Saw a post about helping people that used the analogy of "if you see someone fall off a cruiseship and theres a life preserver ring on the wall next to you do you walk away or do you throw them the life preserver? Of course you throw them the life preserver." And i dont want to add to or tag the post with any sort of correction because its literally not the point at all but i am desperate to say that the first thing they teach you when you work on a cruise ship is that if someone falls overboard you Do Not Look Away
If theres a life preserver nearby but you have to turn your back to get it, tough luck. If theres someone nearby who can't hear you but you could run and get them, absolutely not. You see someone go overboard you point at them and never ever let them out of your sight because looking away even once could mean losing them forever, so you just have to trust that someone will hear you scream for help but you cant for any reason look away
And maybe that adds to the life preserver metaphor somehow but mostly i just need you to know if you spot someone in the water you point at them and you watch them close and you scream for help
love when men cry about body hair bc "it's hygiene" and yet 15% of cis men leave the bathroom without washing their hands at all and an additional 35% only just wet their hands without using soap. that is nearly half of all men. that means statistically you have probably shaken hands with or been in direct contact with one of these people.
love when men say that women "only want money" when it turns out that even in equal-earning homes, women are actually adding caregiver burdens and housework from previous years, whereas men have been expanding leisure time and hobbies. in equal-earning households, men spend an average of 3.5 hours extra in leisure time per week, which is 182 hours per year - a little over a week of paid vacation time that the other partner does not receive. kinda sounds like he wants her money.
love that men have decided women are frail and weak and annoying when we scream in surprise but it turns out it's actually women who are more reliable in an emergency because men need to be convinced to actually take action and respond to the threat. like, actually, for-real: men experience such a strong sense of pride about their pre-supposed abilities that it gets them and their families killed. they are so used to dismissing women that it literally kills them.
love it. told my father this and he said there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. a year ago i tried to get him to evacuate the house during a flash flood. he ignored me and got injured. he has told me, laughing, that he never washes his hands. he has said in the last week that women are just happier when we're cooking or cleaning.
maybe i'm overly nostalgic. but it didn't used to feel so fucking bleak. it used to feel like at least a little shameful to consider women to be sheep. it just feels like the earth is round and we are still having conversations about it being flat - except these conversations are about the most obvious forms of patriarchy. like, we know about this stuff. we've known since well before the 50's.
recently andrew tate tried to justify cheating on his partner as being the "male prerogative." i don't know what the prerogative for the rest of us would be. just sitting at home, watching the slow erosion of our humanity.
Eddie to his Tiktok following: Hey guys, it’s currently eight AM on a Saturday and we just got back from the grocery store because Stevie here needs to make a pie for our neighbor and sworn enemy, Diane.
Steve: You don’t understand because you didn’t grow up in an upper middle class neighborhood, Eddie. This is warfare. She brought us cookies.
Eddie, sarcastically: Wow, thank god I grew up in a trailer park where I never got hate-crimed like this.
Steve: She’s saying that we suck
Eddie: Or, and consider this, she was just being nice? Maybe she was making cookies and wanted to share.
and you know what? that dominant side of Charlie has such potential, so much more to it and it's begging to be more present. i shiver just thinking about it
I can just see Steve and Eddie getting into an argument, and they both are so torn up about it because it’s their first BIG fight about something that they don’t even know what it was by the end of it, just that they went their separate ways afterwards. Their friends get both sides of the story when they realize what’s happened, because both of them have been hiding in their respective homes and are irritable, and come to the conclusion it is in fact Eddie’s fault. Robin and the Corroded Coffin boys rag on him like, he HAS to make this right. And he KNOWS, he’s been wallowing in guilt since the fight, so he’s like
“FINE. BUT YOURE GOING TO HELP ME.”
Cut to Steve’s house and he opens the door to see Eddie standing in the rain holding a bouquet of handpicked wildflowers, and theres tears for fears playing?
Only it’s not actually raining.
Instead Eddie holding it himself, picture Gareth on Jeff’s shoulders on one side of the door-holding up the water hose for some added height, and on the other side of the door is Freak dutifully holding a boombox.
Robin is off to the side with a camera gathering blackmail pictures.