#arbitrary and capricious

[astro1derland]

In today’s transits, the Moon 🌙 at 21° Sagittarius ♐️ 40’ 36”, Mercury at 23° Leo ♌️ 12’ 23”, and Chiron at 23° Aries ♈️ 30’ 26” all form a perfect Grand Trine. Our emotional needs, intellectual mind, and capacity to heal from our wounded selves align and work well together in a fiery, impulsive, regal way. Look for ways to refuel one’s passions, motivations and desires today. Realize how our motivational energy has been damaged and wounded and how we may transform that today. Take steps toward transformation today.

Also in today’s transits, the Sun ☀️ at 26° Cancer ♋️ 34’ 3” forms a sextile with Uranus at 26° Taurus ♉️ 26’ 14”. Our sense of illumination aligns and blends nicely with our sense of freedom and ability to invent in an emotional, lucrative and luxurious way. Escape depression today.

[specialagentartemis]

in middle school during my Intense Greek Mythology Phase, Artemis was, as you can likely guess, my best girl. Iphigenia was my OTHER best girl. Yes at the same time.

The story of Iphigenia always gets to me when it's not presented as a story of Artemis being capricious and having arbitrary rules about where you can and can't hunt, but instead, making a point about war.

Artemis was, among other things--patron of hunting, wild places, the moon, singlehood--the protector of young girls. That's a really important aspect she was worshipped as: she protected girls and young women. But she was the one who demanded Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter in order for his fleet to be able to sail on for Troy.

There's no contradiction, though, when it's framed as, Artemis making Agamemnon face what he’s doing to the women and children of Troy. His children are not in danger. His son will not be thrown off the ramparts, his daughters will not be taken captive as sex slaves and dragged off to foreign lands, his wife will not have to watch her husband and brothers and children killed. Yet this is what he’s sailing off to Troy to inevitably do. That’s what happens in war. He’s going to go kill other people’s daughters; can he stand to do that to his own? As long as the answer is no—he can kill other people’s children, but not his own—he can’t sail off to war.

Which casts Artemis is a fascinating light, compared to the other gods of the Trojan War. The Trojan War is really a squabble of pride and insults within the Olympian family; Eris decided to cause problems on purpose, leaving Aphrodite smug and Hera and Athena snubbed, and all of this was kinda Zeus’s fault in the first place for not being able to keep it in his pants. And out of this fight mortal men were their game pieces and mortal cities their prizes in restoring their pride. And if hundreds of people die and hundred more lives are ruined, well, that’s what happens when gods fight. Mortals pay the price for gods’ whims and the gods move on in time and the mortals don’t and that’s how it is.

And women especially—Zeus wanted Leda, so he took her. Paris wanted Helen, so he took her. There’s a reason “the Trojan women” even since ancient times were the emblems of victims of a war they never wanted, never asked for, and never had a say in choosing, but was brought down on their heads anyway.

Artemis, in the way of gods, is still acting through human proxies. But it seems notable to me to cast her as the one god to look at the destruction the war is about to wreak on people, and challenge Agamemnon: are you ready to kill innocents? Kill children? Destroy families, leave grieving wives and mothers? Are you? Prove it.

It reminds me of that idea about nuclear codes, the concept of implanting the key in the heart of one of the Oval Office staffers who holds the briefcase, so the president would have to stab a man with a knife to get the key to launch the nukes. “That’s horrible!,” it’s said the response was. “If he had to do that, he might never press the button!” And it’s interesting to see Artemis offering Agamemnon the same choice. You want to burn Troy? Kill your own daughter first. Show me you understand what it means that you’re about to do.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

I don't understand the chevron law thing, could you explain it like I'm five? Should we be working towards fixing whatever the courts just fucked up?

So, okay, I am condensing like a semester of a class I took in 2017 into a very short explanation, but:

It would be really annoying for Congress to individually pass laws approving every new medicine or listing out every single poison you can't have in tap water, so instead there are agencies created by Congress, via a law, to handle a specific thing. The agencies are created by Congress but overseen by the executive branch (so, the president), which is why we say things like "Reagan's EPA" or "Biden's DOJ" - even though Congress creates them, the president determines how they do the thing Congress wants them to do, by passing regulations like "you can't dump cyanide in the local swimming pool" and "no, you can't dump strychnine, either."

However, sometimes people will oppose these regulations by saying that the agency is going beyond the task they were given by Congress. "The Clean Air Act only bans 'pollutants,' and nowhere in the law does it say that 'pollutants' includes arsenic! You're going beyond your mandate!" To which the experts at the EPA would be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided arsenic is a pollutant." On the flip side, the EPA could be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided that arsenic isn't a pollutant," and people would oppose that regulation by being like, "But the Clean Air Act bans 'pollutants,' and it's insane to say that arsenic isn't a pollutant!" So whose interpretation is correct, the government's or the challengers'?

