#(AKA ' S O N I C tHE HEDGE----- ')

[koushirouizumi]

mE SINGING JUN'ICHI KANEMARU "DIGITAL SURVIVOR": SurVIVE THE World!1!!1 Can "THE THINGS" I must prOTECT FEEL THE "rEALITY"???? GET THrOUGH THE World!!! IN *THIS* World, the "ANSWER" is ONLY IN *MY* HANDS AND *NOWHERE ELSE* Survive The World - I'm SEARCHING FOR IT.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

ok-yikes replied to your post: diefordarkseid replied to your post: ...

ok but like thank u sm for the link i’ve been vaguely following your winston/billions content and ive been trying to find the context without having to watch the whole thing lmao so now i can fully understand ur analysis and art that i already enjoy!!

oh first of aw!!!! that’s such a compliment lol ty and yes s/o to @winstonthequant for posting that compilation for 5.5k+ people to partake in, it’s super useful

yeah we Jest that all anyone needs to know to understand the Spirit Of Wynnstanning is to have seen those scenes with winston and taylor from kompenso, ep 3x11 lol.....i mean it’s partially a joke but it’s also partially true, that’s pretty much the Cause of the group of us going “oh my god” and becoming Invested in all of this. winnie n tay baby.......their Dynamique...they are way too good Ugh

and yeah the Broadest Of Strokes of this series overall is that the Central Theme is "insufferable bastard hedge fund ceo damian lewis [aka axe] man Versus insufferable bastard attorney general paul giamatti man [aka chuck],” just these corrupt assholes having a back and forth slapfight power struggle every season. nobody cares what happens in season 1 but taylor is introduced at the start of season 2 as a just-out-of-undergrad intern at axe’s hedge fund. turns out they’re amazing at hedge funding (they have some goddamn sense and strategy and awareness, whereas axe is 100% beholden to the whims of his own Delicate Temper and Ego and is a continually self-sabotaging idiot, nbd) and by season 3, while axe is doing a bit of jail time over insider trading (see: previous parenthetical) taylor is left effectively in charge of axe’s hedge fund, which btw is called axe capital

Our Beloved Quant Winston enters the picture 3 eps into this situation, where taylor is attempting to start a quant team at axe cap, hence interviewing him, then only known as “quant kid 2″ in the credits. [not-that-informed explanation of What Is A Quant: where the Traditional Financial Analysts in a hedge fund try to make profitable stonk trades just via like, reacting to The News and other publically available info / whipping up Strategies / intuiting shit and making judgment calls or whatever the hell they do, a Quantitative Analyst (a more recent development in the high finance world) is taking a more mathematical approach to the whole legal gambling operation which is The Stock Market and might, as winston does, use An Algorithm to analyze finance info and make trades in response. is the vague idea here] Quant Kid 2 was not Originally meant to ever reappear, hence him just messing up the interview and getting sent off after like 30 seconds, but they wrote him in further when William Roland showed up and actually filmed the scene. 

when “i’m a shitty bastard driven by my shitty ego and will self-sabotage if my Pride asks for it on a whim” axe shows back up, tl;dr, he spends the rest of s3 being terrible and unappreciative to taylor, who you might imagine is Threatening That Delicate Ego of his by capably taking care of his hedge fund while he was indisposed. for example, he needlessly wrecks taylor’s relationship with a guy they were having a nice time dating (and will, we’re pretty sure, talk to again in s5ep2!! hoorayy) and does basically the opposite of apologizing, sweeps taylor’s Quant Project into the trash, gets mad at them for failing to land a certain investor which he said they did on purpose which idk they May Have lol i think this was later in the season, and won’t give them the raise they want, and that’s just A Few of the bullet points in this topic. but oops, turns out that taylor has been secretly taking steps to put together their own entirely separate hedge fund! which is where winston comes back in, aka their meeting him in that empty classroom only to summon him to a random basement. that algorithm he ends up creating for them (which he’d Assumed was for axe cap purposes) was used by taylor to entice a Big Investor at axe cap to invest in their own hedge fund, taylor mason capital, which exists by the end of season 3, which obviously axe is not happy about and of course it’s a whole ~betrayal~ even though he did it to himself but no, he decides taylor is his Nemesis, b/c in so many ways he is a dumbass. god

