Non-Black POC, she/her, plants, fibre arts, mending and television/film deep dives. Currently focusing on The Bear. This whole thing is full of spoilers and some of it is content for adults.
*Putting all of this in one spot so its easier for me to find shit. Feel free to like/reblog if this is helpful for you too. Posts are in reverse chronological order by tv show/film (which are listed alphabetically).
Some of my fav pieces are highlighted in purple.
Adolescence (TV)
Family and toxic masculinity - 8 April 2025
The m@nosephere needs a baseline to sink its teeth into and that starts at home.
The Bear (TV)
Note: Tumblr has a cap on how many hyperlinks you can put in a single post so I've had to split my meta index for The Bear by year. You can find my meta for The Bear at the links below:
The Bear meta from 2026
The Bear meta from 2025
The Bear meta from 2024
Monkey Man (Film)
Violence and Love in Monkey Man - 27 April 2024
Analysis of Dev Patel's Monkey Man in the context of state violence and resistance. CW for mention of rape, murder and forced displacement.
Immediate reaction to Monkey Man - 13 April 2024
My immediate thoughts after watching the film in cinema.
Sinners (Film)
Whiteness as vampirism, vampirism as assimilation - 26 April 2025
Remmick wasn't creating a post-racial paradise. He was building a cult centred on his needs and culture alone, that tolerated different skin but nothing else.
Under the Bridge (TV)
Reply to @cairhienin on Under the Bridge and the actual murder of Reena Virk - 14 June 2024
Discussion of Reena Virk's murder and the absence of race in analysis of the case, then and now in Hulu's dramatisation.
Americans complaining about wildfire smoke from Canada can honestly go fuck. You do realise thereâs no border wall tall enough to stop wildfire smoke? Deep enough to stop ocean acidification from reaching you? You do know that you live, with the rest of us, on a single planet that is a whole interconnected system unto itself? And that the West is leading the charge to fucking that system so badly that disasters like these wildfires are more frequent and devastating than ever before?
every dumbass making stupid posts like âugh Canada owes us for all the smoke clogging up our air this weekâ needs to donate >1000$ to every first nations community being devastated by these wildfires
Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.
Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.
All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.
After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.
It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of yearsâfar longer than settlers have been in Canadaâand made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotÄn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.
And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racismâlike Kashechewanâbecause it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.
The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.
Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.
ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.
Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.
*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.
If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.
Syd probably encouraged him to write the resume, too.
She was asking him what else he was good at and if he knew how to write a resume because Carmy always had his relatives open a door for him since Day 1 of his culinary career.
Now heâs in his thirties having to put on a suit and tie and go to an interview for the first time in his life đ€Ł
He wanted Syd there, not Stevie, too. He was about to have a panic attack being away from Syd for 45 minutes itâs too funny.
And then he realizes he just wants to be with the people that made him want it grow and be a better person in the first place and not corporate America shit.
It was his restaurant family and his specially his wifey Syd. Who he admitted heâd throw himself in front of a train for, btw.
That was because of a Fak, or Donna, or Claire. In fact, Carmy looks relaxed and happy at Evaâs party because Syd is there just like at the wedding. Itâs no different.
Heâs staring at Syd and smiling like sheâs the apple of his eye.
Even trying to get the architecture internship job was to be useful to Syd and their found family because the restaurant is falling apart and heâs always had some basic aptitude for design. He created the kitchen layout after all.
He was even doing that interview for Syd. So I still headcanon he stages and learns design going to school during the day and his first project is renovating the restaurant the right way, where heâs fully engaged with Syd and they do it together.
He wants to make things beautiful for Syd now; heâs Syd-brained thatâs how the show ends.
NIMBY Mary calling them misogynists and the idea she represents someone who owns rights to The Bear and they probably didnât get that much for their deal signed after S1 (Calo?) and now the Mouse House is circling back around for the rights to build on top of The Bear and now theyâre getting stonewalled because Mary knows the property is worth way more now than what she was initially paid.
(I think Raymond is a reference to an agent or lawyer.)
I know they dressed Maryâs house like a NIMBY hoarder whoâs got eyes on the block but look at this set up - she absolutely looks like a network exec with the multiple screens behind her.
