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#so anyway here's wonderwall- /j

spinningintheshadows · 2 years

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You can listen to “Just Friends — The Official Playlist” here

These are all songs that we have used for song titles, took inspiration from, or just generally vibed to while writing "Just Friends?" Yes, there is a whole hodgepodge of stuff in here, but also yes, it is mostly pop punk. I'm sorry but I'm not sorry. Go ahead, guess my favorite band, I dare you. Anyway, enjoy.

tracklist below the cut because there are 110 songs on this playlist (oops)

I’ll Be There by Walk Off the Earth

Some Days by the Maine

Outta My Head by State Champs

Friends by Why Don’t We

Kiss Me Again (feat Alex Gaskarth) by We Are The In Crowd

8 Letters by Why Don’t We

Black Butterflies and Deja Vu by The Maine

Good Times by All Time Low

Stupid For You by Waterparks

Palm Trees by Garrett Nash

Dress by Taylor Swift

Don’t Come Down by The Maine

Meant to Be (feat Florida Georgia Line) by Bebe Rexha

Sleeping In by All Time Low

Tounge Tied by Faber Drive

22 (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift

Begin Again (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift

Glitter & Crimson by All Time Low

Jet Black Heart by 5 Seconds of Summer

A Daydream Away by All Time low

Best Years by 5 Seconds of Summer

Unforgettable by Thomas Rhett

Phases by PRETTYMUCH

Getaway Green by All Time Low

They Don’t Know About Us by One Direction

Favorite Place (feat. The Band CAMINO) by All Time Low

Like Home by Keith Wallen

Somewhere in Neverland by All Time Low

Disconnected by 5 Seconds of Summer

Afterglow by All Time Low

Just a Kiss by Lady A

Kids of Summer by Mayday Parade

2011 by 5 Seconds of Summer

Marry You by Bruno Mars

Yellow by Coldplay

Woman You Got by Maddie & Tae

Brass Monkey by Beastie Boys

Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede

Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra

Wonderwall by Oasis

All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar

I Love You, I Love You, It’s Disgusting by Broadside

September by Daughtry

Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows

The Only Exception by Paramore

She Looks so Perfect by 5 Seconds of Summer

No Love In LA by Palaye Royale

Somebody’s Gonna Love You by The Wldlfe

Still Into You by Paramore

Backseat Serenade by All Time Low

we made it. by david hugo

Man I Think I Love Her by Stereo Skyline

Right Girl by the Maine

Kids Again by Artist Vs Poet

Kiss Me Slowly by Parachute

If I’m Lucky by State Champs

Rock To My Roll by Anarbor

You’re Still the One by The Maine

Renegade (feat Taylor Swift) by Big Read Machine

Loved You a Little (With Taking Back Sunday and Charlotte Sands) by The Maine

COMPLETE MESS by 5 Seconds of Summer

The Lucky Ones by Bryan Lanning

Don’t Wake Me Up by Jonas Blue & Why Don’t We

Taxi by the Maine

Watch ‘Em Grow by Bryan Lanning

Take My Hand by 5 Seconds of Summer

make up sex (feat blackbear) by Machine Gun Kelly

Lightning In A Bottle by The Summer Set

Say You Like Me by We the Kings

Everything Has Changed (feat Ed Sheeran) (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift

Feel Better by Garrett Nash

April 7th by The Maine

Young At Heart by John the Ghost

Bleach (On the Rocks) by John Harvie

Let Me Down Easy (Lie) by Why Don’t We

Ground Control (feat Tegan and Sara) by All Time Low

Our Song by The Spill Canvas

Everything I Ask For by The Maine

Drown In My Mind by Story Untold

Cherry Street by The Icarus Account

Just Friends by Why Don’t We

Me Myself & I by 5 Seconds of Summer

Painting Flowers by All Time Low

FUNERAL GREY by Waterparks

Left Hand Free by alt-J

How Do You Love Somebody by Why Don’t We

Surface Pressure by Our Last Night

Everybody but You by State Champs

Where the Sidewalks Ends by Garrett Nash

This Love (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift

Forever by Bryan Lanning

Tomorrow by okaywill

Work Out by Rainbow Kitten Surprise

5 Foot 9 by Tyler Hubbard

Everybody Needs a Song by Chris Young & Old Dominion

February by When the Sun Sets

Feel Something by Magnolia Park

Emotion Sickness by Said the Sky

Favorite T-Shirt by Jake Scott

It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) by the 1975

Daddy Issues by The Neighbourhood

Home To Me by Rvshvd

Dates in Pickup Trucks by Kassi Ashton

Memory by Kane Brown & blackbear

If It Weren’t For You by FINMAR

Girl Who Didn’t Care by Tenille Townes

Glad You Exist by Dan + Shay

Black and White by Niall Horan

the reason i hate home by Munn

Some Minds Don’t Change by State Champs

#just friends #just friends announcements #the therapy fic #outer banks #jj maybank #rudy pankow #obx #austin north #topper thornton

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pontevoix · 2 years

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📂 x3 GIMME J DEMAND

duisfgsdfgsf misha i can’t tell you how long i stared at this & really was sitting there like ok is j is n or is j i or a keyboard smash i want to giVE YOU WHAT U dESERVE AND MORE but that being said anyway here’s wonderwall

📂 near is an inconsistent carver. they’re practiced enough to manage impressive, smooth products somewhat regularly . . . but they don’t care too much to give thought & pause to actually practicing it as an art. instead, they tend to make crude creations with soap or wood just so that they can have something to occupy their hands. sometimes this results in a collage of small cuts on their hands. sometimes in a small army of soap or wood creations that are mildly horrifying to see. near lines them up in rows, in lines. they stay there for weeks until near decides that they’re cluttering their thought. following the logic of cleaning out their mind, near will ask that someone burn their creations. then, they move to a new way of occupying their hands.

📂 for the love of god, near does not shower. they are greasy. they sometimes stink. they will shower only when they are reminded ( politely ) that perhaps it is time. i feel like this is something i’ve said before & something i’ll say again so sdfg i apologize for that but honestly i know near is super sterile in the environment they create for themselves, but there are a lot of reasons near functions best with the support of a team. having a reminder to function at the bare minimum. they are detached from themselves, they do not identify with themselves, they do not care. isolation comes easily to near, but that doesn’t mean that they are their best alone.

📂 misha lmao i just sent this to you but addressing this quote —- "When asked: "Who do you think is the smartest character [in Death Note]?" Obata replied, "Near. Because he cheats." near absolutely cheats. their feelings of pride can be confined to victory . . . & it’s their due. & it only really is worth anything to them if they embraced it as an adequately stimulating puzzle. but there is no sense of personal pride or personal identification that comes through the methodology. so . . . they don’t find it remotely demeaning to be labeled a cheat.

beyond that, cheating means expanding the game’s rules. if both parties cheat, then the plays become more complicated . . . a little less predictable. if only near cheats, then at least the tedium of the puzzle ends a little quicker than it might. cheating is something selfish to near, & they enjoy it immensely.

as a child, they have cheated on course work. less so if it’s something is being directly compared to mello’s work because mello is a different puzzle, but . . . if they’re feeling bored, then convincing cheating can be fun.

anyway don’t place bets with near. they will win.

they also think their victory is fair because . . . it was your choice not to cheat. it was your choice not to win. so uh ??? what’s your problem?

( hc prompt ) | @mellodiies about near

#100. near #in case anyone forgot first i was first and always knee deep in dn sdfgdsfg #1. question #5. headcanon #mellodiies

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ill-find-something-better-later · 5 years

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Aziraphale takes up the guitar because "humans make such lovely music with them, my dear, and they're really not that different from harps when you get right down to it"

Crowley tries very hard to roll his eyes and scoff at the choice of song, but really what chance does he have when the angel is singing those lyrics like that for him...

#anyway............ here's wonderwall #good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #......so does using this meme make it very obvious exactly how old i am?? have i dated myself??#what is the pretentious amateur guitarist song of the modern day????

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caspercryptid · 2 years

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hello ! would you be willing to write a fic about Viktor giving naph a taxidermy ferret slap bracelet on his birthday? you are the most awesome moth ever thank you so much.

I beat all those other moths out by a longshot, I am an excellent moth. peak moth. Anyway here's wonderwall.

Tws for.... look at this request. Look at it.

___

Dad is weird.

Naph thinks that to himself, in the privacy of his own head, because out loud he doesn't even get as far as "dad". Viktor is... well. Viktor is paternal, yes. Viktor is raising him, yes. Viktor feeds him and looks after him and tutors him. Naph is pretty sure "dad" applies. It was just also not usually what you called the person whose house you started squatting in accidentally before you realized anyone....lived in it.

Viktor is weird, though.

Not just in the sense that he's not the kind of person Naph should call dad, which is probably true. It's a little...like that one movie about the nice car and the time travel with the weird guy who lived alone on the edge of town and may have committed treason to make a time machine. A little like that. Viktor might have committed treason. Or be currently committing treason. Or maybe he's just Russian.

He is starting to figure things out-- things like "meals" and "hydration". Naph has to go poke him sometimes, to bring him food, which doesn't really bother him. It seems to bother Viktor, though, when he forgets to cook. Sometimes Naph brings him a sandwich and he frowns at him like it's personally offended him. And then he'll say something in Russian and pats Naph on the head and usually within a few hours he'll be cooking. It took Naph a few weeks to realize it wasn't any kind of affront to the sandwich. Viktor still ate it, even if it was just pb&j, or the ham in the fridge with the expiration date from the nineties (he was PRETTY sure that it used to be in the freezer). He was pretty sure the Russian was thank-you. He wasn't sure Viktor totally knew when he wasn't speaking the right language.

Anyway, Viktor is his dad, and Viktor is weird.

This, though.

This is.... a stretch. Even for the pre-established weirdness. Even for the guy who had 90% of a robot in the basement and a picture of a celebrity on his bedside table in an old fashioned silver frame like it's a wartime keepsake.

It's...a. Actually, he doesn't know what it is.

He takes the offending object out of Viktor's hands. Viktor's just said something that Naph assumes was "happy birthday", it's hard to tell, it might even been English, but Viktor's wearing the mask again, and so he can't tell.

He turns it over. It's... a ferret.

It's a long, flat, dead ferret, with little marble eyes. It's white and soft and its tiny little feet hang next to it's snout and it's curled tail. He just looks at it, for a second, and then Viktor clears his throat. He looks up at Viktor.

Viktor makes a little knocking gesture, like he's tapping something against his wrist, and Naph realizes, with dawning horror, what this is.

"Is this like the cat?" he asks, desperately scrambling for another explanation.

This was not like The Cat. The Cat was an absolutely hideous piece of taxidermy sitting on the bottom shelf on one of Viktor's bookshelves. It looked like a cheshire cat nightmare-- a cat recreated by someone who'd only heard one described once. and then did a bunch of acid. Viktor loved it and said it brought him fond memories. Naph had never asked about it again.

Viktor makes the tapping gesture again, and Naph sighs. He taps the bracelet hard against his wrist, and it curls around it. Like a slap bracelet. Because it's a slap bracelet.

He looks up at Viktor and forces a smile.

"Thanks." he says, and then after a second, adds- "Dad."

There's a distinct pause in which he's worried he's fucked up, and then Viktor reaches out and fusses his hair.

"I'm going to make cake." Viktor says, and Naph perks up.

"...Chocolate?"

"Chocolate. Come on."

As Naph tags along behind him, he thinks...Maybe he could get used to this.

He just has to ignore the fuzzy little corpse on his wrist, and everything is perfect.

Just perfect.

#Naph league of legends #viktor league of legends #viktor arcane #implied jayvik #casper's haunted fic tag

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bctbreaker · 6 years

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@pinkxnunchucks {liked for a thing}

“Careful little bat.” He warns.

“I admire your tenacity but you are in over your head.” This is something he will handle, unlike the bat, he needs no child to do his business for him. “Leave this particular problem to me, I’m all too familiar with how the underground works here.”

#Translation; oh she wears pink. how adorable #Alternate translation; whatever you're investigating is my territory and you need to chill and eat a pb&j or something #alternate alternate translation; why does bruce adopt so many batkids ???#anyway hi i LOVE Tiff and i scream everytime I see your blog..heres wonderwall #pinkxnunchucks #{☠vs|| there is nearly no man beyond being saved {redemption}}

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wicckip · 3 years

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LOKI E5 THOUGHTS

Spoilers! (Obviously)

Damn that’s a slick transition from slanted elevator door to floor and then to the void. It felt good

Yessss meet the Lokis

Sylvie “trust issues” Laufeydottir

Me waiting for Kid Loki to meet the rest of the Young Avengers!!!

But specifically Billy and Tommy

I’m never gonna get over Alligator Loki

THEY GIVE HIM EQUAL SCREENTIME THAT’S THE FUNNIEST PART

I LOVE how the other Loki's can understand him but our Loki just can't

I LOVE how he seems to have his own emotions (”he’s sensitive” etc)

Wait so is Ravonna still with the TVA or does she just want to meet the Wizard of Oz

... Why has Mjölnir been buried

WAIT WHAT WAS THAT THING SHOUTING AS THE CAMERA MOVED UNDERGROUND

Kid Loki: Anyway, here’s Wonderwall

I knew it. I knew they were gonna laugh after Loki’s monologue

YESSS MORE LOKIS

That’s the scene(s) from the trailer!

Now I’m sad that we didn’t get to see Loki run for president

WHAT ARE THOSE BLUE CHICKEN THINGS

Sylvie didn’t actually know for sure that she wouldn’t die. The things she would do for Loki...

MOBIUS!!! Ok there goes my theory that the void was made just for Lokis

ok seriously what are those blue chicken things this is not a joke

Apparently the USS Eldridge actually disappeared so this is yet another MCU irl retcon

He illusioned the whole Asgard!!!

Ok but Wanda is still more powerful than a Loki..

Ok so apparently that thing you hear as they are moving underground to the bunker was Thor trapped in a bottle so it looks like Kid Loki didn’t kill Thor after all

Overall thoughts: 1/10 Why haven’t they told us about the blue chicken things yet /j

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saihahas · 3 years

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Ideas I've had for a story, in a small bulletpoint list (im very tired and adhd brain is going NUTS)

MC, 8 yrs at start of prologue, Diamond is a runaway mage, she was from a long long line of royalty

Her great(×6) grandfather used dark magic, and in a coup was executed and replaced by light magic users. Before he died, he cursed the castle saying that once the windows turn red the true heir of the throne would be revealed.

