#ova crawford

[nia1sworld]

The Ink Chronicles: The Sea Kingdom

...Watched over by one of the Fearless, Bravest, Enduring, and all around powerful queens of its time. A Terrain is known best for its copiousness of weaponry and aquatic resources

....

This is the only kingdom you do not want against you

[nachosncheezies]

I can't find the post where you've rambled about Kurt Crawford before! Please ramble to me about Kurt Crawford!

Hi hello and thank you for your patience as I answer this one month to the day from when you sent it!!!! 🙈 oops

The Crawfords was my original answer to @perpetually-weirdening's question "what character do you wish we learned more about" but I'm so happy to expand on that, I have a lot of feelings!!! xD

The thing about the Kurt Crawfords is that (unless I'm forgetting something big) they're the first clones we've seen that are explicitly said to be the progeny of abductees/the MUFON women. We've met other clones before including the Samanthas in Colony/End Game but those were rogues trying to figure out how to hybridize themselves into some kind of genetic variability that would let them look different and blend in. (they used discarded tissue from abortion clinics rather than stolen ova) The bounty hunter was after them for simply existing outside The Project.

The Crawfords are different. They're part of The Project. The first one that Mulder and Scully meet is the one they track down after finding someone is remotely copying Betsy Hagopian's computer files. This Crawford claims to be a member of Betsy's MUFON chapter, and he tells them there's a conspiracy to cover up the women's deaths. He leads them to Penny Northern, who (unfortunately) directs Scully to Dr Scanlon and her first attempt at treatment. The bounty hunter comes for Crawford #1 in Betsy's basement the minute Mulder steps away.

Crawford #2 turns up at the fertility clinic where Betsy and some of the others had been treated. This Crawford is dressed differently but Mulder doesn't know yet that there's more than one, and accuses him of having run off with the files they'd been working on in Betsy's basement. Between them and the Gunmen, they track down Scully's name in a research lab directory, which leads them to data on the branched DNA they'd already identified after Scully's abduction. But if someone's looking at this as a possible cause for her illness, maybe they're also looking for a cure, so the Gunmen help Mulder break into the Lombard facility where he finds a whole room of Kurt Crawfords.

And this is where IMO it gets so complicated and so bittersweet and so REAL. We learn very little about the Crawfords in the few minutes Mulder is with them but what we do learn is pretty significant for something that's never really talked about again. They recognize Mulder, they welcome him. They lead him straight to the drawer containing Scully's stolen ova (the first time we learn what the project did to her when she was abducted). They tell him how they were harvested, that the radiation used in that procedure caused her (and the MUFON women's) cancer. They tell him that the men who are claiming to treat this rare cancer are the same ones that caused it, that those men are actually working to hasten the women's deaths.

But!!!! what gets me most is this exchange:

Mulder: You're trying to save them. Crawford: They're our mothers.

What a thing to think, to feel, to say. The Crawfords came from fucked up circumstances and they're not really human. They're complicit in perpetuating it all by making more of themselves, but this is their life cycle, this is their job, this is what they know. From what we're shown we have no reason to believe that any of them has ever experienced what it is to have a mother in any sense other than a genetic donor. They're grown in tanks from tampered genetic material taken from tampered women without either party giving consent.

But they recognize that they owe their existence to these human women, who were violated and now suffer and die for it. And in those very few words he says: they don't want that. They recognize it's wrong. They're trying to stop it. (They are risking their lives; their subversion sends the bounty hunter after them.) It's their chance at redemption for the crime of being alive and that alone is painfully human.

They want Mulder and Scully to know the truth. The fact that they lead Mulder directly to where Scully's stolen ova are kept. That they let him take from that drawer without comment. They let him take the truth in his hand, surely aware that he might return it to her. (I like to think they hoped he would.) Because she, and the other women, are their mothers.

IMO one of the biggest elephants in the room for this whole show, although we don't learn about her until well after this, is Emily. How many others like her might there be? It's fucking TRAGIC to think about. But she's not the only thing to come from those stolen ova. The Crawfords are not the children Scully or any of the other MUFON women wanted. But they exist. They are grateful, in whatever way a hybrid clone can be. They recognize the sacrifice and suffering that brought them to life. They are doing what they can, in their own way, to set it right. Because to them, those are their mothers.

Knowing about the Crawfords and their subversion of The Project could never undo what was done to Scully or the others. But as gross and shocking a revelation it would be to know that inhuman things are being made in place of the children they can never have, what the Crawfords show us is that not everything that came from those violations are tragedies in the way of Emily and any other children like her. I wonder if it might have been a comfort for Scully to know that out of one of the worst things to ever happen to the abducted women, These Men Who Would Create a Life Whose Only Hope Is To Die have also accidentally created lives whose greatest hope is to save people, to save her and others like her. That these inhuman children the women never wanted have somehow grown to have a sense of empathy, a sense of justice, a moral compass, a desire to do what's right. Things a mother would want for her children, things a mother could be proud of. That they may not be human, they may not know what it is to be children, but they know that somewhere out there they have mothers, and they care.

I wonder if Mulder ever told Scully. I hope someday he did.

[randomfoggytiger]

On this lazy Sunday I would love to hear some of your Mulder/Scully early relationship and post-revival headcanons if you feel comfortable sharing 😊

**Note**: No beta testing, we ghost edit later like men.

I'm not a Revival girlie; but I shall play fair and by the rules! >:DD

Hm. I think the Jackson story line would have made more sense if Jackson was a clone from one of Scully's ova, ala Emily or the Kurt Crawford project. But that aside, I think...

I haven't seen the Revival, so these are speculations.

I think Mulder and Scully would have reduced their workload, if not retired. Not because they could but because the second pregnancy would necessitate a "time out" for them to heal. It's their second chance; and with Mulder saying "what am I, if not a father?"-- horrible phrasing of that aside-- his focus would be hardwired in that direction. Requiem all over again: "there's more than this."

CSM's dead, right? Jackson's out there-- his expression from one screenshot after Scully's confession on the dock leads me to believe he knew she "gave him up" for his sake, and he'll be returning sooner rather than later. Jackson's Mulder's son.

I do, unfortunately, believe Miller and Einstein will be worked into the basement somehow, someway. I think Monica Reyes dies ala a Diana Fowley betrayal; but I'd love to see a confrontation between her and Scully on Monica's deathbed-- maybe a way to air grievances or work towards redemption? Skinner's forced into retirement, bless him: he did so much for his agents only for them to eat up his emergency cash on muffins. Maybe take up a position that allows him to get things handled while leaning on a cane? ...In that case, he probably wouldn't retire.

The baby's a girl, her name's Lily, GA and DD have spoken. Her parents never could decide on a middle name for her with all the lost people to honor. Maybe Lily has powers? Probably not-- there's no Messiah undercurrent to her story (...yet.) She adores Mulder and Scully, they adore her. Mulder tries to teach her words Scully will snort adoringly over. Scully tries to hone her motor skills faster-- in vain-- so Lily can pitch or toss or catch a baseball with Mulder. Her interests change daily and neither of them can figure out who she takes after more. Her hero is Horton, but because of the story where he hatched someone else's abandoned baby, not the Who one. She loves to lose things, purposefully: walking over a bridge, she'll toss her favorite toy in the lake below just to see what happens. She's not only the baby but the only niece on both sides of the family-- she is over-spoiled but philosophical with her wealth, handing them out to the unfortunates (her older male cousins) as an expression of her love and benevolence. Scully watched her like a hawk for a week when Lily's eyes grew wide and determined after Mulder told her about "Mommy pretending to eat a bug once."

On Mulder and Scully's early relationship: I wrote a LONG dissertation that I'm sticking under a "Read More" section.

Mulder and Scully were drawn to each other immediately, Scully's interest in his abilities turning into a crush in his basement turning into a tempered understanding after his Samantha revelation-- knowing him transformed him from "idol", in a way, to a human, a friend. She falls in love with him somewhere after, realizes it ~Darkness Falls or Tooms, but doesn't start acting on it until Little Green Men through her abduction. Mulder doesn't fall in love until ~Darkness Falls or Tooms; and doesn't realize it until One Breath (while Maggie knew by the end of Ascension and Melissa knew after their first few conversations.) Season 2 was tender healing, Season 3 was unhurried friendship-- the type where you can jealously cross lines and shove other kids on the playground outside the inner circle with a claim that hasn't crossed into romantic possession, strictly.

