#so is this [contextualizing winston as queer & finding various ways to sexually violate him that are Just Jokes (at his expense)]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

billion's inadvertent understanding like Scapegoat Time with winston where when he's around (and not simply being used straightforward plot device style) he's the punching bag, but when they send him off like "you can't quit / leave b/c you're fired / banished" suddenly it's Scapegoat Time: Sacrificial Kill Ritual with the reveling in abuse along the way to applaud the show created by that & applaud who's doing it. b/c it's not literal scapegoating it's the kind you do to people when the group cohesion requires destructive conflict & it gets focused on someone who might already be extra vulnerable / perhaps a perceptive truth teller about things, like oh You're Ruining It. oh and also the fact that the scapegoat sacrifice of winston means the permanent dissolution of tmc is made so No Big Deal that we don't really have to comment on it again. transferred that destruction onto him / now it's just two people who aren't allowed to punch down on each other in the way they were re: winston & so you definitely can't have a Fund anymore out of that dynamic (even if the Idea of someone is still scapegoated, we'd need to assign the role to someone else still present to be a punching bag too vs something you just take swings Towards....see rian getting several moments punching down on the next most vulnerable party still present, tuk, but the [group] that was tmc just quietly evaporates as a relevant concept once winston is effectively banished/killed)