A Forgettable Pair Chapter 1

Hello again and welcome back. As you may have heard me mention in my videos, which can be found here https://thefanficassassin.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/a-forgettable-pair-part-1/ and here https://thefanficassassin.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/a-forgettable-pair-part-2/, I hate tragedy poaching.

 For those of you who don’t know, tragedy poaching is when someone takes an event, usually a very stirring and emotional one that is widely remembered or publicized, grabs it by the short hairs, and forces it into a position that suits them so that they can rape it of everything it has to offer. This takes on many forms: the anti-gun advocate who uses a mass shooting in an attempt to get their ideas on gun policy out into the public eye, whether their ideas could have prevented it at all or not. The pro-lifer (who should be called pro-birthers because their general consensus is that it deserves to be born, but they’ll be damned if their tax dollars go towards taking care of it after that) who show pictures, or text, on their signs that they know are misleading or untrue. Or even the simple fanfiction writer who is so woefully inept at building genuine intrigue and suspense that they have to piggyback on the lingering trauma of a catastrophic event that directly killed thousands and destroyed the lives of countless more.

SherCullen71 https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2137426/SherCullen71 is one of those authors. Her story An Unforgettable Pair https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6365252/1/An-Unforgettable-Pair is a perfect example of what I’m talking about, but before we take a look at that, let me be very clear, while I have a considerable amount of malice for the act itself, I hold no disrespect for the author who employs it.

This story is about Bella and Edward’s lives before the tragic events of 9/11 and how their lives changed after 9/11.

I don’t think there are words to describe the sound that came out of me when I first read this.

Chapter 1:

September

Oh, how wonderful. Let’s start it off with no possibility of any substantive back story prior to the tragedy.

I woke up suddenly and realized just how early it was but I couldn t sleep anymore. I looked over at my amazing boyfriend, Edward, who was sleeping on his stomach.

Amazing boyfriend Edward! How refreshingly original. That’s just what the world of Twilight fanfiction has been missing. If you take suggestions, could you make him a very selfless lover, hung like a horse, attractive, gainfully employed with plenty of freedom and time off to spend frolicking in meadows and having animal crackers prancing across Bella’s naked torso? Oh, that would be splendid, like something out of a 1998 Michael Bay movie that has a title synonymous with the end of the world.

One arm was wrapped around my waist and the other hand was tucked up under his head.

Is… Is this character development? I ask that facetiously, of course, because the truth is I know that this is probably all the character development we’ll get.

I quietly removed his arm from around my waist so I could get up without waking him up, since he didn’t have to get up for awhile.

This sentence sucks. It’s garbage. I refuse to insult it with anything even remotely conjured from effort in protest of how piss poor a job this sentence does of being a motherfucking readable sentence.

It was only five-thirty, so I grabbed my sketchbook and walked out onto the balcony. The sun was just beginning to come up, so I settled into my chair and started to draw the Twin Towers. It was something I normally loved to do, but today I just felt off. I looked out at the water and continued to draw.

Because that’s a thing people used to do. Sit on their balcony in what I assume must be Jersey and draw pictures of two buildings that, as deductive reasoning tells me, have at most 10 days left standing, which I highly doubt because I’m one paragraph in, and I’m damn sure this wasn’t written by a Rhodes Scholar, so if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s currently September 11th.

Let’s be honest. The towers weren’t the most aesthetically appealing buildings — they were two rectangles standing on their sides. Why on earth would anyone draw them repeatedly from the same angle unless the point is that they AREN’T THERE ANYMORE MAKING THIS A MEDIUM-TO-LARGE PILE OF STEAMING, FLY-COVERED, CONTRIVED BULLSHIT, CONJURED SOLELY TO DRIVE AN ALREADY SOULESS, CLICHÉ, WEAK, AND DOWNRIGHT INSULTINGLY PEDESTRIAN PLOT. But I could be wrong. I’m not. But I’m open to the possibility, small, miniscule, microscopic as it may be.

I thought back to the summer and how great it was. I met Edward in May and we had moved in together by the middle of July.

More wonderfully original storytelling. Sweet manger-snoozing, swaddling-clothed baby Jesus, I’m so surprised and excited about the idea of hearing another whirlwind romance that leaves me without an appropriate vocabulary to avoid saying “contrived” in every fucking sentence.

Some might argue that it was way too soon, but you just know when the time is right.

No, you fucking don’t. If you aren’t nervous about things like this, then you’re either too stupid or too free-spirited to be apprehensive. Since this Bella already appears to be a mindless drone, I’m ruling out free-spirited. No one “knows” anything. She didn’t know that she would move in and everything would be fine. She didn’t “know” that Edward wouldn’t flay her skin off her back in her sleep. She didn’t “know” if Edward had some weird disease that made him fart acid clouds in his sleep to which only he’s immune, and therefore, unaware of. But it’s not my story, so of course she knew, because without that knowing, it can’t be romantic…Right?

