#very sydcarmy coded

[afrofairysblog]

Very Canon 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

[fairestbeard]

Oh, precious, precious silver and gold

And pearls in oyster's flesh

Drop down we two to serve and pray to love

Born again from the rhythm

Screaming down from heaven

Ageless, ageless, I'm there in your arms

Don't want to weep for you

I don't want to know

I'm blind and tortured, the white horses flow

The memories fire

The rhythms fall slow

Black beauty, I love you so

So, so, so

Oh, the welts of your scorn, my love, give me more

Send whips of opinion down my back, give me more

Well it's you I've waited my life to see

It's you I've searched so hard for

(Mojo Pin- Jeff Buckley)

[beauspot]

“I cannot stop thinking of you”

“From the mornings you ease, to the evenings you quiet, to the dreams you inhabit.”

“My thoughts of you never end.”

“I am yours Sydney, I have always been yours.”

-Bridgerton 1x05 ‘The Duke and I’

[conceived-angel]

people are talking about blowing kisses being a song specifically for the show and i want to join in! obviously, the whole song is very sydcarmy coded and i'm intrigued by them playing it over a montage of those two characters exclusively. but it was the singer's quote about the song that stood out to me:

"Language can be so futile; I always loathe explaining myself, and yet my love for you makes me want to try, my hands gesturing in endless loop." ― Jennifer Castle

didn't she say she wrote the song after watching season 2 and falling in love with it? idk if this has anything to do with anything, but i found it really sweet.

[afrofairysblog]

Facts!!

Like She's Everything He's just Ken

their dynamic to me (affectionate)

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

Syd is the pattern breaker

Which is great news in terms of Sydcarmy ENDGAME.

It's not like we all, Sydcarmy truthers, haven't seen that one coming. Of course, we have always known this lady came to turn it all around in Carmy's world from the very get-go, it was always painfully obvious.

BUT

Here is another pattern that she has come to erase from the life of Carmy (and the show)

(He's fighting it like a champ, I must say)

Storer likes strong women who take charge and take the initiative to go after the men they love so the man doesn’t have to (in fiction, IDK about his real life). The guy is the one who gets to decide whether he accepts her advances or innuendos and responds to them, but he doesn’t really take the first step; she does.

Refer to my napkins theory (handkerchief section) please.

Exhibit A: Jess

Jess made it clear she was into Richie in 2x7. Also, at Syd's party. She is up for it and made it clear, even when Richie has not picked up her handkerchief yet.

I don't know about Tiff, nor do I care

Exhibit B: The C person

He created the C person and I will not elaborate on that one. Fuck her!

Exhibit C: Sugar

He created Sugar who is clearly the one who wears the pants in the relationship, and taking into account Pete’s personality, was probably the one who was all over him from day 1, and he was just like: “Yeah Nat, whatever you say, you’re so great, ILY.”

Exhibit D: Tina

He created Tina, same energy as Nat but her husband is no Pete, so I’m not sure about how her relationship with her husband began, I can only safely assume she always speaks her mind. So I’m sure she was open about her feelings when she met her husband, no riddles.

Exhibit E: Donna

He created Donna and same, there’s no version of the story where Donna was ever shy or quiet and not open, if not too open, about her feelings when she met Carmy’s dad (like you know who: the C person) and that’s probably why they got together to begin with and also one of the reasons why he left her eventually. She’s overwhelmingly vocal about how she feels for ppl because the excessive booze removes any social boundaries and barriers and she’s always ready to shout it in everyone’s face. That’s changing though. But that's how she was written into existence by Storer, to begin with.

The game changer → Sydney Adamu

So, that takes us to Syd who never openly flirted with Carmy, unless we count Pasta 2x2 (which I don’t).

And never really read the awkward signs he was trying to give her (which I hate but totally understand because they are business partners and she's a professional).

And so… we have a pattern breaker here. That in Storer’s book means MEAT.

We've reached the meat of the matter, chefs! YAY!

So, there are about a zillion foreshadowing leads we could analyze of how that game change in terms of the female role in the courtship dynamic will play out SOON, Storer wasn't precisely slick throughout the series, but the most obvious and recent one was brought to us hidden in plain sight, in S3 -3x5- and I already went over it here (my own RB notes from 7/27):

The point is that as the post it says: "ALL QUESTIONS ASK SYDNEY!"

That means that dynamic will have to be reversed for Sydcarmy to happen, CARMY WILL HAVE TO POP THE QUESTION. LOL!

No, not that question. Well... maybe eventually, but I'm actually talking about the CONFESSION and asking her out, asking her out on a date or something and I don't mean a symbolic date like the fucking funeral he completely ignored her at and where he then ditched her too. I'm talking about really and openly telling her how he feels for her, and exposing himself to her rejection. Not the other way around.

