#microprompt

"She fucking killed me!"

She was back on the operations deck, plugged into the interface. Of course there was nothing on the other end of the connection as the drone had more or less been slagged.

"She?" her tech asked.

She makes a face. A whole lot of emotions playing out at once.

"It’s... complicated," she said finally.

The tech rolled their eyes. Of course it was complicated. This little development was barely a drop in the whole bucket of complicated that was this situation.

"You need to send me back out!"

🗣️ Pronunciation

nerv-ous /ˈnərvəs/ \nihr-vihss\

💭Feeling Family

😱Fear

📖Definition

adjective

Merriam-Webster’s: 

timid, apprehensive

easily excited or irritated; jumpy

of or relating to the nerves

tending to produce nervousness or agitation; uneasy

appearing or acting unsteady, erratic, or irregular → use of inanimate things

of, relating to, or composed of neurons

marked by strength of thought, feeling, or style; spirited

(archaic) sinewy, strong

Oxford Languages:

easily agitated or alarmed; tending to be anxious or high-strung

anxious or apprehensive

(of a feeling or reaction) resulting from anxiety or anticipation.

Relating to or affecting the nerves.

Cambridge:

worried or anxious

relating to the nerves

[intermediate english] worried or slightly frightened; relating to or controlled by the nervous system in the body

📐Semantic Drift

Merriam-Webster’s:

[archaic] sinewy, strong

Oxford English Dictionary:

†Of the sinew

[a1400-75] affecting sinews or tendons

[a1400-1747] full of sinews

[1483-1834] prominent sinews

[1601-1763] of the nature of sinew; tough, strong

[1616-1844] of a person: strong, muscular, energetic

[1616-1870] of possession of sinew; corporeal, physical

[1638-1735] of a bow: strung with sinew

[1663-1896] of prose: powerful, forceful

[1775-1987] applied to speakers and writers (rare)

Senses relating to nerves

[a1400-] full of nervous, innervated (rare)

[a1425-] affecting the nervous or nervous system

[c1475-] relating to nerve tissue

[1718-] of a medicine: alleviating nerve disorders (rare)

[1740-] of temperament: excitable, anxious, timid

†[1775-1846] stimulating to the nerves

[1804-] involving the nerves of the mind

[1827-] of feelings: resulting from or accompanied by mental agitation

[1844-] of physical appearance: manifesting or betraying; trembling, restless

[1848-] of animals: easily agitated, wary

[1933-] stock market: invested cautiously

†In botanical use

[1688-1776] botany = nervose

⬜Experience

NERVOUS is most often framed as a physiological reaction or a behavior descriptor. She’s a nervous speaker; he gets nervous before tests. It’s treated as adjacent to anxiety, a sign of weakness, or a lack of self-control.

But NERVOUS can be experienced as an emotion. It’s transient, anticipatory, and relational, arising in moments of vulnerability and emotional risk. It’s our way of preparing for the impact of rejection, revelation, or even something as simple as recognition.

While it does live in the fear family, unlike fear, which is a response to imminent danger, NERVOUS is a signal flare of possibility. It’s felt in the little flutter before truthtelling, or the pause before a confession. It’s capable of coexisting with emotions that may be considered contradictory, such as hope or desire, particularly when the stakes are high or deeply significant.

As an emotion, it’s not inherently negative. Instead, it should be your sign that whatever is happening around you is important. It will lead to a moment of choice, in which courage, attunement, or emotional investment is necessary. Internally, the body signals: This matters; I care.

With this in mind, NERVOUS, as an emotion, is complex and misunderstood, requiring emotional literacy to recognize it amongst the litany of similar emotions and states, and to discern the meaning beneath the discomfort.

🫀Biofeedback

Shallow breath

Tension in the throat

Elevated heart rate

Cool extremities

Restless movements

Frequently scanning the environment, jumpy

🛠️Facta Non Verba

Body Language:

Gestures: movements that are clipped or jerky, pacing, fingers tugging at sleeves or rubbing the back of the neck, fidgeting

Posture: rounded or slouched shoulders, weight shifting, arms held close to the body or crossed over the chest

Expression:

Eyes: rapid blinking, narrowed eyes, fleeting eye contact

Mouth: biting at lips/cheek, lips pressed, jaw tense or flexing

Brow: furrowed or lifted unevenly, twitches,

Dialogue Tags:

Admitted: reluctantly honest and exposed

Blurted: words spilling forth

Murmured: uncertain and hushed

Stammered: raw and staggered

Whispered: cautious explanation

📃Microprompts

These prompts are to help get the juices flowing, now that you are armed with a definition, experience, biofeedback, and nonverbal cues. You are free and welcome to share them with us—but there is never any pressure to do so.

✒️Writer

Someone rehearses a confession in their head for days. Finally, when they get the moment to follow through, their voice trembles as the words spill out all wrong, while they forget half of what they meant to say.

🎨Artist

A single figure stands in front of a closed door. In one hand, they have something small, such as a letter or a gift. They’re tense, and their hand is raised to knock, but they never get the courage.

📓Journal

Has there ever been a moment when you were nervous, not out of fear, but because something mattered deeply? What was at stake? What did you notice in your body? What did it protect you from—and what did it cost?

TTPD microprompt: summer romance

Ship: wolfstar (Sirius x Remus)

He was too old for this, surely.

The melodramatic residence he’d taken up at the window; the longing glances through the glass as if he was a war widow waiting for a sweetheart that would never come home.

