u/jjgp1112

On another day of a job search that's on week seven since getting laid off and just need to vent. I guess. I've been a cipywriter for six years, started my first job literally the weke after Covid shut everything down in 2020 so pretty much from the start, nothing was like what I imagined it would be.

And I'm not gonna sit here and act like I was some future Don Draper being held back by opportunity. I've been aggressively okay...underachieved at my first agency experience because pandemic-related account shuffling left me miserable and dogging it.

Landed at Havas in 2022 and worked there for 4 years again, just being solid. I've always had this lingering feeling I just didn't *get* advertising enough to be anything but a guy that takes banners, emails and social posts off everybody's hands and watched script after script almost make it but get tossed aside, and felt like I was unable to figure out that final hook; just another writer turning to advertising for a steady paycheck because he's too lazy to pursue his real creative aspirations. The closest I got to actually spearheading a campaign wound up getting ruined by the credit card we were working on getting completely in flux after the client's deal with their distributor fell apart and then right afterwards Havas' VP of Business left the agency and stole the piece of the account that campaign had been for so we couldnt even give it another shot. Like, I just couldn't catch a break, and when I got a break I just couldn't do enough to make the most of it.

And on top of that I'm as introverted as they come and never really made the effort to ingratiate myself into any teams or develop a strong presence in the agency besides the 4 or 5 people I clicked with...most of whom would get laid off through the years anyway lol. I knew my inability to connect with folks was a hindrance but just found myself in this loop of anxiety and resentment I guess.

It all came to head the last 10 months or so. Again, just being solid​ and unspectacular on and account that wanted nothing more than solid and unspectacular. Wound up on a pitch with an ECD just helping on the side that finally, FINALLY gave me that true motivstion and drive I've been looking for, and our campaign and the manfiesto that I wrote and led wound up not only winning the pitch​, but being the campaign they'd run with. I'm thinking this is the moment I finally get on that senior copywriter path and then...crickets. Neither me, my art director or the ECD that helped us out got put on the account, and we found out later another team was working on the shit we made.

Resourcing manager said it was just an allocation thing...but the whole reason I even had time to be on the pitch was because the main account I was on was in a flux I suspect was really the client starting to outsource things to AI. 6 months of none of the copywriters on the account having nothing going on.

After constantly hounding that same resource manager I got on an account they'd recently won, just knocking out emails and it was going okay, a bit of a clusterfuck, and then the most incompetent account manager I've ever encountered gets on the account, turns everything into a mess from briefs to deliverables, and now I'm finding myself having to juggle 20 email asks a day that are being thrown at me in Microsoft Teams chats with no briefings, no content direction besides "Uhhh look at their website I guess" with a deliverables system thag put the onus on me to do shit that in my previous 6 years had only ever been handled by PMs. The inattentive creative director comes in and apparently wasn't digging my work and yet I was the last to know because I never get any feedback.

I thought maybe it was just me, but designers were venting to me on the side about what a mess everything was, and I found out later even former coworkers had people at the agency venting to them about how awful this account person was lmao. But long story short, I end up getting frustrated and just asked why everything was such a mess and got taken off the account shortly after. Resourcing manager even shared my frustrations with the situation and vented to me about how CDs at the agency seemingly can't be bothered to give actual feedback until it's too late. I pretty much realized this was my last shot; just got the vibe from how much out CCO I championing AI and my position as a guy that's seemingly just okay on an account where not much was happening. Was told I wasn't working to the level of a mid-level copywriters and that was that. The same ECD I worked with on the pitch has been helping me land on my feet and that's been the one sliver of confidence I'm clinging to but...Just not much going on right now. I feel so powerless, like I'm just at the mercy of whoever feels like responding while working with a book that probably isn't commanding attention. Had an interview a couple weeks ago, haven't heard back.

So now I find myself as guy who already struggled with my confidence, just looking back at my experience and thinking about everything I've done wrong that's left me on a countdown to when my savings runs out. I could've done more. I could've done proactive work to keep my name out there when things were quiet - but even then, because I closed myself off so much, I would've been riding solo without an art director anyway. I could've just done better and stopped leaving so much on the cutting room floor. Or shit, just done something I actually like instead of advertising.

