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asterythm · 2 days

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on the ending of in stars and time:

an essay from someone who couldn’t sit with it at first, & a love letter to the fic that brought me here anyway. (…spoiler warning for in stars and time, naturally, but you knew that!)

if siffrin isat has taught me one thing it's that vulnerability is cool, actually, and being forthcoming and generous with love when there is love to be shared is how the coolest kids do it.

so. hello isat nation of tumblr dot com. i'm here because even after cutting out several chunks to shorten this significantly, i busted through the ao3 comment section character limit and still had more to say, so i needed somewhere to put it all that would let me go longer.

i’m pretty sure this post is for, like, three people, one of whom is me. but look, it’s been moved here to the webbed site so if you wanna read it anyway i won’t stop you!

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i think what it is, ultimately, is this: the ISAT canon ending was beautiful. it was an objectively well-written ending with so much love and hope and thematic satisfaction.

it also left me, for a period, with a deep and unshakeable sense of dread.

:)!!!!

now enter @faedemon's "None Forward & Two, Two, Two Steps Back" (hiya, fancy seeing you here), a two-chapter alt act 5 in which siffrin finds a New, Worse way to break the loops.

despite being, as mentioned, a notably worse outcome for everyone involved, this alt end managed to cut straight to the heart of that dread and settle it — and not in the sense of "oh, i like this alt ending better", so much as "oh, thanks to this alt ending i am finally able to sit in a place where it no longer feels like the canon ending, as a beautiful outcome which felt impossibly lucky to get, is the only outcome in which life can go on — and therefore my appreciation and ability to accept it, and the game as a whole, is elevated for it."

which!! i mean!! i don’t know that that’s exactly what you set out to do; None Forward is explicitly a tragedy!! and one, as your tags say, written because the canon ending didn't ring true for you.

but I realized that the thing that was stopping me from enjoying ISAT’s canon ending was that ugly hard core that was still so, so scared after the canon ending of every way we (that is, siffrin + i as the player moving in that incredible ludonarrative lockstep with him, holy moly the harmony in this game) had not yet grown to earn it.

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(I’ll take a sec here under the cut to say that when I played ISAT, and then for much of the month that followed, my main reason for engaging with it and its related content at all was that it was a piece of media that came fervently recommended by my incredibly dear friend @iconocat , who it had massively, violently impacted and whose media recommendations in general I trust more than anything.

so i played ISAT, and it was incredible. but even though it's a piece of media that just about hit on every point on my list of Things That Set My Brain On Fire, it failed somehow to. well. set me on fire — at least to the extent I was expecting it to. I still enjoyed myself in the few weeks afterwards of running through fan content and intentionally plunging myself into media analysis, but I was never convinced that I would be engaging with ISAT to the extent I was if it wasn't for the sake of trying to intentionally hack my brain to the point where I could share with my friend something so important to her at the same level of genuine investment.

I’m telling you all this because, legitimately the same night I posted “nothing but a dull ache” (ie, if you're not charlie faedemon and are somehow caring to read this anyway, the epilogue oneshot I started feverishly writing the morning after reading None Forward), I realized through my rambling in my friend’s discord dms that reading None Forward was the moment the fire finally caught. I spent a month burying myself in ISAT content and asking myself “Is this natural yet?”. after None Forward, the answer to that question finally became a sure, wholehearted yes.)

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so anyway, back to the essay.

don't get me wrong. it's really, really nice, to read a story where the moral is less “you should have asked for help", and more “there are people who will unselfishly give the gift of a love that saves even when you cannot save yourself".

but that whole ending also was only able to happen because 1. they broke in a way no one should ever have to break, and 2. everyone involved got lucky.

which, in media, happens all the time!! it is not inherently dissatisfying for a narrative to wrap by saving you with luck and love in the nick of time!! in fact it should be incredibly satisfying, after the unambiguously-negative downward spiral into Director Siffrin who had begun to learn what to say and do to make his family behave exactly the way he needs them to, for a stroke of unpredictable luck brought about by factors entirely out of his control to finally be what sets him free.

but like... I think it's because the story is set in a situation where it's no longer true that luck and randomness is a factor by which anything significant can change.

we're hammered over the head with it: until and unless you do something to alter the course of events, they will not be altered. when you are the only dynamic element the world is reacting to in an otherwise looping course of events, you don't get to rely, anymore, on the idea that at any moment something could happen to save you. you have to assume that nothing will happen unless you make it.

and siffrin?? siffrin's literal motto was "stick to the script"!! they spend the loops with a mouth that kept closing tighter and tighter and tighter until i got to act 5 and watched them implode. and then I��m saved, and I know I haven't earned this. I get to the end and I'm still not telling them anything!! I wasn't supposed to get the good ending!! but I get away with it anyway with open arms and acceptance and unconditional love, and it's. kind of nauseating?

how am I ever supposed to learn and grow, if I didn't manage to change my behaviour even then under the threat of Eternal Looping Torment, and still got the good ending anyway? how can I prove there was an alternative way I could have broken free if things hadn't turned out so lucky in that one terrible act 5 loop?

I can't. and that's terrifying.

(aside: I’m speaking in the first person here to emphasize that the thing that got in my way is not because I don't believe siffrin is deserving of this love — quite the opposite, I think the driving force behind the good ending is that siffrin went scorched earth and saw he was loved anyway — but because this is a game designed to frequently encourage the player to deeply feel what siffrin is feeling throughout its course and. well. as a thing to happen to a fictional character it's beautiful. as a takeaway for the player, it's... harder.)

and that's where None Forward comes in. (i’ve already written thousands of words in comments and epilogue fic declaring my love by now, but i mean. im hoping you won’t mind just a liiiittle more.)