Early Season 4 began the shift for Scully: not that she wanted them to change, but that she felt that something should without realizing why-- not wanting to settle down in Home, but entertaining thoughts of Mulder's genetics; not wanting to believe in soulmates but aching that she wasn't Mulder's; believing it was the endless line when really it was Mulder's focus on that endless line instead of what was between them. Never Again taught them both lessons: Mulder became more attentive, tailoring Leonard Betts to her expertise and Scully walked away from more complicated issues (like she did later in Detour.) Memento Mori shifted from "we" are fighting this to Scully looking deep into her soul and making this battle-- not just her cancer, but also the mission-- HERS. Mulder was delighted; then began to panic as her condition worsened. Scully, seeing he couldn't handle her weakness-- out of fear-- became strong for him as well as her mom.

Redux II: emotional openness Mulder couldn't express at any other time. Detour: a return to his status quo because he, again, wasn't ready-- same with Fight the Future to The Beginning and Dreamland I. Scully was willing to wait not because he was dying over him but because he and the work fulfilled her; and she knew post Redux II (and was affirmed again in Fight the Future and Amor Fati) that he returned her singular devotion. In the meantime, she worked through her own pain and struggles, her own inability to trust attachment.

I believe Millennium was their first time, not just because of the IVF timeline I broke down, but also because Mulder had to see the alternative without her to set aside his last excuses and live a life with her. Then Samantha was found, and he was free... and then he ditched Scully to run off to England. Scully's unresolved issues from Never Again rose up in a new way: "did I make the right choice?" was called into question after so much of her life had changed but nothing really had, at all. By the end, she realizes it had, it did; she had, she did. And this was the perfect life for her, just as she'd always chosen. And she needed to accept it fully, like Mulder had post Amor Fati and Millennium.

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth (4x14) | Memento Mori

They are referred to as alien-human hybrids. While scientifically correct, they don’t consider the title to be phenomenologically accurate. They are bound in this corporeal form, but possess no superhuman capabilities or powers to signify alien origin. 

Down to the most minute cell, they are Kurt Crawford. They are the little boy who held his mother’s hand as they were taken from the El Rico Air Force Base in 1973. They are the innovation of men who weren’t satisfied with God’s plan and decided to make their own.

His existence is similar to  a violinist who can play the second movement of Tchaichovsky’s Violin Concerto without missing a note, but who failed to imbue emotion into the song — the audience can recognize the tune, hum along to the melody, but they know deep down that there’s something not quite right.

Perhaps it’s because they were not of woman borne. There was never a mother to nurture them, only the replicas of other missing people. They never experienced what it was like to grow up or figure out their place in the world — they knew their mission the moment electricity lit up their synapses. 

At least Dr. Frankenstein could see his creation was a crime against nature; even Mary Shelley couldn’t conjure the horror of a monster masquerading as a man. Perhaps the fact that the alien-human hybrids looked like the Syndicate’s loved ones is their punishment for defying the laws of science.

Regardless, the Crawfords’ pragmatism began to fade alongside the health of all the women who suffered just so they could exist. He knew some of the other series didn’t feel the same. The others thought this intervention in evolution was the key to a better world without considering who they would be making it better for.

Why bother with the betterment of humanity if there were no humans left?

John Locke always said that humans enter the world with a tabula rasa, that a person’s environment nurtures who they are to become. Jean-Jacques Rousseau contended that humans enter the world with a predestined morality, that people are innately good without interference.

But what about them? What is destined for a creature borne of fluid and test tubes, guided by the hands of cruel men?

But then again, it would be an insult to claim innocence in the grand scheme. The Gregor Series may have been evil when they cloned the DNA of defenseless children, but the Crawford Series was still using the genetic material harvested from the same project they sought to destroy. The ova from the MUFON women were an integral part in piecing together the genetic puzzle of who they were, but it didn’t make it any easier whenever they saw the women begin to deteriorate.

The list was getting longer by the day;  Edna Cooper, Lottie Holloway, Betsy Hagopian, Penny Northern, soon to be —

“Scully.”

Kurt bowed his head and tried to pretend that their voices didn’t echo around the tiny apartment. For all the bravado Agent Scully was feigning, Agent Mulder matched her with unconcealed fear. This was one of the facets of humanity that made him feel alien. She was dying, and they were fighting. Earlier she had even said she was “fine” while blood poured out of her nose.

He saw death every day. Maybe not first hand, but every file referenced, every lead followed, and every medical chart the Crawfords looked at was laden with it. It seemed to him that wherever death tread, grief and despair were close behind. The losses of the MUFON group didn’t merely extend to the women who died, but the families left behind. 

All of the Kurt Crawfords believed that was uniquely human: the desire to live one’s life in the company of others, to bond with others and care for each other. They wanted to believe their desires to protect the MUFON women was evidence that their existence meant something more. They wanted to exist outside the confines of what the Syndicate had planned for them.

But the Agents standing in front of him whispering with trembling breaths went against all he’d learned about human relationships. There were no hugs of reassurance or words of comfort, yet their gazes held an intimate yearning for each other that reached a depth Kurt couldn’t fathom.

Even as the woman rushed out of the apartment, sparing a sideways glance in the hallway mirror to check for dried blood, Agent Mulder’s eyes never left her. The moment the door shut, the man’s entire body seemed to deflate, his head bowing down as his shoulders curved inward. Agent Mulder raised his hand to his mouth and rubbed the short hairs growing across his skin.

Agent Mulder looked like he might vomit or start crying at a moment's notice, and it struck Kurt that maybe what he was witnessing was one of the most important elements of being human he hadn’t experienced yet. 

Love.

Kurt couldn’t help but think it looked painful, but maybe that was the laws of equivalent exchange at work. He supposed someone could only feel such intense despair and profound loss because they’d known joy and contentment.

“How soon-“ Agent Mulder started, pausing to take a measured breath. “Do you know how long ago Penny found out about her cancer?”

“Within the past year,” Kurt replied, hoping the Agent would accept this answer so that he wouldn’t have to admit it had only been a couple of months.

The answer was grim nonetheless and they both knew it. Kurt could see Mulder tying to could every grain in the proverbial hourglass Scully had left, and he knew it would be a matter of time before he was crushed under the weight of the spent sand.

“Did Betsy have any files on Scully at her place?”

Kurt knew she didn’t, not really, but he could tell Mulder needed to feel like there was something he could do to help her. So Kurt did the most human thing of all.

“I think she did.”

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

@gaycrouton

[sisterspooky1013]

The Wonder That’s Keeping the Stars Apart, Chapter 2/3

Rated Teen | Read it here on AO3

He doesn’t move in the twenty-plus minutes that Scully is in the bathroom. He stays rooted to the very spot she left him, one hand resting on the countertop for balance as he listens to her muffled sobs through the door.

His mind runs over and over through an endless loop, wondering if he should have told her in another way, should have told her sooner, shouldn’t have told her at all. He considers knocking, considers leaving, considers calling her mother, but he does none of these things. He just stands there, waiting for some indication as to what she needs from him.

Without warning, the door snaps open and she walks out, head bowed. He watches as she returns to the kitchen and picks up her abandoned glass, sucking down the remains in three gulps before she pours another. She isn’t looking at him, but he can see that her eyes are red and swollen, the skin on her cheeks mottled and damp. In solidarity, he picks up his own glass and swallows it down, and she wordlessly refills it.

“I want to know everything,” she says suddenly, her voice hoarse. “Every detail. All of it.”

“Of course,” he says reluctantly, aware of the fact that he won’t be able to answer many, much less all, of her questions. “Can we—do you want to sit down?”

They move to the couch, and over the course of an hour he tells her about the fertility clinic, the multiple Kurt Crawfords, the refrigerator full of vials of ova. He tells her about having them tested, and breaks her heart again when he shares the news that they weren’t viable. He watches her move through grief, anger, despondency and back again. And when he’s told her everything, when she has asked all her questions and he has answered as many of them as he can, she lays her head against the back of the couch and stares at the ceiling for a very long time.

