#ROI for businesses

[wherewolf]

the responses i’ve seen to shiv’s ending seem very quick to write her off as just another sad victim of the cycle, which isn’t without truth BUT!!! that is not even remotely the summation of shiv’s story.

i don’t think she votes yes to “save kendall” or to try to finally set her brothers free. and i don’t think her main concern was that ken was becoming their dad. she absolutely noticed and didn’t love it, but that was not her motivation in betraying him. she was thinking about herself.

it’s tempting to make a martyr out of her as she is the only female child and we see her suffer the onslaught of misogyny that comes with that. but to make her into a saintlike figure who got beat takes away the power and intelligence behind her decision.

at this point she’s stuck between two non ideal choices, but she recognizes that they have accidentally made her the single most important player in the game. because while she can’t have the outcome she’d prefer, she has the power to decide the fates of everyone else. the written off lone woman now holds in her hands the fate of every man in her life.

so she thinks about the long term benefits of both options and realizes that one side leaves her completely without any leverage.

her brothers have proven to her multiple times in the last few days alone that they will cut her out and walk all over her the first chance they get. siding with them leaves her nothing to bargain with. she would just have to hope that ken would actually take care of her. and that level of vulnerability is not only unacceptable to her, it’s stupid. and shiv fuckin roy is not stupid.

so she thinks about the other side and about what she actually wants for her life. and against her better judgment, it’s becomes unfortunately clear that she wants tom. the way she wants him is not altogether loving or even good but it is necessary to her. she sees relationships as having winners and losers and she chose this man specifically so that she could be confident in her ability to win. except now he’s grown some balls and made himself unavailable to her.

she may not like the way her husband is evolving but she already placed her bets on him, so she’s sure as hell not losing to him now. there’s also a part of her that feels intrigued by this new man she’s married to. it’s interesting to have a sparring partner in him instead of having to looking for excitement outside of their marriage.

so for maybe the first time ever, she processes what tom has said to her and thinks about what he actually wants.

he needs her to prove that she cares. he needs to know that she is capable of sacrifice. if she can’t find it within herself to do this for him, then she will lose him, and by extension, she will lose.

siding with tom gives her the opportunity to once and for all make a grand-stand gesture of love, but more importantly, it creates leverage for her. never again will he be able to hold the moral high ground over her head. never again can he say she doesn’t love him. never again can he call her selfish or uncaring. above all, he can never betray her again, because she just removed all of his moral justification for turning on her. he doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s just taken back all the power in their relationship. just in a more subtle way than she’s used to operating.

and just like that, she has the ceo of a multi billion dollar company in her pocket, while situating herself as the only descendant of logan roy to still be playing the game, having removed her brothers from the equation permanently. she may still be far from the top but she’s creating a path for herself to climb.

so yes, she’ll let tom play king for a day, and she’ll have his baby and say “congratulations,” and play the gracious wife, but tomorrow is a new day with lots of room to maneuver. and when her husband puts out his hand, she’ll place her own on top. but she won’t grasp it because she doesn’t need to.

[emptyjunior]

Question, if you were a simple customer looking at a Giant billboard that said "red arse" with a picture of redhood on it that just said 'rent a bat' what would You assume the service was

[jay-wasstuff]

Some of you ship tedbecca, tedtrent, and/or roykeeleyjamie and was extremely disappointed that none of them set sail in the finale but none of you will ever understand the pain of my otp not happening,

Dr Jacob X Being Reported/Losing License

[smoothshine]

yet again having young royai feels on this lovely spring evening

[feydrautha]

There's just something about the earnestness and commitment to the inherent silliness of acting when it comes to Jeremy Strong...

