InsaneJournal

148 First Lines of Fic
Gakked from wisdomeagle, here ("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.") and here ("So. Here they are. Sixty-odd first lines of fanfic. [. . .] Do as you like with these: put them in drabbles, put them in ficlets, put them in novels. Change the names, leave the names, edit them, what have you. Post the drabbles here, there, everywhere. Guess where they came from. Marvel at their inanity. Ignore them. Up to you.").

So under the cut we have almost 150 first lines, in alphabetical order.

1. After Sophie and Esme died, we knew we would never trust boys again.
2. All the other girls at the Academy had warned River that Dr. Burkle was a heartless bitch, but that wasn’t true: Fred Burkle’s heart beat as much as any other woman’s, lub-a-dub lub-a-dub.
3. Althanea was hanging up the coven’s laundry to dry when the Goddess spoke to her.
4. Amy Madison wasn't really the prayerful type; she had never been religious.
5. "And so I got this blue-gloves guy in a headlock and the little tiger kicks him straight in the chest--"
6. "Angel Investigations," said Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, formerly of the Watcher's Council of Britain.
7. “Are you going to hurt me?”
8. "Are you sure?" Tara hears Giles ask.
9. As Dawn prepares the mansion for the holidays, she is set upon by memories of Christmases past.
10. Bobby felt the heat of the flames against his skin as he rushed to lower the temperature in the offending area as quickly as he could.
11. Bobby returned from the Danger Room session to find Kitty in his room, sitting on his bed.
12. Buffy and Satsu don't speak to each other.
13. Cindy Mackenzie, Chief of Staff to Senator Veronica Mars (I-CA), watched the numbers count backwards on the microwave.
14. Cindy Mackenzie showed up at her best friend and boss's confirmation hearings with her hair dyed pink.
15. Consider: 1) The Romans used crosses to crucify their enemies in order to prevent vampires from ending the agony of their victims.
16. Cordelia arrives within hours of when Buffy’s father is supposed to come.
17. Cynthia paused outside the door to her apartment.
18. "Damnation!"
19. Darla's dressed the way she was when Buffy first saw her, in that Catholic schoolgirl outfit.
20. Darla entered Lilah Morgan’s office, as she did all things, with a seemingly effortless grace.
21. Dawn and Beatrice had just walked out of a chique Oxford Street boutique when suddenly Beatrice tackled Dawn.
22. Dawn stands in the corner of the lobby of the Hyperion Hotel while everyone else discusses her.
23. Dawn turned to her niece, uncertainty on her face.
24. Dear My Ideal Audience, I feel stupid doing this.
25. Did you really think you'd be able to hide from me? Nova asks as she takes a step towards them in the dreamscape.
26. "Do you know who I am?" Illyria asked.
27. “Do you remember?”
28. Even the most novice witch or warlock knows the Laws of Making.
29. Eve's greatest power? Reminding Faith of Buffy: blonde, petite, way too skinny, so delicate that one wants to cover her with bruises during some really rough sex.
30. Faith laughs out loud when Dawn falls face first in the giant pit of mud, and so what can Dawn do but lob some mud back at her?
31. Faith reads the orders she has just downloaded, and frowns.
32. Faith surrenders.
33. Faith wanders.
34. "For untold eons those who came before us walked the Earth."
35. “Fucking cornfields.”
36. Giles stood in front of the giant Sunnydale cenotaph.
37. Giles wraps his arms around his wife, feels the rising and falling of her chest as she sleeps.
38. "Good evening, Katherine," Emma said to one of the students as she passed.
39. Gwen made her way along the wall quickly and quietly.
40. Hallie frowns when they put the second bed in the room.
41. "Harmony, listen, I need to talk to you for a second."
42. He can't not trust her.
43. He's not the first soulless vampire Buffy's slept with, she keeps on reminding herself.
44. Her dress is in tatters--as is her mind, for that matter--but still she runs.
45. "How did you and Daddy meet, Mommy?" little Joshua asked one day.
46. “How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin,” the vampire said.
47. “I can’t believe you are the one suggesting this,” says Giles.
48. If Emma Frost were the sort of person with qualms about using her telepathic powers, she supposes, she'd view entering Kitty's dreams as some sort of violation.
49. "I know what it is like to no longer be feared," says the half-breed who forms out of a cloud of dust which appears from thin air.
50. Imagine with me a moon orbiting a planet orbiting a star far from here, years from now: a new resting home for the human race, and one of many fronts in an interplanetary civil war.