She has to enable this, of course, so in a sense, she will have to break her patterns for Carmy too, because love is an act of mirroring, as we all know by now.

But it´s Carmy who will have to grow a pair and put into words what has remained unspoken between them and is starting to decay inside -and it's ruining their whole relationship-. He will have to turn the dynamic around and take the role that Storer usually puts "strong women" in, and open up and go after who he wants. He will have to be the strong one and say it out loud. ASK ALL THE QUESTIONS because Syd has all the answers and her answers are the game changers of the show.

I wish it went like this (let's imagine Tanner is either Shapiro or Luca):

Fun fact: Demian Lewis said that he characterized Bobby Axelrod by playing him like a wild animal, tapping into that energy and bringing in it on set every day to play his scenes. He didn't say the beast was a bear though.

Bonus track: Ayo Edebiri. Ayo´s pattern is to be the pattern breaker of the plot. The → plot twist.

Ayo always plays the game-changer character. In Omni Loop, she did too, I'm sure her next movie with Luca Guadagnino will be the same thing. She is drawn to that type of characters and plays them beautifully.

Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs💋

[leikeliscomet]

Who's Afraid of Tenmartha?

Chapter 1 - She Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Doctor Who’s representation of love and sex has changed throughout its run, for better and for worse. 60s Who had a wide range of companions following the asexual, weirdo Doctor in mostly platonic dynamics. 70s and 80s who kept this but with a shift to predominantly younger female companions and slightly skimpier outfits but still maintained ‘no hanky panky in the TARDIS’. The controversial Eighth Doctor kiss however would mark the shift of the Doctor’s sexuality. Nuwho, specifically RTD1 and Moffat Who wanted the Doctor to be a sex symbol of sorts with everyone and their grandma (literally in Fifteen’s case) failing to resist the Time Lord charm, Martha included. Alongside Doctor Who’s predominantly white casting, its canon Doctor ships minus the very recent Thasmin and FifteenRogue, fall into the mainstream view of acceptable romance. In mainstream romance, the ideal couple is cis, heterosexual, monogamous and white; a white cishet man and a white cishet woman. The man is brave, smart, funny and caring. The woman is kind, beautiful, gentle and feminine. We might get a remix where the man is harsh and cruel or the woman is a fixer-upper in need of a good ol’ makeover but either way, the dynamic will end in the same way - the ideal (white) masculine man and the ideal (white) feminine woman. The Doctor and River Song. The Doctor and Rose. The Doctor and Clara. An acceptably white masculine man with his white acceptably feminine woman. Despite the Doctor being non-binary and genderfluid, being able to take on any appearance, the Tenth doctor presents and is viewed as a white man by show and fandom. And Martha Jones is a human Black woman. This plays a key role in talking Tenmartha because it doesn’t exist in a vacuum in the social perception of interracial ships, specifically m/f where the woman is Black.

Whether you ship Tenmartha or not, they have romantic coded scenes throughout series 3. Smith and Jones is filled with double entendres such as Ten asking Martha if she wants to go out, Martha asking if Ten has a partner plus his offence to the question and the classic ‘genetic transfer’ which conveniently couldn’t be anywhere else but on Martha’s lips. This romantic subtext is pushed further in The Shakespeare Code, having Ten and Martha share a bed. Martha says she loves the Doctor romantically on several occasions. Ten holds Martha’s knickers. He swears up and down ‘one trip’ yet keeps Martha along for the whole series. In her return in series 4, The Sontaran Stratagem, Ten would get jealous when he realised Martha was engaged. RTD even made a scrapped scene where Ten was supposed to undress in front of Martha. It’s set up like a 2000s romcom. Will they? Won’t they? BWWM (Black-Woman-White-Man) is one of the few times where Black women are viewed as the object of desire in this dynamic, the one worth fighting for, the one the man will fight and give his life to defend. Why BWWM rose to popularity in the 2010s and why there’s a mini comeback right now could range from many reasons from wanting to push back on the desexualisation of Black women and the idea of the unlovable single Black woman, colourism and violence in the depiction of Black Love or even the divest movement but either way, I understand the appeal. In Tenmartha’s case, this is the only time in the show’s history that flips the script of the acceptable romance with a Black woman as the companion. The desirable companion is a Black woman. The love interest is a Black woman. The ideal woman is a Black woman.

Fandom’s hatred of BWWM (Black-Woman-White-Man) is nothing new. From the hate towards Candice Patton on The Flash, the outrage of Tom Holland’s Spiderman dating an MJ played by Zendaya, the anger of a Black Annabeth dating beloved Percy Jackson, the harassment of Francesca Amewudah-Rivers for playing Juliet to the most recent takes on how SydCarmy of The Bear is a threat to the sanctum of platonic m/f. Hell, even I remember my first SydCarmy moment when I used to be a RWBY stan (don’t judge me!). There were plenty of posts about how teen assassins Emerald and Mercury were so brother and sister coded and they couldn’t be romantic at all, despite Ren and Nora having similar playful dynamics but getting seen as romantic from the jump. I don’t know what siblings tell the other ‘you want me’ in their debut episode, but good luck to them. No matter what show, BWWM is almost always rejected by fandom because it essentially threatens the ‘ideal’, white cisheterosexual romance. The ideal man can be white but the ideal woman must never be Black.