The more I think about it, the more Mary does seem to represent FX like I think you and @sublimepeachtriumph had previously suggested.
I do wonder who Raymond is. Could be a lawyer or agent like you say. Need to do some more pondering and research on that one!
Syd protects her heart. She also doesnât want to be a burden. Weâve discussed here how sheâs likely a high functioning and high masking person in high functioning-survival mode.
Syd holds her deepest feelings and emotions close.
So of course sheâs never told anyone, not even Carmy, exactly how much a certain chef means to her.
Sydâs lie in 5x04 about the grapefruit scallop dish was done on purpose, just like her lie in 1x01 about coming to The Beef every Sunday with her dad. Both lies serve the same function: to obscure her naked heart just enough from view of the one person she wants most to see it, to see her.
She does this so that she can withdraw and protect herself if needed.
It didnât make sense for us to get the full blood orange hamachi reveal in S5 bc of how rushed the context of that season was. But we got a very natural beginning to that conversation.
A conversation where, maybe, eventually, Carmy will pull Syd up after a particularly busy future service. Heâll touch her back and ask if they can talk in the office. Sheâll say sure and follow him, completely unaware, looking down at the draft menu on her clipboard while she walks. Heâll ask her to sit down and heâll sit across from her, gently taking the clipboard from her hands and setting it on the table.
Carmy will ask Syd if he was working at Empire when she had her first-best bite. Sheâll say yes, her eyes wide and dark. Carmy will tell her they never served grapefruit and scallop while he was there. Syd will smile tight and say something like, it might have been something similar. There was citrus and the protein was a fish.
(She knows exactly what the dish was but heâs calling her out and she still has too much pride to admit to lying, because what good reason can she give for doing so, other than protecting her heart?)
She takes out her phone and shows him the photo she took of the dish that stole her breath away. Sheâll say oh, I remember now. It was blood orange and paupiette of hamachi. Best meal of my life.
And sheâll look up to see Carmyâs eyes glazed and smiling. A tear might escape his right eye.
I've seen a lot of pitchfork and torches concerning Donna's arc and I want to chat about it....
I think the show isnât asking has donna earned forgiveness or redemption, itâs asking can a person who has caused profound harm become honest abou ti? Which are different questions. Donnaâs arc in season 4 and especially in her conversation with her children doesnât erase decades of emotional abuse. Her children still carry the consequences.
Carmy has panic attacks, Natalie lives in a constant state of hypervigilance, mikeyâs dead, and Richie, even though heâs not her bio child was shaped by that chaotic family system as well. The trauma remains.
I think what does change Is Donna. I think for the first time, she stops defending herself. People with severe emotional dysregulation, whether related to a borderline personality disorder, substance use, trauma etc often spend years trapped in shame. Shame can paradoxically make accountability harder because admitting wrongdoing feels mentally traumatic and impossible. Instead, people rationalize, deny, blame, or make themselves the victim. Which, if youâve watched since fishesâŠclassic Donna.
As the show progresses, Donna starts to do something that is very difficult. She starts to tolerate the shame. She acknowledges that she hurt her children without demanding that they make her feel better, which is a significant shift in the stages of change. If we remember season 4 where she apologized for the harm she caused Carmen. The silence between them was proof of that change. If we compare it to the fishes episode where she was blaming and accusing Carmy of not loving her etc.
Iâve worked with a lot of people in recovery. Iâve worked with a lot of donnas and even adult children of someone like donna. Recovery is measured by whether the person has accepted responsibility with excuses. Allowed other people to be angry. Respected boundaries. Grieved the harm they had caused. Chose different behaviors moving forward.
Those are simply the markers of change, not proof that damage is undone.
We extend grace to Carmy because weâve watched his internal suffering. We know why he shuts people out. We understand his anxiety. His perfectionism. His trauma. Yet Carmy also hurt people repeatedly.
So, the same question would apply: does Carmy deserve redemption? I mean the answer is obvious but itâs easier to say yes because carmyâs pain is witnessed from the inside while weâve mostly experienced Donna through her childrenâs perspective. Empathy naturally follows pov. We get Carmyâs nervous system because the camera lives with him. We donât spend nearly as much time inside Donnaâs head.