Because Diamond has already shown magic ability with shadow manipulation and dark magic, she is strictly inside her room without any windows. She manages to sneak out and while she's playing outside, she notices a singular window by her room, and its a bright red.

Her parents are trying to teach her light magic, hoping she'd forget how to manipulate shadows, but after any light spells attempted, she'd have burns on her hands and extreme fatigue, she knocked out for days after attempting to turn on lights all over the castle. Kinda like that game where you have to hit buttons that would light up

She gets a small headache and goes back inside. When her parents summon her they notice her eyes are no longer brown but the same red from the window. She's sent to her room and kinda festers til she escapes (cue present day prologue, Diamond age 10)

OH THEN WHEN SHE RUNS OFF, she gets possessed with her great grandfather's power and is able to ward off gaurds that were chasing her. She stumbles into Sorrel's tavern and faints

Sorrel is in his like late 40s. Very rough n tough type

"Anyways here's wonderwall"

Middle aged man who has gone thru a lot

Crazy powerful child passes out in his tavern? Shit that's fate for ya

"I'm no healer but...."

Sorrel's sister: so what happened to Mr. Rough and Tough Sorrel?

Sorrel: I'm still tough! I'm the TOUGHEST IN TOWN *cuts dinosaur pb and j for diamond*

"How the fuck do I parent?" "HOW WOULD I KNOW WE'RE THE SAME AGE"

Also a temp protag called cynthia

Cynthia's an undine

From google:"Undines are almost invariably depicted as being female, and are usually found in forest pools and waterfalls. Although resembling humans in form, they lack a human soul, so to achieve mortality they must acquire one by marrying a human. Such a union is not without risk for the man, because if he is unfaithful, then he is fated to die."

Shennanigans with her trying to wed sorrel, seducing him any time he passes her hot spring (freshwater, ofc)

But throughout their adventure, Diamond and others continuously mention she's soulless and must marry to gain a soul, in a derogatory way.

At some point, she has to join the party, and Diamond starts to question if her bias against undine is as justified as she previously thought.

By the end of her time with them, Diamond realizes Cynthia just needs a soul, its not her fault she was born that way, and undine don't kill men, its a curse bore by men who marry then become unfaithful.

While Cynthia didn't wed Sorrel, he's promised her to do his best to find her a soul.

Oh sorrel's totally GNC, he'll wear dresses all the mf time

Does sorrel is gay????? Maybe

Do i have a name? No

I have a kingdom name: Dalondé (dah-lohn-day)

Castle name...... hrm

I mean Castle Dalondé is pretty to the point idk

This has become much longer than intended

#anyways time to never expand on this unless asked/forced BDJSKWKSKALA #fr tho if i do write smth for it I'll be sure to let yall know #im doing fic stuff i swear im just not creative

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taeguboi · 4 years

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BTS as... Rockers

Ngl, I panicked a little when I checked on the masterlist because an older post about BTS as rock band members was labelled as this title and I’d already written this one for like 3 members already. There’s various genres I mention, some of which are also metal and pop but I thought a simple general title would be best here.

Anyways, my second post coming back recently. Hope you enjoy.

Mainly a classics man

Loves to analyse lyrics

and loves writing his own lyrics based on his current favourites

It’s like a form of literature to him

Loves to chill out to prog and psychedelic rock

Accidentally had the same music tastes as that weird geography teacher in school

Probably has a pet named after a member of a power / symphonic metal band

sorry I’m a bit of a Nightwish nerd and now I can just imagine him calling for his dog “Floor!” and everyone getting confused because they think he’s just shouting at the ground

this is the kind of genre he likes the most other than classic rock; that’s where the most literature references are. It’s poetry about poetry

Has a journal of art and lyrics quotes for when he’s super into a song

Could be mistaken for a geek in school

because to a juvenile ear, his taste in music might be challenging to listen to

like no one else had the patience aged 12 to listen to a 9 minute song or an instrumental track

and then even at 15/16, how many people your age would listen to Dark Side Of The Moon?

Guess he would say music is all about sitting back and listening and taking it in

Would love to be a songwriter for the right kind of singer

unfortunately though, he’s a bit of a loner

likes his own company too much

it’s probably the solitude that motivates him to write

too many more friends than he already has would be too much of a distraction

It’s not a sad situation though

music is what Namjoon loves the most

and “nothing else matters”

Oh yes, let’s have a bit of Metallica in there too

It’s not until he finishes school that he becomes more in touch with what people in the current world of rock and metal like

discovered “Rollin’” by Limp Bizkit like WAY too many years after it came out

“Have you heard this ace song man?”

“yep... in 2004 dude”

“oh”

But he’s no ashamed or anything, no

He’s proud to be a fan of the bands he likes

even if they aren’t to everyone’s tastes

“Well, sorry if this isn’t some 3 minute long four chord song repeating the same 5 words”

If they don’t appreciate it, their loss

Jin

The old ones are the best ones

Think 50s rock n’ roll; Little Richard, Elvis, and so on

mixed with guilty pleasures of songs about ‘my baby girl’

Loves themed music nights

Whilst of course his favourites are the 50s themed ones

he also loves showing up to 60s nights to flaunt the flower power

or 80s nights in a fun wig as some member of a hair metal band

all the styles are very fun

but on a daily basis, he’s basically dresses like a teddy boy

tight trousers with white socks peaking out

jacket - sometimes a suit jacket, sometimes denim

as you can imagine, when a lot of this stuff comes back in fashion...

“Well, I did it first...”

you know, in this era he means he did it first

Loves a good finger clicker song

Once considered doing a tribute act around pubs and clubs

but he couldn’t decide who he wanted to be

Probably should take a role in some live production of Grease

he’s seen it enough times

and he can sing

He reckons he could never do theatre for long though

his fantasies are with playing instruments to perform

talented keyboard player

starting to get the hang of guitar too

but he does get carried away whilst trying to learn guitar

because he wants to add on all the cool moves NOW

He’s got some bangers he created on the keyboard though

he didn’t really intend to create original songs

it just happened one day after a break up

and he listened to Heartbreak Hotel

too many times

he just sat at his keyboard

and made something that really felt special

and then the day after that, he made a more upbeat song

and the week after that, he has 4 full songs in total

Open mic nights become something he enjoys

a bit of a local celebrity

“Would you play my grandma’s 80th party? Pleeeease?”

and aww bless him, he plays all the throwback songs at care homes

all free of charge

slips in some of his original music too

“Ooh, I’m afraid I don’t remember that one dear, must be my brain”

“Oh, no no no” explains Jin “I made it myself”

Old dears just love him basically

but so do the girls his age

Whilst some think the whole 50s get up is a bit lame

some go wild for it

because he dons all his outfits so well

and his songs feel so true to the era they were inspired by

you gain a love for the 50s just from watching Jin

Talented boy, keeping the 50s alive

Suga

A lot say Yoongi has an acquired taste

an electronic element to rock or metal always makes it more interesting to him

loves industrial music - NIN for days

Linkin Park made most of his jams

cried for half a day at the news of Chester no longer being with us

Likes a bit of new wave, synthpop, all that

emo songs just help you through the bad times okay

Can equally enjoy a dub festival as much as a rock concert

some people think his taste is actually naff

but then they realise he also listens to the likes Foo Fighters or Sum 41

Plays like the same 30 songs on repeat

but his collection has so much more

He has some rock and blues for the road trip

he’s got your 70s singalongs for the party

Was briefly a DJ at a rock bar

got fired for not playing enough popular songs in his set

“wtf I thought this was a bar where people could appreciate this” huffs Yoongi

“yes but people want to sing to ‘down with the sickness’ or something, not ‘down in the park’!”

“stuff you then, I’ll take Gary somewhere else with me”

guilty pleasure: Kate Bush

A somewhat gothic sense of style

but not overwhelmingly gothic

He likes bandannas and black clothes

not always in black clothes though

sometimes the merch he wants just isn’t available in black

but no worries

as long as he can happily flaunt the music that makes him who he is

J-Hope

Can listen to any rock genre

give him something and he probably already loves it

So yeah, the band members are pretty cool and all that

but what Hoseok has more interest in the backstage roles

he’d love to manage a rock band

be a tour manager

guitar tech

Much knowledge is stored in that brain of his

and he wants to put it to good use

He starts out as a promoter and organiser for the rock bar in town

which he eventually lives above

His events are ace

he can pick out fresh talent that everyone on that scene can enjoy

His showcase nights are the place to be

everyone can agree, he’s got amazing taste

no one can disagree with him

He’s a one man show and still managed to pull it off

he’s the promoter, the sound guy, the tech on all the instruments

way more professional than most other local music events

He takes pride in his work

did I mention he’s so good, it becomes a full time job?

As time goes by, he listens to less and less older music

but that’s okay

he’s happy with the time it takes to listen to all the up and coming bands

in the moment is where you should live

and he can still appreciate a band’s influences should they initiate conversation

“man, this dude really knows his stuff”

“will you manage our next tour?”

“can you do sound at our next gig? our guy’s rubbish”

and that one is like right in front of their current sound guy

The future is bright for Hoseok

his love for rock music could really earn him a solid living

Jimin

Some say he’s a bit of a poser in his leather jacket

but he really does love his rock music

Sometimes a bit behind on modern rock bands or releases

Low key wishes he was born in the 50s / 60s

just so he could live in his favourite eras

his heart really lies with the classics

60s, 70s, 80s.

90s at a push

not the later 90s where grunge bands did pop

actually any movie made in that time makes him cringe

like he’s all up for good clean fun

but christ it’s like they were trying to go back to the 50s or something

not everything is ‘swell’ you know

Don’t get him wrong though

he does also like some 50s music

He may or may not have spent that one time acting like Elvis in the mirror

it really hyped him up before a night out though

it may or may not have become a thing before going out in the evenings to boost his confidence

His all time favourite bands have to be The Rolling Stones and AC/DC

and no, he couldn’t pick between the two, ever

Doesn’t really have a desire to be in a band

but sort of accidentally picks up the bass to help out a mate in a band

and sort of accidentally becomes a permanent member

It’s just a cover band

but it’s so much fun

Sometimes, you can have a really bad day

and then listening to 23 people singing “I Love Rock n Roll”

kind of lifts your mood

“Play Wonderwall!”

gets a bit annoying to him

kind of wants to hit that one guy around the head with his bass

but he holds back

Because being aggressive wouldn’t be very rock of him

and whilst he does like punk music

he’s definitely not a punk

Screw all that political rubbish

music should be to enjoy yourself with

stop worrying about the world for one minute and

let’s sing about whiskey and cigarettes and just living life

“What do you MEAN you don’t know any Def Leppard songs?”

“For crying out loud!”

He tries to understand that not everyone will listen what the music he likes

“but... like seriously, how can you not though?”

Probably likes all the underrated bands

Loves vinyl

definitely collects vinyls

Likes to shop at vintage stores to fulfil his obscure taste

People are like “you paid £60 just for that?”

but to Tae, it’s worth every penny

He likes the classics too

he can sing along in a rock bar to all the well known tunes

old or modern

and there may be loads in his vinyl collection barely anyone recognises

but there’s some more familiar faces too

there’s The Beatles, Guns n’ Roses, Foo Fighters, anything like that

it’s just only like 20% of his huge collection

Whilst his style is inspired by those he idolises...

he can never copy them

that would be an insult to them and his originality

Plays guitar and writes songs

never anything soppy though

actually fairly hesitant to pick up an acoustic guitar

always plays electric

and the songs he makes are about having a good time, life experiences

but not about love

He can listen to a couple of cheesy tracks

he just won’t make any

“Who the heck is John Otway, Tae?”

“Oh, you know, Wild Willy Barrat”

“Willy who?”

“Cor baby, that’s really free!”

“....”

“Headbutts! da da da da da... Headbuttttsssss”

I feel like rocker V loves anything that feels slightly random

probably make his own secret songs that sound silly to others

Probably has a band that never gigs

it’s him singing and playing guitar

and a bassist and drummer that aren’t really sure why they’re here

but they kind of like the unique stuff he does

and the band is almost purposely bad

“It’s the imperfections that really give a song character”

Jungkook

Modern rock and metal

low key emo

Tears Don’t Fall by BFMV on repeat aged 14, his first break up

Lives for festivals

like when he goes to work, that is what he is earning money for

well, that and bills and food

has a jar for each festival he wants to go to this year

Also loves a bit of melodic punk

like when that one Australian band are finally coming to his country

he HAS to go

help me I’m really sad because this is me and The Decline were supposed to be coming to the UK and then this pandemic happened and now I might never see them criii

Has a playlist for every aspect of life

every feeling, every colour, every occasion

songs that remind him of a time, ones where he can visualise a colour...

many people don’t get it

“how many playlists?”

“how can a song be a colour?”

it just is

like come on, listen to this Red Jumpsuit Apparatus song

and tell him this doesn’t remind you of gold

Could be a journalist

knows everything and anything about his favourite bands

AVENGED SEVENFOLD

because it’s the perfect mixture of everything he loves about music

vests because M.Shadows

So badly wants to be in a band

tries every instrument you could find in a typical rock band

loves the drums

gets stuck on guitar though in his first band

well, he was just desperate to go gigging

he left after a year and a bit though

got boring

forms his own band instead around him being on the drums

Lives for this band

it’s like a rock band but with political lyrics

and they can perform at most events

they just fit any bill

gigs are booked almost every weekend

road trip with the lads

they travel like 50 miles just to be paid in beer only

Dreams of big time collaborations

that will probably never happen and he knows that

but it’s nice to dream, right?

puts on his own gigs a few years down the line

of course his own band are always on the bill

everyone thinks his gigs are a hoot

He even manages to book some lesser known punk bands

but they are a massive deal to him

“God, I love live music!”

“Do you always wear a black shirt guk?”

