#ssw 2016

[hawleywilby]

[thelovetheystole]

Yeah, if you follow me or even just look at some of my posts, you'll know I have words to say about this here spoiler article...

Why don't we start with the picture? They just look so darn in love don't they? *thinly veiled sarcasm* Top image selection 👍

Moving on to the headline. Ah yes, finally, they profess their love. They've been through so much, haven't they? They way the fans have been kept waiting for this moment! *more sarcasm*

Who wouldn't be unimpressed with a camping trip in actual late December?? I still can't help but be conspirational about this need of John's to drag Aaron on this trip, where he then suddenly opens up about Aidan (which he can't do at home with all the pressure of everyday life!), and I love yous are said... It still sounds like something someone could have planned if they were told about SSW 2016 and wanted to recreate it...

I'm sorry, they are going to be kept warm by the glow of their hearts??!! 🤣🤣🤣

They've both dragged their heels? Okay, if you say so. They met in August and moved in together in November, seems pretty quick to me, by soap standards, but what do I know? (I know that Robron met in November 2014 and moved in together in July 2016...)

What emotional connection are they depening? They've never talked before this! Their off screen time together must be much better than their on screen one...

Aaron's been hung up on Robert for so long, you say? (Thought it was just Seb?) Also, poor ol' murdered Ben and the bloke Aaron was going to uproot from Italy. Guess we were right about them all along, huh 🤷‍♀️ Bet we are right about this guy too 😇

Not only are they in love you guys, they are deeply in love. This need to lay it on so thick in the spoilers comes directly from the lack of effort they have put in with this pairing from day 1. Classic case of tell, don't show that Emmerdale has favored so much these last couple of years.

Less dramatic times, you say? That's Emmerdale code for more dramatic isn't it? And more laughs means Aaron's going to cry again? Because Danny has not been working this much lately for Aaron and John to be having a laugh in the pub...

I'm not convinced that Robert will come back this Christmas, but I'm definitely not ruling out an early 2025 return 🤞

As a final note, the fact that the Emmerdale team and most of the media aren't trying to create suspicion about John makes me even more suspicious... Remember when they tried to make Ben interesting with secret phonecalls and mystery men in taxis? This John thing is the complete opposite, which makes me 👀

Right now, everything is too neat, too cute, too 'perfect'.

[renamusing]

Fellow robronettes, let's all take a break from clowning and engage in the most important poll of our time. What is YOUR personal favorite robron era? What is the one you can rewatch countless times and never get enough of?

[kellykadesperate]

some of you didn’t experience the magic of emmerdale ssw 2016 and it really shows

[reinacadeea]

do you ever have a bi-yearly ssw 2016 rewatch?

because I’m doing mine right now

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Watched the episode...

I did like seeing someone work on the farm again. I have such low standards, I get excited by characters doing every day work because it's so rare. I mean this only happened for very specific plot purposes though so you know...

I did not like seeing Vic sitting on that hay bale though because that was very much shades of Vic watching Robert practice proposing and wow do I miss those ssw 2016 vibes.

I don't even know what to make of Aaron's comment about John or that look on his face after. I'm kind of tired of watching Danny make that same expression over and over to be honest.

Mostly just a blah tuesday episode, inching this silly plot forward.

But I can at least appreciate farm work, garage work, and people having overlapping plot moments at the pub from a greater show health standpoint.

[sour-grape-s]

I've just finished my first re watch in three years, and the way i SOBBED during their final scenes in the woods??? Good lord.

Honestly!!!

I watched a lot of ssw 2016 and their scenes are just so good!!! And the January fight!!

I am not ready for those scenes though when I get there.

[nooneelsecomesclose17]

I’m only 10 minutes into Monday’s ep and basically nothing will ever top SSW 2016 so they should stop trying.

[robrongifs]

went to youtube to check the captions on a scene to make sure i was hearing it right. got sidetracked. about 2 hours later, 3 am, and am watching the iconic, nothing will/could ever beat it 2016 ssw

[mossfishschool]

@ospreyonthemoon

No! Other kelp forests have their own defenders, there are kelp forests all around the world. In the Northeast Pacific Ocean (the west coast of North America) sea otters play a vital role but don't work alone.

A really good example of this is the US state of Oregon located above California, in the Northeast Pacific. The sea otter has been extinct in Oregon since 1907 but urchin barrens were limited due to the Sunflower Sea Star (Pycnopodia helianthoides)! They are another keystone species in kelp forests. They helped pick up the slack created by sea otters going extinct.

In 2013 we saw the emergence of Sea Star Wasting Syndrome (SSWS) which is a syndrome where sea stars appear to disintegrate into nothing. (first photo is of SSWS progression on ochre sea stars, second is sunflower sea star with SSWS)

Large and soft bodied sea stars were more susceptible to it due to their surface area and soft body. In 2015 the Northeastern Pacific experienced a marine heat wave which increased the cases of SSWS, which is believed to be temperature dependent.

Between 2017 and 2020 there was a 99-100% decline of wild populations of Sunflower Sea Stars from Baja California, Mexico to Cape Flattery, WA, USA. In the northern part of their range from the Salish Sea to the Gulf of Alaska there was a decline greater than 87.8%. (this is part of the temperature sensitive theory)

Sunflower sea stars are now listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the California, Oregon, and Washington Range they are extremely close to being extinct in the wild. I have researched this topic and looked at a ton of data, as well as designing educational programs for an aquarium on SSWS and Sunflower Sea Stars. The way I would describe it is that in California, Oregon, and Washington there aren't really any populations left but there are individuals.

