mekaelb

[mekaelb]

[mekaelb]

this quote from rupaul tho.......kawoshin

[mekaelb]

Art by  sheppardarts

[mekaelb]

[mekaelb]

The Art of Creation

It sprouts in your mind like crusty starlight, the beginning of something new and beautiful, an idea--the manifestation of potential perfection within your mind. This is something you intimately understand, the first step into a future you could be proud of. A future that you know you can achieve. But your mind holds you back. It blocks you from the wellspring of creativity you know you possess, and with every attempt to expand, it strikes with a fanatical glee. You wish for a metaphysical crack, but there is only an all-encompassing nothing. You want to write, but how could you succeed when all you see is an empty page.

You hope it breaks.

The week hits you hard, sapping the life from your bones, and the endurance from your brain while you toil on the page. Your time is limited, with every passing second the deadline inches closer and closer. This is your penultimate moment, you know if you can't finish the piece, you'll never achieve anything. It will fail; you will become the avatar of fail. The only option left is to write, motivating yourself with the crippling fear.

Please, let it break.

Within your mind's eye, you see a horn that sparkles with liquid lightning, the creature it's attached to is sickly, a Unicorn that rides the line between shame and beauty. It's a concept you're familiar with, and you live it daily. The reminder stares back at you each morning, a reflection of who you are in the present. Who will the Unicorn be? All you need to do is look in the mirror and see.

You can't fail this way!

Your scribbles begin to encompass the page. It's the beginning of your future art, an awakening to the core hiding within your brain. It's reminiscent of a slow-release, you've always felt it through life. The essence is there, colouring what you experience through the day: the job that barely pays, the family that turns away, and the only friend that bothered to stay. It's miserable. This is your lot in life, a futureless wretch with only one thing to say, "I can't waste time today!"

Work, please work.

Your story's amorphous core begins to shape as you pen your ideas onto the page. It's catharsis, one earned through every word you write, and with every sentence you create. The piece is an unravelling of your brain, a fragment of your blood and soul contained into a physical state. This is the life you want. The experience you will achieve. All you have to do is to continue writing.

You're close, just a bit more.

As you write, you pluck the small moments out of your life, the ones relevant for the short-story you have begun to write. The story is yours, every plot-point, every word, and every centimetre of paper is tied to your soul. This is the true beauty of art, an inherently personal thing. The grand design of it all is elusive, barely perceptible to your mind's eye. You're still an amateur after-all.

Don't stop. Never stop.

Sleeplessness injects into your veins like viscous wine, there's only one page to go, and your work will be complete. The future continues to evade your sight, but now you have a firmer hold on what it can be, and the road to making it a reality. Your fingers tremble with pride as a smile cracks across your face. It's the weight that has lightened your shoulders and heated your brain. This is who you are, who you want to be, and who you wish to express. It's you're hope for the future, your beast of burden.

Hallelujah.

Written by Mekael and also posted on https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/29206/the-art-of-creation

[mekaelb]

La Lilah, time to get my shit together and write something

Roses are red

Bitches are blue

Time to cut

A nasty-ass hoe

[mekaelb]

While the reaction to Steven Universe is Garbage and Here’s Why has been overwhelmingly positive, it’s also served as a case study in the way certain subsets of fandoms often approach my work.

There’s been no shortage of shrieking on Twitter from stans about the video, with many people bemoaning it’s very existence while admitting to not have watched it. Those that have tend to go as far out of their way as possible to avoid actually engaging with it.

Here are the most common “dissenting opinions” I’ve seen.

“Garbage” is too far, and “Flawed” would be a better title.

The video is too harsh

My tone is too angry

Something Something “Lily’s an SJW Shill”

“OMG 2 HOURS?! WTF?!”

Hyperfixating on the disabled ratings.

“Here’s some rumors I got off an alt-right website about Lily Orchard the Bad Person™”

One thing that’s worth noticing about this is the complete avoidance of talking about any of the actual, tangible criticisms of the show. These aren’t actual dissenting opinions. 

They’re not talking to me in the hopes of convincing me that my analysis of Steven Universe is wrong.

They’re repeatedly talking to themselves, and providing themselves excuses for why they don’t have to listen to me.

The only tangible criticism about the video I’ve heard so far? That the SWTOR tangent goes on too long and most of the point is made when the comparisons of Rose/Pink Diamond to Sylvanas Windrunner are made anyway. 

