sonkerzz - Tumblr blog

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This is me making my contribution to tfone before Its out so I can make my mark in transformers history at the same time

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Chibis

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ok im obsessed with this one shot its so goofy

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carmy: immediately apologizes as soon as he's out of the fridge, tells richie i'm sorry, i love you, agrees with sydney that his communication is bad, tells ebra "don't worry, i've got this" and worries that he's fucking things up, invites sydney to an industry event to help her make connections, follows up on life events (comforts marcus, asks how sydney's dad is feeling about her move), defends his ex to his friends, wonders if he should've been more present around his family despite the fact that mikey kept rebuffing him, tries and tries and tries and apologizes and tries and constantly searches for reassurance that he's not ruining things for everyone around him even though the environment he's putting himself through is a direct recreation of decades long traumas that have ruined his self-esteem and nervous system

tumblr: look at this psychopath. he's becoming exactly like his abusers. there is no difference between carmy and a man who tells his employees they should kill themselves. he rose his voice at tina and thrice was rude to sydney...he should be killed for his crimes

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This is still all about Donna

The cyclical aspect of abuse ft Chef David

So, I wanted to add to the discussion why Carmy pursued the star so intensely, to the point of inflicting self-punishment and isolation. Why would he focus his whole identity on the evil chef after all those other beautiful experiences he also got to live?

I am going to talk on broad terms because I don’t have any studies in psychology, so you can take it all with a grain of salt; I am talking just from personal experience/instrospection. I am also not saying this applies to all victims of abuse or all types of abuse. I am talking mainly about domestic/psychological abuse.

WHY IT ALL STARTED

On the opening night, a particular set of chemicals created an explosion in Carmy's mind. He saw a man who resembled the chef who tortured him psychologically and abused him. So he goes back and starts a fight with Syd. She calms him down, but he feels lost and needs a pause, so he goes to the freezer but finds himself trapped. Then, the turmoil of flashbacks comes in of Donna and Chef David, while he thinks he failed his team and confirms the belief that he is indeed worthless, no good, and a waste of space. Donna installed this belief in Carmy, and Chef David revived it.

So he blames Claire, a relationship that (regardless of not being particularly deep or healthy) was bringing him happiness, and he decides to commit to the lie that he needs to sacrifice things that make him happy to be good (chef). At this point, Carmy has equated his worth as a human with his ability to produce a certain quality of work as a chef.

THE CYCLE

Maybe the most vile thing about abuse is its cyclical nature. If you have been abused, particularly since childhood, even if you manage to leave the environment where the abuse took place, there is a high chance you will end up in another abusive relationship/situation.

Abuse breaks your perception of self and the world around you; because of that, every relationship you have, or situation you establish will be defined by that broken perception.

Carmy grew up in an abusive household, believing there was something wrong with him that made his mother reject him and prefer his older brother. From what we can gather, none of Carmy's interests and personality traits were appreciated or encouraged in that house (besides cooking), so he was a child "terrified of speaking." He didn't have friends who could help him understand or accept himself; he missed that in very formative years. Michael (the brother he compared himself to) ended up being the real parental figure in his life (Michael divides himself between teasing him and encouraging him).

Carmy learns to love cooking because of his connection with Michael. Then Michael makes him feel rejected by casting him out. Carmy goes abroad and has really amazing experiences that allow him to know and accept himself. He gets to feel like a child again, finding and cultivating the things that he loves.

Then he finds a chef boss who is also abusive. Donna comes to life in the face of Chef David, and Carmy (who has become almost the best at this point and could have just left this place) accepts the abuse because he is afraid that both Donna and David are right, that there is something fundamentally wrong with him no matter how hard he tries.

So he goes into this season in freeze response, screaming at others because he can hear the evil chef in his head telling him how much of a waste of space he is; he needs to fight it, so he screams at everyone to have the same standard he has to obey or get killed. He is acting entirely out of fear that they are going to get him killed because they are “not perfect” or “too slow.” Because he can still feel the threat of the ghost of Chef David saying horrible things to him as he cooks. This is about self-preservation.

Also, isolation is a form of self-punishment, and he believes he needs to resolve this on his own.

THE CLAIRE PART-SELF PUNISHMENT

He tells himself that he cannot be with Claire because that is who he is and that he doesn't deserve such a good thing if it endangers the only thing that brings him value, cooking. He doesn't deserve this love that, for the first time, doesn't seem to require a big amount of sacrifice on his part. He spent most of the season reminiscent of that affection. He said she brought her peace, but I think he just meant she didn't feel worthless for once. It looks like not having girlfriends or friends (lack of meaningful connections that accept him for who he is) is a big source of insecurity for him.

The relationship was empty and superficial but was the best he had ever felt; Claire made him feel like there was nothing wrong with him, (to the point of being an enabler, yes), but it was still better for him than feeling rejected most of his life.

