#Small Filmy Fern

[rattyexplores]

Filmy Fern

Very peculiar looking fern.

Crepidomanes saxifragoides

06/07/22

#Crepidomanes saxifragoides #plants #plantae #Polypodiopsida #Ferns #Tracheophyta #Filmy Ferns #Vascular Plants #Small Filmy Fern

[thenon-floweringfairies]

Si-woo

Name: Byun Si-woo

Pronouns: He/Him

Order Represented: Archaeopteridales

Age: Givetian, Middle Devonian

Height: 5.5 centimetres

Eye colour: Brown

Magical Proclivity: Water

Magical talents: Seokcheok-dongja, Bon-puri, Dokkaebi Gamtu, Dokkaebi Bangmangi

A casual and energetic boy with gentle facial features. He wears large, round spectacles, and dresses in more modern-looking clothes than most of his fellows, though he has a wardrobe of traditional Hanbok for formal occasions.

His wings are long and resemble filmy fern fronds, while his tresses are composed of three-lobed leaves kept in a short, neat style. His crown is a pair of small and smooth pods, which split open at certain times of year (or when he's flustered) to release spores. 

His eyes have pupils that narrow to slits in bright light, or when he's scared. If he gets seriously angry or excited, water vapour spills from his mouth.

Rarely planning far ahead, he prefers to simply deal with things as they happen. A strong flier, he makes regular surveys of his territory from the air and drops in if he spies anything interesting.

The first impression he gives off can be that he's aloof or airheaded, but usually he's just thinking about a lot of things at once. He's a firm believer in being open to new experiences and not holding grudges. Rain is something he really savours, and is often seen out walking or flying in it, even when other fairies are lying low.

#Byun Si-woo #gijinka #fantasy #fantasy biology #science fantasy #magic #art #character profile #character bio #original character

[pinespittinink]

“Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.” in the deep of the trees specifically tiddy lady and her hot evil boyfriend who is definitely not tigerclaw

“Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.”

ꕥ 🍃 ꕥ 🌿 ꕥ 🌱 ꕥ

Sabine's voice is a low, soft thing, green and quiet as the droonlight lanterns hung throughout the height of Palatruza. Titus could listen to her always and never hear steel in her tone. She touches the side of his face with her palm, fingers leafing down to petal over his wrist, held in her other hand between them.

“You broke their chains in the palms of your hands long ago. They have not held you for years."

“They have not held me ever,” Titus replies. He is tall in the shadows, large in the light, a man undiminished by nature.

Sabine's gaze is a verdant thing, like the lotuses, like the emerald trench of the deep. Her eyes are large and round, thick-lashed and down-turned at the corners. She has never been frightened of him, no matter how much blood he spills. Her hand curls over his, and Titus reaches up to palm the black fall of her hair, the supple curve of her neck. Sabine looks up at him, her head cradled in his hand.

“You are free to do whatever you want," she tells him.

“Am I?” His voice is a silken growl, black as the deep. He lays a kiss at her neck, dipping to mouth another one further toward the soft hollow of her throat. She has always been so small compared to him; a pearl in his hands. “Dearest, dearest Sabine. What of yourself?”

“Oh, my love,” Sabine says. Her breath tickles his ear, brushing like the fern fronds that drape and feather from the trees. "Don’t you know?”

He noses from her neck across her shoulder as he slips a hand around through her hair to the small of her back, the supple curve of her body against his own, draped as she is in pale silk. She's favored these filmy things as long as he can remember, dressing as though she's come from a lily bed, a spider's web. The very cloth of the moon, foreign above the thick of the trees.

“Your freedom lies with me," Sabine murmurs, like gentle commandment, "within the ledge of my ribs, my lips, the pink of my ear. It is within me that you may do whatever you desire. Within all in my hands.”

Titus makes a bestial sound, an obsidian huff licked through with his own disdain as he draws back from her, lifting his head only enough look down at her, slung still in his arms.

“I am not free then,” Titus replies darkly. “Not from you."

"Could you ever be?"

A low sound ripples through his chest, a burr dark and bloody. He curls his fingers in her hair, digs his grip in around her waist.

"I am not some prey animal for you to toy with," Titus says, embers licking through his teeth.

"No," Sabine agrees simply, unfazed. "But neither am I."

The night birds sing around them, calling through the dark. Titus studies her, the dark amber-green of his eyes gleaming. She is accustomed to his temper by now, but he does not believe it has ever angered or frightened her.

“The others," Titus rumbles, "they see you as just that, don’t they? A prey animal. Something meek and soft, to be left alone with your own milk teeth.”

Sabine tilts her head at him, the dark river of her hair tumbling down her back. She has always let it grow so long, untameably so.

“But you do not, do you?” she asks.

The question sears the air between them, percolating. Titus inclines his head down toward her, nails clawing smoothly through her hair, as though raking through water.

“I have seen the truth of you since first I saw you,” Titus growls, vetiver dark. 

“What truth is that?” Sabine asks him.

She offers her neck to him, gleaming in the droonlight, and Titus kisses her there. He travels up to the soft edge of her jaw, nose brushing against the scent of her skin, like the dew of the morning mist. He kisses her on the lips, her mouth plush and small and warm beneath his. She tastes of the deep, and Titus wonders just how long it will be before she gives in and makes a descent on her own, leaving him up among the trees.

“We are the same, you and I,” he says, breath heady, crumbling with emerald heat, lifting away only to speak against her lips, that she may swallow the truth whole. “You are a hunting thing, just as I am.”

#in the deep of the trees #my writing #otp: she is the deepheart #oc: titus #oc: sabine #asks #calamityeden #tigerclaw boyfriend i cannot believe this #took this one more as inspo than anything else #eran you can guess where this is in the timeline and you'll be right #yyyyyhhhhhhhh this might be bullshit but wHATEVER ITS DONE NOW

[fatehbaz]

It is early February in the west of Ireland, and there is the faintest warmth on the sea breeze coming over the bogs. But this is only a lull: winter storms will soon come back with fury. I turn down the bóithrín (country lane) and hop an old drystone wall into scrubby hazel trees. Like most trees out here, they are stunted and windswept. But the muddy ground slopes down from the road, and as I head west, soon there are curving oaks covered in lichens, mossy granite boulders, and tangles of holly and bramble [...]. As the land falls away, the oaks get bigger, sheltered by the deepening valley, and then there are tall pines and boulders the height of houses [...]. 

But this is a mere sleight of the land, an illusion created by standing deep in small woods. Despite its lush and green image, only 2 percent of Ireland is native woodland, and all of it is in small fragments, like this eighty-acre remnant.

