#roman as a ceo would ultimately be bad for him and i don't think he even truly wants it

[peniscat]

re: your tags on the suffering post i think roman views getting ceo in the same way he views sex (and love) in that it’s safe to want it when he knows he can’t have it, and being faced with actually having it terrifies him. i think on a base level he understands that he needs to want without having, because actually getting what he wants (love, ceo, gerri, etc) will make him confront the fact that he still feels empty, which ur right would destroy him. it’s why he always self sabotages (dickpic moment is a prime example of destroying his shot both at ceo and with gerri in one go) before anything can become a real possibility. he wants to build the rocket and blow it up on the launchpad because he knows at his core he’ll never actually clear his dad’s gravitational field

you're so right anon. i feel like he also sort of wants things that would ultimately prove that he's normal and that there's nothing wrong with him, which makes for an interesting combination when you also consider how those things are unattainable to him and therefore "safe" to want. love in particular is so interesting when talking about roman. he yearns for the intimacy and connection, is unable to have that but still tries so hard to find it. the self-sabotaging ties to that quite nicely – for example we know that he cheats and isn't generally a very good partner either. i also think that roman's steadfast ignorance of his own issues isn't doing any good for him when his coping methods are terrible but that isn't really news. watching roman try to live his life is like watching someone drown. he's flailing for help and most people think he's just waving. some people notice and try to help him but he's just like "uhh i don't know if i feel comfortable with that".

#babygirl. so fascinating. a bunch of issues in a trench coat posing as a human. #roman as a ceo would ultimately be bad for him and i don't think he even truly wants it #getting it would be proof of logan's love so therefore he wants it but really? nah. #he's far too comfortable offering the ceo position to gerri (literally several times) for someone who'd actually want it #and with love? well. i have thoughts but they'd probably get me shot on sight so let's leave them for now #those also tie to my thoughts about roman and sex but oh well #ily for sending this i thought about this very hard. that last line of your ask? so true #answered

[sunflowerdigs]

I think someone posted about this before. Maybe? However, it struck me again while writing up a meta, how much it sucks that the kids never really get reprimanded for the bad things they actually do and instead get treated really harshly for almost...the good things they do? Like, I guess that's par for the course with a narcissistic abuser because anything healthy their victim does with someone else is considered a threat.

But it's somehow extra annoying in the Roman and Gerri situation because for the sake of anyone Roman crushes on and for Roman's own happiness, it's incredibly important that he understand Why We Do Not Send Unwanted Nudes. But Logan is actually ok with that part of it. He's a toxic man who sees harassing women as a sign of masculinity. If Roman had sent Gerri dick pics out of pure spite or just to fuck with her, Logan would have just shrugged and said "boys will be boys". The only reason he cared at all was because Shiv suggested Roman was "weird" about Gerri and Logan likely thought back to how Roman nominated her for CEO and realized "oh fuck, Roman might actually have a stronger emotional attachment/loyalty to someone besides me, MUST DESTROY WITH SHAME".

When, really, that attachment to Gerri, though fraught with complications, overall spoke really positively about Roman. The two things that killed it from his side were entitlement and lack of self-knowledge. Logan bolstered the entitlement in the office scene ("like a fuck you"), and tried to encourage the lack of self-knowledge in the boat ride by telling Roman, through incredibly skillful gaslighting, that if he kept down this exploratory path he could, horror of horrors, end up taking it up the ass from a man.

(Side note - I will actually be extremely disappointed in the show if the ultimate answer to that ends up being "don't worry, Roman isn't that sick - underneath the trauma he only likes sticking it in women." Like...*shrug* play homophobic games, win gay prizes. The best route, imo, would be if Roman did end up enjoying this Most Unmasculine of sexual activities (likely because he's bi/pan) and it just...was not a big deal or was even empowering for him. Otherwise, the scene is just Logan unnecessarily spouting some very ubiquitous homophobic bullshit with no counter argument on the show at all, which is...gross).

