On the topic of complicated whatever, it fascinates be that Hien is apparently only slightly better than Laios at reading Toshiro. I mean, theres the comic where she says she FEELS like they were pretty close, but the actual memory?
But look at what she's saying. She's comforting him (headpat) and probably trying to reframe whatever happened as something he shouldn't let him affect him so much, but really she's disregarding his feelings, isn't she? Look at his body language. Grasping at his chest, folding onto himself... He wasn't in a place to hear something like that and she missed it.
Reminds me of someone else who FELT they were close to Toshiro:
Hien may be too pragmatic to pick up on things like vibes, and strong enough that things slide like water off a duck's back. Doesn't mean she doesn't care though, she pretty explicitly expresses that she dislikes the distance between them as adults.
All this to say, I see two ways in which they can fix their friendship. Toshiro could learn from what happened with Laios and try to be more assertive when he communicates (learning about boundaries will fix him. maybe), or, they will have an argument that will probably be cathartic but also likely even more hurtful than the fight with Laios.
I mean, this isn't just three years of history, this is based on assumptions that they both made about each other's character that have gone unchecked for years. (And perhaps a side of likely power dynamics in the household).
If it hurts to know your friend from three years ago didn't feel respected by you, now imagine learning that your childhood friend who you low-key thought would ask you to marry him decided it was best not to open up to you, even though you as far as you know have always wanted to be there for him. And HAVE been there for him to the best of your ability, it's just, you're not the type to sacrifice your authenticity for it right? (wow reminds me a bit of someone)
A fight with that kind of baggage... I can see it being worse than what happened with Laios. Perhaps not physical, but emotionally? Worse. Hien isn't good at pulling her punches after all, and Toshiro lets things build up.
Would they be able to come back from it though? Hmm I think they would. If nothing else out of a sense of duty to the household.
80 notes
·
View notes
my favorite scully moments from s2
after the x-files are shut down, she gets moved to teach at the academy, and in episode 1 she does a little monologue on how a person’s body is a physical manifestation of a lifetime, which one of the students describes as “spooky”
when mulder sneaks off to puerto rico in the same episode, she goes into his place to try and figure where tf he went, and prevents his sneaking about being caught by the investigators who broke into his home with the power of feeding his fish
lecturing about the dangers of eating raw steak in episode 2, then getting lost down a rabbit hole of worm science
when no one was answering the door in episode 3, she just walks in. this made me laugh hysterically, i cannot explain. both of these guys WILL enter your home.
every single time she is a bit of a medical nerd, like when she learns about the surgery that allowed people to survive without sleep in episode 4, which she describes as “incredible”
(and the freckles + flower earrings combo were also a fave)
when she scans the piece of metal that came from duane barry in a grocery store in episode 6, and the cash register goes crazy. and she denies involvement and just walks away LMAOOO <- honestly i'd do the same!!
she wakes up from her coma in episode 8 and wants to write a thank you note to the nurse that took such good care of her, only to learn no such nurse ever existed. scully got to witness the paranormal for once!!!!
in episode 9, someone brings up a volcano scientist in conversation, and she says she had heard he was brilliant, which means that somehow she is keeping up with volcano news. she is a woman of many layers.
being deeply worried about this scared looking grad student she just met, and once again not waiting for an answer to enter her room and figure out if she is okay
(and when said grad student is being consumed by a fungus, scully thinks quickly enough to get herself locked behind a door, keeping herself safe, despite being handcuffed and otherwise looking death by fungus in the face)
in episode 11, mulder walks into his office, only to learn she has been there and has been going through his stuff since 6 in the morning. queen of getting results!
