Singing the Body Electric

kitarella_imagines came up with a new game, and I thought I'd give it a go. I'm paraphrasing the instructions, but you can check out the original post for the full description.

i. Look at your last 10 fics with dialogue in them.

ii. Make a list of the first line of dialogue in each story, including the rest of the sentence if there are speech tags and description.

iii. Post the list and we'll see if we can guess what the story will be about from the dialogue.

(Guesses as to plot, genre, canon, character, pairing, and so on are all fair game. I'm also just interested to see people chat about any patterns they notice in their own work!)

I know kitarella_imagines is interested to see folks' answers, so feel free to pop over to her post and drop a link if you like, or otherwise tag her.

I arbitrarily stuck to in-scene spoken dialogue, skipping over things like text messages or snippets of canon lines/past speech that characters were flashing back to.


1. In time, having picked the very last scraps of goat meat off the bone, it's Archie who asks: "You guys want to fuck?"

2. "Fang, Ivan," he barks, "inventory!"

3. "Cocktease," Roach says, mostly just to make Fang giggle as he traces the open edges of his vest before flipping them fully aside, but there's a kernel of truth in it.

4. "Hold still," Suditi says, her voice like surgical steel, and all Violet can do under its demands is let it in and enfold it gladly in the equally insistent heat of her body.

5. "Hey, viejito—you think this needs stitches?"

6. "Dance with me?"

7. "Shouldn’t have thrown the leg away," he says when a full search of the Revenge turns up only spirits, a few sodden confections, and half a sack of sweet potatoes that might as well be stones without the ways and means to start a fire and cook the poison out of them.

8. "Feeling good, boss?"

9. "Am I crushing you?" Fang asks, trying not to be too heavy, trying not to be too much.

10: "Nervous about testifying?"


Not a surprise: I've been writing a lot of fic in present tense lately, largely because I've been writing very short fic.

More of a surprise: 60% of my first dialogue lines are questions! On the one hand, questions are just a common way to start conversations. But looking at these in context and having browsed on from there, I can see how I don't naturally write a lot of dialogue. I had to go back wayyy more than ten stories to get ten first lines of it, and I tend to spend a good chunk of my introductions on descriptions and indirect thoughts. I think I then use dialogue to deliberately pivot to the next phase of the story and force the main character out of observation mode or introspection mode and into contact with someone else. Questions are a good narrative lubricant to get that done!

Borrowed from misbegotten: The last five fics I wrote with song lyric titles

I thought I'd include the songs and have this be a combined fic and music post.

1. 2023's I Believe in Father Christmas (Harry Potter, #8 in the Snape of St. Brutal's Muggle AU, Argus Filch/Severus Snape, rated E, Underage, 8k)
Christmas is a time for company—and for believing.

( I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake (1975) )

2. 2023's Down in Those Valleys Below (Our Flag Means Death, Fang/Frenchie, rated M, 600 words)
Life under the new regime isn’t all bad. Frenchie shares a warm moment with Fang in between raids.

( Sweet Nightingale - 17th century folk song (2015 Kirsty Bromley version) )

3. 2022's Any Old Time (We Only Kill Each Other, Jonas Kaminsky/Levi Solomon, rated T, 650 words)
It’s a quiet evening in 1938, two rival mobsters have just earned a clean slate by saving the life of the president, and the smart thing would be to go their separate ways and keep their mouths shut about the execution they just carried out. Only maybe they aren’t really rivals anymore, and maybe killing a Nazi together is the start of something beautiful.

( Any Old Time by Artie Shaw and Billie Holiday (1938) )

4. 2020's Fortunate Son (Team Fortress 2, Scout & Spy + Spy/Scout's Mother, rated G, 100 words)
"His number's going to come up. I don't care what you have to do."

( Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1976) )

5. 2020's Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love) (Original M/M, Speakeasy Bartender/Speakeasy Piano Player, rated T, 8k)
A guy could be doing worse for himself these days. Benny Zalman makes his living behind the bar of the Bearcat Club, pouring sugar on bathtub gin and busting heads when the room gets rowdy. One night is pretty much like the next—until the club hires a new piano player who unexpectedly sets Benny's heart swinging.

( Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love - 1928 Cole Porter song (1958 Eartha Kitt cover )

Borrowed from sylvanwitch - Share the first line from the first fic you posted in each month of the year that you posted a fic.

January
It's goose this year, God help him.
Thursday, Lunch (Harry Potter, Aberforth Dumbledore/Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape, Rated G, 1833 words)

February
"Nicest guy I ever met in a dark alley," Abe would later tell it, and who was Benny to argue with a compliment like that?
Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love) (Original, Speakeasy Bartender/Speakeasy Piano Player, Rated T, 8000 words)

April
Nikki Malone had arrived in River’s End with everything he owned in a Gold Medal flour sack and enough lies in his back pocket to last him until September.
Through His Teeth (Dr. Christian, Paul Christian & Nikki, Rated G, 3550 words)

June
Yes, still.
Sharp-Set (The Old Guard [comicsverse], Yusuf "Joe" al-Tayyib/Nicolo "Nicky" di Genova, Rated T, 100 words)

July
They got hitched sometime in autumn, somewhere between Antioch and Baghdad.
Covenant (The Old Guard [comicsverse], Yusuf "Joe" al-Tayyib/Nicolo "Nicky" di Genova, Rated T, 3327 words)

October
He laughs the first time João draws him.
Muse (Arkham Horror Files, Calvin Wright/João, Rated G, 100 words)

December
She lies with Noriko under the heavenly lights, wrapped in bearskin and reindeer hide.
Aurora (The Old Guard [comicsverse], Andromache "Andy" the Scythian/Noriko, Andy/Achilles, Andy/Nile Freeman, Rated G, 300 words)

Meme: Post a picture, one per day with no explanation, of 10 celebrities you have been in love with / had a crush on.

I figured as long as I was breaking with the format by counting an ensemble cast as one crush, I'd break it further by going with a drawing. (Because I could not in fact find a good photograph that included both the host and my favourite fourth chair.)