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Romeo to his Juliet

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SEVERANCE (2022-) -> season two

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Yes, I agree it would make sense she'd want to see her invention up in action and that this is somehow confirmed by her asking again in S2E2 to be manager of THAT specific severed floor, but she only asks because Mark and Gemma are in it and their whole relationship holds special value for her - but Mark has been working for Lumon only for a couple of years and Severance has been publicly introduced 12 years prior the story we see, as Burt says in S2E6. Where has Cobel been before that? Why hadn't a upper control position for ALL Severed floors proposed to her before the whole OTC crashout, before Mark/Gemma happened and snatched her attention? But even not counting this, the main problem with Cobel is that Lumon let her unsupervised in a middle management position despite her past. So, still not a great reveal imo, considering how detail-oriented the whole show has been.

So, Severance S2E8.

Don't get me wrong, I loved it, a Cobel centered episode was due since SHE was one of the biggest mysteries of S1, and we got a TON of worldbuilding outside of the severed floor itself, because LUMON is the main character in this story, not the innies, nor the outies: we get confirmation of the labor blackmail Lumon, like any other real big corp of our time, subjects small rural community to, we see Miss Huang's presence on the severed floor tied into a long running history of indoctrination and child labor, we see the world outside of Kier react to Lumon's practices and this was NEEDED. Plus It was marvelously shot.

... But were some scenes cut? 'cause the reveal (spoilers ahead)

that Cobel was robbed of the idea for the chip felt very.. off.

All we could guess from S1 was that she was raised from a small age into the Keir cult & that she had personal history guiding her obsession with Mark - but for a show this detailed, nothing paved the ground for her to be a former child prodigy that could invent severance as a teen. None of her career inside Lumon makes sense in light of her being a possible liability in terms of business: if you stole someone's idea that revolutionized not only your company and your cult, but potentially the world, would you let her be a random severed floor manager? More severed floors exist around the Lumon buildings throughout the country, maybe the world, so it's not a prestige-position and instead of keeping a ticking time b/omb like a robbed, scorned, prodigy on a tight leash by having her near you in the upper echelons of the company, you let her do her own thing? One might argue that being raised into being a brainwashed Kier zealot would prevent her from ever rebelling, and we see this doesn't hold, but Lumon is a company first, and this move is WAY too naive for a corporation this big that ensured time and time again that nothing compromising could get out of its walls. So the problem with this reveal is not that it wasn't possible that Cobel could invent and be robbed off the severance idea, but it wasn't a twist properly introduced or prepared. So it feels off and out of the blue and honestly, it didn't hold as much of a punch as it should have, for me.

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So, Severance S2E8.

Don't get me wrong, I loved it, a Cobel centered episode was due since SHE was one of the biggest mysteries of S1, and we got a TON of worldbuilding outside of the severed floor itself, because LUMON is the main character in this story, not the innies, nor the outies: we get confirmation of the labor blackmail Lumon, like any other real big corp of our time, subjects small rural community to, we see Miss Huang's presence on the severed floor tied into a long running history of indoctrination and child labor, we see the world outside of Kier react to Lumon's practices and this was NEEDED. Plus It was marvelously shot.

... But were some scenes cut? 'cause the reveal (spoilers ahead)

that Cobel was robbed of the idea for the chip felt very.. off.

All we could guess from S1 was that she was raised from a small age into the Keir cult & that she had personal history guiding her obsession with Mark - but for a show this detailed, nothing paved the ground for her to be a former child prodigy that could invent severance as a teen. None of her career inside Lumon makes sense in light of her being a possible liability in terms of business: if you stole someone's idea that revolutionized not only your company and your cult, but potentially the world, would you let her be a random severed floor manager? More severed floors exist around the Lumon buildings throughout the country, maybe the world, so it's not a prestige-position and instead of keeping a ticking time b/omb like a robbed, scorned, prodigy on a tight leash by having her near you in the upper echelons of the company, you let her do her own thing? One might argue that being raised into being a brainwashed Kier zealot would prevent her from ever rebelling, and we see this doesn't hold, but Lumon is a company first, and this move is WAY too naive for a corporation this big that ensured time and time again that nothing compromising could get out of its walls. So the problem with this reveal is not that it wasn't possible that Cobel could invent and be robbed off the severance idea, but it wasn't a twist properly introduced or prepared. So it feels off and out of the blue and honestly, it didn't hold as much of a punch as it should have, for me.

