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delusional-day-dreamer · 8 months ago

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First. Love. Part¹ - p.b

playlist. next part.

‣ paige bueckers x oc (reader?, tbh i'm not sure how it works!)

‣ wc: 1790

‣‣ synopsis: people say in life, you have your FIRST love and your first LOVE, but what if paige was both?

‣‣‣ a/n: y'all i'm SO SORRY for my inactivity, summer classes and morning practices are awful. i promise i will try to release more fics on a more regular basis. For the sake of the FICTIONAL story, pazzi simply does not exist, they are best friends but denied the rumors during azzi's freshmen year and she has a boyfriend. Songs that are underlined are linked to tiktok covers just because I love them!

Us Weekly : Tuesday June 13th, 2023

Just this friday, upcoming singer-songwriter Jenna Smyths performs her own song, Means Something and an instrumental cover of Holy Ground by Taylor Swift at BBC Live Lounge to introduce her soon to be released debut album, Eternal Us (not my most creative moment I know 😔). The young singer has just graduated from UCLA after completing her three-year Bachelor's Degree with a double major, her focus being Business Economics with a minor in Film, Television, and Digital Media.

This Friday was Jenna's first televised performance, and her constantly sold out small-venue concerts have been applauded all over social media and by celebrities for her vocal maturity, depth and intricacy within her song lyrics, and her ability to convey raw emotion through her performances. However, this song cover was announced by the singer-songwriter to be particularly special to her, as she mentions that this song "brings back specific memories".

The twenty-one year old kept her composure throughout both songs, yet fans on various media platforms have pointed out Jenna's seemingly tear filled eyes during Holy Ground. The artist addresses the emotions she felt during the song during her first appearance on the Jimmy Fallon Show after performing her first released single, Promise, which is prominently featured as it’s one of her most popular singles.

The Tonight Show: Monday June 12th, 2023 "Please welcome to The Tonight Show, Jenna Smyths," Jimmy introduced you as you walked onto the set of the show, the live audience cheering loudly as you took your seat on the couch.

"Thank you so much Jimmy, it's such an honor to be here, sitting on this sacred couch," you joked, bringing some of your recently curled hair over your shoulder in hopes of disguising any traces of anxiety the crowd or camera may pick up. Thankfully, it worked as you heard the stir of laughter on set, allowing you to relax further into the couch, it actually was quite comfortable.

"It's incredible that we have you sitting here, I mean almost two years ago you blew up on TikTok for your incredible song covers, and then you started playing live in a bunch of LA venues, then you started releasing your own music, and now you're a UCLA Alumni sitting here," as he summed up your rise to fame, the audience began another round of applause.

"Oh my gosh I know right," you giggled, overjoyed that the audience was showing so much support towards you and that your first big interview was going so well. "I swear it was like two weeks ago I was singing on TikTok and then freaking out about my notifications and somehow I just teleported here," you laughed off the slight tinge you felt in your heart.

College had gone by far too quickly, and you were constantly consumed with stress regarding your future. Up until a few weeks ago, you had no idea what you were going to do with your life. What if your album flopped? What if you never made it big? How would you move on and get a regular job from there?

"Yes yes, I remember seeing some of your earliest covers on tiktok. In fact," a smirk appeared on his face, he clearly had something hiding up his sleeve. "We just so happen to have a little video edited together of your old covers, for old times' sake just to show how far you've come," he laughed at the nervous expression on your face and the crowd's enthusiasm.

"Oh god, some of those are from questionable times," you mumbled, raising your right hand to slightly cover your mouth as the video played.

Clips of you singing in your old college apartment bedroom appeared, switching in between guitar covers and piano while singing Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, We Can't Be Friends by Ariana Grande (yes pretend it was out at the time), Bags by Clairo, to the Man Who Can't Be Moved, and a few others. You watched your younger self, heartbroken and healing, singing songs to post on the internet just for your friends to watch, and yet somehow your voice had reached millions of people.

"Well you can see it here clear as day folks, Jenna has clearly always had a knack for those gut-wrenching songs, the ones that make you wonder if you're depressed or the artist is just incredibly good at what they do," you knew he was introducing your live performance with this, sneakily rubbing your sweaty palms over your jeans. You weren't nearly as scared as your BBC performance, but the combination of fear and adrenaline before any performance was overwhelming compared to logic at times.

"So what do you guys say, because I think we need to hear it live to determine which one it truly is," the small crowd erupted at Jimmy's rhetoric, eager to watch your performance.

"Well when you ask so nicely how could I ever refuse Jimmy?" You grinned, standing up to make your way over to the performance area with the live band.

With your guitar in your hands, you let the unique sense of calmness and security wash over you as you adjusted the mic in front of you. Music had always been one of the biggest parts in your life, and even know it never failed you. Not in your best moments, and not even in your worse.

"This is Promise from my new album, Eternal Us, out June 30th"

***Post-performance part of the interview***

"Jenna, you know I have to ask you this, because so far the songs on your album, your covers, and even your performance at the BBC Live Lounge were all fairly depressing songs," Jimmy insists. The two of you had been joking and answering the interview questions with a sense of ease after the performance aspect of the show. The audience was eating up the playful energy the two of you seemed to have, despite the twenty-seven year age gap.

"Please, ask away Jimmy," you quipped, enjoying your time on the show. The steady laughter from the live audience had long soothed any remaining nerves. Growing up, you always felt as if you were born to perform, and this type of live interview was right up your alley.

"And I swear I'm being serious with this, but does the emotion in your music affect you the same it affects your listeners? Because after your cover of Holy Ground aired, you blew up on social media even more then you were before. But one of the things your fans noticed was that it looked like you were gonna cry?" Jimmy inquired, you could hear small murmurs from the audience section at his question, no doubt intrigued to hear your answer.

"You know Jimmy," you began, "Honestly it was just a heat of the moment kinda thing. Like obviously I changed the song in a different key and sang it that way intentionally you know? Taylor is known for her ability to write the most gut-wrenching lyrics and then syncing them up to a catchy beat in a pop song and boom, it's a hit," you explained to both him and the crowd.

"But when I was offered the opportunity to go on BBC Live Lounge and I was trying to decide what song to cover, the lyrics of the song just really stuck out to me in a personal way and I wanted to convey to my listeners the emotions I felt reading and experiencing the lyrics, not listening to it as an upbeat pop song. But don't get me wrong, it's an incredible song just the way it is!" You ended your ramble enthusiastically, trying your best to not delve into the deeper emotions laced within your statement.

"Of course, I mean it was your first televised performance and to a Taylor Swift song no less, but this song has a very meaning to it, unlike some of Taylor's other doctorate-level essay worthy songs you could spend hours analyzing," Jimmy jokes, lightening the mood as always before asking the hard hitting question you had been dreading the entire interview.

"Why did you choose to sing a song about reminiscing of a past relationship, an ex lover if you will. I mean, a good majority of your songs follow the heartbroken post-breakup theme, but the media isn't aware of any relationships you may or may not have had during your time at UCLA, was there someone before?" He questions.

"You're right, I didn't have any actual relationships while at UCLA. My only serious relationship was during my last two years of high school, and a lot of my songs I'm releasing now were written during that time or even earlier, I've just polished them a lot. And of course, my earliest covers are from my freshman year of college, so the wound was still pretty fresh you know?" You skimmed over the topic, keeping the discussion as light-hearted as possible.

"Oh my god, all of that was from one person?" Jimmy jokes, unaware of how hard his statement hits home for you.

"Yeah I mean, I guess your first love will just do that to you, you know?" You joked back. You refused, refused, to let Paige Bueckers affect you in this way on national television. It had been three years for god's sake, you needed to get a grip of yourself.

"Well, they must have been one heck of a first love to be such a long-lasting muse for you," Jimmy pried, and you could tell he was waiting for you to give more details about your relationship.

"Nah nah, cut the cameras, I think we're out of time for tonight right," you nervously laughed, jokingly leaning over to gesture in an over the top manner to the camera crew to stop filming, which roused hefty laughter around set at your antics.

"Don't worry Jenna, we'll leave that topic for next time yeah?" Jimmy chuckled at your immediate refusal, using his perfected charm to continue the interview without any bumps or awkward conversations.

Before you knew it, the interview had been long over and you were laying in your hotel's bedroom. In your opinion, the NYC suite was luxurious and was far too large for just one person to reside. But fortunately for you, you were used to the sense of loneliness you felt in the empty room. To think that you were only a few hours away from Paige, your first love, your first everything, and yet you had never felt more separated from a person you used to love with your whole being.

Thank you for reading all the way through! Part 2 of So High School will be out soon I promise, this series just happened to randomly inspire me and I want to finish it asap before I lose motivation or hit writer's block!

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bucketbueckers · 3 months ago

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I'D RATHER PRETEND

CHAPTER THREE

tags: @angryflowerwitch @avvwritesstufff @melpthatsme @rebecca-woso @bueckersg1rl @l0verl4ne @clouded-whispers @dolliest-thena @katemartinlvr @numberonepartyanth3m @glamourdaya @pbbucks @unadulteratedcyclepaper @paiges-1vur wc: 7.3k notes: same shit, different chapter, masterlist, content warnings, place name backstory stuff. not my favorite chap but lots of paige & tess content so hopefully that makes up for it being boring af 😸 hope we enjoy 🫶

‘Prepare for Take Off! Tess Kennedy and Paige Bueckers Share Sweet Goodbye in Crowded Airport’

Tess Kennedy and Paige Bueckers have been a trending topic ever since Wednesday morning when fans speculated that Bueckers flew out to support Kennedy during her ACL recovery. In that time, Kennedy and Bueckers have shared a total of five pictures to their Instagram stories, each becoming more and more obvious as to who they are spending time with. Kennedy’s most recent story included a photo of her injured leg in the lap of (you guessed it!) a faceless individual, though just a half hour later, both Kennedy and Bueckers were pictured together at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.

Onlookers said that Bueckers and Kennedy were attached at the hip, all smiles as they navigated the busy airport. Before Bueckers boarded the plane back to Connecticut, she and Kennedy shared a sweet hug before they pulled away. One commenter said that they seemed to share a few words, then Bueckers was off. Another commenter noted a sort of sadness etched on Kennedy’s face as she lingered. She seemed to be deep in thought. While, obviously, we are not in the business of being mind-readers, it is clear that Kennedy had some strong feelings about Bueckers leaving. In the short three days they have been seen together, their bond is evident, and fans are anxiously awaiting their next interaction.

