#baby’s first :: shiv

[shivroy]

tomshiv baby + tomshiv, baby!!!

[ladyluscinia]

Shout out to whoever said one of Shiv's visceral, emotional reasons was that Tom would never be able to take the moral high ground in their relationship again. Because exactly!

Shiv still might be fucked in the business sense because Tom is a puppet and Matsson doesn't respect her, but in terms of her marriage... She still wants him even after the worst things have been said, and the "worst thing" he was most upset by was that she repeatedly left him out to dry in pursuit of her own power. Well, now it doesn't matter how valid his complaints were! He can never make that particular point again without the most loaded silence of his life! And on top of that, he's added another betrayal of her. That new imbalance more than anything is what will derail the divorce, and make it so she's NOT meekly coming home and begging him to let her stay as his housewife or whatever.

Business power is still up in the air, but she's taken a huge amount of private power back. It was an emotional move driven more by hurt than logic, but she's still done it!

And I do appreciate the TomGreg parallel here, too, because Greg has always been Tom's solution to feeling like Shiv was above him. His own personal Roy to lord over. Their friction was coming from Greg growing an ego around the Roy name and trying to leverage himself out from under Tom's thumb. Well, now he's fucked it! It's not Royco anymore! Greg doesn't have Matsson's backing, his name is worthless, and he overplayed himself into a certain death situation. And then here's Tom, letting him stay despite the betrayal but only because Tom bought him.

Tom got the crown, Shiv got the marital upper hand to help her deal with that, and Tom got Greg to help him deal with that.

They are so fucking dysfunctional but maybe TomShiv can make this work 😘

[honey--wraith]

succession s1-s4//bonnie burstow//warsan shire: how to wear your mother's lipstick

[strangesmallbard]

"My father is dead and I feel old."

Succession 4x03

[volivolition]

Yoooo Voli I made ya a Electrochemistry × Volition playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19Au6o98AzOf4hEGLMHKtB?si=7kBYYWAhSR-TuLPYicpgYg&pi=a-iR4K2sFbQsWA

also I can't DM you bc you don't follow me, LEMME IN PLS :3

oh hi hello! oooh, hold on, lemme add the link so its clickable. some cool songs in here, thank you for sharing :D!!

also yeah, sorry! :'3 DMs make me nervous and uncomfortable unfortunately, and i much prefer communicating through asks and comments if thats cool!!

[stewykablooey]

we’re all getting into the ‘how are the other characters gonna react to shivs baby’ theories and i just wanna say right here right now as a stewy connoisseur that you will never find that man within even 20 feet of that infant. throw your fun uncle stewy thoughts out the door cuz its not happening

[kendallroygf]

thinking about how kendall’s smiling at shiv when she goes to speak to connor . just before everything went to shit. like he literally loves her soooo so so so much it’s insane . thats his baby sister. that’s his honey !!!

[siover]

imo the strongest evidence for roman being younger than shiv comes from the first few eps, and both of them undergo significant character changes from there on out especially roman so i think the dynamic there starts out malleable enough to cohere w later eps. but even otherwise as early as ep2 we have this exchange:

between shiv and greg which pretty clearly confirms shiv being the youngest. i'm not saying there isn't a claim that can be made for roman, but i do think it would've been stated here by shiv if he was written to be. like even just operating within the internal characterization of the first two eps. this is the character who in the pilot says to logan why would i when im giving away power. she would leverage birth order here if she could lol

[calebbrewsterr]

EVERYONE IS GONNA BE SO MAD AT ME BUT SHIV IS NOT A GOOD PERSON TO HAVE CHILDREN!!!! SHE ABSOLUTELY IS NOT!!!! BUT LISTEN!!!!! NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS, INCLUDING TOM!!!! NONE OF THEM SHOULD HAVE CHILDREN!!!! LOOK AT HOW SHIT KENDALL IS AT BEING A DAD!!! THEY WOULD ALL BE SHIT PARENTS!!!

