#gemmark

[illuminatedquill]

Thinking about the scene from Season 1 when Mark rips up this photo of Gemma.

So many layers to that scene but the one I’m most focused on is how it foreshadows what we learn in Season 2: that innie Mark has been unknowingly assisting Lumon in severing Gemma multiple times.

But I think it goes farther than that and teases what’s to come next for Mark and Gemma in Season 3 - namely, reintegration for both of them.

What does Mark do next with the photo? He tapes it back together. His internal monologue ending with the reveal of who his wife is:

I loved all these things about her. Equally.

Reintegration. Dichen Lachman questioning what does it means for someone to have been severed so many times over?

We still don’t know the full extent of Gemma’s severance and how it affects her, especially now that she’s outside Lumon. She’s the only test subject to have survived this long to see completion of the project, as is implied within the show.

Reintegration could be Gemma’s only way of surviving through the trauma of what Lumon put her through. And she will need Mark’s help in pulling all these severed pieces of herself back together.

It has to be Mark. No one else can do it, since he’s the one who helped sever her in the first place but also because Mark loves everything about Gemma - and that would probably extend to her innies. The gentleness and care he expresses towards her Cold Harbor innie (and Mark S towards Ms. Casey) is evidence of that.

They need each other to heal. We’ve seen how love can be self-destructive via Mark’s grief but now that Gemma is alive and free, I think it’s time we see how it can also be this healing and uplifting force.

(Thanks to @gemmafuckingscout for the conversation that led to this observation.)

[ohwhatagloomyshow]

a smattering of severance fanfics!

wanted to but felt weird about doing a self-promo of my severance fics, so i figured i would mix them up with recs written by some friends/mutuals/general fics I'm obsessed with! please note that unlocked AO3 fics are indicated with a *; all others are locked! I'm not including tags for space reasons so please make sure to check them before continuing! <3

and i've been mourning you (since the day i met you) - me!, 1.2k words, gemma/mark, pre-canon

Great War historians and Russian literature professors are pretty comfortable around the topic of death, until it's inescapable.

dreams of yesteryear - cassiandor, 50k words, gemma/mark, AU

Gemma C. wakes up on a conference table.

Knife At My Throat*- @gemmafuckingscout, 10k words (unfinished), gemma/helena, post-S2

A year after the season 2 finale, Helena and Gemma are still picking up the pieces of their life. But when Gemma unknowingly matches with Helena on a dating app, things couldn’t possibly end well.

All of Me, Loves All of You* - @muse-of-fire, 3k words, gemma/mark, post-S2

Ms. Casey and Mark S. wake up in bed together.

two bats out of hell* - me!, 900 words, gemma & devon, S2E10 missing scene

She’s so caught up in the pain of not breathing that it takes her a second to recognize that the lump against the emergency exit door four floors down – it’s Gemma. It’s Gemma in that beautiful long peacoat she’s always envied, huddled in the fetal position against the door, one hand still clutching the French door handle. Her left arm is pulled around her knees and her hair is plastered to her face. She looks like she’s been crying.

alas, I cannot swim* - me!, 1.5k, helly r./mark s., gemma/mark, mark s. & helly r. & ms. casey, S2E10 fix-it ("fix it")

It was in character for Helly to choose herself - choose Mark - at the end of S2E10. It would have also been in character for her to choose Mark Scout's happiness.

buzz cut season - me!, 5k words, gemma/mark, helena/gemma, post-S2 (quasi-continuation of alas, I cannot swim)

Post S2E10, Gemma tries to come to terms with her new freedom and the family that fell apart without her. That also means coming to terms with Helena Eagan.

I Was Just Wondering If You'd Come Along* - @whoreiorcats , 7k words, gemma/helena, post-S2

Gemma is back, but nothing is the same. All she has left of her husband are the keys to his car and the knowledge that another version of him is seeing a version of Helena Eagan. She has to see her, too.

Outside with You* - MadamDarcy, 39k words (unfinished), helly r./mark s., helena eagan/mark scout

Something goes wrong with their chips, causing Mark and Helly to wake up outside of work.

to be given a body* - me!, 23k words, ms. casey/mark scout, gemma/mark

Orpheus guides Eurydice out first. OR: AU where Lumon is less competent than usual and Mark S. saves Ms. Casey.

i never sought to love you - me! 5k words (unfinished), gemma/mark, gemma/helena, pre-canon

Pre-canon, the fall before Gemma's disappearance - a year after their last IVF treatment, Gemma decides to pop into a local perinatal loss support group on a whim. There she meets Helly Riggs, a beautiful and equally awkward outsider who listens to her and sees her in a way Mark hasn't in a long time. Helena's motive for meeting Gemma becomes complicated as she wrestles with her duty to Lumon and her father vs. her first sincerely intimate relationship.

