#dalia replies

[oreganosbaby]

While the ruling speaks about transwomen, trans men are not unaffected- they are just as affected (as are non binary and intersex people). By defining ‘woman’ they are also defining men by default - just look at the 1970 Corbett v Corbett case. While the subject of the individual court case was how to define women, the acts decisions apply to all genders unbiasedly.

I reblog one post about donating to actual British trans women + an organisation that will directly give money to trans women and then I receive this ask. Absolutely incredible.

[oreganosbaby]

What are some notably bad takes you've seen on the Dick Pic incident?

Ok my biggest frustration with Dick Pic Incident takes are that most of them tend to take it as a very conventional #metoo sexual harrassment narrative. This flattens their characters and their relationship so much. Within this narrative, Roman is the predator and Gerri is the victim. Imo, the people who have this take are more likely to see Roman as being a sex pervert and are not the type to see Gerri as being predatory or as betraying him. I don't agree with literally any of those takes, obviously.

I feel like the whole narrative of Gerri as victim and Roman as predator completely misunderstands the intention of the dick pics proper because they are unable to let go of the socially normative idea of what an unsolicited dick pic is for. So, people tend to assume Roman intended to impose his will over her, to sexually threaten her, humiliate her or undermine her. This also leads to a misunderstanding of why the dick pic was so fucked up for Logan and why it was the final nail in the coffin for Roman. The idea that Roman was doing this with aggression goes against his entire deal as being the inverse of his father’s masculine ideals. Roman sent those pictures out of this hysterical overflow of psychosexual anxieties regarding the possibility of genuine emotion without the pretense of business. It parallels his anxieties about his mother’s wedding wherein he identifies with his mother and his anxieties about Logan’s feelings toward him. It seems people are forcibly decontextualising the incident so as to make it fit a particular narrative since that's the only way they can make sense of this or they're misinterpreting his character entirely as someone who is far more proactive and by extension, masculine than he actually is.

The other element is people misinterpreting Gerri's feelings about the dick pics. Like, she's not traumatised and she doesn't feel threatened by him. To some degree, Gerri legitimately sees herself as superior to Roman and able to control him to some degree. With the dick pics, he was getting out of her control but, I still don’t believe she understood this as him asserting himself or sexually threatening her. To Gerri, it was him being hysterical and clingy because if he really were asserting himself, he’d be able to act more independently and he clearly isn’t. His attachment to her is really the crux of her problem with this. What she wants is for him to let go of this libidinal attachment to her because she sees it as weighing her down and for him to learn to manage his libido so he could use it for more productive ends. Roman is unable to do this because his libido is what has guided every major career decision he’s made; it’s the libido that goes first, not the professional goals. She didn’t fully understand this and this is also why she thought their interests were aligned.

I think that both have a hard time situating themselves in relation to each other within the hierarchy. Within their “special conference calls” it’s simple but, in business, it isn’t. Roman assumes Gerri sees him for him-- that she sees him as impotent but, Gerri doesn’t see that and she expects him to “mature” out of this and advance himself. Both understand that regardless of her expectations, Roman’s power does largely come from his relation to Logan. The dick pics were obviously a huge liability to Gerri and she understood Roman as getting preferential treatment because he’s Logan’s son-- after all, that’s why she’s stuck with him in the first place. I think Roman can’t calculate the weight this has so, while he’s aware that this matters and it’s why she’s stuck with him, he likely didn’t expect his father to even suggest killing Gerri in favour of him. I think that a lot of people miss the complexity of the power dynamics here and don’t understand how Roman sees himself within the hierarchy.

[oreganosbaby]

do you think jeryd mencken is a chaser? (unfortunately affectionate)

Not in the sense that he fetishises the idea of like, trans woman cock (like Con would tbh) or so he can do a whole "you don't know you're beautiful" thing or whatever. He's very faceless DL straight(?) guy on Grindr (re: him hiding that ring lol) and I feel like he might merely like the idea that some people, despite being "born with a male body," are just naturally "Female Brained" and treats them accordingly bc that's the "natural order." So, I think he could appreciate that Roman is so "Female Brained" that she needed to transition; he'd like that she "knows her place." I think this makes sense with the way they have almost instant chemistry, like they're each other's perfect "dance partner."

[oreganosbaby]

My vision for Roman's endgame is that he gets diagnosed as a hysteric by the board of Waystar Royco and sent to the seaside to recover his nerves.

bye i was listerally just talking abt this. i need it so bad.

[oreganosbaby]

Could you share your thoughts on Roman’s sexual chemistry with Mencken? I mean, what purpose does the choice of making their sexual chemistry so palpable serve?

Ok finally answering this 30 bil. year old ask. I think that leaning into fascism was the obvious move for Waystar at that point since they'd spent decades basically using fascist rhetoric for profit. They could've portrayed this in a lot of ways but, I think it was very choice to do it through those sexually charged interactions between Mencken and Roman because it forces the viewer to see fascism as an aesthetic that's useful to capitalism because they share the same ends and particularly for the media industry, fascism's spectacle is very profitable. besides, what is Waystar/News Corp., but fascist spectacle?

