tamsiblings

[tamsiblings]

“unashamed of the tears in his eyes”

!!!

see this is one of the things i mean about simon not being emotionless. he’s not super openly crying but there are definitely tears in his eyes in that scene in the pilot. and it’s played a little softer there, which i don’t hate either - but i like that here being openly emotional and unashamed of it as an act of defiance. like yeah, Obviously, i’m going to cry when my hurt little sister i haven’t seen in 2 years is, and you don’t get to make me feel ashamed of that.

i don’t tend to think simon is a super openly crying crier in general - i think this and MAYBE the witchmob scene in safe are the only times we ever really see him teary. but this does speak to my whole simon is not a cold emotionless robot agenda.

[tamsiblings]

listen okay i would love to have a polycule ship in my life if people didn’t write them like

“grian then gives mumbo and scar loads of cuddles and they fall asleep clutching their teddies and it’s soo kawaii 🥺🥺🥺”

i’m sure there’s people who don’t write like this but from the surface this is like all i can see and it really reminds me of how tumblr would talk about effeminate gay people back in the day. i’m sorry babes but that is a grown man with cock and balls.

i want ANGST!! i want DYSFUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS!! i want SUPER CONFUSING IS IT CHEATING OR NOT CHEATING DO THEY KNOW THEYRE IN A POLYCULE RN OR IS ONE OF THEM JUST FUCKING AROUND??!!! i want a teeny pinch of pain in my polycule fics, just to prove it’s not treated like high school yaoi!!!

anyway i will now go on ao3 and try to prove myself wrong. but some of you!!!!! seem to forget these people are pretty much all in their mid-30s and don’t spend their extra time giggling at sleepovers…….

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i don’t think the actual episode has simon actually look down at kaylee and note that she is “helpless and sweet” and (implicitly) does not deserve her fate! this goes against his moral code to help vulnerable people! and i know we talk about simon and the hippocratic oath, and while i am ultimately convinced simon was bluffing here based on the sheer speed at which he runs to help her as soon as mal says to run, but the fact is i’m pretty sure even threatening to withhold care is a violation , in spirit if not in name. and this is not simon criticism - it’s a little morally grey, granted, but while kaylee doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her, neither does river, and every decision simon makes (in general, but in the pilot especially) must be in service of helping her, because right now, she’s very helpless, too. and while kaylee needs simon’s medical attention, in the aftermath, she’s got a boatload (semi-literal) of people who will help her—river’s only got him, at this point. anyway put simon tam in 1087236 ethical dilemmas i want to see him make more understandable but tough choices that will break him the longer he has to keep making them. lmao

[tamsiblings]

comfort character ask meme

send me a comfort character and a number and i’ll tell you:

1. how long have i known about them 2. whether or not they’ve ever made me cry 3. whether or not i have any merchandise/objects with them 4. what about their personality i like 5. what about their backstory makes me emotional 6. the moment of theirs that made me the saddest 7. the moment of theirs that made me the happiest 8. something about them that made me laugh 9. my favorite canon outfit of theirs 10. my favorite moment with them in canon 11. my favorite relationship they have with another character 12. what i like about the way the fandom portrays them 13. what i dont like about the way the fandom portrays them 14. what i liked about the way canon portrayed them 15. what i dont like about the way canon portrayed them

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i’m working on a simon-centric fic rec list (not terribly long, but) so if anyone wants to be tagged in it bc they’re looking for recs feel free to lmk

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ooh i like that the shooting script notes simon is changing the subject here. likely because he realizes how much personal identifying information he just gave away and that was a Bad Idea sjsjshsh

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“these two clearly already don’t trust each other” <333

a dynamic that can be so personal lmao

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reading the pilot shooting script in more depth and this is a fun moment not included between jayne and kaylee. don’t really have anything to say about it but she made me giggle so <33

oh i guess the serious thematic thing i would have to say about it is that it introduces this theme of “civilization” as a restrictive force explicitly more quickly. i think that’s very present throughout the pilot but i don’t think the actual terminology gets used until bushwhacked in the show proper. it also (again, already present, but more explicitly) sets up the difference in background/culture between kaylee and simon, making it all the more intriguing she’s so quickly enamored w/ him anyway.

