#I could see succession doing this with tomgreg

[yoitsjuli]

The way popular media went from “here’s two male characters who have an incredible amount of chemistry and fans ship them but it’s not canon and one or both of them are with women” to “here’s two male characters who have an incredible amount of chemistry and fans ship them and it’s canon but only in the way that one of them has an unrequited love for the other and either pines miserably forever or dies.” Progress right?

#destiel #sterek #reddie #tyrelliot #byler #I could see succession doing this with tomgreg #like…it’s an actual trend these days but better than nothing I guess?? #only ever with mlm ships (many reasons why) #for reddie the dying role was reversed #but why does one always have to die it seems #bury your gays I guess #fanfiction #ao3 #queer representation #mlm ships #supernatural #teen wolf #it 2019 #mr robot #stranger things

[turtlesallthewaytomgreg]

hnstly rn it feels like either tomgreg is either dead in the water or they're coming out of this as partners and there's no in between.

like looking back through n*c br*u*s instagram it's either queer bait or?????

the promo poster and 🤐 caption?

matt mac making the "shhh" ?? ?

ppl interpreting this gif either as the end of all things or the Start of Something New

whatever it is, it seems like we're in for a Big One. like one episode left and still so many unresolved strands and so far a good track record in s4 for tying lose strings.

like ken explaining what happened with con's mom and ewan saying rose died of polio etc etc etc. like at this point it would feel kind of off to leave tomgreg ambiguous?

also the pregnancy arc was added to the show Late which means whatever they had planned for the show endgame? wouldn't necessarily be contingent on tomsh*v baby?

unless they completely changed the series ending?? but also i thought i heard jesse say in the succ. podcast that they 'knew where the ending was headed' even in the first season??

also still no resolution to Greg's Gay Dad, or greg/mattson and really any satisfying ending to whatever the hell happened with the disgusting brothers and 'tell me' etc etc etc

also pretty sure jesse's wrote the next episode and he has a solid allyship track record. ugh. ugh ugh ugh.

lol this started out as a 50/50 toss up tomgreg dead/tomgreg win post but apparently still Delusional tomgreg truther :)

#tomgreg #cousin greg #tom wambsgans #greg hirsch #succession #i know queer bait happens all the time in big media #pls let me just believe #for six more days #that it can be different this time #could be delusional #but i think i see a hint #of an uptick of a smile #on tom's face #and lestrade pointed out in an earlier post the #'oh shit we're really doing this aren't we' #look on gregs #also a slight nod from greg #before the scene cuts

[morethanwonderful]

Cumplane could do Tomgreg, but Tomgreg absolutely could not do Cumplane

#like you could absolutely do cumplane as a boss/employee w a psychosxual fixation on each other #wherein one is repressed and prone to anger and the other is a spineless little worm who grovels for power #but neither Tom nor Greg is creative or motivated enough to write a webnovel #not even one as bad as pidw #succession #successionposting #svsss #svsssposting #the scum villain's self saving system #cumplane #Tomgreg #I hope succ fans who have never heard of scum villain see this in the tag and have a great time w the ship name ‘cumplane’

[tomgrcg]

we've learnt for a fact now that tom feels the full range of human emotions towards greg and that he can't let anyone in or he'll die. so how does he express his emotions? the only way he can let himself. he wants to be a specific kind of person, a roy, and how he is feeling and what he wants to do does not fit in with how these people behave. he doesn’t do it because it’s natural. he does it because he has to. he throws insults at it and tries to wrestle it to the ground but it feels weak because his heart isn’t in it.

neither greg or tom are like the roys at their core. they weren’t raised in it. there are moments of real happiness for the two of them when they’re alone and can just be themselves. there's something different in their relationship dynamic here than the relationships the siblings have. it doesn’t feel as bittersweet because they aren’t as fundamentally broken.

tom is more guarded, of course, he’s received some emotional damage from shiv so he always says or does something to keep greg just far enough away. he’s learnt vulnerability is dangerous. every time he tries to show shiv that he loves her she makes him feel like he’s done it wrong. this season he started behaving in a way that would get through to her but that didn’t feel good to him either, didn’t save him from being fired, nothing.

shiv needed the kind of love tom gave her the same way tom needs what greg gives him. but the difference is tom is more capable of accepting love from people he cares about and wouldn’t hurt greg any deeper than a weak insult, even if he could.

tom knows what it’s like to have to beg for someone who is supposed to care about you to do something for you, so when greg asked if he could possibly save him from going to jail he says load me up without a second thought. he cares about greg’s feelings and would sacrifice something of his own for them and it’s this empathy that tom has that the roy family is lacking.

it’s not hard for tom to think to do something for another person for no reason other than it would make that person feel good. no quid pro quo. but even when tom does do something good for greg he 'can’t stand the good feeling he’s engendered' because he feels like he shouldn’t be doing nice things for no reason.

the nero and sporus scene was tom telling greg he cares about him at all and “come with me, sporus?” was the marriage proposal. greg asks what’s in it for him because that’s how greg works and tom has to say “who has ever looked out for you” instead of “i want you with me”. tom cannot let him know the depth of how he feels so he lets greg think he's using him for something and only merely tolerates him, like everyone else does.

and then, because greg still doesn’t get it, or is choosing to ignore it, tom has to yell “not samson! i want you gregging for me!" he still can’t say the real reason why. the only time he’s shown his real emotions to greg is when he’s alone in a room and greg can’t see his face through the phone.

it's not a perfect relationship. it's not supposed to be. that's why it's so compelling. it’s please don't be better than me i can't stand it but i love you. it’s i’m using you to get somewhere in the world but i’ll still look after you even when i don’t need to anymore. (villainfvcker made a great post about this.)

i’m writing this after episode eight, and if they’re going all the way with greg’s transformation into a roy family member and he betrays tom in some way, it will be another case of a succession character destroying the only real connection they have for some kind of power, and regretting it later.

if anything at all, we know tom really does love greg, and that’s a satisfying enough tomgreg endgame for me, personally.