He watches the side of her face, the proud bridge of her nose and the occasional quiver of her bottom lip as she tries not to start crying again. He thinks of her small and sunken in the hospital, and her final-hour attempts to ensure that he would be okay without her. He wonders how she can still believe in a God who would put her through this, who would save her from one atrocity only to hurl another at her.

To ease his own mind, he imagines her on a sandy beach, her toes peeking out from beneath the shade of a giant umbrella to feel the warmth of the sun. He imagines a life for her where her biggest worries are getting her children into the best schools and finding the right treatments for her patients. He wishes her away even as he shudders at the thought of never knowing her, and so he moves on to imagining a version of himself who would be worthy of being her mate.

“They took them all, didn’t they?” she says, snapping him out of his daydream.

“All of what?” he clarifies, shifting his body to face hers more fully.

“My ova. They didn’t leave any,” she says somberly.

Mulder shakes his head and sighs.

“I don’t know. I wish I did, I’m sorry.”

“It’s a logical assumption,” she continues, “given that the other abductees were being seen for fertility treatment. They would have needed them all to come to the same clinic, otherwise it would have been discovered that the women had no ova—”

Her voice catches and she closes her mouth, pulling in a deep breath through her nose.

“That does seem logical,” he says. After a brief pause he adds, “But I don’t think you should come to any conclusions just yet. You won’t know for sure until you see your doctor.”

Now Scully shakes her head, rolling it from side to side against the back of the couch.

“I’ve known something was wrong, Mulder. I’ve known since my abduction. Things have never been the same…”

Instinctively, her hand settles over her lower belly. Platitudes spring forward in his mind, one after another, and he stuffs them down. The urge to placate her is strong, but his desire to be what she needs is stronger, and she doesn’t need him to deny her her own reality.

Silence stretches on, the sounds of her kitchen clock and unattended car alarm marking the passing of time. Mulder leans forward and retrieves his glass, grimacing as he swallows the last of the amber liquid that has become room temperature. He can admit that he’s grateful to have the edge taken off this entire conversation.

Scully rolls her head to the side and considers him. Her eyes are just slightly glassy, though dry, and he has the thought that she’s actually taking this quite well.

“I’m sorry you had to hold onto that for so long,” she says tenderly, and he’s struck by her show of compassion for him during what is inarguably very much about her. “That must have been difficult.”

Mulder purses his lips and shakes his head.

“I should have told you sooner. I’m just glad I got the chance to tell you. I’m glad you’re still here to hear it,” he says genuinely, and is delighted when a ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

He scoots closer to her and lifts his arm, and she burrows into his side with an exhausted sigh. Her head lands on the front of his shoulder, and he presses his nose into her hair and breathes her in deep, flowery shampoo and the musk of oil on her scalp. He rubs her upper arm with his free hand and feels her relax against him.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he says, though there is just a hint of a question in his tone.

“Yeah,” she agrees unconfidently.

After a moment she tilts her face up, bringing her nose inches from his cheek. She reaches up and strokes the side of his face, scraping the pads of her fingers over the stubble of his incoming beard with an audible scritch.

“Thank you,” she says, the warmth of her whisky soaked breath tickling his nose, “for being such a good friend to me.”

She’s wrong, so wrong. He’s not a good friend. If not for him, she wouldn’t need a friend to usher her through all these horrible events. If not for him, she’d still have other friends to lean on.

Gently, she tilts his face toward hers, and his heart leaps as he realizes what she’s doing. She pauses briefly to meet his eyes and, apparently seeing no reason not to continue, she arches her neck up and kisses him again.

It’s so much different than the first time. Her lips are salted with tears and her tongue is smoky with liquor when it slides over his. There’s something desperate in her kiss, something needy, as she straightens up and faces him more fully for a better angle. She is sitting, and then kneeling on the cushion beside him, and then she climbs into his lap. He touches her hips, not daring to go any higher or lower, and gets lost in the wet heat of her mouth. He kisses her to soothe her, and to love her, and to apologize for all the ways he’s hurt her. He kisses her because he wants to, because he’s been wanting to for years. It’s only when her hands run down his torso, when her fingers dip under the waist of his jeans, that he realizes that maybe she is kissing him for reasons that she will later regret.

“Hey,” he says urgently, covering her hands with his. “Maybe we should slow down for a minute.”

“I don’t want to slow down,” she mumbles into his mouth, flexing her hips and pressing her hot center against his erection through both their pants.

He suppresses a groan and grabs her hands, pulling them away. Scully sits back and looks at him, perplexed.

“I don’t want to—” he starts, then changes course. “You’re upset, Scully.”

She stares at him for a beat.

“I’m not doing this because I’m upset,” she says, a little angrily.

“You’ve been drinking, and you just got some really heavy news…” he tries again, and she gapes at him before she abruptly stands and moves to sit on the couch beside him, leaving his lap cold and his dick hard. “I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret,” he elaborates, shifting to face her. Scully stares at the fireplace, her chest heaving. He sees fresh tears gathering along her lower lashline and he scrambles for the right thing to say. “I care about you, I don’t want you to feel like I took advantage—”

“Stop!” she snaps, lifting both hands and resting her fingertips on her temples, which partially obscures her face. “Just….stop telling me what I need.” He waits in stunned silence as she breathes heavily and stares straight ahead, her eyes hidden behind her hand. He’s startled when she stands and wheels around to look at him, a wounded and furious expression on her face. “If you don’t want this, just say that. I’m a big girl, Mulder, I can handle rejection,” she spits at him, and he opens his mouth to correct her but she cuts him off. “But don’t sit here and tell me it’s for my own good. Don’t convince yourself that you’re doing me some chivalrous favor by deciding what I should and shouldn’t do with my own damn body. I don’t need you to protect me from myself.”

He stares at her, stupidly, and after a beat she turns on her heel and walks into the bedroom, slamming the door loudly behind her.

Tagging @today-in-fic

[enigmaticxbee]

✖️✖️✖️✖️✖️ 4x14 Momento Mori

The one where... Scully has cancer.

Best: So many wonderful msr moments. The way they look at each other in this episode. Like they finally know the only thing they really need in this world is each other. This is the episode that won GA her Emmy and it is so deserved.

Worst: I can understand why Mulder doesn’t tell Scully about her ova in that moment. But not telling her until... whenever Per Manum takes place is fucked up. Are we to believe that throughout the cancer arc he never tells her about breaking into the research facility and everything he learned from the Kurt Crawford clones about the hybridization project and the radiation super-ovulation procedure that causes both infertility and cancer? He tells Scully that she will find a way to save herself, that the Truth will save her. How can she do that - how can they do that - if he’s not giving her the relevant medical information about what was done to her? If he’s not telling her the truth he’s working against her. And against all those other women who were abducted, experimented on, and killed. Mulder talks a big game about the Truth. But he never does anything for any of those other women. Fucked. Up.

✔️ Flashlights

❌ Woods

❌ Slideshow

❌ Autopsy

✔️ Evidence Disappears

✔️ Scully Misses It

❌ Mulder Ditch

❌ Sunflower Seeds

✔️ Voiceover: Scully’s journal

❌ Catch Phrase

❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor

❌ Mulder is Spooky

❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr! (although you know Mulder was internally screaming Scuuullllaaaaayy! as he ran though the hospital looking for her)

❌ Fox/Dana

✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)

✔️ Casual Scully

✔️ Casual Mulder

✔️ Trench Coats

❌ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Scully & Mulder

50 States: D.C. x30 & Pennsylvania x12 (33/50)

Investigate: Together & Apart

Solve Rate: 61%

✔️ Bechdel Test

MSR: 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽

Creepiness: 👽👽

Humor: 👽👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

Scully: ... I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you will read them and share my burden, as I have come to trust no other. That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you, that are you... As I cross to face you and look at you incomplete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you.

Scully’s journal man. No one talks or writes like that. But... I love it. She’s trusting him with her heart as I have come to trust no other. He is what’s in her heart. Ugh. 😢

This episode is too much for my writing skills. I must resort to emojis to track how much I cried while watching.

