Sanctified_Jasper @sanctified-jasper - Tumblr Blog

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Iron Lung (2026) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Ava & The Convict | Simon (Iron Lung), Ava & OCs Characters: Ava (Iron Lung), The Convict | Simon (Iron Lung), T'vrek (Vulcan OC), Mary (EMH OC) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Attempts at Horror, which protagonist Ava doesn't have time for, Spatial Anomaly, Monster!Simon, well..., no longer human simon, This is not what this fic was originally going to look like, But here it is, inaccurcies galore, Timeline What Timeline, Ava centric Summary:

The Blood Nebula has been marked one of the galaxy’s most hazardous zones, unofficially off limits to Starfleet. Only Unofficially, because it is assumed that any Starfleet captain worth their badge would never send their ship into such unfathomable danger. Ava Alon is an ensign fresh out of the academy, serving aboard her first ship when her captain decides to risk it.

or

When is a monster not a monster? When you love it fuck it are too busy trying to save lives to give a shit about the whole fear thing.

-

I’m wondering if I should tag this fic with “technically a comedy?” or “crack treated seriously”

Behind the fic scenes/ author rambles under the cut. Because I’m giving myself permission to ramble about the fic for a bit.

So this is one of those fics that changes a lot between the initial conception and the fic that would eventually be.

The initial Star Trek/Iron Lung cross over actually involved a lot more mental anguish for Ava, because initially, Simon was actually a Q, and their shared reality was nothing more than a simulation in his prison.

“The Butcher” being a part of Q!Simon’s identity, in that he used his god-like powers to start wars and cause massacres amongst the mortal races of the universe to combat the sheer boredom of eternity and then some.

The other Q imprisoned him in a series of simulations where he was a mortal facing an apocalypse, and constantly given the chance to choose the many over himself. Trillions upon trillions of sims later, each one wiped as the prison tried to find something that would make him go “hey maybe wholesale slaughter isn’t so great actually” and Iron Lung’s narrative is the first time Q!Simon chooses to try to do the “right thing.” (The thing that will benefit humanity rather than himself.)

Which clears the prison’s sim requirements, and Simon is a Q again, who is trying to figure out why, after all these sims he finally chose to try o do something for those left behind, when all the other times he let hope die with him.

Like many a man, he decides his moral integrity is the responsibility of the nearest lady, and resurrects Ava to figure out why she’s so special that her begging made him choose people. (She’s not sure it did, statistical anomalies, and all that.)

Q Simon takes Ava back to reality and they stop by the Next Gen Enterprise for a bit, then head out on Doctor Who style adventures. Ava has to deal with the fact her entire existence was a story being told to a god. She’s not real, the rapture wasn’t real, her universe wasn’t real.

From there my brain skipped over to the idea of a sentient/sapient nebula, where Starfleet was new to the area, and had had bad luck trying to traverse the nebula, Captain Ava and her crew are invited to ferry some pilgrims through for a regular religion thing.

Simon is the god they worship, but he’s really just a guy who happens to be a space cloud, who can manifest as a human. He keeps showing up in areas where the guests aren’t meant to be, and he and Ava flirt (and fuck) and only after the pilgrims are dropped off does she find out there is no Simon amongst them.

From there there the horror elements started creeping in. Starting with the plot bunny for this universe stealing a scene from another bunny, where my main lady uses a pomander (i think that’s what they’re called) to stave off a panic attack. Ava on a mission where something was hunting people down and killing them brutally, only it wasn’t, because it was alien!Simon, whose species uses pheromones to protect themselves really just wants to be left alone, and peoples’ fears are feeding back on themselves. Since Ava is calm, and has the very calming scent of satsuma up her nose, the pheromones aren’t doing shit to her, so she manages to get everyone to calm the fuck down.

From here, the idea that Simon’s nebula scared people to death by making any fear or paranoia they felt run out of control came in. It did stay with the Captain Ava version for a bit, which ended up (in my head) with Ava figuring out how to keep Simon calm while he was ‘visiting,’ giving him plants and books to focus on instead of active people that weren’t her.

