO being the final three fights for Volume 2.5, done by people who would end up being lead animators for RWBY going forward. The last of the fights will end on a familiar scene.

“Wow, now that was a match!”

“Pheh, that was a mess…”

The latter of which being delivered by Jason Liebrecht. I reason that, in the time RWBY took to process the passing of their brainfather, Vic would most likely have been in another role and be too busy to do Qrow. This would also avoid the… unfortunate circumstance of which we shall not name.

With that, we shall properly proceed to…

RWBY, Volume 3, The Vytal Festival Arc

By the time 3 kicks off, we’re already done with the first round, having already seen most of it from 2.5. We instead open up with Ruby talking to her mom, the final moments of RWBY vs ABRN, and Ruby and her friends celebrating their victory, much like V3. What changes is that JNPR is also celebrating their victory over BRNZ.

However, it’s clear that not everything is bright. Ruby’s still scarred over the Breach, Blake is frustrated with the lack of closure they got and believes that the case is still not over, and Yang is thinking back to what Raven said, to which we get an extended flashback of Raven explaining that she saved her once and that Yang should not expect her to save Yang again and also how Summer was a pawn in a larger game. She doesn’t say much, but she leaves enough information for Yang to know who Summer was a pawn for: Ozpin.

We end Episode with a ship entering Vytal and Qrow deliberately going over to face it as Weiss looks on in a bright smile. Episode 2 kicks off with Qrow vs. Winter, now being a lot more vicious as Qrow believes Ironwood to be putting his jackboot over Vale and strangling what free will the people had remaining. We get to see his bad luck be put into motion as bystanders get attacked by debris and getting injured in the process. His Semblance is literally uncontrollable. However, the trick is to not show that this is his Semblance until Volume 4.

Glynda and Ironwood arrive and chew out both Winter and Qrow for their fighting. Even though they have differing opinions on Ironwood, Qrow is explicitly told that his drunken fits only help to cause fear, something Ozpin does not want in the Vytal Festival. Qrow brings up that Ironwood’s army is bringing fear and while Ozpin agrees, also agrees with Ironwood that it also brings some form of safety. Bottom line with how the scene plays out is that Qrow, while a valuable asset on the battlefield in more ways than one is outright a liability in social situations, made apparent when he hangs out with his niece(s) and only makes a bad situation worse by making his “cut one Taijitu head and now the other one calls the shots” speech sound way worse than it sounds.

However, there’s also subtle nods that imply that the only reason he’s such a drunken wreck with social skills so bad that he’s actively making things worse is because of the trauma he received from his days of being in STRQ and serving Oz. Basically, downplay the comedy of Qrow being drunk and show off that Qrow being drunk is a bad thing like in Volume 6.

Winter also has her hangups. Because of being raised by her abusive father, Winter inherited a bit of that. Think the DC Comics version of Willow. Weiss notably sees just how much like her father Winter’s become and Winter tells her that her ambition of being a Huntress has done more harm than good, bringing up her scar. Winter then tells her why she came. Not just to oversee the deployment of new robots, but also to warn Weiss. Jacques cutting Weiss off and constantly calling her is his way of saying “Okay, this is getting out of hand, come home or I will take you myself.” This kinda worries Weiss quite a bit.

The doubles match are the ones that are a major focus for episodes 3 & 4, showcasing Yang and Weiss vs. Neon and Flynt, Nora and Pyrrha vs. Sun and Neptune, Mercury and Emerald vs. Coco and Yatsuhashi, and Penny and Ciel vs. some random members of CRDL. Not a lot of changes here. With a whole episode to ourselves, we can spend that to see our cast one final time before the plot throws them into hell. Weiss talks to Ruby about her father, she assures her that RWBY will not leave her side. Blake tells Yang about her worries for the White Fang, especially since her name had been publicized by the tournament, even knowing that Yang is hiding something.

We end the episode with Glynda asking Ozpin if he’s sure about something and he reassures her that time is of the essence and that they have no other option. “The only one with a choice will be her.” Before we cut to Pyrrha.

Episode 6 is unaltered, except there’s a heavier emphasis of Ozpin pushing the issue onto Pyrrha and making it clear that it’s making her mentally unstable.

RWBY, Volume 3, The Fall of Beacon

Okay, the only thing that changes for Episode 7? NO BLACK SCREENS! It works for some mystery with the Grimm and Salem, but for meeting Roman?! So, no black screen. If you need to add mystery, just add dark shadows and for the Grimm, glowing eyes. The biggest change would be how Cinder interacts with Adam. Obviously, we keep how he acts in the flashback… But we get a bonus scene of Cinder talking to Adam and manipulating him into resenting Blake for leaving him. Boom. We got our transition covered.

The only change for Episode 8 is that Blake doesn’t go “lol, okay” when she gets Yang to say she’s sorry for kneecapping Mercury. In fact, she expresses doubt on Yang and does not change her mind about it, believing that the thing she was hiding had something to do with injuring Mercury. We end Episode 8 not with Ruby encountering Mercury, but Hazel.

Episode 9 remains relatively unchanged, as it’s the necessary lynchpin to cause the Fall of Beacon. Really, most of the final act can remain unchanged for the most part, save for some quality of life changes like “how come no one called out Emerald when she was in the middle of the crowd even though they were told that her team went home?” or all those tiny nitpicks that really makes Cinder’s plan fall apart if you think too hard about it.

