sageshouldknowbetter

[sageshouldknowbetter]

Occasionally forget people genuinely think capitalism is thousands of years old

[sageshouldknowbetter]

after a suicide attempt in 2016

[sageshouldknowbetter]

Sinbad and Odysseus are essentially Mario and Luigi respectively. HEAR ME OUT:

Both are adventurers who face similar obstacles and one could consider them basically the same guy when looking at the base material from a surface level, BUT when you analyze their stories more carefully, one of them is the type to happily not do his previous ho hum job and instead go out adventuring to distant lands and fighting gigantic and horrifying monsters and finding a bunch of treasure and/or magic items and saving the princess with a YA-HOO! while the other probably would rather just be doing plumbing in his hometown or do anything other than another crazy deadly journey but even if he just glumly goes "letsa go..." when dragged into another quest, he belies a sharp intelligence and best believe he'd save someone he cares about from a big scary phantom.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[sageshouldknowbetter]

sinbad the sailor is so funny to me. a bunch of early abbasid era basran traders got around a table and said “hey. what if we make a guy who was like Odysseus … but if he sucked”

[sageshouldknowbetter]

from david shields, reality hunger: a manifesto (2010)

[sageshouldknowbetter]

They are the Lumons!

[sageshouldknowbetter]

this will sound really impossible, but in face of adversity, i beg all of you to do the most revolutionary act possible. this act is the base for the entire human history, which would never have happened if not for this. yes i am not joking yes i am not exageratting and yes i am being unironic.

said action is to live.

not just survive not just prevail. you need to live. because if you don't do that, then you will not be able to do anything else. and people who want you dead can tolerate you surviving but they will not tolerate you living. so please, live. and punch a nazi, and take care of each other, and protect each other. and live a whole lot.

[sageshouldknowbetter]

I love when we get to see Mark S scared or angry, like I just love seeing more of what he would’ve been like when he started at Lumon. I think he kindof has had to settle into this state of pseudo-acceptance of the way he’s treated, because he’s done the rebelling and threatening to kill people and trying to quit and it’s been 2 years and he’s still here and there’s no getting out. He’s very resigned and beaten down, he tells himself everything is fine and he tries not to be scared when he’s led to the breakroom and he follows the rules because “Mr Milchick cant always be nice like that.”

But he is scared of what Lumon does to him, of what they might do next, and I love when we get to see those carefully constructed walls come down even a little. His desperation when Helly is trying to break all the same rules he did, how he runs and screams that she doesn’t understand. Him asking Ms Cobel if she’s mad at him, and the look on his face when she’s waiting for him in the break room. The way he’s shaking wide eyed and tries to bolt when he’s woken up in the cabin especially, he’s taught himself to be okay with a lot of things but when presented with something new he is immediately terrified, that initial fear comes rushing back.

And I think it’s very interesting that for his anger it really only comes out when other people are wronged. And I think it’s because a large part of his rationalization is dependent on it somehow being his fault. But when Helly shows up he just, can’t apply that logic to her. He knows she doesn’t deserve the pain, he can’t rationalize it when it’s not him because he does know they shouldn’t be treated like this. And at first he just tries to just take as many punishments as possible, makes it make sense by coming up with reasons it’s his fault. But then he just gets pissed. There’s no way he can rationalize them taking all his friends away, there’s no way that’s fair, so he’s planting notes and calling the board and almost entirely drops the perfectly poised Mark S. attitude he’s been holding this whole time.

And idk that’s just my favorite thing, the acknowledgement that the way Mark S. behaves is because he’s been beaten into submission, and the very realistic way that submission cracks under pressure.

[sageshouldknowbetter]

do it seth!!! (ORTBO study pt. 2)

[sageshouldknowbetter]

Fred Hampton Jr visiting his father on Father’s Day…his grave is annually shot by local police

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Finally had some time to paint the sketch!!!!

[sageshouldknowbetter]

last names are history, are family, are a hole in the shape of you to find yourself at home in. the innies never get a last name. the staff are only ever referred to by their last name.

she's not helly, she's an eagan.

do it, seth.

what is a family name in a vacuum? what is your name without a community attached? you're seth m. they're like you and you're like them. she's an eagan and that's the only history you get to belong to. aren't you happy with the portraits?

