#turns out i post a LOT of noli me tangere fic

[smolawkwardkidlat]

Fic First Lines

I saw this on @catsafarithewriter 's blog and thought it was nifty, so uh. yeah. all the apologies if this wasn’t your intention, Cat. 

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

Tagging: anyone who wants to do this because I have honestly forgotten every Tumblr URL I ever knew. seriously, if you want an excuse, I tag you. 

these are all stories I’ve posted to AO3, in chronological order from oldest to newest, under whatever pseud. one is a WIP, and some of them I’m not proud of at all. I’ll put the line (and by line I mean like the first paragraph?), then the title and the fandom, like Cat did. 

small note, I omitted texting/message fics because the format made it difficult to pick the line, and I omitted Nothing Left and Whatever Remains (The Impossible) because the first lines were lifted from someone else’s work, the canon and the fic that inspired it respectively.

1. Lizzy had never minded what other people thought of her, especially because she was only six years old. (More Than My Dearest Friend. Pride and Prejudice. baby’s first fic, lol.) 

2. No one knew where they came from. [...] Any theories about their origins were pure speculation. However, they were there, the Sun and Shadow Summoners; always full of power and fire, just to the side of the foreground. Only they were rare, incredibly rare, so rare that for a while people wondered that they even still existed. (The Sons of Darkness. The Grisha Trilogy.) 

3. Dazai doesn’t much feel like doing anything today. (the moonlight on the water (is beautiful tonight). Bungou Stray Dogs.) 

4. Samael should not have come home. Heaven was full of angels who looked at him and his light silver-grey wings warily, never mind that the accursed things had been silver-grey since God had created them and Heaven couldn’t be full of angels because half of them were gone. (Destruction Follows In His Wake. Good Omens.) 

5. Cad wasn’t exactly what one would expect, if one only had his nickname to go by. He wasn’t tall or short, but he was lithe, with stormy grey eyes that sharpened almost to silver when he was angry or when he was excited, and a shock of thick, slightly curly, translucent hair that the doctors had pronounced mousy brown upon his birth. He had thin, expressive eyebrows and hands and a prominent, somewhat upturned nose. He looked curious, which he was, and he looked gentle, which he wasn’t. (a bit of a cad. The Graveyard Book.) 

6. “Cecil Jacobs is a big wet he-en!” Scout’s voice yelled suddenly. Arthur started at the noise. Was she walking home alone? In this darkness? Everyone in Maycomb but him would have difficulty seeing their hand in front of their face, even if they painted it white. No—even if he was growing up, Jem wouldn’t let his sister walk home alone, even just from the grammar school. Especially not on a night like this. (Boo, Arthur. To Kill A Mockingbird.) 

7.  It was a bad idea last time and this is the first glimmer of hope he has that it’s any less of one now. He hangs on to the sheets, to Ibarra’s hips, as if he can grasp that glimmer and gasp it to life. Maybe Ibarra can feel it, because his mouth curves into a smile where it touches Elias’s. Is it derision or delight? Elias doesn’t know the difference, when it comes to Ibarra; either one drives him wild. (Difference. Noli Me Tangere.) 

8. Ibarra falls in love when he is twenty-two, sitting in a boat on Laguna de Bay. (Third Time’s the Charm. Noli Me Tangere.) 

9. Ibarra startled awake to a dark sky and the chill of night in an open space [...]. His breath cut sharp against the sounds of the woods as he curled in on himself and raised his shaking hands to his face. There was no blood on them. The night was so still any sound louder than a footfall would be heard clearly. There were no gunshots. There were no screams. (i did not think to live this far. NMT.) 

10. The last day of the fiesta dawned promising and happy; the day brought with it the laying of the cornerstone of Ibarra’s new school, and if the town of San Diego was not perfectly content, they at least donned some semblance of the garment to go to morning mass. Padre Damaso forgot his sermon and frightened Padre Martin. Padre Sibyla adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. (a lilac sky. NMT.) 

11. The twilight came on chilly and brisk, the sun lingering watchfully at the edge of the horizon as Elias strode home, trembling with fury. He was done. He was done with this town and he was glad he and the family he had left would leave it forever in a few hours. They could all go to hell and he would laugh as he dragged them there. (our twilight universe. NMT.) 

12. The crack of someone opening the door roused Elias from his restless, shallow slumber. (pillow talk. NMT.)

13. Elias doesn’t know if he’s hallucinating or dreaming. (a simulacrum of companionship. NMT.) 

14. Ibarra’s sigh melted into the near-total darkness of his room. Thirteen years on, and the nightmares still came, the anger still burned, just when he thought they had gone. He was beginning to suspect he might never be free of them, which seemed to be fair enough, considering all that had happened. It would have been stranger for him to come out of that maelstrom completely unscathed. (permets-tu? NMT.)

15. Elias took a breath, shallower than he liked. He flexed his fingers experimentally, and made a fist. It did not close quite as tightly as he was used to. “Haven’t you tied the knots too tight?” (So Help Me, God. NMT; WIP.) 

and this wasn’t posted to AO3, but in honor of the TCR fandom: 

16. The only excuse he has is that he is young and wild and stupid. He was raised by wild things and so knows no fear, not even of the things he should be afraid of. Cat is old enough to know what a car in the driveway means, but he’s also soft enough to let his friend watch excitedly from his ruff as the woman unlocks the door and airs out the abandoned house that has an owner after all. (the happiness i’ve found with you. The Cat Returns.)