#eros.exe

Everyone is aware Simon has trauma. But Grace has trauma too and she improved herself. And the reason that people say “Grace did nothing wrong” is because 97% of Simon fans are racist and misogynistic. Blaming all of his shitty behavior on her, saying his behavior was justified because “Grace lied to him” (never mind the fact that she lied to him because she knew that he would have zero problem KILLING A SIX YEAR OLD-), complaining about how Simon didn’t get redeemed in a show about redemption even though Grace is the protagonist of b3 and the whole season was about her redemption. If anyone says something like “fuck Simon and his white boy problems” it’s because we’re fucking tired of black characters getting shit on because everyone favors the white boy instead. There’s also obvious racist coding on him where he he expects Grace to owe him everything and tell him how to behave

I’ll also say the npd incident on Twitter is shitty as fuck, but it wasn’t a confirmation. An ignorant part of the crew said Simon was a narcissist, got called out, and took it back. It’s a huge stretch to say the season was ableist for killing him. Also anyone with any disorder can be shitty and they aren’t exempt from being called out. You can argue that the killing off of Simon was ableist because it implies that he deserved to die for having npd, but I literally covered that point in the beginning by saying his death was never supposed to be deserved

The last thing I’m gonna say is that like. Do people know they can like an antagonist character without trying to justify their actions??? I personally had fun watching Simon be a bastard and that’s why I liked him. Sometimes a character is traumatized but also a bastard that’s fun to hate. That’s the point of most villains

Sayonara

...okay. with all due respect, anon, not only are you wrong; you are also quite literally proving my point. i'll try to keep this as brief as can be, which if i were honest, might not be very brief.

for starters, most of the people who vehemently hate simon– which really consists of a majority of the fandom, let's be honest– reiterate that his "refusal to change," (ie. his refusal to redeem himself) is why he deserved to die. because if grace changed, learned, and grew as a person, he could have, too; however, his perceived refusal to do so makes him somehow worthy of his demise. this mindset, accompanied with some other things i'll be touching on later, makes it evident that there was ableism written into the show with simon's character. however, we can get to that in due time, since i want to respond to some of the other things you brought up first.

i'm well aware that his death is supposed to be fucked up and sad. that being said, his death can be fucked up and sad while also having ableist ideology embedded within it– the ableism is the problem here. also, if it was meant to be so sad, then why did they demonize him to the extent that they did, and why did the audience celebrate his death? all that being said, i will leave the mentions of the ableism for when i get to where you bring it up.

second of all, saying simon was given multiple opportunities to change ignores the fact that without guidance, some people will not be able to change. without a support system, some people will not be able to change. and don't come in here with "grace guided and supported him!" or "grace doesn't owe him any of that!" as if support isn't something almost everyone needs in order to grow; especially support from a friend. as for my first example, she really didn't guide or support him; not in the way he needed to grow as a person. all of his "opportunities" to change were moments where grace ended up lashing out at him for doing something wrong without explaining to him what he was doing that was wrong. she'd simply end up putting distance between them– making simon think she's going to abandon him just like samantha had– or saying something along the lines of "now's not the time, simon." and scolding him; or, at worst, pulling rank on him. people like simon need love and support to grow as people, and of course you're going to want it from someone you admire and trust. literally the only reason grace came to grow was because she was shown love by this little girl and she saw how much the girl– who she believed to be human at the time– loved this denizen as if she were her own mother. that made her realize she was wrong about the denizens.

the only reason it didn't work like that with simon was due to his previous experiences with samantha. telling himself that the denizens didn't have real emotions was the way he coped with the abandonment. calling them "null"s and saying they don't feel anything made it easier for him to accept that he was abandoned, because that'd mean if they did feel something, then samantha just didn't care for him enough. i know we're on the topic of simon and grace, but it's important to touch on at least one of the reasons why simon's "opportunities" to grow weren't really opportunities, since he's so deep in his maladaptive coping mechanisms and disordered thinking processes that it just doesn't occur to him that tuba was actually capable of loving hazel. even right before he killed tuba, he still believed what he believed despite what he knew about her since he just couldn't wrap his mind around a denizen genuinely caring for a person.