[whole interview here]

[tomwambsgans]

s1e3 lifeboats aka the episode about each of the main roy sibs' sexually coercive behaviors

[blackbatcass]

listen I know it’s kind of corny and inaccurate to act like every single person in the dc universe knows each other and is besties but it IS endlessly funny to me to follow the web of connections and see how many degrees removed from each other everyone is.

like look at the arrowfam okay. ollie and dinah are together, ollie is homoerotic best friends with hal, dinah is homoerotic best friends with babs. roy is dating dick, has a kid with jade, and is basically an adoptive father to both grant emerson and rose wilson. connor is dating kyle and is constantly followed around by eddie fyers. mia is friends with a lot of the second gen teen titans kids, had an on-again-off-again thing going on with steph for a while, and is currently dating sienna. emiko is besties with courtney and some of the other recent teen titans. sin has a small army of protective aunts from the birds of prey. the real question is how far does it go before ollie puts a cap on the number of people who are invited to family brunch on sundays

[dadsinsuits]

Roy Cooper

[violent138]

By the law of being the worst to your siblings, the various Bat-teammates are probably stunned whenever they see their respective Fearless Leader devolve into the pettiest, whiniest piece of shit around whatever sibling they're presently beefing with.

[mysterycitrus]

can’t stop thinking about this post i saw like “why didn’t jason tell roy he was alive during under the red hood!! why didn’t he tell his bestie to help him fight bruce!” because it was 2005 and they didn’t give a shit about each other. hope this helps!

[warningsine]

GIRLS5EVA • Summer Dutkowsky

[necrotic-nephilim]

Roytim is such a fun crack rarepair for me! Dick’s best friend sleeping with/dating Dick’s baby brother Timmy is 10/10 drama on a more personal note than I’d picture it with Jason. Absolutely no shade I just have always read Dick as being more protective of Tim and Damian.

Do you have any Roytim headcanons to share? <3

oh i LOVE RoyTim on it's own! likely bc i'm just a Tim multishipper and if it fits i ship, but Roy is especially fun via the Dick connection. and i 1000% agree, *especially* pre-Flashpoint, would even argue it's outright canon that Dick is far more protective of Tim and Damian than he ever was with Jason (not out of dislike, but simply bc Dick and Jason were never all that close and the tragedy of losing Jason was losing what could've been, not what he already had) and especially with Jason as Red Hood, Dick holds no particular protective brotherly feelings toward him. it's all Tim and Damian. so you're so right, the drama of RoyTim is just a smidge more upped than of JayRoy and i'd love to share headcanons-

i think it makes for a fun "crush on your older brother's friend" situation. where like. Tim knows it's unrealistic and he has no *actual* intentions to chase it when he's just 15/16 and Roy and Dick are in their twenties, often hanging out around Tim. and Roy is handsome, he's funny, he's similar in personality to ppl Tim has dated (Steph, Kon) so, it's a crush. one that he hides *well* and never makes it Dick or Roy's problem, and one Tim never expects to pan out. he just fantasizes about Roy a little bit and mostly grows out of it by the time he's an adult.

i think more fics need Lian, so i like the idea of them co-parenting Lian. especially if they're both. sort of bad at it. like Roy loves her and he's trying, but he's doing this basically alone and it's not like he has experience. Tim also has no experience. neither of them know what on earth to do. it's a very cute idea that just relies on the two of them being terrible at parenting and Roy getting so mad that the first time Lian says "dada" she says it to Tim that he considers breaking up for a good five minutes.

how they get together can happen in a lot of ways, but i'm interested in the idea of Dick asking Roy to talk to Tim during Tim's Red Robin arc. Roy has experience helping kids through his work helping young addicts and nothing else has worked, so he offers to at least try with Tim. and Roy, who also doesn't handle grief well, understands at least some of what Tim is going through. especially since Roy dealt with Oliver dying and then suddenly coming back, he's at least open to the idea Bruce could be alive. he's just around to try and help Tim keep some emotional stability, but it ends up with Roy helping with the search and somehow, falling for Tim along the way

they go to sitcom levels of chaos trying to keep the relationship hidden from Dick. they *both* know Dick is far too protective of Tim to react well to it. but also, i think Roy would get *just* a bit of an ego about sleeping with Tim under Dick's nose. he makes a point of strutting around when Dick invites him over, finding reasons to be shirtless just to make Tim squirm a little bit. it's that sort of kink where you're excited about the risk of being caught. that fits these two so well and i can't explain it.

