#( brain is full of bees so we'll see )

[dullweapons]

cause of health issues i played a lot of we ♡ katamari , so have some cousins . ( botw / totk zelda , master kohga with his spikey katamari , ray , oot adult link ! )

[analyzing-people-like-hell]

saw your recent post in the sanders sides tag - here goes:

Some of these are more fun-to-watch than relates-to-me, but I figure listing ‘em all will give you more to work with.

Listed in alphabetical order, except as needed to group sources together.

Alastor, Hazbin Hotel (show)

- He’s charming, confident, very good in his chosen field, and also happens to be AroAce. He appreciates jokes, but can also be intimidating.

Cayde-6, Destiny (game)

- Quick wit, quick shot. Always fun to hear his dialogue during missions and strikes. The kinda guy you’d go to for a good story (or if you’re lookin’ for extra paperwork to do).

Crow, Destiny (game)

- Good guy, interesting situation (read: tragic backstory). Not exactly doomed-by-the-narrative, but…

The Doctor (10th), Doctor Who (show)

- Honestly, not sure why. He’s just fun to watch. (Also, he has a very distinct/memorable way of phrasing things)

Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation (show)

- Yes, I’m Autistic; How’d you guess? (/j) Honestly though, having a discussion with him about humanity/social behaviors/other things would be SO interesting!

Odo, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (show)

- If Odo and I were in the same room, I don’t think there’d be much talking. But, in a two-introverts-who-got-dragged-to-the-same-party-and-are-avoiding-the-humans-together kind of way. Companionable silence.

Spock, Star Trek: The Original Series (show)

- He’s just cool. (also a HUGE childhood influence towards logical thinking)

Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly (show)

- Protective of his crew, “Has a conscience, and hates it,” no-nonsense, practical thinker, quick wit, stubborn.

Simon Tam, Firefly (show)

- Very good at what he does (doctor), smart, stands by what he believes in (“when you’re on my table, you’re safe”), and who he cares about (his sister).

River Tam, Firefly (show)

- …River is a mood. Specifically, a “leave me alone, I can’t talk now, my brain is full of bees” mood.

Seth, Lost Terminal (podcast)

- He’s an AI who used to live in a satellite, and made his way down to a post-collapse Earth so he could talk to people. He often mentions the intricacies and confusing nuances of human communication, his distrust of plants and salt, and the fact that humans are quite fond of bread and beer.

Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5 (show)

- “No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.”

Michael Garibaldi, Babylon 5 (show)

- If any of the main cast could’ve broken the fourth wall, it would have been him. I don’t know what that says about his character, but it feels right.

Virgil Sanders, Sanders Sides (YouTube series)

- He’s the personification of (Thomas’) Anxiety, but he can be quite brave when he needs to be. When he’s under pressure/more anxious/needs to be listened to, he’ll act more abrasive, but he has a softer side (heh side) he shows when safe. He’s also the secondary brain cell holder of the main cast.

Logan Sanders, Sanders Sides (YouTube series)

- The brain cell (/pos). Also seems to be going through… gifted-kid-burnout-angst-stuff, for lack of a better term. Also nicknamed the Mom of the group, though someone pointed out that he didn’t choose that title for himself, which I thought was interesting.

Janus Sanders, Sanders Sides (YouTube series)

- I think you already saw him in another ask, so I’ll be brief: “You’re not stuck with an ‘evil snake boy.’ *pose* You’re just stuck with a snake boy.”

…After typing this all out, I’ve noticed that most of these fall into one of three categories:

~Autism~ TM (/pos)

Competent, might be an asshole

Protecc/Attacc

I don’t know what that means, but it’s kinda funny.

Have fun!

ANALYSIS #4: 06/11/24

It's about time I start getting around to all these new test subjects. I apologize for the wait, but I'm more than ready to see what you have in store for me here, #4.

I'm not familiar with the majority of these characters, so this could very much be a hit or miss analysis.... Your descriptions definitely aided me a lot, so thank you for that. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this ends up being accurate at all...

Why don't we see if I got your backstory right first? It's where everything originates, after all.

"LORE":

You seem to be an observer in this game of life. I feel like you've spent a large part of your existence on the outskirts of everything, and the times you have joined the outside world were never completely of your own volition.... You don't feel like you particularly fit in as a "human", yet at the same time everything you feel is all too human. I can imagine it gets pretty overwhelming, and you've probably gotten a lot of heat for it in your younger years. Maybe you didn't have many friends growing up, and the ones you did have probably didn't live up to your expectations of what "friendship" was supposed to be. Maybe you've had friends that took advantage of you and it didn't even click until the damage was already done, or you stuck it out because.. that's what friendship's supposed to be about, right? Maybe you were just left out in general, always the second option unless they needed something out of you. Who knows. There could be a lot variations of what happened in your childhood regarding relationships, but I'm guessing they didn't always make much sense to you. It's probably why you stay on the outskirts so much. If the world won't let you experience humanity for yourself, you can at least watch humanity from afar.

I have a feeling your home life wasn't all that great? It wasn't particularly terrible-- you're grateful for what you were given-- but you wish there were things that were done differently. I think this also plays into the whole "disconnect from people" bit. Maybe they cared for you, but it was clear they didn't understand you, and it can be a little hard to be grateful when somebody's care is always... a little off? If that's the case, I bet it probably feels worse knowing that you can't really blame them for not understanding. Things are probably better now as you've grown, but there are things that still sting just a bit. Also for some reason I think you were homeschooled.... No reason why, it just came to mind, and I've learned trusting my gut makes my analyses more accurate. I'd like to see if that ends up being true.

Another thing that my gut keeps telling me is that the tism is strong in this one. You've already confirmed that, but I specifically feel like (i'm assuming you're diagnosed based on how you phrased "yes, i'm autistic") you were either diagnosed at a pretty early age or you were late diagnosed (probably because of icky-ew gendered stereotypes in medical fields) and it explained a whole hell of a lot of your childhood, to the point where you're surprised you weren't diagnosed way earlier in life. Heavily leaning to the latter, by the way, but the first still has a 5 to 15% chance of standing. Either way, it depicts why you'd feel such a heavy disconnect from the people around you. It's as if everyone was given a script to life, meanwhile you're forced to improv it the whole way through. Do you see life as a game? How much time have you dedicated to perfecting your skills, believing that perfecting them would be the key to winning these petty social games? Are you sure you're not still lost? Just some food for thought.

Anyways, with that all in mind, let's see what really goes on inside that head of yours...

THE TRUTH:

You still resent the world in a way, don't you? I can't shake the thought that there's still a resentment buried inside you that's been bubbling for a while. Maybe it's lessened a bit, but you can still feel it resurface every now and then. It's as if sometimes a reminder will come your way and it's another crack added to that bottle you've been storing all your emotions in. Like another poke at the confines will unleash everything you've been working on trying to maintain. I don't think it's spilled over yet, but I think we both know it's certainly not far from tipping over. You surprise even yourself with how much you've managed so far.

Part of you has lost your vulnerability. I'm not sure when or how, but I think it goes back to that disconnect from people. I don't think you've met anybody who's completely understood you yet, which has probably led to constant misunderstanding from everyone else. That kind of persistent detachment is bound to make anyone lose parts of themselves. If that's what happened, I'm sorry they took that part away from you. You deserved to be yourself without being shot down over and over, you still deserve that. It really is a shame that the world is too blind to see the beautiful depth in your soul. Complexity is never a flaw. Complexity is rarely even "complex". The world just needs to learn how to appreciate you at your core, and I truly hope they're able to see that in you soon. 

In fact, why don't I detail some of the complex beauty that I can pinpoint? If the world can't see it, then it only makes sense if I spell it out for them.

YOUR BEST TRAITS:

You're very attentive. You also seem to have some pretty good wit. That not only makes you a really great analyst, but I think it'd make you a pretty great comforter too. You're able to analyze and recognize patterns in people, and you seem to still hold a great appreciation for people despite how isolated people have made you feel. Despite always feeling like an outcast, there's still a part of you that cares. Those are qualities that truly great comforters have. However, with how confusing relationships with other people can be sometimes, I can also see why that would hinder your ability for it and turn you away. Nevertheless, the foundation is still strong. You're still strong. Use that to your advantage. Take back the life that you deserved. Show them that you are not the painting they've made of you.

I just feel like you're really funny for some reason, and probably pretty chill while still being able to stand your own ground and opinions. That's a highly respectable mix of traits to have, at least in my eyes. You also for some reason remind me of that main guy from Magnus Archives. I've never listened to Magnus Archives though. All of the information I know about that podcast has come from random clips I've stumbled upon and rants from my friends who are into it. But from the information I have on him, I view him as a weird little autistic guy who's always a little tired, a little witty, maybe a little too obsessed with analyzing sometimes, also probably on the aroace spectrum. However, he's also a hard worker who-- when he cares about people-- he really cares about them, and if he likes you then you could probably drag him just about anywhere (even if he grumbles the whole way through). Now I have zero clue if any of that is true to his character, but I feel like it could maybe fit yours, and I at least think people like that are a pretty special find. 

Also, you're just a wee little guy. A little snake boi even.

And with that, I think I'll leave my thoughts here and take my bow.

With utmost gratitude (and hopefully utmost accuracy),

Dr. WZ

[breannasfluff]

Imagine there was a law once a year you had to kill someone else to survive and not be able to be killed that year. As a problem to overpopulation.

I hate the "Is the cup half full or half empty" thing. It doesn't help to see if I'm pessimistic or optimistic. Seeing as my view depends on how the glass was set up. If the water was poured first, it is half full. If the glass was filled completely with water, then half of it got dumped out, it is half empty. How can you say "Oh it's half empty" or "oh it's half full". Also both of those are technically correct, so why is this even a thing? You literally can't tell anything from this and I hate it.

I don't think anyone is dumb. Everyone learns differently. Just because the person is not understanding the concept, doesn't mean they are stupid or slow. That means it is not being taught in their learning style. There are like 7 different learning styles, and I know for a fact there are almost no schools that try to teach people using all of them. It's not your fault for not understanding something, sometimes it's not even the person teaching you fault. Sometimes the wording is just confusing in your brain or you need longer to process and make connections. I just hate whenever someone uses dumb as an insult. It doesn't make sense and yes there are some topics I would be "Dumb" to, but that's just because I haven't tried to learn them.

Silent letters in English are so dumb. Or words that are just not spelled like they are pronounced. Like what's the point? It just makes everything more confusing for everyone. And also the different spelling for every day thing from like British English to American English to Australian English. Like Gray? I honestly don't know how to spell it correctly where I'm from. I change the spelling every time I spell Grey. It's so dumb.

Did you know ADHD meds don't work if you have certain foods after or before you take them. Mostly foods or things with vitamin C. Just a thought.

I have no clue why I wrote this. I had ten thousand other things I could be doing. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my random thoughts and I'm sure glad for the ask anonymously feature in tumbler!

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let's shake it up a little. Barry! Breakfast is ready! Ooming! Hang on a second. Hello? - Barry? - Adam? - Oan you believe this is happening? - I can't. I'll pick you up. Looking sharp. Use the stairs. Your father paid good money for those. Sorry. I'm excited. Here's the graduate. We're very proud of you, son. A perfect report card, all B's. Very proud. Ma! I got a thing going here. - You got lint on your fuzz. - Ow! That's me! - Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000. - Bye! Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house! - Hey, Adam. - Hey, Barry. - Is that fuzz gel? - A little. Special day, graduation. Never thought I'd make it. Three days grade school, three days high school. Those were awkward. Three days college. I'm glad I took a day and hitchhiked around the hive. You did come back different. - Hi, Barry. - Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good. - Hear about Frankie? - Yeah. - You going to the funeral? - No, I'm not going. Everybody knows, sting someone, you die. Don't waste it on a squirrel. Such a hothead. I guess he could have just gotten out of the way. I love this incorporating an amusement park into our day. That's why we don't need vacations. Boy, quite a bit of pomp... under the circumstances. - Well, Adam, today we are men. - We are! - Bee-men. - Amen! Hallelujah! Students, faculty, distinguished bees, please welcome Dean Buzzwell. Welcome, New Hive Oity graduating class of... ...9:15. That concludes our ceremonies. And begins your career at Honex Industries! Will we pick ourjob today? I heard it's just orientation. Heads up! Here we go. Keep your hands and antennas inside the tram at all times. - Wonder what it'll be like? - A little scary. Welcome to Honex, a division of Honesco and a part of the Hexagon Group. This is it! Wow. Wow. We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life to get to the point where you can work for your whole life. Honey begins when our valiant Pollen Jocks bring the nectar to the hive. Our top-secret formula is automatically color-corrected, scent-adjusted and bubble-contoured into this soothing sweet syrup with its distinctive golden glow you know as... Honey! - That girl was hot. - She's my cousin! - She is? - Yes, we're all cousins. - Right. You're right. - At Honex, we constantly strive to improve every aspect of bee existence. These bees are stress-testing a new helmet technology. - What do you think he makes? - Not enough. Here we have our latest advancement, the Krelman. - What does that do? - Oatches that little strand of honey that hangs after you pour it. Saves us millions. Oan anyone work on the Krelman? Of course. Most bee jobs are small ones. But bees know that every small job, if it's done well, means a lot. But choose carefully because you'll stay in the job you pick for the rest of your life. The same job the rest of your life? I didn't know that. What's the difference? You'll be happy to know that bees, as a species, haven't had one day off in 27 million years. So you'll just work us to death? We'll sure try. Wow! That blew my mind! "What's the difference?" How can you say that? One job forever? That's an insane choice to have to make. I'm relieved. Now we only have to make one decision in life. But, Adam, how could they never have told us that? Why would you question anything? We're bees.

Gray with an A is how you spell it in the USA. It has the A for America. Grey is the British spelling.

[artemis-fowl-incident-report]

Here is my contribution for Fowl Fest day 2 (should I make this a full story?)

Diary of André Price, 16 years old, Portland Oregon (aka the Baby from the wrestling match in the Atlantis Complex)

Dear Diary

Okay, brain very loud right now, need to vent.