The most that changes is that Hazel fights Ruby reluctantly. Obviously, he doesn’t want to fight Gretchen’s partner. Cinder would have no idea Ruby’s incompetence led to Gretchen’s death, so Hazel wouldn’t use that to guilt trip Ruby. He does, however, rant about the flawed system that Ozpin has made and it’s clear that this is him talking about how flawed the system is, not Cinder whispering sweet nothings in his ear. He lets Ruby go just as the fight between Pyrrha and Penny ends.

Yeah, this still takes place despite Cinder not knowing, since she lacks her virus for now. Cinder is smart and is able to put two and two together when she sees that Penny is doing a lot of the heavy lifting during her fights. I mean, it was obvious to us that she was a robot from Volume 1, Cinder didn’t need no fancy scroll to tell her “hey, Penny’s a robot.”

I should add that, throughout the tournament, Cinder had been rigging the tournament so that it’d come down to Vale vs. Atlas, using the narrative of the Breach to set the stage. She’s also making sure the losses for Mistral and Vacuo sting so the Grimm get attracted sooner. How is she doing this? Via the backdoor program she had. As I said previously, the virus feigns being dead and can only be reactivated by a backdoor program. However, this isn’t the full extent. Cinder is basically using the program to activate a few nodes in the CCT to rig the randomizer enough so that no one stops and goes “wait, this is fishy”. It doesn’t help that the way the tournament is held, each Kingdom representative is guaranteed to face an opposing Kingdom once per round, so if one Kingdom was really good, they’ll overcrowd the subsequent doubles and finals. Two Kingdoms? Then you essentially guarantee that the rest of the fights can be nothing but Kingdom A vs. Kingdom B.

Penny is killed and this becomes the straw that broke the camel’s back. I also would make it so that her big speech, while imposing and setting the tone for the fall, doesn’t sound like “I’m the big bad evil guy and I’m going to announce my terrorist attack!” Also, Adam can get involved too, saying how humans are so sad over a dead robot, but when it’s a Faunus, no one gives a crap, white guilting the crowd. When the Beacon staff cut the feed, Cinder goes “OMG! CENSORSHIP!” and riles up the crowd that way. Basically, her speech causes fear and panic. The Grimm and White Fang attack, we kick off the Fall of Beacon Arc.

One major change to kick off the finale: Port and Oobleck are killed. It doesn’t have to be shown, but it would be implied as Ozpin notices that he lost contact of the two. Really, this is your chance to get rid of all the characters that won’t make an appearance in later Volumes or wouldn’t really matter. After all, there will be no rest or love. Hell, kill off CFVY while you’re at it. Hammer home that the dark tone is here to stay. Also, the backdoor is the thing Roman puts on that ship and thus reactivates the virus.

Of course, the major change is Adam’s fight with Blake, since they fought before. Blake tries desperately to ask why he’s hurting people, but Adam gives her his response: “Because this world doesn’t reward the kind-hearted people. You should know that after what happened to your father!” This puts Blake in a lot of fear and anxiety, requiring Yang to interfere. The one thing I’ll change from this is that Adam does not one-shot Yang, because that horribly unbalances him in the grand scheme of things. Instead, he relies more on manipulation to put Yang in the absolute worst spot throughout the fight, absorbing the increased blows he got from Yang before letting it all out in his Moonslice, taking off her arm.

The other major thing I’d change is the handling of Pyrrha. The bit where they’re underground changes immensely as Ozpin explicitly instructs Jaune to wait by the door, thus separating him from Pyrrha. Ozpin and Pyrrha go to the pods, but as Pyrrha begins to have second thoughts, Ozpin activates the switch as Pyrrha screams in pain.

Meanwhile, Jaune finds Cinder entering the chamber via a superhero landing (No one’s gonna acknowledge that she managed to follow the group down a longass shaft?) and as Jaune tries to fight Cinder, realizing she’s the one who organized all of this, she tells him “I didn’t cause this… I merely exposed Ozpin for what he truly is… Arrogant and willing do to anything to win.” Jaune pieces together what Cinder could possibly mean and enters the chamber, seeing Pyrrha in pain. Just then, Cinder kills Amber and takes her power.

Ozpin decides to hold Cinder off while Jaune and Pyrrha go to get help. While this will be revealed in Volume 5, it’ll be revealed that Ozpin threw his battle with Cinder so that, not only would he reincarnate quicker, but also to avoid the Council chewing his ass out. This leads to the consequence of Cinder forcing Pyrrha’s hand, however…

Like with the show, Pyrrha fights Cinder by herself since Jaune did enough. We’ll have him try to contact Glynda and the others, but they’re unfortunately busy and it’s this poor communication that causes Jaune to panic call Weiss. The fight proceeds like normal and Pyrrha is killed by Cinder, making her sacrifice seemingly in vain before Ruby, having enough with all this bullshit, Silver Eyes the fuck out of Cinder and the Dragon, turning the latter to stone and Cinder into a cripple.

