mirror traps The future is real, but the past. Well, it’s—it’s all made up. Years later, Kendall and Shiv meet again in the desert. The past comes with them.

Chapter One: Kendall Kendall tries to disappear.

Chapter Two: The Summer Palace Summer 2003, and Shiv is bored.

Chapter Three: Shiv – Part One Shiv plays to win.

Chapter Four: D.C. Spring 2016, bitey revisited.

Chapter Five: Shiv – Part Two Shiv's season in hell.

Chapter Six: Austerlitz A reunion in the desert.

Chapter Seven: Montreal Autumn 2011, it's Dad's birthday!

+ SOUNDTRACK // annotations art credit: Denis Sarazhin, Ruprecht von Kaufmann

I don't know if I'd use the word close, but I am working on it! I've got deadlines coming at me from every direction, but I'm chipping away at it when I can.

Have a little mini-moodboard for your patience (with some bonus Anne Carson)!:

And thank you for such a fun ask! 💕

I think I'm itching ever closer to the next best thing to experiencing it all over again for the first time: a big ol' rewatch! But, yes! I was very into Kendall/Roman back during the first season! It was mainly due to the double punch of "Austerlitz" and "Prague" (the scene of them leaving the bachelor party in the elevator and Kendall staring at him before he bodychecks him did a number on me), and the series definitely gave plenty on that front, but. Once Ken/Shiv got its clutches in me, I was gone, haha.

A good question!

I think the biggest, dating back to when I was in college, is Joan Didion. For a long time I definitely tried to ape her style and the rhythm she uses to write, that reliance on cadence and how the prose sounds while read: brutal and sharp and deliberate. As I've gotten older, and written more, I still do revisit her writing when I need a kick but I have less of a desire to write like she did? I think I learned a lot about diction and narrative voice from her, and her essay "On Keeping a Notebook" is still an all-timer I reread all the time. The end of it is one of my favorite paragraphs:

Mary Gaitskill is another big inspiration for me, particularly how she writes people and how she writes sex and relationships; Bad Behavior was absolutely a formative influence for me.

Hilary Mantel is another I reread allllllll the time. A Place of Greater Safety is my favorite, and I love love love her Thomas Cromwell trilogy. I also find Elif Batuman and her wonderful narrative voice in both The Idiot and Either/Or to be hugely inspiring and aspirational.

Lately, I've found myself incredibly inspired by Brandon Taylor's prose. While, as a novel, there was a lot I didn't like about The Late Americans, his prose is incredible. I also recently read Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries and to say I found that inspiring is an understatement:

And I’m going to say Sally Rooney too. Every time I finish reading one of her novels I find myself consumed with the drive to write my own. Not because I think she makes it look easy or because I’m consumed by spite (a powerful motivator, tbh! ), but because I want to do what she did, I want to tell a story about people and I want it to feel true. 

I love this question!

I was an OG Succ viewer lol. I remember seeing the trailer that spring of 2018 and instantly being like: this is absolutely my shit. (That trailer is still a banger, tbh; oh to go back in time and watch it all anew!) I was pumped for the premiere, and I think I watched every single episode live?

I want to say it was in the second episode, when they're in the hospital and Shiv refuses to agree to let Kendall be CEO, particularly when she reads him for filth claiming she's speaking for their father, I was like, okay, this is a vibe, I'm into this. Then in the next episode when she pulls the pouty baby sister act to get her way (and succeeds!), I thought: uh oh I'm in trouble.

Oddly, it was 1x06, when Tom has the black eye and is explaining to Roman and Kendall that Shiv did it to him in bed when the light bulb went off for me and that was it for me:

To be honest, that first season my interest was more so Ken/Shiv/Roman-oriented, and Ken/Roman more than anything. The second season upended alllllllll of that.

"Safe Room" really is THAT episode, but even before that. Kendall apologizing for Shiv's wedding and her genuinely hurt reaction to it, and then Shiv smoking with Kendall outside Connor's party––by the time the meteor hit (every single thing that happens in "Safe Room") I was already cooking lol and then, lucky me!, the show kept heaping more and more on me. Rivals! Competition! Betrayal! Tuscany! "Shivy, honey"! She loves him but she can't stomach him! These are my vibes!!