This is something I’ve experienced with videos before. My analysis of Sheldon Cooper and the very specific niche in which he’s the greatest thing since tummy rubs plucked a lot of nerves, but nobody ever actually bothered to try and contest it. Instead a lot of vague nonsense about me being a shill for Autism Speaks (which makes no sense since Autism Speaks also hates Sheldon) and how I’m “dismissing people’s lived experiences” by talking about a very specific situation where Sheldon is helpful that they were never a part of because TBBT aired after they were already teenagers/adults.

No actual contesting of the point I was making (that Sheldon explained the basics of Autism to children and their parents through a character people actually like and want to see succeed) but just complaining about the tone and the apparent “aggressiveness” of my words.

There’s one subreddit where three different people flood the comments of any post about my work with an avalanche of complaining about my tone, but never once even looking at the points I’m actually making. Sometimes someone will say “Lily’s a bad critic” without explaining why.

This hyperfocus on tone and aggressiveness and the fact that I call Sugar an idiot a lot is an easy way for people to shut their ears and refuse to listen. While tone can be an important form of criticism, the 100% Tone Policing I tend to attract is a massive red flag that somebody either didn’t watch the video, or was unable to think of an actual counterpoint and is hastily rushing for an excuse not to listen to me.

[mekaelb]

vtm inktober 11 - anarch

[mekaelb]

Recounting a Bad Time

The school is steeped in absolute silence that leaked through the walls, infecting it like an insubstantial cancer. I'm isolated in a classroom with other like-minded students, trapped in front of an old computer that hummed a static melody. The teacher that oversaw our examinations leaned into her chair as a soft snort croaked out of her nose between five-second intervals. She was fighting against sleep, barely conscious, while anxiety spurred my legs into a passive spasm. I wanted to leave. I need to go. My mind drew towards the door and focused on the clock that hung above it. It was only eight in the morning and time seemed to have frozen in place. I'm writing my provincial English exam for high-school, and I want to escape.

I can't do this.

I sat on my chair like a side-stop idiot as the fingers of my classmates steadily danced across their keyboards, making their way through the test. Their thoughts were churning with intellect and imagination while mine began to short-circuit. Years of constant reinforcement towards my stupidity had done its job--I was physically incapable of writing a single word on the page. My brain was unable to keep up, so I sat in place, conjuring up fleeting fantasies of other worlds or modes of being, anything I could use to distract me from the present. Day-dreaming is my only coping mechanism, one that distracts rather than aides, and in this case, it did nothing but waste my time.

I'm a worthless idiot.

Tick-tock the clock went as students slowly began to exit the classroom, laughing and giggling outside the door as they joke about the exam. The same test they must have aced, they were the geniuses that wrote something while I haven't typed a single word. Their happiness became a growing echo that pounded against my head, deadened my nerves, and vivisected my flabby stomach. I felt the shame, sudden and knife-like, swarm around my body, piercing my brain as the page remained empty.

This is a disaster

My lungs began to gape for air, but I kept myself quiet to not make a scene. There was still nothing on my screen. There is going to be nothing on my screen. My eyes screened the monitor as I found my goal, the submit icon. If I click on this, the exam will be over… I will be over. Any prospects I had for my future were over, will I have a future? I see it in my mind's eye, a forgotten humanoid crouched alongside an alley wall, hoping that a passerby will take pity on him. My eyes started to sting as I blinked away the tears; the realization crushed me.

I can't do anything.

I stood up, knees quaking, and click submit. It's done. I'm finished. My body moved past the half-asleep teacher and through the closed door, in a moment I was outside. The laughter was thicker now, a drowning chorus, dragging me to tears as I made my way to the restroom. Immediately, I locked myself within the stall and plopped onto the toilet. The room, formerly white, was stained yellow from piss while the stale scent of moist shit wafted through the air. The bathroom is a tainted place, perfect for a disgusting human like me.

Why couldn't I write something?

The thought festered, rotting the defences I built up within my mind as my subconscious struggled to spawn a fantasy. I kept circling back to the shame, guilt, anxiety, and pain, the ugly emotions that seeded within me. It forced me to see myself for who I was, a sad invalid incapable of thought. My eyes blurred as I sat on the toilet crying, a soft sound that remained unnoticed even as boys went in and out of the restroom.

