#that could be given so much room for charcater

[the-monkey-ruler]

how hardworking is bajie in the novel? fanart gives off the impression that he’d rather do anything but work

And he WOULD! HE DOES NOT LIKE TO WORK! Rather nap and kick back.

But honestly, next to Wukong, he does do the second most amount of work when it comes to fighting demons and getting food.

Don’t get me wrong man will complain the whole time while doing it but he is a competent fighter in many regards. Man was the Marshall in Heaven that only answered to the Jade Emperor himself, a navel officer so he knows a thing or two about fighting and tactics he just doesn't apply himself often. Not since being pig shaped.

There are many times he was the one to fight demons alongside Wukong, sometimes they even coordinate attacks with one another to get the drop on their enemy.

He was able to kill Princess Jade Face, Great King Fox Number Seven, the Wansheng Princess, all six of the tree spirits, White-Faced Vixen Spirit, King of the Southern Hill, King of Heat Protection, and King of Dust Protection. That isn't even included in the assistant kills that helped with Wukong and in enemies such as the Pythron Demon.

Funny enough he gets pretty protective of Sanzang when it comes to him being sexually harassed as well. I like to think that is his own personal turning point when it comes to respecting other people's boundaries.

But also he 'sacrifices' himself for Sanzang's place XD

I've always read it as it's more of a threat than a promise. Because he also knows that women won't go for him being a pig. Which is a little sad but also him using his appearance to his advantage to scare women in the Women's Kingdom. Says he won't be turned into a fragrant bag cause no one would even want him.

The main reason he is so antagonistic is that he IS THE CLOWN. There is a scene Bajie is being cooked by a GAINT streamer and he complaining he is going to come out wrong if the fire tenders (that Wukong is stopping) don't cook him RIGHT. Also that Bajie knows Wukong in diguse by seeing his cheeks and thinking "I KNOW THOSE CHEEKS ANYWHERE!"

Literally, his role in the book is to make laughs and to be the verbal and literal punching bag. Wukong himself is funny, absolutely, but he needs someone to play off him as well. It is very like that one group of Abbott and Costello vibes in some scenes where they just verbally poke on one other, and often there are cases were they pull pranks. Mostly Wukong at Bajie but still.

Like Wukong letting Bajie get captured by an enemy just so he can save him later. HE DOES THIS TWICE. He was mad Bajie thought he died (legit thought he died) in the first one and he took money from Bajie the second time he saved him XD told him it was the 'groups' money and they should share.

And I know people give Bajie hell for being a shit to Wukong but also… Wukong is ALSO a shit back to him. Wukong isn't one to be walked over and he definitely has his fair share of making Bajie feel that revenge for being a shit in the first place. They are shits to each other. Which makes them ever more enjoyable. Wukong is even the one to put a paper saying "I can heal the king" in Bajie’s back pocket when he falls asleep FACING THE WALL NOT TO SCARE ANYONE WITH HIS FACE. Man was legit trying NOT to get into trouble and Wukong knew this was going to be hilarious.

HE WAS PRANKED.

Also Bajie carrying Wukong thinking he could 'trip' and send Wukong flying. But Wukong anticipated this and made a clone of himself to be on Bajie so when he trip the clone drifted away as Bajie and Wujing just looked on in horror as their brother MELTED before their eyes. And Wukong turning into a woodpecker to peck at Bajie to wake him up.

That one was elaborate.

He does have some good ideas even from time to time despite his laziness. He knew how to get Bailong to walk across ice safely and for once USED THE RAKE AS A RAKE to clear a forest. Also that he knows a bit about farming because he was a farmer for a least three years with the Gao family.

So again he is capable and knows a bit despite his ignorance in other matters he just hates to admit he is wrong and hates to admit even more when he can’t do something. Which is hard to do when you are working with someone with MUCH more knowledge and power like Wukong.

