first lines meme, finally
I'm sure all of fandom has heard of this by now. Post the first lines from some of/20 of/50 of/all of your fic. Your flist writes drabbles for you. So here are some drabbles for you all. My own first lines, coming soon to a post near you.
Note: I am obsessively anal a purist, so all of these are exactly 100 words by MS Word's count. I have messed around with your first lines a little bit, mostly to get word count right, and I've changed a couple of names, I think. Wow. This is an occupation for an evening when you don't have anything else to do...
-For sage_theory. Farscape. John. Gen. Set during "Terra Firma":
Lots of open road stretched in front of the car as John punched the accelerator, bringing his speed up to 80 miles per hour. He should have been back at the beach, consuming milk and cookies and competing with Rygel to see who could down the M&Ms in thirty seconds (John would win, of course). But Chiana's gleeful cackling, Noranti's chants in broken English... every time someone from Moya did something quintessentially Moya while on Earth, another piece of John's childhood imploded, another treasured memory became just one more delusion in the chaotic brain that used to be John Crichton's.
-for castalie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander. Slash/gen. Post-S4
I'm not gay. That's Willow's thing. It's like when her mom made her take piano lessons and my dad--didn't make me do stuff. That's how our lives went. She did stuff, and I just hung around, sometimes changed her sheet music. So, now I get to change her sheets?
I'm not gay. I used to think that to be cool, you had to have a thing, like music (Oz) or annoying people (Cordelia). But I never had a thing. "Gay" cannot be my thing. That's Willow's thing. Plus, I'm not attracted to him. I'm not. It's not my thing.
-For maching_monkey, Stargate: Atlantis. Sheppard. Slash.
Major Sheppard leaned against the refreshments table, watching the action on the makeshift dance floor. His kids were doing good. Well, McKay was holding up the wall and fidgeting with his shirtsleeves, but he wasn't actively having an anxiety attack; for McKay, that was a victory. Teyla was the belle of the ball; she couldn't be anything else in the patchwork dress he'd helped her cobble together from the clothes his people and hers had discarded. And if he closed his eyes, Sheppard didn't notice Ford, wide-eyed and scared, trying to get up the nerve to ask him to dance.
-Also for maching_monkey. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jonathan. S3? Gen.
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a kingdom ruled by a wise and gracious king named Jonathan of the Bow. And once upon a different time, there was an imperial battleship commanded by a savvy and forthright captain named Jonathan Silverhook. And once upon a time, there was a land ravaged by vampires, protected only by a cunning and resourceful warrior: Jonathan, the Vampire Slayer.
And once (upon no time worth mentioning) there was a place (a high school) inhabited (but not changed) by a boy (short, and easily startled), named Jonathan (just plain old Jonathan).
-For elishavah. Andromeda. Trance. Gen. S1 AU.
This wasn't even close to how it was supposed to end. Not that she'd been given a script. She was supposed to improvise within set parameters, but then the universe had gone and changed the rules on her.
"Trance?"
"Yes, Beka?"
"This isn't how it's supposed to turn out, is it?"
Trance hid a sigh. Beka knew Trance didn't want to answer questions, but she had to ask, to get a reassuringly vague evasion.
"Harper asked me earlier," said Trance. "Before he -- Why does everyone ask me that?" She couldn't answer Beka, and she didn't have a better question.
-for tempe. Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. Willow. Het. Between S6 + S7.
Frying eggs for dinner in the kitchen one night, he asks, "Do you love me?"
Willow is taken aback by the question and doesn't answer him. She stares at her toes and thinks of all the ways she could turn him into a toad and about mold and rhymes and all the Latin and French and Italian she knows now, from all the magic she did. She studied so hard in high school to learn it, and it was so simple to learn. All it took was one large dose of magic.
She stares at Giles and cannot answer no.
-Also for tempe. Farscape. Aeryn. Het. Possibly S3.
He's doing that thing in his sleep again. Aeryn doesn't have the words to detail it. It is "that thing," like so many of the things he does. He isn't talking, but he might be trying to tell her something. She prods his back, but he just grunts and moves to the other side of the bed, still muttering. She frowns and says, loudly, "What's the matter?" and John puts a pillow over his head. Aeryn closes her eyes again, but that just makes John louder, something about... no, she cannot make out the words. She will not sleep tonight.
-for jedi_penguin. Stargate SG-1. Jack/Daniel. Slash.
