#but damn am i just dangling a carrot in front of myself most of the time

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Do you ever struggle not sharing details of your story / spoiling people? It's one of the hardest parts of writing for me! I always want to just divulge all of my ideas immediately!

The answer, weirdly enough... is no!

And a part of that is definitely due to me being a giant, secret-hoarding dragon in disguise. But another part of that is the fact that I largely suspect that...

Keeping secrets and avoiding spoilers is the reason this comic is still alive and updating.

Now, that may sound odd. Why would keeping secrets help me post? Sharing work is kind of the life-blood of a lot of creative endeavors. Storytelling is an inherently social activity. All humans, even the most introverted ones, thrive on peer recognition and feedback.

But over the years, I've come to realize something about myself. And this realization may be mostly stemming from me, but I suspect it's actually a pretty common factor for other creatives as well. So maybe I should talk about it (again).

Let me introduce you to something I call...

The Emperor's New Accomplishment.

Here's the thing. I'm an extremely introverted, non-social person. I can go for months without talking to friends easily, even if I love them a whole lot. That all being said, I'm still a human being, and my brain derives happy-social-animal chemicals from being recognized as A Person With Traits. Humans are built that way! We can't avoid it.

So what you gotta understand is - at all times, our brain is seeking social/peer recognition like it seeks out high-calorie foods. And it (largely) does not care what we have to do to get it.

Herein lies the problem.

Usually, creating stuff and thinking about stories and then sharing what we wrote with friends is a great way to get that happy chemical.

But it's time consuming. And difficult. And there's a shortcut.

What we seek when we create Scenarios and Characters and Conflicts is not hard work toiling away writing/drawing/constructing stuff. Many artists actively enjoy this process, but it's grueling.

And just telling our friends about our ideas actually accomplishes the end goal, as far as our brain is concerned! We made up ideas! We told people about it! We got the Good Feelings!

So when I tell people about my Plans to Write A Comic or Ideas To Make a Story, what I'm actually doing is tricking my brain into thinking 'wow, this feels great! We have accomplished the task we set out to do! No more effort necessary!'

And that motivation to actually draw/write/create?

It goes directly into the trashcan.

Now I'm not saying this to suggest people who do this/fall prey to this are lazy. They're not!

But our brains are. They're lazy, and they want to save energy. And they don't care if you WANTED to actually make the story. They will gladly rip the Motivation energy out of our grubby little hands when they no longer deem it necessary to the process.

So - why do I keep so many secrets? How do I stop myself from talking about what happens next in the story?

I'm doing it to keep my actual comic alive.

Disclaimer: Not everyone functions like this, obviously. Everyone has a different creative process. But this is how I've realized MY brain works, so I now take steps to trick my brain back into working. Ha! Take that, brain! Two can play at this--waitaminute.

#chekhov answers #the funny thing is #i am my brain #but damn am i just dangling a carrot in front of myself most of the time

[lottiesfics]

6 Inch (chap 5/dd) {Lemonade Series}

Prompt: Each song from Lemonade tells a story in one way or another, the story of love being tortured and ruined to finding a conclusion that will work. You and David had been together for years, 3 years of marriage and one child. Although, David and You have been through some hard times. Rumors of infidelity had begun to spring about, leading to a one night binge of you re-thinking your love for him.