Chevron deference basically put heavy weight onto how the agency (i.e. the government) interpreted the law, with the assumption that the agency was in the right and needing pretty strong evidence that they were interpreting it wrong (like, blatantly doing the opposite of a clear part of the law or something). If there was any ambiguity in how the law was written, you'd defer to the agency's interpretation, even if that interpretation was different depending on who was president at the time.

(Note: there are other ways of challenging regulations other than this one, like saying that they were promulgated in a way that is "arbitrary and capricious" – basically, not backed by any evidence/reasoning other than "we want it." Lots of Trump-era regulations got smacked with this one, though I think they'd be better at it if Trump gets a second term, since they've now had practice.)

Chevron deference wasn't all good – remember that the sword cuts both ways, including when dickholes are in power – but it was a very standard part of the law. Like, any opposition to a regulation would have some citation to be like "Chevron doesn't apply here" and every defense would be like "Chevron absolutely applies here" and most of the time, the agency would win. Like, it was a fundamental aspect of law since the 80s.

The Supreme Court decision basically tosses that out, and says, "In a situation where the law is ambiguous, the court decides what it means." That's not completely insane – interpreting law is a thing judges normally do – but in a situation where the interpretation may hinge on something very complicated outside of the judge's wheelhouse, you now cannot be like, "Your Honor, I promise you that the experts at NOAA know a lot about the weather and made this decision for a good reason."

The main reason it's a problem is that it allows judges to override agencies' judgements about what you should do about a thing and what things you should be working on in the first place. However, I don't think there's really a way of enshrining that into law, outside of maybe adding something to the Administrative Procedure Act, and that would require a Congress that isn't majority Republican.

I will say that kind of I expected this to happen, just because IIRC Gorsuch in particular hates Chevron deference. IMO it's a classic case of "rules for me but not for thee" – Scalia and other conservatives used to rely on Chevron because they wanted their presidents to hold a ton of unchecked power (except for the EPA), but now that we've had Obama and Biden, now conservatives don't like Chevron because it gives the presidents they don't like unchecked power.

[abominable-space-they]

A thing I try to remember about Hannibal Lecter is that when he says god would drop a church on a room full of beloved grandmas and laugh about his abuse of power. What he means is, god would murder a little girl in the cruelest manner imaginable then feed that little girl to her brother. Her brother who was a strange little boy that no one understood. A little boy who had no human connections but that little girl. A little boy who as an elder brother was supposed to protect that little girl.

He means he believes god did that, destroyed his sister, his life, future, and universe, not because god works in mysterious ways, but because God works in obviously cruel and capricious ways, because god enjoys the power of destroying the innocent and faithful. He's saying that he has looked at the world, seen the worst and best of humanity, and the only conclusion he could come to was that god thinks hurting his creations is funny.

He has a god complex not because he believes he is a god, not even because he believes he is capable of being as cruel and arbitrary as God.

Hannibal Lecter has a god complex because he believes that a god who would kill a child cruely, and deliver an even more cruel fate on another child for no reason but because he could, does not deserve honoring. He believes that any god that would do such a thing, should not be worshipped, that he should be unseated entirely.

Like Kronos, utterly destroyed for his cruelty to children

He defies god because he believes god should be defied. He worships Will in defiance of god because even as a flawed human who is vicious, vengeful, petty, and mistrusting, even with all his human flaws, Will Graham is more just then god, more reticent to kill then god.

He worships Will Graham as his own personal god of love, death, and war bc he believes Will Graham is more worthy of worship then god.

And that is one hell of a thing

[wilwheaton]

The Supreme Court wrapped up this term with a pair of completely arbitrary and capricious rulings, based on lies and controversies manufactured by far-right political actors, restricting LGBTQ protections and striking down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Both cases were deeply flawed procedurally, but that wasn’t going to stop the six far-right extremists on the court from imposing their will. This illegitimate court has once again wreaked untold future damage on this country. It has to be stopped.

The Supreme Court is out of control and must be reformed

SCOTUS is dominated and controlled by unelected right wing christian nationalists who are so thoroughly corrupt they present a real and direct threat to every marginalized, Othered, protected class in America.

These are the exact same type of people who supported Dread Scott, and they will do it again if we don’t stop them.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Law-Related Vocabulary

for your poem/story (pt. 2/4)

Admiralty - of or relating to conduct on the sea

Alter ego - second self

Attractive nuisance - a thing or condition on one's property that poses a risk to children who may be attracted to it without realizing the risk by virtue of their youth

Bequest - an act of bequeathing

Bequeath - to give by will

Bona vacantia - goods that are unclaimed and without an apparent owner

Capricious - governed or characterized by impulse or whim (e.g., lacking a rational basis; likely to change suddenly); not supported by the weight of evidence or established rules of law—often used in the phrase "arbitrary and capricious"

Colorable - having an appearance of truth, validity, or right

Damnum absque injuria - a loss for which the law provides no means of recovery

Dying declaration - a statement that is made by a person who firmly believes that he or she is about to die and has no hope of recovery and that concerns the circumstances or cause of the presumed death