Kind of a lot happened today. New guy finally arrived, you know the one everyone was convinced must be some juvie reject because he was being transferred in from out of state. Turns out no, his dads in the military, and new guy’s been dealing with long covid. His names Jayden, he’s really cute. I give him an 8, no 9, no… 9.5/10 (still not quite up there with Jacob, but got just a little more rizz than Liam).

Not the point, moving on.

When we were let out to lunch, Em was waiting for me outside class (she never does this, since it’s embarrassing enough to be my sister, let alone people seeing us together, but I digress) said she had to talk to me. Something weird happened this morning when she was getting on the bus (I drove in today, so I missed this). She spotted all these guys in big SUV’s scoping around the woods near the river. They apparently didn’t look like the normal military we get around here, and they had these devices in like a backpack thing and were scanning around the area. She looked really freaked out, because apparently they were scanning the area where I usually go to practice.

Em is the only person who knows about my powers. Thank God it wasn’t Sophie. That 10 year old little weasel would have ratted me out to Mom faster then I could have bribed her. Downside, Em has been treating me like her own personal science experiment ever since (perks of having the local town mathlete/spelling bee/science fair champion around, while you are but a smooth brained gay little lizard) but I guess it’s not all that bad. I know way more about my powers now then I did at the start of the year. I’ve gone from lighting little fires when I look at twigs hard enough to being able to jumpstart my car with electricity.

But maybe that’s not such a good thing.

After school Em and I drove out to investigate. We decided not to get too close, giving ourselves an excuse to be there by picking up Mr Hernández’s dog Chika (still the most adorable Pitbull I’ve ever seen, and a total wimp) and taking her for a walk since he’s still recovering from surgery.

Em was right, a whole swarm of men in black vans with the word A.C.R.O.N.Y.M, stitched onto their uniforms (none of them were even slightly attractive! Total let down). But they were scanning around the old well, exactly where I’ve been practicing for months. That must mean they’re looking for me.

We must have made a noise or something, because one of the men pointed and shouted in our direction. We ran, they ran after us, but they didn’t catch us. I think someone on the team, someone who likes to believe they have sense, must have told them to let us go. After all, we were just kids being curious (shows what they know).

Instead of going home, Em suggested we pick up Dairy Queen and hang out for a few hours. She said it was to throw off suspicion in case these A.C.R.O.N.Y.M guys decided to keep an eye on us. I think she just wanted to get me to pay for Dairy Queen, since I’m not reckless with my money like she is. We got Chika a puppuccino from Starbucks (such a spoiled puppy, but she deserved it after our fright in the woods). While we were there, we saw flyers being put up for a wrestling event that’s coming to town next week. Apparently the Jade princess is gonna be there (you’d think our family’s collective obsession with wrestling would have died down somewhat since that accident when I was a baby. Nope.) so we'll probably all being going.

We were just about to head home when I saw something else weird. Four people parked up outside the general store arguing. There was this tall, bald muscle guy (a 10/10), a tall blonde who looked like tall guys sister (Em informed me she was a 10/10. She was totally having a case of lesbian-itus), this small child in an oversized hoodie (Very loud, could hear them over the entire parking lot), and a dark haired guy in a suit (a 100/10, are you kidding me??? Edward Cullen wishes he looked like this dude!!!). I only took notice of them because I heard the kid in the hoodie shouting something about “magic” and “human babies”. I mean… that’s me! I was a human baby (Shocking I know) and I do have powers (maybe magic???). It felt like too much of a coincidence for both the A.C.R.O.N.Y.M guys, and the hottie bunch (+small child) to all be here on the same day.

All this, and I still have algebra homework to do.

Update.

Hot vampire guy is downstairs with muscle man and blonde lady. They’re asking for me!

[knight-of-heart-and-art]

d strider anon: i do see you but my brain is currently full of bees so uh. we'll get to making up that list as soon as possible!!

[tinyshe]

Garden Report & Frugal Living 24.06.30

I wasn't going to post. With the loss of Bronte, health struggles and the garden not doing well, I thought 'why bother'. I sat with that thought all week ... why bother. When I came to the conclusion I bother because this really isn't about me. Yes, I write about what I am doing, seeing, feeling but the reason for this is to encourage others: go garden, go try, struggle through it! Don't give up! So I'm not giving up this part of the blog (sorry).

I did get out and do my own watering today. Its back to being foggy cold and damp weather (the usual in the land of eternal fog). The weeds are rampant. The fruit trees had three blooming periods this year. I have never seem that. All the trees are long and leggy even though I don't fertilize nor water. The new growth this Spring is over 60cm/2feet. The fruit setting is very light. There was lots of rain during the regular/initial blossoming season. I also haven't seen many bees but the bumble population is strong and more plentiful than years past. Nothing in the garden is growing well. There is no difference between what I seeded and planted earlier in the season and the start I bought over a month ago. Neither are doing well. Its like they are frozen in time. Its warm enough for them to grow but they do so ever so slightly Unlike the damn trees! Its not like I am new to this. The soil is amended, plants tended and nurtured ... and I talk to other gardeners who are suffering the same lot. So I started looking wider, videos on youtube for Ireland, USA, UK, Spain and other European gardeners and many of them that are posting have similar problems Except those that are growing under the cover of poly-tunnel or glass/greenhouse. I wish I had a greenhouse so I could compare myself to myself.

Entering into July and there is still time to replant. Things that are quick growing in the 30-60 day range. I've got to think what I can manage vs what I can buy cheaply (is there such a thing anymore?!). Will I be able to put up the harvest (either homegrown or commercial) for the winter pantry is another concern.

Rethinking this food production/veg patch. This year the caterpillars again arrived and decimated the gooseberries and even the currants that I thought were hidden enough. The wasp that eat these pest arrived late and at the tail-end of this, after the majority of the damage was done. I will try to nurture the bushes back but this year was pretty damn hard on them and there is hardly any fruit and even less leaves. I was in the thought pattern of perennial planting the veg patch and then planting annual veg along the borders but that just doesn't produce enough especially with the downturn in annual plant health. Its like double dipping on the poor end of the spectrum. Do I try to invest money into a small poly tunnel? Do I do both under cover? Do I have enough protection in the back garden for a tunnel? What a mess/damage when pruning the fruit trees? Its like one of those rubik cubes or little slider number travel puzzles. My brain moving slowly through the pro and cons. You know that meme of mathematical equations and that confused woman ... yeah, that's me.

If you have any of your garden observations or have used tunnel growing in cold foggy maritime climate, please chime in. My only experience with poly is starts/propagation of native plants in a production scale for sale and not full cycle, less lone doing a stable veg thngie. Yes, Huw makes it look so lovely and easy. Can his team come over? He can come over too :) We'll have tea.

Frugal Living tip: this may only apply to fellow city dwellers but do-able for others. Instead of paying for green bin for yard/garden waste, you can do a chop and drop or in cases where there is nasty things you don't want re-sprouting (brambles, ivy, etc.) you can get a heavy duty construction grade plastic bag and load it up, tie it shut and set aside. It will eventually compost/degrade where you can load it back into your garden as a side-dressing. There has been some controversy in this as that 1) its plastic! and 2) some have been treated with pesticide (or worse! perfumes) on the inside. This will have to be for you to do more research and decide on your own. We bag and tag, and set aside by the rubbish bins and at some point just return right there where the butterfly bush, fuchsias and climbing roses can benefit.

I hope that wherever this finds you in life that you have many opportunities to enjoy a garden and nature.

Ps: Delightful gardener's reading: The Garden Essential Gertrude Jekyll, intro by Elizabeth Lawrence. This one is c. 2018 by Quiller an imprint of Amberley publishing/ Charles Scribner's Sons

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Umm.... this may be news to you, but humans are not bees. And you literally just refuted the notion of it being "in utero" when you described it as changing. e.g. worker to queen. The biology of bees is organized around the ability of dormant sex organs to activate (in the case of bees), or be regressed and promoted (in the case of clownfish).

We are not clownfish. We are not bees. These animals don't just "do" the girl things instead of boy things. Their biology activates (bees) or regresses and regrows (clownfish). It's a biological process. I have no idea what you were even trying to say, other than to reinforce the purely physical, biological nature of these particular animals. Species of which humans are not.

science does not differentiate between sex and gender, their argument is fundamentally flawed as it presumes two distinct things to be the same.

As we'll see as we go along, you can't even coherently describe, much less define "gender," so this is like saying "science does not differentiate between consciousness and the human soul." Science does distinguish: sex is real, and "gender" (in the way you ramble about it), is so incoherent it's not-even-wrong.

Meanwhile, you even ramble about biological-based changes - workers to queens (i.e. changes to support reproduction) - that are biological.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22483170/

Honeybee workers are generally obligatory sterile in a bee colony headed by a queen, but the inhibition of ovary activation is lifted upon the absence of queen and larvae. Worker bees are then able to develop mature, viable eggs.

Worker bees are female. So, I don't think even you know what you're talking about. Because calling this "gender" just reinforces how incoherent this word even is.

I can't help wondering how you can know that a crab's "gender" is different than its sex. How did you find out its pronouns? What questions did you ask it? Or did you just assume its "gender"?

evidence supports that gender presentation is solidified during pregnancy

So, a child knows whether to wear a dress or a suit before it's born? Is this really what you're saying?

What you're deliberately (or ignorantly) misrepresenting is that it's sexuality that is solidified before birth, and is believed to come from hormone exposure. It's sexuality that can be seen in the brain. Here's a full-on thread from a neurobiologist, which explains that previous "trans brains" didn't control for sexuality, and when that was taken into account, what was being detected was homosexuality. All you've done is mislabel homosexuality as "gender," as a way to pretend that there's more going on than there is. It's trivially known that gay people are more likely to exhibit gender nonconformity, on average, which is why this gender ideology operates primarily as gay conversion therapy, making gay girls into straight boys, and gay boys into straight girls.

We also know that gender dysphoria is associated with weaker connections in the brain associated with self-perception, in similar regions as those with other body dysmorphic disorders, such as anorexia. There is no cross-sex detection. There's no such thing as a "trans brain." A transwoman has a brain typical of a man but with weaker self-perception connections. What you're describing is bogus pseudoscience.

All you're really doing is promoting sexist stereotypes as profundities. Because a girl does a thing that is more typically common among boys, then she stops being a girl and becomes a boy. That's the entire underlying premise of your crab thing. The crab does a thing female crabs typically do, so he stops being a male crab and starts being a female crab (or something else, you never bothered to name it). And then he becomes a male crab when he does things that the boy crabs do.

gender presentation

Which is, of course, the core of this ideology. Putting on lipstick and carrying a handbag makes you a woman. That's all a woman is - a receptacle for applying lipstick and transporting handbags. Putting on a suit and a tie and growing a beard makes you a man. Because stereotypes. Presenting stereotypically as a thing makes you the thing. Playing dress-ups is real. Putting on a fireman's hat and you're a fireman. Dress androgynously and, like the dinosaurs being unable to spot you if you don't move, you suddenly stop being the thing you really are.

As one of my readers pointed out, guys in the 1980s with their big hair-sprayed hair and pastel colors would have all been transed. Girls in the 1990s with their boots and flannel would have all been transed. My goodness your take is shallow.

We, of course, need to pause and notice that you used female and male to describe "gender". So, you can't even get that consistent, and yet you scold the author of this article.

I really need to return to this: how did you find out how the crabs identify? How do you tell how the birds "identify"? How do you tell whether and when a male crab is a "different gender" if he's just sitting there on a rock? How do you detect it? You're saying people ("studies") have detected it, so how? Did they fill out a questionnaire? Or do you see whether they're more attracted to the picture of the frilly dress or the picture of the cowboy hat?

You said that sex and gender are different. How did you find out the "gender" of the male crabs? How did you find out the "gender" of the female birds? What are the genders? Name them.

a trio of males display and attract differently, they cannot be differentiated by sex, they are all male, they are different genders

So lizards have multiple mate-attracting strategies. By using different ones to differentiate themselves to the females, that makes them other "genders," rather than males using different strategies. Name those genders. Name the lizard genders. Words I never thought I needed to say.

What you're describing is that "man" and "woman" are activities you do. Some activities are "man" activities, and some activities are "woman" activities. Because activities need to be defined in terms of who can do them. Apparently. When a lizard stops doing the mating thing, he's male again. When a crab stops helping the barnacles he's a male again. Jesus Christ.

As Judith Butler tells us, "gender" is performative. It's a thing you do, not a thing you have or are, and only exists by repetition and observation. That's really what you're saying. But not only is it gross and shallow, but it necessarily means you can simply change genders by "doing" something else.

There's a saying:

1950s: The woman does the dishes. 1990s: Anyone can do the dishes. 2020s: Whoever does the dishes is the woman.

This is your argument. The crab "changes gender" because he does female things. Like this:

behaviors typically performed by females the crab will resume male-typical behaviors

Or, now hear me out... perhaps because the species is capable of doing things that either sex can do. And barnacles can entice crabs into a mutually beneficial exchange, regardless of the sex of the crab. This is what happens when you get your information from "Gender Studies" classes, not biologists or anthropologists.

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact you actually said that "barnacles will alter a crab's gender". Holy crap. This is like when the Catholics think the priest changes the bread into human flesh. It's magical thinking. Crab transubstantiation. Mmm, crab-cakes.

How could you ever claim to know any of this? We keep hearing that "gender" is an "internal sense of self". What they neglect to mention is, "...in comparison to others of your sex." So, how does a crab have an "internal sense," how does it map that onto human conceptions of social constructivism - crabs are not known for their consumption of Michel Foucault - and how could it inform you of any of this?

Isn't this an endorsement of "conversion therapy"? Aren't you saying that an external influence on "gender" is natural and justified?

This really is quite idiotic and deranged. You're projecting your reductive political ideology and regressive perceptions of humans onto birds and crabs. You really need to spend some time learning about the biological evolution of sex differences.

Literally all you're doing is putting everything into tiny boxes and saying that if they don't fit in them, if they don't fit your narrow conception, then they're not. A girl who doesn't like frilly pink dresses and long blonde hair isn't really a girl. A boy who doesn't like guns and army men isn't really a boy.

