Simon/River
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Simon Tam/River Tam |
| Alternative name(s): | Crazy Space Incest (CSI), Tamcest |
| Gender category: | het, incest |
| Fandom: | Firefly |
| Canonical?: | No |
| Prevalence: | Fairly popular |
| Archives: | Light_It (LJ comm) |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Simon/River is incestuous pairing of the siblings Simon Tam and River Tam in Firefly. It is often called Crazy Space Incest (CSI for short).
Many fans see Simon and River as being the most important person in each others' lives, with their pairing winning over even some fans who would normally describe incest as "squicky."
Of all the incest ships I’ve ever written [...] this is the one that transcended the appeal of wrongdirtybad [...] trainwreck hot, into something else entirely. The Tam siblings are each other’s world and in a way that is surprisingly unbroken. Their codependency isn’t a spiral of destruction, it’s the calm at the center of the storm.
lodessa[1]
Some see incestual overtones to the powerful relationship between Simon and River [...] Canon, itself, plays with the subtext. In scenes cut from "Our Mrs. Reynolds," (though filmed) River stuffs a pillow under her dress and announces that she's having Simon's baby. Additionally, in the movie, River watches while Simon has sex with Kaylee. It's not hard to believe that having missed the normal stages of teenage development, River's love for Simon, the heroic author of her rescue, has become somewhat confusingly twisted in her mind, especially during that hormone-soaked period when she was trapped at the academy, with her only hope being that he would understand her encoded cries for help. However the scenes are interpreted, it's obvious that the relationship between Simon and River is one of the most consuming and powerful relationships on the show.
inalasahl[2]
History
Rumors exist that show creator Joss Whedon knowingly angled them in that direction. The cast have commented on it at times:
Fan: I guess I was wondering if you [Summer Glau] would have liked to see her meet somebody she could eventually have had a serious relationship with that? It was that something you're hoping for, or something that might have been a possibility?
Sean Maher: Besides me?
Audience: *laughs*
Sean Maher: Why, is that weird?
Dragon Con 2010: Firefly Panel[3]
The CSI Shipper's LiveJournal Community, light_it, was created in October of 2004. It went to moderated membership, with all posts automatically set to be viewable by community members only, after the events of Strikethrough in 2007. It remains active, with over 250 members as of June 2009.
At one point there was a Simon/River archive known as the CSI Fanfiction Archive, run by paperdollgirl, but it no longer exists.
Controversies
- Incest: The ship is subject to same general controversy that all incestuous ships are.
- Mental illness and consent: Like all ships featuring River Tam, there are small portion of fans that think she cannot properly consent, due to her mental instability. Most, however, agree that River can handle herself and that to assert that she can't is rather infantilizing.
Example Fanworks
Fanfiction
- Invisible Line of Propriety, Archived version by shyday (2003)
- Eros and Agape, Archived version by LJC (2004)
- Devotion , Archived version by Jacqui (2005)
- Tending to Grace, Archived version by Victoria P (2006)
- The Maharani's Mockingbird, Archived version by Nimori (AO3 2010; original older, circa 2006)
- Tomorrow I'll miss you, Archived version by merle_p (2009)
- when the long trick's over, Archived version by recrudescence (2011)
Fanart
- You Take Care of Me, Archived version by ninaclaww
Fanvids
- Climbing Up The Walls by Obsessive24, multi-fandom
- Simon & River - Magic (not uploaded by original creator)
Meta
- Crazy Space Incest: Simon/River (Firefly), Archived version at the Shippers Manifesto
- "Everything I Have Is Right Here": Gothic Sibling Incest Narrative and Polymorphous Perversity in the Simon/River Story a chapter of the published book Sexualities in the Works of Joss Whedon (2020) by Lewis Call
Resources
- Archive of Our Own tag: River Tam/Simon Tam
- FanFiction.Net: River, Simon
- Shipcestuous tag: river and simon