-Penelope Lancaster, Bleacher Report

MAY 6, 2023

Tess is nursing a cup of half-melted ice when the FaceTime call from Paige comes through. It’s nearly startling – she’d been scrolling TikTok for the past hour, trying to distract herself from literally everything. It was difficult at first. Her feed was mostly basketball related things and huge think pieces about her and Paige – people seemed to think that Paige was saving her, which was ridiculous. It took about thirty minutes and countless refreshing, but she’s sure she successfully factory reset her algorithm. She was seventeen parts into a pirated movie and it was nearing the good part when Paige’s contact photo took over her screen.

She accepts the call, forgetting to control her face. ��Hey! Woah, who pissed in your Cheerios?”

Paige’s voice flows through her airpods and Tess corrects her scowl, popping another ice cube in her mouth. “You did. I was watching Hidden Figures on TikTok and you interrupted me.”

Paige’s brows furrow dramatically. Tess takes the moment to study her screen, noting the headboard behind Paige and the dim lighting. She’s wearing a pair of glasses that sit low on the bridge of her nose, and judging by the blanket furled around her exposed shoulders, Paige must have just rolled into bed. “My bad, jus’ thought you would wanna talk to your girlfriend or sum’ after a really long plane ride.”

“It was like, four hours,” Tess states, rolling her eyes, though there’s a lingering fondness.

The blonde hums, shifting. “Try four hours and one minute. I sat next to this old guy and he snored the entire time. Like, I had my airpods in and everything and here comes Thomas the fucking train engine and shit. And in case that wasn’t bad enough, none of my teammates could pick me up so I got an Uber home and the driver just kept yapping about how South Carolina destroyed UConn’s last year.”

Tess nearly chokes on an ice cube as she laughs, much to Paige’s chagrin. “Yeah? How’d that make you feel?”

Paige narrows her eyes at her. “Stop gloating.”

“I’m not!”

Paige waves her hand, kissing her teeth before refocusing. “What’s with the ice cubes?” she asks.

For a moment, Tess considers playing it off. She doesn’t want Paige to think of her any differently if she admits the truth about it. She was slowly getting used to feeling guilt all the time, but she was wholly unprepared for the amount of shame weighing her down. Thinking about the fact she drank herself into an alcohol dependence – not addiction; she is not addicted and that’s a hill she’s willing to die on! – is humiliating. Tess would never lord anyone else’s struggle over their head, but it’s different with her. She’s still not sure how to give herself the same grace and compassion she’d give others. Her Uncle Gio had his fair share of alcohol issues, though he was also a war veteran; Tess understands why he’d turn to drinking, but how could their issues ever compare?

She recalls the promise she made to Kam and Bree, to herself, to Paige before she boarded the plane. She gave Paige her word that she wouldn’t do this alone, so she sinks into her pillows and confesses. “The ice cubes distract me from, you know, wanting to drink. Feels like it kills the urge a little bit – I don’t know. It’s probably fucking up my teeth, but better those than my brain and my liver, right?” She tries to mask the discomfort with a laugh, but it sounds dry coming out of her mouth.

Paige’s eyes soften. “Whatever works, right?” she says. “As long as you ain’t replacin’ it with like, chain smoking?”

Tess rolls her eyes, appreciative of the sentiment, but also Paige’s humorous approach as it takes some of the pressure off. “No chain smoking here,” she vows.

The blonde is silent for a moment. “When’d they start?” she prods. “The urges. If you wanna talk about it.”

Tess contemplates her words for a moment. Paige has given her an out, but at this point, she’s not sure if she wants to use it. “Thursday night. Couldn’t sleep at all. I wanted to drink so bad. So I stayed up, ate ice, and watched TV. I was honestly in the trenches but you know…that happens when you drink for a month straight and then suddenly stop.” When she glances down at her phone screen, Paige’s eyes are laser-focused on her, absorbing every word. Tess cracks a small smile. “My first therapy appointment is on Monday, so I’ll see what my therapist suggests. I’m pretty sure the urges will be here to stay for a couple weeks. Sounds more like a fact of life than anything else, I guess, but if push comes to shove, I’ll get Kam to tie me to the bed so I can’t run away.” Paige smirks and Tess rolls her eyes. “Chill!”

“I wasn’t even gonna say nothin’!” Paige exclaims. Tess shakes her eyes, though she can’t keep the smile off her face. “For what it’s worth, ‘m proud of you for, you know…thuggin’ it out.”

Tess grins. “‘Thugging it out?’” she asks in disbelief.

“I’m being genuine,” Paige says with an eye roll. “I’on know what you’re going through besides the knee. I understand that it’s not easy, though. Everyone thinks I’m like, your knight in shining armor or some bullshit, but you don't need me. Yeah, you got me and I’m here to support you, no matter what. But I’m not saving you or anything. You’re doing that yourself. And I think that’s really cool.”

Tess chuckles, trying to ignore just how touching Paige’s words were. “Don’t get sentimental on me now.” She wipes the tear beading at her waterline, and when she glances down, Paige is smiling at her.

“Alright,” she concedes. “I won’t say anything nice ever again.”

“You?” Tess mocks. “Saying nice things?”

“Fuck off,” Paige says. Her words lack heat and her smile brightens. She runs a hand across her jaw, as if deep in thought. “So, about the airport.” Tess raises a brow in what she hopes is nonchalance, trying to keep her nerves at bay. She’s been trying to push it deep into the recesses of her mind, but it’s clear Paige has other plans. “Was it…okay? Like I didn’t make you uncomfortable or nothin’?”

“Paige,” Tess deadpans, smile widening in amusement, but it does little to hide the flush on her cheeks. “It was a hug.”

Paige scratches the back of her neck. “I mean…it – nevermind, forget it,” she says, her voice trailing off.

“It what?”

Paige shakes her head, pushing her glasses further up her nose. “Nothing, don’t worry,” she says, flashing an easy grin, but something in her expression betrays her image of comfort. “Just checking in with you, s’all. Wanna make sure we’re selling the story, yeah?”

Right. The story. Reminding herself that this was all fake is somehow the only thing on Tess’s mind, but she still manages to forget about it at the worst moments. Trying to mask the foreign feeling burning a hole in her gut, she hums. “I think we’re doing a good job. Have you seen those articles on Bleacher Report?”

Paige nods, the tension on her face dissolving. “A couple, yeah.” Her smile turns smug. “D’you actually look sad when I boarded?”

Tess throws her head back with a heavy sigh. “Paige–”

“C’mon, you don’t gotta hide it,” she says teasingly. “Coulda chased me, begged me to stay, all that cheesy romcom shit.”

“Chase you?” Tess guffaws. “First of all, with whose knee?” Paige snorts, tilting her head as if to say, touche. “Second of all, I don’t chase. I have too much self-respect for that.”

“Yeah?” Paige asks, a laugh bubbling in her throat.

Tess narrows her eyes. “I’m hanging up on you.”

“You won’t.” Tess raises a brow, pressing the red end call button. The silence hardly lasts three seconds before Paige is calling back. Tess answers with a shit-eating grin. “Don’t do that shit to me again,” Paige says, indignant.

“Who’s chasing now?” Tess asks smugly.

Paige rubs the back of her neck again, having the decency to look caught, but she smiles at Tess regardless. “I’mma let you go take a nap,” she declares. “Let you sleep off this attitude.” Tess shakes her head, but her smile turns fond. “Call me after your appointment tomorrow, okay? Lemme know how it goes…if you feel up to it.”

Tess’s face softens. “Sure.” Tess bites her lip in contemplation. Before she has the chance to chicken out, she clears her throat. “Um, I just wanted to say thank you. For….” Tess’s voice trails off, unable to put to words how much Paige’s support has kept her sane for the past few days.

The lighting in Paige’s room is dim, but Tess can distinctly see the way her smile reaches her eyes, the way she understands what Tess is trying to say. “No need to thank me,” Paige says. “Just focus on getting better.”

Tess flashes one last quiet smile. “I will.” With a final farewell, the line clicks dead, and Tess leans back on her bed, releasing a long sigh.

Fuck.

MAY 8, 2023

Sunday passes by in a blur and Tess finds herself awake at 6am Monday morning. Sunday was chill – with nothing better to do, she spent the day (to no one’s surprise) binging more TV and working through some of Craig’s recommended independent PT exercises. She even treated herself to a solid hour outdoors, which, as popular opinion suggests, actually does wonders for your mental health.

She tries her best to ignore the intrusive thoughts at the back of her mind, urging her to go back on her promises. They become less and less appealing as the hours tick by. Sleep slowly becomes easier, though she’s unsure if she should attribute it to finally taking care of her leg or losing the fog that used to cloud her brain.

Just a week ago, Tess was rolling into bed at dawn, well past drunk and in body shuddering pain. Now, she’s on her sixth day of sobriety and genuine rehabbing, and she holds a different kind of hope for the future that she’d never felt before. There’s a small part of her that’s terrified to feel too positive about the days ahead of her considering it’s hardly been a full week, but she can’t help but feel like things are finally shaping up. And at this point, the only thing standing between her and that positive future she can’t stop thinking about is literally her.

Deciding to put a little extra effort in on Monday morning, she forgoes her usual sweatpants and opts for leggings. Between her brace and her knee, she wasn’t quite ready for jeans, but she figured leggings were at least a step up. Tess fully commits to her skin care, fixes her hair in a simple half-up half-down style, and even sends a sweet ‘good morning’ text to the team group chat – although Tessa, her almost-name twin, immediately responds and tells her to ‘take her ass back to bed.’ Tess sends the middle finger emoji and decides they are never seeing her be kind again.

She eats breakfast with Kamilla and Bree, who wish her luck for PT and her first therapy appointment. When she checks her phone for the time, she finds a couple of messages from Paige, which immediately warms her chest.

Morning Tess 🫶 Sent you a lil gift for PT It’s prolly outside your door Be nice to Craig and your therapist

Confused, although she feels inexplicably touched, she slides on her shoes, grabs her crutches, and with a final goodbye to Kam and Bree, exits their apartment. She’s careful when opening and closing the door so she doesn’t damage whatever Paige has sent. A grin slowly spreads across her face when she sees that it’s a cup of coffee tucked into a Starbucks bag. She snags a quick picture of it before carefully leaning down to pick it up. She sends the photo to Paige, leaning against the wall.

so this is actually insane

Just looking out for the people who gotta deal with you No more cranky Tess

did you order yourself something too since you’re ‘dealing with me’

Yeah lol

The selfie comes quickly – a photo of Paige with her lips wrapped around a straw in a coffee cup. She’s throwing up a peace sign for the camera and her face has an obviously smug expression. Tess can’t help the slight flush she feels, so she opts for reacting to the photo with a thumbs-down emoji.

have i mentioned how insane you are

You could start by saying “Thanks for the coffee” or something like that Wait you can post it on your story I didn’t even think about that

i feel like this was your plan all along

It wasn’t Swear I did it out of the kindness of my heart

somehow you just made it even more unbelievable

Believe what you want I got you coffee Post it on your story, be nice to people, and call me later

so bossy

Learned from the best Talk to you soon 🤩

Tess rolls her eyes, but she can’t keep the stupid ass grin off of her face as she swaps over to Instagram and shares the picture to her story. She ponders the caption for an embarrassing amount of time before writing, ‘845 miles away but still sending shit to my door.’ She hits post and slides her phone back into her pocket before walking to the trainer’s office for her PT.

