#I probably shouldn't have put out this prompt while I had COVID

[fires-of-ninjago]

Lloyd and age?

Well...this is extremely late, but at least it's finally finished! 😅

Name: Downpour Words: 600 Ships: Greenflower Shipping Warnings: None

“Ugh, rain. Why did we have to run out of gas just as it started to rain?” Lloyd asked as he slid the front door open. 

“At least you didn’t lose a shoe to a pothole!” Brad replied as he pulled off his one, remaining shoe.

“Haha, yeah, at least we know where we parked,” Lloyd quipped. Brad shot him a dirty look as he dumped the water out from his remaining shoe, while Lloyd pulled off his boots to dry.

“Considering that we ran out of gas, I’m surprised we actually made it off of the highway.” Brad replied while he went searching through the closet that was by the door for something that he could use to dry himself off with.

“It’s all in the coasting,” Lloyd chuckled, as he shook himself off from the rain. “HEY!” Brad shouted as he tried to shield himself.

“Haha, don’t worry, it’s just a little bit of water!”

“Speak for yourself;” Brad replied. “Just because your sister is the master of water, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us are used to constantly being wet!” Lloyd laughed as he pulled off his hoodie and hung it by the radiator.

“Nya hates being wet as much as Kai does. And even she would just use an umbrella!” Brad snickered as he peeled his jacket off of himself.

“Heh! I can just see her being as grumpy as you were when that squall washed over us at the bottom of the stairs.” Lloyd rolled his eyes as he grabbed the handle of the door that led to the main living area of the monastery. 

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it!” He slid the door open as he spoke, revealing the darkened room on the other side. Brad grinned as he watched him step across the threshold, and the lights suddenly came up.

“SURPRISE!” Everyone shouted as the lights shone at full blast. Lloyd took a step back in shock as he realized what was going on. He turned to Brad, as his boyfriend grabbed his hand; grinning like a mad imp.

“Happy birthday Lloyd,” he said. 

“Zane made you a giant cupcake-cake!” Cole said, as he stepped aside to reveal a large mass of cupcakes arranged in the shape of a tiered cake, and covered in a swirl of white, orange and brown icing.

“Wow guys, this is awesome!” He said as the scent of fruit, fresh sponge cake and pure sugar hit both his and Brad's noses.

“Go ahead and blow out the candles!” Jay said as he pulled him closer to the table. It wasn’t until he got up and close that he realized that the only two candles that were there read the age of sixteen.

“Uhh…what are these candles?” He asked. Nya laughed as she pulled up next to him.

“Well, it took a long while to figure it out…and we had to do a TON of digging to figure it out-”

“-But once we had enough information, Zane and I were able to calculate a near approximation of your real age based off of roughly 57,000 data points.” He blinked at the Nindroid pair as he tried to process what they’d just told him. After all of this time; all of the time travel and trips to realms where the laws of time where convoluted, or dreamed up by the mind of a mad man…this was the age he was supposed to be.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Kai started as he threw his arm over Lloyd’s shoulder; “Make a wish Green Bean!”

[two-reflections]

Been ill for the past week. Still not doing great now. (More info below.) But whatever, I'm back, though I'd be surprised if anyone noticed I wasn't around thanks to my queue. 😅

Haven't written anything for MMM because I haven't been awake for long enough each day to do much writing aside from bits for the upcoming exchange. I suppose I'm awake enough now to do a quick story audit, though. Click the Read More to see what I'm working on, and how I'm doing.

Writing Audit:

Aside from the first, these are vaguely in order of completeness/when they're likely to be posted.

TOP PRIORITY - Fic for the summer exchange. I have been doing some reading, and have put together an outline. I'm excited about this one, I really hope my giftee will like it. The problem? If I stick to this outline, the story will be several chapters long, and I'm probably not well enough to write all of it before the deadline. I wonder if it's acceptable to only put up a chapter or two of a gift exchange fic and finish it over the next few months?