Word Count: 2,120

Chapter 5- 6 Inch

 It was a late Friday night in 2017. I was dressed to impressed, I mean at least impress the guys who come to the club who give me the money. I wish I could say I was the Hugh Heffner of this operation, but in all honesty, I was the playboy bunny. I moved out to LA with 1600 dollars and nothing to my name. I dreamt of starting my own clothing company, something I wanted to do since I was 12. I knew damn well with 1600 dollars the most you could get in LA was a shitty cubicle apartment. I was out there for 4 months, working as a waitress in Echo Park. The dinner was shut down and I was earning maybe 9 dollars a day, my tips lower and weaker with every service. I was evicted from my apartment, 8 months in. I was homeless. Surviving out on Skid Row. I never envisioned giving up. I wasn't the type to give up. I thought I would have to go home, I didn't wanna go back to Nebraska. I met Marty Karrington in downtown Los Angeles, Skid Row. I recall him saying, "A pretty girl like you shouldn't be out here on her own." I replied with, "Well I am, 1600 dollars can't get you enough." I scoffed, I rolled my eyes. Marty was in his late 40s and had the look of a Hugh Heffner. "You came out here with 1600?" He asked, his eyes widened as he took a seat next to me on the curb. I recollect thinking 'why am I letting this dude talk to me?'. I was at the point where I didn't care about where I was or where I go. I felt emptiness within me. I just couldn't go home. "Yeah, but it didn't work out quite," I said, gesturing to my current circumstances. Marty gave me a pitiful smile, he stared at me and glanced back at the streets. The next sentence he said would lead me to a whole new direction. "I know a way you could tripe that 1600 in 1 night." He said. I looked at him, I didn't quite get what he meant. "Wait I'm confused," I said. "What's your name?" He asked me. "(Y/N)." I replied. "Well (Y/N), are you over 18?" He asked me. I started to slowly understand what he meant. "20," I said. "Where's the strip club?" I asked him. "Burbank." He responded. "I don't think your a whore or anything, but I think you could use the money. The girls are great, the people pay, famous people come, it's a scene." He said chuckling. Marty reminded me of a childhood friend I had. He gave me an odd source of comfort. "When can I start?" I asked, my voice fracturing. I never thought in a million years I would turn to a strip club as my source of income. I remember my first night there, Megan Crawken was my mentor. She was an attractive brunette with blue eyes, blue seemed to be her color. She said to me, "Okay, so I showed you how to dance, and-" She was mentally going through the list in her mind. I lived with Marty momentarily, he took care of me and another girl named Claire Holland. "So, you get the gist of what goes on here?" Meghan asked me. I nodded yes, "Thank you," I said. "Oh please, It was nothing! Oh, one last thing-" She said turning around to face me, "Work hard, be smart, don't crave the materials, think more about your next meal. We both know this isn't the end goal for us, and it won't last forever. Watch your money and stack it up." She told me, looking me dead in the eyes. "Got it," I said. I went back to get dressed. I felt like meat wrapped in butcher's twine, which would make sense as I was about to be a carrot dangled in front of men's faces. I put on my 6-inch heels, courtesy of Meghan. It was different from what I pictured. Yeah, people paid attention, but at the same time, they didn't. Some dudes got drunk instead and just watched, some got really into it, throwing 100 dollar bills at us and others were too scared. It was a very intimidating process, I felt like I was on display for quite a while. By the time David came into the picture I had made quite a name for myself out there, I had worked there for 7 months, I had made thousands in a week. I finally got to move out with Marty and get my own place in Burbank. Yet, leaving Skid Row was bitter-sweet. Bitter because when I felt the emptiness, Skid Row gave the excitement back to me, I met Marty there, oddly I turned my life around there. Sweet because while I was turning my life around, people were losing theirs. Homeless was growing, the danger was more frequent and others kept feeling the emptiness I once felt. Claire went home, she couldn't kick it. I made a promise to myself that I would never go home. It worked, I sat in the living room of my apartment talking to Meghan. "Which shoes tonight?" I was going between a pink pair with fuzz and a gold pair with glitter. "What about these?" Meghan asked me. It was the simple black pair she gave me the first day I worked there. "Yeah, I'll wear them." I said. We both put on our shoes, put on coats and left my house. We strolled through the streets of Burbank until we made it to the club. "There are my headliners!" Marty said. We laughed. He wasn't disturbing as you'd expect from a dude running this type of work. He was actually incredibly caring and kind. He wanted to see us all grow from here. He knew Meghan was gonna be leaving soon, he was looking for his next Meghan and he believed that it was me. We walked past him to the dressing rooms. We got all ready and put our stuff down. Hannah L'Laome walked in. She was the youngest out of everyone here, freshly 18 off Hollywood Boulevard. "Hey, Hannah." I said. "Hi (Y/N)." She said, she plugged in her curler and began waving her hair. She had stars in her eyes. "Hannah, you should really get a day off!" Meghan laughed. Hannah worked the most out of all of us. "No, I gotta make money. That's the only way to pick it all up." She said, laughing but I knew she was serious. I patted her on the back as the music started to fill the club. Meghan and I walked out, doing our jobs. Having a hundred dollars bills, fifty dollar bills and twenty dollar bills were thrown at us. In the first hour, I made 700 dollars. Then, my whole world changed. In walked David Dobrik, a vlogger who has a 2.6 million dollar house. He was cute, he needed a haircut but he was cute. An older man walked in behind him, he started talking to Marty. I tried to overhear the conversation but I couldn't with the music blasting behind me. David looked at me, I looked at him back. He blushed, he was one of the shy kids. Marty started shouting for me to come over. I strolled off the stage and headed towards Marty. My heart-racing. "Yeah?" I said. "Meet David Dobrik and Jason Nash." He said shouting. I felt like I was gonna pass out. "Hi! (Y/N)!" I said my name back. David was enamored. I couldn't help but not keep my eyes off him. Cute was an understatement. "They need two strippers for a video, do you wanna do it?" Marty asked me. "How much am I getting paid?" I asked. Jason went to answer but David cut him off, "500". "David what?!" I remember Jason reprimanding him. "Wait! I have an idea!" David said walking away with Jason. Marty and I were perplexed. I went back to doing what I was doing, by hour 3 I doubled my 700 into 1400. David came back with a whole group of boys. Some cute, some not. He went back to Marty and held up his camera. Marty shook his head 'no' and pointed to the door. David shrugged and visibly got upset. I walked back over to them. "Marty, what's wrong?" I asked him. "They wanna film" I rolled my eyes at Marty, David watching my every move. "Let them film!" I said. "But-" Marty tried to argue with me. "Marty, you're crazy if you don't think other people aren't filming." I said. He nodded and let the group pass through the rope. David was smiling wide, "Thank you." He said. I nodded and brought them to a table, a section of their own and went back to doing what I was doing for the third time. I watched David film. Meghan pointed out to me something, "Yo, just go over and dance!" She said laughing. I laughed, there was no way I was gonna do that. As the night grew on and I rolled into my 5th hour David and his friends were still there. Getting crazy shots. I started getting really into it, moving my way to all the tables. Of course that included David's. I did a bit where who I know now as Zane and I danced on a table. Alcohol sprung up around us, I was having the time of my life. I sensed someone slide something into my leg band. It was a little white piece of paper. I smiled at them and left. Shortly after I heard they split. I didn't see it because I was making 4x my 1400. It was a good night for me. I went back to the dressing room putting all my money in my mesh bag, the white note fell out. I opened it and it read: Hi, here's my number (xxx) xxx-xxxx -David. My stomach erupted with butterflies. That night in my apartment we started texting, we called and then facetime for hours. I told him my dreams and he told me his. This routine kept going, I work, I come home and we facetime. Until one night we had a deep conversation. "You've been doing this for 18 months now. When are you gonna start working for the company start-up? You have the money now, you have the place." He said. I realized that he was right. I was working Monday to Friday and Friday to Sunday. I wasn't working for the dream anymore, I was working to work. I became addicted to the money. The next day, I gave Marty my resignation. It was almost like some mystical being brought back my emptiness from a year ago and delivered it to Marty. "(Y/N), thank you for all that you've done for me and the girls. I really appreciate it." He said, he smiled. A real smile, for the first time I had seen. He scribbled something on paper. "Here's my REAL telephone line, call me, keep in touch." He said. I told David I quit and he was ecstatic, taking me out for dinner that night, the first time we had seen each other since our ordeal. I found out 5 months later the club was shut down, Marty went on to live his own dream. He opened a restaurant out in Studio City. A very successful restaurant, the one that David and I would go for our 8-month anniversary.  I thought about how that one night changed my life tremendously. I own that clothing company now. I watched Meghan end up on the runway, I watched Hannah become a fashion designer. I think about how they may even know my troubled relationship. The emptiness resurfaces in me. I want David back. I want him to love me again, to come back to me and fall at my feet. I want him to come back. Come back home. The baby monitor in my room started making noises. Through all of Kaela's whines, I heard the word, "Dada?". 

