#I cannot do hints

[unashamedly-ineffable]

Me watching the Easter Egg Clues bonus content:

Someone with a bigger screen, faster brain, and better memory than me please explain some Easter Eggs

[bamsara]

There are ten billion personal Lamb interpretations and all of them are correct (and also the other characters but I suffer from lamb favoritism)

If you're looking for an excuse to ramble about your Lamb or AU (or any cotl character you have) take this post to do it NOW

[pige0ns]

i love how much the current season of severance is characterized by interpenetration. the first season was cold and isolated. severed. the innies and the outies were separate, and the leaks between them mostly only ominous hints. a tissue in mark's pocket. a dream of black goo. a blue band aid. an orange book. a recording from the break room. of course a reintegrated petey could not survive in season 1. in a severed world, it is the person trying to become whole who is the doomed, ill-suited freak. willing lobotomy should be grotesque, but when it is sanitized by corporate and scientific aesthetics, it can seem like the civilized thing, and anti-lobotomy that is grotesque. anti-lobotomy that is homeless, unshaven, and dripping blood.

this is why the we we are is so successful as a conclusion to season 1. it is a shocking violation of the boundary that existed all season. it is not just an ominous hint, but a total, almost violent obtrusion. as transgressive as the act of cutting, but in the opposite direction. and it makes the violence of the original cutting more salient in retrospect. (it's in the name, too--"we" instead of "you"; a coming together instead of a separation)

and now, in season 2, in the aftermath of that boundary violation, the boundaries start breaking down even further. helena on the severed floor. mark's reintegration visions. gemma being herself, even deep inside lumon's bowels. milchick visiting their houses. gretchen visiting dylan. mark in the birthing cabin. the innies outside at the ortbo. burt and irving being influenced by their innie connection. mark and helena meeting in the restaurant. the literal sex and romance and infidelity, involving not just innies or outies, but innies and outies. representatives of the inside and outside physically, bodily, commingling.

and it's against this backdrop that the characters in season 2 have begun to confront the boundaries within themselves. they've begun to ask how different and how separate they really are. do innies and outies have different souls? is infidelity with yourself really infidelity? it's almost cliche at this point, but really: does love transcend severance? clear narrative roles of hero and villain are decaying. former antagonists like milchick and cobel are now something murkier. meanwhile helly and helena, once seemingly so distinct, have increasingly revealed their commonalities. both trapped, both drawn to mark, repeating lines like "she's not your wife." the emphasis on helena this season is key. helly and helena embody self-division, given their initially divergent characters, goals, and narrative roles--one a hero, the other a villain. so for their differences to erode, for helena to get closer to the screentime that helly got last season, signals that this is a story in which self-division itself is growing suspect, unstable, untenable.

and then there's mark's reintegration. if of course petey couldn't survive reintegration in season 1, then of course mark can't complete his reintegration in season 2. season 2 is not a story of completion, it is a story of transition. it is messy, ambiguous, ambivalent adolescence. mark might want his innie's memories, but he has given no indication that he wants or identifies with his innie's self. as protagonist and deuteragonist, mark and helly are natural foils, and mark's forced and unsuccessful reintegration process is in contrast with helena's unexpected inching towards "natural reintegration", to use britt lower's phrase. in "attila" we see helena with her hair and manners loose, however awkwardly, playing at aspects of helly in a way that mark scout, as of "the after hours" (when this is written), would not consider doing with mark s. metaphorically, mark cannot yet reintegrate because his halves are not aligned. but they're not separate any more either. they're overlapping. they're at odds. but what will make them align? i assume that is what the finale and next season are for.

[unluckedtj]

something bad’s about to happen to me

why i feel this way, i don’t know maybe

[aalghul]

"claiming any writer ever intended to write that jason was sexually assaulted as a child is stealing from mia" is still one of the most ridiculous takes i have ever seen. by the way

[soath]

The thing about Bells Hells is that asking their opinion on anything is like setting up a political survey at a rave under a bridge or in some sort of especially niche genre specific goth club or backstage at an off-off Broadway conceptual show; you’re going to get really interesting answers! They are not going to be representative of the general population in the slightest. There is a faction of people who think we need to solve this by introducing one Designated Average Relationship With The Universe Dave to the polling sample, ruining their beautiful natural diversity of guys-who-could-be-in-the-musical-RENT. To which the wise man says: “Never!” This is the little freaks with half baked philosophies and unresolved personal issues party. More pressingly, it has been noted that Bells Hells doesn’t seem to realize that their relationship with power writ large is bafflingly different from the average Exandrian. This is an problem, but it’s one that could be in-character, one more extension of an admirable commitment to trauma-informed alarming theological opinions.