When she arrives, Craig greets her warmly and they get right into it. He takes her brace off and unwraps her knee. Then, he leads her through some of their typical knee exercises, pausing in between for a cooldown where she ices her knee as he explains what their new recovery timeline should look like. As long as she does what she needs to, she likely won’t need her crutches anymore after two and a half more weeks of good behavior. In a couple months, her PT will change course entirely. They’ll begin introducing hydrotherapy and strength building exercises. For the past few days, she’s been working on the range of motion ones, so she’ll end up alternating and mixing the two somewhere down the line. Come February, she should be cleared for full contact practice. If all goes well by March, she should be able to play in full just in time for the last few days of the tournament season.

PT wraps up and Craig rewraps her knee, tightening her brace around it and sending her off with a kind smile and words of encouragement for her therapy session. Given that the university’s counseling center was across campus and Tess was not fucking with that walk, Amaya made arrangements for the psychologist to meet Tess in the athletic facility since she’d be there already for PT. She checks her phone for the room number that Amaya sent her (dutifully ignoring the Instagram notification reading ‘Paige liked your story!’) and makes her way down the hall to the office room.

Tess opens the door to find a shorter woman shuffling papers around on a desk. She looks up as the basketball player walks in, immediately flashing a beaming smile and sticking her hand out for Tess to shake. “Hey! You must be Tess.”

Tess shifts her weight, shaking her hand and returning a quiet smile. The psychologist has wavy, chestnut brown hair and kind brown eyes that have been softened by the passage of time. The crow’s feet and laugh lines on her face provide Tess with a sense of security, reminding her of a distant aunt who used to liven up the room. “Guilty as charged.”

“I’m Dr. Flanigan, but Yvette is just fine. Please, have a seat.” Tess pulls out the chair, slowly lowering herself into it, cautious of her knee. Yvette motions to the adjacent chair. “Would you want to prop your leg up? It might be more comfortable for you that way.”

Tess hesitates, but the comforting expression on Yvette’s face has her worries washing away. “Sure, please,” she says, and the older woman nods as she adjusts the chair and helps lift Tess’s leg to the elevated position. Almost instantly, some of the tension leaves her body and Tess sighs in relief.

“Perfect,” Yvette says, mostly to herself. She takes a seat in her own chair and begins looking through a couple of papers. “So, I see you’ve had quite the month.” Her words aren’t judgmental, just humorous, and Tess can’t help her snicker.

“Something like that,” she agrees.

“But you’re here now,” Yvette muses, sliding a pair of glasses onto the bridge of her nose. “That’s the hard part, isn’t it? Opening yourself up to receive help, putting aside your pride for long enough to realize you need help. I’m proud that you’re taking these steps.”

“Didn’t have much of a choice,” Tess jokes.

“You did,” Yvette says gently. Her eyes sparkle. “Your team gave you an ultimatum, but you could have said no, right? But here you are. It’s early, but you’ve already made so much progress in terms of rehabilitation. Can you share what your mental state has been like since Wednesday?”

Tess pauses to think about her words. Yvette doesn’t push her. Tess releases a breath of air, shifting, before responding. “I’ve been kinda all over the place, I guess. I mean, it was a complete 180 – I showed up to the meeting hungover and by the end of the day, I’d done PT, cried a couple of times, but like, my mind was also clearer… in a way? When I was doing what I was doing, sure, I was conscious of my own destruction, but sitting in front of a bunch of other people and having them tell you that you’re destroying yourself was different. It put things into perspective. Then…around Thursday night, the urge to drink started hitting, so I spent the entire night eating ice cubes and losing my mind.” She glances at Yvette, whose head cocks. “Um, losing it figuratively. It was really hard but I don’t think I was actively crashing out.”

“Perhaps the feeling was more like a battle with yourself for control?” Yvette asks kindly.

Tess opens her mouth, puzzled, then closes it. Damn. Yvette is good at her job. “Exactly like that,” Tess admits. “My body wanted it, but I didn’t want it. I felt like I was being pulled in two different directions – the pull was so strong. I sat for hours convincing myself that I knew what my body needed and not the other way around.”

“That’s a huge part of understanding and processing alcohol dependence,” the psychologist says. “The mentality. Treatment doesn’t always require medication – one of the most common ‘treatments’ is cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps people change unhelpful thinking patterns and reactions. A popular approach is what we call the recognize-avoid-cope method. Recognize your triggers, whether external or internal; avoid tempting situations, and cope with the triggers you can’t avoid.

“So, our two types of triggers – external and internal,” Yvette continues, and Tess listens to her every word. “External refers to your environment. Perhaps a person, place, thing, or time of day. You said your urge manifested at night time?” Tess nods. “For people who drank mostly at night, night time could be an external trigger. Your body gets used to drinking at this certain time, right? Internal triggers can be tricky. Many people struggle with identifying where they come from because they appear to come out of nowhere. However, these triggers can be set off by fleeting thoughts, responses to feelings. I believe in your case, an internal trigger could be a pain response from your knee, yes?”

Tess flushes. “I feel like you’re in my head,” she admits, drawing a laugh from Yvette. Some of the tension diffuses.

“Now that we know what to look for when we face that urge to drink, we can address it appropriately,” Yvette says. “It’s difficult to avoid internal triggers, so we just have to cope with them. Avoiding external triggers are more obvious. You may benefit from avoiding a bar or the liquor section in the grocery store, but you can’t avoid night time. This is where coping comes in. For you, chewing ice cubes was an effective distraction – perhaps one your dentist won’t agree with –” Tess chuckles, “– but it’s that idea that we want to work with. I struggled with alcohol dependence when I was your age. Meditation and yoga helped me out a lot, although those may not work for you considering your knee injury. The good thing is there’s a lot of healthy alternatives. Work on a hobby, talk to someone, take a hot shower – if it works for you and it’s not harmful, then it’s a good method! Remember, it’s all mental – if you feel the urge, challenge it. Find the error in your thinking and replace it. Remind yourself why you’re making this change to not drink. Ride it out. Urges are normal, but they’re temporary; they will pass.”

Yvette’s words leave Tess in a contemplative silence. Tess doesn’t think this first session was supposed to be anything revolutionary – Yvette literally just told her something she could have figured out from a Google search, but the psychologist's words just hit a little different. It’s similar to how she knew she was hurting herself after her injury but hearing it from Amaya, Diana, and Coach Staley rerouted the wiring in her brain.

Yvette gazes at her, calculating, before offering a small smile, like she understands that her words have hit home. She shuffles around her papers again. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to discuss your mental health history and your anxiety medication?”

That, Tess could answer without feeling like her world is going to flip upside down. She and Yvette discuss lighter topics for the remainder of their session, such as how long she’s been taking lexapro regularly, what it was like when she fell off schedule before and after her surgery, and previous psychiatric history. Yvette suggests other coping mechanisms for regulating her anxiety. Prior to the injury, Tess’s main source of relief was basketball; now, she has to figure out what else she could do with her life that doesn’t include sports.

Feeling as though a weight is lifted off her shoulders, Tess thanks Yvette for her time. Yvette sends her off with another gentle smile – and on her walk back to her apartment, Tess can’t help but feel like she’s on the right track.

Tess calls Paige later that day after she’s finally settled into bed. After some light stretches, she presses an ice pack to her knee as she waits for Paige to pick up her call. She doesn’t wait too long before the line clicks through and Paige’s face fills her screen. The blonde is laying in bed, her hair in a bun, presumably, but Tess’s eyes catch on the headset she wears and the familiar frame of glasses. She can see the reflection of the TV through her lenses and Tess raises a brow. “Bad time?” she asks, thinking Paige may be occupied.

“Nah, ‘course not,” she says. “Gimme a sec – I’ll hide in a bush.”

Tess laughs, hearing the slight clicking of a controller before Paige turns her attention to her fully. Tess didn’t grow up with siblings, but she did have many cousins with whom she was very close with – if there was one thing she learned, they rarely paused or stopped playing their games unless it was an emergency or their mother was yelling. “What are you playing?”

“Fortnite,” Paige admits shamelessly.

“So, she flirts like a twelve-year-old and plays games meant for one,” Tess muses.

Paige rolls her eyes. “Shut up, it’s fun. You play?”

“Nope,” Tess says. “Never got the appeal.”

“Dude,” the blonde says in near disbelief. “I got to put you on. Wait, do you even have a PS5?”

“Do you think I do?” she asks. “I’ve done literally nothing but basketball for almost fifteen years.”

“Gotta fix that,” Paige sighs. “Buy one and hop on Fortnite with me. Boom, new hobby and I get a duo.” The blonde grins at her through the screen, excited at the prospect, and Tess finds herself more accepting of the thought the more she thinks about it. Tess opens Amazon, scrolling through the console options and accessories, and Paige notes her sudden silence. “Wait, are you actually gonna get one?”

Tess shrugs a shoulder, smiling slightly. “I mean, might as well, right? I do need a new hobby and I don’t have a lot of options.” She adds the console to her cart as well as a controller, not giving it a second thought before she’s checking out. “Should be here tomorrow.”

Paige pumps her arm in the air, cheering. Tess can’t help but grin at her excitement. “You won’t regret this. Trust. We’re gonna run Fortnite like the navy.” Tess rolls her eyes good-naturedly as Paige adjusts her phone, flashing another smile. “So, what’s up with you? How was PT and therapy?”

Tess hums. “PT was the same as always. Still a little early to tell, but Craig says if everything goes according to plan, I should hopefully be back in time for the last month of games. Thinking about playing again is literally the only thing keeping my head on straight, so I just have to get my shit together for, what, ten or eleven more months? Easy peasy.”

“You’ll be back on the court before you know it,” Paige says confidently. “Do what you gotta do, but don’t lie just so you can play earlier. Don’t fuck yourself up.”

“Careful, Paige – keep saying nice things and I’ll think you care about me.”

“In your dreams,” the blonde says with a smirk. “Just want you at 100% when we play y’all in March Madness. I won’t have as much fun if I gotta drop 30 on Kamilla instead of you.”

