#( this is carmen isn't it

[strayconstellation]

"i need someone who can match my freak"

my freak:

[creativitysloyalservant]

i have decided to break my lack of original posting on this blog to bring you my Thoughts on Rot in Paradise. because i played it as soon as i got up this morning and i have scoured for some opinions after finishing it, and now i have my own!!

(and also i posted this on twitter but twitter has such a Shit wordcount that i'm also posting my things here with More Detail)

so! spoilers under the cut, please go and play the game if you haven't. it takes literally an hour (it only took nearly 2 hours for me because i like voice acting by myself and exploring every nook and cranny) and it's also free. so maybe come back into the tag once you're done.

okay, so i noticed quite a number of people being confused and disappointed on the lack of an explanation for the monster. it's brought up in the story as the central thing driving the plot, but it's never explained on what "she" is, why she's compelling people to eat a ton of fish-related food or hell, metal, and why this doesn't impact June at all.

but you know what I think?

i think that that's the point. the focus of rot in paradise isn't supposed to be on the monster.

yeah, it's the thing that pushes the plot along besides June and the gang going on vacation in this island. it's what's causing that uneasiness from the moment that guy grabs June's arm at the drinks, to the sheer unnerving feeling of witnessing people going to the ocean to get Raptured basically. i know i personally felt a chill when i saw that one dude literally eating chains and the other hauling an anchor, as if they're trying to make themselves heavier so they get taken by whatever She is.

but that's not the main point! the main conflict is about June and her friends.

as people have pointed out, this game is about toxic friendships and relationships! it's foreshadowed in the conversation that June has with the gang about her cousin (which i will also get into), and it carries it through the way her friends are horribly warped by this ocean Creature. June goes on a silly little vacation trip with her friends only for them to become so so different from themselves that they lash out at her and even hit her in McCoy's case.

but she still sticks it out with them. through the whole game, even despite their verbal abuse, despite being slapped, despite them being people that she can hardly recognise. she stays with them for the whole game, up until the point where you are given the two options at the very end. and she could still stay with them.

because they're still her friends. she cares about them even if they still hurt her. from the way June still tells Carmen to tell June if she needs anything after Carmen literally tells her to shut up and leave, the way June worries about Vonnie eating seafood even though she continues to stuff herself despite being implied to either hate or make an active choice to not eat seafood, to the way June still trudges out to sea screaming for McCoy to come back to the shore as he wades further in even after he slapped her until her nose bled.

it mirrors the conversation about her cousin, the reason for why June was looking forward to the vacation. that while she did comfort her cousin through all of it, June clearly says that "they were dickheads, and she should have ditched them a long time ago".

but it's funny, isn't it? that June, an outsider to her cousin's friend group, easily sees the pain that her cousin's friends are causing her, and immediately calls it as it is. that her cousin should have left the second they hurt her.

and yet now, when her friends hurt her, even though this was a quick and sudden change that happened in a span of three days, June still sticks around. her friends are dickheads right now, and we can see that in the way they interact with June, but she still stays.

because they're her friends. and how could she just leave them like this if it's something that's causing them to be this way?

so no, i don't think the monster is supposed to be the main picture. we don't need to know what it looks like, or why it needs to do this to the islanders, or how it's even doing it in the first place. it adds to the scariness of the game, as per the Spooktober Game Jam, sure, but that's not the point. might be a bit disappointing to some, but that's not the point.

the point is about June, and the choice that she needs to make at the end of the game.

it's a choice on whether she chooses to be pulled deeper into the tides and be with the friends who hurt her and will continue to hurt her in this way,

or to leave them to their fates, whether deserved or not, and resurface to a world where she's alone without her friends.

and even though the first choice hurts much more in the long run, doesn't the second hurt even more in the moment? knowing that you're alone at the end of all of this?

even if it is the right choice, i'm sure the pain must be unbearable in the moment.

