Screaming Into the Void

screaming into the void
mindless thoughts from pandora

What will someone see if they look into my eyes?

Hope? Blues and greens intertwined, a brightness and attention that feeds light inwards and out? The conscious watchfulness of a listener hand in hand with the hermeneutic disassembly of my ego? Id?

Failure? Blues and greens intertwined, a symphony of depression and absolute mass, the echoes of memories and uncertain futures deep within the confines of the black pupil within? A sadness that creeps at the edges like a curse, better than most, worse than the mind desires?

Agency? Blues and greens intertwined, a gaze of power, of self-proclaimed divinity? Humility? Have my eyes betrayed my heart, my brain, my stomach? A mind caught between to extremes, the swift flow of red veins that creep around the edges? The glazed distance of an addict?

Nothing? Blues and greens intertwined?

Have I let anyone?

..

I wrote this earlier today in my Creative Writing class at University. We're talking about digital media, writing podcast scripts and such. My topic is about teenage agency with creative pursuits in the virtual age, exploring how this is the first generation to ever have the ability to share creative endeavours on a worldwide scale, as well as the first generation to be brought up in a culture embracing smartphones, tablets, augmented reality, and the intersection between the physical and the virtual worlds—in other words, what has now become the "real world." The real world isn't physical, it is a complex amalgamation of different streams of virtual data, located points in external space that link up with information in the physical world to create the future: a blend of experience.

One of my first artistic endeavours online was right here in FimFiction, on this very account. When I was about fourteen years old I began writing a story called Unexplained Hatred, a quite edgy story about a dude who "just didn't fit in" because the universe he was in demanded that to be the case. It wasn't told well but I was an okay writer at the time, so it presented as something readable... but vapid and lifeless on its own. Earlier still was my "let's play" series when I received Minecraft from my parents in early 2011. From the time I was 12 years old I was creating content to put out into the public space, content that still remains today as some of the earliest footprints of my online activities.

From video games, to writing for the National Novel Writing Month in 6th through 9th grades, to writing fan fiction—it all felt like a natural progression to me. I was growing up with the internet, I had been familiar with using computers for complex and dextrous operations since I was four years old playing Star Wars: Episode One Racer with my older brother and parents at our manilla box Windows 98 kitchen desktop. So when I entered the fandom as a writer and came out with skills in all different creative areas—from visual animation, to graphic design, to music production, to team management, to social skills, to filmmaking—there must have been some sort of boon from this online lifestyle that gave me such a focused education in so many disciplines. In the physical world I was a fairly good competitive swimmer, but a loner who focused more on my online persona and online social skills (believe me, my text game, HOO) than my education. So how had I learned so much without feeling like I had been mentored?

The truth is, I was being mentored the whole time. Everyone in my friend group was mentoring each other through our attentions. In the physical world, I didn't really care to learn from the art around me. I didn't start listening to music seriously until I was in my senior year of high school, but between meeting the people who would go on to become my most prominent friend group through those years and the time I finally bid them mostly adieu we gave each other attention. We listened, we learned, and we worked together.

When any of us produced content, everyone would care. Everyone would help, everyone would listen, everyone would support them in their creative process. We were all artists—sleepy, stupid, and immature, but still artists. I didn't know I was learning what I appreciated in the mix of a song, I didn't realize I was training my brain on what to like in graphic design and how I liked to see things lay on the page. By the time I was taking the graphic design course offered at my high school at the end of my Senior year, I already knew how to do it. I already knew what had to be where, what proportions I should use, there was an innate sense of style through being immersed in a creative environment of people your age who have the same amount of idea of what they're doing in their best discipline to what you have in your best discipline. Knowledge was free, shared equally, it felt strange if someone refused to share a preset or didn't give a writing tip to a beginning writer. Like something was missing from the relationship, an openness that could only be reached through the presentation of information that could be useful to the other, whether conscious of the fact that this preference was taking place or if it was buried deep in their subconscious.

People don't last, people fall apart, people can't mend their bridges sometimes. That's life, that happens, we move on and become better ourselves or stew in our resentment until we realize we need to focus on us. I think one of the reasons I'm so much less motivated now to write my fan fiction is because I'm not surrounded by any fan fiction writers. Instead I write poetry, or short stories, or screenplays, or podcasts. That's what I'm surrounded by. When I was in my first year of university, I was friends with a girl who was in the filmmaking department. That spring I ended up completing a music video for one of my music producer friends, Scraton. I haven't done any film since. I think part of the reason is because I don't have any sort of film influence in my life.

I feel cursed, in a way. I need to have influence to be able to access my talent. I need to be around fan fiction writers in order to write, or else it feels like I'm stressing and pushing out something that feels raw and uninspired. I need to be around music producers in order to be inspired to create music, because I know I won't decide on what to spend time on otherwise. I can animate well, I can design things well, I can write well, I can make good music, I can produce good content, I can make good arguments and be a good public speaker and make moves in my community, but right now I'm a little bit in my head.

I know I have to work on myself, I know I have a long way to go. I can't wait for autumn to roll around, to be honest. When I'll be surrounded by more students all trying to focus on their education and their creativity. To hone their skills in their chosen environments. Maybe I'll make another filmmaking friend, and produce more content on my Reverie channel. Maybe I'll decide to complete and record another piano record under Ataraxia, or even finish my first full length album under a new alias that could be everything I want to do for the future. Maybe I'll decide to immerse myself in the fandom again, who knows. I don't. The future is a wild place and lord knows I'm nothing like what I thought I would be even a year ago. I was a different person, I had different things to deal with.

This might be a part of that podcast in the future, for the aforementioned creative writing class. It's due in a couple days. Hey, Jenn, if you're seeing this c:. I've been thinking about this topic a lot.

Oh, and if you are seeing this as part of your whole plagiarism checker thing, please don't look at the other stories here. I can assure you, they're not my best work, and certainly not reflective of my other work in this course.

... thanks.

I guess I'll leave you all with another short little poem I wrote about a year and a half ago, for a spoken word piece of an album I was thinking about making. It never came to pass, but maybe it'll find some life here. It certainly reflects the rest of the tone.

Thanks for reading, and I'm sure I'll see you around at some point. If not, well, I won't. But thanks for reading anyway. It's nice to know someone did.
- Em

..

The furthest blue shines into her eyes
It’s much too far, much too much
I used to wonder how she could survive
With never understanding my own pain
I guess I never understood it myself
When she reached for me I grasped out, gladly
Like she never left
Like none of this ever happened
Like the posters and artwork and music I have made
Somehow made everything okay again
We could have a new dichotomy
We could be anything we wanted
We could be

And inside those harshest eyes
I can see galaxies

--

05/06/18