season 4 has winston as taylor’s Main Quant (the one time we hear his name spoken aloud is taylor saying “winston and the quant team). taylor spends the season dealing with all the problems of having a Brand New Hedge Fund and having a Well Established Hedge Fund With An Asshole At The Helm constantly trying to sabotage their fund, which we also call tmc / mase cap for short, just for reference lmao, the latter being how they shorten it in the show’s actual dialogue. the Front Running mentioned in that one clip was an instance of such sabotage. and by the time winston shows up 5 eps later, that Fracking Subplot (lmao...this fucking show) was about taylor being reeeeal sick of axe cap’s sabotage b/c they kinda made it personal, and thus spending the whole episode Completely playing axe for a fool, which was kinda fun, b/c it’s not that hard and he has it coming. it gets a little involved with what’s going on in ep 4x11 with the bonuses lmfao but it's nbd, just know that winston was right, we went frantic about him being Bullied and are still indignant about it, and taylor talking to Everyone in that 4x12 clip does seem to address what winston had said, compare and contrast 4 yourselves, even if this apparently went totally over the heads of any Regular Billions Viewers lmao. and then in 4x12 A Lot Happens b/c it’s the finale but axe manages to self-sabotage himself in a way that does a lot of damage for mase cap though, and axe thinks that he’s successfully blackmailed taylor into returning to axe cap with mase cap as a Supposedly Temporary subsidiary of axe cap, which sucks, but taylor is not as blackmailed as he thinks, which is a secret, Drama and Twists and Shifting / Dubious Loyalties and Stonks are just constant themes here and who cares. we are here for the quant, who is there with taylor

We Have Many Ideas / wise concepts and headcanons, seeing as canon is a nightmare and there’s not That much material re: winston and precious few details about him / he spends sooo much time offscreen and unmentioned and it leaves us plenty of blanks to fill in. for example, maybe u noticed we think he should kiss taylor and also get railed by them, there are extensive ideas about that relationship wherein we happily ignore Finance. also, there is an unusually kind and reasonable analyst over at axe cap named ben kim who we also think should kiss winston, so yeah That idea is sure around as well lol, they have enough Parallels and complementary Similarities and Contrasts and also just like, a normal nice person is a rarity on this show, so ben does Not have a world of competition in our [list of people who’d be Okay to kiss winston, b/c someone should, b/c he deserves that cuz we love him]

yeah that’s my Quick Basic Context summary lmao we hate it here but also we have fun, and really at any time (extending this to anyone lol) feel free to Send An Ask about anything at all b/c i am Not annoyed by random / unprompted asks from anybody, i love interaction! who knows if i’ll answer promptly (for example: sorry @ the person who’s asked for deh/bmc hcs who i havent answered yet lol) but yeah. it’s totally nice that you were already interested even without any Context lmao like. i mean yeah basically the joke still stands that the only context u truly need is that one scene from Kompenso but. yeah #Stonks

[thelegendofclarke]

Besides Jon, who do you see as a candidate with a good chance of being a romantic interest for Sansa? I don't know if George Martin will even include that in an endgame but considering Sansa does want someone to love her for who she is, I'd hope he'd at least allow her some happiness in that regard.

Hey Anonny!

I am actually pretty optimistic about Sansa getting a happy ending; primarily because “no one will ever marry me for love” and “life is not a song,” and “there are no heroes, in life the monsters win” are so incredibly prevalent in her arc. Sansa’s character arc is basically a “Captive Princess in the Tower”— but deconstructed, and then reconstructed, and then ~kind of~ deconstructed again and also ~kind of~ flipped on it’s head. But regardless, a fairy tale is still a fairy tale. Honestly the entire ASoIaF series is one ridiculously long, intricately detailed fairy tale. Which leads me to believe that, for the most part, all the protagonists will get their happy (or at least bittersweet) endings.

Above everything else, Sansa wants to be loved; and through out the series she has become more and more convinced that she never will be, that she is unlovable. Aside from retuning home to Winterfell, its still her heart’s dearest desire. She does still want a loving, happy marriage, she just doesn’t think it’s possible anymore:

 But then she remembered what Dontos had told her in the godswood. Tyrell or Lannister, it makes no matter, it’s not me they want, only my claim. —Sansa, ASoS

It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. But lying came easy to her now. “I … can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not?” —Sansa, ASoS

It’s not that Sansa has given up on love, its that she thinks love has given up on her. It’s not necessarily that she’s rejecting the idea of falling in love and being happily married, she just doesn’t see it happening for her. Which breaks my gd heart oml. 

Now moving on to your actual question (I know, I ramble. It’s so terrible!)…

The Tourney at Ashford Theory

So, one of the things that I have considered possible foreshadowing for Sansa’s romantic prospects is the Tourney at Ashford Theory. It’s the story of the Tourney at Ashford Meadow, told from the perspective of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk from Dunk & Egg) in GRRM’s short stories The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword. The idea is that Sansa is a parallel to Lady Ashford whose father threw her a tourney for her 13th nameday tourney. Lady Ashford’s suitors coincide perfectly with Sansa’s, in order, by last name and House. 

Lady Ashford’s suitors were:

Lyonel Baratheon

Leo Tyrell

Tybolt Lannister

Humfrey Hardyng

Prince Valarr Targaryen

And Sansa’s suitors, as of ASoS, are/were:

Joffrey Baratheon

Willas Tyrell

Tyrion Lannister

Harry Hardyng

Some people think that this is merely a coincidence; but like, come on, they line up perfectly. The surviving potential prospects of Sansa’s in the series are: Willas Tyrell, Tyrion Lannister, Harry Hardyng, and presumably whoever the Targaryen suitor will be.