in the same episode, an old man overdoses on mushroom pills, and she shifts into Doctor Mode, yelling about “ventricular fibrillation” and “milligrams of lidocaine” and it was, like every other time she goes Doctor Mode, so deeply satisfying to watch
when she meets the two cops in episode 12, and can immediately tell they are having an affair and that the detective is pregnant, and despite the detective pleading with her not to tell a soul, the absolute MILLISECOND she is reunited with mulder, she spills the tea. and he is SHOCKED! <- arguably my favorite moment in the entire series so far
(and, to make the woman feel more comfortable, she confesses to also having had feelings for coworkers before which. elaborate on that, please)
but she really does care; when the detective ends up in the hospital, scully brings her a change of clothing <3
when she is so shaken by what she sees in episode 13 that she goes to the FBI’s onsite therapist; she’s too scared to tell mulder how she feels because “i don’t want him to feel like he has to protect me”
(as if there was ever going to be a choice; he is the protector and he Will protect, it's just his nature)
((and then later sobbing into his arms, realizing she doesn’t have to always put on a front))
toads start falling from the sky in episode 14, so she rationalizes that they likely came from a nearby tornado. this is a scully-approved theory.
they’re investigating a murder in the same episode, and a teenager starts pouring her absolutely horrific trauma out to both of them, scully holds her while she sobs into her jacket
honestly any time either of them know weird information, i love it. she says that it would take hours for a snake to eat a man and then weeks for it to digest in episode 14, and mulder makes some funny remark but it’s sooo endearing to me. she knows her snake facts.
then in episode 15, she notes poison in someone’s blood, but specifically that the poison comes from pufferfish eaten in Japan… girl i’m crying, she just knows stuff!
during that same case, they get rooms near each other like always, and she knocks on a door thinking it’s mulder’s. he doesn’t answer. she walks in and hears water running, so she just talks to him through the door to the bathroom. and i love this so much. i love that they are close enough to just walk into each other’s rooms and talk from behind the door while the other showers. it’s such married behavior.
working on the case in episode 16, we see her at home wearing a flannel, checking her computer, still serving looks but now giving casual
(and seeing the art she keeps on her walls- little postcards of beach scenes <3)
in the same episode, she knows mulder left to go get himself in trouble, so she bursts into skinner’s office to ask for help. but she feels bad for barging in on skinner, so she apologizes to him. which was very sweet.
when mulder is gone, she goes to his apartment to look for clues, and falls asleep on his couch
(and when X knocks on the door, she knows he is hiding something, and screams at him to tell her where he is)
this whole monologue from episode 17, which i loved more than life itself:
“several aspects of this case remain unexplained, suggesting the possibility of paranormal phenomena. but i am convinced that to accept such conclusions is to abandon all hope of understanding the scientific events behind them. many of the things i have seen have challenged my faith and my belief in an ordered universe, but this uncertainty has only strengthened my need to know, to understand, and to apply reason, to those things which seem to defy it”
(and that is just Her, isn't it? the need to understand, to rationalize. the worldview shaped on science- if she doesn't understand something, it's because a key piece is missing, and she'll find it. because the world Has to work that way, has to be bound by a greater logic, even if it is yet to be understood. to imagine otherwise would be impossible, to imagine otherwise would be to abandon hope in everything, and she cannot abandon hope)
((and maybe the idea that the world being something she cannot perfectly comprehend is a failing of her own understanding makes me a little emotional. but still))
she says that the whole loaves and fishes deal was a parable in episode 21; she is not a biblical literalist
(she then makes some sassy remark about things generating spontaneously, and mulder laughs in the corner. good to know he thinks she is funny)
every single time she answers the phone, she says “mulder, it’s me”, and idk i just think it’s so endearing
she thinks she might have been infected with a killer disease in episode 22, but mulder calls, so she tells him she’s okay and to take care of himself out there.... those are the last words she chooses, just in case they never talk again </3
and every time she says unsettling things, like “could be the residue of burnt human flesh” or “darkness covers a multitude of sins”, both in episode 23, i eat that up
reassuring her student who has just become a detective that she is doing just fine!!!
