#meta sharon

[fallout-lou-begas]

read @ikroah btw

[seahorsepencils]

Further proof that the end montage is at least partially a Ted hallucination or dream: it takes place after Ted looks at the snow globe, which is likely a reference to the ending of St. Elsewhere (i.e. where it's implied the show was actually all something an autistic kid imagined while looking in a snow globe, a.k.a. the Tommy Westphall universe).

This is not to say that the whole show is in Ted's head - only what happens from when he shakes the snow globe to when he wakes up on the plane (holding the copy of How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics). For example:

Roy becoming the football team manager. Ted is the one who wanted Roy to be a coach in the first place, and I'm not convinced Roy would want to be a manager, or at least not so soon - this seems more like Ted is imagining someone stepping into his place.

Nate and Jamie having very positively framed moments with their dads. Both of those storylines were left in a gray area; the level of positivity in those interactions seems more a representation of what Ted wants with his father. Also, if we think of Ted as a quasi-father figure for both characters, this is another replacement narrative showing how he isn't needed.

Sam playing for the Nigerian team. We know this is a goal for him, but it's likely not something that would happen so soon. And probably something that Edwin Akufo would block from happening for the next few years. But the image supports Ted's own personal decision to identify his original country as "home" and to go back.

Trent changing the title of the book. It's not the Richmond way. It's the Lasso way; and Trent knows that more than anyone, so it's very unlikely he would take Ted's suggestion and change the title in real life. This is just Ted minimizing himself and what he was able to uniquely offer the team.

Roy starting therapy with Sharon at the football club. It seems unlikely that Sharon would settle down with a job in one place, when we've been told her tendency has been to jump from job to job. (Again, this might happen eventually, but not so soon.) The function of this scene in Ted's mind would be a further stretch of Roy becoming manager - replacing Ted in his job and then beginning a similar therapy journey with Sharon. (Also, Sharon is wearing the same shirt she wore when she first met Ted.)

The Stonehenge Beard wedding. Insane for all the reasons people have suggested, and specifically, Roy as Beard's best man. Another image of Ted being replaced by Roy.

This is not to say that some of the things can't have happened - it wouldn't be the first time the show has blurred the line between fact and reality, and "Beard After Hours" did this with some very heavy blurring. The final shot in the montage calls back to that episode, with the woman who gave Beard the pants and her partner appearing as two of the wedding guests.

I think Ted wants to stay - not only is he reading a book with the title How to Change Your Mind, but he literally asked Beard if they were making the wrong decision - giving Beard a clear opening to weigh in and say they should stay. He wanted to be convinced. But Beard, in his sleep-deprived state, shifted the focus of the conversation and made it about him leaving Ted, changing the "we" into a "me." So Ted went home by himself. But he still wants to change his mind (hopefully with some psychedelics), and deep down, he has to know that he's wrong and that everyone from Richmond loves him and wants him around. Or if he doesn't, Rebecca and Diamond Dogs are gonna show up in Kansas on her private plane a year later and ask him what the hell he's doing and when he's coming back.

[tobebbanburg]

I've been re-watching Ted Lasso from the start, and I'd clean forgotten that Colin's the first player we see actively seeking out therapy and I love that for him. As much as he's (very understandbly) struggled with fear, and self-confidence, he's always powered forwards and tried to change things. He jumps at the chance to get therapy. When he notices Nate's acting off with him he sets out to try to work out why. Isaac doesn't talk to him for weeks(!?!?) and he still tries to make the first move in reaching out to him.

Idk where I'm going with this beyond "god, wish that were me", but I love that despite all his issues Colin's never shied away from short term pain for long term gains.

[thechargrey]

Nate spits on his reflection bc it is what's everyone around him has always done with his "bad" parts. His father has always told him no matter what that he's doing it's wrong. So when he sees himself being weak and scared he spits on it. He puts that part of himself in its place, telling it that it's worthless so it backs off enough he can do whatever brave thing he needs to do. He can't see to the capable parts of himself when he also sees weakness there.

But when he saw his reflection here?

He was still in this bathroom because he was scared, but he has enough confidence, is starting to know his value, that he doesn't need to put the "weak" part of himself down to pick the rest up. They can exist together because his capability is bigger than his fear.

[ghostlyheart]

I'm so tired and I need to go to bed but I just HAVE to ramble about "A Message of Art" because in one episode the Apocalypse Players have already managed to lay the groundwork for some really interesting themes about the need to perform creativity/sophistication and the thin line between art "subject" and object, especially when it comes to female agency.

Jane Harnsworth-Wright is immensely wealthy and powerful as an art dealer and carves out a place for herself in the circuit of the art world as a woman. But the control and status that affords her also makes her complicit in the objectification of other women AND highlights how she is trapped in her own way. She still needs to polish and present herself and worries what will happen when her beauty is gone. Edwina Alexander, the "piece of all pieces" as labeled by her, fully embraces the fact that her beauty can get her whatever she wants. The tension and covetousness of their relationship as art dealer and muse: "I [Jane] tuck a finger under Edwina's chin as if I'm examining a piece of art. And I think in that moment all of you realize, I buy what I want" (🤨❓️🏳️‍🌈). Edwina is "delectable." Yet they also have this practical alliance because they both understand exactly how this whole scene functions. Jane says, "I feel like you'll be my best friend at this party from this point forward." Later, Edwina remarks, "I think [Jane] can be helpful to me, weirdly, so I want to keep you a little bit close." They can be honest with each other and talk about what "beauty" really means in this context. Jane has a very pragmatic view of how the salon works, seeing it as more transactional than a celebration of culture: "Do you want to be an artist, or do you want to be the subject of artists, or do you want to buy art? And there's nothing else to be found here. Which is it, darling?" Edwina resists this classification and coming into the salon with her own agenda: "I'm interested in people and where they're from and what life's all about really... so, subject of art, what do you mean by that, Jane?" Her beauty is a tool that gets her in the door but she doesn't identify as a muse even though everyone sees her that way.

Not to mention the tiny glimpse of what's going on with Bathsheba. "LaRouche...is looking around to sort see if anyone else is looking at her, in a way that someone might he showing something off, like how you, Clovis, might be showing off one of your paintings." Bathsheba's beauty making her a threat to Edwina because women are treated like accessories and aesthetic accents to the environment. Not to mention how homoerotic this entire situation is

[softlyapocalytpic]

Character Analysis of Fallout Companions

Perhaps I’m outing my self as cringe here, but I have a draft to do with Homestuck God Tiers??? So I thought about trying my hand at it again. I actually used to have a pretty moderately successful analysis blog back in the day but its been. some time. since I seriously classpected. So any Homestuck fans dont come for me, I’m a little rusty.

Doing characters from 3, NV, and 4! I’m not doing everyone as there are some characters I don’t feel like I know well enough to give one to, or just didn’t have any good matchups into a god tier. This is a 100% me metaing about the characters through the lens of Homestuck godtiers. You can check the tags to see if a character made it in! Also, if you want somebody in specific, please do send an ask! I’d be willing to do it <3 (I’d be open to doing OC’s but I’d probs have to an extensive interview haha. Oh nooo, not a reason to info dump about you’re characters to an interested party that wants to meta about them <3) And if anyone is curious about what all this homestuck jargon means please do send an ask and I’ll be happy to explain in fuller detail.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is a story of sacrifice, duty, responsibility, and a story of selflessness vs selfishness. It’s within the karma system, it’s within the dichotomy of choices, and the kind of companions you can bring with you. Star Paladin Cross is the picture of lawfulness, duty, and responsibility and she admires James and Catherine who were selfless and self-sacrificial. Vs the selfishness and cruelty of a lot of the characters we meet; Burke, Jericho, Moriarty etc. Also I’ve cheated on this one, the only companion we have is Butch, I’m so sorry. Take Amata and Moira as my apology.

Butch

He’s a shit talking bully, he’s a rebel without a cause, he’s a smooth talker hiding behind coping mechanisms that he made to help him survive. He doesn’t give a shit about whats strictly “right” or “wrong”, but his own ideals that he’s decided to live by. That’s what he’s true to, and he wants to disturb the status quo. He’s the aspect of Rage, baby, in the best ways possible. Rage players aren’t just destruction incarnate, they’re the people who would rather live in anarchy than live in a broken system. I love Rage for Butch because I think he shows the best and worse sides of it depending on how you want to frame him. As for his class, totally thief. Cocky, but hiding insecurities. Skilled at manipulating his aspect, at pushing people’s buttons to get what he wants, and using conflict to bond with the people around him. Also Thieves end up in positions of leadership often for their charisma, and while they may begin as bullies they often change and develop over time.

Final Diagnosis: Thief of Rage - Yeah! I kinda said it in the main paragraph, but I think to connect back to what I wrote in the beginning... I think that while Fallout 3 the game might kinda condemn Butch for who he is, he is neutral! Not Evil, not good, and I think that speaks to something even if they didn’t think about very deeply. Butch represents himself, but he’s not necessarily cold-hearted, especially within my own interpretation. I think he does lean towards the selfish/bad karma end as far as how Fallout 3 views his character, but I think ultimately his archetype is that of a trickster which makes Thief of Rage a great fit. He’s here to cause some chaos!

Amata

Amata, as a character, is thematically, emotionally, and morally in opposition to Butch as a character (I don’t think their godtiers reflect that however). She’s the daughter of the Overseer, and that comes with a responsibility that struggles with but ultimately accepts on her own terms. She’s responsible and duty bound to the tasks set in front of her, and will work within side and bend the system that she lives in until she gains the power to change it. She’ll break the rules to save her closest and oldest friend, but in the face of leadership she chooses that over her own personal emotional bonds. It’s her own form of self sacrifice that I think is alluded to being the best option for the vault even though it’s at the cost of the Lone Wanderer. That is all to say, she’s a Blood player. Her class? Mage, I think. The Mage has a deep personal understanding of their aspect through personal experience. It means that they suffer for that understanding, but ultimately come out wiser and more experienced than those around them.

Final Diagnosis: Mage of Blood - Amata carries her burdens with her, her promises, her bonds, and even in the face of them being burdensome, flawed, and broken she chooses to understand them. To stay and make something more out of it. She loves her father, she doesn’t want him to die, and she cares about the LW, but she knows that the vault would be just as bad for them as they are for the vault. She knows what it’s like to make personal sacrifices for the greater goods, but she rebels in little ways because she won’t be caged by it.

Moira

When I think about Moira there’s one line in particular that stands out to me: “ Well, the world broke just like glass. And everyone's trying to put it back together like it was, but it'll never come together the same way.” I adore Moira. For me, she’s the most heartfelt character of Fallout 3, the one that felt like that the writers created with soul, and that line is seals it for me. And in this way, most definitely Moira is the aspect of the Space, from quirky experiments, to the way she recycles the old and lets go of the old, as well as being intensely creative. That leaves her class which I’m very honestly unsure about. Moira does have big Jade vibes, but I think that as much as she’s the wacky scientist the biggest act she commits in the games is the Wasteland Survival Guide. Pursuit of knowledge, of understanding of the world, to help others survive. Trying to reform the Wasteland into a new mosaic after the world shattered, that tells me that she’s a healer, a guide. So, I think I’ll nominate her with Sylph, if only for the idea of putting the wasteland back together.

Final Diagnosis: Sylph of Space - While I’m not super sold on her class I really love Space for Moira. I think its a perfect fit and I like how it ties into her story. Moira represents healing for the Wasteland and a step towards not just surviving, but building something new and more beautiful.