Ending remains the same, but give a lot more emphasis on Ruby and Yang coping with the new change and the losses of their friends. One day, Jaune comes by and asks Ruby if she and Yang would like to accompany them to Mistral, figuring that Cinder came from there and that they’d be able to find some answers. Ruby, having had enough of moping around, leaves much to her father’s chagrin. Salem’s speech remains the same and we get two stingers, split by Divide and Cold. Divide’s credits would be for the Volume and Cold would be for all the animators who helped out during Volume 2.5 and a tribute to Monty. The first stinger is Qrow following RNJR in bird form, the second is Cinder, literally on the edge of death before the parasite Grimm begins to heal and nurture her. She’s furious that Ruby managed to hurt her and this negative emotion causes a Grimm to stalk her. She tries to sing to it, but her voice gives out a rasp.

Just as the Grimm is about to kill her, it gets killed by an unknown assailant, who just scoffs to Cinder. We don’t know who it is, but the shadow of a scorpion’s tail and the creepy voice pretty much gives those with foresight a good idea who he is: “Poor, poor little girl… Bit off more than you can chew, hmmm?” before cutting to black with him giggling.

DVD Extra

This would basically be an encore of Volume 2.5, where animators that nearly made the cut were invited to animate doubles and finals battles and even have a speculative RWBY vs. JNPR battle for ol’ time’s sake.

And that’s RWBY Volume 3 tweaked. Only two more left to go and they’re the most… interesting ones to tweak. Well, with this isolation, I might as well give a little bit of time to this…

#RWDE #RWBY #Rewrite #RWBY Rewrite

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rwbyconversations · 6 years ago

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Why has Adam proved controversial after Volume 6?

Fandom is a culture that is constantly changing. It’s a culture effectively built around self-sustaining itself through fanart, music videos, fanfiction and discussion theories about the content the fandom is built around to tide them over until the next big release. Taking the RWBY fandom for example, it’s a fandom that’s really only alive for less than two fifths of the average year, from October to January when the volume itself airs. The rest of the year, RWBY’s fandom has to keep itself afloat through self-generation of ideas and the sharing of the aforementioned means of content to tide people over until October comes back around and the season starts anew. Headcanons and fan theories become commonplace and can become exponentially more popular than ever intended thanks to the gap in seasons giving it time to form and gain weight as a theory before canon can prove it wrong.

What that long period of downtime means is that you can see previously loathed characters come back from the brink and gain a lot of fandom support and approval in the turn of a season. Or alternatively, popular characters can take a swan-dive in popularity, being reduced to joke status that they never recover from. People who swore up and down that “this character is trash and I don’t care what they do with them” suddenly next hiatus are on the other side of the trenches. One season can do a lot for a character in either direction is what I’m saying.

Because that’s what’s happened the past two years to Adam Taurus.

Adam after Volume 5 was a turbulent wreck of a character. Humiliated at the end of the season and forced to run with his tail between his legs, while his character lost much of the appeal that it had garnered over the prior four volumes, making him resemble a whiny child LARPing as a doomsday villain. It was a pathetic display for his character, one so infuriating it inspired me to begin writing analysis essays after a heated Discord discussion, and that essay struck a note with many of the people who read it and agreed with the contents therein, especially in regards to how much Haven damaged Adam’s threat factor. People simply weren’t scared of him appearing like they were prior to his smack from Blake, several comments even derisively writing off Blake and Yang’s rematch against Adam in advance because “they made him job before, they’ll do it again.”

And yet interestingly, within the span of a year, the tides partially turned. With Volume 6 Adam wasn’t widely derided as a joke anymore, but in spite of that, the discussion around him was just as heated as it was last year. Adam was still the core topic of the argument but now the battle lines had been redrawn thanks to his death in the climax of Volume 6. Now it’s become commonplace for RWBY’s discussion communities to deride many of the dime-a-dozen posts about Adam and his “wasted potential” that have been arriving nearly daily like reinforcements to batten at a wall. But why? What changed in just one year that changed the entire argument around Adam? Why are his fans and critics embroiled in a new war to enter the hiatus?

That’s what I’m trying to set out and accomplish in this essay. I am going to hopefully explain the primary reasons for why Adam is a controversial character following Volume 6, in particular why his fans are dissatisfied with the way his characterization was taken over the course of the show. Keep in m ind that parts of this essay touch on Adam’s abuse so if that’s a thing you’d rather not see, avoid going further.

1) Headcanons were proven wrong

No one likes being wrong. Just look at students who get fail grades in exams, they’re usually despondent. It’s never something you lose as you grow up, in fact, Being wrong just sucks, to put it bluntly.

Remember how I mentioned at the beginning that because of the content droughts fandoms experience, headcanons and theories can grow far further than anyone intended? Adam is an example of that happening for three years.

Adam’s first appearance was in the Black Trailer, released on March 22nd, 2013. He wouldn’t make a significant appearance in the show until Heroes and Monsters, the penultimate episode to Volume 3, released on February 6th of 2016. His only significant appearances between those two dates was a cameo in the Volume 2 finale and V3C7, Beginning of the End, released on January 2nd.

Adam’s initial appearance left much of his personality vague, barring that he was Blake’s superior, a stoic swordmaster and that he was fighting to liberate the Faunus from humanity with the full intent of taking a pound of flesh from humanity for what they’d done to the Faunus- to quote From Shadows:

From Shadows, we’ll descend upon the world, take back what you stole, from shadows, we’ll reclaim our destiny, set our future free.

