The WIP meme going around
Via...lots of people: Pull seven lines from the seventh page of your WIP. Like 
melannen said, these memes always seems to think that one has "a WIP". Not so much!
And who knows, maybe sifting through the longer WIP files will help jog something loose in my dormant writing!brain, so I'll play. I guess the simplest way to choose which WsIP to poke at is to just say "here are (approximately) seven lines from each of my three Newsflesh AUs"?
(Although having assembled snippets from all three files now, even with the cheat mentioned below, I think the main thing this demonstrates is that I'm not terribly comfortable with the "choose an excerpt based on utterly arbitrary parameters" type of meme, because even with full pages to choose from, this was hard. But having gone ahead and done the selecting, I may as well actually post the bits, right? >.>)
From the Newsflesh mermaid AU (about a week after Shaun [human] and George [mer] first meet). They're both about ten years old, and he's been giving her human food to try: The day Shaun brings beef jerky, he sees that flicker of movement in her mouth again when she examines it, and by now he knows her well enough to ask what he saw. George looks puzzled by the question. "For meat," she says.
When that explanation doesn't enlighten him, she draws her lips back to reveal sharp, powerful teeth. Shaun freezes in place. More than her tail or gills, even more than the blackness that crawls over her eyes when she's in bright light, her teeth are alien, completely wrong in a mouth that otherwise looks human. George, concerned at his stillness, takes a bite of the jerky he gave her, and those teeth rend it with an effortlessness that raises the hair on the back of Shaun's neck.
I have to cheat a bit with the Newsflesh psychic wolves AU, because the excerpt I posted back in February for Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia is...basically page 7. But since the fic is currently split into three files, this is from page 7 of the second one. Here Georgia and Shaun are about 17, and Georgia's been bonded to Glimmer, her wolf, for several years:There was a barely perceptible glint--Glimmer's eyes cracking open and reflecting the room's faint black light as she noticed Shaun's indecisiveness and raised her head. Shaun sighed and squeezed Georgia's arm. "Wake up, George. We need to talk."
Her response was a long time coming, but finally she rolled onto her stomach with a grudging sigh. "Now?"
"Yeah."
She muttered something rude that Shaun pretended not to hear, then sat up. "What?"
"How long has it been since you talked to Mom off-camera?"
It was too dark for Shaun to see Georgia and Glimmer tense in eerie unison, but he felt it in the subtle shift of the bed beneath their weight. "God, I don't know," Georgia said. "A couple weeks? Why?"
And this AU is rather spoilery for the Newsflesh books, being of the canon-divergent variety--in this case, "What if Feed had ended veryveryvery differently?"
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Shaun POV. The time frame of this scene would be ~24 hours past where Feed ends (epilogue notwithstanding), but things went...rather differently. Georgia is in full amplification, and Shaun's just brought her to Maggie's place and been met by Maggie and one of her security staff:"How is she?" Maggie asked.
"No change." I stared into the van. It reeked in there, between stale vomit and the unmistakable, almost-subliminal scent of predator that the undead all start giving off after amplification begins. "Hey, dude, are you trained to wrangle live zombies?"
Maggie's security goon didn't bat an eye. "Yes, Mr. Mason. If you'd prefer, I can call for backup and move your sister without making you handle her."
My sister. More than anything, I wanted to not touch the zombie in George's skin.
Fuck. That.
Originally posted at https://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/602984.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:
melannen said, these memes always seems to think that one has "a WIP". Not so much!
And who knows, maybe sifting through the longer WIP files will help jog something loose in my dormant writing!brain, so I'll play. I guess the simplest way to choose which WsIP to poke at is to just say "here are (approximately) seven lines from each of my three Newsflesh AUs"?
(Although having assembled snippets from all three files now, even with the cheat mentioned below, I think the main thing this demonstrates is that I'm not terribly comfortable with the "choose an excerpt based on utterly arbitrary parameters" type of meme, because even with full pages to choose from, this was hard. But having gone ahead and done the selecting, I may as well actually post the bits, right? >.>)
From the Newsflesh mermaid AU (about a week after Shaun [human] and George [mer] first meet). They're both about ten years old, and he's been giving her human food to try: The day Shaun brings beef jerky, he sees that flicker of movement in her mouth again when she examines it, and by now he knows her well enough to ask what he saw. George looks puzzled by the question. "For meat," she says.
When that explanation doesn't enlighten him, she draws her lips back to reveal sharp, powerful teeth. Shaun freezes in place. More than her tail or gills, even more than the blackness that crawls over her eyes when she's in bright light, her teeth are alien, completely wrong in a mouth that otherwise looks human. George, concerned at his stillness, takes a bite of the jerky he gave her, and those teeth rend it with an effortlessness that raises the hair on the back of Shaun's neck.
I have to cheat a bit with the Newsflesh psychic wolves AU, because the excerpt I posted back in February for Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia is...basically page 7. But since the fic is currently split into three files, this is from page 7 of the second one. Here Georgia and Shaun are about 17, and Georgia's been bonded to Glimmer, her wolf, for several years:There was a barely perceptible glint--Glimmer's eyes cracking open and reflecting the room's faint black light as she noticed Shaun's indecisiveness and raised her head. Shaun sighed and squeezed Georgia's arm. "Wake up, George. We need to talk."
Her response was a long time coming, but finally she rolled onto her stomach with a grudging sigh. "Now?"
"Yeah."
She muttered something rude that Shaun pretended not to hear, then sat up. "What?"
"How long has it been since you talked to Mom off-camera?"
It was too dark for Shaun to see Georgia and Glimmer tense in eerie unison, but he felt it in the subtle shift of the bed beneath their weight. "God, I don't know," Georgia said. "A couple weeks? Why?"
And this AU is rather spoilery for the Newsflesh books, being of the canon-divergent variety--in this case, "What if Feed had ended veryveryvery differently?"
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Shaun POV. The time frame of this scene would be ~24 hours past where Feed ends (epilogue notwithstanding), but things went...rather differently. Georgia is in full amplification, and Shaun's just brought her to Maggie's place and been met by Maggie and one of her security staff:"How is she?" Maggie asked.
"No change." I stared into the van. It reeked in there, between stale vomit and the unmistakable, almost-subliminal scent of predator that the undead all start giving off after amplification begins. "Hey, dude, are you trained to wrangle live zombies?"
Maggie's security goon didn't bat an eye. "Yes, Mr. Mason. If you'd prefer, I can call for backup and move your sister without making you handle her."
My sister. More than anything, I wanted to not touch the zombie in George's skin.
Fuck. That.
Originally posted at https://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/602984.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW: