#complicated airflow

[aniaette]

it's gonna be difficult, but i plan on being more vulnerable here

[aniaette]

i’ve gotta fall in love, man

[aniaette]

the sexual tension between me and the desire for a hip tattoo

[romulussy]

hello!! i keep wondering about "roman sees caroline as a fellow victim and not perpetrator"- i think i generally do agree, but can u elaborate on why u think so?

hiiiii <333 okay so the thing that led me there is my fascination with the relationship between the sibs + caroline + comfort. roman seems to seek it out (eg. 1x2 "shall we call mum?", see also my post abt caroline and roman's comfort compatibility), kendall, at the very least, considers her someone he can (try to) confide in (their scene in return), and while shiv doesn't seek it out at all, she doesn't reject it when she actually needs it, either (the bit in pre-nuptial post-marcia's playground line). i spent a lot of time thinking about what those dynamics might've looked like in childhood and how caroline factors into, and reacted to, logan's abuse of his children -- what he might've done to her, or how he might've used her to hurt the sibs, or how they might've used the kids to hurt each other, etc -- and how that affected how the kids related to + bonded with her, and i think it's different for each child.

this all ties into it a little but i think caroline's indifference and inaction w kendall & outright hostility w shiv means that those two are more likely to see her as a perpetrator of abuse rater than a fellow victim, whereas with roman it's even messier. there's the mummy's boy of it all, but there's also roman's, like. willingness to forgive his parents + his delusional desperate rationalisation of his abuse. normally i don't think he can consciously put blame on logan, but i think he can wrt this bc it's a way of making sense of caroline's disinterest or absence or lack of a reaction, etc. placing her beside him as a fellow victim absolves her of her transgressions; it allows him to be like well it’s not that mum doesn’t care, it’s that dad won't let her! you know?

i don't think roman seeing her like that is a huge influence on their adult relationship though, at least not on rome's part. there are other things that contribute to their conviviality ++ i generally think roman knows who his parents are but struggles to conceptualise it in relation to how they treat(ed) him bc it'd mean facing some facts abt himself/his life that he's staunchly in denial about. like his reaction to ken reading caroline's card at the end of return has always felt like this momentary glimpse into the very real hurt that exists there (which is fun! because even then, it's, sure. can happen.)

[romulussy]

could you talk a little bit about why the kids are so estranged from Caroline? I never quite got the full extent of their relationship. I get that she was absent and emotionally unavailable, but what makes her a worse option for the kids when compared to Logan of all people?

i do think the absence is a part of it. imo caroline wants her children to love her and choose her, but i don't think she knows what to do with them when faced with the reality of being their mother. you can see it in return; she wants them there, and then when she gets them, she leaves. and it's implied a few times that this is a pattern ("spotty mother", "the family way" etc.), so i imagine that after a while the shtick gets old. particularly when you compare it to how the kids see logan as more or less omniscient.

but really, i think the biggest part of it is the logan roy of it all. there's this harriet walter interview where she talks about people looking at caroline and seeing her as a perpetrator, rather than stopping to consider what it might've been like as a woman trying to hold her own in a marriage with logan. and i do think that's true. like, logan wields so much power within the family dynamic and after what seems to have been an incredibly messy divorce, the estrangement doesn't surprise me. i don't think it matters if caroline is better or worse than logan, because ultimately the kids don't get to choose. they're stuck in the middle of their parents' mind games. sarah says in a post s3 interview that shiv in the last two eps is coming to the realisation that logan got to keep them not because he loved them more, or because he was a better parent, but because he wanted the win. they didn't matter, but making sure caroline lost did, etc. and again, i think that's true. if logan wanted to let his children go, i'm sure caroline would have got them in a heartbeat. but he clearly likes them close, and more than that, i'd say that he actively fueled the rift between the kids and caroline to, like. prolong the win, i guess? i mean, i don't think caroline just gave up after logan got custody. there are several instances that hint to her trying to keep up a relationship ("i moved back to bloody new york so i could see you, and i never fucking saw you!", the christmas "that was several times" discussion in return, the morocco kidnapping bit from the scripts, etc.) and i can 100% see logan wielding his power over his kids to ensure that they choose him, over and over again, regardless of how awful he treats them.

