#and then indoctrinate them into their cause

[doux-amer]

Helena thought she could go undetected if she acted kind, which is frankly patronizing and says volumes about her lack of understanding of Helly and the innies. From what I can tell, she (and Lumon?) only cared to watch the day the innies enacted their OTC plan, so she thought, "Okay, they're all fond of one another, and they have team spirit" and decided to act warm, nice, and collaborative. That must be why they like and trust Helly! Except Helly's more than that.

Helena doesn't care to think of Helly as an actual person, just a role she can slip into, and surely it can't be hard to be her because she is Helly. But Helly is headstrong, inquisitive (and demands that others question things as much as she does), and highly skeptical, and as much as she's kind, she's also quick to sarcastic retorts and teasing. You don't see that on display in season 2. She's soft and she doesn't go off snooping on her own, not caring whether or not anyone follows her. She lets Mark take the initiative on everything. Her hatred towards Lumon is absent; the only time you see her actively dissent is when she laughs over the story about Dieter—and she gets it wrong because the others are confused and a bit uncomfortable before they hesitantly join her in laughter whereas Helly would have been able to say something that would have landed with the others immediately. She doesn't get the group dynamics either. She makes a snow seal for Irving, and her "sympathy" for Irving is cruel and condescending because Helena is cruel. I think part of her wanted to shut Irving down, but she's also clueless enough to genuinely believe she would come off as kind. Gotta be gentle with poor, breakable Irving, guys.

She's incapable of understanding Irving's loss and she underestimates him. She's never been a position like he's been in. He has nothing, his entire belief system that he's been indoctrinated into since birth is a lie that has caused him profound suffering, and he found love so powerful that it transcended everything and made him willing to sacrifice everything. He doesn't have anything to lose. He sees no point in being at work anymore so that means he'll take massive risks and have no fear. She doesn't understand that because she doesn't understand love or loss.

She doesn't actually get what drove the innies to rebel and risk everything for the OTC because of that. One of the first things anyone in Helena's shoes would think when she learned she has to go back to the severed floor is how they would have to come up with a lie. She's quick to see that's necessary when it comes to the gala fiasco because she values the attendees' trust and understands how their support or lack thereof can affect Lumon, but it doesn't cross her mind for the innies until the MDR members ask one another what they saw. Did she really think they wouldn't talk about this? These are people who risked their entire existence just to get a glimpse of the outside world and learn a little about who they are. They'd be eager to talk about everything as mundane as how vast the sky is (which was one of the first comments Dylan made on the ORTBO!) and as intimate as the most minute details about their outies' lives and identities.

Helly herself is the one who got the ball rolling for the plan in the first place because of how much she rebelled. They would expect her to be candid regardless of what she found. Helena seems to forget and find incomprehensible Helly's deep-seated loathing of her and Lumon. Obviously, it's possible that Helly would be afraid of judgment and of losing her team's trust. She was broken when she found out who she was, so full of regret when she recited the break room apology in the bathroom at the gala. But Helly immediately moved into action and knew she had to get the word out there about the unjust treatment of innies. It's not just curiosity motivating her, but a desire for her life and the lives of the other severed employees to be better, for them to be treated as equals. To have freedom and agency.

Regardless of whether Helly would have told the others who she was on the outside or not (and I do believe she would have if not immediately, then very soon after), she would have wanted to destroy Lumon. She already hates Helena and was willing to hurt her and even kill her not only to escape her claustrophobic, prison-like life but also as revenge. She would want to raze Lumon to the ground even more than before after her discovery.

In that sense, I think that's why Irving was highly suspicious of Helena. Sure, there's the "night gardener" comment, but that was just a seed. If it had been Helly and that had just been a terrible lie born out of shame, he would have quickly dismissed it if she acted like Helly. But he continued to observe her and thought she wasn't acting like Helly. Everyone on the team is gung-ho about rebelling, but Helly and Irving were alike because they were driven by a type of anger that set them apart from Mark and Dylan. Mark and Dylan also felt mistreated, but they were driven by curiosity as well. They wanted to know more about themselves and their lives. For Helly and Irving, that was of interest to them too, but it wasn't the priority; they operated from a place of feeling like they had nothing to lose, which is why Helly was the one to provide the spark, the fuel for the fire, and Irving was the one to fan it into a conflagration, to inspire them by declaring, "Let's burn this place to the ground."

