succession coping @shivsroy - Tumblr Blog

“Betty accuses Don of never saying “I love you,” and she’s right both about him and the show in general: There are very few instances of characters using those exact words on Mad Men, even though we see people in all kinds of situations where that would be normal… That’s why Sally saying it to her father in “A Day’s Work” was so jarring. Sally didn’t grow up in a house where that was an everyday thing to say, and Don certainly didn’t, either. When the phrase is uttered at all on the show, it’s often to highlight how useless the idea is.” — Margaret Lyons

Don and Betty + “Love”

#mad men

idonthaveacontract

Don tells you to start over. Will you?

lousolversons

Finale Shots - Mad Men (2008 - 2015)

#mad men

lovetechnique

MAD MEN BTS from Janie Bryant's IG: Jon Hamm as Don Draper

#jon hamm

cesaray

tomwambsgans

something unique about succession's portrayal of the intersection between class and masculinity, as opposed to other media about male-dominated spaces, is its understanding that it's not just about power; it's about the existence of a hierarchy and everyone knowing their place within it. yes, you're technically more powerful the higher up you go, but the attempt to move up, to... succeed, if you will... is a risk often not worth it, as you'll only be pushed further down the ladder if you're not careful.

it's in part the power of stability. in logan's world in particular, the reward that is afforded those who know their place is his approval. the child most profoundly affected by this, of course, is roman:

but there's also the matter of kendall's sense of self being tied to his birth order, to the point that it contradicts reality:

and shiv, who tries and fails to rise from where her womanhood has placed her in her dad's eyes and proceeds to fall flat on her face... and who gets to bond with him through misogyny. she rises up by pushing other women down:

...and think of the events prior to the show, where the CEO role had yet to be dangled over anyone's heads but kendall, where neither roman nor shiv were even involved in the company and they were both simply happy for him to finally, officially move up.

really, prior to logan's near-death and everything getting shaken up, this must have held completely true:

endiness

SAM REID as LESTAT DE LIONCOURT The Vampire Lestat Season 3 Premiere + Concert

lioncourtz

THE VAMPIRE LESTAT Live at the Beacon Theater (06.02.2026)

endiness

SAM REID as LESTAT DE LIONCOURT The Vampire Lestat Season 3 Premiere + Concert

#iwtv

lewyn-martell

birdmans

SUCCESSION (2018—2023)

wulfhalls

Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was subject to space and time.

paul and alia atreides

#dune

vanishbyers

succession is as much about sexual abuse and incestuous abuse as it is business. logan lords over the children in all aspects of their lives, including the sexual, he is invasive because he is surveillance, he is news, he is the world. he goes missing from their childhoods to spend his time aiding and abetting and wining and dining sexual abusers and rapists, who he then brings home to them, because work and family are one, and the home and the office are one. he spends their adulthood covering it up and pawning them off to aid in managing the fallout. roman is sexually perverse and anorexic, shiv is hypersexual and transactional, kendall is infertile and oedipal. there was a dog cage and roman kept wetting the bed because kendall locked him inside and fed him dog food and they both 'enjoyed it' and logan used this or orchestrated this to find the runt and send him away, "you got two fighting dog's you send the weak one away, you punish the weak one". shiv is a daddy's girl and the favourite, in his varying states of delirium she becomes his wives and he drags her hand down to grope him under his clothes. kendall is groomed his entire life and toyed with and discarded over and over in a perverse push and pull of intimacy and violence that logan enacts as business and as sex, because in succession sex and business are interchangable. "sometimes it is a big dick competition."