what dread hand

He should keep it. Also:

Glasses! I have a one-track mind, I know.

You can now return to your regular scheduled programming, sorry.

I want from Mohinder:
• noseblood
• marks (of any kind)
• snark
• vomiting
• nipples

Three out of five. I'm a fairly satisfied fangirl.

I was thinking about why Mohinder returned to his apartment in 1x19.

(Disregarding the fact that originally, Sylar was supposed to have fallen out the window.)

I briefly toyed with the idea that he may have gone back as a death wish, feeling so guilty about Peter that he was hoping Sylar would be waiting to finish him, but I don't really see Mohinder being the type of person who would even entertain the idea of suicide -- not in the sense that I think he'd consciously refuse to do it, but more in the sense that it probably wouldn't occur to him to begin with.

Let's think about it. What options does he have at that point, anyway?
• Go back
  - Sylar is still unconscious, kill him
  - Sylar isn't there, free out of jail card
  - Sylar is there, back to square one except the list is already gone
• Run, and hope that
  - Sylar doesn't want to find him (could happen)
  - Sylar won't find him (highly unlikely)
• Find someone who will help him
  - call the company
  - (... he has no other friends, dammit)

I dunno. Would I seem crazy if I said I'd have gone back, too? It's not like there are that many options left. If Sylar wants to find him, Sylar will; if Sylar doesn't want to find him, what difference does it make where he is. I might have called the company before I went back, if I had the number; maybe Eric Roberts sent some men to check whether Sylar was still there before they ventured inside.

• pretty
• snark
• bad shirts
• daddy issues
• masochism
• morals
• pragmatism
• protectiveness
• drugged chai
• D<

I babbled to Anna long and hard about what I think of the Sylar/Mohinder relationship (in the canon -- no, honestly) and why I like it. Edited so it's mostly me babbling (sorry!) and included below mostly for my own reference.

However, I may have a fever.

No one seems to be posting caps of this episode (or maybe I just missed it) so I was thinking I might go and share the 500-odd caps I did, but as I was looking through them I realized that they were all of, uh, Mohinder. (Well, and a little bit of Sylar.) I'm realistic enough to know that most people probably don't want 500-odd Mohinder caps to download, so here's a Mohinder picspam instead.

36 pics, 1.02mb, work-safe.

In other news, I feel dreadful. I wasn't really kidding about the fever.

I was trying to write a post about why I like Mohinder as much as I do yesterday, but got stuck. I think it's really really simple, why I like him, but it's difficult to think of all the actual canon evidence that supports (so to speak) my view of him.

Basically, I like him because he gets constantly thrown into situations where he is almost expected to submit, to a person or people or organization with objectively more power than him who could crush him instantly, but he is so stubborn and proud and oddly reckless that he never, ever gives in.

I mean Chandra, Nathan, The Company (HRG and later Thompson), Sylar ... they all push him, walk all over him, underestimate him, disregard him, threaten him, hurt him, and what does Mohinder do? He snarks back! He's a rational person in the sense that he only believes what he sees, but on the other hand he's also totally a "acting before thinking" guy that it's almost like he only becomes aware of the threat to his life (such as the gun that HRG had pointed at him) after he's fired off a "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" retort to the person who could easily kill him.

On one hand, this tendency amuses me greatly. He has always had that element of surprise, beginning with that scene where he actually attacks the the guy who was trying to bug his apartment, and I always find myself going "hah!" at the screen when Mohinder completely disregards the potential power (physical, political, you name it) of the guy he's facing and manages to get his way. Nathan? HRG? Thompson? He kicked their collective asses, and I laughed so hard.

