#by chance if the conclusion is familiar because of reddit -- that is me lol not stealing from anyone i promise

[ilikepipecleanerswitheyes]

deep dive into the delightful complexity of tom and shiv

tomshiv content was sooo good in 4x6 and i just want to do a deeper dive into it because we’ve frankly never seen this honest of a dynamic between them. i also see some people interpreting their dynamic in a way i don’t necessarily agree with, so i’m giving my perspective. 

on love: does shiv love tom? that is the question this fandom asks so often. interestingly, i don’t ever see it reversed a lot where the question is, “does tom love shiv?” i think the reason we don’t see that is the fact that tom gets coddled a lot. tom seems to come from a wealthy family, but their wealth doesn’t seem to make up even a fraction of the roy’s wealth. so of course, tom was going to benefit from being married to a member of the family. his high position at atn has routinely been protected and upheld as a result of this. of course, tom approaching shiv in whatever way he did was likely strategic. do i also think that they came to have genuine affection for each other? also yes. for all the instances people shit on shiv for being an awful partner, i’d also argue there are instances of her showing genuine care for him (and vice versa). there are lots of examples of this, but my favorite one i’ll point to is this one. people hate shiv for this scene, but in my opinion, she is genuinely upset to see the hurt on tom’s face. if they didn’t have some amount of love for each other, 1) tom wouldn’t have been so hurt, and 2) shiv would have simply resorted to “i thought we agreed to this” -- she didn’t want to kick him when he was obviously down because she cares for him. 

bitey: this scene at face value is just them acting like the weird couple in high school, but i love the fact it is a game that involves hurting each other -- much like tomshiv’s real relationship. earlier in the show, we often see tom following shiv’s lead, because that’s what’s most convenient to him. however, a moment reached where logan was more convenient for tom, hence the betrayal (by tom’s admission). the s3 finale was the first time we’d really seen tom “bite back”, and harder, than shiv. there was a lot of theories pre-s4 with people speculating shiv would respect tom more after knowing how cruel he could be, and it seems that’s the case right now. i think this is proven with shiv’s line of, “tom wambsgans finally made me feel something.” the literal bite hurt, but in a twisted way, she was impressed by it. tom having the ability to be strategic with no restrictions has increased his value in shiv’s eyes. 

post bitey sex pillow talk: this was my favorite part of this episode. the honesty from the both of them was so intensely refreshing. it’s so funny to see tom say “sorry” to shiv for the betrayal, when i genuinely believe he would do it again in a heartbeat if he knew logan could stay alive. i love that tom was open about loving his life and his wealth and how shiv brought him closer to that lifestyle. what i loved even more was how tom challenged shiv to open up about her intentions. of course, she was still hurt by the betrayal, but she has a deeper understanding of why he did it, and even respects it. people might say it’s too far to say she respects it, but i don’t think is. shiv saying, “i’d follow you anywhere for love” is her way of showing she respects it. it’s a sarcastic, silly comment which tom and shiv both understand. the idea of them abandoning their possessions for love is ridiculous to them. shiv laughing at this shows that she understands going against a financially beneficial move for the sake of love is ridiculous. 

in conclusion: tom and shiv genuinely love each other deeply and intimately, but ALSO love what they give each other, and their relationship cannot work with the absence of either. if they didn’t love each other, they’d really just be two miserable people who can’t stand to be near each other… but they do have their moments of liking each others company, genuinely. and if tom and shiv didn’t have the positions/money they did, there would be no benefit for either of them to stay together. they cannot be the couple who abandons their life of wealth for love to go live in a trailer, but they can be the couple who helps each other excel in the life of luxury and opulence, while also, conveniently having love for one another. 

[bisexualdinahlance]

can you explain the Casey McQuiston thing a little further? I'm pretty brand new to the rwrb fandom and not familiar

There's been rumors for years in the RWRB fandom and outside of it that Casey McQuinston used to be on tumblr and was a fic writer for the Social Network/Social Network RPF fandom. Further, there was a lot of rumors that RWRB was SN RPF with the serial numbers filed off. The original tumblr account people say was Casey I'm pretty sure is either gone or dead now, and the fanfic author that people say they are took down their fics years ago. It's very possible that that person was Casey, but like without them fessing up there's no way to know for sure.

Someone on Youtube did a whole video essay deep dive into investigating the accounts, and even read the fic people claim RWRB is based on. The conclusion the video essayist came to was that she thought the author was Casey but that the fic was nothing like RWRB. (Which of course it wasn't lmao, the intro to the book literally talks about how they wrote it during and after the 2016 election - several years after the fics were deleted.) There's a good chance she's right, but while some of the reasoning is good, one of the reasons was literally that both authors "inserted their media opinions superfluously" into the story that broke their immersion because both authors made fun of "blonde women [the video essayist] liked" lol. So I take the conclusion with a grain of salt even if the investigation work was good.

Anyone who has read the book I'm sure can tell that Casey probably wrote fanfiction, but it's pretty clear to me that it's not lol. It just has tropes and dynamics that are popular in fandom spaces, as well as some specific turns of phrases. Which isn't a bad thing lol, RWRB is my guilty pleasure fave, I adore it even if it feels a bit lib in the current political climate.

I doubt that Casey ever saw the rumors - for a while it was mostly just snarky tumblr or reddit comments that brought it up to prove moral superiority over not liking the book. But it's still frustrating to me that like an author is essentially being haunted reputationally by fanfic they might or might not have written as a teenager/college student. Even the fanlore page for the book is completely overtaken by people speculating that it's a fanfiction. I would be PISSED if I got published, and everyone claimed my books were Harry Potter fanfiction because I used to be in the HP fandom in high school and college. And then spread around old fanfiction that I deleted off the internet because I got made fun of for how bad the smut was.

(Part of the "proof" that some people used as to the original fic being RWRB was it was deleted off of LJ but the fanlore page on the actual fic speculates it's because the author was getting bitchy messages about the quality of the smut in the fic.)

Anyway, sorry this wasn't super... coherent I have a lot of opinions on the subject. the TL;DR is that Casey might have been a BNF in the Social Network fandom, and because of that people speculated that they turned one of their SNRPF's into RWRB. It's pretty clear that they didn't do that, but these rumors have haunted the fandom for years because people keep spreading them like they're fact.

And I think authors should be allowed to keep their fandom separate from their professional work exactly because of shit like this lol.