Of Steel and Flesh - The next chapter was largely written back in January after the game that inspired this story, but as a consequence, it feels a bit too much like a TTRPG summary... It needs to be fleshed out more. Also, should it be split into two chapters? Unfortunately, while I love this story, it probably takes me the most effort to write, so it has been hard to work on recently. (Update the next day - Put out a chapter of this! Took me weeks to get it together.)

Alpha Legion short - I have a Alpha Legion short I threw together for an MMM post a while ago but I didn't post it because it was more silly than hot. My concern with this one is that I could easily see it becoming something much longer, like Iron Will, Crimson Whispers did. I don't have the space for another long project now, so I've been ignoring this one for a while. But I like it, and it shouldn't take too long to edit it...

Even in Death - The final chapter is basically complete, I just need to decide if I'm moving one section earlier so all the flashbacks will be in chronological order or if I should leave it as it is so there is a happier flashback following a sadder one. Once that's done, I can edit and post it.

Vulkan x Roboute short - Started outlining something for a friend. The pairing is cute and I want to make her something nice involving her OTP. This one will take me some research, though, so it probably won't be ready until after July. (Update - I guess I have to put on my clown makeup now, because I was reading The Art of War for unrelated reasons and ended up YOLOing this one.)

July MMM - One of the discord servers I'm in has been very keen on MMM recently. We're choosing a couple of prompts each month. Problem is, I recently wrote two stories that were a bit similar to July's prompts ("It's raining outside" is a thing in Feel for It, "knives and blood" was a thing in Afterparty). I've got something ready for it, though. Just need to wait til next Monday to post it.

Techmarine Story - This one is still in EARLY days. It doesn't even have a complete outline, just like 7-8k words in disconnected sections. I think I may need to severely narrow the scope of this one and make it either a oneshot or 3-6 short chapters. But I can't think about it anytime soon now I've signed up to a fic exchange.

Salamander Slice-of-Life Romance - My comfort project. It's coming along bit by bit, I probably add about 1k words to it a month. Still, I'm not in any sort of hurry to finish it. This is the one I really don't think anyone but me will ever want, haha. It's literally just an Astartes' first year or two on the job in a reserve company. Lots of mundanity, city life, squad dynamics, smaller deployments, and a romance with his brander-priest. I love it. It'll be ready when it's ready.

How I Am:

Warning, this is kind of a rant.

I miss being well. I was SO prolific just a month ago, before I got Covid again and had to go off my narcolepsy meds for an unrelated reason.

Even mild Covid sucks, but untreated narcolepsy is fucking shite. I've been on meds since I was 19, so I forgot how disabling it is. It felt less crushing before I was diagnosed, but at that point, that was the only way I had ever lived. Now, I've spent eleven years without the constant sleep attacks, and I can't remember how I used to manage this. (Probably badly since I ended up doing a full sleep study, lol.) It feels like I'm out of practice, if that makes sense? This whole thing has really thrown me for a loop.

Aside from writing, I haven't been painting much because I fall asleep when I sit still for more than a few minutes. Coffee helps, but I can only have one a day, so I'll drink my one coffee and then get a decent hour or two of painting at most before I'm back to being a bit useless. That may sound like a lot, but I'm a very slow painter. So, that's no fun.

I really don't want to just complain. My life is great, I'm very lucky to have a lovely spouse and not to be in a position where my narcolepsy could endanger my job or leave me homeless. I'm also lucky to be in the UK, where my diagnosis was free and I could actually afford eleven years of treatment without difficulty. But, fuck me, I want to be able to do normal human things again without falling asleep. This isn't forever, I'm off them for a good reason, but it may be a long time before I can go back on.

Ending on a happy note:

Hopefully, two friends and I will get to play Blood Bowl soon. She has played the digital version, he used to play but hasn't played for decades, and I've never played at all, so it should be a lot of fun. Plus, if there's three of us, whoever isn't playing can sub in for me if I fall asleep, haha.