[tamsiblings]

i think 'I trust you with my life but not your own' as a trope is one of the ones that can always fuck me up no matter what

[tamsiblings]

one thing i’ll say is a take i see a lot and can see some of the canon basis reading for but don’t… really agree with is the idea that gabriel and reagan tam just didn’t like river or preferred simon over her. i think this is for 2 main reasons so i want break them down.

a) the first flashback in safe where gabriel is mostly talking to simon and says “many years�� when river is asking about when she could have a dedicated sourcebox. but personally, i never saw this as gabriel ignoring river or as parental favoritism? for one thing: we don’t get as much about river’s relationship with their parents because all of the flashback are from simon’s perspective. gabriel is not outright ignoring river, as i’ve seen it suggested; his “because there were dinosaurs involved, i think we can let it slide” or whatever is a response to river. at the end, he also says, “you two geniuses” referring to them both. he’s talking to simon more because simon has a question for him, and it’s simon’s memory. and when river asks about when she, presumably, can get a dedicated sourcebox, and he says many years - i still just don’t see that as favoritism or him not loking her, as i often see suggested? it’s because gabriel was JUST saying that he originally didn’t want simon to have the sourcebox because it would give him too much unfiltered access to any and all information from the cortex. (which, something to be said about access vs restriction to free thought, but nvm that for now.) ofc, he’s messing around because their mother did actually order one, but i presume this was something they’ve been talking about for a while and this was the main argument against it before likely deciding that it would both be beneficial to simon’s work and that he’s old enough. river is, of course, a tiny prodigy genius, and likely already doing work far beyond what would be expected of her age, but she’s still supposed to be quite young here (i would guess about six?) and she and simon are supposed to have a pretty significant age gap. in the show, i think you could argue simon’s supposed to be anyway from early to late-mid twenties, but i tend to put him right at 25. so more than likely, i think not wanting river to have a sourcebox yet is about her age more than anything - it’s “many years” before she’ll have one because she’s still too young, from gabriel’s perspective. as the younger sibling if two (though w/much less of a gap), i DO feel baby!river’s pain lol, bc it certainly can feel unfair when your older sibling starts getting to do stuff you’re still deemed too young for.

b) i think where else this comes from is because their parents obviously end up ignoring river’s pleas for help and abandoning her. (they end up essentially abandoning simon too, though, albeit in a different way.) and don’t get me wrong: this is deeply wrong of them. they are not being fair to river here. they are prioritizing their status/image, wealth, and the security that being loyalty to the alliance can buy them over the safety and well-being of their daughter. but i’ve never gotten the impression that this is because they like, just don’t like her or care about her less. while i want to be careful not to imply that absolutely everyone on osiris or in the core is the same—simon is caring and extraordinary in many ways, but i doubt he is singularly so; we know, for instance, there IS. at least one (likely more) resistant movement on the core planets—the tam parents’ abandonment and dismissal of river is also a product of individualistic and self-serving culture the alliance produces. it was never about not liking river; it was about not valuing her over the rest of it. while obviously not all of it (immense love for river and betrayal on her behalf is also majorly at play in tgat final safe flashback) i’ve always thought part of the tragedy of the deterioration of simon’s relationship with his parents is because he realizes it wouldn’t be any different if it were him in river’s position. it wasn’t, because river had abilities the alliance could exploit and simon didn’t, but i truly don’t think, had the roles been reversed, the tam parents would’ve saved simon either. and simon realizes it.

anyway the tam parents were deeply flawed and unfair (to both of their children), i’m not trying to suggest otherwise. i just also think it’s more complicated than simply not caring about river or preferring simon.