“Hey, I’m a drummer! It’s hard work; a lot of sweat involved... I’m sure no one wants to see my wet pits whilst trying to enjoy the show”

and then that person wishes they never asked...

but he’s right

he knows that a good band is all about the hard graft and work

and he is always so thankful for the great rock bands that influence him

16 notes · View notes

jubilantwriter · 5 years

Text

So Maybe Now It’s Time

AO3 ff.net

Chapter 1: All Hidden By a Hill

Summary: The concept of a family has always been... rather flimsy to grasp for Snufkin. Especially at a young age, when he doesn’t know what’s what, and what it is that he can claim as his own family.

Then again, what can he call family?

What is a family?

It’s only when he holds onto the few things that he treasures that he realizes.

Realizes that even someone like him can find a family he can call his own.

AN: I’m really good at writing fic for fandoms that are chilling out after reaching their peak anyway here’s wonderwall-

He is often told by the Hemulen of the strange happenstance in which she recovered him. Often, when she recalls the memory, it's with a trace of bitterness and a touch of anger - feelings never directed at him of course, but he feels them nonetheless.

"It was such an ordinary day," she always begins, her hands working on dinner, or mending a shirt, or turning a page in a book as he sits near her, listening obediently. "Just another day for washing laundry in the river. But as I was removing my dress from the river, I spied a basket - yes, your basket! Floating down the river. And you, sleeping peacefully in it. And no parents around. No, none at all. Just a small mumrik child, barely two springs old. How irresponsible to leave a child alone like that!" And then she harrumphs as she often does, frowning down at whatever is occupying her hands before she looks to him, ending her memory with the same words as always. "Do you understand, Mumrik? Had it not been for me, you would still be floating along, no caretaker to feed you soups, or mend your clothes, or read you stories at night to help you sleep!" Then she will pause, a hesitant look on her face before she turns to him with a confidence barely grasped with the same, worried question. "As long as you're with me, you will be a very responsible, obedient young boy, won't you?"

And always, he responds the same way.

"Yes, Hemulen."

And always, she responds with the same sad frown, before she turns back to her handiwork, never looking him in the eyes as she answers.

"You may call me Hemulenmamma, you know."

But he never does.

The Hemulen is strict but kind. She lays down rules upon rules, demanding order with every step he takes, always keeping a close eye on him as he wanders about her home. If he ever trips and scratches himself, she's always on him in an instant, huffing and fretting as she gently cleans the minuscule scrape with a kind of care she must have practiced before. She always lectures to him the importance of a balanced meal, but if he so much as stares at a sweet for a second too long, she'll always come back home with it in her basket, announcing that since he's been such a good mumrik, she'll treat him just this once. At the tender age of five different springs, he finds that there is no nook or cranny that he is not aware of in her home.

Their home, she'll always be quick to remind him.

But every time the notion of "home" enters his mind, a sense of not-quite-right overtakes him, and he thinks that maybe this "home" isn't meant for him.

Or, perhaps, he's not really allowed to think of it as "home".

The town that they live in seem to think so. Always, when he goes into town with the Hemulen, he sees the disapproving stares of the fillyjonks and cautioned gazes of other hemulens as they glance down at him, as though waiting for him to cause a ruckus.

"If you don't raise him right," he often hears a certain Fillyjonk say to the Hemulen as she buys their food, "he'll end up locked up in jail with the other mumriks."

"That's enough," she'll always respond, taking their food and his paw in hers as she pulls him away. "He's still a child. What right do you have to judge him like that?"

But still, the Fillyjonk judges him, beady eyes scowling down her snout as the perpetual frown remains a permanent feature of hers.

She judges without knowing him.

In fact, they all do, in their own ways.

He sees it with their whispers behind paws, the wary stares, their pointed glances when he lingers for too long. It fills him with a confusing sense of shame, of doing something wrong he isn't yet aware of. He doesn't understand why they stare at him so, and each time he catches their eyes, he finds himself lowering his head, trying to hide from their whispers and scoffs and icy stares.

But. He has the Hemulen.

And each time, the Hemulen will kneel down in front of him and take his paws into her own and say to him:

"Don't listen to them. They don't know you like I do. And you're such a good child, my dear."

But the comfort the Hemulen offers to him does little to soothe his young mind. Why do the others look at him so? As though he is already a menace to their society when he can barely read?

Perhaps it's because of his paws don't look like paws, but have rather slender digits with claws that curl, unlike the Hemulen's.

Or perhaps it's because he lacks a snout like everyone else.

Or perhaps it's because he isn't covered head to toe in fur.

The other townspeople don't seem to like him much, and he can't understand why. He asked the Hemulen once, but she simply kept her mouth shut and looked away, uncomfortable and uneasy as she tried to direct his attention to something else.

It's obvious, really.

He doesn't belong here.

Not with the kind Hemulen. Or in this town full of huffy fillyjonks and single-minded hemulens, with their overbearing laws and rules that make him want to run away.

No no, he can't stand to live in a town full of pointed stares and grumpy creatures who snap at him if he stands on a tidy lawn, or put up signs saying he's not allowed inside a park just because they can. He'd rather be with creatures like himself, who have hands instead of paws, a flat face rather than a protruding snout, and bodies with fur that only covers parts of his body. Creatures that are mumriks, just like himself.

He belongs, he thinks, with his real parents.

Not with the Hemulen, even if she wants him to call her Hemulenmamma. Even if she acts like she could be his mamma, when she really isn't. She is kind, but the differences between them are always pointed out to him.

And because she is so kind, he finds it hard to ask about his parents around her.

So secretly, he wonders of his real parents.

Do they miss him? Did they ever search for him?

Why did they leave him in a basket?

Did they not want him?

Why is he with the Hemulen, and not them?

The Hemulen always tries to distract him, keeping his mind busy with books and lessons, teaching him the basics of cleanliness and housekeeping.

"No no, Mumrik, you must hold the broom like this or else it's much harder to sweep the floors."

"Mumrik, dear, the book must be returned to its proper place in the bookshelf. See how the title begins with the letter J? Therefore, it must go here, along with the other books that start with J."

"Mumrik, always remember to wash up after playing outside! Tracking dirt inside the house leads to an unkempt mind and soul!"

"Mumrik, stand up with your back straighter or you'll live the rest of your life with a curve to it!"

Always always always.

She always had something to say about him. It was on especially bad days, when she'd nag and press him to do something her way that he'd hide away. His hands would cover his ears and he'd squeeze his eyes shut, thinking that perhaps his real parents wouldn't worry too much about holding a broom right, or how dirty he is, or even if today was the perfect day for a math quiz.

It was on an especially bad day that he became especially bitter.

"You just want me to be a hemulen!"

He snapped at her, tears peeking out from the corners of his eyes. She stood stock still, staring at him with wide eyes before kneeling down in front of him.

"...Mumrik, I-"

But he never let her finish.

Instead, he ran off into his room and slammed the door shut, diving into his bed and crying his heart out.

He didn't belong here.

Not in this town full of frowns and grumbles, or with the Hemulen herself. No matter how hard she tried to make him like a hemulen, he could never be like the rest of them.

He was just a little mumrik.

A mumrik with no real parents who abandoned him in a basket to float down a river.

"Had it not been for me, you would still be floating along..."

It was on especially bad days that he'd curl up in his bed and wish that the Hemulen never found him, and that he was left alone in that basket.

At least that way, he wouldn't have known what parents were. And he wouldn't have known what it was like to be unwanted.

The Hemulen changed, after that day. In a sense, she tried to be more lenient. Less pushy, and more relaxed. At least, as much as a hemulen can be.

Perhaps she was trying to let him grow as his own being. But even with the name "Mumrik", he still didn't know what he was supposed to be.

The others seemed to think that he would grow up to be a law-breaking menace. At least, that's what he could gather from their not-so-quiet whispers, or from what the other children would so bluntly tell him when he strayed from the Hemulen and accidentally crossed paths with them.

Incidentally, today was one of those days, as a child no older than him stood closely by as he stared into a closed off park. Before he could get away, the hemulen child began to speak, unwelcome as it was.

"Hemulenpappa told me that mumriks are wild creatures." The small hemulen child was seemingly busy reading a book about fish, their eyes barely lifting to look at him.

"...really." He was already growing tired of the conversation, and if the hemulen child was reading a book, shouldn't they be focused on that instead of him?

"He told me that mumriks are sneaky little things that like to ruin parks and disobey the police just because they can." And then the small hemulen child pauses, looking up at him with a half-lidded stare that made him want to run away. "They get in trouble for all sorts of bad things. Hemulenpappa says that a lot of mumriks become bad creatures because they hold such little respect for others." He can barely form a response before the child tilts their head to the side, almost innocently so as they ask:

"Are you going to grow up to be a bad person too, Mumrik?"

He runs away before he can think of a response.

It shakes him to his core, disbelieving but fearful all the same. Him? A bad person? All because he is a mumrik? That can't be true - he doesn't want to be a bad person! But all he's heard thus far are bad things about mumriks, never nice things. Mumriks and jails, enemies of the law, wild and careless. Perhaps that's why the Hemulen tried so hard to make sure he followed rules, that he was neat and tidy and listened to her every word. Perhaps she was frightened of one day finding him in a Hemulen Jail, because she didn't raise him well enough, or that he became what all the others said he would be.

Those were fears he could see in her eyes every day, when he would go against her word and stray into someone else's property, or pick fruit from someone's garden without asking simply because he could. He didn't understand why the townspeople were so obsessed with their fences and gates with signs saying "DO NOT ENTER" or "NO FRUIT-PICKING ALLOWED" when the Hemulen taught him that sharing was the kindest thing to do.

Aren't they being the mean, selfish ones when he's done nothing but act as the Hemulen taught? Surely the other hemulens would be happier sharing their fruit with neighbors and talking rather than being so closed off and separated from everyone else. Or perhaps the fillyjonks would be more pleasurable company if they simply relaxed and stopped fussing over every little detail for no reason.

It makes no sense to him, but everyone here seems to think so similarly that his tiny voice barely makes a dent in their thoughts, and they turn to him and the Hemulen as though he is the true problem in their little society.

Maybe, he thinks, the Hemulen is just scared that they would take him away from her, because he thinks everyone should simply share with each other, instead of keeping things locked away behind rules and white fences.

Perhaps it was lucky that the Hemulen had found him instead, seeing as she lived with her home without fences and a forest just in her backyard. Here, nature was for everyone, and he could watch nature be unrestrained as it was meant to be.

But he can only act so free around the Hemulen. It's around the others that makes it such a chore to act so... hemulen-like. If he acted a certain way, did things as she said, and kept himself to himself, then perhaps the others would be nicer to him. Perhaps that's why she taught him to be polite, to be kind, to share, to say "thank you" and "please" and "you’re welcome", because being nice means that he is a good person, and the hemulens would be nice to him in return.

Perhaps all she wanted from him was to be accepted.

But was it really worth it, to feel so suffocated and downtrodden by the day?

He couldn't be sure.

He's been six springs old for a while when an itch grows within him. He sees the signs up on the fences, and he wants to tear them down. He sees the gates and fences, and a bitter anger forms within him. He sees the way the townspeople look at him and the Hemulen, and he wants to squeeze her paw and say: "It's not your fault they don't like me".

During their lessons, he learns a word that puts a label on how he feels towards this town of the Hemulen has grown up in, bent on order and rules and private property.

"Unfair".

Everything - the way they treat him, how they don't share, all the unnecessary and strict rules, locking away their hearts and possessions from him and each other - was completely and utterly unfair.

But, despite his anger, he finds that a small mumrik like him cannot change a stubborn hemulen's mind. So he sits in the Hemulen's home, reading books and imagining a world where everyone is just a bit kinder, just a bit freer than the creatures here.

(He thinks, just for a moment, that the Hemulen would like this world too.)

(Perhaps, she is as trapped as he is.)

There were days in which he would look to the forest bordering her home and long for the same freedom the birds had.

It was on bright days that he would find himself standing at the edge of her tidy backyard, the wind ruffling his hair as he listened to the sweet, fleeting songs of the birds.

"Mumrik?" The Hemulen calls for him once more, from the doorway of her home. "Mumrik, lunch is almost ready. Come inside and wash up!"

"...Hemulen."

"Hemulenmamma," she corrects.

"Hemulen." He turns to her, his eyes wide and pleading. "...May I please. Please may I take a walk? Just for a bit."

"But it's almost lunch time. Schedules are important for basic time management, you know!"

"I know but." He looks back into the forest. The same yearning returns in his chest, and it's unbearable. "I just. I want to walk in the forest for a bit. I promise to return the minute you finish setting the table."

For a while, the Hemulen doesn't say anything. But she is kind, as she always is, and she sighs her defeat. He doesn't need to look at her to know that she's already given him her permission. But he waits for her to say something anyway. Just to be polite. Probably.

"...Alright. I expect you to be back in no more than fifteen minutes!"

"Yes, Hemulen!"

"Hemulenma-" But he's already gone before she can correct him.

Away from the unbearable pressure, he runs through the forest and laughs boisterously, in a way he can never do with the Hemulen carefully reminding him to use his inside voice. With a whoop, he jumps up to grab a branch, swinging giddily before launching himself into a bush.

Twigs and leaves scratch all over his arms and face, but he finds it of no concern. Well, the Hemulen was going to be upset when she saw all the scratches he was covered in.

But never mind that.

A patch of flowers catch his attention instead.

An array of whites, pinks, and yellows decorate the forest floor, and gently, he goes through the flowers, picking the prettiest ones carefully in his fingers until he gathers a fistful of blossoms, feeling rather accomplished and satisfied.

The gentle white blooms remind him of the Hemulen, and how she always fights through her reluctance to try to give him what he wants.

It's not easy to be a caretaker, especially if the child isn't even yours, he supposes. She doesn't HAVE to be so nice to him, he supposes. It makes his stomach a bit upset, thinking about how the Hemulen treats him so differently than all the other townspeople. He can mess up her garden, and she'll only cluck her tongue and ask him gently to not do that again, less he hurt the flowers. Or he'll purposely stay up past his bedtime because it makes no sense to have a bedtime, and she'll only chide him a little before pulling out a book to read to him.

He could make another hemulen angry at him, simply for standing in a place with a sign that has a big "NO" and a big word he can't understand written on it, and she'd always come to defend.

Not because he can't read the sign and didn't know what "loitering" meant.

But because it was unfair of the other hemulen to get upset at him for doing something absolutely harmless.

