#i need 2 find a quick summary lol i’m not spending my goddamned time on this trash

[stinkbeck]

i’m gonna show up 2 class and be like “well u got me. according to this book i am not a real writer.”

[unproduciblesmackdown]

ok-yikes replied to your post: diefordarkseid replied to your post: ...

ok but like thank u sm for the link i’ve been vaguely following your winston/billions content and ive been trying to find the context without having to watch the whole thing lmao so now i can fully understand ur analysis and art that i already enjoy!!

oh first of aw!!!! that’s such a compliment lol ty and yes s/o to @winstonthequant for posting that compilation for 5.5k+ people to partake in, it’s super useful

yeah we Jest that all anyone needs to know to understand the Spirit Of Wynnstanning is to have seen those scenes with winston and taylor from kompenso, ep 3x11 lol.....i mean it’s partially a joke but it’s also partially true, that’s pretty much the Cause of the group of us going “oh my god” and becoming Invested in all of this. winnie n tay baby.......their Dynamique...they are way too good Ugh

and yeah the Broadest Of Strokes of this series overall is that the Central Theme is "insufferable bastard hedge fund ceo damian lewis [aka axe] man Versus insufferable bastard attorney general paul giamatti man [aka chuck],” just these corrupt assholes having a back and forth slapfight power struggle every season. nobody cares what happens in season 1 but taylor is introduced at the start of season 2 as a just-out-of-undergrad intern at axe’s hedge fund. turns out they’re amazing at hedge funding (they have some goddamn sense and strategy and awareness, whereas axe is 100% beholden to the whims of his own Delicate Temper and Ego and is a continually self-sabotaging idiot, nbd) and by season 3, while axe is doing a bit of jail time over insider trading (see: previous parenthetical) taylor is left effectively in charge of axe’s hedge fund, which btw is called axe capital

Our Beloved Quant Winston enters the picture 3 eps into this situation, where taylor is attempting to start a quant team at axe cap, hence interviewing him, then only known as “quant kid 2″ in the credits. [not-that-informed explanation of What Is A Quant: where the Traditional Financial Analysts in a hedge fund try to make profitable stonk trades just via like, reacting to The News and other publically available info / whipping up Strategies / intuiting shit and making judgment calls or whatever the hell they do, a Quantitative Analyst (a more recent development in the high finance world) is taking a more mathematical approach to the whole legal gambling operation which is The Stock Market and might, as winston does, use An Algorithm to analyze finance info and make trades in response. is the vague idea here] Quant Kid 2 was not Originally meant to ever reappear, hence him just messing up the interview and getting sent off after like 30 seconds, but they wrote him in further when William Roland showed up and actually filmed the scene. 

when “i’m a shitty bastard driven by my shitty ego and will self-sabotage if my Pride asks for it on a whim” axe shows back up, tl;dr, he spends the rest of s3 being terrible and unappreciative to taylor, who you might imagine is Threatening That Delicate Ego of his by capably taking care of his hedge fund while he was indisposed. for example, he needlessly wrecks taylor’s relationship with a guy they were having a nice time dating (and will, we’re pretty sure, talk to again in s5ep2!! hoorayy) and does basically the opposite of apologizing, sweeps taylor’s Quant Project into the trash, gets mad at them for failing to land a certain investor which he said they did on purpose which idk they May Have lol i think this was later in the season, and won’t give them the raise they want, and that’s just A Few of the bullet points in this topic. but oops, turns out that taylor has been secretly taking steps to put together their own entirely separate hedge fund! which is where winston comes back in, aka their meeting him in that empty classroom only to summon him to a random basement. that algorithm he ends up creating for them (which he’d Assumed was for axe cap purposes) was used by taylor to entice a Big Investor at axe cap to invest in their own hedge fund, taylor mason capital, which exists by the end of season 3, which obviously axe is not happy about and of course it’s a whole ~betrayal~ even though he did it to himself but no, he decides taylor is his Nemesis, b/c in so many ways he is a dumbass. god

season 4 has winston as taylor’s Main Quant (the one time we hear his name spoken aloud is taylor saying “winston and the quant team). taylor spends the season dealing with all the problems of having a Brand New Hedge Fund and having a Well Established Hedge Fund With An Asshole At The Helm constantly trying to sabotage their fund, which we also call tmc / mase cap for short, just for reference lmao, the latter being how they shorten it in the show’s actual dialogue. the Front Running mentioned in that one clip was an instance of such sabotage. and by the time winston shows up 5 eps later, that Fracking Subplot (lmao...this fucking show) was about taylor being reeeeal sick of axe cap’s sabotage b/c they kinda made it personal, and thus spending the whole episode Completely playing axe for a fool, which was kinda fun, b/c it’s not that hard and he has it coming. it gets a little involved with what’s going on in ep 4x11 with the bonuses lmfao but it's nbd, just know that winston was right, we went frantic about him being Bullied and are still indignant about it, and taylor talking to Everyone in that 4x12 clip does seem to address what winston had said, compare and contrast 4 yourselves, even if this apparently went totally over the heads of any Regular Billions Viewers lmao. and then in 4x12 A Lot Happens b/c it’s the finale but axe manages to self-sabotage himself in a way that does a lot of damage for mase cap though, and axe thinks that he’s successfully blackmailed taylor into returning to axe cap with mase cap as a Supposedly Temporary subsidiary of axe cap, which sucks, but taylor is not as blackmailed as he thinks, which is a secret, Drama and Twists and Shifting / Dubious Loyalties and Stonks are just constant themes here and who cares. we are here for the quant, who is there with taylor