Tess rolls her eyes. “You’re so full of shit.”

“Sharks.”

“Shit.”

“Sharks!”

“Sharks – god dammit.”

Paige grins gleefully as they both dissolve into fits of laughter. As she calms, she can’t help but stare at Paige, at the way her face scrunches and the unfiltered joy that permeates her expression. Tess hates how she softens ever so slightly, how any conversation with Paige is enough to collapse the walls she spent so long building. Tess has always been a little caustic, perhaps blunt to a fault, too sarcastic and so uncomfortable in showing affection. But there’s something about Paige that rounds out those edges. She feels like she can be honest; although vulnerability is still a difficult task, she finds that stomaching the thought is a little easier when Paige smiles at her. “So, therapy?” the blonde repeats, her tone light but not pushing her.

Her words drag Tess out of her thoughts. She shakes her head, as if trying to break the thoughts apart. “It was…informative.”

“Yeah?” Paige asks, interested. When Tess looks back at her screen, she can see the slight furrow in Paige’s brow, the look of concentration. Tess averts her eyes, feeling her face burn.

She hums, gathering her thoughts. “Basically, I just have to rethink my approach to drinking. Like, recognizing triggers and either just avoiding or coping with them. I do think I have to find something other than the ice. I bit into a chunk weird earlier and almost cried cause I thought I broke my tooth.” Paige snorts. “Not funny.” She raises her hands, grinning, and Tess sighs. “Being emotionally vulnerable is exhausting. I wish I could go play basketball and ignore most of my feelings.”

“Well, not to mansplain, but–”

“I know, I can’t actually avoid them,” Tess grumbles. Paige laughs again, and the sound is infectious enough that Tess can’t help but smile. “It’s barely been a week but I feel like…okay again. Is that a weird thing to say?”

“Nah, I get it,” Paige says. “You will be okay, though. You just need to believe it.”

Tess nods, leaning back in her bed and picking mindlessly at a loose thread on her blanket. “I think I do. Like, it doesn’t feel like the end anymore. I know that I need to put in a lot of work, but at this point, it’s a new opportunity to compete, but against myself, right? I can do that.”

“You can,” Paige affirms. “And you will.” She speaks so casually, as if Tess’s recovery is something that is already gone and past. Like it’s more truth than manifestation. When Tess smiles, Paige adds in a softer voice, “I know you can.”

“...Thanks, Paige,” is all Tess can muster. She tries not to think about it too much – Paige is so close to being fully healed from her own ACL tear. She, more than anyone else in Tess’s life currently, knows what that process is like, how the mental anguish affects you, how debilitating the pain is most days. Paige knows what it’s like to survive that. The sheer confidence, the belief that Tess can survive it means more to her than Paige will probably ever know. “Your turn, though. How’s, uh, Storrs?”

Paige shoots her a scandalized look. “You say that like Columbia is any cooler.”

Tess laughs. “Well, it’s no Brooklyn – but you know damn well that UConn is the only reason why Storrs has any relevance.”

“I’m startin’ to wonder if there’s anything you like about me,” Paige grumbles.

“I like it when you’re quiet,” Tess says.

“You called me!”

“I like it when you say the sweetest things,” Tess continues, purposefully ignoring Paige. “Like when you say I’m full of sharks or when you said we were star-crossed lovers because Caitlin broke my ankles.”

Paige huffs, trying – and failing – to hide the frown on her face. “You should not be talking about other women when you’re on the phone with your girlfriend. That’s like, relationship rule number one.”

Tess stares at her before erupting into laughter despite the warm, foreign feeling in her stomach. “Are you jealous?”

Paige rolls her eyes, but she angles her phone so Tess can’t see the flush creeping up her neck. “Chill. I’m jus’ saying – wait until that lady from Bleacher Report hears that you’re steppin’ out on me.”

Tess can’t hide her amusement. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

Paige seems to forget about her earlier words as she grins proudly. “Been told a time or two,” she chirps.

The South Carolinian guard shakes her head fondly. “Okay, for real. What’s new with you?”

Paige shrugs. “Nothing much, but me and the team’s getting together later tonight ‘cause everyone’s heading home for the summer at some point this week. I’m flying back to Minnesota Thursday morning. You goin’ home, or…?”

“Haven’t thought about it much, honestly,” Tess admits. “My mom called on Sunday and asked if I was, but I’m nervous about flying with the knee and I’d feel bad having my parents drive down twelve hours just to pick me up. I could easily do Zoom or some shit with my therapist, but I feel like I really need good and consistent PT, so I’m not sure if I’d want to leave Craig.”

Paige raises a brow. “You live in Brooklyn, right? That’s where the Liberty is. I saw Sabrina in your comments – you could see if she could get you in touch with their physio.”

Tess laughs, mostly out of shock and because of the absurdity of the offer. “Do you really think I could cold call Sabrina Ionescu and be like, ‘hey, my knee’s fucked, I was wondering if you could see if your team physio would be willing to take over my rehab while I’m home?’”

“Uh, yeah?” Paige says like it’s obvious, her face contorting in confusion. “Have you not been online? Anytime Sabrina’s asked about college athletes or the future of the W, she’s always gassing you up. She might be in love with you, lowkey.”

“You better not be bullshitting me,” Tess says, opening her browser and Googling as Paige huffs dramatically. “You think she’d leave her man for me?”

“Rule number two, Tess Alessandra,” Paige reminds her. “No seeing other people on the DL. And you thought I couldn’t handle it.”

Hundreds of articles appear on her screen. Tess feels something tighten in her chest, even as she jokingly retorts, “It’s Sabrina Ionescu – I couldn’t pass that up.” She opens the first article, eyes scanning the headline as it reads, “Sabrina Ionescu On Tess Kennedy: ‘The Perfect NCAA Shooting Guard.’” Tess’s eyes nearly bulge out of her head, her shock only growing the more she reads.

“D’you seriously not know?” Paige asks curiously.

“No,” Tess answers, and it was the truth. “I stay far away from most basketball reporting and social media. Draft discussions always make me nervous and people always look for a story where there isn’t one. I’m here to hoop, not for someone to debate whether or not I’m the second coming of basketball Jesus.” She reads more, feeling both pleasantly surprised but also touched by how many kind things Sabrina Ionescu had to say about her – it was one thing for her to reach out after her ACL tear, but it’s incredibly flattering to know that she’s had someone like Sabrina in her corner all this time and she never knew it. “Do you really think they could do that?” Tess asks again, referring to their physio situation. “Like, they’re in preseason right now. I feel like their physio needs to focus on making sure their team doesn’t tear their ACLs.”

She watches Paige shrug through the screen, a tender sort of smile on her face. “Doesn’t hurt to ask, right? Plus, I got Husky connections – I can get Stewie to put in a good word.”

“You need to chill, I’m being so for real right now,” Tess says, narrowing her eyes. “You do not need to talk to Stewie for me.”

Paige is quiet for a moment, as if fully grasping what Tess is saying. “I won’t if you don’t really want me to,” she says after a lot of contemplation. “Don’t wanna fight your battles for you, but you know…if I can help, just lemme know.”

“I appreciate that,” Tess says, her voice a lot softer. “I’ll think about it.”

The blonde grins again. “No pressure.”

“So, excited to see your family?”

Paige leans back against her headboard, her grin turning fond. “You have no idea. I feel like Drew grows so much while I’m gone. He’s my little brother. Or was. He’s like a medium brother now.”

Tess can’t help but laugh at Paige’s words. “Yeah? Was he the one who put you on Fortnite?” she teases.

“You act like I can’t make choices for myself,” Paige says indignantly. “I actually put him on.”

“You see how that’s like, worse, right?”

Paige glares at her dramatically, but Tess can easily see the amused smile on her face. “You’re a D1 hater. It’s insane.”

“Been told a time or two,” she says, mirroring Paige’s earlier words, and they both dissolve into fits of laughter. “Do you–”

She’s cut off by the sound of a knock at Paige’s door. The blonde pulls off one airpod, turning to look at whoever’s walking in. “Hey, Lili and I are going to the store to pick up some stuff for tonight – you wanna come?” Tess is unable to place the voice, which doesn’t surprise her, but she watches the hesitation flash across Paige’s face. “Ohhh, are you on the phone with your lady friend?”

“Lady friend is crazy work,” Paige grumbles, which causes Tess to laugh. Paige glances at her screen again, as if studying Tess’s face for a reaction.

“Go hang out with your friends,” she tells her, knowing Paige is the only one who can hear. “Don’t let them think I’m the obsessive girlfriend who doesn’t let you hang out with other people.”

“If the shoe fits,” the blonde teases. Tess rolls her eyes at Paige’s smirk and she feels something simultaneously soften and break apart inside of her. That’s an issue to face another day. “I’ll text you later, okay? Make good choices.”

“Always,” Tess says innocently. Paige’s smirk melts into something more tender before she bids Tess one last goodbye and ends the FaceTime call. Tess exhales, staring at her phone screen, where her and Paige’s earlier text conversation remains. It all feels a little fast, but she can’t deny that she feels so incredibly comfortable with Paige. Sure, she and Paige bicker a lot, but she knows it’s all in good fun and she enjoys their banter and how Paige keeps her guessing. It’s the same way she is on the basketball court, but Tess recognizes something different in their little game: Paige’s slight acquiesce, the natural pauses in any of their conversations where Paige seems like she’s seeing Tess in a different way, understanding her in a way that’s beyond surface level.

It’s a double edged sword. Being known is terrifying. From a basketball perspective, the understanding that comes with knowing your opponent’s every move manifests in quick interceptions, knowing how to guard them on their favorite wing. On a personal level, being known opens you up to those same vulnerabilities. By now, she knows Paige better than that and she trusts that Paige wouldn't go out of her way to hurt her, but it’s hard to escape the thought that by letting Paige into her life and under her skin, she’s effectively arming her with her insecurities and shortcomings.

But at the same time, she’s letting Paige in, and it’s new and scary because nobody outside of Kamilla has ever wanted to look further. Tess has probably curated that issue herself — she keeps her teammates close enough that they’re privy to only 75% of her; that last 25%, each and every ugly thought or feeling or trait she’s ever had is kept so far away from them and Tess herself. Now, between her knee, her therapy and PT, and the whole situation of having to be Paige’s fake girlfriend, she’s suddenly faced with having to show someone a lot more than 75%. And it’s fucking frightening because Paige is getting to know Tess at her worst; although she doesn’t exactly have the option to run, she’s trying to be closer to Tess despite it all. Tess has spent so much of her life being afraid of the day the mirror would shatter and she would have to face the parts of herself she didn’t like. Knowing that she’s still here now, learning to love the girl in between the fractures, and that Paige has a heart big enough to not be offended by the scrapes and the nicks and the lacerations that come with handling something sharp and broken, fills her with an amalgamation of feelings. She’s hopeful, but she’s fearful and hesitant; she’s confused but so incredibly grateful.