#the show is so ambiguous with people's intentions that it's easy for me to feel validated in this interpretation #tomgreg #tom wambsgans #greg hirsch #i won't be upset if nothing else happens now #my poor stupid babies i love u and am the same as you #i have kind of a neurodivergent read on the both of them so that's where a lot of this behaviour interpretation comes from #they're just trying to fucking fit in dude it's so sad #i had to write all of this down i need it out of my brain so i can think again #succession meta #i love you tom wambsgans

[nightshadehoney]

Not to be “here’s how tomgreg can still win!” on main but...

I do think it’s plausible that there will be some reveal in regards to them. Not that they’re sleeping with each other (although a girl can dream), more like they’re up to something. That no matter how it might look at any point for the last four episodes, their alliance is rock solid. That they’re actually very transparent with each other and the moves they make are done in concert or at least with the other’s knowledge. We can already surmise this is going on when the audience doesn’t explicitly see it: Greg learns about the paper found in Logan’s safe and then a few scenes later Tom says he knows about it. We can fill in the blanks where Greg went running to tell Tom about this without having to be shown.  Perhaps we don’t have a full picture of whatever it is their agenda is, and that’s why we’re only getting to see them when they are lurking in public, and not when they are speaking frankly in private. 

Actually regardless of what happens I think this is the primary reason for the lack of tomgreg scenes. At the end of season three Greg more or less asks Tom if their partnership can be a little more egalitarian and Tom says yes and then...it is. Tom and Greg are just BFFs (business friends forever) now, so the scenes between them are cut in favor of other scenes that give us new information or focus on relationships that are shifting. There’s nowhere to go with them in this state other than a) destroy their relationship (anything can happen in four hours of course, but it would be pretty shoddy writing to de-emphasize a relationship if it’s dissolution is meant to  be a significant plot beat)  or b) their relationship results in some scheme that results in Plot Things happening, hence them being in the background until a reveal. 

Usually I’d say that this kind of thing isn’t  Succession’s style. The show’s writing doesn’t really rely on twists or hidden information, buuuut they have been playing with “twists” this season a bit (the timing of Logan’s death; Shiv’s pregnancy) and there was even a few things last season (Rex Hendon is a divorce lawyer; what exactly Tom has in mind re: Logan vs. siblings is opaque until the very last scene). Based on some things cast have said in combination with all the weird looks this season-- Shiv looks at Tom when he’s  with Greg, Greg’s always seems to be carefully watching Tom, etc---seriously  these three specifically seem to always be looking at each other in a way that feels significant, I think maybe something could go down. 

....Or everything I said is pure cope and I’m delusional. That’s also a possibility.      

#succession spoilers #succession season 4 #tomgreg #hbo succession #succession #succession posting

[eastgaysian]

do you think that a lot of s4 critique (esp on tumblr) is coming from the tomgreg “field”? bc i mean - they all seem very disappointed with the way this season is playing out and, without meaning to be patronizing, i’d say unmet expectations like that can cloud (or at least colour) one’s general opinion on a piece of media immensely. we’ve all had it happen to us in some way at some point, so i get it but also…don’t shit in everyone’s müsli just bc a specific relationship didn’t happen in the way you’d envisioned :( alsooo tomshiv is much gayer than tomgreg could have ever hoped to be idc idc

it's something i've been avoiding saying directly, because it feels slightly dickish, but We Can All See With Our Eyes that there is a correlation between people heavily invested in tomgreg and people who are expressing dissatisfaction with s4. it's also fairly obvious that i stopped giving a shit about tomgreg over the course of the year+ of getting harrassed and finally getting my blog terminated for expressing mild criticism wrt patterns of misogyny in fandom. which i think entitles me to a little bit of dickishness.

the thing is, you can have whatever opinion on a show you want for whatever reason you want. it's fine to say you're disappointed in the relative lack of tom and greg this season, because that's what you were personally invested in. your emotional response to the season is your emotional response. full stop. a big part of why i've been enjoying this season so much is because i started watching this show after my dad died, and it's very cathartic for me to watch such a realistic and thoughtful depiction of grief in all its messiness and complexity. i'm connecting to these characters more than ever because i've been there. that's personal! that's subjective! that's okay!

what irritates me is: a) being disingenuous about the reason you dislike the season, b) in a way that implies disliking the season is the 'correct' opinion to have, either on a moral basis or because this season is objectively and uniquely bad writing/directing/editing, c) to the extent that it creates a noxious and unpleasant fan environment to participate in.

