~~Thoughts Of My Own~~
It's been a while since I've tackled any work on this website, seeing as I've mostly been doing some uni projects for my course, but I wanted to use this as a chance to write a self-insert to one of my characters for the other fanfic on here I've been wanting to come back to for ages now, Mudd's Journey, and see if I can give it a major re-write to make it a lot less cringeworthy and make it up to par as my older self. This story is set on one of the nights in the Guildmaster Magcargo Guild, something I desperately need to expand to make more sense. This story is rated Teen, just to help reflect some of my own personal thoughts through the perspective of myself and growing up with ASD. Hope you guys enjoy.
A long, winded sigh. A look up into the everchanging gleam of the night sky, stars beaming and glittering against a black backdrop, and noises of nocturnal Pokémon wishing each other well and going off to wherever they want to go next. These were the sights I was slowly becoming accustomed to, or at least that is what I am supposed to.
Sometimes I wonder why I'm here. Why am I in this situation, thrust into a world I don't know, hearing strange voices that sound like I'm hallucinating and a Pokémon that forces itself on me without even having a chance to explain myself and expecting to become my automatic best friend? I just don't get it. What's the point of it all?
I looked up through the building window, staring into the dark abyss outside of my "new home". Buildings made by Pokémon, nothing to do with what I was used to in my prior life, making up Cherish Town, the centre of exploration in this world of bliss, expertise and whatever seems to be thrown this place's way. A town of peace with a famous explorer's guild in the middle, or so at least what I could have gathered. Everything my partner, Bulbs, seemed to have ever dreamed of.
As for me? I've got nothing. Received nothing. Had nothing. Was summoned for... nothing.
I don't understand. Why a human like me? Why am I so important that I'm linked to the supposed "fate of the other world and save it" scenario? I'm no hero, and from what others expect from me, I still just don't understand. Why place faith in someone who sounds deranged and pathetically dull?
...
...
...
I never knew why the townsfolk here are so trusting of me anyway.
"There's something about that Froakie that's really unique... keep your eyes on him."
That's the thoughts of what many of the villagers, explorers and even the guild members think of me. Like I'm their chosen one, their saviour and I can magically just make their problems all go away. Heh, yeah right, like that was even a thing that could change overnight.
...
...
...
I had no one. No family, no friends and no one to even want to be with me. I'm an orphan, a sad, lonely freak with no parents and nobody to have reciprocated love. No hands to shake, no bodies to hug, no company to have so others can listen to my pleas in my hours of need. They all run on empty words, empty hollows, empty feelings. My mum died of an illness and my father abandoned me and ran, ran as far as he could away from even the prospect of wanting a child. I had my friend Fliss and her Donphan... but they couldn't even come close to burying the broken holes in my heart. I had barely anybody to seek happiness from and not even a single figure. Just cold, hard emptiness in a broken, buried plateau of my making.
Life was cruel and unfair. First it tears me away from the family I love back in the real world (not that I had any to begin with), but now expects me to be the person to live up to everybody else's expectations. It's as if everything has to be a success, the other Pokémon will be so proud of me, wanting to jump up and down at any available opportunity that they could find. The thought of them reveling in their happiness and I'm just left strewn into where you make a mistake and everyone shuns you.
Sometimes I contemplate to myself and ask... what if I ended it all right now?
I don't have any plans for the future, I don't want to go into situations that I can't pull out of and screw my decisions as I grow older, I especially don't want to just try and be happy for everybody else... I'm just a sad, pathetic wimp that doesn't even have enough courage to succeed.
I wandered closer to the window, slowly pacing backwards and forwards and becoming more fidgety, sighing as I know just being here was futile. Why bother making myself happy? It feels a lot easier to just succumb to the pressure than it does to resolve it. And then look at me! I'm a Froakie, with glasses and a bag fostered onto me and expected to just deal with it. Why did I change my appearance? Why am I a Pokémon? Why can't I seek any happiness, or was it just... a sad, sorry, insignificant dread that no matter how hard I try it just doesn't seem to go away, a parasite of my own making? You act like shit, you feel like shit, you just are shit.
Stars glimmering in the horizon would be enough to make any other person happy, but when I look up to the stars, I can only see my mum's face and a distorted face of what I presume would have been my dad. My mum would always talk about them, the cosmos and the many universes which can tie our lives together. It was a legend from the Sinnoh and Alola regions, the creation trio and the light trio, about the beginning of everything and the versions of everything. It was there, I think, I was maybe thrust into this world by pure dumb luck, just a consequence of the action of these legendaries as they look over humanity and Pokémon's coexistence together. Yet here I am, the anomaly of there actions and the outlier, a person trapped in a smaller body of the very 'mon I owned as a human.
...
...
...
I wonder how my Froakie is doing out there, having no trainer to be by his side and the only friend I could ever call my family after my mum's death and my coward father running away. I had no relatives, no other friends, not especially after I came home again and just ran and ran until my heart's desire, not looking back and wanting to forget everything. No one would remember the pathetic, lonely, wallowing little kid whining in the hallows of the now abandoned building, and he would just run and run until eventually an answer would befall me. But nothing came. My Froakie, my starter and the only one who really understood the widening abyss of my darkened heart, refused to even let go, didn't want to let me go away into sadness and despair for the greater good. I'm sure he would've wanted me to be happy...
...Happy.
It's that word again. The dreaded word I can't even be right now. No one around to understand me, all on my own, just expected to live up to everyone's expectations and put their own happiness above my own. I... I...
...
...
...
I felt something begin to well up in my eyes. A liquid only ironically the very thing I turned into would not be majorly affected by, but regardless to the form I was in right now, it was only something I had become only all too familiar.
"T-tears?"
My first words I uttered ran on empty words as the liquid and my head only grew more mentally heavier, a weight forced into the back of my mind and onto my shoulders as by just staring out of the window I began to weep openly. The tears kept falling, rushing down and meandering their rapid flow down the stream of my face, covered in the sadness I created, and it just didn't stop. It kept going and going, falling to see which one would be the winner of my downtrodden heart and the easy punching bag of society and life people could just easily exploit for their own benefit.
And yet, here I was feeling comfortable about it all. The fact that people didn't know what I was really like, how often I felt this way, the anxiety, the trauma, the emotions, the pain, the nervousness and the meltdowns, all of it all finally catching up to me like the straw that singlehandedly broke all of the Camerupts' backs.
I cried and cried, staring out at the void above the town, the white stars glistening more like spirits navigating the path of where they wanted to find themselves in life, thinking and cheering that they found their resolve and had purpose into living life to its fullest, taking each day as it comes rather than all than once together. And as for me? I envy them. Perhaps it wasn't just jealousy in my heart, but anger and disillusion I would be the person to change my own fate and succeed. Heh... what a fool I am. A worthless, sad excuse of a creature that doesn't even need to be acknowledged at all in my existence, let alone anybody else's.
It would have been better if I never even existed in the first place.
I told myself that and cried my endless tears, the lone hero becoming corrupted by his loneliness. A living cliché I am, catastrophising over the littlest of details, making the smallest things into big deals and rambling on and on and on about the same regurgitated points to the situation where no one would listen to be anymore and would want to be rid of my existence altogether. That would do everybody good, me running away and me shutting up. Yes, that would be the best. And if the other two can cope, than why bother anyway? It's not as if any of my actions right now even made a difference.
...
...
...
"Mudd, you... saved me. I can't thank you enough..."
"Mudd, you're my best friend, and I wouldn't change that for any other thing in the world. No matter what happens, no matter who stands in my way, your way, and our way... there's nothing we cannot accomplish. I don't care how the world perceives you, if you feel like an outcast, I'm that outcast with you too..."
"This is my caretaker, Ursaring, the only family I ever knew. He's been looking after me for so long I lost count a long time ago on what makes me unique as an individual."
"I'm Flare, a Scorbunny, and I had no one to turn to as well, or at least that was until I approached the guild here. Your name is Mudd huh? Nice to meet you too, and Bulbs... I think I'll get along just fine with you guys, that is if you can keep up with my reactions. Oops, stole your Oran Berries~ Can't catch meeeeeeee~"
"This..."
"is the beginning..."
"...OF OUR JOURNEY!"
"The House of Cosmos... why does that name sound so familiar to me...?"
"There's something familiar about you... and with your presence... you're special Mudd, never lose sight of what's important."
Those thoughts. Those speeches. Those Pokémon...
Why? Why do you guys care so much about me? What do I have to do with any of you guys? You don't even know me.
