The protagonist: Abed Nadir as Mark Scout

This might be my favorite aspect of the AU to be honest. Abed Nadir is not introduced as the protagonist of Community-in fact, one of his continuous beliefs in the show is insisting Jeff is the "ultimate leading man" in their narrative/show. The ball is dropped when you realize that if it werent for him, the entire show wouldn't even exist. He is a significant lead in the show and when he meets Jeff is when everything really starts.

This kind of parallels with Mark Scout. The first character we are introduced in the show is Helly R., as she wakes for the first time in the orientation room. We're meant to believe that Helly is the main protagonist until after the title card, and we meet outie Mark for the first time and watch the lead up to where we started. They are both leads in a way, but in Severance, the story revolves around Mark.

Let's get back to their character similarities.

Mark Scout is a man who is going through the motions after a life changing experience of losing his wife. In a world where he has the option to sever himself for 8 hours a day for work, he chooses to do so, in efforts to numb and dissociate from the reality of not having her around anymore. This action causes him to have an entirely separate consciousness in a workplace he doesn't know anything about.

Mark S. is a fairly (learned to be) positive team player who wants to avoid conflict and is struck with a new sense of curiosity and rebellion when a friend leaves and a new member joins the team. His journey of growth is ignited by the newest member's presence and attitude. While not entirely foreign to him, it's Helly's spirit that really pushes the desire for action again in his mind; knowing things are wrong somehow and it shouldn't be that way.

I think similar qualities are found in Abed.

Abed is a character who proclaims he "[has] self-esteem falling out of his butt", and yet, after forming a close bond with a once in a lifetime partner, all security he felt haywires when Troy unexpectedly leaves. But we will get back to this later.

He is certainly a team player when he wants to be. Abed rolls through the narrative he believes is meant to be played out, always viewing the lives they live as a television show with archetypes, plotlines and recurring themes. His meta lens of looking at the world allows him to be innately detached and critical of the world around him, though not always out loud. He recognizes his importance to their groups narrative and understands the difference between real life and tv, it's just his way of making sense of the world. He cares about his friends deeply, even if they have a hard time seeing it (like they do with his capabilities.)

In relation to his meeting Jeff, there is a similarity in the way Helly's words and actions inspire Mark to do something instead of letting things happen around him. His favorite quality of Jeff is his "Winger speeches", literally claiming them to be inspiring, great, and motivate the group (and himself) to change in certain ways. It's arguable that this is just another aspect of Abed viewing the world through a tropey television lens, and even if it is, it works for him.

Even then, Abed shares a quality of overthinking and indecision when overwhelmed. The characteristic of escapism and numbing as a form of coping is imbedded in both characters naturally. Abed uses the Dreamatorium to escape, as well as to calculate possibility instances in the group dynamics of his inner circle. In both circumstances, he selfishly severs himself from reality and tries justifying it at every point, until he finally gets rid of it for Troy to move back in. Even then, he literally makes a smaller version in their mini closet, so the aspect of unreality is never truly gone.

Mark Scout literally severs his consciousness to numb as much as possible after the loss of his wife. He creates a "reality" where he thinks he can just. Pass time and not think about his dead wife. In reality, the innie created is a whole new being who suffers the internal emotions Mark has, as well as the monstrosities Lumon creates for them. Mark thinks this is helping him "forget" about Gemma, but in reality it is extremely selfish as theres a whole other person in him who suffers for his own mistake, while he ruminates and continues numbing with alcohol in the "real world."

Men would rather hypothetically ruin their relationships and create a new consciousness in their own bodies before going to therapy LOL

Speaking of people who should be going to therapy!!!!!

Co-protagonist: Jeffrey Winger as Helena Eagan

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Where do I even start here? I'll try to make this as brief as I can because I literally think I could go on for hours with their comparisons.