That doesnât mean Donna deserves automatic forgiveness. Forgiveness belongs entirely to her children, and they may never choose it. Reconciliation isnât owed to someone simply because theyâve changed. But redemption, in the moral sense, isnât something another person grants. Itâs something a person pursues through sustained accountability.
Thatâs why I donât see Donna as redeemed, so much as beginning redemption. Sheâs finlally walking the path rather than asking everyone else to pretend nothing happened.
I think the bear has resisted simplistic, moral categories. It doesnât divide characters into good or bad people instead, it asks how trauma moves through families. Donna passed her pain to her children. Carmy, in turn, begins passing his pain to the people who love and work with him. The cycle only breaks when someone becomes willing to look honestly at themselves.
Donna starts doing that and Carmy is learning to do that. Neither one of them is finished. This seems more about accountability, which is where real healing begins.
After reading all of your metas i just realized that instead of using the flooding and pipes bursting to symbolize the emotional turmoil they were going through they went the other route...đđ
Have you read @fairestbeardâs The Bear is a dirty movie meta series? Part 2 is especially relevant to S5: https://www.tumblr.com/fairestbeard/777480203398152192/the-bear-is-a-dirty-movie
đŹ 3  đ 11  â€ïž 74 · THE BEAR IS A DIRTY MOVIE: · Part 2: Everywhere for those with eyes to see.
Read Part 1 here.
So if BB represents a
I finally cracked the complex puzzle known as what sydcarmy ACTUALLY is within the canon and context of the show
The relationship between Sydney and Carmy has been talked about, examined and widely interpreted in different ways by almost all fans of the show. This meta isnât to discourage anyone in how they see sydcarmy but Season five of The Bear has been out for two weeks and having finished it and thought very long and hard on the relationship between Sydney and Carmy throughout all 5 seasons, and what the finale season conveyed and portrayed in regards to it, I have come up with a conclusion that best fits how to define sydcarmy: an implicit romance.
Before I go into the details of this relationship, ask yourself this question, when you think of romantic relationships when you watch movies and TV, what do you picture? Like me, youâll automatically think of two people expressing grand romantic gestures (giving gifts, going on dates, verbally committing to a relationship), enacting physically intimate scenes (kissing on the lips, sexual relations) and some big emotional confrontation between characters that is verbally expressed. What that is, what we are used to seeing onscreen, are explicit romantic relationships. Think about ross and rachel in friends, carrie and big in sex and the city, harry and sally in when harry met sally and any other movie or tv show with a romantic relationship within it. In the context of The Bear and romance, I think of Tina and David Marrero and Natalie and Pete Katinsky.
Now ask yourself again, when you think of a friendship between characters within a movie or a show, what do you picture? Characters who are friends are consistently there for each other through the good times and the bad, friends talk about both easy and difficult things without much barriers between them and friends always have a clear platonic divide that doesnât impede on their romantic relationships. Think about any of the core four characters in sex and the city, molly and issa in insecure, jon and sam in game of thrones. In the context of The Bear and friendship, I think of Tina and Ebra and Sydney and Marcus and Marcus and Chester.
In our fandom, I think everyone can agree that Sydney and Carmyâs textual relationship existed outside of the realms of both platonic and explicit romance, never quite veering into either area throughout any and all five seasons of the show. Before season 5, I wouldâve defined sydcarmyâs canonical relationship as nebulous and undefinable. In 4x10 Goodbye, we all saw that argument scene and at its peak she tearfully claimed that heâs her (business) partner and he angrily rebutted that heâs her friend. Both assertions fall into the realm of platonic. But both assertions are not true, as Sydney had yet to sign the partnership agreement, which wouldâve made them officially partners (the show even ends without us even seeing Sydney inking her name on the renegotiated agreement, an argument for another day lol). And his claim on friendship is also false, seeing as they never hung out outside of work, as we saw Sydney and Marcus doing (in s1 at Emmanuelâs apartment after they both quit and in s3 making a dead momâs pact), fully working out their differences after a brief falling out like Tina and Ebra did (s2 when he came back to The Bear) or being there for each other after a difficult time like Marcus and Chester (s4 the latter took care of the sale of his motherâs house). The show consistently went out of its way to pull out all stops in showing Sydney and Carmy not having a platonic friendship. In season 2, when he makes plans to meet her at a restaurant where they wouldâve hung out outside of work, he bails. In season 3, he doesnât join everyone else they work with at a get-together at Sydneyâs apartment. In season 4, he doesnât join her at her fatherâs bedside in the hospital and she refuses his request to go with her and be with her. They are not friends and only Sydney is aware of that.
So if the show refused to make Sydney and Carmyâs relationship strictly professional and also refused to make their relationship a platonic friendship, I can only make the well informed hypothesis (based on prior knowledge, the observable evidence provided in The Bear, and relevant comments from the cast and crew) that their relationship is a highly intense, uniquely intimate, implied and implicit romance.
Tvtropes defines an implied love interest as âwhen one character fills the role of a Love Interest to another character in the narrative, or otherwise has a lot of tropes related to being a Love Interest surrounding them, but nothing explicit in the narrative or from the creators is ever stated on the matter.â Sydney and Carmy are each otherâs implied love interest as evidenced by the romantic tropes, textual and subtextual content between them. The actors have chemistry, thatâs undeniable, but the way they both acted around each other is unique in that their interactions cannot be replicated with any other character. Hereâs some reminders if you need to jog your memory (A, B, C, D, X, Y, Z). Thatâs the text of the show, that canât be changed or misinterpreted by anyone.
Subtextually, many of instances where we see romance implied is where interpretations will vary by how someone sees the show. The infamous s2 panic attack scene, where Carmy breaks out of it by picturing pivotal moments of Sydney in his life. The repeated and indisputable fact that Carmy made the best meal of Sydneyâs life (reinforced by actually showing us this moment in s3âs premiere episode). The once thought abandoned plot of the cola braised short ribs being reintroduced in s5 to highlight that Sydney made the best meal of Carmyâs life. The original under the table scene, framed and shot like a sex scene. The scene where they met, the plot of season 1 only occurring because they meet. The repeated instanced of Carmy recreating Sydneyâs attire on a plate of lamb. The star reveal and subsequent hug scene. These were all pivotal moments that showed us their love for each other, a love that no other character had with anyone else onscreen in the entirety of the show.
Both the critics and viewers have highlighted since the show's inception the uniqueness between Sydney and Carmy. After season one, when asked about their relationship, main writer Joanna Calo replied that a hook up between them was floated but ultimately shot down and the show's creator, Chris Storer replied that their relationship was a âpartnershipâ. TVTropes goes on to further say that âOne reason for this trope is in a serial work, it allows the author to gently cover their bums when it comes to either Ship Sinking ("Hey, the ship never set sail in the first place") or Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends ("The potential was there from the start"). The writer may state that they Hooked Up Afterwards, or leave it to the reader's imagination. Expect there to be at least some fans who pair the couple up regardless.â Sound familiar?
I want to especially clarify that when sydcarmy became so popular and synonymous with the show (somewhere between s2 and 3), that I think some fans wanted a clear explicit relationship between them (me included). I would go so far as to say that our wants of explicit romance were known by both cast and crew and were shut down routinely because of the way most romances are portrayed and seen, and they knew that Carmy and Sydney will not kiss, date or be physically intimate onscreen that expresses sexual relations. It is a creative decision that was supported substantially textually and subtextually in the latter three seasons of the show that, for better or worse, solidified the fact that an explicit romance between them was not going to happen.
To conclude, now that season 5 is out and Jeremy himself confirmed there is love between Sydney and Carmy but it is not a romantic partnership, I can only define what they have between them as implied romance and that was the intent from the beginning. It didnât need to be verbalized and physically expressed onscreen like his relationship with C*****, and it canât simply be relegated to professional, platonic or familial the way these characters had with others. Sydney loves Carmy. Carmy loves Sydney. That very real but ultimately implicit love exists and is the reason we were invested since the beginning. Their love was written in the margins, indeed.
The Nat and Pete sex scene in S5 is so funny, because Iâve rewatched it, and she bats her eyes repeatedly at him, like sheâs sending him a signal heâs not picking up.
They made a whole thing out of that, which, is a subtle bit and I thought it was a nice acting moment for Abby who also had a kid recently.
Pete doesnât do anything until she actually initiates it by kissing him, because he wants to be helpful and doesnât expect sex in exchange for taking out the garbage.
