Slime Puppy Reading Recs

Who’s a dirty boy!!??? Photo: HBO

You’ve seen the Succession fan cams at this point: Kendall or Greg, Shiv or Gerri, Connor if you’re nasty … maximizing their individual slays in montage form. These are the presentable, respectable public faces of online Succession fandom. Their thirstiness is ultimately chaste: a shirtless character here, a close-up on an ass there. It’s a glossy, fun product.

But maybe you’re more fucked up than that. Maybe you’re a Roman, or worse, a Matsson. Maybe you really want to sit down and live in a real freak’s head for a bit, if only to make the weeklong wait between new episodes go quicker. If any of that speaks to you, then I must tell you about the world of Succession fan fiction. And if it doesn’t speak to you, then I regret to inform you about the world of Succession fan fiction. As one would with something like One Direction or Supernatural, fans are writing screeds the length of literal novels putting their favorite characters in imaginary scenarios and relationships. Some of these are harmless, some are truly depraved. There are over 3,000 such works currently on Archive of Our Own. It just goes to show: It doesn’t matter how many Emmys a show wins or how many acclaimed playwrights work on it. Someone will take two characters and make them smooch.

The longest Succession fic on AO3 is in Spanish and is about an original character, presumably a self-insert for author LilaNox, and her relationship with Stewy. Other relationships featured in the story, called “Una noche para siempre,” include Stewy/Kendall and Greg/Tom. It is 368,892 words.

The longest Succession fic in the English language is called “you know who,” by user thinkatory, at 256,981 words. This one features “polyamorous negotiations” between Roman, Mencken, and Matsson, as well as tags like #RoughSex, #Choking, and #antisemitism. I am not endorsing this, nor am I clicking on it because it looks a bit too rich for my blood.

The fic with the most active comments section, with over 500 comments, is by writer called JustLikeAPapercut and is about Roman living in an apartment building between Tabitha and Gerri.

By far the most popular ship in the fandom, or at least the fan-fic community, is Greg/Tom. At a glance, I’d estimate that every third Succession story on the site is a Greg/Tom romance — their chemistry is just that electric. The third-most-read Succession fan fic is called “sounds like penance,” by GregoryJohnHirsch, and hilariously has a trigger warning up top that reads, “tw comfrey.” There are enough variations on Greg/Tom out there that they get pretty kinky pretty quickly. One is listed with the simple synopsis, “To Greg’s horror, he goes into heat while at work.”

And if you want crossover episodes, there are plenty: Succession meets Law & Order: SVU, Roman Roy and Hannibal Lecter, a Knives Out parody, and a crossover romance between Shiv and Ava from Hacks.

So go look these up! Or don’t! Just don’t accidentally text them to your dad across the conference table during a very important business negotiation!

This article originally appeared in Succession Club, our subscriber-exclusive newsletter obsessing over all the minutaie of the final season. Existing subscribers can visit this page to sign up. If you’re not a subscriber yet, get started here.