We don't know a lot about Helena Eagan, but we know she is the heir of Lumon Industries as the eldest (and possibly only?) legitimate child of Jame Eagan, CEO of the cult conducting the severance procedure. We also get insight to who she could be in regard to her presence and priorities she holds. She's reserved, but out of the constraints that come from being raised in a cult her entire life. There is a legacy that oppressively weighs her down directly from her father and their bloodline. She takes risks she morally shouldn't for the sake of feeling anything that she hasn't had the opportunity to due to being sheltered and never living. She has no regard for the innies and, in her perspective, they aren't real people. She has zero sociability skills and yet continues to put up a poker face in every interaction she has to not let her guard down-to never look like the weaker person in the room. She is calculative and yet quite clumsy.

Helly R. is brand new to the severed floor, and has an abrasive personality, just as most do when they first begin working there. The difference is her attitude doesn't just melt away after an agonizing trip to the break room. She's stubborn and consistently tries to find a way to be the winner by the end of the mark, even if it means ending her "shared life." Her combative and distrustful nature lead her to making decisions that further the narrative (naturally.) While at first reluctant, Helly does form a bond with her fellow innies in season 1 and they team up together to find a way towards the surface to expose Lumon for their abuse and live a real life. Her sense of self is her defining trait and she leads with her words and by example.

How eager she is is what makes her an Eagan.

Jeffrey Winger is one of the most straight forward male sitcom protagonists. By that I of course mean that he is almost universally misunderstood in his depth and mischaracterized by many watchers of the show. This is a guy who (quite plainly and textually explicit) is incredibly insecure in almost all aspects of his life yet puts on a facade that he is the peak of masculinity and lies his ass off in all circumstances possible. Former practicing (with no license) lawyer, Jeffrey Winger has learned how to lie to manipulate people since he was a child and admired the divorce lawyer his parents had because they only cared about the bottom line. "Sweet job, sweet life. He didn't care-he couldn't care. And the less he cared, the better he was." Obviously, this is just screaming more internalized issues that he continues to bottle up and hide until they spill out throughout the show. But this desire to always be the one who wins in the end, no matter how irrational it is or whoever gets hurt is something that becomes the end of Jeff, visible even to the end of the show.

Control isn't something he likes, it's mandatory for him to obtain any permanence. He craves attention and goodwill because he sincerely wants to be valued but will, just as quickly, use someone's love against them if he can gain anything out of it. Basically, he is a bastard. But he gets better. Then he gets worse again. But at the end of the day he is a complicated mess of an insecure and angry man. Mostly because his father was the angry man, and being that he left during his childhood, he was stuck with the angry man inside his own head for the rest of his life.

Jeff has anger issues. It's pretty obvious in many episodes, but he often tends to pretend to have it under control so he can keep up a cool, calm, and collected David Beckham demeanor. It never works. His anger seeps into all of his interpersonal relationships and the lies he holds always fall apart in the end. He leads less by example and more by his word, as his use of rhetoric is always captivating to those around him. Even if he doesn't believe a single word of what he says to motivate others, he brings them together for a cause important to them and it causes action. And while he doesn't always lead by example, his actions do speak for themselves when at the end of the day, his bottom line is his love for his friends.

That's the Winger guarantee.

Even though there are trillions of parallels between the two of them, one that my mutual and I were able to detect was their shared traumas and implied eating disorders that stem directly from their issues with their father and their own self esteem. Jeff's are almost always referenced indirectly either visually or through jabs from other characters towards him (i.e. above, picking all toppings off a pizza to "avoid carbs.") With Helena, the egg can symbolize a lot of different things textually but let's also just. Take a look at how little she's eating in the first place. and it being the breakfast "meal" she has with her father. and it's Still Not Enough. ("I wish you would eat them raw.")

Another great parallel above might not be a direct one, but symbolically, a phenomenal one. Helly, witnessing the truth of her overworld identity not only being someone who loves the company, but being the direct heir to the cult that holds her hostage downstairs. All on a screen for the world to see and for her, in horror, to witness.