In the millennia that followed the last ice age, a great wood covered Ireland. The country’s folklore is populated by mythical warriors like Fionn mac Cumhaill, who was raised in secret in the forest of Sliabh Bladhma. His [...] tribe, the Fianna, roamed the great oak woods and were compared to a wolf pack.

But from the Stone Age on, waves of settlers cut, burned, and grazed the forests. The climate grew wetter too, and great bogs formed. The woods slowly withered and died. The last of Ireland’s great oak forests were gone by the end of the seventeenth century. 

But pockets of this ancient forest linger: on coastal headlands, on old country estates -- which never faced the same pressures as the land outside -- and in remote valleys, like the one [...].

These are among the last remnants of temperate rainforest in Europe.

Throughout the year, the Gulf Stream brings warm, moist air from the Caribbean up Ireland’s west coast, which would otherwise be as cold in winter as Labrador. The humid, oceanic woods of western Ireland and Scotland are some of the richest habitats in the world for mosses and liverworts [...].

I find one of these species, the tender liverwort Plagiochila spinulosa, growing thickly on a boulder of pink granite. I crouch down with my hand lens: Plagiochila is simple and fragile, its spiny yellow-green leaves just one cell thick. All around me, polypody ferns sprout from trees, and bright green lungwort lichens flake off hazel trunks. On the dark bellies of streamside boulders, tiny filmy ferns, thin and translucent, tremble and shine like slices of green glass. [...]

In some old Irish stories, wolves that denned in caves were seen as entering and exiting the otherworld. 

But there are no wolves left here; the last packs were hunted to extinction in the eighteenth century. Brown bears were driven to extinction over two thousand years ago. Wild boar and lynx are gone too, as are great auks, capercaillies, bitterns, ospreys, woodlarks, and at least 115 other species this country has lost.

“Here on the island of Ireland, we live in ghost-land,” the Irish environmental journalist Ella McSweeney said recently, “marked not by what is around to see and hear, but what is not.” She was speaking at a debate on rewilding, [...] and with it some of its former wild inhabitants. But this feels a far-off vision, given that so many of our surviving species (curlews, corncrakes) and habitats (raised bogs, wildflower-rich meadows) now cling to the precipice of extinction too, driven by a mix of agricultural intensification, sprawling development, intensive forestry, and peat extraction.

The once relatively rich habitats that slowly replaced the great woods over millennia -- large stretches of mountain heath, blanket bog, and pasture -- are now fading too.

So, Ireland’s ghost-lands grow.

-------

Lenny Antonelli. “In the Ghost Wood.” Orion Magazine. 2 March 2021.

[windyfiend]

<< Chapter 1

Chapter 6: The Kith

Briony coughed, wheezed, her head upside-down, slung like game over the back of a saddled beast. Her hair dangled and swept the weeds, bound wrists at her back twisted toward the sky. She couldn’t see beyond the colors behind her eyes-- the shadows and filmy light left from the flash --but she could hear the rustle and childish chatter of her captors.

The breeze blew cool against her skin. In the distance a bird squawked, free and mocking.

Briony thrashed and kicked to escape, or at least to cause trouble for her captors, but the beast beneath her launched into a gallop and carried her bounding away.

They crashed into the forest, ripping a violent wake through the leaves. Thorns and vines struck her face, ripped her hair, while the beast leaped and lurched between the trees, deeper and darker into the woods.

Briony gave a violent heave of her legs, wrenched against the beast's rhythm, and tumbled sprawling into a rocky creek with a splash and a shock of sharp pain in her shoulder.

The hooves galloped away through the brush.

Soaked and shuddering-- her ears full of the quiet gurgle of water, the chirr of night insects --Briony dragged her knees underneath herself, grit her teeth around the gag, and shoved her body forward through the mud.

She squinted through the clearing haze, desperate for a glimmer of the rising suns over Woondaly, but instead she found a yellow eye watching her out of the socket of a skull.

“No way back from here,” said a kid’s voice, while Briony fell on her side and skittered back in the shallow water.

Her focusing eyes found the skinny, scruffy shape of a boy in the dark.

He wore a giant rabbit skull over his head: pale scratched bone, hooked teeth and sharp edges. It fit so snugly over his face it seemed a part of him, his own bones, his own skinless grin.

The glowing eyes stared out of the sockets on either side of the skull. The boy turned his head to stare at her.

“They tossed ya like trash.”

Briony felt small hands grab her shoulders from behind, and though she dug her tied feet in the mud, two other skull-children dragged her back toward the waiting beast. Rabbit boy bounced over the creek and followed.

They held onto her after that, careful to keep her from falling while the beast-- which Briony could now see was a shaggy old moose --stepped slower through the weeds and rocks, deeper into the night-dark of the forest.

 --

After an hour-- in the heavy darkness of a thicket --the moths fluttered out of hiding.

They glowed and shimmered dancing with the fireflies, trailing sparks of dust, revealing leaves and roots like passing ghosts in their wake.

Something bright skittered between the ferns: a chipmunk with a softly glowing belly and bright stripes down its back and tail. A fox watched from a distance, its fur spattered with shining spots, its eyes glinting cautious in the dark. A flock of little birds rushed out of a bush; each flap of wings flashed luminescent feathers.

The forest teemed with sugary light like a galaxy of skittering stars. Streaks and spots of bioluminescence moved and breathed and shivered and glowed, piercing the dark with life.

 --

Briony craned her neck to stare at the shining sparkles of a squirrel’s tail, and she forgot to struggle until the moose stopped. Small hands dragged her down and dropped her like a stone in the moss.

“What'd ya do, drag her down the river?” scoffed an unfamiliar voice.

A pair of dirty bare feet stopped in front of Briony’s face, and the speaker crouched low and picked at her hair with wiry fingers. Orange eyes glowed deep in the giant skull of a jackdaw.

“She tried ta skitter,” replied rabbit boy, perched atop a boulder above. “Wriggled off down the crick like a muskrat.”

“Well she's got nowhere to be skitterin',” said the jackdaw. She reached out with a coarse dirt-stained hand to touch Briony’s face, but the captive jerked away with a snarl.

“She's a live one!” the jackdaw laughed.

Briony's fists clenched. Her teeth bared. She listened to the forest, certain that someone was coming, surely someone had seen. She only had to stall for time until her rescue would arrive.

The forest offered only the insects. The rustle of leaves. A single, lonely birdsong.

The jackdaw clasped a hand behind Briony's head and pulled away the spit-soaked gag.