[sageshouldknowbetter]

“To the best of your ability what is or was the color of your mother’s eyes?” - An Eagan Family Portrait 💧

Featuring: Helena, unnamed mother, Jame (unfortunately) and Helly (as a doll)

Closeups of raggedy Helly, baby Helena and unnamed mother

Update: I’ve been informed I can be graded on this if I include an analysis so here it is:

[sageshouldknowbetter]

i think about mark s' first minutes alive consisting of petey k asking "who are you" 19 times and mark vowing to find and kill him on instinct, cornered and afraid like a newborn foal in a locked room. mark s, who wakes up every day in the same underground, windowless office choking on grief and anger he can't explain and tries to escape, even if that escape is by definition a suicide, and fails. petey k, who greeted him upon arrival under their jailers' eyes so he couldn't offer words of reassurance (or did he, just like mark s who broke protocol for helly, and they both got punished for it in the same way?), who watches and worries and takes care of mark s by mapping the floor despite the express forbidding of it in search of a way out while mark s is tortured into ataraxic resignation. petey k, who finds a way to reintegrate (mark scout reintegrated without asking mark s because he wanted to see gemma alive, did petey k reintegrate without asking peter kilmer because he wanted mark s to live?) and goes to his very good friend's outie and shows him a recording of mark s, exhausted and begging in the break room. i think about mark scout, who let this stranger crash in his basement for a few days, who watches him collapse even as his relieved eyes meet his, thinking of someone else, and scrolls past a headline of his death, and attends his funeral out of duty for a version of himself that was loved enough to die for.

i think about helly r, who was seen and loved by mark, dylan and irving (let me out, give me a reason to stay, what is my reason to be as i am) as she respectfully penned requests for her outie to quit, as she got told she was not a person and, like mark s, saw suicide as the only way to get out for so long. as she was brought to the shrine to the family that made the only existence she gets a living hell, unbeknownst to her, by irving, who was being swallowed by the absence of a family himself, both inside and outside of the severed floor. i think about a suicidal irving b in front of that fire escape, standing alone and away from dylan's worried looks, having to break the only hug he's initiated in his whole life as dylan gets dragged away to the promise of a "real" family in dylan george's wife, away from irving (who is dylan g's family only, not dylan george's, who loves him so dearly, this dylan who knows that leaving is dying, who noticed irving was sweet on burt, who encouraged the courtship - who, alongside felicia, voiced the only positive acknowledgement of burt g and irving b's relationship as romantic with kindness). irving b who, unlike mark s and helly r upon their arrival, was told that he would not be dragged back if he chose to quit during that workday in particular, as if it was an act of mercy. irving b who came back anyway, because they killed his burt but that's not his helly, and he's dylan's favorite perk, and mark is being used by every single person inside and outside of the severed floor. mark with the weird sense of humor that only petey enjoyed, who hid petey's photo before irving was ready to say goodbye, and who mocked his greeting but still found out what was for dinner. mark, who took them all to O&D under the threat of torture the second he saw irving berate himself for wanting to visit burt. and he figures it out! and he gets their helly back, helly who was never cruel, whom his capacity for cruelty touched for a few seconds that he will never stop being sorry for. he doesn't get a permission slip to kill himself, but he gets to hold helly close and comfort her one last time in the way he had wanted to and never dared to, using this body that is also his to hug her like she did dylan, to tell him and mark that they are forgiven, that he's at peace with this choice. that he's feeling the warmth of the sun on his face for the first and last time in his life and that all three of them are loved enough to die for.

i think about dylan george's "stop being nice [to me]" to his wife because he didn't get the door salesman job. i think about dylan george, who forgot about the cookies but remembered to ask gretchen if the time with his innie was nice. i think about gretchen saying she kissed his innie because he reminded her of the way dylan used to be, and dylan referencing his (precarious, so precarious) financial contribution to the household in the same breath he threatens to quit so that this version of him (that he was, at some point, that he isn't anymore) won't take gretchen from him. i think about dylan g talking to gretchen george about her life with his outie and their children with ms. huang watching and listening and growing quieter on the other side of a CCTV system, and proposing to her because there's nothing to be had inside the severed floor anymore (mark has barely been down there since the ORTBO and might not come back at all, they took helly and he didn't even notice or listen to irving's suspicions that he was trusted with. how is he supposed to separate the guilt from the fear? what if it's helena again? how will he ever find the elevator now that irving's dead? does he really have the strength of two men? is he dumb? is he a dick? is he an asshole down here too?). i think about gretchen saying no to the proposal and to the visiting hours altogether if it means he gets to live, but about how she knows that she's not all he has. how dylan g must have told her about irving b, about the funeral, about helly and mark, about petey and their jokes. how gretchen must've told dylan george about all this, dylan george who writes to dylan g after he tried to quit without his prompting, to tell him both fuck you and that he gets it, both the suicide and the loving gretchen, and he won't take the choice to quit (and die) away from dylan g, but still encourages him to fight for what he has down there.