#david dobrik #david dobrik imagine #david dobrik imagines #david dobrik fluff #david dobrik smut #vlogsquad #vlogsquad imagine #vlogsquad imagines #vlog squad #vlog squad imagines #vlog squad imagine #jeff wittek #zane hijazi #lemonade series

[plantdad-dante]

Book #14 - City Of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

(collected thoughts on the fifth book of the The Mortal Instruments series, a book which, for the most part, I very much did not like. consider yourself warned, I really couldn't hold back the rant this time.)

A preface: Rants are never as much fun as we sometimes think. Neither to write nor to read. They can be cathartic, though, and catharcis is what is needed right now. So. Nothing I say in this post is meant maliciously. I am not trying to take away anyone’s authentic enjoyment of this book. And I do not intend to offend anyone with this, least of all Mrs Clare herself. That being said....

Whatever this was, I never want to read it again.

I mean, to be fair... it wasn't as directionless as City Of Fallen Angels. Or as uninteresting. Instead it made me feel angry, disappointed, puzzled, uncomfortable, sad, sick to my stomach (*glares at the second half of Chapter 19*), defeated, fed-up, tired.... Yeah. No. I didn't like this. And I dread the fact that there is still one to go. And that it will be way longer by the looks of it.

By the way, I'm reading Clockwork Princess now (because the The Infernal Devices series knows how to hurt me the proper way) to remind myself that I don't actually hate Cassandra Clare's writing. That is the level of misery we are dealing with.

I hate how Malec, still, in the fifth damn book, was written as a weird mix of genuine emotion and clumsy represantation (yes, Clary, I get that Alec and Magnus are just like you and Jace, wanna hit me over the head with it again, to be sure?) And why did we need to make Alec such an unaware, self-absorbed, uncommunicative idiot? Camille was so obviously manipulating him, I wanted him to just go "hey, your ex is trying to get in my head, any idea how to stop that" at Magnus at any time, but no! No, they need a break-up, because fuck u! And we won't even establish them as a happy, functional couple for more than half a scene and some blurry background screenshots, so the break-up scene will only hit wherever it reminds you of the show! Feel satisfied with the plot yet?

Ugh. I quite liked Clary's plotline, right up until the second half of Chapter 19, when the book briefly made me want to throw up and I decided that, even though I really didn't like City Of Fallen Angles in any way, this one was gonna be my new least favourite of the whole series. Congratulations, Sebastian, you did it. Can we throw him into a woodchipper now, please?

Jace's brief moment of clarity kinda threw me, because it wasn't the least bit set up and everything about it just kinda came out of nowhere. I liked it as a character moment for him, showing how he definetly, absolutely, hated Sebastian (hell, this whole name thing bothers me to no end, but if I get into that, we'll be here for half an eternity), but all the other stuff? Eh.

Although I liked her storyline, Clary's character arc in this is, in my opinion, very jumbled and unclear. I have no idea what she went through or what I was supposed to feel except agony at the continued violations of her personal freedom, freedom of choice, general autonomy, (sense of) safety, emotional well-being, physical well-being.... (Is it just me or has her "artist vision" almost completely evaporated?)

Also, can Clace stop being horny around each other for, like, one scene. Please. At this point, I have to assume this is like a carrot these books want to dangle in front of the noses of Clace shippers, but I am neither that, nor am I a person who is interested in reading the carrot. So. Can we not, maybe.

#city of lost souls #the mortal instruments #am I going to regret having made this a rant - probably #do I still think this is the best way to deal with it - yes #honestly this isn't even half of what bothered me #but I refuse to make this post any longer than it already is #cassandra clare

[orionsangel86]

Hey tumblr people, friends, SPN family,

You may have realised that my blog has become the virtual version of tumbleweed rolling through a desert in recent weeks/months. I noticed on checking my blog recently that I have had an influx of new followers which I think is predominantly thanks to a shout out from Shirley (@destieldrabblesdaily) which I am infinitely grateful for because I consider her one of the best blogs in the SPN fandom. It is for that reason among others that I feel pretty damn bad about not being around recently to share in your speculation, meta and general love for the show.