Jeffrey Winger, about a year after graduating Greendale Community College, finds himself at a brand-new lower rock bottom after the law firm he built for himself, after becoming a good person, fails miserably-which leads him to returning back to his old deceptive ways after four seasons of growth.

Both seeing a false sense of self televised publicly for everyone to see, beyond their control.

Dynamic: Trust, Distrust, and everything in between

Jeff and Abed's journey is a long one, quite literally spanning through six seasons (and one day, a movie!) While Jeff doesn't start the show hating Abed, he's more or less an irritating figure to him, at least in the first episode. Their friendship begins to bloom throughout the first and second season, to then later becoming less and less focal given the strong bond Troy and Abed form on and off screen. This relationship becomes slightly apparent again in season 4, where Jeff and Abed's emotional journeys parallel each other; and much more so in season 6, after everyone has returned to Greendale and Troy is still far away.

Their relationship is something easily viewed as "two sides of the same coin." Jeff and Abed are both much more similar in temperament and thought processes than anyone else in the study group. They're both so incredibly self-aware but refuse to help themselves unless/until they are put in a predicament where they may be an actual danger to the people they care about. They also understand each other when it comes to fundamentals because they share similar traumas (absent parents, television as the only comfort, and a desire for control) and see past the confusing parts of each other that most others tend to be too bewildered by to pretend to understand.

They also protect one another. "Jeff's first real fight was to protect Abed. Jeff was the only one who tried to stop the study group from matchmaking Abed. Abed, who never drank, got himself so drunk that he couldn't remember the plot of one of his favorite movies just to help Jeff. Jeff arranged a Pulp Fiction birthday party for Abed to make him happy, bailed said party to have a conversation with Abed, (again, just to make him happy) and when he found out Abed was doing nothing more than a homage, he immediately forgave him and paid the (expensive) dinner bills." Even in their imaginations, they are each other's motivator and safe space. Season 4 begins with Abed spiraling at the thought of Jeff graduating early, and what gets him out of his muted state of dream sequence television sitcom tropes? A fictional Jeff Winger speech in his mind. Season 4 also ends with Jeff spiraling with the same fears of going back to who he was before going to Greendale and becoming a better person via the friends he made. Who takes him out of it? His own dream version of Abed. They are each other's anchors to reality and humanity. It's what makes that second hug mean something.

Mark and Helly's journey aren't even close to having lasted as long, but the fundamentals are shared.

Helly begins with a direct distrust towards Mark, towards everyone and everything around her in Lumon. Especially Mark, though, because he is placed in a new position where he really needs to make her feel as acclimated and willing to work as possible. She sees this as bootlicking and calls out his bullshit immediately. With the mentions of Petey, she's finally able to get somewhere to see what matters to him besides just the work that's mysterious and important.

While the build for their romantic story feels kind of rushed and out of nowhere (imo), the context surrounding it can be plausible as there is a sense of urgency with the matters they begin to have at hand. They don't know if they're gonna die tomorrow or not (by the end of season 1.) They don't really know anyone else. Mark S. has only been alive for two years and Helly R. maybe two months or so. In this time, they've bonded by questioning the authority together and trying to make sense of what is happening around them and outside. Learning about the powerful agency they could have through the power of Ricken Hale's dumbass self-help book. In season 2, though I disagree with a big choice the writers have Helly do in episode five (just because it seems so out of character), it does inform the amount of importance they've given to their relationship. They prioritize each other and the role they have within each other's lives to the point that they're each other's anchors right now. Petey is gone, Mark doesn't have a best friend besides Helly. Irving is gone, Helly's mentor figure and rock has also left. Its quick and it can be viewed as sloppy in some areas, but they're all they got. It's what makes that choice in the hallway mean something.