Soundlessly, I stood up and made my way to the sink, submerging my hands in water before washing my face. I look at myself in the mirror, noting how my eyes were stained red, and how the tears left invisible creases in the skin. Then I breathe, slapping my face before leaving.

I'm going to be okay.

[mekaelb]

Beasts of Burden

Dear father;

I sentenced a Unicorn to the gallows. His name was Baheri Redfern, and he had recently passed his nineteenth cycle. He was a slender young lad with cerulean skin whose single horn had only recently began to lengthen. I got to watch his eyes, red like a rose, gape at me from the ramparts. It took a few moments for him to realize that he was doomed.

A week prior, he had ordered a sack of medicinal herbs for his ill mother. He hefted the bag through the pristine silver streets of Hightown until the guards caught him. To their eyes, they saw another unicorn, a dirty beast of burden that ruined their beautiful city's image. As a result, he was dragged like an animal through the back-alley roads and thrown into jail.

"He had a bag full of strange alchemical concoctions," they cried," He was going to commit a crime!"

The nobles were less sympathetic; they ordered me to call for the boy's execution; in exchange, I would receive a nice bonus to my pay for the month. It wasn't a hard decision to make. I was no longer a victim; I was free.

The Unicorns that fill the dung encrusted streets of Shantytown are not like us. We hauled ourselves up from the bootstraps while those below us only wasted away. Against all the odds we persevered, we won a war against impossibility itself.

We were not lucky.

I remember when we were still living in our cot back within the Wyld Forest. I can still smell the sandalwood that attached to your fur. Some nights, I can even feel the minuscule prickling that threatened to send me into coughing fits as a child. You were an incredible woodcarver father. An artist they used to call you, an upcoming genius within the forest.

I remember that, unlike the city, our home was alive. Overgrown by vegetation that wrapped overtop one another like sleeping giants. The breeze would brush against my face, bringing with it the quiet echo of the forest. We could run over to the nearby river to feel the gentle lapping of water against our hooves. When the weather was hot, we could relax under the shade of an adjacent tree.

It was good back then, we still had the freedom, as defined by Unicorns, to do what we pleased. The malcontents that survived the disaster had not ruined what the unicorn was. We were respected, and we were strong.

We were not lucky.

Do you remember father? When the disaster struck, the black smoke smothered the sky. The water had boiled into steam that burned at the slightest touch. Animals clawed for safety even as they died from the vapour. Moreover, the trees, as if they weren't even there, crumpled into ash. You held me with your arms, shielding me from the heat as our beloved forest burned. It was a nightmare. The fires mercilessly ravaged our home as if it had a mind of its own.

We walked for days through that abyssal hellscape of fire and ash. The echoes of the forest disappeared, replaced by a different kind of quiet, pure absolute silence. I was afraid to utter a word, terrified of some imagined threat that lurked in the darkness. It hit me all too hard; I was going to break from the gravity of it all. However, you kept me going, encouraged me to trudge on even as our skin sizzled and our hooves cracked. To continue forward until we saw the light once again, and could breathe air that was free from the haze of death.

"Persevere until we're free my boy, "you had rasped, "We will be free from this torment soon."

Eventually, we saw the sky. Hope, relief, happiness, sadness, joy, it was all too much, and I collapsed. You carried me until we reached the caravan, and began to make our way to the kingdom of Arkadia. The days turned into weeks as we trudged past the wasteland and came upon the country's Iron walls. A monolithic structure that rose high up into the sky, engraved with depictions of Arkadia's might against its enemies. A powerful reminder to all those that enter through its gates.

We were not lucky.

Do you remember the home bequeathed to us by the Arkadian Nobility? It was a minuscule tent placed on the outskirts of the city's borders while they built-up an extension in Shantytown. The ground was wet with Arkadia's waste, from discarded remains of food to slow-moving sewage that leaked from pipes adjacent to the camp. The muck would soak around our hooves, causing minor breaks in the bone as our step became unsteady. Disease was quick to spread from the shit and piss that roiled around us at all times.

Survival was the goal when we were in poverty, so you decided rightfully to go out and work. A simple answer to a simple solution, yet to find a job in the city proved to be more complicated than it turned out to be. Unicorns numbered in the thousands within the ghetto, we were replaceable and the merchants capitalized on that. Who could blame them? They had access to workers fueled by desperation; they could do whatever they wanted.

