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“Don’t,” Simon said, stopping Grace with a hand. “I don’t trust it.”
“Can I at least take off my helmet?” Grace whined. “I’ve had an itch on my face for like, the past hour. My glasses are sliding down my nose and-”
“Alright,” Simon snapped. “Just. Keep it nearby.”
Grace sighed in relief and twisted the helmet off his head.
“Human suit inefficient. Eridian space suit much better,” Rocky declared.
Grace huffed. “We can’t just wear a flexible metal polymer and call it a day, Rocky. We’re squishy, leaky space blobs, remember?”
They started to argue the merit of EVA suits versus Rocky’s when Grace noticed Adrian sliding off their seat to climb closer to Simon. He turned his chair over to better speak to them, as Adrian pointed their tall carapace toward him.
“Simon had a nightmare, question?” Adrian asked him, opening and closing their claw with what Grace recognized as a nervous gesture.
“Oh. Uh, yeah,” Simon shifted. Surprising Grace by his openness, he went on, “I didn’t know until now, but I had a feeling that it… the Light, the anomaly, was talking to me.”
“Good hypothesis. Human minds are very active in sleep. Speaking through mind when awake and sleep.”
Simon just nodded as Grace half-listened to Rocky detailing how he would create a xenonite human space suit.
“It is painful, question? To hear the anomaly.” Adrian asked.
“It’s not my favorite,” Simon deadpanned. “But it’s quiet now. M’ fine. Don’t worry.”
His voice grew soft in a way Grace only heard when he talked to Adrian. The teal Eridian swayed slightly, choosing their words before they spoke.
“Always worry,” Adrian said. “I do not like nightmares.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Simon huffed.
“Do not like anomaly speaking to Simon. Light was blaming Simon,” Adrian went on, huffing steam out of their vents that fogged up the interior of their suit.
Grace had the sudden intense urge to run Simon through an FMRI machine. God, he wished he had one of those to see what the activity of his brain during these communications.
“Yeah, well, we had a- a deal,” Simon shrugged, the movement inhibited by his bulky suit. “We said we’d leave each other alone, and…”
He tossed his hand flippantly toward the screen.
“But Anomaly spoke in Simon’s nightmare before Hail Mary Crew sent probes,” Adrian pointed out. “Told Simon lies.”
“I- I don’t know. I mean. It knew we were trying to stop it, so it was trying to scare me, I guess.” Simon let out a bitter laugh. “It worked.”
Grace had long since stopped trying to act like he wasn’t eavesdropping, but Rocky didn’t berate him or hold up the pretense either. To anyone else it would look as if Rocky was focused on the remote and screen of the probe, but Grace knew his best friend better than anyone. He could tell when and what Rocky’s attention shifted to.
“Anomaly is wrong," Adrian stated, voice firm.
“We broke our deal. We’re hunting it and-”
“Adrian heard Simon tell Grace what Anomaly said,” Adrian stated. “Anomaly is incorrect, statement. Adrian, Grace, Rocky will always save Simon.”
Simon froze. Grace felt his brow furrow in confusion. When did Simon say that?
“You heard that, huh?”
His shoulders further hunched, and Grace shoved away his own conflicting emotions to focus on Simon. When Simon had mumbled under his breath, he must have said it. Of course, the Eridians could hear what Grace couldn’t make out. The Light had told Simon that they wouldn’t save him? That the ‘cowardly scientist’ wouldn’t save him. That must have been… terrifying. No wonder Simon woke up screaming. Grace felt anger bubble up in his stomach. An old, vindictive part of him that Grace thought he had long buried resurfaced. He wanted to see the anomaly’s cells under a microscope, dissociated, dissected and strewn into pieces, translucent and incapable of harm like a dead astrophage cell. Nothing but water, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The one good thing about water-based life forms was that Grace knew how water-based life forms died, even if they were alien. He could only hope the sample they tore from the entity was something Grace could work with.
But he shoved down his anger in favor of helping his friend. Jerking from his nightmare, Simon had all but leapt into his arms, so Grace was pretty sure he wasn’t monumentally screwing up by slinging an arm over his shoulder and squeezing him in a side hug.
“It was wrong,” Grace agreed. “You’re part of the crew. We all save each other. Rocky saved me, Adrian saved me-”
“Grace saved Rocky!” Rocky piped up.