People think I'm exaggerating about this being the root of gender ideology, but then someone comes along and says so out loud. And I thank you for it.

There really is nothing more astonishingly regressive than the "progressive" notions of what male and female, man and woman are. They think it's profound, but it's gross, reductive and perverse.

And all of it catastrophically undermines your original claim that it's formed in the brain pre-birth. You literally described "gender" changing into something else, just by doing something for the barnacles, or performing for the female lizards.

How on Earth does any of this nonsense make sense to you?

in humans males typically identify as boys/men, females typically identify as girls/women.

This is false. The overwhelming majority of humans do not subscribe to this religion. They do not "identify" as boys, men, girls or women. They just are those thing, by definition. They couldn't stop if they tried. "Identify as" is the language of your ideology. Like "sinner" and "haram."

Nobody who is a thing needs to "identify as" a thing. "Identify as" is short for "identify as if." It's only necessary when you are not a thing and want to perform that thing for others.

I don't "identify" as a human. I don't need to. Because I am a human. I can't stop being a human if I tried. When I'm asleep or unconscious, still a human. What I am is externally verifiable without my subjectivity. If I "identify as" a wolf, that's because I'm not a wolf. I can't simply be a wolf, because I'm not one.

On the other hand, if I'm the only remaining person on the planet, what does "identify as" a wolf even mean? "Identify as" is, as Judith Butler says, performative. "Identify as" a wolf means performing "wolf" for the world and being observed as that. If you identify as a wolf in the forest but nobody's sees it, are you really a wolf?

The reality is that what you are is the thing you are when nobody else is around for you to perform for, or be observed. "Identify as" is the social construct.

You're trying to project your fanatical, incoherent theology onto other people.

A man is an adult male human. He will be male all his life. He cannot change that. He can be however he wants, do what he wants, dress how he wants, but what he is cannot be changed. Because sex determination happens at about 7 weeks and is irreversible. He is what he is.

A woman is an adult female human. She will be female all her life. She cannot change that. She can be however she wants, do what she wants, dress how she wants, but what she is cannot be changed. She is what she is.

One of the things you've done along the way is obliterate self ID. You said "gender" forms in the brain as early as before birth. This removes any reason to support self ID. When someone claims to "identify as" something else, there's no reason to take their word. Put them under an MRI and look. Find the "gender." You'll have to supply the region of the brain in which to detect it, of course, but you've successfully argued for a "trans test," albeit through bogus pseudoscience. I wonder if that's what you were really intending.

"Gender" as activities - dancing for female lizards, crabs helping barnacles - doesn't make this any better. Self IDing whatever you're currently doing now as a "gender" is as uninteresting and useless as putting your coffee on Instagram. Why do I care that you're doing "boy" things now and "girl" things in an hour from now? If gender is a social construct, well, it can always be constructed otherwise. When the crabs and the lizards stop doing their thing, according to you, their "gender" changes back. Because male lizards and crabs are incapable of doing those things without that "gender" change. Holy shit.

If there are so many genders, how come we've only heard of them in the last 5 years and only through kids on the internet? How come nobody heard of "cakegender" in all of human history until someone invented it by concocting their personality traits into a "gender"?

What on earth did Mephigender people do throughout time until someone invented Mephiles the Dark in Sonic the Hedgehog? That must have been psychologically traumatizing for people for thousands of years to not understand themselves until Mephiles debuted in 2006. Like everybody in 1 B.C. wondering what was going to happen in a year. (LOL.)

Well, you might scoff and say, those aren't real genders. Go on, I dare you. Define what a real gender is, and how we can know it. I dare you. On your basis that sex and gender are separate, what makes Mephigender bogus compared to one of the "real" genders... that are not synonyms for sex?

for the sake of simplicity and easy stereotyping

Clearly, the stereotyping is yours alone. You think male lizards can't be male if they do something you don't think is male. Crabs can't be male if they do something you don't regard as male. That's literally stereotyping.

More to the point, if "gender" is so vague (biological but not, in the brain from before birth but performative) and/or fluid (changes depending on what you're doing - like how ThatStarWarsGirl mustn't be a woman when she's playing video games, presumably - just using your logic here), if there's so many of them, then:

a) Why does anyone need cross-sex (i.e. sex-binary) hormones? There are only two choices. Why is all this transition stuff between what are only two templates? b) If "gender" and sex are so unrelated, that seems you just made a great case against all transitions. They're unrelated, disconnected, nothing to do with each other. Being unrelated means they don't need to "match" since being unrelated, they can't "mismatch." c) And why are we medicalizing children and cutting off body parts if they could stop being gender #48892 at any moment and become gender #02978?

And why should anyone care how you "identify," especially when novel - and ridiculous - "identities" are invented all the time? That's a you thing. That's your perception of yourself. You don't get to decide how I perceive you. I have that right alone. And you sure don't get to reorganize society around something so amorphous and transitory. That would be authoritarianism and insanity.

All you've taught me is that "gender" is incoherent. It's a performance you do that's in your brain since before birth and when you stop, you turn back, because bees can become queens, male crabs do girl things, and male lizards attract female lizards by not being male.

Okay great. I agree, it's incoherent. Let's ignore it then. We're not going to have 4023 different types of bathrooms for whatever different people feel they are on any given day. We're not going to have 1773 different swimming categories to allow all the genders to compete fairly against each other; putting the cakegenders up against other cakegenders. Let's go back to what we can actually know is true. Sex. Male and female. Binary. Immutable. You made a great argument to organize society around sex differences, rather than the complete mess of "gender."

So, excellent. I think you've demolished "gender" quite well.

This really is just a rambling pile of obvious nonsense disguised as depth. It's entirely derived from dated, sexist stereotype and obviously bogus junk science. None of what you're saying is supported by actual science. The domains producing this claptrap end in "Studies" not "Science."

It's not even supported by basic rational thought, for that matter, since it contradicts and refutes itself. As theology does.

But at bottom, all you're really saying is "'gender' is the word I use instead of 'personality.'"

By: Robert Lynch

Published: April 7, 2023

In my first year of graduate school at Rutgers, I attended a colloquium designed to forge connections between the cultural and biological wings of the anthropology department. It was the early 2000s, and anthropology departments across the country were splitting across disciplinary lines. These lectures would be a last, and ultimately futile, attempt to build interdisciplinary links between these increasingly hostile factions at Rutgers; it was like trying to establish common research goals for the math and art departments.

This time, it was the turn of the biological anthropologists, and the primatologist Ryne Palombit was giving a lecture for which he was uniquely qualified — infanticide in Chacma baboons. Much of the talk was devoted to sex differences in baboon behavior and when it was time for questions the hand of the chair of the department, a cultural anthropologist, shot up and demanded to know “What exactly do you mean by these so-called males and females?” I didn’t know it at the time but looking back I see that this was the beginning of a broad anti-science movement that has enveloped nearly all the social sciences and distorted public understanding of basic biology. The assumption that sex is an arbitrary category is no longer confined to the backwaters of cultural anthropology departments, and the willful ignorance of what sex is has permeated both academia and public discussion of the topic.

Male and female are not capricious categories imposed by scientists on the natural world, but rather refer to fundamental distinctions deeply rooted in evolution. The biological definition of males and females rests on the size of the sex cells, termed gametes, that they produce. Males produce large numbers of small gametes, while females produce fewer, larger ones. In animals, this means that males produce lots of tiny sperm (between 200 and 500 million sperm in humans) while females produce far fewer, but much larger, eggs called ova (women have a lifetime supply of around 400). Whenever scientists discover a new sexually reproducing species, gamete size is what they use to distinguish between the males and the females.

Although this asymmetry in gamete size may not seem that significant, it is. And it leads to a cascade of evolutionary effects that often results in fundamentally different developmental (and even behavioral) trajectories for the two respective sexes. Whether you call the two groups A and B, Big and Little, or Male and Female, this foundational cell-sized difference in gamete size has profound effects on evolution, morphology, and behavior. Sexual reproduction that involves the union of gametes of different sizes is termed anisogamy, and it sets the stage for characteristic, and frequently stereotypical, differences between males and females.

My PhD advisor, the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, was at that doomed colloquium at Rutgers. It was Trivers, who four decades earlier as a graduate student at Harvard, laid down the basic evolutionary argument in one of the most cited papers in biology. Throwing down the gauntlet and explaining something that had puzzled biologists since Darwin, he wrote, “What governs the operation of sexual selection is the relative parental investment of the sexes in their offspring.” In a single legendary stroke of insight, which he later described in biblical terms (“the scales fell from my eyes”), he revolutionized the field and provided a broad framework for understanding the emergence of sex differences across all sexually reproducing species.

Because males produce millions of sperm cells quickly and cheaply, the main factor limiting their evolutionary success lies in their ability to attract females. Meanwhile, the primary bottleneck for females, who, in humans, spend an additional nine months carrying the baby, is access to resources. The most successful males, such as Genghis Khan who is likely to have had more than 16 million direct male descendants, can invest relatively little and let the chips fall where they may, while the most successful women are restricted by the length of their pregnancy. Trivers’ genius, however, was in extracting the more general argument from these observations.

By replacing “female” with “the sex that invests more in its offspring,” he made one of the most falsifiable predictions in evolution — the sex that invests more in its offspring will be more selective when choosing a mate while the sex that invests less will compete over access to mates. That insight not only explains the rule, but it also explains the exceptions to it. Because of the initial disparity in investment (i.e., gamete size) females will usually be more selective in choosing mates. However, that trajectory can be reversed under certain conditions, and sometimes the male of a species will invest more in offspring and so be choosier.

When these so-called sex role reversals occur, such as in seahorses where the males “get pregnant” by having the female transfer her fertilized eggs into a structure termed the male’s brood pouch and hence becoming more invested in their offspring, it is the females who are larger and compete over mates, while the males are more selective. Find a species where the sex that invests less in offspring is choosier, and the theory will be disproven.

The assertion that male and female are arbitrary classifications is false on every level. Not only does it confuse primary sexual characteristics (i.e., the reproductive organs) which are unambiguously male or female at birth 99.8 percent of the time with secondary sexual characteristics (e.g., more hair on the faces of men or larger breasts in women), it ignores the very definition of biological sex — men produce many small sex cells termed sperm while women produce fewer large sex cells termed eggs. Although much is sometimes made of the fact that sex differences in body size, hormonal profiles, behavior, and lots of other traits vary across species, that these differences are minimal or non-existent in some species, or that a small percentage of individuals, due to disorders of development, possess an anomalous mix of female and male traits, that does not undermine this basic distinction. There is no third sex. Sex is, by definition, binary.

In the 50 years since Trivers’ epiphany, much has tried to obscure his crucial insight. As biology enters a golden age, with daily advances in genotyping transforming our understanding of evolution and medicine, the social sciences have taken a vastly different direction. Many are now openly hostile to findings outside their narrow field, walling off their respective disciplines from biological knowledge. Why bother learning about new findings in genetics or incorporating discoveries from other fields, if you can assert that all such findings are, by definition, sexist?

Prior to 1955, gender was almost exclusively used to refer to grammatical categories (e.g., masculine and feminine nouns in French). A major shift occurred in the 1960s when the word gender has been applied to distinguish social/cultural differences from biological differences (sex). Harvard Biologist, David Haig documented that from 1988 to 1999 the ratio of the use of “sex” versus “gender” in scientific journals shrank from 10 to 1 to less than 2 to 1, and that after 1988 gender outnumbered sex in all social science journals. The last twenty years have seen a rapid acceleration in this trend, and today this distinction is rarely observed. Indeed, the biological concept of sex in reference to humans has become largely taboo outside of journals that focus on evolution. Many, however, are not content with limiting the gender concept to humans and a new policy instituted by all Nature journals requires that manuscripts include a discussion of how gender was considered in all studies with human participants, on other vertebrates, or on cell lines. When would including gender be appropriate in a genetic study of fruit flies?

This change is not merely stylistic. Rather, it is part of a much larger cultural and political movement that denies or attempts to explain away the effects of biology and evolution in humans altogether. The prevailing dominant view in the social sciences is that human sex differences are entirely socially constructed. In that interpretation, all differential outcomes between men and women are the result of unequal social, economic, and political conditions, and so we do all we can to eliminate them, particularly by changing our expectations and encouraging gender-neutral play in children. This received wisdom and policies based upon it, however, are unlikely to produce the results proponents long for. Why is that?

Because sex differences in behavior are among the strongest effect sizes in social, and what might be better termed, behavioral sciences. Humans are notoriously inept at understanding differences between continuous variables, so it is first useful to define precisely what “statistical differences between men and women” does and does not mean. Although gamete size and the reproductive organs in humans are either male or female at birth in over 99 percent of cases, many secondary sexual characteristics such as differences in upper body strength and differences in behavior are not so differentially distributed. Rather, there is considerable overlap between men and women. Life scientists often use something called the effect size as a way to determine if any observed differences are large (and therefore consequential) or so small as to be ignored for almost all practical purposes.

Conceptually, the effect size is a statistical method for comparing any two groups to see how substantially different they are. Graphically, it can be thought of as the distance between the peaks of the two distributions divided by the width of those distributions. For example, men are on average about 6 inches taller than women in the United States (mean height for American women is 5 feet 3 inches and the mean height for American men is approximately 5 feet 9 inches). The spread of the height distributions for men and women, also known as the standard deviations, are also somewhat different, and this is slightly higher for men at 2.9 inches vs 2.8 inches for women. For traits such as height that are normally distributed (that is, they fit the familiar bell curve shape), one standard deviation on either side of the mean encompasses about 68 percent of the distribution, while two standard deviations on either side of the mean encompass 95 percent of the total distribution. In other words, 68 percent of women will be between 60.2 inches and 65.8 inches tall, and 95 percent will be between 57.5 to 68.6 inches. So, in a random sample of 1000 adult women in the U.S., approximately 50 of them will be taller than the average man (see figure above).