Eleemosynary - of, relating to, or supported by charity

En ventre sa mere - in the womb

Euthanasia - the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured persons in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy; called also "mercy killing"

Exculpate - to clear from alleged fault or guilt

Filius nullius - an illegitimate child; bastard; called also "filius populi"

Finger - to accuse or identify as guilty

Fireman's rule - a doctrine holding that a property owner or occupant is not liable for unintentional injuries suffered by firefighters or police officers in responding to a problem on the property

First blush - initial view, appearance, or consideration—used especially in the phrase "at first blush"

First degree - the grade given to the most serious forms of crimes

Hereditament - inheritable property

Homestead - a home and surrounding land

Inchoate - not yet made complete, certain, or specific : not perfected

M'Naghten test - a standard under which a criminal defendant is considered to have been insane at the time of an act (as a killing) if he or she did not know right from wrong or did not understand the moral nature of the act because of a mental disease or defect; called also "M'Naghten rule"

Mulct - fine, penalty

Mysterious disappearance - the loss of property under unknown or puzzling circumstances which are difficult to explain or understand

Pierce - to see through the usually misleading or false appearance of

Poison pill - a financial tactic or provision used by a company to make an unwanted takeover prohibitively expensive or less desirable

Prior art - the processes, devices, and modes of achieving the end of an alleged invention that were known or knowable by due diligence before and at the date of the invention

Pur autre vie - for another's life

Shark repellent - any measure taken by a corporation to discourage a hostile takeover attempt

Silent record - a record of a criminal proceeding which does not show that the defendant acted with knowledge or understanding of his or her rights (as in entering a plea of guilty or waiving the right to counsel)

Sui generis - constituting a class alone; unique or particular to itself

Vexatious - lacking a sufficient ground and serving only to annoy or harass when viewed objectively

Wrongful birth - a malpractice claim brought by the parents of a child born with a birth defect against a physician or health-care provider whose alleged negligence (as in prenatal testing or diagnosis) effectively deprived the parents of the opportunity to make an informed decision whether to avoid or terminate the pregnancy

Yellow-dog contract - an illegal employment contract in which a worker disavows membership in and agrees not to join a labor union in order to get a job

More: Law-Related Words More: Word Lists

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

Erin Brockovich: What’s at Stake in November

July 30, 2024

By Erin Brockovich

Ms. Brockovich is an environmental activist.

Every day, I get emails from people asking for help. They think I’m a lawyer. I’m not. They want to know what caused their cancer or why their farm has tested high for chemicals they’ve never heard of. They want someone to fight for them.

The recent Supreme Court decision overturning the 40-year-old Chevron precedent, which allowed federal agencies to interpret the laws they oversee, should wake us up to how truly alone we are when it comes to environmental health protections. If Donald Trump wins in November, things could go from bad to worse. Progress to protect Americans from dangerous chemicals could reach a standstill.

I could list dozens, if not thousands, of contaminants we come in contact with, some regulated by federal and state agencies, and others not. I’ll focus on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a class of thousands of synthetic chemicals that are finally being recognized for the damage they cause.

PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because they persist in the environment and in human bodies for decades. These chemicals have been used to make common items from textiles to adhesives to food packaging to firefighting foams to nonstick cookware.

The health problems associated with exposure to PFAS include fertility issues, developmental delays in children and increased risk of certain cancers and of obesity, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Scientists have detected PFAS chemicals in the blood of almost all Americans.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. What’s frustrating is that we’ve known for decades which industries use these chemicals, and we’ve known they are accumulating in the environment. But companies and our regulators delayed action.

Take just one example. From the 1950s through the 1970s, 3M dumped its PFAS waste into pits around Minnesota’s eastern Twin Cities metro area. That led to a more than 150-square-mile plume of contaminated groundwater. Subsequent testing revealed that by 2004, more than 140,000 Minnesotans had tainted drinking water. Years later, a young woman named Amara Strande grew up near the plume.

In 2023, Ms. Strande testified in front of Minnesota lawmakers in support of legislation that would restrict PFAS, which she believed caused her rare form of liver cancer. She died weeks before legislation known as Amara’s Law banned the use of PFAS in Minnesota. She was 20 years old. There are more cases like hers.

The number of U.S. communities reportedly contaminated with PFAS compounds continues to grow. Last year, one or more types of PFAS were detected in almost half of the nation’s tap water.

People like to talk about the risks of federal oversight and regulations. But without those basic guardrails in place, large companies get to do whatever they want, and hard-working Americans get sick.

Some much needed action was taken on PFAS at the national level recently. In April, the E.P.A. mandated that municipal water systems remove six PFAS chemicals from tap water. Such efforts are now at risk.

Under the Supreme Court’s recent Chevron ruling, federal judges get the final say on how laws including the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act should be applied. This weakens the ability of regulatory agencies to do their jobs protecting the public’s health from problems such as PFAS. Future pollution cases could meander through the federal court system for years while drinking water remains contaminated.

