#sydcarmy ectocooler

[xony]

something something Donna saying nobody makes things beautiful for her something something Sydney making the margins wider for Carmy

[xony]

I was going to leave this in the tags but it got long, so:

I was just thinking today that Richie might have a parallel scene like the one Syd and Carm have in S3. Sydney tells Carmy that he should call; Carm thinks she's talking about Claire but she means Richie.

What if after Tiff's wedding (and maybe after the fight with Claire?) Richie tells Carmy to "go after her", like don't make the same mistakes I made and lose the person you love, etc. And there we'll see the sleight of hand and The Choice™️ of who Carm will go after (spoiler: it will be Syd!).

I just think it would also be a very cool way of tying it all back to Syd's return in S1.

Anywho, if anyone wants to write this as a fic, by all means do it and TAG ME! lmao

Always connecting Tiffany and Claire

Every time, Claire is brought into the picture - they connect Tiffany.

Richie and Carmy are foils to each other. As we watch Richie overcome his past and try to find purpose, we're watching Carmy go through the same thing. So, as Tiffany is to Richie, Claire is to Carmy.

Carmy and Richie give the audience the summary of their journeys. Richie is going to find purpose after Mikey's death. While Carmy is going to find enjoyment.

But they have to overcome the past to get to their end goals.

It starts with 2x01 when Carmy is looking at the photos that Richie has spread out. There's Tiffany and Claire in the photos.

in 2x03, When Richie tells his daughter he needs a break from the past. Carmy is, in the next scene, connecting with Claire.

In 2x05 Richie reunites with Claire and instantly asks about Tiffany.

And the very next episode Richie telling Tiffany about Claire and carmy

Of course, there's more in season 3. Richie and Carmy have flashbacks of them. While Carmy avoids Claire, Richie avoids Tiffany.

Until 3x09, Carmy was still stuck calling and ending things with Claire, while Richie was on the steps of officially ending it with Tiffany by accepting the invitation to the wedding.

In season 4, that leaked argument will happen after Tiffany's wedding—because that will be Richie's end of the cycle, and it will be a test for Carmy to end his past with Claire.

Jessie and Sydney, meanwhile, show signs of being part of Richie and Carmy's future.

Jessie shows Richie that she has a purpose in what she does at Ever, and Sydney shows Carmy that their passion can also be enjoyable.

Jessi and Sydney also have similar reasons to staying inspired:

Lastly- I love Carmy and Richie watching Sydney and Jessie Work:

[alwaysrunningoutoftime]

imagine carmy saying this:

"You're wrong about us being on different paths, we're not on different paths, you're my path and you're always gonna be my path.

we've all gotta make a choice, well I choose you

i'm following you now, i'm just gonna follow you everywhere, i'm just gonna follow you the rest of my life."

i love petergwen so much and can't help but apply this scene to sydcarmy. i was influenced by a post by @afrofairysblog to post this. excuse my delusion, this is just me imagining and applying the lines to sydcarmy:

imagine after sydney reveals she is considering leaving and their explosive fight, sydney says defeated, "we keep failing at this partnership thing and maybe we were never meant to be partners. we clearly want different things. maybe we're on different paths."

carmy has the wake up call he needs and quicjkly begins his amends process with the people he hurt and who hurt him, and starts his first therapy session within a few days. off to a good start of his healing journey and knowing that every second counts, carmy asks sydney to have dinner with him. walking home from dinner he says the above.

"you're my path" sydney's his path because she is his future. she holds the ability to make all his dreams come true, to make his legacy come true. to make a panic-less, anxiety free environment.

"I choose you" after trying to convince himself for months that he wants claire, trying to fulfill some form of familial obligation and perfect cookie cutter life. the wake up call forced him to confront his true feelings for sydney and realizes who gives him peace, who he was doing all this for.

"i'm just gonna follow you everywhere, i'm just gonna follow you the rest of my life." he realizes his david fields inspired methods to get her star and prove he was worthy of her made everything worse. he remembers the brigade conversation and what she said her dreams were. to make her dreams come true he has to listen to her, he has to step back and let her take the reins. from there maybe their partnership begin to blossom.

im really hoping season 4 has sydcarmy reconcile and is it too much to ask for a declaration such as this. for carmy to open up to sydney and reveal his innermost thoughts and say he wants her in his future.

[xony]

I am possesed by a sydcarmy spirit and I need to have this out. Completely hypotetical scenario based only in what we kinda know from s4. So, spoilers? Maybe.

Say Carmy does invite Syd to the wedding as his +1, she sees commitment on his part, calls Shapiro and tells him to fuck off that she feels like The Bear is the one.

But! during the wedding Carmy pulls the same shit he does at the funeral and ditches Sydney to go apologize/confront Claire (and that's why my girl is alone and Donna takes the chance to go talk to her). Carmy goes after Claire and the fight occurs, and, same as with Chef David, it's completely anticlimactic (like when they went to drop that permit to the mailbox) and it just makes it clear that everything is broken beyond repair and was probably never gonna work anyway!

So, next day, Sydney is furious because Carmy abandoned her AGAIN and she just turned down a great opportunity, and this is the very last straw and THE FIGHT™️ breaks out. Carmy finally realizes that this was the real confrontation he's been avoiding and that this is the thing that he has to fix to get back on track and find the peace!

Idk what would happen as a result of that fight but I'd like at least a little bit of Carmy angst, as a treat.