[tamsiblings]

i'm really interested in how layered the power imbalance/differences between simon and jayne are.

like, simon comes from a privileged class background and even though he himself has not history with jayne, as a working class man, the kinds of people he's probably met with similar wealth and status he's almost assuredly either witnessed abuse their power over people like him or had it abused against himself. so that class difference, even if in practice/reality, it doesn't amount to much, given that simon no longer has money and he's been socially disgraced from his world (and that kind of status doesn't mean much in a lot of the worlds they visit anyways.) but that perception is still there. on the other hand, jayne is bigger and stronger than simon, and while he may not have had outright combat training, makes up for that with brute strength and a cache of weaponry. simon, while he can sort of hold his own, or at least get a few punches in, in certain situations, is not a trained combatant, not trained with weaponry, and not as physically strong as jayne. in the pilot, jayne restrains him with such ease it's a little funny despite that not being really tonally appropriate for the scene dhhshshs. jayne, while i think he's kind of full of shit when he says he's third in line in the chain of command, does have more social power on serenity in the sense that he probably would be higher up on that chain than simon, who has been on the ship significantly less time and whose main role is to be a medic. but THAT gives simon power over jayne, too, as we see clearly in the train job and trash, where he respectively drugs jayne when he decides he's not "comfortable" with jayne being in charge and reminds jayne that he's a vulnerable position when he's on simon's table, given that as a medic, there's a lot he could (but won't) do to him. but that only comes about because jayne tried to sell river and simon out in ariel, and they are very legally vulnerable, being the two most wanted fugitives on the ship. while jayne is a criminal, he's not being actively hunted by the government and tries to use the fact that they are to his advantage. but this happened, at least in part, because of river's attack on him at the start of that episode, putting jayne in a vulnerable position, and while that action was river's, as her brother and caretaker, simon is going to put her, who has admittedly prove a danger to jayne in at least this one instance, over his safety and well-being. but simon's love for and taking care of river also makes him vulnerable, because he's got more (at least directly on the ship, where jayne could, theoretically, do something about it/use it for his advantage) to lose.

also: it's notable to me that the only two real instances i can think of when it comes to simon trying to exert power over jayne are in the train job and trash. in the train job, while simon doesn't specifically hear jayne say that he thinks the captain will/should give them up, he clearly knows jayne doesn't like him and if given the option would probably give them up himself at this point. he dopes jayne partly because he's trying to take over the ship and have them take the medicine to niska when everyone else wants to help mal and zoe, but he also frames it like "i just wasn't comfortable with him being in charge." i think it's pretty likely he also thought jayne might try something (even if it was simply dumping them somewhere) and took matters into his own hands before that could have a chance of happening. in trash, again, he is displaying medical power over jayne by reminding him of his vulnerability when he gets hurt, but is doing so in response to finding out about jayne's actions in ariel. he never plans to seriously hurt jayne, only temporarily incapacitate him so that he could confront jayne on his own terms (see: jayne is bigger and stronger) and let it be known that he's not going to take shit from jayne, but he's also willing to move on.

both of those instance are - not quite self defense, because that would imply a physical threat being imposed in the moment, and that's not the case. but they come from simon seeing jayne as a threat in some way and taking the measures he deems necessary to neutralize that threat.

otherwise, he doesn't seem... all that interesting in having power over jayne. he establishes it in those moments because he deems it necessary for his and river's safety (and in the first case, because he guesses the crew will agree with him, as it has tangential benefits to what they'll want, though he gets a bit nervous once it actually happens.) whereas i do think jayne cares a little more? i mean, jayne cares more about power in general. in the pilot, though his comment about kaylee ultimately hurts her feelings and is more derogatory toward her, it's also, i think, something he's doing because he wants to make simon uncomfortable too, possibly because he doesn't like to see kaylee, someone he cares about, showing so much interest in someone of such a different class. he makes a point of telling simon he's in charge while mal and zoe are away and that he should just stay out of the way. he delights in finding out about simon's fears of being out in empty open space in only a space suit and uses it to play a prank on him. he HATES that simon has any perceived power over him in jaynestown, even though it's fake. ('he's in charge now?')

jayne cares a lot more about power in general, but that's actually utlimately a vunerability, too, because it's something that could be used against him, and it's jayne's thirst for power in the first place that makes simon decide when he needs to wield his own.