Twenty-nine was at least nine rotations around the sun too many, and yet, spring succumbed to summer as it did every year and Sirius’s focus once more surrendered along with it.

Time punished him, promising a fix that it couldn’t deliver. He dissociated from real life, going through the motions so convincingly no one noticed his annual soul-death; that, or no one cared enough to pay attention.

He was immune to the infectious conversation that trickled across the pub, about the newest bingeable television show everyone was watching or that viral meme forcing its way into every group text chain. He seemed to be the only one who found his coworker’s objectively hilarious retellings about the disastrous meeting of his parents and in-laws tiredly predictable, and even routine, polite small talk with the postman drained him of energy.

Sirius regularly found himself nodding along and smiling small and making his excuses to leave before his preoccupation was exposed, which inevitably left him entirely too alone too often.

It meant he was a prisoner in his own mind, forced to watch the warmest days of the year pass by from behind bars; forced to compare them to the tangible memories that kept him from escaping his hold whenever an opportunity presented itself; forced to straighten the curl of his lips when a faint voice no one else could hear called to him, his truest company.

Every sunrise lacked that particular burning glow that crept over his skin on those legendary nights, the ones that stole his breath and left grains of sand in his hair as dusk gave way to dawn.

The air was too polluted or clear or floral wherever he was, lacking the brine and salt that would cling to his fingers and tongue, that expanded his lungs and made him sleep-soft even when he’d never felt more awake; when he’d never felt more alive.

Boats were event locations and possessions to be toured, paraded, and sold. They were polished and staffed, the cost of purchase and maintenance always supplied in the first breath of arrogance. They were never sailed for the feel of flying; they were never touched reverently, or gazed at with pride, or repaired with painstaking care, the kind that only came from blood and sweat and the last dollar in your pocket that could’ve gone towards food but was allocated for a bottle of Collonite instead.

Thunderstorms were mild and subdued, uninterested in his little circle of existence, unimpressed with the landscape it had to work with. Where were the waves, it asked, the ones that reached for the skies and tumbled down in a huff; where were the gusts of wind that clamoured for my attention and the miles of open water that mirrored my reflection and the frantic red flags waving on the shore and the lighthouses fighting against me and you, where are you, why are you here?

He wondered the same. He always did, this time of year.

Microprompt 15: “Trembling Hands”

Pairing: Sharky Boshaw/Ramona Belmont

Word Count: 800

Warnings: Cursing, implied smut

A/N: I’m counting this as Day 9 of Ramona’s Birthday event.

All that came out from Ramona was a shallow gasp as she brought back into the waking world in a cold sweat. As she gathered her senses, Ramona found that it was night and she was in a bed tucked under a snoring Sharky's arm. The bed of course belonged to an unknown owner of an abandoned house Sharky had suggested they crash in for the night. They were currently in the Whitetail Mountains.

As Ramona sat up, while not disturbing Sharky, she tried to recall her nightmare. She remembered running, jaws snapping, fog, blood, and being alone. That was all she could make sense of.

microprompt 5: hide

words: 489 (I swear that I’m actually trying to do the 3-10 sentence quota. I just don’t know when to shut up.)

requested by: @archetypesinthefog

This is inspired by Charlie’s original ending of actually coming to her senses/not going off the deep end. Also, gave a little sneak peek at another one of my chosen ocs here.

From: Reylomicrofic Hub (@reylomicrofics)

---

Maybe she'd thought that since he’d lived most of his life in space, he’d flounder here among the trees and the damp and the wilderness. Clearly, she hadn’t given Hux enough credit.

 Looking around the little cabin, with its stone hearth and kettle perched above it on a little hook, the fur skins hanging along the far wall, to the little bed made up with its neat, military corners-- exile hadn’t broken Hux. No, he was thriving. 

A low, rough voice gruffed behind her, “Are you just going to stand there gawking, or are you going to go inside?” 

Rose gave a start, taking a step over the threshold, the scent of cedar and dried herbs filling her nose.

“Tea?” Hux said, dropping the basket of vegetables onto the small table. 

“Oh, yes please,” Rose breathed, turning around in a slow circle to take in every little bit of the homely space. H

ux fiddled with the kettle as she walked over to the makeshift bedside table- an upturned crate he must have received during a supply drop- and the leather-bound journal on top. It had been so long since she’d seen real flimsy...

She wondered what secrets it held. 

Her hand jerked back at Hux’s voice. “If you’re going to snoop, perhaps you should wait until I’m gone."

“Sorry,” she said quickly, clasping her hands behind her back. “It’s beautiful here. You’ve done really well." 

“The wonders  one can accomplish by oneself,” he muttered, perhaps a bit bitterly “when one finally has time.” 

And he would have time, Rose knew. Years of it. Decades, probably. 

 Until the New Alliance either expunged his punishment or forgot about him entirely. 

At this point, he thinks he could walk through Yongen blindfolded. Fifty paces from the cafe door to the alleyway shortcut to Shibuya Station, thirty-five and change to round the corner and end up on Sojiro’s doorstep. Fifteen to the bathhouse, twelve to the laundromat. Three inside the laundromat, slow paces like a caged animal while his clothing bakes down.

The streets don’t change with the seasons. Everything else besides the buildings shifts, born anew, people coming and going, stock switching out, flowers blooming and fading as the days and nights pass. It’s a welcome piece of stability, when he steps off the subway so tired he can barely keep his eyes open.