I just feel like I bot only can't find work, but with each passing day I'm just resenting the entire industry as more people surrender to AI and the machine of capitalism enshittifies everything with the ad industry functioning as its right hand. Even if I eventually do land somewhere, will it be better? Is my inability to find a place in anyway because I'm subconsciously weary of all this? I really, dont fucking know. I just know that I feel absolutely defeated and have no answer.

Excuse my incoherent venting session. I'm just at a loss right now in an industry I'm not sure was ever for me.

It kinda hit me just how well that one segment crystallized all of the characters and relationships we'd seen thus far, and how different relationships and dynamics fell into place and got solidified or validated.

Usopp and Nami: They don’t really have much of a relationship in East Blue — that really forms in the Grand Line, where they’re both out of their depth strength wise and so need to lean on each other’s brains and fear-driven instincts to get by. But the core of their relationship starts here, and it’s rooted in the fact that they’re inversions of each other. Both characters are scaredy-cats who use deceit to get by. But Usopp uses deception to try to be liked and make friends and allies. Nami uses deception to manipulate people and push them away.

They’re both brave underneath, but unlike Usopp, Nami s too traumatized and it’s made her distrustful, and so her deceit is weaponizing rather than galvanizing.

Usopp’s “death” is when their resourceful trickery comes together to save Usopp from certain death and prove once and for all that Luffy’s intuition about Nami’s virtue was correct. Nami helps Usopp theater kid his way out of certain death but with the hopes that it makes her look like a ruthless pirate that can’t be trusted so Luffy and the others can stop trying to save her and escape Arlong’s wrath. She’s given into hopelessness…but Usopp, Sanji, Zoro and most importantly, Luffy truly have what it takes to save her.

Zoro: The dog that guards the yard against external and internal threats. With Zoro, actions speak louder than words. He sees the good in people, but he needs to see it in action before he trusts you, and this trust is conditional. When he finds out Nami stole the Merry he’s surprised because this is the same girl that put her life on the line against Buggy and Kuro…but a traitor is a traitor, so now she’s an enemy.

But then when he sees her hanging out with Arlong, he quickly picks up how uncomfortable she is and dives in a pool to test his intuition and is validated. But when he hears she killed Usopp, he once again flips. He’s not a flip-flopper, he’s just logical and unemotional about the information he receives. He thought Nami was just a duplicitous witch, then he thought she was a small-time thief who can’t watch somebody die, then with new information realizes, oh shit, she’s really like that and is a real threat after all. But that small time comment doesn’t go over well with…

Sanji: The chivalrous chef with a big heart who prides himself in being able to understand women. When he hears Nami killed Usopp, he doesn’t believe it because he could see in her lovely eyes that she was carrying something heavier than what was on the surface. Sanji is empathetic and sees the good in people…but this trust isn’t entirely pure. He’s thinking with his dick. Now, his dick doesn’t often steer him wrong…but it’s still his dick.

Sanji’s empathy for Nami s earned but also contingent on the size of her titties. Which is why, when Zoro says Nami is small-time in a way that questions her character…Sanji mishears this as him saying she has small tits and gets very offended. This makes Sanji think of Zoro as a stubborn meathead while Zoro sees Sanji as a pompous simp who’s full of shit, solidifying the relationship they have for the rest of their lives. Poor Sanji: his heart’s in the right place, but it’s clouded in a chauvinistic infantilization, unlike…

Luffy: Like Sanji, Luffy doesn’t believe that Nami killed Usopp. And just like Sanji, it’s because he sees Nami’s chest. But he sees what’s UNDERNEATH her titties: her heart. It goes back to Orange Town. He knows Nami hates pirates because one of them killed somebody close to her. He knows she’s trying to buy back her village. And he knows that Nami is somebody he can trust: she put out a cannon’s fire with her bare hands to save his life AND FIXED HIS HAT.

