#(and irving LMAO)

[spooksier]

the severed macrodata refiner said fuck work

☆ prints | patreon | comics ☆

[smellroy]

second best BROTP of The Terror

[but-i-want-to-live-with-you]

I did a thing, I deleted the scary numbers made a meme

[evan-buck]

SEVERANCE 2x05 Trojan's Horse

[yellowtrinity]

i finished another tales game u know what that means: skit portrait redraws!!!

static version below:

[froggerland]

Very self indulgent doodle of the terror lieuts in some cursed college au simply bc i wanted to put them in some of my recently worn outfits

[ghostdrinkssoup]

Severance S2 spoilers, but I think innie!Mark running back to Helly is deeper than just him realising he doesn’t have feelings for Gemma. As we know, outie!Mark gets severed because he doesn’t know how to cope with Gemma’s passing, meaning he’s someone who struggles to accept death (and by extension change). We see this characterisation extend to innie!Mark when Petey’s disappearance forces him to re-experience grief. Notably, innie!Mark’s gut reaction is to hide the group photo of Petey so he won't be reminded of him, similar to how outie!Mark hides Gemma’s things in his basement because it’s “easier pretending she never existed”. Innie!Mark later shreds the map on the back of that same group photo when Helly presses him to question Petey’s death, again, very similar to how outie!Mark tears up the picture of Gemma. Despite differing contexts, both versions of Mark try to prove they don’t “give a shit” about someone they are very clearly mourning.

Innie!Mark isn’t just mourning his best friend, but also how things used to be. His attachment to Petey doubles as an attachment to the culture created by his coworkers, again, not so dissimilar to outie!Mark mourning his old life with Gemma. In both cases, he doesn’t want things to change. The idea that work culture is created “by the people” is established in the first episode, during a meeting between innie!Mark and Cobel:

Here, Cobel explicitly associates hell and heaven with the work environment, noting that hell is not reality but our perception of reality, influenced by our environment. Essentially, the people at work determine whether the workplace is worth being attached to. Although this philosophy isn’t universal (not everyone loves their coworkers), it aligns with innie!Mark’s values, as demonstrated in the shredding scene: 

Here, innie!Mark confirms that he isn’t loyal to Lumon, but to his colleagues. We also learn that in the face of uncertainty, he would rather lean on the support of his immediate community (his “family”) than become isolated, reframing the workplace as an intimate (and domestic) space. Considering that severance is meant to separate people’s work lives from their personal lives, this scene is particularly fascinating. Especially since Helly resists conflating the professional sphere with domesticity (“I could not, with a razor to my throat, be less interested in being your family”), viewing work as a prison that restricts her freedom (which, ironically, is likely the reality of Helena’s personal life). Interestingly, innie!Mark resents Helly’s constant disobedience until she tries to commit suicide. Again, when he’s confronted by death.

The show continuously reminds us that loss of intimate attachment, whether at work or home, is what both versions of Mark fear most. For example, innie!Mark is the only worker who hasn’t tried to quit. Helly repeatedly tries to quit in season one, even though she knows it’ll end her life; Irving is more than ready to quit after he learns Burt is married, and is ready to accept his death after outing Helena as a mole; Dylan also tries to quit when he’s separated from Gretchen and realises she won’t be coming back. Innie!Mark is the only severed worker (of the main cast) who can't accept death. Walking out that door terrifies him, and Lumon nurtures that fear. As Milchick says in season one, death isn’t something that happens at Lumon. The workers don’t even know what death looks like, as shown when MDR find the animal corpse in Woe’s Hollow:

Suddenly, the external world of the natural environment overwhelms the workplace, bringing death in its wake. Yet, the internal world of domesticity also brought loss in the form of Petey, Burt, and Irving’s “retirements”. Clearly, neither private nor public spaces are appropriate labels for the workplace, because the workplace is unnatural, monitored, and sealed off from reality. Lumon literally advertises this state of being, yet woe resulting from the loss or death of a loved one keeps threatening to invade this sequestered paradise. The personification of woe being a ghostly bride (AKA someone’s dead wife) also feels pretty pointed.