On another hand, I think it's totally hot. This is where Sylar comes into the picture, because Sylar pushed Mohinder to an edge that we had never seen him at. Sylar poked, relentlessly, at every weak spot in Mohinder's psyche: his daddy issues, his faith in science, his sense of morals and what is wrong and right. It was almost as though Sylar was taking pleasure in seeing how Mohinder would react, and I was right there with him, gleefully observing every twitch of the eye and expecting, almost wanting, Mohinder to crack. But he didn't. Even hanging at that very edge, Mohinder just refuses to break. And that ... that just makes trying to tear him apart all the much more fun, it makes him all the much more appealing, because it's unattainable and what's sweeter than that? Not to mention how almost naïve and trusting Mohinder can be if you know how to work yourself into his life; how amazingly open he can be with you, like he was with Zane. Personally, if I were Sylar, I'd have been itching to reveal myself just to see his reaction, but also in a dilemma because I would want to savour the deception for just a bit longer ...

Ah, geez, I sound like such a pervert. I guess I identify a bit too much with Sylar when it comes to Mohinder, or at least the Sylar I see in canon, the one shown to be so obsessed with Mohinder that he kept him around for five fucking years to earn his trust, just waiting to break it and break Mohinder with it. I adore these two guys, and I'll gladly admit the ship was what cemented my love for Mohinder.

Yeah. Mohinder. Guh.

(I may do a longer version with references to actual episodes and pics, but probably not before the show is over. I assume the average viewer will be like, "Mohinder kicked Nathan's ass ... when?" Meh.)

"Mohinder is not a doormat. If you tell him to roll over, he'll bite. Mohinder would be a very bad name for a dog."

And this morning I was thinking about this while brewing coffee, and I thought,

"Mohinder is usually not at all nice to people, so I wonder where people get this from.

"He does get duped, but that's because he's sometimes very trusting and naïve.

"But he's only that way when people approach him nicely. If they don't, and expect him to roll over and stay, like Nathan and HRG and Thompson and Sylar, he'll bark and bite back.

"He's only nice to people when they're nice to him and listen to him and accept him and ... and ...

"... oh.

"Oh! Oh, so that's what that is! Zane! Eden! Even Molly? How gloriously fucked up! Oh!

"Why did I never think of it like that before? Mohinder, you've got such issues."

I'm slow sometimes. I always loved it when Mo bit back, but never really considered the times when he didn't.

Katharina drew Mohinder.

Best thing ever or best thing ever, y/y?

I love you, internets, for continuously giving me every excuse not to get back to that article I'm supposed to be reading. Keep up the good work. Amen.

Why do a fair share of people assume Mohinder would be envious of the people with special abilities?

If anything, it seems more natural that he should resent them. That resent, then, might come out partly from envy, but that wouldn't even be so much of the powers themselves as envy of how these people consumed his father's attention and life. After he has gotten over these issues, however, what is left seems to me merely scientific curiousity.

At any rate, Mohinder seems one of the people in canon the least boyishly fascinated with the pure coolness of it, maybe along with Claire and Nathan. Even when he saw it for the first time with Zane, he didn't fanboy the man (rather the other way around; Zane was creepily adoring of Mo). The other end of the spectrum would be Peter, Sylar, and Hiro.

I guess this characterization annoys me mostly because a large part of what I like about Heroes is the non-superhumans, like Mohinder, Ando, and the Bennets. I like them because they're drawn as more than sidekicks, as characters equally worth of attention as the "heroes", and I believe that part of what stops them from being reduced to adoring sidekicks is their pragmatic attitude to the powers they see. Ando-kun shows this the most, and I luffs him.

It's a present! From Kat! For me!

And it's ... Mohinder!!!

I swear, I have done nothing in my entire life to deserve this.

What some people sometimes don't notice or fathom amazes me.

I'm not saying that because I want to proclaim myself higher and mightier than everyone else, because if it's a character I personally don't care about, I'd probably forget stuff and not think too much about the stuff I did remember, and god knows I have the attention span of a goldfish and can forget things that were explained to me 30 seconds ago, but ... this is mylar_fic, and this is about Mohinder. It's about a crucial scene in the development of their characters and their relationship.* If we shouldn't be noticing their actions and interpreting them in a way that's just slightly deeper than "plot convenience", who should be?

On the other hand, it explains a lot. Such as why people are so geniuinely surprised when Mohinder is badass and walks all over Thompson in episode 21. But really, if you don't see the significance of Mo destroying the list, how much sense does his monologue at the end of 19 even make?

On the third hand I just got up and haven't had my coffee yet.

* ... why do I inevitably feel the need to add "No, not sexual or romantic; in the canon" whenever I use the word "relationship"? Fandom has tainted the word for me.

I know this might come as a shock to some of you, but Mohinder is not pretty.

Rest assured I'm not saying this because I dislike Mohinder. I love the good doctor; he's my favorite character on the show and has been since the very early episodes, when he was sprinting from HRG's creepy stalking and knocking people out with elephants.

Please also rest assured I don't mean to say I don't think Mohinder is pretty, since I, you know, have eyes.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Mohinder Suresh on the show, or more specifically, Mohinder Suresh as he appears to the other characters on the show.

Mohinder has never, not even once, been addressed as being "pretty" or "handsome" or "attractive" on the show. The closest we come is Thompson's "cute", but 1) that was in regard to his motivations, not his looks, and 2) uh, this is Thompson we're talking about, and he's weird.

Sylar does not, even once, express any opinion what-so-ever about Mohinder's looks. Neither does Peter. Neither does Eden, or Mira, or Chandra, or HRG, or whoever else Mohinder meets in the course of the show. I personally agree with you that Sylar is deeply obsessed with Mohinder, yes, but much like Thompson's "cute", it has nothing to do with what Mohinder looks like. Mohinder, *gasp!*, has a personality! Odd thought, isn't it.

As Greg Beeman said on the commentary of "Unexpected", isn't it odd that all the people gathered to save the world are ... HOT? This is TV, people. They're all hot, more or less. That doesn't mean they are also hot in the context of the show. Unless characters are referred to as being hot in the show itself, they're just, y'know, passable. What we think of the characters is not what the characters think about each other. That's called the fourth wall. If the creators had intended for Mohinder, the character, to be breathtakingly attractive, they'd have indicated it in the writing.

So could we please stop projecting our own obsession with Sendhil Ramamurthy's pretty looks onto the characters? The occasional reference to pretty curls or white smile or whatever is fine, but when Sylar (or Peter or Thompson or Papa Nakamura or whoever) just won't shut the fuck up about it, it gets really tiresome. Sylar is not a fucking fangirl.

Not to mention I begin to think that's the only thing you like Mohinder for, too.

I like Mohinder.

I'm one of the few people in the world who liked him from very early on. was the one who prompted me into watching season one, and I remember one of the first conversations I had with her involved my love for (the at that point still highly ambiguous) HRG, the awesome cuteness of Hiro and Charlie, and the hot that is Mohinder.

I liked his conflicting emotions about his father's research, how he wanted to protect it and prove it, but how he was also impatient and angry with himself for still wanting Chandra's approval after all these years. I loved his banter with Eden; to this day, I still think she was his only true "match", a person who would obviously care about and care for him, never dismissing his emotions or issues, but who also knows his stubborn nature, accepts it all, and counters it with reason and humour.

Mohinder cares about people, on a fundamental level, and wants to guide them and save them, and is clearly of the opinion that science is of no use in and of itself, that research is only relevant when it can be applied, and applied for good. This is why he leaves India for the second time. This is why he refuses to experiment with the virus. But he seems to dislike most people he meets, and they seems to be annoyed by him, and it all makes me giggle. It's understandable, of course. At the same time as being kind and helpful on a, what should we say, theoretical level, Mohinder is also impatient, impulsive, rude, stubborn (I've said this one twice now), and at times even smug and superior. I love all of that about him. He wants to help people and he's idealistic, but he has little social skill, has to try very hard whenever he needs to be diplomatic, and isn't actually very nice or open or, God forbid, meek.

Mohinder knows the difference between the general and the specific, between the conceptual and the concrete. He is a scientist, he knows that some species have eradicated and will continue to eradicate other species, he knows this is how evolution works. On some level, I believe he knows there's no way for him to tell whether Sylar is an agent of this evolutionary process, or plain psychotic. But he knows that in this concrete situation, he will kill Sylar. He knows that in that cencrete situation, he will stop Sylar from committing genocide -- even though he himself wrote of the very clear possibility of genocide. Mohinder sees the line between theory and practise, and is highly concerned with what he believes is morally right, over what he might understand to be scientific fact. Mohinder has no doubt about which he will choose, not even as Sylar sees his dichotomy of science and morals and mercilessly provokes it.

The above is how I understand Mohinder as a scientist and man. I also believe this is how Chandra understood Mohinder, hence the "heart of stone" comment. Mohinder can't commit to science alone, it's not in him. Perhaps said in other words, Mohinder would not have made Sylar. Even if he had, Mohinder would have committed himself to stop what he made, not simply distance himself as Chandra did. This is why, in the Sylar storyline, Chandra dies and Mohinder comes to the US.

That leads me to 2x07. But alas, I have no more time; must shower and leave. Wah!

I was wanting to write part two of this post before episode nine aired, but um. Didn't get around to.

Basically what I wanted to say was, the reason Mohinder working with/for the Company won't work out is not because the Company is objectively evil, but because it operates in such a way that goes against everything that is natural to Mohinder.

Mohinder does what he believes to be "the right thing" in any given situation. When he doesn't, like when he doesn't shoot Sylar right away but instead opts to experiment on him, this is because he is doing what he believes someone else (in this case, Chandra) would have done, not what comes naturally to him to do. He postponed his own judgement in favour of scientific research which might benefit someone sometime in the future. As we all know, it backfired. In FYG, Sylar nearly convinced Mohinder that killing off the mutated humans were the best option for a better future. Mohinder came to his senses in the concrete situation of killing Hiro or not, because he knew it was the right thing for him to do in that split-second. This is how Mohinder operates.

The Company operates on completely different terms. The Company operates on "if we do these shady things now, it will turn out for the better in the future". They experiment on people and give them drugs and keep them captive, and even plan to blow up NY, because they believe it is for a better tomorrow. Mohinder just doesn't work this way; they are the anti-Mohinder, so to speak, thematically.

This is why working with the Company is wrong for Mohinder. And where am I going with this? I'm trying to say that in the world of story-telling, the most obvious redemption for someone who went against his own nature is death. This is why, ever since Mohinder got a bit too honest with Bob, I've been having a sneaking suspicion that Mohinder could die in this arc. I don't want it to happen, and after the spoilers I've seen of episode 11 I stopped thinking it would, but he really, really needs to get away from the Company.

I slept on it, and yeah, I still love 2x09. I also still need an icon that says "Joe/Sendhil = OTmotherfuckingP". Seriously, what sort of favours did you do the guy in college, Sendhil?

(That was vulgar, sorry. But I'm a vulgar sort of person.)

What's amazing about Pokaski's script is probably that I can now believe something which has been brought up in fandom multiple times, but I never though I'd be able to believe: Mohinder going bad and working with Sylar. Or maybe more "mental" than "bad". Until yesterday I was certain Mohinder couldn't be pushed as far as to completely lose faith in his own morals, that even if you did he'd bounce back and find his purpose again, and I still want the show to redeem him at some point, but fuck if I don't want them to push him entirely over the edge and make him a homicidal maniac first! It'd be so plausible. And that's to Pokaski's credit, that he was willing to take these characters so far emotionally.

But on the other hand, I also want Mohinder and Sylar to make out next Monday, so you might imagine I'm not prone to getting what I want. (For the record, I think they could totally make out now and it wouldn't even be OOC. The only thing standing between them making out is Mohinder's moral objections to Sylar, and if he's being as self-hating as I expect and hope [please don't much this up, whoever wrote the next script] him to be, that'd go out the window.)

Oh oh oh, now that I'm at wishes, you know what I also want? Mohinder with an eyepatch! Mohinder with future!Peter-style scars all over, especially running up his neck! Mohinder with noseblood, Angela-style! Mmm.