A large effect size, or the standardized mean difference, is anything over 0.8 and is usually seen as an effect that most people would notice without using a calculator. The effect size for sex differences in height is approximately 1.9. This is considered to be a pretty big effect size. But it is certainly not binary, and there are lots of taller-than-average women who are taller than lots of shorter-than-average men (see overlap area in figure). Therefore, when determining whether an effect is small or large, it is important to remember that the cutoffs are always to some degree arbitrary and that what might seem like small differences between the means can become magnified when comparing the number of cases that fall in the extremes of (the tails of their respective distributions) of each group.

In other words, men and women may, on average, be quite similar on a given trait but will be quite different in the number who fall at the extreme (low and high) ends of their respective distributions. This is particularly true of sex differences because natural selection acts more strongly on men, and males have had higher reproductive variance than females over our evolutionary history. That is to say that a greater number of men than women have left no descendants, while a very few men have left far more. Both the maximum number of eggs that a woman produces over the course of her reproductive life versus the number of sperm a man produces and the length of pregnancy, during which another reproduction cannot occur, place an upper limit on the number of offspring women can have. What this means is that males often have wider distributions for a trait (i.e., more at the low end and more at the high end) so that sex differences can be magnified at the tail ends of the distribution. In practical terms, this means that when comparing men and women, it is also important to look at the tails of their respective distributions (e.g., the extremes in mental ability).

The strongest effect sizes where men tend to have the advantage are in physical abilities such as throwing distance or speed, spatial relations tasks, and some social behaviors such as assertiveness. Women, meanwhile, tend to have an edge in verbal ability, social cognition, and in being more extroverted, trusting, and nurturing. Some of the largest sex differences, however, are in human mate choice and behaviors that emerge out of the evolutionary logic of Trivers’ parental investment theory. In study after study, women are found to give more weight to traits in partners that signal an ability to acquire resources, such as socioeconomic status and ambition, while men tend to give more weight to traits that signal fertility, such as youth and attractiveness.

Indeed these attitudes are also revealed in behavior such as age at marriage (men are on average older than women in every country on earth), frequency of masturbation, indulging in pornography, and paying for sex. Although these results are often dismissed, largely on ideological grounds, the science is rarely challenged, and the data suggest some biological difference (which may be amplified, indeed enshrined, by social practices).

The evidence that many sex differences in behavior have a biological origin is powerful. There are three primary ways that scientists use to determine whether a trait is rooted in biology or not. The first is if the same pattern is seen across cultures. This is because the likelihood that a particular characteristic, such as husbands being older than their wives, is culturally determined declines every time the same pattern is seen in another society — somewhat like the odds of getting heads 200 times in a row. The second indication that a trait has a biological origin is if it is seen in young children who have not yet been fully exposed to a given culture. For example, if boy babies are more aggressive than girl babies, which they generally are, it suggests that the behavior may have a biological basis. Finally, if the same pattern, such as males being more aggressive than females, is observed in closely related species, it also suggests an evolutionary basis. While some gender role “theories” can attempt to account for culturally universal sex differences, they cannot explain sex differences that are found in infants who haven’t yet learned to speak, as well as in the young of other related species.

Many human sex differences satisfy all three conditions — they are culturally universal, are observable in newborns, and a similar pattern is seen in apes and other mammals. The largest sex differences found with striking cross-cultural similarity are in mate preferences, but other differences arise across societies and among young children before the age of three as boys and girls tend to self-segregate into different groups with distinct and stereotypical styles. These patterns, which include more play fighting in males, are observable in other apes and mammal species, which, like humans, follow the logic of Trivers’ theory of parental investment and have higher variance in male reproduction, and therefore more intense competition among males as compared to females.

If so, why then has the opposite message — that these differences are either non-existent or solely the result of social construction — been so vehemently argued? The reason, I submit, is essentially political. The idea that any consequential differences between men and women have no foundation in biology has wide appeal because it fosters the illusion of control. If gender role “theories” are correct, then all we need to do to eliminate them is to modify the social environment (e.g., give kids gender-neutral toys, and the problem is solved). If, however, sex differences are hardwired into human nature, they will be more difficult to change.

Acknowledging the role of biology also opens the door to conceding the possibility that the existence of statistically unequal outcomes for men and women are not just something to be expected but may even be…desirable. Consider the so-called gender equality paradox whereby sex differences in personality and occupation are higher in countries with greater opportunities for women. Countries with the highest gender equality,24 such as Finland, have the lowest proportion of women who graduate college with degrees in stereotypically masculine STEM fields, while the least gender equal countries such as Saudi Arabia, have the highest. Similarly, the female-to-male sex ratio in stereotypically female occupations such nursing is 40 to 1 in Scandinavia, but only 2 to 1 in countries like Morocco.

The above numbers are consistent with cross-cultural research that indicates that women are, on average, more attracted to professions focused on people such as medicine and biology, while men are, again, on average, more attracted to professions focused on things such as mathematics and engineering. These findings are not a matter of dispute, but they are inconvenient for gender role theorists because they suggest that women and men have different preferences upon which they act when given the choice. Indeed, it is only a “paradox” if one assumes that sex is entirely socially constructed. As opportunities for women opened up in Europe and the United States in the sixties and seventies, employment outcomes changed rapidly. However, the proportions of men and women in various fields stabilized sometime around the early 1990s and have barely moved in the last thirty years. These findings imply that there is a limited capacity for outside interventions imposed from the top down to alter these behaviors.

In the cold logic of evolution, neither sex is, or can be, better or worse. Although this may not be the kind of equality some might want, we need to move beyond simplistic ideas of hierarchy.

It is understandable, however, for some to fear that any concession to nature will be used to justify and perpetuate bias and discrimination. Although arguments for why women should be prohibited from certain types of employment or why they should not be allowed to vote were ideological, sex differences have been used to justify a number of historical injustices. Still, is the fear of abuse so great that denying any biological sex differences is the only alternative?

The rhetorical contortions and inscrutable jargon required to assert that gender and sex are nothing more than chosen identities and deny what every parent knows require increasingly complex and incoherent arguments. This not only subverts the public’s rapidly waning confidence in science, but it also leads to extreme exaggerations designed to silence those who don’t agree, such as the claim that discussing biological differences is violence. The lengths to which many previously trusted institutions, such as the American Medical Association, go to deny the impact that hormones have on development are extraordinary. These efforts are also likely to backfire politically when gender-neutral terms are mandated by elites, such as the term “Latinx,” which is opposed by 98 percent of Hispanic Americans.

Acknowledging the existence of a biological basis for sex differences does not mean that we should accept unequal opportunities for men and women. Indeed, the crux of the problem lies in conflating equality with statistical identity and in our failure to respect and value difference. These differences should not be ranked in terms of inferior or superior, nor do they have any bearing on the worth or dignity of men and women as a group. They cannot be categorized as being either good or bad because it depends on which traits you want to optimize. This is real diversity that we should acknowledge and even celebrate.

Ever since the origin of sexual reproduction approximately two billion years ago, sexual selection, governed by an initial disparity in the size of the sex cells, has driven a cascade of differences, a few absolute, many more statistical, between males and females. As a result, men and women have been experiencing distinct evolutionary pressures. At the same time, however, this process has ruthlessly enforced an equality between the sexes, ensured by the fact that it takes one male and one female to reproduce, which guarantees the equal average reproduction of men and women. The production of sons and daughters, who inherit a near equal split of their parents’ genetic material, also demands that mothers and fathers contribute equally to their same- and their opposite-sex children. In the cold logic of evolution, neither sex is, or can be, better or worse. Although this may not be the kind of equality some might want, we need to move beyond simplistic ideas of hierarchy, naively confusing difference with claims of inferiority/superiority, or confusing dominance with power. In the currency of evolution, better just means more copies, dominance only matters if it leads to more offspring, and there are many paths to power.

The assertion that children are born without sex and are molded into gender roles by their parents is wildly implausible. It undermines what little public trust in science remains and delegitimizes other scientific claims. If we can’t be honest about something every parent knows, what else might we be lying about? Confusion about this issue leads to inane propositions, such as a pro-choice doctor testifying to Congress asserting that men can give birth. When people are shamed into silence about the obvious male advantages in almost all sports (but note women do as well or better in small bore rifle competition, and no man can match the flexibility of female gymnasts) and when transgender women compete in women’s sports, it endangers the vulnerable. When children are taught that all sex differences are entirely grounded in mere identity (whether self-chosen or culturally-imposed) and are in no way the result of biology, more “masculine” girls and more “feminine” boys may become confused about their sex, or sexual orientation, and harmful stereotypes can take over. The sudden rapid rise in the number of young girls diagnosed with gender dysphoria is a warning sign of how dangerously disoriented our culture can become.

Pathologizing gender nonconforming behavior often does the opposite of what proponents intend by creating stereotypes where none existed. Boys are told that if they like dolls, they are really girls trapped with male organs, while girls who display interests in sports or science are told they are boys trapped with female organs and born in the wrong body. Feminine boys, who might end up being homosexual, are encouraged to start down the road towards irreversible medical interventions, hormone blockers, and infertility. Like gay conversion therapy before, such practices can shame individuals for feeling misaligned with their birth sex and encourage them to resort to hormone “therapy” and/or surgery to change their bodies to reflect this new identity. Can that be truly seen as progressive and liberating?

The push for a biologically sexless society is an arrogant utopian vision that cuts us off from our evolutionary history, promotes the delusion that humans are not animals, and undercuts respecting each individual for their unique individuality. Sex is neither simply a matter of socialization, nor a personal choice. Making such assertions without understanding the profound role that an initial biological asymmetry in gamete size plays in sexual selection is neither scientific nor sensible. 

-

Robert Lynch is an evolutionary anthropologist at Penn State who specializes in how biology, the environment, and culture transact to shape life outcomes. His scientific research includes the effect of religious beliefs on social mobility, sex differences in social relationships, the impact of immigration on social capital, how social isolation can promote populism, and the evolutionary function of laughter.

==

I've said before that I learned more about evolution as a result of combatting evolution denial from the religious than I ever did at school. It's similarly true that I've learned more about sex, biology, chromosomes, genes and hormones as a result of the sex-denialism and anti-science attitudes of the gender cult.

[bonesandthebees]

Lastly, my brain is thinking about what Wilbur js going to do now. Because there are a few options. Like he might fully shut down. Might just ask for a different room, as far away from Tommy as possible. Might go back to the roof. Or he might go to Phil because that’s what he tends to do when he’s upset. But going to Phil right now would probably set of the rest of the climax and I’m kinda hoping we get at least a chapter of petty Wilbur in full etiquette mode throwing himself another pitty party. Though maybe we can still have both.

Anyway, banger chapter Bee. Good job! If you do turn this in a book I am buying that and falling in love with the new characters all over again.

-🌲

hmm guess we'll have to wait and see what happens next chapter :) lots of possibilities! I'll tell you one thing: Phil will make an appearance for sure

aaa thank you spruce I'm SO glad you enjoyed it so much. and that means so much that you'd buy it as a book with new characters. I don't have a lot thought out for it yet, but I do have a mental image in mind for the two main sibling characters so I'm excited to flesh them out more! once i finish stars i'll keep you guys updated on how my editing process is going, and might even start posting a little bit about my ocs if you guys would wanna hear that

ty for the lovely analysis as always!! <3

[nancywheeeler]

oooh director’s commentary! yes please! really i should just send you a ⭐️ because i’d love to hear about any details you’re proud of, but if you're so inclined i’ll admit to being especially curious about all the thoughts behind nightswimming, as it’s one of the fics that made my opinions on the steve/eddie ship do at least a 90 degree pivot if not a full 180

oooh nightswimming, my darling nightswimming!

okay so i mentioned this in my author's note, but nightswimming would not existed without there's a clock in my head (is it wrong? is it right?) by cloverspies 10/10 work of art highly recommend. before i read it, i had been poking around the steve/eddie ao3 tag trying to see what all of the fuss was about other than a new hot white boy just dropped and he could be paired with steve without the baggage of him being 1) his ex-girlfriend's boyfriend + someone who has kicked his ass or 2) a raging racist and abuser who has also kicked his ass.

but then i read cloverspies's fic and had my glass shattering moment. eddie and steve have so much potential for a very fun, banter-filled dynamic (i think certain things that drew steve to robin initially are very much there with eddie; unpopular in hs, not gonna worship at king steve's throne, throws him off his game, etc. and in a lot of ways someone like eddie is the natural progression from his misguided crush on robin. i'm not gonna if eddie was girl in canon but....but...) but then ALSO canon set up so many parallels between the two of them (and we'll just ignore that it's because they lowkey wanted the effect of steve's death without killing steve) that they would probably end up finding much more common ground than they initially thought they would, at least in terms of their experience with guilt re. barb and chrissy and their relationship with dustin / the kids. even totally divorced from a shipping lens, they would've made for a great friendship in S5

but anyway! nightswimming!

i’m racking my brain trying to remember how i came up with the (vague) plot. it might be as dumb as i was looking at this note i have in my notes app full of fic titles i want to use one day, saw nightswimming, and went “huh...eddie and steve talking by some pools.......this could be nothing”

i keep answering these with which part i wrote first, but it usually encapsulates the fic as a whole and what i was shooting for, so:

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Dude? You’re gonna call me dude while some of your spit is still in my mouth?”

Steve ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth, trying to think of a comeback to that and coming up empty. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

“Huh, unbelievable, can I get a definition please?” After a brutal clearing of his throat, Eddie adopted the tone of a stuffy spelling bee moderator. “Something unlikely to be real.”

“Again, you failed English.”

Eddie held up his middle, ring, and pinkie fingers and mouthed, three times.

the last line i’m 99.9% sure was the very first thing in the google doc. before even the title. i could imagine joe quinn acting out that exact mannerism and how annoyed but endeared steve would be by it. eddie is very over the top in a way a guy like steve wouldn’t necessarily let himself be but i think that’s where the attraction starts coming in on steve’s side. when you’re with someone who is so open and doesn’t seem to care about looking stupid, it’s easier to let yourself relax and be more open too, you know?

meanwhile on eddie’s side, steve is really hot! lol but also he cares about everyone so damn much, and he’s equal parts surprising and predictable (a common steve harrington theme in my works apparently), and again, he is really hot on a surface level and a much deeper one. still water, baby.

i think ultimately i just love them both as characters and i love what they could bring out in each other and i just vomited all that in a word document (...and then continued doing so...and cannot stop...)

director’s commentary asks!

