fulcrums501st

[fulcrums501st]

Okay but the way they dropped the ball with outie Irving this season is genuinely so fucked up. Like they established that he was balls deep in some kind of corporate espionage with a potentially personal motive Three Fucking Years Ago only to vaguely allude to some interesting ideas for him in season 2 before completely shafting him. Like what the actual hell.

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Markhelly is the textbook definition of narrative compulsory heterosexuality. Like, objectively speaking that’s what they are. Male and female leads suddenly kiss in the penultimate episode when they have expressed absolutely zero romantic interest in each other prior to that scene.

That doesn’t mean that it’s inherently a bad ship, or that the writers haven’t done interesting things with them, or that you should feel bad if you ship them, but it is weird if you try to die on the hill that they aren’t narrative comphet because they so obviously are.

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although I enjoyed season2 I missed the unionisation themes that were being set up at the end of the first season. lumon presenting a history of conflict between departments to incite separation, MDR and O&D choosing to bridge the gap of distance anyway. The unfinished map Petey made suggesting that the severed floor was larger than they initially comprehended, the anti-severance protest groups outside of lumon fighting for workers' rights. we had a brief hint of that at the start of the season with lumon assimilating the MDR uprising into its incentivisation methods, the implication of lumon as an international enterprise with the new characters that were very quickly dropped and forgotten about, and it was interesting to see the background contextualisation of lumon's industry being propagated by child labour (especially considering the severance procedure in effect makes the adult innies like children, tabula rasa innocents).

but the majority of the characters became incredibly isolated this season anyway and the show became less of a satire of workspaces and more about the way severance as a procedure complicated their romantic relationships. I was kind of hoping this season would lean into some more consequences with regards to petey's legacy in mark's mind post reintegration, and also the mapping out and unionising of other isolated departments on the severed floor beyond the oddity of mammalians nurturable.

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I really wanted Irving B to get to read The You You Are after losing faith in the Lumon manual

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still can’t believe the audacity of Lumon to fire Burt for holding hands with Irving and then turn right around and celebrate markhelly in their stop-motion propaganda video. which they played right in front of Irv

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every day I'm checking various articles in search of confirmation that Turturro and Walken will officially be in the cast of the new season. sometimes this shit takes me to very strange places.

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ALSO I so want to talk about Burt G.

Innie Burt is fearless. He doesn’t give a fuck about the MDR rumors. He’s not scared of security. He pursues Irving without any shyness or hesitation. He makes the first move breathtakingly fast. He joins the revolution with a shrug and a “why not.”

Outie Burt — he still has that core bravery, but it’s been scarred and squeezed out by life, almost?? He’s haunted by his past. He’s got a domineering husband who interrupted him and finishes his sentences, and Burt just lets him. He’s desperate to get Irving out of town. He’s looking over his shoulder waiting for the shoe to drop. And he’s ashamed, he’s avoidant. He wants to be innocent again; he bows his head and avoids Irving’s eyes; he can’t do it, he’s not ready. But he’s still brave enough to GET IRVING OUT knowing that Lumon will come after him. Just. !!!!!!’

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Ultimately, I think the ideas that innies and outies are the same person vs. innies and outies are two distinct individuals kinda misses the point. Yes they're the same person, AND a new consciousness with its own desires and wants and needs has been created that is separate and different from the original consciousness. I think part of the idea is that two conflicting things are true together, like the two consciousnesses existing in one body.

I think if the show goes on, it's very possible Dylan is going to be the first one to reintegrate, and it might happen naturally. Dylan George has had direct communication with Dylan G, and they've started to understand each other and accept each other. They've bonded over their shared love of Gretchen, and Dylan G wishes for Dylan George's life, while Dylan George wishes for Dylan G's confidence.

I think ultimately, self-acceptance is the only thing that can transcend severance, and both the innie and the outie have to individually want to be whole together for reintegration to work.

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I don’t think the show will go there at all, there are way more pressing matters at hand, but it would be really interesting if they could take the time to discuss Drummond’s murder like, in court. Cause Mark killed him, obviously, but a) it was an accident b) what version of Mark killed him anyway? He pulled the trigger the moment the chip was activated so who even is at “fault” there. Besides, who knows maybe Mark S WOULD have killed him anyway, or maybe Mark Scout would have while Mark S absolutely wouldn’t. I don’t know, I think it would be a really interesting case, philosophically, morally, ethically speaking. It would be cool to see that.

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Its not about choosing Gemma or Helly, it's about being recognized as a person dammit!

I know you're all into shipping Mark with Helly or Gemma, but I would like to introduce a non-shippy analysis of this scene:

Mark S. has spent this whole season and half of last season arguing and fighting for his right - and the right of all innies - to be seen as a person. For their fundamental right to exist and to treated fairly. And he just "killed" Ms. Casey. Right here, before his eyes, he's seen Ms. Casey (who he isn't in love with but does care about) turn to Gemma with no real hope of Ms. Casey ever coming back.

Up until this moment, Mark S has been trying to save Ms. Casey. And conflating her with Mark Scout's wife. And here the realization hits him in the face that he's just done the very opposite of everything he was fighting for. He might have saved Mark Scout's wife, but in so doing, he's killed Ms. Casey, soft spoken, kind Ms. Casey, and replaced her with this stranger.

Thematically I think it's very, very important that in between Ms. Casey walking through the door and Gemma fronting, we get this brief scene:

The rise up of the innies against their oppressors. The choice to fight for their personhood and their rights.