What was the phone call like that brought him down here? Did he know she was going in for tests?

The gazing in this opening scene. I...

Mulder: I refuse to believe that. Talking about what “we” can do to find a treatment. He’s in this with her immediately.

Mulder staring at her when she gets a nosebleed in the alley. When she tells him to stop staring at her 😢

Mulder’s hand on her arm, back - time for some intimate whispering. When she gets scared and obstinate he brings it back to the work, calling her Agent Scully 😭

Mulder: I will be right there. The tone of his voice. Scully’s brief smile. Mulder banging the drawer shut. 😭

I can’t believe she makes him tell her mother. Scully...

This scene with Mrs Scully just feels so real. The way she rambles about driving up there. Her anger that Scully didn’t tell her right away (that she wasn’t the one to tell her). Their tight, tight hug. You’re my only daughter now. Scully not letting herself break down. 😭😭

Scully trying to comfort Mulder, telling him not to think there was something he might have done 😢

These people need better security - don’t write your password on a snow globe and put it next to the computer!

Skinner protecting Mulder, refusing to put him in touch with CSM. Then going to CSM himself. Skinner: What’ll it take. Skinner!

Funky poaching huh - not my favorite line (I hate it thanks).

Mulder’s black turtleneck and black leather jacket stealthy break into a secure research facility outfit. With the stubble. 😛

Scully writing to Mulder from her hospital bed 😢 Mulder I feel you close.

So, there’s no way Scully’s ova would be viable after being kept in Mulder’s pocket for who knows how long. Plus, why wouldn’t Mulder take all of them? They’re going to keep using them! Also, what about all those other women’s stolen ova? Does Mulder just never tell Scully about any of this and never investigate it any further?! See Worst above.

Mulder running through the hospital frantically until he sees Scully and calms. 😢

This HUG. 😭😭😭. The way he rubs her back. The hair kiss. The forehead kiss. His thumbs rubbing at her temples as he kisses her. The way she looks up at him. 😍

Episode-Related Fanfic Recs:

On the Line by @baronessblixen . Mulder calls Mrs. Scully, just like Scully told him to do. And it hurts Mulder and Mrs Scully just as much as you’d think.

Momento Mori prompt by @baronessblixen​ . Mulder takes care of Scully. This is the kind of fluff I need to get through the angst.

Let me know if anyone has Momento Mori fic recs! Most tagged as Momento Mori are more general cancer arc fics. And I can’t face going through the 468 Momento Mori fics on Gossamer to find the gems.

[contrivedcoincidences6]

The Invisible Cord- Chapter 5

November 2011

Somewhere in rural Virginia

***

“Mulder, this is ridiculous, you have no idea who these people are. For all, we know this could be a giant trap and a good one too because it’s working!” Scully exclaims, throwing her arms in the air to punctuate her irritation. I rub her arms and try to radiate calm.

“It wouldn’t hurt for us to respond and see what they have to say, Scully. We could call Skinner and bring along our own guns.”

I press a kiss on her furrowed brow and she sighs.

“The last time I saw Kurt Crawford –or his clones I guess–all of them wanted to help you. They considered you one of their mothers. They hated to see you in pain. Hell, they were the ones who gave me your ova, along with a lot of other critical information.” Scully’s arms snake around my waist and I pull her close, “I think we can trust Kurt.”

“How do we know that note was really from him?”

“We don’t. But there’s only one way to find out.”

Finally, she looks up at me and nods.

***

November 2011

Baltimore, Maryland

The house is as quiet as it’s ever been but for the occasional jingle of the cat playing with her toys. My life has just been standard and boring, at least until I got the message about my baby.

In 1994 I was married, pregnant, and happy. Within a year my baby was gone, I was left barren, and my husband and I were separated. He moved on and had a family, leaving me behind with my grief.

I’d always assumed that my baby had died while I was missing, but this message makes me believe otherwise. There were details about my abduction and pregnancy that were so personal. So I called Gary.

He’d got the same message but he refused to go. He didn’t deny that whoever it was sounded credible; he just was not interested in stirring up his life.

He’d moved on only a couple years after our divorce and I never remarried. I became a bit of a recluse even.

I spent my free time going to MUFON meetings and trying to find answers. I met other women who had similar experiences.

There were other women in the group who said they’d been pregnant when they were taken and were then left barren. Many of them found their lives falling apart afterward and all of us felt an indescribable bond.

When I found them they told me about the chip in the back of my neck and all of them had removed theirs. I went to the doctor to get it removed but as I sat in the waiting room something felt off and I left. In the end, I was glad I never removed it.

The first woman in our group was diagnosed not long after I joined and soon they all were sick. I lost all of my best friends within a year. By the end, we’d connected the dots between the removal of the chip and the cancer. There was no sure answer but I never got sick and I was the only one who never grew ill.

All of my friends died before we could figure out what happened to us. Since then I have stuck mostly to myself.

I don’t have anything to lose taking this meeting but I have everything to gain.

***

November 2011

The Freedom Inn

Washington D.C.

“Are you nervous?” I ask May as we wait.

She’s been too quiet and it’s unlike her. I’m never sure what to do in these situations, usually, she is the one comforting me.

Sensing that she lays her head on my shoulder. “Why do you think my father didn’t want to meet me?”

“I don’t know, May. Maybe he doesn’t believe them,” I shrug, wondering why my own parents have yet to respond.

“Or maybe he doesn’t want me.”

I consider this carefully and start to wonder if this is the case with my parents. A sick feeling broils in my stomach.

Why would they want me? I’m a freak. I hadn’t considered that my parents would not want me but it would make sense.

Turning I look at Kurt who’s sitting at the table.

“What did you tell our parents?”

His face is impassive as always.

“I told them I had information about their children. I didn’t go into detail.”

“But why have my parents not responded?” I ask, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.

“Your parents are not trusting. They have been through quite a bit so it is justified. I would imagine they are trying to make sure it’s not some kind of trick.”

“What about my father?” May asks.

“Your mother and father separated not long after you were taken. He has another family. I would imagine he doesn’t want to delve into painful memories. He doesn’t know that you are alive. We might let him know later but for now it’s too dangerous to show our hand,” Kurt says with little emotion.

May looks at me and I rub her back. She acts like she doesn’t care but I know hearing that her father might not care about her.

“How will they know it’s us?” I finally ask.

“They will know.”

After a beat, Kurt turns to look at me, speaks again.

“Your parents have met you before, April.”

I frown at him, “What?”

The words sound like they’re coming from underwater and I sound surprisingly calm despite my racing heart.

“They knew you as Emily Sim.” He looks at me meaningfully for a moment but continues, “You’re adopted mother was murdered. By chance your biological mother found you. She hadn’t even known you existed until that point. She was trying to adopt you when the men controlling your fate faked your death. Back then they had not fully perfected the injections. Your blood was green and toxic. After a few years of study, they put you back into the normal world. I imagine they did something to your memory.”

Images begin to flash before my eyes and I press the heel of my hands to them, trying to protect myself from the pain.

My mother is lying in a bathtub. Her blood is all over the floor. My father is being arrested. A gold cross necklace is around my neck. I am watching cartoons in the hospital. The rest is faces I can’t make sense of and voices I barely recognize. I feel sick to my stomach.

“April?” May asks as I shake my head, look at her blankly.

“I…I think I remember them.”

[sigritandtheelves]

Drown

Rating: Teen/Mature Tags: Angst, Emily Arc, Per Manum

Stare into the void of season 5’s reproduction arc with me. Brought to you by cramps and seasonal depression in this miserable heatwave. This is for @kateyes224 who wanted me to share the pain. CW for all the reproductive traumas associated w/this arc (child death, miscarriage, infertility, etc.). Yikes.

_+_

There had only been the briefest of windows, and he had missed his chance, of that he was sure. At first there were waves of relief so strong he couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet: she’ll live, she’ll live, she’ll live pulsing in his veins with each beat of his heart. It was enough; it would be enough; it should be enough, he told himself, and then he sobbed into a bloody photograph of the long-gone happiness of his childhood and realized that it wasn’t. There was always more more more he had to do, and now that she wouldn’t die, he’d have the strength to do it.

