#ask lea

Like from a purely canon standpoint, speculatively (though tbh I personally don't really like speculating about future seasons, I mostly enjoy experiencing the show as it happens rather than coming up with my own theories), it does feel incredibly likely to me that Mark will become fully reintegrated at some point in the series, at least if the endpoint of the show wants to be anything resembling a "happy ending", because that's been presented (so far) as pretty much the only way that Mark S. ever gets to become a full person, i.e. live an actual life as opposed to being trapped inside of Lumon/some other severed space for the rest of his existence.

AND YET

As I've sorta touched on in A Black Mile to the Surface (thank you for the kind words btw I have been losing my mind over them all day), the whole idea of combining your entire being with someone else is. Also not really the same as becoming a full person? Like, a fully reintegrated Mark would be a different character than either of the Marks that we've known up to this point, which is a super interesting concept in itself, but tbh I've also sorta grown pretty attached to the Marks that we've got as they are lol.

And I'm super curious about whether outie Mark has even really considered what reintegration would do to him - like, not the physical almost-killing-him stuff, but how it would fundamentally change his identity. Petey describes it as "having two different lives suddenly stitched together, but the relativity's fucked", i.e. his first day at Lumon is as far back in his memory as his fifth birthday.

Despite hearing that, I think Mark (both Marks, in fact! that's explicitly why innie Mark is hesitant about the idea in their cabin conversation) has maybe unconsciously made the assumption that reintegration would just place his innie's Lumon memories neatly into his existing memory where the blank spots are right now, but that's clearly not how it works. It's not just filling in the gaps, it's fully combining with an entirely new identity that has developed independently from his existing identity, which is bound to affect both of them in very profound and unexpected ways!!

Thus this entire fucking philosophical question in the series of, if you become a different version of yourself, are you still you? And if not, who are you? To quote the great Ricken Hale, "what, indeed, is you?" What makes you who you are? It doesn't just apply to severing yourself, but to un-severing too!! If you take a part of you that has been excised from the rest and stitch it back into the fabric of you, it's not going to fit neatly!! Because who you are is constantly changing and growing, and so is that other version of you!! It's going to be messy and complicated and hard to parse (I think that's probably part of why Petey didn't survive it tbh)!!

Thus, "wouldn’t becoming a new person be a kind of death in itself?"

And okay this is going to be even more incoherent than the rest of this, but there's a two-parter episode of Doctor Who (Human Nature/The Family of Blood) that I watched earlier this year, which shouldn't really have made me think of Severance but everything does at this point. The whole conceit is that the Doctor has basically given himself amnesia in order to live as a human (named John Smith of course) in the early 20th century. As the plot progresses, and John Smith starts to learn what's really going on here, he freaks out because everyone needs him to turn back into the Doctor to save the day, but he doesn't want to turn back! He has his own life and his own memories and he likes who he is, and if he recovers all his memories he won't be himself anymore! Even if he still remembers being John Smith, he won't be. He accurately compares it to dying, because that's essentially what it would be for him. Of course he doesn't really have a choice, because this is Doctor Who and he is the Doctor, so by the end of the second episode, obviously he's recovered his memories and saved the day, and he says something to the effect of "John Smith is still in here somewhere", but like?? He's not! That man just doesn't exist anymore!! Even if his memories are still in there, he isn't, because the person he was has been changed beyond recognition!!

This is what I'm talking about when I say reintegrating is a kind of death!! This is what outie Mark finally begins to understand in the most recent chapter of Black Mile (even though innie Mark has been saying it since basically the beginning), and this is why he starts to realize that maybe he doesn't actually want to reintegrate, because he will become someone new, someone who is sort of him but not really him.

This is also why I don't really love treating the idea of reintegration as a nice neat solution to all the messy problems that severance creates. The whole situation is so complicated and there's no one right answer that can fix everything, and that's the whole point.

I guess I can talk about "deleted scenes" a bit mayhaps?

So, fun fact, the specifics around iMark and Helly getting to meet up and talk (chapters 17/18) changed drastically from the initial idea to the final fic. Initially, the idea was that Mark would be escorted to MDR, for just a single conversation to serve as his "birthday present". This would be when we would get a little insight into what's been going on in MDR ever since Cold Harbor - the locked doors, the single desk, and of course Thorne standing guard the whole time to keep either of them from trying to escape (probably unnecessary, given the locked doors, and yet). Of course, iMark knows by this point that there's a camera/probably microphone in the computer monitor, so they go into the bathroom to talk, where he turns on all the faucets to drown out their voices and they still sorta whisper just in case (obv this concept at least did end up in the final thing!).

I really liked the idea of oMark getting to actually see MDR with his own eyes, but the scene just didn't really make sense - if Mark's getting escorted from the testing floor to the severed floor, then realistically it would be absolutely ridiculous for him to not just kinda kick Thorne in the dick and make a run for it as soon as they reach the severed floor, since at that point he's basically already halfway to the stairwell. If he's going to die literally the next day, then it's not like he has anything to lose.

OH and another deleted/changed scene that I just remembered!! Initially, Mark's plan to remove the doorknob from the door with the letter opener on his final night was fully going to work, inasmuch as he would be able to get the doorknob off. This idea went through a few iterations - I think at first, it fully worked, he managed to get out of the room and sneak around the testing floor in the dark to try and get out, but I didn't really know where to go from there lol.

The guy in the flashback is meant to be Mauer - I fear I did not write him creepy enough and/or make it clear enough that he was wearing a "disguise" (fake moustache). I think I've been working on this thing too long and sorta forgot that things that have been "canon" to the fic(s) inside MY head for months are not, in fact, going to come across clearly if I do not write them clearly enough lol.