I knew that Edward and I were perfect for each other; no one ever understood me as much as he did.

Yeah, and I’ll bet his dick fits her pussy like a glove, too.

We enjoyed the same music, the same style in art and let’s just say everything else fit together too.

Told you! I’m either psychic, I’ve read this before, or it’s just a big mound of predictable clichés. I swear I once read a better story that was cobbled together by a janitor at the Grand Hyatt in Tampa, Florida when he was cleaning out the vomitorium the morning after the National Alphabet Spaghetti-O’s eating competition was crashed by the members of the Pica Convention from down the hall. It was literally a story written out of regurgitated letter-shaped noodles as they were after being swept into a dustpan, and it read better than this.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts and my drawing that I didn’t hear Edward come out on to the balcony, until I felt his arms around me and his voice in my ear.

“I’m wearing your panties, Bella,” he whispered in a high pitch squeal that left no doubt that his small delicate testicles were in fact being crushed inside a pair of my lacy skid-marked undergarments.

“Edward, what are you doing up? You still have time to sleep, Baby”, I said looking into his amazing green eyes.

What the fuck isn’t amazing about this guy? If he were a super hero, he’d be called Mister Amazing, and his super power would be devilishly good looks. He’d fight crime by being uniquely handsome and inspiring enemies to fall at his feet and beg to be taken to jail, where they could fantasize that the large tattooed man pounding their ass in the showers is Mister Amazing.

 He looked cute with his normally crazy reddish bronze hair sticking up more than usual.

I love comparative descriptions. We’re supposed to inherently know what it normally looks like so that we can imagine what more than usual would look like. I like to imagine that Edward is the copper-topped Doc Brown on an average day, which means that today he looks like an electrocution victim who washes his hair with spray starch and donkey semen. I hope that I’ve appropriately illustrated why overdescribing a character is a huge mistake, especially when your capabilities of describing them are minimal to non-existent.

“I know, Love, but I missed you. I woke up alone and the bed felt so lonely without you,” he pouted.

He woke up lonely, because he was in bed alone… That’s like feeling protestant because you are at a protest, and only slightly better than surprised at a surprise party.

“Aw, my poor baby was lonely,” I said looking at him and biting my lip.

That must have sounded weird.

 I knew it makes him crazy, but I loved to do it.

And fuck him, right? This is a girl power story.

“Come back to bed with me, Love,” he said as he ran his nose along my jaw.

Is that sexy to people who don’t have a nose fetish? Because I just don’t see it. Also, if you have a nose fetish, how turned on does my mask make you?

“Please”, he said kissing the spot under my ear.

He spat and stepped away, scraping off his tongue with his fingers. “When was the last time you washed around your ears, Pigpen?”

“Mmm, Edward,” I moaned as he pressed his body against mine. He knew just what he was doing to me.

Yeah, so do we: rubbing up against you… Silly Bella, thinking she’s being vague.

“Bella,” he whispered in my ear, “I need you so much.”

Because this line is just stupid, and since I don’t care to make a joke about it, I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about a trend, one that I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice. We know Edward is amazing, with his amazing reddish brown hair and his amazing green eyes, but Bella’s physical description is… not even mentioned. Some would say that’s because the author was writing the story for women, and who cares what the woman looks like, but that’s kind of an evasion of the truth.

It’s obvious that the author is writing Bella as herself. We’ve all seen that happen a lot, but the honest reason Bella is so rarely described, and even when she is, it’s very vague at best, is because the reader needs to be able to export Bella and insert themselves. This is the same reason I see a lot of nasty reviews about how much of a whore an author is because her Bella wasn’t a virgin, or how they hate the story because the choices Bella makes aren’t things that they’d do themselves. It’s frankly pathetic to be so narrow-minded and self-centered that you can’t even imagine anyone but yourself as the main character of a story. Again, pathetic.

“Edward, I can feel someone else is up this morning,” I said as I pulled him back inside with me.

A boner joke? What are you, twelve?

“You have no idea, how up he is, Bella,” Edward said as we laid back on the bed.

Translation: That’s a roll of dimes in my pocket, sweetie, I’m still flaccid.

Edward laid on top of me as his lips found mine and we kissed. He moved his tongue across my bottom lip, begging for entrance, which I willing gave him.

“Willing gave” is one of the many typos that I chose not to read as written when I recorded my audio for the video. Mostly because I didn’t notice a lot of them until later, and there was no way that I was re-recording all those lines.

Also, that line sucks. Who has to beg to get their tongue into someone’s mouth when they’re obviously into each other for a lot more than some tongue kissing?

His tongue slid into my mouth and our tongues danced together, neither one claiming dominance.

Neither one claiming dominance? What are they tongue wrestling? Is this a title match? Is The Under-Tonguer taking on Stone Tongue Cleave Tonguesten. (Full disclosure, I haven’t watched wrestling in over a decade.)

I won’t even get started on “his tongue and our tongues” in the same sentence; both the author and the beta should have known better, and if they don’t by now, there’s no chance of them learning.

Our hands found their way into each others hair, securing us to each other.

That’s not sexy. Not to me anyway. I guess some people may find attaching yourself to your lover like a baby monkey on its mother’s back sexy, though.

I loved the feel of his hair in my hands. So soft and silky.

But would you still love him if he had a wiry Jew fro? This is how we determine if it’s true love.

Pulling him down closer, we broke apart to catch our breath. His lips never left my skin, they travelled down my jaw to my neck.

Then how did he break away to catch his breath? Perhaps he has gills? Otherwise, there’s no possibility of him catching his breath while his lips are vacuum-sealed to her skin.  Internally inconsistent paragraphs do not a masterpiece of the literary world make.

He kissed his way down my neck, leaving open mouthed, wet kisses along the way.

So we know he doesn’t have dry mouth, which means no pot, which means he’s a total square. I’ll bet he doesn’t drink, either, “cuz Jesus turned water into grape juice.”

He moved down the bed and started moving my shirt up. He placed open-mouthed kisses on my stomach, then he continued back up my body.

You already said they were open-mouthed. Why the hell must you repeat yourself?

“Edward “, I whispered as he ran his nose up the side of my breast.

What’s with the nose thing? Is it even a thing? What’s next? Ear fucking?

“Mmm, Bella, you taste so good,” Edward murmured against my skin, as he slid my hardened nipple into his mouth.

“Like a piece of spaghetti, because I have those weird long nipples, you see, the kind that could perform a lobotomy on unsuspecting victims.”

I arched my back, effectively pushing my breast further into his face.

Uh, what? Further into his face? Against his face maybe, but further into implies you’re pushing your breast inside his face, which is weird. Now if you’d said into his mouth, on the other hand, I’d applaud you and give a whoop. But you didn’t say mouth, you said face, and thus I have ridiculed your word choice.

He reached across with his other hand and gently rolled the other nipple between his fingers.

I know what action you mean, but once again, I think you’ve chosen your words poorly. I detect a pattern here.

I moaned loudly at the feeling.

Hey, hey, Bernadette. Do you remember that time I moaned at the lack of sensation? Me neither.

I could feel him smiling against my breast.

I refuse to make fun of this line because the image made me laugh so hard.

Edward raised his head to look up at me. “God, you’re so beautiful, My Bella,” he said as he latched on to my other nipple. Sucking so gently as he played with the other one.

First of all, I don’t think you wanted a period after nipple.

Second, I’ve never seen foreplay expressed so boringly. It doesn’t make me horny. It makes me want to look at porn so I can forget how turned off I was during what was supposed to have been sexy. But that’s just me.

“Edward, I need more please,” I whimpered.

Whatever happened to “Fuck me, baby. NOW!” People have no respect for the classics anymore.

He slid his hand down and pulled my boy shorts off before he moved his hand down between my legs to feel the wetness there.

Why does every fic I read have this same scene? I get that you want to check the oil before you go for a ride, but there always seems to be this weird focus on female lubrication in lemons that I don’t understand. Maybe I’m just naïve, or possibly a far better contributor to the sexy time than your average male, but I never need to check. I know when it’s ready for me.

“Mmm, so wet for me, Love,” he said softly.

I’m just going to come out and say it: I hate how this Edward speaks. To be fair, I hate how everyone has spoken so far, but he’s the worst. I’m honestly unsure sometimes if a lot of fanfiction writers have ever held an actual human conversation, or if they just don’t care if their dialogue sounds like an antelope getting fucked by a rhinoceros horn.

“Always, only for you Edward,” I replied as I pushed his boxers down as far as I could, then used my feet to get them off the rest of the way. I felt his hard length against my stomach.

Just another opportunity to bring up that I’m betting Bella was a virgin when they met.

“Edward. Please, Baby”, I said.

“Anything for you, Love,” he said as he lined himself up with my entrance.

“Anything for you, love?” Like he’s doing her a favor? Eh, she is begging, maybe he really only wanted a blowjob and this is a compromise.

He slid slowly into me, filling me up inch by inch.

Am I the only one that’s surprised this didn’t say “inch after inch after inch after inch after inch after inch after inch after inch after inch after inch after inch”?

It always amazed me at how well he fit inside me.

Given my last statement, this Bella would have a giant vagina.

It was like we were made for each other.

This cliché always makes me retch. Penises and vaginas weren’t made; they’re the product of millions of years of evolution and natural selection, which means they evolved to fit together for the sake of propagating the species, so nothing special about that. Except in Texas. And if you’re in Texas, don’t think too critically about anything I just said because it’s illegal.

We made love slowly, loving the feel of each other.

I’m down with that. Carry on.

We kissed each other deeply as we moved together, each thrust brought us closer to the edge.

How do you kiss deeply? Like you’re tongue goes down the other person’s throat or something?

Also, what edge? The edge of the blanket? The edge of the bed? The edge of oblivion? And if that’s a metaphor for orgasm, it doesn’t work.

I could feel that familiar feeling starting in my stomach.

Diarrhea?

So close.

Definitely diarrhea.

I grabbed on to Edward’s shoulders as I let go, screaming his name and rocking against him.

Holy fuck! That image is funny now that I’ve got diarrhea on my mind. Gross, but funny.

I watched Edward fall over the edge, his hair falling into his eyes as he trembled against me and mumbled my name again and again.

If I were covered in shit, I’d have thrown myself over the edge, too.

Edward laid on my chest as he regained his breath.

*Poop joke*

“Bella, I love waking up this way, ” he said as he smiled up at me.

Ewww. Never been a fan of a morning Cleveland Steamer myself, but to each his own, I suppose.

“Me too, Edward. I love you so much,” I said as I ran my fingers through his hair.

Is it poo-crusted hair?

“I love you too, My Bella,” he said kissing me as he pulled me up with him to shower.

Good call.

We washed each other, along with touching and kissing every inch of each other. I initiated round two while in the shower.

Nice refractory period on you there, Edward. I love how fic Edwards tend to have battery-operated dicks—those things can go on forever. Though maybe for some of the authors, that’s all the dick-related experience they have. The battery-operated kind.

Once the water ran cold, Edward and I got out and towel dried each other.

As opposed to what? Using hair dryers on each other? Read Penn Jillette’s book God, No for a damn good reason to never do that, as a guy anyway.

We got dressed, him in his work clothes and me in my sweats and his old college football jersey with his name on the back.

“One day, Bella, my last name will be yours,” he said looking over at me as I pulled my hair up into a ponytail.

So he sees her in his jersey and says this line. Whatever. Stupid, but I’ll take it. What I won’t accept is that she immediately knows exactly what he means by it without any explanation of where the hell the thought came from, or why the hell he would say it. *Opera Man voice* Contriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiived.

“Yeah, Edward, I m looking forward to it. Mrs. Isabella Cullen,” I said reaching up to kiss his lips.

If it’s so inevitable, why not get married now? Oh, right. Contrivances.

“It has a nice ring to it,” he says as he walks us into the kitchen with a smirk on his lips.

Ring, like a wedding ring. I’ll bet if the author is reading this, it’s the first time she’s realized she made a pun there, even though it’s obvious. Edward is smirking— I’ll bet it’s for a completely different and unintelligible reason other than a simple pun.

I got out the ce real and bowls as he poured us juice and coffee. We ate in comfortable silence, as I thought about the weird feeling in my stomach.

Because there’s nothing more comfortable than a weird feeling in your stomach.

Everything felt odd to me that morning and I didn t know why.

Contrivances that’s why.

 Usually, our friend Alice gets the weird vibes, but that day it was me. I d had this feeling since I woke up and I couldn’t make it go away.

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=contrived

After we finished eating and Edward took our bowls to the sink, he looked over at our calendar and reminded me about my doctor’s appointment.

She’s getting a “growth” removed.

“Thanks, Edward, I won’t forget,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him. “I wish you didn’t have to go into work today,” I said looking up at him.

“Me too. I’d rather stay here and make love to you on every surface in every room,” he said wiggling his eyebrows at me.

Creepy. Dump him. Or if you won’t, stock up on Lysol to remove the ass prints and bodily fluids from the dining table.

“I know you would, Edward,” I said, “but you have to work.”

Sick days are for pussies and people who don’t have to be at work for a reason that is “obviously planned or forced; artificial; strained.” Courtesy of dictionary.com

I walked him to the door and he pulled me into his arms. “I’ll see you tonight, Love,” he said as he kissed me passionately.

“Okay. I love you, Edward,” I said hugging him tightly to me.

“I love you too, My Sweet Bella,” he said as he walked to his car. He got in, blew me a kiss and waved as he drove off toward Manhattan.

There is a special joy in my heart that this is over. But the worst is to come. I fully expect chapter 2 will have me frothing at the mouth with rage. Thinking about it, I don’t even want to write a proper closing until my review of this fic is said and done. Anyway, see you next time.