"He was exempt from normality, entitled to his weirdness, and it felt so good she couldn't possibly argue, and could only feel a little guilty about it."

  [ Naru, after the series, with rarehet ]

  Spoilers - through end of series
  Canon - taking the specials as canon

"Kimberly, it turned out, was a strange drunk, a ranting drunk, hunched over the table in the empty cantina muttering under his breath..."

  [ Mustang and Kimberly, one dark night in Ishbal ]

  Spoilers - general series backstory

"They kissed only once. She tasted like ashes and brine."

  [ Roy and Sloth, though he did not know it ]

  For - forgottenlover, by LJ ficlet request

"Roy leaned back against the headboard with a deep sigh at the beautiful, hard, flailing naked boy in his bed"

  [ my take on the old 'fighting over who's on top' spiel ]

"Except this time his helmet's off, and Steve's naked, and Jan isn't buzzing up over him, Thor isn't looming at the foot of it, and he's pretty sure they'll be fighting in about five minutes."

  [ gratuitous Civil War fix-it ]

  Spoilers - Civil War
  Canon - AU from beginning of Secret Invasion
  Beta - Mattador of the Hot Pants

"He cannot taste anything in his mouth, but he rinses with souring wine anyway, obsessively, until even the twisting chaos of his subconscious could not pretend it was there--ashes and blood. Was that what they'd tasted, all those women?"

  [ Damien and Tarrant, en route to the new continent, in dreams ]

"I am the fragmented self, spread across years and continents"

  [ a thought experiment: who is enough like Anthy to serve her purpose? ]

  Spoilers - through end of series
  Ref. - author's notes

"The locket's hinge is broken and the painting is empty. Tom Marvolo Riddle throws it into the lake without a backwards glance as he leaves Hogwarts."

  [ Tom, finding inspiration of sorts in Dumbledore ]

  Canon - written before bk. 6

"For any number, divided by a solitary one, remains itself."

  [ a hexadrabble on Nemuro and the hundred boys ]

  Ref. - author's notes

"This is the time of the uncanny, the inverted. The time of impossible things."

  [ in the time of the Black Rose, Touga wants Juri ]

  For - seitokaichou, during a challenge on utenadrabble

"Angels that are forced from heaven have to become demons. Isn't that right, Spike?"

  [ an experiment in explaining that line ]

  Spoilers - through ep. 5

"Of course I know he plans to be an Auror--everybody knows. He wants to walk up to evil, stare it in the face, and beat it into submission. But he will never defeat me."

  [ Tom Riddle and Alastor Moody do the Gryff/Slyth thing; unfinished WIP ]

  Canon - written before bk. 6 and not retconned
  Beta - Minerva McTabby

"People become prefects here because they're ruthless, or blue-blooded, or have simply mastered the subtle art of making people both love and fear you, which is something Cornelius has never gotten the hang of."

  [ Tom provides counsel in a most Slytherin manner ]

  Canon - written before bk. 5
  Beta - Minerva McTabby
  Ref. - recording (by myself)

"Auron gritted his teeth, hard, and pried his bottle out of Jecht's hand--and he was far gone not to protest, too far gone."

  [ preslash on the pilgramage ]

  For - delerone, by LJ ficlet request

"I mean--it's big. Bigger than you can possibly imagine. What we're making..."

  [ Obadiah Stane, and Howard Stark, and the Manhattan Project ]

  For - nevacaruso and cahalith, by LJ ficlet request

"Magic runs in wizarding veins. It is not a mere by-product; it suffuses a wizard's life, plays a role in everything he does, from the mundane to the sublime, from the pedantic to the erotic."

  [ Snape/Harry surreality ]

  Canon - written before bk. 5 and assuming Snarry-tinted lenses
  For - Icarus' ficdrive for Cybele

"His mother drops by for afternoon tea and asks him why that awful girl is still here, and Tom snarls that she's his wife, and doesn't answer when she asks why."

  [ Merope, sometime in 1926 ]

"Half the apple pie was still on a cracked plate on the window sill, covered with a bowl so it didn't go stale before tomorrow, because it was all he had in the house."

  [ Hughes and Roy, fighting pain ]

  Spoilers - through ep. 25
  Ref. - recording (by myself)

"The Doctor only looks at his face to clean it, flaking dirt off with his fingertips as the soap cuts through it, no reaction at all when it stings in his eyes and he flinches."

  [ the stranger the man, the stranger the ways of mourning ]

  Spoilers - through 3.13

"They weren't supposed to do it, but they did."

  [ a brief glimpse of a different Rose ]

  Canon - AU from before beginning of series

"Envy stood barenaked in the window like the pillar of salt..."

  [ abstract Envy/Roy ]

  For - morningxstorm, by LJ ficlet request
  Ref. - recording (by myself)

"There is a part of me, a terribly small part of me, that loves to see you in pain."

  [ Mikage, on Mamiya ]

  Ref. - recording (by myself)

"They walk on. Gellert kicks stones with his pointed German shoes; Albus is chewing on a blade of grass. The sun is blood-red between the hills."

  [ concerning the fear of death ]

  Spoilers - bk. 7

"There's a chain of leaves round her neck, green and black, dangling from a golden vine."

  [ years after Ohtori, two of the Black Roses find each other ]

  Spoilers - through ep. 20
  For - shellsong, by LJ ficlet request

"Go teach your children, eat your candy, preen your bird and bury me. But we were brilliant together, Albus, and not even you can change history."

  [ a correspondence between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald ]

  Spoilers - bk. 7
  Beta - Mattador of the Hot Pants
  For - Blogathon 2007, to benefit Heifer Project International
  Ref. - author's notes - art by Black Adder

"Pride hadn't moved--he liked to freeze after a decisive blow, sometimes too still to be human, perfect deadly sculpture of a man."

  [ homunculi playing in the parlor ]

  Spoilers - through ep. 40
  For - mikkeneko, by LJ ficlet request

"Cold Juri she still was, cold and uncertain, because none of his touches had ever stirred her; something was missing, something had not yet awoken."

  [ an exercise in imagination - what happens if you remove one character from canon? ]

  Canon - AU from before beginning of series
  For - the body-snatchers challenge on utenadrabble

"She was a shadow and a whisper in his mind, chitter-sharp spine and red lights in the green steaming dark, promising the impossible, the unthinkable, what he had shied away from all his life--unity."

  [ angsty cyborg trippiness ]

  Spoilers - Best of Both Worlds, First Contact
  For - ursule, by LJ ficlet request

"Miki was still for one frozen moment, as if a red rose had fallen from nowhere upon the keys, then lifted his head to see Touga standing in the corner."

  [ in which Touga takes Miki to Akio ]

  Spoilers - through ep. 31
  Beta - WhiteOwl

"Yuna blinks, eyes watering, at the haze of pyreflies, and lets go of her, and steps away. Tidus is holding out her staff, not quite looking at her; she takes it, runs fingers over the worn painted wood, and, at last, begins to dance."

  [ three years after defeating Sin, Yuna lays the dead to rest ]

  Spoilers - through end of game

"Trying to keep the most idiotic scientists I've ever met--right, well, second most idiotic, nobody can quite top Big D--from creating a miniature black hole in the core, that's what."

  [ Jack finds the Doctor, again, and it's pretty much the usual ]

  For - taffimai, by LJ ficlet request