#tom literally saying he doesn't know if he wants shiv but Absolutely saying he wants greg ever since after the balcony fight

[gregoftom]

also tomgreggies and tomgirls [gender neutral] absolutely WINNING in this finale, thanks so much. thank you. thank you. fucking succeed i am so happy thank fucking lord

[tomwambsgans]

hello! I agree with a lot of your takes re: Tom/Greg and am quite sincerely baffled by how many of the big 'intellectual' Succession blogs are comfortable dismissing them as a joke unworthy of insight or analysis. one of the weirdest trends I've seen is 'Tom/Greg would be nothing without Tom/Shiv' because it's like... of course a storyline about what's essentially an affair relies on the marriage it's destroying; of course the relationships on the show all feed into each other vitally. I wouldn't even say I 'ship' T/G or have a deep personal investment in it, but I think understanding it as textually real and substantial is essential to any reading of the show as a whole. I love Tom's relationship arc with Shiv; I find it chilling and heartbreaking and fantastic (and I have equal sympathy for her), but saying that every scene he has with Greg is just about Shiv is such a ludicrously ignorant dismissal coming from people who purport to be invested in, like, serious dramaturgical analysis. Tom being closeted is important; Tom sincerely (and sometimes truly selflessly) loving Greg on a show about egomaniacs forever betraying each other is important. it's almost hilariously ironic to see 'serious' bloggers waving it all away.

this isn't to say that the vast majority of those interested in T/G don't also get them completely wrong – once people are actually confronted with a 'canon gay pairing' that doesn't conform to shipping conventions they don't know what to do with it. it's just tiring that the two extremes seem to be 'total, smug disregard' and 'pointlessly unfaithful misrepresentation'.

but anyway: I like your blog! keep doing what you're doing.

hi wow okay i love this message first of all

and tbqh that Intellectual Dismissal of tomgreg? homophobia. it's homophobia. whether internalized or otherwise that's genuinely what it is lol. like at absolute best it's ppl who've been convinced that it's dumb or immature to be passionate and sincere about two men loving each other and that that's never gonna be the "correct" reaction about a piece of media or something.

and yeah no "tomgreg only exists bc of tomshiv" is a take that makes me want to rip my hair out any time i catch so much of a whiff of it. as something to dismiss tg first of all it's dumb as fuck bc like.. okay? and YOU only exist bc your dad managed to say some offhanded thing to your mom one day that made her decide they were gonna fuck or vice versa. everything in the world "only" happened because something else happened first. and then as an actual analysis of tg it's still wrong and falls apart so easily with so many of the big tg moments in mind. like nero and sporus? I'm gonna push my wife down the stairs and marry you? I'm literally going to end my marriage and be with you instead? and honestly you don't even have to go far that into the show, I'd argue that the ortolan dinner and the connection that tom literally spells out there is very clearly independent of shiv. there's parallels but tom isn't consciously thinking "shiv is out cheating on me so i'll also (emotionally) cheat on her".. obviously lol. Tom and greg simply connect as two human beings more than basically any other pair in the show do and the actual ""reliance"" that their relationship has on shiv boils down, I would say, to simply how tom's unhappiness with shiv pushes him to pursue what he wants. otherwise yeah tomshiv influences certain aspects of the tg dynamic but I guess a lot of ppl don't realize that that's not the same thing as being "reliant" lmao

[sirsnortsalot]

