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gnomeontherage:

my 2 cents on Pikelan throughout the series:

I think it was very right and good of Scanlan to apologize for his treatment of Pike throughout the episodes, and to promise to treat her like a person rather than a goal. If he realizes that he did something that may have hurt her, even if it was not his intention, or! even if she wasn’t actually hurt, of course he should apologize and make changes to instead be considerate. However, I never actually read his behavior towards her, even in the early episodes, as “creepy”?

A good part of that may be the players bleeding through to the characters–for instance when Scanlan was waxing eloquent about Pike and ended his description with “Breasts firm, supple–” it was definitely Ashley who said smugly “True, true”, not in character as Pike: but a big part about their interactions that made it not bother me the way a lot of ‘guy pursuing a lady who’s not into him’ stories was that Pike never seemed to be made particularly uncomfortable. A bit awkward at times, but then she also gets awkward when Vax says glowing things about her perfection, and even when she would kind of stammer “Oh, Scanlan,” it read to me as part exasperated, part flattered, part amused, but never frightened or uneasy (except inasmuch as she is uneasy about potentially hurting him [”I didn’t mean to be careless with your feelings.”]). It’s less of a pursuit and more of a dance, and Pike never doesn’t hold her own. Everything comes with a context, and something that might be harmful from an enemy or a stranger can be very different coming from a friend.