Proto-Mary was in this universe, as Ava’s friend/subordinate, who delivered a bowl of fruit to Simon, and found out why Ava’s ships are the only ones that can pass through completely fine. This version of Mary suggested Simon make corridors for people so they didn’t wander around him all willy-nilly.

These corridors were to be marked by large circular “gate” made of vertebrae, and the entrances made of teeth. (that look suspiciously like Elli’s mouth.)

(Deleted scene from this deleted version: Mary: *enters room dazed* crewmate: you okay? Mary: You know the captain’s imaginary boyfriend Simon? crewmate: of him, sure? Mary: and you know how this nebula is supposedly haunted or sapient or whatever? crewmate: yeeeahhh??? Mary: I’ve just found out these two things are not unrelated.)

And then as I started writing things shifted further.

The original draft of the fic actually had T’vrek say “he doesn’t mean it, it’s just too much.” Implying that Simon’s existence was to much for mortal minds to bear, and that he wasn’t causing the madness on purpose.

Ava’s immunity was originally supposed to be, solely, because she was reincarnated, because she came from the same nightmare hell universe that Simon did, her mind/soul was better equipped for what he had become.

Simon and Ava were also originally supposed to fuck, instead of Ava going to sleep, they make it back to her room, and sleepy Ava just kind of “are we gonna make out or not?” and Simon who has been every kind of deprived since before this universe began is like “hell yeah”

and only after they leave the nebula and Ava wakes up with blood between her thighs (because Simon is a blood cloud now, he doesn’t ... I’m so sorry for this: he doesn’t jizz normal any more) does Ava really begin to realise that Simon was real. (she takes the blood to Mary for sampling and Mary makes a mock up of what the genetic material would make if it was a human rather than a blood cloud in space. and it’s Simon.

And Ava realises her nightmares are actually past life memories.

The decision to keep AT-5, and The Light, didn’t come until I was wrapping up the fic, because from there it was either “find a reason that’s the end of it all” or “this is now a multi chapter fic of Ava ducking through the Blood Nebula, until she buys a bio dome ship and moves in permanently.”

There is still this chapter two idea lingering in my mind, where Ava speaks to a committee of Admirals, which included Admiral Janeway, placing this firmly post Voyager, and our regularly scheduled Q shows up to be all: “this woman is the only one in existence who has seen what happens if Simon is bothered too much. Seriously, even the Q don’t wanna fuck with what he’s guarding. Listen to her, Do Not Go Back.”

And then a group who want to use passage through the Blood Nebula for Evil Gains kidnaps Ava, believing she’s the Immunity Token, and take her back to the nebula.

Where they all die horribly, Ava maybe gets a chance to be creepy, Ava and Simon have a very overdue conversation, and then Ava proves Simon right: she does understand why he’s killing people, and she does agree it’s necessary, then ODs on meds so she can just drift off peacefully, and Simon doesn’t have to feel responsible for her death. (again “drag her to hell with you” shut up Elli)

When it comes to AUs. I do kind of have this thing where I need to attach or echo the canon in some way, because, especially with things like Iron Lung, the characters are very much shaped into who they are, but what they’ve been through.

I’ve been in a different fandom where one character is often labeled as an irredeemable devil, and in modern AUs he’s still portrayed that way, despite the fact his whole thing was that he was pushed into his actions by all the bigotry and institutions at place in the canon, and as soon as you take all that away, which modern AUs always do, all his evil agenda story line falls apart.

And no, he’s not a poor misunderstood wet little mew mew, he did some atrocities, but his actions have a clear correlation cause-and-effect with the abuse he received from the men in power, and the way societal prejudices did him dirty.

What I’m trying to say Re: Iron Lung, is that, there are times when I feel like, if I take characters too far from the source material, they become different characters, not just “you and I interpret this character very differently” but “this is no longer the character that belongs to this name” because you have to consider how their AU experiences change them, how they react, how they feel.

So much not fun stuff.

I’mma smash these two together like barbies if it kills me, I’mma scoop them out of the blood ocean, and yes, some of it is coming with them.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Sanctified_Jasper