i understand where the urge comes from to defensively say "no, it's not just about my businessman yaoi, there is actually a high-minded, intellectual reason for me to spend all my time bitching." because yeah, there are people who are delighted to go fuck you anyone who cared about tom and greg, you were watching the show wrong, and that's aggravating.

deliberately misrepresenting your opinion as something with a more "rational" basis doesn't make you any better off, because it's laughably obvious when that's what you're doing, and it undermines your initial position, which was not inherently invalid in the first place. it's fine to be sad that the thing you personally wanted to happen did not happen. you can say that. you can call people dicks for being rude about it. it's fine. it's literally okay. we are all just saying shit online.

but you are just not going to be able to convince me that season 4 is overall badly written, or that it suffers from unique mechanical issues that were not already present throughout the show. it's not going to happen! d*sha redscare was literally in s3! the fact is that in a season where logan dies in episode 3, and if anybody tries to say that was a bad writing decision you know they're pulling it out of their ass, it simply Is Not Possible for tom and greg (who barely had a relationship with logan and so has fuck all to do in the wake of his death) to spend 15 minutes an episode engaging in slapstick routines. is it an awkwardly truncated storyline? maybe! but succession is littered with those, and that's because it makes the choice to prioritize its main story, which in s4 is more focused and thoughtfully written than ever.

i won't even touch on the queerbait discourse because i do not think queerbait has ever been a useful term and the idea of trying to apply that kind of analysis to succession is too idiotic to even bother engaging with. the virgin representationcel vs the chad [i will not talk about my politics on tumblr but i am a trans fag of color deeply disillusioned with most of the discourse on 'representation']. representation win! the chair of fictional fox news cheated on his wife with her cousin #gayrights. Be serious.

#mingbox #long post

[crystalclear97]

hi hi hi!!

Name your favourite artists who inspire you! Your arts are so cute

Other ship aside Armin/Annie?

Do you plan to draw more Aruani?

oh hiiii !!! 😊

1.

This is very difficult aaaaaa :_) obviously all the aruani related artists that I follow inspire me a lot, maybe we have very different art styles but I love seeing their art and they encourage me to embrace and enjoy the fandom as I am still a bit self-conscious about that "nerdy" part of myself.

I am kinda shy to mention specific people but let's see...... @nobluesea, @annawayne, @lidatan, @brbarou, @phyroblue, @ghostieking, @pepperjackets, @catfein ... aaand I have to mention @kalruani who I think is my fav aruani artist but I don't think they're on tumblr...... 👉👈 I don't wanna make anybody feel bad if I forget them, so if I follow you, consider yourself part of the list PLEASE :_)

some other non tumblr related people:

Ana Galvañ • Sara Soler • Gabriel Picolo • Bryan Lee O'Malley • alessandro barbucci • Núria Tamarit • Miguel Gallardo (RIP) • Maria Herreros • Laura Brouwers • Gretel Lusky • KAZLAND • Cristina Daura • So Lazo • Dakota Cates • Ingrid Arbiol • Paw Salcés • Xulia Vicente • Beatriz Fletes • LUCIA CUÑAT ORTEL • Paco Roca • Fran Riolobos • Ian • Sha'an d'Anthes • Lucy Zhang • David Ramírez • Julia Kaye • Alex Norris • AND some friends that are also great artists: [RAMUNE] - Alba Flores - Natalia Lucas - Joaquín Guirao

I'm forgetting people for sure aaaaaaaaa I tried my best.........

The alternative / punk / fanzine / local scene inspires me a lot, shows like Adventure Time, videogames like NITW or Omori with great art, and MUSIC!

2.

at this moment tbh I am super aruani focused... but I've shipped a lot through my life haha when I was a child I was obsessed with TK + Kari (digimon) and I usually shipped my fav character from anything, which usually was the misfit / weird / nerd one (I still do btw) 😅 Some ships that I also like at this moment could be zutara, bubbline, tomgreg from succession (in a fun way tbh), OBVIOUSLY tayley from paramore but they are real people so..... HAHA idk if you ask me what do I think of some specific ship I'll tell you my take!

3.

YES!! 🥰

thank you for asking!

#personal #ask #ship #aruani #art #inspiration

[gregoftom]

Man watching some reactions to succ on youtube and this one guy ended up shipping tomgreg so hard, yet people in the comments had to be like “you know they’re not actually into each other right?”. Like I’m aware some people somehow view this show through a boring, non homoerotic lense but the way they feel the need to gatekeep and overcorrect people just having fun and giving their honest opinions is giving homophobia. Conversely I’ve also seen people that do end up shipping them, but feel the need to state “no I don’t actually think these characters are gay and in love”. Well I do damn!! At the end of canon there’s negative evidence to the contrary to say otherwise, a whole lot of the opposite in fact. It’s like the normcore crowd can’t understand what nuance and fun is

yeah sadly like, that’s the thing, ppl will say ah it’s just fun but at the end of the day it’s nothing serious, it’s not real, it doesn’t matter, you’re reading too much into it, it’s just friendship or a comedic duo, like i hate to break it to mfs but it is absolutely not any of those things. just because it’s two men and they’re both nd it does not cancel out the fact that they could have real feelings for each other, sorry to say. lot of roots in shame and homophobia and ableism, which is sad but we can’t change peoples minds, only enjoy it our own way and analyse what we see.

like… i heard about someone who was on a podcast saying tg was Only a relationship of convenience and i was like l… lol ok [john cena voice] are you sure about that

like. lmao. to say they are simply shrewd businessmen who only use each other to corporate climb is just factually incorrect. to say they don’t care for one another is also incorrect. to say that tom was not obsessed with greg and did not have feelings for him is incorrect. to say the two of them were into each other romantically is not only possible, but plausible. hell, they got literally the best ending out of every mf in the whole of succession for fucks sake lol. they were chosen to be the only ray of light and hope in the bleakness, that doesn’t sound like “they couldn’t possibly be actually in love!!!” to me.