But let’s return to that point from earlier about work culture. As we have already established, innie!Mark is more than willing to work at Lumon if he becomes accustomed to the culture created by his colleagues. Helly contrasts him in this sense, as she is both independent and capable of rallying people to action without group support or approval (as we see during her speech to Choreography and Merriment). Innie!Mark, meanwhile, quelled his rebellious behaviour the moment he made friends with Petey. Under ordinary circumstances, innie!Mark is unlikely to be the kind of person to just up and leave his job because it’s exploitative. His decisions are not guided by morality, they’re guided by emotional attachment. We see this with outie!Mark in season one: his views on Lumon only begin to shift after he attends Petey’s funeral, and goes to his (Petey’s) daughter’s concert. Before this moment, outie!Mark is mostly apathetic about the inner workings of Lumon because severance is a convenient coping mechanism. It’s only when the peace is disturbed, and someone he’s grown to care for dies, that he changes gear. 

Innie!Mark behaves similarly when he demands to have his team back in the first episode of season two. It’s the most rebellious we’ve ever seen him. He doesn’t want his friends to disappear, and once they’re back, he doesn’t quit despite being given the option to leave. He wants to find Ms. Casey (who he knows is his outie’s wife), sure, but he’s also attached to Helly and his other colleagues. They’re his family, and he is very unlikely to abandon his family.

Outie!Mark is also very unlikely to abandon his family. The moment he learns Gemma is alive, he’s willing to risk everything (including his safety) to get her out. His stubbornness and loyalty are only rivalled by his innie’s, who is effectively himself. The problem isn’t that innie and outie Mark are different people; it’s that they’re the same person. If the roles were reversed, outie!Mark would never leave Lumon for Helly, not if it meant leaving Gemma behind. He would do the exact same thing innie!Mark does because neither version of him can accept loss, which is why he can’t leave. It’s not just Helly: it’s Dylan and all the other innies he would be abandoning. Not to mention that leaving would mean his certain death and Mark has never been able to deal with death, something Lumon promises to shield its workers from.

Why don’t people quit their jobs, even when they know it’s corrupt? Because people become complacent, conditioned, and attached to the status quo. Innie!Mark was always going to run back into the tender arms of hell. For a moment, it probably seemed a lot more like heaven to him.

This has been Mark’s consistent characterisation throughout the show. Do I view innie!Mark and outie!Mark as separate entities? Yes and no. I do think that innie!Mark is just as much a person as outie!Mark, and that they are different versions of the same person. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t the same person. If innie!Mark was different from his outie, he probably would’ve gone with Gemma. But outie!Mark has never learned how to accept grief, and innie!Mark is a version of himself that hasn’t evolved past this worldview either. What we see at the end of Cold Harbour, then, is a very literal representation of self-sabotage. Because the type of person who would’ve gone with Gemma wouldn’t have severed himself to avoid grief in the first place. For Orpheus not to turn around, he would've had to be someone else.

[mashamorevvna]

*irving voice* oh uldred is so good at manipulating these dumb motherfuckers apprentices. which could mean nothing

[slayknif]

May I offer you some terror miscellanea 🤲🤲🤲

[johnnyy-guitarr]

hi i hope you all like these wretched things i crafted with my own two hands

[kittycity]

Seeing posts on here about severance before watching the actual show was like reading, "I can't believe how Steve Normal and his quirky coworkers talked to another person in the Evil Goopus Inc. rat maze" And then you watch it and youre like "Ohhhhh, a new room in the rat maze." and its exhilarating.