None Forward shows a devastatingly written, all-too-believable version of what might have happened if siffrin didn't get lucky, and the loops continued, and they kept clinging to the script and refusing to Look At It and successfully stagnating and stagnating and stagnating as they were so determined to do. and it's bad, it's worse, it's way way worse — but there's no reliance on outside factors. it comes completely from within siffrin and loop, the only dynamic pieces in the world, finally breaking out.

it was the terrible, nightmarish unfairness of the loops brought to their natural, just-south-of-inevitable conclusion.

and yes, it's a terrible, unfair conclusion, but the loop still breaks.

in a roundabout way, it... gives me so much hope. if the outside factors were different, if the stars did not align just right to allow siffrin's family to get there on time to save them, if siffrin never learned to open their mouth, which by all means seems like the likeliest course of events... they'd still get out. worse for wear, and separated by a gap unbridgeable, but out.

there is a future. there is freedom.

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to speak more specifically on dull ache, if you'll forgive the indulgence, just since this was originally meant to be in a reply to the author in my own comments section:

I think I so desperately needed to write it with a focus on the family siffrin left behind because I wanted to prove, if just for myself, that in that barely-dodged alternative there still could be a future for everyone. (isabeau's just happened to be the voice in which dull ache came to me, but the point was to create an epilogue for all four.)

for the rest of the family, who was not quite so deeply ravaged but was still left in a bad way at the end of None Forward, and for whom randomness is not pretty much unequivocally good just by virtue of being better than the alternative like it is for siffrin and loop (more on that in a sec), I could see it mattering more to set specific pieces up precisely, and I could actually imagine the pieces I could set up that could have a meaningful impact in the immediate future.

so. y’know. I set them, in the way I happened to want to. granted, with some extra... divine indulgence, but siffrin's departure from their family's perspective at the end of None Forward was definitely Wrong but not so obviously wrong that I could believe that without it they wouldn't otherwise either (a) go hunting him down to force out the truth, which felt Worse, or (b) just "accept" that it was as simple as Siffrin not actually caring about them/brushing them off and thus intentionally fade him into the distance in their minds to deal with it. which felt like the WORST POSSIBLE THING.

you'd think it might make more sense to have done this for siffrin and loop, instead. they're arguably the ones who need it most, after all, so why not build them up from rock bottom as a sweeping show of "things get better"?

but... i think it doesn't need to be written to have faith that it will happen: the very fact that Siffrin is about to set out on a new journey in a reality where everything is a dynamic player just. immediately gives me hope all by itself. random lucky things that save you are so much more believable and wonderful when random lucky things in general are happening all the time, and you have all the time in the world for them to happen.

and anyway, I don't think this is the kind of future you’d write satisfyingly as a sequence of events at all. to heal from this is something that will take an incredible amount of time and nonlinear progress.

until one day, through a series of disconnected small quiet gloriously-random lived experiences, without knowing when it happened or being able to trace it back, you realize, oh —

somewhere along the way, you came to know how to live again.

#in stars and time #isat siffrin #siffrin nomiddlename nolastname #oh siffrin. you are so important. to them. to everyone. do you really not see it yet?#none forward au #scheduled post #isat spoilers #in stars and time spoilers #atlasisms

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unproduciblesmackdown · 2 years

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have more precise & coherent words about it lately lmao so just kind of musing uponst how the concept that rian & winston for like five minutes were Sharing [media discussion] with each other & apparently willing to / already having hung out Outside Of Work to do this, and all this being more personal than their being Work Friends at most perhaps / coworkers interacting over work matters, and then the fact that This Is Shown To Change Nothing About Their Dynamic either by altering it overall or particularly adding anything new & different (& improved), and kind of topped off by this being the last moment of Quant Duo we get all season when that is definitely supposed to be a particular unit/dynamic around here, all = just really solidifying the Takeaway of how the dynamic operates here lol given that season 6 sure felt like a “okay well let’s see where they take this” situation, and then going “oh. okay” when a) not only is it that rian continues to hurt winston for fun when like in universe (and out...) it’s been Plany Off Time but b) that (a) is true While we see that More Personal kind of interaction b/w the duo that Would Be one of friendship, except that all it ends up being is another data point of a different kind of scenario that shows that rian’s treatment of winston isn’t contingent on them Just As Proximate Coworkers, i.e. she won’t reconfigure that treatment if she wants anything more personal / enters into a more personal realm w/him, and that now this was apparently just another realm in which winston can have rian get something from him / wherein he’s just More Vulnerable and this is taken advantage of to keep him as someone to get something from rather than like, oh, i’m going to be considerate & careful of this person’s vulnerability that i have access to b/c i respect them as a person & am not just interested in my having control over this dynamic to get what i want out of it, & i don’t want to hurt them....it’s right in the “rian wants to, can, & does hurt winston for fun” lol

like, it’s seemingly one of those occasions like oh they’re acting like actual friends, rian’s apparently talking to him normally as a Peer in terms of [this is another person], but even in those times it’s like. there’s probably meant to be Nonzero degree in which they Are kind of actually peers, Sometimes. things like “rian is willing to stand near/next to him / chooses to do so sometimes” like, just the highest bar to vault over there lmao; other people regarding them as a unit/duo ever; other high bars like “hey there they are in the bg of a group shot both talking to the same person (ben)” like, fucking society if both quants were kinda friends for real & in turn friends with the team ben duo who are kinda friends for real, way too galaxy brained & potentially [uh oh, employees to pwn have unionized] or whatever i guess....But it also seems like, really, when we glimpse / get reference to rian interacting with winston Earnestly, there’s a pattern wherein it’s just that, in that moment, that’s the way to Get Something that she wants from him, which generally just seems to be validation re: going like “wuh oh / what’s up with that” re: taylor or some other work matters. closest we get to something being on winston’s terms is 5x07 or 6x05 where taylor basically goes up to winston first, but then rian just happens to come over to then get the Real Substance of the interaction after winston’s gotten to provide a little exposition, ft. taking an aside to bemusingly insult him in the latter episode even. like, walking through further examples, obviously first ep of season 6 like, oh they’re peers and even united in taylor supporting until rian shoves winston under the bus for no reason & at least just so happens to Win at being that loyal employee for it i guess, b/c winston just clearly sucks, and winston has no recourse, higher ups are getting in on it & will validate/reward insulting him to elevate yourself &/or your Correct, Admirable, Meritous perspective on other already elevated people. that there’s no function to rian not letting winston claim some hobby he could feasibly have Except He’s A Loser, except [jokes] i guess, and that it’s that already established pattern that she pwns him for fun, And another instance of some hypothetical boundary she won’t exercise restraint for, that is, pwning him in front of the new higher ups, now zero restraint for pwning him in front of like, everyone. next episode yeah sure they can work together no problem, but rian Will also insult him over nothing on a dime, Again in front of higher ups, and won’t blink when winston implies a) she’s been hurting him and b) he thinks she’s been Trying to hurt him (and lbr, (c), that she’s continuing to hurt him despite trying to claim otherwise. Normal Times when you think your situation / dynamic with someone could improve if they don’t feel they’re getting the Rewards of knowing they’re hurting you), now i have to remember what they do in episode four, think i always have trouble w/that one....oh right, burn rate lmao. well she doesn’t actually try to get anything from him there, and actually kind walks back something for once but probably not b/c she doesn’t want to hurt him More than she meant to with the sarcasm, but b/c it’s like, well the priority is just making sure winston doesn’t Really try to spend time with you. quite the illustration of how a Serious, Worthy Character can do some shit that everyone else is like “yeah that’s fine & cool” about, winston’s cringe for pointing out her wayward packing efforts, taylor just conveniently waiting for his joke exposition providing moment to end before talking about like careers or whatever involves no like “seriously what tf are you doing” though i suppose they’re at least consistently flexible about their quants doing Whatever on the job lol. ep 5, they’re both doing work shit actually & on the same page but That Doesn’t Matter, rian gets to pwn winston, when winston diverges from rian in just being so hyped & taken with taylor eking out wins despite it all, that means nothing for his character rather than rian’s Discontent Thread (that apparently doesn’t really go anywhere. i guess it’s supposed to be related to hugging in the end even though like, is it....ugh. the curse), rian obviously isn’t interested in like oh hmm why do you think that, what’s your perspective as someone who’s been working w/taylor since before tmc. 6x06 is so fucking outright lmfao like she’s Actually taken something tangible from him and winston is just in the corner with no recourse. his boss isn’t like “hey rian could you not take people’s personal artifacts for your pitch. or ever,” he Asks rian for his phone back and she won’t hear it, she’ll direct a smile at him over her shoulder as her business pitch seems to be going well and then go :/ at him at the end of the scene seemingly about taylor / it Not going well, only to switch to exasperation / disinterest and disengagement when she remembers like oh ugh i guess he wants his shit back....6x07 is really a high point and perhaps not only an outlier but a fluke / one that should not be counted lol, but it can be interpreted as In Line with everything else. the quants are having a Peers / Amicable interaction b/c they’re on the same page about a work issue & about confronting taylor with the matter; rian can Again get validation about what she already thinks b/c it does happen to align with what winston thinks, also. the outliership just comes in the form of how she Doesn’t actually insult him in this episode, always a rare occasion, but he gets a little invalidation when for some reason taylor won’t let him finish his sentence, as though talking about nuts is too rude around here suddenly. on the upside, maybe i can stand to use the drinks clink gif again. something would have to deserve it though. maybe i’ll use it if the goosebumps album gets a grammy, win or nomination, idc. anyways 6x08 they only interact to be a parallel duo, then rian looks to winston for “you’re on the same page here and so might validate my apprehension, right?” purposes, which is amicable enough but again like On Her Terms and it could be understood to be within that specific realm of [rian can treat him as a peer in a specific moment b/c that Validation is something she can get from him when she wants it right then]. 6x09 they’re both absent, rip. rip for the fact my most nightmarish ideas about what we might’ve really hoped 6x08 Didn’t contain about like, [uh oh rian might wanna try partying & sex to unwind from work & that’s wags’ forte. it would be wretched if the latter especially was too wags adjacent, please] turned out to still be easily superior & preferable to what we’d get when our guards were down. it’s at least more characterful & potentially has a shred of humor when i think of the horrors, so nice job there billions. instead we get something wherein rian’s motivations or character qualities can only be understood in the context of her material wholly Serving the writing of another character’s. which, it’d be a silver lining if her material with Taylor felt mutually characterful, but it also again seems most comprehensible when rian’s writing is pretty much All thought of as serving taylor’s, which like, shoutout to taylor’s writing to be sure, but w/the lack of anything clear abt rian’s character, it’s almost as uncertain what tf taylor’s material involving her is really about like, ever. all the nigh schisming for nothing? perhaps. that rian being that Workplace Bully and/or perhaps Something of An Abusive Friend towards winston is the most characterful thing she has going on Because winston is Not treated as more of a character than she is, and god knows if this’ll ever be Treated as character material for rian rather than [it’s just jokes] when a) she’s also pretty much a plot device for other characters just as much as winston is, she’s just also someone other characters can have regular conversations with b/c she’s Serious / Deserving or whatever, vs. winston as a joke who needs rian to intervene if someone like taylor is talking to him, so that we know like, no, for real, there’s Substance here. and b) it may be Just Jokes forever, i can’t trust the writing’s perspective to say oh i’m Sure they have as much analysis about this dynamic, and furthermore, i’m Sure they’ll eventually frame it as something other than a joke even for a moment