Companies will take advantage of this ruling. Water utility and chemical manufacturing companies have filed challenges with the E.P.A., calling the rule “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”

Now imagine you take these kneecapped regulations and pair them with a second Trump presidency. President Trump rolled back decades of clean-water protections and dozens of environmental rules. The E.P.A. is still reeling from the exodus of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during his administration. One of his political appointees meddled with a PFAS assessment, weakening the toxicity value of a chemical.

The E.P.A. already had its problems, but the agency fared even worse under Mr. Trump. He repeatedly tried to slash the E.P.A.’s budget and many staff members fled, meaning fewer inspectors, fewer resources to study the impact of toxins and more companies contravening environmental regulations.

I recently reviewed Project 2025, a playbook for the first 180 days of the potential next Trump administration. (Mr. Trump says he doesn’t support the project, though many of his former White House employees are involved.) In the E.P.A. chapter, PFAS are mentioned twice. Project 2025 says the administration should revise groundwater cleanup regulations and policies to reflect the challenges of contaminants such as PFAS, which seems fair. But then it also says the administration should revisit the E.P.A. designation of PFAS chemicals as “hazardous substances” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund. That seems contradictory and ill advised. The designation helps make available CERCLA’s enforcement tools and cost recovery, ensuring that the polluters, not taxpayers, fund or conduct investigations and cleanup.

I’m not giving Democratic administrations a pass. We need more accountability for the environmental ills that have passed under their watch. These include the water crisis in Flint, Mich., and Jackson, Miss. The state and federal responses to the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, left much to be desired. We must expect more from those we put in office; our lives depend on it.

The E.P.A. used to have bipartisan support. The Reagan administration changed that when President Ronald Reagan appointed a corporation-friendly E.P.A. administrator who railed against government regulation.

Rules are effective only if they can be enforced. State and federal agencies have done a poor job of building meaningful enforcement into the well-intentioned regulations that have been enacted, and they must do better. Americans’ health is at risk.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/opinion/erin-brockovich-pfas.html

[freethebook]

Would you give up everything you have, if it meant getting everything you want?

For Morgan Pajpjow, normalcy is perhaps a relative term. To most, moving to a new town twice a year would be a bit unusual, but that's Morgan's normal, and he's resigned to it. After all, what's the point of making new friends when it would just be wasted effort? So he keeps his head down, content to be ignored by most, and staves off the meddling and antagonism of the few who won't.

But when Morgan finds a silver branch waiting for him on his way home, normalcy abandons him. Down a disused fork in his driveway, he tumbles headfirst into the Otherworld--a land of arbitrary laws ruled by capricious fairies. A dance, a gift, or an invitation suddenly become waiting snares, eager to bind him into servitude. Now, far from home, Morgan will have to learn how to embrace vulnerability and ask for others' help, or face being stranded in the Otherworld forever.

______________________________________________________________

So since April is apparently Indie Promo Month, let's try this again.

Hi Tumblr, I'm Kurt and this is my debut novel! Morgan and the Fey sits squarely in the space where Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom meets the Nibelungenlied. If you're interested in stories about:

Lonely queer teens discovering friends and support,

Pan-European fairylore,

Getting lost in strange worlds,

Magic, whimsy, and maybe a touch of terror,

then this might be your book!

You can find Morgan and the Fey available for purchase as an ebook at any of the locations below:

Amazon

Apple Books

Rakuten Kobo

Smashwords

Everand

Palace Marketplace

And, if you're interested, you can also purchase directly from me at my Payhip!

[ciphertology]

" [...] So this is why being introduced to ICP finally makes him snap: it represents a collision between this satirical avatar, the fictional embodiment of this complete joke of an idea, and the fourth wall—breaking exposure to the very content he was designed to mock. On some level Gamzee understands that he's been forced to confront the fact that his entire existence is a joke. He was designed to ridicule that which he reveres. So he just fucking loses it and is never really the same guy again. It's almost a kind of dark, clowny enlightenment, an achievement of chaotic self-awareness. He quite effectively harnesses this grudge by getting revenge on the very story that created him for such humiliating satirical purposes. His method of revenge is linked to Caliborn's modus operandi (whom he comes to revere as the true godhead of his religious beliefs), which is to degrade and defile the story he inhabits. Gamzee's influence appears to be arbitrary, always occuring at the exact right (wrong) moment, to do the exact thing that will fuck things up in a totally incomprehensible way. He becomes an agent of plot chaos, of narrative entropy, and achieves a certain zen in the loathsome, capricious role he plays in the story. These tendencies are linked to his aspect, and could be seen as a certain mastery of it."

bold/italics added by me. anyway this is literally what i am always saying about Gamzee--he is playing a role! he is lashing out against the story itself! he is not a character on the same level as the others are, and, ironically, despite being aware of the falsity of their reality from much earlier on he is the one character doomed to be stuck in the narrative while all the others get to jump ship.

