#the fact that y'all have reached this level is all sorts of amazing to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

staytheb · 4 years

Text

How Are You Feeling?

Pairing: SKZ’s Chan x OC [Kierra] Genre: idol!au, slice of life, slight fluff Word Count: 1,270 Summary: Chris stops by to check up on Kierra to see how she's doing since his calls went straight to her voicemail.

the masterlist for Chris x Kierra

Warning: none, really, i think, lol

hihi. so i'm back with another ficcy and ofc it's with Bang Chan again from SKZ, sorry not sorry lol anyways, even though i haven't really been in the mood to write, but luckily to help with my own mental health and getting inspired when i can, Bang Chan honestly really does help me out with that and if it goes well for my own well-being i'm going to use it to heal myself. also the songs that helped with getting this story out was LC9's cover of SPICA's Anger, their own song of East of Eden, as well as Miura Haruma's Night Diver and Fight For Your Heart, and may he R.I.P TvT, and then later listening to Eric Chou's What's Wrong that sealed the deal. listening to sad songs does make me sad, but it also aids me to heal at the same time as well. anyways, that's about it and i hope y'all enjoy this now that i've grown fond of Kierra x Chris, too lol, but i really hope that Bang Chan and all idols get the love and respect that they deserve and hope that people would just back off tbh and just let them live without having to constantly be up in their business. so happy reading kthxbai, Admin Lia~

Kierra was asleep when she felt someone gently touching her face in a light stroking sort of effect. She opened her left eye first and noticed that it was partially dark out saved for the light coming from a distance before opening the other when she saw that it was her boyfriend who had swept her dark plum colored hair from out of her face.

"Hi." Chris greeted her with a soft voice as he continued to stroke her cheek with his thumb in a comforting manner. "How are you feeling?"

Kierra still lied upon the sofa processing her well-being at the moment. She noticed that the television was off and assumed that Chris must have turned it off when he came in as she had it on earlier before unexpectedly falling asleep afterwards. She rubbed her face to rid of the sleep and tiredness. Kierra also wasn't sure how to respond to her boyfriend, but replied in an honest way with a small smile.

"Melancholy, but okay, I guess. Hi, to you, too."

She sat up from the sofa to make room for Chris as he joined his girlfriend and casually pulled her towards him for a very warm hug. Kierra leaned further into him as she appreciated the comfort with a deep sigh. Kierra wondered how long she's been asleep since watching music videos on the TV after being in one of those moods of hers earlier before Chris showed up. She also wondered if Linna was home since she usually woke her up to eat or talk about their days together.

"What's the time?" Kierra asked, but couldn't see the time due to the lack of light on the wall and her phone was lost for the time being.

"It's a little after midnight."

"Oh, wow, I slept for that long? Wow."

Kierra didn't think she had slept for that long and thought she only took like an hour or two nap. She then eyed her boyfriend.

"Why are you here though? If you keep making this a habit of entering my home whenever you like, then I might have to reconsider telling Linna the pass-code from here on out."

Chris chuckled.

"I'm pretty sure Linna lives here, too, and definitely needs the pass-code to enter her own home. Besides, I tried calling you earlier, but it kept sending me to voicemail. Also, I wouldn't have to physically come over if someone just picked up my calls, but I know you love it when I visit."

"Right, but that makes sense. I guess the battery probably ran out as I haven't charged it since I got back from work and I haven't let the battery run out for a few days, too."

Chris rolled his eyes, but a small smile graced his lips.

"Anyways, Linna ate dinner earlier with us and then hung out with Hyunjin afterwards while venting about her day to him as well. She's now fast asleep in her room, too. Linna also messaged me earlier about your well-being and why I stopped over when I had free time." Chris informed her as Kierra looked up at him.

"She told you all of that, too?"

"Yeah."

Chris looked down at his girlfriend with a soft gaze and placed a gentle kiss on top of her head. Kierra's sheepishly smiled upon receiving the affection, but appreciated the gesture as well as his consideration.

"Thanks for caring for her, too."

"You're welcome and I know you would do the same for the rest of the boys, too."

"Yeah, that's pretty much true."

"Anyways, Linna didn't want to bother you since she knew you were kinda grieving in your own way about one of your favorite Japanese actors passing away several days ago. I think that's why she told me and knew I would comfort you better."

"Ah, yeah that's true. I wanted to not let it phase me and it went well up until a few days ago." Kierra sighed deeply. "So now I'm just letting all of it hit me so I'll be able to move on smoothly while healing at the same time."

She then motioned with her chin towards the TV.

"That's why I was watching music videos of disbanded groups I liked and listening to other songs to help me out."

Kierra then changed the topic not wanting to talk about herself.

"How about you? How are you feeling? Are you doing okay?"

Chris laid his head on top of hers while cuddling her closer.

"I'm doing alright. I'm holding on and living life. I'm quite content and going with the flow."

Kierra couldn't help, but tease her boyfriend as her mood had brightened upon hearing his words.

"Well, I would hope so since STAYs be dropping more pickup lines on you, asking you about period advice, and all that fun stuff you do during your Chan's Room and video calls. Even though despite some not so nice comments saying things without thinking or neglecting the fact about some information concerning you, too."

Chris groaned and Kierra chuckled while pulling herself away only to cup her boyfriend's face and squished them affectionately a moment later.

"Aww, is my Fun-Sized Baby Boy in need of one of those special Honey-Caramel-Vanilla-Chocolate-Sugar-Warm-Fuzzy-and-Cuddly hugs that he always gives me or should I go and make some rice balls because I can't for the life of me bake as good as Felix can, hmm?"

Chris chuckled at the way his girlfriend would cheer him up when she was in this cute and fun mode of hers that she would call it and reached out his arms to wrap them tightly around Kierra and pulled her in for a cuddly hug.

"You really are the best." He muttered against her ear as Kierra laughed while returning the hug.

"I learned from the best, so I think that makes you the best one the most."

"We're best together."

Kierra laughed in response before pulling her head away so she could look at Chris expectantly.

"So now that you're in a good mood, too, did you bring your laptop so I could get the song files finally?"

Chris rolled his eyes with a laughing scoff.

"I feel like you're only dating me for my laptop and songs."

"Well, I mean the laptop is a plus and the music is always a definite bonus, but if I remember correctly that it was you who wanted to pursue the next level of our relationship."

"I'm pretty sure it was a mutual agreement to move onto the next stage."

"Yeah, sure. Let's go with that."

Kierra changed the topic.

"Besides, didn't you tell STAYs that you needed to get a new laptop, anyways? Why not give me your old one and you can buy another one to fill up with even more amazing stuff? Yeah?"

Chris didn't respond as he pulled his girlfriend back into a firm hug as he squeezed her lovingly closer and tighter. Kierra slightly whined knowing how her boyfriend gets when he's like this.

"Hey, don't distract me like you always do. One of these days you're gonna have to give me those files like you said you would."

Chris only laughed softly in response as he comfortably nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck with a dimpled smile. Kierra sighed deeply and just let her boyfriend have his moment. She knew that she wasn't going to get them within their current state, but nevertheless felt safe and secure with her mind and heart at ease knowing that the both of them were content in the moment.

#staytheb #stray kids scenarios #bang chan #christopher bang

1 note · View note

atamascolily · 4 years

Text

lily liveblogs “terminator: dark fate”, part 2

“It’s raining men (and women)”.... hallelujah? Or not, as the case may be.

(For those just joining us, part one is here)

I was kinda hoping they would run the credits after the title, but I guess filmmakers... don't do that anymore, because we all have short attention spans these days?? Some of that is George Lucas's fault, I know, but tbh I kinda enjoy the creative ways in which filmmakers USED that space occupied by the opening credits... like how The Karate Kid uses it for Daniel and Lucille's road trip between Jersey and California, how it establishes how many friends Daniel had, the importance of his bike, and the whole "putting the car in neutral" and rolling it to get the engine going AND the motif/promise of the pool... all in a minute or two. Magical. I kinda miss that compared to earlier films.

Anyway, highway at night in what the screen tells me is Mexico City 22 years later. Okay, then. There's ice... and then lightning crackling on the road edge, which can only mean one thing -- a visitor from the future!!

There's a woman making out with her boyfriend underneath the highway, and she says "Oh, my god," and the boyfriend thinks it's all his doing, LOL. Sorry, dude, not today.

THE SPHERE IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY OVERPASS, HOLY FUCK, WHO SET THOSE COORDINATES?? It's a good thing the spheres destroy everything around them, or else this movie would be very, very short.

As it is, Grace falls naked from a great height, banging on supports as she goes down. Ow. Great way of showing she's not quite human.

Of course the watching girl goes over to help while her boyfriend sits there slack-jawed until she shames him into going along. They pick her up and carry her towards their car, only for the police to show up and demand to know what's going on. They think that they're drug dealers (?) and don't believe that she fell from a bridge.

"I love it when it rains naked ladies," says the cop, which is movie-speak for, "I'm an asshole about to get my ass kicked and the audience is going to cheer while it happens".

He grabs her, and Grace sees his gun, and goes for it. Yup, he's down. She's got some sort of augmented vision like the Terminator though anyone who's seen the trailer knows already she's on the side of good.

Grace takes out all the cops completely naked, and I love how this scene is filmed because it's so not focused on anything sexual and it's not sexualized at all, at least for the male gaze that I can tell. It's just... a naked woman kicking ass without obsessing over the fact that she's naked, and it's so goddamn refreshing.

The boyfriend thinks she's amazing. His girlfriend walks over and hugs him. Grace strides up to him and compares her bare foot to his boot. "Don't thank me yet," she says in a deadpan.

Cut to Grace wearing his clothes driving away in his car as the boyfriend stands around in his boxers and yells for her to go to hell. And I like this because it's so much more effective this way to leave the details in the reader's head and show us the results. The girlfriend steers him away, and he starts blaming her, for getting them involved in the first place. Fuck you, dude. I hope she dumps him that night, too.

