Marley's Iron Lung Blog @ironingtheylung - Tumblr Blog

꒷꒦ Hello There! ꒦꒷꒦

I'm Marley or Wade! Welcome to my Iron Lung specific tumblr ;) I'll be posting art, theories, and eventually content for an AU I'm developing here! My main is @marleynmee ! -> side note, my main is currently empty as it is being re-vamped. ꒷꒦ Basic DNI, I am 18 years old + this blog contains adult content ꒷꒦꒷

#first post #art of eden #hull breach #message received #useful #analysis

water-activated-light

oh. oh wait.

was going through my symbolism old reliables (dream symbolism but it's a start) and. a helping hand. cus a maple leaf has five points like a hand.

it took a hand. and gave him "a hand". ooooh.

space-fillet

still crawling out of burnout but i finally got to watch iron lung and im not immune to.. drawing the strays...

troutspells

sometimes i dip my convict in the blood ocean and he scream loud as fuckkkk

ayammasakmerahthe2nd

I like his hair

leviathansforever

youre so right abt simon iron lung and ryland phm hating each other... ppl posting as if one of rylands defining traits (and why eva seeks him specifically out) is his inability to accept other ideas. like he and rocky end up getting on because they Have To and the language barrier forces ryland to think abt what rocky is actually saying vs what he hears. and ryland already goes into a lot of his interactions with other adults assuming he wont get on with them to some degree. and one of simons defining characteristics being a bone deep frustration at not being listened to. simon would punch that guys teeth in im sorry. they would grate on each other at a base level

YAWPPPPPP god the anons are cooking today YOU GUYS ARE SO COOL

small rant incoming about fandom shipping culture in general and me being hashtag woke and feminist

I am all for crackships and toxic yaoi #yummers but like let’s be so fucking for real 😭😭😭 But seriously I do love a good crackship (I myself am toying with Ellen Ripley from Alien and Simon as a crossover ship) and find BloodyMary fun in theory, but the seriousness that people seem to be approaching it with also does not account for how ass the PHM book is and how both Simon and Ryland are characterized.

If either Ryland or Simon were a woman (which would make it het lmao) then nobody would be shipping BloodyMary and I stand by that. If it was yuri then maybeeeeee it would have some level of traction, although that would mean that we somehow got TWO wildly successful science fiction films with good female protagonists in the same year, and I think it’s more likely that we will make contact with extraterrestrial life before we see that in the near future… unfortunately.

I am also (personally) a proponent of the theory that people will gravitate towards any ship between any two characters and be more open to it if the characters in question are men, and a lot will be overlooked in that shipping process. I actually think the “goodness” of a crackship can be assessed by whether or not the ship would be popular if it was het.

I also think if Ryland was brown that nobody would be shipping BloodyMary because fandom is also really fucking racist—and I am speaking as a biracial woman. People like yaoi when it has light skin.

I think it’s important to note that my “if it was her would it still be good” metric is not some attempt at heteronormativity but is a reference point for how willing people are to acknowledge female characters as being complex enough to be worthy of shipping (or even being considered at all). People are also far more forgiving of male characters with flaws that do not fit into a purely good/bad binary. If Ryland was a woman I truly believe that a lot of people would find him abrasive and annoying rather than complicated and quirky. Misogyny is ingrained in fandom culture, and I don’t think it’s possible to separate it from shipping culture and the way characters get treated.

But yeah—more than anything, they would absolutely despise each other, lmao. I think class and education woukd probably also play a part. I think Ryland woukd probably regard Simon as being a violent blockhead and Simon would see Ryland as a stuck-up elitist with victim complex.

I need to actually write more fleshed-out takes on this stuff because I have a or of feelings about shipping culture, racism, and the mistreatment of women in fandom

cornkcob

I love Monster Simon. More Simonster please

c3nt1byt3z

BAIT

sophia42888

Surfaced!! Yippee!! 🩸✨️💀

Simon you are so fun to draw sorry you got put through the horrors again 💖💖

thatsmolwolf

I’m glad they could sort things out

rainfeather13

Death head moths: Doom, misfortune, death, and rebirth.

deslby

Mom i frew up

#YAY #useful

iamonlyperson

IRON LUNG NEWS (for those who still haven't seen the stream)

Mark showed some disc ideas (done by molly brown aka deadlymelodic) and the circle ones was fan favourite (the top row 2nd was mostly winner)

Mark has DVD cover and it's looking absolute amazing but doesn't reveal the cover yet

Digital will come soon on YouTube (Movies). Also it takes time because Mark is working a deal with YouTube for getting other movies (done by other YouTubers) getting released on YouTube Movies through him (easy access to streaming). Also a lot of legal stuff too.