Fallout: New Vegas

So the funny thing about all of the companions is that they have similar core themes because its the core themes to the games. New Vegas is just deliciously written that way. Will they dwell in the past, or begin again? That lends itself to the ideas of hope, growth, change, new beginnings, etc. when they choose to begin again, and themes of cynicism, “old world blues”, violence, and stagnation/inability to move on from trauma and grief when they choose to stay in the past. (Although, hey, I do KINDA think Cass’s more violent route is better than the diplomacy one. Fuck the Van Graffs my dude. She had the right of it.)

Which makes analyzing them for individual god tiers difficult even if it makes them well written lmao. I think with these four I tried to focus on the differences in how they approach these scenarios to inform their godtiers.

Arcade

Arcade has some healing imagery off the bat in the medical sense of the word, as well as knowledge for his research role with the Followers of the Apocalypse. In my mind, Arcade is thematically Veronica in a decade from now. He has some important differences, but their stories really have a lot of connective tissue especially in comparison to the other companions in this game. It’s that Enclave-Brotherhood parallels baby. However,  he’s been burned, lived a life of constant paranoia and lost connections, and it’s made him close-off. Bitter. He has so many ideals and dreams for a better world, and he wants to fight for them, but gets stuck. I think in this way he’s definitely a Life Player whose finally getting to strut his stuff after years of not being able to. As for his class, that’s a lot harder! He’s got the vibes for a few different ones, but I think that he definitely falls into a Passive class for me. I also would really love to put him as a Sylph if only to parallel Veronica so they could be a Passive/Active duo, but I think that he’s actually a Seer. He’s watched the world, seen it, understands it, and struggles to find a way to effect. He sees himself in Virgil. He feels like the guide that others go to in order to seek understanding, but he’s grappling with how to change the world as well. I think about his Independent Vegas end card, about how it wasn’t what he thought it was, but I think in the end that is a minor setback to the journey he hopes to help cultivate in the Wasteland afterwards.

Final Diagnosis: Seer of Life - He sees raw potential, what the world could grow to be, and its a double-edged sword. On one hand, it means that he has a more hopeful vision for the world, on the other

Veronica

Originally, I thought she was dead on for being a Life player, but in actuality I think that Time is better suited for her. Veronica Fixes things things. Her imagery is mechanical based. She gets stuck in the past being surrounded by the BoS and is desperately trying to lead them in to the future. She’s a fighter. She wants to heal the world, but she’s doing that though her tools, her technology, and her fists. I love the imagery of her surrounded by the current of electricity, or ticking clocks, and the fact that she has end card that points out that she fixes and solves things for people in the background. She loves solving a problem by punching it, but she’s a compassionate person. She wants to make people care. But as much as she’s a fighter she’s forced into the sidelines and forced into never making change, unable to Fix or heal. She’s overlooked, underappreciated, and is a sturdy moral backbone for people that send her away to get supplies. To take care of things out of the way. So I believe that makes her a perfect fit for Sylph! Sylph’s have to learn how to trust in themselves and to embrace their own paths. She wants to help people that aren’t willing to help themselves, and for many Sylphs their story leads them to realizing that they can’t help everyone, or they shouldn’t be burdened with that responsibility.

Final Diagnosis: Sylph of Time - Veronica needs to make a choice: to get stuck in the past trying to save whatever she can of people who refuse to change, or to leave them behind and move on so that way she can effect the change she wants to see in the world. I always left incredibly dissatisfied by her end card in the latter ending as I refuse to believe that Veronica would just... give up. But I think it takes time to heal, to realize that the BoS can’t chase her to ends of the earth, and in my canon she ends up in the FotA.

Boone

Honestly, off the bat, he reeks of being a Doom player. He literally goes around walking thinking that maybe this time his number will be up only to forced to keep on going. He’s angry, cynical, and feels (and is sometimes) like he’s at the whims of fate and other systems bigger than himself. Yet, I think this makes him able to have a large well of understanding and a kind of emotional intelligence for the people around him that suffer similarly. If Life players are here to give you a pep talk, Doom players are here to sit with you in the shit. I think one could make an arguement for a disaffected Time player, but a lot Boone’s will to fight comes less from a cause to fight for and more because of self-destruction, an attempt at a kind of “redemption” (not that he believes he will ever or even can achieve that), and hatred for what the Legion in specific did to him. It’s not that he wouldn’t hate them otherwise, but it’s a personal hatred rather than something that comes solely from his own morals. I think that’s because a lot of Boone’s ideals are informed by the system that shaped him, and made him into a perfect soldier that just listened to orders and absorbed whatever they wanted him to believe, and now he’s (subconsciously) in a search for individuality and purpose. As far as his class, easy, Heir. Heirs are often controlled by their aspect by virtue of it being channeled through them. This fits in perfectly to his background as a solider being the perfect vessel for discipline, rules, and etc that he eventually learns to question.

Final Diagnosis: Heir of Doom - I think I explained it all pretty well in the above, but I think as a final note: Heirs are often under the influence or leadership of someone else as they look to others, but I think they all most have a moment of breaking away. Of self definition, or else they feel out of control of their life and at the whims of others. I feel like this fits Boone.

Cass

She’s a tough nut to crack. I don’t think she translates incredibly well into homestuck classpecting, however if I had to choose an aspect for her it’d be Blood. I considered Rage, but based on the official Extended Zodiac website there was a pivotal difference that helped me with the decision: Rage players will burn everything down, but Blood players will stay stubbornly on sinking ship. I think that Cass’s want to take down the Van Graffs and Alice McLafferty can be read as her burning down the old because she values the truth more, but we meet her stuck in the Mojave Outpost refusing to sell even when she has nothing less. Cass is oddly loyal for someone who has spent most her life walking from place to place with connections. Despite knowing the flaws of the NCR she sticks with it because she believes it’s the best answer into the anarchy of the Wasteland, and that’s an important difference. Rage players would rather live in anarchy than in a broken system, but Cass isn’t like that. For all her Rage, she values the sentimentality of the caravans and how it’s her last connection to her father. The NCR is home no matter how badly they fuck up so she’s here for the long run. So where does that leave her class? I honestly can’t say, but if I had to throw a dart I’d pick Thief. It enables her to stay true to the aspect of blood while still being able to have a more destructive side that would reflect Cass’s proclivity for righteous outrage. I think, as well, as the Thief is a manipulator, it reflects Cass manipulating the system in order to dispense justice in order to get her revenge in the diplomacy route. She also has no issues with moral ambiguity. The ends often justify the means.

Final Diagnosis: Thief of Blood - I think I covered it pretty well, but TLDR, Blood represents her loyalty to her connections as well as her stubborness that prevents her from hopping from a sinking ship. Thief represents her willingness to bend the rules and manipulate things in order to exact her revenge. Also her cockiness/confidence lmao.

Fallout 4

So I fucking struggled with Fallout 4. It has a shit ton of themes going on for it’s characters, and I think only one was easy. Fallout 4 talks about a lot; the themes synths bring up the most is the nature of identity and soul, but they bring up so many questions from that. When has science gone to far? What are you willing to sacrifice in the name of progress? Blind faith vs being critical of everything around you. Paranoia, trust. Freedom. Is there any place to stand morally within a broken world? It asks, a lot of questions, which I have my own answers to, but it makes analyzing the companions to distill their stories complicated especially when not all of them speak to core thesis of identity. (These frustrations very much come from a place of love, dw.)

Piper

Piper is an innately compassionate person, but she seeks truth above all else, and that ends up pushing the people she cares about away from her. It alienates her, and sometimes she doesn’t realize that the Truth can be harmful in the way she spins it. She’s quite a good fit for Light player, although a much sweeter one than the ones we get in Homestuck canon. Light players seek out knowledge at all costs, which often puts a bad taste in people’s mouths. Light players are know-it-all’s by nature, and believe that it’s important to be informed about everything for the sake of being informed. They shine light on people’s lives, and because of that, often shine light on places that people didn’t want to be seen. Piper’s class, Witch, allows her to manipulate information; a power that is incredibly powerful and could have catastrophic implications if not wielded carefully. I think this a perfect way to reflect the impact of the Publick Occurrences- it has the power to shape the perceptions of the wasteland, and she had a long learning process with that power. Witches are also rebels! That rebel against the status quo of their aspect and are generally the more positive and peppy of the classes by nature. Piper doesn’t go with the flow, she follows her own path, come hell or high water.

Final Diagnosis: Witch of Light - Piper is a good person at her heart, and a lot of Witches are, but they came with the old adage: “With great power comes great responsibility”. I think Piper really did love the attention that came with the paper, and valued the trust of the people around her, but didn’t realize that digging into people’s crap wasn’t going to make her loved. She’s nosy, opinionated, and ends up pushing people away in her pursuit of her highest value: the truth.

Danse

Oh Danse. I had, so much trouble nailing him down. I debated a lot because his story has themes of personal identity (Heart), strong convictions and faith (Hope), and despite how empathetic he can be to his allies, he doesn’t extend that to the rest of the world. In fact, thanks to the BoS, he has a lot of violent hatred. BUUUT, it’s hilarious how obvious it was in the end. Danse seeks out bonds. His story begins with a close friendship, one that defines him. The BoS gives him a community he desperately wants and needs which then informs everything about him. He’s a leader, and a good one at that. He’s empathetic and reliable at his best, and stubborn and narrow-minded at his worse. His bonds make him blind to the hypocrisies and flaws, and his loyalty makes him easy to manipulate. He’s easily a Blood player, and one that is pretty far a long his journey, but it’s his class that really informs why he’s unable to grow. Heirs have a hard time knowing when to move on, when to let go, and when paired with the stubborn Blood aspect it makes for a very loyal and very stuck in their ways person. Heirs are very naturally inclined to their aspect, and have a lot of power because of it, which I think lines up with a tough beefy boy given that Blood is connected to the flesh as well. I really wanted to give him Knight because I thought it’d be cute, but he doesn’t fit the bill. ;;

Final Diagnosis: Heir of Blood - I think there’s something very telling that two of the soldier characters have ended up as Heirs. Heirs are powerful/skilled, but get taken advantage for that very purpose as they’re kind of like vessels for their aspect. As the vessel of Bonds, Danse is primed to let the things he attaches himself to blind and manipulate him, despite how much he prizes critical thinking and independent thought within his own troops. And then it’s no wonder, when everything he’s ever bonded to is ripped away from him and he’s revealed to be the very being he’s sworn to kill, that he falls apart and spirals out of control. Even then, even when he runs because he’s scared, he’s willing to die for his cause without intervention. He’ll go down with the ship.

Hancock

Hancock is an inspiring leader that leads by example- he’s not holding people to expectations he wouldn’t ask of himself first. When he feels like he might be getting out of touch, that leadership might be going to head, his answer is to do travel and explore. To see the world again so way he knows what it’s like to be a follower. Even if he’s loyal to his community, he doesn’t commit to sinking ships. If Diamond City is gonna be some bigoted assholes, then he dips. He’s not attached to even his own identity, carving out a new one when the old one no longer speaks to his values. He’s cocky, confident, charismatic, and has no issue getting his hands dirty to rid the Commonwealth of shitty elements. He supports synths and the Railroad, but won’t be held down to their cause, preferring the more fluid position of someone who can turn the blind eye the RR needs to operate. All of this, however, hides someone with a deep sense of self-loathing. Before John Hancock let John McDonough die he floated with no anchors, he wasn’t someone he admired, and that person didn’t get to just disappear. He’s an easy mark for the aspect of Breath, and I think that the confident yet secretly self-loathing Thief is another great fit.