And then, she'd still defend him after he knows what "loitering" means, always standing up for him when others would rather see him anywhere but here. So confusing was she to him that he could never tell if she was unlike any other hemulen, or if perhaps this certain town's batch of hemulens were just so dour that they were the unhemulen-like hemulens, and she was the only hemulen who behaved like one.

Or, perhaps the Hemulen was simply...

No. He shakes his head, plucking more flowers to keep his mind off the topic. When all is said and done, the Hemulen has truly looked after and cared for his needs, even if she pretends to be strict and rule-abiding to him. That, perhaps, is why he realizes with a strange gut tugging feeling that he is truly grateful to her, even if he feels like her rules and sometimes overbearing behavior are a bit much.

He was never really good at telling the Hemulen thank you, especially when she always reminds him to say thank you to others in town as a simple courtesy. And, he supposes, he DID forget to say thank you after she gave him her permission to venture into the forest, something she rarely did, if at all.

He looks up at the sky, watching as the fat, lazy clouds drift through the sky at their own leisure.

Thinking about the Hemulen reminds him of the wanted and unwanted thoughts of being someone's child. Somewhere, out there, he wonders if his own parents are watching the same sky as he is?

Or, perhaps, he has no parents at all?

...Maybe, he's just a parentless child?

An orphan who was supposed to be in an orphanage, but somehow managed to find himself floating down a river instead?

(...Perhaps, he was never meant to have a parent at all?)

(Perhaps, he was never meant to be with the Hemulen at all?)

(Perhaps. He was never meant to be the Hemulen's at all.)

(Perhaps.)

(He was never meant to be at all.)

It's too much, he realizes, and he rubs his eyes before taking off with his flowers. Something inside him hurts, and he remembers the Hemulen has a practiced care that works wonders in making him feel better.

He follows the clouds with hurried feet back to the Hemulen's back door, and is greeted with a worried squawk of her voice. It's enough for him to want to launch himself into her arms, but he refrains from doing so. Something makes him hesitate, in the same way he hesitates to end her name with "mamma". However, nothing stops her from launching herself at him, and it's that lack of hesitance that makes him almost envy her.

"Mumrik! Look at you!" She's about to grab at his face when he thrusts the fistful of flowers into her face. Her eyes widen as she looks at the flowers, and for an unrealistic minute, he fears that she is about to lecture him about the rudeness of shoving things into people's faces (though she never has before).

"Um." He starts before she can get started on a sentence. "I picked these. For you. To, uh. Say thank you, for letting me go out."

"...Mumrik." With a tenderness that's sure to have been practiced before, she takes the flowers from him and smiles. "Of course. You're always such a good boy, after all. Now, go wash up for lunch, and I'll take care of those scrapes afterwards." He nods, obeying her as he always does, and races away to wash the dirt off his arms and face.

A few days later, he finds the flowers gently pressed between the pages of a blank book. He takes the book to her and asks about the dried flowers.

"Why, to preserve them longer, little Mumrik."

"But why?"

"I want to keep them for just a bit longer."

"Why?"

"Because." She takes the book from him and closes it softly, keeping the flowers safely inside. "They are precious to me." She smiles sweetly to him, but he still doesn't understand.

(His heart tries to soar, but he shushes the little thing until it calms down. No no, he scolds it, you're not allowed to get excited over something like this. This is not for you, he reminds himself.)

(Not for you.)

He looks at the book, and wonders if the flowers liked to be pressed between pages like that, dried up and lost of their former glory.

Wouldn't it be much better to just remember them as they are, rather than keep their dried remains and to remember them as only remains?

Why even keep the flowers if memories are much more important to keep anyways?

He doesn't ask these questions, for he's sure the Hemulen will give him a long lesson about the importance of flower pressing and why it's important to document every little thing. Instead, he watches as she gets up and puts the book in the T section, despite the book having no title whatsoever.

The romp through the forest changed him, just enough that he finds himself stealing away for walks when the Hemulen isn't looking. It excites him, sneaking off and knowing he's breaking her imposed rule of always being inside the house as he wanders the forest, exploring each new tree and plant and stream as he goes farther and farther away from her home. When he comes back, she always throws a fit of sorts, fretting and yelling as he comes back covered in dirt yet again, missing another lesson yet again, and going off without her knowledge yet again.

When she asks him why he does this, he merely shrugs and says that it feels right.

After the next few times, she stops asking why, and merely accepts it with a bitterness he hasn't seen since her recollections of his strange arrival.

She harrumphs and sighs every time he comes back later than the last time, but her gaze softens every time he presents her with a new flower he's found in the forest. Each time, she takes out that blank book and presses the flower into it. He's known of hemulens who take to collecting things rather obsessively, but he's never really seen the Hemulen do the same thing. Perhaps, he thinks, he should help her find her own thing to collect. Perhaps then, he thinks, she'll relinquish her hold on him. Perhaps then, he thinks, she'll grant him more and more freedom.

He's never really liked all her rules anyways, even if she is kind as she is strict.

So he goes out and finds her a flower each time he wanders off from her home. It's a nice feeling, seeing her face light up every time he presents her with a different flower, and he thinks she's collecting now, even if it's with his help. It's a nice feeling, knowing that he can make her happy simply by presenting her a flower he finds on his outings.

It's nice, but it doesn't stop the slowly growing oppressive feeling he gets whenever he returns to her home. It's not that she makes it oppressive, oh no, surprisingly enough, she's always made it a point to him that her home is his as well.

But each time he comes back, he feels the walls close in on him more and more. Suddenly, the nooks and crannies look far less inviting, and the old corners he used to curl up in are far too small to feel comfortable in any longer.

He finds himself falling asleep outside in the grass, and each time, the Hemulen frets and worries, waking him up to get him to come inside instead.

After a while, he refuses to go inside.

"I can't," he'll say. And each time, he'll have a different reason for why he wants to sleep outside rather than in a bed.

"The stars are nice tonight."

"It's too hot inside."

"The bed feels too stiff."

"I don't like the way the sheets feel."

"My room feels too small."

"I don't like the creaks of the floor."

"It's suffocating inside."

Eventually, the Hemulen relents and buys him a sleeping bag for his naps and bedtime. He'd much rather sleep on the grass itself, but he knows he's already pushing the limits of the Hemulen by disregarding the notion of sleeping inside like a good, obedient child.

But as he watches the clouds drift by in her backyard, the way the grass bends in the wind, and how the leaves dance away from the trees, he finds "obedience" to be more confining then the walls that have surrounded him since he was found. So like the clouds, he drifts through the woods, humming along to the tune of the birds' songs and picking the flowers forgotten by the bees, and allowing himself to ignore for a moment that he's expected to return to the Hemulen, where her grasp on him slowly slips as he wriggles towards what he wants.

What he needs.

"Mumrik!"

Her voice echoes through the woods however, and suddenly what he wants and what he needs are quickly shoved down. He covers his ears and squeezes his eyes shut.

Maybe if he ignores her, she'll leave him alone.

A moment's peace is all he needs.

But the kind Hemulen raised him. Though he doesn't want to admit it, he cares for her feelings. He doesn't like it when she her snout dips down to hide her tiny frown, or when her paws grasps at her dress when he declines another day spent with her. Even though she is a strict Hemulen, who demands he follow her rules when he'd rather break them, she is also so incredibly soft with him, only chastising him lightly when he does inevitably break them.

She could be calling him all sorts of rotten names for the things he does to her - purposely tracking in mud, refusing to sit still for lessons, doing all he can to come home late, chew loudly with his mouth open, hide away from her when she makes him do chores-

But all she does is shake her head with a tired smile and call him, "her Mumrik".

She has an impossible patience that he can't fathom, and while he knows he'd rather not, he drags his feet towards the sound of her voice. The Hemulen brightens when she sees him emerge from the forest, every ounce of worry melting away from her face as though she was afraid he would never return.

"Ah, Mumrik!" She cups his face with the tenderness of a mother, and he almost lets himself sink into her soft paws. "About time! I was worried I would have to call you again for supper!" Her paws pull away from his face to instead gently grab his hand. As she leads him into the dining room, his fingers sink into the fur of her paws.

It's absurd that she would want him to call her Hemulenmamma. Idly, his fingers rub against her paw, and she squeezes back as she prattles on about what she made for supper.

It's absurd, given how different the two of them are. For instance, she prefers order and rules, and he prefers the call of nature and the wildness of it all. She's covered head to toe in fur, and he's barely covered in any, if at all. And she has such nice, fluffy, soft paws. Whereas, his hands are sparsely covered in fur, if he can even call the hair that covers the back of his hand fur. And even then, it's a far cry from "covered" when it's just a small patch on the back of his hand.

It's absolutely, positively absurd that she would want him to call her Hemulenmamma, when he can hardly see any resemblance between them. It hurts, just a little, to notice all the differences between them, and yet she still wants to be his mamma.

Can't she tell?

He never belonged here with her.

And that's why he has to find his real family. Mumriks just like him, who prefer the wild and untamed as opposed to order and rules. Mumriks who aren't covered head to toe in soft, warm fur. Mumriks who aren't hemulens who smile at him with a sad softness to their snouts because the vast difference between them often reminds him that he was never her child, and that he was abandoned in a basket that floated down a river.

"-so I thought, well, a little change wouldn't hurt! And I know how much you love fish stew so- oh, Mumrik! Mumrik, dearest, what's wrong?"

Usually, he doesn't let his thoughts get to him. But the soft sniveling he makes surprises him more than the Hemulen, and she's already getting down on her knees to wipe his tears away as he cries over nothing.

He should be happy living with someone who actually wants him around, but he isn't.

He should be fine calling the Hemulen his mamma, but he isn't.

He should be living somewhere that doesn't make him feel enclosed like an animal, but he isn't.

He should be outside, freer than a bird, following his nature as it calls him, but he isn't.

He feels like he's being pulled one one and another, and he can't figure out which way is the right way to lean, and it hurts when the Hemulen looks at him with those big, brown eyes of hers, so sad, so worried as if he is her own child. But he isn't her child, even if she wishes he was. He's someone else's child, and he belongs with them, not her, no matter how much she wishes he was hers.

(No matter how much he wishes he was hers.)

Her eyes search his face, before she sighs softly and picks him up tenderly, and he can't help how he curls into her, burying his face against her neck and breathing in her familiar, rosy scent.

The Hemulen is a stickler for order. Usually. She carries him over to her rocking chair, and quietly, she sits him on her lap rocks them both back and forth, holding him close to her chest.

"...well. Sometimes one can't help but postpone supper for a bit. I suppose it won't taste as good if one is too sad to enjoy it, yes?" She smiles down at him, and he nods, enjoying her warmth and not enjoying it, wanting to scoot closer, but also wanting to propel himself as far as he can from her. The Hemulen hums, and he makes himself focus on that instead of his thoughts.

At seven springs, he notices a change in the Hemulen. Well, he notices that she begins to read more and more often than she used to. It started after his crying fit, when he cried over nothing and couldn't tell the Hemulen what exactly made him sob so much that they both skipped supper for that night. She took to reading more and more books on mumriks, and gradually, she would bury herself with her study, unintentionally giving him a freer lifestyle as a result. He could spend the entire day picking wild berries and flowers, getting scratched up and feasting on nature's bounty for lunch, and she would be none the wiser. It didn't matter what the day was, he would always find her sitting in her rocking chair, diligently turning the pages of her latest book, before he cleared his throat to remind her that supper was to be soon. Each time, she would be shocked out of her stupor, before rushing to prepare a meal with ingredients that he picked out for her.

At seven springs, he notices a change in himself. The more he spends time outside, the harder it is to actually make himself come home. Now that the Hemulen no longer calls him back for lunch or supper, he finds himself lingering in the forest for longer periods of time, before he forces his feet to return to the Hemulen, for if he does not return, who will remind her to prepare supper? Sure, he can live off berries and fruits, but that's only because his nose isn't buried in books like the Hemulen. Had it not been for the Hemulen, he's sure that he would have disappeared by now. And that itch to disappear refuses to leave him.

So he slowly embraces it.

He finds himself gathering a small pile in his room - well, really, it's just his favorite blanket with a few clothes in it. But soon, he squirrels away an old sack the Hemulen doesn't use anymore and keeps it in his room. The clothes and blanket go into the sack, and then the sack hides under his bed. The dried berries and fruits in the pantry start to disappear into a small drawstring bag that he hides in his sack, and the guilt only subsides when he replaces the stolen goods with the fresher, plumper berries and fruits he finds in the forest.

However, the Hemulen never notices. Engrossed as she is in her book, she hardly notices the sneaky way that he moves around her, pocketing dried goods under her nose as she continues to read. It almost annoys him how she doesn't stop her study to pester him, but he takes his opportunities as he sees it, nearly filling the drawstring bag up to full.

It never occurred to him that he should have ran away from the Hemulen ages ago. Perhaps the moment he knew how to walk. But for some reason, something held him back. Perhaps it was knowing that he would have been ill prepared to run away at such a young age. Or perhaps it was knowing that he hadn't yet grown the confidence to tackle the wild just yet at that age.

Or perhaps it was for another reason.

But, as he looks over his haul, his provisions and preparations, he finds that it doesn't matter now.

He ties a knot onto the sack, keeping it securely shut as he practices slinging it over his shoulder. It's heavy, and cumbersome, and not the best solution to not owning a backpack, but it'll have to do. He stares out his bedroom window and frowns. The skies look clear, and the sunshine warms the forest in such a way that it scratches a yearning out of him. However, he finds himself stowing his sack under his bed, before loudly thumping down the stairs.

No, he decides. Maybe not today.

But soon.

When he reaches the first floor, he's startled by the sight of the Hemulen snapping her book shut, seemingly the last of her pile. She looks up and sees him there, still holding tight to the banister and frozen in place. He blinks owlishly at her, to which she responds in turn. They both stay there in their spots, taking in the sight of the other without much thought, without much wonder.

It occurs to him that he's used to her presence, and that the sight of her doesn't surprise him at all.

It occurs to him that soon, he'll have to get used to her not being there at all. It surprises him how the thought doesn't sit too well with him.

A slow smile creeps onto her snout, and she places the book aside next to her, before patting her lap. With a meandering pace, he makes his way to her, pulling himself up onto her lap without much help. He used to need her help so much when he was younger.

Another sign that he's changing.