Briony dragged a ragged breath. She spat dryly on the ground and swallowed like sandpaper.

“I don’t talk to Kith,” she hissed like venom.

“Well you're talkin’ to Kith now,” said the jackdaw, “and you ain’t gonna have much else to talk to from now on.”

"LET ME GO RIGHT NOW!” Briony howled, bristling. “The whole city's gonna be looking for me. The Scythes are going to find you and cut you to pieces!”

The jackdaw shrieked with laughter, her beak tossed with mirth while the other Kith giggled.

“When was the last time you can remember,” the jackdaw crowed, “a Lost One came home again?”

Briony’s mouth dropped open. Her lungs felt frozen. “I’m not a Lost One.”

“Y’are now,” rabbit boy piped cheerily.

“The Lost Ones are dead! Gone forever!” Briony shrieked. “I’m not GONE! I’m getting out, I’m going HOME, if I have to murder every one of you!”

“Yep, we’ll see.” The jackdaw waved at rabbit boy. “Cut her loose, see how far she gets in the dark.”

Briony felt the cold of a blade between her wrists, and the ropes fell away like dead snakes. Her ankles released, and she pushed rabbit boy to the ground and took off at a stumbling sprint, her legs pumping as fast as they would go, her boots skidding and twisting on the treacherous forest floor.

She thrust her arms in front of her, ripped through curtains of vines and barbed bushes, tearing blood-slick gashes in her palms, her face full of spiderwebs and her fists full of thorns, then skidded into a rocky gully and crouched among the fallen leaves to hide.

Briony was sure her thrashing heart would give her away.

She breathed quiet. Her wounds throbbed with hot pain.

She listened. She could hear rustling. The sob of a dove. The creak of a cricket. The hush of leaves in the breeze.

She could hear them giggling.

Like waking fireflies, their molten eyes opened in the dark.

They peeked out of the bushes, behind the rocks, in the branches above, like the spirits of the dead come to haunt her. They were everywhere: a hellish constellation of red smoldering stars, watching her like jackals swarmed their dying prey.

Waiting. Laughing.

Briony squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her aching jaw and pressed her bloody palms to her ears.

She thought of the terror in Runa's eyes before she'd dropped to her death.

It was the last face Briony would ever see.

---

Thanks for reading!! Concrit welcome! 💚 (this will be edited as edits/rewrites happen)

#original fiction #original writing #stolen suns

[rise-above-the-grave]

voices to murder the nightmares

written for @stargatedrabbles​‘s Week #19 prompt: Disgrace. definitely turned out to be more than a drabble, but...ehhh who cares. also, be forewarned, this is unedited and was honestly just vomited onto the page and left there... I know it’s not my best work, I know there are gaps and things missing, but I’m tired and want this done and posted, so have a half-assed attempt at mediocrity.

voices to murder the nightmares

Disgrace.

The word pounded through Sam’s head, all sharp edges and sharper corners. It echoed against the corners of her skull, reverberated between each crevice of thought, resounded inside bone and flesh and tissue.

You are nothing, the voice continued, cold and cruel and slick, like black ice, like bloodied steel, like stained silk. You will be nothing.

Captain Samantha Carter, second-in-command of Earth’s foremost interplanetary exploratory team, SG-1, crawled onwards. The earth was cold against her palms and bare feet, the leaves dead and wet and rotting beneath the towering fir trees overhead. She shivered, the wind cold as it blew between the trunks as big around as five men, her skin prickling beneath her t-shirt and BDU pants as the voice whispered again.

You are a disgrace, Samantha Carter. You failed your Jolinar. You failed your father. You failed your team.

I haven’t failed them yet, Sam thought, as fiercely as she could, and crawled on.

The sky was overcast, deep grey and churning with clouds. The air was cold—colder now, even, than it had been when SG-1 had arrived on the planet, and they had been able to see their breath cloud before them even then—and the wind colder as it whistled through the trees, leaping and laughing down to the earth to tussle the curling, brown ferns and leafless bushes growing up through the hard, frozen ground.

You have already failed your team, the voice went on. You failed Daniel when you left him alone on the planet for dead. You failed Teal’c when you did not embrace him with open arms when he first arrived on Earth. And you failed O’Neill worst of all.

How? Sam demanded of the voice. A rock caught the palm of her right hand, and she slipped on the wet stone, splitting her palm open. Hot, hot blood ran down her fingers and smeared across the dead leaves, leaving a gash of red against the brown.

An image rose up in Sam’s mind, like a window opening amid her thoughts and memories. It was her, sitting in the chair before the Za’tarc-reading machine. It was O’Neill, being escorted down the hall under heavy guard. It was O’Neill, sentenced to death for the sake of her own mind. It was—

No, Sam thought savagely. No, I saved him. We figured it out. He didn’t die.

Are you certain?

We weren’t Za’tarc!

Are you certain?

Yes!

And then another image, another window opening in her mind, and she was falling, falling, falling through it.

Janet stood at the head of an operating table, O’Neill lying before and beneath her. His eyes were closed as if in peaceful rest—but his head…

Oh, God, Sam thought, and she suddenly retched, pausing in her relentless crawl to vomit miserable bile onto the frozen loam.

See? the voice whispered. See what you did?

You’re lying, thought Sam.

Am I?

“Yes!” Sam shouted, and then clapped a hand to her bitter mouth.

Satisfaction and glee washed through her, starting from her head and crashing down into her curling toes. It was not her satisfaction and glee, however.

Sam pulled herself to her knees before the pool of her bile, then staggered to her feet. As soon as she reached her full height, however, it was as if a heavy weight—an impossible weight, as heavy as stone and iron and concrete—fell on her head and back and shoulders. She gasped for breath, and stumbled and nearly fell.

No, she thought stubbornly, starting to walk—and then to run. No, you won’t win. You won’t—

Ah, said the voice, but I already have.

Sam’s head was down, watching the earth beneath her stumbling feet. She dodged a pointed rock, she broke her way through a screen of bushes—she tumbled down a sharp incline and into a shallow creek at the bottom of a culvert. The water was nearly frozen, and Sam broke through a film of frost on the top of the still surface. Her hands and arms and knees and feet soaked through in an instant, the water frigid, and Sam choked.

How laughable.

Sam looked up—and froze. Standing above her on the creek’s culvert was a filmy, shadowy creature. Humanoid in shape, it had no hair. No clothes. No face. It was simply the blurred outline of a human, made of nearly-translucent fog and mist.

“No,” Sam whispered, and reaching out for the bank of the small creek, she levered herself to her feet.