Cut to Dani in the street somewhere, carrying flowers and chatting with a tamale vendor. We learn from this that she always has flowers -- an association with life and spirit, and not letting the grind get you down. I approve.

Dani has a brother, Diego, who wants to be a pop star, and a father whom she reminds to go to the doctor. Caretaker of the family! Of course they have a dog, named Taco. I'm sure this will be relevant later. I hope Taco survives. Diego tries to chat up a neighbor named Julia, and I'm sure this will all end tragically. I hope she survives.

Dani and Diego leave just in time... for another naked person to drop from the sky in a glowing electric sphere! What are the odd??!

Okay, I don't remember the spheres forming ice in previous films, but it's a cool detail that it makes all the laundry on the lines freeze and shatter... so it's gotta be SUPER COLD. Like, liquid-nitrogen levels of cold.

Like Grace's sphere, this one drops its inhabitant off in mid-air, but the Terminator is able to do a beautiful leap and land on his feet like a cat. He looks like a marble sculpture here - beautiful, smooth, polished, muscled grace. Hot damn. There is absolutely no emotion on his face as he stands up, and even without the music cues, you know right away something is wrong.

There's a woman staring at him when he turns around. And now he looks friendly... earnest, helpful. "Good morning," he says in Spanish as he reaches out to touch the jacket she has in her hand, and it spills up out of his skin HOLY FUCK THAT IS CREEPY AND AMAZING at the same time.

The woman FREAKS OUT and he SMILES at her ever so slightly, and--

Cut to a busy city street. Unlike the highway where Grace appeared, this in the middle of the city, with lots of apartment buildings and traffic. Dani and Diego are on a bus.

Cut to Dani's father answering a knock on the door while Taco the dog barks hysterically. I know, I know, I'm so sorry, Taco. There's the Terminator, and he's so charming and earnest in his plaid jacket, looking for Dani. He claims to be a friend. Her father is shocked. "That's strange. Her friends call her Dani..."

"Dani?" repeats the Terminator. "Yes, of course." AND HE SMILES... fuck. A TERMINATOR THAT CAN MIMIC HUMAN FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND SHOW EMOTIONS I AM NOT PREPARED FOR THIS.

(but it actually makes PERFECT SENSE for reasons that will be explained later [kinda] in the film!!!!)

Cut to a factory. Arius Motors. Dani and Diego going in to work as cars swing by on the line. There are robot arms and it's all very timely and metaphorical. Somebody goes by on a bicycle INSIDE THE FACTORY and I have no idea how that works, but okay.

Diego's station has been replaced by "a new guy,"--an orange robot arm. Dani asks the supervisor what's going on and he says, "The future," and the manager wants to see Diego in his office. Dani goes in his place, the supervisor says no, Dani pulls out her hair tie, and goes anyway. THIS IS WHY SHE'S THE LEADER OF THE MOTHERFUCKING RESISTANCE, Y'ALL, she’s ALREADY taking no shit from robots.

Dani's father shows up at the factory claiming his kids forgot their lunch and can he come in? Poor dad is definitely dead. I hope Taco at least survived, but I doubt it. Meanwhile Grace is approaching and just leaps over the turnstile like it's no big deal and I LOVE IT. Then she follows a security guard into a corner and mugs him for his uniform and it's all so goddamn quick.

The security guard tells "Dad" that he can't come in without a helmet and vest, which is bullshit, because most of the employees don't wear them, but whatever. Grace keeps walking. How the fuck did she dress so fast, but she looks great. She's got a jacket awkwardly covering her gun, and it's not subtle, but no one seems to notice.

Dani is arguing with the boss, who is... American? At least he's speaking English. She's trying to keep her brother's job, but he's all "well, he's not as good as you are," and Dani is Not Having It. She threatens to tell them that machines are coming for ALL the jobs, and god, I love her so much because EVEN WITHOUT TERMINATORS MESSING UP HER LIFE, SHE WAS GONNA GO PLACES.

"Dad" goes to Dani's station and she isn't there, but he talks to Diego. (I don't know how he knows so much, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty.) The Terminator makes that lame excuse about bringing lunches, and Diego is confused, because Dani already took care of that--

Then Dani shows up and the lunch morphs into a gun, and I'm not sure how they did that, because wasn't the morphing stuff not supposed to MAKE GUNS--ok, maybe he took the security guard's gun and morphed the lunch OVER it as a cover with his polyalloy bits--but FUCK this dude is SCARY--and points the gun at Dani as she and Diego stare--only to have his head blown open as Grace fires.

Grace keeps shooting as Dani screams, and grabs Dani before she can get to "Dad". Grace is way better at explaining things than Kyle Reese: "That is NOT your father. That was a machine that sent here to kill you. " It helps that the Terminator has lots of metal bits exposed at this point, and rapidly shifting back to normal. Come with me or you're dead in the next thirty seconds!"

Dani doesn't buy this, but she runs as Grace shepherds both her and Diego away.

And that back arch as the Terminator sits up and regenerates back to his "original" persona--which, I'll note, he DIDN't steal from anyone in our present; it was the one he came with UNLIKE the T-1000 in T2--and it's scary as hell. And even watching him run, and leap--it's not human. It's a predator disguised in human form. Well done, filmmakers.

I like how they show Grace's augmented senses here, and how she has the extra warning to shove Dani and Diego out of the way when the Terminator goes flying for her. He slices her cap off with arms that are suddenly sword-knives, and she swings a mallet at him, knocking him flat--and flinging him into a wall when she hits him again. She is really fucking strong, and I've never seen a woman be this strong before and it's AMAZING.

She hits him on the head over and over again, and then he starts crawling up the mallet towards her and it's so creepy HOLY FUCK and then he sends her sprawling and pops the mallet back out of his head OH MY GOD.

Grace starts using a piece of car siding as shield because she lost her weapon, keeping herself between the Terminator and Dani at all times.

Diego crushes him with a machine--I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, FILMMAKERS, NICE CALLBACK. Unfortunately, it doesn't take, but it does give them some breathing room. Meanwhile, Grace is tired and out of breath, and visibly overheating. The perfect time to introduce herself to Dani!

Grace explains the situation on the run, and throws Diego into the truck they steal outside when he hesitates. I gotta hand it to her, she's doing this whole thing pretty well.

Diego sees her arm. "Are you a machine too?" "No I'm human, like you!" They don't believe her. "No, I'm augmented." THIS IS GOING TO BE A THEME, OH MY GOD. More on this later. Grace can argue with them AND hotwire the truck at the same time. #goals.

They bust out of the factory. The police immediately go after them, not sure how that worked, and Grace says "Oh, shit," seconds before the Terminator (now revealed as the Rev-9) busts through the wall with a truck and a... snowplow? I guess it's for moving stone and metal bits around the factory? Whatever. It's a lot. The police cars go flying.

Somehow Grace manages to drive AND explain backstory at the same time, which I admire, because I can barely talk and drive at the same time.

There's a lot of civilian casualties, mostly due to the Rev-9 snowplowing everything. They end up going backwards up the highway off-ramp and onto the highway. The Rev-9 busts through more things and loses the snowplow. It's a bad day to be driving in Mexico City, let's just say that much.

Grace gets the first "FUCK!" of the movie, as the check engine light of the truck comes on, so Dani gets to drive while Grace makes improvised weapons out of rebar. Oh, wait, Dani can't drive, so Diego gets to do it. (Hahaha, I guess Dani's going to learn how to drive soon because METAPHOR)

Graces eases off her jacket so she can blow off steam and leaps into the back of the truck, yelling for Dani to put her seatbelt on OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE. I love it.

She targets the Rev-9 and throws. He doesn't even flinch at the first one and catches the second one. She stabs him several times through and then he grabs the rebar and moves the polymetallic alloy portion of himself onto the front of the truck while the metallic Terminator skeleton drives.

[COMBINING THOSE TWO PARTS IS REALLY CREEPY AND ALSO THE BEST DECISION THEY COULD HAVE MADE 10/10 APPROVED]

It looks like the skeleton is laughing at Grace, but I think that's just his resting bitch face, lol.

Grace changes tactics and shoots for the tires. The Rev-9 jumps and throws a rebar back at her and Grace deflects it so it misses Dani. Then the truck is dragging the Rev-9's protoplasm while the other half crashes and Grace has to fend him off. Rev-9 takes this opportunity and slashes at the tires with his sword-hands. Grace kicks him off and he gets run over, but it won't take. Diego crashes the truck as the tire blows and Grace rolls and takes a bad fall onto the pavement. The Rev-9's skeleton crawls out of the flames.

DANI WORE HER SEATBELT SO SHE'S FINE WHILE DIEGO DIDN'T AND IS INJURED OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE THE DETAILS FUUUUUUCCCKKKK. Like, Grace knew Dani had to wear her seatbelt BECAUSE SHE'S FROM THE FUTURE AND OLDER!DANI TOLD HER TO DO IT! And younger!Dani DID IT! OH my GOD! (either that or they really are just that drift compatible)

Oh, no, Diego has rebar through him, he's not going to survive AAAAAAAAH no whhhhhhyyyyy

Meanwhile, some poor motorist tries to help the Rev-9 and is murdered for his troubles. sigh.

Grace has to pull Dani over the body of her dying brother seconds before the Rev-9 smashes into the car and everything explodes in fire. Dani tries to run to Diego and Grace holds her back. Grace makes Dani run.

