#arcnotes

[supericee]

Halloween '23: Villain Arc

Not through with the backlog yet, but I'm not waiting an entire year to post these, so up they go. Couldn't decide on a theme this year and I wasn't going to pull last year again, so I pulled the emergency "cosplay" theme. Zay, in a turn of events, actually didn't mind Isabella dragging him in this year, and got to dress as Dr. Eggman.

Posted using PostyBirb

[apostatesque]

i wrote a whole journal entry about this recently but i haven't been able to get it off my mind. it's really... odd that most of my religious trauma didn't actually come from my family. i mean, i definitely have more religious family members, one of whom leaves a particularly bad taste in my mouth about the whole ordeal, but for the most part they're actually very kind and supportive. that being said, i still do have a lot of trauma surrounding christianity. i went to a christian school all through elementary school (which honestly wasn't even the worse part compared to the summer camp they had, i still sometimes get memories from those experiences that freak out my friends). and once i finally did get to a public school, i wound up in the group of people made up of everyone who went to the Local Megachurch, most of whom ended up shunning me (in ways i didn't recognize until too late, of course) when they realized i wasn't like them, admittedly for other reasons. i mean, i tried being christian. i tried dedicating myself like them, and it always felt like a lie. and even when i was literally met with the most supportive christian i could imagine existing, who cares about me as a person before caring about converting me, it felt fake. all that to say, my religious trauma largely came from people outside of my family. it came from the people at my school who told me that a baby's first sin was crying, the people at my summer camp who tried to teach me to speak in tongues, the people i thought were my friends who dropped me when i came out as queer (or honestly just when they sensed i wasn't neurotypical), and especially the people who acted like they accepted me, only to turn around and not only deadname and misgender and talk shit about me behind my back, but then go out of their fucking way to convert to a religion which very clearly in their texts condemns the kind of person i and people i love are. my mom never pushed all this on me, and honestly it probably kept me from getting any worse than i already am. i mean don't get me wrong, she still fucked me up a bit (as most parents with their own issues and an undiagnosed autistic and mentally ill child would), though i know she tried her best. but all this compounds into me feeling, in a more tangible way than the usual with trauma, that i have not gone through enough to be traumatized. i know this is a general trauma experience, the self-protecting instinct of "it could have been worse, so this wasn't that bad". but it kind of hurts to have a situation where i have somewhat reasonable excuses to believe that. and i would never treat another person that way, it wouldn't even cross my mind to say "oh, your religious trauma didn't come from your family or being directly involved in a cult so it doesn't really count". but of course, i don't know how to afford myself that same leniency. i know, logically, that trauma is not some clear-cut thing, and what may not be traumatic to one person may be incredibly traumatic to another. but it just... feels like i'm not allowed to say that i have trauma in this particular way, because it doesn't fit the narrative that i hear everyone else talk about it. and i guess that's the case with a lot of my other trauma, too. my family loved and cared for me the best they could, and despite my mom's flaws i wouldn't even consider calling her abusive. so if i had such a good family life in the way i was treated, i feel like i shouldn't be allowed to consider myself traumatized.

[studywith-charan]

It was a good 3rd day of school. Today was the first lesson for Algebra1. Geometry hasn't started their lessons yet but it will be soon for sure. I loved it today it was a peaceful day with a lot of learning. I have been really productive today, and I am hoping that my first semester won't be too hard but no one knows so yea. ______________________________________ Stationery used: - Pilot Frixion Pen - Zebra Midliner Highlighters -------------------------------------------------------------- #workingfromhome #studymotivation #studyingfromhome #quarantinelife #studygram #highschool #freshmenyear #takingnotes #studyingfromhome #studyinghard #studywithcharan #beingproductive #notetakingtips #notes #notetaking #notetakingessentials #productive #prepareforstudying #beingproductive #studying #distancelearning #lifeofastudent #highschoollife #studentlife #arcnotes #arcsystemworks #arcsystemnotebook #notebooknotes #handwriting #instaworthy #stationerylover #mathematics #studymotivation (at Brentwood, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDzhSSdJD1m/?igshid=1376zct9nl442

[apostatesque]

i've also been thinking a lot about life and death. immortality, and how deeply terrified i am of it. i said this to an acquaintance recently and they were pretty surprised, but to me i couldn't imagine being not terrified of immortality, at least as a human. i don't want to be around that long. on the one hand, if i were the only immortal, that would be quite literally my idea of hell. seeing everyone i love grow old and leave the world, being unable to connect with people unless i'm ok with being forced to lose them without any hope that i'd get some peace too. but even if everyone i loved was immortal too, i'd still suffer. for one, i know i'd get so bored so quickly. i already do, it's so hard to find genuine enjoyment these days. but i can't imagine having to go through all those human emotions for millennia upon millennia, with no break. especially knowing that i and the people i love are the kinds of people to feel guilty about losing care. i wouldn't want to subject anyone else to that pain.

i can only imagine though, that if there is such a thing as an afterlife, the only peaceful way for it to exist would for us to become something non-human. and i don't mean that in like some sort of "we'd all be monsters and it's terrible" kind of way, but more in the way of like... if i had emotions in an afterlife, it wouldn't be peaceful. i strongly believe that for positive emotions to be positive, there must also be negative ones. but what kind of a good afterlife would have negative emotions? what would be the point? that would just be life, in a different plane of existence. but without those negative emotions, the positive ones would just be nothingness. so our options, if we keep human emotions, are to have an afterlife with negative emotions that is both kinda sucky and defeats the whole purpose of an afterlife, or one with just positive emotions that have now been rendered meaningless. so i think, if there's any such thing as a "good" afterlife, we'd just have to purely exist. i've always imagined it as a sort of spectator mode. still being able to see the world, how it plays out, but without having to worry about it all. i do think that would be nice.

as a whole too, i think that whole "juxtaposition of emotions necessary for meaning" is also a part of why i fear immortality. what purpose does my life have if it never ends? i mean, don't get me wrong, i know i could still positively impact other people. but i'm going to be a little selfish here for a moment, and say that my life would lack a purpose if it just keeps going. i am a proponent of the idea that "it's not the destination that matters, but the journey", but what is a journey if there is no destination? of course, my camusian side says that it's all ok, i'd be happy because there's no other choice, but i think that stance is more ideal than literal. at least for me, in the state my brain is. i don't foresee myself being able to just exist peacefully in the human state i am now, with a human mind. i think the worries and fears i have are part of what makes me "human" (for lack of better term), and to escape them would be to reject humanity.

so yeah, i fear immortality. all stories, good or bad, need an end for them to mean anything.