[art-is-kayos]

Oh to Dream of Human Wholeness

[yaboirezzy]

Hello internet welcome to theory theory, I am your host mathew spongebob

[nucrests]

Happy Birthday Carmen!! 🎉

[aegonshusband]

jaehaerys sat upright, playing with a wooden horse that had been gifted to him by his cousin jacerys. aegon sat crisscrossed next to him smiling and chuckling and his son. “are you have fun jaehaerys?” he asked, leaning down so he was at his son's level.

jaehaerys babbled, nodding his head and smiling. “yes, daddy,” he said as aegon smiled even wider.

aegon then turned his attention to jaehaera, who was sitting playing with her mother. he raised his hand and ruffled her hair. “your hair has grown quite long, just like your mothers hasn’t it?”

Helaena nodded, “she is quite fond of braids. she requests many different ones. she often says she wants you to do it but we have to explain you can’t.”

aegon looked at her and frowned. “teach me then, is can’t be that hard.”

”okay, so over, add hair, over, add hair? it’s just that simple patter?” aegon asks, jaehaera sitting on a stool with aegon hovering over her. the maid couldn’t help but chuckle, she found it both amusing and enduring that the king wanted to learn how to braid his daughters hair just because she wanted him to.

“you learn fast my king,” she complimented. “i’m sure she greatly appreciates it.”

aegon smiles, knowing his kids receive the love he was never shown. “i hope she does as well.”

[drrav3nb]

Carmy reacting to Claire's message/giving her a fake number vs Carmy reacting to Sydney's message and her having his real number

There's so much I could say about this. The first thing I want to point out is that Carmy gives Claire a fake number, not by accident but knowingly. She must've known this as throughout the season she asks him why and even asks him if it's even okay that she has his number.

Meanwhile, with Sydney it's established in season one that they already exchanged numbers as they're texting each other in the final episode. Now, they do work together and colleagues, especially business partners are going to need each other's contact information in order to discuss things.

But Carmy doesn't seem bothered by Sydney having his number, in fact in E5, he asks Sydney why she didn't call him about a problem that happened at the restaurant. And you can see a chain of text messages in E3 where they jest about Fak not having the proper tools. So then that begs the question as to why Claire having his number was such a big deal and why Carmy was so against it?

Like I mentioned before Claire brings this up a lot and Carmy either ignores it or answers her by not really addressing the question. He obviously didn't want her to have his number, as he's very surprised when she ends up calling his real number. This means that if she didn't chase his real number down by asking Fak, then they would've never reconnected or had a relationship this season, something Carmy might not have wanted. And honestly, it really did feel like Claire pushed the idea of a relationship on to him.

Then there's the differences in Carmy's reactions to Sydney's messages vs Claire's. I was genuinely surprised that when Claire gave him encouragement for passing the fire suppression test he looked at it like it was nothing, not a smile, not even a reply, just a blank expression. This is his 'girlfriend' and her encouragement means very little to him apparently.

Then there's Sydney. Though we didn't get to see them text often this season, or his reaction to her messages. Last season, we saw him smiling like a teenager when she told him to shove his idea up his ass. Now, the fact that Carmy texted Sydney before opening Mikey's letter shows just how important their relationship is to him, he couldn't fathom reading what his brother wrote him without first mending their own broken partnership. In a way, them mending their relationship was the encouragement he needed to open the letter and HE is the one that reaches out for that, HE is the one that texts Sydney first.

So yeah, that's all I have really. I noticed it and I thought I'd share my thoughts on here. I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks!

[currymanganese]

Matchmaker, Matchmaker,

make me a match!

Find me a find!

Catch me a catch!

@espumado 's fantastic meta on the influence of the horror/noir thriller classic film, The Night of the Hunter on The Bear Season 3 has been rattling around in my brain ever since she shared it; and it prompted me to watch the movie recently. I'd like to encourage folks to check out @espumado's post here if you haven't seen it.

