#the cyclical tragedy of finding each other and having to lose each other again and again like destiny

[ifiwasurgf]

SUCCESSION ENDING : MAJOR SPOILERS

below, i write about change, and succession as a war story 🎯

say what you want about succession's relationship with the theme of change, but that is something that each sibling does undergo, simply because they're human, and nothing else. it is fundamental to life itself. coming from the small and particular world of the 0.001%, this is ultimately a show about humanity. naturally, they can’t escape their limitations as human beings, due either to the cyclical nature of abuse, their lack of self control and emotional regulation, or to the fact that even the most evolved of human beings have their limitations and end up repeating mistakes too. it's why we all love stories about (albeit) interesting inevitabilities. that's what succession is. that's what war is. compromise is change, and their lives are changed forever after that board meeting. they are forced into compromising, their lives forced into a state of surrender. they've been in survival mode, in action, for so long, that just the act of surrender is already a stark change. they all act accordingly.

shiv’s vote comes from a place of narcissism on her part. it triggers a cascade of following narcissistic and violent reactions from the two brothers which leads to the reveal that no one in that room is evolved and balanced enough - now in the viewer’s eyes (all hail the beautiful manipulation of television) - to run that haunted house of a company. a company destined to be taken over by tech because that is its own forced compromise in the world. all of it comes down to change. shiv’s vote is her sitting at that table and finding it impossible to bear the reality that it is not her at the top. she is the only one out of the three possessing the same vindictive maliciousness as logan, and we see that monster peer its head in that moment. she does it at first out of spite, as other characters in succession would normally do, but it’s only after kendall goes nut-nut (his famous words) that we start to see how originally tactless provocation is possibly for the best. she doesn’t “free” anyone. she’s just a person picking choices from a hat: a very limited, flawed hat with few options. she backs herself into a corner; she is now the wife of the ceo of waystar. she’s already transformed! at the start of the show, she’s an unmarried career woman with a submissive boyfriend. she is unrecognizable to us now, because she’s lost herself in this whole process. it was something she never even expected, which is why her life seemed to make some sense at the start of the show. i do find her story to be the most tragic of the three because of how unexpected and impulsive it all is. but motherhood will change her. there will be a lot of bad and, symbolically speaking, it’s a tragedy, but she will make some form of peace in that reality. all of her conflict stemmed from the false promise of ceo, it stemmed from her father. now that it’s gone, and he's gone, she doesn’t have anything to rub against anymore. she can only face her husband, her child, and her career. she won't admit the loss (that's the sad part) but she knows it deep within. and she will pick it up, and move along.

roman’s ending is the most hopeful. yes, he’s a self-hating, self-destructive time bomb in many ways, but he’s also the jester, known for his charisma, and capable of even sweetness. he's a sour candy; a boy, not a man. unfit to work and face reality. he’s been forced to change himself according to what people needed him to be his whole life. it explains the constant failure, because he isn’t a chameleon. constantly failing to properly listen to one's own intuition and desires is going to lead to an extremely messy life, which we see through his endless provocation and crossing of boundaries (social, political, sexual, etc.) that being said, this - losing the company - is once again, another compromise in his life and, by the grace of god, it isn’t a failure on his part this time around. everyone latches onto his words about everything being bullshit, and in that exact moment, he is absolutely right. but, ever notice how roman’s observations are almost always strictly tied to time, place, and situation? they are so rarely telling of the world at large. they aren’t meant to. they're meant to reveal the facade of that particular moment; what the audience has been thinking for those 5 minutes until roman opens his mouth, and then we can all sigh in relief. he's put our anxieties into words. his brazenness to do so does not make him a prophet. his words are to the audience more-so than the opposing character, because naturally, they won’t listen to him. it’s succession’s version of an aside in theatre (to me). if you put yourself inside his slimy head for a moment, in the end, roman is relieved. he drinks gerri’s martini, and he lets that bring him some comfort as he comes to notice how he isn’t the only sibling capable of catastrophic, world-ending failure. he laughs to himself, in a sense, “well, at least it wasn’t me.” that is not freedom. in fact, it’s quite petty. the remedy for a bruised ego. i also think that explains the ambiguous and slightly threatening nature of his smirk. it isn’t the manic smirk kendall has when he feels himself emulating his father, but the smirk of a man (not a boy) who wasn't the sacrificial lamb today, he was not the beaten puppy here. roman is no longer bearing the weight of everyone’s shame, and he finds genuine comfort in everyone being equally "bullshit", so as not to feel so alone. he has his own shame, more than enough of it. his problems will remain unresolved until that shame is dealt with - that is his life's burden - but in this moment, he languishes in the relief of not bearing expectation any longer. it could be argued that he ends up where he started. except, that isn't possible. what happened, happened. he drinks martinis now, he has grown. it may not look that way, which is why the smirk feels like an inside joke between him and the drink. he never even wanted the company, in part because he was never allowed to want anything, but it's all about the small freedoms, the inching forward, and accepting the grief. that's what rome's arc has been this season: a spiral and a landing, landing bruised but not dead. i can drink to that.

