So what can I do? I really beg you, my Lord To me, flirtin' is just like a sport

bonus (insp)

SUCCESSION 4.04 “Honeymoon States”

fun fact about me: I would die for Sandi Furness

Alright, here is my slightly-petty masterpiece! I can explain most of these choices but I think I'm gonna let it speak for itself

blog info/background

more Round 1 polls

Hey, just wanted to know your perspective on Shiv's decision. There's a huge discussion going on whether the decision was emotionally driven just to spite Kendall? Was it calculated in any sense considering her children's future or getting any power through Tom? Was she seeking Tom (the powerful man now)'s approval?

What do you think? I personally think it was multi faceted and complex and included all the things a little bit and lead her to the decision.

Would she have taken the same decision if she had no idea that it is infact Tom that Mattson's eyeing?

Hey! Oh man, it’s such a great moment and it’s one I’ve been thinking about a lot. I agree with you in the sense that it was such a multi-faceted and complex choice, and one that had many trigger points both in the sense of Shiv’s reality, her sense of power and control, and the real and mangled emotional root of her place in her own family.

Do I think it was strategic? A little, but I think she was passed the point of being able to strategise in part because she was out of time, but also in part because Shiv’s impatience means she’s just not very good at it.

I think one of Shiv’s greatest strengths is also one of her biggest flaws in that she tends not to see the wood for the trees. She’s a big picture thinker, she sees the end result she wants but not the daily machinations to get her there, which we see over and over again. She’s impatient, lives life on the backfoot so is always trying to hurry, overtake, skip steps, take shortcuts to get ahead, and when she’s asked to operate in a system where she’s forced to stop and acknowledge the reality of the moment, I think she can for once see everything for exactly what it is.

Funnily enough, I feel like the telling moment in terms of Shiv in that finale isn’t actually with Kendall or Tom at all, it’s the moment Sandi says yes in the boardroom. It’s the tiniest of beats, which Sarah plays beautifully, and it carries over from Stewy telling Shiv only moments before (after Kendall offers him Chair in their father’s office) that he thinks Shiv can still sway Sandi. We don’t see the scene, and I kind of wish we had, but the outcome is felt all the same. Shiv can’t do it, she doesn’t convince Sandi, the only woman she’s on any sort of equal footing with to vote with them, which means she has no accomplice at that table, no allies, no position, no weight, only brothers who have shown just how quickly they’ll shut her out.

I think its that failure with Sandi that ultimately untethers Shiv, because with that loss comes the loss of any way forwards for Shiv at the company. She’s no longer an heiress of her father’s making or even one of Matsson’s, she’s just a little sister, staring at her big brother, at the best friend he offers Chair to as a joke in his office when she could only play ‘behind the scenes’ so it didn’t look ‘wonky’, the person she’s spent her entire life trying to catch up to and beat, and I think she meant it, what she said to Kendall after.

She can’t stomach it.

If she can’t have it, he sure as hell can’t, and at least with Tom she has some sort of in, she has something. Not an accomplice at the table, but a trap door she could sometimes scratch her way beneath, someone who might not want a relationship with her, might not be loyal, but someone who’s bound to her, if nothing else, and someone who has no use for her brothers anymore.

Shiv would rather break the toy than let Kendall have it, even if she cut her own hands in the process, and honestly, it’s one of the reasons she’s a character of all time to me. She’s a survivor in a way none of her brothers are, but she’s also petty and selfish in the way all three of them absolutely are, and to see her really do what none of them could and cut their strings in the 11th hour was so thrilling to me. She’s kept her in, but she also knows she’s out, but at least Kendall and Roman are too. At least the three of them are locked out of the house together, even if, for a moment, they’re apart.

Mencken with his arm around Gerri, the two of them stood next to Sandi??? What the AU is going on and why do I love it

Hope Davis on Sandi's backstory, the history of the Sandy-Logan rivalry, and a little extra on the inner workings of the Furness Media Group-Maesbury Capital partnership. (x)

Except from an interview with Hope Davis with Vulture - Nov. 18, 2021

shiv roy has never done anything wrong ever actually

He was not wrong.

Succession 3x2 / 3x8

I like to imagine through the entire run of succession that sandy and sandi had been just as weirdly adamant at keeping stewy in their company as kendall was

dropping truth bombs in the google doc today

Aw man what if one of the secret reasons Logan hates Sandy so much is because he's witnessed how much Sandy's dominated and demeaned Sandi over the years? And it reminds him of Noah and Rose? And Logan has no clue that's the exact same way he treats Kendall, and later Roman?

Like so many abusers, Logan hates other abusers and lacks the self-awareness to recognize he's the same way. That's probably why he goes out of his way to superficially make sure Shiv grows up strong and opinionated, because that way he's not at all like Noah or Sandy in his mind. The idea he could damage his sons like that doesn't occur to him because they're boys. After all, Noah’s abuse only made him and Ewan tougher, right? So sons and nephews are just built to take it in a way daughters and nieces aren't. It's disgusting to treat girls that way, and only proper with boys. Makes them men.

Please let Shiv get with a hot older woman who'll treat her right and not screw her over 🥺

blog info/background

more Round 2 polls

i love sandi from succession she's like if a little goth girl always wanted to be a cold and distant widow stepmother but her dad wanted her to become a girlboss instead