His most significant relationships (Mickey and Donna and sometimes Nat and Richie) were based on a push-and-pull mechanic that created an emotional distance, and he has spent most of his life trying to earn his mother's love, while he felt he didn't have to make an effort to earn Claire's love, even the most basic emotional responsibility (never apologize). The show even showed you that the relationship between Claire and Carmel would have happened if she hadn't done most of the work, emotional or otherwise.

Case in point: Sydney, a person with whom he has a lot in common, an unspoken telepathy, and a bond that can get him out of panic attacks (his previous unhealthy beliefs), is the person with whom he has the most trouble establishing a relationship because of the plot (based on his mental health), even after three seasons.

That was a lot, thank you for reading.

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The most people ever

I’ve been consuming a lot of MTMTE, they have a special place in my heart

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the bear: fuck fake mental health awareness!!! do you still support them when they lash out? when the side effects are ugly? when they have to apologize for what they said? when it makes you physically unwell? when they resist treatment? do you know you’re allowed to be mad at someone who died? do you realize addictions can be passed down?

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the bear s3 spoilers

below the cut! thinking about claire and stuff we saw this season re: carmy/syd/the restaurant/donna, just finished the season so itll be a mess and also im comin in way too hot on this so my bad

sometimes...... sometimes i believe you guys are all watching different tv. im not sure how this season didnt feel like a direct through line from s2?? and im not sure WHY everyone is SO MAD about claire LITERALLY "haunting" this season. girl. come on. we need to have a sit down talk about how the berzatto generational trauma is the real meat of this show (this will make sense, just trust me). thats the MAIN EMOTIONAL POINT. syd's relationship with her dad, marcus and his mom, richie and evie, even tina and louie are all examples of parental relationships that are tender, sweet, supportive, etc. these are INTENTIONAL!! by creating these relationships we see PLAINLY how fucked donna is and how much she fucked up all of these kids. thats why "ice chips" was such a FANTASTIC episode. there was SO MUCH unpacked, so much revealed, so much worked through with sugar and her but at the end of the day she's still learning how to unlearn all of this horrific narcissistic bullshit. SHES STILL UNLEARNING THOUGH. thats where fucking DONNA of all people sits right now——somehow, she's learning how to heal. EVERYONE IS LEARNING. that's also what is so important about that episode (and the opening of "apologies", where cicero w

now lets look at carmy. in "ice chips" we are LITERALLY told about how each berzatto is born: mikey fighting against the idea of being alive at all, nat into a quiet, soothing room, and CARMY is fucking born into EVERYONE SCREAMING and ARGUING and FIGHTING. we are BLATANTLY told that all carmy has ever known is HELL and all he's ever known how to communicate is through exploding. this is so violently against what we also know about his personality from childhood in "fishes" (anxious growing up, arts-oriented, had a hard time making friends). now, he works a violently stressful job, processing the trauma from both his mother (and chef fields [joel mchale], realistically) through the high-stress environment.

NOW. ENTER CLAIRE.

HOW is she not fascinating to you all. we don't see her whole story (because the bear, duh) but we are given just enough pieces here to put together that her story runs parallel to carmy's. how are you not getting this. walk with me.

claire. glasses, nerdy, quiet, sweet, girl next door. family friend! cute, but considered mid for a long time by everyone at school, but suddenly the berzatto men all badger carm, "oh she got a glow up, oh shes looking for you, she wants to see you," etc etc etc. what happened in between?

she finds herself. she finds the stressful thing she LOVES, which is the hospital. her job is objectively more stressful than carmy's (illustrated by that scene earlier in the season but i forgot the episode, where claire talks about the girl who got her shit wrecked by the glass table), and while we don't have an exact understanding of what her home life was like, we understand that her and carmy both have a level of internal anxiety that thrives on the stress of their careers. HOWEVER, claire does it because she loves it. carmy just doesn't know how to stop.

this is what makes claire feel like "peace" to carmy——because her high-stress job is a choice, an active choice she is making because it fulfills her. it's not to prove her dead brother wrong, or to honor his own legacy, or to prove that dickbag boss wrong, or to leave a mark on the world, or to make her own life worthwhile, or to prove that she doesn't need anyone else. she genuinely enjoys helping people even when the days are stressful, or scary. he's obsessed with this. he wants to know how she does this. every day she leaves that stress at home——and he wants to learn how to do that too.

claire is VITAL to this season and to understanding carmy's stress——and how far back he is in his healing process. it should only become more and more apparent, as we see characters like tina (the beef/the bear became vital to her success/development as a chef AND person, both for the people AND her love of food), marcus (not hiding his grief, but using it to help rationalize how much his mother loved him and wanted to be surrounded by people that love him), and richie (finding a purpose through service/expo and understanding he can start over again) push through their own traumas and struggles to become better people. if donna can be not only present at sugar's bedside during labor, but WELCOMED at this point in the show, it makes carmy's inability to heal all the more present. claire is an important part of this puzzle: she helps us see a window into a world where carmy is balanced emotionally, but unbalanced professionally, because he has no idea how to make the two coexist.