How race plays a role in romance and sex creates two specific tropes of Black women; the Mammy and the Jezebel. The former as a form of desexualisation, the latter as sexualisation. The Mammy is undesirable, unworthy and unloveable. Her purpose is to serve the needs of white families whilst having no needs of her own. The Jezebel is animalistic, promiscuous and ravenous. Her purpose is to provide sexual pleasure to white men whether she wants to or not. These tropes have been rebranded through TV and film. Whilst not as jarring as decades ago, the function remains the same in tropes like the new and improved disposable Black girlfriend trope. Martha fits the criteria because she’s consistently the exception. Unlike Rose, Martha’s attraction to Ten was treated as a flaw in the show and fandom and something she needed to overcome. In a show where love conquers all, Martha’s love is the one that needs conquering. Martha’s romantic attraction to Ten is her main storyline, with constant confessions of her love in secret to her ending her arc by moving on from her crush. Martha’s sexual attraction to Ten is also seen as a flaw and actively demonised in fandom. Martha flirts with Ten in Smith and Jones but stops when Ten is uncomfortable, but fandom interprets Martha as sexually pushing herself onto him, even though she stopped and respected his boundaries. This view is a rebranded Jezebel trope. Black women’s sexuality is a coin toss between the Jezebel and the Mammy. It’s either perverted, animalistic and uncontrollable or it doesn't and can’t exist at all. Amy, Clara, Rose, River, Jack and many, many more all thirst over the Doctor, but Martha is uniquely ‘aggressive’ in her attraction. There’s also no comment in fandom about Ten’s own behaviour like holding her knickers and kissing her because in this context, deviant Black sexuality is the opposite of the pure, noble white sexuality. Ten’s romantic and sexual moments are accidents, naivety, but Martha’s are lustful, calculated. Whilst Martha’s story is about moving on, finding her independence and strength plus it being a very relatable storyline to me personally, it’s common for romantic and sexual narratives to push the idea of the independent Black woman, that Black women don’t need to be involved in romantic storylines. Whilst mainstream feminist criticisms have rightfully criticised the heteronormative ideals of women ‘needing’ to be partnered with men, there’s been a lack of analysis of how Black women are excluded from romantic narratives to begin with. As I’ll go into way more detail, the exclusion of Black women from romantic and sexual pairings isn’t done in the name of Black asexuality and Black aromanticism either but more so a form of desexualisation to reaffirm that Black women are undesirable in a society where desirability is currency. The Doctor can love anyone, but not Martha Jones. The Doctor can also fuck everyone but Martha apparently. Martha’s perception represents the sexualisation and desexualisation of Black women. She’s sexual but cannot be sexual. She’s attractive but can't be attracted.

That being said BWWM isn’t the fix-all solution for the colourism and misogyny within the Black dating scene. White men and non-Black men of colour can still and do perpetrate the same misogynoir towards Black women. Dating and sexing aren’t allyship. If Ten constantly takes his Rose angst by comparing Martha with her, dismissing the risk of racism when time travelling and overall not appreciating her till she left, then is this really flipping the ‘ideal’ romance or just continuing how Black women are seen as undesirable and put in romantic dynamics that don’t serve us? Tenmartha flips the script of acceptable romance positively, but also negatively. Ten affirms Martha’s a one-trip companion but strings her long for more. He brings up Rose and takes Martha to New New York just as he did for her. Even Simm!Master giggles at Martha being lesser than Rose and calls her useless in The Last of the Timelords. Martha’s treated as a rebound, rather than an ideal love interest. Tenmartha’s story ends with the two going separate ways and moving on with Ten ‘returning’ to his ideal, which the script tells us is Rose Tyler. The Tenmartha split isn’t treated like a great tragedy like the Tentoo incident either, but rather a natural conclusion. The narrative by RTD tells us they just weren’t meant to be, despite also insinuating that they could’ve been in another lifetime.

