#like literally it would be so relevant today | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

delusional-day-dreamer · 6 months ago

Text

U My Everything - p.b

‣ paige x grumpy reader: part two here!

‣ wc: 3178

‣‣ synopsis: paige's harmless joke is taken a little too personally by her sensitive and grumpy girlfriend; slight angst? but very fluffy by the end! (the song is most relevant for the end part of the fic as it's inspired by KK's 05/31/24 live, can u tell I live for uconn lives?)

‣‣‣ a/n: I'M SORRY, i know y'all chose emily in the poll but I alr finished this one and I've promised myself I would try to release at least one fic a day; emily's will be out very very soon, writing smut for the first time is just very nerve wracking lmao. this is lightly based off the, good morning gorgeous, tiktok trend going around rn; Also, I'm so sorry for the amount of times I use y'all, like, literally, and really because I try to make my dialogue and what not as realistic as possible, but as a Southern Californian they're literally engraved into my vocabulary 😭😭.

Rolling over in bed half-conscious, your arms reach out, patting around the bed in an attempt to locate your girlfriend's warmth without having to open your eyes. However, to your sheer disappointment, your fingers are met with cold, rumpled sheets on Paige's side of the bed.

Now fully conscious with confusion as to how your girlfriend managed to slip from bed without you realizing, the pounding in your head became all the more severe as you sat up in bed, frustrated that the one person who could comfort you simply with their presence was nowhere to be found.

With your right hand massaging the temple, attempting to soothe the deep ache that had settled into the front portion of your head, your left hand blindly felt around your nightstand for your phone, knowing Paige wouldn't have left you alone in bed without so much as a simple text message. But to your surprise, her name was absent from your list of notifications.

Even more annoyed than before, you forced yourself out of her bed, stumbling your way to her adjacent bathroom, wincing at the sudden intrusion that was fluorescent lighting. By the time you began brushing your teeth, you heard the front door open, hearing Paige call your name as she entered the dorm.

"Bathroom," you yelled out to her, despite your head screaming at you to shut up and crawl back under the safety of Paige's comforter.

"Hey baby," Paige greeted as she entered the bathroom while you spit toothpaste into the sink, coming up behind you to hug your waist, resting her head on your shoulder. As you stood back up to meet her gaze in the mirror's reflection, you saw her tuck her bottom lip into her mouth, clearly trying to hide her shit-eating grin.

"Well don't you look... interesting this morning," she teased, the sarcasm apparent in her low voice. You knew her mocking was all in good fun, the two of you often poking fun at each other for little things. But perhaps it was the headache still waging war in your skull, or the final three midterms you had to take later today, or your remanent annoyance at having to wake up alone, despite her knowing your favorite part of the day was waking up, warm and all loved up in her arms, or perhaps it was the fact that looking in the mirror, you genuinely looked wrecked this morning.

Your curly hair was reduced to nothing but a puff of frizz overnight, sticking out in all directions, your eyebags particularly prominent this morning, combined with the pesky anxiety breakout that had settled into your forehead a few days prior, you just couldn't handle her jokes today.

"Yes, thank you for pointing that out Paige," you shot back, setting your toothbrush back in its cup holder, exiting her hold to wipe your hands on the small towel before pushing past her to get dressed in her room.

Paige followed close behind you, curious as to why you were giving her so much attitude so early in the day, especially over such a harmless statement.

"What's up with you, this is the first time I've even seen you this morning," She questioned from her seat on the unmade bed as you began changing your clothes with your back facing her, which was another thing that struck out to her as odd. After dating for over a year now, the two of you were incredibly comfortable with each other, and it was rare for you to completely turn your back on her, even when changing.

"Nothing, I'm just not in the mood today," you grumbled, tugging your, her, sweatshirt over your head. Heading over to her floor length mirror with your makeup bag and necessary hair products in hand, you settle down on the floor in front of it, convinced to improve your appearance a bit before you head off to your exams today. Still ignoring Paige's presence in the room, you began getting ready.

Hearing her scoff as you started applying your makeup, she got up and began making the bed, intent on ignoring your bratty mood until you fixed it. You knew you were being petty and acting bitchy to your girlfriend, who had technically done nothing wrong, you just couldn't force yourself to drop the attitude. By the time you finished your makeup and smoothed out your slickback, you managed to go the entire twenty minutes without so much as looking at your girlfriend through the mirror, who had now perched herself on her side of the bed, scrolling mindlessly on her phone.