So, she takes Paige’s advice and reaches out to Sabrina on Instagram. Tess isn’t alone in this. Between her teammates, her friends, her trainers and coaches and mentors, and now the women in the league, there’s so many people in her life that want to help her succeed if only they’d let her. Sabrina’s response comes 15 minutes later — she’d actually been in the trainer’s office getting her wrist checked out when she got her text. Sabrina said their head athletic trainer, Theresa, would be more than happy to take over her her PT while she’s back in Brooklyn, but obviously they would have to work around the Liberty’s game schedule. They would still be able to upkeep Tess’s three times a week requirement, and honestly, that was good enough for her.

Sabrina’s next message came in after Tess said her thank-you’s, reading:

No problem at all! Super proud of your progress and I can’t wait to see you on the court again. Let me know whenever you’re cleared, I would love to shoot around with you sometime

She decides she’d text Paige later, maybe let her know she was right if she felt like listening to her endless gloating. But she smiles as she texts her mom, telling her that she’s got another trainer lined up if she and her dad would be able to make the drive down to South Carolina.

We’ll be there about noon tomorrow to pick you up, piccola, no drive is too far

Then, feeling both hopeful and excited, she texts Amaya to let her know she’s going home for the summer but that she’ll maintain her PT and therapy sessions, to which Amaya responds with a simple thumbs up emoji that makes Tess immediately regret her thoughtful message. She lets Kamilla and Bree know she’s going and they remind her they’re both a call away if she needs anything. Tess packs most of her things before settling back into bed to relax.

She texts Paige later that night, shortly after midnight when she should have been well in bed, but she was struggling to sleep. Her thoughts were racing, but they were more positive than anything. She was excited to see her parents; she hadn’t really talked to them since her surgery. They had a lot to catch up on. She was anticipating the arrival of her Playstation, feeling unnaturally stoked to play Fortnite of all things, though a smaller part of her that she was slowly coming around to knew she just enjoyed her time with Paige, anyway. Unable to sleep, she writes:

you can say i told you so now the liberty’s trainer will take over my PT

I told you so Does this mean you won’t be gaming with me?

ill see if i can fit you into my schedule me and sabrina are super tight now 🤞

Don’t play with me.

don’t worry paigey you’re still my one and only

Better be Have a safe drive tomorrow 🫶

Tess sends back a single heart emoji, putting her phone on its charger and staring up at the ceiling. After a beat, a slow smile spreads across her face, and she can't help but think that she's making the right decision by letting Paige in.

#paige bueckers #paige bueckers x reader #paige x reader #paige bueckers x oc #uconn #wbb x reader #uconn wbb

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lovelypham · 11 months ago

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☁️ ──── in which enha's hyung line are forced to reveal their relationship with their idol s/o after rumors spread about the two of them °

ღ⋆｡pairing. enha's hyung line(seperate)x fem!idol!reader

warnings!:fluff, dating rumors(obv)

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟlee heeseung x le sserafim 6th member

read the maknae line ver here

ღ It was revealed that Enhypen, as well as other rising kpop groups were going to perform at MAMA 2023 and one of them was Le sserafim,which is the group you had the chance of debuting in

ღ you had already told heeseung about your upcoming performance at MAMA and gave him a huge spoiler about the killer dance break

ღ But in typical heeseung fashion, he was still surprised when he saw your captivating performance of your latest songs and couldn't help but send love struck eyes your way

ღ poor heeseung was too busy admiring the way you professionally switched between different dance moves, and the way you'd wink at the camera when it was your part,to notice that the camera was sneakily recording his reaction

ღ and enhypen being enhypen they decided to not alarm their eldest member and leave him to deal with dating rumors the next day.

ღ but when heeseung heard the sudden loud screams of fans he quickly looked at the big screen and saw his face on there which he quickly covered up with a tight smile and a wave

ღ After your guys' performance was done you and the other enha members clowned him for his actions towards you and how you had him "wrapped around your finger" which he denied and said he had you that way

ღ The following day korea woke up to the news of le sserafim's 6th member and enhypen's eldest member dating.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟpark jongseong X newjeans 6th member

˚✧ it was known that idols from the same company always did dance challenges together whenever their groups had a new comeback

˚✧ and that was the case with you and jay

˚✧ HYBE decided to pair you with enhypen's jay who was also your dear bf in order to do a dance challenge for your newest group comeback "super shy"

˚✧ and because both you,being form NewJeans and jay,being from enhypen did a dance challenge together it obviously shook both engenes and bunnies and actually most kpop fans

˚✧ but in reality what made the short dance clip so popular is because of the heart eyes you and jay kept doing at each other in the bts video and the shy glances you'd send each other while teaching him the choreography.

˚✧ after filming the tiktok video it blew up because of the many comments suggesting you guys had something going on underneath the idol facade you both put on

˚✧ and you know what they were right because not even 2 weeks later HYBE confirmed the raging news of their two idols dating

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟPark sunghoon X Ive's 7th member

˚✧ it was known that sunghoon from enhypen and wonyoung from ive were mc partners together

˚✧ and while many fans thought they looked good together because of their icy visuals it just wasn't the case

˚✧ When wonyoung had an overseas schedule in the US for a photoshoot you had to be the substitute mc for her alongside your boyfriend sunghoon

˚✧ fans noticed the fascinating chemistry between you guys and noticed how it was even better than that of sunghoon and wonyoung

˚✧ which lead to some investigation and what they turned out with is that you and sunghoon must have been friends for you guys to be so comfortable with each other

˚✧ but when they noticed the long lasting eye contact and the close approximity you guys had

˚✧ they knew you guys had to be way more than friends which lead to the fast spread of dating rumors surrounding two rising stars from two different companies

˚✧ the dating rumors got so bad that both HYBE and Starship had to reply to the rumors by confirming their artist's relationship with another idol

˚✧ and what both of you didn't expect was the immense amount of support you got from both engenes and dives

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟsim jaeyun x æspa's 5th member

ღ after recent dating rumors sparked around the internet of heeseung and karina,SM ent decided to pair you with yet another member of enhypen to film the new dance challenges of both your groups

ღ and while your companies knew that you and jake were dating, the news was yet to be revealed to the fans

ღ while jake was busy admiring the way you had quickly learned the choreography to his new group comeback 'sweet venom' fans quickly took notice of his lingering stares

ღ fans even noted the way you'd laugh about anything he said like you had known him for a long time

ღ and they thought that you guys fit together perfectly

ღ So Mys and engenes made it their mission to see any possible signs that show that the two of you are dating

ღ and they didn't need to look much as the hints were hidden in plain sight , in which fans quickly noticed you and Jake's shared spotify playlist as you guys had the exact same playlist playing on a weverse live

ღ as well as the countless matching necklaces and rings he got you from prada

ღ while this was enough evidence fans thought that it might just be a coincidence as you guys were famous idols and always wore luxurious jewelry

ღ but what wasn't a coincidence was the picture you accidentally posted on your personal Instagram account,that showed you and jake laying in bed with him petting your hair and you laying on his chest

ღ even though the picture was kinda blurry and was deleted in the matter of nanoseconds some fans manged to screenshot the picture of their favorite idols in a comforting state

ღ after two days of fans demanding for an answer from both companies,SM and HYBE quickly released a statement confirming their artist's relationship and hoping that fans will be acceptable and respectful as they chose to keep their relationship private just not secretive.

(A/N: I'm sorry this was so trashy lol😭😭 it's my first time ever writing something like this so excuse me😗

ps.if you have any constructive criticism you can give me it'll be appreciated just don't hate as this is all pure fiction and for entertainment purposes only 🌼)

dia asked me to tag her when i post this so @enmi-land here you go💓💓

˚✧

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns

But "why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?" is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren't Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it's just down to youth's appetite for novelty, but that's only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs.

"Switching costs" is the economists' term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps and purchased media. Switching from an airline where you're a high-status frequent flier to another carrier means giving up on free checked bags and early boarding.

In an open market, rivals have lots of ways to lower these switching costs (it's an open secret that you can call an airline and say, "Hi, I'm a 33rd Order Mason on American Airlines, will you make me a Triple Platinum Diamond Sky-Baron if I switch to Delta?"). Of course, big incumbents hate this, and do everything they can to increase their switching costs, finding ways to impose high switching costs that punish disloyal consumers who have the temerity to go elsewhere.

With social media, lock-in comes for free, thanks to the "collective action problem." Getting people to agree on a given course of action is hard, and as you add more people to the picture, the problem gets harder. It's hard enough to get half a dozen people in your group-chat to agree on where to go for dinner or what board-game to play. But once you're reliant on a social media service to stay in touch with friends, relatives around the world, customers, communities (say, rare disease support groups), and coordination (like organizing your kid's little league car-pool), the problem becomes nearly insoluble. Maybe you can convince your overseas relatives to switch to a Signal group, but can you do the same for your small business's customers, or your old high-school pals?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

Taken together, switching costs and collective action problems make platforms "sticky," and sticky platforms inevitably enshittify.

Platforms, after all, generate value. They connect end-users with each other (say, little league parents) and they connect end-users to business customers (you and your small business's customers). That value needs to be parceled out among end users, business customers, and the platform's shareholders. A platform can make life better for business customers at its end users' expense by increasing the number of ads (hello, Youtube!), and it can make life better for its shareholders at its business customers' expense by decreasing the share of ad revenue given to publishers or performers (oh, hello again, Youtube!).

From a platform's perspective, the ideal state is one in which end users and business customers get no value from the platform, because it's all being captured by the platform's shareholders. But if Youtube interrupted every 30 seconds of video for ten minutes of ads and paid the video creators nothing, both users and creators would ditch the platform – and advertisers would follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab8sKg8Ko8

So platforms seek an equilibrium: "what is the least value we apportion to end-users and business customers without triggering their departure?" Maybe that means giving more value to end-users (for example, keeping Uber fares low by suppressing wages), or to business-customers (crowding more ads into your social media feed).

Every business – including brick-and-mortar, non-digitized ones – wants to find some kind of equilibrium between the value going to its suppliers, its customers and its owners, but digital businesses have an advantage here: digital systems are flexible in ways that analog, hard-goods businesses are not. Digital businesses can alter pricing, payouts and other dynamics from moment to moment – second to second – and make a different offer to every supplier and customer. They have a bunch of knobs, and they can twiddle them at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Well, not quite at will. Businesses face constraints on their twiddling. If they get too greedy, users or business customers might weigh the cost of staying against the switching costs and decide it's not worth it. But the more expensive – the more painful – a platform can make leaving, the more pain they can inflict on the people who stay.