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happy severance day! here's some studies I've done while waiting for the new episode

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I think I'm really REALLY unwell.... why did I decide to binge watch Arcane s2? I HAVE NO IDEA

print available

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it is november, and yesterday it felt like it was supposed to be snowing. in boston, november used a winter month, not a fall month. it is supposed to be chilly; rarely capping over 45F. it is a sweater-and-jacket month. it is a "maybe a scarf too" month. in my childhood, november meant blizzards and sleet.

it did not snow. tomorrow the weather predicts a high of 76.

i have spent so many years of my life studying the longterm possibilities of climate change - the culmination of capitalism wreaking havoc on the bodies of people, animals, plants - but every so often i am still shocked by something small and personal.

in a hundred years, when someone goes outside in boston - will they know the feeling of "snow in the air"?

i know it's a learned feeling, a sensation that maybe only longterm experience can teach. a few years ago, i was walking with my friend who had just moved up from the south. i said it smells like snow and she gave me this look like - what the fuck. i said it feels like snow too, which didn't help. she looked up to the bright blue sky and then back at me and then back at the sky. 12 hours later, we had 3 inches. you can just tell if it's going to snow.

except i can't tell, anymore. i stand outside in a tee shirt and watch my dog dance around a lake. we're in a drought and the skin of the water has peeled back twenty meters. the lake is tamed, quiet, puddlelike and sour. my pokemon go app warns there's a weather condition in my area.

my dog gets too hot from running and sits in the water and i want to laugh about his long frame and how awkwardly he sits - and i can't. some simian part of my brain is scratching the walls. it was supposed to snow. it was supposed to snow, but now it's warm instead.

during the last full solar eclipse, the dogs and the birds and the crickets went crazy under utter darkness. we laughed at them then, promising it will all be okay in a moment. but some part of me is still locked in that long night: some animal sensation.

something is wrong, my body says. i can't afford eggs or rent. i go outside to watch a sunset and listen to birdsong. i don't bring a jacket. allergies are killing me this season, allergies i didn't have as a kid. everyone comments that halloween has started to feel strange, offkilter. that it's hard having "holiday cheer." my body thinks it's april, and then it thinks we're in september, and then june.

something is terribly wrong, she whispers. go outside. it is supposed to be snowing.

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The Herald & The Souls of Zaun 💀 (based on Hiremy-Hirschl’s Souls On The Banks of the Acheron)

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man of progress

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VIKTOR ARCANE — The Message Hidden Within The Pattern

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You dip out, and the whole world flips over...

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3/? - "all seeing"

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Summer Eternal, the new studio/art collective being started by former ZA/UM collaborators including Argo Tuulik and Olga Moskvina who were writers on Disco Elysium, Lenval Brown who was the voice of the narrator, and a number of other writers, designers, and artists.

It looks like it will be structured with 50%+1 of shares held by the full-time creative team, 25% for other workers, 20% for investors, and 5% for a non-profit with players as members. Hopefully this kind of structure can avoid the catastrophe of ZA/UM.

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haunting the narrative

find me on instagram !

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3, 2, 1, Let's Go! Tank! By Sachin Teng for the Cowboy Bebop 25th Anniversary Art Exhibition

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by far my favorite film that doesn't pass the bechdel test

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I come out on the stage determined to make people weep. Instead, they burst out laughing.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) // dir. Paul Schrader