All of the Rev-9's protoplasm is oozing back towards the skeleton in liquid dark smears on the ground and it's so creepy FUUUUCCKKKK

Oh god HE WALKS THROUGH THE METAL HIGHWAY GUARD LIKE IT'S NO BIG DEAL HOW CREEPY CAN YOU GET FUUUUCCKKK

And then the skeleton starts throwing rebar at them from the other SIDE fuuuuckk. this movie so isn't subtle, because there's the machine part and the human-looking part, and they're both working together as one, and this is a METAPHOR, we're meant to see the Rev-9 and Grace as FOILS to each other AAHHHHHH and the Rev-9 is also a SYMBOL OF WHAT HUMANITY CAN BECOME IF IT MELDS WITH AI, AHHHHHHH

Can I just note here that the skeleton part DOES NOT HAVE A ROUND HEAD THERE IS IN FACT A GAP WHERE ITS BRAIN SHOULD BE AAAAAAA

"When they start to kill me, run," Grace says to Dani. But... AN SUV pulls up, knocks the skeleton flat on its ass as the human part of the REV-9 just stares in dull, placid confusion.

next up: my fave returns!

#terminator #terminator: dark fate

5 notes · View notes

glamrockmonarch · 5 years

Text

Goddess Series: Vesta (PresentDay!Roger Taylor Fluff)

Warnings: we all want some smut, I know...but because this is Vesta-based I kinda couldn’t bring myself to do it! Although, fear not for I will also be doing an alternate version with Roger for Discordia.

A/N: Someone requested for Bri proposing and I thought it would be unfair not to have one for Roger. Also, y'all are thirsty for bang bang boy. BTW this is unrelated to other pieces.

The afternoon sun hit your window as it did every day at six. The warmth of the orange sun falling and hiding behind a hill before setting for the night to fall upon the city made you aware of the time passed since you first sat down at your small desk in the room contiguous to yours and Roger’s room.

The house, which now was a lot more than a simple place to live in and felt warm in your bones and on those of anyone who stepped inside, was a beauty bought by the two of you in a shared effort at keeping the expenses divided and in order for you to claim as much independence from your wealthy boyfriend as it was possible to do.

Without a doubt, it had been your feminine touch and modern style what made of the one-story home that extended far across the property, your room leading to a garden you religiously tended to in the mornings before leaving for work, enjoying the smell and sight of the flowers growing outside your french doors.

Stretching in your seat, you saved your work and turned the computer off before standing from your chair and checking your wristwatch.

The clock red exactly 6:05 so you left the small office and walked out into the hallways to seek for your boyfriend. Finding him, you giggled at the sight of the man you loved so much standing in front of the oven with a kitchen apron.

“What’cha cookin’?” You asked him with a humorous tint on your voice.

Roger looked back at you for a second and his brow furrowed as he found you staring. He pointed at the table behind you and you gasped when you realised he had set it all up for a small dinner.

“Would you look at that!” You clapped your hands and wrapped your arms around your waist. “Rog, what’s going on? I know it is not our anniversary and you don’t cook at all…”

Of course, you were suspicious of your boyfriend. The reason why you met in the first place was because you were a young talented chef working on a famous restaurant in London, you had been lucky enough to work on a place where the pay was not too bad and the clients always included celebrities who had a taste for more than food but also for knowing who the hell was behind their delicious meals. One night you unknowingly served a delicious Paris-Brest to a tv producer and he liked it so much he had you come over to his table and invited you to cook on a morning tv show. Taking the chance meant you met celebrities from time to time, and with it being so well known that Roger Taylor was an awful cook, when his turn to come on the show came, the hosts made the most of it and invited him over to your little cooking segment where you had a great laugh trying to teach the man how to make something easy and delicious: Banana-Walnut Coffee Cake Muffin Tops. The chemistry had been undeniable between the two of you and soon you found yourself getting down to more than dining together…

“You cannot blame a man for trying…” Roger pointed out.

With a smile on your face, you saw the cooking book laying on top of the counter and pursed your lips.

Roger was following one of your recipes from the very first book you published. Brian had insisted you had to do it and seeing as you did have many dishes in mind outside of only pastries you thought it was a great idea. Roger had been sitting beside you during half of the writing sessions for the book, he remained quiet and wrapped his arm around you while you half sat and half laid on his lap with your laptop on your own lap. Roger would read something while you let your creative juices flow; always after a cooking session to test the recipe. And always including some backstory and afterthought to each recipe. Perfect for a light brunch date, comfort food, great for a new cook! Although challenging - rewarding and tasty. There never failed to be a small note at the bottom of the page.

However, Roger owned a copy of each one of your cooking books, your boyfriend never touched your recipes unless it was as a sous chef.

“Please,” Roger took you out of your daydream and you smiled at him once he dropped the apron on the kitchen island and grabbed your hand. “come on, dinner is ready!”

“But what’s on the oven?” You looked over your shoulder with the concern of a burned meal.

Roger shrugged and led you to a seat. “Don’t worry.”

After a second you realised he had taken the time to prepare some sort of dessert for tonight’s dinner, this peaked your curiosity but you remained quiet about it watching how your boyfriend brought the Avocado Sushi “Biscotti” to the table for the appetizer.

Chuckling, you closed your eyes and gave a pouty smile.

“Oh God, Roger…” You shook your head in disbelief, it smelled quite well and looked as good as it had looked on the book.

He even had a bottle of pinot grigio to pair it with.

“Is everything okay?” You looked up at him in concern.

Roger smiled at you with a joy so pure he resembled a child for a moment. It was nothing bad what he wanted to do that evening. He was aware of the stress you were under preparing for the opening of your own pastry shop, creating new recipes and talking to the designers about the look of the shop, you had to be on it and although you seemed to have it all under control, Roger could tell you needed a break and perhaps some space to breathe - it showed by the way you had been going out for dinner more regularly lately when you loved to put your music on and dance around the kitchen to present Roger with a meal delicious and homemade.

Then of course, was the heavy velvet box burning Roger’s pocket for weeks now. He could not think of a way to pop the question and he felt quite stupid going down on his knee, so he thought of a better way to do it. A way you that would surprise you and make you feel especial. Your boyfriend planned something that he knew you would love more than a fancy restaurant.

“Yes, of course!” He opened the bottle and you ate the appetizers together.

This was a wonderful little taste - no pun intended, of what the meal ahead would be like with Roger cooking.

The fish was delicious, the side of veggies was beautifully cut and how could you ask for anything else when Roger was in a fine mood, popping jokes and reminiscing of old pranks from his time on the road with his bandmates. You laughed and told him stories from your university years, which to him were as crazy and weird sounding as his stories were to you. It just happened that you two lived very different lives in very different times.

At some point, Roger stood from the table and went to get his dessert out of the oven. The smell overwhelmed you as you recognized that bitter smell of coffee. Your head turned to watch, the glass of wine still on your hand as you were about to take another sip, when the memory struck you.

“Are those…” You sniffed around the air, stretching out your neck to catch a whiff of banana and cinnamon. “you did not!” You accused him with your eyes wide open.

Roger laughed as he set the tray down, the muffin tops had been ready for a while but Roger hid them in the oven and kept the temperature as low as possible so they would stay warm but not burn.

“Well, seems like I did!” He bragged and served a couple of the Banana-Walnut Coffee Cake Muffin Tops on a plate.

You watched him come over to the table with it. Once he set them down you covered your face with your hands and giggled.

With your mascara a little smudged from the time spent in front of the computer you felt a couple of tears prickle your eyes as you smelled the delicious pastries laid in front of you. Roger watched with his hand rubbing his chin, a smirk playing with his features.

“You do have to try them, I don’t know if they are good.” He motioned towards the plate and you sighed.

Why would he do this? This was the very same dish that brought you together - as to say.

“And while you’re at it, love…” Roger rummaged through the pocket of his jacket and revealed to you a small box of soft black velvet. “I cannot promise to cook every night...but I will eat whatever you make. If you marry me, of course.”

You laughed and took in a deep breath, taking in the sight in front of you. Roger looking at you with a confident look on his face; knowing well that he had somehow pulled off a great dinner and surprised you, he was sure you would never give him a negative answer, so overcoming the temptation of playing with his emotions, you nodded your head and reached out to put your hand on top of his tattooed one.

“I will marry you but you try the muffin tops first.” You replied, aware of the fact that Roger sometimes misjudged the amount of sugar needed for desserts.

In a heartbeat, Roger grabbed one of the muffin tops and gave it a bite. He started eating it and shrugged in content as he tasted nothing bad on his own cooking.

“It’s a perfect recipe, what can I say?” He complimented you.

Wiping his hands carefully, he opened the box and held out his hand for yours and pulled the ring out of its little cushioned bed. He slid the golden ring on your finger and stared at it in amazement for a moment.

“I might cry Rog.” You warned him in a whisper, already feeling too overcome with joy.

Roger huffed and turned away, he really hated to see you cry even if it was just because you were laughing too hard for too long. Roger hated it!

“Oh, stop that!” He said.

Your boyfriend stood from his chair and went to your side to offer his hand so you grabbed it. He pulled you to your feet and as you were level with him you wrapped your arms around his neck, an honest and childish smile spreading through your eyes, cheeks and lips mimicked his.

#roger taylor #roger taylor imagine #2019!roger taylor #2019!roger taylor x reader #present day roger #present day roger x young reader #present day roger x reader #goddess series #roger taylor fluff

57 notes · View notes

alirhi · 3 years

Text

I just want this done 😭

When I was 15, I started RPing with my friends over AIM. Usually we'd only stick with a particular story or set of characters (always original work; I wasn't much into fanfiction back then, though I'd started a few that never went far lol) for a session or two and then move on, but I had this one friend - we'll call her T - who had one character with a really rich, interesting backstory. We stuck with him and the boy I'd created to pair with him and just kept developing this story over several months.

My character, Zephan, ended up getting sidelined by another, much more interesting character who got added later, Kieran. And the first incarnation of what would eventually become the Crossroads series was born.

This is a really long rant, so I'll be nice and put the rest under a cut.