The love interest: Troy Barnes as Gemma Scout

I mean I'm sure you all saw this coming. There's a clear difference in that Abed and Troy met during the narrative of Community and their love for each other was seen from start to finish within the show. Gemma "dies" tragically, before the start of the show, but we learn in season 2 that it was an orchestrated kidnapping on Lumon's part and she's actually alive below the severed floor-being experimented on continuously for two years. We don't even know she's alive until the penultimate episode of season 1, and while in season 2 there's a clear trekking to find her, we learn the most about her (as well as her relationship with Mark) in Chikhai Bardo, episode 7 of 10. Nevertheless, after their departures within their beloved's narratives, they still mean a huge deal enough to send them both spiraling and numb.

Troy willingly leaves when he's tasked with the voyage of manhood to inherit Pierce's fortune. Being that masculinity was something that Troy's character struggled with on the show (to his personal identity), he took the challenge to prove to himself if he can really stop living like a boy and discover more about himself on this journey. It's a bittersweet ending, one that leaves more scars than Troy may have initially imagined, but it was done purposefully and commentated on the real-life departure of Donald Glover to the show (growing up.) Though his voyage was estimated to last a year, it's likely he is still on the seas in season 6 and maybe longer. We don't know where Troy is yet and genuinely look forward to that answer in the movie, as well as Troy and Abed's reunion.

In a vulnerable theme that feels prevalent to the show, Gemma suffered issues with fertility and it affected her emotionally and mentally. While there were tolls that her and Mark hit together through the experience, their love for each other prevailed. She was never deemed as less of a woman for not being able to naturally conceive, nor less of a partner. The Lumon IVF program was of course the craziest wolf in disguise trope that still haunts me to this day but maybe I will talk about that some other time.

It's quite hilarious in retrospect that both trobed and gemmark meet in colleges! Troy and Abed obviously meet through the study group formed for a Spanish class they both take to pass Greendale Community College. Mark and Gemma meet as professors of World War I History and Russian Literature (respectively) at Ganz College while donating blood to a Lumon-affiliated donation center.

Troy and Gemma's relationships with their love interests are undeniably the heart of both shows, whether you believe in "shipping" in media or not. The dynamic Troy and Abed build overtime in becoming best friends cements as integral to the group dynamic by season 3 and leads to codependency. The narrative shows us in real time when Jeff and Abed slowly become less and less the focused "friendship" of the show and when Trobed become closer and love each other despite any flaws. Troy admits twice in the show (once back in season 2, and for the last time in his final episode) that he doesn't truly understand Abed, but loves him nonetheless and has patience for his personality in ways that others don't bother to give him. Mark and Gemma's relationship spanned five years (four married) and prolonged even after they were out of each other's daily lives-with Mark continually in a depression and unable to accept her absence fully for two years, and Gemma persevering through the experiments Lumon does on her with the hope that there is a chance Mark is alive and will find her. Their love transcends severance, and their reunion is all that any viewer could ever ask for, even if its for mere seconds.

The haunting of both characters to the narrative is real and leave huge holes in their respective loved ones lives completely. The picture set above demolishes me horribly and only makes me want to kill myself the more I look at it but I guess I gotta comment on it! With Abed no longer having anyone to accompany him on his hijinks, he literally looks at "Troy's" seat while looking at the costume he made for the viewing of a movie they both loved. The memory of Troy haunts him because he has nobody now-all other members of their group have their own things to deal with and no one has the patience or love that Troy had with Abed (anymore.) The rest of the group accepted Troy's departure and, while saddened by it, the level of importance his presence held to their personal lives was not as impactful as Abed's. No one really notices what's happening with Abed and how far his isolation will take him until it's too late. Until his journey of unreality wavers and grows deeper and deeper. Until he goes from "I can tell life from TV, Jeff" to "I-I-I-I don't know what's real! I don't-" "You're lying! You have to be lying, you enjoy this!"