As some might know, when conservationists are creating a campaign to give the public about a large issue like habitat loss, they will often pick a "charismatic" animal to be the spokesperson for the issue. For kelp forest conservation the fluffy round-faced sea otter was chosen. Picking one animal also keeps the message simple. Despite what I believe and like to dream about being true, many people struggle to empathize with invertebrates. Which is another reason that sunflower sea stars aren't frequently included.

TLDR;

Grrrr

But also

I cannot speak specifically to the keystone species of non-Northeastern Pacific kelp forests. There are kelp forests all over the world. But just looking at the Northeastern Pacific; sea otters play a massive role in kelp forest health, but they don’t do it alone, the Sunflower Sea Star plays an equally vital role.

Sources:

Heady, W.N., R. Beas-Luna, M.N Dawson, N. Eddy, K. Elsmore, F. T. Francis, T. Frierson, A.L. Gehman, T. Gotthardt, S.A. Gravem, J. Grebel, S. L. Hamilton, L. Hannah, C.D. Harvell, J. Hodin, I. Kelmartin, C. Krenz, L. Lee, J. Lorda, D. Lowry, S. Mastrup, E. Meyer, P. T. Raimondi, S. S. Rumrill, V. R. Saccomanno, L. M. Schiebelhut, C. Siddon. 2022. Roadmap to recovery for the sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) along the west coast of North America. The Nature Conservancy, Sacramento, CA, US. 44 pages.

First photo:

Eisenlord, Morgan & Groner, Maya & Yoshioka, Reyn & Elliott, Joel & Maynard, Jeffrey & Fradkin, Steven & Turner, Mo & Pyne, Katie & Rivlin, Natalie & van Hooidonk, Ruben & Harvell, Catherine. (2016). Ochre star mortality during the 2014 wasting disease epizootic: Role of population size structure and temperature. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 371. 20150212. 10.1098/rstb.2015.0212.

Second photo: Jenn Collins

Ready to assemble your very own kelp forest?

Just follow these easy steps:

✅ Assemble kelp parts in cold, nutrient-rich water  ✅ Add fish and invertebrates  ✅ Add sea otters! 🦦 ✅ Watch your kelp forest thrive  ⚠️Warning: Without sea otters, your kelp forest may end up with an urchin overload!

[kornknock]

robron in ssw 2016 u will always be famous <3

[thelovetheystole]

Bill Ward talks about SSW 2016 (oh, if we could go back and watch it for the first time...) ⬇️

[hawleywilby]

[damnitiloveyou]

Finished rewatching SSW 2016 we were so well-served

[bettaklainerobron]

Happy anniversary to him, always proud I love you and miss you every day 💜

[scrapyardboyfriends]

2015 was golden, 2016 was great and solid though it had its weak points, but we got the abuse storyline and soap week, 2017… was a lot of hooey but while I may not have liked a lot of what they did, the characters still felt relatively well-rounded even if everything went to shit, and we got to see Robert go off the rails, which was kinda fun, 2018 gave us the lead up to the reunion and the actual reunion, which were masterpieces, and then we got serial killer Lachlan, which did drag out a long time and we got all that weird and awful “Rebecca’s been kidnapped! Rebecca’s being held captive in the woods! Rebecca’s dead! No wait she’s being held captive by an evil nurse!” bs but we got some cute character moments before that and Robert in the conclusion was fun. I think that’s the last time I remember liking what they had going on

Kate Oats had her problems but overall her storytelling style was much tighter and better paced than anything that has come after it. She overused her favorites and had her insane Thursday doubles and Robert got a little too 2D villain sometimes but still, the show was solid in those days. 2015 represents that well.

2016 struggled in the middle due to Kate leaving and Iain coming in, while he got his ideas going. But the lead up to and the main event of ssw 2016 was amazing.

Now while I certainly think Iain's time was better than the terrible trio's, I do think he had a lot more faults. But at the very least you could always count on his spectacle stuff to be pretty good. It was his day to day storytelling that often got super repetitive because he really liked to drag his stories out until he could do his big climactic conclusion. It's just that those conclusions did a lot to make up for the slog before it.

The terrible trio wouldn't know a good climactic conclusion if it fell on them like a caravan.

But the show definitely suffered under Iain's time. 2017 was a bit of a mess overall and 2018 was a slog when it came to having the Bails story, the Grace story, Sarah's heart story and the Lachlan serial killer story all running concurrently.

From a Robron standpoint, 2015 is just a lot of insane fun. 2016 bookends with great stories with the first chill period in between during the producer transition. 2017 is messy as hell but I still like the Hell Plot overall from a Robron standpoint. Rebecca sucked but whether they lucked into it or not, Robron had a great arc that finished up in 2018. Robron definitely got lost in the middle portion of 2018 because all of those other stories were going on and they weren't the center of attention anymore...sadly. But at least the reunion and the wedding were lovely and perfect.

And then the terrible trio took over and everything fell apart. They don't know how to pace a story. They don't know how to craft a character arc. They're way too focused on the next headline and generating hype and buzz to actually care about the characters. It's why everything feels so random and out of the blue or gets dropped abruptly only to be suddenly picked up months later. It's just a disaster. I'm thrilled Jane is gone now but the other two need to go too. And they need to bring in a new person in general because this show is crying out for a new creative vision.