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also i started working on an episode ranking list with Thoughts but accidentally deleted half of it so i am in mourning. will still probably make at some point

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hehe now that i’m done with the show proper (rewatch-wise, but i’m sure i will have more to say sporadically, the hyper-fixation is Holding for now) i can’t wait to talk about the shooting scripts more and dead or alive as though they were fully realized episodes. djdjhdd. also the film at some point. but that first i think

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also what i love about objects in space is how much it shows mal is just. a huge fucking softie w/ his crew lmao. like he’ll yell and make orders without explaining sometimes, he does expect people to fall in line, etc. but when all is said and done he is very <3 with them, to the point where he’s… hm. i don’t want to say a pushover because he’s not in the larger sense about things that really matter lmao (see: ariel airlock scene) but is Certainly Very Lenient, in all honesty. his crew REGULARLY talks back to him and he might snipe a little but he mostly goes along lmao. at one point wash basically takes over the ship and DEMANDS to go on a mission and mal lets him get away with this, and yeah, it’s because it’s just a milkrun, but stiiiill.

it shows up in this episode most clearly with river AND simon in actuality. when he finds river with the gun he calls her sweetheart and says he’s not mad; and yeah, he gets a little stern after that, but he’s just trying to impress the importance of what he’s saying on her. when he asks simon about her revovery right after, he approaches it so casually at first? he was not, and still isn’t, shy about reminding simon of his responsibility to look after river as being part of their deal, but this whole scene ends so casually tbh? “you take extra care with her” is such a mild warning lmao. and even when kaylee brings up what river did at niska’s, mal has to genuinely consider kicking them off the ship, but he’s not happy about it, trying to placate simon during the conversation, etc. when river appears on the comm, even though he was maybe a mere hour ago? genuinely considering having to kick her off the ship (and you could make an argument that he had come to a decision: he was sitting alone at the table before he tried to go to bed and did NOT look too happy about it. hot take but i think he was going to, or at least leaning that way, and the rest of the episode changed his mind.) at the start when he’s getting Slightly more stern with simon he brings up the idea of what would happen if simon got shot (and I love how this is framed as mal Trying to be a little more stern but also like. he is basically just worrying about both river and simon in that moment LMAO. like yes I am So Commanding and you /must/ remember to follow my orders i am the captain here!!! also don’t want you to get shot. bc it’ll be harder for anyone to help you since you are the doctor. hshshshs). and then at the end he watched he comed up to the doorway and watches a little as zoe is fixing him up sjshsh. he is so unserious <33

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i understand that objects in space wasn’t intended as a finale (though i have to imagine that some of the cool production stuff they did (especially the whole riverand kaylee playing jacks and the zoom from that going through the ship at the end) was intended to make it a little more ‘epic’.) but i do think it works thematically well as a finale of sorts to what the show was SUPPOSED to be about before it got cut off - a group of characters grappling with more or less having all the same problems 500 years in the future, and the idea of the universe being irrational and lacking inherent meaning, but creating. meaning by choosing loyalty and family and each other. and like, i get that it’s frustrating for the story to get cut off and to not get answers in the show proper, but i think there’s something kind of beautiful about it. is river dangerous? well she’s different and yeah maybe but she’s their family and she helped them. does book have a mysterious past? well yeah obviously and they’re more than happy to tease him about it but they’re not gonna force the explaining thing, that’s his business. will the tams have to leave serenity? not for now, maybe one day, but they’re part of the family and they’re staying as long as it’s still viable for everyone. also things like - mal (talking about river, but it’s a good question more broadly) presenting the question of what happens if /simon/ gets seriously hurt, as the doctor on board. and then he actually does get hurt, and yeah, okay, maybe it won’t work every tine for zoe to help him out like that if his injury is too severe, for now, it works, and they will Figure It Out. they’re always getting through from one day to the next - but they’re doing it together! <3

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sean maher interview from 2002 - i think they must have been filming either the pilot or the train job at this point and did this quick interview on set? since i'm pretty sure he's wearing the same waistcoat/dress shirt combo

edit: okay actually no way it's the pilot. they're talking about why people should watch it when it airs next friday. but what aired was the train job and that's not enough time to film and do production on episode either shsss. my next guess is this was shot during bushwhacked? that still seems tight but tbf shooting schedules can be crazy, and i think he actually wears the same waistcoat (or a similar looking one to the pilot and the train job) there too.

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"he would not fucking say that" but about injuries. he would not fucking recover that quickly. those scars would not fucking heal like that. he would not be fucking able bodied after that. he would not be fully lucid after that.