tamsiblings

[tamsiblings]

time to talk about the tam parents!!

my feelings about them are: they are complicated.

i've seen a real tendency (particularly on platforms like reddit or in youtube reactor videos comments, but even at times in fic) to either want to 100% vilify the tam parents, or 100% justify them, and the theory that they gave up river to the academy knowing what would happen is a prevalent one. but not one i really buy.

likewise, though, i have seen (to be fair, i think often in response to the above) another tendency to more or less excuse the tam parents' actions (or inactions), and act like they had no choice.

which, not to quote another whedon property in the form of btvs but. they may not have had a good choice, but they certainly had a choice. like most of whedon's work, firefly is a text very interested in exploring existentialist themes, and one of the principle ideologies of existentialism is that we always have a choice. you might not always have many great options, but doing or at least trying to do the right thing is what gives life meaning and value.

the tams are living in an a society where, yes, the government is controlling and oppressive, but they themselves are seemingly very privileged and reap many of the rewards that the society they're living in has to offer.

i don’t think that they knew what the academy was going to do with river upon her initially going or agreed to it in any way. i think that would make them look cartoonishly evil in a way that i don’t think the text itself is trying to suggest.

instead, i think that they sent her and then were willfully ignorant to the red flags as they came up. and at some point must have realized simon was right (normally a school would have like, breaks and stuff. simon says he couldn’t get near her for two years! and ofc there are the letters) and actively chosen to ignore it, because it would upset their lives, because they didn’t want to rock the boat. yes, maybe they would have been in danger for even trying to check on her - but good parents still should. and the fact of the matter is, a LOT of emphasis is put on them caring about status and the nice lives being loyal to the alliance can buy them over their children.

they seem like they were loving and generous parents when things were easy, but when they weren’t? they ignored river’s pleas for help and abandoned her and ignored simon’s begging them to listen and treated him like a problem and disowned him.

so, like, they weren’t good parents in the grand scheme of things, they also probably weren’t outright sadistic monsters and instead complacent and passive, and also, i would fully understand if neither simon or river were able to forgive them for it. because yikes.

[tamsiblings]

KSJSJSHSHHS IT’S SOOO. yeah. in their defense they’re #new at this.

it’s so funny though; they are the MOST wanted people on the ship. and the least prepared to be the most wanted 😭😭😭 the rest of the crew are criminals, but, at least prior to taking simon and river on, i don’t think are actively wanted? (that may change after ariel hm). they’re always at risk ofc if the alliance finds out what they’re doing re: smuggling, but in contrast, simon and tam are high-level being Actively hunted by the federal government fugitives. and they’re sooooo bad at it lmao

he was clearly already suspicious but also if you look closely dobson looks at simon very discerningly right after he says that 😭😭😭 simon,,,

river also not good at low profile lmao. she gets called a witch and is like “yeah i’ll read your mind whatever”

[tamsiblings]

river also not good at low profile lmao. she gets called a witch and is like “yeah i’ll read your mind whatever”

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also when river tells simon he has to eat again, he smiles and gives her this one little adorable “m’am yes m’am” nod. they are everything to me.

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river getting berries for simon and trying to take care of him <333 “you have to eat” my heart!

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simon loves river with everything he has and that's the primary reason he's doing All Of This but i do think it's also clear that like... taking care of river/trying to protect her/worrying about her constantly has become simon's Reason For Existing in a way that's, y'know. not entirely healthy, lmao. he tells river in this episode that she is everything he has. it's a very sweet and heartfelt reassurance of his love for her, but it's also not like. the healthiest mindset anyone's ever had.

in the pilot, simon told mal "if you want to throw me out of the airlock, fine, but river is not a part of this." while obviously very panicked and just like, reacting to what's happening (and it's ofc supposed to show us how much he cares about her), the logic of it is also a little ??? because river was not, having just woken up, in a place to take care of herself, and simon had no reason (the opposite, tbh) to think that mal or any of the crew would want or be able to take care of her. he had to hope, i suppose, that keeping her alive even if he was dead was enough.

likewise, in safe, simon tries to offer his life in place of river's to the patron, despite the fact that then she would be on her own in a community of strangers who think she's a witch. and ofc, he gets up on the post with her and chooses, without knowing that the others will come back, to burn with her.

and it's not logical because simon's not capable of being logical about the idea of river dying. he saved her and continues to try to help her because he loves her, and that is genuine and earnest and true. but there's also this element to it where if river dies, what is even left of his life at this point? he wouldn't suddenly be able to go back to osiris or be particularly safe from at least the threat that the alliance Could one day find him. he doesn't know the serenity crew is coming, and it's not like he's going to want to stay in jiangyin with the people who killed his sister after that.

i don't read simon as actively suicidal - there is a lot of specific context of what's going on in all of these instances that make it more complicated than that. at the same time, though, the idea of keeping river safe is his north star at this point - literally his purpose in life, and everything he's been doing (including being a doctor on serenity, essentially to buy them both passage on it) is in service of that. if river ever did die, i think simon would... just fucking break and never be the same again, tbh. he would certainly become a lot more actively and often reckless with his own life, at the very least.

