#and especially of course after events like 4x11 or 5x05.........

[unproduciblesmackdown]

like i am fine (enough) with all the plot devicery & him being a joke, even if that's of course hardly peak fun This Is Billions and that's how things often go, this is just potentially pulling the rug out Hard when i got my hopes up thanks to the 5x05 thru 5x07 period where it was like "oh hey the writers coming through, b/c surely when they were glad to finally get to write winston as much as they wanted that meant not just more material for him in sheer runtime but also in its complexity / variety b/c of this availability; why would they want to write him in more than they did in s4 / want to keep the character around into s5 & beyond if not" like wow all that focus in 5x05 even if it was a mixed bag, his longest arc yet, oh wow his arc with rian extends beyond even that one episode, wow it's Character stuff for its own sake / his feelings seem to be presented seriously :] finally a payoff, finally the Winston Character Material

like was already into the start of s5 frustrated abt [plot device only] and this is not New but it's not just the potentially dashed (let's call them bruised) hopes of those arcs from 5x05 through 5x07, this is about his character Overall, hence the prior extremely similar frustration.......like, had sure been thinking it Could just be a coincidence that, for some reason, not only have winston and taylor not had a real conversation since 3x11, but more mysteriously winston will often engage with taylor To No Response; i am going to flip out and not in a way everyone likes or respects if the Truth is that taylor feels the same way everyone else does and has disdain for winston / allows him to be around only Begrudgingly for his limited, nigh inadvertent Usefulness, but unlike other's they Can listen to what he says & refrain from expressing their disdain usually, they'll just always feel that b/c that's the Right, Objective way to regard winston

like i said, only secondarily discouraged re: riawin & less so i suppose, b/c there's still the way rian has acted towards him / the fact it seems a lot more involved to suppose rian does not like him as a person at all / alllll the work being done by eva victor saying they have a "horrible intense passionate" dynamic which, always going "hmm. uh oh" at the horrible and i guess it's possible Intense Passionate doesn't mean they kiss, but how passionate can it get if rian does not take him seriously at all b/c she's smart like taylor and no one does, including taylor.......but as always, both pre and post riawin being introduced, going like "boy not even sure i'd want the writers to humanize winston / give him serious emotional material by giving him a romantic subplot b/c i think they'd probably make him a joke :/ aka it'd only be fine if they wrote it well as character material beyond [just a joke at his expense]" and riawin Has felt like a pleasant surprise, but now that i'm just Overall having to go "Is winston just an eternal punchline" that goes for riawin too, there's always been the underlying anxiety that Rian Could Simply Think Winston's Entertaining When He's Annoyed Into Theatricality, and tbh i think "someone Wants to interact with winston just b/c they find it amusing to rile him up & get his personality to kick in harder" would be worse than simply being dismissive and/or shutting him down / ignoring him.....5x05 could be that she Does think his variety of opinion is valuable and/or wants him around for that personal entertainment of messing with him (and not in a good way :( ) and would've gotten pedantic about luck & math at anyone who brought it up, 5x06 could be [enjoying messing with him], 5x07 could've been "she would've talked to anyone about all that".....and even if they do kiss and stuff that doesn't mean she necessarily Takes Him Seriously / is genuinely interested in him As A Person, and that he's not a joke there.....if they go right to being friends (or end up there) you'd think that'd more require taking him at all seriously / being interested in him as a person, and that's always the ultimate priority here re: rian & winston's Dynamic, possible messy romantic/sexual relationship arc or not......the material can always treat winston Seriously without the Tone being serious, you know, like so far the riawin stuff Is always fun and funny but not a joke at his expense, unless it overall ends up being that way for no particular reason but that this is a new way for winston to be pwned by the material......(am also somewhat Optimistic b/c the way rian acts around winston is Unique to those interactions, why dial that back / backtrack it.....unless, again, it's just that rian loves a good joke / to be entertained) (this is all about going "alright i'm giving up (continues to have hope)" as i have about billions repeatedly lmfao but here i am, unfortunately still Caring)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

thinking about ways that rian and winston are similar / comparable below the surface even though there’s the Emergent difference where apparently right off everyone’s fine with rian, vs. how with winston it’s like “everyone hates him at first* and then it takes his coworkers at least a year to get over the fact he seems weird and/or slightly grating/annoying/offputting/Whatever and start giving him normal, pretty-disdain-free treatment” (*rian seems to Not hate him at first, as even with the “capitalist douche” comment (in the course of arguing to Not Fire him) she hardly seems to find winston insufferable or whatever)

