#faking expertise

[writingwithfolklore]

Fake it til you Make it (Faking Expertise)

                One of the hardest parts of writing is that we're rarely just writers.. We have to be doctors, magicians, politicians, thieves, masters in chemistry, song writing, theatre, biology. The perfect writer would be someone with a little bit of knowledge about literally everything. As much as I’d love to spend the rest of my life just taking random university classes and learning about whatever I needed for the project I’m working on—eventually I have to graduate and, y’know, pay off student loans.

                So when you’re writing about something you really don’t know anything about, but your character is supposed to (or worse, supposed to be an expert) here’s what I do:

Research what you can

I start with the basics. Vocab lists, beginners classes or articles, and news stories about recent contributions to the field are an easy way to make your character sound like they know what they’re talking about, and also they’re super available to find. Just don’t overuse niche vocab or you’ll lose your readers—if you’re going to use a term or word most wouldn’t know, you can also define it or use context to allow readers to know what it means, stick to a few of these max.

2. Keep it vague

If my characters are learning about something in class that I know nothing about, an easy way to get by this is to start the scene in the classroom with a little intro: “open your textbooks to page 33”, and then focus on something else, “outside shadows stretched long across campus as the sun dove behind the horizon”, then finish it up, “Next assignment is on the fundamentals of linguistics we went over today. Please have it in by next week.”

        Obviously if it’s important you should teach it to the readers too—there’s only so much faking we can do in this area, but this allows you to keep from literally teaching an entire lecture within your story and is going to help you keep interest and control your pacing.

3. It’s okay if you fib a little

The truth is, most of your readers aren’t going to be experts or professionals in whatever you’re writing about either. When we read fiction, we’re reading from an understanding that the things within it aren’t realistic or stretch and exaggerate the truth. If you make some things up about the topic you’re writing about, few will notice, many less will care. It doesn’t have to be perfectly accurate, we’re here for the story, not to study for our next exam.

                If you have the basics, the base of knowledge, but build fiction or magic off of that, it will be convincing enough while saving you from spending too much money getting a masters in your topic.

                Good luck!

[kaurwreck]

y'all stop saying fyodor has never looked so sincerely angry before. he has.

I know this because, and this is not an exaggeration, the vast majority of my manga revisits are to enjoy his expressions of anger, disdain, and malcontent. i shit you not, several of my bsd meta posts wholly unrelated to fyodor were written because I happened to notice something else while flipping through to imbibe fedya's hissy fits. I don't reread the manga when I do this, just those scenes, unless something else catches my attention.

anyway, stop disrespecting my beloved pastime.

[tealfoxarts]

Leave it to Psmith as an Anime

“I think you’re terribly conceited. You seem to have mapped out my future for me.”

“I have.”

I’m just saying—for a book written in the 1920s, it would work unbelievably well. And it’s in the public domain :D

[divorceblogger]

the funny thing about the sanderson drama is that I think it could be fixed if somebody sat him down and explained to him very slowly that television production involves hundreds of creatives and that no single creative is going to be offered the absolute authority to execute their vision despite their (perhaps self-supposed) superior expertise. it's a collaborative project, not a fucking dictatorship or an individualistic exercise in creating art. and that it's not even his fucking book series.

[thegreatyin]

the intellect tournament is just a giant chess match,,

the scoundrel and scientist have never been more collectively delighted (for very different reasons)

[kurp-stuff]

Well the french in the last episode of iwtv was certainly something

[zorquil]

Great post on plastic fake leather now cover the massive amount of waste in the animal industry. How about how most micro plastics come from fishing nets (at sea) and tire particles (on land). How are herd animals moved around in mechanized agriculture? Oh, right. Extensive trucking industry. Now check out vegan leather made of fungi mycelium.

... Wheh?

[recoiloperated]

Where's the color for everyday I find out about a new thing that you're basically an expert in ?

I don't know. It's probably one of those shades of red I can't see....

[silent-sentinels]

fuck it. everyone scooch, im taking a turn on the wheel.

[webfactor]

Wikipedia editors push offensive language to delegitimize some Native American Tribes

Article Text As Follows:

Wikipedia editors push offensive language to delegitimize some Native American Tribes

By Sherry Robinson

Special to The Independent

ALBUQUERQUE — When Lily Gladstone won a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the public recognized a Native American actress. But to Wikipedia readers, she is an American actress whose father was Blackfeet and Nez Perce and whose mother was white.

Three long-time editors at the online encyclopedia argued that even though Gladstone grew up on the Blackfeet reservation, she couldn’t be called Native American unless she was an enrolled member of the tribe. When Gladstone’s uncle weighed in to say she was enrolled, they dismissed his comments. She is still, in Wikipedia’s view, “an American actress.”

In recent years, outside of a national debate in Indian Country over fake tribes, a handful of Wikipedia editors have been deciding who is Native American and who isn’t.

Look behind the curtain of the sprawling site and you will find a network of 265,000 volunteer editors writing and editing within a Wiki universe that has its own rules, language, police and courts but no traditional hierarchy.

Wikipedia’s structure allows likeminded editors to work together, but it also permits editors with a bias to advance their agenda. The site has drawn criticism from media and academics for slanted articles on Blacks and Jews. Wikipedia documents its own systemic bias in an article by that name and attributes the problem to too few minority editors. The typical editor, it says, is a white male.

By Wikipedia's definition, the only real tribes are federally recognized; editors of Native American material denigrate state-recognized and unrecognized tribes and seem preoccupied with revealing fake Indians.

The fakes are out there, and they’re a problem. But there’s a big difference between people who invented a Native ancestry and people who have a long, documented heritage.

For this story, aggrieved tribal members didn’t identify themselves because they fear the site’s size and power – it reaches 1.8 billion devices a month – and some editors’ vindictiveness.

Behind the curtain

Wikipedia is transparent about its process. Click on “talk” at the top of each article and you find the (sometimes endless) debates among editors about an article and see the site’s rules in action.

Editors are anonymous because the Wikipedia Foundation has a strong commitment to privacy, says a spokesperson. However, readers don’t know what expertise editors have or whether they’re Native American.

Editors select their subject matter. With experience they can rise in the pecking order until they gain authority to reverse or eliminate the edits of others. They quote the site’s often arcane rules in Wiki-Speak to anyone who disagrees. While Wikipedia espouses objectivity, neutrality and civility, discussions can take the low road.

On Lily Gladstone’s talk page, a newish editor, user name Tsideh (Apache for bird), asked, “What are your sources supporting the idea that Native Americans are only those who are enrolled in a US recognized tribe?”

A Wiki editor, user name ARoseWolf, answered: “A notable subject can make a claim… but you must have that respective tribal nation’s acceptance as verification through enrollment."

Gladstone’s uncle wrote: “I’m a primary source for Ms. Gladstone’s tribal heritage. Her father is my brother. Through our father, we are both enrolled in the Blackfeet Tribe in the USA,” he wrote. “Our mother is enrolled Nez Perce. So Ms. Gladstone is a direct descendant of both Blackfeet and Nez Perce.”

ARoseWolf shot him down. “We can not use primary sources to verify such information and, you, as a claimed family member have a WP:COI which means we need an independent source.”

WP:COI is the Wikipedia rule on confl ict of interest. Wikipedia forbids primary sources, and yet they’re the gold standard for journalists and academics.

Tsideh challenged the position that only enrollment in a recognized tribe “entitles somebody to claim to be a Native American” as an unfounded, minority point of view that Wiki editors didn’t support with a citation or explanation.

ARoseWolf and others chastised Tsideh for violating Wiki rules on bullying, false accusations and arguing Wiki policy. Tsideh countered that Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t have to prove he was an Italian American, but Lily Gladstone had to prove she was a Native American.