As such, the mental image of Adam that the fandom was given had nearly three years in real life to set in stone, that he was Blake’s former mentor who had fallen into extremism and terror attacks. Some even suspected going off Oobleck and Blake’s interactions in Volume 2 that Adam would receive a redemption from his wicked ways to show as an example of how Blake would redeem the White Fang from its own muck-filled past, or that Adam would need to die in an alternate variant of that story to show how far down the dark path he’d gone. Tauradonna was even a fairly high-profile ship in the early days of the show, being on roughly the same level as Blake/Weiss.

The headcanons were only given further room to grow thanks to adaptations of the Black trailer and early RWBY not taking the time to more properly setup Adam’s true character, in particular the Shirow Miwa adaptation. Miwa’s version of the scene, or at least the localized version, was released across two chapters in April and May of 2016, with the full book getting a physical print in the West in August 2017. Adam in the Miwa adaptation is far more talkative than his canon counterpart and even makes several dry quips throughout the fight:

When they first see the AK-130 guards (”Looks like we’re doing this the hard way” in the trailer): “Looks like all the seats are taken Blake.”

When asked who they are (Adam doesn’t have a line here): “We’re thieves.”

Upon seeing the Spider Droid for the first time: “Tch! He’s one serious baggage clerk.”

Adam’s dialogue is also softened from his original dialogue to boot:

“Buy me some time!” “But-” “Do it!” instead now is “Blake, buy me some time.“ “But that’s-” “I just need a second.” Blake also gets to make a quip that “You know... You’re fairly high-maintenance.”

When Blake’s barrage ends, she says “I did all I could,” and Adam thanks her with “It was more than enough, get back.” All Adam says in the animated version of the scene is “Move!”

The manga makes a significant addition to the aftermath of the battle, where Blake chides Adam for the ambush being sloppy. Adam initially just smiles as “that’s what you’re here for,” before Blake quickly rebukes him, cutting the train car as she says that the White Fang “not lower itself to bloodshed.” The last we see of Adam in the manga is him standing on the train carriage, pondering to himself “You think this is wrong Blake?”

A similar change is And “Perfect. Move up to the next car, I’ll set the charges,” is now “There’s at least 5,000 cases. All right, let’s kill the engine.” “What about the crew?” Adam is silent and when Blake presses him for information, the Spider Droid attacks

Prior to the train attack there is a scene added by the Manga where Blake says that the Dust will be redistributed to Faunus in need. She asks Adam to confirm this and he looks back over his shoulder, lips parsed, and says “Of course.” However the next page has a black box of him saying “Don’t overthink it Blake.”

The point of this extended summary of the Black Trailer in Miwa’s adaptation is to show that even in adaptations of the trailer, RWBY didn’t do much to dissuade people from forming the headcanon that Adam was simply a fallen revolutionary. In fact the manga smooths out Adam’s rougher edges, making his dialogue less harsh and more sarcastic. Remember as well that these were initially released soon after Volume 3 wrapped and before the commentary confirmation of abuse, meaning that these gave Adam fans one last bit of material to bolster their ideas of what Adam was.

Obviously, all of these ideas and theories went out the window with Volume 3 Chapter 11 and the subsequent reveal by Miles and Kerry in Volume 3′s commentary track that Adam was in fact an abuser. A lot of his fans didn’t take to this reveal well, which I’ll return to in a future section of this essay, since in part it shot down all of their theories about Adam and made him an irredeemable monster. Adam’s potential redemption was destroyed the moment he slapped Blake.

It is telling that most of Adam’s more passionate fans are from the early generations of the RWBY fandom who were around since the early trailers, since there’s a sharp divide between those fans and the more common Adam fan reaction of “I like him in spite of the abuse or explicitly only work with AU stories where he isn’t as bad.” Again, no one really likes being wrong, especially when it means accepting you were wrong for nearly three years.

2) The abuser twist

Something that I’ve never liked about Adam’s turn as an abuser was how looking back at Volumes 1 and 2 for evidence of the twist in advance, it’s difficult to find anything concrete. I had this discussion on a server lately where looking at all of Volumes 1 and 2 along with 3′s first half, there was really only one agreed upon sign of abuse prior to V3 in Volume 2- Blake’s flinch when Yang goes to hug her in Burning the Candle. But the problem with that is that even this can be taken into a different context, as one of my friends pointed out. As she reminded the chat, Yang had already shoved Blake several times by that point in the conversation and Blake may have flinched instinctively when she saw Yang’s arms raise again.

Of course given the context of Adam’s abuse, Blake flinching may in fact have been foreshadowing, or it may have just been her instinctively preparing for another shove. We just don’t know, and that vagueness around Blake’s past and the abuse twist is partly why a lot of fans argue that the abuse twist was never planned in the early stages of the show and was an idea introduced during production. This is not a concept new to RWBY- Monty came up with the Maidens one day while working on Volume 3 after all- but it does mean that for sudden character turns like Adam’s abuse, the question will be raised of “was this always planned or was it just something you added as the story flowed along?”