I really think that Bajie looks up to Wukong while also being incredibly jealous of Wukong as well. That he relies on him as a companion but lets his own insecurities and jealousy get in the way of working with him, rather purposefully trying to make things harder for Wukong as if to get back at him. But I really think Bajie knows they need Wukong. Even when Wukong is knocked out and unconscious from the Red Boy fight Bajie doesn't believe for a second he is really dead, rather just going straight into reviving him. He also tells others they should treat him with high respect, make it sound like Wukong is danger but also that he is just so powerful in general and that he deserves to be regarded as such.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Bajie is the one after Wukong's first banishment that he has to go get him to save the rest of the group. Because he is the one that messed up by convincing Saznag Wukong was lying. But he also knows they can't do this journey without Wukong. He might be big talk but I think he's going to get Wukong was a humbling moment for him too cause he knows they are going to lose. Another way he shows that is when he thinks Wukong really dies he gets MAD. Because he knows now there is no chance, they are really going to DIE and he is upset.

I still think that Bajie just wanted to get back at Wukong for making fun of him in when GuanYin strung him up to a tree after the Ginseng Fruit arc. But he really didn't know what the fillet implies as he has never seen it used until then. It doesn't make it right but I do think it explains himself a bit more.

And even when Bajie went back to get Wukong, Wukong gave him a tour of his mountain AND STILL pulled a fast on him by having him think he wasn't coming when he was right behind Bajie the whole time. He just wanted Bajie to sweat a little longer. But there was something about Wukong having Bajie see how whole home and what he is leaving but also that Bajie really enjoyed seeing where he lived�� even if the Little Suns threw Bajie around like a sake of flour weighing nothing… BUT HE STILL HAD A NICE TIME.

Bajie seems to have a lot of faith in his brothers, even if he rather run away and avoid a fight altogether because he is a bit of a coward he is more often overconfident on taking on demons with his group.

But when he thinks Wukong might actually die after they think they lost Sanzang to a demon he tells him he can't else they will have too much to grieve. And how he only feels confident in battle when he knows Wukong is behind him. I do love it when Bajie and Wujing look on in awe at Wukong and his power he thinks they might be gossiping about him and gets suspicious, leading to another prank.

And I feel like he gets that kind of confidence only later throughout the series, where he actually stops trying to divide the luggage when things go bad and tries to see to the end of the journey to get the scriptures. He is still a lazy guy that rather sleep and eat all day but he gets a bit better along the way, participating with his party in the journey and starting to see the goal to attain the scriptures as something he also wants to and actually trying harder to prove that to himself. It takes him a lot longer than Wukong and even Wujing but I think he really comes around to being a team player.

This kinda turned into a Bajie apologist post but I just really love this pig. He is a lazy asshole that starts shit he needs a good slice of humble pie because he cares a lot

[thescullyphile]

The problem with the unending reproductive storylines with Scully in the show, isn't necessarily the subject matter itself (though there is sth to be said that this is was consistently the only avenue of trauma/plot they could think of for Scully), reproductive horror has a lot of potential and can be very interesting (like in Evil CBS for example), but that it was clear that the writers weren't actually interested in the subject of motherhood/pregnancy and how it can be twisted, for them it was purely a plot device with no actual thought to Scully's charcater or any kind of nuance or thoughtfulness on this topic, so the writing ended up being disrespectful, idiotic and misogynistic (due to the aforementioned lack of any actual care to a very gendered subject matter)

Exactly this, anon. Like, there was a way to craft the arc with respect to the (very) sensitive subject matter. Would it surprise anyone to know that apparently there were no women in the writers room past season 3?

At the end of the day, the X Files deals with the 'Other' a lot. Had motherhood and reproduction been given ANY kind of dignity in the show, the colonization and hybridization plotlines could have been made more impactful by the purposeful Other-ing of reproduction, and thus create a rather good storyline, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen and isn't the case. Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz are pretty much the sole writers/creators of the William arc, and Carter alone is responsible for the My Struggles. I'm not saying it's -because- he's a man, but I am saying that I would struggle to imagine a woman treating the same subject with such disregard.

[plastic--prick]

Let’s talk about Leo Manfred for just a minute

I hope this kind of post hasn’t been done yet (it’s just me rambling anyway) but I don’t really check the tags so I hope I’m not too late to the party. I feel like we don’t talk enough about Leo Manfred? Maybe this won’t be read by anyone but I’d like to share my thoughts.