We Have Many Ideas / wise concepts and headcanons, seeing as canon is a nightmare and there’s not That much material re: winston and precious few details about him / he spends sooo much time offscreen and unmentioned and it leaves us plenty of blanks to fill in. for example, maybe u noticed we think he should kiss taylor and also get railed by them, there are extensive ideas about that relationship wherein we happily ignore Finance. also, there is an unusually kind and reasonable analyst over at axe cap named ben kim who we also think should kiss winston, so yeah That idea is sure around as well lol, they have enough Parallels and complementary Similarities and Contrasts and also just like, a normal nice person is a rarity on this show, so ben does Not have a world of competition in our [list of people who’d be Okay to kiss winston, b/c someone should, b/c he deserves that cuz we love him]

yeah that’s my Quick Basic Context summary lmao we hate it here but also we have fun, and really at any time (extending this to anyone lol) feel free to Send An Ask about anything at all b/c i am Not annoyed by random / unprompted asks from anybody, i love interaction! who knows if i’ll answer promptly (for example: sorry @ the person who’s asked for deh/bmc hcs who i havent answered yet lol) but yeah. it’s totally nice that you were already interested even without any Context lmao like. i mean yeah basically the joke still stands that the only context u truly need is that one scene from Kompenso but. yeah #Stonks

[thelillykane]

for the salty ask meme #6 #1 #4 #5 and #12 Just pour all the salt, jennie!

oh my god i just refound this in my ask box so sit tight i’m gonna try & answer real quick~~~ 

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get? + 4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

as always, the answer is l*cas and p*yton like!!! it doesn’t make sense to me AT ALL how people ship this couple and consider them to be like soulmates when l*cas spends half of season one, all of seasons 2 & 3, half of season four, and the majority of season five being blatantly and vocally in love with other women* (mostly brooke but then in season five he’s literally engaged to and planning to marry lindsay and um friendly reminder kids that he’s not the one that calls off the wedding!!! he’s not at the altar going “yeah i love p*yton” he’s literally…devastated when lindsay leaves him and he even tries to win her back but like sure ok i guess he loves p*yton) 

also, like…p*yton literally only wants to date him the second he becomes unavailable which isn’t even me being mean it’s just the goddamn truth!! he wants to date her in s1, she isn’t interested, and then he starts to move on (and she finds out brooke has a crush on him let’s sip that fucking tea together) and she decides she wants him!!!. and then she does the same thing in season five when he asks her to marry her and she says no so he?? moves on like anyone who got rejected would do and THAT’S WHEN SHE FLIPS HER SHIT and is like “oh well when you were eighteen-twenty you wrote a book where you promised to love me forever so you can’t get engaged to someone else even though yeah i started dating julian like a week after i said no to you” 

and tHEN when they weren’t pissing me off on screen by treating everyone (brooke) like trash they were boring!!! like how tf 

ALSO LISTEN the fact that not only does the show do a 180 and be like “oh lol l*cas always loved her even when he literally was repulsed by the mention of still having feelings for her” BUT THEY ALWAYS TRY TO PRETEND LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN TREE HILL WAS WAITING FOR THEM TO BE TOGETHER AND NO ONE WAS haley – l*cas’ best friend!!!! – is vocally against them being together on like 3 fucking occasions minimum, nathan is 100189001 team brooke penelope davis, karen & keith – lucas’ PARENTS – actually take the time to get to know brooke and end up rooting for her and her happiness both individually and w/ their son and they never bother to do that w/ p*yton, skills literally calls l*cas out on his behavior and calls p*yton out on hers (re: them being shitty af) but then two eps later is all ~lol i was a fan~ when he clearly wasn’t, i could fucking go on but you see my point like…no one wanted them to be together including them 

the way they treat brooke formerly gets its own bullet point because oh my god even thinking about it makes my blood boil like 98% of the time i’m fucking i’m pissed 

also re: them being ~soulmates~ and they ~were meant to be together from ep 1**~ hilarie burton, who plays p*yton, literally came out in an interview this year and said that they never intended, to her knowledge, as the actress PLAYING P*YTON!!, for l*yton to end up together but that the show switched gears around season four iirc (because sophia bush wasn’t super comfortable filming endless romantic shit with her ex husband who had cheated on her which i support fully) 

ALSO i could be wrong but like….i’m pretty sure l*cas kisses brooke in every season he’s a main in (the s6 is a fakeout flash forward in which he lowkey envisions himself marrying brooke and lemme tell you that sure doesn’t seem like he’s super committed to p*yton) and you can’t say the same for him and p*yton (again i might be wrong but i don’t think they kiss in season 2) and they only kiss in season 3 because peyton thinks she’s gonna die and he’s sitting right there 