and then:

"Make no mistake: Gamzee sucks. He is, on a conventional layer, a "bad character." His personality is unpleasant, his actions are repellant, and his presence is always an affront to good taste and judgment. Yet, in my view, it's hard to avoid another conclusion that seems to contradict these awful truths about him: there are some potent themes and ideas governing his existence as a character, his actions, and the reasoning behind his dark turn."

hussie admits this is an interesting idea while still dismissing gamzee entirely as an idiotic one dimensional clown. ultimately get the feeling that they believe they wasted the concepts on gamzee but realized they had wrote themself into a wall re: keeping him around. if they thought encouraging fandom to hate him would make them not notice this then well they were mostly right because gamzee is still extremely misunderstood by the majority

[the-cimmerians]

A federal judge in Texas recently blocked a new Federal Trade Commission rule that would have prohibited new employee non-compete agreements starting September 4. Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas ruled on August 20 that the FTC lacked the power to prevent employers from requiring even entry-level fast food workers to enter into really stupid contracts that prohibit them from getting better jobs at competing businesses. And maybe, given recent Supreme Court rulings, the FTC has no power to regulate anything at all, you never know.

Noncompete agreements were supposedly needed to keep executives and industrial secret-havers from stealing important “trade secrets” — like “Arby’s Arby-Q barbecue sandwiches contain no more than 30 percent roadkill” — and giving them to competing businesses. But for workers below the management level, the agreements all too frequently suppressed wages and kept people from changing jobs or starting their own businesses. That’s why Joe Biden started calling for an end to the damn things since his 2023 State of the Union address.

Backers of the FTC rule argued that existing intellectual property laws do a fine job of protecting genuine trade secrets, and that for the vast majority of folks, noncompete agreements amounted to cartel-style barriers to competition. The agency estimated the rule could potentially increase wages by as much as $488 billion over the next decade, amounting to a $524 annual wage increase for the average worker.

But businesses of all sorts, mostly Big, and the US Chamber of Commerce objected, arguing that stifling competition is the American way, and that the FTC has no business interfering with how they break their workers’ spirits and keep wages down. Judge Brown held that the FTC “exceeded its statutory authority,” that the rule was “arbitrary and capricious,” an attitude that is reserved solely for petty dictator jackwad bosses, and that the rule would “cause irreparable harm” to said jackwad plaintiffs.

When the rule was introduced in April, FTC Chair Lina M. Khan argued that the “freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy,” and that noncompete agreements unfairly limited workers’ freedom to seek higher wages and better work conditions, and that noncompetes were bad for business too, “depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand.”

The ruling is pretty much guaranteed to go to the US Supreme Court, because in July, a different federal judge in Pennsylvania upheld the FTC rule, noting in that case that “The FTC's substantive rulemaking authority has been confirmed by circuit courts interpreting the FTC Act, as well as by Congress when it enacted its 1975 and 1980 Amendments to the Act,” which sounds convincing enough until you remember that was a long time ago and the Supreme Court now believes businesses can do almost anything they want.

If we’re lucky, the case may eventually be resolved without the Supremes deciding that indentured servitude is also legal again.

[astro1derland]

In today’s transits, Mercury at 6° Capricorn ♑️ forms a sextile with Venus at 4° Scorpio ♏️ and a trine with Jupiter at 6° Taurus ♉️. Our intellect and mind align and blend well with our ability to relate, connect and explore past-lives and align and work well with our ability to communicate creatively in an effective manner that brings abundance in a practical, meaningful, intense, and confident way.

Expect the unexpected today. Be happy with the small details today. Be happy with yourself today. Impress yourself today.

[salteytakesonmanga]

There are a lot of examples in One Piece of people referencing laws or rules that are completely insane and arbitrary but obeyed without question for centuries. I’m sure many of those absolute laws were created just a capriciously as this, as an excuse to bully and punish a single person. When laws are made like this, does following them actually make you “right?”

This is one of the reasons Oda choosing to make his protagonists criminals is so powerful. Rather than having his main character go through an arc of learning the system that supports his dream is less praiseworthy than he originally believed, he starts with a perspective from the outside. The basic assumptions that shape our point of view as readers are already outside the rules, so it’s easier for Oda to point out the flaws with them.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

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.

[banjjakz]

notes: major character death; gojo satoru is not a good person (we know this); direct continuation of geto suguru's route; if you have not completed the good end may you rest in pieces.

➡ Sneak out of the fire escape.

The thought of trying to navigate your way even further through the deep, dark bowels of this strange place fills you with a fearful repulsion – and not the good kind. While you got off quite lucky with such a faithful encounter with Geto, you shouldn’t get cocky. After all, the security guard from earlier could still be lurking around…imagine if he caught you in such a state of obvious erotic disarray: hair mussed, knees scraped and bruised, face flushed, lipstick smudged…you can’t imagine that would go over well.

