Story 86: "Al Dente" by Spooky247

[wendelah1]

It has been suggested that perhaps we need a break from angst, so the planned Tesla three-parter has been postponed that we may clear our heads. We can tackle it next week. This week I bring you Pasta!fic. The author says it's babyfic written to sounds of the Breeders' "Last Splash." I have no idea what that means but if estella_c thinks it's worth reading, that's good enough for me.

"Al Dente"

That link is "reocitied" now; if it goes down, let me know. Or you can find it at Gossamer.


Read, give feedback to the author, encourage her to move her site, give us suggestions for next time. Did I leave anything out? Oh, that's right. Was it good for you, too?

If you just have to have something else to read, try "Kinesthesia". It, of course, is not on her author's page, it's misfiled under Amy, her real name (or is that another fandom name?). Whatever. Gossamer works well until it just doesn't. It's a casefile, NC-17. Yes, of course, I'd like to know how you liked that one, too. Enjoy!

Comments

[leucocrystal]

Ooh, I'll have to check these two out! I only have one story of this author's bookmarked ("Grave Goods"), but I really enjoyed that one, so I'm intrigued.

[wendelah1]

Zellie. Just go read "Al Dente." It's short and very amusing. It'll take you ten minutes, tops. I see the author has written a number of fics with the very talented Maybe Amanda, too.

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

Oh, this story brings back memories! I love it because it is a more realistic picture of Life With Baby than you normally see. Too bad CC & Co. didn't think ahead to this reality when they wrote a baby into canon. I mean really, what audience wants to see (and hear) an hour's worth of an infant shrieking? Because that's what reality would've been.

It's hard to maintain the M&S I know in a situation like this, but this story manages to do it.

And it reminds me why I don't have kids, LOL! Oy, I could not handle that screaming. It was hard enough reading about it!

[ikielove.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this story is very realistic :). I don't think I could handle the screaming, either. Hence why I only have cats.

[wendelah1]

Yeah, this story is very realistic :). I don't think I could handle the screaming, either. Hence why I only have cats.

This is true. It is a very realistic picture of early parenthood, with the added stress of their relationship being whatever it was in season eight.

[sixpences.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this one: it's very well titled, delicious yet a little chewy. While the take on the S7 relationship isn't one I share it feeds well into the weird M&S dynamic of late S8, which again is brought out in the story. It probably says a lot about babyfic that I love this for not portraying life-with-baby as full of magical unicorn sparkles, in that Will is both adorable and a maddening little sod, and that his presence doesn't magically transform Mulder and Scully into mush-brained pod people (unlike in canon, ahem) with the perfectest relationship that ever was perfect.

I also really liked the description of the cooking. I just graduated from university so I am very familiar with the cooking of pasta, and this really felt the way a kitchen does when it's filling up with steam (though Scully is clearly an inexperienced cook for not starting off the water in the kettle... much easier).

I read Kinesthesia a while back and really enjoyed that one too; it's a bit silly but it's certainly an original casefile and was a good read, though I got a bit confused over which original character was which and who was related to whom once or twice. Very hot sex too, if I remember correctly.

[ikielove.livejournal.com]

"It probably says a lot about babyfic that I love this for not portraying life-with-baby as full of magical unicorn sparkles, in that Will is both adorable and a maddening little sod, and that his presence doesn't magically transform Mulder and Scully into mush-brained pod people (unlike in canon, ahem) with the perfectest relationship that ever was perfect."

Exactly.

[wendelah1]

Damn, I must have missed the episode with the mush-brained pod people. I agree, this is a very realistic portrait of life with a colicky infant.

It's funny but this fic exactly portrays the relationship I thought they were having. Sex, one time, never speak of it again, bingo, William. Ha ha.

You must have a damn big kettle if you can cook pasta in it. I want one just like it. I usually just put a lid on the pot myself. Scully is a very inexperienced cook. Velveeta makes wretched mac and cheese, for one thing.