Final Diagnosis: Thief of Breath - I think at the core of Hancock’s identity is Freedom, freedom to live one’s own life and decide who and what they are for themselves. It’s why he aligns with the Railroad, but as much as he adopts of a new identity I think it was to be someone he could be proud of being. An identity to allow him the freedom to be a leader, a hero of the people, because he felt that John McDonough wasn’t that. So he quite literally stole a representation of freedom in the US for himself. I think there’s also something really poetic about how Thieves are often seen as selfish, but Hancock really isn’t. His aspect counteracts that as it would go against his beliefs to violate someone else’s freedom.

Nick Valentine

Nick’s story is entirely about nature of his identity; whether or not he’s even real or has a right to exist. He’s so clearly a Heart player which fits right at home with his neon side and aesthetic, there’s even a connection between hats and the soul in Homestuck, it’s perfect. Heart Players are regarded as self-absorbed in the analysis community (and I guess canon), but I don’t think that necessarily true across the board. There’s a difference between being self-absorbed and being fascinated by, or toiling with, the nature of one’s identity and soul. People who have a strong sense of internal self often use that to connect with other people, and help others reveal things about themselves they didn’t know. This is where Nick falls for me. He’s an intensely compassionate person who connects with other people and cares deeply about the world. There’s also the fact that Heart often has the “splintering” of the self, and Nick is quite literally that, a splinter self from the OG Nicky Valentine. As for his class, I’d say that he’s a Mage! Nick has suffered because of his identity, he was kind of “born” from it. The snapshot of OG Nicky was taken from a time where he’d just lost an important romantic relationship, and then our Nick woke up in the trash. Before that, he was forced through different iterations of personalities that didn’t stick. Nick’s internal turmoil doesn’t come from a place of insecurity, but of deep personal suffering that has given incredibly wisdom, compassion, and understanding. This is all textbook Mage, especially for one of the Heart.

Final Diagnosis: Mage of Heart - I think I really said it all, but Nick really is a great example of a well-developed Mage of Heart, and I love that within Homestuck Canon he’d classified as a splinter made real. I think it really fits thematically for him. Nick is really our quintessential exploration of the theme of identity and soul within Fallout 4, and so I think that Heart is a great match up for him.

And that’s it! I wrote a lot about X6 and Deacon who unfortunately didn’t get through the final cut because I couldn’t come to a good conclusion for them. Generally speaking, I think that Knight of Mind could work for X6 but my meta felt really incomplete and repetitive. Deacon fucking ALLUDES ME. I know all his potentials, but I can’t find a good match up that really nails him down, so I’m putting him to the side for now. As for the rest of the companions who didn’t get written about, if I didn’t mention them it’s because I just didn’t feel like I could come up with something for them. I would love to do Preston in the future, maybe try something for Raul, and Mac as well.

(Rip Cait & Curie but I almost never traveled with them. Same goes for Gage & Old Longfellow.)

Maybe I could explore more standard NPC’s in the future? idk lmao.

I wrote New Vegas first and 4 last and I think you can see me gradually get into the swing of things. I really wanted to do more, but I think I’ll just have to make a follow up post with people I missed. I’m not fully satisfied on all my picks, but I think to ever get this out of my drafts I’ll just have to live with that.

Anyway! I hope anyone who is in this same niche as me enjoys this, I definitely haven’t been in the Homestuck community in years, and in all reality won’t actually ever return to it, but it was really fun to do this.

<3 Thanks for reading.

[ughhhdavid]

Don't mind me I'm just thinking about how Ted immediately starts apologizing after talking about his trauma...

[crash476]

Conspiracies and the Problem of Peggy Carter

I bounced really hard off the Captain Carter version of Peggy Carter. For me, it felt like the triumph of her style over any quality she had as a character. I’ve spoken about this before, but I think giving Peggy dementia robbed her of her voice, unable to speak to her past, and thus providing a blank canvas for the writer and audience to use with as they will.

My biggest critique of Peggy’s fans have been this sense that they love her aesthetic and the platitudes over the substance of the character. She became 2010s girlboss. The Agent Carter series did provide the potential to further explore her as a character. It could give her a past pre-dating Steve, show the history of SHIELD, show her as a leader, and delve into the moral complexities of the MCU intelligence side. But that never happened. The show was canceled after two seasons and all we had left was a very marketable aesthetic.

We have some vague notions of what she did during her time as director of SHIELD, but nothing substantial. Then Endgame happened, Chris Evans left for other projects, and the Russos, Markus and McFeely seemed to have scrambled for a way to write out Steve. Steve’s exit seemed like an afterthought at best. As a consequence, whatever lore Peggy had in the main MCU timeline got completely thrown out. This is because Steve Rogers is a heroic paragon and his designated love interest must be above reproach. She is little more than a sexy lamp and when Captain Carter got attention in the What If... series, well she’s even more marketable now! 

The thing that gets me about Peggy’s haters is the level of reaching done to justify their dislike. I’ll get to some of my critiques on how Disney/Marvel Studios handle the espionage side of the MCU (not well). But stay with me here. I need to do some comic book history. 

The MCU Peggy Carter is an amalgamation of a number of love interests Steve’s had over his publication run. Earth-616 Peggy is a retcon love interest. She was introduced in 1966 after Steve’s book was essentially rebooted. Captain America was popular during WWII, but the initial post-war years weren’t kind to superhero comics. Atlas Comics (who later rebranded as Marvel Comics in 1961) tried to rebrand Steve from a Nazi puncher to a Commie smasher that went over like a lead balloon. His book was canceled in 1954 and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby revived Steve in 1964. They came up with the “on ice” backstory we saw in the TFA. The 50s Cap was explained as having been a succession of other characters acting as Steve, such as Jeffrey Mace (Patriot), William Naslund (Spirit of ‘76), and most infamously by William Burnside. 

Anyway, during the 50s, Bucky got shot and was replaced by Steve’s then girlfriend, Betsy Ross (then known as Betty and later goes by the code names Agent 13 and Golden Girl). She is THE original love interest and first appeared in Captain America Comics #1, published in December 1940, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. She basically did everything in the 40s comics that Peggy in the 60s (and the MCU by extension) was said to have done. The reason you’ve never heard of her is because of Betty Ross Banner - The Hulk’s main love interest. 40s Betsy got retconned into a relationship with Jeffrey Mace (one of the guys who was a retconned 50s Cap) and now lives in a retirement home.

Sharon and Peggy Carter get introduced in 1966. Sharon’s got a complicated story that we don’t have time to unpack so I’ll just say, Sharon is messy and that’s good. I think it’s good that she’s the Power Broker. Steve later dated glass-blower turned lawyer Bernie Rosenthal, who was introduced in 1980. He’s had an on/off relationship with former villainess Rachel Leighton, aka Diamondback (who was introduced in 1985). And there were romances with fellow super heroines like The Black Widow, Wasp, Rogue, and The Scarlet Witch.

Now we move onto the conspiracy theory Peggy Carter haters adore: Cynthia Glass. 

Cynthia “Cindy” Glass was created in 1991 by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguir for The Adventures of Captain America #1 - #4. She had four total appearances before she was killed. There was apparently a guid book for the MCU where she was mentioned as an inspiration for MCU Peggy, but I’d like to see those receipts before I make a call on the veracity of the claim. But I can see why the Peggy haters claim her as the true inspiration of MCU Peggy. Cynthia kind of looks like Hayley Atwell (if you squint) and is revealed to be a Nazi double agent who gets shot. 

Look, if you don’t like a character (and maybe their actor, too), it’s fine. Just don’t fuck with them and move on, don’t make up shit about a character being a secret Nazi when there’s no actual proof. And don’t say that Cynthia Glass was Cap’s first love when she was a clear retcon that completely contradicts previously established canon regarding Betsy Ross and Peggy Carter. Especially when anyone can look up the publication history. At most MCU Peggy kind of looks like Cynthia and met Steve just before he got the serum. The decision to keep Atwell’s brown hair could easily have come down to “she looks better as a brunette.” Film production decisions are often not that deep. 

Peggy Carter was probably the most convenient love interest to adapt for TFA. She doesn’t have Betsy’s name problem. Sharon needs to be established as being Peggy’s niece to explain why they look so similar. You need to justify a face-turn for Rachel. And the only people who know about Cynthia Glass are those who read the original limited run she was in during the early 90s as it looks like it wasn’t collected into a trade paperback until 2018. Again, film production devisions are not often not that deep.

So now we get to my critiques of how Disney/Marvel Studios have handled Peggy and just the spy genre in general. Spy fiction can vary wildly in terms of tone and just how heroic the protagonist is, but generally the genre leans towards a cynical world view. This is fueled by the author’s own politics, and by their own experiences if they worked in intelligence themselves (ie: John le Carré and Graham Greene). The genre also borrows heavily from hardboiled detectives (think the works of Raymond Chandler) and film noir. In any case, the protagonist is, at best, an anti-hero and sometimes a terrible one. The nature of intelligence work requires moral compromises, both in and out of fiction. If you actually look into how that world operates, it’s honestly more like organized crime backed by a nation’s treasury and given the fig leaf of respectability because you’re “fighting for a cause.” 

This runs headlong into the MCU retcons when it comes to Peggy. By making SHIELD older than originally implied and putting Peggy in charge during the early days, she now has a fuck ton of skeletons in her closet. The problem is that Disney will never produce anything that is critical of the US government or could be as cynical as the spy genre demands. Yes, there was Agents of SHIELD, but that show (and I say this with love) has more in common with NCIS than The Sandbaggers or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Disney is too scared of biting the hand that feeds. They’re scared of getting cut off from Pentagon money. This is Disney’s lone fear, and it shows how toothless The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was. They just come up to the edge of valid critic, actually showing how the empire works.

Bringing this back to the problem Peggy, because the Russos, Markus and McFeely needed her to be morally pure so she could be Steve’s perfect love interest. She can’t have a past, red on her ledger, or anything that puts her into a compromised position. It’s probably why Steve goes back to 1949 and gets with Peggy before SHIELD really starts. That way, Peggy hasn’t done anything wrong. The audience is asked to forget about Zola and the HYDRA infiltration (though it’s never explained what she knew when). The Bucky situation is a bit different, and the Cynthia Glass conspiracy requires you to forget that in universe the Winter Soldier is treated as an urban legend within the intelligence community. Natasha brings up in TWS that no one can agree if he’s real. Given the few crumbs we have on Peggy’s tenure as director of SHIELD, the most I’m willing to say is that she might have know that the Winter Soldier was real. But with hindsight, I think the HYDRA infiltration was pulled off badly. 

Like if I had my way, the Peggy Steve meets after he’s unfrozen would be played by an older actress like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, or the late Diana Rigg. That way she can speak for herself in the present. If I had my way, Agent Carter would have lasted longer and Peggy would have become something along the lines of DC’s Amanda Waller mixed with Dench’s M with a dash of George Smiley’s moral grounding. We could get a more accurate understanding of Peggy and SHIELD and even if you still don’t like her, she’s still a character with actual depth. And maybe Captain Carter would just be a fun “what if...” and not a free mulligan. 

Cause it really feels like Disney wants to wipe the slate clean and rewrite Peggy as a morally uncomplicated heroine who can be Steve’s un-problematic girlfriend.

