#carmen the path

[t0bey]

I watched a certain Izzyzzz video that introduced me to this game and im so incredibly in love with the designs

[samaeljigoku]

Carmen from The Path, small drawing.

[lilmisssammy]

The Path Week 2024!

Day 2: Age Swap

One of my favourite character design challenges is to swap the red's ages and see what they'd look like at that age! So here is: Cutie Red (Carmen), Creepy Red (Ruby), Tween Red (Robin), Quite Red (Scarlet), Butch Red (Ginger) and Obident Red (Rose).

[barbariqe]

[pixel-lightart]

The Path girlies, lets go girls!!! 🐺🌧️⛓️🥀❌☎️🐇

[yannaryartside]

Claire and her patients

And why I think she may harm Carmen

It’s incredible how many stories told by Claire about her interactions with injured people are disturbing in close up. I honestly need someone to put a name to it (like clinical one) because so far, it's just disturbing.

In S3, I thought the show was doing a number that made me see her process the pain after the breakup and work helping others through it. I cared about that; I did. It is difficult not to root for someone in pain. But then it got bizarre the more medical scenes we had. Mainly the one where she committed malpractice

The lacking

When she was telling the story about the girl with a million cuts, you know, a kid she almost killed because of a medical error (one that was actually totally preventable) there are so many things wrong with it. Some audience members have stated that scene was to show that “Claire is not perfect,” but that shit didn’t have that effect on me at all. It was a relief to see other people felt this way, some in this fandom even said it was so unnatural it made them laugh. And I am curious about why that is.

From the beginning, the lack of guilt surrounding the incident has been glaring for me. It's not like we see her break down crying or be afraid of what Carmy is going to think of her as a doctor. She committed malpractice, mistake or not. Doctors go out of business for things that they cannot prevent. They are not ashamed of their work; they are ashamed of the result. That harmed somebody.

I watched a lot of medical-related shit (as I assume most people do). The character Joan Watson in Elementary stopped working as a doctor thoroughly after losing one (1) patient over something she could not predict or prevent. A medical board gave her permission to work, but it was still not enough. She was so afraid of hurting someone else and was so ashamed that she was manipulated by the son of his deceased patient to give him money. In “The West Wing,” Abbey Bartlett was a doctor before being the First Lady, and she had an incident in an operation that resulted in the death of her patient (an infection that got complicated). She defended her work, she is possitive she didn’t make a mistake and we are inclined to believe that because we have seen her character admit to her faults before.

There was no shame in Claire. You can process your emotions however you want, but it would make more sense even if you were defensive. Why did she tell that story…as she was also the victim? Maybe the fact that the story relates to malpractice makes it difficult to say it without sounding bad, but there were better ways to make her empathetic than suspicious.

“I was slammed,” as she could ever justify a mistake as stupid as the one she made. I know understaffing hospitals is a serious issue, and overworked doctors can make stupid mistakes, but she didn’t say things like “I should have seen it” or “I have nightmares about it.” And she told it in a way that seemed like she was expecting Carmy to understand it wasn’t her fault. Even if it wasn’t, doctors would carry guilt about malpractice and the harm they were accomplices of, even if literally no divine intervention could have made a difference. By not allowing Claire this very normal emotion, you are setting her apart to the audience members who are paying attention.

The warning

And then, somehow, the story is more about how young and beautiful her patient was…I am sorry, but that almost felt… fetishizing? It reminded me of those poems people made online about having a story of self-harming: “She was so beautiful in her scars.” Maybe that’s me stretching it.

She also keeps telling the stories of what caused the injuries in the first place, and not ironically, is always people doing something risky/stupid in the first place. She is never seen taking care of a bullet wound or a severe illness suddenly worsening. It’s always people putting their lives at risk.

And that’s an element that terrifies me, thinking of who Carmy is and his gif above. He has self-harming hallucinations, sometimes in the middle of dangerous situations, and his mental condition prevents him from reacting accordingly. He is absent as if he was hight/drunk, but it is his mental illness. It may even be tied to a suicidal underline.

And then you hear this story about a girl that got almost killed by Claire’s negligence; in that moment, she needed help getting better because she had an accident. She was not able to prevent her injury. She was also drunk when it happened, so she had no equipment to react accordingly. She is the equivalent of Carmen.

I need help thinking it is supposed to be a coincidence. These writers are not stupid, even if you could justify how Claire is written as saying, “Carmy is supposed to be in love with the simple” (which is such a lame excuse. People can be simple and interesting).

Wouldn’t it be cruel in hindsight to make Carmy’s true love the one person who also has a story of harming people in similar conditions of danger that he had?

I would like to quote something I read about the scene that introduces us to Claire, the story of “why” she wanted to be a doctor. In most medical-related media, these events tend to be very traumatic to the character, “I lost my mother to cancer and wanted to prevent other people from feeling that pain” “I had to watch my friend dying because she was bleeding and I couldn’t do nothing��� is always about preventing someone’s harm, because of empathy. Then you have Claire’s story, quoting This fucking excellent post by

@habaritess

“The graphic injury made her want to understand it. Let that sink in. The other kids were disturbed by the injury and, no doubt, also by the cries of the injured girl. Claire wasn’t. She was mentally disconnected from the scene because her empathy wasn't activated.”(...) She looks at people as a thing to analyze, and she does so in order to get what she wants from them"

I firmly believe this. Shout out to this post by @gingergofastboatsmojito talking about Claire being a benign narcissist. She has created a narrative about herself, and that's why she seems too eager to help people who cannot fend for themselves, people who are sad, lost, and hurt, because she feels her value in it. Heartbreak doesn't make it look cute. That's just another magic trick.

And the worst part, she may be a good doctor 80% of the time, but if you have this incident, there is the possibility that it has happened more than once. Like wtf, she said she was good at “taking care of sad drunk people,” but the moment she had a drunk patient, she actually was unable to provide good care for her. She actively made the situation worse. Her mistake could have been fatal. And she related the whole thing, mentioning how beautiful she was before her accident and how it was so amusing she laughed after because she couldn’t feel the pain. She told that shit like it was amusing. Idk, I have never heard a doctor talking like that.

And now we have a whole season of Carmy thinking Claire is the solution for his happiness, the missing piece, and whatnot. This is unnerving. He will run for her at full speed, call her in a time of need/crisis, and then what? Would Claire's interest/lack of empathy would be finally revealed? Will she steer Carmy in an ever worse direction?

[purposechef]

"Wait, so what was the best one?"

"The best what?"

"The best meal you ever had."

"It was Carmy's."

[shihlun]

Jean-Luc Godard

- Prénom Carmen / First Name: Carmen

1983

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

- Serpent’s Path

1998

[barrel-of-merry-aloe-vera]

drew my path girlies💖💖💖

[toxiccrybabyart]

Been busy working so this is all I got

Fanart for The Path 2009!

[uliana-redfeather]

cw: eyestrain

happy late birthday carmen

[samaeljigoku]

The Path's Red sisters and Girl in White in tiny pixels. This seemed to take ages, but was fun. Still version below.

[lilmisssammy]

This is. Loud as fuck. Enjoy!

[grahamcarmen]

carmen's team red seeing her being upset that she doesn't get to be with gray

[elpis-rojey]

이제 사냥꾼이 구하러 올때 까지 기다리자.

[spaghettibabie]

The Path meme for the soul <3