Helena doesn't seem to know this. She doesn't try to understand the innies because she doesn't see them as real people, as equals with their own interiority, with deep thoughts and emotions. She just chalks it up to the innies being unhappy, which is right, but it's a superficial interpretation. She doesn't dig into why or try to sympathize, and that leads her to be this weirdly placid version of Helly. One with a complete lack of fire. One who's complacent and just does enough to give a shallow impression of whom she assumes Helly is by reducing her to a handful of traits: curious and kind.

I think she vastly underestimated how important Helly is to the others and ultimately that backfires on her spectacularly. If you love someone, you know them. She's never had someone truly see her except on the severed floor because she's never had love until then and she's never been accepted for who she is and encouraged to be herself. For all her condescension towards the innies and Helly especially, she has limited, childlike knowledge of how complex a person can be and how relationships can work.

[queeries-book]

This is my theory about of the belief systems of different groups in Severance. Informed by: Discussions in this sub, some of the cast interviews, and my fascination + amateur knowledge of cults.

Warning: Long.

So first of all, in cults:

The rank-and-file members of the cult have an official & rigid belief system.

The cult leader usually doesn't have the same beliefs, but instead believes in their own superiority and being above the rules other cult members have to follow.

Cult members often believe that it is OK to deceive nonmembers, and so they have a variety of spins and cover stories that they tell the outside world.

So, the Lumon beliefs aren't just one thing. There are at least three versions.

Kier Eagan's beliefs

He founded Lumon, which was likely a patent medicine company. His beliefs are: "Workaholism good. Feelings (4 tempers) bad."

The path to salvation (or whatever spiritual outcome he believes in) is to tame the 4 tempers and become the ideal worker.

He was likely a workaholic and prodigious worker himself (maybe with the help of some of his company's performance-enhancing drugs), making him superior to other humans.

His economic success and philosophy attracted followers and admirers.

In present day, the average Kier, PE resident probably thinks of him as an eccentric, old-timey industrialist who happened to be the founder of their town's biggest jobs-provider. Probably the way people think of Howard Hughes.

The Kier cult's beliefs

The Kier cult was founded by either Kier Eagan or one of his descendants (looking to capitalize on the admiration and family name). The cult is interwined with the business of Lumon. The cult founder got the cult members to believe:

Kier is the chosen one, and everyone on earth must tame their four tempers and become ideal workers like Kier, for their own salvation.

The Eagan descendents are also in some way "special," because their ancestry inherently makes them the ideal worker.

Severing workers creates a blank slate for ordinary, inferior people to also tame their tempers. By molding innies into ideal workers through the harsh discipline of the severed floor, Lumon are actually helping them.

Deceiving the outies is fine since it is for a "good cause."

Whatever other crazy experiments they're doing, it's for "the good of the world": creating ideal workers and thus saving souls.

The public and outies' beliefs

Lumon tells the public and outies whatever they want to hear because Lumon has contempt for them. They have different messages they use on different audiences.

Severance is a choice. Don't you care about bodily autonomy? (General public)

It's great for work life balance! (Potential severed employees)

Severance is healing: your innie will be protected from your pain & baggage. It will heal your trauma indirectly. (Mark)

Your innie is like your employee. Delegate to them so they make your life less burdened by unpleasant tasks, like childbirth. Why shouldn't you? You deserve it, girlboss. (Artetas and elites)

Lumon beliefs

Upper management (like Cobel, Milchick, and maybe Natalie) are members of the cult. They are the true believers in its philosophy and they think they are pursuing a noble goal by imposing harsh discipline on the innies. It's taming their tempers and helping their souls, even if it seems cruel to outsiders. They have to lie to the outies, but it's fine. The outies are too flawed and weak to understand the vision of Kier, so how else could we help them?