and even if they Did do a Rug Pull like, whoops, here winston Is presented as as much a character / person as other characters are, funny that [character is a character] would be a rug pull when like, the only sort of flat cartoon Really Not Written As A Person(tm) is spyros, winston is written too sympathetically still even if he’s still always the butt of jokes and Not given character arcs besides in season three to explain taylor hiring him, actually. and like, that rug pull has not & may never happen, and in the meantime, it’s just this miserable dynamic that doesn’t even get framed as such necessarily lol, it being Just jokes sure is a perspective that aligns w/rian’s, in that this is not important and she nor anybody else has to regard any of this seriously, and of course, in this case, the “this” that’s unimportant and needn’t be taken seriously is “winston as a person affected by the way he’s treated,” even if this were something limited to like, workplace hostility, rather than the bonus personal component to the dynamic that adds another dimension of vulnerability through which winston Can be hurt

episode ten is like, again there’s rian looking to winston for validation via Agreement on some “what’s up with this work related shit, am i right?” and when he doesn’t give that response, she may as well Get Something Else Out Of Him, which is insulting him, ft. the potential interpretation that she’s pwning him about being autistic, or Like / “as good as” an nd person, with the Parallel Play remark. tbt the fact they do have winston keep interpreting people, including rian in burn rate, more literally than that person intends. the twentysomethings these days know about Nd Behavior Concepts and Will pwn their autistic coworker thus Appropriately....even when rian is like, oh i wanna get obsessed w/analyzing your movie too, it’s Despite the fact that winston is also into it. and then when we actually see winston being so arrogant as to think he’s allowed to get in on a tmc chat too, and trying to talk about the shit he and rian have Already been talking about, he’s analyzing with a brick wall here b/c rian has serious things to worry about like feeling responsible for the feelings / ego of someone higher up in the hierarchy here, namely, taylor, but dw she’s just doing that Naturally b/c even if taylor does something someone could be really put off by here / feel uncomfortable and even wronged about / they also manage to do it super awkwardly it’s like, none of that counts as negatives b/c they are one of the more meritous winners around here, like how i guess it’s gonna be such a surprise that the most apparently meritous winningest rando of all around here could actually suck or something? you never fucking know what billions is trying to do what with [we can have it both ways (fucks up both ways)] and perhaps the way a consistent sense of Character for anyone is handled too flexibly for the sake of letting xyz happen instead, like, see, now your subsequent character material (which may itself be important for providing like, any context for other material) is kind of indecipherable, and unforch the only cipher for rian’s material that seems to give consistent results Is “don’t look to consistent character threads as explanations for what she’s got going on in any given scene / episode / arc, look to her serving as a plot device for something else, her writing is always This Way in any given moment b/c it is primarily centered around serving this other writing that’s mostly about some other character, if anything”