I have no fucking idea why T wrote with me, tbh. She was in her 20s. I was 15 and really annoying, and really bad at writing. 😂 I look back over that early material (and my ooc ramblings) and I want to die. Or reach back through time and slap that kid lmao. But anyway, for some reason this grown-ass lady put up with me, and my barf-inducing fawning over her character, and out of all that truly fucking awful writing, a pretty great idea came about.

I wasn't going to get into this, but then I realized context kind of matter lmao so here's a (hopefully) quick rundown on Crossroads 1.0:

Zephan is a bi cutie who meets a really hot guy, they hit it off right away (no insta-love, so at least I had that going for me lol) and start dating. They both have secret traumatic pasts neither is ready to reveal to the other, but of course, they come back to bite them in their respective asses. Zephan starts acting really strange; not moody so much as literally his entire personality changes. Eventually he learns that when he was a baby, he was possessed by this dying creature who needed a body - Kieran. And part of Zephan's trauma is actually linked to a monster from Kieran's past tracking him down. Kieran was weakened by the shit that almost killed him, so once he was safe in a new body, he kinda just went to sleep for 20 years. But then he started waking up and taking control of the body, which Zeph's not too happy about. They fight for dominance, hurting Zephan's bf in the process (emotionally lol not physically), and bf fucks off to a scary place from his past while Zephan and Kieran go to Kieran's home world to try to sort some shit out. It doesn't work. Eventually, they do figure something out with the help of one of Zeph's best friends, Leyna, who happens to be a super powerful witch. She splits them and gives Kieran a new body, he goes home to face his monsters, Zeph tries to find his bf... the whole thing was left unresolved because T and I drifted apart and I haven't spoken to her in like 17 years lol

in the meantime, I met a new bud. We'll call this one A. Me and A? IRL insta-love, yo! Not the romantic kind, but definitely BFFs from the second she first spoke to me. It's been a roller coaster since then lol. She's still very much in my life (is my unofficial sister) but our friendship has been nothing but drama the whole damn time. Not all of it was rl drama, though! A became my new RP partner! and guys, back in the day? This girl had some good ideas!

I can't remember anymore who was responsible for what. We spent years talking about this story... and not doing much else with it tbh. I got a little writing done here and there, but was hampered by all the rl fights and her flaking constantly, and when the drama got bad enough that we "stopped being friends" (every few weeks in high school lmao and a few times in our 20s), I had to go back and rewrite everything to get her contributions out of there.

It wasn't called Crossroads yet, btw. Until around 2012-ish, it was just this one story line - Achlais (T's suggested name for Kieran's world. I later learned that it's apparently Gaelic for "armpit" and was like "fuck that" XD but I loved the sound of it. so my friend - we'll call this one S - did some digging and found this really cool Greek deity Achlys and we were both like "yeah, that works." So...yeah. story was just Achlais/Achlys)

Achlais centered around Kieran and his struggles. Zephan became a footnote in this much more interesting character's journey. See, Kieran was born of trauma; he's a rape baby and the first thing he saw in the world was his mother being killed for having him. Never mind the fact that the man who killed her was his father and her rapist. Always blame the women, amirite? The cool thing is, though, daddy fucked himself over big time. Kieran was his first child, and by the very strict laws of their world (not Achlais; Kieran was born on a different world, called Takaldor, and then banished to Achlais) is the only legitimate heir to the throne. Oh, yeah. Daddy's King of Takalador. And mom? Mom's human, but she's also a Queen of another world in her own right. So enter leetle Kieran, heir to two thrones and shipped off to a third world and left to die. His body does, but his soul's too strong, so he body-hops for a while. Finds stillborn babies (no soul to fight him) and takes their bodies. Kieran gets to live, parents get to raise their child instead of mourning them. They never know their kiddo is actually just the vessel for a half-demon magical parasite lol.

It's in his last host body before Zephan that Kieran gets his name (mom was killed before naming him; he eventually found a host with a name he liked and kept it)... and also the bulk of his trauma. woo lol. He's kidnapped by the main villain, Kanaye (I was obsessed with A and K names in my teens. this story was rife with them until I painstakingly went through and changed as many as I could over the past few years), kept as a slave, bad things happen to him that I won't go into detail on because I forgot to put a trigger warning in the beginning. 😅 But just... really, really bad, traumatic shit. And even though his mind is fully grown at this point, his host body is a child (5ish when kidnapped, 7ish when Very Bad Stuff starts, 15 or so when he escapes. ...oh yeah, spoiler alert XD Kieran escapes). I had this policy that I still sometimes have trouble shaking off: I was never satisfied with my writing until it made me cringe (from ick factor, not from lack of quality lol. unfortunately, I have a very strong stomach and my tolerance for ick only grew as my writing got more icky lmao so... yeah. that snowballed.)

While in captivity/slavery, Kieran meets a girl also enslaved to Kanaye, named Amara (see? A and K names 🙄) and falls in love with her. He escapes, joins a gang (don't ask 😂 I'm trying to keep this as bare-bones as possible because there are a lot more stories than just this one in Crossroads), eventually when he thinks he's strong enough to take on this crazy demon wizard, he goes back to rescue Amara. he fails completely, Amara is mortally wounded, Kieran's host is killed, and Amara uses the last of her strength (she's magical af and that's why Kanaye kept her around) to push his soul to Earth. The whole thing with Zephan happens, just with a different bf who opens up this whole awesome subplot having to do with one of Achlais's moons. Anyway, when Kieran gets his own body back, he goes back to Achlais (where his enemy has literally taken over the world) and leads a war against Kanaye. Then he stands against his father to avenge his mother, and eventually becomes King of Takalador. unfortunately, it's a super ultra over-the-top racist world so they hate him for being half human, and there's like civil war and shit. fun stuff. Also, his mother is brought back from the dead lmao. There was stuff with different types of dragons, a whole slew of fantasy species and magic and y'all I have been building this world since I was 14 (yes, before the RP that kicked off the main plot. I had the world before I had characters or plot)

I would love nothing more than to go into excruciating detail about the worlds and their canon history and that awesome moon subplot and everything, but... I mean, look how long this already is, and I haven't even touched on the other stories yet lmao

The first non-Achlais/Achlys story to get linked to it was A's and my amazing (if I do say so myself lol) retelling of the war between the Biblical Heaven and Hell. It's told from the perspective of the First Fallen, and reframes the entire thing. Adonai (God, if you didn't know his name) is a psychotic fuckwit, there's an oft-repeated saying that no man is made more in His image than his Catholic priests, and Lucifer and his followers didn't fight for the throne or because they hated humans or whatever. that was all propaganda. They fought for their freedom, and they won. As part of the treaty that finally ended the bloodshed, they were given Hell but with the caveat that they have to torture the souls of evildoers. Kay, fine. They got a level for that lol. They finally have a home! They're safe from Adonai!

Until he breaks the treaty himself, determined to have his favorite pet back, and kidnaps Lucifer. His eldest daughter (a general who helped lead the first war) invades Heaven to get him back and a second war breaks out. The rescue attempt is ultimately successful, but Luci's just about fucking had it. There are all these rumors that Adonai can be killed, but because he created all things, kill him and reality unravels. Lucifer gives zero fucks. He's willing to put it to the test. Turns out is exaggerated... but pretty much true. The reality he created - Heaven and Hell - does depend on him being there and, y'know, alive lol. and so it all collapses when Luci kills him. The few survivors become refugees and they end up on - you guessed it! - Achlys!

There's also this whole other realm we created with our own made up Gods and Goddesses, that also comes into play and has its own story arc, but we'll get back to that. Just remember that the main Godly place is called Valdell.

Next we have the one I'm struggling with most rn, DJ's story. DJ is the oldest OC of mine in the entire Crossroads series. I made him up when I was 13/14. Originally, he was supposed to sort of blend into the background; he was just the bestie of the one I'd intended to focus on, Kali. but Kali's kind of a fuckhead and DJ was much more fun lol. They're both still in play, and still besties, but DJ is the main and Kali's just kinda there XD

Oh, DJ Gallagher, how I love thee, let me count the ways... On the surface, his story doesn't seem at all connected to the rest of the Crossroads universe (unless you're eagle-eyed and notice little Easter eggs here and there). There's no magic, it takes place entirely on Earth (in my hometown in the 90s, specifically lol)... doesn't seem to have much to do with this epic fantasy adventure. but oh, it does. DJ's got quite the future ahead of him... or did, when A was supposed to be writing this with me.

You know what? DJ's getting his own post. He deserves the attention lol. Just know that I love this boy, and his story is the part of this series giving me the most grief right now in my attempts to rewrite yet again to get all of A's crap out of the way.

Claddagh - Rebecca's story that I posted a bunch of snippets from a few days ago - is the next road added to Crossroads. What's her connection to all this? Well, in addition to her meeting Lucifer and his daughter/General Haliel, you learn that she is actually Rachel's (Kieran's mom) little sister. She's also the final piece of the puzzle at the end, in the one book that ties all of these stories together. Thankfully, despite many attempts to get her to, A never even tried to look like she was helping with this one. S was, back when we were friends, but she ghosted me in 2015, so I wrote her character out, replaced her with Fiona, and got a much better plot out of the deal, so that worked out lol. Thanks for being a bitch, S!

There are smaller parts, as well (Claddagh's planned to be a pretty long series, and so was Achlys when A was involved) - Dying Breed, in which Johanna's mother is abducted and skeptical, cynical Jo is forced to see a world of magic that her mom had been trying to show her (and protect her from) all her life; Annwn, where we're shown that Jo's mom actually knew a boy from DJ's story, Ice, and begs him to take on this insane quest that only gets crazier once he's actually on it; and the Winter trilogy, which genuinely started out as a joke, but my friends liked what I had, so I decided to keep it. That one's... it's different. XD it's a "reverse harem" story that gets pretty squicky. I'm not entirely sure how much of my original plan to keep. A never had a hand in any of this (though a mutual friend of ours, L, was briefly trying to help me with Dying Breed before she had to bow out) but just because it didn't come from our 2 AM spazz sessions doesn't mean all the ideas are good lol.