now, kendall, the modern day michael corleone, an apt parallel. the abuser and the abused. the sheer desperation he exudes is nothing short of terrifying. before that desperation is triggered by shiv's vote, he is seen - now burned forever into my brain as one of the most disturbing scenes in the whole show - cradling roman, squeezing him, letting him bleed, making him bleed. allowing for that dynamic to exist (the stronger dog, the weaker dog) makes way for that poison he so dreads. he is a walking nightmare in so many ways. he is what he fears, he fears what he is, he wants what he fears, he fears what he wants. all of it. he is definitely the most professionally competent, which is deeply ironic, because he is the most dissolved and watered-down of them all. while roman is someone who doesn't believe in truth and yet is capable of telling it like it is and being true in moments he doesn't even realize could be seen as honest and raw, kendall is the opposite. he believes that things are true, yet all of his beliefs are false. they are doctored, surgically altered, selective. that's why they're referred to as narratives. for an author of his own reality, his own in-shop puppetmaster, kendall loses track of his story more often than not, as he claims to not have killed the waiter (a chilling moment), showing how his deeply fractured state and the grip on his immovable desire for power come head to head. he cannot be the ceo, because that would make his narrative real, and it never was. it was always the promised kingdom, passed down to him at age 7, like a fairytale. another falsehood. so, he sits in the frame that he meticulously constructed. everything he can control points to a metamorphosis into his father: the park, the bodyguard, the attitude, the business. but alas, the world tells a different story. the ocean ebbs and flows before him, ever-changing. he has to now grapple with that truth, now that he has no control over this fairytale-turned-nightmare that has dissolved before his very eyes. the world is saying "no, find something else. keep going. you are not dead." new horizons, kenny. of course, he doesn't see it that way. i don't know if he falls into a depressive abyss, or becomes a more present father (god forbid), but there is definitely a shift. a forced change: compromise.

succession is ultimately a war story. they have been at war for 4 years, although sometimes it’s felt like their whole lives. now, they're out the other end. they're losers, who've betrayed and scarred each other time and time again, but their opponent is also dead. the occasional ceasefire has made enough room for innocence, play, and some fresh air, but it was always peripheral to the business. now, there is no more fighting. make do of what’s left of the ruins. pick it up, trudge forward. with shiv in purgatory, she is doomed to start over from the old, used-up parts she so despises. she's stuck, and must therefore bend. with roman in a heaven of blissful irony, his compromise is of no longer being a dog but a person with nothing but failure under his belt, as well as a healthy dose of charm, and to make that leap of accepting his humanity. with kendall in a hell of facing truths and false promises, he is forced to deal with plan b, as well as perhaps his real self - things that have never existed. each of these realities point to change. within the core of each person, of course they are all deeply wounded and will remain so; the wounds remain, we all know that. but life changes, its circumstances shifting like the waves of that very ocean kendall watches in despair. they are now forced to face a loss: the loss of their father, and of their war. out of that loss? the terrifying freedom of wanting something of their own.