He will be doing the DVD himself. There was a poll and mostly people voted DVD's so he probably will be doing more DVD's than Blu-Ray's. Also no DVD will be signed.

There will be behind the scenes and directors commentary on DVD

IRON LUNG merch shipping will take time because yall bought so much than was expected

leviathansforever

hot take but i feel like people forget that simon wasn’t put in the lung for no reason like. even if he didn’t blow up filament station he still.. killed people..

was the punishment overkill (literally) and cruel? yes! was there a reasoning BEHIND his punishment? Also yes!!

anyways that’s all thank u for coming to my ted talk

ANON ASK AND IRON LUNG ANALYSIS RANT THING!!!! HUZZAH

anon I agree w u and cannot believe this is such a controversial thing to say... okay incoming analysis (on small break before finishing editing my fic) HOLD ON TIGHT YO

(ALSO... this is exactly why I hate the Laika (and lowkirkenuinely Ryland Grace) comparisons--Simon and Laika and Ryland Grace are NOT COMPRABLE and I will explain why below...)

from what we learn about him it is ABUNDANTLY clear that Simon is not a wholly good person or some kind of victim of circumstance. He's a guy that was a member of a genocidal death cult and was a major reason for the deaths of a bunch of people (whether or not he is fully culpable is debatable--but ultimately that remains up to interpretation.)

I mean, for fuck's sake, his nickname is THE BUTCHER. Simon has killed people, intentionally or not. He clearly has the capacity for (and some aptitude towards) violence. The Iron Lung might be the ultimate form of cruel and unusual punishment, but it's clearly treated as such in canon and is not something treated lightly with the COI (who are established as being very precious with their resources and expenditures), and when it becomes somewhat explicit that it was intended to be a one-way trip, it's clear that this method of execution would carry a very high cost rather than a bullet or lethal injection (or a billion other ways in which prisoners are killed or tortured).

We also never learn the full extent of what Simon could have or could not have done. It's entirely possible he has a bunch of other bloody things on his ledger that are not mentioned by or are unknown to Ava and her crew when they are sending Simon out.

I think him being played by Mark is a major reason why a lot of people look over this because IRL Mark is kind of a boy scout and is a seemingly very kind and genuine person (I say seemingly with emphasis because he is a stranger that nobody here knows personally and because he is an influencer and ultimately he is able to curate his persona and how he wants his audience to view him). In this vein, a lot of people view Simon (and most of Mark's other characters) as Markiplier re-skins--I still haven't seen them, but from what I have, his primary characters in a bunch of other stuff he's made (Engineer Mark and Dave from Edge of Sleep) are both tormented and imperfect but ultimately good(?) people. And before anyone says it--yes, I know he has some "darker" character personas, but there is a level of cartoonish-ness to them that I think is absent from the more serious roles he has taken on.

I think this uwu Mark!!! also gets translated onto Simon when people interpret his character, so conceptualizing Mark Fischbach, gaming youtuber of Bite of '87 fame, as a murderous cult fanatic is jarring and induces uncomfortable cognitive dissonance whenever people try to imagine him as such. This Markiplier re-skinning tendency in this fandom bleeds into other areas of Simon's characterization (cough cough him being shipped with [REDACTED] cough cough) and the attachment people have with him in general... but it also limits his characterization as someone who has maybe done or thought worse things than what have been shown in canon. Filament Station and the death of the Last Tree are the only crimes cleanly attached to Simon (in some way or another) that we see in the film. All we know of his childhood on Eden are the small tidbits and flashbacks we get through Simon's eyes.