I haven’t said much since the finale, or even about the finale. I never wrote an episode review for any of the last 3 episodes of season 12. (still haven’t seen 12x21 and don’t plan to) I guess I just want to explain why.

In the past few months SPN has been losing its grip on me, I guess I always thought this would happen one day as it always has in the past with other things that I have falling in love and obsession with until I just… well… get over it. Usually its when a show finishes or movie franchise ends though, rather than whilst it’s still going on. I haven’t felt that itchy desire to constantly check my dash, or write meta or obsess over speculation for the show lately at all. I tried re-watching season 12 and I just couldn’t maintain my concentration. I instead started watching other shows – American Gods is fantastic – and getting out a bit more as well. Tumblr kinda sucked me into this pit where my social life pretty much dried up and became non-existent. Though in all fairness, tumblr also got me through a pretty nasty stint of depression.

I keep hoping that this will be temporary, that perhaps when season 13 comes to our screens that I’ll jump right back in, but I’m not so sure. I guess I’ll watch it, but I don’t know how much I’ll participate in fandom in the future. I want to, I still have that desire to get involved but I don’t have the energy or desire to write meta about the actual show right now. I guess I kinda feel like everything is already being said by the other fantastic meta writers on tumblr and my opinion isn’t really needed.

The thing is, I am tired of SPN. I am tired of the game they are playing with us. I say this, knowing full well that they are dangling destiel in front of us like a carrot dangled in front of a donkey, so close but still so far. Eventually we will get our carrot – of this I am almost certain – but they sure as hell will continue to put us through a bunch of utter crap before we get there.

This is what I am fed up with. I did start re-watching season 12 and I just can’t fathom some things that drove me crazy. Like why when we were first introduced to the British men of letters, it was two strong women who ruled the screen, but by the end, it was another two generic white men to add to our already generic white guy cast. They could have written it in so many different ways to how they did.

Billy’s death pissed me off, so did Alesha’s and Tasha’s. By the time they took Eileen from us I was fuming. Then when they went and wrote off Rowena with an off screen death only told to us in description form I had given up.

On top of this they continued to write scenes of non-con, scenes of violence against POC and women that could easily be avoided whilst maintaining suspense and drama, a dodgy plot point centering around a women fighting her right to choose against the white men trying to take that choice away from her, and on top of it all, fucking Lucifer still being a big part of the show when his character should have died at the end of season 11. His entire story this season was so boring I wanted to skip most of his scenes. I hated HATED his character.

I’m sorry to be negative. The show did some wonderful things this year that I am so happy about. Dean’s story arc was wonderful. His confrontation with Mary in 12x22 had me in tears and I screamed FINALLY out loud as he opened up and admitted things that he has kept inside for his whole life. Dean held this whole season together he really did. The emotional plot was wonderful, it’s what kept me around until the finale because I could see Dabb’s plan for the characters emotional development so clearly in the subtext and later text. Well, until 12x19 for Cas because after 12x19 I don’t understand a fucking thing Cas did and I bloody hope he really has been mind wammied by Jack all this time because otherwise it doesn’t make a lick of sense for his character development.

Ultimately, what season 12 did that was GREAT was threefold:

It built up Dean’s emotional development to its climax where he has finally let Sam ‘go’ and admit the years of abuse he suffered under John, as well as admitting that he was a parent to Sam rather than a brother. Dean’s entire story throughout the whole series has been building to this point and it was WONDERFUL to see.

It built up Sam’s story in the same way, in that he was able to finally break free from under Dean’s wing and accept his own responsibility and place in the world as a whole – as a leader and hero – rather than something tainted and wrong. Season 12 signalled the end of Winchester toxic co-dependency and I was HERE FOR THAT.

It gave us destiel. Now, I say this with certainty guys, although I know it is still contested. Consider it my parting gift to you. Destiel is real and we are going there. Season 12 basically gave it to us because it did things that it cannot now backtrack on. I have never been more certain. Even AFTER 8x17, after Dean’s confession, after “He’s in love… with humanity” and “it was all about saving one human” even after 11x19 and our Hunting Husbands, I still had a whole bunch of doubt on the topic. Now though? I don’t see how it is possible to watch 12x10, 12x12, 12x19 and now, the end of 12x23 without being like “hang on a freaking second – what the hell actually is going on with these guys?” Destiel is gonna happen. This is my speculation for you. Cas will be brought back but he will be brought back wrong and probably under Jack’s control and will walk away from Dean – still crying at his feet – all cold and emotionless as if Dean was nothing to him. Dean will then stop at nothing to get him back. I predict that will happen around the mid-season finale and it will be a big moment for destiel. Another 8x17 but more intense perhaps? Another ‘crypt scene’ but this time with a love confession from both sides? Guys I see it. I can’t not see it now. The one thing season 12 did was take away my doubts. Destiel is real and it is happening and I am pretty sure we will get there by end of season 13.

The problem is, this is no longer enough for me. Even if Season 13 starts with Cas coming back to life in some spectacular beauty and the beast moment which ends in a kiss and a cut to their wedding day… its still not enough anymore. I can’t watch this series just for a ship. I can’t keep going for the fucking carrot dangling in front of me when my hoofs are bleeding and raw and my back is breaking from the weight of all the shit I’ve been forced to carry. The carrot isn’t worth it.