#tomgreg #big hugs tho buddy i too wanna eat tables when i hear this stupid shit

[tomwambsmilk]

Not to get all conspiracy theory, but that reddit screenshot you reblogged got me thinking... It is really weird that a show as big as Succession had its final season announced so late and with almost no promotion. Alan Ruck said everyone knew it was the last season in June, but Sarah said she didn't know until January. HBO has been pretty chaotic recently, a lot of shows were axed, I don't think it's that crazy to suggest internal conflict might have something to do with it. Especially if future plans could alienate a large chunk of the viewership, like that post mentioned the idea of killing Kendall off, or I bet businessbros would be turned off if Tom and Greg actually kissed, people would probably be mad about it being 'bad representation' too. Maybe I'm just in denial, idk :(

lots to unpack here lmao.......

First of all. I have to say that I DO agree that there is something weird about how season 4 has rolled out and been promoted, and there's absolutely something weird about Alan Ruck saying everyone knew in June, and then Sarah Snook doubling down a couple of days later to say she found out at the table read. Best case scenario, I think HBO let Jesse Armstrong make the call, and he made the call very, very late, and then HBO had to try and do damage control because the late announcement botched some of the promo, and not everyone internally ended up finding out about it at the same time.

Worst case scenario? ...... I don't know. I really don't want to turn into a conspiracy theorist. But. I've seen discourse about hbo max. I've seen people talk about the writers strike. And I know that studio-creator conflict is pretty common in the industry. so do I think it's possible that there was internal conflict involved? Yes, absolutely. Do I think it's likely?..... I'm genuinely unsure. I don't know. I wouldn't place bets in either direction tbh.

And..... yeah, if internal conflict was at play, I would say it's pretty likely that there was some discussion of future plotlines and story beats. If hbo is scrambling for money, they might be more invested than usual in pumping out things that are commercially successful to increase their subscriber numbers. (It would also bias them in favour of creating new shows instead of renewing old ones). What does that mean for succession? Again, I'm not sure. I don't have HBO's market research, and I don't actually know what the widest cross-section of its viewership is interested in. I think killing Kendall off would definitely alienate a massive chunk of it.

And tomgreg going canon? .......Honestly, I'm not sure I want to comment too much for fear of accidentally starting the johnlock conspiracy II: succession edition. I don't think HBO is the Big Evil Homophobic Studio punching down on Little Gay Rights Creator Jesse Armstrong. I also think that if season 5 pitches were being discussed, a disagreement on just one plotline wouldn't be enough to get Jesse to call it quits. But I'm also aware of the Discourse around "woke HBO" in the wake of ofmd and tlou, and of the businessbro portion of the viewership (which is sizeable) vs the marketing to the tg fans. I don't know if I'd go as far as "HBO axed succession bc tomgreg canon", but yeah I could definitely see there being Discussion about tomgreg.

(That being said. I did write that post about the editing/soundtrack de-homoeroticifying (?) tomgreg scenes and it would be really REALLY funny to me if that turned out to be HBO interference lmao)

#asks #anon

[alexjcrowley]

Look, it's not to defend Succession at all costs or anything, but I honestly think Tomgreg isn't queerbaiting.

From my perspective (and this is just my opinion), while technically fitting the bill, Tomgreg misses the point of queerbaiting entirely.

Okay, so, by definition, queerbaiting is "a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not depict, same-sex romance or other LGBQTIA+ representation." And while the purpose of queerbaiting is to attract, so to bait, LGBQTIA+ or allies of the community to watch/read/generally enjoy a piece of media, the reason why the LGBQTIA+ representation is then never actually present is not to make the homophobic share of the public uncomfortable.

Like I watched BBC Sherlock with my dad, and I used to riot for Johnlock, but my dad couldn't see it. He laughed at "I'm not gay" jokes by Watson, but he never thought John and Sherlock were acting like a couple, alright?

I think Tomgreg misses the point of queerbaiting because it succeeds not only into making uncomfortable the homophobic share of the public, but also the allies and the LGBQTIA+ community. Tomgreg moments are so painful to watch, whether you're straight or not. The cringe coming from Tom Wambsgans is unmatched. I honestly don't know what Jesse Armstrong is gaining from this: it's not for the straights, it's not for the allies, it's for the gays etc., it's there to make you understand the meaning of "I wanna study Cousin Greg under a microscope".

Who is Tomgreg benefitting, other than Nicholas Braun receiving forehead kisses from Matthew MacFadyen?

Yes, it's A bait, but for whom? Whom is it baiting? Who is attracted by that? And I mean by a reason other than a morbid and self destructive curiosity of seeing something real fucked up like a car accident.

That's what Tomgreg is, the most gruesome car accident ever showed on TV and none of us has yet been able to look away.