Your headache hadn't subsided yet, but now that you were more awake, you had gotten used to the throbbing sensation. Making your way over to your side of her bed, you collected your phone, headphones, watch, school bag, and other items from your nightstand and around the area to get ready to leave.

"Your heading out already? You still have over an hour before your first class," Paige finally addressed you, putting her phone in her lap to look at you as you packed your things.

"Yeah I'm gonna head to the library early so I can review before my first midterm," You answered, speaking to her normally for the first time in the last hour she had returned.

"But what about breakfast, you're not gonna be able to concentrate and stuff when you're all hangry," she said, only slightly teasing you with her statement.

"I'll just grab something to eat from the coffee shop next to the library, I was gonna stop by and get matcha from there anyways," you responded, a small part inside of you glad that despite your attitude, Paige made sure that you were well taken care of.

"Dude I still don't understand how you drink that stuff, tastes like straight grass," she had dropped her concern and switched back to joking, her automatic setting. "But I guess it's fitting," she continued, "cause yk, cows just love their grass," she sighed, holding back her laughter at what she thought was a brilliant joke.

In her defense, if it was any other morning, you would've joined in on her teasing, either mooing at her in response or poking fun at her in return.

But today, it just ticked you off even further. I mean, you were clearly already in a bad mood, stressed the fuck out, hangry (but Paige didn't need to know she was right), and the sharp pressure in your head was only getting worse. Plus, Paige had already easily finished off her midterm exams two days prior, which meant she didn't truly understand why you were so worked up over your exams. And the worst part, your bloating and exhaustion really did make you feel a little bit like a cow.

“P I'm just not in the mood to deal with you right now," you sighed, exasperation laced in your tone. "I already feel bad enough this morning, I can't handle you piling more onto my plate, I'll see you later," you barely even said goodbye to her properly as you gathered your stuff, put on your shoes, and left her dorm.

The second you closed her door behind you, you could feel the pit forming in your stomach, full of regret and shame. You knew it was unfair to be so rude to Paige when she was just trying to lighten your mood, but your anxiety always caused you to last out at anyone who tried to help you. You made a mental note while walking to your favorite coffee shop to apologize and make it up to her when you saw her in the evening, after the stress from midterm week had diffused and your raging headache calmed down.

***SMALL TIME SKIP***

You were flipping through your study notes and flashcards while listening to one of Paige's playlist on the lowest volume possible when you saw your phone screen light up from next to you. Deciding it would be good to take a quick thirty second break, you reach for your phone and matcha latte at the same time, clicking on the text message you received from Paige.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From P 💜:

I'm so sorry for making fun of you this morning baby, I know you're stressed about your tests today and I had no intentions of making you feel worse with my jokes, I just wanted to cheer you up a bit because I know how bad your anxiety can get. Good luck on your test today killer, i love you 🤍.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Shit, now you really felt bad for snapping at her earlier today. All remnants of your misplaced anger had long since disappeared, now replaced with embarrassment. She was right, your anxiety was hitting you hard today, but that was no excuse for bitching out your girlfriend just for trying to improve your mood. You quickly hearted her message and began typing out a short response, as you knew you needed to apologize in-person for your behaviour.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

To P 💜:

Thank you so much P, I'll see you later tonight baby. I love you too 🤍

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

***SMALL TIME SKIP***

You breathed a sigh of relief as you finally reached the floor of Paige's dorm room, exhausted from your long and mentally tiring day of midterms, but you were finally done, your headache was finally gone, and you now had the weekend to relax and spend time with your girlfriend.

As you reached for your keys in your pocket, you heard the loud commotion of voices that you recognized to be KK, Aubrey, Sarah, Allie, and Paige in the living room. It wasn't uncommon for the girls to be over, as the team always spent hung out together outside of practice, and since you started spending more time at Paige's dorm, you had quickly stocked her near bare kitchen full of snacks, baked goods, and home-cooked meals the girls loved to steal.

You entered the living room greeting everyone as you took off your shoes, making a beeline straight to where Paige was sitting on the couch. You stood in between the space of her legs, wrapping your free arm around her shoulders to lean down and plant a kiss on the top of her head.

"Hey P," you spoke softly, looking down at the small smile that had settled on her face.

"Hey yourself, how were you midterms? Today was your last day right?" She questioned as her fingertips began running up and down the back of your legging covered thigh.