I used to adore this show. Not for destiel, but for the stories, the mythology, the characters and their colourful world of Supernatural things. Now, the characters are slowly reaching peak development and I am getting fed up of watching them get beat down. I want them to have their peace, their happy ending. The stories are no longer fresh and exciting. They are Lucifer and his ridiculous Nephilim baby/not baby.

I am also so fed up of Cas’s story not making sense, of him being controlled or brainwashed or forced to do things he hates. Of his absence when it makes no sense (like when Claire is involved and not a word is spoken about him) or of writers writing him so off key that he comes across idiotic. (thanks Bucklemming). I can’t keep watching the writers butcher this character I adore with all my heart.  

I am so so happy for Wayward Sisters and I will support it with all my might. If only because these writers need to UNDERSTAND that they cannot keep killing off the female characters on this show like they mean nothing. Its just heartbreaking to think that we will never get Charlie, Eileen, Rowena, Billy, Alesha or any of the other female characters who have been wrongly killed off in Supernatural join the female cast of this spin off. I’m excited for Wayward Sisters more than I am for Supernatural right now, because Supernatural is just a massive disappointment for me.

I am sorry I feel this way, its been eating at me for a while. I think it’s the reason I have taken this break. I just can’t put all my time and energy into something that feels toxic to me. I live in fanfic at the moment because it is the characters I adore without the awful truth of canon – even if occasionally canon does still give us those fanfic moments – it’s the other moments that are the issue.

*sigh*

I’m sorry. Part of me desperately wants to hold on with all my might, to come back and throw myself into speculation and meta and all the stuff you guys are so awesome at, but another part of me is so so bitter its preventing me from feeling any joy from it.

Maybe when season 13 comes on I’ll forget this post and just start this blog up again. I certainly miss talking to the bloggers on here I consider my friends, I just feel that without contributing to anything I have no purpose on Tumblr, and I don’t want my negativity to affect anyone else. So in the meantime, this is goodbye. I may still visit and reblog stuff occasionally, but I won’t be writing anything for a while. A long while probably.

It’s been fun Tumblr, but from now on consider this an extended hiatus. Perhaps I’ll see you in the Autumn… perhaps this fleeting romance is over for good. I won’t know until I know. As for Supernatural, I have said my bit. Expect Destiel along with a side of bitter disappointment. Wayward Sisters will be amazing though. So long as they don’t let Bob Singer or Bucklemming anywhere near it that is.

[alrightcomputer]

“That one time I lost $17,000, my dog fought a skunk, I levitated, got stung by a scorpion and then was homeless for a week.”