anyways so first of all it’s fun how rian turned down working at axe cap previously and is asking in the middle of her interview why she should change her mind. while winston’s axe cap interview involved him Flipping The Script all “i should interview You” and asking What’s In It For Moi. if i’m going to really stretch things here, i can also make a comparison between winston saying “let me put this in your language,” which would indirectly acknowledge he speaks a different language, and rian.........god.............saying the stuff about. swick. and well winston also saying yas queen which means he is not straight but also is Probably a point of Meta comparison: that both winston and rian are 20-Somethings and the show is going to make sure we know it via their dialogue in their respective axe cap interviews. and then soph pointed out how the [aspect that had changed since their presumed First Interviews (rian’s unseen one where she turned down the job and 3x03 for winston where he was rejected)] was Taylor Mason.....them trying to start their own fund and recruiting winston to facilitate that, and them starting an impact fund and recruiting rian to facilitate that, and rian presumably rejected an offer from Just Wendy prior to this but accepted when taylor was involved, and winston was fine to meet up with just taylor and code in a basement for just them and then sign on to the new fund headed by just them

also besides the “that’s what i always say” Point Of Similarity, there’s the fact that winston attends math meetup (regularly i guess, though we wouldn’t know seeing as it was just sort of implied and not mentioned again) b/c it’s stimulating(tm) and in 5x01 we have tuk talking about how mase cap quants at least Theoretically want to talk about math over breakfast, which might not mean winston specifically, but he’s the only named tmc quant and the Main one and also responds, so.......tl;dr winston seems to find it fun to talk about math at any point, and here’s rian just bringing up Math as a casual conversational topic during this after (market) hours social event, and doesn’t seem to be finding winston a whole cringe loser for trying to connect on that point

meanwhile also it’s not exactly the peak Personable(tm) move for mafee to make a casual remark to winston and then rian cuts in to say that his math sucks (which, handshake emoji maybe with winston going “no way you understand it” in 5x03, which seems like it was more friendly ribbing than anything, especially as a) winston was sure not going “hmm well he has a point” at the “some of Them Can’t [do the math], mafee” remark in 5x01 and b) in 5x02 when mafee was telling dollar bill that he’d needed the Math/Algorithm stuff broken down for him, who did that, b/c 5x02 seems to establish (and 5x05 seems to confirm (how many layers of parentheticals can i get on)) that mafee and winston Talk Casually) which is a little pedantic, as winston can be (e.g. “it’s pronounced ‘owned’”) and like, it’d be easy for mafee to just give a Look like how everyone’s been reacting to winston with Looks throughout s4 (and still does, just not the tmc people so much) but he doesn’t really seem that bothered and the focus shifts to winston going oh Word, math........

also like i don’t know that mafee talking about Bad Luck here wasn’t just a figurative expression more along the lines of like, this is how i’m pointing out you don’t have a drink for whatever actual reason, although rian’s tangent treats it literally as being definitely about the concept of luck, and winston sure can take things slightly literally / otherwise kind of misinterpret the intent behind a metaphor or nonliteral remark, which is handshake emoji for the tendency of his Own metaphors / references (which he doesn’t seem to use as much as is average on this series) to be critiqued or dismissed or whatever, and how people seem to react to him as being clueless / less competent for this perceived literalness, like oh he’s a human computer but doesn’t have Real ~intelligence~ which like, might also be a theme in this ep lol where oh we need people with hard skills And soft skills and what even ever

and then on another note, in the scene with rian and winston and taylor and wendy, this is Rian’s First Day and she’s in the process of setting up her desk, and she jumps into a conversation between a longtime employee and the ceo (i think? are they still a ceo if it’s a subsidiary. well you know what i mean) and whatever wendy is, the two people who hired her, and argues for the continued employment of this rando deskmate. and also calls him a douche in the process. and dare i say that this move could be seen as a bit................cocky????

natch i think that rian’s more dialed-back demeanor and dry delivery is easier for ppl to roll with than winston, who has some more dramatic flair and a lil excitable in the moment, but they Both have this approach of being fairly humorous (intended to be, by them) like e.g. there winston goes with a spin on wendy’s comments.......and really Ultimately winston is pretty chill as well, after all of that he just goes right back to work at his computer like it’s just another thursday, and after the treatment he got in 4x11, apparently by 4x12 he was like “yeah w/e i’m good” lmao like. maybe he Shouldn’t roll with these things quite so much but this is billions and either way all winston’s personality and dramatiqueness doesn’t really mean he’s not also relatively laidback here

anyways just throwing this all out there while it’s still pre-midnight aka pre-5x06