And then there's Heart and Seoul, which is actually a really long fanfic we wrote 11 years ago. We never finished it (almost, though) but it got popular for a while, so we decided to convert it to an original and, due to references mainly in DJ's story, it became connected to Crossroads. I was actually very happy to cut that lol. It's A's baby so I feel a little bad for saying this, but... I never loved that story as much as she did. It was fun for a while, but I'm so over it.

Valdell had its own trilogy planned, at first, too, but it was kind of just more of the same tired crap that one comes to expect from A - mpreg for the hell of it and a "doomed" romance. meh. On their own, they're not bad story elements if done right, but when it's literally every goddamn story she comes up with, it gets old real quick.

So that was Crossroads 2.0 - it went through many stages and rewrites, but that's the basic gist. We had this whole interconnected Whedonverse concept, and an MCU Phase 1, 2, 3 thing going on (Phase 2 was kicked off by one of the Valdell Gods getting fed up with all the mortals' bumbling and erasing all of existence except his home and the other Gods. his wife flipped shit until he remade it. DJ was brought back as a girl. wife was like "fucking really? are you kidding me?" so he rolled his eyes and fixed it, and DJ got a Phase 3. also, Lucifer got 3 phases because of some shit with the whole killing Addie thing and a boy named Cole...)

It got...complicated, to say the least. Convoluted is probably more accurate. So when I made the decision to cut A out once and for all instead of spending my life in limbo waiting for her to suddenly become reliable, I cut like... that whole MCU concept. I also cut out a lot of what happened in Achlys, and around 20 planned books got cut down to 5. and the whole struggle with DJ... character arcs that I loved are gone, that whole awesome subplot I mentioned in Achlys? gone. which means I have to rewrite shit all the way back to the first book, because it was an underlying mystery that persisted through the whole series!

A lot of stuff, I cut because it was just bad. Whether it came from her brain or mine, or this weird hive mind thing we have going on when we're overtired, doesn't matter. It was bad. Some stuff was great, but I cut it because it was either her idea initially (she used to be so creative before she dug herself a little rut and decided it was comfy and dis is home nao) or tied into her ideas and characters too tightly. I couldn't cut her Achlys characters, for instance, without cutting that mystery subplot even though the mystery was 100% my idea, because we'd worked together on building the shit necessary for it to exist, and solving it for the reader hinged on A's characters in the Zephan chunk of the story. and none of that is there anymore. Zephan's not a part of this at all. That whole story line is gone.

Unfortunately, erasing the Zeph part also erases Leyna and her brother Lucian, and Lucian appears in DJ's story and that was a clever little tie-in before, but now it's just... a random boy who appears for one scene and is mentioned once or twice, and that's it.

So it's been a struggle, to say the least. I don't know if I should stick to my guns and keep this new, much shorter Crossroads 3.0, or rework it one more time to keep these elements I loved...somehow. ugh.

fml.

#writer problems #crossroads #crossroads series #creativity #sometimes i have it #sometimes not so much lol #kill me #i wish i could just #snap my fingers and it's done #y'know?#halp #if any of this even made sense #any ideas?#i'm listening #long post #extremely long post #you've been warned

0 notes

unst242group2 · 3 years

Text

Interview Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00]

[00:00:00] [00:00:00] So the first question we have is what made you start Taking Ownership PDX?

[00:00:08] Randal: [00:00:08] Um, well, um, I had a lot of people asking me how they could be stronger allies or accomplices for the, for marginalized communities and particularly the Black community. Because I, um, I have built quite a platform through hip hop.

[00:00:24] I'm a hip hop artist, uh, playing a six piece funk hip hop band called Speaker Minds. And I've, um, I do solo music with a DJ and I've been doing that for my entire adult life. So, and my music often talks about social justice and injustices, citizen, community outreach, and uplifting, things like that. So, and I've done a lot of philanthropy work in my, in my day, a lot of culturally specific, um, jobs where I've been like a mentor for Black and Brown youth on probation.

[00:00:53] Uh, I worked as a student advocate, um, for low income [00:01:00] young adults work heavy, you know, just a little, a lot of those communities. So, um, people, you know, got to know me as that. And so they reached out and, um, I also go to PSU right now. So I'm finishing my bachelor's in Black Studies and Social Science. And, um, so I've learned a lot about, you know, a lot of the oppressive, exclusionary ways of, of Oregon and the, you know, the nation.

[00:01:26] Um, and so I thought it would be a good idea. You know, when people ask me how they can help, I said, look, you gotta share your resources. Especially if you come from privilege, um, and you have benefited from exclusionary practices, uh, you know, so share your, share your wealth and let's, um, and then the idea that to repair homes came from the fact that, you know, I grew up in Portland, I'm a native, I grew up in Northeast Portland, so I watched the neighborhoods change.

[00:01:53] Um, and now that I have an idea of why that's happened, I realized, you know, a way that we could really help is [00:02:00] by, um, getting some of these repairs done. For the homeowners that still have survived gentrification, um, and, uh, that will keep the city off their back. Um, and, um, because a lot of the ways displacement happens is, uh, white people move into these neighborhoods and then they start complaining about Black people's houses, not looking, uh, adequate enough for their standards.

[00:02:25] And then, uh, the city comes out and puts liens on their homes and stuff. So this is a good way to combat gentrification in that way.

[00:02:34] Laura: [00:02:34] Amazing. Um, uh, we noticed that Taking Ownership PDX has a lot of support from other organizations and you also have a lot of volunteers and donors. Um, was that surprising to you?

[00:02:49] Like how did that happen so quickly?

[00:02:52] Randal: [00:02:52] Uh, so surprising. Yeah, I had no idea it was going to take off like it did. Um, I, I, you know, I, I thought it was gonna. [00:03:00] Just be like maybe a couple of homes, you know? Well, when I started there, I was very naive. Cause I don't, I'm not from the housing world. I, you know, I was a renter at the time.

[00:03:08] Um, You know, I don't, I didn't know the capacity. I thought we would just get a bunch of volunteers together and find some materials and start swinging hammers at homes and trying to, um, try to make them look better. But, uh, there's a lot more to it than that. And a lot of people were like, "well, you know, I don't really want to like come out and help, especially with the pandemic. Um, but here's some money to put towards it," and it just took off, you know, uh, after the first house. We were able to do quite a bit of repairs and then another house came in and then just, you know, words got out and then the news started getting a hold of it. So I did a bunch of news interviews and then that was when it really took off.

[00:03:48] Um, but yeah, because I, you know, I, I was not expecting this kind of response at all. Uh, I think people liked that I started at guerrilla style because I wasn't like waiting to get through all the red [00:04:00] tape, you know, I've been on enough committees and been in enough groups that I know. That red tape can take years to get through.

[00:04:06] So I was like, you know, send me your money and I'll, I'll put it towards the house and, you know, I'll deal with Uncle Sam later. Um, but yeah, I, would've never imagined, um, how big this got and how fast and it's still going strong.

[00:04:22] La'don: [00:04:22] Well, um, I have a question about that. So if someone wanted to be a part of that and volunteer, how would they go about that?

[00:04:29] Randal: [00:04:29] So right now, we're not really encouraging volunteers unless you're licensed, bonded and insured. We got over 400 volunteers signed up and we don't have enough work for that, especially in the winter. Um, You know, we, we, if you want it to, you could go to our website and there's a volunteer section, uh, taking ownership, pdx.org.

[00:04:48] Uh, but we're not encouraging that unless you are skilled in a trade and licensed, bonded, and insured. Um, so we can actually like do, um, [00:05:00] quality and insured work on these homes.

[00:05:02] La'don: [00:05:02] Thanks.

[00:05:04] Laura: [00:05:04] Okay. So the next set of questions is more specific to your thoughts on gentrification. So, um, who has a stake in preventing gentrification? Who can do that?

[00:05:19] Randal: [00:05:19] Um, the state, the city, the nation, the, the feds, uh, anybody that can make policies, you know, um, to, to stop this thing. Make policies that provide reparations. And I mean, I strongly believe reparations are needed for, uh, particularly the black community, but other communities as well, you know, natives need better reparations too.

[00:05:40] Um, but you know, the way, if you have any idea of how horrible this country has been. To, to, uh, nonwhite people, uh, particularly black people and the natives. Um, you would understand that the, that there is some sort of equity in the form of [00:06:00] monetary, um, gifts or whatever, that needed to be given. I mean, think about Oregon.

[00:06:06] They were, when they found Oregon, they were just buying up. Like they're just giving 300 to 600 acres of land to, to white men, just, you know, and black people couldn't even live here. So, um, with that understanding, I mean, they think that they have to like give you the, it has to, it has to be through equitable practices.

[00:06:25] They have to like, um, put in policies for developers that they have to give the developers the same rules that residential people have. So developers can come into neighborhoods and buy up houses and tear them down and build up some, you know, some, uh, garbage 30 unit building without asking the community what they want.

[00:06:48] Um, well, let's say if you're, if you're a homeowner, a residential homeowner and you want to just build a garage or something, you gotta ask all your neighbors what they think, what color, you know? So it's [00:07:00] not fair that these developers just because they have multi-millions and they, you know, can house more people, um, can come in here with their own set of rules and it actually impacts the whole, the rest of the neighborhood because utilities go up, property taxes go up.

[00:07:16] Um, and you know, you bring a whole different demographic into these neighborhoods. Uh, that's another thing is, you know, um, where I live, I just bought a house in Albina. It's mostly white people around here. This is a historically black neighborhood. Um, they'd lost all that culture. I think there has to be some policy in place that, that keeps the culture, uh, in the neighborhoods to, um, give the neighborhood of the voice.

[00:07:42] Yeah. But they definitely have to, um, do something reparation-like, and maybe that's providing property or, you know, monetary gifts or something.

[00:07:55] Annie: [00:07:55] So I do have a question about that. Um, do you think that legislative change is going to [00:08:00] be the most effective here in dealing with gentrification, or is it going to be more on like an individual level that we're going to see the most change?

[00:08:07] Randal: [00:08:07] I mean, I think most change starts from the bottom and like it does, you know, I don't know anything, any kind of change like that um, on a legislative level, I feel like always has to start with some individuals getting together and, you know, making some noise and then they're like, "Oh, okay, fine. It just looks like they're not going to shut up about it."

[00:08:31] So now we're going to start, you know, when you even think about like marijuana passing, you know, uh, you know, any, anything we've really got to make some noise unless it's benefiting the corporations. If it started, if it benefits everyday people on an individual level, we have to make noise and then they'll consider passing some stuff.

[00:08:55] Laura: [00:08:55] Um, the next question is, do you think enough [00:09:00] people know or even care about the gentrification that has been happening?

[00:09:07]Randal: [00:09:07] , I don't think enough people really understand the capacity of what gentrification is. You know what it's done, how severe it's been. Um, I think people, yeah, I think people just think like, cause you, when you grew up in capitalism, you just think that's just the way it is. Like, they want to take your house, they'll take your house.

[00:09:29] You know, they want to do that. You just got to work harder. You just got to pull yourself up by your bootstrap to keep your house. They don't understand the policies and just like the nuanced ways in which they operate to, to, you know, take their homes. And, um, if you're one of the people benefiting from gentrification, You're usually one of the people that has the most resources and the most power to enact the change.

[00:09:56] That's why we always tell white people, y'all got to talk to each other. Y'all got to be [00:10:00] the ones out here, um, really, you know, making that change, um, because this is your, this is a system that was built by y'all, so y'all gotta dismantle it, you know, it can't just be us. So. I think it's hard for white people who benefit from it because they're content and they think, all right, I just bought this house, but you know, I'll put a Black Lives Matter sign in my yard and they think that's enough, you know?

[00:10:26] So they don't, you know, I, so just for instance, some serious, uh, accomplice ally work that just happened is I bought this house from a white lady. She sold it to me for what was, what was left on the mortgage, because she didn't want to make any money off it. And she wanted to put a black family back in the Albina neighborhood.

[00:10:49] So like, that's that radical philanthropy work that I think needs to happen that I don't think a lot of people are going to do. This woman's like on some other shit. [00:11:00] So, which I'm thankful for. Um, and, but yeah, I don't think that there's not going to be a lot of people that are going to do that. And she didn't put herself out cause she's wealthy and she's a, she's a successful business owner and owns multiple properties.

[00:11:14] I don't know if I can say enough people care to make the actual radical, um, decisions and actions that it will take to, to reverse gentrification. And gentrification is already done. Like there's no, there's no like black community in Portland anymore. It's gone, you know, I mean, I guess you could say it's in the numbers, but that's not really, you know, that's not really it, so it has to be reversed at this point.

[00:11:53] Laura: [00:11:53] How important do you think aging in places, you know, like being able to, um, [00:12:00] to stay in someone's home regardless of their age or their income? How much of an importance do you see in that?

[00:12:09] Randal: [00:12:09] I think, you know, it's like, uh, I think it's like one of the most important things as far as what humans need is, you know, shelter and, uh, as somebody who, um, is a brand new homeowner - I just bought this house two months ago - um, I was a renter all before that. With two, I became a father at night, 10 years old of two, and I've lived in maybe 12 places since they were born. We're renting apartments, living in garages, whatever I could find and, you know, um, and it's miserable and it's, uh, not knowing, you know, having to move.

[00:12:46] First of all, moving sucks. You know, we all know that. Um, but yeah, you know, bouncing my kids around from place to place and, um, you know, just to be able to stay and [00:13:00] to be able to pay into your property and then actually get towards paying off your property is huge. You know, like an actual mortgage is amazing.

[00:13:09] Uh, when you're renting, you're just giving your money away all the time. Um, But yeah. I mean, especially when you get older and, uh, it looked the cost of living going up, you know, it's harder to find other places to live. Um, so yeah, it's important. And then familiarity in communities is I think so important to, to, uh, people. And so, yeah, I think it's just in so many, so many aspects of it is important.

[00:13:38] Laura: [00:13:38] And I have one last question. Uh, do you have any advice on how to spread awareness on, uh, the ramifications of gentrification for people who don't have much of a platform or just, you know, every day trying to spread awareness?

[00:13:57] Randal: [00:13:57] Um, I also want to say the importance of [00:14:00] aging in place is also to be able to pass down your property to the next generation. So I think that's actually really huge. Ways to raise awareness. I mean, do your research, one, you know, uh, I think that's important.

[00:14:14] There's a great class - I'm actually in my capstone class right now. Um, it's racial equity in Oregon. I'm learning a lot about gentrification and just the origin of all that in that class. I, so I recommend y'all take it. I don't know, take that class if you want, but it's a good one. Well, yeah. Do your, do your, uh, research on, on, um, Portland or even, you know, other cities too, but I mean, Portland has its own unique or Oregon has its own unique story.

[00:14:40] And I mean, my way of raising awareness is social media. That's how this whole thing started. If I didn't have a platform on social media, there's no way I would've got the word out so fast, um, And provide resources. Um, yeah, I think that's, that's the way to go these days [00:15:00] is social media. Yeah. And action. Don't just talk about it. Do about it.

[00:15:11]Laura: [00:15:11] Well, thank you so much, Randall.

0 notes

survivor-guyana · 5 years

Text

Episode 5 - "Another day, another swap." - Jess

Sarah was robbed.

Please tribe swap, please tribe swap.

youtube

Not really sure how to feel at this stage...

Jess absolutely botched this challenge for us, and it was probably the worst individual effort in a competition that I have seen in years. For that, she automatically created a target on her back.

HOWEVER, I need to control who goes here, and it won't be Jess. It sounds like Dani and Nick were on opposite sides of the joint tribal, and will likely target one another.

I would personally like to see Alyssa go sooner than later, but there is no context in taking her out right now. She is "Hosororo strong" apparently, but the tables have turned. I'm not sure if I am willing to give her the same mercy that the favs gave us.

Honestly I wouldn't mind losing this so Mitchell goes home but then again I wouldn't mind Arakaka going to tribal either. I also feel like Nick is fucked over at Takama. He has the idol but that'd require someone using it on him which I doubt would happen. He better up his social game! If Arakaka goes to tribal then it should obviously be Aidan bc of his advantage and bc of Jones, Sammy, and Chelsea/JD alliance. Wait is Chelsea a fan? Lol idk.

So Ive been talking to Maynor and TJ individually about having an alliance of us 3 since I put them both high on my list! They both agreed and so I formed the alliance called... JONES'S ANGELS! I feel like we're gonna be a good alliance as well. Oh José is on our tribe as well as Mitchell. José is someone that I talked to the least on our OG tribe and from the looks of the trust list, someone who is not very trusted. Mitchell has his karma coming from the joint tribal round and for voting out Sarah. (PSST Sarah I miss u queen I can't wait to see you in Survivor Michigan.)

Another day, another swap. I've officially been on EVERY single tribe now. I am Guyana's Orphan. Honestly, I'm actually okay with how we swapped this time around.

I'm in the majority both in several ways. 1. I'm in the majority if Devon and I decide to stick with the "Fans" (barf). 2. I'm in the majority if we decide to go to Hosororo Way (yassss bitch) 3. I'm in the majority if Favourites attempt something (meh).

BUT this bitch is literally her OWN ENEMY RIGHT NOW. I flopped that memory competition harder a nerd at Comic Con trying to talk to a female. YIKES. I hope the flu isn't what sends me home or else I'm going to FUCKING RAGE.

I was able to re-connect with Dani which was okay? for me? I guess? Honestly at this point I have no loyalty to the Fans tribe (I don't think I ever had any tbh). I don't think a label in front of someone's name should stop me from trying to further my game. That being SAID....

Nick is on A WHOLE NOTHER' LEVEL Y'ALL. This man literally knew me for 5 seconds and spilled his whole game. I expected more from a dude who owns a buff personally. The only thing he didn't tell me last night was his social insurance number. I kind of feel bad for him but I don't want to let him get far. I rather keep Dani around than him at this point. I don't want that to hurt my relationship with Alyssa so.. I AM STRESSING RIGHT NOW.

Speaking of Alyssa...

MY GIRL ALYSSA GETTING FIRST.. fucking SCARES ME SHITLESS. I would honestly consider her my #1 at this point but now this has me thinking.. am I really HER number 1? Does she have the same relationship with me like she has with others? If we merge does she have my back over people like Jones/JD who she speaks HIGHLY of to me? I have my doubts but I think having someone like her on my side in this crucial time is an ASSET. She is VULNERABLE and I need to make sure I make her feel as fucking comfortable as possible. It's times like these where those strong relationships form and I honestly think if we can possibly

That's my bitch, that's my girl. I honestly think Alyssa is my gate-way drug to the Favourites at this point. I also really just want to meet Jones because I'm convinced she's my future best friend.

Something I haven't touched on.... ever BUT I can't wait to possibly re-connect with TJ. I miss being able to strategize with him. The way he sees games is insane and I have a half of a brain cell so it's always nice to have a smart person do the thinking for you.

I NEED TO FIND A FUCKING ADVANTAGE OR A GOD DAMN IDOL.

youtube

I cant believe we won immunity. I was really scared that we would have to go to tribal. Me, TJ, and Tim made an alliance called Jones’s Angels and i cant wait to be reunited with Jones. Mitchell is acting like last vote wasnt against me but it was like. How can you say theres 100% trust when there isnt. The Jenna vote was not as much of a suprise for Mitchell cuz i mentioned my worries about Jenna. Im being buddy buddy but if we lost next round. He is going home for sure. Once you brake my trust, you cant really get it back. Sorry mitchell buddy. And i have eyes on Aidan and Dani. Karma for Sarah is coming.

WOW! That's all I have to say right now. This game is really putting me through the ringer but I'm in it to win it and this fucking tribe swap threw me for a loop. I knew the trust lists would come into play but I didn't know right away. But I sort of made such a power move on my tribe and then got shuffled into this and I saw the numbers and went FUCK.

Like four favorites versus little old me! But I like a challenge... I'm not Sarah, I'm not going to let myself get swapfucked. *gives the camera a shady look*

Having the Opal Idol in my pocket is amazing and I'm glad I went for that temptation. Everyone knows I have it but honestly I think there's an advantage to standing out. I feel like this series is used to a lot of UTR, lowkey players and people lying low and that's just not my thing... I honestly can't lay low to save my life. So my plan is to go after them. Honestly since I was low on the trust list it makes sense to go after people high on the trust list. I'm honestly not that bitter but if I can use it to justify targeting some people, I'm going to do it.

I'm not sure of my tribe because everybody is meh so far? I don't know if I'm dry or they're just all in alliances but I can't get a read on them for shit. I saw how well they all did in their past games and JD is giving me this loner act but she's been to an FTC so I know she's not as dumb as she's letting on. For some reason the fact that there are more girls than guys concerns me because I feel like those bitches could link up?

I guess I like Chelsea the best but maybe that's because she seems a little more exciting. Sammy does too but he seems like a game threat. I think I'm reluctant to share anything with anyone because I'm not sure of their relationships with each other. I think I want Jonesy out though... she has this cutesy act that is relatable and did pretty well on her first season. She was high on the trustlist too.

In all... I feel isolated but not intimidated.

Nobody has asked about the temptation but I'm ready to lie about it being a vote steal like I told Dani and Mitchell. I need to start keeping my lies in order because they're going to be PISSED when I reveal what it really is but hopefully they understand... if I ever see them again. I'm worried about Dani AND Jess over there at Takama because Devon is crafty. They are some people I hope I can rekindle with at merge. I'd consider working with Maynor but he seems like the type to want revenge.

WE WINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN fuck yeah also i wanna elaborate on something i said in my last confessional about using Aidan as a shield bc idk if I ever explained that Aidan has proclaimed that his tribe did not trust him at all, AND he has an advantage, right? so obviously, people would want to vote him out because of it. HOWEVER, if I get him to trust me/on my side, not only can we work together, BUT everyone will always target him over myself, so yeah, logic ;)

Unfortunately we didn't lose and just as I feared Nick's tribe lost. Welp you had a good run Nick.

youtube

So this round has been messed up. I was swapped to a tribe with 1 person I talked to breifly on our original tribe and had an alliance with to search for idols. The other 3 players were all people I never spoke to. Furthermore Dani even voted vote for a few tribals ago. After a botched challenge I’m hoping that it’s going to be Dani tonight and not me. I’ve spoken with Jess and Devon and get good vibes that they want to play together. Let’s hope their not playing me.

So pretty much I’ve been able to establish a strong relationship with Maynor this game... now I just need a majoritu on this tribe to be able to cause some damage within the merge, so we’ll see how things go when I reach that phase 😤 I want to work with TJ tbh, but we’ll see how that goes I guess haha

Ugh I hope Jess and devon aren’t ducking with me but I think it’s me or nick. Really hoping it’s nick. Sorry for typos drubk

Ummmm, so what did i do? Nothing, what have I done? Nothing, I didnt do the challenge ether cus like, wow I do not have a shity memory. But we won so yay team!

0 notes

thesportssoundoff · 7 years

Text

Ten Rando Thoughts After A Big Boxing Weekend

Joey

May 8th, 2017

1- I think we all knew that Chavez Jr/Canelo was going to be an easy (sort of ) win for Canelo Alvarez but I feel like we all had hopes it'd be a little bit of a lot of fun. The problem, at least as it pertains to fun, is that Chavez Jr didn't bring his end of the bargain. As much as it is to see cool to see Canelo whip off combinations and show off his blink and you'll miss it improved defense, JCC Jr simply didn't show up for the big one. Now part of that is obviously due to Canelo but everything from the alleged gameplan (and I refuse to believe Nacho Beristain, a HOF trainer if there was one, would've ACTUALLY thought this gameplan) to the execution to the adaptability of JCC Jr was flat out painful. JCC could have and should have done a lot of things differently BUT perhaps, in the end, it merely boils down to the idea that one guy was there to win backed by super athletic talent, great coaching and vastly underrated technical skill vs a guy who was hoping to win backed by a superstar father, Bob Arum's ATG promotional push, a very limited on paper skill set and noway near enough talent or technique to truly compete. Now having said that...

2- While it didn't bother me, I don't know if I would've appreciated Max Kellerman and company essentially laughing at me for purchasing this event had I paid the full price. I thought Lampley, Jones and Kellerman all did a great job on the whole but Max's continuous almost verbatim "JCC Jr is all marketing banter and promotional push" type shtick probably made people who paid a lot of money for this event feel pretty dumb. Not that JCC Jr didn't do more than his part in that department already, mind you!

3- I mentioned this to the people watching the event and in hindsight, I feel even more confident in it. Talking about JCC Jr in shape is like talking about BJ Penn going back to 155 or Rampage with abs or whatever. It doesn't matter. It will never matter if he's in shape if the guy is shot. Even if you dislike JCC JR, there was a time where he was if nothing else a bundle of energy and body work. He was not a bad fighter; more of a lucky one who seemed to always catch the breaks lucky fighters normally get. When that's gone, it doesn't matter what shape he's in because the jig is basically up. BJ Penn, Rampage, JCC Jr, there reaches a point where it's no longer about what shape you're in and it's more about the tools or lack thereof you possess.

4- Bob Arum has said in the past that boxing undercards don't matter and yeah, he's pretty much right. Having said that, if you give fans SOMETHING underneath, even if that something is just a brawl between two B level guys or in the case of Matthyse/Lemeuix, you give us a B level slugger in a fight where he can throw down and show off a little vs relatively evenly matched opposition and see what happens! All we want are quick and painless appetizers to get us to the main course.

5- Going back to Bob Arum right quick, IF we actually get Canelo-GGG (and until it happens, I'm going to live in this prepare for disappointment in the event of a joyous surprise),this feels like the first time in a LONG time that Bob Arum will feel completely out of the loop as it pertains to the big picture of boxing. He's essentially left with three fighters who move serious stroke and two of them will arguably never be big PPV movers (Crawford and Lomachenko). The third one is a guy who has seen his stock basically erode in such a tragic fashion in Manny Pacquaio who is fighting some guy in Australia in front of what I'm assuming will be a less than captivated PPV audience. Golden Boy Promotions may be laughable at times when they do things and outright sad when Oscar De La Hoya's continuous struggles with sobriety became public knowledge but they have the biggest active draw in the biz (Canelo), the ability to on paper make a fight with anybody and seemingly good standing with HBO and Showtime as well. They also have an ESPN deal which is SOMETHING at least. Assuming their financial situation can clean itself up somewhat, they've got momentum. As much as we all laugh about the PBC, Al Haymon's obviously got a grip on this sport that's undeniable. European promoters have bigger and bigger hands in the mix, complete with at least one major show a year that does insane gate numbers. Yvon Michel, Lou Dibella and Kathy Duva all feature prominent roles in boxing and so does Arum----but man does it feel like he's sort of out of the loop here. Top Rank feels almost like it's become the forgotten brand of boxing after competing for so many years with the likes of Don King, GBP, Main Events and so on so forth.

Now a lot of this is simply bad luck. A lot of the Top Rank stable at the top half were guys who all fell off at the same time (Pacquaio, Cotto to an extent, Sergio Martinez, Kelly Pavilik, Juan Manuel Lopez, JCC Jr, Nonito Donaire and so on so forth) and even if they weren't PPV movers, they were attention getters. Arum has plenty of great fighters in his stable and he has connections and working relationships with just about everyone but its so weird to see big fights being made and Bob not being apart of the discussion. Over the years, Arum has almost seemed like a guy who did things with an angst for everyone from the media to his own customers and it's such a strange dichotomy to see him almost hanging on the outskirts. Maybe it's a rebuilding year or maybe Top Rank is missing what everyone else seems to be relatively hitting on. It's definitely a weird year so far for the Bobfather.

6- Using that line of logic, I WONDER if Bob would maybe make peace with his hated rival Dana White to try and work together to put together Manny Pacquaio/Conor MCGregor as an acceptable back up plan if Floyd/Conor falls through.

7- SPEAKING of that fight, if GGG vs Canelo legitimately pushes Floyd/Conor out of existence into 2017 and Conor returns to MMA to, ya know, defend his titles? I think we need to put Golovkin and Alvarez in the boxing and UFC Hall of Fame at the same time.

8- I don't know if I should be concerned about this (probably I'm betting) BUT if one of these ABC orgs complicates the fucking picture of this mega fight, I will be writing my congresspeople in protest of such a national catastrophe.