The disassembly of the Dreamatorium also likely has a lot to do with this. It was Abed's escape, but then turned to Troy and Abed's escape. When he takes it down to make it Troy's room, he assembles a small one in the mini closet, but it isn't enough. We never see it again past the episode that it's created in. The idea of the Dreamatorium without Troy is too much for him and causes him to lose his mind, because now he has no outlet and no safety person. He is alone, he is hurting, he is suffering dereality and he is vulnerable.

And Mark is in a similar dilemma.

After failing to realize how effective his walls are to protect him from being vulnerable others (his date Alexa in particular), Mark gives up on the idea of having gotten over Gemma. Of pretending he hasn't had to deal with the sheets smelling like the ghost of her every night for two years. Of wanting to end all the pain and misery continually that in an act of defiance, he rips apart the photo of the woman he loves. But he is still alone. He is still sitting at that empty table, aware of the space it holds and that while he still values seeing her, a taped-up picture is still just a picture. A memory that doesn't replace the reality of her being gone.

We also learn that, while he drank before Gemma "died", his alcoholism developed after her death. The only reason he joined Lumon and severed himself immediately after her kidnapping was to numb himself for eight hours of the day and "not think about her." A new form of reality escapism, a new way of having an outlet where he believes himself and his sad thoughts aren't allowed. One where he puts a whole new man in jeopardy of abuse while he continues abusing himself (not in that way) in the real world, over and over and over and over and over again.

This last one is kind of everything to me because of what it represents. The top, Troy and Abed both pretending to be clone versions of themselves in order to continue the narrative that their real selves died in the Lava game symbolizing Troy's departure. It's pretending to be somebody else for the safety of the other's feelings, knowing you are saying goodbye to them for maybe the last time in your life. It's protection in real time.

The bottom, Mark S. And Ms. Casey seeing each other for the first time since season 1, in the same instant after Mark and Gemma reunite after two agonizing years. They are textually clones of their overworld selves, and yet honest to god have no memory of what either experienced to be in the position they're in. Mark had been searching for Ms. Casey since the second the season started, yet now that they're in the reality that leaving with her may end his existence, he falters and wavers. Ms. Casey is perplexed and joins Mark in his swift exits. This is both a hello as it is a goodbye.

-----

Now. Did I think of all of this because I am a jabed & trobed lover who is also obsessed with severance? Maybe so. But you gotta admit this makes more sense than you'd originally think of for a community / severance AU.

Abed, a lonely man suffering depression after the departure of his partner being lured by the lie of control decides to sever his mind in half, altering his reality as to not think of his partner.

Jeff, a control seeking heir to an evil cult science industry who's never had the chance to prove himself worthy to his father-and as a consequence, himself.

And Troy, a real man who loves his partner so much and has never ending faith that he will save him from the depths of literal hell. And he does.

While these are the fundamentals for the main three characters, I do have pairs for other characters in how they might fit into the narrative in severance:

MDR:

Abed N./Abed Nadir: Mark Scout

Jeff R./Jeffrey Eagan: Helena Eagan

Britta P./Britta Perry: Dylan George

Elroy P./Elroy Patashnik: Irving Bailiff

Additional:

Mr. Barnes/Troy Barnes: Gemma Scout

Bennett/Shirley Bennett: Asal Reghabi

Annie Edison: Devon Scout-Hale

Pav I./Pavel Iwaszkiewicz: Petey Kilmer

Rachel: Alexa

I have realized that its more or less only the core four innies and some people who surround Mark's life, and I think that's because so far there is a lot of detachment with how Lumon is. I feel like Lumon employees like Milchick, Cobel, even Jame Eagan himself can still be their own characters because those pillars and character arcs are still as pivotal without replacements, and I also don't think anyone else can really fit the "mold" the way the others can. An argument can be made for Pierce Hawthorne being Jame Eagan as Jeff's dad, but I'd rather just leave him out of this equation entirely.

To be honest I think I might make a follow up reblog on this post or its own post detailing why I think this fit best for all of these characters, but I am open to having some of these change! Except for the core four innies ngl 😭