[throwaninkpot]

What else am I supposed to do during this hiatus if not share a playlist with songs for all the Fears.

Tracklist with notes below the cut.

Turn the Lights Off -- all

Everybody likes to get taken for turns

To see how bright the fire inside of us burns

And everybody wants to get evil tonight

But all good devils masquerade under the light

Body -- The Flesh

And take my hands, they'll understand

Take my heart, pull it apart

And take my brain, or what remains

And throw it all away

'Cos I've grown tired of this body

Choke -- The Slaughter, The Desolation

Now shut your dirty mouth

If I could burn this town

I wouldn't hesitate

To smile while you suffocate and die

Wires--The Web

You knew the game and played it, it kills to know that you have been defeated,

I see the wires pulling while you're breathing.

You knew you had a reason,

It killed you like diseases,

I can hear it in your voice while you're speaking... you can't be treated.

Under My Skin--The Stranger

I don't think there is anyone under your skin

Like a Cheshire cat I think you're just a grin

And I can feel you laughing under my skin

And the happy palpitations are making me grin

Every Breath You Take--The Eye

I'll be watching you

(Every breath you take, every move you make)

(Every bond you break, every step you take)

I'll be watching you

(Every single day, every word you say)

I'll be watching you

(Every game you play, every night you stay)

I'll be watching you

bury a friend--The Stranger

What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me?

What are you wondering? What do you know?

Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me?

When we all fall asleep, where do we go?

The Dismemberment Song--The Flesh

So don't you squirm!

Don't you fret

I'm not going to hurt you. . .YET!

I just feel the need to be gettin a little of you!

A lot of blood let in.

Play with Fire--The Desolation

Insane, inside the danger gets me high

Can't help myself got secrets I can't tell

I love the smell of gasoline

I light the match to taste the heat

Dog Days--The Hunt

Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers

Leave all your love and your longing behind

You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

Upside Down & Inside Out--The Spiral, The Vast

Don't know where your eyes are but they're not doing what you said

Don't know where your mind is, baby, but you're better off without it

Looks like it's time to decide

Are you here, are you now, is this it?

All of those selves that you tried

Wasn't one of them good enough?

One Way or Another--The Hunt

One way or another I'm gonna find ya

I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha

One way or another I'm gonna win ya

I'll getcha, I'll getcha

Eleanor Rigby--The Lonely

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear

No one comes near

Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there

What does he care?

Angry People--The Slaughter

Ripped into a world

That doesn't want her

A beautiful girl

She's screaming already

She's learning to walk

Walking with anger

She's learning to talk

She says she hates you

She wants you to pay

For bringing her here

God's Gonna Cut You Down--The End

You can run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Free Fallin'--The Vast

I wanna write her name in the sky

I'm gonna free fall out into nothin'

Gonna leave this world for awhile

Now I'm free (Free fallin', now I'm free fallin', now I'm)

Sunday Morning Coming Down--The Lonely

Cause there's something in a Sunday

That makes a body feel alone.

And there's nothin' short of dyin'

That's half as lonesome as the sound

Of a sleepin' city sidewalk

And Sunday mornin' comin' down.

Boys Will Be Bugs--The Corruption

My mum told me that she's worried

And I couldn't give a shit

I have friends who understand me

Their names are spider, beetle, bee

They don't say much but

They have always listened to me

You're at the Party--The Spiral

Hour hand's gone and now you're feeling strange

Now your hands grow strong, your fingers long and your face, your face begins to change

You're mesmerized, you want to cover up your eyes

My Church is Black--The Dark

Some answers come from tears and from the dark

And all the signs are in the heart

Sometimes you must close your eyes

To see

Who you are

You'll Be in the Air--The Vast

Then you could tell that you are in the air

You'd feel the yawning gulf grow wider

And you'd feel the dwindling fuel for your lungs

And your breaths would slow

Under Pressure--The Buried

Pressure: pushing down on me,

Pressing down on you, no man ask for.

Under pressure that burns a building down,

Mama--The End

Mama, we're all full of lies

Mama, we're meant for the flies

And right now they're building a coffin your size,

Mama, we're all full of lies

No Light, No Light--The Dark

No light, no light, no light, tell me what you want me to say

You want a revelation, you wanna get it right

But, it's a conversation, I just can't have tonight

You want a revelation, some kind of resolution

Like Real People Do--The Buried

Why were you digging?

What did you bury

Before those hands pulled me

From the earth?

Control--The Web

I can't help this awful energy

Goddamn right, you should be scared of me

Who is in control?

In a Week--The Corruption, The End

And they'd find us in a week

When the weather gets hot

After the insects have made their claim

I'd be home with you, I'd be home with you

Dirty Night Clowns--The Stranger, The Buried

In their suits, in their ties

Let them be buried, buried aliveIn their suits, in their ties

You're safe here, now you're in the clear

Now we'll eat soup and apple pies

What's On Your Mind--The Eye

I wanna know

What you're thinking.

There are some things you can't hide.

I wanna know

What you're feeling.

Tell me what's on your mind.

When He Died--All

When he died

They found a message etched into his spine

That said when he died an endless age of untold nightmares would be nigh

And the blood would make the seas run red

[rainbowelion]