So, by having Mencken as this particularly "sexy" representation of fascism, we get to see it's allure, why it works for Waystar and by extension, Roman. It's something that supercedes any bit of meaning in Mencken's words, completely boiling it down to libido. This is why fascism is mostly just a sexual fetish for Roman. He's indifferent to the political project itself, the ideology but, it's this fantasy of the fascist patriarch (in relation to himself) that's hot to him and Mencken presents himself as such; however, because fascism is mostly just hollow spectacle, he can't live up to this ideal in actuality and this is just one part of why fascism is unable to sustain itself unless it's able to be more fluid and keep up this dynamic spectacle though whether it remains fascism is questionable.

The show presenting fascism and particularly, the relationship between fascism and capitalism as (homo)erotic yet, devoid of any chliché'd visual signifiers of fascism (e.g. Nazi paraphernalia, overuse of alt right slang, etc.) makes it so that it gets to the heart of what makes fascist aesthetics appealing, what makes it so compatible with capitalism, etc. without being so explicit. We, as voyeurs (the bathroom door was opened!), are forced to witness this negotiation in all its luridness. Mencken is talking out of his ass about whatever fascist bullshit, all of it stupid and Roman is talking out of his ass about the political spectacle he wants to put on, also stupid. The shit they're saying is so vapid but, what's real is the sexual tension. That's how Roman definitely understood it while Mencken, probably does believe his own bullshit, at least a bit. This is kind of the best part of it: that uneasy tension between the erotic and grotesque, the polite and the vulgar, etc. It kind of pulls the viewers' emotions in a few directions and one of those seems to have been discomfort. Fascism being portrayed as an aesthetic emotional experience shows how much of politics is spectacle and I'd argue that it's merely an extreme application of that idea, appealing to particular fantasies of exciting strongman leader types and whatnot.

[oreganosbaby]

mencken looked worried for roman as he was crying now i don't know if it was a justin kirk mini reaction or if it was scripted

For that particular moment, I think he kind of looked embarrassed for or by him? I have many thoughts about their relationship, some of which might be conflicting. I kind of quickly gave them in the last reply. Perhaps having this cocktail of thoughts and emotion in their relationship is fitting considering Roman's relationship with Logan, Gerri or even to some with Matsson and his siblings. It can never be that the everything aligns perfectly in one straight line, smooth and unending. Mencken can't look Roman in the eye as he passes by in church. He can't make the effort to get his attention and goes for Kendall instead but, asks Roman if he's okay at the reception after making a joke about his crying.

It kind of shows the two other faces of their relationship, I guess. There's the most public, in church, where everyone is expected to behave, to put on good airs, follow procedure and respect ritual. Then, there's the reception, a bit public and a bit private. They can joke a bit, have a chat but, they can't really do more than that, not with everyone standing so close to them. They can forget the scrutiny of God for a bit but not that of the other funeral attendees. Roman always thrives on intimacy. He can't play to the crowd because not palatable enough, shit stage presence and an acquired taste. Roman's entire relationship with Mencken is framed as something lurid on both ends. For Roman, it's like this forbidden crush and for Mencken, it's like a nasty affair. It can't really be the same in public as it is in private. I suppose, being president-elect makes him even more public.

[oreganosbaby]

What do you think that pill thing was? Just Kieran playing with props lol?

they were advil so, just rule out anything about addiction. it's a mere extension of roman just wanting/using logan's most intimate (read: body-related) material possessions when roman misses him and worries he will never return. we first saw this in s1e2 with the sweater and arguably, with that non-diet coke. now, we have roman downing those advil, the cigar (re: you wanna suck my dick; you just wanna give him a blowjob so, stop projecting) and maybe even another sweater. we also got roman leaving his own jacket with logan's corpse. it's like a form of indirect physical affection but, since this is entirely about logan's death, it's specifically affection through consuming logan's remains or rather, his waste. this ties in with roman's offers to consume logan's waste, his excess emotion e.g., "do you have someone you can talk to about... shit?" this behaviour extends to eduard (beer), mencken (coke, which is also his father's waste), and matsson (piss, no swallowing). within the text, bodily excrements are symbolic of emotion but where cum is productive because it contains the potential for life, piss is pure waste. roman, however, sees no difference because he can't be impregnated nor can he impregnate so, his body becomes, as i described, a sewer of sorts, a libidinal sewer. roman likes to have these "useless" emotions directed at him because to roman, it's emotion that's mostly untainted by liberal capitalism. it's sort of representative of roman's relationship to the feminine sexual role: he "enjoys" (not sure how else to phrase this) something that most around him regard as "filth" and yet, he is also ashamed of this because of how this marks him as "perverted" or "sick."

[oreganosbaby]

so roman's happy ending is conversion therapy. romangerris you won

rtfvgyhbjnkml How was that coversion-therapy? Roman donned business drag one last time. Game rover! That ending wasn't even a romangerri ending lol. Like, I know people are reading it that way but, Roman can't stand the scrutiny of Actual Gerri because it's like seeing a ghost-- whether it's actually the ghost of Gerri or Logan's is somewhat irrelevant because they're practically the same to Roman.