Much of the cited evidence that Adam was planned to be an abuser from the early show is in a similarly murky place. Blake speaks of Adam in Volume 2 as a mentor (”I had a partner... more of a mentor actually”), Monty himself called Blake the “apprentice” in an interview after the Black trailer, and much of her subdued behavior compared to her more affectionate self seen in Volumes 5 and 6 can be simply explained as Blake keeping a low profile to avoid Faunus discrimination and the attention of the White Fang.

Even in Volume 3 Chapter 7- Adam’s last scene before Chapter 11 and the confirmation of his abuse- things are kept vague. Adam even sharply rebukes his Lieutenant when he offers to hunt Blake down following the Black Trailer, saying “Forget it.” Adam’s plan is to go to Mistral without a care for Blake, which goes against his obsessive behavior seen later in this very season.

Much of the evidence given for Adam’s abuse- him gaslighting Blake in the Adam short, Blake talking about him in Volumes 5 and 6 to Sun and Yang, his dialogue during the Volume 6 battle- is all retroactive evidence, which does not solve the initial problem of the initial seasons poorly setting up Adam’s turn. Much of the evidence for and against the twist is shady at best, and reaching at worst due to how vague the wording is around Adam. Blake only ever speaks of him as a partner or mentor, never belying a romantic connection outside of the volume 2 premiere with the drawing of him in her notebook. Certainly with the benefit of hindsight some may find evidence in Volumes 1 through 3, primarily that Blake is simply an unreliable narrator, but I still feel like the lack of clean foreshadowing to such a large part of Adam’s character it weakens the twist, and some of Adam’s fans remain bitter that his character underwent a drastic 180 out of relatively nowhere.

3) Simple preference

Being blunt, a lot of Adam’s fans just prefer the Adam shown in the early seasons to the one the show closed out on. This idea is often mocked by some that his fans just wanted to see a Vergil knockoff, but for some of Adam’s fans it just came down to wanting to see cool fights. After all, RWBY was built on the initial idea of well-designed characters having well-choreographed fights. The show advertised itself initially as “From the maker of Dead Fantasy and Haloid,” which to surmise, weren’t shows that lured people in for their narrative quality. Monty’s loyalist fans who followed from his freelance work and from Red Vs Blue followed for cool fights, and Adam’s fighting style and design made him an instant fan favorite. It has only been from Volume 3 onwards that the show has advertised itself more as a drama than an animation showcase, and as such some of Adam’s fans don’t care less for his character turn other than that it makes him whiny and edgy and they’d like to see him swing his sword a bit more.

While the idea of preferring Adam as a revolutionary over his Yandere self seen from V3 is also a mocked concept as it tends to be used by people less well-versed in expressing critique of Adam’s character and makes for a popular strawman tactic, a morally gray villain may have worked well for RWBY. Especially as Adam and Cinder both show in different ways that the series should stay away from villains with no redeeming qualities.

Though I suppose at least unlike Cinder, Adam actually has a backstory, so I should count my blessings.

To surmise, for some of Adam’s fans it was a purely physical love affair

4) Adam’s death and its connection to Bumblebee

Blake and Yang’s final confrontation with Adam in Volume 6 marks a significant step in their relationship, which means if you like Bumblebee then the emotional climax of the volume hits home for you. If you shipped literally anything else then at least the choreography was good, but if you didn’t ship Bumblebee and never liked the Adam abuser turn... hoo boy.

Being blunt, a fair few Bumblebee shippers don’t mind the abuser twist since in the long run, it helped their ship and gave Blake and Yang plenty of angst to work through both alone and as a pair. I’ve said before that Blake’s recovery arc made for some good content in Volumes 4 and 5 barring the Sun slaps, and Yang’s PTSD arc, while bare-bones in Volume 4, was some of the more consistently good material that year when shown. And as such, Adam being made a one-note psycho who wanted to kill Blake suited them well, as it gave a clear villain for Blake and Yang to overcome while developing past their respective traumas. The problem of course being, Adam’s fans not appreciating this turn and definitely not appreciating the names they were called when they expressed this dissatisfaction.

This led to a litany of hot takes- “Adam’s fans only cared for the show and the character as an outlet for a male power fantasy,” “Adam’s fans were entirely made of sexists who just hated women,” “Adam stans are abuse apologists.” (Like 40% of the Adam fans I know are actual abuse victims so fuck yourself on the front of trying to use their trauma as a low blow) And to be fair, Adam’s fans responded with their own disappointing share of bad takes involving the dreaded words “wasted potential,” alongside murder and nerfing, but I go over those later.

(also you know genuine homophobics but trying to avoid braindead reasoning here for my own sake)

Getting back on topic, I quite obviously detest this lumping in of all criticisms. For one it means that simply shipping something that isn’t Bumblebee and disliking the fight can get one labelled with accusations of homophobia. A disgusting tactic on its own, to say nothing of how some people use it just to deflect criticism. Liked Adam? Then you’re an abuse apologist now. It’s interesting to compare the response to Adam last year and this year, where suddenly the fandom went from dismissing Adam after Haven to suddenly being very insistent that his death was well done and that only bigots opposed it; a naturally insulting statement to any members of the LGBT community or racial minorities who took umbrage with the handling of the Faunus.