Here are some thoughts I'd like to add concerning a potential parallel between two highlighted romantic relationships in The Night of the Hunter and The Bear thus far -

The marriage of Willa Harper and Harry Powell

And the relationship between Carmy and Claire

There are four features of the relationship between Willa and Harry that are mildly echoed in Carmy and Claire's relationship: external social pressure to accept a romantic partner that Willa and Carmy are not enthusiastic about initially; blatant tip-offs that Willa and Carmy receive that everything is not well in their relationships with the partners that they have been 'set up' with by their loved ones; post-tip-offs, Willa and Carmy's insistent denial of the fact that their partners are less than ideal; and Willa and Carmy's self-loathing and poor sense of self-worth that is reinforced by their larger-than-life familial figures.

External social pressure to accept an undesired partner:

In The Night of The Hunter, a newly widowed young woman, Willa Harper, is badgered repeatedly into marrying Harry Powell (a misogynistic, sociopathic serial killer-thief posing as an itinerant preacher) at the behest of Icey Spoon, a domineering older woman that is equal parts Willa's employer and her, and her children, John and Pearl's, mother and grandmother figure respectively.

Likewise, in The Bear Season 2, Carmy is bombastically pressured into being set up with Claire (whether for a casual fling or serious relationship is unclear) - a former childhood neighbour and acquaintance - by Mikey and Richie, his older brother and his surrogate cousin respectively.

Blatant tip-offs that the relationships are unhealthy:

After marrying Harry Powell, Harry instantly flips from being charming and ingratiating to Willa to being psychologically abusive and refuses to physically consummate the marriage. However, Willa is so cowed by Harry and the will of her mother figure, Icey, and the social approbation of her small, religiously conservative community, that she does nothing when she comes home from work one day and overhears her new 'husband' Harry being verbally, psychologically, emotionally, and physically abusive to her very young daughter, Pearl.

However, in a comparatively mundane indication that all is not well in Carmy's new relationship with Claire, Carmy appears to have his anxiety/panic triggered by being physically intimate with Claire, and/or due to the familial pressure he feels to be with her, which causes him to mentally associate Claire with his dysfunctional family.

Being in denial about their partners:

In a tragic and baffling development, after Willa overhears Harry abusing Pearl, Willa is so deep in denial about Harry's true nature that she meekly fixates on Harry's non-existent virtues even while he prepares to murder her. Harry kills Willa by slitting her throat with a knife, and dumps her body in a nearby river at night, leaving her 9 year old son, John, to fend for himself and his younger sister against their villainous step-father.

Despite showing signs of being anxious around Claire in Season 2 and 3 - his initial refusal to give Claire his number - his laboured breathing with her in his kitchen in Bolognese - his rapidly beating heart when cuddling with Claire in a Season 3 flashback; and Carmy's panic attack the morning after sleeping with Claire in Bolognese, and despite his mental preoccupation with Claire during Season 3, Carmy strangely asserts that Claire is not, "haunting him", as "that would be chaos, and Claire is peace...." Seemingly ignoring the negative emotions that their relationship triggered for him and the additional strain and complications that his time in his relationship with Claire brought to his relationship with Sydney, Richie, and his work-life.

Willa and Carmy's poor sense of self-worth reinforced by loved ones

Willa is an understandably subdued woman after the death of her first husband, Ben Harper, however (as encouraged by the psychologically manipulative Harry Powell) she also blames herself for Ben Harper's death. In her naivete, and self-recrimination over Ben's death, and because of her mother figure, Icey's, overbearing insistence that Willa is a silly woman that cannot take care of herself and her children, Willa rushes into a marriage with the evidently suspicious stranger, "Preacher" Harry Powell; who brainwashes her into believing that he is her path to salvation and redemption for her "misdeeds".

Carmy's monologues to Al-anon and to Tina/ himself in the walk-in - as overheard by Claire - reveal that Carmy is self-loathing and considers himself a: "psycho"; someone unworthy of love; a loner; a man of few to no true friends; and his dreams also expose that Carmy questions whether his brother/father-figure, Mikey ever really loved him or not, and that he also suffers from survivor's guilt. This poor sense of self-worth does not appear to have been helped by Mikey's refusal to let Carmy work with him, prior to his death, when Mikey was self-isolating and descending further into addiction; and Carmy's negative self-concept is further promoted due to his mother's abuse, and his family friends e.g. Tiff & Richie/brother's attestations that he is, "a mopey little fuck" and/or "weird", and like his mother, Donna.