“That’s right, bud,” Grace smiled. “We saved each other.”
“And Simon took a spacewalk to try and retrieve Grace when Grace was being a stupid idiot bitch.”
“Whoa! Hey!” Grace exclaimed. “Don’t think I forgot about your language, mister!”
“Am not student. Grown Eridian. Older than Grace.” Rocky whistled.
“Does not give you a pass to go around calling me a- a-!” Grace steamrolled into the next sentence, “-mean words! You don’t even know the cultural implications of that word, do you?!”
“Would know if Grace explained swear words to Rocky like a grown-ass-”
“Hey, hey, hey!”
Their bickering prompted a laugh from Simon, just a small surprised snort that immediately drew Grace’s attention. Simon’s eyes creased as he shook his head, parts of his pulled-back hair falling in front of his face as he ducked his head. Grace felt his indignation freeze alongside his body, stuck watching those dark strands snake over his eyes, squinting with mirth. A smile tugged at his own lips.
“Did you teach him those words?!” Grace breathed, far too… breathless to sound properly scolding, like the wind had been taken from his sails.
“No!” Simon insisted, brow only furrowing a bit when he caught sight of the smile Grace tried to wrestle out of his expression.
It wasn’t amusing, gosh darn it! He’d spent four years safeguarding English curse words from Rocky only to hear him say, ‘Peek a boo, bitch!’
“Rocky already knew words! Needed Eridian translation. Said this before. Had some time before building Clyde to update many words into the translator," Rocky ranted.
Grace sputtered, “And you chose the b-word? Of all things?”
“The b-word?” Simon said incredulously, a smile on his face. “You can’t be serious.”
“Eight years,” Grace groaned, slumping down in his seat. “I kept him away from English swear words for eight years!”
Adrian’s tinkling laughter, joined by Simon’s much quieter chuckles, finally loosened any lingering annoyance he felt.
My LEAST favorite characterization of Simon is when people make him stoic. Markiplier did not act his ass off for ppl to portray him as aloof and having no external emotion.
This man is NOT quiet and non-emotional and I’m really tired of seeing bloodymary fics that make it seem like he’d keep everything inside. The guy who blurted “I think I died.” And “I’m seeing things” and “what? I can’t ask a question?”. In a non-life threatening situation he would be talkative and snarky and emotional and awkward.
I’ve read a lot of bloodymary fics and I’m just getting tired of seeing this specific characterization. He can appear aloof and standoffish sure, but I really don’t think he’d stay that way the second someone engages with him. Anyway, he’s not just the angry grumpy reserved trope to Graces sunshine trope.
I will die on the hill of “Grace would rather internalize and repress everything until the day he dies and simply cope by being as self-destructive as possible” (see the deleted scene of his entire drunken spiral) and Simon is constantly fighting between saying the Correct Thing vs the Really Fucking Funny Thing (and often times the later is what wins out because this man loves to get under someone’s skin, ESPECIALLY if they’ve been an asshole to him already)
The only time we see Simon reserved is about Filament Station. He’s not forthcoming about things he knows others have used against him.
That’s not the same as being stoic or aloof and even then, when pushed enough, he WILL begrudgingly talk about it (ie the voice pressuring him into revealing what happened to Filament Station).
As for Grace being the sunshine trope…the sun is also a giant ball of fire. Grace is the kind of person who is trying to be the epitome of soft, and gentle and sunshine-y in the traditional sense because it’s the only thing keeping him from possibly killing a man. He does NOT want to talk about how he’s really feeling, he’ll deny it as long as he can and cope with as many distractions as he can possibly find.
My LEAST favorite characterization of Simon is when people make him stoic. Markiplier did not act his ass off for ppl to portray him as aloof and having no external emotion.
This man is NOT quiet and non-emotional and I’m really tired of seeing bloodymary fics that make it seem like he’d keep everything inside. The guy who blurted “I think I died.” And “I’m seeing things” and “what? I can’t ask a question?”. In a non-life threatening situation he would be talkative and snarky and emotional and awkward.
I’ve read a lot of bloodymary fics and I’m just getting tired of seeing this specific characterization. He can appear aloof and standoffish sure, but I really don’t think he’d stay that way the second someone engages with him. Anyway, he’s not just the angry grumpy reserved trope to Graces sunshine trope.