He watches her open to him. He watches her fill back up with life, with a joy he hasn’t seen since their early days, and he feels her press closer to him with that openness. Here is Life, and she is going to live it. Here is Scully’s love, and he turns away.

She brings him wine and cheese.

He runs.

She makes a sex joke and sings him to sleep, and the next day they drive home as if nothing has happened.

Later, he dreams about dancing with her at a Cher concert—in a bar, of all places. In the dream he pulls her body flush against his and he smiles at her with a depth of knowing and with the absurdity of their circumstances and most of all with love, while they hold hands to hearts in the smoky room. But when he wakes, he is sweating as if it were a nightmare. He is hard as a rock in his pajama bottoms.

She senses his rejection, after a while, and starts to pull back. Her feet touch the ground again, as his did too soon, and she remembers that although life is a gift, it is terribly, terribly hard.

They work; they smile; he flirts, but she stops flirting back. And then she goes to visit her family for Christmas and the window slams shut.

_+_

“I think I’d like to be alone,” she whispered, and he felt it happen, the snick of the door to her heart as it closed to him. She heard him step away and sighed in relief when he was gone. She would let herself have this, and nothing else. She would kiss the sweaty forehead of her dying daughter, hold the chubby hand that was the weight of everything she would never have, and send this baby, with all her others, into the darkness of unlife alone. Dana Scully felt rebuked for opening herself to even the merest possibility of motherhood, and to the possibility of love as well. She’d regained a chance at life: how dare she ask for more?

Just an hour after Emily slipped away, she got a call from her mother: Tara was in labor. Death for life, she supposed. Scully signed some papers, dialed Mulder’s number, and wandered to meet him with too-dry, salt-crusted eyes. She felt like the cold hand of the undead, brought back from the edge of the grave, but scooped empty of life, reeking of sterility and gunmetal and blood.

Mulder touched her arm, but she barely felt it.

“Will you take me back?” Her voice: flat.

“Yeah,” he said. “Scully, I—“

But he was stopped by the sharp look in her eyes: she would take no comfort now. He dropped her at her brother’s house and returned to his motel where he cried for her, the first time in this new year. Inside Bill’s living room, alone again, she stared at the Christmas tree lights until they blurred and became a white wall of fire. She wanted it to burn her, but instead she fell into cold sleep. When she woke she was an aunt, but no longer a mother.

---

He brought flowers and kind words to the funeral that Scully felt was something of a burden on her family. Perhaps they thought she was selfish for arranging it when they had so much to celebrate. Who was she, who had barely known this child and had given away her heart so quickly, to demand this ritual? They planned a christening; she planned a funeral. But Mulder, who mourned all lost little girls so fully and selflessly, understood. He may never forgive her for being so ready to leave him, but he understood her need to grieve. Scully wondered if this might be what a miscarriage felt like—to grasp so briefly, so fiercely, to a hope for the future, and then to have it ripped away. She would never have the chance to know, she thought, to confirm the comparison.

Back at her brother’s house, there were casseroles, brownies, a Jell-O mold. Scully thought, morbidly, that they should have had the christening on the same day and made it a twofer. She ate nothing, but knocked back enough of Bill’s good scotch that her stomach burned and she finally felt warm. Mulder hovered in the corner looking constipated. She sat on the couch getting drunker and accepting half-hearted declarations of sympathy until she couldn’t take it any more.

She stood too fast and the room spun, but Mulder was at her elbow in a second.

“I wanna go home, Mulder,” she said into his bicep, where her face had landed.

Into her ear, quietly, “Do you need to go up and lie down?”

She shook her head, red hair rubbing, static-clinging to the front of his suit. “No,” she said. “I want to go all the way home.”

“Can you pack your bags?”

“Already packed.”

“Okay. I’ll get them. Will you be okay here?”

She shrugged and tried to get ahold of herself. She combed fingers through her hair and watched the room dip and sway around her. Maggie’s eyes found hers across the room, and Scully looked away in half-shame.

“Dana, are you alright?” Her mother had somehow appeared at her side, looking concerned.

“I’m fine, mom. I just… I need to go.” Mulder descended the stairs with her bags and tucked them in the entryway before walking over to the two women.

“You’re not going to say goodbye to Bill and Tara?” Maggie asked.

As if remembering them suddenly, Scully looked around the room. But then the thought of their new-parent-tired faces and the soft skin of their perfect infant made her dizzy, slightly nauseated. “I can’t right now.”

She was spinning again, and Mulder reached out to hold her steady. Maggie glared at him. “You take care of her, Fox.”

He nodded. “I will.”

In the car, her head lolled and tears ran down her cheeks. He’d never seen her drunk before: not the stoic inebriation of her brother’s house, and certainly not this weepy version that spoke of her own fears and crushed his heart like glass under a boot-heel.

“It’s not me, Mulder. I’m not like them. It’s not for me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t do it. I’m all wrong for it. My hands are for dead things, not for babies.”

“Scully…”

“You were right. You were right. It’s not mean to be. I can’t go to brunch and laugh at empty jokes and buy onesies and pretend I don’t know what a corpse smells like. I felt like a fucking monster in that house, Mulder. Like the goddamned angel of death,” and a sob slipped out after her last words.

His jaw clenched and unclenched as he drove. He had no idea what to say, so he let his hand rest on her black-clad knee. She was all the light he knew, but he had still tainted her with darkness like a bottle of spilled ink.

“Maybe I don’t deserve it,” she said, almost under her breath. He felt his stomach muscles clench, as if he’d been punched, and a rage flow through him at the world, at himself for the part he played, for making Dana Scully ever ever doubt herself. But he said nothing, just drove them back to the motel.

---

Scully threw up into a trashcan and then collapsed onto his motel bed. Mulder took the bin away and came back with a glass of water and a wet washcloth. He sat in the nook created by her bent knees and ran a hand over her back. She sat, dabbed her face and lips with cool terrycloth that felt rough and good. She drank all of the water, knowing how much she’d need it. After a minute, when the room had slowed its spin, she tucked herself up against the pillows again. Mulder pulled her shoes off and draped the bed’s throw blanket over her.

“Would you have quit?” he asked, not really expecting an answer, and for a moment, he thought she’d already fallen asleep.

But then she said, “If it meant I could get even one thing back that they’d taken from me? Yes. Wouldn’t you?”

He opened his mouth to agree, but then bit it back—it would have been a lie. He wasn’t sure there was much of anything that could make him quit.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. They never would have let me have her.” Her voice was tired, too exhausted for hope and for pointless speculation. Mulder took his things to the bathroom and changed out of his suit. He eyed the empty space on the bed, but took the armchair instead to work. Her voice startled him.

“You should have told me.”

“What?”

“You knew something. You knew what they’d done and why.”

The ova. The Crawford clones with red hair. Bodies in green tanks. They’re our mothers. Shame gripped at his guts. “No, not why. Not really,” he said.

“You said you knew there were children. My children. It’s my body they violated, Mulder. My future. My life they ruined.” He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the tears in her words. And the quiet rage. “You didn’t have the right to keep that from me.”

He had that same terrible impulse he’d had after the Jerse case, to tell her that it was his life too, but he knew he’d lost any right to that claim. So he just said, “I know,” and waited for her to fall asleep. He swallowed back his further omission: the little vial in a Fairfax cold storage facility marked Scully, Dana Katherine. When her breathing slowed, he dialed the airline and booked their flight back to Washington.

_+_

Two weeks later, after they’ve rescued a pair of teenagers from the Michigan mud, he confesses everything into the basement elevator while she stares on, incredulous. She takes a vacation, and he’s sure it’s a dry-run for leaving him. He can’t help his desperate flirting, his selfish need to throw everything he can at the possibility of making her stay. But for her, each joke is like a swallowed needle, a stab wound from the inside. Two weeks after that, she invites him to lunch where he’s sure she’ll break the terrible news of her departure, but instead she does something different, but which amounts to roughly the same thing: she asks him to father her child. Her fingers tremble over a Cesar salad and she pretends there are other options, other possible donors, so she can swallow any bites at all. If she can’t have him, perhaps she can have his child. If she can’t have his child, she’ll have no child at all.