[vomittedsoap]

Ditched Irving sketch that doesn’t fit what I’m trying to do

[strawburrychainsaw]

Late on my weekly flurry of severance posts but I have to say it feels very strange that there has been NO explicitly Helly-centric moments or conflict. At no point has Helly been alone to think about the fact that she lied to the others; to stew and ponder her true origins and reason for being here. She has not been shown wondering why she was allowed to return or making any personal comments whatsoever. Her proactive and volatile nature has been replaced by a woman who creeps down hallways, knocks on doors before entering, and reminds her coworkers they are safe to converse privately because Milchick said the cameras and microphones were gone despite constantly questioning whether anyone was telling her the truth in the first season. If this were any other show I would be expressing my deep disappointment at her loss of autonomy and the failure of writing to consistently capture this woman and mellowing her out to give room to her male costars and their more important internal conflicts... but this is Severance and that's not Helly at all, it is a woman wearing her skin

[sheepb1t]

The minis are mentally sick in the head and

(Doodle sheet of my faves, in no particular order)

[annecoulmanross]

So I clearly have normal feelings about the John Irving playlist.

This unholy blend of selected lyrics and other scraps is what my brain has been doing for the last several hours. Sources below the cut.

Lyrics pulled from songs off the Irving playlist are colored blue, and Bible verses from the King James Version (KJV) are colored red.

"For the way is straight and narrow," from "You Must Unload" which appears three ENTIRE times on the playlist.

"Enter ye in at the strait gate," from Matthew 7:13-15 (KJV).

Image of a copy of the Holy Bible found by the McClintock Search Expedition in an abandoned boat at Erebus Bay, King William Island, in May 1859, now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Screenshot ("Turn your wolf's ear to me now,") from "The Ladder," the third episode of The Terror (2018).

Screenshot ("or the next piece of counsel,") from "The Ladder," the third episode of The Terror (2018).

"I give you hard felt reliquary," from "Come and See" by Fox Apts.

Engraving from an 1890s broadsheet, captioned "The Cases Containing the Franklin Relics."

"Love is blindness," from "Love Is Blindness," by Jack White.

"Stop staring at the waves," from the musical Swept Away.

"This magnanimity in your sacred Majesty," from Oedipus Tyrannus Or, Swellfoot the Tyrant, a Tragedy in Two Acts (1820) by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Screenshot from "A Mercy," the sixth episode of The Terror (2018).

"Some say I got devil," from "Some Say I Got Devil," by Morrissey.

"Should the ice not clear away," from Lieut. John Irving, R.N. of H.M.S. "Terror" in Sir John Franklin's Last Expedition to the Arctic Regions: A Memorial Sketch with Letters (1881) edited by Benjamin Bell, digitized by Arctonauts here.

"Who shall separate us," from Romans 8:35 (KJV) engraved into the grave of John Irving in Edinburgh, Scotland.

"Now I've left my teeth marks," from "Phantom Of My Organ," by Slowblow.

"Then you die first," from the musical Swept Away.

"Who's seen Jezebel?" from "Jezebel" by Iron & Wine.

"Grave of Lieutenant John Irving, R.N., and Relics of H.M.S. Terror (1847), with a view of Victory Point, King William's Land," an engraving made from a drawing by Henry Klutschak, printed in The Search for Franklin (1897), pg. 51.

"And they went to bury her," from 2 Kings 9 (KJV): 35-37.

"This relic at once identified the grave," from The Search for Franklin (1897), pgs. 53-54.

"'Unto others...' scribed," from "Come and See" by Fox Apts.

"And the flood was forty days," from Genesis 9 (KJV): 17-18.

"A small Bible contained numerous marginal notes," from The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and his Companions (1859) by Leopold McClintock, pg. 295.

"God, he called for rain," from "The Ark" by Dr. Dog.

Screenshot ("It is no accident") from "The Ladder," the third episode of The Terror (2018).

"Feathered friend, dig up and resurrect me," from "Old Note," by Lisa O'Neill.

[koutone]

Happy birthday to my best friend @crush3dmary !!! I hope you have a wonderful day! I love you so much!!