"They were fine, I think I did good on majority of them. My math midterm was a little shaky, but not too bad yk?" You answered her quietly, afraid to pop the little bubble of peace you two had created around yourselves among the chaos of the living room's occupants.

"I," you began, as your hand had made its way to the front of her face as you pushed back a small piece of hair that had escaped out of her bun. "Will you come in the room with me real quick?" You asked her, practically whispering at this point.

"Yeah of course baby," she answered quickly, letting her hand travel up your body to rest at the small of your back as she stood up, leading you past everyone to her bedroom.

"We'll be right back," she announced to the group as the two of walked by. "Oooo, Paige is in trouble," KK sang out as the two of you reached her closed room door, Paige still standing behind you. She turned the knob quickly, gently pushing you into the room first as she turned around to stick her tongue out at KK before she closed the door.

By the time she turned around from the door to face you, she barely had a moment to adjust to your body barreling into her, as you had already dropped your bag off next to her desk. She quickly wrapped her arms around you, being able to sense that you just needed to be held for a minute before speaking.

She lightly rubbed your back and shoulders with her hands, knowing exactly what it was that immediately calmed you down. You stayed silent in her comforting embrace for a few more minutes, having craved her touch all day when you were around campus.

"I'm sorry," you finally spoke up, unburying your head from her chest to look her in the eyes. "I was really rude to you for no reason this morning. My headache when I woke up and all the stress I had was completely unrelated to you, but I still ended up taking it out on you," you sighed before continuing, "I really appreciate the fact that you were trying to cheer me up this morning, even though I was being a total bitch. And you are never a burden or someone who adds more onto my plate, I love you and I'm so sorry I said that to you, I would never want you to feel that way and-" as your eyes began to well up with tears, the last of your apology was cut off by Paige.

"Hey hey it's okay baby," she pulled you slightly away from her as the tears began flowing from your eyes. "I know you," she maintained eye contact as she reassured you, "And I know you would never act like that normally, you are not a bitch. You were just stressed out and not feeling well. I understand, and I promise I'm not mad at you at all," her right hand moved up from your back to your face, wiping the tears streaming down your face.

"Thank you P, I have no idea what I would do without you," you sniffled lightly, your hand coming up to wipe your face as well. "I love you so much, you have no idea," you professed.

"I love you too y/n/n," she whispered as her hands wrapping around your waist as she pulled you into her, leaning down slightly to kiss you. Your hands flew up the moment your lips connected, one cradling her jaw while the other rested on the base of her neck. The kiss was slow and languid, an apology met with forgiveness as your lips moved together.

The loud rumbling of your stomach, interrupted your sweet moment with Paige, forcing the two of you to separate as a giggle slipped out of her.

"Didn't realize a small kiss made you that hungry for me," she smiled, now at peace knowing that you were no longer upset. "Shut up," you smiled back, lightly hitting her chest as you broke away from her. "I am for real hungry though, but I need to shower first," you told her as you moved around the room, grabbing your towel and a fresh pair of pajamas to change into.

"I'm pretty sure Aubrey is ordering Domino's so I'll tell her to add in something for you, and it'll probably be here by the time you get out," she kissed your cheek as you went to exit the room, heading for a quick shower as she remained in her room.

***SMALL TIME SKIP***

As you entered the living room, curls freshly washed, a soft pair of Paige's sweatpants resting low on your hips, and a small off the shoulder sweatshirt over your sleep tank top, you witness KK showing her tik tok live her "hips dance", if it could even be referred to as that.

"Oh wow," Paige commented dryly at the sight while getting up from the couch so she could grab her laptop from the kitchen counter. You moved past her to Aubrey's desk, grabbing a piece of garlic knots from the Domino's box she left partially open (i don't think she actually bought any but I'm craving them so i added it in here). You rested your hip against the table, waving at the live while KK queued up Sexyy Red on her Siri.

Everyone knew you and Paige were a couple, when Paige accidentally hard-launched you by posting a cute couples pic on her main instagram story instead of her close friends. But since then, the two of you kept a private but not secret relationship, very occasionally posting together, but fans often saw candids of the two of you on dates or together in the team's lives or other events.

You licked the remaining cheese and butter off your fingers as you watched Paige, KK, and Aubrey dance in front of the camera to "U My Everything", smiling at their so-called dance moves, especially Paige's.

"Man we go together tell them hoes we go together," Paige sang, before doing her little "attitude now walk" move, making you double over with laughter at her with the other two girls.