Steeling your nerves to do something truly unhinged, you begin to search for the fire escape.

At least you aren’t jumping out of the window, or something insane like that – albeit, sneaking out of the fire escape is a little out there, even for you.

But you no longer inhabit the normal and upright world. It is almost as though you are now floating through reality, your soul wandering through life in an ambiguously disparate state, hopping from absurd situation to absurd situation, motivated by little more than the capricious nature of your arbitrary whims.

It's not like you have much left to lose, after all. The most important thing to you – perhaps the only important thing to you – in your life is ShinShow. And you’ve just achieved the highest goal of any dedicated fan: ultimate recognition.

The eventful evening’s erotic high and the delusional adrenaline coursing through your veins gives you the courage not only to locate the fire escape, but also to slip through the dingy, rusting door and shimmy down the rickety, narrow steps. Even by Japanese standards, the contraption is quite small. Several times, you almost lose your footing and go tumbling down over the railing. Instead of instilling you with healthy fear, the near-accidents only serve to propel you forward with renewed vigor each time you brush closer and closer to impending mortal injury.

As soon as your chunky platforms hit the worn concrete, now back on solid, stable ground, you find it difficult not to deflate a little bit. What a night! What an experience! And you have Geto Suguru’s personal LINE ID to show for all of it…how are you supposed to return to your ordinary, mundane life after such an experience?

The thought depresses you. Work, school, family, friends…it all pales in comparison to the evening you and Geto shared together. Oh, if only every night could be that way!

But that would be selfish of you. Geto is a leader, after all; an inspiration to many, and an idol to all. To usurp him for your personal pleasure and only yours alone would be doing a disservice to his life’s work. You recognize that you must share Geto-sama, as much as it might pain you to do so.

“I don’t wanna share him,” you mumble to yourself, aimlessly launching the decrepit corpse of a crumpled beer can across the alley with a limp, half-hearted kick. “Geto-sama should be all mine…”

In the desolate boughs of this seedy in-between limbo sandwiched between towering buildings of various questionable services and wares, your pathetic utterances should be private, unheard by only your own self-pitying ears.

Operative word: should.

“Haha. That’s a funny joke!”

Your heart drops faster than you can turn around. By the time your body processes the shock at not being alone (seriously, when the hell did someone else get here? You’ve been loitering for several minutes, at this point!) the owner of the unfamiliar voice is already entirely too close for comfort. One moment, the snarky quip bounced off of the aged reinforcements of a residential building several paces away – but now, as you pivot on your heel to confront the stranger, your nose is but a hair’s breadth away from painfully colliding with a wide, solid chest clad in nondescript black cloth.

When you finally glimpse his face, the first thing that comes to your mind is that he’s definitely a douchebag. If the bleached platinum faded undercut weren’t bad enough, this asshole is wearing sunglasses at night. His over-six-foot stature is worn with a sort of self-reverential pride; he carries himself like he knows he’s probably the hottest guy in any room at any given point in time.

How annoying.

This is why, outside of ShinShow, you don’t really care to interact with the male species. They’re all cocky, self-assured, greedy, immature, uncaring, inconsiderate morons! Nothing like your hard-working and self-made idols…ugh.

Just being around this dude makes your skin crawl. Not in the sexy way.

“Excuse me,” you mutter, cutting him a sharp glare with wide, whaling eyes as if to actually convey the more sincere message you hold for him within your heart: get the fuck lost, creep.

But when you go to rush past him, his body moves – again with that mind-numbing, preternatural speed – and you run straight into his annoying firm and solid abs.

Oh God, is this it? Is this really how you are meant to depart from this world? You would’ve preferred to be sent to hell by Geto’s hand over anyone else’s…

Despondent and kind of over it, you direct a firm stare upwards at this asshole’s infuriatingly unbothered smirk. “What’s your problem?”

“You,” says the stranger, simply, distracting you with his blindly white smile so that it is far, far too late by the time you realize that both your wrists are now incapacitated by one of his large, strong hands. “Don’t struggle. It won’t make a difference. Or do! It would actually be kinda funny to watch.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” You demand, instinctively jerking away and finding his grip to be even more iron-solid that it had initially seemed – if that was even possible. “Let me go!!”

When you go to kick him, you find that your perception of reality shatters apart like glass skittering across kitchen tile in a million, tiny, irreparably disparate fractured pieces.

Your foot cannot connect with his body.

The more force you put behind your futile defense against your assailant, the more frustrated and exhausted you become. How can this even be possible? It’s like there’s an invisible paper-thin shield dividing you and him – and yet, despite the thinness of the protective layer, the intimate proximity of your limb and his infuriatingly chiseled torso, there is an endless ocean of space that separates you. No matter how hard you try, you cannot touch him.

You cannot win.

How this is even possible, you haven’t the faintest idea. Some sort of illusion? An advanced kind of electromagnetic technology?

Horror dawns upon you like a red sun on the horizon: there’s no way you can escape this.