It's inferred that some pretty fucked-up stuff happened that goes beyond what we saw in the movie that would have traumatized Simon and formed him into the man trapped in the Iron Lung in the blood ocean. People like exploring that (myself included also lol) because it gives them the opportunity to cleanly humanize and (in some way) "justify" the man he becomes by the time the movie rolls around and he's on AT-5.

It's also inferred that Eden has done a lot of monstrous things and Simon is notable enough for his brutality to be dubbed "The Butcher" and that he has likely done a lot of really, really bad shit that had nothing to do with Filament Station that was not mentioned in the movie. I find far less fanon and exploration of that, lmao, and I think it's because people don't like imagining that Mark Simon has done bad things. I

The unreliable narrator effect also comes into play with this--we only (really) know anything about the world of Iron Lung through Simon's eyes. Of course he doesn't see himself as the bad guy! The entire Filament Station destruction mention has him declaring with full sincerity that it was not supposed to happen and a lot of people take that as proof of innocence or absolution . Regardless, I don't think a lot of fans of the movie (or Mark) want to see him as the bad guy or the villain or whatever. I think this is part of the reason people are so hostile towards Ava and act like she's some kind of wholly unreasonable and vindictive villain that is making Mark Simon suffer arbitrarily and is also therefore making [REDACTED] suffer too and omg she's evil and Mark Simon did nothing wrong because he said he did nothing wrong and why would Mark Simon lie about that and--

this turned into a bit of a rant but yeah I agree anon and think there is a much higher chance that Simon has done really bad things that aren't mentioned in the movie than him being an innocent victim of circumstances and oppression lol.

would like to emphasize that I am not saying this as a unilateral and absolute statement HOWEVER i think people being parasocial towards Mark is a major problem in how Simon is being interpreted and therefore written/portrayed in fic--you mentioned it already anon, but while Simon's punishment is absolutely cruel and overkill, it is still a PUNISHMENT because Simon was a CRIMINAL who KILLED PEOPLE.

Did Simon deserve the Iron Lung? Absolutely not.

Did Simon deserve to be punished and face justice for his crimes? ABSOLUTELY.

OKAY SO NOW FOR WHY HIS SITCH IS UNIQUE:

The element of the Iron Lung being an (albeit twisted and extreme) atonement/punishment for Simon that just so happens to be a one-way trip is also why I don't think the Laika the space dog or Ryland Grace comparisons hold water.

The whole point of Laika's death on the Sputnik 2 being tragic and holding the weight it does now in the field of scientific ethics is that she did absolutely nothing to deserve what happened to her. Laika was a DOG. She had never done anything wrong and had no concept of what was happening to her or why. Laika was a DOG. She was the purest form of innocence in that she had no agency whatsoever. What happened to her was purely unjust. Her death was a tragedy. She had no will to live or any kind of noble motivations because dogs have none and dogs don't know what space is. She trusted her owners and played with their children.

SPOILERS FOR PROJECT: HAIL MARY (or the book at least because I haven't seen the movie yet)

Ryland Grace is also not properly comparable because he knew he was going to his death and that he had to go anyway and was being sent knowingly (even if he did resist it). He had a mission and the terms were agreed upon. Him (as well as Yao and Ilyukhina) knew they were going to die on the way to Tau Ceti. The Hail Mary was the result of global cooperation and its entire purpose was to KEEP HIM ALIVE AND WELL AND SAFE. Ryland Grace was not a criminal or a monster--he was a beloved community member and his death was going to be martyrdom and not circumstantial. Nobody wanted Ryland Grace to die. Nobody wanted Ryland Grace to suffer.

OKAY PROJECT HAIL MARY SPOILERS OVER CONTINUE ON

so that's why I don't think Simon can truly be a patron saint of one-way trips because you have to be eligible for sainthood in order to be a saint, lmao.

anyway. sorry for the yap fest holy shit this was longer than I thought it would be lollll

yeah that's it I just feel very strongly about people trying to whitewash a character who is very murky.

By the way--I love Simon LMAO this is not me ragging on Simon in ANY CAPACITY because I love morally complex characters--I'm a huge grimdark fantasy fan so I am used to having faves that have done really really bad things lol.

sorry anon this is probably wayyyyy more than you had in mind when u sent me the ask but yeah you're right and SAY IT LOUDERRRRR