SYDNEY'S PART
THE ANALOGY OF THE PARTNER WITH ADDICTION
I just realized this parallel, and I have questions and feelings.
This second scene was one of the most frustrating moments for me, and that is saying a lot. It made me realize the crucial factor that could contribute to Sydcarmy not working despite the underlying feelings and connection.
The scene is obviously about how Sydeny feels guilty for not being able to stand to Carmy and make him stop the chaos. Maybe is also about feeling sad because she doesn't think that he wants to change for her, because if that were the case, he would have done it already. He has verbalized that intention and always, always, leaves her alone and behind (It is hard to keep with you sometimes).
I have been wrestling with the theory that Carmy's and Syd's relationship is acting as an analogy for an addict and their romantic partner. I have been reading this book: Loving someone in recovery. I still need to finish it, but it has given me some ideas. More extended meta-analyses on this subject are coming up. But I wanna concentrate on what the scene is hitting at (I miss ao3).
Notice in Brigade, the woman also says, "until the chemistry changes.", then in the very next scene, you have Sydney decipher a recipe just by chemistry logic, leaving Carmy impressed, and right after, carmy puts Sydney in charge of the restaurant. The clues are all there.
Also, notice how the woman at AA refers to the abuse of substances, but in Carmy's case, it also means abuse in the literal sense, verbal, psychological, and physical abuse.
The show has many scenes in which Sydney treats Carmy's issues with compassion and a firm hand.
"I don't want to be an asshole" "Don't be" aka: I know you know what is right and wrong despite feeling like shit, don't let it get over you.
She keeps her cool while Carmy makes impossible demands and screams. She helps Tina with her dish and completes the task without ever insulting or yelling back at anybody. The toxic techniques that Carmy learned that worked in the culinary industry, she refuses to accept as the norm. She is a chef Terry.
Finding the positive in the worst circumstances, aka, saying Cicero "You are here" or encouraging Richie and the staff. Even reviewing Carmy's recipes with patience and humor
"Is hard to keep with you sometimes' is key word here sometimes, aka: "because the problem is your issues, not you. You are a good person who is deeply hurting, but your actions have consequences for me and the people around you".
The thing is, if we are gonna talk about a partner with addiction, we need to establish the problem (the trauma) and the drugs. I remember watching a movie about addiction, a nurse saying, "Drugs are never the problem (for an addict), they are the solution.
So, the problem (the trauma)
The drug (solution)
You already know my theory that Claire is the equivalent of painkillers/anesthesia. A shallow but pleasing relationship that is always available to attend to your flaws without ever being actual medicine. Because to get better, painkillers are never enough.
BACK TO SYD
Syd really doesn't believe she has a say in what Carmy wants, (God she even believes she is not what Carmy wants, because he wants Claire, that is what it seems to her) just right before this dialogue, she asks him "Do you want me to say something?", from reading the book, it really reminded me of a partner feeling abandoned when the addict would resource to their drug of use to feel good or set back to old habits. That would leave the partner frustrated, depressed, and angry.
To be fair, the fact that Carmy is his boss should be added to the equation. They cannot even be called friends, so why should Sydney say something? Carmy is 24/7 in defense mode, saying things like "You don't have to say it, I already know."
He offered Syd equal partnership, but she didn’t get it. If they had been equal partners she definitely has the power to say something. But she didn’t take the offer, maybe because she suspected (or feared) they would never be on equal ground.
THE KEY QUESTION IS, WHAT DOES SYDNEY SAY?
I am genuinely curious about this. Is Syd (or her leaving) supposed to be a wake-up call to Carmy? That he fucked up something that brought him genuine joy and connection because Syd knew the real him, while Claire liked Logan and Carmy's brokenness? The way Claire would enable him in his bad tendencies? How is he gonna realize all that?
Sydney needs more emotional resources when it comes to conflict resolution. So far, her techniques have been using patience and love (water) against toxicity and bad patterns (fire). There is definitely a need for that. That is what turned everybody around and helped them become their best selves. But it has a toll. And she started the season with "I don't know what the fuck to do right now" and ended the season without a solution. Maybe walking away is the solution.
SYDNEY'S PART
What could this mean for Syd? Sydney may confront Carmy or not. I guess we will have to see.
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I volunteer with an organization of very high needs disabled people and I have to say, they delight in using AI to put stories together. It even inspires them to make their own edits and additions, though many struggle with typing or verbal skills. I don't want to tell anyone how to feel but it seems like weird ideological purity policing to exclude them from a social event where they might connect to people and find community.
So my first question is: why AI specifically? Why not literally any other method of writing? If they're capable of doing edits/additions, then why can't they first write the story out using speech-to-text, or an AAC device, or dictate it to someone else, and then edit/add to it later?
Coming up with ideas/a plot is creative and requires skill, but it's a different kind of creativity and skill than actually writing it down/connecting those dots. Like, James Patterson doesn't write most of his books; he writes out long outlines for a ghostwriter to work off of, then makes notes or changes to the draft before sending it back to the ghostwriter. It would be unfair to say that he doesn't have any skills at all, but it would also be unfair to say that he wrote all of his books himself when they were actually mostly written by someone else. A lot of the time, movies will have separate credits for the person who came up with the idea and the person who actually wrote the screenplay, because they are separate things requiring different skills.
