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August Writing Prompts 2022
August is here! Hope you're all finding ways to beat that summer heat, it's a doozy this year. Get in those beach trips while you can! And As always--
Disclaimer: I never close old writing prompts from previous months. People can and should be encouraged to post on old month's prompts and I highly encourage players to track these posts to catch stragglers or new people writing on old prompts.
Now. With that out of the way, onto this month's prompts.
1. A summer nap under a tree.
2. "I don't think I've ever felt better!"
3. Keeping busy is better than being bored.
4. Seeking an expert opinion.
5. "I thought I was fine, but it turns out I've been agressively lying to myself in trying to outrun my problems."
Bonus image prompt:
no subject
no subject
no subject
(And I love your icon!)
4. Seeking an Expert Opinion
“Something on your mind? You’re not nearly as cheerful as you usually are.”
Minoru carefully put the lid back on one of the enclosures.
“I guess I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.” He shrugged, glancing down at a fire morph. Its golden tones were especially satiny and its rich dark patterns seemed especially captivating all of a sudden.
His uncle cracked a smile. “Don’t worry. I promise I won’t tell anybody you started taking online classes. You KNOW your secret’s safe with me.”
Minoru snickered back. The laughter tapered off nervously.
“It’s not that… it’s just…”
Sasuke waited patiently for his nephew to gather his thoughts. A curious butter morph, much like the one Minoru had back home, climbed up his arm.
“I invited Ziggy to have dinner with the whole extended family.” He continued. “I guess, well, it’s the first time I’ve ever done that and I just want it to go well.”
Minoru didn’t have much experience with bringing dates home. Unlike Isamu, who introduced dozens of girls (and the occasional boy) to his parents over the years, Ziggy was Minoru’s first and only relationship to date. Sasuke knew that, and he knew how strange this kind of anxiety must feel to someone who never had to think about it before.
“Of course you do.” He nodded, gently guiding the snake toward his other arm.
“Mama and Papa have met him before.” Minoru clarified. “I think they were a little confused at first, but they like him. They’re definitely friends with the Jones family. They couldn’t wait to see Tom and Aletayria when we all got to Vegas.”
Sasuke nodded.
“But you know Grandma Mikoto. She’s really… well…” In lieu of the right word, he summed it up by adding, “She likes things a certain way.”
Minoru still had to wrap up his left wrist to hide his tattoo, he often had to choke down at least a few spoonfuls of her famous tonkatsu ramen despite being a vegetarian, and he always got compared to his brother when it came to academic achievements.
“Oh, believe me, I know.” Sasuke nodded. Mikoto was his mother, after all. and that made him quite the expert. Mikoto had always been a fiercely stern, traditional woman. And he’d lived a lifetime being compared to Itaru’s academic achievements. “Your father moved all the way to America for some peace and quiet, leaving me to pick up the slack! But then YOU came along, so…”
He ruffled Minoru’s hair, in an attempt to make his nephew laugh. It worked, but only for a moment.
“I know Ziggy is… different.”
There was so much hidden in that one word: His confident, boisterous personality. His empathic powers. The mismatch between the gender of his preferred pronouns to his preferred titles. The peculiarities of his half-Anthean biology. His lifestyle as a rock star, not to mention being from a different world entirely. All these things and more, which Minoru couldn’t actually reveal. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.
“If it makes you feel any better, I was pretty nervous about bringing Hanako over to dinner the first time too.”
Minoru’s head shot up, “You were?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Before Minoru could ask why, the door to the breeding room slid open with a resounding clack. In marched Aunt Hanako. Every step she took was confidently unapologetic, even though they were large enough to pull her yukata partially open. She was tall and thin, both powerful and dainty at the same time. Her hair was normally black, but she’d dyed it bright orange in the beginning of the summer. Pulled back in a loose bun, the roots were definitely starting to show, but that didn’t bother her either. Her hands came to rest solidly on her hips as she looked them both over.
“If you boys don’t start getting your butts in gear, we’re going to be late.”