Innies are indoctrinated to believe their management are their benefactors and protectors from the outside world, and that any ill treatment they receive is because of their own flaws (which need to be corrected by "wizened hands"). Their work is "mysterious and important", and they're privileged to be able to work on it.

Ordinary unsevered Lumon employees are not cult members, and only receive the outsider-friendly version of the company vision. But they are affected by the corporate culture & propaganda. It's like how some companies believe their own hype a bit too much, leading to groupthink (e.g. some notables in Silicon Valley).

Current cult leaders' beliefs

The cult is now led by the board and Jame Eagan, I suspect.

They are the ones creating the propaganda, so they don't believe it. They just see it as a tool for consolidating their power.

What they do believe is in their own superiority. Other people need to be manipulated, severed, and disciplined to be made into ideal workers. But the Eagans are already superior chosen ones (and workaholics), so what they do is, by definition, right. So let's pursue power and profit, because we want to. We're making the world a better place no matter what we do.

Helena's beliefs

She is the black sheep of the family. As a child, she was too rebellious and irreverent to be good for the Eagan reputation. Young Helena was probably a lot like Helly, and her upbringing was like Helly's season 1 experience at Lumon. This has turned her cold, cruel, and self-hating as an adult.

Her status within the family is precarious and she has become skilled at power-plays and politicking to protect it.

Her whole PR stunt of being severed is some kind of ambitious bid for status. She has probably been on thin ice for a long time and is sick of it.

She believes in her family's superiority and her own. She doesn't believe the Kier mythos but she has to pretend to.

Showrunners' beliefs

The major theme or message of the show is basically the opposite of Kier Eagan's beliefs. Workaholism is bad, and all feelings/tempers are necessary and should be integrated.

It's a critique of our current culture of compartmentalizing and defining ourselves by our work. They're telling us viewers: "In whatever metaphorical ways you have severed yourself, you should face your feelings/reintegrate."

I think whatever sci-fi and plot twists and turns come up, they will be in service of this theme.

also here

[soup-scope]

hey y’all the relationship between warden and vega fucking fascinates me

cause honestly i have absolutely no idea on how to characterize it

like yes he calls them ‘darling’ yada yada but he almost takes a paternal(?) role when it comes to nurturing them????

he rescues them, he feeds them, he tries to reconnect them with the demonic habits they were shamed out of expressing, he teaches them and tries to subtly influence their behavior towards a possible corruption arc and just

this isn’t me trying to make their relationship weird or smth i’m just saying i have absolutely no idea how vega and wardens relationship actually works between them… not every listener and character are destined to end in a romantic relationship so that’s why i’m thinking that the relationship between warden and vega won’t become romantic and more of that weird friendship you have with your 50 year old coworker who smokes 2 packs a day.

[salsa-di-pomodoro]

Ok but can we talk about the absolute horror of being watched and monitored 24/7 that the ancients must have had. The citizenship drones being like an Alexa that's constantly following and listening to you (except it's five pebbles and not Alexa lmao). The fucking OVERSEERS. THEY'RE CALLED THAT FOR A REASON. BECAUSE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING THEIR CITIZENS AS WELL AS THE ENVIRONMENT ALL THE TIME. (I would talk about the fact that they all show arti fucking ads as well but honestly idk what else to say about that. Capitalism got yet another society 😔). That's some fucking nightmare fuel dystopian society settings we are being hinted at. You know the Big Brother Is Watching You thing. The book. Yeah that's what it reminds me of.

The Iterator Is Watching You.

[slutdge]

my sister had her baby yesterday and its really ugly but i cant say that and its making me think of that post thats like "i think they use toddlers on anti-abortion billboards cause no one wants to admit newborns are ugly"

[oopey-doopey]

Oh the idea of the lamb hosting a ritual to celebrate the indoctrination of the bishops:

A feast for Heket brought a harvest of blessed crops

A Holy Day to honor Kallamar and the health he’d (rarely) grant.