In other words, there's two ways to keep a customer or supplier's business: you can make a better service so they won't want to leave, or you can make leaving the service so painful that they stay even if you mistreat them.

There's three ways a digital company can make things worse for their customers and users without losing their business.

First, they can eliminate competition (think of Mark Zuckerberg buying Instagram to recapture the users who'd fled Facebook to escape his poor management):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Second, they can capture their regulators and avoid punishment for trampling their suppliers' or users' legal rights (think of how Amazon has raised the price of everything we buy, both on- and off Amazon, through its "most favored nation" deals):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Third, they can use IP law to prevent competitors from modifying their services to claw back some of that value (think of how Apple used legal threats to block an Android version of Imessage, blocking Apple customers from having private conversations that included non-Apple customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Companies can't just use this tricks at will, of course. Antitrust laws can block companies from making anticompetitve acquisitions or mergers. Regulators can punish companies for cheating their customers, workers and users. Technologists can come up with clever ways of modding or reconfiguring existing services with "interoperable" add-ons that let users bargain for better treatment by refusing to accept worse:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Day in, day out, the decision-makers at tech companies test these constraints, twisting the knobs that shift value away from users to shareholders. Their bosses and boards motivate them with "KPIs" that dangle the promise of huge bonuses and promotions for any manager who successfully enshittifies part of the company's products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Decades of pro-corporate, pro-monopoly policy has loosened those knobs. 40 years of lax antitrust meant that companies had a lot of leeway to buy or merge with rivals – that's changing today, but it's tough sledding:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

As sectors grew more concentrated, they found it easier to capture their regulators, so that they no longer fear punishment for price-gouging, spying, or wage-theft, so applying the same amount of torque to the "break the law" knob cranks it a lot further:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Once you've captured your regulators, you can aim them at your competitors. A monopoly-friendly policy environment has transformed IP law into a bully's charter, allowing powerful companies to strangle would-be competitors who dare to offer their customers tools to shield themselves from enshittification, like scrapers, ad-blockers and alternative clients. Big companies can crank the enshittification knob all the way over and know that smaller rivals knobs won't turn at all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

At one point, bosses faced one more constraint on knob-twiddling: their workforce. Many tech workers genuinely cared about their users' welfare, something bosses encouraged as a sneaky trick to get techies to put in long hours without exercising their leverage by quitting rather than destroying their lives to meet arbitrary deadlines. These workers would fearlessly slap their bosses' hands when they reached for the enshittification knob, threatening to quit rather than allowing the products they'd given so much for to be enshittified. Today, after hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs, tech workers are far less like to challenge their bosses' right to twiddle, and far more likely to get fired if they try:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

All this means that tech bosses don't have to change their approach at all, and yet, their services will grow steadily worse. The boss who twiddles the enshittification knob in exactly the same way as he did a year or a decade ago will find it turning much further, because his customers are locked into his platform, his regulators won't protect them, the same regulators will stop his competitors' attempts at countertwiddling, and his workers fear losing their jobs too much to speak up for their users.

That's the contagion that produced the enshittocene: the forces that constrained companies (competition, regulation, self-help and labor – all melted away, allowing every company's MBA-poisoned knob-twiddling leaders to shamelessly caress their knobs with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Which is why people want to leave platforms. When a platform loses its users, those users have weighed the switching costs against the pain of staying and decided that it's better to bear those costs than to stay.

So why have Tiktok's younger users found the costs too high to bear, and why have their elders remained stuck to the platform?

For that, we have to look at the unique characteristics of young people – characteristics that transcend the lazy cliche that kids are easily bored, fickle novelty-seekers who hop from one service to another with unquenchable restlessness.

Whether or not kids are novelty-seekers, they are, fundamentally, a disfavored minority. They want to do things that the platforms don't want them to do – like converse without being overheard by authority figures, including their parents and their schools (also: cops and future employers, though kids may not be thinking about them as much).

In other words, kids pay intrinsically lower switching costs than adults, because a platform will always do less for them than it will for grownups. This is a characteristic kids share with other supposedly technophilic, novelty-seeking "early adopters," from sex-workers to terrorists, from sexual minorities to trolls, from political dissidents to fascists. For those groups, the cost of mastering a new technology and assembling a community around it is always more likely to be worth bearing than it would be for people who are well-served by existing tools:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Pornographers didn't jump on home video because of its superiority as a medium for capturing flesh-tones. Home video was a good porn medium because it was easier to discreetly get into the hands of porn consumers, who could, in turn, discreetly view it. The audience for porn in the privacy of your living room is larger than the audience for porn that you can only watch if you're willing to be seen marching into a dirty movie theater.

Every new technology is popularized by a mix of disfavored groups and neophiles, who normalize and refine it – and yes, infuse it with their countercultural coolth – until it becomes easy enough to use to become mainstream. As more normies drift into the new system, the switching costs associated with leaving the old system declines. It gets easier and easier to find the people and services you want in the new realm, and harder and harder to find them in the old one.

This is why tech platforms have historically experienced sudden collapse: the platform that gets more valuable and harder to leave as it accumulates users gets less valuable and easier to leave as users depart:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

If you're a Gen Z kid on Tiktok, you experience the same enshittification as your Millennial elders. But you also experience an additional cost to staying: as late-arriving adult authority figures become more fluent in the platform, they are more able to observe your use of it, and punish you for conduct that you used to get away with.

And if you're a Millennial who isn't leaving Tiktok, it's not just that you experience the same enshittification as those departing Gen Z kids – you also face higher switching costs if you go. The older you get, the more complex your social connections grow. A Gen Z kid in middle school doesn't have to worry about losing touch with their high-school buddies if they switch platforms (they haven't gone to high school yet – and they see their middle school friends in person all the time, giving them a side-channel to share information about who's leaving Tiktok and where they're headed to next). Middle-schoolers don't have to worry about coordinating little league car-pools or losing access to a rare disease support group.

In other words: younger people leave old platforms earlier because they have more to gain by leaving; and older people leave old platforms later because they have more to lose by leaving.

This is why Facebook is filled with Boomers. Yes, their kids bolted for the exits to avoid having their parents (or grandparents) wading into their sexual, social and professional lives. But the reason the Boomers were late joining younger users' Facebook exodus – or the reason they never joined it – is that they stand to lose more by going. Facebook deliberately cultivated this dynamic, for example, by creating a photo hosting service designed to entice users into uploading their family photos while disguising how hard it would be to take those photos with them if they left:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The irony here is that tech has intrinsically low switching costs. All other things being equal, a new platform can always build a bridge to ease the passage of users from the old one. There's no (technical) reason that moving to Mastodon, or Bluesky, or any other platform should mean cutting ties with the people who stayed behind.

A combination of voluntary interoperability (where old platforms offer APIs to allow new services to connect with them), mandatory interop (where governments force tech companies to offer APIs) and adversarial interop (where new companies hack together their own API with reverse-engineering, scraping, bots, and other guerrilla tactics) would hypothetically allow users to hop between networks as easily as you change phone carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Tech platforms tend to offer APIs when they're getting started (to ease the inward passage of new users) then shut them down after they attain dominance (locking the door behind those users). The EU is tinkering with mandatory APIs through the Digital Markets Act (though bafflingly, they're starting with encrypted messaging rather than social media). Restoring adversarial interoperability will require extensive legal reform, which is getting started through Right to Repair laws:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law-apple-lobbied-to-kill/

The people who are stranded on social media platforms shouldn't be mistaken for uncool, aging technophobes. They're not stubborn, they're stranded. Like the elders who can't afford to leave a dying town after the factory shuts down and the young people move away, these people are locked in. They need help evacuating – a place to go and a path to get there.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/21/involuntary-die-hards/#evacuate-the-platformsr

#pluralistic

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fuckyeahgoodomens · 1 year ago

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The Radio Times magazine from the 29 July-04 August 2023 :)

THE SECOND COMING

How did Terry Pratchett and Neil gaiman overcome the small matter of Pratchett's death to make another series of their acclaimed divine comedy?

For all the dead authors in the world,” legendary comedy producer John Lloyd once said, “Terry Pratchett is the most alive.” And he’s right. Sir Terry is having an extremely busy 2023… for someone who died in 2015.

This week sees the release of Good Omens 2, the second series of Amazon’s fantasy comedy drama based on the cult novel Pratchett co-wrote with Neil Gaiman in the late 1980s. This will be followed in the autumn by a new spin-off book from Pratchett’s Discworld series, Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch, co-written by Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna and children’s author Gabrielle Kent. The same month, we’ll also get A Stroke of the Pen, a collection of “lost” short stories written by Sir Terry for local newspapers in the 70s and 80s and recently rediscovered. Clearly, while there are no more books coming from Pratchett – a hard drive containing all drafts and unpublished work was crushed by a vintage steamroller shortly after the author’s death, as per his specific wishes – people still want to visit his vivid and addictive worlds in new ways.

Good Omens 2 will be the first test of how this can work. The original book started life as a 5,000-word short story by Gaiman, titled William the Antichrist and envisioned as a bit of a mashup of Richmal Crompton’s Just William books and the 70s horror classic The Omen. What would happen, Gaiman had mused, if the spawn of Satan had been raised, not by a powerful American diplomat, but by an extremely normal couple in an idyllic English village, far from the influence of hellish forces? He’d sent the first draft to bestselling fantasy author Pratchett, a friend of many years, and then forgotten about it as he busied himself with continuing to write his massively popular comic books, including Violent Cases, Black Orchid and The Sandman, which became a Netflix series last year.

Pratchett loved the idea, offering to either buy the concept from Gaiman or co-write it. It was, as Gaiman later said, “like Michelangelo phoning and asking if you want to paint a ceiling” The pair worked on the book together from that point on, rewriting each other as they went and communicating via long phone calls and mailed floppy discs. “The actual mechanics worked like this: I would do a bit, then Neil would take it away and do a bit more and give it back to me,” Pratchett told Locus magazine in 1991. “We’d mess about with each other’s bits and pieces.”

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – to give it its full title –was published in 1990 to huge acclaim. It was one of, astonishingly, five Terry Pratchett novels to be published that year (he averaged two a year, including 41 Discworld novels and many other standalone works and collaborations).