51. In the 2017-2018 school year, St. Clare’s Academy houses 300 students, divided more or less equally between the four grades of American secondary education
52. “Is that what he looked like?"
53. “Isn’t she a magnificent creature, Herr Walsh?”
54. It began, innocently enough, with a very frustrated Dawn searching out Fred to help her with her calculus homework.
55. It had been six years since Faith had seen the inside of a police station.
56. It had been twelve hundred and seventy-five days, exactly, that Rupert Giles had been in Sunnydale.
57. "It isn't about power," the Wiccan says.
58. It was his own damn fault.
59. It was past twilight on Lunasdal, as Amy Madison hung up the coven’s laundry, that she ran into one of her former classmates.
60. It wasn't long after the pretty exchange student proved to be a soul-sucking mummy that a new foreigner arrived and disturbed the peace of the Summers household.
61. It’s not real.
62. It’s still only early April, but it’s Southern California, so it’s already hot as hell—appropriate, you suppose, considering your situation.
63. "It's strange, y'know?" Dawn's roommate blathers
64. “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water."
65. Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried; on the third day He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.
66. John's fingers fly over the keyboard as he programs her.
67. John thought he knew how to be a soldier.
68. John woke up to find Savannah sitting on the end of his bed, watching him sleep--the way his mother had used to do so many times, the way Cameron did that one time right after they had rescued Savannah, right before John's trip into the future.
69. Joss sort of implodes at his first look at River.
70. Kaylee’s been looking vibrant lately, and Mal knows that Simon has to be asking himself why Kaylee’s had such a spring in her step ever since he and she broke up, why she’s always whistling, why her smile’s so wide.
71. Keith Mars looked over his desk at the two young women who sat in front of him.
72. Kennedy hasn’t returned to Sao Paulo since, Faith knows.
73. Kristen is fairly sure that she and Tina don't have the type of relationship which entails Kristen giving blowjobs to people because Tina asks her to.
74. Lightning flashes outside.
75. Lilah looked over her desk at the thin brunette on the other side.
76. Lilah navigates her way through the UC Santa Cruz campus with a grim determination.
77. Lydia hung a single stocking on the mantle.
78. Maia is somber as she prepares for her date, which Diana supposes is a bad sign.
79. Married life was not unlike single life; now they no longer retired to separate rooms.
80. Mary Lennox was twelve years old when she arrived at Misselthwaite, and Neville could not see past the familiar brown eyes looking out from a black dress.
81. Melaka carefully makes her way through the old cemetery.
82. Nights are pretty quiet at Camp Camelot.
83. Nina woke up in her cell to the sound of footsteps.
84. "No, the other coaxial node!"
85. “Now, this is my idea of a party," Faith said.
86. “Nurse Granger,” he said, fumbling to form the words around the piece of cold glass in his mouth.
87. One year, on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring, Madelyn Summers made her way to the Watcher's Cemetary in Richmond to visit her mother's grave.
88. Reinette kneels in front of the crucifix in the palace chapel, unsure of who to pray to.
89. Rogue's first thought as she woke, wrapped in bedsheets wrapped in sweat, was: It is hot.
90. Saffron stares up at the stars
91. Sarah McAlister looked down at her agenda.
92. Savannah watches Cameron as the machine ensures the two of them are alone in the locker room.
93. "Septimus, what is this?"
94. Serenity flew straight, towards the second star to the right--it was the curve of space and time which was warped, broken, violently looping back upon itself, or perhaps it was that what was supposed to be curved suddenly found itself to be straight, if indeed such topological distinctions could be said to be any more, or any less, than geometrical illusions--straight through the violent vortex (a whirlpool, an eddying mass, from the Latin vertere, "to turn"--but to turn to where, into what? the dictionaries are as ever silent, in this and in all things), into what can only be described as a crash landing, as River clutched the yoke to her breasts as a child to her mother's, into what hitherto they have only known in their fantasies, and in their history books, as the Earth that Was.
95. She has died and been resurrected so many times that not only has she lost count of how many, but she can’t even remember whether she is currently alive, dead, or undead.
96. She is programmed to terminate.
97. She returned to her apartment to find a package on her doorstep.
98. She's taking over for Lilly Kane, Madison thinks to herself
99. Smiling, Kennedy watched the Slayer as she cut up a Ravd’f demon into surprisingly small pieces.
100. Spike was about to pass into Angel’s office, see how much he could bother the Poofter, when Harmony stopped him.
101. “So here's the thing I don't get."
102. "So the Tradescan Codex contains all that has been, all that is, and all that will be?" Dawn asked Giles.