_____________

This post is already stretching on to be rather long, and these similarities between the aforementioned relationships and Willa and Carmy's personalities and actions may be coincidental/ unintended, but I do find them interesting to note, and I would like to point out a few final thoughts concerning Harry and Claire's motivations for pursuing relationships with Willa and Carmy respectively, and their personalities:

It should be noted, that despite being an influential and now-much lauded classic film, as a modern viewer, The Night of The Hunter is aggressively misogynistic; the women and girls in the film are either depicted as: gossipy, simpering, naive, easily manipulated, or domineering or mean-spirited, and in the lone exception to this rule, a positive mother figure that takes in John and Pearl at the end of the movie still expositions that, "women are foolish." However, it must be said that the quality of character of the men in this movie doesn't fare much better in turn, and Harry Powell is a misogynistic menace of a man that paradoxically is implied to lust after the very women he hates, and who he projects onto and dismisses as, "wanton temptresses", yet, in a case of deeply entrenched sexual repression, he refuses sex and sexual contact with women despite being found desirable and attractive by them.

Having said all of this, I find it funny that Claire seems to be everything Harry Powell would hate in a woman; she is intelligent, a medical doctor; presumably financially secure under her own merits as a doctor; she is confident and sexually forward; she is the one that pursued her interest in Carmy and not the other way around, which flies in the face of parochial heteronormative traditions about M/F romantic relationships; Claire does not desire to become a doctor out of (a traditionally maternal and feminine instinct) to show care and concern, or to "fix things" so much as she becomes a doctor out of a fascination with the intricacies of pain / the workings of the human body, and is somewhat unaffected by her almost killing one of her patients in her care due to misreading her chart; and lastly Claire breaks things off with Carmy instead of, "standing by her man", after overhearing his meltdown in the walk-in.

However, inversely, it must also be said that while Harry Powell's motivations for pursuing marriage to Willa before killing her is as clear as day, he wanted to marry her and kill her because he learnt that her first husband stole and hid a large sum of money with Willa's children, and "Preacher" Powell coveted the stolen money for himself; yet Claire's motives for staunchly pursuing Carmy as a romantic partner - besides Mikey, Richie and the Fak's encouragement, and Carmy and Claire's alleged former childhood/adolescent crushes on each other, and sexual attraction - is a little more nebulous.

What does she see in him really?

And, unlike Harry Powell, based on the impact Claire has had on Carmy's life thus far, after pursuing him romantically with Neil Fak's help, is Claire an anti-villain?

Thank you for reading if you've read all this - and on a personal note, I will be on here less frequently for the foreseeable future as I will be heading off to film school to study film production soon.

If any of what I've written above catches your interest, please do feel free to check out the following observation posts - and the reblog add-ons too! if you haven't read them:

Why'd the crew at The Bear ignore Syd's question about Marcus, to talk about Claire? by @moodyeucalyptus

Sublimation and Intellectual Orgasms by @mitocamdria

The Bear - Sleight of Hand Movie Posters by @ago0112

The Bear Season 3 & Meta Filmmaking by @thoughtfulchaos773

Natalie and Night of the Hunter by @espumado

Carmy and Claire: Guilt by @brokenwinebox

Claire: Ominous or Naive by @brokenwinebox

Richie and the viewer by @whenmemorydies

Richie's Journey is not over by myself.

Fourth Wall being broken by @brokenwinebox

Claire and The Faks: A Lovable Alpha Bitch and her henchmen? by myself.