So I think, I think while technically being queerbaiting, it just misses the point entirely of what queerbaiting is: secretly attracting the LGBQTIA+, while keeping the homophobic straight viewers. Succession scares the homophones away, but also succeeds in its pursuit to make everyone else who keeps watching extremely uncomfortable.

I do NOT want Tom and Greg to be together, I could actually use them to be less gay.

And before you tell me this is just me, there are I don't know how many posts, tweets or TikToks that explain how they specifically want Tomgreg to be canon not in a kisses and I love you way but in a "fuck me fuck you" not always necessarily physical, but always metaphorical way.

A fair share of Tomgreg fans are calling for war and whore behaviours on both sides, not love, not healthy committed relationship, just anger and resentment and betrayal and whatever drug Jesse Armstrong put in there.

This isn't even a TedTalk, so I don't know if I should thank you.

#succession #tomgreg #queerbaiting #queerbait #tom wambsgans #cousin greg #greg hirsch

[girlfictions]

hari need to know your thoughts on the succession finale once you finish it 🙏

i’ve genuinely been in a state of shock since i finished the ep so i’m probably going to ramble terribly bc my brain will explode otherwise.... thoughts under the cut!!! and massive spoiler warning obviously 💪

OKAAYYY in no particular order:

greg getting whacked was beautiful i wish he'd been stomped into a pulp honestly sorry for not being able to separate the art from the artist but nicholas braun is a weasel and i hope he gets hit by a car

that being said tom and greg's interactions this ep were top tier i'm not a tomgreg enthusiast like That but i think every scene of theirs was hilarious as it was twisted

tom this whole episode... phenomenal. matthew is just a cut above in terms of acting he embodied tom's hunger and desperation and patheticisms so perfectly i really felt more and more unsettled by him every appearance

i do wish we had more stewy screentime but i also wish that for every single episode arian moayed is so freaking talented and charismatic and amazing and he ate up every second he was on screen

speaking of stewy. "you kiss guys on molly" <- BITCH.....? i actually don't know if i've mentioned this on tumblr but i'm a kenstewinator for life and frankly this was confirmation that they explored each other's bodies at college idgaf what anyone has to say about it

ohhhh my god the fucking "meal fit for a king" scene. i can't even find the words for it. seeing them all so happy and having so much fun with each other in that moment was just so heartbreaking bc i KNEW it wasn't going to last 😭 like my mum and i literally checked how much time was left in the episode after that scene and looked at each other like Wellll something terrible is going to happen isn't it.

kendall My beautiful baby boy kendall IM SORRY I WASNT YOUR MOTHERRRRRRRR . i could honestly write an essay about kendall in this episode alone i have never seen such a tragic crumbling of the self maybe ever. him sitting at logan's desk thinking he's finally won... his reaction to shiv betraying their deal... him attacking roman like i was seriously breathless my god that entire sequence was fucking crazy

and to be quite honest if i was kendall in that situation well i would have killed myself in that damn board room and changed the trajectory of all those old hags lives forever . like "i'm a cog built for one machine" And now he has nothing no father no siblings no wife no kids no company my fucking goddddddd 🤦‍♀️

i started chanting "please please please dont kill yourself" out loud in the final scene and i'm dead serious the kendall water motif HAUNTS ME and i was so freaking scared . but that final frame is honestly equally awful like kendall alone with colin in the background him basically becoming logan with none of the power this is seriously the worst possible ending for him.....

shiv doomed to repeat the pattern of being under a man's thumb is genuinely so deeply demented jesse armstrong sleep with one eye open. and i hate it so much because it makes so much SENSE like yeah she's lady macbeth she's caroline she's the wife she's the mother and she will never be anything else okay OKAYY.

like that scene w her and tom in the car where he waits for her to hold his hand was so fucking spine chilling also the ambiguity of us not knowing whether tom knows that shiv was the deciding vote in his favour is crazy <- i do think it makes sense that he would know but just shiv having that as a bargaining chip so they can sting each other over and over again like its all about the cycles i fear

roman being so resigned to it all by the end was sick like ok that comment about kendall's kids was evil but i still felt for him howeverr i do think out of the trio he will be objectively the most okay in the future... like he's free from it all in a way shiv obviously isn't and kendall literally can't be

honestly i'm struggling to articulate anything more i'm still so overwhelmed by how it came to a close.. never have i watched a show that left me so heartbroken and hollow but also absolutely satisfied narratively like succession is going down in the history books FR 😭

also they're def going to sweep the emmys and it will be so deserved i seriously think they need to invent a new rule to allow for a tie because i cannot imagine how they're going to decide between kieran and jeremy for best lead... <- i do lean a little towards jeremy bc i'm a biased kendall girl but kieran's performance esp in the first half of this season was just jawdropping so who knows

this got really long i'm so sorry but i feel like a crazed woman what a fucking show what a fucking ending i will never be the same after this SUCCESSION YOU WILL ALWAYS BE SO FAMOUS !!!!!!!!!!!!

#succession #succession spoilers

[sproutingpotato]

I have waited a whole 24 hours to finally put these thoughts into words, to see if I still retain them, but after last night episode, I can say for sure that the writing is rock solid, and I adore what they are doing with Tomshiv relationship, but not necessarily their way of handling Greg character.

