Hopes That Dare Not Be Spoken Aloud

by Kotemp

Summary:

A young Splatsville engineer is forced to keep a journal they don't want to keep after losing their voice. Their slowly declining life gets flipped on its head when they crash land in the middle of nowhere. Stuck with three annoying strangers and no clear way home, things will surely only get worse for them from here on out.

Right?

Well,

Love has a way of finding people when they need it.

Chapter 1: Day 1

So.

Dr. Alia told me I should start writing my thoughts down. Gave me a notebook and pencil and told me to start writing whenever I get frustrated that I can’t talk out loud. If that’s the case, I expect to be writing in here a lot. 

I never had a diary as a kid. Never wrote much in general. Was never very interested in artistic stuff. All I wanted to do was get my hands on expensive stuff I wasn’t supposed to have and see what I could build with it. I guess some things don’t change.

That’s all to say that I dunno what to write in here. I’m not really the creative type. Dr. Alia said I should write about anything I have “strong emotions” about, positive or negative. So I’ll try that I guess.

I hate this so so so so so so so so so much.

I hate not being able to talk.

I hate not being able to tell people what I need.

I hate that people ignore me.

I hate that I can’t speak up for myself.

I hate being treated like a fragile little animal because I’m mute. 

Everyone I talk to walks on eggshells around me because they’re afraid they’re gonna do something wrong or mistreat me or whatever! It’s going to actually drive me crazy. I’d rather they actually do insult me than spend all their time with me worrying about offending me.

I ordered food at the mall today using a sticky note that I wrote my order on. I should just be able to show it to the cashier and get what I want, right? Surely they’ll understand, yeah? 

Then the cashier squints at the note, looks at me, and goes “can you please say your order out loud? We don't take orders like that.” 

So first of all, this guy’s an asshole. Why couldn’t he take my order from the note in the first place? What sort of rule is that? It’s a bunch of carp.

But you know what? It’s whatever. So I shake my head and hand him the card that says I’m mute and can’t speak. Then he reads it and is like “oh my cod! I’m so so sorry! Please forgive me! Oh no! That was so unprofessional! I’m so sorry about your condition! Yadda yadda whatever” for five minutes straight

And I’m standing there the entire time thinking ‘just shut up and give me a sandwich please’. Like, I don’t need to hear you apologize for ten minutes straight. I. don’t. Care. I don’t want hollow sympathy. I don’t want your condolences. I just want to be treated normally.

But nobody’s capable of doing that, it seems.

They either baby me or stare at me like my tentacles are falling off.

It sucks.

So much.

 

I think I’m just gonna have to hide it as much as I can. Make people think I choose not to talk. Strong silent type stuff. I don’t see any other way I can live the way I want to with this stupid, stupid, awful condition. 

 

I’m gonna start job hunting soon. I’m gonna get called in for interviews, probably. Can’t imagine many corpos’ll be foaming at the mouth to hire on a mute freak that can’t "efficiently and respectfully communicate mission-critical information to their team” or whatever.

I’ll just have to keep my head down and pray I make it through. Make them think I’m normal.

 

Cod, this sucks.

Notes:

I LOVE MECHANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god I love mechanic so much. They might be a top 5 fav video game character for me now. Something about this competent adult with an adult job of helicopter pilot thrust into the zany insanity of a splatoon singleplayer mode is so goddamn funny. And they have so much personality, too - all their reactions to deep cuts antics always got huge laughs out of me. God I love them so much. Mechanic my beloved.

Anyways, this is my quick n dirty tribute to a game I've been addicted to. Expect to see a bunch of VERY short chapters, each one representing a distinct diary entry in Mechanic's journal. I have half of the entries down right now, I expect this thing to be about 4 to 5 thousand words in total. Not very long- I've already got 2.5 long-term fics I'm WAY behind on updating. This is just a quick thing while this fantastic game is fresh in my mind.

I hope you enjoy!