Claire and Sydney by @brokenwinebox

Mikey and Claire as a reverse engineered haunt - an add-on to @espumado's post on the fantastical elements of season 3 by @whenmemorydies and @thoughtfulchaos773

Scene Lighting, Blocking and Dialogue Callbacks between Claire and The Berzattos by myself

Crack theory but...Claire as Lilith, Carmy as Adam, and Sydney as Eve? or why I think Claire and the Faks could possibly shape up to be shocking, exciting, funny, and even wonderful characters by myself

Mikey and Sydney paper parallels: Sydney as the light of Carmy's life by @miredball

Sydney as Our Mother of Victory by @gongziyus

Moments on Fillm: Carmy's Vital Signs by @moments-on-film (you may want to pay particular attention to moment's amazing breakdown of JAW's physical acting in his scenes opposite Molly Gordon as Claire)

Sydcarmy and Amelie parallels by @gongziyus

Sydcarmy and breaking down walls by @bbythurs

Is the Claw Clip Carmy's Bear Claw? by @vacationship

Claire: Clear As Mud add-on to a post on the meaning of Claire's full name by @whenmemorydies

The Night of The Hunter movie details and trope breakdown on TV Tropes

also tagging @yannaryartside @tvfantic87 @angelica4equity @devisrina @ambeauty @bioloyg @post-woke @caiusmarciuscoriolanus @imliterallyjustablackgirl @pureseasalt @chansoooo1-blog @amieraisposting @outmakingmoonshine @anaustenheroine @augustmonsooning @mkayartist @hwere @gardenianoire @mod-doodles @myloveismineallmine @turbulenthandholding @anxietycroissant @inalltheirgorgeouscolors @laryssamedeirss @justabovewater20 @prowitchazel @unlikelyjapan @afrofairysblog in case you're interested!

[spywhitney]

Almost can't believe there was no Sydney focused episode in S3. No one even talks about Sundae, Sheridan or even Brigade.

Though tbf, Sheridan was the only one that was more about her rather than her doing stuff alone after being abandoned in some shape or form. 🤔 *shrugs*

What do y'all think?

[grahamcarmen]

[beatleswings]

Anytime I see something red and pink, I immediately think of Don and Carmen. That's pretty much their colors. Heck, I remember when I saw the My Melody image below, I immediately thought CarDon.

[art-is-kayos]

I can make anything about them

Based on this:

[sydcarmyfan]

If 1+1 = 2 and 4+4 = 8, WTF is this?

For platonic soulmates, they give married since 1964 vibes. For business partners, they give everything I do, I do it for you vibes. For friends, they give I will always love you vibes. These people are in love!

[aegonshusband]

Aegon doesn’t come off as the jealous type, however when him and his wife visit winterfell and attend a ball…

The northmen weren’t used to seeing a Targaryen. The couple had been the first to visit since Viserys was a boy. They look at her pervertedly, whispering things when the couple walked past. He kept a tight grip on her waist, staring down the men who dare look at her.

She’s completely unaware- just thinking Aegon isn’t enjoying himself.

“Do you want to leave? I asked you many times if you were alright with coming to this party.”

“No, I’m okay. The north folk don’t understand the concept of keeping their eyes off of something that isn’t theirs.”

She’s confused, looking around. She notices a group of men whispering and staring.

She looks as her husband and frowns. “What do you think they’re saying?”

He pulls her in closer to him and kisses her roughly. “They’re probably wishing they were me fucking you every night,” he says quietly.

She looks down and blushes, trying to hide her face. “You’re ridiculous.”

[transgenderfivepebbles]

oh god. oh god oh fuck. no. you can't do this to me.

[gingerylangylang1979]

Don't hate me for asking, but...

I've seen some shippers say they ship Carmy x Sydney but don't think they will end up together. I'm just curious why. I'm not asking to be argumentative I really am just curious.

I want them together and can see it happening. They also may not do it. My problem if they don't is what would the narrative purpose be. there is so much being built up around them metaphorically and so much foreshadowing that if the endgame is them not together what would have been the purpose, especially for Carmy as the lead character? She's everything to him.

I've played devil's advocate and wondered if maybe she isn't into him the same way. But this really is me trying to understand the possibility of another perspective or outcome. It's my way of not getting my hopes up too much. But do I actually think it's true? No. I think he's deeper in love but I do think she likes him.

But I would love to hear any theories from people who ship them (no antis who like to lurk in our tags, please) but don't see them HEA. Why not and what would it bring to the story from the writer's perspective?

And please do not attack me for asking (is prepared to hide).