Re: "Kinesthesia"

Very hot sex too, if I remember correctly. You do indeed.*cough* Chapter Nine *cough*

[sixpences.livejournal.com]

It's funny but this fic exactly portrays the relationship I thought they were having. Sex, one time, never speak of it again, bingo, William. Ha ha.

Well I suppose you get to be the noromo then *g*

And nooo, I don't cook the pasta in the kettle, but for anything that needs to be put in boiling water I'd heat the water up first in the kettle then transfer it to the pan. It's much faster than heating it from scratch even in a lidded pan, at least in my experience.

I get to be the noromo!!!

[wendelah1]

Absolutely. My tea kettle is electric and boils water in no time but it really is teeny-tiny (to match my undersized kitchen). I think it's quart size. Four cups, a liter, more or less. I'm trying this next time I make pasta. I love this community.

Re: I get to be the noromo!!!

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

You know those weird cylindrical things they were promo-ing on tv a while back that were supposed to cook pasta automatically and veggies and stuff? You just filled them with boiling water? Well, such a sucker, I found one in a thrift shop and then found the directions somewhere else and *then* I realized that my kettle was far to small to fill it up. So it sits in the cellar.

Now, wasn't that an interesting anecdote?

Scully doesn't seem to realize that you're supposed to salt eggplant and let it drain. Or is that Fannie Farmer retro?

Re: I get to be the noromo!!!

[wendelah1]

You're right. I always salt it, too. Also, zucchini. What Scully doesn't know about cooking could fill a book. Mulder's comment, "You don't strike me a freezer type of woman," strikes me as dead-on. All of the dialogue is great in this fic. Hehe.

Re: I get to be the noromo!!!

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

you salt zucchini?? whaaa? heck i eat it raw!

Re: I get to be the noromo!!!

[wendelah1]

The salt is to draw out the water in zucchini prior to stir-frying. Example: Sauteed Shredded Zucchini.

Honestly I don't much care for raw vegetables except in salads. In restaurants, I send vegetables back to the kitchen whenever the chef sends them out warm but not cooked. Ugh. Could anything taste worse than warm raw carrots or a hot but rock hard stalk of broccoli?

I do eat plenty of salad, however. We're big on salad in my house.

Re: I get to be the noromo!!!

[sangria-lila.livejournal.com]

Scully doesn't seem to realize that you're supposed to salt eggplant and let it drain. Or is that Fannie Farmer retro?

You don't need to. I never salt my eggplant and it always comes out fine. You just never want to under-cook eggplant.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

This fic is just as charming as I remembered. Mulder and Scully (and Will, of course, no matter how heartlessly CC dealt with him) trying to be normal in an abnormal, interplanetary-war-shadowed universe. Hey, if Chris Carter can ignore an innocent little human baby, ficcers can ignore the end of the world.

Mulder and Scully are having relationship difficulties because they don't communicate, which is not only quite canon-compliant but also something a *lot* of readers can relate to. Will is causing so much anxiety that he really might as well have alien DNA, but it amuses me that he calms down just as his frantic parents work through to an understanding. Maybe he has inherited a little of his mom's shining, or maybe he's just...normal.

Scully working out anger and feeling power by chopping eggplant is so real. Been there, done that.

Pacquin wrote a story called "Up All Night," the idea being that aliens would never kidnap Will because they couldn't cope with human child-rearing. It's not as ambitious as this one, but it's cute.

[wendelah1]

Mulder and Scully are having relationship difficulties because they don't communicate, which is not only quite canon-compliant but also something a *lot* of readers can relate to.

Haha! Is it ever! In their defense, I can validate that being in the presence of a squalling infant can cause a couple who normally communicates well to become frazzled. First, there's the crying itself, which if it goes on long enough can make anyone nuts. We used to take son_of_wendelah for car rides to get some peace. There was also this baby swing that had to be wound up at just the right moment or it would stop and then he'd start up again. When you combine the constant crying with the concomitant lack of sleep, it's amazing to me that anyone has a second child, intentionally, anyway. Good times, good times.