On the other side of the pond, some fans have swapped Doctor Who m/f for f/f and headcanon Martha as a lesbian, specifically for Rose. Rosemartha posts love to go on about how Martha and Rose shouldn't be pit against each other but making out instead. Don't try to fuck the Tenth Doctor Martha you silly billy, just fuck Rose instead! Despite Martha being compared to Rose, put down for Rose, attacked by the fandom for Rose, her being shipped with Rose is supposed to be the consolation prize and many white fans seem oblivious to how from a Black woman’s perspective this can be backhanded. The Rose in Rosemartha is doing the heavy lifting because the main crutch seems to be centred around Martha loving Rose along with Ten, moving on from Ten’s Rose comparisons to date Rose or Rose being the reason she heals. Not just Rose and Martha, but any disproportionate dynamic between white and Black characters, or Black and white women is met with the shallow and jarring ‘stop pitting women against each other!1’ which conflates the antiblackness from white women and Black women’s self-defence as the same. In this case, Doctor Who stans conflate the anti-black racism of Rose stans with a few mean posts from Martha’s. The rise of ‘just make them kiss’ correlates with this as it’s common for racist and misogynist memes to be ‘yurified’ by taking the bigot or ‘ideal’ woman and shipping them with the marginalised or ‘lesser’ woman in the caricature romantically and/or sexually. In this case, Rosemartha is the attempt to fix the misogyny towards Martha and Rose by making them a romantic pairing. Whilst this isn’t inherently wrong, I’m very much anti-Rosemartha and I’m standing ten toes down on that. It worries and angers me when people see the dehumanisation of Black women to uplift a white woman and start yelling ‘toxic yuri’ instead of addressing the misogynoir that’s right in front of them. Society is sexually entitled to the bodies of Black women due to a mix of antiblackness, misogyny and compulsory sexuality, but hates us all the same. From the backlash I’ve gotten from white sapphic Rose stans and the racism of sapphic fandom, it confirms the idea a lot of BWWW (Black-Woman-White-Woman) seems to be in favour of the white sapphic more than the Black sapphic. Martha is Rose’s love interest, Rose’s girlfriend and a great character… because of Rose. How convenient.

Not just in white sapphic community but white queer community as a whole still doesn’t understand that their frameworks of queerness centre the white experience. What may be liberating and progressive for them can be dehumanising and detrimental to Black queer people. Martha’s doubt of herself and comparisons to Rose plus fandom’s rejection of Martha as a lesser companion compared to her acts as a mirror to how misogynoir affects Black women in terms of beauty standards and self-worth, even if RTD1’s subxtext was accidental. Even Martha’s dad left her mum for the young and blonde Annalise. Many people don’t see the degradation of Black women to uplift white women as a red flag because the dehumanisation of Black women is fully normalised in a society that is as anti-black as it is patriarchal. Black women’s admiration of white womanhood isn’t because every single Black woman is sapphic, but because we’re conditioned to see white womanhood as something to aspire to and Black womanhood as something to be ashamed of. Cute noses are small noses. Nice eyes are blue eyes. Pretty lips are pink. Rosy cheeks are pink. Good pussy is pink. Good hair is straight hair. And straight hair is blonde. 

Despite being these things myself and being first in line for any Black lesbian and/or ace representation, I don’t see every lesbian or asexual headcanon on a Black woman as being in good faith. The idea that Martha’s a lesbian and the idea series 3 was about comphet, to me, seems like a side effect of the internet misusing terms. In this case, lesbian discourse can treat comphet as attraction to men then disliking it and not a systemic pressure on women to pursue romantic and sexual relationships with men. And yes I know about how lesbians force attraction to men, picking men and boys to crush on, trying relationships and sex with men to convince themselves but trust me you don’t need to tell me. Martha never gave lesbian to me because her attraction to men seems real. Martha‘s attraction to Ten doesn’t seem forced, she’s genuinely sexually and romantically attracted to him. Unlike Bill, there’s no external forces like her mum that pressure Martha into needing man. She has no issue rejecting them when she's genuinely not interested e.g. Shakespeare so the forced attraction angle doesn’t bang. She was also attracted to Riley from 42 or Professor Milligan but despite how nasty and evil and icky Tenmartha is and how the fandom is very much anti MarthaMickey, no one (including RTD for some reason) wants to put Martha with her canon (white) male love interests either. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Martha’s attraction to men seems very much real, but I don’t think fandom wants it to be. And I think this absolutely stems from how we measure the (un)desirability of Black women.

The lesbian and asexual headcanons of cishet (coded) Black women never seem to translate into material support for canon Black lesbianism/sapphism and Black asexuality. Obviously we all love a bit of Bill Potts but when I’ve seen more lesbian Martha edits on the tl over Bill I scratch my head sometimes. There is only one darkskin Black girl who’s an aroace main character in TV/Film history and that is Selah Summers and yet most people in queer fandom, aspec or not have no idea who she is. Large chunks of sapphic fandom had no idea The Colour Purple was a sapphic film when it came out. Sapphic online communities are still shocked when Megan Thee Stallion and Doechii say they’re bisexual and they’re always missing in the so-called ‘sapphic renaissance’. All Black women are romantically undesirable, but no Black women are aromantic. All Black women are sexually undesirable but no Black women are asexual. All Black women attracted to white men are actually lesbians, but actual Black lesbians in question are invisible. I find it also very dodgy how rare the bisexual-Martha and pansexual-Martha headcanons are. Continued bisexual and pansexual erasure in fandom and the general erasure of Black bisexual and pansexual people from mainstream queer representation absolutely play a role here. This headcanon also means Martha could be attracted to women and still leave wiggle room for her canonical male love interests and potentially, Tenmartha. We can't be having that, can we?