#succession #spoiler #hbo #shiv roy #roman roy #kendall roy #mine #logan roy #waystar #succession spoilers #succession hbo

[omegalomania]

I think tumblr ate my ask or it just didn't sent but what are your favorite Bastille songs / what are some songs you recommend?

i did NOT get this ask im very sorry anon.

it's genuinely hard for me to narrow down cause bastille is pretty up there in terms of favorite artists. i love all their shit, but a special mention goes out to their second studio album wild world since it's the one that made me a Fan

uh so here's a primer i guess i spent too much time on this lmao.

if you wanna listen to their big hits:

flaws - their first single in the uk. if you ever listened to ship playlists on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 then you've probably heard this song or a variant on it at some point.

pompeii - this is the song that really put them on the map and you definitely know it. it dominated the charts all over the place.

happier - the marshmello song that you've definitely heard before too. i think bastille wrote this for justin bieber or some shit but then decided they liked it too much to give it to him? lmao. anyway if you're not digging the version you hear on the radio all the time i recommend trying the stripped down version

good grief - their big hit off their second album. big in the uk, didn't really make as many waves elsewhere, but it's a really solid song anyway. one of those "upbeat tunes that's actually really fucking sad" ones

things we lost in the fire - another one off their first album. if you live in a wildfire area this might not be one to turn to. or maybe you'll find it cathartic idk i certainly do!!

quarter past midnight - a song about escapism, as was fitting when it was released in 2018 and equally fitting now. running away for a night of fucking around with friends, craving any kind of brief departure from the chaos of the modern world

skulls - this one was not a hit or a single and is technically a bonus track but i'm including it because once again if you ever clicked on a ship playlist on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 you've heard this one. and you know what that was justified this one is also good

if you wanna feel existentially depressed:

their whole discography. i mean i kid but i also don't. that's just kind of how bastille does it. BUT IN ALL SERIOUSNESS ones that hit me in particular would beeee

two evils - kind of a grim, haunting one introspecting about morality of the self.

oblivion - musing about the afterlife, love, and how time changes all of us.

those nights - contemplating what it is we seek when we plunge into reckless escapism, and the inherent loneliness of it; how even when surrounded by people there's still the pressure of the world outside, continuously coming to pieces

the draw - this one was written about the pull of pursuing a career in music vs. staying home with family and friends. in a broader sense, it can apply to a lot of things. i always felt it resonated with feelings of paranoia and displacement

winter of our youth - discusses childhood, nostalgia, and regret. if it feels like everything's slipping away, is it easier to relive the past, especially if the past is tinted rose?

sleepsong - loneliness, desperation, and the cyclical, abyss-like nature of all it encapsulates

if you want discussion of serious topics:

final hour - a bonus track off their second album that also became a bonus track off their third album? anyway this song talks about climate change and gun control. happy stuff

doom days - this one talks about, uh, everything! doomscrolling, political divides, escalating national tensions, climate change again, etc.

the currents - a song centered on political rhetoric and the power that figureheads have over the masses, the way they can orchestrate hate. basically it's not so subtly aimed at donald trump lmao, dan's literally sung it as much in a few live settings

WHAT YOU GONNA DO??? - social media addiction and the way capitalism and corporate interests have annexed our online experiences, fighting desperately for our attention as they seek to monetize every available aspect of our lives

four walls (the ballad of perry smith) - well this one is about uh. perry smith. who was charged with the death penalty for killing 4 people in the late 50's. but it's less directly about him and more a discussion of the morality of the death penalty and capital punishment

snakes - burgeoning anxieties and the impulse to turn to easy outs, like ignorance or alcoholism, to escape the world's global problems

if you want some pop culture sprinkled on top:

icarus - greek mythology. i like this one because it addresses something that i feel isn't addressed enough in discussions of this myth, which is that icarus is a very young lad. less about the pride of the fall, and more about the inherent tragedy of that.

laura palmer - the whole song is a david lynch shoutout. i've never seen twin peaks myself but the song still slaps.

daniel in the den - christian mythology. discusses the biblical tale of daniel in the lion's den and links that up to themes of betrayal and family.

poet - this one's a double feature, referencing both william shakespeare's sonnet 18 and edmund spencer's sonnet 75. also one of my favorites.

