What about the sex scene bothers you so much (besides the cucumber, which I have already agreed was not the best choice of similes)? Quotes of parts you find particularly bad would help me to understand why this sex scene, which to me is vivid and pretty, though somewhat OTT, strikes you as so very unsatisfactory.
Okay, here are a few examples of things that made me roll my eyes. It's too long. It's too detailed. The details are icky (to me) rather than sexy. The metaphors don't work for me. Specific examples? Sexuality is so individual, and people's responses to erotica so unpredictable, I'm not sure how this helps but okay.
There are forces that can't be stopped, huge shifts of paradigms moving as slowly and inexorably as the drift of continents, that have placed them here at this moment, walking up the steps to Mulder's mother's house with their hands clenched together in a white knuckled grip.
This sentence seems more appropriate for describing the beginning of WW3 than a sex scene. "Huge shifts of paradigms"? Continental drift? That doesn't sound like a parody of MSR to you?
The brakes are on, but the car is skidding down the side of a cliff.
This doesn't sound like something Scully would think unless she were actually in the car that's falling off the cliff. I have a hard time believing this is something anyone would be thinking as they are heading to bed for the first time with someone they're in love with and have wanted for so long. To me, this sentence detracts rather than enhances the mood she trying to capture.
I like descriptions of kissing but this one is just icky to me. The wording seems awkward, too.
Mulder's tongue explores the mystery of her mouth, sweeps over her teeth, thrusts in and slides out in a way that makes her go rigid and relax, rigid and relax.
This isn't sexy to me. The sentence needs an edit, for one thing.
He has both hands fumbling at her blouse and she feels his knuckles on her breasts, brushing them with an accidental touch that is somehow more electric than when he had been deliberately groping her.
Plus, groping is not a sexy word. Not to me, at least. The connotation for me is teenagers in the back of a car.
You see how it is. For every phrase that works, there is one that doesn't. I'm sure if she'd had more time, she'd have smoothed this out, but I can only judge what's on the page.
Something doesn't have to squick a person out in order to be a poor choice of words. Obviously the point was that resisting the bond they felt for each other was futile. But there are things you just don't say during or about a sex scene, and "resistance is futile," is one of them. IMO it's not funny, it's not clever, it just strikes a really off note.
I have no idea when this was originally posted, but I'm assuming in the nineties? I think you have to consider the context. But maybe by today's standards, it's not funny, it's just in bad taste. I believe you.
It still made me laugh. I'm just a dinosaur.
I don't see how the non-linearity in TTF undermines the narrative. I like a fic that makes me curious and a bit confused, so long as I feel my confusion can be sorted out by paying careful attention to the narrative. To me that's often the most involving and rewarding kind of reading. I like being made to wait, and trust, and puzzle things out a bit.
Maybe you're just that much smarter than me.
But I have found with her writing and with JET's that their insistence on non-linearity makes it harder, and in the case of JET, sometimes impossible for me to tell what's going on and that detracts from the narrative, from the story they are trying to tell me. Atmosphere is all well and good but if at the end of the story, I don't know what happened and when, I think something went haywire, assuming they wanted me to know. With JET, I don't think that's always the case. But I think Jordan wanted more clarity and the narrative just got away from her. I think if she'd had more time to edit, it would have had better flow and probably better metaphors, too.
Re: 2/3
Okay, here are a few examples of things that made me roll my eyes. It's too long. It's too detailed. The details are icky (to me) rather than sexy. The metaphors don't work for me. Specific examples? Sexuality is so individual, and people's responses to erotica so unpredictable, I'm not sure how this helps but okay.
There are forces that can't be stopped, huge shifts of paradigms moving as slowly and inexorably as the drift of continents, that have placed them here at this moment, walking up the steps to Mulder's mother's house with their hands clenched together in a white knuckled grip.
This sentence seems more appropriate for describing the beginning of WW3 than a sex scene. "Huge shifts of paradigms"? Continental drift? That doesn't sound like a parody of MSR to you?
The brakes are on, but the car is skidding down the side of a cliff.
This doesn't sound like something Scully would think unless she were actually in the car that's falling off the cliff. I have a hard time believing this is something anyone would be thinking as they are heading to bed for the first time with someone they're in love with and have wanted for so long. To me, this sentence detracts rather than enhances the mood she trying to capture.
I like descriptions of kissing but this one is just icky to me. The wording seems awkward, too.
Mulder's tongue explores the mystery of her mouth, sweeps over her teeth, thrusts in and slides out in a way that makes her go rigid and relax, rigid and relax.
This isn't sexy to me. The sentence needs an edit, for one thing.
He has both hands fumbling at her blouse and she feels his knuckles on her breasts, brushing them with an accidental touch that is somehow more electric than when he had been deliberately groping her.
Plus, groping is not a sexy word. Not to me, at least. The connotation for me is teenagers in the back of a car.
You see how it is. For every phrase that works, there is one that doesn't. I'm sure if she'd had more time, she'd have smoothed this out, but I can only judge what's on the page.
Something doesn't have to squick a person out in order to be a poor choice of words. Obviously the point was that resisting the bond they felt for each other was futile. But there are things you just don't say during or about a sex scene, and "resistance is futile," is one of them. IMO it's not funny, it's not clever, it just strikes a really off note.
I have no idea when this was originally posted, but I'm assuming in the nineties? I think you have to consider the context. But maybe by today's standards, it's not funny, it's just in bad taste. I believe you.
It still made me laugh. I'm just a dinosaur.
I don't see how the non-linearity in TTF undermines the narrative. I like a fic that makes me curious and a bit confused, so long as I feel my confusion can be sorted out by paying careful attention to the narrative. To me that's often the most involving and rewarding kind of reading. I like being made to wait, and trust, and puzzle things out a bit.
Maybe you're just that much smarter than me.
But I have found with her writing and with JET's that their insistence on non-linearity makes it harder, and in the case of JET, sometimes impossible for me to tell what's going on and that detracts from the narrative, from the story they are trying to tell me. Atmosphere is all well and good but if at the end of the story, I don't know what happened and when, I think something went haywire, assuming they wanted me to know. With JET, I don't think that's always the case. But I think Jordan wanted more clarity and the narrative just got away from her. I think if she'd had more time to edit, it would have had better flow and probably better metaphors, too.