How people navigate romance and sex can’t be separated from other systems that come into play and Doctor Who is no different. In the Mammy-Jezebel tightrope, Black women are either forced or excluded. Tenmartha can’t exist because Martha’s too undesirable or Tenmartha exists as in, Martha was the main instigator with her ‘aggressive’ flawed desires. These wider issues can’t be ignored and I argue that Tenmartha can’t be talked about in good faith unless we address misogynoir in how Martha is treated as a character but also how misogynoir shapes what we consider ‘acceptable’ romantic and sexual pairings. Whilst calls to keep Martha far from Ten are sometimes in good faith, as in, to ‘protect’ her from a pairing that harms her it can also come across as removing her as a potential candidate from the list of love interests for the Doctor and Doctor Who’s market place of desire, even if there are things she needs protecting from in the Tenmartha dynamic. Next, I have to ask, what are we trying to protect Martha from then?

<- Intro Chapter 2 ->

[yapper1020]

Okay but sydcarmy is very king George and Queen Charlotte coded

[afrofairysblog]

THANK YOU!!! I thought I was the only few who show this, too!!!

syd and carmy are very autistic coded to me. i can’t be the only one who sees it?

[afrofairysblog]

I know it's been a week but I haven't forgotten @spywhitney ( check out her blog it's great Mwah)

Here are my thoughts on all of the The Bear ships (both canon and non canon)

SYDCARMY: They honestly have a special place in my heart( one of if not the main reason I downloaded this app) and I was not ready for the chockhold it was going to have in my life but here I am 🤷🏿‍♀️. I first saw them in an out of context clip while watching a YouTube video ( ot was when Carmy asked Sydney to say yes chef in S1) and i was like oooo they intrigue me and ngl when I finally did watch the show I thought it was just gonna be platonic. However when I saw that last shoot in the S1 finale I was like OOOOO this is a slow burn and then I got to Ao3 and it was history ( as you can tell with my page I have been fighting to the nail with this ship lol).

SYDRICHIE: ngl.... I have a soft spot for this ship 👀 what can I say I love a good enemies to lovers or enemies to friends pipeline 🤷🏿‍♀️. I think it's because they have good banter and they are pretty funny together where I can see but I am so far gone with the Sydcarmy Army that I can't fully commit to this. Also the age gap, lowkey micoraggresstions Richie was throwing at her in S1( he did change so I'll give him that and me not seeing Sydney being a StepMom are so factors too. Regardless, they are my Top 3 Bro-Otps on the show cause I love their friendship and shootout to the Sydrichie girlies tho.

SYDMARCUS: sign... in another life I would have been a full time sydmarcus girlie cause I've had a had a ✨️ Ooooo are they gonna start something ✨️ moment with them but then I saw Sydcarmy and that I was like yeahhhhh Sorry Marcus . I just feel like they are better off as brother and sister you know what I'm saying. Plus there are a few people that only ship them because they are the only two prominent black characters that are around the same age. Nevertheless, they are also apart of my Top 3 Bro- Otps on the show!!

SYDLUCA: They're cute 🤷🏿‍♀️. Like ngl, I can see the appeal, but not for a long-term relationship, you know what I'm saying. Like it's giving plot device ship so Sydney can get her Stella got her Grove Back moment ( not that I don't mind that cause honestly she needs it and it'll be good to get a different perspective and a jealous plotline)but Luca is a supporting guest star and not a main so even if we do get the relationship it's not gonna be fully fleshed out ( and they always do this with black female characters). Also we know what this can develop for Sydney but we don't know how this can develop for Luca( not to say that Luca has no reason to not like Syd cause who are we kidding she's a catch but still" . Sydluca girlies are cool so shootout to yall too

CLAIRMY: Yall already know how I feel about them, THEY NEED TO JUST END IT !!!! Like idk why this ship brings out the hater in me but it just does ( it's mostly field by the metas I read which give a more perspective about the relationship and how weird it is). Like at first when I watched S2, I mostly just didn't ship them cause I thought they looked related and were boring. However, rewatching I, both of them don't let themselves be authentic with each other, it's like they try to be this witty Wes Anderson ahh type of couple where the manie pixie dream girl falls for the shy wonder bread art boy who just needs to find he's way with the power of love and unnerving eye contact ( see they truly bring the hater in me)which just don't work both character wise and for the show( ot derailed the show a bit. It'll be better if they are not together before they get even more Toxic.

CHEF FIELDS X CARMY: JAIL!!! Idc JAIL!!!!!!

