#changing his manneurisms and opinions depending on who he's in front of to try and appeal to them

[toastytrusty]

thinking endlessly about how romans main relationships outside of the family in later seasons are lukas and mencken, and how their dynamics with rome foil each other both narratively and in-universe. lukas represents them selling waystar, represents emotional vulnerability, represents freedom. mencken, on the other hand, represents them keeping the company, represents the toxic façade of who you Need to be, represents remaining trapped. the way romes emotions fuel the contrasting dynamics between them is endlessly fascinating

lukas, upon his second time meeting rome, immediately continuously attempts to talk abt deep kinda personal/emotional stuff, which rome shut down because he's afraid of self expression, even though deep down he craves connection. this probably scares him, so, especially after logan's death and lukas' reaction to it (on one hand being a dick and not pushing back the meeting, on the other hand trying in his own autistic way to connect and empathize with their loss, as well as being real about how awful logan was), roman distances himself. he feels pushed to the edge of his sanity and reverts to what comes most naturally to him, you guessed it, eeeemotion. he freaks out at lukas on the cliff, in his head burning any bridge built between them, which tbf he pretty much does. but to lukas, this is almost like a win for him. he's been trying to encourage roman to open up to him since they met, and he finally did! so the $5 price bump is almost like a congratualtions or a reward, as well as a spiteful fuck you. narratively it takes them one step closer to selling the company, roman's emotion being what puts him there, and in this case it's being appreciated. really, rome wants out of the company; he wants to sell and he wants to be free of it and all the pressure and expectation that comes with it.

whereas mencken was always very business-focused with roman; joking and laughing in a detached, not very real way. his focus was always succeeding and going far and not really caring how he got there, and i think that's part of why roman liked him. there was no expectation to be genuine or actually connect; he could just put on his brave face and do what they felt needed to be done. when he pushed lukas away because things got too real, he continued seeking out mencken because mencken was easy to appeal to in that way he so often does; changing himself to suit there needs. he puts mencken over everything else that mattered in his life (relationships with his family members mainly he doesn't gaf about The Economy) because he didn't have to be real with mencken. it was all just the blind pursuit for power he didn't really want and a security he felt more threatened by than anything, because he got too far in and set his sights on something (or more accurately kendall set his sights on something, and who was rome to protest?) and had to acheive it. so when the façade breaks, and mencken sees him for the first time not as the charming, witty, businessman, but as the damaged person who just wasn't built for the world, he walks away, no longer looking to protect waystar, or roman. love and sensitivity and emotion are all weaknesses to mencken, weakness he had previously not seen in roman, but now that he had it was too late. rome couldn't pretend forever and mencken bailed, handing waystar (and roman!! becase their ties to waystar are through roman!!) back to lukas and the gojo deal on a silver platter.

this inadvertantly pushes roman back towards freedom, and, in a way, back towards lukas. he told mr emotions to fuck off and ran away to be his self absorbed emotionless husk with someone who wanted nothing more from him, but that didn't work out too well. he can't stay in the cage that is waystar, he can't spend all of his time being someone he's not; it's exhausting. lukas represents his ability to acheive freedom from the toxic environment of waystar, as well as the fact that he will eventually have to confront reality, and mencken represents his unhealthy, and ultimately doomed to fail, coping mechanisms and avoidance behavior. when he tries to twist his perspective of the people around him to make them seem like good people (logan, MENCKEN), lukas shuts it down (at least with logan; i don't think the two of them ever talk abt mencken) and makes rome confront the fact that they aren't, and when rome is so deep into being someone he isn't, lukas encourages him to be himself, whereas mencken condemns him for it