Anyway, whatever you think of Roman's attraction to Gerri, that he admitted to it in our ageist society spoke well of him. That he recognized Gerri's superior capabilities spoke well of him both as a Roy and as a man. That he followed her advice and took her mentorship mostly seriously despite someone like Shiv taking jabs at his masculinity for it, spoke well of him. That he let her see some vulnerability spoke well of him. Everything Logan wanted to crush was positive and everything he was ok with or would have encouraged (the Kerry test in the boat ride = "this is how you properly objectify women, son") was negative. And it just...is killer that this keeps being the case with the kids.

#roman roy #Succession #succ #logan roy

[peniscat]

hiiiiiii. you have probably answered this many times but i can’t find it so if you don’t mind repeating yourself: why do you think romangerri stopped being a thing? when? was it is gerri deciding to not be into mess anymore as a ceo and roman not taking a no for an answer? why did she get so upset with him firing her in s4 when just talking about firing was a constant thing? was it that finally gerri felt the power roman had over her and finally realised she can’t play around with that? the photo to logan obviously fucked her and it’s roman’s fault. hm. i think im explaining it to myself out loud. but s3 is more interesting i thought itd be explored more. was it just about avoiding mess then?

if i have answered this it has definitely been a while so i don't mind doing it again! honestly i don't think romangerri ever stopped being a thing. even on s4 when they're cross with each other it is absolutely undeniable that they're still very much affected by each other! but if we're talking about gerri trying her most to erase the mess from their relationship, i think the danger of it caught up to her. roman's refusal to focus on the business aspect of their relationship and his inability to consider consequences combined with gerri's role as the interim ceo and the fact that if anything came out, it would be gerri who suffered – of course she tried to get the situation back under control by not engaging in the sexual aspect of their relationship.

i also think gerri never envisioned anything else for them than the business relationship. j just talked about this in an interview, but apparently gerri thought for a long time that roman was just fucking with her with the suggestions and all that. she didn't take him very seriously and i think the situation kind of crept on her, too. and ultimately she never would have considered anything serious with him, either, not in the timeline of s2/s3. what she wanted with him was the dynamic duo, her being the brains and him being the beauty, but i think roman sort of lost the focus on that especially in late s3.

of course she got upset when he fired her twice on s4? yeah, no one was really safe in waystar during logan's reign, but it's a fact that logan absolutely wouldn't have soured on gerri to that degree without the dick pic fiasco. and the second time – roman making a rash choice to fire her because of his inability to deal with logan's death and the fact she refused to lie to his face, insulting her in the worst possible way in the process? i'd be upset too. both of those times were proof of how associating with roman quite literally hurt her career.

but to return to your original question, i just really feel like the two major reasons were gerri realizing the possible consequences and the differences in what they wanted, which ultimately drove them apart. but what's fascinating is that at the point when it all falls apart, they are unable to just forget about each other. even when roman fires gerri in the beginning of connor's wedding, gerri sees right through him and it's clear that having to do it makes roman's tummy hurt exceptionally bad. and when everything goes to even more shit, gerri is visibly worried about roman (the funeral) and he literally breaks down when he sees her (board meeting). they're far from being over, baby <3

and of course we'll never know what the post-series romangerri dynamic looks like, but at least i can always comfort myself with the words of the world's leading gerri kellman expert, miss jsc herself: i don't know at what point she'd thought about it as a romantic thing. except if somebody young and wealthy and charismatic had a silly crush that they kept insisting on when they were around you, you'd have to be made of stone to not eventually respond to that. i could see them getting tipsy and making out in a bar once he's not her boss.

#sorry i rambled hjsfkjdsf #also i left out the part where j says they wouldn't have a relationship but it's ok i get her. #i appreciate how she still went. here's how romangerri can still win #and they did win. the trajectories of their lives were mutually changed <33333 #idk as much as i would have loved to see gerri mommy domming roman in every episode after safe room #i think the lack of it also makes for a very interesting relationship. the absence of something etc #romangerri #answered