And speaking of, my largest gripe with Adam’s turn personally is how it overshadows his previous commitment to the Faunus. Even though Adam’s short shows him fighting for the Faunus, to the point where Lionized and From Shadows are both expressly about how the Faunus are subject to inhumane treatments, it all gets tossed aside for the sake of Adam’s obsession with Blake and I’ve always found the almost-retcon of “Adam only truly cared for his own equality” a bit.. hard to get a read on? Since the original reason for his fall was because of his rabid devotion to his cause/getting vengeance on humans. Adam in-setting had been prepped as a Malcolm X style analogue before most of these traits were pushed over to Sienna. I feel like there is a lot that could be said about how RWBY handles its racism narrative, especially when it pertains to Adam given his own placement in the narrative, but that such a thinkpiece would likely be hit with accusations of homophobia or abuse apologism likely curtails that idea in anyone’s head. Some voices in the fandom have even come forward and expressed their dissatisfaction at how the arc depicting racism got curtailed for a romance. Adam rather sadly could have been part of a cornerstone on a narrative about the natural consequences of violent extremism, but instead the writers went with a far shallower option in my opinion.

Also being blunt the whole “Adam was just a secondary character for Blake and Yang’s arcs” feels a bit like revisionism of weak writing.

5) Damaged goods

Adam lost a lot of fans thanks to Volume 5. You can argue about this all you want but the facts don’t change that the volume was overall one that shot his character in the leg. Alongside having him go completely bananas out of nowhere with the “THE BELLADONNA NAME HAS BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT GRIEF” scene, Adam’s humiliating head smack from Blake that knocked him out for an entire episode and his Naruto run escape from the Battle. Put bluntly, people didn’t give a shit, especially after CRWBY’s own attitude was to mock Adam, further undermining any threat factor Adam was meant to have.

It’s quite obvious in hindsight that Adam’s short was made quickly, and was almost certainly damage control made to counter the backlash from the Battle of Haven episodes. Sienna’s inclusion has eve been admitted by Miles on RWBY Rewind to be done as pure fanservice for the fans who wanted more from her design, and it shows with how Sienna dominates the back half of the short. But the short’s nature as damage control, while ultimately well received, still marked it as a fix job for Haven. Even last year fans wondered what was the point of trying to hype Adam back up as a threatening villain given he would almost certainly lose any future battles he fought in.

Ultimately, a lot of people just didn’t care about Adam. The damage had been done by Haven, and even a lot of his own fans wrote off him being allowed to be even half as competent as his Volume 3 self again. With even his own fans having written off his chances of being a fearsome combatant again and the crew openly reviling Adam, not to mention his own voice actor despising him, a mood of “why should we care if the crew don’t?” began to settle in for Adam’s fans. Some even looked forward to his death since it would mean at least in death, Adam was free of being written as a psycho Yandere. For some of Adam’s fans, his writing had been so schizophrenic that death seemed like the only way forward instead of dragging it out.

6) “Wasted potential”

This is a point I don’t entirely agree with myself, but as this is an essay about why Adam has been controversial after Volume 6 I only feel it fair to include it, even if solely for the purposes of rebuttal. Wasted potential has become a set of dirty words to portions of the fandom thanks to the many, many, many arguments about Adam post-season.

A rather large complaint is that Adam “jobbed” for Blake and Yang, despite neither of them really having gained much experience onscreen since Beacon. I disagree with this notion since it does take some details out of consideration for this angle- B&Y were both tired from earlier fighting in the day, Blake was shocked to see Adam out of nowhere and that’s why he overwhelmed her, Adam still actually defeats Blake at Argus and it largely comes down to Yang to win the fight, and V5 had actually set up her changing her fighting style to better combat Adam’s own style.

One idea of potential for Adam that I will admit to liking is the idea of Adam as an ideological villain to Blake. Adam and Blake could have both represented the differing sides of the Faunus debate and how to achieve results, perhaps even going for a scenario where neither side was truly correct or wrong. Such a plot would have even had the benefit of tying the Faunus narrative into the wider stakes of the show while also humanizing it on a base level through their struggle. But at this point, this is becoming me wishing the show was something else. I’m sure a great fanfic could bloom from this idea in the future and I hope I get to see it one day.

There’s also the entire idea that Blake and Yang “murdered” (it was self-defense) Adam since apparently this is a big deal. I dunno fam, you just ignoring all those White Fang goons RWBY killed in V2 by leaving them in the tunnels? The ones they smacked around during V3? All those people Yang probably killed in the Yellow trailer? Now seems like a bit of an odd time to draw a line in the sand about the RWBY girls killing someone.

7) Conclusion

To conclude, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding Adam, and a lot that will surround his character for years. I feel like arguments around him will still be going by the end of the hiatus, if not for years to come. Adam has attracted a fandom from varying walks of life, but one thing I’ve noticed with some regularity is how many of of them themselves have histories with abuse. What unites a lot of them in their reasons for liking the character is the tragedy of how Adam is a person who has been persecuted then gained the power to bite back, but in his blind rage winds up lashing out at someone he is supposed to love. With permission, they let me share their accounts so I could put them here:

Be it purely visual/choreography appreciation, falling for fan theories and headcanons, his allusions to the Beast, the mystery of his mask and later branding, his potential as an ideological rival for Blake or for personal reasons, Adam gained a fan following from all walks of life over the past six years, who may not have learned everything they wanted to about him but who wanted to learn more regardless. Even if they only liked him just to watch him fight, Adam has a small if passionate fanbase, and I hope I’ve explained some of their grievances with the show as a whole now, particularly following Volume 6. Adam might have been a scumbag, but ironically his fandom has actually been quite pleasant to talk to, so I hope I’ve presented their more accurate or personal issues in a fair light.

