per manum thoughts
Honestly, there are a lot of episodes of The X-Files that give me the heebie jeebies but none have come close to the feeling I got watching Per Manum. It's a Scully focused ep in a season that's a little Scully lacking imo so ya girl was excited!
Neither Mulder nor Scully get out of the narrative unscathed in this show but, god, they really love to torture Scully don't they? I mean, we know that having a baby is something that she's wanted for a long time. Something that she thought wasn't possible. And then Mulder waltz in like "Wassup I got some of your ova. It was in my pocket for a while, but I think it's fine" (Fox, babygirl, you're smart. You should know better).
In a series of flashbacks we see them trying IVF. I have to mention that I freaking loved how they did the transitions to the flashbacks here. Like in the elevator! They were absolutely perfect. Anyway, spoiler alert, it doesn't work. (Like seriously, Mulder, IT WAS IN YOUR POCKET FOR GOD KNOWS HOW LONG. THAT SHIT AIN'T SHELF STABLE) At this point we make the connection that the same doctor that Scully is seeing, the same one that started her IVF, is in cahoots with these doctors taking alien babies from women? (For what purpose....idk that's still unclear to me)
And then we have to watch poor Scully freaking out that she might give birth to an alien baby. Seriously, I felt panicked for her while watching this, it was kinda tough to get through. In sci-fi and horror, aliens are often used as an allegory for pregnancy. Something invading your body and destroying you from the inside out. This feeds into Scully's fear of her own pregnancy, that something could go wrong. That she's alone and scared and without Mulder. And yes, the idea that she could give birth to a literal alien baby. So while I can see what they were going for, I'm just tired y'all. We see her finally get pregnant and even though she doesn't completely understand how it happened (cough cough all things cough cough) she's excited nonetheless. I think she also sees her baby as a tie that she has with Mulder. And if he's gone at least he left a part of him behind. So to have her panic about the true nature of her baby's paternity just seems cruel at this point.
Another terrifying aspect of this episode is Scully's realization that she couldn't even trust her own doctor. We're used to this show taking people in positions of power and showing them as shady and working for their own agenda. (re the entire government) But Scully herself is a doctor. She looks at other people in the medical field and she trusts them. Because they're doctors and they're supposed to help people. Her own doctor turns out to be working for the alien people, so Scully goes to another hospital only to find that she can't trust those doctors either. I think this conveys a very real and prevalent issue, that is still true today, and that is of women and autonomy of their own bodies.
I haven't seen any of the later seasons yet, but I know about the revelation in season 11. It's just another way to use Scully and her body to drive the plot forward. This comes after all that's she's already been through, with her abduction and experimentation. This decision takes away Scully's choice and desire to have a baby and twists it into a nonconsensual nightmare. One were she wasn't in charge or aware of what they were doing to her body. I don't think the (predominantly male) writers understand just how fucked up that is. So yeah, I'm pissed about that. Mulder is the father of Scully's baby and that's that.
We also finally have Doggett finding out that Scully is pregnant. This has been simmering for a while, as he can tell she's keeping something from him. She didn't tell him, but of course he found out based on the circumstances. It's taken me a bit to warm up to him but I've been enjoying Doggett's character development since his introduction, as well as the development of him and Scully's partnership. He honest to god just wants to help her with no ulterior motive and I think that's exactly what she needs right now. Someone in her corner. I think by the end of the episode, when he tells her that he wants to help her and that he's going to find Mulder, he's so earnest about it, and it breaks down the some of the walls that she's built up.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, we got a lot of insight on Scully's character as well as her relationship with Mulder. But god, as a woman it was kind of brutal to watch. I just love Dana Scully so much and I want her to be happy.
I'd love to hear other thoughts and interpretations for this ep!
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Hello, happy STS! If you had to transform your story into a different genre, which one would you pick and what would it look like?
Happy STS! Oh boy you have no idea what you've just set off. Brace yourself avalanche incoming
Okay SO I actually have a looooot of aus for beast because who doesn't like to daydream and write au snippets for their wip to run from their responsibilities. Most of these are specific fandom aus but I have thought about a sci fi au of beast, so, sci fi it is.
