#sorry i would've posted this earlier but i forgot it existed

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

“I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

“Please, Whumpee, just try. I know-”

“No, you don’t! You don’t know anything! Stop trying to make it feel as if I wasn’t completely alone in there!”

[caffeinatedopossum]

Below is a little excerpt from my journal from a little over a year ago. I've been thinking about it a lot and decided I want to share it (with anyone willing to read this very long post). With that said, this is incredible personal to me and this excerpt may be triggering as it involves themes of suicide and trauma

I can't recall what I said just moments earlier but I get the impression from the look on my girlfriend's face that it was something I shouldn't have said. She looks concerned and shocked, angry fear washing over the familiar lines of her face. I had stood up to leave the room, saying something like "I'm gonna stay up for a bit, you should get some sleep though", feeling completely numb. I'm drained and tired, emptiness permeating my conscience in a way that sleep can never fill.

"I'm not going to sleep *now*!" she retorts, incredulous.

"What..." I try to ask, but it's not a question, really. My voice does sound confused but not in a way that asks for an answer. "What did I just say…?"

I hate that I have this question. I hate that it's not a rhetorical one, I genuinely let those thoughts slip away. I hate that I can't remember. In seconds, the hatred is filling me up- not pushing away the tiredness, just sitting in seething silence atop it.

"You told me you called the suicide hotline today. You're not okay." The words are piercing and final, like I can hear the period at the end of each sentence. I'm not okay.

There's something in the air that thickens the oxygen, a sweet smelling poison that chokes me. I sit down next to her again, mostly because I want to offer some comforting words, but I linger there only because I feel too weak to stand when there are none to give.

In reality, I just want to run. I want to run and run and never stop running but I'm too tired. All the strength is sapped from me by the hurt in my girlfriend's voice. I forgot she cares about me more than I do. *I'm so stupid*. I scold myself silently for being so forgetful, for being so apathetic, so careless with my love.

The hatred boils inside of me, tendrils swimming in my chest like hands reaching up through the soil in a graveyard. They're the hands of memories, refusing to be buried alive, demanding to survive.

"I'm sorry," I say in an unrecognizable voice.

I try to lay my head on her shoulder but move away when it feels absurdly wrong, like a hot stove reaching for an unsuspecting hand, a burn that can only be justified by the hand's accidental touch. An action that would be impossible. And so I return to being inanimate.

The suicide hotline had hung up on me. I told them I want to live but hardly got to finish the sentence, the other words that would've strung together to tell them "but I don't have the strength".

They offered me the same dismissal I'm so comfortable with. It's familiar and unthreatening. I welcome its presence like a thief that I will never accuse of its crime- afterall I did watch as I let it happen. Doesn't that mean I wanted it? Or perhaps I just felt too powerless to do anything but allow it.

I apologize and apologize with my whole being. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I'm hurting. I'm sorry I exist.

I'm sorry that I want to take this existence from you, you who loves me far beyond my comprehension.

I didn't want this- existence or pain. It's not like I asked for it… at least not the first hundred times.

I was born into it, like a uniform I can never take off. It itches and burns, begging to be part of me, and I can never slip out of it completely, even when I retreat into my mind. I feel it on top of my skin, everywhere I go. When you think you're touching me, you're touching it. When I think I'm touching you, I'm touching it. When I undress, it is enveloping me still.

It hurts unjustly.

I've exiled it, tormented it, starved it, scarred it, reprimanded it … hated it. And now I just want to kill it, to let it die under an unmarked grave.

My girlfriend doesn't hold me for quite a while now, nor will she even look at me. She's talking but I'm only hearing myself.

Hearing myself thinking 'No, this feels bad. Please stop.'

The words are being poured into my ears. The truth is holding my face tight enough to leave fingerprint bruises and I can't look away from it's angry eyes.

'It's not supposed to feel good.' Someone else says the words in my mind.

'Deal with it.' Says another.

I know they aren't wrong, the brain is built to survive, not to feel good. I reluctantly surrender to the truth, to the uncertainty of its grasp, even though I feel like it will kill me. 

Maybe *because* I feel like it will kill me.

But I don't want to die. I just want, for once, to stop surviving.

[andiwriteordie]

hey andi! just finished "i'll find a new place to be from" and it was SO good. (manifesting for season 5)

obviously, it was mainly from mike's perspective, along with the rest of the party, so i was wondering did you have any thoughts about what was happening with the rest of the characters, like joyce, hopper and murray, or steve, robin, nancy and jonathan? just wondering, have a great day/night!

hi!!! 🤗 first off, thank you SO much, ah!! i'm glad you enjoyed it!