You scratched the back of your neck as you continued to watch the girls mess around, too tired from your day to join them, but content just from watching them. As the second chorus approached, Paige walked up to your leaned figure on the desk, grabbing your bare waist and pulling you into her as she sang.

"Bae, I love you, you my everything, I'm your main bitch, fuck a wedding ring," you laughed at her awful singing, but you couldn't deny the blush that rose to your cheeks at the thought of her singing you the lyrics while very clearly in the live's frame. "We both in fast cars and we switchin' lanes, when I'm away from you, you always on my brain," she continued, adding in her sassy facial expressions with the corresponding lyrics.

You couldn't help but laugh at her actions, the pure giddiness coursing through your veins was a complete 180 from your mood this morning, and you couldn't help but think there was nowhere that would make you happier than in her arms.

Thank you for reading all the way through! The recent support has been crazy and I appreciate all of you! Should I make a part two to this with smut so r can properly apologize to p.... 😏😏😏

1K notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

Text

Even if you think AI search could be good, it won’t be good

TONIGHT (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

The big news in search this week is that Google is continuing its transition to "AI search" – instead of typing in search terms and getting links to websites, you'll ask Google a question and an AI will compose an answer based on things it finds on the web:

https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/

Google bills this as "let Google do the googling for you." Rather than searching the web yourself, you'll delegate this task to Google. Hidden in this pitch is a tacit admission that Google is no longer a convenient or reliable way to retrieve information, drowning as it is in AI-generated spam, poorly labeled ads, and SEO garbage:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

Googling used to be easy: type in a query, get back a screen of highly relevant results. Today, clicking the top links will take you to sites that paid for placement at the top of the screen (rather than the sites that best match your query). Clicking further down will get you scams, AI slop, or bulk-produced SEO nonsense.

AI-powered search promises to fix this, not by making Google search results better, but by having a bot sort through the search results and discard the nonsense that Google will continue to serve up, and summarize the high quality results.

Now, there are plenty of obvious objections to this plan. For starters, why wouldn't Google just make its search results better? Rather than building a LLM for the sole purpose of sorting through the garbage Google is either paid or tricked into serving up, why not just stop serving up garbage? We know that's possible, because other search engines serve really good results by paying for access to Google's back-end and then filtering the results:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Another obvious objection: why would anyone write the web if the only purpose for doing so is to feed a bot that will summarize what you've written without sending anyone to your webpage? Whether you're a commercial publisher hoping to make money from advertising or subscriptions, or – like me – an open access publisher hoping to change people's minds, why would you invite Google to summarize your work without ever showing it to internet users? Nevermind how unfair that is, think about how implausible it is: if this is the way Google will work in the future, why wouldn't every publisher just block Google's crawler?

A third obvious objection: AI is bad. Not morally bad (though maybe morally bad, too!), but technically bad. It "hallucinates" nonsense answers, including dangerous nonsense. It's a supremely confident liar that can get you killed:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/01/mushroom-pickers-urged-to-avoid-foraging-books-on-amazon-that-appear-to-be-written-by-ai

The promises of AI are grossly oversold, including the promises Google makes, like its claim that its AI had discovered millions of useful new materials. In reality, the number of useful new materials Deepmind had discovered was zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

This is true of all of AI's most impressive demos. Often, "AI" turns out to be low-waged human workers in a distant call-center pretending to be robots:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

Sometimes, the AI robot dancing on stage turns out to literally be just a person in a robot suit pretending to be a robot:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

The AI video demos that represent "an existential threat to Hollywood filmmaking" turn out to be so cumbersome as to be practically useless (and vastly inferior to existing production techniques):

https://www.wheresyoured.at/expectations-versus-reality/

But let's take Google at its word. Let's stipulate that:

a) It can't fix search, only add a slop-filtering AI layer on top of it; and

b) The rest of the world will continue to let Google index its pages even if they derive no benefit from doing so; and

c) Google will shortly fix its AI, and all the lies about AI capabilities will be revealed to be premature truths that are finally realized.

AI search is still a bad idea. Because beyond all the obvious reasons that AI search is a terrible idea, there's a subtle – and incurable – defect in this plan: AI search – even excellent AI search – makes it far too easy for Google to cheat us, and Google can't stop cheating us.