A fight for Shamura, the former god of war or perhaps enlightenment in honor of their wisdom.

A bonfire for Leshy to both remind of his affinity for chaos and his ability to control it

I don’t think it’s out of kindness but a weird transitional thing. A lot of these rituals were either done in their honor or as a representation of their mercy and seeing it as a god would def feel a lot different than experiencing them in person. To partake and understand the community it builds outside of the god and to further speed up indoctrination

[dykedvonte]

Does the lamb care about their followers? In my mind not really…

Their followers are just that, theirs. In the lambs head they, subconsciously, associate their followers with a new flock to be apart of but they are also the shepherd. They care for them because that is all they have outside of the powers of godhood. It brings them pride when they are happy and they carry out the appropriate rituals when death occurs(they of course have strong feeling on death) but it’s certainly not out of a place of genuine care or compassion when they die.

It’s caretaking, plain and simple, but they are fond of it more so cause their followers are a representation of their growth as a god rather than a pledge of loyalty to them.

[gxlden-angels]

I don't know entirely how to explain this, but I think an important part of healing from religious trauma is learning about substance use disorders and shifting your views on drugs to neutral

[sevicia]

It makes me upset to see people calling AI stupid or just straight up saying "fuck AI" (even though it's in an art context) because it's like... I know and understand that the hate is directed at how it's being used currently and that people maybe just don't care like I do about this but it's upsetting because that's WORK. Not in a monetary sense at all but what everyone knows as AI didn't just sprout from the ground one day, it's decades of dedication and learning and development and collaboration to make a tool with the intention of making life better regardless of any one individual's intentions and it just makes me sad that there's so much panic around it, both from the whole "being replaced" thing that comes from waaay way back and also the very real concerns regarding generative AI. Like I can't just go up to someone and say "hey, isn't this cool?!" and expect them to understand I'm talking about AI as a tool and a product of passion and collaboration over time rather than a quick easy fix for when you want to see yourself as an anime character without having to learn to respect art first. I don't knowww it just makes me so so sad that something so beautiful is viewed in such a negative and strange light because the entire world refuses to slow down for a single second

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

i am high (on benadryl) bored and in desperate need of bedrest content, give me your fav shows/books/films plssss *grabby hnds*

[xalatath]

Oh my god my vision for redeemed!Orin and redeemed durge!Veil is so beautiful I wish I could actually describe it to you

[melonisopod]

Actually “most annoying Tumblr celebrity” is whoever decided that the idea that one day minorities can wake up and not have to fight tooth and nail for the right to simply exist is some kind of indoctrination thing they dubbed “rapture culture” kill kill kill fucking die a thousand deaths go to Hell eat Satan’s crusty balls.

[thedivinecalamity]

Actually i never asked, did you read Iwaihime?

I actually have not yet! But it's on my to play list, along with Loopers since I recently discovered that game is on Steam. I'm currently playing Fata Morgana and have a huge backlog of vns to play but I could probably be persuaded to play it next.

Speaking of horror visual novels, have you ever read Death Mark and it's sequel NG? Both are really good games, with the second being even better. I highly recommend playing them. The Silent Hill F game that Ryukishi is working on will have monster designs by the person who did the designs in both of those games. Their monster designs are quite frankly amazing. However if you do plan on playing them, I recommend not looking up the designs and going in the games as blind as possible, the games aren't really scary per se but they do an amazing job slowly setting up the atmosphere before you encounter these ungodly creatures.

[thebleedingeffect]

In my heart of hearts I truly do just want to write a self insert that interacts with the main story that's it really

[merrysithmas]

please give me a run down of what bo katan has done because I watched a summary of her life and all but I need to know I need to know and you seem to know

just reblogged a couple posts for you on this!

[phant0ma]

dude one of my friends (who doesn't watch/read one piece at all) keeps sending me one piece reels on instagram bc whenever they see it they think of me. I'm sure their feed is full of one piece posts now and it's all bc of me 😭

Hyperfixation so bad people think of me when they see it