^ the above is arguably the pettiest bullet point on here but i don’t give a FUCK i hate this fictional couple with every atom i possess 

FUCK !!!! LISTEN that stupid “you’re always saving me thing” that p*yton says to him and it’s supposed to be romantic like lol he literally didn’t even go into the school for her that day!!! like sure once he’s in there he ends up saving her but that isn’t even what he wanted to do!!! he goes into the school to try and get nathan and to make sure nathan doesn’t get hurt!! when brooke is sobbing telling him she lost track of p*yton when she was getting out of the building l*cas doesn’t get all White Knight and go in to save her he literally was gonna stay with brooke!!! who he loves!!! (there’s an instance similar to this in season one where he only ~saves~ her because he is like…around when brooke is trying to get help for p*yton and probably others too but that’s the BIG one) 

ALSO OH MY GOD in season 3 when they make p*yton realize she loves l*ke again they do it in the dumbest way??? she’s literally…with j*ke and she is asleep and mumbles l*kes name and then j*ke is like “u said his name in ur sleep u don’t want to be with me” and dumps her while she’s crying and saying she flat out doesn’t love l*cas (but then she has no one else so she’s like lol what the heck i guess i will love him romantically)

and btw that^ is another instance where it wasn’t p*yton choosing to be with l*cas it was literally someone deciding NOT to be with her…which come to think of it is how they always get together? like?? they never choose to be with one another except in season one after they fucking cheat on brooke like dirtbags and then l*ke dumps brooke to be with p*yton but after that they literally..only pick each other as last resorts because they have no one else. like lmao!!! that is not my idea of grand romance otp it’s literally…sad in the pathetic, embarrassing way 

*idr season six that well but i am willing to bet he does it a little bit during this season as well (also from what i remember they literally…stopped writing scenes w/ him and brooke one on one together because they knew the audience would take one look at those scenes and KNOW he still loved her and not p*yton) 

also um brooke/lucas parallel nathan/haley so much so it’s just so fake whenever people try and say they weren’t the intended endgame for a while there like…look at the parallels. open your eyes. 

anyway y’all i could probably keep going i am the most bitter and angry about them always and there’s literally 200+ things that are just ??? about them it’s Too Easy 

oh also fandom jumo but uh piper/l*o from charmed are boring as shit they’re okay in s1-2 and after that i was like hey can we get him off my screen thanks 

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

I don’t think “ruined” is the right term, but there are definitely some ships that I saw overhyped imo and then when I watched the show I was…underwhelmed. (I’m referring specifically to Ch*ck/S*rah when I type this because the never ending will they-won’t they was just fucking exhausting and by season 3 – which is where i am currently on hiatus – when they actually got together i just could not bring myself to care) (also she can do better and deserves better and season 3 chuck is like the worst version of him so far but) 

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

not to my knowledge! 

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

i was just talking about this the other day with amanda!! (i would normally tag her but she loves l*yton and i respect that so i’m not gonna make her see the seven paragraphs in which i Destroy them) 

essentially we talked about how everyone needs to back up off of season three of veronica mars. like, sure, compared to seasons one and two it’s not as good, but even those seasons have stuff i don’t like such as: gross rape plots, needless and unwelcome attempts at love triangles, sidelining of POC characters for ?? reasons (it’s racism y’all, that’s the reason), sidelining of female characters for White Male Development (re: Mac not becoming a regular that season while Dick & Cassidy both did), etc. and all of those reasons are the big reasons why people shit on season three but [dennis reynolds voice] newsflash asshole! it was there the entire goddamn time 

^to continue the above, i think season three has SO MANY POSITIVES AS WELL for example: logan canonically tells veronica mars that he loves her. um. that’s Good Shit. also!!!: parker lee is there, weevil working w/ keith mars for a bit, logan and veronica making out on the stairs to fidelity by regina spektor, holy fuck does veronica mars love logan echolls so much, THAT SCENE WHEN LOGAN APOLOGIZES TO VERONICA AGAIN!!, BEATS UP GORY SORKIN BECAUSE HE’S RUDE AF TO VERONICA, SHRUGS WHEN GORY THREATENS HIS LIFE, IMMEDIATELY GOES AND APOLOGIZES TO PIZ, AND THEN VERONICA WATCHES HIM WALK AWAY BEAMING WITH HEARTS IN HER EYES LIKE THAT SCENE IS IN SEASON THREE YOU GUYS IT’S RIGHT THERE and then like!!! there’s quality eps in there that i love with my whole heart~~ wichita linebacker!!! poughkeepsie tramps and thieves!!! postgame mortem!!! charlie don’t surf!!! 

in summary: like…yeah parts of it were geuninely awful. just..like….the rest of the seasons. and the movie. which is like.. another Thing 

also fandom jump again but uh Rory’s decision to leave Yale in season six was absolutely the right one for her to make and Lorelai is the fucking worst about it. and if Lorelai hadn’t overreacted and ostracized Rory over it Rory would’ve gone back to Yale and lot sooner and that’s what you missed on Glee