Meme: Something Old, Something New

[argentum_ls]

Transported over from tumblr.

vmsteenbeans said:

I just got an idea. Let’s try this out, fellow fic peeps. Post the following:

1) Something old- A blurb from one of the first fics you’ve ever written.

2) Something new- A snippet from something you’re currently working on, or from the last thing you posted.

3) Something borrowed- A scene or selection of dialogue from another writer's story. Maybe something that inspired or resonated with you. (Credit the writer and link to it if possible, please.)

4) Something blue- C'mon, you know you've written a really gut-wrenching bit of angst at some point. Let's hear the saddest or angstiest thing you've got. Alternatively? Tell us about the last time you described the color blue.

Tag whoever you can think so and get to reblogging. All fandoms/fanships welcome.

Really? You want to go there? OK, but you asked for it. From my very first attempt at fanfic, circa 1994-5, "On the Wings of Pigs," which was meant to be a Highlander/Tomorrow People ('92)/Sliders/Forever Knight crossover:

Richie gasped a breath and struggled to sit up, only to find his hands and feet tied. Adam lay only a few inches away, still unconscious. They were moving. Wheels hit a bump and Richie felt air between himself and the floor, only to feel the metal floor slam into his back a split second later.

From the looks of things, they were in a van. How on earth was he going to explain this to Adam?

As if on cue, the floor bucked again and Adam groaned as his body hit the ground. He groaned again, opened his eyes and tried to consolidate the images they showed him.

Richie grimaced. “At least he didn't gag us.”

“What happened?”

“I”m not quite sure.”

Adam struggled silently for several minutes, finally succeeding in rocking himself into a sitting position. “Do you think if we promise not to run away, he'll loosen the bonds,” he questioned, breaking the silence. “No?” he continued at the look on Richie's face. “I don't think so either. I guess that means the ball's in our court. Any ideas?”

“If I only had my sword, I could....” Richie paused, too late to deny what he'd said.

But Adam gave no indication of having heard him. Instead his eyes had gone unfocused and he seemed oblivious to the van around him.

“Do you have any ideas?” Richie asked.

“One,” Adam replied after a lengthy pause. “I don't know if it will work, though.”

“Well, what is it?”

"I'll be right back … I hope.”

“Wha--” before Richie could even complete the word, Adam vanished. The air around him seemed to sparkle, then closed in a flash of light, leaving a sparkly silhouette for a moment. Adam's ropes hit the floor of the van a second later.

From an as-yet-untitled Tomorrow People '13 story that I'm working on for ttpsummer:

“Yo, Jameson! What's it like having a zombie for a brother?” Dylan's voice carried through the throng of people crowding the school hallway, as he knew it would, and he rocked back on his heels to bask in the attention his question brought.

Astrid rolled her eyes and finished sliding her book into her locker before turning to see his latest theatrics. At the confirmation that she'd heard what she thought she had, she added a sigh. The next few minutes were bound to end badly for someone. Dylan had a good six inches and three years of puberty on his target, yet Luca acted like he wasn't even there. Brave kid, she thought. Or maybe, stupid. Though she'd known Luca for years, she'd always seen him as the younger brother: the one who received the punches and headlocks that Stephen routinely dished out.

Used to routinely dish out.

Luca'd had to grow up a lot over the last few weeks, but this was the first time she'd really seen how much he'd changed.

“Hey!” Dylan demanded. “I'm talking to you. How hard is it to answer a simple question?”

Luca continued to unpack his backpack, one notebook at a time.

“Because, see, I know he's not the only member of the walking dead--” Dylan snickered at his own joke and tipped his chin in satisfaction toward one of his flunkies who gave him an encouraging slap on the shoulder back. “--But he's the only one who goes to this school. And since Nelson is making me interview someone for his lame-ass assignment, I figure you'll do.” Dylan parked a hand on the locker next to Luca's, trapping him between his arm and the open locker door. “You know, since it's not like zombies can talk.”

Astrid's gaze ticked automatically across the locker bank toward the subject of the name-calling, and the person who should be jumping to his brother's defense. Stephen, alone, didn't seem to notice that anything untoward was happening. He stood in front of his closed locker and blinked at the dented metal and clasped lock, letting the activity play out behind him without so much as a shrug. Whether he heard and was choosing to ignore, heard and couldn't act, or simply didn't hear she could only wonder.

From "The Witness" by Michele Martin, an X-Files/Starman/Highlander/Forever Knight/Quantum Leap crossover that was the fanfic that made me want to write fanfic, and which I tried to emulate with my first, failed attempt, and which introduced me to the glory that crossovers could be. The story is available in full at The Gossamer Project: http://tooms.gossamer.org/display.php?Witness1.

Overhead, on the roof of one of the buildings bordering the alley where the fight had occured, a figure watched. His shape was illuminated by the lightening-like emanations of the Quickening...though no one was really looking. As the last flashes of light faded away and the wind died down, the silent figure seemed to rise into the air and disappear into the darkening winter sky of Toronto. On the street below, Stayde staggered slightly from the afteraffects of the Quickening before kneeling to retrieve his victim's sword and, just to frustrate the police, the man's wallet with his identification. Then he too disappeared into the night.

From "Breathing Room," a Teen Wolf ficlet about kid!Scott:

The harsh racks of Scott’s coughing awoke Melissa at the end of a day tainted with a sense of wrongness and foreboding. She was halfway to his room before she recognized that this was no ordinary asthma attack, even by Scott’s standards. A dampness underscoring each hack sent a shiver down her spine. She touched her son’s burning forehead, eyed his violently shivering body, and reached for the nebulizer with one hand and the phone with the other.

Scott’s tenth birthday came and went. Melissa had wanted to throw a party for him, just a small one to help him keep his spirits up since he’d missed so much school. He relapsed that week. Melissa and her husband—she could still think of him as her husband at this point—had their first fight outside Scott’s hospital room door, voices crushed into whispers as they argued about the flavor of his birthday cake instead of what they wanted to say.

Melissa left Scott’s present—a PlayStation that no one was going to convince her that the McCalls couldn’t afford—on his dresser for when he felt well enough to play it. He didn’t touch it for eleven days.

Comments

[brightknightie]

That link to "The Witness" returns an error message for me. Should it? (That is, is it meant for subscribers only or similar restrictions?)

I remember reading a borrowed print-out of "The Witness" in... '97? :-)

[argentum_ls]

Thanks for the heads-up on the link. It worked fine when I typed the link directly into my browser and didn't work at all when I clicked on it. I don't know what is going on, so I changed it so that you too can type it directly in.

I wonder if you may have gotten that borrowed print-out from me indirectly. I remember mailing hard copies to people, in all kinds of violation of fandom etiquette that I was too naive to have had yet learned about. T'would be funny if that were the case, not that there's any way to know now.

[brightknightie]

Thanks!

Probably not, but was Cousin L.C.F. one of your recipients? As I remember it at this great distance, I read her hard-copy of "The Witness" while visiting at her home, but I believe that she would have printed it herself. :-)

[argentum_ls]

I couldn't possibly tell you who my recipients were. Not only was that way too long ago for my memory to be of any use, but I was also busily sending out bootlegs of Tomorrow People tapes to anyone who asked. I spent so much time mailing large packages at the post office that I'm honestly surprised that I wasn't arrested on suspicion of running drugs.