“All right, all right.” Laughing, Sasuke gave a nod to his wife, easing the ball python back into a freshly cleaned enclosure. “Like I was saying, I was nervous at first too. But then I remembered, I love Hanako because of all the things that make her who she is. If Mom doesn’t like it, then that’s her problem.”
Hanako’s expression immediately softened as she laughed. “And not her only one.”
She walked up to her husband and pecked him gently on the cheek before turning to her nephew and poking him gently on the forehead.
“Well, I, for one, cannot wait to meet your koibito.” She smiled. “But first, I could use a hand wrangling your cousins. You know how Yume and Mirai are.”
Minoru smiled. “Sure thing, Aunt Hanako!”
5. "I thought I was fine, but it turns out I've been agressively lying to myself in trying to outrun
I'm Gonna Crawl
Seeking an Expert Opinion (Ziggyverse AU)
This wasn’t even a treatment session. It was merely a consultation, and yet, the young man was pale as a ghost and struggling to breathe through the beginnings of a panic attack. Jay gripped his hand tighter.
“Nothing’s going to happen. No one’s going to give you anything today, even if you wanted them to…” he insisted. “They’re just going to talk. Maybe take some blood to run genetic testing on.”
“I know… I know…” he gasped between empty breaths. He turned in the wheelchair, eyes squeezed shut to keep the tears from coming out. “I just… I can’t do it again, I can’t live like that… I…”
“Dee, sweetheart, it’s okay…” Jay whispered soothingly, gently wiping the fresh tears off his fiancé’s cheek. “Deep breaths. In… out…”
Dee had been a bundle of nerves for days, ever since he agreed to learn more about this new treatment. With everything that had happened to him, Jay was still astonished they’d made it this far. He honestly expected to be shut down before he had the chance to even finish the thought. But for the first time in his adult life, Dee was at least open to the possibility of maybe restarting some kind of treatment for his condition. Or at least seek an opinion. Jay wasn’t entirely sure what was going on inside his fiancé’s head - and a part of him was actually scared to ask - but he knew something had changed.
Maybe Dee had reached his limit.
The singer been getting steadily worse the entire time they’d known each other. But it was only in the last few months that Dee really started to struggle with day-to-day tasks. Just walking around their townhouse was a challenge. A trip to the market or even just the parking lot outside the market was like running a marathon. His legs had given out enough times that Jay finally went out and bought a wheelchair. Dee was reluctant at first. The fact that it wasn’t motorized probably helped. It gave the illusion that this was a temporary mobility aid, much like the plastic handicapped placard now hanging from Jay’s rearview mirror.
Or maybe, he was looking to buy some more time.
They’d recorded a demo, but so far, they hadn’t had much luck selling the Prophet to any labels. Breaking into the music business was a hard sell. Despite his obvious skill and infectious enthusiasm, nobody wanted to invest in an act that might not even be able to perform in a year or two. Finding a permanent band was just as hard, and for the same reason. Nobody wanted to back a crippled lead.
And, of course, there was their upcoming wedding, which was actually the reason Jay didn’t want to ask. Taking a vow of ‘until death do you part’ took on entirely new meaning when it was awkwardly imminent. While the thought of losing Dee was always in the back of his mind, the last thing he wanted was to make Dee feel, even the slightest bit, that he needed to start any kind of horrific treatment for his sake.
“No matter what they say… No matter what you decide to do - even if it’s absolutely nothing - I’ll still be right here by your side, okay?” He lifted Dee’s chin, and stared straight into those beautiful blue eyes. “I promise.”
Dee nodded, shakily, trying to breathe.
“I promise.” He repeated.
“…I love you.”
Dee squeaked as they called his name. Jay acknowledged the nurse, but as far as he was concerned, they could hold the door open for a minute longer. He hesitated, just holding his fiancé’s hand for a moment, making sure the other man felt as safe and secure as he possibly could.
“No matter what, we’re in this together, okay?” He whispered, pulling that hand to his lips and kissing it gently.