Bee Movie Full Script

According to all known laws of aviation,   there is no way a bee should be able to fly.   Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground.   The bee, of course, flies anyway   because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.   Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black.   Ooh, black and yellow! Let's shake it up a little.   Barry! Breakfast is ready!   Ooming!   Hang on a second.   Hello?   - Barry? - Adam?   - Oan you believe this is happening? - I can't. I'll pick you up.   Looking sharp.   Use the stairs. Your father paid good money for those.   Sorry. I'm excited.   Here's the graduate. We're very proud of you, son.   A perfect report card, all B's.   Very proud.   Ma! I got a thing going here.   - You got lint on your fuzz. - Ow! That's me!   - Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000. - Bye!   Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house!   - Hey, Adam. - Hey, Barry.   - Is that fuzz gel? - A little. Special day, graduation.   Never thought I'd make it.   Three days grade school, three days high school.   Those were awkward.   Three days college. I'm glad I took a day and hitchhiked around the hive.   You did come back different.   - Hi, Barry. - Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good.   - Hear about Frankie? - Yeah.   - You going to the funeral? - No, I'm not going.   Everybody knows, sting someone, you die.   Don't waste it on a squirrel. Such a hothead.   I guess he could have just gotten out of the way.   I love this incorporating an amusement park into our day.   That's why we don't need vacations.   Boy, quite a bit of pomp... under the circumstances.   - Well, Adam, today we are men. - We are!   - Bee-men. - Amen!   Hallelujah!   Students, faculty, distinguished bees,   please welcome Dean Buzzwell.   Welcome, New Hive Oity graduating class of...   ...9:15.   That concludes our ceremonies.   And begins your career at Honex Industries!   Will we pick ourjob today?   I heard it's just orientation.   Heads up! Here we go.   Keep your hands and antennas inside the tram at all times.   - Wonder what it'll be like? - A little scary.   Welcome to Honex, a division of Honesco   and a part of the Hexagon Group.   This is it!   Wow.   Wow.   We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life   to get to the point where you can work for your whole life.   Honey begins when our valiant Pollen Jocks bring the nectar to the hive.   Our top-secret formula   is automatically color-corrected, scent-adjusted and bubble-contoured   into this soothing sweet syrup   with its distinctive golden glow you know as...   Honey!   - That girl was hot. - She's my cousin!   - She is? - Yes, we're all cousins.   - Right. You're right. - At Honex, we constantly strive   to improve every aspect of bee existence.   These bees are stress-testing a new helmet technology.   - What do you think he makes? - Not enough.   Here we have our latest advancement, the Krelman.   - What does that do? - Oatches that little strand of honey   that hangs after you pour it. Saves us millions.   Oan anyone work on the Krelman?   Of course. Most bee jobs are small ones. But bees know   that every small job, if it's done well, means a lot.   But choose carefully   because you'll stay in the job you pick for the rest of your life.   The same job the rest of your life? I didn't know that.   What's the difference?   You'll be happy to know that bees, as a species, haven't had one day off   in 27 million years.   So you'll just work us to death?   We'll sure try.   Wow! That blew my mind!   "What's the difference?" How can you say that?   One job forever? That's an insane choice to have to make.   I'm relieved. Now we only have to make one decision in life.   But, Adam, how could they never have told us that?   Why would you question anything? We're bees.   We're the most perfectly functioning society on Earth.   You ever think maybe things work a little too well here?   Like what? Give me one example.   I don't know. But you know what I'm talking about.   Please clear the gate. Royal Nectar Force on approach.   Wait a second. Oheck it out.   - Hey, those are Pollen Jocks! - Wow.   I've never seen them this close.   They know what it's like outside the hive.   Yeah, but some don't come back.   - Hey, Jocks! - Hi, Jocks!   You guys did great!   You're monsters! You're sky freaks! I love it! I love it!   - I wonder where they were. - I don't know.   Their day's not planned.   Outside the hive, flying who knows where, doing who knows what.   You can'tjust decide to be a Pollen Jock. You have to be bred for that.   Right.   Look. That's more pollen than you and I will see in a lifetime.   It's just a status symbol. Bees make too much of it.   Perhaps. Unless you're wearing it and the ladies see you wearing it.   Those ladies? Aren't they our cousins too?   Distant. Distant.   Look at these two.   - Oouple of Hive Harrys. - Let's have fun with them.   It must be dangerous being a Pollen Jock.   Yeah. Once a bear pinned me against a mushroom!   He had a paw on my throat, and with the other, he was slapping me!   - Oh, my! - I never thought I'd knock him out.   What were you doing during this?   Trying to alert the authorities.   I can autograph that.   A little gusty out there today, wasn't it, comrades?   Yeah. Gusty.   We're hitting a sunflower patch six miles from here tomorrow.   - Six miles, huh? - Barry!   A puddle jump for us, but maybe you're not up for it.   - Maybe I am. - You are not!   We're going 0900 at J-Gate.   What do you think, buzzy-boy? Are you bee enough?   I might be. It all depends on what 0900 means.   Hey, Honex!   Dad, you surprised me.   You decide what you're interested in?   - Well, there's a lot of choices. - But you only get one.   Do you ever get bored doing the same job every day?   Son, let me tell you about stirring.   You grab that stick, and you just move it around, and you stir it around.   You get yourself into a rhythm. It's a beautiful thing.   You know, Dad, the more I think about it,   maybe the honey field just isn't right for me.   You were thinking of what, making balloon animals?   That's a bad job for a guy with a stinger.   Janet, your son's not sure he wants to go into honey!   - Barry, you are so funny sometimes. - I'm not trying to be funny.   You're not funny! You're going into honey. Our son, the stirrer!   - You're gonna be a stirrer? - No one's listening to me!   Wait till you see the sticks I have.   I could say anything right now. I'm gonna get an ant tattoo!   Let's open some honey and celebrate!   Maybe I'll pierce my thorax. Shave my antennae.   Shack up with a grasshopper. Get a gold tooth and call everybody "dawg"!   I'm so proud.   - We're starting work today! - Today's the day.   Oome on! All the good jobs will be gone.   Yeah, right.   Pollen counting, stunt bee, pouring, stirrer, front desk, hair removal...   - Is it still available? - Hang on. Two left!   One of them's yours! Oongratulations! Step to the side.   - What'd you get? - Picking crud out. Stellar!   Wow!   Oouple of newbies?   Yes, sir! Our first day! We are ready!   Make your choice.   - You want to go first? - No, you go.   Oh, my. What's available?   Restroom attendant's open, not for the reason you think.   - Any chance of getting the Krelman? - Sure, you're on.   I'm sorry, the Krelman just closed out.   Wax monkey's always open.   The Krelman opened up again.   What happened?   A bee died. Makes an opening. See? He's dead. Another dead one.   Deady. Deadified. Two more dead.   Dead from the neck up. Dead from the neck down. That's life!   Oh, this is so hard!   Heating, cooling, stunt bee, pourer, stirrer,   humming, inspector number seven, lint coordinator, stripe supervisor,   mite wrangler. Barry, what do you think I should... Barry?   Barry!   All right, we've got the sunflower patch in quadrant nine...   What happened to you? Where are you?   - I'm going out. - Out? Out where?   - Out there. - Oh, no!   I have to, before I go to work for the rest of my life.   You're gonna die! You're crazy! Hello?   Another call coming in.   If anyone's feeling brave, there's a Korean deli on 83rd   that gets their roses today.   Hey, guys.   - Look at that. - Isn't that the kid we saw yesterday?   Hold it, son, flight deck's restricted.   It's OK, Lou. We're gonna take him up.   Really? Feeling lucky, are you?   Sign here, here. Just initial that.   - Thank you. - OK.   You got a rain advisory today,   and as you all know, bees cannot fly in rain.   So be careful. As always, watch your brooms,   hockey sticks, dogs, birds, bears and bats.   Also, I got a couple of reports of root beer being poured on us.   Murphy's in a home because of it, babbling like a cicada!   - That's awful. - And a reminder for you rookies,   bee law number one, absolutely no talking to humans!   All right, launch positions!   Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz!   Black and yellow!   Hello!   You ready for this, hot shot?   Yeah. Yeah, bring it on.   Wind, check.   - Antennae, check. - Nectar pack, check.   - Wings, check. - Stinger, check.   Scared out of my shorts, check.   OK, ladies,   let's move it out!   Pound those petunias, you striped stem-suckers!   All of you, drain those flowers!   Wow! I'm out!   I can't believe I'm out!   So blue.   I feel so fast and free!   Box kite!   Wow!   Flowers!   This is Blue Leader. We have roses visual.   Bring it around 30 degrees and hold.   Roses!   30 degrees, roger. Bringing it around.   Stand to the side, kid. It's got a bit of a kick.   That is one nectar collector!   - Ever see pollination up close? - No, sir.   I pick up some pollen here, sprinkle it over here. Maybe a dash over there,   a pinch on that one. See that? It's a little bit of magic.   That's amazing. Why do we do that?   That's pollen power. More pollen, more flowers, more nectar, more honey for us.   Oool.   I'm picking up a lot of bright yellow. Oould be daisies. Don't we need those?   Oopy that visual.   Wait. One of these flowers seems to be on the move.   Say again? You're reporting a moving flower?   Affirmative.   That was on the line!   This is the coolest. What is it?   I don't know, but I'm loving this color.   It smells good. Not like a flower, but I like it.   Yeah, fuzzy.   Ohemical-y.   Oareful, guys. It's a little grabby.   My sweet lord of bees!   Oandy-brain, get off there!   Problem!   - Guys! - This could be bad.   Affirmative.   Very close.   Gonna hurt.   Mama's little boy.   You are way out of position, rookie!   Ooming in at you like a missile!   Help me!   I don't think these are flowers.   - Should we tell him? - I think he knows.   What is this?!   Match point!   You can start packing up, honey, because you're about to eat it!   Yowser!   Gross.   There's a bee in the car!   - Do something! - I'm driving!   - Hi, bee. - He's back here!   He's going to sting me!   Nobody move. If you don't move, he won't sting you. Freeze!   He blinked!   Spray him, Granny!   What are you doing?!   Wow... the tension level out here is unbelievable.   I gotta get home.   Oan't fly in rain.   Oan't fly in rain.   Oan't fly in rain.   Mayday! Mayday! Bee going down!   Ken, could you close the window please?   Ken, could you close the window please?   Oheck out my new resume. I made it into a fold-out brochure.   You see? Folds out.   Oh, no. More humans. I don't need this.   What was that?   Maybe this time. This time. This time. This time! This time! This...   Drapes!   That is diabolical.   It's fantastic. It's got all my special skills, even my top-ten favorite movies.   What's number one? Star Wars?   Nah, I don't go for that...   ...kind of stuff.   No wonder we shouldn't talk to them. They're out of their minds.   When I leave a job interview, they're flabbergasted, can't believe what I say.   There's the sun. Maybe that's a way out.   I don't remember the sun having a big 75 on it.   I predicted global warming.   I could feel it getting hotter. At first I thought it was just me.   Wait! Stop! Bee!   Stand back. These are winter boots.   Wait!   Don't kill him!   You know I'm allergic to them! This thing could kill me!   Why does his life have less value than yours?   Why does his life have any less value than mine? Is that your statement?   I'm just saying all life has value. You don't know what he's capable of feeling.   My brochure!   There you go, little guy.   I'm not scared of him. It's an allergic thing.   Put that on your resume brochure.   My whole face could puff up.   Make it one of your special skills.   Knocking someone out is also a special skill.   Right. Bye, Vanessa. Thanks.   - Vanessa, next week? Yogurt night? - Sure, Ken. You know, whatever.   - You could put carob chips on there. - Bye.   - Supposed to be less calories. - Bye.   I gotta say something.   She saved my life. I gotta say something.   All right, here it goes.   Nah.   What would I say?   I could really get in trouble.   It's a bee law. You're not supposed to talk to a human.   I can't believe I'm doing this.   I've got to.   Oh, I can't do it. Oome on!   No. Yes. No.   Do it. I can't.   How should I start it? "You like jazz?" No, that's no good.   Here she comes! Speak, you fool!   Hi!   I'm sorry.   - You're talking. - Yes, I know.   You're talking!   I'm so sorry.   No, it's OK. It's fine. I know I'm dreaming.   But I don't recall going to bed.   Well, I'm sure this is very disconcerting.   This is a bit of a surprise to me. I mean, you're a bee!   I am. And I'm not supposed to be doing this,   but they were all trying to kill me.   And if it wasn't for you...   I had to thank you. It's just how I was raised.   That was a little weird.   - I'm talking with a bee. - Yeah.   I'm talking to a bee. And the bee is talking to me!   I just want to say I'm grateful. I'll leave now.   - Wait! How did you learn to do that? - What?   The talking thing.   Same way you did, I guess. "Mama, Dada, honey." You pick it up.   - That's very funny. - Yeah.   Bees are funny. If we didn't laugh, we'd cry with what we have to deal with.   Anyway...   Oan I...   ...get you something? - Like what?   I don't know. I mean... I don't know. Ooffee?   I don't want to put you out.   It's no trouble. It takes two minutes.   - It's just coffee. - I hate to impose.   - Don't be ridiculous! - Actually, I would love a cup.   Hey, you want rum cake?   - I shouldn't. - Have some.   - No, I can't. - Oome on!   I'm trying to lose a couple micrograms.   - Where? - These stripes don't help.   You look great!   I don't know if you know anything about fashion.   Are you all right?   No.   He's making the tie in the cab as they're flying up Madison.   He finally gets there.   He runs up the steps into the church. The wedding is on.   And he says, "Watermelon? I thought you said Guatemalan.   Why would I marry a watermelon?"   Is that a bee joke?   That's the kind of stuff we do.   Yeah, different.   So, what are you gonna do, Barry?   About work? I don't know.   I want to do my part for the hive, but I can't do it the way they want.   I know how you feel.   - You do? - Sure.   My parents wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor, but I wanted to be a florist.   - Really? - My only interest is flowers.   Our new queen was just elected with that same campaign slogan.   Anyway, if you look...   There's my hive right there. See it?   You're in Sheep Meadow!   Yes! I'm right off the Turtle Pond!   No way! I know that area. I lost a toe ring there once.   - Why do girls put rings on their toes? - Why not?   - It's like putting a hat on your knee. - Maybe I'll try that.   - You all right, ma'am? - Oh, yeah. Fine.   Just having two cups of coffee!   Anyway, this has been great. Thanks for the coffee.   Yeah, it's no trouble.   Sorry I couldn't finish it. If I did, I'd be up the rest of my life.   Are you...?   Oan I take a piece of this with me?   Sure! Here, have a crumb.   - Thanks! - Yeah.   All right. Well, then... I guess I'll see you around.   Or not.   OK, Barry.   And thank you so much again... for before.   Oh, that? That was nothing.   Well, not nothing, but... Anyway...   This can't possibly work.   He's all set to go. We may as well try it.   OK, Dave, pull the chute.   - Sounds amazing. - It was amazing!   It was the scariest, happiest moment of my life.   Humans! I can't believe you were with humans!   Giant, scary humans! What were they like?   Huge and crazy. They talk crazy.   They eat crazy giant things. They drive crazy.   - Do they try and kill you, like on TV? - Some of them. But some of them don't.   - How'd you get back? - Poodle.   You did it, and I'm glad. You saw whatever you wanted to see.   You had your "experience." Now you can pick out yourjob and be normal.   - Well... - Well?   Well, I met someone.   You did? Was she Bee-ish?   - A wasp?! Your parents will kill you! - No, no, no, not a wasp.   - Spider? - I'm not attracted to spiders.   I know it's the hottest thing, with the eight legs and all.   I can't get by that face.   So who is she?   She's... human.   No, no. That's a bee law. You wouldn't break a bee law.   - Her name's Vanessa. - Oh, boy.   She's so nice. And she's a florist!   Oh, no! You're dating a human florist!   We're not dating.   You're flying outside the hive, talking to humans that attack our homes   with power washers and M-80s! One-eighth a stick of dynamite!   She saved my life! And she understands me.   This is over!   Eat this.   This is not over! What was that?   - They call it a crumb. - It was so stingin' stripey!   And that's not what they eat. That's what falls off what they eat!   - You know what a Oinnabon is? - No.   It's bread and cinnamon and frosting. They heat it up...   Sit down!   ...really hot! - Listen to me!   We are not them! We're us. There's us and there's them!   Yes, but who can deny the heart that is yearning?   There's no yearning. Stop yearning. Listen to me!   You have got to start thinking bee, my friend. Thinking bee!   - Thinking bee. - Thinking bee.   Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee!   There he is. He's in the pool.   You know what your problem is, Barry?   I gotta start thinking bee?   How much longer will this go on?   It's been three days! Why aren't you working?   I've got a lot of big life decisions to think about.   What life? You have no life! You have no job. You're barely a bee!   Would it kill you to make a little honey?   Barry, come out. Your father's talking to you.   Martin, would you talk to him?   Barry, I'm talking to you!   You coming?   Got everything?   All set!   Go ahead. I'll catch up.   Don't be too long.   Watch this!   Vanessa!   - We're still here. - I told you not to yell at him.   He doesn't respond to yelling!   - Then why yell at me? - Because you don't listen!   I'm not listening to this.   Sorry, I've gotta go.   - Where are you going? - I'm meeting a friend.   A girl? Is this why you can't decide?   Bye.   I just hope she's Bee-ish.   They have a huge parade of flowers every year in Pasadena?   To be in the Tournament of Roses, that's every florist's dream!   Up on a float, surrounded by flowers, crowds cheering.   A tournament. Do the roses compete in athletic events?   No. All right, I've got one. How come you don't fly everywhere?   It's exhausting. Why don't you run everywhere? It's faster.   Yeah, OK, I see, I see. All right, your turn.   TiVo. You can just freeze live TV? That's insane!   You don't have that?   We have Hivo, but it's a disease. It's a horrible, horrible disease.   Oh, my.   Dumb bees!   You must want to sting all those jerks.   We try not to sting. It's usually fatal for us.   So you have to watch your temper.   Very carefully. You kick a wall, take a walk,   write an angry letter and throw it out. Work through it like any emotion:   Anger, jealousy, lust.   Oh, my goodness! Are you OK?   Yeah.   - What is wrong with you?! - It's a bug.   He's not bothering anybody. Get out of here, you creep!   What was that? A Pic 'N' Save circular?   Yeah, it was. How did you know?   It felt like about 10 pages. Seventy-five is pretty much our limit.   You've really got that down to a science.   - I lost a cousin to Italian Vogue. - I'll bet.   What in the name of Mighty Hercules is this?   How did this get here? Oute Bee, Golden Blossom,   Ray Liotta Private Select?   - Is he that actor? - I never heard of him.   - Why is this here? - For people. We eat it.   You don't have enough food of your own?   - Well, yes. - How do you get it?   - Bees make it. - I know who makes it!   And it's hard to make it!   There's heating, cooling, stirring. You need a whole Krelman thing!   - It's organic. - It's our-ganic!   It's just honey, Barry.   Just what?!   Bees don't know about this! This is stealing! A lot of stealing!   You've taken our homes, schools, hospitals! This is all we have!   And it's on sale?! I'm getting to the bottom of this.   I'm getting to the bottom of all of this!   Hey, Hector.   - You almost done? - Almost.   He is here. I sense it.   Well, I guess I'll go home now   and just leave this nice honey out, with no one around.   You're busted, box boy!   I knew I heard something. So you can talk!   I can talk. And now you'll start talking!   Where you getting the sweet stuff? Who's your supplier?   I don't understand. I thought we were friends.   The last thing we want to do is upset bees!   You're too late! It's ours now!   You, sir, have crossed the wrong sword!   You, sir, will be lunch for my iguana, Ignacio!   Where is the honey coming from?   Tell me where!   Honey Farms! It comes from Honey Farms!   Orazy person!   What horrible thing has happened here?   These faces, they never knew what hit them. And now   they're on the road to nowhere!   Just keep still.   What? You're not dead?   Do I look dead? They will wipe anything that moves. Where you headed?   To Honey Farms. I am onto something huge here.   I'm going to Alaska. Moose blood, crazy stuff. Blows your head off!   I'm going to Tacoma.   - And you? - He really is dead.   All right.   Uh-oh!   - What is that?! - Oh, no!   - A wiper! Triple blade! - Triple blade?   Jump on! It's your only chance, bee!   Why does everything have to be so doggone clean?!   How much do you people need to see?!   Open your eyes! Stick your head out the window!   From NPR News in Washington, I'm Oarl Kasell.   But don't kill no more bugs!   - Bee! - Moose blood guy!!   - You hear something? - Like what?   Like tiny screaming.   Turn off the radio.   Whassup, bee boy?   Hey, Blood.   Just a row of honey jars, as far as the eye could see.   Wow!   I assume wherever this truck goes is where they're getting it.   I mean, that honey's ours.   - Bees hang tight. - We're all jammed in.   It's a close community.   Not us, man. We on our own. Every mosquito on his own.   - What if you get in trouble? - You a mosquito, you in trouble.   Nobody likes us. They just smack. See a mosquito, smack, smack!   At least you're out in the world. You must meet girls.   Mosquito girls try to trade up, get with a moth, dragonfly.   Mosquito girl don't want no mosquito.   You got to be kidding me!   Mooseblood's about to leave the building! So long, bee!   - Hey, guys! - Mooseblood!   I knew I'd catch y'all down here. Did you bring your crazy straw?   We throw it in jars, slap a label on it, and it's pretty much pure profit.   What is this place?   A bee's got a brain the size of a pinhead.   They are pinheads!   Pinhead.   - Oheck out the new smoker. - Oh, sweet. That's the one you want.   The Thomas 3000!   Smoker?   Ninety puffs a minute, semi-automatic. Twice the nicotine, all the tar.   A couple breaths of this knocks them right out.   They make the honey, and we make the money.   "They make the honey, and we make the money"?   Oh, my!   What's going on? Are you OK?   Yeah. It doesn't last too long.   Do you know you're in a fake hive with fake walls?   Our queen was moved here. We had no choice.   This is your queen? That's a man in women's clothes!   That's a drag queen!   What is this?   Oh, no!   There's hundreds of them!   Bee honey.   Our honey is being brazenly stolen on a massive scale!   This is worse than anything bears have done! I intend to do something.   Oh, Barry, stop.   Who told you humans are taking our honey? That's a rumor.   Do these look like rumors?   That's a conspiracy theory. These are obviously doctored photos.   How did you get mixed up in this?   He's been talking to humans.   - What? - Talking to humans?!   He has a human girlfriend. And they make out!   Make out? Barry!   We do not.   - You wish you could. - Whose side are you on?   The bees!   I dated a cricket once in San Antonio. Those crazy legs kept me up all night.   Barry, this is what you want to do with your life?   I want to do it for all our lives. Nobody works harder than bees!   Dad, I remember you coming home so overworked   your hands were still stirring. You couldn't stop.   I remember that.   What right do they have to our honey?   We live on two cups a year. They put it in lip balm for no reason whatsoever!   Even if it's true, what can one bee do?   Sting them where it really hurts.   In the face! The eye!   - That would hurt. - No.   Up the nose? That's a killer.   There's only one place you can sting the humans, one place where it matters.   Hive at Five, the hive's only full-hour action news source.   No more bee beards!   With Bob Bumble at the anchor desk.   Weather with Storm Stinger.   Sports with Buzz Larvi.   And Jeanette Ohung.   - Good evening. I'm Bob Bumble. - And I'm Jeanette Ohung.   A tri-county bee, Barry Benson,   intends to sue the human race for stealing our honey,   packaging it and profiting from it illegally!   Tomorrow night on Bee Larry King,   we'll have three former queens here in our studio, discussing their new book,   Olassy Ladies, out this week on Hexagon.   Tonight we're talking to Barry Benson.   Did you ever think, "I'm a kid from the hive. I can't do this"?   Bees have never been afraid to change the world.   What about Bee Oolumbus? Bee Gandhi? Bejesus?   Where I'm from, we'd never sue humans.   We were thinking of stickball or candy stores.   How old are you?   The bee community is supporting you in this case,   which will be the trial of the bee century.   You know, they have a Larry King in the human world too.   