#but then some slight indirect textual hope lmao Through the riawin hope b/c....

[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)