MICHEAL X CARMY: ......To each there own but JAIL just JAIL

CARMY X RICHIE: I don't personally ship it cause they are very cousin coded to me but they're dynamic is really fascinating to me cause it's like a I hate you , I love you but your the only person I have in my life but why does it have to be you sorta vibe.

NATALIE X PETE: They are the Absolute cutest and underrated ngl. They show a depiction of a healthy relationship on the show that pretty refreshing to see like I love them.

MARCUS X LUCA: This is a sleeper hit ,I'm telling yall like they are cute!!!! They have such an ease and calming vibe when they interactive it gives so much warmth. I just feel like they would be a lowkey type of couple, and idk if the show will commit to the ship or even hint at it, but if they do, it has an audience 🤧

RICHIE X TIFFANY: They got some cute moments but I'm glad they are just friends. I feel like both of them needed to grow separately and not be together romantically.

RICHIE X JESS: Ngl, I don't really care about them but they're moments are really wholesome and I like there banter. I ship it 🙂‍↕️💅🏿. Also can reddit not make it weird with this couple like we get Jess is a good woman ( I like her) but let's not make it weird oof.

RICHIE X MICHEAL: Tbh o see the appeal, but damn if they ever were a couple, it just makes it more tragic .

TINA X HER HUSBAND: Once again they are the Absolute cutest and I lo e how they are married in real life!!!

SYDCARMRICHIE: Unpopular opinion ig, I really like this ship like they are the big three for a reason. Plus, I feel like when I come to stories involving this ship( kinda underrated), they bring the best of both worlds ( or worse if you wanna get messy with the story with both respective ships.

Well that's it for me guts, let me know ow your thoughts. This was fun and one of my longest post lol.

Also, wow, Sydney is in a lot of these ships lol

[carmyism]

sydcarmy star wars au ideas

jedi carmy x politicians daughter syd

- carmy being a new jedi .. barely able to go on his own let alone want to go alone forced on a lone mission to find sydney after she ran from home...

- sydney being skilled with a lightsaber and teaching him some tricks but during one she injures herself (similar to the time when carmy said the dish wasn't ready)

- carmy becoming like a dog for her in a way.. teaching her how to be good with a lightsaber

- i'm making syd force sensitive

- i like to think that she tried to become a padawan before but it failed early as she felt she wasn't progressing and threw it away

- carmy being reminiscent of a guard dog for her, basically always by her side wether required or not. syds dad is adverse to him at first, no matter if sydney says that he's good for her and makes her feel protected.

- carmy offers to teach her to be good with a lightsaber, watches her so longingly...

- sydney hates her required events, drags carmy to go sneak away with her.

- carmy panic attacks still exist but they're much more violent and force based

- mikey will have recently died in this universe too, him and mikey were bounty hunters. carmy used to tag along on missions until they started to believe he was a liability, that's when he became a padawan. decided to prove he could do it.

- natalie and pete still exist, very mundane life. co run a shop. didn't see for years until he rolled into that shop with syd one time. said he wanted to show her how he grew up.

- also adding onto this but both berzatto and adamu are somehow very star wars coded names.

- he gifts her jedi robes, does the whole "you look like syd thing" when someone is wearing something similar. (but he says it in his mind)

- both still incredibly autistic coded LMAOO autism wins again !

:3 this is a wip au soooo :P

[myloveismineallmine]

part 2!

honestly I have a lot ground to cover in terms of songs used for Carmy and Claire. Some are kind of sad. Some are really fucking funny. This one is kinda both.

We'll start with the first song we hear playing with Carmy and Claire: Strange Currencies by R.E.M.

The actual lyrics have little to do with what's going on in the scene, Claire and Carmen are conversing over most of the lyrics. It's not until the third verse that the volume increases and the lyrics become audible. But I'm still gonna talk about the first half of the song, because why not?

"I don't know why you're mean to me When I call on the telephone And I don't know what you mean to me But I want to turn you on, turn you up, figure you out I wanna take you on ..."

Okay, so this first verse is very Claire coded right off the bat. But I do think this song is actually more about Carmy's feelings, and really I can just about guarantee you it is because this song plays twice in the show. R.E.M. songs also have a tendency to play in scenes with Carmen specifically.

"These words, "You will be mine" These words, "You will be mine", all the time

The fool might be my middle name But I'd be foolish not to say I'm going to make whatever it takes Bring you up, call you down, sign your name, secret love Make it rhyme, take you in, and make you mine

These words, "You will be mine" These words, "You will be mine," all the time, oh

I tripped and fell, did I fall What I want to feel, I want to feel it now"

Do not lose hope, fellow sydcarmys. These lyrics are deceptively romantic. But yes, this is what is playing during the conversation w/ Carm and Claire. What is of more interest is the verse that we do finally hear:

"And now with love come strange currencies And here is my appeal I need a chance, a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance A word, a signal, a nod, a little breath Just to fool myself, to catch myself, to make it real, real"

So the show actually cuts to credits after "And here is my appeal." The rest of the song does play to the end, though.