He’s so fucking selfish that he wants to say no. He wants to hold her to him like the deflating life raft of a drowning man; the harder he squeezes the more she slips away. But he remembers the tears in his rental car, her mumbled Maybe I don’t deserve it, and he hates himself into saying yes. A baby will split them apart, he thinks, but he jerks off into a plastic cup while remembering the sound of her “Oh God”s as she watched a genocidal inferno unfold in her stolen memory—and he hates himself more.

She listens to another woman call him Fox while she waits to learn if she’s carrying his child. Then she loses her last chance in a wash of blood, and the X-files burn.

They stand in dripping ruin, in the fumes of hot metal and sodium bicarbonate where her uterine walls clench violently in disgrace, and they are both of them suddenly futureless.

-end-

All I can say is… sorry? It feels like there could be more to this, though, so maybe I’ll make it better in a follow-up. Playing with tense shifts a little bit here—hope it worked out.

[amplifyme]

I don't disagree with you on your post about Per Manum, but when you say "that ain't my Mulder" I'm curious what about it doesn't strike you as in character, just for my own articulation of it.

Stream of consciousness here so be warned I might ramble. Going strictly by show canon, which means only what we saw or what was heavily implied through previous dialogue, Mulder had that vial of Scully's ova in his pocket for several hours. Of course they weren't viable if he did indeed get them to a specialist. And there's nothing in show canon to indicate he might have returned to the lab where he found the Kurt Crawford clones and taken the remainder of the vials.

We are never told exactly when the IVF flashback occurs, but I think it's safe to say a lengthy amount of time had passed since Scully's cancer went into remission. Which means Mulder's flimsy excuse in Per Manum that he didn't want to burden her with more bad news and so made the decision not to tell her doesn't fly. What stopped him from telling her shortly after she'd been cured? Did he just forget? Puh-leeze.

This also explains why I have issues with the episode Emily, too. Yet another example of Mulder holding back deeply personal information from Scully that she had the right to know and he had the responsibility to give her.

Look, I'll be the first to tell you Mulder is an arrogant, self-absorbed asshole a lot of the time, but he's not cruel and he's not uncompassionate and he loves Scully deeply. He may keep information from her when it involves him, but not when it's about her. The Mulder I came to know over many years would never do that to Scully. Having said that, the whole Mulder had a mysterious brain disease that was killing him in S7 but didn't tell anyone is utter bullshit, too. Not when taken in the context of everything we saw in S7. He would absolutely tell her, because while they may not have been honest with each other about their feelings for one another, both of them expected and would accept nothing less than the truth about everything else. Remember how he chided her at the end of Elegy about withholding information from him? Yeah, that Mulder wouldn't do anything like that to Scully. Nope, not buying it.

Like I said in that post, all of this is nothing more than Chris Carter trying to retcon shit he should've thought about when he was writing Requiem. The "miracle" pregnancy was the very worst decision he ever made for the show (Mulder's abduction being the 2nd), and it tarnished everything that came after it. YMMV, of course, but these are just my thoughts.

[tulpa51]

If the info from Twitter is true...

I like the idea of revisiting the Emily storyline. It never felt complete to me. Emily was created from Scully's stolen ova. Why would they only create one child? There were multiple Kurt Crawfords, Gregors and Samanthas. Why would there be only one Emily? And even if there were only one, why was the body taken? There was no indication it dissolved into green goo like the other hybrids. So, what really happened to her body?

[pyropsychiccollector]

"Zash Caine, the Kingdom of Stella's minister of state and a practitioner of black magic, infiltrates the Kingdom of Fiore and steals the Dragon Cry, a mystical staff discovered in the dragon graveyard beneath the capital city. Fiore's royal family enlists Natsu and his team from the Fairy Tail guild to recover the staff, detailing that it is imbued with magical power capable of annihilating the kingdom."

*facepalm* I know the Royal Family doesn't have a good track record, but leaving a weapon of mass destruction "out in the open" is a pretty damn stupid move, even for them. Not everyone might know how to get down to the dragons' graveyard, but I don't think the place was guarded.... :P

If you liked Dragon Cry, great. As for me, I'm reading the summary and shaking my head a lot... Especially when I read this bit.

"stopping Zash from using Lucy Heartfilia as a blood sacrifice for his magic" >.> Lucy always ends up in shit like this. And people wonder why I like Erza so much better. Erza found herself in a situation like this two times, to my memory. Once with Jellal trying to use her as a sacrifice, and the other when Crawford spirited her away to Tartaros's base, to be tortured for Jellal's location. Lucy, on the other hand, has this tendency to get kidnapped or to need saving.

A lot of people dig that scenario, apparently. Probably because it shows that Natsu "cares" enough about her to save her again and again. If that appeals to you, great. From my perspective, though, Natsu saves anyone that he can, even tries to save his enemies; so it's natural that he would keep saving Lucy - because she keeps winding up in such situations.

I like Erza because she wrecks that damsel-in-distress stereotype, very rarely needing it. That's just my tastes. Does she have the opposite problem of "winning all the time"? Maybe. But I will take Erza over Lucy any day. >.>

Now that my curiosity about Dragon Cry has been sated, time to go back to ignoring its existence~. Just like OVA 9~.

[nia1sworld]

Busy with WHAT to pick up a doll anyways?

[naradreamscape]

Hello, me and a team of some people have translated and complied alot of info surrounding the GR OVA and since apparently your old site had some lore info, someone suggested that you should be credited. So, if you'd like to credited, which name should we use because I understood that you've not had a comfortable experience with this series recently and it'd best for you not to go through with that again. We wholeheartedly understand if you wish not to be credited in any way. Have a nice day.

Aw hey, thank you for the kind words. I appreciate the offer to credit, too. I thought about it and “Fauna Crawford” will do for a name; I worked on Toontown and made most of my GR/T28 content when I was going by that name, so if anyone looks back at my site to compare details, it’ll match up with the credit. (I should mention I’m not mad at the fandom. I was mostly horrified that my cringy histrionics from age 14-18 lived on for so long.)

If you guys need backups of any articles or details on any lore, just let me know, and I’ll dig them out for you.

[crypticconjuring]

Not Sure What Face to Choose?

Here’s a list of our taken faces:

Active Characters A Alan Tudyk - Gilderoy Lockhart III Amber Tamblyn - Amber Elison Asa Butterfield - Lysander Selwyn Ashley Benson - Ciara McGee Austin Butler - Theron Rosier Avril Lavign - Lilli Duvall B Beverley Callard - Jen Cowan Brad Pitt - Keenan Marsden C Carl Jan Granqvist - Luciano Montague-Farnese - NPC Cameron Bright - Vincent Grey Cate Blanchett - Artemisia Evergreen Charlotte Rampling - Gwendolyn MacLeod Chris Pratt - Billy Longbottom Christopher Walken - Rufus Gray Chyler Leigh - Keira Bowen Colin Ford - Gideon Fawkes Colin Morgan - Tim Morrigan D Dakota Fanning - Abby Kantal Deborah Ann Woll - Alannah Cassidy Declan Galbraith - Mickey Crawford Dewayne Johnson - Levi Mitchell Drew Fuller - Remington Woods Dylan Sprayberry - Aiden Flynn E Edvin Endre - Caspian Lanchester Elizabeth Gillies - Caryn Taylor Elizabeth Olsen - Isla Greengrass