“Okay…”
The consultation that followed went both better and worse than either of them had expected.
The doctor, to his credit, reasoned that whatever regimen of anabolic and chemotherapy agents thrust upon Dee at the onset of his illness must have been unfathomably debilitating for it to trigger a PTSD-like episode right in his office. This kind of shell shock should be reserved for soldiers, not sick civilians. An old soldier himself, he couldn’t bring himself to criticize Dee for refusing treatment for so long after that.
But he also couldn’t afford to sugar coat the reality of where Dee was now. At 23, his muscles had deteriorated to the point that it wouldn’t be long until the rest of his body followed suit. His bones were starting to show signs of osteoporosis. His heart was getting weaker. He was dangerously underweight. The original prognosis he was given as a teenager was disturbingly accurate. By 25, he would definitely be bedridden, assuming he wasn’t already dead.
Dee was looking at a point of no return.
Fortunately, medicine had advanced quite a bit since he was first diagnosed. A whole new class of drugs brought to market within the last year had shown remarkable progress in slowing down, if not outright reversing, the debilitating effects of zero gravity on human muscles and bones. This wasn’t exactly the same, but it had already been used in clinical trials to treat several forms of muscular dystrophy, with very promising results. And rather than a daily onslaught of pills or injections, it was only given once a month, as an infusion.
“…But at what cost?” Dee gulped. As he said those words, he reached out anxiously for his partner’s hand. Everyone in the room knew he wasn’t talking about money. “…h..how bad is it? I… I can’t… I won’t do that again…
“Compared to high-dose steroids and chemotherapy agents, it’s like night and day.” The doctor reached out, sympathetically putting his hand on top of both of theirs. Dee looked up, eyes wide. “Even compared to the generation of biologics used just a few years ago, adverse effects are mild and short-lived. A headache from the increase in fluids is common. About ten percent of people in the trial experienced nausea or fatigue on the day of the infusion. Sometimes on the day after. But overall, the treatment is overwhelmingly well tolerated.”
The new drugs had a much wider therapeutic index. They weren’t nearly as immunosuppressive as older ones, so the risk of severe, life-threatening infections and opportunistic cancers was also drastically lower. Because they could be tailor made to someone’s genetic profile, the risk of allergic reactions was essentially zero.
“If this is something you’d like to consider, we need to run a few more tests to establish a good baseline. We’ll draw some blood today, send it off to the World Enterprises’ lab to get a customized formula made just for you…”
“And if you’re wrong? If I try it, and it IS bad… I… I could still stop, right?” Dee nervously looked between the doctor and his fiancé. “…You’d let me stop?”
Jay squeezed his hand gently. It broke his heart to hear Dee’s voice break like that. It seemed to break the doctor’s heart as well. Anyone else in Dee’s condition would be desperate for a miracle cure. Instead, the young man had been traumatized to the point of being firmly fixated on whether the treatment would still be worse than the disease - not as it was when he was diagnosed at 16 but as he was literally wasting away to nothing. That spoke volumes.
Jay pulled him close. “Of course. You can always stop. No one will ever take that decision away from you ever again.”
“Barring anything sudden or severe, I would recommend you stay the course for at least three months.” The doctor suggested as gently as possible. “We should be able to know by then how well you’re responding to the treatment. But we can… take it month by month after that… if that would help.”
“O..okay. I’ll try it.” When Dee finally consented, mountains could have moved. Jay held him, trying hard not to cry himself.
The doctor allowed the moment to breathe. He stayed respectfully quiet until his young patient finally started to relax, and his partner offered a relieved, yet reserved, smile from beside the chair.
“I’ll get a nurse in here to draw your blood and get you boys on your way. We should have the results from the labs in a couple of weeks, and once we have the formula, we’ll get you on the schedule for your first infusion.”
“O..okay…”
As the doctor left the room, Jay squeezed Dee’s hand again. “Do you want me to go with you when you have the infusion?”
“Please…” Dee begged.
