Alright. Everyone stop. I need to talk about this. I'm putting my serious voice on.
The "Simon thinks Grace is an angel" thing needs to be addressed. It's been eating at me for a wee bit too long, so I'm making this a respectful, "hey guys, let's circle time and discuss for a minute" gentle call-out, because I love this fandom and want to use my platform for good.
The Implications of the Angel Trope:
It implies that Simon is not lucid, either suffering from Cotard's Delusion (the belief that he is dead) or in religious psychosis. He cannot consent in a mindset like that. Your angel smut fics are, fundamentally, non-con fics.
There is a power balance thing happening that is not fair. Angels are scary. They are warriors. They're not to be trifled with, and with this in mind, the way some people write Simon has an implication that he is sucking up to Grace out of a belief he has no other choice.
Simon entering any kind of a relationship with Grace whilst in this mindset is abusive, and comes off like Grace is taking advantage of a confused and scared man. Why does Grace never correct Simon, or try to help him? Or notice Simon's not right in the head? Was he not a mandated reporter for many years, taught to recognize the signs? And don't throw the miscommunication trope as an excuse.
I don't like to mark things as racially-motivated when this was clearly meant to be a trope born from cosmic ideologies, but I don't think many people stopped to think about the implications of an Asian dude religiously worshiping a white guy. I'm aware it was a circumstantial development, but it's still making us look really fucking bad to everyone else. I do want this to stay a chill space for everyone, and I hope you agree that, huh, yeah this is pretty strange, and looks outwardly offensive.
I am not going to police what you write. I love my doves dead as much as the next guy and I am certainly not the law; this post serves simply to inform, encourage critical thinking, and urge to tag properly at the very least.
With my big reasons out of the way, I have two gripes that have also, personally, motivated this post, from a writing standpoint:
I don't like pushing Christian stuff into non-Christian spaces. Period.
Simon stated in the Iron Lung movie that he is not religious, or in some kind of religious peril, and refuses to speak about God when he is pushed.
I understand that people have their various religion-related kinks, and like to write their blorbos engaging in those because, I mean, we're all adults playing with their barbies on here basically, but again, if you're going to write, you need to know the reality of the message and implications of it at the very least. That's only fair.
Mark did that. He took the time with Iron Lung.
Andy Weir and Drew Goddard did that. They took the time with Project Hail Mary.
Now it's your turn to do the same, and take the time with your fan works.
Take from this what you will, but I don't support the trope, nor the weirdly racist undertones, out-of-character boundary-pushing to make this trope even plausible, the normalization of taking advantage of a mentally unwell/disabled person, nor the genre of non-con fics coming out with zero proper tagging involved. The scariest part is that I don't think some people even know they are pushing this narrative. At least, not everyone. With Iron Lung out and the influx of content being made surrounding it, it's more important than ever to discuss the flaws in our fandom and be open about them, so that we may grow and be better as a community together. It's not an incitement for discourse; we're in it together and I only want to advocate for media literacy!
That is all. Thank you for coming to my intervention.
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