*cracks knuckles* i, in fact, do have some ideas on what the adults/older teens will be up to in s5 and had i written their perspectives, this is the direction i likely would've gone. in general, in both my story and my overall thoughts on s5, i think we'll see the storylines mirror the s1 storylines: 1) Team Kids/Save Our Friend, 2) Team Teens/Fight the Monster, 3) Team Adult/Deal with the Government. (Plus 4) El and her backstory)

so, for my series, i probably would've written it something like this:

older teens: if mike is the "team leader" of the party, then nancy is the leader of the older teens. my thought is, while the kids are dealing with the supernatural, nancy is trying to solve the mystery of her visions from vecna (both in s4 canon and the vision she received in my take on s5). nancy, being our favorite sleuth sapphic, would eventually put together the puzzle pieces of there being something significant about the library (seeing as that's where will was taken and a key place she saw in the vision), and the climax of the older teens' storyline would place them at the library in the moment when vecna's forces begin to invade hawkins. in a way that sort of mirrors the og teen trio's fight with the demogorgon, it would be nancy and the other teens who are the first line of defense against the army of monsters.

(if you saw an earlier version of this post i’m so sorry but i have been waiting to use this gif and completely forgot to so i have to add it)

the teens in s5:

on a more interpersonal level, i think for me, the storylines would've involved tying up the loose ends which still exist between jonathan, nancy, and steve. with things being tense between nancy and the guys, i'd like to see her paired off again with robin to continue to build that friendship and ultimately create a connection between them that would be a conclusion and point of healing for nancy's guilt and trauma over barb's death. i also would love to see some more real moments between the girls where they discuss things like feminism and not being taken seriously as women (especially in the context of this whole war), as well as robin opening up and being comfortable enough to come out to nancy and others in the group.

as for steve and jonathan, i really want to see a reconciliation between these two characters wherein we circle back to the fight and tension between them from s1. from our perspective, we have seen steve grow and mature, but we've never really see jonathan get to observe that—and that much is clear from his little comment at the end of s4! so, for the boys, i'd love for them to get a chance to work together for a common cause and bond over their shared love and protectiveness over the kids. in particular, given that steve jokingly has always complained over being the babysitter, it would be cool to see him get to admire and validate jonathan's experience in being forced into a somewhat similar situation as he took on role of a parent when lonnie walked out. i'd like to see jonathan actually get to see that steve has a good heart, and that he, like jonathan, has always just been trying to find a place to belong and be accepted.

argyle unfortunately would be with teens 75% for jokes because i am not as familiar with his character given that he's so new, but i think he'd be a fun mediator between any tension that exists with the primary four teens. and you'd better believe the five of them would get high together.

adults: alright, i ended up having a lot more for the older teens' storyline than i do for the adults lmao, but i think i'd end up writing it from joyce's pov. obviously, i'd love to see established relationship jopper, and i think for both hopper and joyce, i want to see them working through their trauma both independently and together as they grow closer.

on an overarching plot level, i think the adults in s5 (my version and my guess on the show?) will have a plot centered around the government/military's involvement with this whole mess. for my story, i think this would look like something where maybe one of the adults overhears the military talking about how best to utilize el (and now will) to win this war, and it bordering very machiavellian and unsafe measures for two children. this, obviously then, pushes joyce and hopper in protective parent mode where they must balance the recognition of their children's role as heroes while also still preserving their children's innocence and morality.

i'm not 100% sure what a full plot for the adults would look like, but i think it'd involve joyce/hop/murray playing both sides... making the government/military think that they are on board with whatever is going on but always having an alternative plan and motive behind it. think like how hop essentially played brenner in s1. i like to think that hop knew what he wanted (to get will back) and made a (very risky lol) gamble on the belief that the kids (primarily el) could handle themselves. so something like that.

owens would probably catch on to this but join in the shenanigans and the plot because i think he, at the end of the day, does care about the kids (specifically el and will) but also knows when to set that aside and let the kids be heroes. so that would be a fun dynamic to play with.

somewhere amidst the chaos of battle, hopper proposes to joyce, by the way. joyce yells back and asks him if this is really the time for this. murray is also nearby and reminds her there's no time like the present, especially since they all could die soon lol.

final thoughts: after mike pulls el from the battle of hawkins and gathers the party to go after will and destroy the upside down, nancy steps up to fight against vecna. jonathan, being jonathan, joins her because like hell he would let nancy run into battle alone. they do all of this as a team. likewise, when joyce sees her son fighting this monster, it's not even a choice. she jumps in to save jonathan from vecna at one point, and of course, this spurs hopper on to fight him as well.

thus, the ending fights between the two big villains are split amongst who i believe are the seven core characters of the show. the upside down is defeated by el and will (through mike's plan and his encouragement to pull the other party members into the fight), while vecna is defeated by nancy, jonathan, joyce, and hopper.

that was probably far more than you were looking for, holy shit! i just started rambling lol. but yep those are my thoughts :) hope you enjoyed them hahaha