“Then, I will.” He whispered. “I’ll be right by your side the whole time.”
“…I love you.”
“I love you too.”
4 - Seeking an expert opinion/consult
The chart said, "The Prophet" as though that was his real name. But, like Ziggy, he didn't look fully human. It wasn't just the build - the Dee he knew was as thin as an Anthean and was still human. It was his skin tone. It was far too pale for a human, and was tinged blue, like he was already dead. The chart also listed his age as "immortal."
"Oh! Well, hello Minoru. You're still here?" The head of the physical therapy department came up behind him. "I heard you're going to be starting your last practicum soon. Would you like to shadow an evaluation?"
"Oh, hey, Dr. Jess!" Minoru held back a yawn. "Sure. What's the injury?"
"The consult request didn't specify, but if you'll hand me his chart, we can get started."
Minoru's eyes widened. She was here for The Prophet! He stammered slightly as he handed her the clipboard he'd taken from the door. "...Here."
He watched her read the notes from intake, her brow furrowed. This was an unusual case - profound muscle atrophy with no obvious injuries, neurological damage or pathological co-morbidities. The cause listed was 'magic/curse,' which didn't exactly say much. Patients coming from worlds with magic were usually difficult to diagnose across the board, and often even more difficult to treat.
She knocked softly on the open door. The Prophet opened his eyes, glancing at her without really moving his head. Like Dee, his eyes were blue, but they were far brighter and more saturated than human irises should be.
"Good morning, Prophet." She introduced herself. "I'm Dr. Jess Martin, head of physical therapy. And I have with me Minoru Uchiwa, one of our students. May we come in?"
"...You may." He answered softly, but politely, correcting her on his name. "I am known as The Prophet."
"My apologies. The Prophet."
His voice was almost a perfect match for Dee's, minus the overly-anxious tone he expected to hear in a hospital setting. This version, at least, didn't seem to be deathly afraid of doctors. He didn't even flinch when she pulled up a stool and sat down.
"The team that saw you last night asked me to perform a more thorough evaluation of your physical abilities. Would that be all right?" She asked, flipping the page over and pulling out her own pen. "What seems to be giving you the most trouble? And can you tell me when it began?"
The Prophet let out a long sigh. He spoke with solemn resolve. "...I don't have the strength to move on my own anymore."
Minoru felt his heart drop at those words. That was the end-state to Dee's condition too, if it was left untreated. Gloria said if he'd waited another year before finally accepting treatment, it might have been too late to do anything at all.
"It started... when I first put on the bracers and the pendant..." he explained, referencing the magical curse that was listed on his chart. "It was slow at first, but it soon became harder and harder to keep up with the rest of the tribe. We mitigated the damage as long as we could with the Blackbird's elixir... but even th..that vile mixture... It wasn't enough... in the end."
When his voice quivered, Minoru gulped. That was so close to Dee's inflections, it was terrifying. Even more terrifying, it sounded like The Prophet had endured his world's version of the awful treatment Dee ran away from, and in the end, it didn't even help! He was still bedridden!
"You measure time in years in your world, yes? How old are you now?"
"I'm twenty-four."
Bedridden before the age of twenty-five! That was Dee's initial prognosis!
"I... I lost the last of my strength... during the last Blackest Night. A couple of weeks ago." He gulped. "But we were still able to do the Revival Ritual. Return to The Blackbird what belonged to The Blackbird... and I..I became immortal..."
"You just became immortal... in the last two weeks?"
"Yes... just a few days ago." He gulped again. He was still reeling from exhaustion that should have killed him, but didn't.
The fear Minoru often associated Dee had surfaced, and he felt an immediate pang of sympathy. The prospect of being completely bedridden for the rest of eternity was legitimately terrifying.
Dr. Jess continued, "Knowing what you know of this magic, do you believe your affliction can be treated?"
"I don't know... No one knows... no one has ever worn the armor as long as I did... But it is gone now. So... so if it can... Can you do that? Can you help me?"
Minoru stepped around to the other side of the bed, cupping his hand around The Prophet's and giving it a gentle squeeze. To his surprise, The Prophet weakly squeezed back. He couldn't lift his head, but he could still move his fingers slightly.
"Do you have any goals? Of what you would like to do?"
Minoru reached up to wipe a tear from The Prophet's cheek as he tried to answer. "...I would love to..to stand... without support. To sing and dance around the fire again... to play the kontra..."
Dr. Jess noted all of this down. The fact that he had goals to work toward was important in and of itself.
"But first, The Blackbird is loose in my world, leaving destruction in its path. The Mystic is fighting from within it... but I don't know how long he can hold on. I need to help, but I... I can't..."
Minoru rubbed the back of The Prophet's hand gently. The Mystic was Jay's stage name. And he wouldn't be surprised if this version of Dee was in love with his world's version of Jay either. Some things, a Loki once told him, had a tendency to repeat themselves across dimensions.
"Well, with the magical items causing the curse gone, it is possible that, over time, your condition could improve. However, it may take many years of therapy to be able to reach a goal like dancing. Or fighting anything for that matter."
"I don't have years to..."
"The Nexus often brings people to it for a reason." She interrupted. "Perhaps that reason, for you, was a safe place to recover."
The Prophet paused, considering those words carefully.
"...Do you really think so?"
Dr. Jess nodded.
"I'll start with a physical exam to see where we're at right now. Then we'll develop a plan." She explained gently. "I don't know how long you'll be staying in the Nexus, as long as you're here, we have a team of physical therapist assistants who can work with you. Minoru here may be joining them in about a semester. So he may be working with you too."
"...All right."
This was definitely going to be a long-term plan. One that may or may not come to fruition, honestly.
Minoru gave The Prophet's hand one last squeeze before he stepped back.
The initial exam didn't exactly paint a rosy picture. This version of Dee could wriggle his toes, flex his fingers, even turn his wrists slightly. But that was it. He couldn't lift his arms, legs, or even his head. He couldn't sit up or turn on his own. He was so frail, with the most severe muscle atrophy Minoru had ever witnessed. The Prophet did have enough magical stamina to move an object with his mind, including his own body, three times a day for about ten minutes each time. That was downright wild to someone who came from a world without magic, but it wasn't going to help him strengthen any physical muscles.
By the time they left the room, Minoru was solemnly contemplative. To think that even with treatment, the Dee he knew could have ended up in this position, was a sobering thought. He'd gone over Dee's plan of care with Gloria many times. The primary goal there was simply to maintain what muscle function he still had. The exercises were geared to increase stamina and endurance. Any improvements in strength were going to be minor at best. Granted, Dee's condition wasn't curable, only manageable. This version may have technically found his cure. But did it come too late?
"...Dr. Jess? Do you think you'll be able to design a plan of care for The Prophet?" He asked, hesitantly.
"Oh, of course." She smiled at the student walking beside her. "I believe you covered some of the recommended therapies for bedridden patients in your earlier classes. Do you remember how to assist with passive movement exercises?"
"Oh! Yeah!" Minoru nodded. "I do!"
"Those will be critical for someone in his condition. And possibly some light Isometric exercises as well." She continued. "Do you remember how often that sort of therapy is typically given?"
Miinoru thought back to he lectures he listened to. "Uh, like two or three times a day? But only five or ten minutes at a time at first. It depends on patient vitals, how fatigued they get."
"Very good." She nodded. "And he'll require regular repositioning as well."
"Every two to three hours." Minoru knew that part simply from working as an orderly.
"Yes." She nodded again. "Fortunately, from speaking with him, it's clear he has the desire to improve, and he believes improvement is actually possible. Those are important things to listen for, and they play a significant role in patient outcomes."
"So, it's up to us to help direct that desire." Minoru added.
"Exactly."
Minoru left the hospital with his PINpoint in hand. At least to the degree he could, considering patient confidentiality, Tom should probably know about this...