She pulls the book back onto her lap, and she flips to a page before pointing at a portrait of a figure just like him - hairy, but not too hairy. Paw-like hands with sharp claws at the ends, ears rounded and naked and visible, and hair wild and untamed - the portrait resembles him, and yet it doesn't. There's something missing there that he can't quite grasp, and he realizes that the eyes are smaller than his big, brown ones, that the claws are longer than his, and that little fangs poke out from the lips, whereas his fangs are tucked carefully into his mouth, where they belong. Before he can even dwell on these small yet noticeable differences between him and the portrait, the Hemulen points to a word that decorates the page.

"Snufkin." She reads it out loud, resting her snout on top of his head. "That's who you are."

"I thought I was Mumrik?" He tries to look up at her, but her snout is planted firmly on his head, so he huffs instead. Her chuckles vibrate against him, and he finds the sensation warm and comforting, leaning into her as she snuggles him closer.

"Yes, well, you are mumrik, but specifically, you are mostly Snufkin."

"So... what does that mean?"

"Well, mumrik is a broad term for your kind. But there are so many mumriks out there - mumriks who are different and alike in so many ways that we call those Mumriks different names. Some are called joxters, others are sangfangels, and many, many others choose to call themselves something else." She leaves her explanation at that, letting him soak in the information as he tends to do. His finger traces shapes into her fur as he hums, thinking about what this means to him.

"So... I'm a Snufkin?"

"Most likely, yes."

"You're not sure?"

"Well." She pulls her snout off his head and hums thoughtfully, rocking the chair back and forth gently. "I suppose there are a few differences, yes. But not all snufkins are the same, just like how not all hemulens are the same."

"Does this mean you'll stop calling me Mumrik?"

"Yes, unless you'd rather not?" She pauses her rocking to look down at him, to which he looks up at her, a finger tapping his chin as he mulls the title over.

While he has gotten used to responding to Mumrik, the name itself was just so generic, he could be lost to a sea of mumriks and nobody would be the wiser. Snufkin had such a charm to it however. The title seemed to sing to him, ringing out what it could mean to him with an ease he never felt with his Mumrik title.

"I think I like Snufkin better, actually." He nods his approval, giggling along when the Hemulen laughs at his display.

"Yes, I suppose it suits you very well, my little Snufkin." She ruffles his hair, and he bats at her hand playfully.

"Is that why you've been reading all these books? To figure out who I am?"

"More or less." She closes the book and sets it aside.

"Was it what you wanted to know?" He crawls off her lap, giving her a chance to stand up and dust her dress off. A faraway look settles in her eyes, and she holds out a paw for him to take. He takes it without a second thought, and pulls her towards the kitchen.

"Well." She hums as he lets go to pick up some fresh fruits that he's gathered from the previous day. "It's hard to say."

There's no excuse for him to stay any longer, now that the Hemulen has moved on from her obsessive studying back to her usual schedule - cleaning, cooking, giving lessons, and fretting over him. Things have gotten back on track, and now he's stuck fiddling with his hands, trying to figure out what he wants.

Surely, he wants to leave. To explore beyond the walls of the Hemulen's house, beyond the forest he's so familiar with, and beyond the oppressive little town they live in. Surely, he wants to fulfill that yearning inside him, that longing that's been resting within for so long.

Surely, that's what he wants.

...

But he can't help but wonder.

What of the Hemulen?

Surely, she wants him to stay. To keep him here and prepare his favorite meals, to walk with him to town and secretly buy him treats when he isn't looking. Surely, she wants to forever call him, "her little Snufkin", and keep him wrapped up in her warm arms, someone so familiar she can confidently call him "family".

Surely, that's what she wants.

It is quite the dilemma, he finds, as he swings his legs from where he sits on a tree limb. He kicks the air, thinking that maybe a solution may present itself to him.

But it doesn't.

And he's left kicking at the air helplessly, staring up at the sky obscured by leaves.

It's a dilemma, he realizes, because he cares about what the Hemulen wants. Although he tried so hard, so stubbornly to deny it all these years, he realizes that he truly does like the Hemulen, more so than he'd like to admit. It's an attachment he tried so hard to fight off, because he believed this particular Hemulen couldn't possibly be family, not when she was so different from him.

Not when he had his own family waiting, possibly, out there, for him. His own Mumrikmamma and Mumrikpappa he could love and be cared for.

But it was the Hemulen who raised him all these years, had it not?

A Hemulen who taught him to be kind and polite, who wanted him to be filled with knowledge, and overall, be a good person.

The attachment he tried so hard to deny had only grown stronger throughout the years, with each little treat, with each little flower, with each little moment shared between the two.

He wants to leave.

He really, really wants to leave.

But at the same time.

He doesn't want to leave her behind.

"Snufkin!"

She calls out to him, with that familiar, soft voice.

And obediently, he trails his way back to her.

What does he want?

What does a snufkin like him really want?

"Hemulen?"

"Hemulenmamma."

"Hemulen."

She sighs, before chuckling good-naturally as she tucks him into bed. "What is it, dear Snufkin?"

He stares up at the ceiling, choosing his words carefully as he ignores the pack under his bed. "Um, what if..."

"What if...?"

"What if, what if you had to pick a book out to read."

"Yes?"

"And there is one book you really want to read. But there's another book you know that someone else would like to read. And, um, usually, you like to read with this other someone. But you know they won't like the book that you want to read. But the book you want to read will make you happier than the book they want to read. What would you do?"

"Hmmm..." she ponders, sitting carefully on the edge of his bed. He scoots over, giving her some more space, but she doesn't take it. "I would go with the book I want to read."

"Even if it made the other person sad?"

"Well." She smiles and ruffles his already messy hair, laughing as he huffs at her paw. "I'm sure the other person would understand, especially if it made me happy. When it comes to choices I have to make for myself, I have to believe that the choice I do make will always be the right one. And sometimes the right choice isn't always the nicest or happiest for everyone."

"I see." He snuggles deeper into his blankets, deep in thought. "So, any choice I make for myself will always be the right one?"

"As long as it makes you happy, I suppose. Hm, but if it means breaking rules than I'd highly suggest against it." She puts a paw on her hip and wags the other one in a playfully scolding manner. "Breaking rules won't make you happy! They only get you in trouble, and being in trouble is never a good choice for anyone!"

He giggles at her posture, piping up playfully from his blankets. "But what if the rules are bad? Or unfair?"

"There's no such thing as bad or unfair rules. Rules are made for the benefit of everyone. That's why they exist! Without rules, there would be no order, and with no order, there would only be chaos! Unruly, uncontrollable, terrifying chaos!"

"But what if the chaos is fun? Maybe a little chaos wouldn't hurt." Although he wasn't completely sure what chaos actually meant, the word itself was fun to say, and he found that he liked the sound of chaos. If it meant the opposite of boring old order, then perhaps chaos wasn't so terrible as the Hemulen made it out to be.

"You are filled with so many what-ifs tonight." She squeezes his cheeks, much to his dismay, and stands up, brushing off her dress. "I hope you'll be able to get some sleep, unless your thoughts bounce around too much in your little head."

"I'll be fine!" He watches her start to leave his room, before the feeling of unease returns, and he ends up piping up one last time. "Um, Hemulen?"

"Hemulenmamma." She turns back all the same, giving him a curious look.

"Hemulen." He reaffirms, more for himself than for her. "How can... how can I be sure that the choice I make, will always be the right one? What if. What if I end up making someone sad because of my choice?"

She stares at him for a moment, with an emotion he can never truly identify, before she settles on that familiar, sad smile of hers. A knowing look is present in her eyes when she finally speaks.

"Sometimes, my dear Snufkin, making someone sad is inevitable. Sometimes, you have no choice but to make them sad." He almost wilts at her words, but she speaks up once more, and her eyes grow softer as she continues. "But, you know, you can learn from your choices. And then eventually, you can make a choice that can make both you and the other happy. It won't be immediate, but I'm sure you can find that choice someday."

Her words settle on his mind, and his mind wanders back to the pack underneath his bed.

"...okay." He watches her from his bed, and seeing her form outlined with the light from the hallway makes him sad in a sense. It is lonely, seeing her standing warm and firm against the light, as it fails to envelop her with that same warm intensity that she radiates. "Thank you, Hemulen. Good night."

And with that same warm intensity that she always had, she smiles and makes to close his door.

"Good night, sweet Snufkin."

In the end, he makes his choice.

It makes him happy.

...and it makes him sad.

He wants to spend his last day with the Hemulen making her the happiest that he could make her.

They spend the entire day doing math quizzes, and cleaning the house, and cooking meals together. All the while, he is on his best behavior. He sits still during his quizzes, he doesn’t protest or try to run when she hands him the broom, he chews with his mouth closed, and most importantly, he obeys every little rule she imposes on him as though it were second nature. When it comes time for him to decide what they should do, he chooses to spend the afternoon in her backyard, the abundance of nature there to grace them with its little gifts. The perfect gifts.

Carefully, he makes her a flower crown made out of all the prettiest wildflowers he could find. It is a misshapen, awkward little thing to look at, but she claps her paws with delight when he places it on her head, saying it was the prettiest little thing she has ever owned.

Together, they wander away from the safety of the Hemulen's backyard and gather fresh berries from the forest. While she frets and worries over whether or not they need a permit to do so, he picks the plumpest lingonberries he could find. Eventually, she stops with her constant bemoaning and joins him, chastising him when he starts to eat every other berry he picks.

"You'll get a tummyache that way!" she cries, to which he pops another berry in as a response. She huffs and rolls her eyes, but he doesn’t miss the way she tries to sneakily eat a few berries herself.

Together, they head back into the Hemulen's house, where she takes out her pie tin, flour, sugar, and all the works as he washes the lingonberries dutifully. It isn’t often that she sings, but they both joyfully sing a little tune she taught him when he was so very little, when he still clung to the hem of her dress and cried every night for a mamma. She gives him the task of making the dough, while she focuses on boiling the berries for the sweet filling of the pie.

The Hemulen loves following recipes to a T, but Snufkin still finds moments where she deviates from the recipe - just a pinch more sugar, just a little more heat, and just a bit more stewing for the filling.

And of course, the filling comes out so very perfect that his mouth is already watering.

She rolls out the dough and carefully sets it in the tin. The hot filling is poured in ever so slowly, and she sets the extra filling aside to be made into a jam. And with that, she and Snufkin both set to work with decorating the top.

It begins looking like a normal lattice, with each strip placed so very carefully, so very precisely that it looks carefully contained and measured. But Snufkin adds his little touches - a misshapen flower here, a poorly formed leaf there, and a few misaligned rows of what he hopes are vines there, and the lattice top is drowned in the chaos of his badly made dough art.

Normally, he'd imagine that any old hemulen would be upset at what he had done. Ruining such a perfectly made lattice with his own messy little creations.

But his Hemulen is a little strange, perhaps a step away from the norm. She laughs instead, ruffling his already messy hair and taking their pie to the oven.

"Such lovely flowers, Snufkin, but I do believe you'll need to practice a bit more, don't you think?"

"Hm, I suppose." She smiles from where she is in front of the oven, and it's then that he focuses so much on the figure he knows so well.

Her hair is soft and wavy, with a goldenness to it that shines nicely in the afternoon sun, unlike the stringy, dull mops he sees on the other hemulens. Her dress is a shade brighter, a lovely lavender that resembles the sky of a setting sun, unlike the dark colors the hemulens in town often don instead, looking more like a starless night sky or a stormy day. She smiles a lot more, he realizes, than the other hemulens, which makes little crinkles in the corners of her eyes, and the crinkles become wrinkles that he sees on so very few hemulens.

She turns back towards him and holds out her paw, and he grabs it with ease, fingers sinking into fur so familiar he could pretend it was his own. The two go out into the living room, where she sits down in her favorite chair and picks up a book to read, and Snufkin crawls onto her lap as he so often does. She reads to him a tale of a witch that falls in love with a songbird, and her quest to find a spell that lets the bird live for eternity. He finds the story sad, for the songbird wanted nothing more than to sing and be free with the witch, but the witch instead chose to lock herself away, and when she finally leaves her study, the songbird had long since died.

It's a sad tale that promises no happy endings, and he wonders why the Hemulen likes the story so much. A story of time wasted instead of time spent. She closes the book with a hum, and hugs him close to her chest, rocking her chair back and forth. While it is tempting to just bury his face in her chest, he instead looks up at her, curious eyes trying to peek into the mind of his strange Hemulen.

"Why do you like that story so much?"

She continues humming, leaning her head back as she thinks. "I don't know. I've liked it since I was a little girl, you see."

"But it's sad."

"Sad? I suppose you're right."

"They could have been happy together, if she'd just listened to the songbird instead of trying to do the impossible."

"Yes, you're right." She stops rocking her chair. "Who do you think was sadder, though? The bird or the witch?"

He rests his head against her chest, thinking deeply. The bird was lonely without the witch nearby, and though he waited so long for her, and sang sweet tunes to try and draw her out. His memories of the time he spent with her kept him rooted in the same tree, and instead of giving up, he chose instead to stay and try to make the past his present in vain. He ended up dying, stuck in the same place he'd always been, when he should have flown away long ago.

The witch, on the other hand, was stuck in a different way. So stubborn, so convinced that what she was doing was for the best possible future of her bird, she never stopped to think of what her beloved songbird wanted. And when she came out, her reality crashed all around her, and she realized just how much she lost, and how powerless she truly was in the face of it all.

Both were equally sad, in his opinion.

Perhaps, if they both had just lived in the present, things would have been different.

Perhaps, both would have been happy with what they had.

The timer in the kitchen rings, and he finds himself without an answer to speak. The Hemulen gets up without a word, and lets him follow her into the kitchen. With a smile, she pulls out the pie, and lays it out to cool before cutting into it. She presents him with a slice, and he takes a bite, letting the flavors sink onto his tongue, memorizing it.

He watches the Hemulen indulge in her slice happily, and he hopes that she will remember this day to be as sweet as the pie on the plate.

He hopes, and desperately prays that she will remember only the day as it is, and nothing else.