The story begins with money. In my 20’s I was a ship with no anchor, which is ironic since the Saint of my namesake is the patron of mariners and children. I felt like both, but without a map or a compass, so I took a paycheck in the meantime. The first job I took in a kitchen was at the Great Wolf Lodge through a favor from my cousin who knew the Exec and Sous. Started with no experience beyond grilled cheeses and bowls of cereal, a strong work ethic, a hunger for my own money and the good will of others. It was the best job I’ve had in the industry and I wish I hadn’t left but life dangled the carrot of love in front of me and I jumped ship and swam. It was nice to be wanted, so I let my pride take the wheel and quickly got lost in the sauce. Ended up at another corporate place in MHK, but rose quickly, fell in love quickly, and fell out just as quick. I was drifting in the wind in Manhattan, which is what you do there. Still felt adrift, the arrogance of youth filling my sails. I was discovering myself on my own for the first time, having looked through a telescope for so long I was finally starting to appreciate the vastness of the horizon. That I could go any direction I wanted, as fast and as far. I broke a heart, cut bait and went looking. I let my mother live vicariously through me by enrolling in culinary school, despite 2 years already having risen quickly in every kitchen I had worked in. She loved cooking, but to me it was just a skill. I thought with this same formula applied to school I’d jump into any space I wanted. I was as ambitious as I was broke, and still dreaming. Surprise! My parents had been keeping $35,000 in a mutual fund, in my name, since who knows when?! I was dreading borrowing $42,000 to pay for one year of school but damn they made it sound pretty, so I accepted the “help” from mom & dad, without a promise of repayment, even at my insistence. I didn’t want to lose my motivation. I say “help” because the way it played out I think they had ulterior motives. I got enrolled and find out the basic college credits I already had saved me $7000. I had school paid for and would just need a part time job to pay my rent and have fun. Fast forward 6 months, halfway through school, taking control of my life finally so I decide it would be easier to move my school money out of the joint account in Downs to a bank in Austin where I was going to be staying after graduation. I called the bank and asked them to transfer and they put me on hold. Weird. The teller gets back on the phone and they say they can’t make the transfer and that I would need to talk to my parents. My name was on the account. The checks were written from TD Ameritrade to me. This shouldn’t have happened. They pulled the rug out from under me, absolutely zero respect. No discussion. I was still a child to them, and I realized then that I always would be. This is where the story really begins. At this point I was so torn between honoring my parents and gaining autonomy over my life. I took out $17,000 in loans to finish school despite my instinct telling me to just quit and work full time, it had worked best for me anyway. Finish school with my head down, feelings up in smoke, heart in my hand. Long phone calls that always ended up in anger. They were in charge, they had the upper hand. How I felt about it was of no consequence to them, especially 700 miles away. I moved back to Manhattan after a wild year in ATX following graduation because I still had friends in Kansas, even if I didn’t feel like I had family. It’s okay, everything’s okay. I’ll tell you the 512 story later. Staying in a friends basement rent free until I get a job and a couple paychecks in my pocket, playing a lot of Call of Duty and smoking as much weed as humanly possible to keep my mind off of my deteriorating relationship with my parents. It's okay, everything's okay. Never really get off my feet in those three months so I concede to everything I’ve been fighting against with my parents and move back in with them, working at their furniture store and helping with funerals when needed. It’s okay, everything’s okay. It wasn't. My dad told me if I wanted the money that I should sue him. Hope will allow you to suffer much longer than is necessary. Few months go by, living rent free in a place I don’t want to be in has really motivated me to save some money at get the fuck out. Having my dog around is a small comfort. I’m still trying to resolve my feelings about the situation internally but I can’t, so I approach my parents. It doesn’t go well. It never goes well. When someone has seen you bare assed, bent over, taking an ass whoopin’ with a fraternity paddle, you can still love them, but you will never respect them. Not unless you meet them where they’re at. But I had been bent for too long to be able to carry that weight. After several attempts at resolution, each with escalating climaxes, leading up to the night they kicked me out. I still had most of my things packed in my car because I hadn’t planned on staying long. My mom tells me to leave after multiple attempts to try and explain my feelings, not even demanding any type of action on their part other than hearing me out. They were very defensive. My mom told me she wanted me to leave, so I packed up my toiletries and suitcase I had clothes in, grabbed my dogs leash and called him as I walked down the stairs to leave. My mom grabs my collar at the landing, where the stairs make a 180 degree turn, there’s a small area to stand there before the stairs continue down. I just kept walking, she didn’t let go. She fell to her knees but let go finally, and right at that moment, my dad is coming up from the basement, to the first floor. My mom takes a flop, sliding down the stairs behind me, with her hands out in front of her. I kept walking towards the back door and my dad stands in my way and won’t let me pass. Step left, gets in my way, hands on my chest. I tell him she wants me to leave, so I am. Step right. Hands on my chest. Call my dog Jonas, he’s waiting patiently. My dad is still trying to stop me from leaving, he doesn’t know my mom was talking to me, assumes I threw her down the stairs or something. I quickly explain what happened and he doesn’t believe me so I say I’m just going to leave and he tries to stop me again so I grab his shirt and throw him to the side, he stumbles but doesn't fall down. I can’t take this shit anymore. I walk to the back door calling my dog to go outside. As I get out to my car and am loading my things in, tell my dog to get in and he complies as always. My mom is hysterical, begging me to stay. I tell her this obviously isn’t a good place for me to be and get in my car and leave. I go to a place I frequently go and let Jonas out and light a cigarette as I sit on the ground. I hear Jonas running through the tall grass until he stops suddenly and I hear a low growl so I call him back. Immediately after I hear a very shrill yelp and him sprinting towards me, I figured it was a raccoon at first until he got about 10 yards away I could smell exactly what it was. He smelled like sour ass and a plastic fire. I finished my cigarette as I figured out what I was going to do. His face is staring at me searching for answers and I comfort him telling him its ok and I’m going to get him cleaned up. He stunk so bad. I go back to my parents house and walk in the back door where the pantry is and grab two cans of my dad’s tomato juice. He’s on the couch so I tell him Jonas got sprayed by a skunk and go back outside. I call Jonas over to where the hose is and begin to wash his face. It helps, kind of. Go through both cans and I can’t tell if I’m just used to the smell, if my olfactory senses are fried or if its actually helping. His spirits were lifted so that’s all mattered at the moment. My dad says I should stay and that he would make sure my mom didn’t talk to me. I leave Jonas outside and go upstairs to fall asleep. We don’t talk for several