#im not a tomshiv scholar though

[transmutationisms]

re: last ask (hope this isn't unwelcome) - tom alluding to shiv's "bad time" and bringing up a very specifically sexual and sensual anecdote seemed to me to be about him preying on his knowledge of the fact that shiv responds to emotional vulnerability through hypersexuality and reminding her of the times when he provided that for her in the hopes that she would initiate that same dynamic again - they're right back at the start of their relationship. tom saying "I kept asking you" also reminds me of "do they sit on your face to shut you up?" as if she was bringing up that encounter specifically (or maybe tom always does that) from ep1. plus "i like it all" is haunting me i don't understand it. it doesn't read as romantic to me it reads as maybe shiv responding to her "bad time" (possibly abusive relationships with men in combination with a "party girl" lifestyle) through hypersexuality sort of "shutting" tom up in the act of sex by saying "i like it all" (like the tomshiv "even though i don't love you" scene from S3 - "do anything to me, say anything to me" = "i like it all") in conclusion i think tom is very deliberately trying to re-enact early tomshiv because that's how he knows to get in on her. idk i'm just fixating on "i like it all" i can't stop thinking about it ...

yeahhh so i disagree about the reading of shiv as 'hypersexual.' like, that's a narrative mostly pushed by roman, and i think it says more about his insecurities and views of women/sex than it does about shiv's actual behaviour. textually we don't see her seeking out a 'pathological' amount of sex (scare quotes because.... define that). it's like how the roman pervert allegations largely come from shiv and logan, and tell us a lot about how they see the world and the things they misunderstand about roman.

also i don't really see the party girl thing honestly. i'm not discounting the two lines about her being "a mess" and having a "bad time" but those are just so vague, like... there are a lot of potential readings there, and the shiv i see on my screen i would have a hard time reconciling with some kind of party girl stereotype.

however. i agree tom is trying to remind her of their early dynamic and appeal to her in such a way that she falls back into it. this time obviously the difference would be that he tries to directly replace logan's presence in her life, rather than providing her a conduit to logan. i think tom remembers "i like it all" as shiv 'surrendering herself' to him (he opens this anecdote by using the phrase "know each other" in a biblical sense djghfj) whereas shiv remembers that line as her being in a horrible place and having nowhere else to turn, and probably wanting to make tom happy.

so it cuts to the heart of a lot of misunderstandings in their relationship, with tom romanticising the moment as some sort of transcendent sexual encounter whereas shiv seems unhappy remembering it and is too busy worrying about her dad and everything else that's going on.