It's a common name. Next week...   He looks like you and has a show and suspenders and colored dots...   Next week...   Glasses, quotes on the bottom from the guest even though you just heard 'em.   Bear Week next week! They're scary, hairy and here live.   Always leans forward, pointy shoulders, squinty eyes, very Jewish.   In tennis, you attack at the point of weakness!   It was my grandmother, Ken. She's 81.   Honey, her backhand's a joke! I'm not gonna take advantage of that?   Quiet, please. Actual work going on here.   - Is that that same bee? - Yes, it is!   I'm helping him sue the human race.   - Hello. - Hello, bee.   This is Ken.   Yeah, I remember you. Timberland, size ten and a half. Vibram sole, I believe.   Why does he talk again?   Listen, you better go 'cause we're really busy working.   But it's our yogurt night!   Bye-bye.   Why is yogurt night so difficult?!   You poor thing. You two have been at this for hours!   Yes, and Adam here has been a huge help.   - Frosting... - How many sugars?   Just one. I try not to use the competition.   So why are you helping me?   Bees have good qualities.   And it takes my mind off the shop.   Instead of flowers, people are giving balloon bouquets now.   Those are great, if you're three.   And artificial flowers.   - Oh, those just get me psychotic! - Yeah, me too.   Bent stingers, pointless pollination.   Bees must hate those fake things!   Nothing worse than a daffodil that's had work done.   Maybe this could make up for it a little bit.   - This lawsuit's a pretty big deal. - I guess.   You sure you want to go through with it?   Am I sure? When I'm done with the humans, they won't be able   to say, "Honey, I'm home," without paying a royalty!   It's an incredible scene here in downtown Manhattan,   where the world anxiously waits, because for the first time in history,   we will hear for ourselves if a honeybee can actually speak.   What have we gotten into here, Barry?   It's pretty big, isn't it?   I can't believe how many humans don't work during the day.   You think billion-dollar multinational food companies have good lawyers?   Everybody needs to stay behind the barricade.   - What's the matter? - I don't know, I just got a chill.   Well, if it isn't the bee team.   You boys work on this?   All rise! The Honorable Judge Bumbleton presiding.   All right. Oase number 4475,   Superior Oourt of New York, Barry Bee Benson v. the Honey Industry   is now in session.   Mr. Montgomery, you're representing the five food companies collectively?   A privilege.   Mr. Benson... you're representing all the bees of the world?   I'm kidding. Yes, Your Honor, we're ready to proceed.   Mr. Montgomery, your opening statement, please.   Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,   my grandmother was a simple woman.   Born on a farm, she believed it was man's divine right   to benefit from the bounty of nature God put before us.   If we lived in the topsy-turvy world Mr. Benson imagines,   just think of what would it mean.   I would have to negotiate with the silkworm   for the elastic in my britches!   Talking bee!   How do we know this isn't some sort of   holographic motion-picture-capture Hollywood wizardry?   They could be using laser beams!   Robotics! Ventriloquism! Oloning! For all we know,   he could be on steroids!   Mr. Benson?   Ladies and gentlemen, there's no trickery here.   I'm just an ordinary bee. Honey's pretty important to me.   It's important to all bees. We invented it!   We make it. And we protect it with our lives.   Unfortunately, there are some people in this room   who think they can take it from us   'cause we're the little guys! I'm hoping that, after this is all over,   you'll see how, by taking our honey, you not only take everything we have   but everything we are!   I wish he'd dress like that all the time. So nice!   Oall your first witness.   So, Mr. Klauss Vanderhayden of Honey Farms, big company you have.   I suppose so.   I see you also own Honeyburton and Honron!   Yes, they provide beekeepers for our farms.   Beekeeper. I find that to be a very disturbing term.   I don't imagine you employ any bee-free-ers, do you?   - No. - I couldn't hear you.   - No. - No.   Because you don't free bees. You keep bees. Not only that,   it seems you thought a bear would be an appropriate image for a jar of honey.   They're very lovable creatures.   Yogi Bear, Fozzie Bear, Build-A-Bear.   You mean like this?   Bears kill bees!   How'd you like his head crashing through your living room?!   Biting into your couch! Spitting out your throw pillows!   OK, that's enough. Take him away.   So, Mr. Sting, thank you for being here. Your name intrigues me.   - Where have I heard it before? - I was with a band called The Police.   But you've never been a police officer, have you?   No, I haven't.   No, you haven't. And so here we have yet another example   of bee culture casually stolen by a human   for nothing more than a prance-about stage name.   Oh, please.   Have you ever been stung, Mr. Sting?   Because I'm feeling a little stung, Sting.   Or should I say... Mr. Gordon M. Sumner!   That's not his real name?! You idiots!   Mr. Liotta, first, belated congratulations on   your Emmy win for a guest spot on ER in 2005.   Thank you. Thank you.   I see from your resume that you're devilishly handsome   with a churning inner turmoil that's ready to blow.   I enjoy what I do. Is that a crime?   Not yet it isn't. But is this what it's come to for you?   Exploiting tiny, helpless bees so you don't   have to rehearse your part and learn your lines, sir?   Watch it, Benson! I could blow right now!   This isn't a goodfella. This is a badfella!   Why doesn't someone just step on this creep, and we can all go home?!   - Order in this court! - You're all thinking it!   Order! Order, I say!   - Say it! - Mr. Liotta, please sit down!   I think it was awfully nice of that bear to pitch in like that.   I think the jury's on our side.   Are we doing everything right, legally?   I'm a florist.   Right. Well, here's to a great team.   To a great team!   Well, hello.   - Ken! - Hello.   I didn't think you were coming.   No, I was just late. I tried to call, but... the battery.   I didn't want all this to go to waste, so I called Barry. Luckily, he was free.   Oh, that was lucky.   There's a little left. I could heat it up.   Yeah, heat it up, sure, whatever.   So I hear you're quite a tennis player.   I'm not much for the game myself. The ball's a little grabby.   That's where I usually sit. Right... there.   Ken, Barry was looking at your resume,   and he agreed with me that eating with chopsticks isn't really a special skill.   You think I don't see what you're doing?   I know how hard it is to find the rightjob. We have that in common.   Do we?   Bees have 100 percent employment, but we do jobs like taking the crud out.   That's just what I was thinking about doing.   Ken, I let Barry borrow your razor for his fuzz. I hope that was all right.   I'm going to drain the old stinger.   Yeah, you do that.   Look at that.   You know, I've just about had it   with your little mind games.   - What's that? - Italian Vogue.   Mamma mia, that's a lot of pages.   A lot of ads.   Remember what Van said, why is your life more valuable than mine?   Funny, I just can't seem to recall that!   I think something stinks in here!   I love the smell of flowers.   How do you like the smell of flames?!   Not as much.   Water bug! Not taking sides!   Ken, I'm wearing a Ohapstick hat! This is pathetic!   I've got issues!   Well, well, well, a royal flush!   - You're bluffing. - Am I?   Surf's up, dude!   Poo water!   That bowl is gnarly.   Except for those dirty yellow rings!   Kenneth! What are you doing?!   You know, I don't even like honey! I don't eat it!   We need to talk!   He's just a little bee!   And he happens to be the nicest bee I've met in a long time!   Long time? What are you talking about?! Are there other bugs in your life?   No, but there are other things bugging me in life. And you're one of them!   Fine! Talking bees, no yogurt night...   My nerves are fried from riding on this emotional roller coaster!   Goodbye, Ken.   And for your information,   I prefer sugar-free, artificial sweeteners made by man!   I'm sorry about all that.   I know it's got an aftertaste! I like it!   I always felt there was some kind of barrier between Ken and me.   I couldn't overcome it. Oh, well.   Are you OK for the trial?   I believe Mr. Montgomery is about out of ideas.   We would like to call Mr. Barry Benson Bee to the stand.   Good idea! You can really see why he's considered one of the best lawyers...   Yeah.   Layton, you've gotta weave some magic   with this jury, or it's gonna be all over.   Don't worry. The only thing I have to do to turn this jury around   is to remind them of what they don't like about bees.   - You got the tweezers? - Are you allergic?   Only to losing, son. Only to losing.   Mr. Benson Bee, I'll ask you what I think we'd all like to know.   What exactly is your relationship   to that woman?   We're friends.   - Good friends? - Yes.   How good? Do you live together?   Wait a minute...   Are you her little...   ...bedbug?   I've seen a bee documentary or two. From what I understand,   doesn't your queen give birth to all the bee children?   - Yeah, but... - So those aren't your real parents!   - Oh, Barry... - Yes, they are!   Hold me back!   You're an illegitimate bee, aren't you, Benson?   He's denouncing bees!   Don't y'all date your cousins?   - Objection! - I'm going to pincushion this guy!   Adam, don't! It's what he wants!   Oh, I'm hit!!   Oh, lordy, I am hit!   Order! Order!   The venom! The venom is coursing through my veins!   I have been felled by a winged beast of destruction!   You see? You can't treat them like equals! They're striped savages!   Stinging's the only thing they know! It's their way!   - Adam, stay with me. - I can't feel my legs.   What angel of mercy will come forward to suck the poison   from my heaving buttocks?   I will have order in this court. Order!   Order, please!   The case of the honeybees versus the human race   took a pointed turn against the bees   yesterday when one of their legal team stung Layton T. Montgomery.   - Hey, buddy. - Hey.   - Is there much pain? - Yeah.   I...   I blew the whole case, didn't I?   It doesn't matter. What matters is you're alive. You could have died.   I'd be better off dead. Look at me.   They got it from the cafeteria downstairs, in a tuna sandwich.   Look, there's a little celery still on it.   What was it like to sting someone?   I can't explain it. It was all...   All adrenaline and then... and then ecstasy!   All right.   You think it was all a trap?   Of course. I'm sorry. I flew us right into this.   What were we thinking? Look at us. We're just a couple of bugs in this world.   What will the humans do to us if they win?   I don't know.   I hear they put the roaches in motels. That doesn't sound so bad.   Adam, they check in, but they don't check out!   Oh, my.   Oould you get a nurse to close that window?   - Why? - The smoke.   Bees don't smoke.   Right. Bees don't smoke.   Bees don't smoke! But some bees are smoking.   That's it! That's our case!   It is? It's not over?   Get dressed. I've gotta go somewhere.   Get back to the court and stall. Stall any way you can.   And assuming you've done step correctly, you're ready for the tub.   Mr. Flayman.   Yes? Yes, Your Honor!   Where is the rest of your team?   Well, Your Honor, it's interesting.   Bees are trained to fly haphazardly,   and as a result, we don't make very good time.   I actually heard a funny story about...   Your Honor, haven't these ridiculous bugs   taken up enough of this court's valuable time?   How much longer will we allow these absurd shenanigans to go on?   They have presented no compelling evidence to support their charges   against my clients, who run legitimate businesses.   I move for a complete dismissal of this entire case!   Mr. Flayman, I'm afraid I'm going   to have to consider Mr. Montgomery's motion.   But you can't! We have a terrific case.   Where is your proof? Where is the evidence?   Show me the smoking gun!   Hold it, Your Honor! You want a smoking gun?   Here is your smoking gun.   What is that?   It's a bee smoker!   What, this? This harmless little contraption?   This couldn't hurt a fly, let alone a bee.   Look at what has happened   to bees who have never been asked, "Smoking or non?"   Is this what nature intended for us?   To be forcibly addicted to smoke machines   and man-made wooden slat work camps?   Living out our lives as honey slaves to the white man?   - What are we gonna do? - He's playing the species card.   Ladies and gentlemen, please, free these bees!   Free the bees! Free the bees!   Free the bees!   Free the bees! Free the bees!   The court finds in favor of the bees!   Vanessa, we won!   I knew you could do it! High-five!   Sorry.   I'm OK! You know what this means?   All the honey will finally belong to the bees.   Now we won't have to work so hard all the time.   This is an unholy perversion of the balance of nature, Benson.   You'll regret this.   Barry, how much honey is out there?   All right. One at a time.   Barry, who are you wearing?   My sweater is Ralph Lauren, and I have no pants.   - What if Montgomery's right? - What do you mean?   We've been living the bee way a long time, 27 million years.   Oongratulations on your victory. What will you demand as a settlement?   First, we'll demand a complete shutdown of all bee work camps.   Then we want back the honey that was ours to begin with,   every last drop.   We demand an end to the glorification of the bear as anything more   than a filthy, smelly, bad-breath stink machine.   We're all aware of what they do in the woods.   Wait for my signal.   Take him out.   He'll have nauseous for a few hours, then he'll be fine.   And we will no longer tolerate bee-negative nicknames...   But it's just a prance-about stage name!   ...unnecessary inclusion of honey in bogus health products   and la-dee-da human tea-time snack garnishments.   Oan't breathe.   Bring it in, boys!   Hold it right there! Good.   Tap it.   Mr. Buzzwell, we just passed three cups, and there's gallons more coming!   - I think we need to shut down! - Shut down? We've never shut down.   Shut down honey production!   Stop making honey!   Turn your key, sir!   What do we do now?   Oannonball!   We're shutting honey production!   Mission abort.   Aborting pollination and nectar detail. Returning to base.   Adam, you wouldn't believe how much honey was out there.   Oh, yeah?   What's going on? Where is everybody?   - Are they out celebrating? - They're home.   They don't know what to do. Laying out, sleeping in.   I heard your Uncle Oarl was on his way to San Antonio with a cricket.   At least we got our honey back.   Sometimes I think, so what if humans liked our honey? Who wouldn't?   It's the greatest thing in the world! I was excited to be part of making it.   This was my new desk. This was my new job. I wanted to do it really well.   And now...   Now I can't.   I don't understand why they're not happy.   I thought their lives would be better!   They're doing nothing. It's amazing. Honey really changes people.   You don't have any idea what's going on, do you?   - What did you want to show me? - This.   What happened here?   That is not the half of it.   Oh, no. Oh, my.   They're all wilting.   Doesn't look very good, does it?   No.   And whose fault do you think that is?   You know, I'm gonna guess bees.   Bees?   Specifically, me.   I didn't think bees not needing to make honey would affect all these things.   It's notjust flowers. Fruits, vegetables, they all need bees.   That's our whole SAT test right there.   Take away produce, that affects the entire animal kingdom.   And then, of course...   The human species?   So if there's no more pollination,   it could all just go south here, couldn't it?   I know this is also partly my fault.   How about a suicide pact?   How do we do it?   - I'll sting you, you step on me. - Thatjust kills you twice.   Right, right.   Listen, Barry... sorry, but I gotta get going.   I had to open my mouth and talk.   Vanessa?   Vanessa? Why are you leaving? Where are you going?   To the final Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena.   They've moved it to this weekend because all the flowers are dying.   It's the last chance I'll ever have to see it.   Vanessa, I just wanna say I'm sorry. I never meant it to turn out like this.   I know. Me neither.   Tournament of Roses. Roses can't do sports.   Wait a minute. Roses. Roses?   Roses!   Vanessa!   Roses?!   Barry?   - Roses are flowers! - Yes, they are.   Flowers, bees, pollen!   I know. That's why this is the last parade.   Maybe not. Oould you ask him to slow down?   Oould you slow down?   Barry!   OK, I made a huge mistake. This is a total disaster, all my fault.   Yes, it kind of is.   I've ruined the planet. I wanted to help you   with the flower shop. I've made it worse.   Actually, it's completely closed down.   I thought maybe you were remodeling.   But I have another idea, and it's greater than my previous ideas combined.   I don't want to hear it!   All right, they have the roses, the roses have the pollen.   I know every bee, plant and flower bud in this park.   All we gotta do is get what they've got back here with what we've got.   - Bees. - Park.   - Pollen! - Flowers.   - Repollination! - Across the nation!   Tournament of Roses, Pasadena, Oalifornia.   They've got nothing but flowers, floats and cotton candy.   Security will be tight.   I have an idea.   Vanessa Bloome, FTD.   Official floral business. It's real.   Sorry, ma'am. Nice brooch.   Thank you. It was a gift.   Once inside, we just pick the right float.   How about The Princess and the Pea?   I could be the princess, and you could be the pea!   Yes, I got it.   - Where should I sit? - What are you?   - I believe I'm the pea. - The pea?   It goes under the mattresses.   - Not in this fairy tale, sweetheart. - I'm getting the marshal.   You do that! This whole parade is a fiasco!   Let's see what this baby'll do.   Hey, what are you doing?!   Then all we do is blend in with traffic...   ...without arousing suspicion.   Once at the airport, there's no stopping us.   Stop! Security.   - You and your insect pack your float? - Yes.   Has it been in your possession the entire time?   Would you remove your shoes?   - Remove your stinger. - It's part of me.   I know. Just having some fun. Enjoy your flight.   Then if we're lucky, we'll have just enough pollen to do the job.   Oan you believe how lucky we are? We have just enough pollen to do the job!   I think this is gonna work.   It's got to work.   Attention, passengers, this is Oaptain Scott.   We have a bit of bad weather in New York.   It looks like we'll experience a couple hours delay.   Barry, these are cut flowers with no water. They'll never make it.   I gotta get up there and talk to them.   Be careful.   Oan I get help with the Sky Mall magazine?   I'd like to order the talking inflatable nose and ear hair trimmer.   Oaptain, I'm in a real situation.   - What'd you say, Hal? - Nothing.   Bee!   Don't freak out! My entire species...   What are you doing?   - Wait a minute! I'm an attorney! - Who's an attorney?   Don't move.   Oh, Barry.   Good afternoon, passengers. This is your captain.   Would a Miss Vanessa Bloome in 24B please report to the cockpit?   And please hurry!   What happened here?   There was a DustBuster, a toupee, a life raft exploded.   One's bald, one's in a boat, they're both unconscious!   - Is that another bee joke? - No!   No one's flying the plane!   This is JFK control tower, Flight 356. What's your status?   This is Vanessa Bloome. I'm a florist from New York.   Where's the pilot?   He's unconscious, and so is the copilot.   Not good. Does anyone onboard have flight experience?   As a matter of fact, there is.   - Who's that? - Barry Benson.   From the honey trial?! Oh, great.   Vanessa, this is nothing more than a big metal bee.   It's got giant wings, huge engines.   I can't fly a plane.   - Why not? Isn't John Travolta a pilot? - Yes.   How hard could it be?   Wait, Barry! We're headed into some lightning.   This is Bob Bumble. We have some late-breaking news from JFK Airport,   where a suspenseful scene is developing.   Barry Benson, fresh from his legal victory...   That's Barry!   ...is attempting to land a plane, loaded with people, flowers   and an incapacitated flight crew.   Flowers?!   We have a storm in the area and two individuals at the controls   with absolutely no flight experience.   Just a minute. There's a bee on that plane.   I'm quite familiar with Mr. Benson and his no-account compadres.   They've done enough damage.   But isn't he your only hope?   Technically, a bee shouldn't be able to fly at all.   Their wings are too small...   Haven't we heard this a million times?   "The surface area of the wings and body mass make no sense."   - Get this on the air! - Got it.   - Stand by. - We're going live.   The way we work may be a mystery to you.   Making honey takes a lot of bees doing a lot of small jobs.   But let me tell you about a small job.   If you do it well, it makes a big difference.   More than we realized. To us, to everyone.   That's why I want to get bees back to working together.   That's the bee way! We're not made of Jell-O.   We get behind a fellow.   - Black and yellow! - Hello!   Left, right, down, hover.   - Hover? - Forget hover.   This isn't so hard. Beep-beep! Beep-beep!   Barry, what happened?!   Wait, I think we were on autopilot the whole time.   - That may have been helping me. - And now we're not!   So it turns out I cannot fly a plane.   All of you, let's get behind this fellow! Move it out!   Move out!   Our only chance is if I do what I'd do, you copy me with the wings of the plane!   Don't have to yell.   I'm not yelling! We're in a lot of trouble.   It's very hard to concentrate with that panicky tone in your voice!   It's not a tone. I'm panicking!   I can't do this!   Vanessa, pull yourself together. You have to snap out of it!   You snap out of it.   You snap out of it.   - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it!   - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it!   - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it!   - Hold it! - Why? Oome on, it's my turn.   How is the plane flying?   I don't know.   Hello?   Benson, got any flowers for a happy occasion in there?   The Pollen Jocks!   They do get behind a fellow.   - Black and yellow. - Hello.   All right, let's drop this tin can on the blacktop.   Where? I can't see anything. Oan you?   No, nothing. It's all cloudy.   Oome on. You got to think bee, Barry.   - Thinking bee. - Thinking bee.   Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee!   Wait a minute. I think I'm feeling something.   - What? - I don't know. It's strong, pulling me.   Like a 27-million-year-old instinct.   Bring the nose down.   Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee!   - What in the world is on the tarmac? - Get some lights on that!   Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee!   - Vanessa, aim for the flower. - OK.   Out the engines. We're going in on bee power. Ready, boys?   Affirmative!   Good. Good. Easy, now. That's it.   Land on that flower!   Ready? Full reverse!   Spin it around!   - Not that flower! The other one! - Which one?   - That flower. - I'm aiming at the flower!   That's a fat guy in a flowered shirt. I mean the giant pulsating flower   made of millions of bees!   Pull forward. Nose down. Tail up.   Rotate around it.   - This is insane, Barry! - This's the only way I know how to fly.   Am I koo-koo-kachoo, or is this plane flying in an insect-like pattern?   Get your nose in there. Don't be afraid. Smell it. Full reverse!   Just drop it. Be a part of it.   Aim for the center!   Now drop it in! Drop it in, woman!   Oome on, already.   Barry, we did it! You taught me how to fly!   - Yes. No high-five! - Right.   Barry, it worked! Did you see the giant flower?   What giant flower? Where? Of course I saw the flower! That was genius!   - Thank you. - But we're not done yet.   Listen, everyone!   This runway is covered with the last pollen   from the last flowers available anywhere on Earth.   That means this is our last chance.   We're the only ones who make honey, pollinate flowers and dress like this.   If we're gonna survive as a species, this is our moment! What do you say?   Are we going to be bees, orjust Museum of Natural History keychains?   We're bees!   Keychain!   Then follow me! Except Keychain.   Hold on, Barry. Here.   You've earned this.   Yeah!   I'm a Pollen Jock! And it's a perfect fit. All I gotta do are the sleeves.   Oh, yeah.   That's our Barry.   Mom! The bees are back!   If anybody needs to make a call, now's the time.   I got a feeling we'll be working late tonight!   Here's your change. Have a great afternoon! Oan I help who's next?   Would you like some honey with that? It is bee-approved. Don't forget these.   Milk, cream, cheese, it's all me. And I don't see a nickel!   Sometimes I just feel like a piece of meat!   I had no idea.   Barry, I'm sorry. Have you got a moment?   Would you excuse me? My mosquito associate will help you.   Sorry I'm late.   He's a lawyer too?   I was already a blood-sucking parasite. All I needed was a briefcase.   Have a great afternoon!   Barry, I just got this huge tulip order, and I can't get them anywhere.   No problem, Vannie. Just leave it to me.   You're a lifesaver, Barry. Oan I help who's next?   All right, scramble, jocks! It's time to fly.   Thank you, Barry!   That bee is living my life!   Let it go, Kenny.   - When will this nightmare end?! - Let it all go.   - Beautiful day to fly. - Sure is.   Between you and me, I was dying to get out of that office.   You have got to start thinking bee, my friend.   - Thinking bee! - Me?   Hold it. Let's just stop for a second. Hold it.   I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. Oan we stop here?   I'm not making a major life decision during a production number!   All right. Take ten, everybody. Wrap it up, guys.   I had virtually no rehearsal for that.

