brother like brother but the cheese is on money

when ava mentions the porthole glass being salvaged from filament station simon gives this quiet groan that's very 'here we go again'. whenever his past actions are brought up elsewhere in the movie he sounds distressed, remorseful, desperate to explain himself, but here (where no one can hear him) he sounds annoyed. it's a great little detail when you remember simon spent years in a coi prison and is probably sick to death of hearing about it. he's the Filament Station Guy. he hates being the Filament Station Guy, not just because he was part of something morally reprehensible, but also because people keep reminding him

the fact that simon has great spatial thinking is interesting because he would have lived all his life in fairly small, well-organized spaces, like eden station or a mars habitat. not a lot of reasons to develop spatial thinking skills formally unless you were training as a pilot or something, so simon's are more innate than anything. he uses his hands to approximate angles and directions quite a lot

good problem solving/analytical skills in general

annoyed when people assume not that he's stupid, but specifically uneducated. similarly annoyed about not being trusted with information because his mission is a function of time and he knows (and later shows) that he can solve problems much faster when he has more data

doesn't actually panic all that much! fear is a normal response to most of the shit simon goes through, but he never succumbs to it. he hates not being in control so he tries to wrestle it out of every bad situation. when he does panic, he calms down within seconds and jumps into action

a lot of dark, self-deprecating humor

when simon finds the seed pendant the camera briefly pans down to the strap on his wrist and the broken wire loop where his own used to be. he kept that little bit of wire. as a reminder? lifeline? chain? 'it's not about the tree' sure, man

also the pendant strap is long enough to be worn around the neck, simon wearing it around his wrist is a choice #fashion