What's sad, though, is that if Mohinder went bad and began to kill people left and right without any thought to it, fandom would start liking him more. Because a maniac who kills people left and right = badass. Or something. Oh shuttup fandom, you don't deserve Mohinder.

I was talking about this episode on IM and LJ comments everywhere and probably annoying people like whoa yesterday, but I'm just so damn happy that a new episode of Heroes has given me so much to talk about. I promise I won't go into "defensive Mohinder fan" mode again. I think. I hope.

P.S. Also, of course, this episode has made me want to write fic again. I have so many abandoned plotbunnies from before season two, it's scary. I should make a list.

to make Mohinder look ugly. I think we all knew that particular promo pic was photoshopped a wee bit too much, but I didn't realize until the close-ups came out that they had actually, honest-to-god, photoshopped Mohinder's bottom lip thinner.

What the hell?! The bottom lip is one of Mohinder's top five most attractive features! The hair is also ugly here, but the lack of sensual bottom lip is overshadowing it.

(I didn't even dare to look at the close-up of Sylar. He looked like a horse when there was only a tiny version, god knows what he looks like huge.)

I mean, seriously! Look!

(I know my obsession is unhealthy; you don't have to inform me. I once begged Ela to write fic about the prettiest parts of Mohinder, including bottom lip. And dammit, now I crave fic about Mohinder's nipples again.)

ETA: Okay, I'm sitting here at work and thinking back on the look in Mohinder's eyes in the van, and it's seriously making me teary-eyed. What the fuck, Momo. Stop being so heartbreaking.

Potentially disturbing.

I just realized Joe Pokaski was the one who killed Eden.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Ela was in a writing mood (for once!) after I mentioned how Mohinder looks about ready to puke after his phone call with Sylar in 2x10.

So we were talking about Mohinder vomiting, and all sorts of other really really degrading things Sylar could force Mohinder into, and I was telling her all the stuff I liked that I thought she should include, and you shouldn't read the extended entry if you don't like that sort of thing.

Anna took the cap. I noticed he licked his lips in this scene, but I'm now obsessed with it.

My favorite things about Mohinder:

• lashes
• bottom lip
• that horribly-painfully-looking scar on the tip of his nose
• his habit of licking his lips
• sweat-soaked skin
• long, long fingers
• hair, anywhere
• smile
• that red shirt
• those cargo pants
• puppy-dog eyes
• befuddled frown
• angry frown
• his satchel
• the way he tucks Molly's hair behind her ear
• the way he kisses her forehead
• thumb ring
• the fact that if they made a Bollywood episode, he should be the one standing in the rain wearing a white shirt (because it's obvious they're tuning up his sex appeal by having him wear so much clothing all the time)
• the lines of his jaw and neck
• his scared face

Wait, that didn't make me less emo. That just made me horny.

D:

I think I might re-watch all Mohinder scenes of season two this weekend. But first, off to work. Though I really, honestly feel like shit. Wah.

P.S. Can Mohinder/Maya be canon soon? I'm not even asking for a full-on Nathan/Jessica scene (THOUGH HAHAHA I SURE WOULDN'T OBJECT), holding hands is fine! They can start there and move up, and kiss in season five on their wedding night.

P.P.S. Why is Pushing Daisies so good? And Chuck/Olive so cute? It's impossibly cute.

P.P.P.S. I feel so much like shit that canned coffee actually tastes good. I haven't enjoyed canned coffee since I was seven and actually living in Japan and ergo did not know any fucking better. Scary.

The trick is still to not think of it as coffee, but rather as a milk-and-sugar drink with added aroma.

1. All of NYC and every superpowered human in the world.

... okay, while the above is true, a bit more seriously:

1. Peter
2. Hiro
3. Molly
4. DL (he certainly helped)
5. Matt (again)
6. The Haitian
7. HRG/Bob

And on that note, I'll go back to sleep.

I like Mohinder.

... I feel like I preface every meta entry on Heroes with this. Mohinder is my favorite character, I would dare say I love him, and everything about him makes me squirm in my seat and alternately want to worship him and cuddle him and torture him. It's all an expression of my pure, unadulated adoration of him, and you guys probably all know this already.