[time-is-restored]

more whinging bc i got negative hours of sleep last night and i need to stay awake somehow lol

cw: discussions of misogyny + abuse

god the more i think abt it the more exhausted i get by the gender politics of ted lasso.

like god i do genuinely think that rebecca's arc in s1 is one of the best depictions of a mean + cruel woman ive ever seen on TV specifically bc it manages to thread the needle so well? like they never tilt her balance too much and doom her to being either totally fucked up + evil OR totally soft and sweet and harmless. and ted's 'divorce makes u crazy' response to her apology STILL makes me crazy wrt the sheer. understanding and empathy there, and she's just. given so much more depth than ive come to expect, especially for an ensemble cast sitcom w a (then) p short run time.

but my fucking god. we literally don't learn a fucking thing about michelle. im pretty sure the one (1) concrete thing we know about her comes in the fucking finale, and it's that she's a teacher for... something. the two most important people in ted's life and we don't know anything abt them! they're literally just empty symbols representing the importance of Family™, and that vacancy does nothing but weigh ted's storyline down!

like, i liked michelle's episode/storyline in s1, bc the blinding novelty of a woman instigating a divorce not being the Actual Devil, as well as a just. generally very empathetic + nuanced take on how divorce shakes out between two ppl who really care for each other, was so 'WAIT TV CAN DO THIS??' that i felt satisfied with that being Her Arc™. divorce happens, life happens, people fall out of love, and it hurts but its ultimately okay. the show, at the time, was ultimately abt a football club and how caring abt that football club helped everyone around it.

but then the show sticks around, and her continued absence just... raises a lot of questions? how did the conversation abt ted going overseas happen? what conversations did they have abt henry? how long term was it intended to be? did money really not factor into it all? like it's one thing for a character's backstory to be vague when it's not really the focus of attention (s1 was ultimately rebecca's story before anyone else's), but when it's the load bearing stone of their '''''''arc''''''' in s3...????

like. god. and then it fucking infects every other woman on the show!

sassy + nora? well sure we'll give you a softball - you can have one (1) scene where a woman is able to resolutely and firmly reject a man asking her out without immediately being seen as cruel or gameplayey (not that the audience will see it that way! she's already a lecherous temptress for them!), but neither of them will ever be able to speak to rebecca onscreen again, even after the heart-wrenching scenes in s1 CLEARLY establishing them as a beating heart of rebecca's arc.

shandy? nope, don't even think abt her motivations/drives, just forget her. simi? LMAOOO imagine a black woman getting a personality beyond righteous anger. jack? three-four episodes, and we learn so little abt her that her conflict with keeley - which SHOULD'VE have been a huge emotional beat - just feels like a kick in the teeth (and while, yes, i absolutely agree that in a real world context, jack's rejection of keeley would be largely motivated by class, in Ted Lasso Land™ rebecca is just as rich - if not richer? - and we're never once encouraged to interrogate her priorities).

barbara's the one that really makes me miserable, bc i feel like on a show with less run time, she could've played REALLY well. she's a great contrast to keeley, has an amazing delivery, and the scene where keeley + her first discuss the snowglobes shows that she has the potential for some really moving vulnerability + pathos. but instead they give SO many of keeley's scenes to characters who ultimately get written out, so when barbara stays it's like... okay? sure? like, i was so stoked that barbara survived the Mass Exodus of side characters that i didn't wanna look the gift horse in the mouth but... wasn't the last thing we saw of her and keeley's relationship like. general resentment + distrust abt the shandy debacle? when did that improve? how???

i don't think i'll ever have enough mental real estate to explain how disappointed keeley + rebecca's 'arcs' in s3 made me, and at least there's the saving grace that. virtually no one other than jamie got a coherent arc this season, so at least it was on some levels an egalitarian screw up. but fuck dude. keeley was just forced to react to bad things that were happening to her, and we got to see her do her job (which, unbelievably, does actually involve things other than being an awkward manager!) precisely one (1) time.

i even like rebecca's arc on paper - i think it's really cool to see a character backslide so intensely in terms of obsessing over and struggling to come to terms w a past relationship, especially an abusive one, bc like. yeah! that shit sticks with you for longer than a season! and beyond that, seeing her regain her sense of self and what SHE actually gives a shit about was oftentimes just as sweet as s1. but her scenes were poorly connected, and she had to carry WAY too much of a burden as the Resident Speech Giver for any of her internal characterisation to make sense. like, sorry, but it's kind of hard to believe a character's Going Through It™ when they have to spent near 100% of their screen time giving Take It From Me, Kid, speeches. and then she's not even given a real opportunity TO fuck up + sabotage her relationships, even when she starts getting really weird w ted! it's all just so meaningless and like nothing that she does is ever going to matter. she never speaks to zava again, we don't get to see her interact w bex or kate, her pleas to ted get COMPLETELY shut down...

but the thing that REALLY makes me sick is this complete lack of interiority absolutely butchers the characters of jade + jane, who are otherwise RIFE with potential. like, jade is a completely unflinching, unapologetic asshole to nate + his family, and that's never interrogated. even in Sitcom Land™, it's more than reasonable to view jade's actions as racist, especially when she doesn't give the same treatment to others (at least not as i recall? honestly i usually watch the taste of athens scenes while peeking out behind my hands, so i could 100% be wrong here). and yet, suddenly, and completely inexplicably, she's charmed by nate. she wants to give him the time of day. she finds him attractive, and wants to date him, and generally take control of his life and force him into a decision that is literally the exact opposite of what he expressed wanting to do. except even that LAST thing isn't allowed to be interrogated, bc god FORBID a woman is enough of a fully realised creation to actually be culpable of the terrible shit they do!

and fucking jane??? beard's so head-over-heels for this woman that the emotional abuse + extremely controlling tendencies don't even make him bat an eye, and we don't get to know anything about her? she's literally just the suggestion of an alluring woman! good at sex! good at chess! fuck you if you wanna know more, even though the show ENDLESSLY hits you over the head with how painful their relationship is for beard - beard who is given virtually no other storyline. like, i literally can't read brendan's refusal to label jane as abusive as anything other than like. that bio-essentialism shit where ppl 'women are better than men <3' so hard that they end up genuinely and wholeheartedly arguing that someone's sex defines their morals - or worse, that their sex is a deciding factor in determining whether someone's actions are good or bad. not context, but a legitimate 'add points if woman, take away points if man' variable.

like that's so feminism 101 it's legitimately almost worse than nothing. that's like getting as far as 'hey so you know how we're all inundated with both implicit + explicit messaging abt what is Valued and Good for women vs men to-' before shoving ur earplugs in and going 'if you are oppressed by society we'll automatically stamp a 'good person' label on ur head and now we don't have to think abt any of our biases + internalised beliefs ever again <333'. the most useless and fucking pointless stand against the patriarchy ever, especially coming from the same show that ENDLESSLY slots characters into the 'loving gf/wife' archetype and then give them Literally Nothing Else. my comrades you have literally just done madonna/whore 2: oops all madonnas! this is not liberation!!!! this is a miserable cage!!!!!!!!!

im just. higgins' wife. mae. trent's daughter and anonymous 'her'. the women at the hotel and the restaurants and the firm and the fucking physios, fuck - dani's gfs! who are they? what do they want? where do they go when the camera stops rolling? can anyone hear me?? hello??? hello???? brendan hunt i am OUTSIDE YOUR HOUUUUUUSE

[ohdeargodwhy]

Bill Lawrence said both Trent AND Dr. Sharon will have "significant roles" this season but we've only had one phone call with Dr Sharon in ep 1. WHERE IS SHE???? Is she gonna have a much bigger role in the next 4 episodes? Or was her big role only true before all the rewrites/reshoots

I've sensed a big ted mental health arc coming this series but its not appeared yet. Also, considering ted's comment about rugby guys mud-caked muscled thighs, maybe we'll get ted talking to sharon about his bisexuality??

[buckys-metal-arm]

Kes's MCU Rewrites and Headcanons

Since I've made a few now, I wanted to make a compiled list of the "scenes that didn't happen but are canon in my heart" and "I will take a hammer and I will FIX the MCU" posts I've made because some of them kinda slap imo. I've linked the ones I have so far here but they'll also be under the tag #kes Rewrites the MCU for future reference!! You're more than welcome to use these for fics/art, no need to credit or anything, all I ask is you send me the link because I would love to see what you create!!

UPDATE: I now have 2 tags on here, one for Headcanons and one for actual meta! The Headcanons is just #kes's Headcanons, the meta one is still #kes rewrites the MCU. The Headcanons one is for things more based in speculation and my own personal whimsy where the other one is for things actually based in MCU Meta.

((they're very Bucky-related because I have a brand and I stick to it))

Meta/fixing or adding things (#kes rewrites the MCU):

On Changing the ending of FATWS/who the Powerbroker is revealed to be

On Flerken!Alpine

On Bucky's hair in FATWS

On Bucky/TWS's storyline in What If Episode 2x02

Headcanons (#kes's Headcanons):

On Bucky being friends with the Space Dwelling Heroes

On Carol and Sam being buddies

On Bucky's body temperature and how his body feels

On Bucky and Legos

On Bucky, and Zola's Algorithm

On Bucky making money in Romania

On Bucky and That Scene™️ in Wakanda in FATWS

On Bucky's Modern Music taste

Musing about Bucky's hair again

[fallout-lou-begas]

How do you write Cass? Like my god your version of her is so fucking good

Cass is a woman approaching 40 years old who has had to prove herself as capable from the second her deadbeat piece of shit father walked out. the consequence of this abandonment is that she is very intolerant of indignity. she will not be condescended to, she will not be intimidated, and she will gladly force anybody who talks a talk into proving whether or not they can walk the walk. if this sounds like a very reckless and dangerous way to interact with others than you would be correct but she's tough enough to handle herself. until she isn't, until she's out of her depth, until she shoves the wrong guy back. so maybe she just doesn't think about that. maybe she drinks instead of thinking about that. drinking's made her more friends than enemies like that, anyway; despite etching grudges so deep into her flesh that it scrimshaws her bones, she's not mean. she likes good people. she has respect for mailcarriers and soldiers and doctors. she has principles, very strong principles. life is fucking hard, loyalty in real tough times is a tremendous virtue. so she's more than willing to make amends when an ultimately benign fool manages to learn their lesson, apologizes, maybe wipes the blood off their nose. drinking, fighting, not like she has any other hobbies to bond with people over. her work keeps her too busy for that. and do you have any idea how hard it is to run a caravan when you're some country girl who left home young? the way the men look at you forces you to be tough if you weren't already, fortunately she was plenty tough already but they sure didn't like that. it's not even the sexual entitlement that pisses her off. it's the sweet little smiles like they're talking to some princess who ain't never even broke a horse before. who can't lift a big ol' heavy box herself. she is very intolerant of indignity. she will not be condescended to. but the assholes who run businesses like this, kissing the ring is usually a requirement for partnering up. fuck that. better do it herself. better toughen up again. better kill the first highwayman you run into as an independent caravaneer just to prove you can. doesn't matter he was crying and pissing himself. next guy might be worse. there'll always be a next guy. don't think about it. she just gets good at running a caravan. real good. damn good. so good it gets turned to fucking ash while her back is turned. and then some bitch who somehow become caravan queen of the desert (instead of her?) has the audacity—the fucking audacity—to buy out her name. the one fucking thing she has left. the one fucking thing her deadbeat stupid fucking father left her. well, there's still the necklace. funny how she can hold such a grudge against someone but still wear the reminder around her neck everywhere. maybe something snapped off broke at some point and she never noticed. maybe things would have been easier if she had just been born a man. she doesn't know what being transgender is and she will never think more about it. that's probably not even her deal. probably. maybe she's just angry. maybe it just feels good to be angry. at the very least it feels familiar, and familiar is good. right? right agnes? read @ikroah.