[whoreiorcats]

Nooo I’m doing great just thinking about how Mark Scout never made cold harbor Gemma do anything she didn’t want to do. He offered his hand but he didn’t drag her out when he easily could have—maybe should have. He let her make the choice to step through the door. It almost feels very unlike him but he’s also aware he’s encountering basically a child form of Gemma. “There’s a kid out there waiting for us, we just have to reach out and grab HER.” He always imagined his child as being another Gemma, not another him. Whatever. Don’t come looking for me you won’t find me.

[gemmafuckingscout]

It was mostly stuff she said. She was uh...very pragmatic. Always had a plan B. You know, one time we were supposed to go on this camping trip and--Is it weird that I'm talking about her right now?

SEVERANCE | 1x06 / 2x07

[tanabeth]

polyamory as a side effect of reintegration. Like mark was exclusively monogamous but his two consciousnesses had monogamous attraction to two different people. And then were sewn back together. What can you do.

[lampjewel]

this episode taking a break from office horror to serve gemmark home film montage doomed melodramatic romance caught on tape was so unexpected but sooo needed

[cheesh]

too many people on twitter are talking shit about mark and gemma or mark and helly. have some love in your heart. this isnt 2016 we don't have to fight each other. helly and gemma should kiss on the mouth btw.

[despairhasitsowncalm]

gemmark winning the "doomed from the start" olympics by having their first meeting at a lumon blood drive jesus christ

[awanderingtortoise]

okay but can you imagine Devon's pain? Watching all of that. Her brother was so complete and so happy and so in love and after that single moment all she can do is watch everything beautiful and joyful she's ever seen in him fade away. from that warm house stuffed with books to a gray empty flat. history professor to lumon's slave and yet she's there loving him throughout all of it. It hurt so much just to see it for an hour on screen and she LIVED through that slow hollowing for years and still still still she treats him with so much warmth and gentleness and utter understanding. The strength it takes to do that is insane she's such a wonderful person I love devon

[eccentricfbiagent]

severance x hadestown cause that one review calling s2 a retro futuristic retelling of orpheus and eurydice hasn’t left my mind.

[illuminatedquill]

“All of Gemma’s innies, they all trust Mark because Gemma is in love with Mark.”

And then you have innie Mark turning away from Gemma to look at Helly in the hallway because (per Adam Scott), “he realizes he has no feelings for this woman.”

Gemma’s love for Mark transcends severance, so he can reach her. Her innies, all of them, trust him to follow him anywhere. They act on that feeling, that pull towards him. It’s not enough that love transcends severance, you see. You have to act on it. It must also be a choice.

It’s why Mark Scout rejects the connection between himself and Helena in the diner. Yes, it’s there but it’s one sided. He loves Gemma. And it’s why Mark S cares about Ms. Casey but only as a friend and fellow innie. Because he loves Helly. He chooses her, like Mark Scout chooses Gemma.

It’s why that last twenty minutes is so important. Both Marks, choosing love. Every goddamn time.

But she can’t reach him. Because Mark S has only known that feeling, that pull towards Gemma as hurt. Something painful. He doesn’t want it, why would he? He doesn’t know what it is.

And so Gemma is left behind. She’s screaming, clawing at the door, begging him to go home with her. And Mark S walks away, taking Mark Scout with him. A prisoner in his own mind and body.

Need this reintegration to pick up some serious steam next season so innie Mark can realize what he just turned his back on. The horror and sadness as Mark Scout will eventually see memories of this moment, and knowing that this outcome was the best he could hope for under the circumstances.

And neither of them knowing that Gemma fully intends to dive back into Hell once more to get her husband. She’s way overdue for some happiness and I hope she comes to collect what she’s owed with compound interest (a burning Lumon, for example).

[ecstasydemon]

been relapsing

[ohwhatagloomyshow]

the fun thing about severance & shipping is that everything you can say about gemmark you can say about markhelly, and vice versa.

“omg he would do anything to be with Helly” mark was passively suicidal for 2 years without Gemma!

Devon’s “she made you wonderful” about Gemma, while Helly makes Mark brave and gives him confidence.

they are The Same Wife Guy.

[bisexualityjunkie]

gemma nodding that she’s not okay, mark’s “oh baby” while moving to hold her

[tanabeth]

before the final episode I want to make it clear that I am a throuple truther ride or die

[gothicseverance]

A repeated crossing-and-recrossing of the line, a play of limits at/on the line.

—Toward a Multicultural Gothic Aesthetics