103. So they're in Cleveland, and have just had the most mindblowing sex, having more or less fucked out each other's brains, and pretty much the only thing Dawn is able to say at this point is "Guh."
104. “So this is it?” Raven asked, looking at the huge building which loomed in front of them.
105. “So you just jumped through this rift, without even knowing where you were going?” Faith asked in disbelief as she chugged back her glass of Jack Daniels, feeling the sting as it went down her throat.
106. "Strip her," you'll say, and not even bother to look at me as the Slayers wordlessly carry out your order, roughly pulling off my clothing until I stand naked in the center of the room.
107. Summer is in better shape than Joss--now, that's the understatement of the century--and so she reaches the hotel room before he does, swipes her key and stands in the doorframe impatiently waiting for Joss to get inside, then closes the door behind him as quickly as she can.
108. Surely, Holmes, you recognize the singular importance of Porluck.
109. "Thanks for the mochas, Giles," Buffy said as she savored the last drop of hers.
110. “That was a signal, okay?”
111. The best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel and the witch ate nothing but crab-shells, and she would fall asleep each night alongside his cage, crying and lamenting his fate.
112. The first time Tony met Magneto, Master of Magnetism, he was just a boy, fifteen years old.
113. The Georgetown lecture hall is filled with undergraduates.
114. The only thing separating the captain and the commander of the starship Dora from the cold vacuum of outer space were the insignia stickums affixed to the flesh of their shoulders.
115. The sign on the fence read: "Caution: Biohazardous materials processed at this plant."
116. "The sky’s green."
117. The sun rose on the Los Angeles alley, and Illyria was alone, surrounded by the dead remains of monstrous evil.
118. There are only so many stories.
119. There is no place for Book that can ever be home.
120. There was a reason that they called space the black.
121. They are two beautiful women, now that the Witch has gotten rid of her curse, and Cinderella her cinders (and her crown, too--she is far prettier without it sitting heavy on her brow).
122. They are watching her.
123. They had all felt it: a dark force, fueled by grief, more powerful than anything they had ever sensed before.
124. They looked ridiculous in their huge movie star sunglasses—so ridiculous, in fact, that no one would be able believe that anyone so flamboyantly living the cliché could actually be legitimately famous.
125. They're both fucking her, and each of them knows the other is fucking her and doesn't like it, but they both like their balls attached too much to try to tell Faith who she can and cannot sleep with.
126. “They’re lying to us.”
127. The girl who stood in front of me was the hottest woman I'd ever seen.
128. Training sessions were difficult because everyone who wasn't Faith spent most of the time being distracted by the rising and falling of Faith's heaving chest.
129. Two Americans—well, one American and one man everyone assumed was American—looked daggers at each other as they sat next to each other.
130. Two Slayers stand guard outside the small room in which the prisoner is held; they each give Dawn a small nod of recognition as she moves past them and into the room.
131. Vi remembers feeling that power flowing through her for the first time, being a Slayer-in-training no longer and at last becoming a Slayer.
132. "Well-known student organizers Tracy Turnblad and Penny Pingleton were taken into custody this afternoon for their roles in the UMd student riots," the TV announcer reported.
133. Wes watched the girl hold Connor on her lap so carefully, so lovingly.
134. "What are these rumors I'm hearing about Mindee Cuckoo and you?" Bobby practically hissed at Kitty when he saw her walking to class Thursday morning.
135. “What I’m offering you is a chance to improve the world, Dawn."
136. "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative," the holographic Janeway said as she took off her black leather gloves.
137. When Kennedy's girlfriend went evil, the Slayer had no problem at all going evil with her.
138. When Simon made his way onto Academy Station--in orbit around Regina--he had not seen his sister in person in eight years.
139. When Snyder was passing through that loathsome larval stage through which we all, no matter how elevated, must pass, he had a disgusting and dangerous habit: he liked to read.
140. “Why did we have to go on this mission again?” Simon asked Kaylee as he watched his sister gently pilot the shuttle into the atmosphere of Athens.
141. “Why did we think this would be a good idea again?”
142. You don't like the way everyone has their eyes on you, waiting for you to speak first, even though the convention is called WhedonCon 2008 and there is a part of you which is loving the attention.
143. You dream: Lilly Kane straddles you, pressing you down against her bed.
144. "You lost her."
145. “You should hang up lights,” Amy said.
146. You swim for about an hour and a half, enjoying the water which, while not exactly cool, is certainly cooler than the air temperature.
147. “You were my sire,” says Spike.
148. “You’ve never gone trick-or-treating?”
     
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