Mark S was never going to walk through that door. He loves living far too much to give it up. And he's aghast that he was just used to do that to Ms. Casey. (Not just Ms. Casey, but the what, 25 other alters Gamma's body and mind now hold.)

One thing both Mark alters have in common is how frustratingly easily they're swayed into following the commands of others. Mark Scout possibly due to his depression/addiction, Mark S because Lumon does all it can to brainwash its innies. So when Gemma tells him to come, he makes to motion to, but stops. Because he's learned to ask himself what he wants. And what Mark S wants is to live.

He chooses not to go/to live before Helly shows up.

I'm not saying all this to belittle the relationship between Mark S and Helly. Quite the opposite; the fact that Mark is his own person with his own desires capable of making his own decisions means that his relationship is real in a way that Mark Scout and others don't seem to understand and accept - largely because they do not see Mark S as a person.*

Which...is why I see most of the Mark/Helly vs Mark/Gemma discourse in the tags to frustratingly miss the whole point of the entire series.

Mark S ≠ Mark Scout

They are both entirely different people with entirely different wants, desires, and loves. And they are in love with different people. Mark Scout would have an entirely different, separate relationship with Helly (or Helena) than Mark S. And Mark S will have an entirely different, separate relationship with Gemma than Scout ever will.

Put an other way with another couple, the outie Irving and Burt could never have the same relationship that their innies have/had. Even if they became a romantic couple, they're different people than their innies and thus would have a different relationship.

I see the erasure of personhood in the tags. MarkGemma instead of MarkScoutGemma and MarkHelly instead of MarkSHelly. There is no one Mark, not anymore. That's one of the main points of the show, as far as I can see. Reintegration would kill them both.

Look, I don't know what endgame is for this show, but there's a high likelihood that it'll end with heartbreak for at least one of those two couples. But ever if it does, that doesn't cheapen either of these relationships. One is not more inherently purer or more meaningful or more important than the other. Doing so is like saying your best friend's relationship with their SO is cheap because you feel your relationship with your SO feels pure and meaningful and important to you.

They both matter. And they both exists. Fighting over which one "deserves" to exists ends up feeling like a fight over which Mark "deserves" to exist - which personality should, in the end, win out and be dominant. And that just feels deeply, deeply troubling to me.

*One striking aspect of the show is how often all the outies/non-severed people talk about the innies using the same kind of language that slave owners used to talk about their slaves in the US south. I do not think this is a coincidence.

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fyi in the coming years when people say "shippers deliberately ignore the themes and characterizations for the sake of focusing on the ship" theyre gonna mean the severance fandom

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man I can relate to Irving B. so much. I don’t respect and tend to rebel against authority and deeply loathe corporatization of so much of our lives and would absolutely try to take down Lumon.

but the minute I get an innie? my ND ass loves rules. the comfort of knowing there’s a way Things Should Be Done? they got me, chat. they got me.

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"markhelly vs markgemma" y'all that is two different marks, two different people 😭

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yea I rlly wanted to see the political fallout of severance and helly’s speech. we saw a bit of Dylan’s job discrimination cuz he was a severed employee but that’s rlly it. like wasn’t there some big senate vote going on that Helly’s speech was supposed to sway??

Thing i was excited for that ended up not being explored at all this season: the public/media debate around severance and the fallout of hellys speech. I loved sm how in season 1 the world of the show was ALREADY having a fiery debate about the ethics of severance, with activist groups campaigning against it and natalie going on tv to debate people about it. Hellys outburst is so unambiguous and it was such an incredibly exciting moment (main nailbiter of s1 finale for me) that i was sure the outie world would be experiencing media frenzy when we got back to it, reporters demanding to talk to innies, lumon being hounded for statements etc. instead we got the ep1 fakeout, and once it was made clear that the newspaper story was a lie, the topic wasn't brought up again. We saw helena record that excuse video which was so blatantly ridiculous that surely no one who wasnt already in lumons pocket would buy it????

Thing i was excited for that DID get explored and i love it: the implications of reintegration. I was soooo intrigued by the question of how reintegration would impact the character's sense of self... Like if u have first person, all emotions included memories of your other self's life then. How do you process that. Does one set of memories overwhelm the other do you pick one identity over the other? What would this new person be? It would still be YOU because there would still be continuity of memory right?? As someone who thinks abt this a lot and leans towards memory=identity, i was suuuper drawn in by this theme in s1 and im glad that s2 delivered on the continuing implications. The two marks birthing cabin conversion was basically a really tight distillation of this concept and im into it

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we moved on from Helena SA’ing Mark S, and then calling innies “animals” a bit too fast. like girl if they’re animals then what does that make you then?

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I think people are too caught up on the romance part of markhelly and not the innies finding autonomy and learning to live for themselves and not for Lumon or their outties part of it. like the show just kinda decided “it’s a romance now” in the second season.

but markhelly sleeping together and their development this season was rlly more in retaliation to Helena’s violation—to reclaim some sense of their autonomy—not because they had naturally reached that point in their relationship.

Mark choosing to stay in the end would have been just as meaningful if he and Helly were platonic because his life has value and he’d be choosing his existence. it’s rlly not about him choosing a romantic relationship. it is him choosing himself. Helly helps him get to that point, but that also would have happened if they remained friends because Helly makes him think more critically about his rights.

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proper MDR reunion next season or else. no more romance shenanigans i don’t care!! MDR has not been together since season 1 technically cuz of stupid helena

fuck you mark i don’t CARE about your stupid love triangle give me back my team bonding! give me my found family and my old man yaoi! fuck!!!