I was playing Detroit this morning, I’m trying to complete the game, and when I did ‘The Painter’ and ‘Broken’, I thought about Leo a lot. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Carl. He’s such a great character and just... great overall. And he’s not just a one dimensional character. When you learn more about his story, he is very, very interesting. And actually, so is Leo. He’s not like Gavin, let’s say, a charcater the fandom made way more likeable by finding headcannons and turning him into an awesome three dimensional character (believe me I love Gavin with all my heart but if we had to just love charcaters based on what we only see... like Leo, he’d just be an obnoxious dickhead).

Yet, the very first time I did ‘The Painter’, when Leo left the room saying his father never loved him, I thought “now wait a minute.” because he seemed to really believe what he was saying, and he looked hurt. Now, I know Carl loves his son, that’s not what I’m talking about. I also know that Leo wasn’t in his normal set of mind (whether he was on drugs or because of withdrawal), and yet I thought “you don’t get that angry against an android, talking about how he’s prefered, before saying your father never loved you for nothing, right?” 

As most of you probably already know, Leo comes from a passionate but short relationship with one of Carl’s fans and he never actually met Carl before he was sixteen. And yes, Carl gave generous child support or whatever but money has never replaced love or affection or actual social interactions. So my first question is “how has Leo been feeling about that, growing up with his mother and a father represented by money he’d give?” We don’t know if he was aware of who his father was before he was sixteen, but he knew his father knew about him, since he was giving them money. If that’s the only “relationship” he had with him before meeting him, I’m not exactly surprised that when Leo go to see his father, he expects being given money for whatever he wants. Especially since he was probably already angry at his father at the time and probably believed his father had never loved him enough to be a real part of his life. He probably felt like he was less important than Carl’s fame and art. And he probably didn’t fall into drugs by accident, he probably became a rebellious teenager, etc. 

Then, after the accident, Carl gets Markus from Elijah and... well. We don’t know when the accident occured, I believe, but in the game, Leo is 28, has only known his father for 12 years, less than half his life, never lived in the same house as his dad... And this android arrives and Carl teaches him. As if he was raising a child, he teaches him not only about art, music, litterature... he teaches Markus about finding himself, about emotions, all these things a kid learn about while growing up. Leo probably didn’t see the half of that behavior but he knows enough. 

Now, Carl... Well, he’s interesting. He’s very wise. But you know, you’re not born wise. The way Carl thinks and talk didn’t come “naturally”, he learned and experienced a lot of things that made him wiser. I mean, I’m not saying he was wrong and should be shamed for it but he did have a passionate fling with a fan leading to a pregnancy and the mess Leo became. I’m pretty sure he could have handled the situation better to begin with. Leo was also born in 2010, Carl was fourty-seven already and thought it was best to just give money to the mother. It’s a bit... insensitive, I’d say. We also know that (probably after his accident), he became very depressed (just listen to how he talk and how he’s just usually jaded), he had problems with drugs and alcohol, he knows about those things. He knows about life, that guy, you know. But he did make mistakes and slowly changed. 

And Leo is definitely capable of changing. If you don’t have Carl killed in ‘Broken’ and during his talk with Markus in ‘Night of the Soul’, Leo is going to come back home and see him the very next day, he says so in his message you can listen to. And he looks better, and he says he’s going to stop drugs and change and become a better person, and that he’s proud to be Carl’s son. It’s unfortunate but most times, you need something drastic to happen, something that’s usually bad, for some people to realise how poorly they’re doing and how they still have time to turn everything around and lead a better life. That Markus is not the only one that can be seen as “perfect” or just as a good person by his father. Carl made mistakes but so did Leo and he came to realise that at least, there’s still some time for them to become closer. 

And I don’t know I had a point with all this when I began but I just ranted because I just like Leo very much and he gets me emotional and I’d love to see him get more love. Yes he acted like a dick in the beginning but he’s actually very endearing and yeah. That’s about it I think. idk