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severance s2 finale

wha... wha... the.... fuck... holy SHIT

just

😨

^^ my face throughout the entire episode

spoilers and rant below the cut ->

also to all the innie!Mark haters: if YOU were an innie with hardly half a life, no actual affection for the woman you just saved, knowing that most probably your life will end very soon, doing all this crap for some alternate version of you who put you in this hell and just expected you to comply with everything with hardly any regard for your own feelings-- trust me, YOU would turn and leave Gemma outside too.

in fact-- you wouldn't even get to that situation- you probably wouldn't have agreed to help save her in the first place.

Mark S is so, so fucking brave and SO kind and also responsible- he did what he was supposed to do, and he's going back to clean up the mess that's started.

yes, I wish we had some sort of assurance that Gemma would be safe out there in the stairwell, but you know that if Mark S stepped out to help her escape further- he would become Mark Scout, and Mark Scout would NEVER turn back. never.

everyone still inside Lumon- Mark S's friends and Helly- would be tossed aside to suffer the consequences, and Mark Scout wouldn't give a damn. you know it.

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SISYPHUS GETS A 9 TO 5

[spoilers for all of severance season 1. words by northernlion, brain worms by me]

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Funniest moment of the episode to me was Devon's "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" When Reghabi ran out of mark's basement. Can you fucking imagine her life rn. Shitty husband. Newborn baby. Go to your brothers house to discuss corporate espionage. He yells at you and then collapses foaming at the mouth. Some random fucking woman runs out of his basement yelling at you like a coach on the sidelines of a football game. And you're bisexual.

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ether as severance + “the courtship of kier and imogene” (relationship parallels)

(just so we’re clear, while the kier-imogene dynamic is clearly paralleled with helena and mark, it is also reiterated in cobel and mark, dr mauer and gemma, and even burt and irving to some extent; season 2 has also made it a point to show us that helena and cobel are both victims in their own ways while being perpetrators. it is not a black and white situation and misogyny will get you blocked.)

original threads: (x), (x)

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jame eagan is a freak but he’s also old as fuck you can take him helly. grab a monitor and bash his brains out i believe in you

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"His jaw was grimy with stubble and bruise-colored shadows enlarged his dark eyes. […] Six minutes later, in a clean shirt, smelling of toothpaste and deodorant but still unshaven, Strike entered the outer office where Robin was sitting at her computer."

Well, he's reading in this case, but – heavily inspired by The Silkworm.

(It's a light and colour study at this point.)

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just finished severance till s2 ep 9 and can we all appreciate devon a little more? absolute badass, raging bisexual, loving sister and mother. she has literally done nothing wrong in her life.

hail lord devon (iykyk)

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reread the running grave and I love the two narrative arcs:

robin: infiltrates a cult, survives a deep undercover mission for 16 weeks, saves client from the cult, takes down the cult, hand to hand combat with creepy witch

cormoran: eats salads, pines for robin

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being in a fandom predominated by adults has its advantages. because yes i absolutely needed to know all of this (and i don't think any teenager would have done this)

actually, i haven't even ever met another teenager in this fandom...

all credits go to BadlyWiredLamp on Twitter <3

(who i believe is @badlywiredlamp on here unless i'm very mistaken)

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just started "severance" (about to start episode 3 as i type this) and the opening title sequence is simultaneously the creepiest and most mesmerizing shit i've ever seen. the music gives me goosebumps

no idea who that guy whose picture is engraved on the building wall is, but it reminds me of big brother from 1984.

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god i wish that were me

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Good timing with kanye being garbage there at least.

This is going to be good for all kinds of jokes here

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i'm sobbing so hard rn what i mean what oh my like god like what the fuck

specific lines which lowkey made me wish for instant demolition of mankind ->

"giving a man (Voldemort) access to a cis woman's (Lily's) private room (sound familiar?)"

"Peter living as a "Rat" is a metaphor for living as a "woman" after he transitioned." got it, so rats are women and vice versa now. thanks.

"Peter was never given the opportunity to tell the reader whether he was a rat or a human"

"What other reason does JKR have for specifying how short Peter was?" OK HEAR ME OUT, CRAZY IDEA I KNOW, BUT WHAT ABOUT Y'KNOW... DESCRIBING A CHARACTER... LIKE WRITERS DO...?

"Peter cut off his own finger, which is an allegory for gender reassignment surgery/vaginoplasty."

"As we know, Peter's silver hand (his vagina) eventually killed him." i don't even need to explain how much this line destroyed me. "his vagina" wHAT

"Anything I missed?" yes, your therapy sessions

edit: i sent this post to my friends and this was one reply:

Peter Pettigrew is an anti-trans allegory.