YOUR TAGS ON THEEEE TOM LOOKING AT GREG ACROSS THE AISLE POST I DSDJKSDJSKJDJKS we shake hands that ep is my entire life for so many reasons i hhhhhhhhhhh. tom's suit being called a gregory. the two of them dressed in black and white when greg says "i do" true to marriage tradition. the fact that when tom sits down in front of greg he literally looks like he's getting on one knee. the way their knees are touching. the way they are sitting so close. the way the two waiters in the background are playfully smacking each other on the ass with towels and both greg and tom look at them wistfully before talking like god i wish that were us. the way greg teases tom a little with the well... keeping him hanging on a little bit. the way greg says "of course". the way their conversation [in that connor asks willa if she really wants this, bc she's kind of giving up her soul wrt money and she says yes i am and i do like the security and wealth but she also likes connor for himself, and connor talks about the age gap!!! and discrepancy in their positions and how they met and came to be and how everyone is always making fun of him/their relationship but she takes him serious and confirms she does want it and then they giggle and laugh it off just like a certain other couple] and body position mirrors connor and willa as well as the cinematography/shots who do actually get married in 4x03 [alone. without the siblings there. almost like a secret ish wedding. hmmm]. the way that nb said 'they wish they were getting married' and the way these mfs act you Know that's actually true and real. the way tom drops the "sporus". the way that after they shake hands, greg's arms twitch out as if to hug tom but then he decides against it bc he's not sure if tom would like that and he doesn't want to ruin this, because everybody else shrinks away from his touch or is disgusted by him but tom opens his arms and greg leaps at the chance, taking tom's shoulders and pulling him in slightly and hugging him tightly, tom literally jostled by the force of the hug.

i Think about the "come with me, sporus" scene a lot.

Oh my god y e s just that one scene felt like peak tomgreg in like 1000 ways 

ESPECIALLY because it’s right after shiv calls tom and tells him about her plan and his IMMEDIATE reaction being “okay, this is my chance to finally hit her where it hurts after her ‘death-by-1000-cuts’-ing me for years, but first i need to make sure greg is safe and on my side” like BEFORE anything else (just checked the script books and greg walks over to him RIGHT after he gets off the phone with shiv, no time to think about anything else) AND THEN ”SPORUS” AND THEN THE MOST ROMANTIC SCENE THAT HAPPENS IN THE (WEDDING) EPISODE AND THEN TOM ‘KILLING’ HIS WIFE I JUST. AUGH THE NERO & SPORUS SHIT MAKES ME GO BATSHIT ISTG HFSKJGHDFKJGHJDFKGHDRKJHY (also while I was in the script books I saw that the hug was unscripted??? It was meant to be just the handshake??? Just like the forehead kiss was unscripted too??? Matthew Mcfadyen is an absolute GODSEND (& nb I guess but yknow) for just ADDING those in UNPROMPTED he’s such a tg truther oml) 

Also can you IMAGINE how greg must've felt at the beginning of the tomshivorce, seeing him and tom going out together to hook up w random models or whatever (i think they were playing it up quite a bit and just wanted to spend time with each other but yknow)  and having the realisation somewhere that “do you wanna come with me, sporus” AND THEN THIS could have been referring to tom wanting to be with greg? Like we know greg knows the story, and we know he knows that tom betrayed shiv and he knows that the tomshivorce is resulting in tom getting a lot closer with him very quickly and he’s not stupid, he can put 2 and 2 together and see himself getting remodelled into the romantic partner for tom that shiv isn’t anymore for him, AND HE DOESN’T SHY AWAY FROM IT! LIKE LOOK AT 4X01, IS THAT THE BODY LANGUAGE AND BEHAVIOURS OF SOMEONE WHO IS AVOIDING THE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL PRESENCE OF TOM WAMBSGANS FBSKJGHDFJGDFKJY

(i will never shut up about the timeskip <3)

👏 HEART 👏 EYES

[finalgirlkateausten]

'I Miss Who I Used To Be' is so beautiful for its insights into the siblings relationship and, perhaps more special to me, Shiv's love for Genevieve. Reading that made it clear why she would go on to be a mama of three precious little girls. Do you have any specific headcanons for Gen, Lainey, and Marla?

thank you so much anon you're gonna make me cry 🥺

sorry it's been a moment since you sent this, I've been traveling and busy with other irl things. but yes, I do in fact have many many headcanons for the tiny Roys that live in my head! under a cut because these got longggg

Gen and Lainey are both nicknames. Gen's full name is Genevieve Siobhan Roy and Lainey's is Elaine Cambridge Roy. Along those lines, Marla's middle name is Ettalie 💗

There's just about a three year gap between both Gen and Lainey and Lainey and Marla, which speaks to the amount of time it takes for Shiv to agree to Tom's nagging just to shut him up oop