Found you, the voice whispered gleefully.

“No,” Sam whispered again.

Yes.

The creature moved with blinding speed, rushing down the bank on unmoving feet. Sam lifted a hand and arm, braced herself for impact—only for the thing to pass through her defenses and run straight through her body.

She fell.

Pain. Pain and more pain. All-consuming, never-ending.

Each nerve was afire. Each bone was splintered. Each muscle was shredded.

Sam screamed.

Fire. Fire before her. Fire behind her.

Fire within her.

There was fire everywhere. There was nothing but fire. She breathed of it, her heart beat of it, her voice screamed of it. She could do nothing but burn, burn, burn…

No. Sam pressed her lips together, bit down on the scream bubbling up through her chest and throat and teeth. No, this isn’t real.

Not real? a gleeful voice asked. Ah, but what is reality but what you are experiencing?

Then I’m not experiencing this, Sam decided stubbornly. This isn’t real. Therefore, according to your logic, I’m not experiencing this.

I see… Well done.

Sam gasped and opened her eyes. She was lying on her side in the middle of the half-frozen creek, her clothes soaked, her hair sopping, her skin crusted with ice. The water was crawling into her nose and mouth, half-choking her, and she coughed and spat as she sat up.

So, said the voice. You are…stronger than we expected.

I would have thought that was obvious, Sam retorted, but tiredly. I’d already escaped from you once.

Only because we underestimated your sex.

You underestimated me again, Sam told the voice, and once more levered herself to her feet. The weight returned, pressing down on her even harder than before—and Sam bowed beneath it.

You will not escape, said the voice. You are too weak to escape us. Too frightened by us. Too—

You’re wrong. I’ll get out—and I’ll save my team too.

It is already too late for them.

I doubt that.

Why? You have no proof we have not already killed them—have nothing but my word.

Sorry, but your word means jack shit to me, Sam thought at the voice. All you’ve done is lie to me.

Have I?

Another window opened, and once more Sam felt herself falling through it.

She was back in the white-walled, white-ceilinged, white-floored room she had been awakened in that morning. The air was crisp and clean and sterile, like antiseptic, like chloroform, like death. Sam wrinkled her nose.

There were four beds in the room, two along each opposing wall to her left and right. One of the beds was empty. The other three were filled with her teammates. All three of them were bound tightly to the bed and were unconscious.

The door to the room opened, and in came a stream of what Sam assumed were doctors and nurses by their garb. They crossed to the beds of the still-captured members of SG-1, and three needled syringes were produced.

“Never fear,” said the doctor standing over Colonel O’Neill’s bed. “This will not hurt a bit.”

The needles were slid into SG-1’s arms, the syringes depressed. For a second there was stillness, silence, the expectant breath of waiting—and then O’Neill screamed, his back arching up from the bed’s mattress. Daniel followed suit a second later, Teal’c a split second after him. The doctor by O’Neill’s bed smiled, nodded, and took a step back.

It was over in a moment. Abruptly, O’Neill’s screams died, and he fell flat on his back, utterly still and silent. His chest did not rise and fall with breath; his pulse point did not throb with his heartbeat. He was—

Dead, said the voice. They died painfully and oh so alone, far from home—far from you, who abandoned them.

I went to go get help, Sam replied, opening her eyes to the creek and the trees and the overcast sky. I didn’t abandon them.

And look how well that turned out for you.

I don’t believe you that they’re dead.

And why not?

You’ve done nothing but lie to me, Sam thought again.

I’m not lying.

Yes, Sam thought fiercely. You are.

She began to stumble down the creek, numb feet splashing through the water. She slipped on a wet and mossy stone and crashed into the creek, spraying her face and chest with water—and climbed to her feet again.

You aren’t going to win, Sam thought. I am.

You have no hope. You are nothing but a disgrace.

This again?

Look at all the times you failed your people. All the people you’ve been responsible for dying—for killing.

No.

Yes.

I’ve done nothing but what I had to.

Of course. But people have still ended up dead. Like your wingman.

No, I—

And then she was drowning in thought and memory.

“Permission to fire. Command, permission to fire!”

“Permission denied, lieutenant.”

“But—”

“They’re attacking, Carter.”

“Shit, fuck, damn. Hold on Emmerson. I’m coming.”

“No, don’t, there’s too many of them. Finish the mission objective.”

“But—”

“NOW, Carter.”

Air rushing past her, the roar of engines, the shiver of the jet beneath her seat and feet and hands. Dark spots in front of her, darting around a shimmering silver one. Faster, Sam thought, pushing her jet farther, faster, harder. I have to get there. Stupid, stupid, stupid of me to suggest breaking up to finish the objective faster. Stupid me, stupid me, stupid me. I have to get there, I have to help, I can’t let him die, I can’t—

A blossom of red fire. Orange fire. Gold fire. The crackle of static on the radio. Then: silence.

“NO!”

Sam immediately clapped her hands to her mouth. She stood in the midst of the creek, trembling and bowed nearly double by the weight pressing on her shoulders and head and back. She retched for a second time, miserable and weak, and spat out noxious bile mixed with sour spittle. It swirled away down the stream between her ankles, disappearing into the barely-rippling waves.

You cannot escape us, the voice went on. You cannot escape the inevitable. You cannot escape your DOOM.

At the last, shrieked word, Sam looked up. And there, bearing down upon her, were several faceless, humanoid forms made of fog and mist.

She turned and ran.

It was nearly impossible. The weight bearing down upon her shoulders, back, and head was enough to crush her to the ground—had been enough to crush her to the ground, not an hour before. It had forced her to crawl, and Sam feared it would force her to crawl again once her stubbornness was used up.

The weight was nothing to the shrieking in her mind, however. It was nails against slate, glass against stone, metal against metal. It was a thousand wailing choruses all singing in agonizing disharmony, a thousand strings breaking, a thousand flutes shrilling discordantly. It echoed and reechoed in Sam’s mind, battering her skull and brain, shredding her thoughts. She lifted her hands to her ears as she stumbled, as she fell, as she picked herself up again and forced herself onwards.

Her hands came away bloody.

And still she ran—and still the faceless forms pursued her.

She gasped, staggered, tripped and fell with a splash and a cry of pain. Stones bit into her knees, into her numbed feet, into her elbows as she landed face-first in the water. She stumbled, choked on frigid waves, clambered to her feet once more, dragging in shallow, wheezing breath after shallow, wheezing breath.