because Roy is used to mentoring younger heroes, i think he would have a bigger than normal moral panic about dating Tim. he fights his feelings for a *while*, to the point Tim can tell Roy is fighting his feelings and he's trying to convince Roy he's fine with this. Tim telling Roy about his childhood crush does not help. it makes Roy feel *worse*. it makes them take things very slowly, and i could see Roy being the type to never fully touch Tim until Tim is 18, no matter how much Tim insists it's okay.

i do think they have unhinged sex when they actually get into it though. no matter how sure Roy is that he'll be gentle the first time, the minute he gets his hands on Tim, it is feral. there is blood and foul dirty talk and Tim cannot walk the next day. i think Roy makes for a very mean dom, the type who will make fun of you for being a mess in bed. he just has those vibes, and it works great for getting Tim to just. turn his brain off.

i think Roy, who's struggled with picking hero names before, would be someone to try to force Tim to let go of Red Robin once the whole Bruce thing is over. it's not Tim's name and Tim doesn't need to keep punishing himself with it. Roy is nice about it at first, but then i do think he threatens to set that damn suit on fire if Tim keeps wearing it and doesn't come up with a new hero name. and the worst part is, Tim does know he's serious.

when Dick does find out, chaos. an absolute shitshow. when Roy tells him, Dick punches Roy in the face before he even finishes explaining himself. it's a pure gut reaction. even Bruce isn't as protective over Tim as Dick is. it takes a *lot* of convincing from Tim that it's okay and he wanted this before Dick calms down, and he still doesn't talk to Roy for like a month until the rest of the Titans are forced to hold an intervention reminding Dick of his own dating history with age gaps, like Babs. Dick does cool down, but he is not afraid to stoop to "you're fucking my brother" in an argument bc he wins everytime when he brings it up.

i think Tim is the protective partner. everyone *expects* it to be Roy, he's older and more experienced, but it's Tim who will absolutely lose it if someone threatens Roy's or Lian's life. like not fanonish "committing murder" Tim, but more so canonish "i have a contingency plan for everything" Tim. Roy has had to hold him back a couple times. honestly i think the moral conversations Roy and Tim have are so interesting. because Roy will cross the line for those he loves, so bc of that, Tim is careful to make sure Roy is never in a position where he has to protect Tim bc he knows it would turn lethal quickly. it's a very "i know what you're capable of and you don't scare me but i won't let you become a worse version of yourself bc of me" sort of self preservation vibe. i think it'd be very neat. Tim fights like hell when he's close to death bc his thought is always "i refuse to let Roy feel like he has to avenge me" which i find very crunchy.

[searchforahero]

roydicktim is so fun to me...

dick bringing tim to meet the teen titans and tim has such an obvious crush on roy, just in a constant state of being beet-red when roy talks to (or even looks at) him, asking him all sorts of questions about archery and convincing roy to "teach" him (despite definitely already knowing how to shoot).

dick is not impressed, obviously. wants roy to stay the hell away from tim, even though roy has no intention of pursuing tim in any way, but dick can't find it in himself to listen to reason because whenever he thinks of tim and roy all he can do is remember the image of roy leaning over tim's shoulder and positioning his hands on the bow while tim stood there awkward and flustered to hell.

fast forward years and years to bftc/brucequest and tim has hardly seen roy since he was younger, just every once in a while because of hero work, and he's not the type to go tripping over his feet because a cute boy looked at him anymore.

but he can still remember how mad dick got back then, and maybe he's mostly just sad now, when he thinks of dick, thinks of how they fought each other, how dick wouldn't trust him. but there's anger there too, deep and bitter betrayal, and it rears it's ugly head every once in a while, overpowering the loneliness and the sadness and everything else.

and he runs into roy by complete happenstance, and roy is still hot, and he's grown into his looks even more now than when dick used to bring him to visit titans tower, so really, he can tell himself it isn't about dick, he'd want to sleep with roy either way.

the next morning, he sends dick a selfie, smiling lazily at the camera with his hair splayed out on his pillow, roy's tattoos arm visible where it's slung over tim's chest, orange hair too-long and covering his sleeping face. captions it "look who i found :)" and promptly turns his phone off.

[heroesriseandfall]

Secret Origins Annual 3, 1989

21 year old Dick being SO annoyed that calling themselves the Teen Titans when they were younger still gets them referred to as teenagers into their early twenties.