The scene where Nami flips out on him after getting triggered by the pet food shop burning down and her subsequent apology is so important, because Luffy is completely understanding. He truly sees her, and that’s what finally breaks Nami’s shell and makes her agree to join him, even if she’s still keeping him at arm’s reach. And this is why he has no interest in hearing Nami’s backstory. He already told Nami when he was accepting her apology: he knows enough. Nami is somebody who can be trusted, but she’s going through some shit and now just needs to be willing to let Luffy and his friends help her get out of it. And he’s not leaving the island until she does, because his journey as King of the Pirates isn’t going anywhere without HER. Not any other navigator, but Nami.

It's a pretty brilliant writing choice of Oda. The very first scene we see of 17-year-old Luffy is him going off to sea and IMMEDIATELY getting sucked in a whirlpool because he has no idea where the fuck he’s going or what he’s doing. Before he does ANYTHING, he needs a navigator. The navigator is the one that will literally chart the course for his path to becoming King of the Pirates, the person who he has to trust the most.

And the person who he chooses to trust the most is the person who on the surface, he should trust the least. Nami would’ve been completely justified in betraying him or at the very least telling him to fuck off and Luffy knew it. But he sees who she truly is through just a few actions.

Nami’s biggest job as Navigator in the East Blue arc isn’t leading Luffy to the Grand Line, it’s leading the audience to seeing just what a powerful person Luffy really is. (And the world…as Cracker and Ulti learn.) The ultimate stress test for his best and worst characteristics. If his intuition about Nami is wrong, he’s fucked…and if Nami doesn’t realize Luffy’s worth putting her faith in, she’s fucked. Nobody gets anywhere unless Luffy is Himothee Chamalet. I think the best complementary characters are like vaccines for each other: they present the illusion of a trigger for their worst qualities that can consume them, but awaken their strongest virtues to overcome them.

So, tl;dr: This one situation is SO dense with characterization and shows just how brilliant Oda is with presenting everything we need to know.

I've been reading a lot of East Blue lately and it kinda hit my Nami is such an effective character and also why Luffy and Nami are probably my favorite dynamic in the whole series (and why I ship them lowkey, don't kill me lol), and it's because of how much the two characters test the core of each other's ideals, strengths, and insecurities.

Nami's biggest task as a Navigator in the East Blue arc isn't leading Luffy to the Grand Line...it's leading the audience to understand how powerful of a person Luffy is and why we should read this manga about him. Damn near every single scene between the two in this arc is pivotal to both characters.

The very first time we see Luffy after the Shanks flashback, Nami isn't there. He on the sea with idea where he's going, gets caught in a whirlpool, and that's seemingly the end of is journey, immediately after it starts. Literally from day one we see what can become of him in the absence of the character that we eventually learn is Nami. As Luffy lays out to Arlong in their battle...there's a lot of things he can't do. He needs crewmembers that can cover his blind spots. In order for him to assemble the crew, he needs to not only have a strong ability to trust others, but a strong ability to judge their character.

And so fittingly, the crew member he needs to lead him to his goal and guide him through the many dangers of the sea, is the person who on the surface is the most likely to flake and go astray.

Nami HATES pirates and she gets offered to be the navigator to not just any pirate, but a guy who eats, sleeps, breathes, and shits the idea of being a goddamn pirate. From the start of their partnership, Nami is scheming, because that's how she survives, while Luffy is trusting. But Luffy doesn't just have some magical gut feeling about everybody. You gotta earn his trust.

When Nami sells him out to Buggy, Luffy seemingly writes her off as just another scammer, and that's when we get to our first pivotal moment: Luffy mocking her when she hesitates to kill him. Nami sees it on the surface; he mocking her for the hesitation, deeming her too moral to make in the big leagues. But in actuality, he's mocking her for even being in that situation in the first place, because she's to cowardly to stand behind those morals. And it's in Nami's surface-level defense where Luffy sees why she hates pirates and doesn't want to join him.

But then...Nami proves Luffy wrong. She puts her life on the line ans saves him. And it's at this moment where we learn two things, 1) that Nami ISN'T a coward and 2) exactly how Luffy evaluates people worthy of following him. We already know he respects Zoro's dedication. But Zoro's easy. Nami's shakier. And yet, after Nami saves him, he introduces her to Zoro as his navigator even though she still hasn't said yes. And it's because he's already seen enough to know her potential. Her resolve is shaky. She hates pirates. She has a good reason to. They killed somebody she cares about. But by saving Luffy anyway, she shows that the bravery is in her, and that she can be swayed from her hardline hatred of pirates on principle and simply see the character of somebody.