Marla's birthday is on Valentine's Day. somehow Tom cannot for the life of him remember both the holiday and his daughter's birthday. From the time she turns one onward he always forgets one or the other so Shiv is Always pissed off

this definitely does not impact Marla's young psyche At All /s

(usually as soon as she opens presents she and Gen and Lainey run off to play with them in the playroom or another place they know their parents are unlikely to follow. Marla is only seven or eight when she ends up too overwhelmed and crying on Karolina's lap while Karolina explains that her mother is only upset because she loves her)

despite the age gaps, the three girls are usually pretty close. Shiv, determined not to be Logan, always welcomes the girls wherever she is. this has the opposite effect and usually ends up with the three of them getting into mischief around Waystar

one time Gen tells a man who owns a company Waystar/GoJo is trying to buy exactly what she thinks of him when left unsupervised at a dinner party

(she's not even ten. she's absolutely parroting what Shiv says behind closed doors)

Gen is a mini-Shiv, right down to the hair

Lainey is quieter and more content to follow her sisters around because she always needs to be included in everything. she's a nosy little thing 💗 the first of the girls to find out exactly Why Karolina is always around thanks to her overdeveloped sense of curiosity

Marla is the Baby bc when she's born Shiv knows she's done so she def coddles her. Marla is absolutely spoiled AF but like. not a brat because she's so spoiled that she literally always gets what she wants so she doesn't even have the space to react badly to 'no'

i have so many headcanons about these three from birth all the way through adulthood so like. send more asks if you wanna hear something specific! you might even make me write a fic 👀

[wuntrum]

courtney I finally finished s3 of Succession and I’m losing my gd mind PLEASE give me all your spoilery predictions/opinions/thoughts/feelings please please PLEASE !

HIIII okay sorry for not getting to this sooner but yeah wow. WOW! the finale!!!! so freaking crazy!!! (gonna leave my spoilery thoughts under a read more)

sooooo i am still shocked and awed that tom actually Did That. not in a "how could he!" way but in a "good for him" way LOLLL. that whole decision and conversation with greg were actually insane. its such a perfect culmination of both of their arcs throughout the whole season though (particularly tom)...i'm rewatching the whole show with a friend right now and i think in s1ep6 ewan tells greg "paddle your own canoe", and that's absolutely what tom did in that moment. the tomshiv fail marriage is sooooo fascinating to me, like thinking about when at austerlitz logan told shiv that she only ended up with tom because she knows he won't betray her...like guess what! not anymore! i'm so intrigued to see what actually happens in season 4 because there's no more hiding from it really, like tom Knows and shiv Knows...the fall out from that whole convo is gonna be so crazy. (that last shot with tom over shiv's shoulder...OUGH)

i also think it shows (or maybe builds onto the conclusion) that greg isn't dumb. he actually has like, very acute intuition even if he doesn't know what he's doing half the time. (he's really good at falling upwards LOL) like tom said to kendall, logan's never gotten fucked over once. and even though tom and gregs relationship is. Like That for lack of a better description. tom has genuinely always looked after greg. the rest of the family views greg as an afterthought because in their dynamic, he literally is (cousin vs. being an "actual roy"). so, of course greg would say yes! (and there's this really great article which talks about how greg's "of course" is the total antithesis to the show's running theme of "fuck off"...really good read).

i have conflicted feelings about connor generally buT i'm so interested to see how he continues to develop in season 4 because i feel like he's starting to be written like an actual character now. the argument the siblings have really showed a different side to connor that i think the audience knew was there, but it hadn't been laid out like that before. (also if connor Actually becomes president, or even makes it particularly far, that's gonna be a sight to behold LOL) i also think the alliance shiv+kendall+roman created is SUPER interesting. like, was it a bad idea in terms of the OpTiCs for kendall to confess to what he did to that kid? probably, because bits of truth like that have been shown to be super damaging. BUT, its one of the only moments in the show where that doesn't really matter, and seeing these people come together as family and not like, the business sense of family, actual family, was huge. (also i think it speaks to kendall's complete rejection of the waystar/roy family dynamic at this point. he really does want out, so he's gonna be vulnerable in a way that was punished before bc he doesn't care about fitting in to that structure anymore). and seeing roman finally stick up to logan was CRAZY...the amount of development he's had since season one (being too afraid of logan to cast the deciding vote in the vote of no confidence) is incredible. (if s1 was kendall's, and s2 was shiv's, then s3 feels equally like roman's AND tom's seasons. rooting for a greg-oriented s4 tbh).