days. I sleep in my car and read Bukowski by the river in the town I worked in until I meet up with a friend who was in California for a long time, back in town for her sister’s wedding. Her sister is actually marrying my cousin. My friend Carrie’s house was where we used to hang out and party in high school. My mom looked down on the whole family. The oldest sister (who was marrying my cousin) was best friends with the only openly gay kid in the town. The oldest son was a musician and goth. The youngest daughter Carrie was a completely free spirit. The youngest son was a skater. Their mom was a single mom who raised 4 kids working graveyard shifts at the nursing home. They were kind and open minded. She did a complete 180 on her position once my cousin and the oldest daughter were engaged. She couldn’t maintain it and be perceived like she needed to be by them. She’s a textbook narcissist. I spend the night at my friends house the next couple nights leading up to the wedding, we watch movies and get drunk. She gives me half a Xanax so I can sleep. I needed it so badly, she knew I was a wreck. We went to the lake with old friends and rode jet skis and took turns throwing each other off doing 180 turns at the fastest speeds we could handle. She won. I took one of my favorite pictures of her talking to her brother on the phone while he was in a psych hospital after an attempted suicide. She had the biggest heart, and I think living in all that space felt lonely for her. The day of the wedding gets here and I go out to my favorite place to be alone a few miles outside of Downs. It's the tallest hill around in a farmer’s pasture, surrounded by grazing land and prairie for his cattle. The top of the hill is limestone and there are several smaller hills littered with volcanic rock surrounding it. Wildflowers and thistles scattered around haphazardly. It looks like the Windows background with the rolling green hills in spring. I have my camera and I take a few pictures along the way, I was very much in tune with the frequency of the place and this made me feel at peace and connected with myself. To be fair, the hill is not very impressive, but once you’re on top of it and see just how flat everything around it is and just how far you can see it’s a significant difference. For what it’s worth. I get to the top and I’m watching a man tend his field with a tractor about a mile away and thinking of my grandpa Jim, as I often do when I’m feeling stressed. I snap a few photos. As I’m sitting on a rock near the top, reading some initials of lovers, some school rivalry, some curses and a banal greeting I decide to close my eyes. I become very aware of the breeze and the swishing sound of the grass is very hypnotic. I sit in the Lotus position, palms up, index and thumb pressed gently together. I focus on my breathing and after a few minutes it happened. I felt the strongest sensation of floating, like vertigo but not spinning or swaying. I felt it so intensely that I violently shook myself out of it and snapped my eyes open. I don’t know how long I sat like this before it happened. I sat for a little while longer, looking out towards the horizon before I decide I should probably head back. I look down and about a foot under where I’m sitting I see a small scorpion. A cloudy, white, almost translucent exoskeleton. It’s pincers are raised, but it’s not moving around. I can see it’s stinger and for whatever reason decide to pick it up. So I did. I did it successfully. It just hung there between my thumb and index finger. It starts to sway back and forth so I decide its probably time to put it down. I had conquered my fear. As I move my hand towards the ground the angle I was holding it changed slightly and it spun and grabbed my finger near my finger nail. Without thinking I let go of the stinger and it struck immediately and then dropped the rest of the way to the ground, scurried under a rock and that was the last I saw of my friend. The initial pain was sharp but the sharpness of the sting dissipated quickly. The deep, throbbing pain of the venom was slow to take effect but plateaued much higher than the initial prick. It was intense to say the least, a very unique experience. Very grounding. I waited for the pain to peak, realized I could handle it, considered whether or not I was dying, but realized I had never heard of deadly scorpions in Kansas so I started to walk back to my car. When I get there I see my keys laying on my drivers seat and try the door. It’s locked. From this amazing moment of Zen to a slow deterioration of my physical reality in like 3 minutes. I didn’t have much time and it was the middle of the day in July so I started to walk back to town. Thankfully I had a long sleeved shirt on. I get almost a mile down the road and I hear a vehicle approaching behind me. The guy stops and asks if I need a ride. I accept. He asks what I’m doing out here and I tell him it’s where I go to clear my head and that I was taking a few photos while I was in town for a wedding. He says he’s going to get beer because his town is dry and he won’t tolerate a Sunday of football without a 12 pack. I said I appreciated his foresight, and was thankful that it had worked out in my favor too. I had a spare key with me at my friends house thankfully, and he dropped me off there. I didn’t feel like asking for any help at this point. I felt like I was on a personal journey. I figured I’d have just enough time to walk out and drive back to shower before the ceremony. It's hot as hell, but not like this summer. It was probably in the upper 90’s with little cloud cover, but there was a breeze so my sweat was working nicely to cool me. I knew the average walking pace was 5 miles an hour, so as long as I kept a steady pace I’d be there in about 45 minutes. It took about an hour cuz I got lazy and a little lost in thought considering how my day had been. Got into my car and drove back to my friends’ place, change and make it back about 5 minutes late to the church. My friend waves from the altar and I smile and mouth “sorry”. My story was a huge hit at the reception. My cousin thought it was especially hilarious that I got stung by a scorpion. The next day I woke up hungover but calm. Something I hadn’t felt first thing in the morning for a long time. I had work that night so I got cleaned up and drove the 20 minutes over and got a sandwich and read Ham On Rye for a while before my shift. My life was wild, but I had it good compared to Bukowski. Flipped some burgers for a few hours, had a few beers down the road and drove back to the park by the river to sleep in my car. I did this for several days before I asked my friend if I could crash in his basement again. I needed a shower, but nobody at work noticed because all the other cooks never showered despite having perfectly good homes to bathe in. He said it was cool, so I just ghosted my job and went back to Manhattan. I had a job there in 2 days, at a popular local burger spot with the menu of the last job I had in Austin hanging on the fridge when I got there. A place I could contribute to. A job I would ultimately be told to do less at. A few months went by just working there in the AM, reading in the afternoon while eating a burger and getting drunk at night or playing FPS games with my friend while we got stoned. He didn’t like to be out in public or be very social, but we’d have house parties every now and then. My dog was my best friend, letting me know who was to be trusted and who wasn’t. I was way too far in my own head to notice or care. He hated our fucking mail man, and I thought for no good reason until I caught him peeking in our front window, the one much too far out of his way to the mailbox to shrug it off. He tried to yell at me when my dog wouldn’t let him in the yard, and I said he doesn’t have to, plus I trust his judgement. We had a new guy on the route the next week. This was the beginning of a new level of strangeness.