This would honestly change a lot of the tone and turn it into kind of a different story, but I do have a lot of fun thinking about how it would work!! In the sci fi au Beasts are a new line of android soldiers Kosei are experimenting with to keep the peace, with a bunch of fancy abilities such as flying!! Or shooting fireballs from their hands!!! It's all smooth sailing until news breaks that some of the androids' codes have malfunctioned, and they've broken out from their facilities. Naturally the government comes out and apologizes, promises they'll get this solved soon, places bounties and creates a special task force to catch them, etc etc.
Anyway, Crys is just a normal mechanic, about as far removed from this situation as any other citizen, up to the point where a boy with metal wings crash lands in his dumpster. He's about to call the hotline and send up an alert to any bounty hunters and authorities nearby - until he notices one teeny tiny problem, which is: the boy is bleeding. Like, real, red, human blood. So oops. Looks like Kosei has been messing around with human experimentation.
Anyway I went a bit insane over this au so have a tiny snippet :D
All in all, Crys’s day goes pretty normally up to the point where the boy with metal wings crash lands into his dumpster.
Well, not his dumpster, per se – just the one of the dumpsters behind his apartment, in a narrow alleyway off from the main street. It’s barely wide enough to fit a hoverbike in sideways, and the red-bricked walls are dirtied with soot and grit. The sky overhead is a watery strip of blue, empty of hovercrafts. The few rows of windows looking down on him, all darkened with grime, are closed as usual – trash collection is only once a week, and the fumes are awful.
At any rate, he’s lugging a sack of broken parts behind him, holding his breath, when the boy falls out of the sky. It’s fast, and it happens quite literally – there’s a shadow, overhead, the sound of something tearing through the wind, and then a speeding blur slams straight into one of the bins with a thunderous crash. It’s the one for organic waste, which is why there isn’t a sickening crunch of bone against metal, but it still sounds like it hurts.
There’s the glint of sunlight against metal, the silent hum of machinery, of gears whirring and clicking. Crys tenses. All he has is a pocketknife.
And then – a groan, and a curse. The figure heaves themself over the lip of the dumpster, and Crys thinks, oh.
It’s a boy around his age, or at least, he looks like a boy, because there are metal wings on his back. They’re beautiful – sleek and streamlined and gigantic – but also crooked and missing chunks of plating and spitting sparks. Some of the black paint has been scratched off, showing the silver underneath. Crys knows what they’re supposed to look like because he’s been seeing it all over the city, on wanted posters plastered on every street corner and every shop window, in the pamphlets sent out to every citizen in Kosei. Crows are one of the easiest to spot.
The boy in front of him is a Beast. Which means he is not a boy at all, but an android.
He is also covered in wounds leaking bright red blood.
Crys feels the world slip out from under him.
“Ah,” the boy says, meeting Crys’s gaze. His hair is a bird’s nest, dark and wild and sticking up every which way. His eyes are the color of obsidian. There’s a weak, wobbling grin on his face, his face pale with blood loss, which shouldn’t be possible.
But you don’t have to be a mechanic to know that androids don’t bleed. Which means that, though the boy in front of him is a Beast, he is not an android at all.
“Any chance,” the boy manages, “you can pretend you didn’t see me?”
There’s a moment’s pause. The world holds its breath. Crys hesitates, hand halfway to his hologlass.
The boy topples over the edge of the dumpster and passes out.
beast taglist: @sapphos-scientist @allianaavelinjackson @arctic-oceans @space-writes @reneesbooks
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Because I've been enabled once again, I've returned to my bullshit.
Once again, thank you to my favorite enabler/mutual @chazz-is-a-zelda-fan 💜
Today I present, a full and comprehensive tier list of every fanfic I've written and posted as well as a sneak at some WIP's and such 👀
Whether you've read everything or just a few of these, I'm curious to hear your thoughts and whether you agree or disagree with any of my placements of these works 🤔
Now that we've seen said list, allow me to briefly voice some thoughts on my placements 😌
Firstly, I've gone on record several times saying that I firmly believe that Favorite and Best are not mutually exclusive things. Just because something may be the "best" doesn't mean it has to be your favorite, and conversely, just because something may be your favorite thing doesn't necessarily mean you think it's the best of that thing either. But in this instance it just so happens my favorite fic, OUAD, is also the one I think is the best aksks.
OUAD is just brilliant. The combination of 4 of my favorite things: my favorite movie, my favorite Disney couple and just individually favorite prince and princess, my favorite show, and my favorite ship. A loose yet still fairly faithful adaptation of the film that brings me so much joy while also tearing my soul into shreds. And the casting? Phenomenal on my part. When I clear some stuff from my plate, I swear I'll be working on a sequel 😤
Salt In The Wound also got to sneak up into Best because in my opinion it's my best one shot. And also I just legitimately like the actual writing in it, I think it's some of my best work. Also I just needed it. I emotionally need that aftermath to Zane and Syrus's duel, I needed the comfort of them caring for Sy and catharsis from airing frustrations with Zane and the show didn't give it to me, so it's kinda a fulfillment that's on a totally different level than anything else I've done before.
Now Sons of The Stars. The fully crafted from the ground up, fully designed wardrobe, 130k fantasyish au that all stemmed from a throwaway joke in Angel's Tears. I love this one, especially the new updated version, I fixed so many things and just improved it so much from how it was originally. But I have some beef with it that keeps it from Best but still at the very top. The execution of Jaden and Jesse's romance isn't my favorite and I wrote it under a time crunch originally so you could tell towards the end I was rushing. That's been fixed a bit now but I still have a lingering disappointment with the idea that if I waited to write it originally I could've just done a better job overall with it. But as it stands I still think that fic is fantastic and it's my pride and joy.
Deviating from GX quick, my FFXV fic. What Goes In, this is just a good ass fic imo. Taking a segment from the game and answering for myself questions both the main game and Prompto's dlc raised and didn't answer, incorporating a lot of twists and turns and my own spin on what happens in that segment of the game, while incorporating actual game dialog and moments and shit too GAH it's good 😭 Also indulging in Promptis and Gladnis on the DL In the middle of all the pain and angst 🤭 biggest problem is that I haven't posted in it since March of 2020 and there's only 1 chapter left 😭 I promise I'm working on revising it right now and I'm finishing it by the end of 2023 that's my goal!
Might be controversial placement, but I put Sustained By Hate in the "Good" category......
Listen I love it. Camula coming back for revenge is an S+ idea. My problems lie with some of the execution, also me not really having the characterization of my version of Chazz's mom on lock yet. There's a lot of revisions I wanna do to that fic bro. Nothing too drastic or anything but still. There's also just so much happening in that one it feels a little messy to me now going back and re reading it. But Lexi usurping the main character role towards the end is brilliant and I actually wrote a duel which was hard as shit and I'm so proud of it and myself so extra bonus points for that! Overall, I love that fic but still as it stands I only think it's good. Perhaps a revised version would get bumped up on my list 🤔
Traffic Lights, my 5Ds one shot that's just Carly sitting in her car trapped in traffic 😂 not a lot to gripe about or say here, it's just a cute little work. I like it, I think it's good, but I feel like most of what I've written is better, it's that simple. I still really like it a lot though!
Angel's Tears, the first GX fic I ever wrote....... listen I thought this was my magnum opus for the LONGEST time..... if you've read the original version, that's embarrassing for me to say. Now the revised version I did recently? That's less embarrassing. But still this fic's only alright in my opinion. It was good at the time, I was 18 when I first wrote it and like I said, it was the 1st GX fic I ever wrote. But I've just improved so much as a writer, the newer version supports that better now akaksk and well, it's just not my best work in my opinion. I also don't really like the title anymore but it's been too long I can't change it now. But this fic was what got me started with writing these kids so I owe it a debt of gratitude for that. We wouldn't have all the rest of these works without it.
A Friend In Need, my Bastion one shot. Like the Carly one, not much to say about it. I like it, but it's just old and I need to revise it. It's cute and appropriately upsetting and a good idea to address Bastion's feelings of invisibility and inadequacy in season 2, the execution just needs to be given a face lift in my opinion.
Before I sneak at my WIPS, I'm gonna jump down to Rewriting.
Alice was an old fic I did that was basically an episode rewrite for episode 80, you know. The filler episode after they get back from Domino. With Alice... hence the title.... well if you read that story before I deleted it to rewrite it well you're entitled to compensation of some sort. It wasn’t good if you ask me. And rereading it there were a couple moments in it that made even me uncomfortable now that didn't back then. Literally I lost the plot while I was writing it like I jumped off the deep end a few chapters in and it dips so hard in quality. I'm just redoing it from like chapter 2 or 3 on, It has to be done.
Anyway now a quick roll call of my current WIPS for you babies because I like you and they're all S+ concepts 😌
We ALL know about Chazerella. My stormshipping Cinderella au riding the coattails of OUAD. I'll be starting writing that once we cross into the new year 👍
My Stormshipping + Alexis crossover with Mario.... yeah that started as a joke but isn't a joke anymore. I've posted about that so much you all know akakaka Chazz hanging out in Bowser's dungeon with Peach while Atticus and Alexis traverse the Mushroom Kingdom with Mario and Luigi to go rescue them??? Yes please!!
The GX/Fatal Frame 5: Maiden of Black Water crossover, I said that would be the next one after OUAD but well it's just gonna happen whenever it happens, that one is purely for me. I have actually started writing it and once I get a little further I think I'll be posting that one as I write it 😌 it'll take as long as it takes and y'all will have to deal with the suspense and cliffhangers while Alexis teams up with Yuri and the camera crew to find Atticus and rescue him from ghosts aksks (also I'm actually using the Japanese names for once in this one be proud of me!!)
And finally, So Take Hold of Me, And Hang On 'Till The Hurt Is Gone. You guys remember that one little snippet excerpt whatever you wanna call it with Chazz and Atty I posted I believe in like November or something? Yeah, this is that 🤭 I haven't touched it really since then but I'll make a full thing out of it mark my words! (Also the title comes from one of my favorite Yellowcard songs, "The Hurt Is Gone", that was actually the initial inspiration for that work 😊 that song, and the word "stay")
Anyways y'all, that's my tier list of my fanfiction! This was actually really fun but also really hard to make I'm so indecisive I went back and forth on a lot of these for so long akakksksksksks
But anyways hope y'all had some mindless fun with me, and I'm curious to hear any thoughts if y'all have any thoughts to share!
Keep your chins up and smile! 💜
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I’m curious on your take is on what the core themes of Devil Survivor are?
AHH A DESU ASK THANK YOU I LOVE YOU
this may be a bit of a cop out, but i think i'm just gonna quote the staff directly on this:
“Instead of simply surviving in a desperate situation, we offered the player choices through with they could interact with others, overcome various experiences, and decide for themselves what they should do about their situation. The keyword behind the main concept of ‘Devil Survivor’ is ‘Choices’. Personally, if I was put into that situation, I’d probably head to the nearest emergency shelter and try not to move. Despite having choices, my reality would be nothing like the game. [laughs]” - Shinjiro Takada
“The story of ‘Devil Survivor’ itself is like a personal message from me. Don’t ever let the situation dictate what you do. See things with your own eyes and make your own decisions. Don’t just sit back and complain about your circumstances, do something about them! The Internet may be convenient, but something as simple as a power outage can take it all away. Don’t take things for granted, because nothing in this world is certain. Always expect the unexpected. These are some of the thoughts I hope I will have gotten across to the player after they’ve finished 'Devil Survivor’.” - Yoh Haduki
I think they put it into words way better than I could have (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)
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