The stranger is a seasoned and well-trained predator, that much is for sure. He senses the fight leaking out of your body as a shark might follow the intoxicating scent of blood in the water. He pursues your misery with a keen appetite, one that threatens to devour you whole.

“You’re almost cute,” breaths the strange white-haired man, crowding you up against the brick wall with little more than the oppressive force of his presence. “I can see why he thought you’d be easy.”

A stab of familiarity pierces clear and true through your thundering innards. Surely, he couldn’t be talking about… “Do you know Geto-sama?”

The bastard has the audacity to laugh in your face. His breath is annoyingly minty fresh.

“Oh, wow. You actually call him that? I thought it was just an inside joke between him and the fans, or something. Hah! That’s really good. That’s just too good…” He, honest-to-God, wipes a tear from his eye, underneath his sunglasses.

Even the precarity of your dangerous situation is not enough to cow the bullish indignancy that flushes through you, hot and temperamental, at the suggestion of a perceived slight against your (new?) oshi.

“Hey,” you grunt, chin checking up towards the sky, “you shouldn’t talk that way about Geto-sama. He’s really hard working, and such a good leader…the best there ever was or could be.”

“The best,” mulls the stranger, one large hand descending to stroke his jaw. You can’t tell if the gesture is more a mockery than it is a genuine display of sincere pensive contemplation.

“Tell you what. I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

And then he leans down, easy and natural as breathing, as blinking, lips coming to ghost along the crest of your quivering, hypersensitive ears:

“I already know that.”

With viper-like speed, his fist shoots up to close around your throat. “You don’t think I know that?” You’d sputter out a response if you could breathe. Or think.  “Sweetheart, I’ve been here before that statement could even be said to be true. You could say we’re high school sweethearts. My one and only, he is.”  

Oh, fuck.

Oh, God, oh, fuck.

Did you just mess with an OG fan?

Crap, this is bad. This is really, really bad. Never did you think you’d fall victim to the string of violent, sometimes deadly assaults that ravaged the streets of Kabukichou. But pissing off a dedicated wota by getting caught fucking around with their ultimate oshi is one of the fastest ways to find out!

S-sorry, you try to mouth as your weak, floundering hands doing nothing to persuade his grip into loosening, even just the tiniest bit. Didn’t know!!

“Don’t care~,” sing-songs the stranger, strangely cheerful given the circumstances. He’s not normal. It hits you quite belatedly. Even for a superfan, he isn’t normal. “No one told you to go around playing with other people’s toys~”

You don’t stand a chance. This is the end.

His next retort slips out as a simpering purr: “Good girl. You’ve accepted your fate.”

Can he read your mind, or something? This is seriously a scene out of some horror movie…

“For that, I’ll spare you. Quick and painless death it is! Simply deleted from existence. All your icky atoms and particles will end up somewhere in Timbuktu, probably. Hopefully. How does that sound? For a masochist like you, that’s almost a worse fate, I suppose.”

Huh?

“Huh?”

“Bye-bye~”

The last glimpse your poor, foolish mortal eyes catch of this cruel world are the slight peek of his startlingly blue over the rim of those opaque, black sunglasses. As you lose consciousness, in the split second before your existence is entirely wiped out from this chapter of reality, your vision blurs, doubling, then tripling, his bright, cerulean eyes appearing to you not as two, but six. They are everywhere, all-seeing, surrounding you, bearing down as the heavens might itself upon the woeful frame of a mortal slated for smiting. Soon enough, the six double, then triple, then multiply so fast that all you can see are rows and rows and rows of wide, unblinking, omniscient eyes. Staring. Judging. Tracking.

Why does it feel familiar, this sight?

[MAY YOU REST IN PEACE.]

ENDING ACHIEVED: GETO SUGURU BAD END 2

SECRET ROUTE UNLOCKED: RYOMEN SUKUNA.

> PROCEED TO ROUTE [coming soon!]

[ei-banana]

Pairing: Elise/Lebkuchen (sfw)

Word count: 818

———

“Have you ever tasted pure moonlight, Elise?” Lebkuchen asked one night by the bell tower’s railing, wisps of honeyed brown falling wild and free from the cover of her habit.

She bent low to toy with the breeze, daring to raise her feet off the ground before Elise thought to speak.

“Moonlight?” Elise’s question was rough, broken up by the extol that she stymied—Lebkuchen was beautiful this far away from the congregation, carefree and spry, flirtatious like something wicked compelled her. The notion left Elise blustering. “Of course I haven’t, have you?”

“Not yet,” Lebkuchen said, dropping her feet back to the floor, “but I think I’d like to.” Her heeled shoes clacked along the stone, a minor discordance within the calm, though her eyes held a mote of reprieve.

Elise shuffled forward, a mere two steps, just enough to grasp at Lebkuchen’s rosary, fingers wrapping around its lacquered cross. “Have you been sleeping alright?”

“Certainly.”