Thank you for reading. Please consider sharing the post around if you enjoyed it or think someone you know would.

#rwby #adam taurus #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #rwde #Sienna Khan #fandom #rwby analysis #fandom analysis #rwby critical #shirow miwa #rwby shirow miwa manga #from shadows #lionized

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thesportssoundoff · 5 years ago

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Playoff Droughts And Who Can Break Theirs

Joey

Baseball season is approaching and in the interest of breaking up the monotony of what figures to be a LONG and painful spring training, I wanted to take a peek whimsically while looking backwards. There's no more enjoyable story than when a team that's been excluded from the postseason dance for quite some time gets their invite. Sometimes it's years of hard work and team building and other years its due to ownership just throwing money around and sometimes? It's just a fluke luck circumstance not to be repeated for quite some time. For the sake of doing something of a bit of a project, I decided to take a brief look at teams that have not made the playoffs in over five years. I chose five years arbitrarily I suppose because to me five years or more without a playoff run is a genuine drought whereas four or less just feels like a lull regardless of expectations. Yankees fans may consider three years without the playoffs to be a drought whereas that's if anything a lull or a break in tradition. Teams that have been out of it for five years or more are teams that are either mired in long term BAD baseball or embracing mediocrity at best and so five years just felt right. Also I wanted to do it since the invent of the two game wild card but then it would be literally just three teams and nobody wants that.

Of the eight teams who have missed the playoffs for five years straight or longer, who are most likely to break that streak and join the dance? Well...

1- Philadelphia Phillies Last Playoff Appearance: 2011

Last year's darling picks, the Phillies have been out of the playoffs since 2011. For fun facts, 2011 was also the first year of the Chromebook, snapchat and the release of Elder Scrolls: Skryim. If you read this space for MMA? 2011 was the year Jon Jones beat Shogun for the LHW title, the Strikeforce HW Grand Prix started and Alistair Overeem's UFC debut. It's been a while and to the credit of Philadelphia, they've tried a multitude of ways from riding out the final years of aging veterans to rehauling their farm system to spending and spending big. It's not for a lack of trying they haven't made it back to the playoffs! Last year they seemed armed to roll through a perceived weak NL East with big names and big money across the board. Of course little did we know the Nationals would be better without Bryce Harper and the Phillies wouldn't even crack the top two of the division. Out goes Gabe Kapler and in comes Joe Girardi who will be tasked with VETERAN MANAGING his way through this ultra talented and underachieving roster that has added the likes of Zach Wheeler, Didi Gregorious as well as Andrew McCutchen who was lost early into 2019 with a torn ACL. The Phillies boast an insane line up as if Didi and Cutch are healthy and productive then you've got a core of Jean Segura, JT Realmuto, Didi, McCutchen, Rhys Hoskins and Bryce Harper. The rotation is pretty damn spiffy (health permitting) with Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Zach Eflin and Jake Arrieta plus flostam as a fifth if need be. The Phillies are always going to be a team that has slumps magnified and streaks glorified (such is life with Bryce Harper) but I can't see them not cracking the playoffs in some form or fashion this year. If they don't make the playoffs, we may need to try and discuss if there's some kind of a curse out there on the Phanatic.

2- Cincinnati Reds Last Playoff Appearance: 2013

Gotta admit I had no idea the Reds had a playoff cameo back in 2013. Guess that's just one of those years lost to time. Fun facts of 2013? Grand Theft Auto 5 came out that year, Yahoo purchased this hell site and the UFC brought women into the organization for the first time ever. The Reds spoke openly about wanting to spend a bit in the offseason and so they did, flexing some financial muscle with deals for Mike Moustakas, Shogo Akiyama and Nick Castellanos to help out a lineup featuring the likes of Joey Votto, Nick Senzel and Eugenio Suarez. If the Reds are going to make a serious run of things, it'll likely be on the arms of a rejuvenated Sonny Gray, mercurial Trevor Bauer and the league's best kept secret to casual fans Luis Castillo. There's obviously going to be concerns about a team that hits a lot of dingers but strikes out a bunch and a somewhat unheralded bullpen but the Reds have power, they've gotten better and they've got a cadre of arms to flex at any time. Also? The NL Central figures to be up in the air as the Cubs seem to coast with the core they have until the rebuild comes around, the Cardinals and Brewers underwent massive changes and the Pirates figure to be flat out bad. There's never been a more clear path for the Reds to make some October noise.