NaNoWriMo, as a concept, is about practicing the latter skill. You're presumed to have already learned how to come up with ideas – otherwise, what would you work on for a month? The actual work of crafting enough sentences that your story becomes a full text and not an outline is really fucking hard, and that's why so many writers get stalled at the ideas stage and never actually write anything. If you don't have those skills to start, that's okay, because most people don't! The whole point is to practice them over the month! And even if you never hit 50k (I haven't!), you can at least say that you practiced that skill. Even if you only wrote ten words a day because that's literally the most you can do, writing ten words every day for thirty days is still a huge accomplishment!
To use the marathon metaphor from the originating post: both driving a car and running a marathon are skills, but they are not the same skill. If you can't run a marathon – if you are just trying to get to the point where you can walk briskly for five miles without tasting blood when you breathe – reaching that goal is still an accomplishment, even if you're not full on running a marathon. If you are just starting to learn how to drive without having a panic attack, being able to do that is also an accomplishment, even if it's not the same thing as winning the Indy500. Modest goals are still goals and achieving them is a thing to be celebrated.
But I don't think it's ideological purity to say that there's a difference between achieving a very modest goal because the "full thing" is just not feasible for whatever reason, and achieving a totally different goal entirely. "I finally drove to the store and back all by myself!" is genuinely great, but not something you'd necessarily work on in your running group.
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Seeing AI discourse about writing college papers reminded me of the time I got Called In To A Professor's Office over a paper I wrote that he thought was plagiarized.
See, the thing I had realized about myself by that point was that I am...VERY BAD....at reading the assigned books. I have every intention of doing so while in class, but the instant I'm out of class the book no longer exists (what adhd). So by the end of the year I would always wind up getting screwed over in the book buy-back with books I'd literally never cracked the spine on, because it turned out speed-reading sparknotes could get me through class discussion and I'd developed a System(TM) for panic-writing an essay the night before.
This system was: find an online pdf of the book. Skim. Read summaries. Pull quotes from pdf. Bullshit. Estimate the page number for any citations because no one actually checks those, and use the publication data from the syllabus for the works cited. This works Very Well if you are, like me, a sarcastic asshole who knows teachers want to read an entertaining essay instead of yet another regurgitation of whatever sounds academically "best."
So here's this history class, which actually turns out to be an english class in disguise, and we are told to read and write an essay on The First Autobiography Ever Written in the English Language, which just so happens to be about a lady who had FOURTEEN kids, suffered a psychotic break, and spent the rest of her life campaigning to become a saint.
It's called The Book of Margery Kempe. I cannot express to you how smug I am to find a pdf of the exact same copy we'd been told to buy, down to the same publishing house and year of publication. I won't even have to bullshit page numbers.
...It's written in Middle English.
Here begynnyth a schort tretys and a comfortabyl for synful wrecchys, wherin thei may have gret solas and comfort to hem and undyrstondyn the hy and unspecabyl mercy of ower sovereyn Savyowr Cryst Jhesu, whos name be worschepd and magnyfyed
wythowten ende, that now in ower days to us unworthy deyneth to exercysen hys nobeley and hys goodnesse....
This is fine, College!me thinks. A little tedious, but clearly the entire class has successfully done the reading enough to talk about it, so it must be doable. They probably had discussions about the language and I forgot to pay attention.
So I write the essay, pulling quotes from this middle english pdf that I can only half read, but that I can certainly form opinions about. Is it my best essay? No. Is it snarky? Yes. Is it in MLA format? That's mostly what they'll be checking for.
Then the Professor pulls me aside after class and asks to speak with me in his office. I have another class that I have to go to, and because I'm commuting in to college I won't be back on campus until two days later; he says that's fine, and all of this is settled and we've parted ways before it hits me how fucking fucked I am.
It must be the book.
He's going to call me out on not buying the book.
Can he tell I didn't read the book?
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
And I have two days to stew in it.
By the time our meeting rolls around I am a Mess. He is going to fail me. I am going to die. If I open my mouth at all I will burst into tears. Perhaps there is the slimmest chance if I act Normal this will be fine??????
P: So I read your essay...
Me: *using my Normal face* ⊙.☉
P: ...and I'm just wondering...
Me: ⊙.☉'
P: ...where you got the quotes?
Me: ⊙.☉'''
P: .....because the version of the book we read....isn't in Middle English.
Me: ⊙.☉??????????
P: I actually thought you might have plagiarized it--
Me: ⊙.☉!!!!!!!
P:--but to be honest it's written so entirely in your style that it's impossible this essay is plagiarized.
Me: ........⊙.☉.....
P: .... Anyway.
P: Just wanted to chat.
P: Uh. You're free to go.
Me:
HERE'S THE LESSONS LEARNED:
Just buy the book Cite the pdf. The professors Do Not Care how you've read the book as long as they can plausibly believe you've read it.
Just read the book Listen. I wasn't going to get anywhere near an ADHD diagnosis until my 30s. And if they can't tell you didn't read the book, then is it really the same as not reading the book? I think Margery would agree you gotta make some shit up to get anywhere in life.
Being a sarcastic asshole in my academic papers saved me from a plagiarism charge.
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