rhaenicent is shivrome and daemyra is shivken

celebration, 2x01 succession / jennifer s. cheng, so we must meet apart; “august 24, 2018” / all the bells say, 3x09 succession

Maybe it’s just cause they’re my two favorite Roys individually but I LOVE the dynamic between Shiv and Roman... It’s so distinct, imo, from the way they act with Kendall or Connor. Like, all four have their own moments of intimacy, of course, but I feel like there’s often this distance with Ken and Con — Con because he’s just so much older, of course, too old to have grown up as their peer, and Ken perhaps because even though closer in age, he was still the eldest of the trio that were actually kids together, with the sort of de facto leader status that often brings. Shiv and Rome, though? They’ve got that... raised as a unit vibe. That vibe like they truly grew up together, went through the same life stages back to back, were always each other’s primary competition but also primary collaborator. Like, the way they can be literally brawling in one scene yet skulking around all super buddy-buddy in the next? It’s that mix of highly combative yet highly clannish that you get sometimes, I think, with sibs who are raised in constant friction with each other. I think all this is why even though Kieran and Sarah have five years between them, I like to headcanon that for Shiv and Roman, the age gap is more like two, probably the smallest gap among the sibs. They just feel the most like the same age to me.

...But regardless of how close they are in actual age, what it all really comes back to is position in the family hierarchy, right? At least until very recently, it doesn’t seem like Shiv or Roman ever got treated as heir apparent the way Ken was around the start of the series and Con presumably was in his youth until, at some point, he essentially abdicated and/or Kendall eclipsed him. Shiv got the paradox that comes with being the only girl: on a pedestal because she’s daddy’s little princess, but undervalued in a lot of practical and professional regards because sexism. Roman, as a son, doesn’t suffer from Logan’s sexism, but he’s the third son, and by that point, who cares? A third son’s just a spare spare. In this family, neither position seems to come with the same privileges or the same pressures as being the firstborn boy (which, lbr, is often how Kendall’s regarded even if it’s not quite fact). And I wonder if maybe that made a huge difference in the way Con and Kendall were raised versus the way Shiv and Roman were raised and perhaps informs why the two youngest seem to have an especially tight (and volatile) bond.

Idk, I just... love their slap-fights and their scheming and their palling around together and the way they act like five-year-olds when they bicker! Feels organic. Feels siblingy.