First of all, I think in a sense, Tom Wambsgans is kind of like Gatsby. He’s a social climber and he has his Daisy. However, in Succ scenario, he is not dirt poor and his “Daisy” happens to have the characteristic of Tom Buchanan.

The endgame of the character named Tom in Succession would be realizing that he could not have both his new found wealth and his Daisy. And as we have seen in last night episode, both him and Shiv showed their cards. Tom came from a wide-eyed man proclaiming to his newly-wedded-ultra-riche-bride that maybe they should abandon all and run off together, to a calm calculated man sitting on his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s bed reminding himself and her of those stupid romantic notions, then laughed them off together. That’s character development. That’s excellent character development. 

Not to mention that I love Shiv in this era because we now completely witness her in the darkest and toughest moment. Jesus, that woman schedules her grief. And when Tom told her that she would fire him eventually so his only safe bet now is Matsson, Shiv does not reassure Tom that she will never do that, instead, she leaves all her options open and plays cards with him still. They pledge allegiance after that and I am fuckin’ thrilled. Because now I finally have my closure for their relationship. Enough horse shit. They both understand that come another cruise ship scandal, they would not hesitate in baiting the other to take the fall, so why bother to fake it? 

No matter what happens to Tomshiv after this episode, I don’t care anymore because their character development and relationship have been done so right. Thus I am content.

To the people who’s saying that a win for Tomshiv is a loss for Tomgreg. Like, c’mon, Tom taunted Greg to kiss him on the day he planned on propose to Shiv. It’s not like Mr. Wambsgans has ever let his heterosexuality stops him from the LGBT+ coded stuff he keeps throwing at Greg.

That is to say, Greg’s character development this season has been off so far, and I don’t like where it’s heading.

I kind of get it that... Greg is destined to be... Tom? Infused with a little of Ken-ness? The way he pressured the poor sound technician in this episode got me choke because gosh if that’s not a splitting image of Tom in S1. And I understand that Greg cannot become a Tom if the real Tom is still there, still being a Tom. So that’s explanation for the lack of screentime on those two together. 

Tom admitted that he loves his wealth. Greg was sleeping on the church pews in the pilot episode, but now he’s become a social climber and for sure come to be dazed and dazzled by all the money surrounding him. It would make sense that he is to be the next Tom. Maybe that’s why Greg’s been super into dating game these past episodes, because Tom got into the family by marrying Shiv. The poor egg just trying to emulate his master.

Nonetheless, I have to admit that the endgame of Greg is still a bit dubious. Because he always there and has all the bits of information no other characters in the show are supposed to know. In S1, the cruise ship docs? Just between Tom and him. Shiv having an affair? Again, between Tom and him. Through S1 and S2, the death of the service boy? No one knows Ken went with him save for Greg. Ewan trying to sue Waystar to the ground? Again, no one in the family knows except for Greg. The bit where Logan decided to sell Waystar to Matsson? All assistants make calls to Greg. The Kill List in S4E5? How on earth did he know that? What is the point of all of that? When I rewatch the show again, I just can’t... like, the conclusion seems holed. Ewan can also be a wild card in Greg’s endgame. And I don’t like it. Because there is not enough evidence for me to dissect Greg character’s logic. I have absolutely no idea what he’s gonna do, where he’s gonna end up. All I know is that we have a near omnipresent character in the series without him actually do jackshit and it pisses me off. 

#Succession HBO #character studies #tomshiv #tomgreg #and goddamn it it's like reading a mystery novel when they finally out the murderer but all the plot just doesn't line up #my job is to grade mystery novel and decide which one's rights should be bought and published so I can smell bs from several miles away #and I think that the writer's room is gonna pay dirt to Greg character thus making himinto the longest lankiest loose thread of all time #but please keep doing what you are doing with tomshiv and making Greg into more like Tom I adore that stuff don't stop

[apoptoses]

DA here and I just wanna say A FEW THINGS 💭

First of all I hope you're feeling better now! Read about you having a horrid week and my hear broke for you. Sending nothing but hugs, horses, kind words and the sweetest summer breeze your way🫂

Onto smuttier thoughts, I read the final chapter of Come Get Your Knife and I'm IN AWE of you as usual. Perfect ending to a perfect story. The pool scene was incredible and it reminded me of those pictures of people taking their very old dogs with arthritis for a swim and just holding them in the water while they have the most peaceful, trusting, loving expressions in their faces. That was Armand with his boy right there 🥹

Armand finally doing for Daniel what Marius couldn't do for him was nothing short of a healing experience. Also some of the best smut out there 🥵 The mirror, Armand coating his fingers with his blood and and putting them in Daniel's mouth 🥵🥵🥵, "faking" a real human orgasm and smearing Daniel's come on his own cock jfc. She NEVER misses.

My favorite bit: “Did you know there’s a rare songbird, and when people eat it they cover their faces with a cloth so as to hide the shame of their pleasure from God?” Armand murmured into Daniel’s back, voice just loud enough to be heard over the little wet gasps he dragged from Daniel every time he rolled his hips. “I should cover your face, Daniel. I should hide you from God so that he doesn’t see the pleasure you take in being fucked by a dead man.” INSANITY!!!! Also was this a Succession/Tomgreg reference (yk that scene at the restaurant) or am I just That person now? 😭 perfection either way.