When he pulls his pack from under his bed, it's much past his bedtime, and the house is peacefully quiet. A note is left on his bed for the Hemulen, something to explain why he left, and why she shouldn't be upset that he's gone. The pack is hoisted onto his shoulder, and he shifts it around until it sits snugly in place, careful not to jostle it in a way that could make any kind of noise. He peeks out his doorway, looking for any telltale signs that the Hemulen is awake. Luckily, all the lights are off, and the quietness can only be attributed to the fact that she is more than likely to be asleep. He nods to himself, and tiptoes softly down the hall, padding down the stairs with the utmost urgency, silently glad that the Hemulen was so good on her upkeep of the house. No squeaky boards to give away any hint that he may be wandering the house so late at night. For a moment, he hesitates between picking either the front or back door. The front door is the faster route, as it is literally just to the right of him, whereas the back door requires him to sneak through the kitchen in order to get out. Oh, but he does so love the woods, and it would take longer to walk around the house from the front door to get to the woods-

"Snufkin?" A familiar voice calls out to him, startling him as a figure rises from her place in her favorite chair. "My little one, what are you doing up past your bedtime? You know that it is very important for growing children to get all the sleep they need."

Curses! And to think he foolishly assumed that she was in her bedroom this entire time. Nevermind that, how had he not seen her? His eyesight is surprisingly good at night, and to have missed seeing the Hemulen seated so clearly right there made his mind fumble at notion.

"I, um." And a fumbling mind makes it difficult for him to form any sort of response.

"You?" The Hemulen steps closer, looking over him as her eyes settle on his pack.

"I." He didn't want this. He wanted to leave under the cover of night, to avoid having to confront the Hemulen, to avoid telling her how staying here kills him inside everyday, this feeling of being trapped and rooted in a spot when he'd very much like to float as freely as a petal in the wind. But more than anything, he wanted to avoid saying goodbye, and seeing her face crumple when she realizes that she can't keep him here. But his mind fumbles for the right words to say, and he stands there, looking down at his boots as the words escape him second by second. "I just, um. I wanted..."

"You're leaving." The words come out more calmly than he had expected from the Hemulen. He looks up at her with wide eyes, his hand tightening on the strap of his pack. Her familiar, sad smile is back on her face, with eyes too understanding that it hurts to look at her. "Yes, of course."

His words, where are his words?

The Hemulen gestures for him to come sit with her, but not in her favorite chair. No, she sits down on the couch he would curl up on when he was younger, sleeping and ignoring her chides when she told him that he had a perfectly good bed upstairs to sleep on. The memory settles in his mind as he follows her lead, leaving the pack on the floor as he sits next to her. For a moment, neither of them can speak a word. An owl hoots from beyond the front door, and Snufkin hears a hint of melancholy in it. A lonely hoot with no one to return its cry.

The Hemulen speaks, her voice even and soft as she stares off into the distance. "To think this day would come sooner rather than later. I thought that, perhaps, I would be prepared for it when it comes. But today is that day, and I can't find it in myself to really accept it just yet."

Snufkin grips his pants, little claws digging into his leg as he struggles to find the words for a response. "I... um. How did- why did, why were you expecting this to happen?"

She laughs, the emptiness of it ringing loudly through the house. "Oh my sweet child, even before I knew you were a snufkin, I knew fairly well that you were a mumrik. And all mumriks are travelers at heart, moving from one place to another. It's just in their nature. Rare is it to find a mumrik who is content in staying in one place for the rest of their life." A soft sigh escapes her as she slumps back against the couch, closing her eyes as she continues. "But no, not only are you a mumrik, but you're a snufkin at that. And snufkins, notoriously, do not get along well with many hemulens. It only makes sense, really, that you'd want to get as far away from here as possible, no matter how much I want otherwise." She opens her eyes, staring up at the ceiling with a gaze so tired it makes him ache. "It's simply in your nature."

"...No!" His sudden exclamation startles both him and the Hemulen, her eyes finally drifting over to look at him as he fidgets with the fabric of his coat. "It's... I'm not leaving because I, um, don't like you. That's not- that's not true, even if I'm a snufkin." He thinks back to when she tried to explain what he was, and how despite everything, he was still him, even if he shared his name with so many other creatures like him. "I'm a snufkin, but I'm also Snufkin. Maybe I don't get along with many hemulens, but I get along with you!" He becomes genuine, earnest even as he looks up to meet her brown eyes. "You're really nice, and make really good pies! Even though you have a lot rules, you don't get really mad like the other hemulens do when I break them. You took care of me, even when you could have dropped me off at the orphanage, and you. You..." For a moment, time pauses as he struggles to accept what he wanted to deny for so long. Except... did he really want to deny it? Why did he want to deny it? In hopes of parents that never came back for him? For a stubbornness to be contrary, to continue trying to do the opposite of what the Hemulen asked of him?

...For what reason did he find it scary to admit a truth so simple as this? A truth that he should have accepted with open arms, only because it was right and honest. Only because it invited a tenderness that he wasn't ready to accept as his own because of what others had said about them.

But she looks at him, with her brown eyes that remind him of the soil that nurtures flowers and plants. It reminds him of the soft forest floor, the way his toes curl into it with relish as he runs wild in the forest. It reminds him of the bark of the trees, so fun to climb, and so solid and sturdy that he couldn't possibly stop himself from leaning against them for a quick rest.

He looks at her, and the only word that truly comes to mind is "mamma".

If what she said was true, that hemulens and snufkins don't get along, then what did it say about them if a hemulen managed to raise a snufkin that loved her as much as she loved him? A hemulen who wore softer hues than anyone else in her entire town, and a snufkin who lived a rather peaceful life with a hemulen with little strife between them.

He leans against her, resting his head against her arm.

"You're Hemulenmamma."

She takes in a sharp breath, a soft "oh" escaping her as her arm moves to wrap itself around him. "...I'm Hemulenmamma."

He rubs his face against her. "I'm sorry I wouldn't say it sooner. I was... scared."

"No," she says softly, as she gently pulls him into her lap for a hug. "No, I understand, my dear. My dear, lovely Snufkin."

He laughs against her, but it's wet and comes out in hiccups. "You're a very nice Hemulen."

"And you're a very sweet Snufkin." She hums as she rests her snout on top of his head, as she is wont to do. "...What an odd pair we make. Perhaps I'm not completely hemulen, and you're not completely snufkin."

"So then, what are we?"

"Something quite hemulen, but not quite hemulen. Something quite snufkin, but not quite snufkin. Perhaps mixes of something else." She pulls back to give Snufkin a good, hard look before wiping his tears away. "But I do prefer being called the Hemulen."

"Hemulenmamma," he corrects. "And I much like being called Snufkin."

"Yes." She smiles as she rubs her snout against her adopted son's cheek. "My little Snufkin. We're both different from the others in just the right ways."

He leans back in to rub his cheek against hers, and they sit there like that until the dread settles back into his system.

The pack is heavy reminder of what he originally set out to do, and now, saying goodbye to his Hemulenmamma is more difficult to do than ever. However, his Hemulenmamma is a step ahead of him, already pulling him off her lap and setting him gently on the floor. As he brings the pack back over his shoulder, she rifles through her pockets and pulls an old, polished mouth organ and places it in his hands. It's heavy and smooth, an old thing that has been lovingly taken care of. He didn't take her for one to make music, but then again, perhaps he underestimated the extent of how much of a hemulen she chooses to act upon.

"It used to be my pappa's, or at least, that's what I was told," she muses out loud, placing her paw on top of his head to ruffle his hair. "I never truly met my pappa, but he left this behind for my brother and I. My brother thought that it made too much of a ruckus to really make any music, and I could never figure out how to play it properly. I suppose my snout is too big for this mouth organ." He giggles at her words, and her smile only grows fonder. "It would be a waste to keep it to myself. So I thought that, perhaps, this mouth organ would do much better in your hands. What do you think?"

He turns the mouth organ around in his hands, admiring the shiny, silver metal and the wooden mouthpiece. There's clear wear from where it's been held many times before, but the mouth piece has been carefully cleaned and maintained. He puts the instrument up to his lips and blows lightly, listening to the notes that play softly. There's no real tune that results from the random placement of his mouth, but a part of him sings along with the light, wispy tones of the mouth organ. Hemulenmamma waits patiently as he plays around with the instrument, the disconnected notes drifting lazily around them and the house. He puts down the mouth organ and slips it into his pocket, utterly satisfied with his inspection.

"I think it's very nice."

"I'm very glad you think so."

For a moment, neither of them say a word. The pack shifts awkwardly on his shoulder, the reminder of a goodbye that still fails to leave his tongue adds more weight to his already heavy shoulders. However, his Hemulenmamma is a rather good mamma. She smiles, in that knowing way that only mammas know how to do, and she takes his hand, leading him towards the kitchen and out the back door, and the two of them face the forest together, before her paw squeezes his hand and lets go.

"Goodbyes are always so dreadful." She speaks into the open air, and her voice wavers slightly. "They always have a hint of finality to them. Do you ever wonder why that's so?"

He sniffles softly, and wipes his eyes on his sleeves. "A little bit. I don't think I like goodbyes all that much."

"No, I don't think I like them all that much either." She kneels down to his level, adjusting the strap on his pack and straightening out his coat. "But sometimes they are necessary."

It takes no hesitation for him to wrap his arms around Hemulenmamma, and she returns his hug with just as much gusto. "I'll miss you." He whispers it into her ear, not trusting his voice to hold if he speaks at his normal level. "I'll really miss you. I mean it."

"Of course you do, my sweetheart." She brushes her snout against his cheek, before lifting a paw to wipe his tears away. "I'll miss you too."

Farewells have that touch of finality that one never really wants, or enjoys, when parting from someone they love. To say goodbye shouldn't imply that they'll never meet again, and yet it rings such a melancholy tone when it leaves a tongue that it brings about that certain, distinct sadness that one can never truly avoid.

That is...

If he were to never return.

"I don't want to say goodbye," he decides, a determined look settled on his face. "Because..." He thinks back to her book with the pressed flowers, his flowers, that she keeps in a special spot in her bookcase. "...because I'll come back. With flowers. Flowers for you and your book." He remembers her stories, the ones that fill her bookshelf with tales of faraway lands and charismatic characters. "And I'll have stories to tell you, about my journeys and the creatures I meet. I'll tell you about all the new things I learned while I was out exploring the world. And." He remembers the mouth organ, heavy in his pocket. "And I'll show you how good I'll become at playing the mouth organ, and all the new songs I make. And then." He pauses, looking into her brown, warm eyes that remind him of the familiar woods, open and ready to give him what he needs, ready to love him as he is. "And then, I won't have to say goodbye. Because I'll come back. And we won't have to say goodbye, but rather, 'til we meet again."

And those brown, warm eyes soften as they are wont to do, her own tears welling up in those familiar corners that crinkle with her smiles. "Of course, my dear. I'll be waiting for your flowers, and your tales and songs." She ruffles his hair with a tenderness she has practiced all these years, with an understanding patience that only a mamma could possibly have. "I'll wait for however long it takes, so take your time, my dear." Her smile is soft, but it no longer holds that sadness he was expecting to remain. Love seems to be the only thing she can convey now. "Until we meet again."

They hug one more hug, before pulling away. Hemulenmamma stands up, dusting off her lavender dress, and Snufkin adjusts his pack one last time, until it feels lighter than before. She stays where she stands as he walks away into the forest, and he turns once to wave to her. She waves back, and continues to wave even as he walks deeper into the forest. He turns back again, and her lavender dress is but a speck in the distance. Nonetheless, he waves again, for he knows that she still waves to him, even if they can hardly see each other.

For he is her child, and she will continue to wave until he is truly out of sight.

It only takes Snufkin a few days of traveling on his own to realize that, perhaps, he had underestimated his abilities to wander by himself. Instincts, he realizes, can only take him so far on a journey before he runs out of fruit to eat, or when the brisk fall winds start to chill him to his core, and there is no warm shelter to be found.

For the first time in his life, he finds himself miserable out in the woods.

He huddles underneath the branches of a tree, trying to warm himself with what layers of clothes he has. His stomach protests from the lack of food, and he briefly finds himself reminiscing of Hemulenmamma's fish stew, before he shakes the thought out of his mind bitterly.

Perhaps he should have prepared himself with more things. Or more knowledge. A fire would be nice right about now.

If only he had the foresight to learn that skill before setting off, blindly chasing his wanderlust and want for solitude.

"Oh Snufkin," he mumbles to himself, "what are you to do?"

Something above him makes the leaves shake and fall atop his head. Birds, he thinks, as he brushes the leaves out of his hair.

"...Well, well, well."

Snufkin freezes, his hand still atop his head.

Birds don't usually speak.

He looks up and meets a pair of cold, icy eyes, and a sharp, toothy grin. The stranger peers down from the branch he is curled up on and speaks again.

"And what is a child like yourself doing out here all alone?"

#moomins #snufkin #joxter #hemulen oc #that's right motherfuckers i'm still writing #for some goddamn reason #moominvalley

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homiegeesus · 5 years

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The Year of Magical Thinking, Ch.1

Summary: Francis Sinclair believed Arthur Morgan had not finished living. In a second chance at life, Arthur discovers what it means to love himself.

At the edge of a precipice and nowhere to run, Arthur concedes defeat. In an extraordinary turn of events, he is sent through the ether to another time where his path crosses with a group not too unlike his own family. After discovering the fate of those he loved before, he races to find a way back. But what if he realizes that there is something worth staying for in this new world? Can two people separated by nearly a hundred and twenty years of living find their happily ever after?

________________________________________________________

So…Super nervous posting this. It’s the first time in a few years that I’ve written anything (the first fandom-centered work I’ve written since like 2005 lmao; Gilmore Girls anybody?) and it shows. But, alas, I’ve been incredibly inspired by RDR2’s story and the way other authors on Tumblr & AO3 have expanded on it. Shit guys, dunno if anybody is even going to read this, but I’ll push it out of the nest and into the world regardless. This may be the stupidest idea ever, but whatever, I’ll let y’all decide. A warning: This is not beta'd, but I reread it like 50 times. Still, I apologize for my terrible grammar. And, yes, I have shamelessly lifted the title from Joan Didion’s fantastic book. It just fit. So. Well. I’m terribly uncreative, so please forgive me Joan. Also, my only knowledge of 1920s-speak comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Clara Bow movies and Googling. I don’t know if anybody ever really said ‘old sport’, but what the hell. On another note, there will be a few things taken from the GTA universe, but it's minimal (San Andreas/Liberty City do not exist). I'll be explaining through a secondary character how states in RDR became the modern states that we know. And finally, constructive criticism welcomed and appreciated!! Anyway, here's Wonderwall...