[macksartblock]

okay he gets Teenie tape as a treat

[clumsypuppy]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[pendulouspuppyudders]

they are fucking BAITING ME with transfem elliot spencer wtf

[queenlucythevaliant]

So my dad does this thing where he watches Revenge of the Sith on mute because it's actually a pretty good movie if you just cut out all the dialogue. I would like to propose that the ideal way to watch the prequels is actually on mute with the score playing over them. Treat 'em like old fashioned silent movies, basically.

Like, okay, case study: it's not very easy to buy Anakin/Padme romance when you watch these movies. None of the dialogue sells it, it's mostly stilted and a little creepy. You know what does sell Anakin and Padme as this epic, doomed romance which leads to Anakin's fall? "Across the Stars" by John Williams. I watch those two in Attack of the Clones and I feel nothing. I listen to "Across the Stars" on the way home from the airport after binging a bunch of Clone Wars on the plane and I kind of want to cry.

Like, let's get rid of the jenky dialogue during the Mustafar duel, all the "from my point of view the Jedi are evil!" stuff that sounds like a ten year old wrote it, and just let John Williams convey the emotional beats. People already say that the Maul Duel in TPM is a highlight of the series and it's already 99% score and fight choreography. Let's just do that for the whole trilogy! I bet you anything the watchability and emotional impact shoot straight up across the board.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

Delusional crashout (the sequel)

Friendship ended with "Bobby Nash accidentally buried alive due to lack of understanding of CCHF"

Now "Bobby Nash being experimented on in secret government lab" is my best friend

I've already seen a lot of people with good ideas to back this up, so here's my fandom contributions:

Chimney. You're telling me a character that hates running has suddenly taken up running, avoiding everyone he knows (including his pregnant wife) and being mysteriously absent for portions of the day? And he just so happens to be the character that a) received the only remaining vial of the cure for this virus, which the government wanted to use for experiments b) adopted the rat that also received the cure for this virus c) is beside himself with anger and frustration and talking about trying to find a third solution to a problem that seems impossible?? So obviously Chimney has been strong-armed by the government into helping perform the tests on Bobby/cure Bobby. That's why he keeps disappearing. That's why he can't talk to any of his loved ones, because it's killing him that he can't tell them the truth about what's going on.

Christology (again). So we all know the numerous references to Christ's death and resurrection that were in 8 x 15. Like, there were at least five already. When did Jesus famously rise from the dead? On the third day. What did Tim Minear specifically say in interviews that he wanted the timeline to be for grieving Bobby's death? Three episodes. Bobby cannot rise, cannot be revealed to the audience to be alive, until the third episode, for Bible reasons.

Also I would like to state for the record that that was not really Bobby's ghost. That was Athena imagining what Bobby would say to her. The real Bobby is a Catholic. He would never respond to "I know you" with "you knew me - past tense". My boy believes in the Communion of Saints! He believes in speaking to dead people through prayer! None of this you knew me past tense bullshit!! That's not the real Bobby my real Catholic boy is praying the rosary lying on a table in a government lab with his arms tied in the crucifix position you fucking idiots

[ziezii]

yearner nobara who's absolutely in denial about her feelings and when she does come to terms with them she's literally gnawing at the bars of her enclosure meets oblivious megumi who just never realized he treats nobara way different than how he normally treats girls their age

[frumfrumfroo]

People still making posts about how reylo is '100%' just people who want to self-insert to fuck the 'bad boy' in the Year of Our Lord 2024.

When will I know peace.

[roadkillgrlf]

i hate it when guys ask me “Wyd” every 5 seconds as if my response will change in that short period of time.

[loserabby]

you give a man an inch, he assumes you gave him a fucking mile

[rowyndodendron]

Odysseus is standing, alone, in the middle of the battlefield, and he's decided that now would be the perfect time for a little monologue, a speech aimed at himself to decide what he should do. A soliloquy of the soul, mayhaps.

Which is all well and good except: BITCH!? YOU'RE NOT IN A FUCKING PLAY RIGHT NOW!? YOU ARE ON A BATTLEFIELD. HOMER IS TELLING ME THAT AS YOU DO THIS THE TROJANS ARE LITERALLY SURROUNDING YOU!?

GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR OWN POETIC-BULLSHIT SPEWING ARSEHOLE AND DEAL WITH THIS SITUATION PLEASE!?!?!?