9- There has been scuttlebutt from some folks about the pomp regarding the announcement of Golovkin/Alvarez. Allow me to discuss some anecdotal evidence that may or may not shape a picture for y'all. Friend of mine owns a restaurant that was showing the fight. He told me the house was fuller than usual----but the clientele was not the same as a UFC event or even one of the big WWE events. "Boxing isn't dead but it's fanbase is a dialysis machine away from being dead" was his joke to me and it's something you hear ALL the time. Boxing draws an older audience like pro baseball does,, in fact when Thurman/Mitchell had their AWESOME fight that did an amazing number, the average age of the viewer was trending way close to 55 than ever before. It's an old audience-----and something like this, even if it may be a little too hokey or as I read a few people writing "WWE/UFC esque", it's still something different. Maybe it fails but there's NOTHING wrong with appealing to a younger crowd that's all into cool video packages and shock value. You can do it once or twice and it won't hurt the legitimacy of boxing if such a concept even exists. Just watch the fight if the wackiness offends you.

And let's furthermore be 100% honest here. Canelo as an A side and Golovkin as an A side have NEVER done seriously big business in comparison to Floyd or Manny or Oscar or so on so forth. Without Floyd or Cotto (a proven A lister with the benefit of a Mexico/PR buzz), it's believed Canelo has topped out at 450K (I trust Iole over Dan Rafael on the Khan number) with other shows like Angulo, Lara and Smith all dancing between 250K and 375K or so. A far cry from Floyd and Manny were either actively toppling or dancing around 1M PPV buys. Golovkin's PPV offerings have been really, really, really poor for a fighter who is all action, has the big fight mystique and is the darling of hardcore fans and casual TV viewers alike. We love to believe styles make fights and all that but sometimes you gotta try big for big fights. You have to put a little effort into this game because contrary to popular belief for most boxing scribes, putting Canelo and GGG on a poster and shouting "SO BUY IT!" is not going to work. This is the biggest fight boxing can make at this time-----so it needs to do really well and really well is not 600K or below. This should sell 1,000,000 PPVs. Let's fucking try to promote this thing like it can accomplish that.

10- One thing which came up recently was the idea that JCC Jr finessed the boxing audience for his entire career and I find that grossly unfair. Dude debuted with no amateur fight experience and Arum had him basically main eventing like 20 fights into his career vs fighters who were at the time way better than he was. JCC Jr is a victim of his name and in some ways his own laziness but you know what? The attempt to make him a superstar did him no favors either.

#Boxing #JCC Jr #Canelo #GGG #MMA even

11 notes · View notes

unst242group2 · 3 years

Text

(1/8) “I had a lot of people asking me how they could be stronger allies or accomplices for the marginalized communities and particularly the black community, because I have built quite a platform through hip hop. I’m a hip hop artist, I play in a six piece funk hip hop band called Speaker Minds, and I do solo music with a DJ, and I’ve been doing that for my entire adult life. My music often talks about social justice and injustices, citizens, community outreach, and uplifting, things like that. I’ve done a lot of philanthropy work in my day, a lot of culturally specific jobs where I’ve been like a mentor for black and brown youth on probation. I worked as a student advocate for low income young adults, just with a lot of those communities. So people got to know me as that. And so they reached out and I also go to PSU right now. I’m finishing my bachelor’s in Black Studies and Social Science. I’ve learned a lot about a lot of the oppressive, exclusionary ways of Oregon and the nation. So I thought it would be a good idea. When people ask me how they can help, I said, ‘look, you gotta share your resources. Especially if you come from privilege and you have benefited from exclusionary practices, so share your wealth’. Then the idea to repair homes came from the fact that I grew up in Portland, I'm a native, I grew up in Northeast Portland, so I watched the neighborhoods change. Now that I have an idea of why that's happened, I realized, a way that we could really help is by getting some of these repairs done, for the homeowners that still have survived gentrification. That will keep the city off their back. Because a lot of the ways displacement happens is white people move into these neighborhoods and then they start complaining about Black people's houses, not looking adequate enough for their standards. And then the city comes out and puts lines on their homes and stuff. So this is a good way to combat gentrification in that way.”

(2/8) “I had no idea it was going to take off like it did. I thought it was gonna just be maybe a couple of homes. Well, when I started there, I was very naive. Cause I'm not from the housing world. I was a renter at the time. I didn't know the capacity. I thought we would just get a bunch of volunteers together and find some materials and start swinging hammers at homes and try to make them look better. But there's a lot more to it than that. And a lot of people were like, ‘well, , I don't really want to come out and help, especially with the pandemic, but here's some money to put towards it’, and it just took off after the first house. We were able to do quite a bit of repairs and then another house came in and then just words got out and then the news started getting a hold of it. I did a bunch of news interviews and then that was when it really took off. I was not expecting this kind of response at all. I think people liked that I started it guerrilla style because I wasn't waiting to get through all the red tape. I've been on enough committees and been in enough groups that I know that red tape can take years to get through. So I was like, send me your money and I'll put it towards the house and I'll deal with Uncle Sam later. I would've never imagined how big this got and how fast and it's still going strong.”

(3/8) “Right now, we're not really encouraging volunteers unless you're licensed, bonded and insured. We got over 400 volunteers signed up and we don’t have enough work for that, especially in the winter. If you want it to, you could go to our website and there's a volunteer section, takingownershippdx.org, but we're not encouraging that unless you are skilled in a trade and licensed, bonded, and insured. So we can actually do quality and insured work on these homes.”

(4/8) “The state, the city, the nation, the, the feds, anybody that can make policies to stop this thing. Make policies that provide reparations. And I mean, I strongly believe reparations are needed for particularly the black community, but other communities as well, natives need better reparations too. If you have any idea of how horrible this country has been to nonwhite people, particularly black people and the natives, you would understand that there is some sort of equity in the form of monetary gifts that needed to be given. I mean, think about Oregon. They were, when they found Oregon, they were just buying up. They're just giving 300 to 600 acres of land to white men, and black people couldn't even live here. With that understanding, they think that it has to be through equitable practices. They have to put in policies for developers that they have to give the developers the same rules that residential people have. So developers can come into neighborhoods and buy up houses and tear them down and build up some garbage 30 unit building without asking the community what they want. Let's say if you're a homeowner, a residential homeowner and you want to just build a garage or something, you gotta ask all your neighbors what they think, what color. It's not fair that these developers just because they have multi-millions and they can house more people, can come in here with their own set of rules and it actually impacts the whole, the rest of the neighborhood because utilities go up, property taxes go up. You bring a whole different demographic into these neighborhoods. That's another thing where I live. I just bought a house in Albina. It's mostly white people around here. This is a historically black neighborhood. They'd lost all that culture. I think there has to be some policy in place that keeps the culture in the neighborhoods to give the neighborhood a voice. They definitely have to do something reparation-like, and maybe that's providing property or monetary gifts.”

(5/8) “I think most change starts from the bottom and it does, I don't know anything, any kind of change like that on a legislative level, I feel always has to start with some individuals getting together and making some noise and then they're like,’Oh, okay, fine. It just looks like they're not going to shut up about it’. So now we're going to start. When you even think about marijuana passing, anything, we've really got to make some noise unless it's benefiting the corporations. If it benefits everyday people on an individual level, we have to make noise and then they'll consider passing some stuff.”

(6/8) “I don't think enough people really understand the capacity of what gentrification is. What it's done, how severe it's been. When you grew up in capitalism, you just think that's just the way it is. They want to take your house, they'll take your house. They want to do that. You just got to work harder. You just got to pull yourself up by your bootstrap to keep your house. They don't understand the policies and just like the nuanced ways in which they operate to take their homes. And if you're one of the people benefiting from gentrification, you're usually one of the people that has the most resources and the most power to enact the change. That's why we always tell white people, y'all got to talk to each other. Y'all got to be the ones out here really making that change, because this is a system that was built by y'all, so y'all gotta dismantle it. It can't just be us. I think it's hard for white people who benefit from it because they're content and they think, all right, I just bought this house, but, I'll put a Black Lives Matter sign in my yard’ and they think that's enough? Just for instance, some serious accomplice ally work that just happened is I bought this house from a white lady. She sold it to me for what was left on the mortgage, because she didn't want to make any money off it. And she wanted to put a black family back in the Albina neighborhood. That's that radical philanthropy work that I think needs to happen that I don't think a lot of people are going to do. This woman's on some other shit, which I'm thankful for. I don't think that there's not going to be a lot of people that are going to do that. And she didn't put herself out cause she's wealthy and she's a successful business owner and owns multiple properties. I don't know if I can say enough people care to make the actual radical decisions and actions that it will take to reverse gentrification. And gentrification is already done. There's no black community in Portland anymore. It's gone. I guess you could say it's in the numbers, but that's not really it, so it has to be reversed at this point.”

(7/8) “I think it's one of the most important things as far as what humans need is, shelter, and as somebody who is a brand new homeowner - I just bought this house two months ago - I was a renter all before that. With two, I became a father at nineteen years old of two, and I've lived in maybe 12 places since they were born. We're renting apartments, living in garages, whatever I could find and, it's miserable and it's not knowing, having to move. First of all, moving sucks. We all know that. Bouncing my kids around from place to place just to be able to stay. And to be able to pay into your property and then actually get towards paying off your property is huge. An actual mortgage is amazing. When you're renting, you're just giving your money away all the time. Especially when you get older and the cost of living going up, it's harder to find other places to live. It's important. And then familiarity in communities is I think so important to people. I think it's just so many aspects of it is important.”

(8/8) “I also want to say the importance of aging in place is also to be able to pass down your property to the next generation. I think that's actually really huge. Ways to raise awareness, do your research. I think that's important. There's a great class - I'm actually in my capstone class right now, it's racial equity in Oregon. I'm learning a lot about gentrification and just the origin of all that in that class. I recommend y'all take it. Take that class if you want, but it's a good one. Do your research on Portland or even other cities too, but I mean, Oregon has its own unique story. My way of raising awareness is social media. That's how this whole thing started. If I didn't have a platform on social media, there's no way I would've got the word out so fast. And provide resources. I think that's the way to go these days, is social media. And action. Don't just talk about it. Be about it.”

0 notes