I have to keep going, she told herself. I have to keep running. I have to—

You are nothing. The wailing abruptly resolved into words, pointed and clear and painful. You are nothing but a failure. But a disgrace. How many people have died at your hand? How many have suffered?

No, Sam thought, and pressed her bleeding palms to her bleeding ears once more. No, I’m not listening to you.

You cannot hide from the truth, Samantha, the voice keened. You cannot hide from those you’ve KILLED.

Emmerson, dead in a flash of orange and gold and red fire.

Martouf, dead on the embarkation room floor.

Daniel, dying on the floor of a Goa’uld mothership.

Teal’c, dying from the insect sting that had nearly transformed him into a dozen of them.

Colonel O’Neill dying amid the dripping, mossy trees of the Nox’s homeworld.

A dozen, a hundred, a thousand more: Jaffa dying beneath her bullets, Turghan’s blood staining her hands, Seth crumpled and broken in the tunnel floor beneath his mansion.

Not my fault, Sam thought. Not my fault, not my fault, not my—

Oh, whispered the voice with a thousand strains, but it is…

The creek swerved to the right, then to the left, and then, abruptly it emptied out onto a wide, sprawling river. Sam staggered to a halt at the mouth, then whipped around to look over her shoulder.

The faceless creatures came on, slow but steady, their feet unmoving, their forms rippling with the wind.

Sam turned, and plunged into the river.

The current grabbed her and swept her away, dragging her down, down, downstream, her numbed footing lost in an instant. She went under, choking on a stream of bubbles, once, twice, three times. She clawed her way up to the top, coughing and retching against the choppy, half-frozen waves, gasping for breath.

NO! the voice shrieked. NO, YOU CANNOT GET AWAY FROM ME THAT EASILY.

Dumbass, Sam thought. Did you really think I wouldn’t do what I had to do?

You are going to die! the voice wailed. You are going to—

A rock reared up in front of Sam. Too late for her to try to swim out of its way, WHAM, she struck it side-first. Something in her ribcage snapped, and Sam screamed out another stream of bubbles as she slid under the waves once more.

BAM.

She hit another rock, and felt another rib give way. CRACK. A third. SMACK. A fourth.

Cough, retch, gasp. Water poured down her chin from her lips, her tongue, her throat, warm and laced through with spit and bile. Sam dragged in one shuddering breath—and then choked as water flooded over her teeth, cold and sharp and clear, and down into her stomach.

You stupid girl! the voices shrieked. YOU STUPID GIRL. Would it not have been better to live beneath our rule than to die in pain and loneliness?

No, thought Sam. No. It wouldn’t. Besides, I’m not going to die.

A roar came to Sam’s ears. She spun in the current, haphazard and crazed—and caught, for a split second, a glimpse of empty air and mist.

Shit, she thought.

YOU STUPID GIRL, the voices wailed.

And then: emptiness.

Sam fell. Fell. Fell over the edge of the waterfall, plummeted through the air for ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet. Sam screamed.

CRACK.

She hit the surface of the water beneath, felt her body break.

And then: darkness.

 When Sam came to, it was to mud and cold water. She blinked, looked up at the churning sky, then looked down at herself.

Blood and mud and water soaked her through, staining her clothes and skin a mismatched smear of red and brown. She groaned, then used her one good arm to shove herself up into a sitting position. Her entire body throbbed, protesting the movement, and for a moment the world danced a spritely jig around her, swooping and hollering in a shrill, piercing whine. She leaned over and vomited for what felt like the hundredth time that day, and only straightened once more—with stars popping in her vision, with colors dancing over her eyes, with fire racing up and down her ribs and spine and dislocated shoulder and hip—when there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up.

“Fuck.”

So.

“Shit.”

You survived. Impressive.

You’d be amazed at what the human body can withstand, Sam retorted silently.

She levered herself to her feet using her one good arm and leg. She tottered for a moment, on the brink of falling over or screaming—or maybe both—before she clenched her teeth and her stubbornness and forced herself to stand tall. She hobbled once pace from the water’s edge, two paces, three paces, to the forest’s edge. There she stooped, and picked up a stout tree branch that had fallen from the tree above her.

Using the branch as a cane with her good arm, Sam began to make her way through the forest once more. She was lost, the stream having whisked her beyond her ability to maintain direction, and now only hoped that she would prove lucky in her search for the Stargate.

The walking slowly grew easier, her steps lighter, her mind clearer through the pain. Sam sighed a breath of relief—and then froze.

No, she thought. No, this is bad.

She turned—and immediately it felt as if she was walking into a wall. The weight returned to her mind, to her back, to her shoulders and head. And the voice—God, Sam thought, despairing, not again.

Disgrace, the voice whispered in her ear. Failure. You are nothing but damnation.

Sam gritted her teeth and began to walk.

 The night was somehow even worse than the day.

Mind clouded with pain, with the beginnings of fever, and with the voices constantly reminding her of her about her darkest pains, the only thought left in Sam’s mind was Find the Stargate. Once there, she could dial the Alpha Site, and they could get her home. Home, where she could get help, both for herself and for her team.

One step. One step. One step at a time.

Left foot forward. Hobble a step. Left foot forward. Hobble a step.

The farther Sam went, the harder it grew. And as the forest darkened around her, so too, it seemed, did her mind.

You will never succeed, whispered the voice. And, This will be nothing more than another failure in a long line of failures.

You’re a disgrace.

You’re an embarrassment.

You’re nothing but a curse to those around you.

The sun set behind the clouds, leaving the world cold and dark and desolate. Sam wound her way through the darker shadows that were the trees, stumbling and staggering and tripping and falling time and time again. She screamed more than once, as her dislocated hip or arm were jostled, and she wept bitter tears of frustration and pain and despair as the night wore on, endless and seething.

The sun is gone.

The sun is gone, the voices repeated. Gone. Eaten by the night. It will never shine again.

The sun is gone, Sam thought, despairing. And, I’ll never make it. I’ll never find it. I’ll die out here, alone and afraid and in pain, and my team won’t survive either, and what little hope they had will be gone, and—

Gone, the voices whispered. Gone, gone, gone…

It was nearly dawn by the time Sam noticed the figures following her. They were grey, mist and fog, faceless, hairless, featureless. Their feet did not move, but still they glided forward, passing through tree and bush and fern alike, as if they were nothing more than smog.

“No,” Sam whispered, upon seeing them. “No, please…”

She tripped, paying too much attention to the forms and not enough to where her feet were going. She fell, crashing painfully onto the forest floor, and yelled as her dislocated arm took half of the brunt of her weight. Darkness swept over her, stealing her eyes, thieving her heart for one, brief second of time.