As the back and forth continued, ARoseWolf slammed a new editor who "just happened to find this discussion,” a dig that implies one party enlisted another to join the debate. That too is a Wiki violation.

Bohemian Baltimore, another regular, insisted, “If she’s not enrolled, she may be a descendant, but she’s not a Native American.”

Who is Native American?

Terry Campbell, a Navajo born in Tuba City, Arizona, who lives out of state, has been studying Wikipedia for five months, after friends complained about poor treatment in trying to edit Wiki pages.

One friend wanted to add some facts to an article about a tribe. “These changes were rejected by a handful of editors who cited other Wikipedia pages as sources,” he said, “and I thought that was very, very odd.”

A friend citing sources that prove her tribe survived the Indian wars and received state recognition ran up against Wikipedia guidelines on determining Native American identities that were largely crafted by two editors, user names CorbieVreccan and Yuchitown. Wiki editors used the guidelines to reclassify dozens of state-recognized tribes as “heritage organizations” and removed “Native American” from biographies of prominent tribal members or, worse, called them a "self-identified Native American.”

The implication, Campbell explained, is that the tribe no longer exists and that its members are suspect or even “Pretendians.” Wikipedia has a page for that too.

The same group has shaped many articles on Native subjects. Campbell said he combed through references and found they were misrepresented, taken out of context, sourced from far-right academics, or unreliable.

“The scope of this issue is huge,” Campbell said. “It permeates all the Native articles I checked.”

Campbell recognized talking points from what he called a far-right movement in Indian Country intent on erasing state-recognized and unrecognized tribes. (New Mexico has no state-recognized tribes and six unrecognized groups or tribes.)

Some Native Americans and Anglos, he said, believe that Indigenous people outside the circle of federal recognition should be considered non-Native. They also want to prevent members of the disenfranchised groups from selling their art, receiving ancestral remains, accessing disaster relief or re-establishing their homeland.

Outside Indian Country, it’s not generally known that U.S. Indigenous groups live within a caste system based on government recognition, with 574 federally recognized tribes on top, dozens of state-recognized tribes second, and several hundred unrecognized tribes last.

In 2021, Yuchitown wrote, “The overwhelming majority of ‘List of unrecognized tribes in the United States’ are completely illegitimate.”

There are many reasons why groups aren’t recognized. Some avoided the reservation. Some lost their recognition during the termination era. Some were broken up and scattered during the Indian Wars. Some went underground, practicing their culture secretly while passing as Hispanic. Many simply stayed put.

When Wikipedia editors claim that “Native American” is a political status conferred by the U.S. government, that an individual can only be called a “descendent” until their tribe is recognized, they push this narrative, Campbell said. It’s a contradiction of federal Indian law and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, “As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person’s identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

Extreme points of view

Campbell has contributed to a lengthy report, as yet unpublished, that identifies biased editors. They include Yuchitown, CorbieVreccan, ARoseWolf, Indigenous girl and Bohemian Baltimore.

“It was like a tree with many interconnecting branches that had been created over time by the same small group of people pushing extreme points of view,” Campbell said.

Initially the group made changes slowly, he said, “but they started pursuing their agenda aggressively after November, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.”

Campbell observed widespread violations of Wikipedia standards: “I found evidence that they blatantly misquoted and misrepresented sources to push extremist political beliefs; teamed up to manipulate the consensus system by voting in blocks; exploited Wikipedia rules, such as conflict of interest, to block outside editors from making changes to Native-related pages; excessively cited opinion pieces from fringe political figures, including those accused of racism and anti-semitism; blocked the use of legitimate primary and secondary sources that contradict their extremists beliefs, which violates Wikipedia’s rule against information suppression; posted originally researched, politically motivated essays instead of well-sourced articles; and harassed and defamed Native American tribes and living Native American people.”

Reacting in February to an early draft of the report posted on Google, the editors were incensed that anybody would voice complaints “off-Wiki.” ARoseWolf wrote that “we have been attacked, threatened with legal action and had misinformation/ false claims spread against us.” She and Yuchitown denied being part of a conspiracy against tribes or organizations and said they were just following Wiki rules. Yuchitown accused critics of being “meat puppets” of a person who objected to some Native content and enlisted others to back them up. In WikiSpeak this is meat puppetry.

“Volunteers on Wikipedia vigilantly defend against information that does not meet the site’s requirements,” the Wikipedia spokeswoman wrote. “These volunteers regularly review a feed of real-time edits to quickly address problematic changes; bots spot and revert many common forms of negative behavior on the site; and volunteer administrators (trusted Wikipedia volunteers with advanced permissions to protect Wikipedia) further investigate and address negative behavior. When a user repeatedly violates Wikipedia policies, Wikipedia administrators can take disciplinary action and block them from further editing.”

Inaccurate and insulting

In 2006, Wikipedia established the WikiProject Indigenous Peoples of North America to improve its Native-related content of 14,000 articles and more than 37,000 pages.

Recently, a hot topic on the project’s talk page was a proposal to change a category name from “unrecognized tribes” to “organizations that self-identify.”

On April 15 Melissa Harding Ferretti, chairwoman of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts, wrote, “The proposed renaming of the category on Wikipedia is not only inaccurate… but also insulting.”

Ferretti is one of the few Natives to take on Wiki editors openly.

Herring Pond was originally listed with other Wampanoag tribes. In 2022 Yuchitown stripped “state-recognized” from the page, even though the state Commission of Indian Affairs regularly engages with them. Last year Yuchitown created a separate page for Herring Pond. Wiki editors resisted attempts to make changes or corrections.

After Wikipedia called Herring Pond a “cultural heritage group" and a nonprofi t that "claims" to descend from Wampanoags, Ferretti wrote in a Wiki discussion, “There is no claim, it’s a fact! Might I add, nonprofit status was imposed upon Tribal nations in the ‘90s because we didn’t have our federal recognition yet.”

Her tribe has a well-documented history. “We still have care and custody of our sacred places, burial grounds and our 1838 Meetinghouse, one of three built for the Tribe after the arrival of the colonizers. Our continuous presence and stewardship of these lands are recognized by historical records, deeds and treaties.”

Ferretti wrote that tribes without federal recognition already face significant hurdles to gain recognition, "and being labeled as 'self-identified' can add to these challenges by casting doubt on our legitimacy.” Mislabeling unrecognized tribes “can lead to the spread of hate, misinformation and further marginalization.”

Some Wiki editors agreed. One wrote that “there are strong negative connotations to saying someone who is Native 'self identifies,' because the inference is that they are Native in name only or falsely claiming to be Native. A change like this will impact countless articles…” Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf and Yuchitown insisted there were no negative connotations. They opposed calling an unrecognized group a tribe because it legitimized groups with unverified claims. ARoseWolf said, “If they had proof of their connection to the original people they would have gotten federal recognition.”

This is a frequent refrain among the insiders, who apparently think the application process is a slam dunk instead of the long, difficult, expensive journey it is.

Yuchitown noted that “all of the editors who actively contribute to and improve Native American topics on Wikipedia have voted to support the renaming.” It’s a remarkable declaration that he and his allies act in concert.

The insiders took even stronger action against Lipan Apaches in Texas.

Late in 2022, Yuchitown changed the entry of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas to say that NCAI recognizes the tribe as state-recognized but the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) does not. In fact, NCSL took down its web page listing federal and state-recognized tribes because it couldn’t verify the accuracy.

In boilerplate that appears on all the Texas unrecognized tribes’ websites, Yuchitown said Texas has no legal mechanism to recognize tribes, citing an online article that in turn cites the discredited NCSL web page.

In 2022, a tribal member and Yuchitown fought back and forth, reversing each other’s edits. In WikiSpeak, it was edit warring. The tribal member informed Yuchitown that the NCSL page he quoted no longer existed. CorbieVreccan told the member she was up against “two experienced editors,” and Yuchitown accused her of conflict of interest and edit warring. His fellow travelers demanded to know if she had an official position with the tribe. She didn’t.