[goldlightsaber]

I personally feel like Kendall and Shiv deserve a The Last of Us-level “thrown into intimacy” situation but that’s just me

[sammygender]

if i was shiv roy my anger would be biblical

[cakebatteronabrickwall]

Will we never be free of this line of thinking?

[tartheanmaid]

i need all tomgreg people right now to like stop being so weird about shiv

[jeniffercheck]

Would you ever write more about Shiv’s self-harm? Or at least her tendencies?

i think it is probably something i will revisit if any of the fics i write call for it; i do think she is constantly harming herself emotionally in most of the fics i write which i feel is a very canon behavior for her to indulge in. paris au will definitely have a lot of subtext in that regard...i think shiv often just exhibits Behaviors because being the keeper of her own unhappiness is of course way easier than leaving her vulnerability in someone else's hands

[wherewolf]

the responses i’ve seen to shiv’s ending seem very quick to write her off as just another sad victim of the cycle, which isn’t without truth BUT!!! that is not even remotely the summation of shiv’s story.

i don’t think she votes yes to “save kendall” or to try to finally set her brothers free. and i don’t think her main concern was that ken was becoming their dad. she absolutely noticed and didn’t love it, but that was not her motivation in betraying him. she was thinking about herself.

it’s tempting to make a martyr out of her as she is the only female child and we see her suffer the onslaught of misogyny that comes with that. but to make her into a saintlike figure who got beat takes away the power and intelligence behind her decision.

at this point she’s stuck between two non ideal choices, but she recognizes that they have accidentally made her the single most important player in the game. because while she can’t have the outcome she’d prefer, she has the power to decide the fates of everyone else. the written off lone woman now holds in her hands the fate of every man in her life.

so she thinks about the long term benefits of both options and realizes that one side leaves her completely without any leverage.

her brothers have proven to her multiple times in the last few days alone that they will cut her out and walk all over her the first chance they get. siding with them leaves her nothing to bargain with. she would just have to hope that ken would actually take care of her. and that level of vulnerability is not only unacceptable to her, it’s stupid. and shiv fuckin roy is not stupid.

so she thinks about the other side and about what she actually wants for her life. and against her better judgment, it’s becomes unfortunately clear that she wants tom. the way she wants him is not altogether loving or even good but it is necessary to her. she sees relationships as having winners and losers and she chose this man specifically so that she could be confident in her ability to win. except now he’s grown some balls and made himself unavailable to her.

she may not like the way her husband is evolving but she already placed her bets on him, so she’s sure as hell not losing to him now. there’s also a part of her that feels intrigued by this new man she’s married to. it’s interesting to have a sparring partner in him instead of having to looking for excitement outside of their marriage.

so for maybe the first time ever, she processes what tom has said to her and thinks about what he actually wants.

he needs her to prove that she cares. he needs to know that she is capable of sacrifice. if she can’t find it within herself to do this for him, then she will lose him, and by extension, she will lose.

siding with tom gives her the opportunity to once and for all make a grand-stand gesture of love, but more importantly, it creates leverage for her. never again will he be able to hold the moral high ground over her head. never again can he say she doesn’t love him. never again can he call her selfish or uncaring. above all, he can never betray her again, because she just removed all of his moral justification for turning on her. he doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s just taken back all the power in their relationship. just in a more subtle way than she’s used to operating.

and just like that, she has the ceo of a multi billion dollar company in her pocket, while situating herself as the only descendant of logan roy to still be playing the game, having removed her brothers from the equation permanently. she may still be far from the top but she’s creating a path for herself to climb.

so yes, she’ll let tom play king for a day, and she’ll have his baby and say “congratulations,” and play the gracious wife, but tomorrow is a new day with lots of room to maneuver. and when her husband puts out his hand, she’ll place her own on top. but she won’t grasp it because she doesn’t need to.