however, the idea that he can be balanced emotionally at all is so fucking enticing——with the help of someone who experiences stress in the same way as him (and who is familiar with his familial trauma), he has the opportunity to grow up and move on from his family trauma and wounds perpetuated by the industry he works in.

on the flip side of this....... his inability to process any of this is starting to impact syd. and frankly, that's some bullshit. his lack of communication, inability to community build/trust ANYONE, and his violent stubbornness is pushing her into the same space that he was in under chef fields, in a much slower, more subtle manner, and for slightly different reasons. her panic attack at the end of the season could read in two directions to me: her stress over the responsibility of changing so many people's lives has boiled over once she remembered that the beef once was truly great (hey five star review on the fridge!), OR, she realizes how much she isn't in it for the food. fuck a Michelin star: she wants to cook with her family. chef terry says at the end of "forever", in the garage with carmy, that she's so grateful she got to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, where she wanted, with the people she wanted to do it with. sydney is so close to having those things at the bear——but carmy's dysfunction is keeping it just out of arms reach. the two of them are now on opposite sides of the approach from last season: syd dying for a star, and carmy dying to cook for the woman he loved. now, carmy is hungy for recognition again, desperate to prove something, and sydney is remembering (thanks to the conversation with other chefs during the ever funeral service) why she loved cooking in the first place. so this leaves us to wonder: should she stick it out? for the people? or make something of herself? is she carmy, or is she terry? i guess we will just have to see.

all this to say: every character is connected. the bear is a show about family, found and blood, and the choices we make for, with, and because of the people we love, for better or for worse. food is only the center of it, because it's the center of all of our lives. you can't hate claire without understanding where she sits in the web of the berzatto family. and really, you can't hate her if you understand what her presence means for carmy, for syd, and the restaurant as a whole.

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I don't want to sound like a bitch but the fact that a vast majority of the top posts for the bear s3 are about sydcarmy is genuinely depressing. like if the only lens you can look at a show like this through is "is my ship canon or not" I fear you've missed the point

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actually I find it so funny that they made a whole new bot named aftermath instead of actually showing the aftermath of s1

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hey does anyone feel really weird about the fact that they've introduced a new group of people that are born inherently evil and their othering is justified in-narrative in a show that up until this last batch of episodes has promoted tolerance and second chances and all that

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U know i think i coulda handled pure evil Starscream for ES if they hadn’t went so hard on redemption se1. I like Skybound Screamer, but I also like Armada Screamer too. Then building up redemption is possible and anyone could be good but then saying hes worse than Megatron (WORSE HASHTAG SAID IT) and also saying the chaos terrans literal children are broken and born evil? That’s horrible. Like not to bring the kids show card (i hate it usually) in but I genuinely think this is one of those situations you can argue this is a TERRIBLE message for the target audience.

Anon, I agree with you completely.

I don’t mind evil Starscream. Hell, TFA Starscream is one of my favorites!

But the audience was led into believing in something different in TFE S1, a different Starscream with great potential for healing.

And in S2, we receive this.

It’s heartbreaking.

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Anyway I'll be venting about earthspark so uh don't look at this thread

What the FUCK was that first episode. Maybe I'm getting cranky in my old age but this is abysmal. They started off SO STRONG with such likable human characters and now they're god awful. Also them labeling the newborn terran as immediately bad and evil and broken is very yuck

Breakdown adopting a baby was very nice tho, but i honestly think that's the only redeeming quality. So far I am NOT having a good time

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the new earthspark season 2 episodes make me so upset Why introduce so much potential in a show to fuck it all up. Why. REALLY large part of me being upset is with how starscream is being written what the fuckkkkkk WHO WROTE the plot of these new episodes WHAT HAPPENED????

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spoilers for season 2 of earthspark

YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING HATE THE MOST ABOUT THE WAY THEY WROTE THE FINALE/STARSCREAM. HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HASHTAG BEING THROWN OUT THE WINDOW. THE ONE PERSON WHO SEES HIM FOR HIS ABUSE UDNER MEGATRON. AND WHEN THAT COMES UP AGAIN IN THE FINALE , FOR THE CHANCE AT REDEMPTION.... A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON HIS CHARACTER...... IT TWISTS INTO HIM BEING. AGAIN. WRITTEN AS AN ULTIMATELY IRREDEEMABLE CHARACTER . SOMEONE WHO CAN NEVER GROW PAST THEIR ABUSER, THE CYYCLE OF ABUSE. THAT IS WHAT THE SHOW IS TELLING ME. "You're crueler than Megatron ever was" i hope to punch whoever fucking wrote that dialogue into the show

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*SIGH* Watching S2E1 and they're still going with Robby and Mo saving the world. And then Robby is like, "Yeah, the Cons helped us for a little bit, but that didn't last long. You know, since they're CONS."

Are you fucking kidding me? After how much S1 bludgeoned us to death with how ANY human that has a negative thing to say about TFs is a terrible person?!