Interesting that the one verse we hear is the one that just completely invalidates the romantic message of the song.

Like. I could end the post right here, folks.

But I will expand further-- this song, to me, is about Carmy trying to convince himself that he loves Claire.

"These words, "You will be mine" These words, they haunt me, hunt me down, catch in my throat, make me pray Say, love's confined, oh"

This is the final verse of the song. The words "catch in my throat." Probably because... he doesn't actually mean them. This is also foreshadowing that he feels confined in love with Claire.

R.E.M. has plenty of love songs. So the fact they used one where the message of the song is repeating the words "I love you" in an attempt to convince yourself/others you're in love is.....curious.

This song is also used a second time in the show, but in a very different context, so I wanted to touch on that too:

A distorted version of Strange Currencies plays as Carmen has a panic attack in the alley.

The first flashback we see is actually his intimate moment with Claire.

The next flashback cuts are all footage of Claire; drawings of her, old photos, and beauty shots. There is finally a flashback of Mikey talking about Claire mixed in, followed by more shots of Claire. After that, more shots of his family with Claire mixed in at random intervals. Throughout all of this, Strange Currencies plays with the audio distorted and words reversed. Until...

Strange Currencies begins to play as normal when the flashback of Sydney plays. Specifically the lyrics "These words, You will be mine, These words, You will be mine, All the time."

In the middle of this verse, after a shot of Carmy calming down, we immediately cut to Syd.

Then, on her: "The fool may be my middle name, But I'd be foolish, not to say."

After this lyric, the song fades out and we cut to a scene with Carm and Sugar.

I think there's a difference in the one audible verse during the Carm+Claire scene being one invalidating the romantic tone of the song, and the one that pays with Carm+Syd cutting off before the cracks in the romantic message of the song become apparent.

But I'm still not entirely convinced this song is really meant to be read as a true romantic one. Which is actually fine, since so far in my research I've already found a good amount of actual romantic songs used for Syd and Carmy anyway? This whole song just has very strong red herring vibes to me.

I'll be continuing these song analysis posts, and hopefully more frequently after I'm done with finals. Let me know your thoughts on this one.

[fairestbeard]

The Bear “Pasta” episode is about tainted/interrupted magic.

 

Walk with me.

In my previous meta I discussed how The Bear uses magical realism or marvelous realism in its story telling as evidenced in “Pop”. This is also very evident in the episode “Pasta”.

What Is Magical Realism?

Magical realism is a genre of literature that depicts the real world as having an undercurrent of magic or fantasy… Within a work of magical realism, the world is still grounded in the real world, but fantastical elements are considered normal in this world.

David Lodge defines magic realism: "when marvellous and impossible events occur in what otherwise purports to be a realistic narrative"

The genius of The Bear is that it’s so subtle in its use of marvelous realism that it is totally left to interpretation. The magical aspects of the stories are so blended in with the ordinary so much so that you might not notice at all. We can see The Bear employing aspects of folklore and the supernatural in the most subtle ways.

Violet.

Over the course of the season, we’d see the color and general ambience of the show shift a lot to emphasize the mood and the events. This episode focuses on Carmy and Syd bonding over the menu they’re trying to create and it feels (to the sydcarmys at least) like some type of love is in the air. This is the closest Sydney and Carmy had ever been in proximity and intimacy to that point. It is also the most progress they made on organizing the menu in the season. We even arguably see Carmy the most animated and relaxed for how neurotic he is known to be.

In this episode we see a lot of violet or purple, which is associated in magic with love potions. There’s a ray of violet light streaming through the restaurant and all through the episode we can that (especially) Carmy’s skin is ever so slightly tinged purple. There’s also a hint of purple in almost every scene either from the lighting to random purple objects in the background (remember season 1 with the tomato cans everywhere? They’re saying something).

This was a very deliberate choice and one big evidence of this is the color coding of the Chicago flag shown at the start of the episode.

The Chicago flag in The Bear "Pasta" episode vs the actual Chicago flag.

Wiz Richie

Richie assumes the role of the wizard-in-charge, dressed in the purplest purple and trying to assert himself all over the ongoing renovations at the restaurant. He calls himself the supervisor (supervisor of the spell?), accuses people (obviously the audience) of not knowing “how to watch stuff”, in other words we should be paying more attention. The movement or beat of the episode is also centered on him. Everything is going chaotically well as it does with the Berzatto clan both at  the restaurant and away but then…

Richie finds an anomaly.

 

Mold is the death knell

Fak tells them mold is the death knell and it could "ruin everything". In other words, it could spoil the magic that's already happening, because it will.