[xony]

I really wish I was smarter and could do this in a better way, but I'm just a decaying brain with an hyperfixation and internet access so here we go again with some observations about cigarettes and nicotine as proxys (these are very underdeveloped ideas so if anyone with more braincells wants to jump in, please do!)

so, while rewatching Violet, I realized (as many of you probably have) that the whole conversation about carmy still not smoking and if he misses it is really about claire, like it's kinda obvious that's the subtext, and it led me to think if the cigarette metaphor (is that what it's called?) carries to the later scenes of sydney smoking during the party at her apartment (I must have read this around here before bc no way I came up with this lmao)

cigarettes are (as per carmy) a waste of time, and they can be also a distraction, a way to numb de senses for a little bit, something to hold between your fingers at a party, it keeps you busy and makes you look cool, but at the end of the day, it's terrible for you! carmy is realizing this slowly (both about cigarrettes and hopefully about his relationship with claire) but he's overcorrecting and making it everyone's problem

meanwhile syd is on her own avoidance tour, not even looking at the docusign, not telling carmy about maybe leaving the bear, so she tries to numb her stress and anxiety by putting on a pretty dress, dancing, flirting and smoking, only to crash very very quickly after

I'm also thinking if there's maybe a parallel between the party scene at the end of s3 and the party in s2's "Pop", because feels like in both cases they're having fun but also avoiding their feelings and deep issues, and kinda pretending to be a version of themselves who they're not?? (at least not completely) and somehow cigarrettes play into that

and just bc I'm a nerd, I looked up what smoking feels like and what responses it creates in the body, and lo and behold:

(source)

the racing heartbeat is exactly with what carmy is experiencing in that flashback/fantasy of him and claire at the beginning of Violet, so I really think this parallel checks out, but let me know what you all think!

[xony]

I'm back on that sydcarmy ectocooler because I just listened to this interview with jennifer castle about her song blowing kisses and I have thoughtsss under the cut

so apparently she had already recorded the song and she then sent it to matty as a sort of pitch to see if it could be included in s3, she mentions that it was a matter of figuring out if/where the song would "fit" in the show, and I just find it sooo interesting that it was chosen for sydney in a very introspective scene where she's basically deciding her future

and don't get it twisted my heart's still in it my dedication's a star and it shines on our differences and there's love in the meantime jennifer says that the song is about something that you're not able to speak about, but that you just gotta have faith and keep moving forward, so it's not hard to see how it relates to sydney's current situation and how she's unable to speak to carmy about it

can you feel me? can you feel what I do? I'm at the front of the moment and I'm blowing my little kisses to you, baby

like they're giving each other silent signals, maybe even subconsciously (the wider margins, the dish that looks like syd's scarf), they have bleed into each other's lives!!!

there's no words to fumble with I'm not a beggar to language any longer

they're both not saying what they feel/mean/need to say to understand each other and move forward together, although they already have established a very non-verbal form of communication (like the I'm sorry sign, which was never used this season), idk if it's enough to get them through this disconnect, hopefully this is what s4 will revolve around anyway, i just find it funny that CS and co. heard this song and went hmmm where could this fit?? who is this about? oh yeah, this is for sydney... which could mean nothing

[xony]

no but what if syd is on the phone with shapiro and she's telling him that the bear (aka carmy) feel like THE ONE?????

[xony]

i was so unproductive today thanks to sydcarmy being so back and klay thompson also being back but not really ):

[xony]

I'm on a social media detox but I was listening to Lindsey Buckingham's Trouble and the idea of a sydcarmy seggggsi scene with this as the music is just too much, i need them back!!!

[xony]

more rants on s3 (mainly why I think cla*re is on her way out)

okay, so, there's been lots of complaining about how much claire we saw this season (i love molly tbh, but that's a different story), howeverrr in truth, we actually only saw her once

almost every scene except the last one with the faks was carm's memories/fantasies (we don't even know if they happened or if he's just idealizing his short-lived situationship)

and then there are a few hints that claire is being phased out of the narrative, but we're seeing so much of her we're thinking she's being put front and center (here's the sleight of hand, distract you with one hand while the other does the trick), anyway these are the scenes that come to mind:

richie constantly saying WHO CARES whenever claire is brought up, sure he's pissed at carmy, but he's a main character and carmy's closest person after syd and nat, he should care, he cares about carm, but he's smart and knows claire is irrelevant now (he actually saw her leave, and her goodbye seemed pretty final to him)

nat trying to call claire and the phone not even recognizing that name, no matter how hard she screamed it, nothing, who dat? she's not part of the bear family, and the scene drives the point harder by having the call go to the bear instead, like claire is not going to save nat, or carm or the bear, she doesn't even go here!

claire herself! the only time we actually see her, the real actual claire, she quite explicitly tells the faks that it's over, that whatever fantasy they have about her and carm is not true (wouldn't be the first time neil sees something that isn't there, like the ballbreaker game character talking to him), they haven't even spoken, it's done. feels to me she's saying she'd like to be excluded from this narrative, her part of the story is over, now please leave (and ted, please get that checked out)

like, there's no way to make it more obvious, carmen is holding on to a memory, a ghost, he's being haunted not by claire but by his own guilt and trauma

[alwaysrunningoutoftime]

leaked video of carmy running to the adamu household to beg for sydney back:

It isn't Carmy and Donna I'm holding onto my seat for - it's Carmy meeting Emmanuel.