Finally, I read your last ask abt that anon seeing Armand/Daniel hate all over town and lmao SO IT WASN'T JUST ME. I mean I'm not doing myself any favors here because I do check their tags constantly. I'm sadly like a rabid hound when it comes to them, sniffing around in search of good food and yeah most of the time the takes are rancid but other times I find one ☝️ good take and some amazing fanart and I tell myself it's all worth it dsfhsjfk. The way some ppl treat their extremely personal headcanons and projections as undeniable canon facts is nuts. Ship and let ship is my motto but damn some of the things I've seen... and I wouldn't blame the show per se, but the massive influx of fans that a mainstream tv show gave to an already existing fandom has been a contributing factor to what we're seeing imo, where very few people actually bother to read the source material (which is okay really, no one actually has to read the books and the show is almost nothing like the books anyway) and then start treating out of context quotes and scenes or headcanons or summaries of events they heard from a friend of a friend of a friend or plain incorrect takes as canon. it's like a bad (horrifyingly bad) game of telephone around here 🥴 wtvr tho it's literally fiction, and not that much of a big deal (someone tell them that tho lmaoo).

xoxo ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 

Dungeon anon, I wondered where you were ♥ Thank you for the kind words, things (seem to be) getting better.

lmao armand as an arthritic dog floating in the pool. It's accurate though, his old body needed a rest and I needed them to do something cute before the filth began. I feel like he would enjoy swimming, not for any particular reason. It's just a chill activity for him that he can do like any mortal.

listen i just needed them to fuck while daniel was still mortal and i was hellbent on making armand find a way to 'come' in daniel 😂 and tbh it's nastier for him to put daniel's own mess back inside him, daniel probably liked that better than he would anything armand's body could produce were he able to do the deed. it reminds him this is an artificial experience, it's not natural at all (and thus hotter)

and hell YEAH that is a wambsgans reference lmao i knew about orotolans long before succession but tom reminded me of them, and i just really wanted to write armand threatening to cover daniel's face from god (also it feels like something marius may have said to amadeo, and that armand would put his own twist on and later repeat), i couldn't pass up the opportunity.

see i have no courage to check the tags, i only trust what people i know reblog or the content of people who follow me 😂 i don't even wanna know what's out there.

but yeah, people do some WEIRD projecting, there's some weird head canons people insist are book canon fact (like guys daniel never did hard drugs on page in the books, not even once, the blood was his drug of choice lol but some people will go TO THE MAT and fight you about this like book!daniel was baby leo in basketball diaries, prostituting and railing heroin)

and the taking quotes out of context thing is way out of control. it's so easy for someone to screenshot some text on their ibooks app and then write whatever meta they want and then people who haven't read that book take it as gospel and just...it's very frustrating lol even the stuff from the vampire companion gets treated as gospel as that's a book written by FAN, it is FAN META with a few quotes from anne sprinkled in. ramsland calls armand a black hole who doesn't love anything and people take that as fact and just...no lol anne didn't write those words, those are ramsland's interpretation of the first five VC books circa 1991!

i'm lucky that everyone who likes the show who happens to follow me and read my fic has been outrageously nice, so i have no clue what happens in the more tumultuous waters of amc fandom lol but i really hope people give the books themselves a chance, even if only to read their blorbo's chapters because they're good and it's worth knowing the context in which things happened in them!

ANYWAYS DA, the fic you inspired me to write with armand learning dirty talk will be posted tomorrow, i hope you're hyped ♥

xoxo

#apoptoses answers #dungeon anon

[mossiestpiglet]

How are you doing post succession- s4e10?

I am thriving and having the time of my life, like genuinely this is giving me a reprieve from my currently very poor mental health episode. I’m not used to getting into things when they’re still going on, I usually get into it months or years after the fact, so it’s been an incredible ride to spend these last few weeks watching it in real time. Since I’m so used to getting into stuff well after it’s over I was also never upset it would be ending and was instead looking forward to the finale because I was really excited to see what they would do with it and what it would be like to experience one in real time and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT. I was screaming and yelling and squealing and everyone in my house just had to cope. It delivered on almost everything i could have wanted and on just a narrative level (beyond my personal interests) I think it really did what it needed to do for the show by leaving some things undone, unsaid, or even opening up questions in places that seemed resolved earlier. It’s a show where you have to practice sitting in discomfort to the very end and I fucking love that. In terms of my personal favorite aspects of the show I was served treat after treat- tomgreg content for days, roman being the saddest wettest puppy imaginable about gerri, the fucking forehead scene oh my GOD!!?!????, old guard moments, Colin moments, happy kerry, horrible people causing each other pain (emotional and physical), like it just goes on and on. Truly amazing, absolutely delivered, my brain will be living here for the foreseeable future

#my beloved mutual letting me shout <3333333 #succession #succession s4e10 #I can’t stress enough that Tom puts a fucking sticker on Greg’s forehead and it’s so deeply meaningful and homoerotic #I’m never going to recover

[sideeffx]

time for some controversy all fandom specific questions are related to succession 1, 4, 6, 13

the character everyone gets wrong

I could say Shiv but I'm simply going to throw a curveball and say that it's Kendall. People bitch and moan about the whole babygirlification of Tom yet seem to allow it to happen to Kendall on the basis that his emotional vulnerability makes him girly teengirl coded bc they too, have fallen into the stereotype of masculinity fed to us by television. In reality Kendall is every single straight man who has a mid life crisis and proceeds to cope with it by being an inescapable fuckup. He wants to believe that he's just as smart, shrewd and business savvy as his father and yet every single time it blows up in his face because he lacks the ability to introspect and admit he too, like anybody else has weaknesses. He uses this facade of emotional vulnerability to justify his consistent neglect of his wife and child and drug use and ultimately refuses to change despite the clear problems it creates.