Peter's character is made up of two allegories for transitioning: 1. changing sides in the First Wizarding War, and 2. living as a rat instead of a person

Changing sides in the war is a metaphor for transitioning because he fundamentally changed who he was from his original identity to the exact opposite, but kept his new identity a secret even from his friends specifically in order to fool and harm them. This is just like how JKR believes trans women try to fool and harm cis women with their identities.

Peter's initial betrayal/transition ended in the ultimate effect of giving a man (Voldemort) access to a cis woman's (Lily's) private room (sound familiar?) which was framed as the ultimate evil by JKR. Here, Voldemort plays the role of JKR's trans woman when he forces his way into a cis woman's private space (Lily's bedroom) specifically to harm a cis woman (Lily) and a child (Harry). This scene ends with the cis woman brutally murdering the trans woman, which the narrative frames as very positive and the readers are supposed to agree with.

Notice how Peter then eventually also betrayed Voldemort, which is an allegory for detransitioning. JKR believes trans people's "true selves" are their original selves/assigned gender, and that everyone is always going to detransition. Peter ended up on the same side he started because JKR believes trans women are always still men deep down.

Peter living as a "Rat" is a metaphor for living as a "woman" after he transitioned. Notice how the narrative frames it as if Peter was never "truly" a rat, just a person pretending to be a rat (like how JKR believes trans women are not truly women just men pretending to be women).

Peter was never given the opportunity to tell the reader whether he was a rat or a human, the text decides for us that his "real" identity is always human no matter how long he lives as a rat and passes as a rat. The choice of a rat to represent a trans person shows how JKR believes trans people to be animals/inhuman. And also a rat represents sneakiness and dishonesty so that's obvious.

When Peter talks about being a rat in the Shrieking Shack in PoA, he is met with disgust and revulsion from Ron. We're supposed to read this as Ron being rightfully disgusted and distrusting of a person he just found out was trans.

Peter lived as a rat for 13 years (a notoriously evil number), concealing his "true" identity (which was seen negatively by the text because JKR is saying that Trans people's "true" identities are evil) in order to sleep in Ron's bed. This is meant to be read as a child molester allegory because JKR believes all trans women are child molesters.

Other evidence

Peter was barely taller than 13 year old Harry because he's not being a man properly (not a "Real man") according to JKR's bigoted and cisheterosexist worldviews. What other reason does JKR have for specifying how short Peter was?

He was also shown to be balding at a very young age as another reference to not being "man enough" for JKR.

He was ugly.

Since wands are used as a phallic symbol in the series, we can further see Peter doesn't have a penis anymore because in GoF he uses Voldemort's wand rather than one of his own.

Peter cut off his own finger, which is an allegory for gender reassignment surgery/vaginoplasty. Peter not having a finger anymore is a metaphor for a trans woman not having a penis.

He later cuts off his own hand, just furthering and cementing the reference to bottom surgery.

Peter then gets a human-made bodypart in place of his "biological" hand, a silver hand made by Voldemort. This is just like how trans people will get human-made bodyparts installed after they get their other ones removed. Of course JKR makes it the evil villain (Voldemort) who plays the role of the evil doctor who provides gender-affirming care. JKR believes gender-affirming surgeries are evil. And notice how Peter was coerced by Voldemort into getting the surgery when he really didn't want to deep down, which is very telling.

As we know, Peter's silver hand (his vagina) eventually killed him. And he died by suicide, which feels in very bad taste given the symbolism JKR is working with here, but knowing her that was probably intentional.

Anything I missed?

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sam barclay humour appreciation post (+ strike) [tibh]

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A very classic answer for literary kids when I was a kid and asked the question, 'Who do you want to be like when you grow up?', was J. K. Rowling. I gave that answer. I had never read any of her works or knew much about her as an individual, but there was a respect, admiration, and idolisation for her being a female author, or the female author, who was popular enough to touch a lot of people, a lot of my peers, with her ideas and afford to do so full-time. As I have gotten older and I have learnt more about the woman, that feeling has deepened from a feeling given to a mythological figure or tale to a feeling given to an actual person who is, at the simplest, a breath of fresh air in the public landscape. I still want to be in her position of being a read woman who changed many lives with her ideas and can afford to do so full-time some day, but seeing someone repeatedly come out to talk some sense in an often insane world is very grounding in a deeper way. I try not to idolise anyone nowadays, but still, it feels like she is a public figure who I can rely on to cut through bullshit in a way that I agree with but do not have the opportunity and risk matrix to do so myself on many occasions. She is not the only one talking sense, but I think that she has a special personal quality of being the person who I answered that childhood question with. A lot of my childhood idols did not come through for me in ways that I feel matter. She did.

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hi, i'm sunny!

this is my main blog- @wizengamot-chiefwarlock, where I yap about Harry Potter.

this is my sideblog, exclusively for Cormoran Strike and worshipping JK Rowling. enjoy, and please don't waste my time (as well as yours) in sending hate if you're a TRA <3

all my active socials ->