i think one of the sort of points that succession is trying to make (or at least, how i'm reading it), is that even though there's this vying for power, no one actually wins. these people are all so rich and yet so miserable. so even though logan might be winning through selling waystar to gojo and renegotiating the shares, his declining health is proof that even he won't always win. he had the chance to be the bigger man in the waystar/gojo transaction, buy them out to boost waystar, but he made the wrong decision, and now is trying to find a way to win (via screwing over his kids, and selling waystar). so...while i don't think anyone can particularly "win" succession...i AM rooting for tomstar gregco, at least on the business end. they’re both outsiders to the roy family, and i think that’s created a certain amount of hunger/desperation that no one else really has. (though i definitely think there's probably gonna be a betrayal, honestly by greg to tom? IDK though)

in terms of predictions i don't think i have a lot...i am REALLY trying to manifest a greg-centered season, so i think ewan is probably going to end up dying, and maybe greg's dad will finally come into the narrative? i just really want greg to have a chance to shine emotionally, since i feel like all the other characters have kinda gotten that to one extent or another. let's let nicholas braun cry!! really fuckin feel it!! the amount of baby-planning talk between tom and shiv makes me think that's also going to be a key point in season 4...although i also think a tomshiv divorce is kind of in the future, so we'll see LKDJFL. i genuinely don't know if/how the kids are going to find a way to come on top of this whole situation, but i'm very excited to see. (also since it appears that roman and gerri's thing is over (</3) i hope tabitha comes back...that'd be fun)

[tomwambsgans]

tom's got that impostor syndrome masculinity where he's so insecure about it bc he knows deep down there's something missing from him that keeps him from living up to what's expected from him as a man. he finds comfort in immersing himself in the 1% because there's a whole different script for men there, like you're allowed a certain degree of what the working and middle class would consider Effeminacy when it's purely a matter of money, but that's a cloak that can only work in short bursts bc he's not actually the type of rich that he wants to be, he's self-built fake-it-till-you-make-it corporate rich, and so he still gets his manhood checked quite often by both those around him in the corporate world and also the silver spoon crowd that he's infiltrated.

he's emasculated at every turn, in many ways this being his own fault because the masculinity that's being stripped from him is overtly a performance to begin with. ntm he occasionally does it explicitly to himself simply so that he's taken the chance away from others. in simpler words, self-deprecating jokes. but they're also self-identifying in nature with how often he jokes about himself being a woman and gets some comfort from essentially relieving himself of the burden of having something to live up to. all girls here! bad news about my hymen! meanwhile we also see how deeply he doesn't truly feel this to be the case - how his insecurity about being actually seen as womanly runs so deep that he turns on shiv basically automatically when she becomes his boss. how he lashes out at the guy in the compliment tunnel for saying he's full of grace. how much shame he has in being called infertile. how his idea of celebration after being told he's not going to prison is to go absolutely animal, to destroy greg's office and literally pound his chest in this herculean, warrior's display of masculinity. but it's not a display, is it? who is he performing to but greg? it's for himself, because that's who he is. he wants to feel like a man and he can only do so in privacy. or next to greg.

of course his attempts to gain this ontological security about his manhood were in vain so long as he remained on a middle rung of the corporate ladder, a clumsy interloper among the roys, etc. it's not that i think what he needed all along was to be in The Chair or even that he's totally fine now with no self-journeying left to do but rather that now the path to really having greg is shorter than ever. and THAT'S what he needs. this whole time really if he'd just ever figured that he had to stop pursuing heterosexual masculinity, he'd have found that other men like him, specifically greg, would be the thing that actually makes him feel like a man.