ARoseWolf wrote, “As Wikipedia is not a state or government-controlled entity it can make up its own rules for what content is allowed on its platform.”

The Wikimedia spokeswoman says that in some extreme cases the foundation relies on a trust and safety team that will investigate and may also take action.

Campbell wrote in the report that many Native American communities and people “have been targeted by the small group of propagandists in this complaint… And the thousands of people who make these communities have been slandered and assaulted on Wikipedia through the actions of these propagandists.”

Link to the original article:

[janmisali]

did you have a similar issue with goncharov that you had with the fourth person pronoun? if not, then what's the difference between the two kinds of misinformation?

the fourth person pronoun thing is people being confidently wrong about my exact area of expertise. the goncharov thing was people joking about a fake movie

[accecakes]

Cod x Fallout NV! Mixing special interests!

Allow me to go on a tangent for a hot minute.

Exbrotherhood! Ghost: Simon has been part of the brotherhood for as long as he can remember. Having been abandoned as an infant on the steps of the Hidden Valley bunker. They took him in, becoming one of their most outstanding soldier with expertise in both weaponry and survival tactics. Simon would then be tranfered into their patrol team. Where he would collect data and become familiarized with the mojave landscape. Enough to expose himself to dangerous amounts of radiation. Which then turned him into a ghoul. He made his best attempt to keep his ghoulification hidden. However, word got around that they've been noticing a harshness in his voice and reluctant to change, shower, or eat in front of others. The overseer found out, making them take the ultimate decision of executing one of their own. In which he deemed "Putting him out of his misery." Simon completely shattered by his sentence. During his incarceration, he conjured the plan of faking his death on the day of his execution, in hopes of leaving the brotherhood and adopting the new identity he called "Ghost."

Boomer! Soap: John grew up on Nellis' air force base ever since his ancestors had left Vault 34 decades ago. Ever since Soap was introduced to heavy artillery and explosives, which is customary for residents part of the boomers. He discovered his natural talent of all things explosives, firing from long distances and calculating the necessary amount required for certain jobs. Soap volunteered to be part of their guard outpost. Anyone who would even look in the direction of the base would have been blast to kindgom come. They would receive all sorts of unwarranted visitors. A group that managed to catch his eye were the raiders who flaunted their makeshift armor. A part of Soap grew curious of their lifestyle and choice in wardrobe. After dark, he would secretly collect the scraps leftover from the explosions. Not much could have been recovered, but the pieces that did survive, he would wear and keep hidden in his bunker. Soap couldn't let the others know of his fascination. It would have been seen as fratinizing with the enemy.

[mikkeneko]

So here's my beef with ChatGPT. Even aside from the issues with plagiarism, cheating, people using it to fake the work that they absolutely need to be actually doing, &etc.

With the advent of the internet we've been in a situation where all the knowledge available to humanity could, conceivably, be made available to everyone at all times. We've had enormous public works built towards that purpose -- libraries, Wikipedia, archives, everything. But an increasing problem as the years have gone by has been the problem of sorting out the signal from the noise. Sorting out real, helpful advice from scams and snake-oil. Paths that lead to dead-ends as sources of information go down and don't come back up. Trying to figure out who's a real expert, who's even a real person in a sea of fake generated avatars. Distinguishing wheat from chaff, usable material from trash.

And the makers of ChatGPT -- and every other AI programmer who's now trying to jump on the bandwagon -- is looking at this problem and saying "You know what this situation needs? More noise. More fakes. More chaff. More dead-ends and empty shells. I think we have TOO MUCH useful information and real expertise. I think we should shake things up by adding more utterly contentless garbage to the mix." And they created an automated noise generator.

Just imagine being on the bank of a pond and saying "ah, this is a lovely pond, the fish and plants are so beautiful, I'm just having trouble seeing them through the silt in the water" and the person next to you says "I'm going to build a factory on the bank of this pond that does nothing but pour more dirt into it. All day. Every day. Nonstop." And then everyone else overhears them and says "Oh, what a fantastic idea! I'm going to create my OWN sludge-factory to get in on this action!"

[solxamber]

Tides of Affection - Azul Ashengrotto x Reader

You've chosen Azul!

Falling for Azul is gradual, yet natural, just like the ebb and flow of currents.

Prologue ; 1k Masterlist

You hold your phone for a moment, mentally preparing yourself for the call. After a lot of back and forth in your mind, you’ve finally decided to accept Azul’s date invitation. As much as you tried to play it cool, the thought of an exclusive dinner at Mostro Lounge had been lingering in your head all week.

The phone rings once, and you hear a professional but familiar voice. "This is Azul—"

"I’ll go on the date with you."

A loud crash echoes from the other end, followed by a distinct, undignified yelp. You clap a hand over your mouth to stifle the laugh that’s bubbling up. There’s a beat of awkward silence, then a very obvious sound of someone—likely Azul—scrambling to recover his composure.

"I-I mean, excellent! Yes, that sounds... wonderful," he continues, trying to adopt his usual smooth tone but failing miserably. You can almost see him pushing his glasses up, his face pink as he adds, "I'll pick you up tonight. Dress... appropriately."

That night, Azul shows up at Ramshackle looking like he’s spent hours meticulously choosing the perfect outfit. He’s wearing his best suit, his glasses polished to perfection. When you answer the door, he offers you his arm, clearly attempting to channel his inner gentleman.

The two of you walk toward Mostro Lounge in comfortable silence, and when you arrive, you’re stunned. The restaurant is completely empty, save for a beautifully set table in the middle, lit by soft candlelight. It’s a perfect mix of intimate and extravagant.

"Azul... this is amazing," you say, genuinely impressed.

Azul’s face lights up at your praise. "I’m glad you approve. I wanted tonight to be... memorable."

Before you can reply, Floyd suddenly appears out of nowhere, and your eyes widen. He's wearing his usual Mostro Lounge uniform but with a huge, fake mustache taped to his face. He walks over to the table, arms outstretched, and starts speaking in the worst French accent you’ve ever heard.

“Bonsoooiiiir, mes amiiiis!” Floyd exclaims, throwing in some exaggerated hand gestures for good measure. “Tonight, I will be your serrrrveur extraordinaire! What shall I bring ze beautiful couple to eet?"

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from bursting out laughing, while Azul’s face looks like it’s seconds away from bursting into flames. He’s frantically signaling something to the side, mouthing at Floyd to cut it out.

Floyd, of course, ignores this entirely and leans in close, waggling his fake mustache. “Perhaps ze... escargot? Or ze finest lobstah?”

Azul is about five seconds from collapsing into the floor when Jade appears, ever the picture of calm, and gently steers Floyd away. “Floyd, I believe your expertise is required in the kitchen.”

Floyd whines loudly. “Awww, c’mon! I wanna see Azul embarrass himself! It’s funny watching him mess up in front of his little date!”

“I’m sure you’ll find another way to entertain yourself,” Jade says, completely unfazed, as he firmly guides his twin back into the kitchen.

Azul looks like he’s dying inside. “I deeply apologize for that,” he mutters, mortified beyond belief.

You can't help but laugh. “Honestly? I think it was hilarious. Floyd's got... quite the talent for making things interesting.”

Azul lets out a long, exhausted sigh, shaking his head. “Interesting is one way to put it.”

He reaches for his glass of water, but his hand is visibly trembling, and when he takes a sip, some of it dribbles down the side of the glass. You can’t help but notice how tense he is, his shoulders drawn tight and his eyes darting nervously between you and the table. It’s honestly... kind of adorable.

Feeling bold, you reach across the table and take his hand gently in yours.

Azul freezes, eyes widening in shock.