AO3 Link

Warning: This is me working through my “stuff” vicariously through Arthur Morgan and co.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Chapter 1 - Prologue (or A Dream of Arthur Morgan)

Roanoke Valley - 1899 Peace settled over Arthur Morgan like a warm embrace; the rattle in his lungs that had invaded his every waking moment these past few months now a distant feeling. With each labored rise and fall of his chest, drowning in his own blood, he spared but one final thought.

It’s over. It’s finally over and death would soon come for him.

This wasn’t how Arthur had envisioned his death. No, he had always thought he would die with a bullet in his chest and cordite in his lungs. Not at the behest of disease and treachery. Such a shame that wisdom should only come to him on his deathbed. If only…

That’s what it came down to, that’s what it always comes down to. If only, if only, if only, his mind repeated nonstop. Regrets, Arthur had plenty of them. For months, he had been sinking so far in regrets, he could scarcely breathe. What could he have done differently that would have given a better outcome? How had he not seen Dutch’s descent into mania? Arthur supposed that maybe he had seen but chose to ignore, because when had Dutch ever led them astray.

Micah. Arthur had so many regrets about that goddamn snake. Micah had attached to Dutch like a leech and sucked every drop of the very lifeblood of the gang. He had played on all of Dutch’s insecurities and weaknesses. Arthur’s eyes were finally open, for all the good it did him now. But that rat was only one of the last in a long line of regrets he would have in his life. Arthur’s craving for penance started long before Micah came along.

Maybe Arthur himself was the leech, a disease – an infection. Death and pestilence followed him around like an acrid smell. It was something that seeped into his skin, clawed its way inside like a cancer until it reached his soul, the very center of him. Not happy with just him, it carried through the air and infected everything he had ever cared for or loved. His mother, Hosea, Mary, Eliza and –

Isaac. Arthur still had trouble even saying his name, so wrapped up in guilt as he was. During the rare times he found himself alone, thoughts of the little towheaded boy would invade his mind. Being rightly familiar with cowardice, he would press the tips of his fingers to his skull until they felt like ten dull knives, as if to physically rid himself of the painful memories. Of course, this rarely worked and he was resigned to suffer through the punishment he subconsciously forced upon himself. And now, as he laid on the jagged gravel of this cliff, he finally welcomed the comforting mental images of his son.

Feeling the weight of a life lived recklessly lift slowly from his mind, Arthur turned his head towards the setting sun, his final thought being: I gave it all I had.

___________________________________________________________

Francis Sinclair had one rule:

Don’t mess with the timeline.

It had seemed so easy in its simplicity. In the beginning, that is, until it wasn’t. He hadn’t counted on Arthur Morgan. For a bad man, he sure did a lot of good. Probably more than he realized. When Francis had asked the outlaw to find the futuristic rock carvings, he hadn’t expected Mr. Morgan to deliver. Especially not in a matter of months. Chronos himself probably would have found the task trying.

So, in 1932, when Francis had read about the fate of the Van der Linde Gang in a new hit novel by J. R. Miller, he learned that the coppers had closed in on his ole friend, and well, that just wouldn’t do. He understood that he wouldn’t be able to find Mr. Morgan in the time needed to prevent the most unfortunate aspects of his fate, but he could prevent the ultimate one. What he didn’t expect was to find the man with one arm in a Chicago Overcoat.

Francis pulled the horse-drawn buckboard to a stop in a clearing next to the crag and hopped down. The air was calm and filled with the late evening chatter of the local fauna. He jogged the incline of the rock until a recumbent figure came into his field of view. It wasn’t until he was a few feet away that he noticed the extent of the man’s injuries. His blue shirt stained brown, gone was the desperado’s worn black leather hat, in its place a matte of blood and dirt in his previously honeyed blonde hair. His once handsome face gaunt, his ashen skin a mess of bruises and cuts. One eye was swollen shut, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth. Was he even breathing? Francis was running out of time.

“You’ve a lot more living yet, old sport,” the red-head crouched down and placed two fingers against the outlaw’s throat finding a slow, but steady pulse. “Yes, a lot more.”

Mr. Morgan groaned.

“Come on, we gotta find a way to get ya on your gams, ya follow?” Francis grabbed the man’s arm and tried to pull him into a sitting position. Morgan was having none of that.

“Let me– let me die, damn you,” he wheezed on an exhale.

“No, no you poor little bunny. Can’t do that. Now up you go,” Francis pulled once more, this time succeeding.

In a broken voice, Arthur pleaded, “Goddamnit, jus’ let me alone. ‘M so damn tired.” When he finally raised his head and opened his good eye, a look of recognition passed over his face. “You– “

“Yes, me. Now, let’s scoot. You don’t have much time, Mr. Morgan.” Francis placed the man’s arm over his own shoulders, Arthur allowing himself to be hauled into standing.

Arthur weakly protested, “’M dyin’, Mr. Sinclair. I’m a dead man. Ain’t no use in helpin’ a dead man.”

Francis just laughed and replied with the strain of half-carrying a grown man in his voice, “No, Mr. Morgan. As I said before, you’ve a lot more living left to do. Now, conserve your strength.”

Likely out of exhaustion, the outlaw did not say another word. They barely made it to the buckboard before Arthur collapsed. Just before Morgan would have fallen to his knees, Francis used the momentum to haul the man into the back of the wagon. As Francis grabbed each of the larger man’s legs to swing into the bed, Arthur’s breath rasped in his throat, “Why you doin’ this?”

Francis regarded him for a moment before saying, “Because you helped me get outta a pretty big pickle.” He paused, then smiled, “And because you’re terribly important to a lot of people, baby.” And with that, Francis climbed back up to the seat and flicked the reigns.

___________________________________________________________

Well, shit.

Arthur’s plan to die in peace had been upended by a curious red-haired fellow in a blue sweater. With no energy to ruminate further, he resolved to die in the bed of this damn wagon. As the cart trudged backed to the main road, Arthur’s worn body felt every mound and stone the wheels rolled over. Finally, on a relatively smooth surface, he allowed himself to observe his surroundings. Tall pines and hemlock blurred into each other passing in his periphery as he stared at the spattering of stars visible through dark clouds. The sun had officially set in the last thirty minutes and all that remained a reddish orange hue near the horizon. Above him though, what a sight indeed. Bright stars twinkled along the Milky Way, like God himself spread them with a paintbrush across the sky.

Why had he taken all this for granted? So many nights spent under these same stars, but Arthur never really paid them any mind except for navigation. How many years before the artificial lights of the cities overpowered their natural beauty? Unable to ponder any longer and continue the fight to stay conscious, Arthur resigned to close his eyes and place complete trust in the relative stranger.

What felt like moments later, or hours Arthur was unsure, cold droplets of water forced his good eye open once again. A murmur of thunder rolled in the distance. Mr. Sinclair finally turned around, his voice deafened by the creaking of the wagon and heavy breathing of the horses.

“We are just a minute away. I think we’ll make it before the worst of the storm hits.”

But like an omen fitting of this night, Sinclair was wrong. What began as random drops here and there crescendoed into a torrential downpour. The red-haired fellow should have known that hitching his wagon to the outlaw would herald an abundance of bad luck. Unable to shield himself and too tired to care, Arthur welcomed the deluge as if it would wash him away.

Mr. Sinclair halted the horses and hopped down from the buckboard once more. He appeared in Arthur’s line of sight as he unlatched the tailgate, setting down a lantern and grabbing the larger man’s arms in another tug-of-war to get him sitting. Water poured down his face and converged at his chin.

“We just have to ankle about ten feet to the opening,” Sinclair hollered over the rain. “You ready?”

At this point, Arthur would have conjured up his most intimidating mien but there was no energy for that. “No,” he answered defeated.

Unperturbed, the younger man smiled, “That’s the spirit.”

Grabbing Arthur’s arms, Mr. Sinclair placed one across his shoulders. When he hauled the outlaw into standing position, Arthur’s world tilted. Feeling unable to breathe and so lightheaded, he launched into a series of hacking coughs. Blood splattered against his hand and mixed with the rain, diluting until it turned into a river of pink down his arm. He looked to Sinclair. Wet hair plastered to his forehead; the cold of the rain made the strange man’s curious birthmark stand out all the more against pale skin.

“When you gonna see that I’m already dead?” His weakened voice barely heard above the storm.

The redhead looked at him, “Please, just trust me.”

They began their short journey to wherever it was they were going, walking only yards but feeling like miles. By the time they reached what appeared to be a cave entrance, Arthur’s knees buckled and his vision went black. He would have felt hitting the ground, if he’d been conscious. Coming to seconds later, he became aware of his arms being tugged above his head. Mr. Sinclair was apparently dragging him. Deep down, Arthur briefly admired the man’s grit. However, the sentiment was soon replaced by annoyance and near-agony as the sensation of what felt like an elephant settled atop his chest. In and out of consciousness, Arthur realized they had stopped when Sinclair crossed the threshold to grab the lantern at the mouth of the cave. The red-haired man set the lantern between the outlaw and the cave wall and then perched above his head, grabbing both of his arms by the wrists. Arthur could see the younger man’s mouth moving but could not discern the words, only comprehending ‘listen’ and ‘your hands’.

Sinclair then placed Arthur’s large hands against the cool stone wall. Even in his delirious state, he recognized the carvings he had previously found for the peculiar fellow. He could feel the vibrations of the man’s voice behind him in what felt like a chant, but he still could not determine the words. To Arthur’s astonishment, the outlines in the rock began glowing a mute bluish color. What began as a slight tingling in his fingertips turn into full body experience. Reality dissolved into nothingness and became a pure void. And then –

Everything.

Every single moment in his hard life experienced again but in hundred times the speed. This must be it, Arthur thought. God must be forcing him to relive every chapter of his rotten existence before He banished him to the fiery pits of Hell. Familiar faces began to permeate his view. Arthur tried in vain to reach out at the image of his mother. Beatrice Morgan may have been alive for only a small portion of his life, but he would carry her memory with him forever in the form of a flower at his bedside. Unpleasant memories began to flash as Lyle Morgan pervaded his vision. The son of a bitch had been a vile presence in his young days, a man who Arthur would live in fear of until the moment they finally hanged him. Arrested for larceny, his death hadn’t come soon enough.

And then Hosea appeared, someone Arthur had thought of as more of a father than even Dutch. The man had been convinced by the raven-haired outlaw to take a chance on a scared gangly boy who had just tried to rob their room. Starved and desperate for family, Arthur had latched onto the men soaking up anything they would teach him. And teach him they had.

More memories raced by, and Arthur caught sight of a beautiful brown-haired girl. Mary Gillis, the visage of her still enough to stir his pulse, laughed and blushed like a young woman in love. Even in the inevitability of their parting, Arthur had still carried the hope that they’d one day reunite and ride off into the sunset together. If not for Guarma and the mess that had come from the robbery in St. Denis, that may have been his future. Not the hellfire that awaited his damned soul.

And then, Eliza. A young girl of nineteen, Arthur had found comfort in her embrace in the wake of heartbreak. Intent on forgetting Mary, he foolishly took advantage of a girl’s infatuation and followed her to a room above the saloon where she worked. What had come from the union was a beautiful gift but more a curse. Isaac had his mother’s hair and his father’s eyes. A happy baby from what Eliza had told him. Until a group of transients killed them both over ten dollars. Arthur had just whipped up a tidy sum from some cattle rustling and had set his compass to visit his secret family, fully intent on giving Eliza all of the hard-earned money. What greeted him would harden his heart and set him on a path of wickedness. All he had to see were the two graves to understand what had happened.

Like a moving picture, the entirety of his life played before him. If this was what the devil had in mind for his punishment, it would be a hellish eternity. Forced to relive every mistake and misstep he’d ever made; it was what he deserved. But as the memories neared their end, he began to feel a weightlessness. Every atrocity and sin that had weighed heavy on his shoulders suddenly lifted. Again, everything went black.

But then –

Stars. Billions of them. Clearer than any night sky he’d ever seen. Galaxies and distant worlds powdered his vision like puffs of freshly picked cotton. No longer held under the burden of sickness, he took a deep and easy breath. He hadn’t felt this well in months – no, years. Was this heaven? Could God forgive a lifetime of misdeeds? Arthur may have never been a good man, but he did try to be better – in the end. But, no. He was irredeemable. This was a final punishment. A peek at the peace and serenity that redemption would have gifted, before God cast him from the light.

The answer was seemingly given when an unnatural force dragged him back through the ether. Again, hundreds of images flashed in his sight, but this time the memories didn’t belong to him. Too fast to discern individual frames, he could only pick out one reoccurring subject. A woman with dark blonde hair and a bright smile that formed two apple cheeks. Strangely familiar, his memory told him he didn’t know her, but his subconscious shouted in recognition. Then she was gone and with her the remainder of his vision.

Everything turned to black once more.

#Red dead redemption #Arthur Morgan x oc #rdr2 #arthur morgan #rdr2 fanfic #the year of magical thinking #arthur x oc #red dead redemption 2

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ao3feed-snape · 3 years

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Arm Yourself (Because No One Else Here Will Save You)

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/3rn9mIg

by phoneWitch

“Malfoy,” Potter said. “Well, well.” Malfoy smiled up at him brightly. "Harry Potter. Not dead, after all." “We have unfinished business.” “Yes, I don’t believe either of us finished,” Malfoy drawled. He motioned for him to sit down. “Drink?”

Anyway, here's Wonderwall a James Bond AU!

Words: 2850, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M, M/M

Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Parvati Patil, Pansy Parkinson

Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, james bond inspired, ALL the innuendos, So many tropes, Spies, quippy quips, Enemies to Lovers, mass destruction of property

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3rn9mIg

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #Severus Snape #Snape #Professor Snape #SS

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peach1337xo · 4 years

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911.

I’ll admit I was really worried about Lady Gaga’s song 911. “Pop a 911, and pop another one”

It’s anti-psychotic medication, not Pringles. Once you pop, you’re definitely supposed to stop. Let it do it’s thing.