[kitkatt0430]

Batroc - *starts to villain monologue a little*

Sam - *smacks him down with the shield*

That is so satisfying after how stupid Steve's decision to put down the shield to fight him in The Winter Soldier was. So, so satisfying.

Sam did banter with him a little, but the second bantering got him the advantage he wanted? Sam did not waste any time and I love that so much.

Even though that's not the end of the fight (would have been hysterical if it were), it's already a much better Batroc fight to me because of how Sam handled that part.

I said before Sam was stepping out of Steve's shadow and I do feel like this completely validates that belief.

[eveningspirit]

I am pleasantly surprised by this week's episode of The Ark. I will reiterate that the writers of this show are abysmal when it comes to the science of this sci-fi. They are however really good, when it comes to the characters and their arcs.

So, one of the main trio died last week. However, a few weeks back, his clone joined the show. So, you know, the actor stays. I was apalled by this development, especially considering the developing will-they/won't-they with another one of the main trio, as well as the friendship between the now-dead guy and my fave.

The friendship thing was dealt with by obvious grief my boi James expressed. You know, being withdrawn and drinking maybe too much.. Although not in a way that would be noticed by anyone, you know. I could like this storyline, although, let's be honest, I'd rather his illness recurred, than have yet another substance abuse story. Whatevs. We'll see.

I still want to see his feelings toward Ian, the clone.

Now, the romance... For most of the episode I was rolling my eyes, but as they say, they ending can ruin the story, or lift it to excellence. This one was definitely on the excellent side of the scale.

Sharon and Ian got locked in a shared coma dream, where they lived onboard Ark One for decades, all alone. They slowly, over time developed mutual respect, friendship, then, of course, love. We didn't witness it, like we did with Sharon and Lane, over the course of nearly two seasons. It felt like cheating the audience. I was a little less mad at them, than I was last week, when I was sure they would try to force Sharon and Ian together, despite them not sharing the same history that Sharon and Lane shared. I was proven right, although this week I was kind of ready to fogive it. In a *hand-wave it* way.

But then, that ending totally changed my impression into *great job!*

Throughout the episode -- or actually starting more or less in the middle and then repeated more often toward the end -- a concept of "this is a dream, none of this is real" was seeded (at first the whole thing could have been interpreted as a physical phenomenon (like Picard in one Star Trek episode -- he really lived through the experience and had trouble readjusting to his reality afterwards), but later it became clear, it was strictly psychological). And, you know. When you wake up from a dream that feels very real while you're dreaming it, the true reality takes over and the realness of the dream fades. The same thing happened here. Sharon woke up and remembered(tm). She asked Ian that they never talk about it. And then she cried over Lane, as she marked his personal file "deceased". She mourned him. She even said "It should have been you".

It's a storytelling technique called "lampshading". The author is telling the audience, "Yes, I know this idea has problems. Many problems. This is problem number one, this is problem number two, this is number three and these are some more. I am aware of all of them. I still want to tell this story, though. Will you bear with me? (please take my hand as I lead you into the unknown)" And, well, it worked for me.

Would I like to see the story of Sharon Garnet and Spenser Lane? Sure I would (bear in mind I'm not really a shipper). I get why it had to be reset, though, too. It got to a point, where they were on a "yeah, we would trajectory". And telling a story of a couple that just gets to build a life is considered boring in some circles. I'm now okay with seeing the story of Sharon Garnet and Ian (noname).

What I most regret is the relationship between James Brice and Spenser Lane. They had a juicy conflict going on, that will now remain unresolved (although, it seems it will be a source of angst for Brice, so, okay-ish?). James has a few other friends, I guess? Sasha? Alicia? Angus? (although the latter two are more like his proteges, than friends). He might get closer with Felix. He's friends with Sharon, of course. Although, his friendship with Lane was special. So yeah, I will miss that. But I guess I'm not quitting this show, like I threatened last week (to myself). I'll watch the remaining eps of S2, and I'll hope for a season three.

[marragurl]

Ok so like…. Who makes Ratio’s statues? 

Because every possible explanation just opens up a whole new can of worms. 

I’ve been trying to go through as much info about him as I can, including his character stories, but I can’t find anything??? 

So I’m just left stewing in the dark, which usually leads to my humor coming into play. 

So like… are the statues of Ratio’s own making??

Because that would insinuate that he takes the time out of his busy life to constantly make new statues of just himself, including the multiple plaster heads. And if it’s not him physically and it is a manifestation of his Imaginary powers, he’s still making them right??? 

So he still chooses the poses! 

Why??? 

What is his thought process??? 

Physically made or Imaginary Powers made, it’s still his choice on what the statue should look like right???

And if it’s not a conscious decision, then WHAT DO THE JOJO AND CUTESY POSES MEAN

IS JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURES FUCKING CANON IN HSR??

IS IT A SHOW THAT EXISTS??

ARE YOU TELLING ME ARAKI FUCKING EXISTS IN HSR??

AND RATIO IS A FAN?????? 

DON’T TELL ME IT’S JUST A FUN REFERENCE BY THE HSR TEAM, YEA IT’S META TO US BUT IT’S CANON TO THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE THAT RATIO HAS A STATUE OF HIMSELF DOING A JOJO POSE

On the other hand, if it’s not Ratio himself making them… who is it????

Is Ratio commissioning some artists?? Multiple artists? Only one?!?!? 

Is it some weird form of extra credit for his students???

(Student A: Hey wanna hang out tonight? 

Student B: Can’t. Gotta finish up this statue of Dr. Ratio examining his codex by Friday if I wanna get a passing grade in the class

Student A: You can sculpt???

Student B crying with 100 tabs of ‘how to sculpt’ videos and wikiHows pulled up and no sleep: I’m trying my best here Sharon)

Is he like those Renaissance time rich people who basically paid for their favorite artist’s livelihood in order to just make nice art in return??? Is there now a really well-off sculptor somewhere in the universe who is just constantly being paid by THE Dr. Ratio to make stone statues of the man??? Does the artist just put that down in their tax returns?? 

(back at it again with Topaz suffering from Ratiorine’s antics, she’s the one in charge of Ratio’s Sculptor’s taxes)

THAT STILL DOESN’T ANSWER THE STATUE POSE QUESTIONS

DID THE ARTIST ADD IN THE JOJO POSE AND HEART POSE AS A GAG??? AND SURVIVE RATIO SEEING THEM?? 

WORSE- DID RATIO COMMISSION THE POSES??? WHAT WAS THAT CONVERSATION EVEN LIKE??? DID HE HAVE TO POSE?? DOES THE ARTIST JUST HAVE AN ENTIRE SCRAPBOOK OF RATIO DOING DIFFERENT POSES FOR CONSTANT REFERENCE?

FUCK IT, DID AVENTURINE GET IN CONTACT WITH THE ARTIST AND PAY EVEN MORE MONEY FOR THE CUTESY POSES??

(Whole new thought process, the artist is making statues of Ratio for both Ratio AND Aventurine, and all the cute statues are actually commissions by Aventurine for his little Dr. Ratio idol crush shrine. There’s a constant slapstick comedy routine of Aventurine trying to hide them anytime Ratio comes over to his place and barely getting away with it. Does he ever come clean when they start dating? Do they start dating because Ratio finds the statues? Fuck it, if Ratio is the one making the statues and not an artist, does he teach Aventurine how to sculpt?? Does it become like something they do together to spend time?? Ok damn wait that’s kinda cute wait-)

WAIT ADDING ON TO THAT- DOES THAT MEAN FOLLOWING THIS THOUGHT PROCESS THAT AVENTURINE IS THE JOJO FAN???? HE’S A FUCKING JOTARO STAN???

(wait- brisk MC who’s rude to everyone but soft on those he cares about and has the muscles of a Greek god and eventually goes into academia, oh my fucking god Aventurine has a type)

PLEASE

I NEED TO KNOW WHERE ARE THESE STATUES COMING FROM

EVERYONE SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT THEM, THEY AREN’T A SECRET

IS HIS HOUSE JUST FULL OF STATUES???

DOES HE HAVE A WHOLE-ASS GRECO-ROMAN-STYLE GARDEN FULL OF HIS OWN STATUES???

DOES THE ARTIST SEE A STATUE DISAPPEAR FROM THE GARDEN AND IMMEDIATELY KNOW RATIO USED HIS TECHNIQUE TO SLAM ONE DOWN BREAKING IT AND JUST GO “fucking hell man, I was just about to go on break! Now I need to start a new one!”

IS IT A HOBBY?? HOW THE FUCK DID HE GET INTO SCULPTING AS A HOBBY WITH HIS SCHEDULE???

ARE THEY GIFTS?? 

FROM WHO, STUDENTS??? ADMIRERS? FUCK IT, AVENTURINE???

DOES THE ARTIST BEING COMMISSIONED EVEN HAVE A LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE RATIO STATUES??? DO THEY EVEN HAVE THE ABILITY TO SCULPT ANYTHING OTHER THAN RATIO AT THIS POINT??? HAVE THEY SEEN ANY OTHER BEING OUTSIDE OF THEIR STUDIO AND THE HUNDREDS OF RATIO STATUES???

PLEASE I NEED SOMEONE TO ANSWER ME

[whenmemorydies]

Carmen, Natalie, and the Berzattos

CW: this post talks about domestic violence, addiction, mental health, racialised trauma, toxic masculinity and intergenerational trauma (this show deals with so much friends!).

Go gently with yourself if you choose to continue to read. Also its a long one (longer than my usual!) so fair warning if you're diving in: maybe put the kettle on.

Following on from The Claw, The Scrunchie and The Prayer Card metas (Part 1 and Part 2), I've been thinking more about The Berzattos (represented via Natalie's hair claw in Carmy's apartment) and their presence (seen and unseen) in season 3 of The Bear.

@espumado's fantastic meta on The Night of the Hunter and its use in The Bear, particularly as it relates to Natalie and the struggle she goes through in season 3 has informed a lot of this post. My reblog of that post also contains a lot of thinking that I had started to scratch at but haven't been able to expand upon until now. Also check out @currymanganese's brilliant analysis of The Night of the Hunter in the context of romantic relationships in The Bear.

Another source of information I've used in the research for this meta is this fantastic interview in the LA Times with the cast involved in 2x06 Fishes (thanks @brokenwinebox for sharing it!). Also thank you to @thoughtfulchaos773, @brokenwinebox and @devisrina for the chat about the above interview and discussions about Donna Berzatto's relationship with her son, Carmy.

Finally @vacationship's most excellent breakdown of the roles taken up by characters in The Bear according to Adult Children of Alcoholics ('ACA') roles defined by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruise and communicator types as developed by Virginia Satir has also informed this post.

The Berzattos

Okay so, given what we know about Carmy and about the Berzattos, it would seem obvious that, yes, his birth family is going to impact Carmy. I think its probably so obvious, that a lot of the fandom, myself included, have taken Carmy's relationship with his family for granted this season. To be fair, we were also getting Claire and the Faks shoved down our throats so some things flew under the radar including, in my view, the Berzattos.

What got me thinking about the Berzattos as a source of anguish for Carmy was a rewatch of 3x03 Doors - specifically Carmy's panic attack during that episode.

