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

[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.