“You don’t need to be so nervous,” you say softly, giving his hand a light squeeze. “I’m here because I like you, Azul. You don’t need to impress me—I’m already impressed.”

Azul’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, and when he finally speaks, his voice cracks. “You... you like me?”

Your expression softens. “Yeah, Azul. I do.”

He blinks, the gears in his head turning like he can’t quite process what you’re saying. Then, slowly, his body relaxes. His shoulders drop, his grip on your hand becomes less stiff, and though his face is still flushed, he gives you a small, genuine smile.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, the tension in his voice fading. “That... means more to me than you know.”

From that point on, the conversation flows more easily. You find yourselves chatting about your day, and you regale Azul with the latest disaster involving Sebek, Ace, and Deuce.

“So Sebek gets into this huge argument with Ace over who can jump higher, right? But in the middle of it, Deuce trips over a bucket and knocks down this entire stack of potions—"

Azul’s eyes widen in alarm. “Oh no...”

“Oh yeah,” you continue, grinning. “There were explosions everywhere. Sebek’s hair turned bright purple, Ace got covered in glitter, and Deuce? He’s been sneezing feathers for hours.”

Azul shakes his head, exasperated but clearly amused. “Your group is nothing if not... unpredictable.”

“You’re telling me. Poor Crewel had to ban us from the alchemy lab for the rest of the week.”

You both share a laugh, and by the time the food arrives—delivered by a very professional-looking Jade—the mood has lightened considerably. The food, as expected, is incredible, and you find yourself thoroughly enjoying the rest of the evening.

When the meal is done, Azul insists on walking you back to Ramshackle. The night air is cool and crisp, and there’s a comfortable silence between you as the two of you stroll back through the grounds.

As you reach the doorstep, Azul hesitates, looking like he wants to say something but can’t quite find the words. Before he can overthink it, you take his hand, raise it to your lips, and press a soft kiss to his knuckles.

Azul’s reaction is instantaneous. His entire body goes rigid, his face turning a deep shade of red. He stares at you like he’s short-circuiting, and for a moment, you genuinely wonder if you’ve broken him.

“G-Goodnight!” he squeaks, his voice a full octave higher than usual. Then, without warning, he practically flees from the scene, leaving you standing there, thoroughly amused.

You watch him disappear into the distance, shaking your head fondly. There’s no denying it—tonight was an absolute success.

It’s a typical PE day, which, for you, means sitting on the sidelines watching your classmates either struggle or excel at flying lessons. As someone with no magic, you’ve been mercifully excused from the torment of broom flying, so instead, you get to watch the chaos unfold.

Vargas is barking encouragement at the students, his voice booming across the field. "Come on, put your back into it! Fly like your life depends on it!"

You casually lean back, eyes scanning the group. Some are soaring confidently through the air like they've been born on a broomstick, while others—well, others are just... Azul.

You spot him hovering about an inch off the ground, his hands gripping the broom with the intensity of someone holding onto a cliff’s edge for dear life. His face is pale, and there's an unmistakable look of pure existential dread in his eyes.

"He's going to fall," you mutter under your breath.

Sure enough, his body wobbles, and he teeters dangerously to one side. Without thinking, you bolt across the field, reaching him just as his broom starts to tip. Your hands find their way to his waist, steadying him before disaster strikes.

Azul nearly jumps out of his skin at the sudden contact. “W-what are you—"

“You were about to fall,” you say, shooting him a quick grin as you hold him in place.

Azul’s entire body trembles under your touch, and his usual calm façade cracks as he struggles to keep himself from spontaneously combusting. His grip on the broom tightens as he attempts to regain some sense of balance.

From behind you, Grim, who's been lounging nearby, rolls his eyes dramatically. “Seriously? He’s like a centimeter off the ground. He’s not gonna die if he falls.”

You shoot Grim a look but can’t help the snicker that escapes. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

Floyd, who’s been casually observing the scene from a distance, bursts into laughter. “Oh man, Shrimpy’s out here saving Azul from the ground! Classic!”

Jade, ever the composed twin, nods in agreement, though there's a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Quite the heroic rescue, I must say.”

You stick your tongue out at them, ignoring their teasing as you turn your attention back to Azul. “You okay?”

He nods, though the pink flush creeping up his neck says otherwise. “I-I’m fine,” he stammers, clearly out of his element.

From Azul’s perspective, however, things are much more dire. He's not just being saved from an embarrassing fall—he's certain that he’s staring into the face of an angel. You haven’t taken your hands off his waist yet, and his mind is racing with the realization.

There are literal sparkles around you, he’s sure of it. His thoughts scatter in a million directions as he tries, and fails, to focus on anything other than the warmth of your hands still holding him steady.

Why are they still holding me like this? Do I smell like fish? No, wait, I don’t! Is this what people feel like before they combust?

Then, just as suddenly as you grabbed him, you pull your hands away, and Azul feels the loss immediately.

“Thanks,” he manages to choke out, though it comes out sounding more like a croak than anything remotely suave.

“You sure you're alright?” You eye him for a moment longer, clearly amused by his frazzled state.

Azul straightens his glasses, desperately trying to regain his composure. “Yes... perfectly fine. Though I believe I owe you for the timely intervention,” he says, his voice steadying with every word. “Perhaps another dinner, to... properly thank you?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Azul, are you asking me out on another date?”

He clears his throat, suddenly very focused on a non-existent speck of dust on his broom. “I—I suppose that’s one way to phrase it, yes.”

You smile, clearly amused. “Alright, I accept. But only because I saved you from a one-centimeter fall.”

Azul blushes furiously at that, but he nods. “Of course. You’re a true hero.”

As you walk back to your spot on the sidelines, Floyd and Jade exchange a look, clearly holding back more laughter.

“Man, Azul’s gonna lose his mind if this keeps up,” Floyd says, grinning ear to ear.

“Indeed,” Jade replies smoothly. “It seems they’ve found the perfect way to keep him grounded.”

It’s a relatively normal day at Night Raven College—by normal, of course, it means you’re trying to prevent Ramshackle from falling apart at the seams for the fifteenth time that week. You’re in the kitchen, battling yet another suspiciously leaky faucet when your phone buzzes with a message. Azul.

Your heart flutters, but then a mild sense of concern settles in—Azul doesn’t usually text you unless it’s something important. Maybe another business proposal? An invitation to the Mostro Lounge to try his latest ‘limited time’ seafood special? But no, when you open the message, it’s short and strange: "Be ready by 5 PM. Dress warm. See you soon."

Uh… What?

Now, Azul isn’t exactly the type to do spontaneous things, so this throws you off completely. But, intrigued and with no pressing emergencies (for now), you throw on a warm jacket, scarf, and gloves, wondering what he has planned.

Is it another attempt to woo you with his business acumen? A surprise study session? You’re equal parts curious and worried about what sort of ordeal this could lead to.

By 5 PM, you’re waiting outside, pacing in front of the creaky Ramshackle door when, sure enough, Azul arrives. He’s looking incredibly out of his element—wrapped up in an enormous winter coat, cheeks pink from the cold, a thick woolen scarf around his neck, and glasses fogging up slightly from his breath. Honestly, he looks like he’s just walked into a freezing wilderness.

"Azul, are we... going on an arctic expedition or something?" you tease, but you’re already grinning at how adorably overdressed he is for the mild chill.

Azul clears his throat, looking a bit embarrassed as he pushes his glasses up. “No, nothing of the sort. I merely wished to—ah—show you something. Follow me.”

Now you’re even more intrigued. "Okay, but if this turns into a surprise business venture, I reserve the right to mock you for the rest of time," you warn playfully, falling in step beside him as he leads you out of the Ramshackle courtyard and down the campus path.

As you walk, the usual hustle and bustle of the school fades into the background. It's quiet, and you notice that Azul keeps glancing at you like he’s checking to see if you’re still there, as though he’s afraid you’ll vanish into thin air.