And then her sight cleared, and her heart returned, and she could see and feel once more.

She tried to stand. She grabbed onto her tree branch, and planted it in the frozen loam. She sought to hoist herself upright. She attempted to heave herself to her one good foot.

She failed.

The weight was too much. The voices too strong. Her fear too palpable.

Fine, Sam thought, turning over. Fine.

She began to crawl.

It was agonizing. She either held her injured leg up, off of the ground; or she dragged her wounded knee along behind her, carving a furrow into the frozen leaves. She could only use one arm, and so hobbled her way along, all the while holding her dislocated arm against her chest.

Five feet. Ten feet. Twenty feet.

It was excruciatingly slow. Sam wondered why the figures did not catch her and stop her.

In her mind, the voices laughed.

Oh, Samantha, they crooned. Oh, Samantha…

The sun rose. The morning waxed, and waned.

And still, Samantha Carter crawled.

She was hungry. Thirsty. In more pain than she could remember being in for a long, long time.

But still, Samantha Carter crawled.

Stop.

No.

I said stop.

And I said no.

Samantha…

Don’t call me that.

Very well. You have made your point. Now stop.

Never.

A sigh.

You are killing yourself.

And is that not what you wanted?

Yes, said the voice. It is what we wanted. Once.

Once?

Yes, once.

But not now?

A hum, as if thought made sound. Perhaps not.

Perhaps not?

You are delirious.

No, I’m not.

You are close thereto, then.

No, I’m not.

Another hum, this time one of disapproval.

Stop, Samantha.

I said not to call me that.

Stop, or you will run head-first into the Stargate.

Sam blinked, then looked up.

And yes. Yes, there was the Stargate, hulking and round, a black shadow against the shadow of the trees.

Oh.

Now rest.

But my team—

“Carter? Oh, God, Carter!”

We tried to kill you, said the voices—every thousand of them suddenly harmonious where before there had only been discord. We tried to kill you, because that is what we do to every person who desecrates our land by stepping onto it.

Then why am I still alive?

Because you proved more tenacious than we anticipated. Because you earned our respect when you survived the waterfall, and not only did you not give up, but returned to face us again, even knowing what you were going to suffer.

“Carter! God—Daniel, dial home. We have to get her back to Doctor Frazier ASAP.”

It has been many centuries since someone earned the right to live from us.

Any one of us would have done the same.

We believe that, said the voices. Somehow…we believe that.

Farewell now, Samantha, whispered the voices. If ever you are in need of us, you know where to find us.

“It’s going to be okay, Carter. We’re gonna get you home.”

Then there were hands beneath her, lifting her, and the smell of Colonel O’Neill’s soap and aftershave permeated the haze swallowing Sam whole.

“It’s okay, Carter. I’ve got you.”

Farewell, Samantha. Until we meet again…

 Sam blinked her eyes open to the SGC’s yellow-lit infirmary. She turned her head, and saw Daniel and Colonel O’Neill both sitting asleep in chairs pulled up to her bedside. Teal’c sat in a chair on the other side, eyes closed in kel nor’eem.a

Suddenly, Teal’c’s eyes opened. He looked at Sam, and smiled one of his half-smiles that meant more than a thousand sunrises.

“Hi,” Sam croaked.

“Greetings,” said Teal’c. “How do you feel, Major Carter?”

“Like I’ve been kicked by a horse,” Sam replied.

Teal’c inclined his head. “That does not surprise me.”

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“We had hoped that you might enlighten us,” said Teal’c.

Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”

“One moment, we were asleep—and then the next, we were being led by the protectors of the planet’s peoples to the Stargate. There we found you, half-dead and pulling yourself along with one arm toward the Stargate.”

“Oh,” said Sam. “I don’t…really remember that part.”

“I am unsurprised,” said Teal’c. “You are suffering from a concussion, as well as severe internal bleeding, multiples broken ribs, lacerations, contusions, and two dislocated joints.”

“Right.”

There was a pause. Then Sam asked, “Did you hear any voices?”

“Voices?” Teal’c canted his head to one side, then said, “No. I heard no voices while on the planet.”

“I see,” said Sam. “Okay.”

“Why do you ask?”

Sam shrugged—and then regretted it. “No reason,” she said. She smiled at Teal’c. “Thanks,” she added.

“For what are you thanking me?” Teal’c asked.

Sam shrugged again—and again regretted it. “For sticking with me,” she said. “For not abandoning me. For being here when I woke up.”

“You are the one who did not abandon us on that planet.”

Sam raised her eyebrows. “It sure seemed like I did.”

“You were going for help, were you not?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then you were not abandoning us. Quite the opposite in fact.”

Sam smiled again. “Thanks, Teal’c.”

“You are most welcome, Major Carter. Now sleep.”

Sam closed her eyes, and listened to her teammates’ breath even out as Teal’c reenterd kel nor’eem. She thought of the voice—the voices—whispering to her. She thought of the pain. She thought of the harsh words, and the visions, and the memories.

Sam drifted off to sleep, the voices’ final words echoing in her mind.

Until we meet again…

#stargate #stargate sg1 #samantha carter #teal'c #jack o'neill #daniel jackson #fanfic #seren writes

[cedar-glade]

The first set of photographs puts Clifty Falls State Park’s Limestone Stratification in perspective. These layers include a small piece of the Saluda Member of the Whitewater Formation of the Ordovician that is white lime at the base. The next layer is difficult to make out but its Brassfield Limestone that overlies the large boulder like protrusions, The upper most layers start to look more familiar as a specific type of Dolostone, Salamonie Dolomite, which is actually further broken up into the Osgood member and the Laurel Member at the top. 

Not seen is Ordovician Pale Limestone shale and the clay pack shale and chert of the - Dillsboro Formation of which 270 ft can be exposed at a time. The basin is the best location to see this specific strata and it can be observed along the gorge cuts and at the base of the large waterfalls.

With that said, well weathered calcareous rocks give me hope on finding rare ferns. 

Apart from seeing cliff brake ferns and the also rare Bradley’s spleenwort, I almost had another “woah no way” moment at what I thought was Asplenium resiliens, The Black Stemmed Spleen Wort; however, it was not the case and turned out to just be a rather large population of large examples of Asplenium trichomanes, the Maidenhair Spleenwort enjoying the heavily weathered calcareous rock it dwelled on. If you have seen any of my other Clifty Falls State Park fall posts you may have noticed other rock dwelling ferns in the photos. 

The calcareous rock dwelling fern diversity is definitely something to marvel at.and I would highly recommend checking it out if you decide to visit.