"Mudd... you're not the only one. I-I-I wouldn't know what I would do without you..."
What difference does it make? It's not like even forgetting about me would make much of a difference to you guys wanting to be around me anyway.
"If you weren't around Mudd, my life would have no purpose. You make my life whole Mudd, and I don't think us bumping into each other was by pure coincidence."
But then was it just dumb luck?
"...It wasn't dumb luck, it was fate Mudd. You look up at the sky and you see the stars, and during the day you see the blue sky and the clouds, flying Pokemon going to their homes and to the many faraway towns and Mystery Dungeons that make up our continent. We're in Cherish Town, the name means a reason Mudd."
What do you care? It wasn't "dumb luck"? It was fate? And yet I somehow get treated like a messiah, a god? I'm a human, not a hero. I'm a person that captures your kind in my world, puts you in a ball that you spend the rest of your life in, and if you don't have the company, you can die of a broken heart. You claim you were lonely, and yet you did have someone, you had Ursaring. I had nobody, except a starter like me that now has nobody. He's gone, and so am I. I'm a lost cause. If you cared, you would've left me already.
"...Mudd... you don't believe that. I-I never, ever, ever want to see you be lonely again. Your mind, your heart, I... can't imagine what it must have been like for you. To have ran away from home. To have no one by your side. No relatives, no family, even no friends except the 'mon I see in front of my right now that desperately wants to cling onto a form of reality that he so desperately wants to be thankful for. You saved me Mudd, in my time of need. I was bullied, beleaguered and pushed into depression. It never got to the point where ending it all would have been the better choice, and think why be happy in a world that I feel more obligated to survive in than force a happy smile and be appreciative of the life I've been given. You're like me Mudd, but there's one thing I can provide that I could at least give you as much as you need. A crying shoulder."
I looked up, and there I saw my reflection in the window drenched with my sadness. I cried and cried so hard that I forgot my face was becoming red with the pain that I had bottled up for so long. Looking to my side, thinking that it was just memories manipulating me in my head and making me pretend to be okay, I saw my other friend... the one I had woken up from my sadness.
Bulbs.
"Bulbs, I... It's not what it looks like..."
"Mudd, that wasn't just thoughts you were uttering in there, you were muttering them out of here," he remarked, looking incredibly worried, using one of his bulb sprouts from his back to point to my mouth and then subsequently wiping away more of the tears that clouded my big round yellow eyes.
"I-I was? I-I didn't m-mean to disturb you, it's n-not as if I n-need help right now. Go back to sleep, I don't even deserve to be called your friend right now if the only thing I did is just cry and mope all day long, pretending everything will just be okay."
"...Enough Mudd."
I turned very slowly to face him and he grabbed my face, stern but with a very pained anguish on his face, eyes willing with tears of his own.
"I hate it when my best friend talks like this and thinks he's worthless. Why do you think I refused to have not left your side on that very day when we met in that forest and you saved me from those two assholes? Arbok and his lackey may be my thorn in my side, but you protected me from the pair of them with the strength that was found in here," he pointed at my heart with his leg, "and that was when I knew that you weren't just somebody wanting to help me out just for the sake of it, but also wanting to make a difference to the world in the only way you knew how. You showed confidence, pride, and s-something I could never even have imagined. I had nobody and wasn't even a part of the guild, with the exception of Mr Ursaring. Flare, well, he's mischievous and he's a part of our team too and I would love to get to know him more... but then there's the reason I started forming this rescue team all those days ago... you. It was you w-w-who started this whole thing. To think it would be somebody else that would've started this is impossible. You are my life, Mudd. My friend, my best, best friend, my irreplaceable buddy. I don't care if you were called ugly, I don't care if you were running away, I don't care about the bullies that we faced now, because you overcame all of that. Your bravery Mudd, n-not mine. If you were to go, I-I... I would have no one to go to talk to in the same way you had no one to talk to except yourself. You are the one that makes me whole Mudd, and if you're thinking of going, then no matter what, I will go with you."