3- Los Angeles Angels Last Playoff Appearance: 2014

The year is 2014. In the real world, Colorado legalizes the purchase of wacky tobacky, selfies became "a thing" in need of forever going away and the occulus rift creates a youtube grift genre. Sports wise? The MLB struggles through record rating woes, the Cowboys finally break through in the Jason Garrett tenure with a 12-4 record, the UFC is undergoing massive upheaval as stars retire or are suspended for PEDs, Bellator hosts its first PPV which in turn leads to the ousting of Bjorn Rebney for Scott Coker and LeBron James leaves Miami to go back where it all began in Cleveland. That's the last time the Angels saw a playoff game and it's been beaten to death at this point. "WHY DON'T THE ANGELS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS DURING MIKE TROUT'S PRIME?!" is tired and done to death but for those of you who feel the same way, 2020 marks the BEST chance for that to become a fad question (or perhaps just morph into "WHY CAN'T THE BEST PLAYER IN BASEBALL WIN THE WORLD SERIES ON HIS OWN?!") since the Angels are pretty damn loaded for bare. With the Astros about to endure a pretty weird season and the A's always lurking, the Angels will roll into the year with three bonafide superstars in Anthony Rendon, Shohei Otani and Mike Trout. The pieces around them aren't bad shakes either as Andrelton Simmons is a defensive whiz, David Fletcher is one of those solid under the radar types and the rotation isn't flashy but it should be competent with minor league depth to make moves if they see a big fish out there. The Angels would've been higher up had they gotten Ross Stripling and Joc Pedersen in a deal but since that fell off, I feel like 3rd behind the Reds and Phillies is a fine spot to put them in.

4- Chicago White Sox Last Playoff Appearance: 2008

2008 will probably best be known as the year of change headlined by the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. It was the year Fidel Castro stepped down in Cuba. China got the olympics in Beijing and people were TOTALLY cool about that with nary any controversy whatsoever. Beyond that? 2008 was the year I got into MMA and that was a special time, dudes. It was also the year where the White Sox saw their last real sustained succeed with its last postseason appearance. The White Sox feel like they've been in a rebuild since pretty much the end of the Ozzie Guillen tenure and despite multiple managers, multiple attempts to figure it out, rebuilds aplenty and some damn good talent coming through the organization, it's been a rough go of it for the majority of 2010 to 2019. Put it this way, the LAST time the White Sox made the playoffs, Chris Sale was a 22 year old rookie and Paul Konerko was still an active player. They've got a chance to kick off this next decade as a bit of a sleeper team in the Central. This team can hit and one can assume that another year of development for phenom talents like Yoan Moncada and Eloy Jiminez can only help. Tim Anderson for better or worse has a style and swagger that generates attention but it is fair to remember that for at least one half a season, he was a phenomenal player worthy of the acclaim. The White Sox have tried hard to secure elite free agents (Manny Machado and Zack Wheeler) but it's been a bust so at this point it's going to be up to them to draft, develop and trade for it. It would not surprise me if the White Sox are good enough in June and July to make a big deal to try and push them over the hump and chase for the second wild card.

5- San Diego Padres Last Playoff Appearance: 2006

The Padres last made the playoffs in the year of the Nintendo Wii. Floyd Mayweather hadn't even come up with his Money Mayweather gimmick yet! Lost to baseball obscurity, the Padres had at the very least an interesting team out west. The likes of Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr, arguably the worst defensive outfield in the history of the universe and freakishly good young arms like Chris Paddack and Joey Luchessi at least made them fun to watch. They weren't "good" but this is a team that was still struggling to balance expensive veterans with clout (Machado, Eric Hosmer, Will Meyers) with really good young talent trying to figure things out. The Padres figure to be better with a full season of Tatis Jr, more production from guys like Hosmer and Machado plus improvements in the outfield with Tommy Pham and Trent Grisham (hold your jokes, Nats fans) figure to give this team a chance. There's a pretty good bullpen (Emilio Pagan is a sneaky nice pick up) and plenty of talent in their 26 man roster. The NL West has so much legit top talent with the D-Backs and Dodgers figuring to be really good that it's hard to make an argument for the Padres to be a playoff contender but they figure to try and trying is truly half the battle.

6- Miami Marlins Last Playoff Appearance: 2003

It's kind of a bummer that we didn't get our decennial Marlins "The fuck?" World Series win but they made up for it by giving us Jeffrey Loria and David Samson fucking things up for most of the decade leading to Derek FUCKING Jeter opting to get into the management game much to the chagrin of most folks on all sides. The Marlins are in the midst of rebuilding....again. Don't expect them to compete but they've got some good talent to at least want to see play. Brian Anderson, Caleb Smith, Jorge Alfaro and a bundle of veteran signings that will at the very least make the Marlins a fun trade partner in July will keep this team relevant. Wouldn't surprise me if the Marlins flirt with a 20 win swing from where they were last year.

7- Seattle Mariners Last Playoff Appearance: 2001

My god man. The Mariners were SO close in 2018, winning 89 games and finishing a few spots out of a Wild Card spot. As if they decided that this core couldn't do it, the Mariners went to work tearing their team apart and were rewarded with a pretty blegh squad that was once again picked apart at the deadline. To their credit they have some spiffy talent worth watching, namely the infield duo of JP Crawford and Shed Long. They’ve also got some fun young arms who might take the next step. Just don't expect them to win many games.

8- Detroit Tigers Last Playoff Appearance: 2014

The Tigers are aways away from being contenders. They're not trying to be contenders. They're in the midst of what could best be described as a multiple year rebuild after riding out the end days of the core from the start of the 2010's. They will be bad but god bless 'em for embracing it.

#MLB #playoffs #baseball

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