So you take a pair of people who don't communicate well anyway, add to that the stress of a newborn, and well, it's no wonder you end up with Scully murdering innocent eggplant and crying in the kitchen worrying that Mulder doesn't love them enough to stay home and stop chasing aliens. Actually, I'd be worrying about that, too, if I was in her situation. I think one of the reasons TPTB tacked on that stupid invitro plot, beside the exciting opportunities it presented to screw with our heads (is it Mulder's, or is it an alien-human hybrid? Only the smoking man knows for sure. . .) is to reassure the viewers that even if this baby wasn't planned for, they did want a baby, yessiree Bob. Grrrrr.

I don't think this fic would work nearly as well if it wasn't so in character, except for the whole idea of their wanting a baby in the first place, which I reject out of hand.

Nevertheless, this story is charming, funny and canon-compliant as far as the end of season eight, which is good enough for me, since I have eliminated season nine from my personal canon, except when I haven't.

This comment is already getting too long. I'll have to split it up.

The theme and the characterization aside, the writing itself is very skilled: word by word, the story builds to this adorable, emotionally complex, yet perfect ending, that sweetly sends Mulder and Scully into their approximation of a "normal" family life, which as it happens, is about as good as anyone gets.

It's that ignoring the end of the world part that I have such a hard time with, but I guess that's canon, now, too, isn't it, she said bitterly. Anyway, this did a wonderful job of getting the scenes of horrifying violence involving my favorite character penned by a certain renowned fic writer out of my head for at least a little while. I think I'll go reread "Universal Invariants" now. I need happier canon.

happier canon?

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

Again, late to the game, but this was a super fun little fic. Somehow it got tagged under casefiles, which of course it isn't and I'm working my way through the book club's recommended casefiles right now, but I was certainly glad to read it! However... Now I really need to know what you were talking about when you said this:
"scenes of horrifying violence involving my favorite character penned by a certain renowned fic writer"

NEED TO KNOW. And who wrote Universal Invariants? Sheesh, take 16 years off from reading XF fanfic and there is just so much to catch up on!

It's never too late to comment at the xf-book-club

[wendelah1]

Syntax6 wrote "Universal Invariants." We discussed it here a few years back. Check the discussion post. It's at her site but not at Gossamer. Wonderful fic, by a wonderful writer. It's probably the fandom's favorite of her fics.

I'm guessing the fic I referred to is "Blood Oranges," also by Syntax6, and it is a casefile, by the way. We read it right before "Al Dente." It was a contentious discussion, as I recall, and the poor author showed up, too. Anyway.

The casefile tag probably refers to "Kinesthesia" which is an undercover casefile. We discussed it last year (or the year before? The years all run together now...).

You took 16 years off from reading fic? You do have some catching up to do but honestly, I envy you getting to read all of the great fic for the first time.

So you stopped in 2000 when Mulder was abducted, Duchovny left, and everything changed? That must have been heart-breaking for fans. I often speculate that I would have quit watching long before I did if I had been watching in real time. I've quit on shows I adored in the early seasons for far less than that.

Re: It's never too late to comment at the xf-book-club

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok I haven't read Universal Invariants yet. I'm big on casefiles so working through those right now (slowly, 2 kids under 5 and in the middle of moving across the country too). I did read Blood Oranges and enjoyed it too. Also read Kinesthesia maybe a month ago? I enjoyed it but for me the sexual interactions weren't in character and I couldn't believe them entirely. FUN but not quite in-character for me. If they are going to stray that far from canon, I want them to really WORK for me. I think my favorite totally divergent-from-canon pieces are Iolokus and the other one (name escaping my mind) by Rivkat and Mustang Sally. I also remember enjoying stuff by Punk (hello Strange Fruit), but it always comes back to Nascent for me :)

Ya, 16 years off from reading fic. I got seriously injured, spent time in the hospital, and never even finished season 7 of XF... Finding out what happened next (this past year) was disappointing to say the least. Yeah, seasons 2-5 were my favorites.