F G H Heath Ledger - Yuri Bolgar Henry Cavill - Alex Morrigan Holly Marie Combs - Rebecca Charleston I Iwan Rheon - Ianto Barnes J Jamie Chung - Wendy Chen Jeffrey Dean Morgan - Jonathan Crawford Jennifer Connelly - Claire Montague-Farnese - NPC Jessica Alba - Portia Douglas Jillian Murray - Jacinth Dawson John Patrick Amedori - Thomas Lightfellow K Kit Harrington - Perseus Pallas Sannesley - NPC L Lacey Chabert - Alyssa Penrose Lee Pace - Lachlan Huxley Liam Neeson - Ian Chesterfield Liv Tyler - Maz Cowen M Marie Avgeropoulos - Hadley Baxter Mark Calaway - Clyde Parker Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Annabelle Morrigan - NPC Matt Damon - Yulkivotch Kantal Matthew Bell - Ophiuchus Lestrange Michelle Pfeiffer - Kyna Donnelly Melissa Joan Hart - Anastacia Geller Milla Jovovich - Daniela Kirilenko Morgan Freeman - David Norwood N Naomi Watts - Wilhelmina von Württemberg Lanchester - NPC Nolan Gerard Funk - Pavon B Sannesley O Olivia Holt - Kerrigan Davis Olivia Wilde - Kynthia Marsden P Per Morberg - Henry Lanchester - NPC Peter Capaldi - Dorjan Phoebe Tonkin - Charlotte Beaumont Pierce Brosnan - Brandon Stewart Q R Rachel Hurd-Wood - Beline Savine Rachael Leigh Cook - Penelope Montague-Farnese Rowan Blanchard - Blythe Morrigan Rupert Friend - Perseus Percival Sannesley - NPC Rupert Graves - Richard Morrigan S Sabrina Bryan - Cassie Eckoe Sasha Pieterse - Sasha Campbell Sebastian Stan - Jonathan Hale Sierra Mccormick - Emily Adams Stephen Dillane - Declan Hart T Tessa Violet - Aliana Alcove Thomas Sangster - Jason Taylor Tom Holland - Trystan Morrigan Tuppence Middleton - Cassiopeia Ceres Ponsonby - NPC

Y Yaddle - Boopsy

Inactive Characters Want the face? Just ask an admin. Bea Miller - Artemis Gray Channing Tatum - Brooklyn James Daria Sidorchuck - Lucy Hart David Tennant - Jay Romero Dylan O'Brien - Avery Hunter Emma Watson - Avery Jones Evan Rachel Wood - Anya Greens Freddie Highmore - Loughlin Chevalier India Eisley - Zyanya Fawley Jake T Austin - Chandler Beckett Jasmine van den Bogaerde - Ailey Saunders Kylie Jenner - Annabel Childers Lauren Aquilina - Arienne Talliday - NPC Leonard Nimoy - Jack Markington - NPC Leonardo DiCaprio - Noah Markington - NPC Lily Collins - Ova Winslow Logan Lerman - Keyan Tanner Lucas Till - Hunter Axton Nash Grier - Drew Ryder Nathan Kress - Stefan Chamberlain Olivia Newton-John - Susan Markington Piper Perabo - Rose Markington - NPC Rose McGowan - Lilly Pembrokeshire Sarah Bolger - Sophie Justine Carter Sterling Beaumon - Jesse Benson Sung Kang - Arun Chang Taylor Lautner - Jaden Carter Thandie Newton - Laura Carter Vanessa Morgan - Dani Astar Zendaya Coleman - Lux Dillon

[alexeiadrae]

Slayers 30 Day Challenge Day 3

3. Dub or sub? (or both?)

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

Hehehe, I remember once what a loaded question this could be, and still can be! Heck, when JR introduced this series to me he told me his roommate went into the other room and put earphones on when JR watched this to avoid having to listen to the dreaded dub! And JR was very defensive about buying the dubs, "it was the only thing available!" So I learned rather early that the sub versus dub thing is a BFD.

ANYWAY, I heard the dub first, and was curious about the sub. Finally my sister got the DVDs, though, there were some technical problems and it was a long journey, but I've listened to the English dub and Japanese original through several times. I like that the Japanese tends to have more literal/accurate translations, yet, the dub is also just funnier to watch. Sometimes the literalness of the translation kills the humor in the subs. And while I will criticize Software Sculptors for a lot of things, I will give them credit for the jokes. So it just depends on my mood.

As for the voices, let's say I have this dream cast thing going on in my head depending on which actor I like better.

Lina: Lisa Ortiz. *ducks, please don't kill me* I just like how fierce her voice is. Gourry: Yasunori Matsumoto. Love baritones. Zelgadis: I'll give the slight edge to Hikaru, just because Zel's voice actor in the subs is consistent through out the series and in the dub he gets replaced mid-first season. And while Daniel Cronin has a sexy voice, he can't act (and whatever you do, don't go looking for pics of him online). None of that is Crispin Freeman's fault, and he does a good job and seems like a very nice guy. Amelia: Masami Suzuki. She has a lovely voice, and you also have the consistency. Also, Joan Baker was so horrible (and sounded more like an old woman than a young girl) I didn't like Amelia until Veronica Taylor took over. Couldn't they just get Crispin Freeman and Vernoica Taylor in to re-do the first arc of the first season and re-release the dubs? LOL. Sylphiel: Yumi Toma, Yumi Toma, Yumi Toma. Stacia Crawford couldn't act and I wasn't overly wowed by whoever replaced her in Evo/Revo, though I seem to recall I thought she was better than Stacia Crawford. Xellos: Yes, David Moo's voice is annoying and grating, however, Xellos is supposed to be annoying and grating, so...OK, Akira Ishida is a better voice actor. Eh. I do feel sorry for David Moo, though, because I seem to recall he had the most vile hatred spewed at him, and unlike Lisa Ortiz, there didn't seem to be people who defended him. It's no wonder he didn't come back for Evo-Revo. Martina: Rachel Lillis. She was so over the top and it fit the character. I thought Tomoko Ishimura was strangely restrained. I also just thought that Lina and Martina's death scene at the end of NEXT was more powerful in English, which also surprised me. Filia: Either? I guess I like the way Tara Jayne's voice sounds as it is a bit distinctive, but overall, no big preference. Valgaav: Scottie Ray. Beautiful voice. GOLDEN DRAGONS! GOLDEN DRAGONS! GOLDEN DRAGONS! MURDERERS OF MY RACE! my sister and I would repeat this to each other over and over again because we thought he sounded so sexy. Yeah, we're weird. Really, if I was Filia I don't know if I'd be quivering or drooling. Naga: Maria Kawamura, just by default. I tried to watch the OVAs with Cynthia Martinez but her voice aggravated me SO MUCH that I stopped it pretty quick, so everything with Naga I've seen subbed (aside from her brief appearance as Nama I guess). Regardless, I can't remember enough about what her dub actress sounds like to make a good comparison. And I absolutely refuse to watch the dubs just to answer this question. Pokota: Either? I think it's a mark of success that they finally got good of dubbing voices like his.

Everyone else, I don't have a strong preference on either way to remark on. Though for the generic background character I'd go with the sub.

OK, I hope I haven't ignited any fandom wars over this. Going to cover under my desk now.

[timclymer]

Everything You Must Be Aware Of About Pregnancy & Prenatal Care

Improvement in obstetric and infant care and the resultant decrease in the terrific death rates of mothers and infants are among the achievements to which modern civilization can point with greatest pride. Yet there are still far too many unnecessary deaths among both mothers and infants occurring today.

The Course of Pregnancy Conception takes place and pregnancy begins when the male reproductive cell, called the “sperm”, finds and unites with the reproductive cell of the female, called the “ovum.” This union normally occurs in one of the ducts or canals, called “Fallopian tubes,” which conduct the ova from the ovaries to the uterus, or womb. First there is a single new cell, then as development begins two, then four, then eight, and so on. Next, cells differentiate into different tissues and organs with growth proceeding at an intense rate.

The relative rate of growth is never again as rapid as during these early months of beginning life, yet it is not yet approximately four months after conception that it is possible to make a positive diagnosis of pregnancy by the regular examination. Two to three months earlier than this, however, an almost positive diagnosis of pregnancy can be made by means of a special hormone test; and there are the well-known suggestive signs of pregnancy such as cessation of the menses, morning sickness, breast changes, and enlargement of the abdomen. The average duration of pregnancy is 280 days-9 calendar months or 10 lunar months but there is no reliable means of estimating the exact date of the baby’s arrival.

Prenatal Care As soon as a woman suspects the possibility of pregnancy, she should consult her doctor, not only to be assured of her condition but also to provide proper care for herself and for her developing child. It is true that childbearing is a natural process, but it is one which may very quickly become seriously abnormal it is only by adequate medical care during pregnancy that the health of mother and child can be safeguarded.