send them off! - this is another one of my favorites of theirs. it's also been described by dan as "othello meets the exorcist" and it very much delivers there

if you want something uplifting:

joy - while bastille (understandably) has a bit of reputation as a band that makes sad music about sad things, they've definitely got some happier songs in their catalogue. pun intended cha ching. this one's one of their more straightforwardly happy tunes

survivin' - this was a song they wrote while they were touring and then felt weird about releasing once the panini hit because it felt a bit on the nose. they ended up releasing it anyway and i am so glad they did cause it's a mood

act of kindness - the "happy" part here is debatable but i'm gonna include it anyway. it’s when someone does something nice for you and that impulse Changes you way down deep you know???

warmth - one of those "the world's going to shit but at least we have each other" kinds of tunes

the anchor - one of those "the world's going to shit but you're the one fucking thing that's still keeping me here" kinds of tunes

give me the future - their latest single as of this writing and one of the more optimistic tracks in their catalogue imo! it's yearning, but it's also with a genuine hope for the future.

and LASTLY. because im going to take every chance i can to plug this band. im going to throw some collabs and covers at you because there's one thing this band does SUPER well and it's collabs and covers.

of the night - this is the big one. it mashes up rhythm of the night by corona and rhythm is a dancer by SNAP! and it's so good they still do this one live and it goes off every time.

no angels - a mashup of "no scrubs" by TLC and "angels" by the xx, poured into a strangely mournful tune with clips from the hitchcock movie psycho. doesn't sound like it should work but it does. kinda really does.

torn apart - with GRADES and lizzo no less!!! it's got two parts but they're both excellent listen to them both

weapon - collab with angel haze, dan priddy, and F*U*G*Z and one of my absolute favorites

remains - remix of their song "skulls" but featuring rag'n'bone man and skunk anansie that adds an entire new dimension to the song, really fucking excellent

old town road mashup - lil nas x's old town road meets lizzo's good as hell meets radiohead's talk show host meets talking heads' road to nowhere meets the osmond's crazy horse. "what the fuck that shouldn't work" i KNOW and yet here it is!! BLATANTLY BANGING!!!

we can't stop - one of the few times dan smith subtly changes the lyrics of the song he's covering (most of the time he opts to keep the original pronouns and the like, which is very nice to see). anyway this one mixes miley cyrus's we can't stop with eminem's lose yourself and billy ray cyrus's achy breaky heart. and also the lion king's i just can't wait to be king is there. yes i know it sounds batshit especially because the whole thing is surprisingly melodic and heartfelt and you know what it works.

anyone but me x nightmares - mashing up joy crookes' anyone but me with easy life's nightmares and absolutely one of my favorites.

bad guy mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "bad" in the title? we've got bad guy (billie eilish), bad decisions (bastille), bad romance (lady gaga), and bad blood (taylor swift). bastille even has a song called bad blood and they didnt use it. they used taylor swift's version. also the distinctive guitar riff from dick dale's misirlou is there.

somebody mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "some" in the title? someone like you (adele), somebody told me (the killers), somebody to love (queen), use somebody (kings of leon), and someone you loved (lewis capaldi). seriously these guys take mashups to a new level.

final song - this is a cover of MØ's final song. it also adds in craig david's 7 days and, impossibly enough, europe's final countdown. how does it work. how.

ALL RIGHT. THATS ALL IVE GOT IN ME. HOPE THIS HELPED ANON AND IM SORRY IF THIS IS TOO MUCH

#askin hours #anon #bastille #ill put this in the bastille tag why not #this is predominantly a fall out boy blog but if any bastille bloggers are out there....all like 20 of you.... #i see the work u do in this fandom and i love u for it

[sasorikigai]

Send a prompt for a short drabble about our muses. || @ephemeralkryonics​ || accepting 

💉|| Being broken is terrifying; seeing this person, this you, and knowing that their fractured lives won’t be ever complete, not whole, is terrifying. Looking at the tools they both have been giving and realizing they are incomplete and he cannot do what he needs to do is also terrifying. Looking down at his hands to find that they are shaking, he’s shaking, the world is shaking, is terrifying. Instability is the bane of joy, and a broken vase is the fear of many a foot. Perhaps they both are scared in themselves of being broken, and they are scared of brokenness, revealing too much of their naive gullibility. But there’s little Hanzo can do, as the empty, hollowed vessel of Ilaria’s machinations. At least that was what he had been believing all those years before Kuai Liang stepped his foot into his laboratory and personal quarters one day. 