anyways the point is that, if they were like, actual personal friends now for bonding over a shared interest and hanging out personally / outside work, rian might treat winston a little differently and let him down easier about “can’t / don’t want to talk about that right now, sorry” in a way that cares about his feelings at all. it’s Again just like, she doesn’t want that from him anymore, so it’s right back to the usual way she can get Something from him rn, which is the fun of hurting him, so now it’s like, oh shut up you’re stupid you’re bad at the interest that was yours in the first place & why was i talking to you before, i won’t be talking to you about it again. like Oh Kay. and then like, winston might’ve Only been shoved away from the tmc trifecta for the last couple eps so that taylor and rian could have their Serious bemusing to accursed material, but if he Is choosing that distance at all / things won’t Reset entirely at the start of s7 where he’s Not now perhaps defaulting to tuk when it comes to his Hopes For Positive / Personal Interactions, then like, well Good considering the circumstances here lmao, but B/c it’d be good, like, probably won’t be allowed to happen. and b/c again like, whoops, rian’s interactions w/winston are Still her most characterful thing going on. “shoutout” to that ep eleven moment where it’s just the most breakneck turnaround from [rian wants validation via Agreement from winston about work matters] to [rian wants the rewards of being able to hurt winston] like, the moment he’s elaborating At All beyond just going “haha um yeah sure” then the only thing making it Not A Waste Of Time for rian is being able to undermine winston like, talking about himself with too much inherent validation lmao, and just call him obnoxious when who fucking asked....but “who asked” and [the implication that winston could’ve Stopped at “haha um yeah sure”] are Inaccuracies in that i don’t expect rian to Give Up The Power in the dynamic that would be required for her to even stick to mutually agreed upon Rules, nothing’s Stopping you from having the perspective that any other person isn’t a person and deserves every negative interpretation / treatment in the world, As Though winston brings it upon himself & thus could do anything on his own to get rian to choose to see him & this situation completely differently & start treating him like One Person To Another, rather than him as her chew toy or punching bag on any given day, whether b/c she thinks that’ll boost her on the social hierarchy which’ll help her careerwise (it will, probably), whether b/c she’s just taking out a lack of her own power Otherwise on him b/c like well the only solution can be bootstrapping it & making your Own opportunities for personal empowerment, like, bully someone =) gatekeep gaslight lmao, so long as you decide that that’s like, inherently acceptable behavior / an inherently acceptable perspective on other people....or just the reward that is enjoying having the power / control in its own right, regardless of any further context of Motivation or Why someone would choose to pursue & exercise that. she doesn’t have to Think she “hates” winston to not see or treat him as a person and to have fun hurting him on purpose, but does how she thinks she Feels about anything matter here when like, if anything, flippancy about the situation is just another form of disdain for him; when noting that Rian Exercises Control In The Dynamic & Rian Gets Things From Winston In The Dynamic, Both Unilaterally doesn’t rely on answering “but like, does rian do this out of personal loathing for him all the time or any given time” to be accurate. like, not like this is Likable Behavior, but when i ponder abt say like, transformatively exploring all this matter, i’m hardly interested in (or want to, especially when canon is doing rian’s character like this (not a character; The Curse)) being like whoa rian’s definitely someone just consciously being an asshole or whatever....it doesn’t Really matter Unless the focus is on like, rian’s personal narrative here, which it can be, but my hypothetical focus is Winston’s Experience Based On What We’re Seeing wherein they Do have this unilateral dynamic wherein rian has control and gets things from winston, who’s often hurt, and has no real recourse here, besides like yeah he could quit his job i guess, which isn’t Really an option that doesn’t involve him having to give up yet more / make himself more vulnerable / hurt him, since apparently so far he wants to keep said job....rian Could be operating with like peak awareness of just paramount malice towards winston, or she Could be operating with None, b/c the conscious justification she holds for pwning winston for her personal enrichment whenever she feels like it is that it’s essentially No Harm Done b/c his feelings aren’t as real as hers, or not real at all / something she does not consider at all, there can even be that perspective of Benevolence, like oh winston’s obnoxious? being mean to him In Response will make him stop annoying people, which will also help Him b/c everyone will stop disliking him / being mean to him too, and/or the [an autistic person] style like, yep everyone Should apply organic aba and punish them for all the wrong weird offputting autistic shit they do, that’s what helps them actually so ┐(シ)┌