Ferns i’ve seen on the rocks so far: Wall-Rue, Mountain Spleenwort, Bradley’s Spleenwort, Walking Fern, Rock Cap Fern, Ebony Spleenwort, Maidenhair Spleenwort, Smooth Cliff Brake, Purple Cliff Brake, and Lobed Spleenwort

Things I wish I had observed that would be super rad but are probably not there: Black Stemmed Spleenwort, Green Spleenwort, Appalachian Filmy Fern, Appalachian Climbing Fern, and Trudell’s Spleenwort. 

#ferns #fern #rocks #calcareous #calcareous rocks #asplenium #asplenium trichomanes #geology #stateparks #indiana #botany #wildflowers #nature #plants #forest #fall

[bang1320-blog]

DRAWING THROUGH RESEARCH

Initial Visual Research and Iterations

MAIN POINTS DRAWN FROM BIRD, WORD, IDIOM

AFRICAN HOOPOE

Long body

Distinctive crown of feathers on it’s head that can open and close

Native in South Africa

Resides in forests and the Savannah

Utilises it’s long beaks to peck for food

Diet consists of insects, larvae, small reptiles, frogs, seeds berries and other types of plant materials

Nests insides trees

‘Native in South Africa’ and ‘Long body’ connotations allowed me to research other types of creatures that resides in South Africa and has long body features. This lead me to look into Nile Monitor Lizard, a large member of the monitor family found throughout much of Africa but absent from the West. It has a distinctively large and long body, much of it thanks to it’s tail and neck, and a long forked tongue to sense odors, allowing them to taste the air, which in turn lets them detect movement and prey. They are highly aquatic and athletic climbers and quick runners on land. They are not found in any of the desert regions of Africa, however, they thrive around rivers. They are also the second largest reptile in the Nile River. Muscular features in their bodies with strong legs and powerful jaws.

Main points on the Nile Monitor Lizard

Long body (neck and tail)

Resides in forests

Thrives in rivers

Second largest reptile in the Nile River

Highly aquatic

Muscular bodies (Strong legs and jaws)

PLUVIOPHILE

Someone who loves rain

Finds the rain calming, serene

Can be considered a hobby or just something they find pleasing/ happy

For pluviophiles some like the clean scent they can smell when it rains

In biology it is any organism that thrives in conditions of heavy rainfall

Water connotations/metaphor 

Clean, purifying, beautiful

Nature, vegetation, greenery

‘Organisms that thrives in conditions of heavy rainfall’ lead me to delve into plants and vegetation within forests, particularly ones near the waterfall. This includes mosses and ferns. Moss develop naturally in moist environment, such as on rocks near the waterfall. They are small flowerless plants that typically grow in dense green clumps or mats, usually in damp or shady locations. Ferns are a member of nonflowering vascular plants that posses true roots, stems and complex leaves and reproduce by spores. They are extremely diverse in habitat, form and reproductive methods. Their rises can range greatly from filmy plants to huge tree ferns. They grow profusely in tropical areas and need high latitudes and moisture. Beech trees are low branching trees in the Fagaceae family. There are a variety of different types of beech trees spread throughout countries. The branches often droop down due to the weight of the clusters of leaves sprouting.

Main points on moss, ferns and beech trees

Requires lots of moisture

Grows near water (mosses and ferns)

Often clustered together 

Low-branching trees with clusters of leaves. Droops down from the weight of multiple leaves sprouting from it

Nature, vegetation

CHICK FLICK

Relationship based stories

Often has a strong, independent lead woman as a protagonist

Some chick flick films have fantasy or supernatural elements in it

Romantic and beautiful

Weather to enhance certain scenes in the film

Nature/ weathers are often use as metaphors 

Magical vibe 

‘Fantasy’ and the ‘magical’ connotation lead me to research works by William Roger Dean, well known for his works on posters and album for covers for musicians. His works often feature exotic fantasy landscape and bright colourful use of palettes. The creatures depicted in his words are often mythical beasts, animals, insects or hybrids of animals and insects. This is evident in his work on ‘Morning Dragon’, which depicts a bright orange coloured winged dragon with dark emerald scales soaring fantastically through the sky within a natural Asian landscape. He also made a cover art for John Wetton’s musical album cover ‘Asia’ which depicts and long serpent like dragon seemingly travelling on top of the ocean’s surface, as well as the cover art for ‘Osibisa - Woyaya’ which colourfully depicts a bright orange elephant-insect hybrid soaring through the sky within an Africa-like landscape. A luscious green lizard is seen in the foreground for the back of the cover.

Main points on artworks by William Roger Dean

Exotic fantasy landscape, very ‘magical’

Bright colourful use of palette

Hybrid of animals and insects

Use of mythical beasts (e.g dragons)

Highly saturated colours

#research

[writinggeisha]

Shakespeare said “The eyes are the window to your soul.” When he first coined the phrase, it was considered deep and meaningful. It was, and still is, but you’d better not use it in your writing. Nowadays it’s considered cliché, even though Shakespeare’s premise has withstood the test of time.

Beware of clichés.

If a word or phrase seems like a cliché, it probably is. Look it up in a thesaurus or dictionary and mull over what it means. With a little effort, you can create an alternative that readers will remember.

Check Google, remembering to use quote marks around phrases. If you find 500,000 instances of baby-blue eyes, it’s overused. However, 6,000 results for hyacinth-blue eyes is encouraging. Try jellyfish-blue eyes. Even more promising.

Every cliché started its journey as a memorable phrase. Readers loved it and repeated it, others joined them, and so on … and so on …

Why should you concentrate on eyes?

Eyes broadcast emotions. A person might be able to hide a smirk or pout behind a hand, but the micro-movements of the eyes, eyelids, and brows will usually reveal the truth behind an emotionless face.

That’s part of the reason authors focus (pun intended) on eyes: eye colors, eye movements, arching brows, blinks and winks, and crow’s feet, to name a few. Can you hope to create something new and memorable when millions of writers are trying to do the same?

Yes.

View the adjectives and descriptions in this post, and utilize them as seeds.

Ready to go?

Consider color.

How often will readers tolerate emerald-green orbs, bottomless pools of blue, or doe-brown eyes?

Once.

Your task is to connect with your readers, not to bore them with the same-old, same-old.

While you search for inspiration, remember that nobody has irises of a single color. Go to YouTube, Google Images, or your favorite clip art sites. Scrutinize close-ups. You’ll notice a blend of colors that when viewed from a distance seem uniform.

