jedibuttercup

In honor of currently having 777 stories posted to AO3, and having passed two million posted words of fanfic, some memeage! :)

First Lines: previously meme'd in 2008; 2012; April 2014; & Sept. 2014.

Post the first line from your 25 most recent fanfics and try to find a pattern.

With 1 being the oldest of the group and 25 the most recent...

1. Three days after Natasha publicly eviscerated SHIELD to expose the cancer that was Hydra, the burner phone she'd kept with her every second since finally rang.
(The Princess Is In Another Castle, Avengers/Grimm)

2. Elias frowned as Anthony applied the bolt cutters to the anomalous sealed freight container that had arrived that morning.
(Business, As they Say, Is Business, Person of Interest/Dresden Files)

3. "Tony, was that Dr. Banner I saw in the meditation room upstairs?"
(Nothing He Was Ever Trained For, Avengers/Dresden Files)

4. It was Anna, inevitably, who first noticed the change in her sister's skin.
(The Past's Not Always In The Past, Frozen/Thor-ish)

5. "Hells Bells," Severus heard his reluctant host exclaim in the room above the lab where he stood.
(That Subtle Science and Exact Art, Harry Potter/Dresden Files)

6. They could hear the pair working the crime scene before they saw them: a rather excitable male voice doing most of the talking, and a firmer, slightly amused woman, offering the occasional counterpoint.
(It's Never the Little Green Men, SGA/Castle)

7. There were worse times and places to conduct a surveillance op than a rooftop in Cairo after dark on a warm, clear night.
(Traveler From the West, Leverage/Mummy)

8. "You're right," Chloe said into her phone, staring across the street at the house at 1327 East Kensington.
(Of Iron and Fire, Last Witch Hunter/Fast and Furious)

9. The first Christmas after they'd ruined Ian Blackpoole, Eliot found himself slipping out of McRory's after Nate, distinctive hair tucked under a beanie and hands thrust deep in his pockets.
(For They Shall Be Comforted (The Good Samaritan Remix), Leverage)

10. Illyria stood atop the former Wolfram and Hart building in downtown Washington DC and listened to the unmusical groans of the city's remaining inhabitants thronging the streets below her.
(The Way Is Shut (For The Dead Keep It), Angel/Walking Dead)

11. Most of the mercs I've faced over the course of my life have been nothing special.
(Like a Storm of Lions, Riddick/Grimm)

12. The gardens around the old house in Rome were a lot more formal than anything Buffy had played in growing up.
(Adventures in Rome, Chapter 9, B:tVS/Mummy)

13. The scruffy profile of BCPD Detective Russell Agnew was not exactly the prettiest view Special Agent Milton Chamberlain had ever been presented with of a morning.
(Lost to Be Found, Battle Creek)

14. Benjamin Asher knew it said something about him that he had never once looked at his second soulmark -- the one that curled in a tight spiral on his side -- and thought it named him anything as mundane as the leader of a company or the chief officer of a club.
(now ask me a serious question, Olympus Has Fallen)

15. "I've expanded the rules for tonight," Kim said briskly as the server delivered the first round of drinks.
(Ladies' Night Out in Battle Creek, Battle Creek)

16. "How many times do I have to say it, woman?" Alec hissed over the comms.
(A Relationship Based on Mutual Respect, Leverage/Jurassic World)

17. FBI Agent Milt Chamberlain walked swiftly across the hall to the Battle Creek Detective Squad office, absently opening the doors with one hand while carefully scanning the printout clutched in the other.
(A Visit From Mayhem, Battle Creek/Allstate commercials)

18. Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell [written on the outside of an envelope, yellowed with age.]
(N is for Not Your Grandfather's Paradox, SG-1)

19. Benjamin Asher, 44th President of the United States of America, made a disgruntled noise and aimed the television remote at the wall-mounted screen across the room.
(His Greatest Gift, Olympus Has Fallen)

20. Perhaps it was no longer always one minute until tea-time, but the Hatter found he was still appreciative of a good cup.
(I Was a Different Person Yesterday, You See, Alice Through the Looking Glass)

21. There were a lot of theories about why soulmarks worked the way they did.
(push the button and go, Fast and Furious)

22. A thousand and one desperate calculations flew through Ichabod Crane's mind as he glanced between the imploring form of Pandora, the partially depowered Hidden One beginning to regain his footing, the intricately chased silver shape of the infamous Box, and the apprehensive, knowing expression on the face of his partner.
(when all other lights go out, Sleepy Hollow)

23. "So I suppose this is the part where I do the walk of shame from the President's quarters," a wry voice drawled somewhere in the darkness beyond Tom's closed eyelids.
(Now That the Dawn Has Come, Falling Skies)

24. Abbie Mills, one of two prophesied Witnesses to the Biblical apocalypse, had taken her bow before the full seven years of Tribulations were up.
(Into Every Generation - Whoops, Wrong Tagline, Sleepy Hollow/B:tVS)

25. Oz was no stranger to high stress environments.
(Engineers Wear Red Shirts Too, B:tVS/Star Trek: AOS)

Of the 25 lines of fic:

* Include dialogue: 6
* Present vs Past Tense: 0 vs 25
* Include at least one comma, colon, semicolon, ellipsis, or parenthetical: 16
* Include name of POV character: 18 (or 19 if the self-addressed letter counts!)
* First Person POV: 1

As usual, in many things, my style hasn't changed much in awhile: I have a clear preference for beginning a story in medias res when I can, tightening on the chosen character POV right at the start, and using lots of scene-setting words. This often results in fairly complex sentences, and a variety of sensory cues, though I mostly see sound, visual, and physical (touch/movement) in this batch.

There were more male POVs than female, in contrast to the last time I ran this, though; about four to one. Also a rising trend toward more single fandom stories rather than mostly crossovers, as a result of Yuletide, Not Prime Time, and the Big Bangs I've been working on.

I also find it interesting that I seem to have written less and less first-person and present-tense over time. Though some of that is the fact that there weren't many Dresden Files or Riddick stories in the recent list; I most often write those 'verses from the main character's POVs, and their in-canon narration is very much first-person. And the latter's because I haven't written much immersive, in-the-moment fic recently either, the kind that sounds best in present tense rather than past.

Anything else you find interesting, or want to ask about...?