The first panic attack of season 3

At this late point in the episode, we've been watching Carmy and the crew's slowly escalating struggle with the demands of fine dining, when we arrive at Carmy running expo and calling for hands. His voice is hoarse and it sounds like he's been screaming for some time. His vision starts to blur and as he continues to call out for hands, we see glimpses of what appear to be intrusive thoughts, interrupting Carmy's work and triggering a panic attack. The sequence of shots that appear during this panic attack is below:

I note that Carm appears to be trying to come out of the panic attack by remembering his time at The French Laundry and Noma - much like memories of immaculately plated food helped him regulate during his panic attack in 1x08 Braciole and memories of Sydney helped him to regulate during his panic attack in 2x09 Omelette.

The final thought Carm has during this panic attack - indeed the thought he has when it appears that his panic attack is reaching its peak - is of his sister Natalie, in a church praying:

Note: I'm working on the assumption that the above memory of Natalie takes place at Marcus' mother's funeral. This is based on the clothes Natalie is wearing and how her hair is styled.

Its at this moment in his panic attack that you can see the crest in Carmy's emotions. The orchestral score during this sequence also builds to its climax at this point. Carmy's face screws into a tight grimace and he practically spits out the word, Fuck. Its only then that the music cuts away and we hear Sydney's voice bringing Carmy back to the present:

The fact that thinking about Natalie (praying while she carries the next generation of the Berzatto family) is what causes Carmy's panic attack to peak is what got me thinking more seriously about the impact of his birth family on Carm. ( This is something that others including @mitocamdria and @moodyeucalyptus have also picked up on here and here - the Bear hive mind at work!)

Below is my attempt to map these impacts out, from the perspective of intergenerational trauma, which can be described as,

"the apparent transmission of trauma between generations of a family. People who experience adverse childhood experiences growing up, or who have survived historical disasters or traumas, may pass the effects of those traumas on to their children or grandchildren, through their genes, their behaviour, or both, leaving the next generational susceptible to anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and other emotional and mental health concerns."

I'd argue that intergenerational trauma can continue well beyond a person's grandchildren, particularly in cases where the systemic factors may have caused a trauma (for example: racial segregation, colonialism), continue to impact on multiple generations of a family.

So lets start by looking at Carmy's mother, Donna Berzatto...

Donna's trauma

I preface the below analysis with the caveat that we are not told what mental health diagnoses (if any) Donna Berzatto has (though she is clearly struggling with her mental health when we first meet her in 2x06 Fishes). The inferences I make below are based on what we have been told in the show about trauma that Donna has experienced.

Recall 3x08 Ice Chips where Donna and Natalie are talking in between bouts of Natalie's contractions. At one point in the episode, Natalie says:

I don't remember your mom.

To which, Donna sadly responds:

You don't want to.

Donna then becomes silently tearful remembering her mother.

Its clear from this very brief exchange that Donna has experienced some level of abuse at the hands of her own mother: Michael, Natalie and Carmy's maternal grandmother. That abuse has no doubt impacted on Donna's ability to parent her own children and likely influenced how she parented them as well.

As a mother myself, I've found that one of the hardest things about parenting has been avoiding the repetition of harmful behaviours that I've picked up through my own childhood. For all of us, the first - and often most memorable - models we have for how to parent have been the experiences we've had with our own primary caregivers (whether they were our birth parents or other adults in our lives). If those models were abusive or violent, we have to work that much harder to make sure we don't fall back on those examples when raising our own children. (And let me tell you, in the heat of the moment when your child is cracking a tanty in the grocery store, it takes A LOT to not revert to learned behaviours and instead take a step back and act from a rational place of calm lol).

For many folks who've had abusive childhoods, raising your own children can also be a very triggering journey. This article goes into a bit of why this is the case. If you've not been able to do any work on yourself or receive help to work through your own childhood abuse, you risk "blowing your trauma through" your children (I've borrowed the phrase "blowing trauma through" from African-American therapist and trauma specialist, Dr Resmaa Menakem, whose fantastic book My Grandmother's Hands has also influenced this post and a lot of my thinking about racial and intergenerational trauma). Given Donna's own history of abuse with her mother, its not a big leap to assume that she has "blown her trauma through" Michael, Natalie and Carmy with each of her children experiencing this in different ways.

There's also Donna's clear mom rage, no doubt built up over years as a single parent, and epitomised in the line from 2x06 (that broke my heart when I heard it because it resonated so much),

I make things beautiful for them, and no one makes things beautiful for me.

Based on the show's lore, up until 3x08 it wasn't evident that Donna had ever taken any steps to try and work through her own mental health issues and trauma. Once we get to 3x08 though, when Natalie says that she didn't tell Donna about her pregnancy because,

I just didn't want all the stuff you bring with you.

Donna replies by saying:

Yeah. I've been trying to put that stuff away.

Natalie then asks her mother how that process is going and Donna responds,

Its not easy.

Natalie then tells her mother that she's glad Donna is trying and Donna says she's glad that she's trying too.

Its not much, but the above exchange points to a slight shift in Donna's approach to her own trauma and to her parenting. This shift appears to have put Donna and Natalie's relationship on firmer footing than it has been in the past. Whether it will be enough for Carmy's relationship with his mother is another question and one I'm sure we'll see play out in season 4.

The Berzattos and Italian American racialised trauma

Other than the above exchange in 3x08 Ice Chips, we have no information about Donna's parents. I assume that Donna was born in America given her description of the Feast of the Seven Fishes (also known as La Vigilia) as described to Richie in 2x06 Fishes. During her description, Donna speaks about the Italian immigrants who brought "their seven best things" with them as if she's speaking about ancestors, not her own generation.

She does not use the first person here:

[I]ts based on people who left Italy to find new dreams and homes with new people. And they brought their seven best things from their sea to their new homes. And not so their families end up being a bunch of fuckin' jagoffs. (lmao)

Then Class A Jagoff, Uncle Lee storms into the kitchen and tells Donna that her retelling of the Seven Fishes legend is "not even close" and refers to all the sevens that occur in the Bible. Which is likely a closer explanation for the feast (see this overview on La Vigilia published on the Italian Sons and Daughters of America website). Notably, it was southern Italian and Sicilian immigrants that popularised the Feast of the Seven Fishes in America.

Given the above, it doesn't seem to me that Donna is a first generation Italian immigrant. Depending on the Berzatto family history, its possible that Donna is the daughter of Italian immigrants or the granddaughter of them. Her Italian ancestry could stretch even further back in time. At this point in The Bear, we don't know.

What we should note is that Italian immigrants and in particular, southern Italian and Sicilian immigrants to America, endured a history of racism in that country before their acceptance into the category of "white" in America.

Image source: How Italians Became 'White', The New York Times

This NY Times article provides an overview of the racialisation of Italians in America over time. The article notes that,

"[d]arker skinned southern Italians endured the penalties of blackness on both sides of the Atlantic. In Italy, Northerners had long held that Southerners - particularly Sicilians - were an 'uncivilized' and racially inferior people, [considered] too obviously African to be part of Europe."

This racism of northern Italians towards those from the south of the country was no doubt tied to Italy’s own racist and violent colonial history, including its involvement in Europe's rabid "Scramble for Africa". In the course of its time as a colonial power, Italy came to brutally invade and occupy Eritrea, Somalia, Libya and Ethopia.

Note: I don't think its a coincidence that, Ebraheim, Somalian "grill master", medic and veteran of the American military intervention in Somalia, found himself working at an Italian American beef sandwich shop. Much in the same way that its no surprise that many folks in my Tamil family ended up in the heart of the British Empire - the UK - after fleeing civil unrest and genocide in one of its former colonies (Sri Lanka). As Tamil writer A.S. Sivanandan is famously quoted as saying about post-colonial migration: "we are here, because you were there."

Once they first arrived in America in the 19th century, racism against Southern Italians continued:

"They were sometimes shut out of schools, movie houses and labor unions, or consigned to church pews set aside for black people. They were described in the press as 'swarthy', 'kinky haired' members of a criminal race and derided in the streets with epithets [that were more commonly] applied to enslaved Africans and their descendants[.]"

Though while Italian Americans experienced the severe racial prejudice described above, particularly during their early history in America, some were still able to benefit from their European ancestry in ways that people with non-European backgrounds were unable to. This included: being able to apply for US citizenship, being able to marry, own property, and choose where to live - things that BIPOC people often faced great barriers (if not outright bans) to accessing.

Notably, in Chicago where the Berzattos are based, the history of Italian racialisation differed to other major cities in America. In Italian Immigrants, Whiteness and Race: A Regional Perspective (p. 6) Italian historian Stefano Luconi notes that,

[I]n Chicago, Italian Americans competed primarily with Polish immigrants, who generally turned out to be less hostile to them than Irish Americans in New York City or Boston, and overall their accommodation within the adoptive society was easier than elsewhere.

Given the above, the Berzattos' connection with Polish "family members" Uncle Jimmy Kalinowski, Uncle Lee Lane, and Cousin Richie Jerimovich appears rooted in a long history of Polish-Italian relations in Chicago.

Note: Ancestry.com tells me Kalinowski is a Polish and Jewish last name. Uncle Lee identifies as "Polski" in 2x06 Fishes and in the draft script for 2x06 is listed as Uncle Jimmy's brother. While Richie's ethnicity isn't explicitly stated in The Bear, in 3x04 Violet, he refers to his daughter Eva as żabka which is Polish for "small frog" and is also used as a term of endearment for girls or women.

Eventually Italian Americans were assimilated into the racial category of "white" both legally and in the popular imagination of the country. This happened in a few ways including via Italian Americans claiming whiteness for themselves, particularly in active opposition to Black, African American communities. This is despite their historic racialisation in comparison to Black, African-descent people (which, in a better world, could have been the basis for shared and sustained solidarity between the two communities). Luconi observes that,

"in Brazos County, Texas, Italian Americans learned to claim whiteness for self-protection, which involved showing off hostility toward African Americans in the mid-1890s [...] By the same token, after realizing the social benefits of being characterized by a white identity, Italian Americans in Baltimore embraced the racist premises of the local political leadership in the early twentieth century and joined two campaigns that unsuccessfully aimed at disenfranchising African Americans in 1905 and 1909 by amending the state constitution." from: Italian Immigrants, Whiteness and Race: A Regional Perspective (p. 15)

The above NY Times article states that in 1892, the lynching of 11 Italian immigrants who were accused of killing a police chief in New Orleans resulted in Italy breaking diplomatic relations with America. As a result of this and to prevent unrest in the Italian American community, US President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed 12 October as "Columbus Day" and encouraged Americans to celebrate the contribution of the Italian Christopher Columbus to the creation of America.

Apparently, this sleight of hand (a legerdemain because it: (a) magically erased generations upon generations of First Nations who have existed in the Americas long before Columbus' arrival (and who continue to do so), and (b) because it vanished the explorer's penchant for rape and enslavement of the First Nations' people that he did encounter) was enough to reinstate diplomatic relations between America and Italy as well as carve out a place for Italian Americans in the white, American imaginary.

Indeed, despite recent calls to stop the celebration of Columbus Day led by First Nations people across America, it is Italian American organisations (including the Italian Sons and Daughters of America) and prominent Italian Americans that are some of those voices leading campaigns to keep Columbus Day as it is, reductively and disingenuously dismissing its critics as attacking Italian-American heritage.

Note: the above views are obviously not shared by all Italian Americans. See below protest staged by Italian Americans in the Berzattos' hometown of Chicago, in opposition to the city's Columbus Day Parade (Source: Fox 32 Chicago):

One of my heroes, Toni Morrison, once said of American national identity,

"In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."

White supremacy operates amongst racialised communities through divide and rule, with these communities pitted against one another, trying to achieve as close a proximity to whiteness as possible. In the US context, that proximity brings those communities closer to what is perceived as "American". The above examples show how some Italian American communities in America shifted the racial categorisation of their community to "white" over time by fighting for that proximity. I would argue that that shift came at a great cost, as all racism does: a cost to the BIPOC communities that were fucked over in the process and a cost to the souls of those now "white" Italian Americans who participated in divide and rule to get closer to a white supremacist position of power. Dr Resmaa Menakem would refer to those costs as traumas for both BIPOC communities and (now) white, Italian American communities.

In My Grandmother's Hands, Dr Menakem discusses the impact of racialised trauma on white people. Specifically, that white supremacy - or as Dr Menakem refers to it, "white body supremacy" - is itself a trauma response. I won't get into the details of this framework (and make this post longer than it already is lol) except to say its fascinating and I'd encourage you to read My Grandmother's Hands to find out more. Its relevance here is to illustrate that on top of our individual, personal traumas, we each carry with us racialised trauma. I make the point of articulating this because while The Bear alludes to race (sometimes masterfully as in this scene where Donna tries to play divide and rule in her own way), it often does so obliquely in ways that are not always obvious to viewers (for example, see director Ramy Youssef's discussion in Variety about the bike crash scene in 2x04 Honeydew). But make no mistake, race permeates this show.

For example, I think about Uncle Lee’s jab at Mikey in 2x06 about the latter living with his mom, and compare this to Marcus living with his mother throughout seasons 1-2 or Sydney living with her father in seasons 1-3. I think about how in many communities of colour, multi-generational living isn’t seen as shameful because the focus is not just on financial dependence but on relationships and care. Certainly, an adult child might not be financially independent but if they are caring for their parent, this is something to be valued.

I think about how the move to individualism (championed by Uncle Lee) away from family and community (features that Italian culture is historically very well known for) is a shift that, for many Italian Americans, may be viewed as a cost incurred as a result of an allegiance to white supremacy.

I think also about the words of Tema Okun, who wrote about how white supremacy shows up in organisational and professional settings in her 1999 article "White Supremacy Culture" and how in that work, Okun noted particular identifying characteristics of organisational, white supremacist culture, including (but not limited to):

individualism;

perfectionism;

either/or & binary thinking; and

a sense of urgency.

Sound familiar? I thought they might. These are traits that Carmy has exhibited in almost every episode of season 3 (and periodically in seasons 1-2). Notably, these are traits that are also valorised in the world of fine dining, as we see it through Carmy's eyes throughout season 3 (in flashbacks and in how he chooses to run The Bear). And we all know how well this shit is going for our man (lol).

I'll get into this more in an upcoming meta (again, this is me manifesting in a bid to force myself to finish writing the thing lol), but I just wanted to point out how both in terms of his racialisation and his professional career, Carmy is immersed in white supremacy - whether he wants to be or not - benefiting from its privileges while also being witness and therefore, subject, to its horrors. No one escapes this shit, not even those who've been welcomed into the fold at the top of the hierarchy.

All of this - the racialised history and trauma associated with the Italian American community as well as the clear whiteness that marks the fine dining industry - makes Carmy's character that much more fascinating to me. Here is a character with seemingly no personal prejudices towards BIPOC folks. He loves the BIPOC folks in his life quite dearly (in particular, Marcus who he treats as a brother, and of course Sydney, in whom he's found a soulmate). I think this is likely due in large part to the role Carmy's siblings (Mikey and Natalie) played in raising him. These two characters also appear to care deeply for the BIPOC people in their lives without much of the prejudice that many who have been racialised and socialised in their community might harbour. And in their roles as surrogate parents for Carmy, they appear to have modelled that healthy and normal (because we must remember, what is abnormal is racism) respect for their fellow humans. They're not perfect in this (recall 2x06 and Mikey's bombastic objectification of Claire) but we do see repeated glimpses of their goodness throughout the show (recall 3x06 and Mikey's kindness to Tina, or the pantry scene in 2x06 and the gentleness he displays towards Carmy there). This is in contrast to their mother, Donna, who clearly has done no work to prevent blowing her own racialised trauma and prejudice through the bodies of her kids.

Also while the racialisation of The Bear's BIPOC characters is readily apparent (because the white supremacist culture of the West is more attuned to looking at non-white people and automatically seeing race), its white characters are also racialised and have racialised histories. The above was my attempt at stepping out a bit of the racialisation of The Berzattos, of Carmy, and of the racialised trauma that they also carry with them.

Phew.

Okay, now back to the Berzattos...

Carmy's birth

Recall 3x08 Ice Chips and Donna telling Natalie the stories of each of her children's births. By far, the birth that appears to cause Donna the most rage, the most pain, is Carmy's. It also happens to be the only birth out of her three children that her (by all accounts) deadbeat husband is present for. Donna describes fighting with her husband during the entirety of her labour with Carmy and that the hospital was fucked because it seemed like everyone went into labour at the same time. She then tells Natalie that Carmy took a long time to arrive:

Note: Its not lost on me that Carmy's obsession with speed, rushing and sense of urgency was almost definitely drilled into him from birth, given the rage with which Donna describes his "slowness" in being born.

Donna then goes onto express how frightened she was and the further difficulties involved in Carmy’s delivery:

It was so hard and so scary because he kept getting stuck, and they just kept having to move me, and I remember they were moving me in all these positions. And then at one point, I think they had me fucking upside down or something.

And then, so brutally it becomes darkly funny (I've pushed a kid out too: it can be so painful, if you don't laugh, you'll sob hysterically lol), Donna describes Carmy's birth as just all around fucked:

The whole thing was fucked:

No seriously, very fucked:

So Carmy entered the world and the experience of his delivery was fucked nine ways to Sunday for his mother. A very difficult beginning to this life for a baby, to say the least. I would go so far as to say, given the way Donna is recounting Carmy's birth, that she experienced birth trauma, and possibly developed birth-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Contrast this with how Donna describes Michael's and Natalie's births:

Despite Michael also having difficulty being born (Donna recalls that it seemed like "he wanted to stay" in the safety of her womb), Donna says that she felt really good, great and strong during her labour with him and that his birth was even described by a doctor as an "amazing" one.

Donna describes Natalie's birth as "beautiful" with Natalie arriving after Donna had had a restful sleep and a vivid, prophetic dream. Donna then goes onto tell Natalie that she was delivered in the presence of a "sweet" girlfriend (Cicero's first wife, Gail) who sat with Donna during labour and who played "Baby, I Love you" for Donna as Natalie arrived.

The differences in how Donna recalls Mikey, Nat and Carmy's births and Donna's propensity in the past for holding her children's "mistakes" over their heads (recall 2x06 Fishes and the story of how Natalie got the nickname "Sugar"), make me think that she was likely to have rubbed Carmy's difficult birth in his face when he was younger. I think that Donna was also likely to have either intentionally or unintentionally (or perhaps both, depending on the circumstance) made Carmy feel less than his older siblings, maybe not as wanted. We have some evidence pointing to this happening in Carmy's past, peppered throughout the show.

Growing up in the Berzatto house:

As a child Carmy had a stutter, which causes speech to inherently slow (as it takes longer to form words and sentences). He was also scared to speak. Now a stutter in and of itself would not make the person speaking scared. Its other people's reactions to a stutter that would do that. Given Donna's vitriol at how slow Carmy's birth was, and her obsession with time (anyone fancy a kitchen timer? this lady's got 700 of them), its not a stretch to imagine that any delay in Carmy articulating himself as a child would have been met with ridicule or rage from his mother.

We know that all the Berzatto children grew up scared of their mother, a survivor of abuse herself, and an addict who drank to excess with clear mental health issues that it didn’t appear she was seeking treatment for. Recall Natalie's disclosure to Donna in 3x08 Ice Chips:

Carmy also grew up embedded in a particularly toxic type of white, heterosexual masculinity embodied by his brother Mikey and "cousin" Richie (who undoubtedly had it blown through their bodies by family, friends and the white supremacist, homophobic culture we are swimming in, in the West). I've previously discussed this in my meta on the use of 90s alternative rock in The Bear and more recently, in this reblog of @mitocamdria's meta Sublimation and Intellectual Orgasms.

Carmy gets called "a weird little dude" for knowing how to mix a drink in 2x06. He gets called a "gayrod" for owning the Noma cookbook in 1x01. He gets called a "soft shitty bitch" for calling Pete instead of Natalie in 1x05. He gets called a "mopey little fuck" in 2x06 for questioning Mikey and Richie right before they accost him with a veritable wall of gross dudebro, horndog descriptions of Claire (a girl they know and are friends with - again, fucking gross). Carmy hears his mother describe Steve as "gay" for being "arty" in 2x06 (recall that Carmy is also "arty" in that he can draw and likes fashion). If you weren't performing alpha-male dominance like Mikey, Richie, Uncle Lee or even Uncle Jimmy, the Berzatto household was a rough place to be. Truth is though, that all of those white, alpha-males have their own demons, and in the case of Mikey, those demons drove him to take his own life. The truth is that, like white supremacy, no one escapes toxic masculinity unscathed either.

We know Carmy suffered from low self-confidence as a child which might have led him to feeling aimless. He tells us in 1x08 Braciole that he got shitty grades because he couldn't pay attention in school, he didn't get into college, didn't have any girlfriends or many friends for that matter. Carmy also tells us in that same monologue that he wasn't "built" in the same way as his brother, who could walk into a room and take its temperature right away, who was loud, hilarious and magnetic.

I think about how for someone like Carmy, Mikey would have cast a long shadow. I think about how hard it would have been to have lived under that shadow while trying to figure yourself out.

It wasn't until working in fine dining that Carmy found his purpose. He says in 1x08,

For the first time in my life, I started to find this station for myself.

This must have been intoxicating and affirming for Carmy. Yet I think about how, after all that, he could return home having achieved accolades and fanfare in his career, try his best in the chaos of a Berzatto family Christmas to diffuse the powder keg that is Donna, and still be called "Michael" by his mother, his very existence in that moment, feeling like a puff of smoke.

We also know that Carmy's eldest siblings ended up being like surrogate parents for him. Mikey almost certainly was a father figure given the absence of his biological father in Carmy's life. Its not a stretch to imagine Natalie as taking on the role of a surrogate mother, given Donna's abuse and how Natalie looks out for almost everyone throughout seasons 1-3 of The Bear. In this video, Jeremy Allen White also talks about the tattoo Carmy has of two angels with a sun in between them as representing his brother and his sister, further confirming the roles of his "guardian angel" siblings.

I think about Natalie, parentified big sister that she is, sneaking a wad of cash into Carmy’s pocket as he leaves her and Chicago for New York in 3x01. I think about her calling him “honey” in that same episode as she affirms that she knows how good he is at being a chef - “honey” being a term of endearment commonly used in family settings but between parents and their children, not as commonly heard between siblings.

I also think about Mikey being born the eldest, the first and only (for a time) to have to deal with his mother's trauma and expectations. I think about how he took on the work of looking after his mother and his siblings when his father left the Berzatto home. I think about how Mikey is described by the actor who plays him, as a "dreamer who's not allowed to dream. He has to take care of everybody."