Eventually, you reach the outskirts of campus where a small forest lies ahead. Azul stops and turns toward you with an almost... nervous look.

"I wanted to take you somewhere that I rarely show others," he admits, avoiding your eyes as he fidgets with the edge of his scarf. "It’s... personal."

You tilt your head, heart already beating a little faster at the way he’s looking so serious and vulnerable. This isn’t the Azul that deals in contracts and meticulous plans. This is Azul without the safety net.

"Personal?" you ask, softening your tone. "Lead the way."

The two of you trek through the trees, and you can’t help but notice how ridiculously over-prepared Azul seems for this—he’s walking carefully, as if he's bracing for quicksand, making sure not to slip on any imaginary hazards. It’s both sweet and hilarious at the same time.

Finally, after what feels like a mini hike, you break through a clearing, and your breath catches in your throat.

You’re standing at the edge of a frozen lake, its surface glimmering under the evening sky. Lanterns are strung along the trees surrounding the lake, casting a warm glow over the ice. There’s even a small blanket laid out with a thermos of what smells like hot cocoa, and a pair of ice skates placed neatly at the edge of the blanket.

Your eyes widen in disbelief. "Wait... are we—are we going ice skating?"

Azul, now looking a little sheepish, nods, refusing to meet your gaze. "I... thought it might be enjoyable," he says, his voice quieter than usual. "I know it’s not something I’d typically do, but I—well, I wanted to do something special for you."

Your heart practically melts on the spot. Azul is definitely not the ‘outdoorsy’ type, let alone someone who’d voluntarily ice skate. Yet, here he is, dragging himself far out of his comfort zone just to plan something this sweet.

He nervously adds, "I’ll admit, I’m not... terribly skilled at this activity. But I’ve—uh—practiced."

You have to bite your lip to keep from laughing at how ridiculously cute and nervous he sounds, though the image of Azul trying to practice ice skating in secret is now firmly lodged in your brain. "You did all of this for me?" you ask, warmth spreading through your chest.

Azul nods, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "I... wanted to show my appreciation. You’ve done a lot for me, and I thought... maybe this would be a pleasant way to repay you."

Your grin is unstoppable at this point. You don’t even care that it’s freezing or that you’ve never been the best skater. The fact that Azul has gone to this much trouble for you? You’re already swooning.

"Azul, this is..." You don’t know how to express how touched you are, so instead, you grab the skates and immediately start putting them on. "Come on, let’s skate!"

Azul seems startled by your enthusiasm but follows suit, albeit much more carefully. You can already tell he’s bracing for disaster as he edges toward the ice like he’s about to step onto a minefield.

The second he sets foot on the ice, you see why he’s so nervous. His legs immediately start wobbling like a newborn giraffe, and you barely suppress a giggle as he clutches at your arm for dear life.

"I-I told you I wasn’t very good at this," he mumbles, his face turning a bright shade of pink.

"It’s okay, I’ve got you," you reassure him, though the effort it takes not to laugh is almost painful. "Just hold onto me."

Together, you manage a few laps around the lake, though Azul’s feet continue to betray him, slipping and sliding more often than not. Every time he stumbles, you’re right there to steady him, which only seems to make him more flustered.

But the more you skate together, the more comfortable he becomes. And at some point, when he’s finally not wobbling like a newborn calf, you realize just how thoughtful and genuine his effort is. He did this for you.

By the time you’re sitting together on the blanket, sipping the hot cocoa, you’re grinning like an idiot, completely smitten. Azul is still embarrassed, probably replaying every awkward moment on the ice in his head, but you’re too busy falling for him to care.

"I can’t believe you did all of this," you murmur, leaning your head against his shoulder.

Azul swallows, his ears turning red, but he smiles shyly. "I’m glad you enjoyed it."

You glance up at him, and in that moment, you know you’ve completely fallen. Because here is Azul—stoic, business-minded Azul—going out of his way to make you smile, even if it means doing something as foreign to him as ice skating.

"I did," you say softly, reaching for his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "More than you know."

The pipe in Ramshackle bursts with a violent hiss, and before you know it, water is everywhere—gushing from the ceiling, flooding the floor, and turning your already dilapidated home into a mini waterpark.

You’re ankle-deep in the chaos, trying desperately to block the spray with your hands like that’s going to do anything. Grim is perched on your shoulder, equally panicking but trying to maintain his usual bravado.

"Hey! Do somethin' before we drown, hench-human!" Grim barks, his little paws flailing as he attempts to swipe at the water like it’s something he can defeat with a few swats.

"I'm trying!" you shout back, grabbing a bucket and using it to… well, collect more water? Honestly, you’re not even sure what you’re doing at this point. The pipe is making noises like it’s laughing at your efforts, and you feel a wave of frustration welling up in your chest.

Just then, your phone rings, startling both you and Grim.

"Not now, Grim!" you yell, struggling to balance him while your other hand is busy with an already overflowing bucket.

"Uh, it's not me, hench-human!" Grim snaps, poking the phone with his tail until you fumble it into your hand.

You glance at the screen, only to see Azul calling you. Oh no, this is not how you imagined the day would go.

"Azul?" you answer, already sounding defeated. You don’t even get the chance to properly greet him before he’s asking, all smooth and casual, “Are you free for dinner tonight?”

And that’s when you lose it.

"Azul!" you practically sob into the phone. “Ramshackle is flooded! The kitchen’s drowning, Grim’s trying to help but he has paws, and I’m pretty sure I'm going to skewer Crowley when I see him next!”

There’s a beat of silence on the other end as you try not to full-on cry about the soggy state of your life.

Azul’s voice, calm as ever, replies, “Stay right there. I’ll take care of it.”

You barely have time to process his words when, not even 15 minutes later, there’s a knock at your door. You slosh through the water to answer it, only to find a team of professional-looking people standing there with equipment in hand.

"We’re here to fix your plumbing," one of them says, as if this is a perfectly normal emergency call on a late evening.

"What the—?" You step back, utterly baffled as they walk in like a squad of elite disaster-rescue plumbers. They immediately get to work, assessing the damage and patching up the burst pipe like it’s nothing more than a leaky faucet.

You stand there, shell-shocked, as they not only fix the pipe but also take a moment to reinforce some of the more concerning areas of Ramshackle.

Azul appears behind them, watching everything with a critical eye. He’s dressed as impeccably as ever, looking completely unbothered by the soggy mess you’re in the middle of.

“You…” you blink at him, at a loss for words. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

Azul gives a small, graceful wave of his hand, like it’s no big deal. “It was the least I could do. I couldn’t very well let you stay in a house that was falling apart, could I?”

Overwhelmed by the gesture, you do the first thing that comes to mind. You hug him. You throw your arms around him and squeeze, feeling genuinely touched by how thoughtful he’s been.

Azul freezes, completely stiff in your embrace, his hands hovering awkwardly as though he’s forgotten how to function as a human being. But after a beat, he tentatively wraps his arms around you, his grip a little unsure, but warm nonetheless.

When you pull back, his cheeks are tinged pink, and he’s not quite meeting your eyes. “I-I hope the repairs were to your satisfaction.”

"They were more than that," you say, giving him a bright smile. “Thank you.”

With the pipe situation under control and Ramshackle’s kitchen looking more presentable than it’s ever been, you realize it’s far too late for the romantic dinner at Mostro Lounge. But there’s a solution for that.

“How about we get some fast food and watch a movie instead?” you suggest, figuring a more casual date would be the perfect end to this bizarre evening.

Azul, still looking mildly flustered from the hug, agrees. “That… sounds lovely.”

You both settle down on the couch with a pile of fast food, picking a movie to watch together. Azul, despite his earlier composure, is tense beside you—staring at the screen but clearly not paying any attention to what’s happening in the movie.