[tomwambsgans]

As a certified failmarriage enjoyer like... Yeah. That's the point lmao (though I do fully believe Tom has more power and is a lot worse of a person to Shiv than you're giving him credit for -- so much of his treatment toward Shiv is rooted in misogyny in a really pervasive way) but also like. Don't you like TomGreg lmao like I mean this in such a nice and loving way dude but kettle meet pot

man i KNEW i was gonna get a response like this and i originally included a bunch of tags to be preemptively defensive about it but then decided against it. so now here i am writing an essay instead lol

well anyway. i mean he's literally married to shiv so they're both very aware that they're in a relationship, unlike tom and greg, who therefore do not have the same expectations. related to this is that shiv's mistreatment of tom comes from a very different place than tom's mistreatment of greg (like being so deeply in the closet, which is a thing that can change and i would argue IS in the process of changing), and tom makes very clear moves to make greg his equal throughout the show. and just in general it's very obvious to me that (even aside from tom being gay) tom and greg are on the same level, that they're compatible in ways tom and shiv never were, and even if it's rocky getting there, they can love each other in the way that they each need to be loved. with no bias against shiv as a person - because i DO understand WHY she is the way she is and i'm not trying to make her a villain - she simply does not and will not love tom by tom's own definition of love. for that matter, tom doesn't give shiv what she wants out of a partner either. he's way more like a pet to her. greg meanwhile is objectively more of an actual partner, all the way up to the metatext of it all. like, that whole thing about tom and greg's outfits being coordinated together by the wardrobe team? they're actually in it together.

and i'm not saying this to have an argument about which relationship is more valid to enjoy or whatever either, i just want to keep myself from being misunderstood. that was just me listing the reasons that i don't think this is a kettle and pot situation. just so we're on the same page.

but yeah, tbqh, what i'm most invested in personally is tom. because i sympathize a lot with him and relate to him. i've been in a relationship like that, i've set aside my own feelings in favor of just keeping the peace all while not even being satisfied in the relationship for reasons including that i was gay and she was a woman, and while she was absolutely aware of it too. and on that vein, what i'm invested re: tomgreg isn't simply the current dysfunctional state of the dynamic but what tom's insane actions represent about his repressed desire and shame, and furthermore how he's developing and growing to understand and accept himself and becoming self-sacrificial for greg's sake. and because there's no pre-established overt romance between tom and greg, greg's position is with the same amount of growth and development and learning about tom and learning to speak his language. rather than the growing misery and dissatisfaction that tom has with shiv.

i'll admit i genuinely do not know what you're talking about re: tom's treatment of shiv and sure, i'll concede it's possible that i've got some internalized misogyny that's making me overlook some stuff. but i really am confused about mentions of tom's misogyny re: shiv bc as far as i see it he's very much relegated to the (male)wife role between the two of them, both metatextually and just directly in-universe - like, him literally being willing to take her last name? him being the groomzilla? him doing the emotional labor between them, offering his constant support that she often doesn't even want? him shutting up the moment shiv begins to argue? supporting her entirely when the Plan they'd had totally flips and puts shiv in line to take logan's place instead of himself? just in general like... what seems like very purposeful attempts to specifically NOT be misogynistic to shiv?? the only thing that comes to mind is tom going behind shiv's back to be team kendall or team logan or whatever most benefits his vision for the business - and maybe this is my bias for tom, sure - i see the vast majority of all that as justified and as being in direct response to something awful that shiv has done first.

anyway i guess the summary of this is that i'm seeing it from tom's perspective, and from tom's perspective the idea of the failmarriage being mutual is bogus. and you're probably seeing it more from shiv's perspective, and i just personally do not vibe with that perspective so yeah, i made a post making fun it. and you don't vibe with my perspective so you sent a message to make fun of me back, so we're even. i'm really just doing my best articulation of a fairly emotional matter here. in any case the most inarguable difference between us is that you like tomshiv because they're not good for each other and i like tomgreg because i think they genuinely are good for each other.

i already know i've got to agree to disagree with quite a lot of the fandom regarding interpretations of tom greg and shiv if i don't want to lose my mind, so i'll just say right now that i can't promise i'll respond to any follow-up messages but like if you need to get it out of your system and make even again by explaining why you disagree, that's fair. if you wanna be certain that other ppl see what you've got to say tho i'd recommend just vagueing me publicly idc i'll just block the post if i happen to see it and we can both be happy

edit: yknow maybe a better tdlr would be that i guess the core of this is i just find it wild how many people are just plain entertained by something that i find so deeply viscerally sad. i think that's fair enough, right? that's really it.