A Chasing After Wind

Succession: "I feel awful"

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 22:01:38 GMT

When Ken tells Logan "I feel awful" in The Summer Palace, does he mean:

He feels really bad about the bear hug and the personal information he shared with Logan's enemies

He just, in general, feels terrible, so Logan doesn't need to make him feel worse.

(Also what is the connection between Kendall telling Logan's enemies what medication his on, and Kendall later in the season being responsible for Logan's meds?)

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Succession: Kendall's Failures

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 20:54:50 GMT

Kendall's failures in Which Side Are You On? and Nobody Is Ever Missing are, in different yet similar ways, caused by his own character flaws.

The season finale is more obviously so. In Prague, Kendall assured Sandy that he had the stomach for conflict with his family. But when he actually comes face-to-face with his father and siblings over the bear hug, he can't handle it and decides he needs to be high. Now. This leads to a death, and something his father can use to blackmail him into backing down.

But his failure in Which Side Are You On? was caused by his own flaws, too. He is confident that he will be able to visit Ilona and come back in time for the vote because he is confident he will have access to a private helicopter. When he can't use the helicopter, when he is forced to rely on modes of transportation that are every day for most people, his plan goes up in smoke.

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Succession: Roman and Kendall Parallels

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 23:59:36 GMT

When I first watched Nobody Is Ever Missing, I thought they were going to go with a storyline where Roman was responsible for unintentional human death.

Instead - psyche! Nobody actually died when the rocket exploded, and instead Kendall got that storyline.

During my latest rewatch I notice they both respond in the same way: Return to the party and act like nothing happened. Kendall is being a lot more rational, though. No way is that rocket launch not going to catch up to Roman. Kendall, on the other hand, has good reason to think he can get away with it - and he does.

(Though only with Logan's help. I think if Logan had taken no action Kendall would have been found out.)

Also: The scene where Kendall's siblings confront him about the bear hug occurs after the explosion but before Roman finds out no one died. And I can't help if wonder, when he calls Kendall "a piece of shit", he's maybe also talking to himself.

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Protest Songs

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 15:02:10 GMT

32 protest songs written for my home town of Minneapolis

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Sat, 07 Feb 2026 15:31:44 GMT

If they get control of voting we're fucked.

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Succession: Shiv About Ken

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 12:47:25 GMT

There are two occasions that I can think of where Shiv says something to Kendall that could easily apply to her soon-to-be self.

In The Summer Palace, Shiv tells Ken, "Dad's gonna play a merry tune on you and then throw you out the fսcking window, and you know that, right?" This is what happens to her, starting later this very episode when Logan promises her the company.

In All the Bells Say, Shiv asks Ken, "Do you have an angle on this? Are you speaking with Matsson?" Next season Shiv is the one who has an angle and is talking to Matsson.

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Succession: Kendall in America Decides

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 19:34:11 GMT

Kendall spends most of American Decides torn between what he knows is right, and his own ambition. That is his conflict. But when he decides to join Roman in calling it for Mencken, it's not because his ambition won out over his sense of right and wrong. It's because his sister hurt his feelings.

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Media Consumption 12/7/2025

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 20:25:17 GMT

I was watching Thunderbolts and I found myself crying. I think this is the first grown-up story that has made me cry since The Midnight Club (which is about terminally ill young adults) (movies oriented towards children make me cry all the time). I have not yet finished Thunderbolts so please do not spoil me.

I'm reading Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, by Tomiko Brown-Nagin. I hadn't heard of Constance Baker Motley until I spotted this book on the library shelf. A civil rights lawyer and then a judge, she is definitely someone Americans should know about.

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Ten Season One Avatar: The Last Airbender Icons

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 19:42:47 GMT

Feel free to take, just comment and credit.

( Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony )

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More Thoughts on Kendall's Infertility

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 22:37:00 GMT

I was thinking on my previous post and interpretations of ambiguous source material. I am attached to an interpretation of Kendall as infertile. When I watched With Open Eyes the first time, that was how I understood it, and I thought, "Oh, of course. This fits perfectly with the Kendall I've been watching for the last four seasons."

For some reason, at least one individual at TV Tropes is strongly opposed to the idea of Kendall being infertile. I don't know why.