 

Richie is in denial about the presence of the death knell and is trying to get everyone to ignore the problem instead of dealing with it the right way. But there really IS a problem and his efforts to prove there wasn’t results in a more catastrophic ruining of the magic.

 

This moment is where the whole trajectory changes. That’s the exact moment Carmy runs out of veal stock and has to go to the store. While Emmanuelle and Syd's dinner turn from sweet memories to an argument about whether Carmy is trustworthy, Carmy runs into Claire.

A breached portal

What I love about this scene is how once you see it you can’t unsee it.

The way Claire is introduced into the scene, it’s almost like in a marvel-esque fantasy film where a portal is opened do or create something good but some other force gains access to that portal and is introduced to their world. We also see the introduction of the cold blue that pervades the rest of the season.

We can sense Carmy's discomfort. He tries to gently evade what's to come.

But the mold has taken hold.

And sometimes the dark force is not a horned creature with a three pronged weapon. Sometimes the dark force is beautiful and smiling and “remembers you”.

Note: While I now and forever will be anti Claire bear and even though the format, through this marvelous realism lens, casts her as a malevolent force, in reality she probably isn't. Storer stays deceiving and léger de main-ing, remember? Ultimately Carmy is the one "trapped in a prison of his own design".

[periprose]

I just wanna say that Dane kinda has something going on for Maximus. I dunno if fallout will be have the balls to put more subtext on the relationship, but the scene in the vertibird... Dane just staring at Max. I kinda like Max and Lucy too as a pair. They should also let Aaron smile more so people can see how cute the pair is.

Max and Lucy as a ship is vanilla coded so I guess that's why people ain't shipping it so much... I think shippers want yearning over the certainty of a relationship, which is so infectious in other medias.

Interesting take anon! I kinda felt like it was the opposite for me. Like maximus viewed Dane much more strongly and thus was super jealous. Whereas Dane kinda underestimated maximus, but admired his passion. Also i think the brotherhood in general is super toxic and not really supporting of any true relationships.

I don't really ship them bc there wasn't as much screentime but I could see the vision. Ultimately though I think people aren't shipping Lucy and maximus because of not just the vanilla thing but because they're not both white. It's easier to ship an (originally white) ugly monster type creature with a white woman for some people than it is to consider a black person as an object of affection. I'm not trying to call anyone out but I've seen this time and time again with so many interracial ships. Like sydcarmy, richonne, even in the movie Prey more people were horny for the predator over Taabe, a very attractive indigenous man.

There also was yearning between Lucy and Max, they both had immense chemistry before finally kissing. I also don't see Lucy being attracted to the Ghoul (lots of people downplay women's attraction to men in irl relationships even so this isn't surprising) I think ppl prefer enemies to lovers and that's fine and all but I still think there's a subconscious form of racism going on lol. Also yes Aaron has the sweetest smile ever <3

[purposechef]

😭😭 Thank you for all the beautiful and thoughtful comments about Take Care. I'm replying to each slowly, I can't thank you all enough.

1. @planned_obsolescence: lol in every multiverse, Carmy is obsessed with Syd's neck. And as much as I would like to, I can't post anything chapter by chapter because I write and edit everything in tandem. I'm constantly going back and tweaking earlier chapters until the whole thing is finally complete.

2. @ayoarticulate-mothership: That is so thoughtful and kind, thank you. 💗 I was partly inspired by Before Sunrise since I love smacking two fools in love with a deadline, and the idea of Syd & Carm just walking & talking & eating was so cozy.

3. @pennyforapound: I loved Fools Rush In when I was a kid because it was constantly playing on TV. That line is very sydcarmy coded. 🥰

4. anon: Here's every place they visit in the story, minus EMP which my broke ass will never be able to afford.

LaoMa MaLaTang, New World Mall (Flushing): I love this entire food court -- they used to have a guy outside who sold $1 duck buns, too.

Brighton Beach Pierogi Stand: I don't have an address or even a real name for this place, all that I remember is that a little old woman sold the best pierogis here for $1/each. I hope it still exists!

Di Fara Pizza (Midwood): I saw that the owner who handmade all the pizzas here died in 2020, sadly. I think the family still owns the shop though, so it's probably still worth visiting.

Corner Frenzy (Greenpoint): RIP to my favorite soft serve place in Brooklyn. It really was a laundromat that also served ice cream and empanadas, which I think Syd would have loved.

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

I think all 3 of them are cheaters, but they cheat on themselves in one way or the other. That’s why the only way outta this pickle is coming clean no matter what, first with themselves, then with each other, come what may.

I read somewhere that the potential scenario they wanted to kickstart sydcarmy next season is: Carmy cheating on the C person with Syd and I'm against it bc:

A- Syd is not "the other one" material.

B- Carmy cheating on C would require them to get back together first; and I don't want that.

C- C deserves someone who doesn't cheat on her, she obviously already does that to herself.