Basically: be there or be square (fill up the space or not, your choice), but if you show up there’s a dress code (you can only fill up the space as specified).
> Oh look, lets define a new property and call it aspect ratio, and then lets ensure it doesn't maintain an element's aspect ratio if you have content that is going to overflow if you specify a width. This is what drives me mad about css, it's gotchas all the way down.
There’s a lot I don’t like about CSS, but this is just the spec avoiding undefined behavior. No one is using aspect ratio for unbounded text in practice, they’re using it for media or a design system. Knowing how it behaves for edge cases is much better than having a protracted battle for years while vendors sort it out, with different assumptions in the wild.