I realize that a lot of people don't like Mohinder. I'm not saying people can't, that'd be silly. People are free to feel whatever they feel about any given character, whether I happen to agree with them or not. Sometimes the reasons they list for disliking him are the exact reason I like him, which is funny, and sometimes I find the reasons unlogical or at least biased, but ultimately, feelings can't really be controlled by logic and neither should they.

But do you know what I wish people would do? I wish people would

STOP FUCKING SHIPPING HIM WITH ANY ARBITARY CHARACTER FOR THEIR FIC AND PORN FIX WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY BASHING HIM

is what I wish. If I see one more person using a Sylar/Mohinder icon, or one more person in the Matt/Mohinder community, or one more person admitting to be a Peter/Mohinder shipper in the same breath as telling Mohinder to stop being so fucking stupid, or even worse telling Mohinder to stop being such a douche because it's ruining their fic and porn funk (yes, I've seen people do this), I will KILL SOMETHING.

What, the only way you can stand Mohinder is if he's having hot buttsex with your favorite character? The only use he has is having chemistry with Sylar? Being cutely domestic with Matt? And you're, what, willing to ever so kindly overlook his faults if you get to ship him, because OMG the ship is sooooo hot and hey, you guess Mo's pretty enough? What. The. Fuck? Do you people even realize that you're treating the man as a fuckhole? (No, I don't care if you have him top; the sentiment is the exact same.¹) And you think it's even a good idea to admit to this? What?

Also, while I don't know about Matt, you people do realize that the reasons you seem to hate him for (he's self-righteous! he always pretends to be doing the right thing! it's so annoying! wah wah whine!) are the exact reasons Sylar is obsessed with him and we're shipping S/M in the first place, right? Right?

I'd rather have no fic or fandom about Mohinder Suresh at all than put up with that. You may hate him, and that's your right, but he fucking deserves better. Stop shipping him if you hate him so fucking much, and get out of my fucking face.

(Wow, that made me feel so much better! Saying "fuck" a lot is so liberating.)

1. But if you treat him like a fuckhole out of love, that's fine. In fact, link me to your fic when you write that.

I was originally going through season two episodes to cap Mohinder's thumb ring, but I ended up taking more caps of his broken nose.

One can clearly see fractures running from the tip of his nose along the right side, and from the left side of his nose running along the corner of his eye and up to the eyebrow. There is also some scar tissue under his left eye.

...

*whimpers*

The above are all before HRG breaks it again. In later episodes, the bandage has become smaller and the fractures on the nose itself have begun to heal some, but the bruise around his left eye has turned purplish and still looks incredibly painful.

*squirms*

No, there is no conclusion to this post. I just wanted to catalogue that.

I love how a lot of the discussion that happened in the Mohinder poll results post echoes a lot of things I've discussed with people over IM or on this blog or in my LJ. Like how Mohinder saved eeeeeeeveryone on that show but got nill for it, but how Mohinder doesn't act out of wanting credit so that's okay, and how Mohinder might be morally troubled but will always try to do the good thing, and how HRG was being an idiot with huge communication problems, and how Mohinder isn't stupid, goddammit.

Yay! ♥

I mean it's wonderful to talk about it with friends, but seeing relative strangers in a community argue the same things makes me feel less biased and obsessed. Just a little. Because being a Mohinder fan sometimes -- nay, most of the time feels like working against the huge tide that is fandom at large.

Whatever Matt may say, Mohinder looks more like 007 than a professor.

In my head (when I'm reading porn. What) I like to imagine Mohinder much leaner, with much less muscle. Not fat or unfit, just ... not that fit. It makes more sense for his character, unless he was always Indiana Jones.

But whoa, Sendhil. Can we see you model underwear one day?

I changed the spot of the bunny's cage today, and he's been stamping his feet every since. Dude, I'm sorry ... but it had to be done! Or maybe he wants me to move the litter, too?