#firefly things

;types of headcanons

what I think realistically

Simon is wary of very ambitious people. After all, so much has gone wrong in his life because of those people. Even though he is very proud of where he’s gotten, he isn’t particularly ambitious because that isn’t the point to him. He would like to be deemed best in his field because he is perpetually trying to better help others as opposed to being the best for the sake of the superlative.

what I think is fucking hilarious 

Though Simon has very neat handwriting, when the crew—Jayne, specifically—gives him trouble when he’s trying to do his job, he writes a random note in the stereotypical, expected sloppy writing and instructs them to follow it to the letter. But the note doesn’t say anything.

 what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Simon very much fears being the sort of person his father is. But, in the end, he really is his father’s son. And he hates every moment he’s aware of it.

Okay, cheating a little but, I can’t just let this sit there without an author’s note. This isn’t necessarily as terrible a thing as Simon thinks it is. In the way I headcanon Gabriel, they are both determined, hard working, resourceful. More negatively, they have a tendency toward superiority and ridiculous stubbornness, and they have an amazing capacity to be willfully oblivious. But Simon is tempered by a drive to set things right and see others taken care of and the patience and courage to do it. And that’s what really makes the difference. His father has a lot of positive qualities his son shares, but, ya know, Simon wouldn’t see it that way.

what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway 

[leans so close the barest whisper I utter can be heard] How would Alliance find kids with the perfect aptitude for their experiments anyway? It’s unreasonable to think they just sit around, monitoring billions of children across multiple planets for this. It’s takes less resources and less guesswork if they (secretly) picked a batch of families and genetically tampered with their children, starting in utero, to produce the results they wanted. It seems genetic tampering exists in the universe (well, this is a fuck it headcanon anyway), and it suits the Alliance’s micromanaging tendencies. If the subject is to their tastes, take them in. If not, just leave them to be a productive members of society.

So, what I’m saying is they tampered with River at a genetic level, and then kept an eye on her over the course of her lifetime to see if she turned out as they hoped, and since she did, they took her into the full-fledged program.