Every woman should have a complete and thorough examination at the beginning of pregnancy and a subsequent examination by her physician at least once a month during the first 6 months of pregnancy, and then every 9 weeks or often until delivery. Supervision of the pregnant woman, once she has placed herself under a physician’s care, naturally is his responsibility, but it is up to her to put herself under his care at the beginning of pregnancy and to cooperate by following his advice and instructions thereafter.

Every pregnant woman and her husband should inform themselves concerning the physiologic changes which occur during pregnancy, labor, and the postpartum period. They should also know the most important signs and symptoms of the possible complications of pregnancy, such as persistent headache, recurrent vomiting, dizziness, disturbances of vision, swelling of the hands, face, or ankles, severe pain in the abdomen, vaginal bleeding, acute illnesses, obstinate constipation, and marked shortness of breath, and should report the appearance of any of these promptly to their physician.

The Hazards of Pregnancy In last decade, there were reported in the United States 4,978 deaths related to childbearing. This is a record of which we certainly can not be proud. An intensive 3-year study of the causes of maternal death in New York City concluded that 66 per cent of the women who died may have been saved if they had had proper treatment and care.

The general causes for adequate care may be grouped under three headings: poverty, ignorance, and inadequate or incompetent professional service during pregnancy and delivery. Some of the accidents and serious hemorrhages of childbirth are unavoidable, but competent professional attention will prevent most of them. Infection in connection with childbirth, called puerperal sepsis, is practically all preventable.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, physician and author, declared in a paper entitled “The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever” that doctors, nurses, and midwives were responsible for most of the infections which occur during childbirth.

The toxemia, or poisonings, of pregnancy, which cause damage to the liver and kidneys and may result in high blood pressure, vomiting, convulsions, and death, can be recognized in their incipience and usually can be successfully combated by the program of prenatal care which has been outlined.

The Chicago Maternity Center reports a maternal mortality of less than one-fourth the rate for the country as a whole, and its clients are among Chicago’s poorest mothers. In Cattaraugus County, New York, mothers receiving prenatal care have a death rate of 12 per 10,000 live births as compared to 38 for the nation as a whole.

Place of Delivery An increasing number of mothers are going to hospitals for delivery of their babies. Obviously there are definite advantages in the better facilities of the hospital delivery room, particularly if some unforeseen abnormalities or accidents should occur. On the other hand, hospital care increases the expense and unfortunately, in many hospitals, the danger of infection during delivery is greater than in the home. Instructions in regard to proper preparation for delivery in the home may be obtained from private doctors, public health nurses, or state and local health departments.

Professional Care During Delivery The US Children’s Bureau, as a result of a study of maternal mortality in fifteen states, reported that 83 per cent of the women were attended by doctors, 11 per cent by midwives, and 4 per cent by other non medical attendants; 2 per cent had no attendant at the delivery. Without question the most competent service at a delivery can be expected from a physician ideally trained and experienced in obstetrics. Physicians in general practice are trained also to conduct normal and certain of the less seriously abnormal deliveries.

Realizing their limitations to deal with some of the rarer and more serious complications, they are quick to call for whatever consultation is in the interest of the patient. Midwives in certain foreign countries are reasonably well trained to render obstetric service in normal deliveries, but the vast majority of the midwives practicing is old, careless, and dirty and have had little or no training. Exceptions to this are the trained nurse midwives who are rendering splendid service in the mountains of Kentucky and in certain other sparsely settled regions where medical service is not available

Normal and Instrumental Delivery The vast majority of deliveries will occur spontaneously and should be permitted to do so, because instrumental delivery increases the risk of infection, of hemorrhage, and of accidents to both mother and child. In probably not more than 5 per cent of deliveries is instrumental or operative interference really necessary.

In the New York study the death rate from instrumental and operative deliveries was five times as high as that from spontaneous delivery. In this group of operative deliveries, of course, are included the seriously abnormal cases. On the other hand, this same study reports that 77 per cent of the deaths following operative delivery were denied avoided, as compared to only 48 per cent of the deaths which followed spontaneous delivery.

Instrumental delivery is frequently a life-saving procedure for mother or child, but it is uniformly agreed by the specialists in this held that instruments are used far too often. For these doctors are themselves in part to blame, but some of the responsibility must also be laid at the door of the patients who insist upon instrumentation to shorten labor.

Cesarean section is delivery of the child through an incision in the abdominal wall and in the uterus. There are many instances in which this operation has saved the lives of both mother and child, but, like instrumentation, it is an operation attended with greatly increased risk. Many of the Cesarean operations could have been avoided by proper medical care during the prenatal period.

Anesthesia for Labor One of the greatest blessings that science has given to mankind is that of anesthesia. Dr. Crawford Long of Atlanta, Georgia, was the first to use ether for anesthesia, but the real impetus for its use in surgery was given by Dr. WGT Morton, who demonstrated its effectiveness before a surgical clinic in the Massachusetts General Hospital. During the same year a Scottish physician, Dr. James Simpson, introduced anesthesia into the practice of obstetrics. For some time the relief of pain during childbirth was considered sacrilegious, but this opposition fell down quickly after Queen Victoria sanctioned its use on the occasion of the birth of Prince Leopold.

Today a woman has the right to expect some relief from the pain of childbirth, but no mother should demand relief at the risk of her own life or the life of the child. All substances which are used to produce anesthesia are toxic, and no single method or combination of methods is uniformly applicable. The time and degree of anesthesia must be determined by the physician and not decided on the basis of some magazine article on the subject.

Abortion Abortion means the interruption of pregnancy before the child is adequately developed to be able to live outside the mother’s body. Dr. Frederick J. Taussig, who has made a greater study of abortion than anyone else, estimates that approximately 600,000 abortions occur annually in the United States, and that 8,000 to 10,000 women lose their lives from this cause every year.

Many of these deaths are reported as due to other causes and so do not show in the mortality statistics. Two-thirds of these abortions he estimates are induced and one-third is spontaneous. The death rate following abortion is three times as high and the invalid rate ten to fifteen times as high as following delivery of the child at term. The specific dangers of abortion are infection, consequential sterility, and endocrine disorders which may cause chronic invalidism.

Spontaneous abortion is a condition which needs careful medical study. Some cases are due to disease, such as Syphilis, toxemia, and diabetes; name to deficiencies in the endocrine secretions related to pregnancy; some to deficiency of vitamin E; some to weakened inherent in the germ plasm of the sperm or mount and some to physical abnormalities of the pelvic organs. Obviously, most of these are preventable.

Induced abortion carries a terrific hazard to both life and health. When the general maternal death rate declined 15 per cent, the death rate for abortions increased 25 per cent. Many of these are self-induced by methods which would make anyone who understands physiology and asepsis shudder. Others are performed as illegal operations by “doctors.” Some of these abortionists are unethical physicians; others belong to some of the cults; and still others are not licensed as any type of practitioner.

The major reasons for abortions are poverty, large families and, of course, poverty is a factor here illegitimacy, marital difficulties, and selfishness. Very rarely the physician will need to perform an abortion to save the mother’s life, and there are situations in which the limit of offspring is advisable. The only safe way to accomplish this, however, is not by abortion but by the practice of contraception or by sterilization.

Obstetric Superstition There has long been a superstition that maternal impression or emotional distortions of the mother, such he anger, fright grief, or horror, may cause her unborn child to be marked injured, or deformed. Certain hereditary hits are transmissible from parents to offspring through the germ cells which unite to give rise to the new child; but after conception has once taken place, the mother’s body purely delivers warmth and nourishment for the baby until it has developed to a point lint it is able to lead an independent existence.

The only connection between the mother and the baby is through the umbilical cord. This cord carries arteries and veins but no nerves, and even the blood of the mother does not mix with the blood of the child, the exchange of nutrients and excretory products taking place through a membrane which separates the two circulatory systems.

Source by Susan Cruise

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/everything-you-must-be-aware-of-about-pregnancy-prenatal-care/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/184453639980 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress