Not a meme
I'm feeling out-of-sorts and quite a bit down, as can happen, and I was looking for a way to cheer myself up. There's a quotation identification meme floating around that I found intriguing, but this isn't that meme. This is just me, wandering back over my stories and picking out my favourite sentences or passages.
Anyone is welcome to comment or observe, but I'm not expecting any response at all. This was a personal exploration, my reflection on themes and phrasings that I prefer and reuse (or overuse). It was interesting.
***
Here's what I came up with, listed in no particular order across my various fandoms:
Sergeant Vargas is competent and professional with over fifteen years of nursing experience, and Lee doesn't like her. His father says that he should cut her some slack, but Lee is bothered by the way Vargas touches his father, as if he were a chair or a holy artifact.
-- from What Needs To Be Said
It's raining, and the Raptor canopy is a map of water she can barely see through, and Kara isn't sure what she expected her first impression of the birthplace of the gods to be, but rain isn't it.
-- from Tales From The Reconstruction
He was always gonna leave. That was his choice. No matter his fine words about wantin' to inherit and do right by his ma and take care of the land, there was something restless in him, something unsettled. The day he left to join the kuangzhe de Browncoats, I found his ma hunched over in the front room, head in her hands.
-- from The Last Time I Saw Malcolm Reynolds
John owns 129 pieces of Confucian advice, none of which will help him save the world. He isn't sure what kind of a leader he will be, can be, is, has been. His life is confusing. He keeps getting the verb tenses wrong.
-- from Fewer Than You Think
A month after he was born, she drifted through grocery stores, her hair uncombed, her eyes wild with exhaustion and loneliness. She stumbled through crowds of shoppers hearing voices: her mother's reassurances, her friends' laughter, her lover's murmurs. She saw herself reflected in bakery displays, a crazy woman clutching a baby to her chest.
-- from Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From
When the girl collapsed in the hallway at 8:57 am on Tuesday, October 21, Cameron pushed John roughly into a row of lockers. She kept him pinned against locker 247 while she performed a brief environmental scan. She assessed the threat to John to be insignificant. Her analysis confirmed that the girl was injured, but the injury was not life threatening; it was related to a preexisting condition and as such presented no risk to John's wellbeing.
-- from The Collapsed Girl
And he still doesn't later when they find Kirk, and he's been beaten so badly that he's barely conscious, and Spock unties Kirk's hands with gentle fingers, and Spock and Kirk just look at each other for a minute, and Spock nods once, and Kirk closes his eyes, and McCoy huffs in irritation and relief and looks away.
-- from The Things You See And The Way You See Them
When he's alone again, Jim picks up the book Spock left on the table and flips idly through its pages. He doesn't regret writing it, just as he can't regret living it. It is what it is. It's part of him and who he is and who he'll be. He closes the book and sets it down gently, carefully.
-- from Contact
During the funeral service, the captain sits between Spock and Dr McCoy. Midway through the service, the captain leans forward to catch McCoy's eye, and his shoulder touches Spock's for a fraction of a moment. It is long enough for Spock to be inundated with emotion, waves of nausea and loss and uncertainty, so much pain that he almost gasps out loud. Spock cannot comprehend this depth of emotion. He cannot fathom its source or direction. He does not understand it at all. He closes his eyes to retain his control, as befits a Vulcan and a Starfleet officer.
-- from The Merits of Emotion
"Yes, it is," Commander Spock said, looking up at Pavel. Pavel wasn't sure how the commander knew what he was thinking, but he was sure Mr Spock did, and the look in his eyes was gentle and human and said clearly in a language more precise than words that he had long since forgiven him.
-- from The Things That Sustain Them
This is a story about two people who started their acquaintance hating each other and ended up walking in step. It is also a story about two people who might have been (should have been) crippled by their respective histories, but who have found ways to survive out and beyond the ways they have of not-surviving.
-- from You Are Whatever a Moon Has Always Meant
Spock left the lab without interrupting the young lovers. I followed him into the corridor when Chekov and Sulu progressed to the bumping-noses stage. They were adorable together and they clearly had no further need of me, and frankly I was getting heartburn. Young love is all fine and good, but mostly it gives me indigestion.
-- from Love and Dilithium
Jim's mother is an orphan. Frank claims she was raised by feral librarians, and Jim can actually sort of believe it. She's always poking around in the attic, digging through old book boxes, usually emerging with ink-stained fingertips and smelling like dusty old paper. She often looks disheveled, with her ragged jeans and her sandy hair twisted up in a knot that swallows styluses and pens. She tends to forget the writing implements that she tucks behind her ears, until Frank has to remind her to put them away before they take out someone's eye. Jim likes this about her, that being around her is a little bit dangerous.
-- from Win and Jim
There are rules of diplomacy that you have been trained to follow. There are realities that you have been educated to expect. You are poised and dedicated and intelligent and professional, and there are horrors in the universe that you don't want your sisters to know. There are false maps to terrible places that you don't want your sisters to follow. You know that you can't protect them from everything, but this you can protect them from for a little while longer.
-- from How to Write Letters Home to Your Sisters (Notes)
Before his crew interviews, most of us had never been inside a commanding officer's cabin. Whatever we expected, Kirk's office wasn't it. His office was surprisingly neat, with books and datapads stacked carefully on bookshelves, and few if any personal effects. The door to his private sleeping quarters was firmly closed, and the only mess in the room was on his desk, which was covered with datapads, styluses, old-fashioned pens and pencils, and honest-to-God pulp paper. It was the desk of someone who actually worked.
-- from What We Know
***
In the end, I think I concluded that I'm a rather repetitious (and slow!) writer, with hero and mother obsessions. I also like similes a lot.
As I said, it was interesting.
ETA: Edited because curly quotes are evil. Sorry for breaking flists.
Anyone is welcome to comment or observe, but I'm not expecting any response at all. This was a personal exploration, my reflection on themes and phrasings that I prefer and reuse (or overuse). It was interesting.
***
Here's what I came up with, listed in no particular order across my various fandoms:
Sergeant Vargas is competent and professional with over fifteen years of nursing experience, and Lee doesn't like her. His father says that he should cut her some slack, but Lee is bothered by the way Vargas touches his father, as if he were a chair or a holy artifact.
-- from What Needs To Be Said
It's raining, and the Raptor canopy is a map of water she can barely see through, and Kara isn't sure what she expected her first impression of the birthplace of the gods to be, but rain isn't it.
-- from Tales From The Reconstruction
He was always gonna leave. That was his choice. No matter his fine words about wantin' to inherit and do right by his ma and take care of the land, there was something restless in him, something unsettled. The day he left to join the kuangzhe de Browncoats, I found his ma hunched over in the front room, head in her hands.
-- from The Last Time I Saw Malcolm Reynolds
John owns 129 pieces of Confucian advice, none of which will help him save the world. He isn't sure what kind of a leader he will be, can be, is, has been. His life is confusing. He keeps getting the verb tenses wrong.
-- from Fewer Than You Think
A month after he was born, she drifted through grocery stores, her hair uncombed, her eyes wild with exhaustion and loneliness. She stumbled through crowds of shoppers hearing voices: her mother's reassurances, her friends' laughter, her lover's murmurs. She saw herself reflected in bakery displays, a crazy woman clutching a baby to her chest.
-- from Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From
When the girl collapsed in the hallway at 8:57 am on Tuesday, October 21, Cameron pushed John roughly into a row of lockers. She kept him pinned against locker 247 while she performed a brief environmental scan. She assessed the threat to John to be insignificant. Her analysis confirmed that the girl was injured, but the injury was not life threatening; it was related to a preexisting condition and as such presented no risk to John's wellbeing.
-- from The Collapsed Girl
And he still doesn't later when they find Kirk, and he's been beaten so badly that he's barely conscious, and Spock unties Kirk's hands with gentle fingers, and Spock and Kirk just look at each other for a minute, and Spock nods once, and Kirk closes his eyes, and McCoy huffs in irritation and relief and looks away.
-- from The Things You See And The Way You See Them
When he's alone again, Jim picks up the book Spock left on the table and flips idly through its pages. He doesn't regret writing it, just as he can't regret living it. It is what it is. It's part of him and who he is and who he'll be. He closes the book and sets it down gently, carefully.
-- from Contact
During the funeral service, the captain sits between Spock and Dr McCoy. Midway through the service, the captain leans forward to catch McCoy's eye, and his shoulder touches Spock's for a fraction of a moment. It is long enough for Spock to be inundated with emotion, waves of nausea and loss and uncertainty, so much pain that he almost gasps out loud. Spock cannot comprehend this depth of emotion. He cannot fathom its source or direction. He does not understand it at all. He closes his eyes to retain his control, as befits a Vulcan and a Starfleet officer.
-- from The Merits of Emotion
"Yes, it is," Commander Spock said, looking up at Pavel. Pavel wasn't sure how the commander knew what he was thinking, but he was sure Mr Spock did, and the look in his eyes was gentle and human and said clearly in a language more precise than words that he had long since forgiven him.
-- from The Things That Sustain Them
This is a story about two people who started their acquaintance hating each other and ended up walking in step. It is also a story about two people who might have been (should have been) crippled by their respective histories, but who have found ways to survive out and beyond the ways they have of not-surviving.
-- from You Are Whatever a Moon Has Always Meant
Spock left the lab without interrupting the young lovers. I followed him into the corridor when Chekov and Sulu progressed to the bumping-noses stage. They were adorable together and they clearly had no further need of me, and frankly I was getting heartburn. Young love is all fine and good, but mostly it gives me indigestion.
-- from Love and Dilithium
Jim's mother is an orphan. Frank claims she was raised by feral librarians, and Jim can actually sort of believe it. She's always poking around in the attic, digging through old book boxes, usually emerging with ink-stained fingertips and smelling like dusty old paper. She often looks disheveled, with her ragged jeans and her sandy hair twisted up in a knot that swallows styluses and pens. She tends to forget the writing implements that she tucks behind her ears, until Frank has to remind her to put them away before they take out someone's eye. Jim likes this about her, that being around her is a little bit dangerous.
-- from Win and Jim
There are rules of diplomacy that you have been trained to follow. There are realities that you have been educated to expect. You are poised and dedicated and intelligent and professional, and there are horrors in the universe that you don't want your sisters to know. There are false maps to terrible places that you don't want your sisters to follow. You know that you can't protect them from everything, but this you can protect them from for a little while longer.
-- from How to Write Letters Home to Your Sisters (Notes)
Before his crew interviews, most of us had never been inside a commanding officer's cabin. Whatever we expected, Kirk's office wasn't it. His office was surprisingly neat, with books and datapads stacked carefully on bookshelves, and few if any personal effects. The door to his private sleeping quarters was firmly closed, and the only mess in the room was on his desk, which was covered with datapads, styluses, old-fashioned pens and pencils, and honest-to-God pulp paper. It was the desk of someone who actually worked.
-- from What We Know
***
In the end, I think I concluded that I'm a rather repetitious (and slow!) writer, with hero and mother obsessions. I also like similes a lot.
As I said, it was interesting.
ETA: Edited because curly quotes are evil. Sorry for breaking flists.