Then we get to the next pivotal moment. Chouchou. Shop gets destroyed, Nami flips out on Luffy as a trauma response. Seemingly, Luffy takes this freakout as maybe Nami is just too far gone to come around because his response is only to belittle her as a non-threat lol. But Luffy comforting Choucho shows Nami once and for all that APAB isn't true, and I think the apology and Luffy's response is the most illuminating. Luffy is gracious, understands exactly where she's coming from, and doesn't need to hear any further details to get it. And this seems to hit Nami harder than him getting the food for Chouchou, because Nami realizes that Luffy isn’t just a good person, but truly sees her. She joins him, but makes it clear that this is a temporary alliance. And Luffy doesn’t even argue. As we see later, it’s pretty clear that Luffy was set on making Nami a permanent fixture but: he’s not gonna force you into a choice you don’t clearly want. Nami has a good reason not to fully commit and he’s gonna let her work that out for herself. But he’ll be waiting. I mean, he kinda has to because she’s the navigator and shit.

Then, she fixes his hat. I think this is the moment where Luffy became set on “I WON’T HAVE ANYBODY ELSE AS MY NAVIGATOR.” She justifiably hates pirates. She presents herself as selfish and shifty. This alliance is temporary. Yet she fixes his greatest treasure for no reason other than it’s a nice thing to do. The precise cherry on top for Luffy to completely and absolutely trust her without compromise, no matter how far she goes to push the crew away.

(I always hated that Toei didn’t adapt this, though it is kinda funny that for the scene in its place they dug into the generic tsundere romance playbook #nooticing).

When Nami steals the ship, Luffy doesn’t take this as a betrayal. Even though betrayal is literally the first thing she did to him. Even though she’s a fucking thief. Even though she hates pirates. But he has all the necessary information on who she truly is and hangs the literal and physical hat of the crew on that trust. And the whole ordeal isn’t just the ultimate test of if Luffy’s trust is fallible, but of that shaky resolve from the Buggy situation. We learn that what Nami did to Luffy with Buggy has pretty much been the way she’s survived for entire adolescence, and it’s not quite as simple as “half-assed resolve” as Luffy says in the dub, but a pessimism that makes her resort to scheming instead of fighting and putting faith in others.

And well, I think the Help Me scene has been talked about enough, but like…duh. That’s the culmination of all this. Sorry, this was way too long…but then again, it wouldn’t be One Piece if it wasn’t lol. But tl;dr, you learn almost everyting you need to know about Luffy and Nami as characters by what they do for each other in East Blue.

And I mean shit, she wields lightning and he's rubber lol.

More subdued compared to her manga counterpart? Sure. But all throughout season 2 she shows an excitement and enthusiasm for adventure (that's arguably stronger than canon Nami's!), cracks a lot of jokes, and still has enough of Nami's cynical greed to not be obnoxious in a live action setting.

In season 1 it was a deliberate choice to make her more serious and closed off because of the situation she was in, but in season 2 she's comfortable and free. And going off of Emily Rudd's interviews, she'll be even more loosened up in season 3.

Upon rewatching my favorite arcs in One Piece, one thing I think I've come to notice that of all the Straw Hats, Zoro and Nami feel like the two Straw Hats most bound to Luffy specifically. Everyone else, Luffy's bringing along the ride to help their dreams and in turn they help him, and while that is still present with those two particularly with Zoro...those two are the ones that came along with the motive of "I'm following THIS guy."

It also made me want a scenario in the final war where everything comes down to those three. I always like those full circle endings a la Avengers End Game coming down to the original Avengers, but it would pretty cool to see. I also think of everyone, they're the two that would sail with Luffy pretty much for life...well, probably Nami more than Zoro because her goal is gonna take a long time especially since the world is almost definitely going to change and Luffy won't have anyone else as his navigator, but still.

Would you guys agree, or am I just insane lol