You try not to laugh at how rigid he is, and after a while, you give up on subtlety entirely. Casually, you wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into your side as you lean back against the couch.

His entire body tenses, but he doesn’t resist, instead leaning into you. His head rests lightly against your shoulder, and though you can feel him fidget every few minutes, he gradually relaxes.

You spend the rest of the evening like that, the warmth of the moment making the movie’s plot irrelevant.

The next morning, you wake up, still curled up on the couch with Azul half-draped across you, his head resting comfortably against your chest. You blink groggily at the morning light filtering through the window, then glance down at him.

Azul stirs, waking up and blinking in confusion before realizing the compromising position he’s in. His face goes crimson almost instantly, and he sits up way too fast, nearly knocking himself off the couch.

“I-I—” he starts, trying to find the words while adjusting his glasses, but he’s clearly too flustered to form a coherent sentence.

You, on the other hand, just grin at him, completely at ease. “I’d love to do this again,” you say, voice soft but sincere.

Azul freezes again, staring at you for a moment before a bashful smile slowly creeps onto his face. “I… I would like that too,” he admits, his voice barely above a whisper.

And just like that, the two of you sit there, grinning at each other like lovestruck idiots, the events of the previous night already becoming a sweet memory you’ll both cherish.

It’s a sight to behold: Azul in his element, operating at full power, and you get to witness it firsthand. You’re sitting at one of the booths in the Mostro Lounge, ostensibly there to “visit” but really, you’re here to watch him work. And wow, does he work.

Azul is currently handling a group of students who are clearly way in over their heads, trying to negotiate terms for a favor.

The air is thick with desperation—and that’s just from the students. You watch, entranced, as he slips into full businessman mode, his smile sharp enough to cut through steel.

The poor students don’t stand a chance.

“So, gentlemen, if you sign this contract, I can guarantee that all of your, shall we say, academic concerns will be resolved by the end of the week.” Azul slides the contract across the table with a flourish. His voice is smooth, the kind that lures you in before you realize you’re already caught.

You’re impressed by how easily he manipulates the situation—he’s making them feel like they’re getting the best deal of their lives, but you know better. This is Azul. The house always wins.

One of the students glances at the contract and hesitates. “Uh, are you sure there aren’t any... you know... hidden clauses?”

Azul’s grin widens, eyes gleaming behind his glasses. “Hidden clauses? Why, I’m hurt you would even suggest such a thing.” He places a hand over his heart, like he’s truly wounded. “I run a perfectly legitimate business, I assure you. The terms are all there in black and white.”

You bite back a laugh, watching the students squirm under his gaze. It’s like watching a master at work, and you can't help but admire the way he plays this game so effortlessly. Even when they’re suspicious, he has them eating out of the palm of his hand within seconds.

Azul doesn’t just thrive in this environment—he owns it.

Suddenly, Floyd sidles up next to you, leaning in with a mischievous grin. “You’re drooling, you know.”

You roll your eyes. “Am not.”

“Are too~!” Floyd sing-songs, clearly enjoying your flustered expression. “But I get it. Watching Azul reel in his prey is like watching one of those nature documentaries—where the shark’s about to take down a baby seal. Brutal, but you can’t look away.”

You elbow him lightly. “You make it sound so predatory.”

Floyd just laughs. “Because it is. You’re watching Azul, right? Same thing.”

Across the room, Azul is wrapping up the deal. The students, clearly defeated, sign the contract with trembling hands. Azul’s smile never falters. “Pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen. I look forward to seeing how your grades improve.”

They leave, looking like they’ve just sold their souls. Which, knowing Azul, might actually be the case. As soon as they’re out of sight, Azul turns and catches your gaze, his expression instantly softening.

Gone is the sharp businessman—now, he’s just Azul again. He walks over to you, adjusting his glasses with that trademark confidence.

“Well, how did I do?” he asks, though you can tell from the way he’s standing that he already knows the answer.

“Terrifying, as usual,” you reply, giving him an amused grin. “I think you might have scared them into improving their grades out of sheer survival instinct.”

Azul chuckles, sitting down beside you. “I prefer to think of it as... motivation. It’s important to give people a little push every now and then.”

Floyd, still lingering nearby, snickers. “A push, he says. More like you shoved them off a cliff and waved goodbye.”

Azul shoots Floyd a warning glance. “And you’re supposed to be working, not lurking.”

Floyd shrugs. “I’m watching you work. That counts.”

Azul sighs but doesn’t press the issue. Instead, he turns his attention back to you. “So? What do you think of my... business?”

“I think it’s impressive,” you admit, leaning forward slightly. “And also a little scary how easily you do this.”

Azul’s smile turns a bit sheepish, which is honestly adorable considering how confident he was just moments ago. “I just know how to handle people. It’s all about finding their... weak points and using them to negotiate.”

“Yeah, you’re a real charmer,” you tease. “But don’t think I didn’t notice that you’re a bit of a softie when it comes to me.”

Azul’s face flushes a light shade of pink, and he quickly adjusts his glasses again, clearly flustered. “Well, that’s... different. You’re—special.”

Floyd, ever the instigator, snorts. “Special, huh? Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Floyd, out,” Azul mutters through gritted teeth, but you can’t help but laugh. The banter, the contrast between business-mode Azul and flustered, bashful Azul—it’s all incredibly endearing.

You lean back, still watching him, completely entranced by the way he balances his ruthless efficiency with these softer moments. He’s a force to be reckoned with, both in business and... well, with you. And honestly? You wouldn’t have it any other way.

You’re helping Sam with a delivery of books, stacking them in your arms and heading down the hallway like some kind of overly burdened delivery person.

It’s just your luck that today of all days, the stack of books you’re carrying makes it impossible to see ahead of you. But you’re used to this. After all, navigating life at this chaotic academy means half of it is spent balancing things you probably shouldn’t be holding while dodging all sorts of absurd situations.

You’re about to drop off the books at an empty classroom, or so you think. You shove open the door, barely catching a glimpse of something—or someone—just before you crash right into them.

There’s a moment of complete, cartoonish chaos as you both lose balance. The next thing you know, you’re flat on your back, books scattered everywhere, and the weight of someone is suddenly pinning you to the floor.

“Wh—” You’re about to shout something half-baked like "What the heck?" when you hear a choked gasp from above you.

You look up—and to your horror, you see Azul standing just outside the classroom door. His face is twisted into an expression so heartbroken, so dramatically devastated, that it looks like he’s witnessing the betrayal of the century.

Oh no.

You quickly realize how this must look: a mysterious person on top of you, you flat on the floor, books scattered everywhere. If this were one of those tragic romance novels Azul undoubtedly reads in secret, this would be the scene right before the misunderstood breakup.

Azul’s face is pale, his eyes wide behind his glasses, and you swear you can see the exact moment his heart shatters into tiny, irreparable pieces.

He opens his mouth, probably to say something cutting or deeply tragic, but instead, all that comes out is a strangled sound, and he abruptly turns on his heel, bolting down the hallway at a speed you didn’t even know he was capable of.

"Azul! Wait!" You panic, shoving the poor soul on top of you off with a quick, distracted apology. You barely hear them stammer out a confused “s-sorry” before you’re sprinting down the hall, books and all common sense abandoned in favor of chasing after Azul.

How is he so fast?! You didn’t know his legs could move this quickly, considering how calculated and leisurely his movements usually are. You half expect him to trip on his own dignity, but no, he’s moving like he’s being chased by a kraken.

“Azul!” You yell again, heart pounding as you finally manage to catch up to him. You grab his wrist and yank him into the nearest room, which, as luck would have it, is the tiniest broom closet you’ve ever seen.

The door slams shut behind you, plunging both of you into a cramped, dust-smelling room. The only sounds are the awkward shuffling of brooms and the frantic thudding of your heart.