I stood there dumbfounded, and through the streams of tears that once again began to crop up in my face again, I turned to look out of the window to see the stars again. Life... to find someone out there to be with you for the rest of your days, and yet I lived with the fear of growing up, having no one to turn to and appreciate, have no one to speak to, laugh together and have fun. I had no one, no human back in my world a-and... no one here too. I was scared of growing up, scared of doing anything. If I did anything now, what would be the point? No one would remember me anyway as if everyone's destined to be forgotten and gone long after I leave this planet and become one of those stars in the sky like my mum. I miss her so, so much. But... with what Bulbs has been saying to me... he means it to fight in my place, by my side, to stick and promise to be there through thick and thin. Perhaps that's why we changed our team name after we went to that house, and all of those memories began to well up inside of me. No longer were we just the Hero Helpers... we are Team Star Shiners, the team that brings light wherever we can to the rescues of innocent Pokémon trapped in dungeons or threatened by assholes who don't know any better. We bring that hope to other people, in the hope that they bring it back to us.
Team Star Shiners... the stars above. Mum... a star... a spirit...
I finally realised and without hesitation, I turned around, ran straight and Bulbs and cried a plethora of tears onto his shoulder. I... I did have someone. A friend, a best friend. A friend for everything, a friend for life. He was there, right next to me. He changed our team name to reflect on what my memories reminded me of when I was younger and had love in my life. The nightmares of the figure that would resemble my dad screaming and shouting as a dark silhouette at the end of the corridor and the light that would protect me being my mother. The time that light trod out and rose up into the sky. The light, the fear, the heartbreak and the persistent low moods to turn me into an emotional wreck... it happened to me at an age to young, scarring me for life, a fear of having no one there for me being the sadness that lay loose onto a shattered mindset such as myself. But there is someone near me to help me out with my pain. Bulbs, the pained, lovable, goofy Bulbasaur who has more love in his heart I have for myself.
There I stood, crying and crying and crying repeatedly, the tears not going away. He joined in, using his bulbs to pull me in and hug him tightly, to not let go and be lonely anymore. He would never allow me to be lonely again. I would never even be lonely again. Alone, afraid, the orphan who had no-one. I had hope, I had a friend, I have somebody. I'm not alone. My dependency on other people, on other 'mons... I thought they would've been my greatest downfalls. But instead, standing right next to me, was the best friend giving me the shower of affection, encouragement and need I desperately deserved. I would no longer be the scared hero I would be supposed to.. because I'm not a main hero. I'm one of the heroes. To forge my own path and be happy.
Because that... is the reason for why I was brought here. To find the happiness in my heart... and make it shared for the others going through the pain I've suffered with for far too long. A bottled up wreck and a jittery mess... to a human thankful for receiving the compassion I wanted to become inspired by to share with other people, other rescue teams, other guild members... and for my Froakie out there too, who I will find whatever it takes.
I turned to face the Bulbasaur who I never thought I would be so thankful for. He was crying now... but feelings of understanding, feelings of fear, they evaporated quickly. Because I had someone to talk to... a friend.
"Bulbs... I..."
"Not another word. You're my best friend, and I wouldn't even change it for the world. You are appreciated, you are worthy of living, you will be remembered and no matter what happens, I will always, always love you as the family I never had."
"T-thank you. I... I really needed this."
He smiled, hugging me tighter and joined me to look out of the window and the now gleaming moon that shone next to the stars in the void above. Our adventures, our hopes and dreams, all depend on the actions we take today. We look after others and look after ourselves. Because that is exactly what our rescue team is for.
Team Star Shiners...
the rescue team to be the shining star in the darkness wherever you need it the most.
Well that took a little while to write, haha, hope you guys enjoyed it. The story is a reflection on my true feelings about having a month or so about being in university and the loneliness and isolation it can bring by just simply not looking after yourself. When reality hit home that I was now gonna be there and the experience was gonna be with me for life, it hit hard and I cried just like Mudd did. I've cried 5 or 6 times in the past few months alone, far more than at any point during this entire year combined, but I wanted to share this to the world so I can maybe inspire somebody else if another person were to stumble across one of my stories. I'm now an adult, scared of growing up, but I'm not going to let that experience dwell me as no matter how toxic the world, no matter the news, the crazy shit, the things that crop up in my mind... I keep going, and have to to go out there and help myself, and then hopefully help other people too. Anyway, this is Leah signing off. If this does get more significant attention, then I might revisit my old story and finally complete it, so it's a tale for anybody to cherish. Happy Halloween folks (I'm uploading this story on that day), but if you're reading this from the future, stay safe out there and I wish all of you luck with wherever you want to be in life. See you around!
-Leah