Remember: enshittification isn't the result of worse people running tech companies today than in the years when tech services were good and useful. Rather, enshittification is rooted in the collapse of constraints that used to prevent those same people from making their services worse in service to increasing their profit margins:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags

These companies always had the capacity to siphon value away from business customers (like publishers) and end-users (like searchers). That comes with the territory: digital businesses can alter their "business logic" from instant to instant, and for each user, allowing them to change payouts, prices and ranking. I call this "twiddling": turning the knobs on the system's back-end to make sure the house always wins:

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

What changed wasn't the character of the leaders of these businesses, nor their capacity to cheat us. What changed was the consequences for cheating. When the tech companies merged to monopoly, they ceased to fear losing your business to a competitor.

Google's 90% search market share was attained by bribing everyone who operates a service or platform where you might encounter a search box to connect that box to Google. Spending tens of billions of dollars every year to make sure no one ever encounters a non-Google search is a cheaper way to retain your business than making sure Google is the very best search engine:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Competition was once a threat to Google; for years, its mantra was "competition is a click away." Today, competition is all but nonexistent.

Then the surveillance business consolidated into a small number of firms. Two companies dominate the commercial surveillance industry: Google and Meta, and they collude to rig the market:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

That consolidation inevitably leads to regulatory capture: shorn of competitive pressure, the companies that dominate the sector can converge on a single message to policymakers and use their monopoly profits to turn that message into policy:

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

This is why Google doesn't have to worry about privacy laws. They've successfully prevented the passage of a US federal consumer privacy law. The last time the US passed a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988. It's a law that bans video store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you rented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

In Europe, Google's vast profits lets it fly an Irish flag of convenience, thus taking advantage of Ireland's tolerance for tax evasion and violations of European privacy law:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Google doesn't fear competition, it doesn't fear regulation, and it also doesn't fear rival technologies. Google and its fellow Big Tech cartel members have expanded IP law to allow it to prevent third parties from reverse-engineer, hacking, or scraping its services. Google doesn't have to worry about ad-blocking, tracker blocking, or scrapers that filter out Google's lucrative, low-quality results:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Google doesn't fear competition, it doesn't fear regulation, it doesn't fear rival technology and it doesn't fear its workers. Google's workforce once enjoyed enormous sway over the company's direction, thanks to their scarcity and market power. But Google has outgrown its dependence on its workers, and lays them off in vast numbers, even as it increases its profits and pisses away tens of billions on stock buybacks:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

Google is fearless. It doesn't fear losing your business, or being punished by regulators, or being mired in guerrilla warfare with rival engineers. It certainly doesn't fear its workers.

Making search worse is good for Google. Reducing search quality increases the number of queries, and thus ads, that each user must make to find their answers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

If Google can make things worse for searchers without losing their business, it can make more money for itself. Without the discipline of markets, regulators, tech or workers, it has no impediment to transferring value from searchers and publishers to itself.

Which brings me back to AI search. When Google substitutes its own summaries for links to pages, it creates innumerable opportunities to charge publishers for preferential placement in those summaries.

This is true of any algorithmic feed: while such feeds are important – even vital – for making sense of huge amounts of information, they can also be used to play a high-speed shell-game that makes suckers out of the rest of us:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/11/for-you/#the-algorithm-tm

When you trust someone to summarize the truth for you, you become terribly vulnerable to their self-serving lies. In an ideal world, these intermediaries would be "fiduciaries," with a solemn (and legally binding) duty to put your interests ahead of their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

But Google is clear that its first duty is to its shareholders: not to publishers, not to searchers, not to "partners" or employees.

AI search makes cheating so easy, and Google cheats so much. Indeed, the defects in AI give Google a readymade excuse for any apparent self-dealing: "we didn't tell you a lie because someone paid us to (for example, to recommend a product, or a hotel room, or a political point of view). Sure, they did pay us, but that was just an AI 'hallucination.'"

The existence of well-known AI hallucinations creates a zone of plausible deniability for even more enshittification of Google search. As Madeleine Clare Elish writes, AI serves as a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

That's why, even if you're willing to believe that Google could make a great AI-based search, we can nevertheless be certain that they won't.

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/2024/05/15/they-trust-me-dumb-fucks/#ai-search

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

djhughman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modular_synthesizer_-_%22Control_Voltage%22_electronic_music_shop_in_Portland_OR_-_School_Photos_PCC_%282015-05-23_12.43.01_by_djhughman%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #twiddling #ai #ai search #enshittification #discipline #google #search #monopolies #moral crumple zones #plausible deniability #algorithmic feeds

1K notes · View notes