It was also, clearly, extremely filmable, and studios came knocking — though getting it made took a while. rnvo decades on from its writing, four years after Pratchett's death from Alzheimer's disease aged 66, and after several doomed attempts to get a movie version off the ground, Good Omens finally made it to TV screens in 2019, scripted and show-run by Gaiman himself. "Terry was egging me on to make it into television. He knew he was dying, and he knew that I wouldn't start it without him," Gaiman revealed in a 2019 Radio Times interview. Amazon and the BBC co-produced with Pratchett's company Narrativia and Gaiman's Blank Corporation production studios, with Michael Sheen and David Tennant cast in the central roles of Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon. The show was a hit, not just with fans of its two creators, but with a whole new young audience, many of whom had no interest in Discworld or Sandman. Social media networks like Tumblr and TikTok were soon awash with cosplay, artwork and fan fiction. The original novel became, for the first time, a New York Times bestseller.

A follow up was, on one level, a no-brainer. The world Pratchett and Gaiman had created was vivid, funny and accessible, and Tennant and Sheen had found an intriguing romantic spark in their chemistry not present in the novel.

There was, however, a huge problem. There wasn't a second Good Omens book to base it on. But there was the ghost of an idea.

In 1989, after the book had been sold but before it had come out, the two authors had laid on fivin beds in a hotel room at a convention in Seattle and, jet-lagged and unable to sleep, plotted out, in some detail, what would happen in a sequel, provisionally titled 668, The II Neighbour of the Beast.

"It was a good one, too" Gaiman wrote in a 2021 blog. "We fully intended to write it, whenever we next had three or four months free. Only I went to live in America and Terry stayed in the UK, and after Good Omens was published, Sandman became SANDMAN and Discworld became DISCWORLD(TM) and there wasn't a good time."

Back in 1991, Pratchett elaborated, "We even know some of the main characters in it. But there's a huge difference between sitting there chatting away, saying, 'Hey, we could do this, we could do that,' and actually physically getting down and doing it all again." In 2019, Gaiman pillaged some of those ideas for Good Omens series one (for example, its final episode wasn't in the book at all), and had left enough threads dangling to give him an opening for a sequel. This is the well he's returned to for Good Omens 2, co-writing with comic John Finnemore - drafted in, presumably, to plug the gap left Pratchett's unparalleled comedic mind. No small task.

Projects like Good Omens 2 are an important proving ground for Pratchett's legacy: can the universes he conjured endure without their creator? And can they stay true to his spirit? Sir Terry was famously protective of his creations, and there have been remarkably few adaptations of his work considering how prolific he was. "What would be in it for me?" he asked in 2003. "Money? I've got money."

He wanted his work treated reverently and not butchered for the screen. It's why Good Omens and projects like Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch are made with trusted members of the inner circle like Neil Gaiman and Rhianna Pratchett at the helm. It's also why the author's estate, run by Pratchett's former assistant and business manager Rob Wilkins, keeps a tight rein on any licensed Pratchett material — it's a multi-million dollar media empire still run like a cottage industry.

And that's heartening. Anyone who saw BBC America's panned 2021 Pratchett adaptation The Watch will know how badly these things can go when a studio is allowed to run amok with the material without oversight. These stories deserve to be told, and these worlds deserve to be explored — properly. And there are, apparently, many plans afoot for more Pratchett on the screen. You can only hope that, somewhere, he'll be proud of the results.

After all, as he wrote himself, "No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence."

While those ripples continue to spread, Sir Terry Pratchett remains very much alive. MARC BURROWS

DIVINE DUO

An angel and a demon walk into a pub... Michael Sheen and David Tennant on family, friendship and Morecambe & Wise

Outside it's cold winter's day and we're in a Scottish studio, somewhere between Edinburgh and Glasgow. But inside it's lunchtime in The Dirty Donkey pub in the heart of London, with both Michael Sheen and David Tennant surveying the scene appreciatively. "This is a great pub," says Sheen eagerly, while Tennant calls it "the best Soho there can be. A slightly heightened, immaculate, perfect, dreamy Soho."

Here, a painting of the absent landlord — the late Terry Pratchett, co-creator, with Neil Gaiman, of the series' source novel — looms over punters. Around the corner is AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books. It's the bookshop owned by Sheen's character, the angel Aziraphale, and the place to where Tennant's demon Crowley is inevitably drawn.

It's day 74 of an 80-day shoot for a series that no one, least of all the leading actors, ever thought would happen, due to the fact that Pratchett and Gaiman hadn't ever published any sequel to their 1990 fantasy satire. Tennant explains, "What we didn't know was that Neil and Terry had had plots and plans..."

Still, lots of good things are in Good Omens 2, which expands on the millennia-spanning multiverse of the first series. These include a surprisingly naked side of John Hamm, and roles for both Tennant's father-in-law (Peter Davison) and 21-year-old son Ty. At its heart, though, remains the brilliant banter between the two leading men — as Sheen puts it, "very Eric and Ernie !" — whose chemistry on the first series led to one of the more surprising saviours of lockdown telly.

Good Omens is back — but you've worked together a lot in the meantime. Was there a connective tissue between series one of Good Omens and Staged, your lockdown sitcom?

David: Only in as much as the first series went out, then a few months later, we were all locked in our houses. And because of the work we'd done on Good Omens, it occurred that we might do something else. I mean, Neil Gaiman takes full responsibility for Staged. Which, to some extent, he's probably right to do!

Michael: We've got to know each other through doing this. Our lives have gotten more entwined in all kinds of ways — we have children who've now become friends, and our families know each other.

There have been hints of a romantic storyline between the two characters. How much of an undercurrent is that in this series.

David: Nothing's explicit.

Michael: I felt from the very beginning that part of what would be interesting to explore is that Aziraphale is a character, a being, who just loves. How does that manifest itself in a very specific relationship with another being? Inevitably, as there is with everything in this story, there's a grey area. The fact that people see potentially a "romantic relationship", I thought that was interesting and something to explore.

There was a petition to have the first series banned because of its irreverent take on Christian tropes. Series two digs even more deeply into the Bible with the story of Job. How much of a badge of honour is it that the show riles the people who like to ban things?

David: It's not an irreligious show at all. It's actually very respectful of the structure of that sort of religious belief. The idea that it promotes Satanism [is nonsense]. None of the characters from hell are to be aspired to at all! They're a dreadful bunch of non-entities. People are very keen to be offended, aren't they? They're often looking for something to glom on to without possibly really examining what they think they're complaining about.

Michael, you're known as an activist, and you're in the middle of Making BBC drama The Way, which "taps into the social and political chaos of today's world". Is it important for you to use your plaform to discuss causes you believe in?

Michael: The Way is not a political tract, it's just set in the area that I come from. But it has to matter to you, doesn't it? More and more as I get older, [I find] it can be a real slog doing this stuff. You've got to enjoy it. And if it doesn't matter to you, then it's just going to be depressing.

David, Michael has declared himself a "not-for-profit" actor. Has he tried to persuade you to give up all your money too?

David: What an extraordinary question! One is always aware that one has a certain responsibility if one is fortunate and gets to do a job that often doesn't feel like a job. You want to do your bit whenever you can. But at the same time, I'm an actor. I'm not about to give that up to go into politics or anything. But I'll do what I can from where I live.

Well, your son and your father-in-law are also starring in this series. How about that, jobs for the boys!

David: I know! It was a delight to get to be on set with them. And certainly an unexpected one for me. Neil, on two occasions, got to bowl up to me and say, "Guess who we've cast?!"

How do you feel about your US peers going on strike?

David: It's happening because there are issues that need to be addressed. Nobody's doing this lightly. These are important issues, and they've got to be sorted out for the future of our industry. There's this idea that writers and actors are all living high on the hog. For huge swathes of our industry, that's just not the case. These people have got to be protected.

Michael: We have to be really careful that things don't slide back to the way they were pre the 1950s, when the stories that we told were all coming from one point of view and the stories of certain people, or communities within our society, weren't represented. There's a sense that now that's changed for ever and it'll never go back. But you worry when people can't afford to have the opportunities that other people have. We don't want the story that we tell about ourselves to be myopic. You want it to be as inclusive as possible

Staged series 3 recently broadcast. It felt like the show's last hurrah — or is there more mileage? Sheen and Tennant go on holiday?

David: That's the Christmas special! One Foot in the Algarve! On the Buses Go to Spain!

Michael: I don't think we were thinking beyond three, were we?

So is it time for a conscious uncoupling for you two — Eric and Ernie say goodbye?

David: Oh, never say never, will we?

Michael: And it's more Hinge and Bracket.

David: Maybe that's what we do next — The Hinge and Bracket Story. CRAIG McLEAN

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maplewoodstreet · 1 year ago

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CONTENT WARNING: police, violence

Some Stop Cop City TikToks caught my attention

and got me interested in learning more about Cop City. I thought I would share some of the information I found.

from Police Foundations. These are not necessarily corporations that donated to Cop City, but they are to show that donating to police is something corporations regularly do.

Cop City is another name for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Funded with $90,000,000 in taxes and donations.

Largest police training facility in the United States.

Located in the densest black populated area in Georgia.

Cop City is being built in one of Atlanta’s last forests.

Stop Cop City protester and environmentalist activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was shot “12 or 13” times by a police officer despite Terán not firing at the police. The cop did not face charges because the killing was “objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case”.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr described Defend Atlanta Forest as “an anarchist, anti-police, and anti-business extremist organization” and 61 activists have been charged with domestic terrorism.

The Israel Defense Force (IDF) directly shares strategies with the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE). “The Atlanta Police Department and Fulton County SWAT teams had conducted training exercises in an abandoned hotel to remove “Hamas terrorists’.”

Corporations like Dunkin Donuts parent corporation Inspire Brands, Coca-Cola, Chic-Fil-A, Bank of America, UPS, Norfolk Southern, and more help fund Cop City with multimillion-dollar donations. Coca-Cola, UPS, Chic-Fil-A, and more made statements during the murder of George Floyd with things like “…end the cycle of systemic racism”, “creating social impact, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion”, and “building stronger communities.” Corporations often donate to police foundations.

Articles sourced:

https://prismreports.org/2023/11/14/stop-cop-city-gilee-palestinian-genocide/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2023/03/14/cops-and-donuts-go-together-more-than-you-thought-the-corporations-funding-cop-city-in-atlanta/

I’m not a professional or even a hobbyist journalist, so if I have wrong information here, please let me know.

#stop cop city #cop city #police brutality

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stellarsagittarius · 2 years ago

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☀️Sun in Synastry - How this person lights you up ☀️

[P.s. Please follow me on Instagram and Tiktok! @/Stellar_Sagittarius I post even more astrology content on it and it's a business I'm trying to grow. Your presence means a lot to me ❤️.]

Masterlist: All my astrology posts at one place

‼️Natal Chart/Solar Return Chart readings are on OFFER. 11.11 USD for one chart! Open till 20th June 2023‼️

For other readings check the pinned blogpost!