like, all the relationships in billions can be shitty (anything involving any central guys ever, big time) or more like, weirdly sometimes a mess, even b/w ben & tuk you see ben kind of sometimes going Mentor Mode & giving some assessment abt something tuk does, wherein that’s kind of unilateral too, tuk doesn’t do that kind of thing back, how could he also when ben’s the one who’s more of that mentor for being here longer and having learned some of the things you supposedly have to learn around here....taylor & wendy’s relationship being a mess & it actually kinda seeming like it has persisted this far via taylor tending to blame themself / roll with things regardless vs wendy’s tendency to Also blame them or anyone else / go sicko mode over shit whenever she feels wronged & decides it can have 0% had to do with any of her own choices; taylor’s apparent general trait of being completely willing to forgive, or even accept, supposedly amicable parties accusing them of being nigh literally inhuman / Not A Person / effectively having a deficient/lesser interiority, thanks besties, yet more reason it’s apparently too galaxy brain for taylor to relate to winston....but then, to compare rian & winston’s relationship to others in a way in which it’s kind of Remarkably worse rather then “well, also relationships being weird & bad is just normal (even though it is)” is how like, besides things like “well, sometimes they’re standing together” there’s never anything that indicates this relationship is reciprocal, Except for when it seems to be a coincidence that like, oh what winston wants aligns with what rian wants, but as soon as rian stops wanting that / would prefer something else from him like punching or gnawing on him and not in any good ways, that’s what’s going to happen. like, sure he can Want to talk about the same work problem, sure he can Want to talk about the same niche media, and then they do that, but it’s Still only happening b/c rian happens to Also Want That, For The Moment, and the alignment / mutual benefit is contingent upon that. like, even if it’s like “hey mafee, your support of taylor as a friend seems really limited & underwhelming, maybe not that helpful at all” that’s at least something in which it has sure always seemed like they both care, and like, certainly is possible to interpret a relationship as Bad without there also being this leveraged power imbalance. and like, rian & winston are peers, even as a new hire rian wasn’t an intern, she’s now not the ceo. but rian has personal power to leverage just one on one, b/c that is what we see play out, And really immediately more power in this professional sphere right from the start, when she’s better liked & deemed superior & more deserving / more valuable than winston, who only has higher ups who prefer rian and possibly also have expressed specific dislike for him / treated him with disdain already. like, bit bleak but fits perfectly fine with everything if, to take it all the way back to 5x05, any ambiguity like [hey dunno maybe rian likes him at all, maybe she was trying to help him out just in this basic friendly way] could well instead be like, Maybe she actually thinks having him around as The Asshole We Should Fire (which is really just based on wendy not liking his vibe, and nothing rian knows except that, i guess oh everyone immediately agrees on sight that they all agree everyone hates this guy. meanwhile bonus points for winston never before or since being a bellwether, for Before having been the sole person arguing for the impact fund inspiring strat, for Afterwards the fact that if anyone’s ever saying taylor’s not being profit focused enough, it’s rian? or like, philip i guess. in a “but that’s too risky” way) but like, if she Does in fact just decide that she Could keep him around as a punching bag & chew toy, that could line up with things more than we’ve ever seen payoff for Rian Likes Winston For Real At All beyond, again, “well she can stand next to him sometimes”....a) does still seem to be the case that Rian Can Tell Winston Likes Her, what with immediately tipping his hand there, and that she pays more attention to him in that moment has Always potentially been abt the hypothetical Reward of that, like, perhaps a more regular reward of like, well maybe i’d wanna see where that goes, perhaps a more sort of neutral reward of, well maybe i’d find that flattering / validating whether or not i’m ever interested similarly or he eventually stops being interested thusly, but really now it’s like, well, it’s also A Vulnerability, in that it sure does seem to be showing us that he Does have a genuine crush, and while rian seems to find No romantic and/or sexual interest from coworkers or bosses to be threatening, she also specifically seems to see winston’s as a) a joke at best and b) gross/annoying at worst. the material again at least does not Contradict this really, whether or not the writing agrees at all that yeah winston’s sexuality is nasty, again that there’s seemingly nonzero sympathy in his handling, but it’s also like ew this guy being horny? both out of line & Loser Shit when he does it, he’s not cool enough to have sex, or even Want To, it’s gross when he does it, it’s an immediate joke when he thinks he gets to have a crush on someone who’s inherently above him. but she can go ahead and guess that he might want to try to appeal to her, between not only having a crush clearly but his efforts to supposedly Not appeal to her / be at odds with her involve him giving backhanded insult Compliments that perhaps cue her in thusly, he’s not a threat, he’s inherently vulnerable To You Specifically, rian’s Also already an audience to the fact that their bosses seem to dislike him & are Definitely not on his side / helping him out here anyways, so that’s not only this area in which he’s Not Protected, it’s potentially compounding his vulnerability, in that “hey, stepping on winston will elevate me to coworkers and bosses who think he sucks” way / shared negative opinion as fastest social bond, which comes with professional rewards here, b/c how often is [xyz] Not really partially or entirely a Popularity Context, like a workplace? rian Is more popular, immediately, and the fact that also winston likes her too anyways, and in fact, crushes on her already, is not something he’s doing “right,” it’s just something that puts him on the back foot should she decide she’d like to mess with the entire concept of His Feelings for her own amusement, like calling him a douche not b/c she more neutrally also enjoys his attention, but b/c it’ll bother him probably as the totally self contained reason. or like, not that winston’s on the back foot, since that implies a strategic disadvantage that he could potentially recover from. while this is about a Vulnerability he can’t [personal choice/responsibility] his way out of. see that last long post and how he, and anyone else, can’t bootstraps their way out of being autistic, much less that it’s not Worse, or at all bad, to be autistic....and like, we’ve never seen anything Reciprocal. rian gets stuff she wants out of interactions with winston, interactions are ended / winston’s shut down if he’s trying to continue an exchange to get something He’d want out of it / if it’s just like, shut up, b/c i’ve gotten what i wanted already, so there’s litchrly no reason for you to keep talking / receive any attention?? winston’s motivated by liking rian, from the initial crush context to vaguer / more ambiguous efforts to Appeal To Her and/or earnestly seek some kind of personal connection here; rian is not motivated by the same. no exchange between them is ever punctuated with some beat of like, idk, rian getting moral support from winston / Enjoying his effort to be amicable/appealing, like, e.g. simply a smile in response to something he says. she sure doesn’t turn to him for the least [actually wants to have a serious convo with someone] like yeah oh of Course rian just stumbles into an exchange with wags??? in some bizarre roundabout situation like, hello, what the hell are you talking about lmao even if she Doesn’t turn to winston....we certainly don’t see anything like “it’s mutual that someone takes active effort to support / encourage the other / maintain the relationship” like we do between mafee & taylor or ben & tuk, say. totally unilateral. i can’t think of any instance in which it was clear rian’s motivation was Giving winston something, much less that everything is comprehensible through that lens of [rian interacts with winston to Get Something] and that’s what’s more textual, between plenty of exchanges ending on beats of winston being visibly hurt / withdrawing from the exchange for it, and his comment conveying “you’ve been hurting me, i think you’ve been doing it Because you want to hurt me, you’re continuing to hurt me” like, great lmao. nothing suggests that rian considers his feelings as mattering at all, i don’t think that her enjoying perhaps even simply being Able to hurt him both b/c she wants to & b/c he’s vulnerable enough in various ways, is something that she would necessarily stop doing because like [oh she didn’t realize she hurts him, now she has] or otherwise like, her idea of The Degree Of Winston’s Pain As Measured Against A “Deserving” Person’s being increased would get her to stop, although i don’t know that it Would ever increase, b/c there’s no like, external “proof” of winston’s interiority, or of his being As Real/Worthy as anyone else’s. here’s where there Could be individual choice in rian actually adjusting her own perspective here, but why would she when she is already in a place to Bring & Enact that perspective? there’s no guaranteed thing to convince her to suddenly apply the golden rule for real / to care about that more than caring about [whatever rewards she gets out of Being Able to get shit out of Giving winston shit (she does give him anything after all...& grief, a hard time, diminished sense of self worth, etc) & doing so] and here’s where Other People’s Intervention could be what changes Anything, since winston’s already vulnerable and rian’s already got the advantage of power & is Taking that advantage, that is already a situation in play, and to Not intervene is to simply Hope the person with more power changes their mind with this pretty dramatic fundamental perspective shift for some reason, or to just leave it up to the party receiving that treatment to be exposed to this indefinitely, or try to extricate themself from the situation potentially at personal losses / the vulnerabilities that put them at that disadvantage / relatively disempowered position in the first place being compounded, since that’s how it works, you can’t do anything abt it b/c [threat of greater vulnerability as its own punishment]....like, here winston could quit, but he does want to stay, and b/c he’s On The Show if he quits he’ll basically stop existing. and sure, it’s also true that b/c he’s on the show, it’s ultimately better for everyone even individually to quit lmao, but truly as before the answer shouldn’t be like, “because This Is What’s Better For You, you’ll be driven towards that with hostile treatment, bullying, even abuse even though People Take That Personally, it’s an analysis of a power structure lmao it doesn’t have to be deemed Extreme it doesn’t have to be made a matter of Judgment Of Individuals / Competition of Their Narratives”.....which yknow, speaking of, who’s gonna intervene for winston. what a twist that thinking rian might stick up for him, like was i guess coincidence in 5x05, same as her Not saying “btw i guess i’ll hook up here with no worries but i don’t want to date through work” coincidentally, b/c once again rian’s writing is not characterful so much as it is supporting some other function: here, i guess the continuation of the essential Joke of winston being so clueless as to think he’s allowed to have a crush on someone who’s not as much an undeserving cringe loser? meanwhile, coworkers have never stuck up for him, taylor kiiiiiiinda will, sometimes, but seems to really have had a more hands off approach there, and while we can’t know if it’s a matter of like, oh they’ve just never observed much of rian & winston’s dynamic, it’s like, kind of an Inherent Thing lol like if rian will bully a coworker then One Instance could at least catch their attention perhaps, but it seems rather that taylor Does center their idea of Rian’s Personal Narrative & interpret her motivations as sympathetic, relatable, worthy. seems entirely plausible that taylor could see that kind of treatment as just a) normal and/or inevitable, b) Deserved b/c winston is so cocky & not sweet or whatever the hell, c) Okay When Rian Does It b/c she can’t really mean it that maliciously anyways, just messing around, and/or whatever rewards she’s getting out of it Are indeed so worth the low, low cost of winston being hurt by it. even the idea that taylor Would see it as something fucked up of rian to do seems like it’d more likely lead to them taking action on it not to help winston but to help rian, like, hey, that can’t be good (it can’t, but).......but between the general perspective of axe cap certainly & even mpc, and taylor liking & looking out for rian personally And professionally & just on their own choosing to read into anything about her in the best light, and the backpat a season later being the only turnaround really from their weird disdainful Alignment With Wendy shift in 5x05 towards him, who can hold their breath. even when it’s like, taylor shouldn’t need to value winston even just as an employee Through rian or anyone else, tbt 5x05 he’s the one most suspicious about wendy and framing it about taylor, not just about their own jobs or just His own job, he’s right, this is not recognized, his even wanting to have liaisons to talk about how taylor’s the one who’s vulnerable? who cares....it keeps him out of the fallout i suppose, nobody else in that room would actually still be there in the very end of the season, but like. you’d think taylor could easily Consult Him Professionally more, rather than the only thing that happens is winston says some aside that’s dismissed right off and then the only further possibility is that someone more Worthy picks it up like i mean yeah winston sucks & he’s stupid & shut up winston, but, also Truue....can’t say that tertiary / quanternary isn’t the place to be for a funny little guy, b/c like, again, god look at rian’s character lmfao, what the fuck do we have to show for her being “a major player” or “a character”....winston being a plot device And The Show Knows It means a little goddamn cohesion, at least. it also means that his godawful treatment is a joke and i don’t even know if the writing realizes it’s not just the inconsequential goofin that some people deserve. kind of v relevant to the “do you think of winston as an autistic character or only as an Other People, Not Any Of Us, Who Choose To Be Weird & Annoying B/c They Suck I Guess. Maybe They Do Really Think They’re Being Normal But That’s Kind Of Tragically Pathetic At Best character,” or