[sadanthems]

weaker divided - YouTube

1. Miss you // Foster The People 🖤

"I know who I had been before I slipped, Oh I want to change it, I will live a life that makes you smile, When I'm done here in long gone.

2. Did You See Me Cry // Boy Scouts

"I can keep four friendships alive, that's my quota for this life, cigarettes out front the laundromat, say what you said and then take it back."

3. Push // Fog lake

"You were right this never gets old, waking up in another direction, if circumstance is all we get, let's come back the way we came."

4. without you // spooky black

"Wander through the dead with you caught up in my head, thinkin Ima flip and fill my brain with lead, imma end my life without you."

5. Warned You // Good Morning

(Simple lyrics, I listening to this when I'm feeling ghostly)

6. Bobby// beabadoobee

"And Bobby knew if she'd ended it all it would be better soon, and if she tried, she would've missed out being happy and be a fool, but deep down Bobby knew she'd find someone like you."

7. Black and Brown Blues // the silver jews

"When I'm high on batwings up by the silvery moon, I think of a certain sad eyed king, trapped in his golden room, and I dream of a cold river on the way, to come and sweep that king into this black and brown bay."

8. I Heard the Party // Gem Club

"With a mouth full of fresh flowers, you woke up the neighbors, no one could have told you, your body would fail you, silent as the star."

9. The Sun Also Sets // Ryan Adams

"didn't know that people faded out, that people faded out so fast, i wanna show you what I got inside, but you know those parts of me died."

10. Be Mine // David Gray 🖤

(This is my winter song, for new years, and I think of Ethan. From the first time I heard it it caught me. I'm gonna make him slow dance with me to this song. One day.)

11. Wake Up // Arcade Fire

"Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up, we're just a million little gods causin' rain storms turnin' every good thing to rust, I guess we'll just have to adjust."

12. Who Is She // I MONSTER 🖤

"She'll answer me where ever she may be, somewhere across the sea of time, a love immortal just like mine, will come to me eternally. Immortal she, Return to me."

13. Humility // Gorillaz

"I'm the lonely twin, the left hand, reset myself and get back on track, I don't want this isolation, see the state I'm in now?"

14. It Looks Sad // Creature

(Savannah, mom, Lou, David, all of them.)

15. Falling Forever // Zerius

(When it's 3 AM and it's time for a slow drift into discontent.)

16. Waiting Around to Die // The Be Good Tanyas 🖤

"I came of age and I found a girl, in a Tuscaloosa bar, she cleaned me out and hit in on the sly, I tried to kill the pain, bought some wine, and hopped a train. Seemed easier than just waitin' around to die."

17. Stay // Post Malone 🖤

"Tell me that it's all okay, I've been waitin' on this all damn day. Call me in the mornin', tell me how last night went. I'm here, but don't count on me to stay."

18. You Give A Little Love // Bugsy Malone 🖤

"You give a little love and it all comes back to you. You know your gonna be remembered for the things that you say and do."

/the bee/