thirdly, on your point of him throwing her off the train– i'm not saying he was in the right to do so, because... no, he obviously wasn't. however, he wasn't initially planning on throwing her off after she saved him. it was her saying she doesn't know why she did it– which, again, i don't blame her for; i understand how she feels there, sometimes your gut tells you to do something, and you just do it– that triggered his paranoia, made him fear that if she doesn't know why she saved him then she could easily betray him again. her breaking his trust made it difficult for him to trust her again, even after she saved his life. the moment he realized what he had done, he started crying and regretted it. yes, he was also laughing, but that's not because he found it entertaining that he had [supposedly] killed his friend.

and, yeah, a lot of simon fans have a chance of being racist and/or misogynistic, that's one thing you got right. and i understand the sentiment of saying she did nothing wrong to combat the bigotry towards her; the only problem is she has done wrong, just as much as simon. she's not perfect, either. acting like she's done nothing wrong completely undermines her growth and development.

moving onto my next point, it does bother me a lot that you said she knew simon would have no problem killing a six year old because that's just... not true. simon never showed malicious intent toward hazel, neither before nor after he learns she's a denizen. grace believed simon would kill hazel because, after he killed tuba (which was initially an order from grace, btw) and she discovered hazel is a denizen, hazel was afraid she was next– which makes sense in the mind of this kid who just lost her parental figure and knows simon's distaste towards denizens. simon values grace's opinions, if she had just sat him down and explained things to him before the point where he started harboring resentment towards her (that is, episode 5 and earlier) then he likely would have listened. would he have a difficult time understanding and accepting it? yes. but he wouldn't have killed hazel. he would try to understand because grace mattered that much to him.

obviously she isn't to blame for [most of] simon's harmful actions, but she was one of the most influential figures in his life and quite literally shaped many of his beliefs and world views, along with samantha. she is not responsible for his actions, but it's important to acknowledge her role in all this, since she had a pretty big one.

also, i'm sorry, but him expecting her to owe him everything– since i assume you mean the line in episode 10, where he said that to grace– was a direct parallel to the first episode of book one where grace saved simon from when his harpoon pack broke. he said he owes her one, and she responded with something along the lines of, "you owe me everything." simon expects her to tell him how to behave because she is not only the leader the the apex, but also because he is quite literally dependant on her; she's the only person his age who he can confide in, since there is absolutely no one else their age around them, they are surrounded by kids several years younger than them.

OKAY. now to the ableism discussion. remember when i said i would try to keep this brief? yeah. apparently there wasn't much i could do to make it brief.

while the canonicity of simon's NPD is semi-subjective (i say "semi" because... it was observably written and coded into his character), the clinical narcissist tweets made by lindsay still massively impacted how the fanbase perceives him and that is undoable. also, it's funny that you say "an ignorant part of the crew" when the whole crew has a massive history of ableism; the fact that they got called out and deleting their tweets does not mean that they took it back and changed for the better. it is not a stretch to say the season was ableist for killing him because it quite literally was.

a while back, a friend of mine had called out lindsay's ableism and owen, you know, the creator of infinity train, blocked them for it. then owen proceeded to delete some tweets where he said things about how sociopaths are incapable of change and he wanted simon to be one of those types of characters in order to show that not everyone on the train is good. owen is literally ableist. the "ignorant parts" of the crew is the whole crew. no one took any statements back, they just tried to sweep everything under the rug. owen saying he wanted to make simon like this and then him dying due to his incapability to change is quite literally proof that ableism was written into his character.

and just one question to you. do you have NPD? like, really, do you? because if you don't, it's awfully strange that you're trying to argue that it's not ableism.

EXACTLY!!! it's honestly infuriating because usually they literally stan amelia of all people. i've generally tried to avoid infinity train fans on tumblr as a whole, but i used to see a lot of it's fans on twitter, and the way people would talk about amelia threatening to put him down as if he were an animal was, in my opinion, horrifying; they'd literally go like "yess, euthanize him, queen!!" as if she's somehow in the right to threaten a KID. why is her saying that shit acceptable while simon doing things tamer than that is unacceptable and crossing the line?

it genuinely disgusts me that people are that willing to talk about an abuse victim like that.

but, yeah, you really do make a great point. it is the same people who try to build him up as this monster who chose to be the way he was, rather than a victim of circumstance, who will bend over backwards to defend their "problematic faves" who are (usually) worse people than simon and/or have less motive than him– and it's not like you aren't allowed to like those types of characters; i honestly love most villains whether they have motive or not. although, of course there are things i don't tolerate even if it's a fictional setting– and it's like, is it just because he was written to be hated by (usually) ableists? is it because people lack the capacity to analyze the media they consume without bias, whether that bias be the writer's bias or their own? is it both?