Azul is rigid, avoiding your gaze like the floor is the most interesting thing in existence. His face is still a mess of hurt and confusion, and you’re absolutely not about to let him spiral into a misunderstanding-fueled melodrama.

“Azul.” You don’t give him time to wallow in whatever tragic narrative he’s cooked up in his head. You’re done with misunderstandings.

You have enough stress dealing with Crowley, and everything else in this cursed place and you're pretty sure that your life expectancy has halved since you came here—you’re not about to waste your remaining time on needless drama.

Without another word, you close the distance between you and kiss him. Hard.

Azul freezes for a moment, completely caught off guard, but then, just as desperately, he kisses you back. It’s clumsy and a little messy in the cramped space, but there’s no mistaking the way his hands cling to you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

When you finally pull back for air, both of you are breathless, and Azul looks like his entire world has been flipped upside down. “W-What was that?” he asks, voice shaky.

“That,” you say, still catching your breath, “was to stop you from jumping to conclusions.”

Azul blinks at you, clearly still processing everything, so you take the opportunity to explain what happened. “I was just delivering some books, I swear! I crashed into someone by accident, and they fell on top of me. That’s it. Nothing else. I was about to say sorry when you walked in.”

The tension in his shoulders visibly melts away, and his usual composed expression begins to return. Relief floods his features, and he even lets out a quiet, self-deprecating chuckle. “I… I see. I suppose I was being a bit… hasty in my assumptions.”

You raise an eyebrow. “A bit?”

“Alright, perhaps more than a bit,” he admits, looking slightly sheepish now. He pushes his glasses up his nose, his face still a bit flushed from the kiss. “I’m sorry for running away like that.”

You smile, feeling your heart lighten. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”

“I won’t,” Azul promises, and then, as if remembering something, he clears his throat awkwardly. “So… um… does this mean…?”

You grin at him, already knowing what he’s about to ask. “Azul, I want you to be mine.”

His eyes widen, and for a moment, he looks like he might pass out from sheer emotional overload. But then, a shy smile tugs at his lips, and he nods. “Only if you’ll be mine, too.”

“Deal.” You lean in and kiss him again, softer this time, but no less passionate. He kisses you back eagerly, his arms wrapping around you in the tight, confined space of the broom closet.

Then, just as you’re fully immersed in the moment, the door creaks open.

You both freeze mid-kiss, turning your heads in unison to see Sam standing there, leaning against the doorframe with a knowing grin on his face.

“Well, well,” he drawls, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “So this is where you disappeared to, huh?”

You and Azul are both bright red, scrambling to separate yourselves from each other, but Sam just waves a hand casually. “Don’t mind me. Carry on, lovebirds.” He winks, giving you a conspiratorial look before closing the door behind him.

You’re left standing there, dumbfounded and flustered, while Azul stares at the now-closed door like he’s questioning every life choice that led to this moment.

“Well… that happened,” you mutter, rubbing the back of your neck.

Azul lets out a soft groan, burying his face in his hands. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

You laugh, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him closer. “Hey, at least we’re in this together, right?”

He peeks at you from between his fingers, and after a moment, he smiles, leaning into your embrace. “Yes, I suppose we are.”

The rumors have spread like wildfire. You and Azul—caught making out in a broom closet. Seriously? Of all the places! And you're pretty sure it's that guy who crashed into you earlier, seeking some petty revenge for toppling over you like a stack of books.

The first person to bring it up? Ace, of course.

“So, broom closet, huh? I always knew you were bold, but that’s next level!” he grins, nudging Deuce, who’s already fighting back laughter. Deuce tries to stay composed but fails miserably, snickering. “Dude, a broom closet?”

Azul, standing beside you, looks like he’s two seconds away from melting into a puddle. His face is redder than Riddle on an off day. “I… I don’t… this is...—"

Before he can finish, Floyd suddenly appears, draping his arm over your shoulder. “Whaaat? You didn’t invite me to the show? How rude!” His grin is practically splitting his face. “Azul, you dog! In a closet, huh?”

Jade, always the calm instigator, steps in, his expression innocent but his tone wicked. “How bold of you, Azul. One might expect a more... sophisticated venue, but I suppose a broom closet has its own appeal.”

Azul’s hands are trembling by now, his mouth moving but no sound coming out. He looks like he’s weighing the pros and cons of teleporting to another dimension. Meanwhile, you’re basking in the chaos. If they think they can make you flinch, they’re sorely mistaken.

“Oh, come on, guys,” you say with a smirk, wrapping an arm around Azul’s shoulders. “I mean, look at him. Who wouldn’t want a piece of this? I’d like to see you do better.”

Azul squeaks at your boldness, his body going rigid beside you, but you just give him a reassuring squeeze. “They’re just jealous. Right, dear?”

Ace nearly chokes on his own laughter. “Jealous? Of a broom closet make-out sesh? Sure, we all dream of that kind of luxury.”

Floyd, still howling, points a finger at Azul, “I never thought I’d see the day where you’d make the headlines for this.”

Azul buries his face in his hands. “This is… I can’t… Floyd, please stop.”

Jade chimes in, “I believe this is the first time I’ve seen you so… exposed, Azul.”

You shrug, completely unfazed. “What can I say? We’re just out here, living our best lives, making out in closets.” You give them all a casual salute. “Catch you later, losers!”

Grim, who's been sitting on your shoulder the whole time, pipes up, “I approve! Azul’s rich, and my henchhuman is happy, so I get premium tuna. Everybody wins!”

The teasing? Relentless. But you just wink at Azul and squeeze his hand before pulling him out of the mess. “C’mon, let’s leave these losers behind. They can’t handle us.”

As you walk away, hand in hand, Azul finally finds his voice, though it’s barely above a whisper. “I... I didn’t know you could turn something so mortifying into... whatever that was.”

You grin. “Stick with me, Azul. We’ll be the power couple everyone wishes they were.”

Azul, though still red-faced, can’t help but chuckle under his breath, squeezing your hand just a little tighter as the two of you stroll away, leaving the chaos—and the teasing—far behind.

1k Masterlist ; Main Masterlist

I had to edit this in a hurry because I was convinced Jamil was gonna win till Azul swept in the last few hours

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Expert agencies and elected legislatures

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/21/policy-based-evidence/#decisions-decisions

Since Trump hijacked the Supreme Court, his backers have achieved many of their policy priorities: legalizing bribery, formalizing forced birth, and – with the Loper Bright case, neutering the expert agencies that regulate business:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/scotus-decisions-chevron-immunity-loper

What the Supreme Court began, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are now poised to finish, through the "Department of Government Efficiency," a fake agency whose acronym ("DOGE") continues Musk's long-running cryptocurrency memecoin pump-and-dump. The new department is absurd – imagine a department devoted to "efficiency" with two co-equal leaders who are both famously incapable of getting along with anyone – but that doesn't make it any less dangerous.

Expert agencies are often all that stands between us and extreme misadventure, even death. The modern world is full of modern questions, the kinds of questions that require a high degree of expert knowledge to answer, but also the kinds of questions whose answers you'd better get right.

You're not stupid, nor are you foolish. You could go and learn everything you need to know to evaluate the firmware on your antilock brakes and decide whether to trust them. You could figure out how to assess the Common Core curriculum for pedagogical soundness. You could learn the material science needed to evaluate the soundness of the joists that hold the roof up over your head. You could acquire the biology and chemistry chops to decide whether you want to trust produce that's been treated with Monsanto's Roundup pesticides. You could do the same for cell biology, virology, and epidemiology and decide whether to wear a mask and/or get an MRNA vaccine and/or buy a HEPA filter.

You could do any of these. You might even be able to do two or three of them. But you can't do all of them, and that list is just a small slice of all the highly technical questions that stand between you and misery or an early grave. Practically speaking, you aren't going to develop your own robust meatpacking hygiene standards, nor your own water treatment program, nor your own Boeing 737 MAX inspection protocol.