Feminizing him completely misses the point of his character and if you'll allow me to sound psychotic here wraps back around to misogyny. Because what are you pushing if not the idea that women are emotional and men are purely logical, thus a man crying or telling you he's sad makes him into a woman. Let's think.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

Every single person that keeps trying to find hidden meaning in random shots of this show gets hardblocked because this isn't the fucking type of show for that shit and I can tell you all got your media analysis ability from the exact same 5 tumblr blogs that were running around fandoms and have never expanded beyond that. There is more ways to tell a story than subliminal meaning and while the show has some of that it's not the entire foundation of the script.

Also this looking for hidden meanings is always a weird way to absolve the roy children of blame because of course I can't have a favorite character that does anything wrong or else that makes me a bad person.

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

tomgregs tbh even though I like it myself but I also like it while simultaneously thinking Greg fucking sucks and is annoying so I'm a bit off the beaten path here.

13. worst blorboficiation

See: My thoughts on Kendall in #1. I really do have such a bone to pick with his stans. I guess my other opinion would be Greg but it's not blorbofication so much as the illusion of an everyman to root for despite the show making it clear Greg is far more incompetent than every single one of the roy children and even Tom and is only here as a glorified nepotism hire. His idiocy at times is more dangerous than anything Roman could do and his attempts to "outsmart" others are exactly the type of thing your average 16 yr old high schooler who uses reddit would post when a thread comes up about how YOU would fare in the world of Succession.

[gregoftom]

i don't really know how to explain myself properly but i feel like some people are really concerned about Getting A Good Grade In Succession to the point where they've adopted a very cynical view of tg's relationship because being too earnest about them is ~not the point of the show~ or w/e. which is funny because every other relationship in the show is allowed to be nuanced but not theirs i guess? so you have people going "oh their relationship was only ever about them using each other from the start" when that's demonstrably not true and like. i have really mixed feelings about this season so far and i feel like anything could happen with them by virtue of weird writing choices and i hope with all my heart this doesn't end up being the case but even if the finale tries to diminish the depth of their relationship i don't understand the point of Us acting like there was never anything deeper there? but anyway, all this too say that i agree w/ you that the way people are very cynical and dismissive abt tg specifically has rubbed me the wrong way and thank u for your service ❤️

hiii sweet anon!

A GOOD GRADE IN SUCCESSION ASHAKJSA god honestly, i hear you.

i'm getting real tired of this "point of the show" shit bc it's like. just because tg isn't "the point", isn't a main focal plot [which it is, or at least is part of it], isn't integral to character development [which it is too; without tom greg would not be where he is now which is at a point where he actually could be seriously considered as a fucking CEO, without greg tom wouldn't have learned any self respect or self worth/we would never have been able to see him express himself beyond servitude towards shiv], it doesn't mean it can't be explored and considered as a serious part of the show?

media is created for us to enjoy. yes it's there to interpret and discuss but it doesn't always have to be that way? literally you can watch the show just for tomgreg and that is A OKAY. why? because you don't have to justify why you like something! surprise! and yeah i've noticed that too - other relationships get to be seen as nuanced, but not tg i guess. idk why, seeing as its dynamic is something to be studied under a microscope and fun to not only shippers but normies too lmao. clearly there is something more interesting to it than just, oh it's mutual corporate climbing.

exactly! there's even more contexts provided by the scripts, THE SACRED TEXTS lol that provide us with more knowledge and insight into the feelings of these characters, that show us that their relationship goes beyond using each other. there is an element of that of course, but that's not all they are. why reduce them to that when so very clearly on paper we are affirmed of what we thought we could read textually on the screen? it just baffles me.

i'm hoping too anon, like A Lot. from the looks of the trailer i have a. i have a little bit of hope. even if say, tom has to choose between greg and shiv, if he chooses shiv and has visible trouble with it, like it takes him time, it plagues him, it takes effort, it feels like a real decision affecting his life, like. that counts for something you know? that would, to me, not diminish his relationship with greg. obviously it would be heartbreaking after how loyal greg has been to tom, but the very fact that it would be difficult to tom would mean that greg is important to him in some fashion, and the show would be at least acknowledging it by doing that. like, it's that easy. i ain't asking for much. i know what i'd like, but what i would be satisfied/settle with, well i think the bar is reasonable, you know?

i'm glad you understand me! i mean, who knows maybe some of it is people trying to go on the defensive like, "it's the hope that kills you" so they are trying not to have any by lessening it, saying oh there was nothing there, there was no romance, nothing positive, it was all for mutual professional gain and that's it. but like, personally that doesn't work for me. i think you should at least acknowledge its importance otherwise we're regressing right back to the oh it's a mlm ship? never mind then. i'm not about that, i guess.

thanks for the message buddy god speed <3

#tomgreg #who up frankin their stein to tg