[jordannamatlon]

By Jalil Bishop

My life work has been dedicated to researching if systems of schooling—from K-12 to college—can provide social mobility for poor Black communities. This question was informed by my own deep investment in the belief that if I worked hard in school I could escape poverty. Mine was the type of generational poverty that too many Black families know, where as far back as you can trace and as far as you can see every Black person around you is broke. Like so many of us, I considered school my way out.

I approached schooling methodically. I earned straight As, served as class president, ran varsity track, and engaged in service work. For white students in my school, this would have been enough to secure their pathway to college and reproduce their middle-class status.

For me—Black and poor—an additional burden was placed. I had to prove not that I was one of them, but that I wanted to be.

Early on in my school career, white students made it clear to me that none of my success would ever make me one of them, but they still wanted me to testify that they were the thing to be. In the same conversation in which they would reduce my whole being to a racist stereotype, they would also ask me to answer “why are all the other Black students lazy?” or “why don’t they care about their education?” or “how can racism exist if you (a Black) are successful?”

Throughout my life, these conversations have played out again and again–with teachers, counselors, principals, professors, college classmates, and scholars alike. Before I understood they were wrong, I answered these questions. I testified.

In high school, I co-founded an African American achievement club that brought all of the Black boys together and tried to convince them that they needed to work harder and focus on school. My majority white school proudly supported the club; it assured them white racism was not the issue.

Then it became public knowledge that I was being recruited to a few Ivy League schools for track and field. White students, counselors, and principals all declared that this achievement was only because I was Black. Before, race had nothing to do with student achievement. Now my whole pathway to college was defined by it.

This was a wakeup call to the reality that my role as the “high-achieving” Black student was to testify for whiteness. My role was not to move up and damn sure was not to rise above white people in my achievements.

After I graduated, I listened to how other “high-achieving” Black people in my hometown also experienced the same white discouragement and harassment.

If we were the so-called best of the best and still white people tried to limit us, then what were they doing to the Black students who did not buy into schooling as a barometer of worth?

By the time I enrolled at Dartmouth College, I no longer believed Black students were lazy by choice, but because they were being denied key information on how to take full advantage of their schooling. I wanted every Black person to have an opportunity at a college like mine, where resources were abundant, academic advising was pervasive, and career networks were robust.

I worked in the college’s access programs and admissions office to figure out how to bring college knowledge to poor Black people. But in my senior year, I had another wakeup call. I noticed that the school was just recycling Black people from the same schools and networks. Their recruitment strategy sent them to only a small sample of private, charter, and public schools to find potential Black students.

This caused me to research Dartmouth’s history of Black student recruitment. I learned that the college enrolled its first sizeable class of 81 Black students in 1969, and they were all men. Then, in 1972, the college went co-ed and even with a pool of both Black men and women, the class sizes were still around 80 students. When I enrolled, I discovered there were 87 Black students in my class of 2014. The recent class of 2017 only enrolled 84 Black students. In 48 years, Dartmouth increased its Black student class enrollment by 3 students.

I could go back to my high school and provide all the college knowledge to each Black student, they could execute that knowledge to its fullest potential, and still they had little chance of being accepted into Dartmouth.

My experience making it to an elite college was not the model, it was the exception. I was the exceptional token Black person whose presence at Dartmouth testified that other poor Black people not in college made “bad choices.”

After graduating Dartmouth and going into an Education Ph.D. program at UCLA, I planned to focus on the institutional racism in higher education that excluded poor Black people. My research plan was to document high-achieving Black people in college to prove low admission numbers had nothing to do with our ability. I wanted to provide evidence that the real issue was the racist admission and recruiting policies of these institutions.

Then I had yet another wake up call. Mike Brown was killed right before I was supposed to move to California, and the debate that was raging across the mediawas whether or not he was college bound. I thought to myself, “What the hell did his status as a college student have to do with the value of his life?” Then I realized, the answer: everything.

College status and education credentials are not about who works harder nor about providing a pathway for social mobility. Systems of schooling are about sorting who has value and who does not in white society.

In my work, I refer to this sorting process as education violence. As an academic achiever, I had some value, but only if I fulfilled my role to testify. In that vein, the media’s debate was really to try and decide if Brown was a witness for whiteness–if he had a potential testimony that this white society is a meritocracy, and if Officer Darren Wilson maybe killed the wrong type of Black person. Unsurprisingly, Brown’s college status quickly became irrelevant once the media gathered enough evidence to mark him as a Black person outside of value, a criminal.

I am in my final year of my doctoral program, and I am still waking up and becoming conscious about all the ways systems of schooling are presented as a gift. Schooling is thought to be a beneficial and neutral space above white racism where hard work beats the odds every time. It is not. It is not a gift.

Increasingly, I am becoming more suspicious of myself and others who are education scholars, policymakers, and reformers. Our hyper focus on increasing college degrees—which generally means a bachelor’s from a predominately white university—is not about or for poor Black people. It is about using a white standard of what it means to be educated, productive, and valuable as our standard for Black lives.

We believe bachelor’s degree attainment is such a silver bullet that most college access conversations and research ignores the fact that the majority of Black people are not even attending bachelor’s degree-granting institutions. Their experiences are not at the center of our research, discussions, findings, or solutions. My work and the work of others in my position is more likely to reflect the 9 percent of Black students at elite institutions like Harvard or even Howard than to consider the majority of Black students at ITT Tech or Malcolm X Community College. This is why it is easy for us to confuse college degree attainment as the primary goal rather than just one strategy to reach the goal of Black freedom.

Our education justice work should not be primarily about Black people earning high school and college degrees, it should be to declare that Black life has value and matters outside of education credentials. The real work is to abolish systems, societies, and thinking that would leave some without full livelihoods based on what type of degrees they have.

Education violence requires us tokenized, valued, and “educated” Black folks to testify to whiteness as the standard. I am asking us to refuse. Change our testimony, sabotage our value, and rebuke our tokenization. Poor Black communities deserve more than education justice work that dangles degrees in front of them like a carrot. They deserve to lead and imagine what other ways of being are possible for Black people.

#white supremacy #higher education #race and racism #institutional racism #jalil bishop