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kyofsonder · 2 years

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Find the Word

I was tagged by both @saltysupercomputer and @crossroadcrow to find select sets of words in my WIPs and tag more people with my own words to keep the game going.

My Words: liquid, weather, line, plant, pin, sorrow, breeze, fall, justice, hug

I’ll tag @on-noon, @thatwitchrevan (I tried to find your writblr, but it didn’t come up so I’ll tag your main), @mr-writes, @hannahactuallywrites, @the-inkwell-variable, @writingpotato07, and as always anyone who wants to join in can use the folowing words and say I tagged them!

Your Words: pressure, patient/patience, expectation, seldom, familiar

The excerpts are under the cut as usual, so nobody has to scroll endlessly -- especially since I went overboard on these excerpts.

I found liquid in my novel WIP “To Be Honest”, in a scene that mentions blood and (magic-related) self injury:

Without sparing a second more to think, he brings the knife down on his arm at whatever angle fate decides. If he's lucky, it won't catch any major arteries and he'll be able to bandage himself up later. If he's not... Micah ignores the thought and focuses on the feeling of blood in his own veins. The flow of it through his muscles. The pressure of it against his every atom, heavy with a substance that feels like contradiction itself melted into liquid form. Warmth, cold, weight, lightness, both the smoothness of a river and the sharpness of broken glass, painful and absolutely painless. Focusing on the sensation of magic always makes him nauseous, and he has to grit his teeth against the feeling. A little more. Imagine its extremes as a scale. Push the scale in the desired direction. The foundation of unstructured spellcasting, just like his mother had taught both him and David in childhood. Just like he and David had taught Asher, not long after.

I found weather in my dream journal, full of subconscious stories I plan to eventually rewrite into intentionally original works, specifically in a dream about a pyschic shapeshifter named Sophia and her variously psychic friends:

Only a few people on the baseball team really take notice of the newcomer, each for different reasons. He's a bald, fairly round person who looks like he should be doing judo or sumo professionally. He even has a scowling expression most of the time, whether he means to or not. He's a kind person, but he's not warm or cuddly by any means -- still, I'll call him Teddy. He prefers Ted. What Sophia, Mindy, and (somehow) Sam notice about Ted, however, is the fact that he has psychic powers. After a day or two, he even reaches out to Sophia telepathically. I don't remember what it is they talk about, but it feels disconnected from the sense of tension that's rising for the psychics in this school. The weather itself changes. Now, the afternoons they spend at this school are heavy with rain clouds or even wet with actual rain itself. The sun doesn't make an appearance anymore.

Life goes on like this for awhile. Sophia, Mindy, Sam, and Teddy talk about psychic things between club activities. Sophia and Sam act like an innocent high school couple. Things are fine. Ominous, but fine.

I found line in several of my WIPs, including my novel WIP “Apricots”:

He's known for years that Noah has a hard time explaining things, that words are difficult for him in more or less the opposite way that they're difficult for Kade, but right now he doesn't have the patience to wait for this scattered man to put his thoughts together. Ian will force them into something coherent if he has to, something he can actually understand. "You're dropping names I've never heard like I have any idea who they are, you're getting overexcited like you always do, and you just casually mentioned someone is actively trying to kill you? You can't just... assume I still get what you're talking about when you suddenly veer of like that! I'm not a mind reader! I'm not --" he stops himself, knowing what he'd been about to say but not wanting to say it even in his own head. It feels like a line he can't cross. Comparing himself to someone who isn't here to defend herself. Using Noah's own grief as a weapon against him. This isn't supposed to be an argument. Just a conversation.

I found plant in my short story WIP “Kiyo”:

I name the vines anyway, like the healthy living articles say you should to get the most out of raising a plant. To make that illusion of having a friend around feel more real. I call her Kiyo. It doesn't mean anything as far as I know. It's just a couple of syllables I can say out loud so it feels less like I'm talking to myself. A simple name for a simple plant. I only choose it because I like how it feels to say, so it's not like I'm putting any grand hopes into it either. No extra expectations. It's there to give her some personality. That's all. Though I have to admit, somehow it feels like she has personality even before I start using a name for her. She's alive, and there are times when I look at her and I can feel a sense of warmth that reminds me I'm the same.

I couldn’t find pin, so here’s a fun fact related to the earlier “To Be Honest” excerpt with a lot of blood mentions:

I’ve said it in tags before, but the way Micah uses magic in that excerpt is a last resort for bloodline/circle witches like him. While magic is stored in his blood, using it without some sort of focusing tool is extremely unpredictable and imprecise. It’s the equivalent of trying to perform surgery with a machete. It’s made to cut into things, but it’s not made for fine incisions or careful movements. It’s also extremely dangerous, since a witch that just tears the magic out of their own body is using more blood than they strictly need and risks bleeding out.