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fucking get 'im part whatever

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"have you completely lost your mind?" "pretty nearly."

vs.

"are you out of your mind?" "just about!"

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"seems like a lovely little community of kidnappers"

*continues to help*

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it's so fucking cute that they introduce each other to doralee rather than themselves

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she's sooo fucking pretty

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inara telling simon he's lost in the woods vs. river telling him they're both lost in the literal woods... hm...

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she's so happy! he's so happy watching her be happy! i'm sobbing!

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sidenote: in the shooting script (sorry to keep referencing them they just add So Much insight and i like that given how little there is of the show lmao) mal tells simon, "you stop actin' like a fugitive, no one's apt to notice." which i do think simon really needed to hear, LMAO, and that has been true since the pilot. unfortunately he did not hear it in the episode... though it didn't work in the script either.

[tamsiblings]

re: simon's rant, lmao, the creators are really not afraid of making the audience uncomfortable just by nature of how LONG an awkward/uncomfortable moment goes on. it's hard to watch!

now, we all know i am a simon supporter (and maybe perhaps a little bit simon apologist lmao, if it helps i am aware of my biases) but to be fair, i am going FUCK YEAH GET HIS ASS during this whole exchange (even if i do have some sympathetic things to say about him after)

kaylee is, ofc, 100% right to call him out here. he was being mean about things that matter to her, judgmental, and inconsiderate of her feelings. he wasn't outright trying to hurt her - he was ranting, and, rather than cruelty, his real crime here was inconsideration. it's not that he was trying to hurt her feelings, it's that he didn't think about her feelings at all while he was saying it. which is shitty!

as uncomfortable and sad as it is to watch, though, i do kind of think it was necessary for it to happen, both because kaylee had him up on a little bit of a pedestal that he needed to get knocked down from if they're ever going to have a real shot at a relationship, and because it forces simon to grow and reflect. (they do have other simon-puts-his-foot-in-his-mouth related conflicts, but in fairness, there are 3 of those throughout a 14 episode run, and they're all about/caused by at least somewhat different things, and i think they're honestly the very realistic kind of blunders that happen as you're getting to know someone. this is the worst one by a mile, imo.)

also, i think what bothers me about his behavior here more than what he was actually saying is when he tries to backtrack and be like "no no i was being ironic" simon! just say you were having a bad day and what you said was shitty and you're sorry! it's not that hard hshshshshs

on to a tiny bit of simon-leaning sympathy: to his credit, when she walks away, he looks genuinely upset to have hurt her feelings. and also, again, while this doesn't excuse anything, he is having a bad day, and it's actually very telling to me that he rants to kaylee, specifically, i think because he feels the most comfortable around her (and maybe inara, she is there too) out of anyone else on the crew. (i honestly don't think he would have said, any of this, to, say, wash or zoe.) that doesn't make it right, but it does make me think he genuinely didn't want to hurt her feelings.

[tamsiblings]

she's so cute <333

also: lowkey she's reading the mind of the cattle right now, right? that's kind of the vibe i'm getting, and that she's comforted by the simplicity of their thoughts and their connection to each other and the world around them.

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i think one of the reasons i really like the mal & simon dynamic is that i usually understand where both of them are coming from, so the tension between them feels very earned and believable without ever really making me too mad at either of them for it.

like - mal is not telling simon to quiet river down just to be a dick. they have a sale to make, and losing any of the cattle would probably compromise their deal. he has the livelihood of the whole crew (including simon and river) to think about. so he's not trying to be rude about it (in fact, i think, upon coming in, he's actually trying to be quite reasonable and good-spirited about it, in his sarcastic mal way, and it's not until simon is a little snipey back that he starts to get a little more aggressive.) i do think 'gag her if you have to' is a bit extreme lmao, but he's really just trying to make his point, and at the end of the day, i really do not envy the position he's in because it can be really easy to look like 'the bad guy' when you have to put your foot down for practical reasons.

but from simon's perspective - mal came in at the worst possible time. river threw his medkit, so maybe she wouldn't have taken it, and i don't think simon would have forced her to - but he was trying to give her a medication that might have helped her calm down. even if it didn't, the point is that simon, even if he's not thinking about the cattle specifically, is not ignoring river's yelling - he is trying to deal with it even as mal is coming in - primarily because he doesn't want her to be distressed/upset, but also, it's not fun to be yelled at, even when you understand the person doesn't mean to hurt you with it and it's not their fault. but i think for simon, it's very frustrating that mal is coming in to tell him to deal with this as though he's not already trying. it's just a complicated situation because river is very deeply traumatized, and while simon can sometimes help her, there really are bad days that you just kind of have to ride out.