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Succession: Kendall's Infertility

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 22:36:07 GMT

In the Succession finale, it is revealed that Kendall is infertile.

Well, not exactly.

( Dad's view was yours weren't real. )

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Succession: Thoughts on Kendall and Shiv at the End of S3

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 14:45:19 GMT

*Warning for discussion of suicide attempts*

Someone pointed out the Kendall considering throwing himself off the Waystar Royco building in Safe Room was a "fuck you" to his father. It occurs to me that Kendall trying to drown himself at his mother's wedding was a "fuck you" to her. We know he was hurting from her decision to exclude him from part of the festivities so the groom could suck up to Logan. It's safe to say he was probably still hurt from last season when she avoided his request to open up.

This led to me thinking how in the aftermath of his suicide attempt, Ken's siblings, particularly Shiv, demonstrated a willingness to hear Ken out no matter how hard and difficult it was.

( We love you )

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Succession: Bear Hug

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 20:13:32 GMT

The first time I re-watched Succession, I was surprised to realize the bear hug was Kendall's idea. I had completely forgotten. This is partly because Kendall lies about it repeatedly. He lies to his siblings when he says "I was forced into this position against my wishes". He lies to his father when goes along with Logan's assumption that "they" approached "him".

(Actually it's pretty interesting that Logan made that assumption in the first place. He wasn't there for Ken's lie to Connor/Roman/Shiv, although he may have heard about it from them later. But then again, Shiv and Roman clearly thought Kendall was lying, so why would they have taken it seriously enough to report it to Logan as fact?)

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Succession: "You're the Face"

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:11:58 GMT

When Logan is telling Kendall why he has chosen him to be sacrificed in "This Is Not for Tears", he says "The hearings…you did so well. But now…you're the face."

But this did not happen passively.

In the previous episode, "DC", Logan turns the heat on Kendall during the hearings. “At that point, I believe my son was across that operation, right?” he says in response to a question directed at himself.

This is very deliberate - so deliberate that Logan actually apologizes to Ken afterward: "I'm sorry if it was rough". Kendall insists “it was fine. We're good. It's all good.” I think Logan both feels guilty and is trying to get a read on Kendall, to decide if Kendall will go along with being the face of the scandal, if Logan has that much power in the relationship. I don't know that Logan was planning on sacrificing Ken at this point, but he definitely was setting up a situation that made that kind of maneuver possible.

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Media Consumption 9/28/2025

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 19:36:59 GMT

I listened to a couple of early Beach Boys albums and it really struck me how some songs I've heard a millions times, and some I've never heard before in my life.

I'm re-watching Succession.

I'm reading a book entitled The Maid and the the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc by Nancy Goldstone. It's a non-fiction book about Joan of Arc and and a woman I had never heard of: Yolande of Aragon, queen of Sicily.

I've also started Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race, by Rukmini Pande.

I'm still listening to selected episodes from Dan Snow's history hit podcast. The 7/30/2024 episode about Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart was the first episode to make me cry.

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Spider-Man: Mary Jane Watson Trigger warning for discussion of rape

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 21:08:18 GMT

Awhile back I saw someone diss the most recent Spider-Man movies, and declared Sam Raimi Spider-Man "the real Peter Parker".

I hated the idea.

Then I realized my issue was not with Raimi's Peter Parker, but with his Mary Jane Watson.

Let's start at the beginning.

( Face it, tiger, you just hit the jackpot! )

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On PETA

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 23:58:22 GMT

I'm reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. As an ex-vegan who has always been skeptical of PETA, I was interested in reading his defense of the organization:

"They are effective. When PETA targeted fast-food companies, the most famous and powerful welfare scientist in the country, Temple Grandin […] said she saw more improvement in welfare in one year that she had seen in her entire thirty-year career previously.[…]They call their revolution 'animal rights' but the changes PETA has won for farm animals[…], while numerous, are not victories for the animals rights so much as animal welfare: fewer animals per cage, better-regulated slaughter, less-cramped transport, and the like. PETA's techniques are often vaudeville-esque (or tasteless), but this over-the-top approach has won modest improvements that most people would say don't go far enough.[…] Ultimately the controversy around PETA may have less to do with the organization than with those who sit in judgment of it - that is, with the unpleasant realization that 'those PETA people' have stood up for values that we have been too cowardly or forgetful to defend ourselves."