It began, as so many things did, with Jack losing his temper. Fortunately, the only shattered ego was Jack's own, the only casualty Daniel's lamp.
Others might have started with rational discussion over dinner. Jack had started with the lamp, cursed Daniel for ten minutes, then announced, "I can't take it anymore."
Daniel was used to the insults, but the lamp-throwing he couldn't tolerate. When Jack let him, he shouted, "That lamp was priceless. And you think I don't have proper values?"
It had started with Jack losing his temper. It ended, as many good things did, with Daniel losing his.
-another one for jedi_penguin. Stargate SG-1. Sam. Gen. Character death.
She smiled dangerously and informed them, "Nobody, and I mean nobody, kills Harry except me..."
"Come on, Carter, pleeease?" whined the Colonel.
"No one. Except me," Sam repeated. Maybourne was out there somewhere. Maybourne, who had cost them six months of freedom. Who had cost them Daniel.
"You don't mean that, Carter." He was playing at the old game, but his face was deathly grim.
"She does indeed mean that."
"Thanks, Teal'c. Colonel? He's mine. As soon as we see him."
Her insistence was instinctual, perhaps residual fear that the Colonel wasn't willing to do what had to be done.
-For splash_the_cat. Stargate SG-1. Jack. OT4. R.
This was not, Jack mused sourly, how he'd imagined his retirement. He'd wanted three things. Solitude. Heroic stoicism. Lots of beer. One in three, a terrible score, given that this was the rest of his life, and it was not going as planned.
The first time they came to visit him, they filled the entire downstairs with their music. The second time, after he sold the house, they filled the whole hunting lodge with their anecdotes. The third time, they found his hotel room, and filled his whole bed with their warmth. After that, Jack stopped trying to run away.
-For voleuse. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander. AU S7. Het.
Will has only vague memories of England. This is odd, since, as far as Xander knows, she was off the acid trip. But she refuses to talk to anyone about it, not even Buffy, and Xander, who picked up a clue somewhere between graduation and now, figures it's because she doesn't remember.
Xander spends most of his afternoons with her. She doesn't talk much, but Xander listens anyhow and knows she is afraid. He holds her fingers his shaking hand, and one day, not too long after her return, he kisses her.
"That," says Willow. "That was England."
-For nostalgia_lj. Buffy/Angel. Drusilla. Post-AtS S2.
They took away her servants and dismantled her court. It was dreadful to have to dress herself in the evenings, so mostly she wore her nightgown at night. She hunted at night, and that was right too. She hunted in her nightgown and went out after dark. Her Daddy would not approve, but Daddy had gone away, and Spike, and precious baby grandmamma. Drusilla was a princess; she'd always been a princess (like the stars). But it was a poor princess indeed who didn't have a court, or singing apes or dancing pigs or happy servants to eat all day.
-Another for nostalgia_lj. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy. Het. R.
You always knew how old he was, but you never really saw him as young before. He was, like, old enough to be your father. Gross. Ancient. Actually, come to think of it, you didn't know his age, did you? Forty? Fifty? You were never good with years, and you've dated a vampire who's over two hundred.
Willow would probably know. It's absurd, that Willow should know your Watcher's age when you don't. You want, suddenly, to know everything he hasn't told you. He's learned your secrets, trained your body. Now you'll learn his secrets, surrender your body. Know him.
-for frahulettaes. Andromeda. Trance. Vaguely femslash. S1.
You could say I'm energy, the stuff between the cells, starstuff, but those are such paltry words for what I am. These words seem like how Tyr might describe himself, if he were like her. She contemplates a universe where Tyr is purple, but she doesn't let the thought linger. Thoughts have a tendency of becoming real. She has to be careful.
I do the dirty work. I make the universe. Beka's words. Beka with a tail; she giggles to herself and imagines hugging Beka's tail with hers. But this thought, too, is erased.
And she still can't describe herself.
-for dirty_diana. Stargate SG-1. Jack. Gen-ish. S8.
The file is at least an inch thick. Jack wonders where they get the energy to write this much. Maybe it's from caffeine. He considers going up to Carter's lab to steal some coffee, but there's this report to deal with, and another dozen like it. He's not sure he wants to know what Carter does up there, anyhow. Scary stuff. Stuff that generates inch-thick reports and a dazed Lieutenant Colonel. Stuff that Daniel tries to explain to him over steak, leaving out the part where they had a late-night booze fest without him. Jack's head is starting to hurt.