shoutout then to how tuk & winston seem to have a more genuine, reciprocal relationship. 5x08 immediately, they are both pleased with their exchange, hanging out, having fun giving tanner a Superiority Paroxysm & helping drive him off, god thank you you heroes. tuk doesn’t seem to feel, much less act on, disdain for winston bringing up Nerd Shit instead of “yes i pretend to have opinions on only the most expensive of art and coincidentally truly Prefer what just so happens to be most monetarily valuable” Art. winston hypes tuk up, or certainly is just validating him on a fundamental level when tuk’s norm seems to be lacking confidence, and that may not be returned but it’s accepted without contempt or stepping on winston or invalidating him or whatever, and also winston does seem to have some basic confidence in himself & his capabilities even if this is supposedly wrong / laughable arrogance, but yknow, winston’s Also actually withering left & right & rarely arguing the point when people put him down, though who knows, maybe the Obnoxious remark from rian wasn’t something he absorbed as “sigh, she’s right i guess” even if he didn’t outright say as much....he & tuk do seem to be mutual friends where neither of them wants to Use the other, certainly not like, i am entertained by my deliberately causing you emotional / psychological pain, and diminishing you / putting you down especially in front of others might give me a helpful boost” like, it might be A Conflict that other people root for tuk to Act Righter / Be More Of A Deserving Winner and see like, treating an obnoxious cringe loser like winston as as much of a person as you even to the degree you would consider your ability to hurt him & care about Not doing that, as Antithetical / counterproductive to tuk becoming the winner he ought to be....maybe people will see winston’s friendship with tuk as another instance of some unilateral Getting Something From Winston that winston deserves, and thus winston hyping tuk up is an acceptable role for him, while tuk still actually regards him & actually treats him as a friend. maybe people will be like, well tuk’s still kind of a cringe loser too but that’s okay, he’s More of a winner, we can look the other way if winston’s giving him a hug all the time, certainly winston will be caught in some more vulnerable place easily enough so he can be kept in line by people correctly pwning & using him

anyways idk tl;dr season 6 sure went “rian & winston sure don’t have a reciprocal relationship rather than this extractive unilateral power dynamic all on rian’s terms & choices, huh” where it’s like well i guess that’s not likely to change b/c why would it (limited reasons that aren’t likely to happen in the series / wouldn’t be the Kind Of Thing given an arc anyways. including that winston’s not the kind of thing given an arc. and rian choosing to let up b/c someone, like taylor Maybe, is like, hey for your own sake: what’s up with the workplace bullying? and Personal at this point? and kind of already the whole time?? would be underwhelming when it comes to winston’s sake, in that Still nobody’s Really considering His Sake or motivated by it. but something about whatever the hell dynamic of personal somethingship and support b/w taylor and rian is more relevant / likely to be written about. even if like, it’s rare someone is Really guided more onto some rails than they were before, And like, idk, just go “well, do what you want, i’m here for you anyways” lmfao like there’s not gonna seem to be any tangible consequences here except the Possibility of, what, winston quitting? nobody’s ever motivated by that either, so.) and ummm that the fact this season Didn’t change that dynamic yet Did have winston & rian interacting in a newly more personal way over a Shared Interest (like, tbt to 5x07 where again it’s like. guess that’s just a moment of rian wanting to talk to Someone and she doesn’t really care who and she’s def not about to let winston talk about enjoying his programming languages like malbolge and shit b/c i’ve already gone into a whole separate room, i’ll come out when taylor’s back and they need to know someone who’s Not a joke is fucked up too) which means like, that’s just quantifiably more, & qualitatively more personal, avenues in which winston is More Vulnerable, which is just great in this context lmfao. if they hung out, rian went to winston’s place b/c ew gross re: letting him in where she lives, & then she made fun of his framed tron cel. no locked drawers please, gonna go through yours & get to be like wow your underwear sucks like burn rate says & if you have a condom around here like wow arrogant much? You? having sex? which you’re also a weird horny freak b/c it’s inherently deviant of you to operate in that realm instead of Normal & Cool, b/c you’re never either thing. anyways what do you think about the fans. dunno why i’m asking b/c you’re so stupid & don’t get it, but guess she wants an Analysis Discussion opportunity same as she’ll tolerate him for a workplace problem discussion opportunity, but no guarantees later, when He wants to walk up & have that discussion he can die & rian will be making sure to hurt him even while apparently worrying abt whether She hurt Taylor by not hooking up with them, personally, not even like “uh oh do you think i’ll be fired” or something. but rian does not seem to really have a handle on concerns about relative power or anything around here. meanwhile also, addendum about winston’s vulnerabilities in that like. besides liking her, at least for a while, not like anyone else has ever chosen to talk to winston that we’ve really seen, save Maybe tuk, sometimes mafee, but that doesn’t seem to have had the least substance really. winston facing Isolation otherwise during all work hours is readily a factor that could motivate him re: even like, hey, maybe we can be work friends? and i guess they kind of are, but again, simply in the [standing next to each other] way mostly lol....taylor might say winston will punch you or run you over or something, but in all exchanges we see, he’s the one being punched or run over, he’s the one often trying to appeal to, and/or at least appease, other people. he’s [autistic character] and there’s the inherent vulnerability in that, if he thinks rian Does like him at all even in the [i’ll stand near you sometimes] way, he might think that’s the best he can get around here, he might absorb the message that He’s Doing Everything Wrong / he brings it all upon himself and He has to change it, and so be seeking out anyone giving him feedback, and willing to roll with its being negative / blame himself for that. he’s Already dealing with a world of supposed “rules” he’s Failing to follow and that’s why everyone gives him shit, so what’s the problem if he thinks his dynamic w/rian is another world of rules he’s failing to follow and that’s why she gives him shit? and so on. this wasn’t really a tl;dr

tl;dr rian & winston’s dynamic sure isn’t reciprocal & their shared interest / interacting outside work making their relationship more Personal is probably just worse

#idk what's going on in here lol just another [wrote some shit out on & off for hours; nailed it to the door]#not like Revelations I Had Just Today; more like; things i've Been mulling over that get fresh short essays now and then like #maybe i've only rotated this in my mind or via discussions vs every saying it in a post...#or just needing an update b/c of further rotation / discussion lol and/or b/c Restating it w/diff language or what have you can be different #winston billions #guess it counts as #riawin #Society If they'd just got to have another normal billions friendship even if those are wild & kinda cursed too #but frankly even more important like society if the tmc trifecta had actually been a trifecta #b/c then Taylor Material could have some more context as well. if the writers wrote taylor & winston locked in a room they'd Also write them #both failing to get to have a conversation the whole time. hanging out via escape room but taylor's just actually focused on solving it #everyone keeps saying it's b/c parallel play is better lol. winston can consider a Complaint abt this but what?? gonna go to hr??? lmfaooo #[writers creating material Textually abt an autistic person even as a concept] like wuh oh. in the danger zone already #anyways lmao. it's [handshake] anyways like #does the writing even consider winston as being Possibly Interpretable as Autistic? debatable at best #does the writing even consider rian's dynamic w/winston being one in the realm/context of workplace bullying / interpersonal abuse? see prev

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