“You’re talking nonsense.” Elise tugged lightly, hoping to see that beaded chain snap.

“Am I not permitted to call upon the beauty of St. Walpurga’s gifts?” There was an air of jocularity about her, the smallest twitch of her lips the only, minute tell. It was plain as day to Elise—one did not fritter away their youth at Lebkuchen’s side without learning her knack for arbitrary bouts of wit—and her eyes fixed upon that drawling simper. “Pontification is my calling after all.”

For once, there was no retort primed and waiting at the tip of Elise’s tongue, only silence, the flustered sort. The maddening, dizzying, flustered sort.

Where moonlight peppered through the thready stratus, there was a brief refraction; light once pale now tinged golden with the town’s street lamp glow, the residual beams mottling Lebkuchen’s rounded cheeks until she looked carved from marble. There was a cluster above the bow of her upper lip, too—a most glaring distraction.

“—do you want to?”

Elise straightened at her words, face red as a beet. She’d missed the front end of Lebkuchen’s question, her subsequent brow raise denoting humor and impatience both. “What… what was that?”

“I’d be more than happy to grant you your first taste.”

“My first taste…” Elise had meant the utterance as a question, though it fell breathy from her lips, the flutter of Lebkuchen’s lashes allusive enough for her to teeter where she stood.

Life was a silly little song—Elise pondered with an overeager nod—the direction that their night had swiftly gone most capricious indeed. Though she found no need to complain, all wariness from the day sputtering to inconsequence when she tugged at the rosary again, incessant until their lips crushed together.

It was sloppy, the way they danced—Elise’s fervid want for something brighter, something sweeter leaving her a covetous mess, pressing Lebkuchen’s back into the railing until she winced at the sudden torque. Elise pulled away, sheepish, an apology lodged in her throat.

“How was that?” Lebkuchen beat her to it, eyes still closed like she existed elsewhere for a time.

“I don’t know.” Elise could hardly hear herself speak; her awe was but fodder for the wind’s rolling tumble. “I think I need a little more.”

A little more time away; a little more freedom, somewhere the two of them could lay. The fire in her chest blared brightly, it always had, but Lebkuchen tamed its virulent flicker with the press of her sturdy hands.

She cupped Elise’s cheeks, yanking her forward, twisting her fingers in her hair as she pried open the seam of her lips. Elise’s following gasp was lost, fluttering somewhere behind the latch of Lebkuchen’s teeth, swapped quickly for a low and heady hum. A fair trade if ever there was one.

Elise was lost, beguiled by the taste of Lebkuchen’s luster—sweet like the grape preserves she’d shared over lunch. She was insatiable, tracing her fingers over the cut of Lebkuchen’s collarbones, the slope of her neck, nipping at her bottom lip just as she tore the habit free from Lebkuchen’s head.

She gasped, and the slip of cerulean silk fell—dainty like a leaf on the breeze, twisting and twirling about until it landed amidst the fountain’s even ripple.

“Elise!” Lebkuchen admonished with no hint of sincerity, swiping the hair from her eyes now that the thick of it was left unbound. “You're taking the fall for it if Father Hans finds me wet-headed and ravaged come morning.”

At that, Elise’s smile of pride dropped the barest inch. “You wouldn’t be so cruel, Leb…” Lebkuchen pursed her lips. “You wouldn’t.”

Her tacit plea only wrought a stifled chuckle, the sound devolving into laughter as rich as the luring promise of Elise’s dreams; as brilliant as the moon and stars and yonder city lights combined. Elise conceded with a moony sigh, only watching for a moment before seeking to swallow the very sound.

Moonlight dappled, and the woods did not call so loudly.

[asha-mage]

🌶️ for either more HoD/GoT or MDZS please.

I'll go with MDZS since I've done two Westeros ones already-

A key part of the social commentary in MDZS I think a lot of people downplay or miss is that when the book ends none of the underlying societal problems that lead to the conflict have been solved. On the one hand, I get it- you just kinda want Wangxian to retire to domestic bliss and not have to deal with anymore bullshit since they've been through enough.

But it's very much a huge part of what the book is trying to say that Our Heroes really don't have an answer to woes of their world, and don't have a reason to try and find one. Wei Wuxian attempting to do the right thing, to force or cajole or trick or will the world into being better is one of the things that lead to his death at the Burial Mounds, and he knows that effort to do the same in the future will likely have the same result. So the old withered men keep their power and their traditions and their choking social hierarchy and their capricious arbitrary judgements....and instead Wangxian find victory and joy in the little things. In small acts of compassion and kindness and justice- in one or two lives saved and cases solved, and the common folk helped.

Like, obviously the book doesn't have a downer ending or anything, this is a romance at the end of the day. But their is something toothy and sharp in the ending, in Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji just kind of...giving up on the idea that their world can be fixed and instead choosing to live with it as best they can, and the fandom tends to forget that to focus on post-canon fics full of domestic hijinks and family shenanigans.