Tuesday's Gilmore Girls

Okay, you need to understand a few things:

X. I watch GG with my parents.

X. My mother and I 'ship Lorelai/Christopher; my father 'ships Lorelai/Luke.

X. My mother disagrees with my father and I that there is an implied contract between the show and viewer that Luke and Lorelai will get together. When we pointed out similar OTP arcs in other shows, her retort was "But those [arcs] were stupid." In short, she's confusing what she thinks should be with what is.

X. Neither of my parents would frame the debate using fanfic terminology, because they are not at all familiar with it.

X. Instead, they frame it using terminology I relayed to them from idiolects I encounter at work: Christopher is Lorelai's "babydad."

X. Whenever Krysten Ritter's character appears on screen, I shout out, "It's Gia Goodman!"

X. This has gotten old fast for my parents, who have never seen an episode of Veronica Mars in their life.

( spoiler cut )

(no subject)

January: “That was a signal, okay? Is that clear enough for you?” [A line from canon.] (Sinister Simulacra, Wes/Fred & Dawn)

February: They are watching her. (The Fairest of Them All, Lilah/River)

March: “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.” [Traditional nursery rhyme.] (Fetch a Pail of Water, Jenny/Drusilla)

April: 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. Of these students, 180 are girls. (Twenty Facts about St. Clare’s Academy Not Found in the Brochure, Faith/Kennedy)

May: "The sky’s green." (Sky, Mal/Kaylee)

June: As her correspondence with other politically active citizens grew, she began to learn things, information that simply wasn’t available to the general public. [Another line from canon, this time part of the narration as it is a book canon.] (Richard the Third, Act Two, Scene Three, Line Sixteen, aka "R3 2.3.16" for short, Ender's Game, Peter/Petra, Valentine/Petra)

July: "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative," the holographic Janeway said as she took off her black leather gloves. "Violence." [The dialogue is from canon.] (Violence and Diplomacy, Janeway/Living!Witness!Janeway)

August: Rogue's first thought as she woke, wrapped in bedsheets wrapped in sweat, was: It is hot. (A sort of remix of this story.) (Indian Summer, XMM, Bobby/Rogue)

September: Ethan could hear the water turn off as he sat re-reading God and the State in the living room of what was--for now, at least--his flat. (Flatshare, Ethan/Drusilla)

October: "And so I got this blue-gloves guy in a headlock and the little tiger kicks him straight in the chest--" (Little Tiger, Welsey/River)

November: It’s not real. (True Love, Amy)

December: Keith Mars looked over his desk at the two young women who sat in front of him.

Analysis

So remember that "starting a fic with dialogue" conversation likeadeuce and I had? Apparently, I'm sticking to my guns, because I've started almost half of these with dialogue (five-twelfths, and it's a full half if one counts "R3 2.3.16" as starting with "They're lying to us"--the first line I actually wrote--as opposed to the bit of narration given above). I like opening with dialogue because it provides a sense of immediacy, of in media res. And, of course, as likeadeuce and I agreed, the intertextuality of fanfic means one needs less to go on in the first line. I particularly love "And so I got this blue-gloves guy in a headlock and the little tiger kicks him straight in the chest--" because it's not quite the diction of any of the Firefly crew, preparing the reader for the knowledge that Faith is on Serenity.

I dislike the passiveness of "Ethan could hear the water turn off" and "Keith Mars looked over his desk," OTOH.

I don't think I steal my first lines from canon as often as this list makes it seem.