My main concern was that her 911 might be a common but commonly-abused anxiety med like a Valium or a Xanax, which are so trendy right now in the world of pop. Pop one, pop another one, and another and another...and find yourself just recreationally popping a Xanny at the mildest inconvenience instead of tackling the actual root of the problem.

But then I learned that Gaga’s 911 was an old friend-slash-adversary I’ve had in my own life; olanzapine, aka Zyprexa. I spent about two years on olanzapine and I’m really not sure why.

It started around about January 2007 when I lost my job, got very into smoking pot, and reading Perez Hilton. This was the exact same time as Britney was going through her very-publicised stuff. Our meltdowns were mirrored.

But anyway, I was depressed and not coping with the real world very well at all (something I’d learn much later was probably my undiagnosed autism) while also on the end of a couple of years’ caning at the clubs and taking E (and other stuff) most weekends (I didn’t understand the concept of giving it a rest). I started my first anti-depressant shortly beforehand and had a rotten time of it, and also started with a psychologist (also, a rotten time. Too much “you’re an awful child for taking drugs” and not enough “let’s look at why you feel the need to peace out on reality every weekend”.)

Eventually I end up living back at Mum and Dad’s, constantly chastised for anything and everything to do with the clubs and forcibly removed from my entire social support network. (This one hurt a lot, especially as someone with such tremendous difficulty building and maintaining friendships.) And somehow, I didn’t manage to be getting any healthier! I actually seemed to be getting worse! I would buy six tins of energy drink (who remembers Samedi?) and have little, legal benders alone. (I’d drink a lot in private too. A LOT.)

And then, the worst bit, I would eventually scrub myself “clean” of club life and banish dance music, fluoro clothing, and everything remotely ravey to the depths of my soul and re-emerge a Chuck Taylor wearing indie rock queen backed by a soundtrack of whiney guitar rock and Triple J. (The one highlight of this era was the band Klaxons, who managed to blend the two and provide an “acceptable” guitar based lifeline to the rave.)

I’m getting off track here. What I really want to say here, is in this bleak period of total self loss I engaged the services of a dreadful GP with no business treating the mental health of a young woman in the mid 2000s. He had absolutely no clue what I was experiencing, and one time (probably in 2007, 13 years ago) I said “hey maybe I’m autistic or on the spectrum or something, and that’s why I can’t operate in a typical way in the real world” and I was laughed at and told not to bring it up again. And then for about two years he flitted between garden variety “anxiety and depression”, Bipolar 1, Bipolar 2 and eventually ended up with the grand daddy of bad diagnoses; Borderline Personality Disorder. And given Zyprexa to take daily.

I did end up in the hospital a lot, but that was out of total pure desperation. I was numb and lifeless, but fed up. I’d scratch myself up with a razor superficially just to get dramatic enough for an admission, but not enough for it to actually hurt. (My real self-harm, I recognise now, was my drinking and the head-hitting.) No one’s listening, and nothing is improving...and the only way to get anyone to spend more than five minutes with my case was an admission.

I felt like in this era, leading all the way up to 2013 when I had the mother of all breakdowns/breakthroughs I was rewarded for being a good little girl and basically being the antithesis of myself. Mum once said “I feel like I have my girl back again” and I was very, very not myself. I was a fantasy pastiche of every behaviour that I’d know I’d get brownie points for, and yet I’d look in the mirror and see someone totally unrecogniseable. My only safe place to think and behave as myself was late at night in front of a computer connected to weirdos around the globe while the real world outside was shrouded in peaceful darkness. Inside my headphones I was able to sneak back into my electronic power-world of dance music. Eventually I totally lost the plot, feeling totally shackled by trying to be this *thing* I’d invented to make everyone around me happy.

I started waking up from this fake iteration of myself in about late 2014 when I started dating this very pretty guitar rock waif type, who I realised after about thirty seconds I absolutely hated. He was all whiskey and Nashville, sadness as art and drowning in an unpayable bar tab. Absolute wanker. I’d come home from visiting and just want to listen to the hardest, most abrasive electronic music I could muster. Sawtooth and square waves for me please! Nothing natural. I made a folder of music called ELECTROFUCK which I’d retreat into. A classic move of mine has always been to do the opposite of the thing I’m supposed to be doing, and then do it at absolute full tilt. It took me a while to find myself not disgusted by finding a middle point and just go in a vague opposite direction. HARDCORE ‘TIL I DIE, she said in 2005. She really meant it. Well anyway, ELECTROFUCK was the turning point where I started to say to myself that electronic music is not the devil, raves were not a waste of time and were SO much more than just mindless hedonistic drug benders (and even if they were, fuck it?), and that I owed it to myself to enjoy whatever I find enjoyable and not just do what is palatable to everyone else. I had drunk the Kool-Aid and in the process lost myself completely, and was now starting to find myself again. (Thanks, skinny man from the Valley. Your mediocre “anyway, here’s Wonderwall”-ness reawakened me. Go eat a sandwich.)

It’s now 2020 and I am rebuilding myself after the total and utter molecular disintegration of my being, kicked off by two years of Dr, K’s daily 911 calls.

I’ll say something about my own experience with Zyprexa and what I’d do differently with what I know now.

THIS LINE IS FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY.

...and the truth is, there were probably no emergencies. I was never manic or in proper danger. I was an undiagnosed autistic person struggling with total lack of social support, an unsupportive family environment (a plate and a roof does not a supportive family make), and absolutely no assistance from anyone anywhere in making my way out. I was desperate, not dangerous. This is why I drank myself stupid for such a long time. The overarching message was “no one cares”. (It still is, but I’m angry enough now to let that fire me up.) Ummm, tl;dr? Don’t let yourself be overmedicated and moulded into something you’re not, but be grateful there’s always three numbers you can dial when things are really, truly, overwhelmingly out of control.

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fangirl-who-writes-shit · 7 years

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The Girl Who Cried Wolf Playlist.

Masterlist These are the songs I listen to when I’m writing this story, i feel like theses songs describe the plot, characters and emotions well. If song is important or has a meaning I will put a note to say. Also I will note when it’s a Y/N and Peter song. None of this is in order in anyway, but most of the artists will be together. I normally just press shuffle. I don’t know how to make a playlist so you can listen. Can you make Apple Music Playlist public and link them? 😂 I’m not saying you have to listen to all of theses songs, maybe some or maybe none. But please do.

Playlist. 1. Believer- Imagine Dragons. 2. Walking On The Wire- Imagine Dragons. 3. Demons- Imagine Dragons. 4. Wonderwall- Oasis. 5. Don’t Look Back In Anger- Oasis. I was listening to this song when I wrote about Y/N telling Peter about her past. Part 4. 6. Live Forever-Oasis. This is Y/N’s favourite song and it has helped her through her toughest times. 7. Adams Song- Blink 182. 8. I Miss you- Blink 182. 9. After Midnight- Blink 182. How I Imagine Y/N and Peter’s relationship in a song. If you are going to listen to just one of these songs please listen to this one. 10. Atmosphere- Joy Division. I feel like both Y/N and Peter would listen to this song when feeling down. 11. Where Is My Mind?- Pixies. 12. Broken- Jake Bugg. 13. If I Ever Leave This World Alive- Flogging Molly 14. Fix You- Coldplay. Whenever Y/N is crying and Peter is with her, this song always comes to mind when I’m writing. 15. Holes (remastered)- Mercury Rev. 16. True Blue- Dirty Beaches. 17. The Universal- Blur 18. Hero’s- David Bowie. 19. Time Of Your Life- Green Day. 20. Milk And Honey- Jessarae. 21. Blitzkrieg Bop- Ramones. This is in the film and I myself grew up listening to Ramones. 22. Time To Pretend- MGMT. Again in the film but listened to this song when I was younger. 23. Left Hand Free- alt-J. Personally I hadn’t heard of this song before Civil War but I’m obsessed and this song just had to be on this. 24. Broken Home- 5 Seconds Of Summer. Whenever something is happening in the family, Y/N’s go to song is this. 25. Jet Black Heart- 5SOS. 26. Airplanes- 5SOS. When Y/N is at her lowest she always listens to this song. 27. Outta Space/Carry On- 5SOS. 28. Invisible-5SOS. 29. The Girl Who Cried Wolf- 5SOS. Obviously had to be on here. Please listen to as many songs as you can. It won’t affect anything if you don’t, but I feel like music helps you understand the emotion and message I’m trying to send.

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wormss · 7 years

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rules: answer the questions in a new post and tag blogs you would like to get to know better

thanks for tagging me @tragicat :)

a - age: 18 

b - birthplace: Texas

c - current time: 6:19PM

 d - drink you last had: ice cold coke

 e - easiest person to talk to: oliviaaaa

 f - favorite song: Hard Times by Paramore

g - grossest memory: the other day i sneezed while eating ramen and a piece got stuck in my nose so thats pretty cool

 h - horror yes or horror no: yesss, but not gore or zombies lol

 i - in love: yes lmao if you’ve been on any of my social media for literally ten seconds you know i’m very much in love with my beautiful girlfriend @i-mean-im-just-saying 

j - jealous of people: nah 

k - killed someone: don’t ask don’t tell am i right

 l - love at first sight or should i walk by again: listen okay so i never really believed in love at first sight but like. then how do i explain the first time i met olivia in person. we met on a dating app and she came to visit me at college one night to go to a party together but she got lost in the campus parking lots so i went out to find her lol. i saw her standing on a sidewalk in a dark green flannel and a beanie and my heart started racing and i started smiling and i couldn’t stop. i hadn’t heard her voice before she called me to tell me she was lost and as soon as i heard it i started like blushing and stuff, it was like i somehow already knew we were supposed to be together. anyways, when i saw her standing there i knew i wanted to be with her. we spent the first few hours together talking about memes and laughing, and when we went to the party is was super shitty but it was a ton of fun because we were together. after that she stayed really late watching movies with me and i swear to god i fell in love with her that night. the next time we were together it was really really obvious we wanted to be together and it wasn’t very long until we said the L Word. maybe it was infatuation but i believe it was love because almost six months later my feelings for her have only grown exponentially stronger for her and i truly want to be with her forever. she is my rock, shes my best friend, and she is my future i just know it. i love you so much. anywayyyyyy here’s wonderwall.

m - middle name: Paige

 n - number of siblings: 1 older brother

 o - one wish:i could get an actual job that i could get hours at

 p - person you called last: my girlfriend lol

q - question you are always asked: “are you really 18? you look so young”

 s - song you last sang:Hard Times lmao

 t - time you woke up: around 10:00 this morning

 v - vacation destination: get me to germany fuck me up with that HISTORY

 w - worst habit: letting the anxiety get to me so bad when theres actually nothing wrong ughhhh

 x - x rays: i had a bunch for orthodontics

 y - your favorite food: SPAG

 z - zodiac sign: Leooooo

i dunno who to tag because i don’t really know who follows me anymore lol so i guess i’ll tag all my followers! tag me in your answers, i love stuff like this :)

#about me #me #i would tag olivia to do it but i already know all this stuff about her lololol #but yes

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viohra · 7 years

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Zehzhik Particles

These are the particles of the Zehzhik language. Some of these words might not be particles in the general sense, but these words don’t act quite like any other part of speech in Zehzhik. There isn’t a general rule that binds the particles, which is why most particles have a note section. Most vowels have arbitrary length.

Below are examples for each one, because some of the simple definitions can be confusing.

Aže y prauk eš myśka-ža – Hit me baby one more time Ka aa – Is that so? (said with a falling tone); Tif aa – kinda/pretty nice Uvakj ah oznaśźer – Boys only school (note: NOT uvakjahoznaśźer – is not an adjective) Zejavj anksi – to run until your legs fall off Davek bre ešk – come here, my friend Vo da emyśi – there are no cats here Ðuso “bre” – I was like “bruh” (the subject is implied via context or with adjectival pronouns) Ekke… va? – Um… what? Sjevsi Samo-sa er? – Your name’s Samo, no? Sdräski, sjevęm Vokko esa – Hey my name is Vokko (sounds feminine) Etto čevotše Stalin Iosif – The oh-so “honorable” Joseph Stalin Sëkaaju ðaš ha – I like you, truly. Fhf eka kyyvo! – Haha this is funny Myśka-ža hvo ðaš myssraja – Babe I want you to know that I love you Jesta hessväśik ii tif aa – She’s ugly af but kinda nice Raiš uš va j? – Do you love me? (sounds “softer”– like leaving off punctuation in English) Ja svosu kivoi – Even I tear up sometimes Uši vtak jat – I’m 24 years old Ek sen jj – I’ll do it! Praaj jj j – y’know, the limit Eka sen ka – I’ll totally do that Jezu inufutboïnek kero – I’m an American football player (sounds masculine) Irokogdisbakii… xiri kje – Odd pants-stick… i.e. cocks “Veni vidi vici“ ko Kaesar – “veni vidi vici“ said Caesar Fenjek eš jo kus – catch me if [you can] (sounds cheeky) Ksaš san lo – I hope you know her Iðu dęn nje – I’m going home, ok? No ka všu suninta – Well yeah I like sleeping Ka jest verm polu – yeah he’s safe… sorta Cait luvja, rake myśi, koiči, hait, yzai – I love animals, e.g. cats, dogs, sharks, etc Ree sjevsi va? – Say, what’s your name? Soo, eješ vaan, ešješ šver – I see, you’re not cool, you’re just an asshole Svoi vo “Wonderwall” – Anyways, here’s “Wonderwall” Ðyh ttu, davek sdi – you fucker, come here Jezeiven uře! – I can’t freaking see! Uře sura va… – wow what a bitch Ješa bre va zovaan – You’re like so cool, girl Sjevih va? – So what’s their name? Jezeiven vä! – I can’t fucking see! Ki syo eka vaja – I wonder who’s doing this Svoi vo “Wonderwall” – Anyways, here’s “Wonderwall” Vaja ki voet SZa vve, Trump-sa ö Putin-sa – I wonder, who’s the leader of the US, Trump or Putin Iirvoet joi Merkel-sa, Trump-sa, Putin-sa, yin-sa – The world leaders are Merkel, Trump, Putin, etc. Myśi, koiči, hait, yzai – cats, dogs, sharks, etc Zo daveš va? – So are you coming?

Ok that should cover most of any confusion. Again, if you have questions feel free to ask.

#Zehzhik #particles #conlang

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