I have no pity to spare for thee...

Charles immediately wants to be situationships with Crystal but tbh them being actual friends takes a lot longer. He seems to kinda want to be friends with Brad and Hunter but he barely even gets to the point of “kinda amicable” before shit goes down. With Niko, he clearly likes her immediately but they seem to exchange about five sentences total.

Like, Charles is friendly instantly but him being actual friends takes a lot longer, which given his history is of course super fair.

But Edwin! With Niko and Charles both, it’s on sight, it’s “I just met you and I love you, BFFs 5ever!”

And you may be thinking “nah, Charles was the one who said you’re stuck with me,” and that is true, because Charles is the one who parlays connection into physical attachment. But Edwin is the one who declares them friends! “I sincerely wish we could have been friends for longer”!!!

Don’t overlook paternity leave because it’s a hugely important feminist issue

Celebrating fatherhood with official paternity leave policies challenges traditional gender roles and empowers parents in the workplace. It’s one of those rare issues where men’s rights activists and feminists can find common ground with a mutually beneficial cause. It even has an impact on LGBTQ equality.

- It’s important for LGBT+ parents who don’t fit the cis-hetero mold of one mother and one father.

- It’s an important feminist issue for reducing the second shift: when only one parent gets adequate parental leave, it’s only natural for a pattern to develop that the only parent who got adequate parental leave takes on the lion’s share of childcare. However, if both parents get adequate parental leave, then it’s more likely for a pattern to develop of sharing childcare duties. This is obviously massively important for reducing how much women’s careers are affected by having children.

- If the mother has post-partum health issues (anything from recovering from a C-section or other physical traumas, to post-partum depression and/or anxiety) it’s incredibly unfair to expect her partner to just go back to work immediately instead of allowing her partner to stay home and help with childcare duties. When someone is recovering from having a baby, it can be really important for their partner to stay home to help care for them and the baby.

However, one important point I haven’t seen brought up in why equal paid parental is so important for social equality is how important it is for reducing hiring discrimination.

By that I mean, when a country has *only* guaranteed maternity leave, but either no paternity leave (or really short paternity leave of a few weeks like the U.K. has), this is only going to raise the risk of hiring discrimination against women.

So if a company is choosing between two candidates for a position: one is a young woman and the other is a young man, if the country this company is in has a maternity leave policy of several months or more, but paternity leave is either just a few weeks (or completely non-existent), the company will look at the woman as riskier and less reliable to hire than the man.

So equal paid parental leave leads to more equality in the job market, because it means companies are less likely to see women as riskier and less reliable to hire. If everyone, not just women, has the same length of parental leave, everyone runs the same risk of needing to go on leave for the same amount of time.

Even with his death-incident, he doesn't say "someone was being hurt, I had to stop them". He lays out an explanation of why this particular person sparked a connection in him, and made him want to protect them specifically, when, the implication is, he has not necessarily protected other victims of his 'friends' in the past.

With Crystal, there's a certain part of him that's being naturally protective when he invites her home, but it seems to be sparked on her specifically because he's drawn to her - this is very explicitly (as stated by Edwin) not a service he normally offers to clients, though ghosts are presumably often homeless.

With Becky Aspen, he leans on "you wouldn't let a little American girl get hurt" to convince Edwin, because he knows Edwin will cave to that argument. But it doesn't seem to be his primary motivation (even though he absolutely is down to lay down his afterlife for her once she's been categorized as His To Protect).

With the Devlins - and I think this is the strongest evidence, here, because it's what Charles himself is using to prove to himself he isn't Good - he wants to protect the victims, sure. He is protective. His protectiveness towards them goes way up after they get directly connected to his own trauma, though... and his eventual attack isn't righteous protection, it's pure trauma-fuelled anger. He doesn't throw himself in front of the axe to protect the girls, or try to take it, let alone do anything actually helpful like work with Edwin and Crystal. He attacks because he's pissed.

I want to say very clearly that I mean none of this as an insult to Charles, I love him dearly, and also, again, I'm offering this as one possible interpretation, not as Absolute Fact. But I think it's a viable and interesting interpretation!

You can't keep them all caged

They will fight and run away

Mother, tell me, so I say

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

No matter how injured. If a parent doesn't deem it necessary to see a doctor, it doesn't happen. Teachers can suggest a doctor visit, but unless it's a very acute injury (and even then), it's ultimately up to the parents.

You can be 13. Twisted, maybe broken ankle. You teacher lets you sit out in PE. She's concerned, and tells you to rest when you go home, and see a doctor. You get home, ur parents fill a bath and add some Epsom salts, and then laugh at you for using it moms old colorguard stick as a cane. Take some ibuprofen they say. It's just a little sprain, ur a kid.

You go to school the next day, go to ur office assistant time. Office calls ur mom to come get you, because you're clearly in too much pain for school. Your mom laughs when she gets you, says you just were so determined not to miss school. Scolds you for making the office ladies worry.

You never see a doctor for the injury.

Your parents come into the exam room at every visit. This does not stop with age, except for gynecologist. But your parents are on the medical release forms. They fill them out for you, with you. You do not get to take them off.

You never get to tell s doctor about the ankle. Even though it never quote healed right, and it hurts every day.

Then your 18. In college. Still on your parents insurance, and have no car. The on campus clinic only does std testing. You fall down some stairs. Same injury. You call your parents, crying from the pain. You are using a mop as a cane. They console you and say to have a bath, take some meds, and let them know how it feels in a few days. You end up borrowing your roommates rolling chair to get around for the weekend.

By Monday, you can walk again. You walk miles to class every day. You ask to see a doctor, but your parents won't drive the hour to come take you, and you don't have the insurance card. You are still at their mercy for medical care. The ankle tries to heal again. This time worse than before. The tendons click with every step.

Now you're in your twenties. Finally have your own healthcare. You see a doctor. You get to mention the ankle! They say it's been too long to really even know what was damaged. That you have arthritis now. It healed wrong but it can no longer be fixed.