i think about burt goodman, who lost his job because a part of him he condemned to a life of forced labor as atonement fell in love with a man he will never meet, that his husband will never be, a version of himself with a lov he believes he could never have after what he's done for lumon. i think about him recording a video for the formal execution of what he thought of as an innocent version of himself telling everyone at O&D that despite the conspicuous absence of their memories, he feels burt g's fulfillment from working there, and their love. i think about how he assumed that burt g's lover would be there, even if irving b's presence was a clerical error that would lead to a crack in lumon's image so large it would set the foundation of its downfall as a company but not before getting irving b killed. burt goodman, who heard a desperate stranger at his door screaming his name and followed him for weeks, who invited him for dinner to facillitate the breaking and entering of a company higher up into his house in search for excuses to kill him, who saw his own complicity in the death machine of lumon pencilled carefully alongside all the names of people irving bailiff was trying to help, and heard him say "i know now that you're not with them" even as he tensed in fear, even as he found his home violated (this time knowingly, unlike the night of the dinner), because his service dog (the only one that takes care of irving bailiff, the only one that irving bailiff can take care of) was at ease. burt goodman, who was asked to take irving bailiff to his death, and irving bailiff, who knew this and still got in burt's car. burt goodman, who would give up his life so that this innocent love a part of him had with this stranger lives in some way, even if he burns, even if it's tucked away safely in the corner of a chip, unknown and unknowable to the both of them, in irving bailiff's brain.

i think about irving bailiff and his single bed, his wardrobe mostly full of dress shirts for irving b, maritime signal flags and whispered conspiracies from an anonymized phone booth as cryptographically sound ways to show love without necessarily getting it in return. tall walls that need a watchdog and matching uniforms with a father buried in the same trunk that holds years of violence from him, to him, to people like him, to people more vulnerable than him, and ways to use the evidence of harm to get all of them out. i think about irving bailiff existing in dusty medal displays and out of focus trinkets and the soft presses of hands against fur and paint and cheekbones with such longing that they can't be looked at directly for too long without them catching on fire and disappearing without a trace, only fleeting glimpses in the dark. did he also come out of the elevator feeling loved, like burt goodman, and put a comb in his pocket instead of a key card? did he pick up marcus aurelius the evening after burt g's retirement party without knowing why? did his eyes wander to that lone vulture and was he pricked by suspicion, or is the loneliness such an expected fixture that it was the good days that felt like a fluke? when he apologized to burt goodman for showing up and startling him and his husband, did he think it was an act of love for burt that got his innie killed in the end? did he think of his paintings and his own father and saw irving b sacrificing himself for a cause that irving bailiff didn't even stop to consider wasn't shared? or did he imagine a man with burt goodman's face holding irving b with recognition, respect and care in a hell neither of them wanted to be in, and found this hell to be the same in their lives outside?

i know that he did not think of helly r, dylan g and mark s, whom that act of love that killed his innie saved. i know that he didn't think of felicia welcoming his innie with a hug and sharing one of her precious two daily vending machine snacks, reminiscing about the burt they both loved. i know he didn't think of ms. casey, in her longest time awake (alive!), whose first action outside of her instructed behavior as an unilateral therapeutic mouthpiece was telling irving b that burt was in an unauthorized location instead of their bosses. i know he didn't think of them because he doesn't know they exist.

i think about june kilmer, whom peter kilmer loved and petey k never met in his two reintegrated weeks before death, who was so loved that in a chaos of memories and tangled lifespans, she was a certainty: june is my daughter, and one hell of a guitar player. i understand why romantic love was put at the forefront of season two in contrast to the ensemble approach to season one. mark scout's and gemma's, mark s' and helly r's, both dylans and gretchen, both irvings and burt (and fields), in all their awkward, gangly, teenaged glory (including helena's abuse coming from a profound lack of agency over her own life and a concerning amount of power over the employees', cobel and hampton's cynical revisiting of a teenage crush that was never allowed to exist, the glimpses into devon and ricken's very genuine love being based on his intense earnestness and how it crumbles when his own insecurities put him in a position to perform). but i still hope that all of these relationships outside of monogamous love and the various successes and failures of the nuclear family are at the core of the story that severance will end up telling. there is so much love in all of their lives, and severance is the reason all of them don't know about most of it. they're denied the possibility of mourning their dead, and the possibility of loving and being loved, because it makes them easier to exploit, because it's harder to fight back if you're doing it alone. there's a petey-shaped hole in season two and i want all this love (that the heterosexual, cisgender, monogamous, white supremacist ideal of family doesn't have room for) to burst through it and burn lumon and the eagan legacy to the ground.

[sageshouldknowbetter]

From AOC on Bluesky. It says:

“Yes, this administration is dangerous and cruel, but they are also shockingly dim and incompetent.

Opportunities are everywhere.

Make everything as hard as possible. Resist every demand. Refuse entry without a warrant. Don’t take the buyout. Their problem solving skills are 📉

It’s important to know that a lot of productive activity is happening in person and offline, too.

Not all of it can be broadcast online, but we’ve had hundreds of people showing up to our trainings, mobilizations, and more.

Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.”

[sageshouldknowbetter]

adoration from two angles [click for hq]

[sageshouldknowbetter]

Deeply religious openly queer people are God's strongest soldiers. Constantly justifying their own existence to everyone from all sides...Phew