i also think there are different things that affect each individual relationship. we joke a lot about how caroline doesn't care about ken, but with kendall, i think he's just always been logan's. he's the chosen one, claimed and tainted and alienated from birth. i don't think caroline ever even tried with him.

with roman, i actually don't think they're estranged. at the very least, it's not like it is with ken and shiv. i'd even say that in a lot of ways, roman is caroline's first "win" in her marriage. second born spare, free for her to claim and all that, you know? it's a moot point eventually because logan sinks his claws in the same way he does with all his children, but i dont think roman ever stops being mummy's little boy. he's so forgiving of his parents and so willing to accept the scraps of affection that shiv and ken decline, it's no wonder that they appear to have the most contact. i've said this before but where his siblings resent caroline for leaving, i imagine roman was just happy whenever she came back. she doesn't have to try too hard with him and it allows them a certain conviviality that doesn't exist elsewhere in the family dynamic.

with shiv and caroline... where do you even start lmao. i think caroline sees shiv as logan's similarly to how she sees kendall as logan's, but while it's pretty much whatever with ken, with shiv she considers it a betrayal (think of return's "a bit of solidarity. twenty years too late, but never mind."). the choice might've been taken from shiv as a child, but it's no wonder she prefers to be estranged as an adult. when it comes to caroline and her kids, she and shiv have the deepest and most complicated relationship; there's this unique hurt and unique understanding between them and it's why their relationship is also the most vicious, which is to say nothing on how logan's influence has seeped into the crevices of it. frankly i think shiv just doesn't want to have to deal with it.

[romulussy]

what do you mean by emotionally ill equipped

well imo gerri’s professional competency and like, cool collected veneer or whatever have created this illusion that she’s well adjusted and put together and more “normal” than most of the ensemble and while i wouldn’t say that reading has zero merit i do think it’s shallow. like to me there are several things that point to her being a bit of a mess but wrt this topic specifically i think the years she’s spent at waystar and in logan’s orbit (and the kind of compartmentalising i think she’s done) have uhhh stunted her emotional intelligence so to speak. i think there’s something to be said about logan and the old guard and workplace abuse and i also think there’s a certain level of denial there. and like i said, i think gerri’s self identity is intrinsically tied to her job. i think she’s the classic workaholic archetype where the work is both the most important and the most consuming thing in her life. and i think this is doubly true if you subscribe to j’s idea about her basically marrying for professional advancement. it’s, like. she’s given everything to her work. she’s spent the majority of her life there. and for what? look at the state of the company. look at how her relationship with logan ended.

i think a sudden disappearance of the work in gerri’s life would force her to face some home truths she’s been passively avoiding or is in denial about. like imo her choosing to stay/clinging to her role/being genuinely upset at the prospect of being fired is in part a result of like, not wanting to deal with life after waystar/not wanting to admit that there are better and more fulfilling things she could have done with her life/etc etc etc. and while i think gerri is better adjusted than a lot of the main ensemble i do think some of her ~coldness can be attributed to her just being bad with emotions. so like. by “emotionally ill equipped” i mean i think she’d freak the fuck out

[romulussy]

going insane over the difference in roman and kendall’s reactions to connor it’s like. it’s not that ken is dismissive, he very much isn’t, but his concern feels almost performative. it’s indulgent, almost like how someone might treat a child who’s crying to them about a non-issue. like oh, buddy. don’t worry. let’s have fun, we can monitor the dot together. let’s get it up on the big screen. you can share yours with her, that way she’ll see you’re out having fun too. meanwhile there is this sincerity that’s present in every interaction roman has with his brother. even when he jokes, he backs down the second connor seems upset. it’s all okay, sorry, i know. i know. and never this is so fucking weird said behind his back. like literally are you okay? why don’t we fold con in? we can go for a drink, right? you don’t need to worry about that. you’re fine. it’s fine, con. yeah, you’re welcome.

[romulussy]

not that it really matters but i like to hc roman’s birth year as 1982. partly because it’s a year of the dog but imo it feels right for kendall to be 3/4 years older than him. plus i think him and shiv are irish twins (or at most, two years apart) & in pre-nuptial gerri tells kendall the first time she visited caroline’s was 1986 “back when you guys were kids” which sort of tracks with her getting a foot in the door in the early 80s & then fast tracking the fuckery to be shiv’s godmother by 1984