Their Sun in your 1st House Synastry

Sun is the illumination. Sun is attention and the core of our essence. When someone's Sun falls in your 1st house, you can expect this person to completely transform your outlook on life. The Sun person will show you new ways of being, they will show you traits about yourself, they will be like a mirror to you. Their love language will be to motivate the heck out of you. This person will encourage you immensely to be a better person. They will teach a lot about who you are. Your mindset will expand and grow with this person's presence. They will hold you down in your darkest times, and will fly together with you in your best times. Expect a lot of compliments from this person, a lot of deep talks where you touch the very ways of being authentic & being yourself, a lot of admiration for the person that you are! You both will relate to each other immensely and will grow together as two individuals. The Sun person will feel like they found a person worth sharing their life with, because you two are so similar in so many ways. There could be a little bit of competition involved, but rest assured if this is a healthy relationship, you won't have to worry.

Their Sun in your 2nd House Synastry

This is kind of materialistic, but this person is actually so whipped up for you, that they can't really focus on anything else. This person is extremely attracted to how you carry yourself, what your beliefs and focus on life is, what it is that you do with your body, your possessions, how you act, etc. This person has a whole dictionary about you built in their heads. This may sound a bit obsessive, BUT it's in a good way. Because this person simply adores the way you carry yourself. They are attracted to how nicely you put yourself together, your habits and values, they are super inspired by that! You can expect this person to gift you a lot of things that they might want to be a part of your aesthetic. They might be super touchy, especially in healthy romantic relationships, the Sun person will love to adore your body, make you feel good about yourself, see you enjoying the experiences they give to you ;) . You will feel like they constantly have their eyes on you and even from a far without seeing it you can just tell that they were peeking glances at you. You will feel super adored and cherished by them. And they will make sure to do whatever it is that will put a genuine smile on your face.

Their Sun in your 3rd House Synastry

This person will be extremely talkative around you. Even if this is a very shy and introverted person, you can very well expect their talkative side to come out in your presence! They will naturally feel like expressing their thoughts to you. And they will feel like found an amazing companion with whom they can discuss anything and grow their minds in plenty of ways. You both will share a lot of deep conversations, ideas that you both will bond on, and you can expect plenty of similar opinions on plenty of things. The Sun person will open up to you in plenty of way and you will find a buddy with whom you share a lot of similar ideas and interests. This is not extremely romantic, like the cases where the couple is super intimate or involved in each other's lives. This is more lighthearted and about a very beautiful friendship built on common interests. This person's love language is to speak what they feel about you, they are very honest and don't really sugarcoat anything. You can always expect to have a good laugh with this person about anything. They will be super goofy around you.

Their Sun in your 4th House Synastry

When someone's Sun falls in your 4th house, you can really expect a sense of intimacy and closeness with that person. This person will feel like a home that you always wanted to return to. You both will build a very deep sense of attachment and closeness with each other. The Sun person will feel very seen in the presence of the house person. They will like they finally found a person who understands them to a great length. You both will be very active when alone. Expect a lot of quality time together where you both just spend as much time as you both can simply understanding each other and feeling comfortable in each other's presence. You both will share a lot of "secrets", in a way where the Sun person will only open up truly with you. You will see a very emotionally charged and vulnerable side of the Sun person. They will feel like you can just 'get' them for no real reason, and therefore sometimes they might feel a bit hesitant or shy with you. Their love language is to spend time alone together where you both create this safe space for each other to express whatever you both feel. You can also expect almost this baby like behavior from this person because they just feel so safe with you!

Their Sun in your 5th House Synastry

When the Sun falls in the 5th house in synastry, an undeniable sense of joy and creative expression permeates the connection between two individuals. The Sun person becomes a radiant source of inspiration and vitality for the house person, igniting a profound sense of playfulness and enjoyment in their presence. There is a natural harmony and synchronization between the energies, fostering a deep emotional connection and a shared zest for life's pleasures. The house person experiences a magnetic pull towards the Sun person, as if they have found a muse who understands and appreciates their unique talents and desires. When someone's Sun falls in your 5th house, it's like you've found your own personal ray of sunshine. The Sun feels naturally themselves in your presence. Since is at home in the 5th house. This connection thrives on quality time spent together, nurturing a sacred space where they can openly express their deepest emotions and create lasting memories. The love language between them is a fusion of passion, creativity, and genuine companionship, creating a tapestry of shared experiences that celebrates their individuality and brings out the best in each other.

Their Sun in your 6th House Synastry

When someone's Sun falls in your 6th house in synastry, it's like having a dependable partner who's got your back. This person brings stability and practicality to the table, making you feel supported and grounded. They understand the importance of getting things done and staying organized, which meshes well with your need for routines, and a stable life. Together, you make a great team, always ready to lend a helping hand and push each other to achieve your goals. You appreciate how the Sun person sees your efforts and values your attention to detail. You'll find yourselves spending a lot of time working together, tackling tasks and creating a sense of accomplishment. Acts of service and practical gestures are their love language. You both show each other that you're reliable and committed to help each other in whatever situation. This is a good aspect for co-workers and if you both are working on something together, like managing a home and kids! The Sun person will show you ways to have better routines or they might totally change your lifestyle. You both make an awesome team!

Their Sun in your 7th House Synastry

With someone's Sun in your 7th house, you will experience a deep sense of commitment and closeness with them. The Sun person will be like your soulmate, your perfect companion. You will find that all the qualities that you seek in an ideal partner, are presented in the Sun person. With this placement, you both will feel like each other's ride or die, or partner's in crime. The Sun person's love language is to spend a lot of quality time together, literally being together, and just supporting each other in whatever. This is a very ideal placement for romantic relationships because the Sun person becomes this perfect other half. The 7th house is all about "the others." Sun will help you feel fulfilled in this relationship, will teach you a lot about relationships and making a relationship itself work. You will learn to depend upon each other in a healthy way, to communicate your needs in a healthy way, and to learn how you can be there for someone through the thick and thin. There will be a lot of joy and playfulness in this relationship. You will feel like you found you soulmate, or a person that just simply gets you!

Their Sun in your 8th House Synastry

The 8th house, especially in Synastry is super intense and deep. Because the 8th house is all about bonds, secrets, transformation and rebirth. It's all about what you share with someone else. Therefore when someone's Sun falls into your 8th house, you can expect to share an extremely deep connection with them. And by deep, I don't mean just deep talks, this is a whole mind, body and soul deep. This will bind you to the Sun person on a whole new level. You both will feel super involved in each other's lives. The Sun person will illuminate your secrets, your deepest darkest side, all your shadows. You will feel like a completely different person in their presence. They will show you parts of yourself that were so deeply buried within you. This person's love language, honestly is just anything that exist to make you feel loved and better. The Sun person is so infatuated, so intrigued by your essence, that they can't help but be involved in anything and everything that you do. They don't hold back. This relationship might get obsessive sometimes for the both of you, but remember to always trust each other first and foremost. You both will thrive in environments when both of your needs are met equally.

Their Sun in your 9th House Synastry

When someone's Sun falls into your 9th house, you can truly expect this connection to be full of excitement and growth. This is the type of couple that will explore the world together, have adventures, make plenty of memories, teach each other so much about life, and these two might even change each other's philosophy/outlook on life while in this relationship. The Sun person feels super interested about learning your philosophy on life. The Sun person looks up to you as this wise soul who can teach them a lot about life. You will feel like the Sun person is this curious soul who is always eager to learn something new about life. With this aspect you can expect a relationship filled with a sense of adventure, any kind of. You will have more fun with the Sun person than you have had with any other person (unless they have their Sun in your 9th house as well). Sun's love language is to make memories with you, any kind of. They would love to go on adventures with you, travel with you, make beautiful memories with you. Anything with the Sun person will feel super thrilling. This might turn into a restless energy where both of you can't catch up with each other's need to live their life to the fullest. The Sun person will be your greatest teacher about life.

Their Sun in your 10th House Synastry

The 10th house is the highest point in the sky, and having someone's Sun there tells us that they will be an extremely influential person when it comes to our public image. The Sun person is naturally the person who other people consider you to be. Your social mask will be even more illuminated by the Sun person. They will shine bright, when they are around you. People might be immensely drawn to their presence in your life. This also symbolizes that the Sun person will play an important role in your career and public life. They are someone who gives you much more publicity than you usually get or if you are an introverted person they make you become super social and interactive with others. Sun will also make you feel more confident and bold than usual. You will feel a heightened sense of ambition, recognition and power. This is kind of giving, "Whenever you will be remembered/talked about by others, some way or the other the Sun person's name will follow up." The Sun person will bring you lots of growth in your career field, and they will almost be like a mentor. Romantically speaking, the Sun person loves to show you off, praise you for your achievements, and they love it when people see you both together.

Their Sun in your 11th House Synastry

The 11th house is all about networking, dreams, hopes, long term plans, etc. This is the most social house. When someone's Sun falls in your 11th house, you will find that they are present in every one of your social interactions somehow. Sun person will be very popular among your friends and networks. The Sun person will give you a heightened sense of going after what you desire. They will truly be your biggest cheerleader. You will feel like you found you best friend who is with you on every step of the way while you set out to fulfill your hopes and desires. They will help you immensely along the way, perhaps by guiding you with the right steps to take or by introducing you to people who can help you immensely. The Sun person will feel like a beautiful star around your presence because you share with them your plans and hopes. They will feel like you value them a lot because they are like this guiding light in your life. Sun's love language is to include you in their own dreams and plans, to always encourage you and be there for you as a helping hand whenever you aspire for something. You will find a deep sense of fulfillment in this relationship because Sun will help you realise a lot more about your own ideals of life.

Their Sun in your 12th House Synastry

12th house is the most "hidden in plain sight" type of house. Often times the Sun person will express themselves in such subtle ways that will make you wonder if they are really expressing themselves or if it's just you. This relationship is build on very subconscious clues and those unrecognizable signs. The Sun person activates this intuitive side of yours where you can just perceive what's up with them or why they are behaving the way they are. A heightened intuition is a keyword here. The Sun person finds you to be very mysterious, and someone who they cannot really understand just by looking at the surface. The Sun person feels a lot of intense thoughts/emotions whenever you are around. And you feel super attracted to them because they feel like this ball of light that has lit up your darkest house. This person might make you loose your mind upon how intensely obsessed they make you feel with them, and vice versa. There is a sense of very strong connection on the spiritual side, therfore it's also a very karmic house because this type of intense connection will tangle you both very deeply with each other. You will feel like an unexplainable attraction towards them, and you will be fascinated by who they are as a person.

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