Every bloodline avoids this inefficiency and danger in a different way, and makes sure to teach each new generation their methods – even if they’re kept secret from everyone outside their circle of influence. Kilner witches both tend to process their blood into ink and write their spells out as words on paper – which they then burn so nobody can copy their work. Page and Barker witches tend to engrave their spells into wood or metal and then stain or etch the engravings with their blood. Both Jasper and Porter witches tend to make potions, mixing their blood with other ingredients that have significance to their respective bloodlines.Renner witches like Micah tend to turn their blood into paint and craft decks of spellcasting cards. Micah himself is trying to learn the Shepherd way of sewing and embroidering spells into cloth, using needles and yarn doused in witch blood to make enchanted clothes and accessories. There are as many ways to use bloodline magic as there are bloodline witch families/groups/factions that use said methods, but only a handful of them are shared with the general public or used to make enchanted items that even non-magical people can operate. The only thing commonly taught to everyone equally, no matter which circle they belong to, is the danger of doing what Micah does in that scene.

I found sorrow in a rough WIP of a song I’ve been trying to write for the world of Ryedenne where (most of) my novel WIP “A Place to Return” takes place – a folk song warning newly recruited mercenaries and would-be heroes not to fight victims of a certain rage-inducing curse:

Hear the Crows, bound in shackles, cry out

In their rage, Ryedenne's pain, Summer's sorrow.

Some try in cover of darkness to drive them out,

Yet such souls never live 'til the morrow.

If Saints are troubled by the troubles of Crows --

These cursed creatures they barely contain --

Then for mortals who'd call themselves heroes,

What hope of victory could ever remain?

The might of the Crow is the might of the sun

That burns with the rage of the Gods.

A fight with a curse is a fight seldom won

by these challengers facing slim odds.

Hear the Crows, bound in shackles, cry out

In their rage, Ryedenne's pain, Summer's sorrow.

There's Crows who from darkness try to crawl out,

Yet such souls never see light on the morrow.

I found breeze in my shelved novel WIP “Rebirth”, that I apparently last tried to revive in 2018:

I’ve never seen so many stars in my life. It’s dizzying, trying to keep track of where their light ends and the darkness of the night sky actually begins. The trees bend and sway slightly in the soft breeze. Have I seen any of these stars before? Is that even possible? I let myself slip away just a bit, searching for familiar constellations or any markers that might spark my memory somehow. Connect me back to the past.

“Seriously? You’re gonna lecture me over this, too? You’re not our goddamn leader, Mal!” Justin’s voice stabs through the night like a needle through fabric. I sigh. The air is so clear here. The air smells of moss and the campfire below.

“I never said I wanted to lead. I wanted you to listen to common sense. You can talk about right and wrong all you want, but the consequences won’t go away. We’ve still got a target on our heads, because none of you city kids could stop and fucking think before you acted!” the usual calm in Mal’s tone splinters into a hiss at the end, harsh and strained between her teeth. I close my eyes and breathe. The stars spin slowly behind my eyelids, blinking like they’re trying to tell me something. None of them look familiar at all.

I found fall in my Given oneshot fic “Present Tense”:

He taps the body of the guitar again, humming absently as he does. He's not even sure if he's matching the music in his ears. It seems removed from that. From anyone else's songs. From any of his own songs he's already sung. The sound melts into the warm afternoon sunlight, and he gently lets himself fall over onto the cool surface of the stairwell. It's a good spot for a nap. Maybe if he sleeps, he won't think so loud. So much. About things he can't understand or figure out on his own. The last thing he sees as he drifts off to sleep is the set of double doors between the stairwell and the gym. Uenoyama-kun will probably be coming through those doors soon. Sleepily, he wonders if this will count as seeing something from a new angle, or if it cancels out because he's napped here before.

I found justice in my Danny Phantom oneshot fic “Lingering Scars”:

Maybe he's not all that violent in his soul, as a person, if a kid this kind was cloned from him. She's the hero side of him, at least when it comes to personal values. Her priorities are crystal clear. Protect others, stay safe, and don't do harm. The things he likes to think he values, too. The things it takes to be a hero of justice. She doesn't see herself as someone capable of killing, and he's relieved to hear her put that into words. She doesn't see him as someone who could kill, either. It would be natural to assume that he's seen ghosts die this way firsthand, that he's possibly even been the person to make it happen himself. His little sister doesn't even consider that his knowledge or experience comes from destroying the cores of his enemies. Not even for a second. She believes in him, and it hurts in a way that digs ice into the sides of his neck.

I found hug in “Present Tense” again:

"The only way I could stop being hollow is if I stopped being myself. If I was left in silence. I told you. I'm a keeper of memories. I'm the place where temporary things are given a chance at permanence, but I can't keep things that aren't given to me. I can't hold on to things if they're never put into my hands in the first place. I can take as many things as you give me, Mafuyu. Don't think that I won't try. I can hold every moment you ever want to be able to revisit, or hide from, or see from a different angle. I want you to trust me," they pull Mafuyu into a hug this time, gripping him as if reuniting with a long lost friend, and he can't help but to idly wonder if the time in their hands is falling out now -- dripping down his back, maybe, blue and silver and red and white in turns.

This got a little long, even by my usual standards, but I found almost all of the words I was given this time. As much as I enjoy writing fun facts, it’s satisfying when I actually find the words like the game intends. I’m looking forward to the next time I’m tagged again!

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