He’s more used to sitting in a field of shattered attempts as he looks around. Despite carrying himself with utmost composure and impervious steeliness of his visage, he wears all of his broken edges and scarred surfaces internally and inwardly, as shards of his powerlessness dig through his epidermal and silent pearly tears dripping down as he becomes a sad doll of fate. Right now, he’s running across a field of fractured pottery, trying to reach the elusive light. There is much trials and tribulations he must endure, just as he had endured it all alone as he took up in his unfired, imperfect imbalance of his passion and dedication. He, with a deeper instinct, had chosen a man who compels his own strength, who makes enormous demands on him, who does not doubt his courage or his toughness, who does not believe him wicked and immoral, despite having done some unforgivable atrocity in the name of his own survival. 

The striving for power is a way to control others. Power is a form of control, and Ilaria is the sprawling darkness who must control everything, fear being vulnerable. Why? Because to be vulnerable opens one up to being shamed and Hanzo Hasashi only wants to be redeemed in the light of reason. Control is a way to insure that no one can ever shame both of them again. It involves controlling their own thoughts, expressions, feelings and actions. Despite how much Hanzo had severed the invisible strings, they had grown, and even multiplied right back in vicious cyclical nature. Traumatized and manipulated, it had been the intrinsic instinct for survival and sustenance that was preventing him from severing the mounting tragedy from becoming even more devastating aftershocks after the initial earthquake.  

And it involves attempting to control other people’s thoughts, feelings and actions, and as the Director of Arctic Biosystems, Dr. Hasashi worked strenuously and tiredlessly, futilely delighting himself in denying the grim reality of his status. For control became the ultimate villain in destroying intimacy. He cannot share freely unless he is equal to everyone, but such wasn’t true when he had more than five centuries’ worth of sustained life, surging and beating through his veins and heart. However, with Kuai Liang, such equality never remains ruptured, as no endeavors pass over with absolute indifference. 

Perhaps he will keep reciting mantras of his love until Kuai Liang is desensitized to all the probing afflictions and agony he had endured in the name of science and progress. The very same progress Hanzo Hasashi himself was attempting to make, through his groundbreaking research. “You are so brave and quiet I often forget you are suffering,” despite having been cocooned with his own creations as he fails to drown out thoughts in his head, he looks up to his lover. Hanzo cannot quiet detach from the idea that his value is synonymous with his output that if he cannot produce something worthy, he himself will never be worthy. Even when his inexplicable feelings become the very manifestations of his sight, hearing and tactility, he becomes afraid. That he will suddenly lose the passion to wonder and gain the fear of feeling instead. “You help me spill the proverbial colors of myself though, and it feels as if our paths had crossed before; some ways all-encompassing. They are all warmth and passion, sweetness and salt and harsh reality and gentility of all we have went through.” 

The very flames he harbor become the quintessential hope, as he both manifests himself as a fighter and a screamer. A rare smile lifts the swell of his cheeks and the aflamed light, alighting the stars in the depths of his dark amber eyes to glisten. How the fluidity of his movement and gait plays a charming melody through the expanse of the laboratory, as he holds the sun across his chest, as the once frigid glacier of Kuai Liang’s passive despair had annihilated him. “Perhaps both of us wanted to continue living with the best of our abilities, not just out of the instinct for survival, but because we wished to recount what the humanity had seen. I wanted to not only rescue myself, but your own as well.” As much as Hanzo wanted to take the delight in denying it, such case was the truth. “Each fragment of my flame was made worthy, however painful the process had been. I will go beyond the comfortability and luxury of my position to heal our scars and mend our wounded reality.” 💉|| 

#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion) #✗ life as an ongoing experiment (immortal verse) #(came out more like a starter but I did not want to ruin Kuai's portrayal) #(have at it) #ephemeralkryonics