In previous years when the theory began spreading, the most popular theory was that Aegon (aka f!Aegon) was going to the the Targaryen suitor and Sansa’s final prospect. However, Aegon, Arianne, and Jon C’s absence from the show has cast some doubt upon their overall importance in the end game. And at this point, I think the same could be said for Harry Hardyng. That being said, I think any of the remaining suitors could potentially be Sansa’s endgame pairing.

The details are a little fuzzy on how exactly the Tourney went down, because Dunk (the POV from which the story was narrated) gets his butt tossed in jail on the second day. It’s important to note that the tourney is canceled; there technically is no real winner, and no one receives Lady Ashford’s hand. I also think this was done intentionally so as not to give away too much. 

In my opinion, from the series so far, I think the strongest cases could probably be made for Tyrion Lannister and whoever the Targaryen suitor ends up being.

Sansa’s Baratheon suitor, Joffrey, as we all know is dead.

I think that sadly the ship has officially sailed on the Tyrell potential, which is a bummer because I think Sansa would have loved High Garden.

Humfrey Hardyng was in the final five because Aerion Targaryen was forced to forfeit to him after Dunk kicked his ass for attacking a young girl (hence, why Dunk was in jail.) I think this could maybe be foreshadowing of a reversal with Harry Hardyng having to forfeit his betrothal to Alayne Stone once her true identity is learned, but that’s just me speculating. 

Humfrey Hardyng also dies later on at the Tourney in Aerion Targaryen’s Trial. by the Seven (discussed below). So I think that also may not bode well for a Sansa/Harry endgame, again. if I’m just speculating. 

That leaves Lannister and Targaryen still standing.

The one thing I think that Sansa/Tyrion has going for it is that in the series they are ~technically~ still married. I could also see it being a classic GRRM move to have Tyrion got through a kind of ~transforming narrative journey of self actualization~ and in the end be the kind of husband that could be good for Sansa. GRRM does love a good underdog, and a good Find Yourself Story!

Although, going along with the Tyrion/Sansa note, I think the fact that they got married could also possibly be even more evidence for and Jon/Sansa canon pairing. In GRRM;s  original outline for the series, there was supposed to be a Tyrion/Arya/Jon love triangle. To me this says that 1) GRRM ain’t afraid to go there; and 2) that because Sansa ended up with that aspect of the original story line, said triangle/love story could still play out somehow.

Honestly, I have pretty much ~always~ seen Jon/Sansa as having canon potential from the time I first read the books, even before I ever got into fandom; it’s one of the things that drew me to the ship in the first place. I see so many parallels and so much potential foreshadowing that I feel like it has to be a deliberate indicator of something. These are some of the metas that I have read that really delve into a lot of detail on it for anyone who is interested. I was already curious when I first started looking around to see if anyone else had noticed Jon/Sansa, but was really @blindestspot‘s A Time for Wolves - The Case for Jon and Sansa that convinced me in the end. 

Other Possibilities

Sandor Clegane/The Hound

I could totally see this playing out. There is a lot of speculation and foreshadowing that The Hound will end up at Winterfell at some point and probably remain there. This relationship also plays into sooo many tropes (i.e. “The Princess and Her Knight,” “Beauty and the Beast,” ect.), and as I discussed earlier, GRRM loves a good trope. While I’m not necessarily sure how ~romantic~ or ~official~ it would end up being, I could see these two being devoted to each other until the end. Sandor has a really strong protective instinct when it comes to Sansa; so I feel like in any relationship they had, his role could end up being more of a protector rather than a primarily romantic partner. 

Brienne of Tarth

Speaking of the “Princess and Her Knight”… Some people argue that the real champion of The Tourney at Ashford was actually Set Duncan the Tall. An altercation occurred between Ser Duncan the Tall and Prince Aerion Targaryen when the prince assaulted a girl, Tanselle. This resulted in Duncan striking the prince, claiming that he was only following the knight’s vows to defend the weak. Prince Aerion demanded a Trial of Seven to clear his name and in the end Dunk’s side ended up winning.

Last year at Balticon GRRM actually confirmed that Brienne is is the descendent of Ser Duncan the Tall. Some people have speculated that therefore, in the end, it will be Brienne who is Sansa’s true champion. Which I am down for tbh.

So yeah, I think there is plenty of potential for Sansa to get her happy ending. Whether or not she’ll actually get it in canon though is very questionable, I guess I can see it going either way. It wouldn’t be unlike GRRM to take the most romantically minded, eager for love character in the series and never let her truly fall in love or have anyone truly fall in love with her. But like I said in the beginning, the extent to which this theme is basically beaten to death in Sansa’s arc is, for me, also evidence to the contrary. It also wouldn’t be unlike GRRM to have a character become completely disillusioned and hopeless, and then throw them a narrative curveball that makes them question everything they think they have learned. I do think Sansa wants a happy, loving marriage, and I hope she gets it because after everything she has been through I think she more than deserves it.