Loose ends

Another set of incidents haunting spread throughout season 3 also raised concerns for me, in that they remain unresolved and point to a resolution or confrontation for Carmy and the Berzattos in season 4. I named them in my reblog of @espumado's post on The Night of the Hunter. For ease of reference, I'll bullet point them here:

Carmy finds a box labelled "DD" (his mother, Donna's nickname) at The Bear at the end of 3x05 and looks through it. He appears frozen as he finds a baby photo of his mother holding a baby I assume is him. The episode ends at this moment and neither the box or Carmy's reaction are revisited for the remainder of season 3

Cicero tells Carmy during 3x09 that Donna wants Carmy to call her back about "the baby" (one assumes this is a reference to Natalie's baby) and that Carmy has been "fucking avoiding it" (one assumes again that the "it" here is the baby...but maybe its also just the act of calling Donna back)

But then Carmy says something strange:

Yeah. Hoping it would just go away.

Surely, Carmy's not talking about a baby. Babies can't just go away. And I don't think Carmy is so malicious that he'd wish his sister's child to disappear. I also don't think Carmy would refer to his mother as "it" (he's never done so up to this point on the show, as monstrous as she can be).

And in case you were wondering, Cicero's response to Carmy also doesn't sound like it applies to a baby or Donna (lol):

[Y]ou run right the fuck into it.

Intergenerational trauma and legacy

So what is the "it" that Carmy wants to go away? What is the "it" that Uncle Jimmy tells him to face by running "right the fuck into it"? My suspicion is that this is Carmy's baggage. The baggage that comes with being born a Berzatto and being born to Donna. All the stuff that we've been talking about here. Its also the baggage that both Nat and his mother have been trying to "put away":

Above from 3x02 Next: Natalie in conversation with Carmy. "Its not great 8am stuff."

Above from 3x08 Ice Chips: Donna in conversation with Natalie.

Carmy is trying to do this too: put away his baggage, while having been the "Lost Child" (referring to ACA roles and the recording about them that Natalie was listening to at the end of 3x07 Legacy) and the youngest child in his family for so long but now having to be the "Hero". @vacationship's post on ACA roles as they relate to The Bear gives a great breakdown on what the "lost child" and "hero" roles mean.

In the LA Times interview mentioned above, Jeremy Allen White says,

I don't think Carm's ever been outside of himself enough to really take in another person in their entirety, sadly. I think that's Carmen's real struggle.

As the youngest child of the Berzattos, Carmy has never had to step outside of himself to the extent that Mikey, Natalie or even Donna have had to. He has never had to care for anyone other than himself, until he inherits The Beef. And that responsibility is a HUGE one.

But Carmy jumps into that role, initially fuelled by the desire to retroactively fix his relationship with Mikey and fix "the family". Recall again his monologue in 1x08 Braciole:

[I]ts very clear to me trying to fix the restaurant, was me trying to fix whatever was happening with my brother. And I don't know, maybe fix the whole family because that restaurant, it has and it does mean a lot to people. It means a lot to me.

For the longest time, I interpreted "the family" that Carmy refers to here as his chosen family: the crew at The Beef. I think that while that was true, it wasn't the whole picture. I think Carmy was actually being more expansive in his definition of family to include his entire family: chosen and birth.

So while Carmy is obviously trying to make The Bear a success for Sydney ("Syd, we're going to get a star") and for Marcus ("Take us there Bear", "Yes, Chef"), as well as for the rest of the chosen family he first found at The Beef, Carmy is also trying to fix the restaurant for the Berzattos. Specifically, Carmy is trying to do what his father and brother couldn't do in keeping The Beef/The Bear going. He is trying to embody the Hero ACA role, vacated by Mikey with the latter's passing, even though his sister told him from the start, in 1x01:

No one's asking you to.

What I think I took for granted this season was just how much Carmy's desire to repair the legacy of the father figures in his life (as represented by the restaurant) was brought to an urgent and frenetic head for him in the late stages of Natalie's pregnancy. Upon rewatch of 3x09 Apologies, I picked up on some interesting script choices and imagery that I think have been chosen purposefully to relay to us that this is the case and that the impending birth of his niece is indeed, weighing on Carmy.

Now, at the start of 3x09, Carmy may or may not know Natalie has just had her baby. I assume he does. After Marcus watches that clip about magic, followed by unnecessary Fak, Claire and dumpster content (lol) and then Sydney practising how she's going to break Shapiro's offer to Carmy, we cut to the kitchen of The Bear and we hear Carmy calling out orders while running expo. He's yelling again. His voice is hoarse like it was in 3x03 during his panic attack. We see Carmy's intrusive thoughts at a rapid clip intercut with close ups of his, Sydney's and Richie's faces. We also hear Carmy repeatedly yelling at the staff to push:

Please give me the fucking agnolotti. Push.

Lets fucking push, please. Lets fucking go.

Push, please.

Push, chefs! Please! The cook is fucked. Refire, please.

Push.

From a quick google, "push" is used in restaurant settings but not in the way Carmy's doing here. I've seen it used to mean "sell" an item (as in getting a server to "push" a particular dish to diners so they order it) as well as to describe a busy period during service (as in the restaurant is in the middle of a "push").

In 3x09, Carmy is yelling “push” like a midwife at his sister's side while she pushes out her child, the next generation of Berzattos, into the world. But instead of his niece, Carmy is trying to deliver one more in a litany of dinner services at The Bear.

Note: you can clearly see here that the jagged lines that have appeared since season 1 when Carmy is having intrusive thoughts are actually made up of what look to be hundreds of claw marks. I've noted in a previous reblog of one of @thoughtfulchaos773's posts (that I can't find atm sorry) that this evokes Carmy (the Bear) trying to claw his way out of a mental spiral and back to equilibrium. @currymanganese also noted that the lines themselves look like a neural network, driving the point about Carmy's mental state home.

And then directly after the above "push" scene, we see copious amounts of water ejected over the The Bear's kitchen island, washing away flesh coloured food and sauce that looks like blood splatter:

Having rewatched 3x09 through the lens of intergenerational trauma, with the spectre of Natalie's labour, Carmy's apparent resistance to seeing Natalie or her baby, and having just heard his hoarse voice screaming push, push, push...to me this water started looking a whole lot like birth waters breaking, and amniotic fluid flooding The Bear:

Note: Rest assured, amniotic fluid doesn't contain all those suds.

@espumado pointed out in their The Night of the Hunter meta that the song playing during the above "push" and "broken waters" scenes of 3x09 is a song by Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch from a war documentary. The song is "The Forever Rain" from the documentary series The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. I'm sure its no coincidence that a song from a documentary about the Vietnam War - a war whose veterans were the first to be assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - is being used in a scene acting as an allegory for childbirth, given what we know about how traumatic Carmy's birth was for his mother, and inevitably, for him as an infant.

So why is Carmy so preoccupied with Natalie's pregnancy and the birth of his niece?

I think this all ties back to what Carmy told us in 1x08: that he wants to fix the restaurant (and in the context of season 3, this means making The Bear a success) and that in doing so, fix his family.

Note: which is also why I think we are shown that magic clip that Marcus is watching at the beginning of 3x09 with this bit of dialogue from it: "What makes magic different is that its inherently honest. You tell someone you're gonna deceive them before you deceive them. In some way, that makes it more difficult." We were told in 1x08 what the restaurant means to Carmy and his reasons for fixing it, but Storer and co have spent all of season 3 distracting us with Claire and Fak-shaped sleights of hand getting us looking elsewhere to understand Carmy's behaviour. By 3x10, Carmy's motives haven't changed. He's doing this for his family. All of his family.

Specifically in the context of Nat's pregnancy, Carmy wants to ensure that The Bear is a success for the next generation of Berzatto children, for his niece. And if Carmy is being haunted by a need to fix his family's legacy, particularly given the impending arrival of Natalie's baby - the youngest Berzatto after him - then his desperate, rageful plea to Syd after she brings him back from his panic attack in 3x03 Doors, is even more distressing:

They're going too fucking slow!

What Carmy means is:

I'm going too slow and this restaurant is going to fail because of it. And this baby is going to inherit my failure, just like I inherited Mikey's and just like he inherited our father's.

Remember: Natalie is a part owner of The Bear and so any financial failure of the restaurant will be felt by her and her family just as it would be felt by Carm.

What Carmy needs to realise is that while a brick and mortar institution may fail, what remains are the relationships, the people that he has met because of it (shout out to Chef Terry and her speech in 3x10 Forever, also shout out to Mikey and his chat with Tina in 3x06 Napkins). And if there are people - if there are relationships - there's always the chance to build another future together, again.

Conclusion (yep, I'm almost done)

I think about how whether he likes it or not, Carmy was able to pursue his passion in cooking because of his family’s racial (and class) privilege, particularly as a member of a community that was invited to join in the spoils of white supremacy. This privilege was most clearly embodied by the fact that the Berzattos had the means to own The Beef and the culinary opportunities for Carmy that flowed from that work and experience (contrast this with Sydney, Marcus and Tina's experiences in entering this field, which I've discussed here and which @freedelusionshere discusses here).

I think about how Carmy subverted and used that privilege to bring along the original crew of The Beef with him to The Bear, lifting up his largely BIPOC employees. And then I think about how he ran roughshod over them in order to try and meet the insane expectations he'd set for himself (in large part, as a result of his family's history).

I think about the safety net that Carmy had with Natalie and Mikey who were there to take care of The Beef, their family and their unwell mother, giving Carmy the room to find himself professionally. I think about Mikey leaving behind a restaurant for Carmy but also leaving behind an entire family for him too.

I think about Carmy not realising that while The Beef was a burden in some ways, it was a blessing in so many others.

I think about the clear intergenerational trauma that Carmy is contending with while trying to balance so many perceived, competing demands.

I also think about Donna's dream, the night she went into labour with Natalie:

In this nothing dream, I mean nothing dream. And it wasn't Chicago, and it wasn't New York. It was some sort of hybrid city, you know? And there was a fish tank. Big fish tank in the middle of the city. It was this giant fish tank, and I was the only one looking at it.

[...]

And I remember the colours were, they were so sharp and vivid and neon, you know, and I was the only one looking at it.

[...]

I was just staring at it for the longest time. And all of a sudden, I noticed that the glass started to come apart like it was gonna split. But I wasn't worried, you know? It wasn't bad, because I knew that more people were gonna get to see these beautiful fish.

And then I woke up, and I was sweating, and my water had broke.

When Donna had her children, she had no idea that she would lose her eldest child to suicide. She likely had no idea how far she was going to push her daughter away from her due to her abuse, and she most certainly did not know that her youngest would cease contact with her for years while becoming a renowned chef. None of us parents know for certain how things are going to turn out for our children, or for our relationships with them.

We can only hope, and do our best: do our best to break harmful cycles while trying to nurture children who will leave the world a better place than it was when when they arrived. And if our kids manage to do this not because of us but in spite of us, in spite of our slip ups and mistakes, in spite of our baggage, then honestly, we should be even prouder of them. Because it meant they were able to integrate our trauma, our histories, and their trauma, and their histories, all of it, and make something beautiful, something better.

And I think I can see why Donna wasn't worried when the fish tank started to crack. I get why she was so happy that more people were going to get to see her beautiful children and the world they were going to create, in spite of everything and because of everything.

As usual, tagging folks who might be interested (absolutely no pressure to read this fucking long ass thing though), but keen to hear from anyone who wants to discuss:

@currymanganese @thoughtfulchaos773 @moodyeucalyptus @vacationship @mitocamdria @brokenwinebox @espumado @tvfantic87 @turbulenthandholding @anxietycroissant @angelica4equity @devisrina @kdbleu @freedelusionshere @ambeauty @afrofairysblog @fresaton @hwere @ciaomarie @ambeauty