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Succession: Thoughts on Caroline

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 11:47:50 GMT

For me the saddest example of Caroline's mothering was when Ken was going to tell her about killing Andrew Dodds, and she decided to leave without warning instead. Harriet Walter, who plays Caroline, said that Caroline was afraid Kendall was going to criticize her as a mother, but Caroline specifically asks if Ken intends to criticize her and he specifically says that's not what it's about. Honestly, I think if Kendall had intended to criticize her she wouldn't have run away. I think she knew how to react to that and how to deal with that. But she didn't know how to deal with Ken confiding in her something emotional about his own life.

Caroline's best moment is in the penultimate episode. At Logan's funeral, she introduces Marcia to Sally-Anne, "my Kerry". This apparently prompts Marcia to let go of her hostility towards Kerry. Caroline demonstrates that Marcia was not the first wife of Logan to get cheated on, and had Logan lived she would probably have not been the last. In accepting Sally-Anne she encourages Marcia to accept Kerry.

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Media Consumption 7/10/2025

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 21:23:16 GMT

I'm watching a movie in German without subtitles, even though I don't speak German. This is because I didn't realize it didn't have subtitles until I was pretty far into it. In fact, I didn't realize it wasn't a silent film until pretty far in. The movie is the 1933 film Ekstase, and although it is a talkie it has long segments without dialogue. I'm watching it for Hedy Lamarr, because I've never seen a movie with her in it and I decided I wanted to.

I'm reading a dense local history: A Union Against Unions: The Minneapolis Citizens Alliance and Its Fight Against Organized Labor, 1903-1947 by William Millikan. The subject matter is very interesting but as I said, dense.

One song I am really enjoying lately is "Because I Liked a Boy", by Sabrina Carpenter.

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Succession: Lessons Not Learned

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 14:09:58 GMT

In the penultimate episode of Succession, Ken orders his driver to get to Rava's in three minutes, "I'll figure out fines and violations".

It's like, dude. This is how you get in car accidents. This is how you get people killed. Kendall is guilt ridden about the death of Andrew Dodds, but is not actually taking any action to keep something like this from happening again.

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Icontalking Ask The Maker

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 18:29:36 GMT

icontalking Go Here

Ask The Maker is where you can ask for advice on iconmaking. You can ask for tutorials, guides/"How to", or ask any other technical questions.

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Succession: Roy Family Thoughts

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 20:24:01 GMT

Of Logan's four children, Kendall is the one most like him.

Of Caroline's three children, Roman is the one most like her.

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Succession: When Did Kendall Decide?

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 14:26:48 GMT

I've put some thought into when, exactly, Kendall decided he was going to turn on his father rather than take the rap for the cruises scandal.

My best guess is during his conversation with Logan. When he says "Maybe I deserve it", I think he is still at least seriously considering with cooperating with his father's plans. But when he kisses his father after Logan is adamant that Kendall doesn't deserve it - well, that kiss seems very Judas-y to me.

When Logan dismissed Andrew Dodds' death as "no real person involved" - I think that was the moment Ken decided to turn against his father (although he may have been thinking about it before). Kendall has a lot of different reactions to the fact the he committed vehicular manslaughter over the course of the show. This includes frequently being adamant it never happened. But he never said that Andrew's life lacked value.

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Media Consumption 6/9/2025

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 22:39:40 GMT

Succession is eating my brain so that is what I have been watching. I'm looking forward to Daredevil: Born Again when I will watch soon.

I'm reading a fun YA novel based on Hindu mythology called Aru Shah and the End of Time. It's about a girl who lights a lamp she has been told is cursed to impress her peers and ends up having to save the world.

I've been listening to Dan Snow's history podcast, which is little bites of all kinds of history. The current episode I am listening to is on Founding Father Samuel Adams.

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Succession Thought - Kendall/Roman - Incest Warning

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 14:35:37 GMT

I am not an incest person. I am not even much of sexualizing platonic relationships person. But I can see Kendall/Roman. There are definitely a few scenes where Roman comes across to me as having a crush on his older brother. If portrayed in a dark way, I would read that.

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