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"Between you and me," he said, his voice falling so low it became hard to hear through the glass, "I didn't think he had it in him."
Her face remained carefully neutral, "The mission or the volunteering?"
"No! Not the mission, no. Hell, he might have been more prepared than Martin and Annie. I'm sure you made sure of that." Something sharp slipped through underneath his laugh, but just as quickly it was sheathed and put away. "Very clever man. You always did put a lot of faith in him. Even when he wouldn't do the same himself."
"Modesty never suited him," she said. He hummed in agreement.
"But volunteering..." he whistled, shaking his head. "I mean, we were horribly unlucky. It all happened very fast. Sacrificing yourself with so little time to consider it takes courage. And well, you remember how Dr. Grace was."
"A coward?"
He raised his hands defensively, "Now you said it, not me! But... a little, yes. What is that American expression again—"
He drummed his fingers on his knee before lighting up. "Scaredy-cat!" he said, Russian accent wrapping thickly around the vowels. "That's him. Like a skittish cat. A good man—one of our best. But not a brave one. Not the stuff heroes are usually made of."
She pressed her lips together and rested her chin on her hands. "If anything it does him an honour. I hear they're already planning a memorial in San Francisco?"
"Yes. I will be attending," he murmured. He shook his head. "Funerals for the living. That is the world we live in, Ms Stratt."
They grew quiet. He blinked rapidly and grimaced, looking away. Suddenly, he burst into laughter. "Ah, damn him! I wish I could've said goodbye. Is that selfish?"
"Of course not," she said. Another scab fell loose. She pressed her thumb into her palm to stop the bleeding.
"He goes to save us all and I'm mad at him. But he was a friend. I wish the last time I saw his face wasn't while he was looking at me like a cornered animal."
"He was still afraid," she said, looking down at her hands. "Up to the very last moment. That's why he asked us to induce the coma early. Trust me, doctor, you wouldn't have wanted this. Neither of you."
They both gave the other a moment, eyes either shut tightly or resting vacantly somewhere above the other's head. A hand wiping across a face. The picking of a scab under a fingernail. A throat cleared.
"Well. As I said. Scaredy-cat." He wiped at his eyes, attempting a smile. "Cats like to go off to die on their own, I suppose."
Her nails bit into the meat of her palms. She said nothing.
I'm gonna be extra levels of woke and Bloodymary post just to keep pissing off everyone who's bothered by it, by the way. Enjoy your extra content while I be an annoyance. 🫶
Simon "sees his mother every time he looks in the mirror" Nolastname has some wild repressed takes on his own masculinity.
Simon "gender labels went out of style 300 years ago" agender Martian man. Gender stopped becoming relevant when alien species indicators became relevant.
Simon asking "what planet you from?" at Grace not realizing that's a wild concept to even consider from his perspective.
Simon "god I'm so tired of aliens" deadpan reacting to Rocky like it's a normal Tuesday event to see a rock spider singing at him.
Simon "we have bigger things to worry about" has no idea what the terms "gay" or "trans" mean and treats them both like an archaic medieval-era word.
2020s Earth sounding utterly and completely barbaric to Simon, who was born late into the social progress movement. Like, real late.
Simon who speaks a far future dialect of Martian-English (perhaps Martian-Korean) and sounds like he's speaking Simlish to Grace. Meanwhile, Grace sounds borderline medieval to Simon (having a nearly 400-year time period gap), who has spoken more Eridian than English at that point and so now even his English is rusty. Simon not batting at eye at this random dude who's humming at him because "I've seen weirder forms of communication from weirder people".
Simon "it's baseline normalcy to put women in positions of power" because misogyny went out the window long ago.
Simon telling Grace about Mars. Grace imagining Mars being some kind of closed-off, scattered colony situation. Then Simon starts talking about cities and how the Mars population had an overcrowding issue (in game lore, they surpassed the population of earth on a smaller total surface area). Grace having to come to terms with the idea that humans absolutely put the equivalent of a Dollar General on Mars.
Grace: Would it be potentially upsetting to you if I wore a skirt to class today?
Simon: ... huh?
Grace: Just checking if it's okay with you first.