You were enraged at the supposed mistreatment they extended to the unicorns. An outspoken voice within the community as you worked, too vocal. It became a frequent occurrence to see you bounce between jobs. We skirted death, always on the brink of starvation due to your selfishness. You should have bowed your head and carried on, respected the Arkadian nobility as we occupied their land. I'm glad you learned to appreciate our betters after they captured you. It's a shame that you had to lose your horn in the process.

I remember the blood-clots that had hung from your head; it stuck to you like tar as I tenderly pulled it from your skin. You shook like a newborn baby as I worked, your throat constricted as you kept yourself from crying, too afraid to utter a sound.

From that point on, I did what you could not, persevere. I fought to earn every piece of coin I could while you dwindled. No longer were you the man who dragged me from the wasteland, you had become lazy — a worthless waste of resources like the rest of our race.

We were not lucky.

When the monarchy launched their re-education initiative, I heard the rhythmic pounding of bells throughout the city. They had strolled across the ghetto, reclaiming children for integration into Arkadian society. Red ran through the streets as mothers cried while fathers died to hold onto their children. Adorned with obsidian armour from head-to-toe, the guards made their way through the encampment. Eventually, their march ceased outside of our tent.

"Father," I whispered, "What are we going to do?"

You ignored me.

"Father, what are we going to do?"

Metal latched onto my shoulders as I was pulled into the street.

"Father!"

You stayed where you were. You allowed the Arkadians to save me.

We were not lucky.

Did you know where the nobility brought the reclaimed children, did you care? Have I faded into obscurity within your mind? Do you even remember my name? No, you were one of the many homeless that lined the newly paved streets of Shantytown.

I'm not like you, I persevered because I was strong. Through re-education, I learned about the greatness of Arkadia. Hours would go by while the priests corrected the barbarous beliefs you taught me. I fought against their teachings at first, but after a few lashings, I learned. To have freedom is to have power, and power is granted to those who were worthy. So I made myself worthy.

I enlisted into the military, training my body for months so I could persevere. Eventually, I was placed into the front-line, fighting my way through swarms of invaders that attempted to desecrate our glorious kingdom. It was not difficult to make them bleed, to puncture their flesh and to feel their blood drip along my fingers. I was worthy, and I earned my power.

Now look at me father, I'm the captain of the guard. I live lavishly off protecting this country from the scum of society. The malcontents no longer escape the monarchy's grasp because I work to capture them. Not only that, but I have dragged you from the streets. Never will you be forced to lie upon the mounds of shit that litter Shantytown. I am not a victim, I am powerful, and I have earned my freedom.

But I set Baheri Redfern free.

He was a savage like all the others, filthy, rancid, useless and lethargic. Baheri was just like you and me. All of us are victims, aren't we? The thought broke me, I could not comprehend the reality. It was as if a splinter had lodged itself within my mind, cracking open the years of denial that had helped me persevere. Father, I felt like a broken child once again. The Arkadians destroyed us, and I helped them succeed.

We were not lucky.

The nobility was infuriated with me, they stripped me of my rank before dropping me into jail. At first, I only felt darkness, then a chill crept through my flesh and dug deep into my bones. The silence was endless, similar to the wasteland after the disaster. I wrapped my hands around my waist and waited. The guards would infrequently come to my cell to hand me my food. It took some hard work, but I managed to convince them to let me write this letter to you.

I'm sorry father, I wish I were better than I was. To be able to persevere against torment like how you once had. Unfortunately, I am a coward, a failure that foolishly bought the lies of the Arkadians because the truth was too hard to bear. I want to believe that I was capable of at least providing a comfortable home for you in your old age.

I'm not sure what punishment I will receive from the Arkadians. The nobility could torture me, keep me imprisoned, kill me or even cut off my horn like yours. I hope I will be able to see you once again, but I'm doubtful. Know this, I would give anything to change the past so that I could see you once again. I love you. I'll miss you. I'm sorry.

We were not lucky.

Lotar

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28285/beasts-of-burden/chapter/422100/the-first-and-only-letter

I posted a link to the site I will also be publishing so of my work everyone!

[mekaelb]

Boooop

Cats soar through the rim of the toilet bowl as their claws splinet and crack the soiled plastic.