and then going to said student's funeral when things do not turn out fine... she loves her students that she taught for like 3 months so much :(
getting pulled aside by skinner and her bosses after mulder just acted wild in episode 25, and denying that she had seen any top secret files even though they say they will fire her if she lies lmaooo <- she is a ride or die!!!
but also going to his place, demanding assurance that she is doing the right thing by assisting him, and i love that. i love a character who will break all of the rules as long as they believe they are doing the thing that is morally Right, and that definition is so deeply her own, but she is committed to it, and she'll do anything to stick by it. and he just says something about getting the code that he wants broken, and despite how awful he's being, she goes through with it anyway because it's the Right thing to do.
later, her being the one to realize that mulder should not leave the house after his father was killed because he will be the prime suspect (he does not listen to this sound advice)
he stumbles into her place with a million degree fever, and she carefully lays him down in her own bed, despite the fact that he is soaked in his dead father's blood. and she takes care of him.
this one honestly deserves its own post because it is so incredible, but: shooting mulder with enough precision to get him to knock off his wild behavior that was going to make him look like he killed his dad, but not actually HURT him, then finding out krychek was putting LSD in his water, knocking him out, and driving 2 days to New Mexico to get him where he needed to be. AFTER he had been acting wild because he was inadvertently drugged, and had accused her of spying on him and being a traitor. that level of love is deep. very very deep. she is a Lover.
34 notes
·
View notes
I dunno man I feel like most statements along the lines of ‘Batman isn’t REALLY x, he’s y’ don’t hold much water because usually, there’s a pretty good chance a number of writers over the years have written him as x, you just didn’t like it or think it doesn’t count for some reason.
For example ‘Batman isn’t REALLY a good parent, he’s actually a bad parent’, when Batman has been written as a good parent by a number of writers, and has, in addition, been written as realizing that he’s screwed up with his children and resolved to fix it by even more. At the same time, stating ‘Batman isn’t REALLY a bad parent, he’s actually a good parent’ is also incorrect, because Batman has been written as a bad parent by a number of writers, either intentionally or not; in addition, the pattern presented by the tug-of-war between writers who believe he should be a good parent and writers who don’t has, over the years, created an unintentional pattern that strongly resembles that of an abusive relationship. So, stating he is a good parent is inaccurate and dismisses a bunch of his canon writing, but stating he is a bad parent also dismisses a bunch of his canon writing and the intentions of the authors that wrote him.
The secret here is realizing that Batman has had so many writers over the years that it’s practically impossible to find a universal truth about him beyond the basic premise and maybe very, very basic characterization keystones. Writers with different beliefs about both the character and the world at large have written him in accordance to their worldview, and sometimes that worldview will align with yours, and sometimes it won’t.
Like, at this point, Batman is more an idea than he is a character. He is the bare-knuckled fight against injustice, but what ‘injustice’ is depends heavily on your worldview, as does what ‘bare-knuckled’ and ‘fight’ mean. Batman has been interpreted in dozens of different ways over the years, and singling out a few of those as the True Batman is largely arbitrary and dependent on your personal taste and belief in what the character should be. The only ‘objective’ measurement you could apply here are the old Golden Age comics, and I think most fans can agree that measuring modern Batman comics by how faithful they are to the Golden Age comics is, more often than not, a little ridiculous.
For the record, I do think that arguing about what Batman should be matters; if right-wing assholes use the character as a mouthpiece for their worldview we can and should critique that, but not because it’s ‘OOC’, but because the worldview espoused by those right-wing assholes is harmful and shitty. Batman should be a good parent, not because it’s ‘OOC’ for him to be a bad parent, but because having your paragon of justice be a child abuser is pretty shitty. Etc.
I don’t really have anywhere specific to go with this, I just think it’s a little strange when people try to view Batman as a character with a clear-cut characterization, rather than a concept that many people have approached in different ways over the years. Can that concept be mishandled? Sure. But it’s usually mishandled for reasons a bit more substantial than ‘a previous writer wrote it differently’.
209 notes
·
View notes