dragonturtle

[dragonturtle]

Hot take but I think Mark and Gemma's marriage is unsalvageable and Gemma's character arc shouldn't revolve around reclaiming a relationship with her husband. Mark is not her person anymore. He severed himself, and the severed part who fell in love with Helly is a self he created and cannot destroy. He is barreling toward reintegration, and the him who chose to turn around and run away with Helly is fundamental to who he is now and who he'll become.

If the red string of fate is pulling anyone together, it is Mark and Helena. Their paths are converging and nearing alignment like the waves of their reintegrating brains. They are both in the process of (re)constructing themselves, and the selves they are becoming connect, love, and understand each other. Unlike Dylan, Mark is not a man who thinks his wife is the sun, moon, and stars with his entire brain and being. Mark has conflicted thoughts and confusing feelings. He still loves Gemma, but only halfway.

Relationships and marriages, like baby cribs, are built when they serve a function and get taken apart when circumstances change. Time, experience, trauma... all of these things permanently change people. There was and is love between Mark and Gemma, but they are not the same selves now that they were in those gauzy flashbacks. They can't reclaim that earlier stage of their love or relationship. Even before Gemma's "death" and disappearance, there were cracks forming and it's quite possible their marriage wouldn't have survived; in life, not all love lasts forever.

Grief is love enduring, but Mark couldn't endure his grief so he created a version of himself who wouldn't have to feel it. He cleansed his mind of Gemma, betrayed her and her memory in ways understandable yet irrevocable. What Mark failed to appreciate is how inextricable grief and love truly are. He escaped a grief prison only to find himself in a love labyrinth and now he is haunted by the ghost of a woman who is still alive and a love for her that is half dead. You cannot get rid of the grief without getting rid of the love, too.

[dragonturtle]

SEVERANCE | Season 2, Episode 10, “Cold Harbor”

[dragonturtle]

it’s a real bummer to see some folks not grasping the full depth of Severance’s story, especially about Mark Scout. and it’s strange because the critics get it, and some people do too, but it seems like the average viewer is totally missing the point of this show.

mark severed himself to forget and cope with the loss of his “dead” wife. he created a version of himself who did just that, but guess what? she’s not even dead! he can actually get her back… but here’s the catch: half of his consciousness fell in love with someone else, and this someone else is none other than the heir to the company that caused all his suffering, who’s also severed.

and that version of him and that version of her are going to go against all odds to be together.

like this is some seriously good storytelling. why do some people want the boring version of it?

[dragonturtle]

How are you? Oh my God, so good. My wife's being held prisoner at Lumon. And I just got brain surgery in my basement. How have you been? SEVERANCE | Season 2 (2025) Created by Dan Erickson

[dragonturtle]

she was in outie form at the time she woke up

severance, 2.06 ‘attila’ // vita nova by louise glück

[dragonturtle]

everyday buddy

[dragonturtle]

SEVERANCE 2.04 Woes Hollow / 2.10 Cold Harbor

[dragonturtle]

I'm, like, the head of the company, Mark. Right. Dumb. Sorry. Yeah, you should be sorry. Really? Okay. I'm kidding. You're clearly not dumb. I don't know. You... You're the one who invented a revolutionary medical procedure. Hey, now, that was... that was not me. That was my father.

SEVERANCE — 2.06 "Attila"

[dragonturtle]

Tired

by Langston Hughes

I am so tired of waiting, Aren't you, For the world to become good And beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife And cut the world in two- And see what worms are eating At the rind.

[dragonturtle]

Kendall & Roman 1x08 / 4x10

[dragonturtle]

too many emotions

[dragonturtle]

the cut roman + gerri scene / 4x09

[dragonturtle]

You can’t ignore the facts. You two are ruining this group. Just because we’re good-Iooking doesn’t make us villains.

[dragonturtle]

SUCCESSION SCRIPTS▸ ROMANGERRI (Season 2)

ROMAN Just, you’re on shaky ground and I might not be able to save you? GERRI Well you’re on fucking shaky ground! Man who made the rocket go boom for his sister’s wedding? ROMAN I do not know what you’re talking about or even precisely who you are. Please talk to my lawyer. GERRI Yeah that’s me. Guilty as charged. Next!

[dragonturtle]

i know succession literally just finished like three hours ago but if you could write any sort of head canons or scenarios for down the line where shiv gets out. where roman gets her out where shiv gets herself out all of it any of it please we're suffering

Okay okay okay, this resulted in like, a 27k word fic which is mostly about Shiv and Kendall being disasters, but I hope you like it! Fair warning for overdose and abortion content.

Despicable Animals. HBO Succession, 27k words. Gen fic. Post s4 finale.

-

The first thing she thinks, sliding into the cab, is that he wasn’t kidding about the horse.

Which, y’know, Shiv doesn’t know why she’s surprised by that, because Kendall wouldn’t know a joke if it stuck its finger in his eye and its dick up his ass. Kendall never grew a funny bone, never inherited Dad’s hard wit or their mother’s snide one, and it was always a point of pride for her. Always felt like it meant something that she could prize a smile from the maws of monsters while Kendall was only ever offered scorn. A gecko that thought it was king cobra. Flat toothed and soft jawed while she was the one with fangs, and she’d loved it as a girl, when she was young and stupid enough to think it meant anything.

The thought now makes her sniff, push herself back into the cracked leather seats, try to remember the instructions the woman on the phone had given her, and yeah, she thinks, Kendall’s not funny, but maybe life is, because it’s there, in the back of that shitty yellow cab at two in the morning, that she feels it move for the first time.

-

It feels like this:

A flutter, the tug of a mascara brush through lashes, the flap of a butterfly’s wings, caught between your hands. Nothing at all and everything at once, and there is someone growing inside her and she has lost everything but this. Tom’s anchor laid clean in her, dragging her across the sea floor, a tether, the old ball and chain. All she’s good for, less than she deserves, or maybe more. A womb with a view, a maker of a monster, or worse, another hurt and angry child, and she feels ill, feels violent, feels vile.

She asks the driver to pull over so she can puke her guts out into a cold Manhattan street.

Read it on ao3.

[dragonturtle]

[dragonturtle]

You have to be a killer

jamisonrivv