Simon: ... What the hell are you talkin' about man? Why you asking me that?
Grace: Uh.
Simon: You don't gotta ask me if you want to... wear clothes??
Grace: Sssure. Right. Of course! Why would you care? You're from ages from now!
Simon: You're fuckin' strange.
Grace being more weird about facing the prospect of queerness than Simon is. Simon's the chill one. Normalized-years-ago pansexual Simon's fucking vibing while Grace has the sexuality crisis.
Arospec Simon and Acespec Ryland. Simon being ferociously demi and compartmentalizing transactional sex with romantic sex because of the circumstances he came from. Ryland who's down with the casual shit while Simon works out whatever the hell is going on with his own avoidant-attachment issues.
A no expectations, no bullshit approach to the ship. "If something happens, whatever. If something doesn't, whatever."
Forced proximity trope gets completely turned on its head. Ryland isn't clingy in the slightest and loves having space and privacy.
Simon who's not used to privacy after prison and being crammed on overcrowded space stations his whole life, so he relishes in periods of alone time. He and Ryland enjoy crossing paths as they go about their day but the cohabitation is friendly yet breathable. Easy.
Simon sprawling out and taking up as much space as possible simply because he can.
Simon "everyone wants something frome me" Nolastname and Ryland "vulnerability is my worst fear" Grace both absolutely enjoying a no strings attached kind of QPR.
Simon: Population control was at an all-time high and same-sex stuff was actually encouraged.
Grace: We just got that stuff legalized where I'm from.
Simon: What? It was banned on Earth?
Grace: I mean, yeah for a long time.
Simon: You monsters... I really should've paid attention in interplanetary history.
Grace: YOU HAD INTERPLANETARY HISTORY TEACHERS!?
Simon: Professors, actually. They didn't shoot dumbfucks into space to colonize Mars.
I have discovered I have inadvertently upset some Lung puritans with my openness towards Bloodymary and PHM.
I think Bloodymary is a testament to how far people are willing to bend the rules and throw logic out the window at the chance to uplift another. People would rather rip the narrative universe apart than let Simon drown in that ocean.
A large chunk of the audience chose to be perceived as cringe to jump at the chance to save someone who is objectively a monster. You treat Simon's mistreatment so seriously that you didn't even stop to correct the fact that I just spoke about Simon as if he were real right now. Truth of the matter is, he's a character... but your feelings about his story are real.
Simon is like your empathy practice training dummy and it's amazing to watch people become more human for it.
Don't you know how special that is? You went straight to hopecore and that is such a crazy thing to witness as someone who's been in depression for 15+ years. There was a very real chance that the general audience consensus would have been, "Simon deserved it" and moved on. Everybody knew this while they were developing the story. This movie was a social test and you all passed with flying colors.
You stubbornly provided rep to the disabled/mentally ill community with being so adamant about the struggle to survive what Simon did (at least, on the fix-it side of things). Which is an incredible feat all on its own. It's something nobody directly asked of you, yet you did anyway. You're actively fighting against the doomcore pessimistic approach to Iron Lung, and that's the entire point. It's supposed to wake you the fuck up and look at your life.
I've seen many people do their best to represent anger issues and address them without demonizing Simon and that is a HUGE step in social progress, empathy and media literacy, even when it's not 100% accurate, because by god you're trying. People are using Ryland Grace as a vessel for their own kindness. You guys wonder why he's OOC a lot and it's because people are writing themselves being nice to Simon and using Grace as a literary disguise! You're not slick.
Fandom is going to explore every facet under the sun, because that's the pinnacle of artistic expression. It dips into the horny, the weird, the tender, the fucked-up, the sweet, the mundane and fantastical. Your bitching is not going to stop that. You can't create enough hate campaigns in the world to stop human creativity.
We all have different opinions on what we like and what we don't. It's not anyone's job to dictate that for others, but rather find what we like and surround ourselves with it. See something you don't like? Scroll. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but it's true.
So, if I've pissed you off because I, an Iron Lung main, enjoy indulgent writing every now and then, fuck straight off, and also go do some soul searching, because you sound very insecure about some real important things.
If Markiplier himself doesn't get on camera, if David Szymanski or Andy Weir don't personally condemn it, then we have not been given the stop sign. Go fucking wild.
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