Markets don't solve this either. If they did, we wouldn't have to worry about chunks of Boeing jets falling on our heads. The reason we have agencies like the FDA (and enabling legislation like the Pure Food and Drug Act) is that markets failed to keep people from being murdered by profit-seeking snake-oil salesmen and radium suppository peddlers.

These vital questions need to be answered by experts, but that's easier said than done. After all, experts disagree about this stuff. Shortcuts for evaluating these disagreements ("distrust any expert whose employer has a stake in a technical question") are crude and often lead you astray. If you dismiss any expert employed by a firm that wants to bring a new product to market, you will lose out on the expertise of people who are so legitimately excited about the potential improvements of an idea that they quit their jobs and go to work for whomever has the best chance of realizing a product based on it. Sure, that doctor who works for a company with a new cancer cure might just be shilling for a big bonus – but maybe they joined the company because they have an informed, truthful belief that the new drug might really cure cancer.

What's more, the scientific method itself speaks against the idea of there being one, permanent answer to any big question. The method is designed as a process of continual refinement, where new evidence is continuously brought forward and evaluated, and where cherished ideas that are invalidated by new evidence are discarded and replaced with new ideas.

So how are we to survive and thrive in a world of questions we ourselves can't answer, that experts disagree about, and whose answers are only ever provisional?

The scientific method has an answer for this, too: refereed, adversarial peer review. The editors of major journals act as umpires in disputes among experts, exercising their editorial discernment to decide which questions are sufficiently in flux as to warrant taking up, then asking parties who disagree with a novel idea to do their damndest to punch holes in it. This process is by no means perfect, but, like democracy, it's the worst form of knowledge creation except for all others which have been tried.

Expert regulators bring this method to governance. They seek comment on technical matters of public concern, propose regulations based on them, invite all parties to comment on these regulations, weigh the evidence, and then pass a rule. This doesn't always get it right, but when it does work, your medicine doesn't poison you, the bridge doesn't collapse as you drive over it, and your airplane doesn't fall out of the sky.

Expert regulators work with legislators to provide an empirical basis for turning political choices into empirically grounded policies. Think of all the times you've heard about how the gerontocracy that dominates the House and the Senate is incapable of making good internet policy because "they're out of touch and don't understand technology." Even if this is true (and sometimes it is, as when Sen Ted Stevens ranted about the internet being "a series of tubes," not "a dump truck"), that doesn't mean that Congress can't make good internet policy.

After all, most Americans can safely drink their tap water, a novelty in human civilization, whose history amounts to short periods of thriving shattered at regular intervals by water-borne plagues. The fact that most of us can safely drink our water, but people who live in Flint (or remote indigenous reservations, or Louisiana's Cancer Alley) can't tells you that these neighbors of ours are being deliberately poisoned, as we know precisely how not to poison them.

How did we (most of us) get to the point where we can drink the water without shitting our guts out? It wasn't because we elected a bunch of water scientists! I don't know the precise number of microbiologists and water experts who've been elected to either house, but it's very small, and their contribution to good sanitation policy is negligible.

We got there by delegating these decisions to expert agencies. Congress formulates a political policy ("make the water safe") and the expert agency turns that policy into a technical program of regulation and enforcement, and your children live to drink another glass of water tomorrow.

Musk and Ramaswamy have set out to destroy this process. In their Wall Street Journal editorial, they explain that expert regulation is "undemocratic" because experts aren't elected:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020

They've vowed to remove "thousands" of regulations, and to fire swathes of federal employees who are in charge of enforcing whatever remains:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/20/24301975/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-doge-plan

And all this is meant to take place on an accelerated timeline, between now and July 4, 2026 – a timeline that precludes any meaningful assessment of the likely consequences of abolishing the regulations they'll get rid of.

"Chesterton's Fence" – a thought experiment from the novelist GK Chesterton – is instructive here:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

A regulation that works might well produce no visible sign that it's working. If your water purification system works, everything is fine. It's only when you get rid of the sanitation system that you discover why it was there in the first place, a realization that might well arrive as you expire in a slick of watery stool with a rectum so prolapsed the survivors can use it as a handle when they drag your corpse to the mass burial pits.

When Musk and Ramaswamy decry the influence of "unelected bureaucrats" on your life as "undemocratic," they sound reasonable. If unelected bureaucrats were permitted to set policy without democratic instruction or oversight, that would be autocracy.

Indeed, it would resemble life on the Tesla factory floor: that most autocratic of institutions, where you are at the mercy of the unelected and unqualified CEO of Tesla, who holds the purely ceremonial title of "Chief Engineer" and who paid the company's true founders to falsely describe him as its founder.

But that's not how it works! At its best, expert regulations turns political choices in to policy that reflects the will of democratically accountable, elected representatives. Sometimes this fails, and when it does, the answer is to fix the system – not abolish it.

I have a favorite example of this politics/empiricism fusion. It comes from the UK, where, in 2008, the eminent psychopharmacologist David Nutt was appointed as the "drug czar" to the government. Parliament had determined to overhaul its system of drug classification, and they wanted expert advice:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

To provide this advice, Nutt convened a panel of drug experts from different disciplines and asked them to rate each drug in question on how dangerous it was for its user; for its user's family; and for broader society. These rankings were averaged, and then a statistical model was used to determine which drugs were always very dangerous, no matter which group's safety you prioritized, and which drugs were never very dangerous, no matter which group you prioritized.

Empirically, the "always dangerous" drugs should be in the most restricted category. The "never very dangerous" drugs should be at the other end of the scale. Parliament had asked how to rank drugs by their danger, and for these categories, there were clear, factual answers to Parliament's question.

But there were many drugs that didn't always belong in either category: drugs whose danger score changed dramatically based on whether you were more concerned about individual harms, familial harms, or societal harms. This prioritization has no empirical basis: it's a purely political question.

So Nutt and his panel said to Parliament, "Tell us which of these priorities matter the most to you, and we will tell you where these changeable drugs belong in your schedule of restricted substances." In other words, politicians make political determinations, and then experts turn those choices into empirically supported policies.

This is how policy by "unelected bureaucrats" can still be "democratic."

But the Nutt story doesn't end there. Nutt butted heads with politicians, who kept insisting that he retract factual, evidence-supported statements (like "alcohol is more harmful than cannabis"). Nutt refused to do so. It wasn't that he was telling politicians which decisions to make, but he took it as his duty to point out when those decisions did not reflect the policies they were said to be in support of. Eventually, Nutt was fired for his commitment to empirical truth. The UK press dubbed this "The Nutt Sack Affair" and you can read all about it in Nutt's superb book Drugs Without the Hot Air, an indispensable primer on the drug war and its many harms:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/drugs-without-the-hot-air-9780857844989/

Congress can't make these decisions. We don't elect enough water experts, virologists, geologists, oncology researchers, structural engineers, aerospace safety experts, pedagogists, gerontoloists, physicists and other experts for Congress to turn its political choices into policy. Mostly, we elect lawyers. Lawyers can do many things, but if you ask a lawyer to tell you how to make your drinking water safe, you will likely die a horrible death.

That's the point. The idea that we should just trust the market to figure this out, or that all regulation should be expressly written into law, is just a way of saying, "you will likely die a horrible death."

Trump – and his hatchet men Musk and Ramaswamy – are not setting out to create evidence-based policy. They are pursuing policy-based evidence, firing everyone capable of telling them how to turn the values espouse (prosperity and safety for all Americans) into policy.

They dress this up in the language of democracy, but the destruction of the expert agencies that turn the political will of our representatives into our daily lives is anything but democratic. It's a prelude to transforming the nation into a land of epistemological chaos, where you never know what's coming out of your faucet.