starting off my tumblr strong with trc art 🫡
I hope Devon leaves her loser sellout failhusband for the slightly unhinged fugitive brain surgeon living in her brother's basement
slithered here from eden just to wait outside your workplace to drive you home and feel like a wild chimpanzee on a sugar high when you flirt with my bald ass. or however the song goes
if you’re the dead wife and i’m the dead wife then who’s looking back at the gates of the underworld????
I love how much Helly’s clothes have to say not just about her outie’s identity, but the origin of her rebellion as a whole.
Like… she breaks the dress code. Constantly. We know from The Lexington Letter that Lumon only allows white, black, navy, gray, and pastels. And what does Helly wear? Bright blues, green, orange, and at one point, even a dress that is unapologetically crayon-yellow.
For most of season one, the audience thinks this symbolizes Helly’s rebellious nature. Of course her outfits break the rules and stand out like a sore thumb in the muted halls of MDR — so does she! Helly is a new wild card spicing up the lives of her coworkers and shaking up the system. She doesn’t care a whit for Lumon and their stupid regulations, and her clothing reflects that.
But remember… Helly R. doesn’t dress herself.
Helena does.
If Helly could choose to break the dress code, she would — but she has no say in what she puts on every morning. It isn’t her who’s doing this. It’s Helena Eagan who wakes up and, every time she gets ready for work, purposefully dresses herself in ways contrary to her own father’s company.
Whatever her reasons, the point is this: the only reason Helly can unashamedly break the dress code is that no one has the guts to tell the CEO’s daughter to follow the rules. That rebellion, that defiant warmth? Only there because of privilege.
And isn’t that the point? Isn’t that so much of what Helly R.’s “moxie” is? Yes, she fights against MDR’s mistreatment and galvanizes the innies to revolution! Which is awesome! But a lot of it’s because when she first woke up on that table, something inside her went, “This isn’t right.
“This isn’t how people are supposed to treat me.”
It is SO deliciously ironic that almost every sliver, every atom of resistance Helly has against Lumon is an inversion from a sense of entitlement that they gave her in the first place. Helly R. goes to work with someone else’s power over her skin. It’s both the flaming crest of her defiance and a constant, quiet reminder that it is only there because she is not like the others. That she is only rebellious because on the outside… she is used to getting her way.
my read on the chances of a successful gemma rescue was already very low but having mark basically turn to the camera and say "maybe I am the one guy who can bargain my way out of experiencing grief....?" oh buddy you are so fucked.
i keep noticing most severance meta has a common appreciation towards helly's violence as a gateway to liberation (it's awesome, i agree!) but somehow all memes and conversation about dylan revolve around comic relief, his sigma grindset vibes in early season 1 (that are presented as a joke because haha, of course, he's fat, his outie doesn't win muscle shows, he thinks waffle parties are so cool, he thinks he's so great but the joke is that he's delusional)
but dylan also had a violent catalyst to class consciousness after the first blatant act of infantilization in defiant jazz, after he realized the shitty little office rewards were a bribe to keep him from finding out his outie has children, a family, and things he cares about that he's being denied. his outie severed because he can't hold down a job because of disabling mental illness, needs health insurance and wants to ease the financial load on his wife, who works night shifts. and you want him to get excited about two waffles?
dylan was radicalized through the you that you are right alongside mark. dylan chose to stay during the OTC against his start-of-the-season individualist characterization because he thought all of them deserved to know who they were. dylan asked for a portrait of all of MDR, knowing they might not come back, to keep him focused during the switch operation. dylan was the one to run after irving when he was clearly distressed (worried about financial insecurity, even subconsciously) and tried to keep him from committing suicide, he was the first person (and one of the very few so far) that acknowledged his relationship with burt as romantic and in a positive light. dylan requested the a funeral and gave an eulogy even when he wasn't sure he could trust helly (and it's helly's agreement that makes him trust her) and calling out how shitty mark was for not even acknowledging lumon killed irving because both mark and himself fucked up? dylan immediately worried about gretchen's happiness when they meet. dylan asked her if it was okay to hug, he acknowledged his outie's relationship with his wife and his own sadness about the situation without shifting the blame onto gretchen herself, and basked in the genuine love he got in return.
do you know how big these things are for someone with a history of relentless self deprecation for not being able to financially provide (in a show where family and material relations are constantly intertwined)? how it manifests in the way innie dylan engages with rewards as proof of accomplishment, how big it was when he noticed they are not?
Maybe its just cuz im a minor too and therefore closer to holden in age than most adult critics but are you all stupid. This 17 year old is not the devil incarnate. All these bitches in their 40s going "this depressed child who lost his brother, is flunking out of school, doesnt have any real friends and is clearly troubled dared to complain about his life in his own journal, put him to death" meanwhile emotionally speaking ive never related to a fictional character more. I too recycle the exact same phrases, am upset by people who bullshit, constantly want to call someone but everyone in my life is usually too busy, have fits of gloominess, etc. Is he annoying? Sure? Is that the whole fucking point? Absolutely.
That passage in catcher in the rye where holden is so depressed and out of it he keeps thinking hes going to die as soon as he turns the corner and begs his dead brother to keep him safe... the one where he pretty much said hed been sexually assaulted/abused before... when he loses his shit because Phoebe wants to come west with him and he doesnt want her to miss out on her play because of him... Which motherfucker said he was just a "whiny little misogynist teenager" i just wanna talk
🌱she/her[ENG] Artist | 20 | 🇺🇸 This is a space for me to experiment with my art and express myself 🙇🏻‍♀️
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