The closer your protagonists move to one another, the more detail they’ll be able to notice in eyes. The description of an intimate encounter or a face-to-face meeting of enemies can intensify by describing the passion or fire with colors and patterns.

Start with basic hues such as those in the following list. Then add flecks, streaks, or speckles of a different color.

Blue Baby blue, blue-jay blue, bluebell, blueberry, bluebird, bruise blue, china blue, cornflower blue, crystal blue, denim, electric blue, forget-me-not blue, gunmetal blue, ice blue, indigo, lagoon, lake, laser blue, lilac blue, lobelia blue, ocean, river, robin’s-egg blue, sapphire, sky blue, steel blue, ultramarine

Black Anthracite, coal black, crow black, ebony, grease black, ink, jet, leather, metal, midnight, night black, obsidian, oil-slick black, onyx, pitch black, raven, sable, smoky, sooty, spider, velvet black

Brown Acorn, almond, amber, auburn, autumn, Bambi, beige, brandy, bronze, buckeye, camel, champagne, chestnut, chocolate, cognac, cookie, copper, cork, desert-sand brown, drab, ecru, espresso, fawn, football brown, ginger, golden, hazel, honey, kiwi, loam, mahogany, maroon, muddy, nut brown, peanut, pigskin brown, rust, sepia, sienna, taffy, tan, taupe, tawny, teddy-bear brown, topaz, tourmaline, umber, walnut, wheat, whiskey

Grey Aluminum, ash, battleship, boulder, carbon, cement grey, charcoal grey, cloud grey, crater grey, dove, elephant, exhaust, granite, graphite, gravel, gunmetal grey, iron, knife, lead, leaf green, mercury, meteor, mummy, nail, nickel, pepper, pewter, pigeon, rat, sea green, shadow, shovel,  silver, slate, slug, smoke, steel, stone, stormy, tank, sword, wax

Green Army, artichoke, asparagus, avocado, blue green, bottle green, camouflage green, cat’s-eye green, chartreuse, clover, cyan, electric, emerald, fern, forest green, grass green, jade, jelly, jasper, leaf green, LED green, lime, mint, moss, neon, olive, pear, Perrier-bottle green, pine, sea green, shamrock, spring green, tea green, teal, viridian, yellow green

Once again, consider the basics and mold them for your purposes.

How else could you describe almond-shaped eyes? Bloodshot or filmy eyes?

We are all born with specific eye shapes, but a protagonist might have plastic surgery to change that. Plot twist?

Why would eyes become bloodshot or filmy? Sub plot.

A Allergic, almond, astigmatic

B Beady, bloodshot, bulging

C Cat-like, clear, cross-eyed

D Deep-set

E Elliptical, elongated

F Farsighted, feline, filmy

G Gimlet-eyed, goggle-eyed

M Moon-eyed, myopic

N Nearsighted

O Obscured by cataracts, oriental, oval, owlish

P Pale, pink

R Rheumy, ruddy, round

S Sensitive, shark-like, shortsighted, slanted, slitted, sloe-eyed, sunken

T Tired, twenty-twenty vision

U Unresponsive

W Wall-eyed, watery, wide

Eyelids might be:

Crinkled, folded, heavy, hooded, monolid, raw, swollen, wrinkled

Or maybe they’re almost invisible.

Did you remember the lashes?

Eyelashes could be:

Dark, dense, full, long, lush, luxurious, pale, sparse, sweeping, thick

Some men have eyelashes that rival those of a make-up model. How would that make them feel?

Brows enhance descriptions.

Try these adjectives:

Angled, arched, aristocratic, bestial, boomerang, burly, bushy, dark, dramatic, drawn on, elegant, fierce, full, heavy, knitted, level, painted, plucked, raised, refined, satanic, sparse, straggling, straight, sweeping, thin, triangular, tufted, wing-like, wispy

Eyes and brows move.

Verbs to show motions of eyes, gazes, lashes, and brows include:

A Anchor on, assess

B Bat, blink

C Caress, cock, cruise

D Devour, dip, drill

F Flay, flicker, flutter, focus, follow

I Inspect, inventory

L Lie still, lift, linger, lower

M Meander

N Narrow

P Peruse, probe, pry

R Raise, rake

S Scan, search, shift, shoot, sight, slam shut, squeeze shut, stray

T Tilt, track, travel, tremble

U Unglue

W Wander, wink, wrench away

Does your protagonist wear glasses or use other eye-assist devices?

Few people have perfect eyesight, but it might not be obvious nowadays with wide access to contact lenses and laser surgery. Exploit poor vision to produce hurdles for your protagonists. For example, they could lose contact lenses in embarrassing places or experience side effects of laser surgery; or they might use eye-assist devices to view things at a distance.

Consider the multitude of props you can use for your characters. Here are a few:

Bifocals, contact lenses, glasses, goggles, horn-rimmed glasses, lorgnette, lorgnon, loupe, monocle, opera glasses, pince-nez, progressive lenses, spectacles, sunglasses

Also see Other Ways to Say “Roll the Eyes” and 125 Ways to Say “Look” (as in “to See”).

But maybe you want a single word or phrase.

If you need a list of straightforward adjectives, try these on for size. Many of the words will break the Show, Don’t Tell rule, but they might be exactly what you need when trying to cut words.

A Angry, anxious, astute, avid

B Beseeching, bewildered, blank, blazing, bright, bug-eyed, burning

C Chaotic, chilly, close-set, cold, come-hither, commanding, cool, crystal

D Dancing, dazzling, dead, demonic, disapproving, discerning, disdainful, disoriented, dispassionate, dissatisfied, drowsy, dull

E Emotionless

F Fierce, fiery, flashing, flat, flickering, frigid, frightened

G Gleaming, glinting, glistening, glittering, glowing, gooey, guileless

H Hard, hollow, hooded

I Icy, impassive, imploring, innocent, intelligent, intense, intent, inviting, iridescent, irritated

J Judicious

L Lecherous, lifeless, limpid, liquid, luminescent, lustrous

M Magnetic, mellow, mocking, monstrous, murky, mysterious

N Narrowed, numb

O Oily, opalescent

P Penetrating, piercing, prominent

Q Quick, quiet

R Remorseful, riveting

S Sardonic, saturnine, seductive, sexy, sharp, shimmering, shining, shiny, shrewd, skeptical, sleepy, slick, small, snapping, sneaky, soft, sparkling, squinting, steely, stretched, striking, surprised, sympathetic

T Twinkling

U Unreadable, unwavering

V Velvet

W Warm, wide-set, wild

#links #tools #advice #word lists