the only normal person in the world

i wonder how much of her life Scully spent trying to fit herself into roles that felt too small for her. like from what we know of her pre-pilot (smoking cigarettes in secret, rewriting Einstein, choosing FBI academy over a career in medicine, sleeping with older instructors, gaining credentials that most people her age could never dream of etc.) indicates someone who is simultaneously excelling and rebelling, leaping between disciplines and expanding her interests at a rapid pace. she’s clearly worked hard to succeed within extremely competitive and male-dominated institutions but there are already signs than she’s testing the boundaries and isn’t satisfied with simply checking the right boxes to advance her career. ambitious as Scully seems from the outside, her curiosity and her integrity prove much stronger motivators for her than professional acclaim (this gets spelled out pretty definitively by Squeeze).