Whew! I think I got everyone. I also think I totally transposed all but like, one of these into a different fandom. Whee!
Note: I am obsessively anal a purist, so all of these are exactly 100 words by MS Word's count. I have messed around with your first lines a little bit, mostly to get word count right, and I've changed a couple of names, I think. Wow. This is an occupation for an evening when you don't have anything else to do...
-For sage_theory. Farscape. John. Gen. Set during "Terra Firma":
Lots of open road stretched in front of the car as John punched the accelerator, bringing his speed up to 80 miles per hour. He should have been back at the beach, consuming milk and cookies and competing with Rygel to see who could down the M&Ms in thirty seconds (John would win, of course). But Chiana's gleeful cackling, Noranti's chants in broken English... every time someone from Moya did something quintessentially Moya while on Earth, another piece of John's childhood imploded, another treasured memory became just one more delusion in the chaotic brain that used to be John Crichton's.
-for castalie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander. Slash/gen. Post-S4
I'm not gay. That's Willow's thing. It's like when her mom made her take piano lessons and my dad--didn't make me do stuff. That's how our lives went. She did stuff, and I just hung around, sometimes changed her sheet music. So, now I get to change her sheets?
I'm not gay. I used to think that to be cool, you had to have a thing, like music (Oz) or annoying people (Cordelia). But I never had a thing. "Gay" cannot be my thing. That's Willow's thing. Plus, I'm not attracted to him. I'm not. It's not my thing.
-For maching_monkey, Stargate: Atlantis. Sheppard. Slash.
Major Sheppard leaned against the refreshments table, watching the action on the makeshift dance floor. His kids were doing good. Well, McKay was holding up the wall and fidgeting with his shirtsleeves, but he wasn't actively having an anxiety attack; for McKay, that was a victory. Teyla was the belle of the ball; she couldn't be anything else in the patchwork dress he'd helped her cobble together from the clothes his people and hers had discarded. And if he closed his eyes, Sheppard didn't notice Ford, wide-eyed and scared, trying to get up the nerve to ask him to dance.
-Also for maching_monkey. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jonathan. S3? Gen.
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a kingdom ruled by a wise and gracious king named Jonathan of the Bow. And once upon a different time, there was an imperial battleship commanded by a savvy and forthright captain named Jonathan Silverhook. And once upon a time, there was a land ravaged by vampires, protected only by a cunning and resourceful warrior: Jonathan, the Vampire Slayer.
And once (upon no time worth mentioning) there was a place (a high school) inhabited (but not changed) by a boy (short, and easily startled), named Jonathan (just plain old Jonathan).
-For elishavah. Andromeda. Trance. Gen. S1 AU.
This wasn't even close to how it was supposed to end. Not that she'd been given a script. She was supposed to improvise within set parameters, but then the universe had gone and changed the rules on her.
"Trance?"
"Yes, Beka?"
"This isn't how it's supposed to turn out, is it?"
Trance hid a sigh. Beka knew Trance didn't want to answer questions, but she had to ask, to get a reassuringly vague evasion.
"Harper asked me earlier," said Trance. "Before he -- Why does everyone ask me that?" She couldn't answer Beka, and she didn't have a better question.
-for tempe. Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. Willow. Het. Between S6 + S7.
Frying eggs for dinner in the kitchen one night, he asks, "Do you love me?"
Willow is taken aback by the question and doesn't answer him. She stares at her toes and thinks of all the ways she could turn him into a toad and about mold and rhymes and all the Latin and French and Italian she knows now, from all the magic she did. She studied so hard in high school to learn it, and it was so simple to learn. All it took was one large dose of magic.
She stares at Giles and cannot answer no.
-Also for tempe. Farscape. Aeryn. Het. Possibly S3.
He's doing that thing in his sleep again. Aeryn doesn't have the words to detail it. It is "that thing," like so many of the things he does. He isn't talking, but he might be trying to tell her something. She prods his back, but he just grunts and moves to the other side of the bed, still muttering. She frowns and says, loudly, "What's the matter?" and John puts a pillow over his head. Aeryn closes her eyes again, but that just makes John louder, something about... no, she cannot make out the words. She will not sleep tonight.
-for jedi_penguin. Stargate SG-1. Jack/Daniel. Slash.
It began, as so many things did, with Jack losing his temper. Fortunately, the only shattered ego was Jack's own, the only casualty Daniel's lamp.
Others might have started with rational discussion over dinner. Jack had started with the lamp, cursed Daniel for ten minutes, then announced, "I can't take it anymore."
Daniel was used to the insults, but the lamp-throwing he couldn't tolerate. When Jack let him, he shouted, "That lamp was priceless. And you think I don't have proper values?"
It had started with Jack losing his temper. It ended, as many good things did, with Daniel losing his.
-another one for jedi_penguin. Stargate SG-1. Sam. Gen. Character death.
She smiled dangerously and informed them, "Nobody, and I mean nobody, kills Harry except me..."
"Come on, Carter, pleeease?" whined the Colonel.
"No one. Except me," Sam repeated. Maybourne was out there somewhere. Maybourne, who had cost them six months of freedom. Who had cost them Daniel.
"You don't mean that, Carter." He was playing at the old game, but his face was deathly grim.
"She does indeed mean that."
"Thanks, Teal'c. Colonel? He's mine. As soon as we see him."
Her insistence was instinctual, perhaps residual fear that the Colonel wasn't willing to do what had to be done.
-For splash_the_cat. Stargate SG-1. Jack. OT4. R.
This was not, Jack mused sourly, how he'd imagined his retirement. He'd wanted three things. Solitude. Heroic stoicism. Lots of beer. One in three, a terrible score, given that this was the rest of his life, and it was not going as planned.
The first time they came to visit him, they filled the entire downstairs with their music. The second time, after he sold the house, they filled the whole hunting lodge with their anecdotes. The third time, they found his hotel room, and filled his whole bed with their warmth. After that, Jack stopped trying to run away.
-For voleuse. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander. AU S7. Het.
Will has only vague memories of England. This is odd, since, as far as Xander knows, she was off the acid trip. But she refuses to talk to anyone about it, not even Buffy, and Xander, who picked up a clue somewhere between graduation and now, figures it's because she doesn't remember.
Xander spends most of his afternoons with her. She doesn't talk much, but Xander listens anyhow and knows she is afraid. He holds her fingers his shaking hand, and one day, not too long after her return, he kisses her.
"That," says Willow. "That was England."
-For nostalgia_lj. Buffy/Angel. Drusilla. Post-AtS S2.
They took away her servants and dismantled her court. It was dreadful to have to dress herself in the evenings, so mostly she wore her nightgown at night. She hunted at night, and that was right too. She hunted in her nightgown and went out after dark. Her Daddy would not approve, but Daddy had gone away, and Spike, and precious baby grandmamma. Drusilla was a princess; she'd always been a princess (like the stars). But it was a poor princess indeed who didn't have a court, or singing apes or dancing pigs or happy servants to eat all day.
-Another for nostalgia_lj. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy. Het. R.
You always knew how old he was, but you never really saw him as young before. He was, like, old enough to be your father. Gross. Ancient. Actually, come to think of it, you didn't know his age, did you? Forty? Fifty? You were never good with years, and you've dated a vampire who's over two hundred.
Willow would probably know. It's absurd, that Willow should know your Watcher's age when you don't. You want, suddenly, to know everything he hasn't told you. He's learned your secrets, trained your body. Now you'll learn his secrets, surrender your body. Know him.
-for frahulettaes. Andromeda. Trance. Vaguely femslash. S1.
You could say I'm energy, the stuff between the cells, starstuff, but those are such paltry words for what I am. These words seem like how Tyr might describe himself, if he were like her. She contemplates a universe where Tyr is purple, but she doesn't let the thought linger. Thoughts have a tendency of becoming real. She has to be careful.
I do the dirty work. I make the universe. Beka's words. Beka with a tail; she giggles to herself and imagines hugging Beka's tail with hers. But this thought, too, is erased.
And she still can't describe herself.
-for dirty_diana. Stargate SG-1. Jack. Gen-ish. S8.
The file is at least an inch thick. Jack wonders where they get the energy to write this much. Maybe it's from caffeine. He considers going up to Carter's lab to steal some coffee, but there's this report to deal with, and another dozen like it. He's not sure he wants to know what Carter does up there, anyhow. Scary stuff. Stuff that generates inch-thick reports and a dazed Lieutenant Colonel. Stuff that Daniel tries to explain to him over steak